mere uneasiness which we feel at the sight of another's suffering, and the desire which we naturally feel to be rid of that uneasiness, are not the chief elements in compassion. If they were, the sure and simple remedy would be to run away from the distress which occasions the uneasiness, to put it as quickly as possible out of sight and out of mind. Such an emotion; prompting to such a course, might well be termed selfish. But this is not the true nature of sympathy. It is not a mere unpleasant sensation produced by observing the sufferings of another, though such a sensation, doubtless, is produced in a sensitive mind, and accompanies, or may even be said to form a part of, the emotion which we term sympathy; there is, over and above this feeling of uneasiness, a _fellowship_ of sorrow and of suffering, a bearing of that suffering with him, as _his_, and not as our own, a pain _for him_, and not for ourselves, the result and urgent prompting of which is the impulse, the strong irrepressible desire to relieve, not ourselves from uneasiness, but the sufferer from that which occasions his distress. _What follows from this Theory._--If compassion for others were the offspring of fear for ourselves, then, as Butler has well said, the most fearful natures ought to be the most compassionate, which is far from being the case. It may be added, also, that if sympathy is, in any respect, a _selfish_ principle, then they who are most completely and habitually governed by selfish considerations ought, for the same reason, to be the most keenly alive to the sufferings of others, which is little less than a contradiction in terms. CHAPTER II. RATIONAL EMOTIONS. § I.--EMOTIONS OF JOY OR SADNESS ARISING FROM THE CONTEMPLATION OF OUR OWN EXCELLENCE OR THE REVERSE.