The Theory of Moral Sentiments

f the passions which take their origin from the body.

1. It is indecent to express any strong degree of

those passions which arise from a certain situation or

disposition of the body; because the company, not

being in the same disposition, cannot be expected

to sympathize with them. Violent hunger, for example,

though upon many occasions not only natural,

but unavoidable, is always indecent, and to

eat voraciously is universally regarded as a piece of

ill manners. There is, however, some degree of

sympathy, even with hunger. It is agreeable to see

our companions eat with a good appetite, and all

35expressions of loathing are offensive. The disposition

of body which is habitual to a man in health,

makes his stomach easily keep time, if I may be

allowed so coarse an expression, with the one, and

not with the other. We can sympathize with the

distress which excessive hunger occasions when we

read the description of it in the journal of a siege,

or of a sea voyage. We imagine ourselves in the

situation of the sufferers, and thence readily conceive

the grief, the fear and consternation, which

must necessarily distract them. We feel, ourselves,

some degree of those passions, and therefore sympathize

with them: but as we do not grow hungry

by reading the description, we cannot properly,

even in this case, be said to sympathize with their

hunger.

It is the same case with the passion by which Nature

unites the two sexes. Though naturally the

most furious of all passions, all strong expressions of

it are upon every occasion indecent, even between

persons in whom its most complete indulgence is acknowledged

by all laws, both human and divine,

to be perfectly innocent. There seems, however,

to be some degree of sympathy even with this passion.

To talk to a woman as we should to a man

is improper: it is expected that their company

should inspire us with more gaiety, more pleasantry,

and more attention; and an entire insensibility to

the fair sex, renders a man contemptible in some

measure even to the men.

Such is our aversion for all the appetites which

take their origin from the body: all strong expressions

of them are loathsome and disagreeable. According

36to some ancient philosophers, these are the

passions which we share in common with the brutes,

and which having no connexion with the characteristical

qualities of human nature, are upon that account

beneath its dignity. But there are many

other passions which we share in common with the

brutes, such as resentment, natural affection, even

gratitude, which do not, upon that account, appear

to be so brutal. The true cause of the peculiar

disgust which we conceive for the appetites of the

body when we see them in other men, is that we

cannot enter into them. To the person himself

who feels them, as soon as they are gratified, the

object that excited them ceases to be agreeable:

even its presence often becomes offensive to him;

he looks round to no purpose for the charm which

transported him the moment before, and he can

now as little enter into his own passion as another

person. When we have dined, we order the covers

to be removed; and we should treat in the

same manner the objects of the most ardent and

passionate desires, if they were the objects of no

other passions but those which take their origin from

the body.

In the command of those appetites of the body

consists that virtue which is properly called temperance.

To restrain them within those bounds,

which regard to health and fortune prescribes, is the

part of prudence. But to confine them within those

limits, which grace, which propriety, which delicacy,

and modesty, require, is the office of temperance.

2. It is for the same reason that to cry out with

bodily pain, how intolerable soever, appears always

37unmanly and unbecoming. There is, however, a

good deal of sympathy even with bodily pain. If,

as has already been observed, I see a stroke aimed,

and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm, of another

person, I naturally shrink and draw back my own

leg, or my own arm; and when it does fall, I feel

it in some measure, and am hurt by it as well as the

sufferer. My hurt, however, is, no doubt, excessively

slight, and, upon that account, if he makes

any violent out-cry, as I cannot go along with him,

I never fail to despise him. And this is the case of

all the passions which take their origin from the body:

they excite either no sympathy at all, or such a degree

of it, as is altogether disproportioned to the

violence of what is felt by the sufferer.

It is quite otherwise with those passions which take

their origin from the imagination. The frame of

my body can be but little affected by the alterations

which are brought about upon that of my companion:

but my imagination is more ductile, and

more readily assumes, if I may so, the shape and

configuration of the imaginations of those with

whom I am familiar. A disappointment in love,

or ambition, will, upon this account, call forth more

sympathy than the greatest bodily evil. Those passions

arise altogether from the imagination. The

person who has lost his whole fortune, if he is in

health, feels nothing in his body. What he suffers

is from the imagination only, which represents to

him the loss of his dignity, neglect from his friends,

contempt from his enemies, dependence, want, and

misery, coming fast upon him; and we sympathize

with him more strongly upon this account, because

our imaginations can more readily mould themselves

38upon his imagination, than our bodies can mould

themselves upon his body.

The loss of a leg may generally be regarded as a

more real calamity than the loss of a mistress. It

would be a ridiculous tragedy, however, of which

the catastrophe was to turn upon a loss of that kind.

A misfortune of the other kind, how frivolous soever

it may appear to be, has given occasion to many

a fine one.

Nothing is so soon forgot as pain. The moment

it is gone the whole agony of it is over, and the

thought of it can no longer give us any sort of disturbance.

We ourselves cannot then enter into the

anxiety and anguish which we had before conceived.

An unguarded word from a friend will occasion a

more durable uneasiness. The agony which this

creates is by no means over with the word. What

at first disturbs us is not the object of the senses,

but the idea of the imagination. As it is an idea,

therefore, which occasions our uneasiness, till time

and other accidents have in some measure effaced

it from our memory, the imagination continues to

fret and rankle within, from the thought of it.

Pain never calls forth any very lively sympathy

unless it is accompanied with danger. We sympathize

with the fear, though not with the agony of

the sufferer. Fear, however, is a passion derived

altogether from the imagination, which represents,

with an uncertainty and fluctuation that increases

our anxiety, not what we really feel, but what we

may hereafter possibly suffer. The gout or the

tooth-ache, though exquisitely painful, excite very

39little sympathy; more dangerous diseases, though

accompanied with very little pain, excite the highest.

Some people faint and grow sick at the sight of

a chirurgical operation, and that bodily pain which

is occasioned by tearing the flesh, seems, in them,

to excite the most excessive sympathy. We conceive

in a much more lively and distinct manner,

the pain which proceeds from an external cause, than

we do that which arises from an internal disorder.

I can scarce form an idea of the agonies of my

neighbour when he is tortured with the gout, or the

stone; but I have the clearest conception of what

he must suffer from an incision, a wound, or a fracture.

The chief cause, however, why such objects

produce such violent effects upon us, is their novelty.

Once who has been witness to a dozen dissections,

and as many amputations, sees, ever after, all operations

of this kind with great indifference, and often

with perfect insensibility. Though we have

read or seen represented more than five hundred

tragedies, we shall seldom feel so entire an abatement

of our sensibility to the object which they represent

to us.

In some of the Greek tragedies there is an attempt

to excite compassion, by the representation of the

agonies of bodily pain. Philoctetes cries out and

faints from the extremity of his sufferings. Hippolytus

and Hercules are both introduced as expiring

under the severest tortures, which, it seems,

even the fortitude of Hercules was incapable of supporting.

In all these cases, however, it is not the

pain which interests us, but some other circumstance.

40It is not the sore foot, but the solitude, of Philoctetes

which affects us, and diffuses over that charming

tragedy, that romantic wildness, which is so

agreeable to the imagination. The agonies of Hercules

and Hippolytus are interested only because we

foresee that death is to be the consequence. If those

heroes were to recover, we should think the representation

of their sufferings perfectly ridiculous.

What a tragedy would that be of which the distress

consisted in a colic. Yet no pain is more exquisite.

These attempts to excite compassion by the representation

of bodily pain, may be regarded as among

the greatest breaches of decorum of which the Greek

theatre has set the example.

The little sympathy which we feel with bodily

pain is the foundation of the propriety of constancy

and patience in enduring it. The man, who under

the severest tortures allows no weakness to escape

him, vents no groan, gives way to no passion which

we do not entirely enter into, commands our highest

admiration. His firmness enables him to keep

time with our indifference and insensibility. We

admire and entirely go along with the magnanimous

effort which he makes for this purpose. We approve

of his behaviour, and from our experience of

the common weakness of human nature, we are surprised,

and wonder how he should be able to act so

as to deserve approbation. Approbation, mixed

and animated by wonder and surprise, constitutes the

sentiment which is properly called admiration, of

which, applause is the natural expression, as has already

been observed.

41