den to what paffes in my mind, I am confcious of a pleafant emotion, of which the garden is the cause : the pleasure here is felt, as a quality, not of the garden, but of the emotion produced by it. I give an oppofite example. A rotten carcafs is difagreeable, and raises in the fpectator a painful emotion: the disagreeablenefs is a quality of the object; the pain is a quality of the emotion produced by it. In a word, agreeable and disagreeable are qualities of the objects we perceive; pleasant and painful are qualities of the emotions we feel the former qualities are perceived as adhering to objects; the latter are felt as exifting within us. But a paffion or emotion, befide 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 difagreeable. Hence clearly appear the different fignifications of the terms under confideration, as applied to paffion: when a paffion is termed pleafant or painful, we refer to the actual feeling; when termed agreeable or difagreeable, we refer to it as an object of thought or reflection; a paffion is pleafant or painful to the perfon in whom it exifts; it is agreeable or disagreeable to the perfon who makes it a fubject of contemplation. In the defcription of emotions and paffions, these terms do not always coincide: to make which evident, we must endeavour to ascertain, firft, what paffions and emotions are pleasant, what painful; and next, what are agreeable, what difagreeable. With respect to both, there are general rules, which, if I can truft to induction, admit not a fingle exception. The nature of an emotion or paffion as pleasant or painful, depends entirely on its caufe: the emotion produced by an agreeable object is invariably pleasant; and the emoVOL. I. G tion tion produced by a difagreeable 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 stinking puddle, a treacherous action, an irregular, ill-contrived edifice, being difagreeable objects, produce painful emotions. Selfish paffions are pleasant; for they arife from felf, an agreeable object or caufe. A focial paffion directed upon an agreeable object, is always pleasant ; directed upon an object in diftrefs, is painful. Laftly, all diffocial paffions, fuch as envy, refentment, malice, being caufed by difagreeable objects, cannot fail to be painful. A general rule for the agreeableness or disagreeableness of emotions and paffions is a more difficult enterprife it must be attempted however. We have a fenfe of a common nature in every species of animals, particularly in our own; and we have a conviction that this common nature is right, or perfect, and that individuals ought to be made conformable to it. To every faculty, to every paffion, and to every bodily member, is affigned a proper office and a due proportion if one limb be longer than the other, or be difproportioned to the whole, it is wrong and difagreeable: if a paffion deviate from the common nature, by being too strong or too weak, it is also wrong and difagreeable but as far as conformable to common nature, every emotion and every paffion is perceived by us to be right, and as it ought to be; and upon that account it must appear agreeable. That this holds true in pleasant emotions and paffions, will readily be admitted but the painful are no lefs natural than the other ; and therefore ought not to be an exception. * See part 7. of this chapter. Thus See this doctrine fully explained, chap. 25. Standard of Taste. i Thus the painful emotion raised by a monstrous birth or brutal action, is no lefs agreeable upon reflection, than the pleasant emotion raised by a flowing river or a lofty dome and the painful paffions of grief and pity are agreeable, and applauded by all the world. Another rule more fimple and direct for ascertaining the agreeablenefs or disagreeablenefs of a paffion as opposed to an emotion, is derived from the defire that accompanies it. If the defire be to perform a right action in order to produce a good effect, the paffion is agreeable: if the defire be to do a wrong action in order to produce an ill effect, the paffion is difagreeable. Thus, paffions as well as actions are governed by the moral fense. These rules by the wifdom of Providence coincide: a paffion that is conformable to our common nature must tend to good; and a paffion that deviates from our common nature muft tend to ill. This deduction may be carried a great way farther : but to avoid intricacy and obfcurity, I make but one other step. A paffion which, as aforefaid, becomes an object of thought to a fpectator, may have the effect to produce a paffion or emotion in him; for it is natural, that a focial being fhould be affected with the *paffions of others. Paffions or emotions thus generated, fubmit, in common with others, to the general law above mentioned, namely, that an agreeable object produces a pleafant emotion, and a difagreeable object a painful emotion. Thus the paffion of gratitude, being to a fpectator an agreeable object, produceth in him the pleasant paffion of love to the grateful person and malice, being to a spectator a difagreeable object, produceth in him the painful paffion of hatred to the malicious perfon. We are now prepared for examples of pleafant paffions that are difagreeable, and of painful paffions that are agreeable. Self-love, as long as confined within juft bounds, is a paffion both pleasant and agreeable: in excefs it is difagreeable, though it continues to be ftill pleafant. Our appetites are precifely in the fame condition. Refentment, on the other hand, is, in every flage of the paffion, painful; but is not difagreeable unlefs in excess. Pity is always painful, yet always agreeable. Vanity, on the contrary, is always pleafant, yet always difagreeable. But however diftinct thefe qualities are, they coincide, I acknowledge, in one clafs of paflions: all vicious paffions tending to the hurt of others, are equally painful and difagreeable. The foregoing qualities of pleasant and painful, may be fufficient for ordinary fubjects: but with respect to the fcience of criticism, it is neceffary, that we also be made acquainted with the feveral modifications of these qualities, with the modifications at least that make the greatcft figure. Even at firft view one is fenfible, that 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 boundlefs variety of agreeable founds, taftes, and fmells, daily perceived. Our difcernment reaches differences ftill more minute, in objects even of the fame fenfe: we have no difficulty to diftinguish different fweets, different fours, and different bitters; honey is fweet, fo is fugar, and yet the one never is mistaken for the other: our sense of fmelling is fufficiently acute, to distinguish varieties in fweet-smelling flowers without end. With refpect 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 is here an analogy between our internal and external: fenfes the latter are fufficiently acute for all the ufeful purposes of life, and fo are the former. Some perfons indeed, Nature's favourites, have a wonderful acuteness of fenfe, which to them unfolds many a de-. lightful 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. 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 tafte attempt to describe 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 reafon, 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 gross, fome refined. Those pleasures of external sense that are felt as at the organ of fenfe, 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 felfifh. Sympathy and humanity are univerfally esteemed the fineft 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, See the Introduction. and 宽容 |