CHA P. V. The analysis of the fenfe of merit and demerit. A I. S our fenfe, therefore, of the propriety of conduct arifes from what I fhall call a direct fympathy with the affections and motives of the perfon who acts, fo our fenfe of its merit arifes from what I shall call an indirect fympathy with the gratitude of the perfon who is, if I may fay fo, acted upon. As we cannot indeed enter thoroughly into the gratitude of the person who receives the benefit, unless we beforehand approve of the motives of the benefactor, fo, upon this account, the fenfe of merit feems to be a compounded fentiment, and to be made up of two diftinct emotions; a direct fympathy with the fentiments of the agent, and an indirect fympathy with the gratitude of those who receive the benefit of his actions. We may, upon many different occafions, plainly distinguish thofe two different emotions combining and uniting together in our fenfe of the good defert of a particular character or action. When we read in hiftory concerning actions of proper and beneficent greatnefs of mind, how eagerly do we enter into fuch defigns? How much are we animated by that high-spirited generosity which directs them? How keen are we for their fuccefs? 6 fuccefs? How grieved at their difappointment? In imagination we become the very person whofe actions are reprefented to us : we transport ourselves in fancy to the scenes of those distant and forgotten adventures, and imagine ourselves acting the part of a Scipio or a Camillus, a Timoleon or an Ariftides. So far our sentiments are founded upon the direct fympathy with the perfon who acts. Nor is the indirect fympathy with those who receive the benefit of fuch actions lefs fenfibly felt. Whenever we place ourselves in the fituation of thefe laft, with what warm and affectionate fellow-feeling do we enter into their gratitude towards those who served them. fo effentially? We embrace, as it were, their benefactor along with them. Our heart readily fympathises with the highest transports of their grateful affection. No honours, no rewards, we think, can be too great for them to bestow upon him. When they make this proper return for his fervices, we heartily applaud and go along with them; but are shocked beyond all measure, if by their conduct they appear to have little fenfe of the obligations conferred upon them. Our whole fenfe, in fhort, of the merit and good defert of fuch actions, of the propriety and fitness of recompenfing them, and making the fon who performed them rejoice in his turn, arifes from the fympathetic emotions of gratitude and love, with which, when we bring home to our own breaft the fituation of thofe principally concerned, we feel ourselves na per turally turally transported towards the man who could act with fuch proper and noble beneficence. 2. In the fame manner as our fenfe of the impropriety of conduct arises from a want of fympathy, or from a direct antipathy to the affections and motives of the agent, fo our fenfe of its demerit arifes from what I fhall here too call an indirect sympathy with the refentment of the fufferer. As we cannot indeed enter into the refentment of the fufferer, unless our heart beforehand difapproves the motives of the agent, and renounces all fellow-feeling with them fo upon this account the fenfe of demerit, as well as that of merit, seems to be a compounded fentiment, and to be made up of two distinct emotions; a direct antipathy to the sentiments of the agent, and an indirect fympathy with the resentment of the sufferer. We may here too, upon many different occafions, plainly diftinguish those two different emotions combining and uniting together in our fenfe of the ill defert of a particular character or action. When we read in history concerning the perfidy and cruelty of a Borgia or a Nero, our heart rifes up against the deteftable fentiments which influenced their conduct, and renounces with horror and abomination all fellow-feeling with fuch execrable motives. So far our fentiments are founded upon the direct antipathy to the affections of the agent : and the indirect fympathy pathy with the refentment of the sufferers is ftill more fenfibly felt. When we bring home to ourselves the fituation of the perfons whom thofe fcourges of mankind insulted, murdered, or betrayed, what indignation do we not feel against fuch infolent and inhuman oppreffors of the earth? Our fympathy with the unavoidable diftrefs of the innocent fufferers is not more real nor more lively, than our fellow-feeling with their juft and natural refentment. The former fentiment only heightens the latter, and the idea of their diftrefs ferves only to inflame and blow up our animofity against those who occafioned it. When we think of the anguish of the sufferers, we take part with them more earnestly against their oppreffors; we enter with more eagerness into all their schemes of vengeance, and feel ourselves every moment wreaking, in imagination, upon fuch violators of the laws of fociety, that punishment which our sympathetic indignation tells us is due to their crimes. Our fenfe of the horror and dreadful atrocity of fuch conduct, the delight which we take in hearing that it was properly punished, the indignation which we feel when it escapes this due retaliation, our whole fenfe and feeling, in fhort, of its ill defert, of the propriety and fitness of inflicting evil upon the perfon who is guilty of it, and of making him grieve in his turn, arises from the sympathetic indignation which naturally boils up in the breast of the spectator, whenever whenever he thoroughly brings home to himfelf the cafe of the fufferer *. * To afcribe in this manner our natural fenfe of the ill defert of human actions to a fympathy with the refentment of the sufferer, may feem, to the greater part of people, to be a degradation of that fentiment. Refentment is commonly regarded as fo odious a paffion, that they will be apt to think it impoffible that fo laudable a principle, as the fenfe of the ill defert of vice, fhould in any respect be founded upon it. They will be more willing, perhaps, to admit that our fenfe of the merit of good actions is founded upon a fympathy with the gratitude of the perfons who receive the benefit of them; because gratitude, as well as all the other benevolent paffions, is regarded as an amiable principle, which can take nothing from the worth of whatever is founded upon it. Gratitude and refentment, however, are in every respect, it is evident, counterparts to one another; and if our fenfe of merit arifes from a fympathy with the one, our sense of demerit can fcarce mifs to proceed from a fellow-feeling with the other. Let it be confidered too that refentment, though, in the degrees in which we too often fee it, the moft odious, perhaps of all the paffions, is not difapproved of when properly humbled and entirely brought down to the level of the fympathetic indignation of the spectator. When we, who are the bystanders, feel that our own animofity intirely correfponds with that of the fufferer, when the refentment of this laft does not in any refpect go beyond our own, when no word, no gefture, efcapes him that denotes an emotion more violent than what we can keep time to, and when he never aims at inflicting any punishment beyond what we fhould rejoice to fee inflicted, or what we ourselves would upon this account even defire to be the inftruments of inflicting, it is impoffible, that we should not entirely approve of his fentiments. Our own emotion in this cafe muft, in our eyes, undoubtedly justify his. And as experience teaches us how much the greater part of mankind are incapable of this moderation, and how great an effort must be made in order to bring down the rude and undisciplined impulfe of refentment to this fuitable |