[15] It is, then, quite certain that compassion is a natural feeling, which checking, as it does, the love of self in each individual, helps by a reciprocal process to preserve the whole race. This it is, which in the state of nature, takes the place of laws, customs, and virtues, with the added advantage that no one will be tempted to disobey its gentle voice; this it is, which will restrain every able-bodied savage, provided he hope to find his own livelihood elsewhere, from robbing a weak child, or depriving an infirm old man of the subsistence won by hard toil; this it is, which inspires all men, not indeed with that sublime maxim of reasoned justice: "Do to others as you would they should do unto you;" but with another rule of natural goodness, no doubt less perfect, but perhaps more useful, namely: "Do what is good for yourself with the least possible harm to others." In a word, it is _in this natural feeling rather than in subtle arguments_ that we must look for the reason of the repugnance with which every one is accustomed to view bad conduct, quite independently of the principles laid down by education. [16] In fact, how is it that we let ourselves be moved to pity, if not by getting out of our own consciousness, and _becoming identified with the living sufferer; by leaving_, so to say, _our own being, and entering into his?_ We do not suffer, except as we suppose he suffers; _it is not in us, it is in him_, that we suffer ... offer a young man objects, on which the expansive force of his heart can act; objects such as may enlarge his nature, and incline it to go out to _other beings_, in whom he may everywhere _find himself again_. Keep carefully away those things which narrow his view, and make him self-centred, and which tighten the strings of the _human ego_. (_Tendent le ressort_ (stretch the spring) _du moi humain: i.e._, stimulate the _egoistic tendency_.)--(_Translator_.) [17] _Journal Asiatique_, Vol. ix., p. 62. Cf. Meng-Tseu (otherwise called Mencius), edited by Stanislas Julien, 1824, Bk. I, § 45; also Meng-Tseu in the _Livres Sacrés de l'Orient_, by Panthier p. 281. _V. Dictionnaire Français--Latin--Chinois_, par Paul Perny (Didot Frères, Paris, 1869); where the five cardinal virtues (image) are transliterated] ou châng. _V_. also: _A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language_; by S. Wells Williams, LL.B. (Shanghai: 1874); where Sin (Sin), _i.e._, humanity, love of one's neighbour, is written Sin'.--(_Translator._) [18] The Athenians have an altar in their Agora to Compassion; for this deity, they believe, is of all the gods the most helpful in human life, and its vicissitudes. They are the only Greeks who have instituted this cultus.--(_Translator_.)