Emotions Relating to Intentional Benefits and Injuries.

§ 436. Intentional benefits, both in respect to ourselves and others, excite pleasurable emotions, and intentional injuries painful ones. The former are the basis of gratitude, and the latter constitute anger; and lead in many cases to revenge and malice. This class of emotions is capable of great intensity; and constitutes no inconsiderable part of the happiness and misery of moral beings. Every moral action is an intentional benefit, or an intentional injury, to some one, or the whole; therefore all moral actions are the objects of this class of emotions.

Regret.

Past actions and events which are injurious to ourselves or others, excite regret. The principal varieties of regret are, sorrow for pecuniary losses; grief for the loss of friends; and remorse for sin. Shame is nearly allied to regret, and relates to real or supposed violations of decency or propriety. Repentance is a species of regret which has sin for its object, and which regards sin as evil on the whole, and leads to its abandonment.

CHAPTER III.

THE AFFECTIONS OF LOVE AND HATRED, AND OF HOPE AND FEAR.

§ 437. Our capacities of experiencing emotions being added to those of sensation, by these joint capacities we estimate objects as good or evil. Those which are adapted to produce happiness either to ourselves or others, we estimate as good; and those which are adapted to produce misery, as evil. This is our primitive idea of good and evil. On the ground of these estimates, is based another class of emotions usually denominated affections, the principal of which are love and hatred. Those things which we estimate to be good, we love; and those which we estimate to be evil, we hate. The element of love is a plea

surable emotion relating to an object estimated to be good; and that of hatred is a painful emotion, relating to an object estimated to be evil. If these estimates were always right, our affections would be right; but they are often wrong, and in those cases our affections are proportionably misled. All love is founded on qualities in objects by means of which they are in some way directly or indirectly capable of exciting pleasurable sensations or emotions. We love flowers for their beauty, fruits for their sweetness, the arts for their usefulness, animals for their beauties and usefulness, and our fellow men for their beauty and goodness. The grounds of love, in all the cases in which this affection is possible, may be generalized under the title of goodness; and the grounds of hatred, under the title of evil. Goodness and evil may be of many different kinds, but it all terminates in the last analysis in a quality by which it becomes a cause of happiness or misery. We cannot love the essential causes of misery to ourselves and others; and we cannot hate the indispensable means of happiness to ourselves and others.

Our capacities of sensations and emotions make love and hatred possible; and are its essential conditions. We have, therefore, our primary emotions conditioned on ideas, and our affections of love and hatred equally conditioned on ideas. Correct thinking, therefore, is necessary to correct primary emotions; and correct primary emotions are necessary to correct affections of love and hatred. The control which we exercise over our emotions and affections, is exercised through the medium of ideas. In love, we regard objects with pleasure; in hatred, with displeasure. Love, therefore, is pleasurable, and hatred painful.

Hope and fear relate to future objects of possible good, and are in other respects similar to love and hatred; and hopes are pleasurable, and fears painful.

Intimately connected with our ideas of objects as good, is a disposition to pursue them; and intimately connected with our ideas of them as evil, is our disposition to avoid

them.

§ 438. Men and animals are creatures of ideas; and also creatures of affections; and the whole office of ideas, is to minister directly or indirectly to the affections. The affections are conditioned on ideas, and are exercises of mind which have respect to the objects of ideas. The objects of

thought, therefore, are objects of the affections, which are conditioned on thought; and the great purpose of their being thought of, is to cause them to be felt. Some kind and degree of affection is felt for all objects of thought. In regard to some, it is slight, in regard to others, strong; in regard to some, pleasing, in regard to others, painful. We view a rose with affections of one kind, a briar with those of another kind; a good man with affections of one kind, and a bad man with affections of another kind.

The first thing to be observed in determining the nature of the affections, is their constant dependence on ideas. They are states of mind which cannot exist independently of ideas, and relate to objects entirely through the medium of ideas. Another peculiarity is, that like sensations they possess variable intensity, and in this respect differ from ideas, which are unintensive. A third peculiarity is, that they are all pleasurable or painful, and constitute the highest conceivable elements of happiness and misery. All happiness and misery consists of sensations and emotions.

The resolution of the affections into their simple elements is a problem which has greatly puzzled philosophers. The history of this problem is similar to that of the resolution of ideas. The most general division of the affections is that which resolves them into emotions, affections, and desires. This division has been made so extensively, and with so much unanimity, by men of all ages and countries, that it must be presumed to be founded in generic qualities, which are distinctly and generally apprehended.

§ 439. The affections of moral agents are either morally good or evil. All beings capable of affections are as really the subjects of obligation in respect to them, as in respect to any other actions; and all moral beings are as much the subjects of moral obligation in respect to these exercises, as in respect to any others. The obligations to love and to hate, are of the same nature as those which bind us to preserve and to destroy life; or to reward virtue and punish vice.

The names applied to denote the different affections, like many other names of mental phenomena, are sometimes used to denote transient exercises of affection, and sometimes to denote successions of similar exercises which relate to the same objects. Thus we speak of our affections for parents and children, as being the same in successive and widely separated periods of time; because they consist of

successive and frequently occurring exercises which are similar. Judgments and imaginations are described and conceived of as the same, on similar grounds. Permanent ideas consist of successive similar ideas; and permanent affections, of successive similar affections. The previous exercises of permanent affections bear the same relations to successive similar ones, that previous ideas do to successive similar ideas. Affections for the same objects are no more the same in successive periods of time, than successive ideas. The attainment of correct ideas of particular objects in one or more successive instances, facilitates, and almost secures the attainment of correct ones, in all subsequent instances in which they may be needed; so that what we learn once or twice, we do not easily forget, and are almost sure to discover as often as we have occasion for the discovery The same is true of the affections. An object which we love to-day, and for several days successively, we are likely to continue to love for ever, provided the object and our relations to it continue unchanged. A loss of affections towards objects in different successive periods of time, is always the effect of previous changes in our ideas of them. These changes in our ideas may arise from actual changes in the objects; from changes in our capacities or rules of judgment; or from changes in the relations of the objects concerned, to our capacities. All the affections serve as concurring causes of numerous desires, which accompany them as their appropriate effects. We love some objects, and desire to enjoy them; hate others, and desire not to suffer them; hope for some objects, and desire to attain them; and fear others, and desire not to suffer them.

Love and Hatred.

§ 440. Love and hatred comprehend a numerous class of affections, which are usually distinguished from each other by a specification of their objects. The lower orders of these affections relate to inanimate objects, such as minerals, plants, flowers, and possessions. Some objects we love merely as objects of the appetites; others, as objects of taste. Various kinds of food and drink are of the former description; and beautiful and sublime objects, either natu ral or artificial, of the latter. The love of conscious beings Dot endowed with powers of moral agency, is of a higher

order than that of beings which are incapable of consciousness. Of this description is the love of animals, birds, and insects. Children are peculiarly susceptible of this class of affections; and distinguished naturalists have, in many cases, exercised them in high degrees.

The highest order of the affections is that which relates to moral agents. Of this description are the affections of men and other moral beings for each other. Affections for objects of appetite, are common to men and animals. The same is true, to some extent, of those which relate to objects of taste. But affections for moral beings, as such, are peculiar to moral beings.

Objects may be loved with affections of different orders. A dog loves his master as a voluntary being, from whom he derives particular pleasurable sensations and emotions; not as a moral being. The same individual may be loved by his infant child, with affections of a similar order. By moral agents he may, in many cases, be loved with affections similar to those of animals and infants. But he is capable of being loved by moral beings with affections of a higher order; and such as relate to him as a moral being.

Love is of a higher or lower order in respect to quality, according to the nature of its objects. That which relates to the objects of the bodily appetites, is of the lowest order; and that which relates to moral beings, of the highest; and that which relates to the beautiful and other objects of taste, is intermediate. The intensity of love is distinct from its quality; that of all qualities being capable of existing in degrees which are extremely slight, and in those which are exceedingly intense. Men are capable of loving the lowest objects of affection more than they love the highest. Objects are entitled, however, to degrees of love from moral beings, proportionable to their qualities. Moral beings ought to be loved more than animals; animals more than inanimate objects; and objects of taste more than those of the appetites.

§ 441. Love is pleasurable, and hatred painful. The pleasure of loving, however, is not the ground or reason of this class of affections. We do not love objects because the love of them is leasurable, any more than we experience the emotions of beauty or sublimity because they are pleasurable. The love of sensible objects is of the same nature as that of emotion-producing objects. The latter,