the pleasure or pain of one paffion differs from that of another: how diftant the pleasure of revenge gratified from that of love? fo diftant, as that we cannot without reluctance admit them to be any way related. That the fame quality of pleasure should be fo differently modified in different paffions, will not be furprising, when we reflect on the boundless variety of agreeable founds, tastes, and smells, daily perceived. Our difcernment reaches differences ftill more minute, in objects even of the fame fense: we have no difficulty to distinguish different fweets, different fours, and different bitters; honey is fweet, fo is fugar, and yet the one never is miftaken for the other: our fenfe of fmelling is fufficiently acute, to diftinguish varieties in fweetfmelling flowers without end. With respect to paffions 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 be tween our internal and external fenfes: the latter are sufficiently acute for all the useful purposes of life, and fo are the former. Some perfons indeed, Nature's favourites, have a wonderful acuteness of sense, which to them unfolds many a delightful scene totally hid from vulgar eyes. But if fuch refined pleasure be confined to a small number, it is however wifely ordered that others are not fenfible of the defect; nor detracts it from their happiness that others fecretly are more happy.

happy. With relation to the fine arts only, that qualification feems effential; and there it is termed delicacy of tafte.

Should an author of fuch a taste attempt té defcribe all those varieties in pleasant and painful emotions which he himself feels, he would foon meet an invincible obstacle in the poverty of language: a people must be thoroughly refined, before they invent words for expreffing the more delicate feelings; and for that reafon, no known tongue hitherto has reached that perfection. We muft 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 fenfe that are felt as at the organ of fense, are conceived to be corporeal, or grofs *: the pleasure 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 felfifh. Sympathy and humanity are univerfally esteemed the finest temper of mind; and for that reason, 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 social pleasure; but a man, after acquiring a high relish for the latter, lofes not thereby a tafte 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 rise 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 some cases 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 sympathy: 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 thoufand other felfish pains, are cruciating and tormenting, and tend to a habit of peevifhnefs and difcontent. Social pains have a very different tendency: the pain of fympathy, for example, is not only volunta ry, but foftens my temper, and raises me in my own esteem. Refined

VOL. I.

H

Refined manners, and polite behaviour, muft not be deemed altogether artificial: men who, inured to the fweets of fociety, cultivate humanity, find an elegant pleasure in preferring others, and making them happy, of which the proud, the felfish, scarce have a conception.

Ridicule, which chiefly arifes from pride, a felfish paffion, is at best but a grofs pleasure: a people, it is true, must have emerged out of barbarity before they can have a tafte for ridicule; but it is too rough an entertainment for the polifhed 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 banished France, and is lofing ground in England.

Other modifications of pleasant 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.

PART

PART III.

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

ERE it the nature of an emotion to con

WER

tinue, like colour and figure, in its present state till varied by fome operating caufe, the condition of man would be deplorable: it is ordered wifely, that emotions should more resemble another attribute of matter, namely motion, which requires the conftant exertion of an operating cause, and ceases when the cause is withdrawn. An emotion may fubfift while its caufe is prefent; and when its caufe is removed, may fubfift by means of an idea, though in a fainter manner: but the moment 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 theperception or idea of its cause, so intimately as not to have any independent existence: a strong paffion, it is true, hath a mighty influence to detain its cause in the mind; but not fo as to detain it for ever, because a fucceffion of percep tions or ideas is unavoidable. Further, even

See this point explained afterwards, chap. 9.