e was 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.

What are the pangs of a mother when she hears the meanings of her
infant, that, during the agony of disease, cannot express what it feels?
In her idea of what it suffers, she joins to its real helplessness her
own consciousness of that helplessness and her own terrors for the
unknown consequences of its disorder; and, out of all these, forms for
her own sorrow the most complete image of misery and distress. The
infant, however, feels only the uneasiness of the present instant, which
can never be great. With regard to the future it is perfectly secure in
its thoughtlessness and want of anxiety, the great tormentors of the
human breast, from which reason and philosophy will in vain attempt to
defend it when it grows up to a man.

But whatever may be the cause of sympathy, or however it may be excited,
nothing pleases us more than to observe in other men a fellow-feeling
with all the emotions of our own breast; nor are we ever so much shocked
as by the appearance of the contrary. Those who are fond of deducing all
our sentiments from certain refinements of self-love think themselves at
no loss to account, according to their own principles, both for this
pleasure and for this pain. Man, say they, conscious of his own weakness
and of the need which he has for the assistance of others, rejoices
whenever he observes that they adopt his own passions because he is then
assured of that assistance and grieves whenever he observes the
contrary, because he is then assured of their opposition. But both the
pleasure and the pain are always felt so instantaneously, and often upon
such frivolous occasions, that it seems evident that neither of them can
be derived from any such self-interested consideration. A man is
mortified when, after having endeavored to divert the company, he looks
round and sees that nobody laughs at his jests but himself. On the
contrary, the mirth of the company is highly agreeable to him and he
regards this correspondence of their sentiments with his own as the
greatest applause.

5. Art, Imitation, and Appreciation[150]

The investigation into the psychology of masses, as well as the
experiments on suggestive therapeutics, have proved to how great an
extent mental states may be transmitted from individual to individual by
unconscious imitation of the