emotion from the contemplation of the same and similar ohjects.

Emotions occupy time. We must retain the ideas adapted to excite them during some perceptible portion of time, in order to experience the emotions which they are adapted to excite. Emotion-producing ideas are often attained and lost, before the emotions which they are capable of exciting are half developed; often before their development commences. Ideas may fail to produce proper emotions, on account of being associated improperly with other ideas adapted to produce emotions of different or opposite kinds; and objects may be adapted to excite different emotions, according as they are contemplated absolutely, or in particular associations and relations. The idea of pain, for example, considered, absolutely, is unpleasant; but the idea of it, considered as indicative of improved physical action, or of other beneficial operations, is pleasurable.

§ 422. The pleasurable or painful character of ideas, is affected by association, very much as the chemical and mechanical properties of matter are affected by chemical combinations. In a state of combination with other substances, bodies lose their primitive properties, and acquire others of an entirely different character. Compound bodies possess properties very different from those of their component elements. Thus the properties of water are very different from those of oxygen and hydrogen; and those of sulphuric acid, very different from those of sulphur and oxygen. So complex and associated ideas possess properties considered as causes of emotions, very different ftom those of their component elements. Different associations and combinations of ideas, in contemporaneous and successive trains of thought, are adapted to excite different corresponding emotions. Simple ideas are attended with certain emotions; complex ideas, with others; and combinations of contemporaneous and successive ideas, with others still. Every variety of sensations enlarges the sphere of our perceptions; so every variety of simple and complex ideas, and every variety of arrangement in which they occur, enlarges the sphere and variety of our emotions.

§ 423. Different emotions may co-exist as the effect of different contemporaneous ideas. This often occurs in the case of novelty, beauty, and sublimity, and in that of most other classes of the emotions. Co-existing emotions coalesce

and constitute a single, indivisible state of emotion, either pleasurable or painful, according as the emotions of which it consists are on the whole pleasurable or painful. Successive states of emotion may be greatly diversified, according to the successive ideas by which they are produced, and according as the same ideas produce their effects more or less perfectly. The course of the emotions corresponds with that of the ideas. Habits of inattention and thoughtlessness, lead to very different kinds and degrees of emotions, from those of vigorous and continual study; and the study of one class of objects, to very different emotions from those which attend the study of others.

The power we have over our emotions and our capacities of experiencing emotions of different kinds, is limited. We are susceptible only of emotions of certain kinds, and from certain objects. We can have only the emotions that we are capable of; and can attain them by no means, but by ideas of objects, which are themselves to be attained in certain modes, and by means only of the appropriate objects to which they relate.

§ 424. The pleasures and pains of this life, are partly those of sense, and partly those of the emotions. To a certain extent, those of sense and emotion are perfectly con sistent. We may, however, exercise our capacities of sensual pleasure, to the prejudice of our pleasurable emotions; and we may exercise our ideal faculty and emotions to the prejudice of our sensual enjoyment. The former is common; the latter occasional. Different classes of pleasurable emotions are, to a certain extent, consistent with each other. We may exercise them all conjointly, and enjoy one without losing others. But beyond certain limits, we cannot pursue one class of emotions, without prejudice to others. Delight in one or more classes of objects, may be indulged to such an extent as to prevent the exercise of others, by preventing us from contemplating objects adapted to excite other emotions; and by increasing our susceptibility of the emotions indulged, to a degree disproportionable to that of other emotions.

The susceptibilities of particular sensations and emotions are often developed disproportionably to their real and comparative importance. The disproportionate exercise of sensations produces sensuality, and is altogether incompatible with the highest development of the emotions.

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§ 425. Emotions are the final rewards and punishments of voluntary actions, both in the case of merely voluntary, and of moral beings. In this respect, as in some others, they are analogous to sensatious, but are of a higher order. Without them we should be capable of the happiness and misery of pleasurable and painful sensations, but not of any higher intellectual enjoyments or sufferings. The systems of sensations and emotions are intimately connected, and are component parts of one great system of susceptibilities of happiness and misery. We pursue the attainment both We attain ideas of pleasurable sensations and emotions. that certain objects may serve as objects of pleasurable sensations, and seek them for that purpose. So we form ideas that certain objects of thought, or certain means of exciting thoughts, will lead to pleasurable emotions, and accordingly pursue them. In the case of men and other moral beings, pleasurable emotions are the highest rewards of morally good actions; and painful emotions, the highest penalties of morally evil actions. These rewards and punishments are administered in this world to an extent, and with a uniformity, which far exceeds the apprehensions of most men. Its most perfect administration, however, is reserved for the world to come. Emotions are the elements of all possible happiness and misery which do not consist of pleasurable or painful sensations. They are, therefore, the final ends of all the other endowments and exercises of moral beings. All subordinate human faculties and exercises are capable of subserving directly or indirectly the exercise of the emotions.

Besides being the ends for which other mental exercises occur, emotions are of the greatest use in serving as grounds of inference, and lead to the attainment of numerous emotion-producing ideas, which would otherwise be unattainable. We experience emotions in view of particular objects as new, beautiful, or sublime, and form corresponding ideas of those objects. Ideas of beauty depend on emotions which relate to the beautiful, as really as those of color depend on sensations of sight. Emotions, in view of the beautiful, are as much the foundation of our ideas of objects as beautiful, as sensations from resistance are, of objects as resisting. On the basis of sensations, we form ideas of sensible objects; and on the basis of the emotions, of emotionproducing objects; and our usual ideas of emotion-producing

objects, relate to them as objects of emotions, just as our ideas of sensible objects relate to them as sensation-producing objects.

426. The same objects may excite various emotions, some pleasurable, and some painful; and may excite emotions of different kinds, in different degrees. At some times they may excite emotions of one kind, and at others, of other kinds. All emotions are capable of being excited in different degrees, according to the degree of attention which is paid to their objects. Some objects are incapable of exciting strong emotions: others are capable of exciting them in different degrees, proportionable to the times during which they are made the objects of attention. Those which are capable of exciting the strongest emotions, may excite them in many cases only in slight degrees. In forming ideas of objects, considered in relation to the emotions which they are capable of exciting, we must be governed by the emotions which we actually experience from them, just as in forming ideas of sensible objects, we must be governed by the sensations we experience from them. What we feel to be resisting, we must form ideas of as resisting; and what we see to be colored, we must form ideas of as colored. On the same principle, what we find by experience to be beautiful or deformed, pleasurable or painful, we must form ideas of accordingly. One of the great ends of the primary emotions, is to furnish, by means of the ideas which they concur in producing, objects of the affections, of love and hatred, hope and fear. Sensations furnish one class of such objects, and the emotions another.

CHAPTER II.

PRINCIPAL VARIETIES OF THE EMOTIONS.

§ 427. The principal generic orders of the emotions, may be divided and classified with respect to their objects as follows: 1. Those of beauty and deformity; 2. Those of sublimity; 3. Those of mirth; 4. Those which relate to the happiness and misery of others; 5. Those which relate to intentional benefits and injuries; 6. Regret.

Emotions Relating to the Beautiful.

§ 428. A taste for the beautiful is common to all men, and intimately connected with it, is a feeling of disrelish and disgust with respect to deformity. The susceptibility of experiencing emotions of these descriptions, from different classes of objects, is the reason for the estimate and classification of objects as beautiful or deformed; just as sight is the reason for the estimate and classification of objects as visible; and touch the reason for the estimate and classification of them as tangible. Emotions of beauty afford us conceptions of objects as beautiful; and those of deformity of objects as deformed.

As a title of the qualities of objects, beauty, in its primary application, denotes those qualities of visible objects which are pleasing, and relates chiefly to forms, colors, and arrangements. Visible objects may possess beauty of form, color, and structure; and almost all the objects of the natural world are in some degree beautiful. This is pre-eminently the case with trees, plants, flowers, animals, insects, and minerals. Not a tree, plant, flower, or insects, can be found among millions, which has not some beauties; and many of these objects are extremely beautiful. Trees and plants are beautiful in their cylindrical and forms, in their colors and structures, and in the collocation and symmetry, of their parts. The leaves and flowers of the vegetable world exhibit an immense variety of the beauties of form, color, and texture; and are extensively cultivated for ornament; and universally admired for their beauty.