Two dissertations, I. Concerning the end for which God created the world. II. The…

IF all that uneasiness on the sight of others extreme distress, which we call pity, were properly of the nature of benevolence, then they who are the subjects of this passion, must needs be in a degree of uneasiness in being sensible of ⟨p. 173⟩the total want of happiness, of all such as they would be disposed to pity in extreme distress. For that certainly is the most direct tendency and operation of benevolence or good-will, to desire the happiness of its object. But now this is not the case universally, where men are disposed to exercise pity. There are many men, with whom that is the case in respect to some others in the world, that it would not be the occasion of their being sensibly affected with any uneasiness, to know they were dead (yea men who are not influenced by the consideration of a future state, but view death as only a cessation of all sensibility, and consequently an end of all happiness) who yet would have been moved with pity towards the same persons, if they had seen them under some very extreme anguish.—Some men would be moved with pity by seeing a brute-creature under extreme and long torments, who yet suffer no uneasiness in knowing that many thousands of them every day cease to live, and so have an end put to all their pleasure, at butchers shambles in great cities.—'Tis the nature of true benevolence •o desire and rejoice in the prosperity and pleasure of the object of it; and that, in some-proportion to its degree of prevalence. But persons may greatly pity those that are in extreme pain,, whose positive pleasure they may still be very indifferent about. In this case, a man may be much moved and affected with uneasiness, who yet would be affected with no sensible joy in seeing signs of the same person's or Being's enjoyment of very high degrees of pleasure.

YEA, pity may not only be without benevolence, but may consist with true malevolence, or with such ill-will as shall cause men not only not to desire the positive happiness of another, but even to desire his calamity. They may pity such an one when his calamity goes beyond their hatred. A man may have true malevolence towards another, desiring no positive good for him, but evil: and yet his hatred not be infinite, but only to a certain degree. And when he sees the person whom he thus hates, in misery far beyond his ill-will, he may then pity him: because then the natural instinct begins to operate. For malevolence will not overcome the natural instinct, inclining to pity others in extreme calamity, any further than it goes, or to the