Human Nature and Other Sermons Part 6

{8} Chap. iii., ver. 6.

{9} Job xiii. 5.

{10} Eccles. x. 3.

{11} Prov. x. 19.

{12} Mark xii. 38, 40.

{13} There being manifestly this appearance of men's subst.i.tuting others for themselves, and being carried out and affected towards them as towards themselves; some persons, who have a system which excludes every affection of this sort, have taken a pleasant method to solve it; and tell you it is _not another_ you are at all concerned about, but your _self only_, when you feel the affection called compa.s.sion, _i.e._ Here is a plain matter of fact, which men cannot reconcile with the general account they think fit to give of things: they therefore, instead of that manifest fact, subst.i.tute _another_, which is reconcilable to their own scheme. For does not everybody by compa.s.sion mean an affection, the object of which is another in distress? instead of this, but designing to have it mistaken for this, they speak of an affection or pa.s.sion, the object of which is ourselves, or danger to ourselves. Hobbes defines _pity_, _imagination_, _or fiction of future calamity to ourselves_, _proceeding from the sense_ (he means sight or knowledge) _of another man's calamity_. Thus fear and compa.s.sion would be the same idea, and a fearful and a compa.s.sionate man the same character, which every one immediately sees are totally different. Further, to those who give any scope to their affections, there is no perception or inward feeling more universal than this: that one who has been merciful and compa.s.sionate throughout the course of his behaviour should himself be treated with kindness, if he happens to fall into circ.u.mstances of distress. Is fear, then, or cowardice, so great a recommendation to the favour of the bulk of mankind? Or is it not plain that mere fearlessness (and therefore not the contrary) is one of the most popular qualifications? This shows that mankind are not affected towards compa.s.sion as fear, but as somewhat totally different.

Nothing would more expose such accounts as these of the affections which are favourable and friendly to our fellow-creatures than to subst.i.tute the definitions, which this author, and others who follow his steps, give of such affections, instead of the words by which they are commonly expressed. Hobbes, after having laid down that pity or compa.s.sion is only fear for ourselves, goes on to explain the reason why we pity our friends in distress more than others. Now subst.i.tute the word _definition_ instead of the word _pity_ in this place, and the inquiry will be, why we fear our friends, &c., which words (since he really does not mean why we are afraid of them) make no question or sentence at all.

So that common language, the words _to compa.s.sionate_, _to pity_, cannot be accommodated to his account of compa.s.sion. The very joining of the words to _pity our friends_ is a direct contradiction to his definition of pity: because those words, so joined, necessarily express that our friends are the objects of the pa.s.sion; whereas his definition of it a.s.serts that ourselves (or danger to ourselves) are the only objects of it. He might indeed have avoided this absurdity, by plainly saying what he is going to account for; namely, why the sight of the innocent, or of our friends in distress, raises greater fear for ourselves than the sight of other persons in distress. But had he put the thing thus plainly, the fact itself would have been doubted; that _the sight of our friends in distress raises in us greater fear for ourselves than the sight of others in distress_. And in the next place it would immediately have occurred to every one that the fact now mentioned, which at least is doubtful whether, true or false, was not the same with this fact, which n.o.body ever doubted, that _the sight of our friends in distress raises in us greater compa.s.sion than the sight of others in distress_: every one, I say, would have seen that these are not the same, but _two different_ inquiries; and, consequently, that fear and compa.s.sion are not the same.

Suppose a person to be in real danger, and by some means or other to have forgot it; any trifling accident, any sound might alarm him, recall the danger to his remembrance, and renew his fear; but it is almost too grossly ridiculous (though it is to show an absurdity) to speak of that sound or accident as an object of compa.s.sion; and yet, according to Mr.

Hobbes, our greatest friend in distress is no more to us, no more the object of compa.s.sion, or of any affection in our heart: neither the one nor the other raises any emotion in one mind, but only the thoughts of our liableness to calamity, and the fear of it; and both equally do this.

It is fit such sort of accounts of human nature should be shown to be what they really are, because there is raised upon them a general scheme, which undermines the whole foundation of common justice and honesty. See _Hobbes of Human Nature_, c. 9. section 10.

There are often three distinct perceptions or inward feelings upon sight of persons in distress: real sorrow and concern for the misery of our fellow-creatures; some degree of satisfaction from a consciousness of our freedom from that misery; and as the mind pa.s.ses on from one thing to another it is not unnatural from such an occasion to reflect upon our own liableness to the same or other calamities. The two last frequently accompany the first, but it is the first _only_ which is properly compa.s.sion, of which the distressed are the objects, and which directly carries us with calmness and thought to their a.s.sistance. Any one of these, from various and complicated reasons, may in particular cases prevail over the other two; and there are, I suppose, instances, where the bare _sight_ of distress, without our feeling any compa.s.sion for it, may be the occasion of either or both of the two latter perceptions. One might add that if there be really any such thing as the fiction or imagination of danger to ourselves from sight of the miseries of others, which Hobbes specks of, and which he has absurdly mistaken for the whole of compa.s.sion; if there be anything of this sort common to mankind, distinct from the reflection of reason, it would be a most remarkable instance of what was furthest from his thoughts--namely, of a mutual sympathy between each particular of the species, a fellow-feeling common to mankind. It would not indeed be an example of our subst.i.tuting others for ourselves, but it would be an example of user subst.i.tuting ourselves for others. And as it would not be an instance of benevolence, so neither would it be any instance of self-love: for this phantom of danger to ourselves, naturally rising to view upon sight of the distresses of others, would be no more an instance of love to ourselves than the pain of hunger is.

{14} Ecclus. x.x.xii. 28.

{15} Ecclus. xlii. 24.

{16} Ver. 4, 5.

{17} Ver. 6.

{18} Micah vi.

{19} Chap. xxii. 12.

{20} Ver. 21.

{21} Chap. iv.

{22} Chap. xxv.

{23} Chap. x.x.xi.

{24} Chap. ii.

{24a} In the Ca.s.sell edition the sermons jump from sermon VII to XI with no explanation as to where VIII, IX and X are. I've left the numbering as is in case there is a good reason for it.--DP.

{25} P. 137.

{26} Matt. v. 48.

{27} 1 Cor. xiii.

{28} For instance as we are not competent judges, what is upon the whole for the good of the world, there _may_ be other immediate ends appointed us to pursue, besides that one of doing good or producing happiness.

Though the good of the Creation be the only end of the Author of it, yet he may have laid us under particular obligations, which we may discern and feel ourselves under, quite distinct from a perception, that the observance or violation of them it for the happiness or misery of our fellow-creatures. And this is in fart the ease, for there are certain dispositions of mind, and certain actions, which are in themselves approved or disapproved by mankind, abstracted from the consideration of their tendency to the happiness or misery of the world approved or disapproved by reflection, by that principle within, whirls is the guile of life, the judge of right and wrong. Numberless instances of this kind might be mentioned. There are pieces of treachery, which in themselves appear base and detestable to every one. There are actions, which perhaps can scarce have any other general name given them than indecencies, which yet are odious and shocking to human nature. There is such a thing as meanness, a little mind, which as it is quite distinct from incapacity, so it raises a dislike and disapprobation quite different from that contempt, which men are too apt to have, of mere folly. On the other hand, what we call greatness of mind is the object of another most of approbation, than superior understanding. Fidelity, honour, strict justice, are themselves approved in the highest degree, abstracted from the consideration of their tendency. Now, whether it be thought that each of these are connected with benevolence in our nature, amid so may he considered as the same thing with it, or whether some of them he thought an inferior kind of virtues and vices, somewhat like natural beauties and deformities, or lastly, plain exceptions to the general rule, thus such however is certain, that the things now instanced in, and numberless others, are approved or disapproved by mankind in general, in quite another view than as conducive to the happiness or misery of the world.

{29} St. Austin observes, Amor ipse ordinate amandus est, quo bene amatur quod amandum sit, ut sit in n.o.bis virtue qua vivitur bene, _i.e._ _The affection which we rightly have for what is lovely must ordinate justly_, _in due manner end proportion_, _become the object of a new affection_, _or be itself beloved_, _in order to our being endued with that virtue which is the principle of a good life_. Civ. Dei, 1. xv. c.

22.

{30} Job xxii.

{31} Job ix. 2.

{32} Eccius. xliii. 50.