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

WHEN the original passions of the person principally concerned are in perfect concord with the sympathetic emo|tions of the spectator, they necessarily ap|pear to this last just and proper, and suit|able to their objects; and, on the contrary, when, upon bringing the case home to him|self, 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 ap|prove of the passions of another, therefore, as suitable to their objects, is the same thing, as to observe that we intirely 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 inju|ries that have been done to me, and ob|serves that I resent them precisely as he does, necessarily approves of my resentment.