RESEMBLANCE and Dissimilitude, the relations of likeness and difference among objects. See Comparison.

The connection that man hath with the beings around him, requires some acquaintance with their nature, their powers, and their qualities, for regulating his conduct. For acquiring a branch of knowledge so essential to our well-being, motives alone of reason and interest are not sufficient: nature hath providentially superadded curiosity, a vigorous propensity, which never is at rest. This propensity alone attaches us to every new object; and incites us to compare objects, in order to discover their differences and resemblances.

Resemblance among objects of the same kind, and dissimilitude among objects of different kinds, are too obvious and familiar to gratify our curiosity in any degree: its gratification lies in discovering differences among things where resemblance prevails, and resemblances where difference prevails. Thus a difference in individuals of the same kind of plants or animals, is deemed a discovery, while the many particulars in which they agree are neglected; and in different kinds, any resemblance is greedily remarked, without attending to the many particulars in which they differ.

A comparison of the former neither tends to gratify our curiosity, nor to set the objects compared in a stronger light: two apartments in a palace, similar in shape, size, and furniture, make separately as good a figure as when compared; and the same observation is applicable to two similar compartments in a garden: on the other hand, oppose a regular building to a fall of water, or a good picture to a towering hill, or even a little dog to a large horse, and the contrast will produce no effect. But a resemblance between objects of the same kind, have remarkably an enlivening effect. The poets, such of them as have a just taste, draw all their families from things that in the main differ widely from the principal subject; and they never attempt a contrast, but where the things have a common genus, and a resemblance in the capital circumstances: place together a large and a small sized animal of the same species, the one will appear greater, the other less, than when viewed separately: when we oppose beauty to deformity, each makes a greater figure by the comparison. We compare the dress of different nations with curiosity, but without surprise; because they have no such resemblance in the capital parts as to please us by contrasting the smaller parts. But a new cut of a sleeve, or of a pocket, enchants by its novelty; and, in opposition to the former fashion, raises some degree of surprize.

That resemblance and dissimilitude have an enlivening effect upon objects of sight, is made sufficiently evident; and that they have the same effect upon objects of the other senses, is also certain. Nor is that law confined to the external senses; for characters contrasted make a greater figure by the opposition: Iago, in the tragedy of Othello, says,

He hath a daily beauty in his life That makes me ugly.

The character of a fop, and of a rough warrior, are nowhere more successfully contrasted than in Shakespeare:

Hotspur. My liege, I did deny no prisoners: But I remember, when the fight was done, When I was dry with rage, and extreme toil, Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress'd, Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new-reap'd, Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home. He was perfumed like a milliner; And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose:—and still he smil'd and talk'd; And as the folder's bare dead bodies by, He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly, To bring a flowery unhandsome corse Betwixt the wind and his nobility. With many holiday and lady terms He question'd me: among the rest, demanded My prishers in your Majesty's behalf. I then, all smarting with my wounds; being gall'd To be so pepper'd with a popinjay, Out of my grief, and my impatience, Answer'd, neglectingly, I know not what: He should, or should not; for he made me mad, To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman, Of guns, and drums, and wounds, (God save the mark!) And telling me, the sovereign'th thing on earth Was pharmacy for an inward bruise; And that it was great pity, so it was, This villainous faltpetre should be digg'd Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good, tall fellow had destroy'd So cowardly: and but for these vile guns, He would himself have been a folder.

First part, Henry IV. act i. sc. 4.

Passions and emotions are also inflamed by comparison. A man of high rank humbles the bystanders even to annihilate them in their own opinion: Cæsar, beholding the statue of Alexander, was greatly mortified, that now, at the age of 32, when Alexander died, he had not performed one memorable action.

Our opinions also are much influenced by comparison. A man whose opulence exceeds the ordinary standard is reputed richer than he is in reality; and wisdom or weakness, if at all remarkable in an individual, is generally carried beyond the truth.

The opinion a man forms of his present distress is heightened by contrasting it with his former happiness:

Could I forget What I have been; I might the better bear What I'm destined to. I'm not the first That have been wretched: but to think how much I have been happier.

Southern's Innocent Adultery, act ii.

The distress of a long journey makes even an indifferent inn agreeable: and, in travelling, when the road is good, and the horseman well covered, a bad day may be agreeable, by making him sensible how snug he is.

The same effect is equally remarkable, when a man opposes his condition to that of others. A ship tossed about in a storm, makes the spectator reflect upon his own ease and security, and puts these in the strongest light.

A man in grief cannot bear mirth; it gives him a more lively notion of his unhappiness, and of course makes him more unhappy. Satan, contemplating the beauties of the terrestrial paradise, has the following exclamation:

With what delight could I have walked thee round, If I could joy in ought, sweet interchange Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains, Now, land, now sea, and shores with forest crown'd, Rocks, dens, and caves! but I in none of these Find place or refuge; and the more I see Pleasures about me, so much more I feel Torment within me, as from the hateful siege Of contraries: all good to me becomes Bane, and in heav'n much worse would be my state.

Paradise Lost, book ix. l. 114.

The appearance of danger gives sometimes pleasure, sometimes pain. A timorous person upon the battlements of a high tower, is seized with fear, which even the consciousness of security cannot dissipate. But upon one of a firm head, this situation has a contrary effect: the appearance of danger heightens, by opposition, the consciousness of security, and consequently the satisfaction that arises from security: here the feeling resembles that above mentioned, occasioned by a ship labouring in a storm.

The effect of magnifying or lessening objects by means of comparison is to be attributed to the influence of passion over our opinions. This will evidently appear by reflecting in what manner a spectator is affected, when a very large animal is for the first time placed beside a very small one of the same species. The first thing that strikes the mind is the difference between the two animals, which is so great as to occasion surprize; and this, like other emotions, magnifying its object, makes us conceive the difference to be the greatest that can be: we see, or seem to see, the one animal extremely little, and the other extremely large. The emotion of surprize arising from any unusual resemblance, serves equally to explain, why at first view we are apt to think such resemblance more entire than it is in reality. And it must be observed, that the circumstances of more and less, which are the proper subjects of comparison, raise a perception so indistinct and vague as to facilitate the effect described; we have no mental standard of great and little, nor of the several degrees of any attribute; and the mind, thus unrestrained, is naturally disposed to indulge its surprize to the utmost extent.

In exploring the operations of the mind, some of which are extremely nice and slippery, it is necessary to proceed with the utmost circumspection: and after all, seldom it happens that speculations of that kind afford any satisfaction. Luckily, in the present case, our speculations are supported by facts and solid argument. First, a small object of one species opposed to a great object of another, produces not, in any degree, that deception which is so remarkable when both objects are of the same species. The greatest disparity between objects of different kinds, is so common as to be observed with perfect indifference; but such disparity between the objects of the same kind being uncommon, never fails to produce surprize: and may we not fairly conclude, that surprize, in the latter case, is what occasions the deception; when we find no deception in the former? In the next place, if surprize be the sole cause of the deception, it follows necessarily that the deception will vanish as soon as the objects compared become familiar. This holds so unerringly, as to leave no reasonable doubt, that surprize is the prime mover: our surprize is great, the first time a small lapdog is seen with a large mastiff; but when two such animals are constantly together, there is no surprize, and it makes no difference whether they be viewed separately or in company. We set no bounds to the riches of a man who has recently made his fortune; the surprizing disproportion between his present and his past situation being carried to an extreme: but with regard to a family that for many generations hath enjoyed great wealth, the same false reckoning is not made. It is equally remarkable, that a trite simile has no effect: a lover compared to a moth scorching itself at the flame of a candle, originally a frightly simile, has by frequent use lost all force; love cannot now be compared to fire, without some degree of disgust. It has been justly observed against Homer, that the lion is too often introduced into his similes; all the variety he is able to throw into them not being sufficient to keep alive the reader's surprize.

To explain the influence of comparison upon the mind, we have chosen the simplest case, viz. the first sight of two animals of the same kind, differing in size only; but to complete the theory, other circumstances must be taken in. And the next supposition we make, is where both animals, separately familiar to the spectator, are brought together for the first time. In that case, the effect of magnifying and diminishing is found remarkably greater than in that first mentioned; and the reason will appear upon analysing the operation: the first feeling we have is of surprize at the uncommon difference of two creatures of the same species; we are next sensible, that the one appears less, the other larger, than they did formerly; and that new circumstance increasing our surprize, makes us imagine a still greater opposition between the animals, than if we had formed no notion of them beforehand.

Let us make one other supposition, that the spectator was acquainted beforehand with one of the animals only; the lapdog, for example. This new circumstance will vary the effect; for, instead of widening the natural ral difference, by enlarging in appearance the one animal, and diminishing the other in proportion, the whole apparent alteration will rest upon the lapdog; the surprise to find it less than it appeared formerly, directs to it our whole attention, and makes us conceive it to be a most diminutive creature: the mastiff in the mean time is quite overlooked. To illustrate this effect by a familiar example. Take a piece of paper or of linen tolerably white, and compare it with a pure white of the same kind; the judgment we formed of the first object is instantly varied; and the surprise occasioned by finding it less white than was thought, produces a hasty conviction that it is much less white than it is in reality: withdrawing now the pure white, and putting in its place a deep black, the surprise occasioned by that new circumstance carries us to the other extreme, and makes us conceive the object first mentioned to be a pure white; and thus experience compels us to acknowledge, that our emotions have an influence even upon our eye-sight. This experiment leads to a general observation, that whatever is found more strange and beautiful than was expected, is judged to be more strange and beautiful than it is in reality. Hence a common artifice, to depreciate beforehand what we wish to make a figure in the opinion of others.

The comparisons employed by poets and orators are of the kind last mentioned: for it is always a known object that is to be magnified or lefened. The former is effected by likening it to some grand object, or by contrasting it with one of an opposite character. To effectuate the latter, the method must be reversed: the object must be contrasted with something superior to it, or likened to something inferior. The whole effect is produced upon the principal object; which by that means is elevated above its rank, or depressed below it.

In accounting for the effect that any unusual resemblance or dissimilitude hath upon the mind, no cause has been mentioned but surprise; and to prevent confusion, it was proper to discuss that cause first. But surprise is not the only cause of the effect described: another occurs, which operates perhaps not less powerfully, viz. a principle in human nature that lies still in obscurity, not having been unfolded by any writer, though its effects are extensive: and as it is not distinguished by a proper name, the reader must be satisfied with the following description. Every man who studies himself or others, must be sensible of a tendency or propensity in the mind to complete every work that is begun, and to carry things to their full perfection. There is little opportunity to display that propensity upon natural operations, which are seldom left imperfect; but in the operations of art it hath great scope: it impels us to persevere in our own work, and to wish for the completion of what another is doing: we feel a sensible pleasure when the work is brought to perfection; and our pain is not less sensible when we are disappointed. Hence our uneasiness when an interesting story is broke off in the middle, when a piece of music ends without a close, or when a building or garden is left unfinished. The same propensity operates in making collections; such as the whole works, good and bad, of any author. A certain person attempted to collect prints of all the capital paintings, and succeeded except as to a few. La Bruyere remarks, that an anxious search was made for these; not for their value, but to complete the set.

The final cause of the propensity is an additional proof of its existence. Human works are of no significance till they be completed; and reason is not always a sufficient counterbalance to indolence: some principle over and above is necessary to excite our industry, and to prevent our stopping short in the middle of the course.

We need not lose time to describe the co-operation of the foregoing propensity with surprise, in producing the effect that follows any unusual resemblance or dissimilitude. Surprise first operates, and carries our opinion of the resemblance or dissimilitude beyond truth. The propensity we have been describing carries us still farther; for it forces upon the mind a conviction, that the resemblance or dissimilitude is complete. We need no better illustration, than the resemblance that is fancied in some pebbles to a tree or an insect; which resemblance, however faint in reality, is conceived to be wonderfully perfect. The tendency to complete a resemblance acting jointly with surprise, carries the mind sometimes so far, as even to presume upon future events. In the Greek tragedy entitled Phineides, these unhappy women seeing the place where it was intended they should be slain, cried out with anguish, "They now saw their cruel destiny had condemned them to die in that place, being the same where they had been exposed in their infancy."

The propensity to advance every thing to its perfection, not only co-operates with surprise to deceive the mind, but of itself is able to produce that effect. Of this we see many instances where there is no place for surprise; and the first we shall give is of resemblance. Unumquodque eodem modo disjovinum quo colligatum est, is a maxim in the Roman law that has no foundation in truth; for tying and loosing, building and demolishing, are acts opposite to each other, and are performed by opposite means: but when these acts are connected by their relation to the same subject, their connection leads us to imagine a fort of resemblance between them, which by the foregoing propensity is conceived to be as complete as possible. The next instance shall be of contrast. Addison observes, Steator, "That the palest features look the most agreeable in N° 265: white; that a face which is overflushed appears to advantage in the deepest fæcal; and that a dark complexion is not a little alleviated by a black hood." The foregoing propensity serves to account for these appearances: to make this evident, one of the cases shall suffice: A complexion, however dark, never approaches to black: when these colours appear together, their opposition strikes us; and the propensity we have to complete the opposition, makes the darkness of complexion vanish out of sight.

The operation of this propensity, even where there is no ground for surprise, is not confined to opinion or conviction: so powerful it is, as to make us sometimes proceed to action, in order to complete a resemblance or dissimilitude. If this appear obscure, it will be made clear by the following instance. Upon what principle is the lex talionis founded, other than to make the punishment resemble the mischief? Reason dictates, that there ought to be a conformity or resemblance between... between a crime and its punishment; and the foregoing propensity impels us to make the resemblance as complete as possible. Titus Livius*, under the influence of that propensity, accounts for a certain punishment, by a resemblance between it and the crime too subtle for common apprehension. Speaking of Mettus Fustetius, the Alban general, who, for treachery to the Romans his allies, was sentenced to be torn to pieces by horses, he puts the following speech in the mouth of Tullus Hortilius, who decreed the punishment. "Mette Fustetius, inquit, si tibi disceere posses fidem ac fadera servare, viso tibi ea disciplina a me adhibita effect. Nunc, quoniam tuum insanabile ingenium eft, at tu tuo supplicio doce humanum genus ea sancta credere, qua te violata sunt. Ut igitur paulo ante animum inter Fidentatem Romanamque rem ancipitem gefifti, ita jam corpus paftim difrahendum dabis?" By the same influence, the sentence is often executed upon the very spot where the crime was committed. In the Elektra of Sophocles, Egistheus is dragged from the theatre into an inner room of the supposed palace, to suffer death where he murdered Agamemnon. Shakespeare, whose knowledge of nature is not less profound than extensive, has not overlooked this propensity:

"Othello. Get me some poison, Iago, this night. I'll not expostulate with her, left her body and her beauty unprovide my mind again. This night, Iago." "Iago. Do it not with poison; strangle her in her bed, even in the bed she hath contaminated." "Othello. Good, good: the justice of it pleases: very good."

Persons in their last moments are generally seized with an anxiety to be buried with their relations. In the Amynta of Tasso, the lover, hearing that his mistress was torn to pieces by a wolf, expresses a desire to die the same death.

Upon the subject in general we have two remarks to add. The first concerns resemblance, which, when too entire, hath no effect, however different in kind the things compared may be. The remark is applicable to works of art only; for natural objects of different kinds have scarce ever an entire resemblance. To give an example in a work of art: Marble is a sort of matter very different from what composes an animal; and marble cut into a human figure, produces great pleasure by the resemblance: but if a marble statue be coloured like a picture, the resemblance is so entire as at a distance to make the statue appear a real person: we discover the mistake when we approach; and no other emotion is raised, but surprize occasioned by the deception: the figure still appears a real person, rather than an imitation; and we must use reflection to correct the mistake. This cannot happen in a picture; for the resemblance can never be so entire as to disguise the imitation.

The other remark belongs to contrast. Emotions make the greatest figure when contrasted in succession; but then the succession ought neither to be rapid, nor immoderately slow: if too slow, the effect of contrast becomes faint by the distance of the emotions; and if rapid, no single emotion has room to expand itself to its full size, but is stifled, as it were, in the birth by a succeeding emotion. The funeral oration of the bishop of Meaux upon the duchess of Orleans, is a perfect hodge-podge of cheerful and melancholy representations, following each other in the quickest succession: opposite emotions are best felt in succession; but each emotion separately should be raised to its due pitch, before another be introduced.

What is above laid down, will enable us to determine a very important question concerning emotions raised by the fine arts, viz. Whether ought similar emotions to succeed each other, or dissimilar? The emotions raised by the fine arts are for the most part too nearly related to make a figure by resemblance; and for that reason their succession ought to be regulated as much as possible by contrast. This holds confidedly in epic and dramatic compositions; and the best writers, led perhaps by taste more than by reasoning, have generally aimed at that beauty. It holds equally in music: in the same cantata all the variety of emotions that are within the power of music, may not only be indulged, but, to make the greatest figure, ought to be contrasted. In gardening, there is an additional reason for the rule: the emotions raised by that art, are at best so faint, that every artifice should be employed to give them their utmost vigour: a field may be laid out in grand, sweet, gay, neat, wild, melancholy scenes; and when these are viewed in succession, grandeur ought to be contrasted with neatness, regularity with wildness, and gaiety with melancholy, so as that each emotion may succeed its opposite: nay, it is an improvement to intermix in the succession rude uncultivated spots as well as unbounded views, which in themselves are disagreeable, but in succession heighten the feeling of the agreeable object; and we have nature for our guide, which in her most beautiful landscapes often intermixes rugged rocks, dirty marshes, and barren stony heaths. The greatest masters of music have the same view in their compositions: the second part of an Italian song seldom conveys any sentiment; and, by its harshness, seems purposely contrived to give a greater relish for the interesting parts of the composition.

A small garden, comprehended under a single view, affords little opportunity for that embellishment. Dissimilar emotions require different tones of mind; and therefore in conjunction can never be pleasant: gaiety and sweetness may be combined, or wildness and gloominess; but a composition of gaiety and gloominess is distasteful. The rude uncultivated compartment of furze and broom in Richmond garden, hath a good effect in the succession of objects; but a spot of that nature would be insufferable in the midst of a polished parterre or flower-pot. A garden, therefore, if not of great extent, admits not dissimilar emotions; and in ornamenting a small garden, the safest course is to confine it to a single expression. For the same reason, a landscape ought also to be confined to a single expression; and accordingly it is a rule in painting, that if the subject be gay, every figure ought to contribute to that emotion.

It follows from the foregoing train of reasoning, that a garden near a great city ought to have an air of solitude. The solitaries, again, of a waste country ought to be contrasted in forming a garden; no temples, no obscure walks; but jets d'eau, cascades, objects active, gay, and splendid. Nay, such a garden should in some measure, avoid imitating nature, by taking on an extraordinary Mental reservations are the great refuge of religious hypocrites, who use them to accommodate their consciences with their interests: the Jesuits are zealous advocates for mental reservations; yet are they real lies, as including an intention to deceive.