Page:Observations on Man 1834.djvu/331

 honour and esteem annexed to it, procures us many advantages, and returns of kindness, both from the person obliged, and others; and is most closely connected with the hope of reward in a future state, and with the pleasures of religion, and of self-approbation, or the moral sense. And the same things hold with respect to generosity in a much higher degree. It is easy therefore to see, how such associations may be formed in us, as to engage us to forego great pleasure, or endure great pain, for the sake of others; how these associations may be attended with so great a degree of pleasure as to overrule the positive pain endured, or the negative one from the foregoing of a pleasure; and yet how there may be no direct, explicit expectation of reward, either from God or man, by natural consequence, or express appointment, not even of the concomitant pleasure which engages the agent to undertake the benevolent or generous action. And this I take to be a proof from the doctrine of association, that there is, and must be, such a thing as pure disinterested benevolence; also a just account of the origin and nature of it.

Gratitude includes benevolence, and therefore has the same sources with some additional ones; these last are the explicit or implicit recollection of the benefits and pleasures received, the hope of future ones, the approbation of the moral character of the benefactor, and the pleasures from the honour and esteem attending gratitude, much enhanced by the peculiar baseness and shamefulness of ingratitude.

The Affections by which we grieve for the Misery of others.

Compassion is the uneasiness which a man feels at the misery of another. Now this in children seems to be grounded upon such associations as these that follow: the very appearance and idea of any kind of misery which they have experienced, or of any signs of distress which they understand, raise up in their nervous systems a state of misery from mere memory, on account of the strength of their imaginations; and because the connexion between the adjuncts of pain, and the actual infliction of it, has not yet been sufficiently broken by experience, as in adults.—When several children are educated together, the pains, the denials of pleasures, and the sorrows, which affect one, generally extend to all in some degree, often in an equal one.—When their parents, attendants, &c. are sick or afflicted, it is usual to raise in their minds the nascent ideas of pains and miseries, by such words and signs as are suited to their capacities; they also find themselves laid under many restraints on this account. And when these and such like circumstances have raised the desires and endeavours to remove the causes of these their own