Containing several dialogues between Jones and Partridge, concerning love, cold, hunger, and other matters; with the lucky and narrow es- THE HISTORY OF TOM JONES. BOOK VI. CONTAINING ABOUT THREE WEEKS. CHAP. I. Of love. IN our last book we have been obliged to deal pretty much with the passion of love; and, in our succeeding book, shall be forced to handle this subject still more largely. It may not, therefore, in this place, be improper to apply ourselves to the examination of that modern doctrine, by which certain philosophers, among many other wonderful discoveries, pretend to have found out, that there is no such passion in the human breast. Whether these philosophers be the same with that surprising sect, who are honourably mentioned by the late Dr. Swift, as having, by the mere force of genius alone, without the least assistance of any kind of learning, or even reading, discovered that profound and invaluable secret, that there is no God: or whether they are not rather the same with those who, some years since, very much alarmed the world, by shewing that there were no such things as virtue or goodness really existing in human nature, and who deduced our best actions from pride, I will not here presume to determine. In reality, I am inclined to suspect that all these several finders of truth are the very identical men, who are by others called the finders of gold. The method used in both these searches after truth and after gold being indeed one and the same; viz. the searching, rummaging, and examining into a nasty place; indeed, in the former instances, into the nastiest of all places, a bad mind. But though, in this particular, and perhaps in their success, the truth-finder and the gold-finder may very probably be compared together, yet in modesty, surely, there can be no comparison between the two; for who ever heard of a goldfinder that had the impudence or folly to assert, from the ill success of his search, that there was no such thing as gold in the world? Whereas the truth-finder having raked out that jakes, his own mind, and being there capable of tracing no ray of divinity, nor any thing virtuous, or good, or lovely, or loving, very fairly, honestly, and logically concludes, that no such things exist in the whole creation. To avoid, however, all contention if possible with these philosophers, if they will be called so, and to shew our own disposition to accommodate matters peaceably between us, we shall here make them some concessions, which may possibly put an end to the dispute. First, We will grant that many minds, and perhaps those of the philosophers, are entirely free from the least traces of such a passion. Secondly, That what is commonly called love, namely, the desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human flesh, is by no means that passion for which I here contend. This is indeed more properly hunger; and as no glutton is ashamed to apply the word love to his appetite, and to say he loves such and such dishes, so may the lover of this kind, with equal propriety say, he hungers after such and such women. Thirdly, I will grant, which I believe will be a most acceptable concession, that this love for which I am an advocate, though it satisfies itself in a much more delicate manner, doth nevertheless seek its own satisfaction as much as the grossest of all our appetites. And, lastly, That this love, when it operates towards one of a different sex, is very apt towards its complete gratification, to call in the aid of that hunger which I have mentioned above; and which it is so far from abating, that it heightens all its delights to a degree scarce imaginable by those who have never been susceptible of any other emotions, than what have proceeded from appetite alone. In return to all these concessions, I desire of the philosophers to grant, that there is in some (I believe in many) human breasts, a kind and benevo |