Page:Essays on the Principles of Human Action (1835).djvu/151

 easiness, and compassion parallel, it would be necessary to suppose either an involuntary tendency in the muscles to remove every painful object from another through mechanical sympathy, or that the real object of compassion was to move the nervous uneasiness, occasioned by the idea of anothers pain, as an abstract sensation existing in my mind, totally unconnected with the idea which gave rise to it.

Lastly, should any desperate metaphysician persist in affirming that my love of others is still the love of myself, because the impression exciting my sympathy must exist in my mind and so be a part of myself, I should answer that this is using words without affixing any distinct meaning to them. The love or affection excited by any general idea existing in my mind can no more be said to be the love of myself than the idea of another person is the idea of myself because it is I who perceive it. This method of reasoning, however, will not go a great way to prove the doctrine of an abstract principle of self-interest, for by the same rule it would follow that I hate myself in hating any other person. Indeed upon this principle the whole structure of language is a continued absurdity. Whatever can be made the object of our thoughts must be a part of ourselves: the whole world is contained within us: I am no longer John or James, but every one that I know or can think of: I am the least part of myself: my self-interest is extended as far as my thoughts can reach: I can love no one but I must love myself in him : in hating others I also hate myself. In this sense no one can so much as think of, much less love any one, beside himself, for he can only think of his own thoughts. If our generous feelings are thus to be construed into selfishness, our malevolent ones must at least be allowed to be disinterested, for they are directed against ourselves, that is against the ideas of certain persons in our