BOOK II PART II
that compleat sympathy there arises pity and
benevolence. But it will easily be imagined,
that where the present evil strikes with more
than ordinary force, it may entirely engage our
attention, and prevent that double sympathy,
above-mentioned. Thus we find, that though
every one, but especially women, are apt to
contract a kindness for criminals, who go to
the scaffold, and readily imagine them to be
uncommonly handsome and wellshaped; yet
one, who is present at the cruel execution of
the rack, feels no such tender emotions; but is
in a manner overcome with horror, and has no
leisure to temper this uneasy sensation by any
opposite sympathy.
But the instance, which makes the most
clearly for my hypothesis, is that wherein by
a change of the objects we separate the dou-