326 On Tragical Representations. 
ation of self, and contemplates nothing but the 
misery, as if it were real, and enters into it with. 
all the glow of natural feeling. The solution, 
therefore, must be sought. for in some other 
principle than the whimsical conceit of a middle 
something, between pleasure and pain, founded 
on the cold reflection, that the whole is a de- 
lusion. It may. account, in some degree, for 
the phlegmatic dialogues of a French. tragedy 
maker; and for the dubious.sensation, the mid- 
die something between. pleasure and pain, which 
they excite; but will never unfold the feelings 
which the magic genius of Shakespeare stirs up 
in the soul. 
The selfish system in morals, which extracts 
a joy out of a painful scene, from the groveling 
consideration, that, whatever sufferings are ex- 
hibited to our view, we are ourselves in a state 
of perfect security, is so grossly false, that a 
moment’s consideration shakes it off with indig- 
nation, and leaves it to the sordid soul, which 
first conceived the idea. This would suppose 
that suffering and distress were in themselves a 
grateful spectacle, if they affect not ourselves ; 
that there was a real malignity in the human 
heart, and that it recurred to them as to a feast. 
This is a horrid untruth ; such spectacles are, in 
their nature, painful ; and all that the consider_ 
ation of our own security can effect, will be 
enly to render them less painful; but of itself 
the. = 
