e thoughts of
our liableness to calamity, and the fear of it; and both equally do this.
It is fit such sort of accounts of human nature should be shown to be
what they really are, because there is raised upon them a general scheme,
which undermines the whole foundation of common justice and honesty. See
_Hobbes of Human Nature_, c. 9. section 10.

There are often three distinct perceptions or inward feelings upon sight
of persons in distress: real sorrow and concern for the misery of our
fellow-creatures; some degree of satisfaction from a consciousness of our
freedom from that misery; and as the mind passes on from one thing to
another it is not unnatural from such an occasion to reflect upon our own
liableness to the same or other calamities. The two last frequently
accompany the first, but it is the first _only_ which is properly
compassion, of which the distressed are the objects, and which directly
carries us with calmness and thought to their assistance. Any one of
these, from various and complicated reasons, may in particular cases
prevail over the other two; and there are, I suppose, instances, where
the bare _sight_ of distress, without our feeling any compassion for it,
may be the occasion of either or both of the two latter perceptions. One
might add that if there be really any such thing as the fiction or
imagination of danger to ourselves from sight of the miseries of others,
which Hobbes specks of, and which he has absurdly mistaken for the whole
of compassion; if there be anything of this sort common to mankind,
distinct from the reflection of reason, it would be a most remarkable
instance of what was furthest from his thoughts--namely, of a mutual
sympathy between each particular of the species, a fellow-feeling common
to mankind. It would not indeed be an example of our substituting others
for ourselves, but it would be an example of user substituting ourselves
for others. And as it would not be an instance of benevolence, so
neither would it be any instance of self-love: for this phantom of danger
to ourselves, naturally rising to view upon sight of the distresses of
others, would be no more an instance of love to ourselves than the pain
of hunger is.

{14} Ecclus. xxxii. 28.

{15} Ecclus. xlii. 24.

{16} Ver. 4, 5.

{17} Ver. 6.

{18} Micah vi.

{19} Chap. xxii. 12.

{20} Ver. 21.

{21} Chap. iv.

{22} Chap. xxv.

{23} Chap. xxxi.

{24} Chap. ii.

{24a} In the Cas