1.

PART to their breaft, take their place there, like old acquaintance, from whom they are forry to have ever been parted, and whom they embrace more heartily upon account of this long feparation.

It is quite otherwife with grief. Small vexations excite no fympathy, but deep affliction calls forth the greatest. The man who is made uneafy by every little difagreeable incident, who is hurt if either the cook or the butler have failed in the leaft article of their duty, who feels every defect in the highest ceremonial of politenefs, whether it be fhewn to himself or to any other perfon, who takes it amifs that his intimate friend did not bid him good-morrow when they met in the forenoon, and that his brother hummed a tune all the time he himself was telling a ftory; who is put out of humour by the badnefs of the weather when in the country, by the badness of the roads when upon a journey, and by the want of company, and dulness of all public diverfions when in town; such a person, I fay, though he should have fome reason, will feldom meet with much fympathy. Joy is a pleasant emotion, and we gladly abandon ourfelves to it upon the flighteft occafion. We readily, therefore, fympathize with it in others, whenever we are not prejudiced by envy. But grief is painful, and the mind, even when it is our own misfortune, naturally refifts and recoils from it. We would endeavour either not to conceive it at all, or to fhake it off as foon as we have conceived it. Our averfion to grief will not, indeed, always hinder us from con

ceiving

II.

ceiving it in our own cafe upon very trifling SECT. occafions, but it conftantly prevents us from fympathizing with it in others when excited by the like frivolous caufes: for our fympathetic paffions are always lefs irrefiftible than our original ones. There is, befides, a malice in mankind, which not only prevents all fympathy with little uneafineffes, but renders them in fome measure diverting. Hence the delight which we all take in raillery, and in the small vexation which we obferve in our companion, when he is pushed, and urged, and teafed upon all fides. Men of the moft ordinary good-breeding diffemble the pain which any little incident may give them; and those who are more thoroughly formed to fociety, turn, of their own accord, all fuch incidents into raillery, as they know their companions will do for them. The habit which a man, who lives in the world, has acquired of confidering how every thing that concerns himself will appear to others, makes those frivolous calamities turn up in the fame ridiculous light to him, in which he knows they will certainly be confidered by them.

Our fympathy, on the contrary, with deep distress, is very ftrong and very fincere. It is unneceffary to give an inftance. We weep even at the feigned representation of a tragedy. If you labour, therefore, under any fignal calamity, if by fome extraordinary misfortune you are fallen into poverty, into diseases, into difgrace and difappointment; even though your own fault may have been, in part, the occafion, yet you

F 2

PART you may generally depend upon the fincereft I. fympathy of all your friends, and, as far as intereft and honour will permit, upon their

But if

kindeft affiftance too. But if your misfortune is not of this dreadful kind, if you have only been a little baulked in your ambition, if you have only been jilted by your miftrefs, or are only hen-pecked by your wife, lay your account with the raillery of all your acquaintance.

SEC.

SECTION III.

OF THE EFFECTS OF PROSPERITY AND ADVERSITY UPON THE JUDGMENT OF MANKIND WITH REGARD TO THE PROPRIETY OF ACTION; AND WHY IT IS MORE EASY TO OBTAIN THEIR "APPROBATION IN THE ONE STATE THAN IN THE OTHER.

CHAP. I.

That though our Sympathy with forrow is generally a more lively fenfation than our Sympathy with joy, it commonly falls much more short of the violence of what is naturally felt by the perfon principally concerned.

OUR

III.

UR fympathy with forrow, though not more s E c T. real, has been more taken notice of than our fympathy with joy. The word fympathy, in its moft proper and primitive fignification, denotes our fellow-feeling with the fufferings, not that with the enjoyments, of others. A late ingenious and fubtile philofopher thought it neceffary to prove, by arguments, that we had a real fympathy with joy, and that congratulation was a principle of human nature. Nobody, I believe, ever thought it neceffary to prove that compaffion was fuch.

First of all, our fympathy with forrow is, in fome fenfe, more univerfal than that with joy. Though forrow is exceffive, we may ftill have fome fellow-feeling with it. What we feel does

PART not, indeed, in this cafe, amount to that com

I.

plete fympathy, to that perfect harmony and correfpondence of fentiments which conftitutes approbation. We do not weep, and exclaim, and lament, with the fufferer. We are fenfible, on the contrary, of his weakness and of the extravagance of his paffion, and yet often feel a very fenfible concern upon his account. But if we do not entirely enter into, and go along with, the joy of another, we have no fort of regard or fellow-feeling for it. The man who skips and dances about with that intemperate and fenfelefs joy which we cannot accompany him in, is the object of our contempt and indignation.

Pain befides, whether of mind or body, is a more pungent fenfation than pleasure, and our fympathy with pain, though, it falls greatly fhort of what is naturally felt by the fufferer, is generally a more lively and diftinct perception than our sympathy with pleasure, though this laft often approaches more nearly, as I fhall thew immediately, to the natural vivacity of the original paffion.

Over and above all this, we often ftruggle to keep down our fympathy with the forrow of others. Whenever we are not under the obfervation of the fufferer, we endeavour, for our own fake, to fupprefs it as much as we can, and we are not always fuccefsful. The oppofition which we make to it, and the reluctance with which we yield to it, neceffarily oblige us to take more particular notice of it. But we never