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APPROBATION AND DISAPPROBATION.

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8. The following are SPECIES, or modes, of the feeling of being admired.

Mere Approbation is the lowest, and the most general, form of expressing a good opinion. It may intimate little more than a rescue from disapprobation, the setting our mind at ease, when we might be under some doubt; as in giving satisfaction to a master or superior. The pleasure in this case is a measure of our dread of disapprobation and its consequences.

Admiration, and Praise, mean something higher and more stirring to self-complacency. Flattery and Adulation are excess, if not untruth, in the paying of compliments. Glory expresses a high and ostentatious form of praise; the general multitude being roused to join in the acclaim. Reputation or Fame is supposed to reach beyond the narrow circle of an individual life, and to agitate remote countries, and distant ages; an effort of imagination being necessary to realize the pleasure. Future Fame is not altogether empty; the applause bestowed on the dead resounds in the ears of the living. Honour is the according of elevated position, and is shown by forms of compliment, and tokens of respect.

The rules of Polite society include the bestowal of compliment with delicacy. On the one hand, the careful avoidance of whatever is calculated to wound the sense of self-importance, and, on the other hand, the full and ready recognition of all merit or excellence, are the arts of a refined age, for increasing the pleasures of society and the zest of life.

9. The varieties of Disapprobation represent the painful side of the susceptibility to opinion.

Disapprobation, Censure, Dispraise, Abuse, Libel, Reproach, Vituperation, Scorn, Infamy, are some of the names for the infliction of pain by the hostile judgments of others. If we are ourselves conscious of demerit, they add to the load of depression; if we are not conscious of any evil desert, they still weigh upon us, in proportion as we should be elated by their opposites. As signifying the farther evils associated with ill opinion on the part of society, the intense disapprobation of our fellow-men, uncounteracted, is able to make life unendurable.

The pain of Remorse is completed by the union of selfreproach with the reproach of those around us. Many that have little sensibility to the first, acutely realize the last. The feeling of Shame is entirely resolvable into disapprobation, either openly expressed, or known to be entertained.

10. Self-complacency and the Love of Admiration are ⚫ motives to personal excellence and public spirit.

Egotistic in their roots, the tendency of these feelings may be highly social. Indeed, so much of social good conduct is plainly stimulated by the rewards and punishments of public opinion, that some ethical speculators have been unable to discern any purely disinterested impulses in the conduct of

men.

The unsocial side of these emotions is manifested in the intense competition for a luxury of limited amount. The disposable admiration of mankind is too little for the claims upon it.

CHAPTER VIL

EMOTION OF POWER.

1. THE Emotion of PoWER is distinct from both the pleasure of Exercise and the satisfaction of gaining our Ends. It is due to a sense of superior might or energy, on a comparative trial.

We have already seen what are the pleasures connected with muscular Exercise, when there is surplus vigour to discharge. There may also be a certain gratification in intellectual exercise, as exercise, under the same condition of abounding energy in the intellectual organs.

In the active pursuit of an End, there is necessarily some pleasure to be gathered, or pain to be got rid of. When our exertion secures our ends, it brings us whatever satisfaction belongs to those ends.

Neither of these gratifications is the pleasure of Power; which arises only when a comparison is made between two persons, or between two efforts of the same person, and when the one is found superior to the other.

The sentiment of superior Power is felt in the development of the bodily and mental frame. The growing youth is pleased at the increase of his strength; every new advance, in knowledge, in the conquest of difficulties, gives a thrill of satisfaction, founded essentially on comparison. The conscious decline of our faculties in old age is the inverse fact.

THE EMOTION OF POWER SUBSISTS ON COMPARISON. 257

A second mode of comparison has regard to the greater productiveness of our efforts; as when we obtain better tools, or work upon a more hopeful material. The teacher is cheered by a promising pupil. An advanced grade of command gives the same feeling.

The third mode is comparison with others. In a contest, or competition, the successful combatant has the gratification of superior power. According to the number and the greatness of the men that we have distanced in the race, is our sense of superiority. Like all other relative states, the emotion cannot be kept up at the highest pitch without new advances. Long continuance in an elevated position dulls the mere sense of elevation (without derogating from the other advantages); in proportion as the remembrance of the inferior state dies away, so does the joy of the present superiority. The man that has been in a high position all his life, feels his greatness only as he enters into the state of those beneath him; if he does not choose to take this trouble, he will have little conscious elation from his own pre-eminence.

2. The PHYSICAL side of the emotion of Power shows an erect lofty bearing, and a flush of physical energy, as if from a sudden increase of nervous power; a frequent accompaniment is the outburst of Laughter.

Erectness of carriage and demeanour is looked upon as the fitting expression of superior might; while collapse or prostration is significant of inferiority. If we advert to the moment of a fresh victory, we shall see the proofs of increased vital power in the exuberance and excitement, and in the disposition for new labours. We are accustomed to contrast the spirits of men beating with the spirits of men beaten.

There are various causes of the outburst of Laughter, but none more certain than a sudden stroke of superiority, or the éclat of a telling effect. The evidence is furnished in the undisguised manifestations of childish glee, in the sports of youth, and in the hilarious outbursts of every stage of life.

The physical invigoration arising from a sense of superior power is in conformity with the general law of Self-conservation. Conscious impotence is a position of restraint, a conflict of the forces; to escape from it is the cessation of a struggle, the redemption of vital energy.

The bearing on the Will is a consequence of the special alliance of the state with our activity. By it we are disposed to energy, not merely through its stimulus as pleasure, but

also through its direct influence on the active side of our constitution. This can be best understood by contrast with the passive tone under tender emotion.

3. On the MENTAL side, the feeling of Power is, in Quality, pleasurable; in Degree, both acute and massive; in Speciality, it connects itself with our active states.

The gratification of superior Power falls under the comprehensive class of elating, or intoxicating pleasures, due to a rebound, or relief from previous depression. It is most nearly allied to Liberty. In both, the active forces are supposed to have been in a state of wasting conflict, from which they are suddenly rescued.

Intellectually, this pleasure is not of the highest order, if we are to judge from the cost of sustaining it. Being an acute thrill, it may impress the intellect in one way, namely, in the fact of its having been present; but we do not easily repeat the pleasure ideally, in the absence of the original stimulation. Hence. its mere memory would give compara tively little satisfaction, while it might contain the sting and prompting of desire. In this respect also, it is contrasted with tenderness. As a present feeling, it has power to occupy the mind, to control the thoughts, and to enthrall the beliefs.

4. Next, as to the SPECIFIC FORMS of the emotion.

What is vulgarly called 'making a sensation,' is highly illustrative of the rebounding elation of conscious Power. This is the infantile occasion of hilarity and mirth. Any act that gives a strong impression, that awakens the attention, or arrests or quickens the movements of others, reflects the power of the agent, and stimulates the joyous outburst. To cause a shock of fright, or disgust, or anger (not dangerous), is highly impressive, and the actor's comparison of his own power with the prostration of the sufferer occasions a burst of the joyous elation of power; laughter being a never-failing token of the pleasure.

The control of Large Operations reflects by comparison the sense of superior efficiency. This is the position of the man in extensive business, the employer of numerous operatives, all working for his behoof. Such a one not merely reaps a more abundant produce, but also luxuriates in a wide control. The exercise of Command or Authority, in all its multitudinous varieties, is attended with the delight of power. It

SPECIES OF THE EMOTION.

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appears in the headship of a family; in early ages, a position of uncontrolled despotism. It is incident to all the relations of master and servant. In some forms of employment, as in military service, it is, for certain reasons of expediency, made very impressive; the contrast between the airs of the superior and the deferential attitude of the inferior, is purposely exaggerated. In the departments of the state, great powers have to be entrusted to individuals, who thereupon feel their own superiority, and make others feel their inferiority.

The pleasure of Wealth, especially in large amount, involves to a high degree the sentiment of power. Riches buys the command of many men's services, and gives, unemployed, the feeling of ideal power.

By force of Persuasion, eloquence, counsel, or intellectual ascendancy, any one may have the consciousness of power, without the authority of office. The leader of assemblies, or of parties in the state, enjoys the sentiment in this form.

The luxury of power attaches to Spiritual ascendancy. In the ministry of religion, a man is conscious of an authority superior to all temporal rule. The preacher is apt to suppose, that his most ordinary composition is raised, by a supernatural afflatus, to an efficacy far beyond the choicest language employed by other men.

Even superior Knowledge gives a position of conscious power, although the farthest removed from the influence of force or constraint. In proportion as a man possesses information of great practical moment, such as others do not possess, he is raised to an eminence of pride and power.

The love of Influence, Interference, and Control, is so extensive and salient as to be a great fact in the constitution of society, a leading cause of social phenomena. It prompts to Intolerance, and the suppression of individuality. Many are found willing to submit to restraints themselves, provided they can impose the same upon their unwilling neighbours.

In the disposition to intrude into other people's affairs, and to give opinions favourable or unfavourable on the conduct of mankind generally, there is still the same lurking consciousness of power. More openly and avowedly, it shows itself in the various modes of conveying Disapprobation, whether extorted by the just sense of demerit, or set on for the pleasure of raising ourselves by judging and depreciating others. Contempt, Derision, Scorn, Contumely, measure the greatness of the person expressing them, against the degradation and insignificance of the person subjected to them.

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