CHA P. II.

Of the Pleafure of mutual Sympathy.

UT whatever be the cause of fymBUT

may

pathy, or however it may be excited, nothing pleases us more than to obferve in other men a fellow-feeling with all the emotions of our own breaft; nor are we ever so much shocked as by the appearance of the contrary. Those who are fond of deducing all our fentiments from certain refinements of felf-love, think themselves at no lofs to account, according to their own principles, both for this pleasure and this pain. Man, fay they, confcious of his own. weakness, and of the need which he has for the affiftance of others, rejoices whenever he observes that they adopt his own paffions, because he is then affured of that affiftance; and grieves whenever he obferves the contrary, becaufe he is then affured of their oppofition. But both the pleasure and the

pain are always felt so instantaneously, and often upon fuch frivolous occafions, that it feems evident that neither of them can be derived from any such self-interested confideration. A man is mortified when, after having endeavoured to divert the company, he looks round and fees that nobody laughs at his jefts but himself. On the contrary, the mirth of the company is highly agreeable to him, and he regards this correfpondence of their fentiments with his own as the greatest applause.

Neither does his pleafure feem to arife altogether from the additional vivacity which his mirth may receive from sympathy with theirs, nor his pain from the disappointment he meets with when he miffes this pleafure; though both the one and the other, no doubt, do in fome measure. When we have read a book or poem fo often that we can no longer find any amusement in reading it by ourselves, we can still take pleafure in reading it to a companion. To him it has all the graces of novelty; we enter into the surprise and admiration which it natu

rally

rally excites in him, but which it is no longer capable of exciting in us; we confider all the ideas which it presents, rather in the light in which they appear to him, than in that in which they appear to ourselves, and we are amused by sympathy with his amusement, which thus enlivens our own. On the contrary, we should be vexed if he did not seem to be entertained with it, and we could no longer take any pleasure in reading it to him. It is the fame cafe here. The mirth of the company, no doubt, enlivens our own mirth; and their filence, no doubt, difappoints us. But though this may contribute both to the pleasure which we derive from the one, and to the pain which we feel from the other, it is by no means the fole caufe of either; and this torrefpondence of the fentiments of others with our own appears to be a cause of pleasure, and the want of it a cause of pain, which cannot be accounted for in this manner. The fympathy, which my friends express with my joy, might, indeed, give me pleasure by enlivening that joy: but that which they express with my grief could give

VOL. I.

give me none, if it ferved only to enliven that grief. Sympathy, however, enlivens joy and alleviates grief. It enlivens joy by prefenting another fource of fatisfaction; and it alleviates grief by infinuating into the heart almoft the only agreeable fenfation which it is at that time capable of receiving.

It is to be obferved accordingly, that we are ftill more anxious to communicate to our friends our disagreeable, than our agreeable paffions, that we derive ftill more fatisfaction from their fympathy with the former than from that with the latter, and that we are still more fhocked by the want of it.

How are the unfortunate relieved when they have found out a perfon to whom they can communicate the cause of their forrow? Upon his fympathy they feem to difburthen themfelves of a part of their diftrefs: he is not improperly faid to fhare it with them. He not only feels a forrow of the fame kind with that which they feel, but as if he had derived a part of it to himself, what

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what he feels feems to alleviate the weight) of what they feel. Yet by relating their misfortunes they in fome measure renew their grief. They awaken in their memory the remembrance of those circumstances which occafion their affliction. Their tears accordingly flow fafter than before, and they are apt to abandon themselves to all the weakness of forrow. They take pleafure, however, in all this, and, it is evident, are fenfibly relieved by it; because the sweetness of his fympathy more than compenfates the bitterness of that forrow, which, in order to excite this fympathy, they had thus enlivened and renewed. The crueleft infult, on the contrary, which can be offered to the unfortunate, is to appear to make light of their calamities. To seem not to be affected with the joy of our companions, is but want of politeness; but not to wear a ferious countenance when they tell us their afflictions, is real and grofs inhumanity.

Love is an agreeable; refentment, a difagreeable paffion; and accordingly we