43 



Ijide terminate Emotions 



126. By indeterminate emotions I understand those that are 

 pleasing, displeasing, or painful, according to the nature ot 

 the objects that excite them ; these are sympathi/, expectation, 

 surprize and wonder. 



127. Sympathy is an ideal participation of the pleasures or 

 pains of others. It differs from pity 1° in this, that it 

 equally accompanies the pleasures and pains of others, 

 whereas pity is excited only by their pains. 2dly in this, that 

 pity is a painful emotion, and excites a desire of relieving 

 its object; wlitreas sympathy, even with pain, is a pleasing 

 emotion, and excites no desire of relief;— for we feel it for 

 persons who are incapable of receiving any, as historical or 

 fictitious personages. 3dly, we pity corporeal pains, but we' 

 do not sympathize with them*.— We feel no participation of 

 a tooth-ach or fever, though we pity the sufferer. 



128. As corporeal pains are incapable of participation, so 

 are corporeal pleasures ; we may be pleased with those en- 

 joyed by our i'riends, or even rejoiced, but we cannot sym- 



^ 2 pathize 



• This emotion has been so profoundly Investigated by Dr. Adam Smith, that he nas 

 enabled to deduce from it many important moral phsenomena in his Treatise on Moral 

 Sentiments, a work of transcendant merit. A few of his observations I here briefly- 

 state. 



