"The prudent man is not willing to subject himself to any responsibility which his duty does not impose upon him. He is not a bustler in business where he has no concern; is not a meddler in other people's affairs; is not a professed counsellor or adviser, who obtrudes his advice where nobody is asking it; he confines himself as much as his duty will permit to his own affairs, and has no taste for that foolish importance which many people wish to derive from appearing to have some influence in the management of those of other people; he is averse to enter into any party disputes, hates faction, and is not always very forward to listen to the voice even of noble and great ambition. When distinctly called upon he will not decline the service of his country; but he will not cabal in order to force himself into it, and would be much better pleased that the public business were well managed by some other person than that he himself should have the trouble and incur the responsibility of managing it. In the bottom of his heart he would prefer the undisturbed enjoyment of secure tranquillity, not only to all the vain splendour of successful ambition, but to the real and solid glory of performing the greatest and most magnanimous actions."Such is Adam Smith's account of the character of the Prudent Man, a character which he himself admits commands rather a cold esteem than any very ardent love or admiration. He distinguishes it from that higher form of prudence which belongs to the great general, statesman, or legislator, and which is the application of wise and judicious conduct to greater and nobler purposes than the mere objects of personal interest. This superior prudence necessarily supposes the utmost perfection of all the intellectual and all the moral virtues; it is the most perfect wisdom combined with the most perfect virtue; it is the best head joined to the best heart.
2. Justice and Benevolencethe disposition either to refrain from injuring our neighbour, or else to benefit himare the two qualities of a virtuous character which affect the happiness of other people. A sacred and religious regard not to hurt or disturb the happiness of others, even in cases where no law can protect them, constitutes the character of the perfectly innocent and just man, and is a character which can scarcely fail to be accompanied by many other virtues, such as great feeling for others, great humanity, and great benevolence. But whilst benevolence is a positive moral factor, justice is only a negative one; benevolence, therefore, requires the greater consideration of the two.
3. Benevolence comprises all the good offices which we owe to our family, our friends, our country, and our fellow- creatures. This is the order in which the world is recommended to our beneficent affections by Nature, who has strictly proportioned the strength of our benevolence to the degree in which it is necessary or likely to be useful.
Thus every man is first and principally recommended to his own care, being better able to take care of himself than of any other person. After himself, the members of his own family, those who usually live in the same house with him his parents, children, or brothers and sistersare naturally the objects of his warmest affections. The earliest friendships are those among brothers and sisters, whose power for giving pleasure or pain to one another renders their good agreement so much the more necessary for the happiness of the family. The sympathy between more distant relations, being less necessary, is proportionately weaker.
Here, again, may be noticed the influence of custom over our moral sentiments.
Affection is really habitual sympathy; and, from our general experience that the state of habitual sympathy in which near relations stand to one another pro- duces a certain affection between them, we expect always to find such affection, and are shocked when we fail to do so. Hence the general rule is established, from a great number of instances, that persons related to one another in a certain degree ought to be affected towards one another in a certain manner, and that the highest impropriety exists in the absence of any such affection between them.
This disposition to accommodate and assimilate our sentiments and principles to those of persons we live with or see oftena disposition which arises from the obvious convenience of such a general agreementleads us to expect to find friend- ship subsisting between colleagues in office, partners in trade, or even between persons living in the same neighbourhood. There are certain small good offices which are universally regarded as due to a neighbour in preference to any other person; and a certain friendliness is expected of neighbours, from the mere fact of the sympathy naturally associated with living in the same locality.
But these sort of attachments, which the Romans expressed by the word necessitudo as if to denote that they arose from the necessity of the situation, are inferior to those friendships which are founded not merely on a sympathy, rendered habitual for the sake of convenience, but on a natural sympathy and approbation of a man's good conduct. Such friendship can subsist only among the good. "Men of virtue only can feel that entire confidence in the conduct and behaviour of one another, which can at all times assure them that they can never either offend or be offended by one another. Vice is always capricious, virtue only is regular and orderly.