Chapter IV. continues the subject, and draws a distinction between two cases; the case where the objects of a feeling do not concern either ourselves or the person himself, and the case where they do concern one or other.  The first case is shown in matters of taste and science, where we derive pleasure from sympathy, but yet can tolerate difference.  The other case is exemplified in our personal fortunes; in these, we cannot endure any one refusing us their sympathy.  Still, it is to be noted that the sympathizer does not fully attain the level of the sufferer; hence the sufferer, aware of this, and desiring the satisfaction of a full accord with his friend, tones down his own vehemence till it can be fully met by the other; which very circumstance is eventually for his own good, and adds to, rather than detracts from, the tranquillizing influence of a friendly presence.  We sober down our feelings still more before casual acquaintance and strangers; and hence the greater equality of temper in the man of the world than in the recluse.

Chapter V. makes an application of these remarks to explain the difference between the Amiable and the Respectable Virtues.  The soft, the gentle, and the amiable qualities are manifested when, as sympathizers, we enter fully into the expressed sentiments of another; the great, the awful and respectable virtues of self-denial, are shown when the principal person concerned brings down his own case to the level that the most ordinary sympathy can easily attain to.  The one is the virtue of giving much, the other of expecting little.

Section II. is ’Of the Degrees of the different passions which are consistent with propriety.’  Under this head he reviews the leading passions, remarks how far, and why, we can sympathize with each.

Chapter I. is on the Passions having their origin in the body.  We can sympathize with hunger to a certain limited extent, and in certain circumstances; but we can rarely tolerate any very prominent expression of it.  The same limitations apply to the passion of the sexes.  We partly sympathize with bodily pain, but not with the violent expression of it.  These feelings are in marked contrast to the passions seated in the imagination:  wherein our appetite for sympathy is complete; disappointed love or ambition, loss of friends or of dignity, are suitable to representation in art.  On the same principle, we can sympathize with danger; as regards our power of conceiving, we are on a level with the sufferer.  From our inability to enter into bodily pain, we the more admire the man that can bear it with firmness.

Chapter II. is on certain Passions depending on a peculiar turn of the Imagination.  Under this he exemplifies chiefly the situation of two lovers, with whose passion, in its intensity, a third person cannot sympathize, although one may enter into the hopes of happiness, and into the dangers and calamities often flowing from it.