t may exist
without kindness. There are persons tenderly sensitive to every form of
suffering, who yet feel only for the sufferer, not with him, and who would
regard and treat him coldly or harshly, if he were not a sufferer. In such
cases, pity would seem to be a selfish feeling; and there can be no doubt
that some men relieve distress and poverty, as they would remove weeds
from a flower-bed, because they are offensive to the sight.

*Sympathy* is feeling, not for, but with others.(1) It has for its objects
successes and joys, no less than sufferings and sorrows; and probably is
as real and intense in the case of the former as of the latter, though its
necessity is less felt and its offices are less prized in happy than in
sad experiences. Kindness alone cannot produce sympathy. In order to feel
with another, we must either have passed through similar experiences, or
must have an imagination sufficiently vivid to make them distinctly
present to our thought. This latter power is by no means necessary to
create even the highest degree of kindness or of pity; and among the most
active and persevering in works of practical beneficence, there are many
who feel intensely for, yet but faintly with, the objects of their
charity. On the other hand, sympathy sometimes finds its chief exercise in
sensational literature, and there are persons, profoundly moved by
fictitious representations of distress, who yet remain inactive and
indifferent as regards the real needs and sufferings around them that
crave relief.

2. The *malevolent affections* are Anger, Resentment, Envy, Revenge, and
Hatred.

*Anger* is the sense of indignation occasioned by real or imagined wrong.
When excited by actual wrong-doing, and when contained within reasonable
bounds, it is not only innocent, but salutary. It intensifies the virtuous
feeling which gives it birth; and its due expression is among the
safeguards of society against corruption and evil. But when indulged
without sufficient cause, or suffered to become excessive or to outlast
its occasion, it is in itself evil, and it may lead to any and every form
of social injustice, and of outrage against the rights of man and the law
of God.

*Resentment* is the feeling excited by injury done to ourselves. This also
is innocent and natural, when its occasion is sufficient, and its limits
reasonable. It may prevent the repetition of injury, and the spontaneous
tendency to it, which is almost universal