Section I
Of the Sense of Propriety
1.1.1. Chap. I
Of Sympathy
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently
some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune
of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he
derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this
kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the
misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive
it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the
sorrow of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any
instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other
original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the
virtuous and humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the
most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most
hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether
without it.
As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we
can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by
conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation.
Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are
at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers.
They never did, and never can, carry us beyond our own person,
and it is by the imagination only that we can form any conception
of what are his sensations. Neither can that faculty help us to
this any other way, than by representing to us what would be our
own, if we were in his case. It is the impressions of our own
senses only, not those of his, which our imaginations copy. By
the imagination we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive
ourselves enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were
into his body, and become in some measure the same person with
him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel
something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether
unlike them. His agonies, when they are thus brought home to
ourselves, when we have thus adopted and made them our own, begin
at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the
thought of what he feels. For as to be in pain or distress of any
kind excites the most excessive sorrow, so to conceive or to
imagine that we are in it, excites some degree of the same
emotion, in proportion to the vivacity or dulness of the
conception.
That this is the source of our fellow-feeling for the misery
of others, that it is by changing places in fancy with the
sufferer, that we come either to conceive or to be affected by
what he feels, may be demonstrated by many obvious observations,
if it should not be thought sufficiently evident of itself. When
we see a stroke aimed and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm
of another person, we naturally shrink and draw back our own leg
or our own arm; and when it does fall, we feel it in some
measure, and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer. The mob,
when they are gazing at a dancer on the slack rope, naturally
writhe and twist and balance their own bodies, as they see him
do, and as they feel that they themselves must do if in his
situation. Persons of delicate fibres and a weak constitution of
body complain, that in looking on the sores and ulcers which are
exposed by beggars in the streets, they are apt to feel an
itching or uneasy sensation in the correspondent part of their
own bodies. The horror which they conceive at the misery of those
wretches affects that particular part in themselves more than any
other; because that horror arises from conceiving what they
themselves would suffer, if they really were the wretches whom
they are looking upon, and if that particular part in themselves
was actually affected in the same miserable manner. The very
force of this conception is sufficient, in their feeble frames,
to produce that itching or uneasy sensation complained of. Men of
the most robust make, observe that in looking upon sore eyes they
often feel a very sensible soreness in their own, which proceeds
from the same reason; that organ being in the strongest man more
delicate, than any other part of the body is in the weakest.
Neither is it those circumstances only, which create pain or
sorrow, that call forth our fellow-feeling. Whatever is the
passion which arises from any object in the person principally
concerned, an analogous emotion springs up, at the thought of his
situation, in the breast of every attentive spectator. Our joy
for the deliverance of those heroes of tragedy or romance who
interest us, is as sincere as our grief for their distress, and
our fellow-feeling with their misery is not more real than that
with their happiness. We enter into their gratitude towards those
faithful friends who did not desert them in their difficulties;
and we heartily go along with their resentment against those
perfidious traitors who injured, abandoned, or deceived them. In
every passion of which the mind of man is susceptible, the
emotions of the by-stander always correspond to hat, by bringing
the case home to himself, he imagines should be the sentiments of
the sufferer.
Pity and compassion are words appropriated to signify our
fellow-feeling with the sorrow of others. Sympathy, though its
meaning was, perhaps, originally the same, may now, however,
without much impropriety, be made use of to denote our
fellow-feeling with any passion whatever.
Upon some occasions sympathy may seen to arise merely from
the view of a certain emotion in another person. The passions,
upon some occasions, may seem to be transfused from one man to
another, instantaneously and antecedent to any knowledge of what
excited them in the person principally concerned. Grief and joy,
for example, strongly expressed in the look and gestures of any
one, at once affect the spectator with some degree of a like
painful or agreeable emotion. A smiling face is, to every body
that sees it, a cheerful object; as a sorrowful countenance, on
the other hand, is a melancholy one.
This, however, does not hold universally, or with regard to
every passion. There are some passions of which the expressions
excite no sort of sympathy, but before we are acquainted with
what gave occasion to them, serve rather to disgust and provoke
us against them. The furious behaviour of an angry man is more
likely to exasperate us against himself than against his enemies.
As we are unacquainted with his provocation, we cannot bring his
case home to ourselves, nor conceive any thing like the passions
which it excites. But we plainly see what is the situation of
those with whom he is angry, and to what violence they may be
exposed from so enraged an adversary. We readily, therefore,
sympathize with their fear or resentment, and are immediately
disposed to take part against the man from whom they appear to be
in so much danger.
If the very appearances of grief and joy inspire us with some
degree of the like emotions, it is because they suggest to us the
general idea of some good or bad fortune that has befallen the
person in whom we observe them: and in these passions this is
sufficient to have some little influence upon us. The effects of
grief and joy terminate in the person who feels those emotions,
of which the expressions do not, like those of resentment,
suggest to us the idea of any other person for whom we are
concerned, and whose interests are opposite to his. The general
idea of good or bad fortune, therefore, creates some concern for
the person who has met with it, but the general idea of
provocation excites no sympathy with the anger of the man who has
received it. Nature, it seems, teaches us to be more averse to
enter into this passion, and, till informed of its cause, to be
disposed rather to take part against it.
Even our sympathy with the grief or joy of another, before we
are informed of the cause of either, is always extremely
imperfect. General lamentations, which express nothing but the
anguish of the sufferer, create rather a curiosity to inquire
into his situation, along with some disposition to sympathize
with him, than any actual sympathy that is very sensible. The
first question which we ask is, What has befallen you? Till this
be answered, though we are uneasy both from the vague idea of his
misfortune, and still more from torturing ourselves with
conjectures about what it may be, yet our fellow-feeling is not
very considerable.
Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of
the passion, as from that of the situation which excites it. We
sometimes feel for another, a passion of which he himself seems
to be altogether incapable; because, when we put ourselves in his
case, that passion arises in our breast from the imagination,
though it does not in his from the reality. We blush for the
impudence and rudeness of another, though he himself appears to
have no sense of the impropriety of his own behaviour; because we
cannot help feeling with what confusion we ourselves should be
covered, had we behaved in so absurd a manner.
Of all the calamities to which the condition of mortality
exposes mankind, the loss of reason appears, to those who have
the least spark of humanity, by far the most dreadful, and they
behold that last stage of human wretchedness with deeper
commiseration than any other. But the poor wretch, who is in it,
laughs and sings perhaps, and is altogether insensible of his own
misery. The anguish which humanity feels, therefore, at the sight
of such an object, cannot be the reflection of any sentiment of
the sufferer. The compassion of the spectator must arise
altogether from the consideration of what he himself would feel
if he was reduced to the same unhappy situation, and, what
perhaps is impossible, was at the same time able to regard it
with his present reason and judgment.
What are the pangs of a mother, when she hears the moanings
of her infant that during the agony of disease cannot express
what it feels? In her idea of what it suffers, she joins, to its
real helplessness, her own consciousness of that helplessness,
and her own terrors for the unknown consequences of its disorder;
and out of all these, forms, for her own sorrow, the most
complete image of misery and distress. The infant, however, feels
only the uneasiness of the present instant, which can never be
great. With regard to the future, it is perfectly secure, and in
its thoughtlessness and want of foresight, possesses an antidote
against fear and anxiety, the great tormentors of the human
breast, from which reason and philosophy will, in vain, attempt
to defend it, when it grows up to a man.
We sympathize even with the dead, and overlooking what is of
real importance in their situation, that awful futurity which
awaits them, we are chiefly affected by those circumstances which
strike our senses, but can have no influence upon their
happiness. It is miserable, we think, to be deprived of the light
of the sun; to be shut out from life and conversation; to be laid
in the cold grave, a prey to corruption and the reptiles of the
earth; to be no more thought of in this world, but to be
obliterated, in a little time, from the affections, and almost
from the memory, of their dearest friends and relations. Surely,
we imagine, we can never feel too much for those who have
suffered so dreadful a calamity. The tribute of our
fellow-feeling seems doubly due to them now, when they are in
danger of being forgot by every body; and, by the vain honours
which we pay to their memory, we endeavour, for our own misery,
artificially to keep alive our melancholy remembrance of their
misfortune. That our sympathy can afford them no consolation
seems to be an addition to their calamity; and to think that all
we can do is unavailing, and that, what alleviates all other
distress, the regret, the love, and the lamentations of their
friends, can yield no comfort to them, serves only to exasperate
our sense of their misery. The happiness of the dead, however,
most assuredly, is affected by none of these circumstances; nor
is it the thought of these things which can ever disturb the
profound security of their repose. The idea of that dreary and
endless melancholy, which the fancy naturally ascribes to their
condition, arises altogether from our joining to the change which
has been produced upon them, our own consciousness of that
change, from our putting ourselves in their situation, and from
our lodging, if I may be allowed to say so, our own living souls
in their inanimated bodies, and thence conceiving what would be
our emotions in this case. It is from this very illusion of the
imagination, that the foresight of our own dissolution is so
terrible to us, and that the idea of those circumstances, which
undoubtedly can give us no pain when we are dead, makes us
miserable while we are alive. And from thence arises one of the
most important principles in human nature, the dread of death,
the great poison to the happiness, but the great restraint upon
the injustice of mankind, which, while it afflicts and mortifies
the individual, guards and protects the society.
1.1.2. Chap. II
Of the Pleasure of mutual Sympathy
But whatever may be the cause of sympathy, or however it may
be excited, nothing pleases us more than to observe in other men
a fellow-feeling with all the emotions of our own breast; nor are
we ever so much shocked as by the appearance of the contrary.
Those who are fond of deducing all our sentiments from certain
refinements of self-love, think themselves at no loss to account,
according to their own principles, both for this pleasure and
this pain. Man, say they, conscious of his own weakness, and of
the need which he has for the assistance of others, rejoices
whenever he observes that they adopt his own passions, because he
is then assured of that assistance; and grieves whenever he
observes the contrary, because he is then assured of their
opposition. But both the pleasure and the pain are always felt so
instantaneously, and often upon such frivolous occasions, that it
seems evident that neither of them can be derived from any such
self-interested consideration. A man is mortified when, after
having endeavoured to divert the company, he looks round and sees
that nobody laughs at his jests but himself. On the contrary, the
mirth of the company is highly agreeable to him, and he regards
this correspondence of their sentiments with his own as the
greatest applause.
Neither does his pleasure seem to arise altogether from the
additional vivacity which his mirth may receive from sympathy
with theirs, nor his pain from the disappointment he meets with
when he misses this pleasure; though both the one and the other,
no doubt, do in some measure. When we have read a book or poem so
often that we can no longer find any amusement in reading it by
ourselves, we can still take pleasure in reading it to a
companion. To him it has all the graces of novelty; we enter into
the surprise and admiration which it naturally excites in him,
but which it is no longer capable of exciting in us; we consider
all the ideas which it presents rather in the light in which they
appear to him, than in that in which they appear to ourselves,
and we are amused by sympathy with his amusement which thus
enlivens our own. On the contrary, we should be vexed if he did
not seem to be entertained with it, and we could no longer take
any pleasure in reading it to him. It is the same case here. The
mirth of the company, no doubt, enlivens our own mirth, and their
silence, no doubt, disappoints us. But though this may contribute
both to the pleasure which we derive from the one, and to the
pain which we feel from the other, it is by no means the sole
cause of either; and this correspondence of the sentiments of
others with our own appears to be a cause of pleasure, and the
want of it a cause of pain, which cannot be accounted for in this
manner. The sympathy, which my friends express with my joy,
might, indeed, give me pleasure by enlivening that joy: but that
which they express with my grief could give me none, if it served
only to enliven that grief. Sympathy, however, enlivens joy and
alleviates grief. It enlivens joy by presenting another source of
satisfaction; and it alleviates grief by insinuating into the
heart almost the only agreeable sensation which it is at that
time capable of receiving.
It is to be observed accordingly, that we are still more
anxious to communicate to our friends our disagreeable than our
agreeable passions, that we derive still more satisfaction from
their sympathy with the former than from that with the latter,
and that we are still more shocked by the want of it.
How are the unfortunate relieved when they have found out a
person to whom they can communicate the cause of their sorrow?
Upon his sympathy they seem to disburthen themselves of a part of
their distress: he is not improperly said to share it with them.
He not only feels a sorrow of the same kind with that which they
feel, but as if he had derived a part of it to himself, what he
feels seems to alleviate the weight of what they feel. Yet by
relating their misfortunes they in some measure renew their
grief. They awaken in their memory the remembrance of those
circumstances which occasioned their affliction. Their tears
accordingly flow faster than before, and they are apt to abandon
themselves to all the weakness of sorrow. They take pleasure,
however, in all this, and, it is evident, are sensibly relieved
by it; because the sweetness of his sympathy more than
compensates the bitterness of that sorrow, which, in order to
excite this sympathy, they had thus enlivened and renewed. The
cruelest insult, on the contrary, which can be offered to the
unfortunate, is to appear to make light of their calamities. To
seem not to be affected with the joy of our companions is but
want of politeness; but not to wear a serious countenance when
they tell us their afflictions, is real and gross inhumanity.
Love is an agreeable; resentment, a disagreeable passion; and
accordingly we are not half so anxious that our friends should
adopt our friendships, as that they should enter into our
resentments. We can forgive them though they seem to be little
affected with the favours which we may have received, but lose
all patience if they seem indifferent about the injuries which
may have been done to us: nor are we half so angry with them for
not entering into our gratitude, as for not sympathizing with our
resentment. They can easily avoid being friends to our friends,
but can hardly avoid being enemies to those with whom we are at
variance. We seldom resent their being at enmity with the first,
though upon that account we may sometimes affect to make an
awkward quarrel with them; but we quarrel with them in good
earnest if they live in friendship with the last. The agreeable
passions of love and joy can satisfy and support the heart
without any auxiliary pleasure. The bitter and painful emotions
of grief and resentment more strongly require the healing
consolation of sympathy.
As the person who is principally interested in any event is
pleased with our sympathy, and hurt by the want of it, so we,
too, seem to be pleased when we are able to sympathize with him,
and to be hurt when we are unable to do so. We run not only to
congratulate the successful, but to condole with the afflicted;
and the pleasure which we find in the conversation of one whom in
all the passions of his heart we can entirely sympathize with,
seems to do more than compensate the painfulness of that sorrow
with which the view of his situation affects us. On the contrary,
it is always disagreeable to feel that we cannot sympathize with
him, and instead of being pleased with this exemption from
sympathetic pain, it hurts us to find that we cannot share his
uneasiness. If we hear a person loudly lamenting his misfortunes,
which, however, upon bringing the case home to ourselves, we
feel, can produce no such violent effect upon us, we are shocked
at his grief; and, because we cannot enter into it, call it
pusillanimity and weakness. It gives us the spleen, on the other
hand, to see another too happy or too much elevated, as we call
it, with any little piece of good fortune. We are disobliged even
with his joy; and, because we cannot go along with it, call it
levity and folly. We are even put out of humour if our companion
laughs louder or longer at a joke than we think it deserves; that
is, than we feel that we ourselves could laugh at it.
1.1.3. Chap. III
Of the manner in which we judge of the propriety or impropriety
of the affections of other men, by their concord or dissonance
with out own.
When the original passions of the person principally
concerned are in perfect concord with the sympathetic emotions of
the spectator, they necessarily appear to this last just and
proper, and suitable to their objects; and, on the contrary,
when, upon bringing the case home to himself, he finds that they
do not coincide with what he feels, they necessarily appear to
him unjust and improper, and unsuitable to the causes which
excite them. To approve of the passions of another, therefore, as
suitable to their objects, is the same thing as to observe that
we entirely sympathize with them; and not to approve of them as
such, is the same thing as to observe that we do not entirely
sympathize with them. The man who resents the injuries that have
been done to me, and observes that I resent them precisely as he
does, necessarily approves of my resentment. The man whose
sympathy keeps time to my grief, cannot but admit the
reasonableness of my sorrow. He who admires the same poem, or the
same picture, and admires them exactly as I do, must surely allow
the justness of my admiration. He who laughs at the same joke,
and laughs along with me, cannot well deny the propriety of my
laughter. On the contrary, the person who, upon these different
occasions, either feels no such emotion as that which I feel, or
feels none that bears any proportion to mine, cannot avoid
disapproving my sentiments on account of their dissonance with
his own. If my animosity goes beyond what the indignation of my
friend can correspond to; if my grief exceeds what his most
tender compassion 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 smiles, or, on the contrary, only smile
when he laughs loud and heartily; in all these cases, as soon as
he comes from considering the object, to observe how I am
affected by it, according as there is more or less disproportion
between his sentiments and mine, I must incur a greater or less
degree of his disapprobation: and upon all occasions his own
sentiments are the standards and measures by which he judges of
mine.
To approve of another man's opinions is to adopt those
opinions, and to adopt them is to approve of them. If the same
arguments which convince you convince me likewise, I necessarily
approve of your conviction; and if they do not, I necessarily
disapprove of it: neither can I possibly conceive that I should
do the one without the other. To approve or disapprove,
therefore, of the opinions of others is acknowledged, by every
body, to mean no more than to observe their agreement or
disagreement with our own. But this is equally the case with
regard to our approbation or disapprobation of the sentiments or
passions of others.
There are, indeed, some cases in which we seem to approve
without any sympathy or correspondence of sentiments, and in
which, consequently, the sentiment of approbation would seem to
be different from the perception of this coincidence. A little
attention, however, will convince us that even in these cases our
approbation is ultimately founded upon a sympathy or
correspondence of this kind. I shall give an instance in things
of a very frivolous nature, because in them the judgments of
mankind are less apt to be perverted by wrong systems. We may
often approve of a jest, and think the laughter of the company
quite just and proper, though we ourselves 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 sort of pleasantry is upon most occasions
capable of making us laugh, and we observe that this is one of
that kind. We approve, therefore, of the laughter of the company,
and feel that it is natural and suitable to its object; because,
though in our present mood we cannot easily enter into it, we are
sensible that upon most occasions we should very heartily join in
it.
The same thing often happens with regard to all the other
passions. A stranger passes 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
impossible that, in this case, we should not approve of his
grief. Yet it may often happen, without any defect of humanity on
our part, that, so far from entering into the violence of his
sorrow, we should scarce 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 circumstances of distress which must occur to him. We
have learned, however, from experience, that such a misfortune
naturally excites such a degree of sorrow, and we know that if we
took time to consider his situation, fully and in all its parts,
we should, without doubt, most sincerely sympathize with him. It
is upon the consciousness of this conditional sympathy, that our
approbation of his sorrow is founded, even in those cases in
which that sympathy does not actually take place; and the general
rules derived from our preceding experience of what our
sentiments would commonly correspond with, correct upon this, as
upon many other occasions, the impropriety of our present
emotions.
The sentiment or affection of the heart from which any action
proceeds, and upon which its whole virtue or vice must ultimately
depend, may be considered under two different aspects, or in two
different relations; first, in relation to the cause which
excites it, or the motive which gives occasion to it; and
secondly, in relation to the end which it proposes, or the effect
which it tends to produce.
In the suitableness or unsuitableness, in the proportion or
disproportion which the affection seems to bear to the cause or
object which excites it, consists the propriety or impropriety,
the decency or ungracefulness of the consequent action.
In the beneficial or hurtful nature of the effects which the
affection aims at, or tends to produce, consists the merit or
demerit of the action, the qualities by which it is entitled to
reward, or is deserving of punishment.
Philosophers have, of late years, considered chiefly the
tendency of affections, and have given little attention to the
relation which they stand in to the cause which excites them. In
common life, however, when we judge of any person's conduct, and
of the sentiments which directed it, we constantly consider them
under both these aspects. When we blame in another man the
excesses of love, of grief, of resentment, we not only consider
the ruinous effects which they tend to produce, but the little
occasion which was given for them. The merit of his favourite, we
say, is not so great, his misfortune is not so dreadful, his
provocation is not so extraordinary, as to justify so violent a
passion. We should have indulged, we say; 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 disproportioned to the cause which excites it, it
is scarce possible that we should make use of any other rule or
canon but the correspondent affection in ourselves. If, upon
bringing the case home to our own breast, we find that the
sentiments which it gives occasion to, coincide and tally with
our own, we necessarily approve of them as proportioned and
suitable to their objects; if otherwise, we necessarily
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 sight by my sight,
of your ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your
resentment by my resentment, of your love by my love. I neither
have, nor can have, any other way of judging about them.
1.1.4. Chap. IV
The same subject continued
We may judge of the propriety or impropriety of the
sentiments of another person by their correspondence or
disagreement with our own, upon two different occasions; either,
first, when the objects which excite them are considered without
any peculiar relation, either to ourselves or to the person whose
sentiments we judge of; or, secondly, when they are considered as
peculiarly affecting one or other of us.
1. With regard to those objects which are considered without
any peculiar relation either to ourselves or to the person whose
sentiments we judge of; wherever his sentiments entirely
correspond with our own, we ascribe to him the qualities of taste
and good judgment. The beauty of a plain, the greatness of a
mountain, the ornaments of a building, the expression of a
picture, the composition of a discourse, the conduct of a third
person, the proportions of different quantities and numbers, the
various appearances which the great machine of the universe is
perpetually exhibiting, with the secret wheels and springs which
product them; all the general subjects of science and taste, are
what we and our companion regard as having no peculiar relation
to either of us. We both look at them from the same point of
view, and we have no occasion for sympathy, or for that imaginary
change of situations from which it arises, in order to produce,
with regard to these, the most perfect harmony of sentiments and
affections. If, notwithstanding, we are often differently
affected, it arises either from the different degrees of
attention, which our different habits of life allow us to give
easily to the several parts of those complex objects, or from the
different degrees of natural acuteness in the faculty of the mind
to which they are addressed.
When the sentiments of our companion coincide with our own in
things of this kind, which are obvious and easy, and in which,
perhaps, we never found a single person who differed from us,
though we, no doubt, must approve of them, yet he seems to
deserve no praise 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 adjusted them to all the various
circumstances of their objects; we not only approve of them, but
wonder and are surprised at their uncommon and unexpected
acuteness and comprehensiveness, and he appears to deserve a very
high degree of admiration and applause. For approbation
heightened by wonder and surprise, constitutes the sentiment
which is properly called admiration, and of which applause is the
natural expression. The decision of the man who judges that
exquisite beauty is preferable to the grossest deformity, or that
twice two are equal to four, must certainly be approved of by all
the world, but will not, surely, be much admired. It is the acute
and delicate discernment of the man of taste, who distinguishes
the minute, and scarce perceptible differences of beauty and
deformity; it is the comprehensive accuracy of the experienced
mathematician, who unravels, with ease, the most intricate and
perplexed proportions; it is the great leader in science and
taste, the man who directs and conducts our own sentiments, the
extent and superior justness of whose talents astonish us with
wonder and surprise, who excites our admiration, and seems to
deserve our applause: and upon this foundation is grounded the
greater part of the praise which is bestowed upon what are called
the intellectual virtues.
The utility of those qualities, it may be thought, is what
first recommends them to us; and, no doubt, the consideration of
this, when we come to attend to it, gives them a new value.
Originally, however, we approve of another man's judgment, not as
something useful, but as right, as accurate, as agreeable to
truth and reality: and it is evident we attribute those qualities
to it for no other reason but because we find that it agrees with
our own. Taste, in the same manner, is originally approved of,
not as useful, but as just, as delicate, and as precisely suited
to its object. The idea of the utility of all qualities of this
kind, is plainly an after-thought, and not what first recommends
them to our approbation.
2. With regard to those objects, which affect in a particular
manner either ourselves or the person whose sentiments we judge
of, it is at once more difficult to preserve this harmony and
correspondence, and at the same time, vastly more important. My
companion does not naturally look upon the misfortune that has
befallen me, or the injury that has been done me, from the same
point of view in which I consider them. They affect me much more
nearly. We do not view them from the same station, as we do a
picture, or a poem, or a system of philosophy, and are,
therefore, apt to be very differently affected by them. But I can
much more easily overlook the want of this correspondence of
sentiments with regard to such indifferent objects as concern
neither me nor my companion, than with regard to what interests
me so much as the misfortune that has befallen me, or the injury
that has been done me. Though you despise that picture, or that
poem, or even that system of philosophy, which I admire, there is
little danger of our quarrelling upon that account. Neither of us
can reasonably be much interested about them. They ought all of
them to be matters of great indifference to us both; so that,
though our opinions may be opposite, our affections may still be
very nearly the same. But it is quite otherwise with regard to
those objects by which either you or I are particularly affected.
Though your judgments in matters of speculation, though your
sentiments in matters of taste, are quite opposite to mine, I can
easily overlook this opposition; and if I have any degree of
temper, I may still find some entertainment in your conversation,
even upon those very subjects. But if you have either no
fellow-feeling for the misfortunes I have met with, or none that
bears any proportion to the grief which distracts me; or if you
have either no indignation at the injuries I have suffered, or
none that bears any proportion to the resentment which transports
me, we can no longer converse upon these subjects. We become
intolerable to one another. I can neither support your company,
nor you mine. You are confounded at my violence and passion, and
I am enraged at your cold insensibility and want of feeling.
In all such cases, that there may be some correspondence of
sentiments between the spectator and the person principally
concerned, the spectator must, first of all, endeavour, as much
as he can, to put himself in the situation of the other, and to
bring home to himself every little circumstance of distress which
can possibly occur to the sufferer. He must adopt the whole case
of his companion with all its minutest incidents; and strive to
render as perfect as possible, that imaginary change of situation
upon which his sympathy is founded.
After all this, however, the emotions of the spectator will
still be very apt to fall short of the violence of what is felt
by the sufferer. Mankind, though naturally sympathetic, never
conceive, for what has befallen another, that degree of passion
which naturally animates the person principally concerned. That
imaginary change of situation, upon which their sympathy is
founded, is but momentary. The thought of their own safety, the
thought that they themselves are not really the sufferers,
continually intrudes itself upon them; and though it does not
hinder them from conceiving a passion somewhat analogous to what
is felt by the sufferer, hinders them from conceiving any thing
that approaches to the same degree of violence. The person
principally concerned is sensible of this, and at the same time
passionately desires a more complete sympathy. He longs for that
relief which nothing can afford him but the entire concord of the
affections of the spectators with his own. To see the emotions of
their hearts, in every respect, beat time to his own, in the
violent and disagreeable passions, constitutes his sole
consolation. But he can only hope to obtain this by lowering his
passion to that pitch, in which the spectators are capable of
going along with him. He must flatten, if I may be allowed to say
so, the sharpness of its natural tone, in order to reduce it to
harmony and concord with the emotions of those who are about him.
What they feel, will, indeed, always be, in some respects,
different from what he feels, and compassion can never be exactly
the same with original sorrow; because the secret consciousness
that the change of situations, from which the sympathetic
sentiment arises, is but imaginary, not only lowers it in degree,
but, in some measure, varies it in kind, and gives it a quite
different modification. These two sentiments, however, may, it is
evident, have such a correspondence with one another, as is
sufficient for the harmony of society. Though they will never be
unisons, they may be concords, and this is all that is wanted or
required.
In order to produce this concord, as nature teaches the
spectators to assume the circumstances of the person principally
concerned, so she teaches this last in some measure to assume
those of the spectators. As they are continually placing
themselves in his situation, and thence conceiving emotions
similar to what he feels; so he is as constantly placing himself
in theirs, and thence conceiving some degree of that coolness
about his own fortune, with which he is sensible that they will
view it. As they are constantly considering what they themselves
would feel, if they actually were the sufferers, so he is as
constantly led to imagine in what manner he would be affected if
he was only one of the spectators of his own situation. As their
sympathy makes them look at it, in some measure, with his eyes,
so his sympathy makes him look at it, in some measure, with
theirs, especially when in their presence and acting under their
observation: and as the reflected passion, which he thus
conceives, is much weaker than the original one, it necessarily
abates the violence of what he felt before he came into their
presence, before he began to recollect in what manner they would
be affected by it, and to view his situation in this candid and
impartial light.
The mind, therefore, is rarely so disturbed, but that the
company of a friend will restore it to some degree of
tranquillity and sedateness. The breast is, in some measure,
calmed and composed the moment we come into his presence. We are
immediately put in mind of the light in which he will view our
situation, and we begin to view it ourselves in the same light;
for the effect of sympathy is instantaneous. We expect less
sympathy from a common acquaintance than from a friend: we cannot
open to the former all those little circumstances which we can
unfold to the latter: we assume, therefore, more tranquillity
before him, and endeavour to fix our thoughts upon those general
outlines of our situation which he is willing to consider. We
expect still less sympathy from an assembly of strangers, and we
assume, therefore, still more tranquillity before them, and
always endeavour to bring down our passion to that pitch, which
the particular company we are in may be expected to go along
with. Nor is this only an assumed appearance: for if we are at
all masters of ourselves, the presence of a mere acquaintance
will really compose us, still more than that of a friend; and
that of an assembly of strangers still more than that of an
acquaintance.
Society and conversation, therefore, are the most powerful
remedies for restoring the mind to its tranquillity, if, at any
time, it has unfortunately lost it; as well as the best
preservatives of that equal and happy temper, which is so
necessary to self-satisfaction and enjoyment. Men of retirement
and speculation, who are apt to sit brooding at home over either
grief or resentment, though they may often have more humanity,
more generosity, and a nicer sense of honour, yet seldom possess
that equality of temper which is so common among men of the
world.
1.1.5. Chap. V
Of the amiable and respectable virtues
Upon these two different efforts, upon that of the spectator
to enter into the sentiments of the person principally concerned,
and upon that of the person principally concerned, to bring down
his emotions to what the spectator can go along with, are founded
two different sets of virtues. The soft, the gentle, the amiable
virtues, the virtues of candid condescension and indulgent
humanity, are founded upon the one: the great, the awful and
respectable, the virtues of self-denial, of self-government, of
that command of the passions which subjects all the movements of
our nature to what our own dignity and honour, and the propriety
of our own conduct require, take their origin from the other.
How amiable does he appear to be, whose sympathetic heart
seems to reecho all the sentiments of those with whom he
converses, who grieves for their calamities, who resents their
injuries, and who rejoices at their good fortune! When we bring
home to ourselves the situation of his companions, we enter into
their gratitude, and feel what consolation they must derive from
the tender sympathy of so affectionate a friend. And for a
contrary reason, how disagreeable does he appear to be, whose
hard and obdurate heart feels for himself only, but is altogether
insensible to the happiness or misery of others! We enter, in
this case too, into the pain which his presence must give to
every mortal with whom he converses, to those especially with
whom we are most apt to sympathize, the unfortunate and the
injured.
On the other hand, what noble propriety and grace do we feel
in the conduct of those who, in their own case, exert that
recollection and self-command which constitute the dignity of
every passion, and which bring it down to what others can enter
into! We are disgusted with that clamorous grief, which, without
any delicacy, calls upon our compassion with sighs and tears and
importunate lamentations. But we reverence that reserved, that
silent and majestic sorrow, which discovers itself only in the
swelling of the eyes, in the quivering of the lips and cheeks,
and in the distant, but affecting, coldness of the whole
behaviour. It imposes the like silence upon us. We regard it with
respectful attention, and watch with anxious concern over our
whole behaviour, lest by any impropriety we should disturb that
concerted tranquillity, which it requires so great an effort to
support.
The insolence and brutality of anger, in the same manner,
when we indulge its fury without check or restraint, is, of all
objects, the most detestable. But we admire that noble and
generous resentment which governs its pursuit of the greatest
injuries, not by the rage which they are apt to excite in the
breast of the sufferer, but by the indignation which they
naturally call forth in that of the impartial spectator; which
allows no word, no gesture, to escape it beyond what this more
equitable sentiment would dictate; which never, even in thought,
attempts any greater vengeance, nor desires to inflict any
greater punishment, than what every indifferent person would
rejoice to see executed.
And hence it is, that to feel much for others and little for
ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our
benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human
nature; and can alone produce among mankind that harmony of
sentiments and passions in which consists their whole grace and
propriety. As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the
great law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature
to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to
the same thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us.
As taste and good judgment, when they are considered as
qualities which deserve praise and admiration, are supposed to
imply a delicacy of sentiment and an acuteness of understanding
not commonly to be met with; so the virtues of sensibility and
self-command are not apprehended to consist in the ordinary, but
in the uncommon degrees of those qualities. The amiable virtue of
humanity requires, surely, a sensibility, much beyond what is
possessed by the rude vulgar of mankind. The great and exalted
virtue of magnanimity undoubtedly demands much more than that
degree of self-command, which the weakest of mortals is capable
of exerting. As in the common degree of the intellectual
qualities, there is no abilities; so in the common degree of the
moral, there is no virtue. Virtue is excellence, something
uncommonly great and beautiful, which rises far above what is
vulgar and ordinary. The amiable virtues consist in that degree
of sensibility which surprises by its exquisite and unexpected
delicacy and tenderness. The awful and respectable, in that
degree of self-command which astonishes by its amazing
superiority over the most ungovernable passions of human nature.
There is, in this respect, a considerable difference between
virtue and mere propriety; between those qualities and actions
which deserve to be admired and celebrated, and those which
simply deserve to be approved of. Upon many occasions, to act
with the most perfect propriety, requires no more than that
common and ordinary degree of sensibility or self-command which
the most worthless of mankind are possest of, and sometimes even
that degree is not necessary. Thus, to give a very low instance,
to eat when we are hungry, is certainly, upon ordinary occasions,
perfectly right and proper, and cannot miss being approved of as
such by every body. Nothing, however, could be more absurd than
to say it was virtuous.
On the contrary, there may frequently be a considerable
degree of virtue in those actions which fall short of the most
perfect propriety; because they may still approach nearer to
perfection than could well be expected upon occasions in which it
was so extremely difficult to attain it: and this is very often
the case upon those occasions which require the greatest
exertions of self-command. There are some situations which bear
so hard upon human nature, that the greatest degree of
self-government, which can belong to so imperfect a creature as
man, is not able to stifle, altogether, the voice of human
weakness, or reduce the violence of the passions to that pitch of
moderation, in which the impartial spectator can entirely enter
into them. Though in those cases, therefore, the behaviour of the
sufferer fall short of the most perfect propriety, it may still
deserve some applause, and even in a certain sense, may be
denominated virtuous. It may still manifest an effort of
generosity and magnanimity of which the greater part of men are
incapable; and though it fails of absolute perfection, it may be
a much nearer approximation towards perfection, than what, upon
such trying occasions, is commonly either to be found or to be
expected.
In cases of this kind, when we are determining the degree of
blame or applause which seems due to any action, we very
frequently make use of two different standards. The first is the
idea of complete propriety and perfection, which, in those
difficult situations, no human conduct ever did, or ever can
come, up to; and in comparison with which the actions of all men
must for ever appear blameable and imperfect. The second is the
idea of that degree of proximity or distance from this complete
perfection, which the actions of the greater part of men commonly
arrive at. Whatever goes beyond this degree, how far soever it
may be removed from absolute perfection, seems to deserve
applause; and whatever falls short of it, to deserve blame.
It is in the same manner that we judge of the productions of
all the arts which address themselves to the imagination. When a
critic examines the work of any of the great masters in poetry or
painting, he may sometimes examine it by an idea of perfection,
in his own mind, which neither that nor any other human work will
ever come up to; and as long as he compares it with this
standard, he can see nothing in it but faults and imperfections.
But when he comes to consider the rank which it ought to hold
among other works of the same kind, he necessarily compares it
with a very different standard, the common degree of excellence
which is usually attained in this particular art; and when he
judges of it by this new measure, it may often appear to deserve
the highest applause, upon account of its approaching much nearer
to perfection than the greater part of those works which can be
brought into competition with it.