Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/230

 2o8 ENGLISH ETHICS. developed by a progressive growth the wide-spreading tree of morality : moral judgment, the moral imperative with its religious sanction, and ethical character. Accord- ingly we may distinguish different stages in the develop- ment of sympathy — the psychological stage of mere fellow- feeling, the aesthetic stage of moral appreciation, the imperative stage of moral precepts, which further on are construed as commands of God (the famous Kantian defini- tion of religion was announced in Glasgow a generation earlier than in Konigsberg), finally, the concluding stage wherein these laws of duty are taken up into the disposi- tion. Besides these, there results from the mechanism of the sympathetic feelings a series of phenomena, which, although they do not entirely conform to the ethical stand- ard, yet exercise a salutary effect on the permanence of society ; e.g., our exceptional judgment of the deeds of the great, the rich, and the fortunate, as also the higher worth ascribed to good (and, conversely, the greater guilt to bad) intentions when successfully carried out into action, in comparison with those which fall short of their result. The first, the purely psychological stage, includes three cases. The spectator sympathizes (i) with the feelings of the agent ; (2) with the gratitude or anger of the person affected by the action ; (3) the person observed sympa- thizes in return with the imitative and judging feelings of the spectator. The fundamental laws of sympathy are as follows : We are roused to imitate the feeling of another by the perception cither of its signs (its natural consequences or its natural expression in visible and audible motions), or of its causes (the circumstances and experiences which occasion it)* the latter exercising a more potent influence than the former. The wooden leg of the beggar is more effective in exciting our pity than his anxious air; the sight of dental instru- ments is more eloquent than the plaints of the sufferer from toothache. In order to be able to imitate vividly the feel- ings of a person, we must know the causes of them. — The feeling of the specator is, on the average, less intense than that of the person observed, so long as the latter does not control and repress his emotions in view of the calmness of