Page:Essays on the Principles of Human Action (1835).djvu/137

 sympathy, as it had actually done before, in the midst of his career. He is stopped by the idea of a pain which he has not yet felt, and which can only affect him as a general, or representative idea of pain, the object being new, and there being nothing in his past associations in the order in which they are recalled by memory to produce the necessary action. Here then he evidently constructs an artificial idea of pain beyond his actual experience, or he takes the old idea of pain which subsisted in his memory, and connects it by that act of the mind which we call imagination with an entirely new object; and thus torn out of its place in the lists of memory, not strengthened by its connection with any old associated ideas, nor moving on with the routine of habitual impulses, it does not fail on that account to influence the will and through that the motions of the body. Now if any one chooses to consider this as the effect of association, he is at liberty to do so. The same kind of association, however, must apply to the interest we take in the feelings of others, though perfect strangers to us, as well as to the interest we feel for ourselves. All that can ever take place in the imaginary anticipation either of our own feelings or those of others can be nothing more than some sort of transposition and modification of the old ideas of memory, or if there is any thing peculiar to this act of the mind, it is equally necessary to our feeling any interest in our own future impressions, or those of others. According to this account therefore the old idea of physical pain must be called up whenever I see any other person in the like danger, and the associated action along with it, just as much as if I were exposed to the same danger myself. This is I believe the doctrine of sympathy advanced by Adam Smith in his "Theory of Moral Sentiments." It is in fact neither self-love nor benevolence, neither fear nor