Page:The Pleasures of Imagination - Akenside (1744).djvu/96

82 In mortal bosoms wakes this gay contempt, These grateful flings of laughter, from disgust Educing pleasure; wherefore, but to aid the ridiculous, and since so good a reason may be assign'd to justify the supreme being for bestowing it; one cannot without astonishment reflect on the conduct of those men who imagine it is for the service of true religion to vilify and blacken it without distinction, and endeavour to persuade us that it is never applied but in a bad cause. Ridicule is not concerned with meer speculative truth or falshood. It is not in abstract propositions or theorems, but in actions and passions, good and evil, beauty and deformity, that we find materials for it; and all these terms are relative, implying approbation or blame. To ask then whether ridicule be a test of truth, is, in other words, to ask whether that which is ridiculous can be morally true, can be just and becoming; or whether that which is just and becoming, can be ridiculous. A question that does not deserve a serious answer. For it is most evident, that as in a metaphysical proposition offer'd to the understanding for its assent, the faculty of reason examines the terms of the proposition, and finding one idea which was supposed equal to another, to be in fact unequal, of consequence rejects the proposition as a falshood: so in objects offer'd to the mind for its esteem or applause, the faculty of ridicule feeling an incongruity in the claim, urges the mind to reject it with laughter and contempt. When therefore we observe such a claim, obtruded upon mankind, and the inconsistent circumstances carefully concealed from the eye of the public, it is our business, if the matter be of importance to society, to drag out those latent circumstances, and by setting them full in view, convince the world how ridiculous the claim is; and thus a double advantage is gained; for we both detect the moral falshood sooner than in the way of speculative inquiry, and impress the minds of men with a stronger sense of The