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Title: The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of
12)

Author: Edmund Burke

Release date: February 14, 2005 [eBook #15043]
Most recently updated: December 10, 2020

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDMUND BURKE, VOL. 01 (OF 12) ***

BURKE'S WRITINGS AND
SPEECHES

VOLUME THE FIRST

EDMUND BURKE.

THE WORKS

OF

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

EDMUND BURKE

IN TWELVE VOLUMES

VOLUME THE FIRST

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
PREFACE
A LETTER TO LORD ****
A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF
OUR IDEAS OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL;
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE
CONCERNING TASTE 67
PREFACE
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV
PART V
APPENDIX

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.

Page
INTRODUCTION: On Taste 79
PART I 101
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. 130
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. 165
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. 208
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. 246
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.

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.

Ὡς δ' ὅταν ἄνδρ' ἄτη πυκινὴ λἁβῃ, ὅστ' ἐνὶ πἁτρῃ,
Φὢτα κατακτεἱνας, ἄλλων ἐξἱκετο δἢμον,
Ἁνδρὀς ἐς ἀφνειοὒ, θἁμβος δ' ἔcἑι εἰσορὀωντας.

Iliad, Ω. 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.

Ἁλλ' ἔμπηστ πάντας μἐv ὀδυρόμενοστ καὶ ἀχεὐων,
Πολλάκις ἐv μεγάροισι καθήμενος ἡμετέροισιν,
Ἁλλοτε μέν τε γόῳ φρένα τέρπομαι, ἄλλοτε δ' αὐτε

Παύομαι; αἰψηρὀς δἐ κόρος κρυεροἲο γόοιο.

Hom. Od. Δ. 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. Θάμβος is in Greek either
fear or wonder; δεινός is terrible or respectable; αἰδέο to reverence or to
fear. Vereor in Latin is what αἰδέο 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.

SECTION II.

PROPORTION NOT THE CAUSE OF BEAUTY IN VEGETABLES.

Beauty hath usually been said to consist in certain proportions of parts. On
considering the matter, I have great reason to doubt, whether beauty be at
all an idea belonging to proportion. Proportion relates almost wholly to
convenience, as every idea of order seems to do; and it must therefore be
considered as a creature of the understanding, rather than a primary cause
acting on the senses and imagination. It is not by the force of long attention
and inquiry that we find any object to be beautiful; beauty demands no
assistance from our reasoning; even the will is unconcerned; the appearance
of beauty as effectually causes some degree of love in us, as the application
of ice or fire produces the ideas of heat or cold. To gain something like a
satisfactory conclusion in this point, it were well to examine what
proportion is; since several who make use of that word do not always seem
to understand very clearly the force of the term, nor to have very distinct
ideas concerning the thing itself. Proportion is the measure of relative
quantity. Since all quantity is divisible, it is evident that every distinct part
into which any quantity is divided must bear some relation to the other
parts, or to the whole. These relations give an origin to the idea of
proportion. They are discovered by mensuration, and they are the objects of
mathematical inquiry. But whether any part of any determinate quantity be
a fourth, or a fifth, or a sixth, or a moiety of the whole; or whether it be of
equal length with any other part, or double its length, or but one half, is a

matter merely indifferent to the mind; it stands neuter in the question: and it
is from this absolute indifference and tranquillity of the mind, that
mathematical speculations derive some of their most considerable
advantages; because there is nothing to interest the imagination; because the
judgment sits free and unbiassed to examine the point. All proportions,
every arrangement of quantity, is alike to the understanding, because the
same truths result to it from all; from greater, from lesser, from equality and
inequality. But surely beauty is no idea belonging to mensuration; nor has it
anything to do with calculation and geometry. If it had, we might then point
out some certain measures which we could demonstrate to be beautiful,
either as simply considered, or as related to others; and we could call in
those natural objects, for whose beauty we have no voucher but the sense,
to this happy standard, and confirm the voice of our passions by the
determination of our reason. But since we have not this help, let us see
whether proportion can in any sense be considered as the cause of beauty, as
hath been so generally, and, by some, so confidently affirmed. If proportion
be one of the constituents of beauty, it must derive that power either from
some natural properties inherent in certain measures, which operate
mechanically; from the operation of custom; or from the fitness which some
measures have to answer some particular ends of conveniency. Our business
therefore is to inquire, whether the parts of those objects, which are found
beautiful in the vegetable or animal kingdoms, are constantly so formed
according to such certain measures, as may serve to satisfy us that their
beauty results from those measures, on the principle of a natural mechanical
cause; or from custom; or, in fine, from their fitness for any determinate
purposes. I intend to examine this point under each of these heads in their
order. But before I proceed further, I hope it will not be thought amiss, if I
lay down the rules which governed me in this inquiry, and which have
misled me in it, if I have gone astray. 1. If two bodies produce the same or a
similar effect on the mind, and on examination they are found to agree in

some of their properties, and to differ in others; the common effect is to be
attributed to the properties in which they agree, and not to those in which
they differ. 2. Not to account for the effect of a natural object from the
effect of an artificial object. 3. Not to account for the effect of any natural
object from a conclusion of our reason concerning its uses, if a natural
cause may be assigned. 4. Not to admit any determinate quantity, or any
relation of quantity, as the cause of a certain effect, if the effect is produced
by different or opposite measures and relations; or if these measures and
relations may exist, and yet the effect may not be produced. These are the
rules which I have chiefly followed, whilst I examined into the power of
proportion considered as a natural cause; and these, if he thinks them just, I
request the reader to carry with him throughout the following discussion;
whilst we inquire, in the first place, in what things we find this quality of
beauty; next, to see whether in these we can find any assignable proportions
in such a manner as ought to convince us that our idea of beauty results
from them. We shall consider this pleasing power as it appears in
vegetables, in the inferior animals, and in man. Turning our eyes to the
vegetable creation, we find nothing there so beautiful as flowers; but
flowers are almost of every sort of shape, and of every sort of disposition;
they are turned and fashioned into an infinite variety of forms; and from
these forms botanists have given them their names, which are almost as
various. What proportion do we discover between the stalks and the leaves
of flowers, or between the leaves and the pistils? How does the slender stalk
of the rose agree with the bulky head under which it bends? but the rose is a
beautiful flower; and can we undertake to say that it does not owe a great
deal of its beauty even to that disproportion; the rose is a large flower, yet it
grows upon a small shrub; the flower of the apple is very small, and grows
upon a large tree; yet the rose and the apple blossom are both beautiful, and
the plants that bear them are most engagingly attired, notwithstanding this
disproportion. What by general consent is allowed to be a more beautiful

object than an orange-tree, nourishing at once with its leaves, its blossoms,
and its fruit? but it is in vain that we search here for any proportion between
the height, the breadth, or anything else concerning the dimensions of the
whole, or concerning the relation of the particular parts to each other. I
grant that we may observe in many flowers something of a regular figure,
and of a methodical disposition of the leaves. The rose has such a figure and
such a disposition of its petals; but in an oblique view, when this figure is in
a good measure lost, and the order of the leaves confounded, it yet retains
its beauty; the rose is even more beautiful before it is full blown; in the bud;
before this exact figure is formed; and this is not the only instance wherein
method and exactness, the soul of proportion, are found rather prejudicial
than serviceable to the cause of beauty.

SECTION III.

PROPORTION NOT THE CAUSE OF BEAUTY IN ANIMALS.

That proportion has but a small share in the formation of beauty is full as
evident among animals. Here the greatest variety of shapes and dispositions
of parts are well fitted to excite this idea. The swan, confessedly a beautiful
bird, has a neck longer than the rest of his body, and but a very short tail: is
this a beautiful proportion? We must allow that it is. But then what shall we
say to the peacock, who has comparatively but a short neck, with a tail
longer than the neck and the rest of the body taken together? How many
birds are there that vary infinitely from each of these standards, and from
every other which you can fix; with proportions different, and often directly
opposite to each other! and yet many of these birds are extremely beautiful;
when upon considering them we find nothing in any one part that might
determine us, à priori, to say what the others ought to be, nor indeed to
guess anything about them, but what experience might show to be full of
disappointment and mistake. And with regard to the colors either of birds or

flowers, for there is something similar in the coloring of both, whether they
are considered in their extension or gradation, there is nothing of proportion
to be observed. Some are of but one single color; others have all the colors
of the rainbow; some are of the primary colors, others are of the mixed; in
short, an attentive observer may soon conclude that there is as little of
proportion in the coloring as in the shapes of these objects. Turn next to
beasts; examine the head of a beautiful horse; find what proportion that
bears to his body, and to his limbs, and what relation these have to each
other; and when you have settled these proportions as a standard of beauty,
then take a dog or cat, or any other animal, and examine how far the same
proportions between their heads and their necks, between those and the
body, and so on, are found to hold; I think we may safely say, that they
differ in every species, yet that there are individuals, found in a great many
species so differing, that have a very striking beauty. Now, if it be allowed
that very different, and even contrary forms and dispositions are consistent
with beauty, it amounts I believe to a concession, that no certain measures,
operating from a natural principle, are necessary to produce it; at least so far
as the brute species is concerned.

SECTION IV.

PROPORTION NOT THE CAUSE OF BEAUTY IN THE HUMAN
SPECIES.

There are some parts of the human body that are observed to hold certain
proportions to each other; but before it can be proved that the efficient
cause of beauty lies in these, it must be shown that, wherever these are
found exact, the person to whom they belong is beautiful: I mean in the
effect produced on the view, either of any member distinctly considered, or
of the whole body together. It must be likewise shown, that these parts stand
in such a relation to each other, that the comparison between them may be

easily made, and that the affection of the mind may naturally result from it.
For my part, I have at several times very carefully examined many of those
proportions, and found them hold very nearly, or altogether alike in many
subjects, which were not only very different from one another, but where
one has been very beautiful, and the other very remote from beauty. With
regard to the parts which are found so proportioned, they are often so
remote from each other, in situation, nature, and office, that I cannot see
how they admit of any comparison, nor consequently how any effect owing
to proportion can result from them. The neck, say they, in beautiful bodies,
should measure with the calf of the leg; it should likewise be twice the
circumference of the wrist. And an infinity of observations of this kind are
to be found in the writings and conversations of many. But what relation
has the calf of the leg to the neck; or either of these parts to the wrist? These
proportions are certainly to be found in handsome bodies. They are as
certainly in ugly ones; as any who will take the pains to try may find. Nay, I
do not know but they may be least perfect in some of the most beautiful.
You may assign any proportions you please to every part of the human
body; and I undertake that a painter shall religiously observe them all, and
notwithstanding produce, if he pleases, a very ugly figure. The same painter
shall considerably deviate from these proportions, and produce a very
beautiful one. And, indeed, it may be observed in the masterpieces of the
ancient and modern statuary, that several of them differ very widely from
the proportions of others, in parts very conspicuous and of great
consideration; and that they differ no less from the proportions we find in
living men, of forms extremely striking and agreeable. And after all, how
are the partisans of proportional beauty agreed amongst themselves about
the proportions of the human body? Some hold it to be seven heads; some
make it eight; whilst others extend it even to ten: a vast difference in such a
small number of divisions! Others take other methods of estimating the
proportions, and all with equal success. But are these proportions exactly

the same in all handsome men? or are they at all the proportions found in
beautiful women? Nobody will say that they are; yet both sexes are
undoubtedly capable of beauty, and the female of the greatest; which
advantage I believe will hardly be attributed to the superior exactness of
proportion in the fair sex. Let us rest a moment on this point; and consider
how much difference there is between the measures that prevail in many
similar parts of the body, in the two sexes of this single species only. If you
assign any determinate proportions to the limbs of a man, and if you limit
human beauty to these proportions, when you find a woman who differs in
the make and measures of almost every part, you must conclude her not to
be beautiful, in spite of the suggestions of your imagination; or, in
obedience to your imagination, you must renounce your rules; you must lay
by the scale and compass, and look out for some other cause of beauty. For
if beauty be attached to certain measures which operate from a principle in
nature, why should similar parts with different measures of proportion be
found to have beauty, and this too in the very same species? But to open our
view a little, it is worth observing, that almost all animals have parts of very
much the same nature, and destined nearly to the same purposes; a head,
neck, body, feet, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth; yet Providence, to provide in
the best manner for their several wants, and to display the riches of his
wisdom and goodness in his creation, has worked out of these few and
similar organs, and members, a diversity hardly short of infinite in their
disposition, measures and relation. But, as we have before observed, amidst
this infinite diversity, one particular is common to many species: several of
the individuals which compose them are capable of affecting us with a
sense of loveliness: and whilst they agree in producing this effect, they
differ extremely in the relative measures of those parts which have
produced it. These considerations were sufficient to induce me to reject the
notion of any particular proportions that operated by nature to produce a
pleasing effect; but those who will agree with me with regard to a particular

proportion, are strongly prepossessed in favor of one more indefinite. They
imagine, that although beauty in general is annexed to no certain measures
common to the several kinds of pleasing plants and animals; yet that there is
a certain proportion in each species absolutely essential to the beauty of that
particular kind. If we consider the animal world in general, we find beauty
confined to no certain measures; but as some peculiar measure and relation
of parts is what distinguishes each peculiar class of animals, it must of
necessity be, that the beautiful in each kind will be found in the measures
and proportions of that kind; for otherwise it would deviate from its proper
species, and become in some sort monstrous: however, no species is so
strictly confined to any certain proportions, that there is not a considerable
variation amongst the individuals; and as it has been shown of the human,
so it may be shown of the brute kinds, that beauty is found indifferently in
all the proportions which each kind can admit, without quitting its common
form; and it is this idea of a common form that makes the proportion of
parts at all regarded, and not the operation of any natural cause: indeed a
little consideration will make it appear, that it is not measure, but manner,
that creates all the beauty which belongs to shape. What light do we borrow
from these boasted proportions, when we study ornamental design? It seems
amazing to me, that artists, if they were as well convinced as they pretend
to be, that proportion is a principal cause of beauty, have not by them at all
times accurate measurements of all sorts of beautiful animals to help them
to proper proportions, when they would contrive anything elegant;
especially as they frequently assert that it is from an observation of the
beautiful in nature they direct their practice. I know that it has been said
long since, and echoed backward and forward from one writer to another a
thousand times, that the proportions of building have been taken from those
of the human body. To make this forced analogy complete, they represent a
man with his arms raised and extended at full length, and then describe a
sort of square, as it is formed by passing lines along the extremities of this

strange figure. But it appears very clearly to me that the human figure never
supplied the architect with any of his ideas. For, in the first place, men are
very rarely seen in this strained posture; it is not natural to them; neither is
it at all becoming. Secondly, the view of the human figure so disposed, does
not naturally suggest the idea of a square, but rather of a cross; as that large
space be tween the arms and the ground must be filled with something
before it can make anybody think of a square. Thirdly, several buildings are
by no means of the form of that particular square, which are
notwithstanding planned by the best architects, and produce an effect
altogether as good, and perhaps a better. And certainly nothing could he
more unaccountably whimsical, than for an architect to model his
performance by the human figure, since no two things can have less
resemblance or analogy, than a man, and a house or temple: do we need to
observe that their purposes are entirely different? What I am apt to suspect
is this: that these analogies were devised to give a credit to the works of art,
by showing a conformity between them and the noblest works in nature; not
that the latter served at all to supply hints for the perfection of the former.
And I am the more fully convinced, that the patrons of proportion have
transferred their artificial ideas to nature, and not borrowed from thence the
proportions they use in works of art; because in any discussion of this
subject they always quit as soon as possible the open field of natural
beauties, the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and fortify themselves within
the artificial lines and angles of architecture. For there is in mankind an
unfortunate propensity to make themselves, their views, and their works,
the measure of excellence in everything whatsoever. Therefore having
observed that their dwellings were most commodious and firm when they
were thrown into regular figures, with parts answerable to each other; they
transferred these ideas to their gardens; they turned their trees into pillars,
pyramids, and obelisks; they formed their hedges into so many green walls,
and fashioned their walks into squares, triangles, and other mathematical

figures, with exactness and symmetry; and they thought, if they were not
imitating, they were at least improving nature, and teaching her to know her
business. But nature has at last escaped from their discipline and their
fetters; and our gardens, if nothing else, declare, we begin to feel that
mathematical ideas are not the true measures of beauty. And surely they are
full as little so in the animal as the vegetable world. For is it not
extraordinary, that in these fine descriptive pieces, these innumerable odes
and elegies which are in the mouths of all the world, and many of which
have been the entertainment of ages, that in these pieces which describe
love with such a passionate energy, and represent its object in such an
infinite variety of lights, not one word is said of proportion, if it be, what
some insist it is, the principal component of beauty; whilst, at the same
time, several other qualities are very frequently and warmly mentioned? But
if proportion has not this power, it may appear odd how men came
originally to be so prepossessed in its favor. It arose, I imagine, from the
fondness I have just mentioned, which men bear so remarkably to their own
works and notions; it arose from false reasonings on the effects of the
customary figure of animals; it arose from the Platonic theory of fitness and
aptitude. For which reason, in the next section, I shall consider the effects of
custom in the figure of animals; and afterwards the idea of fitness: since if
proportion does not operate by a natural power attending some measures, it
must be either by custom, or the idea of utility; there is no other way.

SECTION V.

PROPORTION FURTHER CONSIDERED.

If I am not mistaken, a great deal of the prejudice in favor of proportion has
arisen, not so much from the observation of any certain measures found in
beautiful bodies, as from a wrong idea of the relation which deformity bears
to beauty, to which it has been considered as the opposite; on this principle

it was concluded that where the causes of deformity were removed, beauty
must naturally and necessarily be introduced. This I believe is a mistake.
For deformity is opposed not to beauty, but to the complete common form. If
one of the legs of a man be found shorter than the other, the man is
deformed; because there is something wanting to complete the whole idea
we form of a man; and this has the same effect in natural faults, as maiming
and mutilation produce from accidents. So if the back be humped, the man
is deformed; because his back has an unusual figure, and what carries with
it the idea of some disease or misfortune; So if a man's neck be
considerably longer or shorter than usual, we say he is deformed in that
part, because men are not commonly made in that manner. But surely every
hour's experience may convince us that a man may have his legs of an equal
length, and resembling each other in all respects, and his neck of a just size,
and his back quite straight, without having at the same time the least
perceivable beauty. Indeed beauty is so far from belonging to the idea of
custom, that in reality what affects us in that manner is extremely rare and
uncommon. The beautiful strikes us as much by its novelty as the deformed
itself. It is thus in those species of animals with which we are acquainted;
and if one of a new species were represented, we should by no means wait
until custom had settled an idea of proportion, before we decided
concerning its beauty or ugliness: which shows that the general idea of
beauty can be no more owing to customary than to natural proportion.
Deformity arises from the want of the common proportions; but the
necessary result of their existence in any object is not beauty. If we suppose
proportion in natural things to be relative to custom and use, the nature of
use and custom will show that beauty, which is a positive and powerful
quality, cannot result from it. We are so wonderfully formed, that, whilst we
are creatures vehemently desirous of novelty, we are as strongly attached to
habit and custom. But it is the nature of things which hold us by custom, to
affect us very little whilst we are in possession of them, but strongly when

they are absent. I remember to have frequented a certain place, every day
for a long time together; and I may truly say that, so far from finding
pleasure in it, I was affected with a sort of weariness and disgust; I came, I
went, I returned, without pleasure; yet if by any means I passed by the usual
time of my going thither, I was remarkably uneasy, and was not quiet till I
had got into my old track. They who use snuff, take it almost without being
sensible that they take it, and the acute sense of smell is deadened, so as to
feel hardly anything from so sharp a stimulus; yet deprive the snuff-taker of
his box, and he is the most uneasy mortal in the world. Indeed so far are use
and habit from being causes of pleasure merely as such, that the effect of
constant use is to make all things of whatever kind entirely unaffecting. For
as use at last takes off the painful effect of many things, it reduces the
pleasurable effect in others in the same manner, and brings both to a sort of
mediocrity and indifference. Very justly is use called a second nature; and
our natural and common state is one of absolute indifference, equally
prepared for pain or pleasure. But when we are thrown out of this state, or
deprived of anything requisite to maintain us in it; when this chance does
not happen by pleasure from some mechanical cause, we are always hurt. It
is so with the second nature, custom, in all things which relate to it. Thus
the want of the usual proportions in men and other animals is sure to
disgust, though their presence is by no means any cause of real pleasure. It
is true that the proportions laid down as causes of beauty in the human
body, are frequently found in beautiful ones, because they are generally
found in all mankind; but if it can be shown too that they are found without
beauty, and that beauty frequently exists without them, and that this beauty,
where it exists, always can be assigned to other less equivocal causes, it will
naturally lead us to conclude that proportion and beauty are not ideas of the
same nature. The true opposite to beauty is not disproportion or deformity,
but ugliness: and as it proceeds from causes opposite to those of positive
beauty, we cannot consider it until we come to treat of that. Between beauty

and ugliness there is a sort of mediocrity, in which the assigned proportions
are most commonly found; but this has no effect upon the passions.

SECTION VI.

FITNESS NOT THE CAUSE OF BEAUTY.

It is said that the idea of utility, or of a part's being well adapted to answer
its end, is the cause of beauty, or indeed beauty itself. If it were not for this
opinion, it had been impossible for the doctrine of proportion to have held
its ground very long; the world would be soon weary of hearing of
measures which related to nothing, either of a natural principle, or of a
fitness to answer some end; the idea which mankind most commonly
conceive of proportion, is the suitableness of means to certain ends, and,
where this is not the question, very seldom trouble themselves about the
effect of different measures of things. Therefore it was necessary for this
theory to insist that not only artificial, but natural objects took their beauty
from the fitness of the parts for their several purposes. But in framing this
theory, I am apprehensive that experience was not sufficiently consulted.
For, on that principle, the wedge-like snout of a swine, with its tough
cartilage at the end, the little sunk eyes, and the whole make of the head, so
well adapted to its offices of digging and rooting, would be extremely
beautiful. The great bag hanging to the bill of a pelican, a thing highly
useful to this animal, would be likewise as beautiful in our eyes. The hedge-
hog, so well secured against all assaults by his prickly hide, and the
porcupine with his missile quills, would be then considered as creatures of
no small elegance. There are few animals whose parts are better contrived
than those of a monkey: he has the hands of a man, joined to the springy
limbs of a beast; he is admirably calculated for running, leaping, grappling,
and climbing; and yet there are few animals which seem to have less beauty
in the eyes of all mankind. I need say little on the trunk of the elephant, of

such various usefulness, and which is so far from contributing to his beauty.
How well fitted is the wolf for running and leaping! how admirably is the
lion armed for battle! but will any one therefore call the elephant, the wolf,
and the lion, beautiful animals? I believe nobody will think the form of a
man's leg so well adapted to running, as those of a horse, a dog, a deer, and
several other creatures; at least they have not that appearance: yet, I believe,
a well-fashioned human leg will be allowed to far exceed all these in
beauty. If the fitness of parts was what constituted the loveliness of their
form, the actual employment of them would undoubtedly much augment it;
but this, though it is sometimes so upon another principle, is far from being
always the case. A bird on the wing is not so beautiful as when it is perched;
nay, there are several of the domestic fowls which are seldom seen to fly,
and which are nothing the less beautiful on that account; yet birds are so
extremely different in their form from the beast and human kinds, that you
cannot, on the principle of fitness, allow them anything agreeable, but in
consideration of their parts being designed for quite other purposes. I never
in my life chanced to see a peacock fly; and yet before, very long before I
considered any aptitude in his form for the aërial life, I was struck with the
extreme beauty which raises that bird above many of the best flying fowls
in the world; though, for anything I saw, his way of living was much like
that of the swine, which fed in the farm-yard along with him. The same may
be said of cocks, hens, and the like; they are of the flying kind in figure; in
their manner of moving not very different from men and beasts. To leave
these foreign examples; if beauty in our own species was annexed to use,
men would be much more lovely than women; and strength and agility
would be considered as the only beauties. But to call strength by the name
of beauty, to have but one denomination for the qualities of a Venus and
Hercules, so totally different in almost all respects, is surely a strange
confusion of ideas, or abuse of words. The cause of this confusion, I
imagine, proceeds from our frequently perceiving the parts of the human

and other animal bodies to be at once very beautiful, and very well adapted
to their purposes; and we are deceived by a sophism, which makes us take
that for a cause which is only a concomitant: this is the sophism of the fly;
who imagined he raised a great dust, because he stood upon the chariot that
really raised it. The stomach, the lungs, the liver, as well as other parts, are
incomparably well adapted to their purposes; yet they are far from having
any beauty. Again, many things are very beautiful, in which it is impossible
to discern any idea of use. And I appeal to the first and most natural feelings
of mankind, whether on beholding a beautiful eye, or a well-fashioned
mouth, or a well-turned leg, any ideas of their being well fitted for seeing,
eating, or running, ever present themselves. What idea of use is it that
flowers excite, the most beautiful part of the vegetable world? It is true that
the infinitely wise and good Creator has, of his bounty, frequently joined
beauty to those things which he has made useful to us; but this does not
prove that an idea of use and beauty are the same thing, or that they are any
way dependent on each other.

SECTION VII.

THE REAL EFFECTS OF FITNESS.

When I excluded proportion and fitness from any share in beauty, I did not
by any means intend to say that they were of no value, or that they ought to
be disregarded in works of art. Works of art are the proper sphere of their
power; and here it is that they have their full effect. Whenever the wisdom
of our Creator intended that we should be affected with anything, he did not
confide the execution of his design to the languid and precarious operation
of our reason; but he endued it with powers and properties that prevent the
understanding, and even the will; which, seizing upon the senses and
imagination, captivate the soul, before the understanding is ready either to
join with them, or to oppose them. It is by a long deduction, and much

study, that we discover the adorable wisdom of God in his works: when we
discover it the effect is very different, not only in the manner of acquiring it,
but in its own nature, from that which strikes us without any preparation
from the sublime or the beautiful. How different is the satisfaction of an
anatomist, who discovers the use of the muscles and of the skin, the
excellent contrivance of the one for the various movements of the body, and
the wonderful texture of the other, at once a general covering, and at once a
general outlet as well as inlet; how different is this from the affection which
possesses an ordinary man at the sight of a delicate, smooth skin, and all the
other parts of beauty, which require no investigation to be perceived! In the
former case, whilst we look up to the Maker with admiration and praise, the
object which causes it may be odious and distasteful; the latter very often so
touches us by its power on the imagination, that we examine but little into
the artifice of its contrivance; and we have need of a strong effort of our
reason to disentangle our minds from the allurements of the object, to a
consideration of that wisdom which invented so powerful a machine. The
effect of proportion and fitness, at least so far as they proceed from a mere
consideration of the work itself, produce approbation, the acquiescence of
the understanding, but not love, nor any passion of that species. When we
examine the structure of a watch, when we come to know thoroughly the
use of every part of it, satisfied as we are with the fitness of the whole, we
are far enough from perceiving anything like beauty in the watch-work
itself; but let us look on the case, the labor of some curious artist in
engraving, with little or no idea of use, we shall have a much livelier idea of
beauty than we ever could have had from the watch itself, though the
masterpiece of Graham. In beauty, as I said, the effect is previous to any
knowledge of the use; but to judge of proportion, we must know the end for
which any work is designed. According to the end, the proportion varies.
Thus there is one proportion of a tower, another of a house; one proportion
of a gallery, another of a hall, another of a chamber. To judge of the

proportions of these, you must be first acquainted with the purposes for
which they were designed. Good sense and experience acting together, find
out what is fit to be done in every work of art. We are rational creatures, and
in all our works we ought to regard their end and purpose; the gratification
of any passion, how innocent soever, ought only to be of secondary
consideration. Herein is placed the real power of fitness and proportion;
they operate on the understanding considering them, which approves the
work and acquiesces in it. The passions, and the imagination which
principally raises them, have here very little to do. When a room appears in
its original nakedness, bare walls and a plain ceiling: let its proportion be
ever so excellent, it pleases very little; a cold approbation is the utmost we
can reach; a much worse proportioned room with elegant mouldings and
fine festoons, glasses, and other merely ornamental furniture, will make the
imagination revolt against the reason; it will please much more than the
naked proportion of the first room, which the understanding has so much
approved, as admirably fitted for its purposes. What I have here said and
before concerning proportion, is by no means to persuade people absurdly
to neglect the idea of use in the works of art. It is only to show that these
excellent things, beauty and proportion, are not the same; not that they
should either of them be disregarded.

SECTION VIII.

THE RECAPITULATION.

On the whole; if such parts in human bodies as are found proportioned,
were likewise constantly found beautiful, as they certainly are not; or if they
were so situated, as that a pleasure might flow from the comparison, which
they seldom are; or if any assignable proportions were found, either in
plants or animals, which were always attended with beauty, which never
was the case; or if, where parts were well adapted to their purposes, they

were constantly beautiful, and when no use appeared, there was no beauty,
which is contrary to all experience; we might conclude that beauty
consisted in proportion or utility. But since, in all respects, the case is quite
otherwise; we may be satisfied that beauty does not depend on these, let it
owe its origin to what else it will.

SECTION IX.

PERFECTION NOT THE CAUSE OF BEAUTY.

There is another notion current, pretty closely allied to the former; that
perfection is the constituent cause of beauty. This opinion has been made to
extend much further than to sensible objects. But in these, so far is
perfection, considered as such, from being the cause of beauty; that this
quality, where it is highest, in the female sex, almost always carries with it
an idea of weakness and imperfection. Women are very sensible of this; for
which reason they learn to lisp, to totter in their walk, to counterfeit
weakness, and even sickness. In all this they are guided by nature. Beauty
in distress is much the most affecting beauty. Blushing has little less power;
and modesty in general, which is a tacit allowance of imperfection, is itself
considered as an amiable quality, and certainly heightens every other that is
so. I know it is in every body's mouth, that we ought to love perfection.
This is to me a sufficient proof, that it is not the proper object of love. Who
ever said we ought to love a fine woman, or even any of these beautiful
animals which please us? Here to be affected, there is no need of the
concurrence of our will.

SECTION X.

HOW FAR THE IDEA OF BEAUTY MAY BE APPLIED TO THE
QUALITIES OF THE MIND.

Nor is this remark in general less applicable to the qualities of the mind.
Those virtues which cause admiration, and are of the sublimer kind,
produce terror rather than love; such as fortitude, justice, wisdom, and the
like. Never was any man amiable by force of these qualities. Those which
engage our hearts, which impress us with a sense of loveliness, are the
softer virtues; easiness of temper, compassion, kindness, and liberality;
though certainly those latter are of less immediate and momentous concern
to society, and of less dignity. But it is for that reason that they are so
amiable. The great virtues turn principally on dangers, punishments, and
troubles, and are exercised, rather in preventing the worst mischiefs, than in
dispensing favors; and are therefore not lovely, though highly venerable.
The subordinate turn on reliefs, gratifications, and indulgences; and are
therefore more lovely, though inferior in dignity. Those persons who creep
into the hearts of most people, who are chosen as the companions of their
softer hours, and their reliefs from care and anxiety, are never persons of
shining qualities or strong virtues. It is rather the soft green of the soul on
which we rest our eyes, that are fatigued with beholding more glaring
objects. It is worth observing how we feel ourselves affected in reading the
characters of Cæsar and Cato, as they are so finely drawn and contrasted in
Sallust. In one the ignoscendo largiundo; in the other, nil largiundo. In one,
the miseris perfugium; in the other, malis perniciem. In the latter we have
much to admire, much to reverence, and perhaps something to fear; we
respect him, but we respect him at a distance. The former makes us familiar
with him; we love him, and he leads us whither he pleases. To draw things
closer to our first and most natural feelings, I will add a remark made upon
reading this section by an ingenious friend. The authority of a father, so
useful to our well-being, and so justly venerable upon all accounts, hinders
us from having that entire love for him that we have for our mothers, where
the parental authority is almost melted down into the mother's fondness and
indulgence. But we generally have a great love for our grandfathers, in

whom this authority is removed a degree from us, and where the weakness
of age mellows it into something of a feminine partiality.

SECTION XI.

HOW FAR THE IDEA OF BEAUTY MAY BE APPLIED TO VIRTUE.

From what has been said in the foregoing section, we may easily see how
far the application of beauty to virtue may be made with propriety. The
general application of this quality to virtue has a strong tendency to
confound our ideas of things, and it has given rise to an infinite deal of
whimsical theory; as the affixing the name of beauty to proportion,
congruity, and perfection, as well as to qualities of things yet more remote
from our natural ideas of it, and from one another, has tended to confound
our ideas of beauty, and left us no standard or rule to judge by, that was not
even more uncertain and fallacious than our own fancies. This loose and
inaccurate manner of speaking has therefore misled us both in the theory of
taste and of morals; and induced us to remove the science of our duties
from their proper basis (our reason, our relations, and our necessities), to
rest it upon, foundations altogether visionary and unsubstantial.

SECTION XII.

THE REAL CAUSE OF BEAUTY.

Having endeavored to show what beauty is not, it remains that we should
examine, at least with equal attention, in what it really consists. Beauty is a
thing much too affecting not to depend upon some positive qualities. And
since it is no creature of our reason, since it strikes us without any reference
to use, and even where no use at all can be discerned, since the order and
method of nature is generally very different from our measures and

proportions, we must conclude that beauty is, for the greater part, some
quality in bodies acting mechanically upon the human mind by the
intervention of the senses. We ought, therefore, to consider attentively in
what manner those sensible qualities are disposed, in such things as by
experience we find beautiful, or which excite in us the passion of love, or
some correspondent affection.

SECTION XIII.

BEAUTIFUL OBJECTS SMALL.

The most obvious point that presents itself to us in examining any object is
its extent or quantity. And what degree of extent prevails in bodies that are
held beautiful, may be gathered from the usual manner of expression
concerning it. I am told that, in most languages, the objects of love are
spoken of under diminutive epithets. It is so in all the languages of which I
have any knowledge. In Greek the ιον and other diminutive terms are
almost always the terms of affection and tenderness. These diminutives
were commonly added by the Greeks to the names of persons with whom
they conversed on terms of friendship and familiarity. Though the Romans
were a people of less quick and delicate feelings, yet they naturally slid into
the lessening termination upon the same occasions. Anciently, in the
English language, the diminishing ling was added to the names of persons
and things that were the objects of love. Some we retain still, as darling (or
little dear), and a few others. But to this day, in ordinary conversation, it is
usual to add the endearing name of little to everything we love; the French
and Italians make use of these affectionate diminutives even more than we.
In the animal creation, out of our own species, it is the small we are inclined
to be fond of; little birds, and some of the smaller kinds of beasts. A great
beautiful thing is a manner of expression scarcely ever used; but that of a
great ugly thing is very common. There is a wide difference between

admiration and love. The sublime, which is the cause of the former, always
dwells on great objects, and terrible; the latter on small ones, and pleasing;
we submit to what we admire, but we love what submits to us; in one case
we are forced, in the other we are flattered, into compliance. In short, the
ideas of the sublime and the beautiful stand on foundations so different, that
it is hard, I had almost said impossible, to think of reconciling them in the
same subject, without considerably lessening the effect of the one or the
other upon the passions. So that, attending to their quantity, beautiful
objects are comparatively small.

SECTION XIV.

SMOOTHNESS.

The next property constantly observable in such objects is smoothness;[24] a
qualify so essential to beauty, that I do not now recollect anything beautiful
that is not smooth. In trees and flowers, smooth leaves are beautiful; smooth
slopes of earth in gardens; smooth streams in the landscape; smooth coats
of birds and beasts in animal beauties; in fine women, smooth skins; and in
several sorts of ornamental furniture, smooth and polished surfaces. A very
considerable part of the effect of beauty is owing to this quality; indeed the
most considerable. For, take any beautiful object, and give it a broken, and
rugged surface; and, however well formed it may be in other respects, it
pleases no longer. Whereas, let it want ever so many of the other
constituents, if it wants not this, it becomes more pleasing than almost all
the others without it. This seems to me so evident, that I am a good deal
surprised that none who have handled the subject have made any mention
of the quality of smoothness in the enumeration of those that go to the
forming of beauty. For, indeed, any ruggedness, any sudden, projection, any
sharp angle, is in the highest degree contrary to that idea.

SECTION XV.

GRADUAL VARIATION.

But as perfectly beautiful bodies are not composed of angular parts, so their
parts never continue long in the same right line.[25] They vary their direction
every moment, and they change under the eye by a deviation continually
carrying on, but for whose beginning or end you will find it difficult to
ascertain a point. The view of a beautiful bird will illustrate this
observation. Here we see the head increasing insensibly to the middle, from
whence it lessens gradually until it mixes with the neck; the neck loses itself
in a larger swell, which continues to the middle of the body, when the whole
decreases again to the tail; the tail takes a new direction, but it soon varies
its new course, it blends again with the other parts, and the line is
perpetually changing, above, below, upon every side. In this description I
have before me the idea of a dove; it agrees very well with most of the
conditions of beauty. It is smooth and downy; its parts are (to use that
expression) melted into one another; you are presented with no sudden
protuberance through the whole, and yet the whole is continually changing.
Observe that part of a beautiful woman where she is perhaps the most
beautiful, about the neck and breasts; the smoothness, the softness, the easy
and insensible swell; the variety of the surface, which is never for the
smallest space the same; the deceitful maze through which the unsteady eye
slides giddily, without knowing where to fix, or whither it is carried. Is not
this a demonstration of that change of surface, continual, and yet hardly
perceptible at any point, which forms one of the great constituents of
beauty? It gives me no small pleasure to find that I can strengthen my
theory in this point by the opinion of the very ingenious Mr. Hogarth,
whose idea of the line of beauty I take in general to be extremely just. But
the idea of variation, without attending so accurately to the manner of the
variation, has led him to consider angular figures as beautiful; these figures,

it is true, vary greatly, yet they vary in a sudden and broken manner, and I
do not find any natural object which is angular, and at the same time
beautiful. Indeed, few natural objects are entirely angular. But I think those
which approach the most nearly to it are the ugliest. I must add, too, that so
for as I could observe of nature, though the varied line is that alone in
which complete beauty is found, yet there is no particular line which is
always found in the most completely beautiful, and which is therefore
beautiful in preference to all other lines. At least I never could observe it.

SECTION XVI.

DELICACY.

An air of robustness and strength is very prejudicial to beauty. An
appearance of delicacy, and even of fragility, is almost essential to it.
Whoever examines the vegetable or animal creation will find this
observation to be founded in nature. It is not the oak, the ash, or the elm, or
any of the robust trees of the forest which we consider as beautiful; they are
awful and majestic, they inspire a sort of reverence. It is the delicate myrtle,
it is the orange, it is the almond, it is the jasmine, it is the vine which we
look on as vegetable beauties. It is the flowery species, so remarkable for its
weakness and momentary duration, that gives us the liveliest idea of beauty
and elegance. Among animals, the greyhound is more beautiful than the
mastiff, and the delicacy of a jennet, a barb, or an Arabian horse, is much
more amiable than the strength and stability of some horses of war or
carriage. I need here say little of the fair sex, where I believe the point will
be easily allowed me. The beauty of women is considerably owing to their
weakness or delicacy, and is even enhanced by their timidity, a quality of
mind analogous to it. I would not here be understood to say, that weakness
betraying very bad health has any share in beauty; but the ill effect of this is
not because it is weakness, but because the ill state of health, which

produces such weakness, alters the other conditions of beauty; the parts in
such a case collapse, the bright color, the lumen purpureum juventæ is gone,
and the fine variation is lost in wrinkles, sudden breaks, and right lines.

SECTION XVII.

BEAUTY IN COLOR.

As to the colors usually found in beautiful bodies, it may be somewhat
difficult to ascertain them, because, in the several parts of nature, there is an
infinite variety. However, even in this variety, we may mark out something
on which to settle. First, the colors of beautiful bodies must not be dusky or
muddy, but clean and fair. Secondly, they must not be of the strongest kind.
Those which seem most appropriated to beauty, are the milder of every sort;
light greens; soft blues; weak whites; pink reds; and violets. Thirdly, if the
colors be strong and vivid, they are always diversified, and the object is
never of one strong color; there are almost always such a number of them
(as in variegated flowers) that the strength and glare of each is considerably
abated. In a fine complexion there is not only some variety in the coloring,
but the colors: neither the red nor the white are strong and glaring. Besides,
they are mixed in such a manner, and with such gradations, that it is
impossible to fix the bounds. On the same principle it is that the dubious
color in the necks and tails of peacocks, and about the heads of drakes, is so
very agreeable. In reality, the beauty both of shape and coloring are as
nearly related as we can well suppose it possible for things of such different
natures to be.

SECTION XVIII.

RECAPITULATION.

On the whole, the qualities of beauty, as they are merely sensible qualities,
are the following: First, to be comparatively small. Secondly, to be smooth.
Thirdly, to have a variety in the direction of the parts; but, fourthly, to have
those parts not angular, but melted, as it were, into each other. Fifthly, to be
of a delicate frame, without any remarkable appearance of strength. Sixthly,
to have its colors clear and bright, but not very strong and glaring.
Seventhly, or if it should have any glaring color, to have it diversified with
others. These are, I believe, the properties on which beauty depends;
properties that operate by nature, and are less liable to be altered by caprice,
or confounded by a diversity of tastes, than any other.

SECTION XIX.

THE PHYSIOGNOMY.

The physiognomy has a considerable share in beauty, especially in that of
our own species. The manners give a certain determination to the
countenance; which, being observed to correspond pretty regularly with
them, is capable of joining the effect of certain agreeable qualities of the
mind to those of the body. So that to form a finished human beauty, and to
give it its full influence, the face must be expressive of such gentle and
amiable qualities, as correspond with the softness, smoothness, and delicacy
of the outward form.

SECTION XX.

THE EYE.

I have hitherto purposely omitted to speak of the eye, which has so great a
share in the beauty of the animal creation, as it did not fall so easily under
the foregoing heads, though in fact it is reducible to the same principles. I

think, then, that the beauty of the eye consists, first, in its clearness; what
colored eye shall please most, depends a good deal on particular fancies;
but none are pleased with an eye whose water (to use that term) is dull and
muddy.[26] We are pleased with the eye in this view, on the principle upon
which we like diamonds, clear water, glass, and such like transparent
substances. Secondly, the motion of the eye contributes to its beauty, by
continually shifting its direction; but a slow and languid motion is more
beautiful than a brisk one; the latter is enlivening; the former lovely.
Thirdly, with regard to the union of the eye with the neighboring parts, it is
to hold the same rule that is given of other beautiful ones; it is not to make a
strong deviation from the line of the neighboring parts; nor to verge into
any exact geometrical figure. Besides all this, the eye affects, as it is
expressive of some qualities of the mind, and its principal power generally
arises from this; so that what we have just said of the physiognomy is
applicable here.

SECTION XXI.

UGLINESS.

It may perhaps appear like a sort of repetition of what we have before said,
to insist here upon the nature of ugliness; as I imagine it to be in all respects
the opposite to those qualities which we have laid down for the constituents
of beauty. But though ugliness be the opposite to beauty, it is not the
opposite to proportion and fitness. For it is possible that a thing may be very
ugly with any proportions, and with a perfect fitness to any uses. Ugliness I
imagine likewise to be consistent enough with an idea of the sublime. But I
would by no means insinuate that ugliness of itself is a sublime idea, unless
united with such qualities as excite a strong terror.

SECTION XXII.

GRACE.

Gracefulness is an idea not very different from beauty; it consists in much
the same things. Gracefulness is an idea belonging to posture and motion. In
both these, to be graceful, it is requisite that there be no appearance of
difficulty; there is required a small inflection of the body; and a composure
of the parts in such a manner, as not to incumber each other, not to appear
divided by sharp and sudden angles. In this case, this roundness, this
delicacy of attitude and motion, it is that all the magic of grace consists, and
what is called its je ne sçai quoi; as will be obvious to any observer, who
considers attentively the Venus de Medicis, the Antinous or any statue
generally allowed to be graceful in a high degree.

SECTION XXIII.

ELEGANCE AND SPECIOUSNESS.

When any body is composed of parts smooth and polished, without pressing
upon each other, without showing any ruggedness or confusion, and at the
same time affecting some regular shape, I call it elegant. It is closely allied
to the beautiful, differing from it only in this regularity; which, however, as
it makes a very material difference in the affection produced, may very well
constitute another species. Under this head I rank those delicate and regular
works of art, that imitate no determinate object in nature, as elegant
buildings, and pieces of furniture. When any object partakes of the above-
mentioned qualities, or of those of beautiful bodies, and is withal of great
dimensions, it is full as remote from the idea of mere beauty; I call fine or
specious.

SECTION XXIV.

THE BEAUTIFUL IN FEELING.

The foregoing description of beauty, so far as it is taken in by the eye, may
he greatly illustrated by describing the nature of objects, which produce a
similar effect through the touch. This I call the beautiful in feeling. It
corresponds wonderfully with what causes the same species of pleasure to
the sight. There is a chain in all our sensations; they are all but different
sorts of feelings calculated to be affected by various sorts of objects, but all
to be affected after the same manner. All bodies that are pleasant to the
touch, are so by the slightness of the resistance they make. Resistance is
either to motion along the surface, or to the pressure of the parts on one
another: if the former be slight, we call the body smooth; if the latter, soft.
The chief pleasure we receive by feeling, is in the one or the other of these
qualities; and if there be a combination of both, our pleasure is greatly
increased. This is so plain, that it is rather more fit to illustrate other things,
than to be illustrated itself by an example. The next source of pleasure in
this sense, as in every other, is the continually presenting somewhat new;
and we find that bodies which continually vary their surface, are much the
most pleasant or beautiful to the feeling, as any one that pleases may
experience. The third property in such objects is, that though the surface
continually varies its direction, it never varies it suddenly. The application
of anything sudden, even though the impression itself have little or nothing
of violence, is disagreeable. The quick application of a finger a little
warmer or colder than usual, without notice, makes us start; a slight tap on
the shoulder, not expected, has the same effect. Hence it is that angular
bodies, bodies that suddenly vary the direction of the outline, afford so little
pleasure to the feeling. Every such change is a sort of climbing or falling in
miniature; so that squares, triangles, and other angular figures are neither
beautiful to the sight nor feeling. Whoever compares his state of mind, on

feeling soft, smooth, variated, unangular bodies, with that in which he finds
himself, on the view of a beautiful object, will perceive a very striking
analogy in the effects of both; and which may go a good way towards
discovering their common cause. Feeling and sight, in this respect, differ in
but a few points. The touch takes in the pleasure of softness, which is not
primarily an object of sight; the sight, on the other hand, comprehends
color, which can hardly he made perceptible to the touch: the touch, again,
has the advantage in a new idea of pleasure resulting from a moderate
degree of warmth; but the eye triumphs in the infinite extent and
multiplicity of its objects. But there is such a similitude in the pleasures of
these senses, that I am apt to fancy, if it were possible that one might
discern color by feeling (as it is said some blind men have done) that the
same colors, and the same disposition of coloring, which are found
beautiful to the sight, would be found likewise most grateful to the touch.
But, setting aside conjectures, let us pass to the other sense; of hearing.

SECTION XXV.

THE BEAUTIFUL IN SOUNDS.

In this sense we find an equal aptitude to be affected in a soft and delicate
manner; and how far sweet or beautiful sounds agree with our descriptions
of beauty in other senses, the experience of every one must decide. Milton
has described this species of music in one of his juvenile poems.[27] I need
not say that Milton was perfectly well versed in that art; and that no man
had a finer ear, with a happier manner of expressing the affections of one
sense by metaphors taken from another. The description is as follows:—

"And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs;
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out;

With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running;
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony."

Let us parallel this with the softness, the winding surface, the unbroken
continuance, the easy gradation of the beautiful in other things; and all the
diversities of the several senses, with all their several affections, will rather
help to throw lights from one another to finish one clear, consistent idea of
the whole, than to obscure it by their intricacy and variety.

To the above-mentioned description I shall add one or two remarks. The
first is; that the beautiful in music will not hear that loudness and strength
of sounds, which may be used to raise other passions; nor notes which are
shrill, or harsh, or deep; it agrees best with such as are clear, even, smooth,
and weak. The second is; that great variety, and quick transitions from one
measure or tone to another, are contrary to the genius of the beautiful in
music. Such[28] transitions often excite mirth, or other sudden or tumultuous
passions; but not that sinking, that melting, that languor, which is the
characteristical effect of the beautiful as it regards every sense. The passion
excited by beauty is in fact nearer to a species of melancholy, than to jollity
and mirth. I do not here mean to confine music to any one species of notes,
or tones, neither is it an art in which I can say I have any great skill. My
sole design in this remark is to settle a consistent idea of beauty. The
infinite variety of the affections of the soul will suggest to a good head, and
skilful ear, a variety of such sounds as are fitted to raise them. It can be no
prejudice to this, to clear and distinguish some few particulars that belong
to the same class, and are consistent with each other, from the immense
crowd of different and sometimes contradictory ideas, that rank vulgarly
under the standard of beauty. And of these it is my intention to mark such
only of the leading points as show the conformity of the sense of hearing
with all the other senses, in the article of their pleasures.

SECTION XXVI.

TASTE AND SMELL.

This general agreement of the senses is yet more evident on minutely
considering those of taste and smell. We metaphorically apply the idea of
sweetness to sights and sounds; but as the qualities of bodies by which they
are fitted to excite either pleasure or pain in these senses are not so obvious
as they are in the others, we shall refer an explanation of their analogy,
which is a very close one, to that part wherein we come to consider the
common efficient cause of beauty, as it regards all the senses. I do not think
anything better fitted to establish a clear and settled idea of visual beauty
than this way of examining the similar pleasures of other senses; for one
part is sometimes clear in one of the senses that is more obscure in another;
and where there is a clear concurrence of all, we may with more certainty
speak of any one of them. By this means, they bear witness to each other;
nature is, as it were, scrutinized; and we report nothing of her but what we
receive from her own information.

SECTION XXVII.

THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL COMPARED.

On closing this general view of beauty, it naturally occurs that we should
compare it with the sublime; and in this comparison there appears a
remarkable contrast. For sublime objects are vast in their dimensions,
beautiful ones comparatively small; beauty should be smooth and polished;
the great, rugged and negligent: beauty should shun the right line, yet
deviate from it insensibly; the great in many cases loves the right line; and
when it deviates, it often makes a strong deviation: beauty should not be
obscure; the great ought to be dark and gloomy: beauty should be light and
delicate; the great ought to be solid, and even massive. They are indeed

ideas of a very different nature, one being founded on pain, the other on
pleasure; and, however they may vary afterwards from the direct nature of
their causes, yet these causes keep up an eternal distinction between them, a
distinction never to be forgotten by any whose business it is to affect the
passions. In the infinite variety of natural combinations, we must expect to
find the qualities of things the most remote imaginable from each other
united in the same object. We must expect also to find combinations of the
same kind in the works of art. But when we consider the power of an object
upon our passions, we must know that when anything is intended to affect
the mind by the force of some predominant property, the affection produced
is like to be the more uniform and perfect, if all the other properties or
qualities of the object be of the same nature, and tending to the same design
as the principal.

"If black and white blend, soften, and unite
A thousand ways, are there no black and white?"

If the qualities of the sublime and beautiful are sometimes found united,
does this prove that they are the same; does it prove that they are any way
allied; does it prove even that they are not opposite and contradictory?
Black and white may soften, may blend; but they are not therefore the same.
Nor, when they are so softened and blended with each other, or with
different colors, is the power of black as black, or of white as white, so
strong as when each stands uniform and distinguished.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Part IV. sect. 20.

[25] Part IV. sect. 23.

[26] Part IV. sect. 25.

[27] L'Allegro.

[28]

"I ne'er am merry, when I hear sweet music."

SHAKESPEARE.

PART IV.

SECTION I.

OF THE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.

When I say, I intend to inquire into the efficient cause of sublimity and
beauty, I would not be understood to say, that I can come to the ultimate
cause. I do not pretend that I shall ever be able to explain why certain
affections of the body produce such a distinct emotion of mind, and no
other; or why the body is at all affected by the mind, or the mind by the
body. A little thought will show this to be impossible. But I conceive, if we
can discover what affections of the mind produce certain emotions of the
body; and what distinct feelings and qualities of body shall produce certain
determinate passions in the mind, and no others, I fancy a great deal will be
done; something not unuseful towards a distinct knowledge of our passions,
so far at least as we have them at present under our consideration. This is
all, I believe, we can do. If we could advance a step farther, difficulties
would still remain, as we should be still equally distant from the first cause.
When Newton first discovered the property of attraction, and settled its
laws, he found it served very well to explain several of the most remarkable
phenomena in nature; but yet, with reference to the general system of
things, he could consider attraction but as an effect, whose cause at that
time he did not attempt to trace. But when he afterwards began to account
for it by a subtle elastic ether, this great man (if in so great a man it be not
impious to discover anything like a blemish) seemed to have quitted his

usual cautious manner of philosophizing; since, perhaps, allowing all that
has been advanced on this subject to be sufficiently proved, I think it leaves
us with as many difficulties as it found us. That great chain of causes,
which, linking one to another, even to the throne of God himself, can never
be unravelled by any industry of ours. When we go but one step beyond the
immediate sensible qualities of things, we go out of our depth. All we do
after is but a faint struggle, that shows we are in an element which does not
belong to us. So that when I speak of cause, and efficient cause, I only mean
certain affections of the mind, that cause certain changes in the body; or
certain powers and properties in bodies, that work a change in the mind. As,
if I were to explain the motion of a body falling to the ground, I would say
it was caused by gravity; and I would endeavor to show after what manner
this power operated, without attempting to show why it operated in this
manner: or, if I were to explain the effects of bodies striking one another by
the common laws of percussion, I should not endeavor to explain how
motion itself is communicated.

SECTION II.

ASSOCIATION.

It is no small bar in the way of our inquiry into the cause of our passions,
that the occasions of many of them are given, and that their governing
motions are communicated at a time when we have not capacity to reflect
on them; at a time of which all sort of memory is worn out of our minds.
For besides such things as affect us in various manners, according to their
natural powers, there are associations made at that early season, which we
find it very hard afterwards to distinguish from natural effects. Not to
mention the unaccountable antipathies which we find in many persons, we
all find it impossible to remember when a steep became more terrible than a
plain; or fire or water more terrible than a clod of earth; though all these are

very probably either conclusions from experience, or arising from the
premonitions of others; and some of them impressed, in all likelihood,
pretty late. But as it must be allowed that many things affect us after a
certain manner, not by any natural powers they have for that purpose, but by
association; so it would be absurd, on the other hand, to say that all things
affect us by association only; since some things must have been originally
and naturally agreeable or disagreeable, from which the others derive their
associated powers; and it would be, I fancy, to little purpose to look for the
cause of our passions in association, until we fail of it in the natural
properties of things.

SECTION III.

CAUSE OF PAIN AND FEAR.

I have before observed,[29] that whatever is qualified to cause terror is a
foundation capable of the sublime; to which I add, that not only these, but
many things from which we cannot probably apprehend any danger, have a
similar effect, because they operate in a similar manner. I observed, too,[30]
that whatever produces pleasure, positive and original pleasure, is fit to
have beauty engrafted on it. Therefore, to clear up the nature of these
qualities, it may be necessary to explain the nature of pain and pleasure on
which they depend. A man who suffers under violent bodily pain, (I suppose
the most violent, because the effect may be the more obvious,) I say a man
in great pain has his teeth set, his eyebrows are violently contracted, his
forehead is wrinkled, his eyes are dragged inwards, and rolled with great
vehemence, his hair stands on end, the voice is forced out in short shrieks
and groans, and the whole fabric totters. Fear or terror, which is an
apprehension of pain or death, exhibits exactly the same effects,
approaching in violence to those just mentioned, in proportion to the
nearness of the cause, and the weakness of the subject. This is not only so in

the human species: but I have more than once observed in dogs, under an
apprehension of punishment, that they have writhed their bodies, and
yelped, and howled, as if they had actually felt the blows. From hence I
conclude, that pain and fear act upon the same parts of the body, and in the
same manner, though somewhat differing in degree: that pain and fear
consist in an unnatural tension of the nerves; that this is sometimes
accompanied with an unnatural strength, which sometimes suddenly
changes into an extraordinary weakness; that these effects often come on
alternately, and are sometimes mixed with each other. This is the nature of
all convulsive agitations, especially in weaker subjects, which are the most
liable to the severest impressions of pain and fear. The only difference
between pain and terror is, that things which cause pain operate on the mind
by the intervention of the body; whereas things that cause terror generally
affect the bodily organs by the operation of the mind suggesting the danger;
but both agreeing, either primarily or secondarily, in producing a tension,
contraction, or violent emotion of the nerves,[31] they agree likewise in
everything else. For it appears very clearly to me from this, as well as from
many other examples, that when the body is disposed, by any means
whatsoever, to such emotions as it would acquire by the means of a certain
passion; it will of itself excite something very like that passion in the mind.

SECTION IV.

CONTINUED.

To this purpose Mr. Spon, in his "Récherches d'Antiquité," gives us a
curious story of the celebrated physiognomist Campanella. This man, it
seems, had not only made very accurate observations on human faces, but
was very expert in mimicking such as were any way remarkable. When he
had a mind to penetrate into the inclinations of those he had to deal with, he
composed his face, his gesture, and his whole body, as nearly as he could

into the exact similitude of the person he intended to examine; and then
carefully observed what turn of mind he seemed to acquire by this change.
So that, says my author, he was able to enter into the dispositions and
thoughts of people as effectually as if he had been changed into the very
men. I have often observed, that on mimicking the looks and gestures of
angry, or placid, or frighted, or daring men, I have involuntarily found my
mind turned to that passion, whose appearance I endeavored to imitate; nay,
I am convinced it is hard to avoid it, though one strove to separate the
passion from its correspondent gestures. Our minds and bodies are so
closely and intimately connected, that one is incapable of pain or pleasure
without the other. Campanella, of whom we have been speaking, could so
abstract his attention from any sufferings of his body, that he was able to
endure the rack itself without much pain; and in lesser pains everybody
must have observed that, when we can employ our attention on anything
else, the pain has been for a time suspended: on the other hand, if by any
means the body is indisposed to perform such gestures, or to be stimulated
into such emotions as any passion usually produces in it, that passion itself
never can arise, though its cause should be never so strongly in action;
though it should be merely mental, and immediately affecting none of the
senses. As an opiate, or spirituous liquors, shall suspend the operation of
grief, or fear, or anger, in spite of all our efforts to the contrary; and this by
inducing in the body a disposition contrary to that which it receives from
these passions.

SECTION V.

HOW THE SUBLIME IS PRODUCED.

Having considered terror as producing an unnatural tension and certain
violent emotions of the nerves; it easily follows, from what we have just
said, that whatever is fitted to produce such a tension must be productive of

a passion similar to terror,[32] and consequently must be a source of the
sublime, though it should have no idea of danger connected with it. So that
little remains towards showing the cause of the sublime, but to show that
the instances we have given of it in the second part relate to such things, as
are fitted by nature to produce this sort of tension, either by the primary
operation of the mind or the body. With regard to such things as affect by
the associated idea of danger, there can be no doubt but that they produce
terror, and act by some modification of that passion; and that terror, when
sufficiently violent, raises the emotions of the body just mentioned, can as
little be doubted. But if the sublime is built on terror or some passion like it,
which has pain for its object, it is previously proper to inquire how any
species of delight can be derived from a cause so apparently contrary to it. I
say delight, because, as I have often remarked, it is very evidently different
in its cause, and in its own nature, from actual and positive pleasure.

SECTION VI.

HOW PAIN CAN BE A CAUSE OF DELIGHT.

Providence has so ordered it, that a state of rest and inaction, however it
may flatter our indolence, should be productive of many inconveniences;
that it should generate such disorders, as may force us to have recourse to
some labor, as a thing absolutely requisite to make us pass our lives with
tolerable satisfaction; for the nature of rest is to suffer all the parts of our
bodies to fall into a relaxation, that not only disables the members from
performing their functions, but takes away the vigorous tone of fibre which
is requisite for carrying on the natural and necessary secretions. At the same
time, that in this languid in active state, the nerves are more liable to the
most horrid convulsions, than when they are sufficiently braced and
strengthened. Melancholy, dejection, despair, and often self-murder, is the
consequence of the gloomy view we take of things in this relaxed state of

body. The best remedy for all these evils is exercise or labor; and labor is a
surmounting of difficulties, an exertion of the contracting power of the
muscles; and as such resembles pain, which consists in tension or
contraction, in everything but degree. Labor is not only requisite to preserve
the coarser organs, in a state fit for their functions; but it is equally
necessary to these finer and more delicate organs, on which, and by which,
the imagination and perhaps the other mental powers act. Since it is
probable, that not only the inferior parts of the soul, as the passions are
called, but the understanding itself makes use of some fine corporeal
instruments in its operation; though what they are, and where they are, may
be somewhat hard to settle: but that it does make use of such, appears from
hence; that a long exercise of the mental powers induces a remarkable
lassitude of the whole body; and on the other hand, that great bodily labor,
or pain, weakens and sometimes actually destroys the mental faculties.
Now, as a due exercise is essential to the coarse muscular parts of the
constitution, and that without this rousing they would become languid and
diseased, the very same rule holds with regard to those finer parts we have
mentioned; to have them in proper order, they must be shaken and worked
to a proper degree.

SECTION VII.

EXERCISE NECESSARY FOR THE FINER ORGANS.

As common labor, which is a mode of pain, is the exercise of the grosser, a
mode of terror is the exercise of the finer parts of the system; and if a
certain mode of pain be of such a nature as to act upon the eye or the ear, as
they are the most delicate organs, the affection approaches more nearly to
that which has a mental cause. In all these cases, if the pain and terror are so
modified as not to be actually noxious; if the pain is not carried to violence,
and the terror is not conversant about the present destruction of the person,

as these emotions clear the parts, whether fine or gross, of a dangerous and
troublesome incumbrance, they are capable of producing delight; not
pleasure, but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquillity tinged with
terror; which, as it belongs to self-preservation, is one of the strongest of all
the passions. Its object is the sublime.[33] Its highest degree I call
astonishment; the subordinate degrees are awe, reverence, and respect,
which, by the very etymology of the words, show from what source they are
derived, and how they stand distinguished from positive pleasure.

SECTION VIII.

WHY THINGS NOT DANGEROUS SOMETIMES PRODUCE A
PASSION LIKE TERROR.

A mode of terror or pain is always the cause of the sublime.[34] For terror or
associated danger, the foregoing explication is, I believe, sufficient. It will
require something more trouble to show, that such examples as I have given
of the sublime in the second part are capable of producing a mode of pain,
and of being thus allied to terror, and to be accounted for on the same
principles. And first of such objects as are great in their dimensions. I speak
of visual objects.

SECTION IX.

WHY VISUAL OBJECTS OF GREAT DIMENSIONS ARE SUBLIME.

Vision is performed by having a picture, formed by the rays of light which
are reflected from the object, painted in one piece, instantaneously, on the
retina, or last nervous part of the eye. Or, according to others, there is but
one point of any object painted on the eye in such a manner as to be
perceived at once, but by moving the eye, we gather up, with great celerity,

the several parts of the object, so as to form one uniform piece. If the
former opinion be allowed, it will be considered,[35] that though all the light
reflected from a large body should strike the eye in one instant; yet we must
suppose that the body itself is formed of a vast number of distinct points,
every one of which, or the ray from every one, makes an impression on the
retina. So that, though the image of one point should cause but a small
tension of this membrane, another, and another, and another stroke, must in
their progress cause a very great one, until it arrives at last to the highest
degree; and the whole capacity of the eye, vibrating in all its parts, must
approach near to the nature of what causes pain, and consequently must
produce an idea of the sublime. Again, if we take it, that one point only of
an object is distinguishable at once; the matter will amount nearly to the
same thing, or rather it will make the origin of the sublime from greatness
of dimension yet clearer. For if but one point is observed at once, the eye
must traverse the vast space of such bodies with great quickness, and
consequently the fine nerves and muscles destined to the motion of that part
must be very much strained; and their great sensibility must make them
highly affected by this straining. Besides, it signifies just nothing to the
effect produced, whether a body has its parts connected and makes its
impression at once; or, making but one impression of a point at a time, it
causes a succession of the same or others so quickly as to make them seem
united; as is evident from the common effect of whirling about a lighted
torch or piece of wood: which, if done with celerity, seems a circle of fire.

SECTION X.

UNITY WHY REQUISITE TO VASTNESS.

It may be objected to this theory, that the eye generally receives an equal
number of rays at all times, and that therefore a great object cannot affect it
by the number of rays, more than that variety of objects which the eye must

always discern whilst it remains open. But to this I answer, that admitting
an equal number of rays, or an equal quantity of luminous particles to strike
the eye at all times, yet if these rays frequently vary their nature, now to
blue, now to red, and so on, or their manner of termination, as to a number
of petty squares, triangles, or the like, at every change, whether of color or
shape, the organ has a sort of relaxation or rest; but this relaxation and labor
so often interrupted, is by no means productive of ease; neither has it the
effect of vigorous and uniform labor. Whoever has remarked the different
effects of some strong exercise, and some little piddling action, will
understand why a teasing, fretful employment, which at once wearies and
weakens the body, should have nothing great; these sorts of impulses, which
are rather teasing than painful, by continually and suddenly altering their
tenor and direction, prevent that full tension, that species of uniform labor,
which is allied to strong pain, and causes the sublime. The sum total of
things of various kinds, though it should equal the number of the uniform
parts composing some one entire object, is not equal in its effect upon the
organs of our bodies. Besides the one already assigned, there is another very
strong reason for the difference. The mind in reality hardly ever can attend
diligently to more than one thing at a time; if this thing be little, the effect is
little, and a number of other little objects cannot engage the attention; the
mind is bounded by the bounds of the object; and what is not attended to,
and what does not exist, are much the same in the effect; but the eye or the
mind, (for in this case there is no difference,) in great, uniform objects, does
not readily arrive at their bounds; it has no rest, whilst it contemplates them;
the image is much the same everywhere. So that everything great by its
quantity must necessarily be one, simple and entire.

SECTION XI.

THE ARTIFICIAL INFINITE.

We have observed that a species of greatness arises from the artificial
infinite; and that this infinite consists in an uniform succession of great
parts: we observed too, that the same uniform succession had a like power
in sounds. But because the effects of many things are clearer in one of the
senses than in another, and that all the senses bear analogy to and illustrate
one another, I shall begin with this power in sounds, as the cause of the
sublimity from succession is rather more obvious in the sense of hearing.
And I shall here, once for all, observe, that an investigation of the natural
and mechanical causes of our passions, besides the curiosity of the subject,
gives, if they are discovered, a double strength and lustre to any rules we
deliver on such matters. When the ear receives any simple sound, it is
struck by a single pulse of the air which makes the ear-drum and the other
membranous parts vibrate according to the nature and species of the stroke.
If the stroke be strong, the organ of hearing suffers a considerable degree of
tension. If the stroke be repeated pretty soon after, the repetition causes an
expectation of another stroke. And it must be observed, that expectation
itself causes a tension. This is apparent in many animals, who, when they
prepare for hearing any sound, rouse themselves, and prick up their ears; so
that here the effect of the sounds is considerably augmented by a new
auxiliary, the expectation. But though after a number of strokes, we expect
still more, not being able to ascertain the exact time of their arrival, when
they arrive, they produce a sort of surprise, which increases this tension yet
further. For I have observed, that when at any time I have waited very
earnestly for some sound, that returned at intervals, (as the successive firing
of cannon,) though I fully expected the return of the sound, when it came it
always made me start a little; the ear-drum suffered a convulsion, and the
whole body consented with it. The tension of the part thus increasing at
every blow, by the united forces of the stroke itself, the expectation and the
surprise, it is worked up to such a pitch as to be capable of the sublime; it is
brought just to the verge of pain. Even when the cause has ceased, the

organs of hearing being often successively struck in a similar manner,
continue to vibrate in that manner for some time longer; this is an additional
help to the greatness of the effect.

SECTION XII.

THE VIBRATIONS MUST BE SIMILAR.

But if the vibration be not similar at every impression, it can never be
carried beyond the number of actual impressions; for, move any body as a
pendulum, in one way, and it will continue to oscillate in an arch of the
same circle, until the known causes make it rest; but if, after first putting it
in motion in one direction, you push it into another, it can never reassume
the first direction; because it can never move itself, and consequently it can
have but the effect of that last motion; whereas, if in the same direction you
act upon it several times, it will describe a greater arch, and move a longer
time.

SECTION XIII.

THE EFFECTS OF SUCCESSION IN VISUAL OBJECTS
EXPLAINED.

If we can comprehend clearly how things operate upon one of our senses,
there can be very little difficulty in conceiving in what manner they affect
the rest. To say a great deal therefore upon the corresponding affections of
every sense, would tend rather to fatigue us by an useless repetition, than to
throw any new light upon the subject by that ample and diffuse manner of
treating it; but as in this discourse we chiefly attach ourselves to the
sublime, as it affects the eye, we shall consider particularly why a
successive disposition of uniform parts in the same right line should be

sublime,[36] and upon what principle this disposition is enabled to make a
comparatively small quantity of matter produce a grander effect, than a
much larger quantity disposed in another manner. To avoid the perplexity of
general notions; let us set before our eyes, a colonnade of uniform pillars
planted in a right line; let us take our stand in such a manner, that the eye
may shoot along this colonnade, for it has its best effect in this view. In our
present situation it is plain, that the rays from the first round pillar will
cause in the eye a vibration of that species; an image of the pillar itself. The
pillar immediately succeeding increases it; that which follows renews and
enforces the impression; each in its order as it succeeds, repeats impulse
after impulse, and stroke after stroke, until the eye, long exercised in one
particular way, cannot lose that object immediately, and, being violently
roused by this continued agitation, it presents the mind with a grand or
sublime conception. But instead of viewing a rank of uniform pillars, let us
suppose that they succeed each other, a round and a square one alternately.
In this case the vibration caused by the first round pillar perishes as soon as
it is formed; and one of quite another sort (the square) directly occupies its
place; which however it resigns as quickly to the round one; and thus the
eye proceeds, alternately, taking up one image, and laying down another, as
long as the building continues. From whence it is obvious that, at the last
pillar, the impression is as far from continuing as it was at the very first;
because, in fact, the sensory can receive no distinct impression but from the
last; and it can never of itself resume a dissimilar impression: besides every
variation of the object is a rest and relaxation to the organs of sight; and
these reliefs prevent that powerful emotion so necessary to produce the
sublime. To produce therefore a perfect grandeur in such things as we have
been mentioning, there should be a perfect simplicity, an absolute
uniformity in disposition, shape, and coloring. Upon this principle of
succession and uniformity it may be asked, why a long bare wall should not
be a more sublime object than a colonnade; since the succession is no way

interrupted; since the eye meets no check; since nothing more uniform can
be conceived? A long bare wall is certainly not so grand an object as a
colonnade of the same length and height. It is not altogether difficult to
account for this difference. When we look at a naked wall, from the
evenness of the object, the eye runs along its whole space, and arrives
quickly at its termination; the eye meets nothing which may interrupt its
progress; but then it meets nothing which may detain it a proper time to
produce a very great and lasting effect. The view of a bare wall, if it be of a
great height and length, is undoubtedly grand; but this is only one idea, and
not a repetition of similar ideas: it is therefore great, not so much upon the
principle of infinity, as upon that of vastness. But we are not so powerfully
affected with any one impulse, unless it be one of a prodigious force indeed,
as we are with a succession of similar impulses; because the nerves of the
sensory do not (if I may use the expression) acquire a habit of repeating the
same feeling in such a manner as to continue it longer than its cause is in
action; besides, all the effects which I have attributed to expectation and
surprise in Sect. 11, can have no place in a bare wall.

SECTION XIV.

LOCKE'S OPINION CONCERNING DARKNESS CONSIDERED.

It is Mr. Locke's opinion, that darkness is not naturally an idea of terror; and
that, though an excessive light is painful to the sense, the greatest excess of
darkness is no ways troublesome. He observes indeed in another place, that
a nurse or an old woman having once associated the ideas of ghosts and
goblins with that of darkness, night, ever after, becomes painful and
horrible to the imagination. The authority of this great man is doubtless as
great as that of any man can be, and it seems to stand in the way of our
general principle.[37] We have considered darkness as a cause of the
sublime; and we have all along considered the sublime as depending on

some modification of pain or terror: so that if darkness be no way painful or
terrible to any, who have not had their minds early tainted with
superstitions, it can be no source of the sublime to them. But, with all
deference to such an authority, it seems to me, that an association of a more
general nature, an association which takes in all mankind, may make
darkness terrible; for in utter darkness it is impossible to know in what
degree of safety we stand; we are ignorant of the objects that surround us;
we may every moment strike against some dangerous obstruction; we may
fall down a precipice the first step we take; and if an enemy approach, we
know not in what quarter to defend ourselves; in such a case strength is no
sure protection; wisdom can only act by guess; the boldest are staggered,
and he who would pray for nothing else towards his defence is forced to
pray for light.

Ζεὖ πἀτερ, ἀλλὰ σὺ ῥῡσαι ὑπ' ἠέρος υἶας Ἀχαιὢν;
Ποίησον δ' αἴθρην, δὸς δ' ὀφθαλμοἲσιν ἰδέσθαι;
Ἐν δὲ φάει καὶ ὄλεσσον....

As to the association of ghosts and goblins; surely it is more natural to
think that darkness, being originally an idea of terror, was chosen as a fit
scene for such terrible representations, than that such representations have
made darkness terrible. The mind of man very easily slides into an error of
the former sort; but it is very hard to imagine, that the effect of an idea so
universally terrible in all times, and in all countries, as darkness, could
possibly have been owing to a set of idle stories, or to any cause of a nature
so trivial, and of an operation so precarious.

SECTION XV.

DARKNESS TERRIBLE IN ITS OWN NATURE.

Perhaps it may appear on inquiry, that blackness and darkness are in some
degree painful by their natural operation, independent of any associations
whatsoever. I must observe, that the ideas of darkness and blackness are
much the same; and they differ only in this, that blackness is a more
confined idea. Mr. Cheselden has given us a very curious story of a boy
who had been born blind, and continued so until he was thirteen or fourteen
years old; he was then couched for a cataract, by which operation he
received his sight. Among many remarkable particulars that attended his
first perceptions and judgments on visual objects, Cheselden tells us, that
the first time the boy saw a black object, it gave him great uneasiness; and
that some time after, upon accidentally seeing a negro woman, he was
struck with great horror at the sight. The horror, in this case, can scarcely be
supposed to arise from any association. The boy appears by the account to
have been particularly observing and sensible for one of his age; and

therefore it is probable, if the great uneasiness he felt at the first sight of
black had arisen from its connection with any other disagreeable ideas, he
would have observed and mentioned it. For an idea, disagreeable only by
association, has the cause of its ill effect on the passions evident enough at
the first impression; in ordinary cases, it is indeed frequently lost; but this is
because the original association was made very early, and the consequent
impression repeated often. In our instance, there was no time for such a
habit; and there is no reason to think that the ill effects of black on his
imagination were more owing to its connection with any disagreeable ideas,
than that the good effects of more cheerful colors were derived from their
connection with pleasing ones. They had both probably their effects from
their natural operation.

SECTION XVI.

WHY DARKNESS IS TERRIBLE.

It may be worth while to examine how darkness can operate in such a
manner as to cause pain. It is observable, that still as we recede from the
light, nature has so contrived it, that the pupil is enlarged by the retiring of
the iris, in proportion to our recess. Now, instead of declining from it but a
little, suppose that we withdraw entirely from the light; it is reasonable to
think that the contraction of the radial fibres of the iris is proportionally
greater; and that this part may by great darkness come to be so contracted,
as to strain the nerves that compose it beyond their natural tone; and by this
means to produce a painful sensation. Such a tension it seems there
certainly is, whilst we are involved in darkness; for in such a state, whilst
the eye remains open, there is a continual nisus to receive light; this is
manifest from the flashes and luminous appearances which often seem in
these circumstances to play before it; and which can be nothing but the
effect of spasms, produced by its own efforts in pursuit of its object: several

other strong impulses will produce the idea of light in the eye, besides the
substance of light itself, as we experience on many occasions. Some, who
allow darkness to be a cause of the sublime, would infer, from the dilatation
of the pupil, that a relaxation may be productive of the sublime as well as a
convulsion: but they do not, I believe, consider, that although the circular
ring of the iris be in some sense a sphincter, which may possibly be dilated
by a simple relaxation, yet in one respect it differs from most of the other
sphincters of the body, that it is furnished with antagonist muscles, which
are the radial fibres of the iris: no sooner does the circular muscle begin to
relax, than these fibres, wanting their counterpoise, are forcibly drawn back,
and open the pupil to a considerable wideness. But though we were not
apprised of this, I believe any one will find, if he opens his eyes and makes
an effort to see in a dark place, that a very perceivable pain ensues. And I
have heard some ladies remark, that after having worked a long time upon a
ground of black, their eyes were so pained and weakened, they could hardly
see. It may perhaps be objected to this theory of the mechanical effect of
darkness, that the ill effects of darkness or blackness seem rather mental
than corporeal: and I own it is true that they do so; and so do all those that
depend on the affections of the finer parts of our system. The ill effects of
bad weather appear often no otherwise than in a melancholy and dejection
of spirits; though without doubt, in this case, the bodily organs suffer first,
and the mind through these organs.

SECTION XVII.

THE EFFECTS OF BLACKNESS.

Blackness is but a partial darkness; and therefore it derives some of its
powers from being mixed and surrounded with colored bodies. In its own
nature, it cannot be considered as a color. Black bodies, reflecting none, or
but a few rays, with regard to sight, are but as so many vacant spaces,

dispersed among the objects we view. When the eye lights on one of these
vacuities, after having been kept in some degree of tension by the play of
the adjacent colors upon it, it suddenly falls into a relaxation; out of which
it as suddenly recovers by a convulsive spring. To illustrate this: let us
consider that when we intend to sit on a chair, and find it much lower than
was expected, the shock is very violent; much more violent than could be
thought from so slight a fall as the difference between one chair and another
can possibly make. If, after descending a flight of stairs, we attempt
inadvertently to take another step in the manner of the former ones, the
shock is extremely rude and disagreeable: and by no art can we cause such
a shock by the same means when we expect and prepare for it. When I say
that this is owing to having the change made contrary to expectation; I do
not mean solely, when the mind expects. I mean likewise, that when any
organ of sense is for some time affected in some one manner, if it be
suddenly affected otherwise, there ensues a convulsive motion; such a
convulsion as is caused when anything happens against the expectance of
the mind. And though it may appear strange that such a change as produces
a relaxation should immediately produce a sudden convulsion; it is yet most
certainly so, and so in all the senses. Every one knows that sleep is a
relaxation; and that silence, where nothing keeps the organs of hearing in
action, is in general fittest to bring on this relaxation; yet when a sort of
murmuring sounds dispose a man to sleep, let these sounds cease suddenly,
and the person immediately awakes; that is, the parts are braced up
suddenly, and he awakes. This I have often experienced myself, and I have
heard the same from observing persons. In like manner, if a person in broad
daylight were falling asleep, to introduce a sudden darkness would prevent
his sleep for that time, though silence and darkness in themselves, and not
suddenly introduced, are very favorable to it. This I knew only by
conjecture on the analogy of the senses when I first digested these
observations; but I have since experienced it. And I have often experienced,

and so have a thousand others, that on the first inclining towards sleep, we
have been suddenly awakened with a most violent start; and that this start
was generally preceded by a sort of dream of our falling down a precipice:
whence does this strange motion arise, but from the too sudden relaxation
of the body, which by some mechanism in nature restores itself by as quick
and vigorous an exertion of the contracting power of the muscles? The
dream itself is caused by this relaxation; and it is of too uniform a nature to
be attributed to any other cause. The parts relax too suddenly, which is in
the nature of falling; and this accident of the body induces this image in the
mind. When we are in a confirmed state of health and vigor, as all changes
are then less sudden, and less on the extreme, we can seldom complain of
this disagreeable sensation.

SECTION XVIII.

THE EFFECTS OF BLACKNESS MODERATED.

Though the effects of black be painful originally, we must not think they
always continue so. Custom reconciles us to everything. After we have been
used to the sight of black objects, the terror abates, and the smoothness and
glossiness, or some agreeable accident of bodies so colored, softens in some
measure the horror and sternness of their original nature; yet the nature of
the original impression still continues. Black will always have something
melancholy in it, because the sensory will always find the change to it from
other colors too violent; or if it occupy the whole compass of the sight, it
will then be darkness; and what was said of darkness will be applicable
here. I do not purpose to go into all that might be said to illustrate this
theory of the effects of light and darkness; neither will I examine all the
different effects produced by the various modifications and mixtures of
these two causes. If the foregoing observations have any foundation in
nature, I conceive them very sufficient to account for all the phenomena

that can arise from all the combinations of black with other colors. To enter
into every particular, or to answer every objection, would be an endless
labor. We have only followed the most leading roads; and we shall observe
the same conduct in our inquiry into the cause of beauty.

SECTION XIX.

THE PHYSICAL CAUSE OF LOVE.

When we have before us such objects as excite love and complacency, the
body is affected, so far as I could observe, much in the following manner:
the head reclines something on one side; the eyelids are more closed than
usual, and the eyes roll gently with an inclination to the object; the mouth is
a little opened, and the breath drawn slowly, with now and then a low sigh;
the whole body is composed, and the hands fall idly to the sides. All this is
accompanied with an inward sense of melting and languor. These
appearances are always proportioned to the degree of beauty in the object,
and of sensibility in the observer. And this gradation from the highest pitch
of beauty and sensibility, even to the lowest of mediocrity and indifference,
and their correspondent effects, ought to be kept in view, else this
description will seem exaggerated, which it certainly is not. But from this
description it is almost impossible not to conclude that beauty acts by
relaxing the solids of the whole system. There are all the appearances of
such a relaxation; and a relaxation somewhat below the natural tone seems
to me to be the cause of all positive pleasure. Who is a stranger to that
manner of expression so common in all times and in all countries, of being
softened, relaxed, enervated, dissolved, melted away by pleasure? The
universal voice of mankind, faithful to their feelings, concurs in affirming
this uniform and general effect: and although some odd and particular
instance may perhaps be found, wherein there appears a considerable
degree of positive pleasure, without all the characters of relaxation, we must

not therefore reject the conclusion we had drawn from a concurrence of
many experiments; but we must still retain it, subjoining the exceptions
which may occur according to the judicious rule laid down by Sir Isaac
Newton in the third book of his Optics. Our position will, I conceive,
appear confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt, if we can show that such
things as we have already observed to be the genuine constituents of beauty
have each of them, separately taken, a natural tendency to relax the fibres.
And if it must be allowed us, that the appearance of the human body, when
all these constituents are united together before the sensory, further favors
this opinion, we may venture, I believe, to conclude that the passion called
love is produced by this relaxation. By the same method of reasoning which
we have used in the inquiry into the causes of the sublime, we may likewise
conclude, that as a beautiful object presented to the sense, by causing a
relaxation of the body, produces the passion of love in the mind; so if by
any means the passion should first have its origin in the mind, a relaxation
of the outward organs will as certainly ensue in a degree proportioned to the
cause.

SECTION XX.

WHY SMOOTHNESS IS BEAUTIFUL.

It is to explain the true cause of visual beauty that I call in the assistance of
the other senses. If it appears that smoothness is a principal cause of
pleasure to the touch, taste, smell, and hearing, it will be easily admitted a
constituent of visual beauty; especially as we have before shown, that this
quality is found almost without exception in all bodies that are by general
consent held beautiful. There can be no doubt that bodies which are rough
and angular, rouse and vellicate the organs of feeling, causing a sense of
pain, which consists in the violent tension or contraction of the muscular
fibres. On the contrary, the application of smooth bodies relaxes; gentle

stroking with a smooth hand allays violent pains and cramps, and relaxes
the suffering parts from their unnatural tension; and it has therefore very
often no mean effect in removing swellings and obstructions. The sense of
feeling is highly gratified with smooth bodies. A bed smoothly laid, and
soft, that is, where the resistance is every way inconsiderable, is a great
luxury, disposing to an universal relaxation, and inducing beyond anything
else that species of it called sleep.

SECTION XXI.

SWEETNESS, ITS NATURE.

Nor is it only in the touch that smooth bodies cause positive pleasure by
relaxation. In the smell and taste, we find all things agreeable to them, and
which are commonly called sweet, to be of a smooth nature, and that they
all evidently tend to relax their respective sensories. Let us first consider the
taste. Since it is most easy to inquire into the property of liquids, and since
all things seem to want a fluid vehicle to make them tasted at all, I intend
rather to consider the liquid than the solid parts of our food. The vehicles of
all tastes are water and oil. And what determines the taste is some salt,
which affects variously according to its nature, or its manner of being
combined with other things. Water and oil, simply considered, are capable
of giving some pleasure to the taste. Water, when simple, is insipid,
inodorous, colorless, and smooth; it is found, when not cold, to be a great
resolver of spasms, and lubricator of the fibres; this power it probably owes
to its smoothness. For as fluidity depends, according to the most general
opinion, on the roundness, smoothness, and weak cohesion of the
component parts of any body, and as water acts merely as a simple fluid, it
follows that the cause of its fluidity is likewise the cause of its relaxing
quality, namely, the smoothness and slippery texture of its parts. The other
fluid vehicle of tastes is oil. This too, when simple, is insipid, inodorous,

colorless, and smooth to the touch and taste. It is smoother than water, and
in many cases yet more relaxing. Oil is in some degree pleasant to the eye,
the touch, and the taste, insipid as it is. Water is not so grateful; which I do
not know on what principle to account for, other than that water is not so
soft and smooth. Suppose that to this oil or water were added a certain
quantity of a specific salt, which had a power of putting the nervous papillæ
of the tongue into a gentle vibratory motion; as suppose sugar dissolved in
it. The smoothness of the oil and the vibratory power of the salt cause the
sense we call sweetness. In all sweet bodies, sugar, or a substance very little
different from sugar, is constantly found. Every species of salt, examined by
the microscope, has its own distinct, regular, invariable form. That of nitre
is a pointed oblong; that of sea-salt an exact cube; that of sugar a perfect
globe. If you have tried how smooth globular bodies, as the marbles with
which boys amuse themselves, have affected the touch when they are rolled
backward and forward and over one another, you will easily conceive how
sweetness, which consists in a salt of such nature, affects the taste; for a
single globe (though somewhat pleasant to the feeling), yet by the regularity
of its form, and the somewhat too sudden deviation of its parts from a right
line, is nothing near so pleasant to the touch as several globes, where the
hand gently rises to one and falls to another; and this pleasure is greatly
increased if the globes are in motion, and sliding over one another; for this
soft variety prevents that weariness, which the uniform disposition of the
several globes would otherwise produce. Thus in sweet liquors, the parts of
the fluid vehicle, though most probably round, are yet so minute, as to
conceal the figure of their component parts from the nicest inquisition of
the microscope; and consequently, being so excessively minute, they have a
sort of flat simplicity to the taste, resembling the effects of plain smooth
bodies to the touch; for if a body be composed of round parts excessively
small, and packed pretty closely together, the surface will be both to the
sight and touch as if it were nearly plain and smooth. It is clear from their

unveiling their figure to the microscope, that the particles of sugar are
considerably larger than those of water or oil, and consequently that their
effects from their roundness will be more distinct and palpable to the
nervous papillæ of that nice organ the tongue; they will induce that sense
called sweetness, which in a weak manner we discover in oil, and in a yet
weaker in water; for, insipid as they are, water and oil are in some degree
sweet; and it may be observed, that insipid things of all kinds approach
more nearly to the nature of sweetness than to that of any other taste.

SECTION XXII.

SWEETNESS RELAXING.

In the other senses we have remarked, that smooth things are relaxing. Now
it ought to appear that sweet things, which are the smooth of taste, are
relaxing too. It is remarkable, that in some languages soft and sweet have
but one name. Doux in French signifies soft as well as sweet. The Latin
dulcis, and the Italian dolce, have in many cases the same double
signification. That sweet things are generally relaxing, is evident; because
all such, especially those which are most oily, taken frequently, or in a large
quantity, very much enfeeble the tone of the stomach. Sweet smells, which
bear a great affinity to sweet tastes, relax very remarkably. The smell of
flowers disposes people to drowsiness; and this relaxing effect is further
apparent from the prejudice which people of weak nerves receive from their
use. It were worth while to examine, whether tastes of this kind, sweet ones,
tastes that are caused by smooth oils and a relaxing salt, are not the
originally pleasant tastes. For many, which use has rendered such, were not
at all agreeable at first. The way to examine this is, to try what nature has
originally provided for us, which she has undoubtedly made originally
pleasant; and to analyze this provision. Milk is the first support of our
childhood. The component parts of this are water, oil, and a sort of a very

sweet salt, called the sugar of milk. All these when blended have a great
smoothness to the taste, and a relaxing quality to the skin. The next thing
children covet is fruit, and of fruits those principally which are sweet; and
every one knows that the sweetness of fruit is caused by a subtle oil, and
such a salt as that mentioned in the last section. Afterwards custom, habit,
the desire of novelty, and a thousand other causes, confound, adulterate, and
change our palates, so that we can no longer reason with any satisfaction
about them. Before we quit this article, we must observe, that as smooth
things are, as such, agreeable to the taste, and are found of a relaxing
quality; so on the other hand, things which are found by experience to be of
a strengthening quality, and fit to brace the fibres, are almost universally
rough and pungent to the taste, and in many cases rough even to the touch.
We often apply the quality of sweetness, metaphorically, to visual objects.
For the better carrying on this remarkable analogy of the senses, we may
here call sweetness the beautiful of the taste.

SECTION XXIII.

VARIATION, WHY BEAUTIFUL.

Another principal property of beautiful objects is, that the line of their parts
is continually varying its direction; but it varies it by a very insensible
deviation; it never varies it so quickly as to surprise, or by the sharpness of
its angle to cause any twitching or convulsion of the optic nerve. Nothing
long continued in the same manner, nothing very suddenly varied, can be
beautiful; because both are opposite to that agreeable relaxation which is
the characteristic effect of beauty. It is thus in all the senses. A motion in a
right line is that manner of moving, next to a very gentle descent, in which
we meet the least resistance; yet it is not that manner of moving, which next
to a descent, wearies us the least. Rest certainly tends to relax: yet there is a
species of motion which relaxes more than rest; a gentle oscillatory motion,

a rising and falling. Rocking sets children to sleep better than absolute rest;
there is indeed scarcely anything at that age, which gives more pleasure
than to be gently lifted up and down; the manner of playing which their
nurses use with children, and the weighing and swinging used afterwards by
themselves as a favorite amusement, evince this very sufficiently. Most
people must have observed the sort of sense they have had on being swiftly
drawn in an easy coach on a smooth turf, with gradual ascents and
declivities. This will give a better idea of the beautiful, and point out its
probable cause better, than almost anything else. On the contrary, when one
is hurried over a rough, rocky, broken road, the pain felt by these sudden
inequalities shows why similar sights, feelings, and sounds, are so contrary
to beauty: and with regard to the feeling, it is exactly the same in its effect,
or very nearly the same, whether, for instance, I move my hand along the
surface of a body of a certain shape, or whether such a body is moved along
my hand. But to bring this analogy of the senses home to the eye; if a body
presented to that sense has such a waving surface, that the rays of light
reflected from it are in a continual insensible deviation from the strongest to
the weakest (which is always the case in a surface gradually unequal), it
must be exactly similar in its effects on the eye and touch; upon the one of
which it operates directly, on the other indirectly. And this body will be
beautiful if the lines which compose its surface are not continued, even so
varied, in a manner that may weary or dissipate the attention. The variation
itself must be continually varied.

SECTION XXIV.

CONCERNING SMALLNESS.

To avoid a sameness which may arise from the too frequent repetition of the
same reasonings, and of illustrations of the same nature, I will not enter
very minutely into every particular that regards beauty, as it is founded on

the disposition of its quantity, or its quantity itself. In speaking of the
magnitude of bodies there is great uncertainty, because the ideas of great
and small are terms almost entirely relative to the species of the objects,
which are infinite. It is true, that having once fixed the species of any
object, and the dimensions common in the individuals of that species, we
may observe some that exceed, and some that fall short of, the ordinary
standard: those which greatly exceed are, by that excess, provided the
species itself be not very small, rather great and terrible than beautiful; but
as in the animal world, and in a good measure in the vegetable world
likewise, the qualities that constitute beauty may possibly be united to
things of greater dimensions; when they are so united, they constitute a
species something different both from the sublime and beautiful, which I
have before called fine; but this kind, I imagine, has not such a power on the
passions, either as vast bodies have which are endued with the
correspondent qualities of the sublime; or as the qualities of beauty have
when united in a small object. The affection produced by large bodies
adorned with the spoils of beauty, is a tension continually relieved; which
approaches to the nature of mediocrity. But if I were to say how I find
myself affected upon such occasions, I should say that the sublime suffers
less by being united to some of the qualities of beauty, than beauty does by
being joined to greatness of quantity, or any other properties of the sublime.
There is something so overruling in whatever inspires us with awe, in all
things which belong ever so remotely to terror, that nothing else can stand
in their presence. There lie the qualities of beauty either dead or
unoperative; or at most exerted to mollify the rigor and sternness of the
terror, which is the natural concomitant of greatness. Besides the
extraordinary great in every species, the opposite to this, the dwarfish and
diminutive, ought to be considered. Littleness, merely as such, has nothing
contrary to the idea of beauty. The humming-bird, both in shape and
coloring, yields to none of the winged species, of which it is the least; and

perhaps his beauty is enhanced by his smallness. But there are animals,
which, when they are extremely small, are rarely (if ever) beautiful. There
is a dwarfish size of men and women, which is almost constantly so gross
and massive in comparison of their height, that they present us with a very
disagreeable image. But should a man be found not above two or three feet
high, supposing such a person to have all the parts of his body of a delicacy
suitable to such a size, and otherwise endued with the common qualities of
other beautiful bodies, I am pretty well convinced that a person of such a
stature might be considered as beautiful; might be the object of love; might
give us very pleasing ideas on viewing him. The only thing which could
possibly interpose to check our pleasure is, that such creatures, however
formed, are unusual, and are often therefore considered as something
monstrous. The large and gigantic, though very compatible with the
sublime, is contrary to the beautiful. It is impossible to suppose a giant the
object of love. When we let our imagination loose in romance, the ideas we
naturally annex to that size are those of tyranny, cruelty, injustice, and
everything horrid and abominable. We paint the giant ravaging the country,
plundering the innocent traveller, and afterwards gorged with his half-living
flesh: such are Polyphemus, Cacus, and others, who make so great a figure
in romances and heroic poems. The event we attend to with the greatest
satisfaction is their defeat and death. I do not remember, in all that
multitude of deaths with which the Iliad is filled, that the fall of any man,
remarkable for his great stature and strength, touches us with pity; nor does
it appear that the author, so well read in human nature, ever intended it
should. It is Simoisius, in the soft bloom of youth, torn from his parents,
who tremble for a courage so ill suited to his strength; it is another hurried
by war from the new embraces of his bride, young and fair, and a novice to
the field, who melts us by his untimely fate. Achilles, in spite of the many
qualities of beauty which Homer has bestowed on his outward form, and the
many great virtues with which he has adorned his mind, can never make us

love him. It may be observed, that Homer has given the Trojans, whose fate
he has designed to excite our compassion, infinitely more of the amiable,
social virtues than he has distributed among his Greeks. With regard to the
Trojans, the passion he chooses to raise is pity; pity is a passion founded on
love; and these lesser, and if I may say domestic virtues, are certainly the
most amiable. But he has made the Greeks far their superiors in the politic
and military virtues. The councils of Priam are weak; the arms of Hector
comparatively feeble; his courage far below that of Achilles. Yet we love
Priam more than Agamemnon, and Hector more than his conqueror
Achilles. Admiration is the passion which Homer would excite in favor of
the Greeks, and he has done it by bestowing on them the virtues which have
but little to do with love. This short digression is perhaps not wholly beside
our purpose, where our business is to show that objects of great dimensions
are incompatible with beauty, the more incompatible as they are greater;
whereas the small, if ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not to be
attributed to their size.

SECTION XXV.

OF COLOR.

With regard to color, the disquisition is almost infinite; but I conceive the
principles laid down in the beginning of this part are sufficient to account
for the effects of them all, as well as for the agreeable effects of transparent
bodies, whether fluid or solid. Suppose I look at a bottle of muddy liquor, of
a blue or red color; the blue or red rays cannot pass clearly to the eye, but
are suddenly and unequally stopped by the intervention of little opaque
bodies, which without preparation change the idea, and change it too into
one disagreeable in its own nature, conformably to the principles laid down
in Sect. 24. But when the ray passes without such opposition through the
glass or liquor, when the glass or liquor is quite transparent, the light is

sometimes softened in the passage, which makes it more agreeable even as
light; and the liquor reflecting all the rays of its proper color evenly, it has
such an effect on the eye, as smooth opaque bodies have on the eye and
touch. So that the pleasure here is compounded of the softness of the
transmitted, and the evenness of the reflected light. This pleasure may be
heightened by the common principles in other things, if the shape of the
glass which holds the transparent liquor be so judiciously varied, as to
present the color gradually and interchangeably, weakened and strengthened
with all the variety which judgment in affairs of this nature shall suggest.
On a review of all that has been said of the effects, as well as the causes of
both, it will appear that the sublime and beautiful are built on principles
very different, and that their affections are as different: the great has terror
for its basis, which, when it is modified, causes that emotion in the mind,
which I have called astonishment; the beautiful is founded on mere positive
pleasure, and excites in the soul that feeling which is called love. Their
causes have made the subject of this fourth part.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Part I. sect. 7.

[30] Part I. sect. 10.

[31] I do not here enter into the question debated among physiologists,
whether pain be the effect of a contraction, or a tension of the nerves. Either
will serve my purpose; for by tension, I mean no more than a violent
pulling of the fibres which compose any muscle or membrane, in whatever
way this is done.

[32] Part II. sect. 2.

[33] Part II. sect. 1.

[34] Part I. sect. 7. Part II. sect. 2.

[35] Part II. sect. 7.

[36] Part II. sect. 10.

[37] Part II. sect. 3.

PART V.

SECTION I.

OF WORDS.

Natural objects affect us by the laws of that connection which Providence
has established between certain motions and configurations of bodies, and
certain consequent feelings in our mind. Painting affects in the same
manner, but with the superadded pleasure of imitation. Architecture affects
by the laws of nature and the law of reason; from which latter result the
rules of proportion, which make a work to be praised or censured, in the
whole or in some part, when the end for which it was designed is or is not
properly answered. But as to words; they seem to me to affect us in a
manner very different from that in which we are affected by natural objects,
or by painting or architecture; yet words have as considerable a share in
exciting ideas of beauty and of the sublime as many of those, and
sometimes a much greater than any of them; therefore an inquiry into the
manner by which they excite such emotions is far from being unnecessary
in a discourse of this kind.

SECTION II.

THE COMMON EFFECTS OF POETRY, NOT BY RAISING IDEAS
OF THINGS.

The common notion of the power of poetry and eloquence, as well as that of
words in ordinary conversation, is, that they affect the mind by raising in it
ideas of those things for which custom has appointed them to stand. To
examine the truth of this notion, it may be requisite to observe that words
may be divided into three sorts. The first are such as represent many simple
ideas united by nature to form some one determinate composition, as man,
horse, tree, castle, &c. These I call aggregate words. The second are they
that stand for one simple idea of such compositions, and no more; as red,
blue, round, square, and the like. These I call simple abstract words. The
third are those which are formed by an union, an arbitrary union of both the
others, and of the various relations between them in greater or lesser
degrees of complexity; as virtue, honor, persuasion, magistrate, and the like.
These I call compound abstract words. Words, I am sensible, are capable of
being classed into more curious distinctions; but these seem to be natural,
and enough for our purpose; and they are disposed in that order in which
they are commonly taught, and in which the mind gets the ideas they are
substituted for. I shall begin with the third sort of words; compound
abstracts, such as virtue, honor, persuasion, docility. Of these I am
convinced, that whatever power they may have on the passions, they do not
derive it from any representation raised in the mind of the things for which
they stand. As compositions, they are not real essences, and hardly cause, I
think, any real ideas. Nobody, I believe, immediately on hearing the sounds,
virtue, liberty, or honor, conceives any precise notions of the particular
modes of action and thinking, together with the mixed and simple ideas,
and the several relations of them for which these words are substituted;
neither has he any general idea compounded of them; for if he had, then
some of those particular ones, though indistinct perhaps, and confused,
might come soon to be perceived. But this, I take it, is hardly ever the case.
For, put yourself upon analyzing one of these words, and you must reduce it
from one set of general words to another, and then into the simple abstracts

and aggregates, in a much longer series than may be at first imagined,
before any real idea emerges to light, before you come to discover anything
like the first principles of such compositions; and when you have made
such a discovery of the original ideas, the effect of the composition is
utterly lost. A train of thinking of this sort is much too long to be pursued in
the ordinary ways of conversation; nor is it at all necessary that it should.
Such words are in reality but mere sounds; but they are sounds which being
used on particular occasions, wherein we receive some good, or suffer some
evil; or see others affected with good or evil; or which we hear applied to
other interesting things or events; and being applied in such a variety of
cases, that we know readily by habit to what things they belong, they
produce in the mind, whenever they are afterwards mentioned, effects
similar to those of their occasions. The sounds being often used without
reference to any particular occasion, and carrying still their first
impressions, they at last utterly lose their connection with the particular
occasions that gave rise to them; yet the sound, without any annexed notion,
continues to operate as before.

SECTION III.

GENERAL WORDS BEFORE IDEAS.

Mr. Locke has somewhere observed, with his usual sagacity, that most
general words, those belonging to virtue and vice, good and evil especially,
are taught before the particular modes of action to which they belong are
presented to the mind; and with them, the love of the one, and the
abhorrence of the other; for the minds of children are so ductile, that a
nurse, or any person about a child, by seeming pleased or displeased with
anything, or even any word, may give the disposition of the child a similar
turn. When, afterwards, the several occurrences in life come to be applied to
these words, and that which is pleasant often appears under the name of

evil; and what is disagreeable to nature is called good and virtuous; a
strange confusion of ideas and affections arises in the minds of many; and
an appearance of no small contradiction between their notions and their
actions. There are many who love virtue and who detest vice, and this not
from hypocrisy or affectation, who notwithstanding very frequently act ill
and wickedly in particulars without the least remorse; because these
particular occasions never came into view, when the passions on the side of
virtue were so warmly affected by certain words heated originally by the
breath of others; and for this reason, it is hard to repeat certain sets of
words, though owned by themselves unoperative, without being in some
degree affected; especially if a warm and affecting tone of voice
accompanies them, as suppose,

Wise, valiant, generous, good, and great.

These words, by having no application, ought to be unoperative; but when
words commonly sacred to great occasions are used, we are affected by
them even without the occasions. When words which have been generally
so applied are put together without any rational view, or in such a manner
that they do not rightly agree with each other, the style is called bombast.
And it requires in several cases much good sense and experience to be
guarded against the force of such language; for when propriety is neglected,
a greater number of these affecting words may be taken into the service, and
a greater variety may be indulged in combining them.

SECTION IV.

THE EFFECT OF WORDS.

If words have all their possible extent of power, three effects arise in the
mind of the hearer. The first is, the sound; the second, the picture, or

representation of the thing signified by the sound; the third is, the affection
of the soul produced by one or by both of the foregoing. Compounded
abstract words, of which we have been speaking, (honor, justice, liberty,
and the like,) produce the first and the last of these effects, but not the
second. Simple abstracts are used to signify some one simple idea without
much adverting to others which may chance to attend it, as blue, green, hot,
cold, and the like; these are capable of affecting all three of the purposes of
words; as the aggregate words, man, castle, horse, &c. are in a yet higher
degree. But I am of opinion, that the most general effect, even of these
words, does not arise from their forming pictures of the several things they
would represent in the imagination; because, on a very diligent examination
of my own mind, and getting others to consider theirs, I do not find that
once in twenty times any such picture is formed, and when it is, there is
most commonly a particular effort of the imagination for that purpose. But
the aggregate words operate, as I said of the compound-abstracts, not by
presenting any image to the mind, but by having from use the same effect
on being mentioned, that their original has when it is seen. Suppose we
were to read a passage to this effect: "The river Danube rises in a moist and
mountainous soil in the heart of Germany, where, winding to and fro, it
waters several principalities, until, turning into Austria, and laving the walls
of Vienna, it passes into Hungary; there with a vast flood, augmented by the
Save and the Drave, it quits Christendom, and rolling through the barbarous
countries which border on Tartary, it enters by many mouths in the Black
Sea." In this description many things are mentioned, as mountains, rivers,
cities, the sea, &c. But let anybody examine himself, and see whether he
has had impressed on his imagination any pictures of a river, mountain,
watery soil, Germany, &c. Indeed it is impossible, in the rapidity and quick
succession of words in conversation, to have ideas both of the sound of the
word, and of the thing represented; besides, some words, expressing real
essences, are so mixed with others of a general and nominal import, that it

is impracticable to jump from sense to thought, from particulars to generals,
from things to words, in such a manner as to answer the purposes of life;
nor is it necessary that we should.

SECTION V.

EXAMPLES THAT WORDS MAY AFFECT WITHOUT RAISING
IMAGES.

I find it very hard to persuade several that their passions are affected by
words from whence they have no ideas; and yet harder to convince them
that in the ordinary course of conversation we are sufficiently understood
without raising any images of the things concerning which we speak. It
seems to be an odd subject of dispute with any man, whether he has ideas in
his mind or not. Of this, at first view, every man, in his own forum, ought to
judge without appeal. But, strange as it may appear, we are often at a loss to
know what ideas we have of things, or whether we have any ideas at all
upon some subjects. It even requires a good deal of attention to be
thoroughly satisfied on this head. Since I wrote these papers, I found two
very striking instances of the possibility there is, that a man may hear words
without having any idea of the things which they represent, and yet
afterwards be capable of returning them to others, combined in a new way,
and with great propriety, energy, and instruction. The first instance is that of
Mr. Blacklock, a poet blind from his birth. Few men blessed with the most
perfect sight can describe visual objects with more spirit and justness than
this blind man; which cannot possibly be attributed to his having a clearer
conception of the things he describes than is common to other persons. Mr.
Spence, in an elegant preface which he has written to the works of this poet,
reasons very ingeniously, and, I imagine, for the most part, very rightly,
upon the cause of this extraordinary phenomenon; but I cannot altogether
agree with him, that some improprieties in language and thought, which

occur in these poems, have arisen from the blind poet's imperfect
conception of visual objects, since such improprieties, and much greater,
may be found in writers even of a higher class than Mr. Blacklock, and
who, notwithstanding, possessed the faculty of seeing in its full perfection.
Here is a poet doubtless as much affected by his own descriptions as any
that reads them can be; and yet he is affected with this strong enthusiasm by
things of which he neither has, nor can possibly have, any idea further than
that of a bare sound: and why may not those who read his works be affected
in the same manner that he was; with as little of any real ideas of the things
described? The second instance is of Mr. Saunderson, professor of
mathematics in the University of Cambridge. This learned man had
acquired great knowledge in natural philosophy, in astronomy, and
whatever sciences depend upon mathematical skill. What was the most
extraordinary and the most to my purpose, he gave excellent lectures upon
light and colors; and this man taught others the theory of those ideas which
they had, and which he himself undoubtedly had not. But it is probable that
the words red, blue, green, answered to him as well as the ideas of the
colors themselves; for the ideas of greater or lesser degrees of refrangibility
being applied to these words, and the blind man being instructed in what
other respects they were found to agree or to disagree, it was as easy for
him to reason upon the words as if he had been fully master of the ideas.
Indeed it must be owned he could make no new discoveries in the way of
experiment. He did nothing but what we do every day in common
discourse. When I wrote this last sentence, and used the words every day
and common discourse, I had no images in my mind of any succession of
time; nor of men in conference with each other; nor do I imagine that the
reader will have any such ideas on reading it. Neither when I spoke of red,
or blue, and green, as well as refrangibility, had I these several colors, or the
rays of light passing into a different medium, and there diverted from their
course, painted before me in the way of images. I know very well that the

mind possesses a faculty of raising such images at pleasure; but then an act
of the will is necessary to this; and in ordinary conversation or reading it is
very rarely that any image at all is excited in the mind. If I say, "I shall go to
Italy next summer," I am well understood. Yet I believe nobody has by this
painted in his imagination the exact figure of the speaker passing by land or
by water, or both; sometimes on horseback, sometimes in a carriage: with
all the particulars of the journey. Still less has he any idea of Italy, the
country to which I proposed to go; or of the greenness of the fields, the
ripening of the fruits, and the warmth of the air, with the change to this from
a different season, which are the ideas for which the word summer is
substituted; but least of all has he any image from the word next; for this
word stands for the idea of many summers, with the exclusion of all but
one: and surely the man who says next summer has no images of such a
succession, and such an exclusion. In short, it is not only of those ideas
which are commonly called abstract, and of which no image at all can be
formed, but even of particular, real beings, that we converse without having
any idea of them excited in the imagination; as will certainly appear on a
diligent examination of our own minds. Indeed, so little does poetry depend
for its effect on the power of raising sensible images, that I am convinced it
would lose a very considerable part of its energy, if this were the necessary
result of all description. Because that union of affecting words, which is the
most powerful of all poetical instruments, would frequently lose its force
along with its propriety and consistency, if the sensible images were always
excited. There is not, perhaps, in the whole Æneid a more grand and labored
passage than the description of Vulcan's cavern in Etna, and the works that
are there carried on. Virgil dwells particularly on the formation of the
thunder which he describes unfinished under the hammers of the Cyclops.
But what are the principles of this extraordinary composition?

Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosæ
Addiderant; rutili tres ignis, et alitis austri:

Fulgores nunc terrificos, sonitumque, metumque
Miscebant operi, flammisque sequacibus iras.

This seems to me admirably sublime: yet if we attend coolly to the kind of
sensible images which a combination of ideas of this sort must form, the
chimeras of madmen cannot appear more wild and absurd than such a
picture. "Three rays of twisted showers, three of watery clouds, three of fire,
and three of the winged south wind; then mixed they in the work terrific
lightnings, and sound, and fear, and anger, with pursuing flames." This
strange composition is formed into a gross body; it is hammered by the
Cyclops, it is in part polished, and partly continues rough. The truth is, if
poetry gives us a noble assemblage of words corresponding to many noble
ideas, which are connected by circumstances of time or place, or related to
each other as cause and effect, or associated in any natural way, they may
be moulded together in any form, and perfectly answer their end. The
picturesque connection is not demanded; because no real picture is formed;
nor is the effect of the description at all the less upon this account. What is
said of Helen by Priam and the old men of his council, is generally thought
to give us the highest possible idea of that fatal beauty.

Οὐ νέμεσις, Τρὢας καὶ ἐὔκνήμιδας 'Αχ-αιοὺς
Τοιἣδ' ἀμφὶ γυναικὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχ-ειν.
Αἰνὢς ἀθανάτησι θεἣς εἰς ὦπα ἔοικεν.

"They cried, No wonder such celestial charms
For nine long years have set the world in arms;
What winning graces! what majestic mien!
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen."

POPE.

Here is not one word said of the particulars of her beauty; nothing which
can in the least help us to any precise idea of her person; but yet we are

much more touched by this manner of mentioning her, than by those long
and labored descriptions of Helen, whether handed down by tradition, or
formed by fancy, which are to be met with in some authors. I am sure it
affects me much more than the minute description which Spenser has given
of Belphebe; though I own that there are parts, in that description, as there
are in all the descriptions of that excellent writer, extremely fine and
poetical. The terrible picture which Lucretius has drawn of religion in order
to display the magnanimity of his philosophical hero in opposing her, is
thought to be designed with great boldness and spirit:—

Humana ante oculos foedè cum vita jaceret,
In terris, oppressa gravi sub religione,
Quæ caput e coeli regionibus ostendebat
Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans;
Primus Graius homo mortales tollere contra
Est oculos ausus.

What idea do you derive from so excellent a picture? none at all, most
certainly: neither has the poet said a single word which might in the least
serve to mark a single limb or feature of the phantom, which he intended to
represent in all the horrors imagination can conceive. In reality, poetry and
rhetoric do not succeed in exact description so well as painting does; their
business is, to affect rather by sympathy than imitation; to display rather the
effect of things on the mind of the speaker, or of others, than to present a
clear idea of the things themselves. This is their most extensive province,
and that in which they succeed the best.

SECTION VI.

POETRY NOT STRICTLY AN IMITATIVE ART.

Hence we may observe that poetry, taken in its most general sense, cannot
with strict propriety be called an art of imitation. It is indeed an imitation so
far as it describes the manners and passions of men which their words can
express; where animi motus effert interprete lingua. There it is strictly
imitation; and all merely dramatic poetry is of this sort. But descriptive
poetry operates chiefly by substitution; by the means of sounds, which by
custom have the effect of realities. Nothing is an imitation further than as it
resembles some other thing; and words undoubtedly have no sort of
resemblance to the ideas for which they stand.

SECTION VII.

HOW WORDS INFLUENCE THE PASSIONS.

Now, as words affect, not by any original power, but by representation, it
might be supposed, that their influence over the passions should be but
light; yet it is quite otherwise; for we find by experience, that eloquence and
poetry are as capable, nay indeed much more capable, of making deep and
lively impressions than any other arts, and even than nature itself in very
many cases. And this arises chiefly from these three causes. First, that we
take an extraordinary part in the passions of others, and that we are easily
affected and brought into sympathy by any tokens which are shown of
them; and there are no tokens which can express all the circumstances of
most passions so fully as words; so that if a person speaks upon any subject,
he can not only convey the subject to you, but likewise the manner in which
he is himself affected by it. Certain it is, that the influence of most things on
our passions is not so much from the things themselves, as from our
opinions concerning them; and these again depend very much on the
opinions of other men, conveyable for the most part by words only.
Secondly, there are many things of a very affecting nature, which can
seldom occur in the reality, but the words that represent them often do; and

thus they have an opportunity of making a deep impression and taking root
in the mind, whilst the idea of the reality was transient; and to some perhaps
never really occurred in any shape, to whom it is notwithstanding very
affecting, as war, death, famine, &c. Besides many ideas have never been at
all presented to the senses of any men but by words, as God, angels, devils,
heaven, and hell, all of which have however a great influence over the
passions. Thirdly, by words we have it in our power to make such
combinations as we cannot possibly do otherwise. By this power of
combining we are able, by the addition of well-chosen circumstances, to
give a new life and force to the simple object. In painting we may represent
any fine figure we please; but we never can give it those enlivening touches
which it may receive from words. To represent an angel in a picture, you
can only draw a beautiful young man winged: but what painting can furnish
out anything so grand as the addition of one word, "the angel of the Lord"?
It is true, I have here no clear idea; but these words affect the mind more
than the sensible image did; which is all I contend for. A picture of Priam
dragged to the altar's foot, and there murdered, if it were well executed,
would undoubtedly be very moving; but there are very aggravating
circumstances, which it could never represent:

Sanguine foedantem quos ipse sacraverat ignes.

As a further instance, let us consider those lines of Milton, where he
describes the travels of the fallen angels through their dismal habitation:

"O'er many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous;
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp;
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death,
A universe of death."

Here is displayed the force of union in

"Rocks, caves, lakes, dens, bogs, fens, and shades"

which yet would lose the greatest part of their effect, if they were not the

"Rocks, caves, lakes, dens, bogs, fens, and shades—of Death."

This idea or this affection caused by a word, which nothing but a word
could annex to the others, raises a very great degree of the sublime, and this
sublime is raised yet higher by what follows, a "universe of death." Here are
again two ideas not presentable but by language, and an union of them great
and amazing beyond conception; if they may properly be called ideas which
present no distinct image to the mind; but still it will be difficult to conceive
how words can move the passions which belong to real objects, without
representing these objects clearly. This is difficult to us, because we do not
sufficiently distinguish, in our observations upon language, between a clear
expression and a strong expression. These are frequently confounded with
each other, though they are in reality extremely different. The former
regards the understanding, the latter belongs to the passions. The one
describes a thing as it is, the latter describes it as it is felt. Now, as there is a
moving tone of voice, an impassioned countenance, an agitated gesture,
which affect independently of the things about which they are exerted, so
there are words, and certain dispositions of words, which being peculiarly
devoted to passionate subjects, and always used by those who are under the
influence of any passion, touch and move us more than those which far
more clearly and distinctly express the subject-matter. We yield to sympathy
what we refuse to description. The truth is, all verbal description, merely as
naked description, though never so exact, conveys so poor and insufficient
an idea of the thing described, that it could scarcely have the smallest effect,
if the speaker did not call in to his aid those modes of speech that mark a
strong and lively feeling in himself. Then, by the contagion of our passions,
we catch a fire already kindled in another, which probably might never have
been struck out by the object described. Words, by strongly conveying the

passions by those means which we have already mentioned, fully
compensate for their weakness in other respects. It may be observed, that
very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness
and perspicuity, are generally deficient in strength. The French language has
that perfection and that defect. Whereas the Oriental tongues, and in general
the languages of most unpolished people, have a great force and energy of
expression, and this is but natural. Uncultivated people are but ordinary
observers of things, and not critical in distinguishing them; but, for that
reason they admire more, and are more affected with what they see, and
therefore express themselves in a warmer and more passionate manner. If
the affection be well conveyed, it will work its effect without any clear idea,
often without any idea at all of the thing which has originally given rise to
it.

It might be expected, from the fertility of the subject, that I should
consider poetry, as it regards the sublime and beautiful, more at large; but it
must be observed, that in this light it has been often and well handled
already. It was not my design to enter into the criticism of the sublime and
beautiful in any art, but to attempt to lay down such principles as may tend
to ascertain, to distinguish, and to form a sort of standard for them; which
purposes I thought might be best effected by an inquiry into the properties
of such things in nature, as raise love and astonishment in us; and by
showing in what manner they operated to produce these passions. Words
were only so far to be considered as to show upon what principle they were
capable of being the representatives of these natural things, and by what
powers they were able to affect us often as strongly as the things they
represent, and sometimes much more strongly.

A

SHORT ACCOUNT

OF

A LATE SHORT ADMINISTRATION.

1766.

The late administration came into employment, under the mediation of
the Duke of Cumberland, on the tenth day of July, 1765; and was removed,
upon a plan settled by the Earl of Chatham, on the thirtieth day of July,
1766, having lasted just one year and twenty days.

In that space of time

The distractions of the British empire were composed, by the repeal of
the American stamp act;

But the constitutional superiority of Great Britain was preserved by the
act for securing the dependence of the colonies.

Private houses were relieved from the jurisdiction of the excise, by the
repeal of the cider tax.

The personal liberty of the subject was confirmed, by the resolution
against general warrants.

The lawful secrets of business and friendship were rendered inviolable,
by the resolution for condemning the seizure of papers.

The trade of America was set free from injudicious and ruinous
impositions,—its revenue was improved, and settled upon a rational
foundation,—its commerce extended with foreign countries; while all the
advantages were secured to Great Britain, by the act for repealing certain
duties, and encouraging, regulating, and securing the trade of this kingdom,
and the British dominions in America.

Materials were provided and insured to our manufactures,—the sale of
these manufactures was increased,—the African trade preserved and
extended,—the principles of the act of navigation pursued, and the plan
improved,—and the trade for bullion rendered free, secure, and permanent,
by the act for opening certain ports in Dominica and Jamaica.

That administration was the first which proposed and encouraged public
meetings and free consultations of merchants from all parts of the kingdom;
by which means the truest lights have been received; great benefits have
been already derived to manufactures and commerce; and the most
extensive prospects are opened for further improvement.

Under them, the interests of our northern and southern colonies, before
that time jarring and dissonant, were understood, compared, adjusted, and
perfectly reconciled. The passions and animosities of the colonies, by
judicious and lenient measures, were allayed and composed, and the
foundation laid for a lasting agreement amongst them.

Whilst that administration provided for the liberty and commerce of their
country, as the true basis of its power, they consulted its interests, they
asserted its honor abroad, with temper and with firmness; by making an
advantageous treaty of commerce with Russia; by obtaining a liquidation of
the Canada bills, to the satisfaction of the proprietors; by reviving and
raising from its ashes the negotiation for the Manilla ransom, which had
been extinguished and abandoned by their predecessors.

They treated their sovereign with decency; with reverence. They
discountenanced, and, it is hoped, forever abolished, the dangerous and
unconstitutional practice of removing military officers for their votes in
Parliament. They firmly adhered to those friends of liberty, who had run all
hazards in its cause; and provided for them in preference to every other
claim.

With the Earl of Bute they had no personal connection; no
correspondence of councils. They neither courted him nor persecuted him.
They practised no corruption; nor were they even suspected of it. They sold
no offices. They obtained no reversions or pensions, either coming in or
going out, for them selves, their families, or their dependents.

In the prosecution of their measures they were traversed by an opposition
of a new and singular character; an opposition of placemen and pensioners.
They were supported by the confidence of the nation. And having held their
offices under many difficulties and discouragements, they left them at the
express command, as they had accepted them at the earnest request, of their
royal master.

These are plain facts; of a clear and public nature; neither extended by
elaborate reasoning, nor heightened by the coloring of eloquence. They are
the services of a single year.

The removal of that administration from power is not to them premature;
since they were in office long enough to accomplish many plans of public
utility; and, by their perseverance and resolution, rendered the way smooth
and easy to their successors; having left their king and their country in a
much better condition than they found them. By the temper they manifest,
they seem to have now no other wish than that their successors may do the
public as real and as faithful service as they have done.

OBSERVATIONS

ON A LATE PUBLICATION,

INTITULED

"THE PRESENT STATE OF THE NATION."

"O Tite, si quid ego adjuvero curamve levasso,
Quæ nunc te coquit, et versat sub pectore fixa,
Ecquid erit pretii?"

ENN. ap. CIC.

1769.

Party divisions, whether on the whole operating for good or evil, are
things inseparable from free government. This is a truth which, I believe,
admits little dispute, having been established by the uniform experience of
all ages. The part a good citizen ought to take in these divisions has been a
matter of much deeper controversy. But God forbid that any controversy
relating to our essential morals should admit of no decision. It appears to
me, that this question, like most of the others which regard our duties in
life, is to be determined by our station in it. Private men may be wholly
neutral, and entirely innocent: but they who are legally invested with public
trust, or stand on the high ground of rank and dignity, which is trust
implied, can hardly in any case remain indifferent, without the certainty of
sinking into insignificance; and thereby in effect deserting that post in
which, with the fullest authority, and for the wisest purposes, the laws and
institutions of their country have fixed them. However, if it be the office of
those who are thus circumstanced, to take a decided part, it is no less their
duty that it should be a sober one. It ought to be circumscribed by the same
laws of decorum, and balanced by the same temper, which bound and
regulate all the virtues. In a word, we ought to act in party with all the
moderation which does not absolutely enervate that vigor, and quench that
fervency of spirit, without which the best wishes for the public good must
evaporate in empty speculation.

It is probably from some such motives that the friends of a very
respectable party in this kingdom have been hitherto silent. For these two
years past, from one and the same quarter of politics, a continual fire has

been kept upon them; sometimes from the unwieldy column of quartos and
octavos; sometimes from the light squadrons of occasional pamphlets and
flying sheets. Every month has brought on its periodical calumny. The
abuse has taken every shape which the ability of the writers could give it;
plain invective, clumsy raillery, misrepresented anecdote.[38] No method of
vilifying the measures, the abilities, the intentions, or the persons which
compose that body, has been omitted.

On their part nothing was opposed but patience and character. It was a
matter of the most serious and indignant affliction to persons who thought
themselves in conscience bound to oppose a ministry dangerous from its
very constitution, as well as its measures, to find themselves, whenever they
faced their adversaries, continually attacked on the rear by a set of men who
pretended to be actuated by motives similar to theirs. They saw that the plan
long pursued, with but too fatal a success, was to break the strength of this
kingdom, by frittering down the bodies which compose it, by fomenting
bitter and sanguinary animosities, and by dissolving every tie of social
affection and public trust. These virtuous men, such I am warranted by
public opinion to call them, were resolved rather to endure everything, than
co-operate in that design. A diversity of opinion upon almost every
principle of politics had indeed drawn a strong line of separation between
them and some others. However, they were desirous not to extend the
misfortune by unnecessary bitterness; they wished to prevent a difference of
opinion on the commonwealth from festering into rancorous and incurable
hostility. Accordingly they endeavored that all past controversies should be
forgotten; and that enough for the day should be the evil thereof. There is
however a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. Men may
tolerate injuries whilst they are only personal to themselves. But it is not the
first of virtues to bear with moderation the indignities that are offered to our
country. A piece has at length appeared, from the quarter of all the former
attacks, which upon every public consideration demands an answer. Whilst

persons more equal to this business may be engaged in affairs of greater
moment, I hope I shall be excused, if, in a few hours of a time not very
important, and from such materials as I have by me (more than enough
however for this purpose), I undertake to set the facts and arguments of this
wonderful performance in a proper light. I will endeavor to state what this
piece is; the purpose for which I take it to have been written; and the effects
(supposing it should have any effect at all) it must necessarily produce.

This piece is called "The Present State of the Nation." It may be
considered as a sort of digest of the avowed maxims of a certain political
school, the effects of whose doctrines and practices this country will fuel
long and severely. It is made up of a farrago of almost every topic which
has been agitated on national affairs in parliamentary debate, or private
conversation, for these last seven years. The oldest controversies are hauled
out of the dust with which time and neglect had covered them. Arguments
ten times repeated, a thousand times answered before, are here repeated
again. Public accounts formerly printed and reprinted revolve once more,
and find their old station in this sober meridian. All the commonplace
lamentations upon the decay of trade, the increase of taxes, and the high
price of labor and provisions, are here retailed again and again in the same
tone with which they have drawled through columns of Gazetteers and
Advertisers for a century together. Paradoxes which affront common sense,
and uninteresting barren truths which generate no conclusion, are thrown in
to augment unwieldy bulk, without adding anything to weight. Because two
accusations are better than one, contradictions are set staring one another in
the face, without even an attempt to reconcile them. And, to give the whole
a sort of portentous air of labor and information, the table of the House of
Commons is swept into this grand reservoir of politics.

As to the composition, it bears a striking and whimsical resemblance to a
funeral sermon, not only in the pathetic prayer with which it concludes, but

in the style and tenor of the whole performance. It is piteously doleful,
nodding every now and then towards dulness; well stored with pious frauds,
and, like most discourses of the sort, much better calculated for the private
advantage of the preacher than the edification of the hearers.

The author has indeed so involved his subject, that it is frequently far
from being easy to comprehend his meaning. It is happy for the public that
it is never difficult to fathom his design. The apparent intention of this
author is to draw the most aggravated, hideous and deformed picture of the
state of this country, which his querulous eloquence, aided by the arbitrary
dominion he assumes over fact, is capable of exhibiting. Had he attributed
our misfortunes to their true cause, the injudicious tampering of bold,
improvident, and visionary ministers at one period, or to their supine
negligence and traitorous dissensions at another, the complaint had been
just, and might have been useful. But far the greater and much the worst
part of the state which he exhibits is owing, according to his representation,
not to accidental and extrinsic mischiefs attendant on the nation, but to its
radical weakness and constitutional distempers. All this however is not
without purpose. The author is in hopes, that, when we are fallen into a
fanatical terror for the national salvation, we shall then be ready to throw
ourselves,—in a sort of precipitate trust, some strange disposition of the
mind jumbled up of presumption and despair,—into the hands of the most
pretending and forward undertaker. One such undertaker at least he has in
readiness for our service. But let me assure this generous person, that
however he may succeed in exciting our fears for the public danger, he will
find it hard indeed to engage us to place any confidence in the system he
proposes for our security.

His undertaking is great. The purpose of this pamphlet, at which it aims
directly or obliquely in every page, is to persuade the public of three or four
of the most difficult points in the world,—that all the advantages of the late

war were on the part of the Bourbon alliance; that the peace of Paris
perfectly consulted the dignity and interest of this country; and that the
American Stamp Act was a masterpiece of policy and finance; that the only
good minister this nation has enjoyed since his Majesty's accession, is the
Earl of Bute; and the only good managers of revenue we have seen are Lord
Despenser and Mr. George Grenville; and, under the description of men of
virtue and ability, he holds them out to us as the only persons fit to put our
affairs in order. Let not the reader mistake me: he does not actually name
these persons; but having highly applauded their conduct in all its parts, and
heavily censured every other set of men in the kingdom, he then
recommends us to his men of virtue and ability.

Such is the author's scheme. Whether it will answer his purpose I know
not. But surely that purpose ought to be a wonderfully good one, to warrant
the methods he has taken to compass it. If the facts and reasonings in this
piece are admitted, it is all over with us. The continuance of our tranquillity
depends upon the compassion of our rivals. Unable to secure to ourselves
the advantages of peace, we are at the same time utterly unfit for war. It is
impossible, if this state of things be credited abroad, that we can have any
alliance; all nations will fly from so dangerous a connection, lest, instead of
being partakers of our strength, they should only become sharers in our
ruin. If it is believed at home, all that firmness of mind, and dignified
national courage, which used to be the great support of this isle against the
powers of the world, must melt away, and fail within us.

In such a state of things can it be amiss if I aim at holding out some
comfort to the nation; another sort of comfort, indeed, than that which this
writer provides for it; a comfort not from its physician, but from its
constitution: if I attempt to show that all the arguments upon which he
founds the decay of that constitution, and the necessity of that physician,
are vain and frivolous? I will follow the author closely in his own long

career, through the war, the peace, the finances, our trade, and our foreign
politics: not for the sake of the particular measures which he discusses; that
can be of no use; they are all decided; their good is all enjoyed, or their evil
incurred: but for the sake of the principles of war, peace, trade, and
finances. These principles are of infinite moment. They must come again
and again under consideration; and it imports the public, of all things, that
those of its ministers be enlarged, and just, and well confirmed, upon all
these subjects. What notions this author entertains we shall see presently;
notions in my opinion very irrational, and extremely dangerous; and which,
if they should crawl from pamphlets into counsels, and be realized from
private speculation into national measures, cannot fail of hastening and
completing our ruin.

This author, after having paid his compliment to the showy appearances
of the late war in our favor, is in the utmost haste to tell you that these
appearances were fallacious, that they were no more than an imposition.—I
fear I must trouble the reader with a pretty long quotation, in order to set
before him the more clearly this author's peculiar way of conceiving and
reasoning:

"Happily (the K.) was then advised by ministers, who did not suffer
themselves to be dazzled by the glare of brilliant appearances; but, knowing
them to be fallacious, they wisely resolved to profit of their splendor before
our enemies should also discover the imposition.—The increase in the
exports was found to have been occasioned chiefly by the demands of our
own fleets and armies, and, instead of bringing wealth to the nation, was to
be paid for by oppressive taxes upon the people of England. While the
British seamen were consuming on board our men of war and privateers,
foreign ships and foreign seamen were employed in the transportation of
our merchandise; and the carrying trade, so great a source of wealth and
marine, was entirely engrossed by the neutral nations. The number of

British ships annually arriving in our ports was reduced 1756 sail,
containing 92,559 tons, on a medium of the six years' war, compared with
the six years of peace preceding it.—The conquest of the Havannah had,
indeed, stopped the remittance of specie from Mexico to Spain; but it had
not enabled England to seize it: on the contrary, our merchants suffered by
the detention of the galleons, as their correspondents in Spain were disabled
from paying them for their goods sent to America. The loss of the trade to
Old Spain was a further bar to an influx of specie; and the attempt upon
Portugal had not only deprived us of an import of bullion from thence, but
the payment of our troops employed in its defence was a fresh drain opened
for the diminution of our circulating specie.—The high premiums given for
new loans had sunk the price of the old stock near a third of its original
value; so that the purchasers had an obligation from the state to repay them
with an addition of 33 per cent to their capital. Every new loan required
new taxes to be imposed; new taxes must add to the price of our
manufactures, and lessen their consumption among foreigners. The decay
of our trade must necessarily occasion a decrease of the public revenue; and
a deficiency of our funds must either be made up by fresh taxes, which
would only add to the calamity, or our national credit must be destroyed, by
showing the public creditors the inability of the nation to repay them their
principal money.—Bounties had already been given for recruits which
exceeded the year's wages of the ploughman and reaper; and as these were
exhausted, and husbandry stood still for want of hands, the manufacturers
were next to be tempted to quit the anvil and the loom by higher offers.—
France, bankrupt France, had no such calamities impending over her; her
distresses were great, but they were immediate and temporary; her want of
credit preserved her from a great increase of debt, and the loss of her
ultramarine dominions lessened her expenses. Her colonies had, indeed,
put themselves into the hands of the English; but the property of her
subjects had been preserved by capitulations, and a way opened for making

her those remittances which the war had before suspended, with as much
security as in time of peace.—Her armies in Germany had been hitherto
prevented from seizing upon Hanover; but they continued to encamp on the
same ground on which the first battle was fought; and, as it must ever
happen from the policy of that government, the last troops she sent into the
field were always found to be the best, and her frequent losses only served
to fill her regiments with better soldiers. The conquest of Hanover became
therefore every campaign more probable.—It is to be noted, that the French
troops received subsistence only, for the last three years of the war; and
that, although large arrears were due to them at its conclusion, the charge
was the less during its continuance."[39]

If any one be willing to see to how much greater lengths the author
carries these ideas, he will recur to the book. This is sufficient for a
specimen of his manner of thinking. I believe one reflection uniformly
obtrudes itself upon every reader of these paragraphs. For what purpose, in
any cause, shall we hereafter contend with France? Can we ever flatter
ourselves that we shall wage a more successful war? If, on our part, in a war
the most prosperous we ever carried on, by sea and by land, and in every
part of the globe, attended with the unparalleled circumstance of an
immense increase of trade and augmentation of revenue; if a continued
series of disappointments, disgraces, and defeats, followed by public
bankruptcy, on the part of France; if all these still leave her a gainer on the
whole balance, will it not be downright frenzy in us ever to look her in the
face again, or to contend with her any, even the most essential points, since
victory and defeat, though by different ways, equally conduct us to our
ruin? Subjection to France without a struggle will indeed be less for our
honor, but on every principle of our author it must be more for our
advantage. According to his representation of things, the question is only
concerning the most easy fall. France had not discovered, our statesman
tells us, at the end of that war, the triumphs of defeat, and the resources

which are derived from bankruptcy. For my poor part, I do not wonder at
their blindness. But the English ministers saw further. Our author has at
length let foreigners also into the secret, and made them altogether as wise
as ourselves. It is their own fault if (vulgato imperii arcano) they are
imposed upon any longer. They now are apprised of the sentiments which
the great candidate for the government of this great empire entertains; and
they will act accordingly. They are taught our weakness and their own
advantages.

He tells the world,[40] that if France carries on the war against us in
Germany, every loss she sustains contributes to the achievement of her
conquest. If her armies are three years unpaid, she is the less exhausted by
expense. If her credit is destroyed, she is the less oppressed with debt. If her
troops are cut to pieces, they will by her policy (and a wonderful policy it
is) be improved, and will be supplied with much better men. If the war is
carried on in the colonies, he tells them[41] that the loss of her ultramarine
dominions lessens her expenses, and insures her remittances:—

Per damna, per cædes, ab ipso
Ducit opes animumque ferro.

If so, what is it we can do to hurt her?—it will be all an imposition, all
fallacious. Why, the result must be,—

Occidit, occidit
Spes omnis, et fortuna nostri
Nominis.

The only way which the author's principles leave for our escape, is to
reverse our condition into that of France, and to take her losing cards into
our hands. But though his principles drive him to it, his politics will not
suffer him to walk on this ground. Talking at our ease and of other
countries, we may bear to be diverted with such speculations; but in

England we shall never be taught to look upon the annihilation of our trade,
the ruin of our credit, the defeat of our armies, and the loss of our
ultramarine dominions (whatever the author may think of them), to be the
high road to prosperity and greatness.

The reader does not, I hope, imagine that I mean seriously to set about
the refutation of these uningenious paradoxes and reveries without
imagination. I state them only that we may discern a little in the questions
of war and peace, the most weighty of all questions, what is the wisdom of
those men who are held out to us as the only hope of an expiring nation.
The present ministry is indeed of a strange character: at once indolent and
distracted. But if a ministerial system should be formed, actuated by such
maxims as are avowed in this piece, the vices of the present ministry would
become their virtues; their indolence would be the greatest of all public
benefits, and a distraction that entirely defeated every one of their schemes
would be our only security from destruction.

To have stated these reasonings is enough, I presume, to do their
business. But they are accompanied with facts and records, which may
seem of a little more weight. I trust, however, that the facts of this author
will be as far from bearing the touchstone, as his arguments. On a little
inquiry, they will be found as great an imposition as the successes they are
meant to depreciate; for they are all either false or fallaciously applied; or
not in the least to the purpose for which they are produced.

First the author, in order to support his favorite paradox, that our
possession of the French colonies was of no detriment to France, has
thought proper to inform us, that[42] "they put themselves into the hands of
the English." He uses the same assertion, in nearly the same words, in
another place;[43] "her colonies had put themselves into our hands." Now, in
justice, not only to fact and common sense, but to the incomparable valor

and perseverance of our military and naval forces thus unhandsomely
traduced, I must tell this author, that the French colonies did not "put
themselves into the hands of the English." They were compelled to submit;
they were subdued by dint of English valor. Will the five years' war carried
on in Canada, in which fell one of the principal hopes of this nation, and all
the battles lost and gained during that anxious period, convince this author
of his mistake? Let him inquire of Sir Jeffery Amherst, under whose
conduct that war was carried on; of Sir Charles Saunders, whose steadiness
and presence of mind saved our fleet, and were so eminently serviceable in
the whole course of the siege of Quebec; of General Monckton, who was
shot through the body there, whether France "put her colonies into the
hands of the English."

Though he has made no exception, yet I would be liberal to him; perhaps
he means to confine himself to her colonies in the West Indies. But surely it
will fare as ill with him there as in North America, whilst we remember that
in our first attempt at Martinico we were actually defeated; that it was three
months before we reduced Guadaloupe; and that the conquest of the
Havannah was achieved by the highest conduct, aided by circumstances of
the greatest good fortune. He knows the expense both of men and treasure
at which we bought that place. However, if it had so pleased the
peacemakers, it was no dear purchase; for it was decisive of the fortune of
the war and the terms of the treaty: the Duke of Nivernois thought so;
France, England, Europe, considered it in that light; all the world, except
the then friends of the then ministry, who wept for our victories, and were
in haste to get rid of the burden of our conquests. This author knows that
France did not put those colonies into the hands of England; but he well
knows who did put the most valuable of them into the hands of France.

In the next place, our author[44] is pleased to consider the conquest of
those colonies in no other light than as a convenience for the remittances to

France, which he asserts that the war had before suspended, but for which a
way was opened (by our conquest) as secure as in time of peace. I
charitably hope he knows nothing of the subject. I referred him lately to our
commanders, for the resistance of the French colonies; I now wish he would
apply to our custom-house entries, and our merchants, for the advantages
which we derived from them.

In 1761, there was no entry of goods from any of the conquered places
but Guadaloupe; in that year it stood thus:—

Imports from Guadaloupe, value, £482,179
———

In 1762, when we had not yet delivered
up our conquests, the account was,

Guadaloupe £513,244
Martinico 288,425
———
Total imports in 1762, value, £801,669
———

In 1763, after we had delivered up the
sovereignty of these islands, but kept
open a communication with them,
the imports were,

Guadaloupe £412,303
Martinico 344,161
Havannah 249,386
————
Total imports in 1763, value, £1,005,850
————

Besides, I find, in the account of bullion imported and brought to the Bank,
that, during that period in which the intercourse with the Havannah was
open, we received at that one shop, in treasure, from that one place,
559,810l.; in the year 1763, 389,450l.; so that the import from these places
in that year amounted to 1,395,300l.

On this state the reader will observe, that I take the imports from, and not
the exports to, these conquests, as the measure of the advantages which we
derived from them. I do so for reasons which will be somewhat worthy the
attention of such readers as are fond of this species of inquiry. I say
therefore I choose the import article, as the best, and indeed the only
standard we can have, of the value of the West India trade. Our export entry
does not comprehend the greatest trade we carry on with any of the West
India islands, the sale of negroes: nor does it give any idea of two other
advantages we draw from them; the remittances for money spent here, and
the payment of part of the balance of the North American trade. It is
therefore quite ridiculous, to strike a balance merely on the face of an
excess of imports and exports, in that commerce; though, in most foreign
branches, it is, on the whole, the best method. If we should take that
standard, it would appear, that the balance with our own islands is, annually,
several hundred thousand pounds against this country.[45] Such is its aspect
on the custom-house entries; but we know the direct contrary to be the fact.
We know that the West-Indians are always indebted to our merchants, and
that the value of every shilling of West India produce is English property.
So that our import from them, and not our export, ought always to be
considered as their true value; and this corrective ought to be applied to all
general balances of our trade, which are formed on the ordinary principles.

If possible, this was more emphatically true of the French West India
islands, whilst they continued in our hands. That none or only a very
contemptible part, of the value of this produce could be remitted to France,

the author will see, perhaps with unwillingness, but with the clearest
conviction, if he considers, that in the year 1763, after we had ceased to
export to the isles of Guadaloupe and Martinico, and to the Havannah, and
after the colonies were free to send all their produce to Old France and
Spain, if they had any remittance to make; he will see, that we imported
from those places, in that year, to the amount of 1,395,300l. So far was the
whole annual produce of these islands from being adequate to the payments
of their annual call upon us, that this mighty additional importation was
necessary, though not quite sufficient, to discharge the debts contracted in
the few years we held them. The property, therefore, of their whole produce
was ours; not only during the war, but even for more than a year after the
peace. The author, I hope, will not again venture upon so rash and
discouraging a proposition concerning the nature and effect of those
conquests, as to call them a convenience to the remittances of France; he
sees, by this account, that what he asserts is not only without foundation,
but even impossible to be true.

As to our trade at that time, he labors with all his might to represent it as
absolutely ruined, or on the very edge of ruin. Indeed, as usual with him, he
is often as equivocal in his expression as he is clear in his design.
Sometimes he more than insinuates a decay of our commerce in that war;
sometimes he admits an increase of exports; but it is in order to depreciate
the advantages we might appear to derive from that increase, whenever it
should come to be proved against him. He tells you,[46] "that it was chiefly
occasioned by the demands of our own fleets and armies, and, instead or
bringing wealth to the nation, was to be paid for by oppressive taxes upon
the people of England." Never was anything more destitute of foundation. It
might be proved, with the greatest ease, from the nature and quality of the
goods exported, as well as from the situation of the places to which our
merchandise was sent, and which the war could no wise affect, that the
supply of our fleets and armies could not have been the cause of this

wonderful increase of trade: its cause was evident to the whole world; the
ruin of the trade of France, and our possession of her colonies. What
wonderful effects this cause produced the reader will see below;[47] and he
will form on that account some judgment of the author's candor or
information.

Admit however that a great part of our export, though nothing is more
remote from fact, was owing to the supply of our fleets and armies; was it
not something?—was it not peculiarly fortunate for a nation, that she was
able from her own bosom to contribute largely to the supply of her armies
militating in so many distant countries? The author allows that France did
not enjoy the same advantages. But it is remarkable, throughout his whole
book, that those circumstances which have ever been considered as great
benefits, and decisive proofs of national superiority, are, when in our hands,
taken either in diminution of some other apparent advantage, or even
sometimes as positive misfortunes. The optics of that politician must be of a
strange conformation, who beholds everything in this distorted shape.

So far as to our trade. With regard to our navigation, he is still more
uneasy at our situation, and still more fallacious in his state of it. In his text,
he affirms it "to have been entirely engrossed by the neutral nations."[48]
This he asserts roundly and boldly, and without the least concern; although
it cost no more than a single glance of the eye upon his own margin to see
the full refutation of this assertion. His own account proves against him,
that, in the year 1761, the British shipping amounted to 527,557 tons,—the
foreign to no more than 180,102. The medium of his six years British,
2,449,555 tons,—foreign only 906,690. This state (his own) demonstrates
that the neutral nations did not entirely engross our navigation.

I am willing from a strain of candor to admit that this author speaks at
random; that he is only slovenly and inaccurate, and not fallacious. In

matters of account, however, this want of care is not excusable; and the
difference between neutral nations entirely engrossing our navigation, and
being only subsidiary to a vastly augmented trade, makes a most material
difference to his argument. From that principle of fairness, though the
author speaks otherwise, I am willing to suppose he means no more than
that our navigation had so declined as to alarm us with the probable loss of
this valuable object. I shall however show, that his whole proposition,
whatever modifications he may please to give it, is without foundation; that
our navigation had not decreased; that, on the contrary, it had greatly
increased in the war; that it had increased by the war; and that it was
probable the same cause would continue to augment it to a still greater
height; to what an height it is hard to say, had our success continued.

But first I must observe, I am much less solicitous whether his fact be
true or no, than whether his principle is well established. Cases are dead
things, principles are living and productive. I affirm then, that, if in time of
war our trade had the good fortune to increase, and at the same time a large,
nay the largest, proportion of carriage had been engrossed by neutral
nations, it ought not in itself to have been considered as a circumstance of
distress. War is a time of inconvenience to trade; in general it must be
straitened, and must find its way as it can. It is often happy for nations that
they are able to call in neutral navigation. They all aim at it. France
endeavored at it, but could not compass it. Will this author say, that, in a
war with Spain, such an assistance would not be of absolute necessity? that
it would not be the most gross of all follies to refuse it?

In the next place, his method of stating a medium of six years of war, and
six years of peace, to decide this question, is altogether unfair. To say, in
derogation of the advantages of a war, that navigation is not equal to what it
was in time of peace, is what hitherto has never been heard of. No war ever
bore that test but the war which he so bitterly laments. One may lay it down

as a maxim, that an average estimate of an object in a steady course of
rising or of falling, must in its nature be an unfair one; more particularly if
the cause of the rise or fall be visible, and its continuance in any degree
probable. Average estimates are never just but when the object fluctuates,
and no reason can be assigned why it should not continue still to fluctuate.
The author chooses to allow nothing at all for this: he has taken an average
of six years of the war. He knew, for everybody knows, that the first three
years were on the whole rather unsuccessful; and that, in consequence of
this ill success, trade sunk, and navigation declined with it; but that grand
delusion of the three last years turned the scale in our favor. At the
beginning of that war (as in the commencement of every war), traders were
struck with a sort of panic. Many went out of the freighting business. But
by degrees, as the war continued, the terror wore off; the danger came to be
better appreciated, and better provided against; our trade was carried on in
large fleets, under regular convoys, and with great safety. The freighting
business revived. The ships were fewer, but much larger; and though the
number decreased, the tonnage was vastly augmented: insomuch that in
1761 the British shipping had risen by the author's own account to 527,557
tons.—In the last year he has given us of the peace, it amounted to no more
than 494,772; that is, in the last year of the war it was 32,785 tons more
than in the correspondent year of his peace average. No year of the peace
exceeded it except one, and that but little.

The fair account of the matter is this. Our trade had, as we have just seen,
increased to so astonishing a degree in 1761, as to employ British and
foreign ships to the amount of 707,659 tons, which is 149,500 more than we
employed in the last year of the peace.—Thus our trade increased more than
a fifth; our British navigation had increased likewise with this astonishing
increase of trade, but was not able to keep pace with it; and we added about
120,000 tons of foreign shipping to the 60,000, which had been employed
in the last year of the peace. Whatever happened to our shipping in the

former years of the war, this would be no true state of the case at the time of
the treaty. If we had lost something in the beginning, we had then
recovered, and more than recovered, all our losses. Such is the ground of
the doleful complaints of the author, that the carrying trade was wholly
engrossed by the neutral nations.

I have done fairly, and even very moderately, in taking this year, and not
his average, as the standard of what might be expected in future, had the
war continued. The author will be compelled to allow it, unless he
undertakes to show; first, that the possession of Canada, Martinico,
Guadaloupe, Grenada, the Havannah, the Philippines, the whole African
trade, the whole East India trade, and the whole Newfoundland fishery, had
no certain inevitable tendency to increase the British shipping; unless, in the
second place, he can prove that those trades were, or might be, by law or
indulgence, carried on in foreign vessels; and unless, thirdly, he can
demonstrate that the premium of insurance on British ships was rising as
the war continued. He can prove not one of these points. I will show him a
fact more that is mortal to his assertions. It is the state of our shipping in
1762. The author had his reasons for stopping short at the preceding year. It
would have appeared, had he proceeded farther, that our tonnage was in a
course of uniform augmentation, owing to the freight derived from our
foreign conquests, and to the perfect security of our navigation from our
clear and decided superiority at sea. This, I say, would have appeared from
the state of the two years:—

1761. British 527,557 tons.
1762. Ditto 559,537 tons.
1761. Foreign 180,102 tons.
1762. Ditto 129,502 tons.

The two last years of the peace were in no degree equal to these. Much of
the navigation of 1763 was also owing to the war; this is manifest from the