The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ...

CHAP. IV. Of the social passions.

AS it is a divided sympathy which renders this whole set of passions, upon most occasions, so ungraceful and disagreeable; so there is another set op|posite to these, which a redoubled sym|pathy renders almost always peculiarly agreeable and becoming. Generosity, hu|manity, kindness, compassion, mutual friendship and esteem, all the social and benevolent affections, when expressed in the countenance or behaviour, even to|wards those who are peculiarly connected with ourselves, please the indifferent spec|tator upon almost every occasion. His sympathy with the person who feels those passions, exactly coincides with his concern for the person who is the object of them. The interest, which, as a man, he is obliged to take in the happiness of this last, enlivens his fellow-feeling with the sentiments of the other, whose emotions are employed about the same object. We have always, therefore, the strongest dis|position

to sympathise with the benevolent affections. They appear in every respect agreeable to us. We enter into the sa|tisfaction both of the person who feels them, and of the person who is the ob|ject of them. For as to be the object of hatred and indignation gives more pain than all the evil which a brave man can fear from his enemies; so there is a satisfaction in the consciousness of be|ing beloved, which, to a person of deli|cacy and sensibility, is of more import|ance to happiness than all the advantage which he can expect to derive from it. What character is so detestable as that of one who takes pleasure to sow dis|sention among friends, and to turn their most tender love into mortal hatred? Yet wherein does the atrocity of this so much ••bhorred injury consist? Is it in de|priving them of the frivolous good offi|••es, which, had their friendship continued, ••hey might have expected from one ano|ther? It is in depriving them of that friend|••hip itself, in robbing them of each others ••ffections, from which both derived so much ••atisfaction; it is in disturbing the har|mony of their hearts, and putting an end

to that happy commerce which had before subsisted between them. These affections, that harmony, this commerce, are felt, not only by the tender and the delicate, but by the rudest vulgar of mankind, to be of more importance to happiness than all the little services which could be expected to flow from them.

The sentiment of love is, in itself, agree|able to the person who feels it, it sooths and composes the breast, seems to favour the vital motions, and to promote the healthful state of the human constitution; and it is rendered still more delightful by the consciousness of the gratitude and satisfaction which it must excite in him who is the object of it. Their mutual regard renders them happy in one ano|ther, and sympathy, with this mutual re|gard, makes them agreeable to every other person. With what pleasure do we look upon a family, through the whole of which reign mutual love and esteem in which the parents and children ar•• companions for one another, without an•• other difference than what is made by re|spectful affection on the one side, an•• kind indulgence on the other; whe••

freedom and fondness, mutual raillery, and mutual kindness, show that no op|position of interests divides the brothers, nor any rivalship of favour sets the sisters at variance, and where every thing pre|sents us with the idea of peace, chear|fulness, harmony, and contentment. On the contrary, how uneasy are we made when we go into a house in which jar|ring contention sets one half of those who dwell in it against the other; where amidst affected smoothness and complai|sance, suspicious looks and sudden starts of passion betray the mutual jealousies which burn within them, and which are every moment ready to burst out through all the restraints which the presence of the company imposes.

Those amiable passions, even when they are acknowledged to be excessive, are ne|ver regarded with aversion. There is something agreeable even in the weakness of friendship and humanity. The too tender mother, the too indulgent father, the too generous and affectionate friend, may sometimes, perhaps, on account of the softness of their natures, be looked upon with a species of pity, in which,

however, there is a mixture of love, but can never be regarded with hatred and aversion, nor even with contempt, unless by the most brutal and worthless of man|kind. It is always with concern, with sympathy and kindness, that we blame them for the extravagance of their attach|ment. There is a helplessness in the cha|racter of extreme humanity which more than any thing interests our pity. There is nothing in itself which renders it ei|ther ungraceful or disagreeable. We only regret that it is unfit for the world, be|cause the world is unworthy of it, and be|cause it must expose the person who is en|dowed with it as a prey to the perfidy and in|gratitude of insinuating falshood, and to a thousand pains and uneasinesses, which, of all men, he the least deserves to feel, and which generally too he is, of all men, the least capable of supporting. It is quite otherwise with hatred and resent|ment. Too violent a propensity to those detestable passions, renders a person the object of universal dread and abhorrence, who, like a wild beast, ought, we think, to be hunted out of all civil society.