The Influences and Authority of Conscience

⁶⁸ The self-approbation which every man uses to survey his own conduct, is proportional to the degree of self-command needed to obtain that self-approbation.

Where little self-command is necessary, little self-approbation is due.

The man who has only scratched his finger cannot applaud himself much even if he immediately forgets this paltry misfortune.

The man who has lost his leg by a cannon shot but acts with his usual coolness naturally feels a higher degree of self-approbation because he exerts more self-command.

Most men would entirely erase all other views from the vivacity and strength such a misfortune.

They would feel nothing.

They could only attend to their own pain and fear. The judgment of the real spectators and of the ideal man within the breast would be entirely overlooked and disregarded.

⁶⁹ The reward which Nature bestows on good behaviour under misfortune, is thus exactly proportional to the degree of that good behaviour.

The only compensation she could make for the bitterness of pain and distress is thus too, in equal degrees of good behaviour, exactly proportioned to the degree of that pain and distress.

The pleasure and pride of the conquest are so much greater relative to the degree of the self-command necessary to conquer our natural sensibility.

This pleasure and pride are so great that all men who completely enjoys them cannot be unhappy.

Misery and wretchedness can never enter the breast of the person who has complete self-satisfaction.

With the Stoics, the wise man’s happiness under such an accident is equal to his happiness in any other circumstance.

Yet this complete enjoyment of his own self-applause alleviates his own sufferings.

Though it might not extinguish them.

⁷⁰ In such attacks of distress, the wisest and firmest man makes a considerable and even a painful exertion to preserve his equanimity.

The following presses hard on him:

• his natural feeling of his own distress and
• his natural view of his own situation.

He needs a very great effort to take the view of the impartial spectator.

Both views present themselves to him at the same time.

His whole attention is directed to the impartial spectator’s view by his:

• sense of honour, and
• regard to his own dignity

He is being continually called into the his own natural view by his undisciplined feelings.

In this case, he does not perfectly identify himself with the ideal man within the breast.

He does not become the impartial spectator of his own conduct.

The different views of both characters exist in his mind separate from one another.

Each directs him to a behaviour different from what the other directs him to.

When he follows that view which honour and dignity point out to him, Nature does not leave him without a recompense.

He enjoys:

• his own complete self-approbation and
• the applause of every candid and impartial spectator.

By Nature’s unalterable laws, however, he still suffers.

The recompense she bestows is very considerable.

But it is not enough to compensate the sufferings inflicted by those laws.

Neither is it fit that it should.

If it did completely compensate them, he could not have any motive from self-interest to avoid an accident which would reduce his utility to himself and society.

Nature, from her parental care of both, meant that he should anxiously avoid all such accidents.

Therefore he suffers in the attack of distress.

He maintains:

• the manhood of his countenance and
• the sedateness and sobriety of his judgment.

It requires his utmost exertions to do so.

⁷¹ However, agony can never be permanent.

If he survives the agony, he effortlessly enjoys his ordinary tranquility.

A man with a wooden leg suffers.

He foresees that he must continue to suffer much inconvenience for the rest of his life.

However, he soon views it as an inconvenience under which he can enjoy all the ordinary pleasures of solitude and society.

This is exactly how every impartial spectator views it.

He soon identifies himself with the ideal man within the breast.

He soon becomes himself the impartial spectator of his own situation.

He no longer weeps, laments, or grieves over it, as a weak man sometimes does in the beginning.

The view of the impartial spectator becomes so perfectly habitual to him.

He never thinks of surveying his misfortune in any other view.