If Prudence, though practically inseparable from Morality, is not to
be confounded with the Moral Principle; still less may Sensibility,
that is, a constitutional quickness of Sympathy with Pain and
Pleasure, and a keen sense of the gratifications that accompany social
intercourse, mutual endearments, and reciprocal preferences, be
mistaken, or deemed a Substitute for either. Sensibility is not even a
sure pledge of a GOOD HEART, though among the most common meanings of
that many-meaning and too commonly misapplied expression.
So far from being either Morality, or one with the Moral Principle, it
ought not even to be placed in the same rank with Prudence. For
Prudence is at least an offspring of the Understanding; but
Sensibility (the Sensibility, I mean, here spoken of), is for the
greater part a quality of the nerves, and a result of individual
bodily temperament.
Prudence is an _active_ Principle, and implies a sacrifice of Self,
though only to the same Self _projected_, as it were, to a distance.
But the very term Sensibility, marks its _passive_ nature; and in its
mere self, apart from Choice and Reflection, it proves little more
than the coincidence or contagion of pleasurable or painful
Sensations in different persons.
Alas! how many are there in this over-stimulated age, in which the
occurrence of excessive and unhealthy sensitiveness is so frequent, as
even to have reversed the current meaning of the word, _nervous_. How
many are[35] there whose sensibility prompts them to remove those
evils alone, which by hideous spectacle or clamorous outcry are
present to their senses and disturb their selfish enjoyments. Provided
the dunghill is not before their parlour window, they are contented to
know that it exists, and perhaps as the hotbed on which their own
luxuries are reared. Sensibility is not necessarily Benevolence. Nay,
by rendering us tremblingly alive to trifling misfortunes, it
frequently prevents it, and induces an effeminate Selfishness instead,
---- pampering the coward heart,
With feelings all too delicate for use.
Sweet are the Tears, that from a Howard's eye
Drop on the cheek of one, he lifts from earth:
And he, who works me good with unmoved face,
Does it but half. He chills me, while he aids,
My Benefactor, not my Brother Man.
But even this, this _cold_ benevolence,
Seems Worth, seems Manhood, when there rise before me,
The sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe,
Who sigh for wretchedness yet shun the wretched,
Nursing in some delicious solitude,
Their slothful Loves and dainty Sympathies.[36]
Lastly, where Virtue is, Sensibility is the ornament and becoming
Attire of Virtue. On certain occasions it may almost be said to
_become_[37] Virtue. But Sensibility and all the amiable qualities
may likewise become, and too often _have_ become, the panders of Vice
and the instruments of Seduction.
So must it needs be with all qualities that have their rise only in
_parts_ and _fragments_ of our nature. A man of warm passions may
sacrifice half his estate to rescue a friend from prison; for he is
naturally sympathetic, and the more social _part_ of his nature
happened to be uppermost. The same man shall afterwards exhibit the
same disregard of money in an attempt to seduce that friend's wife or
daughter.
All the evil achieved by Hobbes, and the whole School of Materialists
will appear inconsiderable, if it be compared with the mischief
effected and occasioned by the sentimental Philosophy of STERNE, and
his numerous imitators. The vilest appetites and the most remorseless
inconstancy towards their objects, acquired the titles of _the Heart,
the irresistible Feelings, the too tender Sensibility;_ and if the
Frosts of Prudence, the icy chains of Human Law thawed and vanished at
the genial warmth of Human _Nature_, who _could help it_? It was an
amiable Weakness!
About this time, too, the profanation of the word Love, rose to its
height. The French Naturalists, Buffon and others, borrowed it from
the sentimental Novelists: the Swedish and English Philosophers took
the contagion; and the Muse of Science condescended to seek admission
into the Saloons of Fashion and Frivolity, _rouged_ like a harlot, and
with the harlot's wanton leer. I know not how the Annals of Guilt
could be better forced into the service of Virtue, than by such a
Comment on the present paragraph, as would be afforded by a selection
from the sentimental correspondence produced in Courts of Justice
within the last thirty years, fairly translated into the true meaning
of the words, and the actual Object and Purpose of the infamous
writers.
Do you in good earnest aim at Dignity of Character? By all the
treasures of a peaceful mind, by all the charms of an open
countenance, I conjure you, O youth! turn away from those who live in
the Twilight between Vice and Virtue. Are not Reason, Discrimination,
Law, and deliberate Choice, the distinguishing Characters of Humanity?
Can aught, then, worthy of a human Being, proceed from a Habit of
Soul, which would exclude all these and (to borrow a metaphor from
Paganism) prefer the den of Trophonius to the Temple and Oracles of
the God of Light? Can any thing _manly_, I say, proceed from those,
who for Law and Light would substitute shapeless feelings, sentiments,
impulses, which as far as they differ from the vital workings in the
brute animals, owe the difference to their former connexion with the
proper Virtues of Humanity; as dendrites derive the outlines, that
constitute their value above other clay-stones, from the casual
neighbourhood and pressure of the plants, the names of which they
assume? Remember, that Love itself in its highest earthly Bearing, as
the ground of the marriage union,[38] becomes Love by an inward FIAT
of the Will, by a completing and sealing Act of Moral Election, and
lays claim to permanence only under the form of DUTY.
[35] This paragraph is abridged from the _Watchman_, No. IV. March 25,
1796; respecting which the inquisitive Reader may consult my 'Literary
Life.'--_Author's note_ in editions 1 (1825) and 1836, since
suppressed.--ED.
[36] Coleridge's 'Reflections On Having Left a Place of Retirement,'
l. 48, &c. ('Sibylline Leaves,' 1797).--ED.
[37] There sometimes occurs an apparent _play_ on words, which not
only to the Moralizer, but even to the philosophical Etymologist,
appears more than a mere Play. Thus in the double sense of the word,
_become_. I have known persons so anxious to have their dress _become_
them, as to convert it at length into their proper self, and thus
actually to _become_ the dress. Such a one, (safeliest spoken of by
the _neuter_ pronoun), I consider as but a suit of _live_ finery. It
is indifferent whether we say--It _becomes_ he, or, he _becomes_ it.
[38] It might be a mean of preventing many unhappy marriages, if the
youth of both sexes had it early impressed on their minds, that
Marriage contracted between Christians is a true and perfect Symbol or
Mystery; that is, the actualizing Faith being supposed to exist in the
Receivers, it is an outward Sign co-essential with that which it
signifies, or a living Part of that, the whole of which it represents.
Marriage, therefore, in the Christian sense (Ephesians v. 22-33), as
symbolical of the union of the Soul with Christ the Mediator, and with
God through Christ, is perfectly a _sacramental_ ordinance, and not
retained by the Reformed Churches as one of THE Sacraments, for two
reasons; first, that the Sign is not _distinctive_ of the Church of
Christ, and the Ordinance not peculiar nor owing its origin to the
Gospel Dispensation; secondly, it is not of universal obligation, not
a means of Grace enjoined on all Christians. In other and plainer
words, Marriage does not contain in itself an open Profession of
Christ, and it is not a Sacrament of the _Church_, but only of certain
Individual Members of the Church. It is evident, however, that neither
of these reasons affect or diminish the _religious_ nature and
dedicative force of the marriage Vow, or detract from the solemnity in
the Apostolic Declaration: THIS IS A GREAT MYSTERY.
The interest which the state has in the appropriation of one woman to
one man, and the civil obligations therefrom resulting, form an
altogether distinct consideration. When I meditate on the words of the
Apostle, confirmed and illustrated as they are, by so many harmonies
in the Spiritual Structure of our proper Humanity, (in the image of
God, male and female created he the man), and then reflect how little
claim so large a number of legal cohabitations have to the name of
Christian marriages--I feel inclined to doubt whether the plan of
celebrating marriages universally by the Civil Magistrate, in the
first instance, and leaving the _religious_ Covenant and sacramental
Pledge to the election of the parties themselves, adopted during the
Republic in England, and in our own times by the French Legislature,
was not _in fact_, whatever it might be in intention, _reverential_ to
Christianity. At all events, it was their own act and choice, if the
parties made bad worse by the profanation of a Gospel Mystery.