Page:The Theory of Moral Sentiments.pdf/15

Sect. 1. paion of which the mind of man is iceptible, the emotions of the by-tander always correpond to what, by bringing the cae home to himelf, he imagines, hould be the entiments of the ufferer.

Pity and compaion are words appropriated to ignify our fellow-feeling with the orrow of others. Sympathy, though its meaning was, perhaps, originally the ame, may now, however, without much impropriety, be made ue of to denote our fellow-feeling with any paion whatever.

Upon ome occaions ympathy may eem to arie meerly from the view of a certain emotion in another peron. The paions, upon ome occaions, may eem to be transfued from one man to another, intantaneouly, and antecedent to any knowledge of what excited them in the peron principally concerned. Grief and joy, for example, trongly expreed in the look and getures of any one, at once affect the pectator with ome degree of a like painful or agreeable emotion. A miling face is, to every body that ees it, a chearful object; as a orrowful countenance, on the other hand, is a melancholy one.

This, however, does not hold univerally or with regard to every paion. There are ome paions of which the expreions excite no ort of ympathy, but before we are acquainted with what gave occaion to them, erve rather to digut and provoke us againt them. The furious behaviour of an angry man is more likely to exaperate us againt Rh