So is it not because we find a good action that we sympathize with it? Is it not because the dispositions of a man appear to us conformed to the idea of justice, that we are inclined to participate in them with him? Moreover, if sympathy were the true criterion of the good, every thing for which we feel sympathy would be good. But sympathy is not only related to things in their nature moral, we also sympathize with the grief and the joy that have nothing to do with virtue and crime. We even sympathize with physical sufferings. Moral sympathy is only a case of general sympathy. It must even be acknowledged that sympathy is not always in accordance with right. We sometimes sympathize with certain sentiments that we condemn, because, without being in themselves bad--which would prevent all sympathy--they give an inclination to the greatest faults; for example, love, which comes so near to irregularity, and emulation, that so quickly leads to ambition. Benevolence also is not always determined by the good alone. And, again, when it is applied to a virtuous man, it supposes a judgment by which we pronounce that this man is virtuous. It is not because we wish the author of an action well that we judge that this action is good; it is because we judge that this action is good that we wish its author well. This is not all. In the sentiment of benevolence is enveloped a new judgment which is not in sympathy. This judgment is the following: the author of a good action deserves to be happy, as the author of a bad action deserves to suffer in order to expiate it. This is the reason why we desire happiness for the one and reparatory suffering for the other. Benevolence is little else than the sensible form of this judgment. All these sentiments, therefore, suppose an anterior and superior judgment. Everywhere and always the same vicious circle. From the fact that the sentiments which we have just described have a moral character, it is concluded that they constitute the idea of the good, whilst it is the idea of the good that communicates to them the character that we perceive in them.