relation to the fine arts only, that qualification seems essential; and there it is termed delicacy of tafie.

Should an author of fuch a rafte attempt to defcribe all thofe varieties in pleasant and painful emotions which he himself feels, he would foon meet an invincible obftacle in the poverty of language: a people must be thoroughly refined, before they invent words for expreffing the more delicate feelings; and for that reason, no known tongue hitherto has reached that perfection. We must therefore reft fatisfied with an explanation of the more obvious modifications.

In forming a comparison between pleasant paffions of different kinds, we conceive fome of them to be grofs, fome refined. Those pleasures of external sense that are felt as at the organ of sense, are conceived to be corporeal, or grofs the pleasures of the eye and the ear are felt to be internal; and for that reafon are conceived to be more pure and refined.:

:

The focial affections are conceived by all to be more refined than the selfish. Sympathy and humanity are univerfally esteemed the fineft temper of mind; and for that reafon, the prevalence of the focial affections in the progrefs of fociety, is held to be a refinement in our nature. A favage knows little of focial affection, and therefore is not

See the Introduction.

qualified

qualified to compare selfish and focial pleafure; but a man, after acquiring a high relish for the latter, lofes not thereby a taste for the former: he is qualified to judge, and he will give preference to focial pleasures' as more sweet and refined. In fact they maintain that character, not only in the direct feeling, but also when we make them the fubject of reflection: the focial paffions are far more agreeable than the selfish, and rife much higher in our esteem.

There are differences not lefs remarkable among the painful paffions. Some are voluntary, fome involuntary: the pain of the gout is an example of the latter; grief, of the former, which in fome cafes is fo voluntary as to reject all confolation. One pain foftens the temper, pity is an inftance: one tends to render us favage and cruel, which is the cafe of revenge. I value myself upon fympathy: I hate and despise myself for envy.

Social affections have an advantage over the felfish, not only with refpect to pleasure as above explained, but alfo with refpect to pain. The pain of an affront, the pain of want, the pain of disappointment, and a thousand other selfish pains, are cruciating and tormenting, and tend to a habit of peevishness and difcontent. Social pains have a very different tendency: the pain of fympathy, for example, is not only voluntary, but foftens my temper, and raises me in my own efteem. Refined manners, and polite behaviour, muft VOL. I.

H

not be deemed altogether artificial: men who, inured to the sweets of fociety, cultivate humanity, find an elegant pleasure in preferring others, and making them happy, of which the proud, the felfifh, scarce have a conception.

Ridicule, which chiefly arises from pride, a selfish paffion, is at beft but a grofs pleasure a people, it is true, muft have emerged out of barbarity before they can have a tafte for ridicule; but it is too rough an entertainment for the polished and refined. Cicero difcovers in Plautus a happy talent for ridicule, and a peculiar delicacy of wit: but Horace, who made a figure in the court of Auguftus, where tafte was confiderably purified, declares against the lowness and roughness of that author's raillery. Ridicule is banifhed France, and is lofing ground in England.

Other modifications of pleafant paffions will be occafionally mentioned hereafter. Particularly, the modifications of high and low are to be handled in the chapter of grandeur and fublimity; and the modifications of dignified and mean, in the chapter of dignity and grace.

TIONS

Part III. EMOTIONS AND PASSIONS.

PART III.

115

Interrupted Existence of Emotions and Paffions:
Their Growth and Decay.

WEre it the nature of an emotion to continue,

like color and figure, in its prefent ftate till
varied by fome operating caufe, the condition
of man would be deplorable: it is ordered wifely,
that emotions fhould more refemble another attri-
bute of matter, namely, motion, which requires
the conftant exertion of an operating caufe, and
ceases when the cause is withdrawn. An emotion
may fubfift while its caufe is prefent; and when its
cause is removed, may fubfift by means of an
idea, though in a fainter manner: but the mo-
ment another thought breaks in and engroffes
the mind, the emotion is gone, and is no longer
felt if it return with its caufe, or an idea of
its caufe, it again vanifheth with them when
other thoughts crowd in. The reafon is, that
an emotion or paffion is connected with the per-s
ception or idea of its cause, fo intimately as not
to have any independent exiftence: a ftrong paf-
fion, it is true, hath a mighty influence to detain
its caufe in the mind; but not fo as to detain it
for ever, because a fucceffion of perceptions or
ideas is unavoidable. Further, even while a

See this point explained afterward, chap. 9.

1

paffion fubfifts, it feldom continues long in the fame tone, but is fucceffively vigorous and faint: the vigor of a paffion depends on the impreffion made by its caufe; and a cause makes its deepest impreffion, when, happening to be the fingle interefting' object, it attracts our whole attention': its impreffion is flighter when our attention is divided between it and other objects; and at that time the paffion is fainter in proportion.

When emotions and paffions are felt thus by intervals and have not a continued exiftence, it may be thought a nice problem to determine when they are the fame, when different. In a strict philofophic view, every fingle impreffion made even by the fame object, is diftinguishable from what have gone before, and from what fucceed: neither is an emotion raised by an idea, the fame with what is raised by a fight of the, object. But fuch accuracy not being found in common apprehension, is not neceffary in common language; the emotions raised by a fine landscape in its fucceffive appearances are not diftinguishable from each other.

or even from those raised by fucceffive ideas of the object, all of them being held to be the same; a paffion alfo is always reckoned the fame as long as it is fixed upon the fame object; and thus love and atred are faid to continue the fame for life. Nay,

See the appendix, containing definitions, and explanation of terms, fect. 33.