Even genuine history has no command over our passions but by conception only: in this respect it stands upon the same footing with fable. History reaches not the heart when we indulge in reflection upon the facts; for if reflection be laid aside, it stands upon the same footing with fable. What effect either may have to raise sympathy depends on the vivacity of the ideas they raise, and fable is thence generally more successful than history. Of all the means for making an impression of conception, theatrical representation is the most powerful. Words, independent of action, have the same power in a less degree; for a tragedy will extort tears in private. This power belongs also to painting: a good historical painting makes a deeper impression than words can, but still inferior to theatrical action. Painting possesses a middle place between reading and acting. Painting, however, cannot raise our passions like words: a painting is confined to a single instant, its impression is instantaneous; passions require a succession of impressions; hence the effect of reading and acting, which reiterate impressions without end. The machinery of imaginary beings ir an epic poem amuses by its novelty and singularity but they never move the sympathetic passions, because they cannot impose on the mind by any perception of reality. A burlesque poem may employ machinery with success, because it is not the aim of that poem to raise our sympathy. The more extravagant the fiction, the better.

Having assigned the means by which fiction commands our passions, our task is accomplished by assigning the final cause. 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. Examples both of virtue and vice raise virtuous emotions; which becoming stronger by exercise, tend to make us virtuous by habit, as well as by principle. Examples confined to real

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events are not so frequent as without other means to produce a habit of virtue. We are formed in such a manner as to be susceptible of the same improvement from fable that we receive from genuine history. 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 has over the mind, affords an endless variety of refined amusement always at hand to employ a vacant hour: such amusements are a fine resource in solitude; and, by cheering and sweetening the mind, contribute greatly to social happiness.

REVIEW.

How do fear and anger operate?

Give examples of their deliberative action.

Give an example of the instinctive action of fear-of anger. How is instinctive anger frequently raised?

Give the instance of blind and absurd anger from the Spectator

For what purpose was anger given us?

What prevents mischief arising from absurd passion.

Are passions moved by fiction?

Give examples of past scenes made present to the mind?

What is this act of the mind called?

How is conception distinguished from reflective remembrance?

What kind of ideas are raised in us by lively description?

By slight and superficial narrative?

Of what does conception supply the want? How?

Does fiction impress us as strongly as history? Why?

Give examples.

How does history command the passions?

What is the most powerful means of making an impression by. conception?

What else possesses this power?

Why is painting less effective in raising the passions than words? Give examples.

What are the uses of fiction?

PART II.

Emotions and Passions, as pleasant and painful. Agreeable and disagreeable modifications of these Qualities.

It will naturally occur at first, that a discourse upon the passions ought to commence with explaining the qualities now mentioned: but upon trial, I found that this explanation could not be made distinctly, till the difference should first be ascertained between an emotion and a passion, and their causes unfolded.

Great obscurity may be observed among writers with regard to the present point; particularly, no care is taken to distinguish 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. Some painful passions, we affirm, are agreeable; some pleasant passions are disagreeable.

Viewing a fine garden, I perceive it to be beautiful or agreeable as belonging to the object, or 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. This pleasure is a quality of the emotion produced, not of the garden. A rotten carcass is disagreeable, and raises a painful emotion; the disagreeableness is a quality of the object, the pain the quality of the emotion. Agreeable and disagreeable are qualities of the objects we perceive; pleasant and painful are qualities of the emotions we feel: the former belongs to the objects, the latter exist within us.

But a passion or emotion, beside 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 applied 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. Thus a lofty oak, a generous action, a valuable discovery in art or science, are agreeable objects that invariably produce pleasant emotions. A treacherous action, an irregular, ill-contrived edifice, being disagreeable objects, produce painful emotions. Selfish passions are pleasant; for self is always an agreeable object, or cause. A social passion directed upon an agreeable object is always pleasant; directed upon an object in distress, is painful. Lastly, all dissocial passions, such as envy, resentment and malice, caused by disagreeable objects, are painful.

A general rule for the agreeableness or disagreeableness of emotions and passions is, a sense of a common nature in every species of animals, particularly our own, and a conviction that this common nature is right or perfect, and that individuals ought to be made conformable to it.* A passion that deviates from the common nature, by being too strong or too weak, is wrong and disagreeable; but as far as conformable to

*This is explained, Chap. XXV. Standard of Taste

common nature, every emotion and passion is perceived to be right, and thence agreeable. But the painful are no less natural, as of grief and pity, and therefore they are agreeable and applauded by all the world. 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.

A passion that becomes an object of thought, may have the effect to produce a passion or emotion in the spectator; for it is natural, that a social being should be affected with the passions 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 gratitude produces love to the grateful person; malice, the painful passion of hatred, to the malicious person.

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 bounds, 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 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 those qualities are, they coincide,