Chap. III. 
MORAL SENSE. 
81 
may infer that they have been to a large extent gained 
through natural selection. So it has almost certainly 
been with the unusual and opposite feeling of hatred 
between the nearest relations, as with the worker-bees 
which kill their brother-drones, and with the queen-bees 
which kill their daughter-queens ; the desire to destroy, 
instead of loving, their nearest relations having been 
here of service to the community. 
The all-important emotion of sympathy is distinct 
from that of love. A mother may passionately love her 
sleeping and passive infant, but she can then hardly 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, fatigue, revives in us some recollection 
“ of these states, which are painful even in idea.” We 
are thus impelled 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 
17 See the first and striking chapter in Adam Smith’s 4 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 sympathiser ; ” 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 instinct, its exercise would give direct pleasure, 
in the same manner as the exercise, as before remarked, of almost every 
other insiinct. 
YOL. I. 
a 
