x THE WILL IN DEVELOPMENT 177 



personal character of the rule. Now it is quite possible 

 that at a lower stage emotions might be aroused by the 

 sight of suffering inflicted, but it is difficult to conceive that 

 at this stage they would be distinguishable from the resent- 

 ment inspired by any injury to a beloved object. Dis- 

 passionate emotion can only arise in proportion as the 

 character of an act is distinguishable from the person who 

 does or suffers from it. It is therefore apparently depen- 

 dent on that measure of analysis which we have seen to 

 underlie the formation of language and general conceptions. 

 But it must also be noted as a new and specific development 

 of feeling without which such conceptions would have no 

 efficacy in ethics. It is, in fact, the basis of the pivotal ethical 

 conception, the conception of Justice, and as the response 

 of feeling to the elements of a rational order, we may speak 

 of it as the rational feeling. 



This feeling is sometimes identified with sympathy, and, 

 indeed, they are not unrelated. Sympath * 

 asjhe^tendency to react to the 



it wcEe-5fle^ry.yviA._ This tendency ? in the purely unreflec 

 tive stage, is determined by a pre-existing affection for the 

 individual. It is extended in proportion as the realisation 

 of the life of others enters clearly into one's own conscious- 

 ness. With this realisation the feeling of another, though 

 it is but an idea for me, is an idea of an experience charged 

 with feeling, and the fundamental fact of sympathy is that 

 in the absence of a counteracting cause the idea has the 

 feeling-tone of its object. Such a counteracting cause, 

 for example, is an emotional disposition of hatred or envy 

 towards the person affected, which overwhelms the feeling 

 of the object and makes the thought of pain a source of 

 pleasure. In the absence of such a transmuting force, the 

 object of the idea determines its feeling-tone in the mind in 

 which it is formed, and a vivid representation of another's 

 pleasure is pleasurable and that of his suffering painful. 1 



i -^ 

 ^J>ulAA 



1 The latter is by far the stronger motive. Sympathy with the plea- 

 sure of others is apt to be crossed by a morbid egoism which makes the 

 happiness of others into a magnifying mirror of any cross in our own lot, 

 and conversely, I am afraid we are the more ready to relieve the suffering 

 of another because to do so exalts our own ego. 



M 



