minds, or are felt by one mind towards others. Let the thoughts be fixed for a few moments on the state of the individual consciousness when reflection or self-consciousness, in the shape of a distinction between the Subject and its objects, first arises in it. In this state all its objects are its own or parts of itself, all have interest for it, all are or contain feelings which are either pleasureable or painful; but there is a certain group among them which is always present, always closely connected with the Subject both in time and space; this group is the body and the feelings which arise in it; this group it is impossible to escape from, and it possesses on this account the greatest interest. The circumstances which give it this greatest interest are its close connection and its inherent pleasure and pain. Lessen either of these characters, that is, loosen the connection or diminish the inherent pleasure and pain, and the interest would diminish; increase or intensify them, and the interest would increase. This is the same phenomenon, in kind, as that which has already been observed in § 20, in the case of desires and motives, the two elements of which are the certainty and the interest in kind and degree. The same holds good of all objects of the Subject, since all are connected with it and all are or contain pleasure or pain. Lessen these characters in the case of any of these objects, and their interest is lessened; increase them, and their interest is increased. Now this phenomenon it is which is often obscured and calumniated by the popular title of self-love. It is better expressed by the term Unity of interest in self-consciousness, a fact which underlies or accompanies all consciousness where pleasure or pain exist. If consciousness Book I. CH. II PART IV. § 23. Inferences from these phenomena. BOOK I. CH. II. PART IV. § 23. Inferences from these phenomena. is one, so also must be self-consciousness, and so also must be the feeling of interest which is but a part of consciousness. This fact, the unity of interest in self-consciousness, the analysis of which has now been given, is incapable of being explained by saying that we feel an interest in objects or persons because we consider them to be in relation to ourselves, that is, it cannot be explained by referring it to a so called self-love; because self-love itself, the interest which we feel in self, requires explanation and analysis, and this analysis consists in the fact of unity of interest increasing and decreasing according as the connection of the objects in question with the Subject, that is, their constancy in consciousness, and the intensity of their pleasure or pain, are increased or diminished. The explanation which assumes a Self is only a popular mode of explanation, describing in other terms the very phenomenon which is to be explained; and these other terms only appear to be an explanation of it, because, being more familiar, they refer the phenomena to the familiar ultimate distinction in psychology, that between the Mind and its objects. 3. It is common in popular parlance to oppose self-love to benevolence, or to unselfish sympathy with others; in these phrases the distinction between one mind and other minds is adopted as ultimate and inexplicable because familiar; and there are two distinct schools of moralists who, equally starting from this basis, endeavour, the one to explain benevolence by or deduce it from self-love, the other to show that benevolence or sympathy is as original and independent an emotion as self-love. But the unity of interest in self-consciousness is the phenomenon which underlies or is common to both these empirical phenomena, self-love and benevolence as commonly understood, and is requisite to analyse and explain both one and the other; and the results of this, in reference to the theories of the two schools mentioned, will be clearly shown by the sequel. The perception of the distinction, then, between the Subject and its objects contains under it, as a further distinction or differentiation arising in one of its terms, the objects, the perception of several minds; and the relations in which the Subject stands to any of these minds, and to its own among them, are modes or specifications of the general relation in which it stands to its objects, as proper objects of the Subject. Воок І. CH. II. PART IV. $23. Inferences from these phenomena. $ 24. The method to § 24. 1. The Subject has before it in reflection, according to what has been said, two objects, other be followed. minds and its own; and the representations of these in their different modes and in their relations to each other are the frameworks of the reflective emotions. The first question, then, which arises in proceeding to analyse these emotions is this, with which of the two objects to begin, with the emotions which arise in the representation of the Subject's own mind alone, or with those which arise in the representation of the relations between that and other minds. It might seem natural at first sight to begin with the former, on the ground that a knowledge of oneself was the necessary preliminary to that of other minds, or of the effect they produce in relation to oneself; and that this is the way proper and even, on its own principles, necessary to metaphysic, and yet that it is a way fruitless and bewildering, is the substance of an objection often urged against metaphysic. But the latter way is the true one, and at the same time the way proper to metaphysic, which follows in the BOOK I. CH. II. PART IV. § 24. The method to track of actual history, the history of the actual development both of individuals and of mankind at large. The justification of this method on metaphybe followed. sical principles can easily be given. Let us consider first what the actual course of development must have been. The Subject, let it be supposed, has now distinguished its two objects, other minds and its own, at the first dawning of reflection; but this distinction by no means includes a knowledge of what emotions arise in contemplating each of these objects respectively, it is but the first step towards such a knowledge. The emotions of the Subject's own mind, from his knowledge of which he infers the nature of the emotions of other minds, are still entirely subjective, a mass of feelings unanalysed and unclassified, arising confusedly on occasion of presentations and representations of all kinds. Other minds make part of these presentations and representations. The total mass of emotions, and the total mass of their frameworks, can only be arranged and analysed pari passu. The emotions of the Subject arising from, or felt towards, other minds must first be distinguished from this mass; in doing which the Subject learns by degrees to treat the subjective emotions of his own mind objectively, as if they belonged to another mind, or as if they were inferred from outward signs instead of being subjectively experienced. Not till both these processes have been gone through is the Subject capable of drawing a clear distinction between emotions felt towards other minds and emotions felt solely towards his own. It certainly is not a distinction with which the mind begins its career; but rather the discovery of the relations of the Subject's mind to other minds is the first step in the process of completely analysing and classifying the emotions of the Subject. The first glimpse attained by mankind that there was still this further work before them, namely, to analyse the mind itself, after analysing the relation of the mind to its environment and to other minds therein, was expressed, at least in Grecian development, in the famous inscription at Delphi Γνῶθι σεαῦτον. 2. But if this is the course of the actual development of reflection, it is absurd to demand that metaphysic should deviate from it in order to begin with the conception of a Self or a Mind ready analysed and established, with distinctions ready drawn between the emotions which arise solely in contemplation of itself and those which arise in contemplation of other minds, since these are distinctions which are not obvious from the first but are discovered gradually by a long course of reflection. Such a method would be more consonant to an ontological psychology, the principle of which is to treat the Self or the Mind as a single determinate being, marked out from the first as different from its objects, instead of being an object discovered by much, but now longforgotten, thought and observation. But metaphysic is itself in its present shape but the continuation of, though it is also the investigation into, these very processes of self-analysis and self-classification. The whole history of metaphysic is continuous, its earliest and latest enquiries are parts of one unbroken chain, in which the distinctions drawn, the insights won, and the classifications established, serve as the basis, the instrument, the logic, of further discoveries, discoveries which only differ from the earlier ones in being performed with a greater degree of self-con |