Sympathy appears to constitute a separate or distinct emotion;
and it is especially apt to excite the lacrymal glands.
This holds good whether we give or receive sympathy.
Every one must have noticed how readily children burst out crying
if we pity them for some small hurt. With the melancholic insane,
as Dr. Crichton Browne informs me, a kind word will often plunge
them into unrestrained weeping. As soon as we express our pity
for the grief of a friend, tears often come into our own eyes.
The feeling of sympathy is commonly explained by assuming that,
when we see or hear of suffering in another, the idea of suffering
is called up so vividly in our own minds that we ourselves suffer.
But this explanation is hardly sufficient, for it does not account
for the intimate alliance between sympathy and affection.
We undoubtedly sympathize far more deeply with a beloved than
with an indifferent person; and the sympathy of the one gives us
far more relief than that of the other. Yet assuredly we can
sympathize with those for whom we feel no affection.
Why suffering, when actually experienced by ourselves,
excites weeping, has been discussed in a former chapter.
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