SECTION VI.

Of Resentment and the various other angry Affections grafted upon it, (commonly considered by Ethical Writers as Malevolent Affections.)

THE names which are given to these affections in common discourse are various, Hatred, Jealousy, Envy, Revenge, Misanthropy; but it may be doubted if there be any principle of this kind implanted by nature in the mind, excepting the principle of Resentment, the others being grafted on this stock by our erroneous opinions and criminal habits.

Emulation, indeed, (which is unquestionably an original principle of action) is treated of by Dr. Reid under the title of the Malevolent Affections. But I formerly gave my reasons for classing this principle with the desires, and not with the affections. I acknowledged, indeed, that emulation is often accompanied with ill will to our rival; but the malevolent affection is only a concomitant circumstance; and it is not the affection, but the desire of superiority, which can be justly regarded as the active principle.

Nor is this sentiment of ill will a necessary concomitant of the desire of superiority; for there is unquestionably a solid distinction between emulation and envy, the latter of which is a corruption of the former, disgraceful to the character, and ruinous to the happiness of whoever indulges it. In the case of envy the malevolent affection arises, I believe, generally from some error of the judgment, or some illusion of the imagination, leading us to refer the cause of our own want of success either to some injustice on the part of our rival, or to an unjust partiality in the world which overrates his merits and undervalues ours. In both of these cases the desire of superiority generates malevolent affections, by first leading us to apprehend injustice, and thus exciting the natural passion of resentment.

Before proceeding to consider this principle of action, - it may be proper again to remark, that, when the epithet malevolent is appled to it, that word must not be

understood to imply any thing criminal, at least so long as resentment is restrained within proper bounds, after having been originally excited by real injustice. The epithet malevolent is used only to express that temporary ill will towards the author of the apprehended injustice with which resentment is necessarily accompanied till it begins to subside.

One of the first authors who examined with success this part of our constitution, and illustrated the important purposes to which it is subservient, was Bishop Butler, in an excellent discourse printed among his Sermons. The hints he has thrown out have evidently been of great use both to Lord Kames and Mr. Smith in their speculations concerning the principles of morals.

To Butler we are indebted for the illustration of a very important distinction (which had been formerly hinted at by Hobbes) between instinctive and deliberate resentment. Instinctive resentment operates in men exactly as in the lower animals, arising necessarily from any feeling of pain excited by external objects, and prompting us to a retaliation upon the cause of our suffering without any exercise whatever of reflection. and reason. It is thus that a child beats the ground after it has hurt itself by a fall, and that we sometimes see a passionate man wreak his vengeance on inanimate objects by dashing them to pieces. This species of resentment, however, subsides instantly, and we are ready next moment to smile at the absurdity of our conduct.

Deliberate resentment is excited only by intentional injury, and therefore implies a sense of justice, or of moral good or evil. It is plainly peculiar to a rational nature, and perhaps it is not very distinguishable from instinctive or animal resentment in the ruder state of our own species. It is observed by Dr. Robertson, that "the desire of vengeance which takes possession of the heart of savages resembles the instinctive rage of an animal rather than the passion of a man, and that it turns with undiscerning fury even against inanimate objects." He adds, "that, if struck with an arrow in battle, they will tear it from the wound, break and bite it with their teeth, and dash it on the ground.'

America, Vol. I. pp. 351, 352.

This distinction too is much insisted on by Lord Kames in various parts of his writings; and it is from him that I have borrowed the phrase of instinctive resentment, which he has substituted instead of sudden resentment, employed by Butler.

The final cause of instinctive resentment was plainly to defend us against sudden violence, (where reason would come too late to our assistance) by rousing the powers both of mind and body to instant and vigorous exertion. A number of our other instincts are perfectly analogous to this. Such, for example, is the instinctive effort we make to recover ourselves when we are in danger of losing our balance,* and the instin ctive dispatch with which we shut the eyelids when an object is

Although I have followed Dr. Reid's language in calling this an instinctive effort, I am abundantly aware that the expression is not unexceptionable. On this head I perfectly agree (excepting in one single point) with the following remarks of Gravesande.

"Il y a quelque chose d'admirable dans le moyen ordinaire dont les hommes se servent, pour s'empêcher de tomber: car dans le tems que, par quelque mouvement, le poids du corps s'augmente d'une coté, un autre mouvement rétablit l'équilibre dans l'instant. On attribue communément la chose à un instinct naturel quoiqu'il faille nécessairement l'attribuer à un art perfectionné par l'exercice.

"Les enfans ignorent absolument cet art dans les premières années de leur vie; ils l'apprennent peu à peu, et s'y perfectionnent, parce qu'ils ont continuellement occasion de s'y exercer; exercice qui, dans la suite, n'exige presque plus aucune attention de leur part; tout comme un musicien remue les doigts, suivant les règles de l'art, pendant qu'il apperçoit à peine qu'il y fasse le moindre attention."-Euvres Philosophiques de M. s' Gravesende p. 121, 2de Partie. Amsterdam 1774.

The only thing I am disposed to object to in the foregoing passage is that clause where the author describes the effort in question to an art. Is it not manifestly as wide of the truth to refer it to this source as to a pure instinct?

The word art implies intelligence,-the perception of an end, and the choice of means. But where is there any appearance of either in an operation common to the whole species, (not excepting the idiot and the insane) and which is practised as successfully by the brutes as by rational creatures.

Elephants (it is well known) were taught by the ancients to walk on the tight rope, on which occasions their trunk probably performed the office of a pole. Whoever has seen a peacock walk in a windy day along the branch of a tree must have observed the address with which he avails himself of his tail for the same purpose. Nothing, however, can place in a stronger light the capacity of the brutes to acquire the nice management of the centre of gravity than the mathematical exactness with which we may daily see horses in the circus adjusting the inclination of their bodies to the velocity of their circular speed. Here, indeed, a good deal is to be ascribed to the effects of human discipline, but by far the greater part of the groundwork is laid by nature in the instinctive dispositions of the animal. The acquisition scems to be almost as easy as that of the habits which constitute the acquired perceptions of sight.

In one of the last volumes of Dr. Clarke's Travels there is a figure of a goat, whom the author saw standing with its four feet collected together on the top of a cylindrical piece of wood of a few inches diameter. Nobody can doubt that the effects of discipline were greatly facilitated in this instance by the natural instincts of the goat, which probably accommodated themselves with very little instruction to the artificial circumstances in which they were forced to operate.

made to pass rapidly before the face. In general it will be found, that, as nature has taken upon herself the care of our preservation during the infancy of our reason, so in every case in which our existence is threatened by dangers, against which reason is unable to supply a remedy with sufficient promptitude, she continues this guardian care through the whole of life.

The disposition which we sometimes feel, when under the influence of instinctive resentment, to wreak our vengeance upon inanimate objects, has suggested to Dr. Reid a very curious query, Whether, upon such an occasion, we may have a momentary belief that the object is alive? For my own part I confess my inclination to answer this question in the affirmative. I agree with Dr. Reid in thinking, that, unless we had such a belief, our conduct could not possibly be what it frequently is, and that it is not till this momentary belief is at an end that our conduct appears to ourselves to be absurd and ludicrous. With respect to infants there are many facts beside that now under consideration which render it probable that their first apprehensions lead them to believe all the objects around them to be animated, and that it is only in consequence of experience and reason that they come to form the notion of insentient substances. If this be the case, the illusion of imagination which leads us to ascribe life to things inanimate, when we are under the influence of instinctive resentment, may perhaps be owing to a momentary relapse in those apprehensions which were habitually familiar to us in the first years of our existence.

But whatever theory we adopt on the subject, there can be no doubt about the fact, that the final cause of this law of our nature was to secure and guard us against the sudden effects of external injuries in cases where there is not time for deliberation and judgment. With respect to the injuries we are liable to from our fellow creatures, it secures us further by its effect in restraining them from acts of violence. "It is a kind of penal statute promulgated by nature, the execution of which is committed to the sufferer." *

* Reid.

In man the instinctive resentment subsides as soon as he is satisfied that no injury was intended; and it is only intentional injury that is the object of settled and deliberate resentment. The final cause of this species of resentment is analogous to that of the other,-to serve as a check on those men whose violent or malignant passions might lead them to disturb the happiness of their fellow creatures.

In order to secure still more effectually so very important an end, we are so formed, that the injustice offered to others, as well as to ourselves, awakens our resentment against the aggressor, and prompts us to take part in the redress of their grievances. In this case the emotion we feel is more properly denoted in our language by the word indignation; but (as Butler has remarked) our principle of action is in both cases fundamentally the same, an aversion or displeasure at injustice and cruelty which interests us in the punishment of those by whom they have been exhibited. Resentment, therefore, when restrained within due bounds, seems to be rather a sentiment of hatred against vice than an affection of ill will against any of our fellow creatures; and, on this account, I am somewhat doubtful (notwithstanding the apology I have already made for the title of this section) whether I have not followed Dr. Reid too closely in characterizing resentment, considered as an original part of the constitution of man, by the epithet of malevolent.

An additional confirmation of this doctrine arises from the following consideration: That, in candid and generous minds, the whole object of resentment is to convince the person who has injured them that he has treated them unjustly,-to show him that he has formed an unfair estimate of their characters and of their talents, and to obtain such a superiority over him in point of power as to be able, by a generous forgiveness of his aggressions, to convert his malice into gratitude. In other words, in such minds the great object of resentment is to correct the faults of the delinquent, and to make a friend of an enemy.

This last observation points out (by the way) the fi