EMPATHY, a term used as the equivalent of the German Ein f uhlung, which is very difficult to translate. It is modelled on the word sympathy. The term is used with special (but not exclusive) reference to aesthetic experience. The most obvious example perhaps is that of the actor or singer when he feels the part he is performing or (better perhaps) reading or studying. Similarly with other works of art. One may, by a kind of intro jection, "feel oneself into" what one observes or contemplates. Whereas in empathy proper the observer assimilates himself to his aesthetic object, in animism he assimilates an inanimate object to himself. This latter process is much easier than the former ; and no doubt it happens often enough in aesthetic experience that the subject assimilates the aesthetic object to himself, though he may mean to assimilate himself for the time being to his object, to be sympathetic with it. See AESTHETICS.
See also T. Lipps, Aesthetik (1903) ; J. Volkelt, System der Aesthetik (1905, etc.) ; D. W. H. Parker, The Analysis of Art (1927).