_Design of this Principle._--If we inquire, now, for what end this feeling was implanted in our nature, its final cause is obvious. It is a benevolent arrangement, the design of which is twofold:--first, to prevent undue suffering, by keeping in check the excited passions that would otherwise prompt to the infliction of immoderate and unjust punishment when the object of our resentment is in our power; secondly, to secure that relief to the sufferer which, in circumstances of peril, might fail to be afforded were it not for the pressure and impulse of so strong and sudden an emotion. _Adaptation to Circumstances._--A further and incidental benefit insulting from the possession of a lively sensibility to the joys and sorrows of others, has been noticed by Cogan, in his treatise on the passions, viz., that it disposes the mind to accommodate itself readily to the tastes, manners, and dispositions of those with whom we have occasion to associate. A mind of quick and ready sympathy easily enters into the feelings and understands the conduct of others under given circumstances, and is able to adapt itself to the same, easily, and by a sort of instinct. It places itself at once in the same position, and governs itself accordingly. _Sympathy not to be traced to Self-love as its Origin._--The question has arisen, whether sympathy, which, of all the sensibilities, would seem to lie at the furthest remove from all admixture of selfishness, is not, after all, to be traced ultimately to the principle of self-love. Those philosophers who regard this principle as the main-spring of all human action, and the parent source of all the various emotions that agitate the human heart, are at some pains to show that even the feeling of pity may be traced to the same origin. It was the theory of Hobbes, that the sentiment of pity at the calamities of others springs from the imagination, or fiction as he terms it, of a similar calamity befalling ourselves. Adam Smith also maintains that it is only from our own experience that we can form any idea of the sufferings of others, and that the way in which we form such an idea is by supposing ourselves in the same circumstances with the sufferer, and then conceiving how we should be affected. All this is very true. It is in this way, doubtless, that we get the idea of what another is suffering. But the _idea_ of what he suffers is one thing, and our _sympathy_ with that suffering is another. One is a conception, and the other is the feeling awakened by that conception. Moreover, it does not follow, as Mr. Stewart has well shown in his criticism upon this theory, that the sympathy in this case arises from our conceiving or believing, for the moment, those sufferings to be really our own. The feeling which arises on the contemplation of our own real or fancied distress, is quite another feeling in its character, from that of pity or compassion. The two emotions are readily distinguished. The