_Arguments of the Quakers examined--three cases made out for the determination of a moral philosopher--case the first--case the second--case the third._
I purpose to look into these arguments of the Quakers, and to see how far they can be supported. I will suppose therefore a few cases to be made out, and to be handed, one by one, to some moral philosopher for his decision. I will suppose this philosopher (that all prejudice of education may be excluded) to have been ignorant of the nature of dancing, but that he had been made acquainted with it, in order that he might be enabled to decide the point in question.
Suppose then it was reported to this philosopher that, on a certain day, a number of young persons of both sexes, who had casually met at a friends house, instead of confining themselves to the room on a summers afternoon, had walked out upon the green; that a person present had invited them suddenly to dance; that they had danced to the sound of musical vibrations for an hour, and that after this they had returned to the room, or that they had returned home. Would the philosopher be able to say in this case, that there was any thing in it, that incurred any of the culpable imputations, fixed upon dancing by the Quakers?
He could hardly; I think, make it out, that there could have been, in any part of the business, any opening for the charges in question. There appears to have been no previous preparations of extravagant dressing; no premeditated design of setting off the person; no previous methods of procuring admiration; no circumstance, in short, by which he could reasonably suppose, that either pride or vanity could have been called into existence. The time also would appear to him to have been too short, and the circumstances too limited, to have given birth to improper feelings. He would certainly see that a sort of levity would have unavoidably arisen on the occasion, but his impartiality and justice would oblige him to make a distraction between the levity, that only exhilarates, and the levity that corrupts, the heart. Nor could he conceive that the dancing for an hour only, and this totally unlooked for, could stand much in the way of serious reflection for the future. If he were desired to class this sudden dancing for an hour upon the green with any of the known pleasures of life, he would probably class it with an hours exercise in the fields, or with an hours game at play, or with an hours employment in some innocent recreation.