CHAPTER II.

LAWS OF THE OPERATION OF THE SENTIMENT OF BENEVOLENCE AND OF THE OTHER PRINCIPAL EMOTIONS WHICH CONTROL OR MODIFY IT.

1. To make manifest the truth of the five foregoing propositions, to demonstrate that all moral judgments are regulated by them, and to point out how conformable they are to the constitution of man, it will be necessary to investigate the laws according to which the sentiment of benevolence acts; and to consider the other principal sensibilities to pleasure and pain, by which the impulse of the sentiment of benevolence towards the production of beneficial actions,* is sometimes corroborated, and sometimes opposed.

2. The first law which regulates the action of the sentiment of benevolence is a universal law, common to all our sensibilities to pleasures and pains. In order that the sentiment of benevolence should operate, that is, in order that we should feel pain or pleasure from the pain or pleasure of others, and should in consequence be impelled to act, it is necessary that the stimulus, or natural exciting cause of the activity of this sentiment, to wit, the pain or

* By the phrase, beneficial actions, when used in this Treatise, must always be understood actions productive of pleasure to sensitive beings other than the actor. The phrase, injurious actions, is used to signify actions which fall under the class of criminal actions, actions not only painful to others, but morally wrong.

pleasure of others, should be present to our understanding; either sensibly present, that is, perceived at the time, through the medium of the senses; or conceptively present, that is, contemplated at the time, by means of the conceptive faculty, under which name we include what are usually denominated the faculties of Memory, Imagination, and Judgment.

3. As with the greater number of men things presently perceived by the senses, occupy a very large proportion of their thoughts, so the pleasure or pain of others seldom becomes with them a motive of action, except when, and so long as it is an object of sensible perception; and, therefore, with the greater number of men, the sentiment of benevolence only embraces those with whom they come into sensible contact, that is to say, a very limited number.

The degree in which the conceptive faculty is exercised, greatly varies, not only with individuals, but with whole classes, communities, and nations. Unassisted memory can only recall some few particulars of what we ourselves have seen or felt; and Imagination unassisted can only rearrange the materials of memory in a new order. But the faculty of speech, and the arts of painting and sculpture, and more particularly of writing, enable each individual to communicate all his recollections, all his imaginations, all his emotions to a vast many others. Conceptions committed to writing assume a permanent character, and become a common stock for all by whom those writings are perused; and thus is opened, among the cultivated and educated, a new and vast field for the

exercise of the sentiment of benevolence, and, indeed, of many other sentiments.

Those pains and pleasures of others by which the conduct of the savage is influenced are only the pains and pleasures of those immediately about him, and with whom he comes personally into contact. We ought, however, to add the occasional influence of the supposed pains and pleasures of some vague, supernatural beings; for the mystical hypothesis, in greater or less development, is to be found prevailing even among the most savage tribes.

In a cultivated age and country, all participate, more or less, in the great store of accumulated knowledge; and by the aid of the conceptive faculty, the pains and pleasures of the antipodes, of generations long passed away, or yet unborn, come to exercise a greater or less influence over us.

It is to be observed, however, that, except in a few rare instances, the senses are always an overmatch for the conceptive faculty. What is sensibly perceived affects us much more powerfully than what is conceptively perceived; and the permanent reversal of this relation of the senses to the conceptive faculty, indicates a disordered intellect.

A remarkable illustration of the law, that the pains and pleasures of other sensitive beings, in order to affect us, and to influence our conduct, must be objects of distinct perception, is afforded by the fact, that while we are very sensibly affected by the pains and pleasures of the larger animals, between whom and ourselves we can discover a close analogy, and whose pains and pleasures are evinced

by signs which we cannot fail to understand; the pains and pleasures of the inferior orders of creation, of insects, worms, shell-fish, and animalculæ, affect us very slightly, or not at all. That man would be thought guilty of a ridiculous affectation, who should undertake to pity the pains of an oyster; and the mutilation and death of ten thousand flies or emmets, even by his own act, would not give the slightest uneasiness to the man, whom the slaughter, before his eyes, of a single cow or sheep would affect quite disagreeably. An oyster or an ant may, perhaps, suffer as much in being crushed to death, as an ox. But the signs of pain in the ant or oyster are much less perceptible, and hardly attract our notice.

4. It is in this law, too, that originates the great efficacy of complaint, as a means of exciting benevolence, and of obtaining aid or relief. Complaint consists in giving evident signs of the pain we suffer; and so bringing home that pain to the knowledge of those about us. Many actions esteemed innocent, so long as they are not complained of, acquire the character of being wrong, if persevered in, in spite of complaints; and there is no surer sign of hardheartedness, that is, of a deficiency in benevolence, than to listen to complaints unmoved, especially when they relate to our own conduct.

5. When we compare the force of the sentiment of benevolence and of the pains and desires which originate in it, with the force of the other sensibilities to pains and pleasures which form a part of human nature, we find a great number of pains capa

ble of rising, and which ordinarily do rise, to a pitch at which they gain a complete mastery over the pains and desires of benevolence, so as often to impel men to act in direct opposition to the dictates of benevolence.

Among these potent pains may be enumerated the pains of hunger, of thirst, of heat, of cold, as well as that endless number produced by wounds, and diseases, including that depression of mind called Melancholy, a disease, under the influence of which, existence becomes a burden, and nothing has any longer any power to give us pleasure. All these pains frequently rise to such a height as to overmaster the usual force of the pains of benevolence; so that men, under their influence, are no longer considered subject to the ordinary laws of moral obligation; and many acts, under those circumstances, assume a permissible character, which otherwise. would be considered wholly inexcusable. On the other hand, many acts performed by persons subjected to the influence of these potent pains, by a hungry or thirsty man, for instance, which, under other circumstances, would be considered as quite matters of course, assume, from the counteracting influence to which the actor is exposed, a character of exalted virtue. Such was the act of Sir Philip Sidney, who, wounded and dying, refused the cup of water brought to him, with those memorable words, - pointing to a wounded soldier gasping with thirst, "Give it to him; his need is greater than mine!" 6. In fact, every degree of simple pain, not moral pain, which a man suffers, is liable to have, and with