網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

CHAP. 111.

PART III. So long as imagination is guided and stimulated by desire, it embellishes every image, that sense Of Novelty. supplies: but, as soon as desire is sated, imagination changes sides, and all its powers of embellishment are at once inverted.

32. It is not merely in our sexual connections, but in every object of our desires or pursuits, that imagination acts this double part. Prior to attainment or possession, it employs every artifice to augment its charms and enhance its value; but immediately afterwards becomes equally busy and active in exposing its defects and heightening its faults; which, of course, acquire influence as their opposites lose it. Thus it happens that in moral as well as physical-in intellectual as well as sensual gratifications, the circles of pleasure are expanded only in a simple ratio, and to a limited degree; while those of pain spread in a compound rate of progression; and are only limited in their degree by the limits of our existence. At the same time, therefore, that, by enlarging the sphere of our connections, and the range of our enjoyments, we extend and multiply our pleasures and gratifications, we also extend and multiply, and that too in a compound proportion, our pains, disgusts, and disappointments. We satiate desire, indeed, and satisfy curiosity; but without reflecting that by

CHAP. II.

so doing we extinguish both; and, with them, PART III. extinguish the lights that principally serve to cheer our way through life, and render interest- Of Novelty. ing the objects that break and diversify its tedious uniformity.

33. Of all our desires, perhaps, the desire of knowledge is that, of which the gratifications are the most pure and unmixed, as well as the most permanent; and which being, at the same time, the most difficult to cloy or satiate, affords the most certain and ample means of durable and solid happiness. But, nevertheless, when the acquisition of new ideas ceases to be new, it generally ceases to charm; and the possession itself brings, perhaps, more of humiliation than triumph-more of dissatisfaction than comfort or content

'Tis but to know how little can be knowi
To pity others' faults, and feel our own.

It has been the triumphant boast of fanatics of
all sects and all times that the meanest among
them have been able to look down with scorn
upon the pride of human science; and to decide,
without study or investigation, those abstruse
questions concerning final causes, from which its
wisest professors turned away in doubt, or shrank
in despair for as the ignorance of such persons

CHAP. III.

Of Novelty.

PART III. never allows them to doubt, their mental continue to be as limited as their corporeal views, which see nothing between themselves and heaven; of which they soon conceive themselves to be the chosen ministers and special organs. The science of the philosopher on the contrary, by giving him a more extensive and comprehensive view of things, makes him sensible of his own insignificance in the scale of being; and, whilst it enlarges his understanding, narrows his pretensions and humbles his pride: for whatever may be said of the pride of science, it is always meek and humble compared with the pride of ignorance.

34. But not only the presumption of pride, but the ardour of affection is diluted, and reduced to a lower tone, as the boundaries of knowledge are expanded: for as the connections of the mind are multiplied and extended, its relish for each individual object becomes less keen. The flattering visions of hope, too, fade before a more steady but less brilliant light; and though the materials for forming pleasant schemes and specious projects be increased, the time for employing them is curtailed, and the foundations upon which the edifices were to stand, shaken and dissolved by the very power that was to raise them. Thus even the solitary amusement,

CHAP. III.

commonly called building castles in the air, ceases; PART III. and mental employment; the last and best source of happiness, loses, by continued exertion, all its Of Novelty. power to entertain or delight. Our faculties. have no new modes of exercise, nor the objects, which employ them, any new modes of presenting themselves; and those, that are old, are become stale by repetition, and can no longer excite interest, or awaken attention. Thus, as we grow old, every thing, that surrounds us, seems to grow old with us, and the mind is gradually prepared for the approaching dissolution of its habitation.

35. Nevertheless, life seems to be more valued in its last stages than in its first: at least we always find it guarded with more care, and preserved with more caution, by those who are labouring under all the hopeless infirmities of age and decrepitude, than by those who are rioting in the full enjoyment of youth, health, and vi. gour. But for this there are several reasons to be assigned in the first place, that, which appears to be love of life, is often nothing more than fear of death; which, like all other objects of terror, becomes more terrible, as it approaches nearer, and as the mind, upon which it acts, grows weaker: in the next place, we are, by a sort of natural and instinctive impulse, always

CHAP. 11.

PART III. disposed to be sparing of any thing, of which we have but little left; more especially in cases, Of Novelty. where, by the necessary laws of progression, that little is, every instant, becoming less and lastly, though the affections and attachments of the young are more ardent and violent, those of the old are more steady and permanent, as well as more widely diffused. In youth, while the powers of enjoyment are fresh and vigorous, and every object around us wears the unsullied bloom of novelty, we are led from one to another in a succession so rapid that we have not time to attach ourselves to any in particular. But as this bloom of novelty fades by use, the mind becomes less restless, and our desultory pleasures and amusements gradually subside into regular pursuits and fixed habits, which produce regular and fixed, though seldom very ardent attachments, to every object, with which they connect us; and the number of these objects will of course be increased, as life is lengthened, and the causes and opportunities of habitual attachment varied and extended. Thus the hooks and links, which hold the affections of age, are more numerous and complicated, than those which hold the passions of youth; and though each individually be less strong, their united force, joined to that of the other causes above men

« 上一頁繼續 »