Philosophy, is formed from the two Greek words ἀντί contrary, and πάθος passion. Literally taken, the word signifies incompatibility: but for the most part the term antipathy is not used to signify such incompatibilities as are merely phyletic; it is reserved to express the aversion which an animated or sensitive being feels at the real or ideal presence of particular objects. In this point of view, which is the light in which we at present consider the term, antipathy, in common language, signifies "a natural horror and detestation, an insuperable hatred, an involuntary aversion, which a sensitive being feels for some other object, whatever it is, though the person who feels this abhorrence is entirely ignorant of its cause, and can by no means account for it. Such is, they say, the natural and reciprocal hostility between the salamander and the tortoise; between the toad and the weasel; or between sheep and wolves. Such is the invincible aversion of particular persons against cats, mice, spiders, &c.; a prepossession which is sometimes so violent, as to make them faint at the sight of these animals. Of these and a thousand other antipathies the ancient naturalists, the schoolmen, and the vulgar, form so many legends; and relate them as certain facts, that they may demand an explication of them from the philosophers. But these fables begin with investigating whether such antipathies actually exist or not.

To explore the matter without prejudice, we shall find it necessary to abstract from the subjects of this dilapidation, 1. All such antipathies as are not after-mentioned; as that which is supposed to be felt by hens at the sound of an harp whose strings are made of a fox's bowels, between the salamander and tortoise, and Antipathies between the weasel and the toad. Nothing is less confirmed, or rather nothing is more false, than these facts, with which vulgar credulity and astonishment are amused and actuated: and though some of these antipathies should be ascertained, this would be no proof that the animals which feel them are not acquainted with their causes, according to their mode and proportion of knowledge; in which case it will be no longer the antipathy which we have defined.

2. We must abstract those antipathies which can be extinguished or removed at pleasure; those fictitious aversions, which certain persons feel, or pretend to feel, with affected airs, that they may appear more precise and fixed, or singularly and prodigiously elegant; that they may seem to have qualities so exquisitely fine, as require to be treated with peculiar delicacy. One who bestows any attention on the subject, would be astonished to find how many of these chimerical aversions there are, which are pretended, and passed upon the world by those who affect them as natural and unconquerable.

3. When we abstract those aversions the causes of which are known and evident; we shall be surprized after our deduction of these pretended antipathies from the general sum, how small, how inconsiderable, is the quantity of those which are conformable to our definition. Will any one pretend to call by the name of antipathy, those real, innate, and incontestable aversions which prevail between sheep and wolves? Their cause is obvious; the wolf devours the sheep, and subsists upon its victims; and every animal naturally flies with terror from pain or destruction; sheep ought therefore to regard wolves with horror, which for their nutrition tear and mangle the unresisting prey. From principles similar to this, arises that aversion which numbers of people feel against serpents; against small animals, such as reptiles in general, and the greatest number of insects. During the credulous and susceptible period of infancy, pains have been taken to impress on our minds the frightful idea that they are venomous; that their bite is mortal; that their sting is dangerous, productive of tormenting inflammations or tumours, and sometimes fatal: they have been represented to us as ugly and loathsome; as being, for that reason, pernicious to those who touch them; as poisoning those who have the misfortune to swallow them. These horrible prepossessions are industriously inculcated from our infancy; they are sometimes attended and supported by dismal tales, which are greedily imbibed, and indelibly engraven on our memories. It has been taught us both by precept and example, when others at their approach have assumed in our view the appearance of detestation and even of terror, that we should fly from them, that we should not touch them. Is it then wonderful (if our false impressions as to this subject have been corrected neither by future reflections nor experiments), that we should entertain, during our whole lives, an aversion for these objects, even when we have forgot the admonitions, the conversations, and examples, which have taught us to believe and apprehend them as noxious beings? and in proportion to the sensibility of our frame, in proportion as our nerves are irritable, our emotions at the sight of what we fear will be more violent, especially if they anticipate our Antipathy, our expectation, and seize us unprepared, though our ideas of what we have to fear from them are the most confused and indistinct imaginable. To explain these facts, is it necessary to fly to the exploded subterfuge of occult qualities inherent in bodies, to latent relations productive of antipathies, of which no person could ever form an idea?

It is often sufficient to influence a person who had formerly no aversion for an object, if he lives with some other associate who gives himself up to such capricious panics; the habit is insensibly contracted to be agitated with disagreeable emotions at the presence of an object which had been formerly beheld with indifference and cold blood. I was acquainted (says the author of the article Antipathy in the French Encyclopédie) with a person of a very sound understanding, whom thunder and lightning by no means terrified; nay, to whom the spectacle appeared magnificent and the sound majestic: yet to a mind thus feebly fortified against the infectious terror, no more was necessary than spending the summer with a friend in whom the appearance of lightning excited the strongest emotions, and whom the remotest clap of thunder affected with extravagant paroxysms, to become timid in excess at the approach of thunder; nor could he ever afterwards surmount the fear which it inspired. The frightful stories of dogs and cats, which have killed their masters, or which have given them mortal wounds, are more than sufficient to inspire a timorous person with aversion against these animals; and if the olfactory nerves of such a person be delicate, he will immediately discover the smell of them in a chamber: disturbed by the apprehension which these effluvia excite in his mind, he gives himself up to the most violent uneasiness, which is tranquillized when he is assured that the animal is no longer in the room. If by chance, in the search which is made to calm the uneasiness of this timorous person, one of these creatures should at last be discovered, every one presently exclaims, A miracle! and admits the reality of antipathies into his creed; whilst all this is nothing but the effect of a childish fear, founded on certain confused and exaggerated ideas of the hazard which one may run with these animals. The antipathy which some people entertain against cats, though they are eaten by others with pleasure, arises from nothing but the fear of serpents, to which these fishes are in some degree similar. There are likewise other antipathies which do not originate in the imagination, but arise from some natural incongruity; such as we often remark in children, for particular kinds of victuals, with which their taste is not offended, but which their stomachs cannot digest, and which are therefore digested as soon as swallowed.

To what then are those antipathies, of which we have heard so much, reducible? Either to legendary tales; or to aversions against objects which we believe dangerous; or to a childish terror of imaginary perils; or to a delirium, of which the cause is dilated; or to a ridiculous affectation of delicacy; or to an infirmity of the stomach; in a word, to a real or pretended reluctance for things which are either invited, or supposed to be inveterate, with qualities hurtful to us. Too much care cannot be taken in preventing, or regulating, the antipathies of children; in familiarizing them with objects of every kind; in discovering to them, without emotion, such as are dangerous; in teaching them the Antipathy means of defence and security, or the methods of clearing their noxious influence; and, when the rational Antipathy powers are matured by age, in reflecting on the nature of those objects which we fear, in ascertaining what has been told concerning their qualities, or in vigorously operating upon our own dispositions to overcome those vain repugnancies which we may feel. See Sympathy, which is the opposite of Antipathy.

Ethics, hatred, aversion, repugnancy. Hatred is entertained against persons; aversion, and antipathy, indiscriminately against persons or things; and repugnancy, against actions alone.

Hatred is more voluntary than aversion, antipathy, or repugnancy. These last have greater affinity with the animal constitution. The causes of antipathy are less known than those of aversion. Repugnancy is less permanent than either the one or the other. We hate a vicious character, we feel aversion to its exertions: we are affected with antipathy for certain persons at first sight; there are some affairs which we transact with repugnancy—Hatred calumniates; aversion keeps us at a distance from certain persons: antipathy makes us detest them; repugnancy hinders us from imitating them.