OF SYSTEMS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
SEC. I. Of the Questions which ought to be examined
in a Theory of Moral Sentiments . . . 236-237
SEC. II. Of the different Accounts which have been
given of the Nature of Virtue--Introduction . 237
CH. I. Of those Systems which make Virtue consist
in Propriety . . . . . 237-260
CH. II. Of those Systems which make Virtue consist
in Prudence . . . . . 260-265
CH. III. Of those Systems which make Virtue consist
in Benevolence . . . . . 265-271
CH. IV. Of licentious Systems . . . 271-278
SEC. III. Of the different Systems which have been
formed concerning the Principle of
Approbation--Introduction . . . 279
CH. I. Of those Systems which deduce the Principle
of Approbation from Self-love . . . 279-281
CH. II. Of those Systems which make Reason
the Principle of Approbation . . . 282-284
CH. III. Of those Systems which make Sentiment
the Principle of Approbation . . . 285-290
SEC. IV. Of the Manner in which different Authors
have treated of the practical Rules of Morality 290-304 {8}
-----
CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE FORMATION OF LANGUAGES. 305-325
-----
ESSAYS ON PHILOSOPHICAL SUBJECTS.
THE PRINCIPLES WHICH LEAD AND DIRECT PHILOSOPHICAL
INQUIRIES, AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY 325-326
SEC. I. Of the Effects of Unexpectedness, or of
Surprise . . . . . 326-329
SEC. II. Of Wonder, or the Effects of Novelty . 329-337
SEC. III. Of the Origin of Philosophy . . 338-342
SEC. IV. The History of Astronomy . . . 342-384
-----
THE PRINCIPLES WHICH LEAD AND DIRECT PHILOSOPHICAL
INQUIRIES, ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT
PHYSICS . . . . . 385-395
-----
THE PRINCIPLES WHICH LEAD AND DIRECT PHILOSOPHICAL
INQUIRIES, ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT
LOGICS AND METAPHYSICS . . . . 395-405
-----
OF THE NATURE OF THAT IMITATION WHICH TAKES PLACE IN
WHAT ARE CALLED THE IMITATIVE ARTS . . . 405
Part I., 405-415. Part II., 415-432. Part III . 432-434
-----
OF THE AFFINITY BETWEEN MUSIC, DANCING, AND POETRY 435-438
-----
OF THE EXTERNAL SENSES . . . . 438-439
Of the Sense of Touching, 439-444. Of the Sense of
Tasting, 444-445. Of the Sense of Smelling, 445.
Of the Sense of Hearing, 445-450. Of the Sense of
Seeing . . . . . . 450-468
-----
OF THE AFFINITY BETWEEN CERTAIN ENGLISH AND ITALIAN
VERSES . . . . . . 468-473
THE
THEORY
OF
MORAL SENTIMENTS
-----
_Part I.--Of the Propriety of Action._
SEC. I.--OF THE SENSE OF PROPRIETY.
CHAP. I.--_Of Sympathy._
HOW selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some
principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others,
and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing
from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or
compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when
we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner.
That we often derive sorrow from the sorrow of others, is a matter of
fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this
sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by
no means confined to the virtuous and humane, though they perhaps may
feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the
most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether
without it.
As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form
no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving
what we ourselves should feel in the like situation. Though our
brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our
senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did, and
never can, carry us beyond our own person, and it is by the
imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his
sensations. Neither can that faculty help us to this any other way,
than by representing to us what would be our own, if we were in his
case. It is the impressions of our own senses only, not those of his,
which our imaginations copy. By the imagination we place ourselves in
his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments,
we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same
person with him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even
feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether
unlike them. His agonies, when they are thus brought home to
ourselves, when we have thus adopted and made them our own, begin at
last to affect us, {10} and we then tremble and shudder at the thought
of what he feels. For as to be in pain or distress of any kind excites
the most excessive sorrow, so to conceive or to imagine that we are in
it, excites some degree of the same emotion, in proportion to the
vivacity or dulness of the conception.
That this is the source of our fellow-feeling for the misery of
others, that it is by changing places in fancy with the sufferer, that
we come either to conceive or to be affected by what he feels, may be
demonstrated by many obvious observations, if it should not be thought
sufficiently evident of itself. When we see a stroke aimed and just
ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another person, we naturally
shrink and draw back our own leg or our own arm; and when it does
fall, we feel it in some measure, and are hurt by it as well as the
sufferer. The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the slack rope,
naturally writhe and twist and balance their own bodies, as they see
him do, and as they feel that they themselves must do if in his
situation. Persons of delicate fibres and a weak constitution of body
complain, that in looking on the sores and ulcers which are exposed by
beggars in the streets, they are apt to feel an itching or uneasy
sensation in the corresponding part of their own bodies. The horror
which they conceive at the misery of those wretches affects that
particular part in themselves more than any other; because that horror
arises from conceiving what they themselves would suffer, if they
really were the wretches whom they are looking upon, and if that
particular part in themselves was actually affected in the same
miserable manner. The very force of this conception is sufficient, in
their feeble frames, to produce that itching or uneasy sensation
complained of. Men of the most robust make, observe that in looking
upon sore eyes they often feel a very sensible soreness in their own,
which proceeds from the same reason; that organ being in the strongest
man more delicate, than any other part of the body is in the weakest.
Neither is it those circumstances only, which create pain or sorrow,
that call forth our fellow-feeling. Whatever is the passion which
arises from any object in the person principally concerned, an
analogous emotion springs up, at the thought of his situation, in the
breast of every attentive spectator. Our joy for the deliverance of
those heroes of tragedy or romance who interest us, is as sincere as
our grief for their distress, and our fellow-feeling with their misery
is not more real than that with their happiness. We enter into their
gratitude towards those faithful friends who did not desert them in
their difficulties; and we heartily go along with their resentment
against those perfidious traitors who injured, abandoned, or deceived
them. In every passion of which the mind of man is susceptible, the
emotions of the by-stander always correspond to what, by bringing the
case home to himself, he imagines should be the sentiments of the
sufferer.
{11} Pity and compassion are words appropriated to signify our
fellow-feeling with the sorrow of others. Sympathy, though its meaning
was, perhaps, originally the same, may now, however, without much
impropriety, be made use of to denote our fellow-feeling with any
passion whatever.
Upon some occasions sympathy may seem to arise merely from the view of
a certain emotion in another person. The passions, upon some
occasions, may seem to be transfused from one man to another,
instantaneously, and antecedent to any knowledge of what excited them
in the person principally concerned. Grief and joy, for example,
strongly expressed in the look and gestures of any one, at once affect
the spectator with some degree of a like painful or agreeable emotion.
A smiling face is, to everybody that sees it, a cheerful object; as a
sorrowful countenance, on the other hand, is a melancholy one.
This, however, does not hold universally, or with regard to every
passion. There are some passions of which the expressions excite no
sort of sympathy, but before we are acquainted with what gave occasion
to them, serve rather to disgust and provoke us against them. The
furious behaviour of an angry man is more likely to exasperate us
against himself than against his enemies. As we are unacquainted with
his provocation, we cannot bring his case home to ourselves, nor
conceive anything like the passions which it excites. But we plainly
see what is the situation of those with whom he is angry, and to what
violence they may be exposed from so enraged an adversary. We readily,
therefore, sympathise with their fear or resentment, and are
immediately disposed to take part against the man from whom they
appear to be in so much danger.
If the very appearances of grief and joy inspire us with some degree
of the like emotions, it is because they suggest to us the general
idea of some good or bad fortune that has befallen the person in whom
we observe them: and in these passions this is sufficient to have some
little influence upon us. The effects of grief and joy terminate in
the person who feels those emotions, of which the expressions do not,
like those of resentment, suggest to us the idea of any other person
for whom we are concerned, and whose interests are opposite to his.
The general idea of good or bad fortune, therefore, creates some
concern for the person who has met with it, but the general idea of
provocation excites no sympathy with the anger of the man who has
received it. Nature, it seems, teaches us to be more averse to enter
into this passion, and, till informed of its cause, to be disposed
rather to take part against it.
Even our sympathy with the grief or joy of another, before we are
informed of the cause of either, is always extremely imperfect.
General lamentations, which express nothing but the anguish of the
sufferer, create rather a curiosity to inquire into his situation,
along with some {12} disposition to sympathize with him, than any
actual sympathy that is very sensible. The first question which we ask
is, What has befallen you? Till this be answered, though we are uneasy
both from the vague idea of his misfortune, and still more from
torturing ourselves with conjectures about what it may be, yet our
fellow-feeling is not very considerable.
Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of the
passion, as from that of the situation which excites it. We sometimes
feel for another, a passion of which he himself seems to be altogether
incapable; because, when we put ourselves in his case, that passion
arises in our breast from the imagination, though it does not in his
from the reality. We blush for the impudence and rudeness of another,
though he himself appears to have no sense of the impropriety of his
own behaviour; because we cannot help feeling with what confusion we
ourselves should be covered, had we behaved in so absurd a manner.
Of all the calamities to which the condition of mortality exposes
mankind, the loss of reason appears, to those who have the least spark
of humanity, by far the most dreadful, and they behold that last stage
of human wretchedness, with deeper commiseration than any other. But
the poor wretch, who is in it, laughs and sings perhaps, and is
altogether insensible of his own misery. The anguish which humanity
feels, therefore, at the sight of such an object cannot be the
reflection of any sentiment of the sufferer. The compassion of the
spectator must arise altogether from the consideration of what he
himself would feel if he was reduced to the same unhappy situation,
and, what perhaps is impossible, was at the same time able to regard
it with his present reason and judgment.
What are the pangs of a mother, when she hears the moanings of her
infant that during the agony of disease cannot express what it feels?
In her idea of what it suffers, she joins, to its real helplessness,
her own consciousness of that helplessness, and her own terrors for
the unknown consequences of its disorder; and out of all these, forms,
for her own sorrow, the most complete image of misery and distress.
The infant, however, feels only the uneasiness of the present instant,
which can never be great. With regard to the future, it is perfectly
secure, and in its thoughtlessness and want of foresight, possesses an
antidote against fear and anxiety, the great tormentors of the human
breast, from which, reason and philosophy will, in vain, attempt to
defend it when it grows up to a man.
We sympathize even with the dead, and overlooking what is of real
importance in their situation, that awful futurity which awaits them,
we are chiefly affected by those circumstances which strike our
senses, but can have no influence upon their happiness. It is
miserable, we think, to be deprived of the light of the sun; to be
shut out from life and {13} conversation; to be laid in the cold
grave, a prey to corruption and the reptiles of the earth; to be no
more thought of in this world, but to be obliterated, in a little
time, from the affections, and almost from the memory, of their
dearest friends and relations. Surely, we imagine, we can never feel
too much for those who have suffered so dreadful a calamity. The
tribute of our fellow-feeling seems doubly due to them now, when they
are in danger of being forgot by every body; and, by the vain honours
which we pay to their memory, we endeavour, for our own misery,
artificially to keep alive our melancholy remembrance of their
misfortune. That our sympathy can afford them no consolation seems to
be an addition to their calamity; and to think that all we can do is
unavailing, and that, what alleviates all other distress, the regret,
the love, and the lamentations of their friends, can yield no comfort
to them, serves only to exasperate our sense of their misery. The
happiness of the dead, however, most assuredly, is affected by none of
these circumstances; nor is it the thought of these things which can
ever disturb the profound security of their repose. The idea of that
dreary and endless melancholy, which the fancy naturally ascribes to
their condition, arises altogether from our joining to the change
which has been produced upon them, our own consciousness of that
change, from our putting ourselves in their situation, and from our
lodging, if I may be allowed to say so, our own living souls in their
inanimated bodies, and thence conceiving what would be our emotions in
this case. It is from this very illusion of the imagination, that the
foresight of our own dissolution is so terrible to us, and that the
idea of those circumstances, which undoubtedly can give us no pain
when we are dead, makes us miserable while we are alive. And from
thence arises one of the most important principles in human nature,
the dread of death, the great poison to the happiness, but the great
restraint upon the injustice of mankind, which, while it afflicts and
mortifies the individual, guards and protects the society.
-----
CHAP. II.--_Of the Pleasure of mutual Sympathy._
BUT whatever may be the cause of sympathy, or however it may be
excited, nothing pleases us more than to observe in other men a
fellow-feeling with all the emotions of our own breast; nor are we ever
so much shocked as by the appearance of the contrary. Those who are
fond of deducing all our sentiments from certain refinements of
self-love, think themselves at no loss to account, according to their
own principles, both for this pleasure and this pain. Man, say they,
conscious of his own weakness, and of the need which he has for the
assistance of others, rejoices whenever he observes that they adopt
his own passions, because he is then assured of that assistance; and
{14} grieves whenever he observes the contrary, because he is then
assured of their opposition. But both the pleasure and the pain are
always felt so instantaneously, and often upon such frivolous
occasions, that it seems evident that neither of them can be derived
from any such self-interested consideration. A man is mortified when,
after having endeavoured to divert the company, he looks round and
sees that nobody laughs at his jests but himself. On the contrary, the
mirth of the company is highly agreeable to him, and he regards this
correspondence of their sentiments with his own as the greatest
applause.
Neither does his pleasure seem to arise 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 misses this
pleasure; though both the one and the other, no doubt, do in some
measure. When we have read a book or poem so often that we can no
longer find any amusement in reading it by ourselves, we can still
take pleasure in reading it to a companion. To him it has all the
graces of novelty; we enter into the surprise and admiration which it
naturally excites in him, but which it is no longer capable of
exciting in us; we consider 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 same case here. The mirth
of the company, no doubt, enlivens our own mirth, and their silence,
no doubt, disappoints 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 sole cause of either; and this
correspondence of the sentiments 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 sympathy, 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 me
none, if it served only to enliven that grief. Sympathy, however,
enlivens joy and alleviates grief. It enlivens joy by presenting
another source of satisfaction; and it alleviates grief by insinuating
into the heart almost the only agreeable sensation which it is at that
time capable of receiving.
It is to be observed accordingly, that we are still more anxious to
communicate to our friends our disagreeable than our agreeable
passions, that we derive still more satisfaction from their sympathy
with the former than from that with the latter, and that we are still
more shocked by the want of it.
How are the unfortunate relieved when they have found out a person to
whom they can communicate the cause of their sorrow? Upon his sympathy
they seem to disburthen themselves of a part of their {15} distress:
he is not improperly said to share it with them. He not only feels a
sorrow of the same kind with that which they feel, but, as if he had
derived a part of it to himself, what he feels seems to alleviate the
weight of what they feel. Yet by relating their misfortunes they in
some measure renew their grief. They awaken in their memory the
remembrance of those circumstances which occasion their affliction.
Their tears accordingly flow faster than before, and they are apt to
abandon themselves to all the weakness of sorrow. They take pleasure,
however, in all this, and, it is evident, are sensibly relieved by it;
because the sweetness of his sympathy more than compensates the
bitterness of that sorrow, which, in order to excite this sympathy,
they had thus enlivened and renewed. The cruellest insult, 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
serious countenance when they tell us their afflictions, is real and
gross inhumanity.
Love is an agreeable, resentment a disagreeable, passion; and
accordingly we are not half so anxious that our friends should adopt
our friendships, as that they should enter into our resentments. 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 sympathizing with our resentment. They can easily avoid being
friends to our friends, but can hardly avoid being enemies to those
with whom we are at variance. We seldom resent their being at enmity
with the first, though upon that account we may sometimes affect to
make an awkward quarrel with them; but we quarrel with them in good
earnest if they live in friendship with the last. The agreeable
passions of love and joy can satisfy and support the heart without any
auxiliary pleasure. The bitter and painful emotions of grief and
resentment more strongly require the healing consolation of sympathy.
As the person who is principally interested in any event is pleased
with our sympathy, and hurt by the want of it, so we, too, seem to be
pleased when we are able to sympathize with him, and to be hurt when
we are unable to do so. We run not only to congratulate the
successful, but to condole with the afflicted; and the pleasure which
we find in the conversation of one whom in all the passions of his
heart we can entirely sympathize with, seems to do more than
compensate the painfulness of that sorrow with which the view of his
situation affects us. On the contrary, it is always disagreeable to
feel that we cannot sympathize with him, and instead of being pleased
with this exemption from sympathetic pain, it hurts us to find that we
cannot share his uneasiness. If we hear a person loudly lamenting his
misfortunes, which however, upon bringing the case home to ourselves,
we feel, can produce {16} no such violent effect upon us, we are
shocked at his grief; and, because we cannot enter into it, call it
pusillanimity and weakness. It gives us the spleen, on the other hand,
to see 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 deserves; that is, than we feel that we
ourselves could laugh at it.
-----
CHAP. III.--_Of the Manner in which we judge of the Propriety or
Impropriety of the Affections of other Men, by their Concord or
Dissonance with our own._
WHEN the original passions of the person principally concerned are in
perfect concord with the sympathetic emotions of the spectator, they
necessarily appear to this last just and proper, and suitable to their
objects; and, on the contrary, when, upon bringing the case home to
himself, he finds that they do not coincide with what he feels, they
necessarily appear to him unjust and improper, and unsuitable to the
causes which excite them. To approve of the passions of another,
therefore, as suitable to their objects, is the same thing as to
observe that we entirely sympathize with them; and not to approve of
them as such, is the same thing as to observe that we do not entirely
sympathize with them. The man who resents the injuries that have been
done to me, and observes that I resent them precisely as he does,
necessarily approves of my resentment. The man whose sympathy keeps
time to my grief, cannot but admit the reasonableness of my sorrow. He
who admires the same poem, or the same picture, and admires them
exactly as I do, must surely allow the justness of my admiration. He
who laughs at the same joke, and laughs along with me, cannot well
deny the propriety of my laughter. On the contrary, the person who,
upon these different occasions, either feels no such emotion as that
which I feel, or feels none that bears any proportion to mine, cannot
avoid disapproving my sentiments on account of their dissonance with
his own. If my animosity goes beyond what the indignation of my friend
can correspond to; if my grief exceeds what his most tender compassion
can go along with; if my admiration is either too high or too low to
tally with his own; if I laugh loud and heartily when he only smiles,
or, on the contrary, only smile when he laughs loud and heartily; in
all these cases, as soon as he comes from considering the object, to
observe how I am affected by it, according as there is more or less
disproportion between his sentiments and mine, I must incur a greater
or less degree of his disapprobation: and upon all occasions his own
sentiments are the standards and measures by which he judges of mine.
{17} To approve of another man's opinions is to adopt those opinions,
and to adopt them is to approve of them. If the same arguments which
convince you convince me likewise, I necessarily approve of your
conviction; and if they do not, I necessarily disapprove of it:
neither can I possibly conceive that I should do the one without the
other. To approve or disapprove, therefore, of the opinions of others
is acknowledged, by every body, to mean no more than to observe their
agreement or disagreement with our own. But this is equally the case
with regard to our approbation or disapprobation of the sentiments or
passions of others.
There are, indeed, some cases in which we seem to approve without any
sympathy or correspondence of sentiments, and in which, consequently,
the sentiment of approbation would seem to be different from the
perception of this coincidence. A little attention, however, will
convince us that even in these cases our approbation is ultimately
founded upon a sympathy or correspondence of this kind. I shall give
an instance in things of a very frivolous nature, because in them the
judgments of mankind are less apt to be perverted by wrong systems. We
may often approve of a jest, and think the laughter of the company
quite just and proper, though we ourselves do not laugh, because,
perhaps, we are in a grave humour, or happen to have our attention
engaged with other objects. We have learned, however, from experience,
what sort of pleasantry is upon most occasions capable of making us
laugh, and we observe that this is one of that kind. We approve,
therefore, of the laughter of the company, and feel that it is natural
and suitable to its object; because, though in our present mode we
cannot easily enter into it, we are sensible that upon most occasions
we should very heartily join in it.
The same thing often happens with regard to all the other passions. A
stranger passes by us in the street with all the marks of the deepest
affliction; and we are immediately told that he has just received the
news of the death of his father. It is impossible that, in this case,
we should not approve of his grief. Yet it may often happen, without
any defect of humanity on our part, that, so far from entering into
the violence of his sorrow, we should scarce conceive the first
movements of concern upon his account. Both he and his father,
perhaps, are entirely unknown to us, or we happen to be employed about
other things, and do not take time to picture out in our imagination
the different circumstances of distress which must occur to him. We
have learned, however, from experience, that such a misfortune
naturally excites such a degree of sorrow, and we know that if we took
time to consider his situation, fully in all its parts, we should,
without doubt, most sincerely sympathize with him. It is upon the
consciousness of this conditional sympathy, that our approbation of
his sorrow is founded, even in those cases in which that sympathy does
not actually take place; {18} and the general rules derived from our
preceding experience of what our sentiments would commonly correspond
with, correct upon this, as upon many other occasions, the impropriety
of our present emotions.
The sentiment or affection of the heart from which any action
proceeds, and upon which its whole virtue or vice must ultimately
depend, may be considered under two different aspects, or in two
different relations; first, in relation to the cause which excites it,
or the motive which gives occasion to it; and secondly, in relation to
the end which it proposes, or the effect which it tends to produce.
In the suitableness or unsuitableness, in the proportion or
disproportion which the affection seems to bear to the cause or object
which excites it, consists the propriety or impropriety, the decency
or ungracefulness of the consequent action.
In the beneficial or hurtful nature of the effects which the affection
aims at, or tends to produce, consists the merit or demerit of the
action, the qualities by which it is entitled to reward, or is
deserving of punishment.
Philosophers have, of late years, considered chiefly the tendency of
affections, and have given little attention to the relation which they
stand in to the cause which excites them. In common life, however,
when we judge of any person's conduct, and of the sentiments which
directed it, we constantly consider them under both these aspects.
When we blame in another man the excesses of love, of grief, of
resentment, we not only consider the ruinous effect which they tend to
produce, but the little occasion which was given for them. The merit
of his favourite, we say, is not so great, his misfortune is not so
dreadful, his provocation is not so extraordinary, as to justify so
violent a passion. We should have indulged, we say, perhaps, have
approved of the violence of his emotion, had the cause been in any
respect proportioned to it.
When we judge in this manner of any affection as proportioned or
disproportioned to the cause which excites it, it is scarce possible
that we should make use of any other rule or canon but the
correspondent affection in ourselves. If, upon bringing the case home
to our own breast, we find that the sentiments which it gives occasion
to, coincide and tally with our own, we necessarily approve of them as
proportioned and suitable to their objects; if otherwise, we
necessarily disapprove of them, as extravagant and out of proportion.
Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like
faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight, of your ear by
my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your resentment by my
resentment, of your love by my love. I neither have, nor can have, any
other way of judging about them.
{19}
CHAP. IV.--_The same Subject continued._
WE may judge of the propriety or impropriety of the sentiments of
another person by their correspondence or disagreement with our own,
upon two different occasions; either, first, when the objects which
excite them are considered without any peculiar relation, either to
ourselves or to the person whose sentiments we judge of; or, secondly,
when they are considered as peculiarly affecting one or other of us.
1. With regard to those objects which are considered without any
peculiar relation either to ourselves or to the person whose
sentiments we judge of; wherever his sentiments entirely correspond
with our own, we ascribe to him the qualities of taste and good
judgment. The beauty of a plain, the greatness of a mountain, the
ornaments of a building, the expression of a picture, the composition
of a discourse, the conduct of a third person, the proportions of
different quantities and numbers, the various appearances which the
great machine of the universe is perpetually exhibiting, with the
secret wheels and springs which produce them; all the general subjects
of science and taste, are what we and our companions regard as having
no peculiar relation to either of us. We both look at them from the
same point of view, and we have no occasion for sympathy, or for that
imaginary change of situations from which it arises, in order to
produce, with regard to these, the most perfect harmony of sentiments
and affections. If, notwithstanding, we are often differently
affected, it arises either from the different degrees of attention,
which our different habits of life allow us to give easily to the
several parts of those complex objects, or from the different degrees
of natural acuteness in the faculty of the mind to which they are
addressed.
When the sentiments of our companion coincide with our own in things
of this kind, which are obvious and easy, and in which, perhaps, we
never found a single person who differed from us, though we, no doubt,
must approve of them, yet he seems to deserve no praise or admiration
on account of them. But when they not only coincide with our own, but
lead and direct our own; when in forming them he appears to have
attended to many things which we had overlooked, and to have adjusted
them to all the various circumstances of their objects; we not only
approve of them, but wonder and are surprised at their uncommon and
unexpected acuteness and comprehensiveness, and he appears to deserve
a very high degree of admiration and applause. For approbation
heightened by wonder and surprise, constitutes the sentiment which is
properly called admiration, and of which applause is the natural
expression. The decision of the man who judges that exquisite beauty
is preferable to the grossest deformity, or that twice two are equal
to four, must certainly be approved of by {20} all the world, but will
not, surely, be much admired. It is the acute and delicate discernment
of the man of taste, who distinguishes the minute, and scarce
perceptible differences of beauty and deformity; it is the
comprehensive accuracy of the experienced mathematician, who unravels,
with ease, the most intricate and perplexed proportions; it is the
great leader in science and taste, the man who directs and conducts
our own sentiments, the extent and superior justness of whose
talents astonish us with wonder and surprise, who excites our
admiration, and seems to deserve our applause; and upon this
foundation is grounded the greater part of the praise which is
bestowed upon what are called the intellectual virtues.
The utility of those qualities, it may be thought, is what first
recommends them to us; and, no doubt, the consideration of this, when
we come to attend to it, gives them a new value. Originally, however,
we approve of another man's judgment, not as something useful, but as
right, as accurate, as agreeable to truth and reality: and it is
evident we attribute those qualities to it for no other reason but
because we find that it agrees with our own. Taste, in the same
manner, is originally approved of, not as useful, but as just, as
delicate, and as precisely suited to its object. The idea of the
utility of all qualities of this kind, is plainly an afterthought, and
not what first recommends them to our approbation.
2. With regard to those objects, which affect in a particular manner
either ourselves or the person whose sentiments we judge of, it is at
once more difficult to preserve this harmony and correspondence, and
at the same time, vastly more important. My companion does not
naturally look at the misfortune that has befallen me, or the injury
that has been done me, from the same point of view in which I consider
them. They affect me much more nearly. We do not view them from the
same station, as we do a picture, or a poem, or a system of
philosophy, and are, therefore, apt to be very differently affected by
them. But I can much more easily overlook the want of this
correspondence of sentiments with regard to such indifferent objects
as concern neither me nor my companion, than with regard to what
interests me so much as the misfortune that has befallen me, or the
injury that has been done me. Though you despise that picture, or that
poem, or even that system of philosophy, which I admire, there is
little danger of our quarrelling upon that account. Neither of us can
reasonably be much interested about them. They ought all of them to be
matters of great indifference to us both; so that, though our opinions
may be opposite, our affections may still be very nearly the same. But
it is quite otherwise with regard to those objects by which either you
or I are particularly affected. Though your judgments in matters of
speculation, though your sentiments in matters of taste, are quite
opposite to mine, I can easily overlook this opposition; and if I {21}
have any degree of temper, I may still find some entertainment in your
conversation, even upon those very subjects. But if you have either no
fellow-feeling for the misfortunes I have met with, or none that bears
any proportion to the grief which distracts me; or if you have either
no indignation at the injuries I have suffered, or none that bears any
proportion to the resentment which transports me, we can no longer
converse upon these subjects. We become intolerable to one another. I
can neither support your company, nor you mine. You are confounded at
my violence and passion, and I am enraged at your cold insensibility
and want of feeling.
In all such cases, that there may be some correspondence of sentiments
between the spectator and the person principally concerned, the
spectator must, first of all, endeavour, as much as he can, to put
himself in the situation of the other, and to bring home to himself
every little circumstance of distress which can possibly occur to the
sufferer. He must adopt the whole case of his companion with all its
minutest incidents; and strive to render as perfect as possible, that
imaginary change of situation upon which his sympathy is founded.
After all this, however, the emotions of the spectator will still be
very apt to fall short of the violence of what is felt by the
sufferer. Mankind, though naturally sympathetic, never conceive, for
what has befallen another, that degree of passion which naturally
animates the person principally concerned. That imaginary change of
situation, upon which their sympathy is founded, is but momentary. The
thought of their own safety, the thought that they themselves are not
really the sufferers, continually intrudes itself upon them; and
though it does not hinder them from conceiving a passion somewhat
analogous to what is felt by the sufferer, hinders them from
conceiving any thing that approaches to the same degree of violence.
The person principally concerned is sensible of this, and at the same
time passionately desires a more complete sympathy. He longs for that
relief which nothing can afford him but the entire concord of the
affections of the spectators with his own. To see the emotions of
their hearts, in every respect, beat time to his own, in the violent
and disagreeable passions, constitutes his sole consolation. But he
can only hope to obtain this by lowering his passion to that pitch, in
which the spectators are capable of going along with him. He must
flatten, if I may be allowed to say so, the sharpness of its natural
tone, in order to reduce it to harmony and concord with the emotions
of those who are about him. What they feel, will, indeed, always be,
in some respects, different from what he feels, and compassion can
never be exactly the same with original sorrow; because the secret
consciousness that the change of situations, from which the
sympathetic sentiment arises, is but imaginary, not only lowers it in
degree, but, in some measure, varies it in kind, and gives it a quite
different modification. These two {22} sentiments, however, may, it is
evident, have such a correspondence with one another, as is sufficient
for the harmony of society. Though they will never be unisons, they
may be concords, and this is all that is wanted or required.
In order to produce this concord, as nature teaches the spectators to
assume the circumstance of the person principally concerned, so she
teaches this last in some measure to assume those of the spectators.
As they are continually placing themselves in his situation, and
thence conceiving emotions similar to what he feels; so he is as
constantly placing himself in theirs, and thence conceiving some
degree of that coolness about his own fortune, with which he is
sensible that they will view it. As they are constantly considering
what they themselves would feel, if they actually were the sufferers,
so he is as constantly led to imagine in what manner he would be
affected if he was only one of the spectators of his own situation. As
their sympathy makes them look at it, in some measure, with his eyes,
so his sympathy makes him look at it, in some measure, with theirs,
especially when in their presence and acting under their observation:
and as the reflected passion, which he thus conceives, is much weaker
than the original one, it necessarily abates the violence of what he
felt before he came into their presence, before he began to recollect
in what manner they would be affected by it, and to view his situation
in this candid and impartial light.
The mind, therefore, is rarely so disturbed, but that the company of a
friend will restore it to some degree of tranquillity and sedateness.
The breast is, in some measure, calmed and composed the moment we come
into his presence. We are immediately put in mind of the light in
which he will view our situation, and we begin to view it ourselves in
the same light; for the effect of sympathy is instantaneous. We expect
less sympathy from a common acquaintance than from a friend: we cannot
open to the former all those little circumstances which we can unfold
to the latter: we assume, therefore, more tranquillity before him, and
endeavour to fix our thoughts upon those general outlines of our
situation which he is willing to consider. We expect still less
sympathy from an assembly of strangers, and we assume, therefore,
still more tranquillity before them, and always endeavour to bring
down our passion to that pitch, which the particular company we are in
may be expected to go along with. Nor is this only an assumed
appearance: for if we are at all masters of ourselves, the presence of
a mere acquaintance will really compose us, still more than that of a
friend; and that of an assembly of strangers still more than that of
an acquaintance.
Society and conversation, therefore, are the most powerful remedies
for restoring the mind to its tranquillity, if, at any time, it has
unfortunately lost it; as well as the best preservatives of that equal
and {23} happy temper, which is so necessary to self-satisfaction and
enjoyment. Men of retirement and speculation, who are apt to sit
brooding at home over either grief or resentment, though they may
often have more humanity, more generosity, and a nicer sense of
honour, yet seldom possess that equality of temper which is so common
among men of the world.
-----
CHAP. V.--_Of the amiable and respectable Virtues._
UPON these two different efforts, upon that of the spectator to enter
into the sentiments of the person principally concerned, and upon that
of the person principally concerned to bring down his emotions to what
the spectator can go along with, are founded two different sets of
virtues. The soft, the gentle, the amiable virtues, the virtues of
candid condescension and indulgent humanity, are founded upon the one:
the great, the awful and respectable, the virtues of self-denial, of
self-government, of that command of the passions which subjects all
the movements of our nature to what our own dignity and honour, and
the propriety of our own conduct require, take their origin from the
other.
How amiable does he appear to be, whose sympathetic heart seems to
re-echo all the sentiments of those with whom he converses, who
grieves for their calamities, who resents their injuries, and who
rejoices at their good fortune! When we bring home to ourselves the
situation of his companions, we enter into their gratitude, and feel
what consolation they must derive from the tender sympathy of so
affectionate a friend. And for a contrary reason, how disagreeable
does he appear to be, whose hard and obdurate heart feels for himself
only, but is altogether insensible to the happiness or misery of
others! We enter, in this case, too, into the pain which his presence
must give to every mortal with whom he converses, to those especially
with whom we are most apt to sympathize, the unfortunate and the
injured.
On the other hand, what noble propriety and grace do we feel in the
conduct of those who, in their own case, exert that recollection and
self-command which constitute the dignity of every passion, and which
bring it down to what others can enter into? We are disgusted with
that clamorous grief, which, without any delicacy, calls upon our
compassion with sighs and tears and importunate lamentations. But we
reverence that reserved, that silent and majestic sorrow, which
discovers itself only in the swelling of the eyes, in the quivering of
the lips and cheeks, and in the distant, but affecting, coldness of
the whole behaviour. It imposes the like silence upon us. We regard it
with respectful attention, and watch with anxious concern over our
whole behaviour, lest by any impropriety we should disturb that
concerted tranquillity, which it requires so great an effort to
support.
The insolence and brutality of anger, in the same manner, when we {24}
indulge its fury without check or restraint, is of all objects the
most detestable. But we admire that noble and generous resentment
which governs its pursuit of the greatest injuries, not by the rage
which they are apt to excite in the breast of the sufferer, but by the
indignation which they naturally call forth in that part of the
impartial spectator; which allows no word, no gesture, to escape it
beyond what this more equitable sentiment would dictate; which never,
even in thought, attempts any greater vengeance, nor desires to
inflict any greater punishment, than what every indifferent person
would rejoice to see executed.
And hence it is, that to feel much for others and little for
ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent
affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature; and can alone
produce among mankind that harmony of sentiments and passions in which
consists their whole grace and propriety. As to love our neighbour as
we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity, so it is the great
precept of nature to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or
what comes to the same thing, as our neighbour is found capable of
loving us.
As taste and good judgment, when they are considered as qualities
which deserve praise and admiration, are supposed to imply a delicacy
of sentiment and an acuteness of understanding not commonly to be met
with; so the virtues of sensibility and self-command are not
apprehended to consist in the ordinary, but in the uncommon degrees of
those qualities. The amiable virtue of humanity requires, surely, a
sensibility much beyond what is possessed by the rude vulgar of
mankind. The great and exalted virtue of magnanimity undoubtedly
demands much more than that degree of self-command, which the weakest
of mortals is capable of exerting. As in the common degree of the
intellectual qualities, there is no ability; so in the common degree
of the moral, there is no virtue. Virtue is excellence, something
uncommonly great and beautiful, which rises far above what is vulgar
and ordinary. The amiable virtues consist in that degree of
sensibility which surprises by its exquisite and unexpected delicacy
and tenderness. The awful and respectable, in that degree of
self-command which astonishes by its amazing superiority over the most
ungovernable passions of human nature.
There is, in this respect, a considerable difference between virtue
and mere propriety; between those qualities and actions which deserve
to be admired and celebrated, and those which simply deserve to be
approved of. Upon many occasions, to act with the most perfect
propriety, requires no more than that common and ordinary degree of
sensibility or self-command which the most worthless of mankind are
possest of, and sometimes even that degree is not necessary. Thus, to
give a very low instance, to eat when we are hungry, is certainly,
upon {25} ordinary occasions, perfectly right and proper, and cannot
miss being approved of as such by every body. Nothing, however, could
be more absurd than to say it was virtuous.
On the contrary, there may frequently be a considerable degree of
virtue in those actions which fall short of the most perfect
propriety; because they may still approach nearer to perfection than
could well be expected upon occasions in which it was so extremely
difficult to attain it: and this is very often the case upon those
occasions which require the greatest exertions of self-command. There
are some situations which bear so hard upon human nature, that the
greatest degree of self-government, which can belong to so imperfect a
creature as man, is not able to stifle altogether the voice of human
weakness, or reduce the violence of the passions to that pitch of
moderation, in which the impartial spectator can entirely enter into
them. Though in those cases, therefore, the behaviour of the sufferer
fall short of the most perfect propriety, it may still deserve some
applause, and even in a certain sense may be denominated virtuous. It
may still manifest an effort of generosity and magnanimity of which
the greater part of men are wholly incapable; and though it fails of
absolute perfection, it may be a much nearer approximation towards
perfection, than what, upon such trying occasions, is commonly either
to be found or to be expected.
In cases of this kind, when we are determining the degree of blame or
applause which seems due to any action, we very frequently make use of
two different standards. The first is the idea of complete propriety
and perfection, which, in those difficult situations, no human conduct
ever did, or ever can come up to; and in comparison with which the
actions of all men must for ever appear blamable and imperfect. The
second is the idea of that degree of proximity or distance from this
complete perfection, which the actions of the greater part of men
commonly arrive at. Whatever goes beyond this degree, how far soever
it may be removed from absolute perfection, seems to deserve applause;
and whatever falls short of it, to deserve blame.
It is in the same manner that we judge of the productions of all the
arts which address themselves to the imagination. When a critic
examines the work of any of the great masters in poetry or painting,
he may sometimes examine it by an idea of perfection, in his own mind,
which neither that nor any other human work will ever come up to; and
as long as he compares it with this standard, he can see nothing in
it but faults and imperfections. But when he comes to consider the
rank which it ought to hold among other works of the same kind, he
necessarily compares it with a very different standard, the common
degree of excellence which is usually attained in this particular art;
and when he judges of it by this new measure, it may often appear to
deserve the highest applause, upon account of its approaching {26}
much nearer to perfection than the greater part of those works which
can be brought into competition with it.
-----
SEC. II.--OF THE DEGREES OF THE DIFFERENT PASSIONS WHICH ARE
CONSISTENT WITH PROPRIETY.
INTRODUCTION.--The propriety of every passion excited by objects
peculiarly related to ourselves, the pitch which the spectator can go
along with, must lie, it is evident, in a certain mediocrity. If the
passion is too high, or if it is too low, he cannot enter into it.
Grief and resentment for private misfortunes and injuries may easily,
for example, be too high, and in the greater part of mankind they are
so. They may likewise, though this more rarely happens, be too low. We
denominate the excess weakness and fury: and we call the defect
stupidity, insensibility, and want of spirit. We can enter into
neither of them, but are astonished and confounded to see them.
This mediocrity, however, in which the point of propriety consists, is
different in different passions. It is high in some, and low in
others. There are some passions which it is indecent to express very
strongly, even upon those occasions, in which it is acknowledged that
we cannot avoid feeling them in the highest degree. And there are
others of which the strongest expressions are upon many occasions
extremely graceful, even though the passions themselves do not,
perhaps, arise so necessarily. The first are those passions with
which, for certain reasons, there is little or no sympathy: the second
are those with which, for other reasons, there is the greatest. And if
we consider all the different passions of human nature, we shall find
that they are regarded as decent, or indecent, just in proportion as
mankind are more or less disposed to sympathize with them.
-----
CHAP. I.--_Of the Passions which take their Origin from the
Body._
1. IT is indecent to express any strong degree of those passions which
arise from a certain situation or disposition of the body; because the
company, not being in the same disposition, cannot be expected to
sympathize with them. Violent hunger, for example, though upon many
occasions not only natural, but unavoidable, is always indecent, and
to eat voraciously is universally regarded as a piece of ill manners.
There is, however, some degree of sympathy, even with hunger. It is
agreeable to see our companions eat with a good appetite, and all
expressions of loathing are offensive. The disposition of body which
is habitual to a man in health, makes his stomach easily keep time, if
I may be allowed so coarse an expression, with the one, and not with
the other. {27} We can sympathize with the distress which excessive
hunger occasions when we read the description of it in the journal of
a siege, or of a sea voyage. We imagine ourselves in the situation of
the sufferers, and thence readily conceive the grief, the fear, and
consternation, which must necessarily distract them. We feel,
ourselves, some degree of those passions, and therefore sympathize
with them: but as we do not grow hungry by reading the description, we
cannot properly, even in this case, be said to sympathize with their
hunger.
It is the same case with the passion by which Nature unites the two
sexes. Though naturally the most furious of all the passions, all
strong expressions of it are upon every occasion indecent, even
between persons in whom its most complete indulgence is acknowledged
by all laws, both human and divine, to be perfectly innocent. There
seems, however, to be some degree of sympathy even with this passion.
To talk to a woman as we should to a man is improper: it is expected
that their company should inspire us with more gaiety, more
pleasantry, and more attention; and an entire insensibility to the
fair sex, renders a man contemptible in some measure even to the men.
Such is our aversion for all the appetites which take their origin
from the body; all strong expressions of them are loathsome and
disagreeable. According to some ancient philosophers, these are the
passions which we share in common with the brutes, and which, having
no connexion with the characteristical qualities of human nature, are
upon that account beneath its dignity. But there are many other
passions which we share in common with the brutes, such as resentment,
natural affection, even gratitude, which do not, upon that account,
appear to be so brutal. The true cause of the peculiar disgust which
we conceive for the appetites of the body when we see them in other
men, is that we cannot enter into them. To the person himself who
feels them, as soon as they are gratified, the object that excited
them ceases to be agreeable: even its presence often becomes offensive
to him; he looks round to no purpose for the charm which transported
him the moment before, and he can now as little enter into his own
passion as another person. When we have dined, we order the covers to
be removed; and we should treat in the same manner the objects of the
most ardent and passionate desires, if they were the objects of no
other passions but those which take their origin from the body.
In the command of those appetites of the body consists that virtue
which is properly called temperance. To restrain them within those
bounds which regard to health and fortune prescribes, is the part of
prudence. But to confine them within those limits which grace, which
propriety, which delicacy, and which modesty, require, is the office
of temperance.
2. It is for the same reason that to cry out with bodily pain, how
intolerable soever, appears always unmanly and unbecoming. There {28}
is, however, a good deal of sympathy even with bodily pain. If, as has
already been observed, I see a stroke aimed, and just ready to fall
upon the leg, or arm, of another person, I naturally shrink and draw
back my own leg, or my own arm: and when it does fall, I feel it in
some measure, and am hurt by it as well as the sufferer. My hurt,
however, is, no doubt, excessively slight, and, upon that account, if
he makes any violent outcry, as I cannot go along with him, I never
fail to despise him. And this is the case of all the passions which
take their origin from the body: they excite either no sympathy at
all, or such a degree of it, as is altogether disproportioned to the
violence of what is felt by the sufferer.
It is quite otherwise with those passions which take their origin from
the imagination. The frame of my body can be but little affected by
the alterations which are brought about upon that of my companion: but
my imagination is more ductile, and more readily assumes, if I may say
so, the shape and configuration of the imaginations of those with whom
I am familiar. A disappointment in love, or ambition, will, upon this
account, call forth more sympathy than the greatest bodily evil. Those
passions arise altogether from the imagination. The person who has
lost his whole fortune, if he is in health, feels nothing in his body.
What he suffers is from the imagination only, which represents to him
the loss of his dignity, neglect from his friends, contempt from his
enemies, dependence, want, and misery, coming fast upon him; and we
sympathize with him the more strongly upon this account, because our
imaginations can the more readily mould themselves upon his
imagination, than our bodies can mould themselves upon his body.
The loss of a leg may generally be regarded as a more real calamity
than the loss of a mistress. It would be a ridiculous tragedy,
however, of which the catastrophe was to turn upon a loss of that
kind. A misfortune of the other kind, how frivolous soever it may
appear to be, has given occasion to many a fine one.
Nothing is so soon forgot as pain. The moment it is gone the whole
agony of it is over, and the thought of it can no longer give us any
sort of disturbance. We ourselves cannot then enter into the anxiety
and anguish which we had before conceived. An unguarded word from a
friend will occasion a more durable uneasiness. The agony which this
creates is by no means over with the word. What at first disturbs us
is not the object of the senses, but the idea of the imagination. As
it is an idea, therefore, which occasions our uneasiness, till time
and other accidents have in some measure effaced it from our memory,
the imagination continues to fret and rankle within, from the thought
of it.
Pain never calls forth any very lively sympathy unless it is
accompanied with danger. We sympathize with the fear, though not with
the agony of the sufferer. Fear, however, is a passion derived
altogether {29} from the imagination, which represents, with an
uncertainty and fluctuation that increases our anxiety, not what we
really feel, but what we may hereafter possibly suffer. The gout or
the tooth-ache, though exquisitely painful, excite very little
sympathy; more dangerous diseases, though accompanied with very little
pain, excite the highest.
Some people faint and grow sick at the sight of a chirurgical
operation, and that bodily pain which is occasioned by tearing the
flesh, seems, in them, to excite the most excessive sympathy. We
conceive in a much more lively and distinct manner the pain which
proceeds from an external cause, than we do that which arises from an
internal disorder. I can scarce form an idea of the agonies of my
neighbour when he is tortured with the gout, or the stone; but I have
the clearest conception of what he must suffer from an incision, a
wound, or a fracture. The chief cause, however, why such objects
produce such violent effects upon us, is their novelty. One who has
been witness to a dozen dissections, and as many amputations, sees,
ever after, all operations of this kind with great indifference, and
often with perfect insensibility. Though we have read or seen
represented more than five hundred tragedies, we shall seldom feel so
entire an abatement of our sensibility to the objects which they
represent to us.
In some of the Greek tragedies there is an attempt to excite
compassion, by the representation of the agonies of bodily pain.
Philoctetes cries out and faints from the extremity of his sufferings.
Hippolytus and Hercules are both introduced as expiring under the
severest tortures, which, it seems, even the fortitude of Hercules was
incapable of supporting. In all these cases, however, it is not the
pain which interests us, but some other circumstance. It is not the
sore foot, but the solitude, of Philoctetes which affects us, and
diffuses over that charming tragedy, that romantic wildness, which is
so agreeable to the imagination. The agonies of Hercules and
Hippolytus are interesting only because we foresee that death is to be
the consequence. If those heroes were to recover, we should think the
representation of their sufferings perfectly ridiculous. What a
tragedy would that be of which the distress consisted in a colic! Yet
no pain is more exquisite. These attempts to excite compassion by the
representation of bodily pain, may be regarded as among the greatest
breaches of decorum of which the Greek theatre has set the example.
The little sympathy which we feel with bodily pain, is the foundation
of the propriety of constancy and patience in enduring it. The man,
who under the severest tortures allows no weakness to escape him,
vents no groan, gives way to no passion which we do not entirely enter
into, commands our highest admiration. His firmness enables him to
keep time with our indifference and insensibility. We admire and
entirely go along with the magnanimous effort which he makes for this
purpose. We approve of his behaviour, and from our experience of the
common {30} weakness of human nature, we are surprised, and wonder how
he should be able to act so as to deserve approbation. Approbation,
mixed and animated by wonder and surprise, constitutes the sentiment
which is properly called admiration, of which, applause is the natural
expression, as has already been observed.
-----
CHAP. II.--_Of those Passions which take their Origin from a
particular Turn or Habit of the Imagination._
EVEN of the passions derived from the imagination, those which take
their origin from a peculiar turn or habit it has acquired, though
they may be acknowledged to be perfectly natural, are, however, but
little sympathized with. The imaginations of mankind, not having
acquired that particular turn, cannot enter into them; and such
passions, though they may be allowed to be almost unavoidable in some
part of life, are always, in some measure, ridiculous. This is the
case with that strong attachment which naturally grows up between two
persons of different sexes, who have long fixed their thoughts upon
one another. Our imagination not having run in the same channel with
that of the lover, we cannot enter into the eagerness of his emotions.
If our friend has been injured, we readily sympathize with his
resentment, and grow angry with the very person with whom he is angry.
If he has received a benefit, we readily enter into his gratitude, and
have a very high sense of the merit of his benefactor. But if he is in
love, though we may think his passion just as reasonable as any of the
kind, yet we never think ourselves bound to conceive a passion of the
same kind, and for the same person for whom he has conceived it. The
passion appears to every body, but the man who feels it, entirely
disproportioned to the value of the object; and love, though it is
pardoned in a certain age because we know it is natural, is always
laughed at, because we cannot enter into it. All serious and strong
expressions of it appear ridiculous to a third person; and though a
lover may be good company to his mistress, he is so to nobody else. He
himself is sensible of this; and as long as he continues in his sober
senses, endeavours to treat his own passion with raillery and
ridicule. It is the only style in which we care to hear of it; because
it is the only style in which we ourselves are disposed to talk of it.
We grow weary of the grave, pedantic, and long-sentenced love of
Cowley and Petrarca, who never have done with exaggerating the
violence of their attachments; but the gaiety of Ovid, and the
gallantry of Horace, are always agreeable.
But though we feel no proper sympathy with an attachment of this kind,
though we never approach even in imagination towards conceiving a
passion for that particular person, yet as we either have conceived,
or may be disposed to conceive, passions of the same kind, we readily
{31} enter into those high hopes of happiness which are proposed from
its gratification, as well as into that exquisite distress which is
feared from its disappointment. It interests us not as a passion, but
as a situation that gives occasion to other passions which interest
us; to hope, to fear, and to distress of every kind: in the same
manner as in a description of a sea voyage, it is not the hunger which
interests us, but the distress which that hunger occasions. Though we
do not properly enter into the attachment of the lover, we readily go
along with those expectations of romantic happiness which he derives
from it. We feel how natural it is for the mind, in a certain
situation, relaxed with indolence, and fatigued with the violence of
desire, to long for serenity and quiet, to hope to find them in the
gratification of that passion which distracts it, and to frame to
itself the idea of that life of pastoral tranquillity and retirement
which the elegant, the tender, and the passionate Tibullus takes so
much pleasure in describing; a life like what the poets describe in
the Fortunate Islands, a life of friendship, liberty, and repose; free
from labour, and from care, and from all the turbulent passions which
attend them. Even scenes of this kind interest us most, when they are
painted rather as what is hoped, than as what is enjoyed. The
grossness of that passion, which mixes with, and is, perhaps, the
foundation of love, disappears when its gratification is far off and
at a distance; but renders the whole offensive, when described as what
is immediately possessed. The happy passion, upon this account,
interests us much less than the fearful and the melancholy. We tremble
for whatever can disappoint such natural and agreeable hopes: and thus
enter into all the anxiety, and concern, and distress of the lover.
Hence it is, that, in some modern tragedies and romances, this passion
appears so wonderfully interesting. It is not so much the love of
Castalio and Monimia which attaches us in the orphan, as the distress
which that love occasions. The author who should introduce two lovers,
in a scene of perfect security, expressing their mutual fondness for
one another, would excite laughter, and not sympathy. If a scene of
this kind is ever admitted into a tragedy, it is always, in some
measure, improper, and is endured, not from any sympathy with the
passion that is expressed in it, but from concern for the dangers and
difficulties with which the audience foresee that its gratification is
likely to be attended.
The reserve which the laws of society impose upon the fair sex, with
regard to this weakness, renders it more peculiarly distressful in
them, and, upon that very account, more deeply interesting. We are
charmed with the love of Phædra, as it is expressed in the French
tragedy of that name, notwithstanding all the extravagance and guilt
which attend it. That very extravagance and guilt may be said, in some
measure, to recommend it to us. Her fear, her shame, her remorse, her
horror, her despair, become thereby more natural and interesting. All
the {32} secondary passions, if I may be allowed to call them so,
which arise from the situation of love, become necessarily more
furious and violent; and it is with these secondary passions only that
we can properly be said to sympathize.
Of all the passions, however, which are so extravagantly
disproportioned to the value of their objects, love is the only one
that appears, even to the weakest minds, to have any thing in it that
is either graceful or agreeable. In itself, first of all, though it
may be ridiculous, it is not naturally odious; and though its
consequences are often fatal and dreadful, its intentions are seldom
mischievous. And then, though there is little propriety in the passion
itself, there is a good deal in some of those which always accompany
it. There is in love a strong mixture of humanity, generosity,
kindness, friendship, esteem; passions with which, of all others, for
reasons which shall be explained immediately, we have the greatest
propensity to sympathize, even notwithstanding we are sensible that
they are, in some measure, excessive. The sympathy which we feel with
them, renders the passion which they accompany less disagreeable, and
supports it in our imagination, notwithstanding all the vices which
commonly go along with it; though in the one sex it necessarily leads
to the last ruin and infamy; and though in the other, where it is
apprehended to be least fatal, it is almost always attended with an
incapacity for labour, a neglect of duty, a contempt of fame, and even
of common reputation. Notwithstanding all this, the degree of
sensibility and generosity with which it is supposed to be
accompanied, renders it to many the object of vanity; and they are
fond of appearing capable of feeling what would do them no honour if
they had really felt it.
It is for a reason of the same kind, that a certain reserve is
necessary when we talk of our own friends, our own studies, our own
professions. All these are objects which we cannot expect should
interest our companions in the same degree in which they interest us.
And it is for want of this reserve, that the one half of mankind make
bad company to the other. A philosopher is company to a philosopher
only; the member of a club, to his own little knot of companions.
-----
CHAP. III.--_Of the unsocial Passions._
THERE is another set of passions, which, though derived from the
imagination, yet before we can enter into them, or regard them as
graceful or becoming, must always be brought down to a pitch much
lower than that to which undisciplined nature would raise them. These
are, hatred and resentment, with all their different modifications.
With regard to all such passions, our sympathy is divided between the
person who feels them, and the person who is the object of them. The
{33} interests of these two are directly opposite. What our sympathy
with the person who feels them would prompt us to wish for, our
fellow-feeling with the other would lead us to fear. As they are both
men, we are concerned for both, and our fear for what the one may
suffer, damps our resentment for what the other has suffered. Our
sympathy, therefore, with the man who has received the provocation,
necessarily falls short of the passion which naturally animates him,
not only upon account of those general causes which render all
sympathetic passions inferior to the original ones, but upon account
of that particular cause which is peculiar to itself, our opposite
sympathy with another person. Before resentment, therefore, can become
graceful and agreeable, it must be more humbled and brought down below
that pitch to which it would naturally rise, than almost any other
passion.
Mankind, at the same time, have a very strong sense of the injuries
that are done to another. The villain, in a tragedy or romance, is as
much the object of our indignation, as the hero is that of our
sympathy and affection. We detest Iago as much as we esteem Othello;
and delight as much in the punishment of the one, as we are grieved at
the distress of the other. But though mankind have so strong a
fellow-feeling with the injuries that are done to their brethren, they
do not always resent them the more that the sufferer appears to resent
them. Upon most occasions, the greater his patience, his mildness, his
humanity, provided it does not appear that he wants spirit, or that
fear was the motive of his forbearance, the higher the resentment
against the person who injured him. The amiableness of the character
exasperates their sense of the atrocity of the injury.
These passions, however, are regarded as necessary parts of the
character of human nature. A person becomes contemptible who tamely
sits still, and submits to insults, without attempting either to repel
or to revenge them. We cannot enter into his indifference and
insensibility: we call his behaviour mean-spiritedness, and are as
really provoked by it as by the insolence of his adversary. Even the
mob are enraged to see any man submit patiently to affronts and ill
usage. They desire to see this insolence resented, and resented by the
person who suffers from it. They cry to him with fury, to defend or to
revenge himself. If his indignation rouses at last, they heartily
applaud, and sympathize with it. It enlivens their own indignation
against his enemy, whom they rejoice to see him attack in turn, and
are as really gratified by his revenge, provided it is not immoderate,
as if the injury had been done to themselves.
But though the utility of those passions to the individual, by
rendering it dangerous to insult or to injure him, be acknowledged;
and though their utility to the public, as the guardians of justice,
and of the equality of its administration, be not less considerable,
as shall be shewn hereafter; yet there is still something disagreeable
in the {34} passions themselves, which makes the appearance of them in
other men the natural object of our aversion. The expression of anger
towards any body present, if it exceeds a bare intimation that we are
sensible of his ill usage, is regarded not only as an insult to that
particular person, but as a rudeness to the whole company. Respect for
them ought to have restrained us from giving way to so boisterous and
offensive an emotion. It is the remote effects of these passions which
are agreeable; the immediate effects are mischief to the person
against whom they are directed. But it is the immediate, and not the
remote effects of objects which render them agreeable or disagreeable
to the imagination. A prison is certainly more useful to the public
than a palace; and the person who founds the one is generally directed
by a much juster spirit of patriotism, than he who builds the other.
But the immediate effects of a prison, the confinement of the wretches
shut up in it, are disagreeable; and the imagination either does not
take time to trace out the remote ones, or sees them at too great a
distance to be much affected by them. A prison, therefore, will always
be a disagreeable object; and the fitter it is for the purpose for
which it was intended, it will be the more so. A palace, on the
contrary, will always be agreeable; yet its remote effects may often
be inconvenient to the public. It may serve to promote luxury, and set
the example of the dissolution of manners. Its immediate effects,
however, the conveniency, the pleasure, and the gaiety of the people
who live in it, being all agreeable, and suggesting to the imagination
a thousand agreeable ideas, that faculty generally rests upon them,
and seldom goes further in tracing its more distant consequences.
Trophies of the instruments of music or of agriculture, imitated in
painting or in stucco, make a common and an agreeable ornament of our
halls and dining rooms. A trophy of the same kind, composed of the
instruments of surgery, of dissecting and amputation-knives, of saws
for cutting the bones, of trepanning instruments, &c., would be absurd
and shocking. Instruments of surgery, however, are always more finely
polished, and generally more nicely adapted to the purposes for which
they are intended, than instruments of agriculture. The remote effects
of them too, the health of the patient, is agreeable; yet as the
immediate effect of them is pain and suffering, the sight of them
always displeases us. Instruments of war are agreeable, though their
immediate effect may seem to be in the same manner pain and suffering.
But then it is the pain and suffering of our enemies, with whom we
have no sympathy. With regard to us, they are immediately connected
with the agreeable ideas of courage, victory, and honour. They are
themselves, therefore, supposed to make one of the noblest parts of
dress, and the imitation of them one of the finest ornaments of
architecture. It is the same case with the qualities of the mind. The
ancient stoics were of opinion, that as the world was governed by the
{35} all-ruling providence of a wise, powerful, and good God, every
single event ought to be regarded, as making a necessary part of the
plan of the universe, and as tending to promote the general order and
happiness of the whole: that the vices and follies of mankind,
therefore, made as necessary a part of this plan as their wisdom or
their virtue; and by that eternal art which educes good from ill, were
made to tend equally to the prosperity and perfection of the great
system of nature. No speculation of this kind, however, how deeply
soever it might be rooted in the mind, could diminish our natural
abhorrence for vice, whose immediate effects are so destructive, and
whose remote ones are too distant to be traced by the imagination.
It is the same case with those passions we have been just now
considering. Their immediate effects are so disagreeable, that even
when they are most justly provoked, there is still something about
them which disgusts us. These, therefore, are the only passions of
which the expressions, as I formerly observed, do not dispose and
prepare us to sympathize with them, before we are informed of the
cause which excites them. The plaintive voice of misery, when heard at
a distance, will not allow us to be indifferent about the person from
whom it comes. As soon as it strikes our ear, it interests us in his
fortune, and, if continued, forces us almost involuntarily to fly to
his assistance. The sight of a smiling countenance, in the same
manner, elevates even the pensive into that gay and airy mood, which
disposes him to sympathize with, and share the joy which it expresses;
and he feels his heart, which with thought and care was before that
shrunk and depressed, instantly expanded and elated. But it is quite
otherwise with the expressions of hatred and resentment. The hoarse,
boisterous, and discordant voice of anger, when heard at a distance,
inspires us either with fear or aversion. We do not fly towards it, as
to one who cries out with pain and agony. Women, and men of weak
nerves, tremble and are overcome with fear, though sensible that
themselves are not the objects of the anger. They conceive fear,
however, by putting themselves in the situation of the person who is
so. Even those of stouter hearts are disturbed; not indeed enough to
make them afraid, but enough to make them angry; for anger is the
passion which they would feel in the situation of the other person. It
is the same case with hatred. Mere expressions of spite inspire it
against nobody, but the man who uses them. Both these passions are by
nature the objects of our aversion. Their disagreeable and boisterous
appearance never excites, never prepares, and often disturbs our
sympathy. Grief does not more powerfully engage and attract us to the
person in whom we observe it, than these, while we are ignorant of
their cause, disgust and detach us from him. It was, it seems, the
intention of Nature, that those rougher and more unamiable emotions,
which drive men from one another, should be less easily and more
rarely communicated.
{36} When music imitates the modulations of grief or joy, it either
actually inspires us with those passions, or at least puts us in the
mood which disposes us to conceive them. But when it imitates the
notes of anger, it inspires us with fear. Joy, grief, love,
admiration, devotion, are all of them passions which are naturally
musical. Their natural tones are all soft, clear, and melodious; and
they naturally express themselves in periods which are distinguished
by regular pauses, and which upon that account are easily adapted to
the regular returns of the correspondent airs of a tune. The voice of
anger, on the contrary, and of all the passions which are akin to it,
is harsh and discordant. Its periods too are all irregular, sometimes
very long, and sometimes very short, and distinguished by no regular
pauses. It is with difficulty therefore, that music can imitate any of
those passions; and the music which does imitate them is not the most
agreeable. A whole entertainment may consist, without any impropriety,
of the imitation of the social and agreeable passions. It would be a
strange entertainment which consisted altogether of the imitations of
hatred and resentment.
If those passions are disagreeable to the spectator, they are not less
so to the person who feels them. Hatred and anger are the greatest
poison to the happiness of a good mind. There is, in the very feeling
of those passions, something harsh, jarring, and convulsive, something
that tears and distracts the breast, and is altogether destructive of
that composure and tranquillity of mind which is so necessary to
happiness, and which is best promoted by the contrary passions of
gratitude and love. It is not the value of what they lose by the
perfidy and ingratitude of those they live with, which the generous
and humane are most apt to regret. Whatever they may have lost, they
can generally be very happy without it. What most disturbs them is the
idea of perfidy and ingratitude exercised towards themselves; and the
discordant and disagreeable passions which this excites, constitute,
in their own opinion, the chief part of the injury which they suffer.
How many things are requisite to render the gratification of
resentment completely agreeable, and to make the spectator thoroughly
sympathize with our revenge? The provocation must first of all be such
that we should become contemptible, and be exposed to perpetual
insults, if we did not, in some measure, resent it. Smaller offences
are always better neglected; nor is there anything more despicable
than that froward and captious humour which takes fire upon every
slight occasion of quarrel. We should resent more from a sense of the
propriety of resentment, from a sense, that mankind expect and require
it of us, than because we feel in ourselves the furies of that
disagreeable passion. There is no passion, of which the human mind is
capable, concerning whose justness we ought to be so doubtful,
concerning whose indulgence we ought so carefully to consult our
natural sense of {37} propriety, or so diligently to consider what
will be the sentiments of the cool and impartial spectator.
Magnanimity, or a regard to maintain our own rank and dignity in
society, is the only motive which can ennoble the expressions of this
disagreeable passion. This motive must characterize our whole style
and deportment. These must be plain, open, and direct; determined
without positiveness, and elevated without insolence; not only free
from petulance and low scurrility, but generous, candid, and full of
all proper regards, even for the person who has offended us. It must
appear, in short, from our whole manner, without our labouring
affectedly to express it, that passion has not extinguished our
humanity; and that if we yield to the dictates of revenge, it is with
reluctance, from necessity, and in consequence of great and repeated
provocations. When resentment is guarded and qualified in this manner,
it may be admitted to be even generous and noble.
-----
CHAP. IV.--_Of the Social Passions._
AS it is a divided sympathy which renders the whole set of passions
just now mentioned, upon most occasions, so ungraceful and
disagreeable: so there is another set opposite to these, which a
redoubled sympathy renders almost always peculiarly agreeable and
becoming. Generosity, humanity, kindness, compassion, mutual
friendship and esteem, all the social and benevolent affections, when
expressed in the countenance or behaviour, even towards those who are
not peculiarly connected with ourselves, please the indifferent
spectator upon almost every occasion. His sympathy with the person who
feels those passions, exactly coincides with his concern for the
person who is the object of them. The interest, which, as a man, he is
obliged to take in the happiness of this last, enlivens his
fellow-feeling with the sentiments of the other, whose emotions are
employed about the same object. We have always, therefore, the
strongest disposition to sympathize with the benevolent affections.
They appear in every respect agreeable to us. We enter into the
satisfaction both of the person who feels them, and of the person who
is the object of them. For as to be the object of hatred and
indignation gives more pain than all the evil which a brave man can
fear from his enemies: so there is a satisfaction in the consciousness
of being beloved, which, to a person of delicacy and sensibility, is
of more importance to happiness, than all the advantage which he can
expect to derive from it. What character is so detestable as that of
one who takes pleasure to sow dissention among friends, and to turn
their most tender love into mortal hatred? Yet wherein does the
atrocity of this so much abhorred injury consist? Is it in depriving
them of the frivolous good offices, which, had their friendship
continued, they might have expected from one another? It is in {38}
depriving them of that friendship itself, in robbing them of each
other's affections, from which both derived so much satisfaction; it
is in disturbing the harmony of their hearts, and putting an end to
that happy commerce which had before subsisted between them. These
affections, that harmony, this commerce, are felt, not only by the
tender and the delicate, but by the rudest vulgar of mankind, to be of
more importance to happiness than all the little services which could
be expected to flow from them.
The sentiment of love is, in itself, agreeable to the person who feels
it. It soothes and composes the breast, seems to favour the vital
motions, and to promote the healthful state of the human constitution;
and it is rendered still more delightful by the consciousness of the
gratitude and satisfaction which it must excite in him who is the
object of it. Their mutual regard renders them happy in one another,
and sympathy, with this mutual regard, makes them agreeable to every
other person. With what pleasure do we look upon a family, through the
whole of which reign mutual love and esteem, where the parents and
children are companions for one another, without any other difference
than what is made by respectful affection on the one side, and kind
indulgence on the other; where freedom and fondness, mutual raillery
and mutual kindness, show that no opposition of interest divides the
brothers, nor any rivalship of favour sets the sisters at variance,
and where every thing presents us with the idea of peace,
cheerfulness, harmony, and contentment? On the contrary, how uneasy
are we made when we go into a house in which jarring contention sets
one half of those who dwell in it against the other; where, amidst
affected smoothness and complaisance, suspicious looks and sudden
starts of passion betray the mutual jealousies which burn within them,
and which are every moment ready to burst out through all the
restraints which the presence of the company imposes?
Those amiable passions, even when they are acknowledged to be
excessive, are never regarded with aversion. There is something
agreeable even in the weakness of friendship and humanity. The too
tender mother, the too indulgent father, the too generous and
affectionate friend, may sometimes, perhaps, on account of the
softness of their natures, be looked upon with a species of pity, in
which, however, there is a mixture of love, but can never be regarded
with hatred and aversion, nor even with contempt, unless by the most
brutal and worthless of mankind. It is always with concern, with
sympathy and kindness, that we blame them for the extravagance of
their attachment. There is a helplessness in the character of extreme
humanity which more than any thing interests our pity. There is
nothing in itself which renders it either ungraceful or disagreeable.
We only regret that it is unfit for the world, because the world is
unworthy of it, and because it must expose the person who is endowed
with it as a prey to the perfidy {39} and ingratitude of insinuating
falsehood, and to a thousand pains and uneasinesses, which, of all
men, he the least deserves to feel, and which generally too he is, of
all men, the least capable of supporting. It is quite otherwise with
hatred and resentment. Too violent a propensity to those detestable
passions, renders a person the object of universal dread and
abhorrence, who, like a wild beast, ought, we think, to be hunted out
of all civil society.
-----
CHAP. V.--_Of the Selfish Passions._
BESIDES those two opposite sets of passions, the social and unsocial,
there is another which holds a sort of middle place between them; is
never either so graceful as is sometimes the one set, nor is ever so
odious as is sometimes the other. Grief and joy, when conceived upon
account of our own private good or bad fortune, constitute this third
set of passions. Even when excessive, they are never so disagreeable
as excessive resentment, because no opposite sympathy can ever
interest us against them: and when most suitable to their objects,
they are never so agreeable as impartial humanity and just
benevolence; because no double sympathy can ever interest us for them.
There is, however, this difference between grief and joy, that we are
generally most disposed to sympathize with small joys and great
sorrows. The man who, by some sudden revolution of fortune, is lifted
up all at once into a condition of life, greatly above what he had
formerly lived in, may be assured that the congratulations of his best
friends are not all of them perfectly sincere. An upstart, though of
the greatest merit, is generally disagreeable, and a sentiment of envy
commonly prevents us from heartily sympathizing with his joy. If he
has any judgment, he is sensible of this, and instead of appearing to
be elated with his good fortune, he endeavours, as much as he can, to
smother his joy, and keep down that elevation of mind with which his
new circumstances naturally inspire him. He affects the same plainness
of dress, and the same modesty of behaviour, which became him in his
former station. He redoubles his attention to his old friends, and
endeavours more than ever to be humble, assiduous, and complaisant.
And this is the behaviour which in his situation we most approve of;
because we expect, it seems, that he should have more sympathy with
our envy and aversion to his happiness, than we have with his
happiness. It is seldom that with all this he succeeds. We suspect
the sincerity of his humility, and he grows weary of this constraint.
In a little time, therefore, he generally leaves all his old friends
behind him, some of the meanest of them excepted, who may, perhaps,
condescend to become his dependents: nor does he always acquire any
new ones; the {40} pride of his new connections is as much affronted
at finding him their equal, as that of his old ones had been by his
becoming their superior; and it requires the most obstinate and
persevering modesty to atone for this modification to either. He
generally grows weary too soon, and is provoked, by the sullen and
suspicious pride of the one, and by the saucy contempt of the other,
to treat the first with neglect, and the second with petulance, till
at last he grows habitually insolent, and forfeits the esteem of all.
If the chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of
being beloved, as I believe it does, those sudden changes of fortune
seldom contribute much to happiness. He is happiest who advances more
gradually to greatness, whom the public destines to every step of his
preferment long before he arrives at it, in whom, upon that account,
when it comes, it can excite no extravagant joy, and with regard to
whom it cannot reasonably create either any jealousy in those he
overtakes, or envy in those he leaves behind.
Mankind, however, more readily sympathize with those smaller joys
which flow from less important causes. It is decent to be humble
amidst great prosperity; but we can scarce express too much
satisfaction in all the little occurrences of common life, in the
company with which we spent the evening last night, in the
entertainment that was set before us, in what was said and what was
done, in all the little incidents of the present conversation, and in
all those frivolous nothings which fill up the void of human life.
Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness, which is always
founded upon a peculiar relish for all the little pleasures which
common occurrences afford. We readily sympathize with it: it inspires
us with the same joy, and makes every trifle turn up to us in the same
agreeable aspect in which it presents itself to the person endowed
with this happy disposition. Hence it is that youth, the season of
gaiety, so easily engages our affections. That propensity to joy which
seems even to animate the bloom, and to sparkle from the eyes of youth
and beauty, though in a person of the same sex, exalts, even the aged,
to a more joyous mood than ordinary. They forget, for a time, their
infirmities, and abandon themselves to those agreeable ideas and
emotions to which they have long been strangers, but which, when the
presence of so much happiness recalls them to their breast, take their
place there, like old acquaintance, from whom they are sorry to have
ever been parted, and whom they embrace more heartily upon account of
this long separation.
It is quite otherwise with grief. Small vexations excite no sympathy,
but deep affliction calls forth the greatest. The man who is made
uneasy by every little disagreeable incident, who is hurt if either
the cook or the butler have failed in the least article of their duty,
who feels every defect in the highest ceremonial of politeness,
whether it be shown to himself or to any other person, who takes it
amiss that his intimate friend did not bid him good-morrow when they
met in the {41} forenoon, and that his brother hummed a tune all the
time he himself was telling a story; who is put out of humour by the
badness of the weather when in the country, by the badness of the
roads when upon a journey, and by the want of company and dulness of
all public diversions when in town; such a person, I say, though he
should have some reason, will seldom meet with much sympathy. Joy is a
pleasant emotion, and we gladly abandon ourselves to it upon the
slightest occasion. We readily, therefore, sympathize with it in
others, whenever we are not prejudiced by envy. But grief is painful,
and the mind, even when it is our own misfortune, naturally resists
and recoils from it. We would endeavour either not to conceive it at
all, or to shake it off as soon as we have conceived it. Our aversion
to grief will not, indeed, always hinder us from conceiving it in our
own case upon very trifling occasions, but it constantly prevents us
from sympathizing with it in others when excited by the like frivolous
causes: for our sympathetic passions are always less irresistible than
our original ones. There is, besides, a malice in mankind, which not
only prevents all sympathy with little uneasinesses, but renders them
in some measure diverting. Hence the delight which we all take in
raillery, and in the small vexation which we observe in our companion,
when he is pushed, and urged, and teased upon all sides. Men of the
most ordinary good-breeding dissemble the pain which any little
incident may give them; and those who are more thoroughly formed to
society, turn of their own accord, all such 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 considering how every thing
that concerns himself will appear to others, makes those frivolous
calamities turn up in the same ridiculous light to him, in which he
knows they will certainly be considered by them.
Our sympathy, on the contrary, with deep distress, is very strong and
very sincere. It is unnecessary to give an instance. We weep even at
the feigned representation of a tragedy. If you labour, therefore,
under any signal calamity, if by some extraordinary misfortune you are
fallen into poverty, into diseases, into disgrace and disappointment;
even though your own fault may have been, in part, the occasion, yet
you may generally depend upon the sincerest sympathy of all your
friends, and, as far as interest and honour will permit, upon their
kindest assistance 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 mistress, or are only hen-pecked by your
wife, lay your account with the raillery of all your acquaintance.
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{42}
SEC. 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
EASY TO OBTAIN THEIR APPROBATION IN THE ONE STATE THAN IN THE OTHER.
CHAP. I.--_That though our Sympathy with Sorrow is generally a more
lively Sensation than our Sympathy with Joy, it commonly falls much
more Short of the Violence of what is naturally felt by the Person
principally concerned._
OUR sympathy with sorrow, though not more real, has been more taken
notice of than our sympathy with joy. The word sympathy, in its most
proper and primitive signification, denotes our fellow-feeling with
the sufferings, not that with the enjoyments, of others. A late
ingenious and subtile philosopher thought it necessary to prove, by
arguments, that we had a real sympathy with joy, and that
congratulation was a principle of human nature. Nobody, I believe,
ever thought it necessary to prove that compassion was such.
First of all, our sympathy with sorrow is, in some sense, more
universal than that with joy. Though sorrow is excessive, we may still
have some fellow-feeling with it. What we feel does not, indeed, in
this case, amount to that complete sympathy, to that perfect harmony
and correspondence of sentiments, which constitutes approbation. We do
not weep, and exclaim, and lament, with the sufferer. We are sensible,
on the contrary, of his weakness and of the extravagance of his
passion, and yet often feel a very sensible concern upon his account.
But if we do not entirely enter into, and go along with, the joy of
another, we have no sort of regard or fellow feeling for it. The man
who skips and dances about with that intemperate and senseless joy
which we cannot accompany him in, is the object of our contempt and
indignation.
Pain besides, whether of mind or body, is a more pungent sensation
than pleasure, and our sympathy with pain, though it falls greatly
short of what is naturally felt by the sufferer, is generally a more
lively and distinct perception than our sympathy with pleasure, though
this last often approaches more nearly, as I shall show immediately,
to the natural vivacity of the original passion.
Over and above all this, we often struggle to keep down our sympathy
with the sorrow of others. Whenever we are not under the observation
of the sufferer, we endeavour, for our own sake, to suppress it as
much as we can, and we are not always successful. The opposition which
we make to it, and the reluctance with which we yield to it,
necessarily oblige us to take more particular notice of it. But we
never have occasion to make this opposition to our sympathy with joy.
{43} If there is any envy in the case, we never feel the least
propensity towards it; and if there is none, we give way to it without
any reluctance. On the contrary, as we are always ashamed of our own
envy, we often pretend, and sometimes really wish to sympathize with
the joy of others, when by that disagreeable sentiment we are
disqualified from doing so. We are glad, we say, on account of our
neighbour's good fortune, when in our hearts, perhaps, we are really
sorry. We often feel a sympathy with sorrow when we would wish to be
rid of it; and we often miss that with joy when we would be glad to
have it. The obvious observation, therefore, which it naturally falls
in our way to make, is, that our propensity to sympathize with sorrow
must be very strong, and our inclination to sympathize with joy very
weak.
Notwithstanding this prejudice, however, I will venture to affirm,
that, when there is no envy in the case, our propensity to sympathize
with joy is much stronger than our propensity to sympathize with
sorrow; and that our fellow-feeling for the agreeable emotion
approaches much more nearly to the vivacity of what is naturally felt
by the persons principally concerned, than that which we conceive for
the painful one.
We have some indulgence for that excessive grief which we cannot
entirely go along with. We know what a prodigious effort is requisite
before the sufferer can bring down his emotions to complete harmony
and concord with those of the spectator. Though he fails, therefore,
we easily pardon him. But we have no such indulgence for the
intemperance of joy; because we are not conscious that any such vast
effort is requisite to bring it down to what we can entirely enter
into. The man who, under the greatest calamities, can command his
sorrow, seems worthy of the highest admiration; but he who, in the
fulness of prosperity, can in the same manner master his joy, seems
hardly to deserve any praise. We are sensible that there is a much
wider interval in the one case than in the other, between what is
naturally felt by the person principally concerned, and what the
spectator can entirely go along with.
What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is
out of debt, and has a clear conscience? To one in this situation, all
accessions of fortune may properly be said to be superfluous; and if
he is much elevated on account of them, it must be the effect of the
most frivolous levity. This situation, however, may very well be
called the natural and ordinary state of mankind. Notwithstanding the
present misery and depravity of the world, so justly lamented, this
really is the state of the greater part of men. The greater part of
men, therefore, cannot find any great difficulty in elevating
themselves to all the joy which any accession to this situation can
well excite in their companion.
But though little can be added to this state, much may be taken from
{44} it. Though between this condition and the highest pitch of human
prosperity, the interval is but a trifle; between it and the lowest
depth of misery the distance is immense and prodigious. Adversity, on
this account, necessarily depresses the mind of the sufferer much more
below its natural state, than prosperity can elevate him above it. The
spectator, therefore, must find it much more difficult to sympathize
entirely, and keep perfect time, with his sorrow, than thoroughly to
enter into his joy, and must depart much further from his own natural
and ordinary temper of mind in the one case than in the other. It is
on this account, that though our sympathy with sorrow is often a more
pungent sensation than our sympathy with joy, it always falls much
more short of the violence of what is naturally felt by the person
principally concerned.
It is agreeable to sympathize with joy; and wherever envy does not
oppose it, our heart abandons itself with satisfaction to the highest
transports of that delightful sentiment. But it is painful to go along
with grief, and we always enter into it with reluctance.[1] When we
attend to the representation of a tragedy, we struggle against that
sympathetic sorrow which the entertainment inspires as long as we can,
and we give way to it at last only when we can no longer avoid it; we
even then endeavour to cover our concern from the company. If we shed
any tears, we carefully conceal them, and are afraid, lest the
spectators, not entering into this excessive tenderness, should regard
it as effeminacy and weakness. The wretch whose misfortunes call upon
our compassion feels with what reluctance we are likely to enter into
his sorrow, and therefore proposes his grief to us with fear and
hesitation: he even smothers the half of it, and is ashamed, upon
account of this hard-heartedness of mankind, to give vent to the
fulness of his affliction. It is otherwise with the man who riots in
joy and success. Wherever envy does not interest us against him, he
expects our completest sympathy. He does not fear, therefore, to
announce himself with shouts of exultation, in full confidence that we
are heartily disposed to go along with him.
[Footnote 1: It has been objected to me that as I found the sentiment
of approbation, which is always agreeable, upon sympathy, it is
inconsistent with my system to admit any disagreeable sympathy. I
answer, that in the sentiment of approbation there are two things to
be taken notice of; first, the sympathetic passion of the spectator;
and secondly, the emotion which arises from his observing the perfect
coincidence between this sympathetic passion in himself, and the
original passion in the person principally concerned. This last
emotion, in which the sentiment of approbation properly consists, is
always agreeable and delightful. The other may either be agreeable or
disagreeable, according to the nature of the original passion, whose
features it must always, in some measure, retain.]
Why should we be more ashamed to weep than to laugh before company? We
may often have as real occasion to do the one as to do the other; but
we always feel that the spectators are more likely to go along with us
in the agreeable, than in the painful emotion. It is {45} always
miserable to complain, even when we are oppressed by the most dreadful
calamities. But the triumph of victory is not always ungraceful.
Prudence, indeed, would often advise us to bear our prosperity with
more moderation; because prudence would teach us to avoid that envy
which this very triumph is, more than any thing, apt to excite.
How hearty are the acclamations of the mob, who never bear any envy to
their superiors, at a triumph or a public entry? And how sedate and
moderate is commonly their grief at an execution? Our sorrow at a
funeral generally amounts to no more than an affected gravity; but our
mirth at a christening or a marriage, is always from the heart, and
without any affectation. Upon these, and all such joyous occasions,
our satisfaction, though not so durable, is often as lively as that of
the persons principally concerned. Whenever we cordially congratulate
our friends, which, however, to the disgrace of human nature, we do
but seldom, their joy literally becomes our joy: we are, for the
moment, as happy as they are: our heart swells and overflows with real
pleasure: joy and complacency sparkle from our eyes, and animate every
feature of our countenance, and every gesture of our body.
But on the contrary, when we condole with our friends in their
afflictions, how little do we feel, in comparison of what they feel?
We sit down by them, we look at them, and while they relate to us the
circumstances of their misfortune, we listen to them with gravity and
attention. But while their narration is every moment interrupted by
those natural bursts of passion which often seem almost to choke them
in the midst of it; how far are the languid emotions of our hearts
from keeping time to the transports of theirs? We may be sensible, at
the same time, that their passion is natural, and no greater than what
we ourselves might feel upon the like occasion. We may even inwardly
reproach ourselves with our own want of sensibility, and perhaps, on
that account, work ourselves up into an artificial sympathy, which
however, when it is raised, is always the slightest and most
transitory imaginable; and generally, as soon as we have left the
room, vanishes, and is gone for ever. Nature, it seems, when she
loaded us with our own sorrows, thought they were enough, and
therefore did not command us to take any further share in those of
others, than what was necessary to prompt us to relieve them.