MORAL SENSE. 103 



The all-important emotion of sympathy is distinct from that 

 of love. A mother may passionately love her sleeping and passive 

 infant, hut she can hardly at such times 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, fa- 

 "tigue, revives in us some recollection of these states, which are 

 "painful even in idea." We are thus impelled to relieve the suf- 

 ferings of another, in order that our own painful feelings may be 

 at the same time relieved. In like manner we are led to partici- 

 pate in the pleasures of others.^^ 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. The explanation 

 may lie in the fact that, with all animals, sympathy is directed 

 solely towards the members of the same community, and therefore 

 towards known, and more or less beloved members, but not to all 

 the individuals of the same species. This fact is not more sur- 

 prising than that the fears of many animals should be directed 

 against special enemies. Species which are not social, such as 

 lions and tigers, no doubt feel sympathy for the suffering of their 

 own young, but not for that of any other animal. With mankind, 

 selfishness, experience, and imitation, probably add, as Mr. Bain 

 has shown, to the power of sympathy; for we are led by the hope 

 of receiving good in return to perform acts of sympathetic kind- 

 ness to others; and sympathy is much strengthened by habit. In 

 however complex a manner this feeling may have originated, as 

 it is one of high importance to all those animals which aid and 

 defend one another, it will have been increased through natural 

 selection; for those communities, which included the greatest 

 number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, 

 and rear the greatest number of offspring. 



It is, however, impossible to decide in many cases whether cer- 

 tain social instincts have been acquired through natural selection, 

 or are the indirect result of other instincts and faculties, such as 



21 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 re'turned, 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 instinct. 



