# Essays on the Principles of Human Action/Essay 2

REMARKS
ON
THE SYSTEMS
OF
HARTLEY AND HELVETIUS.
I find I owe the reader two explanations; one relating to the association of ideas, from which Hartley and other writers have deduced the origin of all our affections, even of self-love itself; the other relating to the mechanical principle of self-interest stated by Helvetius. It was my first intention to have given at the end of the preceding essay, a general account of the nature of the will, and to have tried at least to dig down a little deeper into the foun​dation of human thoughts and actions than I have hitherto done. At present I have laid aside all thoughts of this kind as I have neither time nor strength for such an undertaking; and the most that I shall attempt is to point out such contradictions and difficulties in both these systems as may lessen the weight of any objections drawn from them against the one I have stated, and leave the argument as above explained in its original force.
To begin with the doctrine of association. The general principle of association as laid down by Hartley is this; that if any given sensation, idea, or motion, be for a number of times either accompanied, or immediately followed by any other sensation, idea, or muscular motion, the recurrence of the one will afterwards mechanically give rise to that of the other. By immediately followed I mean closely followed; for suppose A to be associated with B, and B with C, A will not only produce B and C intermediately, but will in time produce C immediately without the inter- vention of B. A mathematician would perhaps here ask how this can ever be actually proved: for though it seems reasonable to suppose that the influence of A if it extend to B should also go a little farther to the next idea, and join indirectly and secretly with B in producing C, yet as the connection between A and B must be stronger than that between A and C, if in any case the connection between the former become gradually so weakened as to dissolve of itself, the latter must fail of course, and therefore C can never follow A, except when B stands equivocally between them. This question would go upon the supposition, that B and C must always be impressions of exactly the same kind and degree of strength, which is not the case. A, though more remote from C, may yet be more intimately connected with it than with B from several other causes, ​from the greater strength of the impression, from similarity, &c. (This implies by the bye that the effect of association depends on the conjunction of many circumstances, and principles of action, and is not simply determined by the rela- tion of proximity or remoteness between our ideas with respect to time or place.) Thus if a person has done a number of good actions, which have been observed with pleasure by another, this approbation will be after- wards associated with the idea of the person, and the recol- lection of the benevolent disposition which gave birth to those actions remains, when the particular manner in which it was exerted is forgotten. First, because the feeling is the principal or strongest circumstance. Secondly, the association of our ideas with moral qualities is evidently assisted, and forced into the same general direction by the simplicity and uniform character of our feelings compared with the great variety of things and actions, which makes it impossible to combine such a number of distinct forms under the same general notion.
This is the whole extent and compass of the law of association. It has been said that this principle is of itself sufficient to account for all the phenomena of the human mind, and is the foundation of every rule of morality. My design is to show that neither of these assertions is absolutely true, or that it is absolutely idle to suppose that association is either the only mode of operation of the human mind, or that it is the primary and most general principle of thought and action.—But first of all it will be necessary to consider the account which Hartley himself has given of this principle as depending on the mechanical communication of motion from the seat of one idea to that of the next and so on, according to a previous local arrangement of these ideas in the brain; certainly, if thought is carried on in this ​manner, that is, by means of vibrations, it is difficult to conceive of its being produced by any other means than the accidental justling of these one against the other, which is what is meant by association.
There are two or three general observations which will be of use in conducting us through this inquiry. In the first place it appears to me certain that every impression or idea is produced in such a manner as to affect or be perceived by the whole brain at once, or in immediate succession, that is, before the impression ceases. For if we suppose a certain degree of resemblance to subsist between two ideas, the perception of the one will always be sure to excite a recollection of the other, if it is at all worth remembering. I mean for instance if any one should in some strange place suddenly see an excellent picture of an old and beloved friend, there can hardly be a doubt that the picture would call up the memory of the person whom it resembled with an instantaneous and irresistible force. Now this could not always happen but on the supposition that the visible impression of the picture was conveyed to every part of the brain, as otherwise it must be a mere accident whether it would ever come in contact with that part of it, where that correspondent image was lodged which it was calculated to excite, It is evident that the force with which the impression of the picture acts upon the mind is subsequent to the recollection of the likeness and not the cause of it, since the picture of any other person would act physically upon the mind in the same manner. It may be worth remarking here that the strength, or habitual or recent recurrence of any idea makes it more easily recollected. I might see a picture of a person whom I had not often seen and whose face did not at all interest me at the time, without recollecting whose it was, though the likeness ​should be ever so great. The frequent recurrence of the imitation on the other hand, if it has had its usual effect, renders the recollection of the object less certain or at any rate less vivid every time, till at last what remains of it is entirely lost, and confounded with the imitation. Again, it is also certain that the proximity of the parts of an object to one another, or of one object to another object is of itself a sufficient reason for their recollection in succession or together, in the same order in which they were actually perceived. Unless this were the case, we could never recollect any thing at all, as every object is necessarily composed of parts, and those again of others without end. Now how are we to reconcile this with the first-mentioned inference that thought is uniformly and necessarily communicated to every part of the thinking substance 2 If thought is produced in such a manner, that the shock is immediately felt in those parts nearest the seat of the individual impression, and is indeed sure to excite thought in them without generally ever affecting the remote parts of the brain in the same manner, it seems strange that its own communication over the whole brain should be so rapid and certain, while its power of producing other thoughts by simple impulse is so unequal.
I hope I shall be pardoned some inconsistencies of expression in treating of this subject. In order to disprove the theory which I am combating I must first assume its truth, and go on talking of the seats of our ideas, the different parts of the brain, the communication of thought by impulse, &c. till I can show that the hypothesis to which all these expressions refer is in reality good for nothing.
​Though I do not see my way out of the dilemma here stated, I think I have seen enough of the difficulties belonging to it to be able to reject the Hartleian hypothesis as directly incompatible with a fair and comprehensive view of the subject. First, it has been shewn above that every idea, or perception is communicated to all the parts of the brain, or to the whole sentient principle, whatever this is supposed to be. Or the same thing might be shewn from the nature of consciousness, consciousness being here and all along (where any particular stress is laid upon it) used in its etymological sense, as literally the same with conscientia, the knowing or perceiving many things by a simple act of the attention. That there is some faculty of this sort which opens a direct communication between our ideas, so that the same thinking principle is at the same time conscious of different impressions, and of their relations to each other, is what hardly any person who attends in the least to what passes in his own mind and is not the slave of a system will I should think deny. In other words, when any two ideas or parts of an idea (for there is no difference in this respect) are impressed at the same time on different parts of the brain, before these ideas can be perceived in connection as making parts of a whole, or can be accompanied with a consciousness of each other's existence, we must suppose them mutually to affect the seats of action belonging to each other, or else to be united in some common principle of thought, the same comparing power being exerted upon both. Without supposing their distinct impressions thus to meet in the same point, it seems a thing impossible to conceive how any comparison can take place between different impressions existing at the same time, or between our past and present impressions, or ever to explain what is meant by saying I perceive such and such objects, I remem​ber such and such events, since these different impressions are evidently referred to the same conscious being, which idea of individuality could never have been so much as conceived of if there were no other connection between our ideas than that which arises from the juxtaposition of the particles of matter on which they are severally impressed. The mere juxtaposition of the parts of the thinking substance on which different ideas are impressed will never produce any thing more than the actual juxtaposition of the ideas themselves, unaccompanied by any consciousness of their having this relation to each other: for the mind in this case consisting of nothing more than a succession of material points, each part will be sensible of the corresponding part of any object which is impressed upon it, but can know nothing of the impression which is made on any other part of the same substance, except from its reaction on the seat of the first, which is contrary to the supposition. In short, to attempt accounting at all for the nature of consciousness from the proximity of different impressions, or of their fluxional parts to each other in the brain seems no less absurd than it would be to imagine that by placing a number of persons together in a line we should produce in them an immediate consciousness and perfect knowledge of what was passing in each other's minds. If consciousness is to be deduced at all from the circumstance of place, it must be that different impressions occupy exactly the same place. One place has no identity with another: however thin the partition between one idea and another, the distinction must be as absolute and complete, and must confine each idea as effectually within its own bounds in this fantastical mosaic-work of the brain, as if a wall of brass or iron were interposed between each. There is another consideration to be attended to, which is that sensible impres​sions appear to be continually made on the same part of the brain in succession:—with respect to those received by the eye, a new set of objects is almost every moment impressed on the whole organ, and consequently transmitted along the nerves to the same receptacle in the brain. It follows from this last observation (which is not a speculative refinement but a plain matter of fact) that the sphere occupied by different vibrations is constantly the same, or that the same region of the brain belongs equally to a thousand different impressions, and consequently that the mere circumstance of situation is insufficient to account for that complete distinctness, of which our ideas are capable.
From these several considerations taken together I cannot help inferring the fallacy of the Hartleian doctrine of vibrations, which all along goes on the supposition of the most exact distinction and regular arrangement of the places of our ideas, and which therefore cannot be effectually reconciled with any reasoning that excludes all local distinction from having a share in the mechanical operations of the human mind. For if we suppose the succession of our ideas to be carried on by the communication of the impulse belonging to one idea to the contiguous cell, or dormitory of another idea formerly associated with it, and if we at the same time suppose each idea to occupy a separate cell which is inviolable, and which it has entirely to itself, ​then undoubtedly the ideas thus called up will follow one another in the same order in which they were originally excited. But if we takeaway this topographical allotment of separate parcels of the brain to different ideas, and suppose the same substance or principle to be constantly impressed with a succession of different ideas, then there seems to be no assignable reason why a vibratory motion accompanied with thought in passing from one part of the thinking substance to the next should not excite any other idea which had been impressed there, as well as the one with which that particular vibration had been originally associated, or why it should not by one general impulse equally excite them all. It is like supposing that you might tread upon a nest of adders twined together, and provoke only one of them to sting you. On the other hand to say that this species of elective affinity is determined in its operation by the greater readiness with which the idea of a particular impression recalls the memory of another impression which co-existed with it in a state of sensible excitement is to describe the fact but not (that I can perceive) in any manner to account for it. Let any one compare this account with the one given by Hartley of his own principle, and he will be able to judge.
But farther, even if could be shewn that the doctrine of vibrations accounts satisfactorily for the association of the ideas of any one sense, (as those of the sight for example,) yet surely the very nature of that principle must cut off every sort of communication between the ideas of different senses, (as those of sight and hearing,) which may have been associated in the order of time, but which with respect to actual situation must be farther removed from one another than any ideas of the same sense, at whatever ​distance of time they may have been severally impressed. If from the top of a long cold barren hill I hear the distant whistle of a thrush which seems to come up from some warm woody shelter beyond the edge of the hill, this sound coming faint over the rocks with a mingled feeling of strangeness and joy, the idea of the place about me, and the imaginary one beyond will all be blended together in such a manner in my mind as to become inseparable. Now the doctrine of vibrations appears absolutely to exclude the possibility of the union of all these into one associated idea, because as the whole of that principle is founded on the greater ease and certainty with which one local impression is supposed to pass into the seat of the next, and the greater force with which it acts there than it can do farther off, the idea of a visible object can never run into the notion of a sound, nor vice versâ, these impressions being of course conveyed along different nerves to different and very remote parts of the brain. Perhaps it will be said that all ideas impressed at the same moment of time may be supposed to be assigned to particular compartments of the brain as well as where the external objects are contiguous. To this I should answer that such a supposition does not at all account for what I have said above with respect to consciousness and the association of ideas from similarity, &c. and secondly, this supposition is neither included in Hartley's theory, nor does it seem to be compatible with it, as there is no other reason on the common material hypothesis for inferring the contiguity of our ideas in the brain than the contiguity of their external objects, and the impression of those objects on corresponding parts of the external sensible organ. The method taken by Hartley in detailing the associations, which take place between the ideas of each ​of the senses one by one, saves him the trouble of explaining those which take place between the ideas of different senses at the same time.
The whole of Hartley's system is founded on what seems an entirely gratuitous supposition, viz. the imaginary communication of our ideas to particular places in the brain to correspond not only with the relations of external objects, but with the order of time. This supposition can never be reconciled with the inference mentioned above (to go no farther), that thought is communicated to every part of the thinking substance by an immediate and uniform impulse. For though we should suppose that it is communicated in one manner to what may be called its primary seat, and in another manner over the rest of the brain, yet we shall still be as much at a loss as ever to show a reason why its primary action should always excite the associated or contiguous ideas, while its indirect or secondary action has no power at all to excite any of the ideas, with the spheres of which it necessarily comes in contact in its general diffusion over the whole brain, that is by its simple impulse. This is not all. There is another circumstance which must entirely prevent the least use being made of this distinction, which is that associated ideas are not properly such as are contiguous in place, but such as are connected in point of time, the relation of place not being at all essential to the question, for ideas that have been impressed together are always recollected as parts of the same complex impression, without any regard to the proximity or remoteness of their direct, primary seats in the brain, considered as distinct local impressions. As has been explained above with respect to sounds and visible objects, where the association must evidently arise from what I have called their secondary or relative actions, or, if you will, their conscious ideas, ​that is those which are not confined to a particular spot in the circumference of the brain, but affect the general principle of thought, whatever this may be, whether composed of extended, material parts, or indivisible. Now if these secondary or conscious ideas, which we may represent as continually posting backwards and forwards like couriers in all directions through all quarters of the brain to meet each other and exchange accounts, are in fact the only instruments of association, it is plain that the account given by Hartley of that principle falls to the ground at once; first, because that account affords no explanation of any of the associations which take place in the mind, except when there is an immediate communication between the primary seats of the associated ideas; secondly, because these secondary or conscious ideas, being spread over the whole brain, or rather being impressed on the same thinking principle, cannot have any particular connection with or power to call up one another, or the contrary, from any circumstances of local distinction, which is thus completely done away with.
The doctrine of vibrations supposes the order of place and the order of time to correspond exactly in all combinations of our ideas, and that it is owing to this circumstance entirely that those ideas which have been impressed nearly at the same time have afterwards a power to call up one another from the facility with which they must be supposed to pass from their own primary seats into the contiguous ones of the associated ideas. I have endeavoured to shew on the contrary not only that there is no regular local arrangement of our ideas making them correspond exactly with the order in which they cohere together in the mind, but that there appears to be no distinction whatever in this respect; that they all belong absolutely to the same place or internal seat of conciousness; that this want of distinction is an evident fact ​with respect to the successive impressions which are made on the same parts of the body, and consequently according to the material hypothesis, on the same parts of the thinking substance; and that it may be deduced generally from the nature of thought itself, and the associations which arise from similarity, &c., that this principle must be entirely nugatory with respect to the associations of the ideas of different senses, even though it should hold true with respect to those of any one sense; lastly, that all ideas impressed at the same time acquire a power of exciting one another afterwards without any regard to the coincidence of their imaginary seats in the brain, and that therefore the true account of the principle of association must be derived from the first cause, the coincidence of time, and not from the latter cause, the proximity of situation, which bears no manner of proportion to the effects produced.
I have always had the same feeling with respect to Hartley (still granting his power to the utmost) which is pleasantly expressed in an old author, Roger Bacon, quoted by Sir Kenelm Digby in his answer to Sir Thomas Browne. “Those students,” he says, “who busy themselves much with such notions as relate wholly to the fantasie, do hardly ever become idoneous for abstracted metaphysical speculations; the one having bulky foundation of matter or of the accidents of it to settle upon (at the least with one foot): the other flying continually, even to a lessening pitch, in the subtil air. And accordingly, it hath been generally noted, that the exactest mathematicians, who converse altogether with lines, figures, and other differences of quantity, have seldom proved eminent in metaphysicks or speculative divinity. Nor again, the professors of these sciences in the other arts. Much less can it be expected, that an excellent physician, whose fancy is always fraught with the material drugs that he prescribeth ​his apothecary to compound his medicines of, and whose hands are inured to the cutting up, and eyes to the inspection of anatomized bodies, should easily and with success, flie his thoughts at so towring a game, as a pure intellect, a separated and unbodied soul." I confess I feel in reading Hartley, something in the way in which the Dryads must have done shut up in their old oak trees. I feel my sides pressed hard, and bored with points of knotty inferences piled up one upon another without being able ever to recollect myself, or catch a glimpse of the actual world without me. I am somehow wedged in between different rows of material objects, overwhelming me by their throng, and from which I have no power to escape, but of which I neither know nor understand any thing. I constantly see objects multiplied upon me, not powers at work. I know no reason why one thing follows another but that something else is conjured up between them, which has as little apparent connection with either as they have with one another. Hartley always reasons from the concrete object, not from the abstract or essential properties of things, and in his whole book I do not believe there is one good definition. It would be a bad way to describe a man's character to say that he had a wise father or a foolish son; and yet this is the way in which Hartley defines ideas by stating what precedes them in the mind, and what comes after them. Thus he defines the will to be "that idea, or state of mind which precedes action;" or "a desire, or aversion sufficiently strong to produce action," &c. He gives you the outward signs of things in the order in which he conceives them to follow one another, but never the demonstration of certain consequences from the known nature of their causes, which alone is true reasoning. Nevertheless he was a great man. See his Chapter on Memory, &c.
​The account which Hartley has in one place given of successive association as distinct from synchronous seems to have no necessary connection with the last-mentioned principle. He says, p. 69, "If A and B be vibrations impressed successively, then will the latter part of A, viz. that part which remains after the impression of the object ceases, be modified and altered by B, at the same time that it will a little modify and alter it, till at last it be quite overpowered by it, and end in it. It follows therefore that the successive impression of A and B sufficiently repeated will so alter the medullary substance, as that when A is impressed alone, the latter part shall not be such as the sole impression of A requires, but lean towards B, and end in c at last. But B will not excite a in a retrogade order, since, by supposition, the latter part of B was not modified and altered by A, but by some other vibration, such as C or D." First of all, this account seems to imply that the associated impressons A and B are the only ones made on the mind, and that they extend over the whole medullary substance. In this case when the action of A ceases or grows very weak, we may suppose that the tendency to B will be gradually revived, and at last completely overpower that of A, because these are the only impressions existing in the mind, and it must consequently incline to one or other of them, which would be equally the case, whether they had been impressed together, or not. Otherwise we must suppose the impressions thus made successively to have a distinct local communication with each other, or there is no reason given why A should excite b more than any other vibration impressed on the brain in general, or on the seat of b in particular. We must besides this suppose the vibrations A and B to have a particular line of direction, as well ​as primary sphere of action in the brain to account for B's not exciting a in the reverse order, &c. The question is how the impression of different objects at the same time, or in quick succession, gives the idea of one of those objects a power to excite the idea of the other, though the object is absent; and it is no answer to this question to say, that A being often repeated in connection with B, when it is afterwards excited, "leans towards B, and ends in it." Hartley says by way of breaking the difficulty, that the latter part of A is altered and modified by B. This is evident enough while B really acts upon the senses: but why should it be modified by it in the absence of B? This modification of the latter part of A by B is not the intermediate cause of the excitement of b, for b, the representative of B, must be excited, at least imperfectly, before it can modify A (B itself being nothing), and the point is how A, or a excites the movement connected with B and that only; not how, supposing this connection between them to be established, the one gradually passes into the other, and ends in it. I think Hartley constantly mistakes tracing the order of palpable effects, or overt acts of the mind, for explaining the causes of the fanciful connection between them, which he hardly ever does with a true metaphysical feeling. Even where he is greatest, he is always the physiologist rather than the metaphysician.
Perhaps a better way to discover the clue to the principle of association, setting aside all ideas of extension, contiguity, &c. would be by considering the manner in which the same conscious principle may be supposed to adapt itself to, to combine, and, as it were to reconcile together the actions of different objects impressed on it at once, and to all of which it is forced to attend at the same time; by which means ​these several impressions thus compelled into agreement, and a kind of mutual understanding one with another after- wards retain a particular tendency or disposition to unite together; that is to say, the mind when thrown back into the same state by the recurrence of any one of these ideas is of course put into the way of admitting or passing more readily to any other of the same set of ideas than to any other ideas of a different set not so blended and harmonized with it. It seems as if the mind was laid open to all the impressions which had been made upon it at any given time, the moment any one of them recalls a state of feeling habitually in unison with the rest. By touching a certain spring, all obstacles are removed, the doors fly open, and the whole gallery is seen at a single glance. The mind has a capacity to perform any complex action the easier for having performed the same action before. It will consequently have a disposition to perform that action rather than any other, other circumstances being the same. I imagine that association is possibly to be accounted for on the same principle as a man's being able to comprehend or take in a mathematical demonstration the better for going over it a number of times, or to recognise any well-known object, as the figure of a man for instance in the middle of a common, sooner than a stump of a tree, or piece of a rock of twice the size, and of just as remarkable a shape. Consistently with this, we may suppose, if one impression is very like another, though not associated with it, that the mind will in that case slide more naturally, will feel less repugnance in passing from the recollection of the one to that of the other, that is from it's actual state into a state very little different from it, than into one of a totally different kind. When any particular idea becomes predominant, the turn which is thus given to the ​mind must be favourable to the reception or recollection of any other idea, which requires but little alteration in the state of the mind to admit it. A slight turn of the screws on which the tension of the mind depends will set it right to the point required.
When the actual state of the mind agrees, or falls in with some previous tendency, the effort which the latent idea makes to pass into a state of excitement must be more powerful than it would be without this co-operation, and where the other circumstances are indifferent must always be effectual. Thus the actual feeling of warmth will have a tendency to call up any old ideas of the same kind: e.g. a very warm spring day puts me in mind of a walk I took in a hot day last summer. Here however a difficulty occurs: for the very opposition of our feelings, as of heat and cold frequently produces an imaginary transition in the mind from the one to the other. This may be accounted for in a loose way by supposing, that the struggle between very opposite feelings producing a violent and perturbed state of mind excites attention, and makes the mind more sensible to the shock of the contrary impression than to that by which it is preoccupied, as we find that the body is more liable to be affected by any opposite extremes, as of heat and cold, immediately succeeding, and counteracting each other. Be this as it may, all things actually put us in mind of their contraries, cold of heat, day of night, &c. These three, viz. association, similarity, and contrast include, I believe, all the general sources of connection between our ideas, for as to that of cause and effect, it seems to be referable, at least, in most instances to the first class, that of common association. I hope no one will think that I mean to offer the foregoing statement as even a remote and faint approach to a satisfactory account of the matter. Every attempt of ​this sort must be light and ineffectual without first ascertaining (if possible) the manner in which our ideas are produced, and the nature of consciousness, both of which I am utterly unable to comprehend. I have endeavoured simply to point out what it is that is to be accounted for, (the general feeling with which a reflecting man should set out in search of the truth) and the impossibility of ever arriving at it, if at the outset we completely cover over our own feelings with maps of the brain, dry skulls, musical chords, pendulums, and compasses, or think of looking into the bottom of our own minds by means of any other instrument than a sharpened intellect.
What I at first proposed was to shew, that association, however we may suppose it to be carried on, is not the only source of connection between our ideas, or mode of operation of the human mind. This has been assumed indirectly and I think proved with respect to similarity, &c. Here however a shrewd turn has been given to the argument by the Hartleians, who, admitting similarity among the causes of connection between our ideas, deny that it is any objection to their doctrine, for that this very example is easily resolved into a case of mere association. Similarity, they say, is nothing but partial sameness; and where part of a thing has been first associated with certain circumstances, and is afterwards conjoined with others, making in fact two different objects, it's recurrence in the second instance will necessarily recall the circumstances with which it was associated in the first. In general we suppose that if we meet a person in the street with a face resembling some other face with which we are well acquainted, the reason why the one puts us in mind of the other is that the one is like ​the other; and we should be little disposed to believe any one who told us seriously that in reality we had before seen the one man's nose upon the other's face, and that this old impression or very identical object brought along with it the other ideas with which it had been formerly associated. This account would be sufficiently contrary to common sense and feeling, and I hope to shew that it has as little connection with any true subtlety of thinking. No metaphysician will I think be disposed to controvert this, who takes the trouble accurately to compare the meaning of the explanation with the terms and necessary import of the law of association. For let an impression which I received yesterday be in every possible respect the same with the one which I received to-day, still the one impression is not the other; they are two distinct impressions existing at different times, and by the supposition associated with very different circumstances. The one from having been co-existent with certain circumstances has a power by the law of association of exciting the recollection of those circumstances whenever it is itself recollected : the other has the same power over that particular combination of circumstances with which it was associated, merely because they were so impressed together on the mind at the same moment of time. To say therefore that a particular quality of an object has a power of exciting the ideas of several other qualities of another object, of which it never made a part, is on the principle of association, a contradiction in terms. Its being essentially or comparatively the same with another quality which did actually make part of such an object no more proves the consequences which fairly result from the principle of association than it would follow from my looking at the same object at which another has been looking, that I must forthwith be impressed with all the ideas, feel​ings and imaginations which have been passing in his mind at the time. This last observation may be objected to on the ground that there is no connection whatever between one man's ideas and another's. No doubt: but then it follows as clearly (and that is all I meant to shew) that the abstract identity of the objects or impressions does not of itself produce this connection, so that the perception of the one must needs bring along with it the associated ideas belonging to the other. The objects or ideas are the same in both cases, if that were all: but this is not sufficient to prove that they must have the same accompaniments, or associations, because in the one case they are impressed on different minds, and in the other on the same mind at different times, which is expressly contrary to the principle of association, unless we assume by the help of a verbal sophism that the same generical idea is the same associated idea, and this again would lead to the absurd consequence above stated. It is not here necessary to give a regular definition or account of what in general constitutes sameness; or to inquire whether, strictly speaking, such a relation can ever be said to subsist between any two assignable objects. Such an inquiry would be quite foreign to the purpose, and I wish to avoid as much as possible all useless common-place subtleties, such as, whichever way they are determined, can make no alteration in the state of the argument. It is plain in the present case, for example; that when it is stated that a particular idea having been once associated with given circumstances, the same idea will ever afterwards excite the recollection of those circumstances, all that is meant is that the idea in the latter case must be a production, continuation, or more properly a recollection of the former one, so as to retain the impression of the accidental modifications by which that idea was originally ​affected. It must be so far the same as to bear the same relation to the surrounding ideas, as to depend for what it is on what it has been, and to connect the present with the past. It must be the old idea lurking in the mind with all it's old associations hanging about it, and not an entirely new impression with entirely new associations, This idea must therefore be originally derived from an individual impression in contradistinction to half a dozen different ones possessing the same absolute properties: for the whole point turns upon this, that such and such ideas have not naturally any sort of connection with certain other ideas, but that any one of these ideas having been actually associated with any of the others, this accidental relation begets a peculiar and artificial connection between them which is continued along with the remembrance of the ideas themselves.
Sir J. Macintosh, I remember, explained this principle in his lectures in the following manner. "If," says he, "any gentleman who has heard me in this place to-day should by chance pass by this way to-morrow, the sight of Lincoln's-inn Hall will upon the principle we are now examining bring along with it the recollection of some of the persons he has met with the day before, perhaps of some of the reasonings which I have the honour to deliver to this audience, or in short any of those concomitant circumstances with which the sight of Lincoln's-inn Hall has been previously associated in his mind." This is a correct verbal statement, but it is liable to be misunderstood. Sir J. Macintosh was no doubt a man of very clear understanding, of an imposing elocution, a very able disputant, and a very metaphysical lawyer, but by no means a profound metaphysician, nor quite a Berkeley in subtlety of distinction. I will try as well as I am able to help him out in his explanation.
​It is clear that the visible image of Lincoln's-inn Hall which any one has presented to his senses at any given moment of time cannot have been previously associated with other images and perceptions. Neither is a renewed sensible impression of a particular object the same with or in any manner related to a former recollected impression of the same object except from the resemblance of the one to the other. There can be no doubt then of the connection between my idea or recollection of Lincoln's-inn Hall yesterday, and the associated ideas of the persons whom I saw there, or the things which I heard; the question is, how do I get this idea of yesterday's impression from seeing Lincoln's-inn Hall to-day. The difficulty is not in connecting the links in the chain of previously associated ideas, but in arriving at the first link, in passing from a present sensation to the recollection of a past object. Now this can never be by an act of association, because it is self-evident that the present can never have been previously associated with the past. Every beginning of a series of associations, that is every departure from the continued beaten track of old impressions or ideas remembered in regular succession, therefore implies and must be accounted for from some act of the mind which does not depend on association.
Association is an habitual relation between continuations of the same ideas which act upon one another in a certain manner simply because the original impressions were excited together. Let ABC represent any associated impressions. Let a b c be the ideas left in the mind by these impressions, and then let A M N represent a repetition of A in conjunction with a different set of objects. Now a the idea of A when excited will excite b c or the ideas of B C by association; but A as part of the sensible impression ​A M N cannot excite b c by association, because it has never been associated with B C, is not, like a, the production of the former impression A, but an entirely new impression made from without, totally unconnected with the first. I understand then from the nature of association how a will excite b c, but not how A excites a. I understand how my thinking of Lincoln's-inn Hall, the impression of yesterday, should also lead me on the principle of association, to think of other things connected with that impression; but I cannot see how, according to this principle, there is any more connection between my seeing Lincoln's-inn Hall today, and recollecting my having seen it yesterday, than there is between the palace of St. Cloud, and John-O'Groat's house. Certainly the new impression is not the old one, nor the idea of the old one. What is it then that when this second impression is made on the mind determines it to connect itself with the first more than with any other indifferent impression, and which carries it forward in that particular direction which is necessary to its finding out its fellow; or setting aside this geographical reasoning, what is there in the action of the one on the mind that necessarily revives that of the other? Clearly, nothing of this has aught to do with association.
A question however occurs here which perplexes the subject a good deal, and which I shall state and answer as concisely as I can. I have hitherto endeavoured to shew that a particular present impression cannot excite the recollection of a past impression by association; that is, that ideas which have never been associated, cannot be said to excite one another by association. But still it may be asked whether a present impression may not excite the ideas associated with any similar impression, without first exciting a distinct recollection of the similar impression with ​which they were associated. Now however we may reconcile it with the foregoing reasoning, it is certainly a fact that it does do so. And I conceive it will not be difficult to account for this, according to the explanation above hinted at of the principle of association: for we may in general suppose any similar state of mind to be favourable to the re-admission, or recollection of the ideas already associated with such a state of mind, whether the similarity is produced by a revival of the old idea, or by the recurrence of a similar external object. In this case, however, we must suppose that association is only a particular and accidental effect of some more general principle, and not the sole-moving spring in all combinations which take place between our ideas: and still more, that similarity itself must be directly a very strong source of connection between them, since it extends beyond the similar ideas themselves to any ideas associated with them. This conclusion is still more clear on the Hartleian theory of association as carried on by the connection of different local impressions, which alone makes it difficult to admit similarity as a distinct source of connection between our ideas. Now I am utterly unable to conceive how this effect can ever take place, for I contend that there must be in this case a direct communication between the new impression, and the similar old one, before there can be any possible reason for the revival of the associated ideas, and then the same difficulty will return as before, that is, why one similar impression should have a natural tendency to excite another, which tendency cannot be accounted for from association, for it goes before it, although on this hypothesis it is absolutely necessary to account for it.—For evidently whatever relates to local connection must be confined to the individual impression and cannot possibly extend to the class or genus. Suppose association ​to depend on the actual juxta-position of two, or more local impressions, which being thus accidentally brought together have thrown a sort of grappling irons over one another, and continue to act in concert in consequence of this immediate local communication. It is clear that in this case none but the individual, or numerical impressions so united can have any power over each other. No matter how like any other impression may be to any of the associated ones: if it does not agree in place as well as kind, it might as well not exist at all; its influence can no more be felt in the seat of the first, than if it were parcel of another intellect, or floated into the most distant parts of space. Again: suppose association to consist not in connecting different local impressions, but in reconciling different heterogeneous actions of the same thinking principle, "in subduing the one even to the very quality of the other"; here the disposition of the mind being the chief thing concerned, not only those very identical impressions will coalesce together which have been previously associated, but any other very similar impressions to these will have a facility in exciting one another, that is in acting upon the mind at the same time, their association depending solely on the habitual disposition of the mind to receive such and such impressions when pre-occupied by certain others, their local relation to each other being the same in all cases.—The moment it is admitted not to be necessary to association that the very individual impressions should be actually revived, the foundation of all the inferences which have been built on this principle is completely done away.
Association then is only one of the ways in which ideas are recollected or brought back into the mind. Another view of the subject remains, which is to consider their effects after they get there as well as how they are introduced: ​why certain ideas affect the mind differently from others: and by what means we are enabled to form comparisons and draw inferences.
If association were every thing, and the cause of every thing, there could be no comparison of one idea with another, no reasoning, no abstraction, no regular contrivance, no wisdom, no general sense of right and wrong, no humanity, no foresight of any thing, in short nothing that is essential, or honourable to the human mind would be left to it. Accordingly, the abettors of this theory have set themselves to shew, that judgment, imagination, &c. are mere words that really signify nothing but certain associations of ideas following one another in the same mechanical order in which they were originally impressed, and that all our feelings, tastes, habits and actions spring from the same source. As I know of no proof whatever that has been or can be given of either of these paradoxes but that many of our opinions are prejudices, and that many of our feelings arise from habit, I shall here proceed to state as concisely as I can my reasons for thinking that association alone does not account either for the proper operations of the understanding, or for our moral feelings, and voluntary actions; and that there are other general, original, independent faculties equally necessary and more important in the "building up of the human mind." In every comparison made by the mind of one idea with another, that is, in the perception of agreement, or disagreement, or of any kind of relation between them, I conceive there is something implied which is essentially different from any association of ideas. Before I proceed, however, I must repeat that in this question I stand merely on the defensive. I have no positive inferences to make, nor any novelties to bring forward, and I have only to defend a common-sense feeling against the refinements of ​a false philosophy. I understand by association of ideas the recollecting or perceiving any two or more ideas together, or immediately one after the other. Now it is contended that this immediate succession, coexistence, or juxtaposition of our ideas is all that can be meant by their comparison. It is therefore a question in this case what becomes of the ideas of likeness, equality, &c. for if there is no other connection between our ideas than what arises from positive association, it seems to follow that all objects seen, or, if you please, thought of together must be equally like, and that the likeness is completely done away by separating the objects or supposing them to be separated. As these ideas are some of the clearest and most important we have, it may be reasonably demanded that any attempt to account for them by resolving them into other ideas with which they have not at first sight the least connection should be perfectly clear and satisfactory. Let us see how far this has been done. It has been contended then that the only idea of equality which the mind can possibly have is the recollection of the sensible impression made by the meeting of the contiguous points, or ends of two strait lines for example. Here two questions will arise. The first is, whether the idea of equality is merely a particular way of considering contiguity. The second, whether association, that is the suc​cession or juxtaposition of our ideas, can ever of itself produce the idea of this relation between them. My first object will be to inquire whether the perception of the equality of two lines is the same with the perception of the contiguity of their extremities: whether the one idea necessarily includes every thing that is contained in the other.
I see two points touch one another, or that there is no sensible interval between them. What possible connection is there between this idea, and that of their being the boundaries of two lines of equal length? It is only by drawing out those points to a certain distance that I get the idea of any lines at all; they must be drawn out to the same distance before they can be equal; and I can have no idea of their being equal without dividing that equal distance into two distinct parts or lines, both of which I must consider at the same time as contained with the same limits. If the ideas merely succeeded one another, or even coexisted as distinct images, they would still be perfectly unconnected with each other, each being absolutely contained within itself, and there being no common act of attention to both to unite them together. Now the question is whether this perception of the equality of these two lines is not properly an idea of comparison (in the sense in which every one uses and feels these words,) an idea which cannot possibly be expressed or defined by any other relation between our ideas; or whether it is only a round-about way of getting at the old idea of the coincidence of their points or ends, which certainly is not an idea of comparison, or of the relation between equal quantities, and simply because there are no quantities to be compared. The one relates to the agreement of the things themselves one with another, the other to their local situation. There is no proving any farther that these ideas are different, but by appealing to every ​man's own breast. If any one should choose to assert that two and two make six, or that the sun is the moon, I can only answer that these ideas as they exist in my mind are totally different. In like manner I am conscious of certain operations in my own mind in comparing two equal lines together essentially different from the perception of the contiguity of their extremities, and I therefore conclude that the ideas of equality and contiguity are not the same.
The second question is whether the idea of contiguity itself is an idea of mere association; that is, whether it is nothing more than the recollection of a compound sensation. If by sensation is to be understood the direct impression of the parts of any outward object on corresponding parts of an extended living substance, by which the general mass is converted from a dead into a living thing, and that this is the only difference that takes place, then I deny that this combination of living atoms, this diffusion of animal sensibility, however exquisite or thrilling to the slightest touch, will ever give the idea of relation of any kind whether of contiguity, coexistence, or any thing else, either immediately at the time or by recollection afterwards. It has been said that to feel is to think, "sentirest penser:" I believe this to be true of the human mind, because the human mind is a thinking principle: it is natural to it to think: it cannot feel without thinking; but this maxim would not be at all true of such a human mind as is described by these philosophers, equally incapable both of thought, and feeling as it exists in us. As this distinction is very difficult to be expressed, I hope I may be allowed to express it in the best way that I am able. Suppose a number of animalculæ, as a heap of mites in a rotten cheese, lying as close together as they can stick, (though the ​example should be of something "more drossy and divisible," of something less reasonable, approaching nearer to pure sensation than we can conceive of any creature that exercises the functions of the meanest instinct). No one will contend that in this heap of living matter there is any idea of the number, position, or intricate involutions of that little, lively, restless tribe. This idea is evidently not contained in any of the parts separately, nor is it contained in all of them put together. That is, the aggregate of many actual sensations is, we here plainly see, a totally different thing from the collective idea, comprehension, or consciousness of those sensations as many things, or of any of their relations to each other. We may go on multiplying and combining sensations to the end of time without ever advancing one step in the other process, or producing one single thought. But in what, I would ask, does this supposition differ from that of many distinct particles of matter, full of animation, tumbling about, and pressing against each other in the same brain, except that we make use of this brain as a common medium to unite their different desultory actions in the same general principle of thought, or consciousness? Therefore if there is no power in this principle but to repeat the old story of sensation over again, if the mind is but a sort of inner room where the images of external things, like pictures in a gallery, are lodged safe and dry out of the reach of the turbulence of the senses, but remaining as distinct from, and if I may so say, as perfectly unknown to one another as those pictures, there being no general faculty to overlook and give notice of their several impressions, this medium is without any use, the hypothesis is so far an incumbrance, not an advantage. To perceive the relation of one thing to another it is not only necessary that the ideas of the things themselves should co-exist (which would signify ​nothing), but that they should be perceived to co-exist by the same conscious understanding, or that their different actions should be felt at the same instant by the same being in the strictest sense. If I am asked if I conceive clearly how this is possible, I answer no: perhaps no one ever will, or can. But I do understand clearly that the other supposition is an absurdity, and can never be reconciled with the nature of thought, or consciousness, of, that power of which I have an absolute certainty in my own mind. If any one who still doubts of this will give me a satisfactory reason why he denies the same consciousness to different minds, or thinks it necessary to circumscribe this principle within the limits of the same brain but upon the supposition that one brain is one power, in some sort modifying and reacting upon all the ideas contained in it, I shall then be ready to give up my dull, cloudy, English mysticism for the clear sky of French metaphysics. Till then, however, it is in vain to tell me that the mind thinks by sensations, that then only does it think emphatically, then only truly when by decompounding its essence it comes at last to reflect the naked impression of material objects. It is easy to make a bold assertion, and just as easy to deny it; and I do not know that there is any authority yet established by which I am bound to yield an implicit assent to every extravagant opinion which some man of celebrity has been hardy enough to adopt, and make others believe. It does not surely follow that a thing is to be disbelieved, the moment any one thinks proper to deny it, merely because it has been generally believed, as if truth were one entire paradox, and singularity the only claim to authority.
​I never could make much of the subject of real relations in nature. But in whatever way we determine with respect ​to them, whether they are absolutely true in nature, or are only the creatures of the mind, they cannot exist in ​nature after the same manner that they exist in the human mind. The forms of things in nature are manifold; they only become one by being united in the same common principle of thought. The relations of the things themselves as they exist separately and by themselves must therefore be very different from their relations as perceived by the mind where they have an immediate communication with each other. The things themselves can only have the same relation to each other that the ideas of things have in different minds, or that our sensible impressions must have to one another before we refer them to some inward conscious principle. Without this conscious connection between our ideas in the mind there could be no preference of one thing to another, no choice of means to ends; that is, no voluntary action. Suppose the ideas or impressions of any two objects to be perfectly distinct and vivid: suppose them moreover to be mechanically associated together in my mind, and that they bear in fact just the same proportion to each other that the objects do in nature: suppose that the one is attended with just so much more pleasure than the other, and is so much more desirable: what effect can this of itself have but to produce a proportionable degree of unthinking complacency in the different feelings belonging to each, and a proportionable degree of vehemence in the blind impulse, by which I am attached to each of them ​separately and for the moment? If there is no perception of the relation between different feelings, no proper comparison of the one with the other, there may indeed be a stronger impulse towards the one than there is towards the other in the different seats of perception which they severally affect, but there can be no reasonable attachment, no preference of the one to the other in the same general principle of thought and action. And consequently on this supposition if the objects or feelings are incompatible with each other, I, or rather the different sensible beings within me will be drawn different ways, each according to its own particular bias, blindly persisting in its own choice without ever thinking of any other interest than its own, or being in the least affected by any idea of the general good of the whole sentient being, which would be a thing utterly incomprehensible. To perceive relations,—if not to choose between good and evil, to prefer a greater good to a less, a lasting to a transient enjoyment, belongs only to one mind, or spirit, the mind that is in man, which is the centre in which all his thoughts meet, and the master-spring by which all his actions are governed. Every thing is one in nature, and governed by an absolute impulse. The mind of man alone is relative to other things, it represents not itself but many things existing out of itself; it does not therefore represent the truth by being sensible of one thing but many things (for nature, its object, is manifold), and though the things themselves as they really exist cannot go out of themselves into other things, or compromise their natures, there is no reason why the mind, which is merely representative, should be confined to any one of them more than to any other, and a perfect understanding should comprehend them all as they are all contained in nature, or in all. No one object or idea therefore ought to impel the ​mind for its own sake, but as it is relative to other things; nor is a motive true or natural in reference to the human mind merely because it exists, unless we at the same time suppose it to be stronger than all others.
But to return. I conceive, first that volition necessarily implies thought or foresight, that is, that it is not accounted for from mere association. All voluntary action implies a view to consequences, a perception of the analogy between certain actions already given, and the particular action then to be employed, a knowledge of the connection between certain actions and the effects to be produced by them; and lastly, a faculty of combining all these with particular circumstances so as to be able to judge how far they are likely to impede or assist the accomplishment of our purposes; in what manner it may be necessary to vary our exertions according to the nature of the case; whether a greater or less degree of force is required to produce the effect, &c. Without this "discourse of reason," this circumspection and comparison, it seems to be as impossible for the human mind to pursue any regular object as it would be for a man hemmed in on all sides by the walls of houses and blind alleys to see his way clearly before him from one end of London to the other, or to go in a strait line from Westminster to Wapping. One would think it sufficient to state the question in order to shew that mere association, (or the mechanical recurrence of any old impressions in a certain order, which can never exactly correspond with the given circumstances,) would never, without the aid of some other faculty, satisfactorily account for the complexity and subtle windings and perpetual changes in the motives of human action. On the hypothesis here spoken of, I could have no comprehensive idea of things to check any immediate, passing impulse, nor should I be able to make any inference with respect to the consequences of ​my actions whenever there was the least alteration in the circumstances in which I must act. If however this general statement does not convince those who are unwilling to be convinced on the subject, I hope the nature of the objection will be made sufficiently clear in the course of the argument.
Secondly, it is necessary to volition that we should suppose the imaginary or general ideas of things to be efficient causes of action. It is implied in the theory we are combating that some sort of ideas are efficient motives to action, because association itself consists of ideas. Habit can be nothing but the impulsive force of certain physical impressions surviving in their ideas and producing the same effects as the original impressions themselves. Why then should we refuse to admit the same, or a similar power in any ideas of the same kind, because they have been combined by the imagination with different circumstances, or because a great many different ideas have gone to make up one general feeling? Why, if the inherent qualities of the ideas are not changed, should not the effects which depend on those qualities be the same also? It cannot be pretended that there is something in the nature of all ideas which renders them inadequate to the production of muscular action, the one being a mental, the other a physical essence. For ideas are evidently the instruments of association, and must therefore one way or other be the efficient causes of voluntary action. The ideas of imagination and reason must be analogous to those of memory and association, or they could not represent their several objects.-It is to be remembered that the tendency of any ideas to produce action cannot be ascribed in the first instance to the accidental association between the original impression and some particular action, for the action is an immediate and natural consequence of the impression, and ​would equally follow from the same impression in any other circumstances, and ought to follow from any other idea partaking of the same general nature and properties. The proper effects of association can only apply to those cases, where an impression or idea by being associated with another has acquired a power of exciting actions to which it was itself perfectly indifferent. But this power cannot always be transferred from one impression to another, for there must be some original impression which has an inherent independent power to produce action.
I do not know how far the rules of philosophizing laid down by Sir Isaac Newton apply to the question, but it appears to me an evident conclusion of common sense not to seek for a remote and indirect cause of any effect where there is a direct and obvious one. Whenever therefore a particular action follows a given impression, if there is nothing in the impression itself incompatible with such an effect, it seems an absurdity to go about to deduce that action from some other impression, which has no more right to it's production than that which is immediately and obviously connected with it. In general it may be laid down as a principle of all sound reasoning, that where there are many things actually existing which may be assigned as the causes of several known effects, it is best to divide those effects among them, not arbitrarily to lay the whole weight of a complicated series of effects on the shoulders of some one of them, generally singled out for no other reason than because it is the most remote and therefore the least probable. For this there can be no more reason than for my supposing that when I see a large building standing on a number of pillars, the whole of it is secretly upheld by some main pillar in the centre, and that all the other pillars stand there merely for shew. The principle that the fewest causes ​possible are to be admitted is wrong in the abstract; and the injudicious application of it has I think been productive of a great deal of false reasoning. Unquestionably, where there is no appearance of the existence of certain causes, they are to be admitted with caution: we are not fancifully to multiply them ad libitum merely because we are not satisfied with those that do appear, much less are we to multiply them gratuitously, without any reason at all. But where the supposed causes actually exist, where they are known to exist, and have an obvious connection with certain effects, why deprive any of these causes of the real activity which they seem to possess, in order to make some one of them reel and stagger under a weight of consequences which nature never meant to lay upon it? This mistaken notion of simplicity has been the general fault of all system-makers, who are so taken up with some favourite hypothesis or principle, that they make it the sole hinge on which every thing else turns, and forget that there is any other power really at work in the universe; all other causes being either set aside as false and nugatory, or else resolved into that one. There is another principle which has a deep foundation in nature that has also served to strengthen the same feeling; namely, that things never act alone, that almost every effect that can be mentioned is a compound result of a series of causes modifying one another, and that therefore the true cause of anything is seldom to be looked for on the surface, or in the first distinct agent that presents itself. This principle consistently followed up does not however lead to the supposition that the immediate and natural causes of things are nothing, but on the contrary, that the most trifling and remote are something; it proves that the accumulated weight of a long succession of real, efficient causes is generally far greater than that of any one of them separately: ​not that the operation of the whole series is in itself null and void but as the efficacy of the first sensible cause is transmitted downwards by association through the whole chain. Association has been assumed as the leading principle in the operations of the human mind, indeed, the only one; forgetting first, the assertion of this theory, that nature must be the foundation of every artificial principle, and secondly that with respect to the result, even where association has had the greatest influence, habit is at best but a half-worker with nature, for in proportion as the habit becomes inveterate, we must suppose a greater number of actual impressions to have concurred in producing it.
Association may relate only to feelings; habit implies action, a disposition to do something. Let us suppose then that it were possible to account in this way for all those affections which relate to old objects and ideas, which depend on recalling past feelings by looking back into our memories. But the moment you introduce action (if it is any thing more than an involuntary repetition of certain motions without either end or object, a mere trick, and absence of mind) this principle can be of no use without the aid of some other faculty to enable us to apply old associated feelings to new circumstances, and to give the will a new direction.
Sir J. Mackintosh in his public lectures used to deny the existence of such a feeling as general benevolence or humanity, on the ground that all our affections necessarily owe their rise to particular previous associations, and that they cannot exist at all unless they have been excited before in the same manner by the same objects. If I were diposed to enter particularly into this question, I might say in the first place that such a feeling as general benevolence or ​kindness to persons whom we have never seen or heard of before does exist. I should not scruple to charge any one who should deny this with mala fides, with prevaricating either to himself, or others. It is a maxim which these gentlemen seem to be unacquainted with that it is necessary to strain an hypothesis to make it fit the facts, not to deny the facts because they do not square with the hypothesis. It generally happens, that when a metaphysical paradox is first started, it is thought sufficient by a vague and plausible explanation to reconcile it tolerably well with known facts: afterwards it is found to be a shorter way, savouring more of a certain agreeable daring in matters of philosophy and dashing the spirit of opposition sooner, to deny the facts on the strength of the hypothesis. Independently however of all experimental proof, the reasoning as it is applied confutes itself. It is said that habit is necessary to produce affection. Now supposing this: in what sense is the principle true? If the persons, feelings and actions must be exactly and literally the same in both cases, there can be no such thing as habit: the same objects and circumstances that influenced me to-day cannot possibly influence me to-morrow. Take the example of a child to whose welfare the attention of the parent is constantly directed. The simple wants of the child are never exactly the same in themselves, the accidental circumstances with which they are combined necessarily varying every moment: nor are the sentiments and temper of the parent less liable to constant and imperceptible fluctuations. These subtle changes, however, this dissimilarity in subordinate circumstances, does not prevent the parent's affections for the child from becoming an inveterate habit. If therefore it is merely an extraordinary degree of resemblance in the objects which produces an extraordinary degree of strength in the habitual affection, a more remote ​and imperfect resemblance in the objects ought to produce proportionable effects. For example, the cries of a stranger's child in want of food are similar to those of my own when hungry, the expressions of the countenances are similar, wholesome food will produce similar effects upon both, and so on. I am not here inquiring into the degree of interest which the mind will feel for an entire stranger; (that question was well answered long ago by the story of the Samaritan.) My object is to shew that as to mere theory there is no essential difference between the two cases; that a continued habit of kindness to the same person implies the same power in the mind as a general disposition to feel for others in the same situation; and that the attempt to reason us out of a sense of right and wrong, and make men believe that they can only feel for themselves or their immediate connections is not only an indecent but a very bungling piece of sophistry. The child's being personally the same has nothing to do with the question. The idea of personal identity is a perfectly generical and abstract one, altogether distinct from association.
Any other artificial and general connection between our ideas (as that of the same species) might as well pass for association. The commentators on Hartley have either not studied or not understood him; if they had, his system could not have been supposed to favour the doctrine of selfishness. My quarrel with it is not that it proves any thing against the notion of disinterestedness, but that it proves nothing either way. He supposes that the human mind is neither naturally selfish, nor naturally benevolent; that we are equally indifferent to our own future happiness or that of others, and equally capable of becoming interested in either according to circumstances. [See his account of the origin of self-love, page 370.] The difference between this account, ​and the one I have endeavoured to defend is that I suppose the idea of any particular, positive, known good, either relating to ourselves or others to be in itself an efficient motive to action; whereas according to Hartley no idea either of our own interest or that of others has the least tendency to produce any such effect except from association. He infers that there is no essential, original desire of happiness in the human mind, because this desire varies according to circumstances, or is different in different persons, and in the same person at different times according to the humour he is in, &c. This objection indeed holds true if applied to the desire of happiness as a general, indefinite, unknown object; to a necessary, mechanical, uniform disposition in man as a metaphysical agent to the pursuit of good as an abstract essence, without any regard to the manner in which it is impressed on his imagination, to the knowledge which he can possibly have of any object as good, or to his immediate disposition to be affected by it, I have however all along contended that the desire of happiness is natural to the mind only in consequence of the idea, or knowledge of it, in the same manner that it is natural to the eye to see when the object is presented to it; to which it is no objection that this organ is endued with different degrees of sharpness in different persons, or that we sometime see better than at other times. Neither can I conceive how the associated impulses, spoken of in the passage above referred to, without an inherent, independent power in the ideas of certain objects to modify the will, and in the will to influence our actions, can ever in any instance whatever account for voluntary action. I need not attempt to shew that the mechanical impulses to the pursuit of our own good or that of any other person, derived from past associations, cannot be supposed to correspond exactly and uniformly with the ​particular successive situations, in which it is necessary for us to act, often with a view to a great number of circumstances, and for very complex ends. To suppose that the mechanical tendencies impressed on the muscles by any particular series of past objects can only require to be unfolded to produce regular and consistent action is like supposing that a hand-organ may be set to play a voluntary, or that the same types will serve without any alteration to print a column of a newspaper and a page of Tristram Shandy. A child for instance who has just learned to walk, in going into a strange house would not be able to go from one room to another from the mere force of habit; that is from yielding to, or rather being blindly carried forward by the impulse of his past associations with respect to walking when at home. He would run against the doors, get entangled among the chairs, fall over the staircase: he would commit more blunders with his eyes wide open than he would at home do blindfolded. He would be worse off without his understanding than without his sight. He might feel his way without his eyes, but without his understanding neither his hands nor eyes would be of any use to him. He would be incorrigible to falls and bruises. Whoever has seen a blind horse stagger against a wall and then start back from it awkward and affrighted, may have some idea of the surprise which we should constantly feel at the effects of our own actions, but not of the obstinate stupidity with which we should persist in them.
To this it is replied, that the account here given does not include all the associations which really take place: that the associations are general as well as particular: that there is the association of the general idea of a purpose, of the words to walk, to go forwards, &c.: and that these general associated ideas, and the feelings connected with them, are ​sufficient to carry the child forward to the place he has in view according to its particular situation. Association they say does not imply that the very same mechanical motions should be again excited in the same order in which they were originally excited, for that long trains of active associations may be transferred from one object to another from the accidental coincidence of a single circumstance, from a vague abstraction, from a mere name. This principle does not, therefore, resemble a book, but an alphabet, the loose chords from which the hand of a master draws their accustomed sounds in what order he pleases: not the machinery by which an instrument is made to play whole tunes of itself in a set order.
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 plaything, if he has not been used to meet with the same interruption before? Why does he not go strait 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 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 its 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 not yet 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 evidently constructs an 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 its place in the lists of memory, not strengthened by its 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 battle-dore and shuttle-cock 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 its 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 its 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 originally 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 is if 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 on this system 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. Further, 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 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 particular 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 appear to 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 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. The momentum of 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 the direction 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 terms general association mean 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 the 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 the production 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 its 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 the only 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 wel​fare. 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 own advantage, or from the love of physical 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 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 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. It cannot therefore be implied as a condition in the love of others, that this love should not be felt by 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 who loves, but not that he always loves himself; for it is to be 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. 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 immediate gratification, 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, its 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 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 its 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,) 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 contemplation I 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 its 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, in what sense can this be called the love 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 gives me pain, 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 I will those 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 to that principle, the uneasiness, or active impulse which follows since my own good is neither thought of in it, nor follows 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 shrinks at the pain and from the 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 its exertions tend immediately to its 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 its own good, in the mind; on the contrary, there are numberless lets and impediments that interfere with this object inseparable from its very nature; the body strives to produce such alterations in its relation to other things as conduce to its own advantage, the mind seeks to alter the relations of other things to one another; the body loves its 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 un​easiness, 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 move the nervous uneasiness, occasioned by the idea of anothers 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, beside 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 the ideas of certain persons in our ​minds. If I can have no feeling for any one but myself, I can have no feeling about any 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 of myself? 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 its 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 anyone, 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 sensible in the object as well as to it. 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 or degrading sense of the word, which is the only thing in question. (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 con​nection 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.
* ↑ I do not mean that Helvetius was the first who conceived the hypothesis here spoken of, for I do not think he had wit enough to invent even an ingenious absurdity; but it was through him, I believe, that this notion has obtained its present popularity; and in France particularly it has had, I am certain, a very general influence on the national character. It was brought forward in the most forcible manner by the writers of the last century, and it is expressly stated, and clearly answered by Bishop Butler in the preface to his Sermons, at the Rolls Chapel. After Berkeley’s Essay on Vision, I do not know of any work better worth the attention of those who would learn to think than these same Metaphysical Discourses preached at the Rolls Chapel.
* ↑ No doubt the picture is always looked at with a very different feeling from what it would have been, if the idea of the person had never been distinctly associated with it.
* ↑ Those of the touch admit of the greatest variety in this respect from the general diffusion of that sense over the whole of the body, and those which depend on hearing from the small part of the ear which is in general distinctly affected by sound at the same time. As to the taste and smell, the stimulants applied to these senses are such as for the most part to act on a large proportion of the organ at once, though only at intervals. The direction of smells is hardly distinguishable like that of sounds.
* ↑ See Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever.
* ↑ See Essays by T. Cooper of Manchester. This very curious analysis was also delivered with great gravity by Sir J. Macintosh to the metaphysical students of Lincoln's-inn. I confess I like ingenuity, however misapplied, if it is but a man's own: but the dull, affected, pompous repetition of nonsense is not to be endured with patience. In retailing what is not our own, the only merit must be in the choice, or judgment. A man, however, without originality, may yet have common sense and common honesty. To be a hawker of worn-out paradoxes, and a pander to sophistry, denotes indeed a desperate ambition.
* ↑ This subject of consciousness, the most abstruse, the most important of all others, the most filled with seeming inexplicable contradictions; which bids the completest defiance to the matter-of-fact philosophy, and can only be developed by the patient soliciting of a man's own spirit, has been accordingly passed over by the herd of philosophers from Locke downwards. There is a short note about it in Hartley in which he flatly denies the possibility of any such thing. Lest therefore what I have already said should be insufficient to fix the attention of the reader on a subject which he may think quite exploded, I will add the account which Rousseau has given of the same subject, whose authority does not weigh the less with me because it is unsupported by the Logic of Condillac, or the "De l'Esprit" of Helvetius. The account of Rensseau is as follows: "Me voici déjà tout aussi sûr de l'existence de l'univers, que de la mienne. Ensuite je réfléchis sur les objets de mes sensations, et trouvant en moi la faculté de les comparer, je me sens doué d'une force active que je ne savois pas avoir auparavant. "Appercevoir, c'est sentir; comparer, c'est juger: juger et sentir ne sont pas la même chose. Par la sensation, les objets s'offrent à moi séparés, isolés, tels qu'ils sont dans la Nature; par la comparaison, je les remue, je les transporte, pour ainsi dire, je les pose l'un sur l'autre, pour prononcer sur leur différence ou sur leur similitude, et généralement sur tous leurs rapports. Selon moi, la faculté distinctive de l'être actif, ou intelligent est de pouvoir donner un sens a ce mot, est. Je cherche en vain dans l'être purement sensitif cette force intelligente, qui superpose, et puis qui prononce; je ne la saurois voir dans sa nature. Cet étre passif sentira chaque objet séparément, ou même il sentira l'objet total formé des deux, mais n'ayant aucune force pour les replier l'un sur l'autre, il ne les comparera jamais, il ne les jugera point. "Voir deux objets à la fois, n'est pas voir leurs rapports, ni juger de leurs différences; appercevoir plusieurs objets les uns hors des autres, n'est pas les nombrer. Je puis avoir au même instant l'idée d'un grand bâton et d'un petit bâton sans les comparer, sans juger que l'un est plus petit que l'autre, comme je puis voir à la fois ma main entière sans faire le compte de mes doigts. Ces idées comparatives, plus grand, plus petit, de même que les idées numériques d'un, de deux, &c. ne sont certainement pas des sensations, quoique mon esprit ne les produise, qu'à l'occasion de mes sensations. "On nous dit que l'être sensitif distingue les sensations les unes des autres par les différences qu'ont entr'elles ces mêmes sensations: ceci demande explication. Quand les sensations sont différentes, l'être sensitif les distingue par leurs différences: quand elles sont semblables, il les distingue parce qu'il sent les unes hors des autres. Autrement, comment dans une sensation simultanée distingueroit-il deux objets égaux? Il faudroit nécessairement qu'il confondît ces deux objets, et les prît pour le même, sur-tout dans un systême où l'on prétend que les sensations représentatives de l'êtendue ne sont point étendues. "Quand les deux sensations à comparer sont apperçues, leur impression est faite, chaque objet est senti, les deux sont sentis; mais leur rapport n'est pas senti pour cela. Si le jugement de ce rapport n'étoit qu'une sensation, & me venoit uniquement de l'objet, mes jugemens ne me tromperoient jamais, puisqu'il n'est jamais faux que je sente ce que je sens. "Pourquoi donc est-ce que je me trompe sur le rapport dc ces deux bâtons, sur-tout s'ils ne sont pas paralleles? Pourquoi, dis-je, par exemple, que le petit bâton est le tiers du grand, tandis qu'il n'en est que le quart? Pourquoi l'image, qui est la sensation, n'est- elle pas conforme à son modele, qui est l'objet? C'est que je suis actif quand je juge, que l'operation qui compare est fautive, et que mon entendment, qui juge les rapports, mele ses erreurs à la vérité des sensations qui ne montrent que les objets, "Ajoutez à cela une réflexion qui vous frappera, je m'assure, quand vous y aurez pensé: c'est que si nous étions purement passifs dans l'usage de nos sens, il n'y auroit entr'eux aucun communication; il nous seroit impossible de connoître que le corps que nous touchons, et l'objet que nous voyons sont le meme. Ou nous ne sentirions jamais rien hors de nous, ou il y auroit pour nous cinq substances sensibles, dont nous n'aurions nul moyen d'appercevoir l'identité. "Qu'on donne tel ou tel nom à cette force de mon esprit qui rapproche et compare mes sensations; qu'on l'appele attention, méditation, rèflexion, ou comme on voudra; toujours est-il vrai qu'elle est en moi et non dans les choses; que c'est moi seul qui la produis, quoique je ne la produise qu'à l'occasion de l'impression que font sur moi les objets. Sans etre maître de sentir ou de ne pas sentir, je le suis d'examiner plus ou moins ce que je sens. "Je ne suis donc pas simplement un être sensitif et passif, mais un être actif et intelligent, et quoi qu'en dise la philosophie, j'oserai prétendre à l'honneur de penser, &c."—Emile, end of the second, or beginning of the third volume.
* ↑ I here speak of association as distinct from imagination or the effects of novelty.
* ↑ See preface to Butler's Sermons.
* ↑ As far as the love of good or happiness operates as a general principle of action, it is in this way. I have supposed this principle to be at the bottom of all our actions, because I did not desire to enter into the question. If I should ever finish the plan which I have begun, I shall endeavour to shew that the love of happiness even in the most general sense does not account for the passions of men. The love of truth, and the love of power are I think distinct principles of action, and mix with, and modify all our pursuits. See Butler as quoted above.
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