‘This strong combination of ideas, not allied by nature, the mind makes

in itself either voluntarily or by chance: and hence it comes in

different men to be very different, according to their different

inclinations, educations, interests, &c. Custom settles habits of

thinking in the understanding, as well as of determining in the will,

and of motions in the body: all which seems to be but trains of motion

in the animal spirits, which once set agoing continue in the same steps

they have been used to, which by often treading are worn into a smooth

path, and the motion in it becomes easy, and as it were natural. As far

as we can comprehend thinking, thus ideas seem to be produced in our

minds; or if they are not, this may serve to explain their following one

another in an habitual train when once they are put into that track, as

well as it does to explain such motions of the body. A musician used to

any tune will find, that let it but once begin in his head, the ideas of

the several notes of it will follow one another orderly in his

understanding, without any care or attention, as regularly as his finger

moves orderly over the keys of the organ to play out the tune he has

begun, though his inattentive thoughts be elsewhere a wandering. Whether

the natural cause of these ideas, as well as of that regular dancing of

the fingers, be the motion of his animal spirits, I will not determine,

how probable soever by this instance it appears to be so; but this may

help us a little to conceive of intellectual habits, and of the tying

together of ideas. That there are such associations of them made by

custom in the minds of most men, I think nobody will question, who has

well considered himself or others; and to this perhaps might be justly

attributed most of the sympathies and antipathies observable in men,

which work as strongly and produce as regular effects as if they were

natural, and are therefore called so, though they at first had no other

original but the accidental connexion of two ideas, which either the

strength of the first impression or future indulgence so united, that

they always afterwards kept company together in that man’s mind, as if

they were but one idea. I say, most of the antipathies, I do not say

all; for some of them are truly natural, depend upon our original

constitution, and are born with us; but a great part of those which are

counted natural, would have been known to be from unheeded though

perhaps early impressions, or wanton fancies at first, which would have

been acknowledged the original of them, if they had been warily

observed.’

The former part of this passage, relating to the dancing of the animal

spirits, the Abbé Condillac in his ‘Logic’ has paraphrased with a

self-sufficiency, an assumption of originality, and a smoothness of

flippancy, peculiar almost to himself.

On the subject of materialism, Mr. Locke seems to have had two opinions;

the first, that as far as we can discern, the properties of mind and

matter are utterly distinct and irreconcileable; the second, that God

might for aught we know be able to superadd to matter a faculty of

thinking: either the one or the other of these opinions must be without

meaning. In speaking of the difficulties attending both sides of this

question, he has, however, offered one of the best moral cautions

against precipitancy of judgment and impatience of inquiry to be found

in any author. He says, (vol. ii. p. 203:) ‘He that considers how hardly

sensation is in our thoughts reconcilable to extended matter, or

existence to any thing that hath no extension at all, will confess that

he is very far from certainly knowing what his soul is. It is a point

which seems to me to be put out of the reach of our knowledge: and he

who will give himself leave to consider freely, and look into the dark

and intricate part of each hypothesis, will scarce find his reason able

to determine him fixedly for or against the soul’s materiality. Since on

which side soever he views it, either as an unextended substance, or a

thinking extended matter, the difficulty to conceive either, will,

whilst either alone is in his thoughts, still drive him to the contrary

side. An unfair way which some men take with themselves; who because of

the unconceivableness of some thing they find in one, throw themselves

violently into the contrary hypothesis, though altogether as

unintelligible to an unbiassed understanding. This serves not only to

show the weakness and scantiness of our knowledge, but the insignificant

triumph of such sort of arguments, which drawn from our own views may

satisfy us that we can find no certainty on one side of the question;

but do not at all thereby help us to truth, by running into the opposite

opinion, which on examination will be found clogged with equal

difficulties.’

Mr. Locke has not, I think, himself enough attended to this admirable

caution in his adoption of the common argument to demonstrate the

existence of God _à priori_, towards which I conceive not the slightest

advances can be made in this method. For the axiom that every thing must

have a cause can never be made to infer the existence of a first cause,

that is, of something without a cause. It is equally impossible for the

human mind to conceive of the beginning of existence, or to pass from

nothing to something, either by the help of an infinite series of finite

existences, or by the infinite duration of one simple, absolute

existence. Those who wish to see how far human ingenuity can push a

complete confusion of ideas into the verge of the strictest logical

demonstration and self-evident truth, may find all that they want in Dr.

Clarke’s celebrated work on the ‘Attributes,’ which contains more

logical acuteness and more power of scholastic disputation than any

other work that I know of in modern times. Hartley has lost himself in

the same endless labyrinth of finite and infinite series. And Locke’s

statement of this question is only better, because it is shorter, and

goes straight forward, without stopping to answer difficulties.

ON TOOKE’S ‘DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY’

I would class the merits of Mr. Tooke’s work under three heads: the

etymological, the grammatical, and the philosophical. The etymological

part is excellent, the grammatical part indifferent, and the

philosophical part to the last degree despicable; it is downright,

unqualified, unredeemed nonsense. As Mr. Tooke himself says that all

metaphysical reasoning is nonsense, it is scarcely rude to say that

_his_ metaphysical reasoning is so. It appears to me to be ‘mere

midsummer madness.’ He ought not indeed to have meddled with logic or

metaphysics after such a declaration; he ought to have supposed that he

laboured under some natural defect in this respect, as a man who finds

no harmony in any tune that is played to him, may without much modesty

conclude that he has no ear for music.

The opinion which I have here advanced of this writer’s merits as a

general reasoner may seem a bold one; but the proof of it is not

difficult; it is as easy as transcribing. I have only to take a few

passages in which he has applied etymology to the illustration of moral

and metaphysical truth, to make his undistinguishing admirers blush, not

for their idol, but for the weakness and bounded faculties of human

nature.

Mr. Tooke lays it down as a maxim, that the mind has neither complex nor

abstract ideas. He was in some things a zealot, and his zeal had led him

to believe that his system of etymology would in some way or other

establish this metaphysical principle, and overturn the established

notions of law, morality, philosophy, and divinity. The full development

and execution of this project is reserved for a future volume, but there

are perpetual hints and intimations of it in the two first, something

like the aerial music and flying noises in Prospero’s island. The author

seems constantly in his own mind on the point of detecting all imposture

and delusion with the Ithuriel spear of etymology, but he as constantly

draws back, and postpones his triumph. The second volume of the

‘Diversions’ consists chiefly of about two thousand instances of the

etymology of words, to prove that there can be no abstract ideas:

scarcely one of which two thousand meanings is anything else but a more

abstract idea than the word was in general supposed to convey: for

example, the word _loaf_ commonly stands for a pretty substantial,

solid, tangible kind of an idea, and is not suspected of any latent,

very refined, abstracted meaning. The author shows, on the contrary,

that the word has no such palpable, positive meaning, as the particular

object to which we apply it, but merely signifies something, any thing,

raised or _lifted_ up. A singular method, surely, of reducing all

general and abstract signs to individual, physical objects! Yet we find

this tiresome catalogue of derivations concluded in this manner.

‘And on this subject of _subaudition_ I will at present exercise your

patience no farther: for my own begins to flag. You have now instances

of my doctrine in, I suppose, about a thousand words. Their number may

be easily increased. But I trust these are sufficient to discard that

imagined operation of the mind, which has been termed _abstraction_: and

to prove that what we call by that name, is merely one of the

contrivances of language, for the purpose of more speedy

communication.’—Page 396, vol. ii.

How a thousand instances of words, signifying a common quality or

abstract idea, with something understood (_subauditum_), can be supposed

to discard that imagined operation of the mind called abstraction, or in

what subaudition differs from abstraction, or whether there is not

something _subintellectum_, as well as _subauditum_,—that is, certain

circumstances left out by the mind for the necessary progress of

thought, as well as in language, for its more speedy communication,—it

is not easy to guess. This farcical mummery, this inexplicable dumb

show, this emphatical insignificance, neither admits nor deserves any

answer.

The only places in the work in which this wary reasoner has fairly

committed himself, and given an intelligible explanation of his mode of

applying his system to general questions, are in his account of the

words, _right and wrong_, _just and unjust_, in his list of metaphysical

nonentities, demonstrated to be such because they are expressed by the

past participles of certain verbs, and in his definition of Truth.

These, therefore, I shall give as specimens, and I hope they will be

quite satisfactory. The ‘Diversions of Purley,’ it should be observed,

is supposed to be carried on in a dialogue between the author and Sir

Francis Burdett.

‘Enough, enough,’ says Burdett, ‘innumerable instances of the same may,

I grant you, be given from all our ancient authors. But does this import

us any thing?’

‘TOOKE. Surely, much, if it shall lead us to the clear understanding of

the words we use in discourse. For as far as we “know not our own

meaning,” as far as “our purposes are not endowed with words to make

them known,” so far we “gabble like things most brutish.” But the

importance rises higher, when we reflect upon the application of words

to metaphysics. And when I say metaphysics, you will be pleased to

remember that all general reasoning, all politics, law, morality, and

divinity, are merely metaphysics.’ [What is this general reasoning of

Mr. Tooke’s?]

‘Well,’ replies his pupil, ‘you have satisfied me that wrong, however

written, whether wrang, wrong or wrung, like the Italian _torto_ and the

French _tort_, is merely the past tense or participle of the verb to

wring; and has merely that meaning.

‘TOOKE. True; it means wrung or wrested from the _right_ or _ordered_

line of conduct. Right is no other than _rectum_, the past participle of

the Latin verb _regere_. The Italian _dritto_, and the French _droit_,

are no other than the past participle _directum_. In the same manner our

English word _just_ is the past participle of the verb _jubere_

(_jussum_).

‘BURDETT. What, then, is law?

‘TOOKE. It is merely the past participle _lag_, of the Gothic and

Anglo-Saxon verb _legan_, _ponere_; and it means something or anything

_laid down_ as a rule of conduct. Thus when a man demands his _right_,

he only asks that which it is _ordered_ he shall have. A _right_ conduct

is that which is ordered. A _right_ line is that which is ordered or

directed, not a random extension, but the shortest between two points. A

_right_ and _just_ action is such a one as is ordered and commanded. The

right hand is that which custom, and those who have brought us up, have

ordered or directed us to use in preference, when one hand only is

employed, and the left hand is that which is _lieved_ or left.

‘BURDETT. Surely the word _right_ is sometimes used in some other sense.

And see, in this newspaper before us, M. Portalis, contending for the

_concordat_, says:—“The multitude are much more impressed with what they

are _commanded_ to obey, than with what is proved to them to be _right_

and _just_.” This will be complete nonsense, if _right_ and _just_ mean

_ordered_ and _commanded_.

‘TOOKE. I will not undertake to make sense of the arguments of M.

Portalis. The whole of his speech is a piece of wretched mummery,

employed to bring back again to France the more wretched mummery of pope

and popery. Writers on such subjects are not very anxious about the

meaning of their words. Ambiguity and equivocation are their

strongholds. Explanation would undo them.

‘BURDETT. Well, but Mr. Locke uses the word in a manner hardly to be

reconciled with your account of it. He says:—“God has a right to do it,

we are his creatures.”

‘TOOKE. It appears to me highly improper to say, that God has a right,

as it is also to say that God is just. For nothing is ordered, directed,

or commanded concerning God. The expressions are inapplicable to the

Deity: though they are common, and those who use them have the best

intentions. They are applicable only to men, to whom alone language

belongs, and of whose sensations only words are the representations; to

men, who are by nature the subjects of orders and commands, and whose

chief merit is obedience.

‘BURDETT. Every thing, then, that is ordered and commanded is right and

just.

‘TOOKE. Surely; for that is only affirming that what is ordered and

commanded is—ordered and commanded.

‘BURDETT. These sentiments do not appear to have made you very

conspicuous for obedience. There are not a few passages, I believe, in

your life, where you have opposed what was ordered and commanded. Upon

your own principles, was that _right_?

‘TOOKE. Perfectly.

‘BURDETT. How now! was it ordered and commanded that you should oppose

what was ordered and commanded? Can the same thing be at the same time

both right and wrong?

‘TOOKE. Travel back to the island of Melinda, and you will find the

difficulty most easily solved. A thing may be at the same time both

_right_ and _wrong_, as well as _right_ and _left_. It may be commanded

to be done, and commanded not to be done. The law, _i.e._ that which is

laid down, may be different by different authorities.

‘I have always been most obedient when most taxed with disobedience. But

my right hand is not the right hand of Melinda. The right I revere is

not the right adored by sycophants, the _jus vagum_, the capricious

command of princes or ministers. I follow the law of God (which is laid

down by him for the rule of my conduct) when I follow the laws of human

nature: which, without any testimony, we know must proceed from God, and

upon these are founded the rights of man, or what is ordered for man.’

On this passage I will observe that I think it would be difficult for

Mr. Tooke himself to find a more precious instance of unmeaning jargon

in the writings of any school-divine. Mr. Tooke first pretends gravely

to define the essence of _law_ and _just_ from the etymology of those

words, by saying that they are something _laid down_ and something

_ordered_; and when pressed by the difficulty that there are many things

laid down and many things ordered which are neither ‘law’ nor ‘just,’

makes answer that their obligation depends on a higher species of law

and justice, to wit, a law which is no where laid down, and a justice

which is no where ordered, except indeed by the nature of things, on

which the etymology of these two words does not seem to throw much

light. At one time, it seems quite demonstrable that the essence of all

law, right, and justice consists in its being ordered or communicated by

words: the very idea is absurd, unless we conceive of it as some thing

either spoken or written in a book; and yet the very next moment this

fastidious reasoner sets up the unwritten, uncommunicated law of God,

which he says must conform to the laws of human nature, as the rule of

his conduct, and as paramount to all other positive orders and commands

whatever. What is this original law of God or nature, which Mr. Tooke

sets up as the rule of right? Is it the good of the whole, or

self-interest? Is it the voice of reason, or conscience, or the moral

sense? Here then we have to set out afresh in our pursuit, and to grope

our way as well as we can through the old labyrinth of morality,

divinity, and metaphysics. This new-invented patent lamp of etymology

goes out just as it is beginning to grow dark, and as the path becomes

intricate.

Neither can I at all see why our author should quarrel with M. Portalis

for using these words in their common sense. He affirms that the whole

of this gentleman’s speech is a piece of wretched mummery, that his

distinction between what is right and what is commanded is a senseless

ambiguity, and that explanation would undo him. Yet he himself, two

pages after, discovers that this distinction has a real meaning in it,

and that he has acted upon it all his life. ‘The one,’ he says, ‘is the

_jus vagum_, the capricious command of princes; the other is the law of

God and nature.’ It is not impossible but M. Portalis might have given

quite as profound an explanation of his own meaning. Junius’s sarcasm

did not, it seems, entirely cure Mr. Tooke ‘of the little sneering

sophistries of a collegian.’

Mr. Tooke next makes strange havoc with a whole host of metaphysical

agents; like Sir Richard Blackmore,

‘Undoes creation at a jerk,

And of redemption makes damn’d work.’

‘Rebelling angels, the forbidden tree,

Heaven, hell, earth, chaos, all’—

are weighed in the balance and found wanting. We cannot say with

Marvell, that the argument

‘Holds us a while misdoubting his intent,

That he would ruin (for I saw him strong)

The sacred truths to fable and old song.

(So Sampson groped the temple’s posts in spite)

The world o’erwhelming to revenge his sight.’

For Mr. Tooke leaves us in no doubt about his intent. All these sacred

truths are, according to him, so many falsehoods, which by taking

possession of certain adjectives and participles, have palmed themselves

upon the world as realities, but which, by spelling their names

backwards, he proposes to exorcise and reduce to their original

nothingness again. Here follows a list of them which he has strung

together, as a warning to all other pseudo-substantives. It is rather

strange, by the bye, that the author should have resorted to this mode

of argument, since he affirms that adjectives are the names of things,

as well as substantives; and laughs at Dr. South for saying that they

are the names of nothing.

‘These words, these participles and adjectives,’ says Mr. Tooke, ‘not

understood as such, have caused a metaphysical jargon and a false

morality, which can only be dissipated by etymology. And when they come

to be examined you will find that the ridicule which Dr. Conyers

Middleton has so justly bestowed upon the papists for their absurd

coinage of saints, is equally applicable to ourselves and to all other

metaphysicians; whose moral deities, moral causes, and moral qualities

are not less ridiculously coined and imposed upon their followers.

Fate

Destiny

Luck

Lot

Chance

Accident

Heaven

Hell

Providence

Prudence

Innocence

Substance

Fiend

Angel

Apostle

Saint

Spirit

True

False

Desert

Merit

Fault. &c. &c.

as well as _just_, _right_, and _wrong_, are all merely participles

poetically embodied and substantiated by those who use them.

‘So Church, for instance (_Dominicum aliquid_) is an adjective; and

formerly a most wicked one: whose misinterpretation caused more

slaughter and pillage of mankind than all the other cheats together.’

Sir Francis says, ‘Something of this sort I can easily perceive, but not

to the extent you carry it. I see that those sham deities, Fate and

Destiny, aliquid _fatum_, quelque chose _destinée_, are merely the past

participles of _fari_ and _destiner_. That Chance (“high arbiter,” as

Milton calls him) and his twin-brother Accident are merely the

participles of _escheoir_, _cheoir_, and _cadere_. And that to say, it

befell me by chance or by accident, is absurdly saying it befell me by

falling.

‘I agree with you, that Providence, Prudence, Innocence, Substance, and

all the rest of that tribe of qualities (in _ence_ and _ance_) are

merely the neuter plurals of the present participles of _ordere_,

_nocere_, _stare_, &c. &c. That Angel, Saint, Spirit, are the past

participles αγγελλειυ, sanciri, spirare. That the Italian _cucolo_, a

cuckoo, gives us the verb to cucol, and its past participle cuckold.’

And what if it does: will Mr. Tooke therefore pretend to say that there

is no such thing? This is indeed turning etymology to a good account. It

is clearing off old scores with a vengeance, and establishing morality

on an entirely new basis. For my own part, I can only say of the whole

of the reasoning of this author, with Voltaire’s Candide, ‘_la tête me

tourne: on ne sait ou l’on est_.’ Whether any or all of those

metaphysical beings enumerated by Mr. Tooke do or do not exist, what

their nature or qualities are, whether modes, relatives, substances, I

shall not here undertake to determine, but I do conceive that none of

these questions can be resolved in any way by inquiring whether the

names denoting them are not the past participles of certain verbs. A

shorter method would I think be to say at once that all metaphysical and

moral terms, whether participles or not, are but names, that names are

not things, and that therefore the things themselves have no existence.

It is upon this philosophical principle that the heroical Jonathan Wild

proceeds in his definition of the word Honour, for after losing himself

to no purpose in the common metaphysical jargon on the subject, and in

moral causes and qualities, he comes at last to this clear and

unembarrassed conclusion,—‘That honour consists in the word _honour_,

and nothing else.’

I will only give one instance more of this reformed system of logic and

metaphysics.

‘BURDETT. I still wish for an explanation of one word more: which on

account of its extreme importance ought not to be omitted. What is

Truth? You know when Pilate had asked the same question, he went out and

would not stay for an answer, and from that time to this no answer has

been given. And from that time to this mankind have been wrangling and

tearing each other to pieces for the truth, without once considering the

meaning of the word.’

‘TOOKE. This word will give us no trouble. Like the other words, _true_

is also a past participle of the Saxon verb _treowan_, confidere, to

think, to believe firmly, to be thoroughly persuaded of, to trow.

_True_, as we now write it, or _trew_, as it was formerly written, means

simply and merely that which is trowed, and instead of its being a rare

commodity upon earth, except only in words, there is nothing but truth

in the world.

‘That every man, in his communication with others, should speak that

which he troweth, is of so great importance to mankind, that it ought

not to surprise us, if we find the most extravagant and exaggerated

praises bestowed upon truth. But truth supposes mankind; for whom and by

whom alone the word is formed, and to whom only it is applicable. If no

man, no truth. There is therefore no such thing as eternal, immutable,

everlasting truth; unless mankind, such as they are at present, be also

eternal, immutable, and everlasting. Two persons may contradict each

other, and yet both speak truth. For the truth of one person may be

opposite to the truth of another. To speak truth may be a vice as well

as a virtue; for there are many occasions when it ought not to be

spoken. If you reject my explanation, find out if you can some other

possible meaning of the word, or content yourself with Johnson, by

saying that _true_ is not false, and _false_ is—not true. For so he

explains the words.’—Vol. ii. p. 407.

In a note the author adds, ‘Mr. Locke, in the second book of his Essay,

chapter xxxii., treats of _true_ and _false_ ideas, and is much

distressed throughout the whole chapter, because he had not in his mind

any determinate meaning of the word _true_. If that excellent man had

himself followed the advice which he gave to his disputing friends

concerning the word _liquor_; if he had followed his own rule,

previously to writing about _true_ and _false_ ideas, and had determined

what meaning he applied to _true_, _being_, _thing_, _real_, _right_,

_wrong_, he could not have written the above chapter, which exceedingly

distresses the reader, who searches for a meaning where there is none to

be found.’

Whether Mr. Locke would have been satisfied with Mr. Tooke’s account of

these words, I cannot say. I know that I am not. I do not think it the

true one. It is therefore not the true one. Mr. Tooke thinks it is, and

therefore it is the true one. Which of us is right? That what a man

thinks, he thinks, and that if he speaks what he thinks, he speaks truth

in one principal sense of the word, is what does not require much

illustration; but whether what he thinks is true or false, whether his

opinion is right or wrong, or whether there is not another possible and

actual meaning of the terms besides that given by Mr. Tooke, is the old

difficulty, which remains just where it was before, in spite of

etymology.

The application of the theory of language to the philosophy of the mind,

Mr. Tooke has reserved for a volume by itself: the principle, however,

which he means to establish, he has very explicitly laid down in the

beginning of his first volume. ‘The business of the mind,’ he says, ‘as

far as it concerns language, appears to me to be very simple. It extends

no farther than to receive impressions, that is, to have sensations or

feelings. What are called its operations, are merely the operations of

language. The greatest part of Mr. Locke’s Essay, that is, all which

relates to what he calls the _composition_, _abstraction_, _complexity_,

_generalization_, _relation_, &c. of ideas, does indeed merely concern

language. If he had been sooner aware of the inseparable connexion

between words and knowledge, he would not have talked of the composition

of ideas; but would have seen that the only composition was in the

terms; and consequently that it was as improper to talk of a complex

idea as of a complex star. It is an easy matter, upon Mr. Locke’s own

principles and a physical consideration of the senses and the mind, to

prove the impossibility of the composition of ideas; and that they are

not ideas, but merely terms which are general and abstract.’—Vol. i. pp.

39, 51, &c.

Now I grant that Mr. Locke’s own principles, and a physical

consideration of the mind, do lead to the conclusion here stated, that

is, to an absurdity; and it is from thence I have endeavoured to show

more than once that those principles, and the considering the mind as a

physical thing, are themselves absurd. How a term can be complex

otherwise than from the complexity of its meaning, that is, of the idea

attached to it, is difficult to understand.

As to the other position, that we have no general ideas, but that it is

the terms only that are general and abstract, Mr. Tooke has borrowed

this piece of philosophy from Mr. Locke, who borrowed it from Hobbes.

‘Universality’ says Mr. Locke, as quoted by our author, ‘belongs not to

things, which are all of them particular in their existence. When,

therefore, we quit particulars, the generals that rest are only

creatures of our own; their general nature being nothing but the

capacity they are put into of signifying or representing many

particulars.’ I have, however, before shown how very loose, uncertain,

and wavering, Mr. Locke’s reasoning on this subject is, though I cannot

agree with Mr. Tooke that it is therefore ‘_very different from that

incomparable author’s usual method of proceeding_.’ There is one

question which may be asked with respect to this statement, which, if

fairly answered, will perhaps, decide the point in dispute: _viz._ if

there is no general nature in things, or if we have no general idea of

what they have in common or the same, how is it that we know when to

apply the same general terms to different particulars, which on this

principle will have nothing left to connect them together in the mind?

For example, take the words, _a white horse_. Now say they, it is the

terms which are general or common, but we have no general or abstract

idea corresponding to them. But if we had no general idea of _white_,

nor any general idea of _a horse_, we should have nothing more to guide

us in applying this phrase to any but the first horse, than in applying

the terms of an unknown tongue to their respective objects. For it is

the idea of something general or common between the several objects,

which can alone determine us in assigning the same name to things which,

considered as particulars, or setting aside that general nature, are

perfectly distinct and independent. Without this link in the mind, this

general perception of the qualities of things, the terms _a white horse_

could no more be applied, and would, in fact, be no more applicable to

animals of this description generally, than to any other animal. In

short, what is it that ‘puts the same common name into a capacity of

signifying many particulars,’ but that those particulars are, and are

conceived to be of the same kind? That is, general terms necessarily

imply a class of things and ideas. Language without this would be

reduced to a heap of proper names: and we should be just as much at a

loss to name any object generally, from its agreement with others, as to

know whether we should call the first man we met in the street by the

name of John or Thomas. The existence and use of general terms is alone

a sufficient proof of the power of abstraction in the human mind; nor is

it possible to give even a plausible account of language without it. But

Mr. Tooke has on all possible occasions sacrificed common sense to a

false philosophy and epigrammatic logic. In opposition to this author’s

assertion, that we have neither complex nor abstract ideas, I think it

may be proved to a demonstration that we have no others. If our ideas

were absolutely simple and individual, we could have no idea of any of

those objects which in this erring, half-thinking philosophy are called

individual, as a table or a chair, a blade of grass, or a grain of sand.

For every one of these includes a certain configuration, hardness,

colour, &c. _i.e._ ideas of different things, and received by different

senses, which must be put together by the understanding before they can

be referred to any particular thing, or form one idea. Without the

cementing power of the mind, all our ideas would be necessarily

decomposed and crumbled down into their original elements and flexional

parts. We could indeed never carry on a chain of reasoning on any

subject, for the very links of which this chain must consist, would be

ground to powder. No two of these atomic impressions could ever club

together to form even a sensible point, much less should we be able ever

to arrive at any of the larger masses, or nominal descriptions of

things. All nature, all objects, all parts of all objects would be

equally ‘without form and void.’ _The mind alone is formative_, to

borrow the expression of a celebrated German writer, or it is that alone

which by its pervading and elastic energy unfolds and expands our ideas,

that gives order and consistency to them, that assigns to every part its

proper place, and that constructs the idea of the whole. Ideas are the

offspring of the understanding, not of the senses. In other words, it is

the understanding alone that perceives relation, but every object is

made up of a bundle of relations. In short, there is no object or idea

which does not consist of a number of parts arranged in a certain

manner, but of this arrangement the parts themselves cannot be

conscious. A ‘physical consideration of the senses and the mind’ can

never therefore account for our ideas, even of sensible objects. Mr.

Locke’s own principles do indeed exclude all power of understanding from

the human mind. The manner in which Hobbes and Berkeley have explained

the nature of mathematical demonstration upon this system shows its

utter inadequacy to any of the purposes of general reasoning, and is a

plain confession of the necessity of abstract ideas. Mr. Hume considers

the principle that abstraction is not an operation of the mind, but of

language, as one of the most capital discoveries of modern philosophy,

and attributes it to Bishop Berkeley. Berkeley has however only adopted

the arguments and indeed almost the very words of Hobbes. The latter

author in the passage which has been already quoted says, ‘By this

imposition of names, some of larger, some of stricter signification, we

turn the reckoning of the consequences of things imagined in the mind

into a reckoning of the consequences of appellations. For example, a man

that hath no use of speech at all, such as is born and remains perfectly

deaf and dumb, if he set before his eyes a triangle, and by it two right

angles, (such as are the corners of a square figure) he may by

meditation compare and find that the three angles of that triangle are

equal to those two right angles that stand by it. But if another

triangle be shewn him different in shape from the former, he cannot know

without a new labour, whether the three angles of that also be equal to

the same. But he that hath the use of words, when he observes that such

equality was consequent not to the length of the sides, nor to any other

particular thing in his triangle, but only to this, that the sides were

straight and the angles three, and that that was all for which he named

it a triangle, will boldly conclude universally, that such equality of

angles is in all triangles whatsoever; and register his invention in

these general terms: _Every triangle hath its three angles equal to two

right ones_. And thus the consequence found in one particular, comes to

be registered and remembered as an universal rule; and discharges our

mental reckoning of time and place, and delivers us from all labour of

the mind saving the first, and makes that which was found true _here_

and _now_ to be true _in all times_ and _places_.’—_Leviathan_, p. 14.

Bishop Berkeley gives the same view of the nature of abstract reasoning

in the introduction to his ‘Principles of Human Knowledge.’ ‘But here,’

he says, ‘it will be demanded how we can know any proposition to be true

of all particular triangles, except we have first seen it demonstrated

of the abstract idea of a triangle, which agrees equally to all. To

which I answer, that though the idea I have in view, whilst I make the

demonstration be, for instance, that of an isosceles rectangular

triangle, whose sides are of a determinate length, I may nevertheless be

certain it extends to all other rectilinear triangles of what sort or

bigness soever. And that because neither the right angle nor the

equality nor the determinate length of the sides are at all concerned in

the demonstration. ’Tis true, the diagram I have in view includes all

these particulars, but then there’s not the least mention made of them

in the proof of the proposition. It is not said the three angles are

equal to two right ones, because one of them is a right angle, or

because the sides comprehending it are of the same length; which

sufficiently shows that the right angle might have been oblique and the

sides unequal, and for all that the demonstration have held good. And

for this reason it is that I conclude that to be true of any oblique

angular or scalenon, which I had demonstrated of a particular right

angled equicrural triangle, and not because I demonstrated the

proposition of the abstract idea of a triangle.’—Page 34.

This answer does not appear to me satisfactory. It amounts to this, that

though the diagram we have in view includes a number of particular

circumstances, not applicable to other cases, yet we know the principle

to be true generally, because _there is not the least mention made of

these particulars in the proof of the proposition_.

When it is asserted that we must necessarily have the idea of a

particular size whenever we think of a man in general, all that is

intended I believe is that we must think of a particular height. This

idea it is supposed must be particular and determinate, just as we must

draw a line with a piece of chalk, or make a mark with the slider of a

measuring instrument in one place and not in another. I think it may be

shown that this view of the question is also extremely fallacious and an

inversion of the order of our ideas. The height of the individual is

thus resolved into the consideration of the lines terminating or

defining it, and the intermediate space of which it properly consists is

entirely overlooked. For let us take any given height of a man, whether

tall, short, or middle-sized, and let that height be as visible as you

please, I would ask whether the actual length to which it amounts does

not consist of a number of other lengths, as if it be a tall man, the

length will be six feet, and each of these feet will consist of as many

inches, and those inches will be again made up of decimals, and those

decimals of other subordinate and infinitesimal parts, which must be all

distinctly perceived and added together before the sum total which they

compose can be pretended to be a distinct, particular, or individual

idea. In any given visible object we have always a gross, general idea

of something extended, and never of the precise length; for this precise

length as it is thought to be is necessarily composed of a number of

lengths too many, and too minute to be separately attended to or jointly

conceived by the mind, and at last loses itself in the infinite

divisibility of matter. What sort of distinctness or individuality can

therefore be found in any visible image or object of sense, I cannot

well conceive: it seems to me like seeking for certainty in the dancing

of insects in the evening sun, or for fixedness and rest in the motions

of the sea. All particulars are nothing but generals, more or less

defined according to circumstances, but never perfectly so. The

knowledge of any finite being rests in generals, and if we think to

exclude all generality from our ideas of things, as implying a want of

perfect truth and clearness, we must be constrained to remain in utter

ignorance. Let any one try the experiment of counting a flock of sheep

driven fast by him, and he will soon find his imagination unable to keep

pace with the rapid succession of objects; and his idea of a particular

number slide into the general notion of multitude: not that because

there are more objects than he can possibly count he will think there

are none, or that the word _flock_ will present to his mind a mere name

without any idea corresponding to it. Every act of the attention, every

object we see or think of, offers a proof of the same kind.

The application of this view of the subject to explain the difference

between the synthetical and analytical faculties, between generalization

and abstraction in the proper acceptation of this last word, between

common sense or feeling and understanding or reason, demands a separate

essay.

I do not think it possible ever to arrive at the truth upon these, or to

prove the existence of general or abstract ideas, by beginning in Mr.

Locke’s method with particular ones. This faculty of abstraction or

generalization (to use the words indifferently) is indeed by most

considered as a sort of artificial refinement upon our other ideas, as

an excrescence, no ways contained in the common impressions of things,

nor scarcely necessary to the common purposes of life; and is by Mr.

Locke altogether denied to be among the faculties of brutes. It is the

ornament and top-addition of the mind of man which proceeding from

simple sensation upwards, is gradually sublimed into the abstract

notions of things: ‘so from the root springs lighter the green stalk,

from thence the leaves more airy, last the bright consummate flower.’ On

the other hand, I imagine that all our notions from first to last are,

strictly speaking, general and abstract, not absolute and particular,

and that this faculty mixes itself more or less with every act of the

mind, and in every moment of its existence.

Lastly, I conceive that the mind has not been fairly dealt with in this

and other questions of the same kind. The difficulty belonging to the

notion of abstraction or comprehension it is perhaps impossible ever to

clear up: but that is no reason why we should discard those operations

from the human mind any more than we should deny the existence of

motion, extension, or curved lines in nature, because we cannot explain

them. Matter alone seems to have the privilege of presenting

difficulties and contradictions at any time, which pass current under

the name of _facts_; but the moment any thing of this kind is observed

in the understanding, all the petulance of logicians is up in arms. The

mind is made the mark on which they vent all the modes and figures of

their impertinence; and metaphysical truth has in this respect fared

like the milk-white hind, the emblem of pure faith, in Dryden’s fable,

which

‘Has oft been chased

With Scythian shafts and many winged wounds

Aimed at her heart, was often forced to fly,

And doomed to death, though fated not to die.’

ON SELF-LOVE

The modern system of philosophy has one great advantage, which makes it

difficult to attack it with any hopes of success, namely, that it is not

founded on any of the prevailing opinions or natural feelings of

mankind. It rests upon a single principle—its boasted superiority over

all prejudice. Unsupported by facts or reason, it is by this

circumstance alone enabled to trample upon every dictate of the

understanding or feeling of the heart, as weak and vulgar prejudices. In

this alone it is secure and invulnerable. To this it owes its giant

power and dreaded name. Let the contradictions and fallacies contained

in the system be proved over and over again, still the answer is

ready:—all the objections made to it are resolved into _prejudice_.

Destitute of every other support, it staggers our faith in received

opinions by the hardihood of its assertions, and derives its claim to

implicit credence by the boldness of its defiance of all established

authority. Common sense is brought to the bar like an old offender, and

condemned without a hearing. Under the shelter of this presumption there

is no absurdity so great as not to be advanced with impunity. There is

no hypothesis, however gratuitous, however inadequate, or however

unfounded, that is not held up as the true one, if it is but contrary to

all observation and experience. The grossest credulity succeeds to the

most extravagant scepticism. From being the slaves of authority we

become the dupes of paradox. Every opinion which is so absurd as never

to have been affirmed before is converted into an undeniable truth.

Whoever dares to question it, unawed by the authority on the one hand,

and undazzled by the novelty on the other, is considered as a person of

a narrow and bigoted understanding, and as relinquishing all claim to

the exercise of his reason. We are effectually deterred from protesting

against any of these ‘wise saws and modern instances’ by the dread of

being mixed up with the vulgar, and we dare not avoid the common

feelings of humanity lest we should be ridiculed as the dupes of

self-love, or of the whining cant of moralists. There is however no

bigotry so blind as that which is founded on a supposed exemption from

all prejudice. The mind in this case identifies every opinion of its own

with reason itself: and regarding the objections made to it as

proceeding from a jaundiced and distorted view of the case, it converts

them into the strongest confirmations of the depth and comprehensiveness

of its own views. There are accordingly no people so little capable of

reasoning as those who make the loudest pretensions to it: and having

assumed the name of Philosophers, are astonished that any one should

call their title in question.

I have been led to make these observations from reading

Helvetius’s account of self-love, which is nothing but a series of

misrepresentations and assumptions of the question, and which can

only have imposed upon his readers from that tone of confidence

and alertness which men always have in attacking a received and

long-established principle, and a tacit and involuntary feeling

that boldness of opinion implies strength and independence of

mind. A few examples will show that this censure is well-founded.

‘What,’ says this author in the beginning of his view of the

question,—‘what is the human understanding? It is the assemblage

of his ideas. To what sort of understanding do we give the name of

talent? To the understanding concentrated upon a single subject;

that is to say to a large assemblage of ideas of the same kind.

‘Now if there are no innate ideas, human understanding and genius are

only acquired; and both one and the other have the following faculties

for their principles:

‘1. Physical sensibility; without which we could receive no sensations.

‘2. Memory, that is to say, the faculty of recalling the sensations

received.

‘3. The interest which we have in comparing our sensations together,

that is to say, in observing with attention the resemblances and

differences, the agreements and disagreements of several objects amongst

them. It is this interest which fixes the attention, and in minds

commonly well-organised, is the efficient cause of understanding.’

It is added in a note, ‘To judge, according to M. Rousseau, is not to

feel. The proof of his opinion is that we have a faculty or power which

enables us to compare objects. Now this power according to him cannot be

the effect of physical sensibility. But,’ continues Helvetius, ‘if

Rousseau had more profoundly considered the question, he would have

perceived that this power (or faculty of understanding) is no other than

the interest itself which we have to compare these objects, and that

this interest takes its rise in the feeling of self-love, which is the

immediate effect of physical sensibility.’ This is the author’s account

of the understanding. It is bold and decided, but it is not on that

account either more or less true. It comes to this; that the faculty or

power of understanding is owing to the use we have for such a faculty;

or that we have a power of comparing our sensations, because we have an

interest in comparing them, and that therefore this power is nothing but

the effect of physical sensibility. So that a man before he has any

understanding, feeling the want of it, supplies himself with this very

necessary faculty by an act of the will, and out of pure friendly regard

to himself. The interest or desire to fly might at this rate supply us

with a pair of wings, or an effort of curiosity might furnish us with a

new sense, or an effort of self-interest might enable a man to be in two

places at once. All these consequences might very easily follow, if we

were only satisfied to believe any extravagance of assertion, and to use

words systematically without either connexion or meaning.

The whole of this writer’s argument against the existence of a

benevolent principle in the mind is founded either on a play of words,

or an arbitrary substitution of one feeling for another. He has

confounded, and does not even seem to have been aware of the distinction

between, self-love, considered as a rational principle of action, or the

voluntary and deliberate pursuit of our own good as such, and that

immediate interest or gratification which the mind may have in the

pursuit of any object either relating to ourselves or others. He

sometimes evidently considers the former of these, that is, a

deliberating, calculating, conscious selfishness, as the only rational

principle of action, and treats all other feelings as romance and folly,

or even denies their existence; while at other times he contends that

the most disinterested generosity, patriotism, and love of fame, are

equally and in the strictest sense self-love, because the pursuit of

these objects is connected with and tends immediately and intentionally

to the gratification of the individual who has an attachment to them.

After stating the sentiment of Rousseau, that without an innate and

abstract sense of right and wrong we should not see the just man and the

true citizen consult the public good to his own prejudice, Helvetius

goes on thus:—‘No one, I reply, has ever been found to promote the

public good when it injured his own interest. The patriot who risks his

life to crown himself with glory, to gain the public esteem, and to

deliver his country from slavery, yields to the feeling which is most

agreeable to him. Why should he not place his happiness in the exercise

of virtue, in the acquisition of public respect, and in the pleasure

consequent upon this respect? For what reason, in a word, should he not

expose his life for his country, when the sailor and soldier, the one at

sea, and the other in the trenches, daily expose theirs for a shilling?

The virtuous man who seems to sacrifice his own good to that of the

public is only governed by a sentiment of noble self-interest. Why

should M. Rousseau deny here that interest is the exclusive and

universal motive of action, when he himself admits it in a thousand

places of his work?’ The author then quotes the following passage from

Rousseau’s ‘Emilius’ in support of his doctrine:—‘A man may indeed

pretend to prefer my interest to his own: however plausibly he colours

over this falsehood, I am quite sure it is one.’ But I would ask why, on

the principle just stated by Helvetius, he should not prefer another to

himself, ‘if it is agreeable to him?’ Why should he not place his

happiness in the exercise of friendship? Why should he not risk his life

for his friend, as well as the patriot for his country, or as the

soldier or sailor for a shilling a day? What is become, all of a sudden,

of that noble self-interest which identifies us with our country and our

kind? Is it quite forgot? Has it evaporated with a breath? Is there

nothing of it left? When any instances are brought, or supposed, of the

sacrifice of private interest to principle, or virtue, or passion, it is

immediately pretended that these instances are not at all inconsistent

with the grand universal principle of self-interest, which embraces all

the sentiments and affections of the human mind, even the most heroical

and disinterested. But the moment these instances are out of sight and

the evasion is no longer necessary, this expansive principle shrinks

into its own natural littleness again; and excludes all regard to the

good of others as romantic and idle folly. All those instances of virtue

which are at one moment perfectly compatible with this ‘universal

principle of action’ are the next moment said to be incompatible with

it, and the author after his little rhetorical glozings on the extensive

views and generous sacrifices of self-interest, immediately descends

into the vulgar proverb that ‘the misfortunes of others are but a

dream.’ To proceed: Helvetius says, (p. 14):

‘What we understand by goodness or the moral sense in man, is his

benevolence towards others: and this benevolence we always find in

proportion to the utility they are of to him. I prefer my

fellow-citizens to strangers, and my friend to my fellow-citizens. The

welfare of my friend is reflected upon me. If he becomes more rich and

more powerful, I partake of his riches and his power. Benevolence

towards others is nothing, then, but the effect of love to ourselves.’

The inference here stated, that benevolence is merely a reflection from

self-love, is founded on the assumption that we always feel for others

in proportion to the advantage they are of to us, and this assumption is

a false one. That the habitual or known connexion between our own

welfare and that of others, is one great source of our attachment to

them, one bond of society, is what I do not wish to deny: the question

is whether it is the only one in the mind, or whether benevolence has

not a natural basis of its own to rest upon, as well as self-love. Grant

this, and the actual effects which we observe in human life will follow

from both principles combined: but to say that our attachment to others

is in the exact ratio of our obligations to them, is contrary to all we

know of human nature. I would ask whether the affection of a mother for

her child is owing to the good received or bestowed; to the child’s

power of conferring benefits, or its standing in need of assistance? Are

not the fatigues which the mother undergoes for the child, its helpless

condition, its little vexations, its sufferings from ill health or

accidents, additional ties upon maternal tenderness, which by increasing

the attention to the wants of the child and anxiety to supply them,

produce a proportionable interest in an attachment to its welfare?

Helvetius justly observes that we prefer a friend to a stranger, but the

reason which he assigns for it, that our interests and pleasures are

more closely allied, is not the only one. We participate in the

successes of our friends, it is true, but we also participate in their

distresses and disappointments, and it is not always found that this

lessens our regard for them. Benevolence, therefore, is not a mere

physical reflection from self-love. His account of friendship agrees

exactly with that which the grave historian of Jonathan Wild has given

of the friendship between his hero and Count La Ruse: ‘Mutual interest,

the greatest of all purposes, was the cement of this alliance, which

nothing of consequence but superior interest was capable of dissolving.’

The mechanical principle of association, understood in a strict sense,

will not account for the multifarious and mixed nature of our

affections, and if we do not understand it in a strict sense, it will

then only be another name for sympathy, imagination, or any thing else.

‘What then in truth,’ proceeds this author, ‘is the natural goodness, or

moral sense, so much extolled by the English? What distinct idea can we

form of such a sense, or on what evidence found its existence? If we

allow a moral sense, why not allow an algebraical or chemical sense?

Nothing is more absurd than this theological philosophy of Shaftesbury,

and yet most of the English are as much delighted with it as the French

formerly were with their music. It is not the same with other nations.

No foreigner can understand the one or hear the other. It is a film on

the eye of the English, which it is necessary to remove in order that

they may see.

‘According to their philosophy, a man in a state of indifference sitting

in his elbow chair, desires the good of others: but in as far as he is

indifferent, man desires and can desire nothing. A state of desire and

indifference is incompatible. These philosophers repeat in vain that the

moral sense is implanted in man, and makes him at a certain time

disposed to compassionate the sufferings of his fellows. This system is

in fact nothing more than the system of innate ideas overturned by

Locke. For my part, I can form an idea of my five senses, and of the

organs which constitute them: but I confess that I have no more idea of

a moral sense than of a moral elephant and castle. The enthusiasts for

“moral beauty” are ignorant of the contempt in which these nations are

held by all those who, either in the character of statesmen, officers of

police, or men of the world, have an opportunity of knowing what human

nature is.’—Page 15.

In reply to the dogmatical question with which this passage begins—‘What

distinct idea can be given of the moral sense?’—I answer for myself, the

following very explicit one: namely, that it is the natural preference

of good to evil, arising from the conception or idea formed of them in

the understanding. Those who assert a moral sense, affirm that there is

a faculty of some sort or other inseparable from the nature of a

rational and intelligent being, that enables us to form a conception of

good and evil, or of the feelings of pleasure and pain generally

speaking, which ideas so formed have a natural tendency to excite

certain affections and actions.

Those, on the other hand, who deny a moral sense, or any thing

equivalent to it, must affirm either that we can form no idea whatever

of the feelings of others, or of good and evil generally speaking, or

that these ideas have no possible influence over the mind, except from

their connexion with physical impressions, memory, habit, self-interest,

or some other motive, quite distinct from the ideas themselves. But I

have already shown that without the co-operation of rational motives,

there could be neither habit, nor self-interest, nor voluntary action of

any kind. The moral is therefore nothing but the application of the

understanding to the feelings or ideas of good. The question,

consequently, whether there is a moral sense, is reducible to this;

whether the mind can understand or conceive, or be affected by any thing

beyond its own physical or mechanical feelings. If it can, then there is

something in man besides his five senses and the organs which compose

them, for these can give him no thought, conception, or sympathy with

any thing beyond himself, or even with himself beyond the present

moment. The actions, and events, and feelings of human life, the

passions and pursuits of men, could no more go on without the

interference of the understanding than without an original principle of

physical sensibility. Neither the one nor the other explains the whole

economy of our moral nature, but that is no reason why both are not

essential and integrant parts of it. The five senses and the organs

which compose them will not account for the science of morality, let it

be as imperfect as it may, any more than for the science of algebra or

chemistry in the different degrees in which they are possessed by

different men. The point is not whether reason is furnishing us with a

perfect and infallible rule of action, absolute over any other motive or

passion, but whether it is any rule at all, whether it has any possible

influence over our moral feelings. According to Helvetius, the moral

sense is either a word without meaning, or it must signify one of our

five senses: that is, impressions not actually affecting one or other of

these are to him absolutely nothing. It is strange that after this he

should propose to take the film from the eyes of those who ridiculously

fancy that they have other ideas. It is as if a blind man should

undertake to undeceive those who can see, with respect to certain

chemical notions, called objects of sight. In confirmation of his

theory, he refers the romantic admirers of moral beauty to the opinion

of certain classes and professions of men, whose visual ray has been

purged, and who, it should seem, possess a sort of second sight into

human nature, namely, ministers of state, officers of police, and men of

business. Either this argument is a satire on these characters, or on

the understanding of his readers. If these respectable, and, I dare say,

very well-meaning persons, are by the narrowness of their occupations

and views, precluded from any general knowledge of human nature, or the

virtues of the human heart, it is an uncivil irony to propose them as

consummate judges of the abstract nature of man. If, on the other hand,

in spite of their employment, they retain the same notions and

liberality of feeling as other men, there is no reason to suppose that

they would subscribe to the sentiment of our author, that morality ‘is

an affair of the five senses:’ a proposition which any minister of

state, or police officer, or man of the world, possessed of the least

common sense, would treat with as much contempt and incredulity as

Shaftesbury or Hutcheson. Our author’s observation, that the notion of a

moral sense or natural disposition to sympathise with others, is only

the doctrine of innate ideas in disguise, is another misconception of

the nature of the question. The actual feeling of compassion is not, as

he says, innate; but this no more proves that the disposition to

compassion or benevolence is not innate, than the fact that the ideas or

feelings of pleasure and pain are not innate and born with us, proves

that physical sensibility is not an original faculty of the mind. Moral

sensibility, or the capacity of being affected by the ideas of certain

objects, is as much a part of our nature as physical sensibility, or the

capacity of being affected in a certain manner by the objects

themselves. Helvetius says, physical sensibility is the only quality

essential to the nature of man: I answer, that physical sensibility is

_not_ the only quality essential to the nature of man. To show how

senseless and insignificant is this kind of reasoning, I will refer back

to Helvetius’s concise profession of his metaphysical faith, which is

that he can form an idea of the five senses and of the organs of them,

but of nothing else. Now, I may ask, how he comes by this _idea_? Which

of his senses or which of the organs of them is it that gives him an

idea of the other four? Has the eye an action of words, or the ear of

colours, or either of the impressions of taste, smell, or feeling? Which

of them is the common sense? or if none, must we not suppose some

superintending faculty to which all the other impressions are subject,

and which alone can give him an idea of his own senses or their organs?

Another instance of the utter want of logical and consecutive reasoning

which characterizes the French philosophers, might be given in their

singular proof of the selfishness of the human mind from the

incompatibility of a state of desire and a state of indifference. The

English philosophers are charged with representing a man in a state of

indifference, ‘seated in his arm-chair,’ as desiring the good of others.

This arm-chair it should seem, no less than his state of indifference,

presents certain insurmountable barriers to his desires, which they

cannot pass so as to affect him with the slightest concern for any thing

beyond it. So far as a man is indifferent to every thing, he cannot it

is true desire any thing. All that follows from this is, that so far as

he desires the good of others he is not in a state of indifference.

That a man cannot desire an object and not desire it at the same time

requires no proof. But what ought to have been proved, and what was

meant to be so, is that a man in a state of indifference to the welfare

of others on his own account, cannot desire it for their sake, and this

is what is not proved by the truism mentioned. The general maxim, that I

cannot desire any object as long as I am indifferent to it, cannot be

made to show that self-interest is the only motive that can make me pass

from the one state into the other. By indifference, as used by the

writers here ridiculed, in a popular sense, is evidently meant the want

of personal or physical interest in any object, and to say that this

necessarily implies the want of every other kind of interest in it, of

all rational desire of the good of others, is a meagre assumption of the

point in dispute. It is strange that these pretenders to philosophy

choose to insult the English writers for daring to wear the plain,

homely, useful, national garb of philosophy, while their most glossy and

most fashionable suits are made up of the shreds and patches stolen from

our countryman Hobbes, disguised with a few spangles, tinselled lace,

and tagged points of their own.

Helvetius’s paraphrase of Hobbes’s maxim, that ‘pity is only another

name for self-love,’ is as follows:

‘What then do I feel in the presence of an object of compassion? A

strong emotion. What causes this emotion? The recollection of the

sufferings to which man is subject, and to which I am myself liable.

It is this consideration that disturbs, that torments me, and so long

as the unfortunate sufferer continues in my presence I am affected

with melancholy sensations. Have I relieved him,—do I no longer see

him? A calm is insensibly restored to my breast, because in proportion

to the distance to which he is removed, the remembrance of the evils

which his sight recalled is gradually effaced. When I was concerned

for him, then, I was concerned only for myself. What are, in fact, the

sufferings which I compassionate the most? They are those not only

which I have felt myself, but those which I may still feel. Those

evils the more present to my memory impress me more strongly. My

sympathy with the sufferings of another is always in exact proportion

to my fear of being exposed to the same sufferings myself. I would

willingly, if it were possible, destroy the very germ of my own

sufferings in him, and thus be released from the apprehension of the

like evils to myself in time to come. The love of others is never any

thing more in the human mind than the effect of love to ourselves, and

consequently of our physical sensibility.’—Vol. ii. page 20.

To this I answer as follows:—What do I feel in the presence of an object

of compassion? A strong emotion. What causes this emotion? Not,

certainly, the general recollection of the sufferings to which man in

general is subject, or to which I myself may be exposed. It is not this

remote and accidental reflection, which has no particular reference to

the object before me, but a strong sense of the sufferings of the

particular person, excited by his immediate presence, which affects me

with compassion, and impels me to his relief. The relief I afford him,

or the absence of the object, lessens my uneasiness, either by the

contemplation of the diminution of his sufferings, to which I have

contributed, or by diverting my mind from the consideration of his

sufferings. Neither the relief afforded, nor the absence of the object

could produce this effect, if the strong emotion which I experience did

not relate to the particular object. It is the fate of the individual,

and of him only, which I am contemplating, and my sympathy accordingly

rises and falls with it, or as my attention is more or less fixed upon

it. A total alteration in the situation of the individual produces a

total change in my feelings with respect to him, which could not be the

case, if my compassion depended wholly on my sense of my own security,

or the general condition of human nature. In feeling compassion for

another, therefore, it was not for myself that I was concerned, but for

the sufferer: my feelings were, in a manner, bound up with his, and I

forgot for the moment both myself and others. But do I not compassionate

most those evils which I have felt myself? Yes; because from my own

knowledge of them I have a more lively sense of what others must suffer

from them: just in the same manner I dread those evils most with respect

to myself in time to come. For those evils which I have not experienced,

I feel, for that reason, less sympathy in respect to others, and less

dread with reference to myself in time to come. Neither do I always feel

for others in proportion as I dread the same feelings myself. The memory

of my past sufferings cannot excite my disposition to relieve those of

others, and the imaginary apprehension of my own _future_ sufferings can

only tend to produce voluntary action on the same principle as my

imagination of those or others. I do not wish to prevent their

sufferings as the germ or cause of mine, but because they are of the

same nature as mine. Benevolence, therefore, is not the effect of self

love, though it is the effect of our physical sensibility, combined with

our other faculties. I will in this place insert the reply of Bishop

Butler (a true philosopher) to the same argument in Hobbes, in a note to

one of his sermons.

‘If any person can in earnest doubt whether there be such a thing as

good-will in one man towards another (for the question is not concerning

either the degree or extensiveness of it, but concerning the affection

itself,) let it be observed, that _whether man be thus or otherwise

constituted, what is the inward frame in this particular_ is a mere

question of fact or natural history, not proveable immediately by

reason. It is therefore to be judged of and determined in the same way

other facts or historical matters are; by appealing to the external

senses, or inward perceptions, respectively, as the matter under

consideration is cognizable by one or the other; by arguing from

acknowledged facts and actions, inquiring whether these do not suppose

and prove the matter in question so far as it is capable of proof. And,

lastly, by the testimony of mankind. Now that there is some degree of

benevolence amongst men, may be as strongly and plainly proved in all

these ways, as it could possibly be proved, supposing there was this

affection in our nature. And should any one think fit to assert, that

resentment in the mind of man was absolutely nothing but reasonable

concern for our own safety, the falsity of this, and what is the real

nature of that passion, could be shown in no other ways than those in

which it may be shown, that there is such a thing in _some degree_ as

_real_ good-will in man towards man.

‘There being manifestly this appearance of men’s substituting others for

themselves, and being carried out and affected towards them as towards

themselves; some persons, who have a system which excludes every

affection of this sort, have taken a pleasant method to solve it; and

tell you it is _not another_ you are at all concerned about, but your

_self only_, when you feel the affection called compassion; _i.e._ there

is a plain matter of fact, which men cannot reconcile with the general

account they think fit to give of things; they therefore, instead of

_that_ manifest fact, substitute _another_, which is reconcilable to

their own scheme. For does not every body by compassion mean an

affection the object of which is another in distress? Instead of this,

but designing to have it mistaken for this, they speak of an affection

or passion, the object of which is ourselves, or danger to ourselves.

Suppose a person to be in real danger, and by some means or other to

have forgot it; any trifling accident, any sound might alarm him, recall

the danger to his remembrance, and renew his fears: but it is almost too

grossly ridiculous (though it is to show an absurdity) to speak of that

sound or accident as an object of compassion; and yet, according to Mr.

Hobbes, our greatest friend in distress is no more to us, no more the

object of compassion or of any affection in our heart. Neither the one

nor the other raises any emotion in our mind, but only the thoughts of

our liableness to calamity, and the fear of it: and both equally do

this.

‘There are often three distinct perceptions or inward feelings upon

sight of persons in distress: real sorrow and concern for the misery of

our fellow-creatures; some degree of satisfaction from a consciousness

of our freedom from that misery; and, as the mind passes on from one

thing to another, it is not unnatural from such an occasion to reflect

upon our own liableness to the same or other calamities. The two last

frequently accompany the first, but it is the first _only_ which is

properly compassion, of which the distressed are the object, and which

directly carries us with calmness and thought to their assistance. Any

one of these, from various and complicated reasons, may in particular

cases prevail over the other two; and there are, I suppose, instances

where the bare _sight_ of distress, without our feeling any compassion

for it, may be the occasion of either or both of the two latter.’

I shall proceed to examine the objection to the doctrine of benevolence,

on the supposition that our sympathy when it exists is really a part of

our interest. This objection was long ago stated by Hobbes,

Rochefoucault, and Mandeville, and has been adopted and glossed over by

Helvetius. It is pretended, then, that in wishing to relieve the

distresses of others we only desire to remove the uneasiness which pity

creates in our mind; that all our actions are unavoidably selfish, as

they all arise from the feeling of pleasure or pain existing in the mind

of the individual, and that whether we intend our own good or that of

others, the immediate gratification connected with the idea of any

object is the sole motive which determines us to the pursuit of it.

First, this objection does not at all affect the main question in

dispute. For if it is allowed that the idea of the pleasures or pains of

others excites an immediate interest in the mind, if we feel sorrow and

anxiety for their imaginary distresses exactly in the same way that we

do for our own, and are impelled to action by the same principle,

whether the action has for its object our own good, or that of others;

in a word, if we sympathise with others as we do with ourselves, the

nature of man as a voluntary agent must be the same, whether we choose

to call this principle self-love, or benevolence, or whatever

refinements we may introduce into our manner of explaining it. The

relation of man to himself and others as a moral agent is plainly

determined, whether a rational pursuit of his own future welfare and

that of others is the real or only the ostensible motive of his actions.

Were it not that our feelings are so strongly attached to names, the

rest would be a question more of speculative curiosity than practice.

All that, commonly speaking, is meant by the most disinterested

benevolence is this immediate sympathy with the feelings of others, as

by self-love is meant the same kind of attachment to our own future

interests. For if by self-love we understand any thing beyond the

impulse of the present moment, any thing different from inclination, let

the object be what it will, this can no more be a mechanical thing than

the most refined and comprehensive benevolence. Self-love, used in the

sense which the above objection implies, must therefore mean some thing

very different from an exclusive principle of deliberate, calculating

selfishness, rendering us indifferent to every thing but our own

advantage, or from the love of physical pleasure or aversion to physical

pain, which could produce no interest in any but sensible impressions.

In a word, it expresses merely any inclination of the mind be it to what

it will, and does not at all determine or limit the object of pursuit.

Supposing, therefore, that our most generous feelings and actions were

so far equivocal, the object only bearing a show of disinterestedness,

the secret motive being always selfish, this would be no reason for

rejecting the common use of the term _disinterested benevolence_, which

expresses nothing more than an immediate reference of our actions to the

good of others, as self-love expresses a conscious reference of them to

our own good as means to an end. This is the proper meaning of the

terms. If we denominate our actions not from the object in view, but

from the inclination of the individual, there will be an end at once,

both of ‘selfishness’ and ‘benevolence.’

But farther, I deny that there is any foundation for the objection

itself, or any reason for resolving the feelings of compassion or our

voluntary motives in general into a principle of mechanical self-love.

That the motive to action exists in the mind of the person who acts, is

what no one can deny, or I suppose ever meant to deny. The passion

excited and the impression producing it must necessarily affect the

individual. There must always be some one to feel and act, or there

could evidently be no such thing as feeling or action. If therefore it

had ever been implied as a condition in the love of others, that this

love should not be felt by the person who loves them, this would be to

say that he must love them and not love them at the same time, which is

too palpable an absurdity to be thought of for a moment. It could never,

I say, be imagined that in order to feel for others, we must in reality

feel nothing, or that benevolence, to exist at all, must exist no where.

This kind of reasoning is therefore the most arrant trifling. To call my

motives or feelings selfish, because they are felt by myself, is an

abuse of all language: it might just as well be said that my idea of the

monument is a selfish idea, or an idea of myself, because it is I who

perceive it. By a selfish feeling must be meant, therefore, a feeling,

not which belongs to myself (for that all feelings do, as is understood

by every one) but which _relates_ to myself, and in this sense

benevolence is not a selfish feeling. It is the individual who feels

both for himself and others; but by self-love is meant that he feels

only for himself; for it is presumed that the word _self_ has some

meaning in it, and it would have absolutely none at all, if nothing more

were intended by it than any object or impression existing in the mind.

It therefore becomes necessary to set limits to the meaning of the

terms. If we except the burlesque interpretation of the word just

noticed, self-love can mean only one of these three things. 1. The

conscious pursuit of our own good as such; 2. The love of physical

pleasure and aversion to physical pain; 3. The gratification derived

from our sympathy with others. If all our actions do not proceed from

one of these three principles, they are all resolvable into self-love.

First, then, self-love may properly signify, as already explained, the

love or affection excited by the idea of our own interest, and the

conscious pursuit of it as a general, remote, ideal object. In this

sense, that is, considered with respect to the proposed end of our

actions, I have shown sufficiently that there is no exclusive principle

of self-love in the human mind which constantly impels us, as a set

purpose, to pursue our own advantage and nothing but that.

Secondly, any being would be strictly a selfish agent, all whose

impulses were excited by mere physical pleasure or pain, and who had no

sense or imagination, or anxiety about any thing but its own bodily

feelings. Such a being could have no idea beyond its actual, momentary

existence, and would be equally incapable of rational self-love or

benevolence. But it is allowed on all hands that the wants and desires

of the human mind are not confined within the limits of his bodily

sensations.

Thirdly, it is said that though man is not merely a physical agent, but

is naturally capable of being influenced by imagination and sympathy,

yet that this does not prove him to be possessed of any degree of

disinterestedness or real good-will to others; since he pursues the good

of others only from its contributing to his own gratification; that is,

not for their sakes, but for his own, which is still selfishness. That

is, the indulgence of certain affections necessarily tends, without our

thinking of it, to our own immediate gratification, and the impulse to

prolong a state of pleasurable feeling and put a stop to whatever gives

the mind the least uneasiness, is the real spring and over-ruling

principle of our actions. If our benevolence and sympathy with others

arose out of and was entirely regulated by this principle of

self-gratification, then these might indeed be with justice regarded as

the ostensible accidental motives of our actions, as the form or vehicle

which served only to transmit the efficacy of any other hidden

principle, as the mask and cover of selfishness. But the supposition

itself is the absurdest that can well be conceived. Self-love and

sympathy are inconsistent. The instant we no longer suppose man to be a

physical agent, and allow him to have ideas of things out of himself and

to be influenced by them, that is, to be endued with sympathy at all, he

must necessarily cease to be a merely selfish agent. The instant he is

supposed to conceive and to be affected by the ideas of other things, he

cannot be wholly governed by what relates to himself. The terms

‘selfish’ and ‘natural agent’ are a contradiction. For the one

expression implies that the mind is actuated solely by the impulse of

self-love, and the other that it is in the power and under the control

of other motives. If our sympathy with others does not always originate

in the pleasure with which it is accompanied to ourselves, or does not

cease the moment it becomes troublesome to us, then man is not entirely

and necessarily the creature of self-love. He is under another law and

another necessity, and in spite of himself is forced out of the direct

line of his own interest, both future and present, by other principles

inseparable from his nature as an intelligent being. Our sympathy

therefore is not the servile, ready tool of our self-love, but this

latter principle is itself subservient to and over-ruled by the former;

that is, an attachment to others is a real independent principle of

human action. What I wish to state is this: that the mind neither

constantly aims at nor tends to its own individual interest. That in

benevolence, compassion, friendship, &c. the mind does aim at its good,

is what every one must acknowledge. The only sense then in which our

sympathy with others can be construed into self-love, must be that the

mind is so constituted that without forethought or any reflection in

itself, or when seeming most occupied with others, it is still governed

by the same universal feeling of which it is wholly unconscious; and

that we indulge in compassion, &c. only because and in as far as it

coincides with our own immediate gratification. If it could be shown

that the current of our desires always runs the same way, either with or

without knowledge, I should confess that this would be a strong

presumption of what has been called the falsity of human virtue. But it

is not true that such is the natural disposition of the mind. It is not

so constructed as to receive no impressions but those which gratify its

desire of happiness, or to throw off every the least uneasiness relating

to others, like oil from water. It is not true that the feelings of

others have no natural hold upon the mind but by their connexion with

self-interest. Nothing can be more evident than that we do not on any

occasion blindly consult the interest of the moment; there is no

instinctive unerring bias to our own good, which in the midst of

contrary motives and doubtful appearances, puts aside all other impulses

and guides them but to its own purposes. It is against all experience to

say that in giving way to the feelings of sympathy, any more than to

those of rational self-interest (for the argument is the same in both

cases), I always yield to that impulse which is accompanied with most

pleasure at the time. It is true that I yield to the strongest impulse,

but not that my strongest impulse is to pleasure. The idea, for

instance, of the relief I may afford to a person in extreme distress, is

not necessarily accompanied by a correspondent degree of pleasurable

sensation to counterbalance the painful sensation his immediate distress

occasions in my mind. It is certain that sometimes the one and sometimes

the other may prevail without altering my purpose in the least. I am led

to persevere in it by the idea of what are the sufferings, and that it

is in my power to alleviate them: though that idea is not always the

most agreeable contemplation I could have. Those who voluntarily perform

the most painful duties of friendship or humanity do not do them from

the immediate gratification arising therefrom; it is as easy to turn

away from a beggar as to relieve him; and if the mind were not actuated

by a sense of truth, and of the real consequences of its actions, we

should uniformly listen to the distresses of others with the same sort

of feeling as we go to see a tragedy, only because we calculate that the

pleasure is greater than the pain. But I appeal to every one whether

this is a true account of human nature. There is indeed a false and

bastard kind of feeling commonly called sensibility, which is governed

altogether by this reaction of pity on our own minds, and which instead

of disproving only serves more strongly to distinguish the true. Upon

the theory here stated the mind is supposed to be imperceptibly attached

to or to fly from every idea or impression simply as it affects it with

pleasure or pain: all other impulses are carried into effect or remain

powerless according as they touch this great spring of human affection,

which determines every other movement and operation of the mind. Why

then do we not reject at first every tendency to what may give us pain?

Why do we sympathise with the distresses of others at all?

‘The jealous God at sight of human ties,

Spreads his light wings and in a moment flies.’

Why does not our self-love in like manner, if it is so perfectly

indifferent and unconcerned a principle as it is represented,

immediately disentangle itself from every feeling or idea which it finds

becoming painful to it? It should seem we are first impelled by

self-love to feel uneasiness at another’s sufferings, in order that the

same principle of tender concern for ourselves may afterwards impel us

to get rid of that uneasiness by endeavouring to remove the suffering

which is the cause of it. In desiring to relieve the distress of

another, it is pretended that our only wish is to remove the uneasiness

it occasions us: do we also feel this uneasiness in the first instance

for the same reason, or from regard to ourselves! It is absurd to say

that in compassionating others I am only occupied with my own pain or

uneasiness, since this very uneasiness arises from my compassion. It is

to take the effect for the cause. One half of the process, namely, our

connecting the sense of pain with the idea of it, has evidently nothing

to do with self-love: nor do I see any more reason for ascribing the

active impulse which follows to this principle, since it does not tend

to remove the idea of the object as it gives _me_ pain, or as it

actually affects _myself_, but as it is supposed to affect another.

Self, mere positive self, is entirely forgotten, both practically and

consciously. The effort of the mind is not to remove the idea or the

immediate feeling of pain as an abstract impression of the individual,

but as it represents the pain which another feels, and is connected with

the idea of another’s pain. So long then as this imaginary idea of what

another feels excites my sympathy with him, as it fixes my attention on

his sufferings, however painful, as it impels me to his relief, and to

employ the necessary means for that purpose, at the expense of my ease

and satisfaction, that is, so long as I am interested for others, it is

not true that my only concern is for myself, or that I am governed

solely by the principles of self-interest. Abstract our sympathy as it

were from itself, and resolve it into another principle, and it will no

longer produce the effects which we constantly see it produce wherever

it exists. Let us suppose, for a moment, that the sensations of others

were embodied by some means or other with our own, that we felt for them

exactly as for ourselves, would not this give us a real sympathy in

them, and extend our interest and identity beyond ourselves? Would the

motives and principles by which we are actuated be the same as before?

But the imagination, though not in the same degree, produces the same

effects: it modifies and overrules the impulses of self-love, and binds

us to the interests of others as to our own. If the imagination gives us

an artificial interest in the welfare of others, if it determines my

feelings and actions, and if it even for a moment draws them off from

the pursuit of an abstract principle of self-interest, then it cannot be

maintained that self-love and benevolence are the same. The motives that

give birth to our social affections are by means of the understanding as

much regulated by the feelings of others as if we had a real

communication and sympathy with them, and are swayed by an impulse

altogether foreign to self-love. If it should be said, that after all we

are as selfish as we can be, and that the modifications and restrictions

of the principle of self-love are only a necessary consequence of the

nature of a thinking being, I answer, that this is the very point I wish

to establish; or that it is downright nonsense to talk of a principle of

entire selfishness in connexion with a power of reflection, that is,

with a mind capable of perceiving the consequences of things beyond

itself, and of being affected by them.

Should any desperate metaphysician persist in affirming that my love of

others is still the love of myself, because the impression exciting my

sympathy must exist in my mind, and so be a part of myself, I would

answer that this is using words without affixing any distinct meaning to

them. The love or affection excited by any general idea existing in my

mind, can no more be said to be the love of myself, than the idea of

another person is the idea of myself, because it is I who perceive it.

This method of reasoning, however, will not go a great way to prove the

doctrine of an abstract principle of self-interest; for, by the same

rule, it would follow that in hating another person I hate myself.

Indeed, upon this principle, the whole structure of language is a

continued absurdity. It is pretended by a violent assumption, that

benevolence is only a desire to prolong the idea of another’s pleasure

in one’s own mind, because the idea exists there: malevolence must,

therefore, be a disposition to prolong the idea of pain in one’s own

mind for the same reason, that is, to injure oneself, for by this

philosophy no one can have a single idea which does not refer to, nor

any impulse which does not originate in, self. But the love of others

cannot be built on the love of self, considering this last as the effect

of ‘physical sensibility;’ and the moment we resolve self-love into the

rational pursuit of a remote object, it has been shown that the same

reasoning applies to both, and that the love of others has the same

necessary foundation in the human mind as the love of ourselves.

I have endeavoured to prove that there is no real, physical, or

essential difference between the motives by which we are naturally

impelled to the pursuit of our own welfare and that of others. The truth

of this paradox, great as it seems, may be brought to a very fair test:

namely, the being able to demonstrate that the doctrine of

self-interest, as it is commonly understood, is in the nature of things

an absolute impossibility; and, the being able to account for that

hypothesis,—that is, for the common feeling and motives of men from

habits, and a confused association of ideas aided by the use of

language. If others cannot answer my reasons, and if I can account for

their prejudices, I should not be justified in hastily relinquishing my

opinion, merely on account of its singularity. It may not be improper

briefly to recapitulate the former argument as far as it proceeded. I am

far from denying that there is a difference between real or physical

impulses and ideal motives, but I contend that this distinction is quite

beside the present purpose. For self-love properly relates to action,

and all action relates to the future, and all future objects are ideal,

and the interest we take in all such objects, and the motives to the

pursuit of them are ideal too. The distinction between self-love and

benevolence, therefore, as separate principles of action, cannot be

founded on the difference between real and imaginary objects, between

physical and rational motives, inasmuch as the motives and objects of

the one and the other are equally ideal things. Whether we voluntarily

pursue our own good or that of another, we must inevitably pursue that

which is at a distance from us, something out of ourselves, abstracted

from the being that acts and wills, and that is incompatible always with

our present sensation or physical existence. Self-love, therefore, as

the actuating principle of the mind, must imply the efficacy and

operation of the imagination of the remote ideas of things, as connected

with voluntary action, and the most refined benevolence, the greatest

sacrifices of natural affection, of sincerity, of friendship, or

humanity, can imply nothing more. The notion of the necessity of actual

objects or impressions as the motives to action could not so easily have

gained ground as an article of philosophical faith, but from a perverse

distinction of the use of the idea to abstract definitions or external

forms, having no reference to the feelings or passions; and again from

associating the word _imagination_ with merely fictitious situations and

events such as never have a real existence, and which consequently do

not admit of action. If then self-love, even the most gross and

palpable, can only subsist in a rational and intellectual nature, not

circumscribed within the narrow limits of animal life, or of the

ignorant present time, but capable of giving life and interest to the

forms of its own creatures, to the unreal mockeries of future things, to

that shadow of itself which the imagination sends before; is it not the

height of absurdity to stop here, and poorly and pitifully to suppose

that this pervading power must bow down and worship this idol of its own

making, and become its blind and servile drudge, and that it cannot

extend its creatures as widely around it, as it projects them forward,

that it cannot breathe into all other forms the breath of life, and

endow even sympathy with vital warmth, and diffuse the soul of morality

through all the relations and sentiments of human life? Take away the

real, physical, mechanical principle of self-interest, and it will have

no basis to rest upon, but that which it has in common with every

principle of natural justice or humanity. That there is no real,

physical, or mechanical principle of selfishness in the mind, has been

abundantly proved. All that remains is, to show how the continued

identity of the individual with himself has given rise to the notion of

self-interest, which after what has been premised will not be a very

difficult task. What I shall attempt to show will be, that individuality

expresses not either absolute unity or real identity, but properly such

a particular relation between a number of things as produces an

immediate or continued connexion between them, and a correspondent

marked separation between them and other things. Now, in coexisting

things, one part may by means of this communication mutually act and be

acted upon by others, but where the connexion is continued, or in

successive identity of the individual, though what follows may depend

intimately on what has gone before, that is, be acted upon by it, it

cannot react upon it; that is, the identity of the individual with

itself can only relate practically to its connexion with its past, and

not with its future self.

Every human being is distinguished from every other human being both

numerically and characteristically. He must be numerically distinct by

the supposition, or he would not be another individual, but the same.

There is, however, no contradiction in supposing two individuals to

possess the same absolute properties: but then these original properties

must be differently modified afterwards from the necessary difference of

their situations, unless we conceive them both to occupy the same

relative situation in two distinct systems, corresponding exactly with

each other. In fact, every one is found to differ essentially from every

one else; if not in original qualities, in the circumstances and events

of their lives, and consequently in their ideas and characters. In

thinking of a number of individuals, I conceive of them all as differing

in various ways from one another as well as from myself. They differ in

size, in complexion, in features, in the expression of their

countenances, in age, in occupation, in manners, in knowledge, in

temper, in power. It is this perception or apprehension of their real

differences that first enables me to distinguish the several individuals

of the species from each other, and that seems to give rise to the most

obvious idea of individuality, as representing, first, positive number,

and, secondly, the sum of the differences between one being and another,

as they really exist, in a greater or less degree in nature, or as they

would appear to exist to an impartial spectator, or to a perfectly

intelligent mind. But _I_ am not in reality more different from others

than any one individual is from any other individual, neither do I in

fact suppose myself to differ really from them otherwise than as they

differ from each other. What is it then that makes the difference seem

greater _to me_, or that makes me feel a greater change in passing from

my own idea to that of another person, than in passing from the idea of

another person to that of any one else? Neither my existing as a

separate being, nor my differing from others, is of itself sufficient to

account for the idea of self, since I might equally perceive others to

exist and compare their actual differences without ever having this

idea.

Farther, individuality is sometimes used to express not so much the

absolute difference or distinction between one individual and another,

as a relation or comparison of that individual with itself, whereby we

tacitly affirm that it is in some way or other the same with itself, or

one idea. Now in one sense it is true of all existences whatever that

they are literally the same with themselves; that is, they are what they

are, and not something else. Each thing is itself, is that individual

thing, and no other; and each combination of things is that combination,

and no other. So also each individual conscious being is necessarily the

same with himself; or in other words, that combination of ideas which

represents any individual person is that combination of ideas, and not a

different one. This literal and verbal is the only true and absolute

identity which can be affirmed of any individual; which, it is plain,

does not arise from a comparison of the different parts or successive

impressions composing the general idea one with another, but each with

itself or all of them taken together with the whole. I cannot help

thinking that some idea of this kind is frequently at the bottom of the

perplexity which is felt by most people who are not metaphysicians (not

to mention those who are), when they are told that man is not always the

same with himself, their notion of identity being that he must always be

what he is. He is the same with himself, in as far as he is not another.

When they say that the man is the same being in general, they do not

really mean that he is the same at twenty that he is at sixty, but their

general idea of him includes both these extremes, and therefore the same

man, that is, the same collective idea, is both the one and the other.

This however is but a rude logic. Not well understanding the process of

distinguishing the same individual into different metaphysical sections,

to compare, collate, and set one against the other (so awkwardly do we

at first apply ourselves to the analytical art), to get rid of the

difficulty the mind produces a double individual, part real and part

imaginary, or repeats the same idea twice over; in which case it is a

contradiction to suppose that the one does not correspond exactly with

the other in all its parts. There is no other absolute identity in the

case. All individuals (or all that we name such) are aggregates, and

aggregates of dissimilar things. Here, then, the question is not how we

distinguish one individual from another, or a number of things from a

number of other things, which distinction is a matter of absolute truth,

but how we come to confound a number of things together, and consider

many things as the same, which cannot be strictly true. This idea must

then merely relate to such a connexion between a number of things as

determines the mind to consider them as one whole, each part having a

much nearer and more lasting connexion with the rest than with any thing

else not included in the same collective idea. (It is obvious that the

want of this close affinity and intimate connexion between any number of

things is what so far produces a correspondent distinction and

separation between one individual and another.) The eye is not the same

thing as the ear; it is a contradiction to call it so. Yet both are

parts of the same body, which contains these and infinite other

distinctions. The reason of this is, that all the parts of the eye have

evidently a distinct nature, a separate use, a greater mutual dependence

on one another than on those of the ear; at the same time that there is

a considerable connexion between the eye and the ear, as parts of the

same body and organs of the same mind. Similarity is in general but a

subordinate circumstance in determining this relation. For the eye is

certainly more like the same organ in another individual, than the

different organs of sight and hearing are like one another in the same

individual. Yet we do not, in making up the imaginary individual,

associate our ideas according to this analogy, which would answer no

more purpose than the things themselves would, so separated and so

united; but we think of them in that order in which they are

mechanically connected together in nature, and in which alone they can

serve to any practical purpose. However, it seems hardly possible to

define the different degrees or kinds of identity in the same thing by

any general rule. The nature of the thing will best point out the sense

in which it is to be the same. Individuality may relate either to

absolute unity, to the identity or similarity of the parts of any thing,

or to an extraordinary degree of connexion between things neither the

same, nor similar. This last sense principally determines the positive

use of the word, at least with respect to man and other organized

beings. Indeed, the term is hardly ever applied in common language to

other things.

To insist on the first circumstance, namely, absolute unity, as

essential to individuality, would be to destroy all individuality; for

it would lead to the supposition of as many distinct individuals as

there are thoughts, feelings, actions, and properties in the same being.

Each thought would be a separate consciousness, each organ a different

system. Each thought is a distinct thing in nature; but the individual

is composed of numberless thoughts and various faculties, and

contradictory passions, and mixed habits, all curiously woven, and

blended together in the same conscious being.

But to proceed to a more particular account of the origin of the idea of

self, which is the connexion of a being with itself. This can only be

known in the first instance from reflecting on what passes in our own

minds. I should say that individuality in this sense does not arise

either from the absolute simplicity of the mind, or from its identity

with itself, or from its diversity from other minds, which are not in

the least necessary to it, but from the peculiar and intimate connection

which subsists between the several faculties and perceptions of the same

thinking being constituted as man is; so that, as the subject of his own

reflection or consciousness, the same things impressed on any of his

faculties produce a quite different effect upon him from what they would

do, if they were impressed in the same way on any other being. The sense

of personality seems then to depend entirely on the particular

consciousness which the mind has of its own operations, sensations, or

ideas. Self is nothing but the limits of the mind’s consciousness; as

far as that reaches it extends, and where that can go no further, it

ceases. The mind is one, from the confined sphere in which it acts; or

because it is not all things. It is nearer and more present to itself

than to other minds. What passes within it, what acts upon it

immediately from without, of this it cannot help being conscious; and

this consciousness is continued in it afterwards, more or less

perfectly. All that does not come within this sphere of personal

consciousness, all that has never come within it, is equally without the

verge of self; for that word relates solely to the difference of the

manner, or the different degrees of force and certainty with which, from

the imperfect and limited nature of our faculties, certain things affect

us as they act immediately upon ourselves, and are supposed to act upon

others. Hence it is evident that personality itself cannot extend to

futurity; for the whole of this idea depends on the peculiar force and

directness with which certain impulses act upon the mind. It is by

comparing the knowledge I have of my own impressions, ideas, feelings,

powers, &c. with my knowledge of the same or similar impressions, ideas,

&c. in others, and with this still more imperfect conception that I form

of what passes in their minds when this is supposed to be entirely

different from what passes in my own, that I acquire the general notion

of self. If I could form no idea of any thing passing in the minds of

others, or if my ideas of their thoughts and feelings were perfect

representations, _i.e._ mere conscious repetitions of them, all personal

distinction would be lost either in pure sensation or in perfect

universal sympathy. In the one case it would be impossible for me to

prefer myself to others, as I should be the sole object of my own

consciousness; and in the other case I must love all others as myself,

because I should then be nothing more than a part of a whole, of which

all others would be equally members with myself. This distinction,

however, subsists as necessarily and completely between myself and those

who most nearly resemble me, as between myself and those whose

characters and properties are the very opposite to mine. Indeed, the

distinction itself becomes marked and intelligible in proportion as the

objects or impressions themselves are intrinsically the same, as then it

is impossible to mistake the true principle on which it is founded,

namely, the want of any direct communication between the feelings of one

being and those of another. This will shew why the difference between

ourselves and others appears greater to us than that between other

individuals, though it is not really so.

Considering mankind in this twofold relation, as they are to themselves,

or as they appear to one another, as the subjects of their own thoughts,

or the thoughts of others, we shall find the origin of that wide and

absolute distinction which the mind feels in comparing itself with

others, to be confined to two faculties, viz., sensation, or rather

consciousness, and memory. To avoid an endless subtilty of distinction,

I have not given here any account of consciousness in general; but the

same reasoning will apply to both. The operation of both these faculties

is of a perfectly exclusive and individual nature, and so far as their

operation extends (but no farther) is man a personal, or if you will, a

selfish being. The sensation excited in me by a piece of red-hot iron

striking against any part of my body is simple, absolute, terminating as

it were in itself, not representing any thing beyond itself, nor capable

of being represented by any other sensation, or communicated to any

other being. The same kind of sensation may be indeed excited in another

by the same means, but this sensation will not imply any reference to,

or consciousness of mine; there is no communication between my nerves

and another’s brain, by which he can be affected with my sensations as I

am myself. The only notice or perception which another can have of this

sensation in me, or which I can have of a similar sensation in another,

is by means of the imagination. I can form an imaginary idea of that

pain as existing out of myself; but I can only feel it as a sensation

when it is actually impressed on myself. Any impression made on another

can neither be the cause nor object of sensation to me. Again, the

impression or idea left in my mind by this sensation, and afterwards

excited either by seeing iron in the same state, or by any other means,

is properly an idea of memory. This recollection necessarily refers to

some previous impression in my own mind, and only exists in consequence

of that impression, or of the continued connexion of the same mind with

itself: it cannot be derived from any impression made on another. My

thoughts have a particular mechanical dependence only on my own previous

thoughts or sensations. I do not remember the feelings of any one but

myself. I may, indeed, remember the objects which must have caused such

and such feelings in others, or the outward signs of passion which

accompanied them. These, however, are but the recollections of my own

immediate impressions of what I saw, and I can only form an idea of the

feelings themselves by means of the imagination. But, though we take

away all power of imagination from the human mind, my own feelings must

leave behind them certain traces, or representations of themselves

retaining the same general properties, and having the same intimate

connexion with the conscious principle. On the other hand, if I wish to

anticipate my own future feelings, whatever these may be, I must do so

by means of the same faculty by which I conceive of those of others,

whether past or future. I have no distinct or separate faculty on which

the events and feelings of my future being are impressed before hand,

and which shows, as in an enchanted mirror, to me, and me alone, the

reversed picture of my future life. It is absurd to suppose that the

feelings which I am to have hereafter, should excite certain

correspondent impressions of themselves before they have existed, or act

mechanically upon my mind by a secret sympathy. The romantic sympathies

of lovers, the exploded dreams of judicial astrology, the feats of

magic, do not equal the solid, substantial absurdity of this doctrine of

self-interest, which attributes to that which is not and has not been, a

mechanical operation and a reality in nature. I can only abstract myself

from this present being, and take an interest in my future being, in the

same sense and manner in which I can go out of myself entirely, and

enter into the minds and feelings of others. In short, there neither is

nor can be any principle belonging to the individual that antecedently

identifies his future events with his present sensation, or that

reflects the impression of his future feelings backwards with the same

kind of consciousness that his past feelings are transmitted forward

through the channels of memory. The size of the river as well as its

taste depends on the water that has already fallen into it. I cannot

roll back its course, nor is the stream next the source affected by the

water which falls into it afterwards, yet we call both the same river.

Such is the nature of personal identity. It is founded on the continued

connexion of cause and effect, and awaits their gradual progress, and

does not consist in a preposterous and wilful unsettling of the natural

order of things. There is an illustration of this argument, which,

however quaint or singular it may appear, I rather choose to give than

omit any thing which may serve to make my meaning clear and

intelligible. Suppose then a number of men employed to cast a mound into

the sea. As far as it has gone, the workmen pass backwards and forwards

on it: it stands firm in its place, and though it advances further and

further from the shore, it is still joined to it. A man’s personal

identity and self-interest have just the same principle and extent, and

can reach no farther than his actual existence. But if any man of a

metaphysical turn, seeing that the pier was not yet finished, but was to

be continued to a certain point, and in a certain direction, should take

it into his head to insist that what was already built, and what was to

be built were the same pier, that the one must therefore afford as good

footing as the other, and should accordingly walk over the pier-head on

the solid foundation of his metaphysical hypothesis—he would act a great

deal more ridiculously, but would not argue a whit more absurdly than

those who found a principle of absolute self-interest on a man’s future

identity with his present being. But, say you, the comparison does not

hold in this, that a man can extend his thoughts (and that very wisely

too), beyond the present moment, whereas in the other case he cannot

move a single step forwards. Grant it. This will only show that the mind

has wings as well as feet, which is a sufficient answer to the selfish

hypothesis.

If the foregoing account be true (and for my part, the only perplexity

that crosses my mind in thinking of it arises from the utter

impossibility of conceiving of the contrary supposition), it will follow

that those faculties which may be said to constitute self, and the

operations of which convey that idea to the mind, draw all their

materials from the past and present. But all voluntary action, as I have

before largely shown, must relate solely and exclusively to the future.

That is, all those impressions or ideas with which selfish, or more

properly speaking, personal feelings must be naturally connected are

just those which have nothing to do at all with the motives to action in

the pursuit either of our own interest, or that of others. If indeed it

were possible for the human mind to alter the present or the past, so as

either to recal what was past, or to give it a still greater reality, to

make it exist over again, and in some more emphatical sense, then man

might, with some pretence of reason, be supposed naturally incapable of

being impelled to the pursuit of any _past_ or _present_ object but from

the mechanical excitement of personal motives. It might in this case be

pretended that the impulses of imagination and sympathy are of too

light, unsubstantial, and remote a creation to influence our real

conduct, and that nothing is worthy of the concern of a wise man in

which he has not this direct, unavoidable, and homefelt interest. This

is, however, too absurd a supposition to be dwelt on for a moment. The

only proper objects of voluntary action are (by necessity) future

events: these can excite no possible interest in the mind but by the aid

of the imagination; and these make the same direct appeal to that

faculty, whether they relate to ourselves or to others, as the eye

receives with equal directness the impression of our own external form

or that of others. It will be easy to perceive by this train of

reasoning how, notwithstanding the contradiction involved in the

supposition of a generally absolute self-interest, the mind comes to

feel a deep and habitual conviction of the truth of this principle.

Finding in itself a continued consciousness of its past impressions, it

is naturally enough disposed to transfer the same sort of identity and

consciousness to the whole of its being. The objects of imagination and

of the senses are, as it were, perpetually playing into one another’s

hands, and shifting characters, so that we lose our reckoning, and do

not think it worth while to mark where the one ends and the other

begins. As our actual being is constantly passing into our future being,

and carries the internal feeling of consciousness along with it, we seem

to be already identified with our future being in this permanent part of

our nature, and to feel by a mutual impulse the same necessary sympathy

with our future selves that we know we shall have with our past selves.

We take the tablets of memory, reverse them, and stamp the image of self

on that which as yet possesses nothing but the name. It is no wonder

then that the imagination, constantly disregarding the progress of time,

when its course is marked out along the straight unbroken line of

individuality, should confound the necessary differences of things, and

convert a distant object into a present reality. The interest which is

hereafter to be felt by this continued conscious being, this indefinite

unit, called _me_, seems necessarily to affect me in every state of my

existence,—‘thrills in each nerve, and lives along the line.’ In the

first place we abstract the successive modifications of our being, and

_particular_ temporary interests, into one simple nature and general

principle of self-interest, and then make use of this nominal

abstraction as an artificial medium to compel those particular actual

interests into the closest affinity and union with each other, as

different lines meeting in the same centre must have a mutual

communication with each other. On the contrary, as I always remain

perfectly distinct from others (the interest which I take in their

former or present feelings being like that which I take in their future

feelings, never any thing more than the effect of imagination and

sympathy), the same illusion and transposition of ideas cannot take

place with regard to these; namely, the confounding a physical impulse

with the rational motives to action. Indeed the uniform nature of my

feelings with regard to others (my interest in their welfare having

always the same source and sympathy) seems by analogy to confirm the

supposition of a similar simplicity in my relation to myself, and of a

positive, natural, absolute interest in whatever belongs to that self,

not confined to my actual existence, but extending over the whole of my

being. Every sensation that I feel, or that afterwards recurs vividly to

my memory strengthens the sense of self, which increased strength in the

mechanical feeling is indirectly transferred to the general idea, and to

my remote, future, imaginary interest; whereas our sympathy with the

feelings of others being always imaginary, standing only on its own

basis, having no sensible interest to support it, no restless mechanical

impulse to urge it on, the ties by which we are bound to others hang

loose upon us: the interest we take in their welfare seems to be

something foreign to our own bosoms, to be transient, arbitrary, and

directly opposed to that necessary, unalienable interest we are supposed

to have in whatever conduces to our own well-being.