ell caged that there is no fear of its
attacking us; nor do we call a man good because, though his desires are
evil, we have made him afraid to gratify them. Further, it is not
enough that the obedience in question be willing in the sense that it
does not give us pain. If it is to be a moral quality, it must also give
us positive pleasure. Indeed, it must not so much be obedience to the
law as an impassioned co-operation with it.

Now this, if producible, even though no further moral aim was connected
with it, would undoubtedly be of itself a moral element. Suppose two
pigs, for instance, had only a single wallowing-place, and each would
like naturally to wallow in it for ever. If each pig in turn were to
rejoice to make room for his brother, and were consciously to regulate
his delight in becoming filthy himself by an equal delight in seeing his
brother becoming filthy also, we should doubtless here be in the
presence of a certain moral element. And though this, in a human
society, might not carry us so far as we require to be carried, it
would, without doubt, if producible, carry us a certain way. The
question is, Is this moral element, this impassioned and unselfish
co-operation with the social law, producible, in the absence of any
farther end to which the social law is to be subordinate? The positive
school apparently think it is; and this opinion has a seeming foundation
in fact. We will therefore carefully examine what this foundation is,
and see how far it is really able to support the weight that is laid
upon it.

That fact, in itself a quite undoubted one, is the possession by man of
a certain special and important feeling, which, viewed from its passive
side, we call sympathy, and from its active side, benevolence. It exists
in various degrees in different people, but to some degree or other it
probably exists in all. Most people, for instance, if they hear an
amusing story, at once itch to tell it to an appreciative friend; for
they find that the amusement, if shared, is doubled. Two epicures
together, for the same reason, will enjoy a dinner better than if they
each dined singly. In such cases the enjoyment of another plays the part
of a reflector, which throws one's own enjoyment back on one. Nor is
this all. It is not only true that we often desire others to be pleased
with us; we often desire others to be pleased instead of us. For
instance, if there be but one easy chair in a room, one man will often