Gratitude and refentment, therefore, are the fentiments which moft immediately and directly prompt to reward and to punish. To us, therefore, he muft appear to deserve reward, who appears to be the proper and approved object of gratitude; and he to deferve punishment, who appears to be that of refent

ment.

CHA P. II.

Of the proper objects of gratitude and resentment.

T

O be the proper and approved object either of gratitude or refentment, can mean nothing but to be the object of that gratitude, and of that refentment, which naturally seems proper, and is approved of.

But thefe, as well as all the other paffions of human nature, feem proper and are approved of, when the heart of every impartial fpectator intirely fympathifes with them, when every indifferent by-ftander intirely enters into, and goes along with them.

He, therefore, appears to deferve reward, who, to fome perfon or perfons, is the natural object of a gratitude which gratitude which every human heart is difpofed to beat time to, and thereby applaud: and he, on the other hand, appears to deserve punishment, who in the fame manner is to fome perfon or perfons the natural object of a refentment which the breast of every reasonable man is ready to adopt and fympathife with. To us, furely, that action

muft

muft appear to deferve reward, which every body who knows of it would wish to reward, and therefore delights to fee rewarded: and that action muft as furely appear to deserve punishment, which every body who hears of it is angry with, and upon that account rejoices to fee punished.

1. As we fympathife with the joy of our companions when in profperity, fo we join with them in the complacency and fatisfaction with which they naturally regard whatever is the cause of their good fortune. We enter into the love and affection which they conceive for it, and begin to love it too. We fhould be forry for their fakes if it was destroyed, or even if it was placed at too great a distance from them, and out of the reach of their care and protection, though they should lofe nothing by its abfence except the pleasure of feeing it. If it is man who has thus been the fortunate inftrument of the happiness of his brethren, this is ftill more peculiarly the cafe. When we fee one man affifted, protected, relieved by another, our fympathy with the joy of the person who receives the benefit ferves only to animate our fellow-feeling with his gratitude towards him who bestows it. When we look upon the person who is the cause of his pleasure with the eyes with which we imagine he muft look upon him, his benefactor feems to ftand before us in the most engaging and amiable light. We readily therefore fympathise with the grateful affection which he conceives I 2

for

for a person to whom he has been so 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 sympathife with the forrow of our fellow-creature whenever we fee his diftrefs, fo we likewise 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 likewife animated with that spirit by which he endeavours to drive away or deftroy 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 fee one man oppreffed or injured by another, the fympathy which we feel with the dif trefs of the fufferer feems to ferve only to animate our fellow-feeling with his resentment against the offender. We are rejoiced to fee him attack his adverfary 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 perish in the quarrel, we not

only

only fympathife with the real refentment of his friends and relations, but with the imaginary refentment 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 cafe 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 immenfe 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 fuppofed to haunt the bed of the murderer, the ghofts 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 sym

pathy with the imaginary resentment of the flain. And with regard, at least, 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 strongest and most indelible characters, an immediate and instinctive approbation of the facred and neceffary law of retaliation.

СНАР. III.

That where there is no approbation of the conduct of the person 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 fort of Sympathy with the resentment of him who suffers it.

I

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 perfon who receives the benefit: or if, in the other cafe, there appears to have been no impropriety