occasioning for some time the greatest positive enjoyment. This
constitution of nature, namely, that it is so munch more in our
power to occasion and likewise to lessen misery than to promote
positive happiness, plainly required a particular affection to
hinder us from abusing, and to incline us to make a right use of the
former powers, I.E., the powers both to occasion and to lessen
misery; over and above what was necessary to induce us to make a
right use of the latter power, that of promoting positive happiness.
The power we have over the misery of our fellow-creatures, to
occasion or lessen it, being a more important trust than the power
we have of promoting their positive happiness; the former requires
and has a further, an additional, security and guard against its
being violated, beyond and over and above what the latter has. The
social nature of man, and general goodwill to his species, equally
prevent him from doing evil, incline him to relieve the distressed,
and to promote the positive happiness of his fellow-creatures; but
compassion only restrains from the first, and carries him to the
second; it hath nothing to do with the third.

The final causes, then, of compassion are to prevent and to relieve
misery.

As to the former: this affection may plainly be a restraint upon
resentment, envy, unreasonable self-love; that is, upon all the
principles from which men do evil to one another. Let us instance
only in resentment. It seldom happens, in regulated societies, that
men have an enemy so entirely in their power as to be able to
satiate their resentment with safety. But if we were to put this
case, it is plainly supposable that a person might bring his enemy
into such a condition, as from being the object of anger and rage,