The fame thing often happens with regard to all the other paffions. A ftranger paffes by us in the street with all the marks of the deepest affliction; and we are immediately told that he has just received the news of the death of his father. It is impoffible that, in this cafe, we should 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 intirely 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 distress which must occur to him. We have learned, however, from experience, that such 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 should, without doubt, most fincerely fympathize with him. It is upon the consciousness of this conditional fympathy, that our approbation of his forrow is founded, even in those cafes in which that sympathy 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

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which

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 cause which excites it, or the motive which gives occafion to it; and secondly, in relation to the end which it propofes, or the effect which it tends to pro

duce.

In the suitableness or unfuitableness, in the proportion or difproportion which the affection feems to bear to the cause 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 punish

ment.

In

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. common life, however, when we judge of any person's conduct, and of the fentiments which directed it, we conftantly confider them under both these afpects. When we blame in another man the exceffes of love, of grief, of resentment, 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

pro

provocation is not so extraordinary, as to justify fo violent a paffion. We should have indulged, we fay; perhaps, have approved of the violence of his emotion, had the cause been in any respect proportioned to it.

When we judge in this manner of any affection, as proportioned or difproportioned to the cause which excites it, it is scarce poffible that we should make use of any other rule or canon but the correspondent affection in ourfelves. If, upon bringing the cafe home to our own breaft, we find that the fentiments which it gives occafion to, coincide and tally with our own, we neceffarily approve of them as proportioned and suitable to their objects: if otherwise, we neceffarily disapprove of them, as extravagant and out of proportion.

Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like faculty in another. I judge of your fight by my fight, of your ear by my ear, of your reafon by my reafon, of your refentment by my refentment, of your love by my love. I neither have, nor can have, any other way of judging about

them.

W

CHA P. IV.

The fame fubject continued.

E may judge of the propriety or impropriety of the fentiments of anoher perfon by their correspondence or disa

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greement

greement with our own, upon two different occafions; either, firft, when the objects which excite them are confidered without any peculiar relation, either to ourselves or to the perfon whose sentiments we judge of; or, fecondly, when they are confidered as peculiarly affecting one or other of us.

1. With regard to those objects which are confidered without any peculiar relation either to ourselves or to the person whose sentiments we judge of; wherever his fentiments intirely correfpond with our own, we afcribe to him the qualities of tafte and good judgment. The beauty of a plain, the greatnefs of a mountain, the ornaments of a building, the expreffion of a picture, the composition of a difcourfe, the conduct of a third perfon, the proportions of different quantities and numbers, the various appearances which the great machine of the univerfe is perpetually exhibiting, with the fecret wheels and fprings which produce them; all the general subjects of fcience and tafte, are what we and our companions regard, as having no peculiar relation to either of us. We both look at them from the fame point of view, and we have no occafion for fympathy, or for that imaginary change of fituations from which it arifes, in order to produce, with regard to these the moft perfect harmony of fentiments and affections. If, notwithstanding, we are often differently affected, it arifes either from the different degrees of attention, which our different habits of life allow us to give easily to

the

the feveral parts of thofe complex objects, or from the different degrees of natural acutenefs in the faculty of the mind to which they are addreffed.

When the fentiments of our companion coincide with our own in things of this kind, which are obvious and eafy, and in which, perhaps, we never found a fingle perfon who differed from us, though we, no doubt, must approve of them, yet he feems to deferve no praife or admiration on account of them. But when they not only coincide with our own,, but lead and direct our own; when in forming them he appears to have attended to many things which we had overlooked, and to have adjufted them to all the various circumftances of their objects; we not only approve of them, but wonder and are furprifed at their uncommon and unexpected acutenefs and comprehenfiveness, and he appears to deferve a very high degree of admiration and applaufe. For approbation heightned by wonder and furprife, conftitutes the fentiment which is properly called admiration, and of which applause is the natural expreffion. The decifion of the man who judges that exquifite beauty is preferable to the groffeft deformity, or that twice two are equal to four, must certainly be approved of by all the world, but will not, furely, be much admired. It is the acute and delicate difcernment of the man of tafte, who diftinguishes the minute, and scarce perceptible, differences of beauty and deformity; it is the comprehenfive

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