History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding
Chapter i.
1149 words | Chapter 192
Of love.
In our last book we have been obliged to deal pretty much with the
passion of love; and in our succeeding book shall be forced to handle
this subject still more largely. It may not therefore in this place be
improper to apply ourselves to the examination of that modern
doctrine, by which certain philosophers, among many other wonderful
discoveries, pretend to have found out, that there is no such passion
in the human breast.
Whether these philosophers be the same with that surprising sect, who
are honourably mentioned by the late Dr Swift, as having, by the mere
force of genius alone, without the least assistance of any kind of
learning, or even reading, discovered that profound and invaluable
secret that there is no God; or whether they are not rather the same
with those who some years since very much alarmed the world, by
showing that there were no such things as virtue or goodness really
existing in human nature, and who deduced our best actions from pride,
I will not here presume to determine. In reality, I am inclined to
suspect, that all these several finders of truth, are the very
identical men who are by others called the finders of gold. The method
used in both these searches after truth and after gold, being indeed
one and the same, viz., the searching, rummaging, and examining into a
nasty place; indeed, in the former instances, into the nastiest of all
places, A BAD MIND.
But though in this particular, and perhaps in their success, the
truth-finder and the gold-finder may very properly be compared
together; yet in modesty, surely, there can be no comparison between
the two; for who ever heard of a gold-finder that had the impudence or
folly to assert, from the ill success of his search, that there was no
such thing as gold in the world? whereas the truth-finder, having
raked out that jakes, his own mind, and being there capable of tracing
no ray of divinity, nor anything virtuous or good, or lovely, or
loving, very fairly, honestly, and logically concludes that no such
things exist in the whole creation.
To avoid, however, all contention, if possible, with these
philosophers, if they will be called so; and to show our own
disposition to accommodate matters peaceably between us, we shall here
make them some concessions, which may possibly put an end to the
dispute.
First, we will grant that many minds, and perhaps those of the
philosophers, are entirely free from the least traces of such a
passion.
Secondly, that what is commonly called love, namely, the desire of
satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate
white human flesh, is by no means that passion for which I here
contend. This is indeed more properly hunger; and as no glutton is
ashamed to apply the word love to his appetite, and to say he LOVES
such and such dishes; so may the lover of this kind, with equal
propriety, say, he HUNGERS after such and such women.
Thirdly, I will grant, which I believe will be a most acceptable
concession, that this love for which I am an advocate, though it
satisfies itself in a much more delicate manner, doth nevertheless
seek its own satisfaction as much as the grossest of all our
appetites.
And, lastly, that this love, when it operates towards one of a
different sex, is very apt, towards its complete gratification, to
call in the aid of that hunger which I have mentioned above; and which
it is so far from abating, that it heightens all its delights to a
degree scarce imaginable by those who have never been susceptible of
any other emotions than what have proceeded from appetite alone.
In return to all these concessions, I desire of the philosophers to
grant, that there is in some (I believe in many) human breasts a kind
and benevolent disposition, which is gratified by contributing to the
happiness of others. That in this gratification alone, as in
friendship, in parental and filial affection, as indeed in general
philanthropy, there is a great and exquisite delight. That if we will
not call such disposition love, we have no name for it. That though
the pleasures arising from such pure love may be heightened and
sweetened by the assistance of amorous desires, yet the former can
subsist alone, nor are they destroyed by the intervention of the
latter. Lastly, that esteem and gratitude are the proper motives to
love, as youth and beauty are to desire, and, therefore, though such
desire may naturally cease, when age or sickness overtakes its object;
yet these can have no effect on love, nor ever shake or remove, from a
good mind, that sensation or passion which hath gratitude and esteem
for its basis.
To deny the existence of a passion of which we often see manifest
instances, seems to be very strange and absurd; and can indeed proceed
only from that self-admonition which we have mentioned above: but how
unfair is this! Doth the man who recognizes in his own heart no traces
of avarice or ambition, conclude, therefore, that there are no such
passions in human nature? Why will we not modestly observe the same
rule in judging of the good, as well as the evil of others? Or why, in
any case, will we, as Shakespear phrases it, “put the world in our own
person?”
Predominant vanity is, I am afraid, too much concerned here. This is
one instance of that adulation which we bestow on our own minds, and
this almost universally. For there is scarce any man, how much soever
he may despise the character of a flatterer, but will condescend in
the meanest manner to flatter himself.
To those therefore I apply for the truth of the above observations,
whose own minds can bear testimony to what I have advanced.
Examine your heart, my good reader, and resolve whether you do believe
these matters with me. If you do, you may now proceed to their
exemplification in the following pages: if you do not, you have, I
assure you, already read more than you have understood; and it would
be wiser to pursue your business, or your pleasures (such as they
are), than to throw away any more of your time in reading what you can
neither taste nor comprehend. To treat of the effects of love to you,
must be as absurd as to discourse on colours to a man born blind;
since possibly your idea of love may be as absurd as that which we are
told such blind man once entertained of the colour scarlet; that
colour seemed to him to be very much like the sound of a trumpet: and
love probably may, in your opinion, very greatly resemble a dish of
soup, or a surloin of roast-beef.
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