The check upon this free play of self-assertion, or natural liberty,
which is the necessary condition for the origin of human society, is the
product of organic necessities of a different land from those upon
which the constitution of the hive depends. One of these is the mutual
affection of parent and offspring, intensified by the long infancy of
the human species. But the most important is the tendency, so strongly
developed in man, to reproduce in himself actions and feelings similar
to, or correlated with, those of other men. Man is the most consummate
of all mimics in the animal world; none but himself can draw or model;
none comes near him in the scope, variety, and exactness of vocal
imitation; none is such a master of gesture; while he seems to be
impelled thus to imitate for the pure pleasure of it. And there is no
such another emotional chameleon. By a purely reflex operation of the
mind, we take the hue of passion of those who are about us, or, it may
be, the complementary colour. It is not by any conscious "putting one's
self in the place" of a joyful or a suffering person that the state of
mind we call sympathy usually arises; indeed, it is often contrary to
one's sense of right, and in spite of one's will, that "fellow-feeling
makes us wondrous kind," or the reverse. However complete may be the
indifference to public opinion, in a cool, intellectual view, of the
traditional sage, it has not yet been my fortune to meet with any actual
sage who took its hostile manifestations with entire equanimity. Indeed,
I doubt if the philosopher lives, or ever has lived, who could know
himself to be heartily despised by a street boy without some irritation.
And, though one cannot justify Haman for wishing to hang Mordecai on
such a very high gibbet, yet, really, the consciousness of the Vizier of
Ahasuerus, as he went in and out of the gate, that this obscure Jew had
no respect for him, must have been very annoying.
It is needful only to look around us, to see that the greatest restrainer
of the anti-social tendencies of men is fear, not of the law, but of the
opinion of their fellows. The conventions of honour bad men who
break legal, moral, and religious bonds; and, while people endure the
extremity of physical pain rather than part with life, shame drives the
weakest to suicide.
Every forward step of social progress brings men into closer relations
with their fellows, and increases the importance of the pleasures and
pains derived from sympathy. We judge the acts of others by our own
sympathies, and we judge our own acts by the sympathies of others, every
day and all day long, from childhood upwards, until associations, as
indissoluble as those of language, are formed between certain acts and
the feelings of approbation or disapprobation. It becomes impossible to
imagine some acts without disapprobation, or others without approbation
of the actor, whether he be one's self or anyone else. We come to think
in the acquired dialect of morals. An artificial personality, the "man
within," as Adam Smith calls conscience, is built up beside the natural
personality. He is the watchman of society, charged to restrain the
antisocial tendencies of the natural man within the limits required by
social welfare.