Thus is it plain that the happiness, both of this life and the other, is owing to passion and not to reason. But though we can never be happy by the force of reason, yet, while we are in this life, we cannot possibly be happy without it, or against it. For since man is by his nature a reasonable creature, to suppose man happy against reason is to suppose him happy against nature, which is absurd and monstrous. We have shown that a man must be pleased to be happy and must be moved to be pleased; and that to please him to a height, you must move him in proportion. But then the passions must be raised after such a manner as to take reason along with them. If reason is quite overcome, the pleasure is neither long, nor sincere, nor safe. For how many that have been transported beyond their reason have never more recovered it? If reason resists, a man's breast becomes the seat of civil war, and the combat makes him miserable. For the passions, which are in their natures so very troublesome, are only so because their motions are always contrary to the motions of the will; as grief, sorrow, shame and jealousy. And that which makes some passions in their natures pleasant is because they move with the will, as love, joy, pity, hope, terror, and sometimes anger. But this is certain, that no passion can move in a full consent with the will, unless at the same time it be approved of by the understanding. And no passion can be allowed of by the understanding that is not raised by its true springs and augmented by its just degrees. Now in the world it is so very rare to have our passions thus raised, and so improved, that that is the reason why we are so seldom thoroughly and sincerely pleased. But in the drama the passions are false and abominable unless they are moved by their true springs and raised by their just degrees. Thus are they moved, thus are they raised in every well-written tragedy, till they come to as great a height as reason can very well bear. Besides, the very motion has a tendency to the subjecting them to reason, and the very raising purges and moderates them. So that the passions are seldom anywhere so pleasing and nowhere so safe as they are in tragedy. Thus have I shown that to be happy is to be pleased and to be pleased is to be moved in such a manner as is allowed of by reason. I have shown too that tragedy moves us thus, and consequently pleases us, and consequently makes us happy. Which was the thing to be proved.
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