Love and Hatred on Superphysics

The Object And Causes Of Love And Hatred

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Love and hatred produce a simple impression, without any mixture.

This makes them impossible to define.

It would be as unnecessary to describe them from their nature, origin, causes and objects because they are sufficiently known from our common feeling and experience.

Experiment 5

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Experiment 5

Let us place the passions and objects in all the different positions they are susceptible of.

Let us suppose that:

the same person, in previous experiments, is:
- my son or brother, or
- united to me by a long and familiar acquaintance.
the cause of the passion acquires a double relation of impressions and ideas to this person.

Let us see what the effects are of all these complicated attractions and relations.

Experiment 7

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Experiment 7

Let us here suppose an identity of passions along with a relation of ideas.

A transition of the passions from the one object to the other is here in all reason to be expected.

Experiments To Confirm My System

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Everyone will agree to my conclusion on the transition of related impressions and ideas.

I will make some new experiments on:

Difficulties on Love and Hate Solved

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

It is superfluous to examine all the causes of love and hatred after so many undeniable proofs drawn from daily experience.

Therefore, I shall use this part to:

Remove some difficulties on specific causes of love and hate

The Love Of Relations

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I have explained why actions that cause a real pleasure or uneasiness do not excite love or hatred towards the actors

Where does the pleasure or uneasiness of the objects which produce these passions come from?

The Idea of the Self

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The idea of ourselves:

is always intimately present to us.
conveys a sensible degree of vivacity to the idea of any other object, to which we are related.

This lively idea changes by degrees into a real impression.

Our Esteem For The Rich And Powerful

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nothing has a greater tendency to give us an esteem or a contempt for any person, than his power and riches, or his poverty and meanness.

Esteem and contempt are a species of love and hatred.

The Minds of Men are Mirrors to One Another

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A man of a competent fortune, upon coming into a company of strangers, naturally treats them with different degrees of respect and deference, as he is informed of their different fortunes and conditions.

Benevolence And Anger

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ideas may be compared to the extension and solidity of matter.

Impressions, especially reflective ones, may be compared to colours, tastes, smells and other sensible qualities.

Ideas:

never admit of a total union.
are endowed with a kind of impenetrability, by which they:
- exclude each other
- form a compound by their conjunction, not by their mixture.

Impressions and passions can have a total union.

Compassion

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The desire of the happiness or misery of others is an arbitrary and original instinct implanted in our nature. It may:

be counterfeited on many occasions
arise from secondary principles.

Pity is a concern for the misery of others.

Malice and Envy (Schadenfreude)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Malice imitates the effects of hatred just as pity imitates the effects of love.

It gives us a joy in the sufferings and miseries of others, without any offence or injury on their part.

Men are so little governed by reason in their sentiments and opinions.

Emotion Strength

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

An emotion goes with every magnitude of an object.

When the emotion increases, we naturally imagine that the object has likewise increased.

◦ The effect conveys our view to its usual cause, a certain degree of emotion to a certain magnitude of the object.

The Origin of Schadenfreude

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Person A indulges a pleasure while his friend, Person B, is suffering.

Person A feels his friend’s reflected uneasiness more sensibly by comparing it with his own original pleasure.

◦ This contrast should also enliven the present pleasure.

The Mixture of Benevolence and Anger with Compassion and Malice

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Pity and malice arise from the imagination, according to how it places its object.

When our fancy directly considers the sentiments of others and enters deep into them, it makes us sensible of all the passions it surveys, but in a particular manner of grief or sorrow.

Hume’s Sympathy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

But here there occurs a considerable objection, which it will be necessary to examine before we proceed any farther.

Power and riches, or poverty and meanness:

cause love or hatred without producing any original pleasure or uneasiness.
operate on us through a secondary sensation derived from a sympathy with that pain or satisfaction they produce in the person who has them.

Love arises from a sympathy with his pleasure.

The Dynamics of Sympathy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

When we sympathize only with a painful impression, this sympathy is related to anger and hatred because of the uneasiness it conveys to us.

But the extensive or limited sympathy depends on the force of the first sympathy.

Respect And Contempt

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

To understand all the passions which have any mixture of love or hatred, only respect, contempt, and the amorous affection remain to be explained.

When we consider the qualities and circumstances of others, we may:

The Amorous Passion, or Love Between The Sexes

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The love between the man and woman, most deserves our attention of all the compound passions arising from a mixture of love and hatred with other affections, because of:

its force and violence
those curious principles of philosophy behind it.

In its most natural state, this love is derived from the conjunction of three different impressions or passions:

The Love And Hatred Of Animals

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Love and hatred are common to the whole sensitive creation.

Their causes have such a simple nature that they can easily be supposed to operate on animals.

There is no force of reflection or penetration required.