SECTION I.

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BURKE'S WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

VOLUME THE FIRST

[Illustration: EDMUND BURKE.]

THE WORKS

OF

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

EDMUND BURKE

IN TWELVE VOLUMES

VOLUME THE FIRST

[Illustration: Burke Coat of Arms.]

London

JOHN C. NIMMO

14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.

MDCCCLXXXVII

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER, PREFIXED TO THE FIRST OCTAVO EDITION v

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND OCTAVO EDITION xvii

A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY: OR, A VIEW OF THE MISERIES AND

EVILS ARISING TO MANKIND FROM EVERY SPECIES OF ARTIFICIAL SOCIETY 1

A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF THE SUBLIME

AND BEAUTIFUL; WITH AN INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE CONCERNING TASTE 67

A SHORT ACCOUNT OF A LATE SHORT ADMINISTRATION 263

OBSERVATIONS ON A LATE PUBLICATION, INTITULED,

"THE PRESENT STATE OF THE NATION" 269

THOUGHTS ON THE CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS 433

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE READER.[1]

The late Mr. Burke, from a principle of unaffected humility, which they

who were the most intimately acquainted with his character best know to

have been in his estimation one of the most important moral duties,

never himself made any collection of the various publications with

which, during a period of forty years, he adorned and enriched the

literature of this country. When, however, the rapid and unexampled

demand for his "Reflections on the Revolution in France" had

unequivocally testified his celebrity as a writer, some of his friends

so far prevailed upon him, that he permitted them to put forth a regular

edition of his works. Accordingly, three volumes in quarto appeared

under that title in 1792, printed for the late Mr. Dodsley. That

edition, therefore, has been made the foundation of the present, for

which a form has been chosen better adapted to public convenience. Such

errors of the press as have been discovered in it are here rectified: in

other respects it is faithfully followed, except that in one instance

an accident of little moment has occasioned a slight deviation from the

strict chronological arrangement, and that, on the other hand, a speech

of conspicuous excellence, on his declining the poll at Bristol, in

1780, is here, for the first time, inserted in its proper place.

As the activity of the author's mind, and the lively interest which he

took in the welfare of his country, ceased only with his life, many

subsequent productions issued from his pen, which were received in a

manner corresponding with his distinguished reputation. He wrote also

various tracts, of a less popular description, which he designed for

private circulation in quarters where he supposed they might produce

most benefit to the community, but which, with some other papers, have

been printed since his death, from copies which he left behind him

fairly transcribed, and most of them corrected as for the press. All

these, now first collected together, form the contents of the last two

volumes.[2] They are disposed in chronological order, with the exception

of the "Preface to Brissot's Address," which having appeared in the

author's lifetime, and from delicacy not being avowed by him, did not

come within the plan of this edition, but has been placed at the end of

the last volume, on its being found deficient in its just bulk.

The several posthumous publications, as they from time to time made

their appearance, were accompanied by appropriate prefaces. These,

however, as they were principally intended for temporary purposes, have

been omitted. Some few explanations only, which they contained, seem

here to be necessary.

The "Observations on the Conduct of the Minority" in the Session of 1793

had been written and sent by Mr. Burke as a paper entirely and strictly

confidential; but it crept surreptitiously into the world, through the

fraud and treachery of the man whom he had employed to transcribe it,

and, as usually happens in such cases, came forth in a very mangled

state, under a false title, and without the introductory letter. The

friends of the author, without waiting to consult him, instantly

obtained an injunction from the Court of Chancery to stop the sale. What

he himself felt, on receiving intelligence of the injury done him by one

from whom his kindness deserved a very different return, will be best

conveyed in his own words. The following is an extract of a letter to a

friend, which he dictated on this subject from a sick-bed.

BATH, 15th Feb., 1797.

"My Dear Laurence,--

"On the appearance of the advertisement, all newspapers and all letters

have been kept back from me till this time. Mrs. Burke opened yours,

and finding that all the measures in the power of Dr. King, yourself,

and Mr. Woodford, had been taken to suppress the publication, she

ventured to deliver me the letters to-day, which were read to me in my

bed, about two o'clock.

"This affair does vex me; but I am not in a state of health at present

to be deeply vexed at anything. Whenever this matter comes into

discussion, I authorize you to contradict the infamous reports which (I

am informed) have been given out, that this paper had been circulated

through the ministry, and was intended gradually to slide into the

press. To the best of my recollection I never had a clean copy of it but

one, which is now in my possession; I never communicated that, but to

the Duke of Portland, from whom I had it back again. But the Duke will

set this matter to rights, if in reality there were two copies, and he

has one. I never showed it, as they know, to any one of the ministry. If

the Duke has really a copy, I believe his and mine are the only ones

that exist, except what was taken by fraud from loose and incorrect

papers by S----, to whom I gave the letter to copy. As soon as I began

to suspect him capable of any such scandalous breach of trust, you know

with what anxiety I got the loose papers out of his hands, not having

reason to think that he kept any other. Neither do I believe in fact

(unless he meditated this villany long ago) that he did or does now

possess any clean copy. I never communicated that paper to any one out

of the very small circle of those private friends from whom I concealed

nothing.

"But I beg you and my friends to be cautious how you let it be

understood that I disclaim anything but the mere act and intention of

publication. I do not retract any one of the sentiments contained in

that memorial, which was and is my justification, addressed to the

friends for whose use alone I intended it. Had I designed it for the

public, I should have been more exact and full. It was written in a tone

of indignation, in consequence of the resolutions of the Whig Club,

which were directly pointed against myself and others, and occasioned

our secession from that club; which is the last act of my life that I

shall under any circumstances repent. Many temperaments and explanations

there would have been, if I had ever had a notion that it should meet

the public eye."

In the mean time a large impression, amounting, it is believed, to three

thousand copies, had been dispersed over the country. To recall these

was impossible; to have expected that any acknowledged production of Mr.

Burke, full of matter likely to interest the future historian, could

remain forever in obscurity, would have been folly; and to have passed

it over in silent neglect, on the one hand, or, on the other, to have

then made any considerable changes in it, might have seemed an

abandonment of the principles which it contained. The author, therefore,

discovering, that, with the exception of the introductory letter, he had

not in fact kept any clean copy, as he had supposed, corrected one of

the pamphlets with his own hand. From this, which was found preserved

with his other papers, his friends afterwards thought it their duty to

give an authentic edition.

The "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity" were originally presented in the

form of a memorial to Mr. Pitt. The author proposed afterwards to recast

the same matter in a new shape. He even advertised the intended work

under the title of "Letters on Rural Economics, addressed to Mr. Arthur

Young"; but he seems to have finished only two or three detached

fragments of the first letter. These being too imperfect to be printed

alone, his friends inserted them in the memorial, where they seemed best

to cohere. The memorial had been fairly copied, but did not appear to

have been examined or corrected, as some trifling errors of the

transcriber were perceptible in it. The manuscript of the fragments was

a rough draft from the author's own hand, much blotted and very

confused.

The Third Letter on the Proposals for Peace was in its progress through

the press when the author died. About one half of it was actually

revised in print by himself, though not in the exact order of the pages

as they now stand. He enlarged his first draft, and separated one great

member of his subject, for the purpose of introducing some other matter

between. The different parcels of manuscript designed to intervene were

discovered. One of them he seemed to have gone over himself, and to have

improved and augmented. The other (fortunately the smaller) was much

more imperfect, just as it was taken from his mouth by dictation. The

former reaches from the two hundred and forty-sixth to near the end of

the two hundred and sixty-second page; the latter nearly occupies the

twelve pages which follow.[3] No important change, none at all affecting

the meaning of any passage, has been made in either, though in the more

imperfect parcel some latitude of discretion in subordinate points was

necessarily used.

There is, however, a considerable member for the greater part of which

Mr. Burke's reputation is not responsible: this is the inquiry into the

condition of the higher classes, which commences in the two hundred and

ninety-fifth page.[4] The summary of the whole topic, indeed, nearly as

it stands in the three hundred and seventy-third and fourth pages,[5]

was found, together with a marginal reference to the Bankrupt List, in

his own handwriting; and the actual conclusion of the Letter was

dictated by him, but never received his subsequent correction. He had

also preserved, as materials for this branch of his subject, some

scattered hints, documents, and parts of a correspondence on the state

of the country. He was, however, prevented from working on them by the

want of some authentic and official information, for which he had been

long anxiously waiting, in order to ascertain, to the satisfaction of

the public, what, with his usual sagacity, he had fully anticipated from

his own personal observation, to his own private conviction. At length

the reports of the different committees which had been appointed by the

two Houses of Parliament amply furnished him with evidence for this

purpose. Accordingly he read and considered them with attention: but for

anything beyond this the season was now past. The Supreme Disposer of

All, against whose inscrutable counsels it is vain as well as impious to

murmur, did not permit him to enter on the execution of the task which

he meditated. It was resolved, therefore, by one of his friends, after

much hesitation, and under a very painful responsibility, to make such

an attempt as he could at supplying the void; especially because the

insufficiency of our resources for the continuance of the war was

understood to have been the principal objection urged against the two

former Letters on the Proposals for Peace. In performing with

reverential diffidence this duty of friendship, care has been taken not

to attribute to Mr. Burke any sentiment which is not most explicitly

known, from repeated conversations, and from much correspondence, to

have been decidedly entertained by that illustrious man. One passage of

nearly three pages, containing a censure of our defensive system, is

borrowed from a private letter, which he began to dictate with an

intention of comprising in it the short result of his opinions, but

which he afterwards abandoned, when, a little time before his death, his

health appeared in some degree to amend, and he hoped that Providence

might have spared him at least to complete the larger public letter,

which he then proposed to resume.

In the preface to the former edition of this Letter a fourth was

mentioned as being in possession of Mr. Burke's friends. It was in fact

announced by the author himself, in the conclusion of the second, which

it was then designed to follow. He intended, he said, to proceed next on

the question of the facilities possessed by the French Republic, _from

the internal state of other nations, and particularly of this_, for

obtaining her ends,--and as his notions were controverted, to take

notice of what, in that way, had been recommended to him. The vehicle

which he had chosen for this part of his plan was an answer to a

pamphlet which was supposed to come from high authority, and was

circulated by ministers with great industry, at the time of its

appearance, in October, 1795, immediately previous to that session of

Parliament when his Majesty for the first time declared that the

appearance of any disposition in the enemy to negotiate for general

peace should not fail to be met with an earnest desire to give it the

fullest and speediest effect. In truth, the answer, which is full of

spirit and vivacity, was written the latter end of the same year, but

was laid aside when the question assumed a more serious aspect, from the

commencement of an actual negotiation, which gave rise to the series of

printed letters. Afterwards, he began to rewrite it, with a view of

accommodating it to his new purpose. The greater part, however, still

remained in its original state; and several heroes of the Revolution,

who are there celebrated, having in the interval passed off the public

stage, a greater liberty of insertion and alteration than his friends on

consideration have thought allowable would be necessary to adapt it to

that place in the series for which it was ultimately designed by the

author. This piece, therefore, addressed, as the title originally stood,

to his noble friend, Earl Fitzwilliam, will be given the first in the

supplemental volumes which will be hereafter added to complete this

edition of the author's works.

The tracts, most of them in manuscript, which have been already selected

as fit for this purpose, will probably furnish four or five volumes

more, to be printed uniformly with this edition. The principal piece is

an Essay on the History of England, from the earliest period to the

conclusion of the reign of King John. It is written with much depth of

antiquarian research, directed by the mind of an intelligent statesman.

This alone, as far as can be conjectured, will form more than one

volume. Another entire volume also, at least, will be filled with his

letters to public men on public affairs, especially those of France.

This supplement will be sent to the press without delay.

Mr. Burke's more familiar correspondence will be reserved as authorities

to accompany a narrative of his life, which will conclude the whole. The

period during which he flourished was one of the most memorable of our

annals. It comprehended the acquisition of one empire in the East, the

loss of another in the West, and the total subversion of the ancient

system of Europe by the French Revolution, with all which events the

history of his life is necessarily and intimately connected,--as indeed

it also is, much more than is generally known, with the state of

literature and the elegant arts. Such a subject of biography cannot be

dismissed with a slight and rapid touch; nor can it be treated in a

manner worthy of it, from the information, however authentic and

extensive, which the industry of any one man may have accumulated. Many

important communications have been received; but some materials, which

relate to the pursuits of his early years, and which are known to be in

existence, have been hitherto kept back, notwithstanding repeated

inquiries and applications. It is, therefore, once more earnestly

requested, that all persons who call themselves the friends or admirers

of the late Edmund Burke will have the goodness to transmit, without

delay, any notices of that or of any other kind which may happen to be

in their possession or within their reach, to Messrs. Rivingtons,--a

respect and kindness to his memory which will be thankfully acknowledged

by those friends to whom, in dying, he committed the sacred trust of his

reputation.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Prefixed to the first octavo edition: London, F. and C. Rivington,

1801: comprising Vols. I.-VIII. of the edition in sixteen volumes issued

by these publishers at intervals between the years 1801 and 1827.

[2] Comprising the last four papers of the fourth volume, and the whole

of the fifth volume, of the present edition.

[3] The former comprising the matter included between the paragraph

commencing, "I hear it has been said," &c., and that ending with the

words, "there were little or no materials"; and the latter extending

through the paragraph concluding with the words, "disgraced and plagued

mankind."

[4] At the paragraph commencing with the words, "In turning our view

from the lower to the higher classes," &c.

[5] In the first half of the paragraph commencing, "If, then, the real

state of this nation," &c.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE SECOND OCTAVO EDITION.[6]

A new edition of the works of Mr. Burke having been called for by the

public, the opportunity has been taken to make some slight changes, it

is hoped for the better.

A different distribution of the contents, while it has made the volumes,

with the exception of the first and sixth, more nearly equal in their

respective bulk, has, at the same time, been fortunately found to

produce a more methodical arrangement of the whole. The first and second

volumes, as before, severally contain those literary and philosophical

works by which Mr. Burke was known previous to the commencement of his

public life as a statesman, and the political pieces which were written

by him between the time of his first becoming connected with the Marquis

of Rockingham and his being chosen member for Bristol. In the third are

comprehended all his speeches and pamphlets from his first arrival at

Bristol, as a candidate, in the year 1774, to his farewell address from

the hustings of that city, in the year 1780. What he himself published

relative to the affairs of India occupies the fourth volume. The

remaining four comprise his works since the French Revolution, with the

exception of the Letter to Lord Kenmare on the Penal Laws against Irish

Catholics, which was probably inserted where it stands from its relation

to the subject of the Letter addressed by him, at a later period, to Sir

Hercules Langrishe. With the same exception, too, strict regard has been

paid to chronological order, which, in the last edition, was in some

instances broken, to insert pieces that wore not discovered till it was

too late to introduce them in their proper places.

In the Appendix to the Speech on the Nabob of Arcot's Debts the

references were found to be confused, and, in many places, erroneous.

This probably had arisen from the circumstance that a larger and

differently constructed appendix seems to have been originally designed

by Mr. Burke, which, however, he afterwards abridged and altered, while

the speech and the notes upon it remained as they were. The text and the

documents that support it have throughout been accommodated to each

other.

The orthography has been in many cases altered, and an attempt made to

reduce it to some certain standard. The rule laid down for the discharge

of this task was, that, whenever Mr. Burke could be perceived to have

been uniform in his mode of spelling, that was considered as decisive;

but where he varied, (and as he was in the habit of writing by

dictation, and leaving to others the superintendence of the press, he

was peculiarly liable to variations of this sort) the best received

authorities were directed to be followed. The reader, it is trusted,

will find this object, too much disregarded in modern books, has here

been kept in view throughout. The quotations which are interspersed

through the works of Mr Burke, and which were frequently made by him

from memory, have been generally compared with the original authors.

Several mistakes in printing, of one word for another, by which the

sense was either perverted or obscured, are now rectified. Two or three

small insertions have also been made from a quarto copy corrected by Mr.

Burke himself. From the same source something more has been drawn in the

shape of notes, to which are subscribed his initials. Of this number is

the explanation of that celebrated phrase, "the swinish multitude": an

explanation which was uniformly given by him to his friends, in

conversation on the subject. But another note will probably interest the

reader still more, as being strongly expressive of that parental

affection which formed so amiable a feature in the character of Mr.

Burke. It is in page 203 of Vol. V., where he points out a considerable

passage as having been supplied by his "lost son".[7] Several other

parts, possibly amounting altogether to a page or thereabout, were

indicated in the same manner; but, as they in general consist of single

sentences, and as the meaning of the mark by which they were

distinguished was not actually expressed, it has not been thought

necessary to notice them particularly.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] London, F. and C. Rivington, 1803. 8 vols.

[7] In "Reflections on the Revolution in France,"--indicated by

foot-note _in loco_.

A

VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY:

OR,

A VIEW OF THE MISERIES AND EVILS ARISING TO MANKIND

FROM EVERY SPECIES OF ARTIFICIAL SOCIETY.

IN A LETTER TO LORD ****,

BY A LATE NOBLE WRITER.

1756.

PREFACE.

Before the philosophical works of Lord Bolingbroke had appeared, great

things were expected from the leisure of a man, who, from the splendid

scene of action in which his talents had enabled him to make so

conspicuous a figure, had retired to employ those talents in the

investigation of truth. Philosophy began to congratulate herself upon

such a proselyte from the world of business, and hoped to have extended

her power under the auspices of such a leader. In the midst of these

pleasing expectations, the works themselves at last appeared in _full

body_, and with great pomp. Those who searched in them for new

discoveries in the mysteries of nature; those who expected something

which might explain or direct the operations of the mind; those who

hoped to see morality illustrated and enforced; those who looked for new

helps to society and government; those who desired to see the characters

and passions of mankind delineated; in short, all who consider such

things as philosophy, and require some of them at least in every

philosophical work, all these were certainly disappointed; they found

the landmarks of science precisely in their former places: and they

thought they received but a poor recompense for this disappointment, in

seeing every mode of religion attacked in a lively manner, and the

foundation of every virtue, and of all government, sapped with great art

and much ingenuity. What advantage do we derive from such writings? What

delight can a man find in employing a capacity which might be usefully

exerted for the noblest purposes, in a sort of sullen labor, in which,

if the author could succeed, he is obliged to own, that nothing could be

more fatal to mankind than his success?

I cannot conceive how this sort of writers propose to compass the

designs they pretend to have in view, by the instruments which they

employ. Do they pretend to exalt the mind of man, by proving him no

better than a beast? Do they think to enforce the practice of virtue, by

denying that vice and virtue are distinguished by good or ill fortune

here, or by happiness or misery hereafter? Do they imagine they shall

increase our piety, and our reliance on God, by exploding his

providence, and insisting that he is neither just nor good? Such are the

doctrines which, sometimes concealed, sometimes openly and fully avowed,

are found to prevail throughout the writings of Lord Bolingbroke; and

such are the reasonings which this noble writer and several others have

been pleased to dignify with the name of philosophy. If these are

delivered in a specious manner, and in a style above the common, they

cannot want a number of admirers of as much docility as can be wished

for in disciples. To these the editor of the following little piece has

addressed it: there is no reason to conceal the design of it any longer.

The design was to show that, without the exertion of any considerable

forces, the same engines which were employed for the destruction of

religion, might be employed with equal success for the subversion of

government; and that specious arguments might be used against those

things which they, who doubt of everything else, will never permit to be

questioned. It is an observation which I think Isocrates makes in one of

his orations against the sophists, that it is far more easy to maintain

a wrong cause, and to support paradoxical opinions to the satisfaction

of a common auditory, than to establish a doubtful truth by solid and

conclusive arguments. When men find that something can be said in favor

of what, on the very proposal, they have thought utterly indefensible,

they grow doubtful of their own reason; they are thrown into a sort of

pleasing surprise; they run along with the speaker, charmed and

captivated to find such a plentiful harvest of reasoning, where all

seemed barren and unpromising. This is the fairy land of philosophy. And

it very frequently happens, that those pleasing impressions on the

imagination subsist and produce their effect, even after the

understanding has been satisfied of their unsubstantial nature. There is

a sort of gloss upon ingenious falsehoods that dazzles the imagination,

but which neither belongs to, nor becomes the sober aspect of truth. I

have met with a quotation in Lord Coke's Reports that pleased me very

much, though I do not know from whence he has taken it: "_Interdum

fucata falsitas_ (says he), _in multis est probabilior, at sæpe

rationibus vincit nudam veritatem_." In such cases the writer has a

certain fire and alacrity inspired into him by a consciousness, that,

let it fare how it will with the subject, his ingenuity will be sure of

applause; and this alacrity becomes much greater if he acts upon the

offensive, by the impetuosity that always accompanies an attack, and

the unfortunate propensity which mankind have to the finding and

exaggerating faults. The editor is satisfied that a mind which has no

restraint from a sense of its own weakness, of its subordinate rank in

the creation, and of the extreme danger of letting the imagination loose

upon some subjects, may very plausibly attack everything the most

excellent and venerable; that it would not be difficult to criticise the

creation itself; and that if we were to examine the divine fabrics by

our ideas of reason and fitness, and to use the same method of attack by

which some men have assaulted revealed religion, we might with as good

color, and with the same success, make the wisdom and power of God in

his creation appear to many no better than foolishness. There is an air

of plausibility which accompanies vulgar reasonings and notions, taken

from the beaten circle of ordinary experience, that is admirably suited

to the narrow capacities of some, and to the laziness of others. But

this advantage is in a great measure lost, when a painful, comprehensive

survey of a very complicated matter, and which requires a great variety

of considerations, is to be made; when we must seek in a profound

subject, not only for arguments, but for new materials of argument,

their measures and their method of arrangement; when we must go out of

the sphere of our ordinary ideas, and when we can never walk surely, but

by being sensible of our blindness. And this we must do, or we do

nothing, whenever we examine the result of a reason which is not our

own. Even in matters which are, as it were, just within our reach, what

would become of the world, if the practice of all moral duties, and the

foundations of society, rested upon having their reasons made clear and

demonstrative to every individual?

The editor knows that the subject of this letter is not so fully handled

as obviously it might; it was not his design to say all that could

possibly be said. It had been inexcusable to fill a large volume with

the abuse of reason; nor would such an abuse have been tolerable, even

for a few pages, if some under-plot, of more consequence than the

apparent design, had not been carried on.

Some persons have thought that the advantages of the state of nature

ought to have been more fully displayed. This had undoubtedly been a

very ample subject for declamation; but they do not consider the

character of the piece. The writers against religion, whilst they oppose

every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own. If

some inaccuracies in calculation, in reasoning, or in method, be found,

perhaps these will not be looked upon as faults by the admirers of Lord

Bolingbroke; who will, the editor is afraid, observe much more of his

lordship's character in such particulars of the following letter, than

they are likely to find of that rapid torrent of an impetuous and

overbearing eloquence, and the variety of rich imagery for which that

writer is justly admired.

A LETTER TO LORD ****.

Shall I venture to say, my lord, that in our late conversation, you were

inclined to the party which you adopted rather by the feelings of your

good nature, than by the conviction of your judgment? We laid open the

foundations of society; and you feared that the curiosity of this search

might endanger the ruin of the whole fabric. You would readily have

allowed my principle, but you dreaded the consequences; you thought,

that having once entered upon these reasonings, we might be carried

insensibly and irresistibly farther than at first we could either have

imagined or wished. But for my part, my lord, I then thought, and am

still of the same opinion, that error, and not truth of any kind, is

dangerous; that ill conclusions can only flow from false propositions;

and that, to know whether any proposition be true or false, it is a

preposterous method to examine it by its apparent consequences.

These were the reasons which induced me to go so far into that inquiry;

and they are the reasons which direct me in all my inquiries. I had

indeed often reflected on that subject before I could prevail on myself

to communicate my reflections to anybody. They were generally melancholy

enough; as those usually are which carry us beyond the mere surface of

things; and which would undoubtedly make the lives of all thinking men

extremely miserable, if the same philosophy which caused the grief, did

not at the same time administer the comfort.

On considering political societies, their origin, their constitution,

and their effects, I have sometimes been in a good deal more than doubt,

whether the Creator did ever really intend man for a state of happiness.

He has mixed in his cup a number of natural evils, (in spite of the

boasts of stoicism they are evils,) and every endeavor which the art and

policy of mankind has used from the beginning of the world to this day,

in order to alleviate or cure them, has only served to introduce new

mischiefs, or to aggravate and inflame the old. Besides this, the mind

of man itself is too active and restless a principle ever to settle on

the true point of quiet. It discovers every day some craving want in a

body, which really wants but little. It every day invents some new

artificial rule to guide that nature which, if left to itself, were the

best and surest guide. It finds out imaginary beings prescribing

imaginary laws; and then, it raises imaginary terrors to support a

belief in the beings, and an obedience to the laws.--Many things have

been said, and very well undoubtedly, on the subjection in which we

should preserve our bodies to the government of our understanding; but

enough has not been said upon the restraint which our bodily necessities

ought to lay on the extravagant sublimities and eccentric rovings of our

minds. The body, or as some love to call it, our inferior nature, is

wiser in its own plain way, and attends its own business more directly

than the mind with all its boasted subtlety.

In the state of nature, without question, mankind was subjected to many

and great inconveniences. Want of union, want of mutual assistance, want

of a common arbitrator to resort to in their differences. These were

evils which they could not but have felt pretty severely on many

occasions. The original children of the earth lived with their brethren

of the other kinds in much equality. Their diet must have been confined

almost wholly to the vegetable kind; and the same tree, which in its

flourishing state produced them berries, in its decay gave them an

habitation. The mutual desires of the sexes uniting their bodies and

affections, and the children which are the results of these

intercourses, introduced first the notion of society, and taught its

conveniences. This society, founded in natural appetites and instincts,

and not in any positive institution, I shall call _natural society_.

Thus far nature went and succeeded: but man would go farther. The great

error of our nature is, not to know where to stop, not to be satisfied

with any reasonable acquirement; not to compound with our condition; but

to lose all we have gained by an insatiable pursuit after more. Man

found a considerable advantage by this union of many persons to form one

family; he therefore judged that he would find his account

proportionably in an union of many families into one body politic. And

as nature has formed no bond of union to hold them together, he supplied

this defect by _laws_.

This is _political society_. And hence the sources of what are usually

called states, civil societies, or governments; into some form of which,

more extended or restrained, all mankind have gradually fallen. And

since it has so happened, and that we owe an implicit reverence to all

the institutions of our ancestors, we shall consider these institutions

with all that modesty with which we ought to conduct ourselves in

examining a received opinion; but with all that freedom and candor which

we owe to truth wherever we find it, or however it may contradict our

own notions, or oppose our own interests. There is a most absurd and

audacious method of reasoning avowed by some bigots and enthusiasts, and

through fear assented to by some wiser and better men; it is this: they

argue against a fair discussion of popular prejudices, because, say

they, though they would be found without any reasonable support, yet the

discovery might be productive of the most dangerous consequences. Absurd

and blasphemous notion! as if all happiness was not connected with the

practice of virtue, which necessarily depends upon the knowledge of

truth; that is, upon the knowledge of those unalterable relations which

Providence has ordained that every thing should bear to every other.

These relations, which are truth itself, the foundation of virtue, and

consequently the only measures of happiness, should be likewise the only

measures by which we should direct our reasoning. To these we should

conform in good earnest; and not think to force nature, and the whole

order of her system, by a compliance with our pride and folly, to

conform to our artificial regulations. It is by a conformity to this

method we owe the discovery of the few truths we know, and the little

liberty and rational happiness we enjoy. We have something fairer play

than a reasoner could have expected formerly; and we derive advantages

from it which are very visible.

The fabric of superstition has in this our age and nation received much

ruder shocks than it had ever felt before; and through the chinks and

breaches of our prison, we see such glimmerings of light, and feel such

refreshing airs of liberty, as daily raise our ardor for more. The

miseries derived to mankind from superstition under the name of

religion, and of ecclesiastical tyranny under the name of church

government, have been clearly and usefully exposed. We begin to think

and to act from reason and from nature alone. This is true of several,

but by far the majority is still in the same old state of blindness and

slavery; and much is it to be feared that we shall perpetually relapse,

whilst the real productive cause of all this superstitious folly,

enthusiastical nonsense, and holy tyranny, holds a reverend place in the

estimation even of those who are otherwise enlightened.

Civil government borrows a strength from ecclesiastical; and artificial

laws receive a sanction from artificial revelations. The ideas of

religion and government are closely connected; and whilst we receive

government as a thing necessary, or even useful to our well-being, we

shall in spite of us draw in, as a necessary, though undesirable

consequence, an artificial religion of some kind or other. To this the

vulgar will always be voluntary slaves; and even those of a rank of

understanding superior, will now and then involuntarily feel its

influence. It is therefore of the deepest concernment to us to be set

right in this point; and to be well satisfied whether civil government

be such a protector from natural evils, and such a nurse and increaser

of blessings, as those of warm imaginations promise. In such a

discussion, far am I from proposing in the least to reflect on our most

wise form of government; no more than I would, in the freer parts of my

philosophical writings, mean to object to the piety, truth, and

perfection of our most excellent Church. Both, I am sensible, have their

foundations on a rock. No discovery of truth can prejudice them. On the

contrary, the more closely the origin of religion and government is

examined, the more clearly their excellences must appear. They come

purified from the fire. My business is not with them. Having entered a

protest against all objections from these quarters, I may the more

freely inquire, from history and experience, how far policy has

contributed in all times to alleviate those evils which Providence, that

perhaps has designed us for a state of imperfection, has imposed; how

far our physical skill has cured our constitutional disorders; and

whether it may not have introduced new ones, curable perhaps by no

skill.

In looking over any state to form a judgment on it, it presents itself

in two lights; the external, and the internal. The first, that relation

which it bears in point of friendship or enmity to other states. The

second, that relation which its component parts, the governing and the

governed, bear to each other. The first part of the external view of all

states, their relation as friends, makes so trifling a figure in

history, that I am very sorry to say, it affords me but little matter on

which to expatiate. The good offices done by one nation to its

neighbor;[8] the support given in public distress; the relief afforded

in general calamity; the protection granted in emergent danger; the

mutual return of kindness and civility, would afford a very ample and

very pleasing subject for history. But, alas! all the history of all

times, concerning all nations, does not afford matter enough to fill ten

pages, though it should be spun out by the wire-drawing amplification of

a Guicciardini himself. The glaring side is that of enmity. War is the

matter which fills all history, and consequently the only or almost the

only view in which we can see the external of political society is in a

hostile shape; and the only actions to which we have always seen, and

still see all of them intent, are such as tend to the destruction of one

another. "War," says Machiavel, "ought to be the only study of a

prince"; and by a prince, he means every sort of state, however

constituted. "He ought," says this great political doctor, "to consider

peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and

furnishes ability to execute military plans." A meditation on the

conduct of political societies made old Hobbes imagine, that war was the

state of nature; and truly, if a man judged of the individuals of our

race by their conduct when united and packed into nations and kingdoms,

he might imagine that every sort of virtue was unnatural and foreign to

the mind of man.

The first accounts we have of mankind are but so many accounts of their

butcheries. All empires have been cemented in blood; and, in those early

periods, when the race of mankind began first to form themselves into

parties and combinations, the first effect of the combination, and

indeed the end for which it seems purposely formed, and best calculated,

was their mutual destruction. All ancient history is dark and

uncertain. One thing, however, is clear,--there were conquerors, and

conquests in those days; and, consequently, all that devastation by

which they are formed, and all that oppression by which they are

maintained. We know little of Sesostris, but that he led out of Egypt an

army of above 700,000 men; that he overran the Mediterranean coast as

far as Colchis; that in some places he met but little resistance, and of

course shed not a great deal of blood; but that he found in others a

people who knew the value of their liberties, and sold them dear.

Whoever considers the army this conqueror headed, the space he

traversed, and the opposition he frequently met, with the natural

accidents of sickness, and the dearth and badness of provision to which

he must have been subject in the variety of climates and countries his

march lay through, if he knows anything, he must know that even the

conqueror's army must have suffered greatly; and that of this immense

number but a very small part could have returned to enjoy the plunder

accumulated by the loss of so many of their companions, and the

devastation of so considerable a part of the world. Considering, I say,

the vast army headed by this conqueror, whose unwieldy weight was almost

alone sufficient to wear down its strength, it will be far from excess

to suppose that one half was lost in the expedition. If this was the

state of the victorious, and from the circumstances it must have been

this at the least; the vanquished must have had a much heavier loss, as

the greatest slaughter is always in the flight, and great carnage did in

those times and countries ever attend the first rage of conquest. It

will, therefore, be very reasonable to allow on their account as much

as, added to the losses of the conqueror, may amount to a million of

deaths, and then we shall see this conqueror, the oldest we have on the

records of history, (though, as we have observed before, the chronology

of these remote times is extremely uncertain), opening the scene by a

destruction of at least one million of his species, unprovoked but by

his ambition, without any motives but pride, cruelty, and madness, and

without any benefit to himself (for Justin expressly tells us he did not

maintain his conquests), but solely to make so many people, in so

distant countries, feel experimentally how severe a scourge Providence

intends for the human race, when he gives one man the power over many,

and arms his naturally impotent and feeble rage with the hands of

millions, who know no common principle of action, but a blind obedience

to the passions of their ruler.

The next personage who figures in the tragedies of this ancient theatre

is Semiramis; for we have no particulars of Ninus, but that he made

immense and rapid conquests, which doubtless were not compassed without

the usual carnage. We see an army of about three millions employed by

this martial queen in a war against the Indians. We see the Indians

arming a yet greater; and we behold a war continued with much fury, and

with various success. This ends in the retreat of the queen, with scarce

a third of the troops employed in the expedition; an expedition which,

at this rate, must have cost two millions of souls on her part; and it

is not unreasonable to judge that the country which was the seat of war

must have been an equal sufferer. But I am content to detract from this,

and to suppose that the Indians lost only half so much, and then the

account stands thus: in this war alone (for Semiramis had other wars) in

this single reign, and in this one spot of the globe, did three millions

of souls expire, with all the horrid and shocking circumstances which

attend all wars, and in a quarrel, in which none of the sufferers could

have the least rational concern.

The Babylonian, Assyrian, Median, and Persian monarchies must have

poured out seas of blood in their formation, and in their destruction.

The armies and fleets of Xerxes, their numbers, the glorious stand made

against them, and the unfortunate event of all his mighty preparations,

are known to everybody. In this expedition, draining half Asia of its

inhabitants, he led an army of about two millions to be slaughtered, and

wasted by a thousand fatal accidents, in the same place where his

predecessors had before by a similar madness consumed the flower of so

many kingdoms, and wasted the force of so extensive an empire. It is a

cheap calculation to say, that the Persian empire, in its wars against

the Greeks and Scythians, threw away at least four millions of its

subjects; to say nothing of its other wars, and the losses sustained in

them. These were their losses abroad; but the war was brought home to

them, first by Agesilaus, and afterwards by Alexander. I have not, in

this retreat, the books necessary to make very exact calculations; nor

is it necessary to give more than hints to one of your lordship's

erudition. You will recollect his uninterrupted series of success. You

will run over his battles. You will call to mind the carnage which was

made. You will give a glance at the whole, and you will agree with me,

that to form this hero no less than twelve hundred thousand lives must

have been sacrificed; but no sooner had he fallen himself a sacrifice to

his vices, than a thousand breaches were made for ruin to enter, and

give the last hand to this scene of misery and destruction. His kingdom

was rent and divided; which served to employ the more distinct parts to

tear each other to pieces, and bury the whole in blood and slaughter.

The kings of Syria and of Egypt, the kings of Pergamus and Macedon,

without intermission worried each other for above two hundred years;

until at last a strong power, arising in the west, rushed in upon them

and silenced their tumults, by involving all the contending parties in

the same destruction. It is little to say, that the contentions between

the successors of Alexander depopulated that part of the world of at

least two millions.

The struggle between the Macedonians and Greeks, and, before that, the

disputes of the Greek commonwealths among themselves, for an

unprofitable superiority, form one of the bloodiest scenes in history.

One is astonished how such a small spot could furnish men sufficient to

sacrifice to the pitiful ambition of possessing five or six thousand

more acres, or two or three more villages; yet to see the acrimony and

bitterness with which this was disputed between the Athenians and

Lacedemonians; what armies cut off; what fleets sunk and burnt; what a

number of cities sacked, and their inhabitants slaughtered and captived;

one would be induced to believe the decision of the fate of mankind, at

least, depended upon it! But those disputes ended as all such ever have

done, and ever will do; in a real weakness of all parties; a momentary

shadow, and dream of power in some one; and the subjection of all to the

yoke of a stranger, who knows how to profit of their divisions. This,

at least, was the case of the Greeks; and surely, from the earliest

accounts of them, to their absorption into the Roman empire, we cannot

judge that their intestine divisions, and their foreign wars, consumed

less than three millions of their inhabitants.

What an Aceldama, what a field of blood Sicily has been in ancient

times, whilst the mode of its government was controverted between the

republican and tyrannical parties, and the possession struggled for by

the natives, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and the Romans, your

lordship will easily recollect. You will remember the total destruction

of such bodies as an army of 300,000 men. You will find every page of

its history dyed in blood, and blotted and confounded by tumults,

rebellions, massacres, assassinations, proscriptions, and a series of

horror beyond the histories perhaps of any other nation in the world;

though the histories of all nations are made up of similar matter. I

once more excuse myself in point of exactness for want of books. But I

shall estimate the slaughters in this island but at two millions; which

your lordship will find much short of the reality.

Let us pass by the wars, and the consequences of them, which wasted

Grecia-Magna, before the Roman power prevailed in that part of Italy.

They are perhaps exaggerated; therefore I shall only rate them at one

million. Let us hasten to open that great scene which establishes the

Roman empire, and forms the grand catastrophe of the ancient drama. This

empire, whilst in its infancy, began by an effusion of human blood

scarcely credible. The neighboring little states teemed for new

destruction: the Sabines, the Samnites, the Æqui, the Volsci, the

Hetrurians, were broken by a series of slaughters which had no

interruption, for some hundreds of years; slaughters which upon all

sides consumed more than two millions of the wretched people. The Gauls,

rushing into Italy about this time, added the total destruction of their

own armies to those of the ancient inhabitants. In short, it were hardly

possible to conceive a more horrid and bloody picture, if that the Punic

wars that ensued soon after did not present one that far exceeds it.

Here we find that climax of devastation, and ruin, which seemed to shake

the whole earth. The extent of this war, which vexed so many nations,

and both elements, and the havoc of the human species caused in both,

really astonishes beyond expression, when it is nakedly considered, and

those matters which are apt to divert our attention from it, the

characters, actions, and designs of the persons concerned, are not taken

into the account. These wars, I mean those called the Punic wars, could

not have stood the human race in less than three millions of the

species. And yet this forms but a part only, and a very small part, of

the havoc caused by the Roman ambition. The war with Mithridates was

very little less bloody; that prince cut off at one stroke 150,000

Romans by a massacre. In that war Sylla destroyed 300,000 men at

Cheronea. He defeated Mithridates' army under Dorilaus, and slew

300,000. This great and unfortunate prince lost another 300,000 before

Cyzicum. In the course of the war he had innumerable other losses; and

having many intervals of success, he revenged them severely. He was at

last totally overthrown; and he crushed to pieces the king of Armenia,

his ally, by the greatness of his ruin. All who had connections with him

shared the same fate. The merciless genius of Sylla had its full scope;

and the streets of Athens were not the only ones which ran with blood.

At this period, the sword, glutted with foreign slaughter, turned its

edge upon the bowels of the Roman republic itself; and presented a scene

of cruelties and treasons enough almost to obliterate the memory of all

the external devastations. I intended, my lord, to have proceeded in a

sort of method in estimating the numbers of mankind cut off in these

wars which we have on record. But I am obliged to alter my design. Such

a tragical uniformity of havoc and murder would disgust your lordship as

much as it would me; and I confess I already feel my eyes ache by

keeping them so long intent on so bloody a prospect. I shall observe

little on the Servile, the Social, the Gallic, and Spanish wars; nor

upon those with Jugurtha, nor Antiochus, nor many others equally

important, and carried on with equal fury. The butcheries of Julius

Cæsar alone are calculated by somebody else; the numbers he has been the

means of destroying have been reckoned at 1,200,000. But to give your

lordship an idea that may serve as a standard, by which to measure, in

some degree, the others; you will turn your eyes on Judea; a very

inconsiderable spot of the earth in itself, though ennobled by the

singular events which had their rise in that country.

This spot happened, it matters not here by what means, to become at

several times extremely populous, and to supply men for slaughters

scarcely credible, if other well-known and well-attested ones had not

given them a color. The first settling of the Jews here was attended by

an almost entire extirpation of all the former inhabitants. Their own

civil wars, and those with their petty neighbors, consumed vast

multitudes almost every year for several centuries; and the irruptions

of the kings of Babylon and Assyria made immense ravages. Yet we have

their history but partially, in an indistinct, confused manner; so that

I shall only throw the strong point of light upon that part which

coincides with Roman history, and of that part only on the point of time

when they received the great and final stroke which made them, no more a

nation; a stroke which is allowed to have cut off little less than two

millions of that people. I say nothing of the loppings made from that

stock whilst it stood; nor from the suckers that grew out of the old

root ever since. But if, in this inconsiderable part of the globe, such

a carnage has been made in two or three short reigns, and that this

great carnage, great as it is, makes but a minute part of what the

histories of that people inform us they suffered; what shall we judge of

countries more extended, and which have waged wars by far more

considerable?

Instances of this sort compose the uniform of history. But there have

been periods when no less than universal destruction to the race of

mankind seems to have been threatened. Such was that when the Goths, the

Vandals, and the Huns, poured into Gaul, Italy, Spain, Greece, and

Africa, carrying destruction before them as they advanced, and leaving

horrid deserts every way behind them. _Vastum ubique silentium, secreti

colles; fumantia procul tecta; nemo exploratoribus obvius_, is what

Tacitus calls _facies victoriæ_. It is always so; but was here

emphatically so. From the north proceeded the swarms of Goths, Vandals,

Huns, Ostrogoths, who ran towards the south, into Africa itself, which

suffered as all to the north had done. About this time, another torrent

of barbarians, animated by the same fury, and encouraged by the same

success, poured out of the south, and ravaged all to the northeast and

west, to the remotest parts of Persia on one hand, and to the banks of

the Loire or farther on the other; destroying all the proud and curious

monuments of human art, that not even the memory might seem to survive

of the former inhabitants. What has been done since, and what will

continue to be done while the same inducements to war continue, I shall

not dwell upon. I shall only in one word mention the horrid effects of

bigotry and avarice, in the conquest of Spanish America; a conquest, on

a low estimation, effected by the murder of ten millions of the species.

I shall draw to a conclusion of this part, by making a general

calculation of the whole. I think I have actually mentioned above

thirty-six millions. I have not particularized any more. I don't pretend

to exactness; therefore, for the sake of a general view, I shall lay

together all those actually slain in battles, or who have perished in a

no less miserable manner by the other destructive consequences of war

from the beginning of the world to this day, in the four parts of it, at

a thousand times as much; no exaggerated calculation, allowing for time

and extent. We have not perhaps spoke of the five-hundredth part; I am

sure I have not of what is actually ascertained in history; but how much

of these butcheries are only expressed in generals, what part of time

history has never reached, and what vast spaces of the habitable globe

it has not embraced, I need not mention to your lordship. I need not

enlarge on those torrents of silent and inglorious blood which have

glutted the thirsty sands of Afric, or discolored the polar snow, or

fed the savage forests of America for so many ages of continual war.

Shall I, to justify my calculations from the charge of extravagance, add

to the account those skirmishes which happen in all wars, without being

singly of sufficient dignity in mischief, to merit a place in history,

but which by their frequency compensate for this comparative innocence?

shall I inflame the account by those general massacres which have

devoured whole cities and nations; those wasting pestilences, those

consuming famines, and all those furies that follow in the train of war?

I have no need to exaggerate; and I have purposely avoided a parade of

eloquence on this occasion. I should despise it upon any occasion; else

in mentioning these slaughters, it is obvious how much the whole might

be heightened, by an affecting description of the horrors that attend

the wasting of kingdoms, and sacking of cities. But I do not write to

the vulgar, nor to that which only governs the vulgar, their passions. I

go upon a naked and moderate calculation, just enough, without a

pedantical exactness, to give your lordship some feeling of the effects

of political society. I charge the whole of these effects on political

society. I avow the charge, and I shall presently make it good to your

lordship's satisfaction. The numbers I particularized are about

thirty-six millions. Besides those killed in battles I have said

something, not half what the matter would have justified, but something

I have said concerning the consequences of war even more dreadful than

that monstrous carnage itself which shocks our humanity, and almost

staggers our belief. So that, allowing me in my exuberance one way for

my deficiencies in the other, you will find me not unreasonable. I

think the numbers of men now upon earth are computed at five hundred

millions at the most. Here the slaughter of mankind, on what you will

call a small calculation, amounts to upwards of seventy times the number

of souls this day on the globe: a point which may furnish matter of

reflection to one less inclined to draw consequences than your lordship.

I now come to show that political society is justly chargeable with much

the greatest part of this destruction of the species. To give the

fairest play to every side of the question, I will own that there is a

haughtiness and fierceness in human nature, which will cause innumerable

broils, place men in what situation you please; but owning this, I still

insist in charging it to political regulations, that these broils are so

frequent, so cruel, and attended with consequences so deplorable. In a

state of nature, it had been impossible to find a number of men,

sufficient for such slaughters, agreed in the same bloody purpose; or

allowing that they might have come to such an agreement (an impossible

supposition), yet the means that simple nature has supplied them with,

are by no means adequate to such an end; many scratches, many bruises

undoubtedly would be received upon all hands; but only a few, a very few

deaths. Society and politics, which have given us these destructive

views, have given us also the means of satisfying them. From the

earliest dawnings of policy to this day, the invention of men has been

sharpening and improving the mystery of murder, from the first rude

essays of clubs and stones, to the present perfection of gunnery,

cannoneering, bombarding, mining, and all those species of artificial,

learned, and refined cruelty, in which we are now so expert, and which

make a principal part of what politicians have taught us to believe is

our principal glory.

How far mere nature would have carried us, we may judge by the example

of those animals who still follow her laws, and even of those to whom

she has given dispositions more fierce, and arms more terrible than ever

she intended we should use. It is an incontestable truth that there is

more havoc made in one year by men of men, than has been made by all the

lions, tigers, panthers, ounces, leopards, hyenas, rhinoceroses,

elephants, bears and wolves, upon their several species, since the

beginning of the world; though these agree ill enough with each other,

and have a much greater proportion of rage and fury in their composition

than we have. But with respect to you, ye legislators, ye civilizers of

mankind! ye Orpheuses, Moseses, Minoses, Solons, Theseuses, Lycurguses,

Numas! with respect to you be it spoken, your regulations have done more

mischief in cold blood, than all the rage of the fiercest animals in

their greatest terrors, or furies, has ever done, or ever could do!

These evils are not accidental. Whoever will take the pains to consider

the nature of society will find that they result directly from its

constitution. For as _subordination_, or, in other words, the

reciprocation of tyranny and slavery, is requisite to support these

societies; the interest, the ambition, the malice, or the revenge, nay,

even the whim and caprice of one ruling man among them, is enough to arm

all the rest, without any private views of their own, to the worst and

blackest purposes: and what is at once lamentable, and ridiculous, these

wretches engage under those banners with a fury greater than if they

were animated by revenge for their own proper wrongs.

It is no less worth observing, that this artificial division of mankind

into separate societies is a perpetual source in itself of hatred and

dissension among them. The names which distinguish them are enough to

blow up hatred and rage. Examine history; consult present experience;

and you will find that far the greater part of the quarrels between

several nations had scarce any other occasion than that these nations

were different combinations of people, and called by different names: to

an Englishman, the name of a Frenchman, a Spaniard, an Italian, much

more a Turk, or a Tartar, raises of course ideas of hatred and contempt.

If you would inspire this compatriot of ours with pity or regard for one

of these, would you not hide that distinction? You would not pray him to

compassionate the poor Frenchman, or the unhappy German. Far from it;

you would speak of him as a _foreigner_; an accident to which all are

liable. You would represent him as a _man_; one partaking with us of the

same common nature, and subject to the same law. There is something so

averse from our nature in these artificial political distinctions, that

we need no other trumpet to kindle us to war and destruction. But there

is something so benign and healing in the general voice of humanity

that, maugre all our regulations to prevent it, the simple name of man

applied properly, never fails to work a salutary effect.

This natural unpremeditated effect of policy on the unpossessed passions

of mankind appears on other occasions. The very name of a politician, a

statesman, is sure to cause terror and hatred; it has always connected

with it the ideas of treachery, cruelty, fraud, and tyranny; and those

writers who have faithfully unveiled the mysteries of state-freemasonry,

have ever been held in general detestation, for even knowing so

perfectly a theory so detestable. The case of Machiavel seems at first

sight something hard in that respect. He is obliged to bear the

iniquities of those whose maxims and rules of government he published.

His speculation is more abhorred than their practice.

But if there were no other arguments against artificial society than

this I am going to mention, methinks it ought to fall by this one only.

All writers on the science of policy are agreed, and they agree with

experience, that, all governments must frequently infringe the rules of

justice to support themselves; that truth must give way to

dissimulation; honesty to convenience; and humanity itself to the

reigning interest. The whole of this mystery of iniquity is called the

reason of state. It is a reason which I own I cannot penetrate. What

sort of a protection is this of the general right, that is maintained by

infringing the rights of particulars? What sort of justice is this,

which is enforced by breaches of its own laws? These paradoxes I leave

to be solved by the able heads of legislators and politicians. For my

part, I say what a plain man would say on such an occasion. I can never

believe that any institution, agreeable to nature, and proper for

mankind, could find it necessary, or even expedient, in any case

whatsoever, to do what the best and worthiest instincts of mankind warn

us to avoid. But no wonder, that what is set up in opposition to the

state of nature should preserve itself by trampling upon the law of

nature.

To prove that these sorts of policed societies are a violation offered

to nature, and a constraint upon the human mind, it needs only to look

upon the sanguinary measures, and instruments of violence, which are

everywhere used to support them. Let us take a review of the dungeons,

whips, chains, racks, gibbets, with which every society is abundantly

stored; by which hundreds of victims are annually offered up to support

a dozen or two in pride and madness, and millions in an abject servitude

and dependence. There was a time when I looked with a reverential awe on

these mysteries of policy; but age, experience, and philosophy, have

rent the veil; and I view this _sanctum sanctorum_, at least, without

any enthusiastic admiration. I acknowledge, indeed, the necessity of

such a proceeding in such institutions; but I must have a very mean

opinion of institutions where such proceedings are necessary.

It is a misfortune that in no part of the globe natural liberty and

natural religion are to be found pure, and free from the mixture of

political adulterations. Yet we have implanted in us by Providence,

ideas, axioms, rules, of what is pious, just, fair, honest, which no

political craft, nor learned sophistry can entirely expel from our

breasts. By these we judge, and we cannot otherwise judge, of the

several artificial modes of religion and society, and determine of them

as they approach to or recede from this standard.

The simplest form of government is _despotism_, where all the inferior

orbs of power are moved merely by the will of the Supreme, and all that

are subjected to them directed in the same manner, merely by the

occasional will of the magistrate. This form, as it is the most simple,

so it is infinitely the most general. Scarcely any part of the world is

exempted from its power. And in those few places where men enjoy what

they call liberty, it is continually in a tottering situation, and makes

greater and greater strides to that gulf of despotism which at last

swallows up every species of government. The manner of ruling being

directed merely by the will of the weakest, and generally the worst man

in the society, becomes the most foolish and capricious thing, at the

same time that it is the most terrible and destructive that well can be

conceived. In a despotism, the principal person finds that, let the

want, misery, and indigence of his subjects be what they will, he can

yet possess abundantly of everything to gratify his most insatiable

wishes. He does more. He finds that these gratifications increase in

proportion to the wretchedness and slavery of his subjects. Thus

encouraged both by passion and interest to trample on the public

welfare, and by his station placed above both shame and fear, he

proceeds to the most horrid and shocking outrages upon mankind. Their

persons become victims of his suspicions. The slightest displeasure is

death; and a disagreeable aspect is often as great a crime as high

treason. In the court of Nero, a person of learning, of unquestioned

merit, and of unsuspected loyalty, was put to death for no other reason,

than that he had a pedantic countenance which displeased the emperor.

This very monster of mankind appeared in the beginning of his reign to

be a person of virtue. Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of

history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth

is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding.

And to prevent the least hope of amendment, a king is ever surrounded by

a crowd of infamous flatterers, who find their account in keeping him

from the least light of reason, till all ideas of rectitude and justice

are utterly erased from his mind. When Alexander had in his fury

inhumanly butchered one of his best friends and bravest captains; on the

return of reason he began to conceive an horror suitable to the guilt of

such a murder. In this juncture his council came to his assistance. But

what did his council? They found him out a philosopher who gave him

comfort. And in what manner did this philosopher comfort him for the

loss of such a man, and heal his conscience, flagrant with the smart of

such a crime? You have the matter at length in Plutarch. He told him,

"_that let a sovereign do what he wilt, all his actions are just and

lawful, because they are his_." The palaces of all princes abound with

such courtly philosophers. The consequence was such as might be

expected. He grew every day a monster more abandoned to unnatural lust,

to debauchery, to drunkenness, and to murder. And yet this was

originally a great man, of uncommon capacity, and a strong propensity to

virtue. But unbounded power proceeds step by step, until it has

eradicated every laudable principle. It has been remarked, that there is

no prince so bad, whose favorites and ministers are not worse. There is

hardly any prince without a favorite, by whom he is governed in as

arbitrary a manner as he governs the wretches subjected to him. Here the

tyranny is doubled. There are two courts, and two interests; both very

different from the interests of the people. The favorite knows that the

regard of a tyrant is as unconstant and capricious as that of a woman;

and concluding his time to be short, he makes haste to fill up the

measure of his iniquity, in rapine, in luxury, and in revenge. Every

avenue to the throne is shut up. He oppresses and ruins the people,

whilst he persuades the prince that those murmurs raised by his own

oppression are the effects of disaffection to the prince's government.

Then is the natural violence of despotism inflamed and aggravated by

hatred and revenge. To deserve well of the state is a crime against the

prince. To be popular, and to be a traitor, are considered as synonymous

terms. Even virtue is dangerous, as an aspiring quality, that claims an

esteem by itself, and independent of the countenance of the court. What

has been said of the chief, is true of the inferior officers of this

species of government; each in his province exercising the same tyranny,

and grinding the people by an oppression, the more severely felt, as it

is near them, and exercised by base and subordinate persons. For the

gross of the people, they are considered as a mere herd of cattle; and

really in a little time become no better; all principle of honest pride,

all sense of the dignity of their nature, is lost in their slavery. The

day, says Homer, which makes a man a slave, takes away half his worth;

and, in fact, he loses every impulse to action, but that low and base

one of fear. In this kind of government human nature is not only abused

and insulted, but it is actually degraded and sunk into a species of

brutality. The consideration of this made Mr. Locke say, with great

justice, that a government of this kind was worse than anarchy: indeed

it is so abhorred and detested by all who live under forms that have a

milder appearance, that there is scarcely a rational man in Europe that

would not prefer death to Asiatic despotism. Here then we have the

acknowledgment of a great philosopher, that an irregular state of nature

is preferable to such a government; we have the consent of all sensible

and generous men, who carry it yet further, and avow that death itself

is preferable; and yet this species of government, so justly condemned,

and so generally detested, is what infinitely the greater part of

mankind groan under, and have groaned under from the beginning. So that,

by sure and uncontested principles, the greatest part of the governments

on earth must be concluded tyrannies, impostures, violations of the

natural rights of mankind, and worse than the most disorderly anarchies.

How much other forms exceed this we shall consider immediately.

In all parts of the world, mankind, however debased, retains still the

sense of _feeling_; the weight of tyranny at last becomes insupportable;

but the remedy is not so easy: in general, the only remedy by which they

attempt to cure the tyranny is to change the tyrant. This is, and always

was, the case for the greater part. In some countries, however, were

found men of more penetration, who discovered "_that to live by one

man's will was the cause of all men's misery_." They therefore changed

their former method, and assembling the men in their several societies

the most respectable for their understanding and fortunes, they confided

to them the charge of the public welfare. This originally formed what is

called an _aristocracy_. They hoped it would be impossible that such a

number could ever join in any design against the general good; and they

promised themselves a great deal of security and happiness from the

united counsels of so many able and experienced persons. But it is now

found by abundant experience, that an _aristocracy_, and a _despotism_,

differ but in name; and that a people who are in general excluded from

any share of the legislative, are, to all intents and purposes, as much

slaves, when twenty, independent of them, govern, as when but one

domineers. The tyranny is even more felt, as every individual of the

nobles has the haughtiness of a sultan; the people are more miserable,

as they seem on the verge of liberty, from which they are forever

debarred; this fallacious idea of liberty, whilst it presents a vain

shadow of happiness to the subject, binds faster the chains of his

subjection. What is left undone by the natural avarice and pride of

those who are raised above the others, is completed by their suspicions,

and their dread of losing an authority, which has no support in the

common utility of the nation. A Genoese or a Venetian republic is a

concealed _despotism_; where you find the same pride of the rulers, the

same base subjection of the people, the same bloody maxims of a

suspicious policy. In one respect the _aristocracy_ is worse than the

_despotism_. A body politic, whilst it retains its authority, never

changes its maxims; a _despotism_, which is this day horrible to a

supreme degree, by the caprice natural to the heart of man, may, by the

same caprice otherwise exerted, be as lovely the next; in a succession,

it is possible to meet with some good princes. If there have been

Tiberiuses, Caligulas, Neros, there have been likewise the serener days

of Vespasians, Tituses, Trajans, and Antonines; but a body politic is

not influenced by caprice or whim, it proceeds in a regular manner, its

succession is insensible; and every man as he enters it, either has, or

soon attains, the spirit of the whole body. Never was it known that an

_aristocracy_, which was haughty and tyrannical in one century, became

easy and mild in the next. In effect, the yoke of this species of

government is so galling, that whenever the people have got the least

power, they have shaken it off with the utmost indignation, and

established a popular form. And when they have not had strength enough

to support themselves, they have thrown themselves into the arms of

_despotism_, as the more eligible of the two evils. This latter was the

case of Denmark, who sought a refuge from the oppression of its

nobility, in the strong hold of arbitrary power. Poland has at present

the name of republic, and it is one of the _aristocratic_ form; but it

is well known that the little finger of this government is heavier than

the loins of arbitrary power in most nations. The people are not only

politically, but personally slaves, and treated with the utmost

indignity. The republic of Venice is somewhat more moderate; yet even

here, so heavy is the _aristocratic_ yoke, that the nobles have been

obliged to enervate the spirit of their subjects by every sort of

debauchery; they have denied them the liberty of reason, and they have

made them amends by what a base soul will think a more valuable liberty,

by not only allowing, but encouraging them to corrupt themselves in the

most scandalous manner. They consider their subjects as the farmer does

the hog he keeps to feast upon. He holds him fast in his sty, but allows

him to wallow as much as he pleases in his beloved filth and gluttony.

So scandalously debauched a people as that of Venice is to be met with

nowhere else. High, low, men, women, clergy, and laity, are all alike.

The ruling nobility are no less afraid of one another than they are of

the people; and, for that reason, politically enervate their own body by

the same effeminate luxury by which they corrupt their subjects. They

are impoverished by every means which can be invented; and they are kept

in a perpetual terror by the horrors of a state inquisition. Here you

see a people deprived of all rational freedom, and tyrannized over by

about two thousand men; and yet this body of two thousand are so far

from enjoying any liberty by the subjection of the rest, that they are

in an infinitely severer state of slavery; they make themselves the most

degenerate and unhappy of mankind, for no other purpose than that they

may the more effectually contribute to the misery of a whole nation. In

short, the regular and methodical proceedings of an _aristocracy_ are

more intolerable than the very excesses of a _despotism_, and, in

general, much further from any remedy.

Thus, my lord, we have pursued _aristocracy_ through its whole progress;

we have seen the seeds, the growth, and the fruit. It could boast none

of the advantages of a _despotism_, miserable as those advantages were,

and it was overloaded with an exuberance of mischiefs, unknown even to

_despotism_ itself. In effect, it is no more than a disorderly tyranny.

This form, therefore, could be little approved, even in speculation, by

those who were capable of thinking, and could be less borne in practice

by any who were capable of feeling. However, the fruitful policy of man

was not yet exhausted. He had yet another farthing candle to supply the

deficiencies of the sun. This was the third form, known by political

writers under the name of _democracy_. Here the people transacted all

public business, or the greater part of it, in their own persons; their

laws were made by themselves, and, upon any failure of duty, their

officers were accountable to themselves, and to them only. In all

appearance, they had secured by this method the advantages of order and

good government, without paying their liberty for the purchase. Now, my

lord, we are come to the masterpiece of Grecian refinement, and Roman

solidity,--a popular government. The earliest and most celebrated

republic of this model was that of Athens. It was constructed by no less

an artist than the celebrated poet and philosopher, Solon. But no sooner

was this political vessel launched from the stocks, than it overset,

even in the lifetime of the builder. A tyranny immediately supervened;

not by a foreign conquest, not by accident, but by the very nature and

constitution of a _democracy_. An artful man became popular, the people

had power in their hands, and they devolved a considerable share of

their power upon their favorite; and the only use he made of this power

was, to plunge those who gave it into slavery. Accident restored their

liberty, and the same good fortune produced men of uncommon abilities

and uncommon virtues amongst them. But these abilities were suffered to

be of little service either to their possessors or to the state. Some of

these men, for whose sakes alone we read their history, they banished;

others they imprisoned, and all they treated with various circumstances

of the most shameful ingratitude. Republics have many things in the

spirit of absolute monarchy, but none more than this. A shining merit

is ever hated or suspected in a popular assembly, as well as in a court;

and all services done the state are looked upon as dangerous to the

rulers, whether sultans or senators. The _ostracism_ at Athens was built

upon this principle. The giddy people whom we have now under

consideration, being elated with some flashes of success, which they

owed to nothing less than any merit of their own, began to tyrannize

over their equals, who had associated with them for their common

defence. With their prudence they renounced all appearance of justice.

They entered into wars rashly and wantonly. If they were unsuccessful,

instead of growing wiser by their misfortune, they threw the whole blame

of their own misconduct on the ministers who had advised, and the

generals who had conducted, those wars; until by degrees they had cut

off all who could serve them in their councils or their battles. If at

any time these wars had a happier issue, it was no less difficult to

deal with them on account of their pride and insolence. Furious in their

adversity, tyrannical in their successes, a commander had more trouble

to concert his defence before the people, than to plan the operations of

the campaign. It was not uncommon for a general, under the horrid

_despotism_ of the Roman emperors, to be ill received in proportion to

the greatness of his services. Agricola is a strong instance of this. No

man had done greater things, nor with more honest ambition. Yet, on his

return to court, he was obliged to enter Rome with all the secrecy of a

criminal. He went to the palace, not like a victorious commander who had

merited and might demand the greatest rewards, but like an offender who

had come to supplicate a pardon for his crimes. His reception was

answerable; "_Exceptusque brevi osculo et nullo sermone, turbæ

servientium immixtus est_." Yet in that worst season of this worst of

monarchical[9] tyrannies, modesty, discretion, and a coolness of temper,

formed some kind of security, even for the highest merit. But at Athens,

the nicest and best studied behavior was not a sufficient guard for a

man of great capacity. Some of their bravest commanders were obliged to

fly their country, some to enter into the service of its enemies, rather

than abide a popular determination on their conduct, lest, as one of

them said, their giddiness might make the people condemn where they

meant to acquit; to throw in a black bean even when they intended a

white one.

The Athenians made a very rapid progress to the most enormous excesses.

The people, under no restraint, soon grew dissolute, luxurious, and

idle. They renounced all labor, and began to subsist themselves from the

public revenues. They lost all concern for their common honor or safety,

and could bear no advice that tended to reform them. At this time truth

became offensive to those lords the people, and most highly dangerous to

the speaker. The orators no longer ascended the _rostrum_, but to

corrupt them further with the most fulsome adulation. These orators were

all bribed by foreign princes on the one side or the other. And besides

its own parties, in this city there were parties, and avowed ones too,

for the Persians, Spartans, and Macedonians, supported each of them by

one or more demagogues pensioned and bribed to this iniquitous service.

The people, forgetful of all virtue and public spirit, and intoxicated

with the flatteries of their orators (these courtiers of republics, and

endowed with the distinguishing characteristics of all other courtiers),

this people, I say, at last arrived at that pitch of madness, that they

coolly and deliberately, by an express law, made it capital for any man

to propose an application of the immense sums squandered in public

shows, even to the most necessary purposes of the state. When you see

the people of this republic banishing and murdering their best and

ablest citizens, dissipating the public treasure with the most senseless

extravagance, and spending their whole time, as spectators or actors, in

playing, fiddling, dancing, and singing, does it not, my lord, strike

your imagination with the image of a sort of complex Nero? And does it

not strike you with the greater horror, when you observe, not one man

only, but a whole city, grown drunk with pride and power, running with a

rage of folly into the same mean and senseless debauchery and

extravagance? But if this people resembled Nero in their extravagance,

much more did they resemble and even exceed him in cruelty and

injustice. In the time of Pericles, one of the most celebrated times in

the history of that commonwealth, a king of Egypt sent them a donation

of corn. This they were mean enough to accept. And had the Egyptian

prince intended the ruin of this city of wicked Bedlamites, he could not

have taken a more effectual method to do it than by such an ensnaring

largess. The distribution of this bounty caused a quarrel; the majority

set on foot an inquiry into the title of the citizens; and upon a vain

pretence of illegitimacy, newly and occasionally set up, they deprived

of their share of the royal donation no less than five thousand of

their own body. They went further; they disfranchised them; and, having

once begun with an act of injustice, they could set no bounds to it. Not

content with cutting them off from the rights of citizens, they

plundered these unfortunate wretches of all their substance; and, to

crown this masterpiece of violence and tyranny, they actually sold every

man of the five thousand as slaves in the public market. Observe, my

lord, that the five thousand we here speak of were cut off from a body

of no more than nineteen thousand; for the entire number of citizens was

no greater at that time. Could the tyrant who wished the Roman people

but one neck; could the tyrant Caligula himself have done, nay, he could

scarcely wish for, a greater mischief than to have cut off, at one

stroke, a fourth of his people? Or has the cruelty of that series of

sanguine tyrants, the Cæsars, ever presented such a piece of flagrant

and extensive wickedness? The whole history of this celebrated republic

is but one tissue of rashness, folly, ingratitude, injustice, tumult,

violence, and tyranny, and, indeed, of every species of wickedness that

can well be imagined. This was a city of wise men, in which a minister

could not exercise his functions; a warlike people, amongst whom a

general did not dare either to gain or lose a battle; a learned nation,

in which a philosopher could not venture on a free inquiry. This was the

city which banished Themistocles, starved Aristides, forced into exile

Miltiades, drove out Anaxagoras, and poisoned Socrates. This was a city

which changed the form of its government with the moon; eternal

conspiracies, revolutions daily, nothing fixed and established. A

republic, as an ancient philosopher has observed, is no one species of

government, but a magazine of every species; here you find every sort of

it, and that in the worst form. As there is a perpetual change, one

rising and the other falling, you have all the violence and wicked

policy by which a beginning power must always acquire its strength, and

all the weakness by which falling states are brought to a complete

destruction.

Rome has a more venerable aspect than Athens; and she conducted her

affairs, so far as related to the ruin and oppression of the greatest

part of the world, with greater wisdom and more uniformity. But the

domestic economy of these two states was nearly or altogether the same.

An internal dissension constantly tore to pieces the bowels of the Roman

commonwealth. You find the same confusion, the same factions, which

subsisted at Athens, the same tumults, the same revolutions, and, in

fine, the same slavery; if, perhaps, their former condition did not

deserve that name altogether as well. All other republics were of the

same character. Florence was a transcript of Athens. And the modern

republics, as they approach more or less to the democratic form, partake

more or less of the nature of those which I have described.

We are now at the close of our review of the three simple forms of

artificial society; and we have shown them, however they may differ in

name, or in some slight circumstances, to be all alike in effect: in

effect, to be all tyrannies. But suppose we were inclined to make the

most ample concessions; let us concede Athens, Rome, Carthage, and two

or three more of the ancient, and as many of the modern, commonwealths,

to have been, or to be, free and happy, and to owe their freedom and

happiness to their political constitution. Yet, allowing all this, what

defence does this make for artificial society in general, that these

inconsiderable spots of the globe have for some short space of time

stood as exceptions to a charge so general? But when we call these

governments free, or concede that their citizens were happier than those

which lived under different forms, it is merely _ex abundanti_. For we

should be greatly mistaken, if we really thought that the majority of

the people which filled these cities enjoyed even that nominal political

freedom of which I have spoken so much already. In reality, they had no

part of it. In Athens there were usually from ten to thirty thousand

freemen; this was the utmost. But the slaves usually amounted to four

hundred thousand, and sometimes to a great many more. The freemen of

Sparta and Rome were not more numerous in proportion to those whom they

held in a slavery even more terrible than the Athenian. Therefore state

the matter fairly: the free states never formed, though they were taken

altogether, the thousandth part of the habitable globe; the freemen in

these states were never the twentieth part of the people, and the time

they subsisted is scarce anything in that immense ocean of duration in

which time and slavery are so nearly commensurate. Therefore call these

free states, or popular governments, or what you please; when we

consider the majority of their inhabitants, and regard the natural

rights of mankind, they must appear, in reality and truth, no better

than pitiful and oppressive oligarchies.

After so fair an examen, wherein nothing has been exaggerated; no fact

produced which cannot be proved, and none which has been produced in

any wise forced or strained, while thousands have, for brevity, been

omitted; after so candid a discussion in all respects; what slave so

passive, what bigot so blind, what enthusiast so headlong, what

politician so hardened, as to stand up in defence of a system calculated

for a curse to mankind? a curse under which they smart and groan to this

hour, without thoroughly knowing the nature of the disease, and wanting

understanding or courage to supply the remedy.

I need not excuse myself to your lordship, nor, I think, to any honest

man, for the zeal I have shown in this cause; for it is an honest zeal,

and in a good cause. I have defended natural religion against a

confederacy of atheists and divines. I now plead for natural society

against politicians, and for natural reason against all three. When the

world is in a fitter temper than it is at present to hear truth, or when

I shall be more indifferent about its temper, my thoughts may become

more public. In the mean time, let them repose in my own bosom, and in

the bosoms of such men as are fit to be initiated in the sober mysteries

of truth and reason. My antagonists have already done as much as I could

desire. Parties in religion and politics make sufficient discoveries

concerning each other, to give a sober man a proper caution against them

all. The monarchic, and aristocratical, and popular partisans, have been

jointly laying their axes to the root of all government, and have, in

their turns, proved each other absurd and inconvenient. In vain you tell

me that artificial government is good, but that I fall out only with the

abuse. The thing! the thing itself is the abuse! Observe, my lord, I

pray you, that grand error upon which all artificial legislative power

is founded. It was observed, that men had ungovernable passions, which

made it necessary to guard against the violence they might offer to each

other. They appointed governors over them for this reason. But a worse

and more perplexing difficulty arises, how to be defended against the

governors? _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_ In vain they change from a

single person to a few. These few have the passions of the one; and they

unite to strengthen themselves, and to secure the gratification of their

lawless passions at the expense of the general good. In vain do we fly

to the many. The case is worse; their passions are less under the

government of reason, they are augmented by the contagion, and defended

against all attacks by their multitude.

I have purposely avoided the mention of the mixed form of government,

for reasons that will be very obvious to your lordship. But my caution

can avail me but little. You will not fail to urge it against me in

favor of political society. You will not fail to show how the errors of

the several simple modes are corrected by a mixture of all of them, and

a proper balance of the several powers in such a state. I confess, my

lord, that this has been long a darling mistake of my own; and that of

all the sacrifices I have made to truth, this has been by far the

greatest. When I confess that I think this notion a mistake, I know to

whom I am speaking, for I am satisfied that reasons are like liquors,

and there are some of such a nature as none but strong heads can bear.

There are few with whom I can communicate so freely as with Pope. But

Pope cannot bear every truth. He has a timidity which hinders the full

exertion of his faculties, almost as effectually as bigotry cramps those

of the general herd of mankind. But whoever is a genuine follower of

truth keeps his eye steady upon his guide, indifferent whither he is

led, provided that she is the leader. And, my lord, if it be properly

considered, it were infinitely better to remain possessed by the whole

legion of vulgar mistakes, than to reject some, and at the same time to

retain a fondness for others altogether as absurd and irrational. The

first has at least a consistency, that makes a man, however erroneously,

uniform at least; but the latter way of proceeding is such an

inconsistent chimera and jumble of philosophy and vulgar prejudice, that

hardly anything more ridiculous can be conceived. Let us therefore

freely, and without fear or prejudice, examine this last contrivance of

policy. And, without considering how near the quick our instruments may

come, let us search it to the bottom.

First, then, all men are agreed that this junction of regal,

aristocratic, and popular power, must form a very complex, nice, and

intricate machine, which being composed of such a variety of parts, with

such opposite tendencies and movements, it must be liable on every

accident to be disordered. To speak without metaphor, such a government

must be liable to frequent cabals, tumults, and revolutions, from its

very constitution. These are undoubtedly as ill effects as can happen in

a society; for in such a case, the closeness acquired by community,

instead of serving for mutual defence, serves only to increase the

danger. Such a system is like a city, where trades that require constant

fires are much exercised, where the houses are built of combustible

materials, and where they stand extremely close.

In the second place, the several constituent parts having their distinct

rights, and these many of them so necessary to be determined with

exactness, are yet so indeterminate in their nature, that it becomes a

new and constant source of debate and confusion. Hence it is, that

whilst the business of government should be carrying on, the question

is, Who has a right to exercise this or that function of it, or what men

have power to keep their offices in any function? Whilst this contest

continues, and whilst the balance in any sort continues, it has never

any remission; all manner of abuses and villanies in officers remain

unpunished; the greatest frauds and robberies in the public revenues are

committed in defiance of justice; and abuses grow, by time and impunity,

into customs; until they prescribe against the laws, and grow too

inveterate often to admit a cure, unless such as may be as bad as the

disease.

Thirdly, the several parts of this species of government, though united,

preserve the spirit which each form has separately. Kings are ambitious;

the nobility haughty; and the populace tumultuous and ungovernable. Each

party, however in appearance peaceable, carries on a design upon the

others; and it is owing to this, that in all questions, whether

concerning foreign or domestic affairs, the whole generally turns more

upon some party-matter than upon the nature of the thing itself; whether

such a step will diminish or augment the power of the crown, or how far

the privileges of the subject are likely to be extended or restricted by

it. And these questions are constantly resolved, without any

consideration of the merits of the cause, merely as the parties who

uphold these jarring interests may chance to prevail; and as they

prevail, the balance is overset, now upon one side, now upon the other.

The government is, one day, arbitrary power in a single person; another,

a juggling confederacy of a few to cheat the prince and enslave the

people; and the third, a frantic and unmanageable democracy. The great

instrument of all these changes, and what infuses a peculiar venom into

all of them, is party. It is of no consequence what the principles of

any party, or what their pretensions are; the spirit which actuates all

parties is the same; the spirit of ambition, of self-interest, of

oppression and treachery. This spirit entirely reverses all the

principles which a benevolent nature has erected within us; all honesty,

all equal justice, and even the ties of natural society, the natural

affections. In a word, my lord, we have all _seen_, and, if any outward

considerations were worthy the lasting concern of a wise man, we have

some of us _felt_, such oppression from party government as no other

tyranny can parallel. We behold daily the most important rights, rights

upon which all the others depend, we behold these rights determined in

the last resort, without the least attention even to the appearance or

color of justice; we behold this without emotion, because we have grown

up in the constant view of such practices; and we are not surprised to

hear a man requested to be a knave and a traitor, with as much

indifference as if the most ordinary favor were asked; and we hear this

request refused, not because it is a most unjust and unreasonable

desire, but because this worthy has already engaged his injustice to

another. These and many more points I am for from spreading to their

full extent. You are sensible that I do not put forth half my strength;

and you cannot be at a loss for the reason. A man is allowed sufficient

freedom of thought, provided he knows how to choose his subject

properly. You may criticise freely upon the Chinese constitution, and

observe with as much severity as you please upon the absurd tricks, or

destructive bigotry of the bonzees. But the scene is changed as you come

homeward, and atheism or treason may be the names given in Britain, to

what would be reason and truth if asserted of China. I submit to the

condition, and though I have a notorious advantage before me, I waive

the pursuit. For else, my lord, it is very obvious what a picture might

be drawn of the excesses of party even in our own nation. I could show,

that the same faction has, in one reign, promoted popular seditions,

and, in the next, been a patron of tyranny: I could show that they have

all of them betrayed the public safety at all times, and have very

frequently with equal perfidy made a market of their own cause and their

own associates. I could show how vehemently they have contended for

names, and how silently they have passed over things of the last

importance. And I could demonstrate that they have had the opportunity

of doing all this mischief, nay, that they themselves had their origin

and growth from that complex form of government, which we are wisely

taught to look upon as so great a blessing. Revolve, my lord, our

history from the Conquest. We scarcely ever had a prince, who, by fraud

or violence, had not made some infringement on the constitution. We

scarcely ever had a Parliament which knew, when it attempted to set

limits to the royal authority, how to set limits to its own. Evils we

have had continually calling for reformation, and reformations more

grievous than any evils. Our boasted liberty sometimes trodden down,

sometimes giddily set up, and ever precariously fluctuating and

unsettled; it has only been kept alive by the blasts of continual feuds,

wars, and conspiracies. In no country in Europe has the scaffold so

often blushed with the blood of its nobility. Confiscations,

banishments, attainders, executions, make a large part of the history of

such of our families as are not utterly extinguished by them. Formerly,

indeed, things had a more ferocious appearance than they have at this

day. In these early and unrefined ages, the jarring part of a certain

chaotic constitution supported their several pretensions by the sword.

Experience and policy have since taught other methods.

At nunc res agitur tenui pulmone rubetæ.

But how far corruption, venality, the contempt of honor, the oblivion of

all duty to our country, and the most abandoned public prostitution, are

preferable to the more glaring and violent effects of faction, I will

not presume to determine. Sure I am that they are very great evils.

I have done with the forms of government. During the course of my

inquiry you may have observed a very material difference between my

manner of reasoning and that which is in use amongst the abettors of

artificial society. They form their plans upon what seems most eligible

to their imaginations, for the ordering of mankind. I discover the

mistakes in those plans, from the real known consequences which have

resulted from them. They have enlisted reason to fight against itself,

and employ its whole force to prove that it is an insufficient guide to

them in the conduct of their lives. But unhappily for us, in proportion

as we have deviated from the plain rule of our nature, and turned our

reason against itself, in that proportion have we increased the follies

and miseries of mankind. The more deeply we penetrate into the labyrinth

of art, the further we find ourselves from those ends for which we

entered it. This has happened in almost every species of artificial

society, and in all times. We found, or we thought we found, an

inconvenience in having every man the judge of his own cause. Therefore

judges were set up, at first, with discretionary powers. But it was soon

found a miserable slavery to have our lives and properties precarious,

and hanging upon the arbitrary determination of any one man, or set of

men. We fled to laws as a remedy for this evil. By these we persuaded

ourselves we might know with some certainty upon what ground we stood.

But lo! differences arose upon the sense and interpretation of those

laws. Thus we were brought back to our old incertitude. New laws were

made to expound the old; and new difficulties arose upon the new laws;

as words multiplied, opportunities of cavilling upon them multiplied

also. Then recourse was had to notes, comments, glosses, reports,

_responsa prudentum_, learned readings: eagle stood against eagle:

authority was set up against authority. Some were allured by the modern,

others reverenced the ancient. The new were more enlightened, the old

were more venerable. Some adopted the comment, others stuck to the text.

The confusion increased, the mist thickened, until it could be

discovered no longer what was allowed or forbidden, what things were in

property, and what common. In this uncertainty, (uncertain even to the

professors, an Egyptian darkness to the rest of mankind), the contending

parties felt themselves more effectually ruined by the delay, than they

could have been by the injustice of any decision. Our inheritances are

become a prize for disputation; and disputes and litigations are become

an inheritance.

The professors of artificial law have always walked hand in hand with

the professors of artificial theology. As their end, in confounding the

reason of man, and abridging his natural freedom, is exactly the same,

they have adjusted the means to that end in a way entirely similar. The

divine thunders out his _anathemas_ with more noise and terror against

the breach of one of his positive institutions, or the neglect of some

of his trivial forms, than against the neglect or breach of those duties

and commandments of natural religion, which by these forms and

institutions he pretends to enforce. The lawyer has his forms, and his

positive institutions too, and he adheres to them with a veneration

altogether as religious. The worst cause cannot be so prejudicial to the

litigant, as his advocate's or attorney's ignorance or neglect of these

forms. A lawsuit is like an ill-managed dispute, in which the first

object is soon out of sight, and the parties end upon a matter wholly

foreign to that on which they began. In a lawsuit the question is, who

has a right to a certain house or farm? And this question is daily

determined, not upon the evidence of the right, but upon the observance

or neglect of some forms of words in use with the gentlemen of the robe,

about which there is even amongst themselves such a disagreement, that

the most experienced veterans in the profession can never be positively

assured that they are not mistaken.

Let us expostulate with these learned sages, these priests of the sacred

temple of justice. Are we judges of our own property? By no means. You

then, who are initiated into the mysteries of the blindfold goddess,

inform me whether I have a right to eat the bread I have earned by the

hazard of my life or the sweat of my brow? The grave doctor answers me

in the affirmative; the reverend serjeant replies in the negative; the

learned barrister reasons upon one side and upon the other, and

concludes nothing. What shall I do? An antagonist starts up and presses

me hard. I enter the field, and retain these three persons to defend my

cause. My cause, which two farmers from the plough could have decided in

half an hour, takes the court twenty years. I am however at the end of

my labor, and have in reward for all my toil and vexation a judgment in

my favor. But hold--a sagacious commander, in the adversary's army, has

found a flaw in the proceeding. My triumph is turned into mourning. I

have used _or_, instead of _and_, or some mistake, small in appearance,

but dreadful in its consequences; and have the whole of my success

quashed in a writ of error. I remove my suit; I shift from court to

court; I fly from equity to law, and from law to equity; equal

uncertainty attends me everywhere; and a mistake in which I had no

share, decides at once upon my liberty and property, sending me from the

court to a prison, and adjudging my family to beggary and famine. I am

innocent, gentlemen, of the darkness and uncertainty of your science. I

never darkened it with absurd and contradictory notions, nor confounded

it with chicane and sophistry. You have excluded me from any share in

the conduct of my own cause; the science was too deep for me; I

acknowledged it; but it was too deep even for yourselves: you have made

the way so intricate, that you are yourselves lost in it; you err, and

you punish me for your errors.

The delay of the law is, your lordship will tell me, a trite topic, and

which of its abuses have not been too severely felt not to be complained

of? A man's property is to serve for the purposes of his support; and

therefore, to delay a determination concerning that, is the worst

injustice, because it cuts off the very end and purpose for which I

applied to the judicature for relief. Quite contrary in the case of a

man's life; there the determination can hardly be too much protracted.

Mistakes in this case are as often fallen into as many other; and if the

judgment is sudden, the mistakes are the most irretrievable of all

others. Of this the gentlemen of the robe are themselves sensible, and

they have brought it into a maxim. _De morte hominis nulla est cunctatio

longa._ But what could have induced them to reverse the rules, and to

contradict that reason which dictated them, I am utterly unable to

guess. A point concerning property, which ought, for the reasons I have

just mentioned, to be most speedily decided, frequently exercises the

wit of successions of lawyers, for many generations. _Multa virûm

volvens durando sæcula vincit._ But the question concerning a man's

life, that great question in which no delay ought to be counted tedious,

is commonly determined in twenty-four hours at the utmost. It is not to

be wondered at, that injustice and absurdity should be inseparable

companions.

Ask of politicians the end for which laws were originally designed; and

they will answer, that the laws were designed as a protection for the

poor and weak, against the oppression of the rich and powerful. But

surely no pretence can be so ridiculous; a man might as well tell me he

has taken off my load, because he has changed the burden. If the poor

man is not able to support his suit, according to the vexatious and

expensive manner established in civilized countries, has not the rich as

great an advantage over him as the strong has over the weak in a state

of nature? But we will not place the state of nature, which is the reign

of God, in competition with political society, which is the absurd

usurpation of man. In a state of nature, it is true that a man of

superior force may beat or rob me; but then it is true, that I am at

full liberty to defend myself, or make reprisal by surprise or by

cunning, or by any other way in which I may be superior to him. But in

political society, a rich man may rob me in another way. I cannot defend

myself; for money is the only weapon with which we are allowed to fight.

And if I attempt to avenge myself the whole force of that society is

ready to complete my ruin.

A good parson once said, that where mystery begins, religion ends.

Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery

begins, justice ends? It is hard to say, whether the doctors of law or

divinity have made the greater advances in the lucrative business of

mystery. The lawyers, as well as the theologians, have erected another

reason besides natural reason; and the result has been, another justice

besides natural justice. They have so bewildered the world and

themselves in unmeaning forms and ceremonies, and so perplexed the

plainest matters with metaphysical jargon, that it carries the highest

danger to a man out of that profession, to make the least step without

their advice and assistance. Thus, by confining to themselves the

knowledge of the foundation of all men's lives and properties, they have

reduced all mankind into the most abject and servile dependence. We are

tenants at the will of these gentlemen for everything; and a

metaphysical quibble is to decide whether the greatest villain breathing

shall meet his deserts, or escape with impunity, or whether the best man

in the society shall not be reduced to the lowest and most despicable

condition it affords. In a word, my lord, the injustice, delay,

puerility, false refinement, and affected mystery of the law are such,

that many who live under it come to admire and envy the expedition,

simplicity, and equality of arbitrary judgments. I need insist the less

on this article to your lordship, as you have frequently lamented the

miseries derived to us from artificial law, and your candor is the more

to be admired and applauded in this, as your lordship's noble house has

derived its wealth and its honors from that profession.

Before we finish our examination of artificial society, I shall lead

your lordship into a closer consideration of the relations which it

gives birth to, and the benefits, if such they are, which result from

these relations. The most obvious division of society is into rich and

poor; and it is no less obvious, that the number of the former bear a

great disproportion to those of the latter. The whole business of the

poor is to administer to the idleness, folly, and luxury of the rich;

and that of the rich, in return, is to find the best methods of

confirming the slavery and increasing the burdens of the poor. In a

state of nature, it is an invariable law, that a man's acquisitions are

in proportion to his labors. In a state of artificial society, it is a

law as constant and as invariable, that those who labor most enjoy the

fewest things; and that those who labor not at all have the greatest

number of enjoyments. A constitution of things this, strange and

ridiculous beyond expression! We scarce believe a thing when we are told

it, which we actually see before our eyes every day without being in the

least surprised. I suppose that there are in Great Britain upwards of a

hundred thousand people employed in lead, tin, iron, copper, and coal

mines; these unhappy wretches scarce ever see the light of the sun; they

are buried in the bowels of the earth; there they work at a severe and

dismal task, without the least prospect of being delivered from it; they

subsist upon the coarsest and worst sort of fare; they have their health

miserably impaired, and their lives cut short, by being perpetually

confined in the close vapor of these malignant minerals. A hundred

thousand more at least are tortured without remission by the suffocating

smoke, intense fires, and constant drudgery necessary in refining and

managing the products of those mines. If any man informed us that two

hundred thousand innocent persons were condemned to so intolerable

slavery, how should we pity the unhappy sufferers, and how great would

be our just indignation against those who inflicted so cruel and

ignominious a punishment! This is an instance--I could not wish a

stronger--of the numberless things which we pass by in their common

dress, yet which shock us when they are nakedly represented. But this

number, considerable as it is, and the slavery, with all its baseness

and horror, which we have at home, is nothing to what the rest of the

world affords of the same nature. Millions daily bathed in the

poisonous damps and destructive effluvia of lead, silver, copper, and

arsenic. To say nothing of those other employments, those stations of

wretchedness and contempt, in which civil society has placed the

numerous _enfans perdus_ of her army. Would any rational man submit to

one of the most tolerable of these drudgeries, for all the artificial

enjoyments which policy has made to result from them? By no means. And

yet need I suggest to your lordship, that those who find the means, and

those who arrive at the end, are not at all the same persons? On

considering the strange and unaccountable fancies and contrivances of

artificial reason, I have somewhere called this earth the Bedlam of our

system. Looking now upon the effects of some of those fancies, may we

not with equal reason call it likewise the Newgate and the Bridewell of

the universe? Indeed the blindness of one part of mankind co-operating

with the frenzy and villany of the other, has been the real builder of

this respectable fabric of political society: and as the blindness of

mankind has caused their slavery, in return their state of slavery is

made a pretence for continuing them in a state of blindness; for the

politician will tell you gravely, that their life of servitude

disqualifies the greater part of the race of man for a search of truth,

and supplies them with no other than mean and insufficient ideas. This

is but too true; and this is one of the reasons for which I blame such

institutions.

In a misery of this sort, admitting some few lenitives, and those too

but a few, nine parts in ten of the whole race of mankind drudge through

life. It may be urged perhaps, in palliation of this, that at least the

rich few find a considerable and real benefit from the wretchedness of

the many. But is this so in fact? Let us examine the point with a little

more attention. For this purpose the rich in all societies may he thrown

into two classes. The first is of those who are powerful as well as

rich, and conduct the operations of the vast political machine. The

other is of those who employ their riches wholly in the acquisition of

pleasure. As to the first sort, their continual care and anxiety, their

toilsome days, and sleepless nights, are next to proverbial. These

circumstances are sufficient almost to level their condition to that of

the unhappy majority; but there are other circumstances which place

them, in a far lower condition. Not only their understandings labor

continually, which is the severest labor, but their hearts are torn by

the worst, most troublesome, and insatiable of all passions, by avarice,

by ambition, by fear and jealousy. No part of the mind has rest. Power

gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue. Pity,

benevolence, friendship, are things almost unknown in high stations.

_Veræ amicitiæ rarissime inveniuntur in iis qui in honoribus reque

publica versantur_, says Cicero. And indeed courts are the schools where

cruelty, pride, dissimulation, and treachery are studied and taught in

the most vicious perfection. This is a point so clear and acknowledged,

that if it did not make a necessary part of my subject, I should pass it

by entirely. And this has hindered me from drawing at full length, and

in the most striking colors, this shocking picture of the degeneracy and

wretchedness of human nature, in that part which is vulgarly thought its

happiest and most amiable state. You know from what originals I could

copy such pictures. Happy are they who know enough of them to know the

little value of the possessors of such things, and of all that they

possess; and happy they who have been snatched from that post of danger

which they occupy, with the remains of their virtue; loss of honors,

wealth, titles, and even the loss of one's country, is nothing in

balance with so great an advantage.

Let us now view the other species of the rich, those who devote their

time and fortunes to idleness and pleasure. How much happier are they?

The pleasures which are agreeable to nature are within the reach of all,

and therefore can form no distinction in favor of the rich. The

pleasures which art forces up are seldom sincere, and never satisfying.

What is worse, this constant application to pleasure takes away from the

enjoyment, or rather turns it into the nature of a very burdensome and

laborious business. It has consequences much more fatal. It produces a

weak valetudinary state of body, attended by all those horrid disorders,

and yet more horrid methods of cure, which are the result of luxury on

the one hand, and the weak and ridiculous efforts of human art on the

other. The pleasures of such men are scarcely felt as pleasures; at the

same time that they bring on pains and diseases, which are felt but too

severely. The mind has its share of the misfortune; it grows lazy and

enervate, unwilling and unable to search for truth, and utterly

uncapable of knowing, much less of relishing, real happiness. The poor

by their excessive labor, and the rich by their enormous luxury, are set

upon a level, and rendered equally ignorant of any knowledge which might

conduce to their happiness. A dismal view of the interior of all civil

society! The lower part broken and ground down by the most cruel

oppression; and the rich by their artificial method of life bringing

worse evils on themselves than their tyranny could possibly inflict on

those below them. Very different is the prospect of the natural state.

Here there are no wants which nature gives, and in this state men can be

sensible of no other wants, which are not to be supplied by a very

moderate degree of labor; therefore there is no slavery. Neither is

there any luxury, because no single man can supply the materials of it.

Life is simple, and therefore it is happy.

I am conscious, my lord, that your politician will urge in his defence,

that this unequal state is highly useful. That without dooming some part

of mankind to extraordinary toil, the arts which cultivate life could

not be exercised. But I demand of this politician, how such arts came to

be necessary? He answers, that civil society could not well exist

without them. So that these arts are necessary to civil society, and

civil society necessary again to these arts. Thus are we running in a

circle, without modesty, and without end, and making one error and

extravagance an excuse for the other. My sentiments about these arts and

their cause, I have often discoursed with my friends at large. Pope has

expressed them in good verse, where he talks with so much force of

reason and elegance of language, in praise of the state of nature:

"Then was not pride, nor arts that pride to aid,

Man walked with beast, joint tenant of the shade."

On the whole, my lord, if political society, in whatever form, has still

made the many the property of the few; if it has introduced labors

unnecessary, vices and diseases unknown, and pleasures incompatible

with nature; if in all countries it abridges the lives of millions, and

renders those of millions more utterly abject and miserable, shall we

still worship so destructive an idol, and daily sacrifice to it our

health, our liberty, and our peace? Or shall we pass by this monstrous

heap of absurd notions, and abominable practices, thinking we have

sufficiently discharged our duty in exposing the trifling, cheats, and

ridiculous juggles of a few mad, designing, or ambitious priests? Alas!

my lord, we labor under a mortal consumption, whilst we are so anxious

about the cure of a sore finger. For has not this leviathan of civil

power overflowed the earth with a deluge of blood, as if he were made to

disport and play therein? We have shown that political society, on a

moderate calculation, has been the means of murdering several times the

number of inhabitants now upon the earth, during its short existence,

not upwards of four thousand years in any accounts to be depended on.

But we have said nothing of the other, and perhaps as bad, consequence

of these wars, which have spilled such seas of blood, and reduced so

many millions to a merciless slavery. But these are only the ceremonies

performed in the porch of the political temple. Much more horrid ones

are seen as you enter it. The several species of government vie with

each other in the absurdity of their constitutions, and the oppression

which they make their subjects endure. Take them under what form you

please, they are in effect but a despotism, and they fall, both in

effect and appearance too, after a very short period, into that cruel

and detestable species of tyranny: which I rather call it, because we

have been educated under another form, than that this is of worse

consequences to mankind. For the free governments, for the point of

their space, and the moment of their duration, have felt more confusion,

and committed more flagrant acts of tyranny, than the most perfect

despotic governments which we have ever known. Turn your eye next to the

labyrinth of the law, and the iniquity conceived in its intricate

recesses. Consider the ravages committed in the bowels of all

commonwealths by ambition, by avarice, envy, fraud, open injustice, and

pretended friendship; vices which could draw little support from a state

of nature, but which blossom and flourish in the rankness of political

society. Revolve our whole discourse; add to it all those reflections

which your own good understanding shall suggest, and make a strenuous

effort beyond the reach of vulgar philosophy, to confess that the cause

of artificial society is more defenceless even than that of artificial

religion; that it is as derogatory from the honor of the Creator, as

subversive of human reason, and productive of infinitely more mischief

to the human race.

If pretended revelations have caused wars where they were opposed, and

slavery where they were received, the pretended wise inventions of

politicians have done the same. But the slavery has been much heavier,

the wars far more bloody, and both more universal by many degrees. Show

me any mischief produced by the madness or wickedness of theologians,

and I will show you a hundred resulting from the ambition and villany of

conquerors and statesmen. Show me an absurdity in religion, and I will

undertake to show you a hundred for one in political laws and

institutions. If you say that natural religion is a sufficient guide

without the foreign aid of revelation, on what principle should

political laws become necessary? Is not the same reason available in

theology and in politics? If the laws of nature are the laws of God, is

it consistent with the Divine wisdom to prescribe rules to us, and leave

the enforcement of them to the folly of human institutions? Will you

follow truth but to a certain point?

We are indebted for all our miseries to our distrust of that guide which

Providence thought sufficient for our condition, our own natural reason,

which rejecting both in human and divine things, we have given our necks

to the yoke of political and theological slavery. We have renounced the

prerogative of man, and it is no wonder that we should be treated like

beasts. But our misery is much greater than theirs, as the crime we

commit in rejecting the lawful dominion of our reason is greater than

any which they can commit. If, after all, you should confess all these

things, yet plead the necessity of political institutions, weak and

wicked as they are, I can argue with equal, perhaps superior, force,

concerning the necessity of artificial religion; and every step you

advance in your argument, you add a strength to mine. So that if we are

resolved to submit our reason, and our liberty to civil usurpation, we

have nothing to do but to conform as quietly as we can to the vulgar

notions which are connected with this, and take up the theology of the

vulgar as well as their politics. But if we think this necessity rather

imaginary than real, we should renounce their dreams of society,

together with their visions of religion, and vindicate ourselves into

perfect liberty.

You are, my lord, but just entering into the world; I am going out of

it. I have played long enough to be heartily tired of the drama. Whether

I have acted my part in it well or ill, posterity will judge with more

candor than I, or than the present age, with our present passions, can

possibly pretend to. For my part, I quit it without a sigh, and submit

to the sovereign order without murmuring. The nearer we approach to the

goal of life, the better we begin to understand the true value of our

existence, and the real weight of our opinions. We set out much in love

with both; but we leave much behind us as we advance. We first throw

away the tales along with the rattles of our nurses: those of the priest

keep their hold a little longer; those of our governors the longest of

all. But the passions which prop these opinions are withdrawn one after

another; and the cool light of reason, at the setting of our life, shows

us what a false splendor played upon these objects during our more

sanguine seasons. Happy, my lord, if instructed by my experience, and

even by my errors, you come early to make such an estimate of things, as

may give freedom and ease to your life. I am happy that such an estimate

promises me comfort at my death.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Had his lordship lived to our days, to have seen the noble relief

given by this nation to the distressed Portuguese, he had perhaps owned

this part of his argument a little weakened; but we do not think

ourselves entitled to alter his lordship's words, but that we are bound

to follow him exactly.

[9] Sciant quibus moris illicita mirari, posse etiam sub malis

principibus magnos viros, &c. See 42, to the end of it.

A

PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY

INTO THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF

THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL

WITH

AN INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE

CONCERNING

TASTE,

AND SEVERAL OTHER ADDITIONS

*** _The first edition of this work was published in 1756;

the second with large additions, in the year 1757._

PREFACE.

I have endeavored to make this edition something more full and

satisfactory than the first. I have sought with the utmost care, and

read with equal attention, everything which has appeared in public

against my opinions; I have taken advantage of the candid liberty of my

friends; and if by these means I have been better enabled to discover

the imperfections of the work, the indulgence it has received, imperfect

as it was, furnished me with a new motive to spare no reasonable pains

for its improvement. Though I have not found sufficient reason, or what

appeared to me sufficient, for making any material change in my theory,

I have found it necessary in many places to explain, illustrate, and

enforce it. I have prefixed an introductory discourse concerning Taste;

it is a matter curious in itself; and it leads naturally enough to the

principal inquiry. This, with the other explanations, has made the work

considerably larger; and by increasing its bulk has, I am afraid, added

to its faults; so that notwithstanding all my attention, it may stand in

need of a yet greater share of indulgence than it required at its first

appearance.

They who are accustomed to studies of this nature will expect, and they

will allow too for many faults. They know that many of the objects of

our inquiry are in themselves obscure and intricate; and that many

others have been rendered so by affected refinements, or false learning;

they know that there are many impediments in the subject, in the

prejudices of others, and even in our own, that render it a matter of no

small difficulty to show in a clear light the genuine face of nature.

They know that whilst the mind is intent on the general scheme of

things, some particular parts must be neglected; that we must often

submit the style to the matter, and frequently give up the praise of

elegance, satisfied with being clear.

The characters of nature are legible, it is true; but they are not plain

enough to enable those who run, to read them. We must make use of a

cautious, I had almost said, a timorous method of proceeding. We must

not attempt to fly, when we can scarcely pretend to creep. In

considering any complex matter, we ought to examine every distinct

ingredient in the composition, one by one; and reduce everything to the

utmost simplicity; since the condition of our nature binds us to a

strict law and very narrow limits. We ought afterwards to re-examine the

principles by the effect of the composition, as well as the composition

by that of the principles. We ought to compare our subject with things

of a similar nature, and even with things of a contrary nature; for

discoveries may be, and often are made by the contrast, which would

escape us on the single view. The greater number of the comparisons we

make, the more general and the more certain our knowledge is likely to

prove, as built upon a more extensive and perfect induction.

If an inquiry thus carefully conducted should fail at last of

discovering the truth, it may answer an end perhaps as useful, in

discovering to us the weakness of our own understanding. If it does not

make us knowing, it may make us modest. If it does not preserve us from

error, it may at least from the spirit of error; and may make us

cautious of pronouncing with positiveness or with haste, when so much

labor may end in so much uncertainty.

I could wish that, in examining this theory, the same method were

pursued which I endeavored to observe in forming it. The objections, in

my opinion, ought to be proposed, either to the several principles as

they are distinctly considered, or to the justness of the conclusion

which is drawn from them. But it is common to pass over both the

premises and conclusion in silence, and to produce, as an objection,

some poetical passage which does not seem easily accounted for upon the

principles I endeavor to establish. This manner of proceeding I should

think very improper. The task would be infinite, if we could establish

no principle until we had previously unravelled the complex texture of

every image or description to be found in poets and orators. And though

we should never be able to reconcile the effect of such images to our

principles, this can never overturn the theory itself, whilst it is

founded on certain and indisputable facts. A theory founded on

experiment, and not assumed, is always good for so much as it explains.

Our inability to push it indefinitely is no argument at all against it.

This inability may be owing to our ignorance of some necessary

_mediums_; to a want of proper application; to many other causes besides

a defect in the principles we employ. In reality, the subject requires a

much closer attention than we dare claim from our manner of treating

it.

If it should not appear on the face of the work, I must caution the

reader against imagining that I intended a full dissertation on the

Sublime and Beautiful. My inquiry went no farther than to the origin of

these ideas. If the qualities which I have ranged under the head of the

Sublime be all found consistent with each other, and all different from

those which I place under the head of Beauty; and if those which compose

the class of the Beautiful have the same consistency with themselves,

and the same opposition to those which are classed under the

denomination of Sublime, I am in little pain whether anybody chooses to

follow the name I give them or not, provided he allows that what I

dispose under different heads are in reality different things in nature.

The use I make of the words may be blamed, as too confined or too

extended; my meaning cannot well be misunderstood.

To conclude: whatever progress may be made towards the discovery of

truth in this matter, I do not repent the pains I have taken in it. The

use of such inquiries may be very considerable. Whatever turns the soul

inward on itself, tends to concentre its forces, and to fit it for

greater and stronger flights of science. By looking into physical causes

our minds are opened and enlarged; and in this pursuit, whether we take

or whether we lose our game, the chase is certainly of service. Cicero,

true as he was to the academic philosophy, and consequently led to

reject the certainty of physical, as of every other kind of knowledge,

yet freely confesses its great importance to the human understanding:

"_Est animorum ingeniorumque nostrorum naturale quoddam quasi pabulum

consideratio contemplatioque naturæ_." If we can direct the lights we

derive from such exalted speculations upon the humbler field of the

imagination, whilst we investigate the springs, and trace the courses of

our passions, we may not only communicate to the taste a sort of

philosophical solidity, but we may reflect back on the severer sciences

some of the graces and elegances of taste, without which the greatest

proficiency in those sciences will always have the appearance of

something illiberal.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION: On Taste 79

PART I

I. Novelty 101

II. Pain and Pleasure 102

III. The Difference between the Removal of Pain and Positive

Pleasure 104

IV. Of Delight and Pleasure, as opposed to each other 106

V. Joy and Grief 108

VI. Of the Passions which belong to Self-Preservation 110

VII. Of the Sublime 110

VIII. Of the Passions which belong to Society 111

IX. The Final Cause of the Difference between the Passions

belonging to Self-Preservation, and those which regard

the Society of the Sexes 113

X. Of Beauty 114

XI. Society and Solitude 115

XII. Sympathy, Imitation, and Ambition 116

XIII. Sympathy 117

XIV. The Effects of Sympathy in the Distresses of Others 119

XV. Of the Effects of Tragedy 120

XVI. Imitation 122

XVII. Ambition 123

XVIII. The Recapitulation 125

XIX. The Conclusion 126

PART II.

I. Of the Passion caused by the Sublime 130

II. Terror 130

III. Obscurity 132

IV. Of the Difference between Clearness and Obscurity

with regard to the Passions 133

[IV.] The Same Subject continued 134

V. Power 138

VI. Privation 146

VII. Vastness 147

VIII. Infinity 148

IX. Succession and Uniformity 149

X. Magnitude in Building 152

XI. Infinity in Pleasing Objects 153

XII. Difficulty 153

XIII. Magnificence 154

XIV. Light 156

XV. Light in Building 157

XVI. Color considered as productive of the Sublime 158

XVII. Sound and Loudness 159

XVIII. Suddenness 160

XIX. Intermitting 160

XX. The Cries of Animals 161

XXI. Smell and Taste--Bitters and Stenches 162

XXII. Feeling.--Pain 164

PART III.

I. Of Beauty 165

II. Proportion not the Cause of Beauty in Vegetables 166

III. Proportion not the Cause of Beauty in Animals 170

IV. Proportion not the Cause of Beauty in the Human Species 172

V. Proportion further considered 178

VI. Fitness not the Cause of Beauty 181

VII. The Real Effects of Fitness 184

VIII. The Recapitulation 187

IX. Perfection not the Cause of Beauty 187

X. How far the Idea of Beauty may be applied to the

Qualities of the Mind 188

XI. How far the Idea of Beauty may be applied to Virtue 190

XII. The Real Cause of Beauty 191

XIII. Beautiful Objects Small 191

XIV. Smoothness 193

XV. Gradual Variation 194

XVI. Delicacy 195

XVII. Beauty in Color 196

XVIII. Recapitulation 197

XIX. The Physiognomy 198

XX. The Eye 198

XXI. Ugliness 199

XXII. Grace 200

XXIII. Elegance and Speciousness 200

XXIV. The Beautiful in Feeling 201

XXV. The Beautiful in Sounds 203

XXVI. Taste and Smell 205

XXVII. The Sublime and Beautiful compared 205

PART IV.

I. Of the Efficient Cause of the Sublime and Beautiful 208

II. Association 209

III. Cause of Pain and Fear 210

IV. Continued 212

V. How the Sublime is produced 215

VI. How Pain can be a Cause of Delight 215

VII. Exercise necessary for the Finer Organs 216

VIII. Why Things not Dangerous sometimes produce a

Passion like Terror 217

IX. Why Visual Objects of Great Dimensions are Sublime 217

X. Unity, why requisite to Vastness 219

XI. The Artificial Infinite 220

XII. The Vibrations must be Similar 222

XIII. The Effects of Succession in Visual Objects explained 222

XIV. Locke's Opinion concerning Darkness considered 225

XV. Darkness Terrible in its own Nature 226

XVI. Why Darkness is Terrible 227

XVII. The Effects of Blackness 229

XVIII. The Effects of Blackness moderated 231

XIX. The Physical Cause of Love 232

XX. Why Smoothness is Beautiful 234

XXI. Sweetness, its Nature 235

XXII. Sweetness relaxing 237

XXIII. Variation, why Beautiful 239

XXIV. Concerning Smallness 240

XXV. Of Color 244

PART V.

I. Of Words 246

II. The Common Effect of Poetry, not by raising Ideas of Things 246

III. General Words before Ideas 249

IV. The Effect of Words 250

V. Examples that Words may affect without raising Images 252

VI. Poetry not strictly an Imitative Art 257

VII. How Words influence the Passions 258

INTRODUCTION.

ON TASTE.

On a superficial view we may seem to differ very widely from each other

in our reasonings, and no less in our pleasures: but, notwithstanding

this difference, which I think to be rather apparent than real, it is

probable that the standard both of reason and taste is the same in all

human creatures. For if there were not some principles of judgment as

well as of sentiment common to all mankind, no hold could possibly be

taken either on their reason or their passions, sufficient to maintain

the ordinary correspondence of life. It appears, indeed, to be generally

acknowledged, that with regard to truth and falsehood there is something

fixed. We find people in their disputes continually appealing to certain

tests and standards, which are allowed on all sides, and are supposed to

be established in our common nature. But there is not the same obvious

concurrence in any uniform or settled principles which relate to taste.

It is even commonly supposed that this delicate and aerial faculty,

which seems too volatile to endure even the chains of a definition,

cannot be properly tried by any test, nor regulated by any standard.

There is so continual a call for the exercise of the reasoning facility;

and it is so much strengthened by perpetual contention, that certain

maxims of right reason seem to be tacitly settled amongst the most

ignorant. The learned have improved on this rude science, and reduced

those maxims into a system. If taste has not been so happily cultivated,

it was not that the subject was barren, but that the laborers were few

or negligent; for, to say the truth, there are not the same interesting

motives to impel us to fix the one, which urge us to ascertain the

other. And, after all, if men differ in their opinion concerning such

matters, their difference is not attended with the same important

consequences; else I make no doubt but that the logic of taste, if I may

be allowed the expression, might very possibly be as well digested, and

we might come to discuss matters of this nature with as much certainty,

as those which seem more immediately within the province of mere reason.

And, indeed, it is very necessary, at the entrance into such an inquiry

as our present, to make this point as clear as possible; for if taste

has no fixed principles, if the imagination is not affected according to

some invariable and certain laws, our labor is likely to be employed to

very little purpose; as it must be judged an useless, if not an absurd

undertaking, to lay down rules for caprice, and to set up for a

legislator of whims and fancies.

The term taste, like all other figurative terms, is not extremely

accurate; the thing which we understand by it is far from a simple and

determinate idea in the minds of most men, and it is therefore liable to

uncertainty and confusion. I have no great opinion of a definition, the

celebrated remedy for the cure of this disorder. For, when we define, we

seem in danger of circumscribing nature within the bounds of our own

notions, which we often take up by hazard or embrace on trust, or form

out of a limited and partial consideration of the object before us;

instead of extending our ideas to take in all that nature comprehends,

according to her manner of combining. We are limited in our inquiry by

the strict laws to which we have submitted at our setting out.

Circa vilem patulumque morabimur orbem,

Unde pudor proferre pedem vetat aut operis lex.

A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards

informing us of the nature of the thing defined; but let the virtue of a

definition be what it will, in the order of things, it seems rather to

follow than to precede our inquiry, of which it ought to be considered

as the result. It must be acknowledged that the methods of disquisition

and teaching may be sometimes different, and on very good reason

undoubtedly; but, for my part, I am convinced that the method of

teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation is

incomparably the best; since, not content with serving up a few barren

and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which they grew; it tends

to set the reader himself in the track of invention, and to direct him

into those paths in which the author has made his own discoveries, if he

should be so happy as to have made any that are valuable.

But to cut off all pretence for cavilling, I mean by the word taste, no

more than that faculty or those faculties of the mind, which are

affected with, or which form a judgment of, the works of imagination and

the elegant arts. This is, I think, the most general idea of that word,

and what is the least connected with any particular theory. And my point

in this inquiry is, to find whether there are any principles, on which

the imagination is affected, so common to all, so grounded and certain,

as to supply the means of reasoning satisfactorily about them. And such

principles of taste I fancy there are; however paradoxical it may seem

to those, who on a superficial view imagine that there is so great a

diversity of tastes, both in kind and degree, that nothing can be more

indeterminate.

All the natural powers in man, which I know, that are conversant about

external objects, are the senses; the imagination; and the judgment. And

first with regard to the senses. We do and we must suppose, that as the

conformation of their organs are nearly or altogether the same in all

men, so the manner of perceiving external objects is in all men the

same, or with little difference. We are satisfied that what appears to

be light to one eye, appears light to another; that what seems sweet to

one palate, is sweet to another; that what is dark and bitter to this

man, is likewise dark and bitter to that; and we conclude in the same

manner of great and little, hard and soft, hot and cold, rough and

smooth; and indeed of all the natural qualities and affections of

bodies. If we suffer ourselves to imagine, that their senses present to

different men different images of things, this sceptical proceeding will

make every sort of reasoning on every subject vain and frivolous, even

that sceptical reasoning itself which had persuaded us to entertain a

doubt concerning the agreement of our perceptions. But as there will be

little doubt that bodies present similar images to the whole species, it

must necessarily be allowed, that the pleasures and the pains which

every object excites in one man, it must raise in all mankind, whilst

it operates naturally, simply, and by its proper powers only: for if we

deny this, we must imagine that the same cause, operating in the same

manner, and on subjects of the same kind, will produce different

effects; which would be highly absurd. Let us first consider this point

in the sense of taste, and the rather as the faculty in question has

taken its name from that sense. All men are agreed to call vinegar sour,

honey sweet, and aloes bitter; and as they are all agreed in finding

those qualities in those objects, they do not in the least differ

concerning their effects with regard to pleasure and pain. They all

concur in calling sweetness pleasant, and sourness and bitterness

unpleasant. Here there is no diversity in their sentiments; and that

there is not, appears fully from the consent of all men in the metaphors

which are taken, from the souse of taste. A sour temper, bitter

expressions, bitter curses, a bitter fate, are terms well and strongly

understood by all. And we are altogether as well understood when we say,

a sweet disposition, a sweet person, a sweet condition and the like. It

is confessed, that custom and some other causes have made many

deviations from the natural pleasures or pains which belong to these

several tastes; but then the power of distinguishing between the natural

and the acquired relish remains to the very last. A man frequently comes

to prefer the taste of tobacco to that of sugar, and the flavor of

vinegar to that of milk; but this makes no confusion in tastes, whilst

he is sensible that the tobacco and vinegar are not sweet, and whilst he

knows that habit alone has reconciled his palate to these alien

pleasures. Even with such a person we may speak, and with sufficient

precision, concerning tastes. But should any man be found who declares,

that to him tobacco has a taste like sugar, and that he cannot

distinguish between milk and vinegar; or that tobacco and vinegar are

sweet, milk bitter, and sugar sour; we immediately conclude that the

organs of this man are out of order, and that his palate is utterly

vitiated. We are as far from conferring with such a person upon tastes,

as from reasoning concerning the relations of quantity with one who

should deny that all the parts together were equal to the whole. We do

not call a man of this kind wrong in his notions, but absolutely mad.

Exceptions of this sort, in either way, do not at all impeach our

general rule, nor make us conclude that men have various principles

concerning the relations of quantity or the taste of things. So that

when it is said, taste cannot be disputed, it can only mean, that no one

can strictly answer what pleasure or pain some particular man may find

from the taste of some particular thing. This indeed cannot be disputed;

but we may dispute, and with sufficient clearness too, concerning the

things which are naturally pleasing or disagreeable to the sense. But

when we talk of any peculiar or acquired relish, then we must know the

habits, the prejudices, or the distempers of this particular man, and we

must draw our conclusion from those.

This agreement of mankind is not confined to the taste solely. The

principle of pleasure derived from sight is the same in all. Light is

more pleasing than darkness. Summer, when the earth is clad in green,

when the heavens are serene and bright, is more agreeable than winter,

when everything makes a different appearance. I never remember that

anything beautiful, whether a man, a beast, a bird, or a plant, was

ever shown, though it were to a hundred people, that they did not all

immediately agree that it was beautiful, though some might have thought

that it fell short of their expectation, or that other things were still

finer. I believe no man thinks a goose to be more beautiful than a swan,

or imagines that what they call a Friesland hen excels a peacock. It

must be observed too, that the pleasures of the sight are not near so

complicated, and confused, and altered by unnatural habits and

associations, as the pleasures of the taste are; because the pleasures

of the sight more commonly acquiesce in themselves; and are not so often

altered by considerations which are independent of the sight itself. But

things do not spontaneously present themselves to the palate as they do

to the sight; they are generally applied to it, either as food or as

medicine; and from the qualities which they possess for nutritive or

medicinal purposes they often form the palate by degrees, and by force

of these associations. Thus opium is pleasing to Turks, on account of

the agreeable delirium it produces. Tobacco is the delight of Dutchmen,

as it diffuses a torpor and pleasing stupefaction. Fermented spirits

please our common people, because they banish care, and all

consideration of future or present evils. All of these would lie

absolutely neglected if their properties had originally gone no further

than the taste; but all these, together with tea and coffee, and some

other things, have passed from the apothecary's shop to our tables, and

were taken for health long before they were thought of for pleasure. The

effect of the drug has made us use it frequently; and frequent use,

combined with the agreeable effect, has made the taste itself at last

agreeable. But this does not in the least perplex our reasoning;

because we distinguish to the last the acquired from the natural relish.

In describing the taste of an unknown fruit, you would scarcely say that

it had a sweet and pleasant flavor like tobacco, opium, or garlic,

although you spoke to those who were in the constant use of those drugs,

and had great pleasure in them. There is in all men a sufficient

remembrance of the original natural causes of pleasure, to enable them

to bring all things offered to their senses to that standard, and to

regulate their feelings and opinions by it. Suppose one who had so

vitiated his palate as to take more pleasure in the taste of opium than

in that of butter or honey, to be presented with a bolus of squills;

there is hardly any doubt but that he would prefer the butter or honey

to this nauseous morsel, or to any other bitter drug to which he had not

been accustomed; which proves that his palate was naturally like that of

other men in all things, that it is still like the palate of other men

in many things, and only vitiated in some particular points. For in

judging of any new thing, even of a taste similar to that which he has

been formed by habit to like, he finds his palate affected in the

natural manner, and on the common principles. Thus the pleasure of all

the senses, of the sight, and even of the taste, that most ambiguous of

the senses, is the same in all, high and low, learned and unlearned.

Besides the ideas, with their annexed pains and pleasures, which are

presented by the sense; the mind of man possesses a sort of creative

power of its own; either in representing at pleasure the images of

things in the order and manner in which they were received by the

senses, or in combining those images in a new manner, and according to

a different order. This power is called imagination; and to this belongs

whatever is called wit, fancy, invention, and the like. But it must be

observed, that this power of the imagination is incapable of producing

anything absolutely new; it can only vary the disposition of those ideas

which it has received from the senses. Now the imagination is the most

extensive province of pleasure and pain, as it is the region of our

fears and our hopes, and of all our passions that are connected with

them; and whatever is calculated to affect the imagination with these

commanding ideas, by force of any original natural impression, must have

the same power pretty equally over all men. For since the imagination is

only the representation of the senses, it can only be pleased or

displeased with the images, from the same principle on which the sense

is pleased or displeased with the realities; and consequently there must

be just as close an agreement in the imaginations as in the senses of

men. A little attention will convince us that this must of necessity be

the case.

But in the imagination, besides the pain or pleasure arising from the

properties of the natural object, a pleasure is perceived from the

resemblance which the imitation has to the original: the imagination, I

conceive, can have no pleasure but what results from one or other of

these causes. And these causes operate pretty uniformly upon all men,

because they operate by principles in nature, and which are not derived

from any particular habits or advantages. Mr. Locke very justly and

finely observes of wit, that it is chiefly conversant in tracing

resemblances; he remarks, at the same time, that the business of

judgment is rather in finding differences. It may perhaps appear, on

this supposition, that there is no material distinction between the wit

and the judgment, as they both seem to result from different operations

of the same faculty of _comparing_. But in reality, whether they are or

are not dependent on the same power of the mind, they differ so very

materially in many respects, that a perfect union of wit and judgment is

one of the rarest things in the world. When two distinct objects are

unlike to each other, it is only what we expect; things are in their

common way; and therefore they make no impression on the imagination:

but when two distinct objects have a resemblance, we are struck, we

attend to them, and we are pleased. The mind of man has naturally a far

greater alacrity and satisfaction in tracing resemblances than in

searching for differences; because by making resemblances we produce

_new images_; we unite, we create, we enlarge our stock; but in making

distinctions we offer no food at all to the imagination; the task itself

is more severe and irksome, and what pleasure we derive from it is

something of a negative and indirect nature. A piece of news is told me

in the morning; this, merely as a piece of news, as a fact added to my

stock, gives me some pleasure. In the evening I find there was nothing

in it. What do I gain by this, but the dissatisfaction to find that I

had been imposed upon? Hence it is that men are much more naturally

inclined to belief than to incredulity. And it is upon this principle,

that the most ignorant and barbarous nations have frequently excelled in

similitudes, comparisons, metaphors, and allegories, who have been weak

and backward in distinguishing and sorting their ideas. And it is for a

reason of this kind, that Homer and the oriental writers, though very

fond of similitudes, and though they often strike out such as are truly

admirable, seldom take care to have them exact; that is, they are taken

with the general resemblance, they paint it strongly, and they take no

notice of the difference which may be found between the things compared.

Now as the pleasure of resemblance is that which principally flatters

the imagination, all men are nearly equal in this point, as far as their

knowledge of the things represented or compared extends. The principle

of this knowledge is very much accidental, as it depends upon experience

and observation, and not on the strength or weakness of any natural

faculty; and it is from this difference in knowledge, that what we

commonly, though with no great exactness, call a difference in taste

proceeds. A man to whom sculpture is new, sees a barber's block, or some

ordinary piece of statuary; he is immediately struck and pleased,

because he sees something like a human figure; and, entirely taken up

with this likeness, he does not at all attend to its defects. No person,

I believe, at the first time of seeing a piece of imitation ever did.

Some time after, we suppose that this novice lights upon a more

artificial work of the same nature; he now begins to look with contempt

on what he admired at first; not that he admired it even then for its

unlikeness to a man, but for that general though inaccurate resemblance

which it bore to the human figure. What he admired at different times in

these so different figures, is strictly the same; and though his

knowledge is improved, his taste is not altered. Hitherto his mistake

was from a want of knowledge in art, and this arose from his

inexperience; but he may be still deficient from a want of knowledge in

nature. For it is possible that the man in question may stop here, and

that the masterpiece of a great hand may please him no more than the

middling performance of a vulgar artist; and this not for want of better

or higher relish, but because all men do not observe with sufficient

accuracy on the human figure to enable them to judge properly of an

imitation of it. And that the critical taste does not depend upon a

superior principle in men, but upon superior knowledge, may appear from

several instances. The story of the ancient painter and the shoemaker is

very well known. The shoemaker set the painter right with regard to some

mistakes he had made in the shoe of one of his figures, which the

painter, who had not made such accurate observations on shoes, and was

content with a general resemblance, had never observed. But this was no

impeachment to the taste of the painter; it only showed some want of

knowledge in the art of making shoes. Let us imagine, that an anatomist

had come into the painter's working-room. His piece is in general well

done, the figure in question in a good attitude, and the parts well

adjusted to their various movements; yet the anatomist, critical in his

art, may observe the swell of some muscle not quite just in the peculiar

action of the figure. Here the anatomist observes what the painter had

not observed; and he passes by what the shoemaker had remarked. But a

want of the last critical knowledge in anatomy no more reflected on the

natural good taste of the painter, or of any common observer of his

piece, than the want of an exact knowledge in the formation of a shoe. A

fine piece of a decollated head of St. John the Baptist was shown to a

Turkish emperor: he praised many things, but he observed one defect: he

observed that the skin did not shrink from the wounded part of the neck.

The sultan on this occasion, though his observation was very just,

discovered no more natural taste than the painter who executed this

piece, or than a thousand European connoisseurs, who probably never

would have made the same observation. His Turkish majesty had indeed

been well acquainted with that terrible spectacle, which the others

could only have represented in their imagination. On the subject of

their dislike there is a difference between all these people, arising

from the different kinds and degrees of their knowledge; but there is

something in common to the painter, the shoemaker, the anatomist, and

the Turkish emperor, the pleasure arising from a natural object, so far

as each perceives it justly imitated; the satisfaction in seeing an

agreeable figure; the sympathy proceeding from a striking and affecting

incident. So far as taste is natural, it is nearly common to all.

In poetry, and other pieces of imagination, the same parity may be

observed. It is true, that one man is charmed with Don Bellianis, and

reads Virgil coldly; whilst another is transported with the Æneid, and

leaves Don Bellianis to children. These two men seem to have a taste

very different from each other; but in fact they differ very little. In

both these pieces, which inspire such opposite sentiments, a tale

exciting admiration is told; both are full of action, both are

passionate; in both are voyages, battles, triumphs, and continual

changes of fortune. The admirer of Don Bellianis perhaps does not

understand the refined language of the Æneid, who, if it was degraded

into the style of the "Pilgrim's Progress," might feel it in all its

energy, on the same principle which made him an admirer of Don

Bellianis.

In his favorite author he is not shocked with the continual breaches of

probability, the confusion of times, the offences against manners, the

trampling upon geography; for he knows nothing of geography and

chronology, and he has never examined the grounds of probability. He

perhaps reads of a shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia: wholly taken up

with so interesting an event, and only solicitous for the fate of his

hero, he is not in the least troubled at this extravagant blunder. For

why should he be shocked at a shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia, who

does not know but that Bohemia may be an island in the Atlantic ocean?

and after all, what reflection is this on the natural good taste of the

person here supposed?

So far then as taste belongs to the imagination, its principle is the

same in all men; there is no difference in the manner of their being

affected, nor in the causes of the affection; but in the _degree_ there

is a difference, which arises from two causes principally; either from a

greater degree of natural sensibility, or from a closer and longer

attention to the object. To illustrate this by the procedure of the

senses, in which the same difference is found, let us suppose a very

smooth marble table to be set before two men; they both perceive it to

be smooth, and they are both pleased with it because of this quality. So

far they agree. But suppose another, and after that another table, the

latter still smoother than the former, to be set before them. It is now

very probable that these men, who are so agreed upon what is smooth, and

in the pleasure from thence, will disagree when they come to settle

which table has the advantage in point of polish. Here is indeed the

great difference between tastes, when men come to compare the excess or

diminution of things which are judged by degree and not by measure. Nor

is it easy, when such a difference arises, to settle the point, if the

excess or diminution be not glaring. If we differ in opinion about two

quantities, we can have recourse to a common measure, which may decide

the question with the utmost exactness; and this, I take it, is what

gives mathematical knowledge a greater certainty than any other. But in

things whose excess is not judged by greater or smaller, as smoothness

and roughness, hardness and softness, darkness and light, the shades of

colors, all these are very easily distinguished when the difference is

any way considerable, but not when it is minute, for want of some common

measures, which perhaps may never come to be discovered. In these nice

cases, supposing the acuteness of the sense equal, the greater attention

and habit in such things will have the advantage. In the question about

the tables, the marble-polisher will unquestionably determine the most

accurately. But notwithstanding this want of a common measure for

settling many disputes relative to the senses, and their representative

the imagination, we find that the principles are the same in all, and

that there is no disagreement until we come to examine into the

pre-eminence or difference of things, which brings us within the

province of the judgment.

So long as we are conversant with the sensible qualities of things,

hardly any more than the imagination seems concerned; little more also

than the imagination seems concerned when the passions are represented,

because by the force of natural sympathy they are felt in all men

without any recourse to reasoning, and their justness recognized in

every breast. Love, grief, fear, anger, joy, all these passions have, in

their turns, affected every mind; and they do not affect it in an

arbitrary or casual manner, but upon certain, natural, and uniform

principles. But as many of the works of imagination are not confined to

the representation of sensible objects, nor to efforts upon the

passions, but extend themselves to the manners, the characters, the

actions, and designs of men, their relations, their virtues and vices,

they come within the province of the judgment, which is improved by

attention, and by the habit of reasoning. All these make a very

considerable part of what are considered as the objects of taste; and

Horace sends us to the schools of philosophy and the world for our

instruction in them. Whatever certainty is to be acquired in morality

and the science of life; just the same degree of certainty have we in

what relates to them in works of imitation. Indeed it is for the most

part in our skill in manners, and in the observances of time and place,

and of decency in general, which is only to be learned in those schools

to which Horace recommends us, that what is called taste, by way of

distinction, consists: and which is in reality no other than a more

refined judgment. On the whole, it appears to me, that what is called

taste, in its most general acceptation, is not a simple idea, but is

partly made up of a perception of the primary pleasures of sense, of the

secondary pleasures of the imagination, and of the conclusions of the

reasoning faculty, concerning the various relations of these, and

concerning the human passions, manners, and actions. All this is

requisite to form taste, and the groundwork of all these is the same in

the human mind; for as the senses are the great originals of all our

ideas, and consequently of all our pleasures, if they are not uncertain

and arbitrary, the whole groundwork of taste is common to all, and

therefore there is a sufficient foundation for a conclusive reasoning on

these matters.

Whilst we consider taste merely according to its nature and species, we

shall find its principles entirely uniform; but the degree in which

these principles prevail, in the several individuals of mankind, is

altogether as different as the principles themselves are similar. For

sensibility and judgment, which are the qualities that compose what we

commonly call a _taste_, vary exceedingly in various people. From a

defect in the former of these qualities arises a want of taste; a

weakness in the latter constitutes a wrong or a bad one. There are some

men formed with feelings so blunt, with tempers so cold and phlegmatic,

that they can hardly be said to be awake during the whole course of

their lives. Upon such persons the most striking objects make but a

faint and obscure impression. There are others so continually in the

agitation of gross and merely sensual pleasures, or so occupied in the

low drudgery of avarice, or so heated in the chase of honors and

distinction, that their minds, which had been used continually to the

storms of these violent and tempestuous passions, can hardly be put in

motion by the delicate and refined play of the imagination. These men,

though from a different cause, become as stupid and insensible as the

former; but whenever either of these happen to be struck with any

natural elegance or greatness, or with these qualities in any work of

art, they are moved upon the same principle.

The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment. And this may arise

from a natural weakness of understanding (in whatever the strength of

that faculty may consist), or, which is much more commonly the case, it

may arise from a want of a proper and well-directed exercise, which

alone can make it strong and ready. Besides, that ignorance,

inattention, prejudice, rashness, levity, obstinacy, in short, all those

passions, and all those vices, which pervert the judgment in other

matters, prejudice it no less in this its more refined and elegant

province. These causes produce different opinions upon everything which

is an object of the understanding, without inducing us to suppose that

there are no settled principles of reason. And indeed, on the whole, one

may observe, that there is rather less difference upon matters of taste

among mankind, than upon most of those which depend upon the naked

reason; and that men are far better agreed on the excellence of a

description in Virgil, than on the truth or falsehood of a theory of

Aristotle.

A rectitude of judgment in the arts, which may be called a good taste,

does in a great measure depend upon sensibility; because if the mind has

no bent to the pleasures of the imagination, it will never apply itself

sufficiently to works of that species to acquire a competent knowledge

in them. But though a degree of sensibility is requisite to form a good

judgment, yet a good judgment does not necessarily arise from a quick

sensibility of pleasure; it frequently happens that a very poor judge,

merely by force of a greater complexional sensibility, is more affected

by a very poor piece, than the best judge by the most perfect; for as

everything now, extraordinary, grand, or passionate, is well calculated

to affect such a person, and that the faults do not affect him, his

pleasure is more pure and unmixed; and as it is merely a pleasure of the

imagination, it is much higher than any which is derived from a

rectitude of the judgment; the judgment is for the greater part employed

in throwing stumbling-blocks in the way of the imagination, in

dissipating the scenes of its enchantment, and in tying us down to the

disagreeable yoke of our reason: for almost the only pleasure that men

have in judging better than others, consists in a sort of conscious

pride and superiority, which arises from thinking rightly; but then this

is an indirect pleasure, a pleasure which does not immediately result

from the object which is under contemplation. In the morning of our

days, when the senses are unworn and tender, when the whole man is awake

in every part, and the gloss of novelty fresh upon all the objects that

surround us, how lively at that time are our sensations, but how false

and inaccurate the judgments we form of things! I despair of ever

receiving the same degree of pleasure from the most excellent

performances of genius, which I felt at that age from pieces which my

present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible. Every trivial

cause of pleasure is apt to affect the man of too sanguine a complexion:

his appetite is too keen to suffer his taste to be delicate; and he is

in all respects what Ovid says of himself in love,

Molle meum levibus cor est violabile telis,

Et semper causa est, cur ego semper amem.

One of this character can never be a refined judge; never what the

comic poet calls _elegans formarum spectator_. The excellence and force

of a composition must always he imperfectly estimated from its effect on

the minds of any, except we know the temper and character of those

minds. The most powerful effects of poetry and music have been

displayed, and perhaps are still displayed, where these arts are but in

a very low and imperfect state. The rude hearer is affected by the

principles which operate in these arts even in their rudest condition;

and he is not skilful enough to perceive the defects. But as the arts

advance towards their perfection, the science of criticism advances with

equal pace, and the pleasure of judges is frequently interrupted by the

faults which we discovered in the most finished compositions.

Before I leave this subject, I cannot help taking notice of an opinion

which many persons entertain, as if the taste were a separate faculty of

the mind, and distinct from the judgment and imagination; a species of

instinct, by which we are struck naturally, and at the first glance,

without any previous reasoning, with the excellences or the defects of a

composition. So far as the imagination, and the passions are concerned,

I believe it true, that the reason is little consulted; but where

disposition, where decorum, where congruity are concerned, in short,

wherever the best taste differs from the worst, I am convinced that the

understanding operates, and nothing else; and its operation is in

reality far from being always sudden, or, when it is sudden, it is often

far from being right. Men of the best taste by consideration come

frequently to change these early and precipitate judgments, which the

mind, from its aversion to neutrality and doubt, loves to form on the

spot. It is known that the taste (whatever it is) is improved exactly

as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady

attention to our object, and by frequent exercise. They who have not

taken these methods, if their taste decides quickly, it is always

uncertainly; and their quickness is owing to their presumption and

rashness, and not to any sudden irradiation, that in a moment dispels

all darkness from their minds. But they who have cultivated that species

of knowledge which makes the object of taste, by degrees and habitually

attain not only a soundness but a readiness of judgment, as men do by

the same methods on all other occasions. At first they are obliged to

spell, but at last they read with ease and with celerity; but this

celerity of its operation is no proof that the taste is a distinct

faculty. Nobody, I believe, has attended the course of a discussion

which turned upon matters within the sphere of mere naked reason, but

must have observed the extreme readiness with which the whole process of

the argument is carried on, the grounds discovered, the objections

raised and answered, and the conclusions drawn from premises, with a

quickness altogether as great as the taste can be supposed to work with;

and yet where nothing but plain reason either is or can be suspected to

operate. To multiply principles for every different appearance is

useless, and unphilosophical too in a high degree.

This matter might be pursued much farther; but it is not the extent of

the subject which must prescribe our bounds, for what subject does not

branch out to infinity? It is the nature of our particular scheme, and

the single point of view in which we consider it, which ought to put a

stop to our researches.

A

PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY

INTO THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF

THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL

PART I.

SECTION I.

NOVELTY.

The first and the simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind

is curiosity. By curiosity I mean whatever desire we have for, or

whatever pleasure we take in, novelty. We see children perpetually

running from place to place, to hunt out something new: they catch with

great eagerness, and with very little choice, at whatever comes before

them; their attention is engaged by everything, because everything has,

in that stage of life, the charm of novelty to recommend it. But as

those things, which engage us merely by their novelty, cannot attach us

for any length of time, curiosity is the most superficial of all the

affections; it changes its object perpetually; it has an appetite which

is very sharp, but very easily satisfied; and it has always an

appearance of giddiness, restlessness, and anxiety. Curiosity, from its

nature, is a very active principle; it quickly runs over the greatest

part of its objects, and soon exhausts the variety which is commonly to

be met with in nature; the same things make frequent returns, and they

return with less and less of any agreeable effect. In short, the

occurrences of life, by the time we come to know it a little, would be

incapable of affecting the mind with any other sensations than those of

loathing and weariness, if many things were not adapted to affect the

mind by means of other powers besides novelty in them, and of other

passions besides curiosity in ourselves. These powers and passions shall

be considered in their place. But, whatever these powers are, or upon

what principle soever they affect the mind, it is absolutely necessary

that they should not be exerted in those things which a daily and vulgar

use have brought into a stale unaffecting familiarity. Some degree of

novelty must be one of the materials in every instrument which works

upon the mind; and curiosity blends itself more or less with all our

passions.

SECTION II.

PAIN AND PLEASURE.

It seems, then, necessary towards moving the passions of people advanced

in life to any considerable degree, that the objects designed for that

purpose, besides their being in some measure new, should be capable of

exciting pain or pleasure from other causes. Pain and pleasure are

simple ideas, incapable of definition. People are not liable to be

mistaken in their feelings, but they are very frequently wrong in the

names they give them, and in their reasonings about them. Many are of

opinion, that pain arises necessarily from the removal of some pleasure;

as they think pleasure does from the ceasing or diminution of some pain.

For my part, I am rather inclined to imagine, that pain and pleasure,

in their most simple and natural manner of affecting, are each of a

positive nature, and by no means necessarily dependent on each other for

their existence. The human mind is often, and I think it is for the most

part, in a state neither of pain nor pleasure, which I call a state of

indifference. When I am carried from this state into a state of actual

pleasure, it does not appear necessary that I should pass through the

medium of any sort of pain. If in such a state of indifference, or ease,

or tranquillity, or call it what you please, you were to be suddenly

entertained with a concert of music; or suppose some object of a fine

shape, and bright, lively colors, to be presented before you; or imagine

your smell is gratified with the fragrance of a rose; or if, without any

previous thirst, you were to drink of some pleasant kind of wine, or to

taste of some sweetmeat without being hungry; in all the several senses,

of hearing, smelling, and tasting, you undoubtedly find a pleasure; yet,

if I inquire into the state of your mind previous to these

gratifications, you will hardly tell me that they found you in any kind

of pain; or, having satisfied these several senses with their several

pleasures, will you say that any pain has succeeded, though the pleasure

is absolutely over? Suppose, on the other hand, a man in the same state

of indifference to receive a violent blow, or to drink of some bitter

potion, or to have his ears wounded with some harsh and grating sound;

here is no removal of pleasure; and yet here is felt, his every sense

which is affected, a pain very distinguishable. It may be said, perhaps,

that the pain in these cases had its rise from the removal of the

pleasure which the man enjoyed before, though that pleasure was of so

low a degree as to be perceived only by the removal. But this seems to

me a subtilty that is not discoverable in nature. For if, previous to

the pain, I do not feel any actual pleasure, I have no reason to judge

that any such thing exists; since pleasure is only pleasure as it is

felt. The same may be said of pain, and with equal reason. I can never

persuade myself that pleasure and pain are mere relations, which can

only exist as they are contrasted; but I think I can discern clearly

that there are positive pains and pleasures, which do not at all depend

upon each other. Nothing is more certain to my own feelings than this.

There is nothing which I can distinguish in my mind with more clearness

than the three states, of indifference, of pleasure, and of pain. Every

one of these I can perceive without any sort of idea of its relation to

anything else. Caius is afflicted with a fit of the colic; this man is

actually in pain; stretch Caius upon the rack, he will feel a much

greater pain: but does this pain of the rack arise from the removal of

any pleasure? or is the fit of the colic a pleasure or a pain just as we

are pleased to consider it?

SECTION III.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE REMOVAL OF PAIN AND POSITIVE PLEASURE.

We shall carry this proposition yet a step further. We shall venture to

propose, that pain and pleasure are not only not necessarily dependent

for their existence on their mutual diminution or removal, but that, in

reality, the diminution or ceasing of pleasure does not operate like

positive pain; and that the removal or diminution of pain, in its

effect, has very little resemblance to positive pleasure.[10] The former

of these propositions will, I believe, be much more readily allowed than

the latter; because it is very evident that pleasure, when it has run

its career, sets us down very nearly where it found us. Pleasure of

every kind quickly satisfies; and, when it is over, we relapse into

indifference, or, rather, we fall into a soft tranquillity which is

tinged with the agreeable color of the former sensation. I own it is not

at first view so apparent that the removal of a great pain does not

resemble positive pleasure: but let us recollect in what state we have

found our minds upon escaping some imminent danger, or on being released

from the severity of some cruel pain. We have on such occasions found,

if I am not much mistaken, the temper of our minds in a tenor very

remote from that which attends the presence of positive pleasure; we

have found them in a state of much sobriety, impressed with a sense of

awe, in a sort of tranquillity shadowed with horror. The fashion of the

countenance and the gesture of the body on such occasions is so

correspondent to this state of mind, that any person, a stranger to the

cause of the appearance, would rather judge us under some consternation,

than in the enjoyment of anything like positive pleasure.

[Greek:

Hôs d' hotan andr' atê pykinê labê, host' eni patrê,

Phôta katakteinas, allôn exiketo dêmon,

Andros es aphneiou, thambos d' echei eisoroôntas.]

Iliad, [Greek: Ô]. 480.

"As when a wretch, who, conscious of his crime,

Pursued for murder from his native clime,

Just gains some frontier, breathless, pale, amazed;

All gaze, all wonder!"

This striking appearance of the man whom Homer supposes to have just

escaped an imminent danger, the sort of mixed passion of terror and

surprise, with which he affects the spectators, paints very strongly the

manner in which we find ourselves affected upon occasions any way

similar. For when we have suffered from any violent emotion, the mind

naturally continues in something like the same condition, after the

cause which first produced it has ceased to operate. The tossing of the

sea remains after the storm; and when this remain of horror has entirely

subsided, all the passion which the accident raised subsides along with

it; and the mind returns to its usual state of indifference. In short,

pleasure (I mean anything either in the inward sensation, or in the

outward appearance, like pleasure from a positive cause) has never, I

imagine, its origin from the removal of pain or danger.

SECTION IV.

OF DELIGHT AND PLEASURE, AS OPPOSED TO EACH OTHER.

But shall we therefore say, that the removal of pain or its diminution

is always simply painful? or affirm that the cessation or the lessening

of pleasure is always attended itself with a pleasure? By no means. What

I advance is no more than this; first, that there are pleasures and

pains of a positive and independent nature; and, secondly, that the

feeling which results from the ceasing or diminution of pain does not

bear a sufficient resemblance to positive pleasure, to have it

considered as of the same nature, or to entitle it to be known by the

same name; and thirdly, that upon the same principle the removal or

qualification of pleasure has no resemblance to positive pain. It is

certain that the former feeling (the removal or moderation of pain) has

something in it far from distressing, or disagreeable in its nature.

This feeling, in many cases so agreeable, but in all so different from

positive pleasure, has no name which I know; but that hinders not its

being a very real one, and very different from all others. It is most

certain, that every species of satisfaction or pleasure, how different

soever in its manner of affecting, is of a positive nature in the mind

of him who feels it. The affection is undoubtedly positive; but the

cause may be, as in this case it certainly is, a sort of _privation_.

And it is very reasonable that we should distinguish by some term two

things so distinct in nature, as a pleasure that is such simply, and

without any relation, from that pleasure which cannot exist without a

relation, and that, too, a relation to pain. Very extraordinary it would

be, if these affections, so distinguishable in their causes, so

different in their effects, should be confounded with each other,

because vulgar use has ranged them under the same general title.

Whenever I have occasion to speak of this species of relative pleasure,

I call it _delight_; and I shall take the best care I can to use that

word in no other sense. I am satisfied the word is not commonly used in

this appropriated signification; but I thought it better to take up a

word already known, and to limit its signification, than to introduce a

new one, which would not perhaps incorporate so well with the language.

I should never have presumed the least alteration in our words, if the

nature of the language, framed for the purposes of business rather than

those of philosophy, and the nature of my subject, that leads me out of

the common track of discourse, did not in a manner necessitate me to it.

I shall make use of this liberty with all possible caution. As I make

use of the word _delight_ to express the sensation which accompanies the

removal of pain or danger, so, when I speak of positive pleasure, I

shall for the most part call it simply _pleasure_.

SECTION V.

JOY AND GRIEF.

It must be observed, that the cessation of pleasure affects the mind

three ways. If it simply ceases after having continued a proper time,

the effect is _indifference_; if it be abruptly broken off, there ensues

an uneasy sense called _disappointment_; if the object be so totally

lost that there is no chance of enjoying it again, a passion arises in

the mind which is called _grief_. Now there is none of these, not even

grief, which is the most violent, that I think has any resemblance to

positive pain. The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon

him; he indulges it, he loves it: but this never happens in the case of

actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable

time. That grief should be willingly endured, though far from a simply

pleasing sensation, is not so difficult to be understood. It is the

nature of grief to keep its object perpetually in its eye, to present it

in its most pleasurable views, to repeat all the circumstances that

attend it, even to the last minuteness; to go back to every particular

enjoyment, to dwell upon each, and to find a thousand new perfections in

all, that were not sufficiently understood before; in grief, the

_pleasure_ is still uppermost; and the affliction we suffer has no

resemblance to absolute pain, which is always odious, and which we

endeavor to shake off as soon as possible. The Odyssey of Homer, which

abounds with so many natural and affecting images, has none more

striking than those which Menelaus raises of the calamitous fate of his

friends, and his own manner of feeling it. He owns, indeed, that he

often gives himself some intermission from such melancholy reflections;

but he observes, too, that, melancholy as they are, they give him

pleasure.

[Greek:

All empês pantas men odyromenos kai acheuôn,

Pollakis en megaroisi kathêmenos hêmeteroisin,

Allote men te goô phrena terpomai, allote d' aute

Pauomai; aipsêros de koros kryeroio gooio]

Hom. Od. [Greek: D]. 100

"Still in short intervals of _pleasing woe_,

Regardful of the friendly dues I owe,

I to the glorious dead, forever dear,

_Indulge_ the tribute of a _grateful_ tear."

On the other hand, when we recover our health, when we escape an

imminent danger, is it with joy that we are affected? The sense on these

occasions is far from that smooth and voluptuous satisfaction which the

assured prospect of pleasure bestows. The delight which arises from the

modifications of pain confesses the stock from whence it sprung, in its

solid, strong, and severe nature.

SECTION VI.

OF THE PASSIONS WHICH BELONG TO SELF-PRESERVATION.

Most of the ideas which are capable of making a powerful impression on

the mind, whether simply of pain or pleasure, or of the modifications of

those, may be reduced very nearly to these two heads,

_self-preservation_, and _society_; to the ends of one or the other of

which all our passions are calculated to answer. The passions which

concern self-preservation, turn mostly on _pain_ or _danger_. The ideas

of _pain_, _sickness_, and _death_, fill the mind with strong emotions

of horror; but _life_ and _health_, though they put us in a capacity of

being affected with pleasure, make no such impression by the simple

enjoyment. The passions therefore which are conversant about the

preservation of the individual turn chiefly on _pain_ and _danger_, and

they are the most powerful of all the passions.

SECTION VII.

OF THE SUBLIME.

Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger,

that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about

terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a

source of the _sublime_; that is, it is productive of the strongest

emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. I say the strongest

emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful

than those which enter on the part of pleasure. Without all doubt, the

torments which we may be made to suffer are much greater in their

effect on the body and mind, than any pleasures which the most learned

voluptuary could suggest, or than the liveliest imagination, and the

most sound and exquisitely sensible body, could enjoy. Nay, I am in

great doubt whether any man could be found, who would earn a life of the

most perfect satisfaction at the price of ending it in the torments,

which justice inflicted in a few hours on the late unfortunate regicide

in France. But as pain is stronger in its operation than pleasure, so

death is in general a much more affecting idea than pain; because there

are very few pains, however exquisite, which are not preferred to death:

nay, what generally makes pain itself, if I may say so, more painful,

is, that it is considered as an emissary of this king of terrors. When

danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any

delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with

certain modifications, they may be, and they are, delightful, as we

every day experience. The cause of this I shall endeavor to investigate

hereafter.

SECTION VIII.

OF THE PASSIONS WHICH BELONG TO SOCIETY.

The other head under which I class our passions, is that of _society_,

which may be divided into two sorts. 1. The society of the _sexes_,

which answers the purpose of propagation; and next, that more _general

society_, which we have with men and with other animals, and which we

may in some sort be said to have even with the inanimate world. The

passions belonging to the preservation of the individual turn wholly on

pain and danger: those which belong to _generation_ have their origin in

gratifications and _pleasures_; the pleasure most directly belonging to

this purpose is of a lively character, rapturous and violent, and

confessedly the highest pleasure of sense; yet the absence of this so

great an enjoyment scarce amounts to an uneasiness; and, except at

particular times, I do not think it affects at all. When men describe in

what manner they are affected by pain and danger, they do not dwell on

the pleasure of health and the comfort of security, and then lament the

_loss_ of these satisfactions: the whole turns upon the actual pains and

horrors which they endure. But if you listen to the complaints of a

forsaken lover, you observe that he insists largely on the pleasures

which he enjoyed, or hoped to enjoy, and on the perfection of the object

of his desires; it is the _loss_ which is always uppermost in his mind.

The violent effects produced by love, which has sometimes been even

wrought up to madness, is no objection to the rule which we seek to

establish. When men have suffered their imaginations to be long affected

with any idea, it so wholly engrosses them as to shut out by degrees

almost every other, and to break down every partition of the mind which

would confine it. Any idea is sufficient for the purpose, as is evident

from the infinite variety of causes, which give rise to madness: but

this at most can only prove, that the passion of love is capable of

producing very extraordinary effects, not that its extraordinary

emotions have any connection with positive pain.

SECTION IX.

THE FINAL CAUSE OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PASSIONS BELONGING TO

SELF-PRESERVATION AND THOSE WHICH REGARD THE SOCIETY OF THE SEXES.

The final cause of the difference in character between the passions

which regard self-preservation, and those which are directed to the

multiplication of the species, will illustrate the foregoing remarks yet

further; and it is, I imagine, worthy of observation even upon its own

account. As the performance of our duties of every kind depends upon

life, and the performing them with vigor and efficacy depends upon

health, we are very strongly affected with whatever threatens the

destruction of either: but as we were not made to acquiesce in life and

health, the simple enjoyment of them is not attended with any real

pleasure, lest, satisfied with that, we should give ourselves over to

indolence and inaction. On the other hand, the generation of mankind is

a great purpose, and it is requisite that men should be animated to the

pursuit of it by some great incentive. It is therefore attended with a

very high pleasure; but as it is by no means designed to be our constant

business, it is not fit that the absence of this pleasure should be

attended with any considerable pain. The difference between men and

brutes, in this point, seems to be remarkable. Men are at all times

pretty equally disposed to the pleasures of love, because they are to be

guided by reason in the time and manner of indulging them. Had any great

pain arisen from the want of this satisfaction, reason, I am afraid,

would find great difficulties in the performance of its office. But

brutes that obey laws, in the execution of which their own reason has

but little share, have their stated seasons; at such times it is not

improbable that the sensation from the want is very troublesome, because

the end must be then answered, or be missed in many, perhaps forever; as

the inclination returns only with its season.

SECTION X.

OF BEAUTY.

The passion which belongs to generation, merely as such, is lust only.

This is evident in brutes, whose passions are more unmixed, and which

pursue their purposes more directly than ours. The only distinction they

observe with regard to their mates, is that of sex. It is true, that

they stick severally to their own species in preference to all others.

But this preference, I imagine, does not arise from any sense of beauty

which they find in their species, as Mr. Addison supposes, but from a

law of some other kind, to which they are subject; and this we may

fairly conclude, from their apparent want of choice amongst those

objects to which the barriers of their species have confined them. But

man, who is a creature adapted to a greater variety and intricacy of

relation, connects with the general passion the idea of some _social_

qualities, which direct and heighten the appetite which he has in common

with all other animals; and as he is not designed like them to live at

large, it is fit that he should have some thing to create a preference,

and fix his choice; and this in general should be some sensible quality;

as no other can so quickly, so powerfully, or so surely produce its

effect. The object therefore of this mixed passion, which we call love,

is the _beauty_ of the _sex_. Men are carried to the sex in general, as

it is the sex, and by the common law of nature; but they are attached to

particulars by personal _beauty_. I call beauty a social quality; for

where women and men, and not only they, but when other animals give us a

sense of joy and pleasure in beholding them (and there are many that do

so), they inspire us with sentiments of tenderness and affection towards

their persons; we like to have them near us, and we enter willingly into

a kind of relation with them, unless we should have strong reasons to

the contrary. But to what end, in many cases, this was designed, I am

unable to discover; for I see no greater reason for a connection between

man and several animals who are attired in so engaging a manner, than

between him and some others who entirely want this attraction, or

possess it in a far weaker degree. But it is probable that Providence

did not make even this distinction, but with a view to some great end;

though we cannot perceive distinctly what it is, as his wisdom is not

our wisdom, nor our ways his ways.

SECTION XI.

SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.

The second branch of the social passions is that which administers to

_society in general_. With regard to this, I observe, that society,

merely as society, without any particular heightenings, gives us no

positive pleasure in the enjoyment; but absolute and entire _solitude_,

that is, the total and perpetual exclusion from all society, is as

great a positive pain as can almost be conceived. Therefore in the

balance between the pleasure of general _society_, and the pain of

absolute solitude, _pain_ is the predominant idea. But the pleasure of

any particular social enjoyment outweighs very considerably the

uneasiness caused by the want of that particular enjoyment; so that the

strongest sensations relative to the habitudes of _particular society_

are sensations of pleasure. Good company, lively conversations, and the

endearments of friendship, fill the mind with great pleasure; a

temporary solitude, on the other hand, is itself agreeable. This may

perhaps prove that we are creatures designed for contemplation as well

as action; since solitude as well as society has its pleasures; as from

the former observation we may discern, that an entire life of solitude

contradicts the purposes of our being, since death itself is scarcely an

idea of more terror.

SECTION XII.

SYMPATHY, IMITATION, AND AMBITION.

Under this denomination of society, the passions are of a complicated

kind, and branch out into a variety of forms, agreeably to that variety

of ends they are to serve in the great chain of society. The three

principal links in this chain are _sympathy_, _imitation,_ and

_ambition_.

SECTION XIII.

SYMPATHY.

It is by the first of these passions that we enter into the concerns of

others; that we are moved as they are moved, and are never suffered to

be indifferent spectators of almost anything which men can do or suffer.

For sympathy must be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we

are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as

he is affected: so that this passion may either partake of the nature of

those which regard self-preservation, and turning upon pain may be a

source of the sublime; or it may turn upon ideas of pleasure; and then

whatever has been said of the social affections, whether they regard

society in general, or only some particular modes of it, may be

applicable here. It is by this principle chiefly that poetry, painting,

and other affecting arts, transfuse their passions from one breast to

another, and are often capable of grafting a delight on wretchedness,

misery, and death itself. It is a common observation, that objects which

in the reality would shock, are in tragical, and such like

representations, the source of a very high species of pleasure. This,

taken as a fact, has been the cause of much reasoning. The satisfaction

has been commonly attributed, first, to the comfort we receive in

considering that so melancholy a story is no more than a fiction; and,

next, to the contemplation of our own freedom from the evils which we

see represented. I am afraid it is a practice much too common in

inquiries of this nature, to attribute the cause of feelings which

merely arise from the mechanical structure of our bodies, or from the

natural frame and constitution of our minds, to certain conclusions of

the reasoning faculty on the objects presented to us; for I should

imagine, that the influence of reason in producing our passions is

nothing near so extensive as it is commonly believed.

SECTION XIV.

THE EFFECTS OF SYMPATHY IN THE DISTRESSES OF OTHERS.

To examine this point concerning the effect of tragedy in a proper

manner, we must previously consider how we are affected by the feelings

of our fellow creatures in circumstances of real distress. I am

convinced we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the

real misfortunes and pains of others; for let the affection be what it

will in appearance, if it does not make us shun such objects, if on the

contrary it induces us to approach them, if it makes us dwell upon them,

in this case I conceive we must have a delight or pleasure of some

species or other in contemplating objects of this kind. Do we not read

the authentic histories of scenes of this nature with as much pleasure

as romances or poems, where the incidents are fictitious? The prosperity

of no empire, nor the grandeur of no king, can so agreeably affect in

the reading, as the ruin of the state of Macedon, and the distress of

its unhappy prince. Such a catastrophe touches us in history as much as

the destruction of Troy does in fable. Our delight, in cases of this

kind, is very greatly heightened, if the sufferer be some excellent

person who sinks under an unworthy fortune. Scipio and Cato are both

virtuous characters; but we are more deeply affected by the violent

death of the one, and the ruin of the great cause he adhered to, than

with the deserved triumphs and uninterrupted prosperity of the other:

for terror is a passion which always produces delight when it does not

press too closely; and pity is a passion accompanied with pleasure,

because it arises from love and social affection. Whenever we are formed

by nature to any active purpose, the passion which animates us to it is

attended with delight, or a pleasure of some kind, let the

subject-matter be what it will; and as our Creator has designed that we

should be united by the bond of sympathy, he has strengthened that bond

by a proportionable delight; and there most where our sympathy is most

wanted,--in the distresses of others. If this passion was simply

painful, we would shun with the greatest care all persons and places

that could excite such a passion; as some, who are so far gone in

indolence as not to endure any strong impression, actually do. But the

case is widely different with the greater part of mankind; there is no

spectacle we so eagerly pursue, as that of some uncommon and grievous

calamity; so that whether the misfortune is before our eyes, or whether

they are turned back to it in history, it always touches with delight.

This is not an unmixed delight, but blended with no small uneasiness.

The delight we have in such things hinders us from shunning scenes of

misery; and the pain we feel prompts us to relieve ourselves in

relieving those who suffer; and all this antecedent to any reasoning, by

an instinct that works us to its own purposes without our concurrence.

SECTION XV.

OF THE EFFECTS OF TRAGEDY.

It is thus in real calamities. In imitated distresses the only

difference is the pleasure resulting from the effects of imitation; for

it is never so perfect, but we can perceive it is imitation, and on that

principle are somewhat pleased with it. And indeed in some cases we

derive as much or more pleasure from that source than from the thing

itself. But then I imagine we shall be much mistaken if we attribute any

considerable part of our satisfaction in tragedy to the consideration

that tragedy is a deceit, and its representations no realities. The

nearer it approaches the reality, and the further it removes us from all

idea of fiction, the more perfect is its power. But be its power of what

kind it will, it never approaches to what it represents. Choose a day on

which to represent the most sublime and affecting tragedy we have;

appoint the most favorite actors; spare no cost upon the scenes and

decorations; unite the greatest efforts of poetry, painting, and music;

and when you have collected your audience, just at the moment when their

minds are erect with expectation, let it be reported that a state

criminal of high rank is on the point of being executed in the adjoining

square; in a moment the emptiness of the theatre would demonstrate the

comparative weakness of the imitative arts, and proclaim the triumph of

the real sympathy. I believe that this notion of our having a simple

pain in the reality, yet a delight in the representation, arises from

hence, that we do not sufficiently distinguish what we would by no means

choose to do, from what we should be eager enough to see if it was once

done. We delight in seeing things, which so far from doing, our

heartiest wishes would be to see redressed. This noble capital, the

pride of England and of Europe, I believe no man is so strangely wicked

as to desire to see destroyed by a conflagration or an earthquake,

though he should be removed himself to the greatest distance from the

danger. But suppose such a fatal accident to have happened, what numbers

from all parts would crowd to behold the ruins, and amongst them many

who would have been content never to have seen London in its glory! Nor

is it, either in real or fictitious distresses, our immunity from them

which produces our delight; in my own mind I can discover nothing like

it. I apprehend that this mistake is owing to a sort of sophism, by

which we are frequently imposed upon; it arises from our not

distinguishing between what is indeed a necessary condition to our doing

or suffering anything in general, and what is the _cause_ of some

particular act. If a man kills me with a sword, it is a necessary

condition to this that we should have been both of us alive before the

fact; and yet it would be absurd to say that our being both living

creatures was the cause of his crime and of my death. So it is certain

that it is absolutely necessary my life should be out of any imminent

hazard, before I can take a delight in the sufferings of others, real or

imaginary, or indeed in anything else from any cause whatsoever. But

then it is a sophism to argue from thence that this immunity is the

cause of my delight either on these or on any occasions. No one can

distinguish such a cause of satisfaction in his own mind, I believe;

nay, when we do not suffer any very acute pain, nor are exposed to any

imminent danger of our lives, we can feel for others, whilst we suffer

ourselves; and often then most when we are softened by affliction; we

see with pity even distresses which we would accept in the place of our

own.

SECTION XVI.

IMITATION.

The second passion belonging to society is imitation, or, if you will, a

desire of imitating, and consequently a pleasure in it. This passion

arises from much the same cause with sympathy. For as sympathy makes us

take a concern in whatever men feel, so this affection prompts us to

copy whatever they do; and consequently we have a pleasure in imitating,

and in whatever belongs to imitation merely as it is such, without any

intervention of the reasoning faculty, but solely from our natural

constitution, which Providence has framed in such 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 everything; and what we learn thus, we

acquire not only more effectually, but more pleasantly. This forms our

manners, our opinions, our lives. It is one of the strongest links of

society; it is a species 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

since, by its influence on our manners and our passions, it is of such

great consequence, I shall here venture to lay 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 pleasure in the skill of the

imitator merely, and when to sympathy, or some other cause in

conjunction, with it. When the object represented in poetry or painting

is such as we could have no desire of seeing in the reality, then I may

be sure 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 still-life. In these a

cottage, a dung-hill, the meanest and most ordinary utensils of the

kitchen, are capable of giving us pleasure. But when the object of the

painting or poem is such as we should run to see if real, let it affect

us with what odd sort of sense 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 consideration of

the skill of the imitator, however excellent. Aristotle has spoken so

much and so solidly upon the force of imitation in his Poetics, that it

makes any further discourse upon this subject the less necessary.

SECTION XVII.

AMBITION.

Although 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 so on in an

eternal circle, it is easy to see that there never could be any

improvement amongst them. Men must remain as brutes do, the same 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 sense of ambition,

and a satisfaction arising from the contemplation of his excelling his

fellows in something deemed valuable amongst them. It is this passion

that drives men to all the ways we see in use of signalizing themselves,

and that tends to make whatever excites in a man the idea of this

distinction so very pleasant. It has been so strong as to make very

miserable men take comfort, that they were supreme in misery; and

certain it is that, where we cannot distinguish ourselves by something

excellent, we begin to take a complacency in some singular infirmities,

follies, or defects of one kind or other. It is on this principle that

flattery is so prevalent; for flattery is no more than what raises 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 sort of swelling and triumph, that is extremely

grateful to the human mind; and this swelling is never more perceived,

nor operates with more force, than when without danger we are conversant

with terrible objects; the mind always claiming to itself some part of

the dignity and importance of the things which it contemplates. Hence

proceeds what Longinus has observed of that glorying and sense of inward

greatness, that always fills the reader of such passages in poets and

orators as are sublime: it is what every man must have felt in himself

upon such occasions.

SECTION XVIII.

THE RECAPITULATION.

To draw the whole of what has been said into a few distinct points:--The

passions which belong to self-preservation turn on pain and danger; they

are simply painful when their causes immediately affect us; they are

delightful when we have an idea of pain and danger, without being

actually in such circumstances; this delight I have not called pleasure,

because it turns on pain, and because it is different enough from any

idea of positive pleasure. Whatever excites this delight, I call

_sublime_. The passions belonging to self-preservation are the strongest

of all the passions.

The second head to which the passions are referred with relation to

their final cause, is society. There are two sorts of societies. The

first is, the society of sex. The passion belonging to this is called

love, and it contains a mixture of lust; its object is the beauty of

women. The other is the great society with man and all other animals.

The passion subservient to this is called likewise love, but it has no

mixture of lust, and its object is beauty; which is a name I shall apply

to all such qualities in things as induce in us a sense of affection and

tenderness, or some other passion the most nearly resembling these. The

passion of love has its rise in positive pleasure; it is, like all

things which grow out of pleasure, capable of being mixed with a mode of

uneasiness, that is, when an idea of its object is excited in the mind

with an idea at the same time of having irretrievably lost it. This

mixed sense 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 passion we have for society, to a choice in which we

are directed by the pleasure we have in the object, the particular

passion under this head called sympathy has the greatest extent. The

nature of this passion is, to put us in the place of another in whatever

circumstance he is in, and to affect us in a like manner; so that this

passion may, as the occasion requires, turn either on pain or pleasure;

but with the modifications mentioned in some cases in Sect. 11. As to

imitation and preference, nothing more need be said.

SECTION XIX.

THE CONCLUSION.

I believed that an attempt to range and methodize some of our most

leading passions would be a good preparative to such an inquiry as we

are going to make in the ensuing discourse. The passions I have

mentioned are almost the only ones which it can be necessary to consider

in our present design; though the variety of the passions is great, and

worthy, in every branch of that variety, of an attentive investigation.

The more accurately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces

we everywhere find of His wisdom who made it. If a discourse on the use

of the parts of the body may be considered as a hymn to the Creator; the

use of the passions, which are the organs of the mind, cannot be barren

of praise to him, nor unproductive to ourselves of that noble and

uncommon union of science and admiration, which a contemplation of the

works of infinite wisdom alone can afford to a rational mind; whilst,

referring to him whatever we find of right or good or fair in ourselves,

discovering his strength and wisdom even in our own weakness and

imperfection, honoring them where we discover them clearly, and adoring

their profundity where we are lost in our search, we may be inquisitive

without impertinence, and elevated without pride; we may be admitted, if

I may dare to say so, into the counsels of the Almighty by a

consideration of his works. The elevation of the mind ought to be the

principal end of all our studies; which, if they do not in some measure

effect, they are of very little service to us. But, besides this great

purpose, a consideration of the rationale of our passions seems to me

very necessary for all who would affect them upon solid and sure

principles. It is not enough to know them in general; to affect them

after a delicate manner, or to judge properly of any work designed to

affect them, we should know the exact boundaries of their several

jurisdictions; we should pursue them through all their variety of

operations, and pierce into the inmost, and what might appear

inaccessible parts of our nature,

Quod latet arcanâ non enarrabile fibrâ.

Without all this it is possible for a man, after a confused manner

sometimes to satisfy his own mind of the truth of his work; but he can

never have a certain determinate rule to go by, nor can he ever make his

propositions sufficiently clear to others. Poets, and orators, and

painters, and those who cultivate other branches of the liberal arts,

have, without this critical knowledge, succeeded well in their several

provinces, and will succeed: as among artificers there are many machines

made and even invented without any exact knowledge of the principles

they are governed by. It is, I own, not uncommon to be wrong in theory,

and right in practice: and we are happy that it is so. Men often act

right from their feelings, who afterwards reason but ill on them from

principle; but as it is impossible to avoid an attempt at such

reasoning, and equally impossible to prevent its having some influence

on our practice, surely it is worth taking some pains to have it just,

and founded on the basis of sure experience. We might expect that the

artists themselves would have been our surest guides; but the artists

have been too much occupied in the practice: the philosophers have done

little; and what they have done, was mostly with a view to their own

schemes and systems; and as for those called critics, they have

generally sought the rule of the arts in the wrong place; they sought it

among poems, pictures, engravings, statues, and buildings. But art can

never give the rules that make an art. This is, I believe, the reason

why artists in general, and poets, principally, have been confined in so

narrow a circle: they have been rather imitators of one another than of

nature; and this with so faithful an uniformity, and to so remote an

antiquity, that it is hard to say who gave the first model. Critics

follow them, and therefore can do little as guides. I can judge but

poorly of anything, whilst I measure it by no other standard than

itself. The true standard of the arts is in every man's power; and an

easy observation of the most common, sometimes of the meanest things in

nature, will give the truest lights, where the greatest sagacity and

industry, that slights such observation, must leave us in the dark, or,

what is worse, amuse and mislead us by false lights. In an inquiry it is

almost everything to be once in a right road. I am satisfied I have done

but little by these observations considered in themselves; and I never

should have taken the pains to digest them, much less should I have ever

ventured to publish them, if I was not convinced that nothing tends more

to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters

must be troubled, before they can exert their virtues. A man who works

beyond the surface of things, though he may be wrong himself, yet he

clears the way for others, and may chance to make even his errors

subservient to the cause of truth. In the following parts I shall

inquire what things they are that cause in us the affections of the

sublime and beautiful, as in this I have considered the affections

themselves. I only desire one favor,--that no part of this discourse may

be judged of by itself, and independently of the rest; for I am sensible

I have not disposed my materials to abide the test of a captious

controversy, but of a sober and even forgiving examination; that they

are not armed at all points for battle, but dressed to visit those who

are willing to give a peaceful entrance to truth.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Mr. Locke [Essay on Human Understanding, l. ii. c. 20, sect. 16,]

thinks that the removal or lessening of a pain is considered and

operates as a pleasure, and the loss or diminishing of pleasure as a

pain. It is this opinion which we consider here.

PART II.

SECTION I.

OF THE PASSION CAUSED BY THE SUBLIME.

The passion caused by the great and sublime in _nature_, when those

causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment: and astonishment is

that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended, with some

degree of horror.[11] In this case the mind is so entirely filled with

its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence

reason on that object which employs it. Hence arises the great power of

the sublime, that, far from being produced by them, it anticipates our

reasonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible force. Astonishment, as

I have said, is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree; the

inferior effects are admiration, reverence, and respect.

SECTION II.

TERROR.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and

reasoning as _fear_.[12] For fear being an apprehension of pain or

death, it operates in a manner that resembles actual pain. Whatever

therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublime too, whether

this cause of terror be endued with greatness of dimensions or not; for

it is impossible to look on anything as trifling, or contemptible, that

may be dangerous. There are many animals, who, though far from being

large, are yet capable of raising ideas of the sublime, because they are

considered as objects of terror. As serpents and poisonous animals of

almost all kinds. And to things of great dimensions, if we annex an

adventitious idea of terror, they become without comparison greater. A

level plain of a vast extent on land, is certainly no mean idea; the

prospect of such a plain may be as extensive as a prospect of the ocean;

but can it ever fill the mind with anything so great as the ocean

itself? This is owing to several causes; but it is owing to none more

than this, that the ocean is an object of no small terror. Indeed terror

is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling

principle of the sublime. Several languages bear a strong testimony to

the affinity of these ideas. They frequently use the same word to

signify indifferently the modes of astonishment or admiration and those

of terror. [Greek: Thambos] is in Greek either fear or wonder; [Greek:

deinos] is terrible or respectable; [Greek: ahideo], to reverence or to

fear. _Vereor_ in Latin is what [Greek: ahideo] is in Greek. The Romans

used the verb _stupeo_, a term which strongly marks the state of an

astonished mind, to express the effect either of simple fear, or of

astonishment; the word _attonitus_ (thunderstruck) is equally expressive

of the alliance of these ideas; and do not the French _étonnement_, and

the English _astonishment_ and _amazement_, point out as clearly the

kindred emotions which attend fear and wonder? They who have a more

general knowledge of languages, could produce, I make no doubt, many

other and equally striking examples.

SECTION III.

OBSCURITY.

To make anything very terrible, obscurity[13] seems in general to be

necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can

accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes.

Every one will be sensible of this, who considers how greatly night adds

to our dread, in all cases of danger, and how much the notions of ghosts

and goblins, of which none can form clear ideas, affect minds which give

credit to the popular tales concerning such sorts of beings. Those

despotic governments which are founded on the passions of men, and

principally upon the passion of fear, keep their chief as much as may be

from the public eye. The policy has been the same in many cases of

religion. Almost all the heathen temples were dark. Even in the

barbarous temples of the Americans at this day, they keep their idol in

a dark part of the hut, which is consecrated to his worship. For this

purpose too the Druids performed all their ceremonies in the bosom of

the darkest woods, and in the shade of the oldest and most spreading

oaks. No person seems better to have understood the secret of

heightening, or of setting terrible things, if I may use the expression,

in their strongest light, by the force of a judicious obscurity than

Milton. His description of death in the second book is admirably

studied; it is astonishing with what a gloomy pomp, with what a

significant and expressive uncertainty of strokes and coloring, he has

finished the portrait of the king of terrors:

"The other shape,

If shape it might be called that shape had none

Distinguishable, in member, joint, or limb;

Or substance might be called that shadow seemed;

For each seemed either; black he stood as night;

Fierce as ten furies; terrible as hell;

And shook a deadly dart. What seemed his head

The likeness of a kingly crown had on."

In this description all is dark, uncertain, confused, terrible, and

sublime to the last degree.

SECTION IV.

OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLEARNESS AND OBSCURITY WITH REGARD TO THE

PASSIONS.

It is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it

_affecting_ to the imagination. If I make a drawing of a palace, or a

temple, or a landscape, I present a very clear idea of those objects;

but then (allowing for the effect of imitation which is something) my

picture can at most affect only as the palace, temple, or landscape,

would have affected in the reality. On the other hand, the most lively

and spirited verbal description I can give raises a very obscure and

imperfect _idea_ of such objects; but then it is in my power to raise a

stronger _emotion_ by the description than I could do by the best

painting. This experience constantly evinces. The proper manner of

conveying the _affections_ of the mind from one to another is by words;

there is a great insufficiency in all other methods of communication;

and so far is a clearness of imagery from being absolutely necessary to

an influence upon the passions, that they may be considerably operated

upon, without presenting any image at all, by certain sounds adapted to

that purpose; of which we have a sufficient proof in the acknowledged

and powerful effects of instrumental music. In reality, a great

clearness helps but little towards affecting the passions, as it is in

some sort an enemy to all enthusiasms whatsoever.

SECTION [IV].

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

There are two verses in Horace's Art of Poetry that seem to contradict

this opinion; for which reason I shall take a little more pains in

clearing it up. The verses are,

Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures,

Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.

On this the Abbé du Bos founds a criticism, wherein he gives painting

the preference to poetry in the article of moving the passions;

principally on account of the greater _clearness_ of the ideas it

represents. I believe this excellent judge was led into this mistake (if

it be a mistake) by his system; to which he found it more conformable

than I imagine it will be found to experience. I know several who admire

and love painting, and yet who regard the objects of their admiration in

that art with coolness enough in comparison of that warmth with which

they are animated by affecting pieces of poetry or rhetoric. Among the

common sort of people, I never could perceive that painting had much

influence on their passions. It is true that the best sorts of painting,

as well as the best sorts of poetry, are not much understood in that

sphere. But it is most certain that their passions are very strongly

roused by a fanatic preacher, or by the ballads of Chevy Chase, or the

Children in the Wood, and by other little popular poems and tales that

are current in that rank of life. I do not know of any paintings, bad or

good, that produce the same effect. So that poetry, with all its

obscurity, has a more general, as well as a more powerful dominion over

the passions, than the other art. And I think there are reasons in

nature, why the obscure idea, when properly conveyed, should be more

affecting than the clear. It is our ignorance of things that causes all

our admiration, and chiefly excites our passions. Knowledge and

acquaintance make the most striking causes affect but little. It is thus

with the vulgar; and all men are as the vulgar in what they do not

understand. The ideas of eternity, and infinity, are among the most

affecting we have: and yet perhaps there is nothing of which we really

understand so little, as of infinity and eternity. We do not anywhere

meet a more sublime description than this justly-celebrated one of

Milton, wherein he gives the portrait of Satan with a dignity so

suitable to the subject:

"He above the rest

In shape and gesture proudly eminent

Stood like a tower; his form had yet not lost

All her original brightness, nor appeared

Less than archangel ruined, and th' excess

Of glory obscured: as when the sun new risen

Looks through the horizontal misty air

Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon

In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations; and with fear of change

Perplexes monarchs."

Here is a very noble picture; and in what does this poetical picture

consist? In images of a tower, an archangel, the sun rising through

mists, or in an eclipse, the ruin of monarchs and the revolutions of

kingdoms. The mind is hurried out of itself, by a crowd of great and

confused images; which affect because they are crowded and confused. For

separate them, and you lose much of the greatness; and join them, and

you infallibly lose the clearness. The images raised by poetry are

always of this obscure kind; though in general the effects of poetry are

by no means to be attributed to the images it raises; which point we

shall examine more at large hereafter.[14] But painting, when we have

allowed for the pleasure of imitation, can only affect simply by the

images it presents; and even in painting, a judicious obscurity in some

things contributes to the effect of the picture; because the images in

painting are exactly similar to those in nature; and in nature, dark,

confused, uncertain images have a greater power on the fancy to form the

grander passions, than those have which are more clear and determinate.

But where and when this observation may be applied to practice, and how

far it shall be extended, will be better deduced from the nature of the

subject, and from the occasion, than from any rules that can be given.

I am sensible that this idea has met with opposition, and is likely

still to be rejected by several. But let it be considered that hardly

anything can strike the mind with its greatness, which does not make

some sort of approach towards infinity; which nothing can do whilst we

are able to perceive its bounds; but to see an object distinctly, and to

perceive its bounds, is one and the same thing. A clear idea is

therefore another name for a little idea. There is a passage in the book

of Job amazingly sublime, and this sublimity is principally due to the

terrible uncertainty of the thing described: _In thoughts from the

visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, fear came upon

me and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit

passed before my face. The hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still_,

but I could not discern the form thereof; _an image was before mine

eyes; there was silence; and I heard a voice,--Shall mortal man be more

just than God?_ We are first prepared with the utmost solemnity for the

vision; we are first terrified, before we are let even into the obscure

cause of our emotion: but when this grand cause of terror makes its

appearance, what is it? Is it not wrapt up in the shades of its own

incomprehensible darkness, more awful, more striking, more terrible,

than the liveliest description, than the clearest painting, could

possibly represent it? When painters have attempted to give us clear

representations of these very fanciful and terrible ideas, they have, I

think, almost always failed; insomuch that I have been at a loss, in all

the pictures I have seen of hell, to determine whether the painter did

not intend something ludicrous. Several painters have handled a subject

of this kind, with a view of assembling as many horrid phantoms as their

imagination could suggest; but all the designs I have chanced to meet of

the temptations of St. Anthony were rather a sort of odd, wild

grotesques, than any thing capable of producing a serious passion. In

all these subjects poetry is very happy. Its apparitions, its chimeras,

its harpies, its allegorical figures, are grand and affecting; and

though Virgil's Fame and Homer's Discord are obscure, they are

magnificent figures. These figures in painting would be clear enough,

but I fear they might become ridiculous.

SECTION V.

POWER.

Besides those things which _directly_ suggest the idea of danger, and

those which produce a similar effect from a mechanical cause, I know of

nothing sublime, which is not some modification of power. And this

branch rises, as naturally as the other two branches, from terror, the

common stock of everything that is sublime. The idea of power, at first

view, seems of the class of those indifferent ones, which may equally

belong to pain or to pleasure. But in reality, the affection arising

from the idea of vast power is extremely remote from that neutral

character. For first, we must remember[15] that the idea of pain, in its

highest degree, is much stronger than the highest degree of pleasure;

and that it preserves the same superiority through all the subordinate

gradations. From hence it is, that where the chances for equal degrees

of suffering or enjoyment are in any sort equal, the idea of the

suffering must always be prevalent. And indeed the ideas of pain, and,

above all, of death, are so very affecting, that whilst we remain in the

presence of whatever is supposed to have the power of inflicting either,

it is impossible to be perfectly free from terror. Again, we know by

experience, that, for the enjoyment of pleasure, no great efforts of

power are at all necessary; nay, we know that such efforts would go a

great way towards destroying our satisfaction: for pleasure must be

stolen, and not forced upon us; pleasure follows the will; and therefore

we are generally affected with it by many things of a force greatly

inferior to our own. But pain is always inflicted by a power in some way

superior, because we never submit to pain willingly. So that strength,

violence, pain, and terror, are ideas that rush in upon the mind

together. Look at a man, or any other animal of prodigious strength, and

what is your idea before reflection? Is it that this strength will be

subservient to you, to your ease, to your pleasure, to your interest in

any sense? No; the emotion you feel is, lest this enormous strength

should be employed to the purposes of[16] rapine and destruction. That

power derives all its sublimity from the terror with which it is

generally accompanied, will appear evidently from its effect in the very

few cases, in which it may be possible to strip a considerable degree of

strength of its ability to hurt. When you do this, you spoil it of

everything sublime, and it immediately becomes contemptible. An ox is a

creature of vast strength; but he is an innocent creature, extremely

serviceable, and not at all dangerous; for which reason the idea of an

ox is by no means grand. A bull is strong too; but his strength is of

another kind; often very destructive, seldom (at least amongst us) of

any use in our business; the idea of a bull is therefore great, and it

has frequently a place in sublime descriptions, and elevating

comparisons. Let us look at another strong animal, in the two distinct

lights in which we may consider him. The horse in the light of an

useful beast, fit for the plough, the road, the draft; in every social

useful light, the horse has nothing sublime; but is it thus that we are

affected with him, _whose neck is clothed with thunder, the glory of

whose nostrils is terrible, who swalloweth the ground with fierceness

and rage, neither believeth that it is the sound of the trumpet_? In

this description, the useful character of the horse entirely disappears,

and the terrible and sublime blaze out together. We have continually

about us animals of a strength that is considerable, but not pernicious.

Amongst these we never look for the sublime; it comes upon us in the

gloomy forest, and in the howling wilderness, in the form of the lion,

the tiger, the panther, or rhinoceros. Whenever strength is only useful,

and employed for our benefit or our pleasure, then it is never sublime;

for nothing can act agreeably to us, that does not act in conformity to

our will; but to act agreeably to our will, it must be subject to us,

and therefore can never be the cause of a grand and commanding

conception. The description of the wild ass, in Job, is worked up into

no small sublimity, merely by insisting on his freedom, and his setting

mankind at defiance; otherwise the description of such an animal could

have had nothing noble in it. _Who hath loosed_ (says he) _the bands of

the wild ass? whose house I have made the wilderness and the barren land

his dwellings. He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth

he the voice of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture._

The magnificent description of the unicorn and of leviathan, in the same

book, is full of the same heightening circumstances: _Will the unicorn

be willing to serve thee? canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in

the furrow? wilt thou trust him because his strength is great?--Canst

thou draw out leviathan with an hook? will he make a covenant with thee?

wilt thou take him for a servant forever? shall not one be cast down

even at the sight of him?_ In short, wheresoever we find strength, and

in what light soever we look upon power, we shall all along observe the

sublime the concomitant of terror, and contempt the attendant on a

strength that is subservient and innoxious. The race of dogs, in many of

their kinds, have generally a competent degree of strength and

swiftness; and they exert these and other valuable qualities which they

possess, greatly to our convenience and pleasure. Dogs are indeed the

most social, affectionate, and amiable animals of the whole brute

creation; but love approaches much nearer to contempt than is commonly

imagined; and accordingly, though we caress dogs, we borrow from them an

appellation of the most despicable kind, when we employ terms of

reproach; and this appellation is the common mark of the last vileness

and contempt in every language. Wolves have not more strength than

several species of dogs; but, on account of their unmanageable

fierceness, the idea of a wolf is not despicable; it is not excluded

from grand descriptions and similitudes. Thus we are affected by

strength, which is _natural_ power. The power which arises from

institution in kings and commanders, has the same connection with

terror. Sovereigns are frequently addressed with the title of _dread

majesty_. And it may be observed, that young persons, little acquainted

with the world, and who have not been used to approach men in power, are

commonly struck with an awe which takes away the free use of their

faculties. _When I prepared my seat in the street,_ (says Job,) _the

young men saw me, and hid themselves._ Indeed so natural is this

timidity with regard to power, and so strongly does it inhere in our

constitution, that very few are able to conquer it, but by mixing much

in the business of the great world, or by using no small violence to

their natural dispositions. I know some people are of opinion, that no

awe, no degree of terror, accompanies the idea of power; and have

hazarded to affirm, that we can contemplate the idea of God himself

without any such emotion. I purposely avoided, when I first considered

this subject, to introduce the idea of that great and tremendous Being,

as an example in an argument so light as this; though it frequently

occurred to me, not as an objection to, but as a strong confirmation of,

my notions in this matter. I hope, in what I am going to say, I shall

avoid presumption, where it is almost impossible for any mortal to speak

with strict propriety. I say then, that whilst we consider the Godhead

merely as he is an object of the understanding, which forms a complex

idea of power, wisdom, justice, goodness, all stretched to a degree far

exceeding the bounds of our comprehension, whilst we consider the

divinity in this refined and abstracted light, the imagination and

passions are little or nothing affected. But because we are bound, by

the condition of our nature, to ascend to these pure and intellectual

ideas, through the medium of sensible images, and to judge of these

divine qualities by their evident acts and exertions, it becomes

extremely hard to disentangle our idea of the cause from the effect by

which we are led to know it. Thus, when we contemplate the Deity, his

attributes and their operation, coming united on the mind, form a sort

of sensible image, and as such are capable of affecting the

imagination. Now, though in a just idea of the Deity, perhaps none of

his attributes are predominant, yet, to our imagination, his power is by

far the most striking. Some reflection, some comparing, is necessary to

satisfy us of his wisdom, his justice, and his goodness. To be struck

with his power, it is only necessary that we should open our eyes. But

whilst we contemplate so vast an object, under the arm, as it were, of

almighty power, and invested upon every side with omnipresence, we

shrink into the minuteness of our own nature, and are, in a manner,

annihilated before him. And though a consideration of his other

attributes may relieve, in some measure, our apprehensions; yet no

conviction of the justice with which it is exercised, nor the mercy with

which it is tempered, can wholly remove the terror that naturally arises

from a force which nothing can withstand. If we rejoice, we rejoice with

trembling; and even whilst we are receiving benefits, we cannot but

shudder at a power which can confer benefits of such mighty importance.

When the prophet David contemplated the wonders of wisdom and power

which are displayed in the economy of man, he seems to be struck with a

sort of divine horror, and cries out, _fearfully and wonderfully am I

made_! An heathen poet has a sentiment of a similar nature; Horace looks

upon it as the last effort of philosophical fortitude, to behold without

terror and amazement, this immense and glorious fabric of the universe:

Hunc solem, et stellas, et decedentia certis

Tempora momentis, sunt qui formidine nulla

Imbuti spectent.

Lucretius is a poet not to be suspected of giving way to superstitious

terrors; yet, when he supposes the whole mechanism of nature laid open

by the master of his philosophy, his transport on this magnificent view,

which he has represented in the colors of such bold and lively poetry,

is overcast with a shade of secret dread and horror:

His ibi me rebus quædam divina voluptas

Percipit, atque horror; quod sic natura, tua vi

Tam manifesta patens, ex omni parte retecta est.

But the Scripture alone can supply ideas answerable to the majesty of

this subject. In the Scripture, wherever God is represented as appearing

or speaking, everything terrible in nature is called up to heighten the

awe and solemnity of the Divine presence. The Psalms, and the

prophetical books, are crowded with instances of this kind. _The earth

shook,_ (says the Psalmist,) _the heavens also dropped at the presence

of the Lord._ And what is remarkable, the painting preserves the same

character, not only when he is supposed descending to take vengeance

upon the wicked, but even when he exerts the like plenitude of power in

acts of beneficence to mankind. _Tremble, thou earth! at the presence of

the Lord; at the presence of the God of Jacob; which turned the rock

into standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters!_ It were

endless to enumerate all the passages, both in the sacred and profane

writers, which establish the general sentiment of mankind, concerning

the inseparable union of a sacred and reverential awe, with our ideas of

the divinity. Hence the common maxim, _Primus in orbe deos fecit timor_.

This maxim may be, as I believe it is, false with regard to the origin

of religion. The maker of the maxim saw how inseparable these ideas

were, without considering that the notion of some great power must be

always precedent to our dread of it. But this dread must necessarily

follow the idea of such a power, when it is once excited in the mind. It

is on this principle that true religion has, and must have, so large a

mixture of salutary fear; and that false religions have generally

nothing else but fear to support them. Before the Christian religion

had, as it were, humanized the idea of the Divinity, and brought it

somewhat nearer to us, there was very little said of the love of God.

The followers of Plato have something of it, and only something; the

other writers of pagan antiquity, whether poets or philosophers, nothing

at all. And they who consider with what infinite attention, by what a

disregard of every perishable object, through what long habits of piety

and contemplation it is that any man is able to attain an entire love

and devotion to the Deity, will easily perceive that it is not the

first, the most natural, and the most striking effect which proceeds

from that idea. Thus we have traced power through its several gradations

unto the highest of all, where our imagination is finally lost; and we

find terror, quite throughout the progress, its inseparable companion,

and growing along with it, as far as we can possibly trace them. Now, as

power is undoubtedly a capital source of the sublime, this will point

out evidently from whence its energy is derived, and to what class of

ideas we ought to unite it.

SECTION VI.

PRIVATION.

ALL _general_ privations are great, because they are all terrible;

_vacuity_, _darkness_, _solitude_, and _silence_. With what a fire of

imagination, yet with what severity of judgment, has Virgil amassed all

these circumstances, where he knows that all the images of a tremendous

dignity ought to be united at the mouth of hell! Where, before he

unlocks the secrets of the great deep, he seems to be seized with a

religious horror, and to retire astonished at the boldness of his own

design:

Dii, quibus imperium est animarum, umbræque _silentes_!

Et Chaos, et Phlegethon! loca _nocte silentia_ late!

Sit mihi fas audita loqui! sit numine vestro

Pandere res alta terra et _caligine_ mersas!

Ibant _obscuri_, _sola_ sub _nocte_, per _umbram_,

Perque domos Ditis _vacuas_, et _inania_ regus.

"Ye subterraneous gods! whose awful sway

The gliding ghosts, and _silent_ shades obey:

O Chaos hoar! and Phlegethon profound!

Whose solemn empire stretches wide around;

Give me, ye great, tremendous powers, to tell

Of scenes and wonders in the depth of hell;

Give me your mighty secrets to display

From those _black_ realms of darkness to the day."

PITT.

"_Obscure_ they went through dreary _shades_ that led

Along the _waste_ dominions of the _dead_."

DRYDEN.

SECTION VII.

VASTNESS.

Greatness[17] of dimension is a powerful cause of the sublime. This is

too evident, and the observation too common, to need any illustration;

it is not so common to consider in what ways greatness of dimension,

vastness of extent or quantity, has the most striking effect. For,

certainly, there are ways and modes wherein the same quantity of

extension shall produce greater effects than it is found to do in

others. Extension is either in length, height, or depth. Of these the

length strikes least; a hundred yards of even ground will never work

such an effect as a tower a hundred yards high, or a rock or mountain of

that altitude. I am apt to imagine, likewise, that height is less grand

than depth; and that we are more struck at looking down from a

precipice, than looking up at an object of equal height; but of that I

am not very positive. A perpendicular has more force in forming the

sublime, than an inclined plane, and the effects of a rugged and broken

surface seem stronger than where it is smooth and polished. It would

carry us out of our way to enter in this place into the cause of these

appearances, but certain it is they afford a large and fruitful field of

speculation. However, it may not be amiss to add to these remarks upon

magnitude, that as the great extreme of dimension is sublime, so the

last extreme of littleness is in some measure sublime likewise; when we

attend to the infinite divisibility of matter, when we pursue animal

life into these excessively small, and yet organized beings, that

escape the nicest inquisition of the sense; when we push our discoveries

yet downward, and consider those creatures so many degrees yet smaller,

and the still diminishing scale of existence, in tracing which the

imagination is lost as well as the sense; we become amazed and

confounded at the wonders of minuteness; nor can we distinguish in its

effect this extreme of littleness from the vast itself. For division

must be infinite as well as addition; because the idea of a perfect

unity can no more be arrived at, than that of a complete whole, to which

nothing may be added.

SECTION VIII.

INFINITY.

Another source of the sublime is _infinity_; if it does not rather

belong to the last. Infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with that

sort of delightful horror, which is the most genuine effect, and truest

test of the sublime. There are scarce any things which can become the

objects of our senses, that are really and in their own nature infinite.

But the eye not being able to perceive the bounds of many things, they

seem to be infinite, and they produce the same effects as if they were

really so. We are deceived in the like manner, if the parts of some

large object are so continued to any indefinite number, that the

imagination meets no check which may hinder its extending them at

pleasure.

Whenever we repeat any idea frequently, the mind, by a sort of

mechanism, repeats it long after the first cause has ceased to

operate.[18] After whirling about, when we sit down, the objects about

us still seem to whirl. After a long succession of noises, as the fall

of waters, or the beating of forge-hammers, the hammers beat and the

waters roar in the imagination long after the first sounds have ceased

to affect it; and they die away at last by gradations which are scarcely

perceptible. If you hold up a straight pole, with your eye to one end,

it will seem extended to a length almost incredible.[19] Place a number

of uniform and equi-distant marks on this pole, they will cause the same

deception, and seem multiplied without end. The senses, strongly

affected in some one manner, cannot quickly change their tenor, or adapt

themselves to other things; but they continue in their old channel until

the strength of the first mover decays. This is the reason of an

appearance very frequent in madmen; that they remain whole days and

nights, sometimes whole years, in the constant repetition of some

remark, some complaint, or song; which having struck powerfully on their

disordered imagination, in the beginning of their frenzy, every

repetition reinforces it with new strength, and the hurry of their

spirits, unrestrained by the curb of reason, continues it to the end of

their lives.

SECTION IX.

SUCCESSION AND UNIFORMITY.

Succession and _uniformity_ of parts are what constitute the artificial

infinite. 1. _Succession_; which is requisite that the parts may be

continued so long and in such a direction, as by their frequent impulses

on the sense to impress the imagination with an idea of their progress

beyond their actual limits. 2. _Uniformity_; because, if the figures of

the parts should be changed, the imagination at every change finds a

check; you are presented at every alteration with the termination of one

idea, and the beginning of another; by which means it becomes impossible

to continue that uninterrupted progression, which alone can stamp on

bounded objects the character of infinity. It is in this kind of

artificial infinity, I believe, we ought to look for the cause why a

rotund has such a noble effect.[20] For in a rotund, whether it be a

building or a plantation, you can nowhere fix a boundary; turn which way

you will, the same object still seems to continue, and the imagination

has no rest. But the parts must be uniform, as well as circularly

disposed, to give this figure its full force; because any difference,

whether it be in the disposition, or in the figure, or even in the color

of the parts, is highly prejudicial to the idea of infinity, which every

change must check and interrupt, at every alteration commencing a new

series. On the same principles of succession and uniformity, the grand

appearance of the ancient heathen temples, which were generally oblong

forms, with a range of uniform pillars on every side, will be easily

accounted for. From the same cause also may be derived the grand effect

of the aisles in many of our own old cathedrals. The form of a cross

used in some churches seems to me not so eligible as the parallelogram

of the ancients; at least, I imagine it is not so proper for the

outside. For, supposing the arms of the cross every way equal, if you

stand in a direction parallel to any of the side walls, or colonnades,

instead of a deception that makes the building more extended than it is,

you are cut off from a considerable part (two thirds) of its _actual_

length; and, to prevent all possibility of progression, the arms of the

cross taking a new direction, make a right angle with the beam, and

thereby wholly turn the imagination from the repetition of the former

idea. Or suppose the spectator placed where he may take a direct view of

such a building, what will be the consequence? the necessary consequence

will be, that a good part of the basis of each angle formed by the

intersection of the arms of the cross, must be inevitably lost; the

whole must of course assume a broken, unconnected figure; the lights

must be unequal, here strong, and there weak; without that noble

gradation which the perspective always effects on parts disposed

uninterruptedly in a right line. Some or all of these objections will

lie against every figure of a cross, in whatever view you take it. I

exemplified them in the Greek cross, in which these faults appear the

most strongly; but they appear in some degree in all sorts of crosses.

Indeed, there is nothing more prejudicial to the grandeur of buildings

than to abound in angles; a fault obvious in many; and owing to an

inordinate thirst for variety, which, whenever it prevails, is sure to

leave very little true taste.

SECTION X.

MAGNITUDE IN BUILDING.

To the sublime in building, greatness of dimension seems requisite; for

on a few parts, and those small, the imagination cannot rise to any idea

of infinity. No greatness in the manner can effectually compensate for

the want of proper dimensions. There is no danger of drawing men into

extravagant designs by this rule; it carries its own caution along with

it. Because too great a length in buildings destroys the purpose of

greatness, which it was intended to promote; the perspective will lessen

it in height as it gains in length; and will bring it at last to a

point; turning the whole figure into a sort of triangle, the poorest in

its effect of almost any figure that can be presented to the eye. I have

ever observed, that colonnades and avenues of trees of a moderate length

were, without comparison, far grander than when they were suffered to

run to immense distances. A true artist should put a generous deceit on

the spectators, and effect the noblest designs by easy methods. Designs

that are vast only by their dimensions are always the sign of a common

and low imagination. No work of art can be great, but as it deceives; to

be otherwise is the prerogative of nature only. A good eye will fix the

medium betwixt an excessive length or height (for the same objection

lies against both), and a short or broken quantity: and perhaps it might

be ascertained to a tolerable degree of exactness, if it was my purpose

to descend far into the particulars of any art.

SECTION XI.

INFINITY IN PLEASING OBJECTS.

Infinity, though of another kind, causes much of our pleasure in

agreeable, as well as of our delight in sublime images. The spring is

the pleasantest of the seasons; and the young of most animals, though

far from being completely fashioned, afford a more agreeable sensation

than the full-grown; because the imagination is entertained with the

promise of something more, and does not acquiesce in the present object

of the sense. In unfinished sketches of drawing, I have often seen

something which pleased me beyond the best finishing; and this I believe

proceeds from the cause I have just now assigned.

SECTION XII.

DIFFICULTY.

Another source of greatness is _difficulty_.[21] When any work seems to

have required immense force and labor to effect it, the idea is grand.

Stonehenge, neither for disposition nor ornament, has anything

admirable; but those huge rude masses of stone, set on end, and piled

each on other, turn the mind on the immense force necessary for such a

work. Nay, the rudeness of the work increases this cause of grandeur, as

it excludes the idea of art and contrivance; for dexterity produces

another sort of effect, which is different enough from this.

SECTION XIII.

MAGNIFICENCE.

Magnificence is likewise a source of the sublime. A great profusion of

things, which are splendid or valuable in themselves, is _magnificent_.

The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view never

fails to excite an idea of grandeur. This cannot be owing to the stars

themselves, separately considered. The number is certainly the cause.

The apparent disorder augments the grandeur, for the appearance of care

is highly contrary to our ideas of magnificence. Besides, the stars lie

in such apparent confusion, as makes it impossible on ordinary occasions

to reckon them. This gives them the advantage of a sort of infinity. In

works of art, this kind of grandeur which consists in multitude, is to

be very cautiously admitted; because a profusion of excellent things is

not to be attained, or with too much difficulty; and because in many

cases this splendid confusion would destroy all use, which should be

attended to in most of the works of art with the greatest care; besides,

it is to be considered, that unless you can produce an appearance of

infinity by your disorder, you will have disorder only without

magnificence. There are, however, a sort of fireworks, and some other

things, that in this way succeed well, and are truly grand. There are

also many descriptions in the poets and orators, which owe their

sublimity to a richness and profusion of images, in which the mind is so

dazzled as to make it impossible to attend to that exact coherence and

agreement of the allusions, which we should require on every other

occasion. I do not now remember a more striking example of this, than

the description which is given of the king's army in the play of Henry

IV.:--

"All furnished, all in arms,

All plumed like ostriches that with the wind

Baited like eagles having lately bathed:

As full of spirit us the month of May,

And gorgeous as the sun in midsummer,

Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.

I saw young Harry with his beaver on

Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury;

And vaulted with such ease into his seat,

As if an angel dropped down from the clouds

To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus."

In that excellent book, so remarkable for the vivacity of its

descriptions, as well as the solidity and penetration of its sentences,

the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach, there is a noble panegyric on the

high-priest Simon the son of Onias; and it is a very fine example of the

point before us:--

_How was he honored in the midst of the people, in his coming out of

the sanctuary! He was as the morning star in the midst of a cloud,

and as the moon at the full; as the sun shining upon the temple of

the Most High, and as the rainbow giving light in the bright clouds:

and as the flower of roses in the spring of the year, as lilies by

the rivers of waters, and as the frankincense-tree in summer; as

fire and incense in the censer, and as a vessel of gold set with

precious stones; as a fair olive-tree budding forth fruit, and as a

cypress which groweth up to the clouds. When he put on the robe of

honor, and was clothed with the perfection of glory, when he went up

to the holy altar, he made the garment of holiness honorable. He

himself stood by the hearth of the altar, compassed with his

brethren round about; as a young cedar in Libanus, and as

palm-trees compassed they him about. So were all the sons of Aaron

in their glory, and the oblations of the Lord in their hands, &c._

SECTION XIV.

LIGHT.

Having considered extension, so far as it is capable of raising ideas of

greatness; _color_ comes next under consideration. All colors depend on

_light_. Light therefore ought previously to be examined; and with it

its opposite, darkness. With regard to light, to make it a cause capable

of producing the sublime, it must be attended with some circumstances,

besides its bare faculty of showing other objects. Mere light is too

common a thing to make a strong impression on the mind, and without a

strong impression nothing can be sublime. But such a light as that of

the sun, immediately exerted on the eye, as it overpowers the sense, is

a very great idea. Light of an inferior strength to this, if it moves

with great celerity, has the same power; for lightning is certainly

productive of grandeur, which it owes chiefly to the extreme velocity of

its motion. A quick transition from light to darkness, or from darkness

to light, has yet a greater effect. But darkness is more productive of

sublime ideas than light. Our great poet was convinced of this; and

indeed so full was he of this idea, so entirely possessed with the power

of a well-managed darkness, that in describing the appearance of the

Deity, amidst that profusion of magnificent images, which the grandeur

of his subject provokes him to pour out upon every side, he is far from

forgetting the obscurity which surrounds the most incomprehensible of

all beings, but

"With majesty of _darkness_ round

Circles his throne."

And what is no less remarkable, our author had the secret of preserving

this idea, even when he seemed to depart the farthest from it, when he

describes the light and glory which flows from the Divine presence; a

light which by its very excess is converted into a species of

darkness:--

"_Dark_ with excessive _light_ thy skirts appear."

Here is an idea not only poetical in a high degree, but strictly and

philosophically just. Extreme light, by overcoming the organs of sight,

obliterates all objects, so as in its effect exactly to resemble

darkness. After looking for some time at the sun, two black spots, the

impression which it leaves, seem to dance before our eyes. Thus are two

ideas as opposite as can be imagined reconciled in the extremes of both;

and both, in spite of their opposite nature, brought to concur in

producing the sublime. And this is not the only instance wherein the

opposite extremes operate equally in favor of the sublime, which in all

things abhors mediocrity.

SECTION XV.

LIGHT IN BUILDING.

As the management of light is a matter of importance in architecture, it

is worth inquiring, how far this remark is applicable to building. I

think, then, that all edifices calculated to produce an idea of the

sublime, ought rather to be dark and gloomy, and this for two reasons;

the first is, that darkness itself on other occasions is known by

experience to have a greater effect on the passions than light. The

second is, that to make an object very striking, we should make it as

different as possible from the objects with which we have been

immediately conversant; when therefore you enter a building, you cannot

pass into a greater light than you had in the open air; to go into one

some few degrees less luminous, can make only a trifling change; but to

make the transition thoroughly striking, you ought to pass from the

greatest light, to as much darkness as is consistent with the uses of

architecture. At night the contrary rule will hold, but for the very

same reason; and the more highly a room is then illuminated, the grander

will the passion be.

SECTION XVI.

COLOR CONSIDERED AS PRODUCTIVE OF THE SUBLIME.

Among colors, such as are soft or cheerful (except perhaps a strong red,

which is cheerful) are unfit to produce grand images. An immense

mountain covered with a shining green turf, is nothing, in this respect,

to one dark and gloomy; the cloudy sky is more grand than the blue; and

night more sublime and solemn than day. Therefore in historical

painting, a gay or gaudy drapery can never have a happy effect: and in

buildings, when the highest degree of the sublime is intended, the

materials and ornaments ought neither to be white, nor green, nor

yellow, nor blue, nor of a pale red, nor violet, nor spotted, but of

sad and fuscous colors, as black, or brown, or deep purple, and the

like. Much of gilding, mosaics, painting, or statues, contribute but

little to the sublime. This rule need not be put in practice, except

where an uniform degree of the most striking sublimity is to be

produced, and that in every particular; for it ought to be observed,

that this melancholy kind of greatness, though it be certainly the

highest, ought not to be studied in all sorts of edifices, where yet

grandeur must be studied; in such cases the sublimity must be drawn from

the other sources; with a strict caution however against anything light

and riant; as nothing so effectually deadens the whole taste of the

sublime.

SECTION XVII.

SOUND AND LOUDNESS.

The eye is not the only organ of sensation by which a sublime passion

may be produced. Sounds have a great power in these as in most other

passions. I do not mean words, because words do not affect simply by

their sounds, but by means altogether different. Excessive loudness

alone is sufficient to overpower the soul, to suspend its action, and to

fill it with terror. The noise of vast cataracts, raging storms,

thunder, or artillery, awakes a great and awful sensation in the mind,

though we can observe no nicety or artifice in those sorts of music. The

shouting of multitudes has a similar effect; and by the sole strength of

the sound, so amazes and confounds the imagination, that, in this

staggering and hurry of the mind, the best established tempers can

scarcely forbear being borne down, and joining in the common cry, and

common resolution of the crowd.

SECTION XVIII.

SUDDENNESS.

A sudden beginning, or sudden cessation of sound of any considerable

force, has the same power. The attention is roused by this; and the

faculties driven forward, as it were, on their guard. Whatever, either

in sights or sounds, makes the transition from one extreme to the other

easy, causes no terror, and consequently can be no cause of greatness.

In everything sudden and unexpected, we are apt to start; that is, we

have a perception of danger, and our nature rouses us to guard against

it. It may be observed that a single sound of some strength, though but

of short duration, if repeated after intervals, has a grand effect. Few

things are more awful than the striking of a great clock, when the

silence of the night prevents the attention from being too much

dissipated. The same may be said of a single stroke on a drum, repeated

with pauses; and of the successive firing of cannon at a distance. All

the effects mentioned in this section have causes very nearly alike.

SECTION XIX.

INTERMITTING.

A low, tremulous, intermitting sound, though it seems, in some respects,

opposite to that just mentioned, is productive of the sublime. It is

worth while to examine this a little. The fact itself must be determined

by every man's own experience and reflection. I have already observed,

that night[22] increases our terror, more perhaps than anything else; it

is our nature, when we do not know what may happen to us, to fear the

worst that can happen; and hence it is that uncertainty is so terrible,

that we often seek to be rid of it, at the hazard of a certain mischief.

Now some low, confused, uncertain sounds, leave us in the same fearful

anxiety concerning their causes, that no light, or an uncertain light,

does concerning the objects that surround us.

Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna

Est iter in sylvis.

"A faint shadow of uncertain light,

Like as a lamp, whose life doth fade away;

Or as the moon clothed with cloudy night

Doth show to him who walks in fear and great affright."

SPENSER.

But light now appearing, and now leaving us, and so off and on, is even

more terrible than total darkness; and a sort of uncertain sounds are,

when the necessary dispositions concur, more alarming than a total

silence.

SECTION XX.

THE CRIES OF ANIMALS.

Such sounds as imitate the natural inarticulate voices of men, or any

animals in pain or danger, are capable of conveying great ideas; unless

it be the well-known voice of some creature, on which we are used to

look with contempt. The angry tones of wild beasts are equally capable

of causing a great and awful sensation.

Hinc exaudiri gemitus, iræque leonum

Vincia recusantum, et sera sub nocte rudentum;

Setigerique sues, atque in præsepibus ursi

Sævire; et formæ magnorum ululare luporam.

It might seem that those modulations of sound carry some connection with

the nature of the things they represent, and are not merely arbitrary;

because the natural cries of all animals, even of those animals with

whom we have not been acquainted, never fail to make themselves

sufficiently understood; this cannot be said of language. The

modifications of sound, which may be productive of the sublime, are

almost infinite. Those I have mentioned are only a few instances to show

on what principles they are all built.

SECTION XXI.

SMELL AND TASTE.--BITTERS AND STENCHES.

_Smells_ and _tastes_ have some share too in ideas of greatness; but it

is a small one, weak in its nature, and confined in its operations. I

shall only observe that no smells or tastes can produce a grand

sensation, except excessive bitters, and intolerable stenches. It is

true that these affections of the smell and taste, when they are in

their full force, and lean directly upon the sensory, are simply

painful, and accompanied with no sort of delight; but when they are

moderated, as in a description or narrative, they become sources of the

sublime, as genuine as any other, and upon the very same principle of a

moderated pain. "A cup of bitterness"; "to drain the bitter cup of

fortune"; "the bitter apples of Sodom"; these are all ideas suitable to

a sublime description. Nor is this passage of Virgil without sublimity,

where the stench of the vapor in Albunea conspires so happily with the

sacred horror and gloominess of that prophetic forest:

At rex sollicitus monstris oracula Fauni

Fatidici genitoris adit, lucosque sub alta

Consulit Albunea, nemorum quæ maxima sacro

Fonte sonat; _sævamque exhalat opaca Mephitim_.

In the sixth book, and in a very sublime description, the poisonous

exhalation of Acheron is not forgotten, nor does it at all disagree with

the other images amongst which it is introduced:

Spelunca _alta_ fuit, _vastoque immanis_ hiatu

Scrupea, tuta _lacu nigro_, nemorumque _tenebris_;

Quam super haud ullæ poterant impune volantes

Tendere iter pennis: _talis sese halitus atris_

_Faucibus effundens supera ad convexa ferebat_.

I have added these examples, because some friends, for whose judgment I

have great deference, were of opinion that if the sentiment stood

nakedly by itself, it would be subject, at first view, to burlesque and

ridicule; but this I imagine would principally arise from considering

the bitterness and stench in company with mean and contemptible ideas,

with which it must be owned they are often united; such an union

degrades the sublime in all other instances as well as in those. But it

is one of the tests by which the sublimity of an image is to be tried,

not whether it becomes mean when associated with mean ideas; but

whether, when united with images of an allowed grandeur, the whole

composition is supported with dignity. Things which are terrible are

always great; but when things possess disagreeable qualities, or such

as have indeed some degree of danger, but of a danger easily overcome,

they are merely _odious_; as toads and spiders.

SECTION XXII.

FEELING.--PAIN.

Of _feeling_ little more can be said than that the idea of bodily pain,

in all the modes and degrees of labor, pain, anguish, torment, is

productive of the sublime; and nothing else in this sense can produce

it. I need not give here any fresh instances, as those given in the

former sections abundantly illustrate a remark that, in reality, wants

only an attention to nature, to be made by everybody.

Having thus run through the causes of the sublime with reference to all

the senses, my first observation (Sect. 7) will be found very nearly

true; that the sublime is an idea belonging to self-preservation; that

it is, therefore, one of the most affecting we have; that its strongest

emotion is an emotion of distress; and that no pleasure[23] from a

positive cause belongs to it. Numberless examples, besides those

mentioned, might be brought in support of these truths, and many perhaps

useful consequences drawn from them--

Sed fugit interea, fugit irrevocabile tempus,

Singula dum capti circumvectamur amore.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Part I. sect. 3, 4, 7.

[12] Part IV. sect. 3, 4, 5, 6.

[13] Part IV. sect. 14, 15, 16.

[14] Part V.

[15] Part I. sect. 7.

[16] Vide Part III. sect. 21.

[17] Part IV. sect. 9.

[18] Part IV. sect. 11.

[19] Part IV. sect. 13.

[20] Mr. Addison, in the Spectators concerning the pleasures of the

imagination, thinks it is because in the rotund at one glance you see

half the building. This I do not imagine to be the real cause.

[21] Part IV. sect. 4, 5, 6.

[22] Sect. 3.

[23] Vide Part I. sect. 6.

PART III.

SECTION I.

OF BEAUTY.

It is my design to consider beauty as distinguished from the sublime;

and, in the course of the inquiry, to examine how far it is consistent

with it. But previous to this, we must take a short review of the

opinions already entertained of this quality; which I think are hardly

to be reduced to any fixed principles; because men are used to talk of

beauty in a figurative manner, that is to say, in a manner extremely

uncertain, and indeterminate. By beauty, I mean that quality, or those

qualities in bodies, by which they cause love, or some passion similar

to it. I confine this definition to the merely sensible qualities of

things, for the sake of preserving the utmost simplicity in a subject,

which must always distract us whenever we take in those various causes

of sympathy which attach us to any persons or things from secondary

considerations, and not from the direct force which they have merely on

being viewed. I likewise distinguish love, (by which I mean that

satisfaction which arises to the mind upon contemplating anything

beautiful, of whatsoever nature it may be,) from desire or lust; which

is an energy of the mind, that hurries us on to the possession of

certain objects, that do not affect us as they are beautiful, but by

means altogether different. We shall have a strong desire for a woman of

no remarkable beauty; whilst the greatest beauty in men, or in other

animals, though it causes love, yet excites nothing at all of desire.

Which shows that beauty, and the passion caused by beauty, which I call

love, is different from desire, though desire may sometimes operate

along with it; but it is to this latter that we must attribute those

violent and tempestuous passions, and the consequent emotions of the

body which attend what is called love in some of its ordinary

acceptations, and not to the effects of beauty merely as it is such.