SECTION VIII.

OF THE PASSIONS WHICH BELONG TO SOCIETY.

The other head under which I class our passions, is that of society, which may be divided into two sorts. 1.  The society of the sexes, which answers the purpose of propagation; and next, that more general society, which we have with men and with other animals, and which we may in some sort be said to have even with the inanimate world.  The passions belonging to the preservation of the individual turn wholly on pain and danger:  those which belong to generation have their origin in gratifications and pleasures; the pleasure most directly belonging to this purpose is of a lively character, rapturous and violent, and confessedly the highest pleasure of sense; yet the absence of this so great an enjoyment scarce amounts to an uneasiness; and, except at particular times, I do not think it affects at all.  When men describe in what manner they are affected by pain and danger, they do not dwell on the pleasure of health and the comfort of security, and then lament the loss of these satisfactions:  the whole turns upon the actual pains and horrors which they endure.  But if you listen to the complaints of a forsaken lover, you observe that he insists largely on the pleasures which he enjoyed, or hoped to enjoy, and on the perfection of the object of his desires; it is the loss which is always uppermost in his mind.  The violent effects produced by love, which has sometimes been even wrought up to madness, is no objection to the rule which we seek to establish.  When men have suffered their imaginations to be long affected with any idea, it so wholly engrosses them as to shut out by degrees almost every other, and to break down every partition of the mind which would confine it.  Any idea is sufficient for the purpose, as is evident from the infinite variety of causes, which give rise to madness:  but this at most can only prove, that the passion of love is capable of producing very extraordinary effects, not that its extraordinary emotions have any connection with positive pain.

SECTION IX.

THE FINAL CAUSE OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PASSIONS BELONGING TO SELF-PRESERVATION AND THOSE WHICH REGARD THE SOCIETY OF THE SEXES.

The final cause of the difference in character between the passions which regard self-preservation, and those which are directed to the multiplication of the species, will illustrate the foregoing remarks yet further; and it is, I imagine, worthy of observation even upon its own account.  As the performance of our duties of every kind depends upon life, and the performing them with vigor and efficacy depends upon health, we are very strongly affected with whatever threatens the destruction of either:  but as we were not made to acquiesce in life and health, the simple enjoyment