78 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part I. 



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 im- 

 pelled 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 sight of suffering, independently of love, would 

 suffice to call up in us vivid recollections and associations. 

 Sympathy may at first have originated in the manner 

 above suggested ; but it seems now to have become an 

 instinct, which is especially directed toward beloved ob- 

 jects, in the same manner as fear with animals is especial- 

 ly directed against certain enemies. As sympathy is thus 

 directed, the mutual love of the members of the same 

 community will extend its limits. No doubt a tiger or 

 lion feels sympathy for the sufferings of its own young, 

 but not for any other animal. With strictly social ani- 

 mals the feeling will be more or less extended to all the 

 associated members, as we know to be the case. With 

 mankind selfishness, experience, and imitation, probably 

 add, as Mr. Bain has shown, to the power of sympathy ; 



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

 Moral Sentiments.' Also Mr. Bain's 'Mental and Moral Science,' 1868, p. 

 244, and 275-282. Mr. Bain states that " sympathy is, indirectly, a 

 source of pleasure to the sympathizer ; " 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 in- 

 stinct, its exercise would give direct pleasure, in the same manner as the 

 exercise, as before remarked, of almost every other instiuct. 



