Bergson: Empathy and Humility

While reading Henri Bergson's Time and Free Will (1889), I came across this wonderful page (captured above) that beautifully theorizes the process of empathy. Some highlights from the text:

"[A] new element soon comes in, the need of helping our fellow-men and of alleviating their suffering."

"True pity consists not so much in fearing suffering as in desiring it."

"The essence of pity is thus a need for self-abasement, an aspiration downward."

"The increasing intensity of pity thus consists in a qualitative progress, in a transition from repugnance to fear, from fear to sympathy, and from sympathy itself to humility."

This progression---from fear of suffering, to a desire for com-passion [to experience the passion/suffering of others for ourselves], to self-abasement, to an aspiration toward lowliness, to pure humility---resonates fully with a Catholic theology of the cross. I can't help but see traces of Bergson's Catholic leanings already here in his doctoral thesis…