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natural affection. They are all included in the general term, Benevolent Affections. They are spoken of figuratively as the Heart. A man's heart is hard, or cold, when these affections are feeble and dull in him; he is warmhearted, when they are strong; and openhearted, when they are readily bestowed on those around him.

239. Benevolent Affections are called kindly affections, for they knit us to our Kind, the Human Race. Hence kind, the adjective, describes the disposition of a person full of such affections. A man is estranged from his friends, when those affections cease; he is unkind, when the opposite prevail; he is unsocial, when he shuns the occasions of kindly intercourse with companions.

When a benevolent affection turns our attention upon its object in a tranquil manner, it is Regard. Love, is the affection in a more marked form. It is Tenderness, when it implies a sensitive and vigilant solicitude for the good of its object; Fondness, when it absorbs the thought, so that Reason is disregarded. When this is the case, the affection is no longer a Virtue: still less is it so, when Love becomes doting, overweening, passionate.

Love towards a person, growing out of good received from him, is Gratitude. A grateful person expresses his emotions in Words, which are Thanks; but he is also desirous of doing Acts of gratitude; of returning Good for Good. Gratitude is a natural and virtuous Affection; but the Acts which it prompts must be limited by Rules of Duty. A man who does what is wrong in return for benefits received, makes his Benefactor the director of his actions, instead of directing them himself, as Morality requires. Hence he is said to sell himself; and to be venal.

240. The manifestations of the benevolent affections, in their influence upon the habitual external Behaviour, have various names. Such affections, regarding a particular per

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son, and not necessarily leading to action, are Good-will. When they produce a current of cheerful thoughts, they are Good-humour. When benevolent feelings lead a man to comply readily with the wishes of others, or to seek to give them pleasure, we have Good-nature. When this Disposition is shown on the part of a superior, we term him gracious and benign. When a person's Good-nature makes it easy to address him, he is affable. If, in his behaviour, he avoid all that may give offense to others, he is courteous. This Disposition is conceived to have generated in the inhabitants of cities, Habits of behaviour which are termed Urbanity and Civility. The opposite of these is Rudeness.

241. Good-humour may often be disturbed by the Provocations which offenses and outrages occasion; but there are virtuous Dispositions which support our benevolence under such provocations. Such dispositions are Gentleness, Mildness, Meekness. Under the influence of these, we repress or avoid the resentment and anger, which offenses against us, and insults offered to us, tend to produce; we preserve benevolence, tranquillity, and good-humour in our minds; and manifest such a disposition in our behaviour. With these dispositions, if men act wrongly or foolishly, we are tolerant and indulgent; if they offend us, we pardon and forgive them. We are ready to do this; we are placable. To be intolerant, unforgiving, implacable, is a vicious Disposition.

242. The Benevolent Affections are also modified by a regard to the circumstances of the object. We naturally share in the emotions which we witness in man: we have a Fellow-feeling, a Sympathy with them. When this Disposition leads us to feel pain at the sight of pain, it is Compassion; we commiserate the object. strongly confirmed by Piety, came to be

This feeling, being

called Pity.

Such

a Disposition, as it prompts us to abstain from adding to the pain felt, is Mercy, or Clemency; as it prompts us to remove the pain or want which we see, it is Charity. But this word has also a wider sense, in which it describes Benevolence, as it makes us abstain from judging unfavourably of other men. All these are virtuous Affections, and lead to the performance of Duties of Benevolence.

243. Admiration can hardly be called a benevolent affection towards its object; for we admire what does not draw our Love; as when we admire a great geometer. But if we admire a man as a good man, we also love him (91). Esteem is the benevolent affection which we entertain towards that of which we approve. Persons whom we esteem, but to whom we are not drawn by love, we respect. When, with such a Disposition, we look at them as our Superiors, we reverence them; in a higher degree, this Affection is Veneration; when combined with Fear, it is Awe. Reverence assumes, in its object, Authority and Power, combined with Justice and Goodness.

244. The irascible Affections are, for the most part, opposed to the virtue of Benevolence; and therefore are to be repressed and controlled. Yet these Affections also have their moral office, and give rise to Virtues. They act as a Defense against harm and wrong; and hence, in their various modifications, they may be termed Defensive Affections. As opposed to harm, inflicted or threatened, they are Resentment; as directed against wrong, they are Indignation (56). And these Emotions may be blameless or praiseworthy; as when we feel natural and proper Resentment, or just Indignation. Such Sentiments are an important and necessary part of Virtue; not of Benevolence, strictly speaking, but of Justice. Without Indignation against cruelty, fraud, falsehood, foulness, disorder, the Virtues have not their full force in the mind.

But Anger, in order to be virtuous, must be directed solely against moral Wrong. Malevolent Affections directed towards Persons are Vices; Antipathy, Dislike, Aversion to any person, independently of his bad character and conduct, are vicious. It is vicious to be displeased, irritated, incensed, exasperated at any person, merely because his actions interfere with our pleasures and desires. The proneness to such Anger is Irascibility. Still more vicious are Still more vicious are our Emotions, when they swell into Rage and Fury, or settle into Malice and Hatred. The term Rancour denotes a fixed Hate, which, by its inward working, has, as it were, diseased the Soul in which it exists. Spite implies a vigilant desire to depress and mortify its object. All these malevolent Feelings are vicious.

245. Moderate Anger, arising from pain inflicted on us is Offense; which term is also used for the offensive Act. A person commits an offense, or offends, in the latter sense; and takes offense, or is offended, in the former. If the Act be one which violently transgress common rules, it is an Outrage. Anger at pain received, impelling a man to inflict pain in return, is Revenge. This term also implies the object or aim of the feeling, as well as the feeling itself. A man is stimulated by Revenge, and seeks his Revenge. The same may be said of the word Vengeance, another form of the word, but of the same origin. The man who admits into his heart this Affection, and retains it, is revengeful, vengeful, vindictive.

246. The Malevolent Feelings, as manifested in the external behaviour, have various names. As they affect our disposition to a person, without necessarily leading to action, they are Ill-will. When they disturb the usual current of cheerful thoughts, they are Ill-humour. When malevolent feelings lead us to speak or act with a view of giving pain to others, they are Ill-nature. When they make us rejoice in another person's pain, they are Malignity. If the pleasure,

which a malignant man takes in another man's pain, be uncheckt by compassion, when the pain is evident, he is cruel; and as such a disposition shows a deficiency in the common feelings which bind men together, he is inhuman. If this character be strongly marked, the man is savage; he approaches to the character and temper of wild beasts; he is brutal.

The Malevolent Affections are also modified by a regard to the circumstances of the object of them, as compared with our own circumstances. Malevolent Pain at the Good which happens to another, and at our own Want of this Good, is Envy.

247. Contempt can hardly be called a malevolent feeling; for we may despise persons without hating them. Contempt consists rather in an estimate of a man as below a certain Standard of Character, to which our Esteem is given. We despise a man for Cowardice, because we admire Courage. The verb despise (despicio, to look down upon,) shows that such a view is implied. The word Scorn implies a condemnation of this kind, so strong that it approaches to Indignation. The expression of contempt, in a marked manner, is an Insult. If the discrepance of the contemplated character with the assumed standard be extravagant, so as to excite a sudden and poignant feeling of Incongruity, our Contempt expresses itself in Laughter. The character is regarded as ridiculous.

248. There are various modifications of character and conduct which arise from the greater or less Energy of the affections, and appear as Virtues or as Vices. The feelings of Love of Right, and Anger at Wrong, in a permanent and energetic form, are virtuous Zeal. Courage, the habit of mind which rejects Fear, is allied to this virtue; as is Fortitude, the habit of not yielding to Pain. From such dispositions of mind, arise Energy and Activity in action; which are important virtues when the action is virtuous.

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