ESSAY ON THE MORAL EFFECTS OF FICTION. 475 



sequently, without strengthening benevolence. There is no doubt 

 that the best school of compassion is real calamity : and that the inter- 

 course of sympathy and benefit, in active life, is the most effectual disci- 

 pline of humanity. The effect of similar scenes in fiction is proportion- 

 ably fainter, but it may be repeated as often as is desired ; and, at all 

 events, it is so much added to the school of real events. 



This importance would appear greater, if we could transport ourselves 

 back to the first abject condition of the human brute. A rare act of 

 virtue, probably of valour, the quality most necessary and most brilliant, 

 is versified and recited; his only wish is, that his beastly idleness maybe 

 diverted ; but something of the sentiment which produced the virtue 

 steals into his soul. The success of the singer rouses others. When 

 they have exhausted mere brute courage, they think of the motive which 

 inspired it. He who is killed for his tribe, or for his family, is the more 

 favoured hero. The barbarous poet and his savage hearers find that they 

 have been insensibly betrayed to celebrate and admire humanity. One act 

 of virtue is, as it were, multiplied by a thousand mirrors of rude fiction : 

 these images afford so many new pictures to the imagination of the 

 savage. In a long series of ages, it may be said, with truth 



" Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse ? 

 Her track, where'er the goddess roves, 

 Glory pursues, and generous shame, 

 Th' unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame." 



Every state of society has its predominant virtue, of which it delights 

 to multiply the ideal models By frequently contemplating these, other 

 virtues are excluded, and the favourite quality is nourished to that excess 

 at which it becomes a vice. Admiration of the valour of Achilles 

 inspires a criminal rage for war, and lessens our abhorrence for the 

 rapine and cruelty of the hero. Treatises on morals, written in the 

 most dissimilar times, may exactly coincide ; but it is otherwise with 

 fiction, and such practical modes of inspiring moral sentiment ; they 

 proceed from the feelings, and they must be marked by the prevalent 

 feelings of the age which produces them. Unhappily, the effect of the 

 moral treatise is small ; that of the fiction, though unequal and irregular, 

 is very great. A man who should feel all the various sentiments of 

 morality, in the proportions in which they are inspired by the Iliad, 

 would certainly be far from a perfectly good man. But it does not 

 follow that the Iliad did not produce great moral benefit. To determine 

 that point, we must ascertain whether a man, formed by the Iliad, 

 would be better than the ordinary man of the country at the time in 

 which it appeared. It is true, that it too much inspires an admiration 

 for ferocious courage. That admiration was then prevalent, and everv 

 circumstance served to strengthen it. But the Iliad breathes many other 

 sentiments less prevalent, less favoured by the state of society, and 

 calculated gradually to mitigate the predominant passion. The friend- 

 ship and sorrow of Achilles for Patroclus, the patriotic valour of Hector, 

 the paternal affliction of Priam, would slowly introduce more human 

 affections. If they had not been combined with the admiration of 

 barbarous courage, they would not have been popular, and consequently 

 they would have found no entry into those savage hearts which they 



