GENESIS OF DISINTERESTED BENEVOLENCE. 739 



the recipient of it, rendered easy by the fact that, by continuing the 

 special benefit, the whole welfare of the plant was assured. But such 

 is not always the case. If the benefits have all been of one and the 

 same kind, if the benefactor has been prevented from extending the 

 sphere of his beneficial action, the feeling of benevolence will remain 

 in its primitive state, directed toward one quality of the individual. 

 However strong it may become, it will never extend to the whole 

 being. 



Cases of this kind are by no means rare, but they are generally mis- 

 understood. We assume that A feels benevolence toward B, and that, 

 if he lays so much stress on a single quality of the latter, this arises 

 from an error of judgment as to what is good for B. In reality the 

 error of judgment is ours, and the man whose folly we condemn is in- 

 tellectually quite in the right. Having never learned to love B, but 

 only to love one of his qualities, A favors this latter even to the detri- 

 ment of the holder. 



In the first example adduced by me, benevolence took its origin in 

 a chance act, no effect at all having at first been intended. This is not 

 necessarily the case. A benefit may be intended in a limited degree, 

 for instance, as an . equivalent for a benefit received. The spring of 

 action here is gratitude, based on equity. But, while this benefit is 

 conferred, a benevolent feeling, first, toward the special quality fur- 

 thered, and, finally, toward the whole individual, may arise in exactly 

 the same manner in which it arose from a chance act. Gratitude will 

 be forgotten, and disinterested benevolence felt instead. One moral 

 feeling has here given rise to another ; equity to disinterested benevo- 

 lence. In our social system this latter genesis will be most common ; 

 it is only where social relations are rare that benevolence will com- 

 monly be produced as a consequence of a chance act. But, in all cases 

 it will be a necessary condition to the perfection of the feeling, that it 

 be extended to the whole individual, as else it may often tend rather to 

 injure than to favor this latter. 



My meaning, I hope, is now sufficiently explained. It remains to 

 be seen how far my theory is in accordance with the known facts about 

 benevolence. For this I hold to be the indispensable test of every psy- 

 chological theory that it will offer an easy explanation of the facts 

 known from experience ; and this test I shall now apply. 



The strongest feeling of benevolence on record is probably the love 

 a mother bears to her infant child. The strong feeling that she has 

 given it life, that the child is her creation, explains the energy of the 

 affection. This is further strengthened by the consciousness, that by 

 nourishing and tending her child she confers constantly new benefits, 

 indispensable to its welfare. But, as the child grows up, this benevo- 

 lent feeling may, with mentally undeveloped persons, lose much of its 

 power. When the child becomes independent, when it is no longer in 

 want of the maternal care, the maternal affection will cool down or turn 



