As actors or spectators, we are perpetually made to feel the difference of
human conduct, and from a bare recital of transactions, which have passed
in ages and countries remote from our own, are moved with admiration and
pity, or transported with indignation and rage. Our sensibility on this
subject gives their charm in retirement, to the relations of history and to
the fictions of poetry; sends forth the tear of compassion, gives to the
blood its briskest movement, and to the eye its liveliest glances of
displeasure or joy. It turns human life into an interesting spectacle, and
perpetually solicits even the indolent to mix, as opponents or friends, in
the scenes which are acted before them. Joined to the powers of
deliberation and reason, it constitutes the basis of a moral nature; and,
whilst it dictates the terms of praise and of blame, serves to class our
fellow creatures, by the most admirable and engaging, or the most odious
and contemptible denominations.
It is pleasant to find men, who in their speculations deny the reality of
moral distinctions, forget in detail the general positions they maintain,
and give loose to ridicule, indignation, and scorn, as if any of these
sentiments could have place, were the actions of men indifferent; or with
acrimony pretend to detect the fraud by which moral restraints have been
imposed, as if to censure a fraud were not already to take a part on the
side of morality.
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