LECTURE XXIV.

Of CONTRAST in general, and particularly of Wit, the rifible, and the ridiculous.

HAVING

AVING confidered the pleasure we receive from the exercife of our faculties, and all thofe pleafures of tafte in which it is a principal ingredient, we pass to another medium of pleasure in works of genius and imagination, viz. CONTRAST. And it the more naturally folicits our attention in this place, as we have feen that it hath a confiderable share in the pleasure arifing from comparisons and metaphors, which were last treated of.

Indeed, I fhall have no objection to any perfon's confidering contraft as one particular manner in which our minds are ftrongly affected.

If two objects, in any refpect fimilar, present themselves to our view at the fame time, we naturally expect, and, as it were, wish to find a complete refemblance in them; and we are, in fome measure, furprized and disappointed to find them different. This difpofition to make every thing perfect and complete in its kind, will be taken notice of, and farther illuftrated, in its proper place hereafter. Here then, as in all other cafes of furprize

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and disappointment, our attention is ftrongly engaged to the circumftances in which the two objects differ, as ftrongly as it was at first engaged to thofe in which they agreed; fo that the fame principle, by which we are led to make every thing complete, now leads us to enlarge and extend the circumftances in which they differ. Thefe, in their turn, will make the circumstances of refemblance appear furprizing. And thus the mind will naturally turn its attention alternately to the circumstances of resemblance and those of difference with great celerity, and both will have the advantage of being confiderably augmented. In all this time, the furprize, the quick fucceffion of thought, and the enlargement of our ideas, cannot fail to introduce a pleasurable ftate of mind. I may add, that the greater is the resemblance in fome things, and the greater the difference in others, the more fenfible will the effect be, and the greater the pleasure refulting from it. These observations any person may exemplify to himself, by viewing at the fame time even two houfes, two gardens, or two trees of the fame kind, that are very different in fize. In this pofition they both affect us more fenfibly and more pleasurably than if they had been viewed feparately, when their resemblance and their difference had not been fo apparent, or fo perfectly afcertained.

A familiar example will ferve to make us fenfible how neceffary ftrong circumftances of refem

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blance are to make us feel the greatest effect of the circumstances of difference. A dog is not confidered as diminutive with refpect to an elephant; though, therefore, they be placed ever fo near together, our ideas of the elephant are not raised, nor our ideas of the dog diminished. We did not expect they fhould be equal. But upon introducing another dog confiderably larger than the former, we immediately cry out, What a prodigious large dog! while the other appears to our imagination lefs than he did before. Our furprize, and confequently the imagined difproportion between the two dogs becomes greater, if we be told, or perceive, that they are of the fame kind, as both mastiffs, both grey hounds, &c.; and both these effects are fenfibly greater ftill, if we be told they are of the fame litter. The fame ufe may be made of our obfervation of the differences in the perfons, the abilities, the fortunes, and tempers of men of the fame nation, the fame family, the fame parents, the fame education, and the fame external advantages.

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In all these cafes, any extraordinary quality of an object is, in a greater measure, loft upon us, unless it be perceived in conjunction with a very different degree of the fame quality. Indeed, if we only confider that the ideas of great and little are only relative, and the terms comparative, we might conclude, that they must have their moft fenfible effect, whatever it is, when they are view

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ed in circumstances the moft favourable for that comparison, and where the relation of which they confift may be perceived with the most advantage.

We fee, likewise, that the effects of all kinds of contrafts are the ftrongeft in perfons of a lively imagination, and to the fame perfon when his apprehenfion is the quickeft; because, by a lively and vigorous imagination, two different objects are comprehended with the most ease: confequently the ideas of their relation are peculiarly ftrong, and make the greateft figure.

I fhall add another obfervation or two. Our relifh for novelty and furprize contributes not a little to the pleasure we feel upon perceiving strong refemblances in things that differ, and differences in things that refemble one another. For it is very obfervable, that every fpecies of contraft affects us much more fenfibly the first time we perceive it, than ever it doth afterwards. We are fenfible, likewife, that it requires confiderable fagacity and ingenuity to difcern many of those unexpected refemblances and differences, which, in a manner that will be explained hereafter, is another confiderable ingredient in the pleasure we receive from those contrafts.

One remarkable confequence of perceiving fome fpecies of contrasts, particularly in persons of an irritable conftitution, is laughter; of which it will be proper, therefore, to give fome account in this place. Laughter, when it firft appears in children

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(according to that profound obferver of human nature, Dr. Hartley) is a nascent cry, raised by pain, or the apprehenfion of pain, fuddenly checked, and repeated at very fhort intervals. These alternate momentary fears and momentary joys are very obfervable in the laughter of young children when they are tickled. Afterwards, the same automatic motions and geftures of which laughter confifts become affociated with lefs and lefs fimilar caufes perpetually. Then almoft any brifk emotion or furprize, fuddenly checked, and recurring alternately, will produce it; and at last any strong oppofition, or contraft, in things, whether they be perfonally interested in them or not. When we are advanced in life, a variety of paffions, and a regard to decorum, check the propensity to laughter; whereas many idiots continue to laugh upon the flightest occafions imaginable.

This progress is exactly fimilar to many other proceffes in human nature, whereby a variety of the fame motions and geftures become affociated with causes that are flighter and flighter continually, till at laft any thing bearing the fainteft refemblance to the original caufe will be fufficient to excite them. In this cafe, the extreme celerity with which the attention is reflected from the circumftances of resemblance to those of difference, alternately, upon the perception of a contraft, coincides remarkably with the quick fucceffive pulfes in a fit of laughter.

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