the affections, does not depend so much upon their nature in general as on their respective force. To prove that grief and melancholy are remote affections, between whom no mediate tint can intervene, it would not suffice me to name them entirely unique, but it is necessary that, considering them in their superior degrees, I should select grief, accompanied with fury, and the most profound melancholy. Whilst these affections subsist in an inferior degree, there is scarcely any difficulty in passing from the one to the other. He who, beaten down by grief, sadly leans on the tomb of the friend he has just lost, feels at once the force of the grief with which he is overpowered. In the act of heaving a profound sigh, he raises his eyes, swimming with tears, to heaven, and after having procured this slight relief for his bursting heart, he falls again into his pristine melancholy. His muscles suddenly lose their momentary tension, and the head falls on the bosom.

It was necessary that I should determine all the other affections more particularly, in the same manner, to render their removal sensible. It was necessary that I should depict love soft and tender, joy lively and animated, admiration full and mixed with astonishment, choler impe

fuous, and approaching towards fury. In my opinion, we should do well were we to speak of the proximity of several emotions, several passionate conditions of the soul, instead of many and diverse affections. This last mode of expression engages us too easily to occupy ourselves solely with the idea of a particular species, and hinders us from carrying our attention to ́the entire and specific situation in which the soul then finds itself placed. To this remark another immediately suggests itself: i. e. that in the examination of the proximity of the movements of the soul, we should not be too much attached to the ordinary mode of expressing ourselves, though it be frequently that which is employed by the language of philosophy.

This method does not always designate the passions with an adequate exactitude; sometimes, instead of indicating a mixture, it solely makes mention of the predominant affection. Thus it is said, the jealous man suddenly relapses from the most desperate fury into the most soft and melting love. Examine the character of Othello, which offers such a complete and perfect picture of jealousy. What do you find in the scene where the Moor, after having talked with so much violence to his wife, is suddenly attract

ed by the irresistible impulse of her charms? no other thing but emotions, which are carried almost to tenderness; then a sudden explosion of the most rending grief, of which love is the probable source, but which offer neither trace nor suspicion of the characteristical movements of this passion. You may likewise remember that, in a scene with Iago, after having declared his firm resolution of taking away the life of Desdemona, he recalls all her beauties-her soft, engaging manners; in a word, all her natural perfections, to his mind. What do you here

perceive more than an interior emotion, replete with secret anguish; than a sufferance as lively as profound, from which he is liable to replunge, every moment into that original furor which urges him on to vengeance?-a transition which. could not take place if his heart was moved by a veritable tenderness. Love is doubtless the fundamental affection which causes these violent emotions in the soul, but even these emotions have nothing of that softness, that tender languor, which characterise this sentiment. My third remark will go to prove that the facility of connexion between all the approaching passions. is not reciprocal. The transition of choler to grief, and from grief to choler, is equally easy

and rapid; but the return from choler to joy, or to the proud and tranquil sentiment of selfgrandeur, is a step more difficult and uneasy than that of these last affections to the former. It is here with the movements of the soul as with the waves of the sea; the tempest must doubtless have been displayed some time ere it could have penetrated the depths of the ocean or elevated the billows to the skies; but it must require much more before the agitated waters can subside to a calm, or present the aspect of a smooth and gently gliding undulation. This comparison, as you will easily remark, cannot be applied either to choler or grief; the one of these affections is as impetuous as the other, and, by a natural consequence, the transitions are equally easy.

The precedent discussion proves to you, that what has been said of the movements of the soul of one kind can also be applied to those of a different species, whether they are connected or removed. The succession of the former, if the march of their ideas is not entirely the same, consists solely in an insensible increase or diminution, whether in the celerity, in the plenitude, in the stability, or in the equality of this march, or in several of these qualities at once. The im

mediate succession of those movements of the soul, which are at a distance from each other, would be to overleap a boundary; and this Nature never attempts, either in the intellectual sphere or the corporeal world. Every thing is connected in its operation by chains (often, in truth, almost imperceptible); and when we think she has broken through vast intervals, it is only because the invisible link has eluded our penetration similar violent transitions then are impossible. The rapid torrent of the thoughts can neither be suddenly arrested, nor can their slow. and silent pace be accelerated on the instant : still less can we momentarily vary the different qualities which we have remarked in their succession. A certain disorder, an unquiet fluctuation between the condition which is about to terminate and that which is ready to begin, will here take place, as well as in the connexions of the movements of the soul, of which the species are the same, though the degrees are farther removed. While the distance which exists between the affections is very small, it is nearly the same as if these affections were closely allied. When the separation is considerable, then the agitation, the oscillation, and the efforts of the soul, affected of two incompatible sentiments, will