SECT. XVI.

ΙΜΙΤΑΤΙΟ Ν.

HE fecond paffion belonging to fociety is imita

THE

tion, or if you will, a defire of imitating, and confequently a pleafure in it. This paffion arifes from much the fame caufe with fympathy. For as fympathy makes us take a concern in whatever men feel, fo this affection prompts us to copy whatever they do; and confequently we have a pleasure in imitating, and in whatever belongs to imitation merely as it is fuch, without any intervention of the reasoning faculty; but folely from our natural conftitution, which Providence has framed in fuch a manner as to find either pleasure or delight, according to the nature of the object, in whatever regards the purposes of our being. It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn every thing; and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more effectually, but more pleafantly. This forms our manners, our opinions, our lives. strongest links of fociety; it is a fpecies of mutual compliance, which all men yield to each other without constraint to themselves, and which is extremely flattering to all. Herein it is that painting and many other agreeable arts have laid one of the principal foundations of their power. And fince, by its influence on our manners and our paffions, it is of fuch great confequence, I fhall here venture to lay

It is one of the

down

down a rule, which may inform us with a good degree of certainty when we are to attribute the power of the arts to imitation, or to our pleafure in the fkill of the imitator merely, and when to fympathy, or fome other caufe in conjunction with it. When the object represented in poetry or painting is fuch as we could have no defire of feeing in the reality, then I may be fure that its power in poetry or painting is owing to the power of imitation, and to no cause operating in the thing itself. So it is with most of the pieces which the painters call ftill-life. In these a cottage, a dunghill, the meanest and moft ordinary utenfils of the kitchen, are capable of giving us pleasure. But when the object of the painting or poem is fuch as we should run to see if real, let it affect us with what odd fort of fenfe it will, we may rely upon it, that the power of the poem or picture is more owing to the nature of the thing itself than to the mere effect of imitation, or to a confideration of the skill of the imitator, however excellent. Aristotle has fpoken fo much and fo folidly upon the force of imitation in his poetics, that it makes any further difcourfe upon this fubje&t the lefs neceffary.

SECT. XVII.

A

AMBITION.

LTHOUGH imitation is one of the great instruments used by Providence in bringing

our nature towards its perfection, yet if men gave themselves up to imitation entirely, and each followed the other, and fo on in an eternal circle, it is cafy to fee that there never could be any improvement amongst them. Men muft remain as brutes do, the fame at the end that they are at this day, and that they were in the beginning of the world. To prevent this, God has planted in man a fenfe of ambi tion, and a fatisfaction arising from the contemplation of his excelling his fellows in fomething deemed valuable amongst them. It is this paffion that drives men to all the ways we fee in ufe of fignalizing themselves, and that tends to make whatever excites in a man the idea of this distinction so very pleasant. It has been fo ftrong as to make very miferable men take comfort that they were fupreme in mifery; and certain it is, that where we cannot diftinguish ourfelves by fomething excellent, we begin to take a complacency in fome fingular infirmities, follies, or defects of one kind or other. It is on this principle that flattery is fo prevalent; for flattery is no more than what raifes in a man's mind an idea of a preference which he has not. Now, whatever, either on good or upon bad grounds, tends to raise a man in his own opinion, produces a fort of fwelling and triumph, that is extremely grateful to the human mind; and this fwelling is never more perceived, nor operates with me force, than when without danger we are converfant with terrible objects, the mind always claiming to itself fome part of the dignity and importance of the things which it contemplates. Hence proceeds what Longinus has obferved of that glory

ing

ing and sense of inward greatnefs, that always fills the reader of fuch paffages in poets and orators as are fublime; it is what every man must have felt in himself upon fuch occafions.

T

SECT. XVIII.

The RECAPITULATION.

O draw the whole of what has been faid into a few diftinct points; The paffions which belong to self-preservation, turn on pain and danger; they are fimply painful when their caufes immediately affect us; they are delightful when we have an idea of pain and danger, without being actually in fuch circumftances; this delight I have not called pleasure, because it turns on pain, and because it is different enough from any idea of pofitive pleasure. Whatever excites this delight, I call fublime. The paffions belonging to self-preservation are the strongest of all the paffions.

The fecond head to which the paffions are referred with relation to their final caufe, is fociety. There are two forts of focieties. The firft is, the fociety of fex. The paflion belonging to this is called love, and it contains a mixture of luft; its object is the beauty of women. The other is the great fociety with man and all other animals. The paffion fubfervient to this is called likewife love, but it has no mixture of luft, and its object is beauty; which is a name I fhall apply to all fuch qualities in things as induce in us a fenfe of affection and tender

nefs, or fome other paffion the most nearly refembling these. The paffion of love has its rife in pofitive pleasure; it is, like all things which grow out of pleasure, capable of being mixed with a mode of uneafiness, that is, when an idea of its object is excited in the mind with an idea at the fame time of having irretrievably loft it. This mixed fenfe of pleasure I have not called pain, because it turns upon actual pleasure, and because it is, both in its cause and in most of its effects, of a nature altogether different.

Next to the general paffion we have for fociety, to a choice in which we are directed by the pleasure we have in the object, the particular paffion under this head called fympathy has the greatest extent. The nature of this paffion is to put us in the place of another in whatever circumftance he is in, and to affect us in a like manner; fo that this paffion may, as the occafion requires, turn either' on pain or pleasure; but with the modifications mentioned in fome cafes in fect. 11. As to imitation and preference, nothing more need be faid.

I

SECT. XIX.

The CONCLUSION.

Believe that an attempt to range and methodize fome of our most leading paflions, would be a good preparative to fuch an enquiry as we are going to make in the enfuing difcourfe. The paflions I have mentioned are almost the only ones which it can be neceffary to confider in our prefent defign;

though