Chapter II. is ’Of the love of Praise, and of Praise-worthiness; the dread of Blame, and of Blame-worthiness;’ a long and important chapter.  The author endeavours to trace, according to his principle of sympathy, the desire of Praise-worthiness, as well as of Praise.  We approve certain conduct in others, and are thus disposed to approve the same conduct in ourselves:  what we praise as judges of our fellow-men, we deem praise-worthy, and aspire to realize in our own conduct.  Some men may differ from us, and may withhold that praise; we may be pained at the circumstance, but we adhere to our love of the praise-worthy, even when it does not bring the praise.  When we obtain the praise we are pleased, and strengthened in our estimate; the approbation that we receive confirms our self-approbation, but does not give birth to it.  In short, there are two principles at work within us.  We are pleased with approbation, and pained by reproach:  we are farther pleased if the approbation coincides with what we approve when we are ourselves acting as judges of other men.  The two dispositions vary in their strength in individuals, confirming each other when in concert, thwarting each other when opposed.  The author has painted a number of striking situations arising out of their conflict.  He enquires why we are more pained by unmerited reproach, than lifted up by unmerited approbation; and assigns as the reason that the painful state is more pungent than the corresponding pleasurable state.  He shows how those men whose productions are of uncertain merit, as poets, are more the slaves of approbation, than the authors of unmistakeable discoveries in science.  In the extreme cases of unmerited reproach, he points out the appeal to the all-seeing Judge of the world, and to a future state rightly conceived; protesting, however, against the view that would reserve the celestial regions for monks and friars, and condemn to the infernal, all the heroes, statesmen, poets, and philosophers of former ages; all the inventors of the useful arts; the protectors, instructors, and benefactors of mankind; and all those to whom our natural sense of praise-worthiness forces us to ascribe the highest merit and most exalted virtue.

Chapter III. is ‘On the influence and authority of Conscience;’ another long chapter, occupied more with moral reflections of a practical kind than with the following out of the analysis of our moral sentiment.  Conceding that the testimony of the supposed impartial spectator does not of itself always support a man, he yet asserts its influence to be great, and that by it alone we can see what relates to ourselves in the proper shape and dimensions.  It is only in this way that we can prefer the interest of many to the interest of one; the interest of others to our own.  To fortify us in this hard lesson two different schemes have been proposed; one to increase our feelings for others, the other to diminish our feelings for ourselves.  The first is prescribed