This Notion of _defining_ a Subject by _Negatives_, is a favourite
_Crotchet_, and may perhaps be assumed upon other Occasions by future
Writers: I hope therefore I shall be pardoned, if I offer a proper
Explanation of so good a _Conceit_;--To declare then, _That a Subject is
only to be_ DEFINED _by_ NEGATIVES, is to cloath it in a _respectable_
Dress of _Darkness_. And about as much as to say, That it is a _Knight_
of _tenebrose Virtues_; or a _serene Prince_, of the _Blood_ of _Occult
Qualities_.
Mr. _Addison_ proceeds,
Were I to give my own Notions of HUMOUR, I should deliver them
after _Plato's_ Manner, in a Kind of Allegory; and by supposing
HUMOUR to be a Person, deduce to him, all his Qualifications,
according to the following Genealogy: TRUTH was the Founder of
the Family, and the Father of GOOD SENSE; GOOD SENSE was the
Father of WIT, who married a Lady of a collateral Line called
MIRTH, by whom he had Issue HUMOUR.
--It is very unfortunate for this _Allegorical_ Description, that
there is not one Word of it just: For TRUTH, GOOD SENSE, WIT, and
MIRTH, represented to be the immediate _Ancestors_ of HUMOUR; whereas
HUMOUR is derived from the _Foibles_, and whimsical _Oddities_
of _Persons_ in real Life, which flow rather from their
_Inconsistencies_, and _Weakness_, than from TRUTH and GOOD SENSE;
Nor is WIT any _Ancestor_ of HUMOUR, but of a quite different
_Family_; it being notorious that much HUMOUR may be drawn from
the Manners of _Dutchmen_, and of the most formal and dull Persons,
who are yet never guilty of WIT.
Pages:
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40