and, if we once begin to doubt of its reality, farewell relish and concern-an unhappy effect; for it will require more than an ordinary effort to restore the waking dream, and to make the reader conceive even the more probable incidents as passing in his presence. I never was an admirer of machinery in an epic poem, and I now find my taste justified by reason; the foregoing argument concluding still more strongly against imaginary beings, than against improbable facts: fictions of that nature may amuse by their novelty and singularity; but they never move the sympathetic passions, because they cannot impose on the mind any perception of reality. I appeal to the discerning reader, whether that observation be not applicable to the machinery of Tasso and of Voltaire: such machinery is not only in itself cold and uninteresting, but gives an air of fiction to the whole composition. A burlesque poem, such as the Lutrin or the Dispensary, may employ machinery with success; for these poems, though they assume the air of history, give entertainment chiefly by their pleasant and ludicrous pictures, to which machinery contributes: it is not the aim of such a poem to raise our sympathy; and for that reason a strict imitation of nature is not required. A poem professedly ludicrous, may employ machinery to great advantage; and the more extravagant the better.

124. Having assigned the means by which fiction commands our passions, what only remains for accomplishing our present task is to assign the final cause. I have already mentioned, that fiction, by means of language, has the command of our sympathy for the good of others. By the same means, our sympathy may also be raised for our own good. In the fourth section of the present chapter, it is observed, that examples both of virtue and of vice raise virtuous emotions; which becoming stronger by exercise, tend to make us virtuous by habit, as well as by principle. I now further observe, that examples confined to real events are not so frequent as without other means to produce a habit of virtue: if they be, they are not recorded by historians. It therefore shows great wisdom to form us in such a manner as to be susceptible of the same improvement from fable that we receive from genuine history. By that contrivance, examples to improve us in virtue may be multiplied without end no other sort of discipline contributes more to make virtue habitual, and no other sort is so agreeable in the application. I add another final cause with thorough satisfaction; because it shows that the Author of our nature is not less kindly provident for the happiness of his creatures, than for the regularity of their conduct The power that fiction hath over the mind affords an endless variety of refined amusements always at hand to employ a vacant hour.

123. One useful rule in criticism upon epic poetry, derived from the foregoing theory; -as to the incidents to be introduced.-Objections to the use of machinery in an epic poem. What is meant here by machinery.-What sort of poem may employ machinery to advantage.

such amusements are a fine resource in solitude; and, by cheering and sweetening the mind, contribute mightily to social happiness.

[To the above remarks of Lord Kames, it seems important to add, that they give but a partial, and what might prove a hurtful, view of an important subject. He gives no intimation that a large proportion of novels is adapted to corrupt the sentiments of the mind and the affections of the heart: he writes as if all novels were unexceptionable in their moral tendency; but since his day, nearly a century ago, it is painful to reflect what polluting streams of fiction nave flowed from the press. Hence Lord Kames' remarks must be taken as true only within certain limits-on the supposition that the works of fiction are of good moral tendency.

It is (says Dr. Beattie in his Moral Science) the duty of poets, and other writers of fiction, to cherish, by means of sympathy, in those who read them, those affections only which invigorate the mind and are favorable to virtue, as patriotism, valor, benevolence, piety, and the conjugal, parental, and filial charities. Scenes of exquisite distress, too long continued, enervate and overwhelm the soul; and those representations are still more blamable, which kindle licentious passion, or promote indolence, affectation, or sensuality. Of the multitude of novels now published, it is astonishing and most provoking to consider how few are not chargeable with one or other of these faults, or with them all in conjunction.

In another place he remarks further:-To contract a habit of reading romances is extremely dangerous. They who do so lose all relish for history, philosophy, and other useful knowledge; acquire a superficial and frivolous way of thinking, and never fail to form false notions of life, which come to be very hurtful to young people when they go out into the world. I speak not rashly, but with too much evidence, when I affirm, that many young persons of both sexes have, by reading romances, been ruined; and that many of the follies, and not a few of the crimes, now prevalent, may be traced to the same source.]

PART II.

EMOTIONS AND PASSIONS, AS PLEASANT AND PAINFUL, AGREEABLE AND DISAGREEABLE.—MODIFICATIONS OF THESE QUALITIES.

125. GREAT obscurity may be observed among writers with regard to the present point: particularly no care is taken to distinguish

124. The final cause (or design) of our being so constituted as to have our passions moved by fiction.--The good effects that may be secured by fiction.-Strictures upon Lord Kamos remarks.-Dr. Beattie's observations.

agreeable from pleasant, disagreeable from painful; or rather these terms are deemed synonymous. This is an error not at all venial in the science of ethics; as instances can and shall be given, o painful passions that are agreeable, and of pleasant passions that are disagreeable. These terms, it is true, are used indifferently in familiar conversation, and in compositions for amusement; but greater accuracy is required from those who profess to explain the passions. I shall endeavor to explain these terms by familiar examples. Viewing a fine garden, I perceive it to be beautiful or agreeable; and I consider the beauty or agreeableness as belonging to the object, or as one of its qualities. When I turn my attention from the garden to what passes in my mind, I am conscious of a pleasant emotion, of which the garden is the cause: the pleasure here is felt, as a quality, not of the garden, but of the emotion produced by it. I give an opposite example. A rotten carcass is disagreeable, and raises in the spectator a painful emotion: the disagreeableness is a quality of the object; the pain is a quality of the emotion produced by it. In a word, agreeable and disagreeable are qualities of the objects we perceive; pleasant and painful are qualities of the emotions we feel the former qualities are perceived as adhering to objects; the latter are felt as existing within us.

126. But a passion or emotion, besides being felt, is frequently made an object of thought or reflection: we examine it; we inquire into its nature, its cause, and its effects. In that view, like other objects, it is either agreeable or disagreeable. Hence clearly appear the different significations of the terms under consideration, as ap plied to passion; when a passion is termed pleasant or painful, we refer to the actual feeling; when termed agreeable or disagreeable, we refer to it as an object of thought or reflection; a passion is pleasant or painful to the person in whom it exists; it is agreeable or disagreeable to the person who makes it a subject of contemplation.

In the description of emotions and passions, these terms do not always coincide to make which evident, we must endeavor to ascertain, first, what passions and emotions are pleasant, what painful; and next, what are agreeable, what disagreeable. With respect to both, there are general rules, which, if I can trust to induction, admit not a single exception. The nature of an emotion or passion, as pleasant or painful, depends entirely on its cause: the emotion produced by an agreeable object is invariably pleasant; and the emotion produced by a disagreeable object is invariably painful. (See Part vii. of this chapter.) Thus a lofty oak, a generous action, a valuable discovery in art or science, are agreeable objects that invariably produce pleasant emotions. A stinking puddle, a

125. What distinction writers have failed to make.-The meaning of agreeable and disagreeable, pleasant and painful, illustrated by the instance of a fine garden sd of a rotten

carcass.

treacherous action, an irregular, ill-contrived edifice, being disagreea ble objects, produce painful emotions. Selfish passions are pleasant, for they arise from self, an agreeable object or cause. A social pas. sion directed upon an agreeable object is always pleasant; directed upon an object in distress, it is painful. (See Part vii. of this chapter.) Lastly, all dissocial passions, such as envy, resentment, malice, being caused by disagreeable objects, cannot fail to be painful.

127. A general rule for the agreeableness or disagreeableness of emotions and passions is a more difficult enterprise: it must be attempted, however. We have a sense of a common nature in every species of animals, particularly in our own; and we have a conviction that this common nature is right, or perfect, and that individuals ought to be made conformable to it. To every faculty, to every passion, and to every bodily member, is assigned a proper office and a due proportion: if one limb be longer than the other, or be dis proportioned to the whole, it is wrong and disagreeable: if a passion deviate from the common nature, by being too strong or too weak, it is also wrong and disagreeable: but as far as comformable to common nature, every emotion and every passion is perceived by us to be right, and as it ought to be; and upon that account it must appear agreeable. That this holds true in pleasant emotions and passions, will readily be admitted: but the painful are no less natural than the other; and therefore ought not to be an exception Thus the painful emotion raised by a monstrous birth or brutal action, is no less agreeable upon reflection, than the pleasant emotion raised by a flowing river or a lofty dome; and the painful passions of grief and pity are agreeable, and applauded by all the world.

128. Another rule more simple and direct for ascertaining the agreeableness or disagreeableness of a passion as opposed to an emotion, is derived from the desire that accompanies it. If the desire be to perform a right action in order to produce a good effect, the passion is agreeable: if the desire be to do a wrong action in order to produce an ill effect, the passion is disagreeable. Thus, passions as well as actions are governed by the moral sense. These rules by the wisdom of Providence coincide: a passion that is conformable to our common nature must tend to good; and a passion that deviates from our common nature must tend to ill.

This deduction may be carried a great way farther; but to avoid intricacy and obscurity, I make but one other step. A passion which, as aforesaid, becomes an object of thought to a spectator, may have the effect to produce a passion or emotion in him; for it is natural that a social being should be affected with the passions

126. Passions and emotions as objects of thought or reflection.-When a passion is termed pleasant or painful, and when agreeable or disagreeable.-On what the nature of an emotion as pleasant or painful depends. Illustrations.-Selfish passions.-Social pas sions.-Dissocial passions.

127. Rule for determining the agreeableness or disagreeableness of emotions and paz alous-Based on the sense of a common nature which we deem perfect or right.

of others. Passions or emotions thus generated, submit, in common with others, to the general law above mentioned, namely, that an agreeable object produces a pleasant emotion, and a disagreeable object a painful emotion. Thus the passion of gratitude, being to a spectator an agreeable object, produceth in him the pleasant passion of love to the grateful person; and malice being to a spectator a disagreeable object, produceth in him the painful passion of hatred to the malicious person.

129. We are now prepared for examples of pleasant passions that are disagreeable, and of painful passions that are agreeable. Self-love, as long as confined within just bourds, is a passion both pleasant and agreeable: in excess it is disagreeable, though it continues to be still pleasant. Our appetites are precisely in the same condition. Resentment, on the other hand, is, in every stage of the passion, painful; but it is not disagreeable unless in excess. Pity is always painful, yet always agreeable. Vanity, on the contrary, is always pleasant, yet always disagreeable. But however distinct these qualities are, they coincide, I acknowledge, in one class of passions: all vicious passions tending to the hurt of others, are equally painful and disagreeable.

The foregoing qualities of pleasant and painful, may be sufficient for ordinary subjects; but with respect to the science of criticism, it is necessary that we also be made acquainted with the several modifications of these qualities, with the modifications at least that make the greatest figure. Even at first view one is sensible, that the pleasure or pain of one passion differs from that of another: how distant the pleasure of revenge gratified from that of love!-so distant, as that we cannot without reluctance admit them to be any way related. That the same quality of pleasure should be so differently modified in different passions, will not be surprising, when we reflect on the boundless variety of agreeable sounds, tastes, and smells daily perceived. Our discernment reaches differences stil more minute, in objects even of the same sense: we have no difficulty to distinguish different sweets, different sours, and different bitters: honey is sweet, so is sugar, and yet the one never is mistaken for the other; our sense of smelling is sufficiently acute, to distinguish varieties in sweet-smelling flowers without end. With respect to passions and emotions, their differences as to pleasant and painful have no limits; though we want acuteness of feeling for the more delicate modifications. There is here an analogy between our internal and external senses: the latter are sufficiently acute for all the useful purposes of life, and so are the former. Some persons indeed, Nature's favorites, have a wonderful acuteness of sense, which to them unfolds many a delightful scene totally hid from vulgar

128. Another rule for ascertaining the agreeableness or disagreeableness cf a pas sion.-Bule for passions or emotions, generated by thinking of the passions or emotions In others.--Instances of gratitude and malice