may become so vivid as to give rise to the same emotion in ourselves.[1] In spite of its obvious ingenuity, this explanation of 'sympathy' hardly falls in with our present modes of thought. One readily sees that for Hume, as for the Associationist school in general, 'sympathy' is left in a condition of unstable equilibrium, liable at a touch to be precipitated into egoism pure and simple.
This aspect of Hume's system, in its earlier form, is the more confusing for the reason that he never seriously attempts to state the relation between our derived 'sympathy' and our (fundamental) self-regarding tendency. The result is a degree of theoretical confusion that can only be appreciated by those who have read the Treatise with considerable care. It should be observed that one does not here refer to the inevitable ambiguity of the words 'egoism' and 'altruism,' as ordinarily used,[2] but rather to the fact that Hume professes to explain—almost in the sense of explaining away—what we ordinarily understand by (general) 'sympathy,' without anywhere telling us exactly what he claims to have reduced it to.
If Hume's treatment of 'sympathy' were the same in the Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals as in Book III of the Treatise,—which is apparently the careless assumption of those who regard his position in the two works as identical,—we should need to examine the mysterious principle considerably in detail. As a matter of fact, however, Hume seems to have been keenly aware that his earlier treatment of 'sympathy' was a mistake, and a bad one; and he gives us what he would probably have regarded as the best possible antidote in what he says on the same subject in the Inquiry.[3] There he means by the word 'sympathy' nothing essentially different from the general benevolent tendency, the degree of which he shows his good judgment in not attempting to define, but which he regards as the foundation of the historical development of morality.
