purely disinterested tendencies were withdrawn from the
breast, the whole existence of humanity would be changed. Society
might not be impossible; there are races where mutual sympathy barely
exists: but the fulfilment of obligations, if always dependent on a
sense of self-interest, would fail where that was not apparent. On the
other hand, if we were on all occasions touched with the unhappiness
to others immediately and remotely springing from our conduct--if
sympathy were perfect and unfailing--we could hardly ever omit doing
what was right.

(3) Our several Emotions or Passions may co-operate with Prudence and
with Sympathy in a way to make both the one and the other more
efficacious.

Prudence, in the shape of aversion to pain, is rendered more acute
when the pain is accompanied with Fear. The perturbation of fear rises
up as a deterring motive when dangers loom in the distance. One
powerful check to the commission of injury is the retaliation of the
sufferer, which is a danger of the vague and illimitable kind,
calculated to create alarm.

Anger, or Resentment, also enters, in various ways, into our moral
impulses. In one shape it has just been noticed. In concurrence with
Self-interest and Sympathy, it heightens the feeling of reprobation
against wrong-doers.

The Tender Emotion, and the Affections, uphold us in the performance
of our duties to others, being an additional safeguard against injury
to the objects of the feelings. It has already been shown how these
emotions, while tending to coalesce with Sympathy proper, are yet
distinguished from it.

The AEsthetic Emotions have important bearings upon Ethical Sentiment.
As a whole, they are favourable to human virtue, being non-exclusive
pleasures. They, however, give a bias to the formation of moral rules,
and pervert the proper test of right and wrong in a manner to be
afterwards explained.

10. Although Prudence and Sympathy, and the various Emotions named,
are powerful inducements to what is right in action, and although,
without these, right would not prevail among mankind, yet they do not
stamp the _peculiar attribute_ of Rightness. For this, we must refer
to the institution of Government, or Authority.

Although the force of these various motives on the side of right is
all-powerful and essential, so much so, that without them morality
would be impossible, they do not, of themselves, impart the character
of a moral act. We do not always feel tha