Chapter I: OF SENSE.—‘Concerning the thoughts of man, I will consider (7)

‘According to their philosophy, a man in a state of indifference sitting in his elbow chair, desires the good of others: but in as far as he is indifferent, man desires and can desire nothing. A state of desire and indifference is incompatible. These philosophers repeat in vain that the moral sense is implanted in man, and makes him at a certain time disposed to compassionate the sufferings of his fellows. This system is in fact nothing more than the system of innate ideas overturned by Locke. For my part, I can form an idea of my five senses, and of the organs which constitute them: but I confess that I have no more idea of a moral sense than of a moral elephant and castle. The enthusiasts for “moral beauty” are ignorant of the contempt in which these nations are held by all those who, either in the character of statesmen, officers of police, or men of the world, have an opportunity of knowing what human nature is.’—Page 15.

In reply to the dogmatical question with which this passage begins—‘What distinct idea can be given of the moral sense?’—I answer for myself, the following very explicit one: namely, that it is the natural preference of good to evil, arising from the conception or idea formed of them in the understanding. Those who assert a moral sense, affirm that there is a faculty of some sort or other inseparable from the nature of a rational and intelligent being, that enables us to form a conception of good and evil, or of the feelings of pleasure and pain generally speaking, which ideas so formed have a natural tendency to excite certain affections and actions.

Those, on the other hand, who deny a moral sense, or any thing equivalent to it, must affirm either that we can form no idea whatever of the feelings of others, or of good and evil generally speaking, or that these ideas have no possible influence over the mind, except from their connexion with physical impressions, memory, habit, self-interest, or some other motive, quite distinct from the ideas themselves. But I have already shown that without the co-operation of rational motives, there could be neither habit, nor self-interest, nor voluntary action of any kind. The moral is therefore nothing but the application of the understanding to the feelings or ideas of good. The question, consequently, whether there is a moral sense, is reducible to this; whether the mind can understand or conceive, or be affected by any thing beyond its own physical or mechanical feelings. If it can, then there is something in man besides his five senses and the organs which compose them, for these can give him no thought, conception, or sympathy with any thing beyond himself, or even with himself beyond the present moment. The actions, and events, and feelings of human life, the passions and pursuits of men, could no more go on without the interference of the understanding than without an original principle of physical sensibility. Neither the one nor the other explains the whole economy of our moral nature, but that is no reason why both are not essential and integrant parts of it. The five senses and the organs which compose them will not account for the science of morality, let it be as imperfect as it may, any more than for the science of algebra or chemistry in the different degrees in which they are possessed by different men. The point is not whether reason is furnishing us with a perfect and infallible rule of action, absolute over any other motive or passion, but whether it is any rule at all, whether it has any possible influence over our moral feelings. According to Helvetius, the moral sense is either a word without meaning, or it must signify one of our five senses: that is, impressions not actually affecting one or other of these are to him absolutely nothing. It is strange that after this he should propose to take the film from the eyes of those who ridiculously fancy that they have other ideas. It is as if a blind man should undertake to undeceive those who can see, with respect to certain chemical notions, called objects of sight. In confirmation of his theory, he refers the romantic admirers of moral beauty to the opinion of certain classes and professions of men, whose visual ray has been purged, and who, it should seem, possess a sort of second sight into human nature, namely, ministers of state, officers of police, and men of business. Either this argument is a satire on these characters, or on the understanding of his readers. If these respectable, and, I dare say, very well-meaning persons, are by the narrowness of their occupations and views, precluded from any general knowledge of human nature, or the virtues of the human heart, it is an uncivil irony to propose them as consummate judges of the abstract nature of man. If, on the other hand, in spite of their employment, they retain the same notions and liberality of feeling as other men, there is no reason to suppose that they would subscribe to the sentiment of our author, that morality ‘is an affair of the five senses:’ a proposition which any minister of state, or police officer, or man of the world, possessed of the least common sense, would treat with as much contempt and incredulity as Shaftesbury or Hutcheson. Our author’s observation, that the notion of a moral sense or natural disposition to sympathise with others, is only the doctrine of innate ideas in disguise, is another misconception of the nature of the question. The actual feeling of compassion is not, as he says, innate; but this no more proves that the disposition to compassion or benevolence is not innate, than the fact that the ideas or feelings of pleasure and pain are not innate and born with us, proves that physical sensibility is not an original faculty of the mind. Moral sensibility, or the capacity of being affected by the ideas of certain objects, is as much a part of our nature as physical sensibility, or the capacity of being affected in a certain manner by the objects themselves. Helvetius says, physical sensibility is the only quality essential to the nature of man: I answer, that physical sensibility is _not_ the only quality essential to the nature of man. To show how senseless and insignificant is this kind of reasoning, I will refer back to Helvetius’s concise profession of his metaphysical faith, which is that he can form an idea of the five senses and of the organs of them, but of nothing else. Now, I may ask, how he comes by this _idea_? Which of his senses or which of the organs of them is it that gives him an idea of the other four? Has the eye an action of words, or the ear of colours, or either of the impressions of taste, smell, or feeling? Which of them is the common sense? or if none, must we not suppose some superintending faculty to which all the other impressions are subject, and which alone can give him an idea of his own senses or their organs? Another instance of the utter want of logical and consecutive reasoning which characterizes the French philosophers, might be given in their singular proof of the selfishness of the human mind from the incompatibility of a state of desire and a state of indifference. The English philosophers are charged with representing a man in a state of indifference, ‘seated in his arm-chair,’ as desiring the good of others. This arm-chair it should seem, no less than his state of indifference, presents certain insurmountable barriers to his desires, which they cannot pass so as to affect him with the slightest concern for any thing beyond it. So far as a man is indifferent to every thing, he cannot it is true desire any thing. All that follows from this is, that so far as he desires the good of others he is not in a state of indifference.

That a man cannot desire an object and not desire it at the same time requires no proof. But what ought to have been proved, and what was meant to be so, is that a man in a state of indifference to the welfare of others on his own account, cannot desire it for their sake, and this is what is not proved by the truism mentioned. The general maxim, that I cannot desire any object as long as I am indifferent to it, cannot be made to show that self-interest is the only motive that can make me pass from the one state into the other. By indifference, as used by the writers here ridiculed, in a popular sense, is evidently meant the want of personal or physical interest in any object, and to say that this necessarily implies the want of every other kind of interest in it, of all rational desire of the good of others, is a meagre assumption of the point in dispute. It is strange that these pretenders to philosophy choose to insult the English writers for daring to wear the plain, homely, useful, national garb of philosophy, while their most glossy and most fashionable suits are made up of the shreds and patches stolen from our countryman Hobbes, disguised with a few spangles, tinselled lace, and tagged points of their own.

Helvetius’s paraphrase of Hobbes’s maxim, that ‘pity is only another name for self-love,’ is as follows:

‘What then do I feel in the presence of an object of compassion? A strong emotion. What causes this emotion? The recollection of the sufferings to which man is subject, and to which I am myself liable. It is this consideration that disturbs, that torments me, and so long as the unfortunate sufferer continues in my presence I am affected with melancholy sensations. Have I relieved him,—do I no longer see him? A calm is insensibly restored to my breast, because in proportion to the distance to which he is removed, the remembrance of the evils which his sight recalled is gradually effaced. When I was concerned for him, then, I was concerned only for myself. What are, in fact, the sufferings which I compassionate the most? They are those not only which I have felt myself, but those which I may still feel. Those evils the more present to my memory impress me more strongly. My sympathy with the sufferings of another is always in exact proportion to my fear of being exposed to the same sufferings myself. I would willingly, if it were possible, destroy the very germ of my own sufferings in him, and thus be released from the apprehension of the like evils to myself in time to come. The love of others is never any thing more in the human mind than the effect of love to ourselves, and consequently of our physical sensibility.’—Vol. ii. page 20.

To this I answer as follows:—What do I feel in the presence of an object of compassion? A strong emotion. What causes this emotion? Not, certainly, the general recollection of the sufferings to which man in general is subject, or to which I myself may be exposed. It is not this remote and accidental reflection, which has no particular reference to the object before me, but a strong sense of the sufferings of the particular person, excited by his immediate presence, which affects me with compassion, and impels me to his relief. The relief I afford him, or the absence of the object, lessens my uneasiness, either by the contemplation of the diminution of his sufferings, to which I have contributed, or by diverting my mind from the consideration of his sufferings. Neither the relief afforded, nor the absence of the object could produce this effect, if the strong emotion which I experience did not relate to the particular object. It is the fate of the individual, and of him only, which I am contemplating, and my sympathy accordingly rises and falls with it, or as my attention is more or less fixed upon it. A total alteration in the situation of the individual produces a total change in my feelings with respect to him, which could not be the case, if my compassion depended wholly on my sense of my own security, or the general condition of human nature. In feeling compassion for another, therefore, it was not for myself that I was concerned, but for the sufferer: my feelings were, in a manner, bound up with his, and I forgot for the moment both myself and others. But do I not compassionate most those evils which I have felt myself? Yes; because from my own knowledge of them I have a more lively sense of what others must suffer from them: just in the same manner I dread those evils most with respect to myself in time to come. For those evils which I have not experienced, I feel, for that reason, less sympathy in respect to others, and less dread with reference to myself in time to come. Neither do I always feel for others in proportion as I dread the same feelings myself. The memory of my past sufferings cannot excite my disposition to relieve those of others, and the imaginary apprehension of my own _future_ sufferings can only tend to produce voluntary action on the same principle as my imagination of those or others. I do not wish to prevent their sufferings as the germ or cause of mine, but because they are of the same nature as mine. Benevolence, therefore, is not the effect of self love, though it is the effect of our physical sensibility, combined with our other faculties. I will in this place insert the reply of Bishop Butler (a true philosopher) to the same argument in Hobbes, in a note to one of his sermons.

‘If any person can in earnest doubt whether there be such a thing as good-will in one man towards another (for the question is not concerning either the degree or extensiveness of it, but concerning the affection itself,) let it be observed, that _whether man be thus or otherwise constituted, what is the inward frame in this particular_ is a mere question of fact or natural history, not proveable immediately by reason. It is therefore to be judged of and determined in the same way other facts or historical matters are; by appealing to the external senses, or inward perceptions, respectively, as the matter under consideration is cognizable by one or the other; by arguing from acknowledged facts and actions, inquiring whether these do not suppose and prove the matter in question so far as it is capable of proof. And, lastly, by the testimony of mankind. Now that there is some degree of benevolence amongst men, may be as strongly and plainly proved in all these ways, as it could possibly be proved, supposing there was this affection in our nature. And should any one think fit to assert, that resentment in the mind of man was absolutely nothing but reasonable concern for our own safety, the falsity of this, and what is the real nature of that passion, could be shown in no other ways than those in which it may be shown, that there is such a thing in _some degree_ as _real_ good-will in man towards man.

‘There being manifestly this appearance of men’s substituting others for themselves, and being carried out and affected towards them as towards themselves; some persons, who have a system which excludes every affection of this sort, have taken a pleasant method to solve it; and tell you it is _not another_ you are at all concerned about, but your _self only_, when you feel the affection called compassion; _i.e._ there is a plain matter of fact, which men cannot reconcile with the general account they think fit to give of things; they therefore, instead of _that_ manifest fact, substitute _another_, which is reconcilable to their own scheme. For does not every body by compassion mean an affection the object of which is another in distress? Instead of this, but designing to have it mistaken for this, they speak of an affection or passion, the object of which is ourselves, or danger to ourselves. Suppose a person to be in real danger, and by some means or other to have forgot it; any trifling accident, any sound might alarm him, recall the danger to his remembrance, and renew his fears: but it is almost too grossly ridiculous (though it is to show an absurdity) to speak of that sound or accident as an object of compassion; and yet, according to Mr. Hobbes, our greatest friend in distress is no more to us, no more the object of compassion or of any affection in our heart. Neither the one nor the other raises any emotion in our mind, but only the thoughts of our liableness to calamity, and the fear of it: and both equally do this.

‘There are often three distinct perceptions or inward feelings upon sight of persons in distress: real sorrow and concern for the misery of our fellow-creatures; some degree of satisfaction from a consciousness of our freedom from that misery; and, as the mind passes on from one thing to another, it is not unnatural from such an occasion to reflect upon our own liableness to the same or other calamities. The two last frequently accompany the first, but it is the first _only_ which is properly compassion, of which the distressed are the object, and which directly carries us with calmness and thought to their assistance. Any one of these, from various and complicated reasons, may in particular cases prevail over the other two; and there are, I suppose, instances where the bare _sight_ of distress, without our feeling any compassion for it, may be the occasion of either or both of the two latter.’

I shall proceed to examine the objection to the doctrine of benevolence, on the supposition that our sympathy when it exists is really a part of our interest. This objection was long ago stated by Hobbes, Rochefoucault, and Mandeville, and has been adopted and glossed over by Helvetius. It is pretended, then, that in wishing to relieve the distresses of others we only desire to remove the uneasiness which pity creates in our mind; that all our actions are unavoidably selfish, as they all arise from the 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 to the pursuit of it.

First, this objection does not at all affect the main 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 principle, whether the action has for its object our own good, or that of others; in a word, if we sympathise with others as we do with ourselves, the nature of man as a voluntary agent must be the same, whether we choose to 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 agent is plainly determined, whether a rational pursuit of his own future welfare and that of others is the real or only the ostensible motive of his actions. Were it not that our feelings are so strongly attached to names, the rest would be a question more of speculative curiosity than practice. All that, commonly speaking, is meant by the most disinterested benevolence is this immediate sympathy with the feelings of others, as by self-love is meant the same kind of attachment to our own future interests. For if by self-love we understand any thing beyond the impulse of the present moment, any thing different from inclination, let the object be what it will, this can no more be a mechanical thing than the most refined and comprehensive benevolence. Self-love, used in the sense which the above objection implies, must therefore mean some thing very different from an exclusive principle of deliberate, calculating selfishness, rendering us indifferent to every thing but our own advantage, or from the love of physical pleasure or aversion to physical pain, which could produce no interest in any but sensible impressions. In a word, it expresses merely any inclination of the mind be it to what it will, and does not at all determine or limit the object of pursuit. Supposing, therefore, that our most generous feelings and actions were so far equivocal, the object only bearing a show of disinterestedness, the secret motive being always selfish, this would be no reason for rejecting the common use of the term _disinterested 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 we denominate our actions not from the object in view, but from the inclination of the individual, there will be an end at once, both of ‘selfishness’ and ‘benevolence.’

But farther, I deny that there is any foundation for the objection itself, or any reason for resolving the feelings of compassion or our voluntary motives in general 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, or I suppose ever meant to 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 evidently be no such thing as feeling or action. If therefore it had ever been implied as a condition in the love of others, that this love should not be felt by the person who loves them, this would be to say that he must love them and not love them at the same time, which is too palpable an absurdity to be thought of for a moment. It could never, I say, be imagined that in order to feel for others, we must in reality feel nothing, or that benevolence, to exist at all, must exist no where. This kind of reasoning is therefore the most arrant trifling. To call my motives or feelings selfish, because they are felt by myself, is an abuse of all language: it might just as well be said that my idea of the monument is a selfish idea, or an idea of myself, because it is I who perceive it. By a selfish feeling must be meant, therefore, a feeling, not which belongs to myself (for that all feelings do, as is understood by every one) but which _relates_ to myself, and in this sense benevolence is not a selfish feeling. It is the individual who feels both for himself and others; but by self-love is meant that he feels only for himself; for it is presumed that the word _self_ has 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. It therefore becomes necessary to set limits to the meaning of the terms. If we except the burlesque interpretation of the word just noticed, self-love can mean only one of these three things. 1. The conscious pursuit of our own good as such; 2. The love of physical pleasure and aversion to physical pain; 3. The gratification derived from our sympathy with others. If all our actions do not proceed from one of these three principles, they are all resolvable into self-love.

First, then, self-love may properly signify, as already explained, the love or affection excited by the idea of our own interest, and the conscious pursuit of it as a general, remote, ideal object. In this sense, that is, considered with respect to the proposed end of our actions, I have shown sufficiently that there is no exclusive principle of self-love in the human mind which constantly impels us, as a set purpose, to pursue our own advantage and nothing but that.

Secondly, any being would be strictly a selfish agent, all whose impulses were excited by mere physical pleasure or pain, and who had no sense or imagination, or anxiety about any thing but its own bodily feelings. Such a being could have no idea beyond its actual, momentary existence, and would be equally incapable of rational self-love or benevolence. But it is allowed on all hands that the wants and desires of the human mind are not confined within the limits of his bodily sensations.

Thirdly, it is said that though man is not merely a physical agent, but is naturally capable of being influenced by imagination and sympathy, yet that this does not prove him to be possessed of any degree of disinterestedness or real good-will to others; since he pursues the good of others only from its contributing to his own gratification; that is, not for their sakes, but for his own, which is still selfishness. That is, the indulgence of certain affections necessarily tends, without our thinking of it, to our own immediate gratification, and the impulse to prolong a state of pleasurable feeling and put a stop to whatever gives the mind the least uneasiness, is the real spring and over-ruling principle of our actions. If our benevolence and sympathy with others arose out of and was entirely regulated by this principle of self-gratification, then these might indeed be with justice regarded as the ostensible accidental motives of our actions, as the form or vehicle which served only to transmit the efficacy of any other hidden principle, as the mask and cover of selfishness. But the supposition itself is the absurdest that can well be conceived. Self-love and sympathy are inconsistent. The instant we no longer suppose man to be a physical agent, and allow him to have ideas of things out of himself and to be influenced by them, that is, to be endued with sympathy at all, he must necessarily cease to be a merely selfish agent. The instant he is supposed to conceive and to be affected by the ideas of other things, he cannot be wholly governed by what relates to himself. The terms ‘selfish’ and ‘natural agent’ are a contradiction. For the one expression implies that the mind is actuated solely by the impulse of self-love, and the other that it is in the power and under the control of other motives. If our sympathy with others does not always originate in the pleasure with which it is accompanied to ourselves, or does not cease the moment it becomes troublesome to us, then man is not entirely and necessarily the creature of self-love. He is under another law and another necessity, and in spite of himself is forced out of the direct line of his own interest, both future and present, by other principles inseparable from his nature as an intelligent being. Our sympathy therefore is not the servile, ready tool of our self-love, but this latter principle is itself subservient to and over-ruled by the former; that is, an attachment to others is a real independent principle of human action. What I wish to state is this: that the mind neither constantly aims at nor tends to its own individual interest. That in benevolence, compassion, friendship, &c. the mind does aim at its good, is what every one must acknowledge. The only sense then in which our sympathy with others can be construed into self-love, must be that the mind is so constituted that without forethought or any reflection in itself, or when seeming most occupied with others, it is still governed by the same universal feeling of which it is wholly unconscious; and that we indulge in compassion, &c. only because and in as far as it coincides with our own immediate gratification. If it could be shown that the current of our desires always runs the same way, either with or without knowledge, I should confess that this would be a strong presumption of what has been called the falsity of human virtue. But it is not true that such is the natural disposition of the mind. It is not so constructed as to receive no impressions but those which gratify its desire of happiness, or to throw off every the least uneasiness relating to others, like oil from water. It is not true that the feelings of others have no natural hold upon the mind but by their connexion with self-interest. Nothing can be more evident than that we do not on any occasion blindly consult the interest of the moment; there is no instinctive unerring bias to our own good, which in the midst of contrary motives and doubtful appearances, puts aside all other impulses and guides them but to its own purposes. It is against all experience to say that in giving way to the feelings of sympathy, any more than to those of rational self-interest (for the argument is the same in both cases), I always yield to that impulse which is accompanied with most pleasure at the time. It is true that I yield to the strongest impulse, but not that my strongest impulse is to pleasure. The idea, for instance, 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 sensation 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 led to persevere in it by the idea of what are the sufferings, and that it is in my power to alleviate them: though that idea is not always the most agreeable contemplation I could have. Those who voluntarily perform the most painful duties of friendship or humanity do not do them from the immediate gratification arising therefrom; it is as easy to turn away from a beggar as to relieve him; and if the mind were not actuated by a sense of truth, and of the real consequences of its actions, we should uniformly listen to the distresses of others with the same sort of feeling as we go to see a tragedy, only because we calculate that the pleasure is greater than the pain. But I appeal to every one whether this is a true account of human nature. There is indeed a false and bastard kind of feeling commonly called sensibility, which is governed altogether by this reaction of pity on our own minds, and which instead of disproving only serves more strongly to distinguish the true. Upon the theory here stated the mind is supposed to be imperceptibly attached to or to fly from every idea or impression simply as it affects it with pleasure or pain: all other impulses are carried into effect or remain powerless according as they touch this great spring of human affection, which determines every other movement and operation of the mind. Why then do we not reject at first every tendency to what may give us pain? Why do we sympathise with the distresses of others at all?

‘The jealous God at sight of human ties,
Spreads his light wings and in a moment flies.’

Why does not our self-love in like manner, if it is so perfectly indifferent and unconcerned a principle as it is represented, immediately disentangle itself from every feeling or idea which it finds becoming painful to it? It should seem we are first impelled by self-love to feel uneasiness at another’s sufferings, in order that the same principle of tender concern for ourselves may afterwards impel us to get rid of that uneasiness by endeavouring to remove the suffering which is the cause of it. In desiring to relieve the distress of another, it is pretended that our only wish is to remove the uneasiness it occasions us: do we also feel this uneasiness in the first instance for the same reason, or from regard to ourselves! It is absurd to say that in compassionating others I am only occupied with my own pain or uneasiness, since this very uneasiness arises from my compassion. It is to take the effect for the cause. One half of the process, namely, our connecting the sense of pain with the idea of it, has evidently nothing to do with self-love: nor do I see any more reason for ascribing the active impulse which follows to this principle, since it does not tend to remove the idea of the object as it gives _me_ pain, or as it actually affects _myself_, but as it is supposed to affect another. Self, mere positive self, is entirely forgotten, both practically and consciously. The effort of the mind is not to remove the idea or the immediate feeling of pain as an abstract impression of the individual, but as it represents the pain which another feels, and is connected with the idea of another’s pain. So long then as this imaginary idea of what another feels excites my sympathy with him, as it fixes my attention on his sufferings, however painful, as it impels me to his relief, and to employ the necessary means for that purpose, at the expense of my ease and satisfaction, that is, so long as I am interested for others, it is not true that my only concern is for myself, or that I am governed solely by the principles of self-interest. Abstract our sympathy as it were from itself, and resolve it into another principle, and it will no longer produce the effects which we constantly see it produce wherever it exists. Let us suppose, for a moment, that the sensations of others were embodied by some means or other with our own, that we felt for them exactly as for ourselves, would not this give us a real sympathy in them, and extend our interest and identity beyond ourselves? Would the motives and principles by which we are actuated be the same as before? But the imagination, though not in the same degree, produces the same effects: it modifies and overrules the impulses of self-love, and binds us to the interests of others as to our own. If the imagination gives us an artificial interest in the welfare of others, if it determines my feelings and actions, and if it even for a moment draws them off from the pursuit of an abstract principle of self-interest, then it cannot be maintained that self-love and benevolence are the same. The motives that give birth to our social affections are by means of the understanding as much regulated by the feelings of others as if we had a real communication and sympathy with them, and are swayed by an impulse altogether foreign to self-love. If it should be said, that after all we are as selfish as we can be, and that the modifications and restrictions of the principle of self-love are only a necessary consequence of the nature of a thinking being, I answer, that this is the very point I wish to establish; or that it is downright nonsense to talk of a principle of entire selfishness in connexion with a power of reflection, that is, with a mind capable of perceiving the consequences of things beyond itself, and of being affected by them.

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 would 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 in hating another person I hate myself. Indeed, upon this principle, the whole structure of language is a continued absurdity. 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 the 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 oneself, 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. But the love of others cannot be built on the love of self, 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 shown 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.

I have endeavoured to prove that there is no real, physical, or essential difference between the motives by which we are naturally impelled to the pursuit of our own welfare and that of others. The truth of this paradox, great as it seems, may be brought to a very fair test: namely, the being able to demonstrate that the doctrine of self-interest, as it is commonly understood, is in the nature of things an absolute impossibility; and, the being able to account for that hypothesis,—that is, for the common feeling and motives of men from habits, and a confused association of ideas aided by the use of language. If others cannot answer my reasons, and if I can account for their prejudices, I should not be justified in hastily relinquishing my opinion, merely on account of its singularity. It may not be improper briefly to recapitulate the former argument as far as it proceeded. I am far from denying that there is a difference between real or physical impulses and ideal motives, but I contend that this distinction is quite beside the present purpose. For self-love properly relates to action, and all action relates to the future, and all future objects are ideal, and the interest we take in all such objects, and the motives to the pursuit of them are ideal too. The distinction between self-love and benevolence, therefore, as separate principles of action, cannot be founded on the difference between real and imaginary objects, between physical and rational motives, inasmuch as the motives and objects of the one and the other are equally ideal things. Whether we voluntarily pursue our own good or that of another, we must inevitably pursue that which is at a distance from us, something out of ourselves, abstracted from the being that acts and wills, and that is incompatible always with our present sensation or physical existence. Self-love, therefore, as the actuating principle of the mind, must imply the efficacy and operation of the imagination of the remote ideas of things, as connected with voluntary action, and the most refined benevolence, the greatest sacrifices of natural affection, of sincerity, of friendship, or humanity, can imply nothing more. The notion of the necessity of actual objects or impressions as the motives to action could not so easily have gained ground as an article of philosophical faith, but from a perverse distinction of the use of the idea to abstract definitions or external forms, having no reference to the feelings or passions; and again from associating the word _imagination_ with merely fictitious situations and events such as never have a real existence, and which consequently do not admit of action. If then self-love, even the most gross and palpable, can only subsist in a rational and intellectual nature, not circumscribed within the narrow limits of animal life, or of the ignorant present time, but capable of giving life and interest to the forms of its own creatures, to the unreal mockeries of future things, to that shadow of itself which the imagination sends before; is it not the height of absurdity to stop here, and poorly and pitifully to suppose that this pervading power must bow down and worship this idol of its own making, and become its blind and servile drudge, and that it cannot extend its creatures as widely around it, as it projects them forward, that it cannot breathe into all other forms the breath of life, and endow even sympathy with vital warmth, and diffuse the soul of morality through all the relations and sentiments of human life? Take away the real, physical, mechanical principle of self-interest, and it will have no basis to rest upon, but that which it has in common with every principle of natural justice or humanity. That there is no real, physical, or mechanical principle of selfishness in the mind, has been abundantly proved. All that remains is, to show how the continued identity of the individual with himself has given rise to the notion of self-interest, which after what has been premised will not be a very difficult task. What I shall attempt to show will be, that individuality expresses not either absolute unity or real identity, but properly such a particular relation between a number of things as produces an immediate or continued connexion between them, and a correspondent marked separation between them and other things. Now, in coexisting things, one part may by means of this communication mutually act and be acted upon by others, but where the connexion is continued, or in successive identity of the individual, though what follows may depend intimately on what has gone before, that is, be acted upon by it, it cannot react upon it; that is, the identity of the individual with itself can only relate practically to its connexion with its past, and not with its future self.

Every human being is distinguished from every other human being both numerically and characteristically. He must be numerically distinct by the supposition, or he would not be another individual, but the same. There is, however, no contradiction in supposing two individuals to possess the same absolute properties: but then these original properties must be differently modified afterwards from the necessary difference of their situations, unless we conceive them both to occupy the same relative situation in two distinct systems, corresponding exactly with each other. In fact, every one is found to differ essentially from every one else; if not in original qualities, in the circumstances and events of their lives, and consequently in their ideas and characters. In thinking of a number of individuals, I conceive of them all as differing in various ways from one another as well as from myself. They differ in size, in complexion, in features, in the expression of their countenances, in age, in occupation, in manners, in knowledge, in temper, in power. It is this perception or apprehension of their real differences that first enables me to distinguish the several individuals of the species from each other, and that seems to give rise to the most obvious idea of individuality, as representing, first, positive number, and, secondly, the sum of the differences between one being and another, as they really exist, in a greater or less degree in nature, or as they would appear to exist to an impartial spectator, or to a perfectly intelligent mind. But _I_ am not in reality more different from others than any one individual is from any other individual, neither do I in fact suppose myself to differ really from them otherwise than as they differ from each other. What is it then that makes the difference seem greater _to me_, or that makes me feel a greater change in passing from my own idea to that of another person, than in passing from the idea of another person to that of any one else? Neither my existing as a separate being, nor my differing from others, is of itself sufficient to account for the idea of self, since I might equally perceive others to exist and compare their actual differences without ever having this idea.

Farther, individuality is sometimes used to express not so much the absolute difference or distinction between one individual and another, as a relation or comparison of that individual with itself, whereby we tacitly affirm that it is in some way or other the same with itself, or one idea. Now in one sense it is true of all existences whatever that they are literally the same with themselves; that is, they are what they are, and not something else. Each thing is itself, is that individual thing, and no other; and each combination of things is that combination, and no other. So also each individual conscious being is necessarily the same with himself; or in other words, that combination of ideas which represents any individual person is that combination of ideas, and not a different one. This literal and verbal is the only true and absolute identity which can be affirmed of any individual; which, it is plain, does not arise from a comparison of the different parts or successive impressions composing the general idea one with another, but each with itself or all of them taken together with the whole. I cannot help thinking that some idea of this kind is frequently at the bottom of the perplexity which is felt by most people who are not metaphysicians (not to mention those who are), when they are told that man is not always the same with himself, their notion of identity being that he must always be what he is. He is the same with himself, in as far as he is not another. When they say that the man is the same being in general, they do not really mean that he is the same at twenty that he is at sixty, but their general idea of him includes both these extremes, and therefore the same man, that is, the same collective idea, is both the one and the other. This however is but a rude logic. Not well understanding the process of distinguishing the same individual into different metaphysical sections, to compare, collate, and set one against the other (so awkwardly do we at first apply ourselves to the analytical art), to get rid of the difficulty the mind produces a double individual, part real and part imaginary, or repeats the same idea twice over; in which case it is a contradiction to suppose that the one does not correspond exactly with the other in all its parts. There is no other absolute identity in the case. All individuals (or all that we name such) are aggregates, and aggregates of dissimilar things. Here, then, the question is not how we distinguish one individual from another, or a number of things from a number of other things, which distinction is a matter of absolute truth, but how we come to confound a number of things together, and consider many things as the same, which cannot be strictly true. This idea must then merely relate to such a connexion between a number of things as determines the mind to consider them as one whole, each part having a much nearer and more lasting connexion with the rest than with any thing else not included in the same collective idea. (It is obvious that the want of this close affinity and intimate connexion between any number of things is what so far produces a correspondent distinction and separation between one individual and another.) The eye is not the same thing as the ear; it is a contradiction to call it so. Yet both are parts of the same body, which contains these and infinite other distinctions. The reason of this is, that all the parts of the eye have evidently a distinct nature, a separate use, a greater mutual dependence on one another than on those of the ear; at the same time that there is a considerable connexion between the eye and the ear, as parts of the same body and organs of the same mind. Similarity is in general but a subordinate circumstance in determining this relation. For the eye is certainly more like the same organ in another individual, than the different organs of sight and hearing are like one another in the same individual. Yet we do not, in making up the imaginary individual, associate our ideas according to this analogy, which would answer no more purpose than the things themselves would, so separated and so united; but we think of them in that order in which they are mechanically connected together in nature, and in which alone they can serve to any practical purpose. However, it seems hardly possible to define the different degrees or kinds of identity in the same thing by any general rule. The nature of the thing will best point out the sense in which it is to be the same. Individuality may relate either to absolute unity, to the identity or similarity of the parts of any thing, or to an extraordinary degree of connexion between things neither the same, nor similar. This last sense principally determines the positive use of the word, at least with respect to man and other organized beings. Indeed, the term is hardly ever applied in common language to other things.

To insist on the first circumstance, namely, absolute unity, as essential to individuality, would be to destroy all individuality; for it would lead to the supposition of as many distinct individuals as there are thoughts, feelings, actions, and properties in the same being. Each thought would be a separate consciousness, each organ a different system. Each thought is a distinct thing in nature; but the individual is composed of numberless thoughts and various faculties, and contradictory passions, and mixed habits, all curiously woven, and blended together in the same conscious being.