This disposition of the mind to communicate the properties of one object to another, is not always proportioned to the intimacy of their connection. The order of the transition from object to object, hath also an influence. The sense of order operates not less powerfully in this case, than in the succession of ideas[20]. If a thing be agreeable in itself, all its accessories appear agreeable. But the agreeableness of an accessory, extends not itself so readily to the principal. Any dress upon a fine woman is becoming; but the most elegant ornaments upon one that is homely, have scarce any effect to mend her appearance. The reason will be obvious, from what is said in the chapter above cited. The mind passes more easily from the principal to its accessories, than in the opposite direction.
The emotions produced as above may properly be termed secondary, being occasioned either by antecedent emotions or antecedent passions, which in this respect may be termed primary. And to complete the present theory, I must now remark a difference betwixt a primary emotion and a primary passion in the production of secondary emotions. A secondary emotion cannot but be more faint than the primary; and therefore, if the chief or principal object have not the power to raise a passion, the accessory object will have still less power. But if a passion be raised by the principal object, the secondary emotion may readily swell into a passion for the accessory, provided the accessory be a proper object for desire. And thus it happens that one passion is often productive of another. Examples are without number: the sole difficulty is a proper choice. I begin with self-love, and the power it hath to generate other passions. The love which parents bear their children, is an illustrious example of the foregoing doctrine. Every man, beside making part of a greater system, like a comet, a planet, or satellite only; hath a less system of his own, in the centre of which he represents the sun dispersing his fire and heat all around. The connection between a man and his children, fundamentally that of cause and effect, becomes, by the addition of other circumstances, the completest that can be among individuals; and therefore, self-love, the most vigorous of all passions, is readily expanded upon children. The secondary emotion they at first produce by means of their connection, is, generally speaking, sufficiently strong to move desire even from the beginning; and the new passion swells by degrees, till it rival in some measure self-love, the primary passion. The following case will demonstrate the truth of this theory. Remorse for betraying a friend, or murdering an enemy in cold blood, makes a man even hate himself. In this state, it is a matter of experience, that he is scarce conscious of any affection to his children, but rather of disgust or ill-will. What cause can be assigned for this change, other than the hatred which beginning at himself, is expanded upon his children? And if so, may we not with equal reason derive from self-love the affection a man for ordinary has to them?
The affection a man bears to his blood-relations, depends on the same principle. Self-love is also expanded upon them; and the communicated passion, is more or less vigorous in proportion to the connection. Nor doth self-love rest here: it is, by the force of connection, communicated even to things inanimate. And hence the affection a man bears to his property, and to every thing he calls his own.
Friendship, less vigorous than self-love, is, for that reason, less apt to communicate itself to children or other relations. Instances however are not wanting, of such communicated passion arising from friendship when it is strong. Friendship may go higher in the matrimonial state than in any other condition: and Otway, in Venice preserv’d, shows a fine taste in taking advantage of that circumstance. In the scene where Belvidera sues to her father for pardon, she is represented as pleading her mother’s merit, and the resemblance she bore to her mother.
Priuli. My daughter!
Belvidera. Yes, your daughter, by a mother
Virtuous and noble, faithful to your honour,
Obedient to your will, kind to your wishes,
Dear to your arms. By all the joys she gave you,
When in her blooming years she was your treasure,
Look kindly on me; in my face behold
The lineaments of hers y’ have kiss’d so often,
Pleading the cause of your poor cast-off child.
And again,
Belvidera. Lay me, I beg you, lay me
By the dear ashes of my tender mother.
She would have pitied me, had fate yet spar’d her.
Act 5. sc. 1.
This explains why any meritorious action or any illustrious qualification in my son or my friend, is apt to make me overvalue myself. If I value my friend’s wife or his son upon account of their connection with him, it is still more natural that I should value myself upon account of my own connection with him.
Friendship, or any other social affection, may produce opposite effects. Pity, by interesting us strongly for the person in distress, must of consequence inflame our resentment against the author of the distress. For, in general, the affection we have for any man, generates in us good-will to his friends and ill-will to his enemies. Shakespear shows great art in the funeral oration pronounced by Antony over the body of Cæsar. He first endeavours to excite grief in the hearers, by dwelling upon the deplorable loss of so great a man. This passion raised to a pitch, interesting them strongly in Cæsar’s fate, could not fail to produce a lively sense of the treachery and cruelty of the conspirators; an infallible method to inflame the resentment of the multitude beyond all bounds.