It resides in the mind of the person
who is ungrateful. He must, therefore, feel it, and be conscious
of it. But nothing is there, except the passion of ill-will or
absolute indifference. You cannot say that these, of themselves,
always, and in all circumstances, are crimes. No, they are only
crimes when directed towards persons who have before expressed
and displayed good-will towards us. Consequently, we may infer,
that the crime of ingratitude is not any particular individual
FACT; but arises from a complication of circumstances, which,
being presented to the spectator, excites the SENTIMENT of blame,
by the particular structure and fabric of his mind.
This representation, you say, is false. Crime, indeed, consists
not in a particular FACT, of whose reality we are assured by
reason; but it consists in certain MORAL RELATIONS, discovered by
reason, in the same manner as we discover by reason the truths of
geometry or algebra. But what are the relations, I ask, of which
you here talk? In the case stated above, I see first good-will
and good-offices in one person; then ill-will and ill-offices in
the other. Between these, there is a relation of CONTARIETY. Does
the crime consist in that relation? But suppose a person bore me
ill-will or did me ill-offices; and I, in return, were
indifferent towards him, or did him good offices.
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