but in the bearing of actions on the
welfare or happiness of beings other than the actor. Benevolence
constitutes virtue; and the merit of the action and of the actor is
determined by the degree in which particular affections are merged in
general philanthropy, and reference is had, not to individual
beneficiaries or benefits, but to the whole system of things of which the
actor forms a part. The affections from which such acts spring commend
themselves to the moral sense, and are of necessity objects of esteem and
love. But the moral sense takes cognizance of the affections only, not of
the acts themselves; and as the conventional standard of the desirable and
the useful varies with race, time, and culture, the acts which the
affections prompt, and which therefore are virtuous, may be in one age or
country such as the people of another century or land may repudiate with
loathing. Las Casas, in introducing negro slavery into America, with the
fervently benevolent purpose of relieving the hardships of the feeble and
overtasked aborigines, performed, according to this theory, a virtuous
act; but had he once considered the question of intrinsic right or natural
fitness, a name so worthily honored would never have been associated with
the foulest crime of modern civilization.

According to *Adam Smith* (A. D. 1723-1790), moral distinctions depend
wholly on sympathy. We approve in others what corresponds to our own
tastes and habits; we disapprove whatever is opposed to them. As to our
own conduct, "we suppose ourselves," he writes, "the spectators of our own
behavior, and endeavor to imagine what effect it would in this light
produce in us." Our sense of duty is derived wholly from our thus putting
ourselves in the place of others, and inquiring what they would approve in
us. Conscience, then, is a collective and corporate, not an individual
faculty. It is created by the prevalent opinions of the community.
Solitary virtue there cannot be; for without sympathy there is no
self-approval. By parity of reason, the duty of the individual can never
transcend the average conscience of the community. This theory describes
society as it is, not as it ought to be. We are, to a sad degree,
conventional in our practice, much more so than in our beliefs; but it is
the part of true manliness to have the conscience an interior, not an
external organ, to form and actualize notions of right and duty for one's
self, and to stand and walk al