126 



communication with his own species, he could no more think of 

 his own character, of the propriety or demerit of his own senti- 

 ments and conduct, of the beauty or deformity of his own 

 mind, than of the beauty or deformity of his own face. * * * 

 Our first ideas of personal beauty or deformity are drawn 

 from the shape and appearance of others, not from our own. 

 We soon become sensible, however, that others exercise the 

 same criticism upon us. * * * In the same manner our first 

 moral criticisms are exercised upon the characters and conduct 

 of other people ; and we are very forward to observe how each 

 of these affects us. But we soon learn that other people are 

 equally frank with regard to our own. We become anxious to 

 know how far we deserve their censure or applause, and 

 whether to them we must necessarily appear those agreeable 

 or disagreeable creatures which they represent us. * * * When 

 I endeavour to examine my own conduct, when I endeavour to 

 pass sentence upon it, and either to approve or condemn it, it 

 is evident that in all such cases, I divide myself, as it were, 

 into two persons; and that I, the examiner and judge, repre- 

 sent a different character from that other I, the person whose 

 conduct is examined into, and judged of." 1 



In Adam Smith we have the culmination of the British 

 ethics of feeling. His psychological analysis of moral motives 

 in connection with the subjective feeling of sympathy con- 

 stitutes a distinct advance. Yet the introduction of this 

 factor reveals a defect which was not so manifest in Hume's 

 theory because of the latter's attempt to derive justice from 

 reflection. In other words, though Smith's discovery is of 

 immense value in connection with the motives or sanctions of 

 morality, he fails to consider the standard of morality, w T hich 

 is really the chief ground of distinction between moral and 

 other judgments. 



11. J. S. MILL. 



Adam Smith, it was seen, although maintaining as his 

 fundamental standpoint the social factor of sympathy, still 

 leaves a place, though a subordinate one, for the factor of 

 utility. J. S. Mill, on the other hand, maintains a more even 

 balance between these two factors. For him, while utility 

 constitutes the standard of morality, the ' sympathetic ' factor 

 represents "the ultimate sanction". 



The term 'utility' as used by Mill, has a far wider signi- 

 ficance than as used by Hume or Adam Smith. "The creed," 

 Mill states, "which accepts as the foundation of morals, 



.B. 307-10. 



