Ever since Antiquity, the fact of joining in the suffering of others has given rise to two moral judgements. One is favourable, seeing compassion as a sign of love; the other is unfavourable and sees pity as a sign of contempt. But nowadays the refusal of compassion has shown itself to be characteristic of inhuman beings. How have we reached this point? We need to look into the genealogy of the process which has universalized the compassionate relationship, in order to understand how and why, in modern times, compassion has become the virtue of humanity par excellence.