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THere is such a connection among the perceptions passions and actions of the same person, that it would be wonderful if they should have no mutual influence. That our actions are too much directed by passion, is a sad truth. It is not less certain, though not so commonly observed, that passion hath an irregular influence upon our opinions and belief. The opinions we form of men and things, are generally directed by affection. An advice given by a man of figure, hath great weight; the same advice from one in a low condition, is utterly neglected. A man of courage under-rates danger; and to the indolent, the slightest obstacle appears unsurmountable. Our opinions indeed, the result commonly of various and often opposite views, are so slight and wavering, as readily to be susceptible of a bias from passion and prejudice.

This subject is of great use in logic; and of still greater use in criticism, being intimately connected with many principles of the fine arts that will be unfolded in the course of this work. Being too extensive to be treated here at large, some cursory illustrations must suffice; leaving the subject to be prosecuted more particularly afterward when occasion shall offer.

Two principles that make an eminent figure in human nature, concur to give passion an undue influence upon our opinions and belief. The first and most extensive, is a strong tendency in the mind to fit objects for the gratification of its passions. We are prone to such opinions of men and things as correspond to our wishes. Where the object, in dignity or importance, corresponds to the passion bestowed on it, the gratification is complete and there is no occasion for artifice. But where the object is too mean for the passion so as not to afford a complete gratification, it is wonderful how apt the mind is to impose upon itself, and how disposed to proportion the object to its passion. The other principle is a strong tendency in our nature to justify our passions as well as our actions, not to others only, but even to ourselves. This tendency is extremely remarkable with respect to disagreeable passions. By its influence, objects are magnified or lessened, circumstances supplied or suppressed, every thing coloured and disguised, to answer the end of justification. Hence the foundation of self-deceit, where a man imposes upon himself innocently, and even without suspicion of a bias.

Beside the influence of the foregoing principles to make us form opinions contrary to truth, the passions themselves, by subordinate means, contribute to the same effect. Of these means I shall mention two which seem to be capital. First, There was occasion formerly to observe[41], that though ideas seldom start up in the mind without connection, yet that ideas which correspond to the present tone of the mind are readily suggested by any slight connection. By this means, the arguments for a favourite opinion are always at hand, while we often search in vain for those that cross our inclination. Second, The mind taking delight in agreeable circumstances or arguments, is strongly impressed with them; while those that are disagreeable are hurried over so as scarce to make any impression. The self-same argument, accordingly as it is relished or not relished, weighs so differently, as in truth to make conviction depend more on passion than on reasoning. This observation is fully justified by experience. To confine myself to a single instance, the numberless absurd religious tenets that at different times have pestered the world, would be altogether unaccountable but for this irregular bias of passion.

We proceed to a more pleasant task, which is, to illustrate the foregoing observations by proper examples. Gratitude when warm, is often exerted upon the children of the benefactor; especially where he is removed out of reach by death or absence[42]. Gratitude in this case being exerted for the sake of the benefactor, requires no peculiar excellence in his children. To find however these children worthy of the benefits intended them, contributes undoubtedly to the more entire gratification of the passion. And accordingly, the mind, prone to gratify its passions, is apt to conceive a better opinion of these children than possibly they deserve. By this means, strong connections of affection are often formed among individuals, upon the slight foundation now mentioned.

Envy is a passion, which, being altogether unjustifiable, is always disguised under some more plausible name. But no passion is more eager than envy, to give its object such an appearance as to answer a complete gratification. It magnifies every bad quality, and fixes on the most humbling circumstances.

Cassius. I cannot tell what you and other men Think of this life; but for my single self, I had as lief not be, as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself. I was born free as Cæsar, so were you; We both have fed as well; and we can both Endure the winter’s cold as well as he. For once, upon a raw and gusty day, The troubled Tyber chasing with his shores, Cæsar says to me, Dar’st thou, Cassius, now Leap in with me into this angry flood, And swim to yonder point?—Upon the word, Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, And bid him follow; so indeed he did. The torrent roar’d, and we did buffet it With lusty sinews; throwing it aside, And stemming it with hearts of controversy. But ere we could arrive the point propos’d, Cæsar cry’d, Help me, Cassius, or I sink. I, as Æneas, our great ancestor, Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder The old Anchises bear; so from the waves of Tyber Did I the tired Cæsar: and this man Is now become a god, and Cassius is A wretched creature; and must bend his body, If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him. He had a fever when he was in Spain, And when the fit was on him, I did mark How he did shake. ’Tis true, this god did shake; His coward lips did from their colour fly, And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world, Did lose its lustre; I did hear him grone: Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, Alas! it cry’d—— Give me some drink, Titinius—— As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me, A man of such a feeble temper should So get the start of the majestic world, And bear the palm alone. Julius Cæsar, act I. sc. 3.

Glo’ster inflamed with resentment against his son Edgar, could even work himself into a momentary conviction that they were not related.

O strange fasten’d villain!

Would he deny his letter?—I never got him.

King Lear, act 2. sc. 3.

When by a great sensibility of heart or other means, grief swells beyond what the cause can justify, the mind is prone to magnify the cause, in order to gratify the passion. And if the real cause admit not of being magnified, the mind seeks a cause for its grief in imagined future events.

Bushy. Madam, your Majesty is much too sad; You promis’d, when you parted with the King, To lay aside self-harming heaviness, And entertain a chearful disposition.

Queen. To please the King, I did; to please myself, I cannot do it. Yet I know no cause Why I should welcome such a guest as grief; Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest As my sweet Richard: yet again, methinks, Some unborn sorrow, ripe in Fortune’s womb, Is coming tow’rd me; and my inward soul With something trembles, yet at nothing grieves, More than with parting from my Lord the King. Richard II. act. 2. sc. 5.

The foregoing examples depend on the first principle. In the following, both principles concur. Resentment at first is wreaked on the relations of the offender, in order to punish him. But as resentment when so outrageous is contrary to conscience, the mind, to justify its passion as well as to gratify it, is disposed to paint these relations in the blackest colours; and it actually comes to be convinced, that they ought to be punished for their own demerits.

Anger raised by an accidental stroke upon a tender part, which gives great and sudden pain, is sometimes vented upon the undesigning cause. But as the passion in this case is absurd, and as there can be no solid gratification in punishing the innocent; the mind, prone to justify as well as to gratify its passion, deludes itself instantly into a conviction of the action’s being voluntary. This conviction however is but momentary: the first reflection shows it to be erroneous; and the passion vanisheth almost instantaneously with the conviction. But anger, the most violent of all passions, has still greater influence. It sometimes forces the mind to personify a stock or a stone when it occasions bodily pain, in order to be a proper object of resentment. A conception is formed of it as a voluntary agent. And that we have really a momentary conviction of its being a voluntary agent, must be evident from considering, that without such conviction, the passion can neither be justified nor gratified. The imagination can give no aid. A stock or a stone may be imagined sensible; but a notion of this kind cannot be the foundation of punishment, so long as the mind is conscious that it is an imagination merely without any reality. Of such personification, involving a conviction of reality, there is one illustrious instance. When the first bridge of boats over the Hellespont was destroyed by a storm, Xerxes fell into a transport of rage, so excessive, that he commanded the sea to be punished with 300 stripes; and a pair of fetters to be thrown into it, enjoining the following words to be pronounced. “O thou salt and bitter water! thy master hath condemned thee to this punishment for offending him without cause; and is resolved to pass over thee in despite of thy insolence. With reason all men neglect to sacrifice to thee, because thou art both disagreeable and treacherous[43].”

Shakespear exhibits beautiful examples of the irregular influence of passion in making us conceive things to be otherwise than they are. King Lear, in his distress, personifies the rain, wind, and thunder; and in order to justify his resentment, conceives them to be taking part with his daughters.

Lear. Rumble thy belly-full, spit fire, spout rain! Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters. I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness; I never gave you kingdom, call’d you children; You owe me no subscription. Then let fall Your horrible pleasure.——Here I stand, your brave; A poor, infirm, weak, and despis’d old man! But yet I call you servile ministers, That have with two pernicious daughters join’d Your high engender’d battles, ’gainst a head So old and white as this. Oh! oh! ’tis foul. Act 3. sc. 2.

King Richard, full of indignation against his favourite horse for suffering Bolingbroke to ride him, conceives for a moment the horse to be rational.

Groom. O, how it yearn’d my heart, when I beheld, In London streets, that coronation-day; When Bolingbroke rode on Roan Barbary, That horse that thou so often hast bestrid, That horse that I so carefully have dress’d.

K. Rich. Rode he on Barbary? tell me, gentle friend, How went he under him?

Groom. So proudly as he had disdain’d the ground.

K. Rich. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back! That jade had eat bread from my royal hand. This hand hath made him proud with clapping him. Would he not stumble? would he not fall down, (Since pride must have a fall), and break the neck Of that proud man that did usurp his back? Richard II. act 5. sc. 11.

Hamlet, swelled with indignation at his mother’s second marriage, is strongly inclined to lessen the time of her widowhood; because this circumstance gratified his passion; and he deludes himself by degrees into the opinion of an interval shorter than the real one.

Hamlet.—— That it should come to this! But two months dead! nay, not so much; not two;— So excellent a King, that was, to this, Hyperion to a satire: so loving to my mother, That he permitted not the wind of heav’n Visit her face too roughly. Heav’n and earth! Must I remember—why, she would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on; yet, within a month—— Let me not think—Frailty, thy name is Woman! A little month! or ere those shoes were old, With which she follow’d my poor father’s body, Like Niobe, all tears—— Why, she, ev’n she— (O heav’n! a beast that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn’d longer—) married with mine uncle, My father’s brother; but no more like my father, Than I to Hercules. Within a month!—— Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her gauled eyes, She married.——Oh, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not, nor it cannot come to good. But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue. Act 1. sc. 3.

The power of passion to falsify the computation of time, is the more remarkable, that time, which hath an accurate measure, is less obsequious to our desires and wishes, than objects which have no precise standard of less or more.

Even belief, though partly an act of the judgment, may be influenced by passion. Good news are greedily swallowed upon very slender evidence. Our wishes magnify the probability of the event as well as the veracity of the relater; and we believe as certain what at best is doubtful.

Quel, che l’huom vede, amor li fa invisibile

E l’invisibil fa veder amore.

Questo creduto fu, che’l miser suole

Dar facile credenza a’ quel, che vuole.

Orland. Furios. cant. 1. st. 56.

For the same reason, bad news gain also credit upon the slightest evidence. Fear, if once alarmed, has the same effect with hope to magnify every circumstance that tends to conviction. Shakespear, who shows more knowledge of human nature than any of our philosophers, hath in his Cymbeline[44] represented this bias of the mind: for he makes the person who alone was affected with the bad news, yield to evidence that did not convince any of his companions. And Othello[45] is convinced of his wife’s infidelity from circumstances too slight to move an indifferent person.

If the news interest us in so low a degree as to give place to reason, the effect will not be quite the same. Judging of the probability or improbability of the story, the mind settles in a rational conviction either that it is true or not. But even in this case, it is observable, that the mind is not allowed to rest in that degree of conviction which is produced by rational evidence. If the news be in any degree favourable, our belief is augmented by hope beyond its true pitch; and if unfavourable, by fear.

The observation holds equally with respect to future events. If a future event be either much wished or dreaded, the mind, to gratify its passion, never fails to augment the probability beyond truth.

The credit which in all ages has been given to wonders and prodigies, even the most absurd and ridiculous, is a strange phenomenon. Nothing can be more evident than the following proposition, That the more singular any event is, the more evidence is required. A familiar event daily occurring, being in itself extremely probable, finds ready credit, and therefore is vouched by the slightest evidence. But a strange and rare event, contrary to the course of nature, ought not to be easily believed. It starts up without connection, and without cause, so far as we can discover; and to overcome the improbability of such an event, the very strongest evidence is required. It is certain, however, that wonders and prodigies are swallowed by the vulgar, upon evidence that would not be sufficient to ascertain the most familiar occurrence. It has been reckoned difficult to explain this irregular bias of the mind. We are now no longer at a loss about its cause. The proneness we have to gratify our passions, which displays itself upon so many occasions, produces this irrational belief. A story of ghosts or fairies, told with an air of gravity and truth, raiseth an emotion of wonder, and perhaps of dread. These emotions tending strongly to their own gratification, impose upon a weak mind, and impress upon it a thorough conviction contrary to all sense and reason.

Opinion and belief are influenced by propensity as well as by passion; for the mind is disposed to gratify both. A natural propensity is all we have to convince us, that the operations of nature are uniform. Influenced by this propensity, we often rashly conceive, that good or bad weather will never have an end; and in natural philosophy, writers, influenced by the same propensity, stretch commonly their analogical reasonings beyond just bounds.

Opinion and belief are influenced by affection as well as by propensity. The noted story of a fine lady and a curate viewing the moon through a telescope is a pleasant illustration. I perceive, says the lady, two shadows inclining to each other, they are certainly two happy lovers. Not at all, replies the curate, they are two steeples of a cathedral.