Why Utility pleases.
85
for abstruse and remote Systems, when there occurs one so obvious and natural[1]?
Have we any Difficulty to comprehend the Force of Humanity and Benevolence? Or to conceive, that the very Aspect of Happiness, Joy, Prosperity, gives Pleasure; that of Pain, Sufferance, Sorrow, communicates Uneasiness? The human Countenance, says Horace[2], borrows Smiles or Tears from the human Countenance. Reduce a Person to Solitude, and he loses all Enjoyment, except merely of the speculative Kind; and that because the Movements of his Heart are not forwarded by correspondent
- ↑ 'Tis needless to push our Researches so far as to ask, why we have Humanity or a Fellow-feeling with others. 'Tis sufficient, that this is experienc'd to be a Principle in human Nature. We must stop somewhere in our Examination of Causes; and there are, in every Science, some general Principles, beyond which we cannot hope to find any Principle more general. No Man is absolutely indifferent to the Happiness and Misery of others. The first has a natural Tendency to give Pleasure; the second, Pain. This every one may find in himself. It is not probable, that these Principles can be resolv'd into Principles more simple and universal, whatever Attempts may have been made to that Purpose. But if it were possible, it belongs not to the present Subject; and we may here safely consider these Principles as original: Happy, if we can render all the Consequences sufficiently plain and perspicuous.
- ↑ Uti ridentibus arrident, ita flentibus adflent
Hor.Humani vultus.
Move-
