 The first letter explains how the author is going to depart from Smith’s own argument. Smith, she says, has merely postulated sympathy as a human disposition, but what is needed in order to understand more fully the workings of sympathy is an inquiry into its origins. She then goes on to argue that these origins are physiological in nature, arising from an infant’s first human, skin on skin contact (with her nurse) and the discovery of pleasure and pain. The next two letters offer a theory of the development of sympathy through reason, showing how we extend our sympathy to a greater circle as we develop, and distinguishing between different sorts of sympathies. Letters IV and V offer an account of the origins of morality out of sympathy, in which the author mostly agrees with Smith. In the final three letters Grouchy explores the implications of her theory for the legal, social, economic and political reforms called for, and made possible, by the French Revolution.