communities, though they do not express it so strongly, are yet a good deal impressed with a similar idea. Yet here too there are marked evidences of increasing humanity; for it begins to triumph, not over the narrow prejudices of nationality alone, but also over the fierce bigotry of religious hate. The sentiments with which the British and Irish mutually regard each other, are sufficiently bitter; and, under an exterior respect, we may observe in the estimate of each other, mutually formed by the French and English, a good deal of suspicion, hatred, and contempt. Yet these feelings, in both cases, have greatly softened within the last fifty years, though half of them, or more, have been years of turbulence, rebellion, and war; and thereis a considerable and increasing number of individuals, in all these communities, who are quite uninfluenced by any national prejudice.

20. Piracy, if carried on only against strangers, was esteemed by the ancient Greeks a permissible, and even a praiseworthy means of earning a livelihood; the modern Arabs hold the same opinion as to the robbery of caravans. Nobody need be much astonished at these opinions, who recollects how lately the African slave-trade-a system of plunder infinitely more atrocious-was sustained by the almost unanimous voice of the moralists and legislators of Christendom. But the extended and extending intercommunication of modern times, is fast making all men neighbours; and the word, stranger, in its more general sense, is growing obsolete. 21. Although stranger has so often and so gen

as 1 ve viet a stranger preHe 30 ans ces as to ex

Imi give no oc

298.2 JT FELIS I EI. De men of becevolence monei dy. If that sanger one sige marmed and apparently in VE ISSUES r f im is aners, dress, completed. If ama le edenly did not belong DE 28 zie mus vixè a traditional am vis erstel or even be did belong to most mes I le Vis medy a state of helpjesscess and iscess de sentment of benevolence freed from the routecarton z posing sentiments, renerny secured in ini rament: and, once received and weed kady, be lost the character of

stranger, and became a read Hence, the duty of a best 2vris is guests—and especially towards these guests whom he has coce received into his house, and entertained at his table: a duty, the strict performance of which forms so striking a feature in the manners of the ancient Greeks, and the modern Arabs: and something similar to which, though less elaborated into a system. may be found in all communites sarage or civilized.

In barbarous countries, and the same is true of the retired rural districts of civilized countries, in proportion as the demands made upon hospitality are more infrequent, the extent of it, in particular cases, is the more striking. In great cities, it is confined to those who bring special introductions. If extend3 to all, it would not only prove an intolerable tax, it would be attended with many dangers.

CHAPTER VIII.

DUTIES OF SYMPATHY AND OF SELF-RESPECT.

1. In treating of the moral classification of actions, we found occasion to arrange by themselves those very numerous actions, which, while they are beneficial to some, are, perhaps from that very fact, injurious to others. It is with respect to this class of actions that the greatest discordances of opinion are apt to arise. As regards the moral character ascribed to these actions, all current moral codes continually contradict, not only each other, but themselves. The principal cause of these contradictions is to be found in those modifications of the sentiment of benevolence called sympathy, a term which includes all those emotions compounded out of benevolence and some other sentiment or sentiments, which tend to render certain individuals, or collections of individuals, the special objects of our love.*

2. Sympathy, that is, the warm attachment of a man to a limited number of individuals, his friends, his associates, his protégés, his party, his sect, his caste, his countrymen, is a quality infinitely more common, and far better understood and appreciated, than that diffusive benevolence, which, embracing all mankind in its purview, does not allow any high degree of

* For an enumeration of these sentiments, and the laws according to which they act, see Part. I. Ch. 2.

malevolence to be entertained against anybody. Sympathy, on the other hand, is not only consistent with, on very many occasions it is chiefly displayed by, a vigorous exercise of the sentiment of malevolence. We show our love towards our friends, by the vigor with which we hate their enemies. Now the exercise of the sentiment of malevolence, like the exercise of all our other sentiments, besides its direct results, is capable of affording incidentally a pleasure belonging to that class denominated in this treatise pleasures of activity, a pleasure, which, in some persons, especially those of robust constitution, often reaches a high pitch. It is this sort of persons, who were described by Dr. Johnson as "good haters," and he himself, with all his benevolence, was one.

This pleasure, however, cannot long be indulged in, without exciting a counteracting pain of benevolence; unless, indeed, we can contrive to represent to ourselves that the very exercise of the sentiment of malevolence, and the actions to which it prompts, are benevolent acts, imperiously demanded of us by sympathy for our friends, or for those whom, for whatever reason, we have adopted as objects of our love. Just in proportion, whether in individuals or in communities, as the comparative force of the sentiment of benevolence is less, men arrive the easier at this conclusion; and thus it happens, that vast numbers of good haters feeling in themselves a vigorous dislike of persons and actions which appear to them bad and wrong, and a great pleasure in that dislike, set themselves down, at once, as most benevolent

and virtuous men; for as this dislike is not founded upon any evils suffered personally by themselves, they justly conclude that it must have its origin in sympathy for others who have suffered; and taking its commencement from so respectable and praiseworthy a source, they consider the entire compound emotion, the hatred as well as the sorrow, equally praiseworthy, and that to place any restraint upon it would be actually wrong.

3. This is that virtuous indignation, that cheapest and most common kind of virtue so abundant in the world, which adds so often to necessary inflictions of pain, to reproaches, and to punishments, such as even benevolence itself would prompt, a violence and ferocity, gratuitous and unnecessary pains, savoring far too much of pure malice. Even the most benevolent are exposed to this species of self-deception; even they are apt to conceive, that they can adequately express their abhorrence of what they regard as evil practices, and their sympathy for those who suffer by them, only by heaping all sorts of reproaches and injuries upon the guilty actors. Hence the fierce spirit of party; hence the horrible cruelties of religious bigotry and religious zeal, perpetrated by those, who, in giving free reins to anger and hate, fancy themselves solely actuated, all the time, by moral considerations of the highest kind.

4. Here is the source, the first spring of which is the sentiment of benevolence in the shape of sympathy, though malevolence soon comes to form the main strength of the impulse, here is the

source whence have originated almost all those cus