Abstract

In this chapter the naturalist origins of sympathy are discussed, with sympathy first used to connote the relation between the human body and soul. The Stoics appear to have expanded this body-and-soul relationship, giving sympathy its broadest possible scope, making it into a feature of the natural world. According to the Stoics, it is because of the soul that pervades all matter that the world itself and everything in it are in a state of interconnectedness. Although the modern sense of sympathy as common feeling is not explicitly made in this context, even here the Stoics can be said to have prefigured the modern sense: their view that human beings familiarize themselves with the world through circles of “sympathy” would prove to be a source of inspiration for later thinkers.