SYMPATHY, according to Dr Jackson, relates to the operations of the affections of the mind, to the operations of the imagination, and to the affections of the external senses.
1. The passions and affections of the mind produce in the body different sensations and impressions, and, as sympathies of consciousness, determine in general the spirits to those parts which labour most, or are most apt to be affected. Thus fear and anger determine to the heart; lust to the eyes, &c.; joy, pity, wonder, and the like, to the head.
The passions and affections have been said to impress and act upon the body, in the following manner: "1. Fear causeth paleness, trembling, the standing of the hair upright, starting, and screeching. 2. Grief and pain causeth sighing, sobbing, groaning, screaming, and roaring; they also cause tears, distorting of the face, grinding of the teeth, and sweating. 3. Joy causeth a cheerfulness and vigour in the eyes, singing, leaping, dancing, and sometimes tears. 4. Anger produces paleness in some, and the going and coming of the colour in others; also trembling in some, swelling, foaming at the mouth, stamping, and bending of the fist. 5. Slight, displeasure, or dislike, causes shaking of the head, frowning, and knitting of the brows. 6. Shame causeth blushing, and casting down of the eyes. 7. Pity causes sometimes tears, and a flexion or cast of the eyes aside. 8. Wonder causeth astonishment, and an immovable posture of the body, casting up of the eyes to heaven, and lifting up of the hands. 9. Laughing, though hardly to be considered as a passion, since it is produced by an affection of the mind, causeth a dilatation of the mouth and lips; a continued expulsion of the breath; with a loud noise, which maketh the interjection of laughing, shaking of the breast and sides, and running of the eyes with water, if it be violent and continued. 10. Lust causes a flagrancy in the eyes, and priapism."
The affections of the mind of one person will often work upon the spirits of many. Thus whole companies are sometimes disposed to be sad and melancholy, or merry and jovial, when any one is present much inclined to either of those states of mind; and it has been observed, that old people, who have loved the company of the young, and have been conversant continually with them, have generally lived long. But young people must not conclude from this, that the company and conversation of the grave and old will operate upon their living and sensitive principle, thro' the affections of their mind, and dispose them to be short-lived. On the contrary, by thus improving their understanding, they will be more enabled to fortify their constitution and resist the ravages of youthful indulgence.
It may also be further observed, that those tender sympathetic affections which lay hold of the mind, at the representation of theatrical performances, originate from the same principle, while they are to be considered as the surest test of just execution in the actor, and of the expressive language of the author. Indeed all stage-effect depends on sympathy.
The affections of the mind make the spirits more powerful and active, especially those which manifest themselves by the eyes. Two in particular may be named, love and envy. As sympathies of consciousness, their operations are more easily felt than described. Though opposite in their nature, they are equally violent in obtaining their particular ends. The one can
no more suffer indifference and disappointment, than Sympathy; the other contempt and haughtiness.
It has been said, that the passions of the mind are occasionally infective, particularly some of them. Thus fear and shame are sometimes very suddenly so. We frequently may have occasion to see, that the flitting of one will make another ready to start. Again, when one man is out of countenance in company, others will often blush in his behalf. However, the serious passions may surely be so under the control of reason as to resist infection, whatever may be the case of temporary, muscular, or nervous attraction.
2. Our author is inclined to think, that a connection between the affections and sensations of the female mind and uterus is very materially concerned in the process of generation, and probably can alone give efficacy to those actions and impressions subservient to conception, through the sympathizing affections of the mind.
One of the first medical philosophers of the present time, he observes, is of opinion that the mother has always the powers and principles of fashioning her child within herself, but that they are not roused to action without the stimulating influence of the male. The principles that must be immediately concerned are the sentient and living; but it is through the influence of the mental principle that the form and image of the embryo is stamped.
With respect to the depravity and force of the imagination in the production of sympathies, they always operate most upon "weak minds and spirits, and therefore most on women, superstitious and fearful persons, sick people, children, and young creatures." "Their effects, however, sometimes fail to appear, because they are encountered and overcome by the mind and spirit before they work any manifest effects."
Such effects are obviated upon the same principle which establishes the prevention of bodily disease: "for in infection and contagion from body to body (as, for example, during the plague), the miasma may be received; but from the strength and good disposition of the body, it is expelled and wrought out before it has had sufficient time to form the disease."
It has been said, and many are of the opinion, that the force of imagination doth often forward the end proposed. Thus, for instance, it has been put as a question, "Whether a man, when he constantly and strongly believes that such a thing shall be (as that such a one will love him, and the like), helps any thing to the effecting the thing desired?" Certainly not in the manner which has been advanced, namely, "by a secret operation on the spirit of another." If he succeeds, it is either because he persevered, or because his perseverance and earnestness (and not any occult operation) makes him at length be attended to.
There is not a doubt but the force of imagination often gives energy to our actions. It may, however, unless we are much on our guard, easily delude us aside from reason. It has been the tree which has yielded the fruits of superstition in former times, and which has often fed the human mind with the most extravagant notions of sympathy. Sympathies of this kind, such as the power of charms, and the like, are now
Sympathy, now pretty generally exploded.
3. The five principal senses, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling, and seeing, are conscious of a sympathetic impression from odious objects. "1. A disagreeable sound will set the teeth on edge, and make all the body shiver. 2. The swallowing of a nauseous medicine will be attended with a shaking of the head and neck. 3. Disagreeable smells produce nearly the same effect, which are less perceived, because there is a remedy at hand by stopping the nose. 4. If you come suddenly out of the sun into the shade, the sense of feeling is disturbed by a chillness or shivering of the whole body. 5. And even sudden darkness produces a propensity to shivering."
There is a very apparent reason why a sympathy should take place between the eyes. Hence their motions are synchronous. It may be said, that custom and habit dispose the eyes to move one and the same way; "for when one eye moveth towards the nose, the other eye moveth from the nose."
Though the eyes are by nature prone to move in concert, custom will, however, destroy this natural consent, and produce the contrary. Thus some people can squint when they will. Our author therefore gives this caution to mothers and nurses: "Let them not suffer infants to sit with a candle placed behind them; for both their eyes will dispose to move outwards, as affecting to see the light of the candle, which may bring on the habit of squinting."
It appears as a quality in the senses of hearing and seeing, "that the instrument of each separate sense has a sympathy and similitude to that which giveth the reflection." Thus it has been observed, "that the eye will sympathize with a crystal glass or water, and the ear with caves and such hollow places as are suited to report echo."
Sympathies have been compared to unisons of sound in music. Unisons of sound produce agreeable sympathetic feelings; the reverse produce disagreeable feelings. "All concords and discords of music are (no doubt) sympathies and antipathies of sound." Moreover, "they are said to work as well by report of sound as by motion."
The sense of feeling may be disturbed by any uncommon, though apparently slight, irritation. Thus tickling the sides or soles of the feet will cause laughter; and again, tickling the nostrils will raise sneezing, and on a sudden wonderfully increase the secretion of tears. Both these operations, as sympathies, tend to remove both cause and effect, "by producing a sudden emission of the spirits," and the expulsion (if there should be any) of the offending matter.
The most agreeable as well as odious objects operate in a secondary way, in producing those sympathetic impressions and actions which they commonly give rise to. An increased secretion of saliva often takes place at the sight of a favourite dish: and the running of water from a bottle, or otherwise, will sometimes affect individuals of a particular idiosyncrasy, with an involuntary propensity to void urine.
Many have attempted to account for the remarkable sympathy which takes place between parts of the body seemingly in a great measure unconnected with each other. Most have supposed that the sympa-
thy took place through the brain; that the extremities of the nerves conveying a disagreeable or painful sensation to the medullary part of the brain, affected some part of its fibres adjacent to or connected with the origin of the nerves distributed to some other parts of the body; whence the latter become also affected, and of consequence that part of the body to which they are distributed. In a late treatise †, however, Dr Kirkland has endeavoured to explode this theory, and to establish another. He denies that either the medullary part of the brain or of the nerves consists, as has been commonly supposed, of fibres. No man, he says, ever saw the extremity of any nerve; nor are any fibres, distinct from blood-vessels, to be seen even by a solar microscope in the medullary substance of the brain or inside of a nerve. He asserts, that the medulla of the brain is a mere mucus, which totally, or almost totally, evaporates with the heat of boiling water, or even in the heat of the common atmosphere in the shade; that this mucus is continued through the nerves, and by them spread out on the muscles, where it appears in its proper form, namely that of a fine transparent mucus. This he proves from observing, that though a muscle may be irritated, either by pricking it or the nerve above it, yet if the mucus which lies on the surface be previously wiped off, no such irritation will take place. The nerves then, according to our author, are only designed to convey this mucus to every part of the body, that, as the brain is the fountain of life, every part may share in the common life of the whole. Hence he is of opinion, that the nervous sympathy does not act from one part of the body through the brain to another; but from one part directly to another by means of the mucus, or substance similar to the brain, with which all the muscles are covered.
Dr Monro, in his observations on the structure and functions of the nervous system, gives it as his opinion, that the nerves are not entirely formed out of the substance of the brain, but receive a considerable addition of matter as they pass through the body; and that the nerves have a peculiar energy of their own independent of the brain. He is also of opinion, that the rest of the brain which is not sent out in nerves serves as a medium between the living principle and the other parts of the body; and that the opposite sides of the encephalon are joined by bundles of fibres: "so that (says he) we seem in a certain degree to perceive the cause of the sufferance of all the parts of the nervous system with that of any one part of it, or of the general sympathy of the nerves."