with

wise.

ence insensible of grateful feelings 3; for either we vest the may urge that they are or were assisting them for audience their own sakes, and this was supposed not to be free grateful benevolence; or are doing so just because it fell out feelings, by chance, or because they were compelled to do so; or other or that they paid back a debt, but did not bestow a gift, and this as well if the party was conscious of his having been so indebted, as if he was not; because there is in both cases the idea of a quid pro quo; so that neither on this view of the case will any gratitude be felt. We should also examine the €. point under all the predicaments; for free benevolence stands in this, either that that particular thing was given, or in such quantity, or of such a quality, or as to the time when, or the place where, it was given. And we may adduce it as a sign to suit this purpose, if the parties in question have refused a less favour; and if they have conferred on an enemy either the same favour, or an equal one, or a greater; for then it will be evident that they did it not for our sakes. Or, if he wittingly has given something paltry; for no one acknowledges that he stands in need of what is paltry.

And now have my sentiments respecting benevolence, and the want of it, been explained.

3 The ease with which impressions of gratitude might be effaced, appears to have been fully conceived by that French statesman, who said, when he granted a favour, "J'ai fait dix mécontents, et un ingrat.”

Horace sneers at this kind of liberality.

Quo more pyris vesci Calaber jubet hospes,

Tu me fecisti locupletem.-Vescere sodes.—

Jam satis est.-At tu quantum vis tolle.-Benigne.—

Non invisa feres pueris munuscula parvis.—

Tam teneor dono, quam si dimittar onustus.

Ut libet: "hæc porcis hodie comedenda relinquis."

Ep. lib. i. 7, 14.

tion of

pity.

CHAP. VIII.

Of Pity.

LET us explain the circumstances which excite pity; and the persons whom men pity; and, as regards

66

2. Defini- themselves, with what dispositions. Now let pity be defined to be1, a sort of pain occasioned by an evil capable of hurting or destroying 2, appearing to befall one who does not deserve it, which one may himself expect to endure3, or that some one connected with him will; and this when it appears near: for it evidently is necessary that a person likely to feel pity should be actually such as to deem that, either in his own person, or of some one connected with him, he may suffer some evil, and that an evil of such a description as has been stated in the definition, or one similar to it, or nearly equivalent to it. On which account neither do those who are abso

& Per

1 Grief for the calamity of another is PITY; and ariseth from the imagination that the like calamity may befall himself; and therefore it is called also compassion, and, in the phrase of the present time, a fellow-feeling: and therefore, for calamity arriving from great wickedness the best men have the least pity; and for the same calamity those men hate pity, that think themselves least obnoxious to the same. Hobbes's Leviathan. See Rochefoucault's Maxims, No. 342, where the above is quoted in the note.

2 The evil in the case of pity is of the same character as was stated to be the object of fear. In fact, whatever when befalling another excites pity, in one's own case excites fear Vid. chap. v. § 12.

3 It is on this principle that, in the Poetics, describing the character best adapted to the purposes of tragedy, and in whose sufferings we shall be most likely to take an interest, he excludes an absolutely vicious character ;—ἀτραγῳτότατον γὰρ τοῦτό ἐστι· πάντων οὐδὲν γὰρ ἔχει ὢν δεῖ· οὔτε γὰρ φιλάνθρω πον, οὔτε ἐλεεινὸν, οὔτε φοβερόν ἐστὶ. And a little after he gives the reason of this :-ἔλεος μὲν περὶ τὸν ἀνάξιον· φόβος δὲ περὶ τὸν ὅμοιον, § 25.

Perhaps the whole germ of Aristotle's doctrine on this subject may be traced, however briefly expressed, in the cele brated sentence of Terence, "Humo sum; humani nihil à ine alienum puto."

lutely lost, feel pity; for these think they shall no sons who
feel pity,
longer be exposed to suffering, for their sufferings are
past; nor those who esteem themselves excessively
happy, but these wax insolent; for evidently, if they
esteem every good to be realized to them, they also
esteem their lot to be incapable of suffering any evil;
since this also enters into the number of goods. But 4.
of this description, viz. such as think they may
yet suffer evil, are both who already have suffered
and escaped"; and those advanced in years, as well
by reason of their prudence, as of their experience:
and the weak; and those who are rather timid; and
men of education, for these calculate life's contingen-
cies aright; and those to whom belong parents, or 5.
children, or wives, for these attach to one's self, and
are liable to suffer the above-mentioned evils. Those 6. and do
do not feel pity who are under the excitements of not feel
courage, for instance, under anger or confidence ; for
these feelings little calculate the future: nor do those
feel pity who are under insolent dispositions7; for
these persons also calculate little of suffering any
thing but those who are of the mean temperament
between these are susceptible of pity: and those again
are not susceptible of it who are vehemently affected
by fear; for such as are horror-struck do not feel
pity, by reason of its being akin to an evil which
comes home to themselves. Also people are suscep- 7.
tible of pity, should they esteem some persons to be
good; for he who esteems no one to be such, will

So Dido, "Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disco."
Exemplified in Priam's appeal to Achilles :

Μνῆσαι πατρὸς σεῖο, θεοῖς ἐπιείκελ' ̓Αχιλλεῦ,
Τηλίκου, ὥσπερ ἐγων, κ. τ. λ.
İl. xxiv. 486.

Sophocles, Ed. Tyr. 873:-üßpis þvтevel Túpavvov. With the same view of human nature Aristotle, when he says that persons affected by pleasure are disposed to placability, qualified his expression by the exclusion of wanton insolence ;οἱ ἐν ἡδονῇ μὴ ὑβριστικῇ, καὶ ἐν ἐλπίδι ἐπιεικεῖ· cap. iii. § 12. Lear, Act v. sc. iii. :

This judgment of the heavens, which makes is tremble,
Touches us not with pity.

Thus the old, from their experience of the depravity of

pity.

8. Cir

cum

stances

think every one deserving of evil. And in a word, every one, when he is so affected as to call to his recollection the fact, that evils of such a character have befallen either him or his, or to apprehend that they may befall either him or his. And now it has been stated with what dispositions men feel pity.

The circumstances which excite their pity will be evident from the definition: for whatever things, of which ex- the number of those which cause pain and anguish, cite pity. have a tendency to destroy, are all such as to cause pity: again, every thing whose tendency is utter abolition; also all those evils which involve the quality of greatness, and of which chance is the 9. cause 10 But the evils whose characteristic is great anguish and destruction, are as follows: death, assaults, personal injuries, and age, and sickness, and 10. want of food. And the evils of which chance is the cause, are, absolute want, or fewness of friends, (on which account even the being torn from friends and familiars is a circumstance to be pitied,) ugliness, infirmity, deformity, and the circumstance that some evil befalls one from a source whence it were becoming for some good to have arisen; and the frequent occurrence of a similar thing: and the accession of some good, when one has already passed his sufferings; as for example, the gifts of the king were sent 11. down to Diopithes after he was dead; and the fact either that no good has accrued, or of there being no enjoyment of it when it has arrived. These, then, and the like, are the circumstances on account of which men feel pity.

12. Per

But people are sensible of pity toward their acsons to be quaintances, if they be not of extremely close conpitied. nexion, but about such they feel just as they do about themselves when on the eve of suffering: and on this man, are less susceptible of pity than the young, whose inexpe rience judges well of human nature. See chapters xii. and xiii. 10 For chance in a great measure excludes the idea of the person's deserving the evil he suffers.

"In the last act of The Gamester there is a fine illustration of this; where Beverley hears of his succession to the inherit. ance just as he has drunk poison.

distinot

account Amasis 12, as they say, did not shed a tear over his son when he was being led to execution, but he did over his friend who was asking an alms; for this was a circumstance to call for pity; the other, to excite horror. For horror is distinct from pity, Herrer is and has a tendency to expel pity from the breast, from pity and is frequently available to produce a contrary ef- 13. fect 13. Still men feel pity while the evil is yet approaching. And they feel it towards their equals, whether in age, in temper, in habits, in rank, or in family; for in all these relations, the evil is seen with greater clearness as possible to befall also one's self. For we must here also assume generally, that whatever people fear in their own case, that they pity as happening in the case of others. But as the disasters 14. which excite pity always appear to be close at hand, while, as to those removed at the distance of ten thousand years, men neither in the expectation of them, if future, nor in the remembrance of them, if past, are sensible of pity at all, or at least not in an equal degree; this being the case, it must follow that those characters which are got up with the aid of gesture, and voice, and dress, and of acting, generally have the greater effect in producing pity 14. For thus, by setting the evil before our eyes, as either

12 Perhaps Aristotle quoted from memory; and it is not improbable that he may have been mistaken as to the person to whom he attributes this conduct, since Herodotus relates the story, not of Amasis, but of his son Psammenitus; who remarks, in perfect accordance with the principles of the philosopher, τὰ μὲν οἰκήϊα—μέζω κακὰ ἢ ὥστε ἀνακλαίειν, Herod. iii. 14. See the conduct of Gelimer, the Vandal king of Africa, who burst into laughter at his interview with Belisarius after the loss of his kingdom and liberty. Gibbon, Dec. and Fall, chap. 41, note 31.

13 On this principle is founded one of his criteria of excess of criminality, viz. if the recital of its effects produce fear instead of pity;—ὃ οἱ ἀκούοντες φοβοῦνται μᾶλλον, ἢ ἐλεοῦσι, μείζον, lib. i. c. xiv. § 5.

Η Εστὶ μὲν οὖν τὸ φοβερὸν καὶ ἐλεεινὸν ἐκ τῆς ὄψεως γίνεσai, Poet. § 27. See a very pleasant paper of Addison's on this subject, Spectator, No. 42. "We know the effect of the skull and black hangings in The Fair Penitent, the scaffold in Venice Preserved, the tomb in Romeo and Juliet," etc. Twining.