In the course of his address, Sir Everard Fraser observed that re-prospect of life brought into chief prominence the value of sympathy, that word which in Confucius's opinion was the only single sufficient guide through the labyrinth of life. The ideograph used in this passage of the Chinese Classics was often translated by the harsh word "reciprocity," redolent political economy and other dismal sciences. It was made up of the signs for "like, as" and for "heart, mind." Could any device better render our familiar ''fellow—feeling?' And when it was added that in common speech and writing today the same word had come to mean "to forgive," it would give an inkling of how similar were mental processes in China and at Home. The Chinese had apprehended the universal truth that without understanding, appreciation of conditiona, there can be no forgiveness.
After interesting references to attempts by philosophers to trace sympathy to its source, the speaker said it would be observed that the modern doctors agreed with the genius of the Chinese language that understanding was presupposed in sympathy. The extension of fellow-feeling from one's kin to all mankind, and indeed to all living creatures, was a fence which the philosophers had found hard to negotiate. The chief obstacle to a widening of sympathy was that one's shibboleths are neither of interest nor value to most people we meet. The shock of this discovery was apt to dry up all kindly feeling to "outsiders," as in his haste a young man would classify them, and it might be long before he came to perceive that he was equally uncongenial to them, and for sound reasons. It was a slow but sure process by which the angles of self were rubbed down in life's mill. Understanding bred sympathy, but more was needed if we were to sympathize with distant peoples and their doings and sufferings.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.