The Theory of Moral Sentiments

f those passions which take their origin from a particular turn or habit of the imagination.

Even of the passions derived from the imagination,

those which take their origin from a peculiar

turn or habit it has acquired, though they may be

acknowledged to be perfectly natural, are, however,

but little sympathized with. The imaginations of

mankind, not having acquired that particular turn,

cannot enter into them; and such passions, though

they may be allowed to be almost unavoidable in

some part of life, are always in some measure ridiculous.

This is the case with that strong attachment

which naturally grows up between two persons

of different sexes, who have long fixed their thoughts

upon one another. Our imagination not having run

in the same channel with that of the lover, we cannot

enter into the eagerness of his emotions. If

our friend has been injured, we readily sympathize

with his resentment, and grow angry with the very

person with whom he is angry. If he has received

a benefit, we readily enter into his gratitude, and

have a very high sense of the merit of his benefactor.

But if he is in love, though we may think his passion

just as reasonable as any of the kind, yet we

never think ourselves bound to conceive a passion of

the same kind, and for the same person for whom

he has conceived it. The passion appears to every

body, but the man who feels it, entirely disproportioned

42to the value of the object; and love,

though it is pardoned in a certain age because we

know it is natural, is always laughed at, because we

cannot enter into it. All serious and strong expressions

of it appear ridiculous to a third person;

and though a lover may be good company to his

mistress, he is so to nobody else. He himself is sensible

of this; and as long as he continues in his sober

senses, endeavours to treat his own passion with raillery

and ridicule. It is the only style in which we

care to hear of it; because it is the only style in

which we ourselves are disposed to talk of it. We

grow weary of the grave, pedantic, and long-sentenced

love of Cowley and Propertius, who never

have done with exaggerating the violence of their

attachments; but the gaiety of Ovid, and the gallantry

of Horace, are always agreeable.

But though we feel no proper sympathy with an

attachment of this kind, though we never approach

even in imagination towards conceiving a passion

for that particular person, yet as we either have

conceived, or may be disposed to conceive, passions

of the same kind, we readily enter into those high

hopes of happiness which are proposed from its gratification,

as well as into that exquisite distress which

is feared from its disappointment. It interests us

not as a passion, but as a situation that gives occasion

to other passions which interest us; to hope, to fear,

and to distress of every kind: in the same manner as

in a description of a sea voyage, it is not the hunger

which interests us, but the distress which that hunger

occasions. Though we do not properly enter into

the attachment of the lover, we readily go along

with those expectations of romantic happiness which

43he derives from it. We feel how natural it is for

the mind, in a certain situation, relaxed with indolence,

and fatigued with the violence of desire, to

long for serenity and quiet, to hope to find them in

the gratification of that passion which distracts it,

and to frame to itself the idea of that life of pastoral

tranquillity and retirement which the elegant, the

tender, and the passionate Tibullus takes so much

pleasure in deferring; a life like what the poets describe

in the Fortunate Islands, a life of friendship,

liberty, and repose; free from labour, and from

care, and from all the turbulent passions which attend

them. Even scenes of this kind interest us most,

when they are painted rather as what is hoped, than

as what is enjoyed. The grossness of that passion

which mixes with, and is, perhaps, the foundation

of love, disappears when its gratification is far off

and at a distance; but renders the whole offensive,

when described as what is immediately possessed.

The happy passion, upon this account, interests us

much less than the fearful and the melancholy.

We tremble for whatever can disappoint such natural

and agreeable hopes: and thus enter into all the

anxiety, and concern, and distress of the lover.

Hence it is, that, in some modern tragedies and

romances, this passion appears so wonderfully interesting.

It is not so much the love of Castalio and

Monimia which attaches us in the Orphan, as the distress

which that love occasions. The author who

should introduce two lovers, in a scene of perfect

security, expressing their mutual fondness for one

another, would excite laughter, and not sympathy.

If a scene of this kind is ever admitted into a tragedy,

it is always, in some measure, improper, and

44is endured, not from any sympathy with the passion

that is expressed in it, but from concern for the

dangers and difficulties with which the audience

foresee that its gratification is likely to be attended.

The reserve which the laws of society impose

upon the fair sex, with regard to this weakness, renders

it more peculiarly distressful in them, and, upon

that very account, more deeply interesting. We

are charmed with the love of Phædra, as it is expressed

in the French tragedy of that name, notwithstanding

all the extravagance and guilt which

attends it. That very extravagance and guilt

may be said, in some measure, to recommend it to

us. Her fear, her shame, her remorse, her horror,

her despair, become thereby more natural and interesting.

All the secondary passions, if I may be

allowed to call them so, which arise from the situation

of love, become necessarily more furious and

violent: and it is with these secondary passions only

that we can properly be said to sympathize.

Of all the passions, however, which are so extravagantly

disproportioned to the value of their

objects, love is the only one that appears, even to

the weakest minds, to have any thing in it that is

either graceful or agreeable. In itself, first of all,

though it may be ridiculous, it is not naturally

odious; and though its consequences are often fatal

and dreadful, its intentions are seldom mischievous.

And then, though there is little propriety in the

passion itself, there is a good deal in some of those

which always accompany it. There is in love a

strong mixture of humanity, generality, kindness,

friendship, esteem; passions with which, of all

45others, for reasons which shall be explained immediately,

we have the greatest propensity to sympathize,

even notwithstanding we are sensible that

they are, in some measure, excessive. The sympathy

which we feel with them, renders the passion which

they accompany less disagreeable, and supports it

in our imagination, notwithstanding all the vices

which commonly go along with it; though in the

one sex it necessarily leads to ruin and infamy; and

though in the other, where it is apprehended to be

least fatal, it is almost always attended with an incapacity

for labour, a neglect of duty, a contempt

of fame, and even of common reputation. Notwithstanding

all this, the degree of sensibility and

generosity with which it is supposed to be accompanied,

renders it to many the object of vanity;

and they are fond of appearing capable of feeling

what would do them no honour if they had really

felt it.

It is for a reason of the same kind, that a certain

reserve is necessary when we talk of our own friends,

our own studies, our own professions. All these are

objects which we cannot expect should interest our

companions in the same degree in which they interest

us. And it is for want of this reserve, that the one

half of mankind make bad company to the other.

A philosopher is company to a philosopher only;

the member of a club, to his own little knot of

companions.

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