I have no objection to make to this account of association but that nothing will follow from it, and that nothing is explained by it. Let us see how it will affect the question in dispute.—We will therefore return once more to the case of the child learning to walk. How then does this explanation account for his not running against any object which stands in his way in the pursuit of a favourite play-thing, if he has not been used to meet with the same interruption before? Why does he not go straight on in the old direction in which he has always followed it?—Because he is afraid of the blow, which would be the consequence of his doing so, and he therefore goes out of his way to avoid it. This supposes that he has met with blows before, though not in running after his ball, nor from that particular object which he dreads, nor from one situated in the same way, or connected with the same associations. But this difference is of no importance according to the gloss: for it is not necessary that his fear or the effort which it leads him to make should proceed from the recollection of a former blow recurring in it’s proper place, and stopping him by mechanical sympathy, as it had actually done before, in the midst of his career. He is stopped by the idea of a pain which he has notyet felt, and which can only affect him as a general, or representative idea of pain, the object being new, and there being nothing in his past associations in the order in which they are recalled by memory to produce the necessary action. Here then he evidentlyconstructsan artificial idea of pain beyond his actual experience, or he takes the old idea of pain which subsisted in his memory, and connects it by that act of the mind which we call imagination with an entirely new object; and thus torn out of it’s place in the lists of memory, not strengthened by it’s connection with any old associated ideas, nor moving on with the routine of habitual impulses, it does not fail on that account to influence the will and through that the motions of the body.—Now if any one chooses to consider this as the effect of association, he is at liberty to do so. The same kind of association, however, must apply to the interest we take in the feelings of others, though perfect strangers to us, as well as to the interest we feel for ourselves. All that can ever take place in the imaginary anticipation either of our own feelings or those of others can be nothing more than some sort of transposition and modification of the old ideas of memory, or if there is any thing peculiar to this act of the mind, it is equally necessary to our feeling any interest in our own future impressions, or those of others. According to this account therefore the old idea of physical pain must be called up whenever I see any other person in the like danger, and the associated action along with it, just as much as if I were exposed to the same danger myself. This is I believe the doctrine of sympathy advanced by Adam Smith in his ‘Theory of Moral Sentiments.’ It is in fact neither self-love nor benevolence, neither fear nor compassion, nor voluntary attachment to any thing, but an unmeaning game of battledore and shuttlecock kept up between the nerves and muscles. But it seems to me a much more rational way to suppose that the idea does not lose it’s efficacy by being combined with different circumstances, that it retains the same general nature as the original impression, that it therefore gives a new and immediate impulse to the mind, and that it’s tendency to produce action is not entirely owing to the association between the original impression, and a particular action, which it mechanically excites over again. First, because the connection between the impression and action was not accidental but necessary, and therefore the connection between the idea and action is not to be attributed to association, but to the general nature of the human mind by which similar effects follow from similar causes. Secondly, if the imaginary or general idea were entirely powerless in itself except as a means of exciting some former impulse connected with physical pain, none but the very identical action formerly excited could result from it, that isif I could not avoid an object in the same way that I had formerly done I should not attempt to avoid it at all, but remain quite helpless. Thirdly, because the ideas of future objects having no effect at all on my feelings or actions, and the connection between the original associated impressions being the strongest and most certain of all others, any particular train of mechanical impulses being once set in motion would necessarily go on in the old way unrestrained by any idea of consequences till they were stopped again by actual pain.—It is plain however that the activity of the understanding prevents this rough rebuke of experience, that the will (and our actions with it) bends and turns and winds according to every change of circumstances and impulse of imagination, that we need only foresee certain evils as the consequences of our actions in order to avoid them. The supposition that the idea of any particular motion necessary to a given end, or of the different motions which combined together constitute some regular action is sufficient to produce that action by a subtle law of association can only apply to those different motions after they are willed, not to the willing them. That is, there must be a previous determination of the will, or feeling of remote good connected with the idea of the action before it can have any effect. The idea of any action must be in itself perfectly indifferent, being always advantageous, useless, or mischievous according to circumstances. I cannot therefore see any reason according to this hypothesis why I should will or be inclined to make any exertions not originating in some mechanical impulse that happens to be strongest at the time, merely because they may be necessary to avoid an imaginary evil which of itself does not cause the slightest emotion in my mind: on the contrary, if the barely thinking of any external action is always immediately to be followed by that action without a particular warrant from the will, there could be no such thing as reasonable action among men, our actions would be more ridiculous than those of a monkey, or of a man possessed with St. Vitus’s dance; they would resemble the diseased starts and fits of a madman, not the actions of a reasonable being. We should thrust our hands into the fire, dash our heads against the wall, leap down precipices, and commit more absurdities every moment of our lives than were performed by Don Quixote with so much labour and study by way of penance in the heart of the Brown Mountain. Themomentumof the will is necessary to give direction and constancy to any of our actions; and this again can only be determined by the ideas of future good and evil, and the connection which the mind perceives between certain actions, and the attainment of the one or the prevention of the other. If our actions did not naturally slide into this track, if they did not follow thedirection of reason wherever it points the way, they must fall back again at every step into the old routine of blind mechanical impulse, and headlong associations that neither hear, nor see, nor understand any thing.—Lastly the termsgeneral associationmean nothing of themselves. I have done a particular action with a certain purpose, or I have had in my mind at the time the general idea of a purpose, of something useful connected with my action. What has this to do with my ability to perform any other action, be it ever so different, because it is also connected with a purpose? The associated idea either of a particular purpose, or of a purpose generally speaking can only have an immediate tendency to excite that particular action, with which it was associated, not any action whatever, merely because it may have a connection with some remote good. So of any number of actions. For let ever so many different actions have been associated with the idea of a purpose, this will not in the least enable me to perform any intermediate action, or to combine the old actions in a different order with a view to a particular purpose, unless we give to the idea of this particular purpose as a general idea of good an absolute power to controul our actions, and force them into their proper places. I grant indeed that having once admitted a direct power in ideas of the same general nature to affect the will in the same manner we may by a parity of reasoning suppose that this power is capable of being transferred by association to the most indifferent ideas, which, as far as they resemble one another, will operate as general motives to action, or give a necessary bias to the will. But if this analogy holds with respect to secondary and artificial motives which are not in their own nature allied to action, surely it must hold much more with respect to the direct, original motives themselves, the ideas of good and evil, where the power inheres in the very nature of the object. My being led to perform different actions with which the same abstract idea of utility is connected is not therefore properly owing to association, but because any ideas or motives of the same kind whether derived from a new impression, or made out by the imagination, or only general feelings must naturally influence the will in the same manner, and this impulse being once given, the understanding makes choice of such means as are perceived to be necessary to the attainment of the given object. For, after all, the execution of our purposes must be left to the understanding. The simple or direct ideas of things might excite emotion, volition, or action; but it would be the volition of the objects or feelings themselves, not of the means necessary to produce them. Feeling alone is therefore insufficient to the production of voluntary action. Neither is it to be accounted for from association. The actual means necessary to theproduction of a given end are willed, not because those very means have been already associated with that particular end (for this does not happen once in a thousand times) but because those means are known to be inseparable from the attainment of that end in the given circumstances.
There is however another objection to the disinterested hypothesis, which was long ago stated by Hobbes, Rochefocault, and the author of the Fable of the Bees, and has been since adopted and glossed over by Helvetius. It is pretended that in wishing to relieve the distresses of others we only wish to remove the uneasiness which pity creates in our own minds, that all our actions are necessarily selfish, as they all arise from some feeling of pleasure or pain existing in the mind of the individual, and that whether we intend our own good or that of others, the immediate gratification connected with the idea of any object is the sole motive which determines us in the pursuit of it.
First, this objection does not at all affect the question in dispute. For if it is allowed that the idea of the pleasures or pains of others excites an immediate interest in the mind, if we feel sorrow and anxiety for their imaginary distresses exactly in the same way that we do for our own, and are impelled to action by the same motives, whether the action has for it’s object our own good or that of others, the nature of man as a voluntary agent must be the same, the effect of the principle impelling him must be the same, whether we call this principle self-love, or benevolence, or whatever refinements we may introduce into our manner of explaining it. The relation of man to himself and others as a moral being is plainly determined, for whether a regard to the future welfare of himself and others is the real, or only the ostensible motive of his actions, they all tend to one or other of these objects, and to one as directly as the other, which is the only thing worth inquiring about. All that can be meant by the most disinterested benevolence must be this immediate sympathy with the feelings of others, and it could never be supposed that man is more immediately affected by the interests of others than he can be even by his own. If by self-love we understand any thing beyond the impulse of the present moment, it can be no more a mechanical thing than the most refined and comprehensive benevolence. I only contend then that we are naturally interested in the welfare of others in the same sense in which we are said to be interested in our own future welfare. Self-love used in the sense which the above objection implies must therefore mean something very different from an exclusive principle of deliberate, calculating selfishness, which must render us indifferent to every thing but our own advantage, or from the love ofphysical pleasure and aversion to physical pain, which would produce no interest in any but sensible impressions.
Supposing therefore that our most generous feelings and actions were equivocal, the object only bearing a shew of disinterestedness, the motive being always selfish, this would be no reason for rejecting the common use of the termdisinterested benevolence, which expresses nothing more than an immediate reference of our actions to the good of others, as self-love expresses a conscious reference of them to our own good, as means to an end. This is the proper meaning of the terms. If there is any impropriety in the one, the other must be equally objectionable, the same fallacy lurks under both.
Secondly, the objection is not true in itself, that is, I see no reason for resolving the feelings of compassion, &c. into a principle of mechanical self-love. That the motive to action exists in the mind of the person who acts is what no one can deny. The passion excited and the impression producing it must necessarily affect the individual. There must always be some one to feel and act, or there could be no such thing as feeling or action.[98]It cannot therefore be implied as a condition in the love of others, that this love should not befeltby the person who loves them, for this would be to say that he must love them and not love them at the same time, which is palpable nonsense. This absurd inference, I say, could never be implied in the common use of the terms, as it could never be imagined that in order to feel for others, we must in reality feel nothing. This distinction proves clearly that it is always the individual wholoves, but not that he alwaysloves himself; for it is to be presumed that the wordselfhas some meaning in it, and it would have absolutely none at all, if nothing more were intended by it than any object or impression existing in the mind. Self-love would merely signify the love of something, and the distinction between ourselves and others be quite confounded. It therefore becomes necessary to set limits to the meaning of the term.
First, it may signify, as explained above, the love or affection excited by the idea of our own good, and the conscious pursuit of it as a general, remote, ideal thing. In this sense, that is considered with respect to the proposed end of our actions, I have shewn sufficiently that there is no exclusive principle of self-love in the human mind which constantly impels us to pursue our own advantage and nothing but that, and that it must be equally absurd to consider either self-love or benevolence as a physical operation.
Another sense of the term may be, that the indulgence of certain affections necessarily tends without our thinking of it to our immediategratification, and that the impulse to prolong a state of pleasure and put a stop to whatever gives the mind the least uneasiness is the real spring and overruling principle of our actions. No matter whether the impression existing in my mind is a sensation or an idea, whether it is an idea of my own good or that of another, it’s effect on the mind is entirely owing to this involuntary attachment to whatever contributes to my own gratification, and aversion from actual pain. Or the mind is so constructed that without forethought or any reflection on itself it has a natural tendency to prolong and heighten a state of pleasurable feeling, and instantly remove every painful feeling. This tendency must be wholly unconscious; the moment my own gratification is indirectly adverted to by the mind as the consequence of indulging certain feelings, and so becomes a distinct motive to action, it returns back into the limits of deliberate, calculating selfishness; and it has been shewn that there is nothing in the idea of our own good which makes it a proper motive of action more than that of others. There appears to be as little propriety in making the mechanical tendency to our own good the foundation of human actions. In the first place, it may be sufficient to deny the mere matter of fact, that such is the natural disposition of the human mind. We do not on every occasion blindly consult the interest of the moment, there is no instinctive, unerring bias to our own good, controuling all other impulses, and guiding them to it’s own purposes. It is not true that in giving way to the feelings either of sympathy or rational self-interest (by one or other of which feelings my actions are constantly governed[99]) I always yield to that impulse which is accompanied with most pleasure at the time. It is true that I yield to the strongest inclination, but not that my strongest inclination is to pleasure. The idea of the relief I may afford to a person in extreme distress is not necessarily accompanied by a correspondent degree of pleasurable sensation to counterbalance the painful feeling his immediate distress occasions in my mind. It is certain that sometimes the one and sometimes the other may prevail without altering my purpose in the least: I am held to my purpose by the idea (which I cannot get rid of) of what another suffers, and that it is in my power to alleviate his suffering, not that that idea is always the most agreeable contemplationI could have. The mind is often haunted by painful images and recollections, not that we court their company, but that we cannot shake them off, even though we strive to do it. Why does a woman of the town always turn round to look at another finer than herself? Why does the envious man torment himself by dwelling on the advantages of his rival? Not from the pleasure it affords him. Why then should it be maintained that the feelings of compassion, generosity, &c. cannot possibly actuate the mind, but because and in as far as they contribute to our own satisfaction? Those who willingly perform the most painful duties of friendship or humanity do not do this from the immediate gratification attending it; it is as easy to turn away from a beggar as to relieve him; and if the mind were not governed by a sense of truth, and of the real consequences of it’s actions, we should treat the distresses of others with the same sort of feeling as we go to see a tragedy because we know that the pleasure will be greater than the pain. There is indeed a false and bastard kind of feeling which is governed altogether by a regard to this reaction of pity on our own minds, and which therefore serves more strongly to distinguish the true. So there is a false fear, as well as a refined self-interest. We very often shrink from immediate pain, though we know that it is necessary to our obtaining some important object; and at other times undergo the most painful operations in order to avoid some greater evil at a distance.—In the sense which the objection implies, my love of another is not the love of myself but as it operates to produce my own good. The mind is supposed to be mechanically attached to, or to fly from every idea or impression simply as it affects it with pleasure, or pain. And if this were the case, it might with some propriety be said to be actuated by a principle of mechanical or practical self-love. If however there is no such principle regulating my attachment to others by my own convenience, very little foundation will be left for the mechanical theory. For, secondly, the real question is, why do we sympathize with others at all? It seems we are first impelled by self-love to feel uneasiness at the prospect of another’s suffering, in order that the same principle of tender concern for ourselves may afterwards impel us to get rid of that uneasiness by endeavouring to prevent the suffering which is the cause of it. It is absurd to say that in compassionating the distress of others we are only affected by our own pain or uneasiness, since this very pain arises from our compassion. It is putting the effect before the cause. Before I can be affected by my own pain, I must first be put in pain. If I am affected by, or feel pain and sorrow at an idea existing in my mind, which idea is neither pain itself nor an idea of my own pain, I wonder in what sense this can be called thelove of myself. Again, I am equally at a loss to conceive how if the pain which this idea gives me does not impel me to get rid of it as it givesmepain or as it actually affects myself as a distinct, momentary impression, but as it is connected with other ideas, that is, is supposed to affect another, how I say this can be considered as the effect of self-love. The object, effort or struggle of the mind is not to remove the idea or immediate feeling of pain from the individual or to put a stop to that feeling as it affects his temporary interest, but to produce a disconnection (whatever it may cost him) between certain ideas of other things existing in his mind, namely the idea of pain, and the idea of another person. Self, mere physical self, is entirely forgotten both practically and consciously. My own good is neither the exciting cause nor the immediate result of the feeling by which I am actuated. I do not shrink from the idea of the pain which another feels as it affects myself, but it excites repugnance, uneasiness, or active aversion in my mind as it affects, or is connected with the idea of another; and it is because I know that certain actions will prevent or remove that pain from that other person according to the manner in which I have perceived effects to be connected together in nature, that Iwillthose actions for that purpose, or that their ideas take hold of my mind, and affect it in such a manner as to produce their volition. In short, the change which the mind endeavours to produce is not in the relation of a certain painful idea to itself as perceiving it, but in the relation of certain ideas of external things to one another. If this is not sufficient to make the distinction intelligible, I cannot express it any better. ‘Oh, but’ (it will be said) ‘I cannot help feeling pain when I see another in actual pain, or get rid of the idea by any other means than by relieving the person, and knowing that it exists no longer.’ But will this prove that my love of others is regulated by my love of myself, or that my self-love is subservient to my love of others? What hinders me from immediately removing the painful idea from my mind but that my sympathy with others stands in the way of it? That this independent attachment to the good of others is a natural, unavoidable feeling of the human mind is what I do not wish to deny. It is also, if you will, a mechanical feeling; but then it is neither a physical, nor a selfish mechanism. I see colours, hear sounds, feel heat, and cold, and believe that two and two make four by a certain mechanism, or from the necessary structure of the human mind; but it does not follow that all this has any thing to do with self-love.—One half of the process, namely the connecting the sense of pain with the idea of it, is evidently contrary to self-love; nor do I see any more reason for ascribing the uneasiness, or active impulse whichfollows to that principle, since my own good is neither thought of in it, nor does it follow from it except indirectly, slowly and conditionally. The mechanical tendency to my own ease or gratification is so far from being the real spring or natural motive of compassion that it is constantly overruled and defeated by it. If it should be answered that these restrictions and modifications of the principle of self-love are a necessary consequence of the nature of a thinking being, then I say that it is nonsense to talk of mechanical self-love in connection with a power of reflection, that is, a mind capable of perceiving the consequences of things beyond itself, and of being affected by them. To ask therefore whether if it were possible to get rid of my own uneasiness without supposing the uneasiness of another to be removed I should wish to remove it, is foreign to the purpose; for it is to suppose that the idea of another’s uneasiness is not an immediate object of uneasiness to me, or that by making a distinction of reflection between the idea of what another suffers, and the uneasiness it causes in me, the former will cease to give me any uneasiness, which is a contradiction. A question might as well be put whether if pleasure gave me pain, and pain pleasure, I should not like pain, and dislike pleasure. So long as the idea of what another suffers is a necessary source of uneasiness to me, and the motive and guide of my actions, it is not true that my only concern is for myself, or that I am governed solely by a principle of self-interest.—The body has a mechanical tendency to shrink from physical pain: this may be called mechanical self-love, because, though the good of the individual is not the object of the action, it is the immediate and natural effect of it. The movement which is dictated by nature is directly followed by the cessation of the pain by which the individual was annoyed. The evil is completely removed with respect to the individual, the moment the object is at a distance from him; but it only exists as it affects the individual, it is therefore completely at an end when it ceases to affect him. The only thing necessary therefore is to produce this change in the relation of the body to the object; now this is the exact tendency of the impulse produced by bodily pain, that is, it shrinksatthe pain andfromthe object. The being does not suffer a moment longer than he can help it: for there is nothing that should induce him to remain in pain. The body is not tied down to do penance under the discipline of external objects, till by fulfilling certain conditions, from which it reaps no benefit, it obtains a release; all it’s exertions tend immediately to it’s own relief. The body (at least according to the account here spoken of) is a machine so contrived, that, as far as depends on itself, it always tends to it’s own good, in the mind, on the contrary, there are numberless lets and impediments that interfere with this objectinseparable from it’s very nature; the body strives to produce such alterations in it’s relation to other things as conduce to it’s own advantage, the mind seeks to alter the relations of other things to one another; the bodylovesit’s own good, for it tends to it, the understanding is not governed solely by this principle, for it is constantly aiming at other objects. To make the two cases of physical uneasiness, and compassion parallel, it would be necessary to suppose either an involuntary tendency in the muscles to remove every painful object from another through mechanical sympathy, or that the real object of compassion was to remove the nervous uneasiness, occasioned by the idea of another’s pain, as an abstract sensation existing in my mind, totally unconnected with the idea which gave rise to it.
Lastly, should any desperate metaphysician persist in affirming that my love of others is still the love of myself because the impression exciting my sympathy must exist in my mind and so be a part of myself, I should answer that this is using words without affixing any distinct meaning to them. The love or affection excited by any general idea existing in my mind can no more be said to be the love of myself than the idea of another person is the idea of myself because it is I who perceive it. This method of reasoning, however, will not go a great way to prove the doctrine of an abstract principle of self-interest, for by the same rule it would follow that I hate myself in hating any other person. Indeed upon this principle the whole structure of language is a continued absurdity. Whatever can be made the object of our thoughts must be a part of ourselves, the whole world is contained within us, I am no longer John or James, but every one that I know or can think of, I am the least part of myself, my self-interest is extended as far as my thoughts can reach, I can love no one but I must love myself in him, in hating others I also hate myself. In this sense no one can so much as think of, much less love any one besides himself, for he can only think of his own thoughts. If our generous feelings are thus to be construed into selfishness, our malevolent ones must at least be allowed to be disinterested, for they are directed against ourselves, that is against theideasof certain persons in our minds. If I can have no feelingforany one but myself, I can have no feelingaboutany one but myself. Suppose I am seized with a fit of rage against a man, and take up a knife to stab him, the quantity of malice, which according to the common notion is here directed against another, must according to this system fall upon myself. I see a man sitting on the opposite side of a table, towards whom I think I feel the greatest rancour, but in fact I only feel it against myself. For what is this man whom I think I see before me but an object existing in my mind, and therefore a part ofmyself? The sword which I see is not a real sword, but an image impressed on my mind; and the mental blow which I strike with it is not aimed at another being out of myself, (for that is impossible) but at an idea of my own, at the being whom I hate within myself, at myself. If I am always necessarily the object of my own thoughts and actions, I must hate, love, serve, or stab myself as it happens. It is pretended by a violent assumption that benevolence is only a desire to prolong the idea of another’s pleasure in one’s own mind, because that idea exists there: malevolence must therefore be a disposition to prolong the idea of pain in one’s own mind for the same reason, that is, to injure one’s-self, for by this philosophy no one can have a single idea which does not refer to, nor any impulse which does not originate in self.—If by self-love be meant nothing more than the attachment of the mind to any object or idea existing in it, or the connection between any object or idea producing affection and the state of mind produced by it, this is merely the common connection between cause and effect, and the love of every thing must be the love of myself, for the love of every thing must be the love of the object exciting it. On the contrary, if by self-love be meant my attachment to or interest in any object in consequence of it’s affecting me personally or from the stronger and more immediate manner in which certain objects and impressions act upon me, then it cannot be affirmed without an absurdity that all affection whatever is self-love. So if I see a man wounded, and this sight occasions in me a painful feeling of sympathy, I do not in this case feel for myself, because between that idea or object impressed on my mind and the painful feeling which follows there is no such positive connection as there is between the infliction of the same wound on my own body; and the physical pain which follows it. Will it be pretended by any one, on whose brain the intricacies of metaphysics have not had the same effect as the reading of romances had on the renowned knight of La Mancha, that a piece of wood which I see a man cutting in pieces, and so is an object existing in my mind, is a part of myself in the same sense as a leg or an arm? For my own part, as I am not at all affected by the hacking and hewing which this piece of wood receives, or all the blows with which it rings, which are to me mere harmless flourishes in the air, it seems to me a very different thing. The one idea is myself in a simple, very abstract sense indeed, the other idea is myself in the common emphatical sense, it is a reduplication or aggravation of the idea, the object becomes myself by a double right, I am sensibleinthe object as well astoit. I should say, then, that when the sight of another person wounded excites a feeling of compassion in my mind, this is not a selfish feeling in any narrow ordegrading sense of the word, which is the only thing in dispute. (If selfishness is to mean generosity, there is an end at once of the dispute.) And that for this plain reason, that the connection between the visible impression and the feeling of pain is of a totally different kind from the connection between the feeling of pain, and the same wound when inflicted on my own body. The one is an affair of sensation, the other is entirely an affair of imagination. My love of others cannot therefore be built upon the love of myself, considering this last as the effect of ‘physical sensibility,’ and the moment we resolve self-love into the rational pursuit of a remote object, it has been shewn that the same reasoning applies to both, and that the love of others has the same necessary foundation in the human mind as the love of ourselves.