Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind

by James Mill

The idea of a man enjoying a train of pleasures, or happiness, is felt by every body to be a pleasurable idea. The idea of a man under a train of sufferings or pains, is equally felt to be a painful idea. This can arise from nothing but the association of our own pleasures with the first idea, and of our own pains with the second. We never feel any pains and pleasures but our own. The fact, indeed, is, that our very idea of the pains or pleasures of another man is only the idea of our own pains, or our own pleasures, associated with the idea of another man. This is one not of the least important, and curious, of all cases of association, and instantly shews how powerfully associated trains of ideas of our pains and pleasures must be with a feeling so compounded.[43]

[⁴³] That the pleasures or pains of another person can only be pleasurable or painful to us through the association of our own pleasures or pains with them, is true in one sense, which is probably that intended by the author, but not true in another, against which he has not sufficiently guarded his mode of expression. It is evident, that the only pleasures or pains of which we have direct experience being those felt by ourselves, it is from them that our very notions of pleasure and pain are derived. It is also obvious that the pleasure or pain with which we contemplate the pleasure or pain felt by somebody else, is itself a pleasure or pain of our own. But if it be meant that in such cases the pleasure or pain is consciously referred to self, I take this to be a mistake. By the acts or other signs exhibited by another person, the idea of a pleasure (which is a pleasurable idea) or the idea of a pain (which is a painful idea) are recalled, sometimes with considerable intensity, but in association with the other person as feeling them, not with one’s self as feeling them. The idea of one’s Self is, no doubt, closely associated with all our experiences, pleasurable, painful, or indifferent; but this association does not necessarily act in all cases because it exists in all cases. If the mind, when pleasurably or painfully affected by the evidences of pleasure or pain in another person, goes off on a different thread of association, as for instance, to the idea of the means of giving the pleasure or relieving the pain, or even if it dismisses the subject and relapses into the ordinary course of its thoughts, the association with its own self may be, at the time, defeated, or reduced to something so evanescent that we cannot tell whether it was momentarily present or not.—Ed.

218 The Pleasurable association composed of the ideas of a man and his pleasures, and the painful association composed of the ideas of a man and his pains, are both Affections, which have so much of the same tendency that they are included under one name, Kindness; though the latter affection has a name appropriate to itself, Compassion.

3.—Family.

The Group, which consists of a Father, Mother, and Children, is called a Family. The associations which each member of this group has of his pains and pleasures, with the pains and pleasures of the other members, constitute some of the most interesting states of human consciousness.

The affection of the husband and wife is, in its origin, that of two persons of different sex, and need 219 not be further analysed. To this source of pleasurable association is added, when the union is happy, all those other associations, just enumerated, which constitute the affection of Friendship. To this another addition is made by the union of interests; or that necessity, under which both are placed, of receiving pain and pleasure from the same causes. As, in too many instances, these pleasurable associations are extinguished, by the generation of others of an opposite description; in other cases, they are carried to such a height, as to afford an exemplification of that remarkable state of mind, in which a greater value is set upon the means, than upon the end. Persons have been found, the one of whom could not endure to live without the other.

The Parental affection requires to be somewhat more minutely analysed.

First of all, there can be no doubt, that all that power of exciting trains of ideas of our own pains and pleasures, which belongs to the pains and pleasures of any of our fellow-creatures, is possessed by the pains and pleasures of a man’s child.

In the next place, it is well known that the pains and pleasures of another person affect us; that is, associate with themselves the ideas of our own pains and pleasures, with more or less intensity, according to the attention which we bestow upon his pains or pleasures. A parent is commonly either led or impelled to bestow an unusual degree of attention upon the pains and pleasures of his child; and hence a habit is contracted of sympathizing with him, as it is commonly, and not insignificantly named; in other words, a facility of associating the ideas of 220 his own pains and pleasures, with those of the child.

Again, a man looks upon his child as a cause to him of future pains or pleasures, much more certain, than any other person. The father regards the son somewhat in the light of another self, a great proportion of the effects of whose acts, whether good or evil, will redound to himself. An object regarded as a great future cause to us of future pains or pleasures, we call an object of intense interest; in other words, a train of interesting ideas, that is, of ideas of pains or pleasures, is associated with it.