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

and profession, should suffer, if I had a son, and if that son was unfortunately to die, but I consider what I should suffer if I was really you, and I not only change cir|cumstances with you, but I change persons and characters. My grief, therefore, is en|tirely upon your account, and not in the least upon my own. It is not, therefore, in the least selfish. How can that be regarded as a selfish passion which does not arise even from the imagination of any thing that has befallen or that relates to myself in my own proper person and character, but which is entirely occupied about what relates to you. A man may sympathize with a woman in child-bed; though it is impossible that he should con|ceive himself as suffering her pains in his own proper person, and character. That whole account of human nature, however, which deduces all sentiments and affections from self-love, which has made so much noise in the world, but which, so far as I know, has never yet been fully and distinctly explained, ••eems to me to have arisen from some con|••used misapprehension of the system of sym|••athy.