observe, that examples confined to real events, are not fo frequent as to contribute much to a habit of virtue: if they be, they are not recorded by historians. It therefore shows great wisdom, to form us in fuch a manner, as to be susceptible of the same improvement from fable that we receive from genuine history. By this admirable contrivance, examples to improve us in virtue may be multiplied without end: no other fort of discipline contributes more to make virtue habitual; and no other fort is fo agreeable in the application. I add another final cause with thorough fatisfaction; 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 hath over the human mind affords an endless variety of refined amusements, always at hand to employ a vacant hour: fuch amusements are a fine resource in folitude; and by chearing the mind, improve society.

PART II.

Emotions and pasions as pleasant and painful, agreeable and difagreeable. Modifications of these qualities.

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T may occur at firf view, that a discourse upon the paffions should commence with explaining

plaining the qualities now mentioned: but upon trial, I found this could not be done distinctly, till the difference were afcertained between an emotion and a paffion, and till their causes were unfolded.

Great obfcurity may be observed among writers with regard to the present point: no care, for example, is taken to distinguish agreeable from pleafant, disagreeable from painful; or rather these terms are deemed synonymous. This is an error not at all venial in the science of ethics; as instances can, and fhall, be given, of painful paffions that are agreeable, and of pleafant paffions that are difagreeable. These terms, it is true, are ufed indifferently in familiar conversation, and in compositions for amusement, where accuracy is not required; but for those to use them so who profess to explain the paffions, isa capital error. In writing upon the critical art, I would avoid every refinement that may seem more curious: than useful: but the proper meaning of the terms under confideration must be ascertained, in order to understand the paffions, and fome of their effects that are intimately connected with criticifm.

I shall endeavour to explain these terms by familiar examples. Viewing a fine garden, I per ceive it to be beautiful or agreeable; and I confider the beauty or agreeableness as belonging to the object, or as one of its qualities. When I turn my attention from the garden to what VOL.I. paffes

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passes in my mind, I am confcious of a pleasant. 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 opposite example. A rotten carcass is disagreeable, and raises in the spectator a painful emotion: the disagreeableness is a quality of the object; the pain is a quality of the emotion produced by it. Agreeable and disagreeable, then, 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 passion or emotion, beside being felt, is frequently made an object of thought or reflection: we examine it; we inquire into its nature, its caufe, and its effects. In this view, like other objects, it is either agreeable or disagreeable. Hence clearly appear the different fignifications of the terms under confideration, as applied to paffion: when a paffion is termed pleaJant 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 paffion is pleasant or painful to the perfon in whom it exists; it is agreeable or disagreeable to the perfon who makes it a fubject of contemplation.

When the terms thus defined are applied to particular emotions and paffions, they do not always coincide.

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coincide. And in order to make this evident, we must endeavour to astertain, first, what paffions and emotions are pleasant what painful, and next, what are agreeable what difagreeable. With refpect to both, there are general rules, which, fo far as I gather from induction, admit not any exceptions. The nature of an emotion or paffion as pleasant or painful, depends entirely on its caufe: an agreeable object produceth always a pleasant emotion; and a difagreeable object produceth always a painful emotion *. Thus a lofty oak, a generous action, a valuable discovery in art or science, are agreeable objects that unerringly produce pleasant emotions. A ftinking puddle, a treacherous action, an irregular ill-contrived edifice, being difagreeable objects, produce painful emotions. Selfish passions are pleasant; for they arife from felf, an agreeable object or cause. A social paffion directed upon an agreeable object is always pleasant; directed upon an object in distress, is painful †. Lastly, all diffocial paffions, such as envy, resentment, malice, being caused by difagreeable objects, cannot fail to be painful.

It requires a greater compass to come at a general rule for the agreeableness or difagreeableness of emotions and passions. We have a sense of a common nature in every species of animals, particularly in our own; and we have from our na

* See part 7. of this chapter.

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+ See the faid 7th part.

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ture 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 disproportioned to the whole, it is wrong and disagreeable: if a paffion deviate from the common nature, by being too strong or too weak, it is also wrong and disagreeable: but fo 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 pleafant emotions and paffions, will readily be admitted: but the painful are not less natural than the other; and therefore ought not to be an exception. Thus the painful emotion raised by a monstrous birth or brutal action, is not less 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 simple and direct for afcertaining the agreeableness or disagreeableness of a paffion, as opposed to an emotion, is derived from the defire that accompanies it. If the defire be, to do a right action in order to produce a good effect, the paffion is, and must be agreeable:

* See this doctrine fully explained ch. 25. Standard of Taste.