tic or sympathetic feelings, which centre in others and are
developed by the social surroundings in which he finds himself placed.
These two groups of feelings, I conceive, were independent of one
another from the first, or at least as soon as man could be called man,
and neither of them admits of being resolved into the other. As the one
was developed by and adapted to personal needs, so the other was
developed by and adapted to the manifold requirements of family or
tribal life, which, from the first, was inseparable from the life of the
individual. Intermediate between these two groups of feelings, the
purely self-regarding and the purely sympathetic, and derived probably
from the interaction of both, is another group, which may be called the
semi-social group. This group includes shame, love of reputation, love
of notoriety, desire of fame, and the like, but, on analysis, it will be
found that all these feelings admit of being referred to two heads, the
love of approbation and the fear of disapprobation. Lastly, if any of
our desires or feelings are thwarted by the intentional action of other
men, the result in our minds is a feeling which we call Resentment, and
which, though it regards others, is, unlike the sympathetic feelings, a
malevolent and not a benevolent feeling. It is important, in considering
the economy of human nature, to notice that Resentment, as is also the
case with the love of cruelty, is a secondary not a primary, a derived
not an original affection of our minds; for, apart from the desire to
gratify some self-regarding or sympathetic feeling, or disappointment
when that desire is not gratified, there is, I conceive, no such thing
as ill-feeling in one human being towards another. Resentment is
properly a reflex form of sympathy or self-regard, arising when our
sympathetic feelings are wounded by an injury done to another, or our
self-regarding desires are frustrated by an injury done to ourselves;
when, in fact, any emotional element in our nature is, by the
intentional intervention of another, disappointed of attaining its end.
Each of these groups of feelings admits of being studied apart, though
in the actual conduct of life they are seldom found to operate alone,
and each, under the continued action of reason, assumes a form or forms
in which its various elements are brought into harmonious working with
each other, so as best to promote the ends which the whole group
subserves. These forms, t