we had a real sympathy with joy, and that congratulation was a principle of human nature. No body, I believe, ever thought it necessary to prove that com|passion was such.
First of all, our sympathy with sor|row is, in some sense, more universal than that with joy. Though sorrow is exces|sive, we may still have some fellow-feel|ing with it. What we feel does not, in|deed, in this case, amount to that com|pleat sympathy, to that perfect harmony and correspondence of sentiments which con|stitutes approbation. We do not weep, and exclaim, and lament, with the suf|ferer. We are sensible, on the contrary, of his weakness and of the extravagance of his passion, and yet often feel a very sensible concern upon his account. But if we do not intirely enter into, and go along with, the joy of another, we have no sort of regard or fellow-feeling for it. The man who skips and dances about with that intemperate and senseless joy which we cannot accompany him in, is the object of our contempt and indig|nation.
