Note 117 — Chapter III

See the first and striking chapter in Adam Smith’s ‘Theory of Moral Sentiments.’ Also Mr. Bain’s ‘Mental and Moral Science,’ 1868, p. 244, and 275-282. Mr. Bain states, that “sympathy is, indirectly, a source of pleasure to the sympathiser;” and he accounts for this through reciprocity. He remarks that “the person benefited, or others in his stead, may make up, by sympathy and good offices returned, for all the sacrifice.” But if, as appears to be the case, sympathy is strictly an instinct, its exercise would give direct pleasure, in the same manner as the exercise, as before remarked, of almost every other instinct.