CHAPTER III.

OF OUR AFFECTIONS.

SECTION I.-GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

UNDER this title are comprehended all those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication either of enjoyment or of suffering to any of our fellow-creatures. According to this definition, which has been adopted by some eminent writers, and among others by Dr. Reid,* resentment, revenge, hatred, belong to the class of our affections as well as gratitude or pity. Hence a distinction of the affections into benevolent and malevolent. I shall afterwards mention some considerations which lead me to think that the distinction requires some limitations in the statement.

Our benevolent affections are various, and it would not perhaps be easy to enumerate them completely. The parental and the filial affections-the affections of kindred-lovefriendship-patriotism-universal benevolence- gratitudepity to the distressed, are some of the most important. Besides these there are peculiar benevolent affections excited by those moral qualities in other men, which render them either amiable or respectable, or objects of admiration.

In the foregoing enumeration, it is not to be understood that all the benevolent affections particularly specified are stated as original principles, or ultimate facts in our constitution. On the contrary, there can be little doubt that several of them may be analyzed into the same general principle differently modified, according to the circumstances in which it operates. *[Active Powers; Essay III. Part ii. chaps. 3, 5.]

This, however, (notwithstanding the stress which has been sometimes laid upon it,) is chiefly a question of arrangement. Whether we suppose these principles to be all ultimate facts, or some of them to be resolvable into other facts more general, they are equally to be regarded as constituent parts of human nature, and, upon either supposition, we have equal reason to admire the wisdom with which that nature is adapted to the situation in which it is placed. The laws which regulate the acquired perceptions of sight are surely as much a part of our frame as those which regulate any of our original perceptions; and although they require for their development a certain degree of experience and observation in the individual, the uniformity of the result shows that there is nothing arbitrary or accidental in their origin.

The question, indeed, concerning the origin of our different affections, leads to some curious disquisitions, but is of very subordinate importance to those inquiries which relate to their nature and laws and uses. In many philosophical systems, however, it seems to have been considered as the most interesting subject of discussion connected with this part of the human constitution.

Before we proceed to consider any of our benevolent affections in detail, I shall make a few observations on two circumstances in which they all agree. In the first place, they are all accompanied with an agreeable feeling; and, secondly, they imply a desire of happiness or of good to their respective objects.1

I. That the exercise of all our kind affections is accompanied with an agreeable feeling will not be questioned. Next to a good conscience it constitutes the principal part of human happiness. With what satisfaction do we submit to fatigue and danger in the service of those we love, and how many cares do even the most selfish voluntarily bring on themselves by their attachment to others! So much indeed of our happiness is derived from this source, that those authors whose object is [Essay III. Part ii. chap. 3.]

1 Sce Reid on the Active Powers, p. 144, 4to edit.

to furnish amusement to the mind, avail themselves of these affections as one of the chief vehicles of pleasure. Hence the principal charm of tragedy, and of every other species of pathetic composition. How far it is of use to separate in this manner "the luxury of pity" from the opportunities of active exertion, may perhaps be doubted. My own opinion on this question I have stated at some length in the Philosophy of the Human Mind.1

Without entering, however, in this place into the argument I have there endeavoured to support, I shall only remark at present, that the pleasures of kind affection are by no means confined (as men of loose principles are too apt to flatter themselves) to the virtuous part of our species. They mingle also with our criminal indulgences, and often mislead the young and thoughtless by the charms they impart to vice and folly. It is indeed from this very quarter that the chief dangers to morals are to be apprehended in early life; and it is a melancholy consideration to add, that these dangers are not a little. increased by the amiable and attractive qualities by which nature often distinguishes those unfortunate men who would seem, on a superficial view, to be her peculiar favourites.

Nor is it only when the kind affections meet with circumstances favourable to their operation that the exercise of them is a source of enjoyment. Contrary to the analogy of most, if not of all, our other active principles, there is a degree of pleasure mixed with the pain even in those cases in which they are disappointed in the attainment of their object. Nay, in such cases it often happens that the pleasure predominates so far over the pain as to produce a mixed emotion, on which a wounded heart loves to dwell. When death, for example, has deprived us of the society of a friend, we derive some consolation for our loss from the recollection of his virtues, which awakens in our mind all those kind affections which the sight of him used to inspire; and in such a situation the indulgence of these affections is preferred not only to every lighter amusement, but to every other social pleasure. Heu quanto minus 1 Vol. I. chap. vii. sect. 5, p. 457, 8€q.

est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse! The final cause. of the agreeable emotion connected with the exercise of bene-volence in all its various modes, was evidently to induce us to cultivate with peculiar care a class of our active principles so immediately subservient to the happiness of society.1

II. All our benevolent affections imply a desire of happiness to their respective objects. Indeed it is from this circumstance they derive their name.

The philosophers who have endeavoured to resolve our appetites and desires into self-love have given a similar account of our benevolent affections. It is evident that this amounts to a denial of their existence as a separate class of active principles; for when a thing is desired not on its own account, but as instrumental to the attainment of something else, it is not the desire of the means, but that of the end, which is in this case the principle of action.

In the course of my observations on the different affections, when I come to consider them particularly, I shall endeavour to show that this account of their origin is extremely wide of the truth. In the meantime it may be worth while to remark in general, how strongly it is opposed by the analogy of the other active powers already examined. We have found that the preservation of the individual and the continuation of the species are not entrusted to self-love and reason alone, but that we are endowed with various appetites which, without any reflection on our part, impel us to their respective objects. We have also found, with respect to the acquisition of knowledge, (on which the perfection of the individual and the improvement of the species essentially depend,) that it is not entrusted solely to self-love and benevolence, but that we are prompted

* [Shenstone.]

1 See Lucan's picturesque and pathetic description of the behaviour of Cornelia when she retired to the hold of the ship to indulge her grief in solitude and darkness after the murder of Pompey.!

"Caput ferali obduxit amictu. Decrevitque pati tenebras, puppisque cavernis

Delituit; sævumque arctè complexa dolorem Perfruitur lacrymis, et amat pro conjuge luctum," &c. &c.

Pharsalia, Lib. ix. 109.

to it by the implanted principle of curiosity. It farther appeared, that, in addition to our sense of duty, another incentive to worthy conduct is provided in the desire of esteem, which is not only one of our most powerful principles of action, but continues to operate in full force to the last moment of our being. Now, as men were plainly intended to live in society, and as the social union could not subsist without a mutual interchange of good offices, would it not be reasonable to expect, agreeably to the analogy of our nature, that so important an end would not be entrusted solely to the slow deductions of reason, or to the metaphysical refinements of self-love, but that some provision would be made for it, in a particular class of active principles, which might operate, like our appetites and desires, independently of our reflection? To say this of parental affection or of pity, is saying nothing more in their favour than what was affirmed of hunger and thirst, that they prompt us to particular objects without any reference to our own enjoyment.

I have not offered these objections to the selfish theory with any view of exalting our natural affections into virtues; for, in so far as they arise from original constitution, they confer no merit whatever on the individual any more than his appetites or desires-at the same time, (as Dr. Reid has observed,) there is a manifest gradation in the sentiments of respect with which we regard these different constituents of character.

may

Our desires, (it was formerly observed,) although not virtuous in themselves, are manly and respectable, and plainly of greater dignity than our animal appetites. In like manner it be remarked that our benevolent affections, although not meritorious, are highly amiable. A want of attention to the essential difference between the ideas expressed by these two words has given rise to much confusion in different systems of Moral Philosophy, more particularly in the systems of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson.

As it would lead me into too minute a detail to consider our different benevolent affections separately, I shall confine myself to a few detached remarks on some of the most important.