It remains only that we briefly notice the system of Dr. Adam Smith, commonly called the theory of Sympathy. According to this ingenious writer, it is required for our moral sentiments respecting an action, that we enter into the feelings both of the agent, and of him to whom the action relates. If we sympathize with the feelings and intentions of the agent, we approve of his conduct as right,--if not, we consider it as wrong. If, in the individual to whom the action refers, we sympathize with a feeling of gratitude, we regard the agent as worthy of praise,--if with a feeling of resentment, the contrary. We thus observe our feelings respecting the conduct of others, in cases in which we are not personally concerned,--then apply these rules to ourselves, and thus judge of our own conduct. This very obvious statement, however, of what every man feels, does not supply the place of a fundamental rule of right and wrong; and indeed Dr. Smith does not appear to contend that it does so. It applies only to the application of a principle, not to the origin of it. Our sympathy can never be supposed to constitute an action right or wrong; but it enables us to apply to individual cases a principle of right and wrong derived from another source;--and to clear our judgment in doing so, from the blinding influence of those selfish feelings by which we are so apt to be misled when we apply it directly to ourselves. In estimating our own conduct, we then apply to it those conclusions which we have made with regard to the conduct of others,--or we imagine others applying the same process in regard to us, and consider how our conduct would appeal to an impartial observer. * * * * * This, however, is a most important principle in regard to our moral decisions,--namely, the process by which we view an action, or a course of conduct, in another, and then apply the decision to ourselves. When the power of moral judgment is obscured or deadened in regard to our own conduct, by self-love or deranged moral habits, all the correctness of judgment is often preserved respecting the actions of others. It is thus that men are led on by interest or passion into courses of action, which, if viewed calmly and dispassionately, they would not deliberately defend even in themselves, and which, when viewed in others, they promptly condemn. This principle is beautifully illustrated in the sacred writings, when the prophet went to the king of Israel, and laid before him the hypothetical case of a rich man, who had committed an act of gross and unfeeling injustice against a poor neighbour. The monarch was instantly roused to indignation, and pronounced a sentence of severe but righteous vengeance against the oppressor,--when the prophet turned upon him with the solemn denunciation, "Thou art the man." His moral feeling in regard to his own conduct was dead; but his power of correct moral decision when applied to another was undiminished.