servation, is often instantaneous, and yet is of equal duration with its cause; nay, it frequently subsists after the cause is removed. In the next place, a passion founded on a peculiar propensity, subsists generally for ever; which is the case of pride, envy, and malice: objects are never wanting to inflame the propensity into a passion. Thirdly, it may be laid down as a general law of nature, that every passion ceases upon attaining its ultimate end. To explain that law, we must distinguish between a particular and a general end. I call a particular end what may be accomplished by a single act: a general end, on the contrary, admits acts without number; because it cannot be said, that a general end is ever fully accomplished while the object of the passion subsists. Gratitude and revenge are examples of the first kind: the ends they aim at may be accom plished by a single act; and, when that act is perform ed, the passions are necessarily at an end. Love and hatred are examples of the other kind: desire of doing good, or of doing mischief to an individual, is a general end, admitting acts without number, and which is seldom accomplished. Lastly, we are to consider the difference between an original propensity, and affection or aversion produced by custom. The former adheres too closely to the constitution ever to be eradicated; hence the passions it gives birth to continue during life with no diminution. The latter, which owe their birth and increase to time, owe their decay to the same cause: affection and aversion decay gradually as they grow; and hatred as well as love are extinguished by long absence. In short, man with respect to this life is a temporary being: he grows, becomes stationary, decays; and so must all his powers and passions. REVIEW. Are emotions permanent? How ong does a passion continue the same? What emotions are immediately perfected, and of short duration? What passions are exhausted by a single act? What passions continue long? How long does an emotion caused by an inanimate object take to arrive at maturity? How long does it last? Give examples. What passions are produced in perfection? What sort of passions come to maturity soon? Illustrate the growth of affection. By what means have passions a tendency to excess? What is the effect of obstacles? What is the general law with respect to growth and decay? What kind of passion subsists for ever? When does a passion cease? How are general and particular ends distinguished? Give examples. Illustrate the difference between an original propensity and a passion or affection produced by custom. PART IV. Coexistent Emotions and Passions. For a thorough knowledge of the human passions and emotions, it is not sufficient that they be examined singly and separately: as a plurality of them are sometimes felt at the same instant, the manner of their coexistence, and the effects thereby produced, ought also to be examined. This subject is extensive; and it will be difficult to trace all the laws that govern its endless variety of cases: if such an undertaking can be brought to perfection, it must be by degrees. The fol lowing hints may suffice for a first attempt. We begin with emotions raised by different sounds, as the simplest case. Two sounds that mix, and, as it were, incorporate before they reach the ear, are said to be concordant. That each of the two sounds, even after their union, produceth an emotion of its own must be admitted; but these emotions, like the sounds that produce them, mix so intimately, as to be rather one complex emotion, than two emotions in conjunction. Two sounds that refuse incorporation or mixture, are said to be discordant; and when heard at the same instant, the emotions produced by them are unpleasant in conjunction, however pleasant separately. Similar to the emotion raised by mixed sounds, is the emotion raised by an object of sight with its several qualities; as a tree with its qualities of color, figure, size, &c. The emotion it produces is one complex emotion. In coexistent emotions produced by different objects of sight, there cannot be a concordance among them like what is perceived in some sounds. Emotions are similar when they produce the same tone of mind,-cheerful emotions are similar, so are melancholy emotions. Dissimilar emotions are pride and humility, gaiety and gloominess. Emotions perfectly similar, readily combine and unite, so as in a manner to become one complex emotion; witness the emotions produced by a number of flowers in a parterre, or of trees in a wood. Emotions that are opposite, or extremely dissimilar, never combine or unite; the mind cannot simultaneously take an opposite tone; it cannot at the same instant be both joyful and sad, angry and satisfied, proud and humble; dissimilar emotions may succeed each other with rapidity, but they cannot exist simultaneously. Between these two extremes, emotions unite more or less, in proportion to the degree of their resemblance, and the degree in which their causes are connected. Thus the emotions produced by a fine landscape and the singing of birds, being similar in a considerable degree, readily unite, though their causes are little connected. And the same happens where the causes are intimately connected, though the emotions themselves have little resemblance to each other; an example of which is a mistress in distress, whose beauty gives pleasure, and her distress pain: These two emotions, proceeding from different views of the object, have very little resemblance to each other; and yet so intimately connected are their causes, as to force them into a sort of complex emotion, partly pleasant, partly painful. This clearly explains some expressions common in poetry, as a sweet distress, a pleasant pain. REVIEW. What sounds are concordant? What is their effect? What sort of emotion is produced by objects of sight? What are dissimilar? What are their respective effects? In what proportion do emotions unite? Give examples. Do dissimilar emotions unite? What does this fact explain? PART V. Influence of Passion with respect to our Perceptions, Opin ions and Belief. Our actions are influenced by our passions; our passions influence our perceptions, opinions, and belief; and our opinions of men and things are generally directed by affection. An advice given by a man of figure, hath great weight; the same advice from one in a low condition is despised or neglected: a man of courage underrates danger; and to the indolent the slightest obstacle appears insurmountable. This doctrine is of great use in logic; and of still greater use in criticism, by serving to explain several principles in the fine arts that will be unfolded in the course of this work. A few general observations shall at present suffice, leaving the subject to be prosecuted more particularly afterward, when occasion offers. There is no truth more universally known, than that tranquillity and sedateness are the proper state of mind for accurate perception and cool deliberation; and, for that reason, we never regard the opinion even of the wisest man, when we discover prejudice or passion behind the curtain. Passion, as observed above, hath such influence over us, as to give a false light to all its objects. Agreeable passions prepossess the mind in favor of their objects, and disagreeable passions, no less against their objects: a woman is all perfection in her lover's opinion, while, in the eye of rival beauty, she is awkward and disagreeable; when the passion of love is gone, beauty vanishes with it. Arguments of a favorite opinion pervert the judgment; and those that are disagreeable to the mind, are passed over as erroneous intruders. Anger raised by an accidental stroke upon a tender part of the body, is sometimes vented upon the unde• signing cause. The passion in that case is absurd; there is no solid gratification in punishing the innocent; the mind, prone to justify, as to gratify its passion, deludes itself into a conviction of the action's being voluntary. The conviction is momentary: the first reflection shows it to be erroneous; and the passion vanishes with the conviction. But anger, the most violent of all passions, has still greater influence: it forces the mind to personify a stock or stone, if it happen to occasion bodily pain, and even to believe it a voluntary agent, in order to be a proper object of re sentment. Of such personification, involving a conviction of reality, there is one illustrious instance. When the first bridge of boats over the Hellespont was destroyed by a storm, Xerxes fell into a transport of rage, so excessive, that he commanded the sea to be punished with 300 stripes, and a pair of fetters to be thrown into it, enjoining the following words to be pronounced: “O thou salt and bitter water! thy master hath condemned thee to this punishment for offending him with |