THE HUMAN MIND. 



The religious emotion is well characterised as 

 made up of 'Wonder, Love, and Awe.' The 

 grovelling superstitions that have enslaved man- 

 kind have had the element of Fear in high pre- 

 dominance. 



Self-esteem. 



The object of this feeling is some quality or 

 excellence beheld in one's self such as would draw 

 forth love or esteem towards a fellow-being having 

 the like properties. Seemingly, this feeling is an 

 aspect of the tender emotion, directed upon one's 

 own self instead of some other person. It is an 

 exceedingly agreeable state of feeling, and, like 

 tender affection, can be sustained for long tracts 

 of time without satiety or exhaustion. Vanity, 

 Conceit, Pride, are distinguishable varieties of the 

 feeling. 



The Love of Approbation is an extension of the 

 pleasure of our own esteem by the addition that 

 the sympathy of others causes to all our feelings. 

 Praise, Admiration, Flattery, Adulation, Applause, 

 Reputation, Fame, signify the different modes 

 of heightening a man's pleasurable sentiments 

 towards himself, through the echo of his fellow- 

 beings. 



Sentiment of Power. 



The activity of our nature is the source of 

 various emotions, in addition to the immediate 

 ends that we gain by it. The feeling of Power is 

 an example. A man tills his fields for the sake of 

 maintaining himself and his dependents ; but if it 

 so happen that his crops far exceed his neigh- 

 bour's, he enjoys a new pleasure from the com- 

 parison. This sentiment is gratified by every- 

 thing that gives a man more than usual sway or 

 control over nature or living beings. Superior 

 bodily strength, every kind of professional dexterity 

 and skill, the command of machinery, wealth 

 which enables us to buy services, intellectual 

 attainments, rank and position in the community, 

 enhance this sense of personal agency ; hence 

 they are favourite objects of ambitious aspira- 

 tion. 



' In general it may be observed, that, wherever 

 we are led to consider ourselves as the authors 

 of any effect, we feel a sensible pride or exultation 

 in the consciousness of power, and the pleasure is 

 in general proportioned to the greatness of the 

 effect compared with the smallness of our exer- 

 tion. 



'What is commonly called the pleasure of 

 activity, is in truth the pleasure of power. Mere 

 exercise which produces no sensible effect, is 

 attended with no enjoyment, or a very slight 

 one. The enjoyment, such as it is, is only cor- 

 poreal. 



' The infant, while still on the breast, delights 

 in exerting its little strength on every object it 

 meets with, and is mortified when any accident 

 convinces it of its own imbecility. The pastimes 

 of the boy are, almost without exception, such as 

 to suggest to him the idea of his power. When he 

 throws a stone, or shoots an arrow, he is pleased 

 with being able to produce an effect at a distance 

 from himself ; and while he measures with his eye 

 the amplitude or range of his missile weapon, 

 contemplates with satisfaction the extent to which 

 his power has reached. It is on a similar prin- 

 ciple that he loves to bring his strength into com- 



parison with that of his fellows, and to enjoy the 

 consciousness of superior prowess. Nor need we 

 search in the malevolent dispositions of our nature 

 for any other motive to the apparent acts of 

 cruelty which he sometimes exercises over the 

 inferior animals the sufferings of the animal, in 

 such cases, either entirely escaping his notice, 

 or being overlooked in that state of pleasurable 

 triumph which the wanton abuse of power com- 

 municates to a weak and unreflecting judgment. 

 The active sports of the youth captivate his 

 fancy by suggesting similar ideas of strength of 

 body, of force of mind, of contempt of hardship 

 and danger. 



' As we advance in years, and as our animal 

 powers lose their activity and vigour, we gradu- 

 ally aim at extending our influence over others 

 by the superiority of fortune and station, or 

 by the still more flattering superiority of intellec- 

 tual endowments, by the force of our understand- 

 ing, by the extent of our information, by the 

 arts of persuasion, or the accomplishments of 

 address. What but the idea of power pleases the 

 orator in managing the reins of an assembled 

 multitude, when he silences the reason of others 

 by superior ingenuity, bends to his purpose their 

 desires and passions, and, without the aid of force, 

 or the splendour of rank, becomes the arbiter of 

 the fate of nations ! 



' To the same principle we may trace, in part, 

 the pleasure arising from the discovery of general 

 theorems in the sciences. ' Every such discovery 

 puts us in possession of innumerable particular 

 truths or particular facts, and gives us a ready 

 command of a great stock of knowledge, of which 

 we could not, with equal ease, avail ourselves 

 before. It increases, in a word, our intellectual 

 power in a way very analogous to that in which a 

 machine or engine increases the mechanical power 

 of the human body. 



' The idea of power is, partly at least, the foun- 

 dation of our attachment to property. It is not 

 enough for us to have the use of an object. We 

 desire to have it completely at our own disposal, 

 without being responsible to any person whatso- 

 ever, for the purposes to which we may choose to 

 turn it. "There is an unspeakable pleasure," says 

 Addison, " in calling anything one's own. A free- 

 hold, though it be but in ice and snow, will make 

 the owner pleased in the possession, and stout in 

 the defence of it." 



1 Avarice is a particular modification of the 

 desire of power, arising from the various functions 

 of money in a commercial country. Its influence 

 as an active principle is greatly strengthened by 

 habit and association, insomuch that the original 

 desire of power is frequently lost in the acquired 

 propensities to which it gives birth ; the posses- 

 sion of money becoming, in process of time, an 

 ultimate object of pursuit, and continuing to stimu- 

 late the activity of the mind after it has lost a 

 relish for every other species of exertion.' * 



Emotion of Pursuit and Plot-interest. 



This is another example of an emotion inci- 

 dental to our active exertions for gaining our 

 various ends. Not only have we a pleasure in 

 obtaining the thing laboured for, but there is a 



* Dugald Stewart On the Active Powers, Book I. chap. ii. 

 "" 4 ' 349 



