1.2.1. Chap.I
Of the Passions which take their origin from the body
1. It is indecent to express any strong degree of those
passions which arise from a certain situation or disposition of
the body; because the company, not being in the same disposition,
cannot be expected to sympathize with them. Violent hunger, for
example, though upon many occasions not only natural, but
unavoidable, is always indecent, and to eat voraciously is
universally regarded as a piece of ill manners. There is,
however, some degree of sympathy, even with hunger. It is
agreeable to see our companions eat with a good appetite, and all
expressions of loathing are offensive. The disposition of body
which is habitual to a man in health, makes his stomach easily
keep time, if I may be allowed so coarse an expression, with the
one, and not with the other. We can sympathize with the distress
it in the which excessive hunger occasions when we read the
description of journal of a siege, or of a sea voyage. We imagine
ourselves in the situation of the sufferers, and thence readily
conceive the grief, the fear and consternation, which must
necessarily distract them. We feel, ourselves, some degree of
those passions, and therefore sympathize with them: but as we do
not grow hungry by reading the description, we cannot properly,
even in this case, be said to sympathize with their hunger.
It is the same case with the passion by which Nature unites
the two sexes. Though naturally the most furious of all the
passions, all strong expressions of it are upon every occasion
indecent, even between persons in whom its most complete
indulgence is acknowledged by all laws, both human and divine, to
be perfectly innocent. There seems, however, to be some degree of
sympathy even with this passion. To talk to a woman as we would
to a man is improper: it is expected that their company should
inspire us with more gaiety, more pleasantry, and more attention;
and an intire insensibility to the fair sex, renders a man
contemptible in some measure even to the men.
Such is our aversion for all the appetites which take their
origin from the body: all strong expressions of them are
loathsome and disagreeable. According to some ancient
philosophers, these are the passions which we share in common
with the brutes, and which having no connexion with the
characteristical qualities of human nature, are upon that account
beneath its dignity. But there are many other passions which we
share in common with the brutes, such as resentment, natural
affection, even gratitude, which do not, upon that account,
appear to be so brutal. The true cause of the peculiar disgust
which we conceive for the appetites of the body when we see them
in other men, is that we cannot enter into them. To the person
himself who feels them, as soon as they are gratified, the object
that excited them ceases to be agreeable: even its presence often
becomes offensive to him; he looks round to no purpose for the
charm which transported him the moment before, and he can now as
little enter into his own passion as another person. When we have
dined, we order the covers to be removed; and we should treat in
the same manner the objects of the most ardent and passionate
desires, if they were the objects of no other passions but those
which take their origin from the body.
In the command of those appetites of the body consists that
virtue which is properly called temperance. To restrain them
within those bounds, which regard to health and fortune
prescribes, is the part of prudence. But to confine them within
those limits, which grace, which propriety, which delicacy, and
modesty require, is the office of temperance.
2. It is for the same reason that to cry out with bodily
pain, how intolerable soever, appears always unmanly and
unbecoming. There is, however, a good deal of sympathy even with
bodily pain. If, as has already been observed, I see a stroke
aimed, and just ready to fall upon the leg, or arm, of another
person, I naturally shrink and draw back my own leg, or my own
arm: and when it does fall, I feel it in some measure, and am
hurt by it as well as the sufferer. My hurt, however, is, no
doubt, excessively slight, and, upon that account, if he makes
any violent out-cry, as I cannot go along with him, I never fail
to despise him. And this is the case of all the passions which
take their origin from the body: they excite either no sympathy
at all, or such a degree of it, as is altogether disproportioned
to the violence of what is felt by the sufferer.
It is quite otherwise with those passions which take their
origin from the imagination. The frame of my body can be but
little affected by the alterations which are brought about upon
that of my companion: but my imagination is more ductile, and
more readily assumes, if I may say so, the shape and
configuration of the imaginations of those with whom I am
familiar. A disappointment in love, or ambition, will, upon this
account, call forth more sympathy than the greatest bodily evil.
Those passions arise altogether from the imagination. The person
who has lost his whole fortune, if he is in health, feels nothing
in his body. What he suffers is from the imagination only, which
represents to him the loss of his dignity, neglect from his
friends, contempt from his enemies, dependance, want, and misery,
coming fast upon him; and we sympathize with him more strongly
upon this account, because our imaginations can more readily
mould themselves upon his imagination, than our bodies can mould
themselves upon his body.
The loss of a leg may generally be regarded as a more real
calamity than the loss of a mistress. It would be a ridiculous
tragedy, however, of which the catastrophe was to turn upon a
loss of that kind. A misfortune of the other kind, how frivolous
soever it may appear to be, has given occasion to many a fine
one.
Nothing is so soon forgot as pain. The moment it is gone the
whole agony of it is over, and the thought of it can no longer
give us any sort of disturbance. We ourselves cannot then enter
into the anxiety and anguish which we had before conceived. An
unguarded word from a friend will occasion a more durable
uneasiness. The agony which this creates is by no means over with
the word. What at first disturbs us is not the object of the
senses, but the idea of the imagination. As it is an idea,
therefore, which occasions our uneasiness, till time and other
accidents have in some measure effaced it from our memory, the
imagination continues to fret and rankle within, from the thought
of it.
Pain never calls forth any very lively sympathy unless it is
accompanied with danger. We sympathize with the fear, though not
with the agony of the sufferer. Fear, however, is a passion
derived altogether from the imagination, which represents, with
an uncertainty and fluctuation that increases our anxiety, not
what we really feel, but what we may hereafter possibly suffer.
The gout or the tooth-ach, though exquisitely painful, excite
very little sympathy; more dangerous diseases, though accompanied
with very little pain, excite the highest.
Some people faint and grow sick at the sight of a chirurgical
operation, and that bodily pain which is occasioned by tearing
the flesh, seems, in them, to excite the most excessive sympathy.
We conceive in a much more lively and distinct manner the pain
which proceeds from an external cause, than we do that which
arises from an internal disorder. I can scarce form an idea of
the agonies of my neighbour when he is tortured with the gout, or
the stone; but I have the clearest conception of what he must
suffer from an incision, a wound, or a fracture. The chief cause,
however, why such objects produce such violent effects upon us,
is their novelty. One who has been witness to a dozen
dissections, and as many amputations, sees, ever after, all
operations of this kind with great indifference, and often with
perfect insensibility. Though we have read or seen represented
more than five hundred tragedies, we shall seldom feel so entire
an abatement of our sensibility to the objects which they
represent to us.
In some of the Greek tragedies there is an attempt to excite
compassion, by the representation of the agonies of bodily pain.
Philoctetes cries out and faints from the extremity of his
sufferings. Hippolytus and Hercules are both introduced as
expiring under the severest tortures, which, it seems, even the
fortitude of Hercules was incapable of supporting. In all these
cases, however, it is not the pain which interests us, but some
other circumstances. It is not the sore foot, but the solitude,
of Philoctetes which affects us, and diffuses over that charming
tragedy, that romantic wildness, which is so agreeable to the
imagination. The agonies of Hercules and Hippolytus are
interesting only because we foresee that death is to be the
consequence. If those heroes were to recover, we should think the
representation of their sufferings perfectly ridiculous. What a
tragedy would that be of which the distress consisted in a colic.
Yet no pain is more exquisite. These attempts to excite
compassion by the representation of bodily pain, may be regarded
as among the greatest breaches of decorum of which the Greek
theatre has set the example.
The little sympathy which we feel with bodily pain is the
foundation of the propriety of constancy and patience in enduring
it. The man, who under the severest tortures allows no weakness
to escape him, vents no groan, gives way to no passion which we
do not entirely enter into, commands our highest admiration. His
firmness enables him to keep time with our indifference and
insensibility. We admire and entirely go along with the
magnanimous effort which he makes for this purpose. We approve of
his behaviour, and from our experience of the common weakness of
human nature, we are surprised, and wonder how he should be able
to act so as to deserve approbation. Approbation, mixed and
animated by wonder and surprise, constitutes the sentiment which
is properly called admiration, of which, applause is the natural
expression, as has already been observed.
