merely because they are unlawful. The notion of duty, when opposite to the passions, is not always able to overcome them; and when it fails of that effect, is apt rather to increase and irritate them, by producing an opposition in our motives and principles. 4. The same effect follows, whether the opposition arise from internal motives or external obstacles. The passion commonly acquires new force in both cases. The efforts, which the mind makes to surmount the obstacle, excite the spirits, and enliven the passion. 5. Uncertainty has the same effect as opposition. The agitation of the thought, the quick turns which it makes from one view to another, the variety of passions which succeed each other, according to the different views: All these produce an emotion in the mind; and this emotion transfuses itself into the predominant passion. Security, on the contrary, diminishes the passions. The mind, when left to itself, immediately languishes; and in order to preserve its ardour, must be every moment supported by a new flow of passion. For the same reason, despair, though contrary to, security, has a like influence. 6. Nothing more powerfully excites any affection than to conceal some part of its object, by throwing it into a kind of shade, which, at the same time that it shows enough to prepossess us in favour of the object, leaves still some work for the imagination. Besides, that obscurity is always attended with a kind of uncertainty; the effort, which the fancy makes to complete the idea, rouzes the spirits, and gives an additional force to the passion. 7. As despair and security, though contrary, produce the same effects; so absence is observed to have contrary effects, and in different circumstances, either increases or diminishes our affection. ROUCHEFOUCAULT has very well remarked, that absence destroy's weak passions, but increases strong as the wind extinguishes a candle, but blows up a fire. Long absence naturally weakens our idea, and diminishes the passion: 'But where the affection is so strong and lively as to support itself, the uneaz siness arising from absence increases the passion, and gives it new force and influence.' 10m 21 gmuito 2 9189 When the soul applies itself to the performance of any action, or the conception of any object, to which it is not accustomed, there is a certain unpliableness in the faculties, and a difficulty of the spirits moving in their new direction. As this difficulty excites the spirits, it is the source of wonder, surprise, and of all the emotions which arise from novelty and is, in itself, agreeable, like every thing which enlivens the mind to a moderate degree. But though surprise be agreeable in itself, yet, as it puts the spirits in agitation, it not only augments our agreeable affections, but also our painful, according to the foregoing principle. Hence every thing that is new is most affecting, and gives us either more pleasure or pain, than what, strictly speaking, should naturally follow from it. When it often returns upon us, the novelty wears off; the passions subside; the hurry of the spirits is over; and we survey the object with greater tranquillity. 9. The imagination and affections have a close union together. The vivacity of the former gives force to the latter. Hence the prospect of any pleasure, with which we are acquainted, affects us more than any other pleasure, which we may own superior, but of whose nature we are wholly ignorant. Of the one we can form a particular and determinate idea: The other we conceive under the general notion of pleasure. Any satisfaction, which we lately enjoyed, and of which the memory is fresh and recent, operates on the will with more violence, than another of which the traces are decayed and almost obliterated. I aut queweld As pleasure, which is suitable to the way of life in which we are engaged, excites more our desire and appetite than another, which is foreign to itories amɛ Nothing is more capable of infusing any passion into the, mind, than eloquence, by which objects are represented in the strongest and most lively colours. The bare opinion of another, especially when enforced with passion, will cause an idea to have an influence upon us, though that idea might otherwise have been entirely neglected.. It is remarkable, that lively passions commonly attend a lively imagination. In this respect, as well as in others, the force of the passion depends as much, on the temper of the person, as on the nature and situation of the object, och tud „ersitze}} aldkosrys mo ehitam J: What is distant, either in place or time, has not equal influence with what is near and contiguous. az tedy 1 Jpretend not to have here exhausted, this subject. It is sufficient for my purpose, if I have made it appear, that, in the production and conduct of the passions, there is a certain, regular mechanism, which is susceptible of as accurate a disquisition, as the laws of motion, optics, hydrostatics, or any part of natural philosophy. B E |