when we either ſee it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive ſorrow from the ſorrow of others is a matter of fact too obvious to require any inſtances to prove it; for this ſentiment, like all the other original paſſions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous and humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the moſt exquiſite ſenſibilty. The greateſt ruffian, the moſt hardened violator of the laws of ſociety, is not altogether without it.
As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourſelves ſhould feel in the like ſituation. Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourſelves are at our eaſe, our ſenſes will never inform us of what he ſuffers. They never did and never can carry us beyond our own perſons, and it is by the imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his ſenſations. Neither can that faculty help us to this any other way, than by repreſenting to us what would be our own, if we were in his caſe. It is the impreſſions of our own ſenſes only, not thoſe of his, which our imaginations copy. By the imagination we place ourſelves enduring all the ſame torments, we enter as it were into his body and become in ſome meaſure him, and thence form ſome idea of his ſenſations, and even feel ſomething which, though weaker
