the impropriety of his own behaviour; because we cannot help feeling with what confufion we ourselves fhould be covered, had we behaved in so abfurd a

manner.

Of all the calamities to which the condition of mortality exposes mankind, the lofs of reafon appears, to those who have the leaft fpark of humanity, by far the most dreadful, and they behold that laft ftage of human wretchednefs with deeper commiferation than any other. But the poor wretch, who is in it, laughs and fings perhaps, and is altogether, infenfible of his own mifery. The anguish which humanity feels, therefore, at the fight of fuch an object, cannot be the reflection of any fentiment of the sufferer. The compaffion of the fpectator muft arife altogether from the confideration of what he himself would feel if he was reduced to the fame unhappy fituation, and, what perhaps is impoffible, was at the fame time able to regard it with his prefent reafon and judgment.

What are the pangs of a mother when she hears the moanings of her infant that during the agony of disease cannot exprefs what it feels? In her idea of what it fuffers, the joins, to its real helpleffnefs, her own consciousness of that helpleffnefs, and her own terrors for the unknown confequences of its disorder; and out of all these, forms, for her own forrow, the most complete image of mifery and diftrefs. The infant, however, feels only the uneafinefs of the prefent inftant, which can never be great. With regard to the future it is perfectly fecure, and in its thoughtleffnefs and want of forefight poffeffes an antidote against fear and anxiety,

the great tormentors of the human breaft, from which reason and philofophy will in vain attempt to defend it when it grows up to a

man.

We fympathize even with the dead, and overlooking what is of real importance in their fituation, that awful futurity which awaits them, we are chiefly affected by thofe circumstances which strike our fenfes, but can have no influence upon their happiness. It is miserable, we think, to be deprived of the light of the fun; to be shut out from life and converfation; 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 almoft from the memory of their dearest friends and relations. Surely, we imagine, we can never feel too much for those who have fuffered fo dreadful a calamity. The tribute of our fellow-feeling feems 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 mifery, artificially to keep alive our melancholy remembrance of their misfortune. That our fympathy can afford them no confolation feems to be an addition to their calamity; and to think that all we can do is unavailing, and that, what alleviates all other diftrefs, the regret, the love, and the lamentations of their friends, can yield no comfort to them, ferves only to exafperate our fenfe of their mifery. The happiness of the dead, however, most affuredly, is affected by none of these circumstances ; nor is it the thought of these things which can ever disturb

difturb the profound fecurity of their repofe. The idea of that dreary and endless melancholy, which the fancy naturally afcribes to their condition, arises. altogether from our joining to the change which has been produced upon them, our own confcioufnefs of that change, from our putting ourselves in their fituation, and from our lodging, if I may be allowed to fay fo, our own living fouls in their inanimated bodies, and thence conceiving what would be our emotions in this cafe. It is from this very illufion of the imagination, that the forefight of our own diffolution is fo terrible to us, and that the idea of those circumstances, which undoubtedly can give us no pain when we are dead, makes us miferable while we are alive. And from thence arifes one of the most important principles in human nature, the dread of death, the great poifon to the happiness, but the great restraint upon the injuftice of mankind, which, while it afflicts and mortifies the individual, guards and protects the fociety.

CHA P. II.

Of the Pleafure of mutual Sympathy.

BUT

UT whatever may be the cause of sympathy, or however it may be excited, nothing pleases us more than to obferve in other men a fellow-feeling, with all the emotions of our own breaft; nor are we ever so much shocked as by the appearance of the contrary. Those who are fond of deducing all our fentiments from certain refinements of felf-love,

think

?

think themselves at no lofs to account, according to their own principles, both for this pleasure and this pain. Man, fay they, confcious of his own weaknefs and of the need which he has for the affiftance of others, rejoices whenever he observes that they adopt his own paffions, becaufe he is then affured of that affiftance; and grieves whenever he obferves the contrary, because he is then affured of their oppofition. But both the pleasure and the pain are always felt fo inftantaneously, and often upon fuch frivolous occafions, that, it seems evident that neither of them can be derived from any such selfinterefted confideration. A man is mortified when, after having endeavoured to divert the company, he looks round and fees that no body laughs at his jefts but himself. On the contrary, the mirth of the company is highly agreeable to him, and he regards this correfpondence of their fentiments with his own as the greateft applause.

Neither does his pleasure feem to arise altogether from the additional vivacity which his mirth may receive from fympathy with theirs, nor his pain from the disappointment he meets with when he miffes this pleasure; though both the one and the other, no doubt, do in fome measure. When we have read a book or poem so often that we can no longer find any amufement in reading it by ourfelves, we can ftill take pleasure in reading it to a companion. To him it has all the graces of novelty; we enter into the furprize and admiration which it naturally excites in him, but which it is no longer capable of exciting in us; we confider all the ideas which it prefents rather in the light in which they appear to him, than in that in which they appear

to

to ourselves, and we are amused by fympathy with his amusement which thus enlivens our own. On the contrary, we should be vexed if he did not seem to be entertained with it, and we could no longer take any pleasure in reading it to him. It is the fame cafe here. The mirth of the company, no doubt, enlivens our own mirth, and their filence, no doubt, 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 fole cause of either; and this correfpondence of the fentiments of others with our own appears to be a caufe of pleasure, and the want of it a caufe of pain, which cannot be accounted for in this manner. The fympathy, which my friends exprefs 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 ferved only to enliven that grief. Sympathy, however, enlivens joy and alleviates grief. It en- . livens joy by presenting another fource of fatisfaction; and it alleviates grief by infinuating into the heart almost the only agreeable fenfation which it is at that time capable of receiving.

It is to be obferved accordingly, that we are ftill more anxious to communicate to our friends our disagreeable than our agreeable paflions, that we derive ftill more fatisfaction from their fympathy 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 perfon to whom they can communicate the cause of their forrow? Upon his fym

pathy