e in the person
who feels these emotions, of which the expressions do not, like those of
resentment, suggest to us the idea of any other person for whom we are
concerned and whose interests are opposite to his. The general idea of
good or bad fortune, therefore, creates some concern for the person who
has met with it; but the general idea of provocation excites no sympathy
with the anger of the man who has received it. Nature, it seems, teaches
us to be more averse to enter into this passion, and, till informed of
its cause, to be disposed rather to take part against it.

Even our sympathy with the grief or joy of another, before we are
informed of the cause of either, is always extremely imperfect. General
lamentations, which express nothing but the anguish of the sufferer,
create rather a curiosity to inquire into his situation, along with some
disposition to sympathize with him, than any actual sympathy that is
very sensible. The first question which we ask is, What has befallen
you? Till this be answered, though we are uneasy both from the vague
idea of his misfortune and still more from torturing ourselves with
conjectures about what it may be, yet our fellow-feeling is not very
considerable.

Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of the passion
as from that of the situation which excites it. We sometimes feel for
another a passion of which he himself seems to be altogether incapable,
because, when we put ourselves in his case, that passion arises in our
breast from the imagination, though it does not in his from the reality.
We blush for the impudence and rudeness of another, though he himself
appears to have no sense of the impropriety of his own behavior, because
we cannot help feeling with what confusion we ourselves should be
covered, had we behaved in so absurd a manner.

Of all the calamities to which the condition of mortality exposes
mankind, the loss of reason appears, to those who have the least spark
of humanity, by far the most dreadful; and they behold that last stage
of human wretchedness with deeper commiseration than any other. But the
poor wretch who is in it laughs and sings, perhaps, and is altogether
insensible to his own misery. The anguish which humanity feels,
therefore, at the sight of such an object cannot be the reflection of
any sentiment of the sufferer. The compassion of the spectator must
arise altogether from the consideration of what he himself would feel if
h