our own conduct require, take their origin from the other.

How amiable does he appear to be, whofe fym-pathetic heart feems to re-echo all the fentiments of those with whom he converfes, who grieves for their calamities, who refents their injuries, and who rejoices at their good fortune! When we bring home to ourselves the fituation of his companions, we enter into their gratitude, and feel what confolation they must derive from the tender sympathy of so affectionate a friend. And for a contrary reafon, how disagreeable does he appear to be, whose hard and obdurate heart feels for himself only, but is altogether infenfible to the happiness or misery of others! We enter, in this cafe too, into the pain which his presence must give to every mortal with whom he converses, to those especially with whom we are most apt to fympathize, the unfortunate and the injured.

On the other hand, what noble propriety and grace do we feel in the conduct of thofe who, in their own cafe, exert that recollection and felf-command which conftitute the dignity of every paffion, and which bring it down to what others can enter into? We are disgusted with that clamorous grief, which, without any delicacy, calls upon our compaffion with fighs and tears and importunate lamentations. But we reverence that reserved, that filent and majestic forrow, which discovers itself only in the swelling of the eyes, in the quivering of the lips and cheeks, and in the distant, but affecting, coldness of the whole behaviour. It imposes the

like filence upon us. We regard it with respectful attention, and watch with anxious concern over our whole behaviour, left by any impropriety we fhould disturb that concerted tranquillity, which it requires fo great an effort to support.

The infolence and brutality of anger, in the fame manner when we indulge its fury without check or restraint, is, of all objects, the most detestable. But we admire that noble and generous refentment which governs its pursuit of the greatest injuries, not by the rage which they are apt to excite in the breast of the fufferer, but by the indignation which they naturally call forth in that of the impartial spectator; which allows no word, no gesture, to escape it beyond what this more equitable fentiment would dictate; which never, even in thought, attempts any greater vengeance, nor defires to inflict any greater punishment, than what every indifferent person would rejoice to see executed.

And hence it is, that to feel much for others and little for ourselves, that to reftrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, conftitutes the perfection of human nature; and can alone produce among mankind that harmony of fentiments and paffions in which confifts their whole grace and propriety. As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the great law of Chriftianity, so it is the great precept of nature to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to the fame thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us.

As taste andgood judgment, when they are

confidered as qualities, which deserve praise and admiration, are fuppofed to imply a delicacy of fentiment and an acuteness of understanding not commonly to be met with; fo the virtues of senfibility and felf-command are not apprehended to confift in the ordinary, but in the uncommon degrees of thofe qualities. The amiable virtue of humanity requires, furely, a fenfibility, much beyond what is poffeffed by the rude vulgar of mankind. The great and exalted virtue of magnanimity undoubtedly demands much more than that degree of felf-command, which the weakest of mortals is capable of exerting. As in the common degree of the intellectual qualities, there is no abilities; fo in the common degree of the moral, there is no virtue. Virtue is excellence, fomething uncommonly great and beautiful, which rifes far above what is vulgar and ordinary. The amiable virtues confift in that degree of fenfibility which furprises by its exquifite and unexpected delicacy and tenderness. The awful and refpectable, in that degree of self-command which aftonishes by its amazing fuperiority over the most ungovernable paffions of human nature.

There is, in this refpect, a confiderable difference between virtue and mere propriety; between thofe qualities and actions which deferve to be admired and celebrated, and those which fimply deferve to be approved of. Upon many occafions, to act with the most perfect propriety, requires no more than that common and ordinary degree of fenfibility or self-command which the

most worthless of mankind are poffeft of, and sometimes even that degree is not neceflary. Thus, to give a very low inftance, to eat when we are hungry, is certainly, upon ordinary occafions, perfectly right and proper, and cannot miss being approved of as fuch by every body. Nothing however, could be more abfurd than to fay it was virtuous.

On the contrary, there may frequently be a confiderable degree of virtue in those actions which fall fhort of the most perfect propriety; because they may ftill approach nearer to perfection than could well be expected upon occafions in which it was fo extremely difficult to attain it: and this is very often the cafe upon those occafions which require the greatest exertions of felf-command. There are fome fituations which bear fo hard upon human nature, that the greatest degree of selfgovernment, which can belong to fo imperfect a creature as man, is not able to ftifle, altogether, the voice of human weakness, or reduce the violence of the paffions to that pitch of moderation, in which the impartial spectator can entirely enter into them. Though in thofe cafes, therefore, the behaviour of the fufferer fall fhort of the moft perfect propriety, it may ftill deserve some applause, and even in a certain fenfe, may be denominated virtuous. It may ftill manifeft an effort of generofity and magnanimity of which the greater part of men are incapable; and though it fails of abfolute perfection, it may be a much nearer approximation towards perfection, than

what,

what, upon fuch trying occafions, is commonly either to be found or to be expected.

In cafes of this kind, when we are determining the degree of blame or applaufe which feems due to any action, we very frequently make ufe of two different ftandards. The firft is the idea of complete propriety and perfection, which, in thofe difficult fituations, no human conduct ever did, or ever can come up to; and in comparison with which the actions of all men muft for ever appear blameable and imperfect. The fecond is the idea of that degree of proximity or diftance from this complete perfection, which the actions of the greater part of men commonly arrive at. Whatever goes beyond this degree, how far foever it may be removed from abfolute perfection, seems to deferve applaufe; and whatever falls fhort of it, to deferve blame.

It is in the fame manner that we judge of the productions of all the arts which addrefs themfelves to the imagination. When a critic examines the work of any of the great mafters of poetry or painting, he may fometimes examine it by an idea of perfection, in his own mind, which neither that nor any other human work will ever come up to; and as long as he compares it with this ftandard, he can fee nothing in it but faults and imperfections. But when he comes to confider the rank which it ought to hold among other works of the fame kind, he neceffarily compares it with a very different standard, the common degree of excellence which is ufually attained in this VOL. I.

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