ANTIPATHY, in PllYSIOLOGY, a natural aversion felt by any sentient being at the real or supposed pre sence of particular objects. It is compounded of the Greek words ZGYTI, against, and passion, and stands directly opposed to sympathy, or fellow-feeling. Whe ther or not such a principle as this has a real existence in animated life; or whether the aversions which have been commonly ascribed to inherent and instinctive an tipathies, cannot be otherwise more rationally and satis factorily accounted for, is a question on which physiolo gists and moralists arc yet in some measure divided.
If we consult the ancient writers, we shall find them almost uniformly maintaining the reality of natural anti pathies, or of those involuntary and insuperable aver sions which a sensitive being is supposed to feel at the presence of certain objects, even without being aware of the cause of this aversion, or of the precise nature of the objects by which it may be excited. Among animals, many examples of this unaccountable repug nance are quoted, such as the supposed antipathy be tween the toad and the weasel, and between the sala mander and the tortoise. In the human race, the most noted instances of antipathy are found in the peculiar aversion which some people feel to cats, serpents, spi ders, mice, eels, and certain other animals, as well as to certain kinds of food, as cheese, pork, honey, &c. This unaccountable repugnance is said to exist in so strong a degree, as that a painful feeling will be excited by the presence of these objects, even though unknown to the person who feels the antipathy, who is led only by the disagreeable sensations he experiences, to suspect that lie is in a neighbourhood so unsuitable to his pecu liar constitution.
With respect to many of these cases of supposed an tipathy, they rest upon authority which is extremely doubtful, or rather altogether fabulous. What, for ex ample, shall we say of the instances of this kind of re pugnance mentioned by Mersenne, who gravely assures ns, that the sound of a drum made of wolf's skin, will break another of sheep's skin, and that hens will fly at the sound of a harp strung with fox-gut string ? Yet these stories are treated with attention by Mr Boyle, who himself tells us of a lady, who had an antipathy to honey, scarcely less remarkable. Her physician, de sirous of proving that this was the mere effect of imagi nation, mixed a little honey in a plaster she had occa sion to make use of; but he soon repented of the expe riment, on witnessing the deleterious effects which en sued, and which could not be obviated till the plaster was removed.
Such narratives we are disposed to treat as altogether fabulous ; and we do not pay much more regard to the asserted antipathy between the toad and the weasel, and between the salamander and the tortoise. That there is a natural antipathy between sheep and wolves, (anothe• instance sometimes adduced,) there is no reason to dis pute, because this can be very satisfactorily accounted for, by the dread which the animal preyed upon necessa rily feels of that which makes it a prey. But in these examples, where we have recourse to a latent principle of aversion for which no reason can be assigned, there is good reason to prove, before we admit of the reality of the fact. Some philosophers, indeed, tell us, that an animal body is to be considered as a kind of harpsichord, of which the nerves are the strings. These nerves, differing in tension in different bodies, occasion a dif ferent vibration from the same external cause ; inso much, that what is agreeable to one may be painful to another; and that which produces sympathy in one in dividual, may in another excite antipathy. This theory is at least so far founded in truth, that the nerves of one person are much more easily affected than those of another ; and may at one time be pained by what, in most cases, is merelyeindifferent. Thus the scratching with a knife on a plate, will set a delicate person's teeth on edge ; and we cannot well question the authority of Mr Boyle, when he assures us, that an ingenious domestic of his own, would have his gums bleed at the tearing of brown paper ; and that he himself had a kind of shiver in at the repeating of two verses in Lucan. The fact r corded by Dr Mather is somewhat more dubious, of a young lady who would faint on seeing any one cut his nails with a knife, although she felt no emotion on see ing them cut with a pair of scissars. Such examples, if they really be facts, are sufficiently accounted for by a high degree of nervous sensibility, without having re course, with the peripatetics, to any occult qualities in herent in bodies.