proceed to confider paffion more at large, with respect especially to its power of producing action. We have daily and constant experience for our authority, that no man ever proceeds to action but through some antecedent defire or impulse. So well established is this observation, and so deeply rooted in the mind, that we can scarce imagine a different system of action: even a child will say familiarly, What should make me do this or that, when I have no inclination to it? Taking it then for granted, that the existence of action depends on antecedent defire; it follows, that where there is no defire there can be no action. This opens another shining diftinction between emotions and paffions: the former, being without defire, are in their nature quiefcent; the latter, being accompanied with defire, have a tendency to action, and always produce action where they meet with no obstruction. Hence it follows, that every paffion must have an object, viz. that being or thing to which it is directed, and with a view to which every action prompted by it is performed. And to what being or thing is a paffion directed? Plainly to the fame being or thing that occafioned it; which will be evident from induction. A fine woman causes in me the paffion of love, which is directed to her as its object: a man, by injuring me, raises my resentment, and becomes thereby the object of my resentment. Thus the cause of a paffion, 1 paffion, and its object, are the fame in different respects. An emotion, on the other hand, being in its nature quiefcent, and merely a paffive feeling, must have a cause; but cannot be said, properly speaking, to have an object. The objects of our paffions may be distinguished into two kinds, general and particular. A man, a house, a garden, is a particular object: fame, esteem, opulence, honour, are general objects, because each of them comprehends many particulars. The paffions directed to general objects are commonly termed appetites, in contradistinction to paffions directed to particular objects, which retain their proper name: thus we fay an appetite for fame, for glory, for conquest, for riches; but we say the paffion of friendship, of love, of gratitude, of envy, of resentment. And we must remark a material difference between appetites and paffions, which intitles them to be diftinguished by different names: the latter have no existence till a proper object be presented; whereas the former exist first, and then are directed to an object; a paffion comes after its object; an appetite goes before it, which is obvious in the appetites of hunger, thirst, and animal love, and is the fame in the other appetites above mentioned. Where the object is so powerful as to make a deep impreffion, the mind is inflamed, and is hurried to action with a strong impulse. Where the object is less powerful, so as not to inflame the mind, nothing is felt but defire without any fensible perturbation: the principle of duty affords one illuftrious instance; for it frequently generates defire, and moves us to act coolly and deliberately, so soon as we conceive the action in view to be our duty: it only becomes a warm paffion, when the mind is inflamed by the importance of the object. The actions of brute creatures are generally directed by instinct, meaning blind impulse or defire without any view to confequences. Man is framed to be governed by reason: he generally acts with deliberation, and in order to bring about some defireable end; and in that cafe his actions are means employed to bring about the end defired; thus I give charity in order to relieve a perfon from want: I perform a grateful action as a duty incumbent on me: and I fight for my country in order to repel its enemies. At the fame time, we discover actions in the human species that are not governed by reason, nor with any view to consequences. Infants, like brutes, are mostly governed by instinct, without the least view to any end, good or ill. And even adult persons act sometimes instinctively: thus one in extreme hunger snatches at food, without the flightest confideration whether it be salutary: avarice prompts to accumulate wealth without the least view of use; and thereby abfurdly converts means into an end; and animal love often hur ries 1 L ries to fruition, without a thought even of gra A paffion when it flames so high as to impel us blindly to act without any view to confequences, good or ill, may in that state be termed instinctive; and when it is so moderate as to admit reason, and to prompt actions with a view to an end, it may in that state be termed deliberative. With respect to actions exerted as means to an end, defire to bring about the end is what determines the will to exert the action; and defire confidered in this view is termed a motive: thus the same mental act, that is termed defire with respect to an end in view, is termed a motive with respect to its power of determining the will. Instinctive actions have a cause, viz. the impulse of the paffion; but they cannot be faid to have a motive, because they are not done with any view to confequences. We learn from experience, that the gratification of every defire is pleasant; and accordingly, the forefight of this pleasure becomes often an additional motive for acting. Thus a child eats by the mere impulse of hunger: a young man thinks of the pleasure of gratification, which being a motive for him to eat, fortifies the original impulse: and a man farther advanced in life, hath the additional motive that it will contribute to his health. From these premises, it is easy to determine, with the greatest accuracy, what paffions and actions are selfish, what focial: it is the end in view that determines them to belong to the one class or to the other; where the end in view is my own good, they are selfish; where the end in view is the good of another, they are social. Hence it follows, that instinctive actions, where we act blindly and by mere impulse, cannot be reckoned either social or felfish: thus eating, when prompted by an impulse merely of nature, is neither focial nor felfish; but add a motive, That it will contribute to my pleasure or my health, and it becomes in a measure felfish. On the other hand, when affection moves me to exert actions to the end folely of advancing my friend's happiness, without the flightest regard to my own gratification, such actions are justly denominated Social; and fo is also the affection that is their cause: if another motive be added, That gratifying the affection will contribute to my own happiness, the actions become partly selfish. If charity be given with the single view of relieving a person from distress, the action is purely social; but if it be partly in view to enjoy the pleasure of a virtuous action, the action is so far selfish *. * A selfish motive proceeding from a social principle, fuch as that mentioned, is the most respectable of all selfish motives. To enjoy the pleasure of a virtuous action, one must be virtuous; and to enjoy the pleasure of a charitable action, one must think charity laudable at least, if not a duty. It is otherwise where a man gives charity, merely for the fake of reputation; for this he may do without having any pity or benevolence in his temper. Animal |