Anything that is universal in human culture is likely to be contributing to parts of us that are vital for our existence.
I wouldn’t be an expert on Charles Darwin or his writings so I’m not sure if he examined this – but I believe that compassion must have a role in the evolution of our species.
Perhaps its role is simply survival – and is a totally selfish trait in that respect. For example we noted in the Chapter on Anthropology that reciprocity among hunter-gathering peoples has a survival role – and I suppose the same holds true for modern day reciprocity in business dealings.
And it can be argued that if we don’t reach out to people in pain then they will make trouble for us. Some wise people (such as saints, philosophers, religious leaders, gurus, etc.) copped on to this – perhaps unconsciously – and framed it into their life’s work and teaching.
If indeed compassion assists in the successful evolution of our species [1] I believe that its role is more spiritual than material. (I will return to this in the next Sub-Chapter when I discuss spirituality). There is something about it that lifts us above the ordinary, gives us a good feeling, and appeals to a part of us that we find very hard to describe and define.
And, like creativity, if we are in distress and we experience compassion we are attracted to it. We may realise that a part of us, perhaps, no-one has ever taken seriously will be heard.
We will feel safe to explore parts of ourselves that we are ashamed of or embarrassed about, or afraid of, or angry about – in the knowledge that the ear that listens will be compassionate.
Without compassion, relationship would not have evolved to the point where it is a necessary part of our psyche, and without relationship we wouldn’t have evolved and developed to be the kind of human family we recognise today.
Now given the amount of wars, violence, underhand dealings and troubles that there are in the world at any one time this is sometimes hard to believe – but I have read that one of the reasons that other humanoid species did not thrive was because they couldn’t get along with each other. And homosapiens – our crowd – did!
And to get along with each other we need compassion.
[1]. It is sometimes hard to imagine that we are evolving – but of course we are.