Chap. III. MORAL SENSE. 81 



may infer that they have been to a large extent gained 

 through natural selection. So it has almost certainly 

 been with the unusual and opposite feeling of hatred 

 between the nearest relations, as with the worker-bees 

 which kill their brother-drones, and with the queen-bees 

 which kill their daughter-queens ; the desire to destroy, 

 instead of loving, their nearest relations having been 

 here of service to the community. 



The all-important emotion of sympathy is distinct 

 from that of love. A mother may passionately love her 

 sleeping and passive infant, but she can then hardly be 

 said to feel sympathy for it. The love of a man for 

 his dog is distinct from sympathy, and so is that of a 

 dog for his master. Adam Smith formerly argued, as 

 has Mr. Bain recently, that the basis of sympathy lies 

 in our strong retentiveness of former states of pain or 

 pleasure. Hence, " the sight of another person enduring 

 " hunger, cold, fatigue, revives in us some recollection 

 " of these states, which are painful even in idea." We 

 are thus impelled to relieve the sufferings of another, 

 in order that our own painful feelings may be at the 

 same time relieved. In like manner we are led to 

 participate in the pleasures of others. 17 But I cannot 

 see how this view explains the fact that sympathy 

 is excited in an immeasurably stronger degree by a 

 beloved than by an indifferent person. The mere 



17 See the first and striking chapter in Adam Smith's ' Theory of 

 Moral Sentiments.' Also Mr. Bain's ' Mental .and Moral Science,' 

 18G8, p. 244, and 275-282. Mr. Bain states, that "sympathy is, 

 ' indirectly, a source of pleasure to the sympathiser ; " and he accounts 

 for this through reciprocity. He remarks that " the person benefited, 

 " or others in his stead, may make up, by sympathy and good offices 

 " returned, for all the sacrifice." But if, as appears to be the case, 

 sympathy is strictly an instinct, its exercise would give direct pleasure, 

 in the same manner as the exercise, as before remarked, of almost every 

 other ins'.inct. 



vol. i. a 



