double use of the word Love, sometimes including, and sometimes excluding, the element of sexual desire, has constantly led to a great confusion of ideas.* What adds to the confusion is, that the word Love is also used to signify any strong desire. Thus we speak of Love in general, meaning thereby emotions of benevolence; of the love of wealth; the love of power; and of self-love, meaning thereby the combined influence of all the desires, except those which originate in the sentiment of benevolence, and sometimes not even excepting those. Admiration is an agreeable feeling, produced in us by the contemplation of any thing that is new to us, or uncommon. What is common, we view with indifference. When the new or uncommon thing, besides being new or uncommon, is beautiful also, or possesses any other capacity of giving pleasure, the additional pleasure of admiration gives it so much the more powerful an influence over us. When the new or uncommon thing has no beauty, nor any other power of giving pleasure, separate from its rarity or its novelty, that alone may produce a great effect. And even when the new or uncommon thing is in itself a cause of pain, the pleasure of admiration which it produces may for a time neutralize and even overbalance that pain; an observation which will enable us to understand why, in works of art, * Platonic Love is the name given to those attachments between persons of different sexes who are fitted to excite the sexual sentiment in each other, but from whose attachment that sentiment is supposed to be excluded. The existence, however, of such a thing as Platonic Love is regarded by the best authorities as very apocryphal. novelty, and even faulty novelty, is often mistaken for beauty. Sublimity is uncommon greatness or power. This is implied in the very etymology of the word. The pleasure which sublime objects afford is a pleasure of admiration altogether distinct from that which beautiful objects afford; though, in some cases, the same object may afford both these pleasures at once. What is called the Moral Sublime is a different thing altogether. It is merely uncommon virtue.* What is common we view with Indifference. But when the capacity of Admiration is great and predominant, the want and desire of something to gratify it produces a pain, usually described as weariness or Ennui, and which, in a secondary point of view, is correctly enough attributed to the commonness of the things about us. When we have formed expectations of deriving pleasure from certain objects, whether pleasures of admiration, or of any other kind, and those objects fail to come up to our expectations, there ensues a pain of disappointment, then called Contempt, which, when it relates to sensitive beings, gives rise to a feeling of Malevolence. The sentiment of Wonder is the source of that pleasure which we derive from the strange and the marvellous; and, as we have seen, of the weariness we experience from what is common and vulgar. The heightening effect of admiration upon the sentiment of benevolence will serve to explain why * The subject of beauty and sublimity will be more fully considered in the Theory of Taste. many acts, not performed nor required towards ordinary persons, are ordinarily demanded, and readily performed, nay, even considered as duties, towards supposed supernatural beings, and towards persons of high rank or distinguished abilities, or who in any way have become objects of general admiration. 20. What are called Attachments or Friendships, that is, a peculiar warmth of benevolence in two parties towards each other, depend, in a great degree, upon pleasures of one kind or another, which the parties mutually derive from each other's company ; and which are often involuntarily conferred upon both sides. This is so much the case, that attachments often survive the voluntary and deliberate infliction of injuries. In general, however, attachments depend, in a considerable degree, upon the mutual interchange of pleasures voluntarily conferred. Such pleasures are usually called Benefits ; and these, in the second place, we proceed to consider. 21. That heightening of the sentiment of benevolence, which is produced towards those who voluntarily confer pleasures upon us, is called Gratitude. Gratitude ordinarily produces many actions which the unassisted force of the sentiment of benevolence will not ordinarily produce; and therefore, in every code of morals, many things are regarded as duties towards benefactors, which are not required towards men in general. Hence the peculiar duties of children towards their parents, of protégés towards a patron, of citizens towards the state, or the duties of patriotism, as distinguished from the duties of philanthropy, the state being personified and considered capable both of conferring and experiencing pains and pleasures, duties, which, when the supreme power has been concentrated in the hands of an individual, have been transferred to that individual, and have received the name of Obedience, or Political Loyalty; the non-performance or denial of these alleged duties being stigmatized as Treason, or Rebellion. 22. The well known fact that benefits conferred tend to heighten benevolence towards him who confers them, and so to produce benefits in return, joined to the other well known fact that injuries inflicted produce, towards him who inflicts them, the sentiment of malevolence, and so expose him to suffer injuries in his turn, frequently leads men to abstain from injuries, and to confer benefits, from purely selfish motives. The general favor which a man acquires to himself by the character of a good man, and the general disfavor to which a man exposes himself by the character of a bad man; these, with many sagacious persons, furnish in themselves sufficient motives for a general conformity to the ordinary rules of morality prevailing in the societies to which they respectively belong. The observation of this circumstance, joined to some other considerations which we have already pointed out, led the old Epicureans, and the modern Hobbists, to attempt the explanation of the moral phenomena of human nature upon the single principle of prudent self-interest. With men of naturally cool temperament and su perior sagacity, and for every-day morals, this Epicurean theory may, perhaps, answer tolerably well. And the tendency of moral conduct to promote our own selfish interest is a topic of which benevolence itself will sanction the frequent use; since it is evidently a means, and a powerful means, of procuring the performance of many beneficial actions. But it is in vain to expect from merely selfish motives, any great or heroic acts of virtue.* Indeed, even with respect to that part of virtue more particularly distinguished as prudence, or duties to ourselves, the selfish benefits of which are most clearly obvious, it is only a few men whom a mere regard for their own selfish welfare is able to keep within due bounds, — and these are generally men, whose inclination for imprudent indulgences is naturally weak. 23. There yet remains to be considered a set of pleasures and of corresponding pains, which exercise a perpetual and very powerful influence over human judgment and conduct, acting sometimes in opposi * The good and wise man of the Epicurean philosophy is very well described in the following lines of Pope : "With every pleasing, every prudent part, Say, what does Cloe want? She wants a heart. As never yet to love, or to be loved." Moral Essays, Ep. II. It is worthy of remark that the sort of virtue described in these lines is the only sort of virtue, which, according to current, and especially English notions, is appropriate to the female sex. |