CHAP. I.

Of the causes of this influence of fortune.

T

HE causes of pain and pleasure, whatever they are, or however they operate, feem to be the objects, which, in all animals, immediately excite those two paffions of gratitude and resentment. They are excited by inanimated, as well as by animated objects. We are angry, for a moment, even at the ftone that hurts us. A child beats it, a dog barks at it, a choleric man is apt to curse it. The leaft reflection, indeed, corrects this fentiment, and we foon become fenfible, that what has no feeling is a very improper object of revenge. When the mifchief, however, is very great, the object which caufed it becomes difagreeable to us ever after, and we take pleasure to burn or destroy it. We should treat, in this manner, the inftrument which had accidentally been the cause of the death of a friend, and we should often think ourfelves guilty of a fort of inhumanity, if we neglected to vent this abfurd fort of vengeance upon it.

We conceive, in the fame manner, a fort of gratitude for those inanimated objects, which have been the causes of great, or frequent pleasure to us. The failor, who, as foon as he got afhore, fhould mend his fire with the plank upon which he had just escaped

caped from a fhipwreek, would seem to be guilty of an unnatural action. We should

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expect that he would rather preserve it with care and affection, as a monument that was, in fome measure, dear to him. A man grows fond of a fnuff-box, of a pen-knife, of a staff which he has long made ufe of, and conceives fomething like a real love and affection for them. If he breaks or lofes them, he is vexed out of all proportion to the value of the damage. The house which we have long lived in, the tree, whose verdure and shade we have long enjoyed, are both looked upon with fort of respect that seems due to fuch benefacThe decay of the one, or the ruin of the other, affects us with a kind of melancholy, though we should fuftain no lofs by it. The Dryads and the Lares of the ancients, a fort of genii of trees and houses, were probably first fuggefted by this fort of affection, which the authors of thofe fuperftitions felt for such objects, and which seemed unreasonable, if there was nothing animated about them.

tors.

But, before any thing can be the proper object of gratitude or refentment, it must not only be the cause of pleasure or pain, it must likewise be capable of feeling them. Without this other quality, thofe paffions cannot vent themselves with any fort of fatisfaction upon it. it. As they are excited by the causes of pleasure and pain, fo their gratification confifts in retaliating those fenfations upon what gave occafion to them; which it is to no pur

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pofe

pofe to attempt upon what has no fenfibility. Animals, therefore, are lefs improper objects of gratitude and refentment than inanimated objects. The dog that bites, the ox that gores, are both of them punished. If they have been the caufes of the death of any perfon, neither the public, nor the relations of the flain, can be fatisfied, unless they are put to death in their turn: nor is this merely for the fecurity of the living, but, in fome meafure, to revenge the injury of the dead. Those animals, on the contrary, that have been remarkably serviceable to their masters, become the objects of a very lively gratitude. We are fhocked at the brutality of that officer, mentioned in the Turkish Spy, who stabbed the horse that had carried him a-crofs an arm of the fea, left that animal fhould afterwards distinguish some other perfon by a fimilar ad

venture.

But, though animals are not only the causes of pleasure and pain, but are alfo capable of feeling those fenfations, they are still far from being compleat and perfect objects, either of gratitude or refentment; and those paffions ftill feel, that there is fomething wanting to their entire gratification. What gratitude chiefly defires, is not only to make the benefactor feel pleafure in his turn, but to make him confcious that he meets with this reward on account of his paft conduct, to make him pleafed with that conduct, and to fatisfy him, that the perfon upon whom he bestowed his good offices was not unworthy of them.

What

What most of all charms us in our benefactor, is the concord between his fentiments and our own, with regard to what interefts us fo nearly as the worth of our own character, and the esteem that is due to us. We are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the reft of mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish ourselves. To maintain in him these agreeable and flattering fentiments, is one of the chief ends proposed by the returns we are difpofed to make to him. A generous mind often difdains the interested thought of extorting new favours from its benefactor, by what may be called the importunities of its gratitude. But to preferve and to increase his esteem, is an interest which the greatest mind does not think unworthy of its attention. And this is the foundation of what I formerly observed, that when we cannot enter into the motives of our benefactor, when his conduct and character appear unworthy of our approbation, let his fervices have been ever fo great, our gratitude is always fenfibly diminished. We are less flattered by the distinction; and to preserve the esteem of so weak, or fo worthless a patron, seems to be an object which does not deserve to be pursued for its own fake.

The object, on the contrary, which resentment is chiefly intent upon, is not so much to make our enemy feel pain in his turn, as to make him confcious that he feels it upon account of his paft conduct, to make him repent

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pent of that conduct, and to make him senfible, that the person whom he injured did not deferve to be treated in that manner. What chiefly enrages us against the man who injures or infults us, is the little account which he seems to make of us, the unreasonable preference which he gives to himself above us, and that abfurd felf-love, by which he seems to imagine, that other people may be facrificed at any time, to his conveniency or his humour. The glaring impropriety of this conduct, the grofs infolence and injustice which it feems to involve in it, often shock and exafperate us more than all the mischief which we have fuffered. To bring him back to a more just sense of what is due to other people, to make him fenfible of what he owes us, and of the wrong that he has done to us, is frequently the principal end proposed in our revenge, which is always imperfect when it cannot accomplish this. When our enemy appears to have done us no injury, when we are sensible that he acted quite properly, that, in his fituation, we fhould have done the fame thing, and that we deserved from him all the mischief we met with; in that cafe, if we have the leaft fpark either of candour or juftice, we can entertain no fort of refentment.

Before any thing, therefore, can be the compleat and proper object, either of gratitude or refentment, it must poffefs three different qualifications. First, it must be the cause of pleasure in the one cafe, and of pain