The groundwork of psychology / by G.F. Stout.

  • George Frederick Stout
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The groundwork of psychology / by G.F. Stout. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    And the last of this group of emotions of a pervading common feeling and common impulse is Despair. And despair is a desperate sorrow. Again and again has its restorative impulse been repressed. There is no outlet left and its inward battling is vain. Hence its extreme an- guish. Yet were the dead to discover the faintest signs of life, how would sorrow cease to be despair, and mani- fest its restoring impulse. It is because pity is a kind of sorrow, not because it is sympathy, that it clings to instead of abandoning its object.. It is because pity is a kind of sorrow, not because it is* sympathy, that it prompts us to relieve suffering and re- store the injured. It is because pity is that kind of sor- row felt not for self, but for others, not because it is sympathy, that it is essentially disinterested. Sympathy cannot interpret the peculiarities of any emotions nor of their characteristic conduct. It is a mere echo, re- flection, or copy. Pity is ordinarily complicated with some degree of sympathy, and like any other emotion, like anger, fear, or disgust, may be sympathetically aroused; but it is essentially independent, and there are cases of pity into which sympathy can hardly enter. We pity the dead whose emotions we have no cognisance of. Poor corpse, we say, because its life is extinguished. But should we pity the dead less, if we knew they were in- capable of delight or suffering ? There would be in their vanished existence nothing with which to sympa- thise, but how much to pity. Nor can the good man sympathise with the vices and debauchery of the wicked man. They excite his abhor- rence. But he may easily pity him. He pities him be- cause he has lost sight of his higher nature and true happiness. He regards his state as most miserable, and
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