William Hazlitt

“ When, for example, I think of a man, I consider this word as a common denomination, in which case, it is very evident, that my idea is in some sort circumscribed within this name, that it does not extend to anything beyond it, and that consequently it is nothing but the name itself. If, on the contrary, thinking of man in general, I contemplate any thing in this word, besides the mere denomination, it can only be by representing myself to some one man; and a man can no more be man in general, or in the abstract in my mind, than in nature. ”

“ If from the top of a long cold barren hill I hear the distant whistle of a thrush which seems to come up from some warm woody shelter beyond the edge of the hill, this sound coming faint over the rocks with a mingled feeling of strangeness and joy, the idea of the place about me, and the imaginary one beyond will all be blended together in such a manner in my mind as to become inseparable. ”

“ What sort of distinctness or individual can therefore be found in any visible image, or object of sense, I cannot well conceive: it seems to me like seeking for certainty in the dancing of insects in the evening sun, or for fixedness or rest in the motions of the sea. All particulars are thought nothing but generals, more or less defined by circumstances, but never perfectly so; in this all our knowledge both begins and ends, and if we think to exclude all generality from our ideas of things, we must be content to remain in utter ignorance. ”

“ I can love no one but I must love myself in him : in hating others I also hate myself. In this sense no one can so much as think of, much less love any one, beside himself, for he can only think of his own thoughts. If our generous feelings are thus to be construed into selfishness, our malevolent ones must at least be allowed to be disinterested, for they are directed against ourselves, that is against the ideas of certain persons in our minds. If I can have no feeling for any one but myself, I can have no feeling about any one but myself. ”

“ We are not born benevolent, that is we are not born with a desire of we know not what, and good wishes for we know not whom: neither in this sense are we born with a principle of self-love, for the idea of self is also acquired. When I say therefore that the human mind is naturally benevolent, this does not refer to any innate abstract idea of good in general, or to an instinctive desire of general, indefinite, unknown, good, but to the natural connection between the idea of happiness and the desire of it, independently of any particular attachment to the person who is to feel it. ”

“ We should thrust our hands into the fire, dash our heads against the wall, leap down precipices, and commit more absurdities every moment of our lives than were performed by Don Quixote with so much labour and study by way of penance in the heart of the Brown Mountain. The momentum of the will is necessary to give direction and constancy to any of our actions; and this again can only be determined by the ideas of future good and evil, and the connection which the mind perceives between certain actions, and the attainment of the one or the prevention of the other. ”

“ For what possible idea can any man form of a slab of white marble, in any other way than that of abstraction? Is the idea of its whiteness as a sensible quality the idea of a point? Is it one single impression? This Berkeley and others deny, for they say there can be no idea of colour without extension, or of quality without quantity. If there are in this object several impressions of colour, I would ask are they all distinctly perceived? ”

“ Let any one make the experiment of counting a flock of sheep driven fast by him, and he will soon find his imagination unable to keep pace with the rapid succession of objects, and his idea of particular number slide into the general idea of multitude; not that because there are more objects than he possibly can count, he will think there are many, or that the word flock will present to his mind a mere name, without any particulars corresponding to it. Every act of the attention, every object we see or think of, presents a proof of the same kind. ”

“ It is this continued consciousness of my own feelings which gives me an immediate interest in whatever relates to my future welfare, and makes me at all times accountable to myself for my own conduct. As, therefore, this consciousness will be renewed in me after death, if I exist again at all—But stop—As I must be conscious of my past feelings to be myself, and as this conscious being will be myself, how if that consciousness should be transferred to some other being? ”

“ Almost every one has a feeling that he has a real interest in the one, but that his interest in the other is merely imaginary; that his interest in the one is absolute and independent of himself, that it exists with the same force whether he feels it, or not, whether he pursues, or neglects it; that it is a part of himself, a bond from which he cannot free himself without changing his being; whereas the interest which he takes in the welfare of others is a voluntary interest, taken up and dismissed at pleasure, and which exists no longer than he feels it ”

“ If I am always necessarily the object of my own thoughts and actions, I must hate, love, serve, or stab myself as it happens. It is pretended by a violent assumption, that benevolence is only a desire to prolong the idea of another's pleasure in one's own mind, because that idea exists there : malevolence must therefore be a disposition to prolong the idea of pain in one's own mind for the same reason, that is, to injure one's-self ”

“ Those who contend that we cannot have an idea of a man in general, without conceiving of some particular man, seem to have little reason, since the most particular idea we can form of a man, either in imagination or from the actual impression, is but a general idea. Those who say we cannot conceive of an army of men without conceiving of the individuals composing it, ought to go a step further, and affirm that we must represent to ourselves the features, form, complexion, size, posture, and dress, with every other circumstance belonging to each individual. ”

“ For, secondly, the real question is, why do we sympathize with others at all? It seems we are first impelled by self-love to feel uneasiness at the prospect of another's suffering, in order that the same principle of tender concern for ourselves may afterwards impel us to get rid of that uneasiness by endeavouring to prevent the suffering which is the cause of it. It is absurd to say that in compassionating the distress of others we are only affected by our own pain or uneasiness, since this very pain arises from our compassion. ”

“ It seems as if the mind was laid open to all the impressions which had been made upon it at any given time, the moment any one of them recalls a state of feeling habitually in unison with the rest. By touching a certain spring, all obstacles are removed, the doors fly open, and the whole gallery is seen at a single glance. The mind has a capacity to perform any complex action the easier for having performed the same action before. ”

“ I have already shewn that there is no one object which does not consist of a number of parts and relations, or which does not require a comprehensive facility in the mind in order to conceive of it. Now abstraction is a necessary consequence of the limitation of this power of the mind, and if it were a previous condition of our having the ideas of things that we should comprehend distinctly all the particulars of which they are composed, we could have no ideas at all. An imperfectly comprehended is a general idea. But the mind perfectly comprehends the whole of no one object. ”

“ In the first place, it may be sufficient to deny the mere matter of fact, that such is the natural disposition of the human mind. We do not on every occasion blindly consult the interest of the moment, there is no instinctive, unerring bias to our own good, controuling all other impulses, and guiding them to its own purposes. It is not true that in giving way to the feelings either of sympathy or rational self-interest, (by one or other of which feelings my actions are constantly governed [9] ,) I always yield to that impulse which is accompanied with most pleasure at the time. ”

“ This is unavoidable, unless we ascribe to each individual a particular genius of selfishness which never suffers his affections to wander for a moment from himself; or suppose that a man's attachment to himself is because he has a long nose or a short one, because his hair is black or red, or because he has an unaccountable fancy for his own name, for all these make a part of the individual, and must be deemed very weighty reasons by those who think it self-evident that a man must love himself because he is himself? ”

“ A particular line would no more represent another line, than it would represent a point: one colour could no more resemble another colour, or suggest its idea, than it could that of a sound, or a smell: there could be no clue to make us class different shades of the same colour under one general name, any more than the most opposite: one triangle would be as distinct from another, as from a square or a cube, and so through the whole system of art and nature. ”

“ It should also be remembered as the constant principle of all our reasonings, that the impression which the child has of himself as the subject of future pain is never anything more than an idea of imagination, and that he cannot possibly by any kind of anticipation feel that pain as a real sensation a single moment before it exists. How then are we to account for his supposed exclusive attachment to this ideal self so as to make that the real source of the dislike and dread which the apprehension of any particular pain to be inflicted on himself causes in the mind? ”

“ Neither can I will a thing not to be, which actually exists, or that which has really existed, not to have been. The only proper objects of voluntary action are, by necessity, future events: these can excite no possible interest in the mind but by means of the imagination; and they make the same direct appeal to that faculty, whether they relate to ourselves, or others; as the eye receives with equal directness the impression of our own external form, or that of others. ”

“ But as the mind cannot enjoy any good but what it possesses within itself, neither can it seek to produce any good but what it can enjoy: it is just as idle to suppose that the love of happiness or good should prompt any being to give up his own interest for the sake of another, as it would be to attempt to allay violent thirst by giving water to another to drink.
Now I can conceive that a man must be necessarily interested in his own actual feelings, whatever these may be merely because he feels them. ”

“ But for this there could be no desire, no pursuit of any thing. We cannot strive to obtain what we already possess: we cannot give to that which already exists a double reality. My real interest is not therefore something which I can handle, which is to be felt, or seen: it is not lodged in the organs of hearing, or taste, or smell: it is not the subject of any of the senses: it is not in any respect what is commonly understood by a real, substantial interest. On the contrary, it is fundamentally, and in it's origin and by it's very nature the creature of reflection and imagination ”

“ If it should be said that the sensible image of the house is still one, as being one impression, or given result, I answer that the most abstract ideas of a house, and the imperfect recollection of a number of houses is in the same sense one, and a real idea, distinct from that of a tree, though far from being a particular image. Again, it is said, that in conceiving of the idea of man in general, we must conceive a man a particular sign or figure. ”