ss,
any otherwise than as the former often includes the latter; ease from
misery occasioning for some time the greatest positive enjoyment. This
constitution of nature, namely, that it is so munch more in our power to
occasion and likewise to lessen misery than to promote positive
happiness, plainly required a particular affection to hinder us from
abusing, and to incline us to make a right use of the former powers,
_i.e._, the powers both to occasion and to lessen misery; over and above
what was necessary to induce us to make a right use of the latter power,
that of promoting positive happiness. The power we have over the misery
of our fellow-creatures, to occasion or lessen it, being a more important
trust than the power we have of promoting their positive happiness; the
former requires and has a further, an additional, security and guard
against its being violated, beyond and over and above what the latter
has. The social nature of man, and general goodwill to his species,
equally prevent him from doing evil, incline him to relieve the
distressed, and to promote the positive happiness of his
fellow-creatures; but compassion only restrains from the first, and
carries him to the second; it hath nothing to do with the third.

The final causes, then, of compassion are to prevent and to relieve
misery.

As to the former: this affection may plainly be a restraint upon
resentment, envy, unreasonable self-love; that is, upon all the
principles from which men do evil to one another. Let us instance only
in resentment. It seldom happens, in regulated societies, that men have
an enemy so entirely in their power as to be able to satiate their
resentment with safety. But if we were to put this case, it is plainly
supposable that a person might bring his enemy into such a condition, as
from being the object of anger and rage, to become an object of
compassion, even to himself, though the most malicious man in the world;
and in this case compassion would stop him, if he could stop with safety,
from pursuing his revenge any further. But since nature has placed
within us more powerful restraints to prevent mischief, and since the
final cause of compassion is much more to relieve misery, let us go on to
the consideration of it in this view.

As this world was not intended to be a state of any great satisfaction or
high enjoyment, so neither was it intended to be a mere scene of
unhappiness and sorrow. Mitigations and relief