Gratitude and Indignation

192. Favor

Strictly speaking, favor is a desire to see good come to someone for whom we have goodwill.

However, I use this term here to signify that goodwill as it is stirred in us by some virtuous action of the person toward whom we feel it.

For we are naturally inclined to love those who perform actions we consider good, even if we derive no benefit from them.

In this sense, favor is a kind of love, not desire, though the desire to see good come to the person we favor always accompanies it. Favor is often coupled with compassion because the misfortunes of the unfortunate make us reflect more on their merits.

193. Gratitude

Gratitude is also a form of love, aroused in us by some action of the person for whom we feel it, through which we believe they have done us some good or at least intended to do so.

Thus, it contains everything that favor does, with the addition of being founded on an action that directly affects us and inspires a desire to reciprocate. For this reason, gratitude is much stronger, especially in souls that are even slightly noble and generous.

194. Ingratitude

Ingratitude is not a passion because nature has placed no movement of spirits within us to excite it.

Instead, it is simply a vice directly opposed to gratitude, which is always virtuous and one of the principal bonds of human society.

This vice belongs only to brutish and arrogantly foolish individuals who believe that all things are owed to them; or to the thoughtless, who fail to reflect on the benefits they receive; or to the weak and abject, who, aware of their frailty and need, cravenly seek the help of others and, after receiving it, come to hate their benefactors.

They do so because, lacking the will or hope to repay the kindness, and imagining that everyone is as mercenary as they are—that no good is done except in expectation of reward—they believe they have deceived their benefactors.

195. Indignation

Indignation is a form of hatred or aversion that one naturally feels toward those who commit some wrongdoing, whatever its nature.

It is often mixed with envy or compassion, though it has an entirely different object. For one feels indignation only toward those who do good or harm to people who do not deserve it.

By contrast, one envies those who receive undeserved good and feels pity for those who suffer undeserved harm.

It is true that possessing a good one does not deserve can, in a sense, be a wrongdoing.

This may explain why Aristotle and his followers, assuming that envy is always a vice, called virtuous envy by the name of indignation.

196. Why Indignation Is Sometimes Joined with Compassion or Mockery

In some sense, doing harm is also a way of receiving harm.

This is why some people combine their indignation with compassion, while others mix it with mockery, depending on whether they feel goodwill or ill will toward those they see committing faults.

Thus, the laughter of Democritus and the tears of Heraclitus may have stemmed from the same cause.

197. It Is Often Accompanied by Admiration and Not Incompatible with Joy

Indignation is often accompanied by admiration.

This is because we usually assume that all things will be done in the way we believe they should be—that is, in the way we deem good.

Therefore, when something contrary happens, it surprises us, and we admire it. Indignation is not incompatible with joy, although it is more often associated with sadness.

For when the harm that causes our indignation cannot harm us personally, and we reflect that we would not commit a similar act, this gives us some pleasure. This may even be one of the causes of the laughter that sometimes accompanies this passion.

198. The Use of Indignation

Indignation is far more evident in those who wish to appear virtuous than in those who truly are.

While those who love virtue cannot witness the vices of others without some aversion, they are only deeply moved by the most significant and extraordinary wrongs.

To be overly indignant about trivial matters is to be difficult and irritable; to be indignant over things that are not blameworthy is to be unjust; and to extend this passion beyond human actions—to criticize the works of God or nature—is to be absurd and presumptuous.

Such behavior is typical of those who are never content with their condition or fortune and dare to find fault with the workings of the world and the mysteries of Providence.