their calamities. To feem not to be affected with the joy of our companions is but want of politeness; but not to wear a serious countenance when they tell us their afflictions, is real and gross inhumanity.

Love is an agreeable; refentment, a difagreeable, passion: and accordingly we are not half fo anxious that our friends fhould adopt our friendships, as that they should enter into our refentments. We can forgive them though they seem to be little affected with the favours which we may have received, but lose all patience if they seem indifferent about the injuries which may have been done to us: nor are we half so angry with them for not entering into our gratitude, as for not fympathifing with our refentment. They can easily avoid being friends to our friends, but can hardly avoid being enemies to those with whom we are at variance. We feldom refent their being at enmity with the first, though upon that account we may fometimes affect to make an aukward quarrel with them; but we quarrel with them in good earnest if they live in friendship with the last. agreeable paffions of love and joy can fatisfy and fupport the heart without any auxiliary pleasure. The bitter and painful emotions of grief and refentment more strongly require the healing confolation of fympathy.

The

As the perfon who is principally interested in any event is pleafed with our fympathy, and hurt by the want of it, fo we, too, feem to be pleafed when we are able to fympathize

with him, and to be hurt when we are unable to do so. We run not only to congratulate the fuccefsful, but to condole with the afflicted; and the pleasure which we find in the the conversation of one whom in all the pasfions of his heart we can entirely fympathize with, feems to do more than compenfate the painfulness of that forrow with which the view of his fituation affects us. On the contrary, it is always difagreeable to feel that we cannot fympathize with him, and instead of being pleafed 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 fpleen, 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 humour 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.

CHA P. 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.

WH

HEN the original paffions of the perfon principally concerned are in perfect concord with the fympathetic emotions of the spectator, they neceffarily appear to this last just 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 unjust and improper, and unfuitable to the causes which excite them. To approve of the paffions of another, therefore, as fuitable to their objects, is the fame thing, as to obferve that we entirely sympathize with them; and not to approve of them as fuch, is the fame thing as to obferve that we do not entirely fympathize with them. The man who refents the injuries that have been done to me, and obferves that I refent them precisely as he does, neceffarily approves of my refentment. The man whofe fympathy keeps time to my grief, cannot but admit the reasonableness of my forrow. He who admires the same poem, or the fame picture, and admires them exactly as I do, must furely allow the justness 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 difapproving my fentiments 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 compaffion can go along with; my admiration is either too high or too low to tally with his own; if I laugh loud and heartily when he only fmiles, or, on the contrary, only fmile 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 approbation and upon disappro= all occafions his own fentiments are the lotion standards and measures by which he judges

if

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 should do the one without the other. To approve or difapprove, therefore, of the opinions of others

C

others is acknowledged, by every body, to mean no more than to obferve their agreement or difagreement with, our own. But this is equally the cafe with regard to our approbation or difapprobation of the fentiments or paffions of others.

There are, indeed, fome cafes in which we seem to approve without any fympathy or correfpondence of fentiments, and in which, confequently, the fentiment of approbation would feem 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 judgments of mankind are lefs apt to be perverted by wrong fyftems. We We may often approve of a jeft, and think the laughter of the company quite juft and proper, though we ourfelves do not laugh, becaufe, perhaps, we are in a grave humour, 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; because, though in our present mood we cannot eafily enter into it, we are fenfible that upon moft occafions we fhould very heartily join in it.