CLASS II.-GUIDES OF ACTION.

REASON, CONSCIENCE.

OPINION;

As affected and altered by

ASSOCIATION

AND HABIT,

Some analysis and illustration of the feelings of the Second Order is here introduced in the Lectures. But there is not much room for discussion till we come to Resentment and

Sympathy; which have been called the Benevolent and Malevolent Affections.

If the Evil be

Sudden Resentment has been regarded as common to man with the inferior animals, and has been called Instinctive. But it may be doubted whether the most sudden ebullitions of Anger are, in any case, purely Instinctive. There must in every case be the feeling of harm, and a reference of that harm to something as its occasion or cause. This may be sufficient to take Resentment out of the class of blind impulses. The modification which Suddenness gives is not confined to this Passion. Grief, Fear, and Shame, when suddenly excited, are very violent, and beyond the control of Reason. But we do not call them Instinctive.

Deliberate Resentment frequently succeeds the first ebullitions of Sudden Anger. The mere pain or suffering experienced from evil done or intended, awakens Sudden Resentment. When farther reflection shows the unjust and injurious consequences of the evil, a settled feeling of Indignation is excited; and we cherish the purpose of retaliating upon the agent, or of making him sensible, in some way, that he has done wrong in doing evil to us.

The chief abuses or excesses of the Natural Passion of Resentment are, Passionateness and Peevishness, Hatred and Revenge (Spectator, No. 488, 1712). The two former arise from an excess of feeling in reference to the evil done, and the two latter from cherishing in an unwarrantable degree the desire of retaliation. But we may be angry and not sin.

CHAPTER VI.

OF BENEVOLENCE AND SYMPATHY.

THAT We are affected by the Good and Evil which come upon others, as well as by what comes upon ourselves, is a fact which cannot be denied; though it has been variously explained. Those principles of our nature, which lead us to take an interest in what concerns others, are all included under the term Benevolence or Good-will: and of late years, Sympathy, although its meaning was originally limited according to its derivation, has been employed to denote our fellow-feelings in general. Sympathy with the enjoyment of Cood is Congratulation. Sympathy with the suffering of Evil is mpassion.

According to Bishop Butler (Sermons v. and vi.), Compassion is more generally felt than Congratulation, and is "an original, distinct, particular affection in human nature; whereas to rejoice in the good of others is only a consequence of the general affection of love and good-will to them.” But Dr. Adam Smith maintains (Theory of Mor. Sent., pt. i. sect. 3, ch. 1) that "our propensity to sympathize with Joy is much stronger than our propensity to sympathize with Sorrow; and that our fellow-feeling for the agreeable emotion approaches, much more nearly, to the vivacity of what is naturally felt by the persons principally concerned, than that which we conceive for the painful one."

It has been said (Theory of Mor. Sent., pt. i. sect. 1, ch. 1) that “it is by changing places, in fancy, with others, that we come either to conceive or to be affected by what they feel." But in some cases we sympathize with the feelings of others, without any knowledge of what occasions them. And, in order to arrive at a conception of what the feelings of others are, it may not always be necessary to change places, in fancy, with them.

Dr. Brown says (Lect. 61), “Many of the phenomena of Sympathy are referable to the same laws to which we have traced the common phenomena of Suggestion or Association." Still, he is inclined to think that we have a "peculiar susceptibility of sympathizing emotion, distinct from the mere general tendencies of Suggestion." Dr. Payne, however, maintains (Elem. of Ment. and Mor. Science, p. 270, third edit, 1845), "that the susceptibility of Sympathy, instead of being distinct and original, may be nothing more than the readiness with which the general principle of Suggestion recalls our past feelings of pleasure or pain, when we observe the external symbols of either in others." But in Sympathy there is more than a revival of feelings of pleasure or of pain, formerly experienced, in reference to ourselves—there is the generation of feelings, now for the first time experienced, in reference to others. Both classes of feelings are our feelings, inasmuch as we feel them. But the feelings of the one class have ourselves for their object, while the feelings of the other class have others for their object. Suggestion may explain the revival of our past feelings, in reference to ourselves, but the generation of the new feelings, in reference to others, cannot be explained, but by our having a susceptibility of Sympathy, a capacity of being affected by the Good and Evil which affect others.

Our sympathetic feelings have others for their objects, and carry

us to do what is in our power to increase their enjoyment, or diminish their suffering. They proceed, therefore, not from Selflove, but from Benevolence or Good-will to others.

There is uneasiness in feeling Compassion, so long as we cannot give relief-But it does not therefore follow, that we relieve the sufferings of others, in order to relieve ourselves from the uneasiness which we experience on witnessing them. If it were so, we would withdraw ourselves from them.

There is satisfaction in witnessing the happiness of others, especially when we are conscious that we have contributed to increase that happiness-But this does not warrant the belief that we do good to others from no feeling of Benevolence or Good-will to them, but from a selfish desire to please ourselves, or to receive good in return.

The knowledge that we are liable to suffer, and to need the Sympathy of others, should lead us to cherish and exercise our sympathetic affections-But let it not, therefore, be said that the sole reason why we show compassion to others is, that we ourselves may receive compassion when we need it. If pity were merely, as Hobbes says, "the fiction of future calamity to ourselves," “then, a fearful and a compassionate man would be the same character; which every one immediately sees," says Bishop Butler (ut supra), are totally different."

Men frequently act from selfish and sinister motives-But this does not prove that they are incapable of pure and disinterested kindness.

CHAPTER VII.

OF THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS.

THE Affections which are cherished between those who are of the same kindred, may be called Natural, rather than Instinctive.

Among the inferior animals there are many species who have no knowledge nor care of their offspring; in those in whom something like natural affection is manifested, it grows up by degrees; and, in all, it soon disappears.

It has been thought that, in the human species, there is an Instinct

by which those who are of the same kindred know and are kindly affectioned towards one another. But the facts adduced do not, necessarily, imply a special instinct. Those who do not share the same blood, but who are brought up in the same family, have the same affections towards one another as if they were of the same kindred. These Affections are Natural, inasmuch as they rise out of the constitution of the human mind, and the circumstances of the human condition. He who has not these Affections wants what belongs to his nature and condition as a human being-a being who derives his birth and shares his blood, in the way of inheritance and descent, from others, and lives in the society of beings like himself. But he who has these Affections, has them, because in him the elements of human nature have been fully and favourably developed, and not in virtue of any blind or inscrutable impulse implanted within him.

The Affections of Home and of Country are not so strongly nor so generally felt as those of Kindred. Still they may be called Natural. And although, in some cases, they manifest themselves like Instinct, they can be explained as rising out of the constitution of the human mind and the circumstances of the human condition.

See Smith, Theory of Mor. Sent., pt. vi. sect. 2, ch. 1; Stewart, Act. and Mor. Pow., vol. i. pp. 83, 98-101; Beattie, Dissertation, 4to., p. 575.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF DISPOSITION.

Disposition, diabeσis, in general, means the arrangement or relation in which the parts, constituting a whole, stand to one another (Aristotle, Metaphys., lib. v. sect. 19). As applied to mind, it supposes the relation of its powers and principles to one another, and rather the resultant bias or tendency to be moved by some of them means than by others.

Disposition is Natural and Primary, in so far as it arises from original endowment of body or of mind.

Bodily constitutions, as affecting the prevailing bias of the mind, have been called Temperaments; and have been distinguished into