Emotion Strength

An emotion goes with every magnitude of an object.

• When the emotion increases, we naturally imagine that the object has likewise increased.

◦ The effect conveys our view to its usual cause, a certain degree of emotion to a certain magnitude of the object.

We do not consider that comparison may change the emotion without changing anything in the object.

This whole operation will be easily conceived by those who:

• are acquainted the metaphysical part of optics
• know how we transfer our judgments to our senses

We leave this new discovery of an impression that secretly attends every idea. ◦ This discovery arose from that principle. ◦ We must allow, in that principle, that objects appear greater or less by a comparison with others.

We have so many instances of this.

• I derive malice and envy from this principle.

We receive satisfaction or uneasiness from reflecting on our own condition and circumstances.

• This depends on whether we think our condition is:
  • happy or unhappy
  • rich or poor
  • reputable or not

We seldom judge of objects from their intrinsic value.

Instead, we form our notions of them from a comparison with other objects.

It follows that we use our own condition as the barometer of the happiness or misery in others.

Another person’s misery gives us a stronger idea of our happiness.

• This produces delight.

Another person’s happiness gives us a stronger idea of our misery.

• This produces uneasiness.

This is like a reversed pity or contrary sensations arising in the observer, different from the feeling of the people he observes.

In general, all kinds of comparison an object makes us always receive from another, to which it is compared, a sensation contrary to what arises from itself in its direct and immediate survey.

• A small object makes a great one appear still greater.
• A great object makes a little one appear less.

Deformity of itself produces uneasiness.

But it makes us receive new pleasure by its contrast with a beautiful object, whose beauty is augmented by it.

Beauty itself produces pleasure.

But it makes us receive a new pain by the contrast with any thing ugly, whose deformity it augments.

The case must be the same with happiness and misery. ◦ The direct survey of another’s pleasure naturally gives us pleasure. ◦ It therefore produces pain when cornpared with our own.

His pain, considered in itself, is painful to us. ◦ But it: ▪ augments the idea of our own happiness ▪ gives us pleasure.

We might feel a reversed sensation from the happiness and misery of others. ◦ Since the same comparison may: ▪ give us malice against ourselves ▪ make us: • rejoice for our pains • grieve for our pleasures. • Thus, the prospect of past pain is agreeable, when we are satisfied with our present condition. ◦ On the other hand, our past pleasures give us uneasiness when we enjoy nothing at present equal to them. • The comparison being the same, as when we reflect on the sentiments of others, must be attended with the same effects. • A person may: ◦ extend this malice against himself, even to his present fortune ◦ carry this malice so far to: ▪ seek affliction ▪ increase his pains and sorrows. • This may happen on two occasions. ◦ On the distress and misfortune of a friend or person dear to him. ◦ On the feeling any remorse for a crime he has been guilty of. ▪ These irregular appetites for evil arise from the principle of comparison.