Sect. IV.

Men considered as endowed with passions.

On the contrary, when the other end alone is attained, the rational without the pathetic, the speaker is as far from his purpose as before. You have proved beyond contradiction, that acting thus is the sure way to procure such an object. I perceive that your reasoning is conclusive: but I am not affected by it. Why? I have no passion for the object. I am indifferent whether I procure it or not. You have demonstrated, that such a step will mortify my enemy. I believe it; but I have no resentment, and will not trouble myself to give pain to another. Your arguments evince that it would gratify my vanity. But I prefer my ease. Thus passion is the mover to action, reason is the guide. Good is the object of the will, truth is the object of the understanding *.

* Several causes have contributed to involve this subject in confusion. One is the ambiguity and imperfection of language. Motives are often called arguments, and both motives and arguments are promiscuously styled reason. Another is, the idle disputes that have arisen among philosophers, concerning the nature of good, both physical and moral. "Truth and good are one," says the author of the Pleasures of Imagination, an author whose poetical merit will not be questioned by persons of taste, The expres. sion might have been passed in the poet, whose right to the use of catachresis, one of the many privileges comprehended under the name poetic licence, prescription hath fully established. But by philosophizing on this passage in his notes, he warrants us to canvass his reasoning, for no such privilege hath as yet been conceded to philosophers. Indeed, in attempting to illustrate, he has, I think, confuted it, or, to speak more properly, shown it to have no meaning. He mentions two opinions concerning the connexion of truth and beauty, which is one species of good. "Some phi

Sect. IV.

Men considered as endowed with passions.

Ir may be thought, that when the motive is the equity, the generosity, or the intrinsic merit of the

losophers," says he, " assert an independent and an invariable "law in Nature, in consequence of which all rational beings must "alike perceive beauty in some certain proportions, and deformity "in the contrary." Now, though I do not conceive what is meant either by an independent law, or by contrary proportions, this, if it proves any thing, proves as clearly, that deformity and truth are one, as that beauty and truth are one: for those contrary proportions are surely as much proportions, or, if you will, as true proportions, as some certain proportions are. Accordingly, if, in the conclusion deduced, you put the word deformity instead of beauty, and the word beauty instead of deformity, the sense will be equally complete. "Others," he adds, "there are, who believe beauty "to be merely a relative and arbitrary thing: and that it is not “impossible, in a physical sense, that two beings of equal capaci

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ties for truth, should perceive, one of them beauty, and the other "deformity, in the same relations. And upon this supposition, "by that truth which is always connected with beauty, nothing more can be meant than the conformity of any object to those "proportions, upon which, after careful examination, the beauty of that species is found to depend." This opinion, if I am able to comprehend it, differs only in one point from the preceding. It the standard or law of beauty, not invariable and unisupposes versal. It is liable to the same objection, and that rather more glaringly; for, if the same relations must be always equally true relations, deformity is as really one with truth, as beauty is, since the very same relations can exhibit both appearances. In short, no hypothesis hitherto invented hath shown, that, by means of the discursive faculty, without the aid of any other mental power, we could ever obtain a notion of either the beautiful or the good: and till this be shown, nothing is shown to the purpose. The author aforesaid, far from attempting this, proceeds on the supposition

Part IV.

Men considered as endowed with passions.

action recommended, argument may be employed to evince the reasonableness of the end, as well as the

that we first perceive beauty, he says not how, and then having, by a careful examination, discovered the proportions which gave rise to the perception, denominate them true; so that all those elaborate disquisitions with which we are amused, amount only to a few insignificant identical propositions very improperly expressed. For out of a vast profusion of learned phrase, this is all the information we can pick, that "Beauty is-truly beauty," and that "Good "is truly good." "Moral good," says a celebrated writer, "consisteth in fitness." From this account any person would at first readily conclude, that morals, according to him, are not concerned in the ends which we pursue, but solely in the choice of means for attaining our ends; that if this choice be judicious, the conduct is moral; if injudicious, the contrary. But this truly piousauthor is far frem admitting such an interpretation of his words. Fitness, in his sense, hath no relation to a further end. It is an absolute fitness, a fitness in itself. We are obliged to ask, What then is that fitness, which you call absolute? for the application of the word in every other case invariably implying the proper direction of means to an end, far from affording light to the meaning it has here, tends directly to mislead us. The only answer, as far as I can learn, that hath ever been given to this question, is neither more nor less than this, "That alone is absolutely fit which is "morally good:" so that in saying moral good consisteth in fitness, no more is meant than that it consisteth in moral good. Another moralist appears, who hath made a most wonderful discovery. It is, that there is not a vice in the world but lying, and that acting virtuously in any situation, is but one way or other of telling truth. When this curious theory comes to be explained, we find the practical lie results solely from acting contrary to what those moral sentiments dictate, which, instead of deducing, he everywhere presupposeth to be known and acknowledged by us. Thus he reasons perpetually in a circle, and, without advancing a single

step

Sect. IV.

Men considered as endowed with passions.

fitness of the means. But this way of speaking suits better the popular dialect, than the philosophical. The term reasonableness, when used in this manner, means nothing but the goodness, the amiableness, or moral excellency. If therefore the hearer hath no love of justice, no benevolence, no regard to right, although he were endowed with the perspicacity of a cherub, your harangue could never have any influence on his mind. The reason is, when you speak of the fitness of the means, you address yourself only to the head; when you speak of the goodness of the end, you address yourself to the heart, of which we supposed him destitute. Are we then to class the virtues among the passions? By no means. But, without entering into a discussion of the difference, which would be foreign to our purpose, let it suffice to observe, that they have this in common with passion. They necessarily imply an habitual propensity to a certain species of conduct, an habitual aversion to the contrary; a veneration for such a character, an ab

step beyond it, makes the same things both causes and effects reciprocally. Conduct appears to be false, for no other reason but be cause it is immoral, and immoral for no other reason but because it is false. Such philosophy would not have been unworthy those profound outologists, who have blest the world with the discovery that "One being is but one being," that "A being is truly a be"ing," and that "Every being has all the properties that it has," and who, to the unspeakable increase of useful knowledge, have denominated these the general attributes of being, and distinguished them by the titles, unity, truth, and goodness. This, if it be any thing, is the very sublimate of science,

Sect. IV.

Men considered as endowed with passions.

horrence of such another. They are, therefore, though not passions, so closely related to them, that they are properly considered as motives to action, being equally capable of giving an impulse to the will. The difference is a-kin to that, if not the same, which rhetoricians observe between pathos and ethos, passion and disposition *. Accordingly, what is addressed solely to the moral powers of the mind, is not so properly denominated the pathetic, as the sentimental. The term, I own, is rather modern, but is nevertheless convenient, as it fills a vacant room, and doth not, like most of our newfangled words, justle out older and worthier occupants, to the no small detriment of the language. It occupies, so to speak, the middle place between the pathetic and that which is addressed to the imagination, and partakes of both, adding to the warmth of the former, the grace and attraction of the latter,

Now the principal questions on this subject, are these two: How is a passion or disposition that is favourable to the design of the orator, to be excited in the hearers? How is an unfavourable passion or disposition to be calmed? As to the first, it was said already in general, that passion must be awakened by communicating lively ideas of the object. The reason will be obvious from the following remarks: A

* This seems to have been the sense which Quintilian had of the difference between wados and dos, when he gave amor for an example of the first, and charitas of the second. The word na is also sometimes used for moral sentiment.