The Theory of Moral Sentiments

The introduction to Part 6 consists of a single sentence: “When we consider the character of any individual, we naturally view it under two different aspects; first, as it may affect his own happiness; and secondly, as it may affect that of other people” (197).

Prudence consists in “care of the health, of the fortune, of the rank and reputation of the individual” (198). The prudent man “always studies seriously and earnestly to understand whatever he professes to understand, and not merely to persuade other people that he understands it” (198). He is “always sincere” (198), “always very capable of friendship” (198), and “always perfectly inoffensive” in his speech (198). His “steadiness” in “industry and frugality” never fails to win “the entire approbation of the impartial spectator” (198-99). As a virtue, therefore, prudence “commands a certain cold esteem,” though it is “not entitled to any very ardent love or admiration” (201).

Part 6, Section 2 consists of three chapters designed to “explain the foundation of that order which nature seems to have traced out for the distribution of our good offices,” i.e., “our very limited powers of beneficence” (203).