Account of 

 Dr Smith. 



78 BISTORT of the SOCIETY 



planted the feeds of this irregularity in the human breaft, her 

 leading intention was, to promote the happinefs and perfection 

 of the fpecies. 



The remaining part of Mr Smith's theory is employed in 

 {hewing, in what manner our fenfe of duty comes to be formed, 

 in confequence of an application to ourfelves of the judgments 

 we have previoufly panned on the conduct of others. 



In entering upon this enquiry, which is undoubtedly the 

 mod important in the work, and for which the foregoing fpe- 

 culations are, according to Mr Smith's theory, a neceflary pre- 

 paration, he begins with dating the fa£l concerning our con- 

 fcioufnefs of merited praife or blame ; and it muft be owned, 

 that the firft afpecl of the fact, as he himfelf ftates it, ap- 

 pears not very favourable to his principles. That the great 

 object of a wife and virtuous man is not to act in fuch a 

 manner as to obtain the actual approbation of thofe around 

 him, but to act fo as to render himfelf the jujl and proper ob- 

 ject of their approbation, and that his fatisfaction with his own 

 conduct depends much more on the confcioufnefs of defervitig 

 this approbation than from that of really enjoying it, he can- 

 didly acknowledges ; but ftill he infifts, that although this may 

 feem, at firft view, to intimate the exiftence of fome moral fa- 

 culty which is not borrowed from without, our moral fenti- 

 ments have always fome fecret reference, either to what are, 

 or to what upon a certain condition would be, or to what we 

 imagine ought to be, the fentiments of others ; and that if it 

 were pofTible, that a human creature could grow up to manhood 

 without any communication with his own fpecies, he could no 

 more think of his own character, or of the propriety or deme- 

 rit of his own fentiments and conduct, than of the beauty or 

 deformity of his own face. There is indeed a tribunal within 

 the breaft, which is the fupreme arbiter of all our actions, and 



2 which 



