without any auxiliary pleasure. The bitter and painful emotions of grief and refentment more ftrongly require the healing confolation of sympathy.

As the perfon who is principally interefted in any event is pleafed with our fympathy, and hurt by the want of it, so we, too, seem to be pleased when we are able to sympathize with him, and to be hurt when we are unable to do fo. We run not only to congratulate the fuccefsful, but to condole with the afflicted; and the pleasure which we find in the conversation of one whom in all the pasfions of his heart we can entirely fympathize with, seems to do more than compensate the painfulness of that forrow with which the view of his fituation

affects us. On the contrary, it is always disagreeable to feel that we cannot sympathize with him, and instead of being pleased with this exemption from fympathetic pain, it hurts us to find that we cannot share his uneafinefs. If we hear a perfon loudly lamenting his misfortunes, which however, upon bringing the cafe home to ourselves, we feel, can produce no fuch violent effect upon us, we are shocked at his grief; and, because we cannot enter into it, call it pufillanimity and weakness. It gives us the spleen, on the other hand, to fee another too happy or too much elevated, as we call it, with any little piece of good fortune. We are disobliged even with his joy; and, because we cannot go along with it, call it levity and folly. We are even put out of humor if our companion laughs louder or longer at a joke than we think it deferves; that is, than we feel that we ourselves could laugh at it.

CHAP. III.

Of the manner in which we judge of the propriety or impropriety of the affections of other men, by their concord or diffonance with our own.

WHEN the original paffions of the person prin

cipally concerned are in perfect concord with the fympathetic emotions of the spectator, they neceffarily appear to this laft juft and proper, and fuitable to their objects; and, on the contrary, when, upon bringing the cafe home to himself, he finds that they do not coincide with what he feels, they neceffarily appear to him unjuft and improper, and unfuitable to the caufes which excite them. To approve of the paffions of another, therefore, as fuitable to their objects, is the fame thing as to observe that we entirely fympathize with them; and not to approve of them as such, is the fame thing as to observe that we do not entirely fympathize with them. The man who resents the injuries that have been done to me, and obferves that I refent them precifely as he does, neceffarily approves of my refentment. The man whose sympathy keeps time to my grief, cannot but admit the reasonableness of my forrow. He who admires the fame poem, or the fame picture, and admires them exactly as I do, muft furely allow the juftness of my admiration. He who laughs at the fame joke, and laughs along with me, cannot well deny the propriety of my laughter. On

the contrary, the perfon who, upon thefe different occafions, either feels no fuch emotion as that which I feel, or feels none that bears any proportion to mine, cannot avoid disapproving my sentiments on account of their diffonance with his own. If my animofity goes beyond what the indignation of my friend can correfpond to; if my grief exceeds what his moft tender compassion can go along with; if my admiration is either too high or too low to tally with his own; if I laugh loud and heartily when he only smiles, or, on the contrary, only smile when he laughs loud and heartily; in all these cafes, as foon as he comes from confidering the object, to observe how I am affected by it, according as there is more or lefs difproportion between his fentiments and mine, I muft incur a greater or lefs degree of his difapprobation, and upon all occafions his own fentiments are the standards and measures by which he judges of mine.

To approve of another man's opinions is to adopt those opinions, and to adopt them is to approve of them. If the fame arguments which convince you convince me likewife, I neceffarily approve of your conviction; and if they do not, I neceffarily disapprove of it: neither can I poffibly conceive that I fhould do the one without the other. To approve or difapprove, therefore, of the opinions of others is acknowledged, by every body, to mean no more than to obferve their agreement or disagreement with our own. But this is equally the cafe with regard to our approbation or difapprobation of the fentiments or paffions of others.

There

There are, indeed, fome cafes in which we seem to approve without any sympathy or correfpondence of fentiments, and in which, confequently, the sentiment of approbation would seem to be different from the perception of this coincidence. A little attention, however, will convince us that even in these cafes our approbation is ultimately founded upon a fympathy or correfpondence of this kind. I fhall give an instance in things of a very frivolous nature, because in them the judgements of mankind are lefs apt to be perverted by wrong fyftems. We may often approve of a of a jest, and think the laughter of the company quite juft and proper, though we ourselves do not laugh, because, perhaps, we are in a grave humor, or happen to have our attention engaged with other objects. We have learned, however, from experience, what fort of pleafantry is upon moft occafions capable of making us laugh, and we obferve that this is one of that kind. We approve, therefore, of the laughter of the company, and feel that it is natural and fuitable to its object; becaufe, though in our prefent mood we cannot easily enter into it, we are fenfible that upon most occafions we fhould very heartily join in it.

The fame thing often happens with regard to all the other paffions. A ftranger paffes by us in the street with all the marks of the deepest affliction; and we are immediately told that he has just received the news of the death of his father. It is impoffible that, in this case, we should not approve of his grief. Yet it may often happen, without VOL. I.

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any defect of humanity on our part, that, fo far from entering into the violence of his forrow, we fhould fcarce conceive the firft movements of concern upon his account. Both he and his father, perhaps, are entirely unknown to us, or we happen to be employed about other things, and do not take time to picture out in our imagination the different circumftances of diftrefs which muft occur to him. We have learned, however, from experience, that such a misfortune naturally excites fuch a degree of forrow, and we know that if we took time to confider his fituation, fully and in all its parts, we fhould, without doubt, most fincerely fympathize with him. It is upon the consciousness of this conditional fympathy, that our approbation of his forrow is founded, even in those cafes in which that sympathy does not actually take place; and the general rules derived from our preceding experience of what our fentiments would commonly correfpond with, correct upon this,as upon many other occafions, the impropriety of our prefent emotions.

The fentiment or affection of the heart from which any action proceeds, and upon which its whole virtue or vice muft ultimately depend, may be confidered under two different afpects, or in two different relations; first, in relation to the cause which excites it, or the motive which gives occafion to it; and fecondly, in relation to the end which it proposes, or the effect which it tends to produce.

In the fuitableness or unfuitablenefs, in the proportion or disproportion which the affection seems