Page:Observations on Man 1834.djvu/314

 of honour, which riches, titles, and high birth afford. Agreeably to which it may be observed, that the first instance of pride and vanity in children is that which arises from fine clothes.

In the progress through life, especially in the virtuous, it often happens that opposite associations are generated, i.e. such as break the connexion between the ideas of happiness and fine clothes, riches, titles, high birth; also between misery and rags, poverty, obscurity, and low birth; nay there are some instances in which these last are connected with some kinds and degrees of happiness. Now in all these cases the pride and vanity, or shame, by which we hope or fear to have our circumstances, in these respects, known to the world, lessen, cease entirely, or even turn about to the opposite quarter accordingly; so that when a person has lost his desire of being rich, or high born, he also loses his desire of being thought so; and when he gains an opposite desire of becoming poor, on a religious account, for instance, or a complacence in being low born, on account of his present high station, &c. he desires also to have this known to the world. And yet there may, in most cases, be perceived some distance in time between the desire of being, and the subsequent associated desire of being thought, viz. such a distance of time as may suffice for the associations to produce their effect in.

Riches are attended with many conveniences, whether a person be known to possess them, or no; and there are inconveniences, as well as conveniences, attending the reputation of being rich; but titles and high birth are then only productive of privileges and pleasures when made known to the world; whence it is easy to see that pride and vanity may shew themselves much more commonly in respect of titles and high birth, than in respect of riches, which is agreeable to the fact.

The shamefacedness of rustics, poor persons, and inferiors in general, in the presence of their superiors, with the great confusion and uneasiness that often attend it, arises from the sources of honour and shame here laid open, and particularly from the strong contrast between their own circumstances and those of their superiors.

Bodily Perfections and Imperfections.

The chief bodily circumstances, which are the sources of the pleasures of honour, or of the pains of shame, are beauty, strength, and health, on the one hand; and their opposites, deformity, imbecility, unfitting a person for the functions of life, and disease, on the other. I will make some short remarks upon each.

Beauty has an intimate connexion with one of the most violent of our desires; affords a great pleasure, even where this desire is not felt explicitly; has the highest encomiums bestowed