his, and I forgot for the moment both myself and others. But do I not compassionate most those evils which I have felt myself? Yes; because from my own knowledge of them I have a more lively sense of what others must suffer from them just in the same manner I dread those evils most with respect to myself in time to come. For those evils which I have not experienced, I feel, for that reason, less sympathy in respect to others, and less dread with reference to myself in time to come. Neither do I always feel for others in proportion as I dread the same feelings myself. The memory of my past sufferings cannot excite my disposition to relieve those of others, and the imaginary apprehension of my own future sufferings can only tend to produce voluntary action on the same principle as my imagination of those of others. I do not wish to prevent their sufferings as the germ or cause of mine, but because they are of the same nature as mine. Benevolence, therefore, is not the effect of self-love, though it is the effect of our physical sensibility, combined with our other faculties. I will in this place insert the reply of Bishop Butler (a true philosopher) to the same argument in Hobbes, in a note to one of his sermons.

"If any person can in earnest doubt whether

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

a thing in some degree as real good-will in man towards man.

"There being manifestly this appearance of men's substituting others for themselves, and being carried out and affected towards them as towards themselves; some persons, who have a system which excludes every affection of this sort, have taken a pleasant method to solve it; and tell you it is not another you are at all concerned about, but your self only, when you feel the affection called compassion; i. e. there is a plain matter of fact, which men cannot reconcile with the general account they think fit to give of things they therefore, instead of that manifest fact, substitute another, which is reconcilable to their own scheme. For does not every body by compassion mean an affection the object of which is another in distress? Instead of this, but designing to have it mistaken for this, they speak of an affection or passion, the object of which is ourselves, or danger to ourselves. Suppose a person to be in real danger, and by some means or other to have forgot it; any trifling accident, any sound might alarm him, recall the danger to his remembrance, and renew his fears: but it is almost too grossly ridiculous (though it is to show an absurdity) to speak of that sound or accident as an object

of compassion; and yet, according to Mr Hobbes, our greatest friend in distress is no more to us, no more the object of compassion or of any affection in our heart. Neither the one or the other raises any emotion in our mind, but only the thoughts of our liableness to calamity, and the fear of it and both equally do this.

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

may

I shall proceed to examine the objection to

the doctrine of benevolence, on the supposition that our sympathy when it exists is really a part of our interest. This objection was long ago stated by Hobbes, Rochefoucault, and Mandeville, and has been adopted and glossed over by Helvetius. It is pretended, then, that in wishing to relieve the distresses of others we only desire to remove the uneasiness which pity creates in our mind; that all our actions are unavoidably selfish, as they all arise from the feeling of pleasure or pain existing in the mind of the individual, and that whether we intend our own good or that of others, the immediate gratification connected with the idea of any object is the sole motive which determines us to the pursuit of it.

First, this objection does not at all affect the main question in dispute. For if it is allowed that the idea of the pleasures or pains of others excites an immediate interest in the mind, if we feel sorrow and anxiety for their imaginary distresses exactly in the same way that we do for our own, and are impelled to action by the same principle, whether the action has for its object our own good, or that of others; in a word, if we sympathise with others as we do with ourselves, the nature of man as a voluntary agent must be the same, whether we choose to call