Sympathy

OXFORD PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS

Christia Mercer, Columbia University

Series Editor

PU BLISH ED
Efficient Causation Memory
Edited by Tad Schmaltz Edited by Dmitri Nikulin

The Faculties Sympathy

Edited by Dominik Perler Edited by Eric Schliesser

FORTHCOMING
Health Eternity
Edited by Peter Adamson Edited by Yitzhak Melamed

Evil Self-Knowledge
Edited by Andrew Chignell Edited by Ursula Renz

Dignity Pleasure
Edited by Remy Debes Edited by Lisa Shapiro

Animals Consciousness
Edited by G. Fay Edwards and Peter Adamson Edited by Alison Simmons

Space Moral Motivation

Edited by Andrew Janiak Edited by Iakovos Vasiliou
OXFORD PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS
 Sympathy
A HISTORY

Edited by Eric Schliesser

OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
 OXFORD
VNIVER.SITV PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sympathy : a history / Edited by Eric Schliesser.
pages cm.(Oxford philosophical concepts)
ISBN 978-0-19-992889-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-19-992887-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ebook ISBN 978-0-19-027329-3
1. Sympathy.
BJ1475.S96 2015
177.7dc23 2014040336

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
 Contents

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CONTRIBUTORS

SERIES EDITOR S FOREWORD

e d it o r s ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Introduction: On Sympathy
ERIC SCHLIESSER

1 Stoic Sympathy
RENE BROUWER

2 Plotinus on sympatheia
EYJOLFUR K. EMILSSON

Reflection Galens Sympathy

BROOKE HOLMES

3 Sympathy in the Renaissance

ANN E. MOYER
 Reflection M u s ic a n d S y m p a th y
GIUSEPPE GERBINO

4 S e v e n te e n th -C e n tu ry U n iv e r s a l S y m p a th y : S to ic is m , P la to n is m , L e ib n iz , a n d
C onw ay
CHRISTIA MERCER

Reflection T a k e P h y s ic , P o m p : K in g L e a r L e a rn s S y m p a th y
SARAH SKWIRE

5 S p in o z a s P a r a l l e l i s m D o c tr in e a n d M e ta p h y s ic a l S y m p a th y
KAROLINA HUBNER

6 T h e E ig h te e n th -C e n tu ry C o n te x t o f S y m p a th y f r o m S p in o z a to K a n t
RYAN PATRICK HANLEY

Reflection T h e F r e n c h T h e a te r o f S y m p a th y
JULIE CANDLER HAYES

7 H u m e a n d S m ith o n S y m p a th y , A p p r o b a tio n , a n d M o r a l J u d g m e n t
GEOFFREY SAYRE- MCC ORD

Reflection T r a c in g a L in e o f S y m p a th y f o r N a tu r e in G o e th e s
Wahlverwandtschaften
ELIZABETH MILLAn

8 S y m p a th y in S c h o p e n h a u e r a n d N ie tz s c h e
BERNARD REGINSTER

9 F ro m Einfuhlung to E m p a th y : S y m p a th y in E a r l y P h e n o m e n o lo g y a n d
P s y c h o lo g y
REMY DEBES
 10 S y m p a th y C a u g h t b e tw e e n D a r w i n a n d E u g e n ic s

d a v id m . levy a n d S a n d r a J. P e a r t

11 F a i r a n d I m p a r tia l S p e c ta to r s in E x p e r im e n ta l E c o n o m ic B e h a v io r : U s in g
S y m p a th y to D e r iv e A c tio n
v e r n o n l . s m it h a n d BART j . WILSON

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX
 List of Illustrations

F ig u r e 6 .1 . S y m p a th y in e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry F r e n c h d r a m a u n ite d
th e f e e lin g e v o k e d b y tr a g e d y w i t h th e la u g h te r
g e n e r a te d b y c o m e d y

F ig u r e 1 0 .1 . A m I n o t a m a n a n d a b r o th e r ?

F ig u r e 11.1. A T w o - P e r s o n T r u s t G a m e in E x te n s iv e F o r m

F ig u r e 11.2. P r iv a t e K n o w le d g e o f P a y o ff s in th e T r u s t G a m e

F ig u r e 11.3. A n o th e r T w o - P e r s o n T r u s t G a m e in E x te n s iv e F o r m
 Contributors

ren e brouw er is a le c t u r e r a t th e U n iv e r s ity o f U tre c h t, w h e r e h e te a c h e s la w

a n d p h ilo s o p h y in th e F a c u lty o f L a w . H e w o r k s o n th e o r y o f l a w a n d to p ic s in
a n c ie n t p h ilo s o p h y , w i t h a s p e c ia l fo c u s o n S to ic is m , its o r ig in s a n d r e c e p tio n ,
a n d th e tr a d i t i o n o f n a tu ra l la w . H e r e c e n tly p u b lis h e d The Stoic Sage: The
Early Stoics on Wisdom, Sagehood and Socrates ( C a m b r id g e U n iv e r s ity
P ress).

r em y debes is a s s o c ia te p r o f e s s o r o f p h ilo s o p h y a t th e U n iv e r s ity o f M e m p h is .

H is r e s e a r c h is in e th ic s a n d th e h is to r y o f e th ic s , w i t h a n e m p h a s is o n th e
S c o ttis h E n lig h te n m e n t, h u m a n d ig n ity , a n d m o r a l p s y c h o lo g y . H e is c u r r e n tly
e d itin g Dignity: History o f a Concept ( f o r th c o m in g in th e O x fo rd
P h il o s o p h ic a l C o n c e p ts s e rie s ) and (w ith K a rste n S tu e b e r) Ethical
Sentimentalism ( f o r th c o m in g f r o m C a m b r id g e U n iv e r s ity P r e s s ) .

e y jo l f u r k . e m il s s o n w a s b o r n in R e y k jv fk , I c e la n d , in 1 9 5 3 . H e s tu d ie d
p h ilo s o p h y a n d a n c ie n t G r e e k a t th e U n iv e r s ity o f I c e la n d a n d r e c e i v e d h is
P h .D . f r o m P r in c e to n U n iv e r s ity in 1 9 8 4 . A f te r s o m e y e a r s o f r e s e a r c h a n d
te a c h in g a t th e U n iv e r s ity o f I c e la n d , s in c e 1 9 9 3 h e h a s b e e n p r o f e s s o r o f
a n c ie n t p h ilo s o p h y a t th e U n iv e r s ity o f O s lo . I n a d d itio n to n u m e ro u s a r tic le s ,
m o s tly o n P lo tin u s a n d la te a n c ie n t p h ilo s o p h y , E m ils s o n h a s p u b lis h e d tw o
b o o k s o n P lo tin u s : Plotinus on Sense-Perception: A Philosophical Study
( C a m b r id g e U n iv e r s ity P r e s s , 1 9 8 8 ) a n d Plotinus on Intellect ( O x f o r d
U n iv e r s ity P r e s s , 2 0 0 7 ) .

g iu s e p p e g e r b in o is a s s o c ia te p r o f e s s o r o f m u s ic a t C o lu m b ia U n iv e rs ity . H is
r e s e a r c h in te r e s ts in c lu d e th e I ta lia n m a d r ig a l, th e r e la tio n s h ip b e tw e e n m u s ic
a n d la n g u a g e in th e e a r l y m o d e r n p e r io d , e a r l y o p e r a , a n d R e n a is s a n c e
 Canoni ed
th e o r ie s o f c o g n itio n a n d s e n s e p e r c e p tio n . H e is th e a u th o r o f
Enigmi: Pier Francesco Valentini e l artificio canonico nella prima meta del
Seicento ( T o rre d O r f e o , 1 9 9 5 ), a n d Music and the Myth o f Arcadia in
Renaissance Italy ( C a m b r id g e U n iv e r s ity P r e s s , 2 0 0 9 ) , w in n e r o f th e 2 0 1 0
L e w is L o c k w o o d A w a r d o f th e A m e r ic a n M u s ic o lo g ic a l S o c ie ty .

ryan Pa t r ic k hanley is M e ll o n D is tin g u is h e d P r o f e s s o r o f P o l i t i c a l S c ie n c e a t

M a r q u e tte U n iv e rs ity . H e is th e a u th o r o f Adam Smith and the Character of
Virtue ( C a m b r id g e U n iv e r s ity P r e s s , 2 0 0 9 ) a n d e d ito r o f th e P e n g u in C la s s ic s
e d itio n o f The Theory o f Moral Sentiments ( 2 0 1 0 ) a n d Adam Smith: His Life,
Thought, and Legacy ( f o r th c o m in g f r o m P r in c e to n U n iv e r s ity P r e s s ) . H is
la t e s t b o o k is L o ves Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity
( f o r th c o m in g f r o m C a m b r id g e U n iv e r s ity P r e s s ) .

ju l ie candler h a y es is p r o f e s s o r o f F r e n c h a n d d e a n o f th e C o lle g e of
H u m a n itie s a n d F in e A r ts a t th e U n iv e r s ity o f M a s s a c h u s e tts , A m h e rs t. H e r
r e s e a r c h fo c u s e s p r im a r i ly o n l i t e r a r y a n d p h ilo s o p h ic a l te x ts o f th e F r e n c h
E n lig h te n m e n t; s h e h a s a ls o w r i t t e n e x te n s iv e ly o n c o n te m p o r a r y lite r a r y
th e o r y a n d th e h is to r y a n d th e o r y o f tr a n s la tio n . H e r m o s t r e c e n t b o o k is
Translation, Subjectivity, and Culture in France and England, 1600-1800
( S ta n f o r d U n iv e r s ity P r e s s , 2 0 0 9 ) . H e r e a r l i e r b o o k s s tu d y F r e n c h th e a te r a n d
E n lig h te n m e n t c o n c e p ts o f s y s te m a tic ity in lite r a tu r e , p h ilo s o p h y , and
s c ie n c e . H e r c u r r e n t s c h o la r ly w o r k lo o k s a t s e v e n te e n th - a n d e ig h te e n th -
c e n tu r y w o m e n m o r a l p h ilo s o p h e r s .

brooke holm es is p r o f e s s o r o f c l a s s i c s a t P r in c e to n U n iv e rs ity . H e r f i r s t b o o k ,

The Symptom and the Subject: The Emergence o f the Physical Body in
Ancient Greece, a p p e a r e d in 2 0 1 0 , a n d a s e c o n d b o o k , Gender: Antiquity and
Its Legacy , w a s p u b lis h e d in 2 0 1 2 . S h e h a s a ls o c o e d it e d v o lu m e s o n A e liu s
A r is tid e s a n d th e r e c e p t i o n o f E p ic u r e a n is m , a n d p u b lis h e d w i d e l y o n s u b je c ts
f r o m th e r i v e r S c a m a n d e r in H o m e r to th e m e d ic a l a n a lo g y in P la to to
D e le u z e s r e a d in g o f L u c re tiu s . S h e is c u r r e n tly a t w o r k o n a b o o k m a n u s c r ip t
e n title d T h e T is s u e o f th e W o rld : S y m p a th y in G r e c o - R o m a n A n tiq u ity .

k a r o l in a hubner is a s s is ta n t p r o f e s s o r o f p h ilo s o p h y a t th e U n iv e r s ity o f

T o ro n to . S h e is th e a u th o r o f a n u m b e r o f a r tic le s o n S p in o z a s m e ta p h y s ic s .
d a v id m . levy is a p r o f e s s o r o f e c o n o m ic s a t G e o r g e M a s o n U n iv e r s ity a n d a
D is tin g u is h e d F e l l o w o f th e H is to r y o f E c o n o m ic s S o c ie ty . H is P h .D . in
e c o n o m ic s is f r o m th e U n iv e r s ity o f C h ic a g o , w h e r e h e w r o te h is d is s e r ta tio n
u n d e r G e o r g e S tig le r. S a n d r a P e a r t a n d h e r e v i v e d th e d o c tr in e o f a n a ly tic a l
e g a li ta r ia n is m f r o m c l a s s i c a l e c o n o m ic s . T h e y h a v e c o d ir e c te d th e S u m m e r
In s titu te f o r th e P r e s e r v a t i o n o f th e H is to r y o f E c o n o m ic s f o r f if te e n y e a r s .

c h r is t ia m e r c e r is G u s ta v e M . B e r n e P r o f e s s o r o f P h ilo s o p h y a t C o lu m b ia
U n iv e rs ity . S h e is th e a u th o r o f Leibnizs Metaphysics: Its Origins and
Development ( C a m b r id g e U n iv e r s ity P ress) and m o s t r e c e n tly o f The
P h ilo s o p h y o f A n n e C o n w a y : R a d i c a l R a t io n a li s m a n d th e F e m in iz a tio n o f
N a tu r e . S h e is th e g e n e r a l e d ito r o f O x f o r d P h il o s o p h ic a l C o n c e p ts .

El iz a b e t h m il l An is a p r o f e s s o r o f p h ilo s o p h y a t D e P a u l U n iv e r s ity in C h ic a g o .
I n 2 0 0 4 , s h e w a s a w a r d e d a f e llo w s h ip f r o m th e A le x a n d e r v o n H u m b o ld t
F o u n d a tio n . H e r p u b lic a tio n s in c lu d e a b o o k o n S c h le g e l, e d ite d v o lu m e s o n
r o m a n tic is m a n d G o e th e , a n d s e v e r a l a r tic le s o n a s p e c ts o f A le x a n d e r v o n
H u m b o ld ts w o rk . S h e is c u r r e n tly fin is h in g a b o o k o n T h e R o m a n tic R o o ts o f
A le x a n d e r v o n H u m b o ld ts P r e s e n ta ti o n o f N a tu r e .

ann m oyer is a s s o c ia te p r o f e s s o r o f h is to r y a t th e U n iv e r s ity o f P e n n s y lv a n ia .

S h e s p e c ia liz e s in th e in te lle c tu a l a n d c u ltu ra l h is to r y o f R e n a is s a n c e E u r o p e ,
e s p e c i a l l y s ix te e n th - c e n tu ry Italy . M o y e r is a n e x e c u tiv e e d ito r o f th e Journal
o f the History o f Ideas , a n d s e r v e s a s e x e c u tiv e d ir e c to r o f th e R e n a is s a n c e
S o c ie ty o f A m e r ic a .

sa n d r a j . peart is d e a n o f th e J e p s o n S c h o o l o f L e a d e r s h ip S tu d ie s a t th e
U n iv e r s ity o f R ic h m o n d . S h e o b ta in e d h e r P h .D . in e c o n o m ic s a t th e U n iv e r s ity
o f T o ro n to a n d is p r e s i d e n t o f th e In te rn a tio n a l A d a m S m ith S o c ie ty , c o d ir e c to r
o f th e a n n u a l S u m m e r In s titu te f o r th e H is to r y o f E c o n o m ic T h o u g h t, a n d a
f o r m e r p r e s i d e n t o f th e H is to r y o f E c o n o m ic s S o c ie ty . S h e h a s w r i t t e n o r
e d ite d e ig h t b o o k s a n d m o re th a n fifty r e f e r e e d a r tic le s , m a n y w i t h D a v id M .
L ev y .

Be r n a r d r e g in s t e r is p r o f e s s o r in a n d c h a ir o f th e D e p a r tm e n t o f P h ilo s o p h y a t
B r o w n U n iv e rs ity . H e h a s p u b lis h e d e x te n s iv e ly o n is s u e s in n in e te e n th -
c e n tu r y e th ic s , p a r t i c u l a r l y in G e r m a n th o u g h t. H is m o s t r e c e n t b o o k , The
Affirmation o f Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism , w a s p u b lis h e d b y
H a r v a r d U n iv e r s ity P r e s s in 2 0 0 6 . H e is c u r r e n tly w o r k in g o n a n o th e r b o o k o n
th e g e n e a lo g ic a l c r itiq u e o f e th ic a l o u tlo o k s , T h e W ill to N o th in g n e s s , a s
w e l l a s o n is s u e s f r o m p s y c h o a n a ly tic p s y c h ia try .

Ge o f f r e y sa y r e - m c c o r d is th e M o r e h e a d - C a i n A lu m n i D is tin g u is h e d P r o f e s s o r
o f P h ilo s o p h y a t th e U n iv e r s ity o f N o r th C a r o lin a a t C h a p e l H ill. H e is th e
d ir e c to r o f th e U n iv e r s ity s P h ilo s o p h y , P o li tic s , a n d E c o n o m ic s P ro g ra m .
S a y r e - M c C o r d w o r k s p r i m a r i l y in m e ta e th ic s , m o r a l th e o ry , a n d th e h is to r y o f
m o r a l p h ilo s o p h y .

e r ic s c h l ie s s e r is B O F R e s e a r c h P r o f e s s o r in P h ilo s o p h y a n d M o r a l S c ie n c e s
a t G h e n t U n iv e rs ity . I n 2 0 1 5 h e j o i n e d th e U n iv e r s ity o f A m s te r d a m a s
p r o f e s s o r o f p o l i t i c a l th e o r y in th e D e p a r tm e n t o f P o li tic a l S c ie n c e . H e h a s
p u b lis h e d w i d e l y in e a r ly m o d e r n p h ilo s o p h y a n d th e s c ie n c e s , p h ilo s o p h y o f
e c o n o m ic s , a n d p h ilo s o p h ic a l m e th o d o lo g y . H e h a s e d ite d v o lu m e s o n A d a m
S m ith a n d I s a a c N e w to n .

s a r a h s k w ir e is a F e l l o w a t L ib e r ty F u n d , In c ., a n d th e a u th o r o f th e c o lle g e
w r iti n g te x tb o o k Writing with a Thesis . S k w ir e h a s p u b lis h e d o n s u b je c ts fro m
S h a k e s p e a r e to z o m b ie s a n d th e b r o k e n w in d o w fa lla c y , a n d h e r w o r k h a s
a p p e a r e d in j o u r n a l s a s v a r i e d a sSocial Philosophy and Policy , Literature
and Medicine , th e George Herbert Journal , a n d th e Journal o f Economic
Behavior and Organization . S h e w r ite s a r e g u la r b o o k r e v i e w c o lu m n , B o o k
V a lu e , f o r th e Freeman Online a n d b lo g s a t Bleeding Heart Libertarians . H e r
p o e tr y h a s a p p e a r e d , a m o n g o th e r p la c e s , in Standpoint , th e New Criterion ,
a n d th e Vocabula Review .

v e r n o n l . s m it h w a s a w a r d e d th e N o b e l P r iz e in E c o n o m ic S c ie n c e s in 2 0 0 2
fo r h is g ro u n d b r e a k in g w o rk in e x p e r im e n ta l e c o n o m ic s . He has jo in t
a p p o in tm e n ts w i t h th e A r g y r o s S c h o o l o f B u s in e s s a n d E c o n o m ic s a n d th e
S c h o o l o f L a w a t C h a p m a n U n iv e rs ity . S m ith h a s a u th o r e d o r c o a u th o r e d m o re
th a n 2 5 0 a r tic le s and boo k s o n c a p ita l th e o ry , fin a n c e , n a tu ra l r e s o u r c e
e c o n o m ic s , a n d e x p e r im e n ta l e c o n o m ic s . I n 1 9 9 1 , C a m b r id g e U n iv e r s ity P r e s s
p u b lis h e d Papers in Experimental Economics , and in 2000, a second
c o lle c tio n of m o re re c e n t Bargaining and Market Behavior .
essay s,
C a m b r id g e p u b lis h e d h is Rationality in Economics: Constructivist and
Ecological Forms in 2 0 0 8 . S m ith h a s re c e iv e d an h o n o ra ry d o c to r of
m anagem ent d e g re e fro m P u rd u e U n iv e rs ity , and is a F e llo w o f th e
E c o n o m e tr ic S o c ie ty , th e A m e r ic a n A s s o c i a t i o n f o r th e A d v a n c e m e n t o f
S c ie n c e , a n d th e A m e r ic a n A c a d e m y o f A r ts a n d S c ie n c e s .

bart j . w il s o n is th e D o n a ld P. K e n n e d y E n d o w e d C h a ir in E c o n o m ic s a n d
L a w a t C h a p m a n U n iv e r s ity s E c o n o m ic S c ie n c e In s titu te . H e h a s p u b lis h e d
American Economic Review , th e Proceedings o f the National
a r tic le s in th e
Academy o f Sciences , a n d the Journal o f Law, Economics and Organization .
H is r e s e a r c h h a s b e e n s u p p o r te d w i t h g ra n ts f r o m th e N a tio n a l S c ie n c e
F o u n d a tio n , th e F e d e r a l T r a d e C o m m is s io n a n d th e In s titu te f o r J u s tic e .
 Series Editors Foreword

Oxford Philosophical Concepts (OPC) offers an innovative approach to

philosophys past and its relation to other disciplines. As a series, it is unique
in exploring the transformations of central philosophical concepts from their
ancient sources to their modern use.
OPC has several goals: to make it easier for historians to contextualize key
concepts in the history of philosophy, to render that history accessible to a
wide audience, and to enliven contemporary discussions by displaying the rich
and varied sources of philosophical concepts still in use today. The means to
these goals are simple enough: eminent scholars come together to rethink a
central concept in philosophys past. The point of this rethinking is not to offer
a broad over-view, but to identify problems the concept was originally
supposed to solve and investigate how approaches to them shifted over time,
sometimes radically.
Recent scholarship has made evident the benefits of reexamining the
standard narratives about western philosophy. OPCs editors look beyond the
canon and explore their concepts over a wide philosophical landscape. Each
volume traces a notion from its inception as a solution to specific problems
through its historical transformations to its modern use, all the while
acknowledging its historical context. Each OPC volume is a history of its
concept in that it tells a story about changing solutions to specific problems.
Many editors have found it appropriate to include long-ignored writings drawn
from the Islamic and Jewish traditions and the philosophical contributions of
women. Volumes also explore ideas drawn from Buddhist, Chinese, Indian,
and other philosophical cultures when doing so adds an especially helpful new
perspective. By combining scholarly innovation with focused and astute
analysis, OPC encourages a deeper understanding of our philosophical past
and present.
One of the most innovative features of Oxford Philosophical Concepts is
its recognition that philosophy bears a rich relation to art, music, literature,
religion, science, and other cultural practices. The series speaks to the need for
informed interdisciplinary exchanges. Its editors assume that the most difficult
and profound philosophical ideas can be made comprehensible to a large
audience and that materials not strictly philosophical often bear a significant
relevance to philosophy. To this end, each OPC volume includes Reflections.
These are short stand-alone essays written by specialists in art, music,
literature, theology, science, or cultural studies that reflect on the concept from
other disciplinary perspectives. The goal of these essays is to enliven, enrich,
and exemplify the volumes concept and reconsider the boundary between
philosophical and extra-philosophical materials. OPCs Reflections display
the benefits of using philosophical concepts and distinctions in areas that are
not strictly philosophical, and encourage philosophers to move beyond the
borders o f their discipline as presently conceived.
The volumes of OPC arrive at an auspicious moment. Many philosophers
are keen to invigorate the discipline. OPC aims to provoke philosophical
imaginations by uncovering the brilliant twists and unforeseen turns of
philosophys past.
Christia Mercer
Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy
Columbia University in the City of New York
June 2015
 Editors Acknowledgments

T h is v o lu m e w a s f i r s t c o n c e iv e d o n a b e a u tifu l f a ll d a y in u p s ta te N e w Y o rk
b a c k in 2 0 0 5 . M y th e n - s e n io r c o lle a g u e F r e d B e i s e r h a d in v ite d C h r is tia
M e r c e r to S y r a c u s e U n iv e r s ity f o r a le c tu r e a n d h a d a s s ig n e d m e th e p le a s in g
t a s k to s h o w h e r a ro u n d . D u r in g a w a l k th ro u g h C a z e n o v ia , s h e p e r s u a s iv e ly
t r i e d o u t th e id e a o f a n O x f o r d P h il o s o p h ic a l C o n c e p ts s e r ie s o n m e. I
e n th u s ia s tic a lly a n d s p o n ta n e o u s ly o f f e r e d to e d i t fo r m a l c a u s a tio n a n d
s y m p a th y ; I v o lu n te e r e d n o t b e c a u s e I w a s a n e x p e r t o n e ith e r to p ic , b u t
r a th e r b e c a u s e I h a d lo n g b e e n f r u s tr a te d b y th e a b s e n c e o f a p h ilo s o p h ic a l-
h is to r ic a l- c u ltu r a l s o u r c e to h e lp m e n a v ig a te th e c o m p le x is s u e s th a t th e s e
c o n c e p ts h a d g e n e r a te d in th e c o u r s e o f m y o w n r e s e a r c h .
I a m v e r y g ra te fu l to C h r is tia f o r tr u s tin g m e w i t h s y m p a th y , d e s p ite m y
l a c k o f c r e d e n tia ls f o r th e ta s k . H e r v i s i o n a n im a te s n o t j u s t th e s e r ie s b u t a ls o
th is p a r tic u la r v o lu m e . S h e h a s b e e n in s tru m e n ta l in g e ttin g a n u m b e r o f th e
d is tin g u is h e d c o n tr ib u to r s to p a r tic ip a te in th e v o lu m e , a n d s h e h a d a d e c is iv e
h a n d in th e c h o ic e o f to p ic s . I n p a r tic u la r , s h e e n c o u r a g e d m e to p u t to g e th e r a
tr u ly i n te r d is c ip lin a r y v o lu m e ; a lo n g s id e c h a p te r s by p r o f e s s io n a l
p h ilo s o p h e r s , i t a ls o c o n ta in s in d is p e n s a b le c o n tr ib u tio n s b y e c o n o m is ts ,
h is to r ia n s , p o litic a l s c ie n tis ts , c la s s ic is ts , m u s ic o lo g is ts , and lite r a tu r e
s c h o la r s .
T h e A d a m S m ith P r o g r a m a t th e J e p s o n S c h o o l o f L e a d e r s h ip S tu d ie s a t
R ic h m o n d U n iv e r s ity a n d L ib e r ty F u n d g e n e r o u s ly s p o n s o r e d tw o b a c k - to -
b a c k w o r k s h o p s in V irg in ia th a t a l l o w e d m o s t o f th e c o n tr ib u to r s to th is
v o lu m e to g e t to g e th e r a n d s h a r e d ra fts o f th e ir c h a p te r s a n d w o r k th ro u g h
s o m e o f th e k e y te x ts d is c u s s e d in th is v o lu m e . A t R ic h m o n d U n iv e rs ity , I a m
e s p e c i a l l y g ra te fu l to D e a n S a n d r a J. P e a r t a n d S h a n n o n B e s t f o r b e in g s u c h
g r a c io u s , e ffic ie n t, a n d g e n e r o u s h o s ts . A t L ib e r ty F u n d I a m e s p e c i a l l y
g ra te fu l to D o u g D e n U y l, C h r is tin e H e n d e r s o n , a n d E l iz a b e th L e ts o n f o r th e ir
in d is p e n s a b le e ffo rts .
 S in c e th is v o lu m e w a s c o n c e iv e d , I o w e c o n s id e r a b le d e b ts to th r e e
e m p lo y e r s , S y r a c u s e U n iv e rs ity , L e id e n U n iv e rs ity , a n d G h e n t U n iv e r s ity a s
w e l l a s th r e e g r a n t a g e n c ie s (N W O : N e th e r la n d s O r g a n is a tio n f o r S c ie n tif ic
R esearch , FW O: The R esearch F o u n d a tio n F la n d e r s , and BO F:
B ijz o n d e r o n d e r z o e k s f o n d s a t G h e n t U n iv e r s ity ) , w h ic h h a v e f a c ilita te d a n d
s p o n s o r e d m y r e s e a r c h . T h e y h a v e h e lp e d m a k e m e a w in n e r in a n u n fa ir
lo tte r y n o t th e l e a s t o f w h ic h is th e j o y o f le a r n in g s o m u c h f r o m th e s te l la r
a n d g e n e r o u s c o n tr ib u to r s to th is v o lu m e . T h e h ig h lig h t w a s a n im p ro m p tu ,
u n r e c o r d e d r e c ita l b y E y jo lf u r K j a l a r E m ils s o n .
I n a d d itio n , I th a n k P e te r O h lin , L u c y R a n d a ll, a n d G w e n C o l v i n a t O x fo rd
U n iv e r s ity P r e s s ; I c a n n o t im a g in e a b e tte r e d ito r ia l te a m .
F in a lly , I th a n k S a r it a n d A v i f o r te a c h in g m e h o w lo v e a n d s y m p a th y
m u tu a lly r e in f o r c e e a c h o th e r.
Sympathy
Introduction: On Sympathy
Eric Schliesser
 1. Introduction and Overview of the Volume

Sympathy is derived from the Greek aupnaGsia, the state of feeling together
(derived from the composite of fellow [anv]-feeling [n&0o^]). A solid Latin
translation would be compassio. Unfortunately, whatever is exactly meant by
sympathy, to English ears, compassion, that is, to quote a dictionary, a
feeling of wanting to help someone, would seem to denote merely a subset of
sympathy, perhaps the paradigmatic feeling consequent of empathy. So, we
cannot simply equate sympathy and compassion. Empathy (from the Greek ev
(en), in, at) is a word that was coined only in the twentieth century in order
to capture the meaning o f the German Einfuhlung, which means to enter into
somebodys feelings (see chapter 9 in this volume for the details).
Both in the vernacular as well as in the various specialist literatures within
philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, economics, and history, sympathy and
empathy are routinely conflated. In practice, they are also used to refer to a
large variety of complex all-too-familiar social phenomena: for example,
simultaneous yawning or the giggles. But sympathy is also deployed to
understand the otherwise mysterious, coaffective bond within an individuals
mind and body, for example, in order to explain how our emotions are
accompanied by distinct bodily states. Sympathy, or more often
sympathies, is also used to refer to the network or interconnected
quality of the nervous system, sometimes with the vibration of musical strings
as a metaphor, sometimes more literally. In addition, there are many natural
phenomena that invite sympathetic explanations: the distant action of magnets,
the spread of contagious diseases (see Holmess Reflection), the resonance of
musical strings (Gerbinos Reflection) and the co-occurrences of some natural
phenomena with natural and human disasters (see Moyers chapter). From the
start sympathy is also a tool in divination (see the chapters by Brouwer or
Emilsson).
Moreover, sympathy also addresses another kind of issue altogether: the
moral problem associated with social dislocation and political conflict. It is,
then, turned into a vehicle toward generating harmony among otherwise
isolated individuals and a way for them to fit into a larger whole, be it society
or the universe (see M ercers, Hanleys, and Sayre-McCords chapters,
especially). The fact that sympathy is often (e.g., Brouwer, Emilsson)
understood as an active principle, that is, as something that is a source of
change or causal power (or energy, etc.), means that it is not only deployed as
an explanation but that it can be a means in generating connections where
previously linkages had been latent.
While sympathy does appear (with related concepts like harmony, natural
friendship, pity, etc.) in Plato and Aristotle, it tends to be identified as
originating in Stoic thought (see Rene Brouwers chapter) in the western,
philosophical tradition. It was also taken up and developed in nontrivial ways
by Plotinus (Emilsson), Pliny, Vitrivius, and Galen (Holmess reflection),
among others. A use for the concept was rediscovered in the Renaissance and
promoted not so much as one might expect, by the most famous Platonizing
philosopher, Marsilio Ficino, but by Erasmus and, especially, Girolamo
Fracastoro (see Ann Moyers chapter). The concept does useful work in
Shakespeare (Skwires Reflection) and musicology (Gerbinos Reflection).
Even though, as Moyer argues in chapter 3, in Fracastoros account of
sympathy, sympathy itself had a properly atomistic explanation, the concept
was banished by Descartes and lumped in with the to-be-discarded occult
(see, especially, Descartess Principles o f Philosophy 4.187).
Despite the enduring influence of Descartes and fellow travelers in the
mechanical philosophy, some philosophers of the early modern period found
the concept too useful to forego (e.g., the contributions below by Mercer,
Hanley, and Sayre-McCord and Hayess Reflection). During the eighteenth
century, sympathy plays a central role in the great moral psychologies of Hume,
Adam Smith, and Sophie de Grouchy; sympathy is not just made respectable
physiologically in the work of David Hartley, but also accorded a central role
in his natural theology (see Hanley). At the end of the early modern period,
sympathy had moved from an occult quality hidden to the senses to a crucial
concept in capturing the manner in which human understanding involves a
certain sort of sympathetic recognition (see Millan on Goethe in her
Reflection). The complex entwinement of recognition and sympathy plays a
central role in both Reginsters chapter on Schopenhauers embrace of
compassion and Nietzsches criticism not of compassion as such, but on the
way it is understood, as well as in Debess chapter on how Einfuhlung (or
empathy) was developed in theoretical philosophy (in questions over the
existence of other minds) and then applied in practical philosophy and the
newly emerging scientific discipline of psychology.
But the impulse to banish sympathy recurs throughout history and across
d is c i p lin e s . F o r e x a m p le , D a v id L e v y a n d S a n d r a P e a r t d e s c r i b e o n e s u c h
e p is o d e f r o m th e h is to r y o f e c o n o m ic s in c h a p te r 1 0 , o n th e r o le o f e u g e n ic s in
d is p la c in g th e m o r a l p r a c tic e o f s y m p a th iz in g w i t h o th e rs a n d s y m p a th y fro m
th e v o c a b u la r y o f la te n in e te e n th - c e n tu ry p o litic a l e c o n o m y .1 W h ile s o c ia l
p s y c h o lo g is ts r e m a in e d in te r e s t e d i n sy m p a th y , b e h a v io r a l p s y c h o lo g is ts , a n d
e c o n o m is ts b a n is h e d it. S o m e r e c e n t e c o n o m is ts h a v e r e d i s c o v e r e d s y m p a th y
in p a r t e x p e r im e n ta lly a n d , in p a rt, a s V e rn o n S m ith a n d B a r t W ils o n s h o w in
c h a p te r 11, b y c a r e f u l r e r e a d i n g o f th e c la s s i c s o f th e fie ld .
O f c o u r s e , w i t h th e d i s c o v e r y o f m ir r o r n e u ro n s b y a g ro u p o f r e s e a r c h e r s
w i t h e x p e r im e n ts o n m a c a q u e m o n k e y s a t th e U n iv e r s ity o f P a r m a , in te r e s t i n
s y m p a th y a n d e m p a th y h a s e x p lo d e d a c r o s s m a n y d i s c i p l i n a r y b o u n d a r ie s .2
T h e s e n e u ro n s r e s p o n d b o th w h e n a p a r tic u la r a c tio n is p e r f o r m e d b y th e
r e c o r d e d [ b r a in ] a n d w h e n th e s a m e a c tio n , p e r f o r m e d b y a n o th e r in d iv id u a l,
is o b s e r v e d . 3 I t h a s b e c o m e im p o s s i b le to k e e p a b r e a s t o f a ll th e fa s t-m o v in g
d e v e lo p m e n ts .4 S y m p a th y s p a s t is f a s c in a tin g f o r m a n y in tr in s ic r e a s o n s ; th e
c o n c e p tu a l a n d e x p la n a to r y m o v e s o f th is p a s t lin g e r o n i n c o n te m p o r a r y
p r a c tic e s , a n d th e y a r e a ls o o fte n r e d i s c o v e r e d in m o d e r n s c ie n c e .
 2. Sympathy an Analysis

Given the diversity of usages of sympathy within the context of very different
theoretical aims, one might doubt that there is a single, underlying concept
rather than a host of family resemblances. Even so, one can identify five
features that are incorporated in or presupposed by most usages of the term
sympathy. I start with the following four:

1. Sympathy is used to explain apparent action at a distance.

2. The very possibility of sympathy presupposes that it takes place among
things/events/features that are in one sense or another alike, often within
a single being/unity/organism (which can be the whole universe); these
are to be contrasted with the antipathy (avxrmGsia) of unalikes.
3. The cause(s) of sympathy is/are invisible to the naked eye.
4. The effect(s) of sympathy can be (nearly) instantaneous.

All four features, taken individually or combined, are neutral among

cosmological, physical, and psychological accounts of sympathy. The second
feature is emphasized in Emilssons chapter below. This second condition of
the possibility of sympathy I call the likeness principle, or the LP. It is a
metaphysical background commitment that is presupposed in nearly all
applications of the concept. Admittedly, in some cases it is by virtue of taking
place within a unity that sympathy is possible; on my account of the LP, this is
sufficient for the possibility of sympathy (even among things that are otherwise
very unalike).5
Obviously, in the hands of different thinkers there will be a great deal more
fleshing out and linkage to other important commitments and concepts. Even so,
these four features allow what we might call very naturalistic analyses o f
sympathyfor they can be made compatible with nonmiraculous mechanisms.
There is, thus, despite Descartess strictures, no necessary connection with the
occult or magic when one deploys a sympathetic explanation. This fact helps
explain the remarkable revival of the fortunes of sympathy in otherwise sober
thinkers like Hume, Adam Smith, Sophie de Grouchy, and Mill (etc.).
In fact, reflection on these four features suggests that sympathy is a concept
that might be put to work as a useful, innocent placeholder while one is
searching for underlying explanations for many different kinds of causal
processes. Of course, even if one is comfortable with causes spread out over
great distances with simultaneous effects, the LP is open to various abuses. In
particular, one might be tempted to treat the LP not so much as a condition of
possibility or as a constraint on explanation but as itself the explanans of
instances of apparent sympathy. One might discern in such abuses the
reasons for Descartess suspicion of the concept. To be sure, the LP as
explanans is neither an appeal to a supernatural cause nor itself invoking
anything unintelligible. But explaining by way of the LP does seem to fall short
in specificity (say, of the mechanism, force, etc.).
Yet even granted the concern, we should not underestimate the heuristic
fruitfulness o f invoking the LP as explanans doing so might well call
attention to the existence of an unsuspected, unitary phenomenon. Of course,
sometimes an appeal to sympathy where at bottom the LP does the explanatory
work might be the best one can do for a whole range of naturally recurring
phenomena. This fact might help explain why sympathy is an explanatory
concept that, in fact, regularly gets banished and reinvented in a whole range of
serious intellectual enterprises, including literary ones. If nothing else, the
invocation of sympathy is evidence of the desire to discern intelligible patterns
of connection even among spatially distant features.
In the four listed features above, I emphasize that sympathy is a concept that
is invoked in the context of spatially distant, yet somehow connected events.
Sympathy may also be invoked to characterize connections among temporarily
distant events or things (etc.). For example, Kenelm Digbys once celebrated,
seventeenth-century mechanical analysis of sympathy allows for this.
Moreover, some such role for sympathy may well be an essential ingredient (as
R. G. Collingwood and Walter Benjamin suggest along very differing lines) in
historical practice (on Benjamin see Hayess contribution). Even so, temporal
symmetry tends to be asymmetrical in that it is backward looking and tends to
piggyback on other mechanisms (for example, the imagination). Reflection on
this aspect reveals that the LP also has a kind of symmetry requirement built
into it. We can articulate, thus, a fifth feature of sympathy:5

5. Sympathy is, in principle, bidirectional even if the elements or agents

that enter into a sympathetic relationship vary in their power to do so.
 By this I mean to capture the fact that sympathy is not just introduced to
capture distant action but generally meant to capture mutual action or at least
the capacity for coaffectability (which itself might be a fine translation for
GupnaGsia). In a sympathetic relation, all the relata participate or engage; this
is why sympathy is thought to be an active principle.6 Its the presence of both
the LP (2) and this bidirectional aspect (5) that makes sympathy an attractive
concept to philosophers as dissimilar as Anne Conway, Leibniz, Smith, de
Grouchy, and John Stuart Mill, who wish to stress the natural moral equality
and connectedness of all (see especially the chapters by Mercer, Sayre-
McCord, and Levy and Peart below).
So, to sum up: sympathy is a concept that picks out a structurally distinct
step in a causal process. Its presence may, but need not, invite further inquiry.
Given that the natural and moral phenomena it helps make salient are
ubiquitous and important, we should expect that interest in deploying a concept
akin to sympathy will not be extinguished in any possible future.
 3. Early Modern Philosophy , Reconsidered

This volume does not aim to offer a comprehensive historical and crosscultural
survey of sympathy. Rather, the aim is to create a useful starting place for
scholars and students alike interested in the origin and development of
sympathy in (western) philosophy and closely associated disciplines. This is
why the volume is genuinely interdisciplinary in character: the contributors are
not just distinguished historians of philosophy but also historians, classicists,
economists, political theorists, and literary theorists.
While a couple of chapters synthesize active research (Sayre-McCord and
Reginster), most are very much invitations to future research. I conclude this
introduction by giving an example of what I have in mind for early modern
philosophy. Descartess injunction against sympathy had been so powerful that
when Newton published Principia (1686), which contained his new law of
universal gravity, many informed readers believed that Newton had deployed
something akin to sympathy in implying that there exists action at a distance in
Newtonian gravity. In a letter to Christian Huygens, Leibniz compares
Newtons account of gravity to sympathy, as a kind of inexplicable quality.
(See M ercers chapter for context.)
Some figures in Newtons circle unambiguously embraced action at a
distance. For example, after reading the Principia, Locke treated it as a quality
superadded to matter by God:

The gravitation of matter towards matter, by ways inconceivable to me, is not only a demonstration
that God can, if he pleases, put into bodies powers and ways of operation, above what can be
derived from our idea of body, or can be explained by what we know of matter, but also an
unquestionable and every where visible instance, that he has done so. (Second Reply to the Bishop
of W orcester, 1699, The Works o f John Locke, 4.467)7

In his letter to Edward Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester (and reflecting the

doctrines of the first edition of the Essay), Locke accepts the mechanical
philosopherss assertion that theirs is the only intelligible philosophy. He takes
Newtons results to offer empirical evidence for the idea that the world is in a
nontrivial sense unintelligible and, thus, inconceivable. The only cause that can
produce inconceivable effects is God, hence God superadds gravity to matter
(and this opens the door to Leibniz to claim, familiar to us from his famous
correspondence with Samuel Clarke, that action at a distance is not just a
violation of the principle o f sufficient reason but a perpetual miracle).
Similar arguments for superaddition were popular in Newtons circle in
order to explain phenomena other than gravity. Stewart Duncan called my
attention to the following argument by Richard Bentley:

For this Sympathetical Union of a Rational Soul with Matter, so as to produce a Vital
communication between them, is an arbitrary institution of the Divine Wisdom: there is no reason
nor foundation in the separate natures of either substance, why any Motion in the Body should
produce any Sensation at all in the Soul; or why This motion should produce That particular
Sensation, rather than any other. (Richard Bentley (1692-93), The Folly and Unreasonableness
8
o f Atheism)

Here, rather than using sympathy and the LP as an argument to explore the
materiality of the soul, the existence of sympathy in conjunction with what is
taken to be given a strong commitment to substance dualisman evident
violation of the LP (recall point 2, above), is evidence for Gods
(providential) intervention.
Due to the correspondence between Newton and Bentley after the first
edition of the Principia, modern scholarship on Newton has been less willing
to attribute to Newton a commitment to action at a distance. Newton writes,
You sometimes speak of gravity as essential & inherent to matter: Pray do not
ascribe that notion to me; for the cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to
know, and therefore would take more time to consider of it. Given that in
context, Newton talks of an intelligent agent, John Henry has defended
attributing a superaddition thesis to Newton.9 But this has not been the
dominant approach; many recent scholars rely on this passage to claim that
Newton rules out action at a distance altogether.10 By contrast, I have argued
for a more limited interpretation of the claim in Bentleys letter: that Newton
only denies that gravity is essential and inherent to matter (a view that, as John
Henry has emphasized, Newton associates with Epicureanism).
I have argued that in the suppressed version of book 3 of the Principia, the
Treatise on the System of Nature, which was published posthumously shortly
after Newtons death, Newton was willing to endorse the disposition to act at a
distance as a relational (nonessential) quality of matter. To make my case I
relied on these (connected) passages: And although, in a pair of Planets, the
action o f each on the other can be distinguished and can be considered as
paired actions by which each attracts the other, yet inasmuch as these are
a c tio n s b e tw e e n tw o b o d ie s , th e y a r e n o t tw o b u t a s im p le o p e r a tio n b e tw e e n
tw o t e r m i n i ... . I n th is w a y c o n c e iv e th a t a s im p le o p e r a tio n , a r is in g f r o m th e
c o n c u r r in g n a tu re o f tw o P la n e ts , is e x e r te d b e t w e e n th e m . 11
W h a t m a tte rs f o r p r e s e n t p u r p o s e s , h o w e v e r , is th a t N e w t o n s w o r d in g in
th e T r e a tis e e c h o e s W i l l i a m G i l b e r t s tr e a tm e n t o f a c ti o n a t a d is ta n c e o f
c e le s tia l b o d ie s ( th a t is , th e m o o n a n d th e e a r th ) in h is p o s th u m o u s ly p u b lis h e d
(1 6 5 1 ) De mundo nostro sublunari philosophia nova ( 3 0 7 ) . L ik e N e w to n
l a te r ( i n a d d itio n to th e q u o te d p a s s a g e f r o m th e T r e a tis e , s e e Principia ,
b o o k 3 , p r o p o s i t i o n 7 , c o r. 1, a n d p r o p o s i t i o n 7 o f p a r t 3 o f b o o k 2 o f th e
Opticks ), G i l b e r t tr e a ts th e c o n s p ir in g o r c o n c u r r in g n a tu re o f c e le s tia l b o d ie s
a s a n a lo g o u s to m a g n e tis m . H e e x p lic itly tr e a ts th is c o n s p ir in g a ttr a c tio n a s a n
in s ta n c e o f s y m p a th y ( w h ic h h e h a d a lw a y s d is tin g u is h e d f r o m m a g n e tis m in
h is m o re fa m o u s w o r k On the Magnet). A lo n g th e w a y , G i l b e r t a p p e a ls to a n
in s ta n c e o f L P .12
S o w h ile s y m p a th y w a s c e r ta in l y n o t p a r t o f m a in s tr e a m p o s t- C a r te s ia n
n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h y , in flu e n tia l n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h e r s lik e G ilb e r t a n d N e w t o n
f li r te d w ith it in th e ir p h y s ic s (a n d , p e r h a p s , G ilb e r t in f lu e n c e d N e w t o n s
T r e a tis e ). T h is s h o u ld e n c o u r a g e m o re r e s e a r c h in to th e v i e w s o f o th e r
im p o r ta n t n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h e r s w h o w e k n o w d id n o t r e j e c t a c ti o n a t a d is ta n c e
o u t o f h a n d (e .g ., K e p le r , M a r g a r e t C a v e n d is h , H o o k e ).
F in a lly , o n e r e a s o n w h y th is v o lu m e h a s tw o c h a p te r s in w h ic h S p in o z a
fig u r e s p r o m in e n tly ( H u b n e r o n m e ta p h y s ic s in c h a p te r 5 a n d H a n le y o n m o ra l
p h ilo s o p h y in c h a p te r 6 ) is th a t a g a in s t D e s c a r t e s s s tr ic tu r e s , S p in o z a h a d
in s is te d in h is Ethics th a t n o b o d y a s y e t h a s d e te r m in e d th e lim its o f th e
b o d y s c a p a b iliti e s : th a t is , n o b o d y a s y e t h a s l e a r n e d f r o m e x p e r ie n c e w h a t
th e b o d y c a n a n d c a n n o t d o ( p a r t 3 , p r o p o s itio n 2 , s c h o liu m ). T h is a g n o s tic
s ta n c e o n th e b o d y s c a p a c ity r e o p e n s th e d o o r to a n a c tiv e c o n c e p tio n o f th e
b o d y s a c ti v ity a n d , th u s , a c o n c e p tio n o f s y m p a th y a s n o t m e r e ly a p la c e h o ld e r
f o r o u r ig n o r a n c e o f th e w o r l d s c a u s a l n e x u s w h e n c o n f r o n te d b y a p p a r e n t
a c ti o n a t a d is ta n c e b u t a s a p o te n tia l e x p la n a tio n o f e x is tin g p h e n o m e n a . I
h o p e th a t th e c o m b in e d e ffe c t o f th e c o n tr ib u tio n s b y M e r c e r , H a n le y , H u b n e r,
S a y r e - M c C o r d , a n d th e r e l a t e d R e f le c tio n s in s p ir e s c h o la r s o f e a r ly - m o d e r n
p h ilo s o p h y to e x p lo r e th e w a y s in w h ic h v a r ia n ts o f s y m p a th y c r o s s th e m o re
f a m ilia r d iv is io n s a m o n g e m p ir ic is ts a n d r a tio n a lis ts o r e x p e r im e n ta lis ts a n d
s p e c u la tiv e p h ilo s o p h e r s o f th e p e r i o d .13
1 This is not to deny that sympathy could also be used to codify racist prejudices at the origins of
scientific sociology and behavioral psychology. See John A. Mills, Control: A History o f Behavioral
Psychology (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 26-27, on Franklin Giddingss sympathy
scale.
2 G. Rizzolatti, L. Fogassi, and V. Gallese, Mirrors in the Mind, Scientific American , 295.5 (2006): 54
61.
3 V. Gallese and A. Goldman, Mirror Neurons and the Simulation Theory of Mind-Reading, Trends in
Cognitive Sciences 2.12 (1998): 493-501, at 493.
4 For a very fine philosophical introduction, which contains some of the relevant history, see A. I.
Goldman, Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience o f Mindreading
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). For recent, sober analysis see, for example, S. Spaulding,
Mirror Neurons and Social Cognition, M ind and Language 28.2 (2013): 233-57; and R. Cook, G. Bird,
C. Catmur, C. Press, and C. Heyes, Mirror Neurons: From Origin to Function, Behavioral and Brain
Sciences 37.2 (2014): 177-92.
5 I have benefited from reading an unpublished draft paper by Sorana Corneanu on Bacon.
6 This is not to deny that there are cases of sympathy where one of the relata is not really active: Adam
Smith has a famous example of sympathizing with the dead in The Theory o f Moral Sentiments; see
Smith, The Theory o f Moral Sentiments, ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie (1759; Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1976), 1.1.10.13: 12. But in most such cases, the inactive relatum is conceived as or imagined as
active somehow. I thank Kathryn Pogin for discussion of this point.
7 Quoted in Hylarie Kochiras, Lockes Philosophy of Science, The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Fall 2013 ed.), ed. Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/locke-
philosophy-science/.
8 Richard Bentley, The Folly and Unreasonableness o f Atheism Demonstrated from the Advantage
and Pleasure o f a Religious Life, the Faculties o f Human Souls, the Structure o f Animate Bodies,
and the Origin and Frame o f the World: in Eight Sermons Preached at the Lecture Founded by the
Honourable Robert Boyle , Esquire, London: H. Mortlock, 1692-3. See also Jennifer A. Herdt, The
Rise of Sympathy and the Question of Divine Suffering, Journal o f Religious Ethics 29.3 (2001): 367
99. I thank Charles Wolfe for calling my attention to this article.
9 John Henry, Isaac Newton and the Problem of Action at a Distance, Revista de Filozofie KRISIS
8-9 (2009): 30-46, and Gravity and De gravitatione : The Development of Newtons Ideas on Action at
a Distance, Studies in History and Philosophy o f Science Part A 42.1 (2011): 11-27.
10 Andrew Janiak Newton and the Reality of Force, Journal o f the History o f Philosophy 45.1
(2007): 127-47; Hylarie Kochiras, Gravity and Newtons Substance Counting Problem, Studies in
History and Philosophy o f Science Part A 40.3 (2009): 267-80; Steffen Ducheyne, The Main
Business o f Natural Philosophy: Isaac Newtons Natural-Philosophical Methodology (Dordrecht:
Springer, 2011).
11 Here, I am using a new, unpublished translation by George E. Smith. I am grateful for permission to
reproduce this passage. For the detailed argument, see Eric Schliesser, Without God: Gravity as a
Relational Quality of Matter in Newtons Treatise, in Vanishing Matter and the Laws o f Motion:
Descartes and Beyond , ed. Peter Anstey and Dana Jalobeanu (London: Routledge, 2011), 80-102. My
argument has not won widespread agreement; the only thing that scholarship agrees on is that Newton
denies that gravity is an essential quality of matter in the Third Rule of Reasoning of the Principia (see
Kochiras, Lockes Philosophy of Science.)
12 For an excellent treatment, see Pierre Duhem, La Theorie physique: Son Objet, sa structure (Paris:
Vrin, 1997), 358. Unfortunately, Duhen is unaware of N ew tons Treatise.
13 I thank Christia Mercer, Nicole Osborne, Sandrine Berges, David M. Levy, Charles Wolfe, Kathryn
Pogin, Daniel Schneider, Michael Deckard, and Sorana Corneanu for comments on earlier drafts. Special
thanks to Rene Brouwer for assistance with Greek. In addition, I have benefited from suggestions by
Farah Focquart, Remy Debes, Sharon Spaulding, Alva Noe, and Jason Stanley. The usual caveats apply.
 CHAPTER ONE

Stoic Sympathy
Rene Brouwer
 1. In t r o d u c t i o n

E x p la n a tio n s of th e cau ses of s y m p a th y or com m on f e e lin g can be

f a s c in a tin g . H e r e is a r e c e n t o n e , o f f e r e d b y th e D u tc h - A m e r ic a n p r im a to lo g is t
F r a n s d e W a a l: T h e w a y o u r b o d i e s a r e in f lu e n c e d b y s u r r o u n d in g b o d i e s is
o n e o f th e m y s te r ie s o f h u m a n e x is te n c e , b u t o n e th a t p r o v id e s th e g lu e th a t
h o ld s e n tire s o c ie tie s to g e th e r. It is a ls o one o f th e m o s t u n d e re s tim a te d
p h e n o m e n a , e s p e c ia lly in d is c ip lin e s th a t v i e w h u m an s a s ra tio n a l d e c is io n
m a k e r s ... . W e o c c u p y n o d e s w i t h in a tig h t n e tw o r k th a t c o n n e c ts a ll o f u s in
b o th b o d y a n d m in d . 1 F o r d e W a a l th is m y s te ry is s o lv e d in te rm s o f b lin d
b o d ily a ttra c tio n s , w h ic h h e c a lls p r e c o n c e r n s . T o th e s e p r e c o n c e rn s la y e rs
o f c o m p le x ity a re a d d e d b y le a r n in g a n d in te llig e n c e , a n d s o s till a c c o r d in g
t o d e W a a l w e a r r i v e a t w h a t i s u s u a l l y u n d e r s t o o d b y s y m p a th y .
I n th is c h a p te r I g o b a c k to s o m e o f th e e a r l ie s t n a tu r a lis tic a c c o u n ts o f
s y m p a th y th a t c a n b e fo u n d in th e G r e c o - R o m a n c la s s ic a l tr a d itio n . A s I s h o w ,
d e W a a l s a c c o u n t , w h i c h h e s u m m a r i z e s a s b o d i l y c o n n e c t i o n s c o m e f i r s t
u n d e rs ta n d in g f o llo w s ( 7 2 ), b e a r s c le a r s im ila ritie s to th e c o n c e p tio n o f
s y m p a t h y a s i t m a d e i ts d e b u t i n t h e h i s t o r y o f t h o u g h t, t h a t i s a s r e f e r r i n g t o
in te r a c tio n s o r c o a f f e c tio n s th a t h a v e a n a tu ra l c a u s e . I p a y a tte n tio n to s o m e
e a r l y o c c u r r e n c e s o f s y m p a t h y , s t a r t i n g o u t w i t h i ts t e n t a t i v e u s e b y P l a t o a n d
A r i s t o t le ( s e c t io n 2 ), b e f o r e m o v in g o n to th e m o r e e la b o r a t e a c c o u n ts in th e
H e l l e n i s t i c p e r i o d ( s e c t i o n 3 ). B y t h e n b o t h E p i c u r u s a n d t h e S t o i c s a s s i g n e d
a n im p o r ta n t r o l e to s y m p a th y . E p ic u r u s u s e s s y m p a th y i n h is a c c o u n t o f th e
r e la tio n b e tw e e n b o d y and s o u l. C le a n th e s , th e second head o f th e S to ic
s c h o o l, d o e s s o , to o , b u t a b o v e a ll th e S to ic s a p p ly s y m p a th y to th e w o r l d a s a
w h o le . I t is h e r e th a t s y m p a th y , a s a c o s m o l o g ic a l n o tio n , o b ta in s th e w i d e s t
p o s s ib le scope. In s e c tio n 4 I d is c u s s tw o to p ic s re la te d to th is c o s m ic
u n d e rs ta n d in g o f s y m p a th y : th e firs t, d iv in a tio n , is in th e a n c ie n t s o u rc e s
s ta n d a r d ly c o n n e c te d w i t h s y m p a th y , th e o th e r, c o s m o p o lita n is m , f o r e s h a d o w s
its m o d e r n u s a g e .
 2. Pl a t o a n d Ar i s t o t l e

I n o n e o f h is d ia lo g u e s P la to (c . 4 2 9 - 3 4 7 bce) m a k e s a f i r s t h e s ita n t r e f e r e n c e
to sy m p ath y . I n th e Charmides, S o c r a te s , C h a r m id e s , a n d C r itia s s e a r c h f o r th e
d e f in itio n o f m o d e r a tio n ( sophrosune ). I n th e m a n n e r ty p ic a l f o r a S o c r a tic
d ia lo g u e , in w h ic h S o c r a t e s s in te r lo c u to r p r o p o s e s a d e f in itio n , w h ic h w i l l
tu r n o u t to b e d e f ic ie n t, in th e Charmides S o c r a te s a n d C r itia s a r r i v e a t a
d e a d l o c k o r a p o r ia , to o . T h is is h o w P l a t o s S o c r a te s d e s c r i b e s w h a t h a p p e n s :
N o w w h e n C r itia s h e a r d th is a n d s a w m e a t a lo s s j u s t a s th o s e p e o p le w h o
s e e p e o p le y a w n in g o p p o s ite th e m a r e s u ffe rin g w i t h th e m [ sumpaschousin ] in
th e s a m e m a n n e r, s o h e a p p e a r e d to b e c o m p e l le d b y m e b e in g a t a lo s s a n d to
b e d r a w n in to a s ta te o f lo s s h i m s e l f ( 1 6 9 C ) . I n d is c u s s in g a p r o p o s e d
d e f in itio n o f m o d e r a tio n S o c r a te s is in h is c h a r a c te r is tic m a n n e r a t a lo s s : h e
fin d s o u t th a t th e p r o p o s a l c a n n o t s ta n d a c r itic a l e x a m in a tio n . B y h e a r in g a n d
s e e in g S o c r a te s , C r itia s a r r i v e s s y m p a th e tic a lly a t th e s a m e a p o r e tic sta te .
T y p ic a l f o r P la to , th e r e is a s u b tle ir o n y in v o lv e d h e re : w h e r e a s S o c r a t e s s
a p o r i a is th e r e s u l t o f h is a w a r e n e s s th a t th e d e f in itio n o f m o d e r a tio n m u s t b e
w ro n g , C r i t i a s s s ta te o f c o n f u s io n h a s a n o th e r cause. P l a t o s S o c r a te s
c o m p a r e s C r i t i a s s g e ttin g in to th is s ta te w i t h th e u rg e to y a w n th a t is b ro u g h t
a b o u t b y s e e in g o th e rs y a w n in g . P l a t o s u s e o f th e w o r d c o m p e llin g s u g g e s ts
th a t C r i t i a s s b e in g a t a lo s s h a s a c a u s e b e y o n d h is c o n tro l. A s w e w i l l s e e ,
th is e x p la n a tio n o f s y m p a th y in te rm s o f a n in v o lu n ta r y c a u s e , o r p e r h a p s b e tte r
i n te rm s o f a p h y s io lo g ic a l r e a c tio n , is a n im p o r ta n t c h a r a c te r is tic i n th e
a n c ie n t in te r p r e ta tio n o f th is p h e n o m e n o n .
W h e r e a s P la to u s e d th is c o n c e p tio n o f s y m p a th y o n ly in p a s s in g , in o n e o f
th e c h a p te r s o f th e Problems t r a d itio n a lly a s c r i b e d to A r is to tle ( 3 8 4 - 3 2 2 bce)

s y m p a th y is th e m a in to p ic . O f c o u r s e , in m o d e r n tim e s A r i s t o t l e s a u th o rs h ip
o f th e Problems h a s b e e n p r o b l e m a t i z e d 2 I n a n tiq u ity , h o w e v e r , th e w o r k w a s
a ttr ib u te d to A r is to tle , a s f o r e x a m p le in th e s e c o n d c e n tu r y ce b y A u lu s
G e lliu s , Attic Nights , a t 1 9 .4 . N o w a d a y s th e c o m m o n v i e w is th a t A r is to tle
s ta r te d w r iti n g th e w o r k , a n d th a t a f te r h is d e a th s o m e o f h is te x ts w e r e
r e w o r k e d a n d n e w m a te r ia l w a s a d d e d .3 T h e c h a p te r o n s y m p a th y is th o u g h t to
b e lo n g to its e a r l i e s t p a r ts . A c c o r d i n g to s o m e s c h o la r s , A r is to tle w o u ld e v e n
h a v e w r itt e n th is c h a p te r w h ile s till w o r k in g w i t h P la to in th e A c a d e m y .4 It is
in d e e d r e m a r k a b le th a t A r i s t o t l e a m o n g th e m a n y e x a m p le s th a t h e d is c u s s e s
u n d e r th e h e a d in g o f s y m p a th y s ta r ts o f f w i t h th e p h e n o m e n o n th a t w e
e n c o u n te r e d in th e C h a rm id es, y a w n in g in r e s p o n s e to o th e r s y a w n in g ( a t 7 .1
3 , 6 ). A n o th e r e x a m p le A r is to tle in c lu d e s is th e u rg e to p a s s u rin e in th e
v ic in ity o f w a te r , to w h ic h , p e r h a p s i n a la te r e d itio n , th e v a r ia n t o f u r in a tin g
to g e th e r is a d d e d , w h ic h s h o u ld r e m in d u s o f th e f a c t th a t a t le a s t f r o m th e
H e lle n i s tic p e r i o d o n w a r d th is s o c ia l a c ti v ity w a s in s titu tio n a liz e d in th e fo rm
o f m u ltis e a te d la tr in e s , a n d la te r b ro u g h t to p e r f e c t io n b y th e R o m a n s .5 O th e r
in s ta n c e s o f s y m p a th y a r e s h u d d e r in g i n r e s p o n s e to u n p le a s a n t s o u n d s ( i n
s e c tio n 5 ), a s w e l l a s s u ffe rin g w h e n s e e in g o th e rs s u ffe r ( i n s e c tio n 7 ). A s
e ls e w h e r e in th e P r o b le m s , th e s e s y m p a th e tic o c c u r r e n c e s a r e a b o v e a ll
u n d e r s to o d in a p h y s io lo g ic a l m a n n e r.6 A te llin g e x a m p le is th e e x p la n a tio n o f
s h u d d e r in g in r e s p o n s e to u n p le a s a n t s o u n d s (7 .5 ) . T h e s e s o u n d s , a c c o r d in g to
A r is to tle , a r e r o u g h b r e a th s , w h ic h s tr ik e th e r o o ts o f o u r h a ir. A s th e y m o v e in
th e o p p o s ite d ir e c tio n , th e y m a k e th e h a ir s s ta n d u p rig h t. T h e th r u s t o f th e s e
e x a m p le s w i l l b e c le a r : u n d e r th e h e a d in g o f s y m p a th y A r is to tle d i s c u s s e s a
s e t o f in s ta n c e s o f a c o a f f e c tio n o v e r w h ic h o n e h a s a p p a r e n tly n o c o n tr o l a n d
o f w h ic h th e c a u s e is b e s t s e t o u t in p h y s io lo g ic a l te rm s .
F o r A r is to tle , j u s t a s f o r P la to , th e s e in s ta n c e s o f c o a f f e c tio n s a r e s p e c ia l
cases: s y m p a th y r e m a in s r e s t r i c t e d to is o la te d p h e n o m e n a . T h e p la c e of
s y m p a th y c h a n g e s r a d i c a l l y w i t h E p ic u r u s a n d a b o v e a ll th e S to ic s , w h o b o th
u s e s y m p a th y in a s y s te m a tic w a y .
 3. Ep i c u r u s a n d the St o i c s

E p ic u r u s ( 3 4 1 - 2 7 0 bce) d i s c u s s e s s y m p a th y in tw o c o n te x ts : in h is a c c o u n t o f
p e r c e p t i o n a s w e l l a s w i t h r e g a r d to th e n a tu re o f th e s o u l. F ir s t, in h is a c c o u n t
o f p e r c e p tio n , w h ic h c a n b e fo u n d in h is L e tte r to H e r o d o tu s , E p ic u r u s u s e s
th e te r m s y m p a th ie s . 7 A n e x te r n a l o b j e c t a t h ig h s p e e d th r o w s o u t a th in o u te r
la y e r o f a to m s a n d th u s b r in g s a b o u t a n im a g e o f th e s e e x te r n a l o b je c ts in us.
T h is w o u ld in tu r n b r in g s y m p a th ie s o r c o a f f e c tio n s b a c k to th e e x te r n a l
o b je c ts . E p ic u r u s d o e s n o t fu rth e r e la b o r a te o n th e c o a f f e c tio n s , a n d th e ir e x a c t
r o l e r e m a in s th u s u n c le a r: f o r e x a m p le , d o e s E p ic u r u s r e f e r to th e a ffe c tio n s
c r e a te d b y th e im a g e in u s , o r to th e c h a n g e in th e e x te r n a l o b je c ts th e m s e lv e s ? 8
T h e s e c o n d c o n te x t in w h ic h E p ic u r u s u s e s s y m p a th y is in h is d is c u s s io n o f th e
c o r p o r e a l n a tu re o f th e s o u l. A b i t fu r th e r in th e L e tte r to H e ro d o tu s, a t
D io g e n e s L a e r tiu s 1 0 .6 4 (L S 1 4 A ), E p ic u r u s a s s e r ts th a t th e s o u l, lik e th e
b o d y , is c o r p o r e a l , c o n s is tin g o f fin e p a r tic le s g o in g th ro u g h th e r e s t o f th e
b o d y , w h ic h m a k e s a ffin ity b e tw e e n s o u l a n d th e r e s t o f th e b o d y p o s s ib le .
A g a in th e p r e c i s e d e ta i ls r e m a in o b s c u r e . W h a t is c l e a r h e re , h o w e v e r , is th a t
E p ic u r u s u s e s s y m p a th y in th e c o n te x t o f h is m e c h a n is tic p a r t i c l e p h y s ic s , a n d
u s e s i t to e x p la i n p e r c e p t i o n a s w e l l a s th e in te r a c tio n b e tw e e n b o d y a n d s o u l.9
I t is a ls o in th e c o n te x t o f th e r e l a t i o n b e tw e e n b o d y a n d s o u l th a t o n e o f th e
f ir s t e x ta n t r e f e r e n c e s to s y m p a th y in S to i c is m o c c u r s . A s a n y d is c u s s io n o f
S to i c is m o u g h t to e m p h a s iz e , w h a t is le f t o v e r o f o n e o f th e m o s t in flu e n tia l
s c h o o ls o f th o u g h t in a n tiq u ity a r e s c a tte r e d r e f e r e n c e s in la te r a u th o rs , o fte n
h o s tile to S to ic d o c tr in e . O n ly f r o m th e l a t e S to ic s , w h o l i v e d b e t w e e n fo u r
a n d s ix c e n tu r ie s a f te r th e s c h o o l h a d b e e n fo u n d e d , s u c h a s S e n e c a ( 4 b c e /1

ce- 6 5 ) , E p ic te tu s ( s e c o n d h a l f o f th e f i r s t c e n tu r y c e ), o r M a r c u s A u r e liu s
( 1 2 1 - 8 0 ) , h a v e c o m p le te tr e a tis e s c o m e d o w n to u s . 10 W ith r e g a r d to th e e a r ly
S to ic s w e s h o u ld th u s a lw a y s k e e p in m in d th a t a n y a c c o u n t o f th e ir d o c tr in e s
is a b o v e a ll a r e c o n s tr u c tio n b a s e d o n s e c o n d - o r th ir d - h a n d s o u r c e s fro m
a u th o rs w r iti n g o n th e S to i c s .11 I m p o r ta n t n o n - S to ic s o u r c e s in c lu d e C ic e r o ,
D io g e n e s L a e r tiu s , S e x tu s E m p ir ic u s , a n d A le x a n d e r o f A p h r o d is ia s .
T h e f i r s t S to ic e x p lic itly b r o u g h t in c o n n e c tio n w i t h s y m p a th y is C le a n th e s
(3 3 1 -2 3 2 b c e ), th e s e c o n d h e a d o f th e s c h o o l. T h e r e is a p r e lim in a r y p o in t th a t
n e e d s to b e e m p h a s iz e d in r e l a t i o n to th is p a s s a g e . I f C le a n th e s a l r e a d y u s e d
th e te rm , s y m p a th y s h o u ld n o t b e c o n s id e r e d a s a n e w d o c tr in e a d d e d to
S to i c is m b y th e m id d le S to ic P o s id o n iu s ( a r o u n d 9 0 b c e ), a s a n in flu e n tia l
m o d e r n c o m m e n ta to r a r g u e d .12 I n fa c t, in E d e l s t e i n a n d K i d d s c o l l e c t i o n o f
w h a t h a s r e m a in e d o f h is w id e - r a n g in g s c h o la r s h ip th e r e is little th a t s u g g e s ts
th a t s y m p a th y is a t y p ic a lly P o s id o n ia n to p ic . I n h is O n D iv in a tio n , a t 2 .3 3
5 (fr. 1 0 6 .2 6 , E d e l s t e i n a n d K id d ) , C ic e r o ( 1 0 6 - 4 3 bce) b r in g s s y m p a th y in
c o n n e c tio n w i t h P o s id o n iu s , b u t n o t w ith o u t m e n tio n in g th e e a r ly S to ic s
C h r y s ip p u s (c . 2 8 0 - 2 0 7 ) a n d A n tip a te r ( s e c o n d c e n tu r y b c e ), to o ; o th e r w is e
P o s id o n iu s is e x p lic itly m e n tio n e d in r e l a t i o n to s y m p a th y in a d is c u s s io n o f
th e e x p la n a tio n o f th e tid e s , in a c r u d e L a tin t r a n s la t io n o f a s ix th -c e n tu ry
tr e a tis e , w r i t t e n b y P r is c ia n u s L y d u s, a p u p il o f D a m a s c iu s , th e l a s t h e a d o f
P l a t o s A c a d e m y b e f o r e i t w a s c l o s e d o n th e o r d e r s o f E m p e r o r J u s tin i a n .13 It
th u s s e e m s s a f e to c o n c lu d e th a t s y m p a th y is a c o m m o n S to ic d o c tr in e h e ld
f r o m th e e a r l y S to ic s o n w a r d , a c o n c lu s io n c o n f ir m e d b y th e s im p le f a c t th a t
m o s t o f o u r e x ta n t s o u r c e s a ttr ib u te s y m p a th y to th e S to ic s in g e n e r a l.
C le a n th e s s a c c o u n t s u r v iv e d in th e tr e a tis e O n th e N a tu re o f M a n , w r itte n
b y B is h o p N e m e s iu s o f E m e s a t o w a r d th e e n d o f th e fo u r th c e n tu r y c e .14 A s th e
title o f h is b o o k in d ic a te s , N e m e s iu s s fo c u s is o n th e n a tu re o f m a n , a n d i t is in
c h a p te r 2 th a t h e o f f e r s a n a c c o u n t o f v a r io u s p a g a n v ie w s . H e r e N e m e s iu s
p a y s c o n s id e r a b le a tte n tio n to C le a n th e s s v i e w s , o f w h o m h e r e c o r d s a
s y llo g is m , a f a v o r ite w a y b y w h ic h th e e a r ly h e a d s o f th e S to ic s c h o o l
p r e s e n te d a n d j u s t i f i e d th e ir d o c t r i n e s .15 T h e s y llo g is m g o e s lik e th is : o n ly
b o d ie s a r e a f f e c te d b y e a c h o th e r. T h e s o u l is a f f e c te d (su m p a sc h e i) b y th e
b o d y , w h e n f o r e x a m p le th e b o d y is s ic k o r b e in g cu t. A ls o , a n d h e r e C le a n th e s
u s e s su m p a sc h e i a g a in , is th e b o d y a f f e c te d b y th e s o u l, s o th a t w h e n th e s o u l
f e e ls s h a m e o r fe a r, th e b o d y tu rn s r e d a n d p a le r e s p e c tiv e ly . C le a n th e s s
c o n c lu s io n is th a t th e s o u l is th u s c o r p o r e a l , t o o . 16 E v e n i f in th is a rg u m e n t
s y m p a th y p la y s o n ly a s u b o r d in a te r o le , i n o r d e r to p r o v e th e c o r p o r e a l ity o f
th e s o u l, it d o e s m a k e c l e a r th a t C le a n th e s u s e d th e t e r m w i t h s o m e e m p h a s is ,
a n d th a t lik e E p ic u r u s h e d id s o in th e c o n te x t o f th e in te r a c tio n b e tw e e n b o d y
a n d so u l.
B o th E p ic u r u s a n d C le a n th e s th u s m a k e s y m p a th y p la y a c o n s tr u c tiv e r o le in
th e ir u n d e r s ta n d in g o f th e c o r p o r e a l n a tu re o f th e s o u l. B u t h e r e th e ir a g re e m e n t
e n d s . W h e r e a s E p ic u r u s e x p la in s th e n a tu re o f th e in te r a c tio n b e t w e e n b o d y
a n d s o u l i n m e c h a n ic a l te rm s a s a r e l a t i o n b e tw e e n a to m ic p a r tic le s , fo r
C le a n th e s , o r th e S to ic s in g e n e r a l, th e in te r a c tio n is one o f c o m p le te
p e r v a s io n . A s e c o n d d if f e r e n c e b e t w e e n E p ic u r u s a n d th e S to ic s r e la te s to th e
s c o p e o f th e a p p l i c a t i o n o f th e n o tio n o f s y m p a th y : f o r E p ic u r u s s y m p a th y
p la y s a r o l e in th e c o n te x t o f h is p s y c h o lo g y , w h e r e a s f o r th e S to ic s s y m p a th y
is a b o v e a ll a fe a tu re o f th e w o r l d a s a w h o le . I n th e r e m a in d e r o f th is c h a p te r I
fo c u s on th e S t o i c s c o s m o lo g ic a l u n d e r s ta n d in g o f sy m p a th y , firs t by
p r e s e n tin g th e e v id e n c e on how b r o a d ly th e y u n d e r s to o d th e sco p e of
sy m p a th y , a n d s e c o n d b y s e ttin g o u t th e ir e x p la n a tio n f o r th is in te rc o n n e c tio n .
I n a te x t b y A le x a n d e r o f A p h r o d is ia s , a c o m m e n ta to r o n A r i s t o t l e s w o r k s
liv in g in th e s e c o n d c e n tu r y ce w h o w a s h o s tile t o w a r d S to ic d o c tr in e , w e fin d
th a t C h r y s ip p u s f i r s t h o ld s th a t th e w h o le ... is s y m p a th e tic w ith its e lf
[su m p a th e s h a u t o i ] 17 I n a te x t th a t s u r v iv e d in th e c o r p u s o f th e b io g r a p h e r
a n d p h ilo s o p h e r P lu t a r c h ( 5 0 - 1 2 0 ) , b u t w h ic h is c o n s id e r e d s p u r io u s , th is
S to ic d o c tr in e c a n b e fo u n d , to o : T h e w o r l d . is in s y m p a th y w i t h its e lf
[su m p a th e h a u t o i ] . 18 I n th e s e c o n d p la c e , a n d th is s h o u ld p e r h a p s b e
c o n s id e r e d a n im p lic a tio n o f th e f i r s t d o c tr in e th a t s y m p a th y is a fe a tu re o f th e
w o r l d its e lf , th e S to ic s m a in ta in th a t th e e n titie s w ith in th e w o r l d a r e in
s y m p a th y w i t h e a c h o th e r. T h e p o in t is m a d e e x p lic itly b y th e S to ic C le o m e d e s
( s e c o n d c e n tu r y c e ), w h o a t th e b e g in n in g o f h is tr e a tis e The H e a v e n s p e a k s o f
s y m p a th y o f th e p a r ts in th e c o s m o s f o r e a c h o th e r. 19 T h e m o s t c o m m o n
e x a m p le s o f s y m p a th y in th e w o r l d th a t a r e g iv e n in o u r s o u r c e s d e a l w i t h th e
in te r a c tio n b e t w e e n h e a v e n a n d e a rth . I n th e a c c o u n t th a t s u r v i v e d v i a th e
s k e p tic S e x tu s E m p ir ic u s ( p r o b a b l y s e c o n d c e n tu r y ce) s o m e ty p ic a l e x a m p le s
c a n b e fo u n d , in w h ic h th e su n , th e m o o n , a n d th e s ta r s a r e s a i d to e x e r c is e
th e ir in flu e n c e o v e r th e e a rth :

The world exhibits sympathies: in accordance with the waxings and wanings of the moon many sea
and land animals wane and wax, and ebb and flood occur in some parts of the sea. And in the same
way, too, in accordance with certain risings and settings of the stars alterations in the surrounding
atmosphere and all varieties of change in the air take place, sometimes for the better, but sometimes
20
fraught with pestilence.

I n O n th e N a tu re o f th e G ods, a t 2 .1 9 ( n o t in S V F ), C ic e r o , in h is ty p ic a l,
r h e to r ic a l s ty le , o f f e r s th e S to ic e x a m p le s a s f o llo w s :

Furthermore, who will this continuous, harmonious, and united connection between things [rerum
consentiens, conspirans, continuata cognatio] not force to agree with the things said by me?
Could otherwise the earth at one time blossom, then again be rigidly barren, or, while so many things
themselves change, the lengthening and shortening of the days at the summer and winter solstices
be recognized, or the tides of the sea and the narrow straits be moved by the rising and setting of
 the moon, or the diverse courses of the stars be maintained in the encompassing rotation of the
entire heaven?

M o s t o f th e e x a m p le s a r e r e l a t e d to th e in flu e n c e o f th e h e a v e n o n e a rth , b u t
s o m e w i t h r e g a r d to in te r a c tio n s o n e a r th a r e e x ta n t, to o . O n e o f th e s e , y e t
a g a in p r e s e r v e d b y C ic e r o , is th e s tr ik in g o f th e s trin g s o f a ly r e ( nervi in
fidibus ), w h ic h m a k e s o th e r s trin g s s o u n d .21 A n o th e r is th e in flu e n c e o f c lim a te
o n h e a lth , a n d e v e n m e n ta l s tre n g th , a n d is a s c r i b e d to C h ry s ip p u s : s in c e th e
a i r q u a lity in A th e n s is b e tte r th a n in T h e b e s , th e A th e n ia n s a r e s h a r p w itte d ,
a n d th e T h e b a n s s tu p id , b u t s tro n g .22
H o w d id th e S to ic s e x p la i n b o th fo rm s o f s y m p a th y ? F o r th a t w e n e e d to
tu r n to th e tw o p r in c ip le s o f S to ic p h y s ic s . O u r f u lle s t e x p o s it io n o f S to ic
p h y s ic s c a n b e fo u n d in th e c o m p e n d iu m k n o w n u n d e r th e title Lives of
Eminent Philosophers , b y D io g e n e s L a e r tiu s , w h o p r o b a b l y l i v e d in th e th ir d
c e n tu r y ce 23 A t 7 .1 3 4 ( SVF 1 .8 5 ; L S 4 4 B ) D io g e n e s L a e r tiu s s ta r ts o f f h is
a c c o u n t o f S to ic p h y s ic s w i t h th e s e tw o p r in c ip le s , th e a c ti v e ( to poioun )
a n d th e p a s s i v e ( to paschon ). T h e p a s s i v e p r i n c i p l e th e S to ic s d e s c r i b e d a s
m a tte r, o r s u b s ta n c e w ith o u t q u a lity . T h e a c tiv e p r in c ip le , w h ic h th e S to ic s
h e ld to b e c o r p o r e a l , to o , w a s id e n tif ie d w i t h r e a s o n ( logos ), b u t th e y g a v e
i t a h o s t o f o th e r n a m e s , to o . I n th e a c c o u n t in D io g e n e s L a e r tiu s , th e s e o th e r
n a m e s f o r th e a c tiv e p r i n c i p l e in c lu d e g o d , Z e u s , in te lle c t , a n d f a te ,
and e ls e w h e r e he adds p r o v i d e n c e , 24 w h e r e a s in o th e r so u rc es th a n
D io g e n e s L a e r tiu s l a w is in c lu d e d , to o .25 T h e a c tiv e p r in c ip le is m ix e d w ith
th e p a s s i v e p r in c ip le , a n d in th is w a y th e c o s m o s is fo rm e d . T h e S to ic s
e x p la in e d th is p r o c e s s o f m ix tu re in te rm s o f a n a l l - p e r v a s i v e b r e a th
( pneuma ), b y w h ic h r e a s o n c a n p e r m e a te m a tte r.26 W ith th e h e lp o f th is n o tio n
o f b r e a th th e S to ic s w e r e a b le to e x p la i n th e d i v e r s i t y in th e w o r l d a s w e l l a s
th e u n ity o f th e w o r l d .27
L e t u s f i r s t ta k e a c l o s e r l o o k a t d iv e r s ity . In m a t e r i a l i s t te rm s th e S to ic s
id e n tif ie d th e a c tiv e p r i n c i p l e in its p u r e s t f o r m w i t h a s p e c ia l k in d o f fir e ,
w h ic h th e y c a l l e d c r e a tiv e f i r e (pur technikon ) a n d d is tin g u is h e d fro m
o rd in a ry , d e s tr u c tiv e f i r e .28 T h r o u g h c o n d e n s a tio n f ir e d i s s o lv e s in to a ir, th e n
w a te r , a n d s till m o re c o m p re sse d in to e a r th .29 T h e m ix tu re s o f th e s e
e le m e n ts c a n a c c o u n t f o r th e d if f e r e n t e n titie s in th e w o r ld , w i t h e a c h e n tity
c o n s is tin g o f a p a r tic u la r m ix tu re o f th e a c tiv e e le m e n t a n d th e p a s s iv e
e le m e n ts .30 T h e S to ic s d is c e r n e d f iv e d if f e r e n t b a s i c le v e l s o f m ix tu re s a m o n g
th e e n titie s in th e w o r ld . O n th e l o w e s t le v e l o f th is s c a le o f n a tu re , fu rth e s t
r e m o v e d f r o m th e h ig h e s t le v e l o f f ie r y b r e a th , th e m ix tu re r e s u lts in th e le v e l
c a l l e d te n o r ( hexis ), w i t h s to n e s a s th e s ta n d a r d e x a m p le . O n e le v e l u p , w ith
a b i t m o re o f th e a c tiv e b r e a th , p la n ts c a n b e fo u n d . W ith r e g a r d to p la n ts th e
a c tiv e p r in c ip le m a n ife s ts i t s e l f in m a tte r a s n a tu r e ( phusis ), o r th e p o w e r
to g r o w . I t is th is c h a r a c te r is tic th a t d is tin g u is h e s p la n ts f r o m s to n e s . O n th e
th ir d l e v e l , th a t o f l i v in g b e in g s , b r e a th m a n ife s ts i t s e l f in th e c h a r a c te r is tic o f
s o u l (psuche ), w h ic h b r in g s th e p o w e r to p e r c e i v e a n d to a c t, w h e r e a s w ith
r e g a r d to h u m a n b e in g s a t a p a r tic u la r a g e th is s o u l b e c o m e s r a tio n a l ( le v e l 4 ),
w h ic h b r in g s th e p o w e r o f r e a s o n . F in a lly , o n th e h ig h e s t le v e l w e f in d e n titie s
th a t a r e in p o s s e s s i o n o f p e r f e c t r e a s o n , n o ta b ly g o d s a n d s a g e s . 31
W ith th e ir d o c tr in e o f b r e a th in m a tte r th e S to ic s n o t o n ly e x p la i n e d th e
d i v e r s i t y in th e w o r l d , th e y a ls o m a d e it a c c o u n t f o r its unity. T h e p a s s a g e s b y
A le x a n d e r o f A p h r o d is ia s a n d p s .- P lu ta r c h , w h ic h w e e n c o u n te r e d a lr e a d y
a b o v e , c a n n o w b e q u o te d in fu ll:

[Chrysippus] first holds that the whole is unified by a breath [pneuma], which pervades it
completely, and by which the universe is held together and stabilized and is sympathetic with itself.
(Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Mixture 216.1416)

The world is governed by nature, is breathing [sumpnous], and is in sympathy with itself. (ps.-
Plutarch, On Fate 574D)

T h e s y m p a th y o f th e w o r l d w i t h i t s e l f is th u s e x p la in e d in te rm s o f b r e a th in g
o r b r e a th . T h is is a ls o h o w C i c e r o s S to ic s p o k e s m a n B a lb u s in On the
Nature o f the Gods 2 .1 9 , p u t it, in th e c o n tin u a tio n o f th e p a s s a g e a lr e a d y
q u o te d a b o v e : W h a t is c e r t a i n is th a t th e s e p r o c e s s e s c o u ld n o t ta k e p la c e
th ro u g h h a rm o n io u s a c tiv ity in a ll p a r ts o f th e u n iv e r s e , u n le s s th e y w e r e
p e r v a d e d b y o n e s in g le , d iv in e , a l l - p e r v a d i n g b r e a th [ u n o divino et continuato
spiritu ] . T h e u n d e r ly in g e x p la n a tio n is a p p a r e n tly th a t th e S to ic s c o n s id e r e d
th e w o r l d i t s e l f a s a l i v i n g b e in g , w i t h its b r e a th a s th e f o r c e th a t p e r v a d e s it,
a s D io g e n e s L a e r tiu s a t 7 .1 4 2 - 4 3 ( SVF 2 .6 3 3 ) h a s it: T h e d o c tr in e th a t th e
w o r l d is a l i v i n g b e in g , r a tio n a l, a n im a te a n d in te llig e n t, is l a i d d o w n b y
C h r y s ip p u s in th e f i r s t b o o k o f h is tr e a tis e On Providence, b y A p o llo d o r u s in
h is Physics, a n d b y P o s id o n iu s . F o r th is d o c tr in e th e S to ic s c o u ld fa ll b a c k o n
r e s p e c ta b le th in k e rs lik e H e r a c litu s (a ro u n d 500 bce) as w e ll a s P la to ,
e s p e c i a l l y in th e Timaeus 3 4 B a n d th e Laws , b o o k 10.
T h e n o tio n o f s y m p a th y is c l o s e l y r e l a t e d to th e S t o i c s u n d e r s ta n d in g o f
c a u s a tio n , fa te a n d p r o v id e n c e . A lth o u g h th is c a n n o t b e th e p la c e to d e a l w ith
th e s e n o tio n s in d e ta il, a b r i e f c o m p a r is o n b e t w e e n e a c h o f th e s e n o tio n s o n th e
o n e h a n d a n d s y m p a th y o n th e o th e r m a y b e h e lp fu l to e lu c id a te S to ic s y m p a th y
s o m e w h a t fu rth e r. J u s t a s f ir e a n d r e a s o n , s o f a te , p r o v id e n c e , a n d
s y m p a th y r e la te to a d if f e r e n t a s p e c t o f th e a c tiv e p r in c ip le . T h e a c tiv e
p r in c ip le is th e u ltim a te c a u s e , w h ic h d iv e r s if ie s in to v a r io u s d if f e r e n t b o d ily
c a u s e s a lo n g w i t h th e p e r v a d in g b r e a th o f th e u n iv e r s e . F a te (h e im a rm e n e )
c a n th u s b e e x p la in e d a s th e c h a in o f c a u s e s .32 T h e m e ta p h o r c h a in , h o w e v e r ,
is s o m e w h a t m is le a d in g . It m ig h t m a k e u s th in k o f th e s im p le r m e c h a n ic a l
u n d e r s ta n d in g o f c a u s a tio n in te rm s o f e v e n ts , a s in e v e n t A is th e c a u s e o f
e v e n t B , w h e r e a s w h a t th e S to ic s h a d in m in d is c a u s a tio n in th e s e n s e o f
b o d i l y in te ra c tio n . T h e s ta n d a r d e x a m p le th a t s u r v iv e d in S e x tu s E m p ir ic u s ,
A g a in s t th e P ro fe s s o r s 9 .2 1 1 (S V F 2 .3 4 1 ; L S 5 5 B ) , is o f th e k n ife c u ttin g th e
fle s h : a c c o r d in g to th e S to ic s , th e k n ife is th e c a u s e to th e f le s h b e in g cu t,
r a th e r th a n th a t th e e v e n t o f th e c u ttin g c a u s e s th e e f f e c t o f th e in c is io n o f th e
f le s h .33 T h e o th e r S to ic im a g e of a w eb (su m p lo k e o r e p ip lo k e ) o f
in te r a c tin g b o d i l y c a u s e s is h e n c e m o re a p p r o p r i a t e .34 P r o v id e n c e b r in g s o u t
y e t a n o th e r a s p e c t o f th e a c tiv e p r in c ip le . It r e f e r s to th e d iv in e , o v e r a ll p la n ,
a c c o r d in g to w h ic h th e s e r ie s o f c a u s e s is b r o u g h t a b o u t.35 H u m a n b e in g s w ith
th e ir r a tio n a l f a c u ltie s a r e in p r in c ip le a b le to d is c o v e r th is d iv in e p la n , o r a t
l e a s t th a t p a r t th a t is r e le v a n t to th e m . In p r a c tic e , h o w e v e r , th e y f a ll b a c k o n
n o tio n s lik e lu c k o r fo rtu n e . W ith e v e r y th in g in th e w o r l d d e te r m in e d a n d
p la n n e d fo r, lu c k o r fo rtu n e c a n n o t p la y a s u b s ta n tia l r o l e in S to ic is m . O n ly
h u m a n b e in g s to w h o m th e c o u r s e o f th in g s a r e a s o f y e t u n c le a r fa ll b a c k o n
fo rtu n e o r lu c k , w h e r e a s h u m a n b e in g s w h o d id g a in fu ll in s ig h t in to th e c o u r s e
o f th e d iv in e b r e a th a r e a b le to e x p la in th is c o u r s e in te rm s o f in te r c o n n e c te d
c a u s e s .36 I n sh o rt: fa te , p r o v id e n c e , a n d s y m p a th y a ll b r in g o u t a p a r tic u la r
a s p e c t o f th e a c ti v e p r in c ip le . P r o v id e n c e r e la te s to th e o v e r a ll d iv in e p la n ,
a n d fa te to th e a s p e c t o f th e w e b o f c a u s e s , w h e r e a s s y m p a th y b r in g s o u t th e
p h y s ic a l in te r c o n n e c te d n e s s o f th e w o r l d w i t h i t s e l f a n d th e e n titie s in it.37
T h e S to ic d o c tr in e o f c o s m ic s y m p a th y h a d c o n s id e r a b le in flu e n c e in
a n tiq u ity , as P lo t in u s s e n g a g e m e n t w i t h it s h o w s .38 T h e o r ig in s o f th is
r e m a r k a b le th e o r y a r e f a r le s s c le a r. T h e y c a n p e r h a p s b e fo u n d in th e
r e f le c tio n o n th e r e l a t i o n b e t w e e n th e h u m a n b o d y a n d s o u l. A b o v e w e a lr e a d y
s a w h o w C le a n th e s u s e d s y m p a th y in th is c o n te x t. T h e in f e r e n c e a p p e a r s to
h a v e b e e n th a t a r e l a t i o n s im ila r to th e o n e b e tw e e n th e h u m a n b o d y a n d th e
h u m a n s o u l s h o u ld e x is t in th e w o r l d to o .39 A p a s s a g e th a t s u p p o r ts s u c h a n
e x p la n a tio n s u r v iv e d in D io g e n e s L a e r tiu s 7 .1 4 3 (S V F 2 .6 3 3 ; L S 5 3 X ): T h e
w o r l d [kosm os] is a liv in g th in g in th e s e n s e o f a n a n im a te s u b s ta n c e e n d o w e d
w i t h s e n s a tio n ; f o r a n im a l is b e tte r th a n n o n -a n im a l, a n d n o th in g is b e tte r th a n
th e w o r l d , ergo th e w o r l d is a liv in g b e in g . A n d i t is e n d o w e d w i t h s o u l, a s is
c l e a r f r o m o u r s e v e r a l s o u ls b e in g e a c h a fr a g m e n t o f it. J u s t a s in C le a n th e s s
s y llo g is m , w i t h w h ic h w e s ta r te d o u t, th e h u m a n b o d y is a f f e c te d b y th e h u m a n
s o u l ( a n d v i c e v e r s a ) , s o , w e m a y in fe r, c o s m ic m a tte r is a f f e c te d b y th e w o r l d
s o u l. T h e o r ig i n o f th e d o c tr in e o f s y m p a th e tic in te r a c tio n in th e w o r l d w o u ld
th u s h a v e to b e fo u n d i n th e p a r a l l e l b e t w e e n h u m a n b e in g a n d w o r l d , o r
b e tw e e n m ic r o - a n d m a c r o c o s m .
 4. Di v i n a t i o n a n d Co s m o p o l i t a n i s m

W ith th e S to ic s s y m p a th y b e c a m e th u s a b o v e a ll a fe a tu re o f th e w o r ld . F o r
h u m a n b e in g s c o s m ic s y m p a th y o b v io u s ly p la y s a r o l e to o , i f o n ly b e c a u s e th e y
l iv e in th is in te r c o n n e c te d w o r ld . A s w e h a v e a l r e a d y s e e n , th e p o s i t i o n o f
h u m a n b e in g s in th is w o r l d is s p e c ia l: d if f e r e n t f r o m a ll o th e r e n titie s in th e
w o r ld , a p a r t f r o m th e g o d s th a t is , h u m a n b e in g s c a n p a r tic ip a te o n th e h ig h e s t
l e v e l s o n th e s c a le o f n a tu re , s in c e th e y d e v e lo p r e a s o n in th e m s e lv e s (o r, in
th e S t o i c s m a t e r i a l i s t te rm s , a s p a r k o f fir e ) .
W ith a s y s te m o f th o u g h t th a t is a s in te g r a te d a s th a t o f th e S to ic s , it w i l l n o t
b e p o s s i b l e to e la b o r a te o n a ll p o s s i b l e a s p e c ts o f th e r o le o f s y m p a th y w ith
re g a rd to hum an b e in g s . H e re I lik e to h ig h lig h t d iv in a tio n and
c o s m o p o lita n is m . D iv in a tio n is in r e l a t i o n to s y m p a th y o n e o f th e m o s t
d is c u s s e d to p ic s in th e s o u r c e s . A lth o u g h th is is d if f e r e n t f o r c o s m o p o lita n is m
(th e s o u r c e s s im p ly d o n o t e x p lic itly d is c u s s s y m p a th y in r e l a t i o n to it), th e
c o n n e c tio n c a n n e v e r th e le s s b e m a d e , a n d th is a l l o w s u s to r e f le c t o n th e
r e l a t i o n b e tw e e n S to ic c o s m ic s y m p a th y a n d th e m o d e r n u s e o f s y m p a th y a s
c o m m o n fe e lin g .
F o r th e m o d e r n r e a d e r d iv in a tio n is p e r h a p s th e m o s t in tr ig u in g to p ic th e
S to ic s b r in g u p in r e la tio n to th e ir th e o r y th a t th e w o r l d a n d th e p a r ts in i t a r e
in sy m p ath y . T o b e g in w ith , w e s h o u ld b e a w a r e o f th e f a c t th a t f o r th e a n c ie n ts
d iv in a tio n w a s p a r t o f e v e r y d a y l if e ,40 a n d th a t th e S to ic s d e a l t w i t h th is f a c t o f
lif e , to o .41 T h e S to ic d e f in itio n , tr a n s m itte d v i a C i c e r o s O n D iv in a tio n , o u r
m o s t im p o r ta n t s o u r c e o n S to ic d iv in a tio n , is th e p r e d i c t i o n a n d p r e s e n tim e n t
o f th in g s th a t a r e th o u g h t to o c c u r b y lu c k . 42 A s w e h a v e s e e n , f o r th e S to ic s
th e r e la tio n s b e tw e e n th in g s c a n n o t b e a m a tte r o f lu c k , b u t o f sy m p a th y .
D iv in a tio n is b ased on th is in te r c o n n e c te d n e s s : s p e c if ic s ig n s can be
u n d e r s to o d a s to k e n s o n th e b a s is o f w h ic h th e fu tu re c o u r s e o f th e d iv in e
b r e a th in m a tte r can be p r e d ic te d . In G re e k a n tiq u ity th e s e s ig n s a re
t r a d itio n a lly o r a c le s a n d d r e a m s ,43 a n d th o s e in d e e d th e S to ic s r e la te to th e ir
d o c tr in e o f n a tu ra l c o n n e c te d n e s s . I n h is O n D rea m s C h r y s ip p u s o f f e r s u s a n
a m u s in g e x a m p le . A c c o r d i n g to C h r y s ip p u s , s o m e o n e w h o d r e a m s o f a n e g g
m a y w e l l b e th e lu c k y w in n e r o f a j a c k p o t , s in c e th is d r e a m c o u ld in d ic a te th a t
a tr e a s u r e c o n s is tin g o f g o ld a n d s i l v e r ( r e f e r r in g to th e y o k e a n d th e w h ite o f
th e e g g r e s p e c tiv e ly ) is b u r ie d u n d e r th e b e d o f th e d r e a m e r . 44 T h e c o n n e c tio n
b e tw e e n s y m p a th y a n d th e in te r p r e ta tio n o f th is p a r tic u la r d r e a m is e x p lic itly
m a d e in th e ( c r i t i c a l ) c o m m e n ts C ic e r o p r e s e n ts a t O n D iv in a tio n 2 .1 4 2 ( n o t in
S V F ):

Is there some such natural interconnectedness [continuatio coniunctioque naturae], which, as I

said before, the Greeks call sumpatheia, that the finding of a treasure must be deduced from
dreaming of an egg? ... But by which natural connection [naturalis cognatio] are treasures,
legacies, honours, victory, and many other things of the same kind connected with dreams?

T h e in d ig n a n t to n e m a k e s c l e a r th a t th e p r e d i c t a b i l i t y o f fu tu re e v e n ts b a s e d o n
s y m p a th y in th e w o r l d w a s a c o n tr o v e r s ia l is s u e . A l r e a d y in a n tiq u ity th e
S to ic s w e re h e a v il y c r itic iz e d f o r it: th e c r itic s a p p a r e n tly tu rn e d th e ir
a tte n tio n n o t s o m u c h to th e u n d e r ly in g d o c tr in e o f c o s m ic s y m p a th y ( w h ic h
th e y m a y h a v e a c c e p te d f o r th e s a k e o f a rg u m e n t), b u t r a th e r to th e id e a th a t th e
tr a d itio n a l s ig n s c o u ld be in te r p r e te d as s ig n s o f sy m p a th y , w h ic h th e y
r e j e c t e d . 45 E v e n a m o n g th e S to ic s th e m s e lv e s th e s ta tu s o f d iv in a tio n b e c a m e a
c o n te n tio u s is s u e . W h e r e a s e a r l y S to ic s , lik e Z e n o , C le a n th e s , a n d C h r y s ip p u s ,
a c c e p te d it, 46 P a n a e tiu s d e c la re d i t u n s u p p o r te d ( a n u p o s ta to n ) 47 T h e
p r e c i s e n a tu re o f P a n a e ti u s s c r i t i c i s m is d if f ic u l t to a s s e s s , h o w e v e r : d o e s
u n s u p p o r te d m e a n th a t P a n a e tiu s r e j e c t e d d iv in a tio n fu ll s to p , o r d id h e
r a th e r c o n s id e r d iv in a tio n u s e le s s f o r n o n p e r f e c t h u m a n b e in g s , s in c e th e
in te r p r e ta tio n s o f d r e a m s a n d o r a c le s i n th is w e b o f c a u s e s c o u ld i n f a c t o n ly
b y p e r f o r m e d b y p e r f e c t h u m a n b e in g s ? 48 I f th e fo rm e r, P a n a e tiu s w o u ld h a v e
d is ta n c e d h i m s e l f f r o m th e e a r l y S to ic s ; i f th e la tte r, P a n a e tiu s w o u ld s till h a v e
a g r e e d w i t h th e fo u n d e rs o f h is s c h o o l, w h o i n th e ir u s u a l a u s te r e f a s h io n
in d e e d d e c l a r e d th a t o n ly a h u m a n b e in g w h o h a s b ro u g h t h is r e a s o n to
p e r f e c t io n c a n b e a tru e d iv in e r . 49
H e r e w e to u c h o n a n a s p e c t o f S to i c is m th a t c a n n o t b e s tr e s s e d e n o u g h : a ll
o r d in a r y h u m a n b e in g s h a v e r e a s o n , a f te r i t h a s n a tu r a lly d e v e l o p e d i n e a c h o f
th e m b e tw e e n th e a g e o f s e v e n a n d f o u r te e n y e a r s . 50 H o w e v e r , th is r a tio n a l
f a c u lty is n o t y e t p e r f e c t. E a c h h u m a n b e in g w i l l h a v e to d e v e lo p th is fa c u lty
fu r th e r i n o r d e r to b r in g i t to p e r f e c tio n . W h e r e a s i n p r in c ip le p e r f e c t io n is
p o s s ib le , in p r a c tic e th e m any p e rv e rs io n s a ro u n d (d ia stro p h a i; see
D io g e n e s L a e r tiu s 7 .8 9 [S V F 3 .2 2 8 ] ) p r e v e n t th is f r o m h a p p e n in g . 51 P a n a e tiu s
c o n c lu d e s f r o m th is th a t in c a s e s w h e r e th is h ig h - le v e l p e r f e c t io n c a n n o t b e
a c h ie v e d , i t is b e s t to c o n c e n tr a te o n p e r f e c t io n a t a l o w e r le v e l. I t is a t th is
l o w e r le v e l th a t th e in flu e n tia l n o tio n o f h u m a n ita s k ic k s in , p ic k e d u p a n d
d e v e l o p e d b y C ic e r o , th e id e a th a t a ll h u m a n b e in g s a s r a tio n a l b e in g s , w ith o u t
b e in g s a g e s , s h a r e th is c h a r a c te r is tic o f r e a s o n a n d o n th is b a s is f o r m a
c o m m u n ity o f m a n k in d .52
T h is b r in g s u s to th e s e c o n d to p ic , th e s o c ia l im p lic a tio n s o f c o s m ic
sy m p a th y . T h e c l o s e s t w e c a n g e t to s y m p a th y in r e la tio n to th e a f f e c t o f
c o m m o n f e e lin g in S to i c is m is c o s m o p o lita n is m , r a th e r th a n p ity (e le o s), a s
is s o m e tim e s s u g g e s te d .53 F o r th e S to ic s p ity is o n e o f th e b a d e m o tio n s , a
d is e a s e o f th e s o u l r e s u ltin g f r o m a n in c o r r e c t r e s p o n s e to a p a r tic u la r e v e n t.54
(T h e in c o r r e c tn e s s o f th e r e s p o n s e h e r e is o f c o u r s e m e a s u r e d b y th e s ta n d a r d s
o f p e r f e c t r e a s o n .) A lth o u g h th e o r ig i n o f c o s m o p o l ita n i s m c a n p e r h a p s a lr e a d y
b e tr a c e d b a c k to th e s o p h is t H ip p ia s o r to S o c r a te s in th e la te fif th c e n tu ry
b c e ,55 th e S to ic s p la y e d a n im p o r ta n t r o l e in th e h is to r y o f its d e v e lo p m e n t. T h e
t e r m is c l e a r l y a tte s te d f o r th e f o u r th -c e n tu r y C y n ic D io g e n e s o f S in o p e ,56 w h o
s u r e ly in s p ir e d th e e a r l y S to ic s o n th is p o in t. T h e y d e v e l o p e d i t in a m a n n e r
th a t s h o w s a c lo s e a ffin ity to th e ir n a tu r a lis t u n d e r s ta n d in g o f sy m p a th y , w h ic h
c o m e s o u t m o s t c l e a r l y w i t h r e g a r d to th e s a g e . T h e s a g e p a r tic ip a te s o n th e
h ig h e s t le v e l o f th e a c tiv e p r in c ip le , p o s s e s s in g a s a p e r f e c t ly r a tio n a l h u m a n
b e in g th a t p u re , u n d ilu te d f ie r y d is p o s itio n . T h e s a g e s r e a s o n is fu lly in lin e
w ith c o s m ic r e a s o n , o r e v e n a n a c ti v e p a r t o f it. S in c e b e c o m in g a n a c ti v e p a r t
o f th e c o s m ic p r o c e s s is a ll th a t m a tte rs , th e lif e o f a s a g e n e e d n o t b e a lif e
w i t h fr ie n d s , a s S e n e c a te l l s us: W h a t k in d o f lif e w i l l th e s a g e h a v e , i f h e b e
le f t w ith o u t f r ie n d s ? ... H is lif e w ill be th a t o f J u p ite r, w h o , a m id th e
d is s o lu t io n o f th e w o r l d , w h e n th e g o d s a r e c o n fo u n d e d to g e th e r a n d n a tu re
r e s ts f o r a s p a c e f r o m h e r w o r k , c a n r e t i r e in to h i m s e l f a n d g iv e h i m s e l f o v e r
to h is o w n th o u g h ts . 57 T h e s a g e s p a r t i c i p a t i o n in th is w o r l d o r d e r e v e n h a s
m y s tic a l o v e r to n e s . C le a n th e s c o m p a r e s th e s a g e w i t h a n in itia te (te le s te s )
in to o n e o f th e m y s te ry r e lig io n s , s o m e o n e w h o is f i l l e d w i t h th e d iv in e , 58
w h e r e a s C h r y s ip p u s c o m p a r e s d i s c o v e r in g th e fin a l tru th o n th e g o d s a s
in itia tio n s w h e n th e s o u l h a s fo u n d its s ta b ility , is in c o n tr o l a n d is c a p a b le o f
k e e p in g s ile n t to w a r d s th e u n in itia te d . 59 H o w e v e r , i f th e r e a r e a n y s a g e s , a n d
m o re th a n o n e , th e y w i l l a f f e c t e a c h o th e r, a s th e y a r e b y th e ir v e r y n a tu re a ls o
a c tiv e p a r tic p a n ts in th e h ig h e s t le v e l o f th e b r e a th p e r m e a tin g th e w o r ld . T h e
m a n n e r in w h ic h th is h a p p e n s is l i t e r a l l y f a r - r e a c h in g . T h is is h o w P lu t a r c h in
O n C o m m o n C o n c e p tio n s 1 0 6 8 F (S V F 3 .6 2 7 ) s ta te s it: I f a s in g le s a g e
a n y w h e r e e x te n d s h is fin g e r p ru d e n tly , a ll th e s a g e s th ro u g h o u t th e w o r l d w i l l
b e n e fit. T h is is th e w o r k o f th e ir f r ie n d s h ip , in to w h ic h th e v ir tu e s o f th e s a g e s
f o r th e ir c o m m o n b e n e f it e n d . 60 S a g e s r e l a t e d in th is w a y a r e th e r e f o r e a ls o
s a i d to f o r m a c o m m u n ity , a S to ic d o c tr in e p r e s e r v e d b y A r iu s D id y m u s ( f ir s t
c e n tu r y c e ), a p h ilo s o p h e r a n d p r e s u m a b ly a ls o a d v i s e r to A u g u stu s: A
c o m m u n ity e x is ts a m o n g s t th e m , b e c a u s e th e y p a r tic ip a te in r e a s o n , th a t is th e
l a w b y n a tu r e . 61 A s im ila r f o r m u la tio n c a n b e fo u n d in p s .- P lu ta r c h , O n
H o m e r 119 ( n o t in SV F ): T h is is th e f a m ilia r d o c tr in e o f th e S to ic s , th a t th e r e
is o n e c o s m o s , in w h ic h b y n a tu re g o d s a n d m e n r u le to g e th e r p a r tic ip a tin g in
j u s t i c e . 62 N o te th e e x p r e s s io n to r u l e h e re , a c l e a r r e f e r e n c e to th e h ig h e s t
le v e l o f th e a c tiv e p r in c ip le . T h e S t o i c s id e a l c o m m u n ity o f s a g e s th u s d o e s
n o t r e f e r to a p o l i t i c a l u to p ia in th e s e n s e o f a g ro u p o f s a g e s th a t s e t u p a n d
f o r m a c o m m u n ity to g e th e r.63 O n c e a h u m a n b e in g w i l l h a v e p e r f e c t e d h is o r
h e r o w n r a tio n a l c a p a c itie s , h e o r s h e w i l l a u to m a tic a lly b e c o m e a w o r l d
c itiz e n (k o sm o p o lite s), p a r tic ip a tin g o n th e h ig h e s t le v e l o f b e in g . I f m o re
h u m a n b e in g s w i l l h a v e a c h ie v e d p e r f e c tio n , b y v ir tu e o f th e ir v ir tu o u s
d i s p o s i t i o n th e y w i l l b e p a r t o f a c o m m u n ity o f s a g e s , h o w e v e r f a r r e m o v e d
th e y m a y b e f r o m e a c h o th e r.
F o r o r d in a r y h u m a n b e in g s , w h o h a v e n o t (y e t) a c h ie v e d th a t h ig h e s t le v e l,
th e in te r c o n n e c te d n e s s o f th e w o r l d a n d th e ir p la c e w ith in th is w h o le a r e
e x p e r ie n c e d in a w a y th a t c a n b e f o r m u la te d in te rm s o f th e m o d e r n s e n s e o f
s y m p a th y o r c o m m o n fe e lin g . A s w e h a v e s e e n , h u m a n b e in g s a r e s p e c ia l, in
th e s e n s e th a t u n iq u e a m o n g th e liv in g b e in g s th e y h a v e th e ir r a tio n a l fa c u ltie s .
H o w e v e r , a s e x p la in e d a b o v e , w h e r e a s th e in itia l d e v e lo p m e n t o f th e r a tio n a l
f a c u ltie s o ccu rs n a tu ra lly , h u m a n b e in g s need to d e v e lo p th e s e r a tio n a l
f a c u ltie s fu rth e r in o r d e r to b r in g th e s e to p e r f e c tio n . T h e S to ic s w e r e k e e n to
d e s c r ib e th e s e n a tu ra l a n d s e lf - in d u c e d d e v e lo p m e n ts in te rm s o f w h a t th e y
c a l l e d a p p r o p r ia tio n (o ik e io s is ), a te r m th e y c o in e d . C o n ta in in g th e r o o t
o ik e io s, b e lo n g in g to o n e s h o u s e (o ik o s), a p p r o p r i a t i o n is b e s t d e s c r i b e d a s
th e p r o c e s s o f d is c o v e r in g o r e n s u r in g th a t s o m e th in g b e lo n g s to o n e s e l f o r is
o n e s o w n (h e n c e E n g lis h tr a n s la tio n s a s a p p r o p r i a t i o n o r f a m ilia r iz a tio n ) .64
F o r h u m a n b e in g s v a r io u s p h a s e s in th is p r o c e s s c a n b e d is c e r n e d : f o r a h u m a n
b e in g w h o h a s n o t y e t d e v e l o p e d r e a s o n , s u c h a s a c h ild ( a n d th e r e f o r e b y th e
S to ic s p u t o n a p a r w i t h a n a n im a l), o n e o f th e f i r s t th in g s a c c o r d in g to n a tu r e
th a t th is a n im a l w i l l d is c o v e r a s its o w n is its e lf , th a t is th e im p u ls e (h o rm e , o r
in c lin a tio in L a tin ) to p r e s e r v e its e lf. O n c e th e c h ild d e v e lo p s a r a tio n a l
fa c u lty , th e p r o c e s s o f a p p r o p r i a t i o n b e c o m e s m o re c o m p lic a te d . T h e im p u ls e s
will still present themselves, but can no longer be processed automatically:
human beings will have to use their rational faculties in order to decide what
to do with them, that is in Stoic terminologyto assent to them or not. Again,
according to the Stoics, all human beings should in the end assent to those
impulses that are in line with the course of the active principle that governs the
world. In doing so they will gradually discover that they belong to different
groups. In a passage from his How to Behave towards Relatives, Hierocles, a
Stoic who lived in the second century c e , used a nowadays familiar image.65
According to him, each o f us is encompassed by a set of concentric circles, of
which the innermost circle represents the impulse to self-preservation. The
next one stands for family, and subsequent circles for friends, the particular
community one lives in, and so on. The outermost circle represents the whole
human race. If one were to find a place for sympathy in the modern sense of
common feeling, then it it has to be found in relation to these circles that
represent family, friends, and political community. Appropriation can thus be
related to sympathy in the modern sense, as the process in which human beings
slowly discover their common feelings toward other rational beings.
 5. Co n c l u s i o n

I h a v e d i s c u s s e d th e n a tu r a li s t o r ig in s o f s y m p a th y , w i t h s y m p a th y f ir s t u s e d to
c o n n o te th e r e l a ti o n b e tw e e n th e h u m a n b o d y a n d s o u l. T h e S to ic s a p p e a r to
h a v e e x p a n d e d t h i s b o d y - a n d - s o u l r e l a t i o n s h i p , g i v i n g s y m p a t h y i ts b r o a d e s t
p o s s i b l e s c o p e , m a k i n g i t i n t o a f e a t u r e o f th e n a t u r a l w o r l d . A c c o r d i n g t o t h e
S to ic s , it is b e c a u s e o f th e w o r l d s o u l th a t p e r v a d e s a ll m a tte r th a t th e w o r l d
i t s e l f a n d e v e r y th in g in i t a r e in a s ta te o f in te r c o n n e c te d n e s s . A lth o u g h th e
m o d e r n s e n s e o f s y m p a th y a s c o m m o n f e e lin g is n o t e x p lic itly m a d e i n th is
c o n te x t, e v e n h e r e th e S to ic s c a n b e s a id to h a v e p r e f ig u r e d th e m o d e r n s e n s e :
th e ir v ie w th a t h u m a n b e in g s f a m ilia r iz e th e m s e lv e s w i t h th e w o r l d th ro u g h
c ir c le s o f s y m p a th y w o u ld p r o v e to b e a s o u r c e o f i n s p ir a tio n f o r la te r
t h i n k e r s . 66

1 Frans de Waal, The Age o f Empathy (New York: Harmony Books, 2009), 63. Since de Waal speaks of
empathy, a terminological remark is appropriate here. The distinction betw een sympathy and empathy is
blurred. See, e.g., Douglas Chismar, Empathy and Sympathy: The Important Difference, Journal of
Value Inquiry 22 (1988): 257-66, an attempt to disentangle the two. For de Waal sympathy differs from
empathy in the sense that sympathy would be proactive, with the purpose of improving someones
situation; empathy is the process by which we gather information about someone else (see de Waal,
Empathy, 88, cf. Stephen Darwall, Empathy, Sympathy, Care, Philosophical Studies 89.2-3 (1998):
261-82, at 261). As we will see, the classical use of sympathy is closer to his understanding of empathy.
2 For an overview see Pierre Louis, ed., Aristote: Problemes (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1991), 1.xxii-
xxiii.
3 See Louis, Problemes, 1.xxvi-xxvii; Robert Mayhew, trans., Aristotle: Problems: Books 1-19
(Cambridge, MA.: Loeb, 2011), xxi. However, Hellmut Flashar, Aristoteles: Problemata physica (Berlin:
Akademie Verlag 1991), 356-57, argues for the post-Aristotelian origins of the work, placing it in the third
century bce.
4 See already Emile Egger, Essai sur l histoire de la critique chez les Grecs (Paris: Durand, 1850),
128; Louis, Problemes, xxviii-xxxix.
5 See Gemma C. M. Jansen, Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, and Eric M. Moormann, eds., Roman Toilets
(Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 131-34.
6 See Mayhew, Problems, xxii.
7 The letter survived in Diogenes Laertiuss Lives o f Eminent Philosophers, 10.35-83. Sympathies is
mentioned at 48 (LS 15A). On Diogenes Laertius see infra, section 3.
8 According to Anthony A. Long and David N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987), vol. 1, 76, the interactions relate to the changes in the external
objects, which would affect the impressions, too. According to Lucretius, On the Nature o f Things
3.168-70 (LS 14B), the coaffections are in fact caused in the mind.
9 See also Christof Rapp, Interaction of Body and Soul: W hat the Hellenistic Philosophers Saw and
Aristotle Avoided, in Common to Body and Soul, ed. Richard A. H. King (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006),
186-208, at 188-92.
10 Epictetus is a special case: he left us his short Manual. Otherwise we possess notes of his lectures
made by his student Arrian, in English usually referred to as the Dissertations.
11 Useful collections of these sources include SVF for the early Stoics, FDS for Stoic logic, Alesse for
the middle Stoic Panaetius of Rhodes, and Edelstein and Kidd for the middle Stoic Posidonius of
Apameia. For the abbreviations see the list at the beginning of the bibliography.
12 See Karl Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie (Munich: Beck, 1926), 111-15.
13 Fr. 219.18, Edelstein and Kidd.
14 For a translation with extensive notes, see Robert W Sharples and Philip J. van der Eijk, trans.,
Nemesius: On the Nature o f Man (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008).
15 See p. 21.6-9 Morani (SVF 1.518; LS 45C). For the syllogisms of Zeno of Citium (335-263 bce), the
founder of the school, see Malcolm Schofield, T he Syllogisms of Zeno of Citium, Phronesis 28 (1983):
31-58; for Cleanthes see Malcolm Schofield, The Stoic Idea o f the City, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1999), 130-35.
16 Tertullian, On the Soul 5 (SVF 1.518), offers a Latin translation of the argument, in which the
reference to sympathy appears in the manuscripts as passionum commutatione. Modern editors, puzzled
by the expression, suggested either communicatione (von Arnim), or communione (Waszink). On the
argument see further Heinrich Dorrie, Porphyrios Symmikta zetemata (Munich: Beck, 1959), 134
36.
17 See On Mixture 216.14-16 (SVF 2.473; LS 48C).
18 Ps.-Plutarch, On Fate 574D (SV F 2.912).
19 See 1.1.13 Ziegler/Todd (not in SVF), cf. 1.1.69-71 (SVF 2.534). Alan C. Bowen and Robert B. Todd,
trans., Cleomedes Lectures on Astronomy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004) offer a
modern translation with commentary.
20 Against the Professors 9.79 (SVF 2.1013).
21 On Divination 2.33 (SVF 2.1211).
22 On Fate 7 (SVF 2.950; LS 55Q).
23 For the Greek text of Diogenes Laertius see now the splendid version edited by Tiziano Dorandi,
Diogenes Laertius: Lives o f Eminent Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
For modern discussions of Stoic physics see David N. Sedley, Stoic Physics and Metaphysics, in The
Cambridge History o f Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe A. Algra et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999), 382-411; David Furley, Cosmology, in The Cambridge History o f Hellenistic
Philosophy, ed. Keimpe A. Algra et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 412-51;
Michael J. White, Stoic Natural Philosophy (Physics and Cosmology), in The Cambridge Companion
to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 124-52.
24 Diogenes Laertius 7.138 (SVF 2.634; LS 47O), with reference to Chrysippus, On Providence .
25 Plutarch, On the Fortune o f Alexander 329B (SVF 1.262; LS 67A), Chrysippus, On Law, which
survived in Emperor Justinians Digest 1.3.2 (SVF 3.314; LS 67R).
26 Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors 9.78-80 (SVF 2.1013); Alexander of Aphrodisias, On
Mixture 216.14-28 (SVF 2.473).
27 See further Valery Laurand, La sympathie universelle: Union et separation, in Les Stoiciens et le
monde, ed. Thomas Benatouil and Pierre-Marie Morel (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2005),
517-35.
28 Preserved in Stobaeuss fifth-century anthology, at 1.213.15-21 (SVF 1.120; LS 46D).
29 Stobaeus 1.129.2-30.13 (SVF 2.413; LS 47A).
30 The position of air is ambiguous: in some sources, e.g. Nemesius, On the Nature o f Man 52.19-20
(SVF 2.418; LS 47D), air is presented as an active element too.
31 See furtherRene Brouwer, The Stoic Sage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 72-73.
32 See Cicero, On Fate 11-13 (SVF 2.945-46). However, sometimes fate is simply identified with the
active principle. See e.g. Stobaeus 1.79.1 (SVF 2.913): Fate is a pneumatic power [Sw a^iv
nnsuM-ariK^v] governing the order of the whole.
33 See Susan Sauve-Meyer, Chain of Causes: W hat Is Stoic Fate? in God and Cosmos in Stoicism,
ed. Riccardo Salles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 71-90, esp. 76-77.
34 ou^ tc^ ok^ is used in ps-Plutarch, On the Opinions o f the Philosophers 885A (SVF 2.976); snin^oKq
is in Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 7.2.3 (SVF 2.1000; LS 55K).
35 See Calcidius (fourth century ce), Commentary on the Timaeus 183.6-14 Waszink (SVF 2.933; LS
54U).
36 See Rene Brouwer, Polybius on Stoic tyche , Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 51 (2011):
111-32; Jan Opsomer, Virtue, Fortune, and Happiness in Theory and Practice, in Virtues fo r the
People, ed. Geert Roskam and Luc Van der Stockt (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 151-73.
37 See Myrto Dragona-Monachou, The Stoic Arguments fo r the Existence and the Providence o f the
Gods (Athens: University of Athens, 1976), 287; and R. Jim Hankinson, Stoicism, Science, and
Divination, Apeiron 21.2 (1988): 123-60, at 149.
38 While rejecting the immanentism of the Stoics single force, and offering the transcendentalist
hierarchy of the one, the intellect, and the world soul instead, Plotinus would make sympathy (and
divination) a characteristic of the world soul only, the last and lowest level on this scheme. See chapter 2
infra.
39 This most dubious step, as Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1, 287, formulate it.
40 See Sarah I. Johnston, Ancient Greek Divination (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008); as well as Sarah
I. Johnston and Peter T. Struck, eds., Mantike: Studies in Ancient Greek Divination (Leiden: Brill,
2005).
41 See esp. Friedrich Pfeffer, Studien zur Mantik in der Philosophie der Antike (Meisenheim am
Glan: Ham, 1976), 43-112; David Wardle, Cicero: On Divination Book 1 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2006).
42 See 1.9. Cf. Chrysippuss definition in the traditional terms of gods and men at On Divination 2.130
(SVF 2.1189), as the power to understand, see and explain the signs, which the gods give to human
beings.
43 N ext to these natural types of divination the Romans, mainly under the influence of the Etruscans,
would add some more technical types of divination, like examining entrails (haruspicy) and bird watching
(auspicy). For the distinction see Cicero, On Divination 1.34 (not in SVF; LS 42C).
44 See Cicero, On Divination 2.134 (SVF 2.1201).
45 See Cicero, On Divination 2.33 (SVF 2.1211), On the Nature o f the Gods 3.28 (not in SVF).
46 See Diogenes Laertius 7.149 (SVF 2.1191); Cicero, On Divination 1.6 (SVF 1.173, 2.1187).
47 See (again) Diogenes Laertius 7.149 (fr. 139 Alesse); cf. Cicero, On Divination 2.89 (fr. 140 Alesse),
and Lucullus 107 (fr. 136 Alesse).
48 As Cicero takes his arguments against astrology from Panaetius too (see his On Divination 2.87-98,
fr. 140), Francesca Alesse, ed., Panezio di Rodi: Testimonianze (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1997), 269, argues
for the former. However, Panaetius often takes the stance that the early Stoics focus on the as of yet
nonexistent sage, and that he therefore decided to resort to a second-rate type of perfection that can be
applied to ordinary human being. See e.g. Cicero, On Proper Functions 1.146, 3.12 (fr. 75 Alesse), and
cf. On Friendship 18. H e might thus have argued that divination is useful for the sage, but not for those
who like most of us have only limited insight into the interconnections in the world. See also Teun
Tieleman, Panaetius Place in the History of Stoicism with Special Reference to His Moral Psychology,
in Pyrrhonists, Patricians, Platonizers, ed. Anna-Maria Ioppolo and David N. Sedley (Naples:
Bibliopolis, 2007), 103-41; and Rene Brouwer, On the Ancient Background of Grotiuss Notion of
Natural Law, Grotiana 29 (2008): 1-24.
49 See Stobaeus 2.114.16-21 (SVF 3.605), On Divination 2.129 (SVF 3.607).
50 See Iamblichus (c. 245-c. 325), On the Soul as preserved in Stobaeus 1.317.21-24 (SVF 1.149,
2.835).
51 See on the achievability of perfection Brouwer, Stoic Sage, 92-135.
52 See Wolfgang Schadewaldt, Humanitas romana, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt,
1.4, ed. Hildegard Temporini (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973), 52-61; Ingo Gildenhard, Creative Eloquence
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 201-16.
53 Margarita Kranz and Peter Probst, Sympathie, in Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophie, ed.
Joachim Ritter, Karlfried Grunder, and Gottfried Gabriel, vol. 10 (Basel: Schwabe, 1998), 752.
54 See e.g. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.18 (SVF 3.415), Lactantius (c. 240-c. 320), Divine
Institutions 3.23 (SVF 1.213).
55 Eric Brown, Socrates the Cosmopolitan, Stanford Agora: An Online Journal o f Legal
Perspectives 1 (2000): 74-87, accessed 15 July 2013, http://agora.stanford.edu/agora/issue1/index.html;
M ax Hossenfelder, Oikeiosis, in Der Neue Pauly, ed. Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, vol. 8
s.v. (Leiden: Brill, 2003).
56 Diogenes Laertius 6.63 (fr. 335 Giannantoni); cf. Marie-Odile Goulet-Caze, Un Syllogisme stoicien
sur la loi dans la doxographie de Diogene le Cynique: A propos de Diogene Laerce VI 72, Rheinisches
Museum 125 (1982): 214-40; Marie-Odile Goulet-Caze, L ascese cynique (Paris: Vrin, 1986).
57 Seneca, Letters 9.16 (SV F 2.1065; LS 40O); cf. Mario Vegetti, L etica degli antichi, 4th ed. (Rome:
Laterza, 1996), 288.
58 See Epiphanius of Salamis (fourth century ce), On Faith 9.41, p. 508.25-28 Holl (SVF 1.538).
59 Etymologicum magnum 751.16-22, col. 2108 Gaisford (SVF 2.1008; FDS 650).
60 See Hermann Diels, Philodemus: Uber die Gotten Drittes Buch, Erlauterung des Textes (Berlin:
Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1917), 7, who dryly noted that he considered this as etwas
abenteuerlich.

61 Arius Didymus on his turn is quoted by Eusebius (c. 260-339), Preparation fo r the Gospel 15.15.5
(SVF 2.528; LS 67L).
62 See also Philo of Alexandria (first half of the first century ce), On the Creation o f the World 142-43
(SVF 3.336, 337).
63 See Dirk Obbink and Paul A. Vander Waerdt, Diogenes of Babylon: The Stoic Sage in the City of
Fools, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 32 (1991): 355-96; Schofield, City, 64-92; Brouwer,
Stoic Sage, 90 n. 128.
64 The literature on the Stoic interpretation of appropriation is vast. See Ilaria Ramelli, ed., and David
Konstan, trans., Hierocles the Stoic: Elements o f Ethics, Fragments, and Excerpts (Atlanta: Society of
Biblical Literature, 2009), xxxii n. 33, for an overview (to which can be added Christopher Gill, T he Stoic
Theory of Ethical Development: In W hat Sense Is Nature a Norm ? in Was ist das fu r den Menschen
Gute?, ed. Jan Szaif and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann [Berlin: De Gtuyter 2004], 101-25).
65 The passage from How to Behave towards Relatives is preserved by Stobaeus, at 4.671.2-3.11 (LS
57G). Interestingly, at 671.6 (not in LS) Hierocles uses sumpaschein, but only in the sense of how this
particular text is connected with an earlier text.
66 I would like to thank Eric Schliesser for organizing the stimulating colloquium on sympathy, its
participants for their helpful contributions, and Peter Struck, Brooke Holmes, and (again) Eric Schliesser
for encouragement and written comments.
 C H A P T E R TW O

Plotinus on sym patheia

E y jo lfu r K. E m ilsso n

P lo tin u s ( 2 0 4 / 5 - 7 0 ad) w a s th e fo u n d e r o f th e la te a n c ie n t v a r i e t y o f P la to n is m
th a t u s u a lly is c a l l e d N e o p la to n i s m , th e d o m in a tin g p h ilo s o p h ic a l m o v e m e n t
in th e G r a e c o - R o m a n w o r l d in la te a n tiq u ity . P lo tin u s a n d th e o th e r la te a n c ie n t
P la to n is ts d id n o t s e e th e m s e lv e s a s N e o - s o m e th in g b u t s im p ly a s f o ll o w e r s
a n d s y s te m a tiz e r s o f P l a t o s th o u g h t. P lo t in u s s P la to n ic p r e d e c e s s o r s h a d
a c tu a lly s ta r te d a tte m p ts a t s u c h a s y s te m a tiz a tio n .1 H e n c e , it is in m a n y w a y s
m is le a d in g to s u g g e s t th a t s o m e th in g q u ite n e w s ta r ts w i t h P lo tin u s . T h is d o e s ,
h o w e v e r , n o t c h a n g e th e f a c t th a t h e w a s a v e r y s ig n if ic a n t p h ilo s o p h e r b o th in
te rm s o f h is in flu e n c e a n d th e d e p th o f h is th o u g h t. A rg u a b ly , h e w a s th e n e x t
g r e a te s t P la to n is t e v e r , a f te r P la to , a n d i f w e d o n o t c o u n t A r is to tle a s a
P la to n is t2
T h e s e la te a n c ie n t P la to n is ts d e e p ly in flu e n c e d e a r l y C h r is tia n th in k e rs b o th
in th e W e s t a n d th e E a s t, in d e e d e v e n tu a lly M u s lim th in k e rs a s w e ll. T h e ir o w n
w o r k s , h o w e v e r , w e r e l a r g e ly a b s e n t in th e W e s t d u r in g th e M id d le A g e s . In
th e la tte r h a lf o f th e fif te e n th c e n tu ry , h o w e v e r , w h e n th e s e a n d o th e r G r e e k
te x ts b e c a m e a v a i l a b l e a n d w e r e tr a n s la t e d a n d p u b lis h e d , P la to a n d h is la te
a n c ie n t f o l l o w e r s b e c a m e e x tr e m e ly p o p u la r in E u r o p e . T h e r e is n o q u e s tio n
th a t th e y le f t m a rk s o n e a r l y m o d e r n th in k e rs s u c h a s D e s c a r te s , S p in o z a , a n d
L e ib n iz .
W e p o s s e s s a f a ir ly r e l i a b l e a c c o u n t o f P lo t in u s s lif e a n d w r itin g s b y h is
s tu d e n t, fr ie n d , a n d e d ito r , P o rp h y ry . T h e la tte r c o m p o s e d a b io g ra p h y , O n th e
L ife o f P lo tin u s a n d th e O rd er o f H is B o o k s, w h ic h p r e f a c e d P o r p h y r y s
p o s th u m o u s e d itio n o f P lo t in u s s w r itin g s . P lo tin u s w r o te in G r e e k ,w h ic h m ay ,
h o w e v e r , n o t h a v e b e e n h is m o th e r to n g u e . A t th e a g e o f tw e n ty - e ig h t h e b e g in s
h is p h ilo s o p h ic a l s tu d ie s in A le x a n d r ia u n d e r a c e r t a i n A m m o n iu s (o f te n
c a l l e d A m m o n iu s S a c c a s ) a n d s tu d ie d w i t h h im f o r e l e v e n y e a r s . I n a n a tte m p t
to a c q u a in t h i m s e l f w i t h th e p h ilo s o p h y o f P e r s i a a n d In d ia , h e j o i n e d th e
e m p e r o r G o r d ia n o n a c a m p a ig n a g a in s t th e P e r s ia n s . G o r d ia n w a s m u r d e r e d
o n th e w a y a n d P lo tin u s e s c a p e d w i t h d if f ic u lty ( s e e L ife o f P lo tin u s 3 ). H e
s e ttle d in R o m e a t th e a g e o f fo rty , w h e r e he e s ta b lis h e d a school of
p h ilo s o p h y . H e s ta y e d in R o m e f o r th e r e s t o f h is lif e e x c e p t d u r in g h is fin a l
illn e s s , w h e n h e r e t i r e d to C a m p a n ia (L ife o f P lo tin u s 2 ).
T h e e x ta n t c o r p u s o f P lo t in u s s w r itin g s is o n e o f th e l a r g e s t w e h a v e o f a n y
a n c ie n t p h ilo s o p h e r a n d p r e s u m a b ly w e p o s s e s s e v e r y th in g h e w r o te . H is
w o r k s a r e t r e a tis e s th a t g r e w o u t o f d is c u s s io n s i n h is s c h o o l a n d th e y v a r y
g r e a tly i n le n g th a n d s c o p e . P o r p h y r y a r r a n g e d th e tr e a tis e s a c c o r d in g to
s u b je c t m a tte r in to s i x s e ts o f n in e t r e a tis e s , th a t is , s i x e n n e a d s ( a n e n n e a d
is a s e t o f n in e ). In o r d e r to a r r i v e a t th is d i v i s i o n h e h a d to s p lit s o m e
tr e a tis e s . C o n v e n tio n a lly , r e f e r e n c e s to th e E n n e a d s a r e o f te n g iv e n o n ly in
n u m b e rs : V 3 . ( 4 9 ) 2 , 1 4 - 1 6 , f o r in s ta n c e , m e a n s 5 th E n n e a d , 3 r d tr e a tis e
( w h ic h is n u m b e r fo r ty -n in e o n P o r p h y r y s c h r o n o lo g ic a l l i s t o f P lo t in u s s
w r itin g s ) , c h a p te r 2 , lin e s 14 to 1 6 .3
 1. Pl o t i n u s s Pr e c u r s o r s

P lo t in u s s n o tio n o f sympatheia is c o m m o n ly p l a in ly s a i d to b e a b o r r o w i n g
f r o m th e S to ic s .4 T h is m a y n e e d s o m e q u a lif ic a tio n . T h e f a c t is th a t m u c h o f th e
b a ck g ro u n d o f sympatheia a s P lo tin u s c o n c e iv e s o f it is to b e fo u n d in P l a t o s
Timaeus o n e o f th e m o s t im p o r ta n t d ia lo g u e s f o r th e la te a n c ie n t P la to n is ts .
I n th a t w o r k P la to e m p h a s iz e s th a t th e p h y s ic a l w o r l d is a n im a te d b y a W o rld -
S o u l th a t r e n d e r s i t a u n if ie d a n d u n iq u e liv in g b e in g (T im . 3 0 B - C ; 3 7 C - D )
o f w h ic h th e o r d in a r y a n im a l s p e c ie s a r e s o m e h o w p a r ts . H u m a n s o u ls a r e
m a d e o f th e s a m e s tu f f a s th is W o r ld - S o u l, a lth o u g h s o m e w h a t m o re d ilu te d ,
a n d a r e th u s a k in to th e W o r ld - S o u l ( Tim. 41 D ); P la to n o te s , m o r e o v e r , th a t in
f a s h io n in g th e w o r l d , th e D e m iu rg e , th e w o r l d m a k e r, m a d e th e n u m b e r o f
s o u ls e q u a l to th e n u m b e r o f s ta r s a n d a s s ig n e d e a c h s o u l to a s ta r ( Tim . 4 1 D -
E ). T h e r e b y h e s u g g e s ts a c o n n e c tio n b e tw e e n d if f e r e n t p a r ts o f th e u n iv e r s e ,
th o u g h h e d o e s n o t s p e c if y th e n a tu re o r c o n s e q u e n c e s o f th is a s s ig n m e n t. I
b e l i e v e n o w th a t P lo tin u s s a w h is n o tio n o f sympatheia a s a p a r t o f th e
P la to n ic h e r ita g e , m a in ly f r o m th e Timaeus. A s in s o m e o th e r c a s e s w h e r e th e
S to ic s s e e m to b u ild o n a n d d e v e lo p v i e w s e x p r e s s e d b y P la to ,5 P lo tin u s is
l i a b l e to tu r n to th e S to ic s a n d u s e th e ir in s ig h ts to d e v e lo p w h a t b y h is lig h ts is
e s s e n tia l ly a P la to n ic v ie w . W e s h a ll s e e s o m e o f th e d e ta ils o f th is h e re
b e lo w .
T h e S to ic n o tio n o f c o s m ic sympatheia is p e r h a p s b e s t e lu c i d a te d a s a n
in f e r e n c e f r o m th e ir b e l i e f th a t th e c o s m o s is a n o r g a n is m .6 J u s t a s in th e c a s e
o f a n o r d in a r y o r g a n is m d if f e r e n t p a r ts m a y b e s o c o n n e c te d th a t a n a f f e c tio n in
o n e p la c e le a d s to a n a f f e c tio n in a n o th e r a b a d s to m a c h m a y f o r in s ta n c e b e
a c c o m p a n ie d b y a h e a d a c h e th o u g h th e lu n g s a n d th e o th e r p a r ts i n b e tw e e n a re
le f t q u ite u n a ffe c te d s o in th e c o s m ic o r g a n is m d is ta n t p a r ts m a y b e a f f e c te d
b y o n e a n o th e r. T h e S to ic th e o r y o f th e s o u l p r o v i d e d a n e x p la n a tio n o f s u c h
p h e n o m e n a . A c c o r d i n g to th e S to ic s , th e s o u l is pneuma , f ie r y a ir, th a t
p e r m e a te s th e b o d y a s a w h o le ( SVF 2 , 7 7 3 - 8 9 ) . T h is pneuma is in a s ta te o f
te n s io n , a s a r e s u lt o f w h ic h th e r e is c o n tin u o u s w a v e - l i k e m o tio n b a c k a n d
f o r th in th e o r g a n is m ( S V F 2 , 4 4 8 , 4 5 0 - 5 7 ) . It a p p e a r s th a t sympatheia is
e f f e c te d b y m e a n s o f s u c h te n s io n a l m o tio n .7 B y m e a n s o f th e te n s io n a l m o tio n
th e o r g a n is m is a ff e c te d a s a w h o le b y a n im p a c t th a t h its o n ly a p a rt. I t is
w o r t h r e m a r k in g th a t th e te n s io n a l m o tio n is n e ith e r m o v e m e n t o f p h y s ic a l
p a r t i c l e s f r o m o n e p la c e to a n o th e r n o r th e k in d o f a c tio n - a f f e c tio n r e l a t i o n b y
w h ic h th e q u a lity o f a th in g is im p a r te d o n th e th in g s a d ja c e n t to it. R a th e r, it
s e e m s to b e th e tr a n s m is s io n o f a s ta te th ro u g h th e p n e u m a a s a v e h ic le ; h e n c e
w h e n a c h a n g e o c c u r s a t a g iv e n p la c e , th is is r e f le c te d in th e te n s io n a l m o tio n
a n d m a y c a u s e a s im ila r o r d if f e r e n t a f f e c t io n e ls e w h e r e i n th e o r g a n is m
a c c o r d in g to th e d is p o s i t i o n o f th e s e o th e r p a r ts . S y m p a th e ia is a f f e c tio n
d e p e n d in g o n th e te n s i o n o f th e p n e u m a th a t p e r m e a te s th e o rg a n is m .
T h e S to ic s d id n o t lim it th e p r in c ip le o f s y m p a th e ia to f a m ilia r o rg a n is m s .
T h e y c o n c e iv e d o f th e w h o le c o s m o s a s a n o r g a n is m u n ifie d b y a l l - p e r v a s i v e
p n e u m a in a s ta te o f te n s io n , a n d th e y p u t th e p r in c ip le o f s y m p a th e ia to
v a r io u s u s e s o n th e c o s m ic s c a le . T h e y u s e d it, f o r e x a m p le , to e x p la i n th e
c o n n e c tio n b e t w e e n th e m o o n a n d th e tid e s , th e c h a n g e o f s e a s o n s , a n d th e
e f f ic a c y o f s o - c a l l e d o c c u lt p h e n o m e n a , s u c h a s d iv in a tio n ( s e e S V F 2 .4 4 1 ,
446, 475, 1 0 1 3 ). S y m p a th e ia a s a c o s m ic p r i n c i p l e th u s e x e m p lif ie s th e
te n d e n c y o f a n c ie n t G r e e k th in k e rs to e x p la i n e v e n ts in th e p h y s ic a l w o r l d a n d
th e c o s m o s a s a w h o le o n th e m o d e l o f a n o rg a n is m .
T h e S to ic n o tio n o f s y m p a th e ia d e p e n d s o n th e ir v i e w o f th e u n ity o f th e
s o u l. E a c h o r d in a r y o r g a n is m is o f c o u r s e a n im a te d b y its p a r tic u la r s o u l. S o is
th e w h o le c o s m o s . T h e in d iv id u a l s o u ls e n jo y a r e la tiv e u n ity a n d c o h e r e n c e
b u t u ltim a te ly th e y a r e j u s t p a r ts o f th e g r e a t W o r ld - S o u l. S o th e r e is o n e
c o n tin u o u s p n e u m a th a t p e r v a d e s e v e r y th in g a n d it is o n th is th a t s y m p a th e ia
d e p e n d s . A s in th e c a s e o f th e S to ic s , s y m p a th e ia in P lo tin u s d e p e n d s o n th e
u n ity o f th e s o u l. T h e r e a r e , h o w e v e r , s ig n if ic a n t d if f e r e n c e s b e tw e e n P lo tin u s
a n d th e S to ic v i e w o n th e s o u l th a t m a tte r f o r th e ir r e s p e c tiv e v i e w s o n
sy m p a th e ia .
 2. Pl o t i n u s o n s y m p a t h e ia : So m e Ge n e r a l Re m a r k s

F i r s t a n d m o s t im p o rta n tly , P lo tin u s th e P la to n is t d o e s n o t b e l i e v e th a t th e s o u l

is a n y k in d o f p h y s ic a l stu ff, n o t e v e n th e fin e a n d c l e v e r p n e u m a . I t f o ll o w s
f r o m th is th a t w h e n in v o k in g s y m p a th e ia h e c a n n o t a p p e a l to a n y p h y s ic a l
p r o p e r tie s o f th e p n e u m a to e x p la i n h o w i t w o r k s . N o r d o e s h e th in k h e h a s to :
th e u n ity o f s o u l s u ffic e s . W e s h a ll s e e m o re a b o u t th a t b e lo w .
S e c o n d , P lo t in u s s v i e w s o n th e ta x o n o m y o f s o u ls d if f e r f r o m th o s e o f th e
S to ic s . T h e la tte r b e l i e v e th a t th e w o r l d a t la r g e is a r a tio n a l a n im a l c o n ta in in g
w ith in i t s e l f b o th r a tio n a l a n d n o n r a tio n a l a n im a ls . T h e s e a r e g e n u in e p a r ts o f
th e w h o le th a t, h o w e v e r , m ir r o r i t a s k in d s o f m ic r o c o s m s . P lo t in u s s v i e w s o n
th a t ta x o n o m y o f s o u ls a r e c o m p le x a n d p e r h a p s n o t q u ite c o n s is te n t. It s e e m s
th a t th e r e a r e b a s i c a l l y th r e e k in d s o f s o u l: th e h y p o s ta s is s o u l, th e W o r ld - S o u l,
a n d in d iv id u a l h u m a n s o u ls .8 In s o m e s e n s e th a t P lo tin u s h a s a s o m e w h a t h a r d
tim e e x p la in in g th e s e a r e s u p p o s e d to b e a ll id e n tic a l, b e c a u s e th e y a r e a ll
id e n tic a l w i t h th e h y p o th e s is s o u l ( s e e e s p e c i a l l y I V 9 ) . M a tte r s b e c o m e e v e n
m o re c o m p lic a te d b y th e f a c t th a t h u m a n b e in g s a r e p a r tly a n im a te d b y th e
W o r ld - S o u l: th e la tte r is r e s p o n s i b l e f o r th e r a tio n a l o r d e r l y b e h a v io r o f th e
c o s m o s ; th is in c lu d e s th e b io lo g ic a l fu n c tio n s o f a n im a ls , in c lu d in g m an . I n th e
h u m a n c a s e th e lin e b e tw e e n th e fu n c tio n s o f th e W o r ld - S o u l a n d in d iv id u a l
h u m a n s o u ls s e e m s to b e d r a w n in th e m id d le o f th e p r o c e s s o f sense
p e r c e p tio n : in s o f a r a s s e n s e p e r c e p tio n is a b io lo g ic a l p h e n o m e n o n , in v o lv in g
a n a f f e c tio n o f th e o r g a n is m b y e x te r n a l o b je c ts i t is a fu n c tio n o f th e W o rld -
S o u l o r s o m e th in g w e , th a t is , o u r b o d ie s , h a v e f r o m th e W o r ld - S o u l; in s o f a r
a s s e n s e p e r c e p tio n is a c o g n itiv e a c ti v ity o n o u r p a r t i t is a n a c t p e r f o r m e d b y
o u r in d iv id u a l s o u l; in s o f a r a s it is a n a f f e c tio n i t is th e w o r k o f th e s o u l w e
s h a r e w i t h th e c o s m o s ( I V 9 .3 , 2 5 - 2 7 ) . 9
T hese d is tin c tio n s m a tte r f o r P lo t in u s s e m p lo y m e n t o f th e n o tio n o f
sy m p a th e ia . E v e n i f h e in s is ts th a t a ll s o u ls a r e s o m e h o w o n e , i t s e e m s th a t
s y m p a th e ia o n th e c o s m ic s c a le is b a s e d o n th e u n ity o f th e W o r ld - S o u l a lo n e .
T h is m e a n s th a t if, s a y , a h u m a n b e in g is s y m p a th e tic a lly a f f e c te d b y s o m e th in g
e x te r n a l a n d d is ta n t, th is a f f e c tio n is a f u n c tio n o f th e u n ity o f th e W o r ld - S o u l in
w h ic h w e , th ro u g h th e a n im a tio n o f o u r b o d ie s , h a v e a s h a re . T h is is so
b e c a u s e o u r l o w e r s o u l is a p a r t o f o r is d e r i v e d f r o m th e W o r ld - S o u l a s
n o te d a b o v e . T h is h a s th e fu rth e r c o n s e q u e n c e th a t f o r P lo tin u s th e w o r k in g o f
sympatheia a n d o f p h e n o m e n a th a t d e p e n d o n i t s u c h a s m a g ic a l s p e ll s is
lim ite d : i t is n o t th e c a s e , f o r in s ta n c e , th a t w e c a n , th ro u g h in c a n ta tio n s o r th e
lik e , c h a n g e th e m in d o f th e g o d s o r th a t th e y d e l i b e r a t e l y a f f e c t u s b y th e
m eans o f sympatheia I s h a ll r e tu r n to th is p o in t s h o rtly . M o r e o v e r , w e a s
in d iv id u a l, p r im a r i ly r a tio n a l, s o u ls a re n o t d ir e c tly a f f e c te d b y c o s m ic
sympatheia . A s in d iv id u a l r a tio n a l s o u ls w e a r e in a s e n s e r a i s e d a b o v e th e
n a tu ra l c a u s a l n e x u s o f w h ic hsympatheia is a p a rt. D e s p ite th is , th a n k s to th e
u ltim a te u n ity o f a ll s o u ls , sympatheia is p o s s i b l e b e tw e e n in d iv id u a l h u m a n
s o u ls a s w e s h a ll s e e sh o rtly .
S o th e r e c a n b e sympatheia b e t w e e n d if f e r e n t p a r ts o f th e s a m e o rg a n is m
a n d b e t w e e n s o u ls I V 3 .8 , 1 - 3 ) . I t s e e m s th a t a n y s o r t o f c a u s a tio n a n d
c o o r d in a tio n o f s ta te s a n d e v e n ts th a t is n o t to b e e x p la in e d a s a f f e c tio n th ro u g h
d i r e c t p h y s ic a l c o n ta c t is th e w o r k in g o f sympatheia . In g e n eral sympatheia
c a n o c c u r w ith o u t a f f e c tio n o f th e p a r ts th a t s ta n d b e t w e e n th o s e th a t a r e in th e
re la tio n o f sympatheia , w h e r e a s w h a t is in b e tw e e n m a y r e d u c e its e ffe c t, a n d
s im ila r th in g s a r e p a r tic u la r ly s u s c e p tib le to s y m p a th e tic in flu e n c e o n o n e
a n o th e r ( I V 4 .3 2 .) .
Sympatheia tu rn s u p in a n u m b e r o f p a s s a g e s in th e Enneads . 10 In m an y of
th e s e th e m e n tio n is c u r s o r y a n d h a r d to m a k e m u c h of. b u t th e r e a r e tw o
e x te n s iv e d is c u s s io n s , b o th in th e lo n g tr e a tis e T h e P r o b le m s o f S o u l,
Ennead IV, 3 - 5 . 11 M o r e p r e c is e ly , w e have in I V 4 , c h a p te r s 3 1 -4 5 , a
d i s c u s s io n o f th e in flu e n c e o f th e s ta r s , m a g ic , a n d p r a y e r i n a ll o f w h ic h
sympatheia p la y s a n e s s e n tia l r o le , a n d in I V 5 , e s p e c i a l l y c h a p te r s 3 a n d 5 , a
d i s c u s s io n o f v is u a l a n d a u d ito r y tr a n s m is s io n . I n w h a t f o ll o w s , I s h a ll
p r im a r i ly b e c o n c e r n e d w i t h th e s e tw o e x te n d e d p a s s a g e s . B e f o r e tu rn in g to
th e s e c o r e p a s s a g e s , h o w e v e r , I w o u ld lik e to a d d r e s s o n e in te r e s tin g p a s s a g e
th a t w e fin d in th e e a r l y tr e a tis e I V 9 ( 8 ) , I f A ll S o u ls A r e O n e . H e r e P lo tin u s
w r ite s :

Indeed, the argument deriving from facts opposed [to the assumption of complete separation of
souls] asserts that we do sympathize [sympathein] with one another when we suffer along
[synalgountas] from seeing them suffer and when we rejoice [in their company] and are naturally
12
drawn to love [philein] them; for else there could not be any love for this reason. (IV.9.3, 1-4)

T h e fin a l s e n te n c e h e r e is e x tr e m e ly e llip tic a l. I r e a d i t a s s a y in g : f o r w ith o u t

th e u n ity o f s o u ls th e r e w o u ld n o t b y a n y lo v e f o r th e r e a s o n o f sympatheia .
T h e c o n te x t o f th e q u o te is P lo t in u s s n o to r io u s c l a i m th a t a ll s o u ls a r e b u t o n e
s o u l. It w o u ld ta k e u s to o fa r a f i e l d to a d d r e s s th a t th e s is a s su ch . M y s u s p ic io n
is that even if Plotinuss language often suggests strict identity between all
souls, that is not quite what he means but some slightly weaker relation. I shall
not speculate here what that relation may exactly amount to. He considers some
obvious objections to this thesis, for example that if all souls were one, I
should have your sensations and you mine and, in general, what is true of you
should be true of me. Our quote is a part of his response to objections of this
sort. He has in the previous chapter admitted that indeed we do not share each
others sense perceptions but argued that this does not refute his thesis. Our
quote comes as an afterthought and addendum to this: indeed we can share in
each others experiences through sympatheia and this supports the claim about
the unity of souls.
What makes the passage especially noteworthy is the fact that this is a rare
case of sympatheia between persons. Moreover, the cases suggested seem to
be of the following kind: person A notes that person B is suffering or that
person B is rejoicing and A for that reason suffers or rejoices. This kind of
symthatheia is not merely a biological function but involves As judgment: A
has to see and note that B suffers or is joyful in order to become similarly
affected himself: Plotinus says that the sympathetic affect comes from seeing
the other suffer. Needless to say, this is the sort of sympathy that Hume and
Smith appealed to in their respective moral theories.13
 3. S y m p a t h e ia in As t r a l In f l u e n c e , Ma g i c , a n d Pr a y e r

Belief in occult phenomena such as astrology, divination, and magic were

extremely widespread in antiquity, not least in the Hellenistic and imperial
era. 14 Some intellectuals, such as Cicero, remained skeptical about such
practices 15 but for instance most of the great Stoic school of thought seems to
have accepted the occult phenomena as natural facts that should be given a
natural explanation.16 Plotinus simply follows suit here. He is indeed clearly
concerned about doing just that: to provide natural explanations and put a limit
to fantastical ideas that make the divine vulnerable to affection or present it as
a mischievous agent. Of the occult phenomena he discusses, the influence of the
heavenly bodies receives by far the most attention. This may have to do with
the fact that astrology was a particularly ingrained part of Egyptian culture, in
which Plotinus presumably grew up and surely received his education.17
The context of the discussion of astral influence, magic, and prayer in
Ennead IV4 is quite remarkable: Plotinus has discussed the psychological
powers of the stars and the earth at considerable length. He admits that even if
they do not have sense organs like ours they are capable of sense perception.
This does, however, not necessarily mean that they do perceive sensible
objects because in order to do so the soul must be so disposed as to incline
towards sense-objects (IV4.25, 2-3). The soul of the cosmos and the
heavenly bodies, however, is wholly concerned with the intelligible realm and
they have no need for sense perception: there are no threats or variation in
their surroundings that are of concern to them and, therefore, no need of sense
perception. Plotinus emphatically denies that these souls have memories; they
have no need for that facility (IV4.6-12).
Given all this, how does prayer work? Must we not suppose that the
heavenly souls hear our prayers? And if they hear them and postpone their
fulfillment for some time, must they not remember them? Plotinus response to
such questions is that

[t]heir awareness [gnosis] of prayers is the result of a sort of linking [hoion synapsis] and a
particular disposition of things fitted into the whole, and the same applies to their accomplishment of
what we pray for; and in the art of the magicians everything is directed to this linking; this means
that magic works by powers which follow on sympathetically. (IV. 4.26, 1-4)
S h o r tly a f te r th is , P lo tin u s f u lly e m b a r k s o n h is a c c o u n t o f th e o c c u lt: th e
in flu e n c e o f th e h e a v e n ly b o d ie s a n d a s tr a l d iv in a tio n ( I V 4 . 3 2 - 3 9 ) a n d m a g ic
a n d p r a y e r ( 4 0 - 4 5 ) . H a v in g r e j e c t e d b o d i l y c a u s e s (a itia i so m a tik a i) a n d
d e lib e r a t e d e c is io n s (p ro a ire se is ) a s g e n e r a l e x p la n a tio n s o f w h a t c o m e s
f r o m th e s k y to u s a n d th e o th e r liv in g c r e a tu r e s , P lo tin u s r a i s e s th e q u e s tio n
w h a t o th e r e x p la n a tio n th e r e m a y b e . H e s e ts th e s ta g e a s f o llo w s :

First of all we must posit that this All [the perceptible universe] is a single living being which
encompasses all the living beings that are within it. It has one soul which extends to all the parts,
insofar as each individual thing is a part of it; and each thing in the perceptible All is a part of it, and
completely a part of it as regards its body;... and those things which participate in the soul of the
All alone are altogether parts, but all those which also participate in another soul [i.e., individual
human soul] are in this way not altogether parts, but the less are affected by the other parts insofar
as they have something of the All, and in a way corresponding to what they have. (IV. 4.32, 4-14)

T h e s e lin e s a f f ir m w h a t I a l r e a d y h a v e n o te d : th e c o s m o s is a n im a te d b y o n e
s o u l th a t a ls o a n im a te s u s h u m a n s a n d o th e r liv in g b e in g s ; th is m a k e s u s p a r ts
o f th is c o s m o s ; in s o fa r, h o w e v e r , a s w e a ls o h a v e a n o th e r s o u l, th a t is , o u r
in d iv id u a l s o u l, w e a r e n o t m e r e ly p a r ts o f th e c o s m o s b u t s o m e th in g m o re .
P lo tin u s th e n c o n tin u e s :

This one universe is all sympathetic [sympathes de pan touto to hen] and is like one living
creature, and that which is far is really near, just as, in one of the individual living things, a nail or
horn or finger or one of the other limbs which is not contiguous: the intermediate part leaves a gap
in the affection and is not affected, but that which is not near is affected. For the like parts are not
situated next to each other, but are separated by others between, but they are sympathetic
[sympaschonta] by their likeness, and it is necessary that something which is done by a part not
situated beside it should reach the distant part; and it is a living thing and all belongs to a unity,
nothing is so distant in space that it is not close enough to the nature of the one living thing to be
sympathetic. (IV. 4.32, 14-23)

T h is p a s s a g e s h o w s s o m e c r u c ia l fe a tu r e s o f P lo t in u s s n o tio n o f sy m p a th eia :
( 1 ) s y m p a th e ia is b a s e d o n th e u n ity o f s o u l; ( 2 ) a f f e c tio n s r e s u ltin g fro m
s y m p a th e ia a r e t y p ic a lly b e t w e e n n o n a d ja c e n t p a r ts o f th e o r g a n is m d is ta n c e
is n o h in d ra n c e ; ( 3 ) w h e th e r p a r t B o f a n o r g a n is m b e c o m e s s y m p a th e tic a lly
a f f e c te d b y p a r t A is d e te r m in e d b y s im ila rity : i f p a r ts A a n d B a r e s im ila r , a
c e r t a i n a f f e c t in A m a y g iv e r i s e to a s im ila r s y m p a th e tic a f f e c t in B . T h is
e x p la in s w h y th e r e m a y b e n o d is c e r n ib l e a f f e c tio n in th e in te r v e n in g s p a c e . A
fu r th e r p o in t to n o te a b o u t th is s im ila r ity r e q u ir e m e n t is th a t th is m u s t p r im a r i ly
b e a s im ila r ity o f d i s p o s i t i o n o r c o n s titu tio n , n o t o f a c tu a l p r o p e r tie s : i n th e
m o s t c l e a r - c u t c a s e s , a t le a s t, s y m p a th e ia in v o lv e s B s b e c o m in g F a s a r e s u lt
o f A s b e in g o r b e c o m in g F. T h is im p lie s th a t B w a s n o t F b e f o r e A b e c a m e F.
T h e c l a i m is , h o w e v e r , th a t A a n d B a r e s im ila r , a n d th is m u s t m e a n th a t th e y
s h a r e s o m e r e le v a n t p r o p e r tie s . T h e s e a r e e v id e n tly n o t th e p r o p e r tie s th a t
c o m e to b e a s a r e s u l t o f sy m p a th e ia .
P lo t in u s s in s is te n c e o n th e s im ila r ity o f d i s p o s i t i o n o r c o n s titu tio n b e tw e e n
th in g s th a t e n te r in to a s y m p a th e tic re la tio n is in d e e d q u ite p ro n o u n c e d
( I V 4 .3 2 , 1 9 ). I n p r a c tic e , h o w e v e r , i t s e e m s th a t th e s im ila r ity b o th in th e c a s e
o f th in g s th a t a r e p o te n tia lly i n a s y m p a th e tic r e l a t i o n a n d i n th e c a s e o f th e
p r o p e r ty s y m p a th e tic a lly b r o u g h t a b o u t is n o t v e r y s tric t: w h a t is r e a l l y s im ila r
in th e e a r a n d th e s o u n d to th e s o n o r o u s b o d y ? T h e e ffe c ts o f th e s ta r s in
h u m a n s n e e d n o t b e e v id e n tly s i m i l a r to a n y th in g in th e s ta r s n o r d o e s P lo tin u s
m a k e i t c l e a r w h a t is th e s im ila r ity o f c o n s titu tio n b e tw e e n th e m o r th e ir
c o n s te lla tio n s a n d u s. I n sh o rt: h e d o e s n o t s e e m to f o ll o w u p th e s im ila r ity
r e q u ir e m e n t v e r y s tr ic tly in p r a c tic e . I n th e m a jo r ity o f c a s e s a t l e a s t h e d o e s
n o t s p e ll o u t e x a c tly in w h a t th e s im ila r ity is s u p p o s e d to c o n s is t.
I n h is d i s c u s s io n o f th e c a u s a lity o f th e h e a v e n ly b o d ie s , P lo t in u s s p r im a r y
o b je c t iv e is to a v e r t s o m e v i e w s o n th e n a tu re o f th is c a u s a lity th a t a p p a r e n tly
w e r e c u r r e n t a t th e tim e . O n e m ig h t e v e n s a y th a t w h ile a d m ittin g th e e f f ic a c y
o f th e o c c u lt p h e n o m e n a , P lo t in u s s p r im a r y c o n c e r n is to h o ld th e ir s c o p e a n d
p o w e r in c h e c k . T h e h e a v e n ly b o d ie s e n jo y e d th e s ta tu s o f d iv in e b e in g s
P lo tin u s d o e s n o t q u e s tio n th is ( s e e I V 4 .3 0 , 3 1 ). W h a t h e w is h e s to a v o id ,
h o w e v e r , is to a ttr ib u te to th e h e a v e n ly b o d ie s d e lib e r a t e a c tio n s a ffe c tin g us.
H is c l a i m h e r e c o n c e r n s a n y a c tio n , g o o d o r b a d , b u t w h a t h e p a r tic u la r ly
o b je c ts to is a n y v i e w th a t r e n d e r s th e h e a v e n ly b o d ie s d e lib e r a t e a g e n ts o f
e v il. H is a n s w e r , q u ite in a c c o r d a n c e w i t h h is g e n e r a l v i e w s o n c a u s a tio n a n d
o n e v il as l a c k o f g o o d ,19 is tw o f o ld : ( 1 ) th e h e a v e n ly b o d ie s do not
d e lib e r a t e ly a c t s o a s to h a v e a n e ffe c t o n th in g s o n e a r th a n d ( 2 ) in s o f a r a s
th e r e a r e b a d e ffe c ts o f th e h e a v e n ly b o d ie s o n u s, th e s e a r e d u e to o u r
in c a p a c ity to r e c e i v e w h a t in i t s e l f is g o o d o r to a k in d o f c h a n c e . L e t u s
c o n s id e r th e s e a n s w e r s a little m o re c lo s e ly .
T h e h e a v e n ly b o d ie s d o n o t d e lib e r a t e o r p l a n th in g s a n d e v e n ts o n e a rth . In
g e n e r a l, th e h ig h e r in te llig ib l e p r i n c i p l e s th e O n e , th e u n iv e r s a l I n te lle c t, a n d
S o u l d o n o t d e lib e r a t e a b o u t l o w e r th in g s s u c h a s th e s e n s ib le w o r ld . T h e
s e n s ib le w o r l d a n d its c o u r s e o f lif e is n o t th e r e s u lt o f a n y b o d y s d e lib e r a t io n
o r p la n n in g , e v e n if, a s a m a tte r o f fa c t, i t is o r d e r e d a s i f it w a s s u p r e m e ly
w e l l p la n n e d ( s e e I V 4 .1 6 ; V 8 .6 ) . I n g e n e r a l, th e h ig h e r p r in c ip le s c o n te m p la te
o n ly w h a t is a b o v e th e m ( e x c e p t th e f ir s t p r in c ip le , th e O n e , o f c o u r s e , w h ic h
h a s n o th in g a b o v e i t a n d d o e s n t c o n te m p la te a n y th in g ). T h e l o w e r s tr a ta in th e
P lo t in ia n h ie r a r c h y o f b e in g a r e in g e n e r a l e x p la in e d a s s id e e ffe c ts , a k in d o f
ir r a d i a t i o n o r e m a n a tio n , f r o m th e h ig h e r s tr a ta . 20 P lo tin u s e x p lic itly a p p lie s
th is to th e e ffe c ts o f th e h e a v e n ly b o d ie s o n u s. H e sa y s:

If then the sun and the other heavenly bodies act in any way on the things here below, one must
think that the sun it is best to speak of one body only remains looking above, but just as its
warming of things on earth proceeds from it, so do any subsequent actions upon them, by a
transmission [diadosis] of soul, as far as it is in its power, since there is plenty of the growth soul in
it. And in the same way any other heavenly body, without choosing to do so, gives off a kind of
irradiation [ellampos dynamis] from itself. (IV. 4.35, 37-44)

S y m p a th e ia is n o t e x p lic itly m e n tio n e d h e r e b u t, a s w e h a v e s e e n , in th e

c o n te x t o f th e s a m e d is c u s s io n P lo tin u s h a s a s c r i b e d th e e ffe c ts o f th e h e a v e n ly
b o d ie s to sy m p a th e ia . S o w e m u s t s u p p o s e th a t w h a t h e s a y s h e r e a b o u t th e
s u b s e q u e n t a c tio n s o f th e s u n th a t ta k e p la c e b y a tr a n s m is s io n o f s o u l
re fe rs to s y m p a th e tic e ffe c ts . T h is r e la te s s y m p a th e ia to th e p a tte r n o f
e m a n a tio n a n d d o u b le a c tiv ity th a t p e r v a d e s h is th o u g h t. S o s y m p a th e tic e ffe c ts
o f th e h e a v e n ly b o d ie s a r e n o n d e lib e r a te e ffe c ts o f th e ir in te rn a l a c tiv ity ; th e y
a r e s id e e ffe c ts , e m a n a tio n s , o f th e in te rn a l a c tiv ity o f th e h ig h e r b e in g s .
A s r e g a r d s b a d th in g s th a t o c c u r a s a r e s u l t o f s y m p a th e tic in flu e n c e o f th e
h e a v e n ly b o d ie s , P lo tin u s n o te s th a t i n g e n e r a l th e s e a r e d u e to o u r in c a p a c ity
f o r r e c e iv in g e ffe c ts , w h ic h s o f a r a s th e a g e n t is c o n c e r n e d a r e n o t b a d a t a ll,
e v e n g o o d ( I V 4 .3 8 ) . T h e r e is a n e l a b o r a t i o n o f th is p o in t in th e la te r tr e a tis e
W h e th e r th e S ta rs A r e C a u s e s , c h a p te r 1 1 . H e r e w e s e e th a t a n e x a m p le o f
th is is w h e n th e h e a v e n ly b o d ie s in s p ir e m a n lin e s s (a n d re ia ) b u t o n a c c o u n t o f
h is in c a p a c ity , th e r e c i p i e n t ta k e s th is i n a s v i o l e n t te m p e r a n d la c k o f s p ir it.
T h e w o r d s y m p a th e ia ( o r c o g n a te s ) is n o t u s e d h e r e b u t f r o m th e o th e r tr e a tis e ,
I V 4 , i t is f a ir ly c l e a r th a t th is is th e s o r t o f c a s e w h e r e s y m p a th e ia g iv e s b a d
r e s u lts : th e s ta r in te n d e d n o e v il. O n th e c o n tra ry , its o w n a f f e c tio n w a s o n ly
s u c h a s to in s p ir e a g o o d s y m p a th e tic a f f e c t i n th e r e c ip ie n t. T h e r e c ip ie n t,
h o w e v e r , w a s o n ly a b le to r e c e i v e s o m e o f th is , a n d o n a c c o u n t o f h is in a b ility
i t w a s p e r v e r te d to s o m e th in g le s s th a n g o o d .
I n th e c o u r s e o f h is d i s c u s s io n o f th e in flu e n c e o f th e h e a v e n ly b o d ie s ,
P lo tin u s r a i s e s th e f o ll o w i n g q u e s tio n s :

But since the heavenly bodies move according to reason and their relationships within the
[universal] living being vary, and then here below these events occur in our own sphere in sympathy
[sympathes] with those above, it is reasonable to enquire whether we should assert that these
 earthly occurrences follow on those above by correspondence [synepesthai symphonounta], or
whether the figures [schemata] have the powers which bring about what is done, and whether it is
simply the figures or the figures made by particular heavenly bodies. (IV. 4.34, 10-15)

To s ta r t w i t h th e l a s t q u e s tio n : P lo tin u s a s s e r ts r ig h t a f te r th e s e lin e s th a t

in d e e d b o th th e fig u re a s s u c h a n d th e p a r tic u la r h e a v e n ly b o d y e n te r in g in to
th e fig u re a r e r e l e v a n t to w h a t th e e ffe c ts a r e o n th in g s o n e a r th ( I V 4 .3 4 , 2 2
2 3 ). A s to th e q u e s tio n w h e th e r th e c o m b in a tio n o f fig u re s a n d p a r tic u la r
h e a v e n ly b o d ie s is a r e a l c a u s a l a g e n t o r th e r e is m e r e ly c o r r e s p o n d e n c e
b e tw e e n a s tr a l a n d e a r th ly p h e n o m e n a , h is r e s p o n s e is th a t th e r e m a y b e b o th
b u t in s o m e c a s e s th e r e is o n ly th e p o w e r o f s ig n if ic a tio n (se m a sia ). I ta k e it
th a t th is is a d if f e r e n t w o r d in g f o r f o l l o w o n b y c o r r e s p o n d e n c e . T h e
r e f e r e n c e is n o d o u b t to a s tr o lo g y : P lo tin u s is s a y in g th a t th e r e a r e c a s e s w h e r e
th e s ta r s a n d th e ir fig u r e s s ig n ify o r in d ic a te c e r ta in e a r th ly p h e n o m e n a w ith o u t
b e in g d i r e c t l y th e c a u s a l a g e n ts o f th e s e p h e n o m e n a .
P lo tin u s c o n c lu d e s th is d is c u s s io n in an in te r e s tin g a lb e it som ew hat
e n ig m a tic w a y :

This argument, then, gives powers to the figures and powers to the bodies arranged: since with the
dancers each hand has a distinct power and so the other limbs, but the figures also have great
power, and then there is a third group of consequential things [synepom ena], the parts of the limbs
which are brought into the dance and their constituents, for instance the clenched fingers o f the
hand and the muscles and veins which are affected along [sympathounta; sympathize] with
these. (IV. 4.34, 26-34)

T h e r e f e r e n c e to d a n c e p ic k s u p a n a n a lo g y o r illu s tr a tio n P lo tin u s h a s u s e d in

th e p r e v io u s c h a p te r to in d ic a te th e in te r c o n n e c te d n e s s o f e v e r y th in g in th e
c o s m o s . H e is th in k in g o f a p a n to m im e d a n c e w h e r e a s o l o i s t d a n c e r e n a c ts a
w h o le m y th th ro u g h h is d a n c e . J u s t lik e in th e c a s e o f th e c o s m o s w i t h its
h e a v e n ly c ir c u it, th e d a n c e c o n s is ts o f p r e d e te r m in e d fig u re s a n d m o v e s .
M o r e o v e r , f r o m th e p a tte r n o f th e d a n c e a g r e a t m a n y d e ta i ls a b o u t th e d a n c e r s
b o d y f o llo w : a s h is b o d y f o ll o w s th e p a tte r n o f th e d a n c e a n d b e n d s w i t h it,
o n e o f h is lim b s is p r e s s e d h a r d d o w n , a n o th e r r e la x e d , o n e w o r k s h a r d a n d
p a in fu lly , a n o th e r is g iv e n a r e s t a s th e fig u r in g c h a n g e s ( I V 5 .3 3 , 1 4 - 1 6 ) . S o
in th e s u b s e q u e n t c h a p te r w e h a v e b e e n c o n s id e r in g P lo tin u s is s a y in g th a t
th r e e p h e n o m e n a a r e r e le v a n t: th e fig u re s , th e p a r tic u la r m e m b e rs o f th e
fig u r e s , a n d th e c o n s e q u e n t i a l . I ta k e i t in a ll c a s e s i t is a q u e s tio n o f th e
e ffe c ts o f th e d a n c e r s b o d y o n its e lf: th e h e a d a n d th e a rm s in a le f t- b e n d in g
p o s i t i o n h a v e a c e r t a i n e f f e c t o n h is le g s . T h is is th e c o m b in e d r e s u l t o f th e
fig u re th e y f o r m a n d o f th e p o w e r o f e a c h . F u r th e r m o r e , a s a s y m p a th e tic e ffe c t
o f a p a r tic u la r fig u re in v o lv in g a c le n c h e d h a n d , th e v e in s a n d s in e w s o f th e
f o r e a r m w i l l b e c o m e v is ib le . P lo tin u s d o e s n o t s a y s o e x p lic itly b u t I s u rm is e
th a t p h e n o m e n a o f th is l a s t ty p e a r e w h a t m a k e s a s tr o lo g y w o rk : s u p p o s e w e
a r e th e f e e t o f th e d a n c e r a n d th a t th e s e f e e t c a n s e e : w e m a y s e e o n ly th e
s tr e tc h e d s in e w o f th e a rm , w h ic h is a n e f f e c t o f th e c le n c h e d h a n d w h ic h is a
p a r t o f a fig u re ; e v e n i f th e s tr e tc h e d s in e w m a y n o t h a v e a n y p a r tic u la r e ffe c t
o n u s, i t is a s ig n o f s o m e th in g e ls e th a t m a y h a v e s u c h a n e ffe c t.
D e s p ite th e fa c t th a t P lo tin u s goes on about th e s e phenom ena at
c o n s id e r a b le le n g th , w e d o n o t r e a l l y g e t a n a c c o u n t o f h o w s y m p a th e ia
w o r k s , th e m e c h a n ic s o f s y m p a th e ia , s o to s p e a k . P r e s u m a b ly , th e r e a s o n is
th a t th e r e is n o s u c h m e c h a n ic s : P lo tin u s ta k e s s y m p a th e ia a s a b a s i c fa c t,
w h ic h is e v id e n t in th e c a s e o f o r d in a r y o rg a n is m s a n im a te d b y a s in g le so u l.
G iv e n th e u n ity o f s o u l w ith in th e c o s m o s a n d s u c h o b s e r v a tio n s a s w e h a v e
s e e n th a t s i m i l a r th in g s a re p a rtic u la rly lia b le to s y m p a th e tic a ffe c tio n s ,
s y m p a th e ia n e e d s n o fu r th e r e x p la n a tio n .
 4. Sy m p a t h e i a in P e r c e p t u a l Tr a n s m i s s io n

In IV 5 ( w h ic h is th e l a s t p a r t o f w h a t o r ig i n a lly w a s a s in g le tr e a tis e
c o m p r is in g E n n e a d I V 3 - 5 ) P lo tin u s d i s c u s s e s th e n a tu re o f th e tr a n s m is s io n
th a t e v id e n tly ta k e s p la c e in th e d is ta n t s e n s e s , s ig h t a n d h e a rin g . A s i t tu rn s
o u t, h o w e v e r , m o s t o f w h a t h e h a s to s a y r e la te s to sig h t. H e th in k s th a t th e
s a m e a c c o u n t c a n b e tr a n s f e r r e d to h e a rin g . I n b o th c a s e s th e tr a n s m is s io n is
e x p la in e d b y s y m p a th e ia ( I V 5 .5 ) .
I n o r d e r to a p p r e c ia te th is s o lu tio n , w e m u s t c o n s id e r th e c o m p e tito rs .
G iv e n th a t v i s i o n is th e p e r c e p t i o n o f a d is ta n t o b je c t, s o m e h o w s o m e s o r t o f
c o n ta c t m u s t b e e s ta b lis h e d b e tw e e n th is o b j e c t a n d th e p e r c e i v e r s e y e . T h e
q u e s tio n is h o w is h a p p e n s . In c h a p te r s 2 - 4 o f I V 5 , P lo tin u s c o n s id e r s s e v e r a l
th e o r ie s th a t a p p a r e n tly h a d b e e n p r o p o s e d , e v e n i f h e m e n tio n s n o n a m e s o f
p r o p o n e n ts a n d th e ir id e n tity re m a in s n o t e n tir e ly c e r ta in in s o m e c a s e s .21 H e
s p e n d s c o n s id e r a b le e f f o r t a t r e fu tin g a th e o r y th is m a y b e h is r e a d in g o f
A r i s t o t l e s a c c o u n t a c c o r d in g to w h ic h th e a i r is p r o g r e s s i v e l y a f f e c te d b y
th e o b j e c t t i l l th e a f f e c tio n r e a c h e s th e e y e o f th e p e r c e iv e r . H e c r itic iz e s th is
th e o r y f o r f a ilin g to e x p la i n h o w w e c a n s e e th e d is ta n t o b j e c t i t s e l f ( w e o u g h t
to s e e m e r e ly th e a f f e c tio n th a t h a s r e a c h e d th e e y e ) a n d f o r f a ilin g to e x p la in
h o w w e c a n s e e la r g e o b je c ts a s a w h o le , f o r e x a m p le a m o u n ta in (th e
a f f e c tio n m a d e b y th e o b j e c t o n th e a i r m u s t b e e q u a l in s iz e to th e o b je c t
w h e r e a s th e p u p il o f e y e , o b v io u s ly , is m a n y tim e s s m a lle r ) . H e a ls o a tta c k s
th e S to ic th e o r y a c c o r d in g to w h ic h a c e r t a i n p n e u m a tic c o n e e x te n d s f r o m th e
e y e to th e o b je c t. T h e S to ic s h e ld th a t in v i s i o n w e u s e th is c o n e lik e b lin d
p e o p le u s e a s tic k . O b v io u s ly ta k in g th is a n a lo g y q u ite s tric tly , P lo tin u s
c r itic iz e s th is v i e w f o r m a k in g v i s i o n in d ir e c t a n d in f e r e n tia l, s o m e th in g h e
th in k s v i s i o n e v id e n tly is not.
W e s h o u ld e x p e c t th a t P lo t in u s s a c c o u n t in te rm s o f s y m p a th e ia a v o id s th e
fa u lts h e fin d s in th e o th e r th e o r ie s . In d e e d , s in c e h is a c c o u n t d o e s n o t
p r e s u p p o s e a m e d iu m th a t is p r o g r e s s i v e l y a ffe c te d , h e a t le a s t a v o id s th is
r e a s o n f o r a d m ittin g th a t th e e y e n e v e r is in d ir e c t c o n ta c t w ith th e d is ta n t
o b j e c t its e lf , a t b e s t w i t h a re m o te c o p y th a t is th e a f f e c tio n o f th e a i r th a t m e e ts
th e e y e . W e m a y fu rth e r p r e s u m e th a t h e th in k s th a t th e c o n ta c t w i t h th e o b je c t
m a d e b y s y m p a th e ia is s u c h a s to e n s u r e th a t v i s i o n is a d ir e c t a p p r e h e n s io n o f
th e o b j e c t its e lf , th o u g h h e d o e s n o t e x p la i n in d e ta il h o w th is is so . A s to th e
p r o b l e m o f h o w th e w h o le la r g e o b j e c t g e ts to b e s e e n , h e h a s th is to say :

But as it is, the whole object is seen, and all those who are in the air see it, from the front and
sideways, from far and near, and from the back, as long as their line of sight is not blocked; so that
each part of the air contains the whole seen object, the face for instance; but this is not a bodily
affection [somatos pathema], but is brought about by higher necessities of the soul belonging to a
unitary sympathetic organism [psychikas kai zoou henos sympathous].

E v e n i f P lo tin u s , u n fo rtu n a te ly , d o e s n o t g iv e u s d e ta ils h e re , th e p a s s a g e

m a k e s a n in te r e s tin g c o n n e c tio n : o n e m ig h t th in k th a t in s y m p a th e tic s e n s o r y
tr a n s m is s io n , n o th in g a t a ll r e a l l y p a s s e s f r o m o b j e c t to e y e ( o r th e o th e r w a y ).
W e k n o w f r o m m a n y o th e r p a s s a g e s , h o w e v e r , th a t P lo tin u s a d o p ts a v e r s i o n o f
th e A r i s t o t e l i a n v i e w th a t in s e n s e p e r c e p t i o n w e r e c e i v e th e f o r m o f th e
p e r c e i v e d o b j e c t ( w ith o u t th e m a tte r) a n d th a t th is f o r m s o m e h o w tr a v e r s e s th e
a ir . 22 W e s e e h e r e th a t th is is n o t a n a lte r n a tiv e a c c o u n t to th e s y m p a th e ia
a c c o u n t. R a th e r, th e s y m p a th e ia a c c o u n t c o n ta in s th e v i e w th a t th e fo rm
c r o s s e s th e d is ta n c e b e tw e e n o b j e c t a n d e y e a n d is , a s a m a tte r o f fa c t, a s
w h o le a t e v e r y p o in t o f th e in te r m e d ia te s p a c e . It is j u s t n o t th e c a s e th a t th is
tr a n s m is s io n is e f f e c te d b y m e a n s o f a n y s o r t o f b o d i l y a f f e c tio n o f th e
in te r m e d ia te s p a c e .
G iv e n w h a t w e h a v e a b o u t s y m p a th e ia in c o n n e c tio n w i t h m a g ic a n d th e
in flu e n c e o f th e s ta r s , a q u e s tio n th a t n a tu r a lly a r is e s a b o u t s y m p a th e ia in
v i s i o n is w h y I o n ly s e e th in g s in f r o n t o f m y e y e s ? W h y i s n t th e r e th e r e le v a n t
k in d o f s y m p a th e ia w i t h th e o b je c ts b e h in d m e ? W e ll, P lo tin u s re m a r k s th a t
s y m p a th e ia is in g e n e r a l h in d e r e d o r w e a k e n e d b y in te r m e d ia te s tu f f b e tw e e n
a g e n t a n d p a tie n t ( I V 5 .2 , 2 3 - 2 6 ) . I n th e c a s e o f v is io n , th is m u s t m e a n th a t th e
tr a n s m is s io n o f th e fo rm s is o b s tr u c te d b y in te r m e d ia te b o d ie s e n tir e ly
o b s tr u c te d b y n o n tr a n s p a r e n t s o lid s , a n d le s s e n tir e ly b y a ir, w h ic h e x p la in s
w h y th in g s s e e n a t a g r e a t d is ta n c e a p p e a r le s s c l e a r th a n th o s e c lo s e b y ( s e e
II .8 .1 ).
W h y d o n t I s e e w i t h m y f in g e r tip s , w hy do th e y n o t e n te r in to a
s y m p a th e tic a l r e l a t i o n w i t h th e c o lo r s o f th in g s ? A s w e h a v e s e e n , s y m p a th e ia
d e p e n d s o n s im ila rity . S im ila r th in g s a r e c a p a b le o f s y m p a th e tic r e la tio n s to
o n e a n o th e r: I f i t is in th e n a tu re o f a g iv e n th in g to b e s y m p a th e tic a lly
a f f e c te d [p a sc h ein sy m p a th o s] by a n o th e r th in g because it has som e
r e s e m b la n c e to it, th e m e d iu m is n o t a ffe c te d , o r a t l e a s t n o t in th e s a m e w a y
( I V 5 .1 , 3 5 - 3 8 ) . ( H e d o e s n o t te ll u s, h o w e v e r , w h a t th e s im ila r ity is e .g . in th e
c a s e o f h e a r in g .) T h e r e a s o n f o r th is c o n n e c tio n b e t w e e n s y m p a th e ia a n d
s im ila r ity is n o t e n tir e ly c le a r. I t h a s a l r e a d y b e e n m e n tio n e d th a t s y m p a th e ia
is a ls o s u p p o s e d to d e p e n d o n th e o r g a n ic u n ity o f th e c o s m o s . In I V 5 .8
P lo tin u s c o n s id e r s a h y p o th e tic a l o b je c tio n , w h ic h a im s a t s h o w in g th a t th e
s im ila r ity r e q u ir e m e n t fo r s y m p a th e tic re la tio n is in c o n s is te n t w i t h th e
r e q u ir e m e n t o f o r g a n ic unity. T h e o b je c t io n g o e s lik e th is : s u p p o s e y o u a r e
p l a c e d a t th e e d g e o f th e c o s m o s y o u a r e a p a r t o f a n d lo o k o u t t o w a r d a n o th e r
c o s m o s . S in c e th is is a n o th e r c o s m o s , i t is b y d e f in itio n a d if f e r e n t o rg a n is m ,
a n d h e n c e th e r e c a n n o t b e o r g a n ic u n ity b e tw e e n y o u a n d it. B u t l e t u s a s s u m e
th a t th e p a r t o f th is o th e r c o s m o s in f r o n t o f y o u is c o l o r e d j u s t lik e th e th in g s in
th is c o s m o s . I t w o u ld b e a b s u r d to s u p p o s e th a t y o u d id n o t s e e th e c o lo r
p l a c e d d i r e c t l y in f r o n t o f y o u r e y e s .
P lo t in u s s r e s p o n s e to th e h y p o th e tic a l o b je c t io n is m o s t o b s c u r e . T h e b e s t I
c a n m a k e o f i t is th a t h e w a n ts to s a y th a t th e h y p o th e s is i t s e l f in in c o n s is te n t in
th a t it s u p p o s e s th a t th in g s c a n b e s im ila r w ith o u t b e lo n g in g to th e s a m e
o rg a n is m . F o r th e o r g a n is s u p p o s e d to b e s im ila r to w h a t is p e r c e iv e d . B u t
th e r e is n o w a y f o r tw o th in g s to b e s im ila r u n le s s th e y p a r tic ip a te in th e s a m e
fo rm , b l e a k c o p ie s o f w h ic h a r e tr a n s m itte d to th e m b y th e s a m e s o u l. I n o th e r
w o r d s : s im ila r ity d e m a n d s c o m m o n o rig in . H e n c e , th e s u p p o s iti o n th a t w e s e e
a d if f e r e n t c o s m o s m u s t b e r e j e c t e d .23 T h o u g h P lo tin u s d o e s n o t s a y so
e x p lic itly h e re , th e fu rth e r j u s t i f i c a t i o n f o r th e c l a i m th a t s im ila r th in g s m u s t b e
m a d e s o b y th e s a m e s o u l is n o d o u b t th e fa c t th a t a n y tw o s im ila r th in g s
p a r tic ip a te in th e s a m e in te llig ib l e F o r m b y v ir tu e o f w h ic h th e y c o m e to h a v e
th e s a m e q u a lity . T h is b e in g s o , i t is n a tu ra l to c o n je c tu r e th a t s y m p a th e ia
h o ld s b e tw e e n s im ila r th in g s s o m e h o w b e c a u s e th e y a r e lin k e d th ro u g h a
c o m m o n o r ig i n a n d a r e th e r e f o r e in a s e n s e c l o s e r to o n e a n o th e r th a n
d i s s i m i l a r th in g s . I t w o u ld , h o w e v e r , b e id le to s p e c u la te fu r th e r a b o u t h o w
e x a c tly th is is s u p p o s e d to w o rk . In a n y c a s e , th e s ta te m e n t th a t s y m p a th e ia is
b e tw e e n s im ila r th in g s fits to g e th e r w i t h P lo t in u s s g e n e r a l te a c h in g a b o u t th e
n a tu re o f th e e y e . F o ll o w i n g P la to in T im aeus 4 5 B , h e h o ld s th a t th e r e is
e n s o u le d lig h t in th e e y e s .24 T h is is th e lig h t w e c a n s e e i f w e p u s h o n th e e y e
w i t h a fin g e r ( V 5 .7 , 2 8 - 2 9 ) . A n d th e p r o p e r o b j e c t o f v i s i o n is c o l o r (I I.8 .1 ,
1 3 ), w h ic h P lo tin u s r e g a r d s a s lig h t- lik e in n a tu re (I I .4 .5 , 1 0 - 1 1 ) .
The f o ll o w i n g c o n s id e r a tio n s m a y h e lp us see th e c r u c ia l d if f e r e n c e
b e tw e e n P lo t in u s s th e o r y a n d th e o n e in te rm s o f a f f e c tio n a n d m e d iu m . T h e
d ir e c tn e s s o f th e o b j e c t s a c ti o n o n th e v is u a l o r g a n is s e c u r e d b y th e f a c t th a t
th e o b je c t e m its its c o lo r (f o rm ), w h ic h re a c h e s th e eye w ith o u t a n y
in te r m e d ia r ie s . I t is a ls o e v id e n t f r o m th e l a s t lin e s o f I V 5 .3 q u o te d a b o v e th a t
P lo tin u s c o n c e iv e s o f th e p r e s e n c e o f th e f o r m in th e a i r n o t a s th e f a m ilia r
lo c a l p r e s e n c e o f a b o d y in s p a c e o r a s th e p r e s e n c e o f a q u a lity in m a tte r.
T h u s , th e r e d o f th e a p p le is n o t p r e s e n t in th e in te r m e d ia te s p a c e in th e s a m e
w a y a s i t is p r e s e n t in th e a p p le its e lf. T h e la tte r s o r t o f p r e s e n c e p r e s u p p o s e s
a n e x te n d e d m a g n itu d e , a b o d y , w h ic h is a f f e c te d b y th e p r e s e n c e o f th e q u a lity .
T h is p r e s u m a b ly e x p la in s w h y P lo tin u s th in k s th a t w i th in h is o w n th e o r y th e
q u e s tio n o f s e e in g s o m e th in g in th e a i r a s o p p o s e d to in th e o b j e c t d o e s n o t
a r is e .
W ith o u t e v id e n c e to th e c o n tr a r y o n e w o u ld n a tu r a lly a s s u m e th a t P lo tin u s
th e P l a t o n i s t s d o c tr in e o f v is u a l tr a n s m is s io n is b a s e d o n P la to a n d in
p a r tic u la r th e P la to o f th e T im aeus. T h u s , it is p e r h a p s s u r p r is in g to fin d th a t a s
o p p o s e d to P l a t o s, P lo t in u s s th e o r y is n o t o f th e p r o j e c t i v e ty p e , h o ld in g th a t
s o m e th in g g o e s o u t f r o m th e e y e s to th e o b je c t. H o w e v e r , l e t u s n o te th a t in
T im a eu s 4 5 B - D P la to d o e s n o t e x p lic itly s a y th a t th e lig h t e m itte d th ro u g h th e
e y e s r e a c h e s a ll th e w a y o u t to th e o b j e c t th a t is s e e n , th o u g h th is m a y w e l l b e
w h a t h e m e a n t to im p ly . P lo tin u s , h o w e v e r , m a y n o t h a v e u n d e r s to o d h im th u s,
a n d m a y n o t h a v e th o u g h t th a t h e w a s d e v ia tin g f r o m h is m a s te r i n d e n y in g th a t
th e e y e s p r o p e r lig h t g o e s a ll th e w a y o u t to th e o b je c t. H o w e v e r th is m a y b e ,
P lo tin u s s u r e ly d e v ia te s f r o m th e T im aeus d o c tr in e in d e n y in g th a t th e
in te r m e d ia te lig h t o f d a y h a s a f u n c tio n in v is io n . F o r a c c o r d in g to th e
T im aeus, th e e m itte d in te rn a l lig h t fu s e s w i t h th e e x te r n a l lig h t w i t h th e r e s u lt
th a t a c o n tin u o u s p e n c il o f lig h t e x te n d in g f r o m e y e to o b j e c t is fo rm e d . A s
P lo t in u s s r e f u s a l to a s s ig n a f u n c tio n to th e in te r m e d ia te lig h t is q u ite c le a r,
w e a r e h e r e p r e s e n te d w i t h a c a s e w h e r e P lo tin u s d e v ia te s f r o m th e P la to o f
th e T im aeus.
D e s p ite th is I th in k th a t P lo t in u s s d o c tr in e can be d e s c rib e d as a
m o d if ic a tio n o f th a t o f P la to , a n d th a t th is is h o w h e s a w it h im s e lf. L e t u s
c o n s id e r h o w th is m a y b e . I h a v e a l r e a d y p o in te d o u t th a t P lo tin u s h o ld s th a t
th e e y e c o n ta in s s o m e s o r t o f lig h t, th a t h e n c e th e e y e is s im ila r to th e o b je c ts
o f v is io n , a n d th a t it is b y v ir tu e o f th is s im ila r ity th a t th e e y e c a n b e a f f e c te d
b y th e m . E v e n i f P lo t in u s s v i e w s o n s y m p a th e ia a n d its r e l a t i o n to o r g a n ic
u n ity m a y h a v e u n d e rg o n e in flu e n c e f r o m S to ic is m , th is p a r tic u la r d e ta il is
w ith o u t d o u b t b a s e d o n th e T im a e u s : i t is a ls o P l a t o s v i e w th a t v i s i o n d e p e n d s
o n th e s im ila r ity b e tw e e n th e e y e s in te rn a l f ir e a n d th e lig h t o f d ay . S o h e r e w e
h a v e a s ig n if ic a n t c o n n e c tio n b e tw e e n P lo t in u s s d o c tr in e a n d th a t o f P la to . B u t
th e r e a r e o th e r c o n n e c tio n s a s w e ll. P la to r e g a r d e d th e p e n c il o f lig h t th a t is
fo r m e d b y th e m e rg in g o f th e in te rn a l lig h t w i t h th e lig h t o f d a y a s a n e x te n s io n
o f th e p e r c i p i e n t s b o d y . B u t th e r e a r e a t l e a s t tw o d if f e r e n t w a y s o f c o n c e iv in g
o f s u c h a n e x te n s io n . O n th e o n e h a n d , w e c a n c o n c e iv e o f th e e x te n s io n a s a n
in s tru m e n t th a t is a tta c h e d to th e b o d y w ith o u t b e lo n g in g to th e o rg a n is m . T h e
S to ic c o m p a r is o n w i t h a s tic k u s e d b y th e b lin d s u g g e s ts th is c o n c e p tio n . O n
th e o th e r h a n d , o n e c a n c o n c e iv e o f th e e x te n s io n a s a g e n u in e p a r t o f th e
o r g a n is m .25 G a le n is o n e w h o in te r p r e ts th e T im a eu s d o c tin e in th is w a y . S in c e
th e r e is a s tr o n g a ffin ity b e tw e e n P lo t in u s s v i e w a n d G a l e n s v i e w s o n v is u a l
tr a n s m is s io n , le t u s c o n s id e r th e v i e w s o f th e la tte r. T h e y a r e r e v e a lin g o f
P lo t in u s s u n d e r s ta n d in g o f th e T im aeus p a s s a g e .
I n G a l e n s o p in io n it is im p o s s i b le to p e r c e i v e th e s iz e s o f th e o b je c ts
u n le s s w e s e e th a t w h ic h w e lo o k a t a t th e p la c e w h e r e i t i s . 26 A n d h e a tta c k s
th e S to ic s , th e E p ic u r e a n s , a n d A r is to tle a n d th e P e r ip a te tic s f o r f a ilin g to g iv e
d u e n o tic e to th is f a c t in th e ir r e s p e c tiv e th e o r ie s o f v is u a l tr a n s m is s io n . I t is
n e e d le s s to p o in t o u t th a t in th is r e s p e c t G a l e n s c r itic is m s r e v e a l e x a c tly th e
s a m e in tu itio n s a s w e h a v e s e e n in P lo tin u s a b o u t th e s e m a tte rs . I t is in fa c t
p la u s i b le to c o n je c tu r e th a t th e r e is a h is to r ic a l c o n n e c tio n b e tw e e n P lo t in u s s
a n d G a l e n s v i e w s o n th is s u b je c t. S in c e th e y a r e d i s s a t i s f i e d w i t h o th e r
p e o p l e s th e o r ie s f o r th e s a m e r e a s o n s , it s e e m s n o t u n lik e ly th a t th e ir p o s itiv e
v i e w s h a v e s o m e th in g in c o m m o n .
N o w , G a l e n s p o s itiv e v i e w s , w h ic h c a n b e d e s c r i b e d a s a n u p - to - d a te
v e r s i o n o f th e T im a eu s a c c o u n t, a r e s ta te d in te rm s o f a v is u a l r a y th e o ry .27 A s
r e g a r d s th e v is u a l ra y , G a l e n s v i e w is o f c o u r s e u n a c c e p ta b le to P lo tin u s .
H o w e v e r , G a le n e v id e n tly th in k s o f th is v is u a l r a y th e o r y a s o f a s p e c ia l s o rt,
a n d d if f e r e n t f r o m th a t o f th e S to ic s . W h a t m a k e s it s p e c ia l is h is v i e w o f th e
r e l a t i o n b e tw e e n th e o u tg o in g v is u a l ra y , th e s u n lig h t, a n d th e a ir. T h e m a in
id e a is th is : th e in te r m e d ia te a ir b e c o m e s s e n s itiv e b y v ir tu e o f th e p r e s e n c e o f
th e o u tg o in g p n e u m a in th e su n lig h t. To e x p la i n th is , G a le n r e f e r s to th e
r e l a t i o n b e tw e e n th e b r a i n a n d th e n e r v e s th a t l e a d f r o m th e s e n s e o rg a n s to th e
b ra in : w h e n th e e x te r n a l lig h t, th e v is u a l ra y , a n d th e a ir in te rm in g le , th e
in te r m e d ia te a i r h a s th e s a m e r e l a t i o n to th e e y e a s th e n e r v e le a d i n g f r o m th e
e y e h a s to th e b r a i n (V II.5 , 3 2 - 3 3 ) . H e a ls o s a y s th a t v i s i o n w o r k s lik e to u c h ,
w h ic h o p e r a te s th ro u g h th e n e r v e s f r o m th e s u r f a c e o f th e b o d y to th e b r a in , th e
id e a b e in g th a t th e s e n s itiv e a i r c lo s e to th e c o lo r s s e e n is a n a lo g o u s to th e
n e r v e e n d s in o u r s k in (V II.7 , 1 8 ). In s h o rt, G a le n is b a s i c a l l y s a y in g th a t th e
in te r m e d ia te a i r fu n c tio n s a s a n e x te n s io n o f th e n e r v e s . T h u s , o n e m ig h t s a y
th a t in G a l e n s v i e w th e in te r m e d ia te a ir b e c o m e s in v i s i o n a n o r g a n ic p a r t o f
o u r b o d ie s .
 N ow , I am g o in g to suggest th a t P lo t in u s s s y m p a th e ia th e o r y is
c o n c e p tu a lly k in d r e d to G a l e n s th e o ry , e s p e c i a l l y to th e a s p e c t o f G a l e n s
th e o r y j u s t r e la te d . W e d o k n o w th a t in P lo t in u s s v i e w w e a r e p a r ts o f th e
c o s m ic o rg a n is m , a n d th e s y m p a th e ia o n th e c o s m ic s c a le d e p e n d s o n th is
o r g a n ic unity. M o r e s p e c if ic a lly , w e a r e in o r g a n ic u n ity w i t h th e r e s t o f th e
c o s m o s b y v ir tu e o f th e u n ity o f o u r l o w e r s o u l, w h ic h a n im a te s o u r b o d ie s ,
w i t h th e s o u l, w h ic h a n im a te s th e c o s m o s . S till m o re s p e c if ic a lly , th is m e a n s ,
in th e c a s e o f v is io n , th a t o u r e y e s a r e p a r ts o f th e s a m e o r g a n is m a s th e o b je c ts
o f v is io n . N o w , w e c a n ta k e th e im p o r t o f th is o r g a n ic u n ity to b e th a t
e s s e n tia l ly th e s a m e c o n d itio n s h o ld o n P lo t in u s s v i e w a s o n G a l e n s a n d
P l a t o s a s r e a d b y G a le n : w e s h o u ld r e g a r d th e d is ta n t o b je c ts a s i f th e y w e r e a
p a r t o f o u r o w n b o d ie s . A p a r t f r o m th e r o l e th a t G a le n a ttr ib u te s to th e
in te r m e d ia te a ir, w h ic h P lo tin u s r e je c ts , th e d if f e r e n c e b e tw e e n th e ir v i e w s
c o m e s d o w n e s s e n tia l ly to th is : G a le n d o e s n o t ta k e th e o r g a n ic u n ity o f th e
p e r c i p i e n t s e y e s w i t h th e o b je c ts o f v i s i o n a n d th e in te r m e d ia te s p a c e to b e a
p e rm a n e n t c o n d itio n b u t r a th e r s o m e th in g th a t is b ro u g h t a b o u t b y th e v is u a l
p n e u m a , w h e r e a s P lo tin u s s e e s it a s a p e rm a n e n t c o n d itio n . T h is is w h y
P lo tin u s h a s n o n e e d f o r v is u a l ra y s : th e s ta te o f a f f a ir s th a t th e v is u a l ra y s
b r in g a b o u t o n G a l e n s ( a n d P l a t o s ) th e o r y is a l r e a d y th e r e a c c o r d in g to
P lo tin u s .28
T h e id e a , th e n , o f th e u n ity o f th e c o s m ic o r g a n is m o n w h ic h v i s i o n is
s u p p o s e d to d e p e n d is to b e ta k e n q u ite lite r a lly : v i s i o n is to b e s e e n a s
a n a lo g o u s to in te rn a l s e n s a tio n w ith in a n o r d in a r y o rg a n is m . T h is id e a is to
s o m e e x te n t s tre n g th e n e d b y a c o n s id e r a tio n o f P lo t in u s s c r itic is m s o f th e
S to ic th e o r y o f in te rn a l p e r c e p tio n , th a t is , p e r c e p t i o n o f p a in , itc h e s , a n d th e
lik e . T h e S to ic s s p e a k o f tr a n s m is s io n (d ia d o s is ) f r o m th e a f f e c te d p a r t o f th e
b o d y to th e p r in c ip a l p a r t o f th e s o u l ( I V 2 .2 , I V 7 .7 ) . P lo tin u s in te r p r e ts th is
tr a n s m is s io n a s p r o g r e s s i v e a f f e c tio n o f a m e d iu m in v i s i o n in I V 5 .1 - 3 : h e
c la im s th a t th e r u lin g p a r t o f th e s o u l c o u ld a t m o s t p e r c e i v e th e a f f e c tio n
a d ja c e n t to its e lf. N o w w e l e a r n f r o m I V 3 .2 3 th a t P lo tin u s a s s ig n s s o m e
f u n c tio n to th e n e r v e s in th e s e n s e o f to u c h a n d it s e e m s r e a s o n a b le to s u p p o s e
th is to in c lu d e p e r c e p t i o n o f p a in . A n d i n th e s a m e p a s s a g e , h e s a y s th a t th e
b r a i n is th e p a r t o f th e b o d y f r o m w h ic h th e a c tiv ity o f th e p e r c e p tiv e s o u l h a s
its o rig in . S o o n e m ig h t s p e c u la te th a t h e w a n ts to a s s u m e s o m e s o r t o f p s y c h ic
tr a n s m is s io n f r o m th e a c h in g p a r t o f th e b o d y th ro u g h n e r v e s to th e b r a in ,
a n a lo g o u s to h is a c c o u n t o f v is u a l tr a n s m is s io n . F u rth e r, h e im p lie s th a t
in te r n a l p e r c e p t i o n d e p e n d s o n s o m e th in g h e c a ll s h o m o p a th e ia , a n d th e r e a r e
o th e r p assag es th a t s u g g e s t th a t h o m o p a th e ia can be synonym ous w ith
s y m p a th e ia 29 S o o n e m ig h t s u p p o s e th a t in P lo t in u s s v i e w v i s i o n is e x a c tly
a n a lo g o u s to in te rn a l p e r c e p t i o n a s i t s e e m s to b e in G a l e n s th e o ry .
H o w e v e r , i t m u s t b e a d m itte d th a t th is id e a d o e s n o t w o r k o u t in a ll d e ta ils
a s a n e x p la n a tio n o f P lo t in u s s th e o ry . F ir s t, in th o s e p a s s a g e s w h e r e P lo tin u s
c r itic iz e s th e S to ic th e o r y o f in te rn a l p e r c e p tio n , h e d o e s n o t, in h is p o s itiv e
a c c o u n t, p r o p o s e a th e o r y o f p s y c h ic tr a n s m is s io n th ro u g h th e n e r v e s to th e
b ra in . W h a t h e s a y s in s te a d is th a t th e s o u l is p r e s e n t a s a w h o le in e v e r y p a r t
o f th e b o d y . T h e r e a r e c e r ta in c o m m o n f e a tu r e s , th o u g h : th e p r e s e n c e o f th e
s o u l a s a w h o le a t e v e r y p o in t o f th e b o d y in e v ita b ly b r in g s to m in d th e
d o c tr in e th a t th e f o r m o f th e o b j e c t is p r e s e n t a s a w h o le a t e v e r y p o in t o f th e
in te r m e d ia te s p a c e . I n d e e d , th e p r o p e r ty o f b e in g a s a w h o le in m a n y is a
g e n e r a l c h a r a c te r is tic o f th e s o u l a n d th e p s y c h o lo g ic a l a s o p p o s e d to th e
c o r p o r e a l , a n d a s su c h , i t in d ic a te s th a t b o th p h e n o m e n a a r e p s y c h o lo g ic a l; b u t
s o f a r a s I h a v e b e e n a b le to d e te c t, it d o e s n o t in d ic a te a n y th in g s p e c ia l
b e y o n d th a t. T h is m a y e x p la i n w h y P lo tin u s d o e s n o t e x p lic itly b r in g u p th e
a n a lo g y b e tw e e n v i s i o n a n d in te rn a l p e r c e p t i o n th ro u g h th e n e rv e s .
O n r e f le c tio n , w e s h o u ld n o t r e a l l y e x p e c t a n e x a c t p a r a l l e l i s m b e tw e e n
v i s i o n a n d in te rn a l p e r c e p tio n : f o r th e r e is n o th in g in th e p e r c e p t i o n o f p a in
th a t c o r r e s p o n d s e x a c tly to th e r o l e o f th e e y e in v is io n . E v e n i f P lo tin u s
b e l i e v e d th a t p e r c e p t i o n o f p a i n ta k e s p la c e s o m e h o w th ro u g h th e m e d ia c y o f
th e b r a i n a n d th e n e r v e s , n e ith e r th e b r a i n n o r th e n e r v e s s e e m to b e a f f e c te d in
th e w a y th e e y e is. T h e e y e s s e n s in g th e c o lo r s o f a d is ta n t o b j e c t is a r e la tio n
b e tw e e n tw o d is tin c t b o d ily p a r ts o f th e c o s m ic o r g a n is m w h e r e a s th e b r a i n
d o e s n o t s e n s e p a i n i n th e fin g e r i n th e w a y th e e y e s e n s e s th e c o lo r s : a s
in tr o s p e c t io n a n d th e h is to r y o f p h y s io lo g y te a c h u s , i t is n o t a t a ll e v id e n t th a t
th e b r a i n is i n a n y w a y i n v o lv e d in th e p e r c e p t i o n o f p a in . P lo tin u s s u g g e s ts
th a t th e p e r c e p t i o n o f p a i n is a r e l a t i o n b e tw e e n a b o d i l y p a r t a n d th e s o u l a s a
w h o le ( I V 4 .1 9 , 1 1 - 1 9 ) ; v is u a l s e n s a tio n , o n th e o th e r h a n d , is a r e la tio n
b e tw e e n th e e y e a n d s o m e o th e r p a r t o f th e c o s m ic o rg a n is m . I f w e w e r e to
h a v e s o m e th in g e x a c tly a n a lo g o u s w ith in a n o r d in a r y o rg a n is m , it w o u ld b e
s o m e th in g lik e th e f i n g e r s s e n s a tio n o f w h a t g o e s o n in th e to e . S o m y
s u g g e s tio n is , th e n , th a t w e s h o u ld u n d e r s ta n d th e s y m p a th e ia b e t w e e n p a r ts o f
th e c o s m ic o r g a n is m th a t m a k e s v i s i o n p o s s i b l e a s i f it w e r e s u c h a s e n s a tio n
b y p a r t o f a p a rt. T h is a n a lo g y , th o u g h c o r r e c t, is , h o w e v e r , n o t p a r tic u la r ly
illu m in a tin g , s in c e th e r e is n o s u c h th in g a s a s e n s a tio n o f w h a t g o e s o n i n th e
to e b y th e fin g e r o r i f th e r e is , i t e n tir e ly e s c a p e s o u r c o n s c io u s n e s s .
 I n c o n c lu s io n , th e n , P lo tin u s s e e s th e id e a o f o r g a n ic u n ity b e tw e e n th e e y e
a n d th e o b j e c t o f v i s i o n a t w o r k in th e th e o r y o f th e T im aeus. B u t w h e r e a s
P la to a n d G a le n a r r i v e a t th is u n ity b y p r e s u p p o s in g te m p o r a r y e x te n s io n s o f
o u r o w n b o d ie s , P lo tin u s ta k e s it to b e a n in s ta n c e o f th e m o re p e r m a n e n t u n ity
o f o u r o w n liv in g b o d ie s w i t h th e c o s m ic o rg a n is m .

1 There is an insightful account of the development of imperial Platonism in George Karamanolis, Plato
and Aristotle in Agreement? Platonists on Aristotle from Antiochus to Porphyry (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006).
2 The ancient philosophers, especially those who came after Plotinus, did count Aristotle so; the case for
this has recently been made by Lloyd P. Gerson, W hat Is Platonism? Journal o f the History of
Philosophy 43.3 (2005): 253-76, and Aristotle and Other Platonists (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 2005).
3 References to Plato, Cicero, Galen, and Plotinus are standard references that are given in all serious
editions and translations of their works. A reference to Plotinus such as IV.5.4, 10 means: 4th Ennead,
treatise 5, chapter 4, line 10.
4 In my Plotinus on Sense-Perception: A Philosophical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988), 47, I affirmed that Plotinuss notion of sympatheia is a Stoic borrowing; cf. e.g. Agnes
Pigler, La reception plotinienne de la notion stoi'cienne de sympathie universelle, Revue de philosophie
ancienne 19.1 (2001): 45-78; and Katerina Ierodiakonou, The Greek Concept of Sympatheia and Its
Byzantine Appropriation in Michael Psellos, in The Occult Sciences in Byzantium, ed. P. Magdalino
and M. Mavroudi (Geneva: Pomme dor, 2006): 97-117. The self-criticism here is mitigated by the fact
that later in the work, 59-62, I actually recognize the relevance of the Timaeus for Plotinuss views on
sympatheia.
5 See Eyjolfur K. Emilsson, Plotinus on Happiness and Time. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosphy 40
(2011): 339-60, at 348, on Plotinuss use of Stoic ethical notions and tenets.
6 For the Stoic notion, see chapter 1 in this volume.
7 For this aspect of Stoic physics, see Samuel Sambursky, Physics o f the Stoics (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1959). For tension and tensional motion in Stoicism, see SVF 2. 389, 416, 439, 442, 447, 546,
716, and 911.
8 See Henry J. Blumenthal, World-Soul and Individual Soul in Plotinus, in Le Neoplatonisme:
Colloques internationaux du Centre de la recherche scientifique . (Paris: CNRS, 1971), 55-63; and
Wypkje Helleman-Elgersma, Soul-Sisters: A Commentary on Enneads IV 3 (27), 1-8 o f Plotinus
(Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1980), especially 98-101.
9 See Emilsson, Plotinus on Sense-Perception , 23-25 with further references.
10 Just about all these passages are commented on by Gary Michael Gurtler, Sympathy: Stoic
Materialism and the Platonic Soul, in Neoplatonism and Nature , ed. Michael Frank Wagner,
International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, vol. 8, Studies in Plotinus Enneads (Albany, NY: SUNY
Press, 2002), 241-76, and in chapter 3 of Plotinus: the Experience o f Unity (New York: Peter Lang,
1988).
11 This treatise is one of a number of cases where Plotinuss editor, Porphyry, split a treatise, in this case
into three known to us as Ennead IV, T he Problems of Soul 3, 4, and 5.
12 This and other translations from the Enneads in this chapter are Arthur Hilary Armstrongs in
Plotinus in Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966-88), 7 vols. In
some cases I have modified Armstrongs translation.
13 See chapter 7 in this volume.
14 For a good overview, see M. Lawrence Hellenistic Astrology, The Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. (2005), http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/astr-hel.htm; and Wendy Elgersma Helleman, Plotinus as
Magician, International Journal o f the Platonic Tradition 4.2 (2010): 114-46.
15 See Cicero, De divinatione II, and especially 33 (SVF 2.1211).
16 See chapter 1 also for references.
17 See Helleman, Plotinus as Magician. There is considerable literature (Philip Merlan, Plotinus and
Magic. Isis 44[1953]: 341-48; Arthur Hilary Armstrong, Was Plotinus a Magician?, Phronesis
1[1955]: 73-79; and Helleman, Plotinus as Magician (with more references) on the question whether
Plotinus practiced magic himself. The main ground for this allegation is an anecdote told by Porphyry in
Life o f Plotinus 10 relating about a certain Olympius of Alexandria, a self-proclaimed philosopher, who
adopted a superior attitude towards Plotinus out of rivalry. This m ans attacks on him went to the point of
trying to bring a star-stroke upon him by magic [astorbolesai auton mageusas]. But when he found his
attempt recoiling upon himself, he told his intimates that the soul of Plotinus had such great power as to be
able to throw back attacks on him on those who were seeking to do him harm. Plotinus was aware of the
attempt and said that his limbs on that occasion were squeezed together and his body contracted like a
money-bag pulled tight (10, 3-13).
18 Cf. Plato, Timaeus 30 D -31 A.
19 See e.g. Ennead I. 8, On W hat Are and W hence Come Evils.
20 For emanation in Plotinus see Eyjolfur K. Emilsson, Plotinus on Intellect (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2007), ch. 1, which also contains further references.
21 For a fuller discussion of these theories see Emilsson, Plotinus on Sense-Perception, 38-41.
22 See II.8, V I.4.12; and Emilsson, Plotinus on Sense-Perception, chapter 4.
23 In the account given here of the notoriously difficult chapter IV. 5.8, I am relying on Emile B rehiers
reconstruction in his Notice for IV.5 in Plotin: Enneades IV (Paris: Les belles lettres, 1927).
24 See I.6.9, 31, II.4.5, 10, IV.5.7, 24, V.5.7, 22-30.
25 Such is Alfred Edward Taylors understanding of the Timaeus 45 B -C in A Commentary on Platos
Timaeus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929).
26 Galen, De Plac. Hipp. et Plat. VII 7, 9-10, cf. Plotinus, IV. 6.1, 14-17.
27 See Galen, De Plac. Hipp. et Plat. 5.5-10, 7, 19. For accounts of Galens views on sense perception,
see Harold Cherniss, Galen and Posidonius Theory of Vision, American Journal o f Philology 54
(1933): 154-61; and Phillip de Lacys commentary in Galen, On the Doctrines o f Hippocrates and
Plato, ed. and trans. with commentary by Phillip De Lacy, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Akademie, 1984).
28 Thus, it turns out that we can say, after all, that in substance Karl Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie:
Neue Untersuchungen uber Poseidonios (Munich: Beck, 1926), 187-92, was right in pointing out the
affinity betw een Galens and Plotinuss views, although he went too far in identifying their theories.
29 See IV.7.3, 2-5, where sympathes and sympatheia replace homopatheia, and IV.9.2, 20-32.
Reflection
GALENS SYMPATHY

Brooke Holmes

I f w e a r e to b e l i e v e G a le n , th e o r ig in s o f s y m p a th y li e w i t h m e d ic in e s
fo u n d in g fa th e r, H ip p o c r a te s . T im e a n d a g a in in h is v a s t c o r p u s o f m e d ic a l
w r itin g s n e a r ly 10 p e r c e n t o f e x ta n t G r e e k lite r a tu r e b e f o r e 4 0 0 ce and
in a ra n g e o f c o n te x ts , G a le n p a r a p h r a s e s a p a s s a g e f r o m th e la c o n ic
H ip p o c r a tic tr e a tis e O n N u tr im e n t : T h e r e is o n e c o n flu e n c e ; th e r e is o n e
c o m m o n b r e a th in g ; a ll th in g s a r e in s y m p a th y . 1
F r o m o u r p e r s p e c tiv e , h o w e v e r , th e H i p p o c r a t i c p r o v e n a n c e o f th e ta g ,
a n d o f s y m p a th y its e lf , is le s s s e c u re . O n N u tr im e n t is w i d e l y th o u g h t to b e
f r o m th e H e lle n i s tic p e r i o d th ir d c e n tu r y bce o r la te r (th e c l a s s i c a l
H ip p o c r a tic te x ts d a te f r o m th e la te fif th a n d e a r l y f o u r th c e n tu r ie s bce) in
p a r t b e c a u s e th e p a s s a g e o n s y m p a th y is s o a n o m a lo u s : m o s t s c h o la r s th in k
th e a u th o r h a s b e e n in f lu e n c e d b y S to ic n o tio n s o f c o s m ic sy m p ath y . T h e
te x ts a t th e c o r e o f th e C o r p u s m a k e n o m e n tio n o f sy m p ath y .
Y e t it w o u ld b e a m is ta k e to s e e G a l e n s s y m p a th y a s s im p ly a S to ic
c o n c e p t m a s q u e r a d in g a s H ip p o c r a tic in s ig h t, a p h ilo s o p h ic a l id e a
a p p r o p r ia te d w h o l e s a l e b y a p h y s ic ia n .2 M o s t im p o rta n t, w e w o u ld b e
b e tte r o f f s p e a k in g o f G a l e n s s y m p a th ie s . T h e r e is th e H i p p o c r a t i c
c o n c e p t o f a b o d y in w h ic h e v e r y th in g s u ffe rs to g e th e r ( a n d b r e a th e s
to g e th e r a n d f lo w s to g e th e r ) th a t G a le n o f te n in v o k e s to d e f e n d h is v i s i o n o f
n a tu re a n d th e liv in g b e in g s w ith in n a tu re a s o r g a n iz e d b y a k in d o f
im m a n e n t in te llig e n c e o r l o g ic .3 B u t th e n o u n s y m p a th y (sy m p a th e ia ) is
o v e r w h e lm in g ly u s e d b y G a le n to e x p r e s s w h a t m u s t h a v e b e e n a n e x is tin g
te c h n ic a l n o tio n w ith in th e le a r n e d m e d ic a l tr a d itio n , a c c o r d in g to w h ic h
d i s e a s e s o r, m o re p r o p e r ly , a f f e c tio n s (p a th e ) a n y th in g th a t th e b o d y o r
o n e o f its p a r ts s u ffe rs , a lm o s t a lw a y s , in m e d ic a l p a r la n c e , a b n o r m a lly
a r e tr a f f ic k e d f r o m o n e p a r t o f th e b o d y to a n o th e r.
O f c o u r s e , th e s e a r e n o t u n r e la te d id e a s . E a c h in s is ts o n
in te r c o n n e c te d n e s s w ith in a m ic r o c o s m . E a c h , o n d if f e r e n t o c c a s io n s ,
c a u s e s G a le n to m e n tio n th e m a g n e t, th e p a r a d ig m o f s y m p a th y in a n tiq u ity .4
B u t th e y p o in t to d if f e r e n t w a y s o f u n d e r s ta n d in g s y m p a th y w ith in th e c o n te x t
o f a liv in g a n d , m o re s p e c if ic a lly , a h u m a n b o d y . I t is te m p tin g to s e e
th e s e id e a s a s c o r r e s p o n d i n g to d if f e r e n t f a c e ts o f G a le n h im s e lf, th e
p h ilo s o p h e r a n d th e p h y s ic ia n , r e s p e c tiv e ly . T h a t w o u ld b e to o s im p le ,
th o u g h . W h a t is f a s c in a tin g a b o u t s y m p a th y in G a l e n s w r itin g s is th e w a y in
w h ic h it b e h a v e s in c o n te x ts w h e r e d if f ic u lt q u e s tio n s a b o u t th e n a tu re o f
lif e a n d c a u s a l r e la tio n s a r e e n m e s h e d in th e c o n c r e te n e s s o f a b o d y
in tim a te ly k n o w n th ro u g h a n a to m y a n d c l o s e l y o b s e r v e d in its
d y s fu n c tio n a lity , a s w e l l a s in c o n te x ts w h e r e th e m e s s y v a s c u la r ity o f th a t
b o d y is tr a n s la t e d in to a p r e c i s e l y c o o r d in a te d n e tw o r k in o r d e r to m a k e
s e n s e o f s y m p to m s . I n s h o rt, in G a l e n s w r itin g s , th e w o r k in g s o f s y m p a th y
m a n if e s t in a p r i v i l e g e d a n d u n iq u e w a y th e lo g ic o f liv in g b o d ie s in th e ir
f lo u r is h in g a n d in th e ir su ffe rin g .
I lo o k a t s e v e r a l e x a m p le s w h e r e th e d if f e r e n t a s p e c ts o f s y m p a th y c o m e
in to fo c u s w i t h p a r tic u la r c la rity . I s ta r t w i t h O n th e N a tu r a l F a c u ltie s ,
w h e r e G a le n e la b o r a te s th e H ip p o c r a tic ta g a t s o m e le n g th in a p o le m ic
a g a in s t c o r p u s c u la r m o d e ls o f th e b o d y . I th e n tu r n to a d is c u s s io n o f s o m e
c lin ic a l c a s e s o f s y m p a th y th a t illu m in a te G a l e n s m o d e l o f th e n e tw o r k e d
b o d y , a m o d e l th a t is a ls o f o r h im a c r u c ia l c a u s a l m a p .
O n th e N a tu r a l F a c u ltie s ta k e s u p th e n o n c o n s c io u s , v e g e ta l s tr a tu m o f
h u m a n life : g e n e r a tio n , d e v e lo p m e n t, a n d n u tritio n , a ll o f w h ic h a r e
g o v e r n e d b y w h a t G a le n c a ll s th e n a tu ra l f a c u ltie s . T h e s e f a c u ltie s , in
G a le n s e y e s , r e v e a l n a tu re to b e th e s o r t o f th in g th a t a c ts in a w a y th a t is
b o th te c h n i c a l th a t is , in s tr a te g ic p u r s u it o f p a r tic u la r e n d s , h e r e th e
f lo u r is h in g o f th e o r g a n is m a n d rig h t o r j u s t . G a le n th in k s th a t fo r
n a tu re to b e th is w a y s u b s ta n c e h a s to b e a c o n tin u u m c a p a b le o f q u a lita tiv e
c h a n g e , a p o s i t i o n h e a s s o c ia te s w i t h o n e s e c t o f n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h y
h e a d e d , p r e d ic ta b ly , b y H ip p o c r a te s ( a lth o u g h h e a lm o s t c e r ta in ly a ls o h a s
A r is to tle a n d th e S to ic s in m in d ). T h e o th e r s e c t, b y c o n tr a s t, h o ld s to a
v i e w th a t s u b s ta n c e is i t s e l f u n c h a n g e a b le a n d p a r c e l e d o u t in to s m a ll
b o d ie s w i t h v o i d in b e tw e e n in o th e r w o r d s , a to m is m , a lth o u g h G a l e n s
m a in ta r g e t h e r e is th e la te H e lle n i s tic p h y s ic i a n - t h e o r i s t A s c l e p i a d e s o f
B ith y n ia , w h o s e c o r p u s c u la r m o d e l o f th e p h y s ic a l b o d y m a y o r m a y n o t
h a v e b e e n o v e r tly a to m is t (h is w r itin g s a r e lo s t) . T h o s e a f f ili a te d w i t h th e
s e c o n d s e c t s c a n d a lo u s ly r e j e c t th e e x is te n c e o f a n y th in g lik e th e n a tu ra l
fa c u ltie s . In s te a d , th e y e x p la i n p h e n o m e n a lik e g r o w th o r, in th e e x a m p le th a t
G a le n d e v e lo p s in b a r o q u e d e ta il, th e e x c r e tio n o f u rin e b y p u r e ly
m e c h a n ic a l p r in c ip le s , n a m e ly , th e p r i n c i p l e o f h o rro r va cu i. I n s o d o in g ,
G a le n a lle g e s , th e y s tr ip n a tu re o f a ll s k ill a n d p u r p o s e f u ln e s s .
G a le n d o e s n o t d e n y th e w o r k in g s o f s o m e th in g lik e h o rro r v a c u i b o th
in s id e a n d o u ts id e th e b o d y . H e u s e s th e e x a m p le o f th e b e l l o w s to illu s tr a te
th is k in d o f a ttra c tio n . B u t h e th in k s th is is in s u f f ic ie n t to a c c o u n t f o r th e
c o m p le x , p u r p o s e - d r i v e n la b o r o f liv in g . I n a d d itio n to th e s im p le a ttr a c tio n
o f m a tte r in to a v o id , b o d ie s w o r k w i t h f a c u ltie s o f a ttr a c t io n a n d ,
im p o rta n tly , e x p u ls io n th a t r e c o g n iz e q u a lita tiv e d if f e r e n c e s in m a tte r;
in d e e d , th e n a tu ra l f a c u ltie s a r e l a r g e ly d e f in e d th ro u g h th e ir c a p a c ity to
a ttr a c t a n d e x p e l d if f e r e n t k in d s o f s u b s ta n c e b a s e d o n th e a p p r o p r ia te n e s s
o f q u a lity .
B u t h o w d o th e s e f a c u ltie s e x e r c is e s u c h d is c e r n m e n t? G a le n is c a r e fu l
n o t to a ttr ib u te r e a s o n in g o r m in d to th e n a tu ra l fa c u ltie s . In s te a d , h e lik e n s
th e a ttr a c tio n a n d e x p u ls io n p e r f o r m e d b y th e n a tu ra l f a c u ltie s to a ra n g e o f
p h e n o m e n a o b s e r v e d in in a n im a te th in g s: th e c a p a c ity o f e m e tic s to a ttr a c t
s p e c if ic h u m o rs f r o m th e b o d y , o f a n tid o te s to d r a w o u t s n a k e v e n o m , o r,
m o s t te llin g ly , o f th e lo d e s to n e to a ttr a c t iro n . T h e s e e x a m p le s w e r e a ll
r e g u la r ly e x p la in e d in te rm s o f s y m p a th y in a n tiq u ity . B y u s in g th e m h e re ,
G a le n im p lie s th a t th e e n tir e p h y s ic a l w o r l d is o r g a n iz e d b y r e la tio n s h ip s o f
a p p r o p r ia te n e s s a n d f o r e ig n n e s s g o v e r n e d b y n a tu re r a th e r th a n a c ti v e ly
p u r s u e d b y in d iv id u a l b o d i e s .5 ( E ls e w h e r e , h o w e v e r , G a le n is
u n c o m f o r ta b le p u ttin g th e g e n e s is , g ro w th , a n d m a in te n a n c e o f liv in g b o d ie s
o n th e s a m e le v e l a s th e b e h a v io r o f d ru g s a n d s to n e s .)
T h e l a r g e r c o n te x t s u g g e s ts , th e n , th a t w h e n G a le n in v o k e s th e
H i p p o c r a t i c id e a o f a b o d y th a t is in s y m p a th y w i t h i t s e l f in h is
p o le m ic a l d e n u n c ia tio n o f a to m is t m o d e ls , i t is lik e ly h e is n o t j u s t
im a g in in g a b o d y in w h ic h d if f e r e n t p a r ts s u ffe r to g e th e r. R a th e r, h e s e e m s to
h a v e in m in d a m o re r o b u s t n o tio n o f sy m p a th y , a c c o r d in g to w h ic h d if f e r e n t
p a r ts o f th e b o d y r e la te to o n e a n o th e r a n d th e o u ts id e w o r l d in w a y s th a t
e n a b le th e o r g a n is m to p e r p e tu a te its lif e . S o fu n d a m e n ta l is th e
o r c h e s tr a tio n o f lif e in th e s e te rm s th a t h e c a n s u m u p th e h e r e s y o f th e
c o r p u s c u la r th e o r is ts a s th e d e n ia l o f sy m p a th y : f o r A s c l e p i a d e s , n o th in g is
n a tu r a lly in s y m p a th y w i t h a n y th in g e ls e , a ll s u b s ta n c e b e in g d i v i d e d a n d
b r o k e n u p in to in h a rm o n io u s e le m e n ts a n d a b s u r d m o le c u le s . 6 To d e n y
s y m p a th y is to d e n y n o t j u s t th e c o n tin u u m o f s u b s ta n c e b u t a ls o th e
c o h e r e n c e o f n a tu r e .7
I n O n th e N a tu r a l F a c u ltie s , G a le n a p p e a r s to b e m o b iliz in g a
p a r tic u la r ly r i c h c o n c e p t o f s y m p a th y to b u ild h is c a s e a g a in s t A s c le p ia d e s
a n d lik e - m in d e d th in k e rs . T h e r e f e r e n c e to tw o w a r r i n g s e c ts tu rn s s y m p a th y
in to a c o r e p h ilo s o p h ic a l c o m m itm e n t th a t n o d o u b t h e ld a s s o c ia ti o n s w ith
th e S to ic s f o r G a le n . B u t in h is d is c u s s i o n o f a p p r o p r ia te n e s s o f q u a lity ,
h e a ls o d r a w s o n n o tio n s o f s y m p a th y a n d a n tip a th y th a t w e r e c o m m o n in
p h a r m a c o lo g y a n d n a tu ra l h is to r y ( b o o k s 2 0 - 3 2 o f P li n y s N a tu r a l H is to r y ,
f o r e x a m p le , a r e a g o ld m in e o f s u c h b e l i e f s ) .8 A ll o f th is m a te r ia l is
m a r s h a le d in s u p p o r t o f a v i s i o n o f h u m a n n a tu re f o c u s e d n o t o n th e h ig h e r
c a p a c itie s o f th o u g h t o r e m o tio n b u t o n th e w o n d r o u s e v e r y d a y la b o r o f th e
p la n t- lik e b o d y . H e r e , th e b l a d d e r b e c o m e s th e s ta g e f o r a n e p ic b a ttle in
w h ic h s y m p a th y is c e n tr a l.
M o r e o f te n in G a le n , h o w e v e r , s y m p a th y d e s ig n a te s th e n a r r o w e r id e a
th a t o n e p a r t o f th e b o d y m a y s u ffe r a ffe c tio n s g e n e r a te d in a n o th e r p a rt.
T h o u g h th e la n g u a g e o f s y m p a th y is n o t u s e d in fifth - a n d fo u r th -c e n tu r y bce

m e d ic a l te x ts , th e b e l i e f th a t d i s e a s e s c a n tr a v e l th ro u g h p a s s a g e s w i th in th e
b o d y is a b a s i c te n e t o f h u m o ra l p a th o lo g y .9 M o r e o v e r , th e s e te x ts a lr e a d y
e v in c e a b e l i e f th a t c e r t a i n p a r ts o f th e b o d y , s u c h a s th e b r e a s ts a n d th e
u te ru s in th e fe m a le b o d y , a r e r e l a t e d a n d , a s a r e s u lt, s h a r e a ffe c tio n s .
T h o s e r e la tio n s h ip s a n d th e c ir c u la t io n o f a f f e c tio n s m o re g e n e r a lly a r e
d e s c r i b e d b y s o m e p o s tc l a s s i c a l a u th o rs , in c lu d in g G a le n , i n te rm s o f
sy m p ath y .
Y e t e v e n in th e s e m o re te c h n ic a l in s ta n c e s , s y m p a th y p r o v id e s a n
o c c a s i o n to r e f l e c t o n th e c o m p le x o r g a n iz a tio n o f th e h u m a n b o d y . B u t
w h e r e a s i n O n th e N a tu r a l F a c u ltie s w e a r e in te r e s t e d i n th e m a in te n a n c e
o f lif e , G a l e n s r e f e r e n c e s to s y m p a th e tic a ffe c tio n s a r i s e in c a s e s w h e r e th e
in te r c o n n e c tiv ity o f th e b o d y a l l o w s f o r d a m a g e to m ig r a te f r o m o n e p a r t to
a n o th e r .10
T h e s e m ig r a tio n s o c c u r a lo n g w e l l - d e f i n e d p a th w a y s in G a le n . A s w e
j u s t s a w , o u r e a r l i e s t m e d ic a l w r itin g s d e s c r ib e a b o d y w h o s e in te r io r is
c r i s s c r o s s e d w i t h c h a n n e ls a lo n g w h ic h f lu id s a n d a i r a r e tr a n s p o r te d . T h e s e
c h a n n e ls a c q u ir e a n e w f o u n d s p e c if ic ity a n d m o re p r e c i s e c o o r d in a te s w i t h
th e r i s e o f s y s te m a tic h u m a n d i s s e c t i o n in th ir d - c e n tu r y bce A le x a n d r ia a n d
th e i s o l a t i o n o f th e v e in s , a r te r ie s , a n d n e r v e s . G a le n in h e r ite d a f in e ly
n e tw o r k e d b o d y in h is a n a to m ic a l tra in in g , a n d h e s p e n t m u c h o f h is c a r e e r
h o n in g h is u n d e r s ta n d in g o f th e s e n e tw o r k s a n d th e v ita l fu n c tio n s th e y
s u p p o rt. In d e e d , G a l e n s in v e s tm e n t in a n a to m y a s a r e s o u r c e f o r a n s w e r in g
p h ilo s o p h ic a l a n d c lin ic a l q u e s tio n s a lik e is a h a llm a r k o f h is w o rk .
T h e m a p o f th e b o d y u n c o v e r e d b y a n a to m y is e s s e n tia l, in G a l e n s e y e s ,
to u n d e r s ta n d in g s y m p a th e tic a ffe c tio n s . M o r e s p e c if ic a lly , th a t m a p e n a b le s
th e p h y s ic i a n to g r a s p a c o m p le x c a u s a l s c e n a r io o n ly h in te d a t o r n o t
s u g g e s te d a t a l l b y o b s e r v a b l e s y m p to m s . I t is o n ly b e c a u s e G a le n h a s
s u c h a c o m m a n d o f th e n e r v o u s s y s te m th a t h e u n d e r s ta n d s , f o r e x a m p le , w h y
a p a tie n t w h o h a s s u f f e r e d a fa ll l o s e s c o m m a n d o v e r h is le g s a n d h is v o ic e :
w h e r e a s th e o th e r p h y s ic ia n s a p p ly tr e a tm e n t to th e a f f e c te d p a r ts le g s a n d
v o i c e G a le n r e c o g n iz e s th a t a n e r v e in th e s p in e h a s b e e n d a m a g e d a n d
d ir e c ts h is th e r a p ie s th e re . I t is n o t th a t o th e r p h y s ic ia n s d o n o t a c c e p t
a ffe c tio n s b y s y m p a th y in p r in c ip le . Y e t th e y o f te n fa il to s e e h o w i t w o r k s
in p r a c tic e b e c a u s e th e y l a c k a d e q u a te tr a in in g in d is s e c tio n . G a le n m o c k s
s o m e c o lle a g u e s , f o r e x a m p le , f o r e x p la in in g a c a s e o f s y m p a th e tic a f f e c tio n
in th e H ip p o c r a tic te x t E p id e m ic s II b y m e a n s o f a b l o o d v e s s e l th a t c a n n o t
b e s e e n d u r in g d is s e c tio n : th e y h a v e s e e n it o n ly in th e ir d r e a m s . 11
G a le n h i m s e l f is g u ilty o f s o m e d r e a m in g h e re . F o r a s w e h a v e s e e n , th e
la n g u a g e o f s y m p a th y d o e s n o t a p p e a r in th e c l a s s i c a l - e r a te x ts o f th e
H ip p o c r a tic C o rp u s . I t is tru e th a t in th e c a s e j u s t m e n tio n e d , th e te x t
p r e s e n ts a c o n s te lla tio n o f s y m p to m s a n e n la r g e d s p le e n , s h o u ld e r p a in , a
ta u t b lo o d v e s s e l a t th e e lb o w a s f a c e ts o f a s in g le a ffe c tio n . B u t in
k e e p in g w i t h th e s ty le o f th e E p id e m ic s, th e te x t d o e s n o t e x p la i n h o w th e s e
c o u ld b e r e la te d . G a le n s te p s in w i t h a n e x p la n a tio n th a t r e s ts o n h is o w n
m a p o f th e n e tw o r k e d b o d y , a ll th e w h ile in s is tin g th a t h e is s im p ly m a k in g
c l e a r w h a t is la te n t in th e te x t. F o r H ip p o c r a te s h im s e lf, h e c la im s , h a d
d i s s e c t e d th e h u m a n b o d y . B u t a s E p id e m ic s II r e p r e s e n ts n o te s to h im s e lf,
G a le n a rg u e s , h e d o e s n o t s p e l l o u t th e u n d e rly in g s tr u c tu r e th a t c o n n e c ts th e
sy m p to m s . H e r e , th e n , th e id e n tif ic a tio n o f a ffe c tio n s a s s y m p a th e tic in th e
s o u r c e te x t b e c o m e s a n o p p o r tu n ity f o r G a le n to s u p p ly h is o w n a n a to m ic a l
m o d e l a s th e s u b m e r g e d c a u s a l m a p a n d , i n s o d o in g , to b o l s t e r h is v i s i o n o f
H ip p o c r a te s a s th e fa th e r o f a n ato m y .
I n th e c a s e o f a f f e c tio n s b y s y m p a th y , p a r ts w ith in th e b o d y a r e
r e n d e r e d v u ln e r a b le b y th e c o m m u n ic a tio n th e y h a v e w i t h o th e r p a rts . S u c h
a le v e l o f in te r c o n n e c te d n e s s m e a n s th a t e v e n th e b r a in , w h ic h G a le n s e e s a s
th e c o m m a n d c e n te r f o r th e e n tir e b o d y , c a n f a ll p r e y to a ffe c tio n s
o r ig in a tin g e ls e w h e r e . I n O n th e A ffe c te d P a r ts , th e b r a i n is e s p e c i a l l y
v u ln e r a b le to d is tu r b a n c e s i n th e gut, w h ic h tr a v e l u p w a r d a s v a p o r s o r
a lo n g a la r g e n e r v e (th e v a g u s n e r v e in m o d e r n te rm s ). G a le n e ls e w h e r e
s tro n g ly r e je c ts th e i n c o r p o r e a lity o f th e s o u l b y a rg u in g th a t m e n ta l
fu n c tio n in g d e p e n d s o n th e m ix tu re s o f th e b o d y . H e r e h e o f f e r s a d if f e r e n t
m o d e l o f h o w m in d is im p lic a te d in b o d i l y d is tu r b a n c e , n a m e ly b y its
p a r t i c i p a t i o n in th e n e tw o r k e d b o d y a n d its p r o x im ity a t a d is ta n c e to th e
g u t.12
In te re s tin g ly , h o w e v e r , G a le n n e v e r a rg u e s th a t th e s o u l is i n s y m p a th y
w i t h th e b o d y . F r o m o n e p e r s p e c tiv e , h is r e tic e n c e is u n e x p e c te d . F r o m
A r is to tle o n w a r d , p h ilo s o p h e r s h a d d e s c r i b e d w h a t th e y s a w a s th e s o u l s
a b ility to tr a n s m it its s u ffe rin g to th e b o d y a n d v i c e v e r s a i n te rm s o f
s y m p a th y .13 B u t f r o m a n o th e r p e r s p e c tiv e , G a l e n s s ile n c e is n o t s u r p r is in g
a t a ll. T h ro u g h o u t h is w r itin g s , h e a ffir m s tim e a n d a g a in a n a g n o s tic is m
a b o u t th e n a tu re o f th e s o u l a n d its r e la tio n s h ip to th e b o d y o b s e r v e d in
d is s e c tio n . G a l e n s e lu s iv e s o u l, th e n , p r e d i c t a b l y e s c a p e s th e w e b o f
s y m p a th e tic a ffe c tio n s .
Y e t f o r a ll th a t th e a n a to m ic a l b o d y m a k e s s e n s e o f s y m p a th ie s o b s e r v e d
o n its s u rfa c e , s y m p a th y i t s e l f o f te n r e m a in s a n e lu s iv e p h e n o m e n o n . I n th e
e x a m p le w h e r e G a le n l a c e r a t e s o th e r c o m m e n ta to r s o n th e H ip p o c r a tic
E p id e m ic s II f o r d r e a m in g u p a b lo o d v e s s e l , h e h i m s e l f c a n n o t id e n tif y a
v e i n to d r a w to g e th e r th e s c a tte r e d s y m p to m s th a t a p p e a r n o t o n ly i n th e
s o u r c e te x t b u t a ls o , G a le n s a y s , to a n y o n e w h o h a s o b s e r v e d a c a s e o f th is
k in d . B u t th a t f a ilu r e is n o t g ro u n d s to d e n y sy m p ath y . R a th e r, th e v e r y f a c t
th a t o n e o b s e r v e s th e c o n s te lla tio n o f a ffe c tio n s p r o v e s th a t s y m p a th y m u s t
e x ist. T h e e x a m p le th a t G a le n s u p p lie s o f a p h e n o m e n o n th a t is e a s y to
o b s e r v e b u t h a r d to e x p la i n is th e lo d e s t o n e s a ttr a c tio n o f iro n .
I n O n th e N a tu r a l F a c u ltie s , w e c a n a g a in o b s e r v e , G a le n s tr e s s e s th e
a p p a r e n tly d is c e r n in g a ttr a c t io n e x e r c i s e d b y th e b l a d d e r o n u rin e o r b y
c e r ta in d ru g s o n s p e c if ic h u m o rs . Y e t w e m a y w o n d e r w h a t a llo w s
u n th in k in g b o d ie s to e x e r c is e th e s e p o w e r s o f d is c e rn m e n t. I f G a le n h e re
r e f e r s th o s e p o w e r s to a n o v e r a r c h i n g c o n c e p t o f n a tu re , h e a ls o s tru g g le d
o p e n ly in o th e r tr e a tis e s w i t h th e q u e s tio n o f h o w th e D e m iu r g e s
in te llig e n c e b e c o m e s im m a n e n t in m in d le s s b o d ie s . H e k n o w s th a t sy m p a th y ,
 lik e th e s o u l, e x is ts . B u t h e is n o t a lw a y s c l e a r o n w h a t th e p o w e r is th a t
g o v e r n s i ts o p e r a t i o n s . T h e b o d y i n w h i c h e v e r y t h i n g i s i n s y m p a t h y m i r r o r s
th e m a c r o c o s m . B u t th e q u a n d a r y o f w h a t a ll o w s th e p a r ts to w o r k a n d to
s u ffe r to g e th e r is o n e th a t G a le n , d e s p ite a ll h is e m p ir ic a l in q u ir ie s ,
s tr u g g le d w i t h to th e e n d .

1 See [Hippocrates], On Nutriment 23 (IX 106 Littre). For sources, see list of abbreviations at beginning
of bibliography. Translations are my own. For Galens citation of the passage, see, e.g., Causes o f Pulses
1.12 (IX 88 Kuhn), On the Natural Faculties 1.12 (II 29 Kuhn = 122,6-9 Helmreich), On the
Usefulness o f Parts 1.8 (III 17 Kuhn = 1:12,23-25 Helmreich).
2 On the Stoic notion of sympathy, see chapter 1 in this volume.
3 To the extent that Galen recognizes this as a Stoic idea, he makes the Stoics indebted to Hippocrates:
see Method o f Medicine 1.2 (X 16 Kuhn).
4 See Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates, Epidemics II 2.103 (236,32-44 Pfaff); On the Natural
Faculties 1.14 (II 44-52 Kuhn=133,11-139,9 Helmreich). On the magnet in antiquity, see Richard
Wallace, Amaze your Friends!: Lucretius on M agnets, Greece and Rome 43 (1996): 178-87.
5 See further Brooke Holmes, Galen on the Chances of Life, in Probabilities, Hypothetical, and
Counterfactuals in Ancient Greek Thought, ed. Victoria Wohl (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2014), 230-50.
6 Galen, On the Natural Faculties 1.13 (II 39 Kuhn = 129,7-9 Helmreich).
7 As Armelle Debru writes, Galens thought is shot through with the notion that the general
intercommunication within and synergy of actions in the organism creates from it a unity, which accounts
for our being able to speak of it as a system (Physiology, in The Cambridge Companion to Galen,
ed. R. J. Hankinson [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008], 275). While Galen tends to focus on
the coherence of the human body, the examples he gives to show attraction by quality in On the
Natural Faculties suggest that he sees sympathies and antipathies as distributed throughout the whole of
nature. This would be keeping with his view of nature as exhibiting the intelligence of the Demiurge, a
view more Platonic than Stoic. Yet how that intelligence is communicated is a topic that Galen has no firm
opinion on (he rejects, for example, the Platonic notion of a world soul): see esp. On the Formation of
the Fetus 6 (V 687-702 Kuhn = 90,27-106,13 Nickel); and R. J. Hankinson, Philosophy of Nature, in
The Cambridge Companion to Galen, ed. R. J. Hankinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2008), 233-36.
8 For sympathy in Pliny, see Franqoise Gaide, Aspects divers des principles de sympathie et dantipathie
dans les textes therapeutiques latins, in Rationnel et irrationnel dans la medecine ancienne et
medievale: Aspects historiques, scientifiques et culturels, ed. Nicoletta Palmieri (Saint-Etienne:
Publications de lUniversite de Saint-Etienne, 2003), 129-44; Patricia Gaillard-Seux, Sympathie et
antipathie dans l Histoire Naturelle de Pline lAncien, in Rationnel et irrationnel dans la medecine
ancienne et medievale: Aspects historiques, scientifiques et culturels, ed. Nicoletta Palmieri (Saint-
Etienne: Publications de lUniversite de Saint-Etienne, 2003), 113-28.
9 Nearly all the fifth- and fourth-century treatises in the Hippocratic Corpus work with a model of the
body oriented toward innate fluid stuffs in the body, sometimes called humors (khymoi), that circulate
through generic vessels from one part to another. These stuffs and their number vary from author to
author. The four-humor model that will become dominant in western medicine (thanks to Galen) appears
only in one treatise, On the Nature o f a Human Being.
10 For an overview of the means by which these affections travel, see R. E. Siegel, Galen S System of
Physiology and Medicine: An Analysis o f His Doctrines and Observations on Bloodflow,
Respiration, Tumors, and Internal Diseases (Basel: Karger, 1968), 360-82.
11 Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates, Epidemics II 2.102 (236,22-23 Pfaff). For further discussion,
see Brooke Holmes, Sympathy between Hippocrates and Galen: The Case of Galens Commentary on
Hippocrates Epidemics , Book Two, in Epidemics in Context: Greek Commentaries on
Hippocrates in the Arabic Tradition, ed. Peter E. Pormann (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 49-70, at 65
68.
12 For further discussion, see Brooke Holmes, Disturbing Connections: Sympathetic Affections, Mental
Disorder, and the Elusive Soul in Galen, in Mental Disorders in the Classical World, ed. W V. Harris
(Leiden: Brill, 2013), 147-76, at 163-75.
13 See, e.g., Aristotle, De anima 403a16-19; [Aristotle], Physiognomy 805a5-6; Epicurus, Letter to
Herodotus 64; Lucretius, De rerum natura 3.158-60; Nemesius, On the Nature o f Man 2. See also
Holmes, Disturbing Connections, 155-63.
 C H A P T E R TH REE

Sympathy in the Renaissance

A n n E. M o y e r

A s a w o r d a n d c o n c e p t w i t h a d is tin c tly a n c ie n t G r e e k p e d ig r e e , s y m p a th y
s e r v e s a s a f a s c in a tin g fo c u s f o r t r a c in g th e r e v i v a l, s p r e a d , a n d a s s i m il a t i o n o f
a n c ie n t le tte r s in th e w o r l d o f R e n a is s a n c e E u r o p e . B o th w o r d a n d c o n c e p t
a p p e a r e d e s p e c i a l l y th o u g h n o t e x c lu s iv e ly in th e r e a lm s o f n a tu r a l p h ilo s o p h y
and m e d ic in e , enhanced w ith th e lu s te r o f a n c ie n t a u th o r itie s and G re e k
s o u r c e s . B y t h e m i d d l e o f t h e s i x t e e n t h c e n tu r y , i t w a s i n u s e i n s e v e r a l r e l a t e d
c o n t e x t s : w o r k s i n t h e t r a d i t i o n s o f l a t e r P l a t o n i c t h o u g h t, p a r t i c u l a r l y t h o s e
r e l a te d to m a g ic , m e d ic a l a n d G a le n ic w r itin g s , p r a c tic a l b o o k s o f s e c r e ts
lite r a tu r e in a P lin ia n tra d itio n , a n d m o ra l p h ilo s o p h y w ith a S to ic c a s t. T h e
e a r l i e s t a p p e a r a n c e s m a k e a p p a r e n t th e a u th o r s u s e o f G r e e k s o u r c e s , a n d a r e
th e m s e lv e s w r i tt e n in L a tin , th e la n g u a g e o f f o rm a l s c h o la r s h ip . Y e t b y th e la te r
s ix te e n th c e n tu ry , th e w o rd had a ls o b e e n a d o p te d in to se v era l E u ro p e an
v e r n a c u la r s to id e n tif y th e h u m a n r e s p o n s e s a n d e m o tio n s o f f e llo w - f e e lin g th a t
a r e f a m ilia r to m o d e r n u s a g e . B y th e s e v e n te e n th c e n tu r y it w a s s u f f ic ie n tly
p ro m in e n t n o t o n ly to fig u re in a rg u m e n ts a b o u t th e n a tu re o f s c ie n tific
e x p la n a tio n s b u t a ls o to fo cu s a tte n tio n o n h u m an fe llo w -fe e lin g in w a y s
in c r e a s in g ly o f in te r e s t to m o ra l p h ilo s o p h e r s a n d o th e rs .
M o d e r n s c h o la r s h a v e a t tim e s im p r o v is e d n a r r a tiv e s a b o u t th e h is to r y o f
s y m p a th y a s a R e n a is s a n c e te r m a n d c o n c e p t, s o m e b u t n o t a ll o f w h ic h h a v e
b o r n e u p u n d e r c l o s e r s c ru tin y . S o m e o f th e s e a s s o c i a t e d s y m p a th y w i t h m a g ic
a n d a p e r s is te n t, tr a d itio n a l m o d e o f e x p la n a tio n o f n a tu re th a t d i s s i p a te d w ith
th e r is e o f m o re r a tio n a l a n d s c ie n tif ic a p p r o a c h e s , a f e a tu re th a t p r e m o d e r n
E u ro p e an s s u p p o s e d ly sh a re d w ith o th e r p re m o d e rn s o c ie tie s .1 O th e rs
a s s o c i a t e d i t w i t h m a g i c b y m e a n s o f t h e e r a s r e v i v a l o f P l a t o n i c t h o u g h t.
 A c lo s e r lo o k at th e so u rc e s show s th a t s y m p a th y as a te rm w as
r e in tr o d u c e d to L a tin f r o m G r e e k b y s c h o la r s in th e la te f if te e n th a n d e a r ly
s ix te e n th c e n tu r ie s , e s p e c i a l l y b u t n o t e x c lu s iv e ly in th e c o n te x t o f n a tu ra l
p h ilo s o p h y . T h e t e r m a n d c o n c e p t w e r e l it tl e u s e d i n p r e c e d in g c e n tu r ie s ; in
R e n a is s a n c e a n d e a r l y m o d e r n th o u g h t th e y d i d n o t r e p r e s e n t a s u b s tr a tu m o f
p o p u la r b e lie f , b u t r a th e r n e w a n d in n o v a tiv e h u m a n is tic s c h o la r s h ip . S o m e o f
t h e s e s c h o l a r s i d e n t i f i e d t h e m s e l v e s w i t h P l a t o n i c t h o u g h t. D u r i n g t h e s i x t e e n t h
c e n tu r y th e t e r m p ic k e d u p c u rr e n c y ; a m o n g n e w a d o p te r s w e r e th o s e w h o
w o r k e d th e m e d ic a l tr a d itio n s now la b e le d ra th e r lo o s e ly as P a ra c e ls ia n ,
th o u g h G a le n is ts m ig h t ta k e a n in te r e s t in th e s u b je c t a s w e l l. Y e t n a tu r a l
p h ilo s o p h y w as not s y m p a t h y s o n ly c o n te x t. I ts in c re a s e d p resen ce in
E u r o p e a n v e r n a c u la r s b y th e la te r s ix te e n th c e n tu r y d o e s n o t s e e m d u e s o le ly to
th is L a tin s c ie n tif ic u s a g e , th o u g h th a t w a s s u r e ly a n im p o r ta n t fa c to r. It a ls o
a r o s e f r o m E u r o p e a n r e a d e r s g r e a te r f a m i li a r i ty w i t h a n c ie n t te x ts , o f te n in
tr a n s la tio n , in w h i c h th e w o r d a ls o r e f e r r e d to h u m a n e m o tio n s in th e le s s
t e c h n i c a l w a y s t h a t n o w c o n s t i t u t e t h e w o r d s m o r e c o m m o n u s a g e .
W h e n th e a tte n tio n o f m a n y n a tu r a l p h ilo s o p h e r s tu r n e d in th e la t e r s ix te e n th
a n d s e v e n te e n th c e n tu rie s to s o m e p a r tic u la r s o rts o f a c tio n a t a d is ta n c e
e s p e c i a l l y th e p h e n o m e n o n o f m a g n e tis m , b u t a ls o o f c o n ta g io u s d is e a s e s ,
g ra v ity , a n d o th e r n a tu ra l f o r c e s s y m p a th y f ig u r e d in c r e a s in g ly in e ffo rts a t
e x p la n a tio n . D i s c u s s i o n a n d d e b a te o n th o s e to p ic s g r e w a n d c o n tin u e d in th e
s e v e n t e e n t h c e n tu r y . D e t r a c t o r s s u g g e s t e d t h a t t h e o r i e s o f s y m p a t h y s m a c k e d o f
o l d - f a s h i o n e d s u p e r s t i t i o n , a c h a r g e o f w h i c h t h e y w e r e n o t a c t u a l l y g u ilty .
T h e s e e x p la n a tio n s w e r e n o t o ld -fa s h io n e d , n o r d id th e y a r is e o u t o f p o p u la r
s u p e r s titio n s o r s u p e r s titio u s a ttitu d e s , h o w e v e r o n e m ig h t d e f in e s u c h a te rm .
N o n e th e le s s , s o m e o f th e w a y s th a t a d v o c a te s o f s y m p a th y u s e d a n c ie n t te x ts
a n d m o d e rn e v id e n c e , e s p e c ia lly i n th e t r a d i ti o n o f P lin y , h e lp e d to le n d
c re d e n c e to such a c la im m ade by th o s e w ho a tta c k e d th e m .2 T hese
s e v e n te e n th - c e n tu ry p o le m ic s a p p e a r to h a v e b e e n th e b a s is f o r th e s u b s e q u e n t
m o d e r n a s s e r tio n s th a t s y m p a th y h a d b e e n a p e r v a s i v e tr a d itio n a l, fo lk , o r
p r e s c ie n tif ic m o d e o f e x p la n a tio n in R e n a is s a n c e th o u g h t a n d c u ltu re .
 1. Ea r l y Us a g e : Ph i l o s o p h y , Na t u r a l a n d Mo r a l

To f o ll o w th e u s e in L a tin th o u g h t o f a t e r m u s e d b y G r e e k s c h o la r s , i t w o u ld
s e e m r e a s o n a b le to tu r n f i r s t to th e fig u r e s w h o m a d e th o s e s o u r c e s a c c e s s i b l e
b y p u b lis h in g th e m a n d tr a n s la tin g th e m f r o m G r e e k in to L a in . E d itio n s o f
P lo tin u s m a k e a g o o d s ta r tin g p o in t. H is w r itin g s b e c a m e a c c e s s i b l e th a n k s to
th e L a tin tr a n s la tio n s b y M a r s i l i o F ic in o ( 1 4 3 3 - 9 9 ) in th e 1 4 6 0 s . P lo tin u s w a s
a l r e a d y w e l l k n o w n th a n k s to r e f e r e n c e s to h is w r itin g s in th e w o r k s o f o th e r
la te R o m a n a u th o rs , a n d F ic in o h i m s e l f e n jo y e d a h ig h p r o f ile a m o n g p e r s o n s
o f le tte r s b o th w ith in F lo r e n c e a n d b e y o n d . T h e r i s e a n d r a p i d s p r e a d o f p r in t
te c h n o lo g y a t th e s a m e tim e th e p r o j e c t w a s u n d e r w a y h e lp e d to e n s u r e th e ir
r e l a t i v e l y b r o a d a n d r a p i d d is tr ib u tio n . F ic in o h i m s e l f h a d s tr o n g in te r e s ts in
r e lig io n , m e d ic in e , a n d m a g ic , a n d h e c o m p o s e d h is o w n w o r k s in a d d i t i o n to
tr a n s la tin g a n c ie n t te x ts . H e b e c a m e a n e x p o n e n t o f P la to n ic p h ilo s o p h y , a n d
h is o w n w r itin g s a l s o s a w n u m e ro u s e d itio n s th ro u g h o u t th e c e n tu r y a f te r h is
o w n d e a th . H is tr a n s la tio n s o f P lo tin u s w e r e p a r t o f h is a m b itio u s p r o j e c t to
tr a n s la te th e w o r k s o f P la to a n d r e l a t e d a u th o rs , in c lu d in g th e w o r k s o f th e
H e r m e tic c o r p u s , in to L a tin s o a s to m a k e th e m a v a i l a b l e to w e s t e r n s c h o la r s .
A t tim e s , h is n a m e h a s b e e n a s s o c i a t e d w i t h s y m p a th e tic m a g ic . Y e t in th is
c a s e , a c c e s s to th e te r m a n d c o n c e p t d id n o t l e a d a u to m a tic a lly to th e ir u se .
F i c i n o s L a tin w r itin g s h a v e e n jo y e d g r e a te r a tte n tio n in r e c e n t d e c a d e s
th a n k s to n e w e d itio n s a n d tr a n s la tio n s . W h ile s c h o la r s a g r e e th a t F ic in o
d e v e l o p e d th e o r ie s o f m a g ic , th e y n o lo n g e r e m p h a s iz e th e te r m s y m p a th y in
d is c u s s in g h is w o r k o r th e o r ie s . F o r it w o u ld s e e m th a t w h ile F ic in o h a d th e
o p p o r tu n ity to e m p lo y a n d d e v e lo p th e o r ie s o f s y m p a th y in h is d is c u s s io n s o f
m a g ic a n d o th e r e ffe c ts a t a d is ta n c e , n o ta b ly d u e to h is f a m ilia r it y w ith
P lo tin u s , h e ch o se in s te a d d if f e r e n t e x p la n a to r y m o d e ls th a t w e r e m o re
c o n s is te n t w i t h h is th o u g h t a s a w h o le . H is c a s e is e s p e c i a l l y u s e fu l fo r
p r e s e n tin g s o m e o f th e a lte r n a tiv e s to s y m p a th y a s e x p la n a tio n s f o r th e k in d s o f
a c ti o n a t a d is ta n c e th a t w e r e o f in te r e s t in R e n a is s a n c e m a g ic .
F ic in o p u b lis h e d h is t r a n s la t io n o f P lo t in u s s E n n e a d s in 1 4 9 2 . T h e w o r d
s y m p a th ia a p p e a r e d f r e q u e n tly in P lo t in u s s w r itin g s ( o v e r th ir ty tim e s ) a n d it
fig u r e d im p o r ta n tly in h is a rg u m e n ts a t a n u m b e r o f p o in ts .3 Y e t F ic in o d id n o t
s in g le i t o u t in h is tr a n s la tio n . A s o n e m ig h t e x p e c t o f a R e n a is s a n c e s c h o la r,
h e a v o i d e d b o r r o w e d w o r d s a n d n e o lo g is m s in h is L a tin , s o h e d id n o t s im p ly
u s e s y m p a th ia w r itt e n in L a tin le tte r s . I n a n u m b e r o f in s ta n c e s h e u s e d th e
L a tin p a r a l l e l t e r m c o m p a ss io ,4 b u t h e w a s n o t e n tir e ly c o n s is te n t. S o m e tim e s
h e u s e d h a rm o n ia in s te a d , a n d o n o th e r o c c a s io n s th e te r m s im p ly d i s a p p e a r e d
in to a lo n g e r p h r a s e . T h e in c o n s is te n c y s u g g e s ts th a t h e w a s n o t p a r tic u la r ly
f o c u s in g o n s y m p a th y a s a c o n c e p t to h ig h lig h t in th e tr a n s la t e d te x t o r to
d e v e lo p e ls e w h e r e .
M o r e im p o r ta n t is th e e v id e n c e o f h is o w n w r itin g . T h e r e l e v a n t w o r k s a r e
th e Three B o o k s on L ife (D e tr ip lic i v ita ) a n d th e P la to n ic T h e o lo g y , a n d in
n e ith e r d o e s h e u s e th e t e r m s y m p a th y . A lth o u g h a d is lik e o f b o r r o w e d
w o r d s m ig h t o n c e a g a in a c c o u n t f o r its a b s e n c e , in f a c t c o m p a ss io s c a r c e l y
a p p e a r s e ith e r, a n d i t is n o t a n im p o r ta n t t e r m in e ith e r w o rk . F ic in o d e f in ite ly
b e l i e v e d in th e r e a l i t y o f f o r c e s a c tin g a t a d is ta n c e th a t w o u ld fa ll u n d e r a
g e n e r a l t e r m m a g ic , a n d h e d e v e l o p e d a rg u m e n ts to e x p la i n th a t a c tio n .
In flu e n tia , o r in flu e n c e , is o n e H e a ls o d i s c u s s e s p o w e r s o f a ttr a c tio n o n th e
b a s is o f s im ila r itie s o r c o r r e s p o n d e n c e s . H is n o tio n s o f b o th in flu e n c e a n d
a ttr a c tio n d e v e lo p f r o m h is a rg u m e n ts a b o u t e m a n a tio n s o f p o w e r f r o m th e
le v e l s th a t a r e h ig h e r a n d c l o s e r to th e d iv in e to th o s e th a t a r e l o w e r a n d
f a r th e r a w a y . T h a t is , th e o p e r a to r m a y in v o k e o r c a ll d o w n th e s e p o w e r s f r o m
h ig h e r le v e l s , f o c u s in g a n d m a g n ify in g th e m . O r th e o p e r a to r m a y s e e k o u t
p o in ts in w h ic h p a r tic u la r fe a tu r e s a r e m o re c o n c e n tr a te d ; f o r e x a m p le , to
in v o k e s o la r in flu e n c e , one m ig h t w e a r a r in g c o n ta in in g a s to n e th a t
c o n c e n tr a te s s o l a r p o w e r . N o r m a lly th e s e p o w e r s m o v e f r o m th e d iv in e c e n te r
d o w n w a r d ( o r o u tw a r d ) to th e p a r tic u la r a n d th e m a te r ia l; y e t h u m a n s m a y a ls o
r e a c h u p w a r d to in v o k e th e m . T h e o p e r a to r h a s th e c a p a c ity f o r le a r n in g a b o u t
s u c h p o w e r s a n d d e v e lo p i n g h is o r h e r v o l i t i o n in o r d e r to s tre n g th e n th is
p o w e r , in o r d e r to d r a w th e o p e r a to r b a c k t o w a r d th e d iv in e . T o im p r o v e th a t
a b ility in h i m s e l f a n d o th e rs w a s o n e o f F i c i n o s m a jo r g o a ls .
T h is la n g u a g e a p p e a r s th ro u g h o u t h is w o r k s . I n b o o k 3 o f D e tr ip lic i v ita
h e d is c u s s e s [ i] n w h a t, a c c o r d in g to P lo tin u s , th e P o w e r o f A ttr a c tin g F a v o r
f r o m th e h e a v e n s c o n s is ts . H e n o te s : B u t i f h e e m p lo y s th in g s w h ic h p e r ta in
to s u c h a n d s u c h a s ta r a n d d a e m o n , h e u n d e r g o e s th e p e c u l i a r in flu e n c e o f th is
s ta r a n d d a e m o n ... a n d h e u n d e r g o e s th is in flu e n c e n o t o n ly th ro u g h th e r a y s o f
th e s ta r a n d th e d a e m o n th e m s e lv e s , b u t a ls o th ro u g h th e v e r y S o u l o f th e W o r ld
e v e r y w h e r e p r e s e n t. 5 E l s e w h e r e h e n o te s th a t d o c to r s tr a in e d in a s tr o lo g y a r e
a b le to p r o d u c e p o w d e r s o r liq u id s w i t h m o re e f f ic a c y th a n im a g e s b e c a u s e
p o w d e r s , liq u id s , u n g u e n ts, a n d e le c tu a r ie s , m a d e a t th e rig h t tim e , r e c e iv e
c e le s tia l in flu e n c e s m o re e a s i l y a n d q u ic k ly . 6 In o th e r w o r k s h e u s e s g e n e r a l
te rm s s u c h a s a ttr a c tio n , a ffin ity , a n d l o v e to d e f in e m a g ic , in a m a n n e r
th a t r e c a l l s P lin y : th e w o r k o f m a g ic is th e a ttr a c tio n o f o n e th in g to a n o th e r
b y s o m e a ffin ity o f n a tu r e ... . [ F ] r o m th e s h a r e d a ffin ity a r i s e s a s h a r e d lo v e ,
a n d f r o m th is lo v e a c o m m o n a ttr a c tio n . 7 H a d h e c h o s e n to d o s o , h e m ig h t
h a v e d e v e l o p e d th is p o in t in to a m o re g e n e r a l th e o r y o f s y m p a th y ; s o m e
s u b s e q u e n t s c h o la r s d id so.
F ic in o b u i l t u p a c o m p le x m e d ic a l s y s te m b a s e d o n h u m o ra l p h y s io lo g y a n d
s p i r i t s , or v e ry a tte n u a te d s u b s ta n c e s , th a t o ff e r m a te r ia l, m e d ic a l
e x p la n a tio n s f o r th e w o r k in g s o f th e s e p o w e r s . F ic in o , th e n , h o p e s th a t h is
r e a d e r s w i l l le a r n to m a n ip u la te a n d c o n c e n tr a te th e s e in flu e n c e s to th e ir o w n
m e d ic a l b e n e f it, b u t m o re im p o rta n tly , f o r th e ir r e lig io u s a n d s p ir itu a l g ro w th .
T hese a rg u m e n ts have a n u m b e r o f p o in ts in c o m m o n w i t h th e o r ie s of
sy m p a th y , b u t a r e c o n s is te n tly a n d d is tin c tly d iffe re n t. A s C a r o l K a s k e h a s
n o te d , h is a rg u m e n ts a b o u t r a y s a n d th e in flu e n c e th e y w i e l d o w e a g r e a t d e a l
to a l - K i n d i s n in th - c e n tu ry w o r k D e r a d iis (O n R a y s) a s w e l l a s to th e
P ic a tr ix , a n d n o t s im p ly to P lo tin u s . B o th w o r k s h a d b e e n a v a i l a b l e s in c e th e
th ir te e n th c e n tu ry ; in flu e n c e e x p la in e d in te rm s o f r a y s h a d b e e n tr e a te d b y
s c h o la r s f r o m R o g e r B a c o n o n w a r d , p a r tic u la r ly in w o r k s o n a s tro lo g y . T h u s,
w h ile th e n e w a c c e s s to G r e e k s o u r c e s in c r e a s e d th e s e t o f to o ls F ic in o h a d a t
h is d is p o s a l f o r b u ild in g h is th e o r ie s , th e y d id n o t s im p ly d i s p l a c e o l d e r o n e s.
So to o F i c i n o s younger c o lle a g u e and f r ie n d G io v a n n i P ic o d e lla
M ir a n d o la ( 1 4 6 3 - 9 4 ) a d d e d th e s e a n d o th e r n e w s o u r c e s to h is p e r s o n a l
b i b lio g r a p h y w ith o u t a b a n d o n in g th o s e w o rk s lo n g a v a il a b le to w e s te r n
s c h o la r s . P ic o s e e m s to h a v e u s e d th e w o r d s y m p a th y o n ly o n c e , th o u g h in a
p a s s a g e th a t a ttr a c te d m o re th a n its s h a r e o f a tte n tio n in th e n in e te e n th a n d
tw e n tie th c e n tu r ie s . In th e in tr o d u c tio n to h is n in e h u n d r e d th e s e s th a t c a m e
( a l r e a d y in th e s ix te e n th c e n tu ry ) to b e k n o w n a s h is O ra tio n on th e D ig n ity o f
M a n , P ic o n o te s th a t s o m e o f th e s e th e s e s tr e a t th e s u b je c t o f m a g ic . H e
d is tin g u is h e s a n e v il ty p e f r o m a w o r th y o n e ; i t is th e s e c o n d ty p e , a n
in v e s tig a tio n o f th e d iv in e s e c r e ts o f n a tu re , th a t h e p r o p o s e s to d is c u s s :

The latter, in calling forth into the light as if from their hiding-places the powers scattered and sown
in the world by the loving-kindness of God, does not so much work wonders as diligently serve a
wonder-working nature. The latter, having more searchingly examined into the harmony of the
universe, which the Greeks with greater significance call ougnaGsia, and having clearly perceived
the reciprocal affinity of natures ... brings forth into the open the miracles concealed in the recesses
8
of the world.
T h e r e f e r e n c e i s b r i e f ; t h e s o u r c e s e e m s t o b e P l i n y 2 0 .1 r a t h e r t h a n P l o t i n u s ,
a s E u g e n io G a r in n o te d in h is m o d e r n e d it io n o f th e w o r k .9 P i c o w r i te s th e
w o r d i n G r e e k a n d d o e s n o t in c o r p o r a t e i t in to h is n o r m a l L a tin p r o s e . R e l a te d
w o rd s a ls o appear o n ly ra re ly in h is w ritin g s ; w h ile he uses th e w o rd
h a rm o n ia o n o c c a s i o n , o r c o n s e n su m a s i n t h i s i n s t a n c e , t h e s e d o n o t f i g u r e
la r g e in h is w r itin g s e ith e r. T e rm s r e l a t e d to lo v e a n d d e s ir e a r e m o r e f re q u e n t,
e s p e c i a l l y in th e C o m m e n ta ry o n a C a n zo n e o f B e n iv ie n i , n o t s u r p r i s i n g a s t h e
p o e m a n d c o m m e n ta ry b o th fo c u s o n lo v e .
P lo tin u s a n d P l in y w e r e n o t th e o n ly s o u r c e s a v a i l a b l e to P i c o o r F i c in o in
w h i c h th e w o r d s y m p a th y a p p e a r e d ; th e y h a d b o th C i c e r o a n d V itru v iu s a s
w e ll. P ic o used C i c e r o s D e d iv in a tio n e i n h i s t r e a t i s e a g a i n s t a s t r o l o g y ,
t h o u g h h e d i d n o t r e f e r s p e c i f i c a l l y t o t h e p a s s a g e o n s y m p a t h y .10 B o t h P i c o
a n d F i c i n o w e r e s u r e l y a w a r e o f V i t r u v i u s s t r e a t i s e ; P o g g i o B r a c c i o l i n i h a d
d is s e m in a te d th e te x t in F lo re n c e e a rlie r in th e c e n tu ry , and a rt and
a r c h ite c tu r a l th e o r y e n jo y e d a r e l a ti v e ly h ig h p r o f ile in th e l e a r n e d c u ltu r e o f
th e i r g e n e r a tio n . B o th F i c in o a n d P i c o w e r e v o r a c i o u s r e a d e r s , a n d P i c o in
p a r t i c u l a r w a s a b o o k lo v e r a n d c o lle c to r . N e ith e r , h o w e v e r , m e n tio n e d th e
t e x t o r V i t r u v i u s s u s e o f t h e t e r m . T h e f a c t t h a t P i c o u s e d t h e t e r m s y m p a th ia
a t a ll c e r ta in ly s u g g e s ts s o m e a m o u n t o f e n g a g e m e n t w i t h th e s u b je c t, a s f o r
F ic in o . Y e t to n e ith e r o f th e m d o e s it a p p e a r to h a v e b e e n a m a jo r in te r e s t o r a
c o n c e p t c e n tr a l to t h e i r th o u g h t s u c h th a t it r e q u i r e d c o m p a r is o n w i t h in f lu e n c e
o r o th e r s im i la r c o n c e p ts . N e i th e r a u th o r, i t w o u l d s e e m , c a n b e c r e d i t e d w ith
g iv in g th e t e r m s ig n if ic a n t p l a y a t th e e n d o f th e f if te e n th c e n tu ry , th o u g h th e y
h e lp e d in s p ire th o se w ho d id . P i c o s im p o rta n c e am ong la te r n in e te e n th -
c e n tu ry s c h o la r s f r o m W a lte r P a t e r o n w a r d ( 1 8 7 3 ) , a n d th e a v a i l a b i l i t y in
m o d e r n v e r n a c u la r s o f th e O ra tio n a l o n e a m o n g h i s w r i t i n g s , p r o b a b l y w e r e
fa c to rs m o re re le v a n t in id e n tify in g h im so s tro n g ly w ith s y m p a th e tic
m a g i c . 11
B o th F ic in o a n d P ic o e m p h a s iz e d th e s p ir itu a l q u e s t o f th e o p e r a t o r in th e ir
d is c u s s io n s o f m a g ic o r o f th e h a r n e s s in g o f h id d e n p o w e r s . T h e o p e r a to r
e x e r c is e s c h o ic e a n d v o l it io n to m o v e c lo s e r to G o d a n d th e d iv in e , a n d a w a y
f r o m th e e a r th ly a n d fin ite . T h e o r ie s o f in flu e n c e e m a n a tin g f r o m a b o v e w e r e
c o n s i s t e n t w i t h t h e s e g o a l s . C e r t a i n l y P l o t i n u s s t h e o r i e s o f s y m p a t h y c o u l d
a ls o b e m a d e c o n s is te n t w ith s u c h s p ir itu a l e n d s , s in c e P lo tin u s h im s e lf h a d
fo u n d th e m s o ; a n d F i c i n o s i n t e r e s t s e x t e n d e d i n t o t h e w o r l d o f e v e r y d a y
h e a lth in h is D e tr ip lic i v ita . N o n e t h e l e s s , i t f e l l t o H e i n r i c h C o r n e l i u s
A g r ip p a ( 1 4 8 6 - 1 5 3 5 ) to tr e a t th e u n s e e n c o n n e c tio n s b e tw e e n a n d a m o n g p a r ts
o f th e w o r l d in te r m s o f s y m p a th y in th e lig h t o f th e s e r e c e n tly a v a il a b l e
P la to n ic s o u r c e s a n d w i t h s u f f ic ie n t e m p h a s is to m o v e th e c o n c e p t c l o s e r to th e
c e n t e r o f a t t e n t i o n . A g r i p p a s m o r e s u s t a i n e d i n t e r e s t i n m a g i c o f f e r e d a l a r g e
c o n c e p tu a l s p a c e to d e v e l o p n o tio n s o f s y m p a th y . M a g ic i t s e l f r e m a in e d a
so m e w h a t e la s tic te rm th ro u g h o u t th e e ra b o th f o r its p ro p o n e n ts and its
d e tr a c to r s . I t r e f e r r e d in g e n e ra l to te c h n iq u e s in te n d e d to c a u s e a c tio n o v e r a
d is ta n c e b y m e a n s o f u n s e e n fo rc e s. S u c h a c tio n n e e d n o t re q u ire a s s is ta n c e o f
a c o n s c io u s , n o n p h y s ic a l b e in g ; a u th o rs m ig h t r e f e r to such in s ta n c e s of
h a r n e s s in g u n s e e n b u t n a tu ra l p o w e r s a s n a tu ra l m a g ic .
A g r ip p a to o k a p a r tic u la r in te r e s t in th e s e h id d e n o r u n s e e n p o w e r s . H is
e n g a g e m e n t w i t h th e s u b je c t s e e m s to h a v e b e g u n a lr e a d y in h is s tu d e n t y e a r s ;
h is u n iv e r s ity s tu d ie s b e g a n a t C o lo g n e in 1 4 9 9 a n d c o n tin u e d in P a r is c ir c a
1 5 0 7 . M a n y o f h is t r a v e ls d u r in g th e s e y e a r s a r e p o o r l y d o c u m e n te d , b u t i t is
c le a r th a t h e c o m p le te d h is f ir s t v e r s io n o f h is w o r k o n m a g ic e a r ly in 1 5 1 0 ,
d e d ic a tin g i t to th e m o n k J o h a n n e s T rith e m iu s . A g r i p p a m a in ta in e d h is in te r e s ts
i n P l a t o n i c t h o u g h t a n d m a g i c d u r i n g a n e x t e n d e d r e s i d e n c e i n I ta l y , 1 5 1 1 - 1 7 ;
in a d d itio n to th e im p e r ia l s e r v ic e th a t s e e m s to h a v e ta k e n h im th e r e , h e
l e c tu r e d a t P a v i a o n th e P im a n d e r i n 1 5 1 5 . 12 H i s p e r i p a t e t i c c a r e e r b r o u g h t
h i m b a c k t o C o l o g n e a t t h e t i m e o f t h e w o r k s p u b l i c a t i o n . B o o k 1 f i n a l l y
a p p e are d in p rin t in 1531 (P a ris ); a fte r he had som e d iffic u ltie s w ith
D o m in ic a n in q u is ito r s , th e fu ll v e r s i o n w a s f in a lly p u b l is h e d i n C o lo g n e in
1 5 3 3 . 13
T h e w o r k d i s p l a y s A g r i p p a s a d m i r a t i o n f o r t h e w o r k o f b o t h F i c i n o a n d
P ic o . H is c o n tin u e d r e a d in g a n d s tu d y a f te r c o m p o s in g its f ir s t v e r s i o n c a n b e
s e e n in th e r e f e r e n c e s to F r a n c e s c o Z o r z i, P a o lo R i c c i, L u d o v ic o L a z z a r e lli,
and o th e rs w ith w h o m he s p e n t tim e in Ita ly o r w h o s e o w n w o rk s w e re
p r o d u c e d a fte r 1 5 1 0 . T h e D e o c c u lta p h ilo s o p h ia i s r e m i n i s c e n t o f F i c i n o s
D e tr ip lic i v ita i n i ts b r e a d t h , m o v i n g f r o m p h y s i c a l t o p i c s t o s p i r i t u a l . I ts
e m p h a s i s o n m a g i c i s l e n g t h i e r a n d m o r e e x p l i c i t t h a n F i c i n o s w o r k . H i s
d is c u s s io n o f c a u s a tio n c o m b in e s th e d is c u s s io n s o f r a y s a n d in flu e n c e u s e d b y
F ic in o , in w h i c h th e f o r c e s f l o w f r o m th e h ig h e r p o w e r s d o w n w a r d , w i t h th e
n o tio n s o f s y m p a th y p r e s e n te d b y P lin y a n d P lo tin u s , a c c o r d in g to w h i c h th e
c o n n e c tio n s a re m o re m u ltid ire c tio n a l. T h e fo rm e r r e la te m o re to c e le s tia l
p o w e r , t h e l a t t e r t o t h e e a r t h l y l e v e l . 14
a m ic itia f o r t h i s r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n e n t i t i e s ; i ts
A g r i p p a u s e s P l i n y s t e r m
o p p o s i t e i s in a m ic itia o r o d iu m . H e d e v o t e s s e v e r a l c h a p t e r s o f b o o k 1 t o t h e
s u b je c t, b e g in n in g w i t h a p a s s a g e c l e a r l y b a s e d o n P lin y : N o w i t s h o u ld b e
c o n s id e r e d h o w a ll th in g s h a v e a m o n g th e m f r ie n d s h ip a n d en m ity , a n d e a c h
th in g has s o m e th in g it c o n s id e r s fe a rso m e and d r e a d f u l, in im ic a l and
d e s tr u c tiv e ; a n d o n th e c o n tra ry , s o m e th in g e n jo y a b le , p le a s u r a b le , a n d h e lp fu l.
S o a m o n g th e e le m e n ts f ir e is s e t a g a in s t w a te r a n d a i r a g a in s t e a rth , y e t th e y
g e t a lo n g th e m s e lv e s . 15 H e c o n tin u e s to d e v e lo p th e s e th e m e s , tu rn in g to
p a r tic u la r c a s e s a s h e m o v e s th ro u g h th e to p ic s o f b o o k 1. S o m e o f th e s e
r e la tio n s h ip s b e tw e e n th in g s a r e b a s e d o n th e w h o le o f th e e n tity in q u e s tio n ,
o th e rs o n a p a rt. S o m e m a y p e r s i s t a f te r th e d e a th o f a liv in g o b je c t, o th e rs n o t.
Som e a re caused by c e le s tia l in flu e n c e s . A lth o u g h th e causes o f som e
c o n n e c tio n s a r e a p p a r e n t to th e o b s e r v e r , m a n y a r e k n o w n o n ly b y e x p e r ie n c e .
A g r i p p a s s o u r c e s in c lu d e n o t o n ly P lin y b u t F ic in o , Z o r z i, th e A lb e r tin e a n d
p s e u d o - A l b e r t in e te x ts , a n d a ra n g e o f o th e r s o u r c e s . B ook 2 d e v e lo p s
m a th e m a tic a l a n d a s tr o lo g ic a l p r in c ip le s ; b o o k 3 tu rn s to th e s tu d y o f th e
d iv in e . V P e r r o n e C o m p a g n i, th e w o r k s m o d e r n e d ito r , h a s a r g u e d th a t w h ile
A g r i p p a s c u ltu ra l e n v ir o n m e n t c h a n g e d o v e r th e m a n y y e a r s in w h ic h h e
c o n tin u e d to w o r k o n th e b o o k , h is o w n g o a ls r e m a in e d r e a s o n a b ly c o n s is te n t.
H e so u g h t to r e f o u n d m a g ic a l s tu d ie s o n s u re a n d a n c ie n t p r in c ip le s , a n d h e
c o m b in e d th e o r ie s o f in flu e n c e a n d s y m p a th y in to a r e a s o n a b ly c o n s is te n t
a rg u m e n t to s u p p o r t th e p r a c tic a l in f o r m a tio n o f h is s o u r c e s a n d e x p e r ie n c e .
The te x t o f P lin y th a t A g r ip p a had at h is d is p o s a l had im p r o v e d
c o n s id e r a b ly o v e r s e v e r a l d e c a d e s o f h u m a n is tic e d ito r ia l a tte n tio n . B y th e
tim e o f h is f i r s t d ra ft, th e a v a i l a b l e te x t w a s b e tte r s till. N e w e d itio n s
c o n tin u e d to a p p e a r o v e r s e v e r a l d e c a d e s . T h e N a tu r a l H is to r y h a d e n jo y e d
e a r l y p r in t c ir c u la t io n th a t b e g a n in 1 4 6 9 a n d c o n tin u e d w i t h f if te e n in c u n a b u la
e d itio n s . T h e c o m m e n ta r y a n d c r itic a l tr a d i t i o n b e g a n a t th is p o in t; i t r e s u lte d
l a r g e l y f r o m th e p r o b le m s e n c o u n te r e d b y th e h u m a n is ts c h a r g e d w ith e d itin g
th e te x t.16 E r m o la o B a r b a r o , F i l i p p o B e r o a ld o S e n io r, S a b e llic u s , N i c c o l o
L e o n ic e n o , a n d A n g e lo P o liz ia n o a ll w e ig h e d in w i t h e d itio n s , e m e n d a tio n s , o r
c r itic is m s o f th e w o r k o f th e ir c o lle a g u e s ; in d e e d , th e s tre n u o u s d is a g r e e m e n t
b e tw e e n L e o n ic e n o a n d P o liz ia n o la u n c h e d a s ig n if ic a n t d e b a te a b o u t th e
u s e f u ln e s s o f P lin y a n d th e c o r r e c tio n s o f th e te x t.17 U n iv e r s ity le c tu r e s b e g a n
to in c lu d e th e w o r k , a n d th e e d ito r ia l is s u e s in v o lv e d in ju s tif y in g te x tu a l
v a r ia n ts , e m p ir ic a l e x p e r ie n c e r e la tin g to c o n te n t, and s im ila r to p ic s
c o n tr ib u te d to its r e c u r r in g in te re s t. D e s id e r iu s E r a s m u s p r o d u c e d a n e d itio n ,
w i t h F r o b e n in 1 5 2 5 .18 H is f r ie n d a n d y o u n g e r c o lle a g u e B e a tu s R h e n a n u s
p r o d u c e d a s e t o f A n n o ta tio n e s to th e N a tu r a l H is to r y ( 1 5 2 6 ) th a t p r e s e n te d
b o th c o r r e c tio n s a n d h is b e s t th o u g h ts o n th e m e th o d s o f e d itin g c l a s s i c a l
te x ts .19 B y th e m id d le decades o f th e c e n tu ry , th is new and im p r o v e d
R e n a is s a n c e P lin y w a s a ttr a c tin g c o n s id e r a b ly m o re a tte n tio n a m o n g m e d ic a l
s c h o la r s , a s w e l l a s o th e r p e r s o n s o f le a r n in g , th a n th e w o r k h a d e n jo y e d a
c e n tu r y e a r lie r .
T h e N a tu r a l H is to r y 's g r e a t le n g th a n d th e v a s t n u m b e r o f to p ic s c o v e r e d
m e a n t th a t s y m p a th y w a s o n ly o n e is s u e a m o n g m a n y th a t m ig h t d r a w th e
a tte n tio n o f r e a d e r s .20 N o n e th e le s s , E rasm u s h im s e lf p ro d u c e d an e a r ly
e x a m p le o f in te r e s t in P lin y a n d s y m p a th y in h is C o llo q u ie s. T h e s e c o lle c tio n s
o f s h o r t d ia lo g u e s , w r i t t e n a s e x e r c is e s in L a tin r e a d in g , e n jo y e d g re a t
p o p u la r ity a n d w e n t th ro u g h m a n y e d itio n s . I n D e a m ic itia , w r itt e n in th e
e a r l y 1 5 3 0 s , th e in te r lo c u to r s d is c u s s th e a ttr a c tio n s a n d d is lik e s o n e p e r s o n
h a s f o r a n o th e r. O n e o f th e m r e la te s a n a n e c d o te a b o u t T h o m a s M o r e s p e t
m o n k e y , w h o s a v e d th e f a m ily s r a b b its w h e n it s a w a w e a s e l tr y to in v a d e
th e ir h u tch . D is c u s s i o n th e n tu rn s to th e w a y s in w h ic h a n im a ls a n d o b je c ts a ll
e x h ib it in n a te a ttr a c tio n s o r r e p u ls io n s , w i t h a lo n g l i s t o f s p e c if ic e x a m p le s
ta k e n l a r g e ly f r o m P lin y . T h e s p e a k e r s n o te th e te rm s f o r s u c h a ttr a c tio n s : th is
ty p e o f s y m p a th y a n d a n tip a th y f o r s o G r e e k s c a ll th e n a tu ra l fe e lin g s o f
f r ie n d s h ip a n d h o s tility is fo u n d e v e n in th in g s la c k in g s o u l o r s e n s e . 21 T h e
little d ia lo g u e e n d s b y e n jo in in g a ll to f o ll o w th e ir n a tu ra l p r o p e n s itie s to
f r ie n d s h ip s a s to w a y s o f lif e in g e n e r a l; in th a t w a y th e r e w o u ld b e g e n u in e
f r ie n d s h ip s in s o c ie ty .
T h a t E r a s m u s w o u ld tu r n h is e d ito r ia l w o r k o n P lin y to a d v a n ta g e i n
a n o th e r p ro je c t is h a r d ly s u r p r is in g . Y e t g iv e n A g r i p p a s c o n te m p o r a r y
a s s o c i a t i o n o f s y m p a th y w i t h la te - a n tiq u e P la to n ic th o u g h t a n d th e o r ie s o f
m a g ic , E r a s m u s s a p p r o a c h s ta n d s o u t a s d is tin c tly d iff e r e n t. H e h a s ta k e n h is
r e a d in g o f P lin y in th e d i r e c t i o n o f S to ic m o r a l p h ilo s o p h y , a n d in s o d o in g h a s
r e tu r n e d th e t e r m s y m p a th y to s o m e o f its e a r l i e r G r e e k c o n te x ts .22 T h e
c o llo q u y h o p e s to in s p ir e th e r e a d e r to liv e m o re a c c o r d in g to n a tu re ; i t w a s
a im e d n o t a t p h ilo s o p h e r s b u t g e n e r a l r e a d e r s . T h e g r e a t p o p u la r ity a n d
fr e q u e n t r e p r in tin g o f th e C o llo q u ie s, a s w e l l a s th e ir a p p e a r a n c e in v e r n a c u la r
tr a n s la tio n s , h e lp e d g iv e b o th te rm s a n d c o n c e p ts m u c h w i d e r c ir c u la t io n i n
th is le s s te c h n ic a l, m o re c o n v e r s a tio n a l u s a g e , th o u g h o n e b a s e d n o n e th e le s s
o n G r e e k tr a d itio n s .
J u s t o v e r a d e c a d e la te r th e r e a p p e a r e d in p r in t th e f i r s t w o r k d e v o te d
e x p l i c i t l y t o t h e s u b j e c t o f s y m p a t h y a n d a n ti p a th y . I t a d d e d a s i g n i f i c a n t l y
d if f e r e n t s e t o f s o u r c e s a n d c o n te x ts to th e R e n a is s a n c e c o n c e p t. G ir o la m o
F r a c a s t o r o ( 1 4 7 8 - 1 5 5 3 ) b r o u g h t b a c k th e m e d ic a l u s e s o f th e te r m , a n d in
d o in g s o d e v e lo p e d a m o re g e n e ra l, a to m is t th e o r y o f n a tu re a s w e ll a s a
th e o ry o f d is e a s e . A s tu d e n t a t P a d u a o f P ie tr o P o m p o n a z z i , F r a c a s t o r o s
d is tin g u is h e d c a r e e r in c lu d e d s e r v in g a s p h y s ic ia n a t th e C o u n c il o f T r e n t a n d
a u th o rin g a n e p ic p o e m o n s y p h ilis . F r a c a s to r o p u b lis h e d h is D e s y m p a th ia e t
a n tip a th ia reru m t o g e t h e r w i t h a w o r k o n c o n t a g i o n a n d c o n t a g i o u s d i s e a s e . 23
I n th e d e d ic a ti o n to C a r d in a l A l e s s a n d r o F a r n e s e , F r a c a s t o r o e m p h a s iz e s th e
l a t t e r . T h e w o r k o n s y m p a t h y i s a n e c e s s a r y p r e r e q u i s i t e t o it: t o i t I h a v e
a d d e d a little w o r k o n a s u b je c t th e l a c k o f w h i c h is n o l e s s p r e s s in g , o n th e
a c c o r d a n d d i s a c c o r d o f th in g s , o t h e r w i s e d e f in e d s y m p a th y a n d a n tip a th y ,
w ith o u t w h ic h I d o n o t s e e h o w o n e c o u ld c o n d u c t p r o p e r s tu d y a n d p r e s e n t a n
o r d e r l y e x p o s i t i o n o n t h e n a t u r e o f c o n t a g i o n . 24 H e b e g i n s t h e l i t t l e b o o k
w ith a l i s t o f s y m p a th ie s and a n tip a th ie s fro m P lin y . He a ls o e c h o e s th e
la n g u a g e o f th e m e d ie v a l handbook a ttrib u te d to A lb e rtu s M ag n u s, De
m ir a b ilib u s m u n d i (The M a r v e ls o f th e W orld) , i n p r i n t s i n c e 1472, in
r e f e r r i n g to th e p h e n o m e n a a s m a r v e lo u s . A m o n g th e s e p h e n o m e n a , h e n o te s , is
th e n a tu re o f c o n ta g io n . The next s te p in h is a rg u m e n t re c a lls th e De
m ir a b ilib u s m u n d i i n a s s e r t i n g t h a t i n t h e p h y s i c a l w o r l d , l i k e f a v o r s l i k e ;
heavy o b je c ts a ll te n d to fa ll, lig h t o n e s to ris e . B u t F ra c a s to ro m oves
im m e d ia te ly in to g r e a te r d e ta il a n d d e p th th a n th e m e d ie v a l h a n d b o o k s , w ith
th e ir e m p h a s is o n th e p r a c tic a l. T h e c a u s e o f th e s e te n d e n c ie s th a t p e r ta in to
h e a v y o r lig h t o b je c ts is th e end o f a v o id in g a v a c u u m . O b je c ts te n d to
c o n s e r v e th e m s e lv e s a n d to p l a c e th e m s e lv e s in th e n a tu ra l lo c a tio n s o f th e
e le m e n ts o f w h i c h th e y a r e c o m p o s e d . T h e r e is , fu rth e r, a n a c c o r d b e tw e e n th e
p a r ts a n d th e w h o le o f a b o d y s u c h th a t i f o n e p a r t is s tr u c k F r a c a s to r o u s e s
s o u n d p r o d u c tio n in th e a i r a s a n e x a m p le th e d e n s ity ( a q u a lity o f th e b o d y )
w ill a lte r th ro u g h o u t th a t b o d y , a s th e w a v e lik e m o tio n o f a s o u n d m o v e s
t h r o u g h t h e a ir . H e b u i l d s t h e s e f e a t u r e s i n t o h i s e x p l a n a t i o n s o f m o t i o n , a n d o f
th e a lte r a tio n s in q u a lity th a t b o d ie s m a y u n d e rg o .
T h e a ttr a c tio n o f o n e b o d y f o r a n o th e r, a s f o r e x a m p le a m a g n e t, c a ll s f o r a
m o re c o m p le x e x p la n a tio n . A c tio n re q u ire s c o n ta c t, and yet in itia lly th e
o b je c ts a r e n o t in c o n ta c t. I n o r d e r to id e n tif y th e n e c e s s a r y c o n ta c t, F r a c a s t o r o
in v o k e s th e n o tio n o f a to m s o r p a r t i c l e s , a c o n c e p t a d v a n c e d b y D e m o c r itu s ,
E p ic u r u s , a n d L u c re tiu s . T h o u g h th e s e a u th o rs h a d b e e n i n c o r r e c t in th e d e ta ils
a n d h a d b e e n a tta c k e d b y G a le n a n d A le x a n d e r o f A p h r o d is ia s , h e n o te s , th e ir
b a s i c id e a w a s c o r r e c t .25 O b je c ts , c o m p o s e d a s th e y a r e o f a to m s , g iv e o ff
e f f lu v ia c o m p o s e d o f a to m s . I t is th e s e a to m s , h a v in g d r if te d a w a y f r o m th e ir
m a in b o d y , th a t e n c o u n te r o th e r a to m s in th e a ir ; j u s t a s th e y a r e a ttr a c te d to o r
r e p e l l e d b y th e s e o th e r a to m s , s o th e y e ith e r d r a w o r r e p e l th e o b j e c t o f w h ic h
th e y a r e a p a r t in r e l a t i o n to th e o th e r o b j e c t in q u e s tio n . N o t o n ly e le m e n ts
have e fflu v ia ; so to o do q u a litie s . Q u a litie s have a p a r tic u la r p h y s ic a l
e x is te n c e a s s p ir itu s , a n d th a t s p ir itu s c a n a ls o m o v e th ro u g h th e a i r ( w h ic h
c o n d e n s e s a n d r a r e f ie s a g a in a s o b je c ts m o v e th ro u g h it). F r a c a s to r o w o r k s o u t
th is d is c u s s io n in m o re d e ta il, a n d th e n u s e s it to d e v e lo p h is th e o r ie s o f
c o n ta g io n in th e s u b s e q u e n t b o o k o n d is e a s e . S u c h n a tu ra l m o v e m e n ts o f
a ttr a c tio n and r e p u ls io n , a c c o m p a n ie d by th e o r ie s of p e rc e p tio n and
im a g in a tio n , a ls o e x p la i n e m o tio n a l re sp o n se s in h u m a n s. A p p e tite , fo r
e x a m p le , o c c u r s w h e n th e a n im a p e r c e i v e s a g o o d b u t d o e s n o t p o s s e s s it; th e
h e a r t a c c o r d in g ly e x p a n d s s o th a t th e g o o d m a y b e u s e d in a ll r e l e v a n t p a rts .
I n th is little w o r k , th e n , F r a c a s to r o a r tic u la te s a g e n e r a l th e o r y o f n a tu re th a t
e x p la in s th e b e h a v io r o f in a n im a te o b je c ts a s w e l l a s h u m a n r e s p o n s e s ,
in c lu d in g e m o tio n s , in e n tir e ly m a te r ia l te rm s . T h a t a l l o w s h im in tu r n to
d is c u s s h is th e o r ie s a b o u t c o n ta g io u s d i s e a s e s in th e w o r k th a t f o llo w s . In th e
p r o c e s s , h e h a s ta k e n u p th e G r e e k te rm s s y m p a th y a n d a n tip a th y , w o r d s
k n o w n to R e n a is s a n c e w r i t e r s a t th is p o in t b u t s till in r e s t r i c t e d u s e , a n d g iv e n
th e m a r e l a t i v e l y p r e c i s e , s c ie n tif ic d e fin itio n . T h e m e c h a n is m s o f s y m p a th e tic
a n d a n tip a th e tic m o tio n a n d a ttr a c tio n a r e n o t v i s i b l e a n d h e n c e m a y a p p e a r to
th e c a s u a l o b s e r v e r to b e m y s te rio u s p o w e r s , b u t in f a c t th e y c a n b e e x p la in e d
e n tir e ly in p h y s ic a l a n d m a te r ia l te rm s u s in g c u r r e n t p r in c ip le s o f n a tu ra l
p h ilo s o p h y in th e A r i s t o t e l i a n tr a d itio n .
F r a c a s to r o h a d a n u m b e r o f s o u r c e s w i t h w h ic h to w o r k th a t e m p lo y e d th e
te rm s h e u s e d , th o u g h h e p r e f e r r e d in th is tr e a tis e s im p ly to p r e s e n t h is o w n
a rg u m e n t w ith o u t d is c u s s in g e x p lic itly h is p o in ts o f s im ila r ity o r d if f e r e n c e
w i t h o th e r a u th o rs . C le a r ly , th e lo n g - a c c e s s ib le P lin y w a s o n e s o u rc e . S o w e r e
th e A lb e r tin e b o o k s o f s e c r e ts , th o u g h s o m e o f th e m u s e d a m ic itia , a te rm
F r a c a s to r o a v o id e d . H e h a d a c c e s s to b o th th e w r itin g s a n d th e tr a n s la tio n s o f
F ic in o , in c lu d in g P lo tin u s , a s w e ll a s A g r i p p a s te x t.26 A s a p h y s ic i a n tr a in e d
a t s ix te e n th - c e n tu ry I ta lia n u n iv e r s itie s , h e w a s f a m ilia r w i t h a s ig n if ic a n t a n d
g r o w in g b o d y o f G r e e k a u th o rs in m e d ic in e a n d n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h y . A m o n g
th e m w e r e se v e ra l w h o h a d w r i t t e n o n s y m p a th y in a m e d ic a l c o n te x t,
in c lu d in g G a le n .27 A lth o u g h m a n y G a le n ic te x ts h a d lo n g b e e n a v a i l a b l e in
L a tin th a n k s to m e d ie v a l tr a n s la tio n s , o th e rs h a d a p p e a r e d o n ly r e c e n tly
th ro u g h th e e ffo rts o f T h o m a s L in a c r e a n d o th e r s , a n d th e y w e r e h a v in g a n
e n o r m o u s i m p a c t o n m e d i c a l e d u c a t i o n . 28 F r a c a s t o r o a l s o h a d A l e x a n d e r o f
A p h r o d i s i a s s c o m m e n t a r i e s o n A r i s t o t l e ; i n d e e d , h e c i t e d b o t h G a l e n a n d
A l e x a n d e r e a r l y o n a s c r i t i c s o f t h e t h e o r y o f a t o m s . 29 S o m e o f A l e x a n d e r s
w o r k s h a d b e e n p u b lis h e d in V e n ic e in 1 4 9 5 - 9 8 , a n d th e D e fa t o a s w e l l a s th e
D e a n im a ( w h i c h u s e s t h e t e r m s y m p a t h y ) a p p e a r e d i n 1 5 3 4 . F r a c a s t o r o s
p r o f e s s o r , P o m p o n a z z i, w a s a n o te d p r o p o n e n t o f A le x a n d e r . F r a c a s t o r o , th e n ,
w a s v e r y m u c h a p a r tic ip a n t in w h a t is o f te n c a ll e d th e m e d ic a l R e n a is s a n c e o r
m e d ic a l h u m a n is t s c h o la r s h ip , r e c o v e r in g p r e v i o u s ly in a c c e s s i b le a n c ie n t te x ts
a n d w o r k in g to a p p ly th e m in th e m o d e r n w o r ld .
F r a c a s t o r o s w o rk fo u n d rea d e rs a c ro ss E u ro p e fo r over a c e n tu r y .
C o n c e tta P e n n u to , w h o h a s p r o d u c e d a c r i t ic a l e d it io n a n d tr a n s la t io n o f th e
tre a tis e , id e n tifie d a to ta l of tw e n ty -o n e e d itio n s , m o st w ith s u rv iv in g
e x e m p la r s , t w e lv e o f w h i c h s h e w a s a b le to e x a m in e a n d d e s c r ib e . E ith e r th e y
c o m b in e D e s y m p a th ia e t a n tip a th ia re ru m w i t h D e c o n ta g io n e , o r t h e y a r e
r e p r i n t i n g s o f h i s O p era o m n ia . T h i r t e e n e d i t i o n s a p p e a r e d b e f o r e 1 6 0 0 ; t h e
la s t w a s in 1 6 7 1 , in a G e n e v a O p e ra o m n i a 30 H i s t h e o r i e s o f c o n t a g i o n f o u n d
w i d e s p r e a d i n t e r e s t a n d d e b a t e t h r o u g h o u t t h o s e y e a r s . 31
The p h y s ic ia n know n as P a ra c e ls u s (P h ilip p u s A u re o lu s T h e o p h ra s tu s
B o m b a s tu s v o n H o h e n h e im , 1 4 9 3 - 1 5 4 1 ) a n d h is f o llo w e r s p u r s u e d a d iffe re n t
p a th to n e w m e d ic in e th a t n o n e th e le s s a ls o r e l i e d o n s y m p a th y a s a c o n c e p t.
P a r a c e ls u s w a s a u n iv e r s ity - e d u c a te d s o n o f a p h y s ic ia n , a n d a ls o g r e w u p
w ith m in in g e x p e r ie n c e . H e b e c a m e c o n v in c e d th a t tr a d itio n a l d e s c r ip tio n s o f
th e c o m p o s itio n o f p h y s ic a l c o m p o u n d s , th a t is , c h e m is try , w e r e d e f ic ie n t, a s
w e r e th e G a le n ic p r in c i p le s th a t u n d e r la y m e d ic in e . H e tu r n e d in s te a d to th e
c o s m o lo g ic a l a rg u m e n ts o f P la to n is ts . T h e s ta r s w e r e c e r ta in ; e a r th ly c r e a tio n ,
h a v in g e m a n a te d f r o m th e c e le s ti a l, c a r r i e d th e s ig n s o f th e c o n n e c tio n s th a t
lin k e d p a r ts o f th e w o r l d to g e th e r. A c a r e f u l o b s e r v e r c o u ld le a r n to s e e th e s e
s ig n s ; o th e r o b s e r v e r s m ig h t a ls o p a s s o n in f o r m a tio n a b o u t th e m , o b s e r v e r s
w h o m a y w e l l n o t h a v e b e e n m e n o f l e a r n in g o r o f a n tiq u ity , b u t e v e r y d a y
p e o p l e p a s t o r p r e s e n t . 32 P a r a c e l s u s a d v o c a t e d n o t o n l y t h e c a r e f u l s t u d y o f
n a t u r e b u t a l s o t h o u g h tf u l a t t e n t i o n t o t r a d e a n d c r a f t p r a c t i c e s a n d e v e n t o
p o p u la r b e lie f s a s s o u r c e s o f in fo rm a tio n .
A s tro n g ly s p iritu a l and r e lig io u s s e n s ib ility c o lo re d th e th o u g h t of
P a ra c e ls u s and m a n y P a r a c e l s i a n s . 33 F o r m a n y , t h e re je c tio n o f s ta n d a rd ,
c la s s ic a l m e d ic a l a u th o ritie s such as G a le n ra n p a ra lle l w ith a d e s ire to
u n d e r s ta n d d iv in e w i l l v i a b i b l i c a l r e v e la tio n ; c o n v e r s e ly , th e a b ility to r e a d a
s im ila r r e v e l a t i o n in th e b o o k o f n a tu re g a v e a r e lig io u s g r a v ity to th e s tu d y o f
m e d ic in e . A l l e n D e b u s h a s th u s a s s o c i a t e d m a n y f o ll o w e r s o f P a r a c e ls u s w ith
r e lig io u s d is s e n t a n d P r o te s ta n t th o u g h t in th e r e lig io u s R e f o rm a tio n . A lth o u g h
th e s e p h y s ic ia n s d is a g r e e d o fte n a n d s tr e n u o u s ly w i t h th e ir p r e d e c e s s o r s a n d
w i t h o n e a n o th e r, th e y a g r e e d w i t h A g r ip p a th a t th e o r ie s o f d iv in e a n d c e le s tia l
e m a n a tio n c o u ld b e c o n s is te n t w i t h th e o r ie s o f s y m p a th e tic c o n n e c tio n i n th e
s u b lu n a r y re a lm . T h o s e c o n n e c tio n s le f t s ig n s o f th e ir p r e s e n c e th a t c o u ld b e
r e a d b y th e o p e r a to r s o th a t th e c o n n e c tio n s c o u ld b e m a r s h a le d to th e ta s k s
d e s ir e d , such as c u r in g d is e a s e . D e b a te s over P a ra c e ls ia n a p p ro a c h e s
d e v e l o p e d in th e s e c o n d h a l f o f th e c e n tu r y w i t h w r itin g s b y P e te r S e v e rin u s ,
J o s e p h D u c h e s n e , a n d o th e r s .34
T h u s b y th e m id d le o f th e s ix te e n th c e n tu ry , th e t e r m s y m p a th ia its e lf , a s
a lo n g w i t h th e s p e c i a l i z e d u s a g e o f r e l a t e d L a tin w o r d s s u c h a s a m ic itia , h a d
b e e n w e l l in tr o d u c e d to L a tin w r itin g ; i t a p p e a r e d in s e v e r a l c o n te x ts . O n e w a s
L a te - P la to n ic in p h ilo s o p h ic a l o u tlo o k a n d f o c u s e d o n m a g ic , th o u g h n o t a ll
w r itin g s o n m a g ic i n P la to n ic le a r n e d tr a d itio n s e m p lo y e d th e c o n c e p t. T h e
P a r a c e ls ia n s m ig h t b e in c lu d e d h e re . A n o th e r w a s m e d ic a l a n d d e c id e d ly
m a te r ia lis t, w i t h r o o ts in G a le n a n d o th e rs ; F r a c a s to r o w o u ld b e th e m o s t n o te d
e x a m p le . A th ir d m ig h t b e r e f e r r e d to a s th e b o o k o f s e c r e ts tr a d i t i o n th a t
a r o s e a s p a r t o f th e u s e o f P lin y ; th is tr a d i t i o n w a s d e l i b e r a t e l y p r a c tic a l a n d
o f te n a v o id e d any a tte m p t at e x p la in in g th e phenom ena it d e s c r ib e d ,
e m p h a s iz in g in s te a d th e v a lu e o f o b s e rv a tio n and e x p e r ie n c e . A fo u r th
e m p lo y e d th e t e r m a s p a r t o f a S to ic a p p r o a c h to m o r a l p h ilo s o p h y . A ll th e s e
u s e s w o u ld c o n tin u e f o r a n o th e r c e n tu ry , th o u g h th e s e c a te g o r ie s o v e r l a p p e d
f r e q u e n tly in c o m b in a tio n s th a t v a r i e d f r o m o n e s c h o la r to a n o th e r.
N o n e th e le s s , th e y d id s h a r e s o m e g e n e r a l fe a tu re s . M o s t o f th e s e w r ite r s
c o n tin u e d to a d d r e s s a le a r n e d r e a d e r s h ip a n d g e n e r a lly w r o te i n L a tin , th o u g h
in c r e a s in g ly a t l e a s t s o m e o f th e s e w o r k s a c q u ir e d v e r n a c u la r tr a n s la tio n s .
D e s p ite th is a u d ie n c e , th e a u th o rs a n d th e ir te x ts w e r e n o t n e c e s s a r i l y fu lly
s itu a te d in u n iv e r s ity c u ltu re . M a n y a u th o rs w e r e p r a c tic i n g p h y s ic ia n s r a th e r
th a n p r o f e s s o r s . P a r a c e ls ia n s o f te n s e t th e m s e lv e s r h e to r ic a lly a s w e l l a s
p r o f e s s i o n a lly a g a in s t th e m a in s tr e a m o f G a le n ic m e d ic in e . S y m p a th y s e r v e d
m o s t o f th e w r i t e r s a s a n e x p la n a to r y la b e l f o r p h e n o m e n a th a t a ttr a c te d th e ir
a tte n tio n f o r w h ic h th e y fo u n d o n ly in a d e q u a te e x p la n a tio n s i n m o re s ta n d a r d
a c c o u n ts o f n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h y . Y e t th e y d if f e r e d g r e a tly in w h a t o n e m ig h t c a ll
th e th e o r e tic a l s ta n d in g o f s y m p a th y in th e ir w o rk . F o r F r a c a s to r o , s y m p a th y
w as a te rm th a t d e n o te d a phenom enon w hose cau se w as n o t in tu itiv e ly
o b v io u s , b u t w h ic h h e u n d e r s to o d a n d u n d e r to o k to e x p la in to h is r e a d e r s . T h e
c o n c e p t w a s e s s e n tia l to h is th e o r y o f c o n ta g io n . F o r o th e r s , s y m p a th y s e r v e d
m o re as a p la c e h o ld e r, s o m e th in g of a w ay s ta tio n on th e ro a d to an
e x p la n a tio n . T hey w e re o b lig e d to s to p th e re because th e lim its o f th e ir
k n o w le d g e a l l o w e d th e m to g o n o fu rth e r, th o u g h th e y m ig h t b e li e v e th a t th e
r o a d i ts e lf c o n tin u e d o n a n d w o u ld p e rh a p s b e f o llo w e d b y o th e rs . M a n y su c h
a u th o rs , lik e th e ir m e d ie v a l p r e d e c e s s o r s , e m p h a s iz e d e m p ir ic a l o b s e r v a tio n
a n d d e s c r i p ti o n r a th e r th a n c a u s a tio n .
A n d e v e n a m o n g t h e s e l a t t e r a u t h o r s , t h e m e a n s b y w h i c h t h e o p e r a t o r m ig h t
d i s c o v e r s u c h c o n n e c tio n s d if f e r e d , a s d i d th e im p lic a tio n s o f th e d is c o v e r y .
S o m e e m p h a s iz e d th e P la to n ic a rg u m e n ts th a t b o th th e h id d e n lin k s a n d th e
s ig n s th e y le f t o n o b j e c t s h a d th e ir o r ig in s i n th e d iv in e m in d ; th e s ig n s w e r e
th u s l e f t d e lib e r a te ly , a n d r e a d i n g th e m h a d re lig io u s im p lic a tio n s . O th e rs
e m p h a s iz e d th e c o n n e c tio n s a s a p a r t o f n a tu r e ; th e s e lin k s e x e m p lif ie d th e
n e e d fo r c lo s e o b s e r v a tio n a n d e m p ir ic a l c o lle c tio n o f d a ta , b o th s o th a t o n e
m ig h t b e n e f it f r o m th e p r a c tic a l a p p li c a t i o n a n d s o th a t o n e m ig h t in v e s tig a te
th e h id d e n c a u s e s .
 2. Mo r e Sy m p a t h i e s , Mo r e Co n t e x t s

D u r in g th e la te r s ix te e n th c e n tu r y a n d th e f i r s t y e a r s o f th e s e v e n te e n th , th e u s e
o f s y m p a th y a s w o r d a n d c o n c e p t m u ltip lie d q u ic k ly . A c lu s te r o f I ta lia n
w r i t e r s c o n tin u e d to b u ild o n th e b o o k o f s e c r e t s tr a d itio n , e s p e c i a l l y in th e
r e a l m o f p o p u la r a n d p o p u la r iz in g p u b lis h in g . T h e m e d ie v a l te x ts d i s a p p e a r e d
f r o m p rin t, r e p l a c e d b y th e s e n e w o n e s . T h e y d e s c r i b e d m e d ic a l c u r e s , n a tu ra l
p h e n o m e n a , a n d c u r io s itie s . T h e w r itin g s o f G ia m b a ttis ta D e l l a P o r ta ( 1 5 3 5
1 6 1 5 ) a r e p e r h a p s th e m o s t s ig n ific a n t. T h e y s h a r e s o m e fe a tu r e s w i t h b o th
A g r ip p a a n d P a r a c e ls u s , b u t lik e th e b o o k o f s e c r e ts t r a d i t i o n its e lf , th e y l a c k a
r e lig io u s to n e .35 B o r n in to a n o b le N e a p o l i t a n fa m ily , D e l l a P o r ta h a d th e
m e a n s to d e d ic a te h i m s e l f to th e s tu d y o f n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h y , a n d a tta in e d a
s ig n if ic a n t r e p u ta tio n ; h e w a s a n e a r l y m e m b e r o f th e A c c a d e m ia d e i L in c e i in
R o m e . T h e f i r s t e d itio n o f h is M a g ia n a tu r a lis ( 1 5 5 8 ) , h is f i r s t p u b lis h e d
w o r k , c o v e r e d to p ic s th a t c o n tin u e d to h o ld h is in te r e s t th ro u g h o u t h is life .
D e l l a P o r ta o r g a n iz e d h is o w n g ro u p in N a p le s , th e A c c a d e m ia d e i S e c r e ti,
to w h ic h h e r e f e r r e d in th e s e c o n d e d itio n o f h is M a g ia n a tu r a lis ( 1 5 8 9 ) . H is
b o o k s d is c u s s c a u s a tio n f r o m th e o u ts e t a n d c a r r y th e th e m e s th ro u g h o u t. D e l l a
P o r ta b e g in s in b o o k 1 b y p r e s e n tin g b a s i c th e o r ie s . C h a p te r 7 , d e v o te d to
s y m p a th y a n d a n tip a th y , is s tr o n g ly r e m in is c e n t o f P lin y . T h e s y m p a th ie s a n d
a n tip a th ie s , h e s a y s , s h o w u s th e o th e r w is e h id d e n v ir tu e s in th e w o r ld . T h in g s
r e c e i v e th e ir p a r tic u la r p o w e r s o r v ir tu e s f r o m th e h e a v e n s , w h ic h l e a v e a
m a r k th a t c a n b e d is c o v e r e d , th o u g h o n e n o t o b v io u s to th e c a s u a l o b s e r v e r . It
is th e d i s c o v e r y a n d u s e o f th e s e s y m p a th e tic c o n n e c tio n s th a t c o n s titu te n a tu ra l
m a g ic : th e a ttr a c tio n s o r fe tc h in g o u t o f o n e th in g f r o m a n o th e r, b y a c e r ta in
a ffin ity o f N a tu r e . 36 L ik e P lin y , h e a ls o u s e s th e te rm s f r ie n d s h ip (a m ic itia )
a n d e n m ity . S y m p a th y e x p la in s f o r D e l l a P o r ta m a tte rs b o th g r e a t a n d s m a ll,
f r o m th e w o r k in g s o f th e lo d e s to n e to th e a b ility o f n u ts a n d o n io n s to d o w e ll
to g e th e r in s to r a g e o r ru e to g r o w w e l l n e x t to a f ig tre e . L ik e w is e i t a c c o u n ts
f o r th e h o s t o f h id d e n a s s o c ia ti o n s r e v e a l e d in P lin y , in th e e a r l i e r b o o k s o f
s e c r e ts , a n d in s im ila r w o r k s . D e l l a P o r t a s te x t s a w n u m e ro u s e d itio n s in
L a tin . A n I ta lia n t r a n s la t io n a p p e a r e d j u s t tw o y e ars a f te r th e o r ig in a l
p u b lic a tio n , f o l l o w e d w ith in a f e w m o re b y D u tc h , G e rm a n , a n d F r e n c h
v e r s io n s . H is s e c o n d e x p a n d e d e d itio n o f 1 5 8 9 w a s a ls o q u ic k ly tr a n s la t e d
in to I ta lia n a n d th e n in to G e rm a n . A ll v e r s io n s c o n tin u e d to appear in
n u m e r o u s e d i t i o n s i n t o t h e e a r l y e i g h t e e n t h c e n tu r y .
P a ra c e ls u s and h is fo llo w e rs m ay have d e v e lo p e d th e ir th e o rie s as a
r e a c t i o n a g a i n s t G a l e n ; y e t G a l e n h i m s e l f h a d u s e d t h e t e r m s y m p a t h y o f te n ,
and so i ts a p p e a ra n c e in m e d ic a l and m e d ic a l-re la te d w ritin g w as not
re s tric te d to P a r a c e ls ia n s or o th e r a n t i - G a l e n i s t s . 37 A num ber o f w o rk s
a p p e a r e d in th e la te s ix te e n th a n d e a r l y s e v e n te e n th c e n tu r ie s th a t u s e d th e
c o n c e p t in w a y s th a t r e c a ll b o th P lin y and G a le n , o fte n e x p lic itly . Lynn
T h o rn d ik e id e n tif ie d a n u m b e r o f th e m in h is m u ltiv o lu m e H is to r y o f M a g ic
a n d E x p e r im e n ta l S c ie n c e .38 S o m e f o c u s e d o n n a t u r a l m a g i c a s h a d D e l l a
P o r ta . T h e p h y s ic ia n a n d m a th e m a tic ia n G ir o la m o C a r d a n o d is c u s s e d it in h is
D e re ru m v a r i e t a t e 39 C a s p a r P e u c e r e x p l a i n e d n a t u r a l d i v i n a t i o n w i t h i t . 40
W a l t h e r H e r m a n n R h y f f p u b l i s h e d a n e n t i r e c o m m e n t a r y o n P l i n y s b o o k 3 0 ,
i t s e l f d e v o t e d t o t h e s u b j e c t o f n a t u r a l m a g i c ( 1 5 4 8 ) . 41 F r a n c e s c o P a t r i z i d a
C h e rs o d is c u s s e d s im ila r is s u e s in e s s a y s th a t a c c o m p a n ie d a 1 5 9 3 e d itio n o f
th e C h a ld e a n o r a c le s , th e P im a n d e r , a n d o t h e r t e x t s i n a v o l u m e e n t i t l e d
M a g ia p h ilo s o p h i c a l
O th e rs fo cu se d on th e p ro d u c tio n o f m e d ic in e s , w h e th e r s im p le s or
com pounds, as w e ll as p o is o n s and a n tid o te s in te rm s o f s y m p a th ie s and
a n tip a th ie s , f o llo w in g P lin y a n d G a le n . A lb e r tu s S c h e g e liu s c la im e d o n h is
title page th a t h is w o rk w as based on le c tu re s by h is fo rm e r p ro fe sso r
G iro la m o M e rc u ria le , w ho o ffe re d and e x p la in e d a n tid o te s by th e s e
p r i n c i p l e s . 43 A n s e l m de B oot a ls o d is c u s s e d th e s y m p a th e tic a c tio n of
a n t i d o t e s i n h i s w o r k o n g e m s a n d s t o n e s . 44 A n d r e a s V e s a l i u s , i n h i s s u r g i c a l
tre a tis e C h iru rg ia m agna, re fe rre d to G a l e n s p rin c ip le s of s y m p a th y
u n d e r l y i n g h i s p r e s e n t a t i o n o f s i m p l e s . 45 T h e B r e s c i a n p h y s i c i a n G i o v a n n i
F ran cesco O lm o p u b lis h e d a De o c c u ltis in re m e d ic o p r o p r ie ta tib u s
( B r e s c i a , 1 5 9 7 ) , i n w h i c h h e p r e s e n t e d a s e t o f m e d i c a l c u r e s a n d t r e a t m e n t s . 46
F r a n c is B a c o n in c lu d e d a n u m b e r o f s y m p a th e tic c u r e s in h is p o s th u m o u s ly
p u b lis h e d S y lv a S y lv a r u m , a l o n g w i t h o t h e r a s s o c i a t i o n s m o r e l i k e P l i n y . 47
A n d re a s L ib a v iu s , a p h y s ic ia n a n d e d u c a to r a t J e n a a n d C o b u rg w h o e n g a g e d
in a n u m b e r o f e d u c a tio n - r e la te d c o n tro v e rs ie s , w e ig h e d in o n s u c h is s u e s in a
p u b l i c a t i o n o f 1 5 9 4 48 H e a r g u e d a g a i n s t t h e c l a i m s m a d e f o r s y m p a t h e t i c
w e a p o n s a lv e r e c e n tly b e in g m a d e b y so m e P a r a c e ls ia n p ra c titio n e rs , b u t
s u g g e s t e d a m u r d e r e d c o r p s e w o u l d i n d e e d b l e e d a n e w i n t h e p r e s e n c e o f th e
m u rd e re r. In th is in s ta n c e he d re w on a rg u m e n ts fro m b o th P lin y and
F r a c a s t o r o 49 F r a n c is B a c o n c o n c u rre d o n th e b le e d i n g c o rp se , a n d th e
p r in c ip le w a s in v o k e d in E n g lis h p r a c t i c e .50
M a n y o th e r a u th o rs o n n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h y in c lu d e d d is c u s s io n s r e m in is c e n t
o f P lin y a s w e l l a s th e ir o w n c o n te m p o r a r ie s in d is c u s s in g s y m p a th ie s in
n a tu re . N i c o l o C o n ta r e n i (V e n ic e , 1 5 7 6 ), A n to in e M iz a u ld ( P a r is , 1 5 7 1 ),
J o h a n n e s T h o m a s F r e ig e ( 1 5 7 9 ) , G u lie lm u s A d o lp h u s S c r ib o r iu s (1 5 8 3 ),
C esa re E v o li, M a tth ia s M a ir h o f e r , and m any o th e rs a ll in c lu d e d such
th e o r i e s .51 A n u m b e r o f U lis s e A d r o v a n d i s p o s th u m o u s ly p u b lis h e d w o r k s
in c lu d e p a s s a g e s i n w h ic h th e fa m o u s B o lo g n e s e p h y s ic i a n a n d n a tu r a lis t h a d
n o te d h id d e n a f f in itie s in th e tr a d i t i o n o f P lin y .52 In d e e d , a c o n s id e r a b le
a m o u n t o f A l d r o v a n d i s w o r k c o n tin u e d a p r a c tic e v e r y lik e P li n y s o f
c o lle c tin g d a ta o n m a n y to p ic s f r o m a ll p o s s i b l e s o u r c e s a n d p r e s e n tin g th e m
w ith o u t e v a lu a tio n , a s a g u id e to o n g o in g s c h o la r s h ip . H is e m p h a s is o n th e
im p o r ta n c e to n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h y o f r e p o r tin g a ll o b s e r v a tio n s , p a s t a s w e l l a s
p r e s e n t, w a s a fe a tu re s h a r e d b y m a n y o f th e s e w r i t e r s w h o b ro u g h t P lin y a n d
G a le n in to th e ir m o d e r n w o r ld .
N e a r l y a ll th e e a r l y u s e s o f th e w o r d s y m p a th ia th ro u g h th e f ir s t h a l f o f th e
s ix te e n th c e n tu r y w e r e in L a tin , th e la n g u a g e o f fo rm a l le a r n in g , p h ilo s o p h y ,
a n d m e d ic in e . B y th e m id d le o f th e s ix te e n th c e n tu r y a n d c o n tin u in g th e re a f te r ,
th e u s e o f v e r n a c u la r la n g u a g e s c o n tin u e d to e x p a n d a c r o s s m u c h o f E u r o p e to
in c lu d e a b r o a d e r ra n g e o f s u b je c ts , in c lu d in g m o re a n d m o re th a t h a d
p r e v io u s ly b e e n w r i t t e n a b o u t p r im a r i ly in L a tin . D u r in g th e s e y e a r s th e w o r d
b e g a n to a p p e a r i n v e r n a c u la r u s a g e a s w e l l , a r r iv in g b y s lig h tly d iff e r e n t
r o u te s in e a c h la n g u a g e . S o m e o f th e P a r a c e ls ia n s h a d r e j e c t e d L a tin in f a v o r
o f v e r n a c u la r s f o r th e ir m e d ic a l w r itin g s j u s t a s th e y r e j e c t e d th e c l a s s i c a l
a u th o r itie s of e s ta b lis h e d m e d ic a l le a r n in g . R a th e r th a n e s ta b lis h in g a
v e r n a c u la r e q u iv a l e n t te rm , th e y s im p ly m o v e d th e L a tin ( o r ig in a lly , o f c o u r s e ,
G r e e k ) te r m in a s a l o a n w o r d ; f o r th e m , th e n , th e w o r d r e ta in e d th e c o n te x t it
h a d f o r th e m in L a tin , a s a m e d ic a l a n d n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h ic a l te rm . In o th e r
c a s e s , h o w e v e r , th e w o r k s s u b je c t w a s f a r le s s te c h n ic a l. N o n e th e le s s , w r itte n
tr a n s m is s io n a n d L a tin te x ts w e r e o f p r im a r y im p o r ta n c e .
E n g lis h m a y s e r v e a s a n e x e m p la r y c a s e ; th e r e l a t i v e l y th o ro u g h c o v e r a g e
o f E a r l y E n g lis h B o o k s O n lin e o f f e r s a s o lid , th o u g h n o t y e t q u ite e x h a u s tiv e ,
s u r v e y o f w r i t t e n v e r n a c u la r u s a g e . T h e e a r l i e s t a tte s te d a p p e a r a n c e o f th e
w o r d s y m p a th y in E n g lis h is 1 5 6 7 . B y th e e n d o f th e c e n tu r y th e w o r d h a d
a p p e a r e d in s o m e th in g o v e r 1 4 0 s o u r c e s . M a n y o f th e s e te x ts h a d n o t b e e n
o r ig in a lly c o m p o s e d in E n g lis h , b u t r a th e r w e r e tr a n s la tio n s o f w o r k s th a t h a d
b e e n p u b lis h e d p r e v io u s ly in F r e n c h o r Ita lia n . T h e m o s t c o m m o n u s a g e s a re
g e n e ra l m e d ic a l or h u m o ra l re fe re n c e s a p p e a rin g in te x ts th a t a re not
th e m s e lv e s te c h n ic a l in n a tu re . N o n e th e le s s , th e e a r l i e s t a p p e a r a n c e s o f th e
w o r d r e la te to h u m a n f e e lin g s a n d e m o tio n s , w h e th e r r e f e r r in g to a s in g le
in d iv id u a l such as body and soul or to c o n n e c tio n s b e tw e e n p e o p le ,
p a r t i c u l a r l y in r o m a n tic lo v e . T h is u s a g e r e m a in e d th e m o s t c o m m o n th ro u g h
t h e e n d o f t h e c e n tu r y .
The O x fo r d E n g lis h D ic tio n a r y 's f i r s t r e f e r e n c e i s a w o r k w h o s e f u l l t e x t
h a s y e t to be in c lu d e d in E a r ly E n g lis h B o o k s O n lin e : G e o f f r e y F e n l o n s
C e rta in e T ra g ic a ll D is c o u r s e s .53 T h e w o r d
t r a n s l a t i o n o f M a t t e o B a n d e l l o s
a p p e a r s f o u r t i m e s i n b o r r o w e d f o r m a s s y m p a th ia o r s im p a th ia , r e f e r r i n g t o
a n a c c o r d o f f e e l i n g b e t w e e n t w o p e r s o n s . 54 A l l i n s t a n c e s d e s c r i b e r o m a n t i c
lo v e . T h o m a s P a y n e ll u s e d th e w o r d in th e s a m e w a y ( 1 5 7 2 ) in h is tr a n s la tio n
fro m F ren ch o f th e T rea su ry o f A m a d i s . 55 W o r d s such as a m ity and
f r i e n d s h i p a p p e a r w i t h it; t h i s u s a g e r e c a l l s t h e u s a g e o f E r a s m u s w i t h i ts
S to ic s e n s ib ility .
O t h e r s a r e G a l e n i c . A t r a n s l a t i o n o f A n d r e T h e v e t s d e s c r i p t i o n o f N e w
W o r ld d i s c o v e r ie s ( 1 5 6 8 ) c ite s G a le n a s th e a u th o r ity f o r th e S im p a th ie th a t
c o n n e c ts a lo c a tio n and i ts c lim a te w ith th e m an n e rs of th e r e g i o n s
i n h a b i t a n t s . 56 R i c h a r d C a v e n d i s h e n l i s t s s u c h a c o n c e p t i n d i s c u s s i n g t h e s o u l s
c o n n e c tio n w i t h th e b o d y in a w o r k w i t h a m u c h m o r e C h r is tia n f o c u s , The
Im a g e o f N a tu re a n d G ra ce ( 1 5 7 1 ) : A n d e u e n n a t u r a l l P h i l o s o p h y t e a c h e t h
th is , th a t b e tw e e n e th e s o u le a n d th e b o d y , th e r e is a c e r ta in e s y m p a th y o r
k n ittin g o f a ff e c tio n : f o r w h o s e e th n o t th a t i n m e la n c h o ly b o d y e s th e m y n d e is
h e a u y a n d s o l i t a r y , i n s a n g u i n e b o d i e s m e r y a n d l y g h t, & c . 57 R i c h a r d H u l o e t s
d ic tio n a ry , in te n d e d to p ro v id e F ren ch and L a tin te rm s fo r E n g lis h ones,
a s s o c ia te s s y m p a th y in F ren ch and L a tin fo rm s w ith th e E n g lis h
c o m b i n a t i o n . 58 T h o m a s N e w t o n s t r a n s l a t i o n o f t h e D u t c h p h y s i c i a n L e v i n u s
L e m n i u s s T o u ch sto n e o f C o m p le x io n ( 1 5 7 6 ) u s e s s y m p a t h y t o d e s c r i b e t h e
c o n n e c tio n b e tw e e n in n e r c o m p le x io n o r b a la n c e o f h u m o rs and o u tw a rd
a p p e a r a n c e . 59 N e w t o n a l s o t r a n s l a t e d L e m n i u s s H e r b a l f o r th e B ib le ( 1 5 8 7 ) ,
in w h i c h a c l a i m a b o u t th e p o w e r o f s a f f r o n m ig h t r e c a l l P l in y a s w e l l a s
G a l e n : B u t i t i s s o c o m f o r t a b l e f o r t h e h a r t , t h a t i f it b e t i e d t o t h e r i n g f i n g e r
o f th e le f t h a n d , i t p r e s e n tly p e a r c e th a n d s e n d e th h is v e r tu e to th e h a rt. T h e
a g re e m e n t a n d s y m p a th ie b e tw e e n e it a n d th e h a r t is s o g re a t, th a t b e in g e ith e r
ta k e n in w a r d ly , o r a p p l i e d o u tw a rd ly , i t f o o r th w a r d w o r k e th b y th e A r te r ie s ,
a n d c e a s e th n o t till i t g e t a c c e s s e v n to it. 60 I n a f e w c a s e s th e w o r d a p p e a r s in
a tr a n s la t io n o f a c l a s s i c a l te x t th a t h a d i t s e l f u s e d it, f o r e x a m p le th e T h o m a s
N o r th v e r s i o n o f P lu t a r c h s L iv e s ( i t s e l f b a s e d o n a F r e n c h t r a n s la t io n a n d n o t
th e o r ig in a l G re e k ) ; th e w o r d a p p e a r s a s p a r t o f th e e x p la n a tio n o f n a p h th a in
th e L ife o f A le x a n d e r , lik e n e d to th e m a te r ia l u s e d b y M e d e a .61 B u t th e u s a g e
in P lin y fo u n d its w a y in to E n g lis h o n ly la te r ; th e e a r l i e s t E n g lis h p u b lic a tio n s
( 1 5 6 6 , 1 5 8 5 , 1 5 8 7 ) in c lu d e d o n ly th e f i r s t s ix te e n b o o k s , in w h ic h th e te r m d id
n o t a p p e a r. A fu ll v e r s i o n a p p e a r e d o n ly in 1 6 0 1 .
T h e E n g lis h e x a m p le , th e n , p o in ts to e a r l i e r v e r n a c u la r u s a g e in I ta lia n a n d
F r e n c h th a t th e n m o v e d in to E n g lis h w h e n th e s e te x ts w e r e t r a n s la t e d f o r a n
E n g lis h m a rk e t. T h e y e m p lo y e d s y m p a th y a s a w a y o f o f f e r in g a b r ie f , m e d ic a l
o r n a tu r a l- p h ilo s o p h ic a l e x p la n a tio n f o r a p a r tic u la r fe a tu re b e in g d e s c r i b e d in
th e w o rk . T h o s e fe a tu r e s m ig h t b e th e h a b its o f f o r e ig n e r s a s a fu n c tio n o f
c lim a te in a d e s c r ip ti o n o f tr a v e ls a n d d i s c o v e r ie s ; o r th e y m ig h t in v o lv e th e
p h e n o m e n o n o f r o m a n tic lo v e a s it s p r a n g u p a n d g r e w b e tw e e n tw o p e o p le .
S o m e o f th e s e te x ts h a d m o v e d d ir e c tly in to E n g lis h f r o m L a tin , f o r e x a m p le
th o s e o f L e v in u s L e m n iu s . T h o s e th a t w e r e tr a n s la t e d q u ic k ly in to E n g lis h
w e r e h is le s s te c h n ic a l w o r k s ; o th e rs o f L e m n iu s w e r e tr a n s la t e d o n ly a
c e n tu r y la te r. S o th e w o r d m o v e d in to E n g lis h a lo n g w i t h o th e r fe a tu r e s o f
c u ltiv a te d le is u r e r e a d in g f r o m th e C o n tin e n t. I t e x e m p lif ie s th e w a y s e d u c a te d
w r i t e r s m ig h t d o t th e ir p r o s e w i t h a llu s io n s to n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h y , a ll w i t h a
c l a s s i c a l p e d ig r e e .
F o r m o s t o f th e s e a u th o rs , th e w o r d r e m a in e d a t th e p e r ip h e r y o f th e ir
in te re s t. M o s t E n g lis h a u th o rs w h o u s e d th e w o r d s y m p a th y u s e d i t o n ly o n c e
o r p e r h a p s t w i c e in a g iv e n p u b lic a tio n , s o th a t is d if f ic u lt to k n o w w h e th e r th e
w o r d h e ld a p r e c is e , p h ilo s o p h ic a l m e a n in g f o r th e m . T h is p a tte r n is a f a r c r y
f r o m a n a u th o r lik e F r a c a s to r o , w i t h a w h o le b o o k d e v o te d to th e s u b je c t a n d a
th e o r y o f d is e a s e th a t r e l i e d o n it. O v e r th e c o u r s e o f th e s e v e n te e n th c e n tu ry ,
w h e n E n g lis h n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h e r s a n d o th e r s c h o la r s b e g a n to c o m p o s e
p r o f e s s i o n a l w o r k s in c r e a s in g ly in E n g lis h , th e w o r d p ic k e d u p m o re s u c h
te c h n ic a l u s a g e . A t th e s a m e tim e , its u s e in n o n te c h n ic a l, m o re o r d in a r y
la n g u a g e c o n tin u e d to s p r e a d . T h e s e d if f e r e n t k in d s o f u s a g e a l s o c o n tin u e d to
o v e r la p , e s p e c i a l l y d u e to te n d e n c ie s in n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h y . P a r a c e ls ia n s ,
p r o f e s s o r s o f s e c r e t s , a n d m a n y o th e rs d e l i b e r a t e l y in v o k e d a r h e to r ic a n d a
p r a c tic e o f s e e k in g o b s e r v a tio n s o f n a tu re f r o m w h a te v e r s o u rc e . T h a t in c lu d e d
o b s e r v a tio n s r e c o r d e d in w r iti n g b y o th e rs , in a n c ie n t tim e s o r m o d e rn , in
s o u rc e s p h ilo s o p h ic a l o r lite ra ry , o r o b s e r v a tio n s th a t c ir c u la te d o ra lly . P lin y
a n d G a le n b o th s e rv e d a s m o d e ls a n d a s s o u rc e s o f p a rtic u la r o b s e rv a tio n s , b u t
h a rd ly a s e x c lu s iv e s o u rc e s .
 3. At t a c k s o n Sy m p a t h y

N a tu r a l p h ilo s o p h y , lik e a n y s c h o la r ly f ie ld , in h a b ite d a w o r l d o f d e b a te a n d

d is p u ta tio n . T h e v a r io u s w a y s in w h ic h s y m p a th y fig u r e d in d e s c r ip ti o n s a n d
e x p la n a tio n s w e r e n o e x c e p tio n . F u rth e r, th e s ix te e n th c e n tu r y w a s fu ll o f
r e lig io u s c o n tr o v e r s y , o fte n a c c o m p a n ie d by le g a l, p o litic a l, and o th e r
c o e r c i v e im p lic a tio n s . T h e t e r m w a s n o t a s s o c i a t e d w i t h a s in g le d e fin itio n ,
u s a g e , p h ilo s o p h ic a l s c h o o l, o r m e th o d , b u t i t a p p e a r e d in a n u m b e r o f
c o n tr o v e r s ia l e n v iro n m e n ts . G iv e n th is v a r i e d u s a g e , i t is n o t s u r p r is in g th a t
th o s e w h o a tta c k e d c o n c e p ts o f s y m p a th y w e r e n o t a lw a y s a im in g a t th e s a m e
ta rg e t; n o r w e r e th e y p a r tic ip a n ts in a s in g le s e t o f d is p u te s . Y e t m o s t
c r itic is m s f a ll in to a fe w m a in g ro u p s . O ne w as th e w id e s p re a d and
m u ltif a c e te d a s s a u l t o n m a g ic , w itc h c r a f t, a n d r e l a t e d a c ti v itie s th a t s p r e a d in
b o th P r o te s ta n t a n d C a th o lic r e g io n s . T h a t w a v e g a in e d f o r c e o v e r th e c o u r s e
o f th e c e n tu ry . T h is w a s j u s t th e e r a in w h ic h th e P l i n i a n a n d b o o k o f s e c r e t s
tr a d itio n s w e r e th e m s e lv e s g ro w in g .
N o th in g a b o u t n a tu ra l m a g ic r e q u ir e d o r e v e n in v o lv e d a b e l i e f in th e
e x is te n c e o f c o n s c io u s n o n p h y s ic a l b e in g s d e m o n s w h o s e a s s is ta n c e m ig h t
b e in v o k e d b y o p e r a to r s ; q u ite th e c o n tra ry . Y e t th e u s e o f te r m m a g ic its e lf
w a s in fla m m a to ry to p e r s o n s w h o s o u g h t to d e f e n d a c c e s s to d iv in e p o w e r .
T h o s e a u th o rs w h o c la i m e d to s e e th e c r e a t o r s h a n d a t w o r k a s th e y r e a d
n a tu r e s h id d e n s ig n s w e r e n o t th e o n ly o n e s s u b je c t to a tta c k o n r e lig io u s
g ro u n d s ; th o s e w h o w r o te w ith o u t m e n tio n o f m a tte rs d iv in e a t a ll f a r e d littl e
b e tte r. C h u r c h o f f ic ia ls o f w h a te v e r c o n f e s s io n a l s tr ip e , C a th o lic o r P r o te s ta n t,
l a b e l e d s u c h e ffo rts to in v o k e h id d e n p o w e r s s u p e r s titio n . T h e y te n d e d to
p r e s u m e th e p o s s i b i l i t y o f d e m o n ic r o l e in th e p o s itio n s o f th o s e th e y a tta c k e d ,
e v e n e v o k in g th e e a r l y c h u r c h s b a ttle s w i t h p a g a n is m . A n d in f a c t s o m e o f th e
a u th o rs o f w o r k s o n n a tu ra l m a g ic d id c o n f ir m th e ir o p p o n e n ts w o r s t f e a r s b y
e x a m in in g a n d c o n s id e r in g s e r i o u s l y th e p o s s i b i l i t y th a t n o n p h y s ic a l b e in g s o r
d e m o n s m ig h t e x is t a n d b e b r o u g h t in to s e r v ic e . T h e a tta c k s o n th e ir w r itin g s ,
th e r e f o r e , w e r e n o t a lw a y s e n tir e ly u n fo u n d e d . E a m o n o b s e r v e s th a t D e l l a
P o r ta d e v e l o p e d a n in te r e s t in th e p o s s i b i l i t y o f s u c h d e m o n s a n d w r o te a b o u t
th e m in h is u n p u b lis h e d C rip to lo g ia , th o u g h e v e n h e r e h is c la im s w e r e fa r
f r o m th o s e a d v a n c e d b y th e p e r s e c u to r s o f w itc h e s o r sup p o sed dem on
w o r s h ip p e r s a s th e o b je c ts o f th e ir in v e s tig a tio n s .62
 W ith in n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h y , s o m e m a jo r c h a n g e s in th in k in g a b o u t th e n a tu re
o f c a u s e s a n d e x p la n a tio n s o f c a u s e s c h ip p e d a w a y a t th e u s e s o f s y m p a th y
m o re o r le s s a s s o o n a s th e y a p p e a r e d . A s K e ith H u tc h is o n h a s s h o w n , o p in io n
g r a d u a lly s h if te d d u r in g th e s e v e n te e n th c e n tu r y in h o w h id d e n o r o c c u lt
q u a litie s w e r e u n d e r s to o d , a n d in h o w th e y s e r v e d in a s e a r c h f o r c a u s e s .63 F o r
m a n y s c h o la r s o f e a r l i e r g e n e r a tio n s , th e a b i l i t y to id e n tif y a n o b j e c t a s
p o s s e s s in g a g iv e n q u a lity s e r v e d a s a n a c c e p ta b le le v e l o f e x p la n a tio n a b o u t
th e p r o p e r tie s in q u e s tio n . B y th e la te r s ix te e n th a n d e a r ly s e v e n te e n th
c e n tu r ie s , m o re a n d m o re s c h o la r s fo u n d s u c h u s e o f th e o ld A r i s t o t e l i a n
c la s s ific a tio n q u a lity to be in a d e q u a te , p a r tic u la r ly as a so u rc e of
e x p la n a tio n r a th e r th a n j u s t d e s c r ip tio n . P e r h a p s e v e n m o re s ig n if ic a n t w a s th e
d e c r e a s e d u s e f u ln e s s s e e n i n d is tin g u is h in g b e t w e e n th e s e n s ib le a n d th e
h id d e n q u a litie s o r c a u s e s . N a tu r a l p h ilo s o p h e r s fo u n d f a r g r e a te r u tility in
p r o c e e d in g f r o m th e o u ts e t a s i f a g iv e n q u a lity o f a n o b j e c t w a s s o m e th in g th a t
r e q u ir e d in v e s tig a tio n a n d e x p la n a tio n ; a n d fu rth e r, a s i f a n y q u a lity , w h e th e r
h id d e n o r m a n if e s t to h u m a n s e n s e s , c a l l e d f o r a n e q u a l le v e l o f e x p la n a tio n .
T h a t is , a ll q u a litie s w e r e c o m in g to b e tr e a te d a s h id d e n o r o c c u lt q u a litie s
h a d o n c e b e e n tr e a te d , s o th e d is tin c tio n l o s t its m e a n in g .64
S u c h a v i e w w a s c o n s is te n t w i t h a n a ttitu d e s e e n in m a n y w o r k s th a t c o u ld
b e id e n tif ie d w i t h b o o k s o f s e c r e ts o r P l i n i a n tr a d itio n s . S y m p a th y w a s u s e d
b y m a n y a s a la b e l o r p l a c e h o l d e r f o r a n u n s e e n a n d o th e r w is e u n k n o w n
c o n n e c tio n b e tw e e n a n o b s e r v e d c a u s e a n d e ffe c t. I t le f t o p e n th e p o s s ib il ity
th a t a n u n d e r s ta n d a b le cause m ig h t b e d is c o v e r e d . In s u c h a s c e n a r io ,
s y m p a th y w o u ld s im p ly r e t r e a t g r a d u a lly a s i t w a s r e p l a c e d b y th e s e m o re
s p e c if ic e x p la n a tio n s . D e s c a r te s a s s e r te d c o n f id e n tly th a t n a tu ra l e x p la n a tio n s
w o u ld e v e n tu a lly b e p r o d u c e d f o r a ll p h e n o m e n a : th e r e a r e n o q u a litie s
w h ic h a r e s o o c c u lt, n o e ffe c ts o f s y m p a th y o r a n tip a th y s o m a r v e lo u s o r s o
s tra n g e , n o r a n y o th e r th in g s o r a r e in n a tu re ( g r a n te d th a t i t is p r o d u c e d b y
p u r e ly m a te r ia l c a u s e s d e s titu te o f th o u g h t a n d f r e e w i l l ) , th a t its r e a s o n c a n n o t
b e g iv e n b y [th e p r in c ip le s o f th e m e c h a n ic a l p h ilo s o p h y .] 65 M o s t o f th e s e
p r a c tic a l te x ts h a d c o n c e r n e d th e m s e lv e s s o littl e w ith th e p a r tic u la r s o f c a u s a l
e x p la n a tio n th a t n o e x p l i c i t a tta c k o n s y m p a th y w a s n e c e s s a ry . In d e e d ,
id e n tif y in g a p r e v io u s ly u n k n o w n c a u s e f o r o b s e r v e d p h e n o m e n a m ig h t b e s e e n
a s c o n s is te n t w ith s o m e , a t le a s t, o f th e g o a ls o f th e c o m p ile r s . B a c o n h a d ,
a f te r a ll, in c lu d e d s o m e in h is lis ts o f p r o p o s e d e x p e r im e n ts in th e S y lv a
sy lv a ru m .
M a n y s u c h a u th o rs o r c o m p ile r s h a d ta k e n th e r h e to r ic a l s ta n c e th a t th e y
m e re ly rec o rd e d o b s e rv a tio n s o f n a tu re w h a te v e r th e ir so u rc e , how ever
i n e x p lic a b le th e o b s e r v a t io n m ig h t b e o r h o w h u m b le th e o b s e r v e r . T h a t c la im
le f t th e m v u ln e r a b le to a tta c k s w h e n s o m e , a t le a s t, o f th o s e o b s e r v a tio n s w e r e
te s te d a n d fo u n d w a n tin g . B r i a n C o p e n h a v e r h a s d e ta ile d th e e ff o r ts to e x p la in
th e p u r p o r te d s h ip - s to p p in g p o w e r o f th e e c h e n e is f is h th a t w e r e c o u p le d w ith
th e s e a r c h f o r th e f is h its e lf ; th o s e e ff o r ts g r a d u a lly l e d to a s s e r tio n s th a t P lin y
h a d o f f e r e d h i s r e a d e r s n o t a g e n u i n e o b s e r v a t i o n , b u t a m e r e f a b l e . 66 T h e l a b e l
s u p e rs titio n w as n o t th e s o le p ro p e rty o f c h u rc h m e n . It h a d its ow n
d is tin g u is h e d p e d ig r e e a s a c la s s ic a l te rm o f d is a p p r o b a tio n fo r irra tio n a l
c r e d u lity a n d a d h e re n c e to p r a c tic e s th a t la c k e d r a tio n a l ju s tific a tio n . The
P a r a c e ls ia n s h a d m a d e a p o in t o f ta k in g th e ir o b s e rv a tio n s w h e r e th e y fo u n d
th e m , w h e th e r f r o m th e l e a r n e d o r th e u n le tte r e d ; m a n y o f th e a g r ic u ltu r a l
a s s o c i a t i o n s f r o m b o o k s o f s e c r e t s s e e m e d r e d o l e n t o f p e a s a n t l o r e ; P l i n y s
l i s t s l o o k e d in c r e a s in g ly s u s p e c t a s m o r e f a i l e d o n e t e s t o r a n o th e r. I t h a d
b e c o m e s ta n d a r d p r a c tic e fo r s u c h w r ite r s to r e c ite , P lin y - lik e , a lo n g l i s t o f
a p p a re n tly b iz a rre a s s o c ia tio n s to e m p h a s iz e th e h id d e n n a tu re of th e
c o n n e c tio n s ; e v e n F r a c a s to r o h a d d o n e so . T h e lis ts b e c a m e a n e a s y ta r g e t fo r
th o s e w h o w i s h e d to a tta c k a rg u m e n ts a b o u t s y m p a th y o r n a tu r a l m a g ic in
g e n e ra l, o r a n a u th o r in p a r tic u la r , a s a m e r e s u r v iv a l o f o ld s u p e r s titio n s .
S u p e r s titio n h a d b e e n a m a tte r o f in c r e a s in g c o n c e r n f o r m a n y in la te r
m e d ie v a l E u r o p e , a c o n c e r n th a t m a y h a v e s h if te d f o c u s b u t d i d n o t d e c li n e in
t h e s i x t e e n t h c e n tu r y . M i c h a e l B a i l e y h a s a r g u e d t h a t w h i l e s u p e r s t i t i o n n e v e r
a c h ie v e d a c o n s is te n t d e fin itio n , a tta c k s o n s u p e r s titio n te n d e d in tw o d if f e r e n t
d ire c tio n s . O ne, ta k in g i ts cue fro m e a rly a u th o ritie s such as A u g u s tin e ,
a d d re s s e d le a rn e d s tu d ie s th a t c la im e d o r s e e m e d to r e la te to m a g ic o r to
p r e d ic tiv e s c ie n c e s s u c h a s a s tro lo g y . T h e o th e r s tr o v e to d e fin e a n d d ir e c t
p o p u la r d e v o tio n a n d hence to o k iss u e w ith p ra c tic e s o f th e u n l e a r n e d . 67
S y m p a th y h a d th e m is f o r tu n e to f a ll in to b o th c a te g o r i e s a t o n c e , a tta c k e d b y
s o m e a s p a r t o f a c o n d e m n a tio n o f m a g ic a l a r ts , b y o th e r s a s a f e a tu r e o f th e
u n tru s tw o r th y o b s e r v a tio n s a n d r u s tic p r a c tic e s o f th e u n e d u c a te d .
T h e w e a p o n s a lv e c o n tr o v e r s y g a v e th e s e d is a g r e e m e n ts a p a r tic u la r ly h ig h
p r o f i l e . R u d o l p h G o c l e n i u s s 1 6 0 8 t r e a t i s e , i n w h i c h h e d i s c u s s e d a n o i n t m e n t
o r p o w d e r p u r p o r te d to c u r e w o u n d s b y s y m p a th e tic a c tio n w h e n a p p li e d to
th e w e a p o n th a t h a d c a u s e d th e in ju ry , p r o d u c e d s tr o n g s u p p o r te r s , e q u a lly
s tro n g d e tra c to rs , and an e x te n d e d set of p u b lic a tio n s and d e b a t e s . 68
M a g n e tis m a n d th e o r ie s o f m a g n e tic a c tio n w e r e in v o k e d ; th e a rg u m e n ts , th e
s c h o la r s h ip , a n d e v e n th e h o n o r a n d r e l i g i o n o f o p p o n e n ts w e r e im p u g n e d . S ir
K e n e lm D ig b y a ls o w e ig h e d in w i t h a tr e a ti s e o n th e s a lv e , w h i c h w e n t th ro u g h
n u m e r o u s r e p r i n t i n g s . 69 T h e c o n t r o v e r s i e s t h a t s w i r l e d a r o u n d G o c l e n i u s s t e x t
d i d n o t s e r v e t o s t r e n g t h e n t h e c a u s e . 70 N o r d i d t h e e f f o r t s b y o p p o n e n t s t o
a s s o c ia te th e c u re w ith w itc h c ra ft, e ith e r in th e eyes o f th o se w ho saw
w itc h c r a f t a s a th r e a t o r o f th o s e w h o s a w it a s f o o lis h n e s s . T h u s th e P lin y - ty p e
a rg u m e n t a ty p e th a t d e v e lo p e d in th e s ix te e n th c e n tu r y a s v e r y m o d e r n , u s in g
e v id e n c e b o th fro m th e m o st re c e n tly a v a ila b le c la s s ic a l so u rc e s a n d th e
o b s e rv a tio n o f n a tu re c o u ld be d is m is s e d by v a rio u s d e tra c to rs as th e
o u td a te d s u r v iv a ls o f p o p u la r s u p e rs titio n . S u c h a tta c k s w e r e to o e a s i l y ta k e n
a t fa c e v a lu e b y la te r s c h o la r s p r e d is p o s e d to s u c h a n a rr a tiv e .
R e n a i s s a n c e t h e o r i e s o f s y m p a th y th u s d i d n o t d e v e l o p c o n tin u o u s ly f ro m
m e d ie v a l f o u n d a tio n s , a n d c e r ta in ly n o t a s a t r a d itio n a l c a s t o f m in d th a t w a s
fin a lly re je c te d in a g e n e ra l m ove to w a rd ra tio n a lity . T h e ir p ro p o n e n ts
o c c u p ie d a n in te lle c tu a l e n v iro n m e n t th a t in c lu d e d g r e a te r a c c e s s to a fu lle r
r a n g e o f c la s s ic a l s o u r c e s , a b r o a d e r l e a r n e d c o m m u n ity th a t r e a c h e d b e y o n d
th e u n iv e r s itie s to in c lu d e p r a c tic in g p h y s ic ia n s a n d o th e r e d u c a te d p e o p le ,
a n d a p r in t in d u s tr y s u f f ic ie n tly d e v e lo p e d to s u p p o r t th e c ir c u la t io n o f a w i d e
r a n g e o f w o r k s . T h e y s a w th e m s e lv e s a s in n o v a to r s in o n e w a y o r a n o th e r.
T h is s c h o la r ly u s e o f th e te r m in n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h y o r ig in a te d in L a tin a n d
m o v e d o n ly g r a d u a lly to v e r n a c u la r s w i t h th e lin g u is tic tr a n s itio n o f s c h o la r ly
w ritin g .
B y th a t tim e , s y m p a th y h a d m o v e d in to E u r o p e a n v e r n a c u la r s in o th e r
le s s te c h n ic a l c o n te x ts , a s a w o r d w ith m e d ic a l o r le a r n e d c o n n o ta tio n s th a t
m ig h t b e u s e d to d e s c r ib e h u m a n c h a r a c te r a n d th e r e la tio n s b e tw e e n p e o p le
a n d th e i r e n v ir o n m e n t, o r b e t w e e n o n e a n o th e r. T h e v e r n a c u la r w o r d r e c a l l s
a n y o f a ra n g e o f a n c ie n t c o n te x ts , in c lu d in g S to ic is m , G a le n ic m e d ic in e , a n d
C h r i s t i a n m o r a l p h ilo s o p h y , b u t w ith o u t a c l e a r a ll e g ia n c e to a n y o f th e m . T h e
r a p i d in tr o d u c tio n o f th is w o r d , a n d th e c lu s te r o f c o n c e p ts th a t it e x p r e s s e d ,
in to E u r o p e a n la n g u a g e s a l l o w e d w r i t e r s to u s e i t i n a n u m b e r o f d if f e r e n t
w a y s f r o m th e s e v e n te e n th c e n tu r y o n w a r d .

1 See for example Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline o f Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; N ew York: Scribners,
1971).
2 Pedro Amaral, Harmony in Descartes and the Medical Philosophers, Philosophy Research Archives
13 (1988): 499-556.
3 See chapter 2 in this volume.
4 Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life, ed. and trans. Carol V. Kaske, Medieval and Renaissance Texts
and Studies (Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1989), introduction,
40.
5 Adhibitis autem quae ad stellam talem pertinent atque daemonem, stellae daemonisque huius proprium
subit influxum, [a]tque hunc non modo per ipsos stellae daemonisque radios, sed etiam per ipsam mundi
animam ubique praesentem, Ficino, Three Books o f Life, 244-45, lines 36-40.
6 tum quia pulveres, liquores, unguenta, electuaria opportune confecta coelestes influxus facilius
citiusque suscipiunt. Ficino, Three Books o f Life, 306-7, lines 36-37.
7 Magicae opus est, attractio rei unius ab alia ex quadam cognatione naturae ... ex communi cognatione
communis innascitur amor, ex amore communis attractio. Marsilio Ficino, Commentarium, in Omnia
divini Platonis opera translatione Marsilii Ficini... . (Basel: Froben and Episcopius, 1532), 401. See
Stephen Clucas, John D ees Annotations to Ficinos Translations of Plato, in Laus Platonici
Philosophi: Marsilio Ficino and His Influence, by Stephen Clucas, Peter J. Forshaw, and Valery
Rees, Brills Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2011), 227-47, at 245.
8 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man, trans. Francesco Borghesi, Michael
Papio, and Massimo Riva (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 244-47. The original reads:
Haec inter sparsas Dei beneficio, & inter seminatas mundo virtutes, quasi de latebris evocans in lucem.
Non tam facit miranda quam facienti naturae sedula famulatur. H aec universi consensum, quem
significantius Graece ougnaGeiav dicunt, introrsum perscrutatius rimata, & mutuam naturarum
cognitionem habens perspectam, nativas adhibens unicuique rei & suas illecebras. Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola, Opera omnia (Basel: Petrina, 1557), 328.
9 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, De hominis dignitate; Heptaplus; De ente et uno; e scritti vari, ed.
Eugenio Garin, Edizione nazionale dei classici del pensiero italiano 1 (Florence: Vallecchi, 1942), 152 n. 3.
On Picos manuscript of Pliny see Anthony Grafton, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Trials and Triumphs
of an Omnivore, in Commerce with the Classics: Ancient Books and Renaissance Readers (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 104 n. 34.
10 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Disputationes 11; Cicero, De divinatione 2.97 (on the unreliability of
Chaldean records). See Steven Vanden Broecke, The Limits o f Influence: Pico, Louvain, and the
Crisis o f Renaissance Astrology (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 74.
11 For a discussion of Picos fortunes among modern scholars, mainly in the twentieth century, see
Wiliam G. Craven, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Symbol o f His Age: Modern Interpretations o f a
Renaissance Philosopher, Travaux dhumanisme et Renaissance (Geneva: Droz, 1981).
12 Charles Nauert, Agrippa and the Crisis o f Renaissance Thought (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1965), 35-54. Ficinos translation of the Pimander, part of the Hermetic corpus, dates from the
1460s and had been available in print since 1493. See also Christopher I. Lehrich, The Language of
Demons and Angels: Cornelius Agrippas Occult Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2003).
13 Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, De occulta philosophia: Liber primus (Paris: Wechilus,
1531), and De occulta philosophia libri tres (Cologne: Johannes Soter, 1533). See Agrippa, De occulta
philosophia libri tres, ed. V. Perrone Compagni (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 8.
14 Agrippa, De occulta philosophia libri tres (1992), 22-27.
15 Restat nunc videre quod omnes res habent inter se amicitiam et inimicitiam et omnis res habet aliquod
temendum et horribile, inimicum et destrutivum; contra, aliquod exultans, laetificans et confortans. Sic in
elementis ignis adversatur aquae et aer terrae, caeterum inter se convenient. Agrippa, De occulta
philosophia, 117-18.
16 Charles Nauert, Humanists, Scientists, and Pliny: Changing Approaches to a Classical Author,
American Historical Review 84.1 (1979): 72-85, at 76-77.
17 Nauert, Humanists, Scientists, 76-83; Peter Wagner, Renaissance Readings of the Corpus
AristotelicumN ot among the Herbalists, in Renaissance Readings o f the Corpus Aristotelicum:
Proceedings from the Conference Held in Copenhagen 23-25 April 1998, ed. Marianne Pade
(Copenhagen: Eckhard 2001), 167-83, at 173-74.
18 Pliny, Historia Mundi, ed. Desiderius Erasmus (Basel: Froben, 1525).
19 John F. D Amico, Theory and Practice in Renaissance Textual Criticism: Beatus Rhenanus
between Conjecture and History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 72-101.
20 See, for example, B. S. Eastwood, Plinian Astronomy in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and R.
K. French, Pliny and Renaissance Medicine, both in Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the
Elder, His Sources and Influence , ed. R. K. French and Frank Greenaway (London: Croom Helm,
1986), 197-251, 252-81. On the illustration tradition see Lilian Armstrong, The Illustrations of Plinys
Historia naturalis in Venetian Manuscripts and Early Printed Books, in Manuscripts in the Fifty Years
after the Invention o f Printing: Some Papers Read at a Colloquium at the Warburg Institute on 12
13 March 1982, ed. J. B. Trapp (London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1983), 97-106.
21 Desiderius Erasmus, Colloquies, trans. Craig R. Thompson, vol. 2 of Collected Works o f Erasmus, 2
vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 707. The original is: Verum mihi videtur mirabilius hac
genus sympathias et antipathias, sic enim Graeci vocant amicitiae et inamicitae naturales affectus, etiam
in rebus anima aut certe sensu carentibus deprehendi. Desiderius Erasmus, Opera omnia, vol. 1.3
(Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1969), 1043.
22 See chapter 1 in this volume.
23 Girolamo Fracastoro, De sympathia et antipathia rerum liber unus. De contagione et contagiosis
morbis et curatione libri iii (Venice: Heredes Lucaeantonii Juntae Florentini, 1546).
24 M agna quidem materia et admirationis non parvae plena, cui et commentarium adieci non minus (ut
arbitror) desideratum de consensu et dissensu rerum, quam sympathiam et antipathiam vocant, sine quo
natura contagionum plane perquiri et monstrari posse non videbatur. Girolamo Fracastoro, De sympathia
et antipathia rerum, ed. Concetta Pennuto, Studi e testi del Rinascimento europeo 31 (Rome: Edizioni di
storia e letteratura, 2008), 6.
25 Fracastoro, De sympathia (Pennuto ed.), ch. 5, and see Pennutos introduction, 32-33.
26 Pennutos edition includes references and parallels to a wide range of sources and notes points at
which Fracastoro seems to be countering the published opinions of other authors. See for example his
differences with Ficino on the causes of magnetism in Fracastoro, De sympathia (Pennuto ed.), 167-303.
27 See Holmess Reflection on Galens Sympathy in this volume.
28 For a general discussion, see Andrew Wear, Galen in the Renaissance, in Health and Healing in
Early Modern England: Studies in Social and Intellectual History (Aldershot, UK.: Ashgate, 1998),
I.
29 Eckhard Kessler, Metaphysics or Empirical Science? in Renaissance Readings o f the Corpus
Aristotelicum: Proceedings from the Conference held in Copenhagen 23-25 April 1998, ed.
Marianne Pade (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2001), 79-101, at 95. Kessler notes particularly the
contrast with contemporaries writing in Platonic traditions.
30 Fracastoro, De sympathia et antipathia rerum, xxxv-xlvii.
31 Vivian Nutton, The Reception of Fracastoros Theory of Contagion: The Seed That Fell among
Thorns?, Osiris, 2nd series 6, Renaissance Medical Learning: Evolution o f a Tradition (1990): 196
234.
32 Allen G. Debus, The Chemical Philosophy: Paracelsian Science and Medicine in the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries, 2 vols. (New York: Science History Publications, 1977), 1.45-61.
33 Debus, Chemical Philosophy, 1.103-5.
34 Debus, Chemical Philosophy, 1.127-204, and The Chemical Philosophers: Chemical Medicine from
Paracelsus to Van Helmont, in Chemistry, Alchemy and the New Philosophy, 1550-1700: Studies in
the History o f Science and Medicine (London: Variorum Reprints, 1987), III.
35 On Della Porta, including the works connections with the Venetian Accademia Segreta, see William
Eamon, Science and the Secrets o f Nature: Books o f Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 194-233.
36 Giambattista Della Porta, NaturalMagick (London: Thomas Young and Samuel Speed, 1658), 1.9, 13.
37 See Holmes, Galens Sympathy.
38 Lynn Thorndike, A History o f Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1934), esp. vols. 5 and 6.
39 Girolamo Cardano, De rerum varietate libri XVII (Lyon: Apud Stephanum Michaelum, 1556); see
Thorndike, A History o f Magic and Experimental Science , 5.571-76.
40 Caspar Peucer, Commentarius de praecipuis divinationum generibus, in quo a prophetiis divina
autoritate traditis, et physicis praedictionibus, separantur diabolicae fraudes et superstitiosae
observationes, et explicantur fontes accausae physicarum praedictionum, diabolicae et
superstitiosae confutatae damnantur, ea serie, quam tabula indicis vice praefixa ostendit
(Wittenberg: J. Crato, 1553); see Thorndike, A History o f Magic and Experimental Science, 6.493-501.
41 Walther Hermann Ryff, In Caii Plinii Secundi Naturalis historiae argutissimi scriptoris I. & II.
cap. libri XXX. commentarius. ... (Wurzburg: Mylius, 1548); see Thorndike, A History o f Magic and
Experimental Science, 5.560-62.
42 Francesco Patrizi, Magia philosophica hoc est Francesci Patricii summi philosophici Zoroaster.
& ejus 320. oracula chaldaica. Asclepii dialogus. & Philosophia magna. Hermetis Trismegisti
Pomoander ... & alia miscellanea. Jam nunc primum ex bibliotheca Ranzoviana e tenebris eruta &
latine reddita (Hamburg: Jakob Wolff, 1593); see Thorndike, A History o f Magic and Experimental
Science, 6.460.
43 Albertus Schegelius, De venenis et morbis venenosis tractatus locupletissimi variaque doctrina
referti non solum medicis, verum etiam philosophis magnopere utiles Ex voce ... Hieronymi
Mercurialis ... excepti, atque in Libros duos digesti (Venice: Paolo Meietti, 1584), see Thorndike, A
History o f Magic and Experimental Science, 5.479-81.
44 Anselmus de Boot, Gemmarum et lapidum historia: qua non solum ortus, natura, vis et precium,
sed etiam modus quo ex iis, olea, salia, tincturae, essentiae, arcana et magisteria arte chymica
confici possint, ostenditur (Hanau, 1609); see Thorndike, A History o f Magic and Experimental
Science, 6.318-23.
45 Andreas Vesalius, Chirurgia magna in septem libros digesta (Venice: Officina Valgrisiana, 1568);
see Thorndike, A History o f Magic and Experimental Science, 5.527.
46 Thorndike, A History o f Magic and Experimental Science, 6.230-32.
47 Francis Bacon, Sylua Syluarum; or, A Naturall Historie in Ten Centuries ... Published after the
authors death, by VVilliam Rawley Doctor o f Diuinitie, late his Lordships chaplaine (London: John
Haviland and Augustine M athewes for William Lee, 1626). See esp. century 1.95, devoted to sympathy
and antipathy.
48 Andreas Libavius, Tractatus duo physici; prior de impostoria vulnerum per unguentum armarium
sanatione paracelsicis usitata commendataque; posterior de cruentatione cadaverum in justa
caede factorumpraesente, qui occidisse creditur (Frankfurt: Joannes Saur, 1593).
49 Thorndike, A History o f Magic and Experimental Science, 6.238-44.
50 Thomas, Religion and the Decline o f Magic , 220.
51 Thorndike, A History o f Magic and Experimental Science, 6.349-51 (Contareni), 6.127-28
(Mizauld), 6.186-87 (Freige), 6.351-55 (Scriborius), 6.414 (Evoli), 6.414-18 (Mairhofer).
52 Thorndike, A History o f Magic and Experimental Science, 6.280-97.
53 M atteo Bandello, Certaine Tragicall Discourses Written out o f Frenche and Latin ... ., trans.
Geoffrey Fenton (London: Thomas Marshe, 1567).
54 M atteo Bandello, Certain Tragical Discourses o f Bandello, ed. Robert Langton Douglas, 2 vols,
Tudor Translations (London: D. Nutt, 1898), 1.142, 197, 2.186, 247, 312.
55 Thomas Paynell, The Treasurie o f Amadis o f Fraunce Conteyning Eloquente Orations, pythie
epistles, learned letters, and feruent complayntes, seruing fo r sundrie purposes (London: Henry
Bynneman for Thomas Hacket, 1572), 260.
56 Andre Thevet, The New Found Worlde; or, Antarctike Wherin is Contained Wonderful and
Strange Things ... . (London: Henrie Bynneman for Thomas Hacket, 1568), fol. 4v.
57 Richard Cavendish, The Image o f Nature and Grace Conteynyng the Whole Course, and
Condition o f Mans Estate (London: John Daye, 1571), 15.
58 Richard Huloet, Huloets Dictionarie Newelye Corrected, Amended, Set in Order and Enlarged
. . b y vvhich you may finde the Latin or Frenche, o f anye English woorde you will, ed. John Higgins
(London: Thomas Marsh, 1572), n.p.: Combination, or mutuall and naturall operation o f thinges
according to their kyndes, as water doth participate with ayre in moystnes, with the earth in
coldnes. & c. Sympathia, ae. foe. g. Conueniance, Sympathie. S .
59 Levinus Lemnius, The Touchstone o f Complexions Generallye Appliable, Expedient and
Profitable fo r all Such, as be Desirous & Carefull o f their Bodylye Health, ed. and trans. Thomas
New ton (London: Thomas Marsh, 1576), fol. 36v.
60 Levinus Lemnius, An Herbal fo r the Bible. Containing a Plaine and Familiar Exposition o f such
similitudes, parables, and metaphors, both in the olde Testament and the newe... ., trans. Thomas
New ton (London: Edmund Bollifant, 1587), 192.
61 Plutarch, The Lives o f the Noble Grecians and Romanes Compared Together by That Graue
Learned Philosopher and Historiographer, Plutarke o f Chaeronea; translated out o f Greeke into
French by Iames Amyot ... ; and out o f French into Englishe, by Thomas North (London: Thomas
Vautroullier and John Wight, 1579), 742.
62 Eamon, Science and the Secrets o f Nature, 206-10.
63 Keith Hutchison, W hat Happened to Occult Qualities in the Scientific Revolution?, Isis 73.2 (1982):
233-53.
64 Hutchison, W hat Happened to Occult Qualities, 244.
65 Rene Descartes, Principia philosophiae, pt. IV, par. 187 (in Oeuvres, ed. Charles Adam and Paul
Tannery [Paris: Vrin/CNRS, 1964], 9.309), quoted in Hutchison, What Happened to Occult Qualities,
242.
66 Brian P. Copenhaver, A Tale of Two Fishes: Magical Objects in Natural History from Antiquity
through the Scientific Revolution, Journal o f the History o f Ideas 52.3 (1991): 373-98.
67 Michael David Bailey, Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies: The Boundaries o f Superstition in Late
Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), 228-29.
68 Rudolph Goclenius, De Vita proroganda, hoc est animi corporisque vigore conservando
salubriterque producendo tractatus (Mainz: J. Albinus, 1608).
69 Sir Kenelm Digby, A Late Discourse ... Touching the Cure o f Wounds by the Powder of
Sympathy: With Instructions How to M ake the Said Powder, trans. R. White (London: Lownes and
Davies, 1658).
70 The literature on the powder of sympathy or weapon salve controversy is extensive. Among others,
see Debus, Chemical Philosophy, 1.279-90, 2.303-6, and Robert Fludd and the Use of Gilberts De
Magnete in the Weapon-Salve Controversy, in Chemistry, Alchemy and the New Philosophy, 1550-
1700: Studies in the History o f Science and Medicine (London: Variorum, 1987), XII; Ernest B.
Gilman, The Arts of Sympathy: Dr. Harvey, Sir Kenelm Digby, and the Arundel Circle, in Opening the
Borders: Inclusivity in Early Modern Studies: Essays in Honor o f James V. Mirollo, ed. Peter C.
Herman (Newark: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1999), 265-97.
Reflection
MUSIC AND SYMPATHY

Giuseppe Gerbino

A lr e a d y in a n tiq u ity m u s ic ia n s o b s e r v e d th a t th e s trin g s o f a n in s tru m e n t c a n

v i b r a t e w ith o u t b e in g to u c h e d . F o r e x a m p le , i f tw o s tr in g s a r e tu n e d a t th e
u n is o n a n d w e p l u c k o n e o f th e m , th e s e c o n d s tr in g w i l l r e s p o n d to th e
v i b r a t io n , p r o d u c i n g th e s a m e s o u n d . T h e p h e n o m e n o n is k n o w n a s
s y m p a th e tic r e s o n a n c e o r s y m p a th e tic v ib r a tio n . W h a t c a u s e s th e s e c o n d
s tr in g to r e s o n a te w ith th e fir s t, w i t h n o d i r e c t p h y s ic a l c o n n e c tio n b e tw e e n
th e tw o , is th e tr a n s m is s io n o f e n e r g y c a r r i e d b y s o u n d w a v e s t r a v e li n g in
th e a ir. H o w e v e r , th e t e r m s y m p a th e tic r e s o n a n c e r e v e a l s a d if f e r e n t
w o r l d v i e w , o n e th a t p o s tu l a te d th e e x is te n c e o f a h i d d e n f o r c e , s y m p a th y ,
o p e r a tin g th ro u g h o u t n a tu r e a n d b in d in g th e u n iv e r s e in a ll its p a r ts . I n s u c h a
w o r l d , t h e t w o s t r i n g s r e s p o n d t o e a c h o t h e r s m o t i o n b e c a u s e o f a
m y s te rio u s a ff in ity th a t c a n b e c o n c e iv e d b y th e m in d b u t c a n n o t b e d ir e c tly
p e r c e i v e d b y t h e s e n s e s . T h u s , t h e n o t i o n o f s y m p a t h y , e s p e c i a l l y i n th e
F ic in ia n -P la to n ic v e rs io n , p r o v id e d a n e x p la n a tio n fo r a n o th e rw is e
in c o m p r e h e n s ib le w o n d e r o f n a tu r e , w h ile s y m p a th e tic r e s o n a n c e in its tu r n
p r o v i d e d e v id e n c e o f th e e x is te n c e o f u n i v e r s a l s y m p a th y .1 T h is w a s a
p o w e r f u l c o n c e p t u a l a l l i a n c e . I ts i n f l u e n c e e x t e n d e d w e l l b e y o n d t h e
in v e s tig a tio n o f th e a c o u s tic p r o p e r t i e s o f s o u n d to th e p r o b l e m o f h o w to
u n d e r s ta n d th e v e r y n a tu r e o f m u s ic a n d its r e l a t i o n to a h i e r a r c h i c a l l y
o r d e r e d a n d s y m p a th e tic a lly in te r c o n n e c te d u n iv e rs e .
H is to r ic a lly , p r a c tic a l a p p lic a tio n s o f s y m p a th e tic r e s o n a n c e a r e u s u a lly
fo u n d in in s tru m e n ts w i t h s y m p a th e tic s tr in g s , in p a r t b e c a u s e th e s u c c e s s f u l
r e p r o d u c ti o n o f th is p h e n o m e n o n d e p e n d s o n s y s te m s th a t c a n g e n e r a te
s u s ta in e d a n d h ig h -e n e rg y v ib ra tio n s lik e th o s e p r o d u c e d b y b o w in g . T h e re
i s a r e f e r e n c e t o s u c h a n i n s t r u m e n t i n F r a n c i s B a c o n s 1 6 2 7 S y lv a
S ylv a ru m ; or, A N a tu r a l H is to r y in Ten C e n tu r ie s : I t w a s d e v i s e d , t h a t a
v i o l s h o u ld h a v e a l a y o f w i r e - s tr i n g s b e lo w , a s c lo s e to th e b e l l y a s a lu te ;
a n d t h e n t h e s t r i n g s o f g u ts m o u n t e d u p o n a b r i d g e , a s i n o r d i n a r y v i o l s ; t o
th e e n d th a t b y th is m e a n s th e u p p e r s tr in g s s tr u c k e n s h o u ld m a k e th e l o w e r
r e s o u n d b y s y m p a th y , a n d s o m a k e th e m u s ic th e b e tte r ; w h ic h , i f it b e to
p u r p o s e , th e n s y m p a th y w o r k e th a s w e l l b y r e p o r t o f s o u n d , a s b y m o tio n . 2
A l t h o u g h s k e p t i c a l a b o u t t h e a c t u a l f u n c t i o n a l i t y o f s u c h a d e v i c e , B a c o n is
p r o b a b l y d e s c r i b in g a p r e c u r s o r o f th e v i o l a d a m o r e , a ty p e o f u n f re tte d
v io la w ith a f la t b a c k a n d s lo p in g s h o u ld e r s th a t b e c a m e p o p u la r b e tw e e n
th e e n d o f th e s e v e n te e n th c e n tu r y a n d th e b e g in n in g o f th e e ig h te e n th . T w o
v e r s io n s o f th e s a m e in s tru m e n t a r e k n o w n , w i t h o r w ith o u t s y m p a th e tic
s trin g s . I n th e la tte r c a s e , th e v i o l a d a m o r e u s u a lly h a s s i x o r s e v e n b o w e d
s trin g s r u n n in g a lo n g th e f in g e r b o a r d , a s in a r e g u la r v i o la , a n d s i x o r s e v e n
r e s o n a tin g s tr in g s r u n n in g b e n e a th th e f in g e r b o a r d a n d th ro u g h h o le s in th e
b r i d g e . T h e r e s o n a t i n g s t r i n g s p r o l o n g t h e s o u n d s d e c a y t i m e , p r o d u c i n g a
s il v e r y a n d s o f t h a lo . L e o p o ld M o z a r t f a m o u s ly r e m a r k s th a t th e in s tr u m e n t
s o u n d s e s p e c i a l l y lo v e ly in th e s tilln e s s o f th e e v e n in g . 3 A n to n io V iv a ld i
w r o te e x te n s iv e ly f o r th e v i o l a d a m o r e , e s p e c i a l l y f o r th e f e m a le m u s ic
e n s e m b le s o f th e O s p e d a le d e ll a P ie ta in V e n ic e , in c lu d in g a p a r tic u la r ly
e v o c a tiv e c o n c e r to f o r lu te , v i o l a d a m o r e , a n d m u te d s tr in g s (R V 5 4 0 ) . H e
h i m s e l f p l a y e d a s ix - s tr in g v e r s i o n o f th e in s tru m e n t. I n th e a u to g r a p h
m a n u s c r ip ts o f t w o o f h is c o n c e r to s (R V 3 9 3 a n d R V 3 9 7 ) th e n a m e is
s p e lle d v io la d A M o r e , p r o b a b l y a n h o m a g e t o h i s b e s t p u p i l a n d v i r t u o s o
p l a y e r a t t h e P i e t a , A n n a M a r i a . A s l a t e a s 1 9 0 4 , i n G i a c o m o P u c c i n i s
M a d a m a B u tte r fly , i n t h e m i d d l e o f t h e n i g h t, a s C i o - C i o - S a n , h e r s o n , a n d
h e r m a id S u z u k i a w a i t th e r e tu r n o f L ie u te n a n t P in k e rto n , th e v i o l a d a m o r e
a c c o m p a n i e s t h e w o r d l e s s v o i c e s o f a n i n v i s i b l e c h o r u s , a s i f t o i n v o k e th e
r e s o n a n c e b e tw e e n s o u ls a t a n in c o m m e n s u ra b le d is ta n c e .4
T h e o r ig i n o f th e t e r m v i o l a d a m o r e ( l i t e r a l l y v i o l o f l o v e ) is
u n c e rta in . B u t th e b o d y o f th e in s tru m e n t, w i t h its o r d e r e d a rr a n g e m e n t o f
s y m p a th e tic a lly v ib r a t in g s tr in g s , in h a b its a m e ta p h o r th a t is a t th e s a m e tim e
v i s u a l a n d a u d i t o r y . I ts p e g b o x i s o f t e n d e c o r a t e d w i t h a c a r v e d h e a d i n t h e
f o r m o f a b l in d f o ld e d C u p id o r a w o m a n w i t h e y e s c lo s e d . I t s u g g e s ts a
w o r ld v ie w in w h ic h lo v e a n d s y m p a th y a re s till u n d e rs to o d a s in tim a te ly
r e l a te d p r in c ip le s o f a n o c c u lt b o n d , e v o k in g th e im a g e o f a s y m p a th e tic a lly
c o h e r e n t a n d u n ifie d c o s m o s in w h ic h th e a ff in ity o r f o r c e o f a ttr a c tio n
b e tw e e n th e p a r ts a n d th e w h o le is e x p e r ie n c e d a s lo v e . O r p e r h a p s th e
b l i n d f o l d e d C u p i d , l o o k i n g d o w n t h e i n s t r u m e n t s s t r i n g s l i k e a t u t e l a r y
d e ity , p u s h e s th e m u s ic a l m e ta p h o r o f lo v e a n d s y m p a th y fu rth e r. O n e o f th e
c h a r a c te r is tic s o f s y m p a th e tic v i b r a t io n is th a t, i f th e tw o s tr in g s s h a r e
s u f f ic ie n t h a r m o n ic lik e n e s s , its e f f e c t is in e s c a p a b le . L ik e lo v e , s y m p a th e tic
r e s p o n s e is n o t a n a c t o f v o l i t i o n b u t a n i r r e s i s t i b l e a n d b l in d f o r c e . I t is n o t
a s u b j e c t i v e p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n s o m e o n e e l s e s e m o t i o n s , b u t a n o b j e c t i v e
p r o p e r t y o f b e in g . M o r e o v e r , a s I m e n tio n e d , s y m p a th e tic v i b r a t io n o n ly
h a p p e n s i f th e r ig h t c o n d itio n s a r e p r e s e n t. T h e t w o v i b r a t in g b o d i e s h a v e to
b e s o m e w h a t a lik e , th e ir f o r m o r m o d e o f b e in g s o m e h o w c o n g ru e n t.
M o d e r n a c o u s tic s h a s e x p la in e d th e n a tu re o f s u c h c o n g ru e n c e b y
d e m o n s tra tin g th a t s y m p a th e tic r e s o n a n c e o c c u r s w h e n th e n a tu ra l
o s c i l l a t o r y p e r i o d s o f s o n o r o u s v i b r a t o r s a r e h a r m o n i c a l l y r e l a t e d a n d th e
v i b r a t io n s a r e is o c h r o n o u s , th u s d e m y s tif y in g th e e n ig m a tic p r o p e r t ie s o f
m u s i c a l s y m p a t h y .5 B u t i n a w o r l d i n w h i c h a n a d e q u a t e p h y s i c a l
u n d e r s ta n d in g o f s u c h a p h e n o m e n o n w a s n o t y e t a v a ila b le , th e s y m b o lis m o f
th e v i o l a d a m o r e a l l o w e d id e a s o f o n to lo g ic a l s im ilitu d e , lo v e , a n d
s y m p a th y to c o a l e s c e in to a c o h e s i v e o b j e c t a n d a s e n s o r y e x p e r ie n c e .
T h e s tr a tif ic a tio n o f m e a n in g s d i s c e r n ib l e in th e v i o l a d a m o r e r e s t e d o n
th e lo n g - s ta n d in g a u th o r ity o f p h ilo s o p h e r s w h o tu r n e d to s o u n d p h e n o m e n a
to e x p la i n th e e v a n e s c e n t n o tio n o f s y m p a th y . A n d th e y p r o b a b l y d i d s o
b e c a u s e th e b e h a v io r o f s tr in g s in m u s ic a l in s tru m e n ts h a d o n e fu n d a m e n ta l
a d v a n ta g e : it a ll o w e d th e m to d e m o n s tra te , in a n e a s i l y o b s e r v a b le f a s h io n ,
th a t in th e c h a in o f b e in g s a c tio n e x e r te d o n a n o b j e c t c a n a f f e c t a n o th e r
o b je c t, a n d th a t th e r e f o r e th e tw o o b je c ts m u s t b e s o m e h o w c o n n e c te d b y a
p r in c ip le o f c o n c o r d a n c e o r s im ilitu d e . D is c u s s in g th e in flu e n c e o f h e a v e n ly
b o d ie s a n d th e e f f ic a c y o f p r a y e r , P lo tin u s w r ite s :
B u t th e su n , o r a n o th e r h e a v e n ly b o d y , d o e s n o t h e a r h is p ra y e r. A n d th a t
w h i c h h e p r a y s f o r c o m e s a b o u t b e c a u s e o n e p a r t is i n s y m p a th e tic
c o n n e c tio n w i t h a n o th e r, j u s t a s i n o n e te n s e s tr in g ; f o r i f th e s tr in g is
p l u c k e d a t th e l o w e r e n d , i t h a s a v i b r a t i o n a t th e u p p e r. B u t o fte n , to o , w h e n
o n e s tr in g is p lu c k e d , a n o th e r h a s a k in d o f s e n s e o f th is b y its c o n c o r d a n d
th e f a c t th a t i t is tu n e d to th e s a m e s c a le . B u t i f th e v i b r a t io n c a n e v e n p a s s
f r o m o n e ly r e to a n o th e r in s o f a r a s a s y m p a th y e x is ts , th e n th e r e is a ls o o n e
s in g le h a rm o n y in th e A ll, e v e n i f i t is c o m p o s e d o f o p p o s ite s ; a n d i t is in
f a c t c o m p o s e d o f p a r ts w h ic h a r e a lik e a n d a ll a k in , e v e n w h e n th e y a r e
 o p p o s ite .6
I n M a r s i l i o F i c i n o s h a n d s , th is m u s ic a l c o n c e p tio n o f th e
c o r r e s p o n d e n c e b e tw e e n b e in g s a n d th in g s , c o u p le d w i t h th e m e d ic a l th e o r y
o f th e tim e , w a s fu rth e r d e v e l o p e d in to a n e x p la n a to r y m o d e l f o r th e p o w e r
th a t m u s ic w i e l d s o v e r th e h u m a n s o u l. F o r F ic in o s o u n d a n d s p i r i t th e th in
v a p o r p r o d u c e d in th e h e a r t b y m ix in g a ir a n d b l o o d a n d th e b o n d b e tw e e n
b o d y a n d s o u l a r e lin k e d b y a s p e c ia l a ffin ity . T h e y b o th o w e th e ir a lm o s t
im p e r c e p tib le m a te r ia lity to th e ir lik e n e s s to a ir. T h e r e f o r e , m u s ic , w h ic h a s
m o v e m e n t o f th e a i r u s e s a ir a s its m e d iu m , e x c ite s th e s p i r i t in to th e s a m e
m o tio n , a n d th ro u g h th e s p i r i t th e s o u l, w i t h a f o r c e th a t h a s n o e q u iv a l e n t in
h u m a n p h y s io lo g y .7 F o r c e n tu r ie s th e p o w e r o f m u s ic to a f f e c t h u m a n
e m o tio n s th r i v e d o n th e m e m o ry o f th is s y m p a th e tic r e s o n a n c e , lo n g a f te r its
p h ilo s o p h ic a l u n d e rp in n in g s h a d w a n e d . C a u g h t in th e r e s o n a n c e o f its o w n
s p ir itu s , th e w h o le h u m a n b e in g b e c o m e s m u s ic . O r in T S. E l i o t s w o r d s ,
m u s ic h e a r d s o d e e p ly th a t i t is n o t h e a r d a t a ll, b u t y o u a r e th e m u s ic w h ile
th e m u s ic l a s t s .

1 One of the most comprehensive investigations into the phenomenon of sympathy in the early modern
period is Girolamo Fracastoro, De sympathia et antipathia rerum liber unus. De contagione et
contagiosis morbis et curatione libri iii (Venice: Heredes Lucaeantonii Iuntae Florentini, 1546), on
which see Concetta Pennuto, Simpatia, fantasia e contagio: Il pensiero medico e il pensiero
filosofico di Girolamo Fracastoro (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2008). Further examples of the
enduring influence of and interest in sympathetic resonance may be found in Penelope Gouk, Music in
Francis Bacons Natural Philosophy, in Number to Sound: The Musical Way to the Scientific
Revolution, ed. Paolo Gozza (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2000), 135-52; and Claude Palisca,
Moving the Affections through Music: Pre-Cartesian Psycho-Physiological Theories, in Number to
Sound: The Musical Way to the Scientific Revolution , ed. Paolo Gozza (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic,
2000), 289-308.
2 Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, in Works, ed. James Spedding, Robert Leslie Elis, and Douglas
Denon Heath, 15 vols. (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1869-72), century 3, 4.294-95.
3 Leopold Mozart, The Art o f the Violin, trans. Elisabeth Kaplan, ed. Matthias Michael Beckmann,
([Salzburg]: Kunstverlag Polzer, 2008), 40.
4 A ct 2, last scene (Humming Chorus). Puccini had a viola damore built by Leandro Bisiach for the
premiere of the opera at La Scala. The instrument is housed in the Museo degli Strumenti Musicali in
Milan. See Andrea Gatti, ed ., Museo degli strumenti musicali (Milan: Electa, 1998), 50-51.
5 On the development of musical acoustics in the early modern period, including the important
contributions of Galileo Galilei and Christian Huygens, see Hendrik Floris Cohen, Quantifying Music:
The Science o f Music at the First Stage o f the Scientific Revolution, 1580-1650 (Dordrecht: D.
Reidel, 1984).
6 Plotinus, On the Problems of Soul, Ennead IV.4.41, trans. A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library
443 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 265. This passage is discussed at length in
chapter 2 in this volume.
7 On Ficinos music-spirit theory see D. P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to
Campanella (1958; University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 3-11; and Gary
Tomlinson, Music in Renaissance Magic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 101-44.
 C H A P T E R FO U R

Seventeenth-Century Universal Sympathy

STOICISM, PLATONISM, LEIBNIZ, AND CONWAY

C h r is tia M e rc e r

T h e c o n c e p t o f s y m p a th y p la y s a n in c r e a s in g ly im p o rta n t r o le in p h ilo s o p h y
o v e r t h e c o u r s e o f t h e s e v e n t e e n t h c e n tu r y . I n t h i s c h a p t e r , I e x p l o r e s o m e o f t h e
m o s t p r o m in e n t d e b a te s a b o u t th e c o n c e p t in th e m id d le d e c a d e s o f th e c e n tu ry
and th e n u se th is m a te r ia l to d isp la y its s ig n ific a n c e i n th e m e ta p h y s ic a l
s y s te m s o f G . W . L e ib n iz a n d A n n e C o n w a y . B o th p h ilo s o p h e r s a r e c o m m itte d
to u n iv e rs a l s y m p a th y , a c c o rd in g to w h ic h a ll c re a tu re s c o rre sp o n d
s y m p a th e tic a lly to a ll th e o th e r s . A lth o u g h th is is p r i m a r i l y a m e ta p h y s ic a l
c la im , it h a s m o ra l im p lic a tio n s .1
S e c tio n 1 o f f e r s a n o v e r v i e w o f th e n o tio n o f s y m p a th y in th e s e v e n te e n th
c e n tu r y . A t t h e b e g i n n i n g o f t h e c e n t u r y , s y m p a t h y i s a n o c c u l t p o w e r t r e a t e d
m o s tly b y th in k e r s o n th e p e r i p h e r y o f p h ilo s o p h y . D u r in g th e s e c o n d h a l f o f th e
c e n tu r y , i t b e c o m e s a c e n t r a l c o m p o n e n t o f m a i n s t r e a m p h i l o s o p h i c a l s y s t e m s .
S e c tio n 2 d is c u s s e s S to ic id e a s a b o u t s y m p a th y e x ta n t in th e p e rio d and
d i s p l a y s h o w th r e e s e v e n te e n th - c e n tu r y th in k e r s u s e th e m . S e c tio n 3 tu rn s to
P la to n is t d o c tr in e s th a t c o n s titu te s o m e o f th e r a w m a te r ia ls f o r th in k in g a b o u t
s y m p a th y and a rtic u la te s tw o k in d s o f re la tio n s : s y m p a th y and enhanced
s y m p a th y . S e c ti o n 4 d i s p l a y s th e im p o r ta n t r o l e s y m p a th y p la y s in th e th o u g h t
o f G . W . L e ib n iz ( 1 6 4 6 - 1 7 1 6 ) . L e ib n iz tr a n s f o r m s th e t r a d i ti o n a l n o tio n in to a
c e n tr a l d o c tr in e i n o n e o f th e m o s t s ig n if ic a n t m e ta p h y s ic a l s y s te m s i n th e
h is to r y o f p h ilo s o p h y . S e c tio n 5 tu rn s to th e th o u g h t o f th e E n g lis h P la to n is t
A nne C onw ay (1 6 3 1 -7 9 ). C onw ay uses enhanced s y m p a th y to c re a te a
m e ta p h y s ic s o f s tr ik in g o r ig in a lity . S h e g o e s b e y o n d L e ib n iz to a f f ix a m o ra l
a s p e c t to u n iv e rs a l s y m p a th y . F in a lly , s e c tio n 6 o ffe rs som e c o n c lu d in g
r e m a r k s a b o u t t h e c o n c e p t s a r c i n t h e c e n tu r y .
 1. Un d e r s t a n d i n g the Oc c u l t

I n 1 6 0 0 , G io r d a n o B ru n o w a s b u r n e d a t th e s ta k e in th e C a m p o d e F io r i in
R o m e . T h e p u b lic e x e c u tio n o f a p r o m in e n t p h ilo s o p h e r a n d c o s m o lo g is t
e x e m p lif ie s th e s tru g g le s a n d p a s s io n s th a t p h ilo s o p h ic a l id e a s in th e p e r i o d
p ro v o k e d . B y 1 6 0 0 , th e P r o te s ta n t r e f o r m e r s h a d s p lin te r e d in to w a r r in g
fa c tio n s and th e c o u n te r - r e f o r m a tio n w as w e ll u n d er w ay. E u ro p e w as
e m b r o ile d in p o litic a l in s ta b ility , r e lig io u s c h a o s , a n d r a n d o m a c ts o f v io le n c e .
P a s s io n a te d is a g r e e m e n ts e x te n d e d to d e b a te s a b o u t th e in te r c o n n e c tio n s
a m o n g th e p a r ts o f th e w o r ld . M a n y p h ilo s o p h e r s a n d s tu d e n ts o f n a tu re
a s s u m e d th a t w o r l d l y p a r ts s h a r e d a s y m p a th e tic c o n n e c tio n , a lth o u g h th e r e
w e re d iv e r s e w ays o f r e f e r r in g to , d e s c r ib in g , and e x p la in in g th e s e
in te rc o n n e c tio n s . I n c h a p te r 3 o f th is v o lu m e , A n n M o y e r n o te s th e h is to r y o f
th e w o r d s y m p a th ia a n d its c o g n a te s in th e R e n a is s a n c e , a n d d is p la y s th e w id e
ra n g e o f v i e w s a b o u t th e s y m p a th e tic o r f r ie n d ly p o w e r s o f n a tu re . T h e
c o m m o n a s s u m p tio n u n d e rly in g th e s e d i v e r s e v i e w s is th a t th e r e is , i n th e
w o rd s o f one p r o m in e n t th in k e r, a c e rta in a ffin ity o f N a tu r e . 2 The
d is a g r e e m e n ts a r o s e in a tte m p tin g to d e s c r i b e a n d e x p la i n th is a ffin ity .
By 1 7 0 0 , L e ib n iz s p h ilo s o p h y o f p r e e s t a b l i s h e d h a rm o n y w a s k n o w n
th ro u g h o u t E u r o p e a n d I s a a c N e w t o n s M a th e m a tic a l P r in c ip le s o f N a tu r a l
P h ilo s o p h y o f 1 6 8 7 w a s c h a n g in g th e c o u r s e o f s c ie n c e . S e v e n te e n th -c e n tu ry
v i e w s a b o u t s y m p a th y in f lu e n c e d th is g r o u n d b r e a k in g w o r k .3 T h e p a th fro m
R e n a is s a n c e n o tio n s o f s y m p a th y a s a m y s te rio u s a n d m a g ic a l p o w e r to
s o m e th in g th a t c o u ld b e r e n d e r e d w ith lo g ic a l a n d m a th e m a tic a l p r e c i s i o n is
m o re c o m p lic a te d th a n c a n b e g iv e n h e re , b u t s o m e o f th e m o s t p r o m in e n t s te p s
a lo n g th e w a y a r e a s f o llo w s .
T h e s ix te e n th c e n tu r y w a s fu ll o f th o u g h tfu l p e o p le w h o b e l i e v e d i n v a r io u s
fo rm s o f s y m p a th e tic m a g ic a n d h id d e n f o r c e s .4 A s M o y e r s h o w s , a w i d e a r r a y
o f m e d ic a l d o c to r s a n d n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h e r s to o k th e r e to b e p h e n o m e n a w h o s e
e x p la n a tio n s d e m a n d e d a s y m p a th y , f r ie n d s h ip , o r a ffin ity a m o n g p a r ts
o f th e w o r ld . I m p o r ta n t f if te e n th -c e n tu ry th in k e rs lik e M a r s i l i o F ic in o a n d
G io v a n n i P ic o d e lla M ir a n d o la p ro m o te th e id e a th a t b o d ie s can be
m a n ip u la te d to in f lu e n c e one a n o th e r at a d is ta n c e . A lth o u g h som e
c o n s id e r e d th e m a n ip u la tio n o f th e h id d e n o r o c c u lt p o w e r s o f n a tu re to b e
d e m o n ic , m a n y a s s u m e d th a t a th o ro u g h f a m ilia r ity w ith s u c h p o w e r s w a s a
m e a n s to b e n e fit h u m a n k in d a n d d is c o v e r, i n P i c o s w o r d s , t h e m i r a c l e s
c o n c e a le d in th e r e c e s s e s o f th e w o r l d . 5
D e b a te s about s y m p a th y as an o c c u lt p o w e r p e rs is t th ro u g h th e
s e v e n te e n th c e n tu r y a n d c o n tin u e to in c lu d e q u e s tio n s a b o u t m a g ic a n d th e
d a n g e rs o f m a n ip u la tin g s u c h h id d e n f o r c e s . M a n y c o n s id e r it im p o r ta n t to
d is tin g u is h n a tu ra l f r o m s u p e r n a tu r a l p o w e r s a n d to id e n tif y th e k in d o f m a g ic
in v o lv e d in th e ir m a n ip u la tio n s .6 F o r s o m e , b e c a u s e s y m p a th e tic p o w e r s a r e
s u p e r n a tu r a l, th e y d e fy u n d e r s ta n d in g a n d e v e n p r o p e r d e s c r ip tio n . F o r o th e r s ,
b e c a u s e th e y a r e n a tu r a l, th e ir e ff e c ts a ll o w f o r s tu d y a n d c a r e f u l d e s c r ip tio n ,
e v e n th o u g h t h e i r u n d e r ly in g c a u s e m ig h t l i e b e y o n d w h a t is i n te ll i g ib l e . A
w id e ly u s e d p h ilo s o p h ic a l le x ic o n p u b lis h e d in 1 6 1 3 d is tin g u is h e s b e tw e e n
n a tu ra l m a g ic , w h ic h m ark s th e p e rfe c tio n of p h ilo s o p h y , and
s u p e r s titio u s m a g ic , w h ic h in v o lv e s in c a n ta tio n s a n d im p u re s p ir i ts a n d is
d ia b o lic a l. 7 T h e s a m e le x ic o n d e fin e s th e o c c u lt a s w h a t is h id d e n o r
c o n c e a l e d f r o m e ith e r s e n s e o r i n te ll e c t o r b o th . 8 G iv e n o u r c o n c e r n s , th e
m o s t im p o r ta n t s e n s e o f th e t e r m o c c u lt i n th e p e r i o d is to d e s ig n a te n a tu r a l
p o w e r s th a t, w i t h th e r ig h t tra in in g , h u m a n s c a n l e a r n to m a n ip u la te f o r th e ir
b e n e fit. L e ib n iz , in h is ty p ic a l c le a r - h e a d e d fa s h io n , d is tin g u is h e s b e tw e e n a n
o c c u lt p o w e r w h o s e c a u s e is u n k n o w n a n d o n e w h o s e e f f e c t ... c a n n e v e r
b e c o m e in te llig ib le . T h e la tte r m u s t b e a v o id e d in s e r io u s p h ilo s o p h y .9 In
s h o rt, w e ll in to th e s e v e n te e n th c e n tu ry , th e r e is w id e s p r e a d d is a g re e m e n t
a b o u t w h e th e r s y m p a th e tic p o w e r s a ff o r d c a re fu l e x p lo r a tio n a n d a r tic u la tio n
o r d e f y u n d e r s ta n d in g a lto g e th e r.
B e g in n in g in th e e a r l y s e v e n te e n th c e n tu r y a n d la s tin g f o r s e v e r a l d e c a d e s ,
th e m o s t p r o m in e n t s ite fo r s u c h d e b a te s a b o u t th e s e is s u e s is a m e d ic a l
p h e n o m e n o n , t h e p o w e r o f s y m p a t h y , o n w h i c h h u n d r e d s o f pages w e re
w r itte n b y le a r n e d e x p e rim e n te rs a n d t h o u g h tf u l p h y s i c i a n s . I t w a s w i d e l y
a g r e e d th a t a n e f f e c tiv e w a y to tr e a t a w o u n d w a s to a p p ly a s a lv e o r p o w d e r
( u s u a lly m a d e o u t o f c o p p e r s u lf a te ) to a n o b j e c t th a t c o n ta in e d b l o o d f r o m th e
w o u n d ( s a y , t h e s w o r d t h a t c a u s e d t h e w o u n d o r a b a n d a g e t h a t h a d b o u n d it) .
W e ll- r e s p e c te d m e d ic a l d o c to r s c o n f ir m e d th e h e a lin g p o w e r s o f th e tre a tm e n t
a n d th e n d e b a te d h o w b e s t to d e s c r i b e th e s y m p a th e tic b o n d b e tw e e n th e
w o u n d a n d th e b lo o d to w h ic h th e s a lv e w a s a p p lie d . R u d o lp h G o c le n iu s
( 1 5 7 2 - 1 6 2 8 ) , a p r o m in e n t P r o te s ta n t p r o f e s s o r o f M a r b u r g , p r o m o te d th e u s e
o f th e tre a tm e n t, w h ic h h e d e s c r i b e d a s n a tu ra l m a g ic , o p e r a tin g th ro u g h
s y m p a t h y .10 I n r e s p o n s e , a J e s u i t a n d p r o f e s s o r o f W u r z b u r g a n d M a i n z , J e a n
R o b e r ti ( 1 5 6 9 - 1 6 5 1 ) , w a rn ed a g a in s t u s in g a n y f o r m o f m a g ic s in c e it
in v o lv e d th e d e c e itf u l w o r k o f th e d e v il w i t h w h o m p r a c titio n e r s w e r e
c l e a r l y in c a h o o ts .11
J a n B a p tis te v a n H e lm o n t ( 1 5 8 0 - 1 6 4 4 ) , a n in flu e n tia l F le m is h p h y s ic ia n
a n d c h e m is t, h e lp s to s h if t th e d i s c u s s io n in 1 6 2 1 w i t h th e p u b lic a tio n o f O n
th e M a g n e tic C u r in g o f W ounds, in w h ic h h e in s is ts th a t th e d e b a te b e tw e e n
G o c le n iu s a n d th in k e rs lik e R o b e r ti, w h o w o u ld in v o lv e d e m o n s , c o u ld b e
e a s i l y r e s o lv e d : a ll th a t w a s n e e d e d w a s to e x p la i n th o ro u g h ly th e s a l v e s
h e a lin g p o w e r s a n d m a k e th e m o p e n to u n d e r s ta n d in g . 12 V an H e lm o n t o ff e rs
a n e a t a c c o u n t o f th e d e b a te a n d its h is to ry . A c c o r d i n g to h im , th e w e ll- k n o w n
p h y s ic i a n a n d c o s m o lo g is t P a r a c e ls u s ( 1 4 9 3 - 1 5 4 1 ) s h o w e d s y m p a th y to b e
n a tu r a l a n d s o p a v e d th e w a y fo r a fu lly n a tu r a lis tic a c c o u n t o f th is fe a tu re o f
th e w o r l d . 13 A n y o n e w h o w a n ts to e x p la i n s y m p a th y a n d a n tip a th y in te rm s
o f d e m o n ic p o w e r s h a s s im p ly m is u n d e r s to o d w h a t it m e a n s to b e n a tu ra l.
W h e n d o c to r s m a n ip u la te th e s e v i t a l i t i e s , th e y a r e m e r e ly u s in g th e ir
u n d e r s ta n d in g o f p o w e r s in G o d s w o r ld . B e c a u s e th e e ffe c ts o f th e s e v ita l
f o r c e s s o m e tim e s s e e m p a r a d o x i c a l , th e y a r e o f te n a ttr ib u te d to th e d e v il. In
fa c t, th e y r e s u lt f r o m a v it a l i t y th a t h a s s c a tte r e d i t s e l f a r o u n d s o th a t a ll
th in g s m u tu a lly f e e l, m o v e , a r e r e la te d , e tc . 14 I w i l l s a y m o re a b o u t V an
H e lm o n ts v i e w s a b o u t v ita lity , p o w e r , a n d s y m p a th y in th e n e x t s e c tio n . T h e
m a in p o in t n o w is th a t h e r e p r e s e n ts a s h if t in th e s e v e n te e n th c e n tu r y to a n
a tte m p t to o f f e r a n a c c o u n t o f s y m p a th e tic p o w e r s th a t is th o ro u g h g o in g e n o u g h
to b e u n d e r s to o d b y a ll.
T h e p o w d e r o f s y m p a th y a s a m e d ic a l tr e a tm e n t a n d p h ilo s o p h ic a l
c o n u n d ru m p e r s i s t e d a t l e a s t th ro u g h th e 1 6 6 0 s . O n e o f th e m o s t w i d e l y k n o w n
E n g lis h p h ilo s o p h e r s o f th e s e v e n te e n th c e n tu ry , K e n e lm D ig b y , g a v e an
account o f th e tre a tm e n t in te rm s c o n s is te n t w ith th e new m e c h a n ic a l
p h ilo s o p h y .15 A c c o r d i n g to th e p h y s ic a l m o d e l o f f e r e d b y p h ilo s o p h e r s lik e
D e s c a r te s , H o b b e s , G a s s e n d i, a n d D ig b y , a ll th e fe a tu re s o f th e c o r p o r e a l
w o rld c o u ld be e x p la in e d in te rm s o f c o rp o re al c o m p o n e n ts and th e ir
m o tio n s .16 I n h is Two T rea tises o f 1 6 4 4 , D ig b y o f f e r s a n e c le c tic m e ta p h y s ic s
b a s e d o n a r a d i c a l r e in te r p r e ta tio n o f A r i s t o t l e s th e o r y o f e le m e n ts a n d a n
a to m is tic a c c o u n t o f n a tu r e .17 H a v in g s tu d ie d m e d ic in e a n d e x p e r im e n te d w ith
th e h e a lin g p o w e r s o f th e p o w d e r o f s y m p a th y , D ig b y b e c a m e k n o w n
th ro u g h o u t E u r o p e fo r h is a to m is tic e x p la n a tio n o f sy m p a th y . A c c o r d i n g to h is
a c c o u n t, b e c a u s e th e a to m s o f b l o o d o n th e o b j e c t tr e a te d w i t h th e p o w d e r
w i l l s e e k th e ir p r o p e r s o u r c e a n d o r ig in a l r o o t a n d b e c a u s e th e p o w d e r
c a n n o t c h o o s e b u t m a k e th e s a m e v o y a g e to g e th e r w i t h th e a to m s o f b l o o d ,
t h e p o w e r w i l l f i n d t h e p r o p e r s o u r c e a n d o r i g i n a l r o o t w h e n c e t h e y [ th e
a to m s o f b lo o d ] is s u e a n d w i l l j o y n tly b e im b ib e d to g e th e r w i t h in a ll th e
c o r n e r s , f i b r e s , a n d o r i f i c e s o f t h e V e in s w h i c h l y e o p e n a b o u t t h e w o u n d s o
th a t th e w ound m u st o f n e c e s s ity be r e f T e s h t, and in fin e im p e rc e p tib ly
c u r e d . 18 D i g b y i n s i s t s t h a t i n s t e a d o f r e s i g n i n g o u r s e l v e s t o a h i d d e n S e c r e t
o f N a tu r e o r s o m e o c c u lt p r o p e r ty , i t is p o s s ib l e to e x a m in e th e b u s in e s s ,
a s i t o u g h t t o b e , o b s e r v i n g a l l t h a t i s d o n e . 19 I f w e a r e p r o p e r l y c a r e f u l i n o u r
o b s e r v a t i o n s , t h e n w e n e e d n o t h a v e r e c o u r s e t o a D e m o n o r A n g e l , 20 b u t
r a th e r c a n g r a s p th e p r o f o u n d a n d h id d e n m y s te r ie s o f N a tu r e . T o d i s c e r n th e
w o r k i n g s o f s y m p a t h y , w e n e e d o n l y t a k e t h e p a i n s t o d i s c o v e r t h e m . 21
T h e m a in c o n c lu s io n to d r a w f r o m th is s e c tio n is th a t th e m id d le d e c a d e s o f
th e s e v e n te e n th c e n tu r y w i t n e s s a s h ift i n d is c u s s io n s a b o u t th e s y m p a th e tic
o r f r ie n d ly p o w e r s in n a tu re . A lth o u g h a c c o u n ts in v o lv in g o c c u lt f o r c e s a n d
dem ons p e rs is t, p h y s ic ia n s and p h ilo s o p h e rs in c re a s in g ly seek a d e ta ile d
a c c o u n t o f th e c a u s e a n d n a tu re o f th e s e p o w e r s . T h e y b e g in , in o th e r w o r d s , to
a tte m p t to o ffe r a m e ta p h y s ic a l g ro u n d in g fo r phenom ena tra d itio n a lly
a s s o c ia te d w ith o c c u lt s y m p a th e tic fo rc e s .
 2. Un i v e r s a l Sy m p a t h y : Ea r l y Mo d e r n St o i c i s m

T h e p r im a r y g o a l o f th is s e c tio n is to d i s p l a y th e s ig n if ic a n c e o f S to ic is m a s a
s o u r c e o f id e a s f o r th o s e s e v e n te e n th - c e n tu ry th in k e r s a tte m p tin g to c r e a te a
s y s te m a tic a c c o u n t o f u n iv e r s a l s y m p a th y . B e f o r e tu r n in g to S to ic is m , h o w e v e r ,
i t w i l l b e h e lp f u l to n o te b r ie f ly o n e o f th e m a in p h ilo s o p h ic a l d if f ic u ltie s th a t
S to ic n o tio n s o f s y m p a th y w e r e s u p p o s e d to h e lp s o lv e . W ith th e d is m a n tlin g
o f th e P to le m a ic u n iv e r s e a n d th e p r o m o tio n o f n e w c o n c e p tio n s o f th e c o s m o s ,
a s s u g g e s te d b y J o h a n n e s K e p le r ( 1 5 7 1 - 1 6 3 0 ) a n d o th e r s , th e n e e d to re th in k
t h e f o r c e s i n G o d s w o r l d s e e m e d i n c r e a s i n g l y o b v i o u s . 22 T h e s l o w d e m i s e o f
A r i s t o t e l ia n p h y s ic s c o u p le d w i t h th e f a ilu r e o f th e m e c h a n ic a l p h ilo s o p h e r s to
g r o u n d th e ir n e w p h y s ic s i n a s a tis f a c to r y m e ta p h y s ic s e n c o u r a g e d m a n y i n th e
s e c o n d h a l f o f t h e c e n t u r y t o r e t h i n k t h e v i t a l p o w e r s i n n a t u r e . 23 T h e 1 6 5 0 s
and 1660s saw a n e x p lo s io n o f c r e a tiv e w a y s o f d e s c r ib in g a n d e x p la in in g
n a tu r a l a c tiv ity . T h e n e e d to r e c o n s i d e r th e a c tiv ity a n d in te r r e la tio n s a m o n g
n a tu r a l th in g s p a r t l y m o tiv a te s th e th o u g h t o f p r o m in e n t th in k e r s lik e S p in o z a ,
L e ib n iz , a n d N e w to n a s w e l l a s a lo n g l i s t o f l e s s e r k n o w n p h ilo s o p h e r s ,
in c lu d in g H e n ry M o re , M a rg a re t C a v e n d is h , E rh a rd W e ig e l, N ic o la s
M a le b r a n c h e , a n d A n n e C o n w a y . S o m e o f th e s e th in k e r s fo u n d i n s p i r a t io n in
th e n o tio n o f s y m p a th y , a n d m a n y tu r n e d to S t o ic i s m a s a s o u r c e f o r id e a s a b o u t
s y m p a th e tic p o w e r s .
I n d i s c u s s in g e a r l y m o d e r n S to ic is m , i t is im p o r ta n t to d is tin g u is h b e tw e e n
S to ic id e a s in h e r ite d f r o m m e d ie v a l C h r is tia n ity a n d th o s e in tr o d u c e d in th e
R e n a i s s a n c e . A s o n e s c h o l a r p u t s it, a n c i e n t S t o i c i s m w a s a b s o r b e d i n t o t h e
c o m p le x a m a lg a m o f J u d a ic a n d G r e e k te a c h in g th a t b e c a m e C h r is tia n th e o lo g y
a n d e th i c s ... . O f a ll th e a n c ie n t p h ilo s o p h ie s , S to ic is m h a s p r o b a b l y h a d th e
m o st d iffu s e d but a ls o th e le a s t e x p lic it and a d e q u a te ly a c k n o w le d g e d
in flu e n c e o n w e s t e r n t h o u g h t . 24 S t o i c id e a s w e re p a r t o f th e in te lle c tu a l
m a te r ia ls th a t e a r l y m o d e r n E u r o p e in h e r ite d f r o m m e d ie v a l th e is m . W h e n th e
t e r m s y m p a th y a n d its c o g n a te s g a in e d c o m m o n c u r r e n c y in th e f if te e n th a n d
s ix te e n th c e n tu r ie s , th e y c o u ld c o m f o r ta b ly a p p ly to lo n g f a m ilia r id e a s .
T h e h is to r y o f S to ic m e ta p h y s ic s in th e f ir s t h a l f o f th e s e v e n te e n th c e n tu ry
h a s y e t to b e w r itte n , b u t tw o th in g s a r e c le a r. W ith th e r e d i s c o v e r y o f S to ic
w r itin g s in th e R e n a is s a n c e , n e w r a w m a te r ia ls w e r e a v a il a b l e a n d a c a r e f u l
in v e n to r y o f S to ic m e ta p h y s ic a l v i e w s b e c a m e p o s s i b l e f o r th e f i r s t tim e in
h u n d re d s o f y e a r s . T h e la te s ix te e n th a n d e a r l y s e v e n te e n th c e n tu r ie s w itn e s s e d
a n in c r e a s in g f a s c in a tio n w i t h S to i c is m a s a p h ilo s o p h ic a l s o u r c e s e t a g a in s t
A r i s t o t e l i a n i s m a n d P la to n is m . O r ig in a lly th is in te r e s t f o c u s e d o n th e m o ra l
p h ilo s o p h y o f th in k e rs lik e S e n e c a a n d E p ic te tu s . B u t in 1 6 0 4 , J u s tu s L ip s iu s
(1 5 4 7 -1 6 0 6 ), th e m ost p r o m in e n t e a rly m o d e rn p r o m o te r of S to ic is m ,
p u b lis h e d w h a t o n e s c h o la r h a s c a l l e d th e f i r s t s y s te m a tic a tte m p t to g a th e r
to g e th e r th e fra g m e n ts o f th e S to i c s . 25 T h e r e s u l t o f L i p s i u s s s c h o la r ly w o r k
l e d to a m u c h b e tte r u n d e r s ta n d in g o f S to ic m e ta p h y s ic s a n d a c l e a r e r s e n s e
th a t, a s L ip s iu s n o te d , S to ic e th ic s a n d m e ta p h y s ic s a r e in s e p a r a b le . T h e
e ffe c ts o f th is im p o r ta n t p u b lic a tio n , h o w e v e r , w e r e p r o b a b l y n o t w h a t its
a u th o r in te n d e d : S to ic m e ta p h y s ic a l d o c tr in e s w e r e s o c l e a r l y u n o r th o d o x th a t
th e r e w a s a r i s i n g tid e o f d i s a p p r o v a l .26 B y th e 1 6 7 0 s , c o n d e m n a tio n s b e c a m e
in te r n a tio n a l and v i t r i o l i c .27 F o r e x a m p le , th e E n g lis h P la to n is t R a lp h
C u d w o r th a n d th e im p o r ta n t G e r m a n A r i s t o t e l i a n J a k o b T h o m a s iu s a r e w illin g
to l i s t th e d a n g e r s o f S to ic m e ta p h y s ic s . I n h is True I n te lle c tu a l S y s te m o f th e
U n ive rse o f 1 6 7 8 , C u d w o r th o ff e rs a s u s ta in e d c r itiq u e o f S to ic p h ilo s o p h y .28
I n a le n g th y b o o k p u b lis h e d in 1 6 7 6 o n th e d a n g e r s o f S to ic p h ilo s o p h y ,
L e ib n iz s m e n to r, T h o m a s iu s , p r e s e n ts a d e t a i l e d c o m p a r is o n o f th e v i e w s o f
A r is to te lia n s , P la to n is ts , a n d S to ic s o n a n u m b e r o f p o in ts , e m p h a s iz in g th e
f a ls e and d an g ero u s v ie w s o f th e S to ic s .29 U n s u r p ris in g ly , L e ib n iz is
th o ro u g h ly f a m ilia r w ith S to ic e th ic s a n d m e ta p h y s ic s . A lth o u g h h e a p p la u d s
s o m e o f th e ir id e a s , h e r e je c ts th e ir c la im s th a t G o d is th e s o u l o f th e w o r l d
o r, i f y o u w is h , th e p r im a r y p o w e r o f th e w o r l d r e s u ltin g in a b lin d
n e c e s s ity th a t d e te r m in e s h im to a c t. 30 In o th e r w o rd s, as S to ic
m e ta p h y s ic a l v i e w s b e c a m e in c r e a s in g ly u n d e r s to o d i n th e s e v e n te e n th c e n tu ry ,
m o re and m o re th in k e rs re je c te d th e ir v ie w s as to o h e te r o d o x . Few
p h ilo s o p h e r s e x p lic itly a lig n th e m s e lv e s w ith S to ic m e ta p h y s ic s a f te r th e
m id d le p a r t o f th e p e r io d , a lth o u g h m a n y c o m b in e S to ic id e a s w ith th o s e o f
o th e r s c h o o ls to e x p la i n th e s y m p a th e tic p o w e r s o f n a tu r e .31 I t is v ir tu a lly
i m p o s s i b le to id e n tif y s p e c if ic S to ic d o c tr in e s th a t d i r e c t l y in f lu e n c e d th e
d e v e lo p m e n t o f s e v e n te e n th - c e n tu r y tre a tm e n ts o f s y m p a th y b e c a u s e , a s w e
w ill s e e , th e y a r e s o o f te n c o m b in e d w i t h id e a s f r o m P la to n is m . I n th e
r e m a in d e r o f th is s e c tio n , I s u r v e y th e th o u g h t o f th r e e s e v e n te e n th - c e n tu r y
p h ilo s o p h e r s w h o a r e p a r tic u la r ly in te r e s t e d i n sy m p a th y , f r e q u e n tly r e f e r to
th e S to ic s , a n d p r o p o s e id e a s th a t s e e m in d e b te d to S to ic is m .
J a n B a p tis te V an H e lm o n t w r o te a s e r ie s o f tr e a tis e s in th e f i r s t h a l f o f th e
s e v e n te e n th c e n tu ry th a t ra n g e f ro m m y s tic a l to m e d ic a l a n d e x p lic itly d r a w o n
i d e a s f r o m P a r a c e l s u s , t h e S t o i c s , a n d P l a t o n i s t a u t h o r s . 32 T h e r e i s i n s u f f i c i e n t
s p a c e h e r e t o g i v e a n o v e r v i e w o f V a n H e l m o n t s t h o u g h t o r e v e n t o l i s t h i s
v a rio u s c o n c ern s. In s te a d , I g iv e a ro u g h su m m a ry o f th o se m e ta p h y s ic a l
c la im s th a t f o r m th e c o n te x t f o r th e th o u g h t o f L e ib n iz a n d C o n w a y . A c c o r d in g
to V a n H e lm o n t, G o d is r e s p o n s i b le f o r a s p i r i t th a t p e r m e a te s th e w h o le
u n i v e r s e a n d p r e s e r v e s c o n c o r d a m o n g a l l t h i n g s . 33 I n c h a p t e r 1 o f o u r
v o lu m e , B r o u w e r d is c u s s e s th e S to ic n o tio n o f f ir e o r p n e u m a th a t f ills a n d
e n liv e n s th e w o r l d . V a n H e lm o n t s o m e tim e s d e s c r i b e s G o d a s fu ll o f lig h t a n d
f ir e , in s is tin g th a t th e f la m e o f G o d f ills a ll th in g s a n d c o n s titu te s th e ir
e s s e n c e . B e c a u s e th is s p ir it, fire , o r v ita l p o w e r h a s s c a tte r e d i t s e l f a ro u n d ,
t h e r e i s a c o n n e c t i o n a m o n g t h i n g s a s a c t i v e s p i r i t s 34 a n d h e n c e a m u tu a l
s e n s i n g a n d c o m m o n a t t r a c t i o n a m o n g t h e m . 35 T h a t i s , t h e a c t i v i t y o f a l l
th in g s s e e m s to e n ta il th a t th e y f e e l, m o v e , [a n d ] a r e r e l a t e d to o n e a n o th e r
and hence fo rm a tig h tly u n ifie d and in te rre la te d w h o l e . 36 V a n H e l m o n t
s o m e tim e s a s s e r ts th a t G o d s h a r e s th e s im p le e s s e n c e o f v ita lity a n d s p i r i t s o
th a t a ll th in g s a re u n ifie d and th e re b y fo rm a p e rfe c t u n ity am ong
s u b s t a n c e s . 37 R e g a r d l e s s o f h o w in a c tiv e s o m e e a rth ly b o d ie s m a y a p p e a r,
e v e ry th in g s ta n d s in s y m p a th e tic a ttr a c tio n a n d c o n c o r d w ith e v e r y th in g e ls e
a n d s o i s a c t i v e . 38 B e c a u s e a l l t h i n g s a r e a c t i v e a n d a l l a c t i v e t h i n g s s e n s e
a n d f e e l , i t f o llo w s th a t a ll th in g s s e n s e a n d f e e l a ll th e o th e r s . A s f a r a s I
k n o w , V a n H e lm o n t d o e s n o t e x p lic a te h is v ie w s a b o u t p e r c e p tio n a n d fe e lin g
in a n y d e ta il, a lth o u g h h e a c k n o w le d g e s a n in e f f a b le in te lle c tu a l lig h t f illin g
t h e w o r l d , 39 w h i c h m o t i v a t e s h u m a n s t o re c o g n iz e th e G o o d n e s s , P o w e r ,
i n f i n it y , G l o r y , a n d T r u t h o f G o d . T h i s l i g h t i s a m i r r o r o f t h e d i v i n i t y . 40 T o
s u m m a riz e th e m o s t im p o r ta n t p o in ts f o r u s: th e s p i r i t a n d v i ta li t y o f G o d
p e rm e a te s th e w o rld and each c re a tu re ; each c re a tu re is an a c tiv e and
p e r c e i v i n g t h in g ; e a c h p e r c e i v i n g t h i n g s e n s e s a n d f e e l s a l l o t h e r c r e a t u r e s ; t h e
r e s u l t o f t h e s h a r e d v i t a l i t y a n d t h e m u tu a l p e r c e p t i o n i s a p e r f e c t h a r m o n y
a m o n g c re a tu re s .
S y lv e s te r R a ttra y , a S c o ttis h p h y s ic ia n , p u b lis h e d a b o o k in 1 6 5 8 e n title d
N e w A p p ro a c h to R e c e n tly D is c o v e r e d O c c u lt C a u se s o f S y m p a th y a n d
A n tip a th y : B ro u g h t to L ig h t th ro u g h th e P r in c ip le s o f N a tu r a l P h ilo s o p h y 41
A c c o r d in g to R a ttra y , h is c o n te m p o r a r ie s a tte m p t to e x p la in th e cau ses of
s y m p a th y a n d a n tip a th y u s in g th e th e o r ie s o f A r is to tle a n d G a le n . I n s te a d o f
e n g a g in g in th e e r r o r s o f th e s e a n d o th e r A n c ie n ts , it is tim e to o f f e r a n
a c c o u n t b a s e d o n n e w e x p e rim e n ts . R a ttr a y d e s c r ib e s th e v a r io u s m e a n s b y
w h i c h h e h a s s tu d ie d th e c a u s a l r e la tio n s a m o n g p la n ts , a n im a ls , a n d m in e r a ls .
B y s u b m ittin g th e ir e le m e n ts to th e f ir e a n d c a r e f u lly s tu d y in g th e r e s u lts , h e
i s a b l e t o d e s c r i b e t h e i r s y m p a t h e t i c i n t e r a c t i o n s . 42 H e s u m m a r i z e s t h e v i e w s
o f th e A r is to te lia n s a n d th e E p i c u r e a n a to m is ts a n d fin d s e a c h in s u f f ic ie n t a s a n
e x p la n a tio n o f th e m e d ic a l p h e n o m e n a . T h e A r is to te lia n s fa ll s h o r t b e c a u s e
s u b s t a n t i a l f o r m s a r e n o t u s e f u l a n d c a n n o t b e u n d e r s t o o d . 43 T h e a t o m i s t s
f a il b e c a u s e th e i r t w o p r in c i p le s , th e A to m s a n d th e v o i d , d o n o t e x p la i n in
w hat w ay m a tte r is a c tiv e in i t s e l f . 44 T hey n e ith e r o ffe r a s u ffic ie n t
e x p la n a tio n o f th e c o n s ta n c y o f e s s e n c e s n o r d o th e ir e x p la n a tio n s a ll o w r e a l
u n d e rs ta n d in g o f h o w th in g s a r e f o r m e d . In th e e n d , R a ttr a y p r e f e r s th e
a c c o u n t o f V a n H e lm o n t b e c a u s e it o f fe r s b e tte r e x p la n a tio n s o f n a tu ra l a c tiv ity ,
th e d iv e rs e g rad e s o f th in g s , a n d th e ir in te rc o n n e c tio n s . R a t t r a y s w o r k
in c lu d e s a v e r y lo n g l i s t o f th e p o w e r s o f p la n ts , v e g e ta b le s , a n d m in e r a ls ,
i n c l u d i n g t h e w a y t h e y f e r m e n t a n d i n t e r a c t . A l t h o u g h R a t t r a y s a r t i c u l a t i o n o f
V a n H e l m o n t s m e t a p h y s i c a l v i e w s i s s o m e w h a t c u r s o r y , h i s m a i n c o n c e r n i s t o
d e s c r i b e t h e h e a l i n g p o w e r s o f S y m p a t h y i n t h e w o r l d . 45
In 1 6 6 9 , a y o u n g G e rm a n p h ilo s o p h e r, J a c o b H e in r ic h G a n g lo ff, p u b lis h e d
h i s u n i v e r s i t y d i s s e r t a t i o n , O n S y m p a t h y 46 T h e f i f t y - p a g e w o r k e x p l o r e s t h e
c u r r e n t m e ta p h y s ic a l a n d p h y s ic a l d e b a te s a b o u t s y m p a th y . O n e o f its m a in
c o n c e r n s is to s h o w th a t s y m p a th e tic e f f e c ts a r e n o t th e r e s u l t o f o c c u lt
p o w e r s ; a n o th e r g o a l is to u s e th e A r i s t o t e l ia n n o tio n o f s u b s ta n tia l f o r m to
h e lp e x p la i n s y m p a th y . G a n g l o f f a v e r s th a t w h e n p h e n o m e n a o c c u r c o n c e r n in g
h u m a n s , a n im a ls , a n d o th e r n a tu ra l th in g s w h o s e c a u s e s a r e n o t a b le to b e
s e e n , p e o p le tu rn im m e d ia te ly to o c c u lt q u a litie s , w h ic h a re a s a w h o le
c a l l e d S Y M P A T H Y a n d o f w h i c h t h e y h a v e a f e e b l e u n d e r s t a n d i n g . 47 I n a n
a t t e m p t t o d e f i n e t h e t e r m i n a w a y t h a t u n i f i e s i ts v a r i o u s s e n s e s , G a n g l o f f
p ro p o se s in c h a p te r 1 th a t s y m p a th y is a m u tu a l n a t u r a l h a r m o n y a m o n g
n a tu ra l th in g s , a r i s in g f r o m a p a r t i c u l a r h id d e n a f f in ity o n a c c o u n t o f w h ic h
th e s e th in g s , b y a f r i e n d ly a f f e c t o r s e c r e t l o v e , a r e m u tu a lly d r a w n to e a c h
o t h e r . 48 H e g iv e s a b r ie f h is to ry o f th e n o tio n , c itin g a w id e ran g e of
p h ilo s o p h e r s . H e m e n tio n s th e a n c ie n t A r i s t o t e l ia n A le x a n d e r A p h r o d is ia s ,
w h o e x p la in e d n a tu ra l a f f in ity a n d l o v in g c o n c o r d in te r m s o f a s im ila r ity
w h e th e r o f o rig in , or n a tu re o r te m p e ra m e n t, and re fe rs to th e a n c ie n t
S ic ilia n p h ilo s o p h e r E m p e d o c le s (ca . 4 9 5 -4 3 5 bce), w hom he q u o te s as
c la im in g th a t s y m p a th y is m u tu a l l o v e , f r ie n d s h ip o f th in g s , h a r m o n y o f th in g s ,
a g r e e m e n t o f n a tu ra l th in g s . 49 H e a ls o c ite s th e s ix te e n th - c e n tu ry D u tc h
s c h o la r J o s e p h J u s tu s S c a lig e r ( 1 5 4 0 - 1 6 0 9 ) . 50
G a n g lo f f d is tin g u is h e s in c h a p te r 1 b e tw e e n n a tu r a l and m o r a l
sy m p ath y . The fo rm e r c o n ce rn s th e h a rm o n y o f n a tu ra l b o d i e s . M o r a l
sy m p a th y , o n th e o th e r h a n d , c o n c e r n s j o i n t l y c o m m is e r a tin g o r m u tu a l
b e n e f it. G a n g lo f f in te n d s to e x p lic a te th e n o tio n in te rm s o f s u b s ta n tia l fo rm s.
B e c a u s e th e r e is a s u b s ta n tia l f o r m in e v e r y i n d iv id u a l, w h ic h c o n s titu te s its
p r i n c i p l e o f in d iv id u a tio n a n d th e c a u s e o f its d is tin c tiv e te m p e r a m e n t,
o n e c a n tu r n to th e f o r m o f a th in g to e x p la i n its s y m p a th y .51 G o d , th e a u th o r o f
n a tu r e , h a s c o n s tr u c te d n a tu ra l th in g s to b e d r a w n to o n e a n o th e r, a lth o u g h th e
am ount of m u tu a l h a rm o n y [ c o n s p ir a tu o ] am ong th e m d iff e r s . A f te r
p r e s e n tin g th e d e f in itio n a n d b r i e f h is to r y o f s y m p a th y in c h a p te r 1, G a n g lo ff
tu rn s h is a tte n tio n in c h a p te r 2 to d e s c r ib in g its e ffe c ts , in s is tin g th a t w e c a n
k n o w s y m p a th y b y its e f f e c ts . R e ly in g o n th e w o r k o f G a le n , A v ic e n n a , a n d
e s p e c i a l l y R a ttra y , h e lis ts v a r io u s n a tu ra l p h e n o m e n a a n d th e n a v e r s : th e o n ly
r e a s o n a b le c a u s e is S y m p a th ia . 52 F in a lly , in c h a p te r 3 , G a n g lo f f tu rn s to
v a r io u s a c c o u n ts o f sy m p ath y . H e m o v e s th ro u g h th e v i e w s o f a d i v e r s e g ro u p
o f th in k e rs ( in c lu d in g A q u in a s a n d F r a n c is c o S u a re z ) to ta k e u p th e p r o p o s a l o f
J a n B a p tis te v a n H e lm o n t a n d th e id e a th a t th e r e is a u n iv e r s a l f o r m a n d s o u l
o f th e w o r l d a n d th a t th is u n iv e r s a l f o r m . . . p e r m e a te s a ll th in g s . I t is th is
fo r m o r s o u l o f th e w o r l d th a t is th e c a u s e o f th e g e n tle s y m p a th y o f a ll
th in g s . In th e e n d , th e r e f o r e , i t is th is s p i r i t o f G o d th a t a n im a te s th e
w o r l d . 53 T h e im p lic a tio n is th a t th is d iv in e a n im a tin g s p i r i t c o n s titu te s th e
fo rm s o f th in g s. G a n g lo f f e n d o r s e s th e A r i s t o t e l i a n n o tio n th a t th e in d iv id u a l
s u b s ta n tia l f o r m o f a s u b s ta n c e c o n s titu te s its p r in c ip le o f a c tiv ity . B u t h e a ls o
m a k e s e a c h f o r m th e s o u r c e o f a ffin ity a n d l o v e . T h e a m o u n t o f s y m p a th y
is p a r tly a f u n c tio n o f th e s im ila r ity a m o n g c r e a tu r e s ( f o r e x a m p le , h o r s e s a r e
m o re s y m p a th e tic to h o r s e s ) a n d p a r tly d u e to p r o x im ity in s p a c e a n d tim e .
V an H e lm o n t, R a ttra y , and G a n g lo f f o ffe r im p r e s s i v e ly d e ta i le d
d e s c r ip ti o n s o f th e e ffe c ts o f sy m p ath y . D e s p ite th e ir d if f e r e n t c o n c e r n s , th e y
a r e s tr ik in g ly s im ila r in th e ir fu n d a m e n ta l c la im s . T h e y a r e a ll w il l i n g to m ix
S to ic id e a s w i t h th o s e o f P a r a c e ls u s a n d o th e r s o u r c e s , b o th a n c ie n t a n d
m o d e rn , to e x p la i n sy m p ath y . T h e y a g r e e th a t th e g r e a te r th e s im ilitu d e a m o n g
c r e a tu r e s , th e g r e a te r th e a ffin ity . A n d th e y a g r e e th a t th e u ltim a te c a u s e o f
s y m p a th y is a d iv in e ly p r o d u c e d s p i r i t th a t is s h a r e d a m o n g c r e a tu r e s s o th a t
e a c h h a s a n a ffin ity f o r a ll th e o th e rs . A lth o u g h th e d e ta i ls o f th e ir e x p la n a tio n s
d iffe r, th e y concur th a t s y m p a th y is a d iv in e ly p ro d u ce d pow er o r, in
G a n g lo f F s w o r d s , a h id d e n a ff in ity th a t d r a w s th in g s to g e th e r.
 3. Un i v e r s a l Sy m p a t h y : Pl a t o n i s m

B y th e fif th c e n tu ry , C h r is tia n ity h a d a b s o r b e d P la to n is t a s s u m p tio n s . A lth o u g h

f e w w o r k s b y th e h is to r ic P la to w e r e e x ta n t in th e L a tin w e s t, th e P la to n is t
id e a s p r o m u lg a te d b y P lo tin u s (2 0 4 /5 -7 0 ce) and P r o c lu s (4 1 2 -8 5 ce)

in f o r m e d m u c h o f m e d ie v a l p h ilo s o p h y .54 W h e n A r i s t o t e l i a n i s m w a s im p o r te d
f r o m th e A r a b w o r l d in th e th ir te e n th c e n tu ry , it to o w a s fu ll o f P la to n is m .
S c h o la s t ic is m r e s u lte d f r o m th e b le n d in g o f th is P la to n iz e d A r i s t o t e l i a n i s m a n d
m e d ie v a l C h r is tia n ity .55 E u r o p e a n P la to n is m c h a n g e d r a d i c a l l y in th e fifte e n th
c e n tu ry , w h e n th e g r e a t F lo r e n tin e h u m a n is t M a r s i l i o F ic in o (1 4 3 3 -9 9 )
p r o d u c e d a n e d itio n a n d tr a n s la t io n o f a ll o f P l a t o s d ia lo g u e s .56 T h e a w k w a r d
tru th a b o u t F i c i n o s P la to n is m , h o w e v e r , is th a t it o w e s a lm o s t a s m u c h to th e
th o u g h t o f P lo tin u s a n d P r o c lu s a s to P la to h im s e lf .57 B y th e m id d le o f th e
s e v e n te e n th c e n tu ry , m a n y p h ilo s o p h e r s h a d r e j e c t e d F i c i n o s in te r p r e ta tio n s
a n d w e r e k e e n to d is tin g u is h b e t w e e n th e m y s tic a l th in g s h e s a y s a b o u t P la to
a n d th e te a c h in g o f . . . th e g r e a t m a n . 58 B u t th e d ie h a d b e e n c a s t: F i c i n o s
e d itio n s and c o m m e n ta r ie s w o u ld c o n tin u e to d e f in e fu tu re d is c u s s io n s .
A n o th e r m a jo r so u rc e o f e a r l y m o d e r n P la to n is m is th e A u g u s tin ia n is m
e n d o r s e d b y b o th P r o te s ta n ts a n d C a th o lic s . L u th e r h im s e lf e m p h a s iz e d th e
im p o r ta n c e a n d p r o f u n d ity o f A u g u s tin e s th o u g h t59 a n d c o u n te r - r e f o r m a tio n
th e o lo g ia n s p r a i s e d th e d iv in e A u g u s tin e . 60 S e v e n te e n th -c e n tu ry d is c u s s io n s
o f s y m p a th y a r e in f o r m e d b y m a n y fo rm s o f P la to n is m s . U n s u r p ris in g ly , th e
d e s ig n a tio n P la to n is m is f r u s tr a tin g ly v a g u e a lth o u g h v a r io u s s tra n d s a n d
l o o s e l y c o n n e c te d d o c tr in e s c a n b e a s s o c i a t e d w i t h th e te r m .61 I n th e r e m a in d e r
o f th is s e c tio n , I e x p lic a te m e ta p h y s ic a l c o m m itm e n ts th a t r e v e a l P la to n is t
s o u r c e s a n d th a t c o n s titu te th e r a w m a te r ia ls o u t o f w h ic h s e v e n te e n th - c e n tu r y
th in k e rs lik e L e ib n iz and C onw ay b u ild th e ir m e ta p h y s ic s o f u n iv e r s a l
sy m p ath y . T h e y a r e a s f o llo w s .
S u p re m e b e in g a ssu m p tio n : F o r m a n y a n c ie n t th in k e rs , o n to lo g ic a l p r io r ity
w a s to b e e x p la in e d m a in ly in te rm s o f s e lf -s u ffic ie n c y . A s o n e s c h o la r m a k e s
th e p o in t, th a t w h ic h s ta n d s i n n e e d o f n o th in g f o r b e in g w h a t it is is
o n to lo g ic a lly p r im a r y . 62 F o r m a n y P la to n is ts , th e r e w a s a h ie r a r c h y o f s e lf
s u f f ic ie n c y a n d b e in g s u c h th a t e a c h o f th e l o w e r s tr a ta i n th e h ie r a r c h y w a s
s u p p o s e d to d e p e n d o n a n d b e c a u s e d b y th e h ig h e r. M a n y C h r is tia n a n d n o n -
C h r is tia n P la to n is ts a s s u m e d th a t th e r e is a s u p r e m e ly p e r f e c t, w h o lly s im p le ,
a n d u n if ie d b e in g o n w h ic h a ll e ls e d e p e n d s . O n ly th e h ig h e s t b e in g w a s
w h o lly p e r f e c t, s e lf - s u f f ic ie n t, s im p le , a n d r e a l. T h e b e in g s in th e l o w e r s tr a ta
h a d d im in is h in g d e g r e e s o f th e s e f e a tu re s . M o d e r n p h ilo s o p h e r s h a v e te n d e d to
th in k o f b e in g a s a n a ll o r n o th in g a ffa ir, b u t th e r e is a lo n g lin e o f P la to n is ts
w h o e n d o r s e a h ie r a r c h y o f b e in g . T h e a s s u m p tio n is th a t th e s tr a ta i n th e
h ie r a r c h y d if f e r a c c o r d in g to th e ir u n ity , s e lf - s u f f ic ie n c y , a n d p e r f e c tio n . W h a t
is m o re s e lf - s u f f ic ie n t is m o re u n if ie d a n d th e r e f o r e m o re f u lly w h a t i t is. W h a t
h a s le s s s e lf - s u f f ic ie n c y a n d u n ity is le s s in d e p e n d e n t a n d th e r e f o r e le s s fu lly
w h a t it i s .63 F o r m a n y in th is tr a d itio n , s e lf - s u f f ic ie n c y r e q u i r e d a c ti v ity a n d
a w a r e n e s s . V an H e lm o n t, R a ttra y , a n d G a n g lo f f e n d o r s e m a in p a r ts o f th e
s u p re m e b e in g a s s u m p tio n : th e y a ll s e e m to b e l i e v e th a t th e s u p re m e b e in g
s h a r e s its s e lf - s u f f ic ie n t v it a l i t y w ith its c r e a tu r e s s o th a t th e la tte r h a v e a
l e s s e r k in d o f s e lf -s u ffic ie n c y . E a c h c r e a tu r e is i t s e l f r e l a t i v e l y u n if ie d a n d
e a c h c o n tr ib u te s to th e u n ity o f th e w h o le . F o r V an H e lm o n t a n d G a n g lo ff, th e
u n ity o f th e w o r l d is g r o u n d e d i n th e f a c t th a t e a c h a c tiv e th in g h a s a d e g r e e o f
f e e lin g a n d r e l a t e d n e s s w i t h a ll th e o th e rs .
E m a n a tiv e ca u sa tio n : T h e r e a r e tw o c l o s e l y r e l a t e d k in d s o f e m a n a tiv e
c a u s a tio n . By fa r th e m o re s ig n if ic a n t in th e h is to r y o f p h ilo s o p h y is
h ie r a r c h ic a l e m a n a tio n , w h e r e th e c a u s e is ta k e n to b e m o re p e r f e c t th a n its
e ffe c t. T h e a s s u m p tio n h e r e is th a t, f o r a b e in g A th a t is m o re p e r f e c t th a n a
b e in g B , A e m a n a te s its a ttr ib u te f- n e s s to B in s u c h a w a y th a t n e ith e r A n o r
A s f- n e s s is d e p le t e d in a n y w a y , w i t h th e r e s u l t th a t B h a s f- n e s s , th o u g h in a
m a n n e r in f e r io r to th e w a y it e x is ts in A . T h e e m a n a tiv e p r o c e s s is c o n tin u a l so
th a t B w i l l h a v e f- n e s s i f a n d o n ly i f A e m a n a te s f- n e s s to it.64 F o r m a n y
th e is ts , f o r e x a m p le , G o d c o n c e iv e s tr ia n g u la r ity o r h a s i t a s a n i d e a , w h ic h
is th e e m a n a tiv e c a u s e f o r c r e a te d tr ia n g le s . T h e d iv in e id e a is p e r f e c t; its
e f f e c t is n o t. T h e la tte r is o f te n s a i d to p a r tic ip a te in o r b e a n im a g e o f th e
fo rm e r. F o r th e is ts , o n e o f th e g r e a t b e n e f its o f h ie r a r c h ic a l e m a n a tio n is th a t it
a l l o w s G o d to b e b o th tr a n s c e n d e n t f r o m a n d im m a n e n t in c r e a tu r e s . I n h is
P h ilo s o p h ic a l L e x ic o n o f 1 6 1 3 , G o c le n iu s s a y s h e is f o ll o w i n g P la to a n d
A u g u s tin e i n c la im in g th a t G o d c o n ta in s a ll th in g s i n th e b e s t a n d m o s t
e x c e lle n t w a y w h ile c r e a tu r e s c o n ta in th e m w i t h a c e r t a i n lim ita tio n .
A lth o u g h c r e a tu r e s a r e n o t th e b e in g [ e s s e ] o f G o d h im s e lf, n o n e th e le s s th e y
a r e in h i m . . . [ b e c a u s e ] w h a te v e r is in c r e a tu r e s p r o c e e d s f r o m G o d . 65 F o r
th o s e p h ilo s o p h e r s w h o e n d o r s e m o re th a n o n e s tr a tu m i n a h ie r a r c h y o f b e in g ,
e a c h o f th e s tr a ta h a s its a ttr ib u te s in d e p e n d e n tly o f its e m a n a te d e f f e c t a n d y e t
th o s e a ttr ib u te s a r e im m a n e n t in th e e ffe c t. A s C o n w a y p u ts it, G o d is in a r e a l
s e n s e a n e s s e n c e o r s u b s ta n c e d is tin c t f r o m h is c r e a tu r e s a n d y e t is n o t
d i v i d e d o r s e p a r a te f r o m th e m b u t p r e s e n t in e v e r y th in g m o s t c l o s e l y a n d
in tim a te ly in th e h ig h e s t d e g r e e . G o d g iv e s to th e m f o r m a n d fig u re b u t a ls o
e s s e n c e , lif e , b o d y , a n d w h a te v e r g o o d th e y h a v e . 66
T h e n o n h ie r a r c h ic a l sense o f e m a n a tiv e c a u s a tio n is m o d e le d o n th e
h ie r a r c h ic a l, b u t d o e s n o t r e q u ir e th a t th e e f f e c t b e in f e r io r to its c a u s e . A s th e
fif th -c e n tu r y P la to n is t P r o c lu s w rite s in h is in flu e n tia l T h e E le m e n ts of
T h e o lo g y : E v e ry p r o d u c tiv e cause p r o d u c e s ... w h ile its e lf re m a in in g
s te a d fa s t. F o r i f i t im ita te s th e O n e , a n d i f th e O n e b r in g s its c o n s e q u e n ts in to
e x is te n c e w ith o u t m o v e m e n t, th e n e v e r y p r o d u c tiv e c a u s e h a s a lik e l a w o f
p r o d u c tio n . 67 F o r u s, th e im p o r ta n t p o in t is th a t c e r t a i n s o r ts o f a c tiv e th in g s
p r o d u c e th e ir e f f e c t w ith o u t b e in g d im in is h e d . L ik e th e h ie r a r c h ic a l n o tio n , th e
f- n e s s o f B is a s s u m e d to b e c o e x is te n t w i t h th e e m a n a tiv e a c ti v ity o f A .68 A n d
lik e th e h ie r a r c h ic a l n o tio n , th e e ffe c t is o fte n u n d e r s to o d to f o ll o w w ith
n e c e s s ity in th e s e n s e th a t A s a c ti o n c o n s titu te s th e n e c e s s a r y a n d s u ffic ie n t
c o n d itio n s o f B 69 In th e I m m o r t a l i t y o f th e S o u l o f 1 6 5 9 , th e E n g lis h
p h ilo s o p h e r H e n r y M o r e w r ite s : A n E m a n a tiv e E f f e c t is c o e x is te n t w i t h th e
v e r y s u b s ta n c e o f th a t w h ic h is s a i d to b e th e C a u s e th e re o f. T h is m u s t n e e d s
b e tru e , b e c a u s e th a t v e r y S u b s ta n c e w h ic h is s a i d to b e th e C a u s e , is th e
a d e q u a te a n d im m e d ia te C a u s e , a n d w a n ts n o th in g to b e a d jo in e d to its b a r e
e s s e n c e f o r th e p r o d u c tio n o f th e E f f e c t. 70
P l e n i t u d e : In o r d e r to u n d e r s ta n d th e r o l e o f s y m p a th y in e a r l y m o d e rn
p h ilo s o p h y , w e n e e d to b e c l e a r a b o u t w h a t w a s s u p p o s e d to f o l l o w f r o m
G o d s n a tu re . T h e p r i n c i p l e o f p le n itu d e a s s u m e s th a t G o d f ills th e w o r l d w ith
a s m a n y b e in g s a s p o s s ib le . F o r P lo tin u s , th e s u p re m e b e in g e m a n a te s th e
fu lln e s s o f its b e in g c o n tin u a lly s o th a t e v e r y p o s s i b i l i t y e x is ts . H e w r ite s : it
is n o t p o s s i b l e f o r a n y th in g e ls e to c o m e in to b e in g ; a ll th in g s h a v e c o m e in to
b e in g a n d th e r e is n o th in g le f t. 71 T h e c o m m o n a s s u m p tio n is th a t G o d s n a tu re
im p lie s n o t o n ly th a t th e w o r l d is f i l l e d w i t h c r e a tu r e s b u t a l s o th a t th e y s ta n d
in h a rm o n y w i t h o n e a n o th e r. A s th e in flu e n tia l J e w i s h P la to n is t P h ilo o f
A le x a n d r ia (c . 2 0 bce- 5 0 ce) m a k e s th e p o in t: A n d b e in g s u p e r io r to , a n d
b e in g a ls o e x te r n a l to th e w o r l d th a t h e h a s m a d e , h e n e v e r th e le s s f ills th e
w h o le w o r l d w i t h h im s e lf; fo r, h a v in g b y h is o w n p o w e r e x te n d e d it to its
u tm o s t lim its , h e h a s c o n n e c t e d e v e r y p o r t i o n w ith a n o t h e r p o r t i o n a c c o r d in g
to th e p r i n c i p l e s o f h a r m o n y 72 G e n e r a tio n s o f th e is ts i n s is t th a t d iv in e
g o o d n e s s a n d u n ity a p p ly to th e o r g a n iz a tio n o f c r e a te d th in g s a n d th a t G o d
adds to th e g oodness o f th e w o rld b y m a k in g th e w o rld a p p r o p r ia te ly
h a rm o n io u s . A s T h o m a s A q u in a s (c . 1 2 2 5 - 1 2 7 4 ) s u c c in c tly m a k e s th e p o in t
a b o u t o r d e r : e a c h th in g in its n a tu re is g o o d , b u t a ll th in g s to g e th e r a r e v e ry
g o o d , b y r e a s o n o f th e o r d e r o f th e u n iv e r s e , w h ic h is th e u ltim a te a n d n o b le s t
p e r f e c t io n in th in g s . 73 P h ilo s o p h e r s in th e P la to n is t tr a d i t i o n ta k e u n iv e r s a l
s y m p a th y to a d d s ig n if ic a n tly to th e g o o d n e s s o f w o r l d l y o rd e r.
U n iv e rsa l sym p a th y: T h e c o n ju n c tio n o f th e s u p re m e b e in g a s s u m p tio n ,
e m a n a tiv e c a u s a tio n , a n d p le n titu d e im p lie s a g o o d d e a l a b o u t th e o r d e r o f th e
w o r ld . I t w a s c o m m o n in th e s e v e n te e n th c e n tu r y to r e la te v ita lity o r s e lf
s u f f ic ie n c y to p e r c e p t i o n o r s e n s e a n d a ffin ity . A s w e h a v e s e e n , V a n H e lm o n t
a s s u m e s th a t a c tiv e th in g s h a v e a c tiv e s p i r i t s a n d th a t a c tiv e s p i r i t s fe e l a n d
sense one a n o th e r. G a n g lo f f d e s c r ib e s th e h a rm o n y fo r m e d by m u tu a lly
s y m p a th e tic c r e a tu r e s a s o n e o f f r ie n d ly a f f e c t o r s e c r e t l o v e . T h e u n d e rly in g
a s s u m p tio n f o r s u c h th in k e rs is th a t G o d c a u s e s c r e a tu r e s to h a v e v ita lity , f r o m
w h ic h it is s u p p o s e d to f o ll o w th a t e a c h c r e a tu r e r e s p o n d s s y m p a th e tic a lly to
th e s ta te s o f a ll th e o th e rs . F o r th e p u r p o s e s o f th is c h a p te r, it w i l l b e h e lp fu l to
th in k o f th e s y m p a th e tic r e l a t i o n a s f o llo w s : tw o c r e a tu r e s b e a r a s y m p a th e tic
r e l a t i o n to o n e a n o th e r w h e n e a c h p e r c e i v e s a n d r e s p o n d s to e a c h o f th e s ta te s
o f th e o th e r. W h e n e v e r y c r e a te d th in g b e a r s a s y m p a th e tic r e l a t i o n to e v e r y
o th e r, th e r e is u n iv e r s a l sy m p ath y . F o r th in k e rs lik e C o n w a y , th e s y m p a th e tic
r e l a t i o n h e lp s e x p la i n a n tip a th y in th a t a c r e a tu r e c a n n o t b e r e p e l l e d b y a n o th e r
( o r o th e r w is e a n tip a th e tic to it) u n le s s it b e a r s a s y m p a th e tic r e l a t i o n to it.
E n h a n c e d u n iv e r s a l sym p a th y: A s w e h a v e s e e n , m a n y p h ilo s o p h e r s to o k
th e d iv in e n a tu re to e n ta il a n o r d e r a m o n g c r e a tu r e s a n d m a n y c o n c e iv e d th a t
o r d e r in te rm s o f u n iv e r s a l sy m p a th y . F o r th o s e in te r e s te d in th e o lo g ic a l
q u e s tio n s a b o u t d iv in e j u s t i c e a n d th e p r o b l e m o f e v il, u n iv e r s a l s y m p a th y w a s
ta k e n to c o n trib u te s ig n if ic a n tly to th e g o o d n e s s o f th e w o r ld . T h e s y m p a th e tic
r e l a t i o n a m o n g c r e a tu r e s n o t o n ly s e e m e d to c o n s titu te a n a d d itio n a l g o o d , it
w a s a ls o b e l i e v e d to in c r e a s e w o r l d l y g o o d n e s s o v e r tim e b e c a u s e c r e a tu r e s
c o u ld e n h a n c e o n e a n o t h e r s p r o g r e s s . A s a n in tr o d u c tio n to th e m e ta p h y s ic s o f
L e ib n iz a n d C o n w a y , i t w i l l b e h e lp fu l to e x p lic a te w h a t I w i l l c a ll e n h a n c e d
u n iv e r s a l sy m p a th y . W h e n tw o c r e a tu r e s b e a r a s y m p a th e tic r e l a t i o n to o n e
a n o th e r, e a c h r e s p o n d s to th e o th e r. W h e n tw o c r e a tu r e s b e a r a n e n h a n c e d
s y m p a th e tic r e la tio n to o n e a n o th e r, a n in c r e a s e in th e g o o d n e s s o f o n e w ill
cause an in c r e a s e in th e g oodness o f a n o th e r, a lth o u g h th e re la tio n is
n o n r e c ip r o c a l (th a t is , th e in c r e a s e in th e s e c o n d w ill n o t th e n p ro m o te a n
i n c r e a s e i n t h e f i r s t ) . 74 S i n c e e n h a n c e d s y m p a t h y m e a n s t h a t a n i n c r e a s e i n t h e
g o o d n e s s o f o n e c r e a tu r e w i l l p r o m o te a n in c r e a s e in th e g o o d n e s s o f th o s e
c re a tu r e s w ith w h ic h it h a s th is e n h a n c e d r e la tio n , it f o llo w s th a t a n in c r e a s e in
th e g o o d n e s s o f a n y c r e a tu r e w i l l c a u s e a n in c r e a s e in th e g o o d n e s s o f e v e r y
o th e r. I n a w o r l d i n w h i c h e n h a n c e d s y m p a th y h o ld s a m o n g a ll c r e a tu r e s , e a c h
is c a p a b l e o f c o n tr ib u tin g m u c h m o r e to th e g o o d n e s s o f th e w o r l d th a n m e r e ly
its p r e s e n t s ta te o f g o o d n e s s : w i t h e v e r y i n c r e a s e i n its g o o d n e s s , it c o n tr ib u te s
to th e g o o d n e s s o f e v e r y o th e r c r e a tu r e w i t h w h i c h b e a r s th e r e la tio n . T h e r e is
e n h a n c e d u n iv e rs a l s y m p a th y w h e n a ll c re a tu r e s b e a r a n e n h a n c e d s y m p a th e tic
r e la tio n w ith a ll o th e rs . T h e s u p re m e b e in g a s s u m p tio n c a n b e ta k e n to s u g g e st
th a t a n in c r e a s e in g o o d n e s s in v o lv e s a n in c r e a s e in v ita lity o r s e lf-s u ffic ie n c y ,
w h ic h i t s e l f is r e l a te d to m o ra l p e r f e c tio n . A s w e w i l l s e e , L e ib n iz s e e m s to
th in k th a t h u m a n b e in g s b e a r a n e n h a n c e d s y m p a th e tic r e l a t i o n to o n e a n o th e r.
A l t h o u g h h e i s n o t c o m m i t t e d t o e n h a n c e d u n i v e r s a l s y m p a t h y , C o n w a y is .
 4. Go t t f r i e d Wi l h e l m Le i b n i z

L e ib n iz is o n e o f th e m o s t s ig n if ic a n t f ig u r e s i n th e h is to r y o f p h ilo s o p h y ,
m a th e m a tic s , lo g ic , and p h y s ic s . He is fam o u s fo r h is m e ta p h y s ic s of
p r e e s ta b lis h e d h a rm o n y , a c c o r d in g to w h ic h c r e a te d s u b s ta n c e s d o n o t c a u s a lly
in te r a c t, b u t s ta n d in p e r f e c t h a rm o n y w i t h o n e a n o th e r, e a c h e x p r e s s in g G o d
a n d a ll o th e r s u b s ta n c e s f r o m its o w n u n iq u e p o i n t o f v ie w . L ik e s o m a n y o th e r
e a r l y m o d e r n th in k e r s , h e g ro u n d s h is m e ta p h y s ic s in th e b e l i e f th a t G o d s h a re s
d iv in e s e lf - s u f f i c ie n c y w i t h c r e a te d th in g s , w h o s e m u tu a l a f f in ity c r e a te s a
tig h tly u n if ie d w h o le . B u t u n lik e h is p r e d e c e s s o r s , L e ib n iz tra n s fo r m s th is id e a
in to a m e ta p h y s ic s o f a s to n is h in g o r ig in a lity : e a c h o f a n in f in ity o f s u b s ta n c e s
c o r r e s p o n d s p e r f e c tly w i t h a ll th e o th e r s a n d e a c h e x p r e s s e s G o d , th e w o r ld ,
a n d e v e r y o th e r s u b s ta n c e . P r e e s ta b lis h e d h a rm o n y is u n iv e r s a l s y m p a th e tic
h a r m o n y p u s h e d t o i t s l i m i t s . 75
F r o m th e v e r y b e g in n in g o f h is p h ilo s o p h ic a l c a r e e r , L e ib n iz c o n c e iv e s th e
r e l a ti o n b e tw e e n G o d a n d th e w o r l d in e m a n a tiv e te rm s a n d th e r e l a ti o n a m o n g
c r e a tu r e s a s a tig h tly u n if ie d h a rm o n y a m o n g s u b s ta n c e s . C o n s is te n t w i t h th e
s u p re m e b e in g a s s u m p tio n a n d w i t h h ie r a r c h ic a l c a u s a l e m a n a tio n , L e ib n iz
in s is ts th a t G o d is a s u p r e m e ly p e r f e c t, s e lf - s u f f ic ie n t, a n d u n ifie d b e in g th a t
e m a n a te s its a ttr ib u te s to a n in f in ity o f c r e a tu r e s . E v e r y s u b s ta n c e c o n ta in s a ll
th e a ttr ib u te s o f G o d , a lth o u g h in a m a n n e r in f e r io r to th e ir d iv in e s o u rc e . I n a
v e r y e a r l y e s s a y , h e a c k n o w le d g e s th a t h is a c c o u n t o f th e r e l a t i o n b e tw e e n G o d
a n d c r e a tu r e s o w e s a g o o d d e a l to P l a to n i s m a n d S to ic is m . A s h e e x p la in s in
1 6 6 8 - 6 9 , h e a g r e e s w i t h th e S to ic s a n d P la to in th e T im a e u s a b o u t th e w o r l d
s o u l i n u n d e r s t a n d i n g G o d t o b e d i f f u s e d t h r o u g h e v e r y t h i n g . 76 L i k e V a n
H e lm o n t a n d G a n g lo ff, L e ib n iz ta k e s G o d to s h a re d iv in e s e lf - s u f f ic ie n c y a n d
v ita lity w i t h e v e r y c re a tu r e . L ik e G a n g lo ff, h e d e s c r i b e s th e v ita l n a tu re o f
e a c h s u b s t a n c e a s h a v i n g a f o r m . O n th e O r i g in o f T h in g s f r o m F o r m s o f 1 6 7 6
c la im s th a t G o d c o n ta in s th e a b s o lu te a ff irm a tiv e f o r m th a t is a s c r i b e d in a
l i m i t e d w a y t o o t h e r t h i n g s . 77 I n a r e l a t e d e s s a y , h e a d d s : a l l t h i n g s a r e i n a
w a y c o n ta in e d i n a ll th in g s . B u t th e y a r e c o n ta in e d i n a q u ite d if f e r e n t w a y in
G o d f r o m t h a t i n w h i c h t h e y a r e c o n t a i n e d i n t h i n g s . 78 A l l c r e a t u r e s c o n t a i n
a ll th in g s a n d s y m p a th e tic h a r m o n y r e l a t e s th e m a ll to o n e a n o th e r.
B e f o r e t u r n i n g t o L e i b n i z s a c c o u n t o f u n i v e r s a l s y m p a t h y , i t i s i m p o r t a n t t o
a c k n o w l e d g e t h a t h e d o e s n o t u s e t h e t e r m s y m p a t h i a o r i ts c o g n a t e s v e r y
o f te n . W h e n h e d o e s u s e t h e t e r m , i t i s u s u a l l y i n t h e c o n t e x t o f a n a l y z i n g
b o d i e s , t h e i r c o h e r e n c e a n d m o t i o n s . 79 A s w e h a v e s e e n , L e i b n i z s e a r l y
m o d e r n p r e d e c e s s o r s d is a g r e e in w h a t s e n s e s y m p a th e tic p o w e r s a r e o c c u lt
a n d w h e th e r th e y r e s i s t u n d e rs ta n d in g . E v e n f o r th in k e r s lik e V a n H e lm o n t a n d
G a n g l o f f w h o s tr u g g le to m a k e th e a f f in ity a n d l o v e a m o n g n a tu r a l th in g s
u n d e r s ta n d a b le , s y m p a th y r e m a in s a s o m e w h a t m y s te rio u s p o w e r b in d in g th e
p a r t s o f t h e u n i v e r s e . L e i b n i z f a m o u s l y c o m p l a i n s t h a t I s a a c N e w t o n s a c c o u n t
o f g r a v i t y a s a c t i o n a t a d i s t a n c e i s i t s e l f o c c u l t . 80 I n a l e t t e r t o C h r i s t i a n
H u y g e n s o f 1 6 9 3 , L e i b n i z g o e s s o f a r a s t o c o m p a r e N e w t o n s v i e w s t o t h a t o f
s y m p a t h y a k i n d o f i n e x p l i c a b l e q u a l i t y . 81 I t s e e m s l i k e l y t h a t L e i b n i z c h o s e
to c o in n e w te r m s i n o r d e r to a v o i d m is u n d e r s ta n d in g a b o u t h is r e in te r p r e ta tio n
of u n iv e rs a l s y m p a th y . By such m eans he c o u ld s id e s te p p e jo r a tiv e
a s s o c ia tio n s w ith s y m p a th ia and use u n ta in te d te rm in o lo g y . W h a te v e r h is
r e a s o n s to r e f e r to s y m p a th e tic h a rm o n y b y o th e r m e a n s , i t is c l e a r th a t h is
v i e w s a b o u t th e in te r r e la tio n s a m o n g s u b s ta n c e s h a v e r o o ts i n th e tr a d itio n
d e s c r i b e d a b o v e . W h ile L e ib n iz is d e v e lo p i n g th e d e ta i ls o f h is e la b o r a te
m e ta p h y s ic a l s y s te m , h e o f te n a c k n o w le d g e s th a t h is c o n c e p tio n o f c r e a tu r e ly
r e l a t i o n s i s a f o r m o f s y m p a t h e t i c h a r m o n y . 82 I n t h e l a t e 1 6 7 0 s a n d 1 6 8 0 s , h e
echoes p h ilo s o p h e rs lik e V an H e lm o n t w h e n he a s s o c ia te s s y m p a th y and
p e rc e p tio n s . He a rg u e s, fo r e x a m p le , th a t b e c a u s e th e re is a u n iv e rs a l
s y m p a t h y o f t h i n g s , 83 t h e y a l l p e r c e i v e t o g e t h e r [ c o m p e r c e p t i b i l i a ] . 84 I n
s h o rt, L e ib n iz w a s p e r f e c tly f a m ilia r w i t h th e d e b a te s a b o u t s y m p a th y a n d
c h o s e n o t to u s e th e te r m in p r e s e n tin g h is v i e w s a b o u t p r e e s ta b lis h e d h a rm o n y .
I n th e r e m a in d e r o f th is s e c tio n , I d i s p l a y th e r o le s th a t u n iv e r s a l s y m p a th y
and enhanced s y m p a th y p la y i n L e i b n i z s p h i l o s o p h y . T h e re is in s u ffic ie n t
s p a c e t o g i v e a d e t a i l e d p r e s e n t a t i o n o f L e i b n i z s t h o u g h t, b u t e v e n a b r i e f
a c c o u n t r e v e a ls h is d e b t to th e s e r e la tio n s .
L e i b n i z s p r e e s t a b l i s h e d h a r m o n y i s c o n s t i t u t e d o f ( a t l e a s t ) t h r e e c l o s e l y
r e l a t e d c l a i m s . A s a g r o u p , t h e y c o n s t i t u t e a r e i n v e n t i o n o f u n i v e r s a l s y m p a th y .
T h e f ir s t c la im , w h i c h is s o m e tim e s c a l l e d s p o n ta n e ity , is th e v i e w th a t th e
n a tu re o f a s u b s ta n c e c o n ta in s th e c a u s e o r s o u r c e o f a ll o f its f e a tu r e s o r
s ta te s . I n 1 6 8 6 , L e ib n iz w r i t e s in D is c o u r s e o n M e ta p h y s ic s 8: th e n a tu r e o f
a n in d iv id u a l s u b s ta n c e o r o f a c o m p le te b e in g is to h a v e a n o tio n s o c o m p le te
th a t it is s u f f ic ie n t to c o n ta in a n d to a llo w u s to deduce fro m i t a ll th e
p re d ic a te s o f th e s u b je c t to w h ic h th is n o tio n is a t t r i b u t e d . 85 R o u g h ly
s p e a k in g , a ll th e p e rc e p tio n s and s ta te s o f e v e ry c re a tu re a ris e fro m th e
s u b s t a n c e s s u b s t a n t i a l f o r m o r i n n e r n a t u r e , w h i c h G o d h a s g i v e n it. N o t o n l y
d o th e p e r c e p tio n s a n d f e a tu r e s o f e v e r y s u b s ta n c e a r i s e s p o n ta n e o u s ly fro m
its n a tu r e , its p e r c e p tio n s c o n ta in th o s e o f e v e r y o th e r s u b s ta n c e a n d , i n th a t
s e n s e , e x p r e s s e s e v e r y o th e r. L e ib n iz w r i te s in a s o m e w h a t la te r w o rk ,
e n t i t l e d F i r s t T r u th s : E v e r y i n d i v i d u a l s u b s t a n c e c o n t a i n s in its p e r f e c t
n o t i o n th e e n tir e u n iv e r s e a n d e v e r y t h i n g t h a t e x i s t s i n it, p a s t , p r e s e n t , a n d
f u t u r e . .. . I n d e e d , a l l c r e a t e d s u b s t a n c e s a r e d i f f e r e n t e x p r e s s io n s o f th e s a m e
u n iv e r s e a n d d iffe re n t e x p re s s io n s o f th e sam e u n iv e rs a l cau se, n a m e ly ,
G o d . 86 S o e a c h s u b s t a n c e e x p r e s s e s n o t j u s t i t s o w n s t a t e s b u t a l s o t h o s e o f
a ll o th e r s u b s ta n c e s . I n o th e r w o r d s , e a c h o f th e in fin ity o f s u b s ta n c e s b e a r s a
s y m p a th e tic r e l a ti o n to a ll th e o th e rs .
The second m a in c o n s titu e n t of p re e s ta b lis h e d h a rm o n y , w h ic h is
s o m e tim e s c a l l e d th e w o r l d - a p a r t t h e s i s , m a in ta in s th a t n o f e a tu re o r s ta te o f
a n y c r e a te d s u b s ta n c e h a s a s a r e a l c a u s e s o m e fe a tu re o r s ta te o f a n o th e r
s u b s ta n c e . S u b s ta n c e s do n o t d ire c tly in te r a c t; th e r e is no in te rs u b s ta n tia l
c a u s a tio n . A s L e ib n iz p u ts it in D is c o u r s e o n M e ta p h y s ic s 1 4 , e a c h s u b s ta n c e
is lik e a w o r l d a p a r t, in d e p e n d e n t o f a ll o th e r th in g s , e x c e p t f o r G o d . . G o d
a lo n e (fro m w hom a ll in d iv id u a ls e m a n a te c o n tin u a lly and w ho sees th e
u n iv e r s e n o t o n ly a s th e y s e e i t b u t a ls o e n ti r e l y d i f f e r e n tly f r o m a ll o f th e m ) is
th e c a u s e o f th is c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f th e ir p h e n o m e n a . T h e p e r c e p tio n s of
e v e ry s u b s ta n c e c o r r e s p o n d p e rf e c tly w ith th o s e o f e v e r y o th e r b e c a u s e G o d
has g u a ra n te e d th a t th e y d o so. E ach s u b s ta n c e is in p e r f e c t s y m p a th e tic
h a rm o n y w i t h e v e r y o th e r b e c a u s e G o d h a s c r e a te d e a c h to c o n ta in a ll th e
o th e rs . L e ib n iz c o n tin u e s : o n e p a r tic u la r s u b s ta n c e n e v e r a c ts u p o n a n o th e r
p a r tic u la r s u b s ta n c e n o r is a c te d u p o n b y it, b u t w h a t h a p p e n s to e a c h is
s o le l y a c o n s e q u e n c e o f its c o m p le te i d e a o r n o tio n a lo n e , s in c e th is id e a
a lre a d y c o n ta in s a ll its p re d ic a te s or e v e n ts and e x p re sse s th e w h o le
u n i v e r s e . 87
T h e th ird m a in d o c trin e o f p re e s ta b lis h e d h a rm o n y , w h a t is s o m e tim e s
c a lle d p a r a lle lis m , o w e s th e m o s t d i r e c t d e b t to u n iv e rs a l s y m p a th y . It
c la im s th a t th e p e r c e p tio n s o r s ta te s o f a s u b s ta n c e c o r r e s p o n d p e r f e c tly w ith
th o s e o f e v e r y o th e r s u b s ta n c e a t a n y g iv e n tim e . D is c o u r s e o n M e ta p h y s ic s 1 4
a s s e r ts : G o d p r o d u c e s v a r io u s s u b s ta n c e s a c c o r d in g to th e d iff e r e n t v i e w s h e
h a s o f t h e u n i v e r s e a n d t h r o u g h G o d s i n t e r v e n t i o n t h e p r o p e r n a t u r e o f e a c h
s u b s ta n c e b rin g s it a b o u t th a t w h a t h a p p e n s to o n e c o r r e s p o n d s w ith w h a t
h a p p e n s t o a l l t h e o t h e r s , w i t h o u t t h e i r a c t i n g u p o n o n e a n o t h e r d i r e c t l y . 88
L e ib n iz s d o c tr in e o f p a r a l l e l i s m h a s th e b e n e f its o f u n iv e r s a l s y m p a th y w h ile
a v o id in g its p r o b le m s . It in s is ts th a t a ll c r e a te d s u b s ta n c e s c o rre sp o n d
p e r f e c t ly b u t s id e s te p s th e n e e d to e x p la i n h o w e x a c tly th e s y m p a th e tic f o r c e
b e tw e e n c r e a tu r e s is tr a n s m itte d . F o r L e ib n iz , G o d c o n s tr u c ts e a c h s u b s ta n c e
s o th a t i t b e a r s a s y m p a th e tic b o n d to e v e r y o th e r a n d y e t n o th in g is tr a n s m itte d
b e tw e e n th e m . A s h e s u m m a riz e s th e p o in t in D is c o u r s e on M e ta p h y s ic s 9,
e a c h s in g u la r s u b s ta n c e e x p r e s s e s th e w h o le u n iv e r s e in its o w n w a y . . . .
M o r e o v e r , e v e r y s u b s ta n c e is lik e a c o m p le te w o r l d a n d lik e a m ir r o r o f G o d
o r o f th e w h o le u n iv e r s e , w h ic h e a c h o n e e x p r e s s e s in its o w n w a y . 89 T o w a r d
th e e n d o f th e D is c o u r s e o n M e ta p h y s ic s , h e m a k e s th e p o in t th a t e v e r y th in g
th a t h a p p e n s to th e s o u l a n d to e a c h s u b s ta n c e f o ll o w s fr o m its n o tio n , a n d
th e r e f o r e th e v e r y id e a o r e s s e n c e o f th e s o u l c a r r i e s w i t h it th e f a c t th a t a ll its
a p p e a r a n c e s o r p e r c e p tio n s m u s t a r is e s p o n ta n e o u s ly f r o m its o w n n a tu re a n d
p r e c i s e l y i n s u c h a w a y th a t th e y c o r r e s p o n d b y th e m s e lv e s to w h a t h a p p e n s i n
th e w h o le u n iv e r s e . 90 T h e n , u s in g a c o g n a te o f s y m p a th ia to r e f e r to th e
c o rre sp o n d e n c e a m o n g b o d ie s , h e e x p la in s th a t e a c h b o d y r e c e i v e s th e
im p r e s s i o n o f a ll o th e r b o d ie s , s in c e a ll th e b o d ie s o f th e u n iv e r s e a r e i n
sy m p a th y , and, e v e n th o u g h o u r senses a re re la te d to e v e r y th in g , i t is
im p o s s i b le f o r o u r s o u l to a tte n d to e v e r y th in g in p a r tic u la r ; th a t is w h y o u r
c o n f u s e d s e n s a tio n s a r e th e r e s u l t o f a tr u ly in fin ite v a r ie ty o f p e r c e p tio n s . 91
E a c h o f th e in fin ity o f s u b s ta n c e s p e r c e i v e s a ll th e o th e rs w i t h m o re o r le s s
c o n f u s io n in p e r f e c t p r e e s t a b l i s h e d h a rm o n y . 92
I f u n iv e r s a l s y m p a th y is th e g lu e th a t b in d s th e p a r ts o f p r e e s ta b lis h e d
h a rm o n y , th e n e n h a n c e d s y m p a th y c o n tr ib u te s to its a e s th e tic a n d m o r a l lu s te r.
T h e c o m p a r is o n o f c r e a tu r e s to m ir r o r s is a p r o m in e n t fix tu re in L e ib n iz s
p h ilo s o p h y a n d a v i v i d m e a n s to e n h a n c e s y m p a th e tic h a rm o n y . H is e a r l i e s t
u s e o f th e c o m p a r is o n , in a n o te o f 1 6 6 9 - 7 0 , is strik in g :

If God did not have rational Creatures in the world, he would have the same harmony, but barely
and devoid of Echo, the same beauty, but barely and devoid of reflection and refraction or
multiplication. On this account, the wisdom of God required [exigebat] rational Creatures, in which
things might multiply themselves. In this way one mind might be a kind of world in a mirror, or a
93
diopter, or some kind of point collecting visual rays.

L e ib n iz a s s u m e s th a t r a tio n a l c r e a tu r e s b e a r a s y m p a th e tic r e l a t i o n to o n e
a n o th e r. C o n s is te n t w i t h th e p r in c ip le o f p le n itu d e , th e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e a m o n g
th e s e c r e a tu r e s is i t s e l f b e a u tifu l a n d g o o d , b u t s u c h b e a u ty a n d g o o d n e s s a r e
g r e a tly in c r e a s e d w h e n th e y a ls o m ir r o r o n e a n o th e r. T h a t is , w h e n tw o
c r e a tu r e s m ir r o r o n e a n o th e r, e a c h e n h a n c e s th e g o o d o f th e o th e r. L e ib n iz is
e v e n m o r e e x p li c it a b o u t th e b e n e f its o f e n h a n c e m e n t in a r e l a t e d n o te :

But as a double reflection can occur in vision, once in the lens of the eye and once in the lens of a
tube, the latter magnifying the former, so there is a double reflection in thinking: for since every
mind is like a mirror, there will be one mirror in our mind, another in other minds. Thus, if there are
many mirrors, that is, many minds recognizing our goods, there will be a greater light, the mirrors
blending the light not only in the [individual] eye but also among each other. The gathered splendor
produces glory.94

J u x ta p o s in g m o d e r n s c ie n tif ic im a g e s ( o f le n s e s a n d m a g n ific a tio n ) a n d a n c ie n t

o n e s ( o f s h a d o w s a n d lig h t), L e ib n iz c r e a te s a v i v i d p ic tu r e o f th e e ff e c ts o f
e n h a n c e d s y m p a th y a m o n g r a tio n a l m in d s . T h r o u g h o u t h is lo n g p h ilo s o p h ic a l
c a r e e r , h e th in k s o f e n h a n c e d s y m p a th y a s a s ig n if ic a n t a d d i t i o n to th e w o r l d .
C o n s is te n t w ith p le n itu d e , it a d d s to w o r l d l y g o o d n e s s a n d m a k e s it e a s i e r fo r
r a tio n a l b e in g s to r e c o g n iz e th e o r d e r a n d b e a u ty o f th e w o r l d a n d h e n c e th e
d iv in ity its e lf. W h e n L e ib n iz ta lk s a b o u t th e g lo r y th a t r e s u lts f r o m m ir ro r in g ,
he m eans to e m p h a s iz e th e in s ig h t in to th e d iv in ity th a t m irro rin g m akes
p o s s ib le . In h is m o s t im p o rta n t p u b lic a tio n , E s s a y s o n T h e o d ic y o f 1 7 1 0 ,
L e ib n iz s u m m a r iz e s th e p o in t:

The perfections of God are those of our souls, but he possesses them in boundless measure; he is
an Ocean, w hereof to us only drops have been granted; there is in us some power, some
knowledge, some goodness, but in God they are all in their entirety. Order, proportions, harmony
delight us; painting and music are samples of these: God is all order; he always keeps truth of
proportions, he makes universal harmony; all beauty is an effusion of his rays.95

In s h o rt, a c c o r d in g to L e ib n iz , e n h a n c e d s y m p a th y a m o n g r a tio n a l c re a tu r e s
e n c o u r a g e s th e m to d i s c e r n th e o r d e r , b e a u ty , a n d g o o d n e s s i n th e w o r l d . I n th e
e n d , th e y w i l l b e g in to u n d e r s ta n d G o d a n d , a s h e a r g u e s in th e E s s a y s o n
T h e o d ic y , b e c o m e f a m i l i a r w i t h v i r t u e . 96
 5. An n e Co n w a y

A n n e C o n w a y is a n E n g lis h p h ilo s o p h e r w h o s e o n ly w o r k , T h e P r in c ip le s o f
th e M o s t A n c i e n t a n d M o d e r n P h i l o s o p h y , w a s p u b l i s h e d p o s t h u m o u s l y i n
1 6 9 0 . A l t h o u g h m a n y o f h e r c o n t e m p o r a r i e s o f f e r e d t h e w o r k h i g h p r a i s e , 97
lik e th e w o r k s o f s o m a n y w o m e n , h e r b o o k w a s le f t o u t o f th e h is to r y o f
p h i l o s o p h y b y l a t e r t h i n k e r s . 98 C o n w a y s v i t a l i s t p h i l o s o p h y e x e m p l i f i e s t h e
p o w e r o f e n h a n c e d u n iv e r s a l s y m p a th y to s o lv e a n u m b e r o f p h ilo s o p h ic a l
p r o b le m s e x ta n t in th e e a r l y m o d e r n p e r io d . H e r m e ta p h y s ic s is n o t o n ly th e
m o s t p r o m in e n t e x a m p le o f th e im p a c t o f u n iv e r s a l s y m p a th y o n m a in s tr e a m
p h ilo s o p h y , i t is im p o r ta n t f o r w h a t i t r e v e a l s a b o u t th e r e l a ti o n s h ip b e tw e e n
m e t a p h y s i c a l a n d m o r a l s y m p a t h y a t t h e e n d o f t h e s e v e n t e e n t h c e n tu r y .
C o n w a y a r g u e s th a t th e r e a r e th r e e d i s tin c t s u b s ta n c e s : G o d , L o g o s , a n d th e
c r e a t e d w o r l d . P e r f e c t l y e x e m p l i f y i n g h i e r a r c h i c a l e m a n a tio n , G o d , t h e f i r s t
s u b s ta n c e , e m a n a te s th e s e c o n d , w h i c h th e n e m a n a te s th e w o r ld . A s th e m id d le
s u b s ta n c e b e tw e e n G o d a n d w o r ld , L o g o s is th e m e ta p h y s ic a l c o n d u it a n d
m e d ia to r b e tw e e n G od and c r e a t u r e s . 99 T h e c re a te d w o rld is a s in g le ,
in f in ite ly c o m p le x v ita l s u b s ta n c e , w h o s e v a r io u s m o d e s c o n s titu te in d iv id u a l
c r e a tu r e s . L ik e L e ib n iz , C o n w a y m a in ta in s th a t th e w o r l d c o n ta in s a n in fin ity
o f c r e a t u r e s . L i k e h i m , s h e t a k e s t h e i r v i t a l i t y t o r e s u l t f r o m G o d s e m a n a t i o n .
A n d lik e h im , s h e th in k s th a t a ll v ita l th in g s p e r c e iv e a n d c o r r e s p o n d to a ll
o t h e r s . 100 B u t w h e r e a s L e ib n iz c o n s id e r s e a c h c r e a tu r e to b e s u b s ta n tia lly
d is tin c t f r o m e v e r y o th e r, C o n w a y in s is ts th a t a ll c r e a tu r e s a r e c o n s titu te d o f
th e s a m e v ita l s u b s ta n c e o r e s s e n c e a lth o u g h th e y d if f e r r a d i c a l l y in th e ir
d e g re e o f v i t a l i t y . 101 H e r c o m m itm e n t to th e su p re m e b e in g a s s u m p tio n ,
h ie r a r c h ic a l e m a n a tio n , a n d p le n itu d e l e a d s h e r to i n s is t th a t th e c r e a te d w o r l d
is c o n s ta n tly b e tte rin g its e lf s o th a t a ll c re a tu r e s e v e n tu a lly b e c o m e c o n s c io u s
m o r a l b e i n g s a n d a t t a i n t h e e x c e l l e n t a t t r i b u t e s o f s p i r i t a n d l i g h t . 102 E a c h
c r e a t u r e s h a r e s i n G o d s g o o d n e s s a n d t h e r e f o r e h a s a c a p a c i t y t o p e r c e i v e ,
u n d e r s t a n d , a n d l o v e a l l t h in g s : G o d i s i n f i n i t e l y g o o d a n d c o m m u n i c a t e s h i s
g o o d n e s s to a ll h is c r e a tu r e s in in fin ite w a y s s o th a t th e r e is n o c r e a tu r e
w h i c h d o e s n o t r e c e i v e s o m e th in g o f h is g o o d n e s s . T h is g o o d n e s s o f G o d is
a liv in g g o o d n e s s , w h ic h p o s s e s s e s life , k n o w le d g e , lo v e , a n d p o w e r, w h ic h
h e c o m m u n i c a t e s t o h i s c r e a t u r e s . 103 I t f o l l o w s t h a t e v e r y c r e a t e d t h i n g i s
c a p a b le o f e v e r y k in d o f fe e lin g , p e r c e p tio n , o r k n o w le d g e , e v e n l o v e ,
a lth o u g h th e tr a n s m u ta tio n s r e q u ir e d to a c h ie v e th o s e c a p a c itie s w i l l o c c u r
o v e r a v e r y lo n g tim e . F o r e x a m p le , a s a m o d e o f v ita lity , th e s lu g c a n b e
tra n s m u te d to th a t o f a h o r s e a n d e v e n tu a lly to th a t o f a c o n s c io u s h u m a n b e in g .
G o d h a s s o a r r a n g e d th in g s b e c a u s e h e s e e s th a t i t is m o re fittin g f o r a ll
th in g s ... to a tta in , th ro u g h th e ir ow n e ffo rts , ever g r e a te r p e r f e c t io n as
in s tru m e n ts o f d iv in e w is d o m , g o o d n e s s , a n d p o w e r , w h ic h o p e r a te i n th e m
a n d w i t h th e m . 104 G iv e n o u r c o n c e r n s , it is p a r t i c u l a r l y im p o r ta n t th a t th e
p e r f e c t io n o f c r e a tu r e s is th e d i r e c t r e s u l t o f e n h a n c e d u n iv e r s a l sy m p ath y . O n e
o f th e m o s t b a s i c fe a tu r e s o f th e th ir d s u b s ta n c e is th a t e v e r y c r e a tu r e h a s a n
e n h a n c e d s y m p a th e tic r e l a t i o n w i t h e v e r y o th e r: G o d h a s im p la n te d a c e r ta in
u n iv e r s a l s y m p a th y a n d m u tu a l lo v e in to h is c r e a tu r e s s o th a t th e y a r e a ll
m e m b e rs o f o n e b o d y a n d a ll, s o to s p e a k , b r o th e r s , f o r w h o m th e r e is o n e
c o m m o n fa th e r. 105
T h e r e is in s u f f ic ie n t s p a c e h e r e to d is c u s s th e d e ta i ls o f C o n w a y s v i e w s
about th e d e v e lo p m e n t of c o n s c io u s n e s s and m o ra l im p r o v e m e n t. The
u n d e r ly in g p o in t is th a t a n in c r e a s e in th e v ita lity o f o n e c r e a tu r e c o n tr ib u te s , if
o n ly s lig h tly , to th e g o o d n e s s o f o th e rs . A s u c c e s s io n o f in c r e a s e s in v ita lity
w i l l l e a d to m o r a l im p r o v e m e n ts u n til e v e r y c r e a tu r e b e c o m e s s u ffic ie n tly
v ita l to b e c o n sc io u s. O n c e c o n s c io u s , c r e a tu r e s m o v e s l o w l y to m o ra l
p e r f e c tio n . S h e w r ite s : th e m o re s p ir itu a l [ v ita l] a c e r ta in c r e a tu r e b e c o m e s
.th e c lo s e r it com es to G o d , ... th e h ig h e s t s p i r i t . 106 T h e enhanced
s y m p a th e tic h a rm o n y a m o n g th e in d iv id u a l m o d e s o r c r e a tu r e s g u a ra n te e s th a t
th e y w i l l p r o g r e s s t o w a r d e v e r - in c r e a s in g p e r f e c t io n to in fin ity . 107 S o th e
th ir d s u b s ta n c e c o n s ta n tly im p r o v e s , a lth o u g h its p r o g r e s s i o n a n d a s c e n s io n
c a n n o t r e a c h G o d ... w h o s e n a tu re in f in ite ly s u r p a s s e s e v e r y c r e a tu r e , e v e n
o n e b r o u g h t to th e h ig h e s t l e v e l . 108 B e c a u s e o f e n h a n c e d sy m p a th y , a c r e a tu r e
is c a p a b le o f a fu rth e r a n d m o re p e r f e c t d e g r e e o f lif e , e v e r g r e a te r a n d g r e a te r
to in fin ity , b u t i t c a n n e v e r a tta in e q u a lity w i t h G o d . F o r h is in fin ity is a lw a y s
m o re p e r f e c t th a n a c r e a tu r e in its h ig h e s t e le v a tio n . 109 I n th e e n d , lik e
L e ib n iz , C o n w a y b e l i e v e s th a t e n h a n c e d s y m p a th y a l l o w s a ll h u m a n b e in g s to
d i s c e r n th e e x c e lle n t o r d e r a n d s p le n d o r o f th e w o r l d . 110 L ik e h im , sh e
ta k e s e n h a n c e d s y m p a th y to h e lp th e m fin d v irtu e . B u t s h e d if f e r s f r o m L e ib n iz
in a llo w in g a ll c r e a tu r e s th e b e n e f it o f e n h a n c e m e n t. F o r h e r, u n iv e r s a l
e n h a n c e d s y m p a th y g u a ra n te e s th a t a ll c r e a tu r e s w i l l b e c o m e v ir t u a lly d iv in e .
 6. Co n c l u s i o n

The s e v e n te e n th c e n tu ry b e g in s w ith d e b a te s about o c c u lt s y m p a th e tic

p o w e r s in n a tu re . P h y s ic ia n s , n a tu r a l p h ilo s o p h e r s , a n d th e o lo g ia n s d is a g r e e
a b o u t th e in te llig ib ility o f such p o w e rs and w o rry a b o u t th e ir d e m o n ic
a s s o c ia tio n s . T h e n , o f te n u s in g S to ic a n d P la to n is t id e a s , p h ilo s o p h e r s b e g in to
re th in k a n d s o m e tim e s to c la r if y th e d e s c rip tio n a n d e x p la n a tio n o f th o se
p o w e r s . O v e r t h e c e n tu r y , u n i v e r s a l s y m p a t h y i s i n c r e a s i n g l y r e n d e r e d m o r e
p r e c i s e l y u n til it b e c o m e s a k e y in g r e d ie n t in p r o m in e n t m e ta p h y s ic a l s y s te m s .
I n th e p h ilo s o p h ic a l p r o p o s a l s o f L e ib n iz a n d C o n w a y , i t is th e m a in u n ify in g
fo rc e am ong an in fin ity o f c re a tu re s in G o d s w o rld . W o rld ly s y m p a th y
a c q u ir e s a m o r a l a s p e c t th a t a d d s s ig n if ic a n tly to th e g o o d n e s s o f th e w o r l d
a n d t o t h e e t h i c a l d e v e l o p m e n t o f r a t i o n a l b e i n g s . B y t h e e n d o f t h e c e n tu r y ,
s y m p a th y is a m o ra l fo rc e to be reck o n ed w ith . In C o n w a y s w o rd s, it
e n c o u r a g e s l o v e , a l l p o w e r a n d v i r t u e , j o y a n d f r u i t i o n . 111

1 Eric Schliesser has been enormously helpful in designing the arc of this volume and making fine
comments on my chapter. The other contributors have helped me think more clearly about sympathy. I
would also like to thank the Herzog August Bibliothek and the American Academy in Rome for support
during the time I was working on this project.
2 Giambattista della Porta, Natural Magick (London: Thomas Young and Samuel Speed, 1658), 1.9, 13;
quoted in chapter 3.
3 This is a controversial claim for which I will not argue here.
4 See Giuseppe Gerbinos Reflection in this volume, which discusses the fascinating case of sympathetic
resonance as evidence of a hidden force, sympathy, operating throughout nature and binding the
universe in all its parts. Particularly relevant here is the association assumed between love and
sympathy.
5 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man, trans. Elizabeth Livermore Forbes, in
The Renaissance Philosophy o f Man, ed. Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John Herman
Randall (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), 248-49. Moyer discusses Picos views and a
longer version of this passage.
6 As the Oxford English Dictionary entry on magic notes, to study and manipulate natural powers in the
period were often considered legitimate and necessary fields of enquiry. But some manipulation,
especially of supernatural powers, was considered dangerous or demonic. See OED (Oxford
University Press, 2013, http://www.oed.com).
7 See Rudolph Goclenius, Lexicon Philosophicum (Frankfurt, 1613; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms,
1980), 657. Goclenius has a lengthy discussion of the term magic and its sources.
8 Goclenius, Lexicon Philosophicum, 273.
9 Leibniz, Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, ed. C. I. Gerhardt, 7 vols.
(Leipzig: Lorentz, 1879; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1978), 3.519, hereafter Gerhardt.
10 Goclenius wrote a number of popular books, including the Lexicon Philosophicum of 1613.
11 For more on this debate, see Walter Pagel, Joan Baptista Van Helmont: Reformer o f Science and
Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 8-9.
12 Jan Baptiste van Helmont, De magnetica vulnerum curatione, in Opera omnia (Frankfurt: Johann
Justus Erythropilus, 1632), 105-6.
13 For more on Paracelus, the name given to Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von
Hohenheim, see chapter 3, 86-90.
14 Van Helmont, De magnetica vulnerum curatione, 142-43. Also see Pagel, Joan Baptista Van
Helmont, 10-12.
15 Kenelm Digby was an early member of the Royal Society and correspondent with prominent figures
like Hobbes, Descartes, and Marin Mersenne. Digby wrote and lectured on this phenomenon in the
1650s. His book A Late Discourse ... Ttouching the Cure o f Wounds by the Powder o f Sympathy:
With Instructions How to M ake the Said Powder, trans. R. White (London: Lownes and Davies, 1658),
was originally published in French in 1658; it went through many editions and was translated into
numerous languages. For a helpful account of Digby as situated in the complications of English religious
politics and some secondary literature, see John Henry, Sir Kenelm Digby, Recusant Philosopher, in
Insiders and Outsiders in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy ed. G. A. J. Rogers, Tom Sorrell, and Jill
Kraye (London: Routledge, 2010), 43-75. This context is important, but so is the reformed philosophy
movement of which Digby was part. On this, see my Leibnizs Metaphysics: Its Origins and
Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), ch. 3. Also see my Kenelm Digby, in
Routledge Encyclopedia o f Philosophy, ed. E. Craig (London: Routledge), 1998; e-book,
http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/DA028SECT3.
16 The young Leibniz places Digby alongside Galileo, Gassendi, Descartes, and Hobbes as a prominent
new philosopher. References to Leibnizs work in this chapter are mostly to Samtliche Schriften und
Briefe (Darmstadt: Berlin Academy, 1923-), cited by series, volume, and page number; hereafter A . A
standard English edition is Philosophical Papers and Letters, trans. Leroy E. Loemker, 2nd ed.
(Dordrecht: Reidel, 1970); hereafter L. The reference here is to A VI 1.489-90; L 110.
17 Kenelm Digby, Two Treatises: In the one o f which, the Nature o f Bodies, in the other, the Nature
o f Mans Soule; Is Looked into; In the Way o f Discovery, o f the Immortality o f Reasonable Soules
(Paris: Gilles Blaizot), 1644. For a discussion of Digby and some of his views, see my Leibnizs
Metaphysics, 105-7, 109-11.
18 Digby, Powder, 191-93. Digbys proposals were taken very seriously and even applied to the so-called
longitude problem. See D ava Sobel, Longitude (New York: Walker, 1995), 41-42.
19 Digby, Powder, 191-93.
20 Digby, Powder, 205.
21 Digby, Powder , 167.
22 For example, Kepler uses the Platonic solids as a means to understand the movement of the planets.
For a fine introduction to K eplers thought, see Daniel A. Di Liscia, Johannes Kepler, in The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 ed.), ed. Edward N. Zalta,
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/kepler/.
23 For an account of some of the problems facing the first mechanists and the role of Platonism in solving
those problems, see my Platonism in Early Modern Natural Philosophy: The Case of Leibniz and
Conway, in Neoplatonic Natural Philosophy, ed. Christoph Horn and James Wilberding (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012), 103-26.
24 A. A. Long, Stoicism in the Philosophical Tradition: Spinoza, Lipsius, Butler, in Cambridge
Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 365-92, at
365-67. Also, as Eyjolfur Emilsson suggests in chapter 2 of this volume, Platonists often employed Stoic
ideas. It follows then that Christian thinkers used this amalgamation to construct their Platonist
Christianity.
25 John Sellers, Is God a Mindless Vegetable? Cudworth on Stoic Theology, Intellectual History
Review 212. (2011): 121-33, at 121-22.
26 See Justus Lipsius, Manuductionis ad Physiologiae Stoicorum libri tres, L. Annaeo Senecae,
aliisque scriptoribus illustrandis (Antwerp: J. Moretus, 1604). For a helpful overview of Lipsius, see
Jan Papy, Justus Lipsius, in The Stanford Encyclopedia o f Philosophy (Fall 2011 ed.), ed. Edward N.
Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/justus-lipsius/.
27 As protests increased about the dangers of Spinozas thought, Spinoza was increasingly branded a
Stoic so that, in Sellerss words, the fate of Stoicism became intertwined with the fate of Spinozism.
See Sellers, Is God a Mindless Vegetable?, 124.
28 See Sellers, Is God a Mindless Vegetable?. But it is important to acknowledge that, as Sarah Hutton
points out, Cudworth employed Stoic terminology and was sympathetic to some Stoic ideas. Also,
according to Hutton, Cudworths Stoicism is blended with Platonism. See her introduction to Ralph
Cudworth: A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality with a Treatise o f Freewill
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), ix-xx.
29 See Jakob Thomasius, Exercitatio de Stoica Mundi Exustione (Leipzig: Lanckisius, 1676).
30 Leibniz, A VI 4[B].1384-85. Find the English in Philosophical Essays, ed. and trans. Roger Ariew
and Daniel Garber (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989), 282, hereafter, AG. Leibniz refers to Stoic views
frequently. See, for example, A VI 4[B].1313, 1320, 1480, 1482.
31 See Long, Stoicism in the Philosophical Tradition, 385-92.
32 See Jan Baptiste Van Helmont, Opera omnia (Frankfurt: Johann Justus Erythropilus, 1632). The
references to Paracelsus and the Stoics are scattered throughout his works. There are significantly few er
explicit references to Plato and Platonists. See 254, 273, 290, 654, 811.
33 Jan Baptiste van Helmont, De magnetica vulnerum curatione, in Opera omnia, 151.
34 Van Helmont, De magnetica, 131.
35 Van Helmont, De magnetica, 142-43.
36 Van Helmont, De magnetica, 108.
37 Jan Baptiste Van Helmont, Imago Dei, in Opera omnia, 666-68.
38 Van Helmont, De magnetica, 151. Leibniz famously talks about the mirroring of substances or
monads. As we will see, the mirroring among creatures is an important feature of his account of universal
sympathy.
39 Jan Baptiste Van Helmont, Venatio scientiarum in Opera omnia, 17.
40 Van Helmont, Venatio scientiarum, 46-48.
41 Leibniz is familiar with Rattray. See Leibniz, A VI 4[A].682.
42 Silvester Rattray, Aditus Novus ad Occultas Sympathiae et Antipathiae Causas Inveniendas: Per
Principia Philosophiae Naturalis, ex Fermentorum Artificiosa Anatomia hausta Patefactus
(Glasgow: Andreas Anderson, 1658). See To the Reader.
43 Rattray, Aditus Novus, 84-86.
44 Rattray, Aditus Novus, 90-94.
45 Rattray, Aditus Novus, 135-36.
46 The major claims in seventeenth-century dissertations are very often those of the presiding professor,
the equivalent of a dissertation adviser. T he presiding professor here is Johann Michael Schwimmer, a
professor at the university in Jena, who wrote on related topics.
47 Jacob Heinrich Gangloff, Disputatio physica de sympathia (Jena: Samuel Adophus Muller, 1669), A
2r.
48 Gangloff, De sympathia, A 2r. The Latin is: SYMPATHIA est conspiratio mutua naturalis inter res
physicas, orta ex peculiari occulta cognatione, ob quam istae res amico affectu, seu occulto amore, ad se
invicem trahuntur. The word cognatio here appears frequently in the second half of the seventeenth
century in explications of sympathy. In Stephanus Chauvins Lexicon, for example, we find that sympathy
is affectionum cognatio [an affinity of affections]. See Chauvin, Lexicon Philosophicum, 2nd ed.
(Leeuwarden, repr. Dusseldorf, 1713), 647.
49 Gangloff, De sympathia, A 2v. The Latin is: amor mutuus, amicitia rerum, rerum concordia, rerum
naturalium convenientia.
50 Gangloff, De sympathia, A 2r.
51 Gangloff, De sympathia, 6.
52 Gangloff, De sympathia, 22-23.
53 Gangloff, De sympathia, 47-49.
54 For a helpful account of Platonist views about causation between the fourth and twelfth centuries, see
Ian Wilks, Efficient Causation in Late Antiquity and the Earlier Medieval Period, in Efficient
Causation: A History, ed. Tad Schmaltz (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
55 Brian Copenhaver and Charles Schmitt have written: Given the quantity of Platonic material
transmitted through Arabic authorities or generally in the air in medieval universities, it is not surprising
that parts of Thomist metaphysics owe more to Augustine, Proclus, or Plotinus than to Aristotle. See
Brian P. Copenhaver and Charles B. Schmitt, Renaissance Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1992), 133.
56 Ficinos edition and translations were circulated widely and remained prominent well into the
eighteenth century.
57 Ficino also edited and translated Plotinuss Enneads. M uch has been written about Ficino, his thought,
and his influence. A fine place to begin an exploration of these topics is Michael J. B. Allen, Valery Rees,
and Martin Davies, Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
58 Leibniz, Gerhardt, 7.147. Leibnizs mentor, Thomasius, complains that Ficinos account of Plato is more
poetic than philosophical. See Exercitatio, 184.
59 Albrecht Beutel writes that Augustine was of utmost importantance to Luther and a major source of
his reformational renewal. See Albrecht Beutel, Life, in The Cambridge Companion to Martin
Luther, ed. Donald K. Mckim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 3-19, at 5.
60 For the importance of Augustinianism in seventeenth-century France and for other examples of major
figures proclaiming the importance of the divine Augustine, see Stephen Menn, Descartes and
Augustine (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), esp. 21-25.
61 It is an awkward truth about prominent Platonists that they put forward elaborate theories that are
sometimes only remotely connected to the texts of the Athenian philosopher himself. On the
heterogeneity of early modern Platonism, see Paul O. Kristeller and Michael Mooney, eds., Renaissance
Thought and Its Sources (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979); and my Platonism and
Philosophical Humanism on the Continent, in A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Steven
Nadler (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 25-44. For a recent discussion of Platonism, see Lloyd P. Gerson,
What Is Platonism?, Journal o f the History o f Philosophy 43.3 (2005): 253-76.
62 Eyjolfur K. Emilsson, Cognition and Its Object, in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed.
Lloyd Gerson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 217-49, at 245.
63 Needless to say, this is a thorny topic. The hierarchy of being is often described in terms of ontological
and causal dependency, but not always. For a good introduction to the issues, see Dominic J. O Meara,
T he Hierarchical Ordering of Reality in Plotinus ; and Kevin Corrigan, Essence and Existence in the
Enneads , both in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed. Lloyd Gerson (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), 66-81, 105-29. For more recent discussions of these topics, see Lloyd P. Gerson,
The Cambridge History o f Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2010), 638-48.
64 The history of the causal theory of emanation is rich and complicated. For more on the views in early
modern philosophy discussed here, see my Leibnizs Metaphysics, especially 178-95. In the seventeenth
century, there were a number of different accounts of emanation. T he account I offer here covers the
most important of those. For a recent helpful survey, see Eric Schliesser, Newtonian Emanation,
Spinozism, M easurement and the Baconian Origins of the Laws of Nature, Foundations o f Science
10.3 (2012): 1-18.
65 Goclenius, Lexicon Philosophicum, 694.
66 Anne Conway, The Principles o f the M ost Ancient and Modern Philosophy, trans. Alison Coudert
and Taylor Corse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), I 3, 9. References to this edition
include book, section, and page number. So the citation here is book I, section 3, p. 9.
67 Proclus, The Elements o f Theology, ed. and trans. E. R. Dodd (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1964), prop. 26.
68 My account of nonhierarchical emanation owes a good deal to Eileen O Neill, Influxus Physicus, in
Causation in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Steven Nadler (University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1993), 27-55; and to Schliesser, Newtonian Emanation.
69 See O Neill, Influxus Physicus, for a thorough discussion of the nonhierarchical notion in early
modern natural philosophy.
70 Henry More, Immortality o f the Soul, so farre forth as it is demonstrable from the Knowledge of
Nature and the Light o f Reason (London: Flesher, 1654), book 1, ch. 6, 2. Leibniz took notes on M ores
book during the years 1677-78, and he compares M ores views about the common sense to those of
Van Helmont. See Leibniz, A VI 4[B].1678-80.
71 Plotinus, Enneads, V.5.12.46-47.
72 Philo, The Works o f Philo, trans. C. D. Yonge (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1952), 5.14, my
emphasis.
73 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, trans. and ed. James F. Anderson (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 2.45 [10].
74 For a fuller account of these notions in the period, see my, Leibnizs Metaphysics, ch. 6, and
Platonism in Early Modern Natural Philosophy, especially 111-13.
75 I have argued elsewhere that these constitute the materials out of which Leibniz developed his famous
doctrine of preestablished harmony. For that account, see Leibnizs Metaphysics, esp. chs. 6, 8, and 10
(sect. 3).
76 Leibniz, A VI 1.510. H e also mentions Aristotles agent intellect in this context.
77 A VI 3.520. For an edition and translation of some of these important papers, see De Summa Rerum:
Metaphysical Papers, 1675-76, ed. and trans., G. H. R. Parkinson (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1992), H ereafter Pk. Pk 79-81.
78 Leibniz, A VI 3.523: Pk 85. Also see A VI 1.485.
79 In his early works, the term is restricted to discussions of bodies. For example, see Leibniz, A VI
2.190, 240, 245, 257, 325, and 498. But he also acknowledges the role of sympathy and antipathy in
vulgar science. See A VI 4[A].457, 638, 639. In the notes of 1672-76, he often writes that bodies of
the world are in sympathy among themselves. See A VI 3.79, 85, 87, 91.
80 As noted in section 2, Leibniz distinguishes between a sense of occult as something whose cause is
unknown and as an effect that can never become intelligible. He suggests that N ew tons account of
gravity falls in the latter category. See Leibniz, Gerhardt 3.519. For a recent account of Leibnizs
disagreement with New ton and N ew tons response, see Andrew Janiak, Newton as Philosopher
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), ch. 3.
81 A II 2.520-21. Thanks to Eric Schliesser for helping track down this passage.
82 A VI 4[B].1011.
83 A VI 4[A].308. See also A VI 4[B].1613.
84 A VI 4[A].669.
85 A VI 4[B].1646: A G 41.
86 A VI 4[B].1646: A G 32.
87 A VI 4[B].1550-51: A G 47.
88 A VI 4[B].1549: A G 46.
89 A VI 4[B].1541-42: A G 41-42.
90 A VI 4[B].1582: A G 65.
91 A VI 4[B].1582.19: A G 65.
92 I am ignoring the many debates among scholars about how to articulate Leibnizs doctrines. For a
helpful general account of Leibnizs philosophy, see Brandon C. Look, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, The
Stanford Encyclopedia o f Philosophy (Spring 2013 ed.), ed. Edward N. Zalta
http://plato. stanford. edu/archives/spr2013/entries/leibniz/.
93 A VI 1.438. Leibniz is not innovative in comparing creatures to mirrors. We have seen the comparison
in Van Helmont. And in his Platonic Theology of 1482, Ficino describes each soul as a mirror of the
divine. See Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, 6 vols., trans. Michael J. B. Allen, ed. James Hankins
and William Bowen (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001-06), 3. ch. 2.
94 A VI 1.485. Also see A VI 1.479.
95 Gerhardt, 6.27. The standard translation of the Theodicy remains Theodicy, trans. E. M. Huggard
(LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1985), 51. The French here is: Les perfections de Dieu sont celles de nos
ames, mais il les possede sans bornes: il est un Ocean, dont nous n avons receu que des gouttes: il y a en
nous quelque puissance, quelque connoissance, quelque bonte, mais elles sont toutes entieres en Dieu.
Lordre, les proportions, lharmonie nous enchantent, la peinture et la musique en sont des echantillons;
Dieu est tout ordre, il garde tousjours la justesse des proportions, il fait lharmonie universelle: toute la
beaute est un epanchement de ses rayons.
96 Gerhardt, 6.25.
97 Leibniz developed his metaphysics independently of Conway, but he did think very well of her ideas. In
his New Essays on Human Understanding, for example, he mentions her as the best among the
vitalist philosophers. See New Essays on Human Understanding, ed. and trans. Peter Remnant and
Johathan Bennett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 72. For the range of significant figures
with whom she corresponded and who referred approvingly of her work, see Anne Conway, The
Conway Letters: The Correspondence o f Anne Viscountess Conway, Henry Moore, and Their
Friends (1642-1684), ed. Marjorie Hope Nicholson and Sarah Hutton (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1992); for Leibnizs various comments, see 454-57.
98 For the classic article on this phenomenon, see Eileen O Neill, Disappearing Ink: Early Modern
Women Philosophers and Their Fate in History, in Philosophy in a Feminist Voice: Critiques and
Reconstructions, ed. Janet Kournay (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 17-62. For the
most important study of Conways intellectual life and the history of the publication, see Sarah Hutton,
Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). For a thorough
account of the state of Conways writings, see Huttons introduction.
99 Conway refers to this second substance as Christ, which suggests a more thorough commitment to
Christianity than she in fact has. For a summary of Conways metaphysics and her non-Christian use of
Christ, see my Anne Conways Metaphysics of Sympathy, in Feminist History o f Philosophy:
Recovery and Evaluation o f Womens Philosophical Thought, ed. Eileen O Neill and M arcy Lascano
(New York: Springer, 2015).
100 Conway wrote her Principles in the 1670s, at the same time that Leibniz was developing the details
of his own system. Because she developed her views entirely independently of his, their similarities are all
the more striking.
101 Conway, Principles, VI 4, 29-30.
102 Principles IX 6, 66.
103 Principles VII 7, 44-45.
104 Principles IX 6, 66.
105 Principles VI 4, 31.
106 Principles VII 1, 41-42.
107 Principles VI 1, 42.
108 Principles IX 5, 65.
109 Principles IX 7, 67.
110 Principles VI 5, 31-32.
111 Principles IX 6, 66.
Reflection
TAKE PHYSIC, PO M P : KIN G LEAR LEARNS SYMPATHY

Sarah Skwire

I n a c t 3 o f S h a k e s p e a r e s K i n g L e a r , L e a r , w h o w a s b e e n c a s t o u t i n t o a
b r u ta l s to r m a n d s tr ip p e d o f h is r e ta in e r s b y h is g r a s p in g d a u g h te rs R e g a n
a n d G o n e r il, b e g in s h is p r o c e s s o f tra n s fo r m a tio n . T h e s e lf - c e n te r e d
a u t o c r a t o f t h e p l a y s o p e n i n g s c e n e s i s f o r c e d , i n t h i s s c e n e , t o b e g i n t o
m o v e o u t o f h is s e lf - p ity th ro u g h h is e n c o u n te rs w ith K e n t, w h o is d is g u is e d
a s a p e a s a n t, a n d w i t h E d g a r , w h o is d i s g u i s e d a s th e m a d b e g g a r P o o r T o m .
O f f e r e d h o s p it a li ty i n a p o o r h o v e l, L e a r r e a l i z e s a s h e s u f f e r s a n d is o f f e r e d
r e l i e f th a t h e h a s f a ile d to s y m p a th iz e w i t h h is s u b je c ts s u ff e rin g b e c a u s e h e
h a s b e e n s o w r a p p e d in s e lf-re g a rd .

P o o r n a k e d w r e tc h e s , w h e r e s o e r y o u a r e ,
T h a t b i d e th e p e ltin g o f th is p i t i l e s s s to rm ,
H o w s h a ll y o u r h o u s e le s s h e a d s a n d u n fe d s id e s ,
Y o u r lo o p d a n d w in d o w d ra g g e d n e s s , d e fe n d y o u
F r o m s e a s o n s s u c h a s th e s e ? O , I h a v e t a e n
T o o l i t t l e c a r e o f t h is ! T a k e p h y s i c , p o m p ;
E x p o s e th y s e lf to fe e l w h a t w r e tc h e s fe e l,
T h a t th o u m a y s t s h a k e th e s u p e r f lu x to th e m ,
A n d s h o w th e h e a v e n s m o r e ju s t.
( 3 .4 .2 7 - 3 6 )

T h a t L e a r c a ll s f o r p h y s ic a s th e r e m e d y f o r h is l a c k o f s y m p a th y r e m in d s
a ll o f u s th a t th e p r o c e s s in w h ic h h e m u s t e n g a g e in w h ic h w e a ll m u c h
e n g a g e i n o r d e r to s h o w th e h e a v e n s m o r e j u s t is n o t a p l e a s a n t o n e .
M e d ic in e in th e a g e o f S h a k e s p e a r e a n d f o r q u ite a lo n g tim e a fte r
w a s f a m o u s ly u n c o m f o r ta b le . A s th e f a th e r - in - la w o f J o h n H a ll, a p h y s ic ia n
in S tra tfo r d - o n -A v o n , S h a k e s p e a r e w o u l d h a v e h a d th e o p p o r tu n ity to s e e
a n d h e a r a g r e a t d e a l a b o u t m e d ic a l p r a c tic e f r o m a n e x p e rt. I n fa c t, H a ll
tr e a te d p a tie n ts fo r e y e tro u b le w ith v a rio u s h e rb s c o m b in e d w ith e g g
w h i t e , 1 w h i c h i s p r e c i s e l y t h e t r e a t m e n t u s e d i n K i n g L e a r b y G l o u c e s t e r s
s y m p a th e tic s e r v a n t a fte r G lo u c e s te r is b lin d e d : I ll f e tc h s o m e f la x a n d
w h ite s o f e g g s / T o a p p ly to h is b le e d in g f a c e ( 3 .7 .1 0 5 - 6 ) . T h a t m a y n o t
s o u n d s o u n c o m fo rta b le , b u t f la x a n d e g g w h ite s w e r e a tre a tm e n t fo r
e x te rn a l w o u n d s .
F o r i n t e r n a l a i l m e n t s , o f t h e k i n d t o w h i c h L e a r s p o m p i s a n a l o g i z e d
a n d f o r w h ic h th e e x p r e s s io n ta k e p h y s ic w o u ld h a v e b e e n u s e d , tre a tm e n t
w a s q u ite d iffe re n t. B a s e d o n th e th e o r y th a t th e b e s t w a y to t r e a t a n illn e s s
w a s t o b a l a n c e a p a t i e n t s h u m o r s b y g e t t i n g t h e b a d s t u f f o u t , b l e e d i n g ,
e m e tic s , a n d p u r g a tiv e s a lo n e o r in c o m b in a tio n w o u l d h a v e b e e n th e
m o s t c o m m o n ly p r e s c r i b e d c o u r s e s o f p h y s ic . A n d th e g e n e r a l a s s u m p tio n
w a s t h a t t h e m o r e v i o l e n t l y a m e d i c i n e a c t e d o n t h e p a t i e n t , t h e b e t t e r it
w o r k e d . T h is l e d e a r l y m o d e r n m e d ic a l a d v e r t is e r s to to u t th e e f f e c tiv e n e s s
o f th e ir c u r e s b y e m p h a s iz in g th e th o ro u g h n e s s w i t h w h i c h th e y w i l l w o r k
o n t h e p a t i e n t s s y s t e m . F o r e x a m p l e , G e o r g e J o n e s s b r o a d s i d e
a d v e r tis e m e n t f o r h is F r ie n d ly P i l l s p r o m is e s th a t th e p i ll s w i l l b r in g
a w a y a l m o s t a C h a m b e r - p o t f u ll t h e f i r s t S t o o l , a n d o n e , t w o , o r t h r e e s t o o l s
o f c o r r u p tio n a f te r w a r d s . 2 S im ila r ly , S a m u e l P e p y s m e n tio n s , o n J a n u a r y
1 6 , 1 6 5 9 /6 0 , th a t I s l e p t la te , a n d th e n in th e m o rn in g t o o k p h y s ic , a n d s o
s ta i d w i t h in a ll d a y . 3 T h e r e a s o n s f o r h is c o n f in e m e n t to th e h o u s e a r e
p r e s u m a b ly o b v io u s . M e rc u r y w a s th o u g h t to b e a n e x c e lle n t m e d ic in e fo r
a ll ty p e s o f s e v e r e a ilm e n ts b e c a u s e o f its a b il it y to p r o v o k e s w e a tin g a n d
v o m itin g . W ith c o u r s e s o f p h y s ic lik e th is , it is little w o n d e r th a t J o h n D o n n e
a n d o th e r e a r l y m o d e r n s te n d e d to b e s o m e w h a t f a s c in a te d b y th e b i b li c a l
c u rs e in E c c le s ia s tic u s 3 8 :1 5 : H e th a t s in n e th b e fo r e h is m a k e r, le t h im fa ll
in to th e h a n d o f th e p h y s ic i a n .
E q u a lly s ig n if ic a n t in e a r l y m o d e r n m e d ic in e w a s th e m e d ic a l- m a g ic a l
c o n c e p t o f h e a lin g b y s y m p a th y a n d th e d o c tr in e o f s ig n a tu r e s . K e ith
T h o m a s e x p la in s : e v e r y h e rb w a s s ta m p e d w ith a m o re o r le s s c le a r s ig n o f
i ts u s e s ; s o t h a t , f o r e x a m p l e , a y e l l o w b l o s s o m i n d i c a t e d a l i k e l y c u r e f o r
ja u n d ic e , o r a r o o t s h a p e d lik e a f o o t b e c a m e a r e m e d y f o r g o u t. 4 T h o m a s
fu rth e r e x p la in s th a t th e lik e c u r e s lik e p h ilo s o p h y o f s y m p a th e tic c u r e s
la y b e h in d s u c h e a r l y m o d e r n o d d itie s a s th e w e a p o n s a lv e , a p r e p a r a t i o n
th a t w a s s m e a r e d o n a n e d g e d w e a p o n in o r d e r to a s s i s t th e v ita l s p ir its o f
th e c o n g e a le d b lo o d to re u n ite w i t h th e v i c t i m s b o d y , a n d th u s h e a l th e
w o u n d e v e n a t a d is ta n c e o f th ir ty m ile s . 5 T h e p r e v a le n c e o f b e l i e f in s u c h
s y m p a th e tic c u r e s in S h a k e s p e a r e s tim e b a s e d in a th e o r y th a t lik e n e s s e s
a ttr a c t s u g g e s ts th a t o n e p a r t o f L e a r s c o u r s e o f p h y s ic m a y w e ll b e th e
a p p l i c a t i o n to h i m s e l f o f s o m e o f th e s u ffe rin g s h e h a s c a u s e d o th e rs . ( S e e
c h a p te r 4 a n d H o lm e s s r e f l e c t i o n in th is v o lu m e .)
I f K in g L e a r s p r o c e s s o f le a r n in g to s y m p a th iz e , to ta k e m o re c a r e o f
th is , is g o in g to r e q u ir e a m e ta p h o r ic a l c o u r s e o f p h y s ic , w e s h o u ld a s s u m e
th a t th e p r o c e s s w i l l b e u n p le a s a n t in th e e x tre m e , a n d th a t i t w i l l r e q u ir e th e
p u r g a tio n a n d th e e x p o s u r e o f th e fo u l m a tte r o f s e lf - r e g a r d th a t h a s in f e c te d
h im . A n d th is is p r e c i s e l y w h a t h a p p e n s w h e n L e a r is f o r c e d to [ e ] x p o s e
[h im s e lf] to fe e l w h a t w r e tc h e s f e e l.
T h e r e is n o n e e d to r e h e a r s e th e p l o t o f K in g L ea r. B u t i t is w o r th
p o in tin g o u t a f e w o f th e s e m o m e n ts d u r in g w h ic h L e a r s s u ffe rin g s f o r c e
h im , f a i r l y lite r a lly , in to th e p l a c e o f v a r io u s p e o p le w h o h a v e s u f f e r e d f r o m
h is c a r e le s s n e s s . F ir s t, o f c o u r s e , th e r e is L e a r s b a n is h m e n t o f C o r d e lia .
T o ld to l e t h e r tru th b e th e n th y d o w e r ( 1 .1 .1 0 9 ) , C o r d e l i a is tu r n e d o u t
w i t h L e a r s p r o m is e th a t, h e n c e fo rth , h e s h a ll:

d is c l a im e a ll m y p a te r n a l c a r e ,
P r o p in q u ity a n d p r o p e r ty o f b lo o d ,
A n d a s a s tr a n g e r to m y h e a r t a n d m e ,
H o ld th e e f r o m th is f o r e v e r. T h e b a r b a r o u s S c y th ia n ,
O r h e th a t m a k e s h is g e n e r a tio n m e s s e s
T o g o rg e h is a p p e tite , s h a ll to m y b o s o m
B e a s w e l l n e ig h b o u r e d , p i t i e d a n d r e l i e v e d ,
A s th o u m y s o m e tim e d a u g h te r.
( 1 .1 .1 1 4 - 2 1 )

L e a r tu rn s C o r d e l i a o u t a n d tu rn s h e r in to a s tra n g e r. T h is f o r s w e a r in g o f th e
f a m ilia l b o n d is d u p lic a te d in th e n e x t a c t a s G o n e r il a n d R e g a n e a c h tu r n
L e a r o u t o f th e ir h o m e s a n d s e e k to s tr ip h im o f h is r e ta in e r s , j u s t a s h e
b a n is h e s C o r d e lia a n d s tr ip s h e r o f h e r o n ly s u p p o rt.
In a p a th e tic e c h o o f h is b a n is h m e n t o f C o r d e lia , th e b a n is h e d L e a r te lls
G o n e ril:

I w i l l n o t tr o u b le th e e , m y c h ild . F a r e w e ll:
W e ll n o m o r e m e e t, n o m o r e s e e o n e a n o th e r.
B u t y e t th o u a r e m y f le s h , m y b l o o d , m y d a u g h te r,
O r r a t h e r a d i s e a s e t h a t s i n m y f l e s h ,
W h ic h I m u s t n e e d s c a ll m in e . T h o u a r t a b o i l,
A p la g u e s o re , o r e m b o s s e d c a rb u n c le
In m y c o rr u p te d b lo o d .
( 2 .2 .4 0 6 - 1 4 )

H e r e , t h e b a n i s h e d L e a r s t a n d s i n C o r d e l i a s p l a c e . L i k e C o r d e l i a , w h o
n e v e r c e a s e s to r e f e r to h im a s f a th e r n o m a tte r h o w o f te n h e a b ju r e s th e ir
r e la tio n s h ip , L e a r r e p e a te d ly r e f e r s to h is c o n n e c tio n w i t h G o n e r il. N o
m a tte r h o w c o r r u p t th e ir b l o o d tie is , h e in s is ts , i t is s till a tie . T h e ir o n y o f
t h i s r e v e r s a l i s n o t l o s t o n t h e a u d i e n c e , b u t L e a r d o e s n o t s e e i t y e t.
W e s h o u ld n o te , a s w e l l, th e m e d ic a l la n g u a g e th a t L e a r u s e s h e re . I n a
p l a y w h e r e p o m p m u s t t a k e p h y s i c , L e a r s a n a l o g i z i n g o f G o n e r i l t o a
b o il / a p la g u e s o r e , o r e m b o s s e d c a r b u n c le / In m y c o r r u p te d b l o o d is n o t
a n a c c i d e n t . L e a r s u n g r a t e f u l d a u g h t e r s a r e t h e o u t w a r d a n d v i s i b l e s i g n s o f
h is in w a r d a n d in v is ib le c o r r u p tio n a n d illn e s s . T h e y a r e n o t th e s ic k n e s s
its e lf , b u t in th e m e d ic a l te r m in o lo g y o f th e tim e , th e y a r e th e to k e n s
th e re o f.
L e a r s t u r n i n g o u t o f C o r d e l i a r e b o u n d s o n h i m a g a i n i n t h i s s a m e s c e n e
a s G o n e r il a n d R e g a n w r a n g le w ith h im o v e r th e n u m b e r o f r e ta in e r s h e
s h o u l d b e a l l o w e d t o k e e p . W h i l e , w h e n a c c e p t i n g t h e i r p o r t i o n s o f L e a r s
k in g d o m , th e y h a d a g re e d h e c o u ld b r in g o n e h u n d re d r e ta in e r s w ith h im
w h e n h e c a m e to s ta y w i t h th e m , th e y r a p i d l y b e g in to b a r g a i n th e ir w a y
d o w n f r o m t h a t n u m b e r f r o m f if ty , t o t w e n t y - f i v e , t o t e n , t o f i v e , t o n o n e .
W h ile n o th in g is e x p l i c i t l y s a id , th is w r a n g li n g m u s t b e in te n d e d to m a k e th e
a u d i e n c e t h i n k o f C o r d e l i a s c o m m e n t t h a t I l o v e y o u r m a j e s t y / A c c o r d i n g
to m y b o n d , n o m o r e n o r l e s s ( 1 . 1 . 9 2 - 9 3 ) . W h e n L e a r is f o r c e d in to th e
s a m e b a n is h e d a n d u n s u p p o r te d s ta te to w h ic h h e h a s c o n d e m n e d C o r d e lia ,
w h a t in itia lly s e e m s a n u n te n d e r c o m m e n t is r e v e a le d a s a q u ie tly f ir m
a s s e r t i o n o f a l o v e w o r t h v a l u i n g m o r e h ig h ly .
S im ila r m o m e n ts o f e x p o s u r e to th e s u f f e r in g e x p e r i e n c e d b y o th e r
w re tc h e s o c c u r fo r L e a r w h e n K e n t w h o m h e h a s b a n is h e d b e c o m e s
L e a r s p r o t e c t o r a n d g u i d e d u r i n g h i s m a d n e s s . A n d L e a r s m a d n e s s i s i t s e l f
a f o r c e d o p p o r tu n ity f o r L e a r to e x p e r ie n c e n o t o n ly th e m a d n e s s a n d
d e p r i v a ti o n o f th e p o o r e s t o f h is s u b je c ts , b u t th e f e a r a n d i n s ta b ility th a t
ru n s w i l d in th e m a d w o r l d h e h a s c r e a te d b y th e u n k in g in g o f h is
k in g d o m .

I h a v e w r i t t e n i n o th e r c o n te x ts 6 o f th e c h a lle n g in g n a tu r e o f l e a r n in g to
p r a c tic e s y m p a th y a s d e s c r i b e d b y th e e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry m o ra l p h ilo s o p h e r
A d a m S m ith . S m i t h a c k n o w l e d g e s t h a t t h e p r a c t i c e o f s y m p a t h y c a n b e q u i t e
d iff ic u lt, a s o v e r c o m in g th e s e s e lf is h a n d o r ig in a l p a s s i o n s is e n o rm o u s ly
e ffo rtfu l a n d u n p le a s a n t.

In the same manner, to the selfish and original passions of human nature, the loss or gain of a very
small interest of our own, appears to be of vastly more importance, excites a much more passionate
joy or sorrow, a much more ardent desire or aversion, than the greatest concern of another with
whom we have no particular connexion. His interests, as long as they are surveyed from this
station, can never be put into the balance with our own, can never restrain us from doing whatever
may tend to promote our own, how ruinous soever to him. Before we can make any proper
comparison of those opposite interests, we must change our position. (3.3.3)

W h ile S m ith s u g g e s ts th a t th e n e c e s s a r y c h a n g e in p o s it i o n is a s h if t to th e
p o s itio n o f n e u tr a lity th a t h e c o n n e c ts w i t h th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r ( s e e
c h a p t e r 7 i n t h i s v o l u m e ) , S h a k e s p e a r e s K i n g L e a r s u g g e s t s t h a t w h a t i s
n e e d e d in o r d e r f o r s o m e in d iv id u a ls to l e a r n to s y m p a th iz e is a r a d ic a l
c o u r s e o f p h y s ic in th e f o r m o f d i r e c tl y e x p e r ie n c in g th e s u ff e rin g s o f
o th e r s f o r o n e s e lf . F o r L e a r, th e p r a c tic e o f s y m p a th y is s u c h a d if f ic u lt
e x e r c is e th a t o n ly th e l o s s o f e v e r y th in g k in g d o m , fa m ily , s e r v a n ts , a n d
w e a l t h c a n f o r c e h i m t o l e a r n it.
B u t w h a t a r e L e a r s r e w a r d s ? I t s p o s s i b l e t o l o o k a t t h e s t a g e l i t t e r e d
w i t h b o d ie s a t th e e n d o f th e fin a l a c t o f K in g L e a r a n d a rg u e th a t n o th in g o f
s i g n i f i c a n c e h a s b e e n a c h i e v e d s i n c e L e a r s e p i p h a n y i n t h e s t o r m . B u t L e a r
h a s c h a n g e d . A t th e e n d o f a c t 4 h e e x p r e s s e s a n e w l y p e r f e c t a n d in s tin c tiv e
u n d e r s ta n d in g o f th e s u ff e rin g o f o th e r s w h e n h e n o te s , I s h o u ld e v e n d ie
w i t h p ity to s e e a n o th e r th u s ( 4 .7 .5 3 - 5 4 ) . H is tr a n s f o r m a tio n is n o t e n o u g h
to s a v e h im o r to s a v e C o r d e lia , b u t it m a y b e e n o u g h to a ll o w u s to h o p e
th a t, w i t h s y m p a th y , w e c a n r e s t o r e s o m e k in d o f o r d e r to th e g o r e d s ta te
 o f th e p la y .

1 John Hall, Counsel 11: Hurt in the Eye, in Select observations on English bodies o f eminent
persons in desperate diseases first written in Latin by Mr. John H a l l ; after Englished by James
Cook ... ; to which is now added, an hundred like counsels and advices, fo r several honourable
persons, by the same author; in the close is added, Directions fo r drinking o f the bath-water, and
Ars cosmetica, or beautifying art, by H. Stubbs ... . (London: Benjamin Shirley, 1679). The treatment
reads thus: The Honourable, Mr. Algernoon Grevil, being hurt with a Foil in the Eye, was cured by Dr.
Batess direction, which was as followeth: The Foil being run into his left Eye, it presently swelld, and he
bled at the Nose, and was troubled all the afternoon with vomiting. There was immediatly applied to it a
Plaster of Conserve o f Roses. At night Dr. Bates being sent for, he prescribed what follows: H e took a
Clyster of a pint o f new Milk, and six spoonfuls o f Sugar. As soon as it had done working, he bled
from the Cephalic on the same side. After was applied this: Take green Wormwood M ss. Carduus M
iss. red Roses 211 Mij. boyl them in Milk and W ater to a Pultess, being taken from the Fire, there was
added the Yolks and Whites o f three Eggs well beaten, and after all well m ixed Hall also applied egg
whites for other eye trouble, as recorded in observation 4 from his first century of observations: Upon
the Eyes were applied Whites o f Eggs well beaten with Rosewater and Womans milk .
2 George Jones of London, Student in the Art of Physick and Chyrurgery... . , Wellcome Institute
broadside collection, London, c. 1675.
3 Samuel Pepys, Diary, 16 January 1659/60, http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/01/15/, accessed
September 10, 2013.
4 Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline o f Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Century England (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; N ew York: Scribners, 1971), 190.
5 Thomas, Religion and the Decline o f Magic, 190-91.
6 Sarah Skwire, Reading Each Other, The Freeman, June 27, 2012,
http://fee.org/the_freeman/detail/reading-each-other.
 C H A P T E R FIVE

Spinozas Parallelism Doctrine and

Metaphysical Sympathy
K a r o lin a H u b n e r

By what natural connection and as it were harmony and mutual agreement, which the Greeks call
sympathy, can there be coordination between the fissure in a liver and my small fortune, or between
my small profit and heaven, the earth, and the nature of things? (cicero, On Divination 2.34)
 1. In t r o d u c t i o n

T h e re a re m a n y d iffe re n t w a y s one c a n th in k a b o u t th e n o tio n o f c o s m ic

s y m p a t h y . 1 I n t h i s c h a p t e r I w a n t t o a p p r o a c h t h i s id e a a s a th e s is o f a
f u n d a m e n t a l c o n n e c t e d n e s s o f a l l t h i n g s a c o n n e x io r e r u m a n d s h o w h o w
th is a n c ie n t i d e a is r e h a b i l i t a t e d i n th e m e ta p h y s ic s o f a n e a r l y m o d e r n th in k e r,
B a r u c h S p in o z a ( 1 6 3 2 - 7 7 ) . M o r e p r e c is e ly , I w a n t to s h o w th a t th e a n c ie n t
id e a of c o s m ic s y m p a t h y , re in te rp re te d in a c c o rd a n c e w ith S p i n o z a s
dem and fo r u n iv e rs a l in te llig ib ility , illu m in a te s key d o c trin e s of h is
m e ta p h y s ic s , a n d i n p a r tic u la r h is c o n c e p tio n s o f id e n tity a n d o f th e r e l a ti o n
b e tw e e n th o u g h t a n d b e in g .2
A d m itte d ly , one m ay b e s u rp ris e d to fin d S p in o z a and s y m p a th y as
b e d f e llo w s . F o r o n e m ig h t h a v e e x p e c te d th a t th e a d v e n t o f m e c h a n is m a s th e
d o m in a n t e x p la n a to r y p a r a d i g m in th e e a r l y m o d e r n p e r i o d h a d r e n d e r e d th e
id e a o f c o s m ic s y m p a th y o c c u lt, a n d h e n c e p h ilo s o p h ic a lly ille g itim a te , fo r
m o st th in k e rs . P rim a fa c ie s y m p a th e tic re la tio n s b e tw e e n th in g s seem
irre d u c ib le to e x p la n a tio n s in te rm s o f s iz e , shape, and m o tio n a lo n e , as
m e c h a n is m dem ands. L ik e w is e , s y m p a th e tic a c tio n a t a d is ta n c e s e e m s to
e v a d e th e b a s ic m e c h a n is tic r e q u ir e m e n t th a t th e r e b e c o n ta c t b e tw e e n b o d ie s
fo r a c tio n to o c c u r.
In fa c t, h o w e v e r, m any e a rly m o d ern s d id not re je c t th e n o tio n of
s y m p a th y to u t c o u rt. I n s te a d , th e y u n d e r to o k to b e tte r e x p la in th e p h e n o m e n a
th a t h a d b e e n d e e m e d s y m p a th e tic b y th e ir p r e d e c e s s o r s , a n d to r e d u c e
a lle g e d ly s y m p a th e tic re la tio n s to m e c h a n is tic o n e s .3 A n d so fo r e x a m p le
D e s c a r t e s a r g u a b l y S p i n o z a s m o s t i m p o r t a n t i n t e l l e c t u a l p r e c u r s o r w r i t e s ,

I have deduced the causes which I believe to be quite evident of these and many other
phenomena from principles which are known to all and admitted by all, namely the shape, size,
position and motion of particles of matter. And anyone who considers all this will readily be
convinced that there are no powers in stones and plants that are so mysterious, and no marvels
attributed to sympathetic and antipathetic influences that are so astonishing, that they cannot be
explained in this way.4

In s im ila r s p irit, H o b b e s (a n o th e r m a jo r in flu e n c e o n S p in o z a ) t r ie s to

e x p la in m a g n e tis m th e s y m p a th e tic phenom enon par e x c e lle n c e b y
re fe re n c e to in fin ite s im a l m o tio n s o f b o d ie s : th e a ttra c tiv e p o w e r o f th e
lo a d s to n e is n o th in g e ls e b u t s o m e m o tio n o f th e s m a l le s t p a r tic le s t h e r e o f ;
h e n c e a p p e a lin g to s y m p a th y is to n o p u r p o s e . 5
T h is k in d o f d e f la tio n a r y a tte m p t to in te g ra te e le m e n ts o f a n c ie n t th o u g h t
w ith in a m o d e r n f r a m e w o r k is a ls o , a s is w e l l k n o w n , o n e o f th e h a llm a r k s o f
S p in o z a s th o u g h t. S p in o z a s y s te m a tic a lly r e in te r p r e ts r e c e i v e d d o c tr in e s
w h a t, a s h e p u ts it, o th e rs s a w b u t o n ly a s i f th ro u g h a c lo u d in a c c o r d a n c e
w i t h th e d e m a n d s o f w h a t h e ta k e s to b e tr u ly a d e q u a te th o u g h t: tim e le s s ly
tru e d e s c r ip ti o n s o f th e e s s e n c e s a n d p r o p e r tie s o f th in g s .6 I n S p in o z a s s y ste m ,
th e n e w f a n g le d m e c h a n is tic p h y s ic s is th u s m a d e to c o e x is t w i t h a P la to n ic ,
e m a n a tiv e m e ta p h y s ic s , a s w e l l a s , a s is o f te n e m p h a s iz e d , w i t h a n e o - S to ic
e th ic s .7
A lth o u g h th is is n o t u s u a lly n o te d , S p in o z a w a s f a m ilia r a ls o w i t h th e
a n c ie n t c o n c e p t o f c o s m ic s y m p a th y . T h e te r m a p p e a r s in h is w r itin g s a s a
la b e l f o r r e la tio n s a n d p r o c e s s e s i n n a tu re th a t a p p e a r to u s a s le s s th a n fu lly
in te llig ib le , in s o f a r a s w e c a n n o t fa th o m th e ir u n d e r ly in g c a u s e s . T h u s S p in o z a
w r ite s , f o r e x a m p le , i t c a n h a p p e n th a t w e lo v e o r h a te s o m e th in g s w ith o u t
a n y ca u se k n o w n to us, b u t o n ly ( a s th e y s a y ) f r o m S y m p a th y o r A n tip a th y
[sy m p a th ia ... e t a n tip a th ia ] . 8 In o th e r w o r d s , f r o m S p in o z a s p o in t o f v ie w ,
to s e e s y m p a th y a s a f o r c e o p e r a tiv e in n a tu re is j u s t to f a il to g r a s p th e c a u s e s
o f th in g s.
S p in o z a fa m o u s ly d e s c r i b e s th is k in d o f k n o w le d g e o f e ffe c ts a lo n e a s a
k n o w le d g e o f c o n c lu s io n s w ith o u t p r e m is e s . 9 F o r h im , a s f o r m o s t a n c ie n t
a n d e a r ly m o d e r n p h ilo s o p h e r s , c a u s e s a r e th e k e y to in te llig ib ility : th in g s a r e
w h a t th e y a r e , a n d h a v e th e p r o p e r tie s th e y d o , b e c a u s e o f th e ir c a u s e s . S o to
a d e q u a te ly k n o w a n y th in g w e m u s t k n o w th e c a u s e s th a t n e c e s s ita te its
e x is te n c e a n d p r o p e r t i e s .10
S p in o z a s fu n d a m e n ta l c o m m itm e n t to u n iv e r s a l in te llig ib i lity is to d a y o fte n
r e f e r r e d to b y s c h o la r s a s h is c o m m itm e n t to th e P r in c i p le o f S u f fic ie n t R e a s o n
( P S R ) , a n d I w i l l a d o p t th is s h o rth a n d in w h a t f o l l o w s . 11 T h is c o m m itm e n t to
th e P S R m e a n s th a t S p in o z a s m e ta p h y s ic s w i l l b e th o ro u g h ly h o s tile to a n y
p h e n o m e n o n o r l a w o f n a tu re th a t w o u ld in p r in c ip le b e i n e x p l i c a b l e .12 T h e
c o m m itm e n t a l s o m e a n s th a t n a tu ra l p h e n o m e n a th a t o n c e m a y h a v e b e e n
d e e m e d s y m p a th e tic th a t is , p h e n o m e n a th a t, o n S p in o z a s d ia g n o s is o f
s y m p a th y , a r e k n o w n to u s o n ly th ro u g h th e ir e f f e c ts h a v e to b e e ith e r
s im p ly e lim in a te d f r o m m e ta p h y s ic s o r m a d e fu lly in te llig ib le . T h a t is , a
S p in o z is t m u s t e ith e r u n c o v e r th e c a u s e s o n w h ic h p u r p o r te d ly s y m p a th e tic
e f f e c ts d e p e n d (th u s m a k in g th e in f lu e n c e s in q u e s ti o n i n te ll i g ib l e ) o r s h o w th a t
it is m e ta p h y s ic a lly im p o s s ib le fo r a c a u s a l r e la tio n to h o ld in a p a r tic u la r
c a s e . ( F o r e x a m p l e , o n e o f S p i n o z a s b a s i c m e t a p h y s i c a l p r i n c i p l e s i s t h a t
r e la tio n s o f c a u s a l d e p e n d e n c e a r e p o s s ib l e o n ly w ith in th e b o u n d a r ie s o f th e
s a m e k i n d o f b e i n g . 13 T h a t m e a n s , f o r i n s t a n c e , t h a t o n l y b o d i e s c a n e n t e r i n t o
c a u s a l r e la tio n s w i t h b o d i e s , a n d o n ly m in d s c a n e n te r in to c a u s a l r e la tio n s
w i t h m in d s . A s a r e s u lt, f o r S p in o z a , a n y p u ta tiv e s y m p a th e tic in flu e n c e th a t
c r o s s e s f r o m th e m e n ta l r e a l m to th e c o r p o r e a l r e a lm , o r v i c e v e r s a , w i l l tu rn
o u t t o h a v e b e e n i l l u s o r y . ) 14
S p in o z a th in k s th a t a n a d e q u a te u n d e r s ta n d in g o f n a tu r e w i l l s h o w i t to b e a
g e n u i n e u n ity , g r o u n d e d i n a s i n g l e , t h o r o u g h l y d e t e r m i n i s t i c c a u s a l p o w e r . 15
B u t, h e a ls o th in k s , f o r th e m o s t p a r t w e f a il to u n d e r s ta n d th is : w e f a il to
u n d e r s ta n d n o t o n ly th e c a u s a l m e c h a n is m s a t w o r k a r o u n d u s b u t e q u a lly th e
f a c t th a t e v e r y o n e o f o u r o w n a c tio n s a n d a p p e tite s d e p e n d s o n a n in fin ite
s e r i e s o f p r i o r c a u s e s . T h i s f a i l u r e , S p i n o z a p r o p o s e s , i s p r e c i s e l y w h a t s
b e h in d o u r lo n g -s ta n d in g , b u t e rro n e o u s , b e l i e f in fre e w i l l w h e r e fre e d o m
i s u n d e r s t o o d a s t h e a b s e n c e o f d e t e r m i n a t i o n . 16 M o r e g e n e r a l l y , o u r i g n o r a n c e
o f th e n a tu r e o f c a u s a l r e la tio n s l e a d s u s to s e e n a tu r e a s a r e a l m o f m e r e ly
s y m p a th e tic in flu e n c e s b e tw e e n d is c r e te b e in g s , e a c h o n e a c o n c lu s io n
d e t a c h e d f r o m i ts p r e m i s e s .
I n o n e s e n s e th e n , th in k in g o f n a tu r e i n te r m s o f s y m p a th e tic r e l a ti o n s is
fro m S p i n o z a s p o in t o f v ie w s im p ly an e rro r, a n a lo g o u s to th in k in g of
o u r s e l v e s a s e n d o w e d w i t h f r e e ( u n d e t e r m i n e d ) w i l l . B u t S p i n o z a s v i s i o n o f
th e f u n d a m e n ta l u n ity o f n a tu r e , a n d in p a r t i c u l a r h is b e l i e f th a t a ll f in ite th in g s
a r e j u s t m o d i f i c a t i o n s o f o n e f u n d a m e n t a l e n ti ty , a l s o m a k e s h i m p a r t i c u l a r l y
w e l l s u i t e d t o t h e t a s k o f r e h a b i l i t a t i n g t h e n o t i o n o f c o s m i c s y m p a t h y . T h a t
is , m y s u g g e s tio n is th a t i n a S p in o z is tic c o n te x t s y m p a th y d o e s n o t h a v e to
b e u n d e rs to o d m e r e ly p e jo r a tiv e ly , a s a s y m p to m o f o u r c a u s a l ig n o ra n c e .
T h is , to b e s u r e , is h o w S p in o z a h i m s e lf u s e s th e te rm . B u t in a d d itio n to th is
e x p l i c i t a n d n e g a t i v e d i s c u s s i o n o f s y m p a t h y , i n S p i n o z a s w r i t i n g s t h e r e i s
a ls o a n d m o re im p o r ta n tly in m y v i e w a n im p lic it r e h a b ilita tio n o f th e id e a
o f c o s m ic s y m p a th y . In S p i n o z a s v e r s i o n , th e d o c trin e o f s y m p a th y is a
m e ta p h y s ic a l d o c tr in e o f th e fu n d a m e n ta l r e la te d n e s s a n d u n ity o f a ll b e in g s , a
f u l l y i n t e l l i g i b l e ( a c c o r d i n g t o S p i n o z a s s t a n d a r d s o f i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y ) c o n n e x io
r e r u m u l t i m a t e l y r o o t e d i n S p i n o z a s c o n v i c t i o n t h a t i n m e t a p h y s i c a l r i g o r
t h e r e e x i s t s o n l y o n e t h i n g . 17 T h i s p o i n t t h a t S p i n o z a m a k e s t h e d o c t r i n e o f
c o s m ic s y m p a th y a p a r t o f h is m o n is tic m e ta p h y s ic s is th e f i r s t m a in c l a i m I
w a n t to m a k e in th is c h a p te r.
S p in o z a d is c u s s e s th e id e a o f a fu n d a m e n ta l c o n n e c tio n o f a ll b e in g s a t
le n g th in o n e o f th e m o s t im p o rta n t, a n d c o n tr o v e r s ia l, p a s s a g e s in h is m a g n u m
o p u s , th e E th ic s : in 2 p 7 , its c o r o l l a r y a n d s c h o liu m . A s w e s h a ll s e e in w h a t
f o ll o w s , th e s e p a s s a g e s b e a r n o t j u s t o n th e r e l a t i o n b e tw e e n d is tin c t e n titie s
b u t a ls o o n th e r e l a t i o n b e tw e e n b e in g a n d th o u g h t m o re g e n e ra lly . T h e
d o c tr in e p u t f o r th in th e s e p a s s a g e s is u s u a lly r e f e r r e d to as S p in o z a s
p a r a l l e l i s m d o c tr in e . H o w e v e r , I w i l l a v o i d th is te r m in o lo g y h e re , f o r th e
f o ll o w i n g r e a s o n . A s h a s o f te n b e e n n o te d , p a r a l l e l i s m is n o t a te r m S p in o z a
h i m s e l f e m p lo y s , a n d in m y v i e w it is a t b e s t u n h e lp fu lly v a g u e , a n d a t w o r s t
o u trig h t m is le a d in g . T h e w o r d p a r a l l e l i s m s u g g e s ts m e r e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e , o r
s o m e s o r t o f is o m o r p h is m .18 I n fa c t, h o w e v e r , a s w e s h a ll s e e , th e fu n d a m e n ta l
r e la tio n s a t s ta k e in th e p a s s a g e s in q u e s tio n in 2 p 7 , its c o r o lla r y , a n d
s c h o liu m a r e r e la tio n s o f id e n tity a n d u n ity. ( O th e r s c h o la r s h a v e a r g u e d th a t
th e te r m p a r a l l e l i s m is m is le a d in g b e c a u s e i t s u g g e s ts th e p r e s e n c e o f a
s in g le d o c tr in e w h ile in f a c t 2 p 7 a n d its s c h o liu m a d v a n c e tw o d is tin c t
d o c tr in e s , o n e c o n c e r n e d w ith r e p r e s e n ta tio n , a n d th e o th e r w i t h id e n tity : a
b lin d o r o n to lo g ic a l p a r a l l e l i s m to b e d is tin g u is h e d f r o m a r e p r e s e n ta tio n a l o r
e p is te m o lo g ic a l p a r a l l e l i s m . 19 T h e r e a r e r e a s o n s to r e s i s t th is k in d o f r e a d in g
to o , a s w e s h a ll s e e la te r .)
T h is th e n is th e s e c o n d m a in c l a i m I w i l l m a k e in w h a t f o llo w s : th a t
S p in o z a s p o s itiv e r e c o n c e p tio n o f c o s m ic s y m p a th y a s a th e s is of a
fu n d a m e n ta l c o n n e c te d n e s s o f th in g s r e v o lv e s a r o u n d r e la tio n s o f id e n tity a n d
u n ity , e s p e c i a l l y as u n d e r s to o d in te rm s o f th e r e a l u n ity o f th e s in g le
s u b s ta n c e .
H o w e v e r , b e f o r e I c a n a rg u e f o r th e s e p o in ts in m o r e d e ta il, I n e e d to
p r o v i d e th e n e c e s s a r y b a c k g ro u n d : a b r i e f o u tlin e o f th e b a s i c b u ild in g b lo c k s
o f S p in o z a s m e ta p h y s ic s . T h is w i l l b e th e t a s k o f th e n e x t s e c tio n . ( R e a d e r s
f a m ilia r w i t h S p in o z a s m e ta p h y s ic s s h o u ld fe e l f r e e to s k ip d i r e c t l y to s e c tio n
3.)
 2. Ba c k g r o u n d

T h e p i l l a r o f S p i n o z a s o n t o l o g y i s h i s s u b s t a n c e m o n i s m , o r t h e d o c t r i n e t h a t
th e re is o n ly o n e fu n d a m e n ta l e n tity . T h is e n ti ty , w h i c h S p in o z a c a lls th e
a b s o lu te ly in fin ite s u b s t a n c e o r G o d , i s d e f i n e d b y i ts e x i s t e n t i a l a n d
c o n c e p t u a l s e l f - s u f f i c i e n c y . 20 E v e r y t h i n g e l s e t h a t e x i s t s a n d a c c o r d i n g t o
S p in o z a th e r e n e c e s s a r i ly e x is ts a n in fin ity o f th in g s is m e r e ly a d e p e n d e n t
p ro p e rty a n d m o d if ic a tio n o f th is fu n d a m e n ta l e n t i t y .21 T h i s s o le p o s s ib le
s u b s ta n c e and i ts m o d ific a tio n s (m odes) ex h au st S p i n o z a s o n to lo g ic a l
i n v e n t o r y : t h e y a r e t h e o n l y t w o m e t a p h y s i c a l l y p o s s i b l e k i n d s o f e n t i t i e s . 22
S p i n o z a s c o n c e p tio n o f s u b s ta n c e is p e rh a p s m o s t u n o r th o d o x in th a t
S p i n o z a d o e s n o t t a k e s u b s t a n c e t o h a v e a s i n g l e e s s e n t i a l n a t u r e . 23 S u b s t a n c e
and, d e riv a tiv e ly , its m o d ific a tio n s p o s s e s s e s m u ltip le , q u a lita tiv e ly
h e t e r o g e n e o u s e s s e n t i a l n a t u r e s . 24 F o l l o w i n g D e s c a r t e s , S p i n o z a c a l l s t h e s e
n a tu re s s u b s t a n c e s a t t r i b u t e s . 25 T h e d iv e rs ity o f a ttrib u te s a re does not
c o n tr a v e n e th e o n to lo g ic a l u n ity o f S p in o z is tic s u b s ta n c e : th is s u b s ta n c e is
e q u a lly e s s e n tia lly a th in k in g th in g a n d a n e x te n d e d th in g ( a n d e v e r y o th e r k in d
o f th in g , i f th e r e a r e o th e r k in d s o f b e in g , i n a c c e s s i b l e to h u m a n m in d s ) . T h e
s a m e i s t r u e , d e r i v a t i v e l y , o f a l l i ts f i n i t e p r o p e r t i e s : e a c h i s a t l e a s t a m i n d
and a body.
S p i n o z a i d e n t i f i e s e a c h o f s u b s t a n c e s a t t r i b u t e s b y m e a n s o f o n e p r i n c i p a l
c o n c e p t : t h o u g h t , e x t e n s i o n , a n d s o o n . E a c h o f t h e s e c o n c e p t s r e p r e s e n t s
th e p r o p e r t y th a t a ll th in g s o f th is p a r tic u la r k in d , a n d o n ly o f th is k in d ,
p r e s u p p o s e f o r t h e i r e x p l a n a t i o n . 26 ( F o r e x a m p l e , e x p l a n a t i o n o f a n y p a r t i c u l a r
i d e a , v o l i t i o n , o r d o u b t p r e s u p p o s e s o u r u s e o f t h e c o n c e p t o f t h o u g h t , b u t
n o t th a t o f e x te n s io n f o r in s ta n c e ; a ll e x p la n a tio n o f b o d ie s , m o v e m e n ts o r
r e s t s p r e s u p p o s e s t h e u s e o f t h e c o n c e p t e x t e n s i o n b u t n o t t h o u g h t . ) A s a
c o n s e q u e n c e , d iff e re n t a ttrib u te s b y d e f in itio n h a v e n o c o m m o n c o n c e p tu a l
d e n o m i n a t o r i n a n y r e l e v a n t s e n s e . 27 G i v e n S p i n o z a s c o m m i t m e n t t o u n i v e r s a l
in te llig ib ility , e n titie s under d iffe re n t a ttrib u te s fo r e x a m p le , a p a rtic u la r
b o d y a n d a p a r t i c u l a r m i n d t h u s c a n n o t e n t e r i n t o c a u s a l r e l a t i o n s . 28 T h i s i s
b e c a u s e , in th e a b s e n c e o f a s h a r e d c o n c e p tu a l s p h e re , s u c h a n e v e n t w o u ld b e
i n p r i n c i p l e i n e x p l i c a b l e . F o r t h i s r e a s o n , i n S p i n o z a s e y e s s u c h a n e v e n t i s
th e r e fo r e a ls o m e ta p h y s ic a lly im p o s s ib le . A ll c a u s a l c o n n e c tio n s h a v e to b e
u n d e r w r itte n b y c o n c e p tu a l c o n n e c tio n s .
 3. CO N N E X IO RERUM

W i t h t h i s s k e t c h o f S p i n o z a s b a s i c m e t a p h y s i c a l f r a m e w o r k i n p l a c e , l e t m e
n o w tu rn to w h a t I w a n t to c la im is h is r e in te r p r e ta tio n o f th e s y m p a th e tic
c o n n e x io r e r u m i n t e r m s o f f u l l y i n t e l l i g i b l e r e l a t i o n s o f u n i t y a n d i d e n t it y .
S p i n o z a s k e y p r o n o u n c e m e n t o n t h e s u b j e c t o f th e c o n n e c t e d n e s s o f t h i n g s
i n n a t u r e c a n b e f o u n d , a s n o t e d e a r l i e r , i n 2 p 7 a n d a s s o c i a t e d p a s s a g e s . It
b e g in s a s fo llo w s :

The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things [Ordo et
connexio idearum idem est ac ordo et connexio rerum].

Dem. : This is clear from 1ax4. For the idea of each thing caused depends on the knowledge of the
cause of which it is the effect. (2p7)

S p in o z a m a n a g e s to c o m p r e s s m a n y id e a s in to th e s e f e w s h o r t s e n te n c e s .
L e t m e ta k e th e m one by one, s ta r tin g w i t h th e n o tio n o f an o rd er and
c o n n e c t i o n o f t h i n g s 29
The d e m o n s tr a tio n to 2p7 m akes c le a r th a t th e c o n n e c tio n o f th in g s
d e s c r i b e d i n th e p r o p o s itio n is s u p p o s e d to b e u n d e r s to o d a s a c o n n e c tio n o f
t h i n g s q u a c a u s e s . T h a t i s , t h e c o n n e x io r e r u m a t s t a k e h e r e i s a c o n n e c t i o n o f
th in g s s ta n d in g in r e la tio n s o f c a u s a l d e p e n d e n c e . N o w , i f w e d r a w o n w h a t
S p in o z a s a y s e ls e w h e r e in th e E th ic s , w e c a n c h a r a c te r iz e th e n a tu r e o f th is
c a u s a l c o n n e c tio r e r u m a b i t m o r e p r e c is e ly , a n d th u s a ls o u n d e r s ta n d w h y f o r
S p in o z a a c o n n e c tio n o f th in g s is e q u iv a le n t to a c a u s a l c o n n e c tio n .
W e s h o u l d t h u s r e c a l l , f i r s t , t h a t i n S p i n o z a s v i e w a ll th in g s ( in c lu d in g
s u b s ta n c e ) h a v e c a u s e s ( m o r e p r e c is e ly , a ll th in g s , in c lu d in g s u b s ta n c e its e lf ,
a re c a u s a lly dependent on s u b s ta n c e in s o fa r as th e y a re th e n e c e ssa ry
c o n s e q u e n c e s o r i m p l i c a t i o n s o f i t s e s s e n c e ) . 30 I n p a r t i c u l a r , e a c h f i n i t e t h i n g
d e p e n d s o n p r i o r m e m b e r s o f a n i n f i n i t e s e r i e s o f f i n i t e c a u s e s . 31 ( I n o t h e r
w o r d s , a f i n i t e t h i n g s c a u s a l d e p e n d e n c e o n s u b s t a n c e i s m e d i a t e d b y i ts
d e p e n d e n c e o n o t h e r f i n i t e t h i n g s .)
S e c o n d , f o r S p i n o z a e v e r y t h i n g a l s o is a c a u s e ( a s h e p u t s it, N o t h i n g
e x i s t s f r o m w h o s e n a t u r e s o m e e f f e c t d o e s n o t f o l l o w ) . 32 S o m o d e s a r e n o t
m e r e l y s u b s t a n c e s e f f e c t s ; m o r e p r e c i s e l y , t h e y a r e e f f e c t s b y m e a n s o f w h i c h
s u b s ta n c e b r in g s a b o u t s till f u rth e r e ffe c ts .
 N o w , to a s s e r t th a t a ll th in g s b o th a r e a n d h a v e c a u s e s is ta n ta m o u n t to
s a y in g th a t o n ly w h a t c a n e n te r in to c a u s a l r e l a ti o n s h a s b e in g o r m e ta p h y s ic a l
r e a l i t y . 33 H e n c e , f o r S p i n o z a , a c o m p r e h e n s i v e c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n o f c a u s a l
r e la tio n s in n a tu r e w i l l in c lu d e in its s c o p e a ll e n titie s : th e c a u s a l o r d e r o f
n a tu r e is e x te n s io n a lly th e s a m e a s th e c o n n e c tio n o f th in g s .
I s u g g e s t t h a t t h i s c a u s a l s e n s e o f c o n n e x io r e r u m i s t h e f i r s t s e n s e i n w h i c h
a l l t h i n g s i n n a t u r e a r e f u n d a m e n t a l l y c o n n e c t e d i n S p i n o z a s v i e w t h e f i r s t
s e n s e i n w h i c h t h e r e i s s o m e t h i n g l i k e c o s m i c m e t a p h y s i c a l s y m p a t h y . 34 T h e
i n - p r i n c i p l e i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y o f t h i s c o n n e x io r e r u m i s g u a r a n t e e d s i m p l y b y t h e
e x is te n c e o f th e th in g s c a u s e s . In th e c a s e o f f in ite th in g s , th e ir d e p e n d e n c e o n
a n in fin ite s e r ie s o f p r io r c a u s e s a ls o m e a n s th a t n o fin ite th in g c a n b e tr u ly
k n o w n a p a r t f r o m o th e r f in ite th in g s . I n th is s e n s e f o r S p in o z a , a s f o r m a n y
e a r l i e r a d v o c a t e s o f c o s m ic s y m p a th y , th in g s th a t p r im a f a c ie a p p e a r d is tin c t
and d is ta n t can be show n to be in m e ta p h y s ic a l r ig o r c a u s a lly and
e x p la n a to r ily re la te d .
 4. CO N N E X IO ID E A R U M

S o m u c h f o r h o w S p in o z a u n d e r s ta n d s th e c o n n e c tio n o f th in g s in n a tu re . B u t
2 p 7 a ls o b e a r s o n th e c o n n e c tio n o f ideas. M o r e p r e c is e ly , th e p r o p o s itio n
d e s c r i b e s th e c o n n e c tio n o f id e a s a s th e s a m e a s th e c o n n e c tio n o f th in g s.
T h is r a i s e s a t l e a s t tw o q u e s tio n s : ( 1 ) H o w a r e w e to u n d e r s ta n d th e n o tio n o f
a c o n n e x io id ea ru m ? A n d ( 2 ) , in w h a t s e n s e e x a c tly is th is c o n n e x io id e a ru m
th e s a m e a s th e c o n n e x io re ru m ?
T o b e g in fin d in g a n s w e r s to th e s e q u e s tio n s , w e s h o u ld n o te f i r s t o f a ll th a t
S p in o z a u n d e r s ta n d s th e n a tu re of id e a s ( th o u g h ts , c o n c e p ts ,
c o g n itio n s a ll e q u iv a l e n t te rm s in h is v i e w ) q u ite d if f e r e n tly f r o m w h a t w e
to d a y m ig h t u n d e r s ta n d b y th e s e te rm s . I n p a r t th is is b e c a u s e S p in o z a r e g a r d s
th o u g h t a s a u n iv e r s a ll y p r e d i c a b l e p r o p e r ty : a ll n a tu ra l th in g s p e b b le s ,
d r a g o n f lie s , tr e e s a r e i n h is v i e w m in d e d o r a n im a te ( e v e n i f th e
th in k in g in w h ic h a ll th e s e d is p a r a te m in d s e n g a g e is c h a r a c te r iz e d b y
v e r y d if f e r e n t d e g r e e s o f c o m p le x ity a n d a u to n o m y ).35 A s a c o n s e q u e n c e , fro m
S p in o z a s p o in t o f v ie w , w h a t w e to d a y m a y a s s o c ia te w i t h th in k in g is n o t
th e w h o le o f th in k in g , n o r th e e s s e n c e o f th in k in g , b u t in s te a d o n ly o u r
e x p e r ie n c e o f th e d e g r e e o f th in k in g p r o p e r to fin ite h u m a n m in d s th e s o r ts o f
id e a s th a t w e c a n b e d e te r m in e d to p r o d u c e . T h e p r o p e r l y S p in o z is tic v a n ta g e
p o in t r e q u ir e s us to s e e th in k in g a s a n a c tiv ity , a c a u s a l p r o c e s s , th a t b e lo n g s
f ir s t a n d f o r e m o s t to s u b s ta n c e .36 A ll o th e r id e a s , in c lu d in g th o s e th a t c o n s titu te
h u m a n m in d s , a r e f o r S p in o z a m e r e ly m o re o r le s s fr a g m e n te d a n d in c o m p le te
p a r t s o f th e n e c e s s a r i l y tru e i d e a f o r m e d b y th is u n lim ite d , c o s m ic th in k in g
s u b je c t.37 W h a te v e r m e ta p h y s ic a l c o n n e c tio n s o f i d e a s a r e p o s s i b l e w i l l th u s
b e d e te r m in e d b y th e o r d e r o f id e a s p r o p e r to s u b s ta n c e s in fin ite i d e a ,
v e r i d i c a l l y r e p r e s e n tin g a ll th a t is (n a m e ly , s u b s ta n tia l e s s e n c e a n d a ll its
im p lic a tio n s ) .
T h e w a y S p in o z a d e m o n s tr a te s 2 p 7 s u g g e s ts th a t th e s a m e n e s s o f th e
o r d e r s o f th in g s a n d id e a s f o ll o w s im m e d ia te ly f r o m th e c a u s a l r e q u ir e m e n t o n
k n o w le d g e , s e t d o w n in 1 ax 4 . T h e g e n e r a l lin e o f th o u g h t h e r e s e e m s c l e a r
e n o u g h :38 i f to k n o w a th in g r e q u ir e s u s to k n o w its c a u s e s , th e n a n in f a llib le
in te lle c t m u s t r e p r e s e n t i n its id e a s th e c a u s a l o r d e r o f th in g s th a t i n f a c t
o b ta in s in n a tu re . S o f a r s o g o o d . H o w e v e r , th is m ig h t l e a d u s to c o n c lu d e
fu rth e r th a t w h e n S p in o z a a s s e r ts th a t id e a s d e p e n d o n o n e a n o th e r in th e
s a m e w a y th a t th in g s d o , h e is s a y in g th a t s u b s ta n c e a s a p e r f e c t k n o w e r
r e p r o d u c e s o r m ir r o r s i n t h e r e l a t i o n s a m o n g i ts i d e a s t h e r e l a t i o n s o f c a u s a l
dependence th a t o b ta in a m o n g th in g s i n n a t u r e . 39 T h a t i s , we c o u ld re a d
S p i n o z a s c la im s as an im p lic it e n d o rse m e n t of som e v e rs io n of th e
c o r r e s p o n d e n c e t h e o r y o f tr u th .
I t is te m p tin g , f u rth e rm o re , to a d d h e r e th a t S p in o z a m u s t h a v e h a d in m in d
h e re a p u r e ly lo g ic a l o r d e r o f id e a s , c o n s titu te d b y r e la tio n s o f e n ta ilm e n t o r
in f e r e n c e a m o n g p r o p o s itio n s . O n th is k in d o f r e a d in g , 2 p 7 w o u l d a s s e r t th e
e x is te n c e o f s o m e s o r t o f i s o m o r p h is m o r c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f th e c a u s a l o r d e r
o f th in g s w i t h a p u r e l y l o g ic a l o r d e r o f id e a s .

T h i s i s i n f a c t a v e r y c o m m o n r e a d i n g o f S p i n o z a . 40 B u t t h e r e a r e g o o d
reaso n s to d e m u r . 41 T h e b ig g e s t p ro b le m w ith such in te rp re ta tio n s o f th e
S p i n o z i s t i c c o n n e x io h a s t o d o w i t h t h e s a m e n e s s o f t h e c a u s a l o r d e r o f
t h i n g s a n d t h e o r d e r o f i d e a s , a s s e r t e d i n 2 p 7 . L e t s a s s u m e , a s m o s t s c h o l a r s
do, th a t th is sam eness of th e tw o o rd ers a m o u n ts to som e so rt of
is o m o rp h is m , m ir ro r in g , or c o rre sp o n d e n c e of cau sal dependence
r e la tio n s in n a tu re a n d e n ta ilm e n t r e la tio n s b e tw e e n p r o p o s itio n s . T h e p r o b le m
is th a t c la s s ic a l m o d e ls o f in f e r e n c e f a il to m ir r o r in th e d e s i r e d w a y th e
re la tio n s of cau sal dependence th a t S p in o z a reg a rd s as m e ta p h y s ic a lly
p o s s i b l e . 42 T h a t i s , i f w e a s s u m e t h a t i n S p i n o z i s t i c n a t u r e e f f e c t s f o l l o w
f r o m th e ir c a u s e s a lo n g th e lin e s o f e ith e r m a te r ia l o r s tr i c t im p lic a tio n , w e e n d
u p a ttr ib u tin g to S p in o z a c a u s a l v i e w s h e c a n n o t h o ld . T a k e , f o r e x a m p le , th e
p r o p o s i t i o n G o d e x is t s . F o r S p in o z a th is is a n e c e s s a r i l y tr u e p r o p o s itio n .
As a tru e p ro p o s itio n , it is m a te ria lly im p lie d by a n y p ro p o s itio n ; as a
n e c e s s a r y p r o p o s itio n , it is s tr ic tly im p lie d b y a n y p r o p o s itio n . S o i f e ith e r o f
th e s e m o d e ls o f in fe re n c e m ir r o r e d S p in o z is tic r e la tio n s o f c a u s a l d e p e n d e n c e ,
S p in o z a w o u ld h a v e to b e c o m m itte d to th e v i e w t h a t G o d s e x i s t e n c e is
c a u s e d b y t h e e x i s t e n c e o f a n y t h in g . B u t i t i s a f u n d a m e n t a l t e n e t o f S p i n o z a s
s y s t e m t h a t G o d i s c a u s a s u i : h i s e x i s t e n c e f o l l o w s f r o m h i s e s s e n c e a l o n e . 43
In s h o rt, th e re a re r e a s o n s to h e s ita te b e fo r e id e n tif y in g th e S p in o z is tic
c o n n e c tio n of id e a s s im p ly w ith s ta n d - a lo n e e n ta ilm e n t or in fe re n c e
r e la tio n s a m o n g p r o p o s itio n s , a t l e a s t a s c l a s s i c a l l y u n d e rs to o d . M in im a lly , w e
w o u ld h a v e to r e s t r i c t in s o m e w a y th e s e t o f r e l e v a n t e n ta ilm e n t r e la tio n s , s o
a s to p re v e n t in fe re n c e s to w h a t fo r S p in o z a a re m e ta p h y s ic a lly im p o s s ib le
cau sal d e p e n d e n c ie s . O ne p la u s ib le s o lu tio n h e re is to in tro d u c e a p rio r
m e ta p h y s ic a l c o n s tr a in t r e s tr ic tin g th e s e t o f th e c o n c e p tu a l r e la tio n s u n d e r
c o n s id e ra tio n to e n ta ilm e n t r e la tio n s b e tw e e n (th e d e fin itio n s o f) th in g s
essen ces and th e p ro p e rtie s im p lie d by th o s e essences. T h is , I s u g g e s t,
s u p p lie s th e m is s in g m e ta p h y s ic a l c o n s tr a in t o n w h ic h r e la tio n s o f c o n c e p tu a l
d e p e n d e n c e , a m o n g a ll th o s e p o s s ib le o n c la s s ic a l m o d e ls o f in fe re n c e , c a n
g e n u i n e l y b e t h e s a m e a s c a u s a l r e l a t i o n s o b t a i n i n g i n S p i n o z a s n a t u r e :
n a m e ly , o n ly th o s e th a t h o ld b e tw e e n th e s u b s ta n tia l e s s e n c e a n d th e p r o p e r t ie s
its d e fin itio n a n a ly tic a lly c o n ta in s , and b e tw e e n th e essen ces of th o se
p r o p e r tie s a n d th e ir p r o p e r tie s . (T o r e tu r n to th e c a s e w e w e r e c o n s id e r in g
a b o v e , th is p r i o r m e ta p h y s ic a l c o n s tr a in t r u le s o u t f o r e x a m p le th e p o s s ib i li ty
o f d e r iv in g s u b s ta n tia l e x is te n c e f r o m tru th s a b o u t m o d e s .)
W e h a v e th e n th e b e g in n in g s o f a n a n s w e r to th e q u e s tio n o f h o w to in te r p r e t
th e n o tio n of a c o n n e c tio n of id e a s w ith in S p i n o z a s m e ta p h y s ic a l
fra m e w o rk : th e id e a s b e in g o r d e r e d o r c o n n e c te d a r e , in th e f ir s t p la c e ,
i d e a s p r o d u c e d b y s u b s t a n c e a s a t h i n k i n g t h in g ; a n d , s e c o n d , t h e o r d e r o r
c o n n e c tio n i n q u e s tio n is , a t l e a s t o n o n e p la u s ib le r e a d in g , th e lo g ic a l o r d e r
o f e n ta ilm e n ts f r o m th e e s s e n c e s o f th in g s to th e ir p r o p e r tie s .
D o w e w a n t t o e n d o r s e t h e f u r t h e r c l a i m t h a t t h e c o n n e x io r e r u m a n d t h e
c o n n e x io id e a r u m a r e t h e s a m e i n t h e s e n s e t h a t t h e y c o r r e s p o n d t o o r
m ir r o r o n e a n o th e r? A g a in , th e r e a r e r e a s o n s to h e s ita te . F o r m e r e ly to a s s e r t
th e e x is te n c e o f s o m e s o r t o f a c o r r e s p o n d e n c e h a r d l y s h e d s m o r e lig h t o n th e
p ro b le m . In w h a t s e n s e c o u ld s u c h tw o , p r im a f a c ie e n tir e ly h e te ro g e n e o u s ,
s o rts o f r e la tio n s re la tio n s o f cau sal dependence on th e one hand and
c o n c e p tu a l r e la tio n s o f e s s e n tia l im p lic a tio n o n th e o th e r b e j u d g e d to h a v e
o n e a n d t h e s a m e o r d e r ? 44 S h o u l d w e o p t h e r e f o r a n i d e a l i s t r e a d i n g , o n
w h i c h t h e c o n n e x io r e r u m a n d t h e c o n n e x io id e a r u m a r e t h e s a m e j u s t i n t h e
s e n s e th a t th e r e is r e a l l y o n ly o n e o r d e r , th a t o f id e a s ? O n s u c h a r e a d in g , to b e
a th in g w o u l d b e r e d u c i b le to b e in g c o n c e iv e d . U n fo rtu n a te ly , th is k in d o f
re a d in g se e m s in c o n s is te n t w ith S p i n o z a s e x p l i c i t c o m m i t m e n t t o m u l t i p l e
k in d s o f b e in g s , in c lu d in g a n e x te n d e d n a tu re c o n c e iv a b le th ro u g h its e lf ,
a n d t h u s , i t w o u l d s e e m , p r e c i s e l y n o t i n t e r m s o f t h o u g h t .45
A n o th e r, m o re p la u s ib le , in te rp re ta tiv e p o s s ib ility h e re is to o p t fo r a
r e d u c tiv e r e a d in g o f th e s a m e n e s s o f th e tw o o r d e r s th a t o p e r a te s i n th e
o p p o s ite d ir e c tio n , s o to s p e a k . O n th is r e a d in g , th e o r d e r o f c a u s e s a n d th e
o r d e r o f id e a s w o u l d b e th e s a m e j u s t in th e s e n s e th a t r e la tio n s o f id e a s w o u ld
r e d u c e t o c a u s a l r e l a t i o n s b e t w e e n t h i n g s : 46 t h e c o n n e c t i o n o f i d e a s i s g i v e n
by th e o rd er o f th e ir cau sal dependence on one a n o th e r as th in g s . T h is
i n te r p r e ta t io n is e n c o u r a g e d b y th e f a c t th a t f o r S p in o z a th in g is a p e r f e c tly
g e n e r a l o n t o l o g i c a l c a t e g o r y , a n d a s s u c h i n c l u d e s i d e a s i n i ts e x t e n s i o n . 47 It
a ls o h a s th e e x p la n a to r y a d v a n ta g e th a t it m a k e s s e lf - e v id e n t w h y , a n d in w h a t
s e n s e , r e l a t i o n s b e t w e e n i d e a s m u s t b e t h e s a m e a s r e l a t i o n s b e t w e e n th in g s :
th e n e c e s s i ty o f th is s a m e n e s s f o ll o w s f r o m th e f a c t th a t a n i d e a is j u s t a
c e r t a i n k in d o f th in g . U n lik e th e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e r e a d in g , th is a c c o u n t is th u s
n o t v u ln e r a b le to th e c h a r g e o f f a ilin g to illu m in a te th e p r e c i s e s e n s e in w h ic h
th e tw o o r d e r s a r e th e s a m e . F o r th e o n ly lim it o n o u r p r e c i s io n in s p e c if y in g
th e p ro p e rtie s o f th is sh a re d o rd er is th e lim it o f our u n d e rs ta n d in g of
S p i n o z i s t i c c a u s a l i t y m o r e g e n e r a l l y . 48
 5. CO N N E X IO R E R U M A S ID E N T IT Y

W e c a n s h e d s till m o r e lig h t o n th e a ll e g e d s a m e n e s s o f th e o r d e r o f id e a s
a n d t h e o r d e r o f t h i n g s i n S p i n o z a s m e t a p h y s i c s i f w e d r a w o n a d iffe re n t
s o u r c e n a m e ly , o n th e S c h o la s tic a n d C a r te s i a n d is tin c tio n b e tw e e n f o r m a l
a n d o b j e c t iv e r e a lity . C o n s id e r th e c o r o l l a r y th a t S p in o z a a p p e n d s to 2 p 7 ,
im m e d ia te ly f o llo w in g th e d e m o n s tra tio n : F r o m t h i s i t f o l l o w s t h a t G o d s
[N S : a c tu a l] p o w e r o f th in k in g is e q u a l to h is a c tu a l p o w e r o f a c tin g . i.e .,
w h a t e v e r f o l l o w s f o r m a l l y f r o m G o d s i n f i n i t e n a t u r e f o l l o w s o b j e c t i v e l y i n
G o d f r o m h is i d e a in th e s a m e o r d e r a n d w i t h th e s a m e c o n n e c tio n . [ q u ic q u id
e x in fin ita D e i n a tu ra s e q u itu r fo rm a lite r, id o m n e e x D e i id e a e o d e m o rd in e
e a d e m q u e c o n n e x i o n e s e q u i t u r i n D e o o b j e c t i v e ] . 49 L e t m e f i r s t c l a r i f y t h e
te r m in o lo g y u s e d in th e p a s s a g e . T h e fo rm a l r e a l it y o f a th in g p ic k s o u t w h a t
th is th in g is in its in tr in s ic n a tu r e f o r e x a m p le , a s a n e x te n d e d th in g , o r a
th in k in g o n e . T h e o b j e c t iv e r e a l i t y o f a th in g r e f e r s i n tu r n to w h a t th is th in g
is in s o f a r a s it is r e p r e s e n te d i n t h o u g h t. F o r e x a m p l e , t h e s u n a s a t h i n g
e x is tin g in n a tu re p o s s e s s e s c e r ta in p h y s ic a l p r o p e r tie s , a c e r t a i n m a s s a n d s iz e
a m o n g th e m . T h e s e b e lo n g to its f o r m a l r e a lity . B u t th e s u n e x is ts n o t o n ly in
n a tu re , a s a p a r tic u la r , f o r m a lly r e a l b o d y , b u t a ls o , w h e n e v e r s o m e in te lle c t
r e p r e s e n t s it, i n t h o u g h t. T h i s o b j e c t i v e l y r e a l s u n a l s o h a s a c e r t a i n r e a l i t y , o n e
p r o p e r to in te n tio n a l o b je c ts . T o q u o te D e s c a r te s ,

if the question is about what the idea of the sun is ... we answer that it is the thing which is thought
of, in so far as it has objective being in the in te lle c t. . Objective being in the intellect ... will
signify the objects being in the intellect in the way in which its objects are normally there. By this I
mean that the idea of the sun is the sun itself existing in the intellect... in the way in which objects
normally are in the intellect.50

S p in o z a m a k e s th is d u a l c o n c e p tio n o f m e ta p h y s ic a l r e a l it y o r b e in g p a r t o f
h is s y s te m . ( P r e s u m a b ly h e s e e s o b j e c t iv e r e a l i t y s im p ly a s p a r t o f th e n a tu r e
o f th o u g h t a s s u c h th a t is , a s p a r t o f th e s e lf - e x p la n a to r y e s s e n c e o f s u b s ta n c e
a s a t h i n k i n g t h i n g . ) 51 T h e t w i s t S p i n o z a p u t s o n t h i s i n h e r i t e d f r a m e w o r k i s
th a t S p in o z is tic fo rm a l r e a l it y c o m e s in in fin ite , o r a ll p o s s ib le , k in d s , r a th e r
th a n o n ly th e tw o e x te n s io n a n d th o u g h t a c k n o w le d g e d b y D e s c a r te s . A n d
th e c o ro lla ry S p in o z a appends to 2p7 c la rifie s th e n a tu re o f th e re la tio n
b e t w e e n t h i s i n f i n i t e l y v a r i e d f o r m a l r e a l i t y ( i . e . , s u b s t a n c e a n d i ts m o d e s
u n d e r a ll th e a ttr ib u te s a s th in g s in n a tu re ) a n d th e o b je c t iv e r e a l i t y o f
s u b s ta n c e s in fin ite id e a ( i.e ., th e o b je c t iv e r e a l i t y o f s u b s ta n c e s p e r f e c t
r e p r e s e n ta tio n o f its o w n e s s e n c e a n d a ll its im p lic a tio n s ) . A s a p e r f e c t
k n o w e r, s u b s ta n c e a d e q u a te ly r e p r e s e n ts e v e r y f o r m a lly r e a l e f f e c t i t g iv e s r i s e
to . S o w h a te v e r h a s fo rm a l r e a l i t y in S p in o z is tic n a tu re a ls o h a s o b je c t iv e
r e a l i t y in s u b s ta n c e s id e a o r r e p r e s e n ta tio n o f th is n a tu re . I n o th e r w o r d s , fo r
S p in o z a , w h a te v e r h a s a n y r e a l i t y a t a ll h a s a t th e s a m e tim e b o th fo r m a l a n d
o b je c t iv e re a lity .
T h is is th e s e n s e in w h ic h s u b s ta n c e s tw o fu n d a m e n ta l c a u s a l p o w e r s
th e p o w e r to th in k o r to p r o d u c e r e p r e s e n ta tio n s , a n d th e p o w e r to a c t, o r to
p r o d u c e f o r m a lly r e a l th in g s a r e , a s S p in o z a p u ts it in th e c o r o lla r y , e q u a l :
th e o r d e r o f id e a s ( w h a t is r e p r e s e n te d b y s u b s ta n c e a s a n o m n is c ie n t k n o w e r )
a n d th e o r d e r o f th in g s ( w h a t is p r o d u c e d b y th is s u b s ta n c e a s th e u n iv e r s a l
c a u s e ) a r e e q u a l in th e ir r e s p e c t i v e d e g r e e s o f r e a lity .52 I t is a m a tte r o f tw o
d iff e r e n t, b u t e q u a l, w a y s o f h a v in g b e in g .
T h e c o r o l l a r y to 2 p 7 th u s s u g g e s ts th a t i f w e w a n t to th in k o f S p in o z a s
s u b s ta n c e - m o n is tic m e ta p h y s ic s a s n o n e th e le s s a ls o a k in d o f d u a lis m , w e c a n
d r a w th e d iv id in g lin e in a t l e a s t tw o d if f e r e n t p la c e s : n o t j u s t b e t w e e n b e in g
a n d th o u g h t, a s h a s b e e n p r o p o s e d b e f o r e ,53 b u t e q u a ll y b e tw e e n fo r m a l a n d
o b je c t iv e re a lity . ( T h e s e tw o d u a lis m s a r e o rth o g o n a l to o n e a n o th e r, s in c e
th o u g h t in c lu d e s b o th th e o b je c t iv e r e a l i t y o f th e i d e a s r e p r e s e n ta tio n a l
c o n te n t, a n d th e f o r m a l r e a l i t y s p e c if ic to th o u g h t a s a c a u s a l p o w e r p r o p e r to
s u b s ta n c e .)
T h e c o r o l l a r y a ls o h e lp s u s f le s h o u t fu rth e r th e s e n s e o f S p in o z a s c l a i m in
th e p r o p o s i t i o n th a t th e o r d e r o f id e a s is th e s a m e a s th e o r d e r o f th in g s. I
p r o p o s e d a b o v e th a t th e tw o o r d e r s c a n b e r e g a r d e d a s th e s a m e in s o f a r a s
id e a s , lik e a ll th in g s , a r e c a u s a lly o r d e r e d . T h e c o r o l l a r y s u g g e s ts th a t, in
a d d itio n , u n d e rs ta n d in g th e s a m e n e s s o f th e o r d e r s o f id e a s a n d th in g s a ls o
in v o lv e s g r a s p in g th a t e v e r y th in g e x is ts w i t h tw o k in d s o f r e a lity : in n a tu re a n d
in th e in fin ite in te lle c t. In th is c a s e , th e s a m e n e s s o f th e o r d e r o f th in g s a n d
th e o r d e r o f id e a s a m o u n ts to a n id e n tity : th e id e n tity o f e v e r y th in g , w h e th e r
s u b s ta n c e o r m o d e , a s it is in n a tu re , w ith th is th in g a s it is in th e in fin ite
in te lle c t .54 W e c a n th u s c o n c lu d e th a t, in S p in o z a s fra m e w o rk , c e r ta in
r e la tio n s o f id e n tity ( o f fo r m a l w i t h o b je c t iv e r e a l i t i e s ) m u s t o b ta in i f id e a s a r e
to b e c a u s a lly s o o r d e r e d a s to v e r i d i c a l l y r e p r e s e n t th e o r d e r o f th in g s . (A n d ,
c o n v e r s e ly , id e a s m u s t h a v e a c e r ta in c a u s a l o r d e r f o r th o s e r e la tio n s o f
id e n tity to o b ta in .)
F o r S p in o z a th e s a m e n e s s o f th e o r d e r s o f b e i n g a n d t h o u g h t, o f t h e
c o n n e x io r e r u m a n d t h e c o n n e x io id e a r u m , i s t h u s n o t a m a t t e r o f a m e r e
c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o r a n i s o m o r p h i s m o r a m a p p i n g o f o n e o r d e r o n t o t h e o th e r .
L ik e w is e , it s e e m s in a c c u r a te to s a y th a t th e c o r o l l a r y to 2 p 7 is c o n c e r n e d
s o le ly w ith a re p re s e n ta tio n a l p a r a lle lis m , o r w ith e p is te m o lo g ic a l re la tio n s ,
a s o p p o s e d to i d e n t i t y , w h i c h ( i t i s a l l e g e d ) S p i n o z a r a i s e s a s a c o n c e r n o n l y
in th e s c h o liu m t h a t f o l l o w s . 55 A s we have seen, fo r S p in o z a is s u e s of
r e p r e s e n t a ti o n a r e in s e p a r a b l e f r o m m a tte r s o f o n to lo g y : b e in g r e p r e s e n t e d j u s t
is h a v i n g a c e r t a i n k i n d o f b e i n g . T o b e s u r e , a s h a s b e e n p o i n t e d o u t b e f o r e , i n
th e c o r o l l a r y to 2 p 7 th e r e c a n b e n o q u e s tio n o f th e id e n tity o f th e r e l a t a a s
fo r m a lly re a l, s in c e th e w h o le of fo rm a l re a lity w h ic h in c lu d e s th e
a b s o lu te ly in fin ite s u b s ta n c e c a n n o t b e n u m e r ic a lly id e n tic a l w ith a m e re
i d e a r e p r e s e n t i n g t h i s s u b s t a n c e s e s s e n c e a n d i t s c o n s e q u e n c e s ; l i k e a n y i d e a ,
t h i s i d e a i s o n l y a m o d e . 56 N o n e t h e l e s s , t h e c o r o l l a r y d o e s a s s e r t t h e i d e n t i t y o f
t h e f o r m a l r e a l i t y o f a l l t h a t i s w i t h t h e o b j e c t i v e r e a l i t y o f t h e s u b s t a n c e s
i d e a : i t i s o n e a n d t h e s a m e a b s o l u t e l y i n f i n i t e o b j e c t t a k e n f i r s t i n i ts f o r m a l
r e a l it y a n d th e n in its o b j e c t iv e re a lity .
T o c o n c lu d e th is d i s c u s s io n o f th e c o r o lla r y , l e t m e u n d e r s c o r e a m o re
g e n e r a l p o in t. T h is is th a t th e c o r o l l a r y o f f e r s u s a u n iq u e v a n ta g e p o in t o n to
S p i n o z a s m e t a p h y s i c s a s a w h o l e . T y p i c a l l y t h i s m e t a p h y s i c s g e t s i n t r o d u c e d
a s I h a v e d o n e e a r lie r in th is c h a p te r b y a s s e r tin g th a t th e re a re th re e
fu n d a m e n ta l b u ild in g b lo c k s to th is m e ta p h y s ic s ( s u b s ta n c e , m o d e s , a ttr ib u te s ) ,
d e f in e d s o a n d s o , a n d r e la tin g to e a c h o th e r in s p e c if ic w a y s . T h is a p p r o a c h to
u n d e r s t a n d i n g S p i n o z a s m e t a p h y s i c s i s c e r t a i n l y c o r r e c t , a s f a r a s i t g o e s , a n d
i t i s e n c o u r a g e d b y S p i n o z a s o w n m a n n e r o f p r e s e n t a t i o n i n t h e E t h i c s , w h i c h
o p e n s w i t h d e f i n i t i o n s o f s u c h t e r m s . B u t t o c o n s i d e r S p i n o z a s m e t a p h y s i c s
f r o m th is p e r s p e c tiv e is to c o n s id e r it ( to b o r r o w a H e id e g g e r ia n te r m ) m e r e ly
o n t i c a l l y , t h a t i s , i n t e r m s o f w h a t t h i s m e t a p h y s i c s s a y s a b o u t e n t i t i e s 51 B u t
th e r e is a n o th e r, e q u a lly v a l i d b u t r e l a t i v e l y n e g le c te d , a p p r o a c h p o s s i b l e to
t h e f o u n d a t i o n s o f S p i n o z a s m e t a p h y s i c s : o n e t h a t d e f i n e s t h e m n o t i n t e r m s o f
th e k in d s o f e n titie s it a ll o w s b u t r a th e r in te rm s o f th e k in d s o f b e in g o r
r e a lity i t p o s it s a n d h o w i t r e l a te s th e m . A n d s e e n f r o m th is p o i n t o f v i e w , th e
c r u x o f S p i n o z a s m e t a p h y s i c a l f r a m e w o r k a s a w h o l e i s t h e c l a i m t h a t t h e
f u n d a m e n ta l s tr u c tu r e ( f o r l a c k o f a b e tt e r w o r d ) o f a ll th a t is is g iv e n b y th e
fu n d a m e n ta l d is tin c tn e s s , b u t a ls o th e u n ity o r in s e p a r a b ility , o f fo rm a l a n d
o b je c tiv e re a lity . T h e c o r o l l a r y to 2 p 1 is o n e p la c e in w h ic h th is m e ta p h y s ic a l
p ic tu r e e m e r g e s w i t h p a r t i c u l a r c la rity .
 6. At t r i b u t e s a n d Mo n i s m

I n c o n c lu s io n , l e t m e tu r n to th e l a s t p a s s a g e u n d e r s c ru tin y , th e s c h o liu m to
2 p 7 . H e r e is th e c r u c i a l s e c tio n :

we must recall here what we showed [NS: in the First Part], viz. that whatever can be
perceived by an infinite intellect as constituting an essence o f substance pertains to one
substance only, and consequently that the thinking substance and the extended substance are one
and the same [una eademque] substance, which is now comprehended under this attribute, now
under that. So also a mode of extension and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing, but
expressed in two ways [una eademque est res sed duobus modis expressa]... . For example, a
circle existing in nature and the idea of the existing circle, which is also in God, are one and the
same thing, which is explained through different attributes. Therefore, whether we conceive nature
under the attribute of Extension, or under the attribute of Thought, or under any other attribute, we
shall find one and the same order, or one and the same connection of causes, i.e., that the same
things follow one another [unum eundemque ordinem sive unam eandemque causarum
connexionem hoc est easdem res invicem sequi].

A s a r u le , th e p o i n t o f th e s c h o liu m is t a k e n to b e th e n u m e r ic a l id e n tity o f
e n titie s d if f e r in g in a ttr ib u te ( th a t is , in th e e s s e n tia l p r o p e r tie s o f th e k in d to
w h i c h th e s e e n titie s b e lo n g ) . O n th is r e a d in g , th e l e s s o n o f th e s c h o liu m is th a t
e v e r y m in d is , r a th e r p a r a d o x ic a lly , n u m e r ic a lly id e n tic a l to s o m e b o d y , a n d
v i c e v e r s a . 59
I r e a d t h e s c h o l i u m s l i g h t l y d i f f e r e n t l y . F o r i t s e e m s t o m e t h a t o n e o f i ts
p r in c i p a l p o in ts is to r e m in d th e r e a d e r , in th e w a k e o f a d i s c u s s io n o f h o w
th in g s a re r e p r e s e n t e d i n t h e c o r o l l a r y a n d t h e p r o p o s i t i o n , o f S p i n o z a s
f u n d a m e n ta l c o m m itm e n t to s u b s ta n c e m o n is m , a n d th u s to th e fu n d a m e n ta l
u n ity o f a ll th in g s th a t th is m o n is m e n ta ils . I t is s u b s ta n c e m o n is m th a t
d e te r m in e s th e s e n s e in w h ic h th e r e is , a s S p in o z a w r ite s a b o v e , o n ly o n e
c o n n e c tio n o f c a u s e s : th is is th e c o n n e c tio n p r o p e r to s u b s ta n c e , th e o r d e r o f
th in g s th a t f o ll o w s n e c e s s a rily fro m i ts essen ce. T o p u t th e p o in t s lig h tly
d iff e re n tly , th e s c h o liu m is m e a n t to r e m in d u s th a t w h a te v e r c a n b e c o n c e iv e d
in th e v a r io u s , a ttrib u te -s p e c ific w ays ( a s th in k in g s u b s ta n c e , a s e x te n d e d
s u b s ta n c e , a s m in d s , a s b o d ie s , a n d s o o n ) n o n e th e le s s c o n s titu te s j u s t a s in g le
o r d e r o f th in g s a s in g le c o n n e c tio n o f c a u s e s .
In o th e r w o rd s, in th e s c h o liu m S p in o z a is c a u tio n in g us about w hat
c o n c lu s io n s a b o u t th e o r d e r o f fo rm a l r e a l i t y w e a r e e n title d to d r a w o n th e
b a s is o f h o w id e a s a r e o r d e r e d , a n d th e w a y s th e y c a n a n d c a n n o t c o n n e c t w ith
o n e a n o th e r. M o r e p r e c is e ly , h e is c a u tio n in g u s th a t th e d i v e r s e o b j e c t iv e
r e a litie s o f v a r io u s id e a s a re n o t s u ffic ie n t g ro u n d s to c o n c lu d e th a t th e s e id e a s
r e f e r to a n u m e r ic a l p l u r a l it y o f f o r m a lly r e a l th in g s th a t w o u l d b e r e a l ly
d istin c t fro m o n e a n o th e r, a s s u b s ta n c e s a r e . 60 F o r e v e n i f w e re p re se n t
th in k in g th in g s a n d e x te n d e d th in g s w i t h th e a i d o f c o n c e p ts th a t h a v e n o th in g in
c o m m o n w i t h o n e a n o th e r in th e r e le v a n t s e n s e , w e a ls o m u st r e f e r a ll th e s e
r e p r e s e n t a t i o n s t o o n e a n d t h e s a m e f o r m a l l y r e a l e n t i t y i n n a t u r e . 61
T h is h e lp s c la r if y in w h a t s e n s e S p in o z a c a n a s s e r t in th e s c h o liu m th a t
e v e r y m in d is n u m e r ic a lly id e n tic a l to s o m e b o d y , a n d v i c e v e r s a . T h a t is , I d o
n o t th in k th a t h e is p u ttin g f o r th s o l e l y a th e s is a b o u t id e n tity r e l a ti o n s d ir e c tly
b e tw e e n m o d e s . I n s t e a d , I s u g g e s t t h a t w h e n h e w r i t e s t h a t a m i n d a n d a b o d y ,
o r a c i r c l e a n d a n i d e a o f th a t c i r c l e , a r e o n e a n d th e s a m e th in g , h e is
r e m i n d i n g u s f i r s t t h a t t h e y a r e b o th i d e n t i c a l to th e o n e s u b s ta n c e , a s i ts
m o d if ic a tio n s . E v e r y m in d a n d e v e r y b o d y , a n d e v e r y c ir c le a n d id e a o f a
c i r c l e , a l l p e r t a i n t o o n e s u b s t a n c e o n l y , j u s t a s i n f i n i t e e x t e n s i o n a n d i n f i n i t e
t h o u g h t d o . S p i n o z a s p o i n t t h r o u g h o u t t h e p a s s a g e r e m a i n s t h e s a m e : d o n t
f o r g e t th a t th e r e is o n ly s u b s ta n c e .
T h is h e lp s u s g iv e s e n s e to a r e la tio n o f n u m e ric a l id e n tity th a t w o u ld h o ld
b e t w e e n m o d e s o f d i s t i n c t a ttr ib u te s . A s h a s b e e n p o in te d o u t b e f o r e , th e r e is a
v e r y r u d im e n ta r y p r o b le m f o r th is in te r p r e ta tio n o f 2 p 7 s . T h e p r o b le m is th a t
f o r a n y a ttr ib u te - s p e c if ic p r e d i c a t e s F a n d G , w e c a n n o t in fe r f r o m th e f a c t th a t
a g i v e n m in d is e s s e n t i a l l y F, o r c a u s e s s o m e i d e a to b e G , th a t th e b o d y w i t h
w h ic h th is m in d is p u r p o r te d ly n u m e r ic a lly id e n tic a l e ith e r is F o r c a u s e s
a n o th e r b o d y to b e G . W h a t s e n s e c a n w e th e n g iv e to th e c l a i m th a t th e m in d
and body in q u e s tio n a re id e n tic a l, i f th e y fa il to sh a re such b a s ic
p r o p e r t i e s ? 63 I s u g g e s t t h a t w e n o t t a k e t h e s c h o l i u m t o m a k e c l a i m s s i m p l y
a b o u t th e n u m e r ic a l id e n tity o f m o d e s w i t h o n e a n o th e r, b u t in s te a d m o r e
fu n d a m e n ta lly ta k e it to a s s e r t th e real id e n tity o f m o d e s w ith s u b s t a n c e
( w h e r e r e a l id e n tity j u s t m e a n s th e a b s e n c e o f r e a l d is tin c tio n ) .
L e t m e c l o s e w i t h t h e f o l l o w i n g m o r e g e n e r a l r e m a r k . A s I n o t e d a b o v e , it
is o f te n c la im e d th a t th e s c h o liu m to 2 p 7 is c o n c e r n e d w i t h a d if f e r e n t s e t o f
p r o b le m s th a n th e p r o p o s itio n , d e m o n s tr a tio n , a n d c o r o l l a r y ( i n o p p o s it i o n to
th o s e w ho see a ll th e s e passag es as e x p re s s in g som e s in g le a n d u n ifo rm
d o c trin e o f p a r a l l e l i s m ). T h e c la im is th a t th e s c h o liu m d e a ls w i t h th e
r e l a ti o n o f n u m e r ic a l id e n tity a n d in tr o d u c e s th e s u b je c t o f th e a ttr ib u te s , w h ile
th e p r o p o s itio n , d e m o n s tra tio n , a n d c o r o l l a r y a r e s ile n t o n a ll th e s e to p ic s a n d
in s te a d c o n c e r n th e m s e lv e s s o le ly w ith re p re s e n ta tio n a l o r e p is te m o lo g ic a l
r e l a t i o n s . 64 I h a v e a lre a d y r a is e d d o u b ts a b o u t th e w is d o m o f s e p a ra tin g
e p is te m o lo g ic a l and o n to lo g ic a l m a tte r s in th is w ay w ith in S p i n o z a s
f ra m e w o rk . T o th is c r i t ic is m I n o w w a n t to a d d th a t th o s e w h o f a v o r th is k in d
o f a d is ju n c tiv e r e a d in g o f th e p a s s a g e s r a r e l y (to m y k n o w le d g e a t le a s t)
a t t e m p t t o e x p l a i n w h y S p i n o z a w o u l d a p p e n d t h e s c h o l i u m t o t h e c o r o l l a r y if,
e x h y p o th e s i, th e tw o m a k e s u c h d i s tin c t c la im s .
It s e e m s to m e th a t th e re a re tw o c o m p le m e n ta ry e x p la n a tio n s f o r th e
e x is te n c e a n d p la c e m e n t o f th e s c h o liu m . F i r s t o f a ll, a s a lr e a d y n o te d , th e
s c h o liu m fu n c tio n s a s a r e m in d e r to th e r e a d e r o f h o w to in te r p r e t th e im p o r t o f
w h a t o u r id e a s r e p r e s e n t w ith in a s u b s ta n c e m o n is tic fra m e w o rk . S e c o n d , a ll
th e p a s s a g e s u n d e r c o n s id e r a tio n , f r o m th e p r o p o s i t io n a ll th e w a y to th e
s c h o liu m , a re th e m a tic a lly u n ifie d a ro u n d a s in g le m e ta p h y s ic a l p ro b le m
(th o u g h it is not th e p ro b le m of in te ra ttrib u te re la tio n s , as S p i n o z a s
p a r a l l e l i s m d o c tr in e is a ls o o f te n g lo s s e d ) . N a m e ly , th e th e m a tic u n ity o f a ll
th e s e p a s s a g e s is f u r n is h e d , a s th e w o r d i n g o f th e p r o p o s i t io n i t s e l f s u g g e s ts ,
b y th e m e ta p h y s ic a l p r o b le m o f th e c o n n e c tio n o f th in g s in n a tu r e th a t is , th e
p r o b le m o f c o s m ic s y m p a th y w h e th e r w e u n d e r s ta n d th is p r o b le m a s o n e o f
th e r e l a t i o n o f th e tw o k in d s o f b e in g , o r a s th e p r o b l e m o f th e r e a l u n ity o f
a l l t h i n g s i n n a t u r e , d e s p i t e t h e i n t e l l e c t s a p p r e h e n s i o n o f c o n c e p t u a l g u l f s a n d
ch asm s.

1 Thanks to the volume editors and to the participants of the Sympathy conference at the University of
Richmond, especially Eric Schliesser, for invaluable comments on an earlier version of this essay.
2 For an account of how Spinoza understands sympathy in his ethics, see chapter 6 in this volume.
3 For an example of early modern resistance to such mechanistic reduction of sympathetic phenomena
see Henry More, Immortality o f the Soul, ed. A. Jacob (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), 3.5.1.
4 Rene Descartes, Principles o f Philosophy, in The Philosophical Writings o f Descartes, ed. and
trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1985), vol. 1, 4.187, AT 8A.314. Cf. T he sciences, however abstruse [occultae], are to be deduced only
from matters which are easy and highly accessible, and not from those which are grand and obscure... .
To inquire whether a natural power can travel instantaneously to a distant place . I shall not immediately
turn my attention to the magnetic force, or the influence of the s t a r s . . I shall, rather, reflect upon the
local motions of bodies ... readily p erc e iv a b le . . [N]or shall I prattle on about the moons warming things
by its light and cooling them by means of some occult quality. Rather, I shall observe a pair of scales
(Descartes, Rules fo r the Direction o f the Mind, in Philosophical Writings, vol. 1, rule 9, AT 10.402).
5 Thomas Hobbes, De Corpore 4.26, 30.
Leibnizs notion of a pre-established harmony among the perceptions of causally isolated substances
can also be seen as an attempt to rehabilitate the idea of a sympathetic connectedness of all things. See
e.g. his claim that pre-established harmony ... between all the monads or simple substances ... takes the
place of that untenable influence of the one on the others (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, New Essays on
Human Understanding, ed. and trans. Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996], 296). See also Discourse on Metaphysics, 33 (Philosophical Essays, ed. and
trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber [Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989]). See also David Hum es invocation
of physical sympathy in A Treatise o f Human Nature, ed. David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3.3.1.7.
On Leibniz and sympathy, see Christia M ercer, Leibnizs Metaphysics: Its Origins and
Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 193-94, 354-55, and chapter 4 in this
volume. For a general overview, see Brian Copenhaver, T he Occultist Tradition and Its Critics, in The
Cambridge History o f Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1.455-512.
6 Baruch Spinoza, The Ethics, in The Collected Works o f Spinoza, ed. and trans. Edwin Curley
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 2p7s; 1app (II/79); 2p44c2. In citing from Curleys
translation of Spinozas Ethics, I use the following standard abbreviations: ax = axiom, def = definition, p
= proposition, d = demonstration, s = scholium, c = corollary, app = appendix, pref = preface. N S refers
to the posthumous 1677 Dutch edition of Spinozas writings, De Nagelate Schriften van B.D.S.
Cf. Leibnizs comments about restoring and rehabilitating the Aristotelian substantial forms in a
way that would render them intelligible, and separate the use one should make of them from the abuse
that has been made of them (N ew System of Nature, in Philosophical Essays, 139).
7 Ethics II/97-103; 1p17s[I] (II/62); 4app32 (II/276). On Spinozas emanationist framework see e.g.
Martial Gueroult, Spinoza (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1968), 1.246-97; and Valtteri Viljanen, Spinozas
Essentialist Model of Causation, Inquiry 51.4 (2008): 412-37. On Spinozas Stoic influences see e.g.
Susan James, Spinoza the Stoic, in The Rise o f Early Modern Philosophy: The Tension between the
New and the Traditional Philosophies from Machiavelli to Leibniz, ed. Tom Sorrell (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1993), 289-316.
8 Ethics 3p15s (II/152), emphasis added. Spinoza also mentions metaphysical sympathy in his early
manual on D escartess philosophy, when he notes that D escartess commitment to a real distinction
between parts of m atter shows that Sympathy and Antipathy are to be rejected as false (Descartes
Principles o f Philosophy, in Collected Works, 2p8s; I/197). O f course in his own philosophy Spinoza
rejects the Cartesian thesis that parts of m atter are really (as opposed to merely modally) distinct from
one another as well as the idea that real distinction corresponds to a numerical distinction between
substances (cf. Ethics 1p10s).
9 Ethics 2p28d.
10 Cf. The knowledge of an effect depends on, and involves, the knowledge of its cause (Ethics 1ax4).
There is much controversy about whether 1ax4 applies to adequate knowledge only. In this essay I
assume that the axiom applies at least to adequate knowledge, such that to know a thing adequately (or,
equivalently, to make it fully intelligible) we need to grasp its causal dependencies. On the problem of the
axioms scope see e.g. M argaret Wilson, Spinozas Causal Axiom (Ethics I, Axiom 4), in Ideas and
Mechanism: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy , by Wilson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1999), 141-65.
Such perfect causal knowledge of things is not only Spinozas epistemic ideal; it is also something he
believes to be already given in nature, insofar as all things are eternally adequately conceived by Gods
infinite intellect. See Ethics 2p3, 2p7c.
11 Ethics 1ax2, 1p11altd1. For a discussion of the role of PSR in Spinozas philosophy see Michael Della
Rocca, Spinoza (London: Routledge, 2008), and Rationalist Manifesto: Spinoza and the Principle of
Sufficient Reason, Philosophical Topics 31.1-2 (2003): 75-94.
12 This is so even though Spinoza allows both that it is not within the powers of finite human minds to
grasp the entire series of finite causes leading up to any particular phenomenon and that there are entire
realms of nature those that are neither mental nor physicalthat are in principle excluded from being
known by human minds. See Spinoza, Treatise on the Emendation o f the Intellect, in Collected Works,
[100], Ethics 2ax5, and The Letters, trans. Samuel Shirley, ed. Steven Barbone, Jonathan Adler, and Lee
Rice (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995), letter 66. For discussion of the letter see Yitzhak Melamed, Spinozas
Metaphysics of Thought: Parallelisms and the Multifaceted Structure of Ideas, Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 86.3 (2012): 636-83.
13 Ethics 1p3, 1p10, 2p5-6.
14 As we have seen, Spinoza identifies purportedly sympathetic relations with misconstrued causal
relations. But could some noncausal relation be responsible for the purported sympathetic influence
crossing from one realm of being to another? In addition to causal relations, in his metaphysics Spinoza
recognizes also conceptual relations, relations of inherence (see e.g. Ethics 1def3,5), relations of
intentionality and ontological dependence (2p11, 13), and, finally, relations of numerical identity (2p7s).
L ets take these one by one. Inherence relations are coextensive with, and perhaps even identical to,
causal relations. Hence ruling out the possibility of causal relations in a particular case also rules out the
possibility of inherence relations. Conceptual relations are, like causal relations, subject to the principle of
closure of kinds of being, such that only mental things can help us cognize other mental things. Hence
they also could not be responsible for cross-realm influence. However, it seems possible in principle that a
particular allegedly sympathetic relation may have been a way of confusedly recognizing that a given
mind and a given body are in fact numerically identical (as Spinoza holds [Ethics, 2p7s]), or perhaps that
minds ontologically depend on bodies they represent (2p11, 13).
15 Ethics 1p16, 1p26, 1p28-29, 1p34. Indeed, more precisely, Spinoza is not just a determinist but a
necessitarian.
16 See Ethics 1p28, 1app (II/78-79), 2p48, 3p7d, 3p9s, 4pref (II/207), 4def7.
17 However, Spinoza would, to be sure, be wary of describing nature as harmonious, as some
advocates of cosmic sympathy do. According to Spinoza such predicates as harmonious tell us nothing
about things as they are in themselves, only about how they happen to affect us at a particular time or
place (see Ethics 1app; II/78). Given his well-known criticisms of cosmic teleology (1app; 4pref, 3p7d,
4def7), Spinoza would be equally wary of thinking of sympathetic relations among things as if these
served some cosmic end nature as a whole could have, as Plotinus for example does.
18 Unfortunately, all too often scholars merely gloss parallelism, rather vaguely, as mirroring,
correspondence, isomorphism, structural similarity, mapping, correlation, and matching,
without going into the precise nature of the relation. Melamed is an exception, writing, I take parallelism
to be a relation of isomorphism in the strict sense of the term, i.e., one-to-one and onto mapping. This
relation preserves the causal structure among the relata (Metaphysics of Thought, 637 n 3).
19 For this reading see e.g. Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, trans. M. Joughin
(London: Zone Books); 113-14; Michael Della Rocca, Representation and the Mind-Body Problem
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 19, and Spinoza, 90; Alan Donagan, Spinoza (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1988), 180; Melamed, Metaphysics of Thought; Steven Nadler, Spinozas
Ethics: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 124.
20 Ethics 1def3, 1def6.
21 Ethics 1d5, 1p1416, 1p18.
22 Ethics 1p4d.
23 See in contrast Descartes, Principles, 1, 53.
24 Ethics 1def6, 2p1-2.
25 See D escartes, Principles, 1, 53.
26 Cf. Descartes, Principles, 1, 53.
27 It would be more accurate to say that what different attributes do have in common they have in
common in the wrong way: abstractly of course all attributes have that in common that they can be
classed together under universals like attribute or expression. (For a fuller account of abstraction and
universals in Spinozas metaphysics see Karolina Hubner, Spinoza on Essences, Universals and Beings
of Reason, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, forthcoming.)
28 Ethics 1p3, 1p10, 2p5-6.
29 Since for Spinoza there seems to be no significant difference between the notions of order and
connection in 2p7s (II/90) and 3p2s (II/141), for example, Spinoza suggests their synonymity I will
use them interchangeably in what follows.
30 Ethics 1def1, 1p16, Iax3, Ip25, Ip28. Substance can be described as causally dependent on itself in the
sense that its existence follows necessarily from its essence.
31 Ethics 1p28. It is only this whole infinite series that is an immediate consequence of substances
essential nature; cf. Charles M cCracken, Knowledge of the Soul, in The Cambridge History of
Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), 796-832, at 816.
32 Ethics 1p36.
33 See Ethics 2def6.
34 Contrast this with Leibnizs noncausal rehabilitation of sympathy as preestablished harmony (see
footnote 5 above).
35 Ethics 2p13s. This thesis of universal mindedness follows from Spinozas controversial identification of
a things mind with Gods idea of this thing. With this identification in place, universal mindedness
follows straightforwardly from Spinozas entirely orthodox commitment to divine omniscience (2p3). For
further discussion, see M argaret Wilson, Objects, Ideas, and Minds: Comments on Spinozas Theory of
Mind, in Ideas and Mechanism: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy, by Wilson (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1999), 126-40.
36 Cf. Melamed, Metaphysics of Thought, 678.
37 Ethics 2p11c, 2p33, 2p35.
38 If little more than the general line of thought: the brevity and purported self-evidence of this
demonstration have caused much consternation among scholars. For discussion see e.g. Jonathan
Bennett, A Study o f Spinozas Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1984), 127; Della Rocca, Representation,
22; Wilson, Causal Axiom, 153. As has often been noted, for the demonstration of 2p7 to go through,
we must arguably assume also 2p3, i.e., the existence of ideas of all things. See e.g. Edwin Curley,
Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading o f Spinoza S Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1988), 64; Deleuze, Expressionism, 11415; Della Rocca, Representation, 22-23; Wilson, Causal
Axiom, 154.
39 Note the added complication that Spinoza seems to hold that Gods infinite idea is simple. Its not clear
in what way a simple idea could reflect the causal order among things in nature.
40 See e.g. Bennetts claim that for Spinoza a cause relates to its effect as a premiss does to a
conclusion which follows from it (Study, 8.3); cf. Edwin Curley: Spinoza assimilates the relation of
causality to the relation of logical implication (Spinozas Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation
[Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969], 45-46).
This paragraph and next are developed more fully in Karolina Hubner, On the Significance of Formal
Causes in Spinozas Metaphysics, Archiv fu r Geschichte der Philosophie, 2015.
41 One rudimentary difficulty for this sort of reading is that Spinoza does not seem very interested in
logic, and has nothing to say about the nature of inference in particular (cf. Donagan, Spinoza, 74-75).
The little he does say on related topics suggests that like many other seventeenth-century thinkers, he
thought of logic as a normative and therapeutic art akin to medicine (see Ethics 5P ref [II/277], CM 1
[I/233]). That is, he does not belong to that philosophical tradition for which logic is concerned with being
qua known. So logical relations would be a rather poor candidate for constituting an order capable of
being the sam e as the causal order of things. See Spinoza, Treatise on the Emendation o f the
Intellect [91].
42 To my knowledge Don Garrett was the first to point out this difficulty; his own solution to the problem
is to appeal to relevance logic (Spinozas Necessitarianism, in God and Nature: Spinozas
Metaphysics, ed. Yirmiyahu Yovel [Leiden: Brill, 1991], 97-118, at 194). See also Della Rocca,
Manifesto, 81, 92 n. 12.
43 Ethics 1def1.
44 M argaret Wilson for instance glosses the sam eness in terms of a single relation of necessary
determination that obtains betw een physical things and cognitiones alike; but she confesses that
this doesnt tell us much about the nature of this relation (Causal Axiom, 155). Della Rocca suggests
that the sameness in question boils down to a structural similarity, such as having the same number of
immediate effects (Representation, 18). A n Aristotelian would presumably interpret this sam eness as
the adequatio, or formal identity, of the object being known and of the intellect that receives the
intelligible form of the object. See also footnote 18 above.
The corollary to 2p6 states that nonmental things are generated according to a principle independent
from thought. This means that the order of things cannot be the sam e as the order of ideas because
things depend on ideas (as in theologies according to which God models the world on preexisting ideas in
his intellect).
45 Ethics 1def8, 2p2, 1p10. For further criticisms of idealist readings of Spinozas metaphysics, as
advanced by Della Rocca, see Mogens Laerke, Spinozas Cosmological Argument in the Ethics,
Journal o f the History o f Philosophy 49.4 (2011): 439-62; and Samuel Newlands, Thinking,
Conceiving, and Idealism in Spinoza, Archiv fu r Geschichte der Philosophie 94 (2012): 31-52.
46 This seems to be the view in Melamed, Metaphysics of Thought, 640.
47 This reading is also suggested by a passage in which Spinoza seems to infer from the sam eness of
the two orders that ideas are subject to the causal order proper to things: the order and connection of
ideas (by [2]p7) is the same as the order and connection of causes. Therefore, the cause o f one
singular idea is another idea, or God, insofar as he is considered to be affected by another idea; and of
this also [God is the cause], insofar as he is affected by another, and so on, to infinity ( Ethics 2p9d;
emphasis added).
48 One might object that Spinozas habit of modeling causal relations on relations of ideas in particular,
modeling substantial causality on relations of inference of properties from the essences of geometrical
figures (see e.g. Ethics 1p17s) counts against this second reductive reading, insofar as it suggests that
the order of ideas constitutes an independent standard by which we can determine how things in nature
depend on each other causally. But in fact the most passages like 1p17s entitle us to conclude is that this
is how in Spinozas view we can grasp the nature of causal relations. This is a matter of the order of
knowing, and perhaps even solely of Spinozas pedagogical strategy.
On the import of Spinozas geometric analogies for Spinozas causal picture see e.g. Bennett, Study,
8.3; John Carriero, Spinozas Views on Necessity in Historical Perspective, Philosophical Topics
19.1 (1991): 47-96; Curley, Spinozas Metaphysics, 45-46; Gueroult, Spinoza, 246-97; Viljanen,
Essentialist Model ; Hubner, Formal Causes.
49 Ethics 2p7c.
50 Descartes, A uthors Replies to the First Set o f Objections, in Philosophical Writings, AT 7.103.
51 Hence Spinoza regards as something known through itself that truth amounts to what is contained
objectively in the intellect being necessarily ... in nature (Ethics 1p30d).
52 Note that in asserting this equality Spinoza departs from D escartes, who treats objective reality as a
mode of being... much less perfect than that possessed by things which exist outside the intellect (First
Replies, AT 7.103).
53 See Melamed, Metaphysics of Thought, 677-78.
54 Cf. Deleuze, Expressionism, 117. Although the corollary asserts this sameness of order only of the
objective reality of ideas (rather than of ideas tout court), I think this is an insignificant difference from
the proposition, since in the corollary the order of objective realities is also supposed to be a gloss on
substances power of thinking as a whole.
55 For such readings see my footnote 19 above.
56 See Melamed, Metaphysics of Thought, 641.
57 See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (1927; San
Francisco: SCM Press, 1962).
58 Ethics 2p7s, emphases added.
59 See footnote 19 above. Gueroult claims that this identity of entities under different attributes is already
asserted in 1p16d (Spinoza, 1.339); cf. Melamed, Metaphysics of Thought.
60 Indeed, Spinoza reduced real distinction to the distinction betw een the various attributes of the one
substance (1p10s), such that this distinction no longer aligns with a numerical distinction between
substances.
61 Hence I also dont think that we should see 2p7s as the more general formulation of parallelism, as
suggested e.g. by Della Rocca (Spinoza, 91).
63 Della Rocca suggests that Spinoza treats causal contexts as referentially opaque, as well as that pairs
of identical modes share attribute-neutral properties, such as having the same number of effects
(Representation, ch. 7). He also proposes that there is pressure toward the identity of body and mind
pairs given their same causal relationships, and a lack of a possible explanation for their nonidentity
(Spinoza, 100-101).
64 See my footnote 19 above.
 C H A P T E R SIX

The Eighteenth-Century Context of Sympathy

from Spinoza to Kant
R y a n P a tr ic k H a n le y
 1. Th e Ag e of Sy m p a t h y

T h a t th e e ig h te e n th c e n tu r y w a s th e a g e o f s y m p a th y is w e l l a p p r e c ia te d to d a y .
L i te r a r y th e o r is ts h a v e in s is te d o n th is f o r s o m e tim e , p o litic a l th e o r is ts a r e
n o w m o re th a n e v e r e m p h a s iz in g it, a n d v e r s io n s o f i t a r e to d a y c o m m o n p la c e
e v e n a m o n g e c o n o m i s ts .1 T a k e n to g e th e r, s u c h e ffo rts o u g h t to b e w e lc o m e d , a s
th e y h a v e d o n e m u c h to l e a d us to r e th in k c o n v e n ie n t b u t s a d ly o v e r s im p lif ie d
a s s o c ia ti o n s o f th e E n lig h te n m e n t w i t h th e a g e o f r e a s o n , a n d h a v e a ls o d o n e
m u c h to r e m in d u s o f th e e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry fo u n d a tio n s o f a g r e a t d e a l o f
c o n te m p o r a r y e th ic s . B u t f o r a ll th is a k e y is s u e r e m a in s u n e x p la in e d . E v e n
a m id o u r g e n e r a l a g r e e m e n t th a t th e e ig h te e n th c e n tu r y w a s th e a g e of
sy m p a th y , le s s w e l l u n d e r s to o d is w h y th is w a s so . E x a c tly w h a t th e n e x p la in s
th e r e m a r k a b le u b iq u ity o f th e c o n c e p t o f s y m p a th y in th e e ig h te e n th c e n tu ry ?
T h is , I w i l l b e th e f i r s t to a d m it, is a s ta g g e r in g ly d if f ic u lt q u e s tio n w h ic h
p e r h a p s e x p la in s w h y s o little w o r k h a s b e e n d o n e to a n s w e r it. P a r t o f th e
d if f ic u lty c o n c e r n s th e p l a s t ic it y o f th e c o n c e p t. T h u s M a r c A n d r e B e r n ie r , in
o n e o f th e b e s t r e c e n t s u rv e y s o f e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry sy m p a th y , c a ll s our
a tte n tio n to l in c r o y a b le v i ta lite et la s u r p r e n a n te h e te r o g e n e ite qui
c a r a c t e r i s e n t la n o tio n d e s y m p a th ie a u c o u rs d e la p e r i o d e . 2 Y e t th e c o n c e p t
w as h a r d ly u p f o r g r a b s , a s th r e e m e a n in g s a r e p a r t i c u l a r l y c o m m o n in
e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry p h ilo s o p h y . T hese in c lu d e s y m p a th y as m e c h a n ic a l
c o m m u n ic a tio n o f fe e lin g s a n d p a s s i o n s , a s a p r o c e s s o f im a g in a tio n , o r o f
r e a s o n , b y w h ic h w e s u b s titu te o u r s e lv e s f o r o th e r s , a n d a s o u r d e lig h t in th e
h a p p in e s s a n d s o r r o w in th e m is e r y o f o th e r p e o p l e . 3 E a c h d e f in itio n p o in ts in
a d if f e r e n t d i r e c t i o n a n d h a s a d is tin c t h e r ita g e , a s e x p lo r e d in s e v e r a l
c o n tr ib u tio n s to th is v o lu m e ; s y m p a th y a s m e c h a n ic a l c o m m u n ic a tio n o f c o u r s e
h eark en s b a c k to u n d e rs ta n d in g s o f s y m p a th y a s c o n ta g io ; s y m p a th y a s
s u b s titu tin g s e l f f o r o th e rs h e a r k e n s b a c k to tr a d itio n s o f c o m m o n s e n s e , o r
s e n s u s c o m m u n is ; a n d s y m p a th y a s p a s s io n a te c o n c e r n f o r o th e rs h e a r k e n s
b a c k to tr a d itio n s o f o th e r - d ir e c te d n e s s lik e c o m p a s s io n , p ity , a n d c h a rity .
C l e a r l y th e n , e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry s y m p a th y w a s p lu r a l in b o th its m e a n in g s a n d
o rig in s . B u t i t w a s a ls o p lu r a l in its c o n te x ts , f o r s y m p a th y w a s h a r d ly a n id e a
e x c lu s iv e to p h ilo s o p h e r s b u t a ls o k e y to c h e m is ts a n d p h y s ic is ts w h o in v o k e d
i t to d e s c r i b e p r in c ip le s o f a ffin ity , a s tr o n o m e r s a n d p h y s ic ia n s w h o u s e d i t to
d e s c r ib e in te r a c tio n s a n d a ttr a c tio n s o f m a te r ia l a n d c o r p o r e a l p a r ts and
fu n c tio n s , n o v e lis ts a n d p la y w r ig h ts w h o u s e d it to d e s c r ib e th e in te r a c tio n s o f
c h a ra c te rs and rea d e rs and a c to rs and a u d ie n c e s , a n d m o ra l a n d p o litic a l
th e o r is ts w h o u s e d it to d e s c r i b e th e n a tu re a n d e x te n t o f o u r o b lig a tio n s to
d is ta n t o th e rs .
W e a re le f t th e n w ith a tru ly d iz z y in g a r r a y o f s u b s ta n tiv e d e fin itio n s a s
w e l l a s h is to r ic a l a n d m e th o d o lo g ic a l c o n te x ts . U n ta n g lin g th e s e a lo n e w o u ld
b e m o re th a n th e w o r k o f a d a y . E v e n s o , th e r e r e m a in s o u r o th e r ta s k o f
e x p l a i n i n g j u s t w h y s y m p a t h y , i n a l l i ts f o r m s , b e c a m e s o u b i q u i t o u s i n t h e
e ig h te e n th c e n tu r y a n d i t is to th is t a s k th a t th is e f f o r t is d e d ic a te d . A n d th u s
t h e t h e s i s t h i s c h a p t e r a i m s t o d e f e n d . S y m p a t h y s e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y e x p l o s i o n ,
it w i l l a rg u e , is b e s t t r a c e d to its u n iq u e s ta tu s a s a s o p h is t ic a te d p h ilo s o p h ic a l
r e s p o n s e to a p r e s s in g p r a c tic a l c h a lle n g e . T h is p r a c tic a l c h a lle n g e c o n c e r n e d
th e d is o rie n ta tio n c o n s e q u e n t to th e s e is m ic s h ift in th e fo rm s o f s o c ia l
o rg a n iz a tio n e x p e rie n c e d over th e c o u rse o f th e e ig h te e n th c e n tu r y . M ost
s im p ly , th e e ig h te e n th c e n tu r y ( e s p e c i a l l y b u t n o t o n ly in B r i ta in a n d F r a n c e )
w i t n e s s e d a s h if t f r o m t r a d i ti o n a l a n d m o r e in tim a te f o rm s o f c o m m u n ity to
new fo rm s of s o c ia l o rg a n iz a tio n ; now s o c ie tie s of s tra n g e rs e m e rg ed
a lo n g s id e m o re tr a d itio n a l a n d f a m ilia r c o m m u n itie s o f in tim a te s . B u t w h a t
h o ld s a s o c ie ty o f s tra n g e rs to g e th e r? S o m e o f c o u rs e p o s ite d th a t s e lf - in te r e s t
a lo n e c o u ld m a in ta in a s o c ia l s tru c tu re , b u t it s e e m s f a ir to s a y th a t th is w a s a
m in o rity o p in io n th e n a n d n o w . O th e rs c o n tin u e d to d e fe n d tr a d itio n a l C h r is tia n
id e a s o f c h a rity , b u t h e r e to o it s e e m s f a ir to s a y th a t s e c u la r iz in g a n d s k e p tic a l
te n d e n c ie s in e ig h te e n th -c e n tu ry e p is te m o lo g y a n d e th ic s m a d e th is r e m e d y
in c r e a s in g ly le s s v ia b le . W h e r e th e n to tu rn ? I t is h e r e th a t s y m p a th y e m e r g e d
a n d th e n flo u r is h e d , s p e c if ic a lly a s a n e w a n d c r e a tiv e p h ilo s o p h ic a l r e s p o n s e
to th e p r a c tic a l p o litic a l p r o b le m o f h u m a n c o n n e c te d n e s s in a n in c r e a s in g ly
d i s o r i e n t i n g w o r l d . S y m p a th y , t h a t i s , e m e r g e d a s a n o t h e r - d i r e c t e d s e n t i m e n t
c a p a b le o f s u s ta in in g th e m in im a l s o c ia l b o n d s n e e d e d to r e a l iz e th e n e w
s o c ia l o r d e r a n d in d e e d o n e c a p a b le o f so d o in g w ith o u t re q u ir in g a c c e p ta n c e
o f th e th e is tic f o u n d a tio n s o f C h r is tia n c o n c e p tio n s o f n e ig h b o r lo v e . I n th is
s e n s e , t h e e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y t h e o r i s t s o f s y m p a t h y n o t o n l y c e m e n t e d i ts s h i f t
o r tr a n s la t io n f r o m th e d o m a in o f th e p h y s ic a l to th e d o m a in o f th e e th ic a l th a t
is , f ro m a p r in c ip le p r im a r ily d e d ic a te d to e x p la in in g c o n n e c tio n s b e tw e e n
s u b s ta n c e s to a p r in c ip le d e d ic a te d to e x p la in in g c o n n e c tio n s b e tw e e n h u m a n
i n d i v i d u a l s b u t i n s o d o i n g a l s o g a v e b i r t h t o a n o v e l c o n c e p t t h a t , w e m ig h t
s a y w i t h o n ly a m in im a l a m o u n t o f h y p e r b o le , w a s in te n d e d to s e r v e a s a
s u b s titu te fo r lo v e .
 2. Sp i n o z a s Co n c e p t i o n o f Sy m p a t h y

S u c h in a n y c a s e is o u r th e s is n o w to th e d e m o n s tra tio n . W e b e g in w ith

S p in o z a , w ho m o re th a n any o th e r s in g le th in k e r w o u ld in a u g u ra te th e
e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y t r a d i t i o n o f t h i n k i n g a b o u t s y m p a t h y . A s K a r o l i n a H u b n e r s
c o n tr ib u tio n to th is v o lu m e d e m o n s tr a te s , S p in o z a w a s a n a c tiv e p a r t i c i p a n t in
a d e b a te o v e r th e m e ta p h y s ic a l d o c tr in e o f s y m p a th y th a t lo o k e d b a c k to
a n tiq u ity .4 Y e t S p in o z a w a s a ls o a k e y f ig u r e i n th e e m e r g e n c e o f th e e th ic a l
c o n c e p t o f s y m p a th y , a n d h is c a te g o r ie s w o u l d s h a p e l a t e r d e b a te in th is v e in .
I n p a r tic u la r , h is th e o r y in tr o d u c e s th r e e d i s c r e te e le m e n ts o f th e c o n c e p t th a t
w o u ld p ro v e c e n tra l to la te r e ig h te e n th -c e n tu ry th e o r is ts o f s y m p a th y : i ts
fo u n d a tio n s in e p is te m ic a s s o c ia tio n is m , its ro le as an a c tio n -m o tiv a tin g
s e n t i m e n t , a n d i ts r e l a t i o n s h i p t o s e l f - i n t e r e s t a n d s e l f - l o v e .
S p i n o z a s i d e a o f s y m p a t h y i s i t s e l f a d i r e c t p r o d u c t o f a n d k e y c o n t r i b u t i o n
to h is b r o a d e r e th ic a l o u tlo o k . A s is w e l l k n o w n , th is e th ic a l o u tlo o k is
f o u n d e d in la r g e p a rt o n th e p r o p o s i t io n th a t th e p r im a r y m o tiv a tin g c o n c e r n o f
h u m a n b e in g s is th e p r e s e r v a t io n o f th e ir m a te r ia l s u b s ta n c e th e n o tio n th a t
e a c h t h i n g , i n s o f a r a s i t i s i n i t s e l f , e n d e a v o r s t o p e r s i s t i n i ts o w n b e i n g . 5
S p in o z a o f c o u r s e w o u l d g o o n to r e i n t e r p r e t a ll e th ic a l p h e n o m e n a th ro u g h
th is s p e c i f ic a ll y e g o c e n tr ic le n s , b u t m o s t im p o r ta n t f o r o u r p u r p o s e s is h o w
th is le n s l e a d s h im to r e th in k lo v e . L o v e , S p in o z a n o to r i o u s ly e x p la in s , is
m e r e l y p l e a s u r e a c c o m p a n i e d b y t h e i d e a o f a n e x t e r n a l c a u s e a n d h a t r e d
m e r e ly p a i n a c c o m p a n ie d b y th e i d e a o f a n e x te r n a l c a u s e . 6 T o s a y o n ly
th e v e r y le a s t, th is is a p r o n o u n c e d s h if t a w a y f r o m tr a d itio n a l th e o lo g ic a l
d e fin itio n s o f lo v e in th e c o n te x t o f th e d iv in e o r tra n s c e n d e n t to w a rd an
u n d e r s ta n d in g o f lo v e g r o u n d e d in th e p e r s p e c ti v e o f th e s e lf. A n d i t is th is
p e r s p e c t i v e t h a t f r a m e s S p i n o z a s e t h i c a l t h e o r y o f s y m p a t h y . F o r n o t o n l y d o
w e l o v e o r h a te th o s e th in g s th a t im m e d ia te ly a f f e c t u s , h e a s s e r ts , b u t s o to o
w e l o v e o r h a te s o m e th in g s w ith o u t a n y c a u s e k n o w n to u s , b u t m e r e ly f r o m
s y m p a th y a n d a n tip a th y . 7 S p in o z a is c l e a r l y f ig h tin g b a ttle s o n s e v e r a l f ro n ts
h e re ; in c o n tin u in g h e e x p lic itly d is ta n c e s h is s y m p a th y f r o m c o n c e p tio n s th a t
a s s o c ia te d it w ith o c c u lt q u a litie s .8 B ut he a ls o m akes a ls o a n o th e r
fu n d a m e n ta l m ove h e re . S y m p a th y , in h is th e o ry , c o n n e c ts us to d is ta n t
p h e n o m e n a t h a t m ig h t n o t s e e m t o b e i m m e d i a t e l y r e l a t e d t o t h e s e l f i n a n y
o b v io u s s e n s e , b u t w h i c h in f a c t s h a p e its p l e a s u r e s a n d p a in s .
S p in o z a d e v e lo p s th is c la i m a s p a r t 3 o f th e E th ic s p r o g r e s s e s . G r a d u a lly
h e r e v e a ls th a t s y m p a th y is b e s t r e g a r d e d a s a ty p e o f a s s o c ia tio n : a s s o o n a s
we th in k o f a n o b je c t th a t w e have seen in c o n ju n c tio n w ith o th e rs , we
im m e d ia te ly r e c a ll th e o th e r s a s w e l l a n d th u s f r o m r e g a r d in g th e o n e w e
im m e d ia te ly p a s s o n to r e g a r d in g a n o th e r . 9 T h is is e s p e c i a l l y tr u e o f o u r id e a s
o f o th e r p e o p le ; in d e e d f r o m th e f a c t th a t w e im a g in e a th in g lik e o u r s e lv e s ,
to w a r d s w h ic h w e h a v e f e lt n o e m o tio n , to b e a f f e c te d b y a n e m o tio n , w e a r e
th e r e b y a f f e c te d b y a s im i la r e m o tio n , a n d th u s i f w e im a g in e s o m e o n e lik e
o u r s e lv e s to b e a f f e c te d b y a n e m o tio n , th is th o u g h t w i l l e x p r e s s a n a f f e c tio n o f
o u r o w n b o d y s im i la r to th a t e m o tio n . S o f r o m th e f a c t th a t w e im a g in e a th in g
lik e o u r s e lv e s to b e a f f e c te d b y a n e m o tio n , w e a r e a f f e c te d b y a s im ila r
e m o t i o n a l o n g w i t h i t . 10 A n d h e r e i n l i e s b o t h t h e i m p o r t o f s y m p a t h y a s a n
e p is te m ic c o n c e p t o f a s s o c ia tio n a n d a s a n o rm a tiv e e th ic a l c o n c e p t. O ur
e x p e r ie n c e o f th e e m o tio n s f e l t b y o th e r s n o t o n ly c o n v e y s th e ir f e e lin g s to u s
b u t a ls o le a d s u s to fe e l c e r ta in p a in s a n d p le a s u r e s th a t th e m s e lv e s p r o m p t
s p e c i f ic b e h a v io r s . F o r S p in o z a , s y m p a th y is th u s c r u c i a l l y a c ti o n m o tiv a tin g ,
a n d in d e e d a c tio n m o tiv a tin g in a s o c ia lly s a lu ta ry m a n n e r: th a t w h ic h a ffe c ts
w ith p a in a th in g th a t w e p ity a ff e c ts u s to o w ith s im ila r p a in , a n d s o w e s h a ll
e n d e a v o r t o d e v i s e w h a t e v e r a n n u l s t h e e x i s t e n c e o f t h e f o r m e r o r d e s t r o y s it:
t h a t i s , w e s h a l l s e e k t o d e s t r o y it; i .e . w e s h a l l b e d e t e r m i n e d t o d e s t r o y it. S o
w e s h a l l e n d e a v o r t o f r e e f r o m i t s d i s t r e s s t h e t h i n g w e p i t y . 11
H e r e in lie s th e k e y p o in t. S y m p a th y le a d s u s to r e l i e v e th e d is tr e s s of
o th e r s ; in th is s e n s e i t s e r v e s o t h e r - d ir e c t e d p u r p o s e s . A t th e s a m e tim e , th e
m o tiv e b e h in d o u r s o d o in g is s e lf - in te r e s t; w e s e e k to r e l i e v e th e p a in o f
o th e r s b e c a u s e o f th e p a in th a t w e fe e l a s a c o n s e q u e n c e o f th e ir d is tr e s s .
S p in o z a lik e m a n y a f te r h im d o e s n o t e x p lic itly e n te r ta in th e p o s s ib i li ty th a t
s y m p a th e tic p a in s m ig h t l e a d th e ir p o s s e s s o r to f le e s u c h s c e n e s r a th e r th a n to
a l l e v i a t e th e m . I t m a y b e th a t th is w o u l d s im p ly m u d d y th e w a t e r s to s u c h a n
e x te n t th a t h is c e n tr a l c la i m w o u ld b e o b s c u r e d : th a t p ity p r o m p ts a f o r m o f
p ra c tic a lly b e n e fic ia l o th e r-d ire c te d e th ic a l a c tiv ity c o n s is te n t w ith h is
e g o c e n tr ic c o m m itm e n ts . T h is is n o t to s a y th a t h e f a ils to s e e th e lim ita tio n s o f
such a c o n c e p tio n ; in d e e d , S p in o z a e x p lic itly n o te s th a t fro m th e sam e
p r o p e r t y o f h u m a n n a t u r e f r o m w h i c h i t f o l l o w s t h a t m e n a r e c o m p a s s i o n a t e , it
l i k e w i s e f o l l o w s t h a t t h e y a r e p r o n e t o e n v y a n d a m b i t i o n . 12 B u t f o r n o w t h e
c r u c ia l p o in t is th a t S p in o z a la r g e ly in a u g u ra te s th e e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry tr a d itio n
o f th e o r iz in g a b o u t s y m p a th y b y a r tic u la tin g s e v e r a l d i s c r e te e le m e n ts o f th e
co n cep t as it w o u ld c o m e to b e u s e d , in c lu d in g e s p e c i a l l y th e c la i m th a t
s y m p a th y c o n c ern s id e n tific a tio n of one in d iv id u a l w ith a n o th e r v ia an
a s s o c i a ti v e p r o c e s s f o u n d e d o n r e s e m b la n c e , th e c la i m th a t s y m p a th y is a c tio n
m o tiv a tin g a n d l e a d s its p o s s e s s o r to s e e k to r e l i e v e th e d i s t r e s s o f o th e r s , a n d
th e c la i m th a t th e g r o u n d s f o r s u c h a c tio n is n o t a n a ltr u is tic c o n c e r n f o r o th e rs
b u t p r i n c i p a l l y a c o n c e r n f o r t h e s e l f a n d i ts p l e a s u r e s a n d p a i n s .
 3. Sympathy, Self-Interest, and Others

W h a t f o ll o w s ta k e s u p e a c h o f th e s e th e m e s in o r d e r to s h o w h o w th e s e th r e e
d is c r e te s tra n d s o f S p in o z a s th e o r y o f s y m p a th y c a m e to b e m u c h m o re
th o ro u g h ly d e v e l o p e d b y la te r e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry th e o r is ts . W e b e g in w i t h th e
m o s t c o m m o n w a y in w h ic h s y m p a th y w a s d is c u s s e d in th e e ig h te e n th c e n tu ry :
n a m e ly a s a n a c tio n - m o tiv a tin g s e n tim e n t c a p a b le o f s e r v in g to e s t a b l i s h s o c ia l
b o n d s b e tw e e n in d iv id u a ls . In te re s tin g ly , th is s id e o f s y m p a th y te n d s to r e c e iv e
th e l e a s t a tte n tio n f r o m s c h o la r s to d a y . T h is m a y b e b e c a u s e c o n te m p o r a r y
s c h o la r s h ip o n s y m p a th y e m e r g e d in p a r t o u t o f th e b a ttle s o v e r D a s A d a m
S m ith P r o b le m th a t had o c c u p ie d e a rlie r s c h o la r s . As an in flu e n tia l
g e n e r a tio n o f r e v is io n is ts d e m o n s tr a te d , th e n o to r io u s P r o b le m ( w h ic h
c o n c e r n s th e o s te n s ib le te n s io n b e tw e e n th e s u p p o s e d ly s e lf - in te r e s te d m o r a l
p s y c h o lo g y o f S m ith s W ealth o f N a tio n s a n d th e o th e r - d ir e c te d m o ra l
p s y c h o lo g y d e s c r i b e d in h is T h eo ry o f M o r a l S e n tim e n ts ) is in f a c t p r e d ic a te d
o n a f a ls e d ic h o to m y b e tw e e n s e lf - in te r e s t a n d s y m p a th y .13 M u c h g o o d c a m e
o u t o f th e s e r e v i s i o n i s t e ffo rts , in c lu d in g n o t o n ly a m o re s o p h is tic a te d
u n d e r s ta n d in g o f S m ith b u t a ls o a g r e a te r a p p r e c i a t i o n o f th e r o le o f m o ra l
s e n tim e n ts in ju d g m e n t m o re g e n e r a lly .14 A t th e s a m e tim e , th e c o u n te r r e a c tio n
to th e s im p lif ic a tio n s o n w h ic h D a s P r o b le m w a s fo u n d e d h a d th e e f f e c t o f
le a d i n g s c h o la r s to d is ta n c e s y m p a th y f r o m r e l a t e d o th e r - d ir e c te d s e n tim e n ts
lik e c o m p a s s io n a n d p ity a n d c h a rity , a n d to e m p h a s iz e in s te a d its r o l e a s a
m e c h a n is m o f e p is te m ic tr a n s f e r f o r th e p u r p o s e s o f c o n v e y in g p a s s io n s . O n e
r e s u l t o f th is h a s b e e n a l a c k o f e m p h a s is o n s y m p a th y a s a n a c tio n - m o tiv a tin g
s e n tim e n t c a p a b le o f e n c o u r a g in g r e c i p r o c a l c a r e a k e y e le m e n t o f th e
e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry d e fin itio n .
J o s e p h B u tle r s o u n d e d o n e o f th e f i r s t k e y n o te s f o r m u c h o f th e e ig h te e n th -
c e n tu r y d e b a te o n th is p o in t. I n h is in flu e n tia l d is c u s s io n o f c o m p a s s io n in h is
S e r m o n s , h e a r g u e d th a t h u m a n b e in g s , a s im p e r f e c t c r e a tu r e s , n e c e s s a r i l y
a lw a y s d e p e n d u p o n e a c h o th e r. 15 T h is s ta te o f p e r p e tu a l in te r d e p e n d e n c e is
fu r th e r e d b y s p e c if ic p a s s io n s n a tu ra l to h u m a n b e in g s th a t l e a d th e m to b e
r e tic e n t to b e c o m e th e a g e n ts o f a n o th e r s h a rm . T h u s c o m p a s s io n , a c c o r d in g to
B u tle r, m a y n o t l e a d its p o s s e s s o r a lw a y s to p ro m o te th e h a p p in e s s o f o th e rs ,
y e t it w i l l p r e v e n t h im f r o m d o in g e v i l a n d a t l e a s t s o m e tim e s in c lin e h im to
r e l i e v e th e d is t r e s s e d . 16 C o m p a s s io n th u s p r o v id e s a n e c e s s a r y a n d s a lu ta r y
c h e c k o n s e lf - in te r e s t, in th e a b s e n c e o f w h ic h m e n w o u ld c e r ta in ly b e m u c h
m o r e w a n tin g in th e o f f ic e s o f c h a r ity th e y o w e to e a c h o th e r, a n d l ik e w i s e
m o r e c r u e l a n d i n j u r i o u s , t h a n t h e y a r e a t p r e s e n t . 17 O t h e r e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y
th in k e r s w o u ld m a k e r e l a te d c la im s . F o r e m o s t a m o n g th e m is R o u s s e a u , w h o s e
s e c o n d D is c o u r s p r e s e n ts p i t i e a s o n e o f th e tw o p a s s io n s n a tu r a l to m e n , a n d
its e lf v a lu a b le n o t b e c a u s e it le a d s u s to d o p o s itiv e good but because it
c o m p e ls u s to b e r e t i c e n t to d o h a r m b y m o d e r a tin g in e v e r y in d iv id u a l th e
a c tiv ity o f s e lf - lo v e : a c h e c k th a t R o u s s e a u o f c o u rs e c la im s h a s b e e n w h o lly
a n d t r a g i c a l l y o v e r c o m e b y c i v i l i z a t i o n . 18 R o u s s e a u w o u l d e x t e n d t h i s c l a i m i n
E m ile , in a rg u in g th a t p i t i e h a s a s p e c if ic r o le to p l a y n o t j u s t in th e lif e o f th e
s a v a g e b u t a ls o in th e lif e o f c iv i li z e d m a n , in s o f a r a s a m o re c o g n itiv e ly
d e v e l o p e d p ity is r e s p o n s i b l e f o r r e g u la tin g a m o u r - p r o p r e , th e p a r t i c u l a r f o rm
o f s e l f - l o v e e n d e m i c t o d e v e l o p e d h u m a n b e i n g s . 19
B u tle r a n d R o u s s e a u , to g e th e r w i t h B e r n a r d M a n d e v ille , w h o d id m u c h to
s t i m u l a t e R o u s s e a u s t h i n k i n g o n p i t y i n t h i s s e n s e , t h u s s t a n d a t t h e h e a d o f
e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry tr a d itio n s o f th in k in g a b o u t th e n o r m a tiv e im p lic a tio n s o f
o th e r - d ir e c te d p a s s io n s s u c h a s p ity a n d c o m p a s s io n a s c h e c k s o n s e lf-in te re s t.
I n tim e l a t e r th in k e r s w o u l d c o m e to r e g a r d s y m p a th y i t s e l f th ro u g h th is le n s .
C i t i n g B u t l e r s a c c o u n t o f c o m p a s s i o n , t h e i n f l u e n t i a l A b e r d e e n p h i l o s o p h e r
D a v id F o r d y c e o b s e r v e d th a t s y m p a th y s ta n d s a s a s e c u r ity d e v is e d b y G o d
f o r th e p u b lic w e ll- b e in g , o n e th a t d r a w s u s o u t o f o u r s e lv e s to b e a r a p a r t o f
th e m is f o rtu n e s o f o th e r s , p o w e r f u lly s o lic its u s in th e ir fa v o r, m e lts u s a t a
s ig h t o f th e ir d i s t r e s s , a n d m a k e s u s i n s o m e d e g r e e u n h a p p y u n til th e y a r e
r e l i e v e d f r o m it. S y m p a th e tic c o m p a s s io n is th u s p a r t i c u l a r l y w e l l a d a p te d
to th e c o n d itio n o f h u m a n l if e in s o f a r a s it p r o v id e s a n a d m ir a b le r e s tr a in t
u p o n th e m o r e s e lf is h p a s s io n s , o r th o s e v i o le n t im p u ls e s th a t c a r r y u s to th e
h u r t o f o t h e r s . 20 T h u s t h e e v i d e n c e t h a t m e n a r e f o r m e d f o r s o c i e t y a n d t h e
d e lig h tfu l in te r c h a n g e o f f r ie n d ly s e n tim e n ts a n d d u tie s lie s p r e c i s e l y in th a t
in s ta n ta n e o u s s y m p a th y b y w h i c h th e im p u ls e s o f p le a s u r e o r p a in , j o y o r
s o r r o w , m a d e o n o n e m i n d a r e c o m m u n i c a t e d i n s o m e d e g r e e t o a l l . 21
T h is a s p e c t o f s y m p a th y w o u ld r e c e iv e fu rth e r im p o rta n t e x p re s s io n s fro m
a d iv e rs e ran g e o f th in k e rs c ro s s in g se v era l tr a d itio n s in c lu d in g , am ong
o th e rs , s u c h p r o m in e n t th in k e rs a s E d m u n d B u rk e ; H e n r y H o m e , L o r d K a m e s ;
Im m an u el K a n t; and S o p h ie de G ro u c h y . Thus B u rk e , in h is account of
s y m p a th y in h is P h ilo s o p h ic a l E n q u ir y , n o te s :

as our Creator has designed that we should be united by the bond of sympathy, he has strengthened
 that bond by a proportionable delight; and there most where our sympathy is most wanted, in the
distresses of others... . The delight we have in such things, hinders us from shunning scenes of
misery; and the pain we feel, prompts us to relieve ourselves in relieving those who suffer; and all
this antecedent to any reasoning, by an instinct that works us to its own purposes, without our
concurrence. 22

B u r k e s s t a t e m e n t a t t e s t s t o h i s b e l i e f t h a t t h e p a r t i c u l a r p a i n s a n d p l e a s u r e s
th a t w e h a v e b e e n ta u g h t to fe e l b y n a tu re s tr o n g ly in c lin e ( i f n o t c o m p e l) u s to
c o m e to th e a s s is ta n c e o f s u f f e r in g o th e r s , a s th e p le a s u r e d e r i v e d f r o m s o
d o in g o u tru n s th e m e r e r e l i e f o f p a in w e c o u ld e x p e c t to e x p e r ie n c e w e r e w e
to s im p ly f le e s u c h s c e n e s a n d tr y to f o r g e t a b o u t th e m . A r e l a t e d p o s i t i o n is
d e v e lo p e d b y H u m e , w h o c a ll s h u m a n ity i t s e l f a p r o x y f o r s y m p a th y in h is
la t e r e th ic s th e o n ly p a s s i o n th a t c a n a lo n e b e th e f o u n d a tio n o f a n y g e n e ra l
s y s te m a n d e s ta b lis h e d th e o ry o f b la m e o r a p p r o b a tio n , a n d m o re p o in te d ly
b y K a m e s , w h o c a lls s y m p a th y th e c e m e n t o f h u m a n s o c ie ty a s it a tta c h e s u s
to a n o b je c t in d is tr e s s s o p o w e r f u lly a s e v e n to o v e r b a la n c e s e lf - lo v e , w h ic h
w o u l d m a k e u s f l y f r o m i t . 23 F o r K a m e s , s y m p a t h y s t a n d s a s t h e p a s s i o n t o
w h ic h h u m a n s o c ie ty is in d e b te d f o r its g r e a te s t b le s s in g , th a t o f p r o v id in g
r e l i e f f o r t h e d i s t r e s s e d . 24 I n d e e d s o c i e t y c o u l d h a r d l y b e i m a g i n e d w i t h o u t it:

as no state is exempt from misfortunes, mutual sympathy must greatly promote the security and
happiness of mankind. That the prosperity and preservation of each individual should be the care of
many, tends more to happiness in general, than that each man, as the single inhabitant of a desert
island, should be left to stand or fall by himself, without prospect of regard or assistance from
others.25

T h is p e r s p e c tiv e can even be fo u n d in th e p r e c r it ic a l K a n t, f o r w h o m

s y m p a th y a n d c o m p la is a n c e a re g ro u n d s fo r b e a u tifu l a c tio n s th a t w o u ld
p e rh a p s a ll b e s u ff o c a te d b y th e p r e p o n d e r a n c e o f a c ru d e r s e lf -in te r e s t,
th o u g h e v e n i n h is p r e c r it ic a l s ta g e K a n t to o k c a r e to n o te th a t s y m p a th y is
n e v e rth e le s s w e a k a n d is a lw a y s b lin d , a n d n o t e n o u g h to d r iv e in d o le n t
h u m a n n a tu re to a c tio n s f o r th e c o m m o n w e a l . 26 I n h i s m o s t p ro m in e n t
c o m m e n ts o n s y m p a th y K a n t q u ite n o to r io u s ly s u g g e s ts th a t e v e n i f a c tio n s
d o n e o u t o f s y m p a th y m ig h t c o n f o r m w ith d u ty th e y s h o u ld n o t b e m is ta k e n
f o r a c t i o n s d o n e f r o m d u t y 27 Y e t t h i s c l a i m s h o u l d i t s e l f b e r e a d a g a i n s t h i s
c la i m in th e M e ta p h y s ic s o f M o r a ls th a t e v e n th o u g h w e in d e e d a r e u n d e r n o
d u ty to sh a re th e s u ffe rin g s o f o th e r s , we y e t in d e e d have a d u ty to
s y m p a th iz e a c t i v e l y in th e i r f a te , a n d th u s h a v e a n i n d i r e c t d u ty to c u ltiv a te
o u r b e n e v o le n t a f f e c tio n s in s o f a r a s th e y c a n h e lp to s p u r u s to o u r g e n u in e
d u ty . T h u s K a n t t o o i n s i s t s t h a t i t i s a d u t y n o t t o a v o i d t h e p l a c e s w h e r e t h e
p o o r w h o l a c k th e m o s t b a s ic n e c e s s itie s a r e to b e fo u n d b u t r a th e r to s e e k
th e m o u t, a n d in d e e d u ltim a te ly c o u n ts s y m p a th y a s a m o n g th e im p u ls e s
n a t u r e h a s i m p l a n t e d i n u s t o d o w h a t t h e r e p r e s e n t a t i o n s o f d u t y a l o n e m ig h t
n o t a c c o m p l i s h . 28
P e rh ap s no e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry th in k e r e m p h a s iz e d th is s id e o f s y m p a th y
q u ite s o s tr o n g ly a s S o p h ie d e G ro u c h y . In h e r in flu e n tia l w r itin g s o n s y m p a th y
d e G r o u c h y c a l l s s p e c i a l a tte n tio n to th o s e n e w b o n d s o f s y m p a th y th a t u n ite
u s w i t h o th e r m e n a n d c o n s titu te a n in d is s o lu b le tie b e tw e e n o u r s e lv e s a n d
o u r fe llo w m e n . 29 H e r e i n i n d e e d l i e s t h e c h i e f i m p o r t o f s y m p a t h y o n h e r
d e fin itio n :

sympathy is the first cause of the feeling of humanity, the effects of which are so precious. It
compensates for a portion of the evils issuing from personal interests in large societies, and it
struggles against the coercive force that we encounter everywhere we go and that centuries of
Enlightenment alone can destroy by attacking the vices that have produced it! Amid the shock of so
many passions that oppress the w eak or marginalize the unfortunate, from the bottom of its heart
humanity secretly pleads the cause of sympathy and avenges it from the injustice of fate by
arousing the sentiment of natural equality.

I n a ll th e s e d is c u s s io n s t w o e le m e n ts a r e p a r t i c u l a r l y n o te w o rth y . T h e f i r s t is
th e c la i m th a t th e v a lu e o f s y m p a th y lie s in its c a p a c i ty to c h e c k th e p e r n ic io u s
e ff e c ts o f s e lf - in te r e s t. T h e s e c o n d is th e c la i m th a t s y m p a th y le a d s u s to a s s is t
o th e rs . T h is is w o r t h e m p h a s iz in g b e c a u s e it n o t o n ly te s tif ie s to th e u b iq u ity o f
th e e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry c o n c e p tio n o f s y m p a th y a s a c tio n m o tiv a tin g , b u t a ls o
s u g g e sts o n e p o s s ib le a n s w e r to o u r la r g e r q u e s tio n c o n c e rn in g w h y s y m p a th y
c a m e to h a v e s u c h b r o a d a n d d e e p a p p e a l f o r e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry th in k e rs . In
b rie f: th e in s is te n c e on s y m p a t h y s c a p a c ity to check s e lf-in te re s t a n d to
p ro m p t o th e r - re g a rd in g e th ic a l a c tio n m a y o w e a t le a s t in p a rt to a g e n e ra l fe a r
th a t s e lf - i n t e r e s t w a s o n th e r i s e a n d b e n e v o le n c e o n th e w a n e . T r a c in g th e
c a u s e s o f th is f e a r w o u ld g o w e ll b e y o n d th e s c o p e o f th is c h a p te r, b u t it s e e m s
a t l e a s t p o s s i b l e th a t th e r o o t o f th is c o n c e r n lie s in s o m e f a m ilia r e ig h te e n th -
c e n tu r y p h e n o m e n a . F r o m th e u r b a n iz a tio n th a t b r o u g h t m o re s tr a n g e rs to g e th e r
a s n e ig h b o r s th a n e v e r b e f o r e to th e c o m m e r c i a l i z a t io n th a t b r o u g h t t r a d e r s in to
e v e r m o r e c o n ta c t w i t h d is ta n t o th e r s a n d e x p a n d e d th e p u b lic s p h e r e a t h o m e ,
to th e im p e r ia li s m a n d c o lo n iz a tio n th a t p u s h e d E u r o p e a n s a c r o s s th e g lo b e : a ll
o f th e s e phenom ena can be u n d e rs to o d to have c o n trib u te d in th e ir ow n
d if f e r e n t w a y s to th e l ib e r a t io n o f s e lf - in te r e s t a n d th e r e b y to a c h a lle n g in g o f
t r a d i ti o n a l c o n c e p ts o f n e ig h b o r lo v e . T h e s e c o n c e r n s , i t th u s s e e m s r e a s o n a b le
t o s u g g e s t , l i k e l y c o n t r i b u t e d t o t h e e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y s e m b r a c e o f s y m p a t h y
as a p a rtia l re m e d y fo r th e n e g a tiv e e x te rn a litie s a s s o c ia te d w ith th e s e
s im u lta n e o u s ly p r o g r e s s iv e a n d d is lo c a tin g p h e n o m e n a .
 4. Sy m p a t h y a n d Ph y s i o l o g y

To th is p o in t m y p r im a r y a i m h a s b e e n to d e m o n s tra te th a t th e e ig h te e n th -
c e n tu r y c o n c e p t o f s y m p a th y h a d a n o r m a tiv e p u r p o s e . Y e t to s a y th a t s y m p a th y
w a s p r i n c i p a l l y c o n c e iv e d a s a r e s p o n s e to a p r a c tic a l p r o b l e m b e g s a n o th e r
m o re fu n d a m e n ta l q u e s tio n : w h y w a s s y m p a th y p e r s e th e a n s w e r to th is
p r o b le m ? P u t d iffe re n tly , e v e n i f s y m p a th y is in d e e d b e s t r e g a r d e d a s a n
a n s w e r to th e p r o b l e m o f h u m a n a s s o c ia tio n , e x a c tly w h y d id its e ig h te e n th -
c e n tu r y th e o r is ts th in k it a n d n o t s o m e o th e r c o n c e p t o r c a te g o r y th e b e s t
a n s w e r to th is p r o b le m ?
T h e r e a s o n s f o r th is w o u ld s e e m to b e tw o f o ld . T h e f i r s t is th a t th e
p r in c ip a l e x ta n t a lte r n a tiv e to s y m p a th y w a s in c r e a s in g ly c o m in g to be
r e g a r d e d a s le s s v i a b l e a s a s o lu tio n . L o v e , th a t is , c o n c e iv e d a s th e c h a r ity
th a t b o u n d n e ig h b o r s to g e th e r, r e q u ir e d e p is te m ic c o m m itm e n ts th a t e ig h te e n th -
c e n tu r y th in k e rs b e c a m e in c r e a s in g ly le s s w i l l i n g to m a k e . T h e r e a s o n s fo r
s u c h a r e e a s i l y e n o u g h s e e n . T h e G o s p e l c o m m a n d m e n t to lo v e th y n e ig h b o r
w a s o f c o u r s e o n e o f tw o c o m m a n d s , th e f i r s t b e in g to lo v e G o d w i t h a ll o n e s
h e a r t a n d a ll o n e s stre n g th . O n ly a f te r th is f ir s t c o m m a n d w a s f u lf ille d w a s it
p o s s i b l e to p u r s u e th e s e c o n d . T h is d e c i s i v e l y s h a p e d th e n a tu re a n d fu n c tio n
o f c a r ita s, a s lo v e f o r o n e s s e l f a n d f o r o n e s n e ig h b o r c a m e to b e m e d ia te d
a n d in f o r m e d b y th e lo v e o f th e d iv in e ; in d e e d th e v e r y r e a s o n w h y i t is g o o d
to lo v e s e l f a n d n e ig h b o r a lik e a n d e q u a ll y is th e b e l i e f th a t b o th a r e c r e a te d in
G o d s im a g e . 31 T h is v i e w w a s h a r d ly a b s e n t in e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry d e b a te ;
in d e e d th e E n g lis h p h ilo s o p h e r D a v id H a r tle y h i m s e l f a p ro m in e n t
c o n tr ib u to r to d e b a te s o v e r th e n a tu re a n d f u n c tio n o f e p is te m ic a s s o c ia ti o n is m
in s is t e d i n th e c o u r s e o f h is d e m o n s tr a tio n th a t g o o d w ill a n d b e n e v o le n c e
g r o w e v e r w e a k e r a n d w e a k e r a s th e y a r e e x te n d e d m o re a n d m o r e :

Yet still the common blessings and calamities, which fall upon whole nations and communities; the
general resemblance of the circumstances of all mankind to each other, in their passage through life;
their common relation to God as their creator, governor, and father; their common concern in a
future life, and in the religion of Christ, &c.; are capable of raising strong sympathetic actions
towards all mankind, and the several larger divisions of it, in persons of religious dispositions, who
32
duly attend to these things.

Y e t o n th e w h o le , e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry e p is te m o lo g y te n d e d to s e p a r a te s y m p a th y
f r o m th e is m , a n d in d e e d to p r e s e n t s y m p a th y a s a s u b s titu te f o r a c a r ita s w h o s e
th e is tic fo u n d a tio n s w e r e in c r e a s in g ly r e g a r d e d a s e p is t e m ic a lly u n a v a ila b le ;
in th is s e n s e , s y m p a th y s o u g h t to ta k e u s s tr a ig h t to n e ig h b o r lo v e w ith o u t
b e c o m in g w a y l a i d b y th e n e c e s s ity o f a l e x i c a l l y p r i o r lo v e o f G o d .33 It is fo r
th is r e a s o n , o n e s u s p e c ts , th a t a n u m b e r o f th e m o s t s tr ik in g a n d p ro m in e n t
e x p l i c i t in v o c a tio n s in e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry p h ilo s o p h y o f th e b i b l i c a l c o m m a n d
to lo v e o n e s n e ig h b o r a s o n e s s e l f in c lu d in g th o s e o f S m ith a n d R o u s s e a u
a n d K a n t a r e s ile n t o n th e f i r s t c o m m a n d .34 B u t th e r e is a ls o a s e c o n d
e p is te m ic re a so n fo r s y m p a th y s ascen d en cy . E ven as e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry
th in k e rs g r e w m o re s k e p tic a l t o w a r d th e tr a n s c e n d e n t, th e y c a m e e v e r m o re to
e m b r a c e th e im m a n e n t, a n d th u s c h a lle n g e s to th e is m a r o s e s im u lta n e o u s ly w ith
r e n e w e d in te r e s t in th e n a tu re o f b o th h u m a n p h y s io lo g y a n d p h y s ic a l m a tte r.
I n p h y s io lo g y , th e p a r tic u la r ly im p o r ta n t p o in t c o n c e r n e d n o t c o r p o r e a l ity
m e re ly , b u t a p a r tic u la r a s p e c t o f c o r p o r e a lity : s e n s a tio n . The s tu d y o f
s e n s a tio n s to o d a t th e f o r e f r o n t o f s e v e r a l o f th e f ie ld s o f in q u ir y f o c u s e d o n
s y m p a th y in th e e ig h te e n th c e n tu ry , in c lu d in g e s p e c i a l l y th e m e d ic a l and
p h y s io lo g ic a l r e s e a r c h e s th a t f lo u r is h e d in E d in b u r g h in its m id d le d e c a d e s ,
a n d th e e p is te m o lo g ic a l s tu d ie s b e in g c o n d u c te d in P a r is d u r in g th e s a m e
p e r io d . A s h a s b e e n n o te d w i t h r e g a r d to th e fo rm e r, S c o ttis h p h y s ic ia n s
r e g a r d e d s y m p a th y a s a n e x te n s io n o f s e n s ib ility , w h ic h e n a b le d th e m to
g e n e r a te fru itfu l a s s o c ia ti o n s o f th e a c ti o n o f s e n s a tio n , th e c o o r d in a tio n o f
o rg a n s in th e b o d y , a n d th e s o c ia l p r i n c i p l e th a t a l l o w s f e l l o w - f e e l i n g to
e m e r g e in a s o c ie ty . 35 S o to o in F r a n c e , w h e r e th e E n c y c lo p e d is te s a n d th e ir
a l l i e s r e c o g n iz e d in s y m p a th y a ty p e o f s o c ia l b o n d th a t c o m p o r te d w e l l w ith
th e ir e m p h a s is o n th e p r im a c y o f s e n s a tio n in e p is te m ic fu n c tio n in g . I n th is
v e in , th e E n c y c lo p e d ie i t s e l f in c lu d e d tw o s u b s ta n tia l e n tr ie s f o r sy m p a th ie ,
w i t h th e f i r s t ( b y J e a n d A le m b e r t) d e d ic a te d to th e p r e d i l e c t i o n th a t c e r ta in
b o d ie s h a v e to u n ite o r j o i n a s a r e s u l t o f a c e r t a i n r e s e m b la n c e , a n d th e
s e c o n d ( b y L o u is d e J a u c o u r t) d e d ic a te d to c o m m u n ic a tio n th a t th e p a r ts o f
th e b o d y h a v e w i t h e a c h o th e r, a n d w h ic h h o ld s th e m in a m u tu a l d e p e n d e n c e ,
a n d tr a n s p o r ts to o n e p a r t th e p a in s a n d m a la d ie s w h ic h a f f lic t a n o th e r . 36 In
b o th tr e a tm e n ts , s y m p a th y s e r v e d to r e p l a c e a n e e d f o r r e c o u r s e to th e is tic
f o u n d a tio n a lis m w i t h a m o re im m e d ia te s e t o f e m p ir ic a l c r i t e r i a a v a i l a b l e to
a ll s e n s in g b e in g s .
T h is lin e o f th in k in g w o u ld be p a r tic u la r ly d e v e lo p e d in F r a n c e in
d is c u s s io n s o f s o c ia b ilite , w h ic h , a s H a n s A a r s l e f f h a s n o te d , c o m m o n ly
p l a y e d a r o l e i n F r e n c h - la n g u a g e d e b a te s s im i la r to th a t p l a y e d b y s y m p a th y in
E n g l i s h - l a n g u a g e d e b a t e s . 37 I n t h i s v e i n C l a u d e H e l v e t i u s m i g h t p r o c l a i m , i n
o n e o f h i s c h a p t e r h e a d i n g s i n D e I h o m m e , t h a t l a s e n s i b i l i t e p h y s i q u e e s t l a
c a u s e u n iq u e d e n o s a c tio n s , d e n o s p e n s e e s , d e n o s p a s s io n s , e t d e n o tre
s o c ia b i li te a n d a rg u e th a t it is p r e c i s e l y th is p h y s ic a l s e n s ib ility th a t g iv e s
r i s e t o o u r a f f e c t i v e i n t e r p e r s o n a l b o n d s . 38 T h i s c l a i m p e r h a p s r e c e i v e s i ts
f u lle s t d e v e lo p m e n t in th e w o r k o f th e p h y s io lo g is t P i e r r e C a b a n is , w h o n o t
o n l y o f f e r s o n e o f t h e c e n t u r y s b e s t d e v e l o p e d a c c o u n t s o f t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p
b e tw e e n s y m p a th y a n d im m e d ia te p h y s ic a l s e n s a tio n b u t a ls o goes o n to
s u g g e s t th a t th e p r o p e r e d u c a tio n a n d c u ltiv a tio n o f s u c h m ig h t in tim e e n g e n d e r
a s p e c i f ic a ll y m o ra l s y m p a th y o f a ty p e th a t h e e x p lic itly a s s o c ia te s w ith
b o t h F r a n c i s H u t c h e s o n a n d S m i t h a n d h i s s i s t e r - i n - l a w d e G r o u c h y . 39 A n d i t i s
i n d e G r o u c h y s w o r k t h a t w e f i n d o n e o f t h e b e s t - d e v e l o p e d v e r s i o n s o f t h i s
l i n e o f t h in k i n g . F o r d e G r o u c h y , s y m p a t h y i s t h e d i s p o s i t i o n w e h a v e t o f e e l
a s o t h e r s d o ( l a d i s p o s i t i o n q u e n o u s a v o n s a s e n t i r d u n e m a n i e r e s e m b l a b l e
a c e l l e d a u t r u i ). I n l a r g e p a r t t h i s t o o k t h e f o r m o f f e e l i n g t h e i r p a i n s v i a a n
e x te n s io n o f our s e n s ib ility th ro u g h th e im a g in a tio n ; hence de G r o u c h y s
e x p lic it c la im th a t r e p r o d u c tio n o f th e g e n e r a l im p r e s s io n o f p a in o n o u r
o r g a n s d e p e n d s o n s e n s i b i l i t y a n d a b o v e a l l o n t h e i m a g i n a t i o n . 40 T h i s w o u l d
b e a f a m ilia r c la i m b y th e tim e i t w a s p u b lis h e d in 1 7 9 8 , y e t d e G r o u c h y g a v e
it a n im p o r ta n t tu r n th a t s e r v e d to c o n n e c t th e n o r m a tiv e e le m e n ts o f s y m p a th y
to its s e n s a t io n a l is t o r ig in s : O f w h a t g r e a t im p o r ta n c e i t is , th e r e f o r e , to tr a in
t h e s e n s i b i l i t y o f c h i l d r e n s o t h a t i t m a y d e v e l o p t o i ts f u l l e s t c a p a c i t y i n th e m .
T h e ir s e n s i b i li ty n e e d s to r e a c h th a t p o in t w h e r e it c a n n o lo n g e r b e d u lle d b y
th in g s th a t in th e c o u r s e o f lif e te n d to l e a d i t a s tra y , to c a r r y u s f a r f r o m n a tu re
a n d f r o m o u r s e lv e s , a n d to c o n c e n tr a te o u r s e n s i b i l i t y in a ll th e p a s s io n s o f
e g o is m or v a n i t y . 41 D e G ro u ch y , lik e o th e r e ig h te e n th -c e n tu ry s y m p a th y
th e o ris ts , w o u ld have re s is te d our fa m ilia r d is tin c tio n to d a y b e tw e e n th e
e m p ir ic a l a n d th e n o r m a tiv e . O w in g in p a r t to th e ir c o n c e p tio n o f s e n s a tio n , fo r
e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y t h e o r i s t s , s y m p a t h y i s e m p i r i c a l t r u t h o f t h e f i r s t w a t e r . 42
A t th e s a m e tim e , th e y r e g a r d e d th e c u lt iv a t io n o f s y m p a th y a s a n e c e s s a r y d u ty
i f b o n d s o f f e llo w f e e lin g w e r e to b e s u s ta in e d in a w o r ld in w h ic h s u c h b o n d s
o fte n seem ed b e s ie g e d . A nd fo r th is , n a tu ra l s e n tim e n t a lo n e w ith o u t
c u ltiv a tio n w as s im p ly to o w eak; r e p re s e n ta tiv e in th is v e in is M a ry
W o lls to n e c ra ft, w ho a rg u e d in her d is c u s s io n o f th e f a m ily th a t n a tu ra l
a ffe c tio n , a s it is te rm e d , I b e lie v e to b e a v e r y w e a k tie , a ffe c tio n s m u st g r o w
o u t o f t h e h a b i t u a l e x e r c i s e o f a m u tu a l s y m p a t h y . 43 I n m a k i n g s u c h c l a i m s ,
b o th W o lls to n e c ra ft a n d de G ro u c h y re v e a l th e in flu e n c e o f th e ir c a re fu l
e n g a g e m e n ts w i t h R o u s s e a u , w h o g a v e in h is E m ile p e r h a p s th e e ig h te e n th
c e n t u r y s b e s t a n d f u l l e s t a c c o u n t o f h o w n a t u r a l s e n s a t i o n m i g h t b e c u l t i v a t e d
i n a m a n n e r th a t b e s t p r o m o te s th e s p r e a d o f th e jo y f u l n e s s o f lo v in g h u m a n ity
a n d s e r v i n g i t . 44
S y m p a th y th u s n o t o n ly o f f e r e d a n o r m a tiv e r e s p o n s e to a p r e s s i n g p r o b le m
b u t d id s o in a m a n n e r c o n g e n ia l to a n d c o m m e n s u ra te w i t h c e r ta in m o v e m e n ts
in e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry n a tu ra l p h ilo s o p h y a n d e p is te m o lo g y . I n a n a g e o b s e s s e d
w i t h th e in v e s tig a tio n o f th e c o n n e c tio n s th a t b o u n d to g e th e r s e e m in g ly d is c r e te
e n titie s s y m p a th y s tru c k a c h o rd in s o fa r as it p re s e n te d th e c o n n e c tio n s
b e tw e e n d is c re te h u m a n in d iv id u a ls in a m a n n e r a n a lo g o u s to a n d a lre a d y
f a m ilia r fro m n u m e ro u s p ro m in e n t a c c o u n ts o f a ttra c tio n s b e tw e e n n o n h u m a n
e n titie s a c r o s s th e n a tu r a l a n d p h y s ic a l s c ie n c e s . B is h o p G e o r g e B e r k e le y in
th is v e i n th u s d e s c r i b e s th a t s y m p a th y i n o u r n a tu r e w h e r e b y w e f e e l th e p a in s
a n d j o y s o f o u r f e l l o w - c r e a t u r e s p r e c i s e l y b y m e a n s o f s u c h a n a n a lo g y :

As the attractive power in bodies is the most universal principle which produceth innumerable
effects, and is the key to explain the various phenomena of nature; so the corresponding social
appetite in human souls is the great spring and source of moral actions. This it is that inclines each
individual to an intercourse with his species, and models everyone to that behavior which best suits
with common well-being.45

S o to o th e g r e a t A b e r d e e n p h i lo s o p h e r G e o r g e T u rn b u ll:

A careful examiner will find, that all our affections and passions are not only well-suited to our
external circumstances; but that they themselves, and all the laws or methods of exercising them,
with their different consequences, have a very exact correspondence with, and analogy to the
sensible world, and its laws. Is there not an obvious similarity between the principle of gravitation
toward a common center, and universal benevolence, in their operation? ... Homogeneous bodies
more easily coalesce than others: and so is it with minds. For is not friendship a particular sympathy
of minds analogous to that particular tendency we may observe in certain bodies to run together and
mix or adhere? Compassion, or a disposition to relieve the distressed, is it not similar to that
tendency we observe in nutritious particles of several kinds, to run to the supply of wants in bodies
which they are respectively proper to supply.46

S y m p a th y , c o n c e i v e d a s th e m o r a l c o n n e c tio n th a t b in d s o n e in d iv id u a l to
a n o t h e r f o u n d e d o n t h e r e c o g n i t i o n o f t h e i r m u tu a l s a m e n e s s , w a s t h u s d e e p l y
i n d e b t e d f o r i ts r i s e t o t h e u b i q u i t o u s d i s c o u r s e o n a t t r a c t i o n a n d a c t i o n a t a
d is ta n c e th a t d o m in a te d e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry p h ilo s o p h y a c r o s s s e v e r a l b r a n c h e s
 ra n g in g f r o m tre a tm e n ts o f b o th p la n e t a r y m o v e m e n t a n d g r a v ita tio n in
a s tr o n o m y to d is c u s s io n s o f e le c tr ic ity , m a g n e tis m , a n d e le c tiv e a f f in itie s in
p h y s ic s a n d c h e m is try , to d is c u s s io n s o f p r o c e s s c o o r d in a tio n in th e b o d y in
m e d ic in e and p h y s io lo g y , to d is c u s s io n s o f th e a s s o c i a t i o n o f id e a s in
e p is te m o lo g y .47 A n d v e r y o f te n th e s e d is c u s s io n s to o k p la c e in a g e n u in e ly
i n te r d is c ip lin a r y fa s h io n ; th u s G o e th e , in h is c e le b ra te d novel D ie
W a h lve rw a n d tsch a ften , u s e d th e la w s o f c h e m ic a l e le c tiv e a f f in itie s to
d e s c r ib e th e p r o c e s s o f h u m a n ro m a n tic c o u p lin g , a n d th e w e l l - r e g a r d e d
A m e r ic a n p h y s ic i a n a n d s ta te s m a n B e n ja m in R u s h u s e d th e la w s o f c o r p o r e a l
s y m p a th y to a rg u e f o r th e s y s te m o f in te r n a tio n a l f r e e t r a d e .48 In th e s e a n d m a n y
o th e r c a s e s , e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry id e a s o f h u m a n s y m p a th y r e p r e s e n te d th e
e x te n s io n in to th e m o r a l r e a l m o f a p r in c ip le a l r e a d y c e n tr a l to s e v e r a l o th e r
b r a n c h e s o f p h ilo s o p h y .49
 5. Th e En d a n d the Me a n s

T h u s fa r w e h a v e s e e n th a t e ig h te e n th -c e n tu ry s y m p a th y w a s d e v e lo p e d a s a
n o r m a tiv e p h ilo s o p h ic a l r e s p o n s e to a p r e s s i n g p r a c t ic a l p r o b le m a n d th a t th is
r e s p o n s e to o k th e p a r tic u la r f o r m it d id in th e e ig h te e n th c e n tu r y b e c a u s e o f
c e rta in m o v e m e n ts and te n d e n c ie s on th e ris e in se v era l b ran c h e s of
c o n te m p o r a r y p h ilo s o p h y . Y e t f o r a ll th is , a th ir d q u e s tio n r e m a in u n a n s w e re d :
n a m e ly , g r a n tin g th a t s y m p a th y o f f e r e d a fittin g a n s w e r to a s p e c if ic q u e s tio n ,
and in d e e d a tim e ly a n s w e r to th is q u e s tio n , to w h a t d e g re e o u g h t it b e
r e g a r d e d a s a g o o d a n s w e r? In p a rtic u la r, w a s s y m p a th y in f a c t c a p a b le o f
p r o v id i n g th e c h e c k o n s e lf - i n t e r e s t a n d c o n c o m ita n t e n c o u r a g e m e n t o f o th e r -
d i r e c te d f e e lin g th a t it p r o m is e d ?
T h is q u e s tio n b r in g s u s to w h a t m ig h t b e r e g a r d e d a s a te n s i o n b e t w e e n th e
e n d o f s y m p a th y a n d th e m e a n s o f s y m p a th y . T h e f i r s t s e c t i o n o f th e c h a p te r
a rg u e s th a t th e p r im a r y a im o f s y m p a th y w a s to c h e c k th e p o te n tia lly p e r n ic io u s
e ffe c ts o f s e lf-in te re s t. The s u b se q u e n t s e c tio n goes o n to a rg u e th a t th e
s y m p a th y th e o r is ts o f th e e ig h te e n th c e n tu r y e n v is io n e d a m e a n s t o w a r d th is
e n d n o t s im p ly e q u iv a le n t to p o s itin g th e s o r t o f s e lf le s s o th e r - d ir e c te d n e s s w e
t o d a y a s s o c i a t e w i t h a l t r u i s m . O n t h e c o n t r a r y , s y m p a t h y s e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y
a p p e a l la y in th e f a c t th a t f a r f r o m r e q u ir in g tr a n s c e n d e n c e o f a ll c o n c e r n fo r
th e s e lf , its m e a n s o f s e n s itiz in g its p o s s e s s o r to th e p a in s a n d p l e a s u r e s o f
o th e r s w a s p r e c i s e l y th e p l e a s u r e s a n d p a in s e x p e r i e n c e d b y th e s e lf. Y e t th is
m o v e m a y le a d us to w o n d e r w h e th e r in fa c t a s y s te m p r e d ic a te d o n s u c h a
m e c h a n is m is l ik e ly to ( s o to s p e a k ) g e t u s w h e r e i t w a n ts to g o .
T h is te n s io n b e tw e e n e n d s a n d m e a n s s e e m s p a r tic u la r ly p ro n o u n c e d in
th o s e th e o r is ts m o s t c o n c e r n e d to d e fe n d s y m p a th y a s a c o u n te r to f a m ilia r
fo rm s o f p s y c h o lo g ic a l a n d e th ic a l e g o is m . T h is p r o je c t w a s o f c o u rse a
c e n tra l c o m p o n e n t o f e ig h te e n th -c e n tu ry e th ic s , e s p e c ia lly in B rita in , w ith
p a r tis a n s o f n a tu r a l h u m a n s o c ia b i li ty a n d th e e x is te n c e o f a g e n u in e c a p a c ity
fo r b e n e v o le n t c o n c e r n fo r o th e rs ra n g e d a g a in s t th o s e w h o r e d u c e d a ll e th ic a l
a c t i o n t o m a n i f e s t a t i o n s o f s e l f - i n t e r e s t o r s e l f - l o v e . 50 I n t h e f o r m e r c a m p w e r e
f ig u re s s u c h a s th e E a r l o f S h a f te s b u ry a n d H u tc h e s o n , w h o s a w th e m s e lv e s a s
th e v a n g u a r d o f a n o f f e n s iv e a g a in s t th e e g o is m o f th e la tte r c a m p . H o b b e s a n d
M a n d e v ille in p a rtic u la r had done m u c h to s p u r th e d e fe n d e rs o f o th e r-
d ir e c te d n e s s to a c tio n , s p e c i f ic a ll y b y in s is tin g th a t e v e n th e m o s t e n g a g in g o f
t h e o t h e r - d i r e c t e d p a s s i o n s h a s s e l f - i n t e r e s t a t i ts c o r e ; t h u s H o b b e s e q u a t e d
p ity w ith c o m p a s s io n and fe llo w - fe e lin g , and n o to rio u s ly a rg u e d th a t
g r ie f , f o r th e c a la m ity o f a n o th e r, is p ity ; a n d a r i s e th f r o m th e im a g in a tio n th a t
t h e l i k e c a l a m i t y m a y b e f a l l h i m s e l f . 51 M a n d e v i l l e , i n a s i m i l a r v e i n , r e d u c e d
c h a rity to a m eans o f m itig a tin g a n x ie ty : T h u s th o u sa n d s g iv e m o n e y to
b e g g a r s f r o m t h e s a m e m o t i v e a s t h e y p a y t h e i r c o r n - c u t t e r , t o w a l k e a s y . 52
W r i t la r g e i n b o th H o b b e s a n d M a n d e v i l le is th u s th e p s y c h o lo g ic a l e g o is m
th a t w e s a w in S p in o z a . A n d it w a s o f c o u r s e p r e c i s e l y th is th a t th e d e fe n d e r s
o f o t h e r - d i r e c t e d n e s s s o u g h t t o c o u n t e r i n d e v e l o p i n g t h e i r i d e a o f s y m p a th y .
B u t e x a c tly h o w s u c c e s s fu l w e r e th e y ?
I n tr u th th e d e f e n d e r s o f s y m p a th y c o n c e d e d a r e m a r k a b le a m o u n t o f g r o u n d
to th e ir o p p o n e n ts , a n d th e s e c o n c e s s io n s n e a r ly p r o v e d fa ta l to th e ir p r o je c t.
T h e ir p r in c ip a l c o n c e s s io n to th e e g o is ts c a m e in th e f o r m o f th e ir a c c e p ta n c e
o f th e c l a i m th a t th e p r o p e r f r a m e f o r e v a lu a tin g a n d d e f e n d in g s y m p a th y is in
f a c t th e s e l f a n d its p l e a s u r e s a n d p a in s . I n d e e d i t w a s th is c la i m m o r e th a n a n y
o th e r th a t b o u n d th e d e f e n d e r s o f o t h e r - d ir e c t e d n e s s to p a r t i s a n s o f th e s e l f i s h
s y s te m . T h is is e v id e n t i n th e ir a c c o u n ts o f th e r e l a ti o n s h ip o f s y m p a th y to
h a p p in e s s . T h e i n d is p e n s a b i li t y o f s y m p a th y to g e n u in e i n d iv id u a l h a p p in e s s is
o n e o f th e k e y n o te s o f th e s e a c c o u n ts ; th u s S h a f te s b u r y c la im s th a t to h a v e th e
n a tu r a l a f f e c tio n s ( s u c h a s a r e f o u n d e d i n lo v e , c o m p la c e n c y , g o o d - w i ll , a n d in
a s y m p a th y w i t h th e k in d o r s p e c i e s ) is to h a v e th e c h i e f m e a n s a n d p o w e r o f
s e l f - e n j o y m e n t , a n d i n d e e d t o w a n t t h e m i s c e r t a i n m i s e r y a n d i l l . 53 H e r e
a n d i n w h a t f o l l o w s it i s d i f f i c u l t n o t t o b e s t r u c k b y t h e c l a i m t h a t s y m p a t h y
o u g h t t o b e p l a c e d a m o n g m a n s m e n t a l e n j o y m e n t s , w h i c h p r o v e t o b e t h e
o n l y m e a n s w h i c h c a n p r o c u r e h i m a c e r t a i n a n d s o l i d h a p p i n e s s . 54 N o w i n
s a y i n g t h i s , i t i s o f c o u r s e h a r d l y S h a f t e s b u r y s i n t e n t i o n t o e n c o u r a g e e g o i s m ;
t h e e n t i r e I n q u i r y i s a t i t s c o r e a c r i t i q u e o f s u c h . B u t t h e p a r t i c u l a r r o u t e it
ta k e s to th is e n d a d e fe n s e o f s y m p a th y a s h a p p in e s s p r o m o tin g p o s e s a
p o te n tia l c h a lle n g e , f o r e v e n i f it s h o u ld b e tr u e th a t e x e r tin g w h a t e v e r w e
h a v e o f s o c ia l a f f e c tio n , a n d h u m a n s y m p a th y , is o f th e h ig h e s t d e lig h t a n d th a t
w ith r e g a r d to th e p le a s u r e s o f s y m p a th y th e r e is h a r d ly s u c h a th in g a s
s a tis f a c tio n o r c o n te n tm e n t, o f w h i c h th e y m a k e n o t a n e s s e n tia l p a r t , b y
in s is tin g th a t s y m p a th y is in d is p e n s a b le to th e h a p p in e s s o f th e in d iv id u a l,
S h a f te s b u r y ta k e s a n im p o r ta n t s te p a w a y f r o m th e tr a d itio n a l u n d e r s ta n d in g o f
l o v e s v a l u e , w h i c h p r i v i l e g e d t h e w e l l - b e i n g o f t h e b e l o v e d o v e r t h a t o f t h e
lo v e r , t o w a r d a n o th e r - d ir e c te d n e s s th a t p r iv ile g e s th e s u b je c tiv e w e ll- b e in g
o f t h e s e l f . 55
S h a f te s b u ry , m o r e o v e r , w a s h a r d l y a lo n e o n th is fro n t. H u tc h e s o n l ik e w i s e
r e j e c t e d th e c la i m th a t s y m p a th y is to b e a c c o u n te d f o r b y a m e r e c o n ju n c tio n
o f in te re s t w h e re th e h a p p in e s s o f o th e r s b e c o m e s th e m e a n s o f p r iv a te
p le a s u r e to th e o b s e r v e r ; a n d f o r th is r e a s o n , o r w i t h a v i e w to th is p r iv a te
p l e a s u r e , h e d e s i r e s t h e h a p p i n e s s o f a n o t h e r . 56 H u t c h e s o n t h o u g h t t h i s f a r t o o
r e d u c tio n is t. Y e t w h e n h e c a m e to s p e a k in h is o w n n a m e , h e a r tic u la te d a
p o s it i o n th a t c o m e s c lo s e to th is , in s is tin g th a t o u r s y m p a th y o r s o c ia l f e e lin g s
w ith o th e rs , b y w h ic h w e d e r iv e jo y s o r s o r r o w s f ro m th e ir p r o s p e r ity o r
a d v e r s ity , c o n s titu te a n im p o r ta n t s o u r c e o f h a p p in e s s o r m is e r y : W h ile
t h e r e s a n y l i f e o r v i g o u r i n t h e n a t u r a l a f f e c t i o n s o f t h e s o c i a l k i n d , s c a r c e a n y
th in g c a n m o re a f f e c t o u r h a p p in e s s a n d m is e r y th a n th e fo rtu n e s o f o th e rs .
W h at p o w e rfu l re lie f u n d er our ow n m is fo rtu n e s a ris e s fro m s e e in g th e
p r o s p e r it y o f s u c h a s a r e d e a r to u s! A n d h o w is a ll o u r e n jo y m e n t o f lif e
d e s t r o y e d a n d b e a t t o p i e c e s b y s e e i n g t h e i r m i s e r y ! 57 I t i s n o t a f a r s t e p f r o m
h e r e to th e c la im , u r g e d b y th e e g o is ts , th a t o u r b e n e f ic e n c e is th e f r u it o f a
s o l i c i t u d e f o r o u r i n d i v i d u a l p l e a s u r e s . 58 T h i s w o u l d b e p a r t i c u l a r l y u r g e d b y
B u t l e r , w h o i n a r g u i n g a g a i n s t H o b b e s s d e f i n i t i o n o f p i ty , i n s i s t s t h a t t h e s e l f
is th e p r o p e r s p h e r e o f re fe re n c e : W h e n w e re jo ic e in th e p r o s p e r it y o f
o th e r s , a n d c o m p a s s io n a te th e ir d is tr e s s e s , w e , a s it w e r e , s u b s titu te th e m f o r
o u r s e lv e s , th e ir in te r e s t f o r o u r o w n ; a n d h a v e th e s a m e k in d o f p le a s u r e in
th e ir p ro s p e rity , a n d s o r r o w in th e ir d is tr e s s , a s w e h a v e fro m r e f le c tio n u p o n
o u r o w n . 59 A n d s o t o o F o r d y c e : a m a n o f a n e n l a r g e d b e n e v o l e n t m i n d , w h o
th in k s , f e e ls , a n d a c ts f o r o th e r s , is n o t s u b je c t to h a l f th e d is q u ie tu d e s o f th e
c o n tra c te d s e lfis h s o u l; fin d s a th o u s a n d a lle v ia tio n s to s o fte n h is
d is a p p o in tm e n ts , w h ic h th e o th e r w a n ts ; a n d h a s a f a ir c h a n c e f o r d o u b le h is
e n j o y m e n t s . 60 As in th e p re v io u s cases, F o rd y c e ta k e s an e x p lic itly
e u d a e m o n is tic p e r s p e c tiv e , b u t o n e th a t r a i s e s th e q u e s tio n o f w h e th e r a n d h o w
it c a n b e d is ta n c e d f r o m th e r e d u c tio n is m o f h is a n ta g o n is ts . T h e o r ig in a l lin e
o f d e m a r c a tio n s e p a r a tin g th e tw o c a m p s w a s c le a r l y d e fin e d . W h e r e H o b b e s
a n d S p in o z a i n s is te d th a t g o o d a n d b a d w e r e to b e j u d g e d b y th e s ta n d a r d
a f f o r d e d b y th e p a s s io n s , th e ir o p p o n e n ts , s u c h a s th e C a m b r id g e P la to n is t
H e n r y M o r e , a r g u e d t h a t n o m a n s p r i v a t e i n c l i n a t i o n s a r e t h e m e a s u r e s o f
g o o d a n d e v il , f o r th e in c lin a tio n s th e m s e lv e s a r e to b e c ir c u m s c r ib e d b y
s o m e p r i n c i p l e w h i c h i s s u p e r i o r t o t h e m . 61 Y e t i t i s n o t c l e a r t h a t t h i s c a n b e
a c h i e v e d i f e u d a e m o n i s m i s s u b s t i t u t e d f o r t h e i s m . P u t d i f f e r e n t l y , w e m ig h t
w o n d e r o n s u c h g r o u n d s w h e th e r th e b r o a d e r t r a d i ti o n o f e ig h te e n th -c e n tu ry
s y m p a th y m ig h t n o t b e s u s c e p tib le to th e c h a lle n g e th a t T h o m a s R e i d r a i s e d
w i t h p a r t i c u l a r r e f e r e n c e t o t h e s y m p a t h y t h e o r y o f A d a m S m ith : n a m e l y t h a t it
w a s o n l y a r e f i n e m e n t o f t h e s e l f i s h s y s t e m . 62 W h e t h e r R e i d s c r i t i q u e o f
S m i t h i s a f a i r o n e w o u l d r e q u i r e a s e p a r a t e s tu d y . A t t h e s a m e t i m e , i t h e l p s t o
c la r if y th a t m u c h o f th e is s u e h in g e s o n h o w o n e o u g h t to r e a d th e n e c e s s a r y
in S m i t h s s trik in g o p e n in g of The T h e o ry o f M o r a l S e n tim e n ts , w h ic h
a n n o u n c e s th a t h o w s e lf is h s o e v e r m a n m a y b e s u p p o s e d , th e re a re e v id e n tly
s o m e p r in c ip le s in h is n a tu re , w h ic h in te r e s t h im in th e fo rtu n e o f o th e r s , a n d
r e n d e r t h e i r h a p p i n e s s n e c e s s a r y t o h i m . 63
 6. Th e Le g a c y of Sy m p a t h y

T h e fo re g o in g a c c o u n t h a s c o v e r e d a g re a t d e a l o f g ro u n d : to o m u c h p e rh a p s
f o r o n e b r i e f s u rv e y , b u t n o t n e a r ly e n o u g h , i t m u s t b e s a id , to d o j u s t i c e to th e
fu ll c o m p le x ity o f e ig h te e n th - c e n tu r y s y m p a th y . I n p a r tic u la r , n e x t to n o th in g
h a s b e e n s a i d a b o u t o n e o f i ts m o s t i m p o r t a n t c o n t e x t s , n a m e l y t h a t o f t h e
l i t e r a r y a n d v i s u a l a n d p e r f o r m in g a rts . I n d e e d d o in g fu ll j u s t i c e w o u l d r e q u i r e
d e ta ile d in v e s tig a tio n o f h o w th e p h ilo s o p h ic a l tre a tm e n t o f s y m p a th y t r a c e d
h e re m aps o n to th e w ays in w h ic h s y m p a th y w as c o n c e iv e d of and
o p e r a tio n a liz e d in s o u r c e s a s d i v e r s e a s th e n o v e ls o f H e n r y F ie ld in g , th e
e n g ra v in g s o f W il li a m H o g a rth , a n d th e d r a m a tic w o r k s o f R o u s s e a u to s a y
n o t h i n g o f i ts c e n t r a l p l a c e i n t h e e r o t i c l i t e r a t u r e o f t h e e i g h t e e n t h c e n tu r y , a n d
th e r o le o f s y m p a t h y o n t h e F r e n c h s t a g e m o r e g e n e r a l l y . 64 S o t o o a lm o s t
n o th in g h a s b e e n s a id about how th is s to ry m aps o n to th e tw o g re a te s t
e ig h te e n th -c e n tu ry th e o r ie s o f s y m p a th y , th o s e o f D a v id H um e and A dam
S m it h , w h i c h a r e t h e s p e c i f i c f o c u s o f G e o f f r e y S a y r e - M c C o r d s c o n t r i b u t i o n
t o t h i s v o l u m e . R e a d e r s o f o u r p i e c e s w i s h i n g t o p u r s u e t h i s c o n n e c t i o n m ig h t
do w e ll to b e g in by c o n s id e rin g w hat im p lic a tio n s m ig h t fo llo w fro m
a p p re c ia tio n of th e e ig h te e n th -c e n tu ry c o n te x t d e s c rib e d h e re fo r our
u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f H u m e s a n d S m i t h s t h e o r i e s . I n p a r t i c u l a r , o n e m i g h t a s k
w h a t i m p l i c a t i o n s t h e r e m i g h t b e f o r t h e r e c e i v e d u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f H u m e s a n d
S m i t h s c o n c e p tio n s o f s y m p a th y as p rim a rily v a lu a b le as e le m e n ts of a
p h e n o m e n o lo g ic a l p r o je c t to a c c o u n t f o r th e m e c h a n is m s o f ju d g m e n t r a th e r
t h a n a s e l e m e n t s o f a n o r m a t i v e a c c o u n t o f t h e s o u r c e s o f m o r a l m o t i v a t i o n . 65
C le a r ly th e r e a r e g ro u n d s f o r s u c h ; th a t H u m e a n d S m ith th o u g h t s y m p a th y
c e n t r a l t o j u d g m e n t i s b e y o n d d i s p u t e a n d h a s b e e n w e l l d e m o n s t r a t e d . 66 Y e t i n
c o n t i n u i n g t o i n v e s t i g a t e t h e w a y i n w h i c h H u m e s a n d S m i t h s t h e o r i e s o f
s y m p a th y u n d e r g ir d a n d illu m in a te th e ir ( a n d o u r) c o n c e p tio n s o f ju d g m e n t, w e
s h o u ld ta k e c a r e to r e m in d o u r s e lv e s o f th e b r e a d th a n d d e p th o f th o s e th e o r ie s ,
and p a rtic u la rly th e ir e m b ra ce o f a v is io n o f s y m p a th y in e th ic a l a c tio n .
A tte n d in g to th e c o n te x tu a l h is t o r y o f s y m p a th y i n th e e ig h te e n th c e n tu r y th u s
m a y p r o v e e s p e c i a l l y v a l u a b l e f o r t h e l i g h t t h a t i t c a n s h e d o n H u m e s a n d
S m i t h s s e l f - c o n s c i o u s p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n a l o n g t r a d i t i o n o f s e e i n g s y m p a t h y a s a
p r i n c i p l e ( i n d e e d a c e n t r a l p r i n c i p l e ) o f a g e n t m o t i v a t i o n . 67
Y e t in d e p e n d e n t o f S m ith a n d H u m e , th e e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry u n d e r s ta n d in g o f
s y m p a th y r e m a in s o f c r u c i a l im p o r t in its o w n rig h t. T h e t r a n s it io n o f s y m p a th y
in to th e hum an sp h e re m ade p o s s ib le a new w ay o f c o n c e iv in g hum an
r e la tio n s . A s s e v e r a l c o n tr ib u tio n s to th is v o lu m e h a v e d e m o n s tr a te d , s y m p a th y
p r o v id e d m a n y p r e m o d e r n th in k e rs w ith a m e a n s o f a c c o u n tin g f o r th e a ffin ity
b e tw e e n s e e m in g ly d is ta n t a n d u n r e la te d b o d ie s . T h e in s ig h t o f th e e ig h te e n th -
c e n tu ry th e o r is ts w a s n o t m e re ly to tra n s la te th is p r in c ip le in to th e m o ra l
s p h e r e , b u t in d e e d to r e c o g n iz e th e w a y s in w h ic h th e p a r tic u la r m o ra l s p h e re
in to w h i c h th e ir p r i n c i p l e w a s b e in g t r a n s la t e d r e s e m b le d th e v e r y c o n d itio n s
o f th e p h y s ic a l w o r l d in w h ic h th e e a r l ie s t th e o r ie s o f s y m p a th y h a d b e e n
fo rg e d . F o r j u s t a s th e p r e m o d e r n th e o r is ts s o u g h t to a c c o u n t f o r c o n n e c tio n s
b e tw e e n th e d if f e r e n t a n d d iv e r s e , s o to o th e e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry th e o r is ts o f
s y m p a th y s o u g h t to e m p lo y th e c o n c e p t to a c c o u n t f o r th e s o r ts o f c o n n e c tio n s
n e c e ssa ry to m a in ta in bonds b e tw e e n in d iv id u a ls in an in c re a s in g ly le s s
h o m o g e n iz e d a n d m o re f lu id w o r l d o f d iv e r s ity a n d d if f e r e n c e s . I n th is s e n s e ,
s y m p a th y p ro v id e d e ig h te e n th -c e n tu ry s o c ia l th e o ris ts w ith a m eans of
a c c o u n tin g f o r th e m in im a l l e v e l o f f e llo w - f e e lin g n e e d e d to s u s ta in th e ir
e m e r g in g p lu r a lis tic s o c ia l o r d e r. T h is is o f c o u r s e n o t to s a y th a t s y m p a th y
p r o v i d e d a n i n s t a n t p a n a c e a ; a s m a n y h a v e n o t e d , e v e n a m i d s t i ts m a n y p u b l i c
c a m p a ig n s a g a in s t r a c i s m a n d th e s u b o r d in a tio n o f w o m e n , p r o m in e n t v e s tig e s
o f s u c h p e r s i s t e d in th e E n lig h te n m e n t a n d in d e e d w e r e s o m e tim e s g iv e n v o i c e
b y s u c h p r o m in e n t th e o r is ts o f s y m p a th y a s H u m e a n d K a n t. C l e a r l y th e w o r k
s y m p a th y n e e d e d to d o w a s b o th g r e a te r th a n a s in g le d a y a n d g r e a te r th a n a
s in g le in d iv id u a l. A t th e s a m e tim e , in a r tic u la tin g a n a c c o u n t n o t o n ly o f h o w
l i k e a n d l i k e m ig h t b e c o m b i n e d b u t m o r e c r u c i a l l y h o w l i k e a n d u n l i k e m ig h t
e s ta b l is h th a t m in im a l d e g r e e o f c o m m o n a lity n e c e s s a r y to s u s ta in p e a c e f u l a n d
h a r m o n i o u s c o e x i s t e n c e a n d p e r h a p s e v e n e s t a b l i s h s o m e d e g r e e o f m u tu a l
r e c o g n itio n a n d r e s p e c t th e e ig h te e n th - c e n tu r y th e o r is ts o f s y m p a th y t o o k a
c r u c ia l s te p t o w a r d d e fin in g th e k e y t a s k o f s y m p a th y in th e m o d e r n w o r ld .

1 For a helpful introduction to the way in which scholars of literature and the theater have conceived of
sympathy in the eighteenth century, see e.g. David Marshall, The Surprising Effects o f Sympathy:
Marivaux, Diderot, Rousseau, and Mary Shelley (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 1-8.
On eighteenth-century sympathy from the perspective of political theory, see e.g. Michael Frazer, The
Enlightenment o f Sympathy: Justice and the Moral Sentiments in the Eighteenth Century and Today
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). In experimental economics, see esp. the work of Vernon Smith,
e.g. Rationality in Economics: Constructivist and Ecological Forms (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007), 15-16. In this volume, see also on eighteenth-century sympathy esp. chapter 7
and Hayes,s reflection.
2 M arc Andre Bernier, Les Metamorphoses de la sympathie au siecle des Lumieres, in Les lettres sur
la sympathie (1798) de Sophie de Grouchy: Philosophie morale et reforme sociale, ed. Bernier and
Deidre Dawson (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2010), 1-17 at 4. For similar statements of the
heterogeneity of the eighteenth-century concept, see e.g. Jonathan Lamb, The Evolution o f Sympathy in
the Long Eighteenth Century (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2009), 18; and Evelyn Forget, Evocations
of Sympathy: Sympathetic Imagery in Eighteenth-Century Social Theory and Physiology, History of
Political Economy 35 (2003): 282-308, esp. 284-89.
3 These helpful definitions are given in Luigi Turco, Sympathy and Moral Sense, 1725-1740, British
Journal fo r the History o f Philosophy 7 (1999): 79-101, at 79.
4 Chapter 5, 1-2.
5 Spinoza, Ethics pr.6,III; cf. pr.7,III and sch.pr.44,III. Quotations from the Ethics are from the
translation by Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992). For an extremely helpful introduction to the
way in which Spinozas ethics derives from his understanding of the conatus, see Don Garrett, Spinozas
Ethical Theory, in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995), esp. 271-74 and 302-5.
6 Ethics sch.pr.13,III.
7 Ethics sch.pr.15,III.
8 Cf. e.g. among others Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), 468; on sympathy and occult qualities see also chapters 5 and 3 in this volume.
9 Ethics pr.52,III.
10 Ethics pr.27,III.
11 Ethics cor.3, pr.27,III. Spinozas explicit focus here is pity (commiserato), defined earlier (and
importantly for the eighteenth-century debate) as pain arising from anothers hurt (Ethics pr.22,III), and
which he explicitly equates with compassion (misericordia).
12 Ethics sch.pr.32,III.
13 For an excellent history of this debate, see esp. Leonidas Montes, Das Adam Smith Problem: Its
Origins, the Stage of the Current Debate, and One Implication for Our Understanding of Sympathy,
Journal o f the History o f Economic Thought 35 (2003): 63-90. M ontess article also does much to
reestablish the centrality of Smiths own insistence on the action-motivating aspects of sympathy. I treat
the specific implications of this debate for Smith scholarship in my Adam Smith: From Love to
Sympathy, Revue internationale de philosophie, 68 (2014): 251-73.
14 For helpful recent developments, see Frazer, Enlightenment o f Sympathy, esp. 3-10; and esp. Sharon
Krause, Civil Passions: Moral Sentiment and Democratic Deliberation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2008), and chapter 7 in this volume.
15 Joseph Butler, Upon Compassion (sermon 5), in Fifteen Sermons, in The Works o f Joseph Butler
(London: William Tegg, 1867; reprint, Adamant Media, 2006), 45-56 at 49.
16 Butler, Upon Compassion (sermon 6), in Fifteen Sermons, 56-65 at 58.
17 Butler, Upon Compassion (sermon 5), 45-56, at 52-53.
18 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins o f Inequality, in Discourses and Other Early
Political Writings, ed. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), at 154.
19 See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, trans. Allan Bloom, in The Collected Works o f Rousseau, ed.
Christopher Kelly and Roger D. M asters (Hanover, NH: University Press of N ew England, 2009),
13.373-75. In a similar vein, see e.g. Louis-Sebastien Mercier, who would wonder what heart could be so
cruel never to have felt cette Sympathie tendre qui le lie aux autres etres and could be drawn to agree
with a cynical moralist who has tout vu dans lamour-propre & rien dans cette impression vive du
sentiment qui lentrame & le maitrise (La Sympathie, histoire morale [Amsterdam, 1767], 7-8). I
develop this side of Rousseaus own theory of pity at greater length in my essay Pitie developpee:
Aspects ethiques et epistemiques, in Philosophie de Rousseau, ed. B. Bachofen, B. Bernardi, A.
Charrak, and F. Guenard (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2014), 305-18.
20 David Fordyce, The Elements o f Moral Philosophy, ed. Thomas Kennedy (Indianapolis: Liberty
Fund, 2003), 44-45.
21 Fordyce, Elements, 91.
22 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin o f Our Ideas o f the Sublime and
Beautiful, ed. Adam Phillips (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 42-43.
23 David Hume, Enquiry concerning the Principles o f Morals, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H.
Nidditch (1751; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 9.5 (see Ryan P. Hanley, David Hume and the
Politics of Humanity, Political Theory 39 (2011): 205-33); Henry Home, Lord Kames, Essays on the
Principles o f Morality and Natural Religion, ed. Mary Catherine Moran (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund,
2005), 19-20.
24 Henry Home, Lord Kames, Elements o f Criticism, ed. Peter Jones (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005),
308.
25 Kames, Essays, 17.
26 Immanuel Kant, Observations on the Feeling o f the Beautiful and Sublime, in Anthropology,
History, and Education, ed. Gunter Zoller and Robert Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007), 18-62, at 29-32 (Ak. 2:215-18).
27 Immanuel Kant, Groundwork o f the Metaphysics o f Morals, in Practical Reason, ed. Mary Gregor
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 37-108, at 53-54 (Ak. 4:398-99).
28 Immanuel Kant, Metaphysics o f Morals , in Practical Reason , ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), 353-604, at 575-76 (Ak. 6:457). For accounts of these passages, see
esp. Paul Guyer, Moral Feelings in the Metaphysics o f Morals , in K ants Metaphysics o f Morals: A
Critical Guide, ed. Lara Denis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 130-51, at 145-49; and
Frazers helpful discussion of how K ants objection to treating sympathetic inclinations as the
determining ground of ones moral choices is not a moral objection to sympathetic inclinations as such
(Enlightenment o f Sympathy, 118).
29 Sophie de Grouchy, Letters on Sympathy: A Critical Edition, ed. Karin Brown (Philadelphia:
American Philosophical Society, 2008), 132, 149.
30 De Grouchy, Letters on Sympathy, 113; see also, in this volume, H ayess reflection, esp. 4-5. For a
(slightly) more poetic rendering of the same thought, see Samuel Jackson Pratts Sympathy: A Poem, 5th
ed. (London, 1781):

In cities thus, though trades tumultuous train

Spurn at the homely maxims of the plain,
Not all the pride of rank, the trick of art,
Can chase the generous passion from the heart:
Nay more, a larger circle it must take,
 W here men embodying, larger interests make,
And each perforce round each more closely twine,
W here countless thousands form the social line.
(bk 2, lines 35-42)

31 For a helpful recent statement of the foundations of this position in the Torah, see e.g. Simon May,
Love: A History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 17-18.
32 David Hartley, Observations on Man (London, 1749), 485.
33 Some scholars have emphasized the Christian underpinnings of sympathy and other forms of
sentimental humanitarianism ; see e.g. Norman Fiering, Irresistible Compassion: An Aspect of
Eighteenth-Century Sympathy and Humanitarianism, Journal o f the History o f Ideas 37 (1976): 195
218, at 214. And indeed one can find multiple eighteenth-century sermons that make this claim; see e.g.
John Doughty, Christian Sympathy (London, 1752); and Peter Thatcher, The Nature and Effects of
Christian Sympathy (Boston, 1794). But with regard to the philosophical literature it seems fair to say
that sympathy was largely conceived as a nontheistic alternative to Christian concepts. For a helpful
development of this claim, see esp. Frazer, Enlightenment o f Sympathy, 11, 16, 30, 39.
34 Compare M ark 12:28-31, M atthew 22:36-40, and Luke 10:25-28 to Adam Smith, The Theory of
Moral Sentiments, ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1984), 1.1.5.5
(though cf. 3.6.1); Rousseau, Emile, 389n (which calls the second command the summation of all
morality and also insists that it has no true foundation other than justice and sentiment); and Kant,
Metaphysics o f Morals, 570-71 (Ak. 6:450-52), and Groundwork , 54-55 (Ak. 4:399).
35 Forget, Evocations of Sympathy, 291-92; see also Forgets helpful discussion at 286-88 of the
explicit connections betw een the concept of sympathy as used by the Scottish social theorists and that
employed by the Edinburgh physicians. Yet some caution here is needed; clearly for some of the Scottish
physicians, the concept was still associated with the occult and was a placeholder for a failure to provide
a fuller and more scientific explanation: a concept that may be employed as long as we have no idea
what connects certain phenomena, but will be no longer proper once we can find out its foundation,
and the means of communication (William Cullen, Clinical Lectures, Delivered in the Years 1765 and
1766 [London, 1795], 28-29).
36 See Encyclopedie , 15.735-36, available online via the ARTFL Project; see also Bernier, Les
metamorphoses de la sympathie, 14; Forget, Evocations of Sympathy, 286-87; and H ayess reflection,
1. Jaucourts definition only briefly calls attention to that rare and delicious sympathy that promotes
attachment betw een individuals, quickly dropping this line of inquiry and examining sympathy as a material
principle. All eighteenth-century editions of the Dictionnaire de l Academie franqaise likewise focus
exclusively on sympathy as a corporeal principle or as a means of describing the relationships of humors
and inclinations, only adding in the sixth edition (1835) an expanded entry on sympathy as enabling
participation in pains and pleasures of others: see the definition in the sixth edition of the Dictionnaire, as
available at http://artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/dicos/pubdico1look.pl?strippedhw=sympathie. Cf.
however Patrick Dandey, Entre medicinalia et moralia: La Double Ascendance de la Sympathie, in
Les Discours de la sympathie: Enquete sur une notion de l age classique a la modernite, ed.
Thierry Belleguic, Eric Van der Schueren, and Sabrina Vervacke (Quebec: Les Presses de lUniversite
Laval, 2007), 3-23, esp. 3-4, 13.
37 See A arsleffs introduction and editorial notes to his edition of Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, Essay on
the Origin o f Human Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), xxi-xxiii and n. and
37n. In a similar vein Marshall helpfully calls attention to the ways in which English and French
discussions of sympathy overlapped with those of sentiment, sensation, and sensibility; see Surprising
Effects o f Sympathy, 3.
38 Claude Adrien Helvetius, De I homme (Paris: Fayard, 1989), 171-86, at 171.
39 Pierre Jean George Cabanis, On the Relations between the Physical and Moral Aspects o f Man,
trans M argaret Saidi (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 589-601, at 598.
40 De Grouchy, Letters on Sympathy, 108-9; for the original see Lettres sur la sympathie, 31. On de
Grouchys debts to and differences from Adam Smiths account of sympathy with which she extensively
engaged, see esp. Eric Schliesser, Sophie de Grouchy, Marquise de Condorcet: Wisdom and Reform
between Reason and Feeling, in Feminist History o f Philosophy, ed. Eileen O Neill and M arcy P.
Lascano (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014).
41 De Grouchy, Letters on Sympathy, 111-12.
42 Lamb, Evolution o f Sympathy, 6.
43 Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication o f the Rights o f Woman, ed. Deidre Shauna Lynch, 3rd ed.
(New York: Norton, 2009), 161. A helpful treatment of the significance of natural affection as developed
in this passage in Wollstonecrafts political theory is provided in Eileen Hunt Botting, Family Feuds:
Wollstonecraft, Burke and Rousseau on the Transformation o f the Family (Albany: SUNY Press,
2006), 203-9; for the ways in which Wollstonecraft sought to distance herself from Burke on this front,
see Daniel I. O Neill, The Burke-Wollstonecraft Debate: Savagery, Civilization, and Democracy
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007), 164-65.
44 De Grouchy, Letters on Sympathy, 112. For a very helpful account of the stages of this education in
de Grouchy, see Daniel Dumouchel, Une Education sentimentale: Sympathie et construction de la morale
dans les Lettres sur la sympathie de Sophie de Grouchy, in de Grouchy, Lettres sur la sympathie, 139
50. I explore the stages of Rousseaus moral-epistemic education at length in Rousseaus Virtue
Epistemology, Journal o f the History o f Philosophy 50 (2012): 239-63.
45 Bishop George Berkeley, Guardian 49, as quoted in Fiering, Irresistible Compassion, 203-4. I am
grateful to Eric Schliesser for calling to my attention Berkeleys specific claim that God is a pure spirit,
disengaged from all such sympathy or natural ties, which he rightly notes further suggests a conscious
secularizing or distancing of sympathy from theological foundations; see Berkeley, Three Dialogues, in
Philosophical Writings, ed. Desmond Clarke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 221.
46 George Turnbull, The Principles o f Moral and Christian Philosophy , ed. Alexander Broadie
(Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005), 654.
47 In addition to Forgets above-cited study, see, e.g., the discussion of the ways in which English and
Scottish discourses on sympathy intertwined with discussions of magnetism and animal magnetism (and
even mesmerism) in Patricia Fara, Sympathetic Attractions: Magnetic Practices, Beliefs, and
Symbolism in Eighteenth-Century England (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 147-51,
189-91, 199, 208; on elective affinity in eighteenth-century Scottish chemistry, see A. L. Donovan,
Philosophical Chemistry in the Scottish Enlightenment (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1975),
129-31, 155-56.
48 For helpful illuminations of these connections, see esp. Monique Moser-Verrey, Le Discours de la
sympathie dans Les affinites electives, in Les discours de la sympathie: Enquete sur une notion de
l age classique a la modernite, ed. Thierry Belleguic, Eric Van der Schueren, and Sabrina Vervacke
(Quebec: Les Presses de lUniversite Laval, 2007), 343-55; and Sari Altschuler, From Blood Vessels to
Global Networks of Exchange: The Physiology of Benjamin Rushs Early Republic, Journal o f the
Early Republic 32 (2012): 207-31.
49 On this point, see especially the useful development of this claim in Bernier, Les Metamorphoses de
la sympathie, 2.
50 For an excellent introduction to eighteenth-century British moral philosophy and the centrality of the
Human Nature Question to it, see Michael Gill, The British Moralists on Human Nature and the
Birth o f Secular Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
51 Hobbes, Leviathan, 43.
52 Bernard Mandeville, An Essay on Charity, and Charity-Schools, in Fable o f the Bees, ed. F. B.
Kaye (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988), 1.259.
53 Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury, An Inquiry Concerning Virtue and Merit, in
Characteristicks, ed. Douglas J. D en Uyl (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001), 2.57.
54 Shaftesbury, Inquiry Concerning Virtue, 58.
55 Shaftesbury, Inquiry Concerning Virtue, 62.
56 Francis Hutcheson, An Essay on the Nature and Conduct o f the Passions and Affections, with
Illustrations on the Moral Sense, ed. Aaron Garrett (1742; Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002), 23.
57 Francis Hutcheson, Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy, ed. Luigi Turco (Indianapolis: Liberty
Fund, 2007), 60.
58 As Turco has helpfully demonstrated, precisely this charge was levied against Hutcheson by John
Clarke of Hull and Archibald Campbell, who used the doctrine of sympathy to criticize his doctrines from
an hedonistic point of view (Sympathy and Moral Sense, 1725-1740, 100-101).
59 Butler, Upon Compassion (sermon #5), 45.
60 Fordyce, Elements, 137, and see also 138-39.
61 Henry More, An Account o f Virtue (London, 1690), 81; cf. Hobbes, Leviathan, 39; Spinoza, Ethics,
sch.pr.9,III.
62 Thomas Reid to Lord Kames, 30 October 1778, in John Reeder, ed., On Moral Sentiments (London:
Thommes, 1997), 66.
63 Smith, Theory o f Moral Sentiments, 1.1.1.L
64 On these last fronts, see esp. Gaetan Brulotte, La Sympathie et la litterature erotique dans la France
du XVIIIe siecle, in Les Discours de la sympathie: Enquete sur une notion de l age classique a la
modernite, ed. Thierry Belleguic, Eric Van der Schueren, and Sabrina Vervacke (Quebec: Les Presses
de lUniversite Laval, 2007), 199-218; and H ayess reflection in this volume.
65 Sayre-McCord helpfully calls attention to both of these senses of sympathy in Hume and Smith, though
he primarily focuses on the latter; see chapter 7.
66 See e.g. D. D. Raphael, The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smiths Moral Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 116-17 (which likewise calls attention to sympathys significance as a motive);
and Fonna Forman-Barzilai, Adam Smith and the Circles o f Sympathy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010), 152-60.
67 For the beginnings of this debate, see esp. Leonidas Montes, Das Adam Smith Problem, 82-85, and
Adam Smith in Context (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 45-55 (which offer the clearest and most
important statements of this position to date); Eric Schliessers review of Montes and Raphael in Ethics
118 (2008): 569-75; and the responses to be found in Raphael, Impartial Spectator, 119-20; and in Ian
S. Ross, The Life o f Adam Smith, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 478 n.
Reflection
THE FRENCH THEATER OF SYMPATHY

Julie Candler Hayes

S y m p a th y , sy m p a th ie , e m e r g e s in F r e n c h f r o m m e d ic a l d is c o u r s e d u r in g
th e e a r l y m o d e r n p e r io d . W h ile th e w o r d p a r tic ip a te s a s w i d e l y in th e
d is c o u r s e s o f th e n e w a f f e c tiv ity a s its c o g n a te c o m p a s s io n , i t r e ta in s
th e f r e ig h t o f its o r ig in a l c o n te x t, s u g g e s tin g p h y s io lo g ic a l r o o te d n e s s . I n th e
a r tic le S y m p a th ie o f th e E n c y c lo p e d ie , J e a n L e R o n d d A le m b e r ts
p r im a r y d e f in itio n is m e d ic a l: th e a p titu d e o f c e r t a i n b o d ie s to u n ite o r
in c o r p o r a te o n e a n o th e r ; e v e n th e s e c o n d a r y d e f in itio n b y L o u is d e
J a u c o u r t r o o ts th e e m o tio n a l ( th e l i v e l y u n d e r s ta n d in g [in tellig en c e]
b e tw e e n h e a r ts ) in th e p h y s io lo g ic a l ( th e c o m m u n ic a tio n th a t p a r ts o f th e
b o d y h a v e w i t h o n e a n o th e r ) . 1 I t th u s s h a r e s th e s e m a n tic a m b ig u ity o f
s e n tim e n t, s e n s ib ility , a n d f e e lin g : e m o tio n s g r o u n d e d in c o r p o r e a l
e x p e r ie n c e . In e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry F r e n c h w r itin g s , s y m p a th y liv e s a t th e
c r o s s r o a d s o f m e d ic a l, p s y c h o lo g ic a l, a n d m o r a l d is c o u r s e s .2
M a n y c o m m e n ta to r s h a v e e x a m in e d th e s e a c h a n g e in th e la te
s e v e n te e n th - a n d e ig h te e n th - c e n tu ry u n d e r s ta n d in g o f p e r s o n a l id e n tity ,
a ffe c tiv ity , a n d in te r p e r s o n a l r e l a t i o n s .3 W h a t W i l l i a m R e d d y d u b b e d th e
s e n tim e n ta l r e v o lu tio n m a n if e s te d i t s e l f in a w i d e ra n g e o f s o c ia l a n d
d is c u r s iv e p r a c tic e s , a m o n g th e m s a lo n c o n v e r s a tio n , le tte r w r itin g , a n d th e
r e a d in g a n d w r iti n g o f n o v e ls , to n a m e o n ly s o m e o f th e m o s t p ro m in e n t. In
F r a n c e , o n e o f th e m o s t s tr ik in g lo c i f o r th e n e w a f f e c tiv ity w a s th e th e a te r,
b o th in th e s ta g e a c ti o n a n d in th e b e h a v io r o f th e s p e c ta to r s .
F r o m P i e r r e C o r n e ille to P r o s p e r J o ly o t d e C r e b illo n , F r e n c h c l a s s i c a l
d r a m a h a d lo n g m a d e u s e o f th e c a ll o f b l o o d a s a p l o t d e v ic e e n a b lin g
lo n g - l o s t p a r e n ts , c h ild r e n , a n d s ib lin g s to r e c o g n iz e o n e a n o th e r th ro u g h
d e e p ly r o o te d s tir r in g s o f a f f e c tio n . 4 T h e c r i d u s a n g b y d e f in itio n im p lie s a
p h y s io lo g ic a l a n c h o r to fe e lin g , s tim u la te d b y a p p a r e n tly m e ta p h y s ic a l
m e a n s . I n th e e ig h te e n th c e n tu ry , s y m p a th y w o u ld e x te n d s u c h p h y s ic a l a n d
e m o tio n a l tie s b e y o n d th e fa m ily .

J ai rencontre lobjet que je devois aimer.

Un mutuel amour a su nous enflammer.
C est une sympathie invincible, absolue,
Que j ai dabord sentie a la premiere vue.

I have met the man that I was meant to love.

Mutual love enflamed us both.
Its an absolute, invincible sympathy
That I immediately sensed at first sight.
Pierre-Claude La Chaussee, La Fausse antipathie (1733), act 2, scene 95

T h e te a r f u l c o m e d i e s ( c o m e d ie s la r m o y a n t e s ) o f P ie r r e - C la u d e N i v e l l e
d e la C h a u s s e e ( 1 6 9 2 - 1 7 5 4 ) c h a n g e d F r e n c h d ra m a tu rg y f o r e v e r b y
b r in g in g th e n e w a f f e c tiv ity to th e s ta g e , u n itin g th e h ig h e m o tio n s
t r a d itio n a lly a s s o c i a t e d w i t h tr a g e d y w i t h th e m a r r ia g e p l o t o f c o m e d y .
I r o n ic a lly , th e in v in c ib le s y m p a th y f e lt b y th e h e r o in e o f L a F a u s s e
a n t i p a t h i e , h is f i r s t p la y , is f o r a m a n th a t s h e h a s f a ile d to r e c o g n iz e a s h e r
lo n g - lo s t, m u c h h a te d s p o u s e . F u r th e r m o r e , h e r s y m p a th y is s e n s e d :
p r o f o u n d ly f e lt in a m a n n e r th a t s u g g e s ts b o th p h y s ic a l s e n s a tio n a n d
c o g n itio n . A s th e p l a y s title m a k e s c le a r , th e c o u p l e s s y m p a th y is tru e ,
w h e r e a s th e ir e a r l i e r a n tip a th y w a s th e p r o d u c t o f c ir c u m s ta n c e s th a t
in c lu d e d a n a r r a n g e d m a r r ia g e a n d a ( p r e s u m a b ly ) v e i l e d b r id e . (T h e g r o o m
v a n is h e d a s s o o n a s th e c e r e m o n y w a s c o m p le te d .) L a F a u s s e a n t i p a t h i e ,
lik e L a C h a u s s e e s la te r p la y s , tu rn s o n c h a r a c t e r s a b ility o r in a b ility to
s e e th e m s e lv e s in o n e a n o th e r s s itu a tio n s : P u t y o u r s e l f in m y p l a c e . J e
m e m e ts a s a p l a c e a n d M e tte z - v o u s a m a p l a c e b e c o m e th e r e f r a in s b y
w h ic h th e y d e m o n s tr a te th e ir s e n s itiv ity to o th e rs a n d th e ir d e s ir e fo r
c o m m u n ic a tio n . 6 T y p ic a lly , o n c e a ll th e p l a c e s a r e fu lly e lu c id a te d , th e
m is u n d e r s ta n d in g th a t fu e ls th e p lo t is r e s o l v e d a n d th e p la y e n d s h a p p ily .
F e e lin g in fu s e s th e c o g ito o f th e n e w e ra : P lu s j e s e n s v iv e m e n t, p lu s
j e s e n s q u e j e s u is (T h e m o re in te n s e ly I f e e l, th e m o re I fe e l th a t I a m ) (L a
C h a u s s e e , M e l a n i d e , 1 7 4 1 ) . 7 L a C h a u s s e e s in n o v a tio n s o f f e r e d a n e w p a th
to p la y w r ig h ts s tr u g g lin g w i t h th e b u r d e n o f th e le g a c y o f M o lie r e , J e a n
R a c in e , a n d C o r n e ille . T h e m ix tu re o f g e n r e s r e m a in e d c o n tr o v e r s ia l a m o n g
c r itic s , h o w e v e r , e v e n a f te r a n d to a g r e a t e x te n t b e c a u s e th e m ix e d
g e n r e w a s ta k e n u p a n d th e o r iz e d b y D i d e r o t a n d th e p a r ti p h ilo s o p h iq u e .8
I n i t s v a r i a n t s d r a m e b o u r g e o is , g e n r e s e r i e u x , c o m e d ie s e n t i m e n t a l , a n d
tr a g e d i e d o m e s tiq u e , t h e n e w d r a m a t u r g y o v e r c a m e t h e c l a s s d i f f e r e n c e s
r e i f i e d o n th e c l a s s i c a l s ta g e . S p e c ta to r s w e r e m o v e d b y th e e m o tio n a l
s tr u g g le s o f c o m m o n e rs , a s o c ia l g r o u p o n c e th o u g h t w o r th y o n ly o f c o m ic
t r e a t m e n t ( f i g u r e 6 . 1 ).
E a r l i e r i n th e c e n tu ry , th e a b b e D u B o s h a d p u b l is h e d h is in f lu e n tia l
R e f l e x i o n s c r i t i q u e s s u r l a p o e s i e e t la p e i n t u r e ( 1 7 1 9 ) a n a l y z i n g t h e
a e s th e tic e x p e r ie n c e a s a n a c t o f s y m p a th e tic s p e c ta to r s h ip in w h ic h w e
e n te r in to o u r s e l v e s b y m e a n s o f a r t i s t ic r e p r e s e n ta tio n . F o r D u B o s , w e a r e
m o v e d b y s c e n e s o f s u ff e rin g , b u t a r e a b le to ta k e p le a s u r e in th e
r e p r e s e n ta tio n o f s u c h s c e n e s th ro u g h th e m itig a tin g a n d d is ta n c in g e ff e c ts o f
a r t . E x t e n d i n g t h i s i d e a i n h i s E n t r e t i e n s s u r le F i l s n a tu r e l ( 1 7 5 7 ) , D i d e r o t
s a w t h e s p e c t a t o r s i m a g i n a t i v e p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n t h e a c t i o n o n t h e s t a g e a s a
c o n d u it f o r s e lf - u n d e r s ta n d in g a n d c o m m u n ita r ia n e n g a g e m e n t: H e w h o
d o e s n o t f e e l h i s e m o t i o n i n c r e a s e f r o m th e l a r g e n u m b e r o f t h o s e w h o s h a r e
it h a s s o m e s e c r e t v i c e ; th e r e is s o m e th in g s o li t a r y in h is c h a r a c te r th a t
d i s p l e a s e s m e . 9 A s is w e l l k n o w n , R o u s s e a u t o o k th e o p p o s ite v i e w o f th e
r o l e o f t h e t h e a t e r i n p u b l i c l i f e , a r g u i n g i n h i s L e ttr e a d A l e m b e r t t h a t
th e a tric a l a rtific e p r o d u c e d o n ly a s im u la c ru m o f e m o tio n th a t a lie n a te d
s p e c ta to r s f r o m th e m s e lv e s a n d f r o m o n e a n o th e r. A n d y e t th e p u b lic
f e s tiv a ls th a t h e h e ld u p a s th e id e a l s itu a tio n in o r d e r th a t e a c h s e e h i m s e lf
a n d l o v e h i m s e l f t h r o u g h o t h e r s 10 a c h i e v e a g o a l a n a l o g o u s t o t h e
p h ilo s o p h ic a l d ra m e s o f D id e ro t, M ic h e l- J e a n S e d a in e , L o u is -S e b a s tie n
M e r c ie r , a n d P ie r r e - A u g u s tin C a r o n d e B e a u m a r c h a is : a c o m m u n ity u n ite d
b y s y m p a th e tic b o n d s .
Figure 6.1. Sympathy in eighteenth-century French drama united the feeling evoked by tragedy with
the laughter generated by com edy

G iv e n th e k e y p la c e th a t th e th e a te r r e p r e s e n te d in c u ltu r a l lif e a p la c e
th a t th e n o v e l s tr u g g le d to a tta in o v e r th e c o u r s e o f th e c e n tu r y a n d g iv e n
th e v e r y e x p li c it r o le o f s y m p a th e tic u n d e r s ta n d in g n o t o n ly in th e p la y s
th e m s e lv e s b u t in a u d ie n c e b e h a v io r , it is n o t s u r p r is in g th a t th e o r e tic a l
d is c u s s io n s o f s y m p a th y a re p ro fo u n d ly th e a tr ic a l, c o m p le x ly b o u n d u p
w i t h t h e d y n a m i c s o f s p e c t a t o r s h i p . F o r A d a m S m it h , t h e c o n d i t i o n s o f
s y m p a th y a r e in e x tr ic a b ly lin k e d to th e p r o b le m s o f s p e c ta to r s h ip a n d
re p r e s e n ta tio n . S in c e , h e te lls u s, w e c a n n e v e r fe e l w h a t o th e rs fe e l, w e
f o r m a n i d e a o f a n o t h e r s s u f f e r i n g t h r o u g h a n a c t o f t h e i m a g i n a t i o n a n d
b e c o m e i n s o m e m e a s u r e t h e s a m e p e r s o n w i t h h i m . 11 S y m p a t h y i s
p r o d u c e d w h e n w e p l a c e o u r s e l v e s i n a n o t h e r s s i t u a t i o n a n d c o n c e i v e
o u r s e l v e s u n d e r g o i n g t h e o t h e r s e x p e r i e n c e . A s D a v i d M a r s h a l l h a s
o b s e r v e d , S m i t h s a c t s o f s y m p a t h y d e p e n d o n p e o p l e s a b i l i t y t o r e p r e s e n t
t h e m s e l v e s a s t a b l e a u x , s p e c t a c l e s , a n d t e x t s b e f o r e o t h e r s . 12 T h e
s y m p a th e tic s e l f is a s p e c ta to r , n o t o n ly o f a n o th e r b e in g b u t o f o n e s e l f
o b s e r v i n g th e o th e r b e in g .
A s c o m m e n ta to r s h a v e p o in te d o u t, th e L e ttr e s s u r la s y m p a th ie ( 1 7 9 8 )
o f S m i t h s l a t e e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y t r a n s l a t o r S o p h i e d e G r o u c h y , m a r q u i s e d e
C o n d o r c e t, o f f e r s a c r i t iq u e o f S m ith w i t h t ie s to F r e n c h m a t e r i a li s m a n d th e
r e v o l u t i o n a r y p o l i t i c s o f t h e 1 7 9 0 s . 13 F o r d e G r o u c h y , t h e t h e a t e r o f
s y m p a th y ta k e s p la c e d e e p w ith in th e s e lf , a lm o s t a t th e c e llu la r le v e l , y e t
p r o v id e s th e k e y to s o c ia l s o li d a r i ty a n d p r o g r e s s .
D e G ro u c h y in itia lly c o u c h e s h e r d is c u s s io n o f s y m p a th y a s a n e x te n s io n
o f S m ith . T h e L e t t r e s s u r l a s y m p a t h i e a r e a m a t e r i a l e x t e n s i o n , a s s h e
p u b l i s h e d t h e w o r k a s a n e p i l o g u e t o h e r t r a n s l a t i o n o f S m i t h s T h e T h e o r y
o f M o r a l S e n tim e n t s . T h e y a r e a l s o a c o n c e p t u a l e x t e n s i o n : o b s e r v i n g t h a t
S m ith d i d n o t e x p lo r e th e f ir s t c a u s e o f s y m p a th y , s h e p r o p o s e s to r e c tif y
th e o m is s io n . T h e f ir s t c a u s e is c o m p le x , b o th p h y s io lo g ic a l a n d
p s y c h o lo g ic a l, p iv o tin g b e tw e e n s e n s a tio n a n d re fle c tio n . T h u s h e r
d i s c u s s i o n o f t h e s e n t i m e n t d e l h u m a n ite : T h e s e n t i m e n t o f h u m a n i t y i s a
s o r t o f s e e d p la n te d in th e d e p th s o f th e h e a r t th a t r e f l e c t io n w i l l m a k e f e r tile
a n d d e v e lo p ( 3 9 ). O m is s io n s a c c u m u la te , h o w e v e r , a n d sh e e v e n tu a lly
s h a r p e n s h e r c r i t i c i s m to a c c u s e S m ith o f r e ly in g o n a n u n d e f in a b le s e n s
in tim e , a n u ltim a te ly f ic titio u s e n tity r e d o le n t o f th e e s p r it d e s y s te m e s
r e j e c t e d b y th e p h ilo s o p h e s (8 4 ) . D e G r o u c h y e m b a r k s o n th e s u b je c t o f
s y m p a th y b y e v o k in g th e in te r p la y b e tw e e n s e lf - o b s e r v a tio n a n d th e
o b s e r v a tio n o f o th e rs , b o th th e p le a s u r e o f in tr o s p e c tio n a n d th e p le a s u r e o f
th e o th e r a c h ie v e d in th e a c t o f tr a n s la tio n . T r a n s la tio n , w h ic h b o th m ir r o r s
th e o th e r a n d p ro m p ts n e w th o u g h ts w ith in o n e s e lf , th u s s e r v e s a s th e
s p r in g b o a r d f o r h e r o w n r e f le c tio n s . F o r h e r, th e im a g in a tio n p la y s a r o le in
th e p r o d u c tio n o f sy m p a th y , b u t m e m o ry is p rim a ry . M e m o r y p r o v id e s th e
p r e s e n c e m o r a le o f o n e s o w n p a s t p a in , e n a b lin g u s to r e la te to th e p a in
o f o th e rs th ro u g h o u r o w n c o r p o r e a l e x p e r ie n c e . D e G r o u c h y s c o n ju n c tio n
o f m e m o ry , im a g in a tio n , a n d s e n s ib ility o f f e r s a s ig n if ic a n t r e v i s i o n o f
tr a d itio n a l f a c u lty p s y c h o lo g y s tr i o o f m e m o ry , u n d e rs ta n d in g , a n d w i l l ,
a l r e a d y r e c a s t in th e E n c y c l o p e d i e a s m e m o ry , u n d e rs ta n d in g , a n d
im a g in a tio n . F o r d e G ro u c h y , th e n , th e r e p r e s e n ta tio n a l c a p a c ity o f
im a g in a tio n c o n jo in s th e p r iv a te w o r l d o f m e m o ry w i t h th e f e lt m a te r ia lity
o f s e n s ib ility .
T h e d e g r e e to w h ic h s e n s ib ility in g r a in s s y m p a th y w ith in u s e x p la in s
d e G r o u c h y s in s is te n c e o n m o r a l e d u c a tio n in c h ild h o o d . S u c h e x p o s u r e
d e f e a ts e g o is m e a n d la y s th e g r o u n d w o r k f o r s o c ia l p r o g r e s s a n d e g a l i t e
n a t u r e l l e . D e G r o u c h y c r e d its h e r m o th e r w i t h h a v in g in c u lc a te d s y m p a th y
w ith in h e r th ro u g h th e s p e c ta c le o f h e r o w n v ir tu o u s e x a m p le : I t w a s b y
s e e in g y o u r h a n d s b r in g c o m f o r t to th o s e a f f e c te d b y m is e r y a n d s ic k n e s s ; it
w a s b y s e e in g th e p a u p e r s s u ffe rin g g a z e tu r n to y o u a n d te a r f u lly b le s s y o u ,
th a t I f e lt th e d e p th s o f m y h e a r t (3 6 ) . S y m p a th y is th u s b o r n in a h ig h ly
th e a t r ic a liz e d s c e n e in w h ic h th e y o u n g S o p h ie e x p e r ie n c e s a d o u b le
id e n tif ic a tio n : b o th w i t h th e p a u p e r , w h o lik e h e r is lo o k in g a t h e r m o th e r,
a n d w i t h h e r m o th e r, th e o b j e c t o f th e p a u p e r s e m o tio n a l g a z e , w h o m sh e
d e s ir e s to e m u la te . O v e r th e c o u r s e o f th e L e t t r e s , s y m p a th y is c a s t a s a
p h y s ic a l n e e d ( b e s o i n ), a lo n g w i t h a ra n g e o f s im ila r e m o tio n s . F r o m th e
p r im a l s c e n e o f m a te rn a l c h a rity , d e G r o u c h y p u ts s y m p a th y a t th e f o u n d a tio n
b o th o f th e s e l f a n d th e s o c ia l w o r ld . F o ll o w i n g R o u s s e a u , s h e a rg u e s th a t
o u r fu n d a m e n ta l n e e d to b e g o o d is d e n a tu r e d b y i n s t i t u t i o n s v i c i e u s e s
a n d u n n a tu ra l la w s .
D e G r o u c h y ta k e s u p th e q u e s tio n p o s e d b y D u B o s a n d o th e rs , o f h o w
w e a r e a b le to fe e l s y m p a th y a n d p le a s u r e in th e r e p r e s e n ta tio n o f p a i n o n
th e s ta g e o r in a n o v e l: th o s e p a in fu l e m o tio n s th a t w e s e e k o u t (4 5 ) . L ik e
D u B o s , s h e a g r e e s th a t th e a e s th e tic e x p e r ie n c e p la y s a r o l e in o u r p le a s u r e ,
b u t w e a ls o h a v e a p ro f o u n d n e e d f o r e m o tio n a l a c ti v ity a n d ta k e p le a s u r e
 i n f e e l i n g m o v e d i n a h i t h e r t o u n k n o w n m a n n e r . L a t e r , s h e r e j e c t s S m i t h s
c la i m th a t w e a r e le s s m o v e d b y th e r e p r e s e n t a ti o n o f p h y s ic a l p a i n th a n th a t
o f e m o t i o n a l p a i n , a r g u i n g t h a t , i n g e n e r a l , s y m p a t h y f o r p h y s i c a l p a i n is
m o r e im m e d ia te , b u t o b s e r v i n g th a t th e d r a m a tic i l l u s i o n o f p h y s ic a l p a i n is
m o r e d i f f i c u l t t o s u s t a i n a n d m o r e c o m p l e x i n i ts a c t i o n o n t h e s p e c t a t o r
( 5 7 - 5 8 ) . T h e s e a r c h f o r e m o tio n s p e n ib le s is c o u n te r b a l a n c e d b y th e
p l e a s u r e s o f a r t a n d e n h a n c e d e x p e r i e n c e o f t h e s e lf .
T h e c u r ta in f a lls , c u rio u s ly , o n a n e v o c a tio n o f s o c ia l in e q u a lity a n d a
p o r tr a it o f a n u n h a p p y , u n ju s t m a n . D o n o t b e s u r p r is e d , s h e te lls th e f rie n d
to w h o m th e L e ttr e s a r e a d d r e s s e d : w e a ll c a r r y s o m e o f th e s e tr a its w ith in
u s , th e f ru its o f o u r im p e r f e c t s o c ie ty . H e r r h e t o r ic a ll y p o w e r f u l c o n c lu s io n
d e n i e s h u m a n p e r f e c t i o n , y e t h o l d s i t o u t a s a g o a l t o b e s o u g h t:

W here is he who, faithful to reason and nature, prefers the true pleasures of peace and homely
virtues to the seductive pleasures of self-love, which over time make us lose not only the need, but
the pleasure of fellow feeling? . . . W here is he who retains a corner of his soul to enjoy himself, to
taste the feelings of nature with the ease and reflection that gives them their sweetness and their
power? (103).

T h e s e r i e s o f q u e s tio n s , f o ll o w e d b y a w a r n in g to th o s e w h o n e g le c t th e
q u ie t p le a s u r e s o f p e a c e a n d v irtu e , s h o w th a t h o w e v e r d e e p o u r
u n d e r s ta n d in g o f th e r o o ts o f h u m a n g o o d n e s s , th e f u lly e n lig h te n e d s o c ie ty
re m a in s a n u n fin is h e d p r o je c t.

1 Denis Diderot and Jean dAlembert, eds., Encyclopedie ou dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des
arts et des metiers (Paris, 1747-65).
2 Patrick Dandrey, Entre medicinalia et moralia: La Double Ascendance de la Sympathie, in Les
Discours de la sympathie: Enquete sur une notion de l age classique a la modernite, ed. Thierry
Belleguic, Eric Van D er Schuren, and Sabrina Vervacke (Laval: Presses de luniversite Laval, 2007), 3
23.
3 W iliam Reddy, The Navigation o f Feeling: A Framework fo r the History o f the Emotions
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Jerrold Siegel, The Idea o f the Self: Thought and
Experience in Western Europe Since the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005); Dror Wahrman, The M aking o f the Modern Self: Identity and Culture in Eighteenth-
Century England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006).
4 For a thorough review of the cri du sang topos, see Clifton Cherpack, The Call o f Blood in French
Classical Tragedy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1958).
5 Pierre-Claude La Chaussee, La Fausse antipathie, in Oeuvres, 5 vols. (Paris, 1777; Geneva: Slatkine
Reprints, 1970), vol. 1.
6 According to Bonars catalog, Adam Smith owned a copy of La Chaussees collected works; see
James Bonar, A Catalogue o f the Library o f Adam Smith (London: Macmillan & Co., 1894). (I thank
Eric Schliesser for pointing this out.)
7 Pierre-Claude La Chaussee, Melanide, in Oeuvres. (Paris, 1777; Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1970), vol.
2, p. 90.
8 I discuss these issues further in Julie Candler Hayes, Identity and Ideology: Diderot, Sade, and the
Serious Genre (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1991), especially ch. 3, The Equivocal Genre, 81-103.
9 Denis Diderot, Entretiens sur le Fils naturel, in Oeuvres esthetiques, ed. P. Verniere (1757; Paris:
Garnier, 1968), 122.
10 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres completes, ed. Bernard Gagnebin and M arcel Raymond, 5 vols.
(Paris: Gallimard, 1959-95), 5.125.
11 Adam Smith, O f Sympathy, in The Theory o f Moral Sentiments, ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L.
MacFie (1759; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 9.
12 David Marshall, The Surprising Effects o f Sympathy: Marivaux, Diderot, Rousseau, and Mary
Shelley (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 5.
13 M arc Andre Bernier, Eloquence du corps et sympathie: Les Tableaux de sensations de Sophie de
Condorcet, in Les Discours de la sympathie: Enquete sur une notion de l age classique a la
modernite, ed. Thierry Belleguic, Eric Van D er Schuren, and Sabrina Vervacke (Laval: Presses de
luniversite Laval, 2007), 171-81. For comparisons of Smith and de Grouchy, see also the scholarly
essays included in a recent critical edition of her work: Les Lettres sur la sympathie (1798) de Sophie
de Grouchy: Philosophie morale et reforme sociale, ed. M arc Andre Bernier and Deidre Dawson
(Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2010), in particular the essays by Bernier, Daniel Dumouchel, and Michel
Malherbe. All page references to de Grouchy are from this edition.
 C H A P T E R SE V E N

Hume and Smith on Sympathy, Approbation,

and Moral Judgment
G e o ffr e y S a y r e - M c C o r d
 1. In t r o d u c t i o n

D a v id H um e and A d am S m ith a r e u s u a lly , a n d u n d e rs ta n d a b ly , se e n as

d e v e lo p i n g v e r y s im ila r s e n tim e n ta lis t a c c o u n ts o f m o r a l th o u g h t a n d p r a c t i c e . 1
H u m e s v i e w s a r e b e tte r k n o w n , n o t l e a s t b e c a u s e S m ith s w o r k o n m o ra l
s e n tim e n ts fe ll in th e shadow o f h is tr e m e n d o u s ly in flu e n tia l W ealth o f
N a t i o n s 2 T h is s h a d o w in g is u n fo rtu n a te , b o th b e c a u s e S m ith s w o r k o n m o ra l
s e n tim e n ts is d e e p ly in s ig h tfu l a n d b e c a u s e i t p r o v id e s a c r u c ia l m o r a l c o n te x t
f o r u n d e r s ta n d in g h is e c o n o m ic th e o ry .
A s s im ila r a s H u m e s a n d S m ith s a c c o u n ts o f m o r a l th o u g h t a r e , th e y d if f e r
in te llin g w a y s . T h is e s s a y is a n a tte m p t p r im a r i ly to g e t c l e a r o n th e im p o r ta n t
d if f e r e n c e s . T h e y a r e w o r t h id e n tify in g a n d e x p lo r in g , in p a r t, b e c a u s e o f th e
g r e a t e x te n t to w h ic h H u m e a n d S m ith s h a r e n o t j u s t a n o v e r a ll a p p r o a c h to
m o r a l th e o r y b u t a ls o a c o n c e p tio n o f th e k e y c o m p o n e n ts o f a n a d e q u a te
a c c o u n t o f m o r a l th o u g h t. I n th e p r o c e s s , I h o p e to b r in g o u t th e e x te n t to w h ic h
th e y b o th w o r k e d to m a k e s e n s e o f th e f a c t th a t w e d o n o t m e r e ly h a v e a f f e c tiv e
r e a c tio n s b u t a ls o , im p o rta n tly , m a k e m o r a l ju d g m e n ts .
 2. Th e Co m m o n Fr a m e w o r k

A s a f i r s t s t e p , i t i s w o r t h t a k i n g s t o c k o f j u s t h o w s i m i l a r H u m e s a n d S m i t h s
v i e w s a re . T o s ta r t w h e r e th e y d o , H u m e a n d S m ith b o th ta k e s e n tim e n ts to b e
fu n d a m e n ta l to m o r a l th o u g h t a n d p r a c tic e . T h e y h o ld th a t w h a te v e r r o le r e a s o n
a n d t h e u n d e r s t a n d i n g m i g h t h a v e i n e x p l a i n i n g m o r a l t h o u g h t, a n a p p e a l t o
r e a s o n a lo n e , u n a id e d b y s e n tim e n t, is in s u f f ic ie n t. A b s e n t s e n tim e n t, th e y h o ld ,
th e d e liv e r a n c e s o f r e a s o n c o n c e r n in g , f o r in s ta n c e , w h a t c a u s e s , a n d w h a t
f ru s tra te s , h u m a n h a p p in e s s , w h a t g e n e r a te s g r a titu d e o r re s e n tm e n t, a n d w h a t
c o n fo rm s to , a n d w h a t v io la te s , c e r t a i n p r in c ip le s , w i l l le a v e u n d is c o v e r e d a
d i s t i n c t io n f a v o r in g a n y o f th e s e f a c ts o v e r th e o th e r s .3 A n d th e y h o ld th a t, in
p a r tic u la r , o u r c a p a c i ty to s y m p a th iz e w i t h th e s e n tim e n ts o f o th e r s is c r u c ia l.
I f th a t c a p a c ity fo r s y m p a th y w e r e e n tir e ly a b s e n t, th e y h o ld , s o to o w o u ld b e
m o r a l th o u g h t a n d p r a c tic e .
It is w o r t h n o tin g th a t, o n th e i r s h a r e d v ie w , s y m p a th y p la y s t w o d if f e r e n t
ro le s . F irs t, s y m p a th y w i t h th e p lig h t o f o th e rs engages our c o n c e rn an d
p r o m p ts o u r a c tio n s in w a y s th a t a r e , th e y h o ld , m o r a lly im p o rta n t, c r u c ia l fo r
c o n s titu tin g and s u s ta in in g a c o m m u n it y , and m o re g e n e ra lly m u tu a lly
a d v a n t a g e o u s . S e c o n d , s y m p a t h y i s e s s e n t i a l , a s t h e y s e e it, t o o u r c a p a c i t y t o
a p p ro v e ( o r d is a p p r o v e ) o f a c tio n s , m o tiv e s , a n d c h a ra c te r s a s m o ra l o r n o t
a n d , b e c a u s e o f th a t, to o u r c a p a c i ty to j u d g e a c tio n s , m o tiv e s , a n d c h a r a c te r s
a s m o r a l o r n o t.
T h u s , w i t h o u t s y m p a t h y w e w o u l d n o t h a v e a m o r a l l y d e c e n t c o m m u n it y , i f
w e h a d a c o m m u n i t y a t a l l ( t h a t i s s y m p a t h y s f i r s t r o l e ) , n o r w o u l d w e b e a b l e
to ju d g e c o m m u n itie s ( o r a n y th in g e ls e ) a s m o r a lly d e c e n t o r n o t (th a t is
s y m p a t h y s s e c o n d r o l e ) . P r e s u m a b l y , e v e n w i t h s y m p a t h y , w e m i g h t e n j o y a
d e c e n t c o m m u n ity w ith o u t a ls o m a k in g m o ra l ju d g m e n ts . Y e t a s H u m e a n d
S m ith s e e th in g s , o u r c a p a c i ty to m a k e m o r a l ju d g m e n ts p la y s a v i ta l r o l e in
s tre n g th e n in g a n d s u p p o r tin g th e b o n d s o f c o m m u n ity th a t s y m p a th y m a k e s
p o s s ib le .4
M o re o v e r , th e y b o th a re c a re fu l to d is tin g u is h b e tw e e n w h a t, a s it h a p p e n s ,
g a rn e r s m o r a l a p p r o v a l o r d is a p p r o v a l, o n th e o n e h a n d , a n d w h a t m e r its
a p p ro v a l and d is a p p ro v a l, on th e o th e r. T hat is , th e y d is tin g u is h b e in g
a p p ro v e d (o r d is a p p ro v e d ) fro m b e in g a p p ro v a b le (o r d is a p p ro v a b le ). In
f u n d in g th is d is tin c tio n , th e y m o v e f r o m a n a c c o u n t o f m o r a l a p p r o b a t io n to a n
a c c o u n t o f m o ra l ju d g m e n t, a n a c c o u n t th a t m a k e s sen se o f th e d if f e r e n c e
b e tw e e n s o m e o n e th in k in g th a t s o m e th in g is m o ra l a n d th a t p e r s o n b e in g rig h t
in h e r ju d g m e n t. F in a lly , in d e v e lo p in g th e ir a c c o u n ts o f m o r a l ju d g m e n t th e y
b o th a p p e a l to a p riv ile g e d p o in t o f v ie w th a t s e ts th e s ta n d a rd fo r o u r
ju d g m e n ts . A c c o r d in g to b o th o f th e m , w h a t w o u l d b e a p p r o v e d o f, f r o m th e
a p p r o p r ia te p o in t o f v ie w , is w h a t is a p p r o v a b le . A n d to ju d g e , f o r in s ta n c e ,
th a t s o m e t r a i t is a v ir tu e is to m a k e a ju d g m e n t th a t is c o r r e c t if, b u t o n ly if, th e
t r a i t w o u ld s e c u r e a p p r o v a l f r o m th e a p p r o p r ia te p o in t o f v ie w .
T o s h a re th is m u c h is , c le a r ly , to s h a re a g r e a t d e a l. S o it is n o t s u r p r is in g
th a t H u m e a n d S m ith a r e r e g u la r ly g r o u p e d to g e th e r a s a d v a n c in g v e r y s im ila r
a c c o u n t s o f m o r a l t h o u g h t. T h e i r a l l e g i a n c e t o s e n t i m e n t a l i s m , t h e i r f o c u s o n
s y m p a th y , th e ir e m p h a s is o n s y m p a th e tic a lly e n g e n d e r e d a p p r o b a tio n , a n d th e ir
re lia n c e on a p riv ile g e d p o in t o f v ie w as s e ttin g th e s ta n d a rd fo r m o ra l
ju d g m e n t, a re d is tin c tiv e a n d s tr ik in g fe a tu re s o f th e ir s h a r e d v i e w th a t rig h tly
a tt r a c t a tte n tio n a n d c o m m e n t.
Y e t a s s im ila r a s th e ir v ie w s a re , th e re a re a n u m b e r o f in te r e s tin g a n d
in s tru c tiv e d iffe re n c e s , e s p e c ia lly in th e ir a c c o u n ts o f s y m p a t h y s r o l e in
p ro d u c in g a p p ro b a tio n and in th e ir u n d e rs ta n d in g o f a p p ro b a tio n . T hese
d if f e r e n c e s h a v e r e v e r b e r a ti o n s in th e ir u n d e r s ta n d in g s o f w h i c h s e n tim e n ts
m a tte r a n d w h y , o f h o w s y m p a th y n e e d s to w o r k , a n d o f th e s u b s ta n c e o f th e
m o ra l ju d g m e n ts th a t e n d u p b e in g v in d ic a te d b y th e ir p r o p o s e d p r iv i le g e d
p o in ts o f v ie w . I n w h a t f o llo w s , I c o n c e n tr a te f ir s t o n th e d if f e r e n t a c c o u n ts o f
s y m p a t h y s r o l e i n p r o d u c i n g a p p r o b a t i o n a n d o f t h e n a t u r e o f a p p r o b a t i o n , a n d
th e n f r o m th e r e tu r n b r ie f ly to th e r e v e r b e r a ti o n s o f th e s e d if f e r e n c e s .
 3. Sy m p a t h y

I n id e n tify in g sy m p a th y , H u m e n o te s th a t [a] c h e e rfu l c o u n te n a n c e in fu s e s a

s e n s ib le c o m p la c e n c y a n d s e r e n ity in to m y m in d ; a s a n a n g ry o r s o r r o w f u l o n e
th r o w s a s u d d e n d a m p u p o n m e ( T re a tise , 3 1 7 ) . S m ith ta k e s u p th e s a m e
e x a m p le s , w r itin g , [a ] s m ilin g f a c e is , to e v e r y b o d y w h o s e e s it, a c h e e rfu l
o b je c t; a s a s o r r o w f u l c o u n te n a n c e , o n th e o th e r h a n d , is a m e la n c h o ly o n e
(T M S , 11).
T h e y m a k e a p o in t o f a l l o w i n g a ll c a s e s o f f e llo w - f e e lin g , w h e th e r th e
fe e lin g s s h a r e d a r e p o s itiv e o r n e g a tiv e . S y m p a th y o p e r a te s , th e y b o th h o ld , n o t
o n ly w h e n th e p e r s o n w i t h w h o m o n e is s y m p a th iz in g is s u ffe rin g o r in s o m e
o th e r w a y b a d ly o ff .5 D r a w in g a c o n tr a s t w i t h p ity a n d c o m p a s s io n , w h ic h a r e
a p p r o p r i a t e d to s ig n ify o u r f e llo w - f e e lin g w i t h th e s o r r o w o f o th e r s S m ith
s u g g e s ts th a t s y m p a th y , th o u g h its m e a n in g w a s , p e r h a p s , o r ig i n a lly th e
s a m e , m a y n o w , h o w e v e r , w ith o u t m u c h im p r o p r ie ty , b e m a d e u s e o f to d e n o te
o u r f e llo w - f e e lin g w i t h a n y p a s s i o n w h a te v e r . 6 I n a d o p tin g th is b r o a d u s e
S m ith w a s s im p ly d o in g a s H u m e h a d d o n e b e f o r e h im . F o r b o th o f th e m , th e
i d e a th a t s y m p a th y e n g a g e s u s w i t h th e p o s itiv e , n o le s s th a n th e n e g a tiv e ,
fe e lin g s o f o th e rs is im p o r ta n t to its r o l e i n e x p la in in g th e n a tu re o f m o r a l
ju d g m e n t.
I n g e n e r a l, H u m e a n d S m ith tr e a t a s s ta n d a r d c a s e s o f s y m p a th y a n y
o c c a s i o n w h e n o n e p e r s o n f e e ls a s a n o th e r d o e s , b e c a u se th e o th e r f e e ls th a t
w a y . S y m p a th y is , in th e s e c a s e s , f e llo w - f e e lin g w i t h a s p e c if ic e tio lo g y . Y e t in
ta lk in g a b o u t sy m p a th y , H u m e a n d S m ith s o m e tim e s h a v e in m in d j u s t th e
p r o c e s s b y w h ic h w e , i n th e s ta n d a r d c a s e s , c o m e to fe e l a s o th e rs d o a n d
s o m e tim e s h a v e in m in d j u s t th e p r o d u c t, th e f e llo w - f e e lin g , w ith o u t r e g a r d to
h o w i t c a m e a b o u t. S o th e y e a c h e n d u p a l l o w i n g th a t w e m ig h t s y m p a th iz e
w i t h a n o th e r d e s p ite n o t a c tu a lly f e e lin g a s th e o th e r p e r s o n d o e s ( a s w h e n w e
im a g in e h is f e e lin g a c e r t a i n w a y , th o u g h h e d o e s n o t) a n d th a t w e m ig h t b e i n
s y m p a th y w i t h o th e rs , th a t is , fe e l a s th e y d o , th o u g h n o t a s a r e s u lt o f h a v in g
b e e n e n g a g e d b y (th e n o rm a l p r o c e s s o f) sy m p ath y . F o r H u m e a n d S m ith a lik e ,
w h a t is im p o r ta n t to th e ir a c c o u n ts o f a p p r o b a tio n a n d m o r a l ju d g m e n t is o u r
c a p a c ity to b e e n g a g e d b y th e p r o c e s s th e y id e n tif y w i t h sy m p a th y .
 3.1. Hume

W h e n i t c o m e s to a p p r o b a tio n a n d m o r a l ju d g m e n t, th e k e y e le m e n t o f H u m e s
a c c o u n t o f s y m p a th y is th e id e a th a t, w h e n s y m p a th y is in p la y , o u r id e a o f
a n o th e r p e r s o n s p a i n o r p le a s u r e r e s u lts in o u r h a v in g a p a in fu l o r p le a s a n t
fe e lin g . Y e t i t is w o r t h n o tin g , i f o n ly in p a s s in g , th a t H u m e o f f e r s a d e ta i le d
a n d e la b o r a te a c c o u n t o f h o w a n d w h y o u r id e a s o f o t h e r s fe e lin g s h a v e th is
e ffe c t. O n th is a c c o u n t, th e e f f e c t is a c h ie v e d b e c a u s e th e id e a ( o f a n o th e r s
fe e lin g ) is i t s e l f tr a n s f o r m e d in to th e c o r r e s p o n d i n g fe e lin g .

W hen any affection is infusd by sympathy, it is at first known only by its effects, and by those
external signs in the countenance and conversation, which convey an idea of it. This idea is
presently converted into an impression, and acquires such a degree of force and vivacity, as to
become the very passion itself, and produce an equal emotion, as any original affection. ( Treatise,
317)

H u m e e x p la in s th is tr a n s f o r m a tio n b y a p p e a l to tw o d is tin c tiv e a s p e c ts o f h is

g e n e r a l th e o r y o f m in d . T h e f ir s t is th e ( im p la u s ib le ) v i e w th a t th e d if f e r e n c e
b e tw e e n th e id e a o f a n e x p e r ie n c e a n d th e e x p e r ie n c e o f w h ic h i t is a n id e a is
s im p ly o n e o f r e l a t i v e v iv a c ity , w i t h th e id e a b e in g , in e ffe c t, j u s t a le s s v i v i d
v e r s i o n o f th e e x p e r ie n c e . T h e s e c o n d is th a t, u n d e r c e r t a i n c ir c u m s ta n c e s ,
id e a s c a n b e r e v i v i f i e d to a p o in t th a t th e y b e c o m e th e e x p e r ie n c e s ( o r a t l e a s t
th e k in d s o f e x p e r ie n c e s ) o f w h ic h th e y a re id e a s , th a n k s to c e r ta in
a s s o c ia tio n s . W ith th e s e tw o v ie w s in p la c e , H um e s u g g e s ts th a t in
s y m p a th iz in g w i t h a n o th e r w e a re im a g in in g o u r s e lv e s in th a t p e r s o n s
s itu a tio n , o r s e e in g o u r s e lv e s a s in s o m e o th e r w a y r e l a t e d to th a t p e r s o n , a n d
a rg u e s th a t th e v i v a c i t y o f o u r e v e r - p r e s e n t im p r e s s i o n o f o u r s e l f ( w h ic h is
b r o u g h t to th e f o r e in s y m p a th iz in g w i t h o th e r s ) is t r a n s f e r r e d to th e id e a o f th e
f e e lin g a n d th u s tr a n s f o r m s it in to th e f e e lin g : 7 T h e s tr o n g e r th e r e l a t i o n is
b e tw ix t o u r s e lv e s a n d a n y o b j e c t [ in c lu d in g o th e r p e o p le a n d th e ir f e e lin g s ] ,
th e m o re e a s i l y d o e s th e im a g in a tio n m a k e th e tr a n s itio n , a n d c o n v e y to th e
r e l a t e d id e a th e v i v a c i t y o f c o n c e p tio n , w i t h w h ic h w e a lw a y s f o r m th e id e a o f
o u r o w n p e r s o n (T re a tise , 3 1 8 ). H u m e u s e s th is g e n e r a l a c c o u n t o f s y m p a th y
to e x p la i n s o m e in tr ig u in g v a g a r ie s in o u r p a tte r n s o f sy m p a th y . To ta k e o n e
e x a m p le , h e n o te s th a t c o m p e tin g w i t h p r e s s u r e s to id e n tif y w i t h o th e rs ( w h ic h
a re in p l a y w h e n w e s y m p a th iz e ) th e r e a re a ls o p re ssu re s to co m p are
o u r s e lv e s w i t h o th e rs ( w h ic h p u ll in th e o p p o s ite d ir e c tio n ) . I n d e e d ,
 We judge more of objects by comparison, than by their intrinsic worth and value; and regard
everything as mean, when set in opposition to what is superior of the same kind. But no comparison
is more obvious than that with ourselves; and hence it is that on all occasions it takes place, and
mixes with most of our passions. This kind of comparison is directly contrary to sympathy in its
operation. ( Treatise, 593)

T h is e x p la in s w h y , o n n o tic in g th a t s o m e o n e is h a p p y , o u r f i r s t a n d n a tu ra l
s y m p a th e tic r e a c t i o n m a y b e to fe e l p le a s u r e . Y e t i f w e n o tic e a s w e l l th a t w e
a r e s a d , th a t c o m p a r is o n w i l l w o r k to in c r e a s e o u r s a d n e s s : T h e d i r e c t s u r v e y
o f a n o t h e r S p l e a s u r e n a t u r a l l y g i v e s u s p l e a s u r e ; a n d th e r e fo r e p r o d u c e s
p a in , w h e n c o m p a r d w ith o u r o w n [ a s s u m i n g w e a r e n o t a s p l e a s e d ] . H is
p a in , c o n s i d e r d in its e lf, is p a i n f u l ; b u t a u g m e n ts th e id e a o f o u r o w n
h a p p i n e s s [ a s s u m i n g w e a r e n o t in a s m u c h p a i n ] , a n d g i v e s u s p l e a s u r e
( T r e a tis e , 5 9 4 ). W h e th e r s y m p a th y o r c o m p a r is o n w in s o u t, H u m e h o ld s ,
d e p e n d s o n h o w v i v i d o u r id e a is o f th e o th e r p e r s o n s p le a s u r e o r p a in . T h e
m o re v i v i d th e id e a , th e m o re lik e ly , H u m e th in k s , w e w i l l s y m p a th iz e w ith ,
r a th e r th a n c o m p a r e o u r s e lv e s to , th e o th e r p e r s o n . W h ile o u r c h a r a c te r a n d
te m p e r w i l l in flu e n c e th e v iv id n e s s o f o u r id e a s o f o th e r s p le a s u r e s a n d p a in s ,
H u m e e m p h a s iz e s s p e c i f i c a l l y th e e x te n t to w h ic h th e v iv id n e s s o f o u r id e a s
w i l l d e p e n d o n h o w c lo s e th e r e l a t i o n is , in o u r th o u g h t, b e t w e e n o u r s e lv e s
a n d th e o th e r ( T r e a tis e , 5 9 4 ). The c l o s e r th e r e la tio n , th e s tr o n g e r th e
sy m p a th y ; th e fu r th e r th e r e la tio n , th e w e a k e r th e sy m p ath y . (T h e r e la tio n s
H u m e h a s in m in d a r e r e s e m b la n c e , c o n tig u ity , a n d c a u s e a n d e ffe c t. S o th e
m o re w e s e e o u r s e lv e s as r e s e m b lin g , o r b e in g n e a r, o r b e in g c a u s a lly
c o n n e c te d to , th e o th e r p e r s o n , th e s tr o n g e r w i l l b e th e e ffe c ts o f s y m p a th y .)8
H u m e o ff e rs a th o u g h t e x p e r im e n t a s s o m e c o n f ir m a tio n o f h is v ie w . H e h a s
us c o n s id e r f ir s t th a t w e a r e s a f e ly o n la n d a n d w o u ld w e lc o m e ta k in g s o m e
p le a s u r e f r o m th is fa c t. W e w o u ld s u c c e e d , h e s u g g e s ts , i f w e j u s t im a g in e th e
p lig h t o f th o s e a t s e a in a s to rm . C o m p a r in g o u r s itu a tio n to th e ir s , h e th in k s ,
w i l l h e ig h te n th e p le a s u r e w e ta k e in b e in g s a f e o n la n d . U p to a p o in t, h e
s u g g e s ts , o u r p le a s u r e w o u ld in c r e a s e a s th e i d e a o f th e a lte r n a tiv e b e c o m e s
m o re v iv id , s a y i f w e a c tu a lly s a w a s h ip a t a d is ta n c e , t o s t b y a te m p e s t, a n d
in d a n g e r e v e r y m o m e n t o f p e r is h in g o n a r o c k o r s a n d - b a n k ." B u t o n ly u p to a
p o in t. I f th e s h ip is b r o u g h t n e a r e n o u g h th a t w e c a n p e r c e i v e d is tin c tly th e
h o r r o r , p a in te d o n th e c o u n te n a n c e o f th e s e a m e n a n d p a s s e n g e r s , h e a r th e ir
la m e n ta b le c r ie s , s e e th e d e a r e s t f r ie n d s g iv e th e ir l a s t a d ie u , o r e m b r a c e w ith
a r e s o lu tio n to p e r i s h in e a c h o t h e r s a rm s : N o m a n h a s s o s a v a g e a h e a r t a s to
r e a p a n y p le a s u r e f r o m s u c h a s p e c ta c le , o r w ith s ta n d th e m o tio n s o f th e
te n d e r e s t c o m p a s s io n a n d s y m p a th y ( T rea tise , 5 9 4 ). T h e l e s s o n H u m e d r a w s
is th a t i f th e id e a b e to o fa in t, i t h a s n o in flu e n c e b y c o m p a r is o n ; a n d o n th e
o th e r h a n d , i f i t b e to o s tro n g , it o p e r a te s o n u s e n tir e ly b y sy m p a th y , w h ic h is
th e c o n tr a r y to c o m p a r is o n (T re a tise , 2 8 9 ) .
T h e f o r c e s o f s y m p a th y a n d c o m p a r is o n e x p la i n a s w e l l , H u m e h o ld s , th e
c a u s e s o f r e s p e c t, h u m ility , p r id e , e n v y , a n d h a tre d . A ll o f th e s e , h e m a in ta in s ,
a r e d e p e n d e n t o n h o w w e a r e a f f e c te d b y th o u g h ts o f o th e rs , a n d s p e c if ic a lly
b y th e d e g r e e s to w h ic h w e e ith e r s y m p a th iz e w ith , o r c o m p a r e o u r s e lv e s to ,
th e m .
B u t, to th e e x te n t th a t o u r in te r e s t is in u n d e r s ta n d in g H u m e s a c c o u n t o f
a p p r o b a tio n , th e s e a r e d e ta i ls w e c a n s e t to o n e s id e . A ll w e n e e d is th e id e a
th a t w h e n s y m p a th y ( a s o p p o s e d to c o m p a r is o n ) is in p la y , i t w o r k s to
tr a n s f o r m th e id e a o f a n i m p r e s s i o n (o f, say , a p le a s u r e o r a p a in ) in to a
c o r r e s p o n d i n g im p r e s s io n .
I n c id e n ta lly , H u m e is n o t c o m m itte d to h o ld in g th a t th e tr a n s f o r m a tio n w i l l ,
o r e v e n c a n , b e e f f e c te d w i t h a n y a n d a ll id e a s o f fe e lin g s ( l e t a lo n e id e a s o f
im p r e s s io n s m o re g e n e r a lly ) . F o r a ll h e a rg u e s , th e r e m a y b e s o m e fe e lin g s th e
id e a o f w h ic h c a n n o t b e tu rn e d in to th e f e e lin g s th e m s e lv e s . ( I t m ig h t b e , fo r
in s ta n c e , th a t th e id e a o f f e e lin g r o u g h s a n d p a p e r c a n n e v e r b e c h a n g e d in to th e
f e e lin g its e lf , n o r th e id e a o f s o m e o n e b e in g j e a l o u s in to je a l o u s y .) W h a t is
c r u c ia l, f o r h is th e o r ie s o f a p p r o b a tio n a n d m o r a l ju d g m e n t, is j u s t th a t
r e g u la r ly th e tr a n s f o r m a tio n d o e s h appen and, s p e c if ic a lly , th a t id e a s of
p l e a s a n t a n d p a in fu l f e e lin g s c a n b e tr a n s f o r m e d in to p le a s u r e s a n d p a in s .
M o r e o v e r , H u m e d o e s n o t n e e d to h o ld th a t, w h e n s y m p a th y is a t w o r k , e a c h
id e a o f a s p e c if ic k in d o f p le a s u r e o r p a i n is tr a n s f o r m e d in to th e v e r y s a m e
k in d o f p le a s u r e o r p a in ; i t is e n o u g h i f th e id e a o f a s p e c if ic k in d o f p le a s u r e
is c o n v e r te d in to a p le a s a n t f e e lin g a n d th e id e a o f a s p e c if ic k in d o f p a i n in to
a p a in fu l f e e lin g .9 S till, i t is s tr ik in g th e e x te n t to w h ic h s y m p a th y d o e s
e f f e c tiv e ly tu r n th e id e a o f s o m e o n e s g r i e f o r f e a r in to g r i e f o r f e a r a n d th e
id e a of s o m e o n e s c h e e r f u ln e s s or e x c ite m e n t in to c h e e r f u ln e s s or
e x c ite m e n t.10
 3.2. Smith

S m ith , a s I h a v e s a id , s h a r e s H u m e s v i e w th a t sy m p a th y , in th e s ta n d a r d c a s e s ,
in v o lv e s f e e lin g a s a n o th e r d o e s , b e c a u se s h e f e e ls th a t w a y . A t w o r k in th e s e
s ta n d a r d c a s e s is , S m ith h o ld s , o u r c a p a c ity to im a g in e o u r s e lv e s ( m o r e o r le s s
s u c c e s s f u lly ) in th e o t h e r s p la c e .
O f c o u r s e , th e r e a r e im p o r ta n tly d if f e r e n t w a y s o n e m ig h t b e im a g in in g
o n e s e l f in a n o th e r s p la c e . In p a r tic u la r , e x a c tly h o w m u c h o f o n e s e l f a n d o n e s
c h a r a c te r is c a r r i e d o v e r m ig h t c o m p le te ly s h ift h o w o n e f e e ls a s a re s u lt.
I n s o m e c a s e s , in o r d e r to s y m p a th iz e w i t h a n o th e r, S m ith n o te s th a t w e d o
n o t s im p ly im a g in e o u r s e lv e s in th a t p e r s o n s s itu a tio n , w e ta k e u p ( i n o u r
im a g in a tio n ) th a t p e r s o n s c h a r a c te r a n d c o m m itm e n ts : W h e n I c o n d o le w ith
y o u f o r th e lo s s o f y o u r o n ly s o n , i n o r d e r to e n te r in to y o u r g r i e f I d o n o t
c o n s id e r w h a t I, a p e r s o n o f s u c h a c h a r a c te r a n d p r o f e s s io n , s h o u ld s u ffe r, i f I
h a d a so n , a n d i f th a t s o n w e r e u n fo r tu n a te ly to d ie : b u t I c o n s id e r w h a t I
s h o u ld su ffe r, i f I w a s r e a l l y y o u , a n d I d o n o t o n ly c h a n g e c ir c u m s ta n c e s w ith
y o u , b u t I c h a n g e p e r s o n s a n d c h a r a c te r s (T M S , 3 2 3 ) . I n o th e r c a s e s , th o u g h ,
w e a r e s y m p a th iz in g n o t w i t h h o w p e o p le a c tu a lly f e e l, n o r e v e n w i t h h o w w e
im a g in e th e y f e e l, b u t w ith h o w w e w o u ld fe e l, w ith c e r ta in o f o u r c a p a c itie s
in p la c e , w e r e w e ( p e r h a p s p e r im p o s s ib le ) in th e ir p la c e . F o r e x a m p le ,
c o n s id e r in g som eone w ho has l o s t a ll re a so n and so is in c a p a b le of
a p p r e c ia tin g h is o w n m is e r a b l e c o n d itio n , S m ith n o te s th a t

[t]he anguish which humanity feels ... at the sight of such an object, cannot be the reflection of any
sentiment of the sufferer. The compassions of the spectator must arise altogether from the
consideration of what he himself would feel if he were reduced to the same unhappy situation, and,
what perhaps is impossible, was at the same time able to regard it with his present reason and
judgment. (TMS, 262)

B r e a k in g s ig n if ic a n tly f r o m H u m e , S m ith e n d s u p h o ld in g th a t o u r c o n c e p tio n

o f th e c ir c u m s ta n c e s m a tte rs s ig n if ic a n tly m o re th a n o u r i d e a o f th e p a s s i o n
its e lf. S y m p a th y d o e s n o t a r is e s o m u c h f r o m th e v i e w o f th e p a s s io n , a s fro m
th a t o f th e s itu a tio n w h ic h e x c ite s it. W e s o m e tim e s fe e l f o r a n o th e r, a p a s s io n
o f w h ic h h e h i m s e l f s e e m s to b e a lto g e th e r in c a p a b le ; b e c a u s e , w h e n w e p u t
o u r s e lv e s in h is c a s e , th a t p a s s i o n a r i s e s i n o u r b r e a s t f r o m th e im a g in a tio n ,
th o u g h i t d o e s n o t in h is f r o m r e a lity (T M S , 1 2 ). T h is c a r r i e s u s s o f a r a s e v e n
to s y m p a th iz e w i t h th e d e a d , th o u g h w e k n o w th a t th e y fe e l n o th in g (T M S , 1 2 -
13).11
S m ith n o te s th a t s o m e p a s s io n s im m e d ia te ly e n g a g e s y m p a th y : G r i e f a n d
jo y , f o r e x a m p le , s tr o n g ly e x p r e s s e d in th e lo o k a n d g e s tu r e s o f a n y o n e , a t
o n c e a f f e c t th e s p e c ta to r w i t h s o m e d e g r e e o f a lik e p a in fu l o r a g r e e a b le
e m o tio n (T M S , 11). Y e t o th e r p a s s io n s e l i c i t s y m p a th e tic r e s p o n s e s , i f a t a ll,
o n ly w h e n th e c ir c u m s ta n c e s in w h ic h th e y a r e b e in g f e lt a r e c o n s id e r e d .
T h e r e a r e s o m e p a s s i o n s , S m ith o b s e r v e s , o f w h ic h th e e x p r e s s io n s e x c ite
n o s o r t o f sy m p a th y , b u t b e f o r e w e a r e a c q u a in te d w i t h w h a t g a v e o c c a s i o n to
th e m , s e r v e r a th e r to d is g u s t a n d p r o v o k e u s a g a in s t th e m . T h e fu r io u s b e h a v io r
o f a n a n g ry m a n is m o re lik e ly to e x a s p e r a te u s a g a in s t h i m s e l f th a n a g a in s t h is
e n e m ie s (T M S , 11). T h a t is , u n le s s a n d u n til w e l e a r n w h a t g a v e o c c a s io n
t o th e fu r io u s b e h a v io r , in w h ic h c a s e w e m ig h t c o m e to s y m p a th iz e w i t h th e
m a n s a n g e r.
S m ith e x p la in s th e d if f e r e n t s y m p a th e tic e ffe c ts o f th e s e d if f e r e n t p a s s io n s
b y a p p e a l to w h a t th e ir a p p e a r a n c e s b r in g n a tu r a lly to th e m in d o f a s p e c ta to r :
I f th e v e r y a p p e a r a n c e s o f g r i e f a n d j o y in s p ir e u s w i t h s o m e d e g r e e o f th e
lik e e m o tio n s , i t is b e c a u s e th e y s u g g e s t to u s th e g e n e r a l id e a o f s o m e g o o d o r
b a d fo rtu n e th a t h a s b e f a l l e n th e p e r s o n in w h o m w e o b s e r v e th e m (T M S , 11).
W h e r e a s in th e c a s e o f a n g e r, w e p l a in ly s e e w h a t is th e s itu a tio n o f th o s e
w i t h w h o m h e is a n g ry , a n d to w h a t v io le n c e th e y m a y b e e x p o s e d fr o m s o
e n r a g e d a n a d v e r s a r y . W e r e a d ily , th e r e f o r e , s y m p a th iz e w i t h th e ir f e a r o r
re s e n tm e n t, a n d a r e im m e d ia te ly d is p o s e d to ta k e p a r t a g a in s t th e m a n fr o m
w h o m th e y a p p e a r to b e in s o m u c h d a n g e r (T M S , 11).
I n o r d e r to s y m p a th iz e w i t h s o m e o n e s a n g e r, r a th e r th a n w i t h th e f e a r o r
r e s e n tm e n t o f th o s e a t w h o m h e is a n g ry , w e n e e d to b e c o m e a w a r e o f, a n d
fo c u s o n , th e g ro u n d s f o r h is a n g e r. I f w e f in d th a t w e to o w o u ld b e a n g ry in h is
p la c e , s y m p a th y w i t h h im c a n ta k e h o ld a n d w e ig h a g a in s t th e s y m p a th y w e
n a tu r a lly w o u ld h a v e w i t h th e ta r g e ts o f h is a n g e r. If, h o w e v e r , w e f in d w e
w o u ld n o t b e a n g ry in h is p la c e , w e w i l l n o t s y m p a th iz e w i t h h is a n g e r .12
S m ith e n d s u p o f f e r in g a w o n d e r f u lly s u b tle c a ta lo g o f th e s tra n g e d y n a m ic s
o f o u r c a p a c ity f o r sy m p ath y . B u t, u n lik e H u m e , h e s h ie s a w a y f r o m o ff e rin g
g e n e r a l p r in c ip le s m e a n t to e x p la i n th e w o r k in g s o f sy m p ath y . S m ith is c o n te n t
to r e g is te r th e e x is te n c e o f s y m p a th y ( a lo n g w i t h its in tr ig u in g c o m p le x itie s )
a n d to u s e it to e x p la i n th e n a tu re o f a p p r o b a tio n a n d m o r a l ju d g m e n t.
A n in te r e s tin g q u e s tio n , th o u g h , is w h e th e r , o r to w h a t e x te n t, H u m e s th e o ry
m ig h t f it w ith , a n d e x p la in , S m ith s o b s e r v a tio n s . T h is w o u ld r e q u ir e th a t th e
a f f e c tiv e e ffe c ts o f im a g in in g o u r s e lv e s in a n o th e r s p la c e , w h ic h S m ith
h ig h lig h ts , a r e m e d ia te d b y th o u g h ts o f th e p le a s u r e s o r p a in s w e w o u ld b e
f e e lin g u n d e r th o s e c ir c u m s ta n c e s . S m ith c l e a r l y h o ld s th a t w e d o o f te n h a v e
s u c h th o u g h ts , a n d th a t th e y m a k e a d if f e r e n c e to w h e th e r w e c a n s y m p a th iz e
w i t h s o m e o n e e ls e . Y e t i t s e e m s a s i f v i v i d l y im a g in in g o u r s e lv e s in th e o th e r
p e r s o n s c ir c u m s ta n c e s m ig h t c a u s e th e fe e lin g s s tr a ig h t a w a y , u n m e d ia te d b y
th o u g h ts o f th e f e e lin g s , j u s t a s a c tu a lly b e in g in th e c ir c u m s ta n c e s w o u ld . A n d
it lo o k s to o a s i f s o m e tim e s , n o t h a v in g to im a g in e o u r s e lv e s i n d iff e r e n t
c ir c u m s ta n c e s , w e f in d o u r s e lv e s s y m p a th iz in g , a s i f b y c o n ta g io n , w ith th e
fe e lin g s o f o th e rs .
In d e e d , H u m e a n d S m ith b o th r e m a r k o n h o w b e in g in th e c o m p a n y o f th o s e
w h o a r e c h e e rfu l c a n lif t o n e s m o o d a n d th e y b o th t r e a t th is a s a n e x a m p le o f
s y m p a th y a t w o rk . H u m e o f f e r s a n a n a lo g y : A s in s trin g s e q u a ll y w o u n d u p ,
th e m o tio n o f o n e c o m m u n ic a te s i t s e l f to th e r e s t; s o a ll th e a f f e c tio n s p a s s
r e a d i l y f r o m o n e p e r s o n to a n o th e r, a n d b e g e t c o r r e s p o n d e n t m o v e m e n ts in
e v e r y h u m a n c r e a tu r e (T re a tise , 5 7 5 ). Is th is a lw a y s th a n k s to o u r th in k in g o f
th e ir c h e e r f u ln e s s , o r o f th e c h e e r f u ln e s s w e w o u ld fe e l i f w e w e r e th e y ?
H u m e c o u ld c l a i m th a t th e c o m m u n ic a tio n o f a ffe c tio n s is a lw a y s v i a id e a s o f
th e a f f e c tio n s , b u t h e d o e s n o t. A n d in s is tin g th a t i t is s e e m s to p r e s s h is th e o ry
s u b s ta n tia lly b e y o n d th e e v id e n c e .
S o i t is w o r t h n o tin g th a t H u m e c a n a l l o w th a t f e llo w - f e e lin g m ig h t w e l l b e
e n g e n d e r e d i n w a y s n o t c o v e r e d b y h is th e o ry . A t le a s t w h e n it c o m e s to
a p p r o b a tio n a n d m o r a l ju d g m e n t, H u m e s a c c o u n t r e q u ir e s o n ly th e c l a i m th a t
o u r id e a s o f a n o th e r s p le a s u r e s a n d p a in s c a n c a u s e c o r r e s p o n d i n g p le a s u r e s
a n d p a in s . H is a c c o u n t d o e s n o t e v e n r e q u ir e th e c l a i m th a t th e e f f e c t is
a c h ie v e d v i a a tr a n s f o r m a tio n o f th e id e a in to a n im p r e s s i o n .13
 4. Ap p r o b a t i o n

H u m e a n d S m ith s e e th e w o r k in g s o f s y m p a th y a s c r u c ia l to u n d e r s ta n d in g th e
n a tu re of m o ra l a p p ro b a tio n , th o u g h th e ir v ie w s of a p p ro b a tio n d iffe r
d r a m a tic a lly . J u s t h o w d if f e r e n t th e ir v i e w s a r e w i l l ta k e a little tim e to b r in g
o u t, n o t l e a s t b e c a u s e H u m e s t h e o r y o f a p p r o b a t i o n i s q u i t e c o m p l e x ( a n d
la r g e ly ig n o re d , p e rh a p s fo r th a t re a s o n ).
 4.1. Hume

A c c o r d i n g to H u m e , a p p r o b a tio n a n d d is a p p r o b a t i o n a r e n o th in g b u t a fa in te r
a n d m o re im p e r c e p t ib le lo v e o r h a tr e d ( T r e a tis e , 6 2 4 ) . S o th e p la c e to lo o k
f o r h is th e o r y o f a p p r o b a tio n a n d d i s a p p r o b a t i o n is h is d is c u s s io n o f lo v e a n d
h a tr e d , w h ic h a r e g iv e n e x te n s iv e a tte n tio n a t th e b e g in n in g o f b o o k 2 o f th e
T r e a tis e . T h e r e H u m e d is tin g u is h e s im p r e s s io n s th a t a r e o r ig in a l f r o m th o s e
th a t a r e s e c o n d a r y ( o r r e f le c tiv e ) , w h e r e th e o r ig in a l im p r e s s io n s a r e th o s e th a t
a r i s e w ith o u t a n y a n te c e d e n t p e r c e p tio n w h ile th e s e c o n d a r y o r r e f le c tiv e
im p r e s s io n s p r o c e e d f r o m s o m e o f th e s e o r ig in a l o n e s , e ith e r im m e d ia te ly o r
b y th e in te r p o s itio n o f its id e a ( T r e a tis e , 2 7 5 ) . T h u s , w h e n s o m e o n e f e e ls a
p a in , o n b a r k in g h e r s h in , s h e e x p e r ie n c e s a n o r ig in a l im p r e s s i o n ( o f p a in ) ,
w h ile th e r e g r e t s h e la te r f e e ls w i l l b e a s e c o n d a r y im p r e s s i o n th a t a r is e s
th a n k s to th e in te r p o s itio n o f th e id e a o f h e r e a r l i e r p a in .
H u m e g o e s o n q u ic k ly to a d d tw o fu rth e r d is tin c tio n s a m o n g th e s e c o n d a r y
im p r e s s io n s , b e tw e e n th o s e th a t a r e c a lm a n d th o s e th a t a r e v i o l e n t , a n d
b e tw e e n th o s e th a t a r e d i r e c t a n d th o s e th a t a r e i n d i r e c t . H u m e g ra n ts rig h t
a w a y th a t th e d is tin c tio n b e tw e e n th e c a l m a n d th e v i o l e n t im p r e s s io n s is fa r
f r o m e x a c t a n d n o te s th a t m a n y im p r e s s io n s th a t a r e u s u a lly q u ite c a l m (h is
e x a m p le is a e s th e tic a p p r e c ia tio n ) m ig h t r i s e to th e g r e a te s t h e ig h ts , a n d th a t
n o r m a lly v i o l e n t im p r e s s io n s m a y d e c a y in to s o s o f t a n e m o tio n , a s to
b e c o m e , in a m a n n e r, im p e r c e p t ib le ( T r e a tis e , 2 7 6 ) . T h e s o r tin g is a t b e s t
r o u g h a n d re a d y . B u t it is w h a t H u m e h a s in m in d in s a y in g a p p r o b a tio n a n d
d i s a p p r o b a t i o n a r e s im p ly a f a in te r a n d m o re im p e r c e p t ib le lo v e o r h a tr e d .
H e th in k s a p p r o b a tio n a n d d is a p p r o b a ti o n , lik e a e s th e tic a p p r e c ia tio n , a r e
u s u a lly r e l a t i v e l y c a lm , w h e r e a s lo v e a n d h a tr e d a r e u s u a lly q u ite v io le n t.
Y e t a p p r o b a tio n a n d d i s a p p r o b a t i o n a r e , c r u c ia lly , e x a c tly lik e lo v e a n d
h a tr e d ( a n d p r i d e a n d h u m ility ) in b e in g i n d i r e c t . H u m e s in itia l d e s c r i p t i o n o f
w h a t b e in g in d ir e c t in v o lv e s is f a ir ly o p a q u e . H e m e n tio n s d e s ir e , a v e r s io n ,
g rie f, jo y , h o p e , fe a r, d e s p a ir , a n d s e c u r ity a s e x a m p le s o f d i r e c t s e c o n d a r y
im p r e s s io n s a n d p r id e , h u m ility , a m b itio n , v a n ity , lo v e , h a tr e d , e n v y , p ity ,
m a lic e , g e n e ro s ity , w ith th e ir d e p e n d e n ts a s e x a m p le s o f in d i r e c t s e c o n d a r y
im p r e s s io n s ( T r e a tis e , 2 7 6 - 7 7 ) . B o th a r is e , a c c o r d in g to H u m e , th a n k s to th e
p r e s e n c e o f s o m e o th e r p le a s a n t o r p a in fu l fe e lin g , b u t in d i r e c t s e c o n d a r y
im p r e s s io n s d e p e n d a s w e ll o n th e p r e s e n c e o f th e c o n ju n c tio n o f o th e r
q u a l i t i e s ( T r e a tis e , 2 7 6 ) . F ig u r in g o u t w h a t th o s e o th e r q u a l i t i e s a r e is
c e n tr a l to u n d e r s ta n d in g H u m e s a c c o u n t o f a p p r o b a tio n . F o rtu n a te ly , it
b e c o m e s c l e a r a s H u m e s d is c u s s io n o f p r i d e a n d h u m ility a n d lo v e a n d h a te
d e v e lo p s .
I n s e ttin g o u t H u m e s th e o r y o f in d ir e c t p a s s io n s , it is u s e fu l to f o ll o w h im
in c o n s id e r in g th e fo u r p a s s io n s o f p r id e , h u m ility , lo v e , a n d h a tr e d to g e th e r
( k e e p in g in m in d th a t lo v e a n d h a tr e d a r e th e m o d e ls f o r a p p r o b a tio n a n d
d is a p p r o b a ti o n , r e s p e c tiv e ly ) . H a v in g th e fo u r to g e th e r is h e lp fu l b e c a u s e th e y
a d m it o f tw o r e le v a n t p a ir in g s . F ir s t, p r i d e a n d h u m ility a r e p a i r e d to g e th e r
b e c a u s e th e y a r e b o th a ttitu d e s w e h a v e t o w a r d o u r s e lv e s , w h e r e a s ( a s H u m e
is u s in g th e te r m s ) lo v e a n d h a tr e d a r e a ttitu d e s d ir e c te d a t o th e rs . H u m e
d e s c r i b e s th is d if f e r e n c e b y s a y in g th a t th e o b je c t o f p r i d e a n d h u m ility is
o u r s e lv e s , w h ile th e o b je c t o f lo v e a n d h a tr e d is s o m e o n e o th e r th a n o u r s e lv e s .
S e c o n d , p r i d e a n d lo v e a r e p a i r e d to g e th e r b e c a u s e th e y a r e b o th p le a s a n t,
w h e r e a s h u m ility a n d h a tr e d a r e p a i r e d to g e th e r b e c a u s e th e y a r e b o th p a in fu l.
H u m e d e s c r i b e s th is d if f e r e n c e b y s a y in g th a t th e s e n s a tio n o f p r i d e a n d lo v e
is p le a s a n t, w h ile th e s e n s a tio n o f h u m ility a n d h a tr e d is u n p le a s a n t.
W h a t e x p la in s w h e n a n d w h y w e fe e l a ttitu d e s d i r e c t e d a t o u r s e lv e s , r a th e r
th a n o th e rs , a n d w h e n a n d w h y w e fe e l th e p le a s a n t a ttitu d e s , r a th e r th a n th e
p a in fu l o n e s ? To p r o v id e a n a n s w e r , H u m e tu rn s to w h a t c a u se s th e s e a ttitu d e s
a n d d is tin g u is h e s , in th e c a u s e , b e t w e e n th e s u b je c t a n d its q u a litie s . H e th e n
a rg u e s th a t w h ic h in d ir e c t p a s s i o n w e f e e l, i f any, d e p e n d s o n w h e th e r a n d h o w
th e s u b je c t, a n d its q u a litie s , a r e r e l a t e d to th e o b j e c t a n d th e s e n s a tio n o f th e
p a s s i o n in q u e s tio n .
A s a n e x a m p le , c o n s id e r a p e r s o n w h o is p r o u d o f h is h o u s e ( o r a h o u s e h e
h a s b u i l t o r d e s ig n e d ) . T h e p r i d e is a p le a s a n t f e e lin g d ir e c te d a t h im s e lf. W h a t
in th e c a u s e e x p la in s th is p r id e ? T w o a s p e c ts o f it, H u m e th in k s . F ir s t, th a t th e
s u b je c t o f th e p r id e , th e h o u s e , is h is ( o r in s o m e o th e r w a y r e l a t e d to h im );
r e c o g n iz in g th a t f a c t n a tu r a lly tu rn s h is a tte n tio n to h im s e lf. S e c o n d , th a t th e
q u a lity o f th e h o u s e , its b e a u ty , is s u c h th a t th e id e a o f i t g iv e s h im p le a s u r e ;
f e e lin g th is n a tu r a lly tu rn s h is a ttitu d e s p o s itiv e . I t is b y th is d o u b le r e l a t i o n
to th e o b j e c t o f p r i d e a n d to p r i d e s p l e a s a n t f e e lin g th a t th e c a u s e p ro m p ts
th e p r id e .
A c c o r d i n g to H u m e , i f e ith e r r e l a t i o n w e r e la c k in g i f th e h o u s e w e r e n o t
h is ( o r in s o m e o th e r s a li e n t w a y r e l a t e d to h im ), o r w e r e n o t a s o u r c e o f
p le a s u r e i t w o u ld p r o m p t n o p r id e . A n d i f e ith e r r e l a t i o n (to th e o b j e c t o r to
th e s e n s a tio n o f th e p a s s io n ) w e r e c h a n g e d a p p r o p r ia te ly , o n e o f th e o th e r
i n d ir e c t p a s s io n s w o u ld ta k e p r i d e s p la c e . S o , f o r in s ta n c e , i f th e h o u s e w a s
h i s , b u t i t w a s a s o u r c e o f p a i n , t h e t h o u g h t o f i t w o u l d c a u s e h u m i l i t y ; if,
in s te a d , th e h o u s e w a s a so u rc e o f p le a s u r e , b u t b e lo n g e d to a n o th e r, th e
t h o u g h t o f i t w o u l d c a u s e l o v e ; o r i f i t w a s a n o t h e r s a n d w a s a s o u r c e o f p a i n ,
th e th o u g h t o f i t w o u l d c a u s e h a tr e d . T h e c r u c ia l r e la tio n s , im p o rta n tly , a r e
a m o n g t h e p e r s o n s t h o u g h t s a n d f e e l i n g s . W h a t m a t t e r s f o r p r i d e , i n t h e c a s e o f
th e h o u s e , is th a t th e p e r s o n th in k s o f i t a s h e r o w n , o r in s o m e o th e r w a y a s
r e l a t e d t o h e r , n o t t h a t i t a c t u a l l y is . S i m i l a r l y , i f s h e t h i n k s t h a t t h e h o u s e i s a
s o u r c e o f p le a s u r e , a s lo n g a s th a t th o u g h t th e n c a u s e s h e r p le a s u r e , e n o u g h
w i l l b e i n p l a c e f o r p r i d e , e v e n if , a s a m a t t e r o f f a c t , t h e h o u s e i t s e l f g i v e s n o
o n e e ls e p le a s u re .
H u m e c o n c lu d e s th a t a d o u b le re la tio n m u st b e p r e s e n t f o r a n y o f th e
in d ir e c t p a s s io n s to a r is e , a n d , w h e n p r e s e n t, th e n a tu re o f e a c h o f th e r e la tio n s
d e te r m in e s w h ic h o f th e p a s s io n s w i l l a r is e . T h e r e la tio n s in p la y a re (1 )
b e t w e e n t h e id e a o f t h e c a u s e o f t h e p a s s i o n ( i n t h i s c a s e , o f t h e b e a u t i f u l
h o u s e ) a n d th e id e a o f t h e o b j e c t o f t h e p a s s i o n ( s e l f o r o t h e r s ) a n d ( 2 )
b e tw e e n th e f e e l i n g ( o f p le a s u r e o r p a in ) p r o d u c e d b y th e c a u s e o f th e p a s s i o n
a n d t h e f e e l i n g o f t h e p a s s i o n . 14
A s H u m e re c o g n iz e s , n o t ju s t a n y r e la tio n b e tw e e n a p o s s ib le c a u se a n d
o n e s e lf , o r a n o th e r, w i l l b e s u f f ic ie n t to p r o d u c e p r id e o r lo v e , n o m a tte r h o w
g r e a t th e p le a s u r e p r o d u c e d . A t th e s a m e tim e , i t is a m a z in g j u s t h o w te n u o u s a
c o n n e c tio n s o m e tim e s p r o v e s s u ffic ie n t. ( S im p ly h a v in g b e e n in th e r o o m w ith
s o m e o n e fa m o u s c a n , it s e e m s , g e n e ra te p r id e .) S im ila rly , n o t j u s t a n y p le a s u r e
c a u s e d b y s o m e th in g to w h ic h o n e is r e l a t e d w i l l c a u s e p r id e , n o m a tte r h o w
c lo s e th e r e la tio n .
M o r e o v e r , w h a t m i g h t o r i g i n a l l y b e a s o u r c e o f p r i d e c a n e a s i l y l o s e i ts
p o w e r w h e n , f o r in s ta n c e , th e e f f e c ts o f c o m p a r is o n c o m e in to p la y . T h u s , o n e
m ig h t b e p r o u d o f s o m e a c c o m p lis h m e n t u n til o n e d i s c o v e r s h o w e a s i l y o th e r s
m a n a g e t o d o s o m u c h b e t t e r ; a t t h i s p o i n t o n e s p r i d e m i g h t w e l l g i v e w a y
e i t h e r t o a d m i r a t i o n a n d l o v e t o t h e e x t e n t t h a t o n e s a t t e n t i o n i s s h i f t e d t o t h e
m o re a c c o m p lis h e d o r to h u m ility to th e e x te n t th a t one c o n tin u e s to
c o n s id e r w h a t o n e h a s d o n e , b u t n o w in a c o n te x t w h e r e a c o m p a r is o n w ith
o t h e r s b r i n g s a p a i n f u l r e a l i z a t i o n o f o n e s i n a d e q u a c y . O r , o f c o u r s e , o n e s
a tte n tio n m ig h t w e l l j u s t s h if t a w a y l e a v in g a ll fo u r o f th e p a s s io n s u n e n g a g e d .
I n th in k in g a b o u t th in g s w i t h a n a p p r o v in g ( o r d i s a p p r o v in g ) e y e , j u s t w h ic h
q u a litie s , a n d w h o s e p le a s u r e s ( o r p a in s ) , w i l l b e ta k e n in to a c c o u n t tu rn s o n a
n u m b e r o f f a c t o r s , n o t l e a s t t h e p e r s o n s c o n c e p t i o n o f t h e n a t u r e a n d p o i n t o f
w h a t s h e is c o n s id e r in g . S o , f o r in s ta n c e , in c o n s id e r in g a h o m e a s a p la c e fo r
one to liv e , a tte n tio n is n a tu ra lly tu rn e d to its c o m fo rt, fu n c tio n , and
a f f o r d a b ility ; w h e n o n e is c o n s id e r in g i t m o r e a s a w o r k o f a r t o r a n in v e s tm e n t
th a n a p l a c e f o r o n e to l iv e , h o w e v e r , d if f e r e n t a s p e c t s c o m e in to v i e w a n d a r e
g iv e n m o re s ig n if ic a n c e . M o r e g e n e ra lly , j u s t w h a t w e e n d u p a p p r o v in g o r
d i s a p p r o v in g o f is in f lu e n c e d b y w h a t e v e r f a c to r s m a k e c e r t a i n f e a tu r e s o f th e
o b je c t o f o u r a tte n tio n s a lie n t, in c lu d in g c u ltu ra l p r a c tic e s and in d iv id u a l
p e r s o n a litie s . S ig n ific a n tly , th e s e th in g s to o m a y c o m e in f o r a tte n tio n , w ith ,
say, c u ltu ra l p r a c tic e s and p a rtic u la r p e rs o n a litie s th e m s e lv e s b e c o m in g
o b je c ts o f d is a p p ro v a l.
It is im p o r ta n t to keep in m in d , e s p e c ia lly w hen we tu rn to m o ra l
a p p r o b a tio n , th a t th e c r u c ia l f e e lin g o f p l e a s u r e p r o d u c e d b y th e c a u s e , w h ic h
th e n b e a r s a r e l a t i o n to th e f e e lin g o f th e in d ir e c t p a s s i o n ( a p p r o b a tio n , lo v e ,
o r p r i d e ) , m a y b e i t s e l f i m m e d i a t e o r n o t. T h u s , t h e p l e a s u r e c a u s e d b y t h e
b e a u t i f u l h o u s e m a y r e s u l t i m m e d i a t e l y o n s e e i n g it o r it m a y a r i s e , t h a n k s t o
s y m p a th y , o n c o n s id e r in g th e p le a s u r e o th e r s ta k e in s e e in g th e h o u s e , o r a
c o m b i n a t i o n o f t h e t w o . 15 T h i s m a t t e r s , i n t h e c a s e o f m o ra l a p p ro b a tio n ,
b e c a u s e , o n H u m e s a c c o u n t , a l l m o r a l a p p r o b a t i o n a r i s e s f r o m a p l e a s u r e t h a t
is i t s e l f th e r e s u l t (th a n k s to s y m p a th y ) o f c o n s id e r in g , in g e n e r a l, w ith o u t
r e f e r e n c e t o o u r p a r t i c u l a r i n t e r e s t , t h e p l e a s u r e s a p e r s o n s c h a r a c t e r b r i n g s
to th e p e r s o n h e r s e l f o r to o th e rs ( T r e a tis e , 4 7 2 ) . M o ra l a p p ro v a l is th e
a p p r o v a l p r o m p te d b y th e m o r e o r l e s s d u r a b le tr a its o f m in d a n d c h a r a c te r
t h a t a r e u s e f u l o r a g r e e a b le t o t h e p e r s o n h i m s e l f o r t o o t h e r s ( E n q u i r y ,
2 6 8 ) . 16 A n d t h e s e t r a i t s s e c u r e m o r a l a p p r o v a l b e c a u s e t h e i d e a o f t h e p l e a s u r e
c a u s e d b y w h a t is u s e fu l o r a g r e e a b le is tr a n s f o r m e d , th a n k s to s y m p a th y , in to a
p le a s a n t fe e lin g , w h ic h th e n g iv e s r i s e to th e p le a s a n t f e e lin g o f a p p r o v a l. ( A
s im i la r s to r y g o e s f o r m o r a l d i s a p p r o v a l , w h e r e id e a s o f p a in fu l f e e lin g s g iv e
r i s e , th a n k s to s y m p a th y , to a p a in fu l f e e lin g , w h ic h th e n , th ro u g h th e w o r k in g s
o f th e d o u b le r e la tio n , p r o m p ts th e p a in f u l f e e lin g o f d is a p p r o v a l o f th e p e r s o n
f o r h i s c h a r a c t e r . ) 17
T h e in d ir e c t p a s s io n s m a y th e m s e lv e s g e n e ra te h ig h e r o r d e r a ttitu d e s o f
a p p r o v a l o r d i s a p p r o v a l , t o t h e e x t e n t t h a t o n e t u r n s o n e s a t t e n t i o n t o t h e m . S o
a p e r s o n m ig h t d i s a p p r o v e o f h e r o w n p r id e , o r a p p r o v e o f th e d is a p p r o v a l o f
o th e r s . W h a t is im p o r ta n t, in o r d e r to k ic k in th e in d ir e c t p a s s io n s , is th e
p r e s e n c e o f b o th a s u ita b le r e l a t i o n b e tw e e n th e c a u s e o f th e p a s s i o n a n d th e
p a s s i o n s o b j e c t a n d a r e s e m b la n c e in s e n s a tio n b e tw e e n th e in d e p e n d e n t
p le a s u r e o r p a i n th a t r e s u lts f r o m th e c a u s e ( s p e c if ic a lly , th e q u a litie s o f th e
s u b je c t) a n d th e s e n s a tio n o f th e p a s s io n .
 On H u m e s a c c o u n t, m o ra l a p p ro b a tio n is d is tin c tiv e because o f tw o
a s p e c ts o f its c a u s e : ( 1 ) th e r e l e v a n t p le a s u r e s a r e r e s t r i c te d to th o s e th a t r e s u lt
f r o m s y m p a th y ( y o u m ig h t a p p r o v e o f s o m e o n e in lig h t o f h is g o o d s e r v i c e s to
y o u , b u t th a t a p p ro v a l, i f it d e p e n d s on a p le a s u re th a t c o m e s n o t fro m
s y m p a th y b u t f ro m a c o n c e r n fo r y o u r s e lf, w ill n o t b e m o ra l a p p r o v a l) a n d (2 )
th e s u b je c t o f m o r a l a p p r o v a l is a lw a y s u ltim a te ly a t r a i t o f c h a r a c te r . T o th e
e x te n t th a t w e r e s t r i c t o u r s e lv e s to s y m p a th e tic p le a s u r e s a n d w e a r e fo c u s in g
o n a p e r s o n s c h a r a c t e r t r a i t s , o u r a p p r o v a l ( i f w e f e e l i t ) w i l l c o u n t a s m o r a l
a p p ro b a tio n . P le n ty c a n o f c o u rs e g e t in th e w a y ; w e m ig h t b e c o n s ta n tly
f o c u s e d o n o u r o w n i n t e r e s t s a n d t h e i m p a c t o f s o m e o n e s c h a r a c t e r o n u s , o r
w e m ig h t , e v e n w h e n s y m p a t h e t i c a l l y e n g a g e d , b e t h i n k i n g n o t o f t h e p e r s o n s
d u r a b le tr a its o f m in d a n d c h a r a c te r b u t o f h is lo o k s , o r h is w e a lth , o r s o m e
o th e r a s p e c t o f h im th a t is n o t th e s u b je c t o f m o ra l a p p r o v a l e v e n i f it is u s e fu l
o r a g r e e a b le to th e p e r s o n o r o th e rs .
H u m e s t h e o r y o f t h e i n d i r e c t p a s s i o n s , a n d s o o f m o r a l a p p r o b a t i o n , i s
a d m i t t e d l y c o m p l e x , t o t h e p o i n t o f s t r i k i n g m a n y a s i m p l a u s i b l y b a r o q u e . S o it
i s w o r t h p a u s i n g t o h i g h l i g h t a n i m p o r t a n t v i r t u e o f H u m e s v i e w , a v i r t u e t h a t
s e e m s to c a ll f o r j u s t th e s o r t o f c o m p le x ity H u m e p u ts in to p la y . S p e c if ic a lly ,
H u m e is w e l l p l a c e d to a c c o u n t f o r th e i d e a th a t s o m e o f o u r a ttitu d e s (th o u g h
c e rta in ly not a ll o f th e m ) a re such th a t we can re a s o n a b ly ask w hat
c o n s id e r a tio n s u n d e r w r ite th e a ttitu d e ? o r w h a t r e a s o n s d o w e h a v e fo r
th e m ? C e rta in a ttitu d e s a re such th a t if you have th e m , th e re m u st b e
c o n s id e ra tio n s th a t, f r o m y o u r p o in t o f v ie w , m a k e sen se o f, o r s e r v e as
r e a s o n s fo r, y o u r a ttitu d e . W h ile th e i d e a o f f r e e - f lo a tin g p le a s u r e m a k e s s e n s e ,
ta k in g p r id e i n n o th in g i n p a r t i c u l a r a n d f o r n o r e a s o n d o e s n o t; n o r, i t s e e m s ,
d o e s f e e l i n g h a te t o w a r d n o o n e i n p a r t i c u l a r , o r t o w a r d s o m e o n e b u t f o r n o
r e a s o n . H u m e s t h e o r y o f t h e i n d i r e c t p a s s i o n s a l l o w s h i m t o e x p l a i n w h y
c e r ta in f e e lin g s in c lu d in g a p p r o b a tio n , m o ra l a n d o th e r w is e a r e s u c h th a t
w e o n ly h a v e th e m w h e n w e s e e c o n s id e r a tio n s a s ( s o to s p e a k ) c o u n tin g in
th e ir fa v o r. I f I a p p ro v e o f s o m e o n e , H u m e h o ld s , it m u st b e b e c a u s e I s e e h e r
a s r e l a t e d t o s o m e t h i n g w i t h f e a t u r e s t h a t I s e e i n a f a v o r a b l e l ig h t . S i m i l a r l y , if
I d is a p p r o v e o f h e r, it m u s t b e b e c a u s e I s e e h e r a s r e l a te d to s o m e th in g w ith
f e a t u r e s t h a t I s e e i n a n u n f a v o r a b l e l ig h t.
In th e case o f d is tin c tiv e ly m o ra l a p p ro b a tio n , H um e h o ld s th a t m y
a p p r o v a l m u s t b e o f th e p e r s o n f o r h e r c h a r a c te r , in lig h t o f w h a t I s e e ( w ith o u t
r e g a r d to m y o w n in te r e s ts ) a s its p o s itiv e im p a c t o n h e r o r r e l e v a n t o th e rs
( t h a t i s , t h o s e I s e e a s b e i n g , i n H u m e s t e r m s , i n h e r n a r r o w c i r c l e ). W h e n it
c o m e s to o u r a p p r o v a l o f b e n e v o le n t p e o p le , fo r in s ta n c e , H u m e s e e s u s a s
a p p ro v in g o f a b e n e v o le n t p e rs o n , fo r h e r b e n e v o le n c e , b e c a u s e o f ( w h a t w e
s e e a s ) th e b e n e f its h e r b e n e v o le n c e b r in g s to o th e rs ( w ith w h o m w e a re
s y m p a th e tic a lly e n g a g e d ) . O b v io u s ly , th is p r o p o s a l is c o m p a tib le w i t h n o tin g
th a t d if f e r e n t p e o p l e m a y ta k e d if f e r e n t g r o u p s to b e r e le v a n t, m a y d if f e r in
w h a t t h e y s e e a s t h e i m p a c t o f a p e r s o n s c h a r a c t e r o n t h a t p e r s o n a n d o n
o th e r s , a n d m a y d if f e r in w h a t e n g a g e s th e ir s y m p a th y a n d s o w h a t th e y s e e in a
f a v o r a b l e l i g h t . 18 S t i l l , w h e n e v e r w e a r e m o r a l l y a p p r o v i n g o f s o m e o n e , H u m e
c la im s , it w ill be because we a p p ro v e o f th a t p e rs o n , fo r h e r c h a ra c te r,
b e c a u s e o f h e r c h a r a c t e r s e f f e c t s o n h e r a n d o t h e r s , c o n s i d e r e d w i t h o u t r e g a r d
to o u r p e r s o n a l in te re s t.
S ig n ific a n tly , a n y a c c o u n t o f r e a s o n - r e la te d a ttitu d e s th a t h a v e in te n tio n a l
o b je c ts , a n d a r e f e l t o n ly w h e n th e p e r s o n ta k e s th e r e to b e c o n s id e r a t io n s in
lig h t o f w h ic h th e y m a k e s e n s e , w i l l e n d u p w i t h a s m a n y m o v in g p a r ts a s
H u m e i n t r o d u c e s , a n d f o r t h e s a m e r e a s o n s t h a t m o t i v a t e H u m e s i n t r o d u c t i o n
o f t h e m . S o w h i l e H u m e s a c c o u n t o f t h e i n d i r e c t p a s s i o n s m a y b e b a r o q u e , i ts
c o m p le x itie s a r e u n a v o id a b le i f w e a r e to d o j u s t i c e to th e p h e n o m e n a .
P e r h a p s i t i s w o r t h n o t i n g t h a t H u m e s p a r t i c u l a r v i e w s ( 1 ) t h a t w e s u c c e e d
in c o n s id e r in g s o m e th in g w ith o u t r e g a r d to o u r o w n in te r e s ts , y e t in w a y s th a t
e n g a g e o u r in te r e s t, o n ly th a n k s to s y m p a th y a n d ( 2 ) th a t s y m p a th y w o r k s b y
t r a n s f o r m i n g t h e i d e a o f s o m e o n e s p l e a s u r e s o r p a i n s i n t o p l e a s u r e s o r p a i n s ,
e n d u p g iv in g s u c h f e e lin g s , a n d o u r i d e a s o f th e m , a n e s p e c i a l l y p r o m in e n t
r o le in h is th e o r y o f m o ra l a p p r o b a tio n . B u t o n e c o u ld w o r k w ith th e g e n e ra l
o u tlin e o f h is th e o ry , w h ile h o ld in g ( fo r in s ta n c e ) th a t w e c a n b e im p e r s o n a lly
e n g a g e d in d e p e n d e n tly o f th e w o r k in g s o f s y m p a th y o r th a t w h e n s y m p a th y
w o r k s i t i s n o t a l w a y s v i a h a v i n g a n i d e a o f t h e p l e a s u r e s o r p a i n s o f o t h e r s . 19
A s H u m e is w e l l a w a r e , o u r d i s t i n c t iv e l y m o r a l a p p r o v a l s , d e s p it e b e in g
r e s t r i c te d to th e e ff e c ts o f s y m p a th y a n d f o c u s e d e x c lu s iv e ly o n d u r a b le tr a its
o f m in d a n d c h a r a c te r , w i l l v a r y d r a m a tic a lly a c c o r d in g to w h o m w e c o n s id e r
i n t h i n k i n g o f t h e e f f e c t s o f t h e p e r s o n s c h a r a c t e r a n d h o w v i v i d l y w e c o n s i d e r
th e ir p le a s u re s and p a in s , w h ic h w ill in tu rn be h e a v ily in flu e n c e d by
r e s e m b la n c e , c o n tig u ity , a n d c a u s e a n d e ff e c t. T h e u p s h o t is th a t w e w i l l f in d
p e o p l e s f e e l i n g s o f m o ra l a p p ro v a l s h iftin g in w ays th a t re fle c t th e s e
in f lu e n c e s , e v e n w h e n th e y a r e g e n u in e ly r e ly in g o n s y m p a th y a n d p u ttin g to
o n e s i d e c o n s i d e r a t i o n s t h a t d o n o t r e l a t e t o p e o p l e s c h a r a c t e r s . A t t h e s a m e
tim e , as H um e n o t e s , p e o p l e s m o r a l j u d g m e n t s do n o t e x h ib it th e sam e
v a r i a b i l i t y . S o i t b e c o m e s a n i m p o r t a n t p a r t o f H u m e s o v e r a l l t h e o r y t o m a k e
sen se o f th e d iffe re n c e b e tw e e n fe e lin g m o ra l a p p ro v a l an d ju d g in g th a t
s o m e th in g is m o r a lly a p p r o v a b le . B u t b e f o r e w e tu r n to th a t p a r t o f h is th e o ry ,
w e s h o u l d l o o k a t S m i t h s a c c o u n t o f m o r a l a p p r o v a l .
 4.2. Smith

S m ith s c o n c e p tio n o f a p p r o v a l is m u c h s im p le r th a n H u m e s, w h ile g iv in g a n

e v e n m o re c e n tr a l p la c e to sy m p ath y . I n d e v e lo p i n g h is a c c o u n t o f m o ra l
a p p r o v a l S m ith tu rn s h is a tte n tio n f i r s t to o u r a p p r o v a l o f a n o th e r p e r s o n s
o p in io n s :

To approve of another m ans opinions is to adopt those opinions, and to adopt them is to approve of
them. If the same arguments which convince you convince me likewise, I necessarily approve of
your conviction; and if they do not, I necessarily disapprove of it: neither can I possibly conceive
that I should do the one without the other. To approve or disapprove, therefore, of the opinions of
others is acknowledged, by every body, to mean no more than to observe their agreement or
disagreement with our own.

A n d th e n h e e x te n d s th e id e a : th is is e q u a ll y th e c a s e w i t h r e g a r d to o u r
a p p r o b a tio n o r d i s a p p r o b a t i o n o f th e s e n tim e n ts o r p a s s io n s o f th e o th e r s
(T M S , 17).
P r e s s i n g th e s a m e lin e , S m ith a rg u e s th a t [ e ] v e r y fa c u lty in o n e m a n is th e
m e a s u r e b y w h ic h h e ju d g e s o f th e lik e fa c u lty in a n o th e r. I ju d g e o f y o u r s ig h t
b y m y s ig h t, o f y o u r e a r b y m y e a r, o f y o u r r e a s o n b y m y r e a s o n , o f y o u r
r e s e n tm e n t b y m y re s e n tm e n t, o f y o u r lo v e b y m y lo v e . I n e ith e r h a v e , n o r c a n
h a v e , a n y o th e r w a y o f ju d g in g a b o u t th e m (T M S , 1 9 ). A c c o r d i n g to S m ith ,
th e n , w e a p p ro v e o f s o m e o n e s s e n tim e n ts w hen w e r e c o g n iz e th a t w e
s y m p a th iz e w i t h th a t p e r s o n s s e n tim e n ts , th a t is , th a t w e s h a r e th e s e n tim e n ts
( p e r h a p s , th o u g h n o t n e c e s s a r ily , a s a r e s u l t o f p u ttin g o u r s e lv e s in th e p e r s o n s
p la c e ) . W h a t m a tte rs to a p p r o v a l is th e r e c o g n itio n o f f e llo w - f e e lin g , n o t th e
p r o c e s s b y w h ic h w e c o m e to s h a r e th e s a m e fe e lin g : To a p p r o v e o f th e
p a s s io n s o f a n o th e r ... a s s u ita b le to th e ir o b je c ts , is th e s a m e th in g a s to
o b s e r v e th a t w e e n tir e ly s y m p a th iz e w i t h th e m ; a n d n o t to a p p r o v e o f th e m a s
s u c h , is th e s a m e th in g a s to o b s e r v e th a t w e d o n o t e n tir e ly s y m p a th iz e w ith
th e m (T M S , 1 7 ). I t is im p o r ta n t to S m ith s v i e w th a t th e a p p r o v a l d o e s n o t
c o n s is t i n s h a r in g p a s s io n s b u t c o m e s w i t h n o tic in g o r o b s e r v in g o r th in k in g
th a t o n e d o e s . A s S m ith p o in ts o u t,

in the sentiment of approbation there are two things to be taken notice of; first, the sympathetic
passion of the spectator; and, secondly, the emotion which arises from his observing the perfect
coincidence between this sympathetic passion in himself, and the original passion in the person
principally concerned. This last emotion, in which the sentiment of approbation properly consists, is
always agreeable and delightful. The other may be agreeable or disagreeable, according to the
 20
nature of the original passion, whose features it must always, in some measure, retain. (TMS, 46)

A s S m ith r e c o g n iz e s , th is v i e w n e e d s s o m e a d ju s tm e n t to ta k e a c c o u n t o f th e
w a y s in w h ic h w e m ig h t a p p r o v e o f s o m e o n e s s e n tim e n ts e v e n w h e n w e d o
n o t h a p p e n , a c tu a lly , to s y m p a th iz e w i t h th e m . To ta k e j u s t o n e e x a m p le , [ w ] e
m a y o f te n a p p r o v e o f a j e s t , h e n o te s , a n d th in k th e la u g h te r o f th e c o m p a n y
q u ite j u s t a n d p r o p e r , th o u g h w e o u r s e lv e s d o n o t la u g h , b e c a u s e , p e r h a p s , w e
a r e in a g r a v e h u m o u r, o r h a p p e n to h a v e o u r a tte n tio n e n g a g e d w i t h o th e r
o b je c t s (T M S , 17).
S m ith h a n d le s th e s e cases by in tr o d u c in g th e id e a of a c o n d itio n a l
sy m p a th y , o f th e s y m p a th y w e w o u ld fe e l i f w e w e r e to c o n s id e r th e s itu a tio n ,
f u lly a n d in a ll its p a r t s , w h ic h w e o f te n d o n o t d o (T M S , 1 8 ). W e a p p r o v e o f
o th e r s s e n tim e n ts , S m ith th e n h o ld s , i f w e o b s e r v e th a t w e w o u ld , i f w e w e r e
f u lly c o n s id e r in g th e ir c ir c u m s ta n c e s , b e in s y m p a th y w i t h th em .
On S m ith s v ie w , d is tin c tiv e ly m o ra l a p p ro v a l has as its fo c u s th e
s e n tim e n t o r a f f e c tio n o f th e h e a r t fr o m w h ic h a c tio n s p r o c e e d , w h e n th e s e
s e n tim e n ts a n d a ffe c tio n s a r e c o n s id e r e d u n d e r tw o d if f e r e n t a s p e c ts , o r in
tw o d if f e r e n t r e la tio n s ; f ir s t, in r e l a t i o n to th e c a u s e w h ic h e x c ite s it, o r th e
m o tiv e w h ic h g iv e s o c c a s i o n to it; a n d s e c o n d ly , in r e l a t i o n to th e e n d w h ic h it
p r o p o s e d , o r th e e f f e c t w h ic h i t te n d s to p r o d u c e (T M S , 1 8 ). R e f le c tio n o n th e
f ir s t th e c a u s e o f s e n tim e n ts s h a p e s w h e th e r w e a p p r o v e o f s o m e a c ti o n a s
p ro p er. W e d o s o , S m ith th in k s , a s lo n g a s w e (th in k th a t w e ) w o u ld , u n d e r th e
a g e n ts c ir c u m s ta n c e s , s h a r e th e a g e n ts s e n tim e n t o r a f f e c tio n o f th e h e a r t.
W h e n w e f in d th a t w e d o ( o r w o u ld ) s y m p a th iz e w i t h th e a g e n ts s e n tim e n t o r
a ffe c tio n , w e a p p r o v e o f th e a g e n t a s a c tin g p r o p e r ly . A lte r n a tiv e ly , th o u g h , i f
w e f in d th a t w e d o n o t ( o r w o u ld n o t) s y m p a th iz e w i t h th e a g e n ts s e n tim e n t o r
a ffe c tio n , w e d is a p p r o v e o f th e a g e n t f o r a c tin g im p r o p e rly .
R e f le c tio n o n th e s e c o n d r e l a t i o n o n w h a t th e in te n d e d e n d is o r its u s u a l
e ffe c ts a r e s h a p e s w h e th e r w e a p p r o v e o f p e r s o n a s a c tin g m e rito rio u sly .
W e d o s o w h e n w e (th in k th a t w e ) w o u ld fe e l g r a titu d e i f w e w e r e in th e
c ir c u m s ta n c e s o f th o s e w h o a r e o r w o u ld b e s u b je c t to th e e ffe c ts o f th e a c tio n .
W h e n w e fin d th a t w e d o ( o r w o u ld ) s y m p a th iz e w i t h th e ir g ra titu d e w e
a p p r o v e o f th e a g e n t a s h a v in g a c tin g m e rito r io u s ly . A lte r n a tiv e ly , th o u g h , if
w e fin d th a t w e d o ( o r w o u ld ) s y m p a th iz e w i t h th e re s e n tm e n t o f th o s e w h o a r e
( o r w o u ld b e ) a ffe c te d , w e d is a p p r o v e o f th e a g e n t a s a c tin g b l a m a b l y 21
T h e p le a s u r e w e ta k e in b e in g in s y m p a th y w i t h o th e r s th e p le a s u r e o f
a p p r o v in g o f o th e r s w o r k s a ls o , S m ith th in k s , to s h a p e o u r o w n s e n tim e n ts
( o r a t l e a s t o u r w illin g n e s s to s h o w th e m ) s o a s to m a k e th e m m o re lik e ly to b e
s y m p a th iz e d w i t h b y o th e rs .

Our first moral criticisms are exercised upon the characters and conduct of other people; and we
are all very forward to observe how each of these affects us. But we soon learn, that other people
are equally frank with regard to our own. We become anxious to know how far we deserve their
censure or applause, and whether to them we must necessarily appear those agreeable or
disagreeable creatures which they represent us. We begin, upon this account, to examine our own
passions and conduct, and to consider how these must appear to them, by considering how they
would appear to us if in their situation. (TMS, 112)

A s a r e s u lt, h e n o te s , w e te n d to te m p e r o u r e x p r e s s io n s o f s a d n e s s to b r in g
th e m to a le v e l w i t h w h ic h o th e rs c a n s y m p a th iz e a n d w e w o r k to b r in g o u r
a ttitu d e s in to lin e w i t h w h a t o th e rs w i l l f in d th e y c a n s y m p a th iz e w ith . It is
in d e c e n t, h e o b s e r v e s , to e x p r e s s a n y s tr o n g d e g r e e o f th o s e p a s s io n s w h ic h
a r i s e f r o m a c e r t a i n s itu a tio n o r d i s p o s i t i o n o f th e b o d y ; b e c a u s e th e c o m p a n y ,
n o t b e in g in th e s a m e d is p o s itio n , c a n n o t b e e x p e c te d to s y m p a th iz e w i t h th e m
(T M S , 2 7 ) . M o r e g e n e r a lly , h e c la im s , i f w e c o n s id e r a ll th e d if f e r e n t
p a s s io n s o f h u m a n n a tu re , w e s h a ll f in d th a t th e y a r e r e g a r d e d a s d e c e n t, o r
in d e c e n t, j u s t in p ro p o rtio n as m a n k in d a re m o re or le s s d is p o s e d to
s y m p a th iz e w i t h th e m (T M S , 2 7 ) . 22
Im p o rta n tly , a s S m ith n o te s , m a n d e s i r e s , n o t o n ly p r a is e , b u t p r a i s e
w o r th in e s s ; o r to b e th a t th in g w h ic h , th o u g h i t s h o u ld b e p r a i s e d b y n o b o d y , is ,
h o w e v e r , th e n a tu ra l a n d p r o p e r o b j e c t o f p r a is e . H e d r e a d s , n o t o n ly b la m e ,
b u t b la m e - w o r th in e s s ; o r to b e th a t th in g w h ic h , th o u g h i t s h o u ld b e b la m e d b y
n o b o d y , is , h o w e v e r , th e n a tu ra l a n d p r o p e r o b j e c t o f b la m e (T M S , 1 1 4 ). T h is
p o s e s th e c h a lle n g e o f fig u r in g o u t w h a t i t ta k e s to b e p r a is e w o r t h y ( o r
b la m e w o r th y ) . A n d th is le a d s S m ith to d is tin g u is h j u d g i n g th a t s o m e o n e h a s
a c te d p r o p e r l y o r m e r ito r io u s ly ( o r im p r o p e r l y o r b la m a b ly ) f r o m fe e li n g s o f
a p p r o v a l ( a n d d i s a p p r o v a l ) w e m ig h t h a v e t o w a r d th e m .
 5. Mo r a l Ju d g m e n t

H u m e a n d S m ith b o th r e c o g n iz e th a t th e r e is a n im p o r ta n t d if f e r e n c e b e tw e e n
s o m e th in g s e c u r in g a p p r o v a l a n d b e in g a p p r o v a b le . A n d th e y r e c o g n iz e th e
n e e d f o r a n a c c o u n t o f m o r a l th o u g h t a n d t a l k to a c c o m m o d a te th e d is tin c tio n
and e x p la in w h a t it is fo r s o m e th in g to be a p p ro v a b le , and n o t m e re ly
a p p r o v e d . I n b r o a d o u tlin e s , a s I h a v e s a id , th e y a d o p t th e s a m e g e n e ra l v ie w .
T h e y b o th w o r k to id e n tify c o n d itio n s in w h ic h a p p r o v a l ( w h ic h th e y h a v e
a l r e a d y e x p la i n e d ) is v e r i d i c a l . T h e ir s h a r e d i d e a is th a t f o r s o m e th in g to b e
a p p ro v a b le is fo r it to be s u c h th a t it w o u ld g a rn e r a p p ro v a l u n d e r th e
a p p r o p r ia te c o n d itio n s .
T h e m o d e l f o r th is a p p r o a c h is f a m ilia r f r o m a c c o u n ts o f w h a t it is fo r
s o m e th in g to b e , sa y , b lu e , th a t a p p e a l to it lo o k in g a c e r ta in w a y , u n d e r n o rm a l
lig h t, to a p e r s o n w i t h a n o r m a l v i s u a l s y s te m , u n d e r n o r m a l c ir c u m s ta n c e s .
T h e s e a c c o u n ts s ta r t w i t h th e f a c t th a t w e h a v e c e r t a i n r e a c tio n s to th e w o r l d
(c o lo r p e rc e p tio n s , in th is case) and th e n m ark th e d iffe re n c e b e tw e e n
s o m e th in g m e r e ly s e e m in g o r lo o k in g b lu e a n d it a c tu a lly b e in g b lu e b y a p p e a l
to h o w it w o u ld l o o k u n d e r p r iv i le g e d c ir c u m s ta n c e s . T h e id e a , it is w o r th
e m p h a s iz in g , is n o t th a t th e p r iv i le g e d ( n o rm a l ) c o n d itio n s a re th o s e in
w h i c h w e h a p p e n t o b e a b l e t o s e e a t h i n g s t r u e c o l o r , w h e r e w e h a v e s o m e
in d e p e n d e n t w a y o f id e n tif y in g its tru e c o lo r , a n d s o a w a y o f c o n f ir m in g th e
c o n d u c i v e n e s s o f t h e c i r c u m s t a n c e s t o s e e i n g it. R a t h e r , t h e i d e a i s t h a t b e i n g
b lu e j u s t is b e in g s u c h a s to lo o k a c e r t a i n w a y u n d e r th e s p e c i f ie d c o n d itio n s .
T h e r e is n o in d e p e n d e n t s ta n d a r d ; th e s ta n d a r d is s e t b y h o w th in g s a p p e a r
w h e n t h e p r i v i l e g e d c o n d i t i o n s a r e m e t . 23
S ig n if ic a n tly , s in c e th e p r iv i le g e d c o n d itio n s a r e n o t p r iv i le g e d b e c a u s e
th e y a r e th o s e u n d e r w h i c h w e g e t th in g s rig h t, s o m e o th e r a rg u m e n t m u s t b e
o f f e r e d f o r th in k in g th e y a r e th e c o n d itio n s th a t s e t th e s ta n d a r d . W h ile H u m e
a n d S m ith o f f e r q u ite d if f e r e n t a rg u m e n ts f o r th e s ta n d a r d th e y d e fe n d , th e y a r e
s e n s itiv e to m a n y o f th e sam e fe a tu re s o f m o ra l ju d g m e n t e s p e c ia lly i ts
d e m a n d f o r im p a r tia lity , b u t a ls o its in d e p e n d e n c e f r o m th e v a g a r i e s th a t, b o th
a c k n o w le d g e , in flu e n c e in d iv id u a l p a tte rn s o f a p p ro v a l.
 5.1. Hume

H u m e s a p p r o a c h to id e n tify in g th e s ta n d a r d o f m o r a l ju d g m e n t ( w h ic h is s e t
b y w h a t h e c a ll s th e G e n e r a l P o in t o f V ie w ) in v o lv e s s ta r tin g w i t h w h a t h e
ta k e s to b e th e p a tte r n o f o u r m o r a l ju d g m e n ts , a n d o u r ju d g m e n ts ( a s c o r r e c t o r
n o t) o f o th e r p e o p l e s m o r a l ju d g m e n ts . T h e n , in lig h t o f th a t p a tte rn , h e
e x tr a p o la te s a s ta n d a r d th a t m a k e s s e n s e o f, a n d e x p la in s , w h y th e ju d g m e n ts
e x h ib it th e p a tte r n th e y d o .
I n th e p r o c e s s , H u m e m a rk s th e w a y s in w h ic h o u r ju d g m e n ts o f te n b r e a k
f r e e f r o m o u r a p p r o v a ls . F o r in s ta n c e , o u r a p p r o v a ls , th a n k s in p a r t to th e ir
d e p e n d e n c e o n th e w o r k in g s o f sy m p a th y , v a r y s ig n ific a n tly , m a k in g th e m
p a r o c h ia l a n d v a r i a b l e in w a y s th a t o u r m o r a l ju d g m e n ts a r e n o t. H e n o te s , fo r
in s ta n c e , th a t in th in k in g a b o u t a p e r s o n s c h a r a c te r a n d its e ffe c ts , w e a r e
in f lu e n c e d b y o u r r e l a t i o n to h im ( in c lu d in g r e s e m b la n c e a n d c o n tig u ity ) a s
w e l l a s b y th e v iv id n e s s w i t h w h ic h th o s e e ffe c ts a r e p r e s e n te d . A s a re s u lt,
o u r a p p r o v a ls a r e in f lu e n c e d b y o u r a c q u a in ta n c e o r c o n n e x io n w i t h th e
p e r s o n s , o r e v e n b y a n e lo q u e n t r e c ita l o f th e c a s e (E n q u iry , 2 3 0 ) . I n o u r
m o r a l ju d g m e n ts , h o w e v e r , th o u g h th e d if f e r e n tia l e ffe c ts o f s y m p a th y a r e f e l t ,
a n d o u r a c tu a l a p p r o v a ls a r e in flu e n c e d a c c o r d in g ly , w e j u d g e p e o p le o f th e
s a m e c h a r a c te r a s m o r a lly th e s a m e . W ith th is in m in d , H u m e p o in ts o u t th a t
[a ] s ta te s m a n o r p a tr io t, w h o s e r v e s o u r o w n c o u n try in o u r o w n tim e h a s
a lw a y s a m o re p a s s io n a te r e g a r d p a i d to h im , th a n o n e w h o s e b e n e f ic ia l
in flu e n c e o p e r a te d o n d is ta n t a g e s o r re m o te n a tio n s b e c a u s e th e la tte r
a ffe c ts u s w i t h a le s s l i v e l y s y m p a th y . B u t h e n o te s th a t [ w ] e m a y o w n th e
m e r it to b e e q u a ll y g re a t, th o u g h o u r s e n tim e n ts a r e n o t r a i s e d to a n e q u a l
h e ig h t, in b o th c a s e s (E n q u iry , 2 2 7 ) . I n th e s a m e w a y , [ o ] u r s e r v a n t, if
d ilig e n t a n d fa ith fu l, m a y e x c ite s tr o n g e r s e n tim e n ts o f lo v e a n d k in d n e s s th a n
M a r c u s B ru tu s , a s r e p r e s e n te d in h is to ry ; b u t w e s a y n o t u p o n th a t a c c o u n t, th a t
th e fo r m e r c h a r a c te r is m o re la u d a b le th a n th e la tte r (T re a tise , 5 8 2 ).
F r o m th is H u m e in f e r s th a t w e a r e r e ly in g o n a s ta n d a r d f o r o u r ju d g m e n ts
th a t, i n s o m e w a y , a b s tr a c ts fr o m , o r c o n tr o ls fo r, th e v a r i a b l e in f lu e n c e s o f
s y m p a th y c a u s e d b y o u r c o n n e c tio n w ith th o s e w e ju d g e a n d b y d if f e r e n c e s i n
h o w v i v i d th e c a s e is to u s. H e th in k s th is is a c c o m p lis h e d b y tu rn in g o u r
a tte n tio n f r o m o u r o w n a c tu a l f e e lin g s o f a p p r o b a tio n to th e a p p r o b a tio n w e
w o u ld fe e l i f w e w e r e to ta k e u p a p r i v i l e g e d p o in t o f v i e w a p o in t o f v i e w
f r o m w h ic h w e a r e c o n s id e r in g n o t a p a r tic u la r p e r s o n a n d th e a c tu a l e ffe c ts o f
h e r c h a r a c te r , b u t in s te a d th e u s u a l e ffe c ts o f th e k in d o f c h a r a c te r s h e h a s . S o
w h ile w e ju d g e h e r f o r h e r c h a r a c te r , o u r ju d g m e n ts tu r n n o t o n th e a c tu a l
e ffe c ts o f h e r p a r tic u la r c h a r a c te r , n o r o n h e r r e l a t i o n to u s, b u t o n a m o re
g e n e r a l v i e w o f th e e ffe c ts o f th e k in d o f c h a r a c te r s h e h a s.
T h is a s p e c t o f o u r p r i v i l e g e d p o in t o f v i e w h a s a n o th e r a d v a n ta g e , a s a n
e x p la n a tio n o f o u r ju d g m e n ts , in th a t i t m a k e s s e n s e o f w h y [ v ] ir tu e in r a g s is
s till v ir tu e ; a n d th e lo v e , w h ic h i t p r o c u r e s , a tte n d s a m a n in to a d u n g e o n o r
d e s a r t, w h e r e th e v ir tu e c a n n o lo n g e r b e e x e r te d i n a c tio n , a n d is l o s t to a ll th e
w o r l d ( T rea tise , 5 8 4 ). S o , f o r in s ta n c e , w e ju d g e b e n e v o le n c e to b e a v ir tu e ,
e v e n w h e r e i t h a p p e n s n o t to fin d e x p r e s s io n i n b e n e f its to o th e rs , d e s p ite o u r
s y m p a th y b e in g le s s e n g a g e d , a n d o u r fe e lin g s o f a p p r o v a l le s s s tro n g , th a n
th e y w o u ld h a v e b e e n h a d th e r e b e e n a c tu a l b e n e f its . B e n e v o le n c e s s ta n d in g
a s a v ir tu e d e p e n d s o n h o w w e a r e e n g a g e d n o t b y r e f le c tio n o n th e e ffe c ts o f a
s p e c if ic p e r s o n s b e n e v o le n c e , a s th e y tu r n o u t to b e , b u t b y r e f l e c t i o n o n th e
u s u a l o r e x p e c te d e ffe c ts o f b e n e v o le n c e .

[T]he tendencies of actions and characters, not their real accidental consequences, are alone
regarded in our moral determinations or general judgments; though in our real feeling or sentiment,
we cannot help paying greater regard to one whose station, joined to virtue, renders him really
useful to society, than to one, who exerts the social virtues only in good intentions and benevolent
affections. (Enquiry, 228)

H u m e m a k e s th e s a m e p o in t in th e T re a tise : W h e r e a p e r s o n is p o s s e s s d o f a
c h a r a c te r , th a t i n its n a tu ra l te n d e n c y is b e n e f ic ia l to s o c ie ty , w e e s te e m h im
v ir tu o u s , ... even t h o p a r tic u la r a c c id e n ts p re v e n t its o p e r a tio n and
in c a p a c ita te h im f r o m b e in g s e r v i c e a b l e to h is f r ie n d s a n d c o u n try . W e p r a is e
e q u a lly , f o r in s ta n c e , th e c h a r a c te r o f p e o p le e q u a ll y h o n e s t, d e s p ite k n o w in g
th a t th e h o n e s ty o f o n e a c tu a lly b e n e f its p e o p le w h ile th e h o n e s ty o f th e o th e r
d o e s n o t. T is tr u e , H u m e a c k n o w le d g e s , w h e n th e c a u s e is c o m p le a t, a n d a
g o o d d i s p o s i t i o n is a tte n d e d w i t h g o o d fo rtu n e . , w h ic h r e n d e r s i t r e a l l y
b e n e f ic ia l to s o c ie ty , i t g iv e s a s tr o n g e r p le a s u r e to th e s p e c ta to r , a n d is
a tte n d e d w i t h a m o re l i v e l y sy m p ath y . W e a r e m o re a f f e c te d b y it; a n d y e t, h e
r e c o g n iz e s , w e d o n o t s a y th a t i t is m o re v ir tu o u s , o r th a t w e e s te e m i t m o r e
(T re a tise , 5 8 5 ).
M o r e o v e r , H u m e r e c o g n iz e s , o u r m o r a l ju d g m e n ts s u p p o s e a c o m m o n
s ta n d a r d , o n e s h a r a b le ( a n d o f te n s h a r e d ) w i t h o th e rs w e r e c o g n iz e a s b e in g o f
th e s a m e m in d w i t h us a b o u t v ir tu e a n d v ic e , a n d s u c h th a t i t d e l i v e r s th e s a m e
v e r d i c t f o r u s a ll. T h is in tr o d u c e s th e id e a th a t th e r e l e v a n t p o in t o f v i e w m u s t
b o th b e a c c e s s i b l e to u s a ll a n d b e , in its d e liv e r a n c e s , in s e n s itiv e to o u r
in d iv id u a l d if f e r e n c e s . A s a r e s u lt, h e a rg u e s th a t th e g e n e r a l p o in t o f v ie w ,
p r o p e r l y u n d e r s to o d , n o t o n ly r e s tr ic ts th e r e le v a n t r e a c tio n s o f a p p r o v a l a n d
d i s a p p r o v a l to th o s e p r o m p te d b y s y m p a th y ( w h ic h l e a v e s to o n e s id e th e
in flu e n c e o f in d iv id u a l d if f e r e n c e s ) , a n d lim its a tte n tio n to th e u s u a l e ffe c ts o f
th e c h a r a c te r ty p e in q u e s tio n , b u t a ls o in tr o d u c e s a c o m m o n fo c u s f o r th a t
a tte n tio n , fix in g o u r v i e w to th a t n a r r o w c i r c l e , in w h ic h a n y p e r s o n m o v e s , in
o r d e r to f o r m a ju d g m e n t o f h is m o r a l c h a r a c te r (T re a tise , 6 0 2 ) .24 W h o
e x a c tly c o u n ts v a rie s a c c o r d in g to w h ic h k in d of c h a r a c te r is under
c o n s id e r a tio n . S o , f o r e x a m p le , th e v ir tu e s o f a p a r e n t a r e m e a s u r e d m o s tly b y
a c h a r a c t e r s e ffe c ts o n th o s e in h is o r h e r fa m ily , w h ile th o s e o f a s ta te s m e n
a r e a n s w e r a b l e to th e e ffe c ts o n a m u c h b r o a d e r a u d ie n c e ( a l b e i t n o t a lw a y s
th e e ffe c ts o n e v e r y o n e ) .25
H u m e , a s I h a v e s a id , e x tr a p o la te s th e s ta n d a r d f o r o u r m o r a l ju d g m e n ts ( a s
s e t b y th e g e n e r a l p o in t o f v i e w ) fr o m w h a t h e s e e s a s th e p a tte r n o f th o s e
ju d g m e n ts , a n d th e p a tte r n o f o u r ju d g m e n ts o f o th e r p e o p l e s m o r a l ju d g m e n ts ,
a rg u in g th a t th e s ta n d a r d h e id e n tif ie s e x p la in s th o s e p a tte rn s . H e s e e s th e
r e s u ltin g s ta n d a r d a s b e in g in s e n s itiv e to th e in flu e n c e s o f s e lf - in te r e s t, s p e c ia l
r e la tio n s , a n d a c tu a l s y m p a th e tic e n g a g e m e n t. Y e t h e r e c o g n iz e s th a t o u r a c tu a l
m o r a l ju d g m e n ts ( a s w e l l a s o u r ju d g m e n ts o f o th e r p e o p l e s m o r a l ju d g m e n ts )
c a n b e , a n d o f te n a r e , in f lu e n c e d b y th e s e f a c to rs . S till, o n h is a c c o u n t, a n d if
h e is rig h t, b y o u r o w n lig h ts o u r m o r a l ju d g m e n ts g o w r o n g w h e n th is
h a p p e n s . T h is is b e c a u s e th e s ta n d a r d f o r th e c o r re c tn e ss o f o u r m o ra l
ju d g m e n ts , e v e n i f n o t o u r a c tu a l m o r a l ju d g m e n ts , is in s e n s itiv e to th e s e
in flu e n c e s , a n d r ig h tly s o .26 T h a t th e s ta n d a r d is r ig h tly in s e n s itiv e to s u c h
in flu e n c e is , I w i l l a rg u e a t th e e n d o f th is c h a p te r, im p o r ta n t to th e p la u s i b ility
o f H u m e s v ie w . F ir s t, h o w e v e r , w e s h o u ld lo o k a t S m ith s a c c o u n t o f m o ra l
ju d g m e n t.
 5.2. S m ith

O n c e th e d is tin c tio n b e t w e e n s o m e o n e b e in g a p p r o v e d a n d th a t p e r s o n b e in g
a p p r o v a b le is r e c o g n iz e d , S m ith f a c e s th e c h a lle n g e o f e x p la in in g w h a t m a rk s
th e d if f e r e n c e . W ith H u m e , h e s e e s th e c h a lle n g e a s o n e o f id e n tify in g th e
s ta n d a r d th a t g o v e r n s o u r ju d g m e n ts o f a p p r o v a b ility . T h e s ta n d a r d in q u e s tio n
is a s ta n d a r d w e u s e in ju d g in g h o w th in g s p e o p le , a c tio n s , in s titu tio n s
o u g h t to b e , n o t h o w th e y h a p p e n to b e .
S m ith s a p p r o a c h to id e n tify in g th e s ta n d a r d o f m o r a l ju d g m e n t ( w h ic h is
s e t b y w h a t h e c a ll s th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r ) in v o lv e s s ta r tin g w i t h th e
o b s e r v a t i o n th a t w e d e s ir e n o t o n ly p r a is e , b u t p r a is e - w o r th in e s s ; o r to b e
th a t th in g w h ic h , th o u g h it s h o u ld b e p r a i s e d b y n o b o d y , is , h o w e v e r , th e
n a tu ra l a n d p r o p e r o b j e c t o f p r a i s e (T M S , 1 1 4 ). T h e n , k e e p in g th a t d e s ir e in
m in d , he id e n tif ie s a s ta n d a r d f o r w h a t c o u n ts a s p r a is e w o r t h y ( o r a p p r o v a b le )
b y lo o k in g a t w h a t s a tis f ie s th a t d e s ir e . H e a rg u e s th a t th e d e s ir e fin d s
s a ti s f a c tio n w h e n , b u t o n ly w h e n , w e w o u ld s e c u r e th e a p p r o v a l o f a n
im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r w h o is f u lly in f o r m e d a b o u t o u r a c tio n s , m o tiv e s , a n d
c ir c u m s ta n c e s .
S m ith p o in ts o u t th a t th e d e s ir e to b e p r a is e w o r t h y is n o t s a ti s f i e d w h e n w e
s e c u r e th e p r a i s e o f th o s e w h o a r e n o t a p p r o p r i a t e l y in f o r m e d im p a r tia l
s p e c ta to r s : It is b y n o m e a n s s u f f ic ie n t th a t, f r o m ig n o ra n c e o r m is ta k e , e s te e m
a n d a d m ir a tio n s h o u ld , in s o m e w a y o r o th e r, b e b e s t o w e d u p o n u s . . . . T h e
m a n w h o a p p la u d s u s e ith e r f o r a c tio n s w h ic h w e d id n o t p e r f o r m , o r fo r
m o tiv e s w h ic h h a d n o s o r t o f in flu e n c e u p o n o u r c o n d u c t, a p p la u d s n o t u s, b u t
a n o th e r p e r s o n . W e c a n d e r iv e n o s o r t o f s a ti s f a c tio n f r o m h is p r a i s e s (T M S ,
1 1 5 - 1 6 ) . T h e a p p r o v a l o f th o s e w h o a r e n o t a p p r o p r i a t e l y in f o r m e d d o e s n o t
s a tis f y th e d e s ir e f o r p r a is e w o r t h in e s s .
N o r is i t s u ffic ie n t, S m ith n o te s , f o r u s to s e c u r e th e a d m ir a tio n a n d
a p p r o v a l o f th o s e in f lu e n c e d b y s e lf - in te r e s t o r b ia s . S o , f o r in s ta n c e , S m ith
a rg u e s th a t in w e ig h in g s o m e o n e e l s e s in te r e s ts a g a in s t o u r o w n , [ w ] e m u st
v i e w th e m , n e ith e r f r o m o u r o w n p la c e n o r y e t f r o m h is , n e ith e r w i t h o u r o w n
e y e s n o r y e t w i t h h is , b u t f r o m th e p la c e a n d w i t h th e e y e s o f a th ir d p e r s o n ,
w h o h a s n o p a r tic u la r c o n n e x io n w i t h e ith e r, a n d w h o ju d g e s w i t h im p a r tia lity
b e tw e e n u s ( T M S , 1 3 5 ). T h e a p p r o v a l o f th o s e w h o a r e n o t im p a r tia l a ls o
d o e s n o t s a tis f y th e d e s ir e f o r p r a is e w o r t h in e s s .
W h a t d o e s s a tis f y th e d e s ir e f o r p r a is e w o r t h in e s s is k n o w in g th a t o n e
w o u ld s e c u r e th e a p p r o v a l o f a n a p p r o p r i a t e l y in f o r m e d s p e c ta to r , w h e th e r o r
n o t o n e a c tu a lly e n jo y s s u c h a p p r o v a l .27 I n u s in g th is s ta n d a r d p e o p le a r e
a p p e a lin g n o t to w h a t g a r n e r s a p p r o v a l b u t to a m u c h h ig h e r tr ib u n a l, to th e
tr ib u n a l o f th e ir o w n c o n s c ie n c e s , to th a t o f th e s u p p o s e d im p a r tia l a n d w e l l -
in f o r m e d s p e c ta to r , to th a t o f th e m a n w ith in th e b r e a s t, th e g r e a t ju d g e a n d
a r b i t e r o f th e ir c o n d u c t (T M S , 1 3 0 ).
O n c e w e h a v e o n b o a r d th e s ta n d a r d s e t b y th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r , w e a r e
in a p o s i t i o n to c o n s id e r o u r o w n p a tte r n s o f a p p r o v a l to d e te r m in e w h ic h o n e s
m e e t th a t s ta n d a r d a n d w h ic h o n e s d o n o t. A n d w e a r e a b le to d is tin g u is h
b e tw e e n w h a t w e h a p p e n to a p p r o v e o f a n d w h a t is g e n u in e ly a p p r o v a b le ,
a l l o w i n g o u r ju d g m e n ts to b e g o v e r n e d b y th e la tte r, r a th e r th a n th e f o r m e r .28
L ik e H u m e , S m ith r e c o g n iz e s th a t i t is im p o r ta n t th a t th e s ta n d a r d w e r e l y o n in
d r a w in g th e d is tin c tio n its e lf e m erg es as, in th e a p p r o p r ia te sense,
a p p r o v a b l e .29 M o r e a b o u t th is r e q u ir e m e n t sh o rtly .
 6. Ra t i f y i n g the St a n d a r d o f Mo r a l Ju d g m e n t

H u m e a n d S m ith s h a r e th e id e a th a t w e s h o u ld u n d e r s ta n d th in k in g o f s o m e th in g
a s a p p r o v a b le in te rm s o f th e th in g b e in g s u c h th a t i t w o u ld s e c u r e a p p r o v a l
n o t a p p r o v a l f r o m j u s t a n y o n e u n d e r a n y c ir c u m s ta n c e s , b u t a p p r o v a l fro m
s o m e o n e a p p r o p r ia te u n d e r s u ita b le c ir c u m s ta n c e s . A n d th e y s h a r e a v ie w , a t
l e a s t i n g e n e r a l o u tlin e , a b o u t w h a t s o m e o n e h a s to b e lik e , a n d w h a t h e r
c ir c u m s ta n c e s n e e d to b e , in o r d e r f o r h e r a p p r o v a l to m a tte r. S h e m u s t b e
in fo r m e d , f o r in s ta n c e , a n d im p a r tia l, a n d e n g a g e d b y th e w e l f a r e o f o th e rs .
T h e s e a r e fe a tu r e s o f s o m e o n e ta k in g u p th e g e n e r a l p o in t o f v ie w , o r s e r v in g
a s th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r , th a t a r e c r u c ia l to h e r r o l e i n s e ttin g a s ta n d a r d f o r
o u r m o r a l ju d g m e n ts .
Im p o rta n tly , H u m e a n d S m ith b o th s u g g e s t a fu rth e r, e x p lic itly n o r m a tiv e ,
c o n d itio n on an a p p ro p ria te ly s p e c ifie d s ta n d a r d fo r m o ra l ju d g m e n t.
A c c o r d i n g to th e m b o th w e n e ith e r c a n n o r s h o u ld r e s t c o n te n t fin d in g th a t w e
h a p p e n to r e l y o n s o m e s ta n d a r d in m a k in g o u r m o r a l ju d g m e n ts ; th e s ta n d a r d
m u s t i t s e l f b e m o r a lly g o o d , a p p r o p r ia te , o r ju s tif ie d . T h is m e a n s th a t th e
s ta n d a r d w e r e l y o n ( w h e th e r s e t b y th e g e n e r a l p o in t o f v i e w o r b y th e
im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r ) m u s t i t s e l f m e e t th e s ta n d a r d i t s e ts . W e re w e to d i s c o v e r
th a t th e s ta n d a r d w e r e l y o n is ( b y o u r o w n lig h ts ) m o r a lly d e f e c tiv e , w e
w o u ld , th e y th in k , h a v e g ro u n d s f o r th in k in g th e s ta n d a r d d e f e c tiv e .30
So, fo r in s ta n c e , a t th e end o f th e T reatise, H u m e c la im s (w ith o u t
e la b o r a ti o n ) th a t n o t o n ly v ir tu e m u s t b e a p p r o v d o f, b u t a ls o th e s e n s e o f
v irtu e : A n d n o t o n ly th a t s e n s e , b u t a ls o th e p r in c ip le s f r o m w h e n c e i t is
d e r i v e d (T re a tise , 6 1 9 ) . S m ith , in tu rn , c r itic iz e s F r a n c is H u tc h e s o n s a c c o u n t
o f m o r a l ju d g m e n t o n th e g ro u n d s th a t h e tr e a ts a s i r r e le v a n t e v e n a b s u r d
th e q u e s tio n o f w h e th e r th e s ta n d a r d o n w h ic h w e r e l y is , its e lf , m o r a lly
e v a lu a b le a s p r o p e r o r a p p r o p r i a t e .31 S m ith g o e s o n to a rg u e n o t o n ly th a t w e
c a n a n d d o m a k e s u c h e v a lu a tio n s , b u t th a t a m a r k o f c o r r e c t m o r a l s e n tim e n ts
is th a t th e y n a tu r a lly a p p e a r in s o m e d e g r e e la u d a b le a n d m o r a lly g o o d
(T M S , 3 2 3 ) . E x a c tly w h a t is r e q u ir e d f o r a s ta n d a r d to m e e t th is r e q u ir e m e n t is
le f t u n e x p lo r e d b y b o th H u m e a n d S m ith .
I n H u m e s c a s e , i t s e e m s th a t h e is s e n s itiv e to th e w o r r y th a t, w h e n it
c o m e s to d e te r m in in g v ir tu e , it is n o t e n o u g h to s h o w th a t a c h a r a c te r tr a it
g a r n e r s th e a p p r o v a l o f th o s e ta k in g th e g e n e r a l p o in t o f v ie w , it m u s t a ls o
m e r it th e a p p r o v a l i t g a rn e rs . A n d , o n H u m e s a c c o u n t, it w i l l c o u n t a s m e ritin g
th a t a p p r o v a l if, b u t o n ly if, th e f a c t th a t th e t r a i t g a r n e r s th e a p p r o v a l it d o e s
( f r o m th e g e n e r a l p o in t o f v i e w ) i t s e l f g a r n e r s a p p r o v a l f r o m th e g e n e r a l p o in t
o f v ie w . T h a t it w i l l g a r n e r s u c h a p p r o v a l is n o t t r i v ia l. G iv e n H u m e s a c c o u n t
o f a p p r o b a tio n , w h e n w e ta k e u p a p a r tic u la r g e n e r a l p o in t o f v ie w , fro m
w h ic h w e fe e l a p p r o v a l o f v a r io u s tr a its , w e m ig h t fin d th a t, a s o u r a tte n tio n is
s h ifte d to th e p a tte r n o f o u r r e s u ltin g a p p r o v a ls , w e fe e l d is a p p r o v a l. I n s u c h a
c a s e , th o u g h th e p u ta tiv e v ir tu e is a p p r o v d o f , th e s e n s e o f v irtu e , a n d th e
p r in c ip le s f r o m w h e n c e it is d e r i v e d , a r e n o t. I f th is w e r e to h a p p e n , w e
w o u ld b e in th e p o s i t i o n o f th in k in g , o f w h a t m e e ts th e s ta n d a r d ( b y g a rn e rin g
a p p r o v a l f r o m th e g e n e r a l p o in t o f v i e w ) , th a t i t d o e s n o t m e r it th a t a p p r o v a l
n o t b e c a u s e w e h a v e w h e e le d in s o m e n e w s ta n d a r d , b u t b e c a u s e o u r o w n
s ta n d a r d d o e s n o t c o u n t th e a p p r o v a l a p p r o v a b le. I n s u c h c a s e s , th e s ta n d a r d
o n o f f e r w i l l f a il to m e e t th e r e q u ir e m e n t H u m e h a s in tr o d u c e d .
C le a r ly , in c a s e s in w h ic h th e s e n s e o f v ir tu e , a n d th e p r in c ip le s f r o m w h ic h
it d e r iv e s , a r e a p p r o v e d o f, f r o m th e g e n e r a l p o in t o f v ie w , w e m ig h t w o n d e r
w h e th e r th a t a p p r o v a l is m e rite d . S o a p o te n tia l r e g r e s s lo o m s . H u m e is
e x p l i c i t th a t m a k in g th e f i r s t s te p is m a n d a to r y to in s u re th a t w h a t is
a p p r o v e d b y o u r s ta n d a r d m e r its , b y th a t s ta n d a r d , th e a p p r o v a l it r e c e iv e s . Y et
h e s a y s n o th in g a b o u t s u c c e s s iv e s te p s . H u m e c a n r e a s o n a b ly t r e a t e a c h
s u c c e s s iv e s te p a s o p tio n a l, th o u g h h e s h o u ld h o ld th a t a n a c c e p ta b le s ta n d a r d
m u s t p a s s a t e a c h l e v e l , h o w e v e r f a r b a c k o n e g o e s . S o th e r e q u ir e m e n t is n o t
th a t w e m u s t ta k e a n in fin ite n u m b e r o f s te p s , b u t th a t f o r e a c h o n e ta k e n w e d o
n o t fin d th a t th e a p p r o v a l in q u e s tio n is n o t m e rite d .
S m ith , a s I h a v e in d ic a te d , im p o s e d a v e r y s im ila r n o r m a tiv e c o n d itio n o n
th e a d e q u a c y o f th e s ta n d a r d w e r e l y o n in m a k in g o u r m o r a l ju d g m e n ts
( w h e th e r it is s e t b y th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r o r n o t). It is u n c le a r, h o w e v e r , h o w
th is c o n d itio n s h o u ld b e s e e n a s a p p ly in g to h is a c c o u n t o f th e im p a r tia l
s p e c ta to r. W h a t d id h e th in k th a t s ta n d a r d n e e d e d to d o in o r d e r to c o u n t a s
a p p r o p r i a t e l y r a tif ie d ?
O n e p o s s i b i l i t y m ig h t b e th a t S m ith th o u g h t a p a r tic u la r c o n c e p tio n o f th e
im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r m e e ts th e n o r m a tiv e c o n d itio n a s lo n g a s w e f in d th a t th e
im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r a p p r o v e s o f h e r o w n ( p a tte r n o f) a p p r o v a ls . T h is w o u ld fit
n ic e l y w ith w hat seem s to be H u m e s v ie w . Y et S m ith s account of
a p p r o b a tio n , w h ic h is s ig n if ic a n tly d if f e r e n t f r o m H u m e s, m a k e s th is te s t
t r i v i a l l y s a ti s f i e d ( i n a w a y i t is n o t t r i v i a l l y s a tis f ie d , o n H u m e s a c c o u n t).
A f te r a ll, f o r S m ith , to a p p r o v e o f s o m e th in g , s a y s o m e ( p a tte r n o f) a p p r o v a l,
is j u s t to r e c o g n iz e th a t o n e w o u ld , u n d e r th e s a m e c ir c u m s ta n c e s , f e e l th e
s a m e a p p r o v a l. B u t o f c o u rs e a n im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r, r e f le c tin g o n h e r o w n
( p a tte r n o f) a p p r o v a l , w i l l in e v ita b ly d i s c o v e r th a t s h e w o u l d f e e l e x a c tly th e
s a m e a s s h e in f a c t d o e s fe e l. I f th is is a ll it to o k f o r th e s ta n d a r d to c o u n t a s
la u d a b le a n d m o r a lly g o o d , o n e m ig h t w e l l w o r r y a b o u t th e s ig n if ic a n c e o f
th e r e q u ir e m e n t. S o i t i s w o r t h n o t i n g t h a t , e v e n i f S m i t h s a c c o u n t o f t h e
s ta n d a rd o f m o ra l ju d g m e n t m e e ts th e te s t e a s ily , i f o th e r a c c o u n ts sa y
H u t c h e s o n s o r H u m e s e n d u p f a i l i n g t h e t e s t , t h a t w o u l d b e i m p o r t a n t .
A lte rn a tiv e ly , th o u g h , S m ith m ig h t h o ld th a t an im p a rtia l s p e c t a t o r s
a p p ro v a ls a re s u c c e s s fu lly d e fe n d e d o n ly w hen th e y w o u ld se c u re th e
a p p r o v a l o f s o m e o th e r s p e c ta to r , d if f e r e n t in s o m e r e le v a n t r e s p e c t f r o m o u rs.
T h is w o u ld m a k e th e t e s t n o n tr iv ia l. H o w e v er, it w o u ld ra is e s ig n ific a n t
w o rrie s about how we s h o u ld u n d e rs ta n d th e re la tio n b e tw e e n th e tw o
s p e c t a to r s , a n d th e s ta n d a r d s th a t w o u l d th e n b e i n p la y , s u c h th a t o n e is a n
a p p ro p ria te s ta n d a rd fo r our m o ra l ju d g m e n ts but a n o th e r one is th e
a p p r o p r i a t e s ta n d a r d n o t f o r s u c h ju d g m e n ts b u t f o r th e s ta n d a r d fo r su c h
ju d g m e n ts . I f th e la tte r s ta n d a r d is th e a p p r o p r i a t e o n e f o r d e te r m in in g th e
s ta n d a r d fo r o u r m o ra l ju d g m e n ts , w h y is it n o t its e lf a n a p p r o p r ia te s ta n d a r d
f o r o u r m o r a l j u d g m e n t s ? W h a t q u a l i f i e s t h e s e c o n d s p e c t a t o r s a p p r o v a l s f o r
o n e r o le b u t n o t th e o th e r?
The c h a lle n g e h e re is a n a lo g o u s to th e c h a lle n g e fa c in g in d ire c t ru le
u tilita r ia n s w h o h o ld th a t o v e r a ll u tility is th e rig h t s ta n d a r d f o r ju d g in g a m o n g
r u le s , b u t n o t a m o n g a c tio n s , w h ic h s h o u ld b e ju d g e d b y a p p e a l to th e r u le s
s a n c tio n e d by o v e ra ll u tility . I n fa c t, one m ig h t th in k th a t S m ith a c tu a lly
e m b ra ce s th e s ta n d a rd o f o v e ra ll u tility as th e a p p ro p ria te s ta n d a rd fo r
im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r s ; a f te r a ll, S m ith o f te n h ig h lig h ts th e g o o d c o n s e q u e n c e s
th a t c o m e f r o m r e g u la tin g o u r m o ra l ju d g m e n ts b y a p p e a l to th e im p a r tia l
s p e c ta to r . O n s u c h a n in te r p r e ta tio n , w h e n it c o m e s to th e q u e s tio n o f w h e th e r
th e s ta n d a r d s e t b y th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r c a n b e d e fe n d e d as p ro p er o r
a p p r o p r i a t e , th e a n s w e r is fo u n d b y a p p e a l to th e c o n s e q u e n c e s o f u s in g th a t
s ta n d a r d . Y e t th e r e a r e tw o s tr o n g r e a s o n s f o r th in k in g th a t th is in te r p r e ta tio n
g e ts S m ith w r o n g . F ir s t, i f S m ith w e r e to a p p e a l to o v e r a l l u tility i n d e f e n s e o f
th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r , h e w o u ld b e r e ly in g o n j u s t th e s o r t o f in d e p e n d e n t
s ta n d a r d o f m o ra l ju d g m e n t th a t h e r e je c ts in g iv in g h is a c c o u n t o f o u r r e lia n c e
o n th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r . S e c o n d , i f S m ith w e r e r e ly in g o n s u c h a s ta n d a r d , h e
w o u ld need to count as v a lu a b le c e rta in s ta te s o f a ffa irs , o r a c tio n s , or
fe e lin g s , in d e p e n d e n t of w h e th e r th e y w o u ld secu re th e a p p ro v a l of an
im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r. Y e t S m ith is c l e a r th a t th e v a lu e o f, say , p le a s u r e is
c r u c i a l l y c o n d itio n e d b y w h e th e r i t is p r o p e r o r m e rite d . O n h is v ie w , n o t a ll
p le a s u r e is e q u a ll y v a lu a b le ; w h e th e r s o m e p le a s u r e is v a lu a b l e , a n d h o w
v a lu a b l e it is ( w h e n i t is v a lu a b l e ) , d e p e n d s o n w h e th e r it w o u ld b e a p p r o v e d
o f b y th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r. A b s e n t a n a p p e a l to th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r , th e r e
is , a c c o r d in g to S m ith , n o c r i t e r i o n f o r d is tin g u is h in g b e tw e e n w h a t is a n d
w h a t is n o t a v a lu a b l e c o n s e q u e n c e .32 N e e d l e s s to say , o n c e th e s ta n d a r d o f
v a lu e s e t b y th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r is in p la c e , th e r e is n o o b s ta c le to S m ith
o f f e r in g u til i t a r i a n a rg u m e n ts i n f a v o r o f v a r io u s p r a c tic e s a n d in s titu tio n s , a s
h e o f te n d o e s . B u t th e s e a p p e a ls to u tility a ll p l a y o u t a g a in s t th e s ta n d a r d s e t
b y th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r , s o th e y w i l l n o t p r o v i d e a n in d e p e n d e n t s ta n d a r d fo r
ju d g in g th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r .33
Y e t S m ith d o e s n o t n e e d to a p p e a l to s o m e o th e r, in d e p e n d e n t, s ta n d a r d ( s e t
e ith e r b y a n o th e r im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r o r c o n s id e r a tio n s o f o v e r a ll u tility ) in
o r d e r to r a i s e a n d a d d r e s s th e q u e s tio n o f w h e th e r th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r s e ts
a p r o p e r o r a p p r o p r ia te s ta n d a r d in a w a y th a t is n o n tr iv ia l. H e c a n , a n d
s h o u ld , r e l y o n th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r , b u t s e e th e q u e s tio n n o t a s w h e th e r th e
im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r a p p r o v e s o f h e r o w n ( p a tte r n o f) a p p r o v a l, w h ic h sh e
in e v ita b ly w i l l , b u t w h e th e r th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r a p p r o v e s o f o u r r e ly in g o n
th e d e liv e r a n c e s o f th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r in m a k in g o u r m o r a l ju d g m e n ts .
O n c e th e c a n d id a te o b j e c t o f a p p r o b a tio n is n o t th e im p a r tia l s p e c t a t o r s
( p a tte r n o f) a p p r o v a l b u t o u r u s in g th a t a p p r o v a l a s th e s ta n d a r d f o r o u r m o ra l
ju d g m e n ts , w e h a v e a n o n tr iv ia l t e s t th a t m ig h t b e f a ile d . N o th in g in S m ith s
a c c o u n t o f a p p r o b a tio n o r in h is c h a r a c te r iz a ti o n o f a p p r o b a tio n o r o f th e
im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r e n s u r e s , ex a n te , th a t s u c h a s p e c ta to r w i l l a p p r o v e o f u s
u s in g th e s p e c t a t o r s r e a c tio n s a s a s ta n d a r d f o r ju d g m e n t.
A t th e s a m e tim e , th e r e s u lts o f s u c h a t e s t a r e im p o rta n t. I f w e w e r e to
d is c o v e r th a t, b y o u r o w n s ta n d a r d , o u r r e ly in g o n th a t s ta n d a r d is im p r o p e r o r
in a p p r o p r ia te , w e w o u ld h a v e r e a s o n to r e v i s e o u r s ta n d a rd . A f te r a ll, w e
w o u ld b e th in k in g th a t th e r e is s o m e th in g im p r o p e r in j u d g in g o u r s e lv e s , a n d
o th e rs , a s p r o p e r a n d m e r ito r io u s i n th e w a y w e h a v e b e e n . If, h o w e v e r , w e
w e r e to d is c o v e r th a t, b y o u r o w n s ta n d a r d , r e ly in g o n th a t s ta n d a r d is p r o p e r
o r a p p r o p r ia te , w e w o u ld b e in a p o s i t i o n to a s k a n d a n s w e r , w i t h s o m e
s ig n if ic a n c e , th e q u e s tio n th a t H u tc h e s o n m is ta k e n ly th o u g h t w a s ir r e le v a n t.
I f w e d o in te r p r e t S m ith s n o r m a tiv e c o n d itio n th is w a y , tw o th in g s a r e
w o r t h n o tin g . T h e f i r s t is th a t H u m e c o u ld m a k e s e n s e o f, a n d e m b r a c e , th e
c o n d itio n u n d e r s to o d in th is w a y . W h e th e r r e ly in g o n th e g e n e r a l p o in t o f v i e w
w i l l s a tis f y th is c o n d itio n is n o t a fo re g o n e c o n c lu s io n ; b u t it m a y w e l l s a tis fy
it, a n d i f i t d o e s , t h a t l o o k s t o b e s i g n i f i c a n t . T h e s e c o n d t h i n g w o r t h n o t i n g i s
th a t i f it is o u r r e lia n c e o n th e s ta n d a r d th a t is u p f o r e v a lu a tio n , w e w i l l n o t b e
c o n c ern e d w ith s h o w in g th a t w h a t g a rn e rs a p p ro v a l m e rits th a t a p p ro v a l.
In s te a d , w e w ill be c o n c ern e d w ith s h o w in g th a t i t is m o ra lly good (o r
a p p r o p r ia te , o r ju s t i f i e d ) to u s e th e f a c t th a t s o m e th in g g a rn e r s a p p r o v a l ( o r
d is a p p ro v a l) fro m a p riv ile g e d p o in t o f v ie w as th e s ta n d a rd fo r our
ju d g m e n ts . P e r h a p s b o th c o n c e r n s a r e im p o r ta n t to a d d r e s s .
H o w e v e r th a t w o r k s o u t, f in d in g th a t th e s ta n d a r d w e a r e u s in g is , b y o u r
o w n lig h ts , d e f e n s ib le a s m o r a lly g o o d , o r a p p r o p r ia te , o r j u s t i f i e d is n o t to
f in d in d e p e n d e n t g r o u n d s f o r th e s ta n d a r d . Y e t i t is to s h o w th a t th e s ta n d a r d
d o e s n o t s u f f e r a s e r i o u s d e f e c t o f b e i n g s u c h t h a t , e v e n b y o u r o w n l i g h t s , it
is n o t a n a p p r o p r ia te s ta n d a r d f o r o u r ju d g m e n ts .
 7. Co n c l u s i o n

M y c o n c e r n in th is e s s a y h a s b e e n to s o r t o u t th r e e d is tin c t e le m e n ts o f th e
t h e o r i e s o f f e r e d b y D a v i d H u m e a n d A d a m S m ith th e ir t h e o r i e s o f s y m p a th y ,
o f a p p r o b a tio n , a n d o f m o ra l ju d g m e n t. T o o o f te n th e d if f e r e n c e s b e tw e e n th e s e
th re e e le m e n ts a re s im p ly c o n fo u n d e d a n d to o o fte n , a ls o , th e d iffe re n c e s
b e t w e e n H u m e s a n d S m i t h s t h e o r i e s o f t h e s e e l e m e n t s a r e m i s s e d a l t o g e t h e r .
A t th e s a m e tim e , m a n y h a v e r e a d th e s e n tim e n ta lis ts ( in c lu d in g H u m e a n d
S m ith ) a s i f th e y h a d n o a c c o u n t o f m o r a l j u d g m e n t a t a ll , o r a s i f w h a t e v e r
a c c o u n t th e y h a d w a s s im p ly a n o n s ta rte r. N e ith e r v i e w d o e s j u s t i c e to th e
a im s , s u b tle ty , o r p l a u s i b i l i t y o f th e t h e o r i e s H u m e a n d S m ith d e v e lo p e d .
I h a v e s tr e s s e d in p a r t i c u l a r th a t H u m e a n d S m ith h a v e a c c o u n ts o f th e
d if f e r e n c e b e tw e e n f e e l i n g a p p r o v a l a n d ju d g i n g th a t s o m e th in g is a p p r o v a b le ,
p r o p e r , o r m e r ito r io u s . T h is is c r u c ia l to th e p la u s ib ility o f th e ir s e n tim e n ta lis t
a p p r o a c h to m o r a l th e o ry . T o lo s e th e c o n tr a s t b e tw e e n h a v in g a m o r a l f e e lin g
a n d m a k in g a m o r a l ju d g m e n t is to l o s e s o m e th in g e s s e n tia l to u n d e r s ta n d in g
m o r a l p r a c tic e , e v e n i f ( a s th e s e n tim e n ta lis ts h o ld ) th e r e is a d e e p c o n n e c tio n
b e tw e e n f e e lin g a n d ju d g in g . F o r tu n a te ly , H u m e a n d S m ith d o n o t lo s e th e
c o n tr a s t. W h ic h o f th e ir a c c o u n ts is r ig h t, i f e ith e r, o f c o u r s e m a tte r s g re a tly ,
a n d I h a v e n o t h e r e t a k e n a p o s i t i o n o n th e a d e q u a c y o f e ith e r. Y e t w i t h th e m ,
a n d f o r th e r e a s o n s h ig h lig h te d i n t h e l a s t s e c t i o n , I t h i n k n e i t h e r H u m e s
a c c o u n t n o r S m i t h s w i l l b e a d e q u a t e u n l e s s t h e s t a n d a r d o f j u d g m e n t i t o f f e r s
c a n i t s e l f b e d e f e n d e d a s m o r a lly a p p r o v a b le ( in lig h t o f th e s ta n d a r d its e lf ) .
A t th e s a m e tim e , th o u g h , I s u s p e c t th e y m ig h t e a c h h a v e th e r e s o u r c e s to s h o w
th a t th e ir s ta n d a rd s m e e t th is n o rm a tiv e r e q u ir e m e n t o r, a t le a s t, th a t s u ita b le
v a ria tio n s o f th e ir s ta n d a rd s w ill.

1 This essay has benefited considerably from discussion at the Sympathy conference organized by Eric
Schliesser at the University of Richmond and at the Adam Smith Society session at the Central Division
Meetings of the American Philosophical Association Meeting in N ew Orleans. I am especially grateful
for detailed comments from Houston Smit and John McHugh and helpful conversations with Remy Debes
and Michael Gill.
In what follows, in-text citations are to H um es A Treatise o f Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge
and P. H. Nidditch (1738-39; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), referenced as Treatise; H um es
Enquiries concerning Human Understanding and the Principles o f Morals, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge
and P. H. Nidditch (1751; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), referenced as Enquiry ; and Smiths
The Theory o f Moral Sentiments, ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie (1759: Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1976), referenced as TMS.
2 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes o f the Wealth o f Nations, ed. R. H. Campbell and A. S.
Skinner (1776; Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981).
3 Hume argues extensively for the importance of sentiment in understanding moral thought; Smith does so
much more briefly, but on the basis of the same general considerations. See Treatise, 456-76; and TMS,
318-21.
4 They were also aware of the many ways that moral judgment can reify differences, generate conflicts,
and often wreck havoc, though they were generally optimistic, it seems, concerning the contributions of
moral thought. As Eric Schliesser has pointed out to me, Smiths discussion of faction, in section 6 of the
Theory o f Moral Sentiments, which was added to the last edition, suggests that Smiths concerns over
the negative effects of moral judgment may well have increased over time.
5 Neither is it those circumstances only, which create pain or sorrow, that call forth our fellow-feeling.
W hatever is the passion that arises from any object in the person principally concerned, an analogous
emotion springs up, at the thought of his situation, in the breast of every attentive spectator (TMS, 10).
6 TMS, 10.
7 There is an important difference between sympathy which transforms an idea into an impression
and merely being caused, by an idea, to have an impression. N o sympathy is at work when the thought
that someone is angry leads to the thought that he will be difficult to deal with and then in turn to a
headache or anxiety; yet the idea of someones anger is causing a pain. N o part of that effect involves
putting oneself in anothers place.
8 Resemblance and contiguity are relations not to be neglected... . For besides the relation of cause and
effect, by which we are convincd of the reality of the passion, with which we sympathize; beside this, I
say, we must be assisted by the relations of resemblance and contiguity, in order to feel the sympathy in
its full perfection ( Treatise, 320).
9 Hume does sometimes write as if the effect of sympathy is the creation of the very passion itself of
which one has formed the idea (Treatise, 317). Yet no part of his accounts of approbation and moral
judgment depend on this.
10 Movies seem especially effective in inducing sympathetic feeling and they seem to do so, often at
least, by managing to make vivid our ideas of the experiences of others.
11 Needless to say, these examples of sympathy differ significantly from the standard cases of feeling as
someone else does because she or he feels that way, since, in the examples, the person sympathized with
most decidedly does not feel the same way.
12 One of the real pleasures of Smiths discussion of sympathy is his perceptive descriptions of the
peculiarities of sympathy. H e notes, for instance, the asymmetric impact of positive and negative feelings
and the ways in which we are able to sympathize more readily with emotional pains (which are more
accessible to the imagination) than with physical pains. H e appeals to the latter to explain why tragedies
consistently revolve around emotional, rather than physical, loss (TMS, 29).
13 Samuel Fleischacker offers a subtle discussion of the differences between Hume and Smiths
accounts of sympathy in Sympathy in Hume and Smith: A Contrast, Critique, and Reconstruction, in
Intersubjectivity and Objectivity in Adam Smith and Edmund Husserl, ed. Dagfinn F 0 llesdal and
Christel Fricke (Frankfurt: Ontos, 2012), 273-311.
14 That cause, which excites the passion, is related to the object, which nature has attributed to the
passion; the sensation, which the cause separately produces, is related to the sensation of the passion:
From this double relation of ideas and impressions, the passion is derivd ( Treatise, 286).
15 Comparison too might come into play, so that even a home that is not beautiful and would not give rise
to pleasure in others might nonetheless be a source of pleasure, and so pride, when the owner realizes it is
not nearly so bad as others.
16 Hum es focus on traits of character, in his account of moral approbation, plays a role in his
accommodating the difference betw een the various effects a person might have that are properly seen as
that persons doing, and for which the person is properly seen as responsible, and other effects that the
person might have but that are not properly seen as being that persons doing.
17 For moral approval and disapproval alike, what is in play is an attitude directed at a person (the object),
for his or her character (the subject), because of its impact (the subjects qualities).
18 It may well be, for instance, that some people do not approve of benevolence because, for instance,
they think its effects, contrary to popular opinion, are not beneficial.
19 Smiths account of sympathy may well be one according to which we might sympathize with others
without having an idea of their pleasures and pains, simply by successfully putting ourselves in their
situation and finding ourselves feeling a certain way.
20 This is in response to a worry pressed by Hume that Smith could not hold both that sympathy is always
agreeable and yet that we can sympathize with unpleasant sentiments. Hum es concern was that
sympathizing with unpleasant sentiments must be unpleasant. Smiths reasonable response is to distinguish
the unpleasant sympathetic feelings from the pleasant feeling of observing the agreement in feeling.
21 As Smith emphasizes, whether we will sympathize with someones gratitude or resentment is sensitive
to whether we see the actions of those to whom they are grateful or resentful as proper (TMS, 71-73).
22 Smith uses this phenomenon to explain an important difference between the unsocial passions (hatred
and resentment and all their modifications [TMS, 34]) and the social passions ([g]enerosity, humanity,
kindness, compassion, mutual friendship and esteem, all the social and benevolent affections). The
former, he argues, must always be brought down to a pitch much lower than that to which undisciplined
nature would raise them in order to secure the sympathy of others, while the latter are such that we
have always ... the strongest disposition to sympathize with the benevolent affections (TMS, 39).
23 Hume is explicit about the model for judgments of color and about extending it to his account of moral
judgment. He makes clear as well that he thinks the general model extends to a range of other judgments
that have their origin in our perceptions, including judgments concerning not merely secondary but also
primary qualities. See, for instance, Enquiry, 227-28. And Smith emphasizes that, when it comes to
moral judgments, the precise and distinct measure can be found nowhere but in the sympathetic feelings
of the impartial and well informed spectator (TMS, 294).
24 In other places, thinking of the same restriction, Hume talks of those who have a connexion with the
person judged (Treatise, 591 and 602) rather than of those in the narrow circle.
25 So, for instance, When the interests of one country interfere with those of another, we estimate the
merits of a statesm an by the good or ill, which results to his own country from his measures and councils,
without regard to the prejudice which he brings on its enemies and rivals (Enquiry, 225). Keeping this in
mind is important for seeing how and why Hume does not evaluate character traits by appeal to their
contribution to overall utility, taking everyone into account.
26 For a more detailed discussion of Hum es account of moral judgment and the General Point of View,
see my On Why H um es General Point of View Isnt Ideal and Shouldnt Be, Social Philosophy
and Policy 11. 1 (1994): 202-28.
27 We are pleased to think that we have rendered ourselves the natural objects of approbation, Smith
observes, though no approbation should ever actually be bestowed upon us: and we are mortified to
reflect that we have justly merited the blame of those we live with, though that sentiment should never
actually be exerted against us (TMS, 115-16).
28 In turning our attention to the reactions of an impartial spectator, when we make judgment concerning
what is approvable, habit and experience have taught us to do this so easily and so readily, that we are
scarce sensible that we do it; and it requires, on this case too, some degree of reflection, and even of
philosophy, to convince us (TMS, 135-36).
29 For a more detailed discussion of Smiths account of moral judgment and the impartial spectator, see
my Sentiments and Spectators: Adam Smiths Theory of Moral Judgment, in The Philosophy o f Adam
Smith, ed. Vivienne Brown and Samuel Fleischacker (Abingdon, U.K.: Routledge, 2010), 124-44.
30 This marks an important difference between the standard of moral judgment and the standards for
other judgments, say of color or size. In the case of the latter, the standards themselves, and the
judgments we make using them, are not within the scope of those standards (such standards and
judgments have no color or size) nor need the standards be morally good, appropriate, or justified in order
to be the right standards for these nonmoral judgments.
31 Stressing the analogy between moral judgments and judgments of taste or size, Hutchesons view is
that a person cannot apply moral Attributes to the very Faculty of perceiving moral Qualities; or call
his moral Sense morally Good or Evil, any more than he calls the Power o f Tasting, sweet, or bitter; or
of Seeing, strait or crooked, white or black . Francis Hutcheson, An Essay on the Nature and
Conduct o f the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense, ed. Aaron Garrett
(1742; Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002), 149.
32 Smith draws a sharp distinction between his view and one that gives priority to utility. Both views, he
supposes, offer a measure of when various sentiments and affections are felt to the appropriate degree.
The difference is that the one he rejects makes utility, and not sympathy, or the correspondent affection
of the spectator, the natural and original measure of this proper degree (TMS, 306). And an appeal to
our judgments of when sentiments and affections are proper or not, Smith holds, reveals that utility is not
the natural and original measure, while the correspondent affection of the [impartial] spectator is.
33 See, for instance, Smiths famous discussion of how a well-structured economy will promote the public
interest even though those within in it are acting only with the intention of promoting their own interests.
See Smiths Wealth o f Nations, 1. 456.
Reflection
TRACING A LINE OF SYMPATHY FO R NATURE IN GOETHES WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN

Elizabeth Millan

I n a s e m i n a l e s s a y f r o m 1 9 2 4 - 2 5 o n G o e t h e s W a h lv e r w a n d ts c h a fte n
( 1 8 0 9 ) , W a l t e r B e n j a m i n u s e s G o e t h e s n o v e l t o p r e s e n t t h e t a s k o f t h e
c r itic . I n h is e s s a y , B e n ja m in o b s e r v e s th a t [ c ] r itiq u e s e e k s th e tru th c o n te n t
o f a w o r k o f a rt; c o m m e n ta ry , its m a te r ia l c o n te n t. 1 B e n ja m in lik e n s th e
w o r k o f th e c o m m e n ta to r to th a t o f th e c h e m is t: i f th e w o r k is lik e a b u r n in g
f u n e ra l p y r e , f o r th e c o m m e n ta to r w o o d a n d a s h a r e o b je c ts o f a n a ly s is . T h e
w o r k o f th e c r i t ic is lik e th a t o f a n a lc h e m is t: f a c e d w i t h th e b u r n in g fu n e ra l
p y r e , f o r th e c r i t ic th e f la m e i t s e l f p r e s e r v e s a n e n ig m a , th a t o f w h a t is a liv e ,
a n d p r e s e n tin g th a t f la m e in its m o v e m e n t a n d in its h e a t is th e t a s k o f th e
c r itic . A s B e n ja m in t e l l s u s , T h u s , th e c r i t ic in q u ir e s in to th e tru th , w h o s e
liv in g f la m e c o n tin u e s to b u r n o v e r th e h e a v y lo g s o f w h a t is p a s t a n d th e
lig h t a s h e s o f w h a t h a s b e e n e x p e r ie n c e d . 2 W e s e e a t o n c e th a t th e ta s k o f
th e c r i t ic w i l l in v o lv e a n a c t o f d e e p s y m p a th y w i t h a n d f o r th e m a te r ia l;
s u c h c a r e f o r t h e m a t e r i a l k e e p s t h e f l a m e o f its m e a n i n g a l i v e . 3
F o r a c e r t a i n c o n t e m p o r a r y o f G o e t h e s , o n e G o e t h e a d m i r e d f o r h i s
s c ie n tif ic in n o v a tio n s a n d a c c o m p lis h m e n ts , p r e s e r v in g lif e w a s a ls o a
c e n tr a l ta s k . I r e f e r to A le x a n d e r v o n H u m b o ld t, w h o in h is p r e s e n ta tio n o f
n a t u r e v a l u e d l i f e a s m u c h a s B e n j a m i n s c r i t i c , w r i t i n g : T h e b r e a t h o f l i f e
s h o u ld n o t b e e lim in a te d f r o m th e d e p ic t io n o f n a tu re . A n d y e t th e m e r e
e n u m e r a tio n o f a s e r i e s o f g e n e r a l r e s u lts is p r o d u c t i v e o f j u s t s u c h a
w e a r y in g im p r e s s io n , th a t is , th e a c c u m u la tio n o f to o m a n y in d iv id u a l
d e ta ils o f o b s e r v a tio n . 4 A m e r e ly e m p ir ic a l d e p ic tio n o f n a tu re in d ic a te s a
l a c k o f a p p r e c i a t i o n f o r n a t u r e s m e a n i n g , t h e s o r t o f a p p r o a c h t h a t i g n o r e s
th e b r e a th o f n a tu r e s life . H u m b o ld t a p p r o a c h e s n a tu re a s a c r itic r a th e r th a n
m e r e ly a s a c o m m e n ta to r. T h e s e th e m e s o f c r itic is m , c o m m e n ta ry , lif e ,
n a tu re , a n d u n d e r s ta n d in g b r in g u s, a l b e i t a lo n g a n u n c o n v e n tio n a l p a th , to
th e in s ig h ts a b o u t s y m p a th y th a t a r e d e v e l o p e d in G o e th e s n o v e l E le c tiv e
A ffin itie s .
I t is n o a c c id e n t th a t G o e th e s W a h lve rw a n d sc h a fte n w o u ld b e a p la c e
w h e r e a n a ffin ity b e tw e e n H u m b o ld t a n d B e n ja m in w o u ld b e fo u n d . O f
c o u r s e , th e n o v e l is n o t a b o u t th e a f f in itie s b e tw e e n H u m b o ld t a n d
B e n ja m in , b u t r a th e r o r b its a r o u n d its fo u r m a in c h a r a c te r s : E d u a r d ,
C h a r lo tte , th e H a u p tm a n n , a n d O ttilie . E d u a r d a n d h is w if e , C h a r lo tte , t e s t
th e ir r e la tio n s h ip b y o p e n in g i t to th e p r e s e n c e o f E d u a r d s fr ie n d , th e
H a u p tm a n n (th e c a p ta in ) , a n d C h a r lo tte s y o u n g , p u r e c h a r g e , O ttilie . A s th e
a f f in itie s o r a ttr a c tio n s th a t d e f in e m u c h o f th e fo c u s o f th e n o v e l d e v e lo p ,
w e f in d o u r s e lv e s in th e m id s t o f lo v e tr ia n g le s th a t tu r n tr a g ic , a s E d u a r d
a n d O ttilie p e r i s h ( a lo n g w i t h C h a r lo tte s in fa n t s o n , w h o c u r io u s ly
r e s e m b le s b o th O ttilie a n d th e H a u p tm a n n ). G o e th e s in te r e s t in th e c o n c e p t
o f e le c tiv e a f f in itie s s te m m e d f r o m h is s tu d ie s o f th e n a tu ra l s c ie n c e s . It is a
te r m h e to o k f r o m c h e m is try , a t e r m th a t in h is p o e tic h a n d s to o k o n s o m e
a lc h e m is t to n e s . J u s t a s th e n a tu ra l w o r l d o p e r a te s in p a r t v i a th e fo r m a tio n
a n d d is s o lu t io n o f c e r ta in b o n d s b e tw e e n m o le c u le s , o u r s o c ia l w o r l d is
a ls o a f f e c te d b y b o n d s o f a f f e c tio n a n d a n tip a th y b e tw e e n in d iv id u a ls . O f
c o u r s e , in c o n tr a s t to th e n a tu ra l re a lm , in th e r e a l m o f s o c ia l r e la tio n s th e
la w s th a t g o v e r n o u r a tta c h m e n ts a r e th e fu n c tio n o f o u r fr e e d o m . A t f ir s t
g la n c e it m ig h t s e e m s th a t in u s in g a t e r m d e s c r ib in g c h e m ic a l b o n d s b o r n o f
n a tu ra l n e c e s s ity a s a title f o r a n o v e l fe a tu rin g l o v e s s u c c e s s e s a n d
f a ilu r e s , G o e th e is c o n fu s in g tw o d is tin c t r e a lm s . H o w e v e r w e d o w e l l to
r e c a l l G o e th e s e lo q u e n t r e m in d e r in N a tu r u n d K u n s t :

W er Grosses will, muss sich zusammenraffen;

In der Beschraenkung zeigt sich erst der Meister,
Und das Gesetz nur kann uns Freiheit geben .5

In E le c tiv e A ffin itie s , G o e th e p r e s e n ts th e a ffin ity o r s y m p a th y b o r n o f o u r

f r e e d o m , a f r e e d o m b o u n d b y la w , a s a ll f r e e d o m m u s t b e . H e n c e , G o e th e
a llo w s us to s e e th a t e le c tiv e a f f in itie s in th e c h e m ic a l s e n s e a n d th o s e
a tta c h m e n ts o f th e h e a r t d e t a i l e d in th e n o v e l h a v e a c o m m o n ro o t.
J u s t a s B e n ja m in s v i e w o f c o m m e n ta r y a n d c r i t i c i s m lin k s c h e m is tr y to
a lc h e m y , G o e th e s n o v e l lin k s th e n a tu ra l s c ie n c e s to p o e tr y in o r d e r to
u n c o v e r tru th s a b o u t n a tu re a s a w h o le . M a r tin S w a le s w r ite s th a t in th e
W a h lve rw a n d tsch a ften , th e r e is a le v e l o f th e m a tic s ta te m e n t w h ic h h a s to
d o w i t h n a tu re , n a tu re b o th w i th in a n d o u ts id e th e h u m a n s p h e r e . 6 L e t u s g o
to p a r t 2 o f th e n o v e l, to a s u b s e c tio n o f c h a p te r 7 , a p a s s a g e f r o m O t t i l i e s
d ia ry . T h is p a s s a g e ta k e s u s d ir e c tly to th e th e m e o f n a tu re , b o th w ith in a n d
o u ts id e th e h u m a n s p h e r e , a n d a ls o ta k e s u s to a n a s p e c t o f h e rm e n e u tic a l
s y m p a th y th a t I w o u ld lik e to h ig h lig h t:

A t times when a longing and curiosity about such strange things has come over me, I have envied
the traveler who sees such marvels in living, everyday connection with other marvels. But he,
too, becomes another person. N o one wanders under palm trees unpunished; and attitudes are
certain to change in a land where elephants and tigers are at home.

Only the naturalist deserves admiration, who knows how to describe and present [darstellen] to
us the strangest and most exotic things in their locality, always in their own special element, with
7
all that surrounds them. How much I would enjoy just once hearing Humboldt speak!

T h is p a s s a g e c o n tin u e s a th e m e o f O t t i l i e s o v e r a ll c h a p te r 7 d i a r y en try : th e
th e m e o f o u r tru e r e l a t i o n (w a h re s V erh a ltn is) to n a tu re , a r e l a t i o n
u n c o v e r e d , in p a rt, v i a th e s tu d y o f p a r tic u la r h u m a n s, w h ic h O ttilie lin k s to
th e s tu d y o f h u m a n ity i t s e l f ( d a s e ig e n tlic h e S tu d iu m d e r M e n s c h h e it i s t d e r
M e n s c h ). F o r G o e th e , th e tru e r e l a t i o n to n a tu re c o u ld o n ly b e u n c o v e r e d
b y a m e th o d th a t fu s e d th e n a tu ra l a n d h u m a n s c ie n c e s . A s D a n ie l S te u e r
p o in ts o u t, G o e th e s v i e w s o n th e s y s te m a tic in v e s tig a tio n o f n a tu re w e r e
in fo r m e d b y h is b e l i e f th a t s c ie n c e o n c e d e v e l o p e d o u t o f p o e try , a n d th a t
o n e d a y th e s e tw o h u m a n f a c u ltie s m ig h t w e ll m e e t a g a in to th e ir m u tu a l
a d v a n ta g e . 8 G o e th e s n o v e l, in its u s e o f a c h e m ic a l t e r m ( e le c ti v e
a f f in itie s ) to u n c o v e r th e la w s o f h u m a n s y m p a th ie s a n d a n tip a th ie s , is a
m o d e l o f j u s t w h a t s u c h a n a tte m p t to j o i n p o e tr y a n d s c ie n c e m ig h t lo o k
lik e . F u r th e r in O t t i l i e s d i a r y e n try , w e r e a d th a t th e b e s t g u id e f o r u s in th e
q u e s t t o w a r d a n u n d e r s ta n d in g o f h u m a n ity is th e te a c h e r w h o c a n a r o u s e in
u s a f e e lin g f o r th e w o r l d a r o u n d u s. T h e p r a i s e f o r H u m b o ld t e x p r e s s e d b y
O ttilie is d u e in p a r t to th e f a c t th a t w e fin d in h im th e s o r t o f te a c h e r w h o
v a lu e s lif e a n d d is p la y s th e s o r t o f h e r m e n e u tic a l s y m p a th y f o r h is s u b je c t
m a tte r th a t w o u ld in fu s e h is s tu d e n ts w i t h th e fe e lin g s ( i n p a r tic u la r
s y m p a th y ) f o r a tru e u n d e r s ta n d in g o f th e w o r ld . F o l l o w i n g O t t i l i e s
m u s in g s , th e s tu d y o f n a tu re is a w a y to u n c o v e r its e ffe c ts o n h u m a n
s e n s ib iliti e s , m o re p a r tic u la r ly , th e in flu e n c e o f n a tu re o n th e e m o tio n s .
H e n c e , a g r e a t n a tu r a lis t w o u ld b e a p e r s o n a b le to te a c h u s a b o u t h u m a n
fe e lin g s : o n e o f H u m b o ld ts g r e a te s t a c c o m p lis h m e n ts w a s th e s y m p a th y h e
a w a k e n e d in E u r o p e a n r e a d e r s f o r th e la n d s c a p e o f L a tin A m e r ic a .
H u m b o ld t is s ig n a le d o u t in O t t i l i e s d i a r y e n try f o r h is a b ility to p e r f o r m
a h e rm e n e u tic a c t o f g r e a t d e x te rity , d e m o n s tr a tin g n o t o n ly a n u n d e r s ta n d in g
o f th e e x o tic b u t a ls o a n a b ility to p r e s e n t th e u n f a m ilia r to a r e a d in g p u b lic
u n a c q u a in te d w i t h th e p a lm s a n d o th e r m a r v e ls o f f o r e ig n la n d s . O ttilie
h ig h lig h ts a fe a tu re o f H u m b o ld ts w o r k th a t th e p o l i t i c a l le a d e r s o f th e
n e w ly in d e p e n d e n t c o u n tr ie s o f L a tin A m e r ic a a ls o a p p r e c i a t e d a n d
r e c o g n iz e d , n a m e ly th a t H u m b o ld t w a s a f te r a j u s t p r e s e n ta tio n o f A m e r ic a ,
a t a s k c a r r i e d o u t th ro u g h a d e d ic a tio n to u n v e ilin g th e m e a n in g o f th e
n a tu ra l la n d s c a p e s o f S p a n is h A m e r ic a ( a s th e r e g io n H u m b o ld t e x p lo r e d
f r o m 1 7 9 9 to 1 8 0 4 w a s k n o w n u n til in d e p e n d e n c e ) , w h ic h w a s a d e d ic a tio n
to th e p r o c e s s o f c o m in g to a n u n d e r s ta n d in g o f S p a n is h A m e r ic a . W ith o u t
s y m p a th y f o r th e la n d s c a p e , n o s u c h u n d e r s ta n d in g c o u ld ta k e p la c e ; th e
s tr a n g e s t a n d m o s t e x o tic th in g s w o u ld r e m a in fo r e ig n , e v e n th re a te n in g ,
a n d b e p r e s e n te d a s th u s, h in d e r in g a v i e w th a t w o u ld c l e a r th e w a y f o r th e
E u r o p e a n p u b lic to a p p r e c ia te A m e r ic a .9
H u m b o ld t w a n d e r e d ( p u n is h e d m o s t s e v e r e l y b y m o s q u ito e s o f th e
A m a z o n ju n g le ) u n d e r th e S p a n is h - A m e r ic a n p a lm s . U p o n h is r e tu r n f r o m
th e j o u r n e y to th e e q u in o c tia l r e g io n s o f th e e a r th (m o r e b la n d ly , S p a n is h
A m e r ic a ) in 1 8 0 4 , H u m b o ld t w a s w e lc o m e d b a c k to E u r o p e a s a fig u re
u n iq u e ly s itu a te d to p r e s e n t th e e x o tic a n d u n f a m ilia r t e r r i t o r i e s o f A m e r ic a
to E u r o p e a n s , a n d G o e th e w a s o n e o f H u m b o ld ts m o s t a r d e n t s u p p o r te r s .
H u m b o ld t d id in d e e d d e s c r i b e a n d p r e s e n t ... th e s tr a n g e s t a n d m o s t e x o tic
th in g s in th e ir lo c a lity , a lw a y s in th e ir o w n s p e c ia l e le m e n t, w ith a ll th a t
s u rro u n d s th e m . O ttilie lin g e r s o n th is a c h ie v e m e n t, in p a r t, b e c a u s e sh e
r e c o g n iz e s ( a s d id G o e th e ) th a t th e ta s k s o f s c ie n c e a n d o f p o e tr y w e r e
r e l a t e d b y a b a n d o f s y m p a th y : w ith o u t a d e s ir e to tr u ly u n d e r s ta n d th e
w o r l d a r o u n d u s, n e ith e r th e n a tu ra l s c ie n tis t n o r th e p o e t w o u ld p r e s e n t
a n y th in g m o re th a n d e a d r e m a in s , r e m a in s u tte r ly in c a p a b le o f a r o u s in g a n y
f e e lin g in o th e rs , l e t a lo n e o f c la r if y in g a n y th in g a b o u t th e w o r ld . B o th
H u m b o ld t a n d G o e th e r e a l i z e d th e im p o r ta n c e o f p r e s e n ta tio n (D a r ste llu n g )
f o r b o th th e n a tu ra l s c ie n c e s a n d f o r p o e try . I n b o th G o e th e a n d H u m b o ld ts
w o r k , D a r s te llu n g is u s e d a s a w a y to c r e a te a Z u sa m m e n h a n g o r c o n te x t
f o r u n d e r s ta n d in g th a t w h ic h is p r e s e n te d (d a rg e ste llt). D a r s te llu n g is a
w a y to a l l o w th e r e la tio n s b e t w e e n o b je c ts o f n a tu re to e m e r g e , so
 D a r s te llu n g is n o t m e r e ly a n e x p la n a tio n o f th e o b j e c t b u t r a th e r p r o v id e s a
c o n t e x t t h a t a l l o w s t h e m e a n i n g o f t h e p r e s e n t e d o b j e c t t o e m e r g e . G o e t h e s
p r e s e n t a t i o n o f t h e c h a r a c t e r s o f t h e W a h lv e r w a n d ts c h a fte n a n d t h e r i c h
c o n te x t h e p r o v id e s f o r th e ir p r e s e n ta tio n a s th e y s u ffe r th e s lin g s a n d
a r r o w s o f f o r t u n e s f a t e i s w h a t e n a b l e s t h e d e e p e r m e a n i n g o f t h e h u m a n
c o n d itio n to e m e r g e ; a s y m p a th e tic p o r t r a i t o f th e h u m a n c o n d itio n e m e r g e s
in b e a u tifu l d e ta il.

1 Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, vol. 1, 1913-1926 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1996), 297. The essay was written in 1919-22 and published in Neue Deutsche Beitrage, 1924-25, as
Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften.
2
Benjamin, Selected Writings, 298.
3
The theme of hermeneutic sympathy is developed by Friedrich Schleiermacher during the late 1700s,
and it is found in the writing of other early German romantics as well, especially in the concepts of
symphilosophy and sympoetry that Friedrich Schlegel develops. See Schleiermacher: Hermeneutics and
Criticism and Other Writings, ed. Andrew Bowie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); and
Friedrich Schlegel: Philosophical Fragments, trans. Peter Firchow (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1991).

4 Alexander von Humboldt, Kosmos, ed. Hanno Beck (Stuttgart: Brockhaus, 1978), xxvi. I refer above,
with some alteration, to the English translation, Cosmos: A Sketch o f the Physical Description o f the
Universe, trans. E. C. Otte (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 1.9.

5 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Aus dem Nachlafi (Weimar: Bohlau, 1887-1919), rpt. in Werke, ed.
Erich Trunz (Munich: DTV, 1998): Whoever strives for something great, must pull himself together /
M astery shows itself first in self-limitation / Only the law can give us freedom (my trans.; Werke,
1.245).

6 Martin Swales, Goethes Prose Fiction, in The Cambridge Companion to Goethe, ed. Lesley
Sharpe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 129-46, at 137.
7
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities, trans. James Anthony Froude, in Novels and Tales,
trans. R. Dillon Boylan and Froude (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), 170-72. I have altered the translation
slightly. The German text is as follows: Manchmal, wenn mich ein neugieriges Verlangen nach solchen
abenteurlichen Dingen anwandelte, habe ich den Reisenden beneidet, der solche Wunder mit andern
Wundern in lebendiger alltaglicher Verbindung sieht. A ber auch er wird ein anderer Mensch. Es wandelt
niemand ungestraft unter Palmen, und die Gesinnungen andern sich gewih in einem Lande, wo Elefanten
und Tiger zu Hause sind.
N ur der Naturforscher ist verehrungswert, der uns das Fremdeste, Seltsamste mit seiner Lokalitat, mit
aller Nachbarschaft, jedesmal in dem eigensten Elemente zu schildern und darzustellen weilh. Wie gem
mochte ich nur einaml Humboldten erzahlen horen. (Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Die
Wahlverwandtschaften [Leipzig: Insel, 1972], 174).
8
Daniel Steuer, In Defence of Experience: Goethes Natural Investigations, in The Cambridge
Companion to Goethe, ed. Lesley Sharpe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 160-78, at
160.

9 This m atter of sympathy for nature and its implications for environmental ethics is addressed in great
detail by Patrick R. Frierson, Adam Smith and the Possibility of Sympathy with Nature, Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly 87.4 (2006): 442-80.
 C H A P T E R EIGHT

Sympathy in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche

B e r n a r d R e g in s te r

S c h o p e n h a u e r s m o ra lity o f c o m p a s s io n and N i e t z s c h e s c ritiq u e of it

a rg u a b ly c o n s titu te an im p o r ta n t s ta g e in th e h is to ry o f th e p h ilo s o p h ic a l
e n g a g e m e n t w i t h c o m p a s s i o n . 1 S c h o p e n h a u e r s c l a i m t h a t c o m p a s s i o n f o r a l l
th a t s u f f e r s is th e b a s i s o f m o r a lity ( B M 1 6 ) is a s u b s ta n tiv e c h a lle n g e to
t h e K a n t i a n i d e a t h a t t h i s b a s i s i s f o u n d i n r e s p e c t f o r t h e d i g n i t y o f h u m a n ity .
H e a rg u e s th a t a c tin g o u t o f r e v e r e n c e f o r th e c a te g o r ic a l im p e r a tiv e c a n n o t
a c c o u n t f o r th e fu ll r a n g e o f a c tio n s a n d a ttitu d e s w e c o n s id e r m o r a l ly w o rth y ,
in c lu d in g a c tio n s a n d a ttitu d e s to w a r d n o n h u m a n a n im a ls ( B M 7 , 8 9 - 9 1 , 1 9 ,
1 6 9 - 7 5 ) . N i e t z s c h e s a t t a c k o n S c h o p e n h a u e r s d o c t r i n e o f c o m p a s s i o n m a y i n
tu r n b e ta k e n a s a c r itiq u e o f th e v a lu e o f th e m o r a lity i t u n d e r w r ite s : th e
in d is c r im in a te c o n d e m n a tio n o f s u f f e r in g in a ll its fo rm s it a d v o c a te s p o s e s a
s e r io u s th r e a t to th e p o s s ib i li ty o f im p o r ta n t fo rm s o f h u m a n g r e a tn e s s . A ll
t h i s h a s c r e a t e d t h e i m p r e s s i o n t h a t t h e m a i n i s s u e o f c o n t e n t i o n i n N i e t z s c h e s
d i s p u t e w i t h S c h o p e n h a u e r i s t h e v a lu e o f c o m p a s s i o n . T h i s i m p r e s s i o n i s
m is le a d in g . S o m e a p p e a r a n c e s to th e c o n tr a ry , N ie tz s c h e d o e s n o t d e n y th e
v a lu e o f c o m p a s s io n any m o re th a n Schopenhauer d oes. H is m is g iv in g s
c o n c e r n p r i m a r i l y S c h o p e n h a u e r s c o n c e p t i o n o f t h e n a tu r e o f c o m p a s s i o n .
S p e c if ic a lly , h e a rg u e s th a t S c h o p e n h a u e r m is c o n c e iv e s b o th th e p r o p e r o b je c t
o f c o m p a s s i o n a n d t h e k i n d o f a t t i t u d e i t i s . I n t h i s s tu d y , I s h a l l e x a m i n e b o t h
lin e s o f o b je c tio n , th o u g h I w i l l s p e n d m o r e tim e o n th e la tte r , w h i c h is m o r e
e lu s iv e a n d le s s w e ll u n d e rs to o d .
 1. Co m p a s s i o n a n d Su f f e r i n g

S c h o p e n h a u e r a rg u e s th a t th e p r o p e r o b j e c t o f c o m p a s s io n ( M it le i d ) is a ll
th a t s u f f e r s , o r s u ffe rin g a s su ch . T h e v a lu a t io n o f c o m p a s s io n is th e r e f o r e a n
e x p r e s s io n o f th e v i e w th a t s u ffe rin g a s s u c h is e v il, a n d o u g h t to b e a v o i d e d o r
a lle v ia te d . N ie tz s c h e c o n c lu d e s th a t th e c u lt o f c o m p a s s io n is th e r e f o r e a ls o
a n d e s s e n tia l ly a c u lt o f c o m f o r ta b le n e s s :

if you experience suffering and displeasure as evil, hateful, worthy of annihilation, and as a defect of
existence, then it is clear that besides your religion of compassion you also harbor another religion in
your heart that is perhaps the mother of the religion of compassion: the religion o f
comfortableness. How little you know of human happiness, you comfortable and benevolent
people, for happiness and unhappiness are sisters and even twins that either grow up together or, as
in your case, remain small together. (GS 338; cf. D 174; BGE 202)

N ie tz s c h e o b je c ts to th e v a lu e o f c o m p a s s io n o n ly in s o f a r a s its p r o p e r o b je c t
is u n d e r s to o d a s s u ffe rin g a s su ch . A n d h is o b je c t io n is th a t w h e n i t is so
u n d e r s to o d c o m p a s s io n m a y b e h a rm fu l to th e in d iv id u a l a t w h o m i t is
d i r e c t e d . 2 S tr ic tly s p e a k in g , th e is s u e is n o t th a t o n th is c o n c e p tio n c o m p a s s io n
is n o t s u f f ic ie n tly a ltr u is tic i t m a y w e l l b e m o tiv a te d b y a c o n c e r n f o r th e
g o o d o f a n o th e r f o r its o w n s a k e b u t th a t i t f u n d a m e n ta lly m is u n d e r s ta n d s th e
c h a r a c te r o f th is g o o d . H e r e is h o w h e d e s c r i b e s th e is s u e :

our dear compassionate friends ... wish to help and have no thought of the personal necessity of
distress, although terrors, deprivations, impoverishments, midnights, adventures, risks and blunders
are as necessary for me and for you as are their opposites. It never occurs to them that, to put it
mystically, the path to ones heaven always leads through the voluptuousness of ones own hell. (GS
338)

C e r ta i n fo rm s o f s u ffe rin g in c e r ta in c ir c u m s ta n c e s m a y b e n e c e s s a r y f o r th e
g o o d o f a n o th e r. A d m itte d ly , e v e n th e e n d o f a lle v ia ti n g s u ffe rin g c o u ld ju s tif y
le ttin g a n o th e r u n d e rg o c e r ta in fo rm s o f s u ffe rin g in c e r ta in c ir c u m s ta n c e s . T h e
p a in s o f g r o w in g u p a r e g e n u in e p a in s , f o r in s ta n c e , b u t p a r e n ts m o tiv a te d b y
S c h o p e n h a u e r ia n c o m p a s s io n w o u ld s till r e c o g n iz e th a t i t is n e c e s s a r y f o r th e ir
c h ild r e n to u n d e rg o th e s e p a in s n o w in o r d e r to a v o id th e s e o r g r e a te r
s u ffe rin g s la te r in life . T h e p a r e n t s c o m p a s s io n w o u ld th e r e f o r e n o t in d u c e
th e m to a l l e v i a t e th e p a i n o f th e ir c h ild r e n ; in d e e d , i t w o u ld m o tiv a te th e m n o t
to in te r v e n e a n d l e t th e c h ild r e n d e a l w i t h it. N ie tz s c h e s o b je c t io n g o e s d e e p e r
th a n th is . H is p o in t is n o t m e r e ly th a t c e r t a i n fo rm s o f s u f f e r in g in c e r ta in
c irc u m s ta n c e s m ig h t b e n e c e ssa ry to a c h ie v e th e good life as he ta k e s
S c h o p e n h a u e r t o u n d e r s t a n d it, n a m e l y , a s c o m f o r t o r c o n t e n t m e n t , o r a t
l e a s t th e absence of s u ffe rin g . He a rg u e s th a t s u ffe rin g is an e s s e n tia l
in g r e d i e n t o f t h e g o o d l i f e , o n c e i t i s p r o p e r l y u n d e r s t o o d .
A s N i e t z s c h e b e l i e v e s w e s h o u l d u n d e r s t a n d it, a g o o d l i f e i s a l i f e t h a t
in c lu d e s g r e a t c r e a ti v e a c h ie v e m e n ts . In h is v ie w , a n a c h ie v e m e n t c o u n ts a s
g r e a t o n ly i f i t in v o lv e s th e c o n f r o n ta tio n a n d o v e r c o m in g o f r e s is ta n c e o r
d i f f i c u l t y . A n d t h e e x p e r i e n c e o f s u c h r e s i s t a n c e i s w h a t s u f f e r i n g c o n s i s t s o f . It
f o llo w s th a t a m e a s u re o f s u ffe rin g is a c o n s titu tiv e in g re d ie n t o f a n y g re a t
a c h i e v e m e n t .3 T h e c o m p a s s io n th a t c o n d e m n s and seeks to e lim in a te a ll
s u f f e r in g i n d is c r i m i n a te l y is th u s b o u n d to t h r e a te n th e p o s s i b i l i t y o f g r e a tn e s s :
s o m e tim e s c o m p a s s io n a te hands c a n in te rfe re in a d o w n rig h t d e s tru c tiv e
m a n n e r in a g r e a t d e s tin y (E H I 4 ).
A s I n o te d e a r lie r , N ie tz s c h e d o e s n o t s im p ly d e n y a ll v a lu e to c o m p a s s io n ;
h e s im p ly p r o p o s e s a n a lte r n a tiv e c o n c e p t io n o f its p r o p e r o b je c t, a lig n e d w ith
h is c o n c e p tio n o f th e h u m a n g o o d . H e e x p li c it ly c o n tr a s ts th is n e w c o n c e p tio n
w ith th a t a d v o c a te d b y S c h o p e n h a u e r a n d o th e rs :

W hether it is hedonism or pessimism, utilitarianism or eudaimonism all these ways of thinking that
measure the value of things in accordance with pleasure and pain ... are ways of thinking that stay
in the foreground and naivetes on which anyone conscious of creative powers and an artistic
conscience will look down upon not without derision, not without compassion. Compassion with you
that, of course, is not compassion in your s e n s e . .Our compassion is a higher and more
farsighted compassion: we see how man makes himself smaller, how you make him smaller and
there are moments when we behold your compassion with indescribable anxiety, when we resist
this compassion when we find your seriousness more dangerous than any frivolity. You want, if
possible and there is no more insane if possible to abolish suffering. And we? It really
seems that we would rather have it higher and worse than ever. Well-being as you understand it
that is no goal, that seems to us an end, a state that soon makes man ridiculous and contemptible
that makes his destruction desirable. The discipline of suffering, of great suffering do you not
know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? (BGE 225)

T h e p r o p e r o b j e c t o f c o m p a s s io n is n o t th e s u f f e r in g o f a n o th e r a s s u c h , a n d
th e p r o p e r l y c o m p a s s io n a te a ttitu d e is n o t s im p ly m o tiv a te d b y th e d e s ir e to
a b o l i s h s u f f e r in g . T h e c o r r e c t c o n c e p t io n o f th e g o o d o f a n o th e r, w h i c h is
s u p p o s e d to g o v e r n c o m p a s s io n , is n o t th e e lim in a tio n o f s u ff e rin g a s s u c h , b u t
th e e n h a n c e m e n t o f m a n b r o u g h t o n b y c r e a tiv e p o w e r s a n d a n a rtis tic
c o n s c ie n c e , w h i c h r e q u ir e th e d i s c i p li n e o f s u ff e rin g . F a r f r o m s e e k in g to
a b o l i s h s u f f e r i n g , N i e t z s c h e s o w n b r a n d o f c o m p a s s i o n w o u l d r a t h e r h a v e it
h ig h e r a n d w o r s e th a n e v e r . T h is re m a in s g e n u in e c o m p a s s io n , h o w e v e r ,
in s o f a r a s i t is s till v e r y m u c h d r i v e n b y a c o n c e r n to b e n e f it th e o th e r: B u t if
y o u h a v e a s u ffe rin g fr ie n d , b e n o t a r e s tin g p la c e f o r h is s u ffe rin g , b u t a h a r d
b e d a s i t w e r e , a f ie ld c o t: th u s y o u w i l l p r o f i t h im b e s t ( Z II 3 ).
I n e x p lic it c o n tr a s t w i t h S c h o p e n h a u e r s v ie w , N ie tz s c h e a n c o m p a s s io n is
th e r e f o r e n o t n e c e s s a r i l y a r o u s e d b y th e s u ffe rin g s o f o th e rs , n o r d o e s it
n e c e s s a r i l y im p ly a c o n d e m n a tio n o f th e m : M y k in d o f c o m p a s s io n 1. T h is
is a f e e lin g f o r w h ic h I fin d n o n a m e a d e q u a te : I s e n s e i t w h e n I s e e p r e c io u s
c a p a b i l i t i e s s q u a n d e r e d ... . O r w h e n I s e e a n y o n e h a lte d , a s a r e s u l t o f s o m e
s tu p id a c c id e n t, a t s o m e th in g le s s th a n h e m ig h t h a v e b e c o m e (W P 3 6 7 ).
C o m p a s s io n is a r e s p o n s e n o t p r i m a r i l y to s u ffe rin g , b u t to w h a te v e r m ig h t
in te r f e r e w ith , o r u n d e rm in e , th e p u r s u it o f g r e a t c r e a tiv e a c h ie v e m e n t. In d e e d ,
c o m p a s s io n c o u ld e v e n b e a p r o p e r r e s p o n s e to p e o p le w h o d o n o t s u f f e r in
a n y w a y , b u t l e a d v e r y c o m f o r ta b le liv e s , w h e n s u c h liv e s r e m a in m ir e d in
m e d io c r ity or squ an d er p r e c io u s c a p a b ilitie s . P a r a d o x ic a lly , th e n ,
N ie tz s c h e a n c o m p a s s io n c o u ld b e a r o u s e d b y th e la c k o f s u ffe rin g s in c e tru e
h a p p in e s s , th e h a p p in e s s fo u n d in a c h ie v e m e n t, n e c e s s a rily in v o lv e s
s u ffe rin g , o r u n h a p p in e s s in th e o r d in a r y s e n s e : h a p p in e s s a n d u n h a p p in e s s
a r e s is te r s a n d e v e n tw in s th a t e ith e r g r o w u p to g e th e r o r . re m a in s m a ll
to g e th e r (G S 3 3 8 ).
I s h o u ld e m p h a s iz e th a t n o n e o f th is im p lie s th a t N ie tz s c h e s o w n b r a n d o f
c o m p a s s io n c o u ld n o t b e a r o u s e d b y th e s u ffe rin g s o f o th e rs . I t o n ly im p lie s
th a t i t w i l l n o lo n g e r b e a r e s p o n s e to s u ffe rin g a s su c h , b u t to th e s u ffe rin g th a t
c a u s e s p r e c io u s c a p a b i l i t i e s to b e s q u a n d e r e d , o r h a lts s o m e o n e a t
s o m e th in g le s s th a n h e m ig h t h a v e b e c o m e . N o t a ll k in d s o f s u ffe rin g a r e
c o n s titu tiv e o f g r e a tn e s s , a f te r a ll, a n d s o m e fo rm s o f it m a y b e a n tith e tic a l to
it. U n d e r s u c h c o n d itio n s , N ie tz s c h e w o u ld p r e s u m a b ly r e g a r d c o m p a s s io n a s a
p r o p e r r e s p o n s e to s u ffe rin g .
 2. Th e Ch a r a c t e r of Al t r u is m

I n N ie tz s c h e s v ie w , S c h o p e n h a u e r s c o n c e p tio n o f c o m p a s s io n g o e s w r o n g
n o t s im p ly b y d ir e c tin g it a t th e w r o n g o b je c t. I t a ls o g o e s w r o n g in its
c h a r a c te r iz a ti o n o f th e a ttitu d e th e c o m p a s s io n a te a g e n t is e x p e c te d to ta k e
t o w a r d th is o b je c t. S p e c if ic a lly , S c h o p e n h a u e r s u p p o s e s th a t th e d e fin in g
a ttitu d e o f th e c o m p a s s io n a te a g e n t is o n e o f s e lf le s s n e s s , u n d e r s to o d a s a
r e l a t i v e d e v a lu a tio n o f h is o w n in te r e s ts b y th e c o m p a s s io n a te a g e n t. T h e
p r e c i s e n a tu re o f N ie tz s c h e s o b je c t io n to th is a s p e c t o f S c h o p e n h a u e r s v i e w
is q u ite e lu s iv e . H e d o e s n o t s e e m to d e n y th a t g e n u in e c o m p a s s io n s h o u ld b e ,
in s o m e s e n s e , a ltr u is tic , o r th a t it s h o u ld in v o lv e a c o n c e r n w i t h th e g o o d o f
a n o th e r fo r its ow n sake. H is c h i e f m is g iv in g a p p ea rs to fo c u s on
S c h o p e n h a u e r s a s s u m p tio n th a t th e a ltr u is tic c h a r a c te r o f c o m p a s s io n r e q u ir e s
th e s e lf le s s n e s s o f th e a g en t.
S c h o p e n h a u e r a rg u e s e x p lic itly th a t i f m y a c ti o n is to b e d o n e s im p ly a n d
s o le l y f o r th e sa k e o f a n o th e r ( B M 1 6 , 1 4 3 ), I m u s t d e v a lu e m y o w n
in te r e s ts , a t l e a s t r e l a t i v e l y to th o s e o f o th e rs . N ie tz s c h e d is m is s e s th is v i e w a s
th o u g h tle s s n e s s : O u t o f c o m p a s s io n : a t th a t m o m e n t, w e a r e th in k in g o n ly o f
th e o th e r p e r s o n th u s s a y s th o u g h tle s s n e s s ... . O u t o f c o m p a s s io n : a t th a t
m o m e n t w e a r e n o t th in k in g o f o u r s e lv e s th u s s a y s th e s a m e th o u g h tle s s n e s s
(D 1 3 3 ). A lth o u g h h e in itia lly a p p e a r s to r e j e c t th e p o s s i b i l i t y o f a ltr u is m o n
th e g ro u n d th a t th e s e lf le s s m o tiv a tio n it r e q u ir e s is im p o s s i b le f o r h u m a n
b e in g s ( s e e H H I 1, 5 7 , 1 0 3 , 1 3 3 ; D 1 3 3 ), h e a ls o s e e m s in c lin e d to a d if f e r e n t
a n d s u b tle r o b je c tio n , c o n c e r n in g n o w th e n a tu re o f a ltru is m . A ltr u i s m d o e s n o t
r e q u ir e s e lf le s s n e s s , a n d in d e e d m ig h t e v e n b e in c o m p a tib le w i t h i t ( D 1 4 8 ;
G M P r e f a c e , 5; W P 2 9 6 , 3 6 2 , 3 8 8 ). T h is is th e lin e o f th o u g h t I p r o p o s e to
e x a m in e h e re : N ie tz s c h e o b je c ts th a t th e s e lf le s s n e s s S c h o p e n h a u e r ta k e s to b e
e s s e n tia l to a ltr u is m is a c tu a lly in c o m p a tib le w i t h it.
A s S c h o p e n h a u e r d e f in e s it, th e fu n d a m e n ta l p r o b le m o f th e a n a ly s is o f
c o m p a s s io n is to a c c o u n t f o r its a ltr u is tic c h a r a c te r :

But now if my action is to be done simply and solely fo r the sake o f another, then his weal and
woe must be directly my motive, just as my weal and woe are so in the case of all other actions.
This narrows the expression of our problem, which can be stated as follows: How is it possible for
anothers weal and woe to move my will immediately, that is to say, in exactly the same way in
which it is usually moved by my own weal and woe? ... Obviously only through the other m ans
 becoming the ultimate object of my will in the same way as I myself otherwise am... . But this
requires that I am in some way identified with him, in other words, that this entire difference
between me and everyone else, which is the very basis of my egoism, is eliminated, to a certain
extent at least. (BM 16, 143-44)

T h is p a s s a g e is r e m a r k a b le in th e p a r tic u la r m a n n e r in w h ic h i t fo r m u la te s , a n d
p r o p o s e s to s o lv e , th e p r o b l e m o f a ltru is m . A s S c h o p e n h a u e r c o n c e iv e s o f it,
th is p r o b l e m is to d e te r m in e h o w I c o u ld b e m o v e d b y th e w e a l a n d w o e o f
a n o th e r a s d ir e c tly a s I a m b y m y o w n . T h is is r e m a r k a b le b e c a u s e i t r u le s
o u t, f r o m th e o u ts e t, tw o n a tu ra l w a y s o f u n d e r s ta n d in g a ltru is m : a c c o r d in g to
o n e , th e a ltr u is t w o u ld b e m o tiv a te d b y h is r e c o g n itio n o f th e in tr in s ic v a lu e o f
th e h a p p in e s s o f o th e rs ; a c c o r d in g to th e o th e r, th e a ltr u is t w o u ld b e m o tiv a te d
b y a ( n o n in s tru m e n ta l) d e s ir e to m a k e o th e rs h a p p y . S c h o p e n h a u e r r e je c ts b o th
o f th e s e c o n c e p tio n s o f c o m p a s s io n .
A n a c ti o n is a ltr u is tic i f it is d o n e s im p ly a n d s o le l y f o r th e s a k e o f
a n o th e r . T h is im p lie s th a t th e c o m p a s s io n a te a g e n t m u s t s o m e h o w fin d th e
h a p p in e s s o f o th e rs to b e good in d e p e n d e n tly o f its c o n tr ib u tio n to th e
s a ti s f a c tio n o f h is o w n d e s ir e s . B u t S c h o p e n h a u e r r e je c ts a n y n o tio n o f
g o o d n e s s b e y o n d w h a t c o n tr ib u te s to th e s a ti s f a c tio n o f o n e s d e s ir e s : w e c a ll
e v e r y th in g g o o d th a t is j u s t a s w e w a n t i t to b e (W W R I 6 5 , 3 6 0 ) . I n o th e r
w o r d s , h e r e je c ts th e n o tio n o f in tr in s ic v a l u e ( s e e P P II 1 4 6 , 2 8 7 ) . T h is
im p lie s th a t th e r e c a n b e n o m o tiv a te d d e s i r e s , o r d e s i r e s b a s e d o n th e
r e c o g n itio n o f th e in tr in s ic v a lu e o f th e ir o b je c ts . T h is r u le s o u t th e n o tio n th a t
th e c o m p a s s io n a te a g e n t c o u ld b e m o tiv a te d b y th e r e c o g n itio n o f th e in tr in s ic
v a lu e o f th e h a p p in e s s o f o th e rs . A n d i f a ll d e s ir e s a r e u n m o tiv a te d , th e ir
o b je c ts c a n h a v e v a lu e f o r th e a g e n t o n ly in s o f a r a s th e y a r e d e s i r e d o r, m o re
p r e c is e ly , in s o f a r a s th e ir p o s s e s s i o n e lim in a te s th e p a i n a s s o c i a t e d w ith th e
d e s ir e f o r th e m (W W R I 5 7 , 3 1 2 - 1 4 ; 5 8 , 3 1 9 ) . I t f o ll o w s th a t e v e n i f a n a g e n t
has an u n m o tiv a te d n o n in s tru m e n ta l d e s ir e to m ake o th e rs happy, th e ir
h a p p in e s s w i l l m a tte r to h im o n ly in s o f a r a s i t g r a tif ie s h is d e s ir e f o r i t a n d n o t
f o r its o w n s a k e i t w i l l b e , s o to s p e a k , o n ly a s c r a tc h to h is itc h .
I f m y c o m p a s s io n is m o tiv a te d b y o n e o f m y d e s ir e s , in c lu d in g th e
n o n in s tru m e n ta l d e s ir e to m a k e o th e rs h a p p y , i t c a n n o t b e a ltr u is tic , a n d
th e r e f o r e g e n u in e c o m p a s s io n , f o r I r e m a in m o v e d o n ly b y m y o w n w e a l a n d
w o e . M y c o m p a s s io n w i l l b e a ltr u is tic , th e r e f o r e , o n ly i f i t is n o t m o tiv a te d b y
a n y o f m y d e s ir e s ( m y w e a l a n d w o e ), b u t is m o tiv a te d d ir e c tly b y th e
d e s ir e s o f th e o th e r ( a n o t h e r s w e a l a n d w o e ). A n d th is , S c h o p e n h a u e r
c la im s , r e q u ir e s th a t I a m in s o m e w a y id e n tifie d w ith h im , in o th e r w o r d s ,
th a t th is e n tir e d iffe re n c e b e tw e e n m e a n d e v e r y o n e e ls e , w h ic h is th e v e r y
b a s is o f m y e g o is m , is e lim in a te d , to a c e r t a i n e x te n t a t le a s t .
F o ll o w i n g S c h o p e n h a u e r s o w n s u g g e s tio n , w e m ig h t b e g in o u r a n a ly s is o f
th e c o n c e p t o f id e n tif ic a tio n w i t h a n e x a m in a tio n o f th e c o n c e p t o f e g o is m . H e
d e f in e s it a s th e c o n d itio n in w h ic h a n in d iv id u a l m a k e s h i m s e l f th e c e n te r o f
th e w o r ld , a n d r e f e r s e v e r y th in g to h im s e lf ( B M 1 4 , 1 3 2 ). T h is d e f in itio n is
a m b ig u o u s . O n th e o n e h a n d , th e e g o is t w o u ld s im p ly b e th e in d iv id u a l w h o s e
p r a c tic a l p e r s p e c t i v e o n th e w o r l d is d o m in a te d b y th e u n q u a lif ie d d e s ir e to
p r e s e r v e h is e x is te n c e , to k e e p it a b s o lu t e ly f r e e f r o m p a i n a n d s u ffe rin g ,
w h ic h in c lu d e s a ll w a n t a n d p r iv a tio n ( B M 1 4 , 1 3 1 ). E g o is m , in th is c a s e ,
d e s c r i b e s a p s y c h o lo g ic a l c o n d itio n o f s e lf - a b s o r p tio n : th e u n q u a lif ie d d e s ir e
f o r e x is te n c e a n d w e l l - b e i n g is s o p o w e r f u l th a t it b lin d s th e in d iv id u a l to a n y
o th e r c o n s id e r a tio n , a n d f o s te r s a c e r t a i n p e r s p e c t i v e o n th e w o r l d , w h e r e
e v e r y th in g in it is in te r p r e te d in te rm s o f its im p a c t o n h is e x is te n c e a n d w e l l
b e in g . O n th e o th e r h a n d , th e e g o is t w o u ld a ls o b e s o m e o n e w h o b e l i e v e s h is
o w n e x is te n c e a n d w e l l - b e i n g to b e m o re im p o r ta n t th a n a n y o n e e l s e s: h e
fin d s h i m s e l f to b e th e h o ld e r a n d p o s s e s s o r o f a ll r e a lity , a n d n o th in g c a n b e
m o re im p o r ta n t to h im th a n h is o w n s e lf ( B M 1 4 , 1 3 2 ). W h a t r e la tio n , i f any,
d o th e s e tw o c la im s a b o u t e g o is m b e a r to o n e a n o th e r?
I t m ig h t b e te m p tin g to d e s c r i b e th e e g o is t a s s o m e o n e w h o ju d g e s h is
in te r e s ts to b e m o re im p o r ta n t th a n th o s e o f o th e rs . S u c h a c o n c e p tio n o f
e g o is m w o u ld in v o lv e a n u m b e r o f s u b s ta n tia l a s s u m p tio n s . I n th e f ir s t p la c e ,
th e e g o is t w o u ld b e a s s u m e d to g r a s p f u lly th e r e a l i t y o f o th e r in d iv id u a ls w ith
th e ir o w n in te r e s ts a n d to ju d g e h is o w n in te r e s ts to b e m o re im p o rta n t.
M o r e o v e r , h e w o u ld p r e s u m a b ly h a v e to ju d g e h is o w n in te r e s ts to b e m o re
im p o r ta n t s o le l y b e c a u se th e y are h is ow n, a n d n o t b e c a u s e o f th e ir p a r tic u la r
c o n te n t: f o r th e r e w o u ld b e n o th in g d is tin c tiv e ly e g o is tic i n p la c i n g m y in te r e s t
i n th e advancem ent o f k n o w le d g e , fo r e x a m p le , above y o u r in te r e s t i n
c o lle c tin g o b scu re s p o r ts m e m o r a b ilia because I ju d g e k n o w le d g e th e
p a r tic u la r c o n te n t o f m y in te r e s t to b e th e m o re v a lu a b l e e n d . I a m a n e g o is t
in s o f a r a s I r e g a r d m y in te r e s ts to b e m o re v a lu a b l e th a n y o u r s s im p ly i n v ir tu e
o f th e ir b e in g m y own.
S c h o p e n h a u e r a g r e e s th a t th e e g o is t o v e r v a lu e s h is o w n in te r e s ts , b u t h e
r e je c ts th e n o tio n th a t h e d o e s s o o n th e b a s i s o f a c o m p a r is o n b e tw e e n h is
in te r e s ts a n d th o s e o f o th e rs , in w h ic h th e f a c t th a t h is in te r e s ts a r e h is is th e
d e c i s i v e c o n s id e r a tio n . In h is w a y o f th in k in g , ra th e r, th e e g o is t r e g a r d s
h i m s e l f a lo n e a s rea l, a t a n y r a te f r o m th e p r a c tic a l p o in t o f v ie w , a n d a ll
o th e rs to a c e r ta in e x te n t a s p h a n to m s ( B M 1 4 , 1 3 2 ). I n o th e r w o r d s , i t is
b e c a u se h e fin d s h i m s e l f to b e th e h o ld e r a n d p o s s e s s o r o f a ll r e a lity th a t
n o th in g c a n b e m o re im p o r ta n t to h im th a n h is o w n s e lf . T h e o v e r v a lu a ti o n o f
h is o w n in te r e s ts b y th e e g o is t is th u s e x p la i n e d in te rm s o f th e p e r s p e c tiv e h e
ta k e s o n h i m s e l f a n d h is w o r ld : h e c a r e s o n ly a b o u t h is o w n in te r e s ts b e c a u s e
h e f a ils to r e c o g n iz e o r a p p r e c ia te fu lly th e r e a l i t y o f o th e rs w i t h in te r e s ts o f
th e ir o w n .
S c h o p e n h a u e r ta k e s th is p e c u l i a r b lin d n e s s to b e r o o te d in a fu n d a m e n ta l
fe a tu re o f h u m a n p s y c h o lo g y : T h is is d u e u ltim a te ly to th e f a c t th a t e v e r y o n e
is g iv e n to h i m s e l f directly, b u t th e r e s t a r e g iv e n to h im o n ly in d ir e c tly th ro u g h
th e ir r e p r e s e n ta tio n in h is h e a d ; a n d th e d ir e c tn e s s a s s e r ts its rig h t. T h u s in
c o n s e q u e n c e o f th e s u b je c tiv ity e s s e n tia l to e v e r y c o n s c io u s n e s s ... e v e r y th in g
is a lw a y s c lo s e ly a s s o c ia te d w ith s e lf - c o n s c io u s n e s s (B M 14, 1 3 2 ).
S c h o p e n h a u e r a c k n o w le d g e s h e r e th e f a c t th a t I b e a r a s p e c ia l d i r e c t
c o n s c io u s r e l a t i o n to th o s e m e n ta l s ta te s , s u c h a s a d e s ir e o r a n in te r e s t, th a t
a r e m in e . H e d r a w s a fu n d a m e n ta l d is tin c tio n b e t w e e n th e c o n s c io u s n e s s o f
th in g s i n th e e x te r n a l w o r l d a n d s e lf - c o n s c io u s n e s s , o r c o n s c io u s n e s s o f
s o m e th in g a s m e o r m in e . T h is d is tin c tio n a r i s e s p a r a d ig m a t ic a lly in r e l a t i o n to
th e e x p e r ie n c e o f m y o w n b o d y : th is b o d y is g iv e n in tw o e n tir e ly d if f e r e n t
w a y s . I t is g iv e n in in te llig e n t p e r c e p t i o n a s r e p r e s e n ta tio n , a s a n o b j e c t a m o n g
o b je c ts , l i a b l e to th e la w s o f th e s e o b je c ts . B u t it is a ls o g iv e n in q u ite a
d if f e r e n t w a y , n a m e ly a s w h a t is k n o w n im m e d ia te ly to e v e r y o n e (W W R I
1 8 , 1 0 0 ). I c a n b e c o n s c io u s o f m y b o d y a s a p o r ti o n o f s p a c e , a n o b je c t
a m o n g o b j e c t s , b u t th is c o n s c io u s n e s s is n o t y e t s e lf - c o n s c io u s n e s s , o r a
c o n s c io u s n e s s o f th is b o d y a s m y b o d y : i t h a s b e c o m e c l e a r to u s th a t
s o m e th in g i n th e c o n s c io u s n e s s o f e v e r y o n e d is tin g u is h e s th e r e p r e s e n ta tio n o f
h is o w n b o d y f r o m a ll o th e rs th a t a r e in o th e r r e s p e c ts q u ite lik e it. T h a t is th a t
th e b o d y o c c u r s in c o n s c io u s n e s s in q u ite a n o th e r w a y , to to g e n e re d if f e r e n t
(W W R I 1 8 , 1 0 0 ; f i r s t e m p h a s is m in e ).
S c h o p e n h a u e r th u s f o ll o w s a v e n e r a b le C a r te s ia n tr a d i t i o n in s u p p o s in g th a t
I h a v e a p r i v i l e g e d e p is te m ic a c c e s s to m y o w n s e lf. H o w e v e r , h e d o e s n o t
a p p e a r to c o n c e iv e o f th is e p is te m ic p r iv i le g e p r im a r i ly in te rm s o f im m u n ity
to e rro r. I t c o n s is ts r a th e r o f th e f a c t th a t I h a v e a s p e c ia l im m e d ia te o r
d i r e c t k n o w le d g e o f m y s e lf, th a t is to say , a k n o w le d g e th a t is n o t b a s e d o n
o b s e r v a t i o n o r in f e r e n c e , a n d c a n n o t b e d e d u c e d a s in d i r e c t k n o w le d g e fr o m
s o m e o th e r m o re d i r e c t k n o w le d g e (W W R I 1 8 , 1 0 2 ). I n s o f a r a s I k n o w m y
b o d y m e r e ly a s a n o b j e c t a m o n g o b j e c t s , m y a c c e s s to i t is n o m o re
im m e d ia te th a n th e a c c e s s o th e rs h a v e to it, o r th a n th e a c c e s s I h a v e to th e ir
b o d ie s . B u t I a ls o h a v e a n im m e d ia te e p is te m ic a c c e s s to m y o w n b o d y , w h ic h
g iv e s m e a p a r t i c u l a r l y in tim a te a c q u a in ta n c e w i t h it:

It is just this double knowledge of our own body which gives us information about that body itself,
about its action and movement following on motives, as well as about its suffering through outside
impressions, in a word, about what it is, not as representation, but as something over and above this,
and hence what it is in itself. We do not have such immediate information about the nature,
action, and suffering o f any other real objects. (WWR I 18, 103; last emphasis mine; cf. II xxii,
281)4

T h e s p e c ia l d i r e c t a c c e s s I h a v e to m y o w n s e lf , p a r tic u la r ly to m y o w n
in te r e s ts a n d d e s ir e s , is m a n if e s te d in tw o r e s p e c ts r e le v a n t to th e e x p la n a tio n
o f e g o is m . I n th e f i r s t p la c e , it in d ic a te s a n e p is te m ic p r o x im ity th a t g iv e s th o s e
in te r e s ts a n d d e s ir e s a v iv id n e s s a n d u rg e n c y th a t is d e n ie d to m y m e r e ly
in d ir e c t r e p r e s e n ta tio n o f th e in te r e s ts a n d d e s ir e s o f o th e rs . W h ile h is o w n
s u ffe rin g lie s n e a r to h im [lie g t i h m ... n a h e ] , th e s u ffe rin g o f o th e rs is
s tr a n g e o r f o r e ig n [ fr e m d ] to h im (W W R I 6 8 , 3 7 9 ) . I t is th is v iv id n e s s
a n d u rg e n c y th a t e x p la in s m y o v e r v a lu a ti o n o f m y d e s i r e s a n d in te r e s ts b y
g ra n tin g th e m th e ir s p e c ia l rig h t in my eyes. In o th e r w o rd s, in
S c h o p e n h a u e r s v ie w , th e e g o is t o v e r v a lu e s h is o w n in te r e s ts b e c a u s e h e f a ils
to r e c o g n iz e o r o th e r w is e fu lly a p p r e c ia te th e r e a l i t y o f o th e rs w i t h in te re s ts
o f th e ir o w n .
I n th e s e c o n d p la c e , th e e p is te m ic p r o x im ity th a t g iv e s m y in te r e s ts th e ir
v iv id n e s s a n d u rg e n c y a ls o a c c o u n ts f o r th e s p e c ia l r o l e th e y p l a y in m y
c o n s c io u s n e s s g e n e ra lly . A s S c h o p e n h a u e r p u ts it, in c o n s e q u e n c e o f th e
s u b je c tiv ity e s s e n tia l to e v e r y c o n s c io u s n e s s ... e v e r y th in g is a lw a y s c lo s e ly
a s s o c ia te d w ith s e lf - c o n s c io u s n e s s (B M 14, 1 3 2 ). I n s p e a k in g o f th e
s u b je c tiv ity e s s e n tia l to e v e r y c o n s c io u s n e s s , S c h o p e n h a u e r r e f e r s to th e f a c t
th a t m y o w n in te r e s ts s h a p e th e c o n s c io u s n e s s I ta k e o f th e s u r r o u n d in g w o r ld :
e v e r y th in g in th a t w o r l d is r e p r e s e n te d in r e l a t i o n to m y s e lf - c o n s c io u s n e s s ,
th a t is to say , in te rm s o f its im p a c t o n th e p u r s u it o f m y in te re s ts .
T h is s u g g e s ts th a t th e d is tin c tiv e b lin d n e s s o f th e e g o is t is n o t s im p ly th a t h e
f a ils to r e c o g n iz e th e r e a lity o f o th e rs w i t h in te r e s ts o f th e ir o w n . In fa c t,
S c h o p e n h a u e r c a ll s th is s ta n c e th e o r e tic a l e g o is m , a n d d is m is s e s it a s
r e q u ir in g n o t s o m u c h a r e f u ta tio n a s a c u r e (W W R I 1 8 , 1 0 4 ). I t is o n ly in
a p r a c tic a l r e s p e c t th a t th e e g o is t r e g a r d s a n d tr e a ts o n ly h is o w n p e r s o n a s a
r e a l p e r s o n , a n d a ll o th e rs a s m e r e p h a n to m s (W W R , I 1 8 , 1 0 4 ). I t is n o t
a lto g e th e r c le a r w h a t th is d is tin c tio n b e tw e e n th e o r e tic a l a n d p r a c tic a l e g o is m
a m o u n ts t o .5 T h e m o s t p ro m is in g s u g g e s tio n is th a t, a lth o u g h th e e g o is t
r e c o g n iz e s th e e x is te n c e o f o th e r s w i t h in te r e s ts o f th e ir o w n , h is v i e w o f th e m
re m a in s fu n d a m e n ta lly fra m e d b y h is in te re s ts : o th e rs a n d th e ir in te re s ts a p p e a r
o n ly a s p o te n tia l o b s ta c l e s o r in s tru m e n ts f o r th e s a tis f a c tio n o f h is in te r e s ts ,
th a t is to sa y , a s m e r e o b je c tiv e c o m p lic a tio n s , w h ic h h is d e lib e r a tio n s a b o u t
h o w to a c h ie v e h is e n d s h a v e to ta k e in to a c c o u n t. T h u s , th e e g o is t m a y w e l l b e
a w a r e th a t th o s e o th e r s w h o s e in te r e s ts c o n f lic t w ith h is o w n w i l l s u ff e r f r o m
th e i r f r u s tr a tio n , b u t th is f a c t is g r a n te d a p u r e l y p r a c t i c a l th a t is to sa y , f ro m
th is p e r s p e c tiv e , in s tru m e n ta l s ig n if ic a n c e . In th e l a s t a n a ly s is , S c h o p e n h a u e r
n o te s , th e e g o is t u ltim a te ly r e g a r d s o n ly h is o w n p e r s o n a s tr u ly r e a l , lo o k in g
u p o n o th e rs v ir tu a lly o n ly a s p h a n to m s , a ttr ib u tin g to th e m o n ly a r e l a t i v e
e x is te n c e in s o f a r a s th e y m a y b e a m e a n s o r a n o b s ta c le to th is e n d s ( B M 2 2 ,
2 1 3 ).
S c h o p e n h a u e r a p p e a r s d r a w n to th is c o n c e p tio n o f e g o is m o n w h ic h th e
o v e r v a lu a tio n o f h is in te r e s ts b y th e e g o is t d o e s n o t r e s t o n a n e v a lu a tiv e
c o m p a r is o n w i t h th e in te r e s ts o f o th e r s , i n w h i c h th e d e c i s i v e c o n s i d e r a t i o n is
th a t h is in te re s ts a re h is b e c a u s e h e a s s u m e s t h a t t h e b a r e f a c t t h a t m y
in te re s ts a re m in e , and th o s e o f o th e rs a re th e irs , c o u ld not m ake any
m e a n in g fu l e th ic a l d if f e r e n c e . T h is a s s u m p tio n a p p e a r s in tu r n to r e s t o n th e
n o tio n th a t th e s p e c ia l s ig n if ic a n c e m y in te r e s ts h a v e f o r m e r e d u c e s to th e ir
e p is te m ic p r o x im ity to m e , w h ic h a c c o u n ts f o r th e fra m in g r o le th e y p la y in m y
c o n s c io u s n e s s o f o th e r s a n d t h e i r in te r e s ts . I t th u s s e e m s p l a u s i b l e to s u p p o s e
t h a t t h e e g o i s t s o v e r v a l u a t i o n o f h i s i n t e r e s t s i s t h e c o n s e q u e n c e o f a c o g n i t i v e
ill u s io n c r e a te d b y th e ir e p is te m ic p ro x im ity .
It s h o u ld be no s u rp ris e , th e n , th a t Schopenhauer p ro p o se s to d e fin e
c o m p a s s io n a s a c o n d itio n in w h ic h I m a n a g e to h a v e a s d ir e c t a n a c q u a in ta n c e
w i t h th e in te r e s ts o f o th e r s a s I h a v e w i t h m y o w n , th a t is to sa y , a c o n d it io n in
w h ic h I c o m e to h a v e a d if f e r e n t a p p r e c ia t io n o f th e s u ffe rin g s o f o th e rs . T h e y
n o lo n g e r a re m e r e ly o b je c ts o f in d ir e c t a c q u a in ta n c e , w h ic h a re a p p r e h e n d e d
a s in s tru m e n ta l c o m p lic a tio n s in th e p u r s u it o f m y o w n in te r e s ts , b u t th e y r a th e r
m ove me as d ire c tly as my ow n in te re s ts do. The d is tin c tiv e m ark of
c o m p a s s i o n , f o r S c h o p e n h a u e r , i s t h a t a n o t h e r s s u f f e r i n g i n i t s e l f a n d a s s u c h
d i r e c t l y b e c o m e s m y m o t i v e : c o m p a s s i o n t h u s c o n s i s t s o f a w h o l l y d ir e c t
a n d e v e n i n s t i n c t i v e p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n a n o t h e r s s u f f e r i n g s ( B M 1 8 , 1 6 3 ; m y
e m p h a s e s ). H e r e is h o w h e c h a r a c te r iz e s th e p e r s p e c tiv e o f th e c o m p a s s io n a te
p e rso n :
 No suffering is any longer strange or foreign to him. All the miseries of others, which he sees and is
so seldom able to alleviate, all the miseries of which he has indirect knowledge, and even those he
recognizes as merely possible, affect his mind just as do his ow n... . W herever he looks, he sees
suffering humanity and the suffering animal world, and a world that passes away. N ow all this lies
as near to him [liegt ihm jetzt so nahe] as only his own person lies to the egoist. ( WWR I 68 , 379)

T h is v i e w o f c o m p a s s io n e li c it s th e f o llo w in g q u e s tio n :

But how is it possible for a suffering which is not mine and does not touch me to become just as
directly a motive as only my own ordinarily does, and to move me to action? As I have said, only by
the fact that although it is given to me merely as something external, merely by means of external
perception or knowledge, I nevertheless fe e l it with him, fe el it as my own, and yet not within me,
but in another person ... . But this presupposes that to a certain extent I have identified myself
with the other man, and in consequence the barrier between ego and non-ego is for the moment
abolished; only then do the other m ans affairs, his need, distress, and suffering, directly become my
own. I no longer look at him as if he were something given to me by empirical intuitive perception,
as something strange and foreign, as a m atter of indifference, as something entirely different from
me. On the contrary, I share the suffering in him, in spite of the fact that his skin does not enclose
my nerves. Only in this way can his woe, his distress, become a motive fo r me; otherwise it can be
absolutely only my own. (BM 18, 165-66)

S c h o p e n h a u e r s p r o p o s a l is th a t id e n tif ic a tio n le a d s m e to e x p e rie n c e th e

s u ffe rin g s o f o th e rs j u s t a s I e x p e rie n c e m y o w n , th a t is , a s s u ffe rin g s c a llin g
im m e d ia te ly fo r c o n d e m n a tio n and, w henever p o s s ib le , fo r a lle v ia tio n .
W ith o u t s u c h id e n tif ic a tio n , I c a n s till r e c o g n iz e th a t o th e r s a r e s u ffe rin g , b u t
th e s e s u ff e rin g s d o n o t a f f e c t m e i n th e s a m e w a y . T h e c h i e f d if f ic u lty o f th is
p r o p o s a l l ie s i n u n d e r s ta n d in g w h a t th is i d e n tif ic a tio n a m o u n ts to . T h e m o s t
co m m o n v ie w is th a t S c h o p e n h a u e r in v o k e s th e id e a lity o f th e p r in c ip le o f
i n d iv id u a tio n (th e tr a n s c e n d e n ta l f o rm s o f s p a c e a n d tim e ) to m a k e r o o m f o r
th e p o s s ib i li ty o f a n in s ig h t in to th e e s s e n tia l id e n tity o f a ll in d iv id u a ls . T h e
re q u ire d s o r t o f id e n tif ic a tio n w ith o th e rs w o u ld c o n s is t o f p r e c i s e l y th is
in s ig h t ( B M 2 2 , 2 0 9 - 1 0 ; s e e W W R I 6 6 , 3 7 2 ) . A c c o r d i n g to th is c o m m o n
in te rp re ta tio n , S c h o p e n h a u e r s r e a s o n i n g w o u l d go as fo llo w : I cannot be
m o v e d b y a n y th in g o th e r th a n m y o w n w e a l a n d w o e ; w h e n I a m s e lf is h , I a m
d u p e d b y th e i llu s io n o f in d iv id u a tio n , w h ic h le a v e s m e in d if f e r e n t to th e w e a l
a n d w o e o f o th e r s ; o n s o m e o c c a s io n s , I m a n a g e a n in s ig h t in to th e id e n tity o f
a ll b e in g s , a n d c o m e to r e c o g n iz e th a t th e w e a l a n d w o e o f o th e r s is a ls o m y
o w n ; m y e g o is m is th e n r e p l a c e d w ith g e n u in e c o m p a s s io n .
T h e re a re w e ll- k n o w n d iff ic u ltie s w ith th is re a s o n in g . F o r e x a m p le , it r e s ts
o n w h a t N i e t z s c h e c a l l s t h e i m p r o v a b l e d o c t r i n e o f t h e O n e W ill ( G S 9 9 ) , a
f a ls e in f e r e n c e f r o m th e i d e a l it y o f s p a c e a n d tim e to th e u n ity o f th e w o r l d a s
i t is in its e lf . 6 B u t th e m o s t d a m a g in g o b je c t io n d e n ie s th a t c o m p a s s io n so
c o n s tr u e d c a n b e g e n u in e ly a ltr u is tic . T h is o b je c t io n c o m e s in tw o fo rm s.
N ie tz s c h e p r e s e n ts th e f i r s t f o r m o f th is o b je c t io n in h is e a r l y w o r k s . H e
o b s e r v e s th a t i f c o m p a s s io n w e r e to r e s t o n a n u m e r ic a l id e n tif ic a tio n w i t h th e
s u ffe re r, th e n th e p a i n f e lt b y th e c o m p a s s io n a te a g e n t a t th e s ig h t o f th e p a i n o f
a n o th e r w o u ld have to be id e n tic a l w ith it. B u t, a s N ie tz s c h e s tr e s s e s
r e p e a te d ly , th is is o b v io u s ly n o t in k e e p in g w i t h th e p h e n o m e n o lo g y o f
c o m p a s s io n : T h a t c o m p a s s i o n ... is th e sa m e k in d o f th in g a s th e s u ffe rin g a t
th e s ig h t o f w h ic h i t a r is e s , o r th a t i t p o s s e s s e s a n e s p e c i a l l y s u b tle , p e n e tr a tin g
u n d e r s ta n d in g o f s u ffe rin g , a r e p r o p o s itio n s c o n tr a d ic t e d b y e x p e rie n c e ( D
1 3 3 ). F o r in s ta n c e , w h a t a d if f e r e n c e th e r e n o n e th e le s s re m a in s b e tw e e n a
to o th a c h e a n d th e a c h e ( c o m p a s s io n ) th a t th e s ig h t o f a to o th a c h e e v o k e s (H H
I 1 0 4 ). A n d i f w e w e r e to c o n c e d e to S c h o p e n h a u e r th e n o tio n th a t o u r
c o m p a s s io n a te a c ts c a n o n ly b e m o tiv a te d b y th e p a i n c a u s e d in u s b y th e p a in
o f a n o th e r, i t w o u ld f o ll o w th a t o u r c o m p a s s io n c a n b e r e a l l y n o th in g m o re
th a n c o v e r t e g o is m :

It is misleading to call the suffering [Leid ] we may experience at such a sight, and which can be of
varying kinds, compassion [Mit-Leid ], for it is under all circumstances a suffering which he who is
suffering in our presence is free of: it is our own, as the suffering he feels is his own. But it is only
this suffering o f our own which we get rid of when we perform deeds of compassion. (D 133;
see HH I 103, 133)

A c c o r d i n g to th e s e c o n d v e r s i o n o f th is o b je c tio n , i f c o m p a s s io n r e s ts o n th e
r e c o g n itio n b y th e c o m p a s s io n a te p e r s o n o f h is ( n u m e r ic a l) id e n tity w i t h th e
s u ffe re r, th e n i t c a n a m o u n t to n o th in g m o re th a n e n lig h te n e d e g o is m . A s o n e
r e c e n t c o m m e n ta to r p u ts it, a f te r a ll, th e a ltr u is t d o e s a c t f o r th e s a k e o f h is
o w n in te r e s ts , th e o n ly d if f e r e n c e b e tw e e n h im a n d th e e g o is t b e in g th a t h e a c ts
f o r th e s a k e o f th e in te r e s ts o f h is m e ta p h y s ic a l r a th e r th a n h is e m p ir ic a l s e lf,
s o , w e m ig h t p u t it, th e e m p ir ic a l a ltr u is t tu rn s o u t to b e a m e ta p h y s ic a l
e g o is t. 7
B o th o f th e s e v e r s io n s o f th e o b je c t io n m ig h t s e e m to o q u ic k , h o w e v e r , fo r
th e y ig n o re an im p o r ta n t p a s s a g e in w h ic h S chopenhauer c r itic iz e s th e
c o n c e p tio n o f c o m p a s s io n p ro p o se d by U b a ld o C a s s in a .8 A c c o rd in g to
C a s s in a , c o m p a s s io n r e s ts o n a p e c u li a r d e c e p tio n o f th e im a g in a tio n
w h e r e b y w e p u t o u r s e lv e s in th e p o s i t i o n o f th e s u ffe re r, a n d h a v e th e id e a
th a t w e a r e s u ffe rin g h is p a in s in o u r p e r s o n ( B M 1 6 , 1 4 7 ). S c h o p e n h a u e r
r e je c ts th is v i e w o n th e g ro u n d th a t c o m p a s s io n r e q u ir e s th a t a t e v e r y m o m e n t
w e r e m a in c l e a r l y c o n s c io u s th a t h e is th e s u ffe re r, n o t we; and it is p r e c i s e l y
in h is p e r s o n , n o t in o u rs , th a t w e fe e l th e s u ffe rin g , to o u r g r i e f a n d s o r r o w .
W e s u ffe r w ith h im a n d h e n c e in h im ; w e fe e l h is p a i n a s h is a n d d o n o t
im a g in e th a t it is o u r s ( B M 1 6 , 1 4 7 ).
T h e r e j e c t i o n o f C a s s i n a s v i e w b e a r s o n b o th v e r s io n s o f th e o b je c t io n w e
j u s t c o n s id e r e d . I n r e je c ti n g th is v ie w , S c h o p e n h a u e r a t l e a s t im p lic itly
a c k n o w le d g e s th a t th e p a i n th e s ig h t o f a n o t h e r s p a i n e v o k e s in m e w h e n I fe e l
c o m p a s s io n is n o t id e n tic a l w i t h it.9 A n d h e a t l e a s t im p lic itl y r e c o g n iz e s th a t
i f I w e r e to ta k e th e p a in o f a n o th e r to b e m y o w n , m y r e s p o n s e to it w o u ld
b e c o m e in e v ita b ly e g o is tic . T h e s a m e p r o b l e m a r i s e s in a v a r ie ty o f c a s e s in
w h ic h th e v e r y d is tin c tio n b e tw e e n m y o w n in te r e s ts a n d th o s e o f o th e rs
b e c o m e s b lu r r e d . F o r e x a m p le , a n o v e r a n x io u s m o th e r c a n in s till in h e r c h ild a
s tr o n g a v e r s io n to d a n g e r, w h ic h m a y n o t h a v e b e e n th e r e to b e g in w ith . In th is
c a s e , th e in te r e s t o f th e m o th e r a c q u ir e s f o r th e c h ild th e s a m e v iv id n e s s a n d
u rg e n c y as h is ow n, s im p ly b ecause, th ro u g h a p ro c e ss know n as
in te r n a liz a tio n , i t a c tu a lly b e c o m e s h is o w n . B u t w h e n th e in te r e s t o f th e
m o th e r, o n c e it is s o in te r n a liz e d , m o tiv a te s th e c h ild to a v o id s o m e p e r c e iv e d
d a n g e r, th e r e s u ltin g a c tio n c a n h a r d ly b e th o u g h t to b e m o tiv a te d b y h is
a ltr u is tic c o n c e r n f o r h e r w e ll- b e in g . F o r h is a c ti o n to b e a ltr u is tic , h e w o u ld
h a v e to r e c o g n iz e th a t th e in te r e s t f r o m w h ic h h e a c ts is h e rs , a n d n o t h is o w n .
( T h a t is n o t s u ffic ie n t, o f c o u r s e , a s h e m u s t a ls o a tte n d to h e r in te r e s ts f o r th e ir
o w n s a k e , n o t to s e c u r e s o m e p e r s o n a l b e n e f it.)
S c h o p e n h a u e r s re je c tio n of C a s s i n a s v ie w seem s to im p ly th a t
c o m p a s s io n c a n n o t b e th o u g h t to r e s t o n a n u m e r ic a l id e n tif ic a tio n w i t h o th e rs .
A n d in fa c t, s e v e r a l o f h is o th e r f o r m u la tio n s s u g g e s t th a t c o m p a s s io n a c tu a lly
r e s ts o n a q u a lita tiv e ty p e o f id e n tif ic a tio n : c o m p a s s i o n ... w o u ld c o n s is t in
o n e in d i v i d u a l s a g a in r e c o g n iz in g in a n o th e r h is o w n s e lf , h is tru e in n e r
n a tu r e ( B M 2 2 , 2 0 9 ) ; o r: v ir tu e m u s t s p r in g f r o m th e in tu itiv e k n o w le d g e
th a t r e c o g n iz e s in a n o th e r s in d iv id u a lity th e s a m e n a tu re a s in o n e s o w n
(W W R I 6 6 , 3 6 8 ). A lth o u g h I a m n u m e r ic a lly d if f e r e n t f r o m o th e rs , I s h a r e th e
s a m e n a tu re w ith th e m . A t f ir s t g la n c e , q u a lita tiv e id e n tif ic a tio n lo o k s to
p r o v i d e a p r o m is in g a c c o u n t o f c o m p a s s io n . F o r to b e m o v e d b y th e s u ffe rin g s
o f a n o th e r, I m u s t f ir s t s e e h im a s a b e in g w h o s e n a tu re is id e n tic a l to m y o w n ,
th a t is to say , a b e in g w i t h in te r e s ts o f h is o w n , a n d a s u s c e p tib ility to s u ffe rin g
w h e n th e y a re f r u s tr a te d .
B ut such a q u a lita tiv e id e n tif ic a tio n is c e r ta in ly not s u f f ic ie n t fo r
c o m p a s s io n . F o r o n e th in g , I r e m a r k e d e a r l i e r th a t o n a n y p la u s ib le a c c o u n t o f
e g o is m , e v e n th e e g o is t is c a p a b le o f r e c o g n iz in g th a t o th e rs a r e s u s c e p tib le to
s u ffe rin g . A n d f o r a n o th e r, c ru e lty , w h ic h c o n s is ts in ta k in g p le a s u r e in th e
s u ffe rin g s o f o th e rs , w o u ld s im p ly n o t b e p o s s i b l e w ith o u t s u c h r e c o g n itio n .
M o re o v e r, even w hen such q u a lita tiv e id e n tif ic a tio n e lic its a sense of
s o l i d a r i t y w i t h th o s e b e in g s w h o a r e , lik e m e , s u s c e p tib le to s u ffe rin g , it is s till
n o t e v id e n t th a t th e r e s u ltin g c o n c e rn to a lle v ia te th e ir s u ffe rin g s w ill
n e c e s s a r i l y b e g e n u in e ly a l t r u i s t i c .10 A s N ie tz s c h e o n c e s u b tly o b s e r v e s , I
c o u ld , o u t o f w h a t p l a u s i b ly lo o k s lik e s o l i d a r i t y w i t h th e m , b e m o tiv a te d to
a l l e v i a t e th e s u f f e r in g o f th o s e b e in g s w i t h w h o m I s h a r e a c o n d itio n n o t
b e c a u s e I a m c o n c e r n e d f o r th e ir w e l l - b e i n g b u t b e c a u s e I w i s h to a ll e v i a t e m y
o w n a n x ie ty a b o u t m y c o n d itio n b y c o n v in c in g m y s e l f th a t i t is n o t a s f r a g ile
a n d v u ln e r a b le a s th e ir p lig h t m ig h t m a k e i t a p p e a r to b e (D 1 3 3 ).
T h e in s u f f ic ie n c y o f q u a lita tiv e id e n tif ic a tio n to a c c o u n t f o r c o m p a s s io n
m a y w e ll e x p la i n w h y S c h o p e n h a u e r c o n tin u e s to in s is t th a t i t a ls o r e q u ir e s
n u m e r ic a l id e n tif ic a tio n , th e in s ig h t th a t w e a r e a ll o n e a n d th e s a m e e n tity ,
a n d th a t to th e c o m p a s s io n a te in d iv id u a l, th e o th e rs a r e n o t a n o n -e g o f o r h im ,
b u t a n I o n c e m o r e ( B M 2 2 , 2 1 0 - 1 ; s e e W W R I 6 6 , 3 7 2 ) . S in c e th e c ru e l
in d iv id u a l is a b le to ta k e p le a s u r e in th e s u ffe rin g s o f o th e rs o n ly i f h e s e e s
th e s e as s im ila r to h is ow n, b u t lo c a t e d in som e n u m e r ic a lly d if f e r e n t
in d iv id u a l, th e n n u m e ric a l id e n tif ic a tio n , w h ic h w o u ld m a k e h im s e e th e
s u ffe rin g s o f o th e rs a s h is o w n , w o u ld u n d e rc u t c r u e lty a n d l e a v e c o m p a s s io n
a s th e o n ly p o s s i b l e r e s p o n s e ( s e e B M 2 2 , 2 0 4 - 5 ) .
S c h o p e n h a u e r s c o n c e p tio n o f n u m e r ic a l id e n tif ic a tio n a p p e a r s to o s c il la te
b e tw e e n tw o v ie w s . T h e f ir s t, s u g g e s te d b y h is m e ta p h y s ic a l m o n is m (th e
w o r l d in i t s e l f is w i l l , a n d th e w i l l is o n e ), is a s t r i c t id e n tif ic a tio n , w h e r e b y I
a m th e o th e r a n d th e o th e r is m e. T h e s e c o n d , s u g g e s te d b y s o m e o f h is a c tu a l
e x a m p le s o f c o m p a s s io n ( s u c h a s th e c a s e o f A r n o ld v o n W in k e lr ie d , w h ic h I
d is c u s s la te r in th is c h a p te r ) , is th a t I s e e m y s e l f a s p a r t o r m e m b e r o f a s in g le
e n tity ; I r e c o g n iz e th a t o th e rs a r e a ls o m e m b e rs o f th e s a m e e n tity , b u t I d o n o t
h a v e to s e e th e m a s id e n tic a l w i t h m e. I n th is c a s e , I a m a b le to s e e w h a t
h a p p e n s to th e e n tity , o r to o th e r m e m b e rs o f it, a s h a p p e n in g to m e. T h e
p r o b le m w i t h th is c o n c e p tio n o f id e n tif ic a tio n in b o th its fo rm s is th a t, a s w e
s a w e a r lie r , b y S c h o p e n h a u e r s o w n lig h ts , i t h a s u n w e lc o m e c o n s e q u e n c e s : it
d e p r iv e s c o m p a s s io n o f its e s s e n tia l a ltr u is tic c h a r a c te r. F o r I c a r e a b o u t w h a t
is h a p p e n in g to a n o th e r o n ly in s o f a r a s I r e p r e s e n t it a s h a p p e n in g to m e.
W e m ig h t f in d o n e w a y o u t o f th is d if f ic u lty b y r e c o n s id e r in g th e o b je c tio n
o f e g o is m , a n d th e m a n n e r in w h ic h S c h o p e n h a u e r s c r itiq u e o f C a s s in a b e a r s
o n it. T h e o b j e c t i o n s i m p l y a s s u m e s t h a t w h a t I h a v e c a l l e d h e r e n u m e r i c a l
i d e n t if i c a t io n tu rn s c o m p a s s io n in to a f o r m o f m e ta p h y s ic a l e g o is m th a t is ,
fo r a ll p ra c tic a l p u rp o se s, s im ila r to th e o r d in a ry e m p iric a l e g o is m
S c h o p e n h a u e r d e n o u n c e s . B u t i t is p o s s i b l e to r e a d i n th e c r itiq u e o f C a s s in a a
c h a lle n g e to th is v e r y a s s u m p tio n .
O n e p o s s i b l e w a y o f c o n s t r u i n g S c h o p e n h a u e r s c h a l l e n g e i s t h a t , i n h i s
v ie w , C a s s in a w o u ld ta k e th e d e c e p tio n o f th e c o m p a s s io n a te in d iv id u a l to
c o n s is t o f a n e x p a n s io n o f th e b o u n d a r ie s o f h is in d iv id u a l e m p ir ic a l e g o s o a s
to encom pass th o s e o th e rs w ho a re th e o b je c ts o f h is c o m p a s s io n . By
re m a in in g m ir e d in th e illu s io n o f in d iv id u a tio n , he w o u ld th e re fo re a ls o
r e m a in a n e g o is t o f th e o r d in a r y e m p i r ic a l k in d . B y c o n tr a s t, in th e v i e w
S c h o p e n h a u e r a d v o c a te s , c o m p a s s io n r e s ts o n a d is s o lu tio n o f th e b o u n d a r ie s
o f in d iv id u a tio n : i t is n o t th a t I m is ta k e n ly ta k e o th e r s to b e a p a r t o f m e , i t is
r a th e r th a n th e r e is , in s o m e s e n s e , n o m e a n d th e m a n y lo n g e r. F o r C a s s in a ,
c o m p a s s io n in v o lv e s an e x p a n sio n of my sen se o f s e lf it is far m o re
e n c o m p a s s in g th a n th e n a r r o w v i e w o f th e o r d in a r y e g o is t s u g g e s ts w h ile f o r
S c h o p e n h a u e r c o m p a s s io n r e q u ir e s d is s o lu tio n o f m y (in d iv id u a te d ) s e n s e o f
s e lf. A n d h is in s is te n c e th a t w h e n w e f e e l c o m p a s s io n f o r a n o th e r w e m u s t
r e m a i n c l e a r l y c o n s c i o u s t h a t h e i s t h e s u f f e r e r , n o t w e , i s o n l y m e a n t t o
a p p ly to o u r o r d in a r y e m p ir ic a l v i e w o f th in g s , a v i e w w e m a in ta in b u t a ls o
re c o g n iz e to be i l l u s o r y . 11 A s a consequence, th e re w o u ld be s o m e th in g
fu n d a m e n ta lly w r o n g in th e s u g g e s tio n , o n w h i c h th e o b j e c t io n r e s ts , th a t
c o m p a s s io n is a k in d o f m e ta p h y s ic a l e g o is m , w h i c h is n o th in g m o r e th a n
e m p ir ic a l e g o is m u n d e r a d if f e r e n t g u is e .
In th e te rm s of S c h o p e n h a u e r s m e ta p h y s ic s , th e d is tin c tio n b e tw e e n
e x p a n d in g th e b o u n d a rie s o f o n e s in d iv id u a l ego and d is s o lv in g th e m is
c o n c e p tu a lly p e rm is s ib le . B ut w hat a d is s o lu tio n of th e b o u n d a rie s of
i n d iv i d u a t i o n p r e c i s e l y a m o u n ts to a s a m a tte r o f a c tu a l c o n c r e te e x p e r ie n c e is
m u c h le s s c le a r. S c h o p e n h a u e r s v i e w is th a t it e s s e n t ia l ly c o n s is ts o f an
in s ig h t: H e p e r c e iv e s th a t th e d is tin c tio n b e tw e e n h i m s e l f a n d o th e r s , w h i c h to
th e w ic k e d m a n is so g rea t a g u lf , b e l o n g s o n ly to a fle e tin g , d e c e p tiv e
p h e n o m e n o n (W W R I 6 6 , 3 7 2 ) . A lth o u g h S c h o p e n h a u e r o f f i c i a l l y b a s e s th is
in s ig h t on h is ow n v e rs io n of tra n s c e n d e n ta l i d e a l i s m th e d e c e p tiv e
p h e n o m e n o n is th e tr a n s c e n d e n ta l fo rm s o f s p a c e a n d tim e w e m ig h t a ls o
s u p p o s e th a t i t r e s u lts f r o m a c e r t a i n a p p r e c ia t io n o f th e r o o ts o f e g o is m . I
o v e r v a lu e m y o w n in te r e s ts b e c a u s e I s ta n d in a s p e c ia l e p is te m ic p r o x im ity to
th e m a n d b e c a u s e th e y f ra m e m y r e p r e s e n t a ti o n o f o th e r s a n d th e i r in te r e s ts , in
a w a y th a t is b o u n d to l im it m y a p p r e c i a t i o n o f th e m . S in c e I a m n a tu r a lly
a b so rb e d in th e in te r e s ts w ith w h ic h I a m d i r e c t l y a c q u a in te d , a n d th u s
rep re sen t o th e rs and th e ir in te re s ts o n ly in te rm s o f th e ir im p a c t o n th e
r e a liz a tio n o f th o s e in te r e s ts , I a m n a tu r a lly u n a b le to s e e th e w e l l- b e in g o f
o th e rs a s a n o b je c t o f in d e p e n d e n t c o n c e rn .
T h e r e c o g n itio n o f th e s e e p is te m ic fa c ts a t th e r o o t o f m y e g o is m w o u ld
c o n t r i b u t e t o d i s a b l i n g i t, p r e s u m a b l y , b y i n d u c i n g m e t o d e n y t h o s e i n t e r e s t s
th a t a re m y o w n a n y s p e c ia l im p o rta n c e . A n d it d o e s so , p re s u m a b ly , b y
e x p o s in g th e tr u th th a t th e p e r s o n a l s ig n if ic a n c e o f th o s e in te r e s ts o f th e f a c t
t h a t t h e y a r e m in e a m o u n t s t o n o t h i n g m o r e t h a n t h a t I h a p p e n t o s t a n d i n a
s p e c i a l e p is te m ic p r o x im ity to th e m , w h i c h i n tu r n a c c o u n ts f o r th e f ra m in g
r o le th e y p la y in m y c o n s c io u s n e s s o f th e r e s t o f th e w o r ld , in c lu d in g o th e rs
a n d t h e i r in te r e s ts . I f a ll th e r e is to th o s e i n te r e s t s b e in g m in e is th a t I a m
d i r e c t l y a c q u a in te d w i t h th e m , th e n I c a n s e e w h y th e y w o u l d h a v e a s p e c i a l
v iv id n e s s f o r m e , a n d w h y I w o u ld b e in a p a r t i c u l a r l y g o o d p o s it i o n to fe e l
th e ir m o tiv a tio n a l p r e s s u r e , b u t I c a n a ls o s e e th a t it d o e s n o t g iv e th e m a
h ig h e r s ta n d in g th a n in te re s ts w ith w h ic h I a m n o t s o d ir e c tly a c q u a in te d .
S c h o p e n h a u e r s p r e f e r r e d e x a m p l e o f c o m p a s s i o n t h e m a n w h o d i e s f o r
h is c o u n try o u t o f a n id e n tif ic a tio n w ith it ( B M 2 2 , 2 1 2 - 1 3 ) d o e s n o t r e a lly
s h e d a n y lig h t o n th e i d e a o f a d is s o lu tio n o f th e b o u n d a r ie s o f in d iv id u a tio n .
F o r i t m ig h t c e r ta in ly b e ta k e n to s u g g e s t th a t id e n tif ic a tio n is in f a c t th e
e x p a n s i o n o f o n e s s e n s e o f s e l f , s o a s t o i n c l u d e i n i t a n i d e n t i t y a s c i t i z e n o f a
c o u n tr y . A r g u a b l y , h o w e v e r , t h e p o i n t o f t h i s a n a l o g y w o u l d r a t h e r b e t o e v o k e
a c o n d itio n w h e r e th e c o n c e r n f o r s u f f e r in g r e m a in s a s s tr o n g a s it is f o r th e
e g o i s t b u t w h e r e t h e s p a t i o - t e m p o r a l lo c a t i o n o f t h i s s u f f e r i n g , o r w h e t h e r t h e
a g e n t s t a n d s i n s p e c i a l e p i s t e m i c p r o x i m i t y t o it, h a s b e c o m e i n s i g n i f i c a n t .
 3. S e l f l e s s n e s s a n d C o m p a s s io n

I f N ie tz s c h e s c r itiq u e o f th e S c h o p e n h a u e r ia n c o n c e p tio n o f a ltr u is tic

s e lf le s s n e s s o fte n lo o k s s c a tte r e d a n d te n ta tiv e , i t m a y w e l l b e b e c a u s e h e h a s
u n d e r s ta n d a b le d if f ic u ltie s in c ir c u m s c r ib in g it. H is m a in c h a lle n g e , a s I
s u g g e s te d , is to th e n o tio n th a t a ltr u is m r e q u ir e s s e lf le s s n e s s , b u t th e m a n n e r in
w h ic h S chopenhauer c o n c e iv e s of th is s e lf le s s n e s s re m a in s e lu s iv e .
N ie tz s c h e s e a r l i e s t v e r s i o n o f th is c h a lle n g e is b a s e d o n p s y c h o lo g ic a l
e g o is m , th e v i e w th a t h u m a n a g e n ts a r e in c a p a b le o f s e lf le s s m o tiv a tio n . H is
a rg u m e n t g o e s r o u g h ly a s f o llo w s : h e w o u ld g r a n t th a t s o m e a c tio n s a r e
a l tr u is tic a l ly g o o d , d e n y th a t a c tio n s c a n e v e r b e s e lf le s s , a n d c o n c lu d e th a t
a ltr u is tic g o o d n e s s c a n n o t d e p e n d o n s e lf le s s n e s s . A s h e p u ts it, o u r c o u n te r
r e c k o n in g is th a t w e s h a ll r e s to r e to m e n th e ir g o o d w ill to w a r d s th e a c tio n s
d e c r i e d a s e g o is tic a n d r e s to r e to th e s e a c tio n s th e ir v a l u e ( D 1 4 8 ). H is
a rg u m e n ts f o r p s y c h o lo g ic a l e g o is m lo o k in a d e q u a te , 12 b u t th e y g a in g r e a te r
a p p e a l i f w e lo c a te th e m in th e c o n te x t o f h is c r itiq u e o f S c h o p e n h a u e r. G iv e n
th a t S c h o p e n h a u e r r e je c ts th e n o tio n o f in tr in s ic g o o d n e s s ( a n d th e a s s o c ia te d
n o tio n o f m o tiv a te d d e s ir e ) , h is d if f ic u ltie s in s u p p ly in g a c o m p e llin g a c c o u n t
o f c o m p a s s io n a te id e n tif ic a tio n in v ite th e s u g g e s tio n th a t c o m p a s s io n s h o u ld b e
c o n s tr u e d a s a c o v e r t f o r m o f s e lf - e n jo y m e n t (H H I 1 0 4 ; s e e 1 3 3 ).
N e v e r t h e le s s , N ie tz s c h e s o o n a d o p ts a d if f e r e n t s tra te g y , w h ic h c o n s is ts in
g ra n tin g th e p o s s i b i l i t y o f s e lf le s s n e s s , e x a m in in g th e v a r io u s g u is e s it m ig h t
a s s u m e , a n d a s k in g w h e th e r s e lf le s s n e s s is , u n d e r a n y o f th e s e p o s s i b l e g u is e s ,
a c tu a lly c o n s is te n t w ith , l e t a lo n e n e c e s s a r y fo r, a ltru is m :

There is no other way: the feelings of devotion, self-sacrifice for ones neighbor, the whole morality
of self-denial must be questioned mercilessly and taken to court... . There is too much charm and
sugar in these feelings of for others, not for m yself, for us not to need to become doubly
suspicious at this point and to ask: are these not perhaps seductions ? (BGE 33)

In o n e w a y o f u n d e r s ta n d in g it, s e lf le s s n e s s is th e a ttitu d e o f th e in d iv id u a l
w h o h a s a d e te r m in a te s e n s e o f s e lf , in th e f o r m o f s p e c if ic in te r e s ts a n d
d e s ir e s , w h ic h h e d e l i b e r a t e l y ig n o re s o r d e n ie s . T h is is s e lf le s s n e s s a s s e lf
d e n ia l, th e d e v a lu a tio n o f o n e s o w n s e lf , o f o n e s in te r e s ts a n d d e s ir e s . I
o b s e r v e d e a r l i e r th a t I c a n r e g a r d m y in te r e s ts a s w o r th le s s th a n th o s e o f
o th e rs e ith e r b e c a u s e o f th e ir c o n te n t o r b e c a u s e th e y a r e m in e . T h e r e is
n o th in g p a r t i c u l a r l y s e lf le s s a b o u t f a v o r in g th e e n d s o f o th e rs w h e n I ju d g e
th e ir c o n te n t m o re v a lu a b l e th a n th a t o f m y o w n e n d s . S a c r if ic in g m y in te re s ts
f o r th e s a k e o f o th e rs j u s t b e c a u s e th e y a r e m in e , b y c o n tr a s t, c o m e s c l o s e r to
one p la u s i b le w ay o f u n d e r s ta n d in g a ltr u is tic s e lf le s s n e s s . B ut it a ls o
h ig h lig h ts th e s tra n g e n e s s o f th is a ttitu d e , w h ic h N ie tz s c h e d e s c r ib e s a s th e
a p p a r e n tly c r a z y id e a th a t a m a n s h o u ld e s te e m th e a c tio n s h e p e r f o r m s fo r
a n o th e r m o re h ig h ly th a n th o s e h e p e r f o r m s f o r h im s e lf (W P 2 6 9 ) .
T h e s tr a n g e n e s s o f th is id e a in c lin e s N ie tz s c h e to s u s p e c t th a t h id d e n
u lte r io r m o tiv e s m u s t a n im a te th o s e w h o s e v a lu a t io n o f th e w e l l - b e i n g o f
o th e rs is d ire c tly lin k e d to a d e v a lu a tio n o f th e ir o w n . H e re a re tw o
r e p r e s e n ta tiv e e x a m p le s . N ie tz s c h e s o m e tim e s ta k e s th is ty p e of s e lf
d e v a lu a tio n to be s y m p to m a tic o f a n a rc is s is tic p a th o lo g y , in v o lv in g an
e x c e s s iv e p r e o c c u p a tio n w i t h o n e s s e lf - e s te e m . V itia te d a s i t is b y th is
p a th o lo g y , th e m o tiv a tio n f o r b e n e v o le n c e is i t s e l f n a r c i s s i s t i c th e n e e d to
r e s to r e th e d is r u p te d s e lf -e s te e m :

Let us for the time being agree that benevolence and beneficence are constituents of the good man;
only let us add: presupposing that he is first benevolently and beneficently inclined towards
himself! For without this if he flees from himself, hates himself, does harm to himselfhe is
certainly not a good man. For in this case all he is doing is rescuing himself from himself in others:
let those others look to it that they suffer no ill effects from him, however well disposed he may
want to appear! (D 516)

I say to you: your love of the neighbour is your bad love of yourselves. You flee to your neighbour
from yourself and would like to make a virtue out of that: but I see through your selflessness... .
You cannot endure yourself and do not love yourselves enough: now you want to seduce your
neighbour to love and then gild yourselves with his error. (Z I 16)

O n o th e r o c c a s io n s , N ie tz s c h e a rg u e s th a t th e c o m p a s s io n a te s e r v ic e o f o th e rs
s h o u ld b e s e e n n o t a s a c o n s e q u e n c e o f s e lf - d e n ia l b u t a s a d e lib e r a t e c a u s e o f
it. I n th is v ie w , s e l f - s a c r i f i c e o r s e lf - d e n ia l a r e o p p o r tu n itie s f o r th e
g r a tif i c a tio n o f th e a g e n ts w i l l to p o w e r , th o u g h in c ir c u m s ta n c e s in w h ic h
th is g r a tif i c a tio n is s ig n if ic a n tly c o n s tr a in e d b y h is w e a k n e s s ( G M II 16, III
1 4 ). I n th e te rm s o f th e G en e a lo g y , th e w i l l to p o w e r is a d e s ir e to o v e r c o m e ,
a d e s ir e to th r o w d o w n , a d e s ir e to b e c o m e m a s te r, a th i r s t f o r e n e m ie s a n d
r e s is ta n c e s a n d tr iu m p h s ( G M I 1 3 ) th a t is to say , a d e s ir e f o r th e
o v e r c o m in g o f r e s is ta n c e . U n a b le to o v e r c o m e r e s is ta n c e o u ts id e th e m s e lv e s ,
th e w e a k tu r n th e ir w i l l to p o w e r in w a r d , b y c r e a tin g in th e m s e lv e s , th ro u g h
th e d e lib e r a t e f r u s tr a tio n o f th e ir d e s ir e s ( c r u e lty tu rn e d a g a in s t o n e s e lf ),
th e v e r y r e s is ta n c e th e y p r o c e e d to o v e r c o m e ( G M II 16; s e e III 10, H H I 1 4 1 ).
T h i s w o u l d s h o w t h a t t h e s e d u c t i o n o f s e l f - s a c r i f i c e f o r o n e s n e i g h b o r
h a s n o th in g to d o w i t h a n a ltr u is tic c o n c e r n f o r h is w e ll- b e in g :

This hint will at least make less enigmatic the enigma of how contradictory concepts such as
selflessness, self-denial, self-sacrifice can suggest an ideal, a kind of beauty; and one thing we
know henceforth I have no doubt of it and that is the nature of the delight that the selfless man,
the self-denier, the self-sacrificer feels from the first: this delight is tied to cruelty. So much for the
present about the origin of the moral value of the unegoistic, about the soil from which this value
grew: only the bad conscience, only the will to self-maltreatment provided the conditions for the
value of the unegoistic. (GM II 18)

T h e s e c a s e s , o f c o u r s e , m e r e ly s u g g e s t th a t th e a g e n t w h o a p p e a r s to a c t o u t o f
c o m p a s s io n m a y h a v e u lte rio r, n o n -a ltru is tic m o tiv e s , s u c h a s e lic itin g a g o o d
o p in io n in o th e rs , w ith w h ic h h e c a n b o ls te r h is s e lf-e s te e m , o r d e m o n s tra tin g
th e p o w e r h e h a s o v e r h im s e lf. B u t th e y p o in t to s o m e d e e p e r m is g iv in g s a b o u t
th e r o le o f s e lf le s s n e s s th e u n e g o is tic in c o m p a s s io n . W e g e t a n in itia l
i n s i g h t i n t o t h e s e m i s g i v i n g s b y r e t u r n i n g t o S c h o p e n h a u e r s m o s t c o m m o n a n d
m o s t c o m p e llin g e x a m p le o f c o m p a s s io n a te id e n tific a tio n .
T h is is th e c a s e o f th e in d iv id u a l w h o s a c r i f i c e s h i m s e l f f o r th e s a k e o f h is
c o u n try o u t o f a n id e n tif ic a tio n w ith it ( B M 2 2 , 2 1 2 - 1 3 ) : w h e n A r n o ld v o n
W in k e l r i e d e x c la im e d , C o m r a d e s , tr u e a n d lo y a l to o u r o a th , c a r e f o r m y w i f e
a n d c h ild in re m e m b ra n c e t h e r e o f , a n d th e n c la s p e d in h is a rm s a s m a n y
h o s tile s p e a r s a s h e c o u ld g r a s p , s o m e m a y im a g in e th a t h e h a d a s e lf is h
in te n tio n , b u t I c a n n o t ( B M 1 5 , 1 3 9 ). I f th is i d e n tif ic a tio n w e r e c o n s tr u e d a s
a n e x p a n s i o n o f h i s s e n s e o f s e l f s o a s t o i n c l u d e i n i t, i n a d d i t i o n t o h i s
id e n tity a s h u s b a n d a n d fa th e r, a n id e n tity a s c itiz e n o f a fa th e rla n d , N ie tz s c h e
o b s e r v e s , i t w o u l d u n d e rm in e th e a ltr u is tic c h a r a c te r o f h is s a c rific e . H is
s a c r if ic e w o u ld n o t b e s e lf - s a c r i f ic e b u t o n ly th e s a c r if ic e o f o n e p o r tio n o f
h is s e l f f o r th e s a k e o f a n o th e r:

A solider wishes he could fall on the battlefield for his victorious fatherland; for his supreme desire
is victorious in his fatherlands victory... . But are these all unegoistic states? Are these deeds of
morality miracles because they are, in Schopenhauers words, impossible, yet real? Is it not clear
that in all these instances man loves something o f himself, an idea, a desire, an offspring, more
than something else o f himself, that he thus divides his nature and sacrifices one part of it to the
other? (H H I 57)

N ie tz s c h e a ls o c o n s id e rs S c h o p e n h a u e r s v ie w th a t in c o m p a s s io n th e
i n d i v i d u a l d o e s n o t e x p e n d h i s s e n s e o f s e l f s o m u c h a s h e d i s s o l v e s it. A s o n e
p o s s ib l e e x a m p le o f s u c h d is s o lu tio n , h e s u g g e s ts th a t A r n o ld v o n W in k e lr ie d
c o u ld a ls o b e s e e n a s a n in d iv id u a l w h o h a s n o s e n s e o f s e l f o u ts id e h is
i d e n tif ic a tio n w i t h a n o th e r, o r w i t h a g r o u p o f o th e rs : h e th in k s o f h i m s e lf o n ly
a s a fu n c tio n o r e x te n s io n o f o th e r s , o r o f a g r o u p o f o th e r s (G S 1 1 6 ). E v e n
so c o n c e iv e d , h o w e v e r, N ie tz s c h e a rg u e s th a t s u c h a s e lf le s s in d iv id u a l
w o u l d r e m a in in c a p a b le o f g e n u in e a ltr u is m . H e r e is a r e l e v a n t p a s s a g e :

No altruism ! In many people I find an overwhelmingly forceful and pleasurable desire to be a

function: they have a very refined sense for all those places where precisely they could function
and push in those directions. Examples include those women who transform themselves into some
function of a man that happens to be underdeveloped in him, and thus become his purse or his
politics or his sociability. Such beings preserve themselves best when they find a fitting place in
another organism; if they fail to do this, they become grumpy, irritated, and devour themselves. (GS
119)

A s N ie tz s c h e d e fin e s it in th e p r e c e d in g s e c tio n s (G S 1 1 6 -1 7 ), a s e lfle s s

in d iv id u a l is o n e w h o la c k s a s e n s e o f s e lf (G S 1 1 7 ), in s o f a r a s h e d o e s n o t
th in k o f h im s e lf a s a fu ll-b lo w n in d iv id u a l, but sees h im s e lf o n ly as a
fu n c tio n o f a n o th e r in d iv id u a l, o r o f a g ro u p o f in d iv id u a ls , w ith w h o m h e
has id e n tifie d . N ie tz s c h e in s is ts th a t th e a ttitu d e s and a c tio n s o f such a
s e l f l e s s i n d iv id u a l c a n n o t b e r e g a r d e d a s a ltr u is tic . H e s o m e tim e s f a v o r s , in
th is c o n n e c tio n , th e im a g e o f th e p a r a s ite : I n m a n y c a s e s o f fe m in in e lo v e ,
p e r h a p s in c lu d in g th e m o s t fa m o u s o n e s a b o v e a ll , l o v e is m e r e ly a m o re
r e f in e d f o r m o f p a r a s itis m , a f o r m o f n e s tlin g d o w n in a n o th e r s o u l, s o m e tim e s
e v e n i n t h e f l e s h o f a n o t h e r a l a s , a l w a y s d e c i d e d l y a t t h e e x p e n s e o f t h e
h o s t ! ( C W 3 )
L e a v in g a s id e th e m is o g y n is tic o v e r to n e s o f b o th p a s s a g e s , w e s h o u ld a s k
in p r e c i s e l y w h a t w a y th is s e lf le s s in d iv id u a l f a ils to b e a ltr u is tic . F o r th in k in g
o f o n e s e lf a s a fu n c tio n o f a n o th e r c e r ta in ly s e e m s to im p ly th a t o n e w ill b e
m o t i v a t e d t o d o e v e r y t h i n g i n w h a t o n e b e l i e v e s t o b e t h e o t h e r s i n t e r e s t . It
s e e m s a s th o u g h th is s e lf le s s in d iv id u a l w o u l d b e th e q u in te s s e n tia l a ltr u is t.
In d e e d , in a s m u c h a s h e la c k s a s e n s e o f s e lf, th is in d iv id u a l c a n n o t h a v e s e lf is h
o r s e lf - i n t e r e s t e d m o tiv e s f o r th e a s s is ta n c e h e b r in g s o th e r s , in th e w a y th e
o r d in a r y e g o is t d o e s . S in c e h e h a s n o s e n s e o f s e l f o th e r th a n th a t o f b e in g a
fu n c tio n o f som e o th e r o r g ro u p o f o th e rs , h e c a n n o t th in k o f th e o n ly
i n t e r e s t s h e r e c o g n i z e s a s h is t h e y a r e o n l y t h e i n t e r e s t s o f t h e o t h e r , o r t h e
g ro u p of o th e rs , w ith w hom he is i d e n t i f i e d . 13 We m ig h t g a in g re a te r
u n d e r s ta n d in g o f th is p e r p le x in g v i e w b y c o n s id e r in g fu rth e r c h a r a c te r iz a tio n s
o f th a t s p e c ie s o f s e lfle s s n e s s : th e s e lfle s s id e a l is an id e a l s la v e , a
p s y c h o lo g ic a l ty p e N ie tz s c h e d e s c r ib e s in th e f o llo w in g te rm s : T h e id e a l
s l a v e ( t h e g o o d m a n ) . H e w h o c a n n o t p o s i t h i m s e l f a s a g o a l , n o r p o s i t a n y
g o a ls fo r h im s e lf w h a te v e r, b e s to w s h o n o r u p o n s e lfle s s n e s s in s tin c tiv e ly
(W P 3 5 8 ). S u c h a n in d iv id u a l, h e a d d s e ls e w h e r e , c a n b e o n ly a m e a n s , h e
h a s t o b e u s e d , h e n e e d s s o m e o n e w h o w i l l u s e h i m (A 5 4 ) .
W h y w o u l d s u c h a c o n d it io n m a k e th e in d iv id u a l in i t in c a p a b le o f g e n u in e
a ltru is m ? T h o u g h N ie tz s c h e o ffe rs n o c le a r, fu lly a rtic u la te d v ie w o n th is
m a tte r, s o m e c lu e s h e t o s s e s o u r w a y i n s p i r e th e f o ll o w i n g c o n je c tu r e . T o
b e g in , w e m u s t n o te th a t, f o r h im , a lt r u is m is a m a tte r o f b o th m o tiv a tio n a n d
c o m p e te n c e . T h e a ltr u is tic a g e n t m u s t a c t o u t o f a c o n c e r n f o r th e w e l l - b e i n g o f
o th e rs , b u t h e m u st a ls o p o s s e s s c e r ta in c o m p e te n c e s , in c lu d in g in p a r tic u la r a
c e r ta in k in d o f k n o w le d g e o r e x p e r ie n c e , w ith o u t w h ic h h e w i l l n o t b e a b le to
a p p r e c ia te w h a t th a t w e l l- b e in g r e q u ir e s , a n d s o w i l l b e u n a b le , d e s p ite h is
b e s t in te n tio n s , to c o n tr ib u te to i t a d e q u a te ly .
S in c e th e p a r tic u la r k in d o f s e lf le s s in d iv id u a l N ie tz s c h e is in v itin g u s to
c o n s id e r h e r e c a n n o t r e a l ly a c t o u t o f s e lf - in te r e s t a s th e o r d in a r y e g o is t d o e s
(fo r, to r e p e a t, h e h a s n o s e n s e o f s e l f o th e r th a n th a t o f b e in g a fu n c tio n o f
s o m e o th e r o r g ro u p o f o th e r s ) , h is d e f e c t m u s t b e fo u n d i n th e l a c k o f s o m e
b a s i c c o m p e te n c e e s s e n tia l to a ltr u is m . C o n s i d e r a n a g e n t w h o is u n a b le to
p o s i t g o a ls f o r h e r s e lf , o r h e r s e l f a s a g o a l. F o l lo w in g N ie tz s c h e , l e t u s
im a g in e , a s a n in s ta n c e o f s u c h a s e lf le s s c h a r a c te r , th e b la n d ly d e v o te d w if e
w h o s e l f l e s s l y w o r k s f o r t h e s a k e o f h e r h u s b a n d s h a p p i n e s s . 14 F o r w h a t e v e r
r e a s o n ( e a r ly o n , N ie tz s c h e o f te n m e n tio n s th e r e l e n tl e s s c o n d itio n in g o f th e
m o ra lity o f c u s to m s a s a c a u s e o f s u c h s e l f lo s s [s e e D 9 , 1 0 7 ; G S 1 1 6 ]), sh e
h a s n o s e n s e o f s e l f o u ts id e h e r a s s o c ia tio n w ith h e r h u s b a n d , a n d s o c a n n o t
p o s it e n d s o f h e r o w n , w h ic h m e a n s th a t s h e is u n a b le to a tta c h a n y p e r s o n a l
s ig n if ic a n c e to th e ends she does p u rsu e . H a v in g no ends o f p e rso n a l
s ig n if ic a n c e , s h e is b e r e f t o f a c e r ta in s o r t o f c a p a c ity : s h e h a s n o a p p r e c ia tio n
o f th e p e r s o n a l s ig n if ic a n c e th e ir e n d s h a v e to th o s e o th e r s s h e w a n ts to h e lp .
B u t, N ie tz s c h e o b je c ts , th e a b il it y to a p p r e c ia t e th e p e r s o n a l s ig n if ic a n c e
th e in te r e s ts o f o th e rs have fo r th e m is a n e c e ssa ry c o n d itio n o f g e n u in e
a ltru is m . A n d a s e lf le s s a g e n t w h o h a s n o in te r e s ts o f p e r s o n a l s ig n if ic a n c e to
h e r, a n d c o - o p ts th e in te r e s ts o f o th e r s a s a w a y o f a c h ie v in g a s e n s e o f s e lf , is
u n a b le to a c k n o w le d g e a n d a p p r e c ia t e th e f a c t th a t th e in te r e s ts o f o th e r s a r e
a c t u a l l y th e ir s , w h i c h i m p l i e s t h a t s h e i s a l s o u n a b l e t o a p p r e c i a t e t h e p e r s o n a l
s ig n if ic a n c e th e s e in te r e s ts h a v e f o r th e m . S h e is s in g le - m in d e d ly d e v o te d to
th e f u lf illm e n t o f th e ir in te r e s ts , b u t i n a w a y th a t d is p la y s n o a p p r e c ia tio n o f
t h e p e r s o n a l s i g n i f i c a n c e t h e s e i n t e r e s t s h a v e f o r t h e m . 15
 T h in k , f o r e x a m p le , o f th e o v e r b e a r i n g w if e w h o id e n tif ie s to o c l o s e l y w ith
h e r h u s b a n d s a c h ie v e m e n ts a n d in th is w a y m ig h t v e r y w e l l s u c c e s s f u lly h e lp
h im to b e c o m e , say , a f ir s t- r a te v io lo n is t. I f s h e f a ils to a p p r e c ia te , in th e
p r o c e s s , th e b a s i c f a c t th a t b e c o m in g a v ir tu o s o w a s h e r h u s b a n d s in te re s t, w e
w i l l r ig h tly s u s p e c t th a t h e r e ffo rts in f u lf illin g th is in te r e s t p o s s e s s no
a ltr u is tic v a lu e . In d e e d , th e h u s b a n d h i m s e l f m ig h t g r o w u n c o m f o r ta b le w ith
th is s o r t o f h e lp , e v e n i f i t p r o v e s m o s t u s e fu l, a n d n o t fe e l p r o p e r l y c a r e d fo r,
a s h e s e n s e s th a t he, o r h is h a p p in e s s in s o f a r a s i t is h is, is n o t th e p r o p e r fo c u s
o f h is w i f e s c o n c e r n .16 T h is in te r p r e ta tio n o f N ie tz s c h e s o b j e c t i o n s h e d s
s o m e lig h t o n o th e r w is e e lu s iv e s ta te m e n ts lik e th e f o llo w in g :

It is richness in personality, abundance in oneself, overflowing and bestowing, instinctive good health
and affirmation of oneself, that produce great sacrifice and great love ... and if one is not firm and
brave within oneself, one has nothing to bestow and cannot stretch out ones hand to protect and
support. (WP 388; cf. EH III, 5: that gruesome nonsense that love is supposed to be something
unegoistic. One has to sit firmly upon oneself, ... otherwise one is simply incapable of loving.)

H o w d o e s th e d i s c u s s io n o f th is p e c u l i a r f o r m o f s e lf le s s n e s s b e a r o n th e
c r itiq u e o f S c h o p e n h a u e r? I f c o m p a s s io n a te id e n tif ic a tio n is to c o n s is t o f a
d is s o lu t io n o f th e b o u n d a r ie s o f in d iv id u a tio n , r a th e r th a n a n e x p a n s io n o f
th e m , th e n th e s e lf le s s n e s s o f th e S c h o p e n h a u e r ia n a ltr u is t m a y w e l l b e a r a
c lo s e r e s e m b la n c e to th e s e l f le s s n e s s u n d e r c o n s id e r a tio n in N ie tz s c h e s
d is c u s s io n . I f th e m a n w h o s a c r if ic e s h i m s e l f f o r h is c o u n try m e n is n o t s im p ly
a c tin g o u t o f a n e x p a n d e d u n d e r s ta n d in g o f h is o w n in te r e s ts , th e n h e w o u ld
h a v e to b e a n in d iv id u a l w h o d o e s n o t th in k o f h i m s e l f a s a f u ll- b lo w n
in d iv id u a l, b u t s e e s h i m s e l f o n ly a s a fu n c tio n o f h is c o u n try m e n , w i t h w h o m
h e h a s id e n tif ie d . A n d w h a t h e d o e s f o r th e m c o u ld n o t b e , f o r th e r e a s o n s
N ie tz s c h e la y s o u t, g e n u in e ly a ltr u is tic .
W h e th e r or not th is c o n s tr u a l of s e lf le s s n e s s a d e q u a te ly c a p tu r e s
S c h o p e n h a u e r s e lu s iv e c o n c e p tio n o f c o m p a s s io n a te s e lf le s s n e s s , it d o e s
p o in t to a p o te n tia l d e e p p r o b l e m w i t h it. F o r a t l e a s t th e f o ll o w i n g s e e m s
c le a r about th is c o n c e p tio n . T h ro u g h id e n tif ic a tio n , th e c o m p a s s io n a te
in d iv id u a l c e a s e s to s e e h i m s e l f a n d th e o th e r a s s e p a r a te in d iv id u a ls . I t is n o t
th a t h e ta k e s th e tw o o f th e m to f o r m a s in g le in d iv id u a l, a s C a s s in a h a d
s u p p o s e d , i t is r a th e r th a t h e n o w r e g a r d s th e b o u n d a r ie s o f in d iv id u a tio n a s
in s ig n if ic a n t illu s io n s . T h is m e a n s n o t th a t th e o th e r is p a r t o f m e , o r th a t I a m
p a r t o f th e o th e r, b u t th a t th e r e r e a l l y is n o m e a n d h im a n y m o re . A ll th a t
r e m a in s , a n d a ll th a t m a tte rs , in th is p e r s p e c tiv e , is s u ffe rin g . I n d e p lo r in g a n d
s e e k in g to r e l i e v e th is s u ffe rin g , a s th e c o m p a s s io n a te in d iv id u a l d o e s , it
m a tte rs n o t a t a ll th a t i t is lo c a t e d in th is o r th a t r e g io n o f tim e a n d s p a c e : h is
s o le c o n ce rn is w ith d e in d iv id u a te d s u ffe rin g . A ll th a t m a tte rs , in
S c h o p e n h a u e r ia n c o m p a s s io n , is th a t s u ffe rin g b e d e p l o r e d a n d , w h e n e v e r
p o s s ib le , re m o v e d ; b u t it d o e s n o t m a tte r w h o se s u ffe rin g it is. Such
c o m p a s s io n w o u ld th u s c o n s titu te an in s ta n c e o f w h a t N ie tz s c h e c a ll s
u n s e lf in g [ E n ts e lb s tu n g ] ( b o th o f th e c o m p a s s io n a te a g e n t a n d o f th o s e
o th e rs w h o a r e th e o b j e c t o f h is c o m p a s s io n ) . A t th e h e a r t o f th e N ie tz s c h e a n
o b je c t io n I a m n o w c o n s id e r in g lie s th e q u e s tio n o f w h e th e r d e p lo r in g a n d
s e e k in g to r e l i e v e th e s u ffe rin g s o f o th e rs w i t h n o th o u g h t o f th e in d iv id u a ls
w h o se s u ffe rin g s th e y a r e s till c a p tu r e s s o m e th in g th a t p l a u s i b ly re m a in s
a ltr u is tic c o m p a s s io n .
N ie tz s c h e s r e p e a te d e m p h a s is o n th e c a p a c ity to p o s i t e n d s f o r h i m s e l f
o r h im s e lf a s a n e n d , th a t is to say , o n th e p e r s o n a l s ig n if ic a n c e to th e a g e n t
o f th e e n d s he p u r s u e s , th o u g h i t s e l f q u ite e lu s iv e , p o in ts to a p o s s i b l e
d ia g n o s is f o r th e p r o b l e m h e h a s w i t h S c h o p e n h a u e r s v ie w . I t w o u ld o v e r lo o k
th e p e r s o n a l s ig n if ic a n c e to th e a g e n t o f th e in te r e s ts o u t o f w h ic h h e o r d in a r il y
a c ts . S c h o p e n h a u e r a p p e a r s to s u p p o s e th a t th e s p e c ia l s ig n if ic a n c e a s s u m e d
b y m y o w n in te r e s ts is n o th in g o v e r a n d a b o v e th e f a c t th a t I s ta n d in c lo s e
e p is te m ic p r o x im ity to th e m . If, b y c o n tra s t, w e ta k e th e s p e c ia l s ig n if ic a n c e
m y o w n in te r e s ts h a v e f o r m e to b e m o re th a n a p s y c h o lo g ic a l e ffe c t o f th e ir
e p is te m ic p r o x im ity ( w h ic h w o u ld i t s e l f b e a t m o s t a n e c e s s a r y c o n s e q u e n c e o f
th e fa c t th a t th o s e in te r e s ts a r e m in e , a n d n o t w h a t th e ir b e in g m in e c o n s is ts o f),
th e n i t c o u ld n o t b e s o e a s i l y d is c o u n te d e ith e r in m y s e l f o r in th o s e o th e rs w h o
a r e th e o b je c ts o f m y c o m p a s s io n .
S c h o p e n h a u e r s o w n c r itiq u e o f C a s s i n a s c o n c e p tio n o f c o m p a s s io n r e s ts
o n th e in tu itio n th a t i t is a r e q u ir e m e n t o f a ltr u is m th a t th e in te r e s ts o f o th e rs b e
r e g a r d e d a s th e irs. B u t S c h o p e n h a u e r h i m s e l f s e e m s to h a v e o v e r lo o k e d o n e
a p p e a lin g p o s s i b l e in te r p r e ta tio n o f th is in tu itio n , n a m e ly , th a t th e g e n u in e
a ltr u is t is n o t o n e w h o s im p ly s e e k s to f u lf ill th e in te r e s ts o f o th e rs , b u t o n e
w h o h e lp s o th e rs to fu lf ill th e ir in te re s ts . T h e a l t r u i s t s fo c u s is n o t o n th e
in te r e s ts th e m s e lv e s , b u t o n th e w e l l - b e i n g o f o th e rs , a n d o n th e ir in te r e s ts o n ly
in s o f a r a s th e ir f u lf illm e n t c o n tr ib u te s to it. T h e g e n u in e a ltr u is t, in o th e r
w o r d s , is r e q u i r e d to a p p r e c ia te th e p e r s o n a l s ig n if ic a n c e th e in te r e s ts o f
o th e rs h a v e f o r th e m , a n d th is p r e s u m a b ly in v o lv e s m o re th a n a p p r e c ia tin g th e
m e r e fa c t th a t th e y a r e m o re in tim a te ly a c q u a in te d w i t h th e ir o w n in te r e s ts th a n
th e y a r e w i t h th e in te r e s ts o f o th e rs . In c o n tra s t, b y S c h o p e n h a u e r s o w n lig h ts ,
th e c o m p a s s io n a te a g e n t s h o u ld a r g u a b ly n o t s h o w a n y a p p r e c ia t io n f o r a fa c t
th a t, in f o s te r in g th e i ll u s io n o n w h i c h e g o is m a n d m a lic e r e s t, is th e u ltim a te
c a u s e o f im m o ra lity . I n th e f in a l a n a ly s is , th e d e e p p r o b l e m N ie tz s c h e c o m e s to
see, how ever d im ly , in S c h o p e n h a u e r s a n a ly s is o f c o m p a s s io n is t h a t it
o p e r a te s w i t h to o i m p o v e r is h e d a c o n c e p tio n o f th e p e r s o n a l s ig n if ic a n c e e a c h
a g e n t s i n t e r e s t s h a v e f o r h im . T h i s w o u l d e x p l a i n w h y S c h o p e n h a u e r r e g a r d s
th is p e rso n a l s ig n ific a n c e as u ltim a te ly n o th in g m o re th a n a d is c o u n ta b le
illu s io n , a n d w h y th e c o m p a s s io n th a t r e s u lts f r o m th e d is c o u n tin g o f th is
i l l u s i o n f a i l s t o b e , i n N i e t z s c h e s v i e w , g e n u i n e l y a l t r u i s t i c . 17

1 While the term sympathy is an acceptable translation of the German term Mitleid used by both
Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, translators and scholars of both philosophers have tended to prefer the
Latinate compassion instead. To avoid confusion, I will follow this convention as well in this essay, using
compassion as a translation for Mitleid. Abbreviations of Schopenhauers and Nietzsches works are
listed at the beginning of the bibliography.
2 Nietzsche also objects that compassion may be harmful to the compassion subject himself, apparently
by distracting or diverting him from his own pursuit of greatness (e.g., GS 325, 338). However, this
objection does not seem to touch on the character of compassion as much as on its importance relative to
other pursuits. Thus, even if we conceive compassion in what Nietzsche would consider the right way, it
may still be that, in his view, we ought to subordinate its exercise to the pursuit of great achievements.
Since this essay aims to focus exclusively on the issue of the character of compassion, I will leave out
further consideration of this objection.
3 This is not to say that any difficult achievement is great or that greatness requires any manner of
suffering. I have explored these and related issues in greater detail in The Affirmation o f Life: Nietzsche
on Overcoming Nihilism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006) and T he Will to Pow er and
the Ethics of Creativity, in Nietzsche and Morality, ed. B. Leiter and N. Sinhababu (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 32-56.
4 Schopenhauer unfortunately assumes that the kind of immediate, non-inferential, and not purely
representational experience I have of my own body must also be an experience of it as it is in itself
since it does not answer to the strictures of the principle of sufficient reason. This appears to confuse the
manner of knowing (immediately) with its content (the thing-in-itself). The value of his insight,
however, can be separated from this particular way of formulating it.
5 The distinction is important in Kant, where it assumes a particular significance: the practical point of
view is the point of view of agency and deliberation, from which I must regard myself as free (see his
Groundwork fo r a Metaphysics o f Morals, in Practical Reason, ed. Mary Gregor [Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996], 448); by contrast, the theoretical point of view is the point of view
from which I consider myself an object in the world, subject to the laws regulating it. It is doubtful that
Schopenhauer would use this distinction in the same way since in his view, the practical point of view is
one from which I regard myself as the only person, and it is hard to see how such a point of view could
be constitutive of agency.
6 See Georg Simmel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, trans. H. Loiskandl, D. Weinstein, and M.
Weinstein (Cambridge, MA: University of M assachusetts Press, 1986), ch. 3.
7 Julian Young, Schopenhauer (London: Routledge, 2005), 183.
8 Ubaldo Cassina (1736-1824), a professor or moral philosophy at Parma, published the Analytical
Essay on Compassion (Saggio analitico su la compassione [Parma, 1772]).
9 See David Cartwright, Schopenhauers Compassion and Nietzsches Pity, Schopenhauer-Jahrbuch
69 (1988): 557-67, at 562.
10 David Cartwright, Compassion and Solidarity with Sufferers: The Metaphysics of Mitleid,
European Journal o f Philosophy 16.2 (2008): 292-310, proposes to think of Schopenhauerian
compassion in terms of solidarity.
11 I can rightly suspect that there is something wrong with my perception if I fail to see the stick in the
water as bent, even though I know this perceptual impression to be an illusion. Likewise, I can rightly
suspect that something has gone wrong if I confuse (empirically) my suffering with the suffering of
others, even though I also know the distinction between me and them to be an illusion.
12 I review some of these difficulties in Nietzsche on Selflessness and the Value of Altruism, History
o f Philosophy Quarterly 17.2 (2000): 177-200, at 179-84.
13 Nietzsche declares that the individual who turns himself into a function of another, or of a group,
manages, in this way, to preserve himself (GS 119). This is odd given that the individual in question
precisely lacks the sense of a self to preserve in the first place. The statement is odd only if we think of
self-preservation in the customary way, which assumes an individual with a determinate sense of self
whose attitudes and actions aim at preserving it. But in the sense in which Nietzsche uses it in this
context, self-preservation might be a matter of maintaining any sense of self at all: the selfless individual
manages to have a sense of self only through his association or identification with the other or group of
which he makes himself a function. This also suggests that, even though gaining and preserving a sense
of self is the aim of identification, it is not necessarily its motivation.
14 This is an example proposed by Jean Hampton, Selflessness and the Loss of Self, in Altruism, ed. E.
F. Paul, F. Miller, and J. Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 135-65.
15 Consider this observation by Hampton in Selflessness about such a character: he and others like
him not only have a poor sense of self-worth and a poor grip on what they owe to themselves ... , but also
a dearth of plans, projects, and goals that are uniquely their own. Thus, they decide to satisfy the ends of
others because they have so few ends of their own to pursue. This explanation accounts for why those of
us who have received help from such obsessive care-givers frequently resent and feel violated by the
help: it is as if our own ends of action have been seized and taken away from us by these helpers when
they insist on pursuing them for us (149).
16 In fact, the kind of identification I have been considering also makes the kind of qualitative
identification Schopenhauer regards as an essential condition of compassion impossible, at least in the
following respect: to appreciate the frustrations of others, one must also appreciate the personal
significance the frustrated interests have for them, something that is presumably impossible to do for
someone who has no interests of personal significance to begin with.
17 This chapter is a revised and expanded version of an essay previously published under the title
Compassion and Selflessness in Nietzsche, Naturalism, and Normativity, ed. C. Janaway and S.
Robertston (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 160-82. I thank Oxford University Press for
permission to use these materials here.
 C H A P T E R N IN E

From Einfuhlung to Empathy

SYMPATHY IN EARLY PHENOM ENOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY

R em y D ebes

W h a t is th e d if f e r e n c e b e tw e e n s y m p a th y a n d e m p a th y ? S e r io u s s tu d e n ts o f
e ith e r c o n c e p t m u s t e v e n tu a lly a s k th is q u e s tio n , b u t it p r o v e s f r u s tr a tin g to
a n s w e r .1 E v e r s in c e th e A m e r ic a n p s y c h o lo g is t E d w a r d T itc h e n e r ( 1 8 6 7
1 9 2 7 ) in tr o d u c e d th e t e r m e m p a th y in to E n g lis h in 1 9 0 9 a s a tr a n s la t io n o f
th e G e r m a n c o n c e p t E in fu h lu n g ( f e e lin g in to ), e m p a th y h a s e ith e r b e e n u s e d
s y n o n y m o u s ly w i t h s y m p a th y , o r, e v e n i f d is tin g u is h e d f r o m s y m p a th y b y o n e
a u th o r, n e v e r th e le s s d e f in e d in w a y s th a t o th e r a u th o rs h a p p ily r e v e r s e , ig n o re ,
c o n tr a d ic t, r e je c t, d ilu te , d e lim it, a n d in g e n e r a l, r e d e f in e .2,3 I n s h o rt, lik e
s y m p a th y , th e c o n c e p t o f e m p a th y h a s a c o m p lic a te d , e v e n c o n v o lu te d
h is to ry , n e v e r m in d its c o m p a r a tiv e y o u th .
T o b e fa ir, a s w e w ill s e e , a c a s e c a n b e m a d e f o r a p r i n c i p l e d d is tin c tio n
b y th e e a r l i e s t te r m in o lo g ic a l in n o v a to r s , lik e T itc h e n e r o r h is lik e ly s o u r c e o f
in s p ir a tio n , th e G e rm a n a e s th e tic ia n - c u m - p s y c h o lo g is t, T h e o d o re L ip p s
( 1 8 5 1 - 1 9 1 4 ) , w h o w r o te e x te n s iv e ly o n E in fu h lu n g . N e v e r t h e le s s , a s a ls o
w i l l b e m a d e c le a r , th e s e e a r l y a c c o u n ts o f e m p a th y a n d E in fu h lu n g f a i l e d to
e s t a b l i s h a n y s ta b le p a r a d ig m o f u s a g e f o r tu r n o f th e c e n tu r y th e o r is ts . N o r
h a v e th e in te r v e n in g y e a r s h e lp e d m u ch . A t p r e s e n t, a n y w a y , e m p a th y a n d
s y m p a th y a r e e c le c tic c o n c e p ts , w h ic h o n ly th e m o s t d o g m a tic o r ig n o ra n t
p r e te n d to s e p a r a te o b j e c t i v e l y a n d w ith o u t s tip u la tio n .4
S o h e re is h o w I w ill p r o c e e d . A f te r a b r i e f h is to r ic a l o v e r v ie w , I s h a ll
n a r r o w m y fo c u s to la te n in e te e n th - a n d e a r l y tw e n tie th - c e n tu r y p h e n o m e n o lo g y
a n d p s y c h o lo g y , w h e r e th e te r m in o lo g ic a l a n d c o n c e p tu a l in n o v a tio n s o f L ip p s
a n d T itc h e n e r h a d a n im m e d ia te e ffe c t, a n d w h e r e in te r e s t in th e r e l a t e d
p h e n o m e n a o f E in fu h lu n g , e m p a th y , a n d s y m p a th y s p r e a d w i t h s ta r tlin g s p e e d .5
M y d i s c u s s io n w i l l in te n tio n a lly e n d w i t h a fo c u s o n e a r ly tw e n tie th - c e n tu r y
A m e r ic a n s o c ia l p s y c h o lo g y . F o r t h e r e in is o n e p a r tic u la r th r e a d o f th e
r e le v a n t c o n c e p tu a l h is to r y th a t s im u lta n e o u s ly h e lp s c la r if y th e r e la tio n s h ip o f
s y m p a th y to e m p a th y , e a r l y p s y c h o lo g y to e a r l y p h e n o m e n o lo g y , a n d a ll th is
h is to r ic a l s tu d y to s o m e th in g l o a d e d w i t h p r e s e n t m e a n in g . T o f o r e s h a d o w ,
c o n s id e r th e f o llo w in g : P a r t a n d p a r c e l o f th e fu n d a m e n ta l m a x im s o f th e
m o d e r n e g a l i t a r i a n s o c ie ty is u s u a lly c l a s s e d s o m e k in d o f re c o g n itio n f o r th e
d is tin c tiv e v a lu e , s ta tu s , o r d ig n ity b e lo n g in g to in d iv id u a l p e r s o n s . T h is
r e c o g n itio n is o f te n c o n s tr u e d in r a tio n a l te rm s , f o r e x a m p le a s a c e r t a i n k in d
o f d e lib e r a t iv e a tte n tio n w e o w e to o th e r p e r s o n s , e s p e c i a l l y in o u r d e c is io n s
a b o u t h o w to a c t w i t h r e s p e c t to th e m . R e c e n tly , h o w e v e r , m a n y s c h o la r s h a v e
a s k e d w h a t s u c h r e c o g n itio n m ig h t a m o u n t to , o r r e q u ir e a t a p s y c h o lo g ic a lly
d e s c r ip ti v e , p r e c o g n itiv e , o r p h e n o m e n o lo g ic a l le v e l. T h e r e is n o c o n s e n s u s
r e p l y to th is q u e s tio n . H o w e v e r , a t f ir s t b lu s h i t s e e m s th e a n s w e r m u s t in v o lv e
r e f e r e n c e to s o m e a b ility to e x p e r ie n c e o th e r p e r s o n s a s j u s t th a t a s o th e r.
T h a t is , w e m u s t b e a b le to s e e o th e r in d iv id u a ls n o t m e r e ly a s in d iv id u a ls ,
b u t a s in d iv id u a ls a p a r t f r o m o n e s e l f e v e n i f a ls o l ik e o n e s e l f in s o m e
s e n s e . H o w in te re s tin g , th e n , th a t s o m e th in g lik e th is id e a is w o v e n in to , o n th e
o n e h a n d , tu r n - o f - th e - c e n tu r y p h e n o m e n o lo g ic a l c o n c e p tio n s o f E in fu h lu n g a n d
e m p a th y , and, on th e o th e r hand, e a r ly A m e r ic a n s o c ia l p s y c h o lo g ic a l
c o n c e p tio n s o f sy m p ath y . S o l e t u s tu g a t th is th r e a d a ll th e w a y th ro u g h .
T h a n k fu lly , it w i l l b e c o m e in c r e a s in g ly e a s y to f o llo w , a n d in tu r n in c r e a s in g ly
u n n e c e s s a r y to m a k e i t a s u b je c t o f s e c o n d - o r d e r a n a ly s is , a s I v e j u s t d o n e .
 1. At the Da w n o f P s y c h o l o g y : A Li t t l e Bi t of Hi s t o r y

P s y c h o lo g y is c o n c e p tu a lly a n c ie n t. B u t i t w a s n o t u n til 1 8 7 9 , w h e n W ilh e lm

W u n d t e s ta b lis h e d th e f ir s t e x p e r im e n ta l p s y c h o lo g y la b a t th e U n iv e r s ity o f
L e ip z ig , th a t i t b e c a m e a b o n a f id e a c a d e m ic d is c i p lin e ( s o m e s a y 1 8 8 3 w h e n
th e la b w a s o f f ic ia lly r e c o g n iz e d a s a n a c a d e m ic d e p a r tm e n t) .6 T h e la b p r o v e d
m o n u m e n ta lly im p o rta n t, p a r tly in v ir tu e o f W u n d ts ow n v o lu m in o u s
c o n tr ib u tio n s , b u t la r g e ly in v ir tu e o f th e s h e e r n u m b e r o f d o c to r a l s tu d e n ts
w h o m a tr ic u la te d th e r e , m a n y o f w h o m w e n t o n to l e a d p r o m in e n t c a r e e r s o r
f o r m la b s o f th e ir o w n in a n d o u t o f C o n tin e n ta l E u r o p e .7 E d w a r d T itc h e n e r
w a s o n e s u c h s tu d e n t, a n d th e la b h e r a n a t C o r n e ll, d e d ic a te d to p r o m o tin g h is
e le m e n ta lis t p s y c h o lo g ic a l th e o r y o f s tr u c tu r a lis m , w a s o n e o f th e l a r g e s t in
A m e r ic a a t th e tim e .8 T itc h e n e r is a ls o n o ta b le f o r h is r o l e in d is s e m in a tin g
W u n d ts in tr o s p e c tiv e e x p e r im e n ta l m e th o d s to th e E n g lis h - s p e a k in g w o r ld ,
w h ic h m e th o d o lo g y g r o u n d e d T i tc h e n e r s o w n th e o ry . T h u s T itc h e n e r a rg u e d
th a t p s y c h o lo g y p r o p e r l y u n d e r s to o d is th e s tu d y o f c o n s c io u s n e s s , o r th e
s tr e a m o f hum an m e n ta l e x p e r ie n c e s , fro m th e p o in t o f v ie w o f th e
e x p e r ie n c in g a g e n t.9 M o r e o v e r , th is s tr e a m o f e x p e r ie n c e s c a n b e r e s o l v e d in to
c e r t a i n d e lim ite d k in d s o f b a s i c e le m e n ts , a n d th is r e s o lu tio n , a n d th e s tu d y o f
th e e le m e n ts th e m s e lv e s , is and m ust b e th ro u g h in tr o s p e c tiv e a n a ly s is .
[ W ] ith in th e sp h ere o f p s y c h o lo g y , T itc h e n e r w r o te in h is O u tlin e o f
P sy c h o lo g y , in tr o s p e c t io n is th e fin a l a n d o n ly c o u r t o f a p p e a l . 10
T itc h e n e r w a s n o t, h o w e v e r , a p e r f e c t d i s c i p l e o f W u n d t. A s is b e tte r
a p p r e c ia te d n o w , h e s k e w e d W u n d ts th e o r y to h is o w n e n d s in s o f a r a s h e
c o n c e a le d o r d o w n p la y e d a n ti- e le m e n ta lis t a n d a n ti- s o c i o lo g ic a l c o m p o n e n ts
o f W u n d ts p s y c h o lo g y as w e ll as W u n d ts ow n s tr ic t lim ita tio n s on
in tr o s p e c t io n 11 (W u n d t r e j e c t e d th a t in tr o s p e c t io n w a s th e e x c lu s iv e and
u ltim a te c o u rt of appeal fo r p s y c h o lo g y ) .12 S till, W undt d id d e fe n d
in tr o s p e c tio n ; a n d th is s h a r e d m e th o d o lo g y is im p o rta n t.
I n th e f i r s t p la c e , m e th o d o lo g y h e lp s e x p la i n T i tc h e n e r s e a s y a p p r o p r ia tio n
o f E in fu h lu n g fro m , w e p re s u m e , T h e o d o r L ip p s . T itc h e n e r a c tu a lly n e v e r
c l e a r l y e x p la in e d w h o s e th e o r y o f E in fu h lu n g h e h a d in v i e w o r e x a c tly w h y
h e c h o s e th e t e r m e m p a th y , b u t L ip p s w a s th e p r e e m in e n t G e r m a n p r o p o n e n t
o f E in fu h lu n g , a n d T itc h e n e r w o u ld h a v e k n o w n th is . M o r e o v e r , T itc h e n e r a n d
L ip p s sh a re d a fu n d a m e n ta l m e th o d o lo g y . T h u s , a lth o u g h L ip p s w a s not a
s tu d e n t o f W u n d t, L ip p s a ls o r e l i e d o n i n tr o s p e c t iv e p r i n c i p l e s i n d e v e lo p i n g
h i s t h e o r y o f E i n f u h l u n g t o e x p l a i n a e s t h e t i c p l e a s u r e . 13 I n f a c t , L i p p s c l a i m e d
th a t a e s th e tic s w as a p a rt o f p s y c h o lo g y p re c is e ly because he b e lie v e d
a e s th e tic s , a n d b y d e fin itio n a ls o th e e x p e rie n c e o f E in fu h lu n g , c o u ld be
s tu d ie d e x p e r i m e n t a l l y , 14 a n d , in p a rtic u la r, th ro u g h in te r n a l e x p e rim e n ts
in v o lv in g th e f r e e p r e s e n ta tio n to o n e s e l f o f a ll k in d s o f e x p e r ie n c e s , th e
in te r n a l v a r i a ti o n , th e a d d i t i o n o f p a r ts , a n d a ls o a b s tr a c t io n , a ll o f w h i c h is
m a d e p o s s i b l e b y i n t r o s p e c t i o n . 15 U n s u r p r i s i n g l y , t h e n , T i t c h e n e r a r t i c u l a t e d
e m p a th y a s a k in d o f in tr o s p e c tiv e m e n ta l e x p e r ie n c e a k in e s th e tic o n e to
b e e x a c t th a t w e h a v e u p o n o b s e r v in g c e r t a i n k in d s o f o b je c ts o r a c tio n ,
e s p e c ia lly a ffe c tiv e hum an e x p re s s io n s : N o t o n ly do I see g ra v ity and
m o d e s t y a n d p r i d e a n d c o u r t e s y a n d s t a t e l i n e s s , b u t I f e e l o r a c t th e m in th e
m i n d s m u s c le s . T h i s i s , I s u p p o s e , a s i m p l e c a s e o f e m p a t h y , i f w e m a y c o i n
t h a t t e r m a s a r e n d e r i n g o f E i n fu h lu n g ; t h e r e i s n o t h i n g c u r i o u s o r i d i o s y n c r a t i c
a b o u t it; b u t i t i s a f a c t t h a t m u s t b e m e n t i o n e d . 16 O f c o u r s e , m a n y o t h e r s w e r e
c u r i o u s a b o u t t h i s p h e n o m e n o n . A n d T i t c h e n e r s b l a s e t o n e f o r e s h a d o w s h i s
e v e n tu a l o b s c u r ity o n th e s u b je c t. T h e p a s s a g e a ls o s u g g e s ts T itc h e n e r h a d a n
im p o v e ris h e d u n d e r s ta n d in g o f th e G e rm a n lite ra tu re o n E i n fu h lu n g . At a
m in im u m , g iv e n th a t L ip p s a rtic u la te d se v era l fo rm s of E i n fu h lu n g ,
T i t c h e n e r s n a r r o w c o n c e p t o f e m p a t h y i n d i c a t e s h e d i d n t w e l l u n d e r s t a n d
L i p p s s t h e o r y e v e n i f h e w a s f a m i l i a r w i t h it. M o r e o v e r , T i t c h e n e r s o m e t i m e s
u s e d s y m p a t h y s y n o n y m o u s l y a l o n g s i d e e m p a t h y i n h i s L e c tu r e s , f u r t h e r
c o n f u s i n g h i s u s a g e . G r a n t e d , a s a l r e a d y m e n t i o n e d , T i t c h e n e r d i d n t e x p l a i n
h i s s o u r c e f o r t h e c o n c e p t o f E i n f u h l u n g 11 S o i t i s p o s s i b l e T i t c h e n e r a s s u m e d
E in fu h lu n g to h a v e a g e n e r a liz e d m e a n in g , a s o p p o s e d to b e in g e s p e c i a l l y
o w e d t o L i p p s . 18 B u t t h i s d o e s n t h e l p r e s t o r e T i t c h e n e r s r e p u t a t i o n , g i v e n t h a t
a t th is p o in t E in fu h lu n g d i d n o t, i n fa c t, h a v e a g e n e r a liz e d m e a n in g i n G e r m a n
c i r c l e s , i f e v e r i t d i d . 19 I l l r e t u r n t o s u b s t a n t i a t e t h i s p o i n t i n t h e n e x t s e c t i o n .
B u t f i r s t , a l a s t p o i n t o n i n t r o s p e c t i o n i s w o r t h n o t in g .
B o t h T i t c h e n e r s a n d L i p p s s w o r k w a s e v e n t u a l l y e c l i p s e d , b u t t o d i f f e r e n t
d e g r e e s . I n T i t c h e n e r s c a s e t h e f a d e w a s s w i f t , n e a r l y t o t a l , a n d l a s t i n g . A n d
h is r e lia n c e o n in tr o s p e c tio n is la r g e ly to b la m e . T h e fin d e s ie c le b o o m o f
p o s it i v is m ( w h ic h , ir o n ic a lly , T itc h e n e r h i m s e lf e s p o u s e d ) , th e a s s o c ia te d r is e
o f b e h a v io ris m , and c e rta in d is c o v e rie s re la te d to im a g e le s s t h o u g h t, t h e
u n c o n s c io u s , a n d a n im a l p s y c h o lo g y , a ll to ld r e l a ti v e ly im m e d ia te ly a g a in s t a n
a s s e r t i o n o f th e p r i n c i p l e d a u th o r ity o f o n e s o w n in n e r a w a r e n e s s o f h is o r h e r
m e n ta l s ta te s f o r e s ta b lis h in g r e l i a b l e , d u p lic a b le p s y c h o lo g ic a l e x p e r im e n ta l
d a ta .20 T i tc h e n e r s w o r k th u s f lo u n d e r e d a s s o o n a s h e c o u ld n o lo n g e r
p e r s o n a lly d e f e n d it. E v e n b r a c k e tin g th is g e n e r a l e c li p s e , h o w e v e r , T itc h e n e r
h a d a lm o s t n o s u b s ta n tiv e im p a c t o n th e d e v e lo p m e n t o f e m p a th y th e o r y i n
p a r tic u la r . T h is is b o r n e o u t b y th e r e la tiv e d e a r th o f a tte n tio n p a i d to h im o n
th e p s y c h o lo g y of e m p a th y , s u b s ta n tiv e ly or n o m in a lly , e ith e r by h is
c o n te m p o r a r ie s o r th o s e w h o c a m e a fte r.21 T itc h e n e r in tr o d u c e d th e w o r d , a n d
little m o re . C o rr e s p o n d in g ly , w e to o s h a ll p a y little m o re a tte n tio n to h im .
L i p p s s c a s e , h o w e v e r , is m o re c o m p lic a te d .22 S p e a k in g g e n e r a lly , th e s to ry
r e s e m b le s T i tc h e n e r s. L ip p s w a s a r g u a b ly th e p r in c ip a l p la y e r in th e b r o a d
f lu r r y o f la te n in e te e n th - c e n tu ry G e r m a n r e s e a r c h o n E in fu h lu n g , w h ic h flu r ry
e n d e d r a th e r s u d d e n ly a r o u n d th e tu r n o f th e c e n tu ry , a n d o n c e a g a in la r g e ly a s
a r e s u l t o f th e d im in is h e d in te r e s t in in tr o s p e c tiv e m e th o d o lo g y in a b u rg e o n in g
c lim a te o f e x p e r im e n ta l p s y c h o lo g y . T h u s r e c a l l L i p p s s o w n in v ita tio n to
d r a w a e s th e tic s in to th e f o ld o f e x p e r im e n ta l p s y c h o lo g y th ro u g h in tr o s p e c tiv e
study. T h e im p lic a tio n w a s th e a b ility to g e n e r a liz e c la im s a b o u t a e s th e tic
v a lu e f r o m th e r e p o r ts o f in d iv id u a l in te r n a l r e p o r ts th a t is , to m a k e
o b je c t iv e c la im s a b o u t a e s th e tic v a lu e b a s e d o n th e a r m c h a ir r e f le c tio n o f th e
th e o r is t. B u t a c tu a l la b o r a to r y s tu d y o n th e b a s is o f s u c h r e p o r ts , w h ic h w a s
d e f in itio n a l to e x p e r im e n ta l p s y c h o lo g y , c o n tr a d ic t e d th is e x p e c ta tio n .
E x p e rim e n ts i n d ic a te d b o th v a r y in g r e p o r ts b y th e s a m e o b s e r v e r i n r e s p o n s e
to th e s a m e o b je c ts a n d w i d e d if f e r e n c e s b e tw e e n in d iv id u a l o b s e r v e r s w ith in
g ro u p s , w h ic h r e s u lts s e e m e d to c o n fo u n d th e a s p i r a t i o n to e x p la i n o b je c t iv e
a e s th e tic v a lu e a t l e a s t f r o m a p s y c h o lo g ic a l p e r s p e c tiv e . T h is a s m u c h a s
a n y th in g p r o b a b l y e x p la in s w h y m o s t c o n te m p o r a r y g en eral h is to r ie s of
p s y c h o lo g y ta k e little o r n o n o tic e o f L ip p s , d e s p ite th e g r e a t p r a i s e h e
r e c e i v e d in h is o w n d a y b y th e r e p u te d fa th e rs o f th is n e w d i s c i p l i n e .23
O n th e o th e r h a n d , s o m e p a r tic u la r itie s o f L i p p s s lif e a n d w o r k c o m p lic a te
h is h is to r ic a l le g a c y , a n d d e m a n d a b r o a d e r e v a lu a tio n o f h is in flu e n c e . M o s t
im p o rta n t, L ip p s p o s ite d m u ltip le fo rm s of E in fu h lu n g , in c lu d in g an
in te r p e r s o n a l fo rm th a t he e la b o ra te d in to an an sw er to th e g en eral
e p is te m o lo g ic a l p r o b l e m o f o th e r m in d s (th e p r o b l e m o f h o w w e k n o w th a t
th e r e a r e o th e r m in d e d c r e a tu r e s b e s i d e s o u r s e lv e s , a n d w h a t th is k n o w le d g e
c o n s is ts in ) .24 S u c h r ic h e r , m o re s u b tle , a n d in a w o r d m o re p h ilo s o p h ic a l
e le m e n ts o f L i p p s s w o r k o n E in fu h lu n g h a d m o re la s tin g in flu e n c e th a n
T i t c h e n e r s t r i t e t r e a t m e n t o f e m p a t h y . T h i s l o n g e v i t y i s m o s t n o t a b l e in
p s y c h o a n a ly s is and p h e n o m e n o lo g y . The fo rm e r i n f l u e n c e , w h i c h c a n t b e
e x p a n d e d h e r e , i s d u e t o L i p p s s u n d e r a p p r e c i a t e d d i r e c t i n f l u e n c e o n F r e u d
( a n o v e r s ig h t th a t g o e s h a n d in h a n d w i t h a g e n e r a l n e g le c t o f th e im p o r t o f
e m p a t h y i n F r e u d i a n t h e o r y ) . 25 L i p p s s i n f l u e n c e o n e a r l y p h e n o m e n o l o g y w a s
e v e n g r e a t e r a n d b e a r s s p e c i a l r e l e v a n c e f o r o u r s tu d y . L i p p s h i m s e l f t r a i n e d
s e v e r a l e a r ly p h e n o m e n o lo g is ts , in c lu d in g A d o l f R e in a c h . F o r a tim e L ip p s
e v e n p a r t i c i p a te d in th e M u n ic h C i r c l e , o n e o f th e f ir s t p h e n o m e n o lo g ic a l
s o c ie tie s , w h ic h a ls o in c lu d e d a n o th e r p r o m in e n t e a r ly p h e n o m e n o lo g is t, M a x
S c h e le r . S c h e le r l a t e r d e p a r t e d to G o ttin g e n , w h e r e h e m e t h is in fo r m a l s tu d e n t
E d ith S te in , and b o th w e n t o n to w rite m a jo r tre a tis e s on s y m p a th y a n d
e m p a th y , in w h ic h L i p p s s c o n c e p t o f E in fu h lu n g w as c lo s e ly c ritiq u e d .
C e n t r a l t o t h e s e c r i t i q u e s w a s L i p p s s a p p l i c a t i o n o f E i n f u h l u n g t o t h e c l a s s i c
e p is te m o lo g ic a l p r o b le m o f o th e r m in d s . T h is is d o u b ly r e m a r k a b le . I n th e f ir s t
p la c e , a lth o u g h I v e fra m e d my ow n in q u iry in to th e re la tio n b e tw e e n
s y m p a th y a n d e m p a th y a ro u n d a d e c id e d ly p r a c t i c a l th e m e n a m e ly , a s a
p a r t o f a b r o a d e r p u z z le in m o ra l a n d p o litic a l p h ilo s o p h y a b o u t th e n a tu re o f
i n t e r p e r s o n a l r e c o g n i t i o n i t i s w o r t h n o t i n g t h a t p r a c t i c a l p h i l o s o p h y w a s n t
th e p r in c i p a l s o u r c e f o r th e c o n te m p o r a r y r e v i v a l o f in te r e s t in e m p a th y . T h is
c r e d i t g o e s to th e o r e tic a l p h ilo s o p h y . T h u s , it is p r im a r ily w ith in th e c o n te x t o f
th e p r o b le m o f o th e r m in d s th a t e m p a th y ( a n d b y e x te n s io n s y m p a th y ) f ir s t
r e e m e r g e d in th e c o n te m p o r a r y A n g lo - A m e r ic a n s c e n e , n a m e ly a s a c e n tr a l
p o in t in th e r e l a ti v e ly r e c e n t d e b a te b e tw e e n s o c a ll e d T h e o r y T h e o r ie s a n d
S im u la tio n T h e o r ie s o f m in d r e a d in g . I n th is d e b a te e m p a th y h a s fig u r e d
p r o m in e n tly in a tte m p ts to e x p lic a te a n d v in d ic a te s o - c a l le d f o lk p s y c h o lo g y ,
or our a b ility to in te rp re t a n d p r e d i c t th e b e h a v io r o f o th e rs as m in d e d
c re a tu re s . S eco n d (a n d i r o n i c a l l y g i v e n t h e h i s t o r y I v e j u s t r e l a t e d ) , i t i s
r e m a rk a b le th a t fo r n e a rly tw o d e c a d e s o f th is c o n te m p o r a r y m in d r e a d in g
d e b a te th e m a in p la y e rs a lm o s t to ta lly n e g le c te d th e lo n g tra d itio n of
p h e n o m e n o l o g i c a l i n v e s t i g a t i o n i n t o t h e p r o b l e m o f o t h e r m i n d s .26 T h a n k f u l l y ,
th is n e g le c t is n o w b e in g r e m e d ie d , a n d in tu rn , S te in a n d S c h e le r (a m o n g
o th e rs in th e p h e n o m e n o lo g ic a l tra d itio n ) a re g e ttin g b e tte r re c o g n itio n .
P e r h a p s L ip p s w i l l to o .
 2. Mu d d y Wa t e r s

[I]s is h a r d to im a g in e , G e o r g e P ig m a n r e m a r k e d in h is r e c e n t e x c e lle n t
a n a ly s is o f e m p a th y in F r e u d ia n th e o r y , th e p r o m in e n c e o f E i n fu h lu n g in
a e s th e tic s a n d p s y c h o lo g y a t th e e n d o f th e n in e te e n th a n d b e g in n in g o f th e
t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r y . 27 H e i s r i g h t , t o o , a s i s e v i d e n t f r o m e v e n a c u r s o r y r e v i e w
o f th e p e r io d , a lb e it, a s I s a id , th is b l a s t o f r e s e a r c h f a n n e d o u t r e l a ti v e ly
s u d d e n l y .28 P i g m a n s r e m a r k , h o w e v e r , i s n o t m e a n t a s m e r e d e s c r i p t i o n . I t i s a
w a r n in g a g a in s t to o - s im p le - to - b e - tr u e a c c o u n ts o f th e o r ig in a n d m e a n in g o f
E in fu h lu n g a n d e m p a th y ( in d e e d , P ig m a n c o r r e c ts a f e w s u c h a c c o u n ts
h i m s e l f ) . 29 F o r , th e usual c o ro lla ry to such e n e rg e tic s c h o la rs h ip is th e
d if f u s io n o f m e a n in g ; a n d tu rn - o f- th e - c e n tu r y s c h o la r s h ip o n E in fu h lu n g a n d
e m p a th y w a s n o e x c e p tio n . In d e e d , b o th c o n c e p ts b e c a m e b lu r r e d a lm o s t u p o n
in tro d u c tio n .
E in fu h lu n g f ir s t c a m e to th e f o r e in G e r m a n a e s th e tic s a f te r R o b e r t V is c h e r
in tr o d u c e d th e t e r m in 1 8 7 3 , f o llo w in g th e th e n h u g e ly in flu e n tia l H e r m a n n
L o t z e ( L o t z e u s e d t h e v e r b f o r m e in fu h le n , a s h a d , e v e n e a r l i e r , t h e G e r m a n
r o m a n t i c J o h a n n H e r d e r ) . 30 L o t z e a n d V i s c h e r i n s t a n t l y b r e d a l i v e l y i n d u s t r y
o f s c h o la r s h ip o n E in fu h lu n g , w h ic h f lu r ry o f w o r k p r o v o k e d a n e q u a lly q u ic k
e x p a n s i o n i n m e a n i n g .31 V i s c h e r h i m s e l f w a s p a r t y t o t h i s e x p a n s i o n , h a v i n g
in tr o d u c e d E in fu h lu n g a lo n g s id e a s e t o f c lo s e ly r e la te d c o n c e p ts in c lu d in g
A n fu h lu n g (a tte n tiv e fe e lin g ), N a c h fu h lu n g ( re s p o n s iv e f e e lin g ), and
Z u fu h lu n g (im m e d ia te fe e lin g ) a n d a ll in e x p lic it a d d itio n to M itfu h lu n g o r
s y m p a t h y . 32 W h e n L i p p s j o i n e d t h i s m i l i e u a f e w y e a rs la te r h e fu rth e r
c o m p lic a te d m a tte r s b y o f f e r in g a t l e a s t fo u r ty p e s o f E in fu h lu n g , a ll o f w h ic h ,
i t s e e m s , c o u l d b e p o s i t i v e o r n e g a t i v e . 33 M o r e o v e r , L i p p s f a i l e d t o d r a w
a n e a t d is tin c tio n w ith s y m p a th y ( w h ic h L ip p s d id n o t, by c o n tra s t w ith
V is c h e r, a lw a y s r e n d e r a s M itfu h lu n g ). I n d e e d , L ip p s o f te n u s e d th e tw o te rm s
s y n o n y m o u s l y 34 a c o n fla tio n , by th e w ay, T itc h e n e r re p lic a te d w hen he
i n t r o d u c e d e m p a t h y . I n a n y e v e n t , t h e p r o l i f e r a t i o n o f m e a n i n g w a s s o q u i c k
th a t a s e a r ly a s 1 8 9 8 th e p io n e e r in g G e r m a n p s y c h o lo g is t a n d p h ilo s o p h e r
W il li a m S te r n ( w h o in v e n te d th e in te llig e n c e q u o tie n t o r I Q ), f e lt c o m p e lle d
to o b je c t to th e p a ra d o x ic a l and s lo g a n - lik e c h a ra c te r o f th e te rm
E i n fu h lu n g .
 I t w a s in to th is s w a m p th a t T itc h e n e r d r o p p e d e m p a th y . A s a l r e a d y n o te d ,
T i tc h e n e r s o w n m u s in g s o n e m p a th y /E in fu h lu n g d i d n t in flu e n c e m a n y in a
s u b s ta n tiv e w a y . H o w e v e r , h is tr a n s la t io n d id . T h u s b y 1 9 3 2 G a r d n e r M u rp h y
( l a t e r e le c te d p r e s i d e n t o f th e A m e r ic a n P s y c h o lo g ic a l A s s o c ia tio n ) w a s a b le
to say , s p e a k in g m o s tly w i t h r e f e r e n c e to E n g lis h - la n g u a g e s c h o la r s h ip , th a t
E in fu h lu n g ( e m p a th y ) h a d c o m e in to g e n e r a l p s y c h o lo g ic a l u s e . A n d y e t,
a s o n e m ig h t e x p e c t, th e a d d itio n o f e m p a th y o n ly a d d e d c o m p lic a tio n . T h r e e
y e a r s a f te r M u r p h y s p r o n o u n c e m e n t, th e p r o m in e n t p s y c h o a n a ly s t T h e o d o r
R e ik c o m p la in e d about th e e v e r - e x p a n d in g ta x o n o m y o f m e a n in g s fo r
e m p a th y , a c o m p la in t th a t w a s r e t r o s p e c t i v e l y c o n f ir m e d in 1 9 5 7 b y fa m e d
G e s ta lt r e s e a r c h e r A b r a h a m L u c h in s , w h o , in r e v i e w i n g th e in te r m e d ia te y e a r s ,
d e c l a r e d th a t e m p a th y h a d b e c o m e s o th in , [ c o n s i d e r a t i o n o f th e s ta tu s o f
th e c o n s tr u c t o f e m p a th y f i r s t r e q u ir e s s tip u la tio n o f its m e a n in g . L u c h in s f ir s t
n o te d th r e e p r im a r y u s e s th a t th e n e w t e r m e m p a th y w a s a lte r n a t iv e ly u s e d
to p i c k out: ( 1 ) a k in d o f in te r p e r s o n a l u n d e r s ta n d in g , ( 2 ) a n a w a r e n e s s o f
e m o tio n a l q u a litie s o f o b je c ts a n d e v e n ts , o r ( 3 ) th e p r o c e s s b y w h ic h th is
u n d e r s ta n d in g o r a w a r e n e s s c o m e s a b o u t. H e th e n q u ic k ly a d d e d a ju m b le
o f fu rth e r e x p l i c i t th e o r e tic a l c a n d id a te s , c o v e r in g e v e r y th in g f r o m L i p p s s
o w n n o tio n o f in n e r m o to r im ita tio n to e a r l y s o c io l o g ic a l m o d e ls o f s y m p a th y
f r o m W i l l i a m M c D o u g a ll a n d G e o r g e M e a d , to G e s ta lt p s y c h o lo g ic a l c o n c e p ts
o f d i r e c t p e r c e p t i o n o f e m o tio n s , to th e d o c tr in e o f V erstehen o f f e r e d b y
W ilh e lm D ilth e y a n d E d u a r d S p ra n g e r, to F r e u d s p s y c h o a n a ly tic d is tin c tio n
b e tw e e n a k in d o f g e n u in e e m p a th y a n d a p r o c e s s o f id e n tif ic a tio n ( a lb e it
L u c h in s a ls o n o te d th a t s o m e p s y c h o lo g is ts u s e id e n tif ic a tio n a s s y n o n y m o u s
w ith e m p a th y ). A nd p r e s u m a b ly th is lis t is o n ly illu s tr a tiv e . W ith o u t
u n r e a s o n a b ly b e n d in g h is e x p lic itly s o c i a l p s y c h o lo g ic a l p e r s p e c tiv e , w e
m ig h t w e l l a d d J o h n S tu a rt M ill, H e r b e r t S p e n c e r , a n d C h a r le s C o o le y fro m
th e A n g lo - S a x o n tr a d itio n , a n d T h e o d u le R ib o t, M a x S c h e le r , a n d E d i th S te in
f r o m th e E u r o p e a n o n e .35
T o r e ite r a te , h o w e v e r , th e p o in t o f th e f o r e g o in g h is to r ic a l r e v i e w is n o t
th a t n o th in g o f c o n c e p tu a l v a lu e c a n b e d is c e r n e d in s u c h m u d d y w a te r s . T h e
p o in t is th a t w h a te v e r is e x tr a c te d , n a m e ly , th e n a tu re o f e m p a th y / E in fu h lu n g ,
c a n t b e g e n e r a liz e d to th e tim e p e r io d . I t m u s t s p e a k f o r i t s e l f a n d in lig h t o f
in d e p e n d e n t c o n s id e r a tio n s a n d in te r e s ts w e h a v e n o w , f r o m o u r c u rre n t
v a n ta g e p o in t lo o k in g b a c k .
O n th a t n o te , ju m p to th e r e la tiv e p r e s e n t a n d th e s o c ia l p s y c h o lo g is t L a u re n
W i s p e s d is tin c tio n b e tw e e n s y m p a th y and e m p a th y : E m p a th y , u n lik e
s y m p a th y , d e n o te s a n a c ti v e r e f e r e n t. I n e m p a th y o n e a tte n d s to th e f e e lin g s o f
a n o th e r ; in s y m p a th y o n e a tte n d s to th e s u f f e r in g o f a n o th e r, b u t th e f e e lin g s a r e
o n e s o w n . I n e m p a t h y I t r y t o f e e l y o u r p a i n . I n s y m p a t h y I k n o w y o u a r e i n
p a in , a n d I s y m p a th iz e w ith y o u , b u t I fe e l m y s y m p a th y a n d m y p a in , n o t y o u r
a n g u is h and your p a i n . 36 N ow c o m p a re W i s p e s d e fin itio n to a n o th e r
p ro m in e n t rec e n t s u g g e s tio n fro m th e p h ilo s o p h e r S te p h e n D a rw a ll.
S y m p a t h e t i c c o n c e r n o r s y m p a t h y , D a r w a l l w r i t e s , is

a feeling or emotion that (a) responds to some apparent threat or obstacle to an individuals good or
well-being, (b) has that individual himself as object, and (c) involves concern for him, and thus for
his well-being, for his sake. Seeing the child on the verge of falling, one is concerned for his safety,
not just for its (his safetys) sake, but for his sake. One is concerned for him. Sympathy for the child
is a way of caring for (and about) him... . Sympathy differs in this respect from several distinct
psychological phenomena usually collected under the term empathy which need not involve such
concern. 37

W h a te v e r th e ir d iffe re n c e s , th e re a re som e s trik in g c o n v e rg e n c e s b e tw e e n

W is p e a n d D a rw a ll. F ir s t, w i t h r e s p e c t to s y m p a th y , b o th c l e a r l y i f o n ly
g e n e r a l l y a s s o c i a t e s y m p a t h y w i t h n e g a t i v e l y v a l e n c e d e m o t i o n s . S y m p a th y ,
w h e n w e f e e l i t a s s p e c ta to r s , is p r im a r ily d i r e c te d a t th e s u f f e r in g o r p a i n o f
a n o t h e r p e r s o n ( s o m e a c t o r ) . E m p a t h y , b y c o n t r a s t , d o e s n t c l e a r l y h a v e t h i s
g e n e r ic c o n s tr a in t, a c c o r d in g to W is p e a n d D a r w a l l (th u s m a k in g e m p a th y
p r i m a f a c i e c l o s e r t o w h a t H u m e a n d A d a m S m i t h s a i d o f s y m p a t h y , n a m e l y
t h a t i t w a s a f e l l o w - f e e l i n g w i t h a n y p a s s i o n w h a t e v e r ) . 38 S e c o n d , a n d s t i l l
r e g a r d in g s y m p a th y , f o r b o th W is p e a n d D a r w a l l , th e s u f f e r in g o f th e o th e r
( w h a t w e m ig h t c a ll th e o b j e c t e m o tio n ) is n o t th e o n ly a f f e c t o r e m o tio n f e lt b y
th e s p e c ta to r. In s te a d , s y m p a th y in v o lv e s so m e fu r th e r fe e lin g o f c a re or
c o n c e r n s o m e p r o a c tiv e m o tiv a tio n a l a f f e c t d ir e c te d a t th e o b j e c t e m o tio n
o r t h e p e r s o n e x p r e s s i n g it. I n o t h e r w o r d s , t o p u t i t c r u d e l y , s y m p a t h y =
e m p a th y + c a r e . D a r w a ll is a d m itte d ly m o re e x p lic it a b o u t th is , b u t in h e r
l a t e r w r i t i n g W i s p e w o u l d e s s e n t i a l l y a n d m o r e c l e a r l y p r e s s t h e s a m e p o i n t . 39
B u t m y r e a l i n t e r e s t i s n t t h i s a g r e e m e n t a b o u t s y m p a t h y . I n s t e a d , I i n t r o d u c e
th e s e c o n te m p o ra ry v ie w p o in ts f o r w h a t th e y su g g est ab o u t one p o s s ib le
c o n c e p t io n o f e m p a th y . B o th W is p e a n d D a r w a l l id e n tif y a s a d is tin g u is h in g
f e a tu re o f e m p a th y s o m e k in d o f d i r e c t a tte n tio n to o r r e g a r d f o r th e o th e r ( o r
a t le a s t h e r e x p e r ie n c e s ) a s o th e r; th a t is , u n b u rd e n e d b y a n y m o tiv a tio n a l c a re
f o r o r i n t e r e s t in t h e o t h e r o r h e r e x p e r i e n c e s . E m p a t h y , i n t h i s s e n s e , i s t h u s
p o t e n t ia l ly p r im a r y w i t h r e s p e c t to s y m p a th y . E m p a th y is th e a w a r e n e s s o f, o r
a tte n tio n to , o r p a r t i c i p a t i o n in , th e e m o tio n s a n d e x p e r ie n c e s o f o th e rs p r i o r
to , o r a t l e a s t in d is tin c tio n fro m , a n y a ttitu d e w e ta k e to w a r d th o s e e m o tio n s o r
th e a c to r s w h o e x p r e s s th e m , w h e th e r th a t a ttitu d e b e th e p e c u l i a r c a r in g o f
s y m p a th y o r a n y th in g e ls e . T h u s D a r w a l l la te r e la b o r a te s : [In e m p a th y ] i t is
th e o th e r S s ta n d p o in t th a t is s a lie n t, in th is c a s e , th e c h i l d s a s h e f a c e s th e
p r o s p e c t o f f a llin g d o w n th e w e ll. E m p a th y c o n s is ts in f e e lin g w h a t o n e
im a g in e s h e f e e ls , o r p e r h a p s s h o u ld fe e l (fe a r, s a y ) , o r in s o m e im a g in e d c o p y
o f th e s e f e e lin g s , w h e th e r o n e c o m e s th e r e b y to b e c o n c e r n e d f o r th e c h ild o r
n o t. 40 T h u s D a r w a l l , lik e W is p e , h ig h lig h ts a p e c u li a r fo c u s o n th e o th e r a s a
d is tin g u is h in g fe a tu re o f e m p a th y . I n d o in g s o , b o th a u th o rs tu r n o u t to f o ll o w a
th r e a d th a t, a s w e w i l l s e e , ru n s c o n tin u o u s ly th ro u g h th e tw i s t e d p a th fr o m
E in fu h lu n g to e m p a th y , a n d e v e n p u lls to g e th e r th e E in fu h lu n g -e m p a th y
n a r r a tiv e w i t h tu r n - o f - th e - c e n tu r y th e o r iz in g a b o u t sy m p ath y . A d m itte d ly , i t is a
r a th e r th in th r e a d , w i t h s u b s ta n tiv e d if f e r e n c e s d iv id in g a ll th e a c c o u n ts in
q u e s tio n . O n th e o th e r h a n d , th e r e a r e n o th ic k th r e a d s h e re . M o r e o v e r , it
w o u ld b e a m is ta k e to c o n fu s e th in n e s s w i t h im p o rt. A s I s a i d a t th e o u ts e t, fo r
a n y o n e in v e s te d in l i b e r a l o r e g a li ta r ia n id e a l s , th e r e is a m o r a lly u rg e n t n e e d
to e x p lic a te th e n a tu re o f in te r p e r s o n a l r e c o g n itio n , e s p e c i a l l y th e s e n s e in
w h ic h in d iv id u a ls a r e r e c o g n iz e d a s in d iv id u a ls . A n d n o w i t s e e m s th a t a t
l e a s t p a r t o f th is e x p la n a tio n lie s in th e e m p a th y -s y m p a th y k n o t.
B e f o r e m o v in g o n , h o w e v e r , I m u s t p la c e a m a rk e r. A n y o n e r e m o te ly
f a m ilia r w i t h th e lite r a tu r e o n s y m p a th y a n d e m p a th y w i l l r e c o g n iz e a t o n c e
th a t D a r w a l l , in v ir tu e o f r e n d e r in g e m p a th y a s a p r o c e s s o f im a g in a tiv e
p e r s p e c tiv e ta k in g , a lig n s h im s e lf w ith a s im u la tio n is t th e o r y o f th e
phenom ena in q u e s tio n th a t is , w i t h th a t c a m p w h ic h c la im s th a t o u r
k n o w le d g e , u n d e rs ta n d in g , r e c o g n itio n , a n d s o o n , o f th e m e n ta l s ta te s o f o th e r
m in d e d b e in g s d e p e n d s o n u s in g th e r e s o u r c e s o f [o u r] o w n m in d s to
s im u la te th e m e n ta l s ta te s o f th a t o th e r b e in g .41 T h is is h a r d ly a n e w o r
m in o r ity v ie w . A d a m S m ith a p p e a r s to d is tin g u is h h is th e o r y o f s y m p a th y fro m
H u m e s p r e c i s e l y o n s im u la tio n is t g ro u n d s , a n d e v e r s in c e m a n y h a v e s e e n fit
to s itu a te th e ir th e o r ie s u s in g a s im ila r d is tin c tio n , w h e th e r th e y la b e l it
s y m p a th y , e m p a th y , o r a n y th in g e ls e . A r e le v a n t e x c e p tio n , h o w e v e r , is th e
f ie ld o f p h e n o m e n o lo g y . M a n y in th is tr a d i t i o n w i l l n o t w i s h to e x p la in
e m p a th y in th is w a y , f o r r e a s o n s th a t w i l l b e c o m e c l e a r e r la te r.
 3. A e s t h e t i c E i n f u h l u n g : A Closer Look at Lipps

A s a l r e a d y n o t e d , L i p p s p o s t u l a t e d m o r e t h a n o n e k i n d o f E i n f u h l u n g , a n d it
i s n t e s p e c i a l l y c l e a r h o w t h e y a l l r e l a t e . I w i l l l i m i t m y s e l f i n t h i s s e c t i o n t o
th e p r im a r y f o r m th a t h e u s e d to e x p la in a e s th e tic e x p e r ie n c e . T h is a e s th e tic
E in fu h lu n g c o m b in e s tw o in n a te p s y c h o lo g ic a l in s tin c ts or im p u ls e s :
p r o je c ti o n a n d m o to r m im ic r y o r im ita tio n . T h e r e s u l t is a m e c h a n is tic p r o c e s s
o f in n e r im ita tio n ( th o u g h L ip p s la te r r e g r e tte d th a t d e s c r ip tio n ) , w h e r e b y w e
p r o je c t o u r o w n k in e s th e tic fe e lin g s a r o u s e d b y s o m e o b je c t w e a re a tte n d in g
t o , t h a t i s , t h r o u g h t h e i n s t i n c t i v e i m i t a t i o n , b a c k in to t h a t o b j e c t w h e t h e r t h a t
o b j e c t b e B a r y s h n i k o v l e a p i n g a c r o s s t h e s t a g e o r R o d i n s L e p e n s e u r f r o z e n
i n c o n t e m p l a t i o n o r e v e n t h e f l y i n g b u t t r e s s e s o f a b a s i l i c a .42
E x a c tly h o w L ip p s a r r i v e d a t h is in itia l v i e w s is n o t c le a r. G iv e n th a t h e
t r a n s l a t e d H u m e s T r e a tis e o f H u m a n N a tu r e i n t o G e r m a n , o n e w o n d e r s if
s o m e t h i n g o f H u m e s m e c h a n i s t i c t h e o r y o f s y m p a t h y i m p r e s s e d L i p p s . B u t i f
H u m e s in flu e n c e on L ip p s is u n e x p lo re d s c h o la rly te rra in , a p o in t of
consensus is th a t L ip p s c l o s e l y f o l l o w e d th e G e r m a n a r t h is to r ia n , R o b e r t
V i s c h e r 43 V i s c h e r a ls o d is tin g u is h e d E in fu h lu n g a s an im ita tiv e p ro ce ss
c o n jo in e d to s o m e k in d o f in s tin c tu a l p ro je c tio n . In h is w o r d s , a s p e c ta to r
u n c o n s c io u s ly d i s p l a c e s its o w n b o d i l y f o r m a n d th e r e b y a ls o th e s o u l
i n t o t h e f o r m o f t h e o b j e c t . 44 M o r e o v e r , a n d c r u c i a l l y , V i s c h e r a n d L i p p s b o t h
a s s e r t th a t th e e n d r e s u l t o f th e i m ita tiv e - p r o je c tiv e p r o c e s s ( w h i c h is n o t y e t
a e s th e tic e x p e r ie n c e ) is a p s y c h o lo g ic a l id e n tif ic a tio n w i t h th e o b j e c t ( w h ic h
i d e n t if i c a t io n is a t l e a s t p a r t l y a e s th e tic e x p e r ie n c e ; n a m e ly , a s w e w i l l s e e in
a m o m e n t, w h a t L ip p s c a l l s th e g r o u n d s o f a e s th e tic e x p e r ie n c e ) . L ip p s , in
p a rtic u la r, e m p h a s iz e d th is id e n tific a tio n . He a ls o in s is te d th a t th is
id e n tif ic a tio n is c o n s titu te d b y a n e s s e n tia lly s u b je c tiv e e x p e r ie n c e . T h u s , h e
c o n tr a s te d it to , o n th e o n e h a n d , w h a t w e p e r c e iv e to b e in th e o b je c t, lik e
c o lo r ; a n d , o n th e o th e r h a n d , w h a t w e p e r c e iv e to b e in o u r b o d ie s , lik e
h u n g e r . A s L i p p s p u t s it, t h e d o i n g o r t h e a c t i v i t y , t h e e n d e a v o r , t h e s t r i v i n g ,
t h e s u c c e e d i n g , t h a t I f e e l [ i n E i n f u h l u n g ]. T h e s e b e l o n g t o t h e e g o ; m o r e t h a n
t h a t , t h e y a r e t h e e g o o r c o n s t i t u t e it: I f e e l m y s e l f a c t i v e . 45
For e x a m p le , su p p o se you o b se rv e som eone s tre tc h in g out her a rm .
A c c o r d in g to L ip p s y o u a r e in n a te ly d i s p o s e d to im ita te th is m o v e m e n t. N o w ,
y o u m a y d o s o d e lib e r a te ly , b y a c tu a lly s tr e tc h in g o u t y o u r o w n a rm . I n th is
c a s e y o u h a v e tw o r e p r e s e n ta tio n s : o n th e o n e h a n d y o u h a v e s o m e im p r e s s io n
o r m e n ta l im a g e o f w h a t th e p e r s o n is d o in g (th r o u g h o b s e r v a tio n ) c o m b in e d
w i t h s o m e k n o w le d g e (b a se d o n y o u r e x p e r ie n c e ) o f th e o th e r p e r s o n s
e x p e r ie n c e o f h e r a r m s tr e tc h in g ( s o m e s e n s e o f h e r f r e e d o m a n d p r i d e o f
a c tio n , L ip p s s a y s ); a n d o n th e o th e r h a n d y o u a ls o e x p e r ie n c e y o u r o w n
m ovem ent and fe e l y o u r o w n a c tiv ity , f r e e d o m , p r i d e . 46 B u t th is
c o m p le x th is o p p o s itio n of r e p r e s e n ta tio n s is not E in fu h lu n g . In
E in fu h lu n g , th is o p p o s itio n is a b s o lu t e ly d o n e a w a y w ith . T h e tw o a r e s im p ly
o n e ... .A n d i t is j u s t b e c a u s e o f th is th a t I fe e l m y s e l f p e r f o r m in g th is
m o v e m e n t in th e o t h e r s m o v e m e n t. 47 T h u s , in a c a s e o f o b s e r v in g a p e r s o n
s tr e tc h in g o u t h e r a rm , to im ita te in w a rd ly is to e x p e r ie n c e a s e n s e o f a c tiv ity
o r s tr iv in g a s p a r t a n d p a r c e l o f th e e x p e r ie n c e o f o b s e r v a tio n . T h a t is , a s
G u s ta v J a h o d a h e lp f u lly in te r p r e ts L ip p s , y o u e x p e r ie n c e a f e e lin g o f e ffo rt
w ith o u t a c tu a lly m o v in g . 48 B u t a g a in , y o u d o n t e x p e r ie n c e th is im ita tio n
c o n s c io u s ly , a s i f i t w e r e in w a r d . Y o u p r o j e c t th is k in e s th e tic f e e lin g b a c k
o n to th e o b j e c t y o u a r e o b s e r v in g ( i n th is c a s e th e p e r s o n s tr e tc h in g h e r a rm ).
L ip p s w r i t e s w i t h a flo u ris h :

In a word, I am now with my feeling of activity entirely and wholly in the moving figure. Even
spatially, if we can speak of the spatial extent of the ego, I am in its [the figures] place. I am
transported into it. I am, so far as my consciousness is concerned, entirely and wholly identical with
it. Thus feeling myself active in the observed human figure, I feel also in it free, facile, proud. This
is esthetic imitation and it is at the same time esthetic empathy [Einfuhlung]49

N o tic e th e q u a lita tiv e e la b o ra tio n in th e p e n u ltim a te s e n te n c e , a lr e a d y

f o r e s h a d o w e d in th e d e s c r i p t i o n o f o u tw a r d im ita tio n . W h a t b e g in s a s a c la im
a b o u t th e in n e r im ita tio n o f th e o b s e r v e d m o v e m e n t p e r s e , b e c o m e s a m u c h
th ic k e r e m o tiv e d e s c r ip tio n , o n e th a t is l a d e n w ith p o s itiv e v a lu e c o n n o ta tio n s :
fr e e , f a c ile ( i.e ., e a s y a n d s u c c e s s f u l) , p ro u d . F r o m th is o n e s e n s e s h o w L ip p s
w ill a r r i v e a t a n e a t e x p la n a tio n o f a e s th e tic p l e a s u r e w h ic h e x p la n a tio n
c o u ld in tu r n b e c o n jo in e d s tr a ig h tf o r w a r d ly to a th e o r y a b o u t ju d g m e n ts o f
b e a u ty . F o r s u c h f e e lin g s th e f r e e d o m , e a s e , a c h ie v e m e n t, p r i d e a r e n o t
o n ly p r im a f a c ie p le a s in g b u t a ls o id e n tic a l w i t h th e p r o j e c t e d e x p e r ie n c e .
T h u s th e o b j e c t is p e r c e i v e d a s p le a s in g .
Two e la b o r a ti o n s o f th e g e n eral id e a a re w o rth m e n tio n in g . F ir s t,
E in fu h lu n g th e o r ie s s ta n d as a c o u n te r p o in t to ro m a n tic c o n c e p tio n s of
sy m p a th y , lik e th o s e e x p r e s s e d b y H e r d e r , w h e r e i n i t w a s s u g g e s te d th a t
a e s th e tic e x p e r ie n c e in v o lv e d s o m e th in g c lo s e r to a r e a l ( i.e ., m e ta p h y s ic a l a s
opposed to p s y c h o lo g ic a l) u n io n w ith e x te rn a l o b je c ts , b o th a n im a te and
i n a n i m a t e . O r a t l e a s t , L i p p s c l e a r l y i n t e n d e d E i n f u h l u n g t h i s w a y .50 T h u s
L ip p s a rg u e d e x p lic itly th a t w h a te v e r w e fe e l th ro u g h th e in n e r im ita tio n o f
E in fu h lu n g w a s b u t th e g r o u n d s o f a e s th e tic e x p e r ie n c e . T h e a e s th e tic o b je c t
( t h e o b j e c t o f t h e a e s t h e t i c e x p e r i e n c e ) i s , b y c o n t r a s t , a n e x p r e s s io n o f t h e s e
p s y c h o l o g i c a l g r o u n d s , t h a t i s , o f E i n fu h lu n g . I n d e e d , L i p p s a s s e r t e d t h a t t h e
c o n n e c tio n b e t w e e n E in fu h lu n g a n d A u s d r u c k , o r e x p r e s s io n , is d e f in itio n a l.
A s L i p p s p u t s it, i n E i n f u h l u n g w e p r e s s o u t o u r f e e l i n g s o n t o e x t e r n a l
o b je c ts . T h e a e s th e tic o b j e c t th u s e n d s u p a n e x - p r e s s io n , a n o u t- p r e s s in g , a
s q u e e z in g o u t, a s o f g r a p e s to m a k e w i n e . H e n c e , [ i] n a e s th e tic e x p e r ie n c e , a
s e n s u o u s o b j e c t d i s t i n c t f r o m m e e x p r e s s e s [ a u s d r u c k t] s o m e t h i n g i n t e r i o r o r
s o u l - l i k e . 51 U ltim a te ly , th e n , and c o n tra ro m a n tic v ie w s , th e o b je c t of
a e s th e tic e x p e r ie n c e r e m a in s th e a e s th e tic o b je c t its e lf , w h ic h w e c o n te m p la te
fro m a s u ita b le d i s t a n c e . 52 T h e re is no m e ta p h y s ic a l im p lic a tio n to
E in fu h lu n g .
S e c o n d , a lth o u g h L ip p s i n it ia l ly r a n to g e th e r h is d e s c r i p ti o n o f E in fu h lu n g
w ith h is account of a e s th e tic p le a s u re , he la te r d is tin g u is h e d n a tu ra l
E in fu h lu n g a s th e b a s ic p r o c e s s o f im ita tio n a n d p r o je c ti o n p r io r to a n y f e lt
p l e a s u r e .53 C o r r e s p o n d i n g l y , L i p p s a l s o l a t e r c l a r i f i e d t h a t n o t a l l E i n f u h l u n g
w a s p le a s in g . S o w h a t e x a c tly a r e th e c o n d itio n s u n d e r w h ic h E in fu h lu n g is
p le a s in g ? I t w o u ld b e m is le a d in g to s u g g e s t L ip p s p r o v id e s a c le a r a n s w e r to
th is c r u c ia l q u e s tio n . R o u g h ly , h e s e e m s to s u g g e s t th a t w h a t o n e c a n in w a r d ly
im ita te in s o m e s e n s e s u c c e s s f u lly o r e a s ily g iv e s p le a s u r e ; o th e r w is e
d is c o m f o r t. T h e q u e s tio n th u s b e c o m e s w h a t c o n s titu te s o r c o n d itio n s e a s y
o r s u c c e s s f u l im ita tio n ? B u t to th is q u e s tio n , L ip p s s e e m s to o f fe r d iff e re n t
a n sw e rs. S o m e tim e s L ip p s seem s to im p ly a p h y s io lo g ic a lly re d u c tiv e
p o s s ib ility . T h is p r e s u m a b ly s te m s f r o m V is c h e r , w h o a r g u e d , f o r e x a m p le , th a t
s p e c ta to r s fe e l p h y s ic a l d is c o m fo rt w h ile lo o k in g a t a s in g le v e r tic a l lin e o n a
b l a n k p a g e . A h o r iz o n ta l lin e is p l e a s i n g b e c a u s e th e e y e s a r e p o s it i o n e d
h o r iz o n ta lly , he d e c la re d , w h e re as a v e rtic a l lin e , by c o n tra s t, can be
d is tu rb in g w hen p e rc e iv e d in is o la tio n f o r ... it c o n tr a d ic ts th e b in o c u la r
s tru c tu re o f th e p e rc e iv in g eyes and fo rc e s th e m to fu n c tio n in a m o re
c o m p l i c a t e d w a y . 54 T h i s c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n w o u l d g e t p i c k e d o n l a t e r , b u t i n a n y
e v e n t w a s o v e r s h a d o w e d b y tw o o th e r e x p la n a tio n s L ip p s d is c u s s e s a t g re a te r
le n g th .
 O n th e o n e h a n d , L ip p s p o s tu la te s a th ir d p s y c h ic d r iv e b e h in d E in fu h lu n g ,
in a d d it io n to p r o je c ti o n a n d im ita tio n . I n th e in s tin c tiv e u rg e o f s e lf- a c tiv ity
h e w r i t e s , l i e s i ts u l t i m a t e b a s e . 55 H o w e v e r , L i p p s i m m e d i a t e l y a d d s t h a t it
is e q u a lly p s y c h o lo g ic a lly fu n d a m e n ta l th a t th is d e s ir e f o r s e lf - a c ti v i ty c a n b e
s a ti s f i e d b y c o n te m p la tin g th e o b je c t th a t s tim u la te d th e im ita tiv e p r o c e s s o f
E in fu h lu n g i n t h e f i r s t p l a c e ; f o r e x a m p l e , b y a t t e n d i n g t o a n o t h e r p e r s o n s a r m
r e a c h i n g , I c a n b o t h a r o u s e a n d s a t i s f y a n f u n d a m e n t a l d e s i r e t o be a c t i v e . I n
s a y in g s o , L ip p s s e e m s to im p ly th a t s o m e o b je c ts s tr ik e th e m in d w i t h a c le a r
id e a of p r o d u c tiv e a c t i v i t y . T h a t i s , L i p p s seem s to be a p p e a lin g to a
n o r m a tiv e n o tio n o f a c tiv ity , w h ic h i t s e l f tu rn e d o n th e id e a o f s u c c e s s . O r a t
le a s t, r e a d in g L ip p s th is w a y y ie ld s a r e a d y a n s w e r to th e q u e s tio n , w h a t
c o n d itio n s e a s y o r s u c c e s s f u l im ita tio n ? F o r a g iv e n o b je c t, i f th e in w a r d
im ita tio n i ts e lf s u g g e sts ( is o f) s u c c e s s fu l a c tiv ity ( u n d e r s to o d b r o a d ly a s
a c ti v it y th a t is i t s e l f e a s y , u n e n c u m b e r e d , u n o b s tr u c te d , e tc .) , th e n th e s e j u s t a r e
th e o b je c ts w e e a s i l y im ita te , o r im ita te s u c c e s s fu lly . I n tu rn , w e w i l l ta k e
p le a s u r e in s u c h o b je c ts a n d f in d th e m b e a u tifu l. B y c o n tr a s t, o b je c ts th a t c a n
o n ly b e im ita te d th ro u g h s o m e k in d o f f ru s tra te d a c tiv ity (u n d e r s to o d b r o a d ly
a s a c tiv ity th a t is im p e d e d , a w k w a r d , u n w illin g , e tc .) w i l l b e th e o n e s w e
s t r u g g l e t o i m i t a t e , a n d i n t u r n f i n d p a i n f u l a n d u g ly . A n d t h i s d o e s i n d e e d f i t
s o m e o f w h a t L ip p s s a y s . L ip p s th u s o f f e r e d e x a m p le s lik e g a z in g o n D o r i c
c o l u m n s : T h e s e l f - r a i s i n g o f t h e c o l u m n i s i ts p r o p e r a c t i v i t y . T h e r e b y t h e
t e r m a c ti v it y is m e a n t i n its fu ll s e n s e : e x e r tio n , e f f o r t, u s e o f f o r c e ; a u s e o f
fo rc e th a t a c h ie v e s s o m e th in g . A g a in , Jahoda h e lp fu lly in te r p re ts L ip p s :
W h a t w e im m e d ia te ly a n d u n r e f le c tiv e ly p e r c e iv e as its a c h ie v e m e n t, h e
a l l e g e d , i s t h e c a r r y i n g o f i ts o w n w e i g h t a n d t h a t o f t h e w a l l i t s u p p o r t s . I n
o th e r w o r d s , w e in v o lu n ta r ily a r r i v e a t a m e c h a n ic a l in te r p r e ta tio n , a n d th is , in
tu rn , c o n s titu te s a n a n a lo g y b a s e d o n o u r p e r s o n a l e x p e r ie n c e o f a c tin g o n o u r
e n v i r o n m e n t . 56 L i p p s t h u s s u m m a r i z e s : I sy m p a th iz e [ s y m p a t i s i r e ] w i t h t h e
m a n n e r th e D o r ic c o lu m n b e h a v e s o r te s tif ie s to a n in n e r l iv e li n e s s , b e c a u s e I
re c o g n iz e th e re in a n a tu ra l m ode o f b e h a v io r of my ow n th a t g iv e s me
h a p p in e s s . T h u s, a ll p le a s u r e p r o d u c e d b y s p a tia l fo rm s, a n d w e , c a n a d d , a n y
k in d o f a e s th e tic p l e a s u r e , is a f e e lin g o f s y m p a th y [ S y m p a th ie g e f u h l] th a t
m akes us h a p p y . 57 T h e te rm in o lo g y o f s y m p a th y is s trik in g h e re , and
re m in d s us th a t L ip p s w as p ro n e to u s in g s y m p a th y and E in fu h lu n g
s y n o n y m o u s ly . B u t i t a ls o h in ts a t th e s e c o n d s e n s e th a t L ip p s s e e m s to h a v e
o f f e r e d to e x p la i n w h y s o m e in n e r im ita tio n is e a s y o r s u c c e s s f u l a n d th u s
p le a s u ra b le .
 L ip p s e x p lic itly d is tin g u is h e d a p o s itiv e fo rm o f E in fu h lu n g fro m a
n e g a tiv e o n e o n th e b a s is o f w h e th e r w h a t h a s b e e n s e n s u o u s ly a s c e r ta i n e d
i n E i n f u h l u n g i s i n a g r e e m e n t w i t h m y i n n e r m o s t n a t u r e o r a n e g a t i o n o f it.
T h i s i s a d m i t t e d l y c r y p t i c . W o r s e , i t a r g u a b l y c u t s a g a i n s t L i p p s s a s p i r a t i o n t o
e s ta b lis h a n o b je c tiv e a c c o u n t o f a e s th e tic e x p e rie n c e , in s o fa r a s it w o u ld
p r im a f a c ie s e e m to in v ite a r e l a ti v e s ta n d a r d f o r th e a g r e e m e n t in q u e s tio n
u n l e s s L i p p s w a s e s s e n t i a l i z i n g h u m a n n a t u r e , w h i c h d o e s n t s e e m t o h a v e
b e e n h i s i n te n t. T h i s w o r r y a s i d e , L i p p s d i d s o m e t i m e s e x p l a i n p o s i t i v e
E in fu h lu n g le s s m y s te r io u s ly a s a n e x p e r ie n c e o f h a rm o n y w i t h th e o b je c t,
and even a llo w e d th a t th is e x p e rie n c e c o u ld fo r th is re a so n be c a lle d
s y m p a th e tic E in fu h lu n g " ( w i th n e g a tiv e E in fu h lu n g b e in g a n e x p e r ie n c e o f
d i s c o r d ) . 58 I m p o r t a n t l y , t h e h a r m o n y i n q u e s t i o n w a s p s y c h i c , i n t h e s e n s e o f a n
e g o e x p e r ie n c e . It is a h a rm o n y b e tw e e n a f o r e ig n lif e a n d e g o a n d m y
o w n lif e a n d e g o l i t e r a l l y m y o w n d r iv e s , n e e d s , a n d s e n s e o f s e lf. L ip p s
w e n t s o f a r a s to id e n tif y c a s e s o f f u ll p o s itiv e E in fu h lu n g , w h e r e in th e
e x p e r i e n c e i s t h e e x i s t e n c e o f a s i n g l e I . 59 H i s p r i n c i p a l e x a m p l e w a s a c a s e
o f h a v i n g o n e s a t t e n t i o n s p o n t a n e o u s l y a n d w h o l l y c o n c e n t r a t e d o n t h e
m o v e m e n ts o f a n a c r o b a t. T h is is a m o re a c c e s s ib le , in tu itiv e d e s c r ip tio n .
C e r ta in ly , m o s t o f u s c a n th in k o f e x p e r ie n c e s th a t w e l o o s e l y c a ll e m p a th y
a n d w o u ld d e s c r ib e ( a lb e it r e f le c tiv e ly ) a s m a rk e d b y b o th to ta l a b s o r p tio n
a n d la c k in g a c le a r s e lf - o th e r d is tin c tio n w ith th e o b j e c t in q u e s tio n . T h u s
w h ile I s u s p e c t g a z in g u p o n D o r ic c o l u m n s d o e s n t r e s o n a t e w i t h s u c h a n
e x p e r ie n c e , th e i d e a o f b e in g l o s t in th e c h a r a c te r s o f a b o o k o r m o v ie
th e a te r p e rf o r m a n c e d o e s . T h is a rm c h a ir in tu itiv e a p p e a l, h o w e v e r , w o u ld n o t
p r o v e s u f f i c i e n t t o g i v e L i p p s s v i e w m u c h s t a y i n g p o w e r .
 4. Interpersonal E i n f u h l u n g : The Phenomenological Twist

T h e r e a r e p l e n t y o f r e a s o n s t o w o r r y a b o u t L i p p s s v i e w . H i s d e s c r i p t i v e
a p p e a l to th e d e g r e e o f c o n te m p la tiv e a b s o r p t io n in th e o b j e c t a s a m e a n s to
h e lp f le s h o u t h is account o f th e c o n d itio n s fo r su c c e ssfu l im ita tio n s its
u n c o m f o r ta b ly w i t h o th e r n o r m a tiv e e le m e n ts h e o f f e r e d lik e h is c l a i m th a t i t is
a n a c t i v i t y i n a g r e e m e n t w i t h o n e s i n n e r m o s t n a t u r e . T h e r e is a ls o th e
d if f ic u lty o f tr y in g to r e c o n c il e th e a e s th e tic f o r m o f E i n fu h lu n g e x a m in e d in
th e l a s t s e c tio n w ith th e v a r io u s o th e r fo rm s o f E in fu h lu n g L ip p s p o s ite d a
d iffic u lty m o s t s c h o la r s d e s c r ib e p e s s im is tic a lly . A ls o r e c a ll th a t in s o fa r a s
L ip p s t o o k h i m s e l f to b e a r tic u la tin g th e p r in c i p le s o f a n o b j e c t iv e a e s th e tic s
th a t is p r o p e r l y p a r t o f p s y c h o lo g y , a n d th u s a m e n a b le to e m p ir ic a l v a li d a ti o n ,
h is v i e w f a ile d m is e r a b ly w h e n p u t to la b o r a to r y te s ts b y h is c o n te m p o ra r ie s .
I n a d d i t i o n t o t h i s h e a p o f p r o b l e m s , L i p p s s v i e w s w e r e d e a l t a f u r t h e r
b lo w b y th e r is e o f a b s tra c tio n is m in a r t a n d a e s th e tic th e o r y in th e e a r ly
t w e n t i e t h c e n tu r y . T h e w h o l e s t o r y i s c o m p l i c a t e d .60 B u t i n s o f a r a s E i n f u h l u n g
is c o n c e r n e d , th e e s s e n tia l c h a p te r tu rn s a g a in o n w h y im ita tio n - to - p r o je c tio n
p r o d u c e s p le a s u r e . I n p a r tic u la r , a b s tr a c tio n is m w a s d ia m e tr ic a lly o p p o s e d to
th e id e a th a t w h a t is a e s th e tic a lly p le a s in g is a lw a y s e a s i l y im ita te d in w a rd ly ,
a s w e l l a s th e tig h tly c o n jo in e d c la i m th a t e a s i l y im ita te d o b je c ts a r e th o s e th a t
w e p s y c h ic a lly h a rm o n iz e , o r c o m f o r ta b ly id e n tif y w ith , in p r o je c tio n . O n th e
c o n tra ry , a b s tr a c tio n is m w a s p r e m is e d o n th e i d e a th a t th e r e c a n b e p le a s u r e in
e s t r a n g e m e n t o r a l i e n a t i o n f r o m t h e o b j e c t s w e a t t e n d t o , s u c h t h a t w e d o n t
e a s i l y im ita te th e o b je c t, l e t a lo n e id e n tif y w i t h i t in a fin a l a c t o f o b j e c t if ie d
s e lf - e n jo y m e n t, as L ip p s s o m e tim e s d e s c rib e s th e re s u lt of a e s th e tic
E i n fu h lu n g . I n d e e d , i n i t s m o s t s o p h i s t i c a t e d f o r m a b s t r a c t i o n i s m p o s i t e d t h a t
s o m e o b je c ts o f c o n te m p la tio n p le a s e u s b e c a u s e o f th e ir a b ility to m a k e u s
fee l e s tra n g e d fro m o u rse lv e s. Thus W ilh e lm W o rrin g e r, in h is 1908
A b s tr a c tio n a n d E m p a th y (n o t p u b lis h e d in E n g lis h u n til 1953) a rg u e d
e x p lic itly a g a in s t th e E in fu h lu n g c a m p th a t it c o u ld n o t a c c o u n t fo r th e
a e s th e tic b e a u ty o f a b s tra c t a rt b e c a u se it t o ta ll y o v e rlo o k e d a d ire c tly
o p posed im p u ls e , n a m e ly an u rg e to a b s t r a c t i o n . 61 W o rrin g e r fu rth e r
c la im e d th a t b o th th e im p u ls e t o w a r d s E in fu h lu n g ( o b je c ti f i e d s e lf - e n jo y m e n t)
a n d th is c o u n te r v a ilin g im p u ls e to a b s tr a c tio n a r i s e o u t o f a c o m m o n , m o re
f u n d a m e n t a l h u m a n n e e d , t h e n e e d f o r s e l f - a l i e n a t i o n . 62 T h u s , h e d u l y n o t e d
th a t L ip p s h i m s e l f h a d d e s c r i b e d E i n f u h l u n g a s a n id e n tity w i t h s o m e th in g
e x te r n a l, a n d th u s ( i n L i p p s s w o r d s ) a k in d o f li b e r a t i o n f r o m th e r e a l I
(W o r r in g e r q u o te s L i p p s s 1 9 0 6 A e s t h e t i k ). I n a n y e v e n t, W o r r in g e r c o n c lu d e s
th a t it is p r e c i s e l y th e c o u n te r v a ilin g u rg e to a b s tr a c tio n th a t a b s tr a c t a r t s e e k s
to ta k e a d v a n ta g e of.
A s a b s tr a c tio n is m s tre n g th e n e d a n d s p r e a d , E i n f u h l u n g th e o r ie s w e a k e n e d
a n d c o n tr a c te d . B y 1 9 1 7 , a n d a lm o s t h a l f a c e n tu r y a f te r V is c h e r p r e s u m e d to
e x p la i n w h y a s im p le v e r tic a l lin e is a e s th e tic a lly d is p le a s in g , th e R u s s ia n
a r t i s t O lg a R o z a n o v a m a d e a m o re s y m b o lic a rg u m e n t f o r W o r r in g e r s s a m e
p o in t: a s m a ll p a in tin g th a t c o n s is ts o n ly o f a g r e e n v e r tic a l s tr ip e o n a w h ite
b a c k g ro u n d . She d e c la r e d , W e p ro p o se to lib e r a te p a in tin g fro m its
s u b s e r v ie n c e to th e r e a d y - m a d e fo rm s o f re a lity , a n d to m a k e it f ir s t a n d
f o r e m o s t a c r e a tiv e , n o t a r e p r o d u c tiv e , a r t. 63 S h e m ig h t h a v e s a id an
im ita tiv e a rt, a n d r e a l l y tu g g e d th e n o o s e tig h t o n th e E i n f u h l u n g c a m p
w h o e v e r , th a t is , w a s s till in it.
A n d y e t L i p p s s w o r k c o n tin u e d to in flu e n c e . A s n o te d a lr e a d y , L ip p s h a d
a n im p o r ta n t e f f e c t o n F r e u d , a n d th ro u g h F r e u d o n th e d e v e lo p m e n t o f
p s y c h o a n a ly tic th e o ry . L i p p s s m o re e x p lic itly p s y c h o lo g ic a l w o r k s e e m s to
h a v e im p r e s s e d h is p e e r s , a s e v id e n c e d in p a r tic u la r b y a g lo w in g r e v i e w o f
h is 1 8 8 5 P s y c h o l o g i c a l S t u d i e s b y W i l l i a m J a m e s .64 A la te r r e v i e w o f th e
s a m e w o r k ( n e w ly tr a n s la te d ) a ls o c r e d its L ip p s f o r in flu e n c in g e a r l y G e s ta lt
th e o ry .65 E v e n L i p p s s a e s th e tic th e o r y s e e m s to h a v e fo u n d a s e c o n d lif e in
A n g lo - A m e r ic a n d r a m a tic th e o ry , a lb e i t o n ly to s u ffe r, u n d e r th e g u is e o f
e m p a th y , a speedy d is s e n t in to a m b ig u ity .66 B u t even beyond th e s e
in flu e n c e s , L i p p s s w o rk becam e a c e n tr a l fo c u s fo r tw o young
p h e n o m e n o lo g is ts , M a x S c h e le r a n d e s p e c i a l l y E d i th S te in . H o w e v e r , th e s e
p h e n o m e n o lo g is ts h a d p a r tic u la r a g e n d a s . T h e y w e r e in te r e s te d in w h a t c o u ld
b e c a l l e d in te r p e r s o n a l E i n f u h l u n g , w h ic h s p u n o f f L i p p s s e x p l i c i t a d d r e s s o f
w h a t is n o w k n o w n a s th e p r o b l e m o f o th e r m in d s .
A t th e tim e , it w a s w i d e l y a c c e p te d w ith in p h ilo s o p h y th a t o u r k n o w le d g e
o f o th e r c r e a tu r e s a s m in d e d is b a s e d o n a n in f e r e n c e f r o m a n a lo g y , n a m e ly
to o u r e x p e r ie n c e a s m in d e d . A c c o r d i n g to L ip p s , h o w e v e r , n o s u c h in fe re n c e
is j u s t i f i a b l e a s th e f o u n d a tio n o f s u c h k n o w le d g e . F o r , o n th e o n e h a n d , s u c h
a n in f e r e n c e w o u ld r e q u ir e a g e n e r ic o r g e n e r a l n o tio n o f s e lf, b u t, o n th e o th e r
h a n d , p r i o r to th e e x p e r ie n c e o f a n y o th e r s e lf w e c o u ld h a v e n o s u c h g e n e r ic
n o tio n . T h e r e m u s t b e , a t le a s t in itia lly , s o m e e x p e r ie n c e o f o th e r m in d s th a t
p rec e d e s s u c h a n a n a lo g y , b y s e r v in g a s th e b a s is of a g e n e ra liz a tio n o r
a b s tr a c tio n to a c o n c e p t o f s e lf . T h u s e n te rs E in fu h lu n g , w h ic h , a c c o r d in g
to L ip p s , m a k e s p o s s i b l e a n im m e d ia te e x p e r ie n c e o f o th e r m in d s o r b e tte r,
o th e r e g o s o r p e rs o n a litie s .
Two p o in ts o f L i p p s s v i e w m u st b e h ig h lig h te d . F i r s t is th e sen se of
o th e rn e s s at is s u e . W hat E in fu h lu n g m akes p o s s ib le is p re c is e ly an
e x p e r ie n c e o f a fo r e ig n e g o s o m e th in g s tra n g e a n d n o t m e . T h u s L ip p s w r ite s
t h a t a m a n s s e n s u o u s m a n if e s ta tio n s , th a t is , h is b o d ily and e s p e c ia lly
a f f e c tiv e e x p r e s s io n s , a r e n o t th e m a n , th e y a r e n o t th e s tr a n g e p e r s o n a lity
w i t h h is p s y c h o lo g ic a l e q u ip m e n t, h is i d e a s , h is f e e lin g s , h is w i l l , e tc . A l l th e
s a m e , th e m a n is lin k e d to th e s e m a n i f e s t a t i o n s ... . T h is c o n n e c tio n is c r e a te d
t h r o u g h E i n f u h l u n g 67 T h i s p o i n t i s n o t a b l e , h o w e v e r , n o t s i m p l y b e c a u s e
L ip p s h im s e lf s tre s s e s i t, but because it w o u ld la te r becom e a p o in t o f
c o n t e n t i o n f o r e a r l y p h e n o m e n o l o g i s t s , a s w i l l b e c o m e c l e a r i n a m o m e n t.
S e c o n d , it is c r u c ia l to a p p r e c ia te th a t L ip p s in te n d s a fu rth e r c h a lle n g e to
a n a lo g ic a l a rg u m e n ts . A c c o r d in g to L ip p s , e v e n a f te r w e a c q u ir e a g e n e r ic
n o t i o n o f s e l f w e s t i l l d o n t t y p i c a l l y r e l y o n a n i n f e r e n c e b y a n a l o g y t o
u n d e r s ta n d ( i n s o m e s e n s e ) th a t th e c r e a tu r e f a c in g u s is m in d e d . I n s te a d , in
ty p ic a l e x p e r ie n c e w e d i s p l a y a c a p a c i ty f o r im m e d ia te u n d e rs ta n d in g . T h a t is,
w e c a n im m e d ia te ly g r a s p th e m e n ta l s ta te s o f s o m e c r e a tu r e s , p a r t a n d
p a r c e l o f o u r o b s e r v a tio n o f th e m a n d p r io r to a n y r e f le c tio n , w h ic h r e f le c tio n
w o u ld o f c o u rse be needed f o r a n y in f e r e n c e . I n d e e d , i t is p r e c i s e l y th is
im m e d ia c y o f c o m p r e h e n s io n th a t h e th o u g h t E in fu h lu n g c o u ld e x p la in . In
E in fu h lu n g w e g ra s p s u c h e x p re s s io n s , im m e d ia te ly a n d s im u lta n e o u s ly w ith
th e p e r c e p tio n , a n d th a t d o e s n o t m e a n th a t w e s e e i t o r a p p r e h e n d i t b y m e a n s
o f th e s e n s e s . W e c a n n o t d o th a t, s in c e a n g e r, f r ie n d lin e s s , o r s a d n e s s c a n n o t b e
p e r c e i v e d th r o u g h th e s e n s e s . W e c a n o n ly e x p e r i e n c e th is k in d o f th in g in
o u r s e l v e s . 68 We m ig h t c h a rita b ly re fo rm u la te th is com m ent to get th e
fo llo w in g a rg u m e n t fo r E in fu h lu n g :

1. C e r t a i n s e n s o r y o b j e c t s a r e i m m e d i a t e l y g r a s p a b l e .
2 . T h a t is , in s o m e c a s e s , p e r c e p tio n a n d c o m p r e h e n s io n o f a n o b j e c t o c c u r
at once.
3 . A f f e c t i v e a p p e a r a n c e s ( e .g . a n g e r ) o r a f f e c t i v e c h a n g e s ( i . e . , r e a l - t i m e
c h a n g e s i n a f f e c t i v e e x p r e s s i o n , e .g . f r o m c a l m t o a n g r y ) a r e o n e s u c h
o b je c t.
 4. B u t o f c o u r s e , w e d o n t s e e a n g e r o r h e a r a n g e r. T h a t is , w e d o n t s e e o r
h e a r th e m e n ta l s ta te . W e s e e a n d h e a r its e x p r e s s io n .
5. T h u s , i f w e d o im m e d ia te ly c o m p r e h e n d w h a t w e s e e o r h e a r, th e n
s im u lta n e o u s w i t h th e p e r c e p t i o n o f th e a f f e c tiv e e x p r e s s io n w e m u s t
e x p e rie n c e th e a f f e c t i t s e l f in te rn a lly . T h a t is , w e m u s t im ita te it
in w a r d ly , e v e n i f u n c o n s c io u s ly .

T h e s im p lic ity o f th is a rg u m e n t is a ttr a c tiv e . N o t o n ly th a t, b u t in lig h t o f r e c e n t

n e u r o s c ie n tif ic r e s e a r c h , L ip p s c o m e s o f f lo o k in g p r e s c ie n t. I a m a llu d in g to
th e 1 9 9 6 d i s c o v e r y o f s o - c a l l e d m ir r o r n e u ro n s in m o n k e y s a n d th e s u b s e q u e n t
w ave o f re se a rc h d o c u m e n tin g a c o rre sp o n d in g m ir r o r in g s y s te m in
h u m a n s .69 I n s h o rt, th is r e s e a r c h s tr o n g ly s u g g e s ts th a t h u m a n s a r e e n d o w e d
w ith a v a rie ty o f c o r tic a l p a th w a y s th a t d is p la y c o n g ru e n t p a tte r n s of
s tim u la tio n w h e n c e r t a i n a c tio n s , s e n s a tio n s , o r e m o tio n s a r e p e r f o r m e d o r fe lt
a n d w h e n th o s e a c tio n s , s e n s a tio n s , o r e m o tio n s a r e m e r e ly o b s e r v e d . F o r
e x a m p le , w h e n y o u o b s e r v e s o m e o n e ta p p in g h e r fin g e r o r g a g g in g in d is g u s t;
th e s tim u la te d r e g io n s o f y o u r b r a i n a n d th e s ig n a l p a tte r n s o f th o s e r e g io n s a r e
s tr ik in g ly s im ila r to th e r e g io n s a n d p a tte r n s th a t w o u ld b e s tim u la te d w e r e it
r e a l l y y o u ta p p in g o r y o u f e e lin g d is g u s t. A n d s o n o w th e c o n n e c tio n to L ip p s :
s u c h m ir r o r in g h a s b e e n a r g u e d to e x p la i n p r e c i s e l y th e s o r t o f im m e d ia te
c o m p r e h e n s io n o f w h a t o th e r b e in g s a r e e x p e r ie n c in g , w h ic h L ip p s w a s
c r e d itin g to E in fu h lu n g . O f c o u r s e , to a c tu a lly p r a i s e L ip p s o n th is a c c o u n t
w o u ld b e a n a c h r o n is tic . M o r e o v e r , i f th e o b je c tio n s w e a r e a b o u t to c o n s id e r
fro m h is p h e n o m e n o lo g ic a l d e tr a c to r s p ro v e fittin g , th e n th e m ir r o r in g
e v id e n c e w i l l s u d d e n ly s e e m ill a d a p te d to L i p p s s v i e w (o r, I s u p p o s e , w e
l e a r n a p o te n tia l s h o r tc o m in g o f m ir r o r in g th e o r ie s ) .
T o b e c le a r , n e ith e r S c h e le r n o r S te in is e n tir e ly c r itic a l o f L ip p s . S c h e le r,
f o r e x a m p le , c l e a r l y th in k s L ip p s is c l o s e r to g e ttin g th in g s rig h t w h e n it c o m e s
to th e in te r p e r s o n a l p h e n o m e n a a s s o c i a t e d w i t h s y m p a th y ( S c h e le r d id n o t
f o ll o w L i p p s s te r m in o lo g y o f E in fu h lu n g ) th a n m a n y m o re fa m o u s h is to r ic a l
p r o p o n e n ts lik e H u m e o r S m ith .70 In d e e d , S c h e le r le v e l s a n u m b e r o f w h a t h e
ta k e s to b e k n o c k d o w n o b je c tio n s to H u m e a n d S m ith . A n d th o u g h n o n e o f
th e m c l e a r l y a r e s o d e v a s ta tin g ( i n fa c t s o m e c l e a r l y d e p e n d o n w r o n g h e a d e d
r e a d in g s o f H u m e a n d S m ith ), th e p o in t is th a t S c h e le r d o e s n t ta k e a s im ila r ly
d is m is s iv e to n e t o w a r d L ip p s . O n th e c o n tra ry , h e n o t o n ly la u d s L ip p s fo r
r e je c tin g a n a lo g ic a l s o lu tio n s to th e p r o b l e m o f o th e r m in d s , h e a ls o c r e d its
L ip p s f o r p e r c e iv in g th e d is tin c t m o d e r n im p o r t o f s o lv in g th is v e r y p r o b le m ,
n a m e ly th a t o n ly b y th e s o lu tio n o f th is q u e s tio n c a n s o c io lo g y b e e s ta b lis h e d
o n a p h i l o s o p h i c a l b a s i s . 71
B u t l e t u s c o n c e n tr a te o n S te in , w h o s e r e p l y to L ip p s is m o r e f o c u s e d a n d
f o r t h a t r e a s o n m o r e i n s t r u c t i v e . B o i l e d d o w n , S t e i n s c o m p l a i n t i s t h a t L i p p s
h a s th e b a s ic p h e n o m e n o lo g y w r o n g w h e n it c o m e s to e m p a th y ( a n d f o r e a s e ,
I ll r e f e r to h e r d i s c u s s io n o f th e r e l e v a n t in te r p e r s o n a l p h e n o m e n a in te r m s o f
e m p a th y , f o r th a t is h o w s h e is t y p ic a ll y tr a n s la te d ) . T h u s , S te in in s is ts th e
c o r r e c t s ta r tin g p o in t is to a c k n o w le d g e th a t, fro m th e p e rs p e c tiv e o f an
e x p e r ie n c in g a g e n t, th e r e is n o p r o b le m o f o th e r m in d s . T e c h n ic a lly th is is
because e x p e rie n c e s o f e m p a th y ( s p e c if ic a lly , o f o th e r m in d s ) s u r v iv e th e
H u s s e r l i a n m e th o d o f p h e n o m e n o lo g ic a l r e d u c tio n , in v ir tu e o f th e f a c t th a t
e m p a t h i c e x p e r i e n c e s a r e g i v e n i n o n e s p u r e ( s u b j e c t i v e ) c o n s c i o u s n e s s . T o
g lo s s c ru d e ly th e c o m p lic a te d and d is p u te d d e ta ils o f p h e n o m e n o lo g ic a l
r e d u c t i o n , t h e c r u c i a l p o i n t o f S t e i n s c l a i m i s j u s t t h i s : e m p a t h i c e x p e r i e n c e s
a r e p a r t s o f e x p e r i e n c e t h a t c a n t b e d o u b t e d . T h e p h e n o m e n o n o f f o r e i g n
p s y c h i c l i f e , S t e i n w r i t e s , i s i n d u b i t a b l y t h e r e . 72
S o f a r th e r e is n o c h a lle n g e to L ip p s . B u t S te in e la b o r a te s h e r v i e w in w a y s
th a t c le a r ly a n d e x p lic itly c u t a g a in s t h is v ie w . F ir s t, S te in g iv e s a m o re
n u a n c e d r e f o r m u l a t i o n o f L i p p s s d e s c r i p t i o n o f e m p a t h y a s a n e n c o u n t e r w i t h
a s tr a n g e p e r s o n a lity in o r d e r to b r in g h o m e th e p o in t th a t th e o th e r n e s s o f
th e o th e r is p a r t a n d p a r c e l o f th e e m p a th ic e x p e r ie n c e its e lf . T h u s , w h a t is
g i v e n i n e x p e r i e n c e i s n o t s i m p l y a p h y s i c a l b o d y , S t e i n c l a i m s , b u t:

1. A s e n s i t i v e , l i v i n g b o d y b e l o n g i n g t o a n I t h a t s e n s e s , t h i n k s , f e e l s , a n d
w ills .
2 . A n I w h ic h is i t s e l f th e c e n te r o f o r ie n ta tio n o f a p h e n o m e n a l w o r ld .

3 . A n I t h a t f a c e s t h i s w o r l d a n d c o m m u n i c a t e s w i t h m e . 73

T h e u p s h o t, in h e r w o r d s , is th a t a lth o u g h th e a c t o f e m p a th y th e e x p e r ie n c in g
of o th e rs e x p e r ie n c e s is g iv e n p rim o rd ia lly (im m e d ia te ly ) in o n e s
e x p e r ie n c e , th e c o n te n t o f th a t e x p e r ie n c e is n o t e x p e r i e n c e d p r im o r d ia lly .
In s te a d , th e c o n te n t is e x p e rie n c e d a s b e lo n g in g to a n o th e r th a t is , as
b e lo n g in g to a fo re ig n ego o r n o n p rim o rd ia l I . 74 O r as S c h e le r w o u ld
d e s c r i b e th e s a m e b a s ic f a c t b u t w ith o u t th e p r im o r d i a l te r m in o lo g y : w h a t
is g iv e n to u s in o u r e x p e r ie n c e o f o th e r s is a n in d iv id u a l s e l f d is tin c t fro m
o u r o w n a n i n d i v i d u a l s t e e p e d i n i ts o w n p s y c h i c e x p e r i e n c e . P a r t a n d
p a r c e l o f th is , S c h e le r e la b o r a te s , is th a t w e e x p e r ie n c e o th e r s a s h a v in g , lik e
o u r s e lv e s , a s p h e r e o f a b s o lu te p e r s o n a l p r iv a c y , w h ic h c a n n e v e r b e g iv e n to
u s . A n d y e t , S c h e l e r h a s t e n s t o a d d , a s i f t o r e m i n d u s o f S t e i n s s t a r t i n g p o i n t ,
t h a t e x p e r i e n c e s o c c u r t h e r e [ i n t h a t b e i n g w e o b s e r v e ] i s g i v e n f o r u s in
e x p re s s iv e p h e n o m e n a a g a in , n o t b y in fe re n c e , b u t d ire c tly , a s a so rt of
p r i m a r y p e r c e p t i o n . I t i s in t h e b l u s h t h a t w e p e r c e i v e s h a m e , in t h e l a u g h t e r
j o y . 75 In d e e d , it is p re c is e ly th is ju x ta p o s itio n th a t m ark s e m p a th ic
e x p e rie n c e : in e m p a th y w e d ir e c tly e x p e rie n c e o th e rs a s e x p e rie n c in g , m in d e d
s u b je c ts , b u t n e v e r th e le s s a s (to s o m e d e g r e e ) u n k n o w a b le , p r iv a te , d is tin c t,
fo re ig n , o r in a w o r d , in d iv id u a l.
O f c o u rse , th is s till d o e s n t s u b s ta n tia lly c o n tra d ic t L i p p s s ow n
d e s c rip tio n o f in te rp e rs o n a l E in fu h lu n g as th e e n c o u n te r w ith a s tra n g e
p e rs o n a lity . A s it h a p p e n s , h o w e v e r, th is is p r e c is e ly w h a t S te in h o p e s w e
w i l l sa y . F o r th is s e ts u p h e r n e x t m o v e , w h i c h is d e c i d e d l y c r i t ic a l. T h u s S te in
i s k e e n t o r e m i n d u s t h a t u n d e r g i r d i n g L i p p s s v i e w i s a p r o j e c t i v e m e c h a n i s m .
S o h o w , s h e a s k s , c o u ld a n y s u c h a c c o u n t, w h i c h tu rn s o n th e p r o je c ti o n o f th e
I o n e s ow n ego ev er fu lly e x p la in th e w ay we e x p e rie n c e th e
o t h e r n e s s o f o t h e r s , a s s h e h a s f l e s h e d o u t t h a t e x p e r i e n c e ? I n d e e d , d i d n t
L ip p s in s is t th a t E in fu h lu n g in v o lv e s a d is s o lu tio n of th e s e lf-o th e r
d is tin c tio n in v ir tu e o f a r e a l i d e n tif ic a tio n o r u n ity w i t h th e o b je c t? I f s o , th e n
how c o u ld E in fu h lu n g p o s s ib ly e x p la in th e in te rp e rs o n a l phenom ena in
q u e s tio n .
To be c le a r, S te in does a llo w fo r e x p e rie n c e s o f s e lf - f o r g e tf u ln e s s ,
w h e r e in a b s o r b e d c o n te m p la tio n o f s o m e o b j e c t l e a d s to a d is s o lu tio n o f th e
s e l f .76 S t e i n a l s o a l l o w s f o r c a s e s o f i m i t a t i o n , n a m e l y a k i n d o f c o n t a g i o n o r
t r a n s f e r e n c e o f f e e lin g , w h e r e i n w e l iv e in a n d th u s in a s e n s e u n ite o r
id e n tify w ith s o m e f e e lin g w e w itn e s s ( p a s s iv e ly o r a c tiv e ly ) in a n o th e r
p e r s o n . B u t n o n e o f th e s e a r e c a s e s o f e m p a th y , s tr i c t ly s p e a k in g . E m p a th y , a s
far as S te in is c o n c e r n e d , is l im ite d to p r e c i s e l y th e k in d o f i n te r p e r s o n a l
e x p e r i e n c e w i t h a f o r e i g n e g o L i p p s h i m s e l f p i c k e d o u t. T h u s S t e i n a r g u e s , f o r
e x a m p l e , t h a t i n c o n t a g i o n w h a t e v e r w e f e e l i s , b y t h e t i m e w e e x p e r i e n c e it,
w h o l l y o n e s o w n a n d p r i m o r d i a l . T h a t i s w h y i t i s c l a s s i f i e d a s a k i n d o f
t r a n s f e r e n c e i n t h e f i r s t p l a c e . W e d o n t e x p e r i e n c e a n y t h i n g f o r e i g n . O n t h e
c o n t r a r y , i n c o n t a g i o n w e r e m a i n i n o u r s e l v e s . 77 I n s h o r t , i n e m p a t h y t h e r e
c a n b e n o p s y c h ic m e rg in g w i t h th e o th e r n o t in n o rm a l a d u lt c a s e s a n y w a y .78
S u c h a m e rg in g w o u ld b lu n tly c o n tr a d ic t th e w h o le p o in t a t is s u e , n a m e ly , o f a
fu n d a m e n ta l a n d im m e d ia te e x p e r ie n c e o f o th e rs a s o th e r , a p o in t L ip p s
h i m s e l f f i r s t s u g g e s te d . S te in s o b je c t io n is th u s d e v a s ta tin g to L i p p s s a c c o u n t
o f in te r p e r s o n a l E in fu h lu n g .
O f c o u r s e , S te in s a c c o u n t h a s its o w n p r o b le m s . I n p a r tic u la r , its b r e v ity
a n d fo c u s is o f te n p u r c h a s e d a t th e e x p e n s e o f c la r ity , a n d m a n y p o in ts n e e d in g
m o re d e ta il a r e le f t v a g u e . H o w e v e r , i t w o u ld d i s t r a c t to o m u c h to lin g e r in a
re v ie w o f th e s e w o r r i e s . In s te a d , I c lo s e th is s e c tio n b y tu rn in g to a la s t
o b je c t io n S te in r a i s e s a b o u t c o m p e tin g th e o r ie s o f e m p a th y th o u g h th is tim e
a b o u t th e v i e w o f f e r e d b y A d a m S m ith ( a l b e i t w h a t S m ith d e s c r i b e d a s
s y m p a th y ). T h u s s h a ll I p i c k u p a m a r k e r d r o p p e d n e a r th e o u ts e t o f th is
e s s a y , n a m e ly , o n th e p h e n o m e n o lo g ic a l c h a lle n g e to s im u la tio n is t a c c o u n ts o f
e m p ath y .
D r a w in g o n c e a g a in o n th e k e y th e m e o f o th e r n e s s , S te in m a k e s th e
f o ll o w i n g r e m a r k ( a lm o s t a s a n a fte rth o u g h t): [I]f, a s in m e m o ry , w e p u t
o u r s e lv e s in th e p la c e o f th e f o r e ig n I a n d s u p p r e s s i t w h ile w e s u rro u n d
o u r s e lv e s w i t h its s itu a tio n , w e h a v e o n e o f th e s e s itu a tio n s o f a p p r o p r i a t e
e x p e r ie n c e . I f w e th e n a g a in c o n c e d e to th e f o r e ig n I its p la c e a n d a s c r i b e th is
e x p e r ie n c e to h im , w e g a in a k n o w le d g e o f h is e x p e r ie n c e . 79 E s s e n tia lly , th is
is S te in s d e s c rip tio n of a s im u la tio n is t m o d e l o f s y m p a th y lik e th a t
espoused by A dam S m ith , o r, f o r th a t m a tte r, th e e m p a th y o f S te p h e n
D a r w a ll . M o r e e x a c tly , it is a tr a n s la t io n o f th e s o r t o f p e r s p e c tiv e - ta k in g
e x p la n a tio n o f e m p a th y (s y m p a th y ) in to h e r p h e n o m e n o lo g ic a l te rm in o lo g y . B u t
to w h a t e ffe c t?
O b v io u s ly , S te in d o e s n o t r e j e c t s u c h a m o d e l a s a ro u te to k n o w le d g e o f
o th e r m in d s . N e v e r t h e le s s , h e r c o m m e n t is p o te n tia lly d e v a s ta tin g . F o r, w h a t
S te in d o e s r e je c t, im p lic itly h e r e a n d e x p lic itly j u s t a fte r, is th a t s im u la tio n c a n
y i e l d a n e x p e r ie n c e o f th e o th e r a s o th e r th a t is , th a t it c a n y i e l d th e s o r t o f
e x p e r ie n c e o f th e f o r e ig n n e s s o f th e o th e r th a t w e v e b e e n tra c k in g . O n th e
c o n tra ry , s im u la tio n , S te in c h arg es, su p p re sse s th e f o r e ig n psyche or
c o n s c io u s n e s s in f a v o r o f o u r o w n . B y its o w n a d m is s io n , s im u la tio n u s e s o u r
o w n p s y c h e a n d c o n s c io u s n e s s a s a s u r r o g a te f o r g e ttin g at th e e x p e r ie n c e o f
a f o r e ig n c o n s c io u s n e s s , w h ic h e x p e r ie n c e , i t is c r u c ia l to r e c a l l , S te in tr e a ts
a s a n in d u b ita b le fa c t. W e d o e x p e r ie n c e o th e rs a s fo re ig n . I n o u r e x p e r ie n c e s ,
o th e rs d o a p p e a r a s s o m a n y s tra n g e p e r s o n a lit ie s . T h a t m u c h L ip p s h a d
e x a c tly rig h t. O r s o S te in a rg u e s .
 N o w , S te in h e r s e l f d i d n t d e v e lo p th is in to a n e x p lic itly e th ic a l c h a lle n g e .
B u t S c h e le r d id , e v e n g o in g s o f a r a s to im p ly th a t s im u la tio n m o d e ls a r e
d e e p ly e g o is t, f o r e s s e n tia l ly th e v e r y r e a s o n S te in id e n tif ie s .80 S c h e l e r s
w o r r y is p e r h a p s e a s i e r to a p p r e c ia te i f w e tr a n s la te th e p o in t n o w o n th e ta b le
b a c k in to th e in itia l te rm s I u s e d to fra m e m y in q u iry , a s f o llo w s : f o r S c h e le r
( a n d b y e x te n s io n f o r S te in ), s im u la tio n is t m o d e ls o f e m p a th y ( o r s y m p a th y )
c a n n e v e r g ro u n d a n y s e n s e o f r e s p e c t f o r o th e rs th a t is g r o u n d e d o n , o r m e a n t
to e m b o d y , a r e c o g n itio n o f th e in d iv id u a lity o f o th e r p e r s o n s . B ecau se
s im u la tio n c a n n o t y i e l d a n y u n d e r s ta n d in g o f o th e rs a s d is tin c tly o th e r, a n y
a c c o u n t o f r e s p e c t o r r e c o g n itio n a s im u la tio n is t th e o r y o f e m p a th y ( o r
s y m p a th y ) is a r g u e d to d e l i v e r w i l l f a ll s h o rt o f w h a t is n e e d e d to s a tis f y th e
d e m a n d s o f h u m a n d ig n ity .
D e te r m in in g w h e th e r th is o b j e c t i o n h o ld s u p is b e y o n d th e s c o p e o f th is
c h a p te r .81 B u t a s th e o b je c t io n h a s y e t e v e n to r e c e i v e s e r io u s a tte n tio n ,
e s p e c i a l l y in th e A n g lo - A m e r ic a n a n a ly tic s c e n e , a ir in g i t is a l r e a d y p r o g r e s s .
 5. Th e Ri s e of Am e r i c a n So c i a l P s y c h o l o g y

As th e p h e n o m e n o lo g ic a l d is c u s s io n a b o u t e m p a th y w as d e v e lo p i n g in
C o n tin e n ta l E u r o p e , a p a r a l l e l d is c u s s io n in te rm s o f s y m p a th y w a s d e v e lo p in g
in N o r th A m e r ic a n s o c ia l p s y c h o lo g y . I t is e a s y to o v e r l o o k th is c o in c id e n c e ,
a n d n o t j u s t b e c a u s e o f th e o b v io u s te r m in o lo g ic a l m is m a tc h o r o s te n s iv e
d if f e r e n c e in d is c i p lin e . T h e re w as a ls o v ir t u a lly n o m u tu a l r e f e r e n c in g
b e tw e e n th e s e tw o d is c u s s io n s ( th a t is , e x p lic itly o n th e s u b je c t o f sy m p a th y ).
M o re o v e r, s y m p a th y w a s n t e x a c tly in th e lim e lig h t o f e a r l y A m e r ic a n
p s y c h o lo g y . I t w a s a n im p o r ta n t p ie c e in th e c o n te n d in g s y s te m a tic th e o r ie s o f
s o c ia l p s y c h o lo g y , b u t s o c ia l p s y c h o lo g y i t s e l f w a s a s y e t n o t w e ll d e fin e d ,
a n d la r g e ly o v e r s h a d o w e d in A m e r ic a b y th e m o re q u ic k ly r o o te d e m p ir ic a l
w in g o f th e fie ld .
Y e t th e r e w a s d e f in ite ly a p a r a l l e l . F ir s t, e a r ly A m e r ic a n s o c ia l p s y c h o lo g y
a n d e a r ly C o n tin e n ta l p h e n o m e n o lo g y s h a r e d c e r ta in e x p la n a to r y g o a ls , i f o n ly
th in ly . P h e n o m e n o lo g y u n d e r s to o d i t s e l f to b e fu n d a m e n ta l to a ll s c ie n c e s . A n d
w ith re sp e c t to in q u ir ie s in to E in fu h lu n g , e m p a th y , and sy m p a th y ,
p h e n o m e n o lo g y to o k i t s e l f to b e fu n d a m e n ta l to s o c io l o g y in p a r tic u la r , a s w e
s a w . B u t, o f c o u r s e , to a im a t fo u n d in g s o c io l o g y is o n ly a f e w d e g r e e s fro m
a im in g a t fo u n d in g s o c ia l p s y c h o lo g y , i f in d e e d th e r e is a n y d if f e r e n c e a t a ll.
S e c o n d , a n d m o re im p o rta n t, i t tu rn s o u t th a t e a r l y A m e r ic a n s o c ia l p s y c h o lo g y
c o n c e p tu a liz e d s y m p a th y in a w a y th a t a lig n e d i t w i t h th e d is tin c tiv e n o tio n
o f e m p a th y w e fo u n d in S c h e le r a n d S te in . O r s o I w i l l s u g g e s t in th is fin a l
s e c tio n .
T h e c o n c e p tu a l c o n v e r g e n c e is m o s t c l e a r in G e o r g e M e a d ( 1 8 6 3 - 1 9 3 1 ) .
B u t i t w a s C h a r le s C o o le y ( 1 8 6 4 - 1 9 2 9 ) w h o s e t th e s ta g e . I n th e f i r s t p la c e ,
C o o le y s tr e s s e d s y m p a th y s c e n tr a lity to s o c ia l p s y c h o lo g y , w h ile a t th e s a m e
tim e r e je c ti n g th e c l o s e s t c o n te n d in g th e o r y o f s y m p a th y a s f a r a s A n g lo -
A m e r ic a n s o c io l o g ic a l d e b a te w a s c o n c e r n e d , n a m e ly th e n o tio n o f H e r b e r t
S p e n c e r s fu lly m e c h a n iz e d a n d u tilit a r ia n u n d e r s ta n d in g o f sy m p ath y . A t th e
s a m e tim e , C o o le y r e j e c t e d a n y id e n tif ic a tio n o f s y m p a th y w ith , a s h e p u t it,
p ity o r o th e r te n d e r e m o tio n . 82 N o w , th a t C o o le y n e e d e d s u c h c o n c e p tu a l
g ro u n d c le a r in g is s o m e w h a t ir o n ic , g iv e n th a t A d a m S m ith h a d e s s e n tia lly
c l e a r e d th e s a m e g r o u n d n e a r ly tw o c e n tu r ie s e a r lie r . I n a n y e v e n t, th e u p s h o t
w a s to o p e n th e w a y f o r a m u c h r ic h e r a n d m o re g e n e r a l c o n c e p t o f sy m p ath y .
C o o le y to o k th is o p p o r tu n ity to lin k s y m p a th y to a k in d o f in te r p e r s o n a l
u n d e r s ta n d in g . T h u s C o o le y c o n c lu d e d , s y m p a th y d o e s n o t o p e r a te o n ly o v e r
c r u d e e m o tio n , b u t ra th e r, [t]h e c o n te n t o f [s y m p a th y ] ... is c h ie f ly th o u g h t
a n d s e n tim e n t. 83 A n d th u s s o c ia l p s y c h o lo g y m o re o r le s s m a d e a n in r o a d in to
th e s p a c e o f in te r p e r s o n a l e m p ath y .
N o w e n te r M e a d . M e a d a p p r o a c h e s th e s u b je c t o f s y m p a th y w i t h c a u tio n ,
a c k n o w le d g in g e x p lic itly th e a m b ig u ity of th e c o n c e p t.84 M ead a ls o
s tr a ig h ta w a y a c k n o w le d g e s h is o w n te n d e n c y to t a l k o f s y m p a th y in te rm s o f a n
im m e d ia te a ttitu d e o f c a r e ( p e r h a p s r e f le c tin g th e o n s e t o f s o m e r ig i d ity to
th e c o n n o ta tio n D a r w a l l w o u ld la te r id e n tif y s tr ic tly w ith s y m p a th y ).
D e s p ite th is te n d e n c y , h o w e v e r , M e a d u ltim a te ly f o ll o w s C o o le y s in v ita tio n
to a l l o w a b r o a d e r c o n c e p t, o n e c l o s e r to w h a t I v e c o n c e p tu a liz e d a s
in te r p e r s o n a l e m p ath y .
T h is g e n e r a liz e d n o tio n b e c a m e in c r e a s in g ly im p o r ta n t to M e a d s g r e a te r
th e o ry . T h u s c o n s id e r th e f o ll o w i n g c r u c ia l c la im , n e a r th e e n d o f a d is c u s s io n
e n title d T h e N a tu r e o f S y m p a th y : To ta k e a d is tin c tiv e ly h u m a n , th a t is , s e lf
c o n s c io u s , s o c ia l a ttitu d e t o w a r d a n o th e r in d iv id u a l, o r to b e c o m e a w a r e o f
h im a s su c h , is to id e n tif y y o u r s e l f s y m p a th e tic a lly w i t h h im , b y ta k in g h is
a ttitu d e to w a r d , a n d h is r o l e in , th e g iv e n s o c ia l s itu a tio n , a n d b y th u s
r e s p o n d in g to th a t s itu a tio n im p lic itl y a s h e d o e s o r is a b o u t to d o e x p lic itly . 85
I n th is p a s s a g e w e f in d n o d e f in itio n a l c o m m itm e n t to s y m p a th y a s a k in d o f
c a r in g a ttitu d e . B u t th a t is r e a l l y th e l e s s e r r e a s o n f o r q u o tin g it. F o r w h a t w e
m u s t a ls o n o t f a il to n o tic e i n th is p a s s a g e is th e i d e a th a t s y m p a th y w ith
a n o th e r p e r s o n is c o n s titu te d b y a n a w a r e n e s s o f th e o th e r a s s u c h . T h a t is a
p e c u li a r tu r n o f p h r a s e . B y it, M e a d s e e m s to s u g g e s t th a t w h a t is a t is s u e is a n
a w a r e n e s s o f th e d is tin c tiv e n e s s o r in d iv id u a lity o f th e o th e r. It is , i n o th e r
w o r d s , a g e s tu r e a t th e id e a th a t s y m p a th y fo c u s e s u s o n o th e rs a s o th e r,
f a m ilia r to u s n o w f r o m e a r l y p h e n o m e n o lo g y .
G ra n te d , c u ttin g a g a in s t th is p o te n tia l c o n v e r g e n c e is a s im u la tio n is t to n e in
th e s a m e p a s s a g e . In d e e d , a t f i r s t b lu s h i t m ig h t s e e m a s i f M e a d e n d o r s e s a
s tr o n g p e r s p e c tiv e - ta k in g s e n s e o f s im u la tio n . H o w e v e r , th is w o u ld b e to
m is ta k e M e a d s v ie w . A t le a s t, th e r e a r e g o o d r e a s o n s to th in k h e w a s n o t
a d v o c a tin g a n e s s e n tia l ly p e r s p e c tiv e - ta k in g th e o ry . M a tu r e s y m p a th y m a y w e ll
o p e r a te a t tim e s th ro u g h p e r s p e c t i v e ta k in g . B u t i t is n o t o r ig i n a lly a
p e r s p e c tiv e - ta k in g p h e n o m e n o n . To s e e w h y , c o n s id e r , f o r a s ta r t, th e w a y
M e a d c o n c lu d e s th e s a m e p a s s a g e i n q u e s tio n : H u m a n s o c ie ty e n d o w s th e
h u m a n in d iv id u a l w i t h a m in d ; a n d th e v e r y s o c ia l n a tu r e o f th a t m in d r e q u i r e s
h im to p u t h i m s e lf to s o m e d e g r e e in th e e x p e r ie n tia l p l a c e s o f, o r to ta k e th e
a t t i t u d e s o f , t h e o t h e r i n d i v i d u a l s b e l o n g i n g t o t h a t s o c i e t y . 86 T h i s h i n t s a t a
q u i t e d i f f e r e n t w a y o f r e a d i n g M e a d s c o n c e p t o f s y m p a t h y . S o c i a l i z a t i o n
l i t e r a l l y t h e d e v e l o p m e n t o f a s o c i a l m i n d d o e s n t j u s t a l l o w f o r s y m p a t h y , it
re q u ire s it. As he say s e ls e w h e re , S o c ia l c o n s c io u s n e s s is th e
p r e s u p p o s i t i o n o f i m i t a t i o n 87 t h a t i s , i t i s t h e p r e s u p p o s i t i o n o f s y m p a t h y
( M e a d o f t e n u s e s t h e t e r m i m i t a t i o n s y n o n y m o u s l y w i t h s y m p a t h y ). T h e
p o in t is a k in to o n e m a d e b y L ip p s . In o r d e r to b e c o m e a w a r e o f o th e rs a s
m in d e d , s o c ia l c r e a tu r e s , w e m u s t l ik e w i s e h a v e a s o c ia l m in d . B u t to h a v e a
s o c i a l m i n d o n e m u s t a lr e a d y b e a b l e t o s y m p a t h i z e . B u t t h a t i m p l i e s s y m p a t h y
m u st o rig in a lly o p e ra te in so m e s im p le r, le s s r o b u s t fo rm th a n fu ll-b lo w n
p e r s p e c t i v e t a k i n g , w h i c h s t a r t s w i t h a g e n e r a l c o n c e p t o f m in d .
M e a d s e x p l a n a t i o n o f t h i s c l a i m i s r o u g h l y t h e f o l l o w i n g : s y m p a t h y i s m o s t
e s s e n t ia l ly th e a r o u s in g o r c a ll in g o u t ( a s h e s o m e tim e s p u ts it) o f a
c o n g r u e n t a t t i t u d e in a n o b s e r v e r w i t h a n a c t o r . D r a w i n g d i r e c t l y o n W u n d t,
M e a d a r g u e s th a t th is w o r k s th r o u g h th e m e d iu m o f g e s tu r e s , w h ic h , i n its
m o s t s o p h is t ic a te d fo rm , is v o c a l la n g u a g e . M e a d th u s w r i t e s , T h e g e s tu r e [in
o n e fo rm ] c a ll s o u t a g e s tu r e in th e o th e r f o r m w h i c h w i l l a r o u s e o r c a ll o u t th e
s a m e e m o t i o n a l a t t i t u d e a n d t h e s a m e i d e a [ a s i n t h e o r i g i n a l g e s t u r e r ] . 88 A n d
i f th is g e s tu r e h a s p a r a l l e l w i t h i t a c e r t a i n p s y c h ic a l s ta te w h i c h is th e i d e a o f
w h a t th e p e r s o n is g o in g to d o , a n d i f th is g e s tu r e c a lls o u t a lik e g e s tu r e in
th e o th e r in d iv id u a l a n d c a lls o u t a s im ila r i d e a , th e n it b e c o m e s a s ig n if ic a n t
g e s t u r e . I t s t a n d s f o r t h e i d e a i n t h e m i n d s o f b o t h o f t h e m . 89 M e a d t h e n a d d s ,
n o w a g a i n s t W u n d t:

[I]f, as Wundt does, you presuppose the existence of mind at the start, as explaining or making
possible the social process of experience, then the origin of minds and the interaction among minds
become mysteries. But if, on the other hand, you regard the social process of experience as prior (in
a rudimentary form) to the existence of mind and explain the origin of minds in terms of the
interaction among individuals within that process, then not only the origin of minds, but also the
interaction among minds (which is thus seen to be internal to their very nature and presupposed by
their existence or development at all) cease to seem mysterious or miraculous .90

I n t h e l i g h t o f t h e s e c l a i m s , M e a d s c o n c e p t i o n o f s y m p a t h y n o l o n g e r l o o k s
e s s e n tia lly s im u la tio n is t. O n th e c o n tra ry , we need s y m p a th y in o rd er to
a c q u ir e a c o n c e p t o f m in d , w h i c h c o n c e p t w o u l d b e n e e d e d f o r a n y s e n s e o f
p e r s p e c ti v e ta k in g . I n fa c t, M e a d is s u g g e s tin g th a t s y m p a th y is r e q u i r e d f o r u s
to h a v e a m in d in th e f ir s t p la c e . A t th e r o o t s y m p a th y is , a s h e s a y s , th e o r ig in
o f m in d s p r e c i s e l y b e c a u s e m in d s a r i s e o u t o f s o c ia l in te r a c tio n . O r to p u t th e
p o in t e v e n m o r e c le a r ly , m in d s a r i s e o u t o f s y m p a th e tic s o c ia l in te r a c tio n .
M u c h m o r e w o r k w o u l d b e n e e d e d t o c l a r i f y h o w M e a d s t h e o r y w o r k s a n d
to d e te rm in e w h e th e r M e a d s v ie w is , in th e end, c lo s e r to th e
p h e n o m e n o lo g ic a l c o n c e p t io n o f e m p a th y w e f o u n d in S te in a n d S c h e le r o r in
f a c t s o m e v e r y s o p h is tic a te d s im u la tio n th e o ry . T h a t s a id , i f i t d o e s tu r n o u t to
be s i m u l a t i o n i s t , M e a d s t h e o r y m i g h t w e l l h a r b o r r e s o u r c e s f o r d e f e n d i n g
s im u la tio n th e o r y a g a in s t th e s h a r p e s t p a r t o f th e p h e n o m e n o lo g ic a l c h a lle n g e .
E i t h e r w a y , w h a t is c l e a r i s t h a t M e a d a g r e e d w i t h S t e i n a n d S c h e l e r t h a t w h a t
( a t l e a s t p a r tly ) d is tin g u is h e s s y m p a th y is th e p e c u l i a r w a y i t a l l o w s u s to
e x p e rie n c e o th e rs as o th e rs a s in d iv id u a ls and d is tin c tly o th e r .
C o r r e s p o n d i n g l y , w e v e g o t o n e m o re le a d o n w h a t is a r g u a b ly th e m o s t
im p o rta n t c o n trib u tio n th e tra d itio n of s y m p a th y c u rre n tly has to o ffe r
c o n te m p o r a r y m o r a l a n d p o l i t i c a l p h ilo s o p h y . O f c o u r s e , o n c e a g a in it is a l e a d
th a t w o u ld b e o th e r w is e h id d e n fro m u s i f w e d o g m a tic a lly a d o p t a n y p r o p o s a l
to e s ta b lis h a n o b je c tiv e , n o n s tip u la te d d is tin c tio n b e tw e e n e m p a th y a n d
s y m p a t h y a d i s t i n c t i o n i t n o w s e e m s n e v e r r e a l l y e x i s t e d a n y w a y .91

1 Etymology isnt very helpful for clarifying the modern meaning of empathy, which strictly comes from
the Greek en + pathos, and thus either means that the person is in a state of pathos (experience), or has
a pathos in him or her (and, by extension, the emotion one feels in response to that experience). Neither
really suits the purposes to which the term is usually put, including Titcheners.
2 Edward Titchener, Lectures on the Experimental Psychology o f Thought-Processes (New York:
MacMillan, 1909), 21. The Oxford English Dictionary currently falsely attributes the coining of
empathy to Vernon Lee. See n. 21 below. Curiously, a reference to Titcheners translation (albeit with a
typographical error), appears two years earlier in O scar Ewalds (1908) annual Philosophical Review
roundup of German philosophy (German Philosophy in 1907. Philosophical Review 17.4: 400-426). I
have not been able to confirm Ewalds source, though presumably it was a draft of Titcheners Lectures.
3 Etymology fails us here. Empathy translates from the Greek as in passion or in feeling, and was
sometimes used to connote a strong passionate response. This obviously doesnt track the meaning of
empathy, however eclectic a meaning empathy may have.
4 Every so often a valiant effort is made to establish a consensus distinction. See, for example, Lauren G.
Wispe, The Distinction betw een Sympathy and Empathy: To Call Forth a Concept, a Word Is Needed,
Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology 50.2 (1986): 314-21; or Daniel Batson, These Things
Called Empathy: Eight Related but Distinct Phenomena, in The Social Neuroscience o f Empathy, ed.
Jean Decety and William Ickes (Cambridge, MA: M IT Press, 2011), 3-13. But honest scholars, like
Wispe and Batson, are well aware that their efforts ride on a healthy dose of stipulation.
5 My choice is partly guided by what I take to be already well-covered aspects of this history. For those
looking to round out their study, I recommend conjoining my essay with (1) George Pigman, Freud and
the History of Empathy, International Journal o f Psychoanalysis 76.2 (1995): 237-56; (2) Hans
Kogler and Karsten Stueber, introduction to Empathy and Agency: The Problem o f Understanding in
the Social Sciences (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999); (3) Gustav Jahoda, Theodor Lipps and the Shift
from Sympathy to Empathy, Journal o f the History o f the Behavioral Sciences 41 (2005): 151-63;
and (4) Dan Zahavi, Empathy, Embodiment, and Interpersonal Understanding: From Lipps to Schultz,
Inquiry 53.3 (2010): 285-306. Finally, see chapter 8 in this volume.
6 Also hugely important to the founding of modern psychology was William Jam ess Principles of
Psychology, published in 1890 (New York: Dover, 1950). Notably, James briefly visited Wundts lab prior
to the publication of the Principles .
7 For a record of Wundts students, see Miles Tinker, Wundts Doctorate Students and Their Theses
1875-1920, American Journal o f Psychology 44.4 (1932): 630-37.
8 Titchener received his Ph.D from Wundt in 1892. He is sometimes said to have founded the Cornell lab.
In fact, he took over a lab founded by Frank Angell, a fellow student from Leipzig.
9 According to Titchener (Lectures, 16), mind is the sum-total of mental processes. Consciousness,
when used properly, is synonymous with mind in this sense. (Titchener rejects using consciousness to
indicate something more than mind, e.g. the Lockean perception of what passes in a m ans own
mind, on the grounds that to talk of the minds awareness of itself has misleading homuncular
implications.) However, for ease of argument Titchener further stipulates that consciousness refers to
present mental experiences, i.e., the sum-total of mental processes occurring now (18-19). Also
important, Titchener claimed that psychological explanations cannot be wholly descriptive. Mental
experiences must ultimately get parallel physiological ones (see e.g. 36-41). For his more nuanced
taxonomy of psychology, see Edward Titchener, The Postulates of a Structural Psychology,
Philosophical Review 7.5 (1898): 449-65.
10 Edward Titchener, An Outline o f Psychology (New York: MacMillan, 1896), 341. Titchener added
with futile optimism, On this point all psychologists would be agreed.
11 Two excellent essays by Kurt Danziger articulate these points: (on introspection) The History of
Introspection Reconsidered, Journal o f the History o f the Behavioral Sciences 16 (1980): 241-62;
and (on Titcheners misleading portrayal of Wundts antielementalist social psychology) The Positivist
Repudiation of Wundt, Journal o f the History o f the Behavioral Sciences 15 (1979): 205-30.
12 Wundt defined folk or ethnic psychology in the introduction to his very first book, Contributions
toward a Theory o f Sense Perception, published in 1862 (Beitrage zur Theorie der
Sinneswahrnehmung [Leipzig: Winter]). He clarified the concept in his more famous Principles of
Physiological Psychology (Grundzuge der physiologischen Psychologie [Leipzig: Engelmann,
1874]). Moreover, he devoted the end of his career to his ten-volume Volkerpsychologie (Cultural or
ethnic psychology) (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1900-1909). It is thus absurd that Titchener claimed social
psychology was not at the heart of Wundts interests, a distortion that was perpetuated by Titcheners
student Edward Boring in his A History o f Psychology, first published in 1929 and reprinted in a new
edition with great success in 1950 (New York: Appeton-Century-Crofts, 1950). Indeed, as a few
contemporary historians have pointed out, it is less Titcheners distortion and more the fame of Borings
book, which was for decades the standard history of the subject, that directly contributed to almost a
century of misunderstanding of Wundt, at least in Anglo-Saxon circles.
13 A t least one prominent historian of psychology, David Hothersall, has mistakenly said otherwise; see
his History o f Psychology (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984), 87. Perhaps Hothersall was
misled by the fact that Wundt did supervise the dissertation of a different Lipps Gottlob Friedrich Lipps
 in 1888.

14 Aesthetics, Lipps wrote, is either psychological aesthetics or it is the statement about the
requirement of individual taste, accidental mood, or fashion. It is psychological aesthetics or it is a sum of
declarations of an individual who possess a sufficiently loud voice to show his private enthusiasms [or
fancies] or his dependence on fashion to its best advantage (Psychologie und Aesthetic, Archiv fu r
die gesamte Psychologie 9 [1907]: 91-116, at 111-12). I originally learned of this quote from a
translation in John Fizer, Psychologism and Psychoaesthetics: A Historical and Critical View o f Their
Relations [Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1981], 224 n. 15. However, after a careful copyeditor to this
chapter noted that Fizers own citation is to a nonexistent p. 117, I conferred with my colleague Hoke
Robinson over the original. He discovered the true location of the quote and supplied me with the
translation Ive used, and for this help I am deeply grateful.
15 Theodor Lipps, Leitfaden der Pscyhologie, 3rd ed. (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1909 [1903]), 58; trans. in
Danziger, History of Introspection, 253.
16 Titchener, Lectures, 21; first emphasis added. Curiously, there is evidence that Titchener had already
started using empathy in this context at least a year prior to its use in the Lectures (which were
delivered in M arch 1909 and published in November the same year). Thus, in his 1908 review of
German Philosophy in 1907, Oscar Ewald notes that Titchener had suggested, perhaps privately to him,
using empathy as a translation of Einfuhlung in his comments on recent work on the subject, instead of
Ewalds preferred sympathy (407). I have not been able to chase up this curiosity further, but doubt it
would prove conceptually illuminating.
17 This is not always well observed in conceptual histories of empathy. See e.g. the entry on Sympathy
and Empathy by Lauren Wispe in the International Encyclopedia o f the Social Sciences (Detroit:
MacMillan, 1968, 441-47); republished online, Encyclopedia.com, 2014. Wispe doesnt explicitly attribute
Lipps as Titcheners source, but she implies it.
18 Titchener certainly knew of Lippss work, occasionally citing him, including in the Lectures. But (1) he
does not cite Lipps as a source of his idea of empathy ; (2) a review of Titcheners various indexes of
names and subjects, both in the Lectures and his other works, does not suggest a great interest in Lipps;
and (3) by the time Titchener used the term there was already a vigorous body of German literature on
Einfuhlung, including some discussion by Wundt. See also Jahoda, Theodor Lipps and the Shift.
19 Compare J 0 rgen Hunsdahl, Concerning Einfuhlung (Empathy); A Concept Analysis of Its Origin and
Early Development, Journal o f the History o f the Behavioral Sciences 3 (1967): 180-91; Pigman,
Freud and the History of Empathy ; Jahoda, Theodor Lipps and the Shift; and Juliet Koss, On the
Limits of Empathy, Art Bulletin 88 (2006): 139-57.
20 For an excellent discussion of this point, see Danziger, Positivist Repudiation of Wundt.
21 The terminology of empathy did catch on quickly in Anglo-American aesthetics. However,
Titcheners influence here was at best nominal. For example, although it is certain that the famous
aesthetician Vernon Lee (a.k.a. Violet Piaget) adopted the term empathy from Titchener in her own
translations of Einfuhlung, her own diary entries make it clear that substantively it was Lipps, Wundt,
and other German theorists of Einfuhlung, who influenced Lee. Titchener had a similarly nominal
influence on dramatic theory; see George Gunkle, Empathy: Implications for Theatre Research,
Educational Theatre Journal 15.1 (1963): 15-23.
22 The following remarks owe much to K osss excellent Limits of Empathy, on the history of
empathy in modern aesthetics.
23 Wundt, James, and Freud all highly praised Lipps. Yet several prominent general histories of
psychology barely notice him, like Boring, A History; Hothersall, History o f Psychology; and George
Mandler, A History o f Modern Experimental Psychology: From James and Wundt to Cognitive
Science (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006). Hothersall also incorrectly places him in Wundts lab (see
n. 13).
24 To be fair, some aspects of Titcheners descriptions of empathy suggest he may have had something
of Lippss interpersonal form in view. But even if he did, he ran it together with Lippss more
straightforwardly kinesthetically based aesthetic form of Einfuhlung.
25 Anglo-American students of Freud might easily miss this, given that the Standard Edition of Freud
translates Einfuhlung as empathy only about half the time, and never does so in a clinical context,
despite Freuds emphasis on Einfuhlung as a necessary condition for correctly judging when to begin
treatment. See esp. Pigman, Freud and the History of Empathy, 246. Thus, according to Freud,
clinicians should begin making communications to the patient only when a proper rapport is
established, which in turn is only established by taking up the standpoint of Einfuhlung (Sigmund Freud,
On Beginning the Treatment [Further Recommendations on the Technique of Psycho-Analysis I], in
The Standard Edition o f the Complete Psychological Works o f Sigmund Freud, vol. 12, trans. and ed.
James Strachey [London: Hogarth Press, 1958 (1913)], 121-44, at 139-40). Now by this point Freud
clearly was using Einfuhlung in a particular way, namely, as a process by which one puts oneself,
unconsciously or consciously, into the place or viewpoint of another. Strachey, however, in the Standard
Edition, translates this standpoint as one of sympathetic understanding, a translation that is bound to
mislead both casual and trained readers.
26 But see Dan Zahavis recent Empathy, which is an excellent overview of the phenomenological
discussion of empathy. And around the same time Vittorio Gallese (one of the discovers of so-called
mirror neurons; see n. 68 ) started to cite Lipps as a forerunner of Simulation Theory. But before that, as
the debate between Simulation Theory and Theory Theory went on from the mid 80s through the 90s,
no one was seriously looking at phenomenological theory.
27 Pigman, Freud and the History of Empathy, 237.
28 Pigman himself notes a 1911 article that listed 161 different scholarly articles and books (Freud and
the History of Empathy, 237). The article is by the phenomenologist Moritz Geiger, who also wrote in
psychology and aesthetics, which is telling. For Pigman might well have added phenomenology alongside
aesthetics and psychology, given how often the three fields initially intertwined, in part due to shared
interest in Einfuhlung.
29 It also reminds us to pay careful attention to these moments, if for no other reason than to avoid
mistakes about their origin. Pigman documents a few such mistakes in his own footnotes (see e.g. Freud
and the History of Empathy, 237).
30 This was in Vischers doctoral thesis. See Robert Vischer, On the Optical Sense of Form: A
Contribution to Aesthetics, in Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873
1893, ed. Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomou (Santa Monica, CA: Getty Center, 1994),
89-123.
31 See Koss, Limits of Empathy.
32 For more on this historical moment, see Zahavi, Empathy. Zahavi points out that Scheler would later
try to play off Vischers same distinctions (among others), but arguably not consistently and thus at the
cost of obfuscating his already delicate sense of Einfuhlung.
33 See Hunsdahl,Concerning Einfuhlung.
34 See also Jahoda, Theodor Lipps and the Shift.
35 For more on the British scene at roughly the same period, see chapter 10 in this volume.
36 Wispe, Sympathy and Empathy.
37 Stephen D arw all Empathy, Sympathy, Care, Philosophical Studies 89.2-3 (1998): 261-82, at 261.
38 That is how Smith famously defined sympathy, anyway, at the outset of The Theory o f Moral
Sentiments.
39 Wispe, Distinction betw een sympathy and empathy.
40 Darwall, Empathy, Sympathy, Care, 261, emphasis added.
41 Martin Davies and Tony Stone, eds., Mental Simulation (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 3.
42 Lipps gives a concise explanation of his view in, Empathy, Inner Imitation, and Sense Feelings
(Einfuhlung, innere Nachahmung, und Organempfindungen), Archiv fu r die gesamte Psychologie
1 (1903), trans. M ax Schertel and Melvin Rader, in A Modern Book o f Esthetics, 5th ed., ed. Rader
(Holt, Rinehart, and Winston: N ew York, 1979), 371-78. For more on Lippss second thoughts about the
description inner imitation, see Jahoda, Theodor Lipps and the Shift.
43 Evidence suggests that Lipps began by reworking a set of notes and index to a translation of
Treatise book 1, made by an Else Koettgen. This seems to have grown into a translation of the entire
Treatise. Thus a translation of books 2 and 3, published in 1906 by Lipps, H um es Traktat iiber die
menschliche Natur (Treatise on [sic!] human nature) (Hamburg: Leopold Voss, 1906), is described as
based on a translation by Mrs. J. Bona M eyer (who was, incidentally, the professor at Bonn under
whom Lipps wrote his habilitation). This edition was reviewed by Paul Wuest in Zu Theodor Lipps
Neuausgabe seiner deutschen Bearbeitung von H um es Treatise of Human Nature, Kant-Studien 14
(1909): 249-73. In 1973 the whole translation was edited (by Reinhard Brandt, a well-known Kant
scholar at Marburg) and republished by Philosophische Bibliothek (Hamburg) under the title David
Hume, Ein Traktat iiber die menschliche Natur (A Treatise on [sic!] human nature). ,which
presumably means this translation, at least mostly by Lipps, is still the standard in German. (For tracking
down this information, I am deeply indebted to my colleague Hoke Robinson.)
44 Robert Vischer, Ueber das optische Formgefuhl: Ein Beitrag zur Aesthetik (Leipzig: Credner,
1873), translated by Jahoda in Theodor Lipps and the Shift, 7.
45 Lipps, Empathy, Inner Imitation, and Sense Feelings, 373.
46 Lipps, Empathy, Inner Imitation, and Sense Feelings, 375.
47 Lipps, Empathy, Inner Imitation, and Sense Feelings, 375.
48 Jahoda, Theodor Lipps and the Shift, 155.
49 Lipps, Empathy, Inner Imitation, and Sense Feelings, 375, emphasis added.
50 There is disagreement about whether Vischer was opposed to such panpsychist aesthetics. In
Theodor Lipps and the Shift, Jahoda suggests Vischer had his own romantic flights. But David
Depew argues the other way persuasively (Empathy, Psychology, and Aesthetics: Reflections on a
Repair Concept, Poroi 4.1 [2005]: 99-107). Either way, Jahoda unfortunately glosses over the same
question for Lipps.
51 Theodore Lipps, Aesthetik: Die asthetische Betrachtung und die bidende Kunst (Hamburg: Voss,
1906), trans. Depew in Empathy, Psychology, and Aesthetics, 1. I follow Depew here in stressing the
connection between Einfuhlung and Ausdruck for Lipps.
52 Lipps, Empathy, Inner Imitation, and Sense Feelings. See also Depew, Empathy, Psychology, and
Aesthetics.
53 Eric Schliesser argues that a similar conflation can be found in Smiths account, in The Piacular, or on
Seeing Oneself as a Moral Cause in Adam Smith, in Contemporary Perspectives on Early Modern
Philosophy: Nature and Norms in Thought, vol. 29, ed. M. Lenz and A. Waldow (Dordrecht,
Netherlands: Springer, 2013), 159-77.
54 Vischer, On the Optical Sense of Form, 97.
55 Lipps, Empathy, Inner Imitation, and Sense Feelings, 376.
56 Jahoda, Theodor Lipps and the Shift, 157-58.
57 Theodor Lipps, Raumasthetik und geometrisch-optische Tauschungen (Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1897);
trans. Jahoda, Theodor Lipps and the Shift, 158.
58 Lipps, Aesthetik , 21; trans. Jahoda, Theodor Lipps and the Shift, 158-59.
59 H ere I follow Hunsdahl, Concerning Einfuhlung , and his translated excerpts of Lipps, Asthetik.
Systematische Philosophie (Liebzig: B.G. Teubner, 1908), 351-90, esp. 365.
60 I direct readers to K osss excellent Limits of Empathy, on which my summary here is closely based.
61 Wilhelm Worringer, Abstraction and Empathy (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1997), 14. (NB: the original
German title is Abstraktion und Einfuhlung .)
62 Worringer, Abstraction and Empathy , 23-25.
63 Olga Rozanova, Extracts from Articles (1918), in Russian Art o f the Avant-Garde: Theory and
Criticism, trans. and ed. John E. Bowlt (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988), 148.
64 William James, Lippss Psychological Studies, Science 6.140 (1885): 308-10.
65 H. Meltzer, Lipps Pre-Gestalt studies, Journal o f Educational Psychology 18.2 (1927): 131-33.
66 See Gunkle, Empathy. Gunkle has a facile understanding of Lippss notion of Einfuhlung, but this
doesnt undo the article.
67 Lipps, Asthetik, Systematische Philosophie, 361, emphasis added; trans. in Hunsdahl, Concerning
Einfuhlung , 184. Hunsdahl, however, doesnt pay much attention to the import of this part of Lippss
theory.
68 Theodor Lipps, Das Wissen from fremden Ich, in Psychologische Untersuchungen, ed. Lipps
(Leipzig: Engelmann, 1907), 1.713; trans. in Jahoda, Theodor Lipps and the Shift, 156.
69 The discovery of mirror neurons was announced in a pair of articles by the Italian researchers
Giacomo Rizzolatti, Luciano Fadiga, Vittorio Gallese, and Leonardo Fogassi. See Remy Debes, Which
Empathy? Limitations in the Mirrored Understanding of Emotion, Synthese 175.2 (2010): 219-39.
70 Schelers own terminology aims for a far more exacting division of the phenomena, but is arguably too
clever by half; see Zahavi, Empathy, for criticism on this point.
71 M ax Scheler, The Problem o f Sympathy, trans. P. H eath (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1970), 213.
This is obviously a nontrivial claim, but one I cant follow up here.
72 Edith Stein, On the Problem o f Empathy, trans. Waltraut Stein (Washington, DC: ICS Publications,
1989), 5.
73 Stein, On the Problem o f Empathy, 5.
74 Stein, On the Problem o f Empathy, 8.
75 Scheler, Problem o f Sympathy, 10.
76 Stein, On the Problem o f Empathy, 17.
77 Stein, On the Problem o f Empathy, 23.
78 Scheler is keen to point out, as a criticism of both Lipps and Stein, that in certain idiopathic and
heteropathic cases we may well experience certain kinds of full-blown identifications. But for the same
reason in such cases we are essentially dealing with a different phenomenon. See Scheler, Problem o f
Sympathy, 18.
79 Stein, On the Problems o f Empathy, 14.
80 I m interpreting here. But the combination of Scheler, Problem o f Sympathy, 8-12 and 31-36, speaks
in this direction.
81 Moreover, the objection itself must be situated against a paradox Scheler himself notes ( Problem of
Sympathy, 31-36), namely that to fully recognize the individuality of others requires a forgetfulness of
ones own individuality (and thus dignity), given that it is precisely ones own individuality ones own
distinctness of ego and selfthat psychically anchors us from really identifying with others, as opposed
to merely empathizing with them.
82 Charles Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order (New York: Scribners, 1922), 137.
83 Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, 137-38.
84 George H. Mead, The Nature of Sympathy, in Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint o f a
Social Behaviorist, ed. Charles Morris (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934), section 38, 298
303, but see esp. 299.
85 Mead, Nature of Sympathy, 300; emphasis added.
86 Mead, Nature of Sympathy, 300.
87 George H. Mead, Social Psychology as Counterpart to Physiological Psychology, Psychological
Bulletin 6 (1909): 401-408, at 406.
88 George H Mead, Wundt and the Concept of the Gesture, in Mind, Self, and Society, section 7, 42
51, at 48. See also Mead, T he M echanism of Social Consciousness, Journal o f Philosophy,
Psychology, and Scientific Methods 9 (1912): 401-6.
89 Mead, Wundt, 48.
90 Mead, Wundt, 50. Eric Schliesser made the intriguing suggestion to me that M eads argument here
has strong affinities to the arguments of part 3 of Adam Smiths Theory o f Moral Sentiments.
91 I m grateful to Eric Schliesser for comments on the penultimate draft of this chapter, but even more
for his support and encouragement since our first meeting years ago, when I was a new professor. Such
kindness can never fully be repaid. I also benefited from discussion with Hoke Robinson, John Kirby,
Shaun Ghallagher, and all the participants at the Richmond workshop where early drafts for this volume
were presented. Finally, I am indebted to the graduate students in my Empathy seminar during the
spring of 2012, where I worked out the foundations of the analysis in this chapter.
 C H A P T E R TEN

Sympathy Caught between Darwin and

Eugenics
D a v id M . L e v y a n d S a n d r a J. P e a r t

Mr. Darwins anecdotes of animal societies are marvelous. There exists solid evidence which
abundantly proves the capacity of animals to constitute admirably organized societies. They have
co-operation for a common end. They have subordinate ranks. They have monarchs to rule, soldiers
to defend, artisans to work, cattle to milk, and they hold slaves in bondage. They have some good
characteristics of human societies, and they have some bad ones. But they are stationary, while an
increasing purpose runs through human history, and our thoughts are widened with the process of
the suns. We have emancipated our slaves. N o Wilberforce or Clarkson has appeared among the
ants.
WILLIAM BINNS, Science, Theology, and the Evolution o f M an
 1. In t r o d u c t i o n

S y m p a th y becam e a c e n tra l to p ic of d is c u s s io n in th e p o s t-D a rw in ia n

e v o lu tio n a r y lite r a tu r e w h e n A l f r e d R u s s e l W a lla c e a s k e d in 1 8 6 4 w h e th e r th e
s u r v iv a l p r in c ip le s o f n a tu ra l s e le c tio n a p p li e d to h u m a n s .1 I n a p a p e r f ir s t
p r e s e n te d a t th e A n th r o p o lo g ic a l S o c ie ty a n d th e n w i d e l y r e p r in te d , W a lla c e
a s s e r te d th a t n a tu ra l s e le c tio n s to p p e d a t th e e d g e o f c iv iliz a tio n b e c a u s e
h u m a n s a re c o n n e c te d b y s y m p a th e tic b o n d s a n d a c c o r d in g ly th e y w o u ld n o t le t
th e d is a b le d p e ris h . M o re o v e r, w ith th e d iv is io n o f la b o r th a t c o d e fin e s
c iv iliz a tio n , p e o p le fin d o c c u p a tio n s th a t s u it a w id e v a r ie ty o f c a p a c itie s a n d
th e r e b y s u p p o r t th e m s e lv e s a n d th e ir c h ild re n . T h e d is c u s s io n th a t in fo rm e d
W a l l a c e s a r g u m e n t e m p h a s i z e d t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f s y m p a th y fo r c re a tin g a
s p h e r e o f rig h ts f o r in d iv id u a ls .
T o m a k e th e c a s e in D e s c e n t o f M a n ( 1 8 7 1 ) th a t h u m a n s e v o lv e d fro m
n o n h u m a n a n im a ls , C h a r le s D a rw in s tre s s e d a tw o fo ld c o n tin u ity b e tw e e n
a n im a ls a n d hum ans. F irs t, h e a s s e rte d th a t th e s o c ia l in s tin c t in a n im a ls
d e v e lo p s in to s y m p a th y a n d a m o r a l s e n s e a m o n g h u m a n s . S e c o n d , h e ta k e s
s e x u a l s e le c ti o n in a n im a ls a n d h u m a n s to b e l a r g e ly th e s a m e p r in c ip le . T h e
m o s t s y s t e m a t i c c h a l l e n g e t o D a r w i n w a s o f f e r e d b y S t. G e o r g e M i v a r t i n a
s e rie s o f p u b lic a tio n s . I n h is Q u a r te r ly R e v ie w e s s a y , M iv a r t a rg u e d th a t
s e x u a l s e le c tio n c a n o c c u r w i t h o r w ith o u t c o n s e n t. S e x u a l s e le c tio n w ith o u t
c o n s e n t, M iv a r t n o te d , c a n b e th o u g h t o f a s a n o th e r f o r m o f n a tu ra l s e le c tio n ,
o n e t h a t c h a l l e n g e s D a r w i n s c o n t i n u i t y t h e s i s . A n o t h e r c h a l l e n g e t h a t w h i l e
th e s o c ia l in s e c ts a r e s o m u c h lik e u s a s to e v e n h a v e s la v e s , th e r e h a s b e e n n o
W ilb e r f o r c e a n t e q u iv a le n t a s e m a n c ip a to r o f e ith e r th e a p h id s o r th e b la c k
a n ts a ls o a rg u e s a g a in s t th e c o n tin u ity th e s is . H u m a n s o c ie tie s , u n lik e s o c ia l
in s e c ts , c a n r e f o r m th e m s e lv e s a n d th e r e f o r m s a t is s u e , th e r e q u ir e m e n t f o r
c o n s e n t in m a r r ia g e a n d th e r e q u ir e m e n t f o r c o n s e n t in th e d i v i s i o n o f la b o r ,
d e p e n d o n a r e c i p r o c i t y p r i n c i p l e th a t r e s p e c ts th e in d iv id u a l. T h is p r i n c i p l e is
a t w o r k i n A d a m S m i t h s v e r s i o n o f s y m p a t h y ; i t i s p r e s u p p o s e d i n W a l l a c e s
d i s c u s s io n b u t n o t th a t o f D a r w in . W e s h a ll a rg u e th a t ta k in g th e c o n tin u ity
th e s is as a n o rm a tiv e g u id e rem o v e s th e c o n s tra in t o f ju s tic e fro m s o c ia l
re fo rm .
D a r w i n s M o ra l S ense c h a p te r in D escen t pay s trib u te to S m i t h s
p io n e e r in g e x p lo r a tio n o f th e s y m p a th e tic p r in c ip le but he d o es not k n o w
S m ith s w o r k v e r y w e l l , b e lie v in g a s h e d o e s th a t S m ith s s y s te m c a n n o t
e x p la i n w h y o u r a f f e c tio n f o r f a m ily w o u ld b e s tr o n g e r th a n a f f e c tio n fo r
s tr a n g e r s .2 P e r h a p s m o re im p o rta n tly , D a r w i n u s e s a s y m p a th e tic p r i n c i p l e to
e x p la i n h o w p r a is e m o tiv a te s . F o r th e u tilita r ia n s w h o w e r e m o s t in flu e n c e d
b y S m ith , J a m e s M ill a n d J o h n S tu a r t M ill, S m ith s g r e a t c o n tr ib u tio n w a s
s h o w in g how p r a is e w o r th in e s s m o tiv a te s . M o tiv a tio n by p ra is e , a
c o m m o n p la c e i n f o lk w is d o m , c a n e x p la i n h o w s m a ll c o n n e c te d g ro u p s
fu n c tio n , a n d i t c a n b e p la u s i b ly e x te n d e d to a f f e c tiv e m o tiv a tio n o u ts id e
la n g u a g e a s D a r w i n s u g g e s te d . T h e u til i t a r i a n p r o j e c t w a s to e s c a p e fro m
s m a ll g ro u p s , to e x p la i n w h a t c a n m o tiv a te f o r th e g r e a te s t h a p p in e s s . F o r th is ,
o n e n e e d s to w o r k w i t h p r a is e w o r t h in e s s o r to d is r e g a r d u n d e s e r v e d p r a is e f o r
a c ts th a t b e n e f it a s m a l le r g ro u p a t th e e x p e n s e o f th e la rg e r.
T h e r e is a n a s p e c t o f S m ith s w o r k o n s y m p a th y th a t p e r h a p s e s c a p e d e v e n
th e M ills . W h ile S m ith d id n o t d is a g r e e th a t th e g r e a te s t h a p p in e s s o u g h t to
g u id e r e fo rm , he o f f e r e d a s u b tle o b je c t io n to p u ttin g m u c h tr u s t i n r e f o r m
p r o p o s a ls . H is a rg u m e n t w a s s im p le a n d s p a r e : tim e is s o s c a r c e th a t p e o p le
f a il f u lly to u n d e r s ta n d h o w a p r o p o s e d r e f o r m b e a r s o n th e w e l l - b e i n g o f
o th e rs . F o r S m ith a tim e - e c o n o m iz in g s o c ia l r e f o r m m ig h t b e e f f e c te d b y
a d v a n c in g a m o d e l in w h ic h s o c ie ty s e n d s a r e c o l l a p s e d to a s im p le g o a l. B u t
S m ith o f f e r s a c a u tio n to th e r e a d e r . W ith th e e n d s b e in g m a d e tr a c ta b l e , m o d e l
b u ild e r s , S m ith s m e n o f s y s te m , th e n d e ta il h o w m e a n s a r e to b e u s e d to
im p le m e n t th e s e e n d s . T h e s e r e f o r m e r s m a y b e c o m e s o f a s c in a te d b y th e
s y s te m a s to u s e i t a s a g u id e to p e r f e c t io n e v e n a t th e e x p e n s e o f o v e r a ll
h a p p in e s s . S y m p a th y f o r th e e n d s o f in d iv id u a ls , a b o u t w h o m w e k n o w so
littl e , m ig h t b e s a c r i f i c e d fo r th e te m p ta tio n to p u rs u e th e v i s i o n o f s o c ia l
p e r f e c t io n th a t s e e m s s o c l e a r .3 W e s h a ll e m p lo y th is a s p e c t o f S m ith s te a c h in g
to c o n s id e r h o w D a r w i n s c o n tin u ity th e s is r e m o v e s th e c o n s tr a in t o f j u s t i c e
f r o m p o l i t i c a l r e f o r m p r o p o s a ls .
W e v i e w D a r w i n s m o d e ls o f a r tif i c ia l ( o r h u m a n ) a n d n a tu ra l s e l e c t i o n a s
c o n te n d in g m e th o d s o f p o s s i b l e p o litic a l re fo rm . To s im p lif y a b it: w h e n
t r a n s f e r r e d to a m o d e l f o r p u b lic p o l i c y to e m u la te , a r t i f i c i a l s e le c tio n is
u n d e r ta k e n to a tta in th e h a p p in e s s o f th e h u m a n s w h o choose; n a tu r a l
s e l e c t i o n is u n d e r ta k e n a s p a r t o f a tw o f o ld s tru g g le fo r e x is te n c e a n d fo r
m a te s . R e r e a d f r o m th is p e r s p e c tiv e , in O n th e O rig in o f S p e c ie s ( 1 8 5 9 ) th e
c o n te n tio n is b e tw e e n n a tu ra l a n d a r tif i c ia l s e l e c t i o n o f n o n h u m a n s; in D e s c e n t
th e c o n te n tio n is b e tw e e n h u m a n s e l e c t i o n o f th e ir o w n d e s c e n d a n ts a n d th e
p r in c ip le s o f n a tu r a l s e le c tio n . W h ile th e is s u e o f h u m a n s y m p a th y is
o b liq u e ly r a i s e d in O r ig in , a s D a r w i n e x p la in s w h y h e th in k s a r tif i c ia l
s e l e c t i o n is in f e r io r to n a tu ra l s e le c tio n f o r r a c i a l im p r o v e m e n t, s y m p a th y
m o v e s to f r o n t a n d c e n te r in D esc en t. D a r w i n h e r e w o r r i e s th a t s y m p a th y w i l l
in te r f e r e w i t h n a tu ra l s e le c tio n a s p e o p le p u r s u e th e ir o w n h a p p in e s s . B e c a u s e
b o th h u m a n h a p p in e s s a n d r a c i a l im p r o v e m e n t a r e ta k e n a s w o r th w h ile g o a ls ,
D a rw in now p o s its an e x p l i c i t t r a d e - o f f b e tw e e n s y m p a th y and r a c ia l
im p ro v e m e n t. B y r a c i a l o f c o u r s e w e r e f e r to th e h u m a n r a c e , n o t a n y s u b s e t.
A s W a lla c e w o u ld la te r e x p la in , th e s c ie n c e o f e u g e n ic s a r o s e a s a n
a r tif i c ia l r e p la c e m e n t f o r th e f a ilu r e o f n a tu ra l s e le c tio n . H is 1 8 6 4 e s s a y
in itia te d th e p u b lic d is c u s s io n o f th e im p o r ta n c e o f d e a d e n in g s y m p a th y f o r th e
s u r v iv in g u n fit in o r d e r to a tta in th e g o a ls o f r a c i a l p e r f e c tio n s u p p o s e d ly
e f f e c te d b y n a tu r a l s e le c tio n . T h e r e m a in d e r o f h is lif e w a s f i l l e d w ith
re sp o n se s to e u g e n ic p r o p o s a ls . The c h a lle n g e s im m e d ia te ly o ffe re d to
D a r w i n s c o n tin u ity th e s is e x p la i n w h y s o c ia l D a r w i n i s m s m o s t im p o r ta n t
r e f o r m p r o p o s a l s c a n b e d e s c r i b e d a s v a r ia tio n s o n a e u g e n ic th e m e . L a te r
w r ite r s w e r e f a r le s s c a r e f u l th a n D a r w in . It is a ll to o e a s y to f in d p u b lis h e d
d e f e n s e s o f th e d e s i r e d e u g e n ic p r o p e r tie s o f w a r a n d fa m in e . A m o n g m a n y
p o s t- D a r w in ia n h ig h ly e d u c a te d p e rs o n s , th e s y m p a th y f o r th e l e s s e r h a d
e n d e d ; a ll th a t r e m a in e d w a s to re m a k e h u m a n ity in th e im a g e o f th e m o d e l s
id e a liz a tio n .
We d is c u s s tw o p u b lic c o n tr o v e r s ie s . The firs t b e g a n w ith G e o rg e
D a r w i n s 1 8 7 4 p r o p o s a l to g o b e y o n d F r a n c is G a lto n s p r o p o s a l to s u b s id iz e
c h ild r e n o f a n e lite a n d W R . G r e g s h a n d w r in g in g to b e g in a s y s te m a tic
p o lic y o f n e g a tiv e e u g e n ic s b y p r o h ib itin g m a r r ia g e o f a n a n tie lite . H e r e w e
s h a ll s e e th a t th e d e b a te q u ic k ly m o v e d f r o m b io lo g ic a l th e o r ie s to p o lic y
a d v o c a c y . T h e s e c o n d o c c u r r e d b e c a u s e o f a le tte r f r o m C h a r le s D a r w i n to
C h a r le s B r a d la u g h th a t p u ts th e t r a d e - o f f b e tw e e n h a p p in e s s a n d n a tu ra l
s e l e c t i o n in s h a r p r e lie f . B r a d la u g h a n d A n n ie B e s a n t s to o d tr i a l in 1 8 7 7 fo r
d is tr ib u tin g an o b sce n e m anual o n c o n tr a c e p tio n . In r e s p o n s e to th e ir
e n tr e a ty th a t h e m ig h t te s tif y o n th e ir b e h a lf , D a r w in d e c li n e d a n d c a l l e d
a tte n tio n to w h a t h e h a d w r itte n a b o u t th e t r a d e - o f f b e tw e e n th e g o a ls o f
in d iv id u a ls in a v o id in g m is e r y f o r th e ir c h ild r e n a n d th e g o a l o f r a c ia l
p e r f e c tio n b y m e a n s o f n a tu ra l s e le c tio n .
 2. Th e Mi l l s o n Sy m p a t h y a n d Mo t i v a t i o n b y Pr a i s e w o r t h i n e s s

J a m e s a n d J o h n S tu a rt M ill r e a d T h e o ry o f M o r a l S e n tim e n ts [ T M S ] a s p a r t o f
th e ir r e s e a r c h in p s y c h o lo g y . J a m e s M ill r e a d T M S w h e n h e w a s a s tu d e n t o f
D u g a l d S t e w a r t , S m i t h s f i r s t b i o g r a p h e r .4 A l t h o u g h c o n t r o v e r s y h a s a r i s e n
o v e r w h e t h e r S t e w a r t d o w n p l a y e d S m i t h s r a d i c a l i s m , 5 S t e w a r t s r e a d i n g o f
T M S is p r e c is e . I n T M S S m ith w a s c a re f u l to d e fin e a f f e c tio n a s h a b itu a l
s y m p a t h y , a n d S t e w a r t c a l l e d a t t e n t i o n t o t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f t h i s s t e p i n S m i t h s
a r g u m e n t .6
J a m e s M i l l s 1 8 2 0 G o v e r n m e n t i s p e r h a p s t h e c l a s s i c t e x t o n t h e p r o b l e m
o f s m a l l g r o u p s e x p l o i t i n g l a r g e g r o u p s .7 H i s 1 8 2 9 A n a l y s i s o f th e P h e n o m e n a
o f th e H u m a n M i n d a p p l i e d s y m p a th e tic c o n s id e ra tio n s to e x p la in g ro u p
o r g a n iz a tio n . T h e c o m m e n ts a d d e d in 1 8 6 9 b y J o h n S tu a r t M ill in h is e d itio n
a r e p a r t i c u l a r l y h e l p f u l . 8 W e b e g i n w i t h J a m e s M i l l s a c c o u n t o f o u r a f f e c t i o n s
fo r o th e rs . H e s ta rts w ith [a ]c tio n s g iv e b ir th to a s e t o f A s s o c ia tio n s a n d
g o e s o n to e x a m in e a c ts c o n te m p la te d a s c a u s e s o f s u c h a lte r a tio n s in th e
S ta te s a s r e n d e r th e m to a g r e a te r o r le s s d e g r e e c a u s e s o f o u r p le a s u r e s o r
p a in s (2 : 2 7 0 ) . J. S. M ill a m p lif ie s th e a rg u m e n t in a w a y th a t s u g g e s ts J a m e s
M ill h a d u n d e r s ta te d th e im p a c t o f s y m p a th e tic m o tiv a tio n b y n e g le c tin g th e
in te r a c tio n s o f a g e n ts : th e f a c t th a t a f e e lin g is s h a r e d b y a ll o r m a n y o f th o s e
w ith w hom we a re in fre q u e n t in te rc o u rs e , s tre n g th e n s , by an o b v io u s
c o n s e q u e n c e , a l l th e a s s o c i a ti o n s , b o th o f r e s e m b la n c e a n d o f c o n tig u ity , w h i c h
g iv e th a t f e e lin g its f o r c e . T h is is th e w e l l - k n o w n in f lu e n c e o f s y m p a th y , s o
s tr ik in g ly e v in c e d b y th e v e h e m e n t f e e lin g s o f a c r o w d (2 : 2 7 4 - 7 5 ) . J a m e s
M ill c o n s id e r s w h y m e m b e rs o f s m a ll g ro u p s c o n fu s e th e in te r e s t o f th e ir p a r t
o f s o c ie ty w i t h th a t o f th e w h o le ; th e ir p a r t c o n ta in s a ll th o s e to w h o m th e y a r e
s y m p a th e tic a lly c o n n e c te d : W h e r e th e in h a b ita n ts o f a c o u n tr y a r e d i v id e d
in to c la s s e s , a R u lin g C la s s , a n d a S u b je c t C l a s s , th e m e m b e r s o f th e R u lin g
C la s s h a v e h a r d ly a n y s y m p a th ie s , e x c e p t w i t h o n e a n o th e r ; in o th e r w o r d s ,
h a v e a g r e e a b le a s s o c i a ti o n s w i t h th e p l e a s u r e s , a n d r e m o v a l o f th e p a in s , o f
h a rd ly any p e rso n s, b u t th o s e w ho b e lo n g to th e sam e c la s s (2 : 2 7 5 ).
E d u c a ti o n is o f f e r e d a s a m e a n s b y w h i c h p e o p le c o m e to id e n tif y w i t h a l a r g e r
g ro u p to c o n tro l th e n a rro w a s s o c ia tio n s , g ro w in g out of a p a rtic u la r
p o s it i o n s o th e y a r e a lw a y s id e n tif ie d w i t h th a t o f th e c o m m u n ity a t la r g e
(2 : 2 7 6 ) . C a n w e h o p e f o r th e L o v e o f M a n k in d ? 9 (2 : 2 7 8 ) . T h is is th e
c h a lle n g e fo r e d u c a tio n , to w id e n s y m p a th y (2 : 2 7 8 ).
For u tilita ria n p u rp o se s, we re q u ire p ra is e w o rth y a c tio n , n o t p ra is e d
a c tio n . M ill m a k e s th e p o in t a c r o s s tw o p a r a g r a p h s th a t w e r u n to g e th e r. T h e
g o a l o f e d u c a t io n is m o tiv a tio n b y p r a i s e w o r th i n e s s :

that remarkable phenomenon of our nature, eloquently described, but not explained, by Adam Smith,
that, in minds happily trained, the love of Praiseworthiness, the dread of Blameworthiness, is a
stronger feeling, than the love of actual Praise, the Dread of actual Blame... . It has reference, not
to what is, or to what shall be, but to what ought to be, the sentiments of mankind. (2: 298-99)

J. S . M ill ta k e s g r e a t c a r e i n a n e d it o r ia l c o m m e n t to m a k e s u r e th e p o i n t is
m a d e a n d t h a t J a m e s M i l l s w o r d s a r e n o t m i s r e a d . A n d h e r e a t t h e c e n t e r o f
th e m o tiv a tio n a l th e o r y o f u tilita r ia n is m w e f in d th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r :

the desire of undeserved praise is greatly counteracted by the thought that people would not bestow
the praise if they knew all. That what has now been stated was really the authors meaning, is
proved by his going on to say, that praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, as motives to action, have
reference not to what is, or to what shall be, but to what ought to be, the sentiments of mankind.
(2: 298-99)

P r a is e d e p e n d s o n th e g ro u p in w h ic h a n in d iv id u a l h a p p e n s to f a ll. T h e r e
is n o r e a s o n to b e li e v e th a t m o tiv a tio n b y p r a is e is d e s e r v e d , th a t it w ill s e r v e
e n d s w i t h a n y c o n n e c tio n b e y o n d th a t o f th e im m e d ia te g ro u p . F o r u tilita r ia n
m o tiv a tio n , o n e n e e d s to h a v e th e c o n c e r n s o f th e la rg e s t g ro u p s e rv e as
m o t i v a t i o n . 10 W hat lin k s S m ith and th e tw o M ills is th e ir fo c u s on
p r a i s e w o r t h i n e s s a s m o t i v a t i o n . 11
 3. Th e Bi o l o g i c a l Ba c k g r o u n d to Da r w i n

I n n in e te e n th - c e n tu ry e v o lu tio n a r y b io lo g y , s y m p a th y w a s th e k e y to p a s s in g
fro m s e lf - in te r e s t to g r o u p in te r e s t in m a tte r s o f j u s t i c e a n d b e n e f i c e n c e . 12
E ra sm u s D a r w i n s 1803 T e m p le o f N a tu r e a p p e a le d to th e p rin c ip le of
s y m p a th y :

How Love and Sympathy the bosom warm,

Allure with pleasure, and with pain alarm,
With soft affections weave the social plan,
And charm the listening Savage into Man.
(canto 1: 219-23)

I n a n o te to c a n to 3: 4 6 6 D a r w i n a d d s : F r o m o u r a p titu d e to im ita tio n a r is e s

w h i c h is g e n e r a ll y u n d e r s to o d b y th e w o r d s y m p a th y , s o w e l l e x p la i n e d b y D r.
S m ith o f G la s g o w (1 2 2 -2 3 ). D a r w i n s e a rlie r B o ta n ic G ard en (1 7 9 1 )
c o n t a i n e d a r e p r o d u c t i o n o f h i s f r i e n d J o s i a h W e d g e w o o d s 1 7 8 7 m e d a l l i o n
c re a te d f o r th e a n tis la v e ry m o v e m e n t, th e c e le b ra te d v is u a liz a tio n o f th e
q u e s t i o n A m I n o t a m a n a n d a b r o t h e r ? ( f ig . 1 0 . 1 ). A s t h e a n t i s l a v e r y
m o v e m e n t m a rk s th e b e g in n in g o f m o d e r n d e m o c r a tic p o litic s , it is a p p r o p r ia te
th a t its m o st e n d u rin g im a g e is one th a t asks fo r an act o f s y m p a th e tic
im a g in a tio n th a t S m ith d e s c r ib e d .
T h e f u lle s t e v o lu tio n a r y d i s c u s s io n o f s y m p a th y b e g in s w i t h th e w o r k o f
H e r b e r t S p e n c e r . R e l y i n g e x p l i c i t l y o n S m it h , S p e n c e r a r g u e s in h is 1851
S o c ia l S ta tic s th a t s y m p a th y is th e f o u n d a tio n f o r o u r p e r c e p ti o n th a t o th e r s
p o s s e s s r ig h ts , a n d h e n c e i t fo rm s th e b a s is f o r m o r a l a c tio n :
Figure 10.1. A m I not a man and a brother?

Seeing, however, that this instinct of personal rights is a purely selfish instinct, leading each man to
assert and defend his own liberty of action, there remains the question W hence comes our
perception of the rights of others?

The way to a solution of this difficulty has been opened by Adam Smith in his Theory of Moral
Sentiments. It is the aim of that work to show that the proper regulation of our conduct to one
another, is secured by means of a faculty whose function it is to excite in each being the emotions
displayed in surrounding ones ... the faculty, in short, which we commonly call Sympathy. (96)

After a two-page discussion extending Smiths account, Spencer explains

th a t ju s tic e and b e n e fic e n c e a re b o th r o o te d in s y m p a th y (9 8 ). A lth o u g h
Spencer and J. S. M ill d is a g re e d on th e c o n te n t o f u tilita r ia n is m as an
i n t e l l e c t u a l e n t e r p r i s e , 13 M i l l f u l l y a g r e e d w i t h S p e n c e r o n t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f
s y m p a th y . T o e x p la i n j u s t i c e i n U tilita r ia n is m , M ill a p p e a l e d to a n e x te n d e d
sen se o f s y m p a th y : H u m a n b e in g s , o n th is p o in t, o n ly d iffe r fro m o th e r
a n im a ls in tw o p a r tic u la r s . F ir s t, in b e in g c a p a b le o f s y m p a th is in g , n o t s o le ly
w ith th e ir o ffs p rin g , o r, lik e som e o f th e m o r e n o b le a n im a ls , w ith s o m e
s u p e r i o r a n im a l w h o is k in d to th e m , b u t w i t h a ll h u m a n , a n d e v e n w i t h a ll
s e n t i e n t , b e i n g s . 14 W a l l a c e m a d e t h e c a s e i n 1 8 6 4 i n T h e O r i g i n o f H u m a n
R a c e s th a t i f s y m p a th y w a s e x te n d e d to th e w e a k a m o n g u s , th e p r in c ip le o f
n a tu r a l s e le c ti o n w o u l d n o t a p p ly to h u m a n s . M o r e o v e r , th e d i v i s i o n o f l a b o r
s u p p o r t e d b y a s y s te m o f l e g a l r ig h ts a l l o w e d a h u g e v a r i a t i o n o f w h a t is
s u f f ic ie n t f o r s u r v iv a l. T h e u n ifo r m s ta n d a r d th a t n a tu ra l s e le c tio n w a s ta k e n
to e n fo r c e a m o n g n o n h u m a n s s im p ly f a ils to e x is t in h u m a n s w ith a d i v is i o n o f
la b o r s u p p o r te d b y rig h ts .

If a herbivorous animal is a little sick and has not fed well for a day or two, and the herd is then
pursued by a beast of prey, our poor invalid inevitably falls a victim. So in a carnivorous animal the
least deficiency of vigour prevents its capturing food, and it soon dies of starvation. There is, as a
general rule, no mutual assistance betw een adults, which enables them to tide over a period of
sickness. Neither is there any division of labour; each must fulfill all the conditions of its existence,
and, therefore, natural selection keeps all up to a pretty uniform standard.

But in man, as we now behold him, this is different. He is social and sympathetic. In the rudest
tribes the sick are assisted at least with food; less robust health and vigour than the average does
not entail death... . Some division of labour takes place... .T he action of natural selection is
therefore checked . 15

W a l l a c e s c l o s i n g f o o t n o t e a c k n o w le d g e s h is d e b t t o S o c i a l S t a t i c s . 16 H i s
le tte r to D a r w i n in 1 8 6 4 a b o u t th e im p o r ta n c e o f S o c ia l S ta tic s m a k e s c le a r
h o w W a l l a c e r e a d t h e p o l i t i c a l e c o n o m i c l i t e r a t u r e o f t h e t i m e . 17
W a l l a c e s a r g u m e n t t h a t n a t u r a l s e l e c t i o n i s c h e c k e d b y h u m a n s y m p a t h y
m a r k s th e b e g in n in g o f th e e u g e n ic s m o v e m e n t. W R . G r e g r e s p o n d e d th a t
s in c e s y m p a th y b lo c k e d th e s a lu ta r y e ffe c ts o f n a tu ra l s e le c tio n , s y m p a th y
s h o u ld th e re fo re b e s u p p re s s e d :

My thesis is this: that the indisputable effect of the state of social progress and culture we have
reached, of our high civilization in its present stage and actual form, is to counteract and suspend the
operation of that righteous and salutary law of natural selection in virtue of which the best
specimens of the race the strongest, the finest, the worthiest are those which survive... and
 1o
propagate an ever improving and perfecting type of humanity.

M u c h o f th e e u g e n ic s r h e to r ic w a s a n a tte m p t to s h o w th a t th e u n fit w e r e a
b r e e d a p a r t a n d th e r e f o r e u n d e s e r v in g o f s y m p a th y . G r e g d e s c r i b e d th e I r is h ,
w h o i n h is a n d m a n y o f h is c o n te m p o r a r ie s h a n d s f o r a ll in te n ts a n d p u r p o s e s
w e re th o u g h t subhum an re la tiv e to th e ir hum an c o u n te rp a rt, th e S c o ts :
c a r e le s s , s q u a lid , u n a s p ir in g Iris h m a n , fe d o n p o ta to e s , liv in g in a p ig -s ty e ,
d o t i n g o n a s u p e r s t i t i o n , m u l t i p l y l i k e r a b b i t s o r e p h e m e r a . 19 L a t e i n h i s l i f e
W a l l a c e r e m e m b e r e d G a l t o n s p r o p o s a l s f o r p o s i t i v e e u g e n i c s . 20 H e w a s m u c h
m o r e c r i t i c a l o f G a l t o n s d i s c i p l e s w h o p r o p o s e d n e g a t i v e e u g e n i c s , p o l i c i e s
to r e d u c e b ir th s a m o n g th e u n f it.
I f n a tu ra l s e le c tio n s e r v e s a n o r m s p e c if y in g a n id e a l t r a je c to r y o f h u m a n
p r o g r e s s f i t n e s s i n S p e n c e r s t e r m i n o l o g y ( n o t t h e m o d e r n s e n s e ) t h e n
th e f a ilu r e o f n a tu ra l s e le c tio n t e l ls u s th a t th e r e is s o m e th in g w r o n g w ith
h u m a n b e in g s as we f in d th e m . I t is in th is c o n te x t th a t w e fin d D a r w in
o p p o s in g a n a u g m e n ta tio n o f th e p r e v e n tiv e c h e c k th a t w o u l d m a k e n a tu r a l
s e l e c t i o n l e s s e f f e c t i v e . W e q u o t e W a l l a c e s r e p o r t o f a c o n v e r s a t i o n w i t h
D a rw in :

In one of my latest conversations with Darwin he expressed himself very gloomily on the future of
humanity on the ground that in our modern civilization natural selection had no play, and the fittest
did not survive. Those who succeed in the race for wealth are by no means the best or the most
intelligent, and it is notorious that our population is more largely renewed in each generation from
21
the lower than from the middle and upper classes.

T h e p a s s a g e c o n tin u e s w i t h W a lla c e d is c u s s in g th e e m e r g in g d e b a te a b o u t h o w
o n e m i g h t r e p l a c e n a t u r a l s e l e c t i o n w i t h h u m a n p o l i c i e s t o r e m o v e t h e u n f it:

As a recent American writer [Hiram M. Stanley] well puts it, We behold the melancholy spectacle
of the renewal of the great mass of society from the lowest classes, the highest classes to a great
extent either not marrying or not having children. The floating population is always the scum, and
yet the stream of life is largely renew ed from this source. Such a state of affairs, sufficiently
dangerous in any society, is simply suicidal in the democratic civilization of our day.
 4. Na t u r a l v er su s Hu m a n Se l e c t i o n

I n O r i g in o f S p e c i e s D a r w i n d e t a i l s h i s b e l i e f t h a t n a t u r a l s e l e c t i o n i s s u p e r i o r
to h u m a n s e le c tio n ( 8 3 ). A s th e a rg u m e n t w i l l b e p r e s u p p o s e d in D e s c e n t o f
M a n , w e q u o te a t le n g th . I n a r t i f i c i a l s e le c tio n , h u m a n s in te r f e r e w i t h w h a t
D a r w i n w i l l la te r c a ll s e x u a l s e le c tio n . T h e n , in a s te p th a t s p e a k s to h u m a n
s y m p a th y , th e y r e f u s e to k ill ( r i g i d l y d e s tr o y ) l e s s e r c r e a tu r e s f o r w h o m th e y
a re r e s p o n s ib le . T h e q u e s tio n o f w h a t th e y w ill d o w ith le s s e r h u m a n s is n o t
ask ed .

He does not allow the most vigorous males to struggle
all inferior animals, but protects during each varying
productions. H e often begins his selection by some
modification prominent enough to catch his eye, or to
slightest difference o f structure or constitution may
struggle for life, and so be preserved. (83-84)
for the females. He does not rigidly destroy
season, as far as lies in his power, all his
half-monstrous form; or at least by some
be plainly useful to him. Under nature, the
well turn the nicely-balanced scale in the

A p p e a lin g to th e d if f e r e n c e in tim e b e tw e e n n a tu ra l a n d a r tif ic ia l s e le c tio n ,

D a r w i n d r a w s t h e n o r m a t i v e c o n c l u s i o n : C a n w e w o n d e r , t h e n , t h a t n a t u r e s
p r o d u c t i o n s s h o u l d b e f a r t r u e r i n c h a r a c t e r t h a n m a n s p r o d u c t i o n s ; t h a t t h e y
s h o u ld b e in f in ite ly b e tte r a d a p te d to th e m o s t c o m p le x c o n d itio n s o f lif e ... ?
(8 4 ).
W e tu r n n o w to th e D e s c e n t o f M a n . T h e r e a d e r is h e r e w a r n e d a s e a r l y a s
th e s e c o n d c h a p te r th a t o n e d is tin g u is h in g c h a r a c te r is tic o f m a n k in d h a s b e e n
o u r u n c o n tr o lle d b re e d in g : In a n o th e r a n d m u c h m o re im p o rta n t r e s p e c t, m a n
d iffe rs w id e ly f r o m a n y s tr ic tly d o m e s tic a te d a n im a l; f o r h is b r e e d in g h a s
never been lo n g c o n tro lle d , e ith e r by m e th o d o lo g ic a l or u n c o n s c io u s
s e l e c t i o n . 22 The q u e s tio n , u n c o n tro lle d by w hom or by w h a t, w ill be
im p o r ta n t b e c a u s e D a r w i n p r o p o s e d a n e w s ta n d a r d o f m o ra lity , th a t o f r a c i a l
p e r f e c tio n ; th e g e n e r a l g o o d w a s to r e p l a c e th e g r e a te s t h a p p in e s s p r in c i p le
o f u tilita r ia n is m . T h e c r i t i c a l s te p i n h is a r g u m e n t is th e c o n tin u ity t h e s is o f th e
s o c ia l in s tin c ts :

The term, general good, may be defined as the means by which the greatest possible number of
individuals can be reared in full vigour and health, with all their faculties perfect, under the
conditions to which they are exposed. As the social instincts both of man and the lower animals
have no doubt been developed by the same steps, it would be advisable, if found practicable, to use
the same definition in both cases, and to like as the test of morality, the general good or welfare of
 the community, rather than the general happiness; but this definition would perhaps require some
limitation on account of political ethics. (1: 98)

T h e q u e s tio n th e n is w h a t c o n n e c ts m a r r ia g e f o r o u r h a p p in e s s w i t h th e g o a l o f
r a c i a l p e r f e c tio n ? I n th e s e c o n d e d itio n , D a r w i n p r o v id e s a c l a s s i c a l g lo s s o n
how s e lf - in te r e s te d c a lc u la tio n s in te r f e r e w ith p r o je c ts of b io lo g ic a l
im p ro v e m e n t: T h e G r e c i a n p o e t, T h e o g n is , w h o l i v e d 5 5 0 b . c ., c le a rly s a w
h o w im p o r ta n t s e le c tio n , i f c a r e f u l ly a p p lie d , w o u ld b e f o r th e im p r o v e m e n t o f
m a n k in d . H e s a w , lik e w is e , th a t w e a l t h o f te n c h e c k s th e p r o p e r [sic] a c ti o n o f
s e x u a l s e le c tio n . 23 S y m p a th y is v ita l in D a r w i n s a c c o u n t o f th e d e v e lo p m e n t
o f th e h u m a n r a c e . I n c h a p te r 4 o f p a r t 1 in th e f ir s t e d itio n h e u s e s th e
s y m p a th e tic p r in c ip le to m o v e b e tw e e n in d iv id u a l a n d g ro u p in te re s ts . H e
q u e s tio n s w h e th e r s y m p a th y h a s s u r v iv a l v a lu e i n th e n e x t c h a p te r, w h ic h
o p e n s w i t h a d is c u s s io n o f W a l l a c e s 1 8 6 4 e s s a y :

It is extremely doubtful whether the offspring of the more sympathetic and benevolent parents, or of
those who were the most faithful to their comrades, would be reared in greater numbers than the
children of selfish and treacherous parents belonging to the same tribe. He who was ready to
sacrifice his life, as many a savage has been, rather than betray his comrades, would often leave no
offspring to inherit his noble nature. The bravest men, who were always willing to come to the front
in war, and who freely risked their lives for others, would on an average perish in larger numbers
than other men. Therefore it hardly seems probable, that the number of men gifted with such
virtues, or that the standard of their excellence, could be increased through natural selection, that is,
by the survival of the fittest. (1: 163)

I t is im p o r ta n t to r e c o g n iz e th a t b io lo g ic a l p e r f e c t io n is th e n e w n o rm . D a r w in
d o e s h is b e s t to m a k e th is c l e a r w h e n h e a s k s w h e th e r w e o u g h t to c h e c k
s y m p a th y in th e s e c tio n e n title d N a tu r a l S e le c t io n a s A f f e c tin g C i v i l i s e d
N a tio n s (1 : 1 6 7 - 8 0 ) . H e r e h e a s k s th e P la to n ic q u e s tio n a n e w : i f w e a r e
in te r e s t e d i n b io lo g ic a l p e r f e c tio n , w h y d o w e b r e e d c a ttle b u t n o t m e n
(R e p u b lic 4 5 9 ) . D a r w i n s c o n te x t is th e q u e s tio n o f v a c c in a tio n s . F o r a
u til i t a r i a n f o r w h o m a ll a r e s y m p a th e tic a lly c o n n e c te d , th e lif e o f a p e r s o n is
b e tte r th a n h e r o r h is d e a th a n d th e a n s w e r is tr i v ia l. B u t w h a t a b o u t a n a n s w e r
f r o m th e s ta n d p o in t o f b io lo g ic a l p u rity ?

There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a w eak constitution
would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the w eak members of civilised societies
propagate their kind. N o one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that
this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care
wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man
himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. ( 1 : 168)
D a r w i n b la m e s th is m is d ir e c tio n o f e f f o r t o n s y m p a th y b u t h e a c c e p ts a g o o d
d e a l o f b i o l o g i c a l im p e r f e c tio n a t th e c o s t o f o u r b e in g m o r a l a g e n ts . T h e h o p e
o f r a c i a l im p r o v e m e n t r e s ts o n s e x u a l s e le c tio n , in w h i c h th e b e tte r m e n h a v e
m o re c h ild r e n th a n th e w o r s e m en :

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of
sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in
the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. N or could we check our
sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our
nature... .W e must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the w eak surviving and
propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely the
w eaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might
be indefinitely increased by the w eak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more
to be hoped for than expected. (1: 169)

A s th e c h a p te r c o n tin u e s , D a r w i n c ite s th e a rg u m e n ts o f G r e g a n d G a lto n

a g a in s t th e M a lth u s ia n re c o m m e n d a tio n to in c re a s e hum an h a p p in e s s by
d e la y in g m a rria g e :

A most important obstacle in civilised countries to an increase in the number of men of a superior
class has been strongly insisted on by Mr. Greg and Mr. Galton, namely, the fact that the very poor
and reckless, who are often degraded by vice, almost invariably marry early, whilst the careful and
frugal, who are generally otherwise virtuous, marry late in life. (1: 173-74)

D a r w in re tu rn s to th e s e th e m e s w h e n th e b o o k c o n c lu d e s . The P la to n is m
r e tu r n s , c o m p le te w i t h s c o r n a t th e a b il it y o f s e lf - g o v e r n m e n t w ith o u t e x p e r t
g u id a n c e :

Man scans with scrupulous care the character and pedigree of his horses, cattle, and dogs before
he matches them; but when he comes to his own marriage he rarely, or never, takes any such
c a r e . . W hen the principles of breeding and inheritance are better understood, we shall not hear
ignorant members of our legislature rejecting with scorn a plan for ascertaining whether or not
consanguineous marriages are injurious to man. (2: 402-03)

S e c o n d , w e fin d th e c la i m o f a t r a d e - o f f b e tw e e n o u r s y m p a th y a n d b io lo g ic a l
b e tte rm e n t:

The advancement of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate problem: all ought to refrain from
marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a great evil, but
tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in marriage. On the other hand, as Mr. Galton
has remarked, if the prudent avoid marriage, whilst the reckless marry, the inferior members tend to
supplant the better members of society. Man, like every other animal, has no doubt advanced to his
present high condition through a struggle for existence consequent on his rapid multiplication; and if
 he is to advance still higher, it is to be feared that he must remain subject to a severe struggle.
Otherwise he would sink into indolence, and the more gifted men would not be more successful in
the battle of life than the less gifted. Hence our natural rate of increase, though leading to many and
obvious evils, must not be greatly diminished by any means. (2: 403)

A fte r D a r w in s e n t th is p a s s a g e to C h a r le s B ra d la u g h , s ix y e a r s la te r, it w o u ld
b e f e a tu r e d in a n im p o r ta n t t r ia l o v e r th e le g a lity o f d is tr ib u tin g c o n tr a c e p tio n
in fo rm a tio n .
 5. Th e Co n t i n u i t y Hy p o t h e s i s

D a r w i n s a c c o u n t o f t h e m o v e m e n t f r o m a n im a l to h u m a n d e p e n d s o n th e
m o t i v a t i o n b y p r a i s e a n d a p p r o b a t i o n . T h e s e , h e a r g u e s , d e p e n d o n s y m p a t h y .24
T h e c o n tin u ity h y p o th e s is is m o re th a n a n e m p ir ic a l c la i m th a t a n im a ls s o c ia l
in s tin c ts h a v e e v o l v e d in to a s e n s e o f r ig h t a n d w r o n g . I f i t is u n d e r s to o d
a s a n o r m t h a t u n d e r w r i t e s D a r w i n s c o n c e p t i o n o f r a c i a l p e r f e c t i o n , i t i m p l i e s
th a t p e o p le do not have to w o rry a b o u t ju s tic e to in d iv id u a ls . T h ey m ay
s y m p a th iz e w i t h th e ir in f e r io r s b u t th e y d o n o t o w e th e m j u s t i c e b e c a u s e ju s t i c e
is n o t w e l l d e f in e d in th e g o a l o f r a c i a l p e r f e c tio n . T h is is v e r y d if f e r e n t f r o m
th e u tilita r ia n is m d e f e n d e d b y J. S. M ill a n d h is te a c h e r s . T h e d is c u s s io n s
a m o n g th e m e m b e r s o f th e a n tis la v e r y c o a li ti o n m a d e i t c le a r th a t th e g r e a te s t
h a p p in e s s p rin c ip le w as th e sam e as th e g o ld e n ru le of C h r i s t i a n i t y .25
R e c ip r o c ity n o rm s p r e s u p p o s e in d iv id u a ls w ith c la im s a g a in s t o th e rs . A n o rm
o f r a c ia l p e rf e c tio n w h e re in d iv id u a ls h a v e n o s u c h c la im s d is p e n s e s w ith
ju stic e .
A n t s la v e r y . D a r w i n s d i s c u s s i o n o f t h e e n s l a v i n g n a t u r e o f a n t s w a s a
c e n t r a l t o p i c o f S a m u e l W i l b e r f o r c e s , t h e s o n o f t h e f a m o u s a b o l i t i o n i s t , i n h i s
r e v i e w o f t h e O r i g in f o r t h e Q u a r t e r l y R e v i e w i n I 8 6 0 . 26 T h e r e a r e o v e r t h i r t y
i n s t a n c e s o f s l a v e i n t h e r e v i e w . H e r e s a s p e c i m e n :

Or take the following admirable specimen of the union of which we have spoken, of the
employment of the observations of others with what he has observed himself, in that which is
almost the most marvellous of facts the slave-making instinct of certain ants. We say nothing at
present of the place assigned to these facts in Mr. Darwins argument, but are merely referring to
the collection, observation, and statement of the facts themselves: Slave-making Instinct. This
remarkable instinct was first discovered in the Formica (Polyerges) rufescens by Pierre Huber, a
better observer even than his celebrated father. This ant is absolutely dependent on its slaves;
without their aid the species would certainly become extinct in a single year. The males and fertile
females do no work. The workers or sterile females, though most energetic and courageous in
capturing slaves, do no other work. They are incapable of making their own nests or of feeding their
own larvae.

W ilb e r f o r c e c a ll s a tte n tio n to w h a t D a r w i n r e p o r ts a b o u t th e c o lo r d if f e r e n c e

in th e m a s te r a n d th e s la v e s : T h e s la v e s a r e b la c k , a n d n o t a b o v e h a l f th e s iz e
o f th e ir r e d m a s te r s , s o th a t th e c o n tr a s t i n th e ir a p p e a r a n c e is v e r y g r e a t
(2 2 8 ). T h e p ro b le m f o r th e c o n tin u ity th e s is a d v a n c e d in D e s c e n t, i f it is
in te r p r e ta tiv e a s a f a c t o f h o w b io lo g ic a l e v o lu tio n h a s w o r k e d , is tr i v ia l: if
s y m p a th y a n d th e m o r a l s e n s e in h u m a n s a r e c o n tin u a tio n s o f th e s o c ia l
in s tin c ts , w h e r e is th e a n t e q u iv a l e n t o f h is fa th e r, W i l l i a m W ilb e r f o r c e ? T h is
we f in d advanced in th e c o n te m p o r a r y d is c u s s io n o f D e s c e n t o f M an:
g r e g a r io u s does n o t g iv e ju s tic e . M o re g e n e r a lly , i f m o ra l sense is a
c o n tin u a tio n o f th e s o c i a l in s tin c ts , w h e r e is th e s e n s e o f j u s t i c e in th e s o c ia l
in s tin c ts d e s c r i b e d b y D a r w in ? 27
S e x u a l se le c tio n . T w o o f th e e a r l y r e v i e w s o f D e s c e n t b y D a r w i n s f e llo w
n a tu r a lis ts W a lla c e and M i v a r t p o in te d o u t a s e r io u s p r o b le m w i t h th e
c o n tin u ity h y p o th e s is in D a r w i n s a c c o u n t o f s e x u a l s e le c tio n . W a lla c e in
P h y s ic a l S c ie n c e a n d P h ilo s o p h y q u e s tio n e d th e im p u ta tio n o f m a te c h o ic e
f r o m th e f a c t o f b o d i l y fu n c tio n s :

Many parts of the body have been modified to enable the male to seize and hold the female; and
this is adduced as an argument that the female exerts a choice, and has the power of rejecting any
particular male. But this hardly seems to follow, for it may well be maintained that when the more
active male seizes a female, she cannot escape, and that she has no means of rejecting him and
28
practically never does.

M i v a r t s c r i t i c i s m is m u c h m o re s y s te m a tic a n d s u s ta in e d . 29 L ik e W a lla c e in
P h y s ic a l S c ie n c e ( 1 7 7 ) , h e e m p h a s iz e s th e c e n tr a lity o f s e x u a l s e le c tio n to
D a r w i n s a rg u m e n t. 30 I n D e s c e n t o f M a n , h e s h a r p e n s th e d is tin c tio n th a t
W a lla c e m a d e :

Under the head of sexual selection Mr. Darwin includes two very distinct processes. One of
these consists in the action of superior strength of activity, by which one male succeeds in obtaining
the possession of mates and in keeping away rivals. This is, undoubtedly, a vera causa; but may be
more conveniently reckoned as one kind of natural selection than as a branch of sexual
selection. The second process consists in alleged preference or choice, exercised freely by the
female in favour of particular males on account of some attractiveness... . It is this second kind of
sexual selection ... that is important for the establishment of Mr. Darwins views, but its valid
action has to be proved. (53)

M i v a r t s p e c i a l i z e d in p r im a te s . H is s k e p tic is m o f th e D a r w i n i a n s u p p o s iti o n o f
a n e v o lu tio n a r y p a th w a y th a t p a s s e d th ro u g h th e g o r i l l a o n th e w a y to th e fu lly
h u m a n b e c a m e a tw e n tie th - c e n tu r y c o m m o n p la c e . 31 T h e c h a r a c te r iz a ti o n o f th e
D a r w i n i a n p o s i t i o n in h is p r im a te b o o k a s h ig h e s t o f th e a p e s c lo s e a lly o f
th e N e g r o 32 c a tc h e s p e r f e c t ly th e a ttitu d e id e n tif y in g b o th A f r ic a n s a n d I r is h
w i t h th e g o r il la a s e v o lu tio n a r y w a y s ta tio n s to th a t p e a k o f h u m a n ity in N o r th
B r i t a i n . 33 H i s q u e s t i o n a b o u t s e x u a l s e l e c t i o n i s p a r t i c u l a r l y p o i n t e d i n t h e
c a s e o f a p e s . I n D e s c e n t o f M a n , h e n o te s th e m a le te e th a s in s tru m e n ts o f
d o m i n a t i o n ( 5 7 ) . T h e t e c h n i c a l , b i o l o g i c a l p o i n t i n M i v a r t s r e s p o n s e w o u l d
ta k e o v e r a c e n tu r y to a p p r e c ia te . T h o m a s H u x le y t o o k M iv a r t to b e c lo s e to
a c c e p tin g th e in m o s t h e a r t o f D a r w in ia n is m , th e a p e a n c e s tr y o f ... th e b o d y
o f m a n . 34 T h e p e r s i s t e n c e o f t h e D a r w i n i a n t r a j e c t o r y f r o m a p e t o h u m a n i s
r e v e a l e d i n th e g r e a t s u r p r i s e th a t g r e e te d th e p u b l ic a ti o n o f th e p h y s io lo g y o f
A r d ip ith e c u s r a m i d u s i n t h e 2 O c t o b e r 2 0 0 9 i s s u e o f S c ie n c e . A r d i S a t t e n u a t e d
s e x u a l d i m o r p h is m is f a r m o r e h u m a n th a n a p e ; th e t e e t h a r e a p a r t i c u l a r l y
i m p o r t a n t p a r t o f t h e e v i d e n c e . 35
M iv a r t s in g le s out one a rg u m e n t b y w h ic h D a r w in p resse s th e sexual
s e l e c t i o n p r i n c i p l e i n b i r d s . W e q u o t e a t l e n g t h f r o m D e s c e n t o f M a n a s it
s h o w s t h e c e n t r a l s u p p o s i t i o n i n D a r w i n s a p p r o a c h :

Let it be granted that the female does not select; yet the display of the male may be useful in
supplying the necessary degree of stimulation to her nervous system, and to that of the male.
Pleasurable sensation, perhaps very keen in intensity, may thence result to both. There would be no
difficulty in suggesting yet other purposes if we were to ascend into higher speculative regions. Mr.
Darwin has given us in one place a very remarkable passage; he says:

With respect to female birds feeling a preference for particular males, we must bear in mind that
we can judge of choice being exerted, only by placing ourselves in imagination in the same position.
If an inhabitant of another planet were to behold a number of young rustics at a fair, courting and
quarrelling over a pretty girl, like birds at one of their places of assemblage, he would be able to
infer that she had the power of choice only by observing the eagerness of the wooers to please her,
and to display their finery, (vol. ii.: 122 ).

N ow here it must be observed that, as is often the case, Mr. Darwin assumes the very point in
dispute, unless he means by power of choice mere freedom of physical power. If he means an
internal, mental faculty of choice, then the observer could attribute such power to the girl only if he
had reason to attribute to the rustics an intellectual and moral nature similar in kind to that which he
possessed himself. Such a similarity of nature Mr. Darwin, of course, does attribute to rational
beings and to brutes. (62)

D a r w i n s o b s e r v e r f r o m a n o th e r p l a n e t c a n n o t te ll th e d iffe re n c e b e tw e e n
h u m a n c o n s e n t a n d b io p h y s ic a l a ttr a c tio n . T h e r e in l ie s th e p r o b l e m w i t h th e
c o n tin u ity th e s is ; in h u m an s, consent d oes n o t fo llo w a u to m a tic a lly fro m
a ttr a c tio n . I n a w o r l d o f m o n o g a m y o n e c a n b e a ttr a c te d to m an y , b u t c o n s e n t
o n ly to o n e .
 6. Ge o r g e Da r w i n s Ne g a t i v e Eu g e n i c s

T h e D a r w i n ia n in v o lv e m e n t in th e e u g e n ic r e f o r m m o v e m e n t b e g in s s o o n a f te r
th e p u b lic a tio n of D escen t w ith G e o rg e D a r w i n s 1873 B e n e fic ia l
R e s t r i c t i o n s t o L i b e r t y o f M a r r i a g e . 36 B o t h M i v a r t s s h a r p r e a c t i o n a n d t h e
p u b lic a n d p r iv a t e r e s p o n s e s f r o m b o th D a r w in s s u g g e s t th a t th e s u p p o r t o f
n e g a tiv e e u g e n ic s p o l ic ie s f lo w s f r o m th e ir u n d e r s ta n d in g o f b io lo g ic a l th e o r y
l a i d o u t in th e p a s s a g e f r o m D e s c e n t q u o te d a b o v e , in w h ic h th e g r e a t h o p e o f
c o n tin u e d ra c ia l im p ro v e m e n t d e p e n d e d on th e w eak in body or m in d
r e f r a i n i n g f r o m m a r r i a g e . 37 G e o r g e D a r w i n s t a r t s h i s a r g u m e n t w i t h F r a n c i s
G a l t o n s t h a t f r o m a p o l i c y p o i n t o f v i e w , p e o p l e a r e s i m i l a r t o c a t t l e ( 4 1 4 ) .
T h is is th e s tr o n g v e r s i o n o f th e c o n tin u ity th e s is . G e o r g e D a r w i n m a k e s a n
i m p o r t a n t d i s t i n c t i o n t h a t s e p a r a t e s h i s p r o p o s a l f r o m G a l t o n s. I n c o n t r a s t t o
G a l t o n s p o s itiv e e u g e n ic p ro p o s a ls , G e o rg e D a r w i n s o ffe rs an e a rly
p r o p o s a l f o r w h a t is c a ll e d n e g a tiv e e u g e n ic s . H is p r e d i c ti o n th a t th is w i l l
b e th e fu tu re c o u r s e o f e u g e n ic p o l i c y w a s c o r r e c t:

The second and less efficient method is by the prevention of breeding from the inferior members of
the race, a result brought about by one form of Unconscious Selection among savages, when
they kill off their inferior dogs and other domestic animals to support themselves in times of famine.
This is the method which forms my groundwork in the present article, and I for my part feel little
doubt that it will be the one which will be adopted, at least at the beginning. I am desirous of
pointing out some of the ways in which our liberty of marriage may be affected by the adoption of
this method, and not so much to indicate definite schemes of legislation, as to bring to a focus some
of the considerations to be taken in initiating such schemes. (415-16)

T h e m o t i v a t i n g f e a r e x p r e s s e d i n t h e a r t i c l e i s t h e i n h e r i t a n c e o f i n s a n i ty . B u t
th a t is j u s t th e b e g in n in g o f h is p la n s f o r th e fu tu re o f m a n k in d . H e a p p e a l s to
h i s f a t h e r s b o o k :

we need a substitute to replace the weakened influence of Natural Selection... . There can be no
doubt that the health of large numbers in our present highly civilized condition is alarmingly feeble,
and that the advance of medical science will, by the preservation of the weak, only aggravate the
evil for future generations. The extent to which, in the present age, the w eak are placed almost on a
par with the strong in the struggle for life has been pointed out in the Descent of M an. (419)

I n a d d i t i o n t o d e s c r i b i n g G a l t o n s p o s i t i v e e u g e n i c s a s i n e f f i c i e n t , h e f i n d s
G r e g s w o r r y a b o u t t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f c o n s e n t s i m p l y l i b e r a l d e f e a t i s m ( 4 2 1 ) .
 M i v a r t s r e s p o n s e t o t h i s p r o p o s a l w a s n o t l o n g i n c o m i n g . H e w r o t e f o r a
C h ris tia n a u d ie n c e , w ho w o u ld have h e a rd th e w o rd s fro m th e B o o k of
C o m m o n P r a y e r th a t p r o c l a im e d th e m a r r ia g e s a c r a m e n t a s a r e m e d y f o r th e
s i n o f f o r n ic a tio n . T h e a b o l i t i o n o f m a r r ia g e th u s c o n d e m n s s o m e to a lif e o f
s in . M i v a r t a l s o m a k e s t h e p o i n t i n A p e s a n d M a n , i n d e p e n d e n t o f C h r i s t i a n
e th ic s , th a t m a r r ia g e a s a c iv il in s titu tio n e n fo rc e s c o n s e n t in a w o r ld w ith a n
im p e r f e c tly a tte n u a te d s e x u a l d im o rp h is m :

Another triumph of the same Christian period has been the establishment of at least a pure theory
of the sexual relations and the protection of the weaker sex against the selfishness of male
concupiscence. Now, however, marriage is the constant subject of attack, and unrestrained
licentiousness theoretically justified. Mr. George Darwin proposes that divorce should be made
consequent on insanity, and coolly remarks that, should the patient recover, he would suffer in no
other respect than does anyone that is forced by ill-health to retire from any career he has begun[!];
although, of course, the necessary isolation of the parent from the children would he a peculiarly
bitter blow. Elsewhere he speaks in an approving strain of the most oppressive laws, and of the
encouragement of vice in order to check population. There is no hideous sexual criminality of Pagan
days that might not be defended on the principles advocated by the school to which this writer
belongs. This repulsive phenomenon affords a fresh demonstration of what France of the Regency
and Pagan Rome long ago demonstrated; namely, how easily the most profound moral corruption
can co-exist with the most varied appliances of a complex civilisation. (80)

T h e D a r w in s r e s p o n d e d im m e d ia te ly . G e o r g e D a r w i n p u b lis h e d a n o u tr a g e d
n o te d e n y in g th a t h e w a s in te n tio n a lly a d v o c a tin g im m o ra lity ; C h a r le s D a r w in
c e a s e d a l l f u r t h e r c o m m u n i c a t i o n w i t h M i v a r t . 38 T h e m o d e r n c o m m e n t a r y h a s
n e g l e c t e d M i v a r t s p o s i t i o n .
 7. Na t u r a l v er su s Hu m a n Se l e c t i o n in the Co u r t o f La w

M i v a r t s q u e s t i o n o f s e x u a l m o r a l i t y w a s i m p o r t a n t i n t h e n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y
d e b a te s over c o n tra c e p tio n . W hen T. R. M a lth u s rec o m m e n d e d d e la y of
m a r r ia g e u n til a c o u p le c o u ld s u p p o r t t h e i r c h ild r e n , th e im m e d ia te o b j e c t io n
f r o m m a n y C h r i s t i a n s w a s t h a t t h i s w o u l d e n c o u r a g e p r o s t i t u t i o n . 39 F r a n c i s
P l a c e s c o n t r a c e p t i v e p r o p o s a l w a s d e f e n d e d b y t h e a r g u m e n t t h a t e n c o u r a g i n g
e a rly m a rria g e w o u ld re d u c e th e dem and fo r p r o s t i t u t e s .40 U n re g u la te d
c o n tr a c e p tio n is i n m a n y w a y s th e e p ito m e o f h u m a n s e l e c t i o n a n d i n th e
n in e te e n th c e n tu r y w a s p a r t o f th e l ib e r a l a m e l io r a ti o n p r o g ra m . A c o u p le
c o u ld m a r r y e a r ly in l if e in a c c o r d a n c e w i t h c o m m u n ity n o rm s w ith o u t th e n
d e m a n d i n g s u p p o r t f r o m o t h e r s i n t h e c o m m u n i t y t o s u p p o r t t h e i r f a m i ly . T h e
c ritic a l q u e s tio n fo r p u b lic p o lic y in th e n in e te e n th c e n tu ry w as w h e th e r
d i s c u s s i o n o f c o n t r a c e p t i v e m e t h o d s w a s o b s c e n e o r n o t.
T h e 1 8 7 7 t r ia l o f C h a r le s B r a d la u g h a n d A n n ie B e s a n t f o r th e c r im e o f
r e p u b l i s h i n g a f o r t y - y e a r - o l d t e x t o n b i r t h c o n t r o l C h a r l e s K n o w l t o n s F r u i t s
o f P h ilo s o p h y h e lp s to m a k e c le a r th e d iff e r e n c e b e tw e e n th e u tilita r ia n
g re a te s t h a p p in e s s and D a r w i n s g e n e ra l good. The s u b s ta n tia l q u e s tio n
d e b a te d a t th e tr ia l c o n c e r n e d th e m e a n s b y w h ic h B r a d la u g h a n d B e s a n t w e r e
d i s s e m i n a t i n g c o n t r a c e p t i v e i n f o r m a t i o n . T h e q u e s t i o n f o r t h e j u r y w a s t h is .
S tip u la tin g th a t c o n tr a c e p tiv e in fo rm a tio n , w h e n p r e s e n te d in m e d ic a l b o o k s a t
th ir ty s h illin g s o r s o l d to th e w e a lth y p a tie n ts o f p h y s ic ia n s a t tw o s h illin g s ,
s ix p e n c e , w a s e n tir e ly le g a l, d id p u b lis h in g th is in fo r m a tio n in a s ix p e n c e
p a m p h l e t c o n s t i t u t e a n o b s c e n i t y ? 41 T h e h i g h p r i c e a n d d i s s e m i n a t i o n u s i n g
p h y s ic ia n s a s in te r m e d ia r ie s s e r v e d a s c o n tr o l m e c h a n is m s . D e b a te f o c u s e d o n
w h e th e r b irth -c o n tro l m a te ria l c o n s titu te d s o m e th in g th a t p e o p le c o u ld r e a d
and u n d e rs ta n d o n th e ir o w n o r w h e th e r it s h o u ld be d is p e n s e d to th o se
d e e m e d b y a p h y s ic ia n c a p a b le o f u n d e rs ta n d in g ?
T h e j u r y d e c i d e d t h e s i x p e n c e p a m p h l e t w a s o b s c e n e . W h e n B r a d l a u g h s
a n d B e s a n t s c o n v i c t i o n w a s r e v e r s e d o n a p p e a l, th e p u b l ic a ti o n o f b irth -
c o n tro l m a te ria l in B r ita in w e n t u n h in d e re d . M a ile d f ro m a B r itis h a d d re s s ,
c o n t r a c e p t i v e i n f o r m a t i o n c o u l d g o t o a n y o t h e r c o u n tr y , r e g a r d l e s s o f i ts l a w s
o n th e m a tte r, w ith o u t le g a l r i s k to th e s e n d e r . C o n s e q u e n tly , th e B r a d la u g h -
B esant tria l has r e c e iv e d m uch a tte n tio n as a c ritic a l m om ent in th e
i n t e r n a t i o n a l b i r t h - c o n t r o l m o v e m e n t .42
B e f o r e th e t r i a l, B r a d la u g h w r o te to a s k w h e th e r D a r w i n m ig h t s u p p o r t th e
d e fe n d a n ts a t th e tr ia l. D a r w i n r e s p o n d e d th a t h e h o p e d n o t to te s tif y b e c a u s e
h is h e a lth w a s s u s p e c t. H e e m p h a s iz e d th a t th e p r in c ip le o f n a tu ra l s e le c tio n
o u g h t n o t to f a il w h e n i t c o m e s to h u m a n b e in g s a n d h e in s is te d th a t, w e r e h e
c a l l e d to te s tif y a t th e tr i a l, h e w o u l d o p p o s e B r a d la u g h a n d B e s a n t r a th e r th a n
s u p p o r t th e m .
S i x y e a r s e a r l ie r , D a r w i n h a d s k e tc h e d h is o p p o s i t i o n to c o n tr a c e p t io n in
h is D e s c e n t o f M a n . T h u s , w h e n h e s e n t B r a d la u g h th e p a s s a g e f r o m th e f ir s t
e d itio n o f D e sc e n t o f M a n th a t w e n o te d a b o v e (2 : 4 0 3 ), in w h ic h h e q u o te d
G a l t o n s co n cern about th e fa te of th e rac e w hen o n ly th e p ru d e n t
c o n s c io u s ly lim it th e ir n u m b e rs , D a r w in r e a s s e r te d h is p o s itio n th a t a g o a l o f
r a c i a l p e r f e c ti o n a tta in e d b y m e a n s o f n a tu r a l s e le c ti o n o u g h t to r e p l a c e th e
g o a l o f h u m a n h a p p in e s s a tta in e d b y m e a n s o f in d iv id u a ls c o n s c io u s c h o ic e s .
T h e q u e s tio n o f w h e th e r D a r w i n v i e w e d n a tu ra l s e le c tio n a s p r o g r e s s in g
t o w a r d s o m e g o a l h a s f o c u s e d o n h i s p u b l i s h e d w o r k .43 T h e l e t t e r t o B r a d l a u g h
e x p r e s s e s D a r w i n s c o n s i d e r e d o p i n i o n o n t h i s i s s u e i n a s e r i o u s l e g a l c o n t e x t
and h e lp s c la r if y th a t D a r w in w a s m u c h tro u b le d b y th e i d e a o f le a v in g
s e le c ti o n a m o n g h u m a n s to th e u n im p e d e d ju d g m e n t o f in d iv id u a ls .
D a r w i n s i n v o l v e m e n t i n t h e t r i a l h a s b e e n r e p o r t e d f o r a c e n t u r y w i t h s o m e
p u z z l i n g v a r i a t i o n c o n c e r n i n g w h a t h i s p o s i t i o n a c t u a l l y w a s .44 T h e p u z z l e m a y
h a v e r e s u lte d f r o m th e f a c t th a t th e r e a r e tw o p a rts o f th e c o m m u n ic a tio n : th e
th e n u n p u b lis h e d le tte r a n d a n e x tr a c t f r o m D e s c e n t o f M a n . I n th e la tte r,
D a r w i n e x p r e s s e d h is p u b lis h e d o p p o s it i o n to b i r t h c o n tr o l. I n th e le tte r , h e
e x p la in e d th e m e a n in g o f th e e x tr a c t. I n a d d itio n , a s w e w i l l s e e , D a r w i n w e n t
b e y o n d h is p u b lis h e d w o r k i n th e l e tte r to e x p r e s s c o n c e r n a b o u t h o w th e
d if f u s io n o f b i r t h c o n tr o l in f o r m a tio n m ig h t a f f e c t c h a s tity a n d th e in s titu tio n o f
m a rria g e .
A t th e t r i a l its e lf , B e s a n t d i s c u s s e d th e le tte r f r o m D a r w i n a t le n g th . S h e
d e f e n d e d h e r p o s i t i o n a g a i n s t t h a t o f D a r w i n b y a p p e a l t o J o h n S t u a r t M i l l s
P o litic a l E conom y. The p u b lic d is c u s s io n of th e le tte r speaks to th e
r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n p o l i t i c a l e c o n o m y a n d b i o l o g y o f t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y .45
A s w e r e a d th e h is to r ic a l r e c o r d , th e M a lth u s ia n p o litic a l e c o n o m is ts f a v o r e d
a ll o w i n g in d iv id u a ls c o n s c io u s ly to lim it th e ir f a m ily s iz e . T h e q u e s tio n o f th e
m e a n s o f l i m i t a t i o n l a t e m a r r i a g e o r c o n t r a c e p t i o n w a s m u c h d e b a t e d .46
M i l l a n d B r a d l a u g h b e fo r e th e tr ia l. T h a t M i l l a d m i r e d B r a d l a u g h w a s
w e l l k n o w n i n t h e i r t i m e . M i l l s t e n p o u n d c o n t r i b u t i o n t o B r a d l a u g h s 1 8 6 8
p a r l i a m e n t a r y c a m p a i g n w a s a n i m p o r t a n t f a c t o r i n h i s o w n e l e c t i o n d e f e a t .47
T h is e p is o d e se rv e s as th e p e n u ltim a te p a ra g ra p h in M i l l s 1873
A u t o b i o g r a p h y w h e n h e e x p l a i n s t h e e l e c t i o n r e s u l t .48
I f t h e j u r y h a d f o r g o t t e n t h i s , B r a d l a u g h c e r t a i n l y r e m i n d e d t h e m .49 T h i s
h is to ry fra m e s B e s a n t s te s tim o n y th a t th e ir p o s itio n re fle c te d M i l l s
u n d e rs ta n d in g of p o litic a l econom y, at th e tim e w id e ly a c c e p te d at
u n i v e r s i t i e s .50 A l t h o u g h M i l l h a d p a s s e d a w a y f o u r y e a r s e a r l i e r , t h e r e c o u l d
b e n o d o u b t th a t th e d e fe n d a n ts w e r e a b le e x p o n e n ts o f h is p o litic a l e c o n o m y .
 7.1. The L etter from Darwin to Bradlaugh

W e p r e s e n t th e l e tte r f r o m D a r w i n to B r a d la u g h , a s tr a n s c r i b e d b y th e D a r w in
C o r r e s p o n d e n c e P r o j e c t a t C a m b r i d g e U n i v e r s i t y . 51

June 6 1877
Sir
I am much obliged for your courteous notice. I have been for many years much out of health &
have been forced to give up all Society or public meetings, & it would be great suffering to me to be
a witness in a court. It is indeed not improbable that I might be unable to attend.

Therefore I hope that if in your power you will excuse my attendance. I may add that I am not a
medical man. I have not seen the book in question, but from notices in the newspapers, I suppose
that it refers to means to prevent conception. If so I shd be forced to express in court a very
decided opinion in opposition to you & Mrs Besant; though from all that I have heard I do not doubt
that both of you are acting solely in accordance to what you believe best for mankind. I have long
held an opposite opinion, as you will see in the enclosed extract, & this I shd think it my duty to state
in court.

W hen the words any m eans were written I was thinking of artificial means of preventing
conception. But besides the evil here alluded to I believe that any such practices would in time
spread to unmarried women & w d destroy chastity on which the family bond depends; & the
weakening of this bond would be the greatest of all possible evils to mankind; & this conclusion I
shd likewise think it my duty to state in Court; so that my judgment, would be in the strongest
opposition to yours;

On Friday the 8th I leave home for a month & my address for the 8th to ... . will be at my sisters
house & from the 13th at my sons house,
PS. If it is not asking too great a favour, I shd be greatly obliged if you w d inform me what you
decide; as apprehension of the coming exertion would prevent the rest which I receive doing me
much good.
Apologising for the length of this letter.
Sir your obed.
C. R D.
 7.2. The Public Record

T h e p u b l i c r e c o r d o f t h e t r i a l i n Q u e e n v. B r a d l a u g h & B e s a n t h i g h l i g h t s t h e
d iffe re n c e s b e tw e e n D a rw in and M ill on th e p u b lic d is s e m in a tio n of
c o n tr a c e p tiv e in fo rm a tio n . I n h e r te s tim o n y a t th e tr ia l, A n n ie B e s a n t f o c u s e d
o n th e q u e s tio n o f w h a t is n a tu r a l a b o u t n a tu r a l s e le c tio n . S h e c o n s tr u c te d
h e r c a s e to s h o w th a t a c c e s s to c o n tr a c e p tiv e in f o r m a tio n a n d th e p r e v e n tio n o f
m is e ry it e n ta ile d w as as n a tu ra l as n a tu ra l s e le c tio n a c c o m p a n ie d by
p r e m a tu r e d e a th . S h e p l a c e d M a lth u s a n d M ill o n th e s id e o f p r e v e n tiv e c h e c k s
th a t a r is e fro m fo re s ig h t, and D a rw in on th e s id e o f u n th in k in g n a tu ra l
s e le c tio n , w h ic h , s h e m a in ta in e d , w a s n o t a s a lu ta r y re s u lt, w h e th e r n a tu r a l
o r a rtific ia l.
W h a t is n a t u r a l a b o u t n a t u r a l s e l e c t i o n ? B esant c o n s id e re d th is
q u e s tio n in so m e d e ta il. O n th e firs t day, she lo c a te d th e n e o -M a lth u s ia n
a p p r o a c h i n s i d e t h e l a r g e r b o d y o f M a l t h u s i a n th in k i n g . S h e a r g u e d t h a t s i n c e it
w a s u n c o n tro v e rs ia l th a t a n y s p e c ie s , w h e th e r h u m a n o r o th e r w is e , c a n g ro w
e x p o n e n tia lly , som e check to p o p u la tio n w as needed. B e s a n t id e n tifie d
M a l t h u s s p o s i t i v e c h e c k m i s e r y a n d s t a r v a t i o n w i t h t h e n a t u r a l c h e c k .
T h i s i s c o n s i s t e n t w i t h b o t h D a r w i n s a n d W a l l a c e s v i e w s o n t h e m a t t e r . 52 T h e
p o s itiv e c h e c k w a s n a tu r a l, s h e a rg u e d , o n ly to th e e x te n t th a t i t is a g e n e ra l
c h e c k o p e ra tin g o n a ll s p e c ie s :

Those checks are divided into what are called positive checks, and what are called preventive
checks. Positive checks for a moment I will call natural checks, following out the line of thought
which the learned Solicitor-General kindly draws for my guidance, but they are natural only in the
sense of being general throughout Nature; that is to say, it is the death-producing check which is the
positive check, the check that produces death. You find it in the vegetable kingdom; you find it in the
animal kingdom; the trees produce a number of seeds more than can ever grow into plants, animals
produce far more young than ever can grow into maturity. If any of you have taken an interest in
natural history, you will have seen there (and even without that you must know it from the common
everyday matters of life), that the death producing check is the one check that acts throughout
nature on all the young brought into the world, not one tithe survives to grow up into maturity; but
that check is only a natural check in the sense that nature is opposed to art, to science, or to m ens
reason. (72-73)

B esant c o n tin u e d to d e v e lo p a p ro fo u n d a rg u m e n t. In hum ans, p o s itiv e

c h e c k s a r e n a t u r a l o n l y w h e n n a t u r e i s u n d e r s t o o d a s n a t u r e u n m o d ifie d
b y m a n s r e a s o n . S h e t h e n d e v e l o p e d t h e c o u n t e r a r g u m e n t a t s o m e l e n g t h ,
s u g g e s tin g th a t rea so n and fo re s ig h t o ffe r th e a d d itio n a l o p p o rtu n ity of
 p re v e n tiv e c h e c k s fo r h u m an s.
B esant o p p o sed th e n a tu ra l c h e c k to p o p u la tio n and a rg u e d f o r th e
M a lth u s ia n p r e v e n t iv e o r a r t i f i c i a l c h e c k . A ll th e w h ile , s h e in s is te d th a t
h e r c a s e w a s c o n s tr u c te d f r o m M a lth u s :

I have pleaded that our intent is good, and that the purpose at which we aim is good, because it
conduces to human and to social happiness. I have shown you from Malthus and he has never yet
been disproved what the law of population is. I have shown that some checks must prevail, either
positive or preventive. (73)

O n t h e s e c o n d d a y o f t h e t r i a l , B e s a n t r e t u r n e d t o t h e i d e a o f M a l t h u s s
p o s itiv e check. She id e n tifie d th e p o s itiv e c h e c k th e d iffic u lty of
s u b s is te n c e a n d o f g e ttin g f o o d w i t h D a r w in :

in his great work on the Origin of Species, p. 61, he remarks that of the many individuals of any
species which are periodically born, but a small number can survive, and on p. 63, he says: A
struggle for existence inevitably follows, from the high rate at which all organic beings tend to
increase. Every living being which, during its natural lifetime, produces eggs or seeds, must suffer
destruction during some period of its life, and during some season or occasional year; otherwise, on
the principle of geometrical increase, its numbers would quickly become so inordinately great that
no country could support the product. Hence, as more individuals are produced than can possibly
survive, there must, in every case, be a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of
the same species, or with individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life. It is
the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms, for
in this case there can be no artificial increase of food, no prudential restraint from marriage. (75
76)

I n B e s a n t s v i e w , t h e o n l y a r g u m e n t a g a i n s t t h e p r e v e n t i v e c h e c k w a s t h a t o f
n a tu ra l s e le c tio n :

One argument only of those which are used against the checks which we propose to introduce is
deserving of smallest consideration. Mr. Darwin in his Origin of Species puts that argument in the
strongest light. Mr. Darwin thinks rightly, with reference to the lower animals, that the application of
natural checks upon the natural rate of increase is really for the welfare and progress of the
various classes of brutes; and Mr. Darwin thinks this natural check good for the human species,
and in this he is supported to a certain extent by Mr. H erbert Spencer. I will venture to lay before
you what I consider to be his strongest statement of that argument, and therefore of any possible
objection.

T h is , to o , s h e o p p o s e d , h a v in g f ir s t p l a c e d D a r w i n o n th e s id e o f n a tu ra l
s e le c ti o n a n d in o p p o s it i o n to b i r t h c o n tr o l. A t th is p o in t in th e tr i a l, B e s a n t
q u o t e d a t l e n g t h f r o m D a r w i n s l e t t e r t o B r a d l a u g h :
 Mr. Darwin, writing to us a few days since, pointed our attention to the following extract from his
Descent of Man, p. 618: The enhancement [sic] of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate
problem; all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty for their children, for
poverty is not only a great evil, but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in marriage.
On the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the prudent avoid marriage, whilst the reckless
marry, the inferior members tend to supplant the better members of society. Man, like every other
animal, has no doubt advanced to his present high condition through a struggle for existence,
consequent on his rapid multiplication, and if he is to advance still higher it is to be feared that he
must remain subject to a severe struggle; otherwise he would sink into indolence, and the more
gifted men would not be more successful in the battle of life than the less gifted. Hence our natural
rate of increase, though leading to many and obvious evils, must not be greatly diminished by any
m eans. That is Mr. Darwins position, and, putting aside for a moment the awful amount of human
misery which it accepts as the necessary condition of progress, let us see if the position be
defensible. (96)

D a r w i n s n a m e a t t r a c t e d t h e a t t e n t i o n o f t h e c o u r t . I n a n e x c h a n g e b e t w e e n
B e s a n t a n d th e l o r d c h i e f j u s t i c e , th e c h i e f j u s t i c e a g r e e d w i t h B e s a n t th a t
D a r w i n h a d f a i l e d f u lly to a p p r e c ia t e th e c a s e f o r s c ie n tif ic m e a n s to c h e c k
p o p u la tio n .

Mrs. B esan t:... .it seems to me that in his argument Mr. Darwin has altogether overlooked this
aspect of the question, which is fatal to the ground that he has taken up the ground that the natural
checks should be sufficient in the human as in the animal kingdoms to overcome the tendency to
over-population. We have not, therefore, to deal with natural so much as with scientific checks.

The Lord Chief Justice: I think that is a point very well worth the serious consideration of Mr.
Darwin. W hether there may result, as a consequence of the struggle for existence among mankind,
the survival of a smaller number of the strongest, or a larger number of the weaker, and whether,
should it be found that the weaker survive, the race is not by that means in process of deterioration.
The process might result in a few of a higher race, but the effect on the masses would be an
increase of suffering and of misery.

Mrs. Besant: That, my lord, is just the point that I have been endeavouring to make. (97-98)

B e s a n t s g o a l w a s t o e n a b l e p e o p l e t o m a r r y e a r l y , a n d , a t t h e s a m e t i m e , t o
a v o i d th o s e e v il s w h i c h c o m e b y o v e r - p o p u l a t io n ( 1 1 0 ) . S h e fo u n d a n a l l y in
th e p o litic a l e c o n o m is ts of th e tim e , n o ta b ly John S tu a rt M ill, w hose
P r in c ip le s sh e q u o te d n e x t ( 1 1 1 - 1 2 ) .
T h e r e p o r t in th e T im e s. T h e T im e s r e p o r t e d e x t e n s i v e l y o n t h e c a s e o f
T h e Q u e e n v B r a d l a u g h a n d A n o t h e r , h i d i n g B e s a n t s n a m e a p p a r e n t l y i n
o r d e r to p r o te c t h e r r e p u ta tio n . N o t s u r p r is in g ly , g iv e n th e s k e tc h o f th e tr ia l
a n d th e le tte r f r o m D a r w i n r e p r o d u c e d a b o v e , th e c o v e r a g e e m p h a s iz e d th a t
th e t r i a l c e n te r e d o n a c o n f lic t b e tw e e n M ill a n d D a r w in . U n lik e D a r w in , th e
T im e s r e p o r t e d , M i l l a d v o c a t e d t h e s u b s t i t u t i o n o f p r u d e n t i a l a n d s c i e n t i f i c
c h e c k s f o r th e s e n a tu ra l o r p o s itiv e c h e c k s to p o p u la tio n g r o w th a s a m e a n s o f
r e d u c i n g p o v e r t y .53
 8. Th e Lo n g Sh a d o w of Eu g e n i c Ph i l o s o p h y

E u g e n ic re fo rm s in th e ir id e a liz e d fo rm w e r e a d v a n c e d w ith o u t c o n c e r n fo r
o b ta in in g th e c o n s e n t o f th e p e r s o n s to b e h a rm e d . T a k in g th e c o n tin u ity th e s is
a s n o r m a n d n a tu r a l s e le c ti o n a s th e m e th o d o f r a c i a l p r o g r e s s , th e n s u c h a
c o n s t r a i n t w o u l d b e a n u n n e c e s s a r y i m p e d i m e n t . T h i s v i e w i s e v i d e n t i n F. Y
E d g e w o r t h s b l e n d o f D a r w i n a n d u t i l i t a r i a n i s m i n w h i c h i t w o u l d b e b e t t e r f o r
s o c i e t y i f l o w - c a p a c i t y i n d i v i d u a l s w e r e n o t a l l o w e d t o h a v e c h i l d r e n . 54 T h i s
is a re m a rk a b le d e m o n s tr a tio n o f th e pow er o f s y s te m s o f t h o u g h t, s in c e
E d g e w o r t h s m o d e l i s p o p u l a t e d b y s y m p a t h e t i c a g e n t s w h o m i g h t w e l l c a r e
w h e n th o s e w ith w h o m th e y a re s y m p a th e tic a lly c o n n e c te d w e r e h a rm e d b y a n
e m p o w e re d m o d e le r.

1 We benefited from discussions at the conference on sympathy sponsored by the Adam Smith Program
of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies in June 2012. Jane Perry helped by carefully correcting the
manuscript. We thank the editor for encouraging us to take on the project and for his detailed suggestions.
All the remaining errors are our responsibility.
2 The 1870 volume of Darwins correspondence (The Correspondence o f Charles Darwin: 1870, ed.
Frederick Burkhardt, James A. Secord, Sheila Ann Dean, Samantha Evans, Shelley Innes, Alison M.
Pearn, and Paul White [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010], 18.396) contains the manuscript
report: On the verso of this letter is a note by CD mentioning the explanation for the basis of sympathy
given in Smith [Adam Smith, The Theory o f Moral Sentiments, 1759] and Bain [Alexander Bain,
Mental and Moral Science: A Compendium o f Psychology and Ethics, 1868]. CD notes that neither
work can account for the fact that sympathy is stronger when excited by a loved one rather than a
stranger. This is an odd reading since Smith is famous for the sympathetic gradient that follows from his
definition of affection as habitual sympathy and the necessary truth that we are mortals so our time is
finite (Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy, The Vanity o f the Philosopher: From Equality to
Hierarchy in Post-Classical Economics [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005]; Levy and
Peart, Adam Smith and the State: Language and Reform, in Oxford Handbook on Adam Smith, ed.
Christopher Berry, Maria Paganelli and Craig Smith [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013], 372-93).
Unfortunately, there is no listing of Theory o f Moral Sentiments in the record of his marginalia (Mario
A. Di Gregorio and N. W Gill, Darwins Marginalia [New York: Garland, 1990]).
3 Levy and Peart, Adam Smith and the State.
4 Alexander Bain, James Mill: A Biography (London, Longmans, Green, 1882), 18-19, gives a list of the
books James Mill took out from the Theological Library. It has both volumes of TMS. Bain documents
Mills affection for Stewart.
5 See Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet and the Enlightenment
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 52-71.
6 Dugald Stewart, The Philosophy o f the Active and Moral Powers o f Man, in The Works o f Dugald
Stewart in Seven Volumes (1828; Cambridge: Hilliard and Brown, 1829), vol. 5, comments: W hat we
call affection says Mr. Smith, is nothing but an habitual sympathy. I will not go quite so far as to adopt
this proposition in all its latitude, but I perfectly agree with this profound and amiable moralist in thinking,
that the experience of this sympathy is the chief foundation of friendship, and one of the principal sources
of the pleasures which it yields (59-60). This link betw een sympathy and affection is central to modern
interpretative debates over the relationship between Smiths argument in TMS and that in Wealth of
Nations (Levy and Peart, Adam Smith and the State, 376).
7 James Mill, Government, in Essays (1820; London: Innes, 1824-25), 3-32. Mill argues: Whenever
the powers of Government are placed in any hands other than those of the community, w hether: those of
one man, of a few, or of several, those principles of human nature which imply that Government is at all
necessary, imply that those persons will make use of them to defeat the very end for which Government
exists ( 8).
8 Citations to quotations from both Mills in this section are to Analysis o f the Phenomena o f the Human
Mind, ed. John Stuart Mill, 2 vols. (1829; London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1869).
9 The word philanthropy was used to criticize utilitarians in the debates over reform (Peart and Levy,
Vanity o f the Philosopher).
10 See Arthur N. Prior, review of C. S. Lewis, Abolition o f Man, Landfall 1 (1947): 63-67, at 6 6 :
T here is no re a s o n ... why such disinterestedness should not be made the defining characteristic of
ethical sentiments, as it has in fact been made by the more circumspect subjectivists from Adam Smith
onwards.
11 Smith, TMS VII.vi.24: And as we cannot always be satisfied merely with being admired, unless we
can at the same time persuade ourselves that we are in some degree really worthy of admiration; so we
cannot always be satisfied merely with being believed, unless we are at the same time conscious that we
are really worthy of belief. As the desire of praise and that of praise-worthiness, though very much a-kin,
are yet distinct and separate desires; so the desire of being believed and that of being worthy of belief,
though very much a-kin too, are equally distinct and separate desires.
12 The literature is extensive as one can discover by searching for sympathy in JSTO Rs collection of
anthropology journals. We restrict ourselves to those Darwin would have known. Jumping from Smith
directly to Darwin, e.g., John Laurent and Geoff Cockfield, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin and the Moral
Sense, in New Perspectives on Adam Smiths Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. Geoff Cockfield, Ann
Firth, and John Laurent (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2007), 141-62, misses Spencers revival of
Theory o f Moral Sentiments to explain justice.
13 Peart and Levy, Vanity o f the Philosopher, 214-15.
14 John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, in Essays on Ethics, Religion and Society, ed. John M. Robson, vol.
10 of Collected Works o f John Stuart Mill (1861; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), 203-59,
at 248.
15 Alfred R. Wallace, T he Origin of Human Races and the Antiquity of M an Deduced from the Theory
of Natural Selection, Journal o f the Anthropological Society o f London 2 (1864): clviii-clxxxvii, at
clxii.
16 Wallace, Origin of Human Races, clxx: T he general idea and argument in this paper I believe to be
new. It was, however, the perusal of Mr. H erbert Spencers works, especially Social Statics, that
suggested it to m e. The acknowledgment was removed in later versions, e.g., Alfred Russel Wallace,
T he Development of Human Races under the Law of Natural Selection, in Contributions to the
Theory o f Natural Selection, 2nd ed. (1864; London: Macmillan, 1871), 303-31.
17 Wallaces letter of 2 January 1864 to Darwin encourages Darwin to look into Social Statics. Wallace
views Spencer as a political economist of the first order: I am utterly astonished that so few people seem
to read Spencer, & the utter ignorance there seems to be among politicians & political economists of the
grand views & logical stability of his works. H e appears to me as far ahead of John Stuart Mill as J.S.M.
is of the rest of the world, and I may add as Darwin is of Agassiz Charles Darwin, The
Correspondence o f Charles Darwin: 1864, ed. Frederick Burkhardt, Duncan M. Porter, Sheila Ann
Dean, Paul S. White, and Sarah Wilmot (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 5. Michael
Shermer, In D arwins Shadow: The Life and Science o f Alfred Russel Wallace (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002), 239, cites the letter to Darwin and the acknowledgment to Spencer.
18 W R. Greg, Enigmas o f Life (Boston: James R. Osgood), 119.
19 [W R. Greg], On the Failure of Natural Selection in the Case of Man, Frasers Magazine fo r
Town and Country 78: 353-62, at 360.
20 Alfred Russel Wallace, Social Environment and Moral Progress (London: Cassell, 1913), 127.
21 Alfred Russel Wallace, Human Selection, in Studies Scientific and Social (1890; London:
Macmillan, 1900), 1.509-26, at 509.
22 Charles Darwin, The Descent o f Man; or, Selection in Relation to Sex (London: John Murray,
1871), 1.112.
23 Charles Darwin, The Descent o f Man; or, Selection in Relation to Sex , ed. James Moore and
Adrian Desmond (1874; London: Penguin Books, 2004), 47.
24 Darwin, Descent of Man, 1871 ed., 1:42. Darwin writes: Animals manifestly feel emulation. They
love approbation or praise; and a dog carrying a basket for his master exhibits in a high degree self
complacency or pride. [1:42] ... Instinctive sympathy would, also, cause him to value highly the
approbation of his fellow-men; for, as Mr. Bain has clearly shewn, the love of praise and the strong
feeling of glory, and the still stronger horror of scorn and infamy, are due to the workings of sympathy.
Consequently man would be greatly influenced by the wishes, approbation, and blame of his fellow-men,
as expressed by their gestures and language. [1:86] ... We may therefore conclude that primeval man, at
a very remote period, would have been influenced by the praise and blame of his fellows. It is obvious,
that the members of the same tribe would approve of conduct which appeared to them to be for the
general good, and would reprobate that which appeared evil. To do good unto others to do unto others
as ye would they should do unto you, is the foundation-stone of morality. It is, therefore, hardly possible
to exaggerate the importance during rude times of the love of praise and the dread of blame [1:165].
25 Peart and Levy, Vanity o f the Philosopher, 163-79.
26 [Samuel Wilberforce], On the Origin of Species, Quarterly Review 30 (1860): 225-64, at 227-28.
27 See, e.g., Charles Elam, Automatism and Evolution, Contemporary Review 29 (1876): 117-46, at
141: it needs no discussion to show that the religious sentiment has no representative whatever, nor such
abstract ideas as truth and justice; and Mr. Darwins abortive attempt to trace back the moral sense to
some development of gregarious or social instinct is so completely beside the mark, that it really presents
no point for criticism. Professor Huxley, with great sagacity, says nothing about it. See also the passage
from William Binns, Science, Theology, and the Evolution of Man, Modern Review 2 (1880): 245-78, at
268, quoted in the epigraph to this chapter.
28 Alfred Russel Wallace, Physical Science and Philosophy, The Academy and Literature 2 (1871):
177-83, at 179.
29 Perhaps the most detailed account of the technical issues is provided by Peter J. Vorzimmer, Charles
Darwin: The Years o f Controversy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1970), 225-31. He does not
discuss the George Darwin episode.
30 [St. George Mivart], T he D escent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Quarterly Review 131:
47-89, at 53.
31 Mivarts position is now widely accepted as an instance of parallel evolutionary pathways. See William
L. Straus Jr., The Riddle of Man's Ancestry, Quarterly Review o f Biology 24 (1949): 200-23, at 204;
W C. Osman Hill, M ans Relation to the Apes, Man 50 (1950): 161-62, at 161; and Malcolm Jay
Kottler, Alfred Russel Wallace, the Origin of Man, and Spiritualism, Isis 65 (1974): 144-92, at 160-61.
Jacob W Gruber, A Conscience in Conflict: The Life o f St. George Jackson Mivart (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1960), 126-27, gives a helpful summary of the argument in Apes and Men.
There is no natural order one can make out in the primates.
32 St. George Mivart, Apes and Man, an Exposition o f Structural Resemblances and Differences
Bearing upon Questions o f Affinity and Origin (London: Robert Hardwicke), 5.
33 Peart and Levy, Vanity o f the Philosopher ; David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart, Charles Kingsley
and the Theological Interpretation of Natural Selection, Journal o f Bioeconomics 8 (2006): 197-218.
34 Thomas Huxley, Mr. Darwins Critics, Contemporary Review 18 (1871): 443-76. Huxley writes
that high waterm ark of intelligence among those most respectable of Britons, the readers of the
Quarterly Review , has now reached such a level, that the next tide may lift them easily and pleasantly on
to the once-dreaded shore of evolution. Nor, having got there, do they seem likely to stop, until they have
reached the inmost heart of that great region, and accepted the ape ancestry of, at any rate, the body of
man (458-59).
35 C. Owen Lovejoy, Reexamining Human Origins in Light of Ardipithecus ramidus, Science 326
(2009): 74.
36 George Darwin, On Beneficial Restrictions to Liberty of Marriage, Contemporary Review 22
(1873): 412-26. See Gruber, Conscience in Conflict, 98-110; and Gregory P. Elder, Chronic Vigour:
Darwin, Anglicans, Catholics and the Development o f a Doctrine o f Providential Evolution
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America), 100-104.
37 Evidence for this position is that Darwin often used surrogates for debating purposes. George Darwin
had previously written the response to Wallace for his father (Vorzimmer, Charles Darwin , 208).
Darwins third party debating strategy is now the subject of a specialist study (John Angus Campbell,
T he Invisible Rhetorician: Charles Darwins Third Party Strategy, Rhetorica: A Journal o f the
History o f Rhetoric 7 [1989]: 55-85). The family support of eugenic policy, most famously by Leonard
Darwin, who served almost two decades as the chair of the British Eugenics Society, was articulated as
late as in the centennial of the Origin o f Species at the University of Chicago by Sir Charles Galton
Darwin, Can M an Control His Num bers? in The Evolution o f Man, ed. Sol Tax, vol. 2 of Evolution
after Darwin: The University o f Chicago Centennial (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960),
463-73, at 471.
38 G. Darwin, Beneficial Restrictions ; on C. Darwins reaction, see Gruber, Conscience in Conflict,
103-4; and Elder, Chronic Vigour, 101-2.
39 David M. Levy, Some Normative Aspects of the Malthusian Controversy, History o f Political
Economy 10 (1978): 271-85, and Christianity or Malthusianism: The Invisibility of a Successful
Radicalism, Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques 25 (1999): 61-93.
40 Francis Place, Illustrations and Proofs o f the Principle o f Population. ed. Norman E. Himes
(1822; London: Allen & Unwin, 1930), 177. Place argues, Much even of that sort of promiscuous
intercourse carried on by means of open prostitution, now so excessively and extensively pernicious,
would cease.
41 Queen v Bradlaugh & Besant [1877] 1878: 139, 147.
42 See Sripati Chandrasekhar, A Dirty, Filthy B ook (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981).
43 See Dov Ospovat, The Development o f Darwins Theory: Natural History, Natural Theology, and
Natural Selection, 1838-1859 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Ernst Mayr, One Long
Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis o f Modern Evolutionary Thought (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1991); Robert J. Richards, The Meaning o f Evolution: The Morphological
Construction and Ideological Reconstruction o f Darwins Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1992); Michael Ruse, Afterwards: Two Decades Later, in The Darwin Revolution: Science Red
in Tooth and Claw, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999); and Stephen Jay Gould, The
Structure o f Evolutionary Theory (Cambridge, MA: H arvard University Press, 2002).
44 See Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, Charles Bradlaugh; A Record o f His Life and Work (London: T. F.
Unwin, 1895), 1.24; Gloria Mc Connaughey, Darwin and Social Darwinism, Osiris 9 (1950): 397-412,
at 408; and Adrian J. Desmond and John Moore, Darwin (New York: W arner Books, 1991), 627-28.
45 See S. S. Schweber, The Origin of the Origin Revisited, Journal o f the History o f Biology 10
(1977): 229-316, and Darwin and the Political Economists: Divergence of Character, Journal o f the
History o f Biology 13 (1980): 195-289; Donald Winch, Darwin Fallen among Political Economists,
Proceedings o f the American Philosophical Society 145 (2001): 415-37; Peart and Levy, Vanity o f the
Philosopher ; Shermer, In D arwins Shadow ; and Levy and Peart, Charles Kingsley.
46 James P. Huzel, The Popularization o f Malthus in Early Nineteenth-Century England:
Martineau, Cobbett and the Pauper Press (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006).
47 See Bonner, Charles Bradlaugh, 1: 274-75; Bruce L. Kinzer, Ann P. Robson, and John M. Robson,
A Moralist in and out o f Parliament: John Stuart Mill at Westminster, 1865-1868 (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1992). Mill and Bradlaugh are even linked in the political cartoons of the
time. One such is discussed and reproduced by Kinzer, Robson, and Robson, Moralist, 289-90. Another
one is found in the publication Judy of September 30, 1868, in which horrific violence is being done to
Bradlaugh. Mill is, contrary to his usual image in Judy, gendered masculine (Peart 2009). Mills role in the
trial did not pass unnoticed. We have published a black-and-white reproduction of the most remarkable
color image from the C opes Tobacco Plants 1878 advertising card, In Pursuit o f Diva Nicotina. In
this we find the likeness of Mill in close proximity to the very book at issue at the Bradlaugh and Besant
trial, Fruits o f Philosophy. Mill is being trampled by a crowd of pleasure seekers (Peart and Levy,
Vanity o f the Philosopher, 158, 227). There is no mystery to the connection between C opes Tobacco
Plant and the Bradlaugh and Besant trial. The poet James Thomson, who wrote his most acclaimed
verse under the initials B. V. for Bradlaughs National Reformer, was an important contributor to John
F rasers C opes Tobacco Plant in that period (W D. Schaefer, introduction to The Speedy Extinction of
Evil and Misery: Selected Prose o f James Thomson (B. V). ed. Schaefer [Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1967], 4). Thomson seems to have lost his position at National Reformer because of
the growing influence of Annie Besant (Henry S. Salt, The Life o f James Thomson ( B. V. ) [Port
Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1889], 125).
48 John Stuart Mill, Autobiography and Literary Essays , ed. John M. Robson and Jack Stillinger, vol. 1
of Collected Works o f John Stuart Mill (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 289.
49 Bradlaugh testified, I have been a journalist for the last nineteen years, and in my first prospectus I
put forward the Malthusian view as part of the editorial intention of that journal, and lest the jury should
think that we now take up this struggle in any mere desire for novelty or notoriety, I may mention that the
late Mr. John Stuart Mill left me, written by himself, in his autobiography, a few lines stating that I
commended myself to him because I took upon myself the advocacy of these Malthusian views when
they were even more unpopular than to-day. Queen v Bradlaugh & Besant [1877] 1878, 156.
50 Queen v Bradlaugh & Besant, 111.
51 Charles Darwin Correspondence Project, Cambridge University transcription of calendar number
10988, draft of a letter from Charles Darwin to Charles Bradlaugh, 6 June 1877, supplied to David M.
Levy and Sandra J. Peart, 6 October 2004. The transcription is at a prepublication stage and thus the
Project cannot be held responsible for any errors of transcription remaining. A photographic reproduction
of the letter is provided in Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy, Darwins Unpublished Letter at the
Bradlaugh-Besant Trial: A Question of Divided Expert Judgment, European Journal o f Political
Economy 24 (2008): 243-53.
52 Levy and Peart, Charles Kingsley.
53 The Queen v Bradlaugh and Another, London Times, 20 June 1877: 11.
54 F. Y. Edgeworth, Mathematical Psychics (London: Kegan Paul, 1881), 70-77; Peart and Levy, Vanity
o f the Philosopher, 226-30,
 CH APTER ELEVEN

Fair and Impartial Spectators in Experimental

Economic Behavior
USING SYMPATHY TO DRIVE ACTION

V e r n o n L . S m i t h a n d B a r t J . W ils o n

If he would act so as that the impartial spectator may enter into the principles of his conduct... he
m u st... humble the arrogance of his self-love, and bring it down to something which other men can
go along with.
adam smith, Theory o f Moral Sentiments, II.ii.2.1
 1. In t r o d u c t i o n

O u r p r im a r y p u r p o s e in th is e s s a y is to d r a w o n th e lite r a tu r e o f c l a s s i c a l
li b e r a l e c o n o m y to s h o w h o w i t in fo rm s a n d is in f o r m e d b y r e s u lts fro m
e x p e r im e n ta l e c o n o m i c s .1 A d a m S m ith s f i r s t g r e a t b o o k , The T h eo ry o f M o r a l
S e n tim e n ts ( h e r e a f te r T M S), s e r v e s as o u r c h ie f s o u rc e o f in s ig h ts fo r
u n d e r s ta n d in g a n d in te r p r e tin g m o d e r n l a b o r a t o r y r e s e a r c h in te rm s o f th e
c o n v e n tio n s th a t g o v e r n h u m a n c o n d u c t in p e r s o n a l e x c h a n g e .2 A t th e s a m e
tim e , w e w i s h to d e m o n s tr a te h o w to d a y s e c o n o m ic e x p e r im e n ts e lu c id a te a
r e a d in g o f A d a m S m ith .
W e r e p o r t r e s u lts f r o m a v a r i e t y o f t w o - p e r s o n la b o r a to r y e x p e r im e n ts
m o tiv a te d o r ig i n a lly by g a m e - th e o r e tic p r e d ic tio n s . In th e s e e c o n o m ic
e n v iro n m e n ts w e s e e p r o p e r ty rig h ts , in th e s e n s e o f rig h ts a n d w r o n g s o f
ta k in g c e r ta in a c tio n s . I n p e r s o n a l e x c h a n g e e n v iro n m e n ts , th e s e p r o p e r ty rig h ts
a r e in v o lv e d a s m e d ia to r s o f c h o ic e ; th a t is , th e y e m e r g e a s c o n v e n tio n s , o r a
f o r m o f m u tu a l c o n s e n t, th a t a r e r e c o g n iz e d im p lic itly , o r n o t, w ith in th e g ro u p
by th e in te r a c tin g in d iv id u a ls , and th a t d e te r m in e w h e th e r c o o p e r a tiv e
o u tc o m e s a r e r e a l i z e d o r n o t. In im p e r s o n a l m a r k e t e x c h a n g e , th e s e s o c ia lly
g r o w n rig h ts h a v e b e c o m e c o d if ie d in e x te r n a lly im p o s e d a n d e n f o r c e d r u le s ,
d e f in in g a n in s titu tio n th a t g o v e r n s e x c h a n g e a n d o u tc o m e s .3 T h is in s ig h t in to
th e s o c ia l o r ig in s o f p r o p e r ty rig h ts is c a p tu r e d in H a y e k s q u o ta tio n fro m
J u liu s P a u lu s , a th ir d - c e n tu r y ad R o m a n ju r i s t: W h a t is r ig h t is n o t d e r i v e d
f r o m th e r u le , b u t th e r u le a r is e s f r o m o u r k n o w le d g e o f w h a t is r ig h t. 4
 2. Pr i n c i p l e s o f Ac t i o n in TMS

T h e a rg u m e n ts th a t f o ll o w m a k e u s e o f o u r in te rp re ta tio n o f A d a m S m i t h s
th e o r y o f th e m e n ta l a n d e m o tio n a l s ta te s th a t s e r v e to m e d ia te th e in d iv id u a l
a c tio n s th a t p ro d u c e th o se s ta te s ; a c c o rd in g ly , we p ro v id e a v e ry b rie f
o v e r v i e w o f th e s e p r in c i p le s o f a c tio n .
H u m a n s d e s ir e a n d s e e k p r a is e a n d p r a is e w o r th in e s s ; a ls o to a v o id b la m e
a n d b l a m e w o r t h i n e s s .5 P r a i s e a n d p ra is e w o rth in e s s a re c o n n e c te d , b u t th e
la tte r is n o t d e r i v e d f r o m th e f o r m e r a n d th e tw o a r e s o m e w h a t in d e p e n d e n t
( I I I . 2 . 2 - 3 , 1 1 4 ) . T h u s p r a i s e y i e l d s l i t t l e p l e a s u r e if, i n i g n o r a n c e o r e r r o r , w e
ju d g e it v i a th e im p a rtia l s p e c ta to r to be u n d e serv e d ( I I I .2 .4 , 1 1 4 -1 5 ).
S im ila r ly , w e f in d s a tis f a c tio n in o u r p r a is e w o r th y c o n d u c t, e v e n i f n o s u c h
p r a i s e is l ik e ly to b e b e s t o w e d o n u s ( I I I .2 .5 , 1 1 5 - 1 6 ) . I n th e s e p a s s a g e s i t is
im p o rta n t fo r m o d ern e c o n o m ic rea d e rs to a v o id th in k in g o f w o rd s lik e
s a tis fa c tio n and p le a s u re as b e in g e q u iv a le n t to o r y ie ld in g u tility ,
w h i c h f o r S m i t h m e a n t m e r e l y a n d o n l y u s e f u l (IV . 1 . 6 , 1 8 0 ) . F o r S m i t h w h a t
w a s s a tis fy in g o r p le a s in g w a s th e c o n fo r m a n c e o f o u r c o n d u c t w i t h s o c ia l
p r o p r i e ty in c h o o s in g a n a c tio n .
C o n c e r n in g a c ti o n f o r th e s e lf , S m ith f o ll o w e d th e S to ic s in a rg u in g th a t
s e lf - l o v e is r e c o m m e n d e d to a ll b y th e r e q u ir e m e n ts o f s e lf - p r e s e r v a tio n , b u t
its a r r o g a n t f o r m s m u s t a t a ll tim e s b e h u m b le d in o r d e r to p u r s u e a c tio n s th a t
c o n fo rm to th e ju d g m e n ts of o n e s im p a rtia l s p e c ta to r ( I I .ii.2 .1 , 8 2 -8 3 ;
V H iL 1 .1 5 , 2 7 2 ) .6
 3. Th e Im p a r t i a l Sp e c t a t o r

O u r a c tio n s a r e s u b je c t to a d is c ip lin e o f s e lf - c o m m a n d b y p r in c ip le s th a t
o p e r a te th ro u g h th e m e ta p h o r o f th e f a ir a n d im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r , o r s im p ly
th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r :

We endeavour to examine our own conduct as we imagine any other fair and impartial spectator
would examine it. If, upon placing ourselves in his situation, we thoroughly enter into all the passions
and motives which influenced it, we approve of it, by sympathy with the approbation of this
supposed equitable judge. If otherwise, we enter into his disapprobation, and condemn it. (III. 1.2,
110)

T h e w o r d s f a ir , im p a r tia l a n d e q u ita b le w e r e c h o s e n , w e b e lie v e , q u ite

d e li b e r a t e l y b y S m ith to r e p r e s e n t ju d g m e n t b y a n e u tra l r e f e r e e a s to w h e th e r
a n a c tio n w a s f a ir o r fo u l u n d e r th e a p p li c a b l e r u le s o f in te r a c tio n g iv e n th e
c i r c u m s t a n c e s . W i t h i n S m i t h s m e t a p h o r o f t h e i m p a r t i a l s p e c t a t o r i s t h e s p o r t s
m e ta p h o r o f j u d g m e n t u n d e r th e r u le s o f th e g a m e .7 S m ith r e p e a te d l y m a k e s
re fe re n c e to a c tio n s th a t o th e r p e o p le or m a n k in d , o r th e im p a rtia l
s p e c ta to r , c a n g o a lo n g w ith ( o r n o t). T h e I m p a r tia l S p e c ta to r c o n s titu te s a n
in te rn a liz a tio n o f w hat is a p p ro v e d or n o t a p p ro v e d by o th e rs . We a re
e n c o u ra g e d to ta k e a c tio n s th a t o th e rs c a n g o a lo n g w ith , a n d d e te r r e d fro m
a c tio n s th a t th e y c a n n o t a n d fin d o b je c tio n a b le : o th e r s a lw a y s m a r k w h e n th e y
e n t e r i n t o , a n d w h e n t h e y d i s a p p r o v e o f ( o u r ) s e n t i m e n t s ( I I I . 1 .3 , 1 1 0 ) . T h i s
c h a r a c te r iz a tio n o f h u m a n s o c ia lity s e r v e s to m e d ia te h u m a n a c tio n , h o w e v e r
im p e r fe c tly .8 A s a s o c ia l-p s y c h o lo g ic a l re s tra in t it e m e rg es firs t in our
f a m ilie s , e x te n d e d f a m ilie s , a n d f r ie n d s h ip e n c la v e s , b u t u ltim a te ly a p p e a r s in
th e l a w s c o d if ie d b y c iv il s o c ie ty ( V I .ii.in tr o d u c tio n ,1 , 2 1 8 - 2 7 ; I I .i i.2 .2 - 3 ,
8 3 -8 5 ).
T h e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r e n te r s in tw o w a y s : o u r ju d g m e n ts o f th e a c tio n s o f
o th e rs a n d ju d g m e n ts o f, a n d a c tio n s b y , o u r s e lv e s . P r o p o s itio n s c o n c e rn in g
o u r ju d g m e n ts o f th e a c tio n s o f o th e r s in c lu d e th e f o llo w in g :

P r o p e r ly m o tiv a te d b e n e fic e n t a c tio n s a lo n e r e q u ir e r e w a r d . W h y ?

B e c a u s e i t i s t h e s e a c t i o n s a l o n e t h a t i n s p i r e o u r g r a t i t u d e ( I l . i i . 1 .1 , 7 8 ) .
I m p r o p e r l y m o tiv a te d h u rtfu l a c tio n s a lo n e d e s e r v e p u n is h m e n t. W h y ?
B e c a u s e t h e s e a c t i o n s a l o n e p r o v o k e r e s e n t m e n t ( I l . i i . 1 .2 , 7 8 ) .
 T h e w a n t o f b e n e f i c e n c e c a n n o t p r o v o k e r e s e n t m e n t .9 W h y ? B e c a u s e
b e n e fic e n c e is a lw a y s fre e ( v o lu n ta r ily g iv e n ) a n d c a n n o t b e e x h o rte d
b y f o r c e ( I l . i i . 1 .3 , 7 8 - 7 9 ) .

In T M S th e e m o tio n o f re s e n tm e n t has a c e n tra l ro le in e x p re s s in g

d is a p p ro v a l and e m e rg es in h u m a n s o c ia l in te r a c tio n s , p r o v id in g com m on
e x p e r ie n c e a n d a c o n s e n s u a l f o u n d a tio n f o r rig h ts to ta k e a c tio n in s o c ia l
g ro u p in g s . T h u s , r e s e n tm e n t s a f e g u a r d s j u s t i c e b y p r o v o k in g th e p u n is h m e n t o f
a n in ju s tic e a lr e a d y d o n e to a n o th e r, w h ile p r o te c tin g a g a in s t in ju s tic e by
d e t e r r i n g o t h e r s w h o f e a r p u n i s h m e n t i f t h e y c o m m i t a l i k e o f f e n s e ( I l . i i . 1 .4 5 ,
7 9 - 8 0 ) . R e t a l i a t i o n is a l a w o f n a tu r e th a t r e q u i r e s th e v i o l a t o r o f th e l a w s o f
j u s tic e to f e e l th e e v il d o n e to a n o th e r ; h e w h o s im p ly o b s e r v e s a n d d o e s n o t
v i o la te th e l a w s o f j u s t i c e m e r its n o r e w a r d , b u t o n ly r e s p e c t f o r h is in n o c e n c e
( I l . i i . 1 .9 1 0 , 8 2 ) .
J u d g m e n ts o f, a n d a c tio n s b y , o u r s e lv e s a r e g o v e r n e d b y th e p r in c ip le s o f
a p p r o v a l ( o r d i s a p p r o v a l) o f o u r o w n c o n d u c t:

T h e s e r e f l e c t th e ju d g m e n ts w e a p p l y to o th e r s a s w e e n d e a v o r to
e x c h a n g e , m ir r o r - lik e , o u r p e r s p e c tiv e w i t h th a t o f o th e r s , a n d [t]o s e e
o u r s e l s a s i t h e r s s e e u s 10 i n w h i c h w e i m a g i n e o u r c o n d u c t e x a m i n e d b y
a n y o th e r f a ir a n d im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r.
W e p o s s e s s n o o th e r lo o k in g g la s s w ith w h ic h to e x a m in e o u r o w n
c o n d u c t.
I n th is , e a c h b e c o m e s a s tw o p e r s o n s th e f ir s t is th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r ,
t h e j u d g e ; t h e s e c o n d i s t h e a g e n t , h i m s e l f t h e p e r s o n j u d g e d ( I I I . 1 .2 6 ,
1 0 9 1 3 ) . 11
 4. Tr a d i t i o n a l Ga m e Th e o r y a n d Ex p e r i m e n t a l Ec o n o m i c s

I n itia lly , m a n y o f th e e x p e r im e n ta l g a m e r e s u lts w e r e in te r p r e te d th ro u g h th e

lo s s o f g a m e th e o ry ; s u b s e q u e n tly , e x p e r im e n ts w e re d e s ig n e d to b e tte r
u n d e r s ta n d w h y th e in itia l r e s u lts so o f te n d e v ia t e d f r o m g a m e - th e o r e tic
p r e d ic tio n s . H e n c e , w e b e g in w i t h a s im p le r e d u c e d f o r m r e p r e s e n ta tio n o f a
g a m e a s in J o e l S o b e l s a r tic le I n te r d e p e n d e n t P r e f e r e n c e s a n d R e c ip r o c ity
o f 2 0 0 5 . 12 W e th e n m o d if y th a t f r a m e w o r k w i t h a f o r m a liz a tio n th a t w e b e lie v e
c o r r e s p o n d s m o re a c c u r a te ly to th e w a y A d a m S m ith c o n s tr u c te d a p r o c e s s
v i e w o f h u m a n s o c i a l i t y in TM S.
S u p p o s e th a t in d iv id u a l i = 1,...,n s e le c ts a n a c tio n , x i, in a s ta g e g a m e to
m a x im iz e Z i(x ), w h e r e x = ( x 1,... x i,... x n) a r e s tr a te g y c h o ic e s b y n p la y e r s :

w h e r e 1 & g t; d & g t; 0 is th e d is c o u n t r a te , H ( x ) is th e h is to r y o f p la y , ui is i s
s e lf - lo v in g u tility o u tc o m e f r o m th e c h o ic e x i in th e s ta g e g a m e , a n d Vi is th e
v a lu e to i o f c o n tin u a tio n o f p la y . ( I n th e d i s c u s s i o n b e l o w o u r e x a m p le s a r e
f o r n = 2 p e r s o n s .)
Z i(x ) is in te r p r e te d a s th e c r i t e r i o n o f ju d g m e n t f o r d e c i s i o n m a k in g b y i in a
s in g le s e q u e n tia l r e p e titio n o f th e s a m e s ta g e g a m e w i t h th e s a m e w e l l -
id e n tif ie d o th e r in d iv id u a l. Z i(x) is d e s c r i b e d a s i s d is c o u n te d c u r r e n t p lu s
fu tu re u tility in a p a ir in g c r e a te d b y th e e x p e r im e n te r. H e n c e , H ( x ) in c lu d e s a ll
h is to ry , a s w e l l a s th e s h a d o w o f i s a n tic ip a te d fu tu re h is to r y o f p la y w i t h th e
o th e r. A s d e s c r i b e d b y S o b e l: R e p e a te d - g a m e th e o r y in c o r p o r a te s s tr a te g ic
c o n te x t, n o t b y c h a n g in g p r e f e r e n c e s b u t b y c h a n g in g th e w a y p e o p le p la y . In
o r d e r to o b ta in e q u i l i b r i a d is tin c t fro m r e p e titio n s o f e q u ilib ria o f th e
u n d e r ly in g s ta tic g a m e , th e h is to r y o f p la y m u s t in flu e n c e fu tu re p la y . H is to r y
does n o t in flu e n c e p r e f e r e n c e s , b u t it d o e s in flu e n c e e x p e c ta tio n s about
b e h a v i o r ( 4 1 2 ) . T o a c h ie v e th is , a c tio n s m a y ta k e th e f o r m o f p u n is h m e n ts a n d
r e w a r d s , c o n tin g e n t o n a c tio n s b y th e o th e r, th a t s h a p e th e s e lf - lo v in g b e h a v io r
o f th e o th e r s o a s to e n a b le i to m a x im iz e h e r lo n g - te r m s e lf - lo v in g in te r e s t
o v e r th e h o r iz o n o f th e r e p e a te d g a m e.
I n th is d e v e lo p m e n t, Vi is a n e n d o g e n o u s f u n c tio n o f th e h is to r y o f p la y . I f Vi
is p o s itiv e a n d d is s u f f ic ie n tly la r g e ( n e a r e n o u g h to 1), th e n in m a x im iz in g
Z j(x), i m u s t ta k e c a r e n o t to s p o il h e r s e lf - lo v in g fu tu re in te r a c tio n w i t h th is
p a r tic u la r o th e r p e r s o n b y h e r c h o ic e in th e p r e s e n t a c a r e th a t in tr a d itio n a l
r e p e a te d g a m e th e o r y e x h a u s ts th e c o n te n t o f a c tio n s th a t a r e s o c ia l; th a t is , h e r
s o c ia lity is d e f in e d a n d c o n f in e d r e la tiv e to h e r h is to r ic a l a n d a n tic ip a te d
fu tu re in te r a c tio n s w i t h th e p a r tic u la r p e r s o n w i t h w h o m s h e h a s b e e n p a ir e d .
I n g a m e th e o r y r e p e titio n is e s s e n tia l f o r lo n g - te r m s tr a te g ic s u c c e s s in
a c h ie v in g c o o p e r a tiv e r e s u lts , b u t l a b o r a t o r y e x p e r im e n ts h a v e lo n g r e c o r d e d
s ig n if ic a n t le v e l s o f c o o p e r a tio n in s in g le p la y s o f a s ta g e g a m e in w h ic h th e
anonym ous p la y e r s fo rg o la r g e r p a y o ff fo r th e m s e lv e s in fa v o r (o r
e x p e c ta tio n s ) of a c o o p e r a tiv e o u tc o m e . T h e re fo re , as n o te d by S o b e l,
[ b ] e c a u s e la b o r a to r y e x p e r im e n ts c a r e f u l ly c o n tr o l f o r r e p e a te d - g a m e e ffe c ts ,
th e s e r e s u lts n e e d a d if f e r e n t e x p la n a tio n (4 1 1 ) . T h a t is , in a s in g le p la y o f th e
s ta g e g a m e a r a tio n a l i is a s s u m e d to s e t Vi = 0 w h e n m a tc h e d w i t h a n u n k n o w n
o th e r p e r s o n w h o th e r e f o r e is p r e s u m e d to b e a s tr a n g e r w h o m p e r s o n i
c a n n o t id e n tif y a n d th e r e b y b u ild o n a n y r e l e v a n t p e r s o n a l h is to ry . H e n c e , b o th
i a n d th e o th e r a r e p r e d i c t e d to c h o o s e s e lf - lo v in g d o m in a n t o u tc o m e s ,
w h a te v e r th e c ir c u m s ta n c e s d e f in e d b y th e g a m e.
T h e d if f e r e n t e x p la n a tio n c o m m o n ly o f f e r e d f o r e x p e r im e n ta lly o b s e r v e d
c o o p e r a tiv e o u tc o m e s is th e p o s tu la te of o th e r - r e g a r d in g or s o c ia l
p r e f e r e n c e s th a t r a tio n a liz e th e o b s e r v e d b e h a v io r b y e a c h p la y e r a ttr ib u tin g
h is o w n u tility ( o r e n v io u s d is u tility ) to m o n e y a s s ig n e d to th e o th e r, a s w e l l a s
m o n e y a s s ig n e d to o n e s s e l f in a s in g le p l a y o f th e s ta g e g a m e.
I n th is e x p la n a tio n a n y g e n e ro s ity , p o s itiv e o r n e g a tiv e , h a s b e e n a c c o u n te d
f o r b y s im p ly a u g m e n tin g p o s t h o c th e d e c i s i o n m a k e r s u tility fu n c tio n in a n
a p p r o p r ia te w a y . B u t w e c a n n o t in fe r u tility f r o m d e c i s i o n c h o ic e . T h e if in
th e s c ie n tif ic p r o p o s i t i o n i f p r e f e r e n c e s a r e s o c ia l th e n c h o ic e s w i l l b e o th e r
r e g a r d in g is r e p l a c e d b y i f a n d o n ly if . It is th e la tte r p r o p o s i t i o n th a t h a s
b e e n w i d e l y a d o p te d b y th e o r is ts a n d e x p e r im e n te r s s in c e th e p r e d ic tiv e
f a ilu r e s o f g a m e th e o r y s ta r te d to a c c u m u la te .
A d a m S m ith c a r e f u lly a n d th o u g h tfu lly m o d e le d h u m a n in te r a c tio n s o f th is
k in d , n o t a s g o v e r n e d b y o n e s o w n v e r s u s o th e r u t ilit a r ia n c o n s id e r a tio n s , b u t
b y c o n d u c t r u le s c o n d itio n e d b y p r o p r ie ty .13 I n f o ll o w i n g th e s e p r in c ip le s
th e in d iv id u a l is p l e a s e d b y th e a c tio n s d r i v e n b y h e r s e lf -ju d g m e n t, b u t
p l e a s e d d o e s n o t m a p in to a u ti l i t a r i a n r e w a r d . E v e n i f o n e c a n id e n tif y a
fo r m a l c a s e - b y - c a s e te c h n ic a l e q u iv a le n c e b e tw e e n o u tc o m e u tilitie s and
a c tio n s m o tiv a te d b y c o n d u c t r u le s , f o ll o w i n g s u c h m e c h a n ic a l c u r v e fittin g
in v o lv e s a n o m itte d e s s e n tia l s te p , a n d r is k s f a ilin g to a r tic u la te a p r o c e s s th a t
d is c i p lin e s o u r u n d e r s ta n d in g o f h o w a n d w h y c o n te x t m a tte rs in g a m e s a n d
l i f e . 14 A d a m S m ith , w h o b e l i e v e d T M S w a s h is m o s t im p o r ta n t w o r k , p r o v id e s
a m e a n in g fu l s y s te m a tic a p p r o a c h to e x p e r im e n ta l te s tin g a s a n a lte r n a tiv e to
e x te n d in g u tilita r ia n is m .
I n ( 1 ) , i f H is h is to r y , a d e c i s i o n m u s t b e in f o r m e d b y o n e s e n tir e c u ltu ra l
a n d s o c ia l e x p e r ie n c e , a n d th e e x p lo r a tio n o f th is s o c ia l e x p e r ie n c e m a y
e x p o s e th in k in g to n o n - p r e f e r e n c e - b a s e d fo rm s o f o th e r - r e g a r d in g b e h a v io r . In
th is d e v e lo p m e n t, a c tio n s a r e o n ly in te llig ib l e in r e f e r e n c e to m o r a l ju d g m e n ts
o f o n e s o w n a n d o th e r s a c tio n s in p a s t a n d a n tic ip a te d fu tu re in te ra c tio n s .
W h a t is im p o r ta n t a b o u t th e a c tio n s is th e c o n d u c t ( in c lu d in g in te n tio n s ) th e y
s ig n a l, a n d n o t m e r e ly th e o u tc o m e s th e a c tio n s y ie ld .
S u c h a p a th w a y is p r o v i d e d b y S m ith s p r o g r a m in TM S. T h a t p a th w a y n o t
o n ly in c lu d e s a c o n tin u a tio n v a lu e , w h ic h w e w i l l n o w c a ll W [ H ( x ) ] w h e r e
th e s ta g e g a m e is to b e r e p e a te d , b u t a ls o s y m p a th e tic a lly m o d if ie s th e s e lf
lo v in g f i r s t te rm , ui(x), in e q u a tio n (1 ) . M o r e o v e r , Wi is n o w b a s e d o n
e x p e c te d fu tu re c o n d u c t, b o th o n e s o w n a n d th e o t h e r s, a n d n o t o n ly o n
o u tc o m e s .
I n T M S , in d iv id u a ls a r e m o tiv a te d to s e e k p r a is e a n d p r a is e w o r t h in e s s , a n d
to a v o i d b la m e a n d b la m e w o r th in e s s , in a ll s o c ia l in te r a c tio n s . A n d in ju d g in g
h e r o w n c o n d u c t, a p e r s o n i w i l l a lw a y s im a g in e th a t c o n d u c t a s b e in g
e x a m in e d b y a f a ir a n d im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r. H e r a c tio n s w i l l v a r y w ith
c ir c u m s ta n c e s , b ased o n e x p e r ie n c e , b u t r e q u ir e th a t her conduct serv e
p e r s o n a l lo n g - te r m ( r e p u ta tio n ) e n d s a c r o s s a w i d e v a r i e t y o f h u m a n s o c ia l
e n c o u n te rs . W h e n s h e k n o w s little o f a p a r tic u la r o th e r s h e m a y b e c a u tio u s ,
a n d m o re p r e s e r v i n g o f im m e d ia te S to ic c a r e f o r h e r s e lf , b u t, e v e n s o , s h e
k n o w s it is a n o th e r h u m an , r e c r u ite d f r o m a g ro u p w h o s e c h a r a c te r is tic s m a y
n o t b e th a t d i s s i m i l a r fr o m h e r o w n , a n d s h e r e l i e s o n s e lf - c o m m a n d p r in c ip le s
th a t h a v e s e r v e d h e r w e l l o n a v e r a g e in th e p a s t. H e r a c ti o n x i w i l l g e n e r a te a
c u r r e n t v a lu e th a t w e w i l l d e s ig n a te U [x |H i( 0 ) ] , w h e r e H i( 0 ) is h e r c u r r e n t
e n tr y - le v e l p e r s o n a l h is to r ic a l s ta te ( a f te r r e a d in g th e in s tr u c tio n s o f th e
e x p e r im e n t). U v a lu e s i s c o n d u c t in ta k in g im m e d ia te a c ti o n x i; p a r t o f th a t
v a lu a t io n is th e r e s u ltin g p a y o ffs . B u t th e v a lu e a tta in e d is d e r i v e d f r o m th e
ju d g m e n t o f th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r a s to th e p r o p r ie ty o f h e r a c tio n , a lb e i t
in c lu d in g th a t th e p a y o ffs are d e s e r v e d a n d j u s t i f i e d b y th e c ir c u m s ta n c e s .
 T h a t o u r d e s c r i p t i o n o f Ui [ x ^ O ) ] c a p tu r e s b a s e lin e e le m e n ts in S m ith s
c r i t e r i o n f o r w e ig h in g th e p r e s e n t a g a in s t th e fu tu re b y a p r u d e n t p e r s o n , u n d e r
th e s e lf - c o m m a n d in g ju d g m e n t o f th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r , s e e m s p la in ly e v id e n t
in th e f o ll o w i n g q u o ta tio n f r o m T M S :

[I]n his steadily sacrificing the ease and enjoyment of the present moment for the probable
expectation of the still greater ease and enjoyment of a more distant but more lasting period of time,
the prudent man is always both supported and rew arded by the entire approbation of the impartial
spectator, and of the representative of the impartial spectator, the man within the breast. The
impartial spectator does not feel himself worn out by the present labour of those whose conduct he
surveys; nor does he feel himself solicited by the importunate calls of their present appetites. To him
their present, and what is likely to be their future situation, are very nearly the same: he sees them
nearly at the same distance, and is affected by them very nearly in the same manner. He knows,
however, that to the persons principally concerned, they are very far from being the same, and that
they naturally affect them in a very different manner. He cannot therefore but approve, and even
applaud, that proper exertion of self-command, which enables them to act as if their present and
their future situation affected them nearly in the same manner in which they affect him. (VLi.11,
215)

I n s te a d o f e q u a tio n ( 1 ) w e n o w h a v e a s y m p a th y - d e r iv e d c r i t e r i o n o f a c ti o n

I f W = 0 , a s in a n a d v e r t i s e d o n e - s h o t g a m e , m a x S i(x) d o e s n o t r e d u c e to m a x
Z i(x); th a t w o u ld o c c u r o n ly f o r a n i r a i s e d in is o l a t i o n f r o m a ll c o n ta c t w ith
o th e r h u m a n s, o r w h o is o th e r w is e b a r r e n o f a ll s o c ia liz a tio n : To a m a n w h o
f r o m h is b ir t h w a s a s tr a n g e r to s o c ie ty , th e o b je c ts o f h is p a s s io n s , th e e x te r n a l
b o d ie s w h ic h e ith e r p l e a s e d o r h u r t h im , w o u ld o c c u p y h is w h o le a tte n tio n
(III. 1 .3 , 1 1 0 ).
W ith Wi & g t; 0 , e q u a tio n ( 2 ) a l l o w s a c ti o n to a c c o m m o d a te th e k n o w le d g e
th a t th e in te r a c tio n w i l l b e r e p e a te d , a n d th e r e b y e n a b le s th e r e la tio n s h ip w ith
th e o th e r to b e in flu e n c e d b y p o s s i b l e fu tu re s th a t th e tw o a r e a b le to c r e a te
b e y o n d th e s e lf - c o m m a n d p r in c ip le s th a t w o u ld a p p ly to a s in g le e n c o u n te r th a t
a l r e a d y c o n ta in s b a s e lin e c o n s id e r a tio n s o f fu tu rity a s in th e a b o v e q u o te fro m
TM S. U n d e r r e p e titio n , ju d g m e n ts b y th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r o f e a c h p e r s o n in
h is s h a r e d in te r a c tio n w i l l b e u p d a te d b a s e d o n h o w e a c h r e a d s th e in te n tio n s
c o n v e y e d s e q u e n tia lly b y th e o th e r.
 5. Ul t i m a t u m Ga m e s

I n th is g a m e p e o p le a r e r e c r u ite d to th e la b in g ro u p s , s a y o f tw e lv e , a n d a r e
r a n d o m iz e d in to p a ir s , a n d a t r a n d o m o n e p e r s o n is s e le c te d to b e th e
p r o p o s e r , th e o th e r th e r e s p o n d e r . T h e ta s k o f e a c h p a i r is to d e te r m in e th e
a l l o c a t i o n o f a fix e d s u m o f m o n e y , M , s a y te n d o l l a r s o r o n e h u n d r e d d o lla r s
( c o n s is tin g o f te n o n e - d o lla r b i l l s o r te n te n - d o l l a r b i l l s ) b e t w e e n th e m , u n d e r
th e f o ll o w i n g ru le s : T h e p r o p o s e r c h o o s e s a n a m o u n t y f o r h e r s e lf , w i t h th e
u n d e r s ta n d in g th a t M y is a ll o c a t e d to th e r e s p o n d e r . P l a y th e n p a s s e s to th e
r e s p o n d e r , w h o e ith e r a c c e p ts th e a llo c a tio n , i n w h ic h c a s e th e in d ic a te d
p a y m e n ts w i l l b e m a d e to e a c h , o r h e r e je c ts th e a llo c a tio n , in w h ic h c a s e e a c h
r e c e i v e s z e r o f r o m th e in te r a c t io n .15 T h e s u b g a m e p e r f e c t e q u ilib r iu m o f th e
g a m e is f o r th e p r o p o s e r to o f f e r o n e d o l l a r (th e m in im u m u n it o f a c c o u n t), a n d
f o r th e r e s p o n d e r to a c c e p t. T h e la tte r s h o u ld a c c e p t a n y a m o u n t th a t is b e tte r
th a n z e r o , a n d , in a w a r e n e s s o f th is , th e p r o p o s e r o f f e r s th a t a m o u n t. T h e d a ta
te n d to s h o w v e r y h ig h r e j e c t i o n r a te s o f o n e d o lla r , a n d r e je c tio n s o f a m o u n ts
u p to th r e e d o l l a r s a r e n o t u n c o m m o n . B u t p r o p o s e r s a p p e a r to a n tic ip a te th is
b e h a v io r a n d v e r y f e w o f f e r l o w a m o u n ts . I n e x p e r im e n ts d e s c r i b e d a s a
d iv id e $ M " g a m e th e a v e r a g e o f f e r is c o m m o n ly a b o u t 4 5 p e r c e n t o f M , b u t
o f f e r s c h a n g e s u b s ta n tia lly w i t h v a r ia tio n s in th e c o n te x t a n d in s tr u c tio n s .16
T h e f i r s t th o u g h t, f o r th o s e s c h o o le d in T M S, m ig h t b e th a t th is b e h a v io r
s u g g e s ts th a t th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r o f e a c h p la y e r is a t w o r k e v a lu a tin g th e
p r o p r i e t y o f th e ir a c tio n s . B u t th is is a s tra n g e g a m e to c o n s id e r a s a t e s t o f th e
p r o p o s itio n s f r o m T M S s u m m a riz e d a b o v e . S m ith in fo rm s u s e m p h a tic a lly th a t
[ b ] e n e f ic e n c e is a lw a y s fr e e , i t c a n n o t b e e x to r te d b y f o r c e , th e m e r e w a n t o f
i t e x p o s e s to n o p u n is h m e n t; b e c a u s e th e m e r e w a n t o f b e n e f ic e n c e te n d s to d o
n o r e a l p o s itiv e e v i l " ( I l.ii. 1 .3 , 7 8 ). R e th in k in g th e u ltim a tu m g a m e in th is
lig h t, w e c a n say :

A s in m o s t la b e x p e r im e n ts , p e o p le a r e r e c r u ite d to th e la b n o t k n o w in g
th e e x p e r im e n t th a t is to o c c u p y th e m .
T h e y a r r i v e a n d a r e n o t o f f e r e d a c h o ic e b e t w e e n a lte r n a tiv e
e x p e r im e n ta l g a m e s .
T h e s e p r o c e d u r e s a r e c a r e f u lly d e s ig n e d to c o n tr o l f o r s e lf - s e le c tio n
 b ia s , b u t a s w e s e e , o th e r c o n d itio n s m a y b e in a d v e r te n tly c o n tr o lle d for.
T h e s e p r o c e d u r e s , h o w e v e r , a r e h a r d ly s a c r e d : th e f i r s t r u le o f a n y
e x p e r im e n ta lis t s h o u ld b e th a t th e e x p e r im e n t a n d its d e s ig n b e r e le v a n t
to its p u r p o s e . O n e s h o u ld b a c k w a r d in d u c t f r o m th e p u r p o s e , a n d th e
q u e s tio n , to th e d e s ig n o f th e e x p e rim e n t.
P la y in g th e u ltim a tu m g a m e d o e s n o t c o n s titu te a v o lu n ta r y a c tio n . H a v e
w e g a th e r e d m u c h d a ta o n p a i r s o f r e lu c ta n t d u e lis ts , w ith o u t th is
b e in g p a r t o f o u r in te n tio n ?
B o r r o w in g A d a m S m ith s w o r d s , s h o u ld w e n o t th in k o f th e u ltim a tu m
g a m e a s a n e x to r tio n g a m e . T h e p r o p o s e r u n d e r th e te rm s o f h e r
p a r t i c i p a t i o n m u s t d e c id e o n y , w i t h M - y a w a r d e d to th e r e s p o n d e r . Is
h e r c h o ic e m o tiv a te d b y b e n e f ic e n c e ? Is th e r e s p o n d e r r e w a r d in g
b e n e f ic e n c e b y h is a c c e p ta n c e o f M - y ? Is h e p u n is h in g w a n t o f
b e n e f ic e n c e b y r e je c ti n g it?
T h e c ir c u m s ta n c e s o f th e g a m e to w h ic h th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r m u s t
a lw a y s b e s e n s itiv e in th e lig h t o f e x p e r ie n c e a r e s u c h th a t o u r a n s w e r s
to th e s e q u e s tio n s a r e s u re ly , N o , o r a t l e a s t M m m . F r o m th e
p e r s p e c tiv e o f T M S th is is a m ix e d m o tiv e g a m e.

T h e s e c o n s id e r a tio n s c a n n o t b e d is m is s e d w i t h th e c o n v e n ie n t e x p o s t
a rg u m e n t th a t in m a n y s itu a tio n s o n e m u s t p l a y a g a m e , e v e n a g a in s t o n e s
w i s h e s . 17 R a th e r th e q u e s tio n is w h e th e r i t is u s e fu l to th in k a b o u t th e
u ltim a tu m g a m e f r o m a b r o a d e r p e r s p e c tiv e , s u c h a s th a t in T M S , f o r th e r e a re
e x p e r im e n ts s h o w in g c le a rly th a t it m a tte rs how one a r r iv e s at th e
c ir c u m s ta n c e o f d e c id i n g o n a t a k e - i t - o r - l e a v e - i t o ffe r. T im o th y S a lm o n a n d
B a r t J. W ils o n s a r tic le o f 2 0 0 8 o n s e c o n d - c h a n c e o f f e r s is a c a s e in p o i n t .18 In
th e ir e x p e r im e n t m o tiv a te d b y o b s e r v a tio n s o n e B a y , th e y e m b e d a n u ltim a tu m
g a m e in a c o n te x t o f m u ltip le b u y e rs c o m p e tin g f o r p u r c h a s e s f r o m a s in g le
s e lle r . T h e s e l l e r h a s tw o u n its o f th e s a m e g o o d f o r s a le , th e f ir s t o f w h ic h is
a u c tio n e d o f f to th e h ig h e s t b i d d e r in a ty p ic a l E n g lis h ( a s c e n d in g p r ic e )
a u c tio n . F o r th e s e c o n d u n it, th e s e l l e r th e n m a k e s a t a k e - i t - o r - l e a v e - i t o f f e r to
th e b i d d e r w i t h th e h ig h e s t l o s in g b i d (th e s e c o n d h ig h e s t b id d e r ) . I f th e b u y e r
a c c e p ts , he r e c e i v e s a p r o f it e q u a l to th e d if f e r e n c e b e tw e e n h is r a n d o m ly
d r a w n v a lu e a n d th e s e l l e r s o ffe r. I f h e r e je c ts , n e ith e r th e s e l l e r n o r th e b u y e r
e a r n a n y th in g o n th a t unit.
S a lm o n a n d W ils o n fin d th a t in a tr e a tm e n t w i t h o n ly tw o c o m p e tin g
b id d e r s , o n ly 12 o f 2 7 3 o ff e rs ( 4 .4 p e r c e n t) a r e r e je c te d . M o r e o v e r , 9 3 o f
th o s e o f f e r s a r e g r e a te r th a n th e b u y e r s fin a l ( b u t lo s in g ) b id , a n d o n ly 6 o f
th o s e a r e r e je c te d . I n o th e r w o r d s , th e s e l l e r is a tte m p tin g to e x tr a c t e v e n m o re
s u rp lu s o u t o f th e b u y e r a n d th e b u y e rs s till d o n o t r e j e c t th e o ff e rs . W ith fo u r
b id d e r s , 111 p r o f ita b l e o f f e r s a r e m a d e to th e b id d e r s a n d o n ly 4 ( 3 .6 p e r c e n t)
a r e r e je c te d . B u t h e r e s th e k ic k e r. T h e m e d ia n a c c e p te d s u rp lu s is a m e re
s ix ty -o n e c e n ts a n d th ir ty -n in e c e n ts in th e tw o - a n d f o u r - b id d e r tre a tm e n ts ,
r e s p e c tiv e ly . I n c o n tr a s t, E l iz a b e th H o ffm a n a n d c o lle a g u e s in P r e f e r e n c e s ,
P r o p e r ty R ig h ts f in d th a t 1 0 .4 p e r c e n t o f a ll o f f e r s a r e r e je c te d , u s u a lly fo r
a m o u n ts o f tw o d o l l a r s a n d th r e e d o lla r s , e v e n w h e n th e u ltim a tu m g a m e is
f r a m e d a s a o n e - s h o t b u y e r - s e l le r n e g o tia tio n o v e r a p r i c e . 19
W h y a r e th e S a lm o n a n d W ils o n r e s u lts s o s tr ik in g ly d if f e r e n t r e la tiv e to th e
s ta n d a r d u ltim a tu m g a m e ? B e c a u s e , in o u r in te r p r e ta tio n o f T M S, th e u ltim a tu m
g a m e o v e r th e s e c o n d u n it is n o t a g a m e o f e x to r tio n m ix e d w i t h b e n e f ic e n c e
f r o m r e c e iv in g a w in d f a ll. T h e s e c o n d u n it is a g a m e o f p r u d e n c e w i t h a n
im m e d ia te h is to ry , a n d th e c o n te x t th a t in v o k e s th e v ir tu e o f p r u d e n c e is
d is tin c t f r o m th o s e th a t c a ll f o r th e v ir tu e s o f b e n e f ic e n c e o r j u s t i c e (T M S , p a r t
6 ). T h e re is no o p e n -e n d e d q u e s tio n a s to w h e th e r th e s e lle r is b e in g
b e n e f ic e n t e n o u g h w i t h h is o f f e r to th e b u y e r b e c a u s e h e s n o t b e n e f ic e n tly
s p littin g a w in d f a ll w i t h th e b u y e r. H e s p r u d e n tly a tte m p tin g to s e ll th e s e c o n d
u n it o f a c o m m o d ity to a b u y e r w h o c o u ld n t p a y a s m u c h a s s o m e o th e r b u y e r
f o r th e f i r s t u n it. U n lik e th e tr a d itio n a l u ltim a tu m g a m e , w e o b s e r v e th a t t h e r e s
s im p ly n o b e n e f ic e n c e to a s s e s s in a s e l l e r s t a k e - i t - o r - l e a v e - i t o ffer.
L ik e w is e , th e r e is a ls o n o r o o m f o r r e s e n tm e n t o f th e s e l l e r s o ffe r, fo r
[ r ] e s e n tm e n t s e e m s to h a v e b e e n g iv e n u s b y n a tu re f o r d e f e n c e , a n d fo r
d e f e n c e o n ly ( n.ii.i.4 , 7 9 ). I n a r e lu c ta n t g a m e o f e x to rtio n , a p r o p o s e r m a y g o
to o f a r in e x tr a c tin g m o n e y f r o m th e w in d f a ll a n d th u s a n o f f e r o f tw o d o lla r s
m a y p r o m p t u s to b e a t o f f th e m i s c h i e f w h ic h is a tte m p te d to b e d o n e to u s,
a n d to r e ta lia te th a t w h ic h is a l r e a d y d o n e ( n.ii.i.4 , 7 9 ). B u t in th e S a lm o n
a n d W ils o n m a rk e ts , w h e r e is th e m i s c h i e f o n th e p a r t o f th e s e ll e r ? T h e b u y e r
h a s j u s t d e m o n s tr a te d he is u n w illin g to n a m e a n d p a y a p r i c e a s h ig h a s
s o m e o n e e ls e a n d in th e p r o c e s s h e h a s r e v e a l e d a p p r o x im a te ly h o w m u c h he
is w i l l i n g to s p e n d . S o w h e n f a c e d w i t h ta k e - it- o r - le a v e - it, th e b u y e r ta k e s it
n e a r ly e v e r y tim e . N o tic e , in c o m p a r in g o b s e r v a tio n s f r o m th e tw o d if f e r e n t
e x p e r im e n ta l d e s ig n s , th a t th e p r o c e s s is g o v e r n e d b y f a ir n e s s in th e s e n s e o f
th e r u le s o f c o n d u c t g iv e n th e c ir c u m s ta n c e s , n o t w h e th e r th e o u tc o m e s a r e fa ir.
P a u l P e c o r in o a n d M a r k V an B o e n in g in a 2 0 1 0 a r tic le e m b e d th e u ltim a tu m
g a m e i n t h e c o n t e x t o f a l i t i g a t i o n d i s p u t e .20 A p l a i n t i f f a n d a d e f e n d a n t a r e
b a r g a in in g o v e r h o w to s p l i t th e c o s t s a v in g s o f n o t g o in g to t r i a l, 7 5 0 to th e
p l a i n ti f f a n d 7 5 0 to th e d e fe n d a n t. T o a v o id th is c o s t, th e d e f e n d a n t m a k e s a
p r e t r ia l s e ttle m e n t o f f e r to th e p la in tif f. I f th e p l a i n t i f f a c c e p ts th e s e ttle m e n t
o ffe r, n e ith e r in c u rs th e tr ia l c o s ts . T h e p l a i n ti f f r e c e iv e s th e o f fe r a s p a y m e n t
a n d th e d e f e n d a n t in c u r s th e c o s t o f h is w r o n g d o in g ( w h i c h is s u b tr a c te d a s a
lu m p s u m g iv e n to h im b y th e e x p e r im e n te r ) . I f th e p l a i n t i f f r e j e c t s th e o ffe r,
th e n th e p l a i n t i f f r e c e iv e s a ju d g m e n t f r o m w h i c h th e t r ia l c o s ts a r e s u b tr a c te d ,
a n d th e d e f e n d a n t in c u r s th e t r i a l c o s t a n d th e c o s t o f ju d g m e n t. I n th e b a s e lin e
c o m p a r is o n tre a tm e n t, a p r o p o s e r a n d a r e s p o n d e r p la y a tr a d itio n a l u ltim a tu m
g a m e w i t h M = $ 1 .5 0 . B o th v e r s i o n s a r e r e p e a t e d f o r t e n ro u n d s .
I n th e e m b e d d e d g a m e , th e m e d ia n o f f e r b y th e d e f e n d a n t is 8 p e r c e n t o f
$ 1 . 5 0 , o r 1 2 0 . I n P e c o r i n o a n d V a n B o e n i n g s r e p l i c a t i o n o f t h e t r a d i t i o n a l
u ltim a tu m g a m e , th e m e d i a n p r o p o s e r o f f e r is 5 0 p e r c e n t o f $ 1 .5 0 , o r 7 5 0 . F o r
s im ila r o f fe r s o f 0 - 2 5 0 , 2 3 p e r c e n t o f th e o f f e r s a r e r e j e c t e d in th e litig a tio n
g a m e a n d 1 0 0 p e r c e n t in th e tr a d itio n a l g a m e . T h u s , d e fe n d a n ts o f f e r le s s a n d
p la in tif f s a c c e p t m o r e o f te n th a n th e ir c o u n te r p a r ts i n th e t r a d itio n a l u ltim a tu m
g a m e . H o w d o e s th e T M S f r a m e w o r k h e lp u s u n d e r s ta n d th is ? I n th e litig a tio n
g a m e , th e m o tiv e s a r e n o lo n g e r m ix e d . T h e p r o p o s in g d e f e n d a n t is a tte m p tin g
t o a v o i d a l o s s w i t h a n o f f e r t o t h e p l a i n t i f f t h a t c o r r e s p o n d s to t h e p l a i n t i f f
a v o id i n g th e c o s t o f a t r ia l. W h ile th e e x p e r im e n te r h a s t h r o w n th e m in to a
d i s p u t e , a l b e i t a n u n a v o i d a b l e o n e ( w h i c h m i g h t e x p l a i n th e h i g h r e j e c t i o n
r a t e s o f 2 1 - 2 5 p e r c e n t) , m u tu a lly a v o id i n g a c o s t is n o t a m a tte r o f b e n e f ic e n c e
o n t h e p a r t o f t h e d e f e n d a n t .21 I n t h e l i t i g a t i o n g a m e , p r u d e n c e i n t h e f o r m o f
a c c e p tin g a n o f f e r e q u a l to h e r o p p o r tu n ity c o s t is a v ir tu e f o r th e p la in tif f , a n d
n o t a m a tte r o f h o w b e n e f i c e n t th e d e f e n d a n t is i n h is o ffe r. R e g a r d le s s o f w h a t
h a p p e n s , th e d e f e n d a n t is m in im iz in g th e d e p le tio n s f r o m h is u p f ro n t w in d f a ll.
 6. Tr u s t Ga m e s : Si n g l e Pl a y

C o n s id e r th e f o llo w in g tw o - p e r s o n g a m e c o m m o n ly s tu d ie d b y e x p e rim e n ta l
e c o n o m is ts in a v a r i e ty o f fo rm s a n d s u m m a riz e d in fig u re 1 1 .1 . P e r s o n 1
c h o o s e s to e ith e r ( a ) e n d th e in te r a c tio n s e n d in g e a c h p e r s o n o n h is o r h e r w a y
w i t h a n a d d itio n a l te n d o l la r s o r ( b ) f o rg o h is s u re te n d o l la r s a n d tu r n th e
d e c is io n m a k in g o v e r to P e r s o n 2 . I f P e r s o n 1 c h o o s e s (b ), th e n P e r s o n 2
d e c id e s b e tw e e n ( a & a p o s ;) th e e x p e r im e n te r p a y in g h e r tw e n ty - f iv e d o l la r s
a n d P e r s o n 1 f if te e n d o lla r s o r ( b & a p o s ;) th e e x p e r im e n te r p a y in g h e r fo rty
d o lla r s a n d s e n d in g P e r s o n 1 o n h is w a y w i t h n o th in g b y w a y o f th e o u tc o m e
f r o m t h e i n t e r a c t i o n i n t h i s g a m e .22
I f P e r s o n 1 is f u lly a w a r e o f th e c h o ic e th a t P e r s o n 2 f a c e s , a n d v i c e v e r s a ,
h o w d o w e u n d e r s ta n d w h a t tw o a n o n y m o u s p e o p le d o w h e n f a c e d w i t h th is
s itu a tio n ? A d a m S m ith n o te s th a t u n le s s th e s itu a tio n c a ll s f o r a r u le o f j u s t i c e
o u r c o n d u c t s h o u ld r a th e r b e d ir e c te d b y a c e r ta in id e a o f p ro p rie ty , b y a
c e r ta in ta s te f o r a p a r tic u la r te n o r o f c o n d u c t, th a n b y a n y r e g a r d to a p r e c is e
m a x im or ru le ( II I.6 .1 0 , 1 7 5 ). I f th a t so u n d s fa irly lo o s e , vague, and
i n d e t e r m i n a t e (1 1 1 .6 .1 1 , 1 7 5 ), th e n th a t is b e c a u s e th e re a re no ru le s by
k n o w le d g e o f w h ic h w e c a n in f a llib ly b e ta u g h t to a c t u p o n a ll o c c a s io n s w ith
p ru d en c e , w i t h j u s t m a g n a n im ity , or p ro p e r b e n e fic e n c e (II I.v i.1 1 , 1 7 6 ).
C o n s e q u e n tly , S m ith im p lic itly re c o g n iz e s h e re th a t th e ru le a p a rtic u la r
in d iv id u a l m ig h t f o ll o w c a n b e e x p e c te d to v a r y w ith th e c ir c u m s ta n c e s th a t
c o n s titu te p a r tic u la r o c c a s io n s .
Figure 11.1. A Two-Person Trust Game in Extensive Form

T h i s r u l e s o u t a s b e i n g p e r t i n e n t f o r a l l o c c a s i o n s t h e m o d e r n e c o n o m i s t s
r a th e r p r e c is e a n d a c c u ra te c o n c e p t o f su b g a m e p e r f e c t e q u ilib riu m , w h ic h
p r e d ic ts th a t P e r s o n 1 w o u ld im m e d ia te ly e n d th e g a m e a n d r e c e iv e te n d o lla r s
b e c a u s e , i f g iv e n th e o p p o r tu n ity to m a k e th e d e c is io n , P e r s o n 2 w o u l d c h o o s e
fo rty d o lla r s o v e r tw e n ty -fiv e d o lla r s fo r h e rs e lf, th e r e b y le a v in g P e r s o n 1
w i t h n o t h in g . F o r t u n a t e l y , [ n ] a t u r e . . . [ h a s n o t ] a b a n d o n e d u s e n t i r e l y t o t h e
d e lu s io n s o f s e lf - lo v e . O u r c o n tin u a l o b s e r v a tio n s u p o n th e c o n d u c t o f o th e rs ,
i n s e n s i b ly l e a d u s to f o r m to o u r s e l v e s c e r t a i n g e n e r a l r u le s c o n c e r n in g w h a t is
f i t a n d p r o p e r e i t h e r t o b e d o n e o r t o b e a v o i d e d (1 1 1 .4 .7 , 1 5 9 ) .
W h a t g e n e ra l r u le s o f f it a n d p r o p e r b e h a v io r a r e a p p li c a b l e to th is g a m e
a n d to th e e x p e r ie n c e s o f th is c o m m u n ity o f p a r tic ip a n ts ? A n d w h a t w o u l d th e
r u l e s p r e d i c t ? L e t s f i r s t c o n s i d e r , a s s u b g a m e p e r f e c t i o n d o e s , P e r s o n 2 . I f
g iv e n th e o p p o r tu n ity to m ake a d e c is io n , P e rso n 2 w o u ld e n d e a v o r to
e x a m in e [h er] o w n c o n d u c t a s [sh e] im a g in e s a n y o th e r f a ir a n d im p a r tia l
s p e c t a t o r w o u l d e x a m i n e it. I f, u p o n p l a c i n g [ h e r s e l f ] i n h i s s i t u a t i o n , [ s h e ]
t h o r o u g h l y e n t e r [ s ] i n t o a l l t h e p a s s i o n s a n d m o t i v e s w h i c h i n f l u e n c e d it, [ s h e ]
a p p r o v e [ s ] o f it, b y s y m p a t h y w i t h t h e a p p r o b a t i o n o f t h i s s u p p o s e d e q u i t a b l e
ju d g e . If, o t h e r w i s e , [s h e ] e n te r [ s ] in to h is d i s a p p r o b a ti o n , a n d c o n d e m n [ s ] it
( I I I .1 .2 , 1 1 0 ).
I n th is gam e th e q u e s tio n is w h e th e r, by s y m p a th y w i t h th e im p a rtia l
s p e c ta to r, P e r s o n 2 w o u ld a p p r o v e o r d is a p p r o v e o f c h o o s in g ( a & a p o s ;) a n d
a p p ro v e o r d is a p p r o v e c h o o s in g o f (b & a p o s ;). C h o o s in g ( a & a p o s ;) y ie ld s a
h ig h e r p a y m e n t f r o m th e e x p e r im e n te r to b o th in d iv id u a ls a s P e r s o n 1 f o r w e n t
a s u r e t e n d o l l a r s f o r b o th . A f a i r a n d im p a r tia l s p e c t a to r c o u ld th u s a p p r o v e o f
( a & a p o s ;) ; b o th a r e b e tte r o f f b e c a u s e o f th e a c tio n s o f P e r s o n 1 a n d P e r s o n 2.
C h o o s in g (b & a p o s ;), h o w e v e r, sends P e rso n 1 hom e w ith n o th in g a fte r
fo rg o in g a s u re te n d o lla r s . In lig h t o f ( a & a p o s ;) , P e r s o n 2 is b e tte r o ff,
r e g a r d le s s o f w h a t s h e d o e s , b e c a u s e P e r s o n 1 p a s s e d th e p l a y to h e r. T h u s
h o w e v e r a n o n y m o u s th e p a r tic ip a n ts m a y b e in th is in te r a c tio n , a n im p a r tia l
s p e c t a t o r c o u l d r e a s o n a b l y d i s a p p r o v e o f ( b & a p o s ; ) . N o w c o n s i d e r P e r s o n 1.
F r o m e x p e rie n c e w ith frie n d s a n d c la s s m a te s , h e e x p e c ts th a t [n ]a tu re , w h ic h
f o r m e d m e n f o r th a t m u tu a l k in d n e s s , s o n e c e s s a r y f o r th e i r h a p p in e s s , r e n d e r s
e v e r y m a n th e p e c u li a r o b je c t o f k in d n e s s , to th e p e r s o n to w h o m h e h i m s e lf
h a s b e e n k in d ( V I .ii.1 .1 9 , 2 2 5 ; h e re a fte r, p r in c ip le o f r e c ip r o c a l b e n e fic e n c e ).
I n o th e r w o r d s , e x p e r ie n c e h a s ta u g h t h im th a t i f h e k in d ly p a s s e s th e p l a y f o r a
m u tu a l g a i n f o r t h e b o t h o f t h e m , a P e r s o n 2 m a y k i n d l y r e c i p r o c a t e h i m , t h e
p e r s o n to w h o m h e h i m s e l f h a s j u s t b e e n k in d .
B u t m u s t th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r d i s a p p r o v e o f ( b & a p o s ;) ? N o t n e c e s s a r ily ,
i f o u r c o n d u c t is in d e e d d ir e c te d b y a c e r ta in id e a o f p r o p r ie ty a n d n o t a
p r e c i s e r u le . R e c a ll th a t P e r s o n 1 h a s th e c h o ic e o f ( a ) o r ( b ) , a n d i f P e r s o n 1
c h o o s e s ( b ) , P e r s o n 2 h a s th e c h o ic e o f ( a & a p o s ;) o r ( b & a p o s ;) . A n im p a r tia l
s p e c ta to r c o u ld rea so n th a t th e e x p e r i m e n t e r s ru le s a re th e ru le s , and
e v e r y o n e , i n c l u d i n g P e r s o n 1, k n o w s t h e r u l e s a n d h a s a g r e e d t o p a r t i c i p a t e i n
th is e x p e rim e n t. T h u s, i f P e r s o n 1 w illin g ly c h o o s e s (b ) a n im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r
c o u ld a ls o a p p ro v e o f ( b & a p o s ;) , f o r i f th e e x p e r im e n te r d id n o t w i s h to
o b s e r v e w h e th e r P e r s o n 2 m ig h t a c tu a ll y c h o o s e ( b & a p o s ;) th e e x p e r im e n te r
w o u l d n o t h a v e g iv e n h e r th e o p tio n .
T M S th u s in fo r m s th e e x p e r im e n ta l e c o n o m is t th a t th e r u le s o f in te r a c t io n in
th e tr u s t g a m e m e r e ly p r e s e n t u s w i t h a g e n e ra l id e a o f th e p e r f e c tio n w e
o u g h t t o a i m a t, [ r a t h e r ] t h a n a f f o r d u s a n y c e r t a i n a n d i n f a l l i b l e d i r e c t i o n s f o r
a c q u ir in g it ( II I.6 .1 1 , 1 7 5 - 7 6 ) , a n d th is g e n e r a l i d e a o f p e r f e c ti o n is f o u n d e d
o n o u r a u to b io g ra p h ic a l e x p e rie n c e s o f w h a t, in p a r tic u la r in s ta n c e s , o u r
m o ra l fa c u ltie s , our n a tu ra l sen se of m e rit and p ro p rie ty , a p p ro v e , or
d is a p p ro v e o f ( II I .4 .8 , 1 5 9 ). D iffe re n t p e o p le , e ith e r w ith d iffe re n t
e x p e r ie n c e s o r d if f e r e n t in te r p r e ta tio n s a s to h o w th e ir e x p e r ie n c e a p p lie s to
th e g a m e in q u e s tio n , m a y c o n v e r g e o n d if f e r e n t r e s p o n s e s , e s p e c i a l l y in a o n e -
sh o t gam e.
I n th e la b o r a to r y th e r e p l i c a b l e fa c ts f r o m th r e e d if f e r e n t s tu d ie s a r e th a t o f
n in e ty - e ig h t f ir s t m o v e r s , f if ty - tw o c h o o s e ( a ) a n d f o r ty - s ix c h o o s e ( b ) , a n d th a t
o f th e f o r ty - s ix s e c o n d m o v e r s w h o h a v e th e o p p o r tu n ity to m a k e a d e c is io n ,
th irty -o n e (6 7 p e rc e n t) choose (a & a p o s ;) and fifte e n (3 3 p e rc e n t) choose
( b & a p o s ; ) 23 S o w h i l e T M S m o d e s t l y m a k e s n o s p e c i f i c p r e d i c t i o n a b o u t w h a t
p e o p l e w i l l d o i n t h e t r u s t g a m e , 24 e x p e r i m e n t a l e c o n o m i c s c a n i n f o r m S m i t h s
th e o r y o f th e g e n e r a l p r in c i p le s w i t h w h i c h im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r s a p p r o v e a n d
d is a p p ro v e o f (a), (b ), (a & a p o s ;), and (b & a p o s ;). B y ra n d o m ly a s s ig n in g
p a r tic ip a n ts to c o n d itio n s w i t h s y s te m a tic v a r ia tio n s in th e p r o c e d u r e s , w e c a n
tra c e o u t th e c o n te x tu a l p rin c ip le s th a t e x c ite and m e d ia te w h e th e r m o re
im p a rtia l s p e c ta to rs a p p ro v e or d is a p p ro v e o f (a), (b ), (a & a p o s ;), and
(b & a p o s ;).
T y p ic a lly in a la b o r a to r y e x p e rim e n t, s u b je c ts m a k e d e c is io n s a n o n y m o u s ly
w ith r e s p e c t to e a c h o th e r, b u t th e e x p e r im e n te r k n o w s b y n a m e w h a t e a c h
s u b je c t d id s o a s to p a y th e m ( p r iv a te ly ) w h a t th e y e a rn . T h is is th e p r o to c o l
f o r th e d a ta r e p o r te d a b o v e . I n a s e c o n d c o n d itio n , J a m e s C o x a n d C a r y D e c k
in O n th e N a tu r e o f R e c ip r o p a l M o tiv e s im p le m e n t a n e la b o r a te p r o c e d u r e
to e n s u re th a t th e s u b je c ts a ls o m a k e th e ir d e c is io n s a n o n y m o u s ly w i t h r e s p e c t
to th e e x p e rim e n te r. The e x p e rim e n te r c a n n o t m a tc h d e c is io n s to s p e c ific
in d iv id u a ls . In te r e s tin g ly , th is c h a n g e in p r o c e d u r e s a s y m m e tr ic a lly a ff e c ts th e
d e c is io n s o f P e r s o n s 1 a n d 2 . F i r s t m o v e r s p a s s th e p l a y b y c h o o s in g ( b ) a t th e
s a m e r a te in b o th c o n d itio n s . H o w e v e r , te n o f f o u rte e n (7 1 p e rc e n t) s e c o n d
m o v e r s c h o o s e ( b & a p o s ;) w i t h d o u b le a n o n y m ity b u t o n ly e ig h t o f tw e n ty - f iv e
( 3 2 p e r c e n t ) c h o o s e ( b & a p o s ; ) w i t h s i n g l e a n o n y m i ty . I t s e e m s t h a t i n c r e a s i n g
th e p r iv a t e c h a r a c te r o f th e in te r a c tio n is o n e a s p e c t o f th e c o n te x t th a t e x c ite s
m o r e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r s to a p p r o v e o f ( b & a p o s ;) . A n u n r e s o l v e d q u e s ti o n is
w h y P e r s o n s 1 d o n o t a n tic ip a te th a t P e r s o n s 2 a re m o re d i s p o s e d to c h o o s in g
( b & a p o s ; ) o v e r ( a & a p o s ; ) w i t h d o u b l e a n o n y m i t y .25 H e n c e , e m p i r i c a l s u p p o r t
f o r S m i t h s p r i n c i p l e o f b e n e f i c e n t r e c i p r o c i t y i s s t r o n g u n d e r s i n g l e , b u t n o t
d o u b l e , a n o n y m i ty ; i t s e e m s i m p o r t a n t w h e t h e r p e o p l e o t h e r t h a n y o u r m a t c h e d
c o u n te r p a r t c a n k n o w y o u r b e h a v io r.
A n th o n y G illie s a n d M a ry R ig d o n in E p is te m ic C o n d itio n s a n d S o c ia l
P r e f e r e n c e s in T r u s t G a m e s c o n s id e r h o w k n o w le d g e o f th e p a y o f f s a ff e c ts
th e p la y o f P e r s o n s 1 a n d 2 . I n w h a t th e y c a ll a P r iv a te G a m e , e a c h p e r s o n
o n ly k n o w s h is o r h e r o w n p a y o ffs a s s o c ia te d w i t h ( a ) , ( b ) , ( a & a p o s ;) , a n d
( b & a p o s ;) . A s s h o w n i n f ig u r e 1 1 .2 , P e r s o n 1 o n ly k n o w s th a t h e r e c e i v e s te n
d o lla r s f r o m c h o o s in g ( a ) a n d th a t i f h e p a s s e s th e p la y , P e r s o n 2 is c h o o s in g
b e t w e e n f i f t e e n d o l l a r s a n d z e r o f o r h im . T h e c a t c h i s t h a t P e r s o n 1 d o e s n o t
k n o w w h a t P e r s o n 2 s p a y o f f s a r e f r o m c h o o s i n g ( a & a p o s ; ) a n d ( b & a p o s ; ) a n d
P erso n 1 k n o w s th a t P e r s o n 2 does not know w h a t h is p a y o ffs a re fro m
c h o o s in g ( a & a p o s ;) a n d (b & a p o s ;). L ik e w is e , P e r s o n 2 d o e s n o t k n o w w h a t
P e r s o n 1 s p a y o f f i s f r o m c h o o s i n g ( a ) , o n l y t h a t h e r p a y o f f i s t e n d o l l a r s f r o m
P e r s o n 1 c h o o s in g (a ).

[S O ,'] [?, $ 4 0 ]

Panel (a). Person Fs View o f the Game Panel (b). Person 2 s View o f the Game
Figure 11.2. Private Knowledge of Payoffs in the Trust Game

W ith o u t k n o w le d g e o f h o w h is d e c is i o n a ffe c ts P e r s o n 2 , P e r s o n 1 is u n a b le
to c o n c lu d e f ro m e x p e rie n c e th a t P e r s o n 2 w ill r e c ip r o c a te a tru s tin g a c tio n o f
( b ) w i t h a tr u s tw o r th y o n e o f ( a & a p o s ;) , a n d th a t is w h a t G i l li e s a n d R ig d o n
o b se rv e . F ifte e n o f fo rty -fiv e (3 3 p e rc e n t) firs t m o v e rs p la y d o w n in th e
p r iv a t e g a m e a s o p p o s e d to tw e n ty - o n e o f f if ty ( 4 2 p e r c e n t) f i r s t m o v e r s in
t h e f u ll c o m m o n k n o w l e d g e g a m e .
M o r e d r a m a t i c i s t h e r e s p o n s e o f P e r s o n 2 s i m p a r t i a l s p e c t a t o r s . O n l y
th r e e o f f if te e n ( 2 0 p e r c e n t) s e c o n d m o v e r s p l a y ( a & a p o s ;) in th e p r iv a te
g a m e i n c o n t r a s t t o f o u r t e e n o f t w e n t y - o n e ( 6 7 p e r c e n t ) w h o d o s o i n t h e f u ll
c o m m o n k n o w le d g e g a m e . M o re im p a rtia l s p e c ta to rs a p p ro v e o f (b & a p o s ;),
ta k in g th e h ig h e r p a y o f f o f f o rty d o lla r s , w h e n th e y a r e u n a w a r e o f w h a t P e r s o n
1 f o rw e n t in c h o o s in g (b ) a n d u n a w a re o f w h a t P e r s o n 1 w ill r e c e iv e (z e ro ).
S in c e n e ith e r p l a y e r k n o w s th e p a y o f f o f th e o th e r, th e s e n tim e n ts o f p r a i s e a n d
p r a is e w o r th in e s s , a n d th e p r in c ip le o f r e c ip r o c a l b e n e fic e n c e , c a n n o t e n te r
i n t o j u d g i n g t h e p r o p r i e t y o f e a c h o t h e r s a c t i o n s ; h e n c e t h e i r s e l f - l o v e c a n n o t
b e h u m b le d b y th e im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r a n d is n e c e s s a r i ly m o r e im p o r ta n t
u n d e r s u c h g a m e c irc u m s ta n c e s .
I n t h e c o m p l e t e k n o w l e d g e v e r s i o n o f t h e g a m e i n f i g u r e 1 1 .1 , G i l l i e s a n d
R ig d o n a ls o c o n s id e r in a s e p a r a te tre a tm e n t c o n d itio n h o w P e r s o n s 2 b e h a v e
w h e n th e y a re a s k e d to m a k e th e ir d e c is io n a s s u m in g th a t P e r s o n 1 h a s c h o s e n
(b ). P e r s o n s 2 , h o w e v e r, a re o n ly p a id b a s e d o n th o s e d e c is io n s i f P e r s o n 1
a c t u a l l y c h o o s e s ( b ) . I f P e r s o n 1 c h o o s e s ( a ) , t h e n P e r s o n 2 s c h o i c e i s n o t
im p le m e n te d . In th is tr e a tm e n t th e im p a rtia l s p e c ta to rs a re h y p o th e tic a lly
i n v o k e d a s o p p o s e d t o b e i n g e x p l i c i t l y e x c i t e d w i t h P e r s o n 1 s a c t u a l c h o i c e
o f (b ). W h e re a s fo u rte e n o f tw e n ty -o n e (6 7 p e rc e n t) s e c o n d m o v e rs c h o o s e
(a & a p o s ;) w h e n P e r s o n 1 h a s a c tu a lly c h o s e n (b ), o n ly tw e n ty o f fo rty -th re e
( 4 7 p e r c e n t) P e r s o n s 2 c h o o s e ( a & a p o s ;) w h e n a s k e d to a s s u m e P e r s o n 1 h a s
c h o s e n ( b ) 26 T h e d i s t i n c t i o n m a d e i n t h e s e e x p e r i m e n t s c o r r e s p o n d s t o g a m e s
p la y e d in e x te n s iv e v e r s u s n o rm a l ( o r s tr a te g ic , i.e ., c o n tin g e n t p la y ) fo rm .
T r a d itio n a l g a m e th e o r y tr e a te d th e tw o a s e q u iv a le n t, b u t m a n y e x p e rim e n ta l
s t u d i e s h a v e r e p o r t e d d a t a r e j e c t i n g t h i s p o s t u l a t e d e q u i v a l e n c e .27 T h e t w o
g a m e fo rm s a r e c o g n itiv e ly m u c h d if f e r e n t i n th a t i n th e e x te n s iv e f o r m P e r s o n
1 c o n v e y s to P e r s o n 2 h e r in te n tio n s b e f o r e th e la tte r is r e q u i r e d to c h o o s e .
TM S is p a rtic u la rly r e le v a n t in th is in te rp re ta tio n because in te n tio n s a re
c e n tra l to th e c a p a c ity o f th e im p a rtia l s p e c ta to r to fo rm an a p p ro p ria te
j u d g m e n t o f t h e o t h e r p e r s o n s a c t i o n , a n d t h e r e f o r e i n j u d g i n g a n a p p r o p r i a t e
resp o n se .
 7. Tr u s t Ga m e s : Re p e a t Pl a y

F ig u r e 11.3 p r e s e n ts a n o th e r s im p le tr u s t g a m e th a t h a s b e e n u s e d to s tu d y
s in g le a s w e l l a s r e p e a t p l a y v e r s io n s o f th e s a m e b a s i c s ta g e g a m e . In s in g le
p la y , i f P e r s o n 1 c h o o s e s to e n d th e g a m e , e a c h r e c e i v e s tw e n ty d o lla r s ; if
P e r s o n 1 p a s s e s to P e r s o n 2 , th e la tte r c h o o s e s b e tw e e n ( a & a p o s ;) tw e n ty - f iv e
d o l l a r s f o r e a c h o r ( b & a p o s ;) f if te e n d o l l a r s f o r P e r s o n 1 a n d th ir ty d o l l a r s fo r
P e r s o n 2 . A s in th e f i r s t tr u s t g a m e a b o v e ( fig u re 1 1 .1 ), th e s u b g a m e p e r f e c t
e q u ilib r iu m is f o r P e r s o n I to e n d th e g a m e a n d e a c h le a v e w i t h tw e n ty d o lla r s
a p ie c e , b u t in th e la b o r a to r y w e o b s e r v e 6 3 p e r c e n t p a s s in g to P e r s o n 2 . A n d
tw i c e a s m a n y p e o p le in th e P e r s o n 2 p o s itio n ( 6 5 p e r c e n t) c h o o s e ( a & a p o s ;)
o v e r ( b & a p o s ;) . A s b e f o r e , b o th p e r s o n s a r e c h o o s in g c o o p e r a t i v e l y in a
m a n n e r c o n s is te n t w i t h th e p r i n c i p l e o f r e c i p r o c a l b e n e f ic e n c e in TM S. K e v in
M c C a b e , M a r y R ig d o n , a n d V e rn o n S m ith in a 2 0 0 3 a r tic le u s e th is g a m e to
a n s w e r th e f o ll o w i n g q u e s tio n : h o w w i l l th e s e r e s u lts b e a f f e c te d i f in a
s e c o n d tr e a tm e n t c o n d itio n , P e r s o n 1 c a n n o t v o lu n ta r ily c h o o s e b e tw e e n
e n d in g th e g a m e a n d p a s s in g to P e r s o n 2 , w i t h p a s s in g b e in g r e q u ir e d o f
P e r s o n 1 ? 28 P e r s o n 2 f a c e s th e s a m e a lte r n a tiv e s a s b e f o r e , b u t s e e s th a t
P e r s o n 1 g iv e s u p n o th in g . C o n s e q u e n tly , u n d e r th e s e c o n d itio n s , th e im p a r tia l
s p e c ta to r in P e rso n 2 is p r e v e n te d fro m fo r m in g th e sam e in te n tio n a l
k in d n e s s ju d g m e n t o f th e c o n d u c t o f p e r s o n 1 a s in th e f i r s t tre a tm e n t.
C o n s is te n t w ith th is r e a s o n in g , u n d e r th e s e c o n d tr e a tm e n t c o n d itio n s th e
r e s u lts f r o m th e f i r s t e x p e r im e n t a r e r e v e r s e d : n o w o n ly 3 3 p e r c e n t o f th e
P e r s o n s 2 c h o o s e ( a & a p o s ;) o v e r ( b & a p o s ;) .29
R ig d o n , M c C a b e , a n d S m ith in a 2 0 0 7 a r tic le h a v e a ls o s tu d ie d b e h a v io r in
r e p e a t p la y o f th e s ta g e g a m e a s s h o w n in fig u re 1 1 .3 .30 T h e ir e x p e r im e n ts
e x a m in e d e c i s i o n b e h a v io r u n d e r tw o d if f e r e n t c o n d itio n s th a t v a r y o n ly th e
p r o to c o ls f o r m a tc h in g s u b je c t p a i r s a f te r e a c h ro u n d o f p la y . In b o th p r o to c o ls ,
th e s u b je c ts a r e n o t in f o r m e d a s to th e n u m b e r o f r e p e titio n s ; w ith o u t w a rn in g ,
p la y is s to p p e d a f te r tw e n ty ro u n d s . I n th e f i r s t p r o to c o l th e s u b je c ts a r e s im p ly
r e p a i r e d a t ra n d o m . In th e s e c o n d a s c o r in g a lg o r ith m u s e s th e ir p r e v io u s
d e c is io n s to e n a b le a ll P e r s o n s 1 a n d P e r s o n s 2 to b e s e p a r a te ly r a n k o r d e r e d
f r o m m o s t c o o p e r a tiv e to le a s t. T h e h ig h e s t in e a c h r a n k a r e th e n m a tc h e d w ith
e a c h o th e r f o r th e n e x t ro u n d ; th e s e c o n d h ig h e s t a r e m a tc h e d w ith e a c h o th e r
f o r th e n e x t ro u n d , a n d s o o n d o w n th e lis t. A c o o p e r a tiv e c h o ic e b y P e r s o n 1
m e a n s th a t s h e p a s s e d to P e r s o n 2 ; a c o o p e r a tiv e c h o ic e b y P e r s o n 2 o c c u r s
w h e n e v e r o p tio n ( a & a p o s ;) is s e le c te d . I t is v e r y im p o r ta n t to k e e p in m in d
th a t th e s u b je c ts in th e s e e x p e r im e n ts w ere n o t in fo r m e d o f th e m a tc h in g
p ro ced u re. I n b o th tre a tm e n ts a ll th e p a r tic ip a n ts w e r e t o l d s im p ly th a t th e y
w o u ld b e r e p a i r e d w i t h a p e r s o n in th e r o o m e a c h p e r io d . In a ll s e s s i o n s th e r e
w e r e s ix te e n p e o p le in th e r o o m w i t h e ig h t P e r s o n s 1 ( a n d e ig h t P e r s o n s 2 ) to
b e r e p a i r e d e ith e r a t r a n d o m o r b y a p p l i c a t i o n o f th e s c o r in g a lg o rith m .
I f in d e e d k in d n e s s b e g e ts k in d n e s s a s in A d a m S m ith s p r i n c i p l e o f
r e c i p r o c a l b e n e f ic e n c e , th e n th e s c o r in g r u le a l l o w s th o s e in te r a c tin g o v e r th e
tw e n ty r e p e titio n s to d i s c o v e r b y e x p e r ie n c e th a t th e y a r e in a n e n v iro n m e n t
c h a r a c te r iz e d b y k in d n e s s . O v e r tim e e a c h p e r s o n s im p a r tia l s p e c ta to r
w o u ld be u p d a te d and r e f le c t any e x p e r ie n tia l te n d e n c ie s to w a rd k in d
b e h a v io r . R ig d o n , M c C a b e , a n d S m ith h a d n o a s s u r e d e x p e c ta tio n a s to h o w
e f f e c tiv e th e s c o r in g r u le w o u ld b e . T h is is w h y th e y u s e d a c o m p a r is o n
c o n tr o l th a t im p le m e n te d ra n d o m r e p a ir in g . A n o p e n q u e s tio n w a s how
e f f e c tiv e th e tw o p r o to c o ls w o u ld b e in s e p a r a tin g th e tw o d if f e r e n t p o o ls o f
s u b je c ts w i t h r e s p e c t to th e ir f r e q u e n c y o f c o o p e r a tiv e c h o ic e .31
T h e d a ta s h o w th a t th e p r im a r y r e s e a r c h h y p o th e s is w a s s tr o n g ly s u p p o r te d ,
a s th e tw o tr e a tm e n t g ro u p s b if u r c a te d s ig n if ic a n tly a c r o s s r e p e a t t r i a l s in
e x h ib itin g c o o p e r a tiv e re sp o n se s: in t r i a l s 1 -5 , th e r a tio o f p e r c e n ta g e
c o o p e r a tiv e c h o ic e b y P e r s o n s 1 in th e tr e a tm e n t to th e p e r c e n ta g e c o o p e r a tio n
in th e r a n d o m c o n tr o l w a s 1 .0 5 ; f o r P e r s o n s 2 , th e r a tio w a s 1 .1 0 ; th a t is , th e r e
w a s e s s e n tia l ly v e r y little tr e a tm e n t d if f e r e n c e in th e f i r s t fiv e tr i a ls . B u t
c o o p e r a tio n s te a d ily im p r o v e d , s o th a t in th e l a s t fiv e tr i a ls , 1 6 - 2 0 , th e s e
r a tio s re s p e c tiv e ly w e re 1 .9 4 and 1 .6 3 , c o rre sp o n d in g to in c r e a s e s
r e s p e c t i v e l y o f 1 .9 4 /1 .0 5 = 1 8 5 p e r c e n t f o r P e r s o n s 1 a n d 1 .6 3 /1 .1 0 = 1 5 0
p e r c e n t f o r P e r s o n s 2. A c c o r d i n g to T M S th e la tte r p e r c e n ta g e s a r e le s s th a n
th e f o r m e r b e c a u s e r e g a r d le s s o f tre a tm e n t, P e r s o n s 2 , e x p e r ie n c in g th e la r g e s s
o f P e rso n s 1, te n d to h o n o r th e p r in c ip le th a t [ a ] c tio n s o f a b e n e f ic e n t
te n d e n c y , w h ic h p r o c e e d f r o m p r o p e r m o tiv e s , s e e m a lo n e to r e q u ir e r e w a r d ;
because s u c h a lo n e a r e th e a p p r o v e d o b je c ts o f g ra titu d e , o r e x c ite th e
s y m p a th e tic g ra titu d e o f th e s p e c ta to r ( I I .ii.1 .1 , 7 8 ).
Figure 11.3. Another Two-Person Trust Game in Extensive Form

R ig d o n , M c C a b e , a n d S m ith in S u s ta in in g C o o p e r a ti o n a ls o r e p o r t th e
fin d in g o f a v e r y p r o n o u n c e d r e g u la r ity in th e b e h a v io r o f p e o p le in b o th
tre a tm e n ts : th e in d iv id u a l d e c is io n s o f P e r s o n s 1 to tr u s t o r n o t a n d f o r P e r s o n s
2 to re sp o n d tr u s tw o r th ily o r n o t on th e f i r s t tr ia l w e r e s tr o n g ly a n d
s ig n if ic a n tly r e l a t e d to th e ir s u b s e q u e n t te n d e n c y to s h o w tr u s t o r tr u s tw o r th y
b e h a v io r in r e p e a t in te r a c tio n s . T h u s , in e q u a tio n ( 2 ) w e c a n s a y th a t in th e s e
e x p e r im e n ts , e a c h p e r s o n a f te r r e a d in g th e in s tru c tio n s a n d e n te r in g in to th e
f ir s t r o u n d o f p la y m a k e s a d e c i s i o n c o n d itio n a l u p o n h e r o r h is h is to ry , H ( 0 ) ,
a n d h e r o r h is a n tic ip a te d fu tu re in te r a c tiv e b e h a v io r , H (x ). W h a t w e le a r n
a c r o s s a ll th e s u b je c ts is th a t th e ir s y m p a th e tic s ta te is m a r k e d in d e lib ly b y
th e ir f ir s t d e c is io n , a n d is p r e d i c t i v e o f th e ir s u b s e q u e n t b e h a v io r in th e
r e m a in in g n in e te e n tr i a ls . I n th e la n g u a g e o f g a m e th e o ry , th e y a r e ty p e d b y
th e ir d e c i s i o n o n th e f ir s t t r i a l, a n d th e ir ty p e s ig n if ic a n tly a c c o u n ts f o r th e ir
s u b s e q u e n t d e c is io n s , a lth o u g h th e s e v a r y s ig n if ic a n tly w i t h th e ir s u b s e q u e n t
e x p e r ie n c e a n d th e e x p e r im e n ta l tr e a tm e n t c o n d itio n .32
 8. Co n c l u d i n g Re m a r k s

A d a m S m i t h s T h e o r y o f M o r a l S e n t i m e n t s i s m u c h m o r e t h a n a s o u r c e o f
o rn a m e n ta l q u o ta tio n s f o r m o d e r n r e s e a r c h in e c o n o m ic s . T M S is a p r im a r y
s o u rc e o f in sig h ts fo r u n d e rs ta n d in g w h a t m o d e rn , lo g ic o - d e d u c tiv e e c o n o m ic s
c a n n o t a c c o u n t f o r o u r h u m a n p a s s io n s a n d m o tiv e s , th e e d if i c e o n w h i c h o u r
m o r a lity is b u ilt. A d a m S m ith is a t h e o r i s t in th e o r ig in a l s e n s e o f th e G r e e k
w o r d th e o r ia , m e a n in g to v i e w o r b e h o ld . H e im p o r ta n tly b e g in s , n o t e n d s ,
w i t h a c u te o b s e r v a tio n s o n e v e r y d a y h u m a n in te r c o u r s e q u a a x io m , w h i c h h e
th e n o r g a n iz e s a s e le m e n ts in a r u le - g o v e r n e d s y s te m o f m o ra lity . R u le s o f
c o n d u c t, n o t o u tc o m e s , a r e th e f o c u s o f h is a n a ly s is . A d a m S m ith u s e s th e w o r d
s o c ie ty 1 5 7 tim e s in th e T M S , r o u g h ly o n c e e v e r y o th e r p a g e . W h y ? B e c a u s e
h is o v e r a r c h in g c o n c e r n w ith u n d e rs ta n d in g h u m a n r u le s o f c o n d u c t is h o w , in
a n e v e r - f lu x io n a l w o r ld , s o c ie ty o r d e r s i t s e l f v i a m o ra lity , w h ic h is in d e e d
t h e r e s u l t o f h u m a n a c t i o n b u t n o t t h e e x e c u t i o n o f a n y h u m a n d e s i g n . 33

1 This chapter is a modified version of the article of the same title originally published in the Review of
Behavioral Economics and reprinted here with permission.
2 Page numbers cited from The Theory o f Moral Sentiments (1759) are to the edition of D. D. Raphael
and A. L. Macfie (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1984).
3 See Vernon L. Smith, Adam Smith: From Propriety and Sentiments to Property and Wealth, Forum
fo r Social Economics, 16 July 2013,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07360932.2013.798241#. UiizvtIqh8 E, for further discussion
of TMS as providing a theory of the transformation of the rules of propriety in small groups into property
rights for the civil order based on third-party enforcement and setting the stage for Smiths An Enquiry
into the Nature and Causes o f the Wealth o f Nations. In this critical sense, Wealth o f Nations
presupposes TMS, and the two works define a coherent Smithian humanomics.
4 Friedrich A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, vol. 1: Rules and Order (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1973), 162.
5 TMS, III.2.1, 114. All citations such as this in the text are to TMS, with the final number representing
page number in the Raphael and Mcfie edition.
6 Formally, we might think of a beneficent action taken by individual i as depending on its propriety, given
the circumstances:
ai (Propriety|C) = a,(C )(P R ) + Pi(C)(PR)(PW) + Yi(C)(PW) + 5(C ),
where PR and PW are (0, 1) indicator variables that an action deserves social praise (1), or not (0), and is
praiseworthy (1), or not (0); and ai, Pi, Yi, and Si are nonnegative functions. In the second term, PW adds
leverage to PR , while the third term expresses the TMS sentiment that PW may yield stand-alone value
even where it can never receive praise. C defines the circumstances the game structure, including i s
choice of alternatives and their payoffs. Each action is based on conduct that is more or less satisfying or
pleasing conditional on circumstances, and the action chosen is the one most satisfactory according to
these socially mediated criteria. The term dj(C), independent of the social indicators, allows "self-love to
be part of the evaluation of action. This function is defined only on own payoffs. One implication is that
where is information is limited regarding the choice or payoffs of other individuals, then i cannot infer the
intent of other individuals and thereby rew ard beneficence, although she may still value her decision as
praiseworthy; hence ai = pi = 0, and i(C) looms larger than otherwise in determining the choice. A
formal treatment similar to the above would apply where blame and blameworthiness were elements to
be applied to the evaluation of some actions. Even where payoffs are large, self-love may be constrained
by considerations of blame and blameworthiness.
7 For a discussion of "fair as playing within the rules of social practice, see Bart J. Wilson, "Contra
Private Fairness, American Journal o f Economics and Sociology 71 (2012): 407-35, particularly note
7, which discusses the eighteenth-century meaning of the word. Adam Smiths usage of "fairness stands
in sharp contrast to the interpretation and discussion in N ava Ashraf, Colin Camerer, and George
Lowenstein, "Adam Smith, Behavioral Economist, Journal o f Economic Perspectives 19.3 (2005):
131-45, at 136-37.
8 The impartial spectator is not, however, equivalent to our conscience because "[t]he word conscience
does not immediately denote any moral faculty by which we approve or disapprove. Conscience
supposes, indeed, the existence of some such faculty, and properly signifies our consciousness of having
acted agreeably or contrary to its directions (TMS, VII.iii.3.15, 326). Ashraf, Camerer, and Lowenstein
miss this distinction in their reading of TMS when they argue that "[i]n social situations, the impartial
spectator plays the role of a conscience (132).
9 Thus, as we interpret it, if I pass up an opportunity to trustingly benefit you this would or need not be
cause for your resentment. But if I should accept the opportunity, and you take advantage of my trust,
then I have just cause for resentment of your action. Vernon L. Smith and Bart J. Wilson, "Sentiments,
Conduct, and Trust in the Laboratory, Economic Science Institute Working Paper, Chapman University,
2013; and Jan Osborn, Bart J. Wilson, and Bradley R. Sherwood, "Conduct in Narrativized Trust Games,
Southern Economic Journal, forthcoming, test these conjectures.
10 From Robert Burns, "Ode to a Louse. Burns, we should note, was born the year TMS was published.
11 "We suppose ourselves the spectators of our own behaviour, and endeavour to imagine what effect it
would, in this light, produce upon us. This is the only looking-glass by which we can, in some measure,
with the eyes of other people, scrutinize the propriety of our own conduct. If in this view it pleases us, we
are tolerably satisfied (III. 1.5, 112).
12 Joel Sobel, "Interdependent Preferences and Reciprocity, Journal o f Economic Literature 93
(2005): 392-436.
13 Two articles, Bart J. Wilson, "Language Games of Reciprocity, Journal o f Economic Behavior and
Organization 68 (2008): 365-77, and "Social Preferences A rent Preferences, Journal o f Economic
Behavior and Organization 73 (2010): 77-82, use the insights of Ludwig Wittgenstein to make the
related point that rules of conduct cannot be represented by utilitarian preferences, but are rather
embedded in language games, the lifelong social intercourse that each of us has with the rest of
humankind. The impartial spectator is Adam Smiths version of that intercourse with oneself.
14 Evidence of the failure of utilitarianism is prominent in the ubiquitous observation that varying payoffs
for a given context matters much less than varying the contextual circumstances given payoffs. See Colin
Camerer, Behavioral Game Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), 60-61, for a
report of the minor effects on ultimatum game outcomes of varying the stakes by factors of 10 and much
higher; and Armin Falk, Ernst Fehr, and Urs Fischbacher, On the Nature of Fair Behavior, Economic
Inquiry, 41.1 (2007): 20-26, for an examination of the importance of intentions. In Elizabeth Hoffman,
Kevin McCabe, Keith Shachat, and Vernon L. Smith, Preferences, Property Rights, and Anonymity in
Bargaining Experiments, Games and Economic Behavior 7.3 (1994): 346-80, ultimatum game choices
vary significantly with circumstances, whereas in Elizabeth Hoffman, Kevin M cCabe, and Vernon L.
Smith, On Expectations and the Monetary Stakes in Ultimatum Games, International Journal of
Game Theory 25.3 (1996): 289-301, a tenfold increase in payoff levels yields an insignificant effect on
choices. Yet these games have been ritualistically modeled by attempts to refit explanatory utility
functions to the shifting circumstances recorded by experiments.
15 The ultimatum game originated with W erner Guth, Rolf Schmittberger, and Bernd Schwarze, An
Experimental Analysis of Ultimatum Bargaining, Journal o f Economic Behavior and Organization
3.4 (1982): 367-88, and has spawned a vast literature. See, for example, Robert Forsythe, Joel L.
Horowitz, N. E. Savin, and Martin Sefton, Fairness in Simple Bargaining Experiments, Games and
Economic Behavior 6.3 (1994): 347-69; Hoffman et al., Preferences, Property Rights ; Hoffman,
McCabe, and Smith, On Expectations ; and for a partial survey, Camerer, Behavioral Game Theory,
48-59.
16 See Vernon L. Smith, Rationality in Economics: Constructivist and Ecological Forms (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2008); Camerer, Behavioral Game Theory.
17 The quotation is from Daniel Ellsberg, Theory of the Reluctant Duelist, American Economic
Review, 46.5 (1956): 909-23, who notes that minimax strategies were not satisfactory solutions to zero-
sum games, because if that were the solution to playing the game, and a person had the option to refuse
play, then [h]e would never play (922).
18 Timothy C. Salmon and Bart J. Wilson, Second Chance Offers Versus Sequential Auctions: Theory
and Behavior, Economic Theory 34 (2008): 47-67.
19 Hoffman, M cCabe, and Smith, On Expectations, report rejections of thirty dollars offered from
stakes of one hundred dollars; John List and Todd L. Cherry, Learning to Accept in Ultimatum Games:
Evidence from an Experimental Design that Generates Low Offers, Experimental Economics 3.1
(2000): 11-29, report rejections of offers of one hundred dollars where the stakes are four hundred
dollars.
20 Paul Pecorino and M ark Van Boening, Fairness in an Embedded Ultimatum Game, Journal o f Law
and Economics 53 (2010): 263-87.
21 Nancy Buchan, Rachel Croson, Eric Johnson, and George Wu, Gain and Loss Ultimatums, in
Advances in Behavioral and Experimental Economics, ed. John Morgan (San Diego: Elsevier, (2005),
1-24, observe similar differences between ultimatum games over gains versus losses, though not to such
a stark extent.
22 Experimentalists commonly pay subjects a fixed show-up payment when they arrive, which is for each
person to keep whatever the outcomes of the subsequent experiment.
23 Kevin M cCabe and Vernon L. Smith, A Comparison of Naive and Sophisticated Subject Behavior
with Game Theoretic Predictions, Proceedings o f the National Academy o f Arts and Sciences 97.7
(2000): 3777-81; James C. Cox and Cary A. Deck, On the Nature of Reciprocal Motives, Economic
Inquiry , 43 (2005): 623-35; and Anthony S. Gillies and Mary L. Rigdon, Epistemic Conditions and Social
Preferences in Trust Games, Working paper, University of Michigan, 2008.
24 The critic who asserts that a Smithian analysis of this game is unhelpful because it does not make a
specific prediction has the burden of providing and demonstrating a set of rules for this interaction that
are, in the words of Adam Smith, precise, accurate, and indispensable (In.6.11, 175). W hen the
experimental games on which we are reporting first began to be studied in the 1980s, the predictions of
game theory performed very poorly.
25 Person 2s conduct in choosing (a'), under double anonymity, may be merely praiseworthy and
thus weakened in conduct value compared with single anonymity; similarly, Person 2s choice of
(b') may be less discouraged by being merely blameworthy compared with single anonymity. Any
such second-order effects may be more difficult for Persons 1 to anticipate.
26 M arco Casari and Timothy N. Cason, The Strategy Method Lowers M easured Trustworthy
Behavior, Economics Letters 103.3 (2009): 157-59 observe similar behavior in a trust game with
different parameters.
27 For a discussion and several references, see Smith, Rationality, 264-67,); and for earlier experiment
results see Kevin M cCabe, Stephen Rassenti, and Vernon L. Smith, Game Theory and Reciprocity in
Some Extensive Form Experimental Games, Proceedings o f the National Academy o f Arts and
Sciences 93 (1996): 13421-28.
28 Kevin McCabe, Mary L. Rigdon, and Vernon L. Smith, Positive Reciprocity and Intentions in Trust
Games, Journal o f Economic Behavior and Organization 52.2 (2003): 267-75.
29 But remarkably many Persons 2 still choose to be generous to Persons 1, perhaps leaving ample room
for the TMS sentiment of acting in a praiseworthy manner even without the implied praise when kindness
is returned by kindness.
30 Mary L. Rigdon, Kevin A. M cCabe, and Vernon L. Smith, Sustaining Cooperation in Trust Games.
Economic Journal 117.522 (2007): 991-1007.
31 The research reported in Rigdon, McCabe, and Smith, Sustaining Cooperation was done at the
University of Arizona at the turn of the millennium, appearing as a working paper in 2002, and was
delayed in publication. Why? Principally, the procedure subjects not being informed of the rank order
rule for rematching pairs was the source of many explanations and discussions with seminar
participants and in the editor-refereeing process. Many had difficulty grasping why we did not make the
comparison with subjects given full knowledge of the cooperative matching procedure. There is a body of
constructivist economic theory irrelevant and distractive from the perspective of this study that argues
that a small in-group of cooperators can invade a population of defectors, and being able to identify each
other, outperform their out-group peers. Yes, and if our subjects knew the circumstances of their
matching and we observed more cooperation than in the randomly repaired group, what would we learn?
Only, we feared, that when it is made plain to people that in repeat interaction cooperation is individually
optimal, then people are likely to choose optimally. In that case we would learn yet again that in games
that essentially reduce rationally to games against nature, people tend to go to the top of the profit hill. If
this exercise is to be meaningful, the question must be what will people do if they find themselves
without knowledge of why in a climate of relative cooperation, compared to a climate of relative
defection? Will cooperation and profitability build experientially and insensibly in the former a la TMS or
will it deteriorate in attempted mutual exploitation a la game-theoretic self-loving behavior?
32 Thomas A., Rietz et al., Transparency, Efficiency and the Distribution of Economic Welfare in Pass
Through Investment Trust Games, Journal o f Economic Behavior and Organization 94 (2013): 257
67, have extended this finding to three-person trust games in which an independent single-play game, as
distinct from first-trial behavior in repeat play, significantly types peoples subsequent cooperation across
all repeat play decisions in the same game.
33 Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Middlesex, UK: Echo Library, 1767/2007),
at 102 .
....................................................
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 A R C H IV A L SO U R C E

Charles Darwin Correspondence Project. Cambridge University transcription of calendar number: 10988,
draft of a letter from Charles Darwin to Charles Bradlaugh, 6 June 1877, supplied to David M. Levy
and Sandra J. Peart, 6 October 2004.
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 Index

Aarsleff, Hans, 187

Abolition movement, 331
Abstraction and Empathy (Worringer), 309
Abstractionism, 308, 309
Accademia dei Lincei, 89
Action at a distance, 7, 10- 11, 12- 13, 72- 73. See also Distant action and attraction
Active principle, 9, 9n, 24, 27
Active spirits, 117, 126
Activity, 306
Adrovandi, Ulisse, 92
Aesthetic Einfuhlung, 301- 308
Aesthetics, 221, 290, 293, 296
Aesthetik (Lipps), 309
Affection, 46, 62, 66 , 68 , 193- 194, 230, 328
Affective appearances, 312
Affective reactions, 209
Affinity, 75, 121, 129, 198, 248- 249
Affinity of nature, 75- 76, 89, 109
Against the Professors (Sextus Empiricus), 26
Agent motivation, 197
Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius, 78, 79- 80, 82, 85, 87, 89
Albertine, 80, 85
Albertus Magnus, 83
Alchemy, 247, 249
Aldrovandi, Ulisse, 92
Alexander of Aphrodisias, 20, 22, 25, 84, 85, 119
Alienation, 309
al-Kindi, 75
Altruism, 256, 259- 275, 280, 284
Amadis, 93
Amicitia, 79
Amity, 93
Ammonius Saccas, 37
Analysis o f the Phenomena o f the Human M ind (Mill), 328
Anatomy, 66, 67
Anfuhlung (attentive feeling), 296
Angels, 113
Anger, 218, 311, 312
Animal psychology, 292
Anonymity, 378
Anti-elementalism, 290
Antipater, 20
Antipathy, 84, 89
Antislavery movement, 331
Anxiety, 193
Apes and Man (Mivart), 347
Apollodorus, 26
Appetite, 84
Approbation, 211, 212, 216, 220- 232, 241, 245
Appropriation, 34- 35
Aquinas, Thomas, 120, 126
Aristotelianism, 53, 114, 115, 118, 120
Aristotle, 4, 16, 22, 52, 57, 63, 68
Arius Didymus, 33
Arrian, 20n
Asclepiades of Bithynia, 63, 65
Association, 89, 91, 174, 185
Astral influence, 44- 51
Astrology, 44, 75
Atomistic explanation of sympathy, 113, 118
Attic Nights (Aulus Gellius), 17
Attraction, 75, 248. See also action at a distance
Attributes, 166- 170
Augustinianism, 99, 124
Augustus, 33
Aulus Gellius, 17
Avicenna, 120

Bacon, Francis, 91, 92, 98, 103

Bacon, Roger, 75
Bailey, Michael, 99
Balbus, 26
Bandello, Matteo, 93
Barbaro, Ermolao, 80
Beaumarchais, Pierre-Augustin Caron de, 203
Beauty, 134
Behaviorism, 292
Being, hierarchy of, 123, 123n
Beneficence, 373, 374
Beneficial Restrictions to Liberty of M arriage (Darwin), 345
Benevolence, 185, 227n, 235
Benjamin, Walter, 8 , 247
Bentley, Richard, 11
Berkeley, George, 189, 190n
Bernier, M arc Andre, 172
Beroaldo, Filippo, 80
Besant, Annie, 327, 349, 352- 356, 358
Beutel, Albrecht, 122n
Bias, 238
Binns, William, 323
Birth control, 349
Blameworthiness, 232, 360, 367
Book of secrets tradition, 87
Boot, Anselm de, 91
Botanic Garden (Darwin), 331
Bracciolini, Poggio, 77
Bradlaugh, Charles, 327, 340, 349- 352
Brain, 68
Breath, 24- 25, 26, 33
Brouwer, Rene, 15, 117
Bruno, Giordano, 108
Burke, Edmund, 180
Butler, Joseph, 178, 179, 195
Cabanis, Pierre, 187
Campbell, Archibald, 195n
Cardano, Girolamo, 90
Care, 178, 299, 338
Cassina, Ubaldo, 270, 271- 273, 283, 284
Catholics, 97, 122
Causal theory of emanation, 124, 124n
Causation, 7, 150n, 156, 159, 160
Cavendish, Margaret, 114
Cavendish, Richard, 94
Certaine Tragicall Discourses (Bandello), 93
Charity, 173, 178
Charmides, 16, 18
Cheerfulness, 220
Christianity, 101, 114, 121, 136n, 173- 174, 341. See also Catholics; Protestants
Chrysippus, 20, 22, 23, 26, 30, 33
Cicero, 20, 29, 30, 44, 77
Civil society, 362
Clarke, John, 195n
Clarke, Samuel, 11
Cleanthes, 16, 21, 28, 30, 32
Cleomedes, 22
Coaffections, 9, 18
Collingwood, R. G., 8
Color, 233
Comfort, 256
Compagni, V. Perrone, 80
Compassion, 178, 193, 260, 266. See also Fellow-feeling
morality of, 254
Nietzsche on, 255- 259, 275- 285
phenomenology of, 269
Concurring nature, 12- 13
Condorcet, Marie Louise Sophie de Grouchy, marquise de. See De Grouchy, Sophie
Connection of causes, 167
Connexio idearum, 157- 162
Connexio rerum, 146, 152, 155- 157, 162- 166
Conscience, 362n
Consciousness, 263, 265, 289n, 314, 362n
Consensum, 77
Consequential, 51
Contagion, 315, 316
Contagious disease, 72, 82
Contareni, Nicolo, 92
Contentment, 256
Continuity hypothesis, 324, 326, 340- 345, 358
Contraception, 348, 349
Conway, Anne, 9, 107, 108, 114, 127, 135- 138
Cooley, Charles, 298, 318, 319
Cooper, Anthony Ashley, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury. See Shaftesbury, Earl of
Cooperation, 365
Copenhaver, Brian, 98, 121n
Corneille, Pierre, 200, 201
Correspondence, 159, 165
Correspondence theory of truth, 158
Cosmic sympathy, 146, 149, 156- 157
Cosmopolitanism, 28- 35
Cosmos, 22, 24, 33, 39- 40
Courtesy, 291
Cox, James, 378
Creation, 86
Creative fire, 24
Crebillon, Prosper Jolyot de, 200
Cri du sang, 200
Critias, 16, 17
Criticism/critique, 247- 249
Cudworth, Ralph, 115, 116, 116n

dAlembert, Jean Le Rond, 186, 199

Damascius, 20
Darstellung, 252
Darwall, Stephen, 298, 299, 300, 316, 319
Darwin, Charles, 323- 358
biological background to, 330- 335
on continuity hypothesis, 340- 345
eugenics and, 345- 348, 358
 on natural vs. human selection, 335- 340, 348- 358
Darwin, Erasmus, 330
Darwin, George, 327, 345- 348
Debes, Remy, 5, 286
Debru, Armelle, 65n
Debus, Allen, 87
Deception of the imagination, 270
Deck, Cary, 378
De Grouchy, Sophie, 5, 7, 9, 180, 188- 189, 204- 206
Deindividuated suffering, 283
Della Porta, Giambattista, 89, 90, 97
Della Rocca, Michael, 161n, 169n
De mirabilibus mundi (Albertus Magnus), 83
Democritus, 83
Demonic, 97, 113
De occultis in re medico proprietatibus (Olmo), 91
De radiis (al-Kindi), 75
Descartes, Rene, 5, 7, 8 , 10, 13, 98, 112, 147, 149n , 154, 163
Descent o f Man (Darwin), 324, 350
Desire, 77
De sympathia et antipathia rerum (Fracastoro), 82
De triplici vita (Ficino), 79
De Waal, Frans, 15, 15n , 16
Diderot, Denis, 202, 203
Die Wahlverwandtschaften (Goethe), 191
Digby, Kenelm, 8 , 100, 112, 112n, 113
Dilthey, Wilhelm, 298
Diogenes Laertius, 19, 20, 26, 28
Diogenes of Sinope, 32
Disapprobation, 220, 221
Disapproval, 241
Discourse on Metaphysics (Leibniz), 131, 132
Distant action, 4, 9. See also Action at a distance
Divination, 28- 35, 40, 44, 45, 90
Donne, John, 141
Double activity, 49
Double anonymity, 378, 379n
Double relation, 223
Dreaming, 30
Dualism, 11, 164
Du Bos, Jean-Baptiste, abbe, 202, 203, 206
Duchesne, Joseph, 87
Duncan, Stewart, 11

Eamon, William, 97
Economic behavior. See Experimental economic behavior
Economics, 3, 5
Edelstein, Ludwig, 20
Edgeworth, F. Y., 358
Effects, 48- 51, 121, 134, 231
Egoism, 194, 262, 263, 265- 266, 269, 284
Einfuhlung (feeling into), 5, 295- 318
aesthetic, 301- 308
interpersonal, 308- 318
Elective affinities, 191, 249, 251
Elective Affinities (Goethe), 248
Elements, 9, 25, 65, 79, 112
The Elements o f Theology (Proclus), 125
Eliot, T. S., 106
Emanative causation, 124, 125. See also Causation
Emilsson, Eyjolfur K., 7, 36, 115n
Emotions, 4, 32, 65, 93, 176, 199, 201. See also Feelings
Empathy, 3, 4, 286, 313
Empedocles, 119
Empirical egoism, 273
Enhanced sympathetic harmony, 137
Enhanced universal sympathy, 127, 138
Enlightenment, 172
Enmity, 89
Enneads (Plotinus), 42, 73
Entretiens sur le Fils naturel (Diderot), 203
Envy, 215
Epictetus, 20, 20n, 115
Epicureans, 12, 57, 118
Epicurus, 16, 18, 19- 28, 83
Epidemics II (Hippocrates), 67, 68 , 69
Epistemic associationism, 174, 185
Epistemology, 185
Erasmus, Desiderius, 5, 81, 82
Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness o f God, the Freedom o f Man and the Origin o f Evil (Leibniz),
134
Essence, 117, 118, 124- 125, 136, 156- 158
Ethnic psychology, 290n
Eugenics, 5, 326, 345- 348, 358
Evoli, Cesare, 92
Experimental economic behavior, 359- 385
impartial spectator and, 361- 364
principles of action and, 360- 361
traditional game theory and, 364- 369
trust games and, 375- 384
ultimatum games and, 369- 375
Experimental psychology, 293
Extortion game, 371

Fadiga, Luciano, 312n

Fairness, 362. See also Impartial spectator
Farnese, Alessandro, 82
Fate, 27
Fear, 218
Feelings, 93, 199, 201. See also Emotions
Fellow-feeling, 193, 198, 220, 229, 299. See also Compassion
Fenlon, Geoffrey, 93
Ficino, Marsilio, 5, 72, 73, 77- 80, 85, 106, 109, 122
Fielding, Henry, 196
Figures, 51
Fire, 24, 26, 56, 117
First Truths (Leibniz), 131
Fleischacker, Samuel, 220n
Fogassi, Leonardo, 312n
Folk psychology, 290n
Force, 26, 102, 104- 105, 109n, 138, 149, 306
Fordyce, David, 179, 195
Formal reality, 162
Forms, 53, 118, 120, 148n
Fracastoro, Girolamo, 5, 82- 85, 87, 88 , 95, 99
Free will, 151
Freige, Johannes Thomas, 92
Freud, Sigmund, 294, 294n, 298, 310
Friendship, 89, 93
Fruits o f Philosophy (Knowlton), 349
Frustrated activity, 306

Galen, 4, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61- 69, 84- 85, 87, 90, 93, 96, 101, 120
Galileo Galilei, 105n, 112n
Gallese, Vittorio, 312n
Galton, Francis, 327, 334, 339, 346, 347, 350
Game theory, 360, 364- 369. See also Experimental economic behavior
Gangloff, Jacob Heinrich, 119, 120, 121, 123, 126
Garin, Eugenio, 76
Garrett, Don, 159n
Gassendi, 112
Geiger, Moritz, 296n
General point of view, 234, 236- 237, 239- 240
Generosity, 366
Gentle sympathy, 120
Gerbino, Giuseppe, 4, 5, 102, 109n
Gestalt theory, 310
Gilbert, William, 13
Gillies, Anthony, 379, 380
Glory, 118, 134
Goclenius, Rudolph, 100, 111, 124
God, 10- 11, 78, 116- 118, 120, 124, 128- 130
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 191, 247- 253
Golden rule of Christianity, 341
Goodness, 134, 136, 137, 275
Goodwill, 185
Gordian (emperor), 37
Government (Mill), 328
Gratitude, 209
Gravity, 10, 72, 130
Greg, W R., 327, 333, 334, 339
Gulielmus Adolphus Scriborius, 92

Hall, John, 140

Hanley, Ryan Patrick, 13, 14, 171
Happiness, 172, 178, 193- 196, 255, 259- 261, 282, 325
Harmony, 74, 77, 118, 128
Hartley, David, 5, 185
Hatred, 215, 221, 222
Hayek, Friedrich, 360
Hayes, Julie Candler, 199
Hedonism, 257
Heidegger, Martin, 166n
Helvetius, Claude, 187
Henry, John, 12
Heraclitus, 26
Herbal fo r the Bible (Lemnius), 94
Herder, Johann, 296, 304
Hermeneutic sympathy, 247n
Hidden force, 102, 109n
Hierarchical emanation, 136
Hierarchy of being, 123, 123n
Hierocles, 35, 35n
Hippias, 32
Hippocrates, 61, 63, 64, 68 , 69
History o f Magic and Experimental Science (Thorndike), 90
Hobbes, Thomas, 112, 148, 192, 193, 195
Hoffman, Elizabeth, 372
Hogarth, William, 196
Holmes, Brooke, 4, 61- 69
Home, Henry. See Kames, Lord
Homopatheia, 59
Horror vacui principle, 63
Hothersall, David, 290n
How to Behave towards Relatives (Hierocles), 35
Hubner, Karolina, 13, 14, 146, 174
Huloet, Richard, 94
Human dignity, 317
Humanism, 80
Humboldt, Alexander von, 248, 251, 252
Hume, David, 208- 246
on approbation, 220- 228
on humanity, 181
on moral judgment, 5, 234- 237
philosophical framework, 209- 211
Schelers critique of, 313
simulationist models and, 301
on sympathy, 7, 43, 196- 197, 212- 216
Humility, 215, 222, 224
Humoral pathology, 66 , 66n, 75
Hutcheson, Francis, 188, 192, 194, 240, 240n
Hutchison, Keith, 97
Hutton, Sarah, 116n
Huxley, Thomas, 344
Huygens, Christian, 10, 130

Idealism, 161
Ideas, 105, 108, 114- 116, 157. See also Thought
Identification, 271, 272, 282, 283
Imageless thought, 292
The Image o f Nature and Grace (Cavendish), 94
Imagination, 205, 270
Imitation, 305
Imitative-projective process, 302
Immanence, 27n
Immortality o f the Soul (More), 125
Impartial spectator, 237, 239, 242- 244, 361- 364, 380
Indirect passions, 222, 225, 226
Individuation, 268, 273, 274, 283
Infinity of things, 153
Influence, 15, 22- 23, 42, 44- 51, 75
Influentia, 74
Inherence relations, 150n
Instantaneous effects, 161
Intelligibility, 138, 146, 148- 149, 152, 156
Internal perception, 60
Interpersonal Einfuhlung, 308- 318
Introspection, 205, 290, 291, 292
Isomorphism, 152, 159, 165

Jahoda, Gustav, 303, 306

James, William, 289n, 310
Jaucourt, Louis de, 186, 199
Jones, George, 141
Justice, 332, 373, 375
Justinian (emperor), 20
Lipsius, Justus, 115

Kames, Lord, 180, 181

Kant, Immanuel, 180, 181, 185, 254, 265n
Kaske, Carol, 75
Kepler, Johannes, 114, 114n
Kessler, Eckhard, 85n
Kidd, Ian G., 20
King Lear (Shakespeare), 139- 145
Knowlton, Charles, 349

La Chaussee, Pierre-Claude Nivelle de, 201

Latin America, 251
Lazzarelli, Ludovico, 79
Lee, Vernon, 293n
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 9- 11, 107- 109, 114, 116, 127, 128- 135, 138
Lemnius, Levinus, 94
Leoniceno, Niccolo, 80
Levinus Lemnius, 94, 95
Levy, David M., 5, 323
Libavius, Andreas, 91
Likeness Principle (LP), 7, 8 , 9, 11
Lipps, Theodore, 287, 290- 294, 297, 301- 317, 320
Lives o f Eminent Philosophers (Diogenes Laertius), 24
Locke, John, 10
Lodestone, 64, 69, 89. See also Magnetism
Logic, 159n
Logos, 136
Long, Anthony A., 19n
Lotze, Hermann, 296
Love, 75, 77, 121, 129, 184, 221, 222, 224
LP. See Likeness Principle
Luchins, Abraham, 297, 298
Lucretius, 19n, 83
Luther, Martin, 122

Magia naturalis (Della Porta), 89

Magic, 44- 51, 71, 73- 75, 78, 96, 99, 110
Magical power, 109. See also Pow er
Magnetism, 13, 72, 100, 148. See also Lodestone
Mairhofer, Matthias, 92
Malebranche, Nicolas, 114
Malthus, T. R., 339, 348, 353, 355
Mandeville, Bernard, 179, 192, 193
Marcus Aurelius, 20
Marshall, David, 204
Materialism, 204
Mathematical Principles o f Natural Philosophy (Newton), 109
McCabe, Kevin A., 381- 383, 383n, 384
McDougall, William, 298
Mead, George, 298, 318, 319- 321, 322
Mechanical philosophy, 51, 148
Medicine, 73, 140
Melamed, Yitzhak, 152n
Memory, 205
Mercer, Christia, 14, 107
Mercier, Louis-Sebastien, 179n, 203
Mercuriale, Girolamo, 91
Metaphysical egoism, 272, 273
Metaphysics, 112, 114, 127, 128, 136
Mill, James, 325, 327, 329
Mill, John Stuart, 7, 9, 298, 325- 329, 332, 341, 353, 358
Millan, Elizabeth, 247
Mindreading, 295
Minimax strategies, 371n
Mirroring, 159, 312
Mirror neurons, 6 , 312, 312n
Mitfuhlung, 296
Mivart, St. George, 324, 342- 344, 347
Mixed genre, 201
Mizauld, Antoine, 92
Mode, 105, 137, 164, 165, 168
Moderation, 16, 17
Modesty, 291
Moliere, 201
Monism, 153, 166- 170
Moral approbation, 224, 225, 225n
Moral approval, 226
Moral education, 205
Morality of compassion, 254
Moral judgment
Hume and Smith on, 209, 232- 239
standard of, 239- 245
sympathy and, 212
Moral philosophy, 70, 72- 88, 101
Moral sympathy, 187
More, Henry, 114, 125, 195
Motivation
altruism and, 280
by praise, 325, 340
by praiseworthiness, 327- 330
Moyer, Ann E., 5, 70, 108, 109
Mozart, Leopold, 104
Munich Circle, 294
Murphy, Gardner, 297
Musicology, 5, 102- 106
Mutual love, 120, 137

Nachfuhlung (responsive feeling), 296

Narcissism, 276
Natural faculties, 63
Natural History (Pliny), 65
Naturalist origins of sympathy, 35
Natural magic, 78, 89- 90, 96- 97, 99, 110- 111
Natural philosophy, 72- 88, 96, 101, 138
Natural power, 78, 110n, 147n
Natural selection, 323, 335- 340, 348- 358
Natural theology, 5
Nature
affinity of, 75- 76, 89, 109
concurring nature, 12- 13
Negative eugenics, 346
Neighbor love, 174, 184
Nemesius of Emesa, 21
Neo-Malthusian approach, 354
Neoplatonism, 36
Neo-Stoic ethics, 148
Neurons, 6 , 312, 312n
Neuroscience, 3
New Approach to Recently Discovered Occult Causes o f Sympathy and Antipathy (Rattray), 118
Newton, Isaac, 10- 13, 10n , 94, 109, 114, 129, 130
Newton, Thomas, 94
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 5, 254- 285
on altruism, 259- 275
on compassion, 255- 259, 275- 285
on selflessness, 275- 285
on suffering, 255- 259
North, Thomas, 94

Objectified self-enjoyment, 309

Objective reality, 162, 164n, 165
Occult, 5, 40, 44- 47, 97, 107, 108- 113, 138, 147
Olmo, Giovanni Francesco, 91
Olympius of Alexandria, 44n
On Common Conceptions (Plutarch), 33
On Divination (Cicero), 20, 29, 30, 77
On Dreams (Chrysippus), 29
On the Life o f Plotinus and the Order o f His Books (Porphyry), 37
On the Magnetic Curing o f Wounds (van Helmont), 111
On the Natural Faculties (Galen), 63, 65, 66 , 69
On the Nature o f Man (Nemesius of Emesa), 21
On the Nature o f the Gods (Cicero), 23, 26
On Nutriment (Hippocrates), 61
On the Origin o f Species (Darwin), 326, 335
On the Origin o f Things from Forms (Leibniz), 129
On Sympathy (Gangloff), 119
Oration on the Dignity o f Man (Pico), 76
Order and connection, 155, 161n
Original impressions, 221
The Origin of Human R aces (Wallace), 332
Ospedale della Pieta, 104
Other-directedness, 176, 177, 192, 194
Otherness, 311, 316
Outline o f Psychology (Titchener), 289

Paganism, 97
Panaetius, 30- 31, 30- 31n
Paracelsians, 71, 86 , 88 , 92, 96, 99
Paracelsus, 86 , 89, 90, 111, 117, 121
Parallelism, 132, 152, 169- 170
Parasitism, 279
Passions, 218
Passive principle, 24
Pater, Walter, 77
Patrizi, Francesco, 90
Paulus, Julius, 360
Paynell, Thomas, 93
Peart, Sandra J., 5, 323
Pecorino, Paul, 373, 374
Pennuto, Concetta, 85, 85n
Pepys, Samuel, 141
Perceptions, 19, 130
Perceptual transmission, 51- 60
Perfect harmony, 118, 128
Peripatetics, 57
Perspective taking, 320
Pessimism, 257
Peucer, Caspar, 90
Phenomenological reduction, 314
Phenomenology, 269, 288, 308- 318
Philo of Alexandria, 126
Philosophical Enquiry (Burke), 180
Philosophical Lexicon (Goclenius), 124
Physics, 114
Physiology, 184- 191
Piaget, Violet, 293n
Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 76, 77, 78, 79, 109
Pigman, George, 295, 296
Pity, 32, 176, 179, 193, 195
Place, Francis, 348
Plato, 4, 16- 18, 38, 55- 56, 58, 60, 124
Platonic Theology (Ficino), 74
Platonism
Darwin and, 339
Leibniz and, 129
Plotinus and, 36- 37, 55, 121
in Renaissance, 71, 73, 74, 82
Spinoza and, 148
universal sympathy and, 108, 115, 121- 128
Pleasure, 224, 225, 226, 227, 304
Plenitude, 125, 133, 134, 136
Pliny, 4, 65, 70, 77, 80- 82, 85- 87, 96, 99
Plotinus, 36- 60
on astral influence, magic, and prayer, 44- 51, 44n, 105
on perceptual transmission, 51- 60
Platonic thought and, 36- 37, 55, 121
precursors to, 38- 40
Renaissance thought and, 72, 73- 74, 77, 78, 85
Stoicism and, 4, 27
on sympatheia, 40- 43
on world soul, 27n
Plutarch, 22, 33, 95
Pneuma, 57, 58, 117
Political economy, 6
Political Economy (Mill), 351
Poliziano, Angelo, 80
Pomponazzi, Pietro, 82, 85
Porphyry, 37
Posidonius, 20, 26
Positive eugenics, 347
Positivism, 292
Powder of Sympathy, 112- 113
Pow er of signification, 50
Powers
magical power, 109
natural power, 78, 110n, 147n
occult power, 109, 110, 119, 138
supernatural power, 110, 110 n
sympathetic power, 110, 112, 114, 116, 129, 138
vital power, 114
Praiseworthiness, 238, 325, 327- 330, 360
Prayer, 44- 51
Preestablished harmony, 128, 130, 131, 133, 148n
Pride, 215, 222, 224, 291
Primordial otherness, 314
Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), 149, 150
Principles of action, 360- 361
Principles o f Psychology (James), 289n
The Principles o f the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy (Conway), 135
Priscianus Lydus, 20
Problem of other minds, 294, 295, 313, 314
Proclus, 121, 125
Projection, 305
Property dualism, 164
Property rights, 360
Proportion, 134- 135
Protestants, 97, 122
Providence, 27
Prudence, 373
Pseudo-Albertine, 80
Pseudo-Plutarch, 25, 33
PSR. See Principle of Sufficient Reason
Psychoanalytic theory, 310
Psychological egoism, 275
Psychological Studies (James), 310
Psychology, 3, 286- 322
Einfuhlung and, 295- 318
historical context, 288- 295
social, 318- 322
Puccini, Giacomo, 104

Racine, Jean, 201

Racism, 198
Rational capacities, 25, 31- 34, 41
Rattray, Sylvester, 118, 119- 121, 123
Reason. See Rational capacities
Reciprocal beneficence, 377, 380, 382
Recognition, 5, 198, 229, 261, 269
Reddy, William, 200
Reflective impressions, 221
Reflexions critiques sur la poesie et la peinture (Du Bos), 202
Reginster, Bernard, 5, 254
Reid, Thomas, 196
Reik, Theodor, 297
Reinach, Adolf, 294
Reinhardt, Karl, 58n
Religion, 73, 96
Renaissance, 4, 70- 101
attacks on sympathy during, 88- 96
natural and moral philosophy during, 72- 88
sympathies concept expands during, 88- 96
Representational parallelism, 165
Resentment, 209, 218, 363
Respect, 215
Retaliation, 363
Rhenanus, Beatus, 81
Rhyff, Walther Hermann, 90
Ribot, Theodule, 298
Ricci, Paolo, 79
Rigdon, Mary L., 379- 382, 383, 383n, 384
Rizzolatti, Giacomo, 312n
Roberti, Jean, 111
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 179, 185, 189, 196, 203, 206
Rozanova, Olga, 309
Rush, Benjamin, 191

Sabellicus, 80
Sadness, 311
Salmon, Timothy, 372
Sameness, 158- 159, 161- 162, 164- 165, 190
Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey, 14, 197, 208
Scaliger, Joseph Justus, 120
Schegelius, Albertus, 91
Scheler, Max, 294- 295, 298, 310, 313- 318, 322
Schlegel, Friedrich, 248n
Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 247n
Schliesser, Eric, 3, 305n
Schmitt, Charles, 121n
Scholasticism, 121
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 5, 254- 285
on altruism, 259- 275
on compassion, 255- 259, 275- 285
on selflessness, 275- 285
on suffering, 255- 259
Schwimmer, Johann Michael, 119n
Secondary impressions, 221
Sedaine, Michel-Jean, 203
Sedley, David N., 19n
Self, 310
Self-absorption, 262
Self-alienation, 309
Self-consciousness, 263, 265
Self-denial, 276, 277
Self-enjoyment, 193
Self-esteem, 276, 278
Self-forgetfulness, 315
Self-government, 339
Self-interest, 144, 173- 174, 176, 177- 184, 192, 237- 238, 281
Selflessness, 260, 275- 285
Self-love, 174, 179
Self-observation, 205
Self-other distinction, 307, 315
Self-preservation, 35
Self-sacrifice, 277
Self-sufficiency, 123, 128, 129, 153
Seneca, 20, 32, 115
Sensibility, 186, 199, 205
Sensus communis, 172
Sentimental humanitarianism, 185n
Sentimentalism, 199, 204, 208, 211, 230, 245
Severinus, Peter, 87
Sextus Empiricus, 20, 22, 26
Sexual selection, 324, 338, 342, 344
Shaftesbury, Earl of, 192, 193, 194
Shakespeare, William, 5, 139- 145
Shuddering, 18
Signification, 50
Simple essence, 117
Simulationist models, 295, 295n , 316, 317, 322
Single anonymity, 378
Skwire, Sarah, 139
Smith, Adam, 208- 246
on approbation, 228- 232
de Grouchys critique of, 204, 205
on impartial spectator, 145, 359, 362
on moral judgment, 5, 237- 239
philosophical framework, 209- 211, 385
on reciprocal beneficence, 382
Schelers critique of, 313
on self-interest, 177- 178, 185, 196- 197
simulationist models and, 301
Steins critique of, 316
on sympathy, 7, 9, 43, 203, 216- 220
on trust games, 375
on utilitarianism, 325, 366
Smith, Vernon L., 6 , 359, 381- 383, 383n, 384
Sobel, Joel, 364, 365
Social consciousness, 320
Social Darwinism, 327
Socialization, 320
Social preferences, 366
Social psychology, 288, 318- 322
Social Statics (Spencer), 331, 333
Sociology, 6 n, 313, 318
Socrates, 16, 17, 32
Soul, 21, 25, 27n, 28, 38- 41, 43, 45, 59, 68
Spencer, Herbert, 298, 319, 331, 332
Spinoza, Baruch, 146- 170
on attributes, 166- 170
on connexio idearum, 157- 162
on connexio rerum, 155- 157, 162- 166
on egoism, 193
on goodness, 195
influences on, 153- 155
on monism, 166- 170
Stoicism and, 114, 115n
on sympathy, 13, 174- 177
Spirit, 49, 75, 106, 117- 118, 120, 126, 141
Spontaneity, 130
Spranger, Eduard, 298
Stanley, Hiram M., 335
Stein, Edith, 294- 295, 298, 310, 313- 318, 322
Stern, William, 297
Steuer, Daniel, 250
Stewart, Dugald, 327, 328
Stillingfleet, Edward, 10
Stobaeus, 35n
Stoicism, 15- 35
cosmopolitanism and, 28- 35
divination and, 28- 35
Epicurus and, 19- 28
Galen and, 61, 63
internal perception theory, 59
Leibniz and, 129
metaphysics, 115
 physics, 24
Plato and, 16- 18
Pliny and, 82
Plotinus and, 38, 39, 40, 52, 56, 57, 59
Smith and, 361
sympathy as concept in, 4, 87, 101, 108
theory of the soul, 39
universal sympathy and, 113- 121
Structuralism, 289
Suarez, Francisco, 120
Subjectivity, 263, 265
Substance dualism, 11
Substantial forms, 118, 120, 148n
Suffering, 255- 259, 267
Superaddition, 12
Supernatural magic, 8 , 110
Supernatural power, 110, 110n
Superstition, 72, 97, 99
Supreme being assumption, 123, 136
Swales, Martin, 249
Sylva Sylvarum (Bacon), 103
Sympathetic compassion, 180
Sympathetic resonance, 102
Sympathetic vibration, 102, 105
Sympathy
analysis of, 6- 9
as contagion, 172
Darwinism and, 323- 358
eighteenth-century context of, 171- 198
as epistemic concept of association, 175, 176
experimental economic behavior and, 359- 385
French philosophers on, 199- 207
Galen on, 61- 69
Hume on, 208- 246
music and, 102- 106
Nietzsche on, 254- 285
Plotinus on, 36- 60
 psychology and, 286- 322
in Renaissance, 70- 101
Schopenhauer on, 254- 285
Smith on, 208- 246
Spinoza on, 146- 170, 174- 177
Stoics on, 15- 35
as substituting self for others, 172
universal, 107- 138

Taxonomy of souls, 40
Temple o f Nature (Darwin), 330
Tertullian, 21n
Theism, 115, 124, 174, 185
Theology, 5
Theoretical egoism, 265
Theoretical philosophy, 295
Theories of influence, 78
The Theory o f Moral Sentiments (Smith), 177, 196, 204, 327, 359, 385
Theory Theories, 295
Thevet, Andre, 93
Thomas, Keith, 141
Thomas Aquinas, 120, 126
Thomasius, Jakob, 115, 116
Thorndike, Lynn, 90
Thought, 16, 28. See also Ideas
Thoughtlessness, 260
Three Books on Life (Ficino), 74
Titchener, Edward, 286- 292, 294, 297
Traditional game theory, 364- 369
Transcendence, 27n, 192, 274
A Treatise o f Human Nature (Hume), 301
Trithemius, Johannes, 78
True Intellectual System o f the Universe (Cudworth), 116
Trust games, 375- 384
Truth, 118, 131, 158
Turco, Luigi, 195n
Turnbull, George, 190
Two Treatises (Digby), 112
Ultimatum games, 369- 375
Unconscious, 292
Unity of nature, 151
Universal gravity, 10
Universal mindedness, 157, 157n
Universal sympathy, 107- 138
Conway on, 135- 138
Leibniz on, 128- 135
occult and, 108- 113
Platonism and, 121- 128
Stoicism and, 113- 121
Unselfing, 283
Urbanization, 183
Urinating, 18
Utilitarianism, 242, 243, 243n, 257, 325, 329, 332, 341, 358
Utilitarianism (Mill), 332

Van Boening, Mark, 373, 374

Van Helmont, Jan Baptiste, 111, 112, 116- 121, 123, 126, 130
Vascular network, 62
Vesalius, Andreas, 91
Vibration of strings, 102- 106
Vice, 203, 236, 339, 347
Viola damore, 103, 105
Virtue, 135, 138, 211, 226
Vischer, Robert, 296- 297, 302, 305, 309
Vision, 57, 58, 60, 233
Visual transmission, 55, 57, 59
Vitalism, 135
Vitality, 112, 137
Vital power, 114
Vitruvius, Pollio, 4, 77
Vivaldi, Antonio, 104
Von Winkelried, Arnold, 272, 278, 279

Wahlverwandtschaften (Goethe), 247- 253

Wallace, Alfred Russel, 323, 326, 332- 334, 337, 342- 343
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes o f the Wealth o f Nations (Smith), 177
Wedgewood, Josiah, 331
Weigel, Erhard, 114
Well-being, 262
Wilberforce, Samuel, 341, 342
Wilson, Bart J., 6, 359, 372
Wilson, M argaret, 161 n
Wispe, Lauren, 298, 299, 300
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 188, 189
World-apart thesis, 131
World-Soul, 27n , 38, 40, 41
Worringer, Wilhelm, 309
Wounds, 100, 110- 111, 140
Wundt, Wilhelm, 288, 289, 290, 321

Yawning, 18

Zahavi, Dan, 295n

Zeno, 30
Zero-sum games, 371n
Zorzi, Francesco, 79, 80
Zufuhlung (immediate feeling), 296
Zusammenhang, 252