greater reafon for a connection between man and feveral animals who are attired in fo engaging a manner, than between him and fome others who entirely want this attraction, or poffefs it in a far weaker degree. But it is probable, that Providence did not make even this diftinction, but with a view to fome great end, though we cannot perceive diftinctly what it is, as his wifdom is not our wif dom, nor our ways his ways.

SECT. XI.

SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.

THE fecond branch of the focial paffions is that which adminifters to fociety in general. With regard to this, I obferve, that society, merely as fociety, without any particular heightenings, gives us no pofitive pleasure in the enjoyment; but abfolute and entire folitude, that is, the total and perpetual exclufion from all fociety, is as great a pofi, tive pain as can almost be conceived. Therefore in the balance between the pleasure of general society, and the pain of abfolute folitude, pain is the predominant idea. But the pleasure of any particular focial enjoyment outweighs very confiderably the uneafiness caused by the want of that particular enjoyment; fo that the ftrongest fenfations relative to the habitudes of particular fociety, are fenfations of pleafure. Good company, lively converfations,

verfations, and the endearments of friendship, fill the mind with great pleafure; a temporary folitude, on the other hand, is itself agreeable. This may perhaps prove that we are creatures designed for contemplation as well as action; fince folitude as well as fociety has its pleasures; as from the former obfervation we may difcern, that an entire life of folitude contradicts the purposes of our being, fince death itfelf is fcarcely an idea of more

terrour,

SECT. XII.

SYMPATHY, IMITATION, AND AMBITION.

UNDER this denomination of fociety, the paffions are of a complicated kind, and branch out into a variety of forms agreeable to that variety of ends they are to ferve in the great chain of fociety. The three principal links in this chain are Sympathy, imitation, and ambition.

SECT. XIII.

SYMPATHY.

IT is by the firft of thefe paffions that we enter into the concerns of others; that we are moved as they are moved, and are never fuffered to be indifferent fpectators of almoft any thing which men can do or fuffer. For fympathy must be considered

as

as a fort of fubftitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many refpects as he is affected: so that this paffion may either partake of the nature of those which regard felf-prefervation, and turning upon pain may be a fource of the fublime; or it may turn upon ideas of pleasure; and then whatever has been faid of the focial affections, whether they regard fociety in general, or only fome particular modes of it, may be applicable here. It is by this principle chiefly that poetry, painting, and other affecting arts, transfuse their paffions from one breast to another, and are often capable of grafting a delight on wretchednefs, mifery, and death itself. It is a common obfervation, that objects which in the reality would fhock, are in tragical, and fuch like representations, the fource of a very high fpecies of pleasure. This taken as a fact, has been the cause of much reasoning. The fatisfaction has been commonly attributed, firft, to the comfort we receive in confidering that fo melancholy a story is no more than a fiction; and next, to the contemplation of our own freedom from the evils which we fee represented. I am afraid it is a practice much too common in enquiries of this nature, to attribute the caufe of feelings which merely arife from the mechanical structure of our bodies, or from the natural frame and conftitution of our minds, to certain conclufions of the reafon

pro

ing faculty on the objects prefented to us; for I fhould imagine, that the influence of reafon in ducing our paffions is nothing near fo extenfive as it is commonly believed.

SECT. XIV.

THE EFFECTS OF SYMPATHY IN THE DISTRESSES OF

OTHERS.

To examine this point concerning the effect of tragedy in a proper manner, we must previously confider how we are affected by the feelings of our fellow-creatures in circumftances of real diftrefs. I am convinced we have a degree of delight, and that no fmall one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others; for let the affection be what it will in appearance, if it does not make us fhun fuch objects, if on the contrary it induces us to approach them, if it makes us dwell upon them, in this cafe I conceive we muft have a delight or pleasure of fome fpecies or other in contemplating objects of this kind. Do we not read the authentick hiftories of fcenes of this nature with as much pleasure as romances or poems, where the incidents are fictitious? The profperity of no empire, nor the grandeur of no king, can fo agreeably affect in the reading, as the ruin of the ftate of Macedon, and the diftrefs of its unhappy prince. Such a cataftrophe touches us in hiftory as much as the de

ftruction

ftruction of Troy does in fable. Our delight, in cafes of this kind, is very greatly heightened, if the sufferer be fome excellent perfon who finks under an unworthy fortune. Scipio and Cato are both virtuous characters; but we are more deeply affected by the violent death of the one, and the ruin of the great cause he adhered to, than with the deferved triumphs and uninterrupted profperity of the other; for terrour is a paffion which always produces delight when it does not prefs too clofe; and pity is a paffion accompanied with pleafure, because it arifes from love and social affection. Whenever we are formed by nature to any active purpose, the paffion which animates us to it, is attended with delight, or a pleasure of some kind, let the fubject-matter be what it will; and as our Creator has defigned we should be united by the bond of fympathy, he has ftrengthened that bond by a proportionable delight; and there moft where our fympathy is moft wanted, in the diftreffes of others. If this paffion was fimply painful, we would fhun with the greatest care all perfons and places that could excite fuch a paffion; as fome, who are fo far gone in indolence as not to endure any ftrong impreffion, actually do. But the cafe is widely different with the greater part of mankind; there is no fpectacle we fo eagerly purfue, as that of fome uncommon and grievous calamity; fo that whether the misfortune is before our eyes,

or