1. The first might be defined as psychological unison. If, during this period of unison, we could read the minds of those who sympathise, we should see a single emotional fact reflected in the consciousness of several individuals. L. Noiré, in his book, _Ursprung der Sprache_, has proposed the theory that language originated in community of action among the earliest human beings. When working, marching, dancing, rowing, they uttered (according to this writer) sounds which became the appellatives of these different actions, or of various objects; and these sounds, being uttered by all, must have been understood by all. Whether this theory be correct or not (it has been accepted as such by Max Müller), it will serve as an illustration. But this state of sympathy does not, by itself, constitute a tie of affection or tenderness between those who feel it: it only prepares the way for such an emotion. It may be the basis of a certain social solidarity, because the same internal states excite the same acts, of a mechanical, exterior, non-moral solidarity. 2. The second stage is that of sympathy, in the restricted and popular sense of the word. This consists of psychological unison, _plus_ a new element: there is added another emotional manifestation, tender emotion (benevolence, sympathy, pity, etc.). It is no longer sympathy pure and simple, it is a _binary_ compound. The common habit of considering phenomena only under their higher and complete forms often misleads us as to their origin and constitution. Moreover, in order to understand that this is a case of duality—the fusion of two distinct elements—and that our analysis is not a factitious one, it is sufficient to point out that sympathy (in the etymological sense) may exist without any tender emotion—nay, that it may exclude instead of exciting it. According to Lubbock, while ants carry away their wounded, bees—though forming a society—are indifferent towards each other. It is well known that gregarious animals nearly always shun and desert a wounded member of the herd. Among men, how many there are who when they see suffering hasten to withdraw themselves from the spectacle, in order to escape the pain which it sympathetically awakens in them. This impulse may go the length of aversion, as typified by Dives in the Gospel. It is therefore a complete psychological error to consider sympathy as capable, unaided, of delivering men from egoism; it only takes the first step, and not always that.