son, because he discovers that art. The bulk of hearers know no further than to approve the man who affects them, and speaks to their heart, as they very properly and emphatically term it, and to commend the performance by which this is accomplished. But how it is accomplished, they neither give themselves the trouble to consider, nor attempt to explain*.

PART IV.-The fourth hypothesis.

Lastly, To mention only one other hypothesis; there are who maintain that compassion is "an example of “unmixed selfishness and malignity," and may be "re"solved into that power of imagination, by which we apply the misfortunes of others to ourselves;" that we are said "to pity no longer than we fancy ourselves to "suffer, and to be pleased only by reflecting that our "sufferings are not real; thus indulging a dream of dis"tress, from what we can awake whenever we please, to "exult in our security, and enjoy the comparison of the "fiction with truthf."

This is no other than the antiquated doctrine of the philosopher of Malmesbury, rescued from oblivion, to which it had been fast descending, and republished with improvements. Hobbes indeed thought it a sufficient

The inquiry contained in this chapter was written long before I had an opportunity of perusing a very ingenious English Commentary and Notes on Ho race's Epistles to the Pisos and to Augustus, in which Mr Hume's sentiments on this subject are occasionally criticised. The opinions of that commentator, in regard to Mr Hume's theory, coincide in every thing material with mine. This author considers the question no farther than it relates to the representations of tragedy, and hath, by confining his view to this single point, been led to lay greater stress on Fontenelle's hypothesis, than, for the solution of the general phenomenon, it is entitled to. It is very true that our theatrical entertainments commonly exhibit a degree of distress which we could not bear to witness in the objects represented. Consequently the consideration that it is but a picture, and not the original, a fictitious exhibition, and not the reality, which we contemplate, is essential for rendering the whole, I may say, supportable as well as pleasant. But even in this case, when it is necessary to our repose, to consider the scenical misery before us as mere illusion, we are generally better pleased to consider the things represented as genuine fact. It requires, indeed, but a further degree of affliction to make us even pleased to think that the copy never had any archetype in nature. But when this is the case we may truly say, that the poet hath exceeded and wrought up pity to a kind of horror.

+ Adventurer, No. 110.

stretch, in order to render the sympathetic sorrow purely selfish, to define it, "imagination or fiction of future "calamity to ourselves, proceeding from the sense of a"nother man's calamity." But in the first quotation we have another kind of fiction; namely, that we are at present the very sufferers ourselves, the identical persons whose cases are exhibited as being so deplorable, and whose calamities we so sincerely lament. There were some things hinted in the beginning of the chapter, in relation to this paradoxical conceit, which I should not have thought it necessary to resume, had it not been adopted by a late author, whose periodical essays seemed to entitle him to the character of an ingenuous, moral, and instructive writert. For though he hath declined entering formally into the debate, he hath sufficiently shown his sentiments on this article, and hath endeavoured indirectly to support them.

I doubt not that it will appear to many of my readers as equally silly to refute this hypothesis and to defend it. Nothing could betray reasonable men into such extravagancies, but the dotage with which one is affected towards every appendage of a favourite system. And this is an appendage of that system which derives all the affections and springs of action in the human mind from self-love. In almost all system builders of every denomination, there is vehement desire of simplifying their principles, and reducing all to one. Hence in medicine, the passion for finding a catholicon, or cure of all diseases; and in chemistry, for discovering the true alcahest, or universal dissolvent. Nor have our moralists entirely escaped the contagion. One reduceth all the virtues to prudence, and is ready to make it clear as sun-shine, that there neither is nor can be another source of moral good, but a right conducted self-love: another is equally con、 fident, that all the virtues are but different modifications of disinterested benevolence: a third will demonstrate to you that veracity is the whole duty of man: a fourth, with more ingenuity, and much greater appearance of

Hum. Nat. chap. ix. sect. 10.

+ Hawkesworth,

reason, assures you, that the true system of ethics is comprised in one word sympathy.

But to the point in hand: it appears a great objection to the selfish system, that in pity we are affected with a real sorrow for the sufferings of others, or at least that men have universally understood this to be the case, as appears from the very words and phrases expressive of this emotion to be found in all known languages. But to one who has thoroughly imbibed the principles and spirit of a philosophic sect, which hath commonly as violent an appetite for mystery (though under a different name, for with the philosopher it is paradox) as any religious sect whatever; how paltry must an objection appear, which hath nothing to support it but the conviction of all mankind, those only excepted whose minds have been perverted by scholastic sophistry?

It is remarkable, that though so many have contended that some fiction of the imagination is absolutely necessary to the production of pity, and though the examples of this emotion are so frequent (I hope, in the theorists themselves no less than in others) as to give ample scope for examination, they are so little agreed what this fiction is. Some contend only, that in witnessing tragedy, one is under a sort of momentary deception, which a very little reflection can correct, and imagines that he is actually witnessing those distresses and miseries which are only represented in borrowed characters, and that the actors are the very persons whom they exhibit. This supposition, I acknowledge, is the most admissible of all. That children and simple people, who are utter strangers to theatrical amusements, are apt at first to be deceived in this manner, is undeniable. That, therefore, through the magical power (if I may call it so) of natural and animated action, a transient illusion somewhat similar may be produced in persons of knowledge and experience, I will not take upon me to controvert. But this hypothesis is not necessarily connected with any particular theory of the pasions. The persons for whom we grieve, whether the real objects or only their representatives mistaken for them, are still other persons, and not our

selves. Besides, this was never intended to account but for the degree of emotion in one particular case only.

Others, therefore, who refer every thing to self, will have it, that by a fiction of the mind, we instantly conceive some future and similar calamity as coming upon ourselves; and that it is solely this conception, and this dread, which call forth all our sorrow and our tears. Others, not satisfied with this, maintain boldly, that we conceive ourselves to be the persons suffering the miseries related or represented, at the very instant that our pity is raised. When nature is deserted by us, it is no wonder that we should lose our way in the devious tracks of imagination, and not know where to settle.

The first would say, "When I see Garrick in the cha"racter of King Lear in the utmost agony of distress, I "am so transported with the passions raised in my breast, "that I quite forget the tragedian, and imagine that my eyes are fixed on that much injured and most misera"ble monarch." Says the second, "I am not in the least "liable to so gross a blunder; but I cannot help, in con"sequence of the representation, being struck with the

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impression that I am soon to be in the same situation, "and to be used with the like ingratitude and barbarity." Says the third, "The case is still worse with me; for "I conceive myself, and not the player, to be that wretch"ed man at the very time that he is acted. I fancy that "I am actually in the midst of the storm, suffering all "his anguish, that my daughters have turned me out of doors, and treated me with such unheard of cruelty and "injustice." It is exceedingly lucky that there do not oftener follow terrible consequences from these misconceptions. It will be said," they are transient, and "quickly cured by recollection." But however transient, if they really exist, they must exist for some time. Now, if unhappily a man had two of his daughters sitting near him at the very instant he was under this delusion, and if, by a very natural and consequential fiction, he fancied them to be Goneril and Regan, the effects might be fatal to the ladies, though they were the most dutiful children in the world.

Z

It hath never yet been denied (for it is impossible to say what will be denied) that pity influences a person to contribute to relieve the object when it is in his power. But if there is a mistake in the object, there must of necessity be a mistake in the direction of the relief. For instance, you see a man perishing with hunger, and your compassion is raised; now you will pity no longer, say these acute reasoners, than you fancy yourseif to suffer. You yourself properly are the sole object of your own pity, and as you desire to relieve the person only whom you pity; if there be any food within your reach, you will no doubt devour it voraciously, in order to allay the famine which you fancy you are enduring; but you will not give one morsel to the wretch who really needs your aid, but is by no means the object of your regret, for whom you can feel no compunction, and with whose distress (which is quite a foreign matter to you) it is impossible you should be affected, especially when under the power of a passion consisting of unmixed selfishness and malignity. For though if you did not pity him, you would, on cool reflection, give him some aid, perhaps from principle, perhaps from example, or perhaps from habit, unluckily this accursed pity, this unmixed malignant selfishness, interposeth, to shut your heart against him, and to obstruct the pious purpose.

I know no way of eluding this objection but one, which is indeed a very easy way. It is to introduce another fiction of the imagination, and to say, that when this emotion is raised, I lose all consciousness of my own existence and identity, and fancy that the pitiable object before me, is my very self; and that the real I, or what I formerly mistook for myself, is some other body, a mere spectator of my misery, or perhaps nobody at all. Thus unknowingly I may contribute to his relief, when under the strange illusion which makes me fancy, that instead of giving to another, I am taking to myself. But if the man be scrupulously honest, he will certainly restore to me when I am awake, what I give him unintentionally in my sleep.