which have produced great, we may say terrible, effects, in human
life; and which thence deserve a great degree of attention. The
associations, of which the AFFECTION consists, and by which the
interest of the class comes to be identified, as it were, with the
interest of the individual, have been already pointed out. From this
the generation of the MOTIVE is easily traced.
When the interests of the class are contemplated as capable, either
of receiving increase, or of being preserved from diminution, by the
acts of the class, collectively, or individually; that is, when the
increase, or the preservation from diminution, is associated, as
{277} effect, with acts of the class, collectively, or individually,
as cause, the MOTIVE exists.
When a readiness to obey this MOTIVE; that is, a facility of forming
the associations which constitute the MOTIVE exists, the
corresponding DISPOSITION exists.
There are no appropriate names for these states of consciousness. We
make, by the usual forced service of the word Love, a name for
necessary occasions. A nobleman says, he has a Love for his Order;
and that term, Love of his Order, is the name for all the three
states, the AFFECTION, the MOTIVE, and the DISPOSITION.
The Clergy have invented a name for their own case. It is Love of
the Church. This means, the love of the interests of the class; of
the Wealth, Power, and Dignity, of the Clergy. The term Love of the
Church has the usual variety of meaning. It is the name not only of
the AFFECTION, but also of the MOTIVE, and the DISPOSITION.
It is moreover a name well contrived for the purposes of the class;
because it is calculated to keep the real character of the
associations out of sight.
6. The aggregate, included under the comprehensive term _Mankind_,
is in so many ways associated with our pains and pleasures, that the
interest of each individual appears, in some degree, bound up in the
interest of the race. Any act of ours, then, by which the interest
of the race can be promoted, is associated in our minds with our own
interest; and becomes a motive. A readiness to act upon this MOTIVE,
is the DISPOSITION and the AFFECTION, the {278} MOTIVE, and the
DISPOSITION, have but one name, Love of Mankind.
This motive operates feebly, and is easily overruled by other
motives, in the great majority of men. A very general idea, such as
that of _Mankind_, is an indistinct idea; and no strong association
is formed with it, except by the means of Education. In the common
run of men, the narrow sympathies, alone, act with any considerable
force. Such men can sympathize with this individual, and the other
individual, with their own Family, or their own class. But to
sympathize with mankind at large, or even with the body of the
people in their own country, exceeds the bounds of their contracted
affections.
Large Classes, which cannot be the object of our Senses, become
steady subjects of contemplation, only through the medium of General
Terms. Applied, in comprehensive, and important Propositions,
General Terms call forth associations of the most interesting
nature; and to men, who are in the habit of so applying them, become
the source of an affection, powerful enough to control every other
propensity of their nature. It is only by a Philosophical Education,
that men are early trained to the use of General Terms, and
comprehensive Propositions; and have the means of forming those
associations, on which the most ennobling of all the states of Human
Consciousness depends.[51]
[Editor's footnote 51: This Section is devoted to an exposition of
the manner in which facts which are not pleasures or pains, but
causes of pleasures or of pains, become so closely associated in
thought {279} with the pains and pleasures of which they are causes,
as not only to become themselves pleasurable or painful, but to
become also, by their association with acts of our own by which they
may be brought about, motives of the greatest strength. The value of
a due understanding of this fact, both for the purposes of
psychological science and for those of practical education, is
evidently very great: and the author, to whose mind the bearings of
speculative philosophy on the practical interests of the human race
were ever present, has not failed to make some ethical and political
applications of the psychological truth which he has here so
excellently illustrated.--_Ed._]
{280} CHAPTER XXIII.
THE ACTS OF OUR FELLOW-CREATURES, WHICH ARE CAUSES OF OUR PAINS AND
PLEASURES, CONTEMPLATED AS CONSEQUENTS OF OUR OWN ACTS.
WE are now in a condition to explain the Phenomena, which have been
classed under the titles of Moral Sense, Moral Faculty, Sense of
Right and Wrong, Moral Affection, Love of Virtue, and so on, which
are all names of similar import.
We have already remarked, that, of all the Causes of our Pleasures
and Pains, none are to be compared in point of magnitude, with the
actions of ourselves, and our Fellow-creatures. From this class of
causes, a far greater amount of Pleasures and Pains proceed, than
from all other causes taken together. It follows, that these causes
are objects of intense affection to us; either favourable, if they
are the cause of Pleasure; or unfavourable, if they are the cause of
Pain.
The actions from which men derive advantage have all been classed
under four Titles; Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, Beneficence.
We apply the names Prudent, Brave, Just, {281} Beneficent, both to
our own acts, and to the acts of other men.
When those names are applied to our own acts, the first two, Prudent
and Brave, express acts which are useful to _ourselves_, in the
first instance; the latter two, Just, and Beneficent, express acts,
which are useful to _others_, in the first instance.
When we apply the same names, not to our own acts, but to the acts
of other men, the first two, Prudent and Brave, express acts which
are useful to them in the first instance; the latter two, Just and
Beneficent, express acts which are useful to others, in the first
instance.
It is further to be remarked, that those acts of ours, which are
primarily useful to ourselves, are secondarily useful to others; and
those which are primarily useful to others, are secondarily useful
to ourselves. Thus, it is by our own Prudence and Fortitude, that we
are best enabled to do acts of Justice and Beneficence to others.
And it is by acts of Justice and Beneficence to others, that we best
dispose them to do similar acts to us.
Again, in the case of other men, the acts which are primarily useful
to themselves, their Prudence, their Fortitude, are secondarily
useful to others, as by them they are the better enabled to be
always just and beneficent; and the acts by which they are primarily
useful to others, their Justice, their Beneficence, are secondarily
useful to themselves, as disposing others the more to be just and
beneficent toward them.
We have two sets of associations, therefore, with the acts which are
thus named; one set of associations {282} with them, when they are
considered as our own acts; another set of associations with them,
when they are considered as the acts of other men.
1. When they are considered as our own acts; in other words, when we
consider our own Prudence, Bravery, Justice, and Beneficence, we
have associations with them of the following kind. With our own acts
of Prudence and Bravery, we associate good to ourselves; that is,
either Pleasure, or the cause of Pleasure, as the immediate
consequent. Acts of PRUDENCE, for example, are divided into two
sorts; the sort productive of good, and the sort preventive of evil.
All acts which add to our Wealth, Power, and Dignity, or any one of
them, so far as they produce this effect without counterbalancing
evil, may be called acts of Prudence. Thus, incessant Labour, by all
those to whom it is necessary for subsistence, or for reputation, is
a course of Prudence. Prudence, however, in its common acceptation,
is more employed to denote the acts by which we avoid evils, than
those by which we obtain good; those by which we reject present
pleasures when followed by pains which overbalance them, and by
which we endure present pains when they prevent the following of
greater pains, or secure the following of pleasures which
overbalance them.
It thus appears, that, for the most perfect performance of acts of
prudence, the greatest measure of knowledge is required. It is the
choice made, among all the innumerable acts within our power, of
those, the consequences of which, when the pleasurable and painful
are balanced against one another, constitute the greatest amount of
good. To this is requisite a {283} knowledge of all the train of
consequences, which each act can produce; that is, a knowledge of
the qualities of almost every thing, animate and inanimate, with
which we are surrounded; and a judgment, constantly upon the alert,
to draw correct conclusions from what we know.
When we perform acts of COURAGE or FORTITUDE, the chance of Evil,
that is, danger, is incurred for the sake of a preponderant good. If
the good were not something more than a balance for the chance of
Evil, the consequences of the act would not be a balance of good,
but of evil. It would, therefore, be an immoral, not a moral, act;
and would have no title to the name of Courage.[52]
[Bain's footnote 52: The virtue of Prudence might apparently have
included Courage or Fortitude; we cannot be said to be prudent, if
we are unable to face a certain amount of evil or danger, for the
sake of a greater good. Doubtless, however, the author felt that
Prudence does not suggest the full scope of so eminent a quality as
Courage. The reasons of this are interesting to explore.
Of various considerations that might be adduced, by far the most
pertinent is the following. Courage, as a virtue esteemed and
extolled in all ages, involves a certain amount of self-sacrifice.
If it were limited to the control of the state of fear, so as to
enable one never to fail in the pursuit of one's own interest, by
giving way to unreasonable alarms, it would be respected as a
manifestation of strength, but it would not receive the warm
admiration that we usually bestow upon courageous men. The nobility
of courage is its devotedness. The courageous soldier is not he that
maintains a post of apparent danger unmoved, knowing there is no
real danger; which would be the prudent man's courage. Something
very different is exacted in return for the epithet "a brave
man."--_B._]
Knowledge is, therefore, as necessary to the exercise of this virtue
as to that of Prudence. Courage, in fact, is but a species of the
acts of Prudence: a class selected for distinction by a particular
name; that class, in which evils, of great magnitude, or rather of a
particular description, are to be hazarded, for the sake of a
preponderant good. But how is the {284} amount of the good, or of
the evil, to be ascertained, but by that power of tracing the
consequences of acts, for which the greatest knowledge, and the most
accurate judgment, are required?
When, with the ideas of our acts of Prudence, and acts of Courage,
past, and future, have been associated, sufficiently often, the
classes of benefits which are the consequences of them, the Ideas of
those acts are no longer SIMPLE IDEAS, INDIFFERENT IDEAS; they are
PLEASURABLE IDEAS; that is, AFFECTIONS.
The MOTIVE, in this case, presents a peculiarity, which requires
attention. In the case of the Love of Wealth, Power, or Dignity, the
Love of Individuals, the Love of Family, and all other causes of our
Pleasures, we have uniformly found the _Affection_ to be one thing,
the _Motive_ another. The _Affection_ consisted of the association
of the idea of the object as Cause, with that of our Pleasures as
Effect. The _Motive_ consisted of the association of the idea of the
object, as cause, with that of our pleasures, as effect, and the
idea of an act of ours, as cause of that cause. When it is an act of
our own, however, which is the cause of our Pleasure, there is no
act of ours to be associated as cause of that cause. The {285} ideas
of the act, and its consequences, are the Motive. The MOTIVE,
therefore, and the AFFECTION, are in this case the same.
The next two classes of acts are those to which the names, Justice,
and Beneficence, have been applied. Taken together, they are the
names of all those acts of a man, by which he does good to others.
Out of these, the name Justice selects a particular class, and all
the rest are Beneficence.
Men, in society, have found it essential, for mutual benefit, that
the powers of Individuals, over the general causes of good, should
be fixed by certain rules; that is, Laws. Acts done in conformity
with those rules are called Just Acts; and, when duly considered,
they are seen to include the main portion of acts of beneficence in
general; of those acts of ours, the immediate object of which is the
good of others. To the performance of a certain portion of the acts
of Justice, our Fellow-creatures compel us, by annexing penalties to
the non-performance of them. A large portion, however, remain to be
performed without compulsion.
Our Beneficent acts are either causes of pleasure to others
immediately, or causes of the causes of their pleasures. The act of
him who gives a cup of water to the thirsty traveller in the Desert,
may be said to be cause of the pleasure of the Traveller. The act of
him who instructs the Traveller, before he proceeds on his journey,
where in the Desert water is to be found, is the cause of the cause
of his Pleasure. To speak generally, all acts of ours, by which
increase is imparted to the Wealth, Power, and Dignity of another
person, and to the favourable disposition of {286} other persons
towards him; or by which diminution of those advantages is
prevented, are acts of Beneficence towards him.
It is easy to trace in what manner the ideas of those acts become
_Affections_. In the first place, we have associations of pleasure
with all the pleasurable feelings of a Fellow-creature. We have
associations of pleasure, therefore, with those acts of ours which
yield him pleasure. In the second place, those are the acts which
procure to us one of the most highly valued of all the sources of
our pleasures, the favourable Disposition of our Fellow-men. With
our acts of Justice and Beneficence, therefore, we have associations
of all the pleasures which the favourable disposition of other men
towards us is calculated to produce. By those associations, the Idea
of our own beneficent acts is no longer an INDIFFERENT IDEA; it
becomes a PLEASURABLE IDEA, that is, an AFFECTION.[53]
[Bain's footnote 53: The affirmations in this paragraph require to
be tested in the detail, in order to find out their limitations.
That "we have associations of pleasure with all the pleasurable
feelings of a Fellow-creature" is true in a great many instances. By
the law of association, the signs of happiness tend to suggest the
happy feelings themselves, and even to induce these to some extent
upon the beholder. The sight of happy beings is a positive
contribution to our own happiness; the obverse fact being equally
well marked. We are delighted with the playful gambols of animals,
and of children, and with the pleased expression of our
fellow-creatures generally. On this ground, we have an interest in
conferring happiness upon all our associates, and upon every one
whose signs of pleasure and of displeasure come under our notice.
Hence, in the absence of other motives, we are disposed to be the
authors of pleasure, rather than of pain, wherever we go. Our first
impulse towards a stranger would always be, from this consideration,
to confer some benefit or perform some agreeable act. From this
origin, there flows a considerable fraction of the generosity and
the courtesy of human beings.
But the tendency is thwarted, and often extinguished, by other
powerful impulses of the mind. There are two principal
counteractives,--Rivalry in interests generally, and the Love of
Power.
If the expression of pleasure manifested by any sentient being, is
procured at our expense, we fail to realise the happy feelings; we
are, on the contrary, pained and embittered by the display. Now this
is a fact of very frequent occurrence in all conditions of human
beings; and, to the extent of its occurrence, it mars the strength
and purity of the association.
The Love of Power works in the same direction. It not only
reconciles the mind to displays of pain, but it may render these a
delight and luxury. Being an emotion little checked in ordinary
human beings, it provides a considerable share of gratification,
through the infliction of pain. This, therefore, is a second
interference with the law that would connect the signs of happiness
with a thrill of pleasure in the beholder. One can easily suppose,
and one frequently finds, the emotion of power in such a pitch of
development as to make the pleasure of seeing happy beings the
exception, and not the rule.
So much for the first of the two motives in the text. The
second,--the procuring of reciprocal benefits by benefits
conferred,--is everything that a motive can be. We are all our lives
engaged in working out good for ourselves, and if, by doing good to
others, we obtain a corresponding measure of our own advantage, we
employ that instrumentality. But then the prospect must be clear;
the instrument must be a promising one. Now there are some
situations wherein we have a reasonable security of a return. When
there is a legal guarantee, as in bargains, and in covenanted
services, we are (as a rule) ready to fulfil our own share. Also, in
very little things, such as the courtesies of civilised society, we
contribute our part willingly; we are nearly sure of a full return
for the trifling nature of the service. But there are multitudes of
cases where (as we suppose) there would be no adequate return, or no
return at all; all of which interfere with the growth of the
association between benefits conferred and pleasure to ourselves.
It is not necessary, in order to the pleasure of benevolence, that
the return should be either in kind, or in flattery. If we can only
obtain love for our benefits, we think them well bestowed. A great
many benefits are conferred with no other view; and the appreciation
of the extent of this motive is necessary to do justice to the
author's theory of the derivation of Benevolence from Prudence.
It does not admit of question, that if all the services that each
person is disposed to bestow, were fairly requited in kind, in
praise, or in love, the motive to seek the good of others would have
an overpowering strength of association, such as the author assigns
to it. The finishing stroke, in all cases of strong and unremitted
association,--the transfer to the means of the feeling originally
due to the end, and even the sinking of the end out of view,--would
be a sure result of the operation. But so partial, as human beings
are now constituted, is the operation of the principle; so seldom
are people satisfied, that they have the full equivalent of benefits
imparted;--that, unless in select instances, there is as much of
mistrust as of confidence and hope, in the reciprocation of services
of any great magnitude. Of course, people will differ greatly in
their estimate of this fact; but on no reasonable and candid
calculation, is the association strong enough to account for the
intensity and diffusion of disinterested impulses as actually found
among mankind.--_B._]
{287} Pleasurable ideas, as effects, associated with acts of our own
as the cause, constitute the MOTIVE, as well as the AFFECTION. The
reason of this, we have just stated, and need not repeat.
We have now seen by what associations both AFFECTION, and MOTIVE are
created, in the case of our own acts of Prudence, Fortitude,
Justice, and Beneficence. The DISPOSITION, as in all other cases,
consists in a facility, from habit, of performing the associations;
in other words, a readiness of obeying the Motive.
In each of the cases, the Affection, the Motive, and the
Disposition, have the same name. Thus, Prudence is the name of the
Affection, and Motive, and also of the Disposition, to acts of
Prudence; so is Fortitude, Justice, and Beneficence, each in regard
to its own class of acts.
Beside the four specific names, Prudence, Fortitude, {288} Justice,
and Beneficence, we have a Generical Name, which includes them all.
VIRTUE is the name of Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and Beneficence,
all taken together. It is also, like the name of each of the species
included under it, at once the name of the Affection, the Motive,
and the Disposition. The man who has the Disposition toward all the
four, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, Beneficence, in full strength;
that is, who has acquired, from habit, the facility of {289}
associating with those acts the pleasures which result from them, in
other words, a habit of obeying the motives, is perfectly virtuous.
It requires the most perfect education to create those associations
adequately, in other words, to give the motives such power within
us, that, when counteracted by other motives, they may always
prevail. Under the present imperfect state of education, it is
rather by their constant action, than their force, that they produce
the very considerable effects, of which we see that they are the
causes. In few men, are they a {290} match for any of the more
potent motives; and, in most men, they give way, habitually,
whenever they are opposed by any other motive even of moderate
strength. There are so many occasions, however, in every part of our
lives, for acts of virtue, when other motives do not intervene, that
we may still ascribe to the motives of virtue, feeble as they
generally are, a large portion of the happiness which we observe in
the world.
2. Having considered the associations which each of us has with the
ideas of his own acts of Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and
Beneficence, it remains that we consider the associations which each
of us has with other men's acts of Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and
Beneficence.
We have already observed, that the Prudence of other men is
primarily useful to themselves, secondarily useful to others. A man
who is to a certain degree imprudent, deprives himself of the power
of being useful either to himself or to others. As we have agreeable
associations with acts which produce pleasure to others, so we have
agreeable associations with the cause of such acts, the power of
producing them; and, of course, disagreeable associations with the
acts which deprive a man of the means of doing good to others, and
warding off evil from himself. It is not necessary to enter into a
more minute analysis to show in what manner our Idea of another
man's Prudence becomes a Pleasurable Idea, in other words, an
AFFECTION.
We next proceed to the case of Fortitude, Courage. We have seen that
Fortitude is the name of that class of acts, in which a good is
aimed at by the risk of a {291} great evil. There is a grand class
of cases in which the good aimed at is not the peculiar good of the
Individual or Individuals by whom the act, or series of acts, is
performed, but a good common to others, to a whole People; as, for
example, when another hostile People is encountered and overcome. Of
course, in such a case, we have a strong association of our own
pleasures, or exemption from pains, with other men's courage,
whether we are sharing with them in the danger, or exempted from it
by their acts. This association is such as to constitute, and we
know by experience does constitute, a very strong AFFECTION. Even
when the good sought by the act of courage is only the good of the
individual, we have a sufficient association with it of pleasurable
ideas to constitute it an AFFECTION. We have, first of all, an
agreeable association with the balance of good which the act is
calculated to produce to the actor. And next we have a very powerful
association of pleasure with the state of mind in which the Idea of
a great evil is controlled by the Idea of a greater good. When the
motive exists to do us good in a man who has such a mind, he will
not be deterred by the prospect of an inadequate evil. When we
encounter danger in company with such a man, we shall not be exposed
to greater danger by his deserting us.
As other men's acts of Justice and Beneficence are directly
beneficial to them who are the objects of them, it is impossible
that every man should not have pleasurable associations, first with
the acts of Justice and Beneficence of the men, whose sphere of
action extends to himself, and then with the acts of Justice and
Beneficence of all men. And as the benefits which {292} spring from
such actions are very great, the AFFECTION, generated by association
of the Ideas of those Benefits, is proportionally strong.
Of all the MOTIVES, competent to our nature, those belonging to this
class are by far the most important. As there is nothing in which
I am so deeply interested, as that the acts of men, which regard
myself immediately, should be acts of Justice and Beneficence, and
those which regard themselves immediately, should be acts of
Prudence and Fortitude, it follows, that I have an interest,
proportionally deep, in all those acts of my own, which operate as
causes of those acts in other people.
Of acts of other men, which are useful to us, a great number can be
bought by wealth, or commanded by power, or elicited by dignity. The
mode of the operation of those causes has already been explained,
and the motives into the composition of which they enter, form a
different class. The acts of beneficence, of justice, of fortitude,
and of prudence, performed by other men in our behalf, are, to a
vast extent, such as can neither be bought, nor commanded. What
means have we of increasing to the utmost, the number of those acts;
diminishing to the utmost, the number of those of an opposite
tendency?
Those means are of two sorts: 1st, Similar actions on our part;
2dly, The manifestation on our part, of the disposition to perform
similar actions.
1. It is interesting here to observe, by what a potent call we are
summoned to Virtue. Of all that we enjoy, more is derived from those
acts of other men, on which we bestow the name VIRTUE, than from any
other cause. Our own virtue is the principal {293} cause why other
men reciprocate the acts of virtue towards us. With the idea of our
own acts of virtue, there are naturally associated the ideas of all
the immense advantages we derive from the virtuous acts of our
Fellow-creatures. When this association is formed in due strength,
which it is the main business of a good education to effect, the
motive of virtue becomes paramount in the human breast.
2. We strongly act upon other men, when we manifest on our parts, a
disposition to perform acts in their favour, in consequence of the
acts performed by them in favour of others. This disposition we
manifest, when we praise those acts; or, as we otherwise phrase it,
when we declare our approbation, or admiration, of them.
It is to be observed, that all our names for those acts;--Prudence,
Fortitude, Justice, Beneficence, Virtue; are names of Praise. They
are names, not merely of the acts, but of the acts associated with
the ideas of the benefits resulting from them; and further
associated with the idea of those acts of ours, which are the causes
of such acts; acts of similar utility on our part to the Authors of
the acts which are useful to us.
Praise, also, is extensive in its operation. The acts of any
individual can afford a retribution for the virtuous acts of a very
small number of men. His _Praise_ can extend to all men; and its
effects are most important. Not only does it indicate the affection
of him who is the author of it, toward him who is the object; but it
points out him who is the object of it, to all other men, as the
proper object of a similar affection in them. This indication has
some tendency {294} to propagate the favourable affection or
disposition towards the object of the applause; but it has a much
greater tendency to propagate the praise; and when praise is sounded
from many lips, that is, when a disposition is expressed by many
persons favourable to the man who has been the author of the
applauded acts, a number of acts in his favour are the natural
consequence.
That we have pleasurable associations of great potency, with this
manifestation of the favourable disposition of others towards us, is
matter of common and constant experience. It is called, in its more
remarkable states, the LOVE OF FAME, and is known to operate as one
of the most powerful motives in our nature. One of its cases is a
remarkable exemplification of that high degree of association, which
has been already explained, and to which we have frequently had
occasion to advert, in explaining other phenomena; the degree which
constitutes belief, and which gives to that belief, even when
momentary, and instantly overruled by other associations, a powerful
effect on our actions.
Not only that Praise of us, which is diffused in our lives, and from
which agreeable consequences may arise to us, is delightful, by the
associated ideas of the pleasures resulting from it; but that
Praise, which we are never to hear, which will be diffused only when
we are dead, and from which no actual effects can ever accrue to us,
is often an object of intense affection, and acts as one of the most
powerful motives in our nature.
The habit which we form, in the case of immediate praise, of
associating the idea of the praise with the {295} idea of
pleasurable consequences to ourselves, is so strong, that the idea
of pleasurable consequences to ourselves becomes altogether
inseparable from the idea of our Praise. It is one of those cases in
which the one Idea never can exist without the other. The belief,
thus engendered, is of course encountered immediately by other
belief, that we shall be incapable of profiting by any consequences,
which posthumous fame can produce: as the fear, that is, the belief
of ghosts, in a man passing through a churchyard at midnight, may be
immediately encountered by his settled, habitual belief that ghosts
have no existence; and yet his terror, not only remains for a time,
but is constantly renewed, as often as he is placed in circumstances
with which he has been accustomed to associate the existence of
ghosts.[54]
[Editor's footnote 54: The case here put, that of the desire of
posthumous fame, affords no real support to the author's doctrines,
that a high degree of association constitutes belief, and that
belief is always present when we are determined to action. The case
is merely one of many others, in which something not originally
pleasurable (the praise and admiration of our fellow-creatures) has
become so closely associated with pleasure as to be at last
pleasurable in itself. When it has become a pleasure in itself, it
is desired for itself, and not for its consequences; and the most
confirmed knowledge that it can produce no ulterior pleasurable
consequences to ourselves will not interfere with the pleasure given
by the mere consciousness of possessing it, nor hinder that pleasure
from becoming, by its association with the acts which produce it, a
powerful motive. It is a frequent mode of talking, to speak of the
desire of posthumous fame in a kind of pitying way, as grounded on a
delusion; as a desire which implies a certain infirmity of the
understanding. Those who thus speak must be prepared to apply the
same disparaging phrases to the interest taken in the welfare of
others after our own death; for in that case also, no beneficial
consequences to ourselves personally can ever follow from the
realization of the object of our desire. But there is nothing at
variance with reason in the associations which make us value for
themselves, things which we at first cared for only as means to
other ends; associations to which we are indebted for nearly the
whole both of our virtues, and of our enjoyments. That he who acts
with a view to posthumous fame has a belief, however momentary, that
this fame will produce to him some extraneous good, or that he shall
be conscious of it after he is dead, I shall not admit without
better evidence than I have ever seen or heard of.--_Ed._]
{296} The operation of Dispraise is similar, to prevent the
performance of acts contrary to Justice, Beneficence, Fortitude, and
Prudence. Dispraise is the manifestation of a Disposition,
unfavourable to the object of it, a disposition to abstain from acts
useful to him, not to abstain from acts hurtful to him. It is not
necessary to point out the associations formed in this case. It is a
matter of common and constant experience, that we have associations
of painful consequences, with the idea of the unfavourable
disposition of our fellow-creatures, associations which constitute
some of the most painful feelings of our nature. This it is, which
is commonly expressed by the terms loss of reputation, loss of
character, disgrace, infamy. In some instances, the Association
rises to that remarkable case, which we have had frequent occasions
of observing; when the means become a more important object than the
end, the cause, than the effect. It not unfrequently happens, that
the idea of the unfavourable sentiments of mankind, becomes more
intolerable than all the consequences which could result from {297}
them; and men make their escape from life, in order to escape from
the tormenting idea of certain consequences, which, at most, would
only diminish the advantages of living.[55] Nor is the Idea of
posthumous Disgrace, less operative than that of posthumous Fame,
and from the same species of association. In men, in whom the
associations which constitute the pain of disgrace are strong;
though not sufficiently strong to restrain them from deeds which
incur the execration of mankind, the thought of what they have done
is agonizing. Along with it, constantly rises up, before them, the
idea of the condemnatory countenance, the condemnatory sentiment,
the retributive acts, of every human being the idea of whom is
presented to them. They are never at rest. The Idea of the horrid
Deed or Deeds becomes associated with almost every point of their
consciousness. At every moment, it rises up in their minds, and
along with it the {298} overwhelming train of ideas, with which it
is connected. In its more awful cases, this state of mind is called
Remorse; and is generally regarded as the most perfect state of
suffering to which a human Being is exposed.
[Editor's footnote 55: They do not seek death to escape from the
idea of any consequences of the unfavourable sentiments of mankind.
The mere fact of having incurred those unfavourable sentiments has
become, by the adhesive force of association, so painful in itself,
that death is sometimes preferred to it. There is often no thought
of the consequences that may arise from the unfavourable sentiments;
and when consequences are thought of, they are usually rather those
which are mere demonstrations of feeling, and owe their painfulness
to the sentiment of which they are demonstrations, than those which
directly grate upon our senses or are injurious to our interests. It
is true that a vague conception of the many unpleasant consequences
liable to arise from the evil opinion of others, was the crude
matter out of which the horror of the thing itself was primitively
formed: but, once formed, it loses its connexion with its original
source.--_Ed._]
The same considerations account for that remarkable phenomenon of
our nature, eloquently described, but not explained, by Adam Smith,
that, in minds happily trained, the love of Praiseworthiness, the
dread of Blameworthiness, is a stronger feeling, than the love of
actual Praise, the Dread of actual Blame. It is one of those cases,
in which, by the power of the association, the secondary feeling
becomes more powerful than the primary. In all men, the idea of
praise, as consequent, is associated with the idea of certain acts
of theirs, as antecedent; the idea of blame, as consequent, with the
idea of certain acts of theirs, as antecedent. This association
constitutes what we call the feeling, or notion, or sentiment, or
idea (for it goes by all those names), of Praiseworthiness, and
Blameworthiness.[56] The anticipation, in the one case, is
delightful; in the other painful. The association {299} exists in
different men, in all possible degrees of strength. In some men it
exists in so great a degree of strength, that not only, the pleasure
of immediate praise, the pain of immediate blame, but every other
feeling of their nature, is subdued by it.
[Editor's footnote 56: This paragraph, unexplained, might give the
idea that the author regarded praiseworthiness and blameworthiness
as having the meaning not of deserving praise or blame, but merely
of being likely to obtain it. But what he meant is, that the idea of
deserving praise is but a more complex form of the association
between our own or another person's acts or character, and the idea
of praise. To deserve praise, is, in the great majority of the cases
which occur in life, the principal mode of obtaining it; though the
praise is seldom accurately proportioned to the desert. And the same
may be said of blame. A powerful association is thus, if
circumstances are favourable, generated between deserving praise and
obtaining it; and hence between deserving praise, and all the
pleasurable influences on our lives, of other people's good opinion.
And this association may become sufficiently strong to overcome the
direct motive of obtaining praise, where it is to be obtained by
other means than desert; the rather, as the desire of undeserved
praise is greatly counteracted by the thought that people would not
bestow the praise if they knew all. That what has now been stated
was really the author's meaning, is proved by his going on to say,
that praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, as motives to action,
have reference "not to what is, or to what shall be, but to what
ought to be, the sentiments of mankind."--_Ed._]
The case is perfectly analogous to that of the love of posthumous
praise, the dread of posthumous blame, and is a still more important
principle of action, as it has reference, not to what is, or to what
shall be, but to what ought to be, the sentiments of mankind.
Such, then, are the AFFECTIONS which we bear toward the just, the
beneficent, the courageous, the prudent acts of other men, and the
contrary; that is, such are the associations we have with them of
pleasurable or painful consequences. Such also are the MOTIVES; that
is, the feelings generated by the association of certain acts of
ours, as cause, with the virtuous acts of other men, as their
effects.
Of those MOTIVES, that which involves the acts of praising and
blaming, is in constant and strong {300} operation. It is from the
great use made of those acts in the Education of children, and even
in the rude management of them in the nursery, that praise and blame
acquire the influence in most cases, the ascendancy in some, which
they are seen to exercise over us. It is this sensibility to praise
and blame, in other words, the associations we have with them, which
gives its effect to what is called POPULAR OPINION, or the POPULAR
SANCTION, and, when the acts of Justice, Beneficence, Fortitude, and
Prudence of other men are the objects of it, the MORAL SANCTION;
_Popular Opinion_, being a phrase which expresses the Praise or
Blame which the people bestow; and the _Sanction_ being the good or
evil consequences which men are accustomed to associate with that
praise or blame.
In the present state of Education, the Praise and Blame of most men
are very erroneously bestowed, with great precipitation, commonly in
excess upon small occasions, with little regard to its justice;
blame being very often inflicted where applause is due, and applause
lavished where blame ought to be bestowed. When Education is good,
no point of morality will be reckoned of more importance than the
distribution of Praise and Blame; no act will be considered more
immoral than the misapplication of them. They are the great
instruments we possess for ensuring moral acts on the part of our
Fellow-creatures; and when we squander away, or prostitute those
great causes of virtue, and thereby deprive them of a great part of
their useful tendency, we do what in us lies to lessen the quantity
of Virtue, and thence of Felicity, in the world.
The MOTIVES, which are generated by the {301} association of our own
acts of Justice and Beneficence as cause with other men's acts of
Justice and Beneficence as effects, are subject, unhappily, to
strong counteraction; because it rarely happens that we can perform
acts of Justice and Beneficence without more or less sacrifice to
ourselves. The association, at the same time, is strong, in all
men. All men have the daily experience, that their own acts of
Justice, and Beneficence, dispose other men to be Beneficent to
them; their own acts of injustice and malevolence, dispose other men
to bring evil (which in this case they call punishment) upon them;
and to abstain from doing them good. This experience is of course
followed by the usual association between cause and effect. The man
who does acts of Justice and Beneficence, anticipates the favourable
disposition of mankind, as their natural effect; and this
association is his belief, or conviction, or sense (he calls it by
all those names), of deserving the favourable sentiments of mankind.
The man, on the other hand, who performs acts which are unjust and
hurtful to others, anticipates the unfavourable and hostile
sentiments of mankind, as the natural consequents of his acts; in
other words, has the belief, or conviction, or sense (for the
association in this case also has these various names), of
deserving, not well, but ill, at the hands of other men.
There are no men, however vicious, in whom those associations do not
produce constant and numerous effects. When they have not been
happily cultivated, and when the counteracting associations, of
which we just now made mention, have been allowed to acquire a
mischievous strength; acts in opposition to them {302} are,
occasionally, but, even in the worst men, no more than occasionally,
produced.
This anticipation of the hostile, or benevolent sentiments of
mankind, as the natural effects of actions of a certain description
on our part, is the foundation of that remarkable association of
which we had very recently occasion to make mention, the association
which Dr. Smith has called the love of Praiseworthiness, and which
is sometimes found to be much more powerful than the love of actual
Praise.
The DISPOSITION which corresponds to those MOTIVES, or the facility
of forming the associations which constitute them, is the result of
habit in this as in all other cases.
The AFFECTION, in this case, has the name of _Moral approbation_ and
_Disapprobation_. The same is the only name we have for the MOTIVE.
It is also the only name we have for the DISPOSITION. The terms
Moral Sense; Sense of Right and Wrong; Love of Virtue, and Hatred of
Vice, are sometimes used as synonymous terms; but they are not
equally appropriate. Virtue, as we have seen, is a name which is
given to each of the three, the Affection, the Motive, the
Disposition; Morality is a name which is applied with similar
latitude.[57] [58]
[Bain's footnote 57: The foregoing analysis of the Moral Sentiment
proceeds upon a number of unquestionable psychological data. That we
have a strong personal interest in the virtues of Prudence,
Fortitude, Justice and Beneficence, in the manner stated, is most
certain; and that this personal interest will incline us to practise
those virtues ourselves, and to encourage them in {303} others, is
also certain. The only doubt is, as to whether the motives to
rectitude of action are exhausted in this analysis.
The sufficiency of an analysis is less easily tested in mental
phenomena, than in physical phenomena. The chief reason is that, in
the mind, we cannot make exact numerical estimates; and, therefore,
cannot show, by castings up a sum, that the assigned constituents of
a compound exactly amount to the total. The several constituents put
down may be actually present, without our being sure whether they
are the whole. Hence the Deductive verification, so valuable in
physical science, does not carry with it the same precision, in
mental science.
To evade this source of uncertainty we are thrown back upon the
Experimental Canons, or the Four Methods. We know by these, that if
an analysis is good, there must be present in each instance of the
phenomenon the causes assigned, one or more; and should one exist in
a low degree, or be entirely wanting, the others must have a
compensating intensity. If, on the other hand, the whole of the
causes have not been assigned, there will, almost inevitably, occur
instances, either without the causes stated, or with these in an
obviously insufficient amount.
The following facts and considerations render doubtful the
completeness of the author's explanation of the Moral Sentiment.
The affirmation in the text is that not merely the self-regarding
virtue--Prudence, but also the two great social virtues--Justice and
Beneficence, are developed from associations with our own personal
interest. In other words, they grow up exactly by the same course as
the virtue of Prudence; they are strong as that happens to be
strong, and weak as that happens to be weak; the most prudent man
being the most just and beneficent man. This inference can be
avoided only by drawing some distinction between the interested
associations entering into prudence, and the interested associations
entering into justice and beneficence; but no such distinction {304}
is drawn in the foregoing chapter, at least in such a way as to meet
the difficulty thus suggested.
Now, on an appeal to the facts, we find that the virtue of prudence
is not uniformly concomitant with the virtues of justice and
beneficence; that, on the contrary, except in the more highly
cultivated moral natures, they are frequently manifested in the
inverse proportion. A human being, by cherishing interested
associations, does not as a matter of course attain to either
justice or beneficence. Even the most far-sighted prudence, as
regards self, would not develop the whole virtue of justice, nor the
whole virtue of beneficence. On the other hand, beneficence is often
abundant and pronounced in cases where interested associations with
self have been very slightly cultivated.
The illustration of this generic discrepancy, between the author's
theory and the more obvious facts, might be extended. There is,
however, another mode of proceeding, perhaps more decisive; that is,
to show that the mind contains sources of the moral sentiment
besides the associations with self-interest.
It does not appear easy, at first sight, to establish the existence
of purely disinterested impulses in our mental constitution; the
admixture of self being so seldom unequivocally absent from human
conduct. Still, if these impulses do exist, there will probably be
found instances where they are manifested in convincing isolation.
Perhaps the desired isolation is most readily afforded in some of
the familiar forms of Pity. There are instances, no doubt, where
pity may have a selfish motive, as when we compassionate the
sufferings of parents, friends, and benefactors. But, in other
instances, it arises not only without any selfish bearing, but in
opposition to powerful associations of interest. The pity that we
often extend to enemies and to criminals is a case in point. Even
when the punishment of wrong-doers is bound up with our strongest
interests, the spectacle of their sufferings often moves us to remit
the punishment necessary for our own protection. Now, with beings
made up of purely {305} interested considerations, the _argumentum
ad misericordiam_, under those circumstances, would be void of
effect.
Another example is furnished by those acts of lavish generosity and
charity that perhaps ruin the giver, and do harm to the recipient.
If one's moral education were exclusively conducted through the
building up of associations with self, by what class of associating
links is this impulse generated?
It is no less difficult to account for the actions of men wholly
devoted to philanthropy, like Howard. So very small is the result to
self from the labours and sacrifices of such men, that we are unable
to account for their motives without assuming an independent source
of disinterested affections. The difficulty is greatly increased in
the case of minds little cultivated, as in the heroic devotion of
the common soldier.
Observation of children reveals a specific power in the spectacle of
misery or suffering to awaken pity and generous sympathies. The
effective impulse to sympathy has little to do with a prudential
education, or with the following out of self-interest in its
associations with the welfare of others. The patriotic orator never
trusts wholly to interested motives; he does not omit these; but he
expects much from the lively description of suffering and misery to
people generally; and if the picture comes home to the experience of
his hearers, they will be moved by it, on account of each other, as
well as on account of their separate selves.
From such facts as these, it is admissible to lay down, as a general
law, that the sight of misery in others prompts us, irrespective of
our own interest, to enter into, and to relieve, that misery. This
is the essential fact of Sympathy.
The principle thus announced is not an ultimate law of the mind. It
may be brought under a still higher law, of which some notice will
be taken afterwards (see note on the Will, chap. XXIV.), namely, the
tendency of every idea to act itself out, to become an actuality,
not with a view to bring pleasure or to ward off pain--which is the
proper description of the will--but from an independent prompting of
the mind that often makes us throw away pleasure and embrace pain.
The full {306} exposition of this principle would add greatly to the
evidence for pure disinterested impulses, by showing that the fact
described operates in a much wider sphere than the moral sentiment.
On a survey of the different theories of the mental origin of
Benevolent impulses, we may reduce them under the following heads.
1. They have been ascribed to direct and immediate self-interest,
either from the return of benefits in kind, or from the pleasure of
praise and flattery. This is substantially the position of
Mandeville.
2. It is said we are so constituted that the sight of misery is a
pain to us; and that we work to rid ourselves of that pain, as we
should work to assuage thirst, to banish toothache, or to escape
reproach. This view was held by Hobbes. It is forcibly brought in in
the following anecdote recorded of him by Aubrey (Lives II. p. 623).
"One time, I remember, goeing in the Strand, a poor and infirme old
man begged his almes; he beholding him with eies of pitty and
compassion, putt his hand in his pocket, and gave him 6d.; Sayd a
divine [Dr. Jaspar Mayne] that stood by, 'Would you have done this,
if it had not been Christ's Command?' 'Yea,' sayd he: 'Why?' quoth
the other; 'Because,' sayd he, 'I was in paine to consider the
miserable condition of the old man; and now my almes, giving him
some relief, doth also ease me.'"
There is a certain amount of truth in this statement; and taking the
fact by itself, we might find some difficulty in drawing the line
between a volition moved by our own pain, and the acting out of the
idea of pain in favour of the sufferer. The best reply, perhaps, is
to compare the amount of pain incurred and of pleasure remitted or
sacrificed by the sympathiser, with the utmost value fairly
ascribable to his own mental pain. The pain of misery witnessed is
frequent and habitual, and although it has a certain depressing
effect upon the mind, yet we should generally bear it much more
easily than the pains of self-sacrifice it often incites us to.
{307} 3. We may be endowed with a positive susceptibility to
pleasure from acts of kindness to others; so that in doing good, we
are still moved in exact proportion to our own gratification. This
expresses very nearly Bentham's view of Disinterestedness; which,
however, equally with the foregoing, comes short of the facts.
Supposing some such pleasure to exist, no one could show that in
degree it fully corresponds to the effects prompted by benevolent
impulse.
4. _Habits_ of acting in favour of others may be formed to such an
extent, that our virtuous actions, begun under our own pleasures and
pains, may at last cease to have any reference to those pleasures
and pains. Here, also, the appeal is to an undeniable fact of our
mental constitution. Actions that begin as proper voluntary
actions--on the spur of pleasure and pain--often pass into a
mechanical routine, and are persisted in even when they thwart our
pleasures. Any one placed for a number of years in a position of
danger, and habituated to troublesome precautions, is almost sure to
keep up the same routine, after the occasion has ceased; mothers are
liable to this unreasonable continuance of solicitude about their
children. The application of the fact to moral education is of great
moment. If the young are initiated betimes into a regard to the
feelings and interests of others, they will grow up with a sort of
mechanical unquestioning tendency towards the same line of conduct.
These are the four different modes of stating the origin of
disinterested conduct, apart from the assumption of a source of
purely disinterested impulses in the constitution of the mind. Such
a source has been indicated above, in what may be called the power
of the "fixed idea," having its seat in the region of the intellect,
and operating to thwart the proper voluntary impulses, which are
instigated by our pleasures and pains.--_B._]
I.
[Editor's footnote 58: It had been pointed out, in a preceding
chapter, that Wealth, Power, Dignity, and many other things which
are not {308} in their own nature pleasures, but only causes of
pleasures and of exemption from pains, become so closely associated
with the pleasures of which they are causes, and their absence or
loss becomes so closely associated with the pains to which it
exposes us, that the things become objects of love and desire, and
their absence an object of hatred and aversion, for their own sake,
without reference to their consequences. By virtue of the same law
of association, it is pointed out in the present chapter that human
actions, both our own and those of other people, standing so high as
they do among the causes both of pleasure and of pain to us
(sometimes by their direct operation, and sometimes through the
sentiments they give birth to in other persons towards ourselves)
tend naturally to become inclosed in a web of associated ideas of
pleasures or of pains at a very early period of life, in such sort
that the ideas of acts beneficial to ourselves and to others become
pleasurable in themselves, and the ideas of acts hurtful to
ourselves and to others become painful in themselves: and both kinds
of acts become objects of a feeling, the former of love, the latter
of aversion, which having, in our minds, become independent of any
pleasures or pains actually expected to result to ourselves from the
acts, may be truly said to be disinterested. It is no less obvious
that acts which are not really beneficial, or not really hurtful,
but which, through some false opinion prevailing among mankind, or
some extraneous agency operating on their sentiments, incur their
praise or blame, may and often do come to be objects of a quite
similar disinterested love or hatred, exactly as if they deserved
it. This disinterested love and hatred of actions, generated by the
association of praise or blame with them, constitute, in the
author's opinion, the feelings of moral approbation and
disapprobation, which the majority of psychologists have thought it
necessary to refer to an original and ultimate principle of our
nature. Mr. Bain, in the preceding note, makes in this theory a
correction, to which the author himself would probably not have
objected, namely, that the mere idea of a pain or pleasure, by
whomsoever felt, is intrinsically painful or pleasurable, and when
raised in {309} the mind with intensity is capable of becoming a
stimulus to action, independent, not merely of expected consequences
to ourselves, but of any reference whatever to Self; so that care
for others is, in an admissible sense, as much an ultimate fact of
our nature, as care for ourselves; though one which greatly needs
strengthening by the concurrent force of the manifold associations
insisted on in the author's text. Though this of Mr. Bain is rather
an account of disinterested Sympathy, than of the moral feeling, it
is undoubtedly true that the _foundation_ of the moral feeling is
the adoption of the pleasures and pains of others as our own:
whether this takes place by the natural force of sympathy, or by the
association which has grown up in our mind between our own good or
evil and theirs. The moral feeling rests upon this identification of
the feelings of others with our own, but is not the same thing with
it. To constitute the moral feeling, not only must the good of
others have become in itself a pleasure to us, and their suffering a
pain, but this pleasure or pain must be associated with our own acts
as producing it, and must in this manner have become a motive,
prompting us to the one sort of acts, and restraining us from the
other sort. And this is, in brief, the author's theory of the Moral
Sentiments.
The exhaustive treatment of this subject would require a length and
abundance of discussion disproportioned to the compass and purposes
of a treatise like the present, which was intended to expound what
the author believed to be the real mode of formation of our complex
states of consciousness, but not to say all that may and ought to be
said in refutation of other views of the subject. There are,
however, some important parts of the author's own theory, which are
not stated in this work, but in a subsequent one, of a highly
polemical character, the "Fragment on Mackintosh:" and it may be
both instructive and interesting to the reader to find the statement
here. I therefore subjoin the passages containing it.
"Nature makes no classes. Nature makes individuals. Classes are made
by men; and rarely with such marks as determine certainly what is to
be included in them.
{310} "Men make classifications, as they do everything else, for
some end. Now, for what end was it that men, out of their
innumerable acts, selected a class, to which they gave the name of
moral, and another class, to which they gave the name of immoral?
What was the motive of this act? What its final cause?
"Assuredly the answer to this question is the first step, though Sir
James saw it not, towards the solution of his two questions,
comprehending the whole of ethical science; first, what makes an act
to be moral? and secondly, what are the sentiments with which we
regard it?
"We may also be assured, that it was some very obvious interest
which recommended this classification; for it was performed, in a
certain rough way, in the very rudest states of society.
"Farther, we may easily see how, even in very rude states, men were
led to it, by little less than necessity. Every day of their lives
they had experience of acts, some of which were agreeable, or the
cause of what was agreeable, to them; others disagreeable, or the
cause of what was disagreeable to them, in all possible degrees.
"They had no stronger interest than to obtain the repetition of the
one sort, and to prevent the repetition of the other.
"The acts in which they were thus interested were of two sorts;
first, those to which the actor was led by a natural interest of his
own; secondly, those to which the actor was not led by any interest
of his own. About the first sort there was not occasion for any
particular concern. They were pretty sure to take place, without any
stimulus from without. The second sort, on the contrary, were not
likely to take place, unless an interest was artificially created,
sufficiently strong to induce the actor to perform them.
"And here we clearly perceive the origin of that important case of
classification . . . . the classification of acts as moral and
immoral. The acts, which it was important to other men that each
individual should perform, but in which the individual had not a
sufficient interest to secure the {311} performance of them, were
constituted one class. The acts, which it was important to other men
that each individual should abstain from, but in regard to which he
had not a personal interest sufficiently strong to secure his
abstaining from them, were constituted another class. The first
class were distinguished by the name moral acts; the second by the
name immoral.
"The interest which men had in securing the performance of the one
set of acts, the non-performance of the other, led them by a sort of
necessity to think of the means. They had to create an interest,
which the actor would not otherwise have, in the performance of the
one sort, the non-performance of the other. And in proceeding to
this end, they could not easily miss their way. They had two powers
applicable to the purpose. They had a certain quantity of good at
their disposal; and they had a certain quantity of evil. If they
could apply the good in such a manner as to afford a motive both for
the performance and non-performance which they desired, or the evil,
in such a manner as to afford a motive against the performance and
non-performance which they wished to prevent, their end was
attained.
"And this is the scheme which they adopted; and which, in every
situation, they have invariably pursued. The whole business of the
moral sentiments, moral approbation, and disapprobation, has this
for its object, the distribution of the good and evil we have at
command, for the production of acts of the useful sort, the
prevention of acts of the contrary sort. Can there be a nobler
object?
"But though men have been thus always right in their general aim,
their proceedings have been cruelly defective in the detail; witness
the consequence,--the paucity of good acts, the frequency of bad
acts, which there is in the world.
"A portion of acts having been thus classed into good and bad; and
the utility having been perceived of creating motives to incite to
the one, and restrain from the other, a sub-classification was
introduced. One portion of these acts was such, that the good and
evil available for their production {312} and prevention, could be
applied by the community in its conjunct capacity. Another portion
was such, that the good and evil available could be applied only by
individuals in their individual capacity. The first portion was
placed under the control of what is called law; the other remained
under the control of the moral sentiments; that is, the distribution
of good and evil, made by individuals in their individual capacity.
"No sooner was the class made, than the rule followed. Moral acts
are to be performed; immoral acts are to be abstained from.
"Beside this the general rule, there was needed, for more precise
direction, particular rules.
"We must remember the fundamental condition, that all rules of
action must be preceded by a corresponding classification of
actions. All moral rules, *comprehended in the great moral rule,
must relate to a class of actions comprehended within the grand
class, constituted and marked by the term moral. This is the case
with grand classes in general. They are subdivided into minor
classes, each of the minor classes being a portion of the larger.
Thus, the grand class of acts called moral has been divided into
certain convenient portions, or sub-classes, and marked by
particular names. Just, Beneficent, Brave, Prudent, Temperate; to
each of which classes belongs its appropriate rule that men should
be just, that they should be beneficent, and so on . . . . .
"In the performance of our duties two sets of cases may be
distinguished. There is one set in which a direct estimate of the
good of the particular act is inevitable; and the man acts immorally
who acts without making it. There are other cases in which it is not
necessary.
"The first are those, which have in them so much of singularity, as
to prevent their coming within the limits of any established class.
In such cases a man has but one guide; he must consider the
consequences, or act not as a moral, or rational agent at all.
{313} "The second are cases of such ordinary and frequent occurrence
as to be distinguished into classes. And everybody knows . . . that
when a class of acts are performed regularly and frequently, they
are at last performed by habit; in other words, the idea of the act
and the performance of it follow so easily and speedily that they
seem to cohere, and to be but one operation. It is only necessary to
recall some of the more familiar instances, to see the mode of this
formation. In playing on a musical instrument, every note, at first,
is found by an effort. Afterwards, the proper choice is made so
rapidly as to appear as if made by a mechanical process in which the
mind has no concern. The same is the case with moral acts. When they
have been performed with frequency and uniformity, for a sufficient
length of time, a habit is generated . . . . .
"When a man acts from habit, he does not act without reflection. He
only acts with a very rapid reflection. In no class of acts does a
man begin to act by habit. He begins without habit; and acquires the
habit by frequency of acting. The consideration, on which the act is
founded, and the act itself, form a sequence. And it is obvious from
the familiar cases of music and of speaking, that it is a sequence
at first not very easily performed. By every repetition, however, it
becomes easier. The consideration occurs with less effort; the
action follows with less effort; they take place with greater and
greater rapidity, till they seem blended. To say, that this is
acting without reflection, is only ignorance, for it is thus seen to
be a case of acting by reflection so easily and rapidly, that the
reflection and the act cannot be distinguished from one another . .
. . . .
"Since moral acts are not performed at first by habit, but each upon
the consideration which recommends it; upon what considerations, we
may be asked, do moral acts begin to be performed?
"The question has two meanings, and it is necessary to reply to
both. It may be asked, upon what consideration the men of our own
age and country, for example, at first {314} and before a habit is
formed, perform moral acts? Or, it may be asked, upon what
consideration did men originally perform moral acts?
"To the first of these questions every one can reply from his own
memory and observation. We perform moral acts at first, from
authority. Our parents tell us that we ought to do this, ought not
to do that. They are anxious that we should obey their precepts.
They have two sets of influences, with which to work upon us; praise
and blame; reward and punishment. All the acts which they say we
ought to do, are praised in the highest degree, all those which they
say we ought not to do, are blamed in the highest degree. In this
manner, the ideas of praise and blame become associated with certain
classes of acts, at a very early age, so closely, that they cannot
easily be disjoined, No sooner does the idea of the act occur than
the idea of praise springs up along with it, and clings to it. And
generally these associations exert a predominant influence during
the whole of life.
"Our parents not only praise certain kinds of acts, blame other
kinds; but they praise us when we perform those of the one sort,
blame us when we perform those of the other. In this manner other
associations are formed. The idea of ourselves performing certain
acts is associated with the idea of our being praised, performing
certain other acts with the idea of our being blamed, so closely
that the ideas become at last indissoluble. In this association
consist the very important complex ideas of praise-worthiness, and
blame-worthiness. An act which is praiseworthy, is an act with the
idea of which the idea of praise is indissolubly joined; an agent
who is praiseworthy is an agent with the idea of whom the idea of
praise is indissolubly joined. And in the converse case, that of
blame-worthiness, the formation of the idea is similar.
"Many powerful circumstances come in aid of these important
associations, at an early age. We find, that not only our parents
act in this manner, but all other parents. {315} We find that grown
people act in this manner, not only towards children, but towards
one another. The associations, therefore, are unbroken, general, and
all-comprehending.
"Our parents administer not only praise and blame, to induce us to
perform acts of one sort, abstain from acts of another sort, but
also rewards and punishments. They do so directly; and, further,
they forward all our inclinations in the one case, baulk them in the
other. So does everybody else. We find our comforts excessively
abridged by other people, when we act in one way, enlarged when we
act in another way. Hence another most important class of
associations; that of an increase of well-being from the good will
of our fellow-creatures, if we perform acts of one sort, of an
increase of misery from their ill-will, if we perform those of
another sort.
"In this manner it is that men, born in the social state, acquire
the habits of moral acting, and certain affections connected with
it, before they are capable of reflecting upon the grounds which
recommend the acts either to praise or blame. Nearly at this point
the greater part of them remain, continuing to perform moral acts
and to abstain from the contrary, chiefly from the habits they have
acquired, and the authority upon which they originally acted; though
it is not possible that any man should come to the years and
blessing of reason, without perceiving, at least in an indistinct
and general way, the advantage which mankind derive from their
acting towards one another in one way, rather than another.
"We come now to the second question, viz. what are the
considerations upon which men originally performed moral acts? The
answer to this question is substantially contained in the
explanation already given of the classification of acts as moral and
immoral.
"When men began to mark the distinction between acts, and were
prompted to praise one class, blame another, they did so, either
because the one sort benefited, the other hurt them; or for some
other reason. If for the first reason, the case is perfectly
intelligible. The men had a motive {316} which they understood, and
which was adequate to the end. If it was not on account of utility
that men classed some acts as moral, others as immoral, on what
other account was it?
"To this question, an answer, consisting of anything but words, has
never been returned.
"It has been said, that there is a beauty, and a deformity, in moral
and immoral acts, which recommended them to the distinctions they
have met with.
"It is obvious to reply to this hypothesis, that the mind of a
savage, that is, a mind in the state in which the minds of all men
were, when they began to classify their acts, was not likely to be
much affected by the ideal something called the beauty of acts. To
receive pain or pleasure from an act, to obtain, or be deprived of,
the means of enjoyment by an act; to like the acts and the actors,
whence the good proceeded, dislike those whence the evil proceeded;
all these were things which they understood.
"But we must endeavour to get a little nearer to the bottom of this
affair.
"In truth, the term beauty, as applied to acts, is just as
unintelligible to the philosopher, as to the savage. Is the beauty
of an act one thing; the morality of it another? Or are they two
names for the same thing? If they are two things, what is the
beauty, distinct from the morality? If they are the same thing, what
is the use of the name morality? It only tends to confusion.
"But this is not all. The beautiful is that which excites in us the
emotion of beauty, a state of mind with which we are acquainted by
experience. This state of mind has been successfully analysed, and
shewn to consist of a train of pleasurable ideas, awakened in us by
the beautiful object.
"But is it in this way only that we are concerned in moral acts? Do
we value them for nothing, but as we value a picture, or a piece of
music, for the pleasure of looking at them, or hearing them?
Everybody knows the contrary. Acts are objects of importance to us,
on account of their {317} consequences, and nothing else. This
constitutes a radical distinction between them and the things called
beautiful. Acts are hurtful or beneficial, moral or immoral,
virtuous or vicious. But it is only an abuse of language, to call
them beautiful or ugly.
"That it is jargon, the slightest reflection is sufficient to
evince; for what is the beauty of an act, detached from its
consequences? We shall be told, perhaps, that the beauty of an act
was never supposed to be detached from its consequences. The beauty
consists in the consequences. I am contented with the answer. But
observe to what it binds you. The consequences of acts are the good
or evil they do. According to you, therefore, the beauty of acts is
either the utility of them, or it is nothing at all;--a beautiful
ground on which to dispute with us, that acts are classed as moral,
not on account of their utility, but on account of their beauty.
"It will be easily seen, from what has been said, that they who
ascribe the classification of acts, as moral, and immoral, to a
certain taste, an agreeable or disagreeable sentiment which they
excite (among whom are included the Scottish professors Hutcheson,
and Brown, and David Hume himself, though on his part with wonderful
inconsistency)--hold the same theory with those who say, that beauty
is the source of the classification of moral acts. Things are
classed as beautiful, or deformed, on account of a certain taste, or
inward sentiment. If acts are classed in the same way, on account of
a certain taste or inward sentiment, they deserve to be classed
under the names beautiful, and deformed; otherwise not.
"I hope it is not necessary for me to go minutely into the exposure
of the other varieties of jargon, by which it has been endeavoured
to account for the classification of acts, as moral and immoral.
'Fitness' is one of them. Acts are approved on account of their
fitness. When fitness is hunted down, it is brought to bay exactly
at the place where beauty was. Fitness is either the goodness of the
consequences, or it is nothing at all.
{318} "The same is the case with 'Right Reason,' or 'Moral Reason.'
An act according to moral reason, is an act, the consequences of
which are good. Moral reason, therefore, is another name, and not a
bad name, for the principle of utility."[a]
[Editor's footnote a: Fragment on Mackintosh, pp. 247--265.]
The following passage from another part of the same work, is also
very much to the purpose.
"The terms moral and immoral were applied by men, primarily, not to
their own acts, but the acts of other men. Those acts, the effects
of which they observed to be beneficial, they desired should be
performed. To make them be performed, they, among other things they
did, affixed to them marks of their applause; they called them,
good, moral, well-deserving; and behaved accordingly.
"Such is the source of the moral approbation we bestow on the acts
of other men. The source of that which we bestow on our own is
twofold. First, every man's beneficial acts, like those of every
other man, form part of that system of beneficial acting, in which
he, in common with all other men, finds his account. Secondly, he
strongly associates with his own beneficial acts, both that
approbation of other men, which is of so much importance to him, and
that approbation which he bestows on other men's beneficial acts.
"It is also easy to shew what takes place in the mind of a man,
before he performs an act, which he morally approves or condemns.
"What is called the approbation of an act not yet performed, is only
the idea of future approbation: and it is not excited by the act
itself; it is excited by the idea of the act. The idea of
approbation or disapprobation is excited by the idea of an act,
because the approbation would be excited by the act itself. But what
excites moral approbation or disapprobation of an act, is neither
the act itself, nor the motive of the act; but the consequences of
the act, good or evil, and their being within the intention of the
agent.
{319} "Let us put a case. A man with a starving wife and family is
detected wiring a hare on my premises. What happens? I call up the
idea of sending him to prison. I call up the ideas of the
consequences of that act, the misery of the helpless creatures whom
his labour supported; their agonizing feelings, their corporal
wants, their hunger, cold, their destitution of hope, their despair:
I call up the ideas of the man himself in jail, the sinking of heart
which attends incarceration; the dreadful thought of his family
deprived of his support; his association with vicious characters;
the natural consequences,--his future profligacy, the consequent
profligacy of his ill-fated children, and hence the permanent
wretchedness and ruin of them all. I next have the idea of my own
intending all these consequences. And only then am I in a condition
to perform, as Sir James says, the 'operation of conscience.'
I perform it. But in this case, it is, to use another of his
expressions, 'defeated.' Notwithstanding the moral disapprobation,
which the idea of such intended consequences excites in me,
I perform the act.
"Here, at all events, any one may see, that conscience, and the
motive of the act, are not the same, but opposed to one another. The
motive of the act, is the pleasure of having hares; not in itself a
thing anywise bad. The only thing bad is the producing so much
misery to others, for securing that pleasure to myself.
"The state of the case, then, is manifest. The act of which I have
the idea, has two sets of consequences; one set pleasurable, another
hurtful. I feel an aversion to produce the hurtful consequences.
I feel a desire to produce the pleasurable. The one prevails over
the other. . . . .
". . . Nothing in an act is voluntary but the consequences that are
intended. The idea of good consequences intended, is the pleasurable
feeling of moral approbation; the idea of bad consequences intended
is the painful feeling of moral disapprobation. The very term
voluntary, therefore, applied to an act which produces good or evil
consequences, {320} expresses the antecedence of moral approbation
or disapprobation."[b]
[Editor's footnote b: Fragment on Mackintosh, pp. 375--378.]
I will quote one short passage more, in correction of the very
vulgar error, that to analyse our disinterested affections and
resolve them into associations with the ideas of our own elementary
pleasures and pains, is to deny their reality.
"Sir James must mean, if he means anything, that to trace up the
motive affections of human nature to pain and pleasure, is to make
personal advantage the only motive. This is to affirm, that he who
analyses any of the complicated phenomena of human nature, and
points out the circumstances of their formation, puts an end to
them.
"Sir James was totally ignorant of this part of human nature.
Gratitude remains gratitude, resentment remains resentment,
generosity generosity in the mind of him who feels them, after
analysis, the same as before. The man who can trace them to their
elements does not cease to feel them, as much as the man who never
thought about the matter. And whatever effects they produce, as
motives, in the mind of the man who never thought about the matter,
they produce equally, in the minds of those who have analysed them
the most minutely.
"They are constituent parts of human nature. How we are actuated,
when we feel them, is matter of experience, which every one knows
within himself. Their action is what it is, whether they are simple
or compound. Does a complex motive cease to be a motive whenever it
is discovered to be complex? The analysis of the active principles
leaves the nature of them untouched. To be able to assert, that a
philosopher, who finds some of the active principles of human nature
to be compound and traces them to their origin, does on that account
exclude them from human nature, and deny their efficiency as
constituent parts of that nature, discovers a total incapacity of
thinking upon these subjects. When Newton discovered that a white
ray of {321} light is not simple but compound, did he for that
reason exclude it from the denomination of light, and deny that it
produced its effects, with respect to our perception, as if it were
of the same nature with the elementary rays of which it is
composed?"[c]
[Editor's footnote c: Fragment on Mackintosh, pp. 51, 52.]
II.
The reluctance of many persons to receive as correct this analysis
of the sentiments of moral approbation and disapprobation, though a
reluctance founded more on feeling than on reasoning, is accustomed
to justify itself intellectually, by alleging the total unlikeness
of those states of mind to the elementary one, from which, according
to the theory, they are compounded. But this is no more than what is
observed in every similar case. When a complex feeling is generated
out of elements very numerous and various, and in a corresponding
degree indeterminate and vague, but so blended together by a close
association, the effect of a long series of experiences, as to have
become inseparable, the resulting feeling always seems not only very
unlike any one of the elements composing it, but very unlike the sum
of those elements. The pleasure of acquiring, or of consciously
possessing, a sum of money (supposed not to be desired for
application to some specific purpose,) is a feeling, to our
consciousness, very different from the pleasure of protection
against hunger and cold, the pleasure of ease and rest from labour,
the pleasure of receiving consideration from our fellow-creatures,
and the other miscellaneous pleasures, the association with which is
admitted to be the real and only source of the pleasure of
possessing money. In the case, then, of the moral sentiments, we
have, on the one hand, a _vera causa_ or set of causes, having a
positive tendency to generate a sentiment, of love for certain
actions, and of aversion for certain others; and on the other hand,
those sentiments of love and aversion, actually produced. This
coincidence between the sentiments and a {322} power adequate to
produce them, goes far towards proving causation. That the
sentiments are not obviously like the causes, is no reason for
postulating the existence of another cause, in the shape of an
original principle of our nature.
In a case, however, of so great interest and importance, a rigid
adherence to the canons of inductive proof must be insisted on.
Those who dispute the theory are entitled to demand that it shall
conform strictly to the general law of cause and effect, which is,
that the effect shall occur with the cause, shall not occur without
the cause, and shall bear some proportion to the cause. Unless it
can be shewn that when the effect is not produced, the cause is
either absent, or counteracted by some more powerful agency; and
unless, when there is any marked difference in the effect, a
difference can be shewn in the cause, sufficient to account for it;
the theory must give way, or at least, cannot be considered as
proved.
The principal case in which the effect is absent, notwithstanding
the apparent presence of the cause assigned for it, is anticipated
by the author, and provided for after his manner, in the first of
the passages quoted from the Fragment on Mackintosh. There are
actions (he observes) as beneficial as any others, which yet do not
excite the moral sentiment of approbation; but it is because the
spontaneous motives to those beneficial acts are in general
sufficient: as to eat when we are hungry, or to do a service for
which we are to be amply paid. There are, again, actions of a very
hurtful character, but such that the spontaneous motives for
abstaining from them may be relied on, without any artificial
addition: such, in general, are acts destructive of one's own life
or property. But even in these cases the hurtful acts may become
objects of moral reprobation, when, in any particular case, the
natural deterrents prove insufficient for preventing them.
The author seems to think that the difference here pointed out, is
explained by the fact that the moral sentiment is in the one case
needed, in the other not needed, for producing the useful or
averting the hurtful act; that, in short, we are {323} made to have
the feeling, by a foresight that our having it will operate usefully
on the conduct of our fellow-creatures. I cannot accept this
explanation. It seems to me to explain everything about the usual
feelings, except the feelings themselves. It explains praise and
blame, because these may be administered with the express design of
influencing conduct. It explains reward and punishment, and every
other distinction which we make in our behaviour between what we
desire to encourage, and what we are anxious to check. But these
things we might do from a deliberate policy, without having any
moral feeling in our minds at all. When there is a moral feeling in
our minds, our praise or blame is usually the simple expression of
that feeling, rather than an instrument purposely employed for an
end. We may give expression to the feeling without really having it,
in the belief that our praise or blame will have a salutary effect;
but no anticipation of salutary effects from our feeling will ever
avail to give us the feeling itself: except indeed, what may be said
of every other mental feeling--that we may talk ourselves into it;
that the habitual use of the modes of speech that are associated
with it, has some tendency to call up the feeling in the speaker
himself, and a great tendency to engender it in other people.
I apprehend, however, that there is another, and more adequate
reason why the feeling of moral approbation is usually absent in the
case of actions (or forbearances) for which there are sufficient
motives without it. These actions are done, and are seen to be done,
by everybody alike. The pleasant associations derived from their
usefulness merge, therefore, in our feelings towards human life and
towards our fellow-creatures generally, and do not give rise to any
special association of pleasure with given individuals. But when we
find that a certain person does beneficial acts which the general
experience of life did not warrant us in counting upon--acts which
would not have been done by everybody, or even by most people, in
his place; we associate the pleasure which the benefit gives us,
with the character and disposition of that individual, and with the
act, conceived as proceeding {324} from that specially beneficent
disposition. And obversely, if a person acts in a manner from which
we suffer, but which is such as we should expect from most other
people in a parallel case, the associations which his acts create in
our minds are associations with human life, or with mankind in
general; but if the acts, besides being of a hurtful kind, betoken a
disposition in the agent, more hurtful than we are accustomed to
look for in average men, we associate the injury with that very man,
and with that very disposition, and have the feeling of moral
disapprobation and repugnance.
There is, as already intimated, another condition which those who
hold the Association theory of the moral sentiments are bound to
fulfil. The class of feelings called moral embraces several
varieties, materially different in their character. Wherever this
difference manifests itself, the theory must be required to shew
that there is a corresponding difference in the antecedents. If
pleasurable or painful associations are the generating cause, those
associations must differ in some proportion to the difference which
exists in what they generate.
The principal case in point is the case of what is called Duty, or
Obligation. It will probably be admitted that beneficial acts, when
done because they are beneficial, excite in us favourable sentiments
towards the agent, for which the utility or beneficial tendency of
the actions is sufficient to account. But it is only some, not all,
of these beneficial acts, that we regard as duties; as acts which
the agent, or we ourselves if we are the persons concerned, are
bound to do. This feeling of duty or obligation, it is contended, is
a very different state of mind from mere liking for the action and
good will to the agent. The association theory may account for the
two last, but not for the former.
I have examined this question in the concluding chapter of a short
treatise entitled "Utilitarianism." The subject of the chapter is
"the connexion between Justice and Utility." I have there
endeavoured to shew what the association is, which exists in the
case of what we regard as a duty, but does not {325} exist in the
case of what we merely regard as useful, and which gives to the
feeling in the former case the strength, the gravity, and pungency,
which in the other case it has not.
I believe that the element in the association, which gives this
distinguishing character to the feeling, and which constitutes the
difference of the antecedents in the two cases, is the idea of
Punishment. I mean the association with punishment, not the
expectation of it.
No case can be pointed out in which we consider anything as a duty,
and any act or omission as immoral or wrong, without regarding the
person who commits the wrong and violates the duty as a fit object
of punishment. We think that the general good requires that he
should be punished, if not by the law, by the displeasure and ill
offices of his fellow-creatures: we at any rate feel indignant with
him, that is, it would give us pleasure that he should suffer for
his misconduct, even if there are preponderant reasons of another
kind against inflicting the suffering. This feeling of indignation,
or resentment, is, I conceive, a case of the animal impulse (I call
it animal because it is common to us with the other animals) to
defend our own life or possessions, or the persons whom we care for,
against actual or threatened attack. All conduct which we class as
wrong or criminal is, or we suppose it to be, an attack upon some
vital interest of ourselves or of those we care for, (a category
which may include the public, or the whole human race): conduct
which, if allowed to be repeated, would destroy or impair the
security and comfort of our lives. We are prompted to defend these
paramount interests by repelling the attack, and guarding against
its renewal; and our earliest experience gives us a feeling, which
acts with the rapidity of an instinct, that the most direct and
efficacious protection is retaliation. We are therefore prompted to
retaliate by inflicting pain on the person who has inflicted or
tried to inflict it upon ourselves. We endeavour, as far as
possible, that our social institutions shall render us this service.
We are gratified when, by that or other means, the pain is
inflicted, and dissatisfied if from any cause it is not. This {326}
strong association of the idea of punishment, and the desire for its
infliction, with the idea of the act which has hurt us, is not in
itself a moral sentiment; but it appears to me to be the element
which is present when we have the feelings of obligation and of
injury, and which mainly distinguishes them from simple distaste or
dislike for any thing in the conduct of another that is disagreeable
to us; that distinguishes, for instance, our feeling towards the
person who steals our goods, from our feeling towards him who
offends our senses by smoking tobacco. This impulse to self-defence
by the retaliatory infliction of pain, only becomes a moral
sentiment, when it is united with a conviction that the infliction
of punishment in such a case is conformable to the general good, and
when the impulse is not allowed to carry us beyond the point at
which that conviction ends. For further illustration I must refer to
the little Treatise already mentioned.--_Ed._]
{327} CHAPTER XXIV.
THE WILL.
WE have now considered the class of sensations, called Pleasurable,
and Painful. We have also considered the Ideas of those sensations,
or that revival of them which is capable of taking place, when the
outward action upon the senses is removed. The Idea of the
pleasurable sensation, and the Desire of it; the Idea of the painful
sensation, and the Aversion to it; are respectively names for one
and the same state of consciousness.
We have also considered the Ideas of the Causes of our Pleasurable
and Painful sensations. We have found that those Ideas are never
Ideas of the Causes separately; but Ideas both of the causes and of
their effects, inseparably joined by association. They are not,
therefore, indifferent Ideas; they are always either pleasurable or
painful; being complex Ideas, to a great degree composed of the
Ideas of pleasurable and painful sensations.
As the simple Idea of a pleasurable or painful sensation, is a
DESIRE or an AVERSION; so the complex Idea, composed of the Ideas of
a Cause of pleasurable or painful sensations, and its effects, is
called an {328} AFFECTION; which receives different names, according
as it is modified by different circumstances; of time, for example,
past or future; and if future, certainly or uncertainly, future.
We next observed, that our own acts were very often the cause of the
causes of our pleasures, and of the prevention of our pains. The
Idea of an action of our own, as cause, strongly associated with the
Idea of a pleasure as its effect, we found to be a state of mind
peculiarly important; because it excites to action. In what manner
this state of mind gives birth to action, is the question which we
now have to resolve.
The object of the Inquiry is, to find out, what that peculiar state
of mind or consciousness is, by which action is preceded. From all
men it receives the same name. It is called the Will, by every body;
and by every body this Will is understood to be a state of mind or
consciousness; but how formed, or wherein consisting, is variously
and vehemently disputed.
Much of the confusion of Ideas which has darkened this controversy
arose from the misconception, so long universal, respecting the Idea
of a Cause. The will was invariably, and justly, assumed as the
cause of the action; but unhappily there was always assumed as a
part of the Idea of this cause, an item, which is found to be
altogether imaginary. In the sequence of events called Cause and
Effect, men were not contented with the Cause and the Effect; they
imagined a third thing, called Force or Power, which was not the
cause, but something emanating from the cause, and the true and
immediate cause of the {329} Effect. This illusion has been
minutely examined, as we have already remarked, by a late
Philosopher; by whom it has been proved, beyond the reach of
contradiction, that the power of any cause is nothing different from
the cause. A cause, and the power of a cause, are not two things,
but two names for the same thing. With the Idea of Cause is always
united the Idea of Effect. It is one of the cases of inseparable
conjunction. The Idea of the Cause as existing, is irresistibly
followed by the Idea of the Effect as existing. Not only does the
one Idea always follow the other; but it is not in our power to
prevent their following. Now the Idea of any thing as existing, when
that idea forces itself upon us, and cannot be resisted, is that
which we call Belief. In all this, however, there is nothing but the
idea of an Antecedent and a Consequent, and a fixed order of
Association. Our object, therefore, in this Inquiry will be
completely attained if we discover which is the real state of mind
which immediately precedes an action.
The actions of a human being may be divided into two sorts: I. Those
which are called the actions of his Body; II. Those which are called
the actions of his mind. We shall endeavour to ascertain what are
the antecedents of both, and shall begin with the Body.
I. The actions of the Body are all of one sort. They consist
essentially of that action of certain fibres, which is called
contraction. The object of this part of our Inquiry, therefore, is
to ascertain what are the states of mind which immediately precede a
fibrous contraction.
{330} We can show that muscular or fibrous contractions follow, 1st,
Sensations; 2dly, Ideas: and we can also shew, that in a vast
proportion of those cases, the sequence is invariable; in other
words, that the Sensation, or Idea, is the cause of the contraction.
1. It is no part of our present business to adduce what has been
discovered by physiologists in tracing the physical antecedents of a
contracting muscle. The mental antecedent is the object of our
inquiry; and whether a physical link, or more than one physical
link, intervenes between it and the contraction, alters not the
question as to the state of the mental cause; nor the fact as to the
ultimate effect. Facts are abundant, to prove, that the nerves are
the immediate instrument of contraction; and also that the effect
produced by the mental state is first upon the nerves, and only
through the nerves upon the muscle. A paralytic limb, is a limb, the
movement of which is not consequent upon that mental state which is
usually followed by such a movement. But a paralytic limb is only a
limb, the nerves of which are deprived of their usual power by a
disorder in that part of the brain in which they originate.
Innumerable facts are capable of being adduced, to prove that
sensation is a cause of muscular action. There is, however, little
necessity to be tedious with the proof; because there will be little
difficulty in assenting to the proposition.
The distinction, which we formerly drew, between those sensations
which we have by what is called the external senses, in other words,
on the surface of our body, and those (numerous, not individually
only, but also in their species or kinds), which we have in {331}
the internal parts of our bodies, it is here peculiarly necessary to
remember, and strongly to remark. The muscles themselves are
internal parts of the body. The feelings in the muscles are one
species of those internal sensations. And, in general, as it is easy
to conceive, the internal sensations are a leading cause of such
actions as take place in the internal organs of the Body.[59]
[Editor's footnote 59: The actions which take place in the interior
of the body are not always, nor perhaps even generally, produced by
sensations. A large portion of them are not preceded by any
sensation of which we are aware, and have been ascertained to depend
on nerves not terminating in the brain, which is the seat of
sensation, but stopping at the spinal cord. These actions are
inferred to be the results of a mere *physical stimulus, operating
either upon the local nerves, or upon the spinal ganglions with
which those nerves communicate, and not attended with any
consciousness.
Many of the instances which the author goes on to enumerate, of
muscular action excited by sensation, are, in all probability, cases
of this description. The muscular action is directly excited by the
physical irritation of the nerves, and any sensation which
accompanies it is not its cause, but a simultaneous effect.--_Ed._]
Some of the external cases are remarkably familiar and precise.
A pungent odour enters the nostrils; first, a certain sensation
follows, and immediately after, the violent action of a great number
of muscles, called Sneezing. In drinking, a drop of water sometimes
enters the larynx; it produces a certain sensation, immediately
followed by the action of certain muscles, from which we have the
very painful feeling of suffocation. There is a very remarkable
exemplification of the same law, in the case of the sensation {332}
of light. The Pupil of the Eye contracts or dilates, according as a
greater or less degree of light falls upon the retina. The eyelids
are in perpetual motion in consequence of sensations to which we do
not attend. The painful sensation pervading the body, when we plunge
into cold water, produces so much action in the muscles, that we sob
and respire in a convulsive manner. The lachrymal glands are moved
to action, by certain effluvia, as those of onions, by smoke, and
various gases, and even by certain states of the air, so as to shed
tears abundantly. The action of food is similar upon the salivary
glands; and of heat and cold upon the skin, the one opening, the
other contracting its pores.
In respect to a great number of the contractions of muscles, which
take place in consequence of impressions on the surface of our
bodies, the evidence is not so precise; because, though contractions
are originally performed by sensation, they are afterwards and more
habitually performed by Ideas. We shall be able, therefore, to speak
of them more instructively, when more familiar with the sequence
consisting of Ideas antecedent, and the contraction of muscles
consequent.
The action of the internal organs in consequence of internal
sensations, is proved by many familiar, as well as by many
interesting phenomena. The action of coughing, than which none more
familiar, is the highest evidence. The sensation here, is not one of
those which are neglected and obscure. A violent action of the
muscles is its immediate consequence. Hiccup is also produced by a
sensation in the stomach; and affords evidence definite and
decisive. Vomiting is another very instructive case. We {333} know
that it is the ultimate effect of something which produces
disagreeable sensations in the stomach. The sensation, indeed, in
this case, is not so well distinguished from others, nor so
precisely known, as in the case of coughing. We know, however, its
general character, and we know well the violent contraction of
muscles, which is the consequence of it. In connexion with this, we
may notice the peculiar sensations in the _Uterus_, which produce
the muscular actions of Parturition; some of the most violent
belonging to the human frame. The sensations, which are the cause of
cramps, are commonly obscure. It is the Effect which engages all our
attention. There is no doubt, however, that it is by an internal
sensation, that this very painful effect is produced. A greater
proportion of those painful muscular actions called spasms, are the
effect of sensations; though Ideas, also, appear to be concerned in
the production of those which become frequent. One very remarkable
case, which is named the Locked Jaw, is often the result of a pain
produced by an external wound.
Not any of our bodily functions is more important than Respiration.
It is a very extensive action of muscles habitually performed by
sensation merely. The sensations, however, escape our attention to
such a degree, that we lose the power of attending to them. And it
is only by the effort we are capable of to stop Respiration, when a
painful sensation after a time renders the action of the muscles
irresistible, that we get a sort of conjectural knowledge of what
the ordinary sensation is.
There are some most important cases of the action of our internal
organs, in consequence of sensation, in {334} which, from the
habitual neglect of that which never calls for our attention, both
cause and effect, to our ordinary perception, are alike unknown.
That the heart is a part of the body endowed with sensation, is
abundantly known, as often as, by a departure from its habitual
state, it becomes the seat of sensations other than the habitual
sensations, to which, from habit of inattention to them, we have
lost the power of attending. The blood cannot flow into the heart,
without a sensation of the heart. The contraction of the heart is
the consequence of that sensation; thence the circulation of the
blood; thence respiration, and all the trains, both of sensations,
and of actions, which constitute the general working of the human
machine. In truth, the actions of the alimentary canal, necessary to
keep up the supply of the blood and the actions of the circulating
system, which impart their action to most of the assimilating and
secreting organs of the human body, all taking place in sensitive
parts, all, of course, attended by sensation, and all produced by
sensation, constitute a system of internal sensations, numerous
beyond what it is easy to conceive,--some pleasurable, some
painful,--and of all possible modifications of pain and pleasure;
but to which, singly, the habit of inattention is so complete, that
it amounts to inability of attending to them.
When they are very extensively of a pleasurable, or very extensively
of a painful kind, they produce a general state, which often calls
our attention; but for which, as it is a vague, indeterminate
feeling, we have only vague, indeterminate names: we call it a {335}
state of comfort or discomfort; of cheerfulness, or gloom; high
spirits, or low spirits; and so on. The incessant motion of the
blood, in so many sensitive tubes, in every part of the body,
constitutes a system of sensations pervading the whole frame; as the
contact of the air produces a system of sensations, pervading every
part of the surface of our bodies, but to which our habit of
inattention is so complete, that we are equally incapable of
attending to them as we are of attending to the sensations produced
in our arteries and veins, by the motion of the blood, and in the
secreting and absorbing vessels when excited to action.[10*]
[Mill's footnote 10: "Is there not reason to suspect, that our
unconsciousness, in health, of the Impressions made on our organs by
the fluids which they contain, depends on our being accustomed to
the sensations which they incessantly excite; so that there remains
but a confused perception which in time disappears."--_Elements of
Physiology_, by A. Richerand, translated by James Copeland, M.D.,
4th ed., p. 21.--(_Author's Note_.)]
We are rather more attentive, perhaps, to the general states
produced by the extensive diffusion of pleasurable or painful
sensations in the alimentary canal, than in the channels of the
blood, and perhaps we sometimes confound them. To some of the
feelings in the upper part of the canal we attend sufficiently to
distinguish them; the feeling called nausea, for example, in its
numerous modifications. To those in the other parts, unless they
amount to acute pain, we never attend, till they are so extensively
diffused, as to constitute a state, to which we assign the terms,
Comfort, Discomfort, or some other {336} of the vague names, by
which a state made up of an indefinite number of painful or
pleasurable sensations is usually denominated. Yet we know that
actions of great importance are the result of those unnoticed
sensations; the secretion of the gastric juice; the secretion of the
bile; the separation of the nutritive from the innutritive part of
the food; the operation of the lacteal and lymphatic vessels, and
that extraordinary motion called the peristaltic, which aids in
carrying on the contents of the bowels to the place of their
discharge. It is probable, that the pleasurable states of the
alimentary canal are commonly joined, or synchronous, with
pleasurable states of the channels of the blood; and the painful
states, the same. That the healthy, or unhealthy state of the one,
accompanies that of the other, we know. And that certain diseased
states of the circulating system, are accompanied with that general
state of feeling, called discomfort, or wretchedness, which implies
the wide diffusion of painful sensations throughout the system, is
but too well known to all who have experienced any modification of
the febrile state; nor can it be doubted, that the joyous state of
perfect health, in which we feel delight in our being, and our whole
frame seems to be a source of pleasure to us, is in a great degree
produced by the innumerable unnoticed and unnoticeable sensations,
produced by the motion and contact of the blood, in every part of
our frame.
We seem authorized, therefore, by the fullest Evidence, to assume
that Sensation, is the mental cause, whatever the physical links, of
a great proportion of the muscular contractions of our frame; and
that {337} among those so produced are found some of the most
constant, the most remarkable, and the most important, of that grand
class of corporeal phenomena.
2. To prove that Ideas, as well as Sensations, are the cause of
muscular actions, it is necessary to make choice of cases, in which
the Idea is in no danger of being confounded with that state of mind
called the Will. And hardly any case will answer this condition,
except some of those which are held to be involuntary, for the Idea
itself never can be very clearly distinguished from the Will.
The Winking of the Eyelids, when a person moves his hand rapidly
close to the eyes of another person, is a familiar case of an action
of the muscles, which we cannot prevent. The idea is that of pain,
from the contact of the hand with the eye. A sudden sensation of
pain in the eye makes the eyelid close. This is the case, already
examined, of contraction by sensation. When this has been performed,
a number of times, the idea of pain in the eye, and the idea of the
contraction of the muscles, that is, of the sensations contained in
the contraction of the muscles, become associated together, so
strongly, that the one can never exist without the other. The next
step of the process is, that the contraction follows upon the Idea,
in the same manner as it followed upon the sensation. This is not a
matter of conjecture, it is matter of fact. It is an experienced
event. We do not undertake to say, what physical links are between
the Idea and the contraction, any more than between the sensation
and the contraction. The Idea is the last part of the mental
operation. And as the Idea and the sensation are feelings so nearly
alike, there is {338} no difficulty in believing that like effects
proceed from like causes.[60]
[Bain's footnote 60: The act of winking or wincing under the threat
of a blow on the eyes is a good example of strong, and even
indissoluble association. Any one making the experiment with an
infant will find that there is no original tendency to perform the
act. It is an association generated under the impressiveness of an
acute pain, mingled with terror; a state of things under which an
indelible mental connexion will be established in a very small
number of repetitions. As a dog that has once suffered from a burnt
cinder will dread for ever any commotion or stirring of the fire, so
one smart in the eye will be associated with the cause in an
indissoluble bond; and the mere sight of anything in motion towards
the face will induce the preventive volition.--_B._]
The origin of the sensation, and the origin of the Idea seem to be
different. The sensation originates in the extremity of the nerves
at some particular part of the body. Something, we know not what,
happens at the extremity of those nerves; something, we know not
what, is conveyed along the nerves to the brain; and then sensation
exists. From the brain, in its state of sensation, something, we
know not what, is conveyed along the nerves to the contracting
muscle, and the contraction takes place. Also, from the Brain, in
its state of Ideation, if I may here, for the sake of the analogy
with sensation, use a word of my own coining, something is conveyed
along the nerves to the contracting muscle, and the contraction
takes place. The sensation does not originate in the Brain; the Idea
does. But if the state of the Brain when it has a sensation, and
when it has the idea of that sensation, be, as we may {339}
naturally suppose, very nearly the same; and if the state of the
Brain is a necessary link in the chain of antecedents and
consequents which terminates in the contracted muscle, the effect is
so far accounted for.
Yawning is a familiar case of contraction, produced by sensation. We
yawn without intending it; we know that we yawn in consequence of an
antecedent state of feeling, of which, from never attending to it
particularly, we have no distinct Idea; but which we recognise
sufficiently as the antecedent of the act. This act, however, we
also know is frequently the effect of Ideas. If we see another
person yawn, it rarely happens that we do not yawn along with him.
The act of yawning is so strongly associated with the idea of the
feelings which precede it, that the sight of the act by another
person calls up in us strongly the idea of the precedent feelings.
The Idea exists, and as the contraction was the effect of the
sensation, so is it also of the Idea.
The same is the account to be rendered of the infectious power of
convulsions. In assemblies of men and women, especially under such a
state of excitement (religious enthusiasm, for instance) as implies
the strong association of certain trains of Ideas, if one person is
attacked with convulsions, it commonly happens that others are
attacked, and frequently great numbers. That this is a case of Ideas
is certain; because nothing is conveyed to the spectators from a
person convulsed, but the sight of the person; and the sight can do
nothing but excite associated Ideas. The associated Ideas exist: the
convulsions follow.
Laughter is a curious phenomenon of human nature. The analysis of it
is not here required. It {340} will be easily recognised as a
remarkable instance of the production of muscular action by Ideas.
We laugh, either when certain ideas are suggested to us by others,
or when they proceed from our own associations. In either case, the
Ideas exist; the Laughter follows.
Sobbing and weeping, in grief, afford a similar instance. What we
call grief, is the existence of certain trains of Ideas. The Ideas
exist: the weeping follows.
The swallowing of the saliva affords a good experiment. If a friend
assures you that you cannot refrain, for the space of a minute, from
this act, and you are tempted to try, you are almost sure to fail.
By the attention fixed on the act, the ideas of the feelings, which
precede the act, are so strongly called up by association, that the
act follows of course.[61]
[Bain's footnote 61: This is a pure example of the "fixed idea," or
of the tendency to work out into full actuality whatever is strongly
presented in idea. The case also shows this power in conflict with
the Will; we are supposed to be trying hard to prevent the act
(which is volition), and yet there is, in the intense possession of
an idea, a power greater than the will. The fact of being strongly
excited to avoid swallowing the saliva, increases the force of the
idea of swallowing it, and makes that idea almost omnipotent to work
itself out. The same baffling of the will, the making it recoil upon
itself, is shown in our attempt to forget or banish a painful idea.
The more intensely we will to forget the idea, the more do we stamp
it on the mind, through the excitement engendered by the
volition.--_B._]
There are many acts of familiar occurrence to shew, that those
actions of our organs which are the most {341} habitually produced
by sensations, are capable of being strongly modified by Ideas. The
effect of Fear, for example, on the action of the heart, is known to
be very remarkable. So it is on the action of the bowels, of the
kidneys, and of the skin. One of its effects is perspiration;
another, paleness: another, cold.[11*]