This, however, presupposes that to a certain extent I have become identified with the other, and consequently that the barrier between the ego and the non-ego is, for the moment, broken down. It is then, and then only, that I make his interests, his need, his distress, his suffering directly my own; it is then that the empirical picture I have of him vanishes, and I no longer see the stranger, who is entirely unlike myself, and to whom I am indifferent; but I share his pain in him, despite the certainty that his skin does not enclose my nerves. Only in this way is it possible for =his= woe, =his= distress to become a motive =for me=; otherwise I should be influenced solely by my own. This process is, I repeat, =mysterious=. For it is one which Reason can give no direct account of, and its causes lie outside the field of experience. And yet it is of daily occurrence. Every one has often felt its working within himself; even to the most hard-hearted and selfish it is not unknown. Each day that passes brings it before our eyes, in single acts, on a small scale; whenever a man, by direct impulse, without much reflection, helps a fellow-creature and comes to his aid, sometimes even exposing himself to the most imminent peril for the sake of one he has never seen before, and this, without once thinking of anything but the fact that he witnesses another's great distress and danger. It was manifested on a large scale, when after long consideration, and many a stormy debate, the noble-hearted British nation gave twenty millions of pounds to ransom the negroes in its colonies, with the approbation and joy of a whole world. If any one refuses to recognise in Compassion the cause of this deed, magnificent as it is in its grand proportions, and prefers to ascribe it to Christianity; let him remember that in the whole of the New Testament not one word is said against slavery, though at that time it was practically universal; and further, that as late as A.D. 1860, in North America, when the question was being discussed, a man was found who thought to strengthen his case by appealing to the fact that Abraham and Jacob kept slaves!