for a perfon to whom he has been fo much obliged; and confequently applaud the returns which he is difpofed to make for the good offices conferred upon him. As we entirely enter into the affection from which these returns proceed, they neceffarily feem every way proper and fuitable to their object.

2. In the fame manner, as we fympathife with the forrow of our fellow-creature whenever we fee his diftrefs, fo we likewife enter into his abhorrence and averfion for whatever has given occafion to it. Our heart, as it adopts and beats time to his grief, fo is it likewise animated with that spirit by which he endeavours to drive away or destroy the cause of it. The indolent and paffive fellowfeeling, by which we accompany him in his fufferings, readily gives way to that more vigorous and active fentiment by which we go along with him in the effort he makes, either to repel them, or to gratify his averfion to what has given occafion to them. This is ftill more peculiarly the cafe, when it is man who has caufed them. When we see one man oppreffed or injured by another, the fympathy which we feel with the dif trefs of the sufferer feems to ferve only to animate our fellow-feeling with his resentment against the offender. We are rejoiced to see him attack his adversary in his turn, and are eager and ready to affift him whenever he exerts himself for defence, or even for vengeance within a certain degree. If the injured fhould perifh in the quarrel, we not

only

only fympathife with the real refentment of his friends and relations, but with the imaginary resentment which in fancy we lend to the dead, who is no longer capable of feeling that or any other human fentiment. But as we put ourselves in his fituation, as we enter, as it were, into his body, and in our imaginations, in fome measure, animate anew the deformed and mangled carcafe of the flain, when we bring home in this manner his case to our own bofoms, we feel upon this, as upon many other occafions, an emotion which. the perfon principally concerned is incapable of feeling, and which yet we feel by an illufive fympathy with him. The fympathetic tears which we fhed for that immense and irretrievable lofs, which in our fancy he appears to have fuftained, feem to be but a small part of the duty which we owe him. The injury which he has fuffered demands, we think, a principal part of our attention. We feel that refentment which we imagine he ought to feel, and which he would feel, if in his cold and lifeless body there remained any consciousness of what paffes upon earth. His blood, we think, calls aloud for vengeance. The very afhes of the dead feem to be disturbed at the thought that his injuries are to pass unrevenged. The horrors which are supposed to haunt the bed of the murderer, the ghosts which, fuperftition imagines, rise from their graves to demand vengeance upon those who brought them to an untimely end, all take their origin from this natural fym

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pathy

Pathy with the imaginary refentment of the . flain. And with regard, at leaft, to this moft dreadful of all crimes, nature, antecedent to all reflexions upon the utility of punishment, has in this manner ftamped upon the human heart, in the ftrongest and most indelible characters, an immediate and inftinctive approbation of the facred and neceffary law of retaliation.

CHA P. III.

That where there is no approbation of the conduct of the perfon who confers the benefit, there is little fympathy with the gratitude of him who receives it: and that, on the contrary, where there is no difapprobation of the motives of the perfon who does the mischief, there is no Jort of Sympathy with the refentment of him who fuffers it.

T is to be observed, however, that, how beneficial foever on the one hand, or how hurtful foever on the other, the actions or intentions of the perfon who acts may have been to the person who is, if I may say so, acted upon, yet if in the one cafe there appears to have been no propriety in the motives of the agent, if we cannot enter into the affections which influenced his conduct, we have little fympathy with the gratitude of the person who receives the benefit; or if, in the other cafe, there appears to have been no

impropriety

impropriety in the motives of the agent, if on the contrary, the affections which influenced his conduct are fuch as we muft neceffarily enter into, we can have no fort of fympathy with the refentment of the perfon who fuffers. Little gratitude feems due in the one cafe, and all fort of refentment feems unjuft in the other. The one action feems to merit little reward, the other to deferve no punishment.

1. First, I fay, That wherever we cannot fympathife with the affections of the agent, wherever there feems to be no propriety in the motives which influenced his conduct, we are less disposed to enter into the gratitude of the person who received the benefit of his actions. A very small return feems due to that foolish and profufe generofity which confers the greatest benefits from the most trivial motives, and gives an eftate to a man merely because his name and firname happen to be the fame with thofe of the giver. Such fervices do not feem to demand any proportionable recompenfe. Our contempt for the folly of the agent hinders us from thoroughly entering into the gratitude of the perfon to whom the good office has been done. His benefactor feems unworthy of it. As. when we place ourselves in the fituation of the perfon obliged, we feel that we could conceive no great reverence for fuch a benefactor, we easily abfolve him from a great deal of that fubmiffive veneration and efteem which we should think due to a more refpectable character;

racter; and provided he always treats his weak friend with kindness and humanity, we are willing to excufe him from many attentions and regards which we should demand to a worthier patron. Thofe Princes, who have heaped, with the greatest profufion, wealth, power, and honours, upon their favourites, have feldom excited that degree of attachment to their perfons which has often been experienced by those who were more frugal of their favours. The well-natured, but injudicious prodigality of James the First of Great Britain feems to have attached no body to his perfon; and that Prince, notwithstanding his focial and harmless difpofition, appears to have lived and died without a friend. The whole gentry and nobility of England expofed their lives and fortunes in the cause of his more frugal and diftinguishing fon, notwithstanding the coldness and distant feverity of his ordinary deportment.

2. Secondly, I fay, That wherever the conduct of the agent appears to have been intirely directed by motives and affections which we thoroughly enter into and approve of, we can have no fort of fympathy with the refentment of the sufferer, how great foever the mifchief which may have been done to him. When two people quarrel, if we take part with, and intirely adopt the refentment of one of them, it is impoffible that we should enter into that of the other. Our fympathy with the person whofe motives we go along with, and whom therefore we look upon as

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