Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

354 I12MAGINATION.
tioned.*' One striking proof of this is, the powerful emotions
which may be occasionally excited in the minds of the most callous, when the attention has been once fixed, and the iniagination awakened by eloquent, and circumstantial, and pathetic description..Adam Smith traces the sense of justice to a regard for the
opinion of others. - A very amiable and profound moralist, in
the account which he has given of the origin of our sense of
justice, has, I think, drawn a less pleasing picture of the natural
constitution of the human mind, than is agreeable to truth. "' To
distulrb," says he, " the happiness of our neighbor, merely because it stands in the way of our own; to take from him what
is of' real use to him, merely because it may be of equal or of
more use to us; or, to indulge, in this manner, at the expense
of other people, the natural preference which every man has for
his own happiness above that of other people, is what no impar-.
tial spectator can go along with. Every man is, no doubt, first
and principally recommended to his own care; and as lie is
fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is fit
and right that it should be so. Every man, therefore, is much
more deeply interested in whatever immediately concerns himself, than in what concerns any other man; and to hear, perhaps, of the death of another person with whom we have no
particular connection, will give us less concern, will spoil our
stomach, or break our rest, much less than a very insignificant
disaster which has befallen ourselves. But though the ruin of
our neighbor may affect us much less than a very small misfortune of our own, we must not ruin him to prevent that small
misfortune, nor even to prevent our own ruin.'We must here,
as in all other cases, view ourselves not so much according to that
light in which we may naturally appear to ourselves, as according
to that in which we naturally appear to others. Though every
man may, according to the proverb, be the whole world to him
self, to the rest of mankind he is a most insignificant part of it
* I say partly; for habits of inattention to the situation of other men,
undoubtedly presuppose some defect in the social affections.