it does not prefs too clofe, and pity is a paffion accompanied with pleasure, becaufe it arifes from love and fodial affection. Whenever we are formed by nature to any active purpose, the paffion which animates us to it, is attended with delight, or a pleasure of fome kind, let the subject matter be what it will; and as our Creator has defigned we should be united by the bond of fympathy, he has ftrengthened that bond by a proportionable delight; and there moft where our fympathy is moft wanted, in the diftreffes of others. If this paffion was fimply painful, we would shun with the greatest care all perfons and places that could excite fuch a paffion; as fome, who are so far gone in indolence as not to endure any strong impreffion, actually do. But the cafe is widely different with the greater part of mankind; there is no fpectacle we fo eagerly purfue, as that of fome uncomnon and grievous calamity; fo that whether

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 fmall uneafinefs. The delight we have in fuch things, hinders us from fhunning fcenes of mifery; and the pain we feel, prompts us to relieve ourselves in relieving those who suffer and all this antecedent to any reasoning, by an inftinct that works us to its own purposes, without our concurrence,

SECT. XV.

Of the effects of TRAGEDY.

T is thus in real calamities. In imi

IT

tated diftreffes the only difference is the pleasure refulting from the effects of imitation; for it is never fo perfect, but we can perceive it is imitation, and on that principle are somewhat pleased with it. And indeed in fome cafes we derive

as

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 confiderable part of our fatisfaction in tragedy to the confideration 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. Chuse a day on which to represent the most sublime and affecting tragedy we have; appoint the most favourite actors; spare no coft upon the fcenes and decorations; unite the greateft efforts of poetry, painting and mufic; and when you have collected your audience, juft 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 fquare; in a moment the emptiness of the thea

tre

tre would demonftrate the comparative weakness of the imitative arts, and proclaim the triumph of the real fympathy. I believe that this notion of our having a fimple pain in the reality, yet a delight in the reprefentation, arifes from hence, that we do not fufficiently diftinguish what we would by no means chufe to do, from what we should be eager enough to fee if it was once done. We delight in feeing things, which fo far from doing, our heartieft wishes would be to fee redreffed. This noble capital, the pride of England and of Europe, I believe no man is fo ftrangely wicked as to defire to fee deftroyed by a conflagration or an earthquake, though he fhould be removed himself to the greatest distance from the danger. But fuppofe fuch a fatal accident to have happened, what numbers from all parts would croud 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

real or fictitious diftreffes, 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 fort of fophifm, by which we are frequently impofed upon; it arifes from our not diftinguishing between what is indeed a neceffary condition to our doing or fuffering any thing in general, and what is the cause of fome particular act. If a man kills me with a fword, it is a neceffary condition to this that we should have been both of us alive before the fact; and yet it would be abfurd to fay, that our being both living creatures was the cause of his crime and of my death. So it is certain, that it is abfolutely neceffary my life should be out of any imminent hazard before I can take a delight in the fufferings of others, real or imaginary, or indeed in any thing elfe from any caufe whatfoever. But then it is a sophism to argue from thence, that this immunity is the caufe of my delight either on thefe

or