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With that natural bias another circumstance concurs to give passion an undue influence on our opinions and belief; and that is a strong tendency in our nature to justify our passions as well as our actions, not to others only, but even to ourselves. That tendency is peculiarly remarkable with respect to disagreeable passions: by its influence, objects are magnified or lessened, circumstances supplied or suppressed, every thing coloured and disguised, to answer the end of justification. Hence the foundation of self-deceit, where a man imposes upon himself innocently, and even without suspicion of a bias.

There are subordinate means that contribute to pervert the judg ment, and to make us form opinions contrary to truth; of which I shall mention two. First, it was formerly observed,* that though ideas seldom start up in the mind without connexion, yet that ideas suited to the present tone of mind are readily suggested by any slight connexion: the arguments for a favourite opinion are always at hand, while we often search in vain for those that cross our inclination. Second, The mind taking delight in agreeable circumstances or arguments, is deeply impressed with them; while those that are disagreeable are hurried over so as scarce to make any impression: the same argument, by being relished or not relished, weighs so differently, as in truth to make conviction depend more on passion than on reasoning. This observation is fully justified by experience to confine myself to a single instance, the numberless absurd religious tenets that at different times have pestered the world, would be altogether unaccountable but for that irregular bias of passion.

We proceed to a more pleasant task, which is, to illustrate the foregoing observations by proper examples. Gratitude, when warm, is often exerted upon the children of the benefactor: especially where he is removed out of reach by death or absence.† The passion in this case being exerted for the sake of the benefactor, requires no peculiar excellence in his children: but the practice of doing good to these children produces affection for them, which never fails to advance them in our esteem. By such means, strong connexions of affection are often formed among individuals upon the slight foundation now mentioned.

Envy is a passion, which, being altogether unjustifiable, cannot be excused but by disguising it under some plausible name. At the same time, no passion is more eager than envy, to give its object a disagreeable appearance: it magnifies every bad quality, and fixes on the most humbling circumstances:

Cassius. I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but for my single self,

I had as lief not be, as live to be

In awe of such a thing as I myself.

I was born free as Cæsar, so were you:

We both have fed as well: and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he.
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,

Chap. I.

+ See part 1. sect. 1. of the present chapter.

The troubled Tyber chafing with his shores,
Cæsar says to me, Dar'st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?-Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,

And bid him follow; so indeed he did.
The torrent roar'd and we did buffet it,
With lusty sinews; throwing it aside,
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive the point propos'd,
Cæsar cry'd, Help me, Cassius, or I sink.

I, as Æneas, our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear; so from the waves of Tyber

Did I the tired Cæsar: and this man

Is now become a god, and Cassius is

A wretched creature; and must bend his body,
If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him.

He had a fever when he was in Spain,

And when the fit was on him, I did mark

How he did shake. 'Tis true, this god did shake;
His coward lips did from their colour fly,

And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose its lustre; I did hear him groan;

Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,
Alas! it cry'd
'd- -Give me some drink, Titinius,-
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me,

A man of such a feeble temper should

So get a start of the majestic world,

And bear the palm alone.-Julius Cæsar, act 1. sc. 3.

Gloster inflamed with resentment against his son Edgar, could even force himself into a momentary conviction that they were not related:

O strange fasten'd villain!

Would he deny his letter ?-I never got him.-King Lear, act 2. sc. 3.

When by great sensibility of heart, or other means, grief becomes immoderate, the mind, in order to justify itself, is prone to magnify the cause, and if the real cause admit not of being magnified, the mind seeks a cause for its grief in imagining future events:

Busby. Madam, your Majesty is much too sad:

You promis'd, when you parted with the King,

To lay aside self-harming heaviness,

And entertain a cheerful disposition.

Queen. To please the King, I did; to please myself,

I cannot do it. Yet I know no cause

Why I should welcome such a guest as grief;
Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest
As my sweet Richard: yet again, methinks,
Some unborn sorrow, ripe in Fortune's womb,
Is coming toward me; and my inward soul
With something trembles, yet at nothing grieves,

More than with parting from my lord the King.-Richard II. act 2. sc. 5.

Resentment is at first vented on the relations of the offender, in order to punish him but as resentment, when so outrageous, is contrary to conscience, the mind, to justify its passion, is disposed to paint these relations in the blackest colours; and it comes at

last to be convinced, that they ought to be punished for their own demerits.

Anger raised by an accidental stroke upon a tender part of the body, is sometimes vented upon the undesigning cause. But as the passion in that case is absurd, and as there can be no solid gratification in punishing the innocent, the mind, prone to justify as well as to gratify its passion, deludes itself into a conviction of the action's being voluntary. The conviction, however, is but momentary: the first reflection shows it to be erroneous; and the passion vanisheth almost instantaneously with the conviction. But anger, the most violent of all passions, has still greater influence; it sometimes forces the mind to personify a stock or a stone, if it happen to occasion bodily pain, and even to believe it a voluntary agent, in order to be a proper object of resentment. And that we have really a momentary conviction of its being a voluntary agent, must be evident from considering, that without such conviction the passion can neither be justified nor gratified: the imagination can give no aid; for a stock or a stone imagined sensible, cannot be an object of punishment, if the mind be conscious that it is an imagination merely without any reality. Of such personification, involving a conviction of reality, there is one illustrious instance: when the first bridge of boats over the Hellespont was destroyed by a storm, Xerxes fell into a transport of rage so excessive, that he commanded the sea to be punished with 300 stripes; and a pair of fetters to be thrown into it, enjoining the following words to be pronounced: "O thou salt and bitter water! thy master hath condemned thee to this punishment for offending him without cause; and is resolved to pass over thee in despite of thy insolence: with reason all men neglect to sacrifice to thee, because thou art both disagreeable and treacherous."*

Shakspeare exhibits beautiful examples of the irregular influence of passion in making us believe things to be otherwise than they are. King Lear in his distress, personifies the rain, wind, and thunder; and, in order to justify his resentment, believes them to be taking part with his daughters:

Lear. Rumble thy belly-full, spit fire, spout rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters.
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness:
I never gave you kingdoms, call'd you children;

You owe me no subscription. Then let fall

Your horrible pleasure.Here I stand, your slave;
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man!

But yet I call you servile ministers,

That have with two pernicious daughters join'd

Your high-engender'd battles, 'gainst a head

So old and white as this. Oh! oh! 'tis foul!--Act 3. sc. 2.

King Richard, full of indignation against his favourite horse for carrying Bolingbroke, is led into the conviction of his being rational:

Groom. O, how it yearn'd my heart, when I beheld

In London streets, that coronation-day,

Herodotus, book 7.

When Bolingbroke rode on Roan Barbary,
That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,
That horse that I so carefully have dressed.

K. Rich. Rode he on Barbary ? tell me, gentle friend, how went be under him.

Groom. So proud as he had disdain'd the ground.

K. Rich. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!
That jade had eat bread from my royal hand.

This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.
Would he not stumble? would he not fall down

(Since pride must have a fall), and break the neck

Of that proud man that did usurp his back ?—Rich. II. act 5. sc. 11.

Hamlet, swelled with indignation at his mother's second marriage, was strongly inclined to lessen the time of her widowhood, the shortness of the time being a violent circumstance against her; and he deludes himself by degrees into the opinion of an interval shorter than the real one:

Hamlet.

-That it should come to this!
But two months dead! nay, not so much; not two;-
So excellent a king, that was, to this,

Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he permitted not the winds of heav'n

Visit her face too roughly. Heav'n and earth!
Must I remember-why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on; yet, within a month-
Let me not think-Frailty, thy name is Woman!
A little month! or ere these shoes were old,
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears-Why she, even she-
(O heav'n! a beast that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer—) married with mine uncle,
My father's brother; but no more like my father,

Than I to Hercules. Within a month!

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

She married-Oh, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.-Act 1. sc. 3.

The power of passion to falsify the computation of time is remarkable in this instance; because time, which hath an accurate measure, is less obsequious to our desires and wishes than objects which have no precise standard of less or more.

Good news are greedily swallowed upon very slender evidence: our wishes magnify the probability of the event, as well as the veracity of the relater; and we believe as certain what at best is doubtful :

:

Quel che l'huom vede, amor gli fa invisibile;

Ed l'invisibil fa veder' amore.

Questo creduto fu; che 'l miser suole

Dar facile credenza a quel, che vuole.-Orland. Furios. cant. 1. st. 56.

For the same reason, bad news gain also credit upon the slightest evidence fear, if once alarmed, has the same effect with hope, to magnify every circumstance that tends to conviction. Shakspeare, who shows more knowledge of human nature than any of our phi

losophers, hath in his Cymbeline* represented this bias of the mind; for he makes the person who alone was affected with the bad news, yield to evidence that did not convince any of his companions. And Othello† is convinced of his wife's infidelity from circumstances too slight to move any person less interested.

If the news interest us in so low a degree as to give place to rea son, the effect will not be altogether the same: judging of the probability or improbability of the story, the mind settles in a rational conviction either that it is true or not. But, even in that case, the mind is not allowed to rest in that degree of conviction which is pro duced by rational evidence: if the news be in any degree favour able, our belief is raised by hope to an improper height; and if unfavourable, by fear.

This observation holds equally with respect to future events: if a future event be either much wished or dreaded, the mind never fails to augment the probability beyond truth.

That easiness of belief with respect to wonders and prodigies, even the most absurd and ridiculous, is a strange phenomenon; because nothing can be more evident than the following proposition, that the more singular an event is, the more evidence is required to produce belief; a familiar event daily occurring, being in itself extremely probable, finds ready credit, and therefore is vouched by the slightest evidence; but to overcome the improbability of a strange and rare event, contrary to the course of nature, the very strongest evidence is required. It is certain, however, that wonders and prodigies are swallowed by the vulgar, upon evidence that would not be sufficient to ascertain the most familiar occurrence. It has been reckoned difficult to explain that irregular bias of mind; but we are now made acquainted with the influence of passion upon opinion and belief: a story of ghosts or fairies, told with an air of gravity and truth, raiseth an emotion of wonder, and S perhaps of dread: and these emotions imposing upon a weak mind, impress upon it a thorough conviction contrary to reason.

Opinion and belief are influenced by propensity as well as by passion. An innate propensity is all we have to convince us that the operations of nature are uniform: influenced by that propensity, we often rashly think that good or bad weather will never have an end; and in natural philosophy, writers, influenced by the same propensity, stretch commonly their analogical reasonings beyond just bounds.

Opinion and belief are influenced by affection as well as by propensity. The noted story of a fine lady and a curate viewing the moon through a telescope, is a pleasant illustration I perceive, says the lady, two shadows inclining to each other; they are cer tainly two happy lovers: Not at all, replies the curate, they are two steeples of a cathedral.

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