708 Dynamic Theory. 



siderations. We do -not reflect that if we do these charitable actions we 

 shall cultivate charitable feelings in the breasts of others, by which we 

 may ourselves perhaps profit in case we need help in the future. Be- 

 fore we act, and whether we act or not, we are conscious of feelings of 

 pity and sj'mpathy, and these are feelings of more or less pain and un- 

 easiness, and we find them relieved when we perform the actions to 

 which they impel, and which are their natural expressions. We know 

 these feelings are automatic, because there is no consciousness of the 

 processes which occur between the sensory impression which informs us 

 of the object of sympathy, and the sensation of S} 7 mpathy which it 

 evokes. The one inevitably and necessarily follows the other. The 

 automatic development of this feeling or sensation of sympathy, could 

 only occur after a relationship has been established between the brain 

 and the object which arouses the sympathy. All automatic actions de- 

 pend upon and presuppose a previous course of differentiation of or- 

 gans by, and their adaptation to, a particular and exclusive sort of stim- 

 ulation. Little ducks, although hatched and fostered by a hen, will, to 

 her great dismay, betake themselves to the first pond they come to, and 

 if restrained would no doubt experience a sensation of uneasiness. The 

 uneasy feeling, and the act which would relieve it if they were free to 

 do it, are automatic, and yet the little ducks never saw water before. 

 It is evident that the relation between the water and the ducks was es- 

 tablished in their ancestors, and inherited by them. The inherited con- 

 stitution of their brain is such that the stimulation of the water by way 

 of the senses arouses certain organs of the brain, which in turn com- 

 municate motion to the muscles, and if this motion is restrained, the 

 stimulation begets uneasiness. 



Precisely like this is the automatic tendency we all have to go to the 

 relief of distress, and to be distressed ourselves in a degree directly in 

 proportion to the nearness of the object to us, and inversely in propor- 

 tion to the relief we are able to furnish. And we come by this auto- 

 matic tendency just as the little ducks come by theirs ; viz. , by inherit- 

 ance. Our ancestors lived in social relations for a great many genera- 

 tions. They called on each other for help, and rendered assistance and 

 succor when it was required. However mercenary and interested these 

 acts may have been at first, from long habit and cultivation, in relations 

 of intimacy and interdependence they have stamped upon the brain and 

 transmitted to us the physiological conditions which of necessity express 

 themselves in such acts. It is often observed that we become attached 

 to those to whom we render service. The action begets the feeling, as 

 the feeling would beget the action. So these ancestors of ours, com- 

 pelled from the necessities of the case to help each other, came to have 

 a care and anxiety to accomplish their task, which emotions we now 



