BOOK I.
CH. II.

PART IV.

§ 22. The phenomena of reflection.

between the living body as the abode of feeling, the man or mind himself, and all objects which are not included in that sentient body, that is, between the mind and its objects. Now on these perceptions it is that all the reflective emotions depend; if these perceptions did not exist, neither could those emotions, since their frameworks would be altered. The combination of these perceptions with these emotions is a part of the analysis, meaning, or content, of the emotions; just as, on any psychological theory, the previous existence of the objects of these perceptions would be among their causes or conditions of exist

ence.

2. Now all emotions arise in representation of objects of sensation; and the foregoing remarks will help us to discover in what kind of these objects the emotions of the kind now in question arise. They arise only in those objects in which we perceive or infer traces of a personality or self, either our own or like our own, which we have already learnt to distinguish in reflection. When we stand by other men, we infer from their actions, from the changes of their appearance in sight or sound or other sensation, that they feel and think and reflect as we do, that their bodies are the abodes of consciousness just as our own are; and it is not only the more obvious among external actions or changes, such as gesture and speech, which lead us to infer this, but countless minute actions which arise from emotions of the more delicate and impalpable kinds; and this is the only mode I can think of in which we become aware of the existence of other minds or persons; it is a process of reasoning and inference from the second of the two distinctions mentioned above, that be

tween the mind and its objects. But just as this distinction itself can be explained only by the facts of which it consists being thrown into the crucible, and the discovery by that process of the first distinction, namely, of that between the Subject and its objects generally, so also the explanation of the connection between the second distinction and the inference of other sentient beings drawn from it can only be given by showing a parallel inference drawn from the first distinction, that between the Subject and its objects, the inference, namely, of the existence of the mind inhabiting the body of the observer himself, as distinguished from the whole, of which it is a part, the empirical ego. In other words, we infer, first, that other minds exist, secondly, what they are, from comparison with similar phenomena in our own case, the phenomena which constitute our own mind or person.

3. Although there should be no object in which we inferred the existence of a consciousness like our own, although there should be no mind included among the objects of our own mind, this would not entirely exclude personality from our world of objects; because the remaining objects would all of them be objects of our own reflecting mind, all of them parts of ourself, the objective aspect of our own Subject, which in reflection is itself a person. The existence of separate minds in the world is no more an ultimate fact in consciousness than is the existence of separate tangible and visible remote objects distinct from our own mind. Neither of them are ultimate facts of consciousness, although it seems that psychology starts with the assumption of the one as well as of the other. The bane of philosophy,

Book I. CH. II. PART IV.

§ 22. The phenomena of reflection.

BOOK I. CH. II. PART IV.

§ 22. The phenomena of reflection.

the stumbling block which is always the most difficult to avoid everywhere and for all, is the habit of taking things as matters of course. Both these facts and that of our own existence as a mind are facts capable of further analysis, and that analysis a metaphysical one; just as the taking them for ultimate facts incapable of analysis, and for matters of course which need no analysis, is a metaphysical error or error in metaphysic; so impossible is it to avoid adopting a metaphysical theory either true or false.

4. The source of our comprehending the feelings and the thoughts of other minds is the fact that these feelings and thoughts, which we infer to exist by outward sensational signs, are literally speaking parts of ourselves, parts of the objective aspect of our own Subject. We comprehend them because they are our own, and only what is our own do we comprehend in them. Here, then, in this fact is the ultimate explanation of, that is, the analysis which reduces to its simplest terms, the phenomenon of sympathy and antipathy in all its branches, of the intercourse and intercommunion existing between separate minds; each sees and feels in the other its own perceptions, feelings, and thoughts; each is a continuation of the other; each responds to the other. These terms are themselves only expressions, more familiar but less analytic, of the literal fact which I endeavour to exhibit by saying Objects of one Subject. The phenomenon is called sympathy when it is pleasureable, and antipathy when it is painful; for a sympathy in pain is pleasureable from its sympathy though painful by itself, the sympathy is its alleviation; but the comprehension which lies at the root

of both sympathy and antipathy is founded in the fact that all objects whatever are the objects of one Subject. To every man the feelings of other men are parts of himself, parts of himself which he may either love and wish to intensify, or abhor and wish to annihilate; but in this fact is the ground of his feeling an interest in them at all. Ὦ Καλλίκλεις, εἰ μή τι ἦν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις πάθος, τοῖς μὲν ἄλλο τι, τοῖς δὲ ἄλλο τι, τὸ αὐτό, ἀλλά τις ἡμῶν ἰδιόν τι ἔπασχε πάθος ἢ οἱ ἄλλοι, οὐκ ἂν ἦν ξᾴδιον ἐνδείξασθαι τῷ ἑτέρῳ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ Túlпua. Plato, Gorgias. 481 c.

§ 23. 1. Two things then are effected by this fact, 1st, the whole world is made kin, 2nd, the whole world is made comprehensible; 1st, the whole world is made continuous in time and space, 2nd, the whole world is analysed into the same elements. But what is the specific effect due to the second distinction in the phenomenon of reflection, the distinction between the mind and its objects, and to its consequence, the distinction of other minds among these objects? What is added by the fact that there are other minds in the world as well as non-sentient objects? This, that without this circumstance the mind of the observer, which would then exist alone or as the only mind in the world, would have no experience of those emotions which include or depend on sympathy and antipathy. He would feel all the direct emotions and those of the reflective which depend only on his feelings towards himself and their idealisation, such as pride, shame, good conscience, remorse, or at least some emotions analogous to these; but this would constitute the entire world of his emotions. He would not feel any emotion which requires for its arising the representation of an ob

BOOK I. CH. II. PART IV.

$ 22. The phenomena of reflection.

§ 23. Inferences from these phenomena.

BOOK I. CH. II. PART IV.

§ 23. Inferences

from these phenomena.

ject in which dwells, as its subjective centre, a world like his own, an object which feels sensations and thinks thoughts as he himself feels and thinks them. An object which is at once a subject would be lacking to him; the object or circumstance of feeling as opposed to quality, of consciousness as opposed to objects of consciousness; a feeling or a consciousness which, though to him a quality, was to itself a feeling. The subjective aspect of objects would not be an object to him except in the one widest generalisation which his own mind would offer; it would not become a particular object with a character, or second intention, derived from comparison with other particular objects of the same kind. He would thus lose all the sympathetic and antipathetic emotions, such as love, hate, benevolence, malevolence, pity, gratitude, revenge, justice towards others, truth towards others, envy, jealousy, indignation, emulation; and with them he would lose also the means of judging of his own mind in the emotions which would still remain to it, a criterion for himself, a tribunal, a critic, a supporter, an impugner, of his own judgments. For the different minds become so many mirrors each partially reflecting the others and the mind of the observer himself; and in them he finds the means of analysing and judging his own mind.

2. The problem then in analysing the reflective emotions is twofold, 1st, to understand how they arise from the addition of self-consciousness to the direct emotions, 2nd, to understand how they are carried over into the second kind of self-consciousness from the first, that is, how the distinction between the Subject and its objects influences the emotions as they appear to exist between different