impropriety in the motives of the agent, if, on the contrary, the affections which influenced his conduct are fuch as we must 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 seems unjust in the other. The one action seems to merit little reward, the other to deferve no punishment.

1. First, I fay, That wherever we cannot fympathise with the affections of the agent, wherever there feems to be no propriety in the motives which influenced his conduct, we are lefs difpofed to enter into the gratitude of the person who received the benefit of his actions. A very fmall return seems 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 those 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 person 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 eafily abfolve him from a great deal of that fubmiffive veneration and efteem which we fhould think due to a more respectable character;

I 4

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. Those 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 person; 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 exposed their lives and fortunes in the cause of his more frugal and distinguishing fon, notwithstanding the coldness and distant severity 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 mischief 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 sympathy with the person whofe motives we go along with, and whom therefore we look upon as

us.

in the right, cannot but harden us against all fellow-feeling with the other, whom we neceffarily regard as in the wrong. Whatever this laft, therefore, may have fuffered, while it is no more than what we ourselves fhould have wifhed him to fuffer, while it is no more than what our own sympathetic indignation would have prompted us to inflict upon him, it cannot either difplease or provoke When an inhuman murderer is brought to the scaffold, though we have some compaffion for his mifery, we can have no fort of fellow-feeling with his refentment, if he fhould be fo abfurd as to exprefs any against either his profecutor or his judge. The natural tendency of their just indignation against fo vile a criminal is indeed the moft fatal and ruinous to him. But it is impoffible that we fhould be displeased with the tendency of a sentiment, which, when we bring the case home to ourselves, we feel that we cannot avoid adopting.

I.

CHA P. IV.

Recapitulation of the foregoing chapters.

W

E do not, therefore, thoroughly and heartily fympathife with the gratitude of one man towards another, merely because this other has been the cause of his good fortune, unless he has been the cause of it from motives which we intirely go along with. Our heart muit adopt the principles

of

of the agent, and go along with all the affections which influenced his conduct, before it can intirely fympathise with, and beat time to, the gratitude of the perfon who has been benefited by his actions. If in the conduct of the benefactor there appears to have been no propriety, how beneficial foever its effects, it does not feem to demand, or neceffarily to require, any proportionable recompence.

But when to the beneficent tendency of the action is joined the propriety of the affection from which it proceeds, when we intirely fympathife and go along with the motives of the agent, the love which we conceive for him upon his own account enhances and enlivens our fellow-feeling with the gratitude of those who owe their profperity to his good conduct. His actions feem then to demand, and, if I may fay fo, to call aloud for a proportionable recompenfe. We then intirely enter into that gratitude which prompts to bestow it. The benefactor feems then to be the proper object of reward, when we thus intirely fympathife with, and approve of, that fentiment which prompts to reward him. When we approve of, and go along with, the affection from which the action proceeds, we muft neceffarily approve of the action, and regard the perfon towards whom it is directed as its proper and fuitable object.

2. In the fame manner, we cannot at all fympathife with the refentment of one man against another, merely because this other has been the cause of his misfortune, unless

he

he has been the cause of it from motives which we cannot enter into. Before we can adopt the refentment of the sufferer, we must difapprove of the motives of the agent, and feel that our heart renounces all fympathy with the affections which influenced his conduct. If there appears to have been no impropriety in these, how fatal foever the tendency of the action which proceeds from them to those against whom it is directed, it does not seem to deferve any punishment, or to be the proper object of any refentment.

But when to the hurtfulness of the action is joined the impropriety of the affection from whence it proceeds, when our heart rejects with abhorrence all fellow-feeling with the motives of the agent, we then heartily and intirely fympathife with the resentment of the fufferer. Such actions feem then to deserve, and, if I may say so, to call aloud for, a proportionable punishment; and we entirely enter into, and thereby approve of, that refentment which prompts to inflict it. The offender neceffarily feems then to be the proper object of punishment, when we thus intirely fympathife with, and thereby approve of, that fentiment which prompts to punish. In this cafe too, when we approve, and go along with, the affection from which the action proceeds, we must neceffarily approve of the action, and regard the perfon against whom it is directed, as its proper and fuitable object.

CHAP.