rough blocks of marble that contain his beloved statues. For them the world will doubtless have always a plenty of blocks.
These are not the vulgarly malevolent. Yet they would be disconsolate altogether if evil were to cease. They regard misery as their special property; hence they would be very much disappointed to hear that Paradise had come again, and that misery had been abolished. And we are speaking now, not of the professional enthusiasm that must make the physician interested in the diseases that he studies, but of the pure delight in pity that distinguishes certain unprofessional people whose lives would be almost utterly empty of all joy were their neighbors not subject to serious calamities. Surely it is not this sort of pity that overcomes the illusion of selfishness. Rather does such pity well illustrate that illusion.
IX.
Sympathy then, as an emotion, is not always altruistic, but frequently very selfish. It does not always overthrow, but often strengthens, selfishness. And so deceitful an emotion cannot be trusted with the office of giving moral insight. In so far as pity ever does involve the detection of an illusion of selfishness, we may have occasion to speak of it hereafter. For on that side, Schopenhauer’s thought still looks attractive. But if we view pity with reference not to insight but to emotion, if we ask whether a given act was unselfish because it was pitiful, then we can already answer that, in so far as unselfishness consti-
