We only pity the wretched so far as we think they feel the need of pity.  The bodily effect of our sufferings is less than one would suppose; it is memory that prolongs the pain, imagination which projects it into the future, and makes us really to be pitied.  This is, I think, one of the reasons why we are more callous to the sufferings of animals than of men, although a fellow-feeling ought to make us identify ourselves equally with either.  We scarcely pity the cart-horse in his shed, for we do not suppose that while he is eating his hay he is thinking of the blows he has received and the labours in store for him.  Neither do we pity the sheep grazing in the field, though we know it is about to be slaughtered, for we believe it knows nothing of the fate in store for it.  In this way we also become callous to the fate of our fellow-men, and the rich console themselves for the harm done by them to the poor, by the assumption that the poor are too stupid to feel.  I usually judge of the value any one puts on the welfare of his fellow-creatures by what he seems to think of them.  We naturally think lightly of the happiness of those we despise.  It need not surprise you that politicians speak so scornfully of the people, and philosophers profess to think mankind so wicked.

The people are mankind; those who do not belong to the people are so few in number that they are not worth counting.  Man is the same in every station of life; if that be so, those ranks to which most men belong deserve most honour.  All distinctions of rank fade away before the eyes of a thoughtful person; he sees the same passions, the same feelings in the noble and the guttersnipe; there is merely a slight difference in speech, and more or less artificiality of tone; and if there is indeed any essential difference between them, the disadvantage is all on the side of those who are more sophisticated.  The people show themselves as they are, and they are not attractive; but the fashionable world is compelled to adopt a disguise; we should be horrified if we saw it as it really is.

There is, so our wiseacres tell us, the same amount of happiness and sorrow in every station.  This saying is as deadly in its effects as it is incapable of proof; if all are equally happy why should I trouble myself about any one?  Let every one stay where he is; leave the slave to be ill-treated, the sick man to suffer, and the wretched to perish; they have nothing to gain by any change in their condition.  You enumerate the sorrows of the rich, and show the vanity of his empty pleasures; what barefaced sophistry!  The rich man’s sufferings do not come from his position, but from himself alone when he abuses it.  He is not to be pitied were he indeed more miserable than the poor, for his ills are of his own making, and he could be happy if he chose.  But the sufferings of the poor man come from external things, from the hardships fate has imposed upon him.  No amount of habit can accustom him to the bodily ills of fatigue,