desire as any that can be named; but even in this case the satisfaction
of actual possession is generally a weaker feeling than the desire:
many a thief, if not a habitual one, after success has wondered why he
stole some article. (27. Enmity or hatred seems also to be a highly
persistent feeling, perhaps more so than any other that can be named.
Envy is defined as hatred of another for some excellence or success;
and Bacon insists (Essay ix.), Of all other affections envy is the
most importune and continual. Dogs are very apt to hate both strange
men and strange dogs, especially if they live near at hand, but do not
belong to the same family, tribe, or clan; this feeling would thus seem
to be innate, and is certainly a most persistent one. It seems to be
the complement and converse of the true social instinct. From what we
hear of savages, it would appear that something of the same kind holds
good with them. If this be so, it would be a small step in any one to
transfer such feelings to any member of the same tribe if he had done
him an injury and had become his enemy. Nor is it probable that the
primitive conscience would reproach a man for injuring his enemy;
rather it would reproach him, if he had not revenged himself. To do
good in return for evil, to love your enemy, is a height of morality to
which it may be doubted whether the social instincts would, by
themselves, have ever led us. It is necessary that these instincts,
together with sympathy, should have been highly cultivated and extended
by the aid of reason, instruction, and the love or fear of God, before
any such golden rule would ever be thought of and obeyed.)
A man cannot prevent past impressions often repassing through his mind;
he will thus be driven to make a comparison between the impressions of
past hunger, vengeance satisfied, or danger shunned at other men s
cost, with the almost ever-present instinct of sympathy, and with his
early knowledge of what others consider as praiseworthy or blameable.
This knowledge cannot be banished from his mind, and from instinctive
sympathy is esteemed of great moment. He will then feel as if he had
been baulked in following a present instinct or habit, and this with
all animals causes dissatisfaction, or even misery.
The above case of the swallow affords an illustration, though of a
reversed nature, of a temporary though for the time strongly persistent
instinct conquering another instinct, which is usually dominant over
all others. At the proper season these birds seem all day long to be
impressed with the desire to migrate; their habits change; they become
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