Our natural love and hatred for others Simplified

¹⁶ We wamt to be loved because of our natural love for some people.

We dread to be hated because of our natural hatred for some people.

A person does something really bad in secret.

• When he looks back on it, he feels ashamed if he views it how the impartial spectator would view it
• He still feels that he would hated.

These natural pangs of an fearful conscience haunt the guilty.

Skilled criminals commit crime so coolly as to avoid the suspicion. Sometimes, they discover their guilt by themselves and admit their crime.

¹⁷ In such cases, the horror of blame-worthiness conquers the dread of blame.

To pacify the remorse of their own consciences, they voluntarily submitted themselves to the punishment which they might easily have avoided.

¹⁸ Only the most superficial people can be happy with unmerited praise.

• But unmerited reproach can mortify anyone.

Foolish tales frequently circulate in society.

• Those tales always die away after a few weeks from their own falsehood.
• People learn to despise them.

But an innocent man is often shocked by the false imputation of a crime, especially when that imputation is supported by some circumstances.

He is perfectly conscious of his own innocence. But the very imputation give him disgrace.

An innocent man, brought to the scaffold by the false imputation of an infamous or odious crime, suffers the most cruel misfortune.

His agony might frequently be greater than the agony of criminals who are really guilty.

Profligate criminals, such as common thieves and highwaymen, frequently have little sense of their own conduct’s baseness. Consequently, they have no remorse.

They do not trouble themselves on the punishment’s justice or injustice. They always expected the gibbet to fall to them.

When it does fall, they:

• consider themselves only as less lucky than their companions,
• submit to their fortune with only the uneasiness from the fear of death.

Such worthless wretches, frequently see such fear and can easily conquer them completely.

On the contrary, the innocent man is tormented by the injustice done to him, over and above his uneasiness from this fear of death.

He is horrified at the thoughts of the infamy which the punishment may shed on his memory.

He foresees, with the most exquisite anguish, that he will be remembered by his dearest friends and relations with shame and horror for his supposed disgraceful conduct, instead of with regret and affection.

The shades of death bring him a darker and more melancholy gloom than natural.

We hope that such fatal accidents happen very rarely in any country, for mankind’s tranquility.

But they happen sometimes in all countries, even in those where justice is well administered.

Galas was an unfortunate man of much more than ordinary constancy.

• He broke upon the wheel and burnt at Tholouse for the supposed murder of his own son, of which he was perfectly innocent.
• He seemed to deprecate, not so much the cruelty of the punishment, as the disgrace which the imputation might bring on his memory.
• After he had been broken and before going into the fire, a monk who attended the execution, exhorted him to confess his crime.
• Galas said, “My Father, can you bring yourself to believe that I am guilty?”

¹⁹ To persons in such unfortunate circumstances, that humble philosophy which confines its views to this life, perhaps can afford little consolation.

Everything that could render life or death respectable is taken from them. They are condemned to death and everlasting infamy. Only religion can afford them any effectual comfort.

She alone can tell them, that it is of little importance what man may think of their conduct, while the all-seeing Judge of the world approves of it.

She alone can present to them the view of another world.

It is a world of more candour, humanity, and justice, than the present.

It is where:

• their innocence in due time will be declared, and
• their virtue to be finally rewarded.

The same great principle which can alone strike terror into triumphant vice, affords the only effectual consolation to disgraced and insulted innocence.