profeffions. All these are objects which we cannot expect fhould intereft our companions in the fame degree in which they intereft us. And it is for want of this referve, that the one half of mankind make bad company to the other. A philofopher is company to a philofopher only; the member of a club, to his own little knot of companions.

T

CHA P. III.

Of the unfocial paffions.

HERE is another fet of paffions, which though derived from the imagination, yet before we can enter into them, or regard them as graceful or becoming, must always be brought down to a pitch much lower than that to which undifciplined nature would raise them. Thefe are hatred and refentment, with all their different modifications. With regard to all fuch paffions, our fympathy is divided between the person who feels them and the person who is the object of them. The interests of these two are directly oppofite. What our fympathy with the perfon who feels them would prompt us to with for, our fellow-feeling with the other would lead us to fear. As they are both men, we are concerned for both, and our fear for what the one may suffer, damps our resentment for what the other has fuffered. Our sympathy, E 2 therefore,

therefore, with the man who has received the provocation, neceffarily falls fhort of the paffion which naturally animates him, not only upon account of those general causes which render all fympathetic paffions inferior to the original ones, but upon account of that particular cause which is peculiar to itself, our oppofite fympathy with another perfon. Before refentment, therefore, can become graceful and agreeable, it must be more humbled and brought down below that pitch to which it would naturally rife, than almost any other paffion.

Mankind, at the fame time, have a very ftrong fenfe of the injuries that are done to another. The villain, in a tragedy or romance, is as much the object of our indignation, as the hero is that of our fympathy and affection. We deteft lago as much as we efteem Othello; and delight as much in the punishment of the one, as we are grieved at the diftrefs of the other. But though mankind have so strong a fellow-feeling with the injuries that are done to their brethren, they do not always resent them the more that the fufferer appears to refent them. Upon most occafions, the greater his patience, his mildness, his humanity, provided it does not appear that he wants fpirit, or that fear was the motive of his forbearance, the higher the refentment against the person who injured him. The amiableness of the character exafperates their sense of the atrocity of the injury.

Thefe

These paffions, however, are regarded as neceffary parts of the character of human nature. A perfon becomes contemptible who tamely fits still, and fubmits to infults, without attempting either to repel or to revenge them. We cannot enter into his indifference and infenfibility: we call his behaviour meanfpiritedness, and are as really provoked by it, as by the infolence of his adverfary. Even the mob are enraged to fee any man fubmit patiently to affronts and ill usage. They defire to fee this infolence refented, and refented by the person who fuffers from it. They cry to him with fury, to defend, or to revenge himfelf. If his indignation rouses at last, they heartily applaud, and sympathise with it. It enlivens their own indignation against his enemy, whom they rejoice to fee him attack in turn, and are as really gratified by his revenge, provided it is not immoderate, as if the injury had been done to themselves.

But though the utility of thofe paffions to the individual, by rendering it dangerous to infult or injure him, be acknowledged; and though their utility to the publick, as the guardians of justice, and of the equality of its adminiftration, be not lefs confiderable, as fhall be fhewn hereafter; yet there is still fomething difagreeable in the paffions themfelves, which makes the appearance of them in other men the natural object of our averfion. The expreffion of anger towards any body prefent, if it exceeds a bare intimation that we are fenfible of his ill ufage, is regarded

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Part I. garded not only as an infult to that particular perfon, but as a rudeness to the whole company. Refpect for them ought to have retrained us from giving way to fo boisterous and offenfive an emotion. It is the remote effects of these paffions which are agreeable; the immediate effects are mifchief to the perfon against whom they are directed. But it is the immediate, and not the remote effects of objects which render them agreeable or difagreeable to the imagination. A prifon is certainly, more useful to the publick than a palace; and the person who founds the one is generally directed by a much jufter fpirit of patriotism, that he who builds the other. But the immediate effects of a prison, the confinement of the wretches fhut up in it, are disagreeable; and the imagination either does not take time to trace out the remote ones, or fees them at too great a distance to be much affected by them. A prison, therefore, will always be a difagreeable object; and the fitter it is for the purpose for which it was intended, it will be the more fo. A palace, on the contrary, will always be agreeable; yet its remote effects may often be inconvenient to the publick. It It may ferve to promote luxury, and fet the example of the diffolution of manners. Its immediate effects, however, the conveniency, the pleasure and the gaiety of the people who live in it, being all agreeable, and fuggefting to the imag nation a thoufand agreeable ideas, that faculty generally refts upon them, and feldom goes further in tracing its

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more diftant confequences. Trophies of the inftruments of mufick or of agriculture, imitated in painting or in ftucco, make a common and an agreeable ornament of our halls and dining-rooms. A trophy of the fame kind, compofed of the inftruments of furgery, of diffecting, and amputation-knives ; of faws for cutting the bones, of trepanning inftruments, &c. would be abfurd and fhocking. Inftruments of furgery, however, are always more finely polifhed, and generally more nicely adapted to the purposes for which they are intended, than inftruments of agriculture. The remote effects of them too, the health of the patient, is agreeable; yet as the immediate effect of them is pain and suffering, the fight of them always difpleases us. Inftruments of war are agreeable, though their immediate effect may feem to be in the fame manner pain and fuffering. But then it is the pain and fuffering of our enemies, with whom we have no fympathy. With regard to us, they are immediately connected with the agreeable ideas of courage, victory, and honour. They are themselves, therefore, supposed to make one of the nobleft parts of drefs, and the imitation of them one of the fineft ornaments of architecture. It is the same case with the qualities of the mind. The ancient ftoics were of opinion, that as the world was governed by the all-ruling providence of a wife, powerful, and good God, every fingle event ought to be regarded, as making a neceffary part of the plan of the universe, and