The Theory of Moral Sentiments

hat though our sympathy with sorrow is generally a more lively sensation than our sympathy with joy, it commonly falls much more short of the violence of what is naturally felt by the person principally concerned.

Our sympathy with sorrow, though not more

real, has been more taken notice of than our sympathy

with joy. The word sympathy, in its most

proper and primitive signification, denotes our fellow-feeling

with the sufferings, not that with the enjoyments,

of others. A late ingenious and subtile philosopher

thought it necessary to prove, by arguments,

that we had a real sympathy with joy, and that congratulation

was a principle of human nature. Nobody,

I believe, ever thought it necessary to prove

that compassion was such.

First of all, our sympathy with sorrow is, in some

sense, more universal than that with joy. Though

65sorrow is excessive, we may still have some fellow-feeling

with it. What we feel does not, indeed, in

this case, amount to that complete sympathy, to

that perfect harmony and correspondence of sentiments

which constitutes approbation. We do not

weep, and exclaim, and lament, with the sufferer.

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 entirely 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 indignation.

Pain besides, whether of mind or body, is a more

pungent sensation than pleasure, and our sympathy

with pain, though it falls greatly short of what is

naturally felt by the sufferer, is generally a more

lively and distinct perception than our sympathy

with pleasure, though this last often approaches

more nearly, as I shall show immediately, to the

natural vivacity of the original passion.

Over and above all this, we often struggle to keep

down our sympathy with the sorrow of others.

Whenever we are not under the observation of the

sufferer, we endeavour, for our own sake, to suppress it

as much as we can, and we are not always successful.

The opposition which we make to it, and the reluctance

with which we yield to it, necessarily oblige us

to take more particular notice of it. But we never

have occasion to make this opposition to our sympathy

with joy. If there is any envy in the case,

66we never feel the least propensity towards it; and

if there is none, we give way to it without any reluctance.

On the contrary, as we are always ashamed

of our own envy, we often pretend, and

sometimes really wish to sympathize with the joy of

others, when by that disagreeable sentiment we are

disqualified from doing so. We are glad, we say,

on account of our neighbour’s good fortune, when

in our hearts, perhaps, we are really sorry. We

often feel a sympathy with sorrow when we wish to

be rid of it; and we often miss that with joy when

we would be glad to have it. The obvious observation,

therefore, which it naturally falls in our way

to make, is that our propensity to sympathize with

sorrow must be very strong, and our inclination to

sympathize with joy very weak.

Notwithstanding this prejudice, however, I will

venture to affirm, that, when there is no envy in the

case, our propensity to sympathize with joy is much

stronger than our propensity to sympathize with sorrow;

and that our fellow-feeling for the agreeable

emotion approaches much more nearly to the vivacity

of what is naturally felt by the persons principally

concerned, than that which we conceive for the

painful one.

We have some indulgence for that excessive grief

which we cannot entirely go along with. We know

what a prodigious effort is requisite before the sufferer

can bring down his emotions to compleat harmony

and concord with those of the spectator. Though

he fails, therefore, we easily pardon him. But we

have no such indulgence for the intemperance of

joy; because we are not conscious that any such vast

67effort is requisite to bring it down to what we can

entirely enter into. The man who, under the

greatest calamities, can command his sorrow, seems

worthy of the highest admiration; but he who, in

the fulness of prosperity, can in the same manner

master his joy, seems hardly to deserve any praise.

We are sensible that there is a much wider interval

in the one case than in the other, between what is

naturally felt by the person principally concerned,

and what the spectator can entirely go along with.

What can be added to the happiness of the man who

is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear

conscience? To one in this situation, all accessions

of fortune may properly be said to be superfluous;

and if he is much elevated upon account of them,

it must be the effect of the most frivolous levity.

This situation, however, may very well be called

the natural and ordinary state of mankind. Notwithstanding

the present misery and depravity of the

world, so justly lamented, this really is the state of

the greater part of men. The greater part of men,

therefore, cannot find any great difficulty in elevating

themselves to all the joy which any accession

to this situation can well excite in their companion.

But though little can be added to this state, much

may be taken from it. Though between this condition

and the highest pitch of human prosperity, the

interval is but a trifle; between it and the lowest

depth of misery the distance is immense and prodigious.

Adversity, on this account, necessarily depresses the

mind of the sufferer much more below its natural

state, than prosperity can elevate him above it.

The spectator, therefore, must find it much more

difficult to sympathize entirely, and keep perfect

68time, with his sorrow, than thoroughly to enter into

his joy, and must depart much further from his

own natural and ordinary temper of mind in the one

case than in the other. It is on this account, that,

though our sympathy with sorrow is often a more

pungent sensation than our sympathy with joy, it always

falls much more short of the violence of what

is naturally felt by the person principally concerned.

It is agreeable to sympathize with joy; and

wherever envy does not oppose it, our heart abandons

itself with satisfaction to the highest transports

of that delightful sentiment. But it is painful to

go along with grief, and we always enter into it

with reluctance[1]. When we attend to the representation

of a tragedy, we struggle against that sympathetic

sorrow which the entertainment inspires as

long as we can, and we give way to it at last only

when we can no longer avoid it: we even then endeavour

to cover our concern from the company.

If we shed any tears, we carefully conceal them,

and are afraid lest the spectators, not entering into

69this excessive tenderness, should regard it as effeminacy

and weakness. The wretch whose misfortunes

call upon our compassion feels with what reluctance

we are likely to enter into his sorrow, and therefore

proposes his grief to us with fear and hesitation:

he even smothers the half of it, and is ashamed,

upon account of this hard-heartedness of mankind,

to give vent to the fulness of his affliction. It is otherwise

with the man who riots in joy and success.

Wherever envy does not interest us against him, he

expects our compleatest sympathy. He does not fear,

therefore, to announce himself with shouts of exultation,

in full confidence that we are heartily disposed

to go along with him.

1. It has been objected to me that as I found the sentiment of

approbation, which is always agreeable, upon sympathy, it is inconsistent

with my system to admit any disagreeable sympathy. I

answer, that in the sentiment of approbation there are two things to

be taken notice of; first the sympathetic passion of the spectator;

and, secondly, the emotion which arises from his observing the perfect

coincidence between this sympathetic passion in himself, and the

original passion in the person principally concerned. This last emotion,

in which the sentiment of approbation properly consists, is always

agreeable and delightful. The other may either be agreeable

or disagreeable, according to the nature of the original passion, whose

feature it must always, in some measure, retain. Two sounds I

suppose, may, each of them, taken singly, be austere, and yet, if

they are perfect concords, the perception of their harmony and coincidence

may be agreeable.

Why should we be more ashamed to weep than to

laugh before company? We may often have as real

occasion to do the one as to do the other: But we always

feel that the spectators are more likely to go

along with us in the agreeable, than in the painful

emotion. It is always miserable to complain, even

when we are oppressed by the most dreadful calamities.

But the triumph of victory is not always ungraceful.

Prudence, indeed, would often advise us to bear prosperity

with more moderation; because prudence

would teach us to avoid that envy which this very

triumph is, more than any thing, apt to excite.

How hearty are the acclamations of the mob,

who never bear any envy to their superiors, at a

triumph or a public entry? And how sedate and moderate

is commonly their grief at an execution?

Our sorrow at a funeral generally amounts to no

more than affected gravity; but our mirth at a

christening or a marriage, is always from the heart,

and without any affectation. Upon these, and all

such joyous occasions, our satisfaction, though not so

70durable, is often as lively as that of the persons

principally concerned. Whenever we cordially congratulate

our friends, which, however, to the disgrace

of human nature, we do but seldom, their

joy literally becomes our joy: we are for the moment,

as happy as they are: our heart swells and overflows

with real pleasure: joy and complacency

sparkle from our eyes, and animate every feature

of our countenance, and every gesture of our

body.

But, on the contrary, when we condole with our

friends in their afflictions, how little do we feel, in

comparison of what they feel? We sit down by

them, we look at them, and while they relate to us

the circumstances of their misfortune, we listen

to them with gravity and attention. But while their

narration is every moment interrupted by those natural

bursts of passion which often seem almost to

choak them in the midst of it; how far are the languid

emotions of our hearts from keeping time to

the transports of theirs? We may be sensible, at the

same time, that their passion is natural, and no

greater than what we ourselves might feel upon the

like occasion. We may even inwardly reproach ourselves

with our own want of sensibility, and perhaps

on that account, work ourselves up into an artificial

sympathy, which, however, when it is raised,

is always the slightest and most transitory imaginable;

and generally, as soon as we have left the

room, vanishes, and is gone for ever. Nature, it

seems, when she has loaded us with our own sorrows,

thought that they were enough, and therefore

did not command us to take any further share

in those of others, than what was necessary to

prompt us to relieve them.

71It is on account of this dull sensibility to the afflictions

of others, that magnanimity amidst great

distress appears always so divinely graceful. His

behaviour is genteel and agreeable who can maintain

his chearfulness amidst a number of frivolous disasters.

But he appears to be more than mortal who

can support in the same manner the most dreadful

calamities. We feel what an immense effort is requisite

to silence those violent emotions which naturally

agitate and distract those in his situation.

We are amazed to find that he can command himself

so intirely. His firmness, at the same time,

perfectly coincides with our insensibility. He makes

no demand upon us for that more exquisite degree

of sensibility which we find, and which we

are mortified to find, that we do not possess. There

is the most perfect correspondence between his sentiments

and ours, and on that account the most perfect

propriety in his behaviour. It is a propriety too,

which, from our experience of the usual weakness

of human nature, we could not reasonably have

expected he should be able to maintain. We wonder

with surprise and astonishment at that strength

of mind which is capable of so noble and generous

an effort. The sentiment of compleat sympathy

and approbation, mixed and animated with wonder

and surprise, constitutes what is properly called

admiration, as has already been more than once

taken notice of. Cato, surrounded on all sides by

his enemies, unable to resist them, and disdaining to

submit to them, and reduced by the proud maxims

of that age, to the necessity of destroying himself;

yet never shrinking from his misfortunes, never

supplicating with the lamentable voice of wretchedness,

those miserable sympathetic tears which we

are always so unwilling to give; but on the contrary,

72arming himself with manly fortitude, and the moment

before he executes his fatal resolution, giving,

with his usual tranquillity, all necessary orders for

the safety of his friends; appears to Seneca, that

great preacher of insensibility, a spectacle which

even the gods themselves might behold with pleasure

and admiration.

Whenever we meet, in common life, with any

examples of such heroic magnanimity, we are always

extremely affected. We are more apt to weep

and shed tears for such as, in this manner, seem

to feel nothing for themselves, than for those who

give way to all the weakness of sorrow: and in this

particular case, the sympathetic grief of the spectator

appears to go beyond the original passion in the

person principally concerned. The friends of Socrates

all wept when he drank the last potion, while

he himself expressed the gayest and most chearful

tranquillity. Upon all such occasions the spectator

makes no effort, and has no occasion to make any,

in order to conquer his sympathetic sorrow. He is

under no fear that it will transport him to any thing

that is extravagant and improper; he is rather pleased

with the sensibility of his own heart, and gives way

to it with complacence and self-approbation. He

gladly indulges, therefore, the most melancholy

views which can naturally occur to him, concerning

the calamity of his friend, for whom, perhaps, he

never felt so exquisitely before, the tender and tearful

passion of love. But it is quite otherwise with the

person principally concerned. He is obliged as much

as possible, to turn away his eyes from whatever is

either naturally terrible or disagreeable in his situation.

Too serious an attention to those circumstances,

he fears, might make so violent an impression

73upon him, that he could no longer keep

within the bounds of moderation, or render himself

the object of the complete sympathy and approbation

of the spectators. He fixes his thoughts,

therefore, upon those only which are agreeable;

the applause and admiration which he is about to

deserve by the heroic magnanimity of his behaviour.

To feel that he is capable of so noble and generous

an effort, to feel that in this dreadful situation he can

still act as he would desire to act, animates and transports

him with joy, and enables him to support that

triumphant gaiety which seems to exult in the victory

he thus gains over his misfortunes.

On the contrary, he always appears, in some

measure, mean and despicable, who is sunk in

sorrow and dejection upon account of any calamity

of his own. We cannot bring ourselves to feel for

him what he feels for himself, and what, perhaps,

we should feel for ourselves if in his situation: we,

therefore, despise him; unjustly, perhaps, if any

sentiment could be regarded as unjust, to which

we are by nature irresistibly determined. The weakness

of sorrow never appears in any respect agreeable,

except when it arises from what we feel

for others more than from what we feel for

ourselves. A son, upon the death of an indulgent

and respectable father, may give way to it without

much blame. His sorrow is chiefly founded upon a

sort of sympathy with his departed parent; and we

readily enter into this humane emotion. But if he

should indulge the same weakness upon account of

any misfortune which affected himself only, he

would no longer meet with any such indulgence.

If he should be reduced to beggary and ruin, if he

74should be exposed to the most dreadful dangers, if

he should even be led out to a public execution,

and there shed one single tear upon the scaffold,

he would disgrace himself for ever in the opinion of

all the gallant and generous part of mankind. Their

compassion for him, however, would be very strong,

and very sincere; but as it would still fall short of

this excessive weakness, they would have no pardon

for the man who could thus expose himself in the

eyes of the world. His behaviour would affect them

with shame rather than with sorrow; and the dishonour

which he had thus brought upon himself

would appear to them the most lamentable circumstance

in his misfortune. How did it disgrace the

memory of the intrepid Duke of Biron, who had

so often braved death in the field, that he wept

upon the scaffold, when he beheld the state to which

he was fallen, and remembered the favour and the

glory from which his own rashness had so unfortunately

thrown him!