APPENDIX. 71 



" that fuch a misfortune naturally excites fuch a degree of for- Account of 



' ° # Dr Smith, 



" row ; and we know, that if we took time to examine his fi- 

 " tuation fully and in all its parts, we mould, without doubt, 

 " mod fincerely fympathize with him. It is upon the confci- 

 " oufnefs of this conditional fympathy that our approbation 

 ** of his forrow is founded, even in thofe cafes in which that 

 " fympathy does not actually take place; and the general rules 

 " derived from our preceding experience of what our fenti- 

 " ments would commonly correfpond with, correct upon this, 

 " as upon many other occasions, the impropriety of our prefent 

 " emotions." 



By the propriety therefore of any affection or paflion exhi- 

 bited by another perfon, is to be understood its fuitablenefs to 

 the objedl which excites it. Of this fuitablenefs I can judge 

 only from the coincidence of the affection with that which I 

 feel, when I conceive myfelf in the fame circumftances ; and 

 the perception of this coincidence is the foundation of the fen- 

 timent of moral approbation. 



4. Although, when we attend to the lituation of another 

 perfon, and conceive ourfelves to be placed in his circumftances, 

 an emotion of the fame kind with that which he feels, natu- 

 rally arifes in our own mind, yet this fympathetic emotion 

 bears but a very fmall proportion, in point of degree, to what 

 is felt by the perfon principally concerned. In order, there- 

 fore, to obtain the pleafure of mutual fympathy, nature teaches 

 the fpectator to ftrive as much as he can to raife his emotion to 

 a level with that which the object would really produce ; and, 

 on the other hand, me teaches the perfon whofe paflion this ob- 

 ject has excited, to bring it down, as much as he can, to a level 

 with that of the fpectator. 



5. Upon thefe two different efforts are founded two different 

 fets of virtues. Upon the effort of the fpeclator to enter into 

 the Situation of the perfon principally concerned, and to raife 

 his fympathetic emotions to a level with the emotions of the 



actor, 



