The Theory of Moral Sentiments

hat where there is no approbation of the conduct of the person who confers the benefit, there is little sympathy with the gratitude of him who receives it: and that, on the contrary, where there is no disapprobation of the motives of the person who does the mischief, there is no sort of sympathy with the resentment of him who suffers it.

It is to be observed, however, that, how beneficial

soever on the one hand, or how hurtful

soever on the other, the actions or intentions

of the person who acts may have been to the person

who is, if I may say so, acted upon, yet if in

the one case there appears to have been no propriety

in the motives of the agent, if we cannot enter into

the affections which influenced his conduct, we

have little sympathy with the gratitude of the person

who receives the benefit: or if, in the other

case, there appears to have been no impropriety

in the motives of the agent, if, on the contrary,

the affections which influenced his conduct are such

as we must necessarily enter into, we can have no

sort of sympathy with the resentment of the person

who suffers. Little gratitude seems due in the

one case, and all sort of resentment seems unjust in

the other. The one action seems to merit little

reward, the other to deserve no punishment.

1071. First, I say, that wherever we cannot sympathize

with the affections of the agent, wherever there

seems to be no propriety in the motives which influenced

his conduct, we are less disposed to enter into

the gratitude of the person who received the benefit

of his actions. A very small return seems due to

that foolish and profuse generosity which confers the

greatest benefits from the most trivial motives, and

gives an estate to a man merely because his name and

surname happen to be the same with those of the

giver. Such services do not seem to demand any

proportionable recompense. Our contempt for the

folly of the agent hinders us from thoroughly entering

into the gratitude of the person to whom the good

office has been done. His benefactor seems unworthy

of it. As when we place ourselves in the

situation of the person obliged, we feel that we could

conceive no great reverence for such a benefactor,

we easily absolve him from a great deal of that submissive

veneration and esteem which we should think

due to a more respectable character; and provided

he always treats his weak friend with kindness and

humanity, we are willing to excuse him from many

attentions and regards which we should demand to a

worthier patron. Those Princes, who have heaped,

with the greatest profusion, wealth, power, and

honours, upon their favourites, have seldom excited

that degree of attachment to their persons which has

often been experienced by those who were more frugal

of their favours. The well-natured, but injudicious

prodigality of James the First of Great Britain

seems to have attached no body to his person; and

that Prince, notwithstanding his social and harmless

disposition, appears to have lived and died without

108a friend. The whole gentry and nobility of

England exposed their lives and fortunes in the

cause of his more frugal and distinguishing son,

notwithstanding the coldness and distant severity of

his ordinary deportment.

2. Secondly, I say, That wherever the conduct

of the agent appears to have been entirely directed

by motives and affections which we thoroughly

enter into and approve of, we can have no sort of

sympathy with the resentment of the sufferer, how

great soever the mischief which may have been done

to him. When two people quarrel, if we take

part with, and entirely adopt the resentment of one

of them, it is impossible that we should enter

into that of the other. Our sympathy with the

person whose motives we go along with, and whom

therefore we look upon as in the right, cannot but

harden us against all fellow-feeling with the other,

whom we necessarily regard as in the wrong.

Whatever this last, therefore, may have suffered,

while it is no more than what we ourselves should

have wished him to suffer, while it is no more than

what our own sympathetic indignation would

have prompted us to inflict upon him, it cannot

either displease or provoke us. When an inhuman

murderer is brought to the scaffold, though we

have some compassion for his misery, we can have

no sort of fellow-feeling with his resentment, if

he should be so absurd as to express any against

either his prosecutor or his judge. The natural

tendency of their just indignation against so vile a

criminal is indeed the most fatal and ruinous to

him. But it is impossible that we should be displeased

109with the tendency of a sentiment, which,

when we bring the case home to ourselves, we feel

that we cannot avoid adopting.