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ESSAY ON THE MORAL EFFECTS OF FICTION, 

 ESPECIALLY IN NOVELS. 



BY THE LATE SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 



IT is, you know, a favourite notion of mine, that a sensibility to the 

 beauties of natural scenery, is a late acquirement of civilized taste. Mr. 

 Twining, in his translation of Aristotle's " Poetics," observes, that there 

 is no single term, either in Greek or Latin, for " prospect." 



Both Aristotle and Bacon consider fiction and poetry as equivalent 

 terms. Aristotle observes, that verse without fiction is not poetry ; and 

 Bacon teaches us, that poetry may be written in prose as well as in 

 verse. There were few examples in the time of Bacon, perhaps none in 

 that of Aristotle, of fiction without the ornament of metre. But these 

 great philosophers could not suppose that the arrangement of sounds 

 was the essential distinction between two different modes of exercising 

 the human faculties. Aristotle, agreeably to the bent of his genius, 

 considers poetry, in its analogy to philosophy a wide unexplored field, 

 which I, at present, forbear to enter. Bacon, whose intellect had taken 

 no bent, but was equally ready to be shot out in any direction where 

 new objects were to be caught, considers the moral effect of fiction, 

 which is the subject of my present inquiry. 



Fiction, if its nature be attentively considered, seems to be capable of 

 producing two moral effects. 



I. It represents a degree of ideal excellence, superior to any virtue 

 which is observed in real life. This effect is perfectly analogous to that 

 of a model of ideal beauty in the elegant arts. As in the arts of painting 

 and sculpture, so in the noblest of all arts, the art of living well, the 

 pursuit of unattainable perfection raises us more near to what we never 

 can reach. Valour or benevolence may be embodied in the hero of a 

 tale, as female beauty in the Venus, or male beauty in the Apollo. This 

 effect of fiction is represented with majestic eloquence by Bacon. To 

 this he confined his attention ; and does not seem to have considered 

 another effect perhaps not of inferior importance. 



II. Every fiction is popular in proportion to the degree in which it 

 interests the greatest number of men. Now, to interest is to excite the 

 sympathy of the reader with one of the persons of the fiction to be 

 anxious about his fortunes, to exult in his success, and to lament his 

 sufferings. Every fiction, therefore, in proportion as it delights, teaches 

 a new degree of fellow-feeling with the happiness or misery of other 

 men ; it adds somewhat to the disposition to sympathise, which is the 

 spring of benevolence ; and benevolence is not only the sovereign queen 

 of all the virtues, but that virtue for whose sake every other exists, and 

 which bestows the rank of virtue on every human quality that ministers 

 in her train. No fiction can delight but as it interests ; nor can it 

 excite interest but as it exercises sympathy ; nor can it excite 

 sympathy without increasing the disposition to sympathise, and, con- 



