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from the confcious triumph of felf-fuperiority, either real pf 

 imaginary. 



The variable nature of ridicule may ferve to convince us 

 that ridicule cannot be the teji of truth ; a tejf fhould be inde- 

 pendent and fubftantivej ridicule depends in a great mcafure 

 on the temper and difpofition, the education, endowments, 

 acquifitions, habits, and purfuits of the obferver ; truth is univerfal 

 and invariable ; but were ridicule the tejl of truth the fame identical 

 propofitions would be true to one man ?iXi^ falfe to another. 



)rft Ilrr 

 Mr. Bronun, in his eifays on Shajijbury^ has laboured, and at 



fome length, to fhow that ridicuk cannot be the teJi of truth, 

 becaufc it is a mode of eloquence tending to afictS and agitate 

 the mind ; as much a mode of eloquence as the tkumv^ the pitiable 

 or pathetic; and his reafoning is conclufive; but this point 

 may be demonftrated in a few words, and I think with a ma- 

 thematical flridnefs : Ridicule cannot be the teJi of truth, for 

 being a branch or mode of the itpitative arts, it prefents, as 

 that name imports, a pidure of fome objed, and cannot be the 

 criterion of that of which it is only the reprefentatioii. zdly, The 

 ridiculous not only confifts in the reprefentation of a pidure, 

 but it is a fingle pofitive pidure ; there is no relative view, 

 no collation of two objeds ; but to the exiftence of truth or 



faljhood the collation of two objeds is neceffary. sdly, The 

 perception of ridicule is inftantaneous, the perception of truth or 



J'al/hoQd is a progreflive operation of the mind. A propofition 

 muft be formed ; the fubjed and predicate of this propofition 



( M ) muft 



