The Pleasure of Mutual Sympathy

The Pleasure from Mutual Sympathy is not based on Self-Love, but from the similarity of the resonance of feelings

¹⁴ Regardless of the cause of sympathy, we are most pleased when other people have a fellow-feeling with our own emotions. We are shocked by the opposite.

Some people say that all our feelings arise from self-love. They think=

• that our pleasure and pain from fellow-feeling come from self love
• that man always needs the assistance of others, and this is why=
  • he rejoices whenever others adopt his own passions, as it ensures him of that assistance.
  • he grieves whenever others reject his passions, as it prevents his aid.

Pain and pleasure are always felt instantly. But neither of them are derived from self-interest.

• A man is mortified when no one laughs at his jokes, and happy when they laugh.

¹⁵ His pleasure does not all arise from a sympathy with their amusement. His pain does not all arise from his disappointment when they do not laugh.

After we have read a book so often, we can no longer enjoy reading it by ourselves. However, we can still enjoy reading it to a companion.

• To him, it has novelty.
  • We enter into his admiration for it, which we no longer have.

• By sympathy, his amusement enlivens our own.

On the contrary, we are vexed if the book does not entertain him.

But his amusement or nonamusement at the book is not the sole cause of our pleasure or pain. It is the sympathy or correspondence of the sentiments that causes the pleasure. It is the non-sympathy or noncorrespondence that causes pain. Sympathy thus enlivens joy and alleviates grief.

16 We are more anxious to communicate to our friends our disagreeable passions than our agreeable ones.

• We derive more satisfaction from their sympathy with our disagreeable passions than our agreeable ones.
• We are more shocked by the lack of sympathy.

¹⁷ We are relieved when we find someone we can communicate our sorrow to.

• We disburden some of our distress upon his sympathy.
• He shares our distress and feels a same kind of sorrow which we feel.
  • The sorrow he feels alleviates the weight that we feel.

On the contrary, the cruelest insult makes fun of our calamities.

• It is impolite if a man is not affected with the joy of his companions.
• But it is a gross inhumanity for him not to be serious when they tell him of their afflictions.

¹⁸ Love is an agreeable passion. Resentment is a disagreeable passion.

It is alright for our friends not to like what we like. But we expect them to resent what we resent.

They can avoid being friends to our other friends. But they can hardly avoid being enemies to our enemies. We quarrel with them if they become friends with our enemies.

Love and joy can satisfy the heart alone, but grief and resentment require sympathy more strongly .

¹⁹ People are pleased with our sympathy and hurt by lack of it. We are pleased when we are able to sympathize with him.

On the contrary, it is always disagreeable to be unable to sympathize with another.

• If a person’s misfortunes does not affect us, we call him weak because we cannot enter into his feelings.
• On the other hand, we disapprove of someone who is too happy with any little piece of good fortune. We call it levity and folly, because we cannot go along with it.
  • We even disapprove if our friend laughs loudly at a joke than we think is not so funny because we feel that we ourselves could not laugh at it as much.