This chapter is a preliminary meditation about compassion and where it has "fit" historically into our scientific investigations of nature，including and especially human nature. The author begins by asking in particular whether there are certain things in the history of the life and mind sciences that can help us begin to understand better why it feels normal and appropriate for science to study human violence，but less common，even less respectable，for it to study human compassion. Did we just not yet fully "get around" to this problem yet，or are there deeper reasons for this relative paucity in our efforts? The answer that is explored in this chapter has two parts--one methodological and one metaphysical--but both of them concern how poorly compassion，as a phenomenon，"fits" into our modern understanding of what we think it means for science to study human beings as part of nature.
