ore
refined exercise of this class of feelings leads us to seek the
reformation of the offender, and to convert him from an enemy into a
friend.

Resentment, in cases which concern the public peace, naturally leads to
the infliction of punishment; the object of which is to prevent similar
conduct in others, not to gratify personal vengeance. Hence it is
required to be done in a public manner,--with proper deliberation and
coolness,--and with an exact adaptation of the penalty to the offence,
and to the object to be attained. The person injured is not likely to do
this with the requisite impartiality and candour; for we are apt to feel
too deeply injuries offered to ourselves, and not to make the propel
allowance for the feelings of others, and the circumstances which led to
the offence. The higher degrees, indeed, of these tendencies usually go
together,--they, who are most susceptible of offences, and most
irritable under them, being generally least inclined to make allowances
for others. Hence, in all cases, our disapprobation of personal
vengeance, or of a man taking the law into his own hands; and our
perfect sympathy with the protectors of the public peace, when they
dispassionately investigate a case of injury, and calmly adapt their
measures to the real object to be attained by them,--the protection of
the community.

The defensive affections are exercised in an unwarranted manner, when
they are allowed to be excited by trifling causes; when they are, in
degree, disproportioned to the offence, or prolonged in a manner which
it did not require; and when they lead, in any measure, to retaliation
or revenge. The sound exercise of them, therefore, is opposed to that
irascibility which takes fire on trivial occasions, or without due
consideration of the intentions of the agent, or the circumstances in
which he was placed,--to a disposition to resentment on occasions which
do not warrant it,--and, on all occasions, to harbouring the feeling
after the offence and all its consequences have passed over.

* * * * *

Before concluding the subject of the affections, there are three points
respecting them which remain to be mentioned as briefly as
possible,--the influence of Attention, combined with a certain act of
Imagination,--the influence of Habit,--and the estimate of the feeling
of Moral Approbation which the exercise of the affections is calculated
to produce.

I. In every exerc