Images de page
PDF
ePub

This is the final caufe affigned above for our sense of proportion *, and need not be enlarged upon here. Congruity indeed

with refpect to quantity, coincides with proportion. When the parts of a building are nicely adjusted to each other, it may be faid indifferently, that it is agreeable by the congruity of its parts, or by the proportion of its parts. But propriety, which regards voluntary agents only, can never in any instance be the fame with proportion. A very long nofe is difproportioned, but cannot be termed improper. In fome inftances, it is true, impropriety coincides with difproportion in the fame subject, but never in the fame refpect. I give for an example a very little man buckled to a long toledo. Confidering the man and the fword with refpect to fize, we perceive a disproportion. Confidering the fword as the choice of the man, we perceive an impropriety.

The fenfe of impropriety with respect to mistakes, blunders, and abfurdities, is happily contrived for the good of mankind.

*See chap. 3.

C 2

In

In the fpectators it is productive of mirth and laughter, excellent recreation in an interval from bufinefs. The benefit is ftill more extenfive. It is not agreeable to be the fubject of ridicule; and to punish with ridicule the man who is guilty of an absurdity, tends to put him more upon his guard in time coming. Thus even the most innocent blunder is not committed with impunity; because, were errors licensed where they do no hurt, inattention would grow into a habit, and be the occafion of much hurt.

The final caufe of propriety as to moral duties, is of all the moft illuftrious. To have a juft notion of it, the two forts of moral duties must be kept in view, viz. those that respect others, and those that refpect ourselves. Fidelity, gratitude, and the forbearing injury, are examples of the first fort; temperance, modefty, firmness of mind, are examples of the other. The former are made duties by means of the moral fense; the latter, by means of the sense of propriety. Here is a final cause of the sense of propriety, that must rouse our attention.

It is undoubtedly the intereft of every man, to regulate his behaviour suitably to the dignity of his nature, and to the station allotted him by Providence. Such rational conduct contributes in every refpect to happinefs: it contributes to health and plenty : it gains the esteem of others: and, which is of all the greatest bleffing, it gains a justly-founded self-esteem. But in a matter fo effential to our well-being, even self-interest is not relied on. The fenfe of propriety fuperadds the powerful authority of duty to the motive of intereft. The God of nature, in all things effential to our happiness, hath obferved one uniform method. To keep us fteady in our conduct, he hath fortified us with natural principles and feelings. These prevent many aberrations, which would daily happen were we totally furrendered to fo fallible a guide as is human reafon. The sense of propriety cannot juftly be confidered in another light, than as the natural law that regulates our conduct with respect to ourselves; as the fenfe of justice is the natural law that regulates our conduct with refpect to others. I call the sense of

propriety

propriety a law, because it really is fo, not lefs than the fenfe of juftice. If by law be meant a rule of conduct that we are conscious ought to be obeyed, this definition, which I conceive to be strictly accurate, is applicable undoubtedly to both. The fenfe of propriety includes this consciousness; for to fay an action is proper, is, in other words, to fay, that it ought to be performed; and to say it is improper, is, in other words, to fay, that it ought to be forborn. It is this very consciousness of ought and should included in the moral fenfe, that makes justice a law to us. This consciousness of duty, when applied to propriety, is perhaps not so vigorous or ftrong as when applied to justice: but the difference is in degree only, not in kind and we ought, without hesitation or reluctance, to submit equally to the government of both.

But I have more to urge upon this head. It muft, in the next place, be observed, that to the fenfe of propriety as well as of justice are annexed the fanctions of rewards and punishments; which evidently prove the one to be a law as well as the other. The fatisfaction

fatisfaction a man hath in doing his duty, joined with the esteem and good-will of others, is the reward that belongs to both equally. The punishments alfo, though not the fame, are nearly allied; and differ in degree more than in quality. Difobedience to the law of justice, is punished with remorfe; disobedience to the law of propriety, with fhame, which is remorfe in a lower degree. Every tranfgreffion of the law of juftice raises indignation in the beholder; and fo doth every flagrant tranfgreffion of the law of propriety. Slighter improprieties receive a milder punishment: they are always rebuked with fome degree of contempt, and frequently with derifion. In general, it is true, that the rewards and punishments annexed to the sense of propriety are flighter in degree than those annexed to the sense of justice. And that this is wifely ordered, will appear from confidering, that to the well-being of fociety, duty to others is ftill more effential than duty to ourselves; for fociety could not subfift a moment, were individuals not protected from the headstrong and turbulent paflions of their neighbours.

Reflecting

« PrécédentContinuer »