For Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar's angel.
Judge, oh you gods! how dearly Cæsar lov'd him!
This, this, was the unkindest cut of all;

For when the noble Cæsar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
Quite vanquish'd him; then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,
Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell,
Even at the base of Pompey's statue.
O what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I and you, and all of us, fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourished over us.
O, now you weep; and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity; these are gracious drops.
Kind souls! what! weep you when you but behold
Our Cæsar's vesture wounded? look you here!
Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, by traitors.

Julius Cæsar, act 3. sc. 6.

Had Antony endeavoured to excite his audience to vengeance, without paving the way by raising their grief, his speech would not have made the same impression.

Hatred, and other dissocial passions, produce effects directly opposite to those above-mentioned. If I hate a man, his children, his relations, nay, his property, become to me objects of aversion; his enemies, on the other hand, I am disposed to esteem.

The more slight and transitory relations are not favourable to the communication of passion. Anger, when sudden and violent, is one exception; for if the person who did the injury be removed out of reach, that passion will vent itself against any related object, however slight the relation be. Another exception makes a greater figure a group of beings or things becomes often the object of a communicated passion, even where the relation of the individuals to the percipient is but slight. Thus, though I put no value upon a single man for living in the same town with myself, my townsmen, however, considered in a body, are preferred before others. This is still more remarkable with respect to my countrymen in general: the grandeur of the complex objects swells the passion of self-love by the relation I have to my native country; and every passion, when it swells beyond its ordinary bounds, hath a peculiar tendency to expand itself along related objects. In fact, instances are not rare, of persons who upon all occasions are willing to sacrifice their lives and fortunes for their country. Such influence upon the mind of man hath a complete object, or more properly speaking, a general term.*

The sense of order hath influence in the communication of passion. It is a common observation, that a man's affection to his parents is less vigorous than to his children: the order of nature, in descending to children, aids the transition of the affection; the ascent to a parent, contrary to that order, makes the transition more difficult. Gratitude to a benefactor is readily extended to his children, but not so readily to his parents. The difference however between the natural and inverted order, is not so considerable but

* See Essays on morality and natural religion, part 1. ess. 2. ch. 5.

that it may be balanced by other circumstances. Pliny* gives an account of a woman of rank condemned to die for a crime; and to avoid public shame, detained in prison to die of hunger: her life being prolonged beyond expectation, it was discovered, that she was nourished by sucking milk from the breasts of her daughter. This instance of filial piety, which aided the transition, and made ascent no less easy than descent is commonly, procured a pardon to the mother, and a pension to both. The story of Androcles and the liont may be accounted for in the same manner; the admiration, of which the lion was the object for his kindness and gratitude to Androcles, produced good-will to Androcles, and a pardon of his crime.

And this leads to other observations upon communicated passions. I love my daughter less after she is married, and my mother less after a second marriage: the marriage of my son or of my father diminishes not my affection so remarkably. The same observation holds with respect to friendship, gratitude, and other passions: the love I bear my friend is but faintly extended to his married daughter: the resentment I have against a man is readily extended against children who make part of his family; not so readily against chil dren who are forisfamiliated, especially by marriage. This difference is also more remarkable in daughters than in sons. These are curi

ous facts; and in order to discover the cause, we must examine minutely that operation of the mind by which a passion is extended to a related object. In considering two things as related, the mind is not stationary, but passeth and repasseth from the one to the other, viewing the relation from each of them perhaps oftener than once; which holds more especially in considering a relation between things of unequal rank, as between the cause and the effect, or between a principal and an accessory: in contemplating, for example, the relation between a building and its ornaments, the mind is not satisfied with a single transition from the former to the latter; it must also view the relation, beginning at the latter, and passing from it to the former. This vibration of the mind in passing and repassing between things related, explains the facts above-mentioned: the mind passeth easily from the father to the daughter; but where the daughter is married, this new relation attracts the mind, and obstructs, in some measure, the return from the daughter to the father; and any circumstance that obstructs the mind in passing and repassing between its objects, occasions a like obstruction in the communication of passion. The marriage of a male obstructs less the easiness of transition; because a male is less sunk by the relation of marriage than a female.

The foregoing instances are of passion communicated from one object to another. But one passion may be generated by another, without change of object. It in general is observable, that a passion paves the way to others similar in their tone, whether directed to the same or to a different object; for the mind, heated by any passion, is in that state more susceptible of a new impression in a similar tone, than when cool and quiescent. It is a common observation, that pity generally produceth friendship for a person in dis

Lib. 7. cap. 36.

+ Aulus Gellius, lib. 5. cap. 14.

tress. One reason is, that pity interests us in its object, and recon.mends all its virtuous qualities: female beauty accordingly shows best in distress; being more apt to inspire love than upon an ordinary occasion. But the chief reason is, that pity, warming and melting the spectator, prepares him for the reception of other tender affections; and pity is readily improved into love or friendship, by a certain tenderness and concern for the object, which is the tone of both passions. The aptitude of pity to produce love, is beautifully illustrated by Shakspeare:

Othello. Her father lov'd me; oft invited me;
Still question'd me the story of my life,
From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have past.

I ran it through, ev'n from my boyish days,
To th' very moment that he bade me tell it:
Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field;

Of hair-breadth 'scapes in th' imminent deadly breach;
Of being taken by the insolent foe,

And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence,
And with it all my travel's history.

-All these to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline;

But still the house-affairs would draw her thence,
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart,
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not distinctively. I did consent,
And often did beguile her of her tears,

When I did speak of some distressful stroke

That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:

She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange

"Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful

She wish'd she had not heard it :-yet she wish'd

That Heaven had made her such a man:-she thank'd me,

And bade me, if I had a friend that lov'd her,

I should but teach him how to tell my story,

And that would woo her. On this hint I spake :

She lov'd me for the dangers I had past,

And I lov'd her, that she did pity them;

This only is the witchcraft I have us'd.-Othello, act 1. sc. 8.

In this instance it will be observed that admiration concurred with pity to produce love.

SECT. VI.

CAUSES OF THE PASSIONS OF FEAR AND ANGER.

FEAR and anger, to answer the purposes of nature, are happily so contrived as to operate sometimes instinctively, sometimes deliberately, according to circumstances. As far as deliberate, they fall

in with the general system, and require no particular explanation: if any object have a threatening appearance, reason suggests means to avoid the danger; if a man be injured, the first thing he thinks of is what revenge he shall take, and what means he shall employ. These particulars are no less obvious than natural. But as the passions of fear and anger, in their instinctive state, are less familiar to us, it may be acceptable to the reader to have them accurately delineated. He may also possibly be glad of an opportunity to have the nature of instinctive passions more fully explained, than there was formerly opportunity to do. I begin with fear.

Self-preservation is a matter of too great importance to be left entirely to the conduct of reason. Nature hath acted here with her usual foresight. Fear and anger are passions that move us to act, sometimes deliberately, sometimes instinctively, according to circumstances; and, by operating in the latter manner, they frequently afford security when the slower operations of deliberate reason would be too late we take nourishment commonly, not by the direction of reason, but by the impulse of hunger and thirst and in the same manner we avoid danger by the impulse of fear, which often, before there is time for reflection, placeth us in safety. Here we have an illustrious instance of wisdom in the formation of man; for it is not within the reach of fancy, to conceive any thing more artfully contrived to answer its purpose, than the instinctive passion of fear, which, upon the first surmise of danger, operates instantaneously. So little doth the passion, in such instances, depend on reason, that it frequently operates in contradiction to it; a man who is not upon his guard cannot avoid shrinking a blow, though he knows it to be aimed in sport; nor avoid closing his eyes at the approach of what may hurt them, though conscious that he is in no danger. And it also operates by impelling us to act even where we are conscious that our interposition can be of no service: if a passage-boat, in a brisk gale, bear much to one side, I cannot avoid applying the whole force of my shoulder to set it upright; and if my horse stumble, my hands and knees are instantly at work to prevent him from falling.

Fear provides for self-preservation by flying from harm; anger by repelling it. Nothing, indeed, can be better contrived to repel or prevent injury, than anger or resentment: destitute of that passion, men, like defenceless lambs, would lie constantly open to mischief.* Deliberate anger caused by a voluntary injury, is too well known to require any explanation: if my desire be to resent an affront, I must use means; and these means must be discovered by reflection: deliberation is here requisite; and in that case the passion seldom exceeds just bounds. But where anger impels one suddenly to return a blow, even without thinking of doing mischief, the passion is instinctive; and it is chiefly in such a case that it is rash and ungovernable, because it operates blindly, without affording time for deliberation or foresight.

*Brasidas, being bit by a mouse he had catched. let it slip out of his fingers: "No creature (says he) is so contemptible, but what may provide for its own safety, if it have courage."-Plutarch, Apothegmata.

Instinctive anger is frequently raised by bodily pain, by a stroke, for example, on a tender part, which, ruffling the temper, and unhinging the mind, is in its tone similar to anger; and when a man is thus beforehand disposed to anger, he is not nice nor scrupulous about an object; the person who gave the stroke, however accidentally, is by an imflammable temper held a proper object, merely for having occasioned the pain. It is still more remarkable, that a stock or a stone by which I am hurt, becomes an object of my resentment; I am violently excited to crush it to atoms. The passion, indeed, in that case, can be but a single flash; for being entirely irrational. it must vanish with the first reflection. Nor is that irrational effect confined to bodily pain: internal distress, when excessive, may be the occasion of effects equally irrational: perturbation of mind occasioned by the apprehension of having lost a dear friend, will, in a fiery temper, produce momentary sparks of anger against that very friend, however innocent: thus Shakspeare, in the Tempest,

Ev'n here I will put off my hope, and keep it
No longer for my flatterer; he is drown'd'

Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks

Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go.-Act 3. sc. 3.

The final words, Well, let him go, are an expression of impatience and anger at Ferdinand, whose absence greatly distressed his father, dreading that he was lost in the storm. This nice operation of the human mind is by Shakspeare exhibited upon another occasion, and finely painted in the tragedy of Othello: lago, by dark hints and suspicious circumstances, had roused Othello's jealousy; which, however, appeared too slightly founded to be vented upon Desdemona, its proper object. The perturbation and distress of mind thereby occasioned, produced a momentary resentment against Iago, considered as occasioning the jealousy, though innocent:

Othello. Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore ;
Be sure of it give me the ocular proof,

Or by the wrath of man's eternal soul

Thou hadst been better have been born a dog,

Than answer my wak'd wrath.

Jago. Is't come to this?

Othello. Make me see't; or, at the least, so prove it,

That the probation bear no hinge or loop

To hang a doubt on: or woe upon thy life!

Ingo. My noble Lord

Othello. If thou dost slander her and torture me,

Never pray more abandon all remorse ;

On horror's head horrors accumulate;

Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amaz'd;
For nothing can'st thou to damnation add
Greater than that.

Othello, act 2. sc. 8.

This blind and absurd effect of anger is more gaily illustrated by Addison, in a story, the dramatis persona of which are a cardinal, and a spy retained in pay for intelligence. The cardinal is represented as minuting down the particulars. The spy begins with a low voice, "Such an one the advocate whispered to one of his friends within my hearing, that your Eminence was a very great pol