I now go on to supplement particular points, and shall begin by
supporting, with two passages from classical poetry, my explanation of
weeping given in § 67 of the first volume, that it springs from sympathy
the object of which is one’s own self. At the end of the eighth book of
the “Odyssey,” Ulysses, who in all his many sorrows is never represented
as weeping, bursts into tears, when, still unknown, he hears his early
heroic life and deeds sung by the bard Demodocus in the palace of the
Phæacian king, for this remembrance of the brilliant period of his life
contrasts with his present wretchedness. Thus not this itself directly,
but the objective consideration of it, the picture of his present summoned
up by his past, calls forth his tears; he feels sympathy with himself.
Euripides makes the innocently condemned Hypolytus, bemoaning his own
fate, express the same feeling:
“Φευ ειθ᾽ ην εμαυτον προσβλεπειν εναντιον
στανθ᾽, ὡς εδακρυς᾽, ὁια πασχομεν κακα” (1084).
(_Heu, si liceret mihi, me ipsum extrinsecus spectare, quantopere
deflerem mala, quæ patior._)
Finally, as a proof of my explanation, an anecdote may be given here which
I take from the English journal _The Herald_ of the 16th July 1836. A
client, when he had heard his case set forth by his counsel in court,
burst into a flood of tears, and cried, “I never knew I had suffered half
so much till I heard it here to‐day.”
I have shown in § 55 of the first volume how, notwithstanding the
unalterable nature of the character, _i.e._, of the special fundamental
will of a man, a real moral repentance is yet possible. I wish, however,
to add the following explanation, which I must preface by a few
definitions. _Inclination_ is every strong susceptibility of the will for
motives of a certain kind. _Passion_ is an inclination so strong that the
motives which excite it exercise a power over the will, which is stronger
than that of every possible motive that can oppose them; thus its mastery
over the will becomes absolute, and consequently with reference to it the
will is _passive_ or _suffering_. It must, however, be remarked here that
passions seldom reach the degree at which they fully answer to the
definition, but rather bear their name as mere approximations to it:
therefore there are then still counter‐motives which are able at least to
restrict their effect, if only they appear distinctly in consciousness.
The _emotion_ is just as irresistible, but yet only a passing excitement
of the will, by a motive which receives its power, not from a deeply
rooted inclination, but merely from the fact that, appearing suddenly, it
excludes for the moment the counter‐effect of all other motives, for it
consists of an idea, which completely obscures all others by its excessive
vividness, or, as it were, conceals them entirely by its too close
proximity, so that they cannot enter consciousness and act on the will,
whereby, therefore, the capacity for reflection, and with it _intellectual