JB/015/250/001

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101

as the natural consequences of resentment. It has been remarked that as in the individual
so in Society at large the affection of sympathy is in its weakest state during the earliest period of existence.
As age & experience advance it receives additional force & efficiency. It extends its influence
for the most part with the extension of existence – beginning with the small immediate relations
aside of the field where the ties of consanguinity, affinity, domestic contract or friendly intercourse are
strongest, – and advancing with experience & mental culture into a widening
field of action. Its links become multifarious, – & capable of wide great extension and increase – & not They
spread into divers circles social, profit domestic, – social – professional – civic –
provincial – national – ultra-national – universal – some independent of & others connected with each other. And in
so much & so far as the sympathetic affections can be called into action their
tendencies must be to increase the happiness of him who exercises them – while
if these happiness producing tendencies lead to no consequences of a contrary effect
or to no consequences of equal amount, – the result is a clear accession to the
General stock of happiness. And thus even the self-regarding affection – employed
as a source of selfish enjoyment, – brings into action a great mass of public happiness.
The very contagion of the self-regarding principle is beneficent. The example
A man witnessing the services rendered by his a man's his neighbor, to his neighbor's neighbor contracts &
catches as it were a propensity to requite the friendliness with his own friendliness –
to bestow upon the author of benefits, benefits like those he has bestowed. The
cheapest mode of requital and considering its extreme facility, not the least efficacious
is on all fit occasions to give to to the benevolent of it affections an outward expression
to bring into conversation as frequently as practicable the language of good-will.
To praise the virtuous doings of another man is to dispense a positive recompense to virtue –
and at the same time to direct the popular sanction to the encouragement
of similar acts. And thus does the principle of self produce the social affection – & the
social the popular, – and all combine together in the production of to increase the general good.

But, in the sympathies excited in favor of an individual – are they dependent on
the consequences influence of his actions upon the general good? Is a man judged of by the
conduciveness of his conduct to the public happiness? Alas not always – for sympathy in to
a with such great extent – approbation to a great extent vast amount – have frequently been excited towards not
by acts productive of good, – but by acts productive of evil – not by conduct favourable
to human happiness – but detrimental & destructive to happiness in the highest
degree: – by victory & conquest for example – by depredation, – devastation & slaughter
on the widest scale: – or by the acquisition or possession of power – power in
unbounded quantity – however obtained, – however exercised.

And even with respect to acts whose consequences have been in some respects
beneficial to the community, – it may have happened that the benefit was neither pure
nor preponderant. Now as the tendency of sympathy is always to produce a repetition
of the act of which it approves – the moral sanction may be misdirected to the
creation of acts in a for pernicious on the whole to the well being of society. An act
which in its earliest and most obvious effects is beneficial may when the whole
of its effects are seen together & calmly calculated, be upon the balance pernicious. So an
act whose instant & obvious apparent consequences are pernicious may upon
the balance be beneficial. In both cases, it is clear that the
sympathy

Identifier: | JB/015/250/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 15.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	015	Main Headings	deontology
Folio number	250	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	linking material	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f101
Penner	sir john bowring	Watermarks	m 1826
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1826
Notes public		ID Number	5466
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