PART

I.

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CHAP. III.

Of the manner in which we judge of the propriety or impropriety of the affections of other men, by their concord or diffonance with our own.

WE

HEN the original paffions of the person principally concerned are in perfect concord with the fympathetic emotions of the fpectator, they neceffarily appear to this laft juft and proper, and fuitable to their objects; and, on the contrary, when, upon bringing the cafe home to himself, he finds that they do not coincide with what he feels, they neceffarily appear to him unjust and improper, and unfuitable to the caufes which excite them. To approve of the paffions of another, therefore, as fuitable to their objects, is the fame thing as to obferve that we entirely fympathize with them; and not to approve of them as fuch, is the fame thing as to obferve that we do not entirely fympathize with them. The man who refents the injuries that have been done to me, and obferves that I refent them precisely as he does, neceffarily approves of my refentment. The man whofe fympathy keeps time to my grief, cannot but admit the reasonableness of my forrow. He who admires the fame poem, or the fame picture, and admires them exactly as I do, muft furely allow the juftness of my admiration. He who laughs at the fame joke, and

laughs

I.

laughs along with me, cannot well deny the SEC T. propriety of my laughter. On the contrary, the perfon who, upon thefe different occafions, either feels no fuch emotion as that which I feel, or feels none that bears any proportion to mine, cannot avoid disapproving my fentiments on account of their diffonance with his own. If my animofity goes beyond what the indignation of my friend can correfpond to; if my grief exceeds what his moft tender compaffion 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 fmiles, or, on the contrary, only fmile when he laughs loud and heartily; in all these cafes, as foon as he comes from confidering the object, to obferve how I am affected by it, according as there is more or lefs difproportion between his fentiments and mine, I muft incur a greater or lefs degree of his difapprobation: and upon all occafions his own fentiments are the standards and measures by which he judges of mine.

To approve of another man's opinions is to adopt thofe opinions, and to adopt them is to approve of them. If the fame arguments which convince you convince me likewife, I neceffarily approve of your conviction; and if they do not, I neceffarily difapprove of it: neither can I poffibly conceive that I fhould do the one without the other. To approve or difapprove, therefore, of the opinions of others is acknowledged, by every body, to mean no more than to obferve their agreement or difagreement with our own.

VOL. I.

C

But

I.

PART But this is equally the cafe with regard to our approbation or disapprobation of the fentiments or paffions of others.

There are, indeed, fome cafes in which we seem to approve without any sympathy or correspondence of fentiments, and in which, confequently, the fentiment of approbation would feem to be different from the perception of this coincidence. A little attention, however, will convince us that even in thefe cafes our approbation is ultimately founded upon a fympathy or correfpondence of this kind. I fhall give an inftance in things of a very frivolous nature, becaufe in them the judgments of mankind are less apt to be perverted by wrong fyftems. We may often approve of a jeft, and think the laughter of the company quite juft and proper, though we ourfelves 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 fort of pleasantry is upon moft occafions capable of making us laugh, and we obferve that this is one of that kind. We approve, therefore, of the laughter of the company, and feel that it is natural and fuitable to its object; because, though in our prefent mood we cannot easily enter into it, we are fenfible that upon moft occafions we should very heartily join in it.

The fame thing often all the other paffions.

happens with regard to A ftranger paffes by us in the street with all the marks of the deepest affliction; and we are immediately told that he

has

I.

has juft received the news of the death of his SEC T. father. It is impoffible that, in this cafe, we fhould not approve of his grief. Yet it may often happen, without any defect of humanity on our part, that, fo far from entering into the violence of his forrow, we fhould fcarce 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 circumftances of diftrefs which muft occur to him. We have learned, however, from experience, that fuch a misfortune naturally excites fuch a degree of forrow, and we know that if we took time to confider his fituation, fully and in all its parts, we fhould, without doubt, moft fincerely fympathize with him. It is upon the confcioufnefs of this conditional fympathy, that our approbation of his forrow is founded, even in those cafes in which that fympathy does not actually take place; and the general rules derived from our preceding experience of what our fentiments would commonly correfpond with, correct upon this, as upon many other occafions, the impropriety of our prefent emotions.

The fentiment or affection of the heart from which any action proceeds, and upon which its whole virtue or vice must ultimately depend, may be confidered under two different afpects, or in two different relations; first, in relation to the caufe which excites it, or the motive which gives occafion to it; and fecondly, in relation to

PART the end which it propofes, or the effect which it I. tends to produce.

In the fuitablenefs or unfuitablenefs, in the proportion or difproportion which the affection feems to bear to the caufe or object which excites it, confifts the propriety or impropriety, the decency or ungracefulness of the confequent action.

In the beneficial or hurtful nature of the effects which the affection aims at, or tends to produce, confifts the merit or demerit of the action, the qualities by which it is entitled to reward, or is deferving of punishment.

Philofophers have, of late years, confidered chiefly the tendency of affections, and have given little attention to the relation which they ftand in to the caufe which excites them. In common life, however, when we judge of any perfon's conduct, and of the fentiments which directed it, we conftantly confider them under both these aspects. When we blame in another man the exceffes of love, of grief, of refentment, we not only confider the ruinous effects which they tend to produce, but the little occafion which was given for them. The merit of his favourite, we fay, is not fo great, his misfortune is not fo dreadful, his provocation is not fo extraordinary, as to juftify fo violent a paffion. We should have indulged, we say; perhaps, have approved of the violence of his emotion, had the cause been in any refpect proportioned to it.

When we judge in this manner of any affection as proportioned or difproportioned to the

caufe.