s••ene of horror, remorse, and repentance. But tho' his hands are innocent, he is con|scious that his heart is equally guilty as if he had actually executed what he was so fully resolved upon. It gives great ease to his conscience, however, to consider that the crime was not executed, tho' he knows that the failure arose from no virtue in him. He still considers himself as less de|serving of punishment and resentment; and this good fortune either diminishes, or takes away altogether, all sense of guilt. To remember how much he was resolved upon it, has no other effect than to make him regard his escape as the greater and more miraculous: for he still fancies that he has escaped, and he looks back upon the danger to which his peace of mind was exposed, with that terror, with which one who is in safety may sometimes remem|ber the hazard he was in of falling over a precipice, and shudder with horror at the thought.
2. The second effect of this influence of fortune, is to increase our sense of the me|rit or demerit of actions beyond what is due to the motives or affection from which ••hey proceed, when they happen to give
