our fympathetic paffions are always lefs irrefiftible than our original ones. There is besides, a malice in mankind, which not only prevents all fympathy with little uneafineffes, but renders them in fome measure diverting. Hence the delight which we all take in raillory, and in the small vexation which we chforve in our companion, when he is pushed, and urged, and teafed upon all fides. Men of the most ordinary good-breeding dissemble the pain which any little incident may give them, and those who are more thoroughly formed to fociety, turn, of their own accord, all fuch incidents into raillery, as they know their companions will do for them. The habit which a man, who lives in the world, has acquired of confidering how every thing that concerns himself will appear to others, makes those frivolous calamities turn up in the fame ridiculous light to him, in which he knows they will certainly be confidered by them.

Our fympathy, on the contrary, with deep diftrefs, is very strong and very fincere. fincere. It is unneceffary to give an inftance. We weep even at the feigned representation of a tragedy. If you labour, therefore, under any fignal calamity, if by fome extraordinary misfortune you are fallen into poverty, into diseases, into difgrace and difappointment; even though your own fault may have been, in part, the occafion, yet you may generally depend upon the fincereft fympathy of all your friends, and, as far as intereft and honour will permit, F 3 upon

But if your

upon their kindest affistance too. misfortune is not of this dreadful kind, if you have only been a little baulked in your ambition, if you have only been jilted by your mistress, or are only hen-pecked by your wife, lay your account with the raillery of all your acquaintance.

SECTION

SECTION III.

Of the effects of profperity and adverfity upon the judgment of mankind with regard to the propriety of action; and why it is more eafy to obtain their approbation in the one ftate than in the other.

CHAP. I.

That though our Sympathy with forrow is generally a more lively fenfation than our Sympathy with joy, it commonly falls much more Short of the violence of what is naturally felt by the perfon principally concerned.

Ο

UR fympathy with forrow, though

not more real, has been more taken notice of than our fympathy with joy. The word fympathy, in its moft proper and primitive fignification, denotes our fellow-feeling with the sufferings, not that with the enjoyments, of others. A late ingenious and fubtile philofopher thought it neceffary to prove, by arguments, that we had a real fympathy with joy, and that congratulation was a principle of human nature. No-body, I believe, ever thought it neceffary to prove that compaffion was fuch.

Part I First of all, our fympathy with sorrow is, in some sense, more univerfal than that with joy. Though forrow is exceffive, we may ftill have fome fellow-feeling with it. What we feel does not, indeed, in this cafe, amount to that compleat fympathy, to that perfect harmony and correfpondence of fentiments which conftitutes approbation. We do not weep, and exclaim, and lament, with the fufferer. We are fenfible, on the contrary, of his weakness and of the extravagance of his paffion, and yet often feel a very fenfible concern upon his account. But if we do not intirely enter into, and go along with, the joy of another, we have no fort of regard or fellow-feeling for it. The man who skips and dances about with that intemperate and fenfelefs joy which we cannot accompany him in, is the object of our contempt and indignation.

Pain befides, whether of mind or body, is a more pungent fenfation than pleasure, and our fympathy with pain, though it falls greatly fhort of what is naturally felt by the fufferer, is generally a more lively and diftinct perception than our fympathy with pleafure, though this last often approaches more nearly, as I fhall fhow immediately, to the natural vivacity of the original paffion.

Over and above all this, we often struggle to keep down our fympathy with the forrow of others. Whenever we are not under the obfervation of the fufferer, we endeavour, for our own fake, to fupprefs it as much as we can, and we are not always fuccessful. The oppofition

oppofition which we make to it, and the reluctance with which we yield to it, necessarily oblige us to take more particular notice of it. But we never have occafion to make this oppofition to our fympathy with joy. If there is any envy in the cafe, we never feel the leaft propensity towards it; and if there is none, we give way to it without any reluctance. On the contrary, as we are always afhamed of our own envy, we often pretend, and fometimes really wish to fympathife with the joy of others, when by that difagreeable fentiment we are difqualified from doing so. We are glad, we say, on account of our neighbour's good fortune, when in our hearts, perhaps, we are really forry. We often feel a fympathy with forrow when we would wish to be rid of it; and we often mifs that with joy when we would be glad to have it. The obvious obfervation, therefore, which it naturally falls in our way to make, is that our propenfity to fympathife with forrow must be very strong, and our inclination to fympathife with joy very weak.

Notwithstanding this prejudice, however, I will venture to affirm, that, when there is no envy in the cafe, our propenfity to fympathife with joy is much stronger than our propensity to fympathife with forrow; and that our fellow-feeling for the agreeable emotion approaches much more nearly to the vivacity of what is naturally felt by the perfons principally concerned, than that which we conceive for the painful one.

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