not condemned to the flames by fanatical priests, as
the lycanthropes were in the Middle Ages.

CHAPTER IV--SYMPATHY

Imitation--compassion--sympathy, these are imperfect designations for a
common bond of union among human beings--for an instinct which connects
individuals with the general body, which embraces with equal force reason
and folly, good and evil, and diminishes the praise of virtue as well as
the criminality of vice. In this impulse there are degrees, but no
essential differences, from the first intellectual efforts of the infant
mind, which are in a great measure based on imitation, to that morbid
condition of the soul in which the sensible impression of a nervous
malady fetters the mind, and finds its way through the eye directly to
the diseased texture, as the electric shock is propagated by contact from
body to body. To this instinct of imitation, when it exists in its
highest degree, is united a loss of all power over the will, which occurs
as soon as the impression on the senses has become firmly established,
producing a condition like that of small animals when they are fascinated
by the look of a serpent. By this mental bondage morbid sympathy is
clearly and definitely distinguished from all subordinate degrees of this
instinct, however closely allied the imitation of a disorder may seem to
be to that of a mere folly, of an absurd fashion, of an awkward habit in
speech and manner, or even of a confusion of ideas. Even these latter
imitations, however, directed as they are to foolish and pernicious
objects, place the self-independence of the greater portion of mankind in
a very doubtful light, and account for their union into a social whole.
Still more nearly allied to morbid sympathy than the imitation of
enticing folly, although often with a considerable admixture of the
latter, is the diffusion of violent excitements, especially those of a
religious or political character, which have so powerfully agitated the
nations of ancient and modern times, and which may, after an incipient
compliance, pass into a total loss of power over the will, and an actual
disease of the mind. Far be it from us to attempt to awaken all the
various tones of this chord, whose vibrations reveal the profound secrets
which lie hid in the inmost recesses of the soul. We might well want
powers adequate to so vast an undertaking. Our business here is only
with that morbid sympathy by the aid of which the dancing