pain. The difference between men and brutes in this point, feems to be remarkable. Men are at all times pretty equally difpofed to the pleasures of love, because they are to be guided by reafon in the time and manner of indulging them. Had any great pain arifen from the want of this fatisfaction, reafon, I am afraid, would find great difficulties in the performance of its office. But brutes, who obey laws, in the execution of which their own reafon has but little fhare, have their ftated feafons; at fuch times it is not improbable that the fenfation from the want is very troublefome, because the end must be then anfwered, or be miffed in many, perhaps for ever; as the incli. nation returns only with its feason,

THE paffion which belongs to generation, merely as fuch, is luft only. This is evident in brutes, whofe paffions are more unmixed, and which purfue their purposes more directly than ours. The only diftinction they obferve with regard to their mates, is that of fex. It is true, that they stick feverally to their own fpecies in preference to all others. But this preference, I imagine, does not arife from any fenfe of beauty which they find in their fpecies, as Mr. Addison supposes, but from a

law

law of fome other kind, to which they are fubject; and this we may fairly concludè, from their арраrent want of choice amongst thofe objects to which the barriers of their fpecies have confined them. But man, who is a creature adapted to a greater variety and intricacy of relation, connects with the general paffion, the idea of fome focial qualities, which direct and heighten the appetite which he has in common with all other animals; and as he is not defigned like them to live at large, it is fit that he should have fomething to create a preference, and fix his choice; and this in general should be fome fenfible quality; as no other can fo quickly, fo powerfully, or fo furely produce its effect. The object therefore of this mixed paffion, which we call love, is the beauty of the sex. Men are carried to the fex in general, as it is the fex, and by the common law of nature; but they are attached to particulars by personal beauty. I call beauty a focial quality; for when women and men, and not only they, but when other animals give us a fenfe of joy and pleasure in beholding them (and there are many that do fo), they infpire us with fentiments of tenderness and affection towards their perfons; we like to have them near us, and we enter willingly into a kind of relation with them, unless we should have ftrong reafons to the contrary. But to what end, in many cases, this was defigned, I am unable to discover; for I see na greater

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 distinction, but with a view to fome great end, though we cannot perceive dif tinctly what it is, as his wisdom is not our wis dom, nor our ways his ways.

SECT. XI.

SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.

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

1

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 defigned for contemplation as well as action; fince folitude as well as fociety has its pleafures; as from the former observation we may discern, that an entire life of folitude contradicts the purposes of our being, fince death itself is fcarcely an idea of more

terrour,

SECT. XII.

SYMPATHY, IMITATION, AND AMBITION.

UNDER this denomination of fociety, the paf fions 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 first of these paffions that we enter into the concerns of others; that we are moved as they are moved, and are never fuffered to be indifferent spectators of almost any thing which men can do or fuffer. For fympathy must be confidered

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: fo that this paffion may either partake of the nature of thofe 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 breaft to another, and are often capable of grafting a delight on wretchedness, mifery, and death itfelf. 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 species of pleasure. This taken as a fact, has been the caufe of much reafoning. The fatisfaction has been commonly attributed, firft, to the comfort we receive in confidering that fo melancholy a ftory 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 arise from the mechanical structure of our bodies, or from the natural frame and conftitution of our minds, to certain conclufions of the reason