His analysis of “Empfindsamkeit” is briefly as follows: “Empfindsamkeit ist die Empfänglichkeit zu Empfindnissen, in denen etwas Sittliches d. i. Freude oder Schmerz über etwas sittlich Gutes oder sittlich Böses, ist;” yet in common use the term is applied only to a certain high degree of such susceptibility. This sensitiveness is either in harmony or discord with the other powers of the body, especially with the reason: if equilibrium is maintained, this sensitiveness is a fair, worthy, beneficent capacity (Fähigkeit); if exalted over other forces, it becomes to the individual and to society the most destructive and baneful gift which refinement and culture may bestow. Campe proposes to limit the use of the word “Empfindsamkeit” to the justly proportioned manifestation of this susceptibility; the irrational, exaggerated development he would designate “überspannte Empfindsamkeit.” “Empfindelei,” he says, “ist Empfindsamkeit, die sich auf eine kleinliche alberne, vernunftlose und lächerliche Weise, also da äussert, wo sie nicht hingehörte.” Campe goes yet further in his distinctions and invents the monstrous word, “Empfindsamlichkeit” for the sentimentality which is superficial, affected, sham (geheuchelte). Campe’s newly coined word was never accepted, and in spite of his own efforts and those of others to honor the word “Empfindsamkeit” and restrict it to the commendable exercise of human sympathy, the opposite process was victorious and “Empfindsamkeit,” maligned and scorned, came to mean almost exclusively, unless distinctly modified, both what Campe designates as “überspannte Empfindsamkeit” and “Empfindelei,” and also the absurd hypocrisy of the emotions which he seeks to cover with his new word. Campe’s farther consideration contains a synopsis of method for distinguishing “Empfindsamkeit” from “Empfindelei:” in the first place through the manner of their incitement,—the former is natural, the latter is fantastic, working without sense of the natural properties of things. In this connection he instances as examples, Yorick’s feeling of shame after his heartless and wilful treatment of Father Lorenzo, and, in contrast with this, the shallowness of Sterne’s imitators who whimpered over the death of a violet, and stretched out their arms and threw kisses to the moon and stars. In the second place they are distinguished in the manner of their expression: “Empfindsamkeit” is “secret, unpretentious, laconic and serious;” the latter attracts attention, is theatrical, voluble, whining, vain. Thirdly, they are known by their fruits, in the one case by deeds, in the other by shallow pretension. In the latter part of his volume, Campe treats the problem of preventing the perverted form of sensibility by educative endeavor.
The word “Empfindsamkeit” was afterwards used sometimes simply as an equivalent of “Empfindung,” or sensation, without implication of the manner of sensing: for example one finds in the Morgenblatt[35] a poem named “Empfindsamkeiten am Rheinfalle vom Felsen der Galerie abgeschrieben.” In the poem various travelers are made to express their thoughts in view of the waterfall. A poet cries, “Ye gods, what a hell of waters;” a tradesman, “away with the rock;” a Briton complains of the “confounded noise,” and so on. It is plain that the word suffered a generalization of meaning.
A poetical expression of Campe’s main message is found in a book called “Winterzeitvertreib eines königlichen preussischen Offiziers.”[36] A poem entitled “Das empfindsame Herz” (p. 210) has the following lines:
“Freund, ein empfindsames Herz ist nicht für diese Welt,
Von Schelmen wird’s verlacht, von Thoren wirds geprellt,
Doch üb’ im Stillen das, was seine Stimme spricht.
Dein Lohn ist dir gewiss, nur hier auf Erden nicht.”
In a similar vein of protest is the letter of G. Hartmann[37] to Denis, dated Tübingen, February 10, 1773, in which the writer condemns the affected sentimentalism of Jacobi and others as damaging to morals. “O best teacher,” he pleads with Denis, “continue to represent these performances as unworthy.”
Möser in his “Patriotische Phantasien”[38] represents himself as replying to a maid-in-waiting who writes in distress about her young mistress, because the latter is suffering from “epidemic” sentimentalism, and is absurdly unreasonable in her practical incapacity and her surrender to her feelings. Möser’s sound advice is the substitution of genuine emotion. The whole section is entitled “Für die Empfindsamen.”
Knigge, in his “Umgang mit Menschen,” plainly has those Germans in mind who saw in Uncle Toby’s treatment of the fly an incentive to unreasonable emphasis upon the relations between man and the animal world, when, in the chapter on the treatment of animals, he protests against the silly, childish enthusiasm of those who cannot see a hen killed, but partake of fowl greedily on the table, or who passionately open the window for a fly.[39] A work was also translated from the French of Mistelet, which dealt with the problem of “Empfindsamkeit:” it was entitled “Ueber die Empfindsamkeit in Rücksicht auf das Drama, die Romane und die Erziehung.”[40] An article condemning exaggerated sentimentality was published in the Deutsches Museum for February, 1783, under the title “Etwas über deutsche Empfindsamkeit.”