CHA P. II.

Of the proper objects of gratitude and refentment.

To be the proper and approved object either

of gratitude or refentment, can mean nothing but to be the object of that gratitude, and of that resentment, which naturally feems proper, and is approved of.

But these, as well as all the other paffions of human nature, feem proper and are approved of, when the heart of every impartial spectator entirely sympathizes with them, when every indifferent by-ftander entirely enters into, and goes along with them.

He, therefore, appears to deserve reward, who, to fome person or persons, is the natural object of a gratitude which every human heart is disposed to beat time to, and thereby applaud: and he, on the other hand, appears to deserve punishment, who in the fame manner is to fome perfon or perfons the natural object of a refentment which the breaft of every reasonable man is ready to adopt and sympathize with. To us, furely, that action must appear to deserve reward, which every body who knows of it would wish to reward, and therefore delights to fee rewarded: and that action must as furely appear to deferve punishment, which every body who hears of it is angry with, and upon that account rejoices to fee punished.

1. As we fympathize with the joy of our companions when in prosperity, so we join with them in the

complacency and satisfaction with which they naturally regard whatever is the cause of their good fortune. We enter into the love and affection which they conceive for it, and begin to love it too. We fhould be forry for their fakes if it was deftroyed, or even if it was placed at too great a distance from them, and out of the reach of their care and protection, though they should lose nothing by its abfence except the pleasure of seeing it. If it is man who has thus been the fortunate inftrument of the happiness of his brethren, this is ftill more peculiarly the cafe. When we fee one man affifted, protected, relieved by another, our sympathy with the joy of the person who receives the benefit ferves only to animate our fellow-feeling with his gratitude towards him who beftows it. When we look upon the person who is the cause of his pleasure with the eyes with which we imagine he must look upon him, his benefactor feems to ftand before us in the moft engaging and amiable light. We readily, therefore, fympathize with the grateful affection which he conceives for a person to whom he has been fo much obliged; and confequently applaud the returns which he is disposed to make for the good offices conferred upon him. As we entirely enter into the affection from which these returns proceed, they neceffarily seem every way proper and suitable to their object.

2. In the fame manner, as we fympathize with the forrow of our fellow-creature whenever we fee his distress, so we likewise enter into his abhorrence and averfion for whatever has given occafion

to it. Our heart, as it adopts and beats time to his grief, so is it likewise animated with that spirit by which he endeavours to drive away or destroy the cause of it. The indolent and paffive fellowfeeling, by which we accompany him in his fufferings, readily gives way to that more vigorous and active sentiment by which we go along with him in the effort he makes, either to repel them, or to gratify his averfion to what has given occafion to them. This is ftill more peculiarly the case, when it is man who has caufed them. When we fee one man oppreffed or injured by another, the fympathy which we feel with the diftrefs of the fufferer seems to ferve only to animate our fellowfeeling with his resentment against the offender. We are rejoiced to fee him attack his adversary in his turn, and are eager and ready to affift him whenever he exerts himself for defence, or even for vengeance within a certain degree. If the injured fhould perifh in the quarrel, we not only fympathize with the real refentment of his friends and relations, but with the imaginary resentment which in fancy we lend to the dead, who is no longer capable of feeling that or any other human fentiment. But as we put ourselves in his fituation, as we enter, as it were, into his body, and in our imaginations, in fome measure animate anew the deformed and mangled carcass of the flain, when flain, when we bring home in this manner his cafe to our own bofoms, we feel upon this, as upon many other occafions, an emotion which the person principally concerned is

incapable of feeling, and which yet we feel by an illufive fympathy with him. The fympathetic tears which we fhed for that immenfe and irretrievable lofs, which in our fancy he appears to have fuftained, seem to be but a small part of the duty which we owe him. The injury which he has fuffered demands, we think, a principal part of our attention. We feel that refentment which we imagine he ought to feel, and which he would feel, if in his cold and lifeless body there remained any consciousness of what paffes upon earth. His blood, we think, calls aloud for vengeance. The very afhes of the dead feem to be difturbed at the thought that his injuries are to pass unrevenged. The horrors which are fuppofed to haunt the bed of the murderer, the ghosts which, superstition imagines, rise from their graves to demand vengeance upon those who brought them to an untimely end, all take their origin from this natural fympathy with the imaginary resentment of the flain. And with regard, at least, to this moft dreadful of all crimes, Nature, antecedent to all reflections upon the utility of punishment, has in this manner ftamped upon the human heart, in the strongest and most indelible characters, an immediate and inftinctive approbation of the facred and neceffary law of retaliation.

СНАР.

С НА Р. III.

That where there is no approbation of the conduct of the perfon who, confers the benefit, there is little fympathy with the gratitude of him who receives it and that, on the contrary, where there is, no difapprobation of the motives of the perfon who does the mischief, there is no fort of Sympathy with the refentment of him who fuffers it. IT is to be obferved, however, that, how

beneficial foever on the one hand, or how hurtful foever on the other, the actions or intentions of the person who acts may have been to the perfon who is, if I may fay fo, acted upon, yet if in the one case there appears to have been no propriety in the motives of the agent, if we cannot enter into the affections which influenced his conduct, we have little sympathy with the gratitude of the person who receives the benefit: or if, in the other cafe, there appears to have been no impropriety in the motives of the agent, if, on the contrary, the affections which influenced his conduct are such as we must necessarily enter into, we can have no fort of fympathy with the resentment of the person who fuffers. Little gratitude seems due in the one cafe, and all fort of refentment seems unjuft in the other. The one action feems to merit little reward, the other to deserve no punishment.

1. First, I say, that wherever we cannot sympathize with the affections of the agent, wherever there VOL. I.

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