THE

PLEASURES

OF

IMAGINATION.

BOOK THE THIRD.

ARGUMENT.

Pleasure in observing the tempers and manners of men, even where vicious or absurd. The origin of Vice, from false representations of the fancy, producing false opihions concerning good and evil. Inquiry into Ridicule. The general sources of ridicule in the minds and characters of men, enumerated. Final cause of the sense of ridicule. The resemblance of certain aspects of inanimate things to the sensations and properties of the mind. The operations of the mind in the production of the works of Imagination, described. The secondary pleasure from Imitation. The benevolent order of the world illustrated in the arbitrary connection of these pleasures with the objects which excite them. The nature and conduct of Taste. Concluding with an account of the natural and moral advantages resulting from a sensible and well-formed imagination.

THE

PLEASURES

OF

IMAGINATION.

BOOK III.

WHAT wonder therefore, since the' indearing ties Of passion link the universal kind

Of man so close, what wonder if to search

This common nature through the various change
Of sex, and age, and fortune, and the frame
Of each peculiar, draw the busy mind
With unresisted charms? The spacious west,
And all the teeming regions of the south,
Hold not a quarry, to the curious flight
Of Knowledge, half so tempting or so fair,
As man to man. Nor only where the smiles
Of Love invite; nor only where the' applause
Of cordial Honour turns the' attentive eye
On Virtue's graceful deeds. For since the course
Of things external acts in different ways
On human apprehensions, as the hand

Of Nature temper'd to a different frame
Peculiar minds; so haply where the powers
Of Fancy' neither lessen nor enlarge

1 The influence of the Imagination on the conduct of life, is one of the most important points in moral philosophy. It were easy by an induction of facts to prove that the imagination directs almost all the passions, and mixes with almost every circumstance of action or pleasure. Let any man, even of the coldest head and soberest industry, analyse the idea of what he calls his interest; he will find that it consists chiefly of certain degrees of decency, beauty, and order, variously combined into one system, the idol which he seeks to enjoy by labour, hazard, and self-denial. It is on this account of the last consequence to regulate these images by the standard of Nature and the general good; otherwise the Imagination, by heightening some objects beyond their real excellence and beauty, or by representing others in a more odious or terrible shape than they deserve, may of course engage us in pursuits utterly inconsistent with the moral order of things.

If it be objected that this account of things supposes the passions to be merely accidental, whereas there appears in some a natural and hereditary disposition to certain passions prior to all circumstances of education or fortune; it may be answered, that though no man is born ambitious or a miser, yet he may inherit from his parents a peculiar temper or complexion of mind, which shall render his Imagination more liable to be struck with some particular objects, consequently dispose him to form opinions of good and ill, and entertain passions of a particular turn. Some men, for instance, by the original frame of their minds, are more delighted with the vast and magnificent, others on the contrary with the elegant and gentle aspects of nature. And it is very remarkable, that the disposition of the moral powers is always similar to this of the Imagination; that those who are most inclined to admire prodigious and sublime objects in the physical world, are also most inclined to applaud examples of fortitude and heroic virtue in the moral. While those who are charmed rather with the delicacy and sweetness of colours, and forms, and sounds, never fail in like manner to yield the preference to the softer scenes of virtue and the sympathies of a domestic life. And this is sufficient to account for the objection.

Among the ancient philosophers, though we have several hints concerning this influence of the Imagination upon

The images of things, but paint in all

Their genuine hues, the features which they wore
In Nature; there opinion will be true,

And action right. For action treads the path
In which Opinion says he follows good,
Or flies from evil; and Opinion gives
Report of good or evil, as the scene
Was drawn by Fancy, lovely or deform'd:
Thus her report can never there be true
Where Fancy cheats the intellectual eye,
With glaring colours and distorted lines.
Is there a man, who at the sound of death
Sees ghastly shapes of terrors conjur'd up,
And black before him; nought but death-bed groans
And fearful prayers, and plunging from the brink
Of light and being, down the gloomy air,
An unknown depth? Alas! in such a mind,
If no bright forms of excellence attend
The image of his country; nor the pomp
Of sacred senates, nor the guardian voice
Of Justice on her throne, nor aught that wakes
The conscious bosom with a patriot's flame;

morals among the remains of the Socratic school, yet the Stoics were the first who paid it a due attention. Zeno, their founder, thought it impossible to preserve any tolerable regularity in life, without frequently inspecting those pictures or appearances of things, which the imagination offers to the mind (Diog. Laert. I. vii.) The meditations of M. Aurelius, and the discourses of Epictetus, are full of the same sentiment; insomuch that the latter makes the Χρησις οἷα δει, φανίασιων, or right management of the fancies, the only thing for which we are accountable to providence, and without which a man is no other than stupid or frantic. Arrian. 1. i. c. 12. & l. ii. c. 22. See also the Characteristics, vol. i. from p. 313 to 321, where this Stoical doctrine is embellished with all the elegance and graces of Plato.