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the other, is closely allied to contempt. Objects of pity inflict upon us not only a pain of benevolence, but also a pain of disappointment. They fall below our expectations, and present us with a scene of weakness and suffering which we did not anticipate. From the very fact that these humiliated sufferers are men, especially if they are countrymen, neighbours, or relations, their misery and degradation cast a shadow upon us. It is for these reasons, that so many people have such a dread of visiting scenes of want and distress; and it is for these reasons that benevolence is so often extinguished by disgust and contempt. If, however, we overcome these feelings, and attempt the relief of the sufferers, just in proportion as we are successful, they are apt to become the objects of our affection. The love of superiority is gratified at the same time with the sentiment of benevolence. Here is something that we have done. Here is a good work achieved by ourselves. Those whom we have rescued from the depths of misery and degradation, and raised almost or quite to a level with ourselves, stand to us almost in the relation of children. Should they happen, however, to rise above us, unless they rise far above, jealousy and envy spring up, and we shall be likely to begin to love them less.

14. Pity, as we have said, is the sentiment with which we regard the sufferings of those inferior to us. In the case where those who suffer are our equals or our superiors, the sentiment of benevolence so excited, is denominated Sympathy. This latter is a motive of action much more powerful

than pity. Thus it happens that, in all countries, the necessities of the poor are relieved to a much greater extent by the sympathy of those almost as poor as themselves, than by the charity of the rich. Reinforced by admiration, sympathy reaches its highest pitch. Hence, the feeling excited by the reverses of princes; hence, for instance, the lamentations over Bonaparte banished to St. Helena, often poured out by men not very accessible to the distresses of their neighbours, and especially of their poorer neighbours. But the operation of sympathy will be more fully considered in the next chapter.

15. It has been observed that women are everywhere much more prompt and zealous than man, in administering to the necessities of poverty and sickness. Women naturally have the desire of superiority as strongly as men; but they have much fewer opportunities of gratifying it, and must make the most of such as they have. Hence, in part at least, their greater fondness for children, and their greater readiness to undertake works of charity. To bestow favors, implies superiority.

16. Many systems of mysticism, as the Christian, the Mahometan, and the Boodhist, have greatly recommended themselves to the mass of the people, who have always been poor, by a zealous inculcation of the duty of alms-giving, a duty, however, which, according to the best informed modern moralists, requires to be exercised with much discrimination; the grand object being, to enable the poor to provide for themselves.

17. All systems of morality agree tolerably well

as to our duties towards our neighbours; but as respects our duty towards our enemies, those who have inflicted or whom we suppose to have inflicted, injuries upon us, and who are naturally objects of our hatred, there is a most marked distinction between all forensic, we may say, indeed, all practised codes, and those speculative codes which have made pure benevolence, or the doctrine of self-sacrifice, the sole foundation of morals. These codes proclaim the singular paradox, that it is our duty to love our enemies, a paradox so repugnant to the nature of man, that, of the number who have preached this doctrine, it may well be doubted, whether one ever practised it. Those, indeed, whom we love, we never call our enemies, no matter what injuries they may have inflicted upon us. To call them so, is an abuse of words.

This doctrine, then, correctly expressed, amounts to this; that we should have no enemies; that we ought to entertain a sentiment of equal benevolence for everybody. This may be possible for those solitary recluses who come into contact with nobody; but would imply a most uncommon want of sensibility in any one engaged in the active duties of life, and brought into daily collision with the selfishness of others.

But we may forgive our enemies; and a knowledge of the necessary laws of human action must strongly incline every benevolent man to do so. In proportion as those laws have become better understood, the virtue of forgiveness has been better appreciated; men have grown less vindictive, and have

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been more and more disposed to regard the conduct of each other with a certain degree of indulgence. It comes to be perceived that actions injurious to us, or actions which we disapprove, do not spring from that pure malice and depravity, to which hasty judgment warped and colored by present pain, so generally ascribes them, but from an intricate mixture of motives, among which benevolence itself often plays a conspicuous part; or from a view of facts and consequences, which, though different from ours, is equally plausible, perhaps equally just. This great virtue of forgiveness, for, as yet, it is not so commonly practised, as to have obtained the character of a duty, in its more extended sense, and considered as applicable not merely to conduct personally injurious to us, but to human actions in general, is called Candor, or Charity. The greatest obstacle to its practice, next to that false view of the origin of human actions above pointed out, is the sentiment of self-comparison, producing, in the case of injuries personal to ourselves, an apprehension lest we may be supposed to have pretermitted revenge, more from weakness than good will; and in the more general case of injuries to others, a fear lest we subject ourselves to suspicion of want of sympathy for the sufferers.

18. The right of independent communities to make war upon each other, has been based, and well based, by writers upon international law, upon the same grounds upon which rests the right of individuals, in those communities in which no laws exist, to punish wrongs inflicted on themselves. The ex

ercise of this latter right leads to such multiplied evils, that the suppression of it by means of laws and established government, is thought to be more than a counterbalance to all the evils which laws and government often inflict. The prevention of wars is a thing not less to be desired; and if not otherwise attainable, worthy to be purchased, as the suppression of private revenge commonly is, at the expense of many lesser dangers and evils. With the increasing force of the sentiment of benevolence, and a clearer perception of the true means of human happiness, philanthropists and even statesmen have of late turned their thoughts to the grand idea of a universal perpetual peace. In the existing state of inequality as well among communities as individuals, this idea, for reasons which will appear in the Theory of Politics, cannot yet be realized. At some future day, it may be; and, notwithstanding all the ridicule cast upon "peace societies," and the extravagant deductions founded upon their principles by reasoners of the self-sacrificing school, the time perhaps will come, when their founder will be more celebrated and more illustrious than the ablest and most fortunate of the French marshals. War, however, affords such scope to the sentiments of selfcomparison and of admiration, that it has, and long will have, many ardent admirers. The poets have shed around it a halo of glory, which, as yet, only begins to fade.

19. The ancient Greeks stigmatized all nations but themselves, as barbarians; the Chinese do the same now; and the most enlightened of modern

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