soul, and subdues every opposing principle; it unites with desires and appetites that are not of an opposite tendency, it bends them to its pleasure, and in their gratifications pursues its own. The man whose governing passion is pride, may also be social and beneficent; he may love his friends, and rejoice in their good fortune; but, even in their company, the desire of impressing them with an idea of his own importance, for ever obtruding itself, produces disgust and aversion. The ruling passion, blended with others, augments their vehemence, and consequently enhances their pleasure: for the pleasure arising from the gratification of any passion, is proportioned to its force. Moreover, the sensations arising from the indulgence of the governing principle will necessarily be combined with those arising from the gratification of other appetites and desires; so intimately combined, that their union is not easily discerned, but by those who are accustomed to reflect on their feelings yet, by their union, they affect the mind with a stronger impulse than if they were separately excited. Suppose the ruling M passion thwarted, it ceases to operate with success: the force it communicated to other passions is withdrawn; consequently, their vehemence suffers abatement; and, consequently, the pleasure they yield is lessened. By the discomfiture and disappointment of the governing principle, the pleasure arising from its gratification is no longer united with that arising from other active but subordinate principles; and thus, the pleasure resulting from subordinate principles, by the failure and absence of the adventitious pleasure with which it was formerly accompanied, is sensibly diminished. It is, therefore, manifest, that if social and beneficent affections, by gaining a superiority in the constitution, have heightened every other enjoyment, and if their exercise is suspended by disappointment, all the pleasures of sense or of ambition that formerly contributed to our felicity, though in themselves they are still the same; yet, being reft of their better part, of the spirit that enlivened them, they strike the mind so feebly, as only to awaken its attention to the loss it hath sustained; and, instead of affording comfort, aggravate our misfortune. We estimate their importance, not as they really are, but as they affect us in our present state; we undervalue and despise them. Qu'en ses plus beaux habits l'Aurore au teint vermeil, Annonce à l'univers le retour du soleil, Et, que devant son char, ses legeres suivantes SEGRAIS. We may also observe, that social and beneficent affections are in their own nature gay and exhilarating; and that, by extending their influence to other active principles which are not opposed to them, they accelerate their motions and augment their vivacity. They animate, and even inflame the inferior appetites; and where reason, and other serious principles are not invested with supreme authority, they expose us to the anarchy of unlawful passions. There are many instances of men betrayed into habits of profligacy and dissipation, by the influence of their social affections. These men, disappointed and chagrined with the world, and, consequently, with every pleasure, to whose energy the love of society contributed, consider the enjoyments arising from inferior appetites, not as they really are, when governed and guided by reason, but immoderate and pernicious, agreeably to their own experience. Reformed profligates are often very eloquent teachers of abstinence and self-denial. Polemo, converted by Xenocrates from a course of wild extravagance, became eminent in the school of Plato. The wisdom of Solomon was, in like manner, the child of folly. And the melancholy Jaques would not have moralized so profoundly, had he not been, as we are told in the play, a dissipated and sensual libertine. To the foregoing observations, and to the consistency of Jaques's character, one thing may be objected; he is fond of music. But surely music is an enjoyment of sense; it affords pleasure; it is admitted to every joyous scene, and augments their gaiety. How can this be explained? Though action seems essential to our happiness, the mind never exerts itself unless it be actuated by some passion or desire. Thinking appears to be necessary to its existence; for surely that quality is necessary, without which the object cannot be conceived. But the existence of thinking depends upon thoughts or ideas; and, consequently, whether the mind is active or not, ideas are present to the thinking faculty. The motions and laws observed by our thoughts in the impressions they make on us, vary according as the soul may be influenced by various passions. At one time, they move with incredible celerity; they seem to rush upon us in the wildest disorder, and those of the most opposite character and complexion unite in the same assemblage. At other times, they are slow, regular, and uniform. Now, it is obvious, that their rapidity must be occasioned by the eagerness of an impelling passion, and that their wild extravagance proceeds from the energies of various passions operating at once or alternately. Passions, appetites, and desires, are the principles of action, and govern the motions of our thoughts: yet they are themselves dependent: they |
