The Love Of Fame

The secondary causes of pride and humility in the opinions of others has an equal influence on the affections.

Our reputation, character, and name are considerations of vast weight and importance.

Even the other causes of pride; virtue, beauty and riches have little influence when not seconded by the opinions and sentiments of others.

To account for this phenomenon, we need to take some compass and first explain the nature of sympathy.

The Importance of Sympathy

The most remarkable quality of human nature, in itself and its consequences, is our propensity to:

• sympathize with others
• receive their inclinations and sentiments by communication, however different or even contrary to our own.

This is conspicuous in:

• children
  • They implicitly embrace every opinion proposed to them.
• in men of the greatest judgment and understanding
  • They find it very difficult to follow their own reason or inclination, in opposing those of their friends and daily companions.

To this principle we should ascribe the great uniformity in the humours and turn of thinking of those of the same nation. ◦ This resemblance arises more from sympathy, than from any influence of the soil and climate which continues the same. ▪ However, soil and climate cannot keep a nation’s character the same for a century.

A good-natured man finds himself instantly of the same humour with his company. ◦ Even the proudest and most surly take a tincture from their countrymen and acquaintance.

A cheerful countenance infuses a sensible complacency and serenity into my mind. ◦ An angry or sorrowful one throws a sudden dump on me.

I feel the following more from communication than from my own natural temper and disposition: ◦ Hatred, resentment, esteem, love, courage, mirth and melancholy.

This remarkable phenomenon:

• merits our attention
• must be traced up to its first principles.

When any affection is infused by sympathy, it is at first known only by:

• its effects
• those external signs in the countenance and conversation which convey its idea.

This idea:

• is presently converted into an impression
• acquires a force and vivacity to:
  • become the very passion itself
  • produce an equal emotion, as any original affection.

No matter how instantaneous this change of the idea into an impression may be, it proceeds from certain views.

These views will not escape a philosopher’s strict scrutiny though they may escape the scrutiny of the person who makes them.

The idea or impression of ourselves is always intimately present with us ◦ Our consciousness gives us so lively a conception of our own person. ◦ It is impossible to imagine that anything can go beyond it. • Therefore, whatever object is related to ourselves, must be conceived with a little vivacity of conception according to the foregoing principles. ◦ Though this relation is not as strong as the relation of causation, it must still have a considerable influence. • Resemblance and contiguity are relations not to be neglected, especially when we are informed of the real existence of the resembling or contiguous object by: ◦ an inference from cause and effect ◦ the observation of external signs. • Nature has preserved a great resemblance among all humans. ◦ We never remark any passion or principle in others, of which we may not find a parallel in ourselves. • The case is the same with the fabric of the mind and the body. ◦ However the parts may differ in shape or size, their structure and composition are generally the same. • There is a very remarkable resemblance which preserves itself amidst all their variety. ◦ This resemblance must very much contribute to make us: ▪ enter into the sentiments of others ▪ embrace them with facility and pleasure. • Besides the general resemblance of our natures, we find that where there is any peculiar similarity in our manners, character, country, or language, it facilitates the sympathy. ◦ The stronger the relation is between ourselves and any object, the more easily the imagination: ▪ makes the transition ▪ conveys to the related idea the vivacity of conception, with which we always form the idea of our own person. • Resemblance is not the only relation which has this effect. ◦ It receives new force from other relations that may accompany it. • The sentiments of others have little influence when: ◦ far removed from us ◦ the relation of contiguity is required to make them communicate themselves entirely. • The relations of blood is a species of causation. ◦ It may sometimes contribute to the same effect; as also acquaintance, which operates in the same way with education and custom; as we shall see more fully afterwards (Part 2, Sec. 4). • When all these relations are united together, they: ◦ convey our own consciousness to the idea of the sentiments or passions of others ◦ make us conceive them in the strongest and most lively manner. • In the beginning of this treatise, I have remarked that: ◦ all ideas are borrowed from impressions ◦ these two kinds of perceptions differ only in the degrees of force and vivacity which they strike the soul. • The component part of ideas and impressions are precisely alike. ◦ The manner and order of their appearance may be the same. • Therefore, the different degrees of their force and vivacity are the only particulars that distinguish them. • This difference may be removed by a relation between the impressions and ideas. ◦ It is no wonder an idea of a sentiment or passion may by this means be enlivened as to become the very sentiment or passion. • The lively idea of any object always approaches is impression. ◦ We may: ▪ feel sickness and pain from the mere force of imagination ▪ make a malady real by often thinking of it. • This is most remarkable in the opinions and affections. ◦ A lively idea is converted into an impression principally in the opinions and affections. • Our affections depend more on ourselves and the mind’s internal operations, than on any other impressions. ◦ This is why they arise more naturally from: ▪ the imagination ▪ every lively idea we form of them. ◦ This is the nature and cause of sympathy. ▪ This is how we enter so deeply into the opinions and affections of others, whenever we discover them.