have been affected-perhaps the loss of fifty pounds he would scarcely have felt-but I should be glad to know how much the movement or passion must be moderated; or, in other words, as the difference ariseth solely from the different degress of the cause, how small the loss must be when the sentiment or feeling of it begins to be converted into a real pleasure; for to me it doth not appear natural that any the most trifling loss, were it of a single shilling, should be the subject of positive delight. But to try another instance: a gross and public insult commonly provokes a very high degree of resentment, and gives a most pungent vexation to a person of sensibility. I would gladly know whether a smaller affront, or some slight instance of neglect or contempt, gives such a person any pleasure. Try the experiment also on friendship and hatred, and you will find the same success. As the warmest friendship is highly agreeable to the mind, the slightest liking is also agreeable, though in a less degree. Perfect hatred is a kind of torture to the breast that harbours it, which will not be found capable of being mitigated into pleasure; for there is no degree of ill-will without pain. The gradation in the cause and in the effect are entirely correspondent. Nor can any just conclusion be drawn from the affections of the body, as in these the consequence is often solely imputable to a certain proportion of strength in the cause that operates, to the present disposition of the organs. But though I cannot find that in any uncompounded passion the most re mote degrees are productive of such contrary effects, I do not deny that when different passions are blended, some of them pleasing and some painful, the pleasure or the pain of those which predominate may, through the wonderful mechanism* of our mental frame, be considerably augmented by the mixture. The only truth which, as I hinted already, I can discover in the preceding hypothesis, is, that the mind in certain cases avails itself of the notion of falsehood in order to prevent the representation or narrative from producing too strong an effect upon the imagination, and, consequently, to relieve itself from such an excess of passion as could not otherwise fail to be painful. But let it be observed that this notion is not a necessary concomitant of the pleasure that results from pity and other such affections, but is merely accidental. It was remarked above, that if the pathetic exceeds a certain The word mechanism, applied to the mind, ought not reasonably to give offence to any. I only use the term metaphorically for those effects n the operation of the mental faculties produced in consequence of such fixed laws as are independent of the will. It hath here, therefore, no refer ence to the doctrine of the Materialists, a system which, in my opinion, is not only untenable, but absurd. measure, from being very pleasant it becomes very painfuì, Then the mind recurs to every expedient, and to disbelief among others, by which it may be enabled to disburden itself of what distresseth it; and, indeed, whenever this recourse is had by any, it is a sure indication that, with regard to such, the poet, orator, or historian hath exceeded the proper meas ure. But that this only holds when we are too deeply interested by the sympathetic sorrow, will appear from the following considerations: first, from the great pains often taken by writers (whose design is certainly not to shock, but to please their readers) to make the most moving stories they relate be firmly believed; secondly, from the tendency, nay, fondness, of the generality of mankind to believe what moves them, and their averseness to be convinced that it is a fiction. This can result only from the consciousness that, in ordinary cases, disbelief, by weakening their pity, would diminish, instead of increasing, their pleasure. They must be very far, then, from entertaining Fontenelle's notion that it is necessary to the producing of that pleasure, for we cannot well suspect them of a plot against their own enjoyment; thirdly, and lastly, from the delight which we take in reading or hearing the most tragical narrations of orators and historians, of the reality of which we entertain no doubt; I might add, in revolving in our minds, and in relating to others, disastrous incidents which have fallen within the compass of our own knowledge, and as to which, consequently, we have an abso lute assurance of the fact. PART. III. The Third Hypothesis. The third hypothesis which I shall produce on this subject is Mr. Hume's; only it ought to be remarked previously that he doth not propose it as a full solution of the question, but rather as a supplement to the former two, in the doctrine of both which he, in a great measure, acquiesces. Take his theory in his own words. He begins with putting the question, "What is it, then, which in this case," that is, when the sorrow is not softened by fiction, " raises a pleasure from the bosom of uneasiness, so to speak; and a pleasure, which still retains all the features and outward symptoms of distress and sorrow? I answer, This extraordinary effect proceeds from that very eloquence with which the melancholy scene is represented. The genius required to paint objects in a lively manner, the art employed in collecting all the pathetic circumstances, the judgment displayed in disposing them-the exercise, I say, of these noble talents, together with the force of expression and beauty of oratorical numbers, diffuse the highest satisfaction on the audience, and excite the most delightful movements. By this means, the uneasiness of the melancholy passions is not only overpowered and effaced by something stronger of an opposite kind, but the whole movement of those passions is converted into pleasure, and swells the delight which the eloquence raises in us. The same force of oratory employed on an uninteresting subject would not please half so much, or, rather, would appear altogether ridiculous; and the mind being left in absolute calmness or indifference, would relish none of those beauties of imagination or expression which, if joined to passion, give it such exquisite entertainment. The impulse or vehemence arising from sorrow, compassion, indignation, receives a new direction from the sentiments of beauty. The latter, being the predominant emotion, seize the whole mind, and convert the former into themselves, or, at least, tincture them so strongly as totally to alter their nature; and the soul being at the same time roused by passion and charmed by eloquence, feels on the whole a strong movement which is altogether delightful." I am sorry to say, but truth compels me to acknowledge, that I have reaped no more satisfaction from this account of the matter than from those which preceded it. I could have wished, indeed, that the author had been a little more explicit in his manner of expressing himself, for I am not certain that I perfectly comprehend his meaning. At one time he seems only to intend to say that it is the purpose of eloquence, to the promoting of which its tropes and figures are wonderfully adapted, to infuse into the mind of the hearer such compassion, sorrow, indignation, and other passions, as are, notwithstanding their original character when abstractly considered, accompanied with pleasure. At another time it appears rather his design to signify, though he doth not plainly speak it out, that the discovery made by the hearer of the admirable art and ingenuity of the speaker, and of the elegance and harmony of what is spoken, gives that peculiar pleasure to the mind which makes even the painful passions become delightful. If the first of these be all that he intended to affirm, he hath told us, indeed, a certain truth, but nothing new or uncommon; nay, more, he hath told us nothing that can serve in the smallest degree for a solution of the difficulty. Whoever doubted that it is the design and work of eloquence to move the passions and to please? The question which this naturally gives rise to is, How doth eloquence produce this effect? This, I believe, it will be acknowledged to do principally, if not solely, agreeably to the doctrine explained above, by communicating lively, distinct, and strong ideas of the distress which it exhibits. By a judicious yet natural * Chap. vi. arrangement of the most affecting circumstances, by a proper selection of the most suitable tropes and figures, it enlivens the ideas raised in the imagination to such a pitch as makes them strongly resemble the perceptions of the senses or the transcripts of the memory. The question, then, with which we are immediately concerned, doth obviously recur, and seems, if possible, more mysterious than before; for how car the aggravating of all the circumstances of misery in the rep resentation make it be contemplated with pleasure? One would naturally imagine that this must be the most effectual method of making it give still greater pain. How can the heightening of grief, fear, anxiety, and other uneasy sensations, render them agreeable? Besides, this ingenious author has not adverted that his hypothesis, instead of being supplementary to Fontenelle's, as he appears to have intended, is subversive of the principles on which the French critic's theory is founded. The effect, according to the latter, results from moderating, weakening, softening, and diminishing the passion. According to the former, it results from what is directly opposite, from the arts employed by the orator for the purpose of exaggeration, strengthening, heightening, and inflaming the passion. In deed, neither of these writers seem to have attended sufficiently to one particular, which of itself might have shown the insufficiency of their systems. The particular alluded to is, that pity, if it exceed not a certain degree, gives pleasure to the mind when excited by the original objects in distress, as well as by the representations made by poets, painters, and orators; and, on the contrary, if it exceed a certain degree, it is on the whole painful, whether awakened by the real objects of pity, or roused by the exhibitions of the historian or of the poet. Indeed, as sense operates more strongly on the mind than imagination does, the excess is much more frequent in the former case than in the latter. Now, in attempting to give a solution of the difficulty, it is plain that all our theorists ought regularly and properly to begin with the former case. If in that, which is the original and the simplest, the matter is sufficiently accounted for, it is accounted for in every case, it being the manifest design both of painting and of oratory as nearly as possible to pro duce the same affections which the very objects represented would have produced in our minds; whereas, though Mr. Hume should be admitted to have accounted fully for the impression made by the poet and the orator, we are as far as ever from the discovery of the cause why pity excited by the objects themselves, when it hath no eloquence to recommend it, is on the whole, if not excessive, a pleasant emo. tion. But if this celebrated writer intended to assert that the dis 66 covery of the oratory, that is, of the address and talents of the speaker, is what gives the hearer a pleasure, which, mingling itself with pity, fear, indignation, converts the whole, as he expresses it, into one strong movement, which is altogether delightful-if this be his sentiment, he hath indeed advanced something extraordinary and entirely new. And that this is his opinion appears, I think, obliquely from the expressions which he useth. The genius required, the art employed, the judgment displayed, along with the force of expression and beauty of oratorical numbers, diffuse the highest satisfaction on the audience." Again: "The impulse or vehemence arising from sorrow, compassion, indignation, receives a new direction from the sentiments of beauty." If this, then, be a just solution of the difficulty, and the detection of the speaker's talents and address be necessary to render the hearer susceptible of this charming sorrow, this delightful anguish, how grossly have all critics and rhetoricians been deceived hitherto! These, in direct opposition to this curious theory, have laid it down in their rhetorics as a fundamental maxim, that "it is essential to the art to conceal the art; .99* a maxim, too, which, in their estimation, the orator, in no part of his province, is obliged to such a scrupulous observance of as in the pathetic.† In this the speaker, if he would prove successful, must make his subject totally engross the attention of the hearers, insomuch that he himself, his genius, his art, his judgment, his richness of language, his harmony of numbers, are not minded in the least.‡ Never does the orator obtain a nobler triumph by his cloquence than when his sentiments, and style, and order appear so naturally to arise out of the subject, that every hearer is inclined to think he could not have either thought or spoken otherwise himself, when everything, in short, is exhibited in such manner, 'As all might hope to imitate with ease; Yet while they strive the same success to gain, Should find their labour and their hopes in vain."§-FRANCIS. As to the harmony of numbers, it ought no farther to be the * Artis est celare artem. "Effugienda igitur in hac præcipuè parte omnis calliditatis suspicio : nihil videatur fictum, nihil solicitum: omnia potius a causa, quam ab oratore profecta credantur. Sed hoc pati non possumus, et perire artem putamus, nisi appareat: cùm desinat ars esse, si apparet."-QUINT., Inst., lib. iv., cap. ii. Ubi res agitur, et vera dimicatio est, ultimus sit famæ locus. Prop terea non debet quisquam, ubi maxima rerum momenta versantur, de verbis esse solicitus. Neque hoc eo pertinet, ut in his nullus sit ornatus, sed uti pressior et severior, minus confessus, præcipuè ad materiam accommo datus."-QUINT. "Ut sibi quivis Speret idem; sudet multûm, frustraque laboret. |