of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.

this

As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation. Tho' our brother is upon the rack, as long as we are at our own ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did, nor ever can carry us beyond our own persons, and it is by the imagination only, that we can form any conception of what are his sensations. Neither can that faculty help us to any other way, than by representing to us what would be our own, if we were in his case. It is the impressions of our own senses only, not those of his, which our imaginations copy. By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something, which, tho' weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them. His agonies, when they are thus brought home toourselves, whenwehave thus adopted and made thein our own, begin at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder, at the thought of what he feels. For as to be in pain or distress of any kind excites the most excessive sorrow, so to conceive or to imagine that we are in it, excites somedegree of the same emotion, in proportion to the vivacity or dulness of the conception.

That this is the source of our fellow-feeling for the misery of others, that it is by changing places in fancy with the sufferer that we

come either to conceive or be affect ed by what he feels, may be demonstrated by many obvious observations, if it should not be thought sufficiently evident of itself. When we see a stroke aimed and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another person, we naturally shrink and draw back our own leg, or our own arm; and when it does fall, we feel it in some measure, and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer. The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the slack rope, naturally writhe and twist, and balance their own bodies, as they see him do, and as they feel that they themselves must do in his situation. Persons of delicate fibres, and a weak constitution of body, complain, that in looking on the sores and ulcers that are exposed by beggars in the streets, they are apt to feel an itching or uneasy sensation in the corresponding part of their own bodies. The horror which they conceive at the misery of those wretches, affects that particular part in themselves, more than any other; because that horror arises from conceiving what they themselves would suffer, if they really were the wretches whom they are looking upon, and if that particular part in themselves was actually affected in the same miserable manner. The very force of this conception is sufficient, in their feeble frames, to produce that itching or uneasy sensation complained of. Men of the most robust make, observe that in looking upon sore eyes they often feel a very sensible soreness in their own, which proceeds from the same reason; that organ being in the strongest man more delicate than any other part of the body is in the weakest.

Neither

Neither is it those circumstances only, which create pain or sorrow, that call forth our fellow-feeling. Whatever is the passion which arises from any object in the person prin cipally concerned, an analogous emotion springs up, at the thought of his situation, in the breast of every attentive spectator. Our joy for the deliverance of those heroes of tragedy or romance who interest us, is as sincere as our grief for their distress, and our fellow-feeling with their misery is not more real than with their happiness. We enter into their gratitude towards those faithful friends, who did not desert them in their difficulties; and we heartily go along with their resentment against those perfidious traitors, who injured, abandoned, or deceived them. In every passion, of which the mind of man is susceptible, the emotions of the by-stander always correspond to what, by bringing the case home to himself, he imagines, should be the senti ments of the sufferer.

Pity and compassion are words appropriated to signify our fellow feeling with the sorrow of others. Sympathy, tho' its meaning was, perhaps, originally the same, may now, however, without much impropriety, be made use of to denote our fellow-feeling with any passion whatever.

Upon some occasions sympathy may seem to arise merely from the view of a certain emotion in another person. The passions, upon some occasions, may seem to be transfused from one man to another, instantaneously,and antecedent to any knowledge of what excited them in the person principally concerned, Grief and joy, for example, strongly expressed in the look and gestures

of any one, at once affect the spectator with some degree of a like painful or agreeable emotion. A smiling face is, to every body that sees it, a chearful object; as a sørrowful countenance, on the other hand, is a melancholy one.

This, however, does not hold universally with regard to every pas sion. There are some of which the expressions excite no sort of sympa thy, but before we are acquainted with what gave occasion to them, serve rather to disgust and provoke us against them. The furious bes haviour of an angry man is more likely to exasperate us against himself, than against his enemies. As we are unacquainted with his provocation, we cannot bring his case home to ourselves, nor conceive any thing like the passions which it excites. But we plainly see what is the situation of those with whom he is angry, and to what violence they may be exposed from so enraged an adversary. We readily, therefore, sympathize with their fear or resentment, and are immediately disposed to take part against the man, from whom they appear to be in so much danger.

If the very appearances of grief and joy inspire us with some degree of the like emotions, it is because they suggest to us the general idea of some good or bad fortune that has befallen the person in whom we observe them, and in these passions this is sufficient to have some little influence upon us. The effects of grief and joy terminate in the person who feels those emotions, of which the expressions do not, like those of resentment, suggest to us the idea of any other person for whom we are concerned,and whose interests are opposite to his. The general

I i 4

general idea of good or bad fortune, therefore, creates some concern for the person who has met with it; but the general idea of provocation excites no sympathy with the anger of the man who has received it. Nature, it seems, teaches us to be more averse to enter into this passion, and, till informed of its cause, to be disposed rather to take part against it. Even our sympathy with the grief or joy of another, before we are informed of the cause of either, is always extremely imperfect. General lamentations, which express nothing but the anguish of the sufferer, create rather a curiosity to inquire into his situation, along with some disposition to sympathize with him, than actual sympathy that is very sensible. The first question that we ask is, What has befallen you? Till this be answered, tho' we are uneasy, both from the vague idea of his misfortune, and still more from torturing ourselves with conjectures about what it may be, yet our fellow-feeling is not very considerable.

Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of the passion, as from that of the situation which excites it. We sometimes feel for another a passion of which he himself seems to be altogether incapable; because when we put ourselves in his case, that passion arises in our breast from the imagination, though it does not in his from the reality. We blush for the impudence and rudeness of another, though he himself appears to have no sense of the impropriety of his own behaviour, because we cannot help feeling with what confusion we ourselves should be covered, had we behaved in so absurd a manner.

Of all the calamities to which the

condition of mortality exposes man kind, the loss of reason appears, to those who have the least spark of humanity, by far the most dreadful, and they behold that last stage of human wretchedness with deeper commiseration than any other. But the poor wretch, who is in it, laughs and sings perhaps, and is altogether insensible of his own misery. The anguish which humanity feels,therefore, at the sight of such an object, cannot be the reflection of any sentiment of the sufferer. The compassion of the spectator must arise altogether from the consideration of what he himself would feel if he was reduced to the same unhappy situation, and, what perhaps is impossible, was at the same time able to regard it with his present reason and judgment.

What are the pangs of a mother when she hears the moaning of her infant, that during the agony of disease cannot express what it feels? In her idea of what it suffers, she joins, to its real helplessness, her own consciousness of that helplessness, and her own terrors for the unknown consequences of its disorder; and out of all these forms, for her own sorrow, the most complete image of misery and distress. The infant, however, feels only the uneasiness of the present instant, which can never be great. With regard to the future it is perfectly secure, and in its thoughtlessness and want of foresight, possesses an antidote against fear and anxiety, the great tormentors of the human breast, from which reason and philosophy will in vain attempt to defend it when it grows up to a man.

We sympathize even with the dead, and overlooking what is of real importance in their situation, that

aweful

aweful futurity which awaits them, we are chiefly affected by those circumstances which strike our senses, but can have no influence upon their happiness. It is miserable, we think, to be deprived of the light of the sun; to be shut out from life and conversation; to be laid in the cold grave a prey to corruption and the reptiles of the earth; to be no more thought of in this world, but to be obliterated in a little time from the affections and almost from the memory of their dearest friends and relations. Surely, we imagine, we. can never feel too much for those who have suffered so dreadful a calamity. The tribute of our fellowfeeling seems doubly due to them now when they are in danger of being forgot by every body; and, by the vain honours which we pay to their memory, we endeavour, for our own misery, artificially to keep alive our melancholy remembrance of their misfortune. That our sympathy can afford them no consolation, seems to be an addition to their calamity; and to think that all we can do is unavailing, and that, what alleviates all other distress, the regret, love, and the lamentation of their friends, can yield no comfort to them, serves only to exasperate our sense of the misery. The happiness of the dead, however, most assuredly is affected by none of these circumstances; nor is it the thought of these things. which can ever disturb the security of their repose. The idea of that dreary and endless melancholy, which the fancy naturally ascribes to their condition, arises altogether from our join ing to the change which has been produced upon them, our own consciousness of that change, from our

putting ourselves in their situation, and from our lodging, if I may be allowed to say so, our own living souls in their inanimated bodies, and thence conceiving what would be our emotions in this case. It is this very illusion of the imagination which renders the foresight of our own dissolution so terrible to us, and the idea of those circumstances, which undoubtedly can give us no pain when we are dead, makes us iniserable while we are alive. And from thence arises one of the most important principles in human nature, the dread of death, the great poison to the happiness, but the great restraint upon the injustice of mankind, which, while it affliets and mortifies the individuals, guards and protects the society."

important and interesting in itself. The history of Scotland furnished him with a long detail of facts prior to their great revolution in religion, and in political connections; but he has happily thrown all of that aside, except what does in some measure lead to and explain the great events of that interesting period. And after the accession of James I. to the crown of England, he again contracts his plan, and satisfies himself with a general view of the state of Scotland to the Union; sensible that from this period the affairs of that kingdom naturally made part of the English history, and that they could not be treated of separately, but in a disorderly and unconnected manner. The same judgment appears every where in the conduct of the work; the reader is never tired, and pays as little for a great deal of instruction as can be imagined. He is admirable for the clearness with which he states all the points relative to politics and manners, that may make for the illustration of his narrative; and nobody ever introduced or made them blend with the body of the story with more propriety or grace; his account of the ancient feudal constitution is one of the best specimens of his mastery in this way.

"At the time when Robert Bruce began his reign in Scotland, the same form of government was established in all the kingdoms of Europe. And the surprising similarity in their constitution and laws, demonstrates that the nations which overturned the Roman empire, and erected these kingdoms, tho' divided into different tribes, and

*Cæs. lib. vi. c. 23,

distinguished by different names, were originally the same people. When we take a view of the feudal system of laws and policy, that stupendous and singular fabric erected by them, the first object that strikes us is the King. And when we are told that he is the sole proprietor of all the lands within his dominions, that all the subjects derive their possessions from him, and in return consecrate their lives to his service; when we hear that all marks of distinction, and titles of dignity, flow from him, as the only fountain of honour; when we behold the most potent peers, on their bended knees, and with folded hands, swearing fealty at his feet, and acknowledg ing him to be their Sovereign, and their Liege Lord; we are apt to pronounce him a powerful, nay an absolute monarch. No conclusion, however, would be more rash, or worse founded. The genius of the feudal government was purely aristocratical. With all the ensights of royalty, and with many appearances of despotic power, a feudal King was the most limited of all princes.

Before they sallied out of their own habitations to conquer the world, many of the northern nations seem not to have been subject to the government of Kings* ; and even where monarchical government was established, the Prince possessed but little authority. A general rather than a king, his military command was extensive, his civil jurisdiction almost nothing. The army which he led was not composed of soldiers, who could be compelled to serve, but of such as voluntarily followed his standard. These conquered