Of the Effect of Utility upon the Sentiment of Approbation

Adam Smith | Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part IV, Chapter I

That utility is one of the principal sources of beauty has been observed by every
body, who has considered with any attention what constitutes the nature of beauty.
The conveniency of a house gives pleasure to the spectator as well as its regularity,
and he is as much hurt when he observes the contrary defect, as when he sees the
correspondent windows of different forms, or the door not placed exactly in the
middle of the building. That the fitness of any system or machine to produce the end
for which it was intended, bestows a certain propriety and beauty upon the whole,
and renders the very thought and contemplation of it agreeable, is so very obvious
that nobody has overlooked it.

The cause too, why utility pleases, has of late been assigned by an ingenious and
agreeable philosopher, who joins the greatest depth of thought to the greatest
elegance of expression, and possesses the singular and happy talent of treating the
abstrusest subjects not only with the most perfect perspicuity, but with the most
lively eloquence. The utility of any object, according to him, pleases the master by
perpetually suggesting to him the pleasure or conveniency which it is fitted to
promote. Every time he looks at it, he is put in mind of this pleasure; and the object
in this manner becomes a source of perpetual satisfaction and enjoyment. The
spectator enters by sympathy into the sentiments of the master, and necessarily
views the object under the same agreeable aspect. When we visit the palaces of the
great, we cannot help conceiving the satisfaction we should enjoy if we ourselves
were the masters, and were possessed of so much artful and ingeniously contrived
accommodation. A similar account is given why the appearance of inconveniency
should render any object disagreeable both to the owner and to the spectator.

But that this fitness, this happy contrivance of any production of art, should often be
more valued, than the very end for which it was intended; and that the exact
adjustment of the means for attaining any conveniency or pleasure, should
frequently be more regarded, than that very conveniency or pleasure, in the
attainment of which their whole merit would seem to consist, has not, so far as I
know, been yet taken notice of by any body. That this however is very frequently the
case, may be observed in a thousand instances, both in the most frivolous and in the
most important concerns of human life.

When a person comes into his chamber, and finds the chairs all standing in the
middle of the room, he is angry with his servant, and rather than see them continue
in that disorder, perhaps takes the trouble himself to set them all in their places with
their backs to the wall. The whole propriety of this new situation arises from its
superior conveniency in leaving the floor free and disengaged. To attain this
conveniency he voluntarily puts himself to more trouble than all he could have
suffered from the want of it; since nothing was more easy, than to have set himself
down upon one of them, which is probably what he does when his labour is over.
What he wanted therefore, it seems, was not so much this conveniency, as that
arrangement of things which promotes it. Yet it is this conveniency which ultimately
recommends that arrangement, and bestows upon it the whole of its propriety and
beauty.

A watch, in the same manner, that falls behind above two minutes in a day, is
despised by one curious in watches. He sells it perhaps for a couple of guineas, and
purchases another at fifty, which will not lose above a minute in a fortnight. The sole
use of watches however, is to tell us what o’clock it is, and to hinder us from breaking
any engagement, or suffering any other inconveniency by our ignorance in that
particular point. But the person so nice with regard to this machine, will not always
be found either more scrupulously punctual than other men, or more anxiously
concerned upon any other account, to know precisely what time of day it is. What
interests him is not so much the attainment of this piece of knowledge, as the
perfection of the machine which serves to attain it.

How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous
utility? What pleases these lovers of toys is not so much the utility, as the aptness of
the machines which are fitted to promote it. All their pockets are stuffed with little
conveniencies. They contrive new pockets, unknown in the clothes of other people, in
order to carry a greater number. They walk about loaded with a multitude of baubles,
in weight and sometimes in value not inferior to an ordinary Jew’s-box, some of
which may sometimes be of some little use, but all of which might at all times be
very well spared, and of which the whole utility is certainly not worth the fatigue of
bearing the burden.

Nor is it only with regard to such frivolous objects that our conduct is influenced by
this principle; it is often the secret motive of the most serious and important pursuits
of both private and public life.

The poor man’s son, whom heaven in its anger has visited with ambition, when he
begins to look around him, admires the condition of the rich. He finds the cottage of
his father too small for his accommodation, and fancies he should be lodged more at
his ease in a palace. He is displeased with being obliged to walk a-foot, or to endure
the fatigue of riding on horseback. He sees his superiors carried about in machines,
and imagines that in one of these he could travel with less inconveniency. He feels
himself naturally indolent, and willing to serve himself with his own hands as little as
possible; and judges, that a numerous retinue of servants would save him from a
great deal of trouble. He thinks if he had attained all these, he would sit still
contentedly, and be quiet, enjoying himself in the thought of the happiness and
tranquillity of his situation. He is enchanted with the distant idea of this felicity. It
appears in his fancy like the life of some superior rank of beings, and, in order to
arrive at it, he devotes himself for ever to the pursuit of wealth and greatness. To
obtain the conveniencies which these afford, he submits in the first year, nay in the
first month of his application, to more fatigue of body and more uneasiness of mind
than he could have suffered through the whole of his life from the want of them. He
studies to distinguish himself in some laborious profession. With the most
unrelenting industry he labours night and day to acquire talents superior to all his
competitors. He endeavours next to bring those talents into public view, and with
equal assiduity solicits every opportunity of employment. For this purpose he makes
his court to all mankind; he serves those whom he hates, and is obsequious to those
whom he despises. Through the whole of his life he pursues the idea of a certain
artificial and elegant repose which he may never arrive at, for which he sacrifices a
real tranquillity that is at all times in his power, and which, if in the extremity of old
age he should at last attain to it, he will find to be in no respect preferable to that
humble security and contentment which he had abandoned for it. It is then, in the
last dregs of life, his body wasted with toil and diseases, his mind galled and ruffled
by the memory of a thousand injuries and disappointments which he imagines he
has met with from the injustice of his enemies, or from the perfidy and ingratitude of
his friends, that he begins at last to find that wealth and greatness are mere trinkets
of frivolous utility, no more adapted for procuring ease of body or tranquillity of
mind than the tweezer-cases of the lover of toys; and like them too, more
troublesome to the person who carries them about with him than all the advantages
they can afford him are commodious. There is no other real difference between
them, except that the conveniencies of the one are somewhat more observable than
those of the other. The palaces, the gardens, the equipage, the retinue of the great,
are objects of which the obvious conveniency strikes every body. They do not require
that their masters should point out to us wherein consists their utility. Of our own
accord we readily enter into it, and by sympathy enjoy and thereby applaud the
satisfaction which they are fitted to afford him. But the curiosity of a tooth-pick, of an
ear-picker, of a machine for cutting the nails, or of any other trinket of the same kind,
is not so obvious. Their conveniency may perhaps be equally great, but it is not so
striking, and we do not so readily enter into the satisfaction of the man who
possesses them. They are therefore less reasonable subjects of vanity than the
magnificence of wealth and greatness; and in this consists the sole advantage of
these last. They more effectually gratify that love of distinction so natural to man. To
one who was to live alone in a desolate island it might be a matter of doubt, perhaps,
whether a palace, or a collection of such small conveniencies as are commonly
contained in a tweezer-case, would contribute most to his happiness and enjoyment.
If he is to live in society, indeed, there can be no comparison, because in this, as in all
other cases, we constantly pay more regard to the sentiments of the spectator, than
to those of the person principally concerned, and consider rather how his situation
will appear to other people, than how it will appear to himself. If we examine,
however, why the spectator distinguishes with such admiration the condition of the
rich and the great, we shall find that it is not so much upon account of the superior
ease or pleasure which they are supposed to enjoy, as of the numberless artificial and
elegant contrivances for promoting this ease or pleasure. He does not even imagine
that they are really happier than other people: but he imagines that they possess
more means of happiness. And it is the ingenious and artful adjustment of those
means to the end for which they were intended, that is the principal source of his
admiration. But in the languor of disease and the weariness of old age, the pleasures
of the vain and empty distinctions of greatness disappear. To one, in this situation,
they are no longer capable of recommending those toilsome pursuits in which they
had formerly engaged him. In his heart he curses ambition, and vainly regrets the
ease and the indolence of youth, pleasures which are fled for ever, and which he has
foolishly sacrificed for what, when he has got it, can afford him no real satisfaction. In
this miserable aspect does greatness appear to every man when reduced either by
spleen or disease to observe with attention his own situation, and to consider what it
is that is really wanting to his happiness. Power and riches appear then to be, what
they are, enormous and operose machines contrived to produce a few trifling
conveniencies to the body, consisting of springs the most nice and delicate, which
must be kept in order with the most anxious attention, and which in spite of all our
care are ready every moment to burst into pieces, and to crush in their ruins their
unfortunate possessor. They are immense fabrics, which it requires the labour of a life
to raise, which threaten every moment to overwhelm the person that dwells in them,
and which while they stand, though they may save him from some smaller
inconveniencies, can protect him from none of the severer inclemencies of the
season. They keep off the summer shower, not the winter storm, but leave him
always as much, and sometimes more exposed than before, to anxiety, to fear, and to
sorrow; to diseases, to danger, and to death.

But though this splenetic philosophy, which in time of sickness or low spirits is
familiar to every man, thus entirely depreciates those great objects of human desire,
when in better health and in better humour, we never fail to regard them under a
more agreeable aspect. Our imagination, which in pain and sorrow seems to be
confined and cooped up within our own persons, in times of ease and prosperity
expands itself to every thing around us. We are then charmed with the beauty of that
accommodation which reigns in the palaces and oeconomy of the great; and admire
how every thing is adapted to promote their ease, to prevent their wants, to gratify
their wishes, and to amuse and entertain their most frivolous desires. If we consider
the real satisfaction which all these things are capable of affording, by itself and
separated from the beauty of that arrangement which is fitted to promote it, it will
always appear in the highest degree contemptible and trifling. But we rarely view it in
this abstract and philosophical light. We naturally confound it in our imagination with
the order, the regular and harmonious movement of the system, the machine or
oeconomy by means of which it is produced. The pleasures of wealth and greatness,
when considered in this complex view, strike the imagination as something grand
and beautiful and noble, of which the attainment is well worth all the toil and anxiety
which we are so apt to bestow upon it.
And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this deception which
rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind. It is this which first
prompted them to cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and
commonwealths, and to invent and improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble
and embellish human life; which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe,
have turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile plains, and made
the trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsistence, and the great high road of
communication to the different nations of the earth. The earth by these labours of
mankind has been obliged to redouble her natural fertility, and to maintain a greater
multitude of inhabitants. It is to no purpose, that the proud and unfeeling landlord
views his extensive fields, and without a thought for the wants of his brethren, in
imagination consumes himself the whole harvest that grows upon them. The homely
and vulgar proverb, that the eye is larger than the belly, never was more fully verified
than with regard to him. The capacity of his stomach bears no proportion to the
immensity of his desires, and will receive no more than that of the meanest peasant.
The rest he is obliged to distribute among those, who prepare, in the nicest manner,
that little which he himself makes use of, among those who fit up the palace in which
this little is to be consumed, among those who provide and keep in order all the
different baubles and trinkets, which are employed in the oeconomy of greatness; all
of whom thus derive from his luxury and caprice, that share of the necessaries of life,
which they would in vain have expected from his humanity or his justice.
The produce of the soil maintains at all times nearly that number of inhabitants
which it is capable of maintaining. The rich only select from the heap what is most
precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their
natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency,
though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom
they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide
with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible
hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would
have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its
inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of
the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species. When Providence
divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those
who seemed to have been left out in the partition. These last too enjoy their share of
all that it produces. In what constitutes the real happiness of human life, they are in
no respect inferior to those who would seem so much above them. In ease of body
and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the
beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which
kings are fighting for.

The same principle, the same love of system, the same regard to the beauty of order,
of art and contrivance, frequently serves to recommend those institutions which tend
to promote the public welfare. When a patriot exerts himself for the improvement of
any part of the public police, his conduct does not always arise from pure sympathy
with the happiness of those who are to reap the benefit of it. It is not commonly from
a fellow-feeling with carriers and waggoners that a public-spirited man encourages
the mending of high roads. When the legislature establishes premiums and other
encouragements to advance the linen or woollen manufactures, its conduct seldom
proceeds from pure sympathy with the wearer of cheap or fine cloth, and much less
from that with the manufacturer or merchant. The perfection of police, the extension
of trade and manufactures, are noble and magnificent objects. The contemplation of
them pleases us, and we are interested in whatever can tend to advance them. They
make part of the great system of government, and the wheels of the political
machine seem to move with more harmony and ease by means of them. We take
pleasure in beholding the perfection of so beautiful and grand a system, and we are
uneasy till we remove any obstruction that can in the least disturb or encumber the
regularity of its motions. All constitutions of government, however, are valued only in
proportion as they tend to promote the happiness of those who live under them.
This is their sole use and end. From a certain spirit of system, however, from a certain
love of art and contrivance, we sometimes seem to value the means more than the
end, and to be eager to promote the happiness of our fellow-creatures, rather from a
view to perfect and improve a certain beautiful and orderly system, than from any
immediate sense or feeling of what they either suffer or enjoy. There have been men
of the greatest public spirit, who have shown themselves in other respects not very
sensible to the feelings of humanity. And on the contrary, there have been men of
the greatest humanity, who seem to have been entirely devoid of public spirit. Every
man may find in the circle of his acquaintance instances both of the one kind and the
other. Who had ever less humanity, or more public spirit, than the celebrated
legislator of Muscovy? The social and well-natured James the First of Great Britain
seems, on the contrary, to have had scarce any passion, either for the glory or the
interest of his country. Would you awaken the industry of the man who seems almost
dead to ambition, it will often be to no purpose to describe to him the happiness of
the rich and the great; to tell him that they are generally sheltered from the sun and
the rain, that they are seldom hungry, that they are seldom cold, and that they are
rarely exposed to weariness, or to want of any kind. The most eloquent exhortation
of this kind will have little effect upon him. If you would hope to succeed, you must
describe to him the conveniency and arrangement of the different apartments in
their palaces; you must explain to him the propriety of their equipages, and point out
to him the number, the order, and the different offices of all their attendants. If any
thing is capable of making impression upon him, this will. Yet all these things tend
only to keep off the sun and the rain, to save them from hunger and cold, from want
and weariness. In the same manner, if you would implant public virtue in the breast
of him who seems heedless of the interest of his country, it will often be to no
purpose to tell him, what superior advantages the subjects of a well-governed state
enjoy; that they are better lodged, that they are better clothed, that they are better
fed. These considerations will commonly make no great impression. You will be more
likely to persuade, if you describe the great system of public police which procures
these advantages, if you explain the connexions and dependencies of its several
parts, their mutual subordination to one another, and their general subserviency to
the happiness of the society; if you show how this system might be introduced into
his own country, what it is that hinders it from taking place there at present, how
those obstructions might be removed, and all the several wheels of the machine of
government be made to move with more harmony and smoothness, without grating
upon one another, or mutually retarding one another’s motions. It is scarce possible
that a man should listen to a discourse of this kind, and not feel himself animated to
some degree of public spirit. He will, at least for the moment, feel some desire to
remove those obstructions, and to put into motion so beautiful and so orderly a
machine. Nothing tends so much to promote public spirit as the study of politics, of
the several systems of civil government, their advantages and disadvantages, of the
constitution of our own country, its situation, and interest with regard to foreign
nations, its commerce, its defence, the disadvantages it labours under, the dangers to
which it may be exposed, how to remove the one, and how to guard against the
other. Upon this account political disquisitions, if just, and reasonable, and
practicable, are of all the works of speculation the most useful. Even the weakest and
the worst of them are not altogether without their utility. They serve at least to
animate the public passions of men, and rouse them to seek out the means of
promoting the happiness of the society.