The simplest and most
obvious cause which can there be assigned for any phenomenon, is
probably the true one. When a philosopher, in the explication of
his system, is obliged to have recourse to some very intricate
and refined reflections, and to suppose them essential to the
production of any passion or emotion, we have reason to be
extremely on our guard against so fallacious an hypothesis. The
affections are not susceptible of any impression from the
refinements of reason or imagination; and it is always found that
a vigorous exertion of the latter faculties, necessarily, from
the narrow capacity of the human mind, destroys all activity in
the former. Our predominant motive or intention is, indeed,
frequently concealed from ourselves when it is mingled and
confounded with other motives which the mind, from vanity or
self-conceit, is desirous of supposing more prevalent: but there
is no instance that a concealment of this nature has ever arisen
from the abstruseness and intricacy of the motive. A man that has
lost a friend and patron may flatter himself that all his grief
arises from generous sentiments, without any mixture of narrow or
interested considerations: but a man that grieves for a valuable
friend, who needed his patronage and protection; how can we
suppose, that his passionate tenderness arises from some
metaphysical regards to a self-interest, which has no foundation
or reality? We may as well imagine that minute wheels and
springs, like those of a watch, give motion to a loaded waggon,
as account for the origin of passion from such abstruse
reflections.
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