123 



Sympathy, he says, "does not arise so much from the view 

 of the passion, as from that of the situation which excites it. 

 We sometimes feel for another a passion of which he himself 

 seems to be altogether incapable; because, when we put our- 

 selves in his case that passion arises in our breast from the 

 imagination, though it does not in his from the reality." We 

 feel for the insane what they do not feel; we sympathize even 

 with the dead. 1 



What significance this factor of sympathy has for social 

 relations may be seen in the following: 



"When those authors, on the other hand, deduce from 

 self-love the interest which we take in the welfare of society, 

 and the esteem which we upon that account bestow upon 

 virtue, they do not mean, that when we in this age applaud 

 the virtue of Cato, and detest the villany of Catiline, our 

 sentiments are influenced by the notion of any benefit we 

 receive from the one, or of any detriment we suffer from the 

 other. * * * The idea, in short, which those authors were 

 groping about, which they were never able to unfold distinctly, 

 was that indirect sympathy which we feel with the gratitude 

 or resentment of those who received the benefit or suffered the 

 damage resulting from such opposite characters: and it was 

 this which they were distinctly pointing at, when they said, 

 that it was not the thought of what we had gained or suffered 

 which prompted our applause or indignation, but the concep- 

 tion or imagination of what we might gain or suffer if we were 

 to act in society with such associates." 2 



"Sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded 

 as a selfish principle. W T hen I sympathize with your sorrow or 

 your indignation, it may be pretended indeed, that my emo- 

 tion is founded in self-love, because it arises from bringing 

 your case home to myself, from putting myself in your situ- 

 ation, and thence conceiving what I should feel in the like 

 circumstances. But though sympathy is very properly said 

 to arise from an imaginary change of situations with the 

 person principally concerned, yet this imaginary change is not 

 supposed to happen to me in my own person and character, 

 but in that of the person with whom I sympathize. When I 

 condole with you for the loss of your only son, in order to 

 enter into your grief, I do not consider what I, a person of such 

 a character and profession, should suffer, if I had a son, and 

 if that son was unfortunately to die: but I consider what I 

 should suffer if I was really you, and I not only change circum- 



'S.B. 256-7. 

 2S.B. 338. 



