have forgotten, the love of riddles and of abstruse philosophy, are
all illustrations of the same general principle of curiosity, or the
love of intellectual excitement. Again, our impatience to be delivered
of a secret that we know; the necessity which lovers have for
confidants, auricular confession, and the declarations so commonly
made by criminals of their guilt, are effects of the involuntary power
exerted by the imagination over the feelings. Nothing can be more
untrue, than that the whole course of our ideas, passions, and
pursuits, is regulated by a regard to self-interest. Our attachment to
certain objects is much oftener in proportion to the strength of the
impression they make on us, to their power of riveting and fixing the
attention, than to the gratification we derive from them. We are,
perhaps, more apt to dwell upon circumstances that excite disgust and
shock our feelings, than on those of an agreeable nature. This, at
least, is the case where this disposition is particularly strong, as
in people of nervous feelings and morbid habits of thinking. Thus the
mind is often haunted with painful images and recollections, from the
hold they have taken of the imagination. We cannot shake them off,
though we strive to do it: nay, we even court their company; we will
not part with them out of our presence; we strain our aching sight
after them; we anxiously recall every feature, and contemplate them in
all their aggravated colours. There are a thousand passions and
fancies that thwart our purposes, and disturb our repose. Grief and
fear are almost as welcome inmates of the breast as hope or joy, and
more obstinately cherished. We return to the objects which have
excited them, we brood over them, they become almost inseparable from
the mind, necessary to it; they assimilate all objects to the gloom of
our own thoughts, and make the will a party against itself. This is
one chief source of most of the passions that prey like vultures on
the heart, and embitter human life. We hear moralists and divines
perpetually exclaiming, with mingled indignation and surprise, at the
folly of mankind in obstinately persisting in these tormenting and
violent passions, such as envy, revenge, sullenness, despair, etc.
This is to them a mystery; and it will always remain an inexplicable
one, while the love of happiness is considered as the only spring of
human conduct and desires.[8]
The love of power or action is another independent principle of the
human mind, in the different degrees in which it exists, and which are
not by any means in exact proportion to its physical sensibility. It
seems evidently absurd to suppose that sensibility to pleasure or pain
is the only principle of action. It is almost too obvious to remark,
that sensibility alone, without an active principle in the mind, could
never produce action. The soul might lie dissolved in pleasure, or be
agonised with woe; but the impulses of feeling, in order to excite
passion, desire, or will, must be first communicated to some other
faculty. There must be a principle, a fund of activity somewhere, by
and through which our sensibility operates; and that this active
principle owes all its force, its precise degree of direction, to the
sensitive faculty, is neither self-evident nor true. Strength of will
is not always nor generally in proportion to strength of feeling.
There are different degrees of activity, as of sensibility, in the
mind; and our passions, characters, and pursuits, often depend no less
upon the one than on the other. We continually make a distinction in
common discourse between sensibility and irritability, between passion
and feeling, between the nerves and muscles; and we find that the most
voluptuous people are in general the most indolent. Every one who has
looked closely into human nature must have observed persons who are
naturally and habitually restless in the extreme, but without any
extraordinary susceptibility to pleasure or pain, always making or
finding excuses to do something--whose actions constantly outrun the
occasion, and who are eager in the pursuit of the greatest
trifles--whose impatience of the smallest repose keeps them always
employed about nothing--and whose whole lives are a continued work of
supererogation. There are others, again, who seem born to act from a
spirit of contradiction only, that is, who are ready to act not only
without a reason, but against it--who are ever at cross-purposes with
themselves and others--who are not satisfied unless they are doing two
opposite things at a time--who contradict what you say, and if you
assent to them, contradict what they have said--who regularly leave
the pursuit in which they are successful to engage in some other in
which they have no chance of success--who make a point of encountering
difficulties and aiming at impossibilities, that there may be no end
of their exhaustless task: while there is a third class whose _vis
inertiae_ scarcely any motives can overcome--who are devoured by their
feelings, and the slaves of their passions, but who can take no pains
and use no means to gratify them--who, if roused to action by any
unforeseen accident, require a continued stimulus to urge them on--who
fluctuate between desire and want of resolution--whose brightest
projects burst like a bubble as soon as formed--who yield to every
obstacle--who almost sink under the weight of the atmosphere--who
cannot brush aside a cobweb in their path, and are stopped by an
insect's wing. Indolence is want of will--the absence or defect of the
active principle--a repugnance to motion; and whoever has been much
tormented with this passion, must, we are sure, have felt that the
inclination to indulge it is something very distinct from the love of
pleasure or actual enjoyment. Ambition is the reverse of indolence,
and is the love of power or action in great things. Avarice, also, as
it relates to the acquisition of riches, is, in a great measure, an
active and enterprising feeling; nor does the hoarding of wealth,
after it is acquired, seem to have much connection with the love of
pleasure. What is called niggardliness, very often, we are convinced
from particular instances that we have known, arises less from a
selfish principle than from a love of contrivance--from the study of
economy as an art, for want of a better--from a pride in making the
most of a little, and in not exceeding a certain expense previously
determined upon; all which is wilfulness, and is perfectly consistent,
as it is frequently found united, with the utmost lavish expenditure
and the utmost disregard for money on other occasions. A miser may, in
general, be looked upon as a particular species of _virtuoso_. The
constant desire in the rich to leave wealth in large masses, by
aggrandising some branch of their families, or sometimes in such a
manner as to accumulate for centuries, shows that the imagination has
a considerable share in this passion. Intemperance, debauchery,
gluttony, and other vices of that kind, may be attributed to an excess
of sensuality or gross sensibility; though, even here, we think it
evident that habits of intoxication are produced quite as much by the
strength as by the agreeableness of the excitement; and with respect
to some other vicious habits, curiosity makes many more votaries than
inclination. The love of truth, when it predominates, produces
inquisitive characters, the whole tribe of gossips, tale-bearers,
harmless busybodies, your blunt honest creatures, who never conceal
what they think, and who are the more sure to tell it you the less you
want to hear it--and now and then a philosopher.
Our passions in general are to be traced more immediately to the
active part of our nature, to the love of power, or to strength of
will. Such are all those which arise out of the difficulty of
accomplishment, which become more intense from the efforts made to
attain the object, and which derive their strength from opposition.
Mr. Hobbes says well on this subject:
'But for an utmost end, in which the ancient philosophers placed
felicity, and disputed much concerning the way thereto, there is no
such thing in this world, nor way to it, more than to Utopia; for
while we live, we have desires, and desire presupposeth a further end.
Seeing all delight is appetite, and desire of something further, there
can be no contentment but in proceeding, and therefore we are not to
marvel, when we see that as men attain to more riches, honour, or
other power, so their appetite continually groweth more and more; and
when they are come to the utmost degree of some kind of power they
pursue some other, as long as in any kind they think themselves behind
any other. Of those, therefore, that have attained the highest degree
of honour and riches, some have affected mastery, in some art, as Nero
in music and poetry, Commodus in the art of a gladiator; and such as
affect not some such thing, must find diversion and recreation of
their thoughts in the contention either of play or business, and men
justly complain as of a great grief that they know not what to do.
Felicity, therefore, by which we mean continual delight, consists not
in having prospered, but in prospering.'
This account of human nature, true as it is, would be a mere romance,
if physical sensibility were the only faculty essential to man, that
is, if we were the slaves of voluptuous indolence. But our desires are
kindled by their own heat, the will is urged on by a restless impulse,
and without action, enjoyment becomes insipid. The passions of men are
not in proportion only to their sensibility, or to the desirableness
of the object, but to the violence and irritability of their tempers,
and the obstacles to their success. Thus an object to which we were
almost indifferent while we thought it in our power, often excites the
most ardent pursuit or the most painful regret, as soon as it is
placed out of our reach. How eloquently is the contradiction between
our desires and our success described in _Don Quixote_, where it is
said of the lover, that 'he courted a statue, hunted the wind, cried
aloud to the desert!'
The necessity of action to the mind, and the keen edge it gives to our
desires, is shown in the different value we set on past and future
objects. It is commonly, and we might almost say universally,
supposed, that there is an essential difference in the two cases. In
this instance, however, the strength of our passions has converted an
evident absurdity into one of the most inveterate prejudices of the
human mind. That the future is really or in itself of more consequence
than the past, is what we can neither assent to nor even conceive. It
is true, the past has ceased to be, and is no longer anything, except
to the mind; but the future is still to come, and has an existence in
the mind only. The one is at an end, the other has not even had a
beginning; both are purely ideal: so that this argument would prove
that the present only is of any real value, and that both past and
future objects are equally indifferent, alike nothing. Indeed, the
future is, if possible, more imaginary than the past; for the past may
in some sense be said to exist in its consequences; it acts still; it
is present to us in its effects; the mouldering ruins and broken
fragments still remain; but of the future there is no trace. What a
blank does the history of the world for the next six thousand years
present to the mind, compared with that of the last? All that strikes
the imagination, or excites any interest in the mighty scene is _what
has been_. Neither in reality, then, nor as a subject of general
contemplation, has the future any advantage over the past; but with
respect to our own passions and pursuits it has. We regret the
pleasures we have enjoyed, and eagerly anticipate those which are to
come; we dwell with satisfaction on the evils from which we have
escaped, and dread future pain. The good that is past is like money
that is spent, which is of no use, and about which we give no further
concern. The good we expect is like a store yet untouched, in the
enjoyment of which we promise ourselves infinite gratification. What
has happened to us we think of no consequence--what is to happen to
us, of the greatest. Why so? Because the one is in our power, and the
other not; because the efforts of the will to bring an object to pass
or to avert it, strengthen our attachment to or our aversion from that
object; because the habitual pursuit of any purpose redoubles the
ardour of our pursuit, and converts the speculative and indolent
interest we should otherwise take in it into real passion. Our
regrets, anxiety, and wishes, are thrown away upon the past, but we
encourage our disposition to exaggerate the importance of the future,
as of the utmost use in aiding our resolutions and stimulating our
exertions.
It in some measure confirms this theory, that men attach more or less
importance to past and future events, according as they are more or
else engaged in action and the busy scenes of life. Those who have a
fortune to make, or are in pursuit of rank and power, are regardless
of the past, for it does not contribute to their views: those who have
nothing to do but to think, take nearly the same interest in the past
as in the future. The contemplation of the one is as delightful and
real as of the other. The season of hope comes to an end, but the
remembrance of it is left. The past still lives in the memory of
those who have leisure to look back upon the way that they have trod,
and can from it 'catch glimpses that may make them less forlorn.' The
turbulence of action and uneasiness of desire _must_ dwell upon the
future; it is only amidst the innocence of shepherds, in the
simplicity of the pastoral ages, that a tomb was found with this
inscription--'I ALSO WAS AN ARCADIAN!'
We feel that some apology is necessary for having thus plunged our
readers all at once into the middle of metaphysics. If it should be
asked what use such studies are of, we might answer with Hume,
_perhaps of none, except that there are certain persons who find more
entertainment in them than in any other_. An account of this matter,
with which we were amused ourselves, and which may therefore amuse
others, we met with some time ago in a metaphysical allegory, which
begins in this manner:
'In the depth of a forest, in the kingdom of Indostan, lived a monkey,
who, before his last step of transmigration, had occupied a human
tenement. He had been a Bramin, skilful in theology, and in all
abstruse learning. He was wont to hold in admiration the ways of
nature, and delighted to penetrate the mysteries in which she was
enrobed; but in pursuing the footsteps of philosophy, he wandered too
far from the abode of the social Virtues. In order to pursue his
studies, he had retired to a cave on the banks of the Jumna. There he
forgot society, and neglected ablution; and therefore his soul was
degraded to a condition below humanity. So inveterate were the habits
which he had contracted in his human state, that his spirit was still
influenced by his passion for abstruse study. He sojourned in this
wood from youth to age, regardless of everything, _save cocoa-nuts and
metaphysics_.' For our own part, we should be content to pass our time
much in the same manner as this learned savage, if we could only find
a substitute for his cocoa-nuts! We do not, however, wish to recommend
the same pursuit to others, nor to dissuade them from it. It has its
pleasures and its pains--its successes and its disappointments. It is
neither quite so sublime nor quite so uninteresting as it is sometimes
represented. The worst is, that much thought on difficult subjects
tends, after a certain time, to destroy the natural gaiety and dancing
of the spirits; it deadens the elastic force of the mind, weighs upon
the heart, and makes us insensible to the common enjoyments and
pursuits of life.
'Sithence no fairy lights, no quick'ning ray,
Nor stir of pulse, nor objects to entice
Abroad the spirits; but the cloyster'd heart
Sits squat at home, like pagod in a niche
Obscure.'
Metaphysical reasoning is also one branch of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. The study of man, however, does, perhaps, less harm
than a knowledge of the world, though it must be owned that the
practical knowledge of vice and misery makes a stronger impression on
the mind, when it has imbibed a habit of abstract reasoning. Evil thus
becomes embodied in a general principle, and shows its harpy form in
all things. It is a fatal, inevitable necessity hanging over us. It
follows us wherever we go: if we fly into the uttermost parts of the
earth, it is there: whether we turn to the right or the left, we
cannot escape from it. This, it is true, is the disease of philosophy;
but it is one to which it is liable in minds of a certain cast, after
the first ardour of expectation has been disabused by experience, and
the finer feelings have received an irrecoverable shock from the
jarring of the world.
Happy are they who live in the dream of their own existence, and see
all things in the light of their own minds; who walk by faith and
hope; to whom the guiding star of their youth still shines from afar,
and into whom the spirit of the world has not entered! They have not
been 'hurt by the archers,' nor has the iron entered their souls. They
live in the midst of arrows and of death, unconscious of harm. The
evil things come not nigh them. The shafts of ridicule pass unheeded
by, and malice loses its sting. The example of vice does not rankle in
their breasts, like the poisoned shirt of Nessus. Evil impressions
fall off from them like drops of water. The yoke of life is to them
light and supportable. The world has no hold on them. They are in it,
not of it; and a dream and a glory is ever around them!
1815.
FOOTNOTE:
[8] As a contrast to the story at the beginning of this article, it
will be not amiss to mention that of Sir Isaac Newton, on a somewhat
similar occasion. He had prepared some papers for the press with great
care and study, but happening to leave a lighted candle on the table
with them, his dog Diamond overturned the candle, and the labour of
several years was destroyed. This great man, on seeing what was done,
only shook his head, and said with a smile, 'Ah, Diamond, you don't
know what mischief you have done!'
ESSAY VIII
ON MEANS AND ENDS