| This uneasiness, which is common to every spectator, must be more sensible to the superior; and that because the near approach of the inferior is regarded as .a piece of illbreeding, and shews that he is not sensible of the disproportion, and is no way affected by it. |
| A sense of superiority in another breeds in all men an inclination to keep themselves at a distance from him, and determines them to redouble the marks of respect and reverence, when they are obliged to approach him; and where they do not observe that conduct, it is a proof they are not sensible of his superiority. |
| From hence too it proceeds, that any great difference in the degrees of any quality is called a distance by a common metaphor, which, however trivial it may appear, is founded on natural principles of the imagination. |
| A great difference inclines us to produce a distance. |
| The ideas of distance and difference are, therefore, connected together. |
| Connected ideas are readily taken for each other; and this is in general the source of the metaphor, as we shall have occasion to observe afterwards. |
| SECT. XI OF THE AMOROUS PASSION, OR LOVE BETWIXT THE SEXES |
| Of all the compound passions, which proceed from a mixture of love and hatred with other affections, no one better deserves our attention, than that love, which arises betwixt the sexes, as well on account of its force and violence, as those curious principles of philosophy, for which it affords us an uncontestable argument. |
| It is plain, that this affection, in its most natural state, is derived from the conjunction of three different impressions or passions, viz. |
| The pleasing sensation arising from beauty; the bodily appetite for generation; and a generous kindness or good-will. |
| The origin of kindness from beauty may be explained from the foregoing reasoning. |
| The question is how the bodily appetite is excited by it. |
| The appetite of generation, when confined to a certain degree, is evidently of the pleasant kind, and has a strong connexion with, all the agreeable emotions. |
| Joy, mirth. vanity, and kindness are all incentives to this desire; as well as music, dancing, wine, and good cheer. |
| On the other hand, sorrow, melancholy, poverty, humility are destructive of it. |
| From this quality it is easily conceived why it should be connected with the sense of beauty. |
| But there is another principle that contributes to the same effect. |
| I have observed that the parallel direction of the desires is a real relation, and no less than a resemblance in their sensation, produces a connexion among them. |
| That we may fully comprehend the extent of this relation, we must consider, that any principal desire may be attended with subordinate ones, which are connected with it, and to which if other desires are parallel, they are by that means related to the principal one. |
| Thus hunger may oft be considered as the primary inclination of the soul, and the desire of approaching the meat as the secondary one; since it is absolutely necessary to the satisfying that appetite. |
| If an object, therefore, by any separate qualities, inclines us to approach the meat, it naturally encreases our appetite; as on the contrary, whatever inclines us to set our victuals at a distance, is contradictory to hunger, and diminishes our inclination to them. |