2.3.1. Chap. I
Of the Causes of this Influence of Fortune
The causes of pain and pleasure, whatever they are, or
however they operate, seem to be the objects, which, in all
animals, immediately excite those two passions of gratitude and
resentment. They are excited by inanimated, as well as by
animated objects. We are angry, for a moment, even at the stone
that hurts us. A child beats it, a dog barks at it, a choleric
man is apt to curse it. The least reflection, indeed, corrects
this sentiment, and we soon become sensible, that what has no
feeling is a very improper object of revenge. When the mischief,
however, is very great, the object which caused it becomes
disagreeable to us ever after, and we take pleasure to burn or
destroy it. We should treat, in this manner, the instrument which
had accidentally been the cause of the death of a friend, and we
should often think ourselves guilty of a sort of inhumanity, if
we neglected to vent this absurd sort of vengeance upon it.
We conceive, in the same manner, a sort of gratitude for
those inanimated objects, which have been the causes of great, or
frequent pleasure to us. The sailor, who, as soon as he got
ashore, should mend his fire with the plank upon which he had
just escaped from a shipwreck, would seem to be guilty of an
unnatural action. We should expect that he would rather preserve
it with care and affection, as a monument that was, in some
measure, dear to him. A man grows fond of a snuff-box, of a
pen-knife, of a staff which he has long made use of, and
conceives something like a real love and affection for them. If
he breaks or loses them, he is vexed out of all proportion to the
value of the damage. The house which we have long lived in, the
tree, whose verdure and shade we have long enjoyed, are both
looked upon with a sort of respect that seems due to such
benefactors. The decay of the one, or the ruin of the other,
affects us with a kind of melancholy, though we should sustain no
loss by it. The Dryads and the Lares of the ancients, a sort of
genii of trees and houses, were probably first suggested by this
sort of affection, which the authors of those superstitions felt
for such objects, and which seemed unreasonable, if there was
nothing animated about them.
But, before any thing can be the proper object of gratitude
or resentment, it must not only be the cause of pleasure or pain,
it must likewise be capable of feeling them. Without this other
quality, those passions cannot vent themselves with any sort of
satisfaction upon it. As they are excited by the causes of
pleasure and pain, so their gratification consists in retaliating
those sensations upon what gave occasion to them; which it is to
no purpose to attempt upon what has no sensibility. Animals,
therefore, are less improper objects of gratitude and resentment
than inanimated objects. The dog that bites, the ox that gores,
are both of them punished. If they have been the causes of the
death of any person, neither the public, nor the relations of the
slain, can be satisfied, unless they are put to death in their
turn: nor is this merely for the security of the living, but, in
some measure, to revenge the injury of the dead. Those animals,
on the contrary, that have been remarkably serviceable to their
masters, become the objects of a very lively gratitude. We are
shocked at the brutality of that officer, mentioned in the
Turkish Spy, who stabbed the horse that had carried him across an
arm of the sea, lest that ani mal should afterwards distinguish
some other person by a similar adventure.
But, though animals are not only the causes of pleasure and
pain, but are also capable of feeling those sensations, they are
still far from being complete and perfect objects, either of
gratitude or resentment; and those passions still feel, that
there is something wanting to their entire gratification. What
gratitude chiefly desires, is not only to make the benefactor
feel pleasure in his turn, but to make him conscious that he
meets with this reward on account of his past conduct, to make
him pleased with that conduct, and to satisfy him that the person
upon whom he bestowed his good offices was not unworthy of them.
What most of all charms us in our benefactor, is the concord
between his sentiments and our own, with regard to what interests
us so nearly as the worth of our own character, and the esteem
that is due to us. We are delighted to find a person who values
us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of
mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we
distinguish ourselves. To maintain in him these agreeable and
flattering sentiments, is one of the chief ends proposed by the
returns we are disposed to make to him. A generous mind often
disdains the interested thought of extorting new favours from its
benefactor, by what may be called the importunities of its
gratitude. But to preserve and to increase his esteem, is an
interest which the greatest mind does not think unworthy of its
attention. And this is the foundation of what I formerly
observed, that when we cannot enter into the motives of our
benefactor, when his conduct and character appear unworthy of our
approbation, let his services have been ever so great, our
gratitude is always sensibly diminished. We are less flattered by
the distinction. and to preserve the esteem of so weak, or so
worthless a patron, seems to be an object which does not deserve
to be pursued for its own sake.
The object, on the contrary, which resentment is chiefly
intent upon, is not so much to make our enemy feel pain in his
turn, as to make him conscious that he feels it upon account of
his past conduct, to make him repent of that conduct, and to make
him sensible, that the person whom he injured did not deserve to
be treated in that manner. What chiefly enrages us against the
man who injures or insults us, is the little account which he
seems to make of us, the unreasonable preference which he gives
to himself above us, and that absurd self-love, by which he seems
to imagine, that other people may be sacrificed at any time, to
his conveniency or his humour. The glaring impropriety of this
conduct, the gross insolence and injustice which it seems to
involve in it, often shock and exasperate us more than all the
mischief which we have suffered. To bring him back to a more just
sense of what is due to other people, to make him sensible of
what he owes us, and of the wrong that he has done to us, is
frequently the principal end proposed in our revenge, which is
always imperfect when it cannot accomplish this. When our enemy
appears to have done us no injury, when we are sensible that he
acted quite properly, that, in his situation, we should have done
the same thing, and that we deserved from him all the mischief we
met with; in that case, if we have the least spark either of
candour or justice, we can entertain no sort of resentment.
Before any thing, therefore, can be the complete and proper
object, either of gratitude or resentment, it must possess three
different qualifications. First, it must be the cause of pleasure
in the one case, and of pain in the other. Secondly, it must be
capable of feeling those sensations. And, thirdly, it must not
only have produced those sensations, but it must in have produced
them from design, and from a design that is approved of the one
case, and disapproved of in the other. It is by the first
qualification, that any object is capable of exciting those
passions: it is by the second, that it is in any respect capable
of gratifying them: the third qualification is not only necessary
for their complete satisfaction, but as it gives a pleasure or
pain that is both exquisite and peculiar, it is likewise an
additional exciting cause of those passions.
As what gives pleasure or pain, either in one way or another,
is the sole exciting cause of gratitude and resentment; though
the intentions of any person should be ever so proper and
beneficent on the one hand, or ever so improper and malevolent on
the other; yet, if he has failed in producing either the good or
the evil which he intended, as one of the exciting causes is
wanting in both cases, less gratitude seems due to him in the
one, and less resentment in the other. And, on the contrary,
though in the intentions of any person, there was either no
laudable degree of benevolence on the one hand, or no blameable
degree of malice on the other; yet, if his actions should produce
either great good or great evil, as one of the exciting causes
takes place upon both these occasions, some gratitude is apt to
arise towards him in the one, and some resentment in the other. A
shadow of merit seems to fall upon him in the first, a shadow of
demerit in the second. And, as the consequences of actions are
altogether under the empire of Fortune, hence arises her
influence upon the sentiments of mankind with regard to merit and
demerit.