IX
In regard to the theory of Sir James himself, if I understand it rightly (and it is rather, as I have said, indistinctly expressed), he accepts neither the doctrine of innate ideas disinterestedly producing or ordering our actions, nor that of sense-derived ideas by which, with a concentrated regard to self, some suppose men to be governed—but imagines an association of ideas, naturally suggested by our human condition, which, according to a pre-ordinated state of the mind, produces, as in chemical processes, some emotion different from any of the combined elements or causes from which it springs.
This emotion, once existing, requires, without consideration or reflection, its gratification. In this manner the satisfaction of benevolence and pity springs as much from a spontaneous desire as the satisfaction of hunger; and man is unconsciously taught, through feelings necessary to him as man, to wish involuntarily for that which, on reflection and experience, he would find (such is the beautiful dispensation of Providence) most for his happiness and advantage.
The union, assemblage, or incorporation, if one may so speak, of these involuntary desires, affecting and affected by them all, becomes our universal moral sense or conscience, which in each of its propensities is gratified or mortified, according to our conduct.