general paffion, the idea of fome focial qualities, which direct and heighten the appetite which he has in common with all other animals; and as he is not defigned like them to live at large, it is fit that he should have something to create a preference, and fix his choice; and this in general fhould be fome fenfible quality; as no other can fo quickly, fo powerfully, or fo furely produce its effect. The object therefore of this mixed passion, which we call love, is the beauty of the sex. Men are carried to the fex in general, as it is the fex, and by the common law of nature; but they are attached to particulars by perfonal beauty. I call beauty a focial quality; for where women and men, and not only they, but when other animals give us a fense of joy and pleasure in beholding them (and there are many that do fo), they inspire us with fentiments of tenderness and affection towards their perfons; we like to have them near us, and we enter willingly into a kind of relation with them, unless we should have strong reasons to the contrary. But to what end, in many cafes, this was defigned, I am unable to difcover; for I fee no greater reafon for a connection between man and several animals who are attired in so engaging a manner, than between him and fome others who entirely want this attraction, or poffefs it in a far weaker degree. But it is probable, that Providence did not make even this distinction, but with a view to fome great end, though we cannot perceive diftinctly what it is, as his wifdom is not our wifdom, nor our ways his ways. SECT. THE fecond branch of the focial paffions is that which administers to fociety in general. With regard to this, I observe, that fociety, merely as fociety, without any particular heightenings, gives us no pofitive pleasure in the enjoyment; but abfolute and entire folitude, that is, the total and perpetual exclufion from all fociety, is as great a positive: pain as can almost be conceived. Therefore in the balance between the pleasure of general society, and the pain of abfolute folitude, pain is the predominant idea. But the pleasure of any particular focial enjoyment outweighs very confiderably the uneafiness caused by the want of that particular enjoyment; fo that the strongest fenfations relative to the habitudes of particular fociety, are fenfations of pleasure. Good company, lively converfations, and the endearments of friendship, fill the mind with great pleasure; a temporary folitude, on the other hand, is itself agreeable. This may perhaps prove that we are creatures defigned for contemplation as well as action; fince folitude as well as fociety has its pleasures; as from the former obfervation we may difcern, that an entire life of folitude contradicts the purposes of our being, fince death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror. SECT. XII. SYMPATHY, IMITATION, AND AMBITION, UNDER this denomination of society, the paffions are of a complicated kind, and branch out into a variety of forms agreeable to that variety of ends they are to ferve in the great chain of fociety. The three principal links in this chain are fympathy, imitation, and ambition. SECT. IT is by the first of these paffions that we enter into the concerns of others; that we are moved as they are moved, and are never fuffered to be indifferent spectators of almost any thing which men can do or fuffer. For fympathy must be confidered as a fort of fubftitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many refpects as he is affected: fo that this paffion may either partake of the nature of thofe which regard felf-preservation, and turning upon pain may be a fource of the fublime; or it may turn upon ideas of pleafure; and then whatever has been said of the focial affections, whether they regard fociety in general, or only fome particular modes of it, may be applicable here. It is by this principle chiefly that poetry, painting, and other affecting arts, transfuse their paffions from one breast to another, and are often capable of grafting a delight on wretchedness, mifery, and death itself. It is a common obfervation, that objects which in the reality would fhock, are in tragical, and fuch like representations, the source of a very high species of pleasure. This taken as a fact, has been the cause of much reasoning. The fatisfaction has been commonly attributed, first, to the comfort we receive in confidering that fo melancholy a ftory is no more than a fiction; and next, to the contemplation of our own freedom from the evils which we fee reprefented, I am afraid it is a practice much too common in enquiries of this nature, to attribute the cause of feelings which merely arife from the mechanical VOL. I. ftructure Р ftructure of our bodies, or from the natural frame and conftitution of our minds, to certain conclufions of the reasoning faculty on the objects prefented to us; for I fhould imagine, that the influence of reafon in producing our paffions is nothing near fo extensive as it is commonly believed. SECT. XIV. THE EFFECTS OF SYMPATHY IN THE DISTRESSES OF OTHERS. то O examine this point concerning the effect of tragedy in a proper manner, we must previously confider how we are affected by the feelings of our fellow-creatures in circumftances of real diftrefs. I am convinced we have a degree of delight, and that no fmall one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others; for let the affection be what it will in appearance, if it does not make us fhun fuch objects, if on the contrary it induces us to approach them, if it makes us dwell upon them, in this case I conceive we must have a delight or pleasure of some species or other in contemplating objects of this kind. Do we not read the authentic hiftories of fcenes of this nature with as much pleafure as romances or poems, where the incidents are fictitious? The profperity of no empire, nor the grandeur of no king, can so agreeably affect in the reading, as the ruin of the state of Macedon, and the diftrefs of its unhappy prince. Such a catastrophe touches us in history as much as the destruction of Troy does in fable. Our delight, in cafes of this kind, is very greatly heightened, if the sufferer be fome excellent perfon who finks under an unworthy for tune. tune. Scipio and Cato are both virtuous characters; but we are more deeply affected by the violent death of the one, and the ruin of the great cause he adhered to, than with the deserved triumphs and uninterrupted prosperity of the other; for terror is a paffion which always produces delight when it does not prefs too close; and pity is a paffion accompanied with pleasure, because it arifes from love and focial affection. Whenever we are formed by nature to any active purpose, the paffion which animates us to it, is attended with delight, or a pleasure of some kind, let the subject-matter be what it will; and as our Creator has defigned' we should be united by the bond of sympathy, he has strengthened that bond by a proportionable delight; and there most where our sympathy is most wanted, in the diftreffes of others. If this paffion was fimply painful, we would shun with the greatest care all perfons and places that could excite fuch a paffion; as some, who are so far gone in indolence as not to endure any strong impreffion, actually do. But the cafe is widely different with the greater part of mankind; there is no spectacle we so eagerly pursue, as that of fome uncommon and grievous calamity; fo that whether the misfortune is before our eyes, or whether they are turned back to it in history, it always touches with delight. This is not an unmixed delight, but blended with no fmall uneafinefs. The delight we have in fuch things, hinders us from shunning fcenes of mifery; and the pain we feel, prompts us to relieve ourselves in relieving those who fuffer; and all this antecedent to any reasoning, by an instinct that works us to its own purposes without our concurrence. |