I acknowledge, in one class of passions: all vicious passions tending to the hurt of others, are equally painful and disagreeable. We come now to the modifications of these passions as respects the science of criticism. The pleasure or pain of one passion differs from that of another, as of revenge gratified from that of love. In discerning different sweets, sours, bitters; honey is never mistaken for sugar; and we distinguish smells in flowers different and endless. The differences too as to plea sant and painful emotions and passions have no limits; though we want acuteness of feeling for the more delicate modifications. There is an analogy here between our internal and external senses, and with relation to the fine arts, the qualification most essential is termed delicacy of taste. Some passions are gross, some refined; the pleasures of external sense are corporeal or gross; those of the eye and ear are felt to be internal, and for that reason pure and refined. The social affections are more refined than the selfish. Sympathy and humanity are universally esteemed the finest temper of mind. A savage knows little of social affection: he cannot compare selfish and social pleasure. The social passions rise highest in our esteem. There are differences not less remarkable among the painful passions. Some are voluntary, some involuntary: the pain of the gout is an example of the latter; grief, of the former, which in some cases is so voluntary as to reject all consolation. One pain softens the temper-pity is an instance: one tends to render us savage and cruel, which is the case of revenge. I value myself upon sympathy: I hate and despise myself for envy. Social affections have an advantage over the selfish, not only with respect to pleasure, as above explained, but also with respect to pain. The pain of an affront, the pain of want, the pain of disappointment, and a thousand other selfish pains, are excruciating and tor menting, and tend to a habit of peevishness and discontent. Social pains have a very different tendency: the pain of sympathy, for example, is not only voluntary, but softens my temper, and raises me in my own esteem. Refined manners, and polite behavior, must not be deemed altogether artificial: men, who, inured to the sweets of society, cultivate humanity, find an elegant pleasure in preferring others, and making them happy, of which the proud, the selfish, scarce have a conception. Ridicule, which chiefly arises from pride, a selfish passion, is at best but a gross pleasure; a people, it is true, must have emerged out of barbarity before they can have a taste for ridicule; but it is too rough an entertainment for the polished and refined. Cicero discovers in Plautus a happy talent for ridicule, and a peculiar delicacy of wit; but Horace declares against the lowness and roughness of that author's raillery. The modifications of high and low will be handled in the chapter of grandeur and sublimity; and the modifications of dignified and mean, in that of dignity and grace. REVIEW. Are pleasant and agreeable, painful and disagreeable, respectively synonymous? What is affirmed in order to prove that they are not? Is the pleasure produced by viewing an agreeable object, a quality of the emotion produced, or of the object? How are agreeable and disagreeable distinguished from pleasant and painful? How are these terms applied to a passion? On what does the nature of an emotion or passion depend? What is the general rule for the agreeableness or disagreeableness of emotions and passions? How is the rule applied? From what is another rule derived? How is this applied? How is the spectator of a passion in another person affected? Give examples. Give examples of pleasant passions that are disagreeable, and painful ones that are agreeable? In what do these qualities coincide? Do the pleasures or pains arising from the passions differ? What is the most essential qualification with respect to the fine arts? What passions are gross, and what refined? Give examples of voluntary and involuntary passions, and their effects. What advantages have social over selfish passions? How with respect to ridicule ? PART III. Interrupted existence of Emotions and Passions; their growth and decay. Did an emotion continue like color or figure, the condition of man would be deplorable; it is wisely ordered that emotions and passions should only subsist while their cause is present, and have no independent existence. They are thus felt at intervals, and no emotion raised by an idea is the same as that raised by the sight of the object. A passion is always reckoned the same, as long as it is fixed upon the same object; thus love and hatred are said to continue for life. Many passions are reckoned the same even after a change of object, as envy directed to the same person, or many persons at once; pride and malice are examples of the same. So much for the identity of passions; we now proceed to examine their growth and decay. Some emotions are produced in their utmost perfection, and have a very short duration, as surprise, wonder, terror. Emotions raised by inanimate objects, trees, rivers, buildings, arrive at perfection almost instantaneously; and they have a long endurance, a second view producing nearly the same pleasure as the first. Love, hatred, &c. swell and then decay. Envy, malice, pride, scarce ever decay. Some passions, such as gratitude and revenge, are often exhausted by a single act of gratification: other passions, such as pride, malice, envy, love, hatred, are not so exhausted; but having a long continuance, demand frequent gratification. With respect to emotions which are quiescent, because not productive of desire, their growth and decay are easily explained: an emotion caused by an inanimate object, cannot naturally take longer time to arrive at maturity than is necessary for a leisurely survey: such emotion also must continue long stationary without any sensible decay, a second or third view of the object being nearly as agreeable as the first: this is the case of an emotion produced by a fine prospect, an impetuous river, or a towering hill; while a man remains the same, such objects ought to have the same effect upon him. Familiarity, however, hath an influence here, as it hath everywhere: frequency of view, after short intervals especially, weans the mind gradually from the object, which at last loses all relish: the noblest object in the material world, a clear and serene sky, is quite disregarded, unless perhaps after a course of bad weather. An emotion raised by human virtues, qualities, or actions, may, by reiterated views of the object, swell imperceptibly till it become so vigorous as to generate desire: in that condition it must be handled as a passion. When nature requires a passion to be sudden, it is commonly produced in perfection; as fear, anger, wonder, and surprise. Reiterated impressions made by their cause exhaust these passions, instead of inflaming them. This will be explained in Chapter VI. When a passion has for its foundation an original propensity peculiar to some men, it generally comes soon to maturity, as pride, envy, malice; the propensity, upon presenting a proper object, is immediately inflamed into a passion. The growth of love and hatred is slow or quick, according to circumstances. Good qualities in a person raise in us a pleasant emotion; reiterated views swell it into a desire of that person's happiness: this desire, D freely indulged, works a gradual change internally and at last settles into an affection for that person, now my friend. Affection thus produced, operates like an original propensity. The habit of aversion or hatred is brought on in the same manner. Passions generally have a tendency to excess, occasioned by the following means. The mind, affected by any passion, is not in a proper state for distinct perception, nor for cool reflection: it hath always a strong bias to the object of an agreeable passion, and a bias no less strong against the object of a disagreeable passion. The object of love, for example, however indifferent to others, is to the lover's conviction a paragon; and the object of hatred, is vice itself without alloy. Hatred, as well as other passions, must run the same course. Thus, between a passion and its object there is a natural operation, resembling action and reaction in physics: a passion acting upon its object, magnifies it greatly in appearance; and this magnified object reacting upon the passion, swells and inflames it mightily. The growth of some passions depend often on occasional circumstances: obstacles to gratification never fail to inflame a passion; and the mind distressed by obstacles becomes impatient for gratification, and consequently more desirous of it. All impediments in fancy's course SHAKSPEARE. So much upon the growth of passions; their continuance and decay come next under consideration. And, first, it is a general law of nature, that things sudden in their growth are equally sudden in their decay. This is commonly the case of anger. And, with respect to wonder and surprise, which also suddenly decay, another reason concurs, that their causes are of short duration novelty soon degenerates into familiarity; and the unexpectedness of an object is soon sunk in the pleasure that the object affords. Fear, which is a passion of greater importance as tending to self-pre |