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BOOK III.
ARGUMENT.
Pleasure in observing the tempers and manners of men, even where
vicious or absurd. The origin of Vice, from false representations of
the fancy, producing false opinions concerning good and evil.
Inquiry into ridicule. The general sources of ridicule in the minds
and characters of men, enumerated. Final cause of the sense of
ridicule. The resemblance of certain aspects of inanimate things to
the sensations and properties of the mind. The operations of the
mind in the production of the works of Imagination, described. The
secondary pleasure from Imitation. The benevolent order of the world
illustrated in the arbitrary connexion of these pleasures with the
objects which excite them. The nature and conduct of taste.
Concluding with an account of the natural and moral advantages
resulting from a sensible and well formed imagination.
What wonder therefore, since the endearing ties
Of passion link the universal kind
Of man so close, what wonder if to search
This common nature through the various change
Of sex, and age, and fortune, and the frame
Of each peculiar, draw the busy mind
With unresisted charms? The spacious west,
And all the teeming regions of the south,
Hold not a quarry, to the curious flight
Of Knowledge, half so tempting or so fair, 10
As man to man.
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