4

On the other hand, when we recover our health, when we escape an imminent danger, is it with joy that we are affected? The fenfe on thefe occafions is far from that fmooth and voluptuous fatisfaction which the affured profpect of pleasure bestows. The delight which arifes from the modifications of pain, confeffes the stock from whence it sprung, in its folid, strong, and severe nature.

SECT. VI.

OF THE PASSIONS WHICH BELONG TO SELF-PRESER

VATION.

MOST of the ideas which are capable of mak ing a powerful impreffion on the mind, whether fimply of Pain or Pleasure, or of the modifications of thofe, may be reduced very nearly to thefe two heads, felf-prefervation and fociety; to the ends of one or the other of which all our paffions are calculated to answer. The paffions which concern felf-prefervation, turn moftly on pain or danger. The ideas of pain, sickness and death, fill the mind with ftrong emotions of horrour; but life and health, though they put us in a capacity of being affected with pleasure, they make no fuch impref fion by the fimple enjoyment. The paffions therefore which are converfant about the prefervation of the individual, turn chiefly on pain and danger, and they are the most powerful of all the paflions. SECT.

SECT. VII.

OF THE SUBLIME.

WHATEVER is fitted in any fort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any fort terrible, or is converfant, about ter rible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terrour, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the ftrongeft emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. I fay the strongest emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure. Without all doubt, the torments which we may be made to fuffer, are much greater in their effect on the body and mind, than any pleasures which the most learned voluptuary could fuggeft, or than the livelieft imagination, and the most found and exquifitely fenfible body, could enjoy. Nay, I am in great doubt whether any man could be found who would earn a life of the moft perfect fatisfaction, at the price of ending it in the torments, which juftice inflicted in a few hours on the late unfortunate regicide in France. But as pain is ftronger in its operation than pleasure, fo death is in general a much more affecting idea than pain; because there are very few pains, however exquifite, which are not preferred to death: nay, what generally makes

pain itself, if I may say so, more painful, is that it is confidered as an emiffary of this king of terrours. When danger or pain prefs too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are fimply terrible; but at certain diftances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are delightful, as we every day experience. The cause of this I fhall endeavour to investigate hereafter.

SECT. VIII.

OF THE PASSIONS WHICH BELONG TO SOCIETY.

THE other head under which I clafs our paffions, is that of fociety, which may be divided into two forts. 1. The fociety of the fexes, which anfwers the purpose of propagation; and next, that more general fociety, which we have with men and with other animals, and which we may in fome fort be faid to have even with the inanimate world. The paffions belonging to the preservation of the individual, turn wholly on pain and danger: those which belong to generation, have their origin in gratifications and pleasures; the pleasure most directly belonging to this purpofe is of a lively character, rapturous and violent, and confeffedly the highest pleasure of fenfe; yet the absence of this fo great an enjoyment, scarce amounts to an uneafinefs; and, except at particular times, I do not think it affects at all. When men describe in what

manner

manner they are affected by pain and danger, they do not dwell on the pleasure of health and the comfort of fecurity, and then lament the loss of thefe fatisfactions; the whole turns upon the actual pains and horrours which they endure. But if you liften to the complaints of a forfaken lover, you obferve that he infifts largely on the pleasures which he enjoyed or hoped to enjoy, and on the perfection of the object of his defires; it is the loss which is always uppermoft in his mind. The violent effects produced by love, which has fometimes been even wrought up to madness, is no objection: to the rule which we feek to establish, When men have fuffered their imaginations to be long affected with any idea, it fo wholly engroffes them as to fhut out by degrees almost every other, and to break down every partition of the mind which would confine it. Any idea is fufficient for the purpose, as is evident from the infinite variety of causes, which give rife to madness; but this at most can only prove that the paffion of love is capable of producing very extraordinary effects, not that its extraordinary emotions have any connection with pofitive pain,

SECT. IX.

THE FINAL CAUSE OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN

THE PASSIONS BELONGING TO SELF-PRESERVATION, AND THOSE WHICH REGARD THE SOCIETY OF THE SEXES.

THE final caufe of the difference in character between the paffions which regard felf-preservation and those which are directed to the multiplication of the fpecies, will illuftrate the foregoing remarks yet further; and it is, I imagine, worthy of obfervation even upon its own account. As the performance of our duties of every kind depends upon life, and the performing them with vigour and efficacy depends upon health, we are very ftrongly affected with whatever threatens the deftruction of either: but as we were not made to acquiefce in life and health, the fimple enjoyment of them is not attended with any real pleasure, left, fatisfied with that, we should give ourselves over to indolence and inaction. On the other hand, the generation of mankind is a great purpofe, and it is requifite that men fhould be animated to the pursuit of it by fome great incentive. It is therefore attended with a very high pleasure; but as it is by no means defigned to be our conftant business, it is not fit that the absence of this pleasure fhould be attended with any confiderable