Page:Essays on the Principles of Human Action (1835).djvu/147

distance.—In the sense which the objection implies, my love of another is not the love of myself but as it operates to produce my own good. The mind is supposed to be mechanically attached to, or to fly from every idea or impression simply as it affects it with pleasure, or pain. And if this were the case, it might with some propriety be said to be actuated by a principle of mechanical or practical self-love. If however there is no such principle regulating my attachment to others by my own convenience, very little foundation will be left for the mechanical theory. For, secondly, the real question is, why do we sympathize with others at all? It seems we are first impelled by self-love to feel uneasiness at the prospect of another's suffering, in order that the same principle of tender concern for ourselves may afterwards impel us to get rid of that uneasiness by endeavouring to prevent the suffering which is the cause of it. It is absurd to say that in compassionating the distress of others we are only affected by our own pain or uneasiness, since this very pain arises from our compassion. It is putting the effect before the cause. Before I can be affected by my own pain, I must first be put in pain. If I am affected by, or feel pain and sorrow at an idea existing in my mind, which idea is neither pain itself nor an idea of my own pain, in what sense can this be called the love of myself? Again, I am equally at a loss to conceive how if the pain which this idea gives me does not impel me to get rid of it as it gives me pain, or as it actually affects myself as a distinct, momentary impression, but as it is connected with other ideas, that is, is supposed to affect another, how I say this can be considered as the effect of self-love. The object, effort or struggle of the mind is not to remove the idea or immediate feeling of pain from the individual or to put a stop to that feeling as it affects his temporary interest, but to