APPENDIX. 77 



of his conduct, fcarcely ever fail to influence confiderably our Accounts 



' _ • " * Dr Sauth. 



judgment with refpect to both ', by leading us to form a good 

 or a bad opinion of the prudence with which the action was 

 performed, and by animating our fenfe of the merit or deme- 

 rit of his defign. Thefe fa6ts, however, do not furnifh any 

 obje&ions which are peculiarly applicable to Mr Smith's. 

 theory ; for whatever hypothefis we may adopt with refpect 

 to the origin of our moral perceptions, all men muft acknow- 

 ledge, that in fo far as the profperous or the unprofperous event 

 of an action depends on fortune or on accident, it ought nei- 

 ther to increafe nor to diminilh our moral approbation or dis- 

 approbation of the agent. And accordingly it has, in all ages 

 of the world, been the complaint of moralifts, that the actual 

 fentiments of mankind mould fo often be in oppofition to this 

 equitable and indifputable maxim. In examining, therefore, 

 this irregularity of our moral fentiments, Mr Smith is to be 

 confidered, not as obviating an objection peculiar to his own. 

 fyftem, but as removing a difficulty which is equally connected " 

 with every theory on the fubject which has ever been propofed. 

 So far as I know, he is the firit philofopher who has been fully 

 aware of the importance of the difficulty, and he has indeed 

 treated it with great ability and fuccefs. The explanation 

 which he gives of it is not warped in the leaft by any pecu- 

 liarity in his own fcheme ; and, I muft own, it appears to me 

 to be the moft folid and valuable improvement he has made 

 in this branch of fcience. It is impoflible to give any abftract 

 of it in a fketch of this kind; and therefore I muft content 

 myfelf with remarking, that it confifts of three parts. The 

 firft explains the caufes of this irregularity of fentiment ; the 

 fecond, the extent of its influence; and the third, the im- 

 portant purpofes to which it is fubfervient. His remarks on. 

 the laft of thefe heads are more particularly ingenious and 

 pleafing ; as their object is to fhew in oppofition to what we 

 fhould be difpofed at firft to apprehend, that when nature im- 

 planted 



