| In like measure we are principally mortifyed with the contempt of persons, upon whose judgment we set some value, and are, in a peat measure, indifferent about the opinions of the rest of mankind. |
| But if the mind received from any original instinct a desire of fame and aversion to infamy, fame and infamy would influence us without distinction; and every opinion, according as it were favourabk or unfavourable, would equally excite that desire or aversion. |
| The judgment of a fool is the judgment of another person, as well as that of a wise man, and is only inferior in its influence on our own judgment. |
| We are not only better pleased with the approbation of a wise man than with that of a fool, but receive an additional satisfaction from the former, when it is obtained after a long and intimate acquaintance. |
| This is accounted for after the same manner. |
| The praises of others never give us much pleasure, unless they concur with our own opinion, and extol us for those qualities, in which we chiefly excel. |
| A mere soldier little values the character of eloquence: A gownman of courage: A bishop of humour: Or a merchant of learning. |
| Whatever esteem a man may have for any quality, abstractedly considered; when he is conscious he is not possest of it; the opinions of the whole world will give him little pleasure in that particular, and that because they never will be able to draw his own opinion after them. |
| Nothing is more usual than for men of good families, but narrow circumstances, to leave their friends and country, and rather seek their livelihood by mean and mechanical employments among strangers, than among those, who are acquainted with their birth and education. |
| We shall be unknown, say they, where we go. |
| No body will suspect from what family we are sprung. |
| We shall be removed from all our friends and acquaintance, and our poverty and meanness will by that means sit more easy upon us. |
| In examining these sentiments, I find they afford many very convincing arguments for my present purpose. |
| First, We may infer from them, that the uneasiness of being contemned depends on sympathy, and that sympathy depends on the relation of objects to ourselves; since we are most uneasy under the contempt of persons, who are both related to us by blood, and contiguous in place. |
| Hence we-seek to diminish this sympathy and uneasiness by separating these relations, and placing ourselves in a contiguity to strangers, and at a distance from relations. |
| Secondly, We may conclude, that relations are requisite to sympathy, not absolutely considered as relations, but by their influence in converting our ideas of the sentiments of others into the very sentiments, by means of the association betwixt the idea of their persons, and that of our own. |
| For here the relations of kindred and contiguity both subsist; but not being united in the same persons, they contribute in a less degree to the sympathy. |
| Thirdly, This very circumstance of the diminution of sympathy by the separation of relations is worthy of our attention. |
| Suppose I am placed in a poor condition among strangers, and consequently am but lightly treated; I yet find myself easier in that situation, than when I was every day exposed to the contempt of my kindred and countrymen. |
| Here I feel a double contempt; from my relations, but they are absent; from those about me, but they are strangers. |
| This double contempt is likewise strengthened by the two relations of kindred and contiguity. |