, which this author, and others who follow his steps, give
of such affections, instead of the words by which they are commonly
expressed. Hobbes, after having laid down that pity or compassion is
only fear for ourselves, goes on to explain the reason why we pity our
friends in distress more than others. Now substitute the word
_definition_ instead of the word _pity_ in this place, and the inquiry
will be, why we fear our friends, &c., which words (since he really does
not mean why we are afraid of them) make no question or sentence at all.
So that common language, the words _to compassionate_, _to pity_, cannot
be accommodated to his account of compassion. The very joining of the
words to _pity our friends_ is a direct contradiction to his definition
of pity: because those words, so joined, necessarily express that our
friends are the objects of the passion; whereas his definition of it
asserts that ourselves (or danger to ourselves) are the only objects of
it. He might indeed have avoided this absurdity, by plainly saying what
he is going to account for; namely, why the sight of the innocent, or of
our friends in distress, raises greater fear for ourselves than the sight
of other persons in distress. But had he put the thing thus plainly, the
fact itself would have been doubted; that _the sight of our friends in
distress raises in us greater fear for ourselves than the sight of others
in distress_. And in the next place it would immediately have occurred
to every one that the fact now mentioned, which at least is doubtful
whether, true or false, was not the same with this fact, which nobody
ever doubted, that _the sight of our friends in distress raises in us
greater compassion than the sight of others in distress_: every one, I
say, would have seen that these are not the same, but _two different_
inquiries; and, consequently, that fear and compassion are not the same.
Suppose a person to be in real danger, and by some means or other to have
forgot it; any trifling accident, any sound might alarm him, recall the
danger to his remembrance, and renew his fear; but it is almost too
grossly ridiculous (though it is to show an absurdity) to speak of that
sound or accident as an object of compassion; and yet, according to Mr.
Hobbes, our greatest friend in distress is no more to us, no more the
object of compassion, or of any affection in our heart: neither the one
nor the other raises any emotion in one mind, but only th