Note 14 — Chapter VIII

Mandeville was right in thinking that with all their systems of morality, men would never have been anything but monsters, if nature had not given them compassion to support their reason; but he failed to see that from this one quality spring all the social virtues, which he was unwilling to credit mankind with. In reality, what is generosity, clemency, humanity, if not compassion, applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to the human race, as a whole? Even benevolence and friendship, if we look at the matter rightly, are seen to result from a constant compassion, directed upon a particular object; for to desire that some one should not suffer is nothing else than to desire that he should be happy.... The more closely the living spectator identifies himself with the living sufferer, the more active does pity become.