rom sympathetic and unsympathetic actions, had
first to be slowly associated with such actions, and the resulting
incentives and deterrents frequently obeyed, before there could arise
the perceptions that sympathetic and unsympathetic actions are remotely
beneficial or detrimental to the actor; and they had to be obeyed still
longer and more generally before there could arise the perceptions that
they are socially beneficial or detrimental. When, however, the remote
effects, personal and social, have gained general recognition, are
expressed in current maxims, and lead to injunctions having the
religious sanction, the sentiments that prompt sympathetic actions and
check unsympathetic ones are immensely strengthened by their alliances.
Approbation and reprobation, divine and human, come to be associated in
thought with the sympathetic and unsympathetic actions respectively. The
commands of the creed, the legal penalties, and the code of social
conduct, unitedly enforce them; and every child as it grows up, daily
has impressed on it by the words and faces and voices of those around
the authority of these highest principles of conduct. And now we may see
why there arises a belief in the special sacredness of these highest
principles, and a sense of the supreme authority of the altruistic
sentiments answering to them. Many of the actions which, in early social
states, received the religious sanction and gained public approbation,
had the drawback that such sympathies as existed were outraged, and
there was hence an imperfect satisfaction. Whereas these altruistic
actions, while similarly having the religious sanction and gaining
public approbation, bring a sympathetic consciousness of pleasure given
or of pain prevented; and, beyond this, bring a sympathetic
consciousness of human welfare at large, as being furthered by making
altruistic actions habitual. Both this special and this general
sympathetic consciousness become stronger and wider in proportion as the
power of mental representation increases, and the imagination of
consequences, immediate and remote, grows more vivid and comprehensive.
Until at length these altruistic sentiments begin to call in question
the authority of those ego-altruistic sentiments which once ruled
unchallenged. They prompt resistance to laws that do not fulfil the
conception of justice, encourage men to brave the frowns of their
fellows by pursuing a course at variance with customs that are per