The Social Passions That Draw Us Together — The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Smith contrasts the divided sympathy that mars hatred and resentment with the redoubled sympathy that beautifies the social passions. Generosity, humanity, kindness, compassion, friendship, and esteem please the indifferent spectator because concern for the person benefited coincides with fellow-feeling for the person who feels benevolence. To be hated is more painful to a brave mind than feared evils; to be loved is a deeper happiness than any advantage love secures. The mischief of sowing discord is not loss of petty favors but destruction of affection itself.

He illustrates the point through domestic life. A household of mutual affection presents peace and contentment to every visitor, while a house of hidden jealousy and contention repels even when manners stay smooth. That harmony is valued by the rudest vulgar as well as the delicate, because friendship's commerce matters more to happiness than incidental services flowing from it.

Excess in amiable passions never breeds hatred. The overindulgent parent or too tender friend may be pitied with loving concern for helpless goodness in an unworthy world, exposed to perfidy they least deserve and can least bear. Excess in hatred and resentment, by contrast, makes a person a universal object of dread, like a wild beast that civil society should expel.