‘There are often three distinct perceptions or inward feelings upon sight of persons in distress: real sorrow and concern for the misery of our fellow-creatures; some degree of satisfaction from a consciousness of our freedom from that misery; and, as the mind passes on from one thing to another, it is not unnatural from such an occasion to reflect upon our own liableness to the same or other calamities. The two last frequently accompany the first, but it is the first _only_ which is properly compassion, of which the distressed are the object, and which directly carries us with calmness and thought to their assistance. Any one of these, from various and complicated reasons, may in particular cases prevail over the other two; and there are, I suppose, instances where the bare _sight_ of distress, without our feeling any compassion for it, may be the occasion of either or both of the two latter.’ I shall proceed to examine the objection to the doctrine of benevolence, on the supposition that our sympathy when it exists is really a part of our interest. This objection was long ago stated by Hobbes, Rochefoucault, and Mandeville, and has been adopted and glossed over by Helvetius. It is pretended, then, that in wishing to relieve the distresses of others we only desire to remove the uneasiness which pity creates in our mind; that all our actions are unavoidably selfish, as they all arise from the feeling of pleasure or pain existing in the mind of the individual, and that whether we intend our own good or that of others, the immediate gratification connected with the idea of any object is the sole motive which determines us to the pursuit of it.