pain which any little incident may give them; and those who are more thoroughly formed to fociety, turn, of their own accord, all fuch incidents into raillery, as they know their companions will do for them. The habit which a man, who lives in the world, has acquired of confidering how every thing that concerns himself will appear to others, makes those frivolous calamities turn up in the fame ridiculous light to him, in which he knows they will cer tainly be considered by them.

Our fympathy, on the contrary, with deep diftrefs, is very strong and very fincere. It is unnecessary to give an instance. We weep even at the feigned reprefentation of a tragedy. If you labour, therefore, under any fignal calamity, if by fome extraordinary misfortune you are fallen into poverty, into diseases, into difgrace and disappointment; even though your own fault may have been, in part, the occafion, yet you may generally depend upon the fincereft fympathy of all your friends, and, as far as intereft and honour will permit, upon

their kindeft affiftance too.

But if your

misfortune is not of this dreadful kind, if you have only been a little baulked in your ambition, if you have only been jilted by your mistrefs, or are only hen-pecked by your wife, lay your account with the raillery of all your acquaintance.

11 3

SECTION III.

Of the Effects of Prosperity and Adversity upon the Judgment of Mankind with regard to the Propriety of Action; and why it is more eafy to obtain their Approbation in the one ftate than in the other.

CHAP. I.

That though our Sympathy with forrow is generally a more lively fenfation than our Sympathy with joy, it commonly falls much more fhort of the violence of what is naturally felt by the perfon principally concerned.

OUR fympathy with forrow, though not

more real, has been more taken notice. of than our sympathy with joy. The word fympathy, in its most

proper and primitive

fignification, denotes our fellow-feeling with the fufferings, not that with the enjoyments, of others. A late ingenious and fubtile philofopher thought it neceffary to prove, by arguments, that we had a real fympathy with joy, and that congratulation was a principle of human nature. Nobody, I believe, ever thought it neceffary to prove that compaffion was fuch.

First of all, our fympathy with forrow is, in fome fenfe, more univerfal than that with joy. Though forrow is excessive, we may ftill have fome fellow-feeling with it. What we feel does not, indeed, in this case, amount to that complete fympathy, to that perfect harmony and correfpondence of fentiments which conftitutes approbation. We do not weep, and exclaim, and lament, with the sufferer. We are fenfible, on the contrary, of his weakness and of the extravagance of his paffion, and yet often feel a very fenfible concern upon his account. But if we do not entirely enter into, and go along with, the joy of another, we have no fort of regard or fellow-feeling for it.

The man who skips and dances about with that intemperate and fenfelefs joy which we cannot accompany him in, is the object of our contempt and indignation.

Pain befides, whether of mind or body, is a more pungent fenfation than pleasure, and our fympathy with pain, though it falls greatly short of what is naturally felt by the fufferer, is generally a more lively and diftinct perception than our fympathy with pleasure, though this last often approaches more nearly, as I fhall fhew immediately, to the natural vivacity of the original paffion.

Over and above all this, we often struggle to keep down our fympathy with the forrow of others. Whenever we are not under the observation of the sufferer, we endeavour, for our own fake, to suppress it as much as we can, and we are not always fuccessful. The oppofition which we make to it, and the reluctance with which we yield to it, neceffarily oblige us to take more particular notice of it. But we never