LECTURES * THE PHILOSOPHY OF ftmman JHtnb. BY THI LATE THOM1S BROWTV, PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. CORRECTED FROM THE LAST LONDON EDITION. Stereotyped by T. H. Carter & Co. Boston. HALLOWELL: GLAZIER, MASTERS & SMITH. 1836. CONTENTS. LECTURE LIII. PASS 1. Immediate Emotions, involving no Moral Feeling, ... 9 2. Wonder, at what is New and Strange, 10 3. Languor, at what is long continued, ..... 14 4. Beauty, and its Opposite, 16 LECTURE LIV. Continuation of the same Subject, 20 • • LECTURE LV. Continuation of the same Subject,-Why certain Objects excite this Emotion, 31 LECTURE LVI. Continuation of the same Subject,-The Emotion of Beauty an original Feeling of the Mind, 48 Remarks on Mr. Alison's Theory, 48 LECTURE LVIL * Conclusion of the Emotion of Beauty and its Opposite, . . • .55 5. Sublimity, .61 LECTURE LVIII. Retrospect of the Emotions of Beauty and Sublimity, • . • .68 6. The Ludicrous, .....•«••• 70 4 CONTENTS. LECTURE LIX. PAGE Continuation of the same Subject, . . . . ► . .80 Immediate Emotions, involving necessarily some Moral Feeling, . . 84 1. Feelings distinctive of Vice and Virtue,ibid. 2. Love and Hate,, . . 88 LECTURE LX. Continuation of the same Subject,. . 90 Remarks on the Utility of these Emotions, . . . „ . . 94 LECTURE LXI. Conclusion of the Emotions of Love and Hate, . 100 3. Sympathy,108 LECTURE LXII. Conclusion of the Emotion of Sympathy, . . . . . no 4. Pride and Humility, . . ... . . . ► .112 . LECTURE LXIII. II. Retrospective Emotions, having relation to others, . . . 121 1. Anger,122 2. Gratitude, 130 LECTURE LXIV. Retrospective Emotions, having Reference to ourselves,- 1. Simple Regret and Gladness, 2. Remorse and its Opposite, LECTURE LXV. III. Prospective Emotions, comprehending our Desires and Fears, . 142 Classification of them,147 Modes of our different Desires, 148 L Desire of our own continued Existence,151 LECTURE LXVI. III. Prospective Emotions,153 2. Desire of Pleasure, 155 3. Desire of Action, 160 CONTENTS. 5 LECTURE LXVIL PACK III. Prospective Emotions,- 4. Desire of Society, . . . 164 5. Desire of Knowledge, 170 LECTURE LXVIII. 6. Desire of Power, . 178 Direct Desire of Power, as in Ambition, 175 LECTURE LXIX. Indirect Desire of Power, as in Avarice, 184 LECTURE LXX. Conclusion of the Subject, 194 7. Desire of the Affection of Others, . . 198 8. Desire of Glory, . . . t ...... 200 LECTURE LXXL Continuation of the same Subject, t . 204 LECTURE LXXII. 9. Desire of the Happiness of Others, ... ... 214 10. Desire of Evil to Others, 217 Remarks on concluding the Prospective Emotions, .... 222 LECTURE LXXIII. General Considerations on concluding the Physiology of Mind, . 224 Introduction to Ethics, ......... 225 On Obligation, Virtue, Merit, and the Nature of an Action in Morals, 226 An action in Morals, is nothing distinct from the Agent, . . 232 7 LECTURE LXXIV. * • • ' $ 5 ■ > Continuation of the same Subject, 234 Sophistical Argument against Original Moral Distinctions, . . 236 Virtue and Vice are mere Abstractions, ...... 238 The Mind is blinded to Moral Distinctions,- 1. By extreme Passion, . / 239 2. By the Complexity of Actions, 240 3. By Association, 243 6 CONTENTS. LECTURE LXXV. PAGE Retrospect of last Lecture, 246 These Limitations do not impair the Primary Distinctions of Morality, 248 The Primary Distinctions of Morality never effaced from the Human Heart, 249 On the Theory of Hobbes, that Moral Distinctions depend on Political Enactment, 253 LECTURE LXXVI. On the System of Mandeville, 256 On the Influence of Reason on our Moral Sentiments, . . . 260 On the Systems of Clarke and Wollaston, 263 ' LECTURE LXXVII. On Hume's System, 266 LECTURE LXXVIII. Continuation of the same Subject, t 277 On the Selfish System, 282 • LECTURE LXXIX. Continuation of the same Subject, 288 On the Modifications of the Selfish System, 290 On the System of Paley, ........ 298 LECTURE LXXX. Continuation of the same Subject, 299 On Dr. Smith's System, 303 LECTURE LXXXI. Continuation of the same Subject, 311 Recapitulation of the Doctrines of Moral Approbation, . . .316 LECTURE LXXXII. On the Use of the term Moral Sense, 322 On the Arrangement of the Practical Virtues, 332 LECTURE LXXXII1. Continuation of the same Subject, 333 CONTENTS. 7 riai On the Negative Duties relating to the Persons of Others, . 335 On the Negative Duties relating to the Property of Others, . . 336 LECTURE LXXXIV. On abstaining from robbing Individuals of the Affections of Others, 343 On abstaining from injuring the Character of Others, . . . 346 On Veracity, 349 LECTURE LXXXV. JL ' \ # ■' •* * *;• t • On abstaining from injuring the Virtue of Others, .... 353 On abstaining from injuring the Mental Tranquillity of Others, . 361 LECTURE LXXXVI. On our Positive Duties, 363 On the Duties of Benevolence, . 364 LECTURE LXXXVII. On the Positive Duties which we owe to certain Individuals only, . 371 On the Parental Duties, • . 377 LECTURE LXXXVIII. Continuation of the same Subject, 382 On the Filial Duties, 383 On the Fraternal Duties, 386 On the Duties of the Conjugal Relation, 388 LECTURE LXXXIX. On the Duties of Friendship, ........ 392 On the Duty of Gratitude, ........ 400 LECTURE XC. On the Duties of Contract, 401 On the Duties of Contract relating to Personal Service, . . 404 On the Duties of Citizenship, 407 I. Obedience to the Laws, 408 LECTURE XCI. Continuation of the same Subject, 411 II. Defending our Country, ....... 415 III. Augmenting the general Happiness, 417 On the Duties denominated Rights, 421 8 OONTBNTS. LECTURE XCII. FAGS On the Existence of the Deity, 422 LECTURE XCIII. Continuation of the same Subject,432 On the Unity of the Deity, On the Omniscience of the Deity, 434 On the Omnipotence of the Deity,ibid. On the Goodness of the Deity,435 LECTURE XCIV. Continuation of the same Subject,-Objections obviated, . . . 442 LECTURE XCV. Continuation of the same Subject, 452 On our Duties to the Deity, LECTURE XCVI. On the Immortality of the Soul, , 461 LECTURE XCVIL Continuation of the same Subject, . . . . . . . 473 LECTURE XCVIII. Retrospect of the Argument for the Immortality of the Soul, . 483 On our Duty to Ourselves, . 488 I. Cultivation of Moral Excellence,489 LECTURE XCIX. II. Cultivation of Happiness,493 1. Cultivation of Sensitive Happiness,503 LECTURE C. 2. Cultivation of Intellectual Happiness, ... . . 504 8. Cultivation of Moral Happiness, . . ... 507 C Cultivation of Religious Happiness, .... . 513 LECTURES ON THE ♦ * » * • PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. LECTURE LIU. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, WHICH DO NOT NECESSARILY INVOLVE ANY MORAL FEELING, CONTINUED.-II. WONDER AT WHAT IS NEW AND STRANGE-UNEASY LANGUOR WHEN THE SAME UNVARIED FEELINGS HAVE LONG CONTINUED.-III. ON BEAUTY AND ITS REVERSE. In my last Lecture, gentlemen, I entered on the consideration of our Emotions; and after stating the small number of elementary feelings to which they seem to admit of being reduced, and the reasons which led me to prefer the consideration of them in the complex state in which they usually exist, I proceeded to arrange these complex varieties of them, in three divisions, ac- cording to the relation which they bear to time, as immediate, retrospective, prospective. There are certain emotions which arise or continue in our mind, without referring to any particular object or time, such as cheerfulness or melancholy; or which regard their objects simply as existing, without in- volving, necessarily, any notion of time whatever,-such as wonder, or our feelings of beauty or sublimity;-these I denominate immediate. There are certain others which regard their objects as past, and which cannot exist with- out this notion of the past, such as remorse, or revenge, or gratitude; these I denominate retrospective emotions. There are certain others, which regard their objects as future, such as the whole tribe of our desires;-these 1 de- nominate prospective emotions. It was to the first of these divisions, of course, that I proceeded in the first place; and since man, in the most important light in which we can consider him, is a social being, united by his emotions with whatever he can love or pity, or respect or adore, these and other moral emotions seemed to form a very proper subdivision of this particular order, as distinct from the emotions of the same order in which no moral feeling is involved. The immediate emotions, in which no moral feeling is involved, and which admit, therefore, of being arranged apart, we found to'be the following- cheerfulness, melancholy,-our wonder at what is new dr unexpected, and that emotion of languid uneasiness, which arises from the long continuance of the same objects, or of objects so nearly similar, as scarcely to afford the re- freshment of variety,-our feeling of beauty, and the emotion opposite to that Vol. IT 10 of beauty,-the emotion excited by objects which we term sublime, and the emotion almost opposite to this, excited by objects which we term ludicrous. I proceeded, accordingly, to consider these in their order ; and in my last Lecture, offered some remarks on the first two in the series-cheerfulness and melancholy, that are obviously mere forms of two of the elementary feelings mentioned by me. 1 now then proceed to the consideration of the next in our arrangement-our feeling of wonder at what is new and strange, and of uneasy languor, when the same unvaried feelingshave long continued. Long before we are capable of philosophizing on the different states of our mind, in different circumstances, or even of preserving any distinct me- mory of these states, for subsequent speculations on their nature, we have already become familiar with many of the most important successions of events in that part of the physical universe, with which we are immediately connected, so that it is impossible for us to form any conjecture which can be said to approach to certainty, as to the positive nature of our primary feelings, when these successions of events were first observed by us. It seems most probable, however, that the feeling of wonder, which nowT attends any striking event that is unexpected by us, would not arise in the infant mind, on the occurrence of events, all of which might be regarded as equally new to it; since wonder implies not the mere feeling, of novelty, but the knowledge of some other circumstances which were expected to occur, and is therefore, I conceive, inconsistent with absolute ignorance. At present, with the experience which we have acquired of the order of physical changes, die situation of the mind is very different, on the occur- rence of any seeming irregularity. The phenomena of nature are conceiv- ed by us, not as separate events, but as uniformly consequent in certain series. We, therefore, do not only see the present, but seeing the present, we expect the future. When the circumstances, which we observe in any case, are very similar to the circumstances formerly observed by us, we anticipate the future with confidence,-when the circumstances are considered different, but have many strong similarities to the past, we make the same anticipation, but not with confidence,-and if the event should prove to be different from the event anticipated by us, we treasure it up, for regulating our future anticipa- tions in similar circumstances ; but we do this without any emotion of as- tonishment at the new event itself. It is when we have anticipated with con- fidence, and our anticipation has been disappointed by some unexpected result, that the astonishment arises, and arises always with greater or less vividness of feeling, according to the strength of that belief, which the ex- pectation involved. When new and striking objects occur, therefore, in any of the physical trains of events,-or when familiar objects occur to us, in situations in which we are far from expecting to find them, a certain- emotion arises, to which we give the name of astonishment, or surprise, or wonder, but which, what- ever the name may be, is truly the same state of mind,-at least, as an emo- tion, the same ;•-though different names may be given, with distinctive pro- priety, to this one emotion,-when combined or not combined with a process of rapid intellectual inquiry, or with other feelings of the same class. When the emotion arises simply, for instance, it may be termed, and is more commonly termed, surprise;-when the surprise thus excited by the unexpected occurrence, leads us to dwell upon the object which excited it, and to consider, in our mind, what the circumstances may have been, which I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, have led to the appearance of the object, the surprise is more commonly termed wonder, which, as we may dwell on the object long, and consider the possibilities of many circumstances, that may have led to the unexpected in- troduction of it, is, of course, more lasting than the instant surprise, which was only its first stage. Still, however, though the terms in this sense be not strictly synonymous, but expressive of states, more or less complex, the wonder differs from the surprise, only by the new elements which are added to this primary emotion, and not by any original diversity of the emotion itself. Whether it be a familiar object, which we perceive in unexpected circumstances, or an object that is itself as new as it is unexpected, the first feeling of astonishment,-which is the emotion now considered by us,-is the same in kind, however different the series of subsequent feelings may be. We may feel, for example, only the momentary surprise itself, or we may begin to consider what circumstances are the most likely to- hav& occasioned the presence of the object, and our surprise is, by this union of uncertain and fluctuating thought, converted into wonder,-or we may be struck at the same time with the beauty or grandeur of the new object, and our mixed emotion of the novelty and beauty Combined, will obtain the name of admi- ration,-the simple primary emotion, which we term surprise or astonishment, being in all these cases the same, and being only modified by the feelings of various kinds, that afterwards arise, and coexist with it. In the History of Astronomy,-that very elegant specimen of scientific history, which Dr. A. Smith has bequeathed to us, in one of the Essays of his posthumous volume,-he commences his inquiry, with some remarks on the emotion which we are now considering, and contends, as many other philosophers have contended, for an essential distinction of the varieties of the emotion, both with respect to the objects that excite these varieties, and to the nature of the feelings themselves. What is new and singular, he conceives to excite that feeling,-or senti- ment, as he terms it,-which, in strict propriety, is called wonder ; what is unexpected, that different feeling which is commonly termed surprise. " We wonder," he says, " at all extreme and uncommon objects,-at all the rarer phenomena of nature,-at meteors, comets, eclipses,-at singular plants and animals,-and at every thing, in short, with which we have before been either little, or not at all acquainted ; and we still wonder, though fore- warned of what we are to see." "We are surprised," he continues, "at those things which we have seen often, but which we least of all expected to meet with in the place where we find them ; we are surprised at the sudden appearance of a friend, whom we have seen a thousand times, but whom we did not imagine we were to see then."* This distinction, which Dr. Smith makes of wonder and surprise, seems, when we first consider it, a very obvious and accurate one ; and yet I con- ceive, that if we analyze it more minutely, the difference, as I have already endeavoured to show, is more in the circumstances, in which the emotions arise; and the thoughts, which are the consequence of the emotions, than in these emotions themselves, as simple feelings of the mind. The circum- stances in which they arise, are obviously very different; since, in the one INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 11 * Page 2d of Essays on Philosophical Subjects, by the late Dr. Smith-With his life pre- fixed, by D. Stewart, Esq. 12 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, case, the object is familiar, in the other new, and the consequences arp usually as different; since in the one case, we are generally able to discover, by mere inquiry, what has led to the presence of the familiar object, in the unex- pected situation,-and when we know this, we know every thing; or cease to think of it, if such inquiry be ineffectual. In this case, therefore, there is little fluctuation of doubtful and varying conjecture, blending with the emo- tion and modifying it. In the other case, the very novelty of the object is gratifying to our love of the new, which is one of the strongest of our de- sires, and leads us to dwell on it, with particular interest, while this vqry novelty, or uncommonness which stimulates our curiosity to observe and inquire, renders inquiry less easy to be satisfied ; and one inquiry, even when satisfactorily answered, far from giving us all the knowledge which we desire, leaves of course, when the object is one with which we are unacquainted, many new properties to be investigated. In the one case, that in which a familiar object appears to us, where we did not expect to find it, there is only surprise, or little more ; in the other case, when the object itself is new to us, there is surprise followed by many very doubtful conjectures; and during these conjectures, from the little satisfaction which they afford, a constant recurrence and mingling of the surprise, with the imperfect inquiries. It is not the emotion, therefore, which is different itself, but the mixture of inquiry and emotion, which, coexisting, form a state of mind different from the simple emotion itself. " The imagination and memory," to use Dr. Smith's own words, " exert themselves to no purpose, and in vain look around all their classes of ideas in order to find one, under which it may be arranged. They fluctuate to no purpose from thought to thought; and we remain still uncer- tain and undetermined, where to place it, or what to think of it. It is this fluctuation, and vain recollection, together with the emotion or movement of the spirits that they excite, which constitute the sentiment properly called wonder, and which occasion that staring, and sometimes that rolling of the eyes, that suspension of the breath, and that swelling of the heart, which we may all observe, both in ourselves and others, when wondering at some new object; and which are the natural symptoms of uncertain and undetermined thought. What sort of a thing can that be*? What is that like ? are the questions which, upon such an occasion, we are all naturally disposed to ask. If we can recollect many such objects, which exactly resemble this netv appearance, and which present themselves to the imagination naturally, and, as it were, of their own accord, our wonder is entirely at an end. If we can recollect but a few, and which it requires, too, some trouble to be able to call up, our wonder is, indeed, diminished, but not quite destroyed. If we can recollect none, but are quite at a loss,, it is the greatest possible."* Even from this very description which Dr. Smith has given us,-a descrip- tion which seems to be, in its chief circumstance, a very faithful picture of the phenomena of wonder,-it might be collected that wonder, as a mere emotion, independently of the trains of thought that may mingle with it, does not differ essentially from surprise; and so completely does he forget the distinction, laid down by himself, which would confine wonder and surprise to distinct objects, that he afterwards speaks of them both as produced by the same object, remarking, that when one accustomed object appears after another, which it does not usually follow, it first excites, by its unexpected- ness, the sentiment properly called surprise, and afterwards, by the singular!- * Essay, &c. page 12i INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 13 ty of the succession, or order of its appearance, the sentiment properly called wonder. "We start and are surprised at seeing it there, and they wonder how it came there -that is to say, if I may attempt the analysis, according to the view which I have given you, of the complex state, or states of mind described,-we are first surprised at the appearance of the unaccustomed object,-we are desirous of knowing what circumstances have ied to the appearance,-and, by the various relations which the circumstan- ces perceived bear to other circumstances that may have been present unob- served, and the consequent operation of the laws of suggestion, not one object only occurs, as a cause in which we might immediately acquiesce, but vari- ous possible causes arise to the mind, in judging of which we pass rapidly from one probability to another, and are lost and perplexed with a sort of anxious irresolution. The application of both terms to the emotions excited by one object, in our peculiar situation, is, however, as I have before re- marked, a sufficient proof that Dr. Smith had either forgotten his original distinction of wonder and surprise, or had seen that the distinction, precise and apposite as it appears at first, involves truly no specific difference of the astonishment itself, but merely of the circumstances which precede or at- tend it. ' * . • The defective analysis, however, on which the distinction of the mere emotion appears to me to be founded,-if I may venture to term-it defec- tive,-is an error of much less consequence than another error of Dr. Smith with respect to surprise,-and an error which seems rather incongruous with his former speculation, as to the supposed difference which we have been now considering. Surprise he thinkf to be nothing more than the sudden changes of feelings which are commonly regarded, and, I conceive, truly re- garded, as only the circumstances which give occasion to the surprise, not the surprise itself. " Surprise," he says, " is not to, be regarded as an original emotion, of a species distinct from all others. The violent and sudden change produced upon the mind, when an emotion of any kind is brought suddenly upon it, constitutes the whole nature of surprise."f Now if there be any emotion which is truly original, it really seems to me very difficult to discover one, which could have a better claim to this distinction, than sur- prise. It certainly is not involved in either of the successive perceptions, or conceptions, or feelings of any kind, the unusual successions of which appear to us surprising; and, if it be not even in the slightest degree involved, in either of them separately, it cannot be involved in the two, which contain nothing more, as successive, than they contained separately. When the two are regarded by the mind as objects, indeed, they may give rise to feelings which are not involved in themselves, and the emotion of sur- prise may be, or rather truly is, one of these secondary feelings ; but the sur- prise is then an original emotion, distinct from the primary states of mind which gave rise to it, indeed, but do not constitute it. Sudden joy, and sud- den sorrow, even in their most violent extremes, might succeed each other, reciprocally, in endless succession, without exciting surprise, if the mind had been unsusceptible of any other feelings than joy and sorrow. Surprise is evidently not joy,-it is as evidently not sorrow,-nor is it a combination of joy and sorrow,-it is surely, therefore, something different from both; and we may say with confidence, that before the mind can be astonished at * Essay, &c. page 17. f Page 6 14 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, the succession of the two feelings, it must have been rendered susceptible, at least, of a third feeling. The error of Dr. Smith, in this case, is precisely the same as that funda- mental error which we before traced in the system of Condillac and the other French metaphysicians,-the error of supposing that a feeling, which is the consequence of certain other previous feelings, is only another form of those very feelings themselves. Joy and sorrow, as mere states or affections of the mind, are as truly different from that state or affection of mind, which we term surprise, that may arise from the rapid succession of the two former states, as the fragrance of a rose, the bitterness of wormwood, or any other of our mere sensations, differs from those emotions of gratitude or revenge, into which these, or similar mere sensations, are, according to the very strange doctrine of Condillac, transformed,-though, as we found, in examin- ing that system, which assumes without any proof, what it would certainly not have been very easy to prove,-all which constitutes the supposed transforma- tion, is the. mere priority of one set of feelings, and subsequence, in time, of another. Surprise, in like manner, is not, as Dr. Smith contends, a mere rapid change of feelings, but is a new feeling, to which that rapid change gives rise,-a state of mind, as clearly distinguishable from the primary feelings, that may have given occasion to it, as gratitude, is distinguishable from the mere memory of kindness received,-or revenge, as an emotion, from that mere feeling of injury received, wliich attends it, indeed, for ever in the mind of the vindictive, but preceded the first desire of vengeance that was kindled by the thought. , » . . The importance of our susceptibility of this emotion of surprise at things unexpected, as a part of our mental constitution, is very obvious. It is in new circumstances that it is most necessary for us to be upon our guard; because, from their novelty, we cannot be aware of the effects that attend them, and require, therefore, more than usual caution, where foresight is im- possible. But, if new circumstances had not produced feelings peculiarly vivid, little regard might have been paid to them, and the evil, therefore, might have been suffered, before alarm was felt. Against this danger nature has most providentially guarded us. We cannot feel surprise, without a more than ordinary interest in the objects which may have excited this emotion, and a consequent tendency to pause, till their properties have become, in some degree, known to us. Our astonishment may thus be considered as a voice from that Almighty Goodness, which constantly protects us, that, in circumstances, in which inattention might be perilous, whispers, or almost cries to us, Beware ! Of a kind very different from astonishment, which implies unexpected novelty, is the emotion of weary and languid uneasiness, which we feel from the long continuance of one unvaried object, or from a succession of objects so nearly similar, as scarcely to appear varied. Even objects that originally excited the highest interest, if long continued, cease to interest, and soon become painful. Who that is not absolutely deaf, could sit for a whole day in a music-room, if the same air, without any variation, were begun again in the very instant of its last note ? The most beautiful couplet of the most beauti- ful poem, if repeated to us without intermission, for a very few minutes, w-ould excite more uneasiness than could have been felt from a single recitation of the dullest stanza of the most soporific inditer of rhymes. By a little wider INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 15 extension of this principle, we may perceive, how the very excellence of a work of genius often operates against it, in the later estimation which we form of it. What is intrinsically excellent, may, indeed, admit of being frequently perused, without any diminution, or, perhaps, even with increase of pleasure,- a circumstance which has been assigned as the distinguishing mark of excel- lence in works of this sort. But there are limits to this susceptibility of re- peated perusal with delight; and, if a work be very excellent,-especially if the work be comprised in small compass-we are in great danger of passing these limits, till it become too familiar to us to give us any direct pleasure ; and, if it were not for our remembrance of the pleasure which we formerly received, we might be led to think it incapable of giving us very high delight, merely because it has given us so much delight, as to have wearied us with the too frequent voluntary repetition of it. What works of genius gain with the multitude by extensive diffusion of the admiration which they excite when very popular, they thus often lose, in its intensity, as a permanent feeling of individuals. How weary are we of many of the lines of our best poets, which are quoted to us for ever, by those wl>o read only what others quote ; and the same remark may be made as to those longer passages, or whole pieces, which are collected in the volumes of so many publishers of beauties, as they term them, who see only the beauties which others have seen, and extract, therefore, and collect only what their compiling predecessors have extracted and collected-presenting to us, very nearly the same volumes, with little more than the difference of the order of the pages. What we admired when we read it first, fatigues and disappoints us when we meet with it so often; and the author appears to us almost trite and common, in his most original images, merely because these images are so very beautiful, as to have become some of the common places of rhetori- cal selection. He gains, indeed, by this ubiquity, many admirers, whom he otherwise would not 'have found; but he loses probably more than he gains, by the diminished pleasure which he affords to the few whose approbation is far more than equal in value to the homage of a multitude of dull admirers. In travelling over a flat country, amid unvaried scenery, how weary does the mind become ! and what refreshment would a single eminence give, that might show us at a distance, rivers, and woods, and villages, and lakes, or perhaps the ocean, still more remote ; or at least something more than a few hedgerows, which, if they show us any thing, seem to show us constantly the same meadow which they have been showing us for miles before. Notwith- standing our certainty, that a road, without one turn, must lead us sooner to our journey's end, it would be to our mind, and thus indirectly to our body also, which is soon weary when the mind is weary, the most fatiguing of all roads. A very long avenue is sufficiently wearying, even when we see the house which is at the end of it. But what patience could travel for a whole day, along one endless avenue, with perfect parallelism of the two straight lines, and with trees of the same species and height, succeeding each other exactly at the same intervals ? In a journey like this, there would be the same comfort in being blind, as there would be in a little temporary deafness, in the case before imagined of the same unvaried melody endlessly repeated in a music-room. I need not, however, seek any additional illustrations of a fact, which, I may take for granted, is sufficiently familiar to you all, without any illustra- tion. You cannot fail to have been subject to the influence of which I speak, 16 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, in some one or other of its forms; and may remember that weariness of mind, which you would gladly have exchanged for weariness of body; and which it is perhaps more difficult to bear with good humour, than many pro- found griefs;-because it involves, not merely the uneasiness of the unifor- mity itself, but the greater uneasiness of hope, that is renewed every moment to be every moment disappointed. The change, which we know must come, seems yet never to come. In the case of the supposed journey of a day along one continued avenue, there can be no doubt, that the uniformity of similar trees, at similar distances, would itself be most wearisome. But what we should feel with far more fretfulness, would be the constant disappoint- ment of our expectation that the last tree, which we beheld in the distance, would be the last that was to rise upon us; when tree after tree, as if in mockery of our very patience itself, would still continue to present the same dismal continuity of line. • . □ The great utility of this uneasiness, that arises from the uniformity of im- pressions, which may even have been originally pleasing, it is surely superflu- ous for me to point out. Man is formed, not for rest, but for action; and if there were no weariness on a repetition of the past, the most general of all motives to action would be instantly suspended. We act, that is to say, we perform what is new, because we are desirous of some result, which is new; and ,we are desirous of the new, because the old, which itself was once new, presents to us no longer the same delight. If the old appeared to us, as it once appeared to us, we should rest in it with most indolent content. Hope, eager Hope, the assassin of our joy, All present blessings treading under foot, Is scarce a milder tyrant than Despair. Possession, why more tasteless than pursuit ? Why is a wish far dearer than a crown ?"* It is not because Hope treads our present blessings under foot, that they seem to us to have lost their brightness, but it is in a great measure, because they already seem to us to have faded, that we yield to the illusions of that Hope, which promises us continually some blessing more bright and less perisha- ble,-from the enjoyment of which it is afterwards to seduce us with a simi- lar deceit. ' The diminished pleasure, however, fading into positive uneasiness, which thus arises from uniformity of the past, answers, as we have seen, the most benevolent purposes. It is to our mind, what the corresponding pain of hun- ger is to our bodily health. It gives an additional excitement, even to the active ; and to far the greater number of mankind, it is, perhaps, the only excitement which could rouse them, from the sloth of ease, to those exertions, by which their intellectual and moral powers are, in some degree, at least, more invigorated,-or by which, notwithstanding all their indifference to the welfare of others, they are forced to become the unintentional benefactors of that society, to which otherwise they might not have given the labours of a single bodily exertion, or even of a single thought. After these remarks, on two of our very common emotions, I proceed-to that which is next in the order of our arrangement. " And.lo ! disclosed in all her smiling pomp, Where Beauty, onward moving, claims the praise * Night Thoughts, VII. v. 107-109, and 112,113. INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. Her charms inspire.-O, source of all delight,* O thou, that kindlest, in each human breast, Love, and the wish of poets, when their tongue Would teach to other bosoms what so charms Their own !-Thee, form divine ! thee, Beauty, thee, The regal dome, and thy enlivening ray, The mossy roofs adore : thou, better Sun! For ever beamest on the enchanted heart, Love, and harmonious wonder, and delight Poetic !-Brightest progeny of Heaven ! How shall I trace thy features ! where select The roseate hues to emulate thy bloom !"t 17 The emotions of beauty, and the feelings opposed to those of beauty, to which I now proceed, are, next to our moral emotions, the most interesting of the whole class. They are emotions, indeed, which, in their effects, either of vice or virtue, may almost be considered as moral,-being mingled, if not with our own moral actions, at least in our contemplation of the moral actions of others, which we cannot admire, without making them, in some measure, our own, by that desire of imitating them, which, in such a casejt is scarcely possible for us not to feel,-or which, in like manner, we cannot view with dis- gust and abhorrence, without some strengthening in ourselves of the virtues, that are opposite to the vices which we consider. Delightful as our emotions of beauty are,-important as they are, in their indirect effects,-and universally as they are felt, there is, perhaps, no class of feelings, in treating which so little precision has been employed by philo- sophers, and on which so little certainty has been attained. It is a very striking, though a quaint remark, of an old French writer, La Chambre, in his treatise on the Characters of the Passions, that beauty has had a sort of double effect, in depriving men of their reason. " The greatest men," says he, " who have felt its effects, have been ignorant of its cause,-and we may say, that it has made them lose their reason, both when they have been touched with'the charms of it, and when they have attempted to say any thing about that very charm which they felt." So many, indeed, have been the opinions of philosophers on this subject,- and opinions so very confused, and so very contradictory, that I conceive it safest, to proceed at once to the consideration of the subject itself, without attempting to give you any previous view of the opinions of others with respect to it. I am quite sure, that, if these opinions were exhibited to you in succession, your powers of inquiry would be distracted and oppressed, rather than enlightened or invigorated, and, therefore, would not be in a state very well fitted for prosecuting the investigation, on which you might be called to enter. In questions which relate to objects that cannot be directly sub- mitted to the senses, and that have been thus perplexed by many opposite doctrines and speculations, it is often necessary to endeavour to forget as much as possible what others have thought, and to strive to think as if the opinions of others had been unknown to us. I know no question, in which this temporary forgetfulness could be of more profit than in that on which we are to enter. When we speak of the emotion which beauty excites, we speak necessarily of an emotion that is pleasing; for it is only in the case of pleasing emotions that all writers concur in using the name, and only in such cases that the * " O Beauty, source of praise."-Orig. , 1 Pleasures of Imagination, B. I. v. 271-3. Second form of the poem, v. 282,284-7 ('from " O, source," to " their own !") First form of the poem, v. 275-282. Vol. JI. 18 1. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, name is used, even by the vulgar, in their common phraseology. It is, in truth, only one of the many forms of that joyous delight, which I ranked as one of the elementary feelings to which our emotions are reducible. The pleasure, then, I may remark, in the first place, is one essential circumstance of the emotion. Another circumstance, which may not seem so obvious, but which I con- sider as not less constituent of beauty, in that maturer state of the mind, in which alone we are capable of considering it, is that we transfer, in part at least, the delight which we feel, and embody it in the object which excited it, whatever that object may have been, combining it at least partially with our very conception of the object, as beautiful,-much in the same way as we invest external forms, with the colours which exist as feelings of our own mind, or in o*ur vague conception ; and of the sapid or odoriferous substances, that are gratifying to our luxury, we consider as 11101081 present in them, and permanent, some part of the very delight which they afford. 1 know well, that, philosophically, we consider these sapid and odoriferous substances, merely as the unknown causes of our of sweetness and fragrance ; but 1 have little doubt, at the same time, that it is only philosophically we do consider them, and that, while wre smell a rose, without thinking of our phi- losophy, we do truly consider the fragrance, which we are at the moment enjoying, or at least a charm which involves a sort of shadowy resemblance of that peculiar species of delight, to be floating around that beautiful flower, as if existing there, independently of our feeling. We do not, indeed, think of the sensation of fragrance as existing without, for if we characterized it as a sensation, this very judgment would imply a sort of philosophizing on its nature, which is far from taking place in such a moment. But, without regarding it as a sensation, and enjoying merely the actual feeling of the moment, we incorporate the charm, as it were, with the colours of the rose, with as little intention of forming this combination, and even with as little consciousness that any such combination is taking place, as when, in vision, wre invest the external hardness,-the mere feeling of gentle and limited resistance, which the rosebud gives us as an object of touch, or of muscular compression, with the colours, which are at the moment arising from affec- tions of a different organ. In the case of frctgrance, it is more easy for us, indeed, to separate the sensation from the external form with which we combine it,-and to imagine a rose without odour, than, in the case of vision, to separate the form and hue that mingle as if in one sensation; because there are many objects which we touch, that excite in us no sensations of fragrance, and no objects of touch which do not excite in us some sensations of colour. The coexistence is, therefore, more uniform, and the subsequent suggestions consequently more uniform and indissoluble in the one case than in the other. It is much easier for us, accordingly, to persuade those who have never read, or discoursed, or thought, on such subjects, that the feelings of smell and taste are not inherent in their objects, than to persuade them that the actual colours, which form their sensations of vision, are not spread over the surfaces of external things. But. the actual investment of ex- ternal things with the feelings of our own mind, does take place in our sensitive references to objects without; and in some cases, as in those of vision, constitutes a union so close, that it is impossible even for our philosophy to break the union while the sensation continues. We know well, when we open our eyes, that whatever affects our eyes, is within the •mall compass of their orbit; and yet we cannot look for a single moment, without spreading what we thus visually feel over whole miles of landscape. Still, I must repeat, not the slightest doubt is philosophically entertained by .those, who, when they open their eyes,- yield like the vulgar to the temporary illusion-that the colours, thus supposed to be spread over the external scenery, are truly feelings of the mind, of which the external objects, or rather the rays of light that come from them, are merely the unknown causes. When questioned on the subject of vision, we state this opinion with confi- dence}.and even with astonishment, that our opinion on the subject, in the- present age' of philosophy, should be doubted by him who has taken the su- perfluous trouble of putting such a question. At the very moment, proba- bly, at which'we give our answer, we have our eyes fixed on him, to whom we address it. His complexion, his dress, are regarded by us as external colours, and yve tire' practically, at the very moment, therefore, belying the very opinion which we; proJess, and in speculation truly profess, to hold. These remarks shdw sufficiently the distinction of our speculative limita- tion of our feelings to mind, as the only subject of feeling, and our practical diffusion of these very feelings over matter, which,-by.its nature, is incapable of being the subject of any feeling ; and they show, that it is very possible for the same mind to cojnbine both, or rather,'that there is no individual, who has accurately made ' the distinction, that does not, in almost every moment of his life,-and certainly in every moment of vision,-go through that very process of spiritualizing matter, or of diffusing over matter his own sensa- tions, Which} in his speculations*, appear to him to involve an absolute contra- diction. It is not enough, therefore, to urge, in disproof of any diffusion of our mental feelings over material things, that our feelings are affections of mind, and cannot be affections of matter; -since this would be to disprove a fact, which' certainly in vision, and, as I conceive, in some degree in our other senses also, is continually taking place, notwithstanding the supposed demon- stration of its impossibility. To apply these remarks,, however, to our particular subject.-Beauty, I have.said', is necessarily' an emotion that is pleasing, and it is an emotion which we diffuse, and cdmbine with our conception of the object that may have excited it. These two circumstances, fhe pleasing nature of the emo- tion itself, and the identification of it with the object that excites it, are essen- tial to it, in .those years in which alone it can be an object of reflection; and are, as I the only circumstances that are essential to it, in all its varieties, and in whatever-way the emotion itself may be produced. It is true, indeed, that when questioned, precisely as in the case of simple vision, whether we think that the emotion of beauty is a state or affection of matter, we should have no hesitation in affirrriing, instantly, that it is a state of the mind, and is absolutely incapable of existing in any substance that is purely material. All this'we should say with confidence, as we say with confidence that colour is an affection of the mind, and only an affection of the mind. Yet still, as in the case of colour, the temporary diffusion of our own feeling over the external objects would take place as before. The beauty, as truly felt, and as reasoned upon, would be in our mind ; the beauty, as considered by us at the time of the feeling, w'ould be a delight that seemed to float over the object with- out,-the object which we, therefore, term beautiful, as we term certain other objects red or green-not the mere unknown causes of the feelings, which we INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 19 20 term redness, or greenness, or beauty,-but objects that are red, and green, and beautiful. Even at the time of the diffusion, however, we do not say, or even think, that we diffuse the emotion of beauty any more than we say or think that we diffuse the sensations of colour; for this, as I have said, would be to have philosophized on the nature of the feelings or states of a substantial mind; but without any thought of the colours as sensations, or of the beauty as an emotion, we feel them as in the objects that excite them, that is to say, we reflect them from ourselves on the objects. The diffusion may be tempo- rary, indeed, and depend on the actual presence of the object, but still the temporary diffusion does take place ; and while the object is before us, it is as little possible for us not to regard it, as permanently beautiful, though no eye were ever to behold it, as it would be for *us to regard its colour, as fad- ing the very moment in which we close our eye. Beauty, then, is a pleasing emotion, and a delight which we feel, as if diffused over the object which excites it. I shall proceed further in my inquiry in my next Lecture I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, LECTURE LIV. OF IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, NOT NECESSARILY INVOLVING ANY MORAL FEELING.-3. BEAUTY AND ITS OPPOSITE, CONTINUED. Gentlemen, the latter part of my Lecture, yesterday, was employed in considering one of the most interesting of our emotions,-that which consti- tutes the charm of Beauty,-an emotion, which every one must have felt sufficiently to understand, at the mere mention of the name, what it is, which is the subject of inquiry, and which, notwithstanding, when we endeavour to explain to others what we feel, no two individuals probably would define by the same terms. Of an emotion, which is so delightful, and so universal, and, by a singular, and almost contradictory character of thought, at once so clearly felt, and so obscurely comprehended, many theories, as might well be supposed, have been formed by philosophers. If the accurate knowledge of a subject bear any necessary proportion to the number of opinions, with respect to it, that have been stated and canvassed, and the labour and ability of those who have advanced their own theories, or examined the theories of others, there could now be scarcely any more doubt, as to the nature of what is beautiful, than as to any property of a circle or a triangle, which geometricians have demonstrated. Such a proportion, however, unfortunately does not hold. There are sub- jects, which as little grow clearer, by a comparison of many opinions with respect to them, as the waters of a turbid lake grow clearer, by being fre- quently dashed together, when all that can be effected, by the agitation, is to darken them the more. In such a case, the plan most prudent, is to let the waters rest, before we attempt to discover what is at the bottom,-or, to speak without a metaphor, where there is so much confusion and perplexity, from opposite opinions, it is often of great advantage to regard the subject, if we can so regard it, with- INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 21 out reference to any former opinion whatever,-as if the phenomena were wholly new, or ourselves the first inquirers. This I in part attempted, in my last Lecture,-the results of which it may be of advantage briefly to recapitulate. Though we use the general name of Beauty, in cases in which there is a great variety of the objects that excite it, and a very considerable variety also in the emotion itself, which is thus excited,-the emotion, to which we give the name, in all its varieties, is uniformly pleasing. This, then, is one essen- tial circumstance of the emotion of beauty,-or, to speak more accurately, of the tribe of different, though kindred emotions, which, from their analogy, we comprehend under that general name. Another circumstance which distinguishes the emotion of beauty, in all its varieties, from many other emotions, that are pleasing in themselves, is that, by a sort of reflex transfer to the object which excited it, we identify or combine our agreeable feeling with our very conception of the object, whether present or absent from us. Whatever is delightful, at the moment in which we gaze or listen with delight, seems to us to be contained in the beautiful object, as the charms which were contained in that fabulous Cestus described by Homer, that existed when none beheld them, and were the same, whether the Cestus itself was worn by Venus, or by Juno. Tn illustration of this embodying, or reflecting process, the result of which seems to me to be that which constitutes an object to our conception as beautiful, it was necessary to offer some remarks, and especially to make some distinctions, without which, the supposition of this transfer of our de- light, and diffusion of it, in the conception of the object that gave birth to it, might appear to involve a sort of absurdity ; as if it implied, in the same ob- ject, a combination of material and mental affections, which are incapable of union. • . It is particularly of importance, in this case, to distinguish our momentary sentiments from our philosophical judgments. As I behold the sun, for ex- ample, it is impossible for me to regard it but as a plane circular surface of a few inches diameter. As I regard it philosophically, it is a sphere of such magnitude, as almost to pass the limits of my conception. If I were asked, what is the diameter of the sun ? I should endeavour to state it, with as exact an approximation to its real magnitude as was possible for me. But if I were to state what every one feels, who knows nothing of astronomy, and what even the astronomer feels as much as the vulgar, when he turns his eye to that great luminary, I should say, that the diameter was scarcely a foot;- so different is oui- momentary sentiment, while we gaze, from the judgments which we form philosophically, after we have ceased to gaze;-the impres- sion of the momentary sentiment, too, it must be remembered, being as irre- sistible as that of the judgment, or rather the more irresistible of the two. In like manner, when I look at any distant landscape, first with my naked eye, afterwards with a telescope, held in one direction, and then with the same telescope inverted, I have a most undoubting belief, that the objects, thus seen in three different ways, have continued exactly at the same distance from me; but if I were to state what I feel visually, and what, with all my knowledge of the optical deception, it is impossible for me not to feel visu- ally, I should say, in each of these ways of viewing the scene, that the objects were at very different distances. To recur, however, to that instance, which brings the difference of the philosophical and the momentary belief nearest 22 to that which takes place in the feeling of beauty-the case of the visual perceptions of colour-it is well known, to every one who is acquainted with the theory of the secondary or acquired perceptions of sight, that the colours, which seem to-us spread over that wide surface of landscape, .which termi- nates in the remote horizon, are spiritual, not corporeal modifications-the effect, indeed, of the presence of a few rays within the small orbit of the eye, but an effect only, not a part of the radiance ; and,.that we'yet diffuse, as it were, the colour, which exists but as a sensation of our npn'd, over those distant objects, which are not mind, but matter. If we jyere asked, what the material colour is, we should state, philosophically, tliat it is the unknown cause of that colour which is our sensation,-that rednfa', for example, is a feeling of otir own mind, {i feelingpof.our own mind, and that what are truly redness and greenness in the external objects,, being both equally unknown to us in themselves,.have no other difference in our concep- tion than as being the unknown causes of different mental feelings. This answer we shpuld, give philosophically; but at the same time, it would be •impossible for us to look on these unknown calisoe of our sensations of colour, without blending with them the very sensations which they cause; and seeing, therefore, in them the very greenness and redness'which are feelings of ,our own mind. In like manner, when we philosophize on beauty, and separate the delight which is in us .from the-cause of the delight which is withoutms, beauty is simply that which exciies in us a certain .delightful feeljng ; it «i$ like the greenness or redness of objects, considered separately from our per- ception of objects,-the greenness and redness, which material object's would have, though no mind sentient qf.colour were in existence. But, still thisvs not the beapty which \\re feel; it is only the beauty which we strive in vain to conceive. The external beauty which we feel, involves bur very delight reflected on it, and-diffused, as miich'as, in the case of a visual object, it. in- volves our sensations of colour diffused on it; the colour which we.reflect, being in our mind, as the .charm which wre reflect, is also in our mind. In this sense, indeed, that ancient theory of beauty, which refers.it to mind as its source, is a faithful statement of the phenomenon ; since it is our own spirit- ual delight.which we are continually spreading around us,-though, in the sense in which Plato and his followers intended fiteir reference to be under- stood, it is far from being just, or, at least, far from having been proved to be' just. In borrowing, therefore, the language Which they use, we do not bor- row a mere poetic rhapsody; but it becomes, with the interpretation which I would give it, the expression qf a philosophic truth. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS,, " Mind, mind alone-Bear witness, earth and heaven! The living fountains in itself contains Of beauteous and sublime !-Here, hand in hand, Sit paramount the graces ;-here, enthroned, Celestial Venus, with divinest airs, Invites the soul to nevef fading joy."* It is the mind, indeed, alone, that, in the view which I have given you, is the living fountain of beauty, because it is. the mind, which, by reflection from itself, embodies in the object, or spreads over it its own delight. If no eye, that is to say, if no mind, were to behold it, what would be the loveliest of those forms, on which we now gaze with rapture, and more than rapture ? A multitude of particles mofe or less .near or remote. It is the soul in which * Pleasures - of Imagination, Book I. v. 481-486. INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. these particles, directly or indirectly, excite agreeable feelings, which invests them in return with many seeming qualities that cannot belong to the mere elementary atoms which nature herself has made ; which gives them, in the first place, that unity as a single form, which they do not possess of them- selves, since, of themselves, however near they may be in seeming cohesion, they are a multitude of separate and independent corpuscles,-which, at the same time, spreads over them the colours, that are more truly the effect of our vision than the cause of it,-and which diffuses among them still more intimately those charms and graces, which they possess only while we gaze, and without which, when the eyes that animate and embellish them are closed, they are again only a multitude of separate particles, more or less near or remote. Another distinction to which I alluded in my last Lecture, and which, though apparently, and even really a verbal one, is a distinction of great im- portance, in its influence on our assent,-is the difference of the phrases, colour, and sensation of colour,-beauty, and emotion of beauty. When we speak of colour or beauty simply, we speak of what we feel, without consider- ing any thing more than the feeling itself. When we speak of the sensation of colour, and the emotion of beauty, we speak of those feelings, with refer- ence to the mind; and, though colour, as felt by us, must of course be the sensation of colour, and beauty, as felt by us, be the emotion of beauty, it appears to us a very different proposition, to state, that, in vision, we combine our sensation of colour with external things, or our emotion of beauty with external things, and to say simply that we combine with them colour and oeauty. We combine them, without knowing that we are combining them, consequently without thinking that the one is a sensation, the other an emo- tion, and both affections of mind alone. To think of them as a sensation and emotion, would be to have formed already the philosophic judgment, which separates them from the object, not the mere momentary sentiment, which combines them with it. In the case of vision, there can be no doubt, that this is done, every moment by the lowest of the people, who have not the slightest suspicion that the colour, or rather the cause of colour, as it exists without, is different from that redness or blueness, which they think they see spread over the surface of objects; and it is not wonderful, therefore, that, in combining, in our notion of the beautiful object, the delightful feeling of our mind, we should do this, with as little suspicion, that the delight, which we have diffused over the object itself, is our own internal emotion. That, in thinking of a beautiful object, we do consider some permanent de- light as diffused, and, as it were, embodied in it, is, I think, evident, on the slightest reflection on the objects which we term beautiful. And yet, when we first think of this diffusion of a mental feeling over a material object,-if we have not been in the habit of attending to other phenomena of the mind,- the very supposition of such a process may seem to involve an assumption that is scarcely warrantable; precisely as the uneducated multitude,-and, perhaps, a very great majority of the smaller multitude, who are educated, would smile, with something more than unbelief, if we were to endeavour to make them acquainted with that part of the theory of vision which relates to colour. But to those who have been in the habit of consider- ing the mental phenomena in general, and particularly the phenomena com- monly ascribed to association,-the diffusion of this feeling, and combination of it with our notion of the cause of the feeling, will seem only an instance 23 24 of a very general law of our mental constitution. It is, indeed, only an in- stance of that general tendency to condensation of feelings, which'gives the principal value to every object that is familiar to us,-to the home of our infancy, to the walks of our youth,-to every gift of friendship,-nor only to these inanimate things, but, in a great measure also, to the living objects of our affection,-to those who watched over our infant slumbers, or who were the partners of our youthful walks,-or who left with us, in absence, or in death, those sacred gifts, which for a moment, supply their place, with that brief illu- sion of reality, which gives to our remembrance a more delightful sadness.- When we look to the grey hairs of him, in the serenity of whose parental eye, even in its most serious contemplation, there is a silent smile that is ever ready to shine upon us, I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, " Whose authority, in show, When most severe, and mustering all its force, Was but the graver countenance of Love ; Whose favour like the clouds of spring might lour, And utter now and then an awful voice, But had a blessing in its darkest frown When we look to that gracious form, in whose thought, even in the moments in which he addresses to Heaven his gratitude or his prayer, ive are still pre- sent, as he thinks of that common home of our immortality, to which he is only journeying before us,-or commends us to the protection of that great Being who has been, in his own long earthly career, the protection and happi- ness of his youth and his age,-are there no feelings of our heart, no enjoy- ments of early fondness and increasing gratitude, and reverence unmixed with fear, which we have combined with the very glance of that eye, and the very tone of that voice, whose glance and tone are to us almost like a blessing ? The friend whom we have long loved, is, at each single moment, what he has been to us in many successive years. Without recalling to us the particular events of these years, he recalls to us their delights; or rather the very no- tion which we form of him contains in itself this diffused pleasure, like some ethereal $nd immortal spirit of the past. Nor, as I have already said, is it only in our moral affection for beings living like ourselves, and capable, therefore, of feeling and returning our kindness, that this condensation, of regard takes place. It produces an affection of al- most moral sympathy, when there can be no feeling of it, and therefore, no possibility of return; and where that softening influence, accordingly, must be wholly reflected from our own mind. That, for inanimate objects, long familiar to us, we have a regard, in some degree similar to that which we feel for & friend, has been the remark of all ages; since every individual, in every age, must have been subject to the universal influence which gives oc- casion to it. A little attention to this process, by which an object, of trifling value, becomes representative of feelings that are inestimable, will not be un- interesting in itself, and will throw much light on that similar process, by which, in the case of beauty, I conceive objects to become representative, by a sort of spiritual reflection, of the pleasure which they excite. I cannot prepare you better for this discussion, than by quoting some remarks from the eloquent work of Dr. Smith. " The causes of pain and pleasure, whatever they are, or however they operate, seem to be the objects, which in all animals, immediately excite those * Cowper's Task, Book VI. v. 30-35. INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 25 two passions of gratitude and resentment. They are excited by inanimate, as well as animated objects. We are angry for a moment, even at the stone that hurts us. A child beats it, a dog barks at it, a choleric man is apt to curse it. The least reflection, indeed, corrects this sentiment, and we soon become sensible, that what has no feeling is a very improper object of revenge. When the mischief, however, is very great, the object which caused it becomes disagreeable to us, ever after, and we take pleasure to burn or destroy it. We should treat, in this manner, the instrument which had accidentally been the cause of the death of a friend; and we should often think ourselves guilty of a sort of inhumanity, if we neglected to vent this absurd sort of vengeance upon it. "We conceive, in the same manner, a sort of gratitude for those inanimate objects, which have been the causes of great or frequent pleasure to us. The sailor, who, as soon as he got ashore, should mend his fire with die plank upon which he had just escaped from a shipwreck, would seem to be guilty of an unnatural action. We should expect that he would rather preserve it with care and affection, as a monument that was in some measure dear to him. A man grows food of a snuff-box, of a pen-knife, of a staff, which he has long made use of, and conceives something like a real love and affection for them. If he breaks or loses them, he is vexed out of all proportion to the value of the damage. The house which we have long lived in, the tree whose verdure and shade we have long enjoyed, are both looked upon with a sort of respect that seems due to such benefactors. The decay of the one, or the ruin of the other, affects us with a kind of melan- choly, though we should sustain no loss by it. The Dryads and the Lares of the ancients, a sort of genii of trees and houses, were probably first sug- gested by this sort of affection, which the authors of those superstitions felt for such objects, and which seemed unreasonable, if there was nothing ani- mated about them."* The reason of this friendship for inanimate objects, seems to me to be, that, with such objects, in the circumstances supposed, there is really com- bined a great part of that which forms the complex conception of our friend ; and it is not wonderful, therefore, that there should be a considerable simi- larity of the feeling excited. There is not, indeed, and cannot be, in the case of lifeless matter, that admiration of virtue and genius,-that gratitude for a preference voluntarily made, and for kindness voluntarily shown,-and that confidence in future displays of similar devotion,-which form so grati- fying and ennobling a part of friendship. But what constitutes the real ten- derness of friendship, is something more than all these feelings. These may be felt, in attachments that are formed at any period of life, and at a very early period of mutual acquaintance. But that which gives to such a union its chief tenderness, is long and cordial intimacy, and especially that intimacy which has taken origin in an early period of life. The friend of our boy- ish sports-of our college studies-of our first schemes, and successes, and joys, and sorrows, is he, in whose converse the heart expands most readily, and with whom, in latest old age, we love to grow young again. With the very image of the person is mingled the remembrance of innumerable enjoy- ments and consolations shared in common. They are, as it were, condensed and fixed in it, and are reflected back upon us as often as the image arises. But the remembrance of a long series of agreeable emotions may be mingled Vol. II. * Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part II. Sect. iii. c. 1. 26 with inanimate scenes, as well as with persons; and if, by the reflection of these past emotions, it produce tenderness in the one case, it surely is not surpris- ing that the same cause should produce, a feeling of tenderness in the other; and that, as the chief source of the affection is thus in circumstances that are common to both, we should feel something very like regard for every long familiar object, while it exists, and of grief, when it exists no more. The old man who pointed out the house of a deceased friend, and said, " formerly I bad only to climb those steps, to forget all the miseries of life," must have felt for the steps, which Ije had so often trod, that regard, which arises from the remembrance of past delight,-a remembrance which con- stituted so important a part of the pleasure formerly received by him, when they led him to the apartment of his friend, and to all that happiness, which was more than the mere forgetfulness of grief, even when there was grief, or the very miseries of life to be forgotten. The same effect in heightening friendship, which is produced by long inti- macy, is produced, in a grfcat degree, by any single feeling of very vivid in- terest ; such as that of peril shared together,-the strong emotion of the mo- ment of enterprise,-the joy. of the escape,-and, in many cases, the glory which attended it, being blended and reflected from each individual, as from another self. In one of those admirable tragedies, which form a part of the series of plays on the passions, there is a very striking picture of this kind, in the speech of an old-maimed soldier, who, with all his modesty, has been forced to allude to some of his past-exploits. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, " For I have fought, where few alive remain'd, And none unscathed : where but a few remain'd, Thus mar'd and mangled ;-as belike you've seen, O' summer nights, aroupd the evening lamp, Some wretched moths, wingless and half consumed, Just'feebly crawling o'er their heaps of dead. In Savoy, $5n a small, though desperate post, Of full tjiree goodly chosen men, But twelve w'ere left;-and right dear friends were we For ev&r after. They are all dead now ;- I'm old and lonely."* In a real case of this sort, every vivid feeling which attended the action,- and the remembrance of which was, in a great measure, the remembrance of the action itself,-would be combined with the perception of each indi- vidual survivor. The common peril, the common escape, the common glo- ry, would be conceived as one; and, in consequence of this unity, as often as the thought of the glorious action recurred, each would be to the others as it were another self. Indeed,-so closely would the conception of the ac- tion itself, and of the right-dear friends be blended, that, in a case like that which the drama supposes, I have little doubt, that when all but one of the little band of heroes had perished, it would seem to the melancholy survivor,- when all the real component parts of the action had thus ceased to exist,- as if the happiness and glory of the action had perished likewise ; and old age and loneliness would be felt the more, as if stripped, not of the enjoy- ments of friendship only, but almost of the very honours of other years. The same feeling in this case, too, it must be remarked, extends itself, if not equally, at least in a very high degree, to inanimate things; and there can be no question, that the sword, which has been worn only as an orna- * Count Basil, a Tragedy, Act III. Scene 1. INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. ment, and the sword which has been often wielded in battle, and in battle the most perilous, will be viewed by their possessors with very different regard. The weapon is itself a<eal component part of the glorious actions which it represents: -and. we .transfuse, as it were, into the* mere lifeless steel, a con- sciousness and reciprocity of our vivid feelings, exactly as, in the case of beauty, we animate the extern al* object 'with our own delight, without know- ing tha| w? have done so. ' The grief which we feel for the. loss of, an .object, insignificant in itself, and deriving all its value from th? associations formed with it, presents, in another form, that transfusion of feeling from the'mind, tmd concentration of it in the object, which constitutes our lively 'pictures pf beauty,-when it is regarded not as the unknown cause of our delightful feeling, but as. that embodied de- light itself. ' * * *•* . • • • An object long familiar to us, by occurring frequently, either in perception, or in trains of thought, together with many of our most interesting emotions, and the images of those friends of whom We think most frequently, is, by the common laws of suggestion, so clearly associated with these emotions and ideas, that, when it is present to our mind, the'se shadowy images of happi- ness may almost be ■considered as forming with it a part of one complex feel- ing, or at least, are Very readily recalled by it. • Wheu.such an object, there,- fore, is lost, and we think of it as losi> We do uqY conceive it as' that simple object of perception which it was origin ally,-wben.it'first affected our senses,- in which case, the loss of it could not be very seriously regarded by us-but we conceive it, as that complex whole, which it has become-the image or representation of many delightful feelings. Though it be only a snuff-box, or a walking-stick, as in the cases supposed by Di> Smith, the mere circum- stance of the loss would of itself give some degree of additional interest to our conception of the object, which malms it dwell longer in our mind than it would otherwise have done, and allows time, therefore, for the recurrence of a greater number of the images associated with it, that rise accordingly, and mingle with the conception. But with that complex state of mind, which arises from the union of these, in our rapid retrospect of other years,-a stat? which is not the mere conception of the walking-stick which we have lost, but of it and the other associate feeljngs, the feeling of the loss is min- gled, and is mingled, not more with the conception of the stick, than with all the coexisting associate feelings, vague and indistinct as these may be-the conception, perhaps, of the friend who preserited if to us,-of the walks dur- ing which it has been our companion,-of many of the innumerable events, of joy or sorrow, that have occupied us, since the time at which, like a new limb added to us, it became, as it were, a part of ourselves. Since the notion of tne loss, therefore, is combined with all these conceptions in our complex state of mind, it is not wonderful that it should appear to us, for the moment, as the loss, not of one part only, and that, if absolutely considered, the least important part of the whole, but as the actual loss of the associate group of images and emotions, of which it is more than representative, and that it should excite our momentary sorrow, accordingly, as for that actual loss. We know, indeed, whenever we reflect, that all these objects are not lost, but the walking-stick only, and our reason every moment checks us with this truth; but, still, every other moment, in spite of reason, the feeling of the loss and the conception of the vague complex whole, continuing to be blended, affect our mind with the blended regret. It is only one of the innumerable instan- 27 28 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, ces, in which our feelings continue obstinately to delude us, in spite of the knowledge which might be supposed capable qf saving us from the illusion, as, particularly in those striking cases of optical deception, to which, on account of the important light which they throw on the phenomena of the mind in general, I have already so frequently directed your attention. When we look at a painted cylinder, or at any landscape in which the laws of perspec- tive are observed, we know well that it is a flat surface at which we are look- ing. Yet it is absolutely impossible for us, notwithstanding this knowledge; to consider the cylinder as a plane, and all the rocks, and groves, and long- withdrawing vales of the landscape, as comprehended in a few inches of co- louring. When we receive the portrait of a friend, it is in vain for reason to tell us, that we have received only a flat surface of a little paint;-when we lose a walking-stick, the gift of a friend, it is equally vain for reason to tell us, that we have suffered only a loss which we can repair for a few shillings at a toy-shop. It is in a great measure, then, by the momentary belief of the loss of more than the object itself, that I would explain that disproportioned emotion, which is felt to be absurd, yet is not felt the less on account of this seeming absurdity. But, whatever may be thought of this explanation" of that grief,-so far beyond the absolute value of the object,-which we feel, on the loss of any object that has been long familiar to us, there at least can be no doubt, as to the great fact itself, that an object long familiar to us, does acquire additional value by this familiarity; and as the object is absolutely the same, however frequently it may have met our eyes, or been used by us for any of the com- mon purposes of life, it is only a relative value which it can have acquired, d value consisting in our own'feelings merely, which we must therefore have condensed in it, or attached to it in Some way or other. After these illustrations from phenomena, that, if not absolutely of the same class, are, at least, very closely analogous,-since they imply a sort of charm conceived by us as treasured in external things, and a charm which consists merely in the reflected feelings of our own mind, 1 trust it will not appear to you too bold an affirmation, to say, that the agreeable emotions which certain objects excite in us, are capable of being, in our conception, combined with the very notion of the objects themselves, and that we term such objects beautiful, by combining, in our notion of them, the delight which we feel, as we term them green, blue, crimson, by combining with them our feelings of colour. What is true of objects of sight may be conceived as easily, in every other species of beauty, natural or artificial, material or mental. What- ever excites the emotion may be felt as of itself combined with the emotions which it excites,-forms, colours, sounds, all that is ingenious in art, or amia- ble in morals. My limits will not permit me to trace all the varieties of beauty with any minute investigation, through this variety of its objects; but you may yourselves equally apply to them whatever remarks I have applied more particularly, to one species of the delightful emotion. It is of external objects, indeed, and particularly of objects of sight, that we think most frequently, when we speak or hear of beauty ; but this does not arise from any exclusive peculiarity of the feeling excited by these ob- jects, as if the term were only metaphorically applied to others, but because external objects are continually around us, so as more frequently to excite the emotion of beauty; and in a great measure, too, because the human form, itself an object of vision, is representative to us of the presence of aB INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. which we love,-of those with whom our life is connected, and from whom its happiness has been derived, or from whom we hope to derive it. It is not wonderful, therefore, that when we think of beauty, we should think of that by which the emotion is most vividly excited, and should be led accordingly to seek it there,- 29 " Where beauty's living image, like the morn That wakes in zephyr's arms the blushing May, Moves onward ; or as Venus, when she stood Eft'ulgent on the pearly car, and smil'd, Fresh from the depp, and conscious of her form, To see the Tritons tune their vocal shells, And each cerulean sister of the flood, With loud acclaim, attend her o'er the waves To seek th' Idalian bower."* That we are susceptible of a similar delightful emotion from works of intel- lect, is sufficiently shown by the fine arts, which are founded on this happy susceptibility; nor is the delight felt only on the contemplation of works of fancy,-at least of fancy in the sense in which that term is commonly employed ; it is felt in the result of faculties, that seem, while exercised in the operations that -produce the beautiful result, to be very foreign from every emotion, but that tranquil satisfaction which may be supposed to con- stitute a part of our assent to any interesting truth. How many theorems are there, to which a mathematician applies the term beautiful, as readily as it is applied by others to the design or the colouring of a picture, or to the words or air of a song ; and thougji the delightful emotion which he expresses by that word is at once far inferior in degree, and only analo- gous in kind to the emotion excited by those objects, it still is so analogous as to deserve the denomination. In general physics, in like manner, how in- stantly do we speak of the beauty of an experiment, which is so contrived as to decide a point that has been long in controversy, by very simple means, and with the exclusion of every foreign circumstance that might affect the •accuracy of the result,-or of the beauty of a theory, which brings together many facts that were before dispersed, without any obvious bond of union, and exhibits them in luminous connexion to our view. The delightful emotion, in these intellectual forms of beauty, is, it will be admitted, far less lively, than when it results from external things. But when we thus apply the term beautiful to the works-of faculties, that are not immediately conver- sant with beauty, or in which, at least, beauty is scarcely even a secondary consideration, we are far from using a metaphor, any more than we use a metaphor, when we employ the same word in speaking of the beauty of a landscape, and of the beauty of the human form, which are both objects of sight, but of which the resulting emotions, though analogous, are far from be- ing the same. We employ the term, because, from the analogy of the delight in the different cases, it is the only term which can express our meaning; we do truly feel, on the contemplation of such intellectual works, a delightful emotion,-as we feel a delightful emotion very similar, however superior it may be in intensity of pleasure, when we look on the charms of nature, or the imitative creations of art; and, as we conceive the very charm which we feel, to be diffused and stored in those beautiful forms on which we gaze, so does the charm which we feel, seem, for the moment, to flow over the sever- * Pleasures of Imagination, B. I. v 327-335 30 est works of intellect, in the conceptions which are embodied to us. Even reason itself, austere as it may seem, is thus only a part of Beauty's universal empire, that extendg over mind, and over matter, with equal sway. But though by some minds, which have not been conversant with the beautiful results of scientific inquiry, these severe and less obvious charms may not' be readily admitted,-of more/beauty, it is surely impossible for any one to doubt that charm, which is felt by us, even before we have learned to distinguish virtqe by its name ; and which, even to the gtiilty, who have aban- doned it, still retains a sort of dreadful loveliness, which they would gladly forget, but which no effort can wholly banish from their remembrance, that is forced still to shudder and admire. It is the analogy of this moral beauty, indeed, which gives its pnosi attractive charm to the'beauty of the inanimate universe, and •which adorns poetry with its most delightful images. To give our mere approbation to virtue, as we give our assent to any truth of reason- ing, seems-to be as little possible, as for those, who are not blind, to open their eyes, in the very sunshine of noon, on seme delightful scene, and to view it as a mere collection of forms without any colouring. The softer moral perfections, so essential to the happiness, and almost to the very exist- ence of society, are like those mild lights, atid gentle graces, in the system of external things, without which the repose of nature would not be tranquillity, b.ut death, and its motions, in the waving bough, and the foamy waterfall, and the stream that glides-from it, would.be only the agitation .of contiguous par tides of matter. Well, indeed, may the poet of imagination exclaim,- L IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, • "Is so fair, In all the dewy landscape of the spring, In the bright eye of Hesper or the morn, In nature's-faitpst forms, is aught so fair As virtuous friendship ? as the candid blush Of him who strives with fortune to be just? The graceful tear that streams for others' woes ? Or the mild majesty of private jjfe, When peace with ever-blooming olive, crowns The gate,-where honour's liberal hands effuse Unenvied the snowy wings Of innocence and love protect the scene ?"* In. all these cas$s of moral beauty, as in that to which our senses more immediately give rise, \ve conceive the dplight which we feel, to be centered in the moral object; and the very diffusion of the delight seems to connect us more closely with that which we admire, producing what is not a mere sympathy, but.something more intimate,-that union of mind with mind, in reflected and mingled feeling,-which, notwithstanding all the absurd mysti- cism that has been written concerning it, has, in ■ the manner which I have now described, in part at least, a foundation in nature. But though, in all these great provinces of beauty, the material, the intel- lectual, and the moral, an object which we feel to be beautiful, be merely an object, with which, in our conception, or continued perception, if it be an ob- ject of sense, or, in our mere conception, if it be an object of another kind,- we have combined, by a sort, of mental diffusion, the delight which it has excited in us ; why, it will be said, do certain objects produce this effect ? The examination of this point, however, I must defer till my next Lecture. * Pleasures of Imagination, B. I. v. 500-511. INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 31 LECTURE LV. L IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, NOT INVOLVING NECESSARILY ANY MORAL FEELING.-III. BEAUTY AND ITS REVERSE CONTINUED.-DIFFERENT SORTS OF BEAUTY. Gentlemen, my last Lecture was employed in considering and illustrating, by various analogous phenomena of the mind, the process by which I con- ceive our feeling of delight, that arises from the object whiclj we term beau- tiful, to be reflected, as it were, from our mind, to the objects'which excite it,-very much in the same way as we spread over external things, in the common phenomena of vision, the colour, which is a feeling or state, not.of matter, but of mind. A beautiful object, when considered by us philosophi- cally, like the unknown causes of our sensations of colour in bodies, con- sidered separately from our visual sensations, is merely the cause of a certain delightful emotion which we feel; a beautiful object, as felt by us, when we do not attempt xo make any philosophic distinction, is, like those coloured objects which we see around us, an object in which we have diffused the de- lightful feeling of our own mind. Though no eye were.to behold what is beautiful, we cannot but imagine that a certain delight would for ever be flowing around it,-as we cannot but imagine, in like manner, that the loveli- est flower of the wilderness, which buds and withers unmarked, is blooming with the sdme delightful hues, which our vision would give to it, and surround- ed with that sweetness of fragrance, which, in itself, is but a number of ex- haled particles, that are sweetness only in the sentient mind. An object, then, as felt by us to be beautiful, seems to contain, in its own nature, the very delight which it occasions. But a certain delight must in this case be excited, before it can be diffused by reflection on that object which is its cause; and it is only by certain objects that the delightful emo- tion is excited. Why, then, it will be said, is the effect so limited and what circumstances distinguish the objects that produce the emotion, from those which produce no emotion whatever, on, perhaps, even an emotion that may be said to be absolutely opposite ? If the same effect were uniformly produced by the same objects, it might seem as absurd to inquire, how certain objects are beautiful and others not so, as to inquire, how it happens that sugar is not bitter, nor wormwood sweet, -the blossom of the rose pot green, nor the common herbage of our mea- dows red. The question, however, assumes a very different appearance, when we consider the diversity of the emotions excited by the same object, and when we consider the very powerful influence of accidental association on our emotions of this kind. In such circumstances we may be fairly allowed to doubt at least, whether objects, primarily and absolutely, have a power of producing this emotion, or whether it may not wholly depend on those contingent circumstances, which we find, and must allow, to be capable of modifying it to so very great an extent. That certain circumstances do truly modify our emotions of beauty, there can be no doubt;-and even that they produce the feeling, when there is every reason to believe, that but for such circumstances, no emotion of the kind would have been excited. The influence of whatis called fashion, in giving. 32 a temporary beauty to various forms, is a most striking proof of this flexibility of our emotion; and it is a fact too obvious to require illustration by ex- ample. " If an European," says Sir J. Reynolds, in one of his discourses deliver- ed at the Royal Academy, " if an European, when he has cut off his beard, and put false hair on his head, or bound up his own natural hair in regular hard knots, as unlike nature as he can possibly make it; and after having ren- dered them immoveable by the help of the fat of hogs, has covered the wdiole with flour, laid on by a machine with the utmost regularity,-if, when thus attired, he-issues forth, and meets a Cherokee Indian, who has bestowed as much time at his toilet, and laid on with equal care and attention his yellow and red on particular parts of his forehead or cheeks, as he judges most becoming; whoever of these two despises the other for this attention to the fashion of his country, which ever first feels himself provoked to laugh, is the barbarian."* It is not necessary, however, to have recourse to savage life, to feel how completely the ornamental and the ridiculous in all the adventitious embel- lishments of fashion, differ only as the eyes which behold them are different. The most civilized European may soon become, in this respect, a Cherokee, and in his nice absurdities of decoration, be himself the very thing at which he would have laughed before. Weary as we soon become of whatever we have admired, our weariness is not more rapid than our admiration of something new, which follows it, or rather precedes it. It seems, as if, in order to produce this delightful emo- tion, nothing more were necessary for us than to say, Let this be beautiful. The power of enchantment is almost verified in the singular transformations which are thus produced ; and in many of these, fashion is employed in the very way in which magic has been commonly fabled to be employed,-in making monsters, who are as little conscious of their degradation, while the voluntary metamorphose lasts, as the hideous but unknown victims of the enchanter's art. A few months, or perhaps a few weeks, may, indeed, show them what monsters they have been; but what is monstrous in the past, is seen only by the unconscious monsters of the present hour, who are again, in a few months, to laugh at their own deformity. What we are, in fashion, is ever beautiful; but nothing is in fashion so ridiculous, as the beauty which has been ; as in journeying with sunshine before us, what is immedi- ately under our eye is splendour ; but if we look back, we see a long shadow behind us, though all, which is shadow now, was once brilliant, as the very track of brightness along which we move. The influence of fashion, on the mere trappings of dress, or furniture, or equipage, is the more valuable as an illustration, from the rapidity of its changes, and the universality of the emotion which it excites, that render it absolutely impossible for the most sceptical to doubt its power. The influ- ence of particular associations on individual minds, is, indeed, as powerful as the more general influence which, in each individual on whom it operates, is only one of the forms of that very particular influence. But, in these cases, it might have been doubted whether the peculiarity, ascribed to asso- ciation, might not rather have arisen from constitutional diversity. In the changes of universal fashion, however, there can be no doubt as to the nature 1. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, • Discourse VII. INVOLVING ON MORAL FEELING. of the sway that has been exercised; since every one will readily allow, in another, that change, of which he is conscious in himself. Yet, even though what is commonly termed fashion, the modifier or crea- tor of general feeling, had not been, it is scarcely possible that we should not have discovered the influence of circumstances on our individual emotions. Even in the mere scenery of nature, which, in its most majestic features,- its mountains,-its rivers,-its cataracts, seems by its permanence to mock the power of man, how differently do the same objects affect us, in conse- quence of the mere antecedents of former feelings, and former events ! The hill and the waterfall may be pleasing to every eye ; but how doubly beauti- ful do they seem to the very heart of the expatriated Swiss, who almost looks as he gazes on them, for the cottage of his home, half gleaming through the spray, as if they were the very hill and the waterfall which had been thei haunt of his youth. To the exile, in every situation, what landscape is so* beautiful as that which recalls to him, perhaps, the bleakest and dreariest spot of the country, which he has not seen for many dismal years ? The softest borders of the lake, the gentle eminences, that seem to rise only to slope into the delightful valleys between,-the fields,-the groves,-the vineyards, in all their luxuriance, these have no beauty to his eye. But let his glance fall on some rock, that extends itself, without one tuft of vegetation; or on some heath or morass, of still more gloomy barrenness; and what was indif- ference till then, is indifference no more. There is an instant emotion at his heart, which, though others might scarcely conceive it to be that of beauty, is beauty to him; and it is to this part of the scene, that his waking eye most frequently turns ; as it is it alone which he mingles in his dreams with the well-remembered scenery of other years. That our emotion of beauty, which arises from works of art, is susceptible of modification, by accidental circumstances, is equally evident. There are tastes in composition, of which we are able to fix the period, almost with the same accuracy as we fix the dates of any of those great events, which fill our tables of chronology. What is green or scarlet to the eyes of the infant, is , green or scarlet to the same eyes in boyhood, in youth, in mature manhood,, in old age ; but the work of art, which gives delight to the boy, may excite no emotion, but that of contempt or disgust, in the man. It must be a mise- rable ballad indeed, which is not read or heard with interest, in our first years of curiosity; and every dauber of a village sign-post, who knows enough of his art, to give four legs, and not two merely, to his red lion, or blue bear, is sure of the admiration of the little critic, who stops his hoop or his top to gaze on the wonders of his skill. Even in the judgments of our maturer years, when our discernment of beauty has been quickened by frequent exercise ; and the study of the works of excellence of every age, has given us a corresponding quickness, in dis- cerning the opposite imperfections, which otherwise we might not have per- ceived-how many circumstances are there, of which we are, perhaps, wholly unconscious, that modify our general susceptibility of the emotions of this class ! Our youth, our age, our prevailing or temporary passions, the pecu- liar admiration which we may feel for some favourite author, who has become a favourite, perhaps, from circumstances that had little relation to his general merit, may all concur, with other circumstances as contingent, in giving diver- sity to sentiments, which otherwise might have been the same. It is finely observed by La Bruyere, in his Discours de Reception, in 1693, when Cor- 33 Vol. JI 34 neille was no more, and Racine still alive :-" Some," says he, " cannot en- dure, that Corneille should be preferred, or even thought equal to him. They appeal to the age that is about to succeed. They wait, till they shall no longer have to count the voices of some old men, who, touched indifferently with whatever recalls to them the first years of their life, love certainly, in his CEdipus, only the. remembrance of their youth." The same idea is happily applied, by another Academician, to account for the constant presence of love in French tragedy, by the universal sympathy, which it may be expect- ed to excite. "This passion," says he, " which is almost the only one that can interest women, has nearly an equal influence on the other sex. How many are there, who have never felt any very violent emotions of ambition or vengeance! Scarcely is there one, who has been exempt from love. The young are perhaps under its influence at present. With what pleasure do they recognise themselves in all which they see and hear I The old have* loved. How delightful to them, to be recalled to their fairest and happiest years, by the picture of what was then the liveliest occupation of their thought! The mere remembrance is, to them, a second youth." If the emotion of beauty, which we receive from external things, and works of intellectual art, be thus under the control of our passions and re- membrances, the pleasure of moral beauty is also in some measure under the same control. The great principles of moral distinction are, indeed, too deeply fixed in our breast, by our Divine Author, to allow approbation and pleasure to be attached to the contemplation of pure malignity, or withheld from pure benevolence. When evil is admired, therefore, it is in consequence of some disproportionate admiration attached to some real or supposed ac- companying good; but still it is in the power of circumstances, to produce this disproportionate admiration, and consequently to modify, in a great degree, the resulting emotion of moral beauty. In one age, or in one country, the self-denying virtues are held in highest estimation,-in another age, or another country, the gentler social affections. There are periods of society, in which valour,-that gave virtue its name in the early ethics of one mighty people,-constitutes almost the whole of that national virtue, which commands general reverence, at the expense of the calmer and far nobler virtues of peace. There are other systems of polity, in which these civil virtues rise to their just pre-eminence, and in which valour is admired, less for its abso- lute unthinking intrepidity, than for its relation to the sacred rights, of which it is the guardian, or the avenger ; nor does the estimation perish completely with the circumstances that gave rise to it. At Rome, even when Roman liberty had bowed the neck to that gracious despot, who prepared, by the habit of submission to usurped power, the servility that was afterwards,- while executioner succeeded executioner on the throne of the world,-to smile, and to shudder, and obey, because others had smiled, and shuddered, and kissed the dust before :-in the very triumph of usurpation, when a single hour at Pharsalia had decided the destiny of ages, and Utica had heard the last voice of freedom, like the fading echo of some divine step retiring from the earth,-still slavery itself could not overcome the silent reverence of the heart for him who had scorned to be a slave, I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, " Even when proud Ctesar, 'midst triumphal cars, The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars, Ignobly vain, and impotently great, Stow'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in etate, INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. As her dead father's reverend image pass'd, The pomp was darken'd and the day o'ercast. The triumph ceased-tears gush'd from every eye; The world's great victor pass'd unheeded by. Her last good man dejected Rome adored, And honour'd Csesar's less than Cato's sword."* 35 Such were the emotions with which the actions of Cato were regarded at Rome, and continued to be regarded during the whole reign of the stoical philosophy, producing those extravagant comparisons of a mortal and the gods, which were not more impious than absurd, and which were little accord- ant with the general spirit of a system of philosophy, of which piety to the gods was one of the most honourable characteristics. The character of perfect moral beauty, however, which the life of Cato seemed to exhibit to a Roman,-who, if not free, was at least a descendant of the free,-is very different from that which it would exhibit to the slaves, the descendant of slaves, that minister, as their ancestors have ministered, to the insignificant grandeur of some eastern court. I need not say, how very different feelings, also, it excites in the mind of those whom Christianity has taught a system of morals, that surpasses the morality of stoicism as much as the purest doc- trines of the Porch surpassed, in moral excellence, the idle and voluptuous profligacy of other systems. With these striking facts before us, it seems impossible, then, to contend for any beauty that is absolutely fixed and invariable. That general suscep- tibility of the emotion, sensitive, intellectual, and moral, which forms a part of our mental constitution, is, it appears, so modified by the circumstances in which individuals are placed, that objects, which, but for these circumstances, would not have appeared beautiful to us, do seem beautiful; and that other objects, from the same cause, cease to give that delight which they otherwise would have produced. It is obviously, therefore, impossible to determine, with perfect certainty, the great point in question as to original beauty ; since, whatever our primary original feelings may have been, they must, by the in- fluence of such modifying circumstarices, that are operating from the very moment of our birth, be altogether diversified, before we are able to speculate concerning them, and, perhaps even in the infant, before any visible signs of his emotions can be distinctly discovered. Since we cannot, then, decide with confidence, either affirmatively or nega- tively, in such circumstances, all which remains in sound philosophy, is a comparison of mere probabilities. Do these, however, lead us to suppose, that originally, all objects are equally capable of receiving the primary influ- ences of arbitrary or contingent circumstances, which alone, determine them to be beautiful ? or do they not rather indicate original tendencies in the mind, in consequence of which it more readily receives impressions of beauty from certain objects than from others,-however susceptible of modification these original tendencies may be, so as afterwards to be varied or overcome by the more powerful influence of occasional causes ? It must not be supposed, in an inquiry of this kind, that we are to look to those high delights which beauty, in its most attractive forms, affords; for, though it may be false, that all the pleasure of beauty is derived from adven- titious circumstances, it is certainly true at least, that our most valuable plea- • Prologue to Cato, by Mr. Pope, v. 27-36. 36 sures of this class are derived from circumstances, with which our imagina- tion has learned to embellish objects. The only reasonable question is,, not whether the chief emotions, which we now term emotions of beauty, be referable to this source, but whether we must necessarily refer to it every emotion of this class, of every species and degree. If, then, in our estimate of mere probabilities, we attend to the signs which the infant exhibits, almost as soon as objects can be supposed to be known to him, it is scarcely possible not to suspect, at least, that some emotions of this kind are felt by him. The brilliant colours, in all their Variety of gaudiness, which delight the child and the savage, may not, indeed, be the same which give most gratification to our refined sensibility; but still they do give to the child, as they give to the savage, a certain gratification, and a gratification which we should, perhaps, still continue to feel, if our love of mere gaudy colouring were not overcome by the delight which, in after life, we receive from other causes that are inconsistent with this simple pleasure-a delight arising from excellencies, which the child and the savage have not had skill to discern, but which, when discerned, produce the impression of beauty, in the same manner as the brilliant varieties of colour, perhaps, that are easily distinguished, and, therefore, instantly felt to. be beautiful. What child is there, who, in a toyshop, does not prefer the gaudiest toy, if all other cir- cumstances of attraction are the same ? or rather, to what child are not this very glare and glitter the chief circumstances of attraction ? and in what island of savages have our circumnavigators found the barbarian to differ in this respect from the child ? The refined critic may indeed feel differently ; but this, as I have said, does not arise from defect of that original tendency to receive a pleasing emotion from the contemplation of those brilliant patch- works of colours, which, though he has learned to regard them as tawdry, he would, in other circumstances, have admired with the savage, but from the developement of tendencies to receive pleasure from other causes, which are inconsistent with this earlier delight,-tendencies which are original, like the other, existing in the mind of the savage as much as in his own more culti- vated mind, but existing there inertly, because circumstances have not arisen to develope them. It is vain to say, in this case, that the pleasure which the gaudy patches of colour afford, is not an emotion of any sort, but a mere pleasure of sense ; for, of the direct sensual pleasure of the different rays of light, we are capa- ble of judging as well as the child ; and, though we still continue to fee], in many cases, an emotion of beauty from objects on which brilliant colours are spread in various proportions, we are able to make a sort of analysis of our complex feeling, so as in some degree to distinguish our admiring emotion as a result of the previous sensitive feeling, by which the colours became visible to us. If we were to judge by these primary sensitive feelings alone, it cer- tainly would not be on the most brilliant colours that our eye would love to rest, with that intentness of vision to which the subsequent emotion of beauty leads, by the delight which it superadds, before the tawdry has been distin- guished from finer species of beauty. On such colours, it would even be painful for it to rest, with that species of contemplation which the child in- dulges,-a contemplation, in which, if there be many dazzling hues to glitter on him, he exhibits often to those around him an intensity of delight, that, if we did not make allowance for the more violent natural expression of plea- sure, in our early years, might seem even to surpass our more refined gratifi- I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 37 cations,-when the sources of this happy emotion have been rendered at once more copious and more pure, and our sensibility has been quickened by the very happiness which it has enjoyed. The delight, it must be remembered too, arises not merely from the speci- fic differences of colours as more or less pleasing, in which case the most pleasing could not be too widely spread, but from distributions of colours in gaudy variety, exactly as in the finer arrangements of tints, which are beauty to our maturer discernment. I have said, that from the undoubted effect of circumstances in modifying our original tendencies, and of circumstances that may, in some degree, have operated before we are capable of ascertaining their influence, it is only an estimate of probabilities to which our inquiry can lead. In vision, how- ever, as far back as we can trace the emotion of beauty, some original emo- tion of this kind does seem to be felt in colours, and varied arrangements of colours; and if from vision we pass to that sense which is next to it in im- portance as a source of the feelings that produce our emotion of beauty, we shall find another tribe of our sensations, that seem in like manner, to favour the supposition of some original beauty, however inferior to those other ana- logous emotions of delight which are to be the growth of our maturer years. The class to which I allude, are our sensations of sound, a class which seems to me peculiarly valuable for illustration, as showing, I conceive at once, the influence of original tendencies, and also of the modifying power of contingent circumstances. In different nations, we find different casts of music to pre- vail ; in the variety of these national melodies, therefore, we recognise the power of circumstances in diversifying the original feelings. But to this diver- sifying power there are limits ; for, however different the peculiar spirit of the national melodies may be, we find that in all nations certain successions of sounds alone are regarded as pleasing,-those which admit of certain mathematical proportions in their times of vibration. It is not every series of sounds, then, that is capable of exciting the emotion of beauty, bdt only certain series, however varied these may be. The universality of this law of beauty in one of our senses, in which delight is felt from mere arrangements or successions of sounds, is a ground of presumption, at least, that all beauty is not wholly contingent, and affords analogies, which, not as proofs, indeed, but as analogies, may fairly be extended to the other senses. Even that fine species of beauty, which is to be found in the expression of character, in animated forms, at least if we admit that species of silent lan- guage, which has been called the language of natural signs, does not seem to be, in all its varieties, absolutely dependent on the mental associations of the < being who beholds it. These connections, indeed, of the corporeal signs of 1 mental qualities, with the qualities which they have been found to express, give to the beauty that is admired by us, in our maturer years, its principal power; but though many, and, perhaps, the far greater number of these signs are unquestionably learned by experience, there seems reason to think, or at least there is no valid ground of disbelief, that there are at least some natural signs independent of experience, and equally universal in use and in interpre- tation. A smiling countenance, for example, appears, if we may judge from the language of his own little features, to be agreeable to the infant, and a frowning countenance to be disagreeable to him, as soon as he is capable of observing the different lineaments or motions which are developed in the smile or frown; though I admit, it would be too much to say, with certainty, 38 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, that even these signs, which we term natural, may not themselves be acquired by earlier observations than any which we are accustomed to take into ac- count. Yet still, though the interpretation, even in these cases, may, how- ever early, result from still earlier experience only, this has not been proved ; nor is it necessary, from the general analogies of mind, to assume it as cer- tain, without particular proof in the particidar case. To those, therefore, whose philosophical spirit is easily alarmed by the word instinct, as if it ex- pressed a connexion peculiarly mysterious, when in truth, every connexion of one feeling with another, is equally mysterious, or equally free from mystery, and cannot fail to be so regarded by every one who has learned to consider accurately what is meant, even by the most regular antecedences and conse- quences of the events of nature;-to that class of philosophers, who think that the word experience accounts for every thing, without reflecting on what it is that experience itself must primarily have been founded,--it may seem unphilosophic thus to* Speak of the possible instinctive usej or instinctive inter- pretation of smiles, or frowns, or signs of any sort. Yet, how many cases are there, in which it is absolutely impossible to deny these very instincts ? and cases, too, in which the immediate effect of the instinct, as much as in the supposed case of beauty, is the production of emotion of some sort, oi at least of the visible sigils of emotion. In some of the lowest of the animals which we have domesticated,-in the cry of the hen, for example, the first time that a bird of prey is seen hovering at a distance, that cry, of which the force is so instantly, and so fully comprehended, by the little tremblers that cower beneath her wing, who does not perceive, in this immediate emotion of terror, an interpretation of natural signs, as instinctive as the language of af- fection that is instinctively used ? Such a cry of alarm, indeed, is not neces- sary to the human mother of the little creature that has a safer shelter con- tinually arotind him. But there are positive signs of pleasure, of which a de- lightful emotion may be the immediate consequence, as there are negative signs, which are merely warnings of evil to be shunned, that are followed im- mediately by an emotion of a different kind ; and these additional sources of enjoyment, it is not unworthy of the kindness of Heaven to have communi- cated to the infant, who may thus feel, in the caress, a delight of more than mere tactual softness. The cry of the parent fowl scarcely seems more quick to be understood, than the smile of the mother to awake in the little heart that throbs within her arms an answering delight; nor is there any phi- losophic inconsistency in supposing it, whatever error there might be in affirm- ing it positively, to be a part of a natural language of emotion, which, like the undoubted natural language of other animals, is instinctively understood, in every age of life, as in every nation of the globe, and which is already felt as happiness or affection, before the happiness of which it is the promise, can itself have been felt or even anticipated. Of a still finer species of emotion, perhaps, than even that which arises from looks or features of the living countenance, may be counted the plea- sure which is felt from the contemplation of moral beauty; and yet if wTe trace back this feeling through a series of years, in the progress of individual emo- tion-though we may find many variations of it in various circumstances,- it is far from certain, that we shall find it more lively in manhood than in the early years of the unreflecting boy. It is not to be expected, indeed, that moral beauty is to be felt, before the consequences of actions, which render them to our conception moral, can be appreciated,-or that it is to be felt. but in those very cases, in which such consequences can be known. There are many offences, therefore, that excite our instant abhorrence, of which a boy cannot feel the moral atrocity,-as there are many virtues, of which he is incapable of feeling the moral charm. But, in virtuous actions, of which the nature can be distinctly conceived by him, he is not the dullest to feel what is lovely,-nor the dullest to feel, mixed with his indignation and his pity, disgust at actions of a different sort. In the ballad which he exults or weeps to hear, he loves and hates with a love and hatred, at least as strong as are felt by those to whom he listens; and it seems as if, far from requiring any slow growth of circumstances, to mature or develope his emotions, there were nothing more necessary to his feeling of the beauty of an heroic sacri- fice, than his knowledge that an act was truly heroic,-and nothing more ne- cessary to his emotions of an opposite kind, than his knowledge that there was cruelty or ingratitude on earth. The observations which I have now made on different species of beauty, are not urged by me, as of evidence sufficient to prove, positively, that we have feelings of beauty, which may be said to be original or independent of accidental associations of every sort; since this point, as I have already stated, is beyond our power to determine with perfect accuracy, because the mind cannot be a subject of our distinct examination, till many accidental causes, of the power of which, in the peculiar circumstances of the infant mind, we may be without the slightest suspicion, may have modified its original tenden- cies in the most important respects. The burthen of proof, however, does not rest with the believers, but with the deniers of original beauty; and, since the inquiry has not for its object what may be affirmed with certainty, but merely what may be regarded as more or less probable, even these very' slight remarks may perhaps have been sufficient to show the greater proba- bility to be on the side of that opinion, which supposes that all objects are not originally to the mind the same in beauty or deformity, or to speak more accurately, that all objects are not originally equally incapable of exciting either of these emotions,-but, on the contrary, that though accidental cir- cumstances may produce one or other of these emotions, when, but for the mere accidents, neither of them would have been produced,-or may va- riously modify, or even reverse in some cases, the original tendencies,-there yet are in the mind some original tendencies, independent of all association, -tendencies to feel the emotion of beauty on the contemplation of certain objects, and the emotion opposite to that of beauty, on the contemplation of certain other objects. The latter supposition, which,-doubtful as the question must, from the very nature of the circumstances, always be,-seems to my own belief the more reasonable, is rendered, I think, not less, but more certain, by the argu- ments which are urged against it-arguments that seem to me founded on a very false view of the circumstances that should be expected to follow, if the doctrine against which they are urged were just, or which, at least, are not applicable to the particular view which I have given you of beauty as an emo- tion, not a direct sensation. It is not a sense of beauty, you must have remarked, for which I have conr tended-a sense, which, like our other senses, must force, upon the mind constantly, or almost constantly, a particular feeling, when a particular object is present. The feeling of beauty, according to my view of it, is not a sen- sation, but an emotion, a feeling subsequent to the perception or conception INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 39 40 1. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, of the object termed beautiful; and which, like other emotions, may, or may not, follow the particular perception or conception, according to the circum- stances in which those primary feelings, to which it is only secondary, may have arisen. It is vain, therefore, to deny,* that objects, which previously impressed us with no feeling of their beauty, may become beautiful to us, in consequence of associations; that is to say, of former pleasing or unpleasing feelings, pecu- liar to ourselves-for though it might be absurd to suppose that these former feelings could give us a new sense, it is far from absurd, that the objects of them may become to our minds the subjects of new pleasing emotions-and of emotions similar, perhaps, to those which wpre formerly excited by other objects. That we are originally susceptible of various other emotions is ad- mitted, and even contended, by those who would trace to the suggestion of them our feeling of beauty; and these original susceptibilities they will surely allow, may, like the susceptibility of beauty, be variously modified, by the circumstances in which the individual may be placed, and may be produced, in consequence of former associations, in circumstances in which they other- wise would not have arisen. There is not a single emotion, indeed, which does not admit of constant modifications in this way. Our love, our hate, ' our wonder, are at least as much dependent on the nature of our past feelings, as our delight in what seems to us beautiful. Why should this one emotion, then, be expected to differ from our other emotions, which are confessedly capable of being awakened or suspended, in different circumstances, though the mere object of contemplation be the same ? To those, accordingly, who, from being accustomed to consider beauty as either permanent and un- changeable in objects, or as absolutely contingent on accidental associations, may find some difficulty in reconciling original beauty, of any sort or degree, with that influence of circumstances, which may modify it or overcome it, it may be of some assistance, to consider the analogy of our other emotions; -since we shall find, that this original tendency, subject to modification, which I suppose to take place in our feelings of beauty-is truly what takes place in our other emotions; with which, therefore, the emotion of beauty, in its variations in various circumstances, may well be supposed to correspond. Let us take, for example, our emotions of desire-feedings as lively, at least, as our emotion of beauty, and in many cases far more lively-which arise in the mind, too, in circumstances in some degree similar,-not on the contem- plation of a present delightful object indeed, like beauty,, but on the contem- plation of some delight that is future. No one, surely, whatever his opinion may be, as to the original indifference of objects that now seem beautiful, will maintain that all objects, painful and pleasing, are equally capable, ori- ginally, of exciting the emotion of desire. Yet no one, 1 conceive, will deny that it is in the power of general fashion, or of various accidental circum- stances, to render objects desirable, or, in other words, capable of exciting, when contemplated, this emotion of desire, that otherwise would have been not indifferent merely, but perhaps positively disliked ; and to make objects cease to be desirable, which would have been highly prized by us, but for the factitious circumstances of society, or accidents that may have operated on ourselves with peculiar influence. There is a mode, in our very wishes, as there is a mode in the external habiliments which we wear; and in their • Contend, Edin. Edit. INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 41 different objects, the passions of different ages and countries are at least as various, as the works of taste, to which they give their admiration. When, at the Restoration, the austerity of the Protectorate was succeeded by the dis- graceful profligacy of the royal court, and when there was an immediate Change of the desirableness of certain objects, as if our very susceptibilities of original passion had been changed, we do not suppose that any real change took place in the native constitution of man. In every original moral ten- dency or affection, he was precisely what he was before In all ages, the race of mankind are born with Certain susceptibilities, which, if circumstances were not different, would lead them as one great multitude to form very nearly the same wishes; but the difference of circumstances produces a correspond- ing diversity of passions,' that scarcely seems to flow from the same source. In like manner, the race of mankind, considered as a great multitude, might he in all ages endowed with the same susceptibilities of the emotion of beauty, which would lead them, upon the whole, to find the same pleasure, in the contemplation of the same objects,-if different circumstances did not pro- duce views of utility, and associations of various sorts, that diversify the emo- tion itself. It is the same in different periods of life of the same individual; the desirableness of objects varying, at least, as much as the feeling of beauty. I may add, that, as there seem to be, in individuals, original constitutional tendencies to certain passions, rather than to others; so there might be a 'con- stitutional difference, with respect to the original susceptibility of the emotion of beauty, that, of itself, might render certain objects more delightful to cer- tain minds than others. But still, when the race of mankind are considered as one great multitude,-as their native original tendencies to passion may be considered as the same,-their native original'susceptibilities of the pleasing impressions of beauty, in certain cases, rfiight also have been the same; though as these original tendencies, if they did exist, might yet admit of being variously diversified, to measure them by any standard, would even in these circumstances, be still as impracticable, as if there were no original tendencies whatever. There is no stahdard of desire; and as little, even in these cir- cumstances, should we expect to find an absolute standard of beauty. All of which we might philosophically speak, would be the agreement of the greater number of mankind in certain desires, and the agreement of the greater number of cultivated minds in certain emotions of beauty. That the feeling of beauty, which so readily arises when the mind is pas- sive, and capable, therefore, of long trains of reverie, should not arise when the mind is busied with other objects of contemplation,-or even in any very high degree, when the mind is employed in contemplating the beautiful object itself, but in contemplating it, with a critical estimation of its merits or defects, -is no proof, as has been supposed, that trains of associate images are essen- tial to the production of the emotion, but is what might very naturally be sus- pected, though no such trains were at all concerned. The feeling of beauty,/ it must be remembered, is not, as I have already said, a sensation, but an emotion. A certain perception must previously exist; and though the per- ception may have a tendency to induce that different state of mind which con- stitutes the emotion, it has a tendency also, by suggestion, to induce many other states, and in certain circumstances, when there are any sftpng desires in the mind, may induce those other states, which may be accordant with the paramount existing desires, more readily than the emotion which has no pecu- liar accordance with them. It is the same in this case, too, with our other Vol. II. 42 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, emotions, as with that of beauty. When we are intent on a train of study, how many objects occur to the mind, which, in other circumstances, would be followed by other emotions,-by various desires, for example,-but which are not followed by their own specific desires, merely in consequence of our greater interest in the subject, the relations of which we are studying. Nor is this peculiar to our emotions only. It extends in some degree even to our very sensations. In two individuals who walk along the same meadow, the one after suffering some very recent and severe affliction, and the other with a light heart, and an almost vacant mind, how very different in number and intensity, are the mere sensations that arise at every step I Yet we surely do not deny, to him who scarcely knows that there are flowers aroSmd him,, an original susceptibility of being affected by the fragrance of that very violqf, the faint odour of which is now wafted to him in vain. The great argument, however., which is-urged by the deniers'of any origi- nal beauty, is founded on that very view of the fluctuations of all our emo- tions of this class, which I endeavoured to exhibit to you in the early part of this Lecture. When we consider the changes of every kind, with respect to all, or, at least, nearly all the varieties of this order of our emotions,-not merely in different nations, or different ages of the world, but even in the same individual, in the few years that constitute his life,-and in many important respects, perhaps in a few months or weeks,-can we suppose, they say, that amid these incessant changes, of which it is not difficult for us to detect die source, there should be any beauty that deserves the honourable distinction of being independent and original ? In what respect, Iwwever, does this formi; 'dable argument differ from that equally formidable argument, which might be urged against the distinctions of truth and falsehood ?-those distinctions which it is impossible for the very sceptic, who professes to deny them, not to admit in his own internal conviction,-and the validity of which, the de- niers of any original beauty would be far from denying, or even wishing to weaken; since the very wish to convince of the truth of their theory, what- ever it may be, must be founded on this very distinction of a peculiar capa- city in the mind, of a feeling, of the truth of certain arguments, rather than of certain opposite arguments. If our tastes, however, fluctuate, do notour opinions of every sort vary in like manner ? and is not the objection in the one case, then, as powerful as in the other; or, if powerless in one, must it not be equally powerless in both ? 1 need not speak of different nations, or ages of the world, in this, more than in the other case,-of the very different systems of opinions of savage, semibarbarous,. and civilized life, in all their varieties of climate and state. Here, too, it is sufficient to think of one in- dividual-to compare the wisdom of the mature well-educated man, with the ignorance of his boyhood, and the proud, but irregular and fluctuating ac- quirements of his more advanced youth,-and if, notwithstanding all these changes, when perhaps not a single opinion ultimately remains the same, w6 yet cannot fail to believe, that truth is something more than a mere arbitrary feeling, the result of accidental circumstances, that there is, in short, an ori- ginal tendency in the mind to assent to certain propositions, rather than to certain other propositions opposite to these,-we surely are not entitled to infer from the changes in the emotion of beauty, not more striking, that all in the mental susceptibility of it is arbitrary and accidental. Again, however, I must repeat, that in this review of the argument, I am not contending for the positive originality and independence of any species of beauty, but merely considering probabilities; and that, although, from the cir- cumstances as they appear to us, I am led to adopt the greater probability of some original tendencies to feelings of this class, 1 am far from considering these as forming the most important of the class, or even as bearing.any high •proportion, in number or intensity, to the multitude of delightful feelings of the same order, that beam for ever, like a sort of radiant atmosphere within, on the cultivated mind, becoming thus, in their ever increasing variety, one of the happiest rewards of years of study, that were too delightful in themselves to need to be rewarded. INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 43 LECTURE LVL 1. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, NOT INVOLVING NECESSARILY ANY MORAL FEELING.-III. BEAUTY AND ITS REVERSE, CONTINUED.-THE EMO- TION OF BEAUTY SEEMS TO BE AN ORIGINAL FEELING OF THE MIND.-MR. ALISON'S THEORY. Gentlemen, the inquiries which engaged us in the Lecture of yesterday, related to the influence of accidental circumstances on our emotion of beauty,-an influence which we found to be capable of producing the most striking diversities, in our -susceptibility of these emotions, of every species, whether arising from the contemplation of objects material, intellectual, or moral. So very striking, indeed, did these diversities appear, on our review, as naturally to give occasion to the inquiry, whether feelings, that vary so much, with all the variety of the circumstances that have preceded them, may not wholly depend on that influence, on which they have manifestly de- pended, to so great an extent. I stated to you that in such an inquiry, it is not possible to attain confidence in the result, since all the circumstances which it would be necessary to know, cannot be known to us. It is long be- fore the intellectual processes of the infant mind are capable of being dis- tinctly revealed to another, directly or indirectly ; and, in this most important of all periods, when thought is slowly evolved from the rude elements of sen- sation, the very circumstance, the influence of which we wish to trace, must have been exerting an influence that is wholly unperceived by us. The ques- tion, therefore, as to any susceptibility in the mind, of being affected with impressions of original beauty, is a question of probabilities, and nothing more. Proceeding, then, with this limited confidence, in the results of our inquiry, we endeavoured to consider the phenomena of this order of our emotions, -not, indeed, in perfect freedom from the influence of preceding accidental circumstances, since this distinct analysis is beyond our power, but with as near an approach to it as it was possible, for us to attain ; and, after a com- parison of the probabilities, we found, I think, reason,! will not say to believe, but at least to incline to the opinion, that we are truly endowed with some original sus- ceptibilities of this class,-susceptibilities, however, that are not so independent of arbitrary circumstances of association as to be incapable of being modified, or even wholly overcome by other tendencies that may be superinduced, but which, at the same time, are not so dependent on such circumstances, as 44 when these circumstances have not occurred to favour them, nor any other circumstance more powerful to counteract them, to be, of themselves, incapa- ble of affecting us,' in the slightest degree, with any of those delightful emo- tions, of which we have been endeavouring to trace the origin. In examining this point, it was of great importance to make you sufficiently' acquainted with one radical distinction ; and, I trust, that now, after the re- marks which I made, you are in no danger of confounding that view of beauty, which regards it as an emotion, dependent on the existence of certain previous perceptions or conceptions which may induce it, but may also, by the operation of the common laws of suggestion, induce, at other times, in like manner, other states of mind, exclusive of the emotion,-with the very diffe- rent doctrine, that regards beauty as the object of a peculiar internal sense, which might, therefore, from the analogy conveyed in that name, be supposed to be as uniform in its feelings, as our other senses, on the presence of their particular objects, are uniform, or nearly uniform, in the intimations afforded by them. Such a sense of beauty, as a fixed regular object, we assuredly have not; but it does not follow, that we are without such an original suscep- tibility of a mere emotion, that is not, like sensation, the direct and uniform effect of the presence of its objects, but may vary in the occasions on which it rises, like our other emotions 5 love, for example, or hate, or astonishment, which various circumstances may produce, or various other circumstances may prevent from arising. In conformity, then, with this view, though from the comparison of all the circumstances of the case, as far as they can be known to us, I am led to re- gard the mind, as having originally certain tendencies to emotions of beauty, in consequence of which it may be impressed with them, on the contempla- tion of certain objects, without the necessary previous influence of any contin- gent circumstances, I yet allow the power of such circumstances, not merely to produce analogous emotions, when otherwise these would not have arisen, but also to modify, and even, in some cases, to overcome our original tenden- cies themselves, in the same manner, as we found that our original tendencies to other emotions might be modified and overcome, in particular cases of a different kind. I allow this influence of circumstances on our emotions of beauty, in the same manner, as I allow the very general empire of prejudice, and the power of all the accidental circumstances, which may prepare the mind, less or more, for the reception, or for the denial of truth, though 1 do not regard truth itself as arbitrary in its own nature;-that is to say, since truth is only a general name of a feeling common to many propositions, I do not regard all propositions, and the propositions opposite to them, as equally fitted to excite this feeling of truth in the mind. The analogy of truth, indeed, as that which there is a greater original tendency to feel, in certain proposi- tions, than in others, though a tendency, which circumstances may, in certain minds, weaken and even reverse, seems to me a very important one, in this discussion, since precisely the same arguments which are urged by those who contend for the exclusive influence of association in the production of beauty, might be urged, as I showed you, with equal force, against those distinctions of truth and falsehood, which the assertors of the creative influence of asso- ciation, in the less important department of taste, would surely be unwilling to abandon. If it be in the power of circumstances to make us regard objects as beautiful, which, but for those circumstances, would not have excited any emotion whatever, and in many cases, even to reverse our emotions, which I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. is all that the deniers of original beauty can maintain; it is not less in the power of circumstances, as the history of the different superstitions of the world, and of the very schools of wisdom, in all the various departments of philosophy, sufficiently shows, to make us regard as true, what we otherwise should have regarded as false, and false what we otherwise should have re- garded as true. The mind is formed, indeed, to feel truths and to feel beauty; but it is formed also to be affected by circumstances, the influence of which may, in any particular Case, be inconsistent with either of those feelings; and the resulting belief, or the resulting emotion, may naturally be supposed to vary with the strength of these accidental circumstances. When I say, then, of the mind, that tltere seems greater reason, on the whole, to suppose it endowed with some original susceptibility of this pleasing emotion, 1 speak of these original susceptibilities, as developed in circum- stances, in which the feelings which certain objects would naturally tend to excite, are not opposed by more powerful feelings; by views of utility, for ex- ample,--which are promoted, in many cases, by deviations from forms, that of themselves would be the most pleasing-or, by the influence of habitual or evea accidental associations. These unquestionably may, as we have already seen, suspend and even reverse our emotions of beauty, as they suspend or reverse our other emotions, even our most powerful emotions of desire; but, though they do this, it may be only in the same way, as every greater force overcomes- a less, which still implies the existence of that Zess, though, if we saw only the one simple emotion, that results from the conflict of the unequal forces, we might be led to think that the impelling cause also was simple, and wholly in the direction of the emotions which we perceive. The writers, therefore, who would reduce our emotions of beauty entirely to the influence of association, and who endeavour to justify their theory, by instances of the power of particular associations, seem to make far too great an assumption. They do not prove the influence of original beauty to be nothing, by proving the influence of other principles to be something more. What eye is there, however little exercised it may be in discriminating forms, which does not, at least in the mature state of the mind, whatever it may have done origi- nally, fee] the beauty of the circle or of the ellipse, considered simply as figures, without regard to any particular end? and though it may be easy to collect instances, in which we prefer to these forms, some one of the angular figures, on account of some useful purpose, to which the angular figure, though less pleasing in itself, may be subservient,-this does not prove that the curve is not felt as more beautiful in itself, but only that it is not felt to be beautiful, where the pleasing emotion, which of itself it would excite, is overcome, by the painful feeling that arises from obvious unfitness, in comparison with some other figure more suitable. Though a circle, for example, may, in itself, be more pleasing than an oblong, we may yet prefer an oblong for our doors and windows; the feelings of comparative convenience and inconvenience being more powerful than the feelings which they overcome, of beauty in the mere form, considered without reference to an end; or rather the fitness of one form for the use intended, involving in itself a species of beauty which may be termed natural beauty as much as the other. In the mere bodily sense of taste, we never think of contending, that all the original affections of the sense are indifferent, and become agreeable or disagreeable, by mere as- sociation ; yet we know well, that it is in the power of habit to modify and re- verse these feelings, so as to render a luxury to one, what is absolutely nau- 45 46 seous to another. Different nations have, indeed, an admiration of very dif- ferent works of genius; but the mere cookery of different nations, is, perhaps, still more strikingly various, than their prevalent intellectual tastes. There is unquestionably, however, an original tendency to delight in sweetness, though certain circumstances may induce a preference of what is bitter, and there may, too, easily be an original tendency to feel the emotion of beauty, from certain objects, though, by the similar influence of circumstances, we may be led to prefer to them, colours or propositions of a different kind. Upon the whole, the probable inference, which, as I have already said, seems to me the most legitimate that can be drawn, from the phenomena of beauty, with respect to its existence as an original emotion, is, that certain objects, various, perhaps, in different individuals, do tend, originally, and without any views of indirect utility, or any previous associations, to excite emotions that are agreeable in themselves, and capable of being reflected back, and com- bined with the agreeable object; but that these may be variously modified, by views of utility, or by permanent or even accidental associations; since there is nothing in'any of our original tendencies which implies that they must be omnipotent, and the same in all times and circumstances. To the child, at least as soon as he is capable of making known to us in any way, his delights and preferences,-certain objects seem to be productive, in a higher degree than others, of that pleasing emotion, which we denominate beauty, when re- flected and embodied, as it were, in the objects that excite it; and as certainly this delightful emotion varies, in the course of his life, from object to object, innumerable times, according to circumstances, which we may not always be able to detect, but which it is, generally, not very difficult to trace, at least in some of their most striking and permanent influences. In the case of those theories, which would refer all beauty in the forms and colours, or other qualities of material things, to the suggestion of mental qualities, and the succession of associate trains of images in accordance with these, there is one circumstance which may have led to the illusion, if the theories are truly to be held to be illusive ; and it is a circumstance common, you will perceive, to all those cases on which the theories are professedly founded. By the mere laws of suggestion, though no other laws of mind were con- cerned, and though beauty, as a primary direct emotion, were the exclusive invariable result of certain perceptions in all mankind alike, as immediate as the perceptions themselves, analogous objects would unquestionably suggest analogous objects; and, where the suggestions were rapid, and the pleasing emotion of beauty continued to coexist with various suggestions, it might not be very obvious, when we endeavour to review the whole series of feelings, to which set of feelings the priority should be assigned ; and whether the emo- tion which perhaps led to the suggestions of the analogous objects, by the mere influence of this common delightful feeling, might not be itself rather the result of them. The pleasure which preceded the suggestion of an agreea- ble object, and still continued after that object was suggested, might thus seem to be the effect of the suggestion of the agreeable object itself. When, therefore, in our endeavour to explain the beauty of any corporeal form, we dwell on it for any length of time, or even when we dwell on it with that mere passive gaze of pleasure which its beauty excites, a variety of analogous ob- jects may be suggested during the delightful contemplation; and, among these, since the different mental affections, intellectual and moral, which we feel in ourselves, or observe in others, must present to us the most interest- 1. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, ing of all analogies, it is not wonderful that some analogous mental qualities should very readily arise in our mind, as any other analogous object is sug- gested in any other train. The pleasure attached to the contemplation of the mental quality will, of course, blend with the pleasure previously felt from the material object; and may be conceived to be itself the chief constituent of that primary pleasure, since the subsequence is too rapid to be distin- guishable on reflection. There is a pleasure also, it must be remembered, in such a case, from the mere perception of the analogy of the coexisting ob- jects of thought,-a pleasure that constitutes the whole charm of .the meta- phorical language of the poet and the rhetorician,-which gives, therefore, an additional delight to the mental suggestion when the kindred image is sug- gested, and, consequently, leads us the more to ascribe to it the whole delight which we feel. But though, when we consider any forms and colour, simple or combined, the analogy of some mental affection may be suggested, and though, when the analogous feeling is suggested, the pleasure of the beauty may be greatly increased, this is no proof that the material objects themselves are not pleasing, independent of the suggestion, though not, perhaps, to an equal degree. The softness of moonshine may derive no slight charm, and perhaps its chief charm, from the mild graces of the mind which it suggests, or the remembrance of many a delightful evening walk with friends whom we loved. But this certainly is far from proving that this softness of moonshine would not be delightful, in any degree, if it had not excited such analogous conceptions. The sun, bursting in all his majesty, like the sovereign of the ethereal world, through the clouds, which he seems to annihilate with the very brightness of his glory, presents unquestionably many moral analogies, which add to our delight, when we gaze, above or below, on that instant change, which all nature seems to feel:- INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 47 " Denso velamine nubis Obsitus, et tetra pressus caligine Til an, Nativo demum radiantis acumine lucis Nubila perruinpit Victor, seque asserit orbi, Splendidus, et toto rutilans spatiatur Olympo." The similitude which these beautiful verses develope, is unquestionably most pleasing. But would there, indeed, be no delight in the contemplation of so magnificent an object, if some moral analogy were not excited, and if the sun itself, with the instant succession of darkness and splendour, and the light dif- fused over every object beneath, were all of which our mind could be said to be conscious? Though, in this question of probabilities which we have been considering, the preponderance seems to me to be in favour of the belief of some original tendencies to the emotion of beauty, on the contemplation of certain objects, -I have already said, that it is only a small part of this order of emotions, which we can ascribe to such a source; and these, as I conceive, of very humble value, in relation to other more important emotions of the order, which are truly the production of associations of various kinds. Though all objects might not have been originally indifferent, the objects of our livelier emotion at present, are certainly those which speak to us of moral analogies and happy remembrances. It will not be an uninteresting inquiry, then, in what way these associations operate, in giving birth to the emotions, or in aiding them with such powerful accessions of delight. Let us pass, then, from the question of original beauty, to this still more important investigation. 48 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, The investigation, when we first enter on it, may seem a very easy one.- It is, as we have found from our examination of the laws of mind, the nature of one object, either perceived or conceived, to suggest, by the common laws which regulate our trains of thought at all times, some other object or feeling, that has to it some one of many relations ; and this again may suggest others, related to it in like manner. Each suggestion, during a long train of thought, may be the suggestion of some delightful object, and thus indirectly of the delightful emotions which such objects were of themselves capable of in- ducing; and though the amount of gratification additional, in each separate suggestion, may be slight, the gratification afforded by a long series of such images, all delightful in themselves, and all harmonizing with the object im- mediately before us, may be very considerable,-so considerable as to be sufficient not to favour merely, but absolutely to constitute that emotion, to which we give the name of beauty. {Such is the view of the origin of this emotion, which has been given, with much felicity of language, and with much happy illustration of example and analysis, by my very ingenious and very eloquent friend, the author of the Essays on the Nature and Principle of Taste. The continued suggestion of trains of harmonizing images, Air. Alison considers as essential to the emotion, which consists, according to him, not more in the kindred associate feelings themselves, that are recalled to the mind, than in the peculiar delight attending, what he terms, the exercise of the imagination in recalling them,-that is to say, according to the view which 1 have given you of our mental functions, the delight which he sup- poses to attend the mere suggestion of image after image in associate and harmonizing trains of thought. This opinion, as to the delight of the mere exercise of imagination, seems to be founded on the belief of a sort of volun- tary exertion of the mind, in such trains, when all which truly takes place in them, as I endeavoured, in former Lectures, to explain to you, is the opera- tion of the common laws of suggestion, that may be pleasing or painful in their influence, precisely as the separate feelings that rise by suggestion, are them- selves pleasing or painful. The exercise of imagination, in such a case, is nothing more than these separate states themselves. When we gaze on a beautiful object, we do not call up the analogous images that may arise, but they arise of themselves unwilled, and if the images were of an opposite kind, the process would itself be painful. Indeed, if the supposed exercise of imagination were in itself, as an exercise of the mind, necessarily pleasing, this exercise, Mr. Alison should have remembered, is not confined to objects that are beautiful, but is common to these with the objects that excite emo- tions opposite to those of beauty, in which, therefore, it would not be very easy for him to account for its different effect. Since, according to his theory, the same species of exercise of imagination is involved in these likewise, it is very evident, that, if necessarily pleasing, it should tend, not to increase, but to lessen the disagreeable feelings, and to convert ugliness itself into a minor sort of beauty. On the fallacy of this supposed part of the process, however, it is unnecessary for us to dwell. I allude to the supposed delight of the mere exercise at present, only to show, how necessary it has been felt, in this theory, to account by a multitude of images, for an amount of delight, which seems too great for any single image in suggestion. Here, then, lies the great difficulty, which that theory has to overcome. To him, who reflects on the circumstances that have attended the emotion, in cases in which it has been most strongly felt, does it appear on this review, that a series of images succeed- INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 49 ing images, have passed through his mind ? When we turn our eye, for ex- ample, on a beautiful living form, is there no immediate, or almost immediate, feeling of delight whatever,-but do we think of many analogies,-and, till these analogies have all been scanned, and the amount of enjoyment, which may have attended the different objects of them, been measured, is the coun- tenance of smile, or the form of grace, only a mass of coloured matter to our eyes3 There are cases, surely, in which the feeling of beauty is immediately .consequent on the very perception of the beautiful form,-so immediately consequent, that it would be difficult to convince the greater number of those, who have not been accustomed to reflect on such subjects, that there is any subsequence whatever, and that the delightful emotion is not itself the very glance, which gives that happy feeling in instant sequence to the soul. I have no hesitation even in saying, that the more intense the feeling of beauty may be, the less is the tendency of the mind to pass from the delightful form, which fills the heart as it fills the eyes, to images of distant analogy,-that this transi- tion takes place, chiefly, where the emotion is of a slight kind,-and that what is said to constitute beauty, has thus an inverse, and not a direct pro- portion, to that very beauty, which it is said directly to constitute. There can be no question, at least, that, in the language of every poet, and of every impassioned describer of these impassioned feelipgs, the total suspension of all our faculties, but of that which is fixed on the contemplation of the dazzling object itself, is stated as an essential character of excess of this emotion. There is uniformly described a sort of rapturous stupefaction, which over- whelms every other thought or feeling;-and though this, in its full extent, may be true only in those excessive emotions, which belong rather to poetry, than to sober life,-even in sober life, there is assuredly an approach to it; and we may safely, therefore, venture to assert, that the beauty, which scarcely allows the mind to wander for a moment from itself, is not less than the beauty, which allows its happy admirer to run over the thousand kind and gentle qualities which it expresses, or to wander, still more widely, over a thousand analogies in other objects. If we attend, then, to the whole course of our feelings, during our admira- tion of the objects, which we term beautiful, we are far from discovering the process, of which Mr. Alison speaks. We do not find, that there is, at least that there is necessarily, any wide combination, or rapid succession, of trains of those associate images or feelings,-which he terms ideas of .emotion;- and yet we have seen reason to believe, that the chief part of beauty is truly derived- from that mental process, which has been termed association,-the suggestion of some feeling or feelings, not involved in the primary perception, nor necessarily flowing from it. In what manner, then, does the suggestion act? .. *• . . The modes in which it acts, seem to me to be, what I am about to describe, -modes, that are in perfect accordance with the general processes, which we have found to take place in the mind, in the phenomena before considered by us. The associate feelings that produce this effect, are, I conceive, of two kinds.-In the first place, any very vivid delight, that may have been acci- dentally connected with any particular object, may be recalled in suggestion by the same object, so as afterwards to make it seem, in combination with this associate feeling, more pleasing than it originally seemed to us ; and may, in like manner, and with similar effect, as when it is recalled by the same Vol. II. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, 50 object, be recalled directly by an object similar or analogous to the former, which thus, even when we first gaze upon it, may appear to have a sort of original loveliness, which, but for the rapid and unperceived suggestion, it would not have possessed. One degree of beauty is thus acquired,-by every object similar to that which has been a source to us of any primaiy pleasure,-and with this faint degree of pleasing emotion, other pleasures, arisjng, perhaps, wholly from accidental sources, at various times, may be combined, in like manner,-rendering the state; of mind, in the progressive feeling, more com- plex, but still, as one feeling or 'state of the mind, not less capable of being" again suggested by the perception of the same or similar objects, than the less complex emotioh, that in the first stage preceded it. With every new- accidental accession of pleasure; in the innumerable events that occur from year to year, the delight itself becomes more complex ; till at length the whole amount of complex pleasure, which the same object may afford by this rapid suggestion to the mind which contemplates it, may be as different from that which constituted the feeling of beauty in the fourth or fifth stage of the growth of the emotion, as that beauty itself, in its fourth or fifth stage, differed from the simple original perception. Still, however, the pleasing emotion, though the gradual result of many feelings of many different stages, is itself always one feeling, or momentary state of the mind, that, as one feel- ing, admits of being suggested as readily and rapidly in any one stage,, as ip any of the stages and it is this immediate state of complex emo- tion, however slowly and gradually formed, which 1 conceive to be suggested when objects appear to us beautiful ; not the number of separate delightful states, which Mr. Alison's theory supposes to be essentially necessary. We feel the instant emotion of loveliness, on the perception of a particular ob- ject, though we may have been years in forming those complex associations, which have rendered the mind capable of now feeling that instant emotion It is in this way, that a landscape, which bears a resemblance to the scene of our early youth, or to any other scene where wq have been peculiarly happy,, cannot fail to be felt as mdre beautiful by us, than by others who have not shared with us that source of additional embellishment. The countenance of one who is dear to us, sheds a charm over similar features, that might otherwise scarcely have gained from us a momentary glance. An author, whose work we have read at an early period with delight, when it was, per- haps, one of the earliest gifts which we received, or the memorial of some tender friendship, epntinues for ever to exercise no inconsiderable dominion over our general taste. In these, and innumerable cases of the same kind, which must have occurred to every one in his own experience, the direct suggestion is of an amount of particular delight, associated with the particu- lar object. This, then, is ope of the modes in which I conceive the emotion of beauty to be excited, and the chief source of all the pleasure which we class under that comprehensive name. It is sufficiently easy to be under- stood ;-it accounts for the variety of emotions in different individuals, when the object which one admires is suqh as to others seems scarcely of a nature to afford any pleasing emotion whatever;-and, above all, it accounts for those more perplexing anomalies, which we sometimes find in the taste of the same individual, when he admires, in some cases, with an admiration that seems to us scarcely consistent with the refined fastidiousness which he dis- plays on other occasions. The delightful emotion which he feels from ob- jects that appear to others inferior to the far nobler objects of which he dis- 51 approves, may, in suth cases, be confined to him, because the associations from which the emotion has. arisen, were his alone. It is in this way, I have said, that the chief pleasure of the emotion arises. But, if all the influence of association on beauty were exercised in this way, by the direct suggestion of a particular amount of pleasure resulting from accidental causes, that have been peculiar to the individual, it would not be easy to account for the whple phenomena of this tribe of emotions,-above all, for those regular g'tadations of beauty in different objects, which are felt in most cases with so general an agreement by the greater number of culti- vated minds, and so uniformly, or almost uniformly, by the same individual. If every object had its own particular associations in the mind of every indi- vidual, and every object many opposite associations, it might be expected, that the emotion of beauty, or at least the estimate of the degree of beauty, would fluctuate in the same individual according to these caprices of acci- dental suggestion, and in the great multitude of spciety, would fluctuate at different moments so as scarcely to admit of being fixed in any way. A face which at one time suggested one particular delight might suggest by its various analogies, or various circumstances of the past, various degrees of delight, and with these, therefore, a perpetual variety of the resulting emo- tion. Notwithstanding all this variety, however, we estimate objects very nearly in the same way. There is a notion of excellence acquired in some manner,-a relative notion of fitness to excite a certain amount of delight,- which seems to be for ever in our mind to direct us,-according to which, we fix at some precise degree the varying beauty of the moment. There is every therefore, in such cases, of the suggestion of one general feeling, and not merely of various fluctuating feelings. The 'suggestion of this.general feeling, which is in perfect accordance with the laws of thought already investigated by us, forms,.I conceive, a second mode of association, m its influence on the emotion of beauty ; and it is this chiefly which aids us in fixing the degrees of what we constantly, or almost constantly, recognise as less or more beautiful than certain other objects,-that is to say, less or more fit to excite in cultivated minds a certain amount of pleasure. I have already explained to you, in what manner the process of generalizing takes place. We see two or more objects,-we are struck with their resem- blance in certain respects,-we have a general notion of the circumstances in which they thus resemble each other, to the exclusion, of course, of the circumstances in which they have no resemblance. For many of these mere relative suggestions of resemblance, we invent words, which from the gene- rality of the notion expressed by them, are denominated general terms,- »uch as quadruped, animal, peace} virtue, happiness, excellence,-but though we invent many such general teims, we invent them, if is evident, only in a very few cases, comparatively with the cases of general feeling of resem- blance of some sort, in which they are not invented,-and we apply the same name frequently, in different cases, when the general feelings in our mind, however analogous, are not strictly the same. We apply the word peace, for example, to many states of international rest from war, which are far from conveying the same notions of safety and tranquillity,-the word happiness, to many states of mind which we feel at the same time, or might feel if we reflected on them, to be, in species and intensity, very different,-the word beauty, to many objects which excite in us very different degrees of delight- ful emotion, and which we readily recognise as fit only to excite the emotion, INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 52 in these different degrees. In short, though our general terms be few, our general feelings are almost infinite,-as infinite as the possible resemblances, which can be felt in any two or more objects,-and though we have not words expressive of all the degrees of feeling, we have notions of these de- grees as different,-notions of various degrees of beauty,-various degrees of happiness,-various degrees of excellence in general,-not embodied in words, but capable of being suggested to the mind by particular objects, as if they were so embodied. These notions have been formed by the mind, in the same way as all its. other general notions have been formed-by the observation and comparison of many particulars,-and they arise to the mind on various occasions, when the particulars observed, correspond with the par- ticulars before observed,-in the same way as the word quadruped, which we have invented for expressing various animals known to us, occurs to our mind when we see for the first time'sopte other animal, of which we had per- haps never heard, but which agrees, in the feeling of general resemblance which it excites, with the other animals formerly classed by under that general word. This ready suggestion of general feelings which is continu- ally taking place, in applications of which all must be sensible, and the possi- bility and likelihood of which no one will deny, is that which I suppose, in the case of the emotion at present considered by us, to direct our general estimate of degrees of beauty, or, in other words, our relative notion of. the fitness of certain objects to excite a pleasing emotion of a .certain intensify. We discover this fitness, as we discover every other species of fitness, by observation of the past,-and by observing this past in others, as well as in ourselves, we correct, by the more general coincidence of the associations of others, what would be comparatively irregular, and capricious in the results of our own limited associations as individuals. The accidents cd' one, or of a/ew, when variously mingled, become truly laws of thought of the many. As this observation is more and more enlarged, the irregularities of association, are more and more counteracted.by the foresight of the diversi- ties of general sentiment,-till, at length, the beauty of which we think, in our estimates of its degree of excellence, though still, in a certain degree, influenced by former accidental feelings of the individual,-is in a great mea- sure-, the beauty which we foreknow, that others are to'feel,-and which we are capable thus of foreknowing, because we have made a wide' induction of the objects, that have been observed by us, to excite the emotion in its va- rious degrees, in the greater number of those, whose emotions we have bad opportunities of measuring. As we say of a well-cultivated memory, that it is rich in image? of the past, we may say of a wrell-cultivated mind in general, that it is rich in notions of beauty and excellence,-notions, which it has formed by attentive observa- tion and study of various objects, as exciting, in various circumstances, vari- ous degrees of delight; but which ever after rise simply and readily to the mind by suggestion, according as the objects, perceived or imagined, are of a nature to harmonize with them. The general notion of what will be most widely regarded as beauty or excellence, in some one or other of its degrees, rises instantly, or at Idast npy arise instantly to the mind, on the perception of the beautiful or excellent object, and with it the emotions, which have usually attended it. In our estimate of degrees of beauty, then, as often as we at- tempt to calculate these, it is the general notion, that has resulted from the contemplation of many excellent Qualities, which, as one state of mind arises 1. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, to us, and directs us,-not the many separate states, which constitute the re- membrances of many separate qualities. These, indeed, are not necessarily excluded,-though, as I have already said, they arise less, where the beauty is felt to be great, than where it is felt only in a less degree. Many analo- gous images may arise, and they do frequently arise; and, if pleasing in themselves, may add to the gratification previously felt; but though they may arise, and when they arise, they increase the amount of plea- sure,-they are far from being absolutely necessary to the pleasing emotion itself. Though we have a general notion attached to the word peace, this cannot exist long in our mind, without exciting some parti- cular conception in accordance with it,-though we know what is meant by the general word animal, independently of the particular species, which it may at different moments suggest, we yet cannot continue long to think of what is meant by the mere general word, without the suggestion of some particular anhnals. It would not be wonderful, then, that the general option of beauty, wljich we have attached to a particular form, should of it- self, give rise to particular suggestions of analogy, even though the form, on which we gaze, were not, of itself, capable of suggesting them; and it can- not, surely, be more wonderful, that it should allow these suggestions of ob- jects analogous, when the particular form perceived is of a kind to occur in the tendency to this suggestion, with the general notion of beauty itself. It is this subsequent suggestion of trains of associate images, increasing perhaps the effect of the emotion that existed previously as a state of the mind, but not producing it, which has led the very ingenious theorist, to whom I have before to ascribe to these mere consequences of the feeling of beautv, that very feeling itself, which more probably gave occasion to them. Indeed, if the suggestion of particular images after images, and not the suggestion of one general delight, or the more general suggestion of beauty or excellence itself, be essential to the very existence of the emotion, it seems to me quite impossible to account for that instant, or almost instant delight, which beauty, in its form of most powerful attraction, seems to beam on the very eye that gazes on it! " • » INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 53 " What sublimer pomp Adorns the seat, when virtue dwells on earth, And truth's eternal daylight shines around ; What palm belongs to man's imperial front, And woman powerful with becoming smiles !"* In these cases, there are instant conceptions of dignity, or of gentleness, which we attach to the imperial front of man, or to the more powerful, and more truly imperial smiles of woman. What we term expression, is the sug- gestion of that general character of intelligence and virtue, which is said to be expressed,-not the necessary suggestion of many separate truths, nor the suggestion of many separate acts of kindness,-which may be suggested, indeed, if we continue long to contemplate the intelligent and benevolent form; but which are, in that case, subsequent to the emotion, that, in its origin at least, truly preceded them. Such are the modes in which I conceive the past, in our emotion of beauty, to influence the present. But if all which the past presents to us, be the conceptions of former delight, how happens it, that these conceptions, which often pass along our mind in reverie, with only faint and shadowy pleasure, * Pleasures of Imagination-2d form of the poem, B, I. v. 547-551. 54 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, should be heightened to so much rapture, when suggested byyome real ob- ject before us? The images suggested may afford the sources 6f the delight' but the delight itself must be in some way modified, before it is converted into beauty. There is another part of the process, then, which we have.not yet considered, to which it is necessary to direct your attention. What is truly most important to the emotion of beauty, is this very part of the process which theorists have yet neglected. It is not tlie mere sugges- tion of certain conceptions, general or particular, for thqse often form a part of our trains of thought, without any very lively feeling as their consequence. It is the fixing and embodying of these in a real object before us, which gives to the whole, I conpeive, one general impression of reality. This, I have little doubt, takes place, in the manner explained by me in former Lectures, when I treated of the peculiar influence of objects of perception, in giving liveliness to our trains of suggestion, and consequently greater liveliness to all the emotions which attend them. The delight of which we think, when images of the past arise, is very different from the delight which seems to be embodied in objects, and to meet our very glance, as. the terror of the super- stitious,- when they think of a spectre in twilight, is very different from that which they feel, when' their terror is incorporated in some shadowy form that gleams instinctively on their eye. But for a process of the kind which I have stated, I do not- see how the effect of beauty, as seen, should be so very different as it most certainly is, from the effect produced by a long medi- tation on all those noble and gracious characters qf virtue and intelligence,- the mere expression, that is to say, the mere suggestion of which is stated to be all which constitutes it. It is, in short, as 1 have said, this very part of the process which seemsto me the most important in the whole theory of beauty. The increased effect of thdt incorporating process, which I suppose,'in the case of beauty, js, in truth, nothing more than what we have found to take place in all the cases of suggestion of vivid images, by objects of perception, rather than by our fainter and more fugitive conceptions. The reality of what is truly before us, gives reality to ajl the Associate images that blend and har- monize with it. We think of ancient Greece-we tread on the soil of Athens or Sparta. Our emotion, which was before faint, is now one of the live- liest of which our soul is susceptible, because it is fixed and realized in the existing and present object. The same images arise to us, but they coexist now as they rise, with all the monuments which we behold, with the land it- self, with the sound of those waves, which are dashing now as they dashed so many ages before, when their murmur was heard by the heroes of whom w'e think-all now lives before us, and when we behold a beautiful form, all the images suggested by it, live in like manner in it. It does not suggest to us what w7as once delightful, but it is itself representative of what was once delightful. The visions of other years exist again to our very eyes. We see embodied all which we feel in our mind ; and the source of delight which is itself real, gives instant reality to the delight itself, and to all the harmoniz- ing images that blend with it. We may, even in solitude, think with pleasure of the kindness of smiles and tones which we have loved; but wdien- a smile of the same kind is beaming on us, or when we listen to similar tones, it is no longer a mere dream of happiness,-the whole seems one equal perception, and we are surrounded again, as it were, with all the vivid happiness of the past. Though the result of our inquiry into original beauty, then, has led us to adopt the greater probability of some original susceptibilities of emotions o"f this sort, that are independent of the arbitrary associations which must be formed in the progress of life, we have found sufficient reason to ascribe to this slow and silent growth of circumstances of adventitious delight, almost all the beauty which is worthy of the.name:-and we have seen, I flatter my- self, in what manner these circumstances operate in inducing the emotion. This happy effect, I have shown to be too instantaneous to be the result of a rapid review or suggestion of many particulars, in each separate case, but to depend on the combination with the objects which we term beautiful, of some instant complex feeling of past delight, or of those general notions of beauty and excellence, which themselves, indeed, originally resulted from the ob- servation of particulars, but which afterwards are capable of being suggested as one feeling of the mind, like our other general notions of every species; and when combined with objects really existing, or felt as if really existing, to derive from this impression of reality in the harmonizing objects with which they are mingled in our perception, a liveliness without which they could not have exercised their delightful dominion on our heart. Such, 1 conceive, then, in the principles on which it depends, is that de- lightful dominion, which is exercised on our heart, not directly by mind only, but by the very forms of inanimate nature. INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 55 " Hence the wide universe, Through all the seasons of revolving worlds, Bears witness with its people, gods and men, To Beauty's blissful'power, and, with the voice Of grateful admiration, still resounds;- That voice, to which is Beauty's frame divine, As is the cunning of the master's hand To the sweet accent of the well tuned lyre."* LECTURE LVII. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, NOT INVOLVING NECESSARILY ANY MORAL FEELING.-3. BEAUTY AND ITS REVERSE, CONCLUDED -4. SUBLIMITY, -LIKE BEAUTY, A MERE FEELING OF THE MIND-SOURCES OF SUB- LIMITY. For several Lectures, gentlemen, we have been engaged in considering one of the most interesting of our emotions-an'emotion connected with so many sources of delight, material, intellectual, and moral; that it is not won- derful that it should have attracted, in a very high degree, the attention of metaphysical inquirers, and should even have become a subject of slight study, with those lovers of easy reading, to whom the word metaphysical is a word of alarm, and who never think that they are studying metaphysics, when they are reading only of delicate forms, and smiles, and graces. What they feel, in admiring beauty, is an emotion so very pleasing, that they connect some degree of pleasure with the very works that .treat of it, and would perhaps be astonished to learn, that the inquiry into the nature of this emotion, which it would seem to them so strange not to feel, is one of the most difficult in- quiries in the whole philosophy of mind. * Pleasures of Imagination, second form of the poem, B. I. v. 682-689. 56 Jt may be of advantage, then, after an analytical investigation, which is m itself not very simple, and which has been so much confused by a multitude of opinions, to review once more, slightly, Qur progress and the results which we have obtained. In whatever manner the pleasing emotion itself may arise, and however simple or complex it may be, we term beautiful the object by which it is ex- cited. But though, philosophically, a beautiful object be considered b} us merely as that which excites a certain delightful feeling in our mind, it is only philosophically that we thus separate completely the object from the delight which it affords. It is impossible for us to gaze on it, without reflecting on it this very delight, or even to think of it, without conceiving some spirit of delight diffused in it,-a never-fading pleasure, that, as if in independence of our perception, exists in it or floats around it, as much when no eye beholds it, as when it is the gaze and happiness of a thousand eyes. Such in its reflection from our mind, on the object that seems to embody it, is the beauty which we truly feel; and if the objects that excite it were uniformly the same in all mankind, little more would have remained for in- quiry. But, far from being uniform in its causes, in all mankind, the emotion is not uniform in a single individual, for a single year, or even, in the.rapid changes of fashion, for a few months of a single year. These rapid changes, at once so universal and so capricious in their influence, led us naturally to inquire, whether fashion, in al] its arbitrary power, and other circumstances of casual association, peculiar to individual minds, be not the modifiers only, but perhaps the very sources of all those emotions which seem to vary with their slightest varieties. Li this inquiry, which from the peculiar circumstance in which alone it is in our power to enter on it, cannot afford absolute certainty of result, but only such a result as a cotnparison of greater and less probabilities; affords, we were led, on such comparison, to a conclusion favourable to the Supposi- tion, that the mind has some original tendencies to receive impressions of beauty, from certain objects, rather than from others, though it has, without all question, at the same time, other tendencies, which may produce feelings inconsistent with the pleasing emotion, that otherwise would have attended the contemplation of those objects, or sufficient of themselves to constitute the pleasing emotion, in cases in which there was no original tendency to feel it,-that what is beauty, therefore, at one period of life, or, in one age or coun- try, even in cases in which there may have been an original tendency to feel it, may not be beauty, at another period of life, or in another age or country,' from the mere difference of the arbitral circumstances, which have vari- ously modified the original tendency, in the same manner as we find circum- stances capable of modifying, or even reversing other species of emotions;- this difference of result being not of itself, a proof of the unreality of all original distinctions of this sort, more than the prejudices and delusions of mankind, and their varying desires, are a proof, that truth and error are them- selves indifferent, and all things originally equally desirable. It is like the descent of one of the scales of a balance, from which alone it would be ab- surd to conclude, that the whole weight is in that single scale. The descent may have arisen only from the preponderance of a greater weight over a less, when, but for the addition of some new substance thrown into it, the sinking scale would have arisen, and the other scale have obeyed that natural tendency, which, of itself, would have directed its motion to the earth. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING 57 The error of those who ascribe to the suggestion of mental qualities, the whole emotion of beauty, in every case, corporeal as well as mental, we found to be, very probably, occasioned, in part at least, by the very nature of the laws on which suggestion depends,-analogous objects suggesting analogous objects,-and corporeal qualities thus suggesting the vdry striking analogies of mind, in the same way as these mutually suggest 'each other,-analogies which are pleasing in themselves, and may, when suggested, mingle their own pleasure with the delightful emotion previously excited by the corporeal ob- ject. But it is very evident, that the suggestion of the mental quality may, in this case, be the effect, or the mere concomitant, not the cause, of that de- lightful emotion, which was itself, perhaps, the very circumstance that led ns to dwell on the external object, till the analogy was suggested ; and, though no suggestion of this kind had taken place, the object might still,have been felt by us as beautiful. The same remark may be applied to all the other forms of association, as much as to the suggestions of mere analogy. These may coexist with the emotion, and may add to it their-own mingled delfght; but they are not, therefore, proved to be essential to it, in alj its degrees? On the contrary, in many cases, it may be only because we have previously felt an object to be beautiful, that it suggests to us various objects of former similar delights,-the delightful effect itself, when produced,, being the very principle of analogy which alone may have connected the one object with the other. * . ' • ' . • • . Association, hcfwever, whether as primarily giving rise to tl>e emotion of beauty, in certain cases, or as modifying it in others, is, without all doubt, the source of the most important pleasure of this kind which we.feel. But how does this association act? Is it, as is commonly supposed, by the suggestion of a number of images related to the object, that transfer to it, as it wpre, the emotions which originally belonged to them ? This opinion, though supported and illustrated by genius of a vety high order, we found, notwithstanding, by reflection on all which we feel during our admiration of beauty, to be little warranted by the phenomena. Such a train of images passing through the mind,-and images accompanied with lively emotion, could scarcely fail to be remembered by us; or, at least, if they are not remembered by us, there is no reason, a priori, to suppose the existence of them. Yet we surely feel the charm of external loveliness, without any consciousness of such trains. The very moment in which.we have fixed our eye on a beautiful countenance, or at least with an interval after our first perception, so short, as to be absolutely undistinguished by us, we feel with instant delight, that the countenance is beautiful,--and the more beautiful the object, the more, not the less, does it fix the mind, as if absorb- ed, in the direct contemplation and enjoyment of it; and the less, therefore, in such a case, do we wander over the trains of images, on which the very feeling of beauty is, in this theory, said to depend. It is not a number of images, then, which necessarily arise in the mind,- though these may arise, and when they arise, may increase the pleasure that was felt before. What is suggested in the instant feeling of loveliness, must itself be an instant feeling of delight, and the source of such instant delight, we found accordingly in the common laws of suggestion, that have been al- ready so fully considered by us. The perception of an object has originally coexisted with a certain pleasure,-a pleasure, which may perhaps have fre- quently recurred together with the perception,-and which thus forms with Vol. II. 58 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, it in the mind one complex feeling, that is instantly recalled by the mere perception of the object in its subsequent recurrences. With this com- plex state, so recalled, Other accidental pleasures may afterwards coexist in like manner, and form a more complex delight; but a delight, which is still, when felt,-one momentary state of mind, and, as one state of mind, capable of being instantly recalled by the perception of th? object, as much as# the simpler delight in the earJier stage. The embellishing influence of associa- tion may thus be progressive in various stages; because new accessions of pleasure are continually rendering more complex the delight, -that is after- wards to be suggested.; but that which is suggested in the latter stages, though the result of a progress, is itself, in each subsequent perception of the object which it embellishes, immediate. We spread the charm over the object, with the same rapidity, with which we spread over it the colours, which it seems to beam on us. • . * Such is the great source of all the embellishments of beauty, when asso- ciation operates, by the direct suggestion of an amount of« delight associated with the particular object. But though our estimate of degrees of beauty, if wholly dependent on associations peculiar to the object, might seem scarcely capable of any precision, we yet form out- estimate with a pre- cision and uniformity, which almost resemble the exactness of our measure- ments of qualities, that do not depend on any arbritary and capricious prin- ciple. There must, therefore, be in the mind some scale, in whatever way it may be acquired, by which we correct, in part at least, these accidental irregularities. This intellectual scale we found to be the result of the com- parisons, which a cultivated mind is continually making; or of those general notions of resemblance which rise to us, when there has been no intentional comparison of object with object. We observe, not merely what gives delight to ourselves, but what gives delight also to the greater number of the cultivated minds around us; and what might be capricious in one mind, is thus tempered by the result of more general associations in the many. As we form various notions of brightness from many varieties of light,-various notions of magnitude from many forms and proportions,-various notions of pleasure from many agreeable feelings,-so do we form, from the contem- plation of many objects, that have excited certain pleasing emotions in ourselves and others, various notions of beauty, which, in their various degrees, are suggested by the new objects that are similar to those, which originally induced them ; and many comparisons, in various circumstances, thus gradually rectifying what might have seemed capricious, if the com- parisons had been fewer, we learn at last to attach certain notions of beauty to certain objects, with a precision which otherwise we should have been incapable of attaining. The mind becomes rich with many varieties of the general feeling of beauty,-a feeling that was the result of many particular images and emotions in ourselves, and of much observation of the similar impressions of others; but which is itself one state of mind, and capable, as one state of mind, of being suggested in constant sequence. From the multitude of former pleasing objects that have interested us, we have formed, in consequence of their felt resemblance,-as it was impossible for us, with our power of feeling resemblance, not to form,-a general notion of beauty or excellence; or rather, we have formed progressively various general notions of various species and degrees of beauty and excellence; and these general notions are readily suggested by the objects which agree with INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 59 them, precisely in the Same way as our other general notions,-such, for example, as those expressed by the words flower, bird, quadruped, when once formed in the mind, are afterwards readily suggested by any new object that seems referable to the species or genus. It is not enough, however, when we gaze, on a beautiful object, that cer- tain conceptions of former Relight should be suggested, for these rise equally, on innumerable occasions, in our trains of thought, with little live- liness of present joy. The distinguishing liveliness of the emotion of beauty, as it lives before us, seenqs to me, if it depend on association, to be absolutely inexplicable, but for u process, which we considered fully, when the general phenomena of suggestion were under our review;-the process, which, when the images of a train are cbnoected, not with some former* conception only, but with a real object .of'perception, invests with illusive present existence the whole kindred images of the harmonizing group, of which a part, ant} an important part, is truly recognised as existing.. The countenance on which we gaze recalls to us some complex feeling of beauty, that was previously formed; but, while it recalls it, it exists perma- nently before us; and embodying as it were this complex visionary delight in the.object of our continued perception, we give a reality, that is in the object only, to the shadowy whole, of which the perception of the object, and the associate feelings -of suggestion, are harmonizing parts; and the images of tenderness and joy, which, as mere conceptions, unembodied in any real object, might have passed through the mind in its trains of reverie,, with little pleasure, thus fixed, as it were, and living before us in the external loveliness, affect us with a delight that is more than mere, imagination, because the ob- ject of it seems to be as truly existing without, as any other permanent object of our senses, a delight that may have resulted from many former pleasures, but that is itself one concentrated joy. In all our inquiries on this subject, we have had regard, as you may have remarked, to many feelings of the mind, and not to one simple quality of ob- jects that can be termed the beautiful, for the beautiful exists no where, more than the soft, or the sweet, or the pleasing; and to inquire into the beautiful, therefore, if it have any accurate meaning, is not to inquire into any circum- stance which runs through a multitude of our emotions, but merely to inquire what number, of our agreeable emotions have a sufficient similarity to be classed together under one general name. Beauty is not any thing that exists in objects independently of the mind which perceives them, and permanent, therefore, as the objects in which it is falsely supposed to exist. It is an emotion of the mind, varying, therefore, like all other emotions, with the varying tendencies of the mind, in different circumstances. We have not to inquire into the nature of any fixed essence which can be called the beautiful,-to xaXov,-but into the nature of transient feelings, excited by objects which may agree in no respect, but as they ex- cite emotions in some degree similar. What we term the emotion of beauty, is 4iot one feeling of our mind, but many feelings, that have a certain simi- larity, as greenness, redness, blueness, are all designated by the general name colour. There is not one beauty, more than there is one colour or one form. But there are various beauties-that is to say, various pleasing emotions, that have a certain resemblance, in consequence of which we class (hem together. The beautiful exists no more in objects, than species or genera exist in individuals. It is, in truth, a species or gerius-a mere gene- 60 ral term, expressive of similarity in various pleasing feelings. Yet even those writers, who would be astonished, if we were to regard them as capable of any faith in the universal a parte rei, believe this universal beauty a parte rei, and inquire, what it is which constitutes the beautiful, very much in the same way, as the scholastic logicians inquired into the real essence of the universal. By some, accordingly, beauty Is said to be a waving line, by others, a com- bination of certain physical qualities-by others, the mere expression of quali- ties of mind, and by fifty writers, almost as many different things,-as if beauty were any thing in itself, and were not merely a general name, for all those pldasing emotions; which forms, colours, Sounds, motions, and intel- lectual and moral aspects of the mind produce,-emotions, that have a resem- blance, indeed, but are far from being the same. They are similar, only as all the feeling's of the mind, to which we give the name of pleasure, have a certain similarity, in consequence of which »we give them that common name, though there is nothing which can be called pleasure, distinct from these sepa- rate agreeable feelings. . What is it which constitutes, the pleasing*} would-be generally counted a very singular inquiry; and to say that it is a sight, or a smell, or a taste,-the brilliant, or the sweet, or the spicy, or the soft, would be counted a' theory still*more singular than the inquiry that led to it. Yet no -ope is surprised when We inquire what it is which constitutes the beautiful; and we are scarcely surprised at the attempts of those who would persuade us, that all our emo- tions, to which we give that'name, are only one, or a few of these very emo- tions. Various forms, colours-, sounds, are beautiful,-various results of intellectual composition are beautiful, various moral affections, wh6n contemplated by the mind, are attended with a similar feeling. But we are not to suppose, because there .may be a considerable similarity of the emotions excited by these diffe- rent classes of objects, that any one of the clashes comprehends the others, more than colours, which are pleasing, comprehend pleasing odours, or tastes, or these respectively each other. A circle or a melody, a song or a theorem, an act of gratitude or generous forbearance, are all beautiful, as greenness, sweetness, fragrance, are pleasing; and the pleasing exists as truly as the beautiful, and is as fit an object of philosophic investigation. After these remarks on beauty, it is unnecessary to make any remarks on the opposite emotion,-the same observations, as to their nature, and the cir- cumstances that produce or modify them, being equally applicable to both. As certain forms, colours, sounds, motions, works of art, and moral affections, are contemplated with delight,-the contemplation of certain other forms, colours, sounds, motions, works of art, and affections of our moral nature, is attended with a disagreeable emotion. I have also remarked, that for this opposite emotion, in its full extent, we have no adequate name;-deformity, and even ugliness,--which is a more general word,-being usually applied only to ex- ternal things, and not to the intellectual or moral objects of our thought; as we apply beauty alike to all. There can be no doubt, however, that the same analogy, which connects our various emotions of beauty, sensitive, intellectual, and moral, exists equally in the emotions of this opposite class ; and that, though we are not accustomed to speak of the ugly, and to inquire what con- stitutes it, as we have been accustomed to inquire into the beautiful, and its supposed constituents, it is only because beauty is the more attractive, and the empire which itself possesses, is possessed, in some measure, by its very name. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 61 After the attention which we have paid to the emotions, that are usually classed together, under the general name of beauty,-the emotions, to the consideration of which we have next to proceed, are those which constitute our feelings of sublimity. On these, however, it will not be necessary to dwell at any great length; since you will be able, of yourselves, to apply to them many of the remarks, that were suggested by the consideration of the former species of emotion. • The feeling of sublimity, it may well be supposed, does not arise without a cause, more than our feeling of beauty.; but the sublimity which we feel, jikp the beauty which we feel, is an affection of our mind, not a quality of any thing external. It is a feeling, however, which, like the feeling of beauty, we reflect back on the object that excited it, as if it truly formpd a part of the object; and thus, instead of being merely the unknown cause of our emo-* tion,-as when it is philosophically viewed, the object which impresses itself on our mind, and almost on our senses, as sublime, is felt by us, as our own embodied'emotion,-mingled, indeed, with other qualities that are material, but diffused in them with an existence that seems independent of our tempo- rary feeling. When Dryden said, of one of our most powerful and most delightful pas- sions,- ' ' ' . " The cause of love' can neter be assign'd; Tis in no face, but in the lover's mind," he probably was not aware, that he was saying what was not poetically only, but philosophically true, though in a sense different from that which he meant to convev.-It is not the capricious passion alone which the lover feels, as in himself, but the very beauty that is felt by him in the external object, which is as truly an emotion of his own mind as the passion to which it may have given rise; Of'all those forms, on which we gaze with a delight that is never weary, because the pleasure which wo have felt, as reflected by us to the ob- ject, is to us almost a source of the pleasure which we feel at the moment, or are about to feel,-what, I have asked, would the loveliest be, but for the eyes which gaze on it, and which give it all its charms, as they give it the vfery unity that converts it into.the form which we behold? A multitude of separate and independent atoms,-we found durselves obliged to answer, and nothing more. In like manner, I might ask, what, but for the mind which is impressed with the sublimity, would be the precipice, the cataract, the ocean, the whole system of worlds, that seem at once to fill the immensity of space, and yet to on our conception an infinity, which even worlds without number could not fill? To these, too, sublime as they are felt by us to be, it is our mind, alone, which gives at once all the unity and sublimity, which they seem to us to possess, as of their own nature. They are, in truth, only a number of atoms, that would be precisely the same in themselves, whether existing near to each other, or at distances the most remote. But it is im- possible for us, to regard them merely as a number of atoms; because they affect us with one complex emotion, which we diffuse over them all. When precipice hangs over precipice, and we shrink back on our perilous height, as we strive to look down from the cliff, on the abyss beneath,-in which we rather hear the torrent, than see it, with our shuddering and dazzled eye,- we have one vivid, though complicated feeling, which fills our whole soul; and the whole objects existing separately before us, are one vast and terrifying image of all that is within us. In the hurricane that lays waste, and almost 62 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, annihilates whatever it meets, there is to our conception something more than the mere particles of air that form each successive blast. We animate it with our own feelings. It is not a cause of terror only,-it is terror itself. It seems to bear about with it that awful sublimity, we are conscious, -an emotion, that as it animates our corporeal frame with one expansive feel- ing, seems to give a sort of dreadful unity to the whole thunders of the tem- pes't, or rather to form one mighty being of the whole minute elements, that when they rage, impelling and impelled, in the tumultuous atmosphere, are merely congregated, by accidental vicinity, as they exist equally together in the gentlest breeze, or in the stillness of the summer sky. That sublimity should be reflected to the object from the mind, like beauty, is not wonderful; sjnce, in truth, what we term beauty and sublimity, are not opposite, but, in the greater number of cases, are merely different parts of a series of emotions. 1 have already, in treating of beauty, pointed out to you the error into which the common language of philosophers might be very apt to lead you,-the error of supposing, that beauty is one emotion, merely be- cause we have.invented that generic or specific name, which comprehends at once many agreeable emotions; that have some resemblance, indeed, as being agreeable and diffused, as it were, or concentrated in their objects, and are therefore classed together, but still are far from being the same. The beauti- ful, concerning which philosophers have been at so much pains in their in- quiries, is, as we have seen, in thq mode in which they conceive it to exist, a sort of real essence,-an universal a parte rei, which has retained its hold of the belief when other universals of this kind,*not less real, had been suf- fered to retain a place, only in the insignificant vocabulary of scholastic logic. Our emotions of beauty, I have said, are various; and, as they gradually rise, from object to object, a sort of regular progression may be traeed from the faintest beauty, to the vastest sublimity. These extremes may be con- sidered as united, by a class of intermediate feelings, for which grandeur might, perhaps, be a suitable term, that have more of beauty, or more of sublimity, according to their place in the scale of emotion. I have retained, however, the common twofold division of beauty and sublimity, not as thinking that there may not be intermediate feelings, which scarcely admit of being very suitably classed under either of these names, but because the same general reasoning must be applicable to all these states of mind, whatever names, or number of names, may be given to the varieties that fill up the intervening space. Indeed, if all the various emotions, to which, in their objects, we attach the single name of beautiful, were attentively considered, we might find reason to form, of this single order, many subdivisions, with their appropriate terms; but this precision of minute nomenclature, in such a case, is of less importance, if you know sufficiently the general fact involved in it,-that there is not one beauty, or one sublimity, but various feelings, to which, in their objects, we give the name of beauty, and various feelings, to which, in their objects, we (give the name of sublimity; and that there may be intermediate feelings which differ from t,hese, as these respectively differ from each other. That which happens, in innumerable other cases, has happened in this case; we have a series of many feelings; we have invented the names, sublimity and beauty, which we have attached to certain parts of this series; and, because we have invented the names, we think that the emotions which they designate, are more opposed to each other, than they seemed to us before. One feeling of beauty differs from another feeling of beauty; but they are both compre- hended in the same term, and we forget the difference. One feeling of sublimity differs, in like manner, from another feeling of sublimity; but they also are both comprehended in one term, and their difference too is forgotten. It is not so, when we compare one emotion of beauty with another emotion of sublimity ; the feelings are then not merely different, but they are expressed by a different term; and their opposition is thus doubly forced upon us. If we had not invented any terms whatever, we should have seen, as it were, a series of emotions, all shadowing into each other, with differences of tint, more or less strong, and rapidly distinguishable. The jnvpntion of the terms, however, is like the intersection of the places, with a few well-marked lines. The shadowing mpy still, in itself, be equally gradual; but we think of the sections only, and perceive a peculiar resemblance in the parts comprehended in each, as*we.think that we perceive a peculiar diversity at each bending line. To be convinced how- readily the feelings, contrasted a£ they may seem at last, have flowed into each other, let us take some example. Let us imagine that we see before us, a streanp gently gliding through fields, rich with all the luxuriance of summer, over-shadowed at times by the foliage that hangs over it, frofn bank to bank, and then suddenly sparkling in the' open suYfshine, as if with a still brighter current than before. Let us trace it, till it widen to a majestic river, of which the waters are the boundary of two flourishing em- pires, conveying abundance equally to each, while city succeeds city, on its populous shores, almost with the same rapidity as grove formerly succeeded grove. Let us next behold it, losing itself in the immensity of the ocean, which seems to be only an expansion of itself, when there is not tin object to be seen but its own wild amplitude, between the bariks which it leaves, and the sun that is setting, as if in another world, in the reihote horizon ;-in all this course, from the brook, which we leap over, if it meet us in our way, to that boundless waste of waters, in which the power of man, that leaves some vestige of his existence in every thing else, is not able to leave one lasting impression ; which, after his fleets have passed along in all their pride, is, the very moment after, as if they had never been, and which bears or dashes those navies that are contending for the mastery of kingdoms, only as it bears or dashes the foam upon its waves;-if we were to trare and,contemplate this whole continued progress, we should have a series of emotions, which might, at each moment, be similar to the preceding emotion, but which would become, at last, so different from our earliest feelings, that we should scarcely think of them as feelings of one class. The emotions which rose, when we regarded the narrow stream, would be those which we class as emotions of beauty. The emotions which rose, when we considered that infinity, of waters, in which it was ultimately lost, would be of the kind which we denominate sublimity; and the grandeur of the river, while it was still distinguishable from the ocean, to which it was proceeding, might be viewed with feelings, to which some other name or names, might, on the same principle of distinction, be given. This progressive series, we should see very distinctly, as pro- gressive, if we had not invented the two general terms; but the invention of the terms, certainly, does not alter the nature of these feelings, which the terms are employed merely to signify. Innumerable other examples,-from increasing- magnitude of dimensions, or increasing intensity of quality,-might be selected, in illustration of that species of sublimity which we feel in the contemplation of external things, INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 63 64 as progressively rising from emotions that would be termed emotions of beauty, if they were considered alone. It is unnecessary, however, to repeat, with other examples, what is sufficiently evident, without any other illustration, from the case already instanced. The same progressive series of feelings, which may thus be traced as we contemplate works of nature, is not less evident in the contemplation of works of human art, whether that art have been employed in material things, or be purely intellectual. From the cottage to the cethredral-from the simplest ballad air, to the harmony of a choral anthem-from a pastoral to an epic poem, or a tragedy-from a landscape, or a sculptured Cupid, to a Cartoon, or the Laocoon-from a single experiment in chemistry, to the elucidation of the whole system of chemical affinities, which regulate all die changes.on the surface»qf the globe-from a simple theorem, to the princi- pia of Newton :-In all those cases in which I have merely stated what is beautiul and what is sublime, and left a wide space between, it is easy for your imagination to fill up the interval'; and you cannot fill up this interval without perceiving, that, merely by adding what seemed degree after degree, you arrive at last at »emotions which have little apparent resemblance to the emotions with which the scale began. It is, as in the thermometric scale ; by adding one portion of caloric after another, we rise at last, after no very long progress, from the cold of freezing, to the heat at which water boils; though our feelings, at these two points, are as different as if they had arisen from causes that had no resemblance;-certainly as different as our emotions of sublimity and beauty. In the moral scene, the progression is equally evident. By adding virtue to virtue, or circumstance to circumstance in the exercise of any virtue, we rise from what is merely beautiful to what is sublime. Let us suppose, for example, that in the famine of an army, a soldier divides liis scdnty allowance with one of his comrades, whose health is sinking under the pri- vation. We feel, in the contemplation of this action, a pleasure, which is that of moral beauty. In proportion as we imagine the famine of longer duration, or the prospect of relief less probable, the action becomes more and more morally grand or heroic. Let us next imagine, that the comrade, to whose relief the soldier makes this generous sacrifice, is one w hose enmity he has formerly experienced on some interesting occasion ; and the action is. not heroic merely, it is sublime. There is not a virtue, even of the most tranquil or gentle sort, which we may not, in like manner, render sublime, by varying the circumstances in which it is exercised ; and by varying these gradually, w7e pass through a series of emotions, any two of which may be regarded as not very dissimilar; though the extremes, when considered without the parts of the series which connect them, may scarcely have even the slightest similarity. When I speak of this progression of our feelings, by which emotion aftei emotion may rise, from the faintest of those which we refer to beauty, to the most overwhelming of those which we term sublime, I am far from wishing you to think that such a progress is in all cases necessary to the emotion ; I allude to it merely for the purpose of showing, that sublimity is not, by its nature, of a class of feelings essentially different from beauty; and that we may, therefore, very readily conceive, that the laws which wb have found applicable to beauty may be applicable to it also. So far is it, indeed, from being indispensable to sublimity, that beauty 1. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. I should be the characteristic of the same circumstance, in a less degree, that in many instances, what is absolutely the reverse of beautiful, becomes sub- lime, by the exclusion of every thing which could excite of itself that delightful but gentle emotion. A slight degree of barren dreariness in any country through which we travel, produces only feelings that are disagree- able ; a wide extent of desolation, when the eye can see no verdure as far as it can reach, but only rocks that rise at irregular intervals, through the sandy waste, has a sort of savage sublimity, which we almost delight to con- template. In the moral world, the audacity of guilt cannot seem beautiful to us in any of its degrees; but it may excite in us, when it is of more than ordinary atrocity, that species of emotion which we are now considering. Who is there who can love Medea as she is represented to us in the ancient story ? But to whom is she not sublime ? It is not in Marius, that we would look for a model of moral beauty; but what form is there, tvhich the painter would feel more internal sublimity in designing, than that bloodthirsty chief, sitting amid the ruins of Carthage, when, as a Roman poet, by a bold rhe- torical figure, says of the memorable scene, and the memorable outcast whom it sheltered, each was to the other a consolation, and equally afflicted and overwhelmed together, they forgave the gods ?- 65 " Non ille favore Numinis, ingenti superum protectus ab ira, Vir ferns, et Romani cupienti perdere fato Sufliciens. Idem pelago delatus iniquo, Hostilern in terram, vacuisque mapalibus actus, Nuda triumphati jacuit per regna Jugurth®, Et Pornos pressit cineres: solatia fati, Carthago, Mariusque, tulit; pariterque jacentes, Ignovere Deis."* An old French opera, of which D'Alembert speaks, on the horrible story of Atreus and Thyestes, that story on which, as on other horrible stories of the kind, the ancients were so strangely fond of dwelling, in preference, and almost to the exclusion of more interesting pathos, concludes, after the banquet, with the vengeance of the gods on the contriver of the dreadful feast; and amidst the bolts that are falling around him on every side, Atreus cries out, as if exulting, "Thunder, ye powerless gods, I am avenged." To lessen that triumphant revenge, which is so sublime in this case, would be not to produce an emotion of beauty, but to produce that disgust and con- tempt, which we feel for petty malice. I need not allude to the multitude of other cases, to which the same remark would be equally applicable. Whether, then, the emotions be, or be not, of a kind which may be gra- dual, by the omission of some circumstance, or the diminution of the vivid feeling itself, lessened down to that emotion, which we ascribe to mere beauty, it is not the less sublime, if it truly involves that species of vivid feeling, which we distinguish, with sufficient readiness, from the gentle de- light of beauty, as we distinguish the sensation of a burn from that of gentle warmth, without being able to state, in words, in what circumstance, or cir- cumstances, the difference of the feelings consists. It is the vain attempt to define what cannot be defined, that has led to all the errors and supposed mysteries in the theory of sublimity, as it has led to similar errors in the theory of beauty. Sublimity is not one emotion, but various emotions, that have a certain resemblance,-the sublime in itself is nothing ; or at least, it < Vol. IL * Lucan Pharsalia, lib. ii. v. 85-93. 66 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, is omy a mere name, indicative of our feeling of the resemblance of cer- tain affections of our mind, excited by objects, material or mental, that agree, perhaps, in no other circumstance, but in that analogous undefinable emotion which they excite. Whatever is vast, in the material world-what- ever is supremely comprehensive in intellect-whatever in morals implies virtuous affections or passions far beyond the ordinary level of humanity, or even guilt, that is ennobled, in some measure, by the fearlessness of its dar- ing, or the magnitude of the ends, to which it has had the boldness to aspire -these and various other objects, in mind and matter, produce certain vivid feelings, which are so similar as to be classed together ; and, if we speak of sublimity, merely in reference to the various objects which excite these analogous feelings, so as to make the enumeration of the objects a sort of definition of the species of emotion itself, there can be no risk of mistake, more than in saying, that sweetness is a word expressive of those sensations which sugar, honey, and various other substitutes that might be named, excite. But, if we attempt to define sweetness itself as a sensation, or sublimity itself as an emotion, we either state what is absolutely nugatory, or what is still more probably false in its general extent, however partially true; because our attention, in our definition, will be given to some particular emotions of the class, not to any thing common to the class, since there is truly no common circumstance, which words can adequately express. Hence it happens, that by this singling out of particular objects, we have many theories of sublimity, as we have of beauty; all of them founded on the supposition of an universal sublimity a parte rei, as the theories of beauty were founded on an universal beauty a parte rei. Sublimity, says one writer, is the terrible-according to another writer, it is magnitude or ampli- tude, which is essential to the emotion-according to another, it is mighty force of power-according to another, it is the mere suggestion of images of feel- ings, directly connected with that elevation in place which has given sublimity its name-according to another, it arises from a wider range of associations, all, however, centering in some prior affections of the mind, as their direct source. It is very true, that terror, vastness of size, extraordinary force, high elevation, and various associate images, do produce feelings of sublimity ; but it is not equally true, that any one of these feelings is itself all the other feelings. Great elevation, for example, may excite in me the emotion to which it has given the distinctive name, and it is even possible, that many great virtues, may, by a sort of poetic analogy, suggest the notion of local elevation, as snow suggests ihe notion of spotless innocence, or the shadow that follows any bril- liant object, the notion of envy pursuing merit. But even though, in thinking of heroic virtue, the analogy of local elevation were excited,-which it surely is only in very rare cases,-this would be no reason for believing, that the heroic virtue itself is incapable of exciting emotion, till it have previously suggested height, and the feelings associated with height. It is the same with magni- tude or power ; they are causes of sublime feelings, not causes of the sub- lime,-which has no real existence,-nor of those other sublime feelings, which have no direct relation to magnitude or power. Power itself, lor example, is not magnitude ; nor magnitude power. The contemplation of eternity or infinity of space, is instantly, and of itself, as a mere object of thought, productive of this emotion, without any regard to my power of conceiving infinity, which may, indeed, be a subsequent cause of astonish- ment, but which certainly does not precede the emotion as its cause. In like manner, any great energy of mind, either in acting or bearing, though it may suggest, by analogy, magnitude, as it may suggest many other analo- gies, does not depend, for the emotion which it excites, on the previous suggestion of the analogous amplitude of size. The two primary errors, as 1 have already said, in all these various theories, which may be considered as confutations of each other, consist in supposing, first, that sublimity is one,-the sublime, to use the language of theory,-which, therefore, as sug- gested by one object, may be precisely the same with the emotion suggested by other objects; and, secondly, the belief, that because certain objects have an analogy, so as to be capable, by the mere laws of association, of suggesting each other, they, therefore, do uniformly suggest each other, and excite emotion only in this way,-that because any generous sacrifice, for instance, may suggest the notion of magnitude or elevation in place-which, if it suggest them at all, it suggests only rarely,-it, therefore, must at all times suggest them,-as if it were absolutely impossible for us to see an object, without thinking of any analogous object,-to look on snow, without think- ing of innocence, or on a shadow, without thinking of envy. 1 trust, after the remarks already made, .that it is unnecessary for me to repeat any arguments in confutation of the error, as to one universal sub- lime,-an error of precisely the same kind, as that which would contend, that, because the fragrance of a violet, and the simplicity of a comprehensive theorem, are both pleasing, the theorem comprehends the fragrance, or the fragrance the mathematical demonstration. As there are mJny pleasures, excited by many objects, but not the pleasing,-many emotions of beauty, excited by many objects, but not the beautiful;-so are there many emo- tions of sublimity, excited by many objects, but not the sublime. The emotion which I feel, when I think of all the ages of eternity, that, however indefinitely multiplied, are as nothing to the ages that still remain,-that which I feel when I think of a night of tempest on the ocean, when no light is to be seen, but the flash of guns of distress from some half-wrecked vessel; or the still more dreadful light from the clouds above, that gleams only to show the billows bursting over their prey, and nothing to be heard but the shriek that rises loudest, at the very moment, when it is lost at last and for ever, in one continued howl and dashing of the storm and the surge,- these feelings, though both classed as sublime, and having some resemblance, which leads to this classification, are yet, in their most important respects, very different from each other; and how different are they both, from the emotion, with which I regard some moral sublimity,-the memorable action of Arria, when she presented the dagger to her lord,-or the more tranquil happiness of the elder Pcetus, when, on being ordered by the tyrant to death,-as in the accustomed rites of some grateful sacrifice,-he sprinkled his blood as a libation to Jove the deliverer ! It is in the moral conduct of our fellow men, that the species of sublimity is to be found, which we most gladly recognise, as the character of that glorious nature, which we have received from God,-a character which makes us more erect in mind, than we are in stature, and enables us, not to gaze on the heavens merely, but to lift to them our very wishes, and to imitate in some faint degree, and to admire at least, where we cannot imitate, the gracious perfection that dwells there. It is to mind, therefore, that we turn, even from the sublimest won- ders of magnificence, which the material universe exhibits. INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 67 68 " Look then abroad through Nature, to the range Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres, Wheeling unshaken through the void immense; And speak, O man, does this capacious scene, With half that kindling majesty, dilate Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose Refulgent from the stroke of Ciesar's fate, Amid the crowd of patriots!-and his arm Aloft extending, like eternal Jove, When Guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel, And hade the father of his country, hail! For, lo ! the tyrant prostrate in the dust, And Rome again is free."* I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, Yet, though mind exhibits the sublimities, on which wTe love most to dwell, we must not, on that account, suppose, that material objects are incapable of exciting any kindred feeling;-that, but for the accident of some mental asso- ciation, the immensity of space would be considered by us with the same indifference as a single atom;-or the whole tempest of surges in the seem- ingly boundless world of waters, with as little emotion, as the shallow pool that may chance to be dimpling before our eyes. The remarks w'hich I made on beauty, might, however, of themselves, have been sufficient to save you from this mistake; and, indeed, after those remarks, it was, perhaps, superfluous in me to repeat, in the case of sublimity, any part of the argument, which I employed on the former occasion. The further applications of it, which I have not made, you can have no difficulty in making for yourselves. LECTURE IA'111. L IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, NOT NECESSARILY INVOLVING ANY MORAL FEELING-RETROSPECT OF THE DISCUSSION OF THE EMOTIONS OF BEAUTY AND SUBLIMITY -4. LUDICROUSNESS, THE OPPOSITE OF SUB- LIMITY.-SOURCES OF THE LUDICROUS.-HOBBES' THEORY ERRONEOUS. -LUDICROUSNESS ARISES FROM UNEXPECTED CONGRUITIES OR INCON- GRUITIES IN LANGUAGE-IN THOUGHT-OR IN OBJECTS OF PERCEP- TION-EXCEPTIONS. ' • Gentlemen, after the remarks which I had made on the varieties of the emotion of beauty, it was not necessary for me to dwell at so much length on the kindred emotions of sublimity, to the elucidation of which, I proceeded in my last Lecture;-the principal inquiries which had engaged us, with respect to the nature of beauty, being only another form of inquiries, which we might have pursued, indeed, in like manner, in the case of sublimity, but which it would have been tedious and profitless to repeat. Opposed as the sublime and beautiful usually are, by a sort of antithetic arrangement, in our works of rhetoric, or of the philosophy of taste, they are far from being essentially distinct, but at least in the great number of instances, shadow into each other; the sublime, in these cases, being only one portion * P'oastirpn of Imagination, B. I v. 487-500. • 69 of a series of feelings, of which the beautiful, as it has been termed, is also a part. The emotions of sublimity may, indeed, be excited by objects, which no diminution of the attendant circumstances, or of intensity of quality, could render beautiful, but which, on the contrary, when thus diminished, are disgusting or ridiculous, rather than agreeable. Yet, though there are, un- questionably, cases of this sort; as when guilt becomes sublime by the very atrocity with which it dares, and executes what other bosoms might shudder even to conceive,-or the mean wretchedness of some sterile waste acquires a kind of dignity from the extent of that very desolation, which, in a less degree, made it meanly wretched, the greater number of cases are, as un- questionably, of a different sort;-in which, by gradual increase, or diminu- tion of qualities, or alteration of the attendant circumstances, the emotion is progressively varied, till, by change after change, what was merely beautiful, becomes grand, and ultimately sublime,-the extremes seeming, perhaps, to have no resemblance, but this very difference of the extremes resulting only from the number of successive feelings in the long scale of emotion, in each sequence of which, compared with the feelings immediately preceding, there may have been shadowing of the closest resemblance. How very natural a process this is, I showed you, by examples of progressive beauty, grandeur, and sublimity, on different aspects, both of matter, and of mind. Since beauty, then, by a gradual change of circumstances, can thus rise into sublimity, it is not wonderful that phenomena, which are parts of a series, should be, in many important respects, analogous; so that properties or rela- tions, which are found to belong to one portion of the series, should be found to belong also to the other,-that, for example, as we diffuse, uncon- sciously, our delightful feeling of beauty, in the object which excites it, we should diffuse in like manner, our feelings of sublimity in the objects, which we term sublime, and imagine some awful majesty to hang around them, even when there is no eye to behold them, and consequently no heart to be im- pressed with their overwhelming presence. The tendency which this con- tinued incorporation of our feeling in those sublime objects on which we gaze, or of which we think, produces, to the belief of a permanent sublimity in ob- jects, may, very naturally, be supposed to flow into the illusion, which imagines the existence of something, that, independently of our feelings, is common to all the objects which thus powerfully impress us, and which may, of itself, be termed the sublime ; as something common to all beautiful objects, inde- pendently of our feeling of their beauty, was, in like manner, imagined, and termed the beautiful. It was necessary for me, therefore, to expose the fal- lacy of these last lingering universal essences of the schools, and to show, that, as we have not one emotion of beauty, but a multitude of emotions, which, from their analogy, are comprehended under that one general term, so we have not one feeling of sublimity, but various analogous feelings, arising from various objects, that agree, perhaps, in no circumstance, but that of the analogous emotions which they excite. Of feelings which are not the same, then, in every respect, it cannot surprise us, that we should not always find on analysis, the elements to be the same. Beauty, as we have seen, is an emotion of vivid delight, referred to the object which excites it; and sublimity, as we have also seen, in tracing the pro- gressive emotion through gradual changes of circumstances, is often only this very beauty, united with a feeling of vague indefinable grandeur in its object, and a consequent impression of delightful astonishment, intermediate between INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 70 mere admiration and awe. In relation to moral actions, it is often a combi- nation of the pleasing emotion of beauty, with admiring astonishment and love, or respectful reverence. In many cases, however, there is no vivid delight of beauty intermingled in the compound feeling, but only astonishment, and a certain vague impression of unmeasurable greatness or power, which is more akin to terror, than to any emotion which can be said to be positively pleasura- ble. In some cases, indeed, there can be no question that images of terror contribute the chief elements of the emotion,-images, however, not of terror in that direct form in which it assails us, when danger is close and imminent, but of terror softened either by distance as long past, or by mixed feelings of security, that fluctuate with it in rapid alternation, when the danger is only contingently or remotely possible. Different as the elements may be in many cases, and different as the resulting emotions may also be, the different results of the different elements may yet, as complex feelings, be sufficiently analo- gous to be classed under one rank of emotions; though, in giving one com- mon name to the whole, we must always be aware, that it is only a certain analogy of the feelings which we mean to express, and not one common quality which can be considered as strictly the same in all,-and that it is not the sublime, therefore, which we are philosophically to seek, but the sublimi- ties, if I may venture so to term them,-the various objects which, in various circumstances, excite emotions, that, in all their diversity, are yet of such resemblance, as to admit of being classed together, under one common ap- pellation. The species of emotion to which I am next to direct your attention, is that, which, in the common realism of the language of philosophers, is said to be occasioned by the ludicrous,-an emotion of light mirth, which may be con- sidered as opposite to that of sublimity, though not opposite in the strict sense in which beauty and ugliness are opposed. There are, indeed, some feelings of this kind, which may be said to arise from qualities that are truly the reverse of those on which sublimity depends, and in which, accordingly, the opposition is as complete as that of ugliness and beauty. In the composition of works of fancy, for example, a mere excess or diminution of the very cir- cumstances which render a thought sublime, produces either bombast or inanity, and a consequent emotion of ridicule or gay contempt; as in the human countenance, an increase or diminution of any beautiful feature, may convert into deformity what was beauty before, and produce a corresponding change in our emotions. In this peculiar species of disproportion, when the sublime is intended, but when the images, from the inability of the author to produce and distinguish sublimity, are either overstrained or mean, consists what has been termed bathos, as rhetorically opposed to those peculiar emo- tions, to which, indeed, the very etymology of the term marks the opposition that has been felt. Of the ludicrousness, which arises from this species of actual opposition of the mean or bombastic fancies of the writer to the sublimity which he wished to produce, it wmuld, indeed, scarcely be necessary to say any thing, after the remarks that have been made on sublimity itself, any more than it would be necessary to dwell on illustrations of ugliness, after a full discussion of the opposite emotions of beauty. But the gay mirthful feeling is not always nf this kind. The same species of emotion, or an emotion very nearly similar may be felt where there is no accompanying belief of imperfection, and where. 1. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, on the contrary, as in the sprightly sallies of wit, a very high admiration is mixed with our feeling of what is laughable,-an admiration which is much more than mere astonishment, and which, for the moment, though only for the moment, is perhaps as great as that which, in our hours of reflection, we give to the highest efforts of meditative genius. It will therefore deserve a little fuller consideration, what the nature of the emotion is, or rather to state, what is more within the power of philosophy, what are the circumstances in which the emotion arises. Before entering on the minuter inquiry, however, I may remark, in the first place, that every theory which would make our feelings of this kind to depend on some modification of mere pride in a comparison of ourselves and others, to our advantage, and to the disparagement, therefore, of the person supposed to be compared with us, is founded on a false and very limited view of the phenomena; since the feeling is as strong, where there is the highest admira- tion of the wit of the speaker, and consequently, where any comparison, like that which is supposed to be essential to the production of the emotion, would be to our disadvantage. It is in vain, for example, that Hobbes defines laughter to be "a sudden glory, arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly,"-for we laugh as readily at some brilliant conception of wit, where there are no infirmities of others displayed, as where they are displayed in any awkward blunder. We often laugh, too, as this very definition, indeed, asserts, in thinking of our own mistakes of this sort, when we surely cannot feel any great glory, nor any eminence in ourselves, more than if we had never been guilty of the mistake; the effect of our discovery of our mistake being merely to raise us to that level of ordinary excellence at which we imagined ourselves before;-not to raise us in the slightest degree above iti If the theory of Hobbes, or any theory, which converts our mere feeling of ludicrousness into a proud comparison of ourselves and others, were just, it would then follow, as has been objected to this theory, that a man who was very self-conceited and supercilious, would be peculiarly prone to mirth, when, on the contrary, it happens that children, and, if persons in advanced life, those whose temper is most social, are the most readily excited to laugh- ter; while the proud, to whom their superiority most readily recurs, are usually very little disposed to merriment. " Seldom they smile," may be said of them, as was said of Cassius; and when they do smile, their smile, like his, so admirably described by Shakspeare, has little in it of the full glorying and eminency of laughter, but is INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 71 " of such a sort, As if they mock'd themselves, and scorn'd their spirit, That could be moved to smile at any thing."* The mere stupidity of any one, when there is no vanity of pretension to contrast with it, does not make us laugh; yet if laughter arose from the mere triumph of personal superiority, there would surely, in this case, be equal reason for selfish exultation ; and a company of blockheads should be the gayest of all society. In any brilliant piece of wit, it is to the images or thought suggested, in ready eloquence, that we look, without regard to him who is its author; unless, indeed, in those cases in which the very character or situation of the speaker may of itself produce a sort of ludicrousness, by its * Julius Caesar.-Act I. Scene 2. 72 incongruity with the gravity or levity of what is said. There is scarcely any thing which is more ludicrous than a happy parody; and though the author of the parody may be allowed to feel some triumph over the original author, -if even his playful metamorphose of what is dignified and excellent can be termed a triumph, which is rather an amusement than a victory,-this triumph certainly cannot be felt by the mere hearers, since their pleasure is always greater in proportion, not to the infirmity of which Hobbes speaks, but to the excellence of the original, without great merit in which, or supposed great merit, the parody itself could not be felt as having any claim to our laughter or our praise. A parody on any dull verses would, indeed, be still duller than the dullness which it ridicules. It is not any proud comparison, therefore, which constitutes what is termed the ludicrous; but, even in the proudest of such comparisons, some other circumstance or circumstances. It is the combination of general incongruity with partial and unexpected congruity of the mere images them- selves, which may indeed, in some cases, lead to this triumph as an auxiliary pleasure, but which has an immediate and independent pleasure of its own -a pleasure arising from the discovery of unsuspected resemblance in ob- jects formerly conceived to be known to us, or unsuspected difference in objects formerly regarded as highly similar. Nothing is felt as truly ludicrous in which there is not an unexpected congruity developed in images that were before supposed to be opposite in kind, or some equally unexpected incongruity in images supposed to be congruous; and the sudden perception of these discrepancies and agree-* ments may be said to be that which constitutes the ludicrousness; the gay emotions being immediately subsequent to the mere perception of the unexpected relation. The congruities and incongruities, which give rise to this emotion, may be either in mere language, or in the thoughts and images which language expresses, or, in many cases, in the very objects of our direct perception. On the first of these,-the resemblance of mere sounds, in puns, and other trifling verbal analogies of the same class, it is unnecessary for me to dwell at present, as they before came under our review, when 1 treated of the influence of verbal similarities on the spontaneous suggestions of our trains of thought. How truly the ludicrousness of the pun consists in the unexpected similarity of discrepant images, is shown by the greater or less pleasure which it affords, in proportion as the images themselves are more or less discrepant,-being greatest, therefore, when there is a complete opposition, with the exception of that single tie of similar sound which is found unexpectedly to connect them. When the images themselves are congruous, so as to seem capable of being suggested by their own congruities, the pun is scarcely felt, or rather there is nothing felt to which the name of pun can be given. « But though the unsuspected connexion of objects, by their resemblances of mere sound, as in puns, and all the small varieties of verbal and literal wit, may be uniformly ludicrous, this is far from being the case with the other species of unsuspected resemblance, in .relations of thought to thought, or of existing things. It is necessary, therefore, to form some limitation of the general proposition as to the ludicrousness of relations which we per- ceive suddenly and unexpectedly, the only circumstance which as vet we have supposed to be necessary to the rise of the emotion. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 73 In the first place, an exception must be made in the case of scientific truths. When it is discovered, in chemistry, or in any other physical science, that there truly have been relations of objects or events, which were not suspected by us before, there is no feeling of ludicrousness, though the sub- stances found to have some common property should be opposite in every other respect. What could be more unexpected, or more incongruous.with our previous conceptions of the specific gravity of metals, than the dis- covery, that the lightest of all substances, which are not in the state of an aerial fluid, is a, metal, the base of another substance with which we had been long acquainted ? Yet, though we were astonished at such a discovery, W'e felt no tendency whatever to laugh. The relation, in short, did not seem to us to involve any thing ludicrous. Why then do we not laugh, in such a case, at the discovery of the re- semblance of objects or qualities, which were before regarded by us as not less incongruous than any of the unsuspected relations which are exhibited to us in the quaintest conundrum, that excites our laughter, almost in the very instant in which the strange relation is pointed out? The principal rea- son of this difference, I conceive, is the importance of the physical relation. The interest attached by us to the discovery of truth occupies the mind too seriously, to allow that light play of thought which is essential to the rise of the gay emotion.) In this respect, there is a very striking analogy to a species of animal action, which resembles our emotions of this kind also, in some other striking circumstances, particularly in the tendency to laughter, which is an equal and very curious result of both. If the palm of the hand be gently tickled, when the mind is vacant, the influence of the mechanical operation in this way is very powerful; but, if the faculties be exerted on any interesting subject, the same action on the palm of the hand may take place without any consequent laughter, and even, perhaps, without any consciousness of the process which has been taking place. A new pheno- menon, or a newly discovered relation, in former phenomena, engages the mind too closely to allow any feeling of ludicrousness, and consequent laugh- ter to arise,-in the same way as those very circumstances would probably be sufficient to prevent the laughter of tickling, if the mechanical cause were applied at the very moment at which we learn the important discovery, and applied precisely in the same manner as when the strange feeling and the laughter were before the result. There is another circumstance, that, in the case of a law of nature, how- ever strange and apparently incongruous with our former conceptions its phenomena may be, must have considerable effect in occupying the mind more fully with the discovery;-that it is impossible for the mind to rest in the simple discovery, without rapidly passing in review the various circum- stances that seem to us likely to be connected with it in the analogous phe- nomena,-a state of mind which is of itself most unfavourable to the mirth- ful emotion. There are, unquestionably, states of mind, during the preva- lence of affliction, or any strong passion, in which there is no point in the jest, as there is no pleasure in the very aspect of joy. To the friend returning from the funeral of his friend, we, of course, do not think of uttering any of those common expressions of merriment, in which, at other times, wre might occasionally indulge; the natural respect which we feel for sorrow, being sufficient to check the gaiety, or, at least, the appearance of gaiety. But, even though, in violation of that respect, which the sorrowful Vol. II. 74 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, claim, the happiest effusions of wit were to be poured out, on such au occasion, there would be no answering mirth, in that heart, which, at other times, would have felt and returned the gaiety. What grief thus manifestly does, other strong interests, that absorb, in like manner, the general feelings of the mind, may well be supposed to do; and we may, therefore, listen to facts, the most seemingly incongruous with our prior knowledge, when our curiosity is awake to their importance, as objects of science, without the slightest disposition to those light emotions, which almost every other incon- gruity, or fancied would have produced. It may accordingly be remarked, that to those, who have not sufficient elementary knowledge of science, to feel any interest in physical truths, as one connected system, and no habitual desire of exploring the various rela- tions of new phenomena, many of the facts in nature, which have an ap- pearance of incongruity, as first stated, do truly seem ludicrous. If the vulgar were to be told, that they do not see directly the magnitude, or place, or distance of bodies, with their eyes alone, but, in some measure, by the indirect influence of-other senses on which light has' no effect whatever,- that the feelings of cold and heat proceed from the same cause,-and that there is a great deal of heat in the coldest ice, they would not merely disbe- lieve what we might say, but they would laugh at what we tell them, as if it were absolutely ridiculous. The gravest truths of science would be to them, what the pleasantries of wit are to us. I may remark too, as a circumstance of "some additional influence, that those who have been conversant with physical inquiries, are always prepared, in some degree, for the discovery of new properties, even in' objects the most familiar to them. With their full impression of the infinite variety of the powers of nature, there is scarcely any thing, indeed, which can be said to be truly incongruous with any thing. They are, in some degree, with respect to the physical relations of things, in the same situation as the pro- fessed wit, with respect to all the lighter analogies, who is too much accus- tomed to these in his own gay exercises of fancy, to feel much of the ludi- crousness of surprise, when these slight, and seemingly incongruous, rela- tions are developed in the pleasantries of others. It is not from envy or jealousy,-certainly not always from envy or jealousy,-that he does not laugh in such a case; but because the relation exhibited is of a kind with which he is too familiar, to share the astonishment that has animated the laughter of all the rest of the circle. The newly discovered congruities or incongruities of wit, in short, are to him, in a great measure, what some strange newly discovered property of a material substance, is to the chemist, or general experimental inquirer. But whatever may be the cause of the difference of feeling, in this case of seeming anomaly, there can be no question as to the fact itself,-that the discovery of a new relation in Physics,-and even of a relation apparently most incongruous with the relations formerly known,-does not produce, in the mind of the scientific observer, or general lover of science, a feeling of any ludicrousness in the discovery itself. The fact, indeed, seems to be reducible, without much difficulty, to the common laws of mind; but still it must be admitted to form an important limitation to the general doctrine of the influence of unexpected, and apparently incon- gruous, relations, in producing the emotions referred to ludicrousness in their objects. Even this limitation, however, is not sufficient. Every metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech, implies some unexpected relation presented to the mind ; and, in many cases, a relation of objects, which were before regarded as having no congruity whatever; and therefore, it may be urged, the figures, in all such cases, should be felt as ludicrous,-not indeed, those simi- les, of ancient and well accredited usage, which form a part of the constant furniture of epic narrative,-similes, that, comparing heroes and lions, as heroes and lions have often been compared before, give us no new image ; but remind us only that Homer has made the same comparison. These, of course,-since they do not present to us any relation, which we did not know before as well as after the tiresome similitude has been again unfolded to us, in its full detail oF circumstances,-may be allowed to pass, without our laughter, and without even being coyhted as an anomaly. But every original simile,-however just the relation may be which it expresses, and with whatever beauty of language it may be conveyed to our mind, must present to us an unsuspected resemblance in objects formerly known to us, and probably familiar. Wh£ then, do we feel no tendency to larrgh, in such a case ? • • That we do not feel any tendency to laugh in such a case, arises, I think, from this circumstance. It is the art of the poet, in the management of his comparisons, to bring before us only the analogy on which his simile is founded, or at least such circumstances only as harmonize with the senti- ment which he wishes to excite, and to keep from us, therefore, every cir- cumstance discordant with it. Accordingly, when he is successful in this respect, the beauty of the similitude itself is all which we feel,-a delight which occupies us sufficiently to prevent the rise in the mind of any feeling of the opposite qualities of the objects compared, such as I suppose to be necessary to constitute ludicrousness. When, however, the opposition, as may frequently be the case, is too remarkable not to be instantly felt, a cer- tain degree of ludicrousness will as instantly be felt, in spite of all the mag- nificent language of the poet. Hence, it sometimes happens, that similes, which in one country or .age excite no emotion, but that of beauty, may yet, in another age or country, excite an emotion of a very different kind, in consequence of the different sentiments with which, in different times and places, the same objects may be viewed. Whatever estimate the Greeks may have more justly formed of the many excellent qualities of the ass, the very name of that animal is with us combined with notions so disparaging, that it has become, by this degradation, quite unsuitable to be introduced as a subject of laudatory comparison in a poem, that treats of gods and heroes. To those, indeed, who had the happiness of listening to the great Rhapsodic himself, the comparison might seem sufficiently dignified, as well as just; but I presume, that there are few of our own countrymen, with the excep- tion of those who admire whatever is in the Iliad, because it is in the Iliad, who have not felt some little tendency to smile, on reading the simile, in which Homer compares one of the most undaunted of his warriors, to that ill-used and much-enduring animal, which, by a very common aggrava- tion of injustice, we have first oppressed, and then despised because we have oppressed it. In this way, accordingly, 1 conceive, the feeling of beauty, as precluding, in ordinary cases, in which there is no very remarkable opposition of general qualities, the rise in the mind of the circumstances of opposition essential INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 75 76 to the feeling of ludicrousness,-may account sufficiently for the absence u. any light emotion, when new and unsuspected similitudes are developed to us in a comparison. Mere novelty of relation is not sufficient, of itself, to constitute what is termed the ludicrous-that is to say-for the ludicrous is only a more general term-does not, of itself, give rise to any of those feelings of light emotion, which we comprehend under that general term. There are similes which are sublime-similes which are beautiful-similes which are ludicrous. A newly perceived relation, therefore, is not al- ways ludicrous in itself, but only certain relations. What then, are these relations, as distinguished from the others, which are felt without any ten- dency to this gay surprise ? The relations, which are ludicrous, and which, as ludicrous, in every in- stance involve some unsuspected resemblance of objects or qualities before regarded as incongruous, or some equally unsuspected diversity, when the resemblance was before supposed to be complete, admit, perhaps, of being referred to three classes-in the first place, to the class of those, in which objects are brought together, that are noble and mean, or the forms of lan- guage, commonly employed in treating subjects high and. low, are transfer- red from one to the other. Such a transfer, as you well know, gives rise in the one case, to the burlesque, in which objects, noble in themselves, are made ridiculous by the meanness of phrases and figures; in the other case, to the mock-heroic, in which, by a contrary process, the mean is ren- dered ridiculous by the magnificent trappings of rhetoric with which it is invested. In these instances of artificial combination of the very great, and the very little, there can be no question as to the ludicrousness of the emotion which such piebald dignity excites; and there are circumstances which occur in nature, exactly of the same kind, and productive, therefore, of the some emotion; the incongruities being not in mere thought and image, but in objects directly perceived. When any well dressed person, walking along the street, falls into the mud of some splashy gutter, the situation and the dirt, when combined with the character and appearance of the unfortu- nate stumbier, form a sort of natural burlesque, or mock-heroic, in which there is a mixture of the noble and the mean, as much as in any of the works of art, to which these names are given. He who amuses us by his fall, is, in truth, for the moment, an unintentional buffoon, performing for us, unwillingly, what the buffoon, with his stately strut, and his paper crown, and the other trappings of mock royalty, strives to imitate, with less effect, because there is wanting, in him, that additional contrast of the lofty state ol mind, with the ridiculous situation, which forms so important a part of the laughable whole in the accidental fall. It is this contrast of the state of mind, with that which we feel that it would be, if the circumstances were known to him, that forms the principal ludicrousness of the situation of any one, who has the misfortune of being in a crowded company, with his coat accidentally torn, or with any other imperfection of dress, that attracts all eyes, perhaps, but his own. In the rude pastimes of the village, in like manner, it is because the swain is I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, " Mistrustless of his smutted face, That seeret laughter titters round the place " A second class of relations, which are ludicrous, are those which derive their ludicrousness, not from the objects themselves, but from the mind of the hearer or reader, which has been previously led to expect something very different from what is presented to it. To take a very trite example of this sort: If the question be asked, what wine do you like best? One person, perhaps, answering Champagne, another Burgundy, a third says, the wine which I am not to pay for. We laugh, if we laugh at all, chiefly because we expected a very different answer; and the incongruity which is felt, has rela- tion, therefore, to our own state of mind, more than to the question itself. It is this previous anticipation of an answer, with which the answer received by us, is partially incongruous, that either forms the principal delight of many of the bons mots of conversation, or at least aids their effect most powerfully ; and, by the contrast which it produces, it adds, in a most mortifying manner, to the painful keenness of an unexpected sarcasm. Thus, to take an instance from a story which Dr. Arbuthnot tells .us, " Sir William Temple, and the famous Lord Brumpker, being neighbours in the country, had frequently very sharp contentions ; like other great men, one Could not bear an equal, and the other would not admit of a superior. My lord was a great admirer of curiosi- ties, and had a very good collection, which Sir William used to undervalue upon all occasions, disparaging every thing of his neighbour's, and giving something of his own the preference. This by no means pleased his lord- ship, who took all opportunities of being revenged. One day, as they were discoursing together of their several rarities, my lord very seriously and gravely replied to him, ' Sir William, say no more of the matter, you must at length yield to me, I have lately got something which it is impossible for you to obtain; for, sir,' said his lordship, smiling, ' my Welch steward has sent me a flock of geese, and thoSe are what you. can never have, since all your geese are swans' "* In this case, there can be no doubt, that the keenness of the sarcasm would be far more severely felt, in consequence of the previous anti- cipation of an answer of a very different kind. The feeling of ludicrousness is' the same, when our previous anticipation i& disappointed by agreement, where we expected difference, as when it is dis- appointed by difference, where we expected agreement. Such is the case in the game of Cross Purposes, where, in a series of questions and answers, the answers are paired with questions to which they were not given. In what are termed cross readings of newspapers, where, without paying regard to the separation into columns, we read what is in the same line of the page, through the successive columns, as if continuous, there is little agreement of sense to be expected, and we smile accordingly at the strange congruities which such readings may sometimes discover. Many of you are probably acquainted with the ingenious fictions of this sort of coincidence, that ap- peared originally in the Public Advertiser, with the happily appropriate sig- nature of Papyrus Cursor; and which were well known to be the production of the late Mr. C. Whiteford. I quote a few specimens for the sake of those among you who may not be acquainted with them. INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 77 " The sword of state was carried Before Sir John Fielding, and committed to Newgate. Last night, the princess royal was baptized Mary, alias Moll Racket, alias Black Moll. * Miscellanies, 2d Edit. Vol. I. p. 113. 78 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, This morning the Right Honourable the Speaker Was convicted of keeping a disorderly house. A certain commoner will be created a peer. *** No greater reward will be offered. Yesterday the new Lord Mayor was sworn in, Afterwards tossed and gored several persons. When the honour of knighthood was conferred on him, To the great joy of that noble family. A fine turtle, weighing upwards of eighty pounds, Was carried before the sitting aiderman. 'Tis said the ministry is to be new modell'd; The repairs of which will cost the public a large sum annually. This hafe occasioned a cabinet council to be held At Betty's fruit-shop in SSj. James' street. One of His Majesty's principal Secretaries of State Fell off the shafts, being asleep, and the wheels went over him. He was examined before the sitting aiderman, And no questions asked. Genteel places in any of the public offices, So much admired by the nobility and gentry. This morning will be married, the lord viscount, And afterwards hung in chains, pursuant to his sentence."* A third set of relations of this kind, derive their ludicrousness from )ur consideration of the mind of the speaker, or Writer, or performer of the action. When our mirth is excited at any awkward effort, for example, we laugh, because we are aware of that which the effort was intended to perform, and are struck with the contrast of the performance itself. We laugh, in short, at the awkward failure, not at the motion or attitude itself, considered simply, without relation to some higher end, a§ a mere motion or attitude; we laugh at the failure, because we compare, as I have said, the awkward result with the grace which wras intended, or which, at least, we imagine to have been intended. It is, as might be supposed, on a similar principle, that our mirth is excited by every appearance of mental awkwardness. We laugh, for example, when we discover in a work any very visible marks of constraint and difficulty on the part of an author, as in far-fetched thoughts, or stiff and quaint phraseology, -and we laugh, not merely on account of the incongruity of the thoughts or phrases themselves, which are thus strangely brought into union, though this, perhaps, may form the chief element of the ludicrousness, but in some degree also, at the contrast of the labour which we discover, with the ease which the writer is supposed by us to assume and affect. That composition of every sort involves difficulty on the part of the composer, we know well; but we still require that the difficulty should be kept from our sight. We must not see him biting his nails, and torturing himself to give us satisfaction. His great aim accordingly is, to present to us what is excellent, but to present it, so free from any marks of the toil which it has cost, as to seem almost to have risen in the mind by the unrestrained course of spontaneous suggestion. Any * Preserved its one of the volumes of the " New Foundling Hospital for Wit." appearance of constraint, therefore, presents to us a sort of incongruity, almost as striking as when the noble and the mean are blended together. Even when we think, in reading any of the extravagant conceits that abound so much in the works of our older writers, that we are smiling merely at the images which are brought together, and vyhich nature seems to have intended never to meet, we are, in truth, smiling, in part at the very feelings of the writer, when he was so laboriously and painfully absurd. If the feelings that succeed each other, in the mind even of the sublimest poet, in the weary hour of composition, could, by any process, be made distinctly visible to us, 'here is no small reason to apprehend, that, with all our reverence for his noble art, and for his own individual excellence in that art, our emotions would be of the ludicrous kind, or, at least, that some portion of the ludicrous would mingle with our admiration. There can be no question, that he would seem to have performed more labour, if we could be thus conscious of his feelings, before his labour was half accomplished, than if we were only to have exhibited to us the beautiful results of the whole long continued exercise of his thought. This labour, which a skilful writer knows so well how to conceal from us, a writer who is fond of astonishing us with extravagant con- ceits, forces constantly upon our view; and there is hence scarcely any image, which he presents to us, so ludicrous as that picture which he indirectly gives us of himself. Another set of examples, in which the consideration of the mind of the speaker forms an essential part of the ludicrousness, are those which are commonly termed bulls or blunders ; in which there is no ludicrousness, un- less we are able to distinguish what the speaker meant, and thus to discover some strange agreement of his'real meaning, with that opposite or contradic- tory meaning which the words seem to convey. A bull must, therefore, be genuine, or for the moment considered to be genuine, before it can divert with its incongruity. As mere nonsense, it would be as little amusing as any other nonsense. We must have before us, in conception at leasts the speaker himself, and contrast' the well-meaning seriousness of his affirmation with the verbal absurdity which he utters, of which we are at the same time able to discover the unsuspected tie. Such I conceive to be the chief varieties of mixed congruity and incon- gruity which operate in producing this emotion. But, though I have con- sidered these varieties separately, you are not on that account to suppose, that the .varieties themselves are not frequently combined in different proportions; thus heightening' what would be ludicrous in one respect, by ludicrousness of another species. The images themselves,-the mind of the speaker or writer who presents them,-the disappointed expectation of the hearer or reader,-may all present to us a strange mixture of discrepancy and agree- ment, and afford elements, therefore, that are to be jointly taken into account in explaining the one complex emotion, which is the equal result of all. It is not, then, every newly discovered relation of objects, that excites in us emotions of the ludicrous class, but only certain relations, which present to us peculiar incongruities. In all these, however, the unexpectedness is an im- portant element; since, when we have become completely familiar with the relation, we cease to have the emotion which it before instantly excited. We still, however, call the objects or images ludicrous, though they excite no emotion of this sort in our mind, any more, perhaps, than the gravest reason- ing ; but we retain the name, because we speak of them, or think of them, in INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 79 80 reference to other minds, in which we know that they will excite the same emotion that was originally excited by them in ourselves. In thinking of the laughter which may thus be produced in others, we are not (infrequently af- fected with the emotion, as before ; but it is- an emotion of sympathy, not of mere ludicrousness; or, if there be any thing directly ludicrous, it is in this very consideration of incongruity in the minds of others, when we think of their expectation while they read, as contrasted with the surprise that is to fol- low. To know die relation, in short, as far as the relation consists in the mere images themselves, is to feel, that the object of which we know the rela- tions will be ludicrous to others,-not to feel it ludicrous to ourselves. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, LECTURE L1X. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, NOT NECESSARILY INVOLVING ANY MORAL FEELING. USES OF LUDICROUSNESS.- GENERAL REMARKS ON CLOSING THE FIRST SUBDIVISION OF OUR EMOTIONS.-SUBDIVISION. II. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, IN WHICH MORAL FEELING IS NECESSARILY INVOLVED-1. FEELINGS DISTINCTIVE OF VICE AND VIRTUE.-2. EMO- TIONS OF LOVE AND HATE. My last Lecture, gentlemen, was devoted to the consideration of the phe- nomena of our emotions, of that species of which the objects are distinguished by the name of ludicrous,-emotions which we found to originate always in some mixture of congruity and incongruity, suddenly and unexpectedly per- ceived. In establishing this general law, I stated, at the same time, some apparent exceptions to the rise of the mirthful emotion in such cases, of the discovery of* unsuspected agreement, and endeavoured, I hope successfully, to show that all these seeming anomalies are such as might naturally have been anticipated, as consequences of the operation of other well-known laws of the mind. The varieties of such mixtures of congruity and incongruity, as constitute what is termed ludicrousness, were considered by us in order; first, in the mere arbitrary signs of language, and next in the relations of thoughts and existing things,-whether in the discrepancy of the images themselves, as noble and mean,-in the disappointed anticipations of the hearer or reader,- or in the difference of the obvious meaning of the expression of the speaker, or writer, or performer of some action, compared with that real meaning which we know him, in his awkward blunder, to have intended. The emotion is not a simple feeling, but the analysis of it does not seem very difficult. The necessary unexpectedness of the congruity or incon- gruity that is remarked, seems of itself to point out one element, in the asto- nishment which may naturally be supposed to arise in such a case; and the other element, which nature has made as quick to rise on the perception of the ludicrous object, as astonishment itself, is a vivid feeling of delight, one of the forms of that joy or gladness which I comprehended in my enumeration of the few primary constituents of our emotions. Astonishment, combined with this particular delight, is the mirthful emotion that has been the subject of our inquiry; and Akenside, therefore, in giving it the name of " gay sur- prise,"* seems to have expressed, with the analytic accuracy of a philosopher, the complex feelings which he was poetically describing. In considering the delight that is combined with astonishment in the mirth- ful emotion, we are apt to consider it as more different from other species of gladness than it truly is, because we think of more than what is strictly mental. The laughter is a phenomenon of so particular a kind, and so im- pressive to our senses, that we think of it as much as of the feelings which it indicates; but the laughter, it should be remembered, is a bodily convul- sion, which might or might not be combined with the internal merriment, without altering the nature of the inward emotion itself. This spasmodic muscular action, therefore, however remarkable it may be as a concomitant bodily effect, and even the oppressive feeling of fatigue to which that mus- cular action, when long continued, gives rise, we should leave out in our analysis of the mere emotion,-that is all with which the physiologist of mind is concerned,-and leaving out what is bodily in the external signs of merriment, we discover only the two internal elements which 1 have mentioned; that may, in certain casefe, be more complicated by a mixture of contempt, but to which as mere mirth, that third occasional element is far from being essential. The advantages which we derive from our susceptibility of this species of emotion, are, in their immediate influence on the cheerfulness, and there- fore on the general happiness of society, sufficiently obvious. How many hours would pass wearily along, but for these pleasantries of wit, or of easier and less pretending gaiety, which enliven what would have been dull, and throw many bright colours on what would have been gloomy. We are not to estimate these accessions of pleasure, lightly, because they relate to ' objects that may seem trifling, when considered together with those more serious concerns, by which our ambition is occupied, and in relation to which, m the success or failure of our various projects, we look back on the past months or years of our life, as fortunate or unfortunate. If these serious concerns alone were to be regarded, we might often have been very fortu- nate and very unhappy, as in other circumstances we might often have had much happiness in the hours and days of years, which terminated at last in the disappointment of some favourite scheme. It is good to travel with pure and balmy airs and cheerful sunshine, though we should not find, at the end of our journey, the friend whom we wished to see; and the gaieties of social converse, though they are not, in our journey of life, what we travel to obtain, are, during the continuance of our journey, at once a freshness which wre breathe, and a light that gives every object to sparkle to our eye, with a radiance that is not its own. Such are the immediate and obvious influences of this emotion. But it is not of slight value in influences that are less direct; though capable of being sometimes abused, and far from being always so exactly coincident with moral impropriety, as to furnish a criterion of rectitude, it must be allowed to be, in its ordinary circumstances, favourable to virtue, presenting often a check to improprieties, on which, but for such a restraint, the heed- less would rush without scruple-a check, too, which is, by its very nature, peculiarly suited to those who despise the more serious restraints of moral principle, and the opinion of the virtuous. The world's dread laugh, which INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. 81 * The expression in the original seems to be " gay contempt." See Pleasures of Imagina* tion, B. III. v. 260-and 2nd form of the poem, B. II. v. 524. Vol. U. 82 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, even the firm philosopher is said to be scarcely able to scorn, cannot ue scorned by those to whom the approbation of the world is, what conscience is to the wise and virtuous; and though that laugh is certainly not so unerr- ing as the voice of moral judgment within the breast, it is still, as 1 have said in far the greater number of cases, in accordance with it; and when it differs, differs far more frequently in the degree of its censure or its praise, than in actual censure of what is praise-worthy, or praise of what is wholly censurable. It is often, too, of importance, that we should regulate our conduct with regard to relations, which all mankind cannot have leisure lyzing, and which very few, even of those who have leisure, have j to examine. The vivid feeling of ridicule, in such cases, as more n its operations, may hence be considered as a glorious warning from lignant Power, who, " conscious what a scanty pause From labours and from care, the wider lot Of humble life affords for studious thought, To scan the maze of nature, therefore stamp'd The glaring scenes, with characters of scorn, As broad, as obvious, to the passing clown, As to the letter'd sage's curious eye."* ng now then finished my remarks on the phenomena of beauty, sub- ind wit. I close vyith them my view of the emotions that are the of the species of judgment, which is denominated taste. I have stated ray reasons for dividing and arranging the phenomena of tastp, .wo distinct heads, as they are either emotions, or feelings of the aptitudes ain images or combinations of images, for producing those emotions. To Jeei me emotion, which a beautiful, or sublime, or ludicrous object excites, is one state of mind ; to have a knowledge of the aptitude of. different means of exciting these emotions, so as to discern accurately, what will tend to pro- duce them, and what will have no tendency of tliis sort, is another state or function of the mind,-to which the former, indeed, is necessary, but which is itself far from being implied, in the mere susceptibility of the pleasing emotion. That power, by which, from the inductions of former observa- tions of the mechanic powers, we predict the effects of certain combinations of wheels and pullies in machinery,-of certain mixtures in the chemical arts,-and, in legislative or general politics, of certain motives, that are to operate on the minds of a people, is not supposed by us to be a different power, merely because the relations which it discerns, are different. In all, and in all alike, it is termed judgment, reason, discernment, or whatever other name may be used, for expressing the same discriminating function. The knowledge necessary for the predictions, in mechanics, chemistry, and politics, is, indeed, different; but the power, which avails itself of this know- ledge, is in kind the same. In like manner, the knowledge which the dis- criminating function of taste supposes, is very different, from that, which is necessary in mechanics, chemistry, politics, though not more different from them, than these various species of knowledge are relatively different. But, in taste, as in those sciences, when the knowledge is once acquired, it is the same capacity of feeling the relation of means and ends, which avails itself of this knowledge of the past, in determining the various aptitudes of objects for a desired effect,-whether for producing or retarding motion, as in * Pleasures of Imagination, B. IL v. 271-277. INVOLVING NO MORAL FEELING. mechanics,-for forming compositions or decompositions, as in chemistry,- for augmenting and securing the happiness of nations, as in politics,-or for inducing various delightful emotions, as in taste. If we do not give different names, in all these cases, to the capacity of feeling the relation of means and ends, when the means and ends are in the different cases different, why should we suppose a new faculty to be exercisfed, and invent a new name in one alone? The politician, who judges of the reception which the multitude will give to certain laws; and the critic, who judges of the reception thev will give to certain works of art, have, for their subject, the same mind ; and both determine the aptitude of certain feelings of the mind, for inducing certain other feelings. The general power, by which we discover the re- lation of means and ends,-of states of mind or circumstances which are prior, and states of mind or circumstances which are consequent to these, is that wliich is exercised in both,-the function, to which I have given the name of relative suggestion,-from which we derive our feeling of this, as of every other relation. Without the emotions of beauty and sublimity, there would, of course, be no taste, to discern the aptitude of certain means for producing these emotions,-because there would not be that series of feelings, of which the relative antecedence and consequence are felt. On the other hand, without the judgment which discerns this order, in the relation of means and ends, there might, indeed, still be the emotions, rising, precariously, as nature presented to us certain objects that excite them, but no voluntary adaptation of the great stores of forms and sounds, and colours, for producing them-none of those fine arts, the results of our knowledge of the relations which certain feelings bear to certain other feelings,-arts which give as much happiness as embellishment to life, and which form so essential a part of our notion of civilization, that a nation of philosophers, if incapable of any of the conceptions and resulting emotions of this kind, would stand some chance of being counted by us, only a better order of reasoning savages. In no part of our nature is the pure benevolence of Heaven more strik- ingly conspicuous than in our susceptibility of the emotions of this class. The pleasure which they afford, is a pleasure that has no immediate con- nexion with the means of preservation of our animal existence; and which shows, therefore, though all other proof were absent, that the Deity, who superadded these means of delight, must have had some other object in view, in forming us as we are, than the mere continuance of a race of beings, who were to save the earth from becoming a wilderness. In conse- quence of these emotions, which have made all nature " beauty to our eye, and music to our ear," it is scarcely possible for us to look around, without feeling either some happiness or some consolation. Sensual pleasures soon pall, even upon the profligate, who seeks them in vain in the means which were accustomed to produce them; weary, almost to disgust, of the very pleasures which he seeks, and yet astonished that he does not find them. The labours of severer intellect, if long continued, exhaust the energy which they employ ; and we cease, for a time, to be capable of thinking accurately, from the very intentness and accuracy of our thought. The pleasures of taste, however, by their variety of easy delight, are safe from the languor which attends any monotonous or severe occupation, and, instead of palling on the mind, they produce in it, with the very delight which is present, a quicker sensibility to future pleasure. Enjoyment springs from enjoyment; and, 83 84 if we have not some deep wretchedness within, it is scarcely possible for us, with the delightful resources which nature and art present to us, not to be happy as often as we will to be happy.-In the beautiful language of a poet, of whose powerful verse I have already frequently availed myself, in illus- tration of the subjects that have engaged us, nature endows us with all her treasures, if we will only deign to use them. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING. " Oh blest of Heaven, whom not the languid songs Of Luxury the syren, nor the bribes Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils Of pageant honour, can seduce to leave Those ever-blooming sweets, which, from the store Of nature, fair imagination culls To charm the enliven'd soul !-What though not all Of mortal offspring can attain the heights Of envied life,-though only few possess Patrician treasures, or imperial state, Yet Nature's care, to all her children just, With richer treasures, and an ampler state Endows, at large, whatever happy man Will deign to use them.-His the city's pomp, The rural honours his.-Whate'er adorns The princely dome,-the column and the arch, The breathing marble, and the sculptured gold, Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim His tuneful breast enjoys.-For him the Spring Distils her dews, and from the silken gem Its lucid leaves unfolds;-for him the hand Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn. Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings, And still new beauties meet his lonely walks, And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze Flies o'er the meadow,-not a cloud imbibes The setting sun's effulgence-not a strain From all the tenants of the warbling shade Ascends,-but whence his bosom can partake Fresh pleasure, unreproved."* Such is that universal possession of nature which the susceptibility of the emotions of taste conveys to us,-a possession, extending to an infinity of objects, which no earthly power can appropriate, and which enjoys even objects that have been so appropriated, with a possession more delightful than that which they afford in many cases, to the listless eyes of their proud, but discontented master. After these remarks on that order of our immediate emotions, which do not involve necessarily any moral feeling, I proceed to that other order of the same class, in which some moral feeling is necessarily involved. The first of these, according to the arrangement formerly submitted to you, are those emotions which constitute, as I conceive, the feelings of dis- tinctive vice and virtue,-emotions that arise on the contemplation of certain actions, observed or conceived. It is not my intention, however, in this part of my Course, to enter on the discussion of the great questions connected with the doctrine of obliga- tion as either presupposed or involved in our consideration of such actions. The moral affections which I consider at present, I consider rather physiolo- * Pleasures of Imagination, B. III. v. 568-593. NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. gically than ethically, as parts of our mental constitution, not as involving the fulfilment or violation of duties. In this point of view, even the boldest sceptic, who denies all the grounds of moral obligation, must still allow the existence of feelings which we are considering, as states or affections of the mind, indicative of certain suscep- tibilities in the mind, of being so affected. Whether we have reason to approve and disapprove, or have no reason whatever, in the nature of their actions, to regard with a different eye, those whom, by some strange illusion,- but by an illusion only, we now feel ourselves almost necessitated to love or abhor,-though it be an error of logic, to consider the parricide, who, in preparing to plunge his dagger, could hold his lamp unmoved, and, with no other apprehension than of the too early waking of his victim, look fixedly on the pale and gentle features of him, whose very sleep was, at the moment, perhaps, made happy by some dream of happiness to his murderer, as less worthy, even in the slightest respect, of our esteem, than the son who rushes to inevitable death, in defence of the grey hairs which he honours,-though it be not less an error of logic to extend our moral distinctions, and the love or hate which accompanies them, to those who make not a few individuals only, but whole millions, wretched or happy,-to consider the usurping despot, who dares to be a tyrant, in the land on which he was born a freeman, as a less glorious object of our admiration, than the last assertor of rights which seemed still to exist, while he existed to assert them,-who, in that cause which allows no fear of peril,- could see nothing in guilty power which a brave man could dread, but every thing which it would be a crime to obey, -and who ennobled with his blood the scaffold, from which he rose to liberty and Heaven, making it an altar of the richest and most gratifying sacrifice which man can offer, to the great Being whom he serves;- even though we should be unfortunate enough to look on the tyrant, with the same envy, as on his victim, and could see no reason for those distinctive terms of vice and virtue, in the two cases, the force of which we should feel equally, though we had not a word to express the meaning that is constantly in our heart;-still the fact of the general approbation and disapprobation, we must admit, even in reserving for ourselves the privilege of indifference. They are phenomena of the mind, to be ranked with the general mental phe- nomena, as much as our sensations or remembrances,-illusions to be classed with our other illusions,-or truths, to be classed with our most important truths. This distinctive reference would be equally necessary, though our emotions of this kind did not arise immediately from our contemplation of actions, in the very moment in which we contemplate them simply as actions; but from processes of reasoning and regard to general rules of propriety, formed gradually by attention to the circumstances, in which man is placed, and all the good which, in such circumstances, he is capable of feeling, or occasion- ing to others. The vivid distinctive regard, at whatever stage it began, would not the less be an affection of the mind, referable to certain laws, that guide its susceptibilities of emotion ; but the truth is, that the moral feeling arises without any consideration, except that of the action itself, and its circum- stances. The general rules of propriety may, indeed, seem to confirm our suffrage, but the suffrage itself is given before their sanction. The rules themselves are ultimately founded, as Dr. Smith very justly remarks, on these particular emotions:-"We do not originally approve or condemn particular actions," to use his wrords, " because, upon examination, they appear to be 85 86 agreeable, or inconsistent with a certain general rule. The general rule, on the contrary, is formed, by finding, from experience, that all actions, of a cer- tain kind, or circumstanced in a certain manner, are approved or disapproved of. To the man, who first saw an inhuman murder committed from avarice, envy, or unjust resentment; and upon one, too, who loved and trusted the mur- derer,-who beheld the last agonies of the dying person,-who heard him, with his expiring breath, complain more of the perfidy and ingratitude of his false friend, than of the violence which had been done to him,-there could be no occasion, in order to conceive how horrible such an action was, that he should reflect that one of the most sacred rules of conduct, was what pro- hibited the taking away the life of an innocent person, that this was a plain violation of that rule, and consequently a very blameable action. His detes- tation of this crime, it is evident, would arise instantaneously, and antecedent to his having formed to himself any such general rule. The general rule, on the contrary, which he might afterwards form, would be founded upon the de- testation which he felt, necessarily arising in his own breast, at the thought of this, and every other particular action of the same kind."* Of the universality of these moral emotions, which attend our mere percep- tion of certain actions, or our reasonings on the beneficial or injurious ten- dency of actions, what more convincing proof can be imagined, than the very permanence of these feelings, in the breasts of those, whose course of life they are every moment reproaching,-who, even when they are false to vir- tue, are not false to their love of virtue, and whose secret heart, if it could be laid open to those whom they are endeavouring to seduce, and who can listen only to the voice of the lips, would proclaim to them the charms of that inno- cence which the lips are affecting to deride, and the slavery of that licentious- ness which the lips are proclaiming to be the glorious privilege of the free. " What law of any state," says an eloquent Roman moralist, "has ever ordered the child to love his parents, the parents to love their child, each individual to love himself? It would be not more idle, to order us to love virtue, which by its own nature has so many charms, that it is impossible for the wicked to withhold from it their approbation. Who is there, that, living amid crimes, and in the practice of every injury which he can inflict on so- ciety, does not still wish to obtain some praise of goodness, and cover his very atrocities, if they can by any means be covered, with some veil, however slight, of honourable semblance? No one has so completely shaken off the very character of man, as to wish to be wicked, for the mere sake of wickedness. The very robber who lives by rapine, and who does not hesitate to strike his dagger into the breast of the passenger, who has any plunder to repay the stroke, would still rather flnd what he takes by violence, only because he cannot hope to find it. The most abandoned of human beings, if he could enjoy the wages of guilt without the guilt itself, would not prefer to be guilty. It is no small obligation," he continues, " which we owe to nature, that Vir- tue reveals her glorious light, not to a few only, but to all mankind. Even those who do not follow her, still see the splendid track along which she moves." "Placet suapte natura ; adeoque gratiosa virtus est, ut insitum sit etiam malis, probare meliora. Quis est, qui non beneficus videri velit,-qui non, inter scelera et injurias, opinionem bonitatis affectet-qui non ipsis qme impotentissime fecit, speciem aliquam induat recti ? Quod non facerent, nisi jllos honesti, et per se expetendi, amor cogeret, moribus suis opinionem con- I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING * Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part III. e. iv. trariam quserere, et nequitiam abdere, cujus fructus concupiscitur, ipsa vero odio pudoreque est.-Maximum hoc habemus naturae meritum, quod virtus in omnium animos lumen suum permittit: etiam qui non sequuntur, illam vident."* And it is well, surely, even the most sceptical will admit, that nature, if we are deceived by this delightful vision, does permit us to be deceived by it. Though virtue were only a dream, and all which we admire, as fallacious as the imaginary colours which shine upon our slumber in the darkness of the night, who could wish the slumber to be broken, if, instead of the groves of Paradise and the pure and happy forms that people them, we were td awake in a world, in which the moral sunshine was extinguished, and every thing on which we vainly turned our eye were to be only one equal gloom ? Though the libertine should have hardihood enough to shake, or, at least, to try to shake, from his own mind, every feeling of moral admiration or abhorrence, he still could not wish, that others, among whom he is to live, should be as free as himself. For his own profit, he would wish all others to be virtuous, himself the single exception; and what would profit each, individually, must profit all. If he were rich, he could not wish the multitude that surrounded him to approve of the rapine which would strip him of all the sources of his few miserable enjoyments, and to approve, too, perhaps, of murder, as the shortest mode of separating him from his possessions; if he were in leant, he could not wish those, whose charity he was forced to solicit, to see, in charity, nothing but a foolish mode of voluntarily abridging their own means of selfish luxury: if he were condemned, for some offence, to the prison or the gibbet, he would not wish mercy to be regarded as a word without meaning. What noble and irresistible evidence is this of the excellence of virtue, even in its worldly and temporary advantages, that, if all men were what all individually would wish them to be, there would not be a single crime to pollute the earth ! When we reflect, how many temptations there are to the multitudes, who live together in social society,-temptations, that, wherever they look around them, would lead them, if they had not been rendered capable of moral af- fections, as much as of their sentient enjoyments and passions, to seek the attainment of the objects within their view, and almost within their reach, and to seek it as readily by force, or by falsehood, as by that patient industry, which could not fail to seem to them more tedious, and, therefore, less worthy of their prudent choice; when we think of all the temptations of all these ob- jects, and the facilities of attaining them by violence or deceit, and yet observe the security with which man, in society, spreads out his enjoyments as it were, to the view of others, and delights in the number of the gazers and enviers, that are attracted by them, it is truly as beautiful as it is astonishing, to think of the simple means, on which so much security depends. The laws, which men have found it expedient, for their common interest, to make, and to en- force, are, indeed, the obvious pieces of machinery, by which this great result is brought about. But how much of its motion depends on springs, that are scarcely regarded by those who look only to the exterior wheels, as they perform their rotation in beautiful regularity I The grosser measures of fraud or force may be prevented by enactments, that attach to those measures of fraud or force a punishment, the risk of which would render the attempt too perilous, to obtain for it the approbation even of selfish prudence. But what innumerable actions are there, over which the laws, that cannot extend to the NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 87 * Seneca de Beneficiis, lib. iv. c. 17. 88 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING secret thoughts of man, or to half the possibilities of human action, must have as little control, as it is in our power physically to exercise, over the unseen and unsuspected elements of future storms which, long before the whirlwind has begun, are preparing that desolation, which it is afterwards to produce. The force of open violence the laws may check,-but they cannot check the still more powerful forcp of seduction,-the frauds of mere persuasion, which are never to be known to be frauds, but by the conscience of die deceiver, and which may be said to steal the very assent of the unsuspecting mind, as they afterwards steal the wealth, or the worldly honours, or voluptuous enjoyments, for which that assent was necessary. It is in these circumstances, that He, who formed and protects us, has provided a check for that injustice, which is beyond the restraining power of man, and has produced, what the whole united strength of nations could not produce,-by a few simple.feelings,-a check and control as mighty as it is silent and invisible,-which he has placed within the mind of the very criminal himself, where it would most be needed,-or rather in the mind of him, who, but for these feelings, would have been a criminal, and who, with them, is virtuous and happy. The voice within, which approves or disapproves,-long before action, and before even the very wish, that would lead to action, can be sqid to be fully formed,-lias in it a restrain- ing force, more powerful than a thousand gibbets, and it is accompanied with the certainty, that, in every breast around, there is a similar voice, that would join its dreadful award to that which would be for ever felt within. The feelings of moral approbation and disapprobation are thus at once the security of virtue and its avengers,-its security in the happiness that is felt, and the happiness that is promised to every future year and hour of virtuous remem- brance,-its avengers in that long period of earthly punishment, when its guilty injurer is to read in every eye that gazes on him, thS reproach which is to be for ever sounding on his heart. I have already said, however, that it is merely as a part of our mental con- stitution that I at present speak of our distinctive feelings of the moral diffe- rences of actions;-as states or affections, or phenomena of the mind, and nothing more. The further illustration of them, in their most important light, as principles of conduct. I reserve for our future'discussions of the nature and obligation of virtue. The moral emotions to which I next proceed, are those of love and hate,- words, which, as general terms, comprehend a great variety of affections, that have different names, according to their own intensity, and the notion which they involve of the qualities on which the love is founded, as when we speak of love or affection simply, or of regard, esteem, respect, veneration, and which have different names, also, according to the objects to which they are directed, as love, friendship, patriotism, devotion,-to which, or, at least, to far the greater part of which there are corresponding terms of the varieties of the opposite emotion of hatred, which 1 need not waste your time with attempting to enumerate. Indeed, if we were to compare the two vocabula- ries of love and hate, I fear that we should find rather a mortifying proof of our disposition to discover imperfections more rapidly than the better qualities, since we are still richer in terms of contempt and dislike, than in terms of admiration and reverence. The analysis of love, as a complex feeling, presents to us always, at least, two elements,-a vivid delight in the contemplation of the object, and a desir NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 89 of good to that object. To love, then, it is essential that there should be some quality, in the object, which is capable of giving pleasure, since love, which is the consequence pf this, is itself a pleasurable emotion. There is a feeling of beauty, external, moral, or intellectual, which affords the primary delight of loving, and continues to mingle with the kipd desire which it has produced. In' this sense, indeed, but in this sense only, the most disinterested love is selfish, though it is a sense in which selfishness may be said to be as little sordid as the most generous sacrifices which virtue can make. It loves, not because delight is to be felt in loving, but because it has been impressed with qualities which nature has rendered it impossible to view without delight. It must, therefore, have felt that delight which arises from the contemplation of objects worthy of being loved; yet the delight thus felt has not been valued for itself, but as indicative, like some sweet voice of nature, of those qualities to which affection may be safely given. Though we cannot, then, when there is no interfering passion, think of the virtues of others without pleasure, and must, therefore, in loving virtue, love what is by its own nature pleasing, the love of the virtue which cannot-exist without the pleasure, is surely an affec- tion very different from the love of the mere pleasure existing, if it had been possible for it to exist, without the virtue,-a pleasure, that accompanies the virtue, only as the soft or brilliant colouring of nature flows from the great orb above,-a gentle radiance, that is delightful to pur eyes, indeed, and to our heart, but which leads our eye upward to the splendid source from which it flows, and our heart, still higher, to that Being by whom the sun was made. The distinction of the love of that 'which is pleasing, but which is laved only for those intrinsic qualities which the pleasure accompanies, and of the love of mere pleasure, without any regard to the qualities which excite it, is surely a very, obvious one ; and it is not more obvious, as thus defined, thkn in the heart of the virtuous,-in the generous friendships which he feels, and the generous sacrifices to which he readily submits. If, as is sometimes strangely contended, the love that animates such a heart be selfishness, it must be allowed, at least, that it is a selfishness, which, for the sake of others, can often prefer penury to wealth,-which can hang, for many sleepless nights, unwearied and unconscious of any personal fear, over the bed of contagion, -which can enter the dungeon, a voluntary prisoner, without the power even of giving any other comfort than that of the mere presence of an object be- loved,-or fling itself before the dagger which would pierce another breast, and rejoice in receiving the stroke. It is the selfishness which thinks not of itself-the selfishness of all that is generous and heroic in man-I would al- most say, the selfishness which is most divine in God. Obvious as the distinction is, however, it has not been made by many phi- losophers, or, at least, by many writers who assume that honourable name,- the superficial but dazzling lovers of paradox, who prefer to truths that seem too simple to stand in need of defence, any errors, if only they be errors, that can be defended with ingenuity,-though, in the present case, even this small praise of ingenuity scarcely can be allowed ; and the errors which would seduce men into the belief of general selfishness, from which their nature shrinks, are fortunately as revolting to our understanding as they are to our heart. The fuller discussion of these, however, I defer, till that part of the Course which treats of virtue as a system of conduct. At present, I merely point out to you the fallacy which has arisen from the pleasing nature of the emotions in which love consists, or which precede love,-as if the pleasure Vol. IL 90 in which love is necessarily presupposed were itself all to which the love owes its rise, and for the direct sake of which the love itself is felt. 1 may remark, however, even now, the unfortunate effect of the poverty of our language, in aiding the illusion. The word selfishness, or, at least, self-love, has various meanings, some of which imply nothing that is reprehen- sible, w hile, in other senses, it is highly so. It may mean either the satisfaction which we feel in our own enjoyment, which, when there is no duty violated, is far from being, even in the slightest degree, unworthy of the purest mind ; or it means that exclusive regard to our own pletfsures, at the expense of the happiness of others, which is as degrading to the individual as it is perni- cious to society. All men, it may, indeed, be allowed, are selfish, in the first of these meanings of the term, but this is only one meaning of a word, which has also a very different sense. The difference, however, is after- wards forgotten by us, because the same term is used ; and we ascribe to self- love, in the one sense, What- is true of it only in the other. Much of the obscurity and confusion of the moral system of Pope, in his Essay on Man, arises from this occasional transition from one of the senses of the term to the other, without perceiving that a transition has been made It is impossible to read some of the most beautiful passages of that poem, without feeling the wish, that we had some term to express the first of these senses, without any possibility of the suggestion of the other. It is not self- love, for example, which gives us to make our neighbour's blessing ours,-it scarcely even can be called self-love which first stirs the peaceful mind-it is simple pleasure; and the enjoyment may or must accompany all the delight- ful progress of our moral affections; it is not any self-love, reflecting on the enjoyments that are thus to be obtained. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds ; Another still, and still another spreads: Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace, His country next, and next all human race. Wide and more wide-the o'erflowings of the mind Take every creature in of every kind. ' Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest, And Heaven beholds its image in his breast.* In all these cases there is a diffusion of love, indeed, but not of self-love,- a pleasure attending in every stage the progressive benevolence, but attending it only, not producing it; and without which, if it were possible for benevo- lence to exist without delight, it would still, as before, be the directing spirit of every generous breast. LECTURE LX. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, IN WHICH SOME MORAL FEELING IS NECES- SARILY INVOLVED -2. LOVE-HATE, CONTINUED.-RELATIONS WHICH THEY BEAR TO THE HAPPINESS OF MAN, AND TO THE BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. • » In my last Lecture, gentlemen, I began the consideration of that order of our emotions, in which some moral relation is involved ; and considered, in * Ep. IV v. 363-372. rhe first place, those vivid feelings, which arise in the mind on the contempla- tion of virtuous or vicious actions, and which, as we shall afterwards find, are truly all that distinguishes these actions to our moral regard, as vice or vir- tue. At present, however, they are not considered by us ethically, in their relation to conduct,-for, in this light, they are to be reviewed by us after- wards-but merely as mental phenomena-feelings or affections indicative of certain susceptibilities in the mind of being thus affected. Next to these, in our arrangement, are the emotions of love and hatred,- to the consideration of winch, therefore, I proceeded. The remarks which I made, were chiefly illustrative of a distinction, which is of great importance in the theory of morals, with respect to the pleasure excited by the objects of our regard,-a pleasure, which is, indeed, inseparable from the regard,- and without which, therefore, of course, no regard can be felt,-but which is not, itself, the cause or object of the affection. Aly wish in these remarks, vyas to guard you against the sophistry of many philosophers, who seem to think that they have shown man to be necessarily selfish, merely by showing that it is delightful for him to love those, wlidm it is virtue to and w7hom it would have been impossible for him not to love, even though no happiness had attended the affection,-as it is impossible for him not to de- spise or dislike the mean and the profligate, though no pleasure attends the con- templation. A little attention to this opposite class of feelings, which are not more essential to our nature than the others, might have been sufficient to show, that the delight of loving is not the cause of love. We despise, without any pleasure in despising, certainly, at least, not on account of any pleasure that can be imagined to be felt in despising. We love, in like manner, not for the pleasure of loving, but on account of the qualities which it is at onde delightful for us to love, and impossible for us not to love. We canrtot feel the pleasure of loving, unless wre have previously begun to lotfe; and it is surely as absurd an error, in this as in any other branch of physics, to ascribe to that which is second in a progressive scale, the production of that very primary cause, of which itself is the result. The pleasure which accompanies the benevolent affections, that has been thus most strangely converted into the cause pf those very benevolent affec- tions, which it necessarily presupposes, is a convincing proof, how much the happiness of his creatures must have been in the contemplation of Him, who thus adapted their nature as much to the production of good, as to the enjoy- ment of it. We are formed to be malevolent in certain circumstances, as in other circumstances we are formed to be benevolent; but we are not formed to have equal enjoyment in both. The benevolent affections, of course, lead to the actions, by which happiness is directly diffused,-there is no moment, at which they may not operate, with advantage to society ;-and the more constant their operation, and the more widely spread, the greater, conse- quently, is the result of social good. The Deity, therefore, has not merely rendered us susceptible of these affections-he has made the continuance of them delightful, that w7e may not merely indulge them, but dwell in the indul- gence. NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 91 " Thus hath God, Still looking to his own high purpose, fix'd The virtues of his creatures ; thus he rules The parent's fondness, and the patriot's zeal, Thus the warm sense of honour and of shame, The vows of gratitude, the faith of love,- The joy of human life, the earthly Heaven." 92 The moral affections, which lead to the infliction of evil, are occasionally as necessary, as the benevolent affections. If vice exist, it must be loathed by us, or we may learn to imitate it. If an individual have injured another individual, there must be indignation, to feel the wrong which has been done, and a zeal to avenge it. The malevolent affections, then, are evidently a part of virtue, as long as vice exists ; but they are necessary only for the oc- casional pprposes of nature, not for her general and permanent interest, in our welfare. If all men were uniformly benevolent, the earth, indeed, might exhibit an appearance, on the contemplation of which it wTould be de- lightful to dwell. But a World of beings, universally and permanently hating and hated, is a world that fortunately could not exist long; and that, while it existed, could be only a place of torture, in which crimes were every mo- ment punished, and every moment renewed,-or rather, in which crimps, and the mental punishment of crimes, were mingled in one dreadful con- fusion. In such circumstances, what is it which we may conceive to belhe plan of die Divine Goodness? If is that very plan, which we see at present executed, in our moral constitution. We are made capable of a malevo- lence, that may be said to be virtuous, w'hen it operates, for the terror of injustice, that otherwise would walk, not in darkness, through the world, but in open light, perpetrating its iniquities, without shame or remorse, and per- petrating them with impunity. But that even this virtuous malevolence may not outlast the necessity for it,- it is made painful for us to be malevolent, even in this best sense. We require, to warm our mind, with the repeated image of every thing which has been suffered by the good; or of every thing which die good would suffer, in consequence of the impunity of the wicked, before we can bring ourselves to feel delight in the punishment, even of the most wicked, at least when the insolence of power and impunity is gone, and the offender is trembling at the feet of those whom he had injured. There are gentle feelings of mercy, that continually rise upon the heart, in £uch a case,-feelings that chpck even the pure and sacred resentment of indignation itself, and make rigid justice an effort, and, perhaps, one of the most painful efforts of virtue. , ''To love is to enjoy," it has been said, "to hate is to suffer;" and, in conformity with this remark, thfe same writer observes, that " though it may not be always unjust, it must be always absurd to hate for any length of time, since it is to give him whom we hate, the advantage of occupying us with a painful feeling. Of two enemies, therefore, which is the more unhappy ? He, we may always answer, whose hatred is the greater. The mere remem- brance of his enemy, is an incessant uneasiness and agitation; and he en- dures, in his long enmity, far more pain than he wishes to inflict." The annexation of pain to the emotions, that would lead to the infliction of pain, is, as I have said, a very striking proof, that he who formed man, did not intend him for purposes of malignity,-as the delight, attached to all our benevolent emotions, may be considered as a positive proof, that it was for purposes of benevolence that man was formed,-purposes which make every generous exertion more delightfid to the active mind itself, than to the individual whose happiness, it might have seemed exclusively to promote. By this double influence of every tender affection, as it flows from breast to breast, there is, even in the simplest offices of regard, a continual multiplica- tion of pleasure, when the sole result is joy; and, even when the social kind* I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING. NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 93 nesses of life do lead to sorrow, they lead to a sorrow which is so tempered with a gentle delight, that the whole mingled emotion has a tenderness, which the heart would be unwilling to relinquish, if it were absolute indif- ference that was to be given in exchange. " Whet that bears A human bosom, hath not often felt How dear are all those ties, which bind our race In gentleness together, and how swee£ Their force, let Fortune's wayward hartd the while Be kind or cruel ? Ask the faithful youth, Why the cold urn of her whom he longjov'd So often fills his arms, so often draws His lonely footsteps, silent and unseen, To pay the mournful tribute of his tears ! O I he will tejl thee, that the wealth of worlds Should ne'er seduce his bo£om to forego Those sacred hours, when, stealing from the noise Of care and envy, sweet remembrance sooths, With Virtue's kindest looks, his aching breast, And turns his tears to rapture !"* Such then, are the comparative influences on our happiness and misery, of the emotions of love and hatred ; and it cannot, after such a comparison, seem wonderful, that we should cling to the one of these orders of emotions, almost with the avidity with which we cling to life. It. is affection, in some of its forms, which, if I may use so bold a phrase, animates even life itself that, without it, scarcely cotdd be worthy of the name. He who is without affection, may exist, indeed, in a populous city, with crowds around him, wherever he may chance to turn; but, even there, he lives in a desert, or he lives only among* statues, that move and speak, but are in- capable of saying any thing to his heart. How pathetically, and almost how sublimely, does one of the female saints of the Romish Church express the importance of affection to happiness, when, in "speaking of the great enemy of mankind, whose situation might seem to present so many other concep- tions of misery, she singles out this one circumstance, and she says,-" How sad is the state of that being, condemned to love nothing !" " If we had been destined to live abandoned to ourselves, on Mount Caucasus, or in the deserts of Africa," says Barthelemi, " perhaps nature would have denied us a feeling heart,-but, if she had given us one, rather than love nothing, that heart would have tamed tigers, and animated rocks."f This, indeed, I may remark, strong as the expression of Barthelemi may seem, is no more than what man truly does. So susceptible is he of kind affection, that he does animate, with his regard, the very rocks, if only they are rocks that have been long familiar to him. The single survivor of a shipwreck, who has spent many dreary years on some island, of which he has been the only human inhabitant, will, in the rapture of deliverance, when he ascends the vessel that is to restore him to society and his country, feel, perhaps, no grief mingling with a joy so overwhelming. But, when the overwhelming emotion has in part subsided,-and, when he sees the island dimly fading from his view, there will be a feeling of grief, that will overcome, for the moment, even the tumultuous joy- The thought that he is never to see again that cave which was so long his home, and that shore which he has so * Pleasures of Imagination, 2d form of the poem, B. II. v. 609-624. t Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis, Chap. LXXVIII. 94 often trod, will rise so sadly to his mind, that it will be to him, before reflection, almost like a momentary wish that he were again in that very loneliness, from which to be freed, seemed to him before, like resurrection from the tomb- He has not tamed tigers, indeed, but he will find, in his waking remembrances, and in his dreams, that he has animated rocks,-that his heart has not been idle, even when it had no kindred object to occupy it,- and that his cave has not been a mere place of shelter, but a friend. " If," says the author of Anacharsis, " we were told that two strangers, cast by chance on a desert island, had formed a union of regard, the charms of which were a full compensation to them for all the rest of the universe which they had lost,-if we were told, that there existed any were a single family, occupied- solely in strengthening the ties of blood with the ties of friendship,-if we were told, that there existed, in any corner of the earth, a people who knew no other law than that of loving- each other, no other crime than that of not loving each other sufficiently,-who is there among us, that could dare to pity the fate of the two strangers,-that would not wish to belong to the family of friends,-that would not fly to the climate of that happy people ? O, mortals, ignorant and unworthy of your destiny," he continues, " it is not necessary for you to cross the seas to discover the happiness. It may exist in every condition, in every time, in every place, in you, around you,-wherever benevolence is felt."* After these remarks, on the emotions of love and hatred in general, it will not be necessary to prosecute the investigation of them, with any minuteness, at least, through all their varieties. The emotions, indeed, though classed together under the general name of love, are of many varieties; but the difference is a difference of feeling too simple to be made the subject of descriptive definition. I have already, in my general analysis of the emotion, stated its two great elements,-a vivid pleasure in the contemplation of the object of regard, and a desire of the happiness of that object; and in the contemplation of various objects, the pleasure may be as different in quality as the corresponding desire is different in degree. The love which we feel for a near relation may not then, in our maturer years, be exactly the same emotion as that which we feel for a friend; the love which we feel for one relation or friend, of one character, not exactly the same as the love which we feel for another relation, perhaps, of the same degree of propinquity, or for another friend of a different character; yet, if we were to attempt to state these differences, in words, we might make them a little more obscure, but we could not make them more intelligible. I shall not attempt, therefore, to define what is really indefinable. The love, which we feel for our parents, our friends, our country, is known better by these mere phrases, than by any description of the variety of the feelings themselves; as the difference of what we mean by the sweetness of honey, and the sweetness of sugar, is known better by these mere names of the particular substances which excite the feelings, than by any description of the difference of the sweetnesses; or rather, in the one way, it is capable of being made known to those who have ever tasted the two substances; in the other way, no words which human art could employ, if the substances themselves are not named, would be able'to make known the distinctive shades. Who is there, who could describe to another the sensations of smell which he receives from I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING * Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis, Chap. LXXVIII. NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. a rose, a violet, a sprig of jasmine, or of honeysuckle, though, in using these names, I have already conveyed to your mind a complete notion of this very difference. It is not my intention, then, to give you any description of the varieties of emotion, comprehended under the general terms of love and hate,-or, to speak more accurately, it is not in my power. To your own mind, the greater number of these must already be sufficiently familiar. A few very brief remarks on the general guardianship of affection, under which man is placed, and on the happiness of which it is productive, are all which 1 shall attempt to offer to you. The helplessness of man at birth, and for the first years of life, is what must have powerfully impressed every one,-however unapt to moralize on the contrasts of the present, and the past, and the future,-those contrasts, which nature is incessantly exhibiting, not more strikingly, in what we term the accidents of individual fortune, or the dreadful revolutions of nations, which occur only at distant intervals, than in the phenomena, which form the regular display of her power, in every generation of mankind, and every individual of every generation. That glorious animal, who is to rule all other animals,-to invade their deepest recesses,-to drive the most fero- cious from their dens, and to make the strength of the strongest only an instrument of more complete subjection,-what is he at his birth!-A crea- ture, that seems incapable of any thing, but of tears and cries,-aS Pliny so forcibly pictures him ill a few words, " Flens animal czeteris imperaturum."* If we were to consider him, as abandoned to himself, we might, indeed, say, to use a still stronger phrase of Cicero, that man is born not of a mother, but of a step-mother. " Hominem, non ut a matri, sed a noverca natum, corpore rudo, fragili et infirmo, animo autem anxio ad molestias, in quo tamen inesset obrutus quidam divinus ignis." Is the divine spark', which seems scarcely to gleam through that feeble frame, to be quenched in it for ever ? It is feebleness, indeed, which we behold :-but the Creator of that which seems so feeble, was the Omnipotent. That Power, which is omnipotent to bless, has thrown no helpless outcast on the world. Before it brought him into exis- tence, it provided what was to be strength, and more than strength to the weakness which was to be entrusted to the ready protection. There are beings who love him, before their eyes have seen what they love,-who expect, with all the affection of long intimacy, or rather with an affection, to which that of the most cordial friendship is indifference and coldness, that unsuspecting object of their regard, who is to receive their cares, without knowing of whom they are the cares; but who is to reward every labour and anxiety, by the mere smile, that almost unconsciously answers their smile, or the unintentional caress, to which their love is to affix so tender a meaning. How beautiful is the arrangement, which has thus adapted to each other, the feebleness of the wreak, and the fondness of the strong, in which the happiness of those who require protection, and of those who are able to give protection, is equally secured; and man deriving from his early wants the social affections, which afterwards bind him to his race, is made the most powerful of earthly beings, by that very imbecility, which seemed to mark him as born only to suffer and to perish I The suddenness of the change, which, at this interesting period, takes place, in many instances, in the whole character and mode of conduct of 95 * Lib. VII. proem. 96 the mother, is as remarkable as the force of the fondness itself. The affection, which the child requires, is not an affection of a passive sort; it is one which must watch and endure fatigues, and the privation of many ac- customed pleasures. But nature, who, in adaptation to the wants of the new animated being, has provided for it the food best suited for its little frame, by a change in the very bodily functions of the mother, has provided equally for that corresponding change, which is necessary ip the ma- ternal mind. " How common is it," says Dr. Reid, " to see a young woman, in the gayest period of life, who has spent her days in mirth, and her nights in profound sleep, without solicitude or care, all at once transformed into the careful, the solicitous, the watchful nurse of her dear infant, doing nothing by day but gazing upon it, and serving it in the meanest offices,-by night, depriving herself of sound sleep for months, that it may lie safe in her arms. Forgetful of herself, her whole care is centered in this little object.-Such a sudden transformation of her whole habits, and occupation, and turn of mind, if we did not see it every day, would appear a more wonderful metamorphose, than any that Ovid has de- scribed."* Such is that species of love, which constitutes parental affection,-an affection, however, that is not to fade, with the wants to which it wras so ne- cessary, but is to extend its regard, with delightful reciprocities of kindness, over the whole life of its object,-or rather is not to terminate with this mortal life, but only to begin then a new series of wishes, that extend them- selves through immortality. Affection is not a task that finishes, w7hen the work which it was to accomplish is done. The dead body of their child, over which the parents bend in anguish, is not to them a release from cares imposed on them. It auTakes in them, love not less, but more vivid. It speaks to them of him, who still exists to their remembrance, and their hope of future meeting, as be existed before, to all the happiness of mutual pre- sence. On their own bed of death, if he is the survivor, they have still some anxieties, even of this earth, for him. They look, with devout con- fidence, to that God, who is the happiness of those who are admitted, after the toils of life, to his divine presence; but they look to him also, as the happiness of those, whose earthly career is not yet accomplished,-the averter of perils, to which they can no longer be exposed,-the source of consolation in griefs, which they can no longer feel. The heaven, of which they think, is not the heaven, that is at the moment at which they ascend to it, but the heaven which is to be, when, at least, one other inhabitant is added to it. These are the delightful emotions of parental regard, which far more than repay every parental anxiety. But does the child enjoy their protect- ing influence, without any return of love? His little heart,-the heart of him, who is perhaps afterwards to have the same parental feelings,-is not so cold, and insensible. His love, indeed, has not the intensity of interest, -far less the reasoning foresight,-which distinguishes the zealous fondness of that unwearied gurdianship, on which he depends. But it is a reflection from the same blessed sunshine to his own delighted bosom. It is this, which in childhood, makes even obedience,-the most powerful, perhaps, of all things, when the reason of the command is not known,-almost as delightful, as the freedom which is restrained; and which in maturer life continues a I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING * On the Active Powers, Essay III. c. iv. NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 97 reverence, which the proud mind ot man refuses to every other created being. It is to the feeling of this sacred and paramount regard, that we are to trace the peculiar horror attached in every nation to parricide. Murder, indeed, "in "dvery form, is Ixtrrible to our concejfrion; but the murder of a {tarent is' a crime, of which we mark the tccurreace with the same astonish- ment, with which we mark and record some fearful prodigy of nature. The fraternal affection is, in truth, in its origin', only another form of that general susceptibility of friendship, with which nature has endowed us. We caprtot live long with any one, in the constant interchange of social dffltes, without forming an attachment, which is altogether independent of the expectation of the may arise from a continuance of the intercourse*;-and what"we feel for every other playmate, with whom we meet only occasionally, must surely be felt, stijl more, for thosd, who have partjikeh almost* of every pleasure, which we have enjoyed, since we en- tered into life, and who, in all the little adventures, of years that have rela- tively, as many,' or eyen more important incidents, than the years which are Occupied only with a few great projects, have been the companions of our toils, aud perils, anti successes. In the of fraternal friendship, too, mere Is tlje strong additional circumstance, that, in loving*a brother, we love one* who is depr io,those, to .whom our liveliest affections have been already given* We cSinnot love a friend, without taking some interest in \\hatever may befall the friends of our friends ; and we cannot lovq our parents, there- fore, without feeling scftne additidual'sympathy with whose happiness Ve know would be happiness to them, and whose distresses, misery. This reflection from our filial however, is But a in addition ; the grdat source of the fraternal regard, as I have already saitl, is in that general susceptibility of our nature, to which w*e owe all our friendships- that susceptibility, which has made bribers of mankind, at least of all the, nobler individual? of mankind,-though tfieir common passions* might seem to. oppose them in endless rivalries. same affection, which, in the nursery, attfacted its two little inhabitants, to look on the same objects,-to mix in the same sports,-to form the same plans,-not, indeed, for the next year of month,- but for the next hour or minute, is 'that, which, in a different period of life, augments, and perpetuates, and extends to others, the same feelings of social regard,-a regard, wfiich *" Push'd to social, to divine Gives thee to make thy neighbour's btcssing thine. Is this too little for thy boundless heart ? Extend it--let thy enemies have part. Grasp the whole Worlds of reason, Jife, and sense, In one close system of benevolerice-;- Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree, And height of bliss, butjieight of charity." Such is man,-the parent, the child, the brother, the citizen-the mem- ber of the great community of all who live. There is still another aspect, however, in which our susceptibilities of the emotions of love may be con- sidered;'and that which has, in common language, almost absorbed the name,-the affection which the sexes bear to each other-an affection, on which, in its mere physical relation to the preservation of the species, all * Essay on Man, Ep. IV. v. 353-360 Vol. IL 98 our other emotions may be said indirectly to depend, and of which the moral relations, that alone are to be considered by us, are as powerful, in their influence on the conduct, as they are general in their empire, and not more productive of hope or misery, than they are 'of virtue, or of vice,. In considering the influences of tlijs relation on human happiness, we are not to have regard merely to those emotions which are excited, in the indi- viduals who feel that exclusive delight in each other's society, and that reci- procal admiration and confidence, the charm of which the moral part pf what is called love. These feelings, indeed, are truly valuable in themselves, ps a part of the happiness of the world, and would still be most valuable,(even though go othej* beneficial influence were to flow from them. But, precious as they ape in this respect, we are not to regard them as ex- tending only to the individuals themselves, and beginning and ceasing with thqir enjoyments. The cbfef valyp of this relation js diffused over all man- kind. It is to be trftced in that character of refinement which it has givfen to society, and with which love extends its delightful add humanizing influence, even to those who may pass through life without feeling its more dire.ct and immediate charms. It, is, in this respect, like that sunshine, which even the blind enjoy, in the,warmth wlfich it produces, though they are incapable of distinguishing the light from which it flows. The system of gentler manners, once produced in this way, may diffuse the influence in a great degree, without a renewal of the cause, which gave rise to it;, and ydt, even at present, when men live long together, without much intercourse with the gebtler we are soon able to discover some proof, of the absence of that influence, which is not necessary only for raising mgn from savage life, but for saving him from relapsing into it. That dtp female character, however, may have its just influence, it is necessary Thqt the female character should be respectpd. When woman is valued, only, subservient to the animal pleasures of manner to the multipli- cation of his race, there may be as much fondness as is involved in sensual profligacy, there might be a dreadful mixture of momentary tenderness with habitual tyranny and servility; but this is not love, and therefore not the moral influence df love-not that equal and reciprocal communication of sen- timents and wishes, " When thought meets thought, ere from the lips it stprt, And each warm wish springs mutijal from the heart."* • " The empire of women," sayspn eloquent foreigner, " is not theirs because men have willed it, but because it is the will of nature. Miserable must be the age in which this empire is lost, and in which the judgments of women are counted as nothing by man. Every people in the ancient world, that'can be said to htive had morals, has respected the sex,-Sparta, Germany, Rome. At Rome, the exploits of the victorious generals were honoured by tfie'giate- ■ fid voices of the women; on every public calamity, their tears were a public offering to thef gods. In either case, their vow's and their sorrows were thus consecrated as thd indst solemn judgments of the state. It is to them, that all thb great revolutions of the republic are to be traced. By a woman, Rome acquired liberty,-by a woman, the Plebeians acquired the consulate',-by a woman, finished the decemviral tyranny,-by women", when the city was trembling with a vindictive exile at it? gates, it was saved from that destruc- tion which no other influence could avert. To onr eyes, indeed, accustomed to find in every thing some cause or pretence for mockery, a procession of I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING this sort might seem to present only a subject of derision ; and, in the altered state of manners of our capital, some cause of such a feeling might perhaps truly be found, in the different aspect of the procession itself. But compose it of Roman women, and you will have the eyes of every Volscian, and the heart of Coriolanus." In the whole progress of life, in its permanent connexion's, and* even 'in the casual intercourse of society, so much of conduct must have relation to the other sex, and be regulated, in a great measure, by the views which we have been led to form, with respect to them, that there is scarcely a subject on which just views seem to me of so much importance to gyoung and ingenuous mind. In such a mind, a respect for the excellencies of tvoman is, in its practical consequences,, almost another form of respect for virtue itself. In estimating the character of the other sex, we are too apt to measure ourselves with them, only in those respects, in which we arrogate an indis- putable superiority, and to forget the circumstances, from which chiefly that superiority is derived, if even there be as great a superiority as we suppose, in the respects in which we may, perhaps falsely, Jay claim to it. We think, iu such an estimate, not so much of the peculiar merits which they possess, as of peculiar merits which we flatter ourselves with the belief of possessing. We forget those tender virtues, which are so lovely in themselves, and to which we owe half the virtue of which we boast. We' forget thje compassion, which is so ready to sooth our sorrows, and without which, perhaps, to awaken and direct our pity toothers, we should scarcely have known.that the relief of misery was one of our duties, or rather one of the noblest privileges of our nature. We forget the patience, which bears so well every grief, but those which ourselves occasion, and whicli feels these deepest sorrows with intenser suffering, only from that value, above all other possessions, which is attached to our regard. We forget those-intellectual'graces, Which are the chief embellishment of our life, and which, shedding over it at once a gaiety and a tenderness,-which nothing else could diffuse, soften down the asperities of our harsher intellect. But, forgetting all these excellencies which are the excellencies of others, we are far from forgetting the'scholastic acquisitions of .anguages dr science, which seem td us doubly important, because they are our own-acquisitions thaf, in some distinguished instances, indeed, may'con- fer glory on the nature that is capable of them, but they, in many cases, leave no other effect on the mind, than-a pride of sex, which the inadequacy of these supposed means of paramount distinction*, should father have converted into respect for those, who, almost without study, or at lea§t, with far humbler opportunities, have learned from their own hearts what is virtuous, and from their own genius, whatever is most important to'be known. Even with respett to those studies, which we'have reserved. almost as an exclusive privilege of our sex, we should'remember, that the privation, on the part of woman, is a sacrifice that is made,to a system of general manners, which, whether truly essential or not, we have at least chosen to regard as essential to our happiness. We impose on them duties, that are, perhaps, incompatible with severe study-we require of them the highest excellence in many elegarft arts,-to excel in which, if xve too were to attempt it, would be the labour of half our life-*we require of them even the charm of a sort of delicate ignorance, as if ignorance itself were a grace ;-and then, with most inconsistent severity, we affect to regard them with contempt, be- cause they have fulfilled the very duties imposed on them, and have charmed NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 99 100 us with all the excellencies, and perhaps, too, with some of the defects, which we required. If they err, in being as ignorant of the choral prosody of the Greeks, and of the fluxionary calculus of the moderns, as the greater number even of the well-educated of bur own sex,-let us at least p,How. them, the privilege of speaking of anaptests and infinitesimals, without forfeiting, our re gard,'-before we smile at ignorance, which ourselves have produced, and which, if we could remove with a wish, there are few, perhaps, even of those who affect to despise it, who would not tremble at the comparative light in which they*vwnild themselves have to appear. In the course of your life, you must often mingle with the frivolous of our own. sex, who knowing little more, know at least,, and repeat as jheir-only literature, some of the trite traditionary sarcasms, which have been tediously repeated against ;-though they have had do difficulty in forgetting the far more numerous sarcasms, wluch even men have pointed agaipst the vices of men. But, though minds, which women would despise and blush to resemble may speak contemptuously of excellence, which they cannot hope to equaj,-it is only from the contemptible, in such a case, that you will hear the expression of contempt; «and the. real or affected disdain of such minds, is, perhaps, not less glorious to the character of the sex which they deride, than the respect, which that character never fails to obtain, fi;om those who alone are qualified to. appreciate it, and* whose admiration.alotfe is honour. To the dissolute, indped, who are fond of associating with the lowest of the sex, and who, in their conception of female excellence, can form no brighter pictures in their mind, thart of the inmates of a brothel, or of those whom a brothel-might admit as its inmates,-woman may seem a being like them- selves, and be a subject of insulting mockery, in the coarse. laughter dnd drunkenness,of the feast; but themockery, in such a case, is descriptive of the life and habits of the deriders, more than the derided. It is not so much die expression of contempt, as die confession of vice. The respect, which he feels for tine virtues of vtoman, may thus be con- sidered almost as a test of the virtues of man. He is, and must be, in.a great measure, what he wishes the companions of his domestic .hours to be-noble if he wish them to be dignified-frivolous, if he wish them to be triflers-and far more abject than the victims of his capricious favour, if, with the power of enjoying their free qnd lasting affection, he. would yet sacrifice whatever love has most delightful, and condemn them to a slavery, of the dismal and dreary influence of which he is himself to be the slave. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING LECTURE LXI. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEEL- ING-2. LOVE AND HATE CONCLUDED.-3. SYMPATHY WITH THE HAPPINESS AND SORROW OF OTHERS. In my last Lecture, gentlemen, I considered the various affections com- prehended under the general names of love and hatred, both with respect to their nature, as emotions, and to the relations which they bear to the happi- ness of man, and consequently to the provident benevolence of that Mighty Being, who has created us to be happy,-who, in rendering us susceptible of these opposite emotions, has'not merely blessed us, but protected also the very blessings which he gave, bestowing on us the kind affections, as the source of our enjoyment, and the affections of hatred, as our security against aggression. Of the benevolent affectiohs, m the first place, we saw how largely they contribute to happiness, by the pleasure; which they directly yield, and, still more, by the pleasure which they diffuse over every other enjoyment, or with which tl>ey temper even affliction itself, till it almost cease to be an evil. The most sensual, who despise the pleasures of the understanding, and those de- lights, which have been so truly called " the luxury of doing good," must still, in their petty krxuries, have an affection of some sort, or at least the semblance of affection, to- diffuse over their indulgences, the chief part of the little pleasure which they seem to yield. To give a taste to their costly food, they must collect smiles around the' table, even though there he at the heart a sad conviction, that the smiles are only tli£ mimicry of kindness. So essen- tial, however, is kindness to, happiness, that even this very mimicry of it is more than can be abandoned.; and if all the gay faces of the guests around the festive board could,'in an instant, be concerted into statues, in that very instant the delight of him, who spread the magnificence {or the of others, and caught a sort of shadowy gaiety frpm that cheerfulness, which hid at least the appearance of social regard, would cease, as if he, too, had lost even the common sensibilities of life. Ho would still see, on every .side, attendants to obey a word, or a very look,-the same luxlmious would be before him, but thefe would no longer be the same appetite,,that could fpel tlumi to he luxuries; and the enjoyment received,-if any.enjoyment wcrcVeceived,-would be" far less than that otf tho labourer, in his coarser meal, when there-is only simple fare upon the boards but affection in every heart that is round it, and social gladness irr every eye. So (consolatory is regard, end so-tranquillizing, in all ths agitations of life, except the very horrors of guilty passioh, and the remorse by which these are pursued, that he who has one heart to share his affliction, though he may still hay$ filings to which we must continue to Vive the name of sorrow, cannot be miserable; while he wjto has no heart, that wqfuld care whether be were«suffering or enjoying, alive or dead,-and who has himself no regard to the suffering or enjoyment even of a single individual, may be rich, indeed, in the external means of happiness, but.lie cannot be rich in hp.ppin.ess, which external things may promote,-butnre as little capable of producing, as the incense on the altar of giving out its -aromatic odours, where there is no warmth to kindle it into fragrance. The blind possessor of some ample in- heritance, who is led through groves and over lawns, where he sees no part of that .loveliness, which every other eye is so quick to perceive, and who, as he walks in darkness amid the brightest colours of nature, has merely the pleasure of thinking, that whatever his foot has pressed is his own,-enjoys his splendid domains, with a gratification very nearly similar to that of the haughty lord of possessions, perhaps, still more ample, who, without any mere visual info'mity, is able to walk, unled, amid his own groves and lawns, which he measures with a cold and selfish eye, but who walks among them unloving and unloved, blind to all that sunshine of the heart, which is for ever diffusing, even on earth, a celestial loveliness,-a loveliness, to which there are hearts NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 101 102 I. BIMEDIATE EMOTIONS. INVOLVING and spirits, as insensible as there are eyes, that are incapable of distinguishing the common radiance of Heaven. " Poor is the friendless master of a world," it has been truly said, and there is, perhaps, no rtirse so dreadful as that which would render man wholly insensible of affection, even though it were to leave him all the cumbrous wealth of a thousand empires : " Viyat Pactw iuS quaes©, vej. Nestors totnm, Possrdeat quantum rapuit, Nero, merilibus aurum Exaaquet-nee amet qttenqyam, nec ametur Sb ullo!'" It is a bold but a happy expression of St. Bernard, illustrative of the power of affection*-that the soul, or the principle»of life, within us, may be more truly said to exist, when it loves, than when it merely animates. "Anima magis est ubj atnat, quam ubi The be'nevolent affections expand and multiply our being,-they make us live with*as many souls as there are living objects of our love', and in this diffusion of more than wishes, confer upon a single individual, tlie happiness vof the World. If there be any one, whose high station, and honour, and power appear to us covetable, ambition will. tell us to labour, and to watch,'and to think neither c/f the happiness nor unhappiness of others, or at least to think o£'tbem only as instruments of our exaltation, till we arrive, at last, at equal or superior dig- nity. This it will tel] us loudly ; and, to some minds, it will whisper, that there arfe means of speedier advancement, that they have only to sacrifice a few virtues, or assume a few vices, to deceive, and defame, and betray,- or that, if they cannot rise themselves, by these means, they can at least bring down to their own' level, or beneath if, the merit that is odious to them. The dignity which we thus covet, and for the attainment of which, Ambition would urge us to so many anxieties and struggles, and perhaps, too, to so much guilt, nature confers qn us, by a much more simple process, find a process which, far from leading into vice, is itself the exercise of virtue. She has only to give us a sincere and lively friendship for him who possesses it; and all his enjoyments are ours. Our soul, to use St. Bernard's phrase, exists when it loves; and it exists, in all the enjoyments, of him whom it loves. If the benevolent affections be so important, as sources of happiness, the malevolent affections, we found, were not less important parts of our mental constitution, as the defence of happiness against the injustice which otherwise would every moment be invading it;-the emotions of the indi- vidual injured, being to the injurer- a certainly, that his crime will not be without one interested in avengiug it; and the united emotions of mankind, as concurring with this individual interest of retribution, being almost the certainty of vengeance itself. If vice can perform these ravages in the moral world, which we see at present,-what would have been the desola- tion, if there had been no motives of terror, to restrain the guilty arm,-if frauds and oppressions, which now work in secret, could have come boldly forth into the great community of mankind,' secure of approbation in every eye, or at least of no look bf abhorrence, or shuddering at their very approach. It is because man is rendered capable of hatred, that crimes, which escape the law and the judge, have their punishment in the terror of the guilty. " Fortune," it has been truly said, " frees many from vengeance, but it cannot free them from fear,-it cannot free them from the knowledge * Juvenal, Sat. xii. V. 128-130. NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 103 of that general disgust and scorn, which nature has so deeply fixed in all mankind, for the .crimes which they have perpetrated. Amid the security of a thousand concealments, they cannot think themselves sufficiently con- cealed froip that hatred, which is ever ready to burst upon them; for con- science is still with them, like a treacherous informer, pointing them out to themselves."-" Multos fortuna pa?na liberat, metu neminem. Quare? quia infixa'nobis ejus rei aversatfo 'est, quam natura damnavit. • Ideo namqtram fides latendi fit, etiam laten'tibus, quia coarguil illos conscientia, et ipsos sibi ostendit."* The emotions, to wljich I am pext tp, direct your attention, are thosb, by which, instantly, as if sort <jf contagion, we becoine partakers of the vivid feelings of others, whether pleasing or painful. They are general affections pf sympathy, a term, which expresses tin's participation of both species of feelings, though, in common language, it is usually applied, rfiore particularly to 'the interest which wq take in sorrow. By some philosophers, indeed, we have been #aid to be incapable of this participation, except of feelings of that sadder kind;-though the denial of this sympathy .with happiness-a denial so unfavourable qnd so false to the social nature of man,-is surely the result only'bf narrow views, and imperfect analysis. Nor is it difficult to discover the circumstances,which have tended to mis- lead them. The sttite of happiness is a state, which we are so desirous of feeling, and so readily affect to feel, even wherf we truly feel it not, that our participation of it less remarkable, being merely in the same vvay, as the common courtesies of society require us to express.our- selves, even when we are feeling no peculiar satisfaction. If the fece must, at any rate, be dressed in smiles at meeting* aad retain a-certiiin number of these smiles with an occasional smile more or less, according to the turn of the conversation, during the whole of a long interview, the real complacency which is felt in the pleasures of others, is not naitrked, becatise the air of complacehcy had been assumed before. All this is so well understood, in that state of strange simulation, jind dissimulation, which constitutes artificial politeness, that a smile of welcome is as little considered to be a certain evidence of gratification .at heart, as tne common form#of humility, which close a letter of business, ate understood to signify truly, that the writer is the very humble and most obedient servant of him to whom the letter is ad- dressed. Joy, then,-that is to'shy, thp appearance of joy,-maybe re- garded as the common dress of society, and real complacency is thus as little remarkable, as a well-fashioned coat in a drawing room. Let us con- ceive a single ragged coat to appear in the brilli'ant circle, and all eyes will be instantly fixed on it. Even Beauty itself, till the buzz of astonishment is over, will, for thp moment, scarcely attract a sjngle ghze, of Wit a single listener. Such with respect to tile general dress of the social mind, is grief. It is something, for the very appearance of which we are not prepared. A face of smiles is whgt we lyeet constantly ; a face of sorrow, the fixed and serious look, the low, or faltering toife, .the very silence, the tear,-are foreign, as it to,the outward scene of things in which we exist. We see evidence, in this case; that something has happened, to change the-gene- ral aspect; while the look, and the voice of gaiety, asthey are the look and the voice of every hour, indicates to us only the presence of the individual, * Seneca, Epist. 97 and not any peculiar affection of his mind. It is not wonderful, there- fore, that the appearance of grief, as the more unusual of the two, sliouTd absorb to itself, in common language, a name, t which .may originally have been significant alike of the participation of grief and joy. It must be re- membered, too, that joy, though delighting in sympathy, does hot stand hi need of this sympathy, so ninth as sorrow. In diffusing we seem rather to.give to others, than to receivje; while, in the synfpathy of grief, which we .excite, we feel every look and tone of kindred a? so much given to us. It is, as iftve were lightened df a part of ourrburlhen ; and we cannot feel the relief, witfiobt feeling gratitude to the Compassionate heart, that has lessened our affliction, by dividing it with us. It is not merely, therefore,*because the appearancb*of grtei is more unushal, that we have affixed to this appearance a peculiar language, or at least apply to if more readily the terms, that are significant also of appearances,--but, in some degree, also, because the sympathy of those who sorrow with us, istif far more value, than the sympathy of those who merely share our rejoicing, and therefore dwells more reaffily and Jestingly in our'remembrance. It is not more true, however, that we, weejy v'ith those who weep, than that we rejoice with those who rejoice,. There is a charm in general glad- ness, that steals upon us without our perceiving it; and, if we have no of sorrow, it is sufficient for our momentary happiness, that we be t in the company of'the happy. Who is therewof such fixbd melancholy, as'not to have felt, innumerable times, this delight that arises, without any cause, but the delight which has preceded it; whqp we are happy for hours, and on looking back dn these hours of happiness, can discover nothing, but our own happiness, and the happiness of others, which Jiave been reflected back*, and again, from each. So strpng is this sympathetic tendency, jhat we not merely share the gaietVxif the gay, but rejoice also with inanimate things, to which V-e have given a cheerfulness, that does not, and cannot* be- long to them. There are, in the changeful aspects of nature, sb many .analogies to the emotions of living beings, that in animating poetically', what exhibits to usjhese analogies, we scarcely feel, .till we reflect, that wo are using metaphors; and that the'clear and sunny sky, for kcxample, is as little cheerful, as that atmosphere of fogs* arid darkness, through which ihe sun shines only enough to show us,.how thick tlie gloom must be, wfiich has resisted all the penetrating splendours of his beams. Wficn nature i$ thus once animated by us, it is not wonderful* if we sympathize with the.living, that we should, for the moment,' sympathize with it too, as with * spine' living thing. It is this sympathy, with a cheerfulness which we have our- selves created, that constitutes a great part of thfit " nioral delight and joy," which is so well described, as " able to drive all sadness but despair." In the poem of The Seaspns, accordingly, the influence of Spring is, with not less truth than.poetic beauty, supposed to be felt chiefly by those, "whose moral sympathies are the most lively. 104 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING " When Heaven and Earth, as if contending, vie To raise his being, and serene his soul, Can man forbear to join the general spiile Of Nature ?-Can fierce passions vex his breast, When every gale is peace, and every grove Is melody ?-Hence from the bounteous walks Of flowery Spring, ye sordid sons of earth, Hard and unfeeling of another's woe NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 105 Or only lavish to yourselves:-away - But coiAe, ye minds, in whose wide thought Of all his works, creative Bounty barns With warmest beam ; and on your open front, And liberal eye,.sits,-from his dark retreat, Invoking -modest Want.-Nor, till invoked, Can restless Goodness wait.; youy active search Leaves no cold wintry corner unexplored,; Like silent-working Heaven, surprising oft The lonely heart with unexpected good. Fer you the roving spirit of thdvfhid Blows Syring abroad : for you the teeming douds Descend in gladsotye' plenty o'er tha world ;- And the Sun sheds his kindest rays for you, Ye floWer»of human race? In these'green days, Reviving sickness lifts her languid head, « , Life flows afresh, and young-eyed Health exalts • The whole creation rotund. Contentment walks The sunny glade, and feels an inward bliss Spring o'er his mind, boyond*the power of kipgs To purchase. Pure serenity apace* Induces thought, and contemplation still. ' By swift decrees, the love of Nltuce works And warms the boscyn : till at last, sublimed To raptqre, and enthusiastic heat, We fbelihe present Deityy and taste The joy of God, and see a happy world."* In the very pleasing Ode to May, which forms one of the few relics of the geniugof West, there is a thought, in accordance with this general sym- pathy of nature, which expresses, with great foroe, that animating influence of which I speak. After invoking the tardy May to resume her reign, " With balmy breath and flowery tread, , Rise from thy soft ambrosial bed, Where, in Elysian slumber bound, Embowering myrtles veil thee round," he describes the impatience of dll nature for her accustomed presence, and concludes with an image, which.his friend Gray justly termed "bold,' but not too bold,"- " Come then, with Pleasure at thy side, Diffuse .thy vernal spirit wide; Create, where'er thou turn'st thine eye, Peace, plenty, love, and harmony ;- Till every being shdre its part, Till heaven and earth be glad at heart."! In a fine morning of that delightful season, amid sunshine and fragrance, and the thousand voices of joy,, that make the air one universal song of rap- ture, who is there that does not feel, as if heaven and earth were truly glad . at heart, and who does not sympathize with as if with some living being diffusing happiness, and rejoicing in the happiness which it diffuses ? • f • * • We sympathize, then, even with the imaginary cheerfulness, which ourselves create in things, that are as incapable of cheerfulness, as of sorrow; and still * V. 866-900. * . . • 1 Stanza ii. v. 3-6, and stanza v. preserved in Letter V. of Sect. iii. of Memoirs of Gray. '-MATTHIAS' edit. • '• * - • ■ < * ' Vol. II. 106 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING more do we sympathize with living gladness, when it does not arise from a cause so disproportioned to die violence of the emotion, as to force us to pause and meftSure the absmility. 1 have already said, that we seem to sympathize less with the pleasures of others, than wp truly do; because the real sympathy is lost in .that constant, air of cheerfulness, which it is a part of good manners to assume. If the? laws of politeness required of us to as- sume, in society, an appearance of stidness as they now require from us an appearance of some slight degree of gaiety, or, at least, of a disposition to be gay, it is probable, that we should'then remark any sympathy with glad- ness, as we now remark particularly any tympathy with sorrow; and we should certainly, then, use the general name, to express the former of these, as the mok'e extraordinary,-in. the same way, as we now use it particularly to express the feelings of commiseration. Whatever may be the comparative tendencies of our nature, however, to the participation of the gay and sad-emotions of those around us, there can be no doubt as to the double tendency. We rejoice with those whp rejoice, merely because'they pre rejoicing;-and, without any misfortune of our own, we fee] a sadness, at the very fispect of affliction in those around us, and shrink and shudder, on the application to them of any cause of pain, which we know cannot reach ourselves. Many of the phenomena of sympathy, I have little doubt, are referable to the laws, to which we have traced the common phenomena of suggestion or association. It may be considered as a necessary consequence of these very laws, that the sight of any of the common symbols of internal feeling, should recall to us the feeling itself,' in'the same way as a poi trait or rather, as the alphabetic name of our friend, recalls to us the conception of our friend himself. Some faint and shadowy sadness we undoubtedly should feel, therefore, when the external signs pf sadness were before us,-some greater cheerfulness on the appearance of cheerfulness in others,-even though we had no peculiar susceptibility of sympathizing emotion, distinct from the mere general tendencies of suggestion. To these general tenden- cies, I am inclined, particularly, to refer the external involuntary signs of our sympathy,-the shrinking of our own limbs, for example, when we see the knife in any surgictil operation, about to be applied to the limb of another,-the contortions of body with which the mob regard the feats of a rope-dancer, when they throw themselves into the postures that would be necessary for counteracting their own tendency to fall, if they were in the situation ob- served by them. Whatever state of mind, in the direction of our muscular movements, may be necessary for producing these instant postures, is asso- ciated with the feeling of peril, which the mind would have in the situation observed; and this feeling is suggested by the attitude in others, that may be considered as an external sign of the feeling. That the mere conception, is sufficient for producing these muscular movements, without the actual pre- sence of any one with whose movements our own may be thought to accord, by some mysterious harmony, is shown by'cases, in which ethereal communi- cations, and vibrations, and every foreign cause of sympathy that can be imagined by the most extravagant lover of hypothesis, must be allowed to be absent, because there is no foreign object of sympathy whatever; in which we may be said, almost without absurdity, to sympathize with our- selves-when we shudder, indeed, as if sympathizing, but shudder at a mere thought. Thus, in looking down from a precipice, we shrink back as we ' NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. gaze on the dreadful abyss which would receive us if we were to make a single false step, or if the crumbling soil trn which we tread were to betray our footing. The notion of our fall is readily suggested by the aspect of the abyss, and of the narrow spot which separates us from- it,-this notion of our fall, of course, suggests the feelings which would arise at such a dread- ful moment; and these again produce, hrthe same manner, that consecutive state of mind, whatever it mhy be, on which the fiodily movements of shrink- ing depend. We first have the simple conception of the fall,-we then have, in some degree, the feelings that would attend the beginning to fall,- we then, having this lively image of peril, shrink back to save .ourselves-from that which seems Jlo us more real, because in harnfony with the whole scene of terror before us, which presents to us the -same aspect that would be pre- sent to us, if what we merely imagined were actually at that very moment taking place. Such is the series of phenomena that produce one of the most uneasy states in which the mind can exist; a £tate, which I may sup- pose you all to have experienced in some degree, before the repetition of these giddy views, with impunity, hgs counteracted the giddiness itself, by rendering the feeling of security so habitual, as to rise instantly, and be a constant part of the whole complex state of mind. But, though I conceive that a great part of what is called sympathy, is truly referable to the common laws of suggettion, that, by producing certain conceptions, produce also, indirectly, the emotions,that are consequent on these,-and, though it is possible that not the chief part only, but the whole, may flow from these simple laws-, I am far from asserting that all its phe- nomena depend upon these alone. On the contrary, I am inclined to think, that there is a peculiar susceptibility qf this reflex motion in,certain minds, by which, even when the laws of suggestion, and the consequent images which rise to the mind, are similar, the sympathy, as a subsequent emotioft, is more or less vivid; since there'is no particular law of suggestion, unless we form one for this particular case, the force of which, in any greater degree, *seems to accompany, with equal and corresponding proportion, the more lively compassion ; but our sympathies are stronger and weaker, with all possible varieties of suggestion, in every other respect. It would be vain, however, if there truly be such a peculiar susceptibility, to attempt any nicer inquiry, in the hope of discovering original elements, which are obviously beyond the power of our analysis, or of fixing the precise point, at which the influence of ordinary suggestion ceases, and the influence of wrhat is peculiar in the tendency to sympathy, if there be any peculiar influence, begins. One most important distinction, however, it is necessary to make, to save you from an error, into which the use of a single term for two successive feelings, and I may add, the general imperfect analysis of philosophers, might otherwise lead you. What is commonly termed pity, or compassion, or sympathy, even when the circumstances which merely lead to the sympathy, are deducted from the emotion itself, is not one simple state, but two successive states of mind, the feeling of the sorrow of others, and the desire of relieving it. The former of these is that which leads me to rank pity as an immediate emotion,-the latter, which is a separate affection of the mind, subsequent to the other, and easily distinguished from it, we should rank, if it were to be considered alone, with our other desires, which, in like manner, arise from some view of good to be attained, or of evil to be removed. 107 108 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING After this analysis of the emotion of pity into its constituent elements, a lively feeling participant of the sorrow of others, and the desire of relief to that sorrow, a desire, which, in the same circumstances, may be greater or less, as the mind is more benevolent, it can scarcely fail to occur to you, that the first of these elements is, as mere grief, aq e/hotion of the same species with the primary grief with which we are said to sympathize, or with any other gridf which we are capable of feeling,-a form, in short, of that general sad- ness which has been already considered by us. And, as a mere slate or affection oi the mind, considered .without regai'4 to the circumstances which produce it, or the circumstances which .follow it, I confess, that there does not seem to me any thing peculiar in the grief itself, of pity, when separated, by such an analysis, from all thought of the primary sufferer, whose sorrow we feel to have been reflected on* us* and from die consequent desire of affording him aid. But, though the elementary feeling.itself may be similar,-- the circumstances in which it arises, and the circumstances which accompany it, when, without any direct cause of pain, we yet. catch pain, as it were, by a sort of contagious sensibility, from the mere violence of anguish, are of so very peculiar a kind, that, I have not hesitated to give to this suscepti- bility of sympathetic feeling a distinct place in our arrangement; for die same reason, as in- our systems of physics, we refer to different physical powers, and, therefore, to different parts of our system, thesame apparent motions of bodies, when these motions, though in themselves apparently t he same which might be produced, by other causes, are the results of causes that are in their owp nature strikingly different. Pity, however complex the state of mind may be which jt expresses, is one of the most interesting of all the states in which the mind pan exist, and affords itself an example of the .advantage of treating our emotions as complex rather than elementary,--an advantage which fed me to forqi that particular-arrangement of our emotions, in the order of which they have been submitted to your consideration,--when, if the mere elements hgd boon all that were submitted to you, you would perhaps have been little able to distinguish in them the familiar complex states of mind, which alone you have been aceustomed to distinguish as emotions. Even that primary feeling of sympathy $ which is*a mere participation of the sufferings of another, it may perhaps be thought, is only a form of the affections of love before considered by us, since there can be no lore without a participation of the sorrows and joys of the object beloved.- But these sympathies'are emotions arising from love, not the mere regard itself. *. We must hot forget that the word love is often employed, very vaguely, to si&nify. not the mere affections of mind which constitute the vivid feelings of regard, but every affection of mind that has any reference to the object of this regard. We give the name of love in this way, to the whole successive states of mind of the lover, as if love were something diffused in them all; but this, though a convenient expression, is,still a vague one; and the emotions are not the less .different, in themselves, for being- comprehended in a single word. The emotion of sympathy is still -different from the simple feeling of affection, even whan the object-of our sympathy is truly the object of our love. It may have arisen from it, indeed, but it is not the same, as that feeling of warm regard from winch, in £uc{i a case, it arose. So different is the mere sympathy from simple love, that it takes place when there is no actual love whatever, but, on the contrary, positive dislike or abhorrence. Let us imagine not one atrocious crime only, but many NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. crimes the most atrocious, to have been committed by ajj individual; and let us then suppose him stretched upon the rack, every limb torn, and every fibre quivering. Let us imagine, that we hear tire heavy fall of that instrument, by whiclx bone after bone is slowly broken,-dividing with dreadful intervals, the groans of the victim, that cease at the moment at winch the new stroke is expected, and afterwards rise again instantly in more dreadful anguish, to cease only when another more agonizing stroke is.again on the point of- falling, or when the milder agony of. death overwhelms at once the suffering and die sufferer. Does our hatred of the criminal save qs even from die slightest uneasiness at what we see and hear ?. Do we feel no dold shudder- ing at ths sound of the worse than deadly blow ? no terror, increasing into agony at die moment when it we expected fall again ?, It is enough for us that there is hgotiy before our Without loving the 'suf- ferer,-for diough the feelings that oppress us, may not allow us to think of his atrocities at the moment, they certainly do not him with any amia- ble qualities, except that, of being miserable,-we feql for him it is impos- sible for us not to feel for any-living thing that is in equal anguish. We should feel diis,-if die anguishbe of a kind that forces itself qpon our senses in ail its dreadful reality,-though his crimes were whispered to us every moment; and when he dies mangled and groaning before us, if we were forced to inflict another stroke with our own hands, that was to break tire last .unbroken limb, or to receive the blow ourselves, it is not easy to say from which alternative we should shrink with a more frightful and sickly loathing. In all this, nature has consulted well. If our sympathy had been made to depend on our moral approbation, it would rise in nqaiiy cases too late, to be of profit. We are men ; and nothing which pian can feel is foreign to us. The- friend of the Self-tormentor in Terence's comedy, when he uttered these memorable words, which have been so often quoted, "Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto,"*-expressed only what the Author of our being has fixed, in some degree, in every heart, and which is as.much a part of the mental constitution of the virtuous, as their powers of memory and reason. ■*,* * . • t * . . * * . ■ » If compassion were to. arise only after we had ascertained the moral cha- racter of the sufferer, and weighed alf tire consequences of good and evil which might result to society from the relief which it is in our power to offer, who would rush to the preservation of the drowning mariner, to the succour of the wounded, to the aid of him who calls for help against the ruffians who are assailing him ? Our powers of giving assistance have bepn better accom- modated to the necessities which may be relieved by them. By the principle of compassion within us, we are benefactors almost without willing it;-we have already done the deed, when, if deliberation, had been necessary as a previous step, we should not have proceeded far in the calculation which was to determine, by a due. equipoise of opposite circumstances, the propriety of the relief. Even in the case of our happier feelings, it is not a slight advantage, that Nature has made the sight of joy productive of joy to him who merely beholds it. Men are to mingle in society ; and they bring into society affections of mind that are almost infinitely various,-hopes and fears, joy and sadness, projects and passions, far more contrasted, than their mere external varieties of form and colour. If these internal diversities of feeling were to continue 109 * Actus I.'Scena i. v. 25, 110 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING as they are, what delight could society afford? The opposition would render the company of each a burden to the other. The gay would fly from the sullen gloom of the melancholy ; the melancholy would shrink from a mirth which they could not partake, and which would throw them back upon their own sorrows with a deeper intensity of grief. Such is the confusion which society of itself would present. But the same Power, which formed this beautiful system of the universe out of chaos, reduces to equal regularity and beauty this and every other confusion of the moral world. By the mere principle of sympathy, all the discord in the- social feelings becomes accord- ant. The sad unconsciously become gay; the gay are softened into a joy, that has less perhaps of mirth, but not less of delight; and though there is still a diversity of cheerfulness, all is cheerfulness,-as in a concert of many instruments, in which, though we are still'able to distinguish each instrument from the others, and though the simple tones of each may be various, there is still one universal harniony that seems to animate the whole, like the presence, and the voicp of inspiration of the celestial power of Music herself. But if the bounty of our Creator be shown, in the provision which he has made for diffusing to many the joy which is felt by one, how much more ad- mirable is the providence of his bounty, in that instant diffusion to others of the grief which is felt only by one, that makes the relief of this suffering not a duty merely, which we coldly perform, but- a want which is almost like the necessity of some moral appetite! Every individual has thus the aid of all the powers of every other individual. When some wretch is found lying bleeding on the common street, all who see him run to his assistance, as if their own immediate ease depended on their speed. The t|ged, the infirm, mix in the mob, with an interest as eager as if they were able to join in the common aid; the very child stops as he passes, and cannot resume hissport, till he has followed, with the crowd, the half insensible object of so many cares to a plabe where surer relief may be procured. When, in a storm, some human being is seen, in the distant turf, clinging to a plank, that is some- times driven nearer the shore and sometimes carried further off, sometimes buried in the surge and then rising again, as if itself struggling, like the half- hopeless wretch whom it supports, that looks sadly to the shore as he rises from every wave,-has nature abandoned the sufferer with aid ? Is he to find no one who will make at least an effort to save a human being that is on the point of perishing? He is not so abandoned. Nature has provided a deliverence for.him in the bosom of every spectator. There are courageous hearts and strong hands, that, in the very peril of an equal fate, will rush to .iis succour, and that in laying him in safety on that soil, which he despaired of treading again, will feel only the joy of having delivered a human being, whose name and whose very existence were unknown to them before. LECTURE LXIL I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, NECESSARILY INVOLVING SOME MORAL EMO- TION-3. SYMPATHY, CONCLUDED-4. PRIDE AND HUMILITY. Gentlemen, my last Lecture was employed in considering that principle of our nature,-whether original, or the result of other principles,-by which, NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 111 without any accession of advantage to ourselves, or any misfortune that can affect our own immediate interest, we enter into the happiness or the sorrows of others, as if they were our own. '* The reality of this species of ever-changing transmigration, by which, not after death merely, but during every successive hour of our waking existence, we pass, as it were, from one form of being to another, as the joys or sorrows of different individuals present themsefves to our view, I traced and illustrated with various examples. Of the gladdening influence of sympathy, we found sufficient proof in the cheerfulness which the society of the cheerful naturally diffuses on all who come within the circle of their gaiety,-an euchantipent as powerful, as that by which the magician was supposed to change, at his will, the passions of all those who entered within the circle to which his influence extended. Even the melancholy, who began at first by striving, perhaps painfully, to assume an appearance, not of the mirth, indeed, which was before them, but it least of a serenity which might not be absolutely discordant with it, at last yield un- consciously to the fascination ; and, when a sigh sometimes comes upon them, and forces them to pause, are astonished to look back, and to find that they have been happy. Of the saddening influence of sympathy, the whole-phenomena of pity fur- nish abundant evidence,-when the mere sight of grief, far from leading us to fly from a disagreeable object, leads us to form with it for the time the closest union. Our sympathy identifies us with the sufferer with an influence so irresistible, that it would be impossible for us to feel even rapture itself, if amid all possible objects of delight, there were only a single being in agony, that turned nis eye on ours, even though it were without a groan, as he sank beneath the lash, or writhed upon the wheel. The advantages that arise from this constitution of our nature, we found to be not unimportant in the diffusion and participation even of our gayer feel- ings ; since those who mingle in society are thus brought nearer to one gene- ral temper, and enjoy, consequently, an intercourse which could afford little delight if each retained his own particular emotions, that might be in absolute opposition to the emotions of those around. But ij was chiefly in the other class of. feelings that we fouqd its inestimable benefits, in that instant partici- pation of grief, and consequent eagerness to relieve it, which procures for the sufferer assistance in situations in which he is incapable even of imploring aid ; which makes friendlessness itself a claim to more general friendship ; and which, in any accident that befalls, the obscurest individual, interests in his fate whole multitudes, to whom, before the accident, he was unknown, or an object of indifference. If, at midnight, in a crowded city, a bouse were ob- served to be in flames, and at some high window, beyond the reach of any succour which could be given, were seen by. glimpses, through the darkness and the gloomy light that flashed across it, some unfortunate being, irresolute whether to leap down the dreadful height,-seeming at one moment on the point of making the attempt, and then, after repeated trials, shrinking back at last into the-flames that burst .over him ; with what lively emotions of interest would he be viewed by the whole crowd, in which there would not be an eye that would not be fixed upon him ! What agitation of hopes and fears, and what shrieks of many voices at -the last dreadful moment 1 It would truly seem, in such a case, as if, in the peril of a single human being, the whole multitude that gazed on him were threatened with destruction, from which 112 his escape, if escape were possible, vas to be the pledge, and the only pledge, of safety to all. . • '. ' - The emotions, next to be considered by us, are those of pride. vrt&*hwmlity -the vivid feelings of joy or sadness, which attend the contemplation of our- seltes, when we regard our superiority or inferiority, in rtny qualities of inirid or body, dr in the external Circumstance's in which we may be placed. Pride find humility, therefore, always imply sdmd comparison. We Can as little be proud, without the consideration of an inferior, as we can be taller in stature, without some one who is shorter;-unless when, by a sort of indi- rect comparison, we measure* ourselves with ourselves, in the present and the past, and feel" a delightful-emotion, as we look back on the progress which we have made. When I define pride, to be that emotion, which attends the contemplation of our excellence. I must be understood, as limiting the phrase to the single emotion, that immediately follows the contemplation. The feeing of our ex- cellence, may give rise directly or indirectly, to various other affections of the mind. It may lead us, to impress' others, as much as possible, with our superiority-which we may do in two ways, by presenting to them, at every moment, some proofs of our advantages, mental, bodily, or in the gifts of for- tune ; or by bringing to their mind, directly, their inferiority, by the scorn with which we treat them. The former of these modes of conduct, in which we studiously bring forward any real or supposed advantages which we pos- sess, is what is Commonly termed vanity,-the latter, in which we wish to make more directly felt, the real or supposed comparative meanness of these, is what is commonly termed haughtiness .• but both, though they may arise from our mere comparison of oufselves and others, and our consequent feeling of superiority, are the results of pride, not the pride itself. We may have the internal emotion, which is all that is truly* pride, together with too much sense to seek the-gratification of our by any childish display of excellencies, substantial or frivolous : since, however desirous we may be that thes,e advantages should be known, we may have the certainty, that they could not be made known by ourselves, without the risk of our appearing ridiculous. In like manner, we may be, internally, very full of our own importance', and yet too desirous of the good opinion, even of our inferiors, to treat them with the scorn which we feel, or, to make a more pleasing supposition, too humanely considerate of their uneasiness, to shock them, by forcing on them the painful feeling of their inferiority, however gratifying our felt superiority may be to ourselves. Vanity, then, and haugh- tiness, are not to be confounded with the simple pride, which leads to them, in some minds, but which may exist, and exist as readily without them, as with them. The mere pleasure of excellence attained,-thus separated from the vanity or haughtiness, that would lead to any ridiculous or cruel display of it,-in- volves nothing which is actually worthy of censure,-if the superiority be not in circumstances,that are frivolous,-still less in circumstances that, although sanctioned by the fashion of the times, imply demerit rather than merit. In the circumstances, in which it is truly praiseworthy to desire to excel, it must be truly noble to have excelled. It is impossible to be desirous of excelling, without a pleasure, in having excelled ; and, where it would be culpable to feel pleasure in the attainments that have made us nobler than we were before, it must, of course, have been culpable, to desire such excellence. 1. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING It is not in pride, therefore, or the pleasure of excellence, as a mere direct emotion, that moral error consists, but in those ill-ordered affections, which may have led us to the pursuit of excellence, that is unworthy of our desire, and that cannot, therefore, shed any glory on our attainment of it. If our desires are fixed only on excellence in what is good, it is impossible for us to feel too lively a pleasure, in the gratification of these desires. We may, indeed, become ridiculous, by our vanity in displaying our attainments,- and, which is far worse, we may exercise a sort of cruelty, in reminding others by our scorn, how inferior wre consider them to ourselves; but what is morally improper, in these cases, is in the vanity and the haughtiness, not in the vivid delight, which we feel, in the acquisition of excellence, the attainment of which is the great end, and the glorious labour, of virtue-an excellence, that renders us more useful to mankind, and a nobler image of the Powder which created us. What renders the feeling of delight in excellence attained, not excuseable merely, but praise-worthy, is then, a right estimate of those objects, in which we are desirous of excelling. I need not say, that, to be proud of being pre- eminent in vice, implies the deepest degradation of our moral, and even of our intellectual nature,-a degradation, far more complete and hopeless, than the commission of the same guilt, with the consciousness of imperfection. But on this species of pride, I surely need not dwell. To be proud, however, of eminence in what is frivolous only,-but not absolutely profligate,-itself implies no slight degree of moral degradation; because it implies a blindness to those better qualities, that confer the only distinctions, which Virtue can covet, and God approve. These distinctions are the distinctions of the understanding and of the heart, -of the heart, in the noble desires of which it may be conscious,-of the understanding, in that knowledge, by the acquisition of which, we are able to open a wider field to our generous desires, and to promote more effectually their honourable purposes. In this preparatory scene, we are placed to en- joy as much happiness, as is consistent with the preparation for a nobler world,-to diffuse to others all the happiness, which it is in our power to communicate to them,-and to offer to him, who made us, that best adora- tion, which consists in love of his goodness, and an unremitting zeal, to execute the honourable charge which he has consigned to us, of furthering those great views of good, which men, indeed, may thus instrumentally promote, but which only the divine mind could have originally conceived. In this .glorious delegation, all. earthly, and, I may say, all eternal excellence con- sists. With whatever illusion human pride may delight to flatter itself, he is truly the noblest, in the sight of wisdom and of Heaven, however small his share may be of that adventitious grandeur, which in those w'ho are morally great, is nothing and less than nothing, in those who are morally vile,-he is the noblest, who applies his faculties, most sedulously, to the most generous purposes, with the warmest impression of that divine goodness, which has formed the heart to be susceptible of wishes so divine. If we be proud of any thing, which does not confer dignity on the intellectual, or moral, or reli- gious nature of man, we may be certain, that we are proud of that, which, if considered without relation to objects that may be indirectly promoted by it, is, in itself, more worthy of our contempt, than of our pride. The peace and good order, and consequently the happiness of society, require, indeed, that forms of respect should be paid to mere station, and to the accidental NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 113 Vol. II. 114 I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS. INVOLVING possession of wealth, and hereditary honours; but they do not require, that the possessor of these should conceive himself truly raised above others, in that only real dignity, which is more than a trapping, or form of courteous salutation, in the gaudy pageantries of the day. " If the great," says Mas- sillon, "have no other glory, than that of their ancestors ; if their titles are their only virtues; if we must recall past ages, to find in them something that is worthy of our homage, their birth dishonours them, even in the estimation of the world. Their name is opposed by us to their person,-we read the histories that record the great deeds of their ancestors, and we demand of their unworthy successors the virtues, which formerly conferred so much glory on their country. The weight of honour, which they inherit, is to them but a burthen, that sinks them still lower to the ground. Yet,l\ow visible on every brow is the pride of their origin. They count the degrees of their grandeur by ages, which are no more,-by dignities, which they no longer possess,-by actions, which they have not performed,-by ancestors, of whom a little indistinguishable dust is all that remains,-by monuments which the passing injuries of season after season have effaced; and they think themselves superior to the rest of mankind, because they have more domestic ruins to mark the desolation of time, and can thus produce more proofs than other men of the vanity of all earthly things. High birth, it will be readily allowed, is an illustrious prerogative, to which the consent of nations, in every period of the world, has attached peculiar distinctions of honour. Yet it is a title only, not a virtue,-an engagement to glory, and a domestic lesson of the means by which it may be obtained,-not that which either constitutes glory or confers it. The succession of honour, which it seems to convey to us, perishes, and becomes extinct in us, if we inherit only the name, without inheriting also the virtues that rendered it illustrious. We sink, then, into the general mass of mankind, and begin, as it were, a new race. Our nobility belongs to our name only, and our person, in every thing which is truly our own, has as little ancestry, as the meanest of the crowd. " Tota licet veteres exornent undiqqe certe Atria, nobilitas sola est atque unica Virtu s. Paulus, vel Cossus, vel Drusus, moribus esto! Hos ante effigies majorum pone tuorum ! Precedant ipsas illite consule virgas. Prima mihi debes animi bona ;-Sanctus haberi Justitiaeque tenax, factis, dictisque mireris ! Agnosco proceretp."* These remarks, in application to the pride of rank, are equally applicable to every'species of pride, that is not founded on intrinsic excellence of the mental character. If it be absurd, for man, to feel, as if he truly shared the glory of actions, which were not his Givn,-of actions, with which his own conduct, perhaps, in almost every instance, might be contrasted, with far more complete opposition, than the conduct of his illustrious ancestors them- selves, might have been contrasted with that of the mean and ignoble of their own time, when this mere contrast with vices like those of their offspring, was that which conferred on themselves distinction,- " Si coram Lepidis male vivitur ?-Effigies quo Tot bellatorum, siluditur alea pernox Ante Numantinos,-si donnire incipes ortu Luciferi, quo signo duces et castra movebant-t * Juvenal. Sat. VII.-v. 19-26. t Ibid. v. 9-12. if even this self-illusion, which usurps or claims the praise of virtue in the midst of vice, be, as it most truly is, an illusion, it must at the same time be remembered, that it is one, with which the general sentiment more readily accords, than with any other illusion of which the mind of man is susceptible, -that though, in many unfortunate cases, it may be as degrading to the in- dividual who proudly receives the homage, as to the individuals who servilely offer it,-in other cases, its influence, even on the individual himself, is ani- mating, and truly by the domestic lessons and incitements which it presents; and that even in its political influence, the veneration thus at- tached to hereditary distinctions has, upon the whole, by the social tranquil- lity which it has produced, and the counteracting powers which it has op- posed to thje aggressions of individual despotism, been productive of more ad- vantage to society, than many of the sublimest abstractions of political wisdom, -advantages, of which those who gave, and those who received the homage, were, indeed, alike unconscious, and would probably have been regardless, even if they had known them, but which did not the less enter into the con- templation of Him, who formed mankind, to feel this almost universal senti- ment, for nobler purposes than the mere gratification of the arrogance of a few, and the meanness of many. If, then, a pride, which has still at least some relation to virtue, or to what was counted virtue, however distant, in- volve absurdity,- what are we to think of those species of pride, which have no relation to virtue of any kind, which are founded on every frivolity, or perhaps on every vice, as if it were the highest title to the applause of man- kind, to be of the least possible service to their interests? What shall we think of the mind of that man, who, endowed with a capacity of serving God by benefiting tire world, in which he is placed to represent him, can derive dignity from the thought of having placed a button where a button never had been placed before, whose face glows with a noble pride, as he walks the streets with this new dignity,-and who derives from the consciousness of this button,-I will not say as much happiness, for I will not prostitute the noble word,-but, at least, as much self-complacency as is felt, in the hour of his glorious mortality, by the expiring combatant for freedom, or the martyr. So pleased are we with distinction, that there is nothing, however con- temptible, from which it is not in our power to derive some additional vanity, when we consider it as our own ;-a book, a withered flower, a dead insect, a bit of hard earth, confer on us a distinction which we think that every one must envy. If the book be the only known copy of the most worthless edi- tion,-the flower, the insect, the stone, the only specimens of their kind in the country which has the honour of possessing them, we are of as rare merit, in our own eyes, as the worthless things themselves. Man occupies indeed, but little room in nature, but he has the secret of spreading himself out over every thing belonging to him ;-our house, our gardens, our horses, our dogs, are parts of our own being. To praise them is to praise us; and, if we be very modest, and the praise very profuse, we almost blush at the panegyric, of which we are afraid of appearing vain. NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING 115 u The 'squire is proud to see his courser strain, And well-breath'd beagles sweep along the plain. Say, dear Hippolitus, (whose drink is ale, Whose erudition is a Christmas tale, Whose mistress is saluted with a smack, And friend received with thumps upon the back,) 116 1. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING When thy sleek gelding nimbly leaps the mound, And Ringwood opens on the tainted ground, Is that thy praise ? Let Ringwood's praise* alone ; Just Ringwood leaves each animal his own, Nor envies when a gipsy you commit, And shakes the clumsy bench with country wit,- When you the dullest of dull things have said, And then ask pardon for the jest you made."! In all these cases, it is easy to see by how ready an identification of our- selves with every thing that belongs to us, we assume a praise, that belongs as little to us as to any other human being. We are, with respect to our pos- sessions, like that Soul of the world, of which ancient poets and ancient phi- losophers speak, that was supposed to be diffused in it every where and to ani- mate the whole. We exist, in like manner, in every thing which is ours, with a sort of omnipresent vanity ; and by the transfer to others of the mere trappings of our external state, we should not merely sink in general estima- tion, but we should truly feel ourselves, in our mortified pride, as if we had lost half, or more than half, of our little virtues and perfections. To common minds, that are unsusceptible of higher pleasure, this pride of external things is af least a source of consolation; and restores, in some mea- sure, that equilibrium, which might seem too violently broken by the existing differences of intellectual capacity. Those who are absolutely incapable of feeling the beauties of a work of genius, are perfectly capable of deriving all the pleasure which can be derived from the possession of a volume printed by an illustrious printer, and bound by the first binder of the age. Those who cannot feel the beauty of the universe, as the manifestation of that tran- scendent excellence which created it, may be capable of feeling all the excellence of a tulip or carnation, that differs from other tulips or carnations, by some slight stain, which attracts no eye but that of a florist, but which in- stantly attracts a florist's eye, and fills him with rapture, if he be the fortunate possessor, and with envy and despair, if it be the property of another,-of a rival, perhaps, whom he had before the glory of vanquishing in a contest of hyacinths, but who is now to enjoy the revenge of a triumph so much more glorious. To ordinary minds, these little rivalries and victories, and all the pride which is elevated by them, or depressed, may be considered as forming only a sort of feeble compensation for those greater objects of excellence, which their microscopic eyes, that see the little as if it were great, but which can- not see the great itself, are incapable of appreciating, because, in truth they are incapable of perceiving them. How much more do they strike us, however, when they exist in minds that are unquestionably capable of higher attainments, and that after enlightening the world, or regulating its political destinies, can stoop to be the friend of a boxer, or the rival, and, perhaps, in this rivalry, the inferior of their own coachman or groom. " Who would not praise Patricio's high desert, His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart, His comprehensive head,-All interests weigh'd All Europe sav'd, yet Britain not betray'd ?-- He thanks you not-His pride is in Piquette, Newmarket fame, and judgment in a bet."t • Fame-Orig. t Young's Love of Fame, Sat. I. i Fcoe's Moral Etisaye. Ep. I. v. 81-86 That such misplaced pride, in which the merit of real excellence is scarcely felt, in the vanity of some triHing accomplishment, or of feats which scarcely deserve the name even of accomplishments, however trifling, exists, not in the satirical pictures of poetry, only, but in real life, you must know too well from the biography of many distinguished characters, to require any proofs or exemplifications of it; and though at first, perhaps, the pride may seem a very singular anomaly, in minds in which the general power of dis- crimination is manifestly of a high order, it is not very difficult, 1 think, to detect at least the chief circumstance which tends to produce and fa- vour it. The pleasure of success, in any case, you must be aw'are, is not to be estimated only by the real value of that which is attained, but by this value combined with the doubtfulness of the attainment, when it was regarded by us merely as an object of our desire. To gain what we considered our- selves sure of gaining, is scarcely a source of any very high satisfaction ;- to gain what we xvished to gain, but what we had little thought of gaining, is a source of lively delight. He who has long led a cabinet of statesmen, by his transcendent political wisdom, and who is sure of leading them, so as to obtain a ready sanction of every measure that may be proposed by him for the government of a nation, and thus, indirectly perhaps, for the regulation of the fortune of the world, is not, on account of his mere political wisdom, to be held as a better jockey or speedier calculator of odds, at a gaming ta- ble.-With this profound knowledge of the sources of finance, and of the relations of kingdoms, he is not as sure, therefore, of Newmarket fame and judgment in a bet, as he is of saving Europe, without betraying the interest of his own land ;-and though he may be far more skilful in making armies march, and navies appeal? where navies most are wanted, he may not be able to bring down more birds of a covey, or have a much greater chance of being in at the death of a fox, than the stupidest of those human animals, who spend their days in galloping after one. There is a more anxious sus- pense, therefore, in these insignificant, or worse than insignificant attempts, than in the important councils which his judgment and eloquence have been accustomed to sway; and consequently a livelier pleasure, when the sus- pense has terminated favourably. The superiority which he was to show in greater matters excited no astonishment, because it was anticipated by all; but to be- first when he was not expected to be first, is a delightful victory over opinion ; and it is not very wonderful, therefore, that he should be in- duced to repeat what was peculiarly delightful, and be flattered by each renewal of success. It is only the contrast of his high powers of mind, which renders his exultation, in the petty triumph, so astonishing to us; and yet it is, perhaps, only because his judgment and eloquence are so transcen- dent, as to leave no suspense whatever with respect to that political dominion which he is sure to exercise, that he is thus gratified, in so high a degree, by the petty triumphs, which are less certain, and therefore leave him the ex- citement of anxiety, and the pleasure of success. Had his intellectual powers been of a less high order, and less sure of their great objects, he would probably have been regardless of the little objects, which are relative- ly great to him, only because from their absolute littleness, they admit of wider competition. In defining pride, as a mere emotion, to be that feeling of vivid pleasure which attends the consciousness of our excellence, I have already remarked, NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 117 118 that the emotion, far from being blameable, where the excellence is in things that are noble, is a proof only of that desire of excelling in noble things, which is a great part of virtue; and, without which, it is scarcely possible to conceive even the existence of virtue, since he surely cannot be virtuous who would willingly leave unattempted the attainment of a single possible moral excellence, in addition to those already attained ; or who would not feel mortified, if he had suffered an opportunity of generous exertion to pass away in idleness- The habit of virtue is, indeed, nothing more than the regular conformity of our actions to. this desire of generous excellence ; and to desire the excellence, without feeling delight in each step of the glo- rious progress to the attainment of it, is as little possible, as to feel the crav- ing of hunger, and yet to feel no gratification in the relief of the appetite. It is only when the objects, in which we have wished to excel, hjive been unworthy of the desire of beings formed for those great hopes which ulti- mately await us, that the pleasure of the excellence, as we have seen in the species of ridiculous pride, to which I have alluded in the different illustra- tions offered to you, is itself unworthy of us. When I say, however, that in pride, as an emotion attending the conscious- ness of excellence in noble pursuits, there is no moral impropriety, since it is only the name for that pleasure which the virtuous must feel, or cease to be virtuous, it may be necessary to caution you against a misconception, into whioh you might very readily fall. The pride of which I speak is a name for the emotion itself, and is lirhited to the particular emotion that rises at any moment on the contemplation of some virtuous excellence at- tained ; with which limitation, it is as praiseworthy as the humility, which is only the feeling arising from a sense of inferiority or failure in the same great pursuit. But it is only, as limited to the particular emotion, that the praise which I allow to pride is justly referable to it. In the common vague use of the term, in which it is applied with a comprehensive variety of meaning, not so much to the particular emotion, as to a prevalent dispo- sition of the mind to discover superiority in itself where it truly does not exist, and to dwell on the contemplation of the superiority where it docs exist with an insulting disdain, perhaps, of those who are inferior;-pride is un questionably a vice as degrading to the mind of the individual, as it is offcn sive to that Great Being, who has formed the superior and the inferior, fot mutual offices of benevolence, and who often compensates, by excellencies that are unknown to the world, the more glaring disparity in qualities which the world is quicker in discerning. The pride, then, or temporary feeling of pleasure, when we are con- scious, at any moment, that we have acted as became us, is to be distinguish- ed from pride, as significant of general character, of a character which is truly as unamiable, as the pleasure which is felt even by the most humble in some act of virtuous excellence, and which is felt, perhaps, by them still more delightfully than by others, is deserving of our approbation and our love. Strange and paradoxical, indeed, as it may seem, there can be little doubt, when we consider it, that pride, in this general sense, implies all that might be regarded as degrading in humility; and that humility of character, on the contrary, implies what is most ennobling, or rather what is usually considered as most ennobling, in the opposite character. Pride and humility, as I have already remarked, are always relative terms; they imply a comparison of some sort, with an object higher or lower; and I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING the same mind, with actual excellence exactly the same, and with the, same comparative attainments in every one around, may thus be either proud or humble, as it looks above or looks beneath. In the great scale of society, there is a continued rise from one excellence to another excellence, internal or external, intellectual or moral. Wherever we may fix, there is still some one whom we find superior or inferior, and these relations are mutually con- vertible as we ascend or descend. The shrub is taller than the flower that grows in its shade; the tree than the shrub; the rock than the tree; the mountain than the single rock; and above all are the sun and the heavens. It is the same in the World of life. From that Almighty Being, who is the source of all life, to the lowest of his creatures, what innumerable gradations may be traced, even in the ranks of excellence on our own earth,-each being higher than that beneath, and lower than that above; and thus all to all, objects at once of pride or humility, according as the comparison may be made with the greater or with the less. Of two minds then possessing equal excellence which is the more noble? that which, however high the excellence attained by it, has still some nobler excellence in view, to which it feels its own inferiority,-or that, which hav- ing risen a few steps in the ascent of intellectual and moral glory, thinks only of those beneath, and rejoices in an excellence which would appear to it of little value if only it lifted a single glance to the perfection above? Yet this habitual tendency to look beneath, rather than above, is the character of mind which is denominated pride! while the tendency to look above rather than below, and to feel an inferiority, therefore, which others perhaps, do not perceive, is the character which is denominated humility. It is false, then, or even extravagant to stiy, that humility is truly the nobler; and that pride, which delights in the contemplation of the abject things beneath, is truly in itself more abject than that meekness of heart, which is humble because it has greater objects, and which looks with reverence to the excellence that is above it, because it is formed with a capacity of feeling all the worth of that excellence which it reveres? It has, accordingly, been the universal remark of all who make any re- marks whatever, that it is not in great and permanent excellence that we expect to find the arroghnt airs of superiority, but in tlie more petty or sud- den distinctions of the little great. It is not the man of science who is proud, but he who knows inaccurately a few unconnected facts, which he dignifies with the name of science, and of which he forms, perhaps, what he is pleased to dignify, by a similar misnomer, with the name of a theory, to the astonishment and admiration of others, a very little more ignorant than himself. She, whose personal charms are acknowledged by a whole metro- polis, and the wit who delights the wise an.d the learned, may have no slight pride, indeed, but they are very likely to be surpassed in pride by the Wit and the Beauty of a country town, as much as they may truly surpass them in all the attractions on which the pride is founded. "I have read," says Montesquieu, "in the relation of the voyage of one of our vessels of discovery, that some of the crew having landed on the coast of Guinea to purchase some sheep, were led to the presence of the sovereign, who was administering justice to his people under a tree. He was on his throne, that is to say, on a block of wood, on which he sat with all the dignity of the Mogul. He had three or four guards with wooden pikes, and a large umbrella served him for a canopy. His whole royal ornaments, NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 119 120 and jhose of her majesty the queen, consisted in their black skin and a few rings. This prince, still more vain than miserable, asked the strangers, if they spoke much about him in France. He thought that his name could not fail to be carried from one pole to the other; and, unlike that conqueror of whom it was said, that he put all the earth to silence, he believed, for his part, that he set all the universe a talking. " When the Khan of Tartary has dined, a herald cries out, tlxat now all the sovereigns of the earth may go- to dinner as soon as they please; and this barbarian, whose banquet is only a little milk, who has no house, and who exists but by plunder, looks upon ah the kings of the world as his slaves, and insults them regularly twice a day." Such is the ignorance from which pride usually Hows. The child, the savage, the illiterate,-who, in every stage of society, are intellectually sa- vages,-have feelings of self-complacent exultation, which, ludicrous as they may seem to those who consider from a more elevated height the little at- tainments that may have given birth to those proud emotions, are the natural result of the very ignorance to which such proud emotions seem so very little suited. To him who has just quitted a jail, every step is an advance that is easily measured; but the more advanced the progress, the legs rela- tively does every step appear. The child, at almost every new lesson which he receives, may be considered as nearly doubling his little stock of know- ledge ; and he is not the last himself to feel, that his knowledge is thus doubled, or at least, that those who are but a little behind him have scarcely half as much wondrous wisdom as is heaped in his own little brain. What is true of the child in years is true of the child in science, whatever his years may be; and to increase knowledge, far from increasing the general pride of the individual, is often the surest mode of diminishing it. Il is«the same with all the arts and sciences, considered as one great stock of excel- lence. He whose whole attention has been devoted to any 'one of these will run some risk of a haughty exultation, which is not felt by those, who with equal, or perhaps greater excellence in that one, are acquainted also with what is excellent in other sciences, or other arts. The accomplished philosopher and pi an of letters, to whom the great names of all who have been eminent in ancient and modern times, in all the nations in which the race of man has risen to glory, are familiar, almost like the names of those with whom he is living in society,-who has thus constantly before his mind images of excellence of the highest order, and who, even in the hopes which he dares to form, feels how small a contribution it will be in his power to add to the great imperishable stock of human wisdom,-may be proud indeed; but his pride will be of a sort that is tempered with humility, and will be humility itself, if compared with the pride of a pedant or sciolist, who thinks, that in adding the result of some little discovery which he may have fortunately made, he is almost doubling that mass of knowledge, in which it is scarcely perceived as an element. Pride, then, as a character of self-complacent exultation, is not the pre- vailing cast of mind of those who are formed for genuine excellence. He who is formed for genuine excellence, has before him an ideal perfection, -that semper melius aliquid,-which makes excellence itself, however ad- mirable, to those who measure it only with their weaker powers,-seem, to his own mind, as compared with what he has ever in his own mental vision, a sort of failure. He thinks less of what he has done, than of what it I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING seems possible to do,-and he is not so much proud of merit attained, as desirous of a merit that has not yet been attained by him. It is in this way, that the very religion, which ennobles man, leads him not to pride, but to humility. It elevates .him from the smoke and dust of earth ; but it elevates him above the darkness, that he may see better the great heights which are above him. It shows him not the mere excellence of a few frail creatures, as fallible as himself, but excellence, the very concep tion of which is the highest effort that can be made by man; exhibiting thus constantly, what it will be the only honour worthy of his nature to imitate, however faintly, and checking his momentary pride, at every step of his glorious progress, by the brightness and the vastness of what is still before him. May I not add to these remarks, that it is in this way, we are to account for that humility, which is so peculiarly a part of the Christian character, as contrasted with the geperal pride which other systems either recommend or allow. The Christian religion is, indeed, as has been often sarcastically said by those who revile it, the religion of the humble in heart; but it is the religion of the humble, only because it presents to our contemplation a higher excellence than was ever before exhibited to man. The proud look down upon the earth, and see nothing that creeps upon its surface more noble than themselves. The humble look upward to their God. NECESSARILY SOME MORAL FEELING. 121 LECTURE LXII1. II RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS-SUBDIVISION OF THEM, AS THEY RE- LATE TO OTHERS, OR TO OURSELVES.-I. ANGER.-GRATITUDE. Gentlemen, my remarks on the emotions of Pride and Humility,-those vivid feelings which attend the belief of our excellence or superiority, in any circumstances, internal or external,-brought to a conclusion, in my last Lecture, the observations which I had to offer, on one set of our emotions,- those which I have termed immediate, that arise from the consideration of objects as present, or not involving, at least, any necessary reference to time. The emotions, which, according to the general principles of our arrange- ment, we are next to consider, are those which relate to objects as past;- the conception of some object of former pleasure or pain, being essential to the complex feeling. To this set of emotions, accordingly, I have given the name of retrospective. These may be subdivided, as they relate to others, and to ourselves. Our retrospective emotions, which relate to others, are anger for evil in- flicted, and gratitude for good conferred,-to which emotions, as complex feelings, in all their variety, the conception of evil, as past, or of good, as past, is, you will perceive, essential. Those, which relate to ourselves, are either simple regret or satisfaction, Vol. II. that arises from the consideration of any circumstances or events, wbicn may have been productive of joy or sorrow, or may promise or threaten to be productive of them,-or that moral regret or satisfaction, which have re- ference to our own past conduct or desires;-of the former of which, the regret that is felt by us, when we look back on our moral delinquencies, re- morse is the common appropriate name; while the latter, the satisfaction with which we review our past actions or wishes, has no strict appropriate name, corresponding with the opposite term remorse; but is sometimes call- ed -self-approbation,-sometimes included in that familiar phrase of general and happy comprehension, a good conscience. Whatever name we may give to it, however, it is easily understood, as that emotion, which bears to our remembrance of our virtuous actions the relation, which remorse bears to the remembrance of our actions of an opposite character. I proceed, then, to the consideration of our retrospective emotions, in the order in which I have now mentioned them. The first of these is Anger. Anger is that emotion of instant displeasure, which arises from the feeling of injury done, or the discovery of injury in- tended,-or, in many cases, from the discovery of the mere omission of good offices, to which we conceived ourselves entitled,-though this very omission may itself be regarded as a species of injury. It is usually, or I may say universally,-certainly, at least, almost universally, followed by another emotion, which constitutes the desire of inflicting evil of some sort in return ; but this, though resulting from the feeling of instant displeasure,- so immediately resulting from it, as to admit, in ethics, and in common dis- course, of being combined with it in one simple term-is not no be con- founded with it, as the same, in any analysis, at least in any minute philoso- phic analysis, which we may make of our emotion. The evil felt,-the dislike, the desire of retaliation,-however rapidly they may succeed, and however closely and permanently they may continue afterwards to coexist, in one complex state of mind, are still originally distinct. The primary emo- tion of anger involves the instant displeasure merely, with the notion of evil done or intended, and is strictly retrospective : the resentment, or revenge, which is onjy a longer continued resentment, if we were to consider it with- out any regard to this primary displeasure which gives birth to it, would be referred by us to that other set of our emotions, which I have termed pro- spective. It is a desire, as much as any other of our desires. But though, in our minute philosophic analysis, this distinction of the two successive states of mind is necessary, it is not necessary, in considering the feeling of re- sentment in its moral relations; and, in the few remarks which I have to offer on it, I shall, therefore, consider the instant displeasure itself, and the desire of returning evil, as one emotion. To estimate fully the impor- tance of this principle of our constitution, we must consider man, not merely as he exists, in the midst of all the securities of artificial police, but as he has existed in the various stages which have marked his progress in civilization. The existence of the race of men in society, wherever men are to be found, does not prove, more powerfully, the intention of our Creator, that we should form with each other a social communion, than the mere conside- ration of the faculties and affections of our mind,-of all which constitutes the strength of our manhood, when each individual has treasured, in his own mind, the acquisitions of many generations preceding,-and of all which 122 II. RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS constituted the weakness of our infancy, when, but for the shelter of the society in which we were born, we could not have existed for a single day. But, though man is formed for society-born in it, living in it, dying in it, -the excellence of society itself is progressive. Even in its best state of legal refinement, when offences and the punishment of offences, corre- spond with the nicest proportion which human discernment can be supposed to measure or devise, it is scarcely possible that the united strength of the community should be so exactly adapted to every possibility of injury, as to leave no crime without its corresponding punishment; and as the social system exists at present, and still more as it has existed for ages, the injuries, for which legal redress is, or can be received, bear but a very small propor- tion in number to the injuries which might be done, or even which are done, without any means of such adequate reparation. Nature, however, has not formed man for one stage of society only; she has formed him for all its stages,-from the rude and gloomy fellowships of the cave and* the forest, to all the tranquillity and refinement of the most splendid city. It was necessary, therefore, that he should be provided with faculties and passions, suitable to the necessities of every stage,-that in periods, when there was no protection from without, that could save him from aggressions, there might be at least some protection within,-some principle, which might give him additional vigour, when assailed, and which from the certainty of this additional vigour of resistance, might render attack formidable to the assail- ant ; and thus save at once from guilt, and from the consequences of guilt, the individual who otherwise might have dared to be unjust, and the indi- vidual who would have suffered from the unjust invasion. What human wants required, that all foreseeing Power, who is the guar- dian of our infirmities, has supplied to human weakness. There is a princi- ple in our mind, which is to us like a constant protector,-which may slum- ber, indeed, but which slumbers only at seasons when its vigilance would be useless, which awakes, therefore, at the first appearance of unjust intention, and which becomes more watchful and more vigorous, in proportion to the violence of the attack which it has to dread. What should we think of the providence of nature, if, when aggression was threatened against the weak and unarmed, at a distance from the aid of others, there were instantly and uniformly, by the intervention of some wonder-working power, to rush into the hand of the defenceless, a sword or other weapon of defence? And yet this would be but a feeble assistance, if compared with that which we receive from those simple emotions which heaven has caused to rush, as it were, into our mind for repelling every attack. What would be a sword in the trembling hand of the infirm, of the aged,-of him whose pusillanimous spirit shrinks at the very appearance, not of danger merely, but even of the arms, by the use of which danger might be averted, and to whom, conse- quently, the very sword, which he scarcely knew how to grasp, would be an additional cause of terror, not an instrument of defence and safety? The instant anger, which arises, does more' than many such weapons. It gives the spirit, which knows how to make a weapon of every thing, or which, of itself, does, without a weapon, what even a thunder-bolt would be powerless to do, in the shuddering grasp of the coward. When anger rises fear is gone;-there is no coward, for all are brave. Even bodily infirmity seems to yield to it, like the very infirmities of the mind, The old are, for the moment, young again; the weakest, vigorous. HAVING RELATION TO OTHERS. 123 124 This effect the emotion of anger produces, at the very time of aggression ; and, though no other effect were to arise from it, even this would be most salutary; but this transient effect is trifling, compared with its permanent effects. If this momentary feeling were all, the contest would be a contest of mere degrees of force ; and' the weaker, whatever accession of power and courage he might receive from the emotion which animated him, if the additional strength which the anger gave to his arm and to his heart, did not raise- him to an equality with his unjust assailant, though he might not sink till after a longer struggle, would still sink wholly and hopelessly. It is the long-remaining resentment that outlasts, not the momentary violence of emo- tion only, but all the evil consequences of the injustice itself, which renders the anger even of the weakest formidable, because it enables them to avail themselves, even at the most distant period, of aid, before which all the strength of the strongest individual must shrink into nothing. There is a community, to the whole force of which the injured may appeal; and there is an emotion in his breast which will never leave him till that appeal be made. Time and space, which otherwise might have afforded impunity to the aggressor, are thus no shelter for his delinquency; because resentment is of every place and of every tiifre; and the just resentment of a single individual may become the wrath and the vengeance of a nation. He who is attacked on some lonely plain, where no human eye is present with him, but that dreadful eye which looks only to threaten death, no arm but that dreadful arm which is lifting the dagger, has eyes and arms, which at the distance, perhaps, of many years, are to be present, as it were, at the very deed of that hour, for his relief, or at least, for his avengement. A crime, perpretrated on the farthest spot of the globe, that is subject to our sway, may have its retribution here, a retribution as dreadful as if all the multitude who assemble to witness it had been present at the very moment, on the very spot, where the crime was committed,-or had come, at a single call, for help, with the omnipotence of a thousand arms, to the succour of the injured. It is necessary, therefore, for deterring uryust provocation, that man should not feel anger merely, but should be capable of retaining the resentment till he can borrow that general aid of the community, to which, in the instant of any well planned vfllany, it would, probably, be in vain to look. The wrath of a single individual, and of the weakest and most defenceless indi- vidual, may thus carry witli.it as much terror as the wrath of the strongest, or even 6f a whole army of the strong. Such is anger, as felt by the individual aggrieved. But when a crime is very atrocious, the anger is not confined to the individual directly aggrieved. There rises in the mind of others an emotion, not so vivid, perhaps, but of the same kind, involving the same instant dislike of the injurer, and followed by the same eager desire of punishment for the atrocious offence. In this case, indeed, we seldom think of applying to the emotion the term anger, which is reserved for the emotion of the injured individual. We term it rather indignation; but though the name be different, and though the ac- companying notions of persbnal or foreign injury be also different, the emo- tion itself may be considered as similar. It certainly is not the mere feeling of moral disapprobation, but, combined with this moral disapprobation, a vivid dislike, which all who have felt it may remember to have resembled the vivid dislike felt by them in cases in which they have themselves been injured, and a desire of vengeance on the offender as instant, and often as II. RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, HAVING RELATION TO OTHERS. 125 ardent, as when the injury was personal to themselves. The difference, as 1 before said, is in the accompanying conceptions, not in the mere emotion itself. In periods of revolutionary tumult, when the passions of a mob, and even, in many instances, their most virtuous passions, are the dreadful in- struments of which the crafty avail themselves, how powerfully is this in- fluence of indignation exemplified in the impetuosity of their vengeance! Indignation is then truly anger. The demagogue has only to circulate some tale of oppression; and each rushes almost instantly to the punish- ment of a crime, in which, chough the injury had actually been committed, he had no personal interest, but which is felt by each as a crime against himself. If it was in our power to trace back our emotions through the whole long period of our life, to our boyhood and our infancy, we should find, probably, that our most vivid feelings of darly resentment, if I may use that term in such a case, were not so much what is commonly termed anger, as what is more commonly termed indignation. Our deep and lasting wrath, in our nursery, is not against any one who exists around us, but against the cruel tyrant, or the wicked fairy, or the robber, or the murderer, in some tale or ballad. Little generosity, in after-life, can be expected from him, who, on first hearing, as he leans on his mother's knee, the story of the Babes in the Wood, has felt no swell of anger, almost to bursting of the heart, against the "guardian uncle fierce," and who does not exult in the punishment, which afterwards falls on that treacherous murderer, with a triumph more delightful than is felt by the most vindictive in the complete gratification of their own personal revenge. How truly is this virtuous indignation of the youthful heart described by Beattie, in the glance of stern vindictive joy which brightened the tear of the future Minstrel when the beldame related to him that vengeance of heaven which forms the catastrophe of this tale " of woes - " A trifled smile of stern vindictive joy Brighten'd, one moment, Edward's starting tear. But why should gold man's feeble mind dpcoy, And Innocence thus die, by doom severe? O, Edwin ! while thy heart is yet sincere, Th' assaults of discontent-and doubt repel. Dark, even at noontide, is our mortal sphere ; But let us hope;-to doubt is to rebel; Let us exult, in hope that all shall yet be well. Nor be thy generous indignation check'd, Nor check'd the tender tear to misery given ; From guilt's contagious power shall that protect, This soften and refine the sdul for heaven."* It is by such generous indignation, indeed, that virtue is protected from the contagion of guilt, or rather, without such indignation, there is already no virtue to be protected. If the little heart in such a case, can pause, and think, this injury was not done to me, it may, with equal temptation, in maturer years, unless saved by terror of punishment, be guilty of the very crime, which, as the crime of another, excites in it so little emotion. The indignation, then, of mankind, may be considered as co-operating with the anger of the injured individual; but, unless in very atrocious cases, * Book I. stanza xlvii. and v. 1-4. of stanza xlviii 126 the general indignation is slight and faint, in comparison with the vividness of resentment in the individual. It is always sufficient, however, to sympa- thize with him; and this is sufficient for that just purpose which nature had in view. She has provided one whose quick and permanent resentment will lead him not to let injustice escape unpunished; and she has provided, in the community, feelings, which readily accord with the direction of the united power of the state, against the injurerof a single individual. If there had been no such feelings of sympathetic anger, it may very easily be sup- posed that compassion for the criminal, who was afterwards to suffer for his offence, would, in many cases, obtain for him impunity; if, on the other hand, the indignation of the community were in every case equal to the original wrath of the individual directly injured, no opportunity could be af- forded for the calm defence of innocence unjustly suspected. To have the punishment of guilt, it would be enough to have appeared to be guilty. In this universal frenzy of resentment, too, it is very evident that not even a single individual in a nation could enjoy tranquillity for a moment. His whole life must, in that case, be a life of rage and vexation. " Omnis illi per iracundiam moerorernque vita transibit. Quod enim momentum erit, quo non improbanda videat? Quoties processerit domo, per sceleratos, illi, avarosque, et prodigos, et impudentes, et ob ista felices, incedendum erit. Nusquam oculi ejus flectentur, ut non quod indignentur inveniant." The zeal of the Knight of La Mancha, who had many giants to vanquish, and many captive princesses to free, might leave him still some moments of peace ; but, if all the wrongs of all the injured were to be felt by us as our own, with the same ardent resentment and eagerness of revenge, our knight- errantry would be far more oppressive ; and though we might kill a few moral giants, and free a few princesses, so many more would still remain, unslain and unfreed, that we should have little satisfaction, even in our few successes. How admirably provident, then, is the Author of our nature, not merely in the emotions with the susceptibility of which he has endowed us, but in the very jiroportioning of these emotions, so as to produce the greatest good, at the least expense, even of momentary suffering. Some vivid feel- ing of resentment there must be, that the delays which may occur in the infliction of vengeance, may not save the guilty from punishment; but this vivid feeling, which must exist somewhere, nature, in ordinary cases, confines to the single breast of the sufferer. Some feelings of general sympathy with the resentment of the injured, there must also be,-that the strength of society maybe readily transferred to him, for the punishment of the injurer; and these general feelings Nature has formed to be of such a kind, as may be sufficient for the purpose which they are to answer, without being too vivid, to distract the attention of the multitude from their own more impor- tant concerns. The good which nature wills, is attained; and is attained by means which are as simple as they are efficacious. We have seen, then, the advantages which arise from that part of our mental constitution, by which individuals are capable of resentment, when personally injured, and of indignation when the injury has no direct rela- tion to themselves. But resentment, admirable as it is, as a check even to that guilt which is not afraid of conscience or of God, may yet, in unfortu- nate dispositions, be a source of endless vexation to the individual who feels it, and to all those who live around him. It may arise too soon,-it may be II. RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, disproportioned to the offence,-it may be transferred from the guilty to the innocent,-it may be too long protracted. It may arise too soon; or rather, it may arise when a little reflection would have shown that it ought not to baVe arisen. In the intercourse of society, it must often unavoidably happen, that there may be apparent in- jury, without any real desire of injuring. We may consider that evil as intentional which was not intended; we may consider that as an insult, which was said, perhaps, with a sincere desire of correcting, as gently as possible, some imperfection, which is not less an imperfection, because we shrink from hearing of it. To distinguish what simply gives us pain, from that which was intended to give us unnecessary pain, is no pasy task, in many cases, and in all cases requires some reflection. According as the emotion of anger,-at least any displeasure more lasting than a single moment,- precedes or follows this due reflection, it is to be viewed, therefore, in a very different light. The disposition which becomes instantly angry, without reflection, on the slightest semblance of injury, is, in common language, as you know, termed passionate. Another form of a passionate disposition, arising, indeed, from the same cause, is that which involves the next error, which 1 have stated with re- spect to resentment, the disproportion of the anger and the offence. He who does not pause, even to weigh the circumstances, cannot be supposed to pause to measure the extent of injury. He feels that he is injured, and all his anger bursts out instantly on the offender. It is this disproportion, in- deed, which is the chief evil of what is commonly termed passion. Some cathse of slight displeasure there may be, even when anger, in its violence, would be immoral and absurd. Yet such is the infirmity of our nature, that it is often no slight triumph over our weakness, to forgive a trifle with as much magnanimity, as that with which we have forgiven greater injuries He who has truly pardoned in heart, as well as in profession, the political rival who has displaced him, may yet be very angry with his steward or his groom ; and it is no small panegyric of woman to be mistress of herself, though china fall. To what cause, or causes, are we to ascribe this quickness of anger, on small occasions, when, if the occasion had been greater, the resentment would have been less? This apparent anomaly in our emotion seems to me to arise chiefly, or wholly, from three causes. In the first place, any great injury is felt by us immediately as an injury,-as an important event in our life-an occasion on which we have to act a part-and if we have any virtue whatever, our whole system of practical ethics comes before us. VVe remember that wre ought to forgive, and we think of this duty, merely because the importance of the injury makes us feel, that, on such an occa- sion, we are heroes of a little drama, and must walk majestically across the stage. In the second place I may remark, that great offences seldom occur, without some little warning of suspicion, which puts us on our guard, and pre- vents, therefore, sudden exasperation. But what warning is there, that a cup is to be broken, or a pair of spectacles mislaid ? Still more important than these, however, though perhaps less obvious, seems to me the cause which I have last to mention, that any great offence is of course a great evil, and that the magnitude of the evil, therefore, oc- cupies us as much, as our resentment, and thus lessens the vividness of the HAVING RELATION TO OTHERS. 127 II. RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, 128 mere feeling of resentment, by dividing, as it were, its interest with that of other intermingled feelings. An injury which deprives us of half our estate, presents to us many objects of thought, as well as the mere image of the injurer. But when a servant, in his excessive love of order, has laid out of our way a volume which we expected to find on our table, or has negligently suffered the newspaper to catch fire, which he was drying for us, the evil is not sufficiently great to occupy or distract us; and we see, therefore, the whole unpardonable atrocity of the neglect itself, or of that over-diligence, which is often as teasing in its consequences as neglect. Any one of these causes, operating singly, might be sufficient, perhaps, to explain what seems at first, as I have said, so very strange an anomaly; and their influence, as may well be supposed, is far more powerful, when they operate, as they usually operate together. The little evils which fret us most, then, we may perhaps venture to conclude, produce this seemingly dis- proportionate effect, as being those, in which we do not feel that we have any great part to act-which are so sudden as to have given us no warning- and in which there is not sufficient injury, to divert our fretfulness from the immediate object, by the sorrow which might otherwise have mingled with our wrath. A third error, with respect to this emotion, consists in transferring it from the guilty to the innocent. The species of disposition which has this charac- ter, is what is commonly termed peevish or fretful. Some trifling circum- stance of disappointed hope or mortified vanity, has disturbed that serenity which was before all smiles; and for half a day, or perhaps for many days, if the provocation have been a very little more than nothing, no smile is again to be seen. He whose unfortunate speech, or action, produced this change, may already be at the distance of many miles ; but he is represented by every person and every thing that meets the eye of the offended ; and the wrath which he deserved, or did not deserve, is poured out, perhaps, in greater profusion than if he were actually present. It might then, indeed, have been a thunder shower, which falls heavily for a while, but leaves afterwards a clear sky. It is now a fog, which lours, and chills, and which, in lasting long and dismally, seems only to threaten a still longer and more dismal darkness. To a disposition of this sort, no voice is soft, and no look is kind ; the very effort to sooth it is an insult; every delightful domestic affection is suspended,-the servants tremble,-the very children scarcely venture to approach, or steal past in si- lence, with a beating heart, and rejoice in having escaped,-the husband finds business to occupy him, in his own apartment, the instant and urgent neces- sity of which he never discovered before; and all this consternation and misery, have arisen, perhaps from the negligence of a waiting-maid, who has placed a flower, or a feather, or a bit of lace, a quarter of an inch higher or lower than it ought to have been : " How soft is Silia! fearful to offend : The frail one's advocate, the weak one's friend. Sudden, she storms, she raves ! You tip the wink, But spare your censure : Silia does not drink, All eyes may see from what the change arose; All eyes may see-a pimple on her nose."* We have seen, then, the nature of that character of anger, which is usually termed passionate, in its two varieties. We have seen, also, the nature of * Popp's Moral Ewys. Ep. II. v. 29, 30, and 33-36. HAVING RELATION TO OTHERS. that other kindred character, which is usually termed peevish or fretful. There yet remains to be considered by us, one other form or character of excess in this emotion. This fourth moral error, with respect to resentment, of which I spoke, is when it is too long protracted. The disposition, in that case, is said to be revengeful,-a disposition still more inconsistent with the moral excellence of man, than even that silly fretfulness of which I last spoke. The very reason of the peevish, is, for the time obscured, as much as their serenity; and, if this obscurity could be removed, so that they might see things as they are, they probably would cease to express, and even to feel their petty displeasure. The revengeful have not, indeed, the folly of punishing the innocent for the offence of the guilty; but they punish the guilty, even when the guilt has been expiated, with respect to them, by every atonement which the injurer could offer; or they punish as guilt, what implied no malicious intention ; and this they do, not unreflectingly and blindly, but with an understanding as quick to discern, as it is vigorous to execute. Man is too frail in his wishes and actions to measure the offences of others with a rigid hand. " Mali inter malos vivimus." The very revenge which he seeks is a condemnation of himself. When he looks into his own mind, is it possible for him to say, Let there be no forgiveness for offence, but let all who have violated what is right, suffer the punishment of their wrong, in the' same proportion, in which 1 now measure out punishment? Would no lurking remembrance of evil, on his part, check such a general wish as this ? and, if he could not venture on the general wish which must include his own punishment, how audacious must be that arm, which, exposed alike to the cloud that hangs over all, would yet call down the thunderbolt to destroy whatever is beneath it! For man to be revengeful, is as if a criminal, confined with his accomplices, and speedily to be brought to judgment, should, in some petty malice, against one of his fellow-captives, appeal to the speedier vengeance of those very laws, which all had violated, and which, falling in vengeance on the head of one, must fall upon the head of all. Nature, as I have already said, has formed man susceptible of resent- ment, that the wicked, who fear only man, may have something to fear ; but she has formed man to be placable, because long continued reseritment would be itself an evil more severe than that which it avenges. He, therefore, who ktiows not how to forgive-whose gloomy heart preserves even in age, the resentment of youth,-unsoftened by the penitence of the offender, by his virtues, by his very misery, is to us like some dreadful being of another race, that walks the earth cursing and accursed;-we shun him, as we would fly from some malignant spirit, who, by looking upon us, could transfuse into us the venom which he feels ;-we have no sympathy for him ;-our only sympa- thies are with the object of his vengeance,-with that very object, on w'hom, in other years, we could have delighted to see the vengeance fall. Such, then, are the abuses of that emotion, which, for the good of man- kind, when not thus abused, Heaven has placed in every heart. The re- sentment, therefore, which Heaven allows only for the good that arises from it, is limited by the very nature of this good. It is, in the first place, a resentment, which pauses, till it have considered the circumstances, in which the supposed injury has been done,-in the second place, a resent- ment, which, even when, on reflection, intentional injury is discovered, is still proportioned to the offence.-in the third place, a resentment, which limits its 129 Vol. II. 130 wrath to the guilty object,-and in the fourth place, a resentment, winch is easy to be appeased,-which does not seek revenge, when the good of society would not suffer by the forgiveness,-and which sees in penitence, when the penitence is manifestly sincere,-not an object of hatred, but an object of love. Such is the infirmity of our nature, that there is far more reason to gppre- hend, in every case, that we may have erred in the excess of our resentment, than in defect of it; and there can be no question, which of these errors is the less dangerous to the tranquillity of the individual. He may be very happy, whose resentment scarcely reaches that point, to which the sympathy of those around would accompany him ; but he cannot be happy, whose, ha- bitual resentments go far beyond that point. It is of the utmost advantage, therefore, for our own peace, that we should learn, as much as possible, to regard the little vexations which we may, or rather must, often meet from the ill humour of others, or from the crossings and jarrings of interests oppo- site to our own, with the same patience with which we bear the occasional fogs of our changeful sky. The caprices of man are as little at our disposal as the varieties of the seasons. Not to lay our account with these human vexations, is a folly very similar to that of expecting in -winter all the flowers and sunshine of spring, and of lamenting, that the snows and sleet, which have fallen every where else, should have fallen on our little garden. I will not affirm, that man can ever arrive at the stoical magnanimity ®f bcjng able to say, with respect to every unjust aggression to which he tpay be exposed, u No one can be guilty of a crime, that is great enough to l>e worthy of my emotion"-Nullius tanta nequitia est, ut motu meo digna sit." But we may be sure of this at least, that the more nearly we approach to that magnanimity, the more do we save from disquietude our own happiness, and very probably too the happiness of all around us. " It is impossible for you to be injured," says a French moralist, with a sententiousness worthy of Seneca,-" it is impossible for you to be iijjuredj but in your property, or in your self-love. If you are injured in your the laws defend you, and you may say of him who has injured you, Tinsman is unjust; he will be weaker than I. If you are hurt in your self-love, the reproaches which are directed against you must be either well or ill founded- If they are well founded, why have resentment against a man who make$ you feel the necessity of being wiser or better than you were before ? J thp re- proaches are not well founded, your conscience reassures yr ; and \vhat vexation can arise in the mind of him who looks back only _>n virtues that delighted him when present, and delight him still in the re** embrance ? Tlie reproaches are those either of a friend, or of an enemy if they are the re- proaches of a friend, say to yourselves, he is my friend ; he could not to offend me. If they are the reproaches of an enemy, say to yoursefves, this is what I should have expected : and why, then, should it astonish me, as if it were something new 2 Has your enemy carried his hatred against you so far as to be guilty of a crime .? You are already too well avenged." The emotion opposite to that of resentment is gratitude,-that delightful emotion of love to him who has conferred a kindness on us, the very feeling of which is itself no small part of the benefit conferred. It is this, indeed, which mingles in almost every other species love, and diffuses in them all addi- tional charms. The child does not lo tis parent merely as possessing virtues II. RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, which others around him possess perhaps equally ; he loves him as his con- stant benefactor,-the prolonger of that existence which he gave,-the pro- vider against wants which are not to be felt till the gracious provider for them be himself probably no more. When a friend thinks of his friend, what a long period of reciprocal good offices does he seem to measure in a single moment with his eye,-what happiness conferred, what misery soothed ! It is as if the friendship itself expanded with the length of that bright tract of enjoyment, the retrospect of which is almost a repetition of the pleasure that seems dif- fused over every step. In the pure reciprocations of conjugal regard, all this friendship exists, and exists still more intimately and closely. The emotion is not felt as gratitude, indeed, for every interest is so much united, that a kindness conferred and a kindness received are in such a case scarcely to be distinguished. There is happiness flowing from each to each ; and the gratitude which each feels, is perhaps, if we consider it only as the emotion of the object that receives pleasure, due as much from the heart which has conferred, as from the heart which has seemed more directly to receive it. But still the remembrance of this mutual interchange of tender wishes and enjoyments,-of delights and consolations that were almost delights,-is no small part of the general complex emotion, which renders the love of those who have long loved as permanent as it is pure. HAVING RELATION TO OTHERS. 131 " The Seasons thus, As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll, Still find them happy, and consenting Spring Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads, Till evening comes at last, serene and mild, When, after the long vernal day of life, Enamour'd more, as more remembrance swells With many a proof of recollected love. Together down they sink in social sleep ; Together freed, their gentle spirits fly To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign."* With what happy influence has heaven thus led mankind to benevolence, by making kindness delightful both to him who is the object of it, and to him who confers it ! If no pleasure had been attached to virtue, we might still in- deed have been virtuous, but we should have felt as if walking at the com- mand of some power, whom it would be guilt to disobey, along a world of darkness. The pleasure that flows around us in acts of mutual kindness, is like the sunshine, that is light and gladness to our path; and if we owed no other gratitude to our Creator, we should owe it for this at least, that he has made gratitude itself so delightful. LECTURE LXIV* RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, HAVING DIRECT REFERENCE TO OUR- SELVES-I. SIMPLE REGRET AND GLADNESS, ARISING FROM EVENTS WHICH WE CANNOT CONTROL -II. MORAL REGRET AND GLADNESS, ARISING FROM OUR OWN ACTIONS. In my last Lecture, gentlemen, I considered our emotions of anger and gratitude, those retrospective emotions which have direct reference to * Thomson's Seasons, Spring, v. 1163-1173. 132 II. RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, The affections of this order, which are next to be considered by us, are those which relate more directly to ourselves ; and, in the first place, those emo- tions of simple regret or gladness with which we look back on past events, as mere events of advantage or disadvantage to us, without including any notion of our own moral propriety or impropriety of conduct. I have already, in treating of melancholy and cheerfulness, considered emotions, very nearly akin to these ; the great distinction being in the feeling of a particular object of emotion, which is essential to the complex vivid feel- ing in one case ; and which does not exist in the other case. We are melancholy, often without knowing why we are melancholy; cheerful, with- out knowing why we are more cheerful atone particular time than at another. But, when we feel regret, we know what it is which we regret;-when we feel a joyful satisfaction, we know what it is which gladdens us; and our emotions, as felt by us, have a direct reference to their causes, the conception of which coexists with them in one complex state of mind. Melancholy, indeed, is often the result of regret, as cheerfulness is of any extraordinary joy; that is to say, we are grieved at some event, and our mind afterwards, of itself, continues in a state of sadness, without any thought of its cause ;- we are gladdened by some particular event, and our mind afterwards of itself, without the remembrance of the cause of joy, continues in a state, in which happiness seems to be a part of its very essense ; as if not to be happy, and not to exist, were nearly the same. The immediate and the retrospective emotions, however, which are distinguished by the peculiar names of melan- choly and cheerfulness, in the one case, regret and gladness in the other case,-are sufficiently distinguished by that reference to the past,-the re- trospective feeling which does, or does not, attend them. As a mere vivid feeling, indeed, the regret which affects us on any unfor- tunate occurrence, may, on a minute analysis, be found to be the same, or at least nearly the same, as the general melancholy, or sadness, which we feel, without thinking of its cause,-the regret differing from the melancholy, not as a mere vivid feeling of emotion, but merely as a complex state of the mind, of which sadness is a part, differs from the simpler state, in which sadness is all that constitutes the momentary feeling. If this analysis be accurate, as 1 conceive it to be, the terms may be truly convertible;-so that regret may be said to be only melancholy combined with the conception of a cause of the melancholy; and melancholy itself to be only regret, abstracted from the conception of its cause. A similar minute analysis, by separating,' in every complex emotion, that part which may be considered as peculiarly constitut- ing the vivid feeling which is marked by that name, from the conception of the object, which may or may not accompany it, and which may be various, when the emotion itself, as a mere emotion, is the same,--.might be made in other cases, so as to reduce, with sufficient philosophic precision, the vocabu- lary of our feelings of this class, as elementary feelings, to the very fewT which I enumerated, in entering on the consideration of our emotions. I have preferred, however, for the reasons repeatedly stated by me, the con- sideration of our emotions, in that complex form, in which they usually pre- sent themselves, since the consideration of them in this state of complexity in which they usually exist, has many advantages, and does not preclude the analysis which may be necessary for pointing out to you, in each complex emotion, the elementary feelings that seem to compose it. There are clear 1 definite lines of distinction, which the emotions, in their complex form, HAVING REFERENCE TO OURSELVES. 133 present, that are themselves too striking to be neglected, as principles of ar- rangement ;-and there are bearings on practical ehics, which it seemed to me still more important to point out to you,-relations which the systematic review of our emotions, together with the various objects of our emotions, that give them their common distinctive names, and that, if they do not alter the very nature of the vivid feelings themselves, at least diversify them in many important aspects, affords an easy opportunity of developing,-but which would be lost in the more general consideration of them, if arranged as mere elementary feelings, without regard to their objects. Though the regret, then, which we feel, in thinking of any unfortunate event, and the gladness which we feel, in thinking of any event that has been, or promises to be beneficial, may, as mere vivid feelings of emotion, be the same, or nearly the same, as the more permanent feelings of joy or sadness, which we term cheerfulness or melancholy,-that continue, without any re- ference of the mind, to the past events which may have given occasion to them,-still the retrospective reference is so important a part of the complex whole, that the emotion, which involves this reference, may admit, with ad- vantage, of separate consideration. The emotions, which we are now considering, may be regarded, in their almost infinite relations, as the great diversifiers of the happiness of our days, very nearly as light and shade, that flow over every thing around us, are the diversifiers of that physical scene of things, on which we are placed. How few events can happen, that have any direct relation to ourselves, which may not be productive of some greater or less degree of gladness or regret; and, far from being thus confined to events, which primarily relate to us, our emo- tions of this kind do not merely extend to every thing that can happen within the wide circle of our friendship or acquaintance, but seem to diffuse them- selves over the most distant ages and climes, as if we had a direct and pri- mary interest in the happiness or misery of the whole human race. If every thing at which we rejoice or grieve, in the course of a single day, could be imaged to us at once,-as we gather into one wide landscape, the lake, and the vales, and the rocky summits, which we have slowly traversed, it would be one of the most striking pictures that could be presented, of the social and sympathetic nature of man. Even of the events, by which our personal interest is more immediately affected, and in which our regret or gladness, therefore, might seem exclu- sively personal, how few7 are there, which have not some relation to others ; or rather, how few are there, of which others are not the immediate authors ! What we term chance or fortune, in all those events of our life, which we characterize as fortunate or unfortunate, is only a shorter term for expressing the actions of others, in their unintended relation to us ; and in the friend- ships and thousand rivalries of life, how much of intentional good or evil is to be added to what is casual! There is, perhaps, scarcely a single success, of which we give the praise to our own prudent conduct, that, if others had act- ed differently, might not have been adverse to us, rather than prosperous. Regret and gladness, as thus arising from events which are, in most in- stances, absolutely independent of our conduct, may seem at first to be them- selves, in these instances, equally independent of any conduct on our part. But this is very far from being the case. Though the events may be inde- pendent, the feelings which they awake in us may depend, in a great mea- sure, on our own former feelings. The same power of habit, which influences 134 II. RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, the particular suggestions of our trains of thought, influences also the particu- lar emotions, which arise in different individuals, from the consideration of the same events, because the train of thought itself cannot be different, with- out a corresponding diversity of the emotions that vary with the varying im- ages. How few events are productive only of advantage or disadvantage ! By far the greater number are productive of both,-of advantage, which, if it existed alone, would excite gladness, of disadvantage, which, if it existed alone, would excite regret, and of which, as existing together, the resulting emotion is different, according to the preponderance of the opposing causes of regret or gladness,-that is to say, according as more or fewer imagefe of regret or gladness spontaneously arise to our mind, or according as we ex- amine and analyze, more or less fully, the one or the other-of these sources of mingled joy and sorrow. There are many advantages of what is appa- rently evil, that cannot be known to us, unless we reflect on consequences which are not immediately apparent; many evils of what is apparently profit- able, that may be discovered, in like manner, but discovered only after re- flection. We cannot change events, indeed, in many instances ; but in all of these, the aspect of events, at least, may be changed as our attention is more or less turned to the consequences that may result from them. To wish, is, in this case, almost to produce what we wish. Our very desire of trac- ing the consequences that are favourable to our happiness, will be followed by the suggestion of these, rather than of others, in the same manner as our other desires are always followed by the suggestion of images accordant with them. Our mere intention of describing a beautiful landscape, for example, which is but a desire like any other of our desires, is followed by the images of rural beauty, that rise, in succession to our choice, when, if our intention had been to describe the horrors of some scene of ruggedness and desola- tion, that principle of spontaneous suggestion, to which, in such a case of pic- turing, we give a peculiar name, as if it were a distinct power, and term it fancy, would have presented to us, indeed, as many images as in the gayer landscape, but images of a very different kind. With what varied concep- tions was the mind of Milton filled, when, after describing Pandemonium anc its guilty inhabitants, he seemed to breathe, as it were, a purer atmosphere of freshness and delight, in describing the groves of Paradise, and that al- most celestial pair, w'hose majestic innocence seemed of itself to indicate the recent presence of the God from whom they came, and without whom, to enjoy at once, and to animate it, even Paradise itself would have been a de- sert ! In this sudden change of conceptions that crowded on his imagination, the mind of Milton was still itself the same. The images in all their variety, arose still according to the same simple laws of suggestion. They arose va- riously, only because a single wish of his mind was varied. He had resolved to describe the magnificent horrors of an infernal palace ; he resolved after- wards to describe the delightful magnificence of nature, as it might seem to have shone in original beauty, when it still reflected that smile of its Creator which pronounced it to be good ; and all which would have been necessary to reverse the whole store of imagery,-to convert Paradise, in his mind, into the burning lake, and Pandemonium itself into the bowers of Eden, would have been the change of that single wish which seemed almost to have been creative. If our desire is thus capable of modifying the whole train of sug- gestion, in that process in which the mind is said to invent, it is not less capa- ble of modifying it in cases in which we never think that we are inventive In the whole train of our thought, our conceptions, and the attendant emo- tions which they induce, still correspond with our prevalent wishes. When an occurrence may be productive of good and evil, the good may arise to us, because our general frame of mind is accordant with wishes, and, therefore, with conceptions of good; or the evil only may arise to that gloomy spirit which does not find good, merely because it does not seek to find it. A dif- ferent general character of thought,-the associations, perhaps, of a few years,-a single prevailing notion, may in this way be sufficient, on the con- templation of the same event, to convert gladness into regret, regret itself into gladness. Even when the same event is thus viewed by two different minds,-and the same consequences, in every other respect, arise to both minds,-how im- portant a difference must there be, in the general resulting emotion, accord- ing 'as the two minds are more or less accustomed to view all the events of nature, as a part of a great design, of which the Author is the benevolent wilier of happiness, or of the means of happiness ! The mere difference of the habit, in this respect, is to the individuals almost the same thing, as if the events themselves had been in their own absolute nature diversified. The same events, therefore, in external circumstances exactly the same, may be productive to the mind, of emotions that are very different, accord- ing to its constitutional diversities, or acquired habits, or even according to slight accidents of the day or of the hour. We may rejoice, when others would grieve, or grieve when others would rejoice, according as circum- stances arise to our reflection, different from those which would occur to them. Nor is the influence necessarily less powerful on our views of the future, than on our views of the past. We desire often, in like manner, what is evil for us upon the whole, by thinking of some attendant good; as we fear what is good, by thinking only of some attendant evil. The vanity of human wishes is, in this way, proverbial. We do not need those memo- rable instances which Juvenal has selected, to convince us, how destructive, in certain circumstances, may be the attainment of objects that seem to us, when we wish for them, to comprehend all that is desirable. The gods, says that great moralist, have overwhelmed in ruin whole multitudes, merely by indulging them with every thing for which they prayed. HAVING REFERENCE TO OURSELVES. 135 " Evertere domos totas optantibus ipsis Di faciles."* What is shown, in such cases, only in the fatal result, to those whose scanty discrimination sees only what is or has been, and not what is to be, may, in some respects, be anticipated, by more discerning minds, that would feel sadness, therefore, at events which might seem to others to be subjects only of congratulation. Sagacity, when it exists in any high degree, is itself almost that second sight in which the superstitious of the wilder districts of this country put so much confidence. It looks, far before, into the futurity that is closed to common eyes. It sees the gloom in which gaiety is to terminate, the happiness that is to dawn on ■affliction,. as, by supposed supernatural revelation, the Seer's quick, but gloomy eye, views, in the dance and merriment of evening, the last struggles of him who is the next morning to perish in the waves, or when a whole family is weeping for • Sat. x. v. 7, 8. 136 II. RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, the shipwrecked son or brother, beholds on a sudden, with a wild and myste- rious delight, that moment of joy when the well known voice of him who is lamented with so many tears, is to be heard again, as he returns in safety to the cottage-door. It is not on the nature of the mere event, then, that the gladness or regret which it excites wholly depends, but in part also, on the habits and discern- ment of the mind which considers it; and we are thus in a great measure, creators of our own happiness,-not in the actions merely which seem more strictly to depend on our will, but on those foreign events which might have seemed at first to be absolutely independent of us. If even simple gladness and regret, however, depend in some measure on the peculiar tendencies of the mind, the emotions, which we are next to consider, depend on them still more. These are the emotions which attend our moral retrospects of our past actions,-the remorse which arises on the thought of our guilt,-the oppo- site emotion of delight, which attends the remembrances of what is com- monly termed a good conscience. I have already treated of the emotions which are distinctive to us of vice and virtue in general; but the emotions with which we regard the virtues and vices of others, are very different from those with which we regard the same vices and virtues as our own. There is the distinctive moral feeling, indeed, in both cases, whether the generous sacrifice, or the malignant atro- city w'hich we consider, be the deed of another, or our own heroic kindness or guilty passion ; but, in the one case, there is something far more than mere approbation, however pleasing, or mere disapprobation, however disa- greeable. There is the dreadful moral regret arising from the certainty that we have rendered ourselves unworthy of the love of man, and of the approbation of our God; or the most delightful of all convictions, that, but for our life, the world would have been less virtuous and happy, and that we are not unworthy of that highest of privileges, the privilege of fearlessly adoring Him, whom, if we worship truly with that gratitude which looks beyond the moment of suffering to the happiness of every world and of every age, it matters but little though the place of our adoration should be a dungeon or a scaffold. When we look to some oppressor in the magnificence of his unjust power, surrounded with those inferior tyrants, that while they execute their portion of delegated guilt, tremble at the very glance of him whose frown can make them nothing,-with armies, whom victory after victory has rendered as illus- trious as slaves that carry slavery with them, and spread it wherever their arms prevail, can hope to be;-when we enter the chambers of state, in which he gives himself to public view, and see only the festival, and listen only to voices that are either happy, or seem to be happy,-does all this splendour impose upon our heart, as it would half-seduce our senses into momentary admiration ? Do we think, that God has reserved all punishment for another world, and that wickedness has no other feelings but those of triumph in the years of earthly sway which consummate its atrocities? There are hours in which the tyrant is not seen, the very remembrance of which, in the hours in which he is seen, darkens, to his gloomy gaze, that pomp, which is splendour to every eye but his; and that, even on earth, avenge, with awful retribution, the wrongs of the virtuous. The victim of his jea- HAVING REFERENCE TO OURSELVES. 137 lous dread, who, with a frame wasted by disease, and almost about to re- lease his spirit to a liberty that is immortal, is slumbering and dreaming of heaven on the straw that scarcely covers the damp earth of his dungeon,- if he could know at that very hour, what thoughts are present to the con- science of him who doomed him to this sepulchre, and King sleepfess or his bed of state, though, for a moment, the knowledge of the vengeance might be gratifying, would almost shrink the very moment after from the contemplation of horror so hopeless, and wish that the vengeance were leas severe. "Think not," says Cicero, "that Guilt requires the burning torches of the Furies to agitate and torment it. Their own frauds,'their crimes,, their remembrances of the past, their terrors of the future, these, are the domestic furies that are ever present to the mind of the impipus."-" Nolite eftim putare, quemadmodum in fabulis saspenumero videtis, eos, qufayquicl im- pie scelerateque commiserint, agitari.et perterreri Furiarum taulis ardentibus; sua quemque fraus, et suus terror, maxime vexat; suum quemque scelus agitat, amentiaque afficit; suae malae cogitationes, conscientiscque animi, tcr- rent. Hae sunt impiis assiduae domesticaeque Furiae."* The instance which I have now cltosen, is that of a species of guilt with the conscious remembrance of which few of the great multitude of mankind can be agitated. But those who cannot oppress kingdoms, may yet oppress, families and individuals. There is a scale of iniquity, that descends from the imperial tyrant to the meanest of the mob ; and there are feelings of remorse, that correspond, not with the extent of the power, but with the guilty wishes of the offender. In the obscurest hovel, on the most sordid bed, there are sleep- less hours of the same sort of agony, which is felt, in his palace, by him who has been the scourge, perhaps, of half the nations of the globe. There are visions around that pillow, which, in the drama or romance, indeed, would form no brilliant picture, but which are not the less horrible to him, A\ho<e mepns, but not whose wishes of iniquity, have been confined'to the little frauds, that have swallowed up the pittance of some widow, or seduced into the same career .of guilt with himself, the yielding gentleness of some innocent heart. To the remorse of such a mind, there are not even the same consolations, if I may apply the term of consolation to that dreadful relief, which in ren- dering horror less felt for the instant, truly aggravates its ultimate amount. The power of making armies march, though it be only to new desolation, - of altering, in an instant, the fate of kingdoms, though it be only to'render kingdoms more wretched,-has yet something in it, which, by its greatness, occupies the mind ; and the tumult, of war, and the glory of victory, and the very multitude of those, who bow the knee and tremble, as they solicit favour, or deprecate wrath, afford at least a source of distraction to the mind, though they can afford no more. These sources of distraction the petty villain cannot share. His villanies present to him no other images than those of the insignificant profits which he has perhaps already squandered, and the miseries which he has made. There are no crowds of .flatterers to aid the feeble efforts with which he strives to forget the past. He is left with nothing more than his conscience, and his power of doing still more evil; and he has recourse to this desperate expedient, which, desperate as it is, is still less dreadful than his horror of the past. He adds villany to villany not so much for any new profit, as to have something which may occupy him, producing wretchedness after wretchedness around him, as far as his little Vol. II. * Orat. pro Sex. Roscio Amerino, Sect. 24. (GruterJ or 67 of others. 138 II. RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, sphere extends, till his sense of remorse is at last almost stupified; anu no derives thus a sort of dreadful mitigation ol suffering, from the very circum- stances which are afterwards to be the aggravation of his misery. In these cases of fraud and cruelty, the progress of guilt, in every stage of it, might have brought to the mind of the guilty the evil on which he was entering, or the evil which he was aggravating. But what deep remorse arises often to minds originally of better hopes, that, on entering on the very career which has plunged them in vice, saw no images but those of social plea- sure; and that, after many years of heedless dissipation have elapsed, look back on the years which have been so strangely consumed, almost with the astonishment, though not with the comfort, of one who looks back' on some frightful dream, and who scarcely knows whether he is awake. " Soft as the gossamer, in summer shades, Extends its twinkling line, from spray to spray, Gently as sleep the weary lids invades, So soft, so gently, Pleasure mines her way." At the very suggestions of fraud and cruelty, the heart shrinks instantly, with a horror, which saves, from the guilt of injustice or oppression, all those, whose minds are not unworthy■ of better feelings; but the sugges- tions of pleasure present nothing to the mind, at least till indulgence have become excessive,-with which any feelings of loathing and abhorrence can be associated. The corruption of the mind goes on silently, and gives no alarm, till the mind is already too corrupt, to be capable of the vigorous effort, which would be necessary, for shaking off a power, that shackles and debases it,-but which seems still rather to seduce, than to oppress, and which is scarcely hated by the unfortunate victim, even while it appears to him to have destroyed bis happiness for ever. O, treacherous Conscience! While she seems to sleep On rose and myrtle, lull'd with syren song;- While she seems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop On headlong appetite, the slacken'd rein, And give us up to license, unrecall'd, Unmark'd-See, from behind her secret stand, The sly informer minutes every fault, And her dread diary With horror fills. Not the gross act alone employs her pen; She reconnoitres Fancy's airy band, A watchful foe.-The formidable spy Listening, o'erhears the whispers of our camp. Our dawning purposes of heart explores, And steals our wishes of iniquity."* It is not, however, only when health, and fortune, and dignity, and the affection of those whom we love, have been completely sacrificed, that con- science comes boldly forward, and proclaims a guilt of which we were little dreaming. There* are thoughts of higher objects, that rise to the mind, with an accusation which it is quick to feel, but which it hastens to forget, in a repetition of the idle and profitless, and worse than profitless, enjoyment. At length the accusation, which cannot be suppressed, is heard, with a more painful impatience, but with an impatience, which leads only to a wilder riot, in the hope of stilling murmurs, which are not to be stilled. * Young's Night Thoughts, B. II. v. 256-269, HAVING REFERENCE TO OURSELVES. " The low And sordid gravitation of his Powers To a vile clod, so draws him, with such force Resistless, from the centre he should seek, That he at last forgets it. All his hopes Tend downward ; his ambition is to sink,- To reach a depth, profounder still,and still Profounder, in the fathomless abyss Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death.- But, ere he gain the comfortless repose He seeks, and acquiescence of bis soul In heaven renouncing exile, he endures- What does he not, from lusts opposed in vain And threatening* conscience ?-Rio.t is not loud Nor drunk enough to drown it. In the midst Of laughter, his compunctions are sincere,- And he abhors the jest by which he shines."! 139 On the happiness which attends the remembrance of a life of virtue, it would surely be unnecessary to enlarge. It is a happiness, of which even the guilty,-though they may be incapable of conceiving all its delight,- yet know sufficiently the value, to look to it, with wishes, that do not covet it the less, for coveting it hopelessly. Strange as it may seem, in a world in which vice is so abundant, there yet can be little doubt, that the only object of desire, which is truly universal, is the delight of a good conscience. The pleasures of power and splendour, and indolent luxury, strong as their sway is over the greater number of minds, find yet some minds, to which they are objects either of indifference or contempt. But who is thqre, who has ever said in bis own soul, in forming plans of future life, let me live or die', with- out the remembrance of a single good action ? There are crimes, indeed, conceived and perpetrated with little regard to that virtue, which is for the time abandoned. But there is still some distant vision of repentance, and better thoughts,-which are to be the happiness of old age at least,-that is pre* sent to the most profligate, when he ventures to look forward to old age, and to that event by which age must at last be terminated. It is not because virtue is wholly despised that guilt exists; but the great misery is, that the uncertain duration of life allows the guilty to look forward to years that are, perhaps, never to arrive, and to postpone every better purpose, till their heart has become incapable of shaking off the passions to which it is enslaved, Yet still, repentance and virtue, at some period, are delightful objects, which they never wholly exclude from their prospects of the future ; and if it were possible to be virtuous, without the sacrifice of vice, they would not delay the happiness for a single instant. The happiness of having something in past years, on which to look back with delight, is then, a happiness, which is the wish of all; and if it were g thing that could be plundered, like mere' wealth,-or invaded and usurped, like honour and dignities,-it would probably be one of the first things on which the robber would lay his violent hands, and which even the most fri- volous aspirer, after the most frivolous trappings of courtly honour, would wish to obtain as soon, at least almost as soon, as that wand or ribbon, to which his ambition is obliged to be at present limited. This, however, though it is the only possession which is safe from violence or fraud, is still safe from these. The tyrant, with all his power, cannot divest of it the * Self-reproaching.-Orig. t Cowper's Task, Book V. v. 5S7-600, and v. 614-617. 140 most helpless of those, on whom his tyranny is exercised; he cannot pur- chase it, even for a single moment, with all the treasures which he has amassed,-with all the lands which he has desolated,-with all that power which, in his hands, far from facilitating the acquisition, only renders more hopeless the attainment of those delights of conscience, to which he would still vainly aspire. II. RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, " Magne pater divum,-sjevos punire tyrannos Hand alia ratione velis,-cum dira libido Moverit ingenium, ferventi tincta veneno Virtutem ut videant, intabescantque relicta. Anne magis Siculi gemuerunt sera juvenci, Et magis auratis pendens laquearibus ensis Purpureas subter cervices terruit,-Imus Imus praseipites quam si sibi dicat, et intus Palleat; infelix, quod proxima nesciat uxor."* And it is well for the world, that the only consolation of which the virtu- ous stand in need, cannot be forced from virtue, and usurped by vice. If the powerful could, by the promise of a reward, like that which the Persian monarch offered, obtain the means of forming to themselves, or purchasing at the same cheap rate, at which they purchase their other pleasures, that neiv pleasure, of virtuous satisfaction, which nothing but virtue can give, vice would, indeed, have little to restrain it; and if he, who can order the' virtuous resister of oppression to the dungeon, or to distant exile,-who can separate him,-I will not say, from his home, and his domains, and external digni- ties,-for the loss of these is comparatively insignificant,-but from all those, whom he loves and honours, from that conjugal, and filial, and parental; and friendly kindness, which would now be doubly valuable,-when he might still have the comfort of seeing eyes, to which his own had often been turned in kindness, and of hearing voices, the very sound of which had often, in other griefs, been felt to be consolation, before the gentle meaning itself was uttered, -if the oppressor, who can strip his victim of all these present and external means of comfort, could strip him also of those remembrances, which allow him to look back on the past with satisfaction, and to the future with the con- fidence of one who knows, that, whatever his path may be, he is to be re- ceived, at the close of it, by that Being, whose majesty, awful as it is, is still only the majesty of a benevolence surpassing all earthly love,-if this could be done, then, indeed, might virtue, in this world, seem to be abandoned to the vengeance, or the mercy of the guilty. But while these remain, what is there of which the glorious sufferer,-I had almost said, if the words admit- ted combination, the happy sufferer,-can be truly said to be bereaved of ? The friendships of those who are to meet again, and to meet for ever, are lost but for a moment;-the dignities, the wealth, are not lost; al] that is valuable in them,-the remembrance of having used them, as Heaven wishes them to be used,-remains;-there are years of happiness past, and an immortality of happiness, which is separated from the past only by a moment, and which will not be less sure, whether that moment be spent in fetters, with the pity, and gratitude, and veneration of the good, or, with the same gratitude and veneration, be spent,-if a moment can be said to be spent,-in liberty and opulence. Man, indeed, is too frail, not to yield occasionally to temptations ; but he yields to temptations because he is stupified by passion, and forgets, at the * Persius, Sat. III. 35-43. moment, the differences of the state of the vicious and the virtuous, that in calmer hours are present to him with an influence of which he delights to feel the power. If these differences-the mere contrast of the feeling with which the pure and the guilty look back on the years of their glorious or in- glorious life-could be made constantly present to the mind, there is little reason to think, that all the seductions of power and momentary pleasure could prevail over him who sees what the good are, even in those adversities which the world considers as most afflicting, and what the guilty are, even in the midst of their enjoyments, without taking into account what they must be when those short and palling enjoyments have ceased,- HAVING REFERENCE TO OURSELVES. 141 " One selP-approviug hour whole years outweighs, Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas,- And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels, Than Cassar, with a senate at his hyels."* " The wicked man," says Rousseau, 11 fears and fies himself. He endea- vours to be gay, by wandering out of himself. He turns around him his un- quiet eyes, in search of an object of amusement, that may make him forget what he is. Even then his only pleasure is a bitter raillery,-without some contemptuous sarcasms, some insulting laughter, he would be for ever sad. On the contrary, the serenity of the virtuous man is internal. His.smile is not a smile of malignity, but of joy ; he bears the source of it within himself; he is as gay alone as in the midst of the gayest circle ; he does not derive his delightful contentment from those who approach him ; he communicates his own to them." Such are the emotions which are excited in us when we consider the past, in reference to ourselves, as moral agents ; and, if we knew nothing more of virtue and vice than these feelings alone, and knew, at the same time, that in a future state of existence there was a happiness destined for those who felt emotions of one or the other kind, could we hesitate for a moment, in deter- mining in which class we were to look for those, by whom the happiness was to be inherited ? It would not require any abstract notions of what is morally good and what is morally evil. The emotions themselves would distinguish sufficiently, all that required to be distinguished. We should see in the agita- tion of a bad conscience,-in the terror that arose in it at the very concep- tion of futurity, and of him who presides over the future as over the past,- that the misery which was anticipated was already begun ;-as in the tran- quillity of the good, and the delight which they felt in the very contemplation of the perfections of the Divinity, we should perceive the commencement of that happiness which immortality was not to confer, but to continue:- " Heaven our reward,-for heaven enjoyed below." With these remarks, I conclude my view of our retrospective emotions. The remaining series of emotions, which we have still to consider, are those which relate to the future,-comprehending the important class of our de- sires and fears, as these are diversified by all the variety of the objects on which they can be fixed, and by all the variety of degrees of probability, with which the good which we desire can be expected, or the evil anticipated and feared. In this order of our affections, as in all the emotions already con- sidered by us, we shall find abundant proof of the wisdom and goodness of • Pope's Essay on Man. Ep. IV. v. 255-258 142 that Being, who has given us our passions as he has given us our intellectual faculties, for nobler purposes than those of individual gratification,-purposes which the virtuous delight in seeing and fulfilling, and which the wicked un- consciously promote, even while they are regardless of the wisdom and-good- ness which protect the world, and equally regardless of that social world which is under this sublime protection. 111. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, LECTURE LXV. III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, COMPREHENDING ALL OUR DESIRES AND FEARS.-DESIRE AND FEAR MAY ARISE FROM THE SAME OBJECT.- OUR DESIRES ALWAYS HAVE FOR THEIR OBJECT SOME GOOD, AND OUR FEARS SOME EVIL -DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THAT GOOD WHICH CONSTITUTES DESIRABLENESS, AND MORAL, OR EVEN ABSOLUTE PHYSICAL GOOD -CLASSIFICATION OF DESIRES -WISH, HOPE, EXPEC- TATION, CONFIDENCE, DIFFERENT FORMS OF DESIRE.-1. DESIRE OF CONTINUED EXISTENCE. Gentlemen, In my original arrangement of our emotions, I divided them into three orders, according as their objects were regarded by us as present, past, or future-our immediate emotions, our retrospective emotions, our prospective emotions. In my last Lecture, I concluded my remarks on the second of orders,-which from their reference to the past, 1 have termed retrospective. One order still remains to be considered by us,-the emotions, which I have denominated prospective, from their reference to ob- jects as future. This order is, in its immediate consequences, the most importani-of all our emotions, from its direct influence on action, which our other feelings of the same class, and indeed all our other feelings whatever, influence, only indi- rectly, through the medium of these. It comprehends all our desires and all our fears,-our desires, which arise equally from the prospect of what is agreeable in itself, or from the prospect of relief, from what is disagreeable in itself,-our fears, which arise equally from the prospect of what is disa- greeable in itself, and from the prospect of the loss of what is in itself ble. The same external object, agreeable or disagreeable, may give rise to both emotions, according as the object is, or is not in our possession, or is, or is not producing any present uneasiness,-or, when it is equally remote in both cases, according as the probability of attainment of the agreeable object, or of freedom from the disagreeable object, is greater or less. Hope and fear do not necessarily relate to different objects. We fear to lose any source of pleasure possessed by us, which had long been an object of our hope; we wish to be free from a pain that afflicts us, which, before it attacked us, was an object of our fear. We hope that we shall attain to a situation of which we are ambitious; we fear that we shall not attain to it. We fear that some mis- fortune, which seems to threaten us, may reach us; we hope that we shall be able to escape. The hope and the fear, in these cases, opposite as the emotions truly are, arise, you perceive, from the same objects ;-the one or the other prevailing according to the greater or less probability on either side, COMPREHENDING OUR DESIRES AND FEARS. 143 But though they vary with different degrees of probability, they do not de- pend wholly on a mere comparison of probabilities. They arise, or do not arise, in some measure, also, according to the magnitude of the object; our hope and our fear awaking more readily, as well as operating more perma- nently and strongly, when the object which we wish to attain, or of which we fear to be deprived, is very important to our happiness, though the probabili- ties on either side may be exactly the same as in cases of less importance, where desire or fear, if they arise at all, are comparatively feeble, and when often not the slightest emotion of either species arises : " Pauca licet portes argenti vasculapuri, Nocte iter ingressus, gladiurn contumaue timebis, Et mot® ad lunam trepidabis arundinis umbram; Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator."* " The needy traveller, serene and gay, Walks-the wild heath, and sings his toil away. Dues envy bid tliee crush the upbraiding joy > Increase his riches, and his peace destroy. Now fgars in dire vicissitude invade,- The rustling brake alarms, afrid' quivering shade;- Nor light nor darkness brings his pain relief;- One shows the plunder, and one bides the thief." There can be no question, that he who travels, in the same carriage, with the same external appearances of every kind, by which a robber could be tempted or terrified, will be in equal danger of attack, whether he carry with him 7/7/Ze of which he can be plundered, or such a booty as would impove- rish him if it were lost But there can be no question also, that though the probabilities of danger be the same, the fear of attack, would, in these twft fcasesjbe very different,-that, in the one case, he would" laugh at the ridicu- lous terror of any one who journeyed with him, and expressed much alarm at the approach of evening ;-and that in the oth,er case, his owp eye would watch suspiciously every horseman who approached, and would feel a sort of relief when he observed him pass carelessly and quietly along, at a considera- ble distance behind. That the fear, as a mere emotion, should be more intense, according to the greatness of the object, might indeed be expected ; and if this were all, there would be nothing wonderful in the state of mind, which I have now de- scribed. But there is not merely a greater intensity of fear,-there is, in spite of reflection, a greater belief of probability of attack. There is fear, in short, and fear to which we readily yield, when otherwise all fear would have seemed absurd. The reason of this it will perhaps not be difficult for you to discover, if you remember the explanations formerly given by me, of sortie analogous phenomena. The loss of what is valuable in itself, is of course a great affliction. The slightest possibility of such an evil makes the evil itself occur to us, as an object of conception, though not at first, perhaps, as an object of what can be termed fear. Its very greatness, however, makes it, when thus conceived, dwell longer in the mind ; and it cannot dwell long, even as a mere conception, without exciting, by the common influence of suggestion, the different states of mind, associated with the conception of any grea: evil; of which associate or resulting states, in such circumstances, fear is one of the most constant and prominent. The fear is thus readily ex- * Juvenal. Sat. X. v. 19-22. 144 cited as an associate feeling; and when the fear has once been excited, as a mere associate feeling, it continues to. be still more readily suggested again, at every moment by the objects that suggested it, and with the per- ception or conception of which it has recently co-existed. There is a re- markable analogy to this process, in the phenomena of giddiness, to which I have before more than once alluded. Whether the height on which we stand, be elevated only a few feet, or have beneath it a precipitous abyss of a thousand fathoms, our footing, if all other circumstances be the same, is in it- self equally sure. Yet though we look down, without any fear, on the gen- tle slope, in the one case, we shrink back in the other case with painful dis- may. The lively conception of the evil which we should suffer in a fall down the dreadful descent, which is very naturally suggested by the mere sight of the precipice, suggests and keeps before us the images of horror in such a fall, and thus indirectly the emotions of fear, that are the natural ac- companiments of such images, and that, but for those images, never would have arisen. We know well, on reflection, that it is a footing of the firmest rock, perhaps, on which we stand,-but in spite of reflection, we feel, at least, at every other moment, as if this very rock itself were crumbling or sinking beneath us. In this case, as in the case of the traveller,' the liveliness of the mere conception of evil that may be suffered, gives a sort of tempo- rary probability to that which would seem to have little likelihood in itself, and which derives thus from mere imagination, all the terror, that is falsely em- bodied by the mind in things that exist around. It is not, then, any simple ratio of probabilities, which regulates the rise of our hopes and fears, but of these combined with the magnitude or insignifi- cance of the objects. Yet whatever may be this mixed proportion of pro- bability and importance, the objects of desires and fears are not to be con- sidered as essentially distinct; since these opposite emotions arise, as we have seen, from the same objects, considered in different relations to us. There is nothing which, if it be not absolutely indifferent to us, may not ex- cite both hope and fear, as the circumstances of our relation to it vary. This contrast of the mere circumstances, in which the opposite emotions arise, may save us from much discussion. It would be superfluous to con- sider all our desires in a certain order, and then to consider all our fears in a certain order, since we could only repeat, as to the one set of feelings, the observations previously made on the feelings that are contrasted with them. The consideration of our desires will be sufficient, of itself, to illustrate both sets of emotion, with a few remarks that may occasionally suggest themselves on the emotions of the opposite kind. What then are our desires-or rather, what are the objects which excite our desires ?-for, with the mere feelings themselves I may suppose you to be fully acquainted; and any attempt to define them, as feelings, must in- volve the use of some word exactly synonymous, or will convey no meaning whatever. To desire, it is essential that the object appear to us good;-or rather, to appear to us good, and to appear to us desirable, are truly the same thing ; our only conception of what is good, as an immediate object of desire, be- ing that it excites in us, when considered by us, this feeling of desire. If all things had been uniformly indifferent to all mankind, it is evident that they could not have formed any classes of things as good or evil. What we do not desire may be conceived by us to be good, relatively to others wh< III. PROSPECTIVE FEELINGS, COMPREHENDING OUR DESIRES AND FEARS. 145 desire it, but cannot seem to be good, relatively to us. It would be as ab- surd to say, that we think that good which we should be very sorry to pos- sess, or even which we should be wholly indifferent whether we possessed or not, as it would be absurd to say, that we think that object beautiful, from the sight of which we shrink with an unpleasant feeling as often as We behold it, or which, when we turn on jt our most observant gaze, excites in us no emo- tion whatever. When I say, that to appear to us good, and to appear to' us desirable, are only synonymous phrases, you cannot need to be told, that the good of which I speak, as synonymous with desirableness,-as that, in short, which immedi- ately influences our actions, through the medium of our desires,-is not to be confounded with moral good, nor even with absolute physical good. What we desire, far from being always good, in the sense in which that word cor- responds with the phrases virtuous or agreeable to the divine will, is often completely opposed to it. We may feel that we are desiring what is inconsist- ent with moral rectitude, and yet continue to desire it: " Video meliora, proboque ; Deteriora sequor."- This is not what Medea only could say. It is the melancholy feeling of many minds, that are deserters from virtue, indeed, but that have still for the calmness and holiness of virtue all that respect, which doesnot imply absolute obedience ; and that in yielding to an influence, of which they feel all the se- duction, are rather captivated by vice, than blinded by it. Even with respect to mere physical good, without regard to moral excellence, we may desire what we know will be ultimately of injury to us, far greater than the tempo- rary pleasure which it promises to yield ; and though it appears to us injurious upon the whole, and would be far from being desired by us, if it had no present charms, we may yet prefer it from the influence of those present charms, which are sufficient of themselves to constitute desirableness. The good, therefore, which is synonymous with desirableness, is not necessarily, and uniformly, however generally it may be, consistent with our own greatest advantage, or with moral propriety in our choice. It can be denned, in no other way, than simply as that which appears'to us desirable, the desire itself being the only test, as it is the only proof of tendency in objects to excite de- sire. That immediate good, then, of whatever kind it may be, which we term desirableness, because it is instantly followed by desire,-absolute phy- sical good,-moral good,-are three phrases which have very different mean- ings ; yet, obvious as the distinction is, we are very apt to confound them, merely because we have applied to them the same term; or at least to dis- tinguish them very loosely ; and, from this confusion, has arisen much of the controversy with respect to the influence of motives, and of the controversy, also, with respect to the universal influence of self-love in our benevolent af- fections-disputations, that in the mode in which they have generally been managed, seem to me to have thrown as little light on the theory of morals, as they have contributed to the advancement of practical morality. It is not, then, the highest absolute physical advantage,-nor the most un- doubted moral excellence,-which as soon as perceived,,is instantly followed by our choice; that is to say, which forms necessarily, the immediate good, or desirableness, of which I am at present treating ;-the tendency of objects to excite in us emotions of desire. They may coincide with it, indeed ; and they may produce it; but they do not constitute it. In many instances, Vol. IL 146 they may render immediately desirable, what otherwise would not have seemed to us good, or would even have seemed to us evil,-pain, for example, and privations of various kinds,-which, but for views of ultimate advantage, or of moral propriety, we should have feared rather than chosen :-but though there are minds to which those greater motives can make pain, and every form of present evil, an object of choice, and, in some cases, of ardent desire, there are also minds to which the same views of advantage, and of moral propriety, will not render the pains or privations, that are to produce the greatest ultimate good, sufficiently desirable to influence their feeble will, -minds, that consider objects chiefly as present or future, near or remote* -to which a moment is more than a distant age, a distant age but a moment; and the pleasure of an hour, therefore-, if it be the pleasure of the hour that is already smiling on them,'far more precious than the .happiness of immorta- lity. Desire, or choice itself, then,. thus varying in different minds, is a proof only of the attraction of the object chosen-that attraction to which, of what- ever kind it may be, I have given the name of immediate desirableness, in* reference to the instant desire or choice which is its consequent. But though the choice is', of course, a proof of the attraction which has induced the choice, it is,far from being a proof of that preponderance of ultimate gain, which it might be worldly prudence to prefer, or of that moral rectitude, which is the only object of virtuous preference. That mind is most prudent, in the com- mon of the Jerm, to which the greatest amount of ultimate probable ad- vantage, is that which uniformly renders objects more desirable ;-that mind is most virtuous, to which, in like manner, the moral propriety of certain preferences, is that which uniformly confers on objects their prevailing at- traction. But,still, as 1 before remarked, we desire objects not merely as being morally worthy of our choice, or ultimately productive, of the greatest amount of personal advantage to us, 'but for various other reasons, which constitute their immediate desirableness, as much, in many cases, or much more, than any views of morality, or calculations of selfish gain. That we do not act always with a view to moral good, no one denies ; for, of an assertion so proud, the conscience of every one would, in this case, be a sufficient confutation; and it is only a wretched sophistry which makes us less ready to admit, that we act in innumerable cases, with as little immediate view, at the very moment of our desire, to our selfish gain, as to morality. I' shall not, however, at present, enter fully on this discussion, which in- volves some of the most interesting inquiries in morals. But, with a view to the discussion, in which we may afterwards be engaged, 1 must request you to bear in mind the distinction of that good, which is synonymous with desir- ableness, and of which the only test or proof, is the resulting desire itself, from absolute physical good that admits of calculation,-or from that moral good, which conscience at once measures and approves. That which we desire must, indeed, always be desirable; for this is only to state in other words the fact of our desire. But, though we desire, what seems to us for our advantage, on account of this advantage, it does not therefore follow, that we desire only what seems to us advantageous; and .that what is desirable must therefore imply, in the very moment of the incipient desire, some view of personal good. It implies, indeed, that satisfaction will be felt in the attain- ment of our desire, and uneasiness inithe failure of it; but the satisfaction is the result of the attainment, not. the motive to the desire itself, at the moment III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, COMPREHENDING OUR DESIRES AND FEARS. when the desire arose; as the uneasiness is the result of the failure, not a feeling preceding the desire, and prompting it. The desire, in short, must have existed primarily, before satisfaction could have been felt in the attainment of its object, or regret when the object was not attained. To say, that we can desire only what is desirable, is, then, to say nothing in support of the theory, which would make our advantage the Only motive of our desires; unless it could be shown, by some other argument,-founded on actual observation or analysis,-that the feeling of our advantage, in some respects, precedes uni- formly all our desires, so as to be in truth, that which constitutes, in every case, the immediate and simple desirableness. If, on the contrary, it appear, that we desire many things, which, though they may contribute directly or indirectly to our advantage, are yet desired by us -immediately, and without . any view to this advantage, at the moment at which the desire arose, the ar- gument, from the mere fact of the desire itself, must be absolutely nugatory. It either says nothing whatever, or, by confounding the immediate desirable- ness with our own personal gain, it begs, or it assumes the very point in question. Desirableness, then, does not necessarily involve the consideration of any other species of good,-it is the relation of certain objects to certain emotions, and nothing more,-the tendency of certain objects, as contemplated by us, to be followed by that particular feeling which we term desire. I have said, that with the feeling of desire, as the mere emotion thus pro- duced by certain objects, you must all be sufficiently acquainted. It is a feeling which is of course, in some degree complex, as implying always, to- gether with the vivid feeling that arises on the prospect of good, the concep- tion of the object which seems desirable : but the vivid feeling combined with this conception, seems to me of a peculiar kind, or at least to be some- thing more than can be reduced to any of those elementary feelings which have been considered by us. It is not mere approbation or love of an object, as capable of affording us a certain amount of enjoyment,-but that which results from such love, as its effect. It is not the mere regret that is felt on the absence of a beloved object,-but a prospective feeling, which may, or may not attend that retrospective regret,-and which, far from being pain- fully depressing, like regret, is, at least in many of its forms, one of the most delightful excitements of which our mind is susceptible,-the embellisher of existence,-and the creator of the greater portion of that happiness, which it seems at the time only to present to our distant gaze. Love of an object,- regret at the absence of that object,-these feelings we may discover by ana- lysis : but discovering these, we discover rather what gives birth to our wishes, than what constitutes them,-the sunbeams and the kindling incense from which the phoenix rather than the vigorous bird itself, immortal, in the very changes of its seeming mortality. • a . ■ * • To enumerate the objects of our desire and-fear, would be to enumerate almost every object which exists around us on our earth, and almost every relation of these objects; without taking into account the variety of wishes more fantastic, which our wild imagination is capable of forming. A com- plete enumeration of all the possibilities of human wishes, is almost as little to be expected, as a complete gratification of all the wishes of man, whose desires are as unlimited as his power is bounded. The most 147 148 important, however, may be considered as comprehended in the following series :-First, our desire of continued existence, without any immediate regard to the pleasure which it may yield,-Secondly, our desire of pleasure, considered directly as mere pleasure,-Thirdly, Our desire of action,- Fourthly, Our desire of society,-Fifthly, Ou- desire of knowledge,- Sixthly, Our desire of power,-direct, as in ambition, or indirect, as in ava- rice,-Seventhly, Our desire of the affection or esteem of those around us, -Eighthly, Our desire of glory,-Ninthly, Our desire of the happiness of others,-and, Tenthly, Our desire of the unhappiness of those whom we hate. On these it is my intention to offer a few brief remarks, in the order in which I have now stated them. I must observe, however, in the first place, that each of these desires may exist in different forms, according to the. degree of probability of the attain- , ment of its object. When there is little if any probability, it constitutes what .is termed a mere wish; when the probability is stronger, it becomes what is called hope ; with still greater probability, expectation ; and, with a probability that approaches certainty, confidence. This variation of the form of the desire, according to the degrees of probability, is, of course, not con- fined to any particular desire, but may run through all the desires which I have enumerated, and every other desire of which the mind is, or may be supposed to be capable. Hope, therefore, important as it is to our happiness, is not to be considered as a distinct emotion, but merely as one of the forms in which all our desires are capable of existing. It is not the less valuable on this account, however, but, on the contrary, the more truly precious, since it thus confers on us, not one delight only, but every thing, or almost every thing, which it is in our power even to wish. What hour of our waking existence is there, to which it has not given happiness or consolation ?' I need not speak of the credulous alacrity of our-wishes, in our early years, when we had only trifles, indeed, to desire, but trifles, which were as impor- tant to us, as the more splendid baubles that were probably to occupy, with a change of follies, our maturer ambition. " Gay hope is theirs," is one of the expressions, in reference to the happiness of boyhood, in Gray's well known Ode; and'there can be no question, that, even at that period, when we do not look very far forward, still a great part of the happiness that is felt, even when there is so much boisterous merriment of the present, is derived from a prospect of that little futurity which is never wholly absent from the view,- a futurity which may not in this case extend beyond the happy period of the next holidays, but which is still a field of hope, as much as that ampler field which is ever opening wider and wider on the gaze of manhood. In opening, indeed, thus wider-and wider, it extends itself only to extend the empire of our wishes. There is, then, no happiness which hope cannot promise,- no difficulty which it cannot surmount,-no grief which it cannot mitigate. It is the wealth of the indigent, the health of the sick, the freedom of the cap- tive. There are thoughts of future ease, which play, with a delightful illu- sion, around the heart of him who has been born in poverty, bred in poverty, -who, since the very hour when his arms were first capable of as much labour as could earn one morsel of his scanty meal, has spent his life, not in labour merely, but in unremitting fatigue,-to whom, since that very hour, a day of ease has been as much unknown, as a day of empire, with the excep- f»-'n of that single day, which, in its weekly return, is a season of comfort at III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, DIFFERENT MODES OF THEM. 149 once to the body and to the mind,-giving rest to him who has no other rest, and revealing to him, at the same time, that future world, which is the world of those who have toiled on earth, at least, as much as the world pf those who have subsisted by the toils of others. On tlie bed of sickness, how ready is the victim of disease to form those flattering presages which others cannot form,-to see, in the tranquil looks of those who assume a serenity which they do not feel, a confident expectation of recovery, which has long in their hearts given place to despair,-and to form plans of many future years, per- haps, in that very hour which is to be the last hour of earthly existence. If we could see all those wild visions of future deliverance, which rise, not to the dreams merely, but to the waking thought of the galley-slave who has been condemned to the oar for life, we should see, indeed, what might seeip madness to every heart but his, to which these visions are ip some measure like the momentary possession of the freedom of which he is for ever to be deprived; and, in this very madness of credulous expectation, so admirably adapted to a misery that admits of no earthly expectation which reason can justify, we should see at once tire omnipotence of the principle of hope, and the benevolence of him who has fixed that principle in our minds, to be the comfort even of despair itself, or at least of miseries, in which all but the miserable themselves would despair. Such is the influence of hope through all the years of our existence. As soon as we have learned what is agreeable, it delights us with the prospect of attaining it; as soon as we have lost it, it delights us with the prospect of its return. It is our flatterer and comforter in boyhood ; it is o.ur flatterer and comforter in years which need still more to be flattered and comforted. What it promises, indeed, is different in these different years ; but the kindness and irresistible persuasion with which it makes the promise are still the same; and, while we laugh, in advanced age, at the easy confidence of our youth in wishes which seem incapable of deceiving us now, we are still, as to other objects of desire, the same credulous, confiding beings, whom it was then so easy to make happy. Nor is it only over terrestrial things that it diffuses its delightful radiance. The power which attends us with consola- tion, and with more than consolation, through the anxieties and labours of our life, does not desert us at the close of that life'which it has blessed or consoled. It is present with us in our last moment. We look to scenes which are opening on us above, and we look to those around us, with an ex- pectation still stronger than the strongest hope, that, in the world which we are about to enter, we shall not have only remembrances of what we loved and revered on earth, but that the friendships from which it is so painful to part, even in parting to Heaven, will be restored to tis there, to unite us again in affection more ardent, because unmingled with the anxieties of other cares, and in still purer adoration of that Great Being, whose perfections, as far as they were then dimly seen by us, it was our delight to contemplate together on earth, when it was only on earth that we could trace them, but on that earth which seemed holier, and lovelier, and more divine, when thus joined in our thought with the Excellence that made it. Hope, then, which is thus universal in its promises, and unceasing in Ute influence which it exercises, is not to be considered as one emotion merely, but as all our desires, however various their objects may be. We wish, we hope, we expect, we confide ; or, if there were other words which could ex press different degrees of the certainty of our attainment of what we desire, 150 we might employ them with propriety ; since every additional degree of cer- tainty, or even arty greater vividness of interest in the object itself, varies, in some measure, the nature of the desire which we feel. It is enough for you, however, to understand,-with respect to these words which express-the more remarkable shades of difference,-that to wish, to hope, to expect, to trusty though expressive of feelings that must always be different, whether the objects of these feelings be different or the same, yet do not form classes of feelings essentially distinct from our general emotions of desire, but are mere- ly those emotions themselves, in all their variety, according as we conceive that there .is more or less likelihood, of our obtaining the particular objects which we are desirous of obtaining. In a'competition of any kind, in which there are many candidates, there is perhaps some one candidate who is aware that he has very little interest, and who has, therefore, scarcely more than jt mere wish of success. He canvasses the electors, and he finds, to his sur- prise, perhaps, that many votes are given to him. Ho no longer wishes merely, he hopes ; and, with every new vote that is promised, his hope grows more vivid. A very few votes additional convert the hope into expectation ; and, when a decided majority is engaged to him by promise, even expecta- tion is too'weak a word to express the emotion which he f^els-,-it is trust, confidence, reliance, or whatever other word we may choose*to express that modification of desire which is qotthe joy'of absolute certainty, like the ac- tual attainment of an agreeable object, and yet scarcely can be said to differ from certainty. In this series of emotions, nothing has occurred to modify them but a mere increase of probability in the successive stages; and the same scab of probabilities, which admits of being thus accurately measured in an election that is numbered by votes, exists truly, though, perhaps,* less distinctly, in every other case of desire, in which we rise from a .mere wish to the most undoubting confidence. You will understand, then, without the necessity of any further illustra- tion, that hope and the various forms of our wishes and reliances, more or less vivid, are not a separate'class of emotions, but are only names of all our de- sires, that vary according to the prospect of attainment which their objects seem to us to present. We may wish, hope, expect, or trust, in our attain- ment of some rattle in childhood, as we wish, hope,.expect, or trust, that we are to attain the scarf, or garter, or gold, which is the amusement of our riper age. Even when we think of the noblest objects that can fill our mere earthly desires,-of the happiness of nations, or of the whole animated world,- when the patriot rises to shake some ferocious invader from that throne, to which he had risen by trampling on the bodies of those who had rushed boldly, but unsuccessfully, forward in the same heroic spirit of national free- dom and deliverance,-or when the philosopher looks, through many ag&s of futurity, to the years which, as he trusts, are to perfect the grea,t plans of heaven, in the diffusion of happiness and virtue to mankind,-he wishes, hopes, expects, confides, as the triflers around him are wishing and confiding ; the only difference is, that the very wishes of the patriot and of the general phi- lanthropist, are wishes which, though they should never be realized, it is dig- nity to feel even as wishes ; and that the vain and sensual objects which oc- cupy the vyhole heart of the idle and the profligate, are objects which it is disgraceful to desire with passion, and still greater disgrace, and still greater misery, even for those who have been capable of thus passionately desiring them, to obtain. III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, There is one other prelirtiinary remark, which it may he necessary to make, before entering on the consideration of our separate desires. In the arrangement of our emotions, you must have observed, that no peculiar place has been set apart by me for the Passions ; the reason of which is, that our passions are truly no separate class, but merely a name for our desires, when very vivid, or very permanent. It is impossible to state in words, at what degree of vividness or permanence, we cease to speak of a desire, and term it a passion. This, it is probable, that different individuals would, do very va- riously ; but all, unquestionably, would use tltese different terms, when there is any very remarkable difference in these respects. A slight desire of higher station, which comes upon us at intervals, and is soon forgotten in the cares, or in the delightful occupations of domestic life, no one would think of call- ing a passion, more than the individual himself; who smiles, perhaps, some- times at his own. little dreams of ambition, as if they were the idle musings of Another .mind, and, on awaking, looks at the tranquillity and happiness around him, with a sort of gladness that his drearii was only a dream. It is whea the wish of vvorldly,power and splendour is not the e.motion qf a single minute, but the exclusive, or almost exclusive, wish of the heart,-when it allows, indeed, other desires occasionally to but recurs still with additional force, as if to occupy again what is its own possession, and tp feed on new wishes of advancement, or new projects of obtaining what it wished before ;-it is then, when the desire is vivid and permanent, that we term it a passion, and look, perhaps, with pity on him who is its victim. After these remarks, which I flatter myself have pointed out to you some distinctions which it may be of importance for us to remetnber in our subse- quent discussions, I proceed to the consideration of our desires in the order stated by me. ' • • The first of these is our desire of our own continued existence. Strong and permanent as our wishes of delight may be, it is not happiness only which we desire, nor misery only which we dread; we' have a wish to exist, even without regard,* at the moment of the wish, to the happiness which might seem all that could render existence valuable ;-and annihilation itself, which implies the'impossibility of uneasiness of any kind, is to our concep- tion almost like a species of misery. Nor is it Only when life presents to us the appearance of pleasure, wherever wre look, and when our heart has an alacrity of enjoying it, wherever it is to be found, that the desire ol a con- tinuation of this earthly existence remains. It remains, and, in many in- stances, is perhaps still stronger in those years, when death might seem to afford Only the prospect of a ready passage to a better world. " Da spatium vitte ; multos da, Jupiter, annos. Hoc recto vultu, solum hoc et pallidus optas* « . ♦*. » . , • ■ • " O, my coevals I"-says the author of the Night Thoughts, at a time when he was himself advanced in age,- , " O, my coevals ! remnants of yourselves, Poor human ruins, tottering o'er the grave, Shall we,-shall aged men, like aged trees, Strike deeper our vile root, and closer cling, Still more enamour'd of this wretched soil !"t I. DESIRE OF OUR OWN CONTINUED EXISTENCE. 151 * Juvenal. Sat. X. v. 18$, 189. f Book IV. v. 109-113. 152 To explain the apparent inconsistency of the increased love of life, that is so frequently observed in old age, when the means of enjoyment are di- minished,-we must remember, that, by the influence of the suggesting prin- ciple, life, as a mere object of conception to the old, retains still many charms, which in reality it does not possess. The life, of which they think, is the life of which they have often thought; and that life was a life full of hopes and enjoyments.. The feelings, therefore, which- were before associated with the notion of the loss of life, are those which still occur, on the contempla- tion of its possible loss, with the addition of all those enjoyments which a longer series of years must have .added to the complex conception, and the loss of which, 3's one great whole, seems to be involved in the very notion of the loss of that life, of which the eiyoyments formed a part. It must be re- membered, too, that if life be regarded as in any degree a blessing, the m§re circumstance of the increased probability of its speedy termination, must confer on it no slight accession of interest. This is only one of many in- stances of the operation of a very general principle of our nature :-the likeli- hood of Ipss being itself almost a species of endearment; or at least produc- ing, in every a tenderness that is soon diffused over the object which we contemplate, that seems thus to be more lovely in itself, merely because, from its precariousness, we love it more. Absurd, however, as the desire njay seem, in such cases, it is, as a general feeling of our nature, a most striking proof of the kindness of that Being, who, in giving to man duties which he has to continue for many years to dis- charge in a world which is preparatory to the nobler world that is afterwards to receive him, has not left him to feel the place in which he is to perform the duties allotted to him, as a place of barren and dreary exile. He has given us passions which throw a soft of enchantment on every thfr|g which can reflect them to our heart, which add to the delight that is felt by us in the exercise of our duties,-a delight that arises from the scene itself on which they are exercised,-from the society of those who inhabit it with us,-from the offices which we have, performed, and- continue to perform. While these earthly mitigations of our tempordry exile,-if I may venture to speak of exile in relation to a world which we have not yet reached,-are thus bounteously granted to us, there may, indeed, be a fear of death more than perhaps is necessary for this benevolent purpose, in the breasts of those who are too abject in their sensual or sordid wishes, to think of heaven, or too conscious of guilt to think of it with tranquillity. But to minds of nobler hopes, which, even in loving life and all which life presents, have not forgot- ten how small apart it is of that existence which it only opens to them, what objects are presented,-I will not say, to reconcile them merely to the simple transition in which death consists, but to make this very transition a change which, but for the tears of other eyes, and the griefs of other hearts, they may smile tranquilly, or almost exult, to see approaching ! There are minds indeed, which may truly exult at this parting moment, which can look back on the conflicts of this fading scene, like the victor of some well-fought field, who closes his eye in the hour of some triumph, that has been the triumph of Freedom more than of War, amid the blessings of nations,-and who, in the very praises and blessings that are the last sounds of life to his ear, hears rather the happiness which he has produced, than the glory which he has won ' HI. PROSPECTIVE ExMOTIONS, I. DESIRE OF OUR OWN CONTINUED EXISTENCE. " Death is victory : It binds in chains tire raging ills of life : Lust and Ambition, Wrath and Avajice, Dragged at his chariot-wheel, Xpplaud his power. That ills corrosive, cares importunate, Are not immortal too, O Death, is thine ! And feel We, then' but dread from thought of thee ?* Death the great counsellor, who ftian inspires With every nobler thought and fairer deed;' Death, the deliverer, who rescues man :• Dpath, the rewarder, who the rescue'd crdwns f't 153 How admirable is that goodness which knows so well how tn.adapt to each other feelings that, are opposite,-which gives to man a love of life enough to reconcile him, without an effort, to the earth which is to be the scene of his exertions 7 and which, at the same time, gives those purer and more glo- rious wishes which make him ready to part with the very life which he loved. LECTURE LXVL III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS-I. CONSIDERATION OF THE DESIRE OF CONTINUED EXISTENCE, CONCLUDED.-II. DESIRE OF PLEASURE. IN my last Lecture, gentlemen, I began the consideration of that order of our emotions,Which, from their relation to objects as future, 1 distinguished from our immediate and retrospective emotions, by the name of prospective, -an order which comprehends our desires and fears,-the most important of all the affections of our mind, as the immediate directors of ouf conduct, which our other mental affections, of. whatever species, influence only indi- rectly, through the medium of our wishes. With respect to this order in general, I endeavoured to explain to you, how the same objects, agreeable or disagreeable, may, in different circum- stances of our relation to these objects, as present or absent, give rise both to hope and to fear; and how different the feeling of the mere desirableness of an object,-which is nothing more than the relation of certain objects perceived or conceived, as antecedents to our desires as consequents,-is from the feeling of the greater amount of personal advantage, or of the moral propriety of certain actions; both which considerations, indeed, may produce the tendency to desire, in some cases, but do not necessarily con- stitute it in all;-the clearest perception of greater advantage from certain actions, which it would be worldly prudence to prefer, and of moral propriety in certain actions, which it would be virtue to prefer, being often insufficient to overcome other circumstances of momentary attraction, which thus ob- tain our momentary preference, eventhough felt to be in absolute opposition to our good upon the whole, and.to that virtue, which is itself, indeed, a part, and the most important part of this general good. Since the objects of desire,-which are so various to different persons, * And feel I, then, no joy from thought of thee !-Orig. t Young's Night Thoughts, B. III. v. 495-500, 511-515. Vol. II. 154 III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, that, perhaps, no two objects are regarded with the same interest and choice by any two individuals,-are not limited, oven to the infinity of existing things, but comprehend whatever the wildest imagination can conceive, 1 stated to you «tlie impossibility of any exact enumeration of these objects, ouch as n ight enable us to treat compendiously of the whole boundless va- riety of human wishes. All which 1 could, venture to do, therefore, was to class the principal objects, that seem, in their nature, to involve that species of attraction, which, as immediately antecedent to all our wishes, I have termed desirableness,-that is to slay, the most important of those objects, which cannot, in the ordinary circumstances of our nature, be contemplated by us, without exciting tjie emotion of desire. Of these, 1 enumerated the following:-Our desire of the mere.cdntinuation of our beina,-our desiiA of pleasure,-our desire of action,-our desire of society,-our desire of knowledge,-our desire of power, whetlier of direct power, as in what is 'commonly tfcrmed ambition, or of indirect power, as in avarice,---our desire of -the affection or esteem of those around us,-our desire of- glory,-our desire of the happiness of others,-our desire of the unhappiness of those whom we hate. All these desires, however, I stated, may exict in various forms, accord- ing to tire different degrees of probability of attainment,-a simple wish, hope, expectation, confidence, being the most remarkable gradations in the scale,-though there are various intervening shades of difference, to tyhich no name is given. They ai;e not species of desires essentially distinct, but modes of all our desirps. ' . ' • Our wishes, when they exist with little force and permanence, are termed, simple desires,-when they rise more vividly, and occupy the mind more exclusively, they are termed passions. The vividness and permanence, therefore, are the only circumstances, which distinguish our passions,-not any essential difference in the particular nature of the desires themselves. The slightest wish, which we scarcely feel as a very vivid emotion, becomes a passion, when it affects us strongly and lastingly. The most ardent pas- sion, which may have, occupied our whole soul for haff our life, if it were to rise only slightly and faintly, would be termed a mere desire. After these general preliminary distinctions, I proceeded to the' considera- tion of our particular desires; and, in my last Lecture, offered some re- marks on the first of these, in my order of enumeration. Of the great fact of that desire of life, which you must see operating universally around you, yod could not nqed to be informed; and my observations, therefore, were chiefly illustrative of that beautiful adaptation of our nature to the scene on which we have to discharge the various duties of men, that is effected by this principle of our constitution,-a principle, which renders the scene of those duties itself delightful, as the scene of our continued being,-of that life, which we love in itself, and which is associated, in our conception, with the scene on which every moment of our life has passed. Instead, therefore, of viewing, in our love of life, a principle disgraceful to our nature, we may see in it, far more truly, a principle which does honour to our nature, because it answers admirable purposes in our moral constitu- tion. What happiness would it be, to those who were to be confined in the most gloomy prison for a series of years, if during all this long period of confinement, Ute very prison itself were to seem to them a delightful habita- tion, and when the hour of deliverance came, we had only to open the gate, 1. DESIRE OF OUR OWN CONTINUED EXISTENCE. and lead the prisoner forth to sunshine and the balmy breeze, which were not to be the less delightful, then, on account of the captivity in which his former years were spent! I need not point out to you, how exactly the cpse, now imagined; corresponds in every circumstance, except in the gloom and narrowness of the prisoner's dismal abode, with that which truly. constitutes our situation as temporary inhabitants of this delightful earth. It is not the mere love of life, which is disgraceful in itself, but the cowardly Jove of it, which does not yield to nobler desires. Every wish which we can feel for objects that are apt to affect'ourselves,'has, of course, relation to the future, and therefore, to some protraction of our existence, the wish of which must consequently be involved in every other personal wish, the most honourable which the mind can form. To desire the continuation of life, is to fear the loss of it; and to fear the loss of it, is to fear every thing which may bring it into danger. Even the brave man, then, will avoid dan- ger, where no virtue would lead to the exposure; but, when virtue requires, exposure, he will scarcely feel that it is peril to which he is exposing himself. Glory, the good of mankind, the. approbation of his own heart, the'approbation of God,-these are all which the brave man sees; and he, who, seeing these, can sacrifice them to the love of mere animal life, is in- deed, unworthy, I will not . say of vanquishing in a cause in which it is no- ble to prevail, but even of perishing in a cause in which it is noble to pdnsh. , • • • The next desire, to the consideration of which I proceed, is our desire of pleasure; to which the fear of pain may be regarded as opposed. Anni- hilation, indeed,'seems to us an evil, independently of the happiness or misery, of which it may deprive us, or from which it may free us.- We love the mere contentment of our being, but we love still more odr well- being ; and existence is valuable to us, chiefly as that which can be rendqred happy. He, wlio formed us to be happy, of course formed us to be deserving of happiness.. The desire, indeed, may be considered as almost involved in the very notion of happiness itself, which could scarcely be conceived by us as happiness, if it were not conceived as that which is an object of desire. I may say of the love of .pleasure, what I have said of the love of life. As it is not the love or preservation of life which is unworthy of a brave and honourable man, but the love of a life that is inconsistent with nobler objects of desire; it is, in like manner, not the love of pleasure which is unworthy of us,-for pleasure, in itself, when arising' from a pure source, is truly as pure as the source from which it flows; but the love of pleasure that is incon- sistent With our moral excellence. The delight which virtue gives, and which devotion gives, is no small part of the excellence, even of qualities so noble as devotion and virtue. We love men more, we love God more, be- cause it is impossible for us to love them more, without an increase of our delight. In this sense, indeed, to borrow a beautiful line, which expresses much in a very few words,- 155 " Pleasure is nought but Virtue's gayer name."* Even of pleasures, which do not flow immediately from virtue, but of which virtue is far from forbidding the enjoyment, how many are there which nature * Young's Night Thoughts, B. VIII. v. 573 is continually inviting us to enjoy! There are seasons, in which we cannot move a single step, or look around us, or inhale a single breath of air, with- out some additional happiness. To move is delightful; to rest is delightful. It seems almost, as if the same sun, which is every where diffusing light, were diffusing every where happiness; and not to be happy, and not to love the sources of happiness around us, seem to us almost like ingratitude to the Author of these, and a sort of rebellion agAinst that benevolence, which so manifestly wills our enjoyment. The words with which Beattie.concludes one of the most beautiful stanzas of his principal poem, express, in this re- spect, a sentiment, with which it is impossible for us not to sympathize.-• •• 156 III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, " O, hpw cans! thou renounee the boundless store Of charms, which nature to her votary yields,- The warbling Woodland, the resounding shore, The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields; All that the genial ray of morning gilds, And all that echoes to the song of even, All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, And all the dread piagnificence of Heaven,- O, how caust thou renounce-and hope to be fergivenj"* The love of pleasure, then, is far from being unworthy of man; since all which we admire in the universe, all which raises us to admiration of the author of the universe, is accompanied with it. We cannot love virtue with- out loving a source of delight; we cannot love who has made us capa- ble of loving virtue, without a delight still more ardent. We must love pleasure, if we love whatever is worthy of being loved. But the pleasures which attend virtue, or which virtue approves, are not the only pleasures which man is capable of feeling. He may have a sort of dreadful satisfaction in the fulfilment of the most malignant desires, or he may become the self-degraded slave of his own appetites. There are seve- ral gratifications, of which, though virtue may not forbid the temperate use, she forbids the intemperate excess,-not because they are pleasures, but be- cause they render us incapable of discharging duties which we have to per- form,-or, which is a still greater evil, deprive us even of the very wish of discharging our duties. In a former Lecture, I endeavoured to describe to you the melancholy progress of a mind which has yielded itself gradually, with fewer and fewer struggles, a slave to the tyranny of sensual passions, -of passions which stupify still more than they enslave. It is this stupe- faction of better powers and feelings, which far more than the loss of mere fortune and health, is the most pathetic, or the most dreadful image, in every such description of the sacrifices of the dissolute : " Your friends avoid you. Brutishly transform'd They hardly know.yoti;-or if one remains, To wish you well, he wishes you in heaven. Despis'd, unwept, you fall,-who might have left A sacred, cherish'd, sadly pleasing name,- A name still to be utter'd with a sigh." Even if nothing more than mere sensual pleasure were to be taken into account, without comprehending, in our estimate, the miseries.of shame and remorse, and ruined fortune, and without any regard to those sublimer de- * Minstrel, Book I. Stanza IX. lights, which the sensual lose, and which they perhaps care not for losing, because they are incapable of conceiving them ;-there can be no question, that in this least important part of happiness, which alone they value, they are inferior to those, who enjoy, indeed, those external pleasures, which it is only gratitude to heaven to enjoy, but who think of their senses as the sources of instruction more than as the medium of indolent luxury. We are not to consider, in our estimate, the momentary enjoyments only; we are to consider the sensual pains, as well as the sensual delights-'the lan- guor, the satiety, the sickness, the days that in ill health hang heavily with- out amusement, and the nights without repose, in which the mind that has no consolation within, is still more restless than the restless body. Yet these are the disquietudes, which, if combined with a dull-repetition of arrfusements that are amusements no more, of splendour that ceases to afford pleasure, because it is a splendour which is even more familiar to us than the want of it, and of intercourse with smiling faces and vacant hearts,'which agree with our own, as truly in the listlessness and weariness that are felt as in the cheerfulness that is affected,-are what, if we have unfortunately entered on such a life, we strangely term a life of gaiety :- 2. DESIRE OF PLEASURE. 157 " Whom call we gay * That honour has been long The boast of mere pretenders to the name. The innocent are gay.-The lark is gay, That dries his feathers, saturate with dew, Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beam Of day-spring overshoot his humble nest. The peasant too a witness of his song, Himself a songster, is as gay as he ; But save me from the gaiety of those, Whose headachps nail them to a noon-day bed !"* The innocent, indeed, are the gay; and their gaiety is not sickness and vexa- tion, but happiness. It is a gaiety which flows so readily around them, that it is not easy to distinguish how much of it is derived from without, and how much of it has its source within. All which we perceive, is that they are happy, and that their happiness is not to be obtained without the innocence which leads to it. With this purity of heart, the very senses enjoy pleasures, which require no cost to produce them, but which surpass all the enjoy- ments which the extravagant luxury of the sensual can devise. In the first vernal walk of the lovers of nature, the sight of a single cottage, which speaks to them of the happiness of those who dwell in a scene so beautiful, of a single wild-flower, which at the opening of spring, sqems to announce the continued care of that God, who is again, as in former yegrg, to cover the earth with all the profusion of bis bounty,-gives to them a pleasure, which, if the proud and luxurious could purchase by the magnificence of their richest banquets, they would not be magnificent in vain. The desire of relief from pain may be regarded only as another form of the desire of pleasure ; and in this sense, the species of emotion, which we have been considering, besides its relation to every accidental pain, .compre- hends all the desires that are involved in our bodily appetites, as distinguished in that analysis, which we formerly made, from the mere uneasiness which gives occasion to the desire ; the desire of food or drink, for example, as dis- tinguished from the mere pain of hunger or thirst, which must exist as * Cowper's Task, Book I. v. 491-500. 158 sensations, before any such desires, that are subsequent to the sensations, can be felt. In the same way, the desire of relief may be thought to compre- hend that emotion which is next to be examined by us,-the desire of action ; and, to a certain degree, it unquestionably does comprehend it; since long inaction produces a pain in our limb?, which prompts us to the necessary mo- tion, as truly, as the long want of food produces a pain of a different sort which prompts us to have recourse to that which alone can give relief to such a pain. But the action, of which 1 speak at present, as the object of a pe- culiar species of desire, is far more titan this desire of relief from muscu- lar languor ;- it is a continued exertion, which we do not abandon immedi- ately, after freeing .our muscles from this uneasiness, which soon passes away at the very beginning of exercise, but prosecute, perhaps, till we produce in them a pain of an opposite kind.-the pain of fatigue. 1 am aware, indeed, that according to the system of many philosophers, who consider our own selfish enjoyment as the sole object of our wishes, to speak of other desires, after mentioning the desire of pleasure as one of our emotions, must be absolutely superfluous; since, the desire of pleasure, ac- cording to them, must, in some one of its forms, be the desire of every thing, which man can immediately desire. The remarks, which I made on this subject, in my last Lecture; have prepared you, however, 1 trust, for seeing the fallacy of this supposition ; since, though every thing which we desire must have seemed to us desirable, as the very fact of the desire denotes,-and though the attainment of every such desire must be attended with pleasure, it does not therefore follow, that the pleasure, which truly attends this fulfilment of desire, was the primary circumstance which excited the desire itself. We may feel happiness from exertion of every kind,-from society,-from the discovery of truth,-from the good fortune of our friends, and yet have desired these, with- out any view, at the moment of the beginning desire, to this resulting happiness, and merely from the constitution of our nature, which leads us to desire knowledge1, simply as knowledge, because there is something of which we are ignorant, and which we may readily learn, society simply as society. Nature, indeed,,his attached pleasure to these, as she has attached pleasure to many of our functions, which we do not exercise on account of that pleasure. But in considering the origin of our desires, we are to think only of what is con- templated by the mind at the vpry moment when the emotion arises, of the circumstances antecedent to the desire, and not of circumstances which may, or may not, be its consequents. The mother derives pleasure from loving her. new-born infant; and a superficial thinker might say, in this case, as, indeed, many superficial thinkers have said, that she loves her infant for no other reason than this pleasure, and that, but for her Own. selfish delight, she could see it perish without the slightest concern. A very little observa- tion, however, is sufficient to show us, that the love,, in this case, though accompanied with pleasure, is, in its origin, independent of the pleasure, and must have preceded it, or the pleasure could not have been .feltl, for, if there had been no previous emotion of a peculiar love in the motlier, to distinguish the infant from every other infant, where are we to find (he peculiar pleasure, from which alone the peculiar love is said to be derived ? What is so evi- dently true in this case, is true in many other cases. The dmotion arises, and is attended with pleasure ; but it does not arise on account of the plea- sure. On the contrary, the pleasure is felt, because the emotion has previ- ously arisen, and could not have been felt, but for the previous emotion that HI. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, is gratified. It is, as in journeying to some distant scene, at the call of business, or of friendship ;-the landscape may be beautiful, and may delight us, therefore, in every stage of our journey, the very exercise itself may be pleasing. Without the journey, it is evident, that- we could not have enjoyed this beauty of the scene, and this pleasure of the exercise; but we do not journey on account of these delights. At the same call, we should have traversed the same road, though the landscape had been dreary and desolate on every side, and though fatigue had converted the exercise i/self into un- easiness. " Whate'er the motive," it has been said, by a poetical defender of this doctrine,- 2. DESIRE OF PLEASURE. 159 " Whate'er the motive, pleasure is the mark. For her, the black assassin draws his sword ; For her, dark statesmen trim their midnight lamp, To which no single sacrifice may fill!; For her the saint abstains, the miser starves; The stoic proud, for pleasure, pleasure scorn'd : For her, afflictien's daughters grief indulge, And find, or hope, a luxury in tears ; For her} guilt, shame, toil, dtmger, we defy, And with an aim voluptuous, rush on death." This, indeed, though in verse, is aS sound philosophy, as much duller philoso- phy of the same kind; but powerful as it may be in poetic antithesis, it is as verse only that it is powerful,-not as a statement of philosophic truths. We desire, indeed, all these objects, and, however ill-fitted some of them may appear to be productive of delight, we may perhaps, feel pleasure in all thdse objects,-as we should certainly fee) pain, if we were not to obtain what wt; desire, whatever the object of'desire may have been ;-but it is not the pleasure which was the circumstance that prompted our desire, when it'arose -it was the desire previously awakened, which was accompanied witli pleasure, or was productive of pleasure^-the pleasure being in * all these Cases, the effect of the previous desire, and necessarily presupposing it. We desire the happiness of others, and we have pleasure in this desire ; but with the same capacity of mere love as now, we should have desired the happiness of others, though no direct pleasure to ourselves had followed our generous wish. We desire knowledge, and we are delighted with the at- tainment of it; but if the constitution of our mind had continued, in every other respect, the same as now, we should have felt curiosity, though it hud terminated only in simple knowledge. It is the very nature of our mind, as. originally constituted with certain tendencies, that some objects should seem to it imtnediately desirable; as it is its very nature, that certain objects should seem to it immediately propor- tioned in symmetry or related to each other in various ways. When we think of the series of numbers, two, four, eight, sixteen, we perceive that, each is the double of the number preceding, and we perceive this, perhaps, without any pleasure whatever-certainly, at least, independently of any pleasures which may be felt. The mere conception of the numbers as a primary feel- ing, gives rise to the feeling of the relation of the parts of the series, whether the discovery of the relation be, or be not, accompanied with the pleasure. It is, in short, the very nature of the numbers, so conceived together, to'ap- pear to us so related. It is the same with that relation of a different kind, which I have termed desirableness. When we are assured of the particulars i * Young's Night Thoughts, B. VIII. v. 111. RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, 160 of any fact, connected with a speculation in which we may be engaged, it ia impossible for this fact to be considered by us, as something of which we are capable of obtaining more accurate knowledge, without being instantly desir- able,-that is to without exciting in instant sequence our desire of know- ing it fully. It seems to us desirable, as immediately as four is perceived by us to be the double of two, and eight of four; and it seems to us desirable, merely from its' very nature; as a fact illustrative of our particular speculation, as much as two, four, eight, appear to us related,- instantly and without any conception of the pleasure which we may feel in discovering the relation. Pleasure, indeed, attends the discovery; but it is surely very evident, that there must have been curiosity before the pleasure, or no pleasure could have been felt. Pain, or disquietude, attends the ungratified curiosity. But, in like manner, there must hatfe -been a previous desire of knowledge, or if there was no previous desire of knowing any thing, there could -be no pain in the continued ignorance. The pleasure and pain, in short, however early, presuppose always a desire still earlier, or they must have been effects that arose from The immediate desirableness of objects is then, 'as I flatter myself you have perceived, something'very different from the pleasure which attends the fulfilment of the desire, however much the pleasure, once induced, may af- terwards become itself a new circumstance of attraction-and there is not, therefore, necessarily any redundancy of arrangement, in speaking of other sets of desires, after having treated of the love of pleasure,-considered sim- ply as pleasure, or as relief from pain. The very desires, indeed, which are thus separated from the desire of .mere pleasure, may, when gratified, afford, perhaps, as much real delight, as those, of which pleasure was the simple object. But it is sufficient for our arrangement, that this pleasure, however lively it may be in itself, did not constitute to us the primary and instant de- sirableness of the object, or, in other words, was not that circumstance, which we had immediately in view, at the very moment when our desire arose ;-the direct antecedent, in a train of feelings, of which that other feel- ing, which we term desire, was'the consequent, and the instant consequent. I return, then, to the consideration of those desires, which 1 have thought it necessary to add, even after the desire of pleasure. The- first of these, on the consideration of which I had scarcely entered, was the love of action. To be happy, it is necessary that we be occupied ; and, without our thinking of the happiness which results from it, nature has given us a constant desire of occupation. We must exert our limbs, or we must exert our thought; and when we exert neither, we feel that languor, of which we did not think before, but which, when it is felt, convinces us how admirably our desire of action is adapted for the prevention of this very evil, of which we had not thought; as our appetites of hunger and thirst are given to us for the preservation of health, of which we think as little, during the in- dulgence of our appetites, as we think, during our occupation, of the languor which would overwhelm us, if wholly unoccupied. How wretched would be the boy, if he were forced to lie even on the softest couch, during'a whole day, while he heard, at intervals, the gay voices of his playmates without, and could distinguish, by these very sounds, the particular pastimes in which they were engaged ! How wretched, in these circumstances, is man him- self ; and what fretfulness do we perceive, even on brows of more deliberate thought,-on brows too, perhaps, that, in other circumstances, are seldom 3. DESIRE OF ACTION. 161 vvercast, if a few successive days of wet and boisterous weather have ren- dered all escape into the open air, and the exercises which this escape would afford, impossible ! " The sort of bodily pleasure, which we derive from exercise," says the author of a very pleasing little French work, on the theory of our agreeable feelings, " cannot be analyzed, indeed, without becoming almost insensible. The pleasure which accompanies a motion of the hand, escapes from us, by its littleness; but it is not, on that account, the less real. Do not women, every day, save themselves from many hours of listless uneasiness merely by a little motion of the fingers, in some slight work, to which they attach no other value, than as it is a source of this very amusement to them ? The charm of the particular work itself, and the general pleasure of being occupied, have need of being combined, to make any sensible impression."* Without the knowledge of the pleasure that is thus felt in mere exertion, it would not be easy for us to look with satisfaction on the scene of- human toil around us,-which assumes instantly a different aspect, when we consi- der this happy principle of our mental constitution. Though we are apt to think of those who are labouring for others, as if they were not labouring for themselves also-and though unquestionably, from our natural love of free- dom, any task which is imposed cannot be as agreeable, as an occupation spon- taneously chosen-we yet must not think that the labour itself is necessarily an evil, from which it would be happiness for man to he freed. Nature has not dealt so hardly with the great multitude,-in comparison with whom the smaller number, for whose accommodation she seems to have formed a more sumptuous provision, are truly insignificant, and would be unworthy of this seeming preference, if the provision of their means of luxury, were all which is involved in the wealth which she bestows on them. The wealth of the individual is valuable, chiefly as it leads to the labour of others, and presents, in the reward which it offers, an agreeable object, to mingle with the pleasure of the occupation, and to sooth and sweeten it, even when it rises to fatigue. How different would the busy scene of the world appear, if we could con- ceive that no pleasure attended the occupations, to which so great a majority of our race would then seem to be condemned, almost like slaves, that are fettered to the very instruments of their daily task ! How different from that scene, in which, though we perceive many labouring, and a few at rest, we perceive, in the labourer, a pleasure of occupation, which those who rest would often be happy to purchase from him, and which they do sometimes endeavour to purchase, by the same means by which he has acquired it, by exercises as violent and unremitted as his, and which have the distinction only of being of less advantage to the world, than those toils.by which he at once promotes his own happiness, and contributes to the accommodation of others I It is pleasing, thus, to perceive a source of enjoyment, in the very circumstance which might seem most hostile to happiness,-to perceive in the labour itself, of which the necessity is imposed on man, a consolation for the loss of that very freedom which it constrains. When we do not labour with our limbs, we must labour with our mind; and happy is it for our peace when this mental occupation can supply to us the place of bodily occupation,-which, to the rich at least, must always be in a great degree dependent on the accidents of weather, and in some mea- sure, too, on the society of others. He, to whom a book presents occupation, * Theorie dee Sentimens agreables, chap, ii Vol. II. 162 scarcely can be in circumstances in which this occupation is not in some de- gree at his command ; and it is not easy to say, how much of happiness, and of that good humour which is no small part of morality, depends on the mere power of occupying ourselves agreeably with this exercise ol our eyes and mind, as others, less happy in intellectual taste, are obliged to depend for occupation on exercises that require a greater number of circumstances to place them in their power. " Choose any station in life which you may prefer," says Pascal, " com- bine in it every pleasure which seems capable of satisfying the desires of man ; if he, whom we imagine placed in this situation, has no occupation or amusement, his languishing felicity will not support him for an hour. He must have something to withdraw him from himself, or he is necessarily unhappy. " Is not the royal dignity great enough of itself to content him who is the object of so much envy? 1 see, indeed, that in other circumstances, to ren- der a man happy, it is necessary to turn him away from the sight of his own misery, though it be on!)' to occupy his whole mind with the anxiety of bend- ing his knee, or pointing his toe in a dance a little better than before. But is it.the same with ti king 2 Must he, too, be amused like others? Would it not be a sort of insult to the joy which he must feel, to occupy his soul with the thought, how he is to adapt his steps to the measure of an air, or how he is to send one billiard ball most adroitly to meet another,-instead of leaving him to enjoy, in repose, the contemplation of that majestic glory which surrounds him ? Let us make the trial. Let us leave the most mag- nificent sovereign, without company, without occupation, to enjoy himself, in all his magnificence at leisure; and the sovereign whom we have left to himself will be only a human being, that feels his miseries like other people. All this, therefore, is most carefully provided against; and there are never wanting round the person of kings a number of idle courtiers, whose only occupation is to watch the time of their leisure, that they may suggest instantly some new amusement in the intervals of public business, or of other amuse- ments, and save them from the dreadful misery of being alone, and of know- ing what they are. " Man is so wretched a being," he continues, " that he would soon be tired of himself, without any external cause of dissatisfaction, by the mere feeling of what he is ; and yet he is so vain and trifling a creature, that, full as he is of a thousand essential causes of disgust, the most insignificant trifle is sufficient to amuse him ; so that if we were to consider him seriously, we should find far more reason to pity him for being capable of finding amuse- ment in things so mean and frivolous, than for the distresses which truly af- flict him. " How happens it, that that man, who was a short time ago in such deep misery at the loss of his only son, and who, loaded with law-suits and quar- rels, was this very morning fretted with so many vexations, thinks of these evils no more ? Be not astonished at the change ; he is now entirely absorb- ed in other thoughts. He is 'occupied, and most completely occupied, in seeing where it is that a stag is to try to get a passage,-a weary stag, which his dogs have been pursuing since six o'clock. Nothing more is necessary to account for the transformation. Miserable as man may be, if only we can .succeed in occupying him in any manner, he is no longer miserable,-he is happy."* 111. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, * Penseos de Pascal, premiere partie, Art. VII. Sect, i, ii. Of the truth of the great facts, which Pascal thus states in a very forcible and lively manner, there can be no question ; but the conclusion which he draws from them is surely not the conclusion which is most suitable to our na- ture, and to the great object of Him by whom we were formed. It is much juster, as it is unquestionably far more pleasing, to trace, in this necessity of occupation, the evident marks of the intention of Heaven, that man who is to exist among men, and who has powers of mind and of body capable of be- nefiting them in innumerable ways, is not to suffer these powers to lie idle. The languor which we feel when we cease from exertion, reminds us at eve- ry moment, that we are not formed for inactivity,-that we have duties ta dis- charge, which may become to us amusement, if we only deign to avail our- selves of pleasures that are constantly in our power,-and without which, all amusements and exercises, that arc only the mimicry of these very duties, would soon become as wearisome almost as idleness itself, of which we are so ready to feel the misery, when it is total idleness, unoccupied with a single pastime. It is not to fly the sight of ourselves, and, therefore, of our mise- ries, as Pascal says, that we busy ourselves even in trifles; but because Hea- ven, that has formed us for action, has formed us, therefore, necessarily to busy ourselves with something, and to occupy ourselves even with trifles, rather than' to be wholly unoccupied. In beginning to exert ourselves, or to take interest in the exertions of others, we have no thought either of misery to be avoided, or of happiness to be attained. We are already busy, before we have felt the happiness; we are already idle, before we have felt the misery of being, idle. Nature does not wait for our reflections and calculations. She gives us, indeed, the power of reflecting and calculating, that we may correct the abuses of our desires ; but the desires which are necessary to our own well-being, and to the well-being of those around us, she prompts without our bidding. She has formed man, with a nature that may suit him to every situation ;-the monarch, with those passions and pow- ers which are necessary for the humblest of his subjects ;-the humblest peasant, with the passions and powers of those who are born of kings. The sovereign occupying himself with those voluntary labours which he denomi- nates amusements, may feel, in these very amusements, the common nature which he shares with those who are toiling around him, in labours, which they, indeed, term labours, and think, perhaps, that they would be happy, if only they had that ease which he finds so painful, and from which he makes so many efforts to free himself, but which are to them what his amusements are to him, a source of occupation, a mode of shaking off that idleness, which, if general, would be inconsistent with the very being of society, and from which, therefore, man is warned or saved, by the languor that attends it. When we look at the guards, and the palace, and the splendour,-at all those crowds, which seem useful only as supplying to him more speedily every thing which his wants require,-it is scarcely possible for us to think that a king has any necessity of labouring ; but if we look within his breast, and see the constant appetite for occupation, which this ready supply of all his wants inflames rather than mitigates, we discover the same necessity which we feel in ourselves,- -the same proof, that man is formed to contribute his share of service to the general labours of mankind,-to be active even where this propensity of our nature can have no excitement from individual wants, -and to minister, in some sort, to the happiness of others, if he does not choose to be the willing minister of his own unhappiness. 3. DESIRE OK ACTION. 163 164 LECTURE LXVII. HI. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS-4. DESIRE OF SOCIETY.-5. DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE. Gextlemex, after the desires which I examined in my last Lecture, that which is next to be considered by us, is our desire of society. Man, as I have already said, is born in society, and dependent on it, in some of its most delightful forms, for the preservation of his infant being, which, without the protection of those who love him the more for the very helplessness that is consigned to their protection, would seem thrown into the world, only to suffer in it for a few hours, and, ceasing to suffer, to cease also to exist. If man be thus dependent on society for the preservation of his early ex- istence, he is not less dependent on it for the comfort and happiness of bis existence in other years. It is to be the source of all the love which he feels,-of all the love which he excites,-and, therefore, of almost all the desires and enjoyments which he is capable of feeling. There is not one of his actions, which may not, directly or indirectly, have some relation to those among whom he lives; and I may say even, that there is scarcely a moment of his existence, in which the social affection, in some one of its forms, has not an influence on some feeling or resolution, some delightful remembrance of the past, some project of future benevolence or resentment. We are born, as I have said, in society, and dependent on it for our existence ; but, even if we could exist without society, we should not exist as men, not even as savage men,-for savages, rude as their intercourse is, are still united to- gether by domestic affinities and friendships,-and have one common land, as dear to them, or, perhaps, more dear to them, than the country of the civilized is to its polished inhabitants. With our immortal spirit, and with all the glorious capacities that are developed in society, we should, but for the society that almost gives us a different sou], be only a species of wild animal, -that might not yield as readily, perhaps, to the stronger animals around as the weak of a less noble race, but which would hold with them, at best a pe- rilous contest,-miserable within the cave, and trembling to venture beyond \t. " Make us single and solitary," says an eloquent Roman moralist, " and what are we ? The prey of other animals, and their victim,-the prey which it would be most easy for them to seize, the victim which it would be most easy for them to destroy. Those other animals have in their own strength, sufficient protection. If they be born to live apart, each has its separate arms to defend it. Man has no tusks or talons to make him terrible. He is weak, and naked ; but, weak and naked as he is, society surrounds him and pro- tects him. It is this which submits to his power all other living things, and not the earth merely, which seems in some measure his own by birth, but the very ocean, that is to him like another world of beings of a different nature. Society averts from him the attack of diseases,-it mitigates his suffering when he is assailed by them,-it gives support and happiness to his old age, -it makes him strong in the great combat of human life, because it leaves him not alone to struggle with his fortune."-" Fac nos singulos: quid su- * <31. iuibeuillimut).-al. vilisviiuuv mus ? pr®da animalium et victim®, ac imbecillissimus* et facillimus sanguis; quoniam cseteris animalibus in tutelam sui, satis virium est. Quascunque vaga nascuntur, et actura vitam segregem, armata sunt. Hominem imbecillitas cingit: non unguium vis, non dentium, terribilem ceteris fecit. Nudum et infirmum, societas munit.-Societas illi dominium omnium animalium dedit; societas terris genitum, in alien® natur® transmisit imperium, et dominari etiam in marijussit. H®c morborum impetus arcuit, senectuti adminicula prospexit, solatia contra dolores dedit; h®c fortes nos facit, quod licet centra fortunam advocare."* Of a society, to which man thus owes all his strength, as well as. all his happiness, it is not wonderful, that nature should have formed him desirous ; and it is in harmony with that gracious provision, which we have seen real- ized so effectually in our other emotions, that she has formed him to lovg the society which profits him, without thinking of the profit which it affords,- that is to say, without regard to this benefit, as the primary source of a Jove that would not have arisen, but from the prospect of the selfish gain. W<? exist in society, and have formed in it innumerable affections, long before we have learned to sum and calculate the consequences of every separate look and word of kindness, or have measured the general advantage which this spontaneous and ready kindness yields, with the state of misery in which we should have existed, if there had been no society to receive and make us happy. These affections, so quick to awake in the very moment almost of our waking being, are ever spreading in the progress of life; because there is no moment to the heart, in which the principle of social union is cold or powerless. The infant does not cling to his nurse more readily than the boy hastens to meet his playmates, and man to communicate his thoughts to man. If we were to see the little crowd of the busy school-room rush out, when the hour of freedom comes, and, instead of mingling in some general pas- time, betake themselves, each to some solitary spot, till the return of that hour which forced them again together, we should look on them with as much astonishment, as if a sudden miracle had transformed their bodily features, and destroyed the very semblance of men. As wonderful would it if, in a crowded city, or even in the scattered tents of a tribe of Arabs, or in the huts or very caves of the rudest savages, there were to be no communing of man with man,-no voice or smile of greeting,-no seeming conscious- ness of mutual presence,-but each were to pass each with indiffer- ence, as if they had never met, and were never to meet again,-or rather, with an indifference which even those cannot wholly feel, who have met once in the wildest solitudes, and to whom that moment of accidental meet- ing was the only tie which connects them afterwards in their mutual recogni- tion. The mere presence of a human being,-at least when there is no fear to counteract and overcome the affection,-is sufficient to give him a sort of interest in our wishes*-certainly, if he be in pain or want, an interest in our compassionate washes,-as if he were not wholly a stranger; or rather, such is our Jove of society, that to be, in the strictest sense of the term, a stranger, is to us a sort of recommendation, as to be a friend, or even a common ac- quaintance, is also a recommendation, more or less strong, to the same dif- fusive regard. Qualities, thus seemingly opposite, excite an interest that is similar; because, opposite as the qualities are, they are still qualities of man, -of one, who, whether a stranger or a friend, shares our nature, and who 4. DESIRE OF SOCIETY. 165 * Seneca de Beneficiis, lib. iv. e. 18. III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, cannot be wholly indifferent to those by whom that common nature is shared. What is every language but a proof of the agency of that feeling which makes it delightful to us to speak and to listen, because it is delightful to us to make our thoughts pass into other hearts, or to share the thoughts of those other hearts ? We use speech, indeed, in its vulgar offices, to express to each other the want of bodily accommodations, which can be mutually supplied by those who know each other's necessities;-and, as a medium by which these wants can instantly be made known, it is, in these vulgar offices, unquestionably, an instrument of the highest convenience,-even though it were incapable of being adaptedto any other purpose. But how small a part of that language, which is so eloquent an interpreter of every thought and feeling, is employed for this humble end 1 If we were to reflect on all those gracious communications, and questions, and answers, and replies, that, in a little society of friends, form, for a whole day, a happiness which nothing else could give,-the few words significant of mere bodily wants would, perhaps, scarcely be remembered, in our retrospect of an eloquence that was expres- sive of wants of a' very different kind,-of that social impulse, which, when there are others around who can partake its feelings, makes it almost impossible for the heart, whether sad or sprightly, to be sad or sprightly alone,-and to yvhich no event is little, the communication of which can be the expression of regard. In that infinite variety of languages which are spoken by the nations dispersed on the surface of the earth, there is one voice which animates the whole,-a voice which, in every country and every time, and in all the changes of barbarism and civilization, still utters a truth, the first to which the heart has assented, and the last which it can ever lose,-the voice of our social nature bringing its irresistible testimony to the force of that universal sympathy, which has found man every where, and preserves him every where, in the community of mankind. I have said, that the mere presence of a human being is sufficient to give him a sort of interest in our wishes, except in cases where there is some fear to counteract the affection that is thus formed ; and I have made this excep- tion, to guard you against the fallacy of the theory, which by dwelling on the cases that form the exceptions only,.and omitting all notice of the happier feelings that are universal and original, would represent the natural state of man,-of him who exists only as he has been an object of affection,-as a state of mutual hostility, in which every individual is at war with every other individual. O[ this theory, which, if not first stated, was at least first de- veloped fully, by Hobbes,-I cannot but think, that it would be idle to offer any elaborate confutation, and that the attention which has been, paid to it by philosophers, is far greater than it deserves. We need but think of the state in which man is born,-of the fondness of the parent for the child,-of the child for the parent,-of that affection winch binds a whole family together, -to perceive, that all individuals, who are only those very members of the families which we have been considering, cannot, in any state of society, be the foes of all, or even indifferent to their mutual interests; since in that case, the whole race of mankind must haVe ceased to exist before the period at which they could be capable of existing, even in a state of war. Every one, it is said, is born to war with every one ! But where are these natural combatants to be found ? The army which Cadmus raised from the earth, arose indeed only to combat and to perish in mutual destruction ;-but they 166 rose vigorous and ready armed. Man is not, in the circumstance of his birth, like those fabulous monsters that sprung, in his mere outward sem- blance, from the serpent's teeth ;-he is the offspring of love, and his mind is as different as his origin. If he be born to war with man, he must be preserved for years, when his warfare may be effectual :-and where is he to be found in those years of weakness that intervene ?-In looking for the na- tural combatants who are to be brought upon the .stage of blood, where can the sophist hope to find them,-unless he look for them among those whom peace and affection have previously been nurturing ? Wherever lie finds hate he must find a love that has preceded it. The state of nature, if it have reference to the infancy of each individual, has reference, therefore, to a pe- riod, which, instead of enmity, exhibits, perhaps, the strongest and purest ex- ample which could be imagined of disinterested love ; and, if it have any other meaning than as significant of those original feelings, amid which every individual of all the tribes of mankind has been bred and sustained, it must relate as much to one state of society as to another. All states in which man can exist, must be alike states that are natural to him ; and if man was always what he is now, he was, surely, even in the most savage state, not a/be mere- ly,-for that is only one of his relations, and an accidental one,-but a child, a brother, a father, a member of a tribe, a pitier of the sorrows of others, oven though- he might occasionally, under the influence of some passing re- sentment, inflict sufferings, which, if he had seen them inflicted by another, lie would probably have hastened to relieve. What, then, is the state of nature,-the state of nature of parents, sons, brothers, and tribesmen,-fin which this enmity of all against all is supposed ? It is very evident, that to make it such a state as may be consistent with the false theory of society which wTe are considering, we must not think of man as he is, or as he has ever been known to be. We must take away all the feelings of domestic regard, which are visible whenever he is to be found. Fathers, mothers, children, must be as indifferent to each other, as if no common relation had united them ; nay, they must be willing to sacrifice, without compunction, the existence of any one of these, for the most trifling personal advantage;-'he pity which we now feel so readily for the distress even of our very enemies, must, in that case, be absolutely unknown to us, even when the sufferer is she who gave us birth. Is this a state of the na- ture of man ? or have we not rather, as has been, truly said, in making this very conception, supposed the nature of man to be destroyed ? and, while we have preserved the same external form, substituted, (or the mild nature of that which animates this form, the ferocious nature of some untameable beast, which makes no distinction of the hand that caresses, and the hand that strikes,-which breathes only carnage, and feels a sort of irritation, and almost anger, at the sight of every thifig which lives ? Of such a being so animated, this may be the natural state, but it is not the state of nature of man. The feelings which Nature most powerfully impresses on him,-the first impressions which she makes on his heart,-are sentiments of love; and if those first and most powerful feelings, which are as universal as the race of man,-the original feelings of every individual that livds, or has lived,-can be truly said to be natural feelings, to continue to exist as in this first state of nature, would be to exist with only affection in the heart, and with expressions of this affection in every look and word. But we put bars and locks upon our gates,-we carry arms,-we make 4. DESIRE OF SOCIETY. 167 laws to direct the power of the state against injustice,-we have prisons and executioners. Is this formidable apparatus, it will be said, a part of a sys- tem of love ? or, does it not rather prove, that man trembles at the thought of the power of man,-as he trembles at the thought of some pestilence, and takes measures of precaution for guarding against infection, and for curing it, or preventing die farther spreading of it, if infection has taken place ? It will be admitted, that these contrivances of offence and defence are not a part of the system of contrivances of universal and never-failing love ; but, on the contrary, are indicative of a fear which implies the possibility of enmity in others, or at least of injustice, which, though it may imply no personal hatred, is, in its effects on us, the same as enmity. But while these instruments of preservation frOm'possible aggression are admitted to be proofs of one set of feelings in man,-of feelings which no defender of the general social nature of man has ever attempted to deny, as a part of that mixed constitution of good and bad for which alone he contends,-it may be asked, in like manner, whether the domestic affections, and the general sym- pathies of our nature, which exist as widely as laws, and have in every case preceded them-whether ajl the institutions for the relief of the ignorant, and the poor, and the diseased, are proofs of any natural enmity of man to man ? Injustice may, indeed, be prevalent, but compassion is surely not less so; and are we to find proofs of universal enmity in a love that is as universal as hu- man sorrow ?- 168 III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, That Virtue known By the relenting look, whose equal heart For others feels, as for another self; Of various name, as various objects wake, Warm into action, the kind sense within : Whether the blameless poor, the nobly maim'd, The lost to reason, the declin'd in life ; The helpless young, that kiss no mother's hand, And the grey second infancy of age, She gives in public families to live,- A sight to gladden Heaven." We are surely not to think of man as only a prisoner or a jailer; we must think of him too as one, who, if he suffers, receives relief from those who have no interest in relieving him, except that of their compassion itself; or who himself, with as little expectation of personal advantage, relieves what- ever sufferings may come beneath his view. The truth is, that man has desires of various kinds, malevolent as well as benevolent; that, on whatever period of society we may choose to fix, we shall always find manv who .are disposed to invade the rights of others, and who, in consequence of this mere possibility of aggression, render necessary all those general precau- tions, and the occasional punishments of which Hobbes speaks ;-while at the same time, we shall be equally certain of finding many, who not merely are without the inclination of invading the rights of others, but who gladly make sacrifices of their own personal comfort for their relief. That the state of society, therefore, when there are multitudes comprehended in it, is not a state of unmixed friendship or enmity, unmixed virtue or vice, but a state that is mixed of both ;-that the first affections, however,-the affec- tions which, if there be any that peculiarly deserve the name of natural, have surely the highest claim to that distinction,-are uniformly those of love;-and that while all must, in infancy, have felt this tie, which bound them to some other breast, it is only a part of mankind over whom those malignant passions, which can be said to be indicative of enmity, or even that injustice, which is indictative of indifference to others, rather than malig- nity, can be said to have any sway. We have all loved, and continued to love; we have not all hated, and continued to hate ;-certainly, at least, wc have not given way to our hatred, as we have yielded our whole soul to the delightful emotions of benevolence. Even the most unjust and malignant of mankind, it must be remembered, do not lose their love of society. They have their friends, or at least those to whom they give that name, without any suspicion that they are using an inappropriate expression. They would hate to be alone, as much as other people, even though they had no guilty remembrances, which made it doubly necessary for them to be amused. They must still flatter themselves, that they enjoy w'hat they are not capable of enjoying,-the delights of that cor- dial intercourse, which is sacred to the good. These delights, indeed-the remembrance of consolations received, and of virtues strengthened, the mutual esteem, the mutual trust, the mutual veneration,-they as little can possess, as they can enjoy the pleasures of conscience, with no remembrances but those of guilt. Yet, though the reality of the social regard of others is denied to them, and though even if, in some singular instance, it were truly to be given to them, it would be impossible for them to put confidence in a friendship which they would know that they had not merited, and, therefore, could not fail to distrust,-they can still at least have the riot and the laughter, and as much of the appearance of social affection, as is consistent with perfect indifference, or perfect hatred at heart; and the riot and the laughter they must have, or be still more miserable than they are. The -Jove of that society, which they have so deeply injured, is thus fixed in their heart, as it is fixed in every heart;-and what proof could be stronger of its irresistible power? In the very prison, to which the indignation of mankind has driven them, as to the only place which their presence could not pollute,-amid wretches, as little w'orthy as themselves, of a single thought of momentary affection,-they still feel the influence of that principle which makes the presence of man necessary to the comfort of man, as, in better circumstances, it is necessary to his happiness. They must mingle with each other, though they haVe no plans of guilty co-operation to concert. It is still something in their dismal loneliness to have one, who may laugh at their blasphemies, and at whose blasphemies they may smile in return ;-and to him, who has never known what friendship is, who has only crimes of which to speak, or crimes of which to hear, it is not a relief, but a heavy additional punishment, to be separated from wretches as guilty and miserable as himself,-from wretches who would as gladly, or more gladly, assist in putting his shackles on, as they would assist in releasing him; and who, he knows well, will not laugh less loudly on that day when he is to be led forth to terminate, amid public exe- crations, his dreadful existence. Such is the desire of social communion in man;-a desire, which no habitual penance of solitude,-no perfection of virtue,-no perfection of vice,-if I may use that phrase, can efface from the heart; a desire, the exis- tence of which is not more forcibly demonstrated by all that leads man to mingle with man in happy society, than by the most miserable intercourse, which the wretched can form-by the feelings which continue to operate, 4. DESIRE OF SOCIETY. 169 Vol. IL 170 when only guilt is congregated with guilt; and which make of that very prison, to which Hobbes would lead us for a demonstration that man is born only to be regardless of man, or hostile to him, the most irresistible demon- stration of that great truth of social connexion, which he would vainly ad- duce it to disprove. The next of -our desires which we have to consider, is our desire of knowledge. When we think of what man is, not in his faculties only, but in his intel- lectual acquisitions, and of what he must have been, on bis entrance into the world, as much in the estate of society which is most civilized, as in the rudest state of savage' life, it is difficult for us to regard this knowledge and absolute ignorance as states of the same mind. It seems to us almost as if we had to consider a sjxritual.creation or transformation, as wondrous as if, in contemplating the material universe, we were to strive to think of the whole'system of suAs and planets, as evolved from a mere particle of mat- ter, or rising from nothing, as when originally created. We believe that they were so created, and we know that man, comprehensive as his acquirements axe, must have set out in his intellectual career from absolute ignorance; but iiow difficult is it for us to form any accurate conception of what we thus un- doubtingly believe ! The mind, which is enriched with as many sciences as there are classes, of existing things in the universe, which our organs are able to discern, and which, not content with the immensity of existence, forms to itself sciences even of abstractions, that do not exist as objects in nature, and that cannot exist in nature,-the mind, which is skilled in all the languages of all the civilized nations of the globe, and which has fixed and trea- sured in its own remembrance, the beauties of every work of transcendent genius, which age after age has added to the stores of antiquity-this mind, we know well, was once as ignorant as the dullest and feeblest of those minds, which scarcely know' enough, even to wonder at its superiority. But without taking into our consideration the rich endowments of a mind like this, let us think only of one of those humble minds to which I have alluded. How vast are the acquirements even of a mind of this humble rank,-and acquirements, too, which a few years, that may be said almost to be years of infancy and apparent imbecility, have formed ! Indeed, if all human science were to be divided, as Rousseau says, into two portions, the one compre- hending what is common to all mankind, and the other only that stock of truths, which is peculiar to the wise and learned, be can scarcely be regarded as delivering a very extravagant paradox, in asserting, that this latter portion, which is the subject of so much pride, would seem very trifling in compari- son of the other. But of this greater portion, we do not think, as he truly says, partly because the knowledge which it comprehends is acquired so very early, that we scarcely remember the acquisition of it, and still more, perhaps, because since knowledge becomes remarkable only by its dif- ferences, the elements that are common in all, like the common quantities in algebraic equations, are counted as nothing. When we think, however, of the elements that are truly contained in this portion of knowledge, which the humblest of mankind partakes,-how much is involved in the possession and mastering even of one language,-in the accurate adaptation of each arbitrary sign to the thing signified,-and the adaptation, not merely of the signs of things to the things themselves, but of the nicer inflections of the signs to the faint and abstract relations of objects ' Ill. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, 5. DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE. 171 If we knew nothing more of the mind of man, than its capacity of becom- ing acquainted with the powers of so vast and so complicated an instrument as that of speech, and of acquiring this knowledge in circumstances the most unfavourable to the acquisition-without any of the aids,-which lessen so greatly our labour in acquiring any other language far less perfectly in after- life,-and amid the continual distractions of pains and pleasures, that seem to render any fixed effort absolutely impossible,-we might, indeed, find cause to wonder at a capacity so admirable. But, when we think of all the other knowledge which is acquired at the same time, even by this mind, which we have selected as one of the humblest,-what observations of dHp- nomena, what inductions, what reasonings downward, from the results of general observation to particular cases that are analogous, must have occur- red, and been formed, almost unconsciously, into a system of physics, of which the reasoner himself perhaps, does not think as a system, but on which he founds his practical conclusions, exactly in the same way as the philosopher applies his general principles to the complicated contrivances of mechanics, or the different arts,-when we think of all this, and know that all this, or at least a great part of all this, must have been done, before it could be safe for the little reasoner to be trusted, for a single moment, at the slightest distance from the parental eye,-how astonishing does the whole process appear ; and if we had not opportunities of observation, and in some measure, too, the consciousness of our own memory, in our later acquisi- tions, to tell us how all this has been done, what a variety of means must we conceive nature to have employed, for producing so rapidly and so effica- ciously, this astonishing result! She has employed, however, no compli- cated variety of means; and she has produced the effect the more surely, from the very simplicity of the means which she has employed. The sim- ple desire of knowledge explains a mystery which nothing else could ex- plain. She has made it delightful to man to know-disquieting to him to know only imperfectly, while any thing remains in his power that can make his knowledge more accurate or comprehensive ; and she has done more than all this;-she has not waited till we reflect on the pleasure which,.we are to enjoy, or the pain which we are to suffer. She has given us these, indeed, to stimulate our search, and in part to reward it, but she has prompt- ed us to begin our search without, reflection on the mere pleasure or pain, which is to reward our activity, or to punish our inactivity. It is sufficient, that there is something unknown, which has a relation to something that is known to us. We feel instantly, the desire of knowing this too.-Begin to the child, in the nursery, some ballad, which involves a tale of marvellous incident, and stop in the very middle of the tale ;-his little heart will be al- most in agony, till you resume the narrative; but his eye, before you ceased, was still expressive of that curiosity, of that mere desire of knowing what is to come, which is not painful in itself,-producing the pain, but not rising from it, when the narrative is broken,-and affording the pleasure, but not rising from the pleasure, when the narrative is continued. Why is it, that in such a case we feel delight ? It is because our previous curiosity has been gratified. Why do we feel pain? It is because our previous curiosity has not been gratified ; and to suppose that but for the pleasure of the gratified curiosity, and the pain of the ungratified curiosity, we should have had no curiosity to afford the pleasure or the pain, is a reversal of the order of causes and effects, as absurd as it would be to suppose, that, but for the ex- 172 111. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, istence of the flower, we should not have had the root or the stem which supports the flower,-that it is the light which flows around us that is the cause of the existence of the sun,-and that he who created the sun, and every thing which the sun enlightens, is not merely revealed to us by that world of splendour and beauty which he has formed, but that it is the beauty of the universe which is the cause of the existence of Him who created it to be beautiful. Of the lively curiosity of which 1 speak, with relation to the tales of our nursery, you must all have some remembrance ; and, indeed, it is a curiosity which, even with respect to such tales of fiction, does not cease wholly when we are obliged to assume the air§ and the dignity of manhood. We vary our tales in these graver years, and call them romances, dramas, epics; bur we are equally ready, in any moment of leisure, to be led away by any nar- rative of strange incidents ; which is to us exactly what the simplest ballad was to us then. The pain which attends ungratified curiosity, is most strik- ingly proved by those tales which are often intentionally suspended at some most interesting moment, and printed as fragments. We feel, in such a case, a vexation that almost amounts to anger, as if the writer of the fragment were wilfully and wantonly inflicting on us pain; and there are many littie injuries, which we coidd perhaps much more readily forgive. To be forced to read a succession of such fragments, would be truly, to any piind which can take interest in the adventures of others, a species of torture,-and of torture that, to such a mind, would be far from being the slightest which coidd be devised. The curiosity, which is thus strikingly exemplified in the eagerness with which we listen to fictitious narratives, is not less strikingly, as it is certainly far more usefully exemplified, in the interest which we feel in the wonders of science. How many nights of sleepless expectation would be given to the chemist, if he could be informed, on authority which he could not doubt, that in some neighbouring country a discovery had been made, which threw a new light, not merely on what had before been considered as obscure, but on all, or almost all, the phenomena which had been considered as perfectly well known ;-that, in consequence of this discovery, it had become easy to analyze what had before resisted every attempt of the analytic art, and tc force into combination substances which before had seemed incapable of any permanent union ! With what eagerness would he await the communication that was to put into his own hands this admirable power ! It must be a dis- tress indeed, of no common sort, which could at such a period withdraw his mind wholly, for any length of time, from that desire which every thing that met his eye would seem to him to recall, because it would be in truth for ever present to his mind. It is needless to extend the illustration through the variety of the sciences. We have a desire of knowledge which nothing can abate,-a desire that, in some greater or less degree, extends itself to every thing which we are capa- ble of knowing, and not to realities merely, but to all the extravagancies of fiction. We are formed to know ; we cannot exist without knowledge ; and nature, therefore, has given us the desire of that knowledge, which is es- sential not to our pleasure merely, but to our very being. " Witness the sprightly joy, when aught unknown Strikes the quick sense, and wakes each active power To brisker measures;-witness the neglect Of all familiar objects, though beheld With transport once;-the fond attentive gaze Of young astonishment, the sober zeal Of age commenting on prodigious things. For such the bounteous providence of heaven, In every breast implanting this desire Of objects new and strange,-to urge us on, With unremitted labour, to pursue Those sacred stores, that wait the ripening soul, In Truth's exhaustless bosom.-What need words To paint its power?-For this the daring youth Breaks from his weeping mother's anxious arms In foreign climes to rove,-the pensive sage, Heedless of sleep, or midnight's harmful damp, Hangs o'er the sickly taper,-and untired The virgin follows, with enchanted step, The mazes of some wild and wondrous tale From morn to eve,-unmindful of her form, Unmindful of the happy dress, that stole The wishes of the youth, when every maid With envy pined.-Hence, finally, by night, The village matron, round the blazing hearth, Suspends the infant audience with her tales, Breathing astonishment,-of witching rhymes, And evil spirits,-of the death-bed call, To him who robb'd the widow, and devour'd The orphan's portion,-of unquiet souls Ris'n from the grave, to ease the heavy guilt Of deeds in life conceal'd,-of shapes that walk At dead of nigljt, and clank their chains, and wave The torch ofhell around the murderer's bed. At every solemn pause, the crowd recoil, Gazing each other speechless, and congeal'd With shivering sighs,-till, eager for the event, Around the beldame, all arrett, they hang, Each trembling heart with grateful terrors quell'd."* 6. DESIRE OF POWER. 173 If man could have been made.to know, that his existence depended upon certain acquisitions of knowledge, without any love of the knowledge itself, -he might perhaps have made the acquisition, that was believed to be so im- portant. But to learn,-if there had been no curiosity or pleasure in learn- ing, would then have been a task; and, like other mere tasks, would 'iroba- bly have been imperfectly executed. Something would have been neglect- ed altogether, or very inaccurately examined, the accurate knowledge of which might have been essential to life itself. Nature, by the constitution which she has given us, has attained the same end, and attained it with- out leaving to us the possibility of failure. She has given us the desire of knowing what it is of importance for us to know; she ha's made the know- ledge delightful in itself; she has made it painful to us to know imperfectly. There is no task, therefore, imposed on us. In executing her benevolent will, we have only to gratify one of the strongest of our passions,-to learn with delight what it is salutary to have learned, and to derive thus a sort of double happiness from the wisdom which we acquire, and from the very effort by which we acquire it. LECTURE LXVIIL HI. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS.-G. DESIRE OF POWER.-OF DIRECT POW- ER, AS IN AMBITION. Gentlemen, after the emotions which I considered in my last Lecture, that which is next, in the order of our arrangement, is the desire of Power. •Pleasures of Imagination, B. I. v 232-270. 174 I do not speak, at present, of the desire of mere freedom from constraint, -though, where any unjust restraint is actually imposed, the desire of free- dom from it is, perhaps, the strongest passion which man can feel, and a pas- sion which, in such circumstances, will always be more ardent as the mind is nobler. While it remains, the .slave is nbt wholly a slave. His true degra- dation begins, when he has lost, not bis liberty merely, but the very desire of liberty, and when he has learned to look calmly on himself, as a mere breath- ing and moving instrument of the wishes of another, to be moved by those wishes more than by his own,-a part of some external pomp necessary to the splendour of some other being, to which be contributes, indeed, but only like the car, or the sceptre, or the purple robe,-a trapping of adventitious greatness, and one of many decorative trappings that are all equally insigni- ficant in themselves, whether they be living or inanimate. He who can feel this, and feel it without any rising of his heart against the tyranny which would keep him down, or even a wish that he were free, may indeed be considered as scarcely worthy of freedom ; and if tyranny produced only the evil of such mental degradation, without any of the other evils to which it gives rise directly and indirectly, it would scarcely merit less than at present, the detestation of all who know what man is, and is capable of becoming as a freeman, and that wretched thing which he is, and must ever continue to be, as a slave. There are minds, indeed, which, long habituated to corruption, can see, in the tyrannical possessor of a power unjustly arrogated, only a source of fa- vour, and of all the partial and prodigal largesses of favour, more easy to be obtained, as requiring in return, only that profligate subserviency to every vice, which such minds are always sufficiently ready to pay; but what long usage of corruption does it require, before tyranny itself can cease to be hated ! If to a young audience, in those early years when they knew little more of the nature of political institutions, than that under some governments men are more or less happy, and more or less free, than under others, we were to relate the history of one of those glorious struggles, which the oppressed have sometimes made against their oppressors,-can we doubt, for a moment, to whom the sympathy and eager wishes of the whole audience would be given ? While the first band of patriots might perhaps be overthrown, and their lead- er a fugitive, seeking a temporary shelter, but seeking still more the means of asserting again the same great cause, with the additional motive of avenging the fallen, how eagerly would every heart be trembling for him, hoping for him, exulting as he came forth again with additional numbers, shrinking and half- despairing at each slight repulse in the long continued combat, but rejoicing and confiding still more at each renewal of the charge, and feeling almost the very triumph of the deliverer himself, when his standard waved at last with- out any foe to oppose it, and nothing was to be seen upon the field, but those who had perished, and those who were free. Tn listening to such a narra- tive, even he, who was perhaps in more advanced years to be himself the ready instrument of oppression or corruption, and to smile with derision at the very name of liberty, would feel the interest which every other heart was feeling, and would rejoice in the overthrow of despotism, like that of which he was afterwards to be the willing slave, or of which he was to be at all times ready to become the slave, if the liberties of a nation could be sold by his single voice. III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, Such is the instant sympathy of our nature, with all who are oppressed. We may cease to feel it, indeed, but many years of sordid selfishness must first have quenched in us every thing which is noble, and made us truly as much slaves ourselves, as those whose virtue and happiness are indifferent to us. To be free,-to have the mind of a freeman, is not to consider liberty as a privilege which a few only are to enjoy, and which like some narrow and limited good, would become Less by distribution,-it is to wish, and to wish ardently, that all partook the blessing. What should we think of any one, who, enjoying the pleasures of vision, and the inestimable instruction which that delightful sense has yielded tb him, and continues every moment to yield, could hear, without pity, of a whole nation of the blind ? And yet how slight would be the cruelty of such indifference, compared with the guilt of those, who, enjoying themselves the blessings of a liberal system of government, should yot feel a sort of malignant triumph in the thought that other nations do not enjoy a liberty like that which they so justly prize,-that there are many millions of human beings, gathered together in tribes which exist still, as their ancestors have for ages existed, in a state of moral darkness, com- pared with which blindness, to the mere sunshine, is but an evil of little moment! 6. DESIRE OF POWER. 175 " O Liberty, thou goddess, heavenly bright, Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight, Eternal pleasures in thy presence rei£n, And smiling Plenty leads thy wanton train ; Eased of her load, Subjection grows more light, And Poverty looks cheerful in thy sight; Thou mak'st the gloomy face of Nature gay, Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day." The power, however, which consists in mere freedom from constraint, is but a negative power. That of which we are at present to consider the de- sire, is the positive power which one individual may exercise over other indi- viduals. In a former Lectur-e, in which we considered the desire of action, we saw the very important advantage of this desire, that prompts man incessantly to rise from the indolence, in which he might otherwise lie torpid. Our desire of power may be considered as in a great measure connected with this general desire of action. We feel a pleasure, of no slight kind, in the consciousness of our mere animal energies, as energies inherent in our nature, and obedient to our will. This pride of exercise is one of the first pleasures which we dis- cover in the infant, whose'eye shows visible delight at all the little wonders which he is capable of producing himself,-far more than at such as are merely exhibited to him. He is pleased, indeed, when we shake for the first time, tl>e bells of his little rattle, before we put it into his own hands ; but when he has it in bisown hands, and makes himself the noise,-which is then such de- lightful music to his ear,-his rapture is far more than doubled. lie repeats it instantly, as if wishing to be quite certain that he is capable of executing so marvellous a thing, and the certainty makes his pleasure still greater than before ; till, weary of a power of which he can no longer doubt, and stimu- lated hy new objects to new exorcises, he again desires something else, and enjoys, and is proud, and again grows weary of the past, to grow after- wards weary of the future. In boyhood, what competitions of this sort- what eagerness to discover how fast we can run, how far we can leap 176 Every game which then amuses and occupies us may be considered as a sort of trial of our strength, or agility, or skill,-of some of those qualities, in which power consists; and we run or wrestle with those with whom we are, perhaps, in combats of a very different kind, to dispute, in other years, the prize of distinction in the various duties and dignities of life. From what we do immediately ourselves, the transition to what we do by the agency of others, is a very natural and obvious one. As we feel the power which we possess in being the fastest runner, or the most skilful wrestler, we feel also a sort of power in having the instruments best suited to the different games in which we may have to try our skill with the skill of others. In the early exercises and contentions of the play-ground, we are proud of having the best top, or the best bat; and we look on what they do for us as what we do ourselves, since they are ours as much as our own limbs are ours,-a sort of prolongation of the hands that wield them, obeying our will with the same ready ministry as that with which our hands them- selves more directly move at our bidding. We soon learn to be proud, in like manner, of having the best trained pointer, or the horse that has trotted with us the greatest number of miles in the shortest time ; and when we have once learned to appropriate to ourselves the achievements of these animals, we have very little more to do in appropriating to ourselves whatever is done by others of our own species, who have done what they have done, in obedience to us,as trulyas the horse has proceeded in the same line, or turned,or stopped, in obedience to our bridle. Every new being, who obeys us, is thus, as it were, a new faculty, or number of faculties, added to our physical constitu- tion ; and it is not wonderful, therefore, that we should desire to extend the number of these adventitious faculties, more than that we should avail our- selves of the instruments of the optician for quickening our sight, or of a car- riage for conveying us over distances, which it would have been impossible for us to traverse with the same velocity on foot. Such is the history of our desire of power. It begins with the pleasure of our mere bodily energies, long before we are capable of conceiving the very thought of operating on other beings like ourselves. But the passion, which is at first so easily and so simply gratified, without the mastery or the attempted subjugation of other minds, learns afterwards to consider these minds as almost the only objects on which it is at all important to operate ; they are instruments of the great game of human ambition ; and in that great game, independent of all patriotic feelings, the passion which is not new, though its objects be new, takes pleasure in playing with the interests of nations, and managing whole subject multitudes, as it before took pleasure in wielding skilfully a racket at tennis, or a mace at the billiard table,-or, as at a still earlier period, it occupied us with a sort of proud consciousness of command, in running over a field, for the mere pleasure of moving limbs that were scarcely felt by us to be our own, unless when they were in mo- tion. So universal is the desire of power over the minds of others, that there is, perhaps, no one who is wholly exempt from it. Even affection itself, which is so little in need of any additional charm, derives from it some ac- cession to the delight which it affords. That the absolute dependence of the infant renders still more vivid, even the vivid emotions of parental love, no one, I conceive, can doubt;-and if man, by a different constitution of his nature, could have been born intelligent as in maturer years,-strong III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, enough to be exposed to no peril from without,-and fearless, therefore, not from ignorance of danger, but from superiority to all the causes of injury, by which it was likely for him to be assailed ; though the contemplation of the noble being, to which they had given life, must still have been attended with strong emotions of regard in the bosoms of those, to whom the very ex- cellence contemplated and admired by them, was almost a part of their own existence,-it is not easy to imagine, how very little would in such circumstan- ces of equality, have remained of that warm tenderness, which in the pre- sent system of alternate feebleness and protection, connects so happily the progressive generations of mankind,-when the first look of love which the parents cast on the helplessness before them, is itself a proof that the un- conscious object on which they gaze is to be helpless no more,-that weak as it may still be in itself, it is to be strong and powerful in the vigilant ten- derness of their aid. Such is the influence of the consciousness of a gentle and benevolent power in the exercise of parental love; and is there no influence of this sort, in the exercise of other regards of every species,-no feeling of reci- procal dependence for enjoyment, or rather of reciprocal power of confer- ring enjoyment, that sweetens the very enjoyment itself,-making it as de- lightful to be the source of happiness as to be the object to whom the hap- piness ultimately flows ? It is sufficiently pleasing, indeed, to love, and to be loved, though these feelings were all which friendship could yield ; but there is likewise a pleasure in thinking, that our feelings need only to be ex- pressed, to become the feelings, too, of those who, loving us, can scarcely fail to love whatever we love. Nor is it to our pleasures of affection only that this moral influence of power extends ; it extends, in some measure also to the delightful consciousness of all our virtues. If suffering were to be re- lieved, it would surely be of very little consequence to the happiness of the world, by whom the relief was given,-if vice were to be made sensible of its guilt, of little consequence from whom the purer views, that enlighten it were derived ; but, though it would be of the same moment to the world in ge- neral, it would be very far from being so to us. We should delight in the ef- fects, indeed, whoever might have produced them ; but our delight would be very different if ourselves had been the instruments. The difference, so great in these two cases, is not to be considered as aris- ing wholly from the mere self-approbation of our action as virtuous,-for if we had truly felt the wish of extending the same good, and the same reso- lute willingness to make the personal sacrifices that might be necessary to purchase the extension of it, our virtue, as far as our merit or our conscience is concerned, would be the same,-not from the pride that our name would be long remembered,-as connected with the remembrance of an action that had been beneficial to mankind,-though the pleasure of this generous con- nexion of our image, or our name, may mingle, with no slight accession of joy, even in the pure and tranquil retrospects of those who have been unos- tentatiously good ; but, in some degree at least, from the mere feeling of the action as a work of ours,-as that which we have had the conscious power of producing,-the feeling of the tie which connects that happiness of others at which we rejoice, with our own mind as its cause, and which next to the certainty of having done what Heaven itself approves, is, perhaps, the most delightful element in our remembrance of virtue. It is the same in works of purer intellect. The gravest and most retired 6. DESIRE OF POWER. 177 Vol. II. 178 philosopher, who scarcely exists out of his library, in giving to the world the result of many years of meditation, delights, indeed, in the truths which he has discovered, and in the advantage which they may, directly or indirectly, afford to some essential interests of society; but though these are the thoughts on which, if his virtue be equal to his wisdom, he may dwell with greatest satisfaction, there still comes proudly across his mind, a feeling of pleasure in the thought of the power which he is exercising, or is soon to exercise, over the minds of others. He is certainly far more pleased, that the truths which are to effect the general change of opinion, are truths-discovered by him, than if exactly the same beneficial effect had flowed from discoveries made by any other person ; and though the chief part of this pleasure may unquestionably be traced to the love of glory, and the anticipation of the glory which is loved, much of it as unquestionably flows from the internal feeling of the power which he exercises, and which he has the trust of being able to exercise again in similar circumstances,-a power which is more de- lightful to him, indeed, when accompanied with celebrity, but of which the very secret consciousness is itself a delight that is almost like glorv to his mind. When the orator is employed in some great cause that is worthy of his elo- quence,-asserting, against the proud and the powerful, the right of some humble sufferer, who has nothing to vindicate his right but justice and the eloquence of his protector ; or rousing a senate, too apt, perhaps, to think only of the privileges of a few, or of the interests, or supposed interests, of one people, to the consideration of the great rights of mankind, of every colour and country,-forcing, as it were, upon their eyes atrocities which they had, perhaps, at a distance, long sanctioned or permitted, and absolving, or at least finishing, by the virtuous triumph of a single hour, the guilt of many centuries ;-in such cases, indeed, if the orator, while the happiness and misery, the virtue and vice, the glory and infamy, of nations are depending on his voice, can think within himself of the power which he is exercising, he would be unworthy at once of the cause which he pleads, and of the elo- quence with which he may be pleading it;-but when the victory is won, when all the advantages which are to flow from it have been felt with delight, we may then allow some feeling of additional gratification to arise in the mind, even of the most virtuous, at the thought of that energy which was so successfully exercised,-before which every heart, that did not gladly yield to its influence, shrunk as from something dreadful and irresistible, that had swept away all subterfuges of hypocrisy, and left nothing behind but convic- tion, and joy, and dismay. There are causes in which not to rejoice in the possession of eloquence would be almost to be indifferent to the blessings to which it may lead. The patriot, whom the corrupt tremble to see arise, may well feel a grateful satisfaction in the mighty power which heaven has delegated to him, when he thinks that he has used it only for purposes which heaven approves,-for the freedom, and peace, and prosperity of his own land, and for all that happiness which the land that is dearest to him can dif- fuse to every nation that is within the sphere of its influence or example. The power which mind exercises over mind in the cases as yet consider- ed by us, is an intellectual or moral agency, underived from any foreign source, and wholly personal to the individual who exercises it. But there is a power which is, for the time, far more extensive and capable of being coveted by minds which are incapable of feeling and appreciating the in- HL PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, tellectual or moral excellence. This is the power which high station confers, -the power of forcing obedience even upon the reluctant, and, in many cases, of winning obedience, from that blind respect which the multitude are always sufficiently disposed to feel for the follies, as for the virtues, of those above them. Much of the pleasure attached to the conception of this pow • er, like that which attends every other species of power, arises, it must be admitted, from the glory which is supposed to attend the possession of offi- cial dignities ; but the desire of the power itself would be one of the strong- est of the passions of men, though this mere power were all which station conferred. To know that there are a number of beings, endowed with many energies, which Nature seemed to have made absolutely independent of us, who are constantly ready to do whatever we may order them-to do, in obe- dience to our very caprice,-is to us, as I have already said, very nearly the same thing, as if some extension of our faculties had been given to us, by the addition of all their powers to our physical constitution. If these instru- ments of power were mere machines,-which subserviency to us could not in any degree debase, and which could be kept in order without any great anxiety on our part, and without occupying that room which the living in- struments occupy, we should all, probably, feel the desire of possessing these subsidiary faculties, since not to wish for some of them at least, would be like indifference whether we had two arms or only one, distinct or indistinct vision, a good or bad memory. We are not, with respect to any of our fa- culties, like that marvellous runner in the fairy tale, who was so very nimble as to be obliged to tie his legs that he might not run too fast. Our powers, bo- dily or mental, never seem to us to require any such voluntary retardation ; and, however well fitted they may be for the circumstances in which we are placed, we are yet desirous of being able to do more than, as individuals, we are capable of doing, and would gladly, therefore, avail ourselves of the sup- plemental machinery, or of such parts of it as would suit best our particular wishes and purposes. But the parts of the machinery of Power are living beings like ourselves; and fond as we are of the purposes which we may be desirous of executing by means of them, we have, if we be virtuous, moral affections that preclude the wish. With these moral affections for the liberty and happiness of others, we so much prefer their freedom to our personal conveniencies that we never encroach on it. We do not covet so much the pride of him who sees a whole multitude busy only in furthering his frivolous and ever-changing desires, as the serenity of him whom the world counts far humbler, who sees around him a multitude happy in their own domestic oc- cupations, feeling for him only that friendship which the heart spontaneously offers, and assisting him only with those social services which it is delightful to give, and which, as given with delight, it is delightful also to receive. When 1 say, that a virtuous lover of mankind would desire this latter hap- piness more than the other, I know well that there are many minds of which I must not consider myself as expressing the choice ;•-minds which value the power merely as power; which feel it, therefore, with more pleasure the more servile the multitude of their dependents may be; and which, in their endeavours to rise above the crowd, see no slavery too mean for them- selves to endure, if they can purchase, by their own voluntary degradation, the pleasure of commanding. He who feels within himself the talents which must render his exaltation emi- nently useful to mankind, and who wishes for power, that there may be more 6. DESIRE OF POWER. 179 180 virtue and more happiness in the world, than if he had not been elevated, would, indeed, be guilty of criminal self-indulgence, if he were to resign himself to the enjoyments of private life, and to neglect the honourable means of rising to a station which his virtues and talents would render truly honoura- ble. To such a mind, however, ambition presents no anxieties; because, though there may not be the happiness of attaining a more useful station, there is still the happiness of being useful in the station already possessed ; and it presents no disgrace, even in failure, because the disgrace which the heart feels, is only for those who have failed in dishonourable wishes, or who have souglit what is honourable in itself by the use of dishonourable means. But, of the multitude of the ambitious, how few are there of this noble class;-how infinitely more numerous they who seek in power only what the virtuous man does not wish so much, as consent to bear in it for the greater good which may attend it I How many, who labour, perhaps, through a long life of ignominy, to be a little more guilty than it is possible for them to be with the narrow means of guilt which they possess, and who die at last without attaining that wretched object for which they have crawled and pros- trated themselves, and been every thing which a virtuous man would not be, even for a single moment, for all which kings, or the favourites of kings, could offer ! If they fail in their ignoble ambition, it is easy to see what misery they have earned ; and if even they succeed at last, what is it which they gain ? There is no pleasure in what they possess, while it is inferior to something which they wish, with a still more ardent appetite to acquire. " The passion which torments them," as Seneca says, " is like a flame which burns with more violence the more fuel there may have previously- been added to the conflagration."-" Eo majora cupimus, quo majora vene- runt:-ut flammae infinite acrior vis est, quo ex majore incendio emicuit. Eque ambitio non patitur quenquam in ea mensura honorum conquiescere, quae quondam ejus fuit impudens votum. Nemo agit de tribunatu gratias, sed queritur quod non est ad praeturam usque perductus. Nec baec grata est, si deest consulates; ne hie quidem satiat, si unus est. Ultra se cupidi- tas porrigit, et felicitatem suam non in telligit, quia non unde vencrit respicit, sed quo tendat"* The happiness enjoyed by one who has risen to power by ignoble means, is perhaps less than that of the most abject of those who depend on him,-and the dignity which he has attained, and knows not how to enjoy, however splendid it maybe as a mark of distinction, is, in this very distinction, a mark of nothing so much as of the unworthiness of him who possesses it, a memorial of crimes or follies, which, in another situation, would have been unnoticed or forgotten,-but which are now forced on the continued execration or contempt of mankind ; and in the consciousness or dread of this general feeling, are forced, too, more frequently than they would otherwise have arisen, on the shame and remorse of him who feels, that in purchasing with them every thing else, he has not purchased with them happiness. In the great scale of power, which ascends from the lowest of the people to the sovereign, to whom all are submitted, in which the inferior, at every stage, is paying court to his superior, and receiving it, in his turn, from those who are inferior to himself, it is not easy to say at what point of the scale the pleasure of the homage is most sincerely felt. There is much truth in one of Fielding's lively pictures of this sort of homage, in which he reduces III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, * De Beneficiis, Lib. II. c. 27. the difference of power to the different hours of the day, at which we are great men. " With regard to time, it may not be unpleasant," he says, " to survey the picture of dependence like a kind of ladder. As for instance, early in the morning arises the postillion, or some other boy, which great families, no more than great ships, are without, and falls to brushing the clothes, and cleaning the shoes of John the footman, who being drest him- self, applies his hands to the same labours for Mr. Secondhand, the squire's gentleman;-the gentleman, in the like manner, a little later in the day, at- tends the squire ; the squire is no sooner equipt, than he attends the levee of my lord, which is no sooner over, than my lord himself is seen at the levee of the favourite, who, after the hour of homage is at an end, appears himself to pay homage to the levee of his sovereign. Nor is there, perhaps, in this whole ladder of dependence, any one step at a greater distance from the other, than the first from the second ; so that to a philosopher, the question might only seem, whether you would choose to be a great man at six in the morning, or at two in the afternoon." That there is more true happiness in the enjoyments of private life, than in the pursuits of ambition, is one of those common places of morality, which the experience of every day confirms; but which, as that very expe- rience shows, have little effect in overcoming the passion itself,-and which are thus ineffectual, because the passion does not relate only to the particular purposes of the individual, but is placed in our bosom for purposes of gene- ral advantage, which we are to execute, perhaps, without knowing that we are promoting any ends, but those of our own selfish desire. " The poor man's son," says Dr. Smith, in one of the most eloquent pas- sages of his very eloquent work,-" the poor man's son, whom Heaven, in its anger, has visited with ambition, when he begins to look around him, admires the condition of the rich. He finds the cottage of his father too small for his accommodation, and fancies he should be lodged more at his ease in a palace. He is displeased with being obliged to walk afoot, or to endure the fatigue of riding on horseback. He sees his superiors carried about in machines, and imagines that in one of these he could travel with less inconveniency. He feels himself naturally indolent, and willing to serve himself with his own hands as little as possible; and judges that a numerous retinue of servants would save him from a great deal of trouble. He thinks if he had attained all these, he would sit still contentedly, and be quiet, enjoy- ing himself in the thought of the happiness and tranquillity of his situation. He is enchanted with the distant idea of this felicity. It appears in his fancy, like the life of some superior rank of beings; and in order to arrive at it, he devotes himself for ever to the pursuit of wealth and greatness. To obtain the conveniences which these afford, he submits, in the first year, nay, in the first month of his application, to more fatigue of body, and more un- easiness of mind, than he could have suffered through the whole of his life from the want of them. He studies to distinguish himself in some laborious profession. With the most unrelenting industry he labours night and day to acquire talents superior to all his competitors. He endeavours next to bring those talents into public view; and, with equal assiduity, solicits every op- portunity of employment. For this purpose he makes his court to all man- kind ; he serves those whom he hates, and is obsequious to those whom he despises. Through the whole of his life, he pursues the idea of a certain artificial and elegant repose, which he may never arrive at; for which he sa- 6. DESIRE OF POWER. 181 182 III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, crifices a real tranquillity, that is at all times in his power, and which,-if, in the extremity of old age, he should at last attain to it,-he will find to be in no respect preferable to that humble security and contentment, which he had abandoned for it. It is then, in the last dregs of life, his body wasted with toil and diseases, his mind galled and ruffled by the memory of a tliou- sand injuries and disappointments, which he imagines he has met with from the injustice of his enemies, or from the perfidy and ingratitude of his friends, that he begins at last to find, that wealth and greatness are mere trin- kets of frivolous utility, no more adapted for procuring ease of body or tranquillity of mind, than the tweezer-cases of the lover of toys; and like them too, more troublesome to the person who carries them about with him, than all the advantages they can afford him are commodious.-To one who was to live alone in a desolate island, it might be a matter of doubt, perhaps, whether a palace, or a collection of such small conveniences as are com- monly contained in a tweezer-case, would contribute most to his happiness and enjoyment. If he is to live in society, indeed, there can be no com- parison, because in this, as in all other cases, we constantly pay more regard to the sentiments of the spectator, than to those of the person principally concerned, and consider rather how his situation will appear to other people, than how it will appear to himself. But in the languor of disease, and die weariness of old age, the pleasures of the vain and empty distinctions of greatness disappear. To one in this situation, they are no longer capable of recommending those toilsome pursuits in which they had formerly engaged him. In his heart he curses ambition, and vainly regrets the ease and the indolence of youth, pleasures which are fled for ever, and which he has foolishly sacrificed, for what, when he has got it, can afford him no real sa- tisfaction. Power and riches appear then to be what they are, enormous and operose machines, contrived to produce a few trifling conveniences to the body,-consisting of springs the most nice and delicate, which must be kept in order with the most anxious attention, and which, in spite of all our care, are ready every moment to burst into pieces, and to crush in their ruins their .unfortunate possessor. They are immense fabrics, which it re- quires the labour of a life to raise, which threaten every moment to over- whelm the person that dwells in them, and which, while they stand, though they may save him from some smaller inconveniences, can protect him from none of the severer inclemencies of the season. They keep off the sum- mer shower, not the winter storm, but leave him always as much, and some- times more exposed than before, to anxiety, to fear, and to sorrow, to diseases, to danger, and to death."* Such is the madness of ambition in the individual himself. But it is not of a single member of the social multitude, it is of the great interests of mankind that we should think; and in relation to these, what admirable ge- neral purposes does this very madness promote ! The labour to which the individual submits without profit, is not profitless to the community. In far the greater number of instances, he is promoting their advantage, careless as he may seem, and careless as he truly is of it. In thinking of ambition, as it may thus operate in its relation to mankind, the moralist is too apt to dwell on the great and visible desolations to which in a few striking cases it gives rise,-when the ambitious man has the power of leading armies and forcing nations to be slaves, and of achieving all that iniquity w'hich the audacious * Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part. D ' I1.' 6. DESIRE OF POWER. 183 heart of man may have had the guilt and folly of considering as greatness. We forget or neglect, merely because they are less striking than those rare evils, the immediate beneficial influence which the passion is constantly exercising in the conduct of the humbler individuals, whose power, under the preven- tive guardianship of laws, is limited to actions that scarcely edn fail to be of service to the community. All the works of human industry are, in a great measure, referable to an ambition of some sort; that, however humble it may seem to minds of prouder views, is yet relatively as strong as the am- bition of the proudest. We toil, that we may have some little influence, or some little distinction, however small the number of our inferiors may be ; and the toils which raise to the petty distinction, are toils of public, though humble, utility; and even the means of distinction which the opulent pos- sess, are chiefly in the support of those, who, but for the pride which supports them, while it seems only to impose on them the labour of ministering to all the various wants of their luxury, would have little to hope from a charity that might not be easy to be excited by the appearance of mere suffering, in those slight, and ordinary degrees in which it makes its appeal rather to the heart than to the.senses. It is thi£ silent influence of the passion, contributing to general happiness where general happiness is not even an object of thought, which it is most delightful to trace; and it is an influence which is felt in every place, at every moment, while the ravages of political ambition, desolating as they may be in their temporary violence, pass away, and give place to a prosperity like that which they seemed wholly to over- whelm,-a prosperity, which, as the result of innumerable labours, and, therefore, of innumerable wishes that have prompted these labours, rises again, and continues through a long period of years, by the gentler influence of those very principles to which before it owed its destruction. But while we perceive with gladness the happy social uses to which nature has made the passion for power in mankind instrumental,-or rather, to speak with more accuracy, the uses for which nature has made us susceptible of this passion,-and while we know well, that the world, therefore, never can be without those who will be moved by ambition to seek the honours and dignities which it is necessary for the happiness of the world that some should seek, it is pleasing for those whose fortune or whose wishes lead them to more tranquil and happier, though less envied occupations,-to think, that the happiness which so many are seeking, is not confined by nature to the dignities which so very few only are capable of attaining,-that it is as wide as the situations of men,-and that, while no rank is too high for the enjoyment of virtue, there is no rank that can be regarded as too low for it. It has been as truly as eloquently said, that "when Providence divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seemed to have been left out in the partition. These last, too, enjoy their share of all that it produces. In what constitutes the real happiness of human life, they are in no respect inferior to those, who would seem so much above them. In ease of body and peace of mind, all the dif- ferent ranks of life are nearly upon a level; and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the high-way, possesses that security which kings are fighting for."* * Theoi of Moral Sentiments, Part IV. c, 1. 184 LECTURE LXIX. HI. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS.-6. DESIRE OF POWER-OF INDIRECT POWER, AS IN AVARICE. Gentlemen, after the remarks which I made in my last Lecture on power, as an immediate object of desire, we are naturally led to consider that peculiar and very interesting modification of the desire of power, in which the object seems to be less the direct command itself, than the means by which the command may indirectly be exercised. Such is that form of am- bition which is commonly denominated avarice. By the affections which we excite,-by our talents, whether of pure rea- son or of eloquence,-by the authority of public station, we exercise, as you have seen, a ready dominion over the minds of others. We obtain a command over them, which, though less direct, is not less powerful, by the possession of those things which they are desirous of possessing, and for which, accordingly, they are ready to dispose of their personal services, or to transfer to us some of those means of enjoyment which they possess, and of which we, in our turn, are desirous. To have what all men wish to have, with the power of transferring it to them, is to have a dominion over every thing which they can transfer to us, equal to the extent of the wishes on their part. Of the power of gratifying these wishes, wealth is the universal represen- tative, or rather the universal instrument. To possess it, is to exercise a sway less obvious indeed, but, in its extent, far more imperial than that which ever rewarded or punished the successful arms of the most illustrious con- queror,-a sway as universal as the wishes of mankind,-a sway, too, which is exercised in every case without compulsion, and even with an eagerness on the part of him who obeys, equal to that which is felt by him who is obeyed. What conqueror is there, who has not seen, beyond the march of his ar- mies, some stubborn tribe that resisted still the force which had crushed whole nations in its dreadful career; beyond which, if they too had been crushed, some other tribe as stubborn would still have arisen, to remind the victor of his weakness, even at the very moment in which his sway was stretched over a wider space than had ever been covered with slavery and misery before by a single individual ? The empire which a rich man exercises finds no nation or tribe that wishes to resist it. It commands the services of man, wherever man can be reached, because it offers to the desires of man the power of acquiring whatever objects of external enjoyment he is most eager to acquire. From the north to the south, from the east to the west, every thing that can be rendered active is put in motion by him, who remains tranquilly at home exciting the industry of those of whose very existence he is ignorant, and receiving the products of labour for his own use, without knowing from whom he receives them. It is almost as in the magic stories of romance, in which the hero is represented as led from the castle-gate by hands that are invisible to him,-ushered to a splendid banquet, where no one seems present,-where wine is poured into the goblet before him at his very wish, and luxurious refreshment after refreshment appears upon the board, but appears as if no hand had brought it. To the rich man, in like G. DESIRE OF POWER. 185 manner, whatever he wishes seems to come merely because he wishes it to come. Without knowing who they are who are contributing to his idle lux- ury, he receives the gratification itself, and receives it from hands that operate as invisibly as the fairy hands at the banquet. He gathers around him the products of every sea and every soil. The sunshine of one climate, the snows of another, are made subsidiary to his artificial wants ; and though it is impos- sible to discern the particular arms which he is every instant setting in mo- tion, or the particular efforts of inventive thought which he is every instant stimulating, there can be no doubt that such a relation truly exists, which connects with his wishes, and with his power, the industry of those who labour on the remotest corner of the earth, which the enterprising commerce of man can reach. Since the possession of wealth is thus the possession of indirect power over the labour of millions, it is not wonderful that our desire of every grati- fication, which the labour of millions can afford, should be attended with the desire of that, by which the labour that is to minister to our gratification can be commanded. When viewed in tin's light, the desire of wealth is only another form of those very desires, to which wealth can be rendered instru- nental, by affording them the means of indulgence. But the passion assumes a very different appearance, when it seems con- fined to the means of exercising an indirect command over the labours of others, without the slightest intention of exercising that sway,-certainly with- out the least attempt to exercise it. If he who was most desirous of wealth, were most desirous of obtaining with it those enjoyments, in relation to which alone, wealth has any value, there would be no mystery in avarice; and we should scarcely think of giving it a name, as a separate passion, distinct from the passions to which it was subservient, and of which it was only repre- sentative. But it happens, that, though prodigality may, in all cases, or nearly in all cases, be considered as connected with avarice, avarice very often exists, and is characterized as avarice only when it exists, without any disposition to employ, for purposes of enjoyment, what it is so eager to ac- quire. The mere gold is valued, as if it were a source of every happiness, when every happiness which it truly affords, and without relation to which it is nothing, is despised, as if of little value, compared with that which derives from its power over the very enjoyments that are despised, all the absolute value which it possesses. The anchoret, who, to render himself more acceptable to God, retires from the society and service of man,-who sleeps upon the earth,-who wraps his feeble limbs in the coarsest garments,-who lives on roots and water,-and sees his meagre frame waste every day, without a wish to re- store its vigour by a diet of richer nourishment,-is one whose superstitious weakness we may lament, while we respect the very error from which it flow's. But what should we think of him, if, while he slept upon the earth, and covered himself with sackcloth, and scarcely tasted even his scanty food, he were desirous of amassing the means of acquiring the softest couches, the most splendid robes, the richest fare, the most magnificent palaces? Even this inconsistency is not all which the world exhibits. There are human be- ings, anchorets of a more ignoble order, who submit voluntarily to all these privations, and who feel at the same time this very desire of wealth, which such privations render absolutely superfluous,-who have the still greater in- consistency of desiring to possess means of luxurious enjoyments, while they Vol. II. 186 already have these means in their possession,-who sleep on the earth, not because they think that God has prohibited every sensual indulgence, but because they fear that their couches, if they were to lie upon them, would be sooner worn out,-who clothe themselves in rags, not from humility, but from pride, that trembles lest it should afterwards have to appear in rags,- and who, in the midst of inexhaustible abundance, starve, because they do not know bow soon, if a thousand improbable things should happen, they may afterwards be obliged to starve. Poverty, it has been said, has many wants,-but avarice is in want of every thing. III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, " Desunt inopiae multa, avaritiae omnia." " The wealth which the miser calls his own," says Cyprian, " h$ guards in his coffers with the same anxiety of watchfulness, as if it were the money of another committed to his charge ; he has no other possession of it, than as hindering others to possess it,"-11 Pecuniam suam dicunt, (juam, ve- lut alienam, domi clausam, sollicito labore custodiunt. Possident ad hoc tantum, ne possidere alteri liceat." The picture which Pope gives us of a celebrated miser, in one of his Moral Essays, absurd, and almost inconsistent with human reason as the cha- racter may seem to be, is yet a picture of no small number of mankind; and when the character, in all its deformity, is not to be traced, there are still some features of it that present themselves to the observer, in many individu- als who are misers only in certain circumstances, or at certain moments, and who would be astonished, if we were to attach to them so disgraceful a name. After describing the miserable flock-bed, in the worst inn's worst room, in which the Duke of Buckingham, once that " life of pleasure, and that soul of whim," closed his wretched existence, the poet continues,- 11 His Grace's fate, sage Cutler could foresee; And well, he thought, advised him, ' Live like me.- As well his Grace replied, ' Like you, sir John ! That I can do when all I have is gone.' Resolve me, Reason, which of these is worse, Want with a full, or with an empty purse ? Thy life, more wretched Cutler, was confess'd- Arise and tell me, was thy death more bless'd ? Cutler saw tenants break, and houses fall, For very want-he could not build a wall. His only daughter in a stranger's power, For very want,-he could not pay a dower. A few grey hairs his reverend temples crown'd; 'Twas very want that sold them for two pound. What even denied a cordial at his end, Banish'd the doctor, and expell'd the friend ? What, but a want-which you perhaps, think mad, Yet thousands feel,-the want of what he had."* I have already said, that, if avarice consisted merely in the desire of ob- taining the wealth by which we might command the gratification of our direct desires, there would be nothing in it at all mysterious, since it would be only another form of these very desires ; and that the mystery of this strange pas- sion arises only when the enjoyments which it could command are sacrificed * Pope's Moral Essays, Ep. III. v. 315-332. to the mere possession of the means of commanding them. It then, indeed, oresents phenomena truly worthy of being analyzed, not merely as striking in themselves, but as illustrative of some of the most important general princi- ples of our mental constitution. It is, in the first place, sufficiently evident, that the avarice does not arise from any essential quality of the wealth itself as a mere substance. You cannot suppose, that, independent of the relative value which the comparative scarcity of these two metals has produced, a mass of gold would be much more desirable than a mass of iron. It must originally, then, in the eyes of the miser, as of every other person, have derived its high value from the com- mand over the labour of others or the actual possessions of others, which it was capable of transferring'to every one into whose hands it might pass, or from the distinction which the possession of what is rare and universally de- sired always confers. The common theory of the value attached by the miser to the mere sym- bol of enjoyment, is that the symbol, by the influence of the general laws of association, becomes representative of the enjoyment itself. We have so fre- quently considered money as that which affords us various pleasures, that the value which we attach to the pleasures themselves, is tranferred to that which .ve know will always produce them when exchanged for the enjoyment ; and .here can be no question, that such an association does truly take place, and nust take place, though not in a few individuals only, but in all mankind, as long as this well known principle of the general mental constitution continues to operate. But still it must be remembered, that the mystery in this case remains very nearly the same as before. The theory accounts, indeed, and accounts most satisfactorily, for a value beyond its intrinsic use, which the miser, like every one else, may attach to gold ; but it does not explain the pe- culiar associations in his mind, which form the very difficulty in question, that very high value which he alone discovers in it,-a value so far surpassing that of the quantity of enjoyment which it may command, that the miser seldom thinks of spending, that is to say, of exchanging the mere symbol of enjoyment for the enjoyment itself, while he thinks, with insatiable avidity, of accumulating what is not to be spent. The common theory, therefore, is manifestly de- fective. Let us inquire, then, whether a nicer analysis may not afford us a solution. No one, I conceive, originally, and without regard to its value in exchange, could prize a piece of gold much more than an equal bulk of any thing else that had physical properties of equal direct utility ; and originally too, I con- ceive, from the indisputable influence of time in all our desires, that, if all other circumstances were the same, no one would prefer to a present plea- sure, a pleasure of exactly the same intensity and duration at any distant pe- riod. For both these reasons, avarice, as it exists in maturer life, could not be an immediate passion, but must have required certain circumstances to produce or foster it. The circumstances which I conceive to have most effect in heightening the value of the symbol or instrument of enjoyment above the enjoyment it- self, is the comparative permanence of the one, and the very fugitive nature of the other. Before the boy lays out his penny in the purchase of an apple or orange, it appears to him valuable chiefly as the mode of obtaining the apple or orange. But the fruit, agreeable as it may have been while it last- ed, is soon devoured,-its value, with respect to him, has wholly ceased,- 6. DESIRE OF POWER. 187 188 and the penny he knows is still in existence, and would have been still his own, if the fruit had not been purchased. He thinks of the penny, therefore, as existing now, and existing without any thing which he can oppose to it as equivalent; and the feeling of regret arises,-the wish that he had not made the purchase, and that the penny, as still existing, and equally capable as be- fore of procuring some new enjoyment, had continued in his pocket. The feeling of regret, thus associated with the loss of his penny, will, by frequent repetition, be still more intimately combined with the very conception of those little purchases to which his appetites otherwise might lead him. It will seem a serious evil to part with that, the pain of having parted with which was a serious evil before. The regret of course must vary with the mode in which the boy has most frequently laid out the contents of his little purse, so as to present, or not to present to his mind the equivalent enjoyment for which the power of obtaining afterwards a similar amount of enjoyment was resigned. If he has purchased anything which retains a permanent value, the regret will be less likely to arise, while the pleasure received from the purchase, as frequently presented to his mind during the permanent posses- sion, will, on the contrary, accustom him to value money, only as the in- strument of obtaining what he feels to be so valuable. It will be the same if he have given it away for the relief of distress, since, in this case, though nothing absolutely permanent is possessed by him, the pleasure of the thought itself, as often as the thought recurs, may almost be considered as something permanent. It is impossible for him to think of his penny without thinking of this also, not as a pleasure wholly past, like that of fruit or sweetmeats de- voured, but as a pleasure still present and never fading, and accompanied therefore with a feeling of satisfaction, which precludes all regret. Our first expenses, then, like all the subsequent expenses of our maturer years, may be attended, according to circumstances, either with regret or satisfaction; and it is not easy to say, how much of the future avarice of the man, may de- pend on the nature of a few purchases made by the boy, according as these may have been of a kind to give greater or less occasion to the feeling of re- gret, and to the subsequent association of this feeling with the very notion of any little expense. I may remark, by the way, the very early connexion which, in this manner, takes place between prodigality and avarice,-a connexion which continues to subsist, as I have already said, almost universally in maturer life. But,-to return to our little miser,-it must not be supposed, that the re- gret which is early associated with expense, approaches the nature of that extreme fear of parting with money which constitutes the avarice of man- hood. All that is necessary, is to produce a slight terror of expense, which the habits of many years may strengthen into parsimony. In the boy, it may be scarcely more than what is counted only frugality in a man, and ranked among the virtues ; but a boy that is frugal, as man is frugal, is a miser of other years. When the feeling of regret has been frequently blended, in a very lively manner, with the conception of expense, it is, of course, readily suggested again in similar circumstances. In every purchase there must be something given away, as well as something received ; and, according as the mind is led more to the one or to the other of these, it will be more or less ready to make the exchange. If its thought have turned chiefly to the agreeable ob- ject which it wishes to acquire,-as, where the object is very pleasing, it will III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, naturally do, unless counteracted by opposite suggestions,-it will gladly make the purchase; but if, when any such wish arises, its thought be turned, in consequence of former feelings of regret, chiefly to that which it must give to obtain the object,-and if the principal reflection be, " How many other things as valuable, or more valuable, could this money procure; and what regret, therefore, shall I afterwards feel, if I have parted with it for this one," -the very desire of making the purchase may cease altogether, from the mere suggestion of the various other agreeable objects, the acquisition of which the purchase of this one would preclude. The frequent repetition of this deliberate rejection will, of course, connect more and more with the very feeling of deliberation, as to any little expense, that feeling of rejection which was its former attendant. I may remark, in the next place, that if a guinea were significant only of one species of enjoyment, to the same amount which it might procure in ex- change, its value would not be felt in so lively a manner, even by the most avaricious. But it recalls to the mind not one species of enjoyment merely which it might command, but as many species as there are objects to be pur- chased with it. The longer we dwell on it, therefore, the more valuable does it seem, because it suggests more of these equivalents, all of which it seems, in its power of commanding them, to condense within itself. Accord- ingly, to the miser, who is accustomed to this contemplation, a guinea is almost like a thousand ; and it is not very wonderful, therefore, than any sin- gle object which a guinea could purchase should seem to him trifling, when compared with the precious coin itself, which is felt as the equivalent of many. In a former Lecture, when treating of the influence of habit, in endearing to us, with a value far beyond its intrinsic use, the most trifling object that has been long familiar to us, I endeavoured to account for this, in a great measure, by the number of past enjoyments that were condensed as it were in our very notion of the object,-the loss of which, accordingly, seemed to us, by a sort of momentary illusion, to be not the loss of the trifling object alone, but the loss of those more important delights, that gave it an imaginary value which it was impossible for us to separate from it. To part with it, is, in a great measure, to part with all the pleasures that seem contained in its very nature, or of which, at least, it is representative to our thought. An illusion of the same kind, 1 conceive, operates very powerfully on the miser. He has so often meditated on the ivorth of a guinea, in its relation to different objects, that it appears to him not a mere piece of gold, nor the representa- tive only of one small amount of enjoyment, but the power of obtaining almost innumerable things; and the very conception of the loss of it is, therefore, like the loss not of one of those things only, but of every thing which it might have procured. It is as if he were giving away a treasure ; because it re- presents to his mind, in the conception of its various equivalents, as many things as a treasure would be necessary for purchasing There is another circumstance, which I consider as having great weight with the miser;-though, when first stated, it may seem to you, perhaps, to imply an absurdity too great even for momentary illusion,-for the momentary illusion even of a mind subject to so much illusion as that of the miser must certainly be allowed to be, whatever theory we may form of its feelings. To he avaricious, there are tivo thoughts, which may be regarded as almost con- stantly present,-the thought of what they possess, and the thought of some 6. DESIRE OF POWER. 189 190 III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, enormous sum, to which, perhaps, they look as to the ultimate object of their sordid ambition. Every petty gain is no sooner made, than it is instantly added to the sum already possessed, and the new amount repeatedly mea sured with the greater sum that is only hoped. It is valued not for itself only, but as a part of these far greater products. The loss of the small sum, therefore, however insignificant in itself, is not the loss of it only, but is felt as if it were the loss of much more. It is as if the one hundred thousand pounds, or the half million, which it was before so delightful to contemplate, could no longer be contemplated with the same satisfaction,-as if it, the splendid whole, had almost ceased to exist, by the loss of that which was one of its constituent parts. The illusion is but a momentary one indeed, yet still it recurs as often as the loss itself becomes an object of thought; and a single guinea is thus regretted, almost with the same anguish of heart, as if the loss of it had been actual poverty, because it is truly a part, and consi- dered chiefly as a part, of that great whole, the loss of which would, without all question, be actual poverty. It is in this way I conceive, that the miser, when the avarice is extreme, seriously trembles at approaching poverty, when he is forced to be at the slightest expense. It is quite evident, that he could not seriously believe this, if he discerned clearly the insignificant proportion which the expense bore to his actual wealth. But it is a part of the whole-it is intimately as- sociated with the conception of the whole,-and the loss of it, therefore, being inconsistent with the possession of the whole, seems for the moment to take that whole from him. He thinks, with a sort of giddy terror, that he is falling into poverty, firm as his golden support may be,-very nearly in the same way as one that stands on the brink of a precipice, with the firmest foot- ing, still feels every moment, in the vivid conception of the possible fall, as if he were truly tumbling down the dreadful abyss. If a small parapet had been between him and the precipice, it could not have made his footing more firm, but it would have prevented the agony of giddy terror; if the few guineas, in like manner, had not been lost, the miser scarcely could be said to be richer than after the loss, but the conception of poverty u7ould not have been excited, that conception which rises to the mind with such increased reality when there is any real loss, however trifling, with the notion of which the imaginary loss of the whole actual wealth admits of being blended. Whatever truth there may be in this speculation, as to the momentary illu- sion by which the loss of a part, in consequence of the habit of frequently dwelling on it as a part of a great whole, becomes, for the moment, like the loss of that great whole itself-an illusion which seems to me to arise very naturally from the common principles of the mind, as exemplified in many other analogous feelings-and without which, or some similar illusion, it appears to me impossible to account for all the phenomena of extreme ava- rice-still, whether this speculation be admitted or rejected, the remarks as to the influence of regret, in producing associations favourable to the produc- tion and growth of avarice, will not be the less just. While the laws of sug- gestion in the mind continue as at present, it is impossible that the feeling of regret should attend many little purchases which the child may have made, without some feeling of uneasiness in the similar purchases which he may be led to make again,-an uneasiness, which those who know the growth of feelings in the mind from very small beginnings, will not be surprised to see afterwards expanded into all the anxieties, and horrors, and madness of avarice 6. DESIRE OF POWER. 191 The chief circumstance of distinction, then, of the theory whicn I have ventured to propose to you, from the evident inadequacy of the common theory, is, that instead of making the passion of the miser to depend on the pleasing association of enjoyment, it founds it chiefly on an association of an opposite kind-of the painful feeling of regret. The remembrances which rise to bis mind, are not so much those of the few moments of some agreea- ble purchase, as of the more lasting wish, that the purchase had not been made. It is not happiness, then, in its shadowy form, which is for ever play- ing around his heart, even when he contemplates the very symbols of happi- ness. It is possible pain, not possible pleasure-fear, far more than hope,- poverty itself, with all the wretched images of the wants that attend it, in the very redundancy of a wealth which it would weary every one but its never* weary possessor and calculator to compute. This theory of avarice, as founded on suggestions of regret and not of pleasure, explains very readily some facts, which otherwise, I cannot but think, would be absolutely inexplicable. Nothing is more truly remarkable, for .example, than the dispropottioned vexation of the miser at losses of very different amount. The loss of a guinea, or even of a shilling, gives him fre- quently the same uneasiness as the loss of a thousand guineas ; and he who would not give away a guinea without the most compunctious terror, has sometimes been known to give away one thousand, perhaps with less diffi- culty, certainly with less appearance of anxiety, than if it had been a much smaller sum. The reason of this apparent disproportion I conceive to be, that the feeling of regret, which'I regard as the predominant feeling in the complex associations of the miser, has been more frequently attached to the loss of a smaller sum, such as that which is given away in common purchases, and arises, therefore, more readily to the mind, merely because it has been thus more frequently associated. A guinea has been regretted a thousand times-a thousand guineas have, perhaps, never once been regretted, because they have never been given away before. A large sum may, indeed, be analyzed into its constituent parts, with the conception of the loss of which the painful regret might be supposed to arise as before ; but this analytic re- duction requires an operation of thought, which takes place less readily than the simple suggestion of feelings, attached by frequent recurrence to the petty loss itself. So much of avarice, at least of w hat appears most ridiculous and sordid in avarice, consists in the pitiful saving of a few shillings of those small sums which occur to the demand of every hour, and admit, therefore, of being most frequently combined with regret in some stronger or slighter de- gree, that it has been said, with great truth, that a very few pounds in the year, laid out as other people would lay them out, would save almost any one from being counted a miser. It is for the same reason, I may remark, that it is very difficult for those, who, in early youth, have struggled with extreme penury, and who have been suddenly raised to affluence, not to have at their heart what may seem like original constitutional avarice to those who do not reflect on its cause,-a love of money, when the love of money seems so little necessary to them,- a terror of expense, which was once only economy, but which is economy no more. They carry with them the feelings that have attended their ex- penses, in a situation in which any little gain was of great relative value, and any little departure from extreme frugality would have been ruin; and hence, perhaps, with every desire of doing good, when they think of their large 192 III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, fortune, and of the means of bounty which it affords them, they do little good in detail, because, in their actual benefactions, the feelings which they have been accustomed to attach to sums that were once great to them, continue still, by the influence of mere association, to arise, when the sums which they tremble to give away are, in relation to their ample means, truly insig- nificant. A few guineas in their charities as in their expenses of every sort, seem to them a large sum, because they seemed to them a large sum, for the greater part, perhaps, of a long life. They are misers merely because they once were poor, not because they are indifferent to distress. When, in such circumstances of sudden change of fortune, the heart rea- dily adapts itself to the change, it may be considered as a proof, that he who is now rich, has, even in indigence, been accustomed to look to wealth chiefly as an instrument of gratifying those generous wishes which he now, therefore, delights to gratify,-unrestrained in his bounty by any feeling of regret, be- cause the chief regret which he felt before, was that of not being able to bestow a relief, the power of bestowing which he now feels to be so inesti- mable a part of riches. In these remarks on the growth of avarice, I have considered chiefly that part of the process which is the least obvious. There is one more obvious circumstance, which is, of course, not to be neglected in the theory of this passion,-the distinction which great wealth confers, like every thing which is possessed only by a few, and which all, or nearly all, are desirous of pos- sessing. Of the influence of this mere distinction as an object of satisfac- tion and desire to the miser, there can be no doubt; and it is an influence which increases always as the amount of wealth already accumulated in- creases. The smallest subtraction from the illustrious amount, lessens in his own eyes his own dignity. It seems to him delightful to be constantly adding to that which, at every addition, makes him more and more illustrious. To take any thing from the heap reverses this process. He feels that he is less than he was; and with this feeling, which is painful in itself, he does not pause to think how very little he is less ; and how very near in glory one who pos- sesses a hundred thousand pounds, is to him who possesses a hundred thou- sand pounds and a shilling. The union of all these feelings, in their highest degree, is probably neces- sary to form the perfect miser, as he exists only, in rare cases, for the admi- ration of the world. But in those half-misers, of whom the world is full, they exist in various degrees and proportions, producing those singular con- trasts of feelings and situations, which would be ridiculous, if they were not lamentable, and disgusting. " Not only the low-born and old Think glory nothing but the beams of gold, The first young lord, whom in the Mall you meet, Shall match the veriest hunks in Lombard-street, From rescued candle-ends who raised a sum, And starves, to join a penny to a plum.- For love, young, noble, rich Castalio dies ; Name but the fair,-love swells into his eyes. Divine Nominia ! thy fond fears lay down ; No rival can prevail,-but half-a-crown."* According as these feelings rise more or less strongly, and, in a great mea- • Young's Love of Fame, Sat. IV. 6. DESIRE OF POWER. 193 sure, according as the notion of any particular sum, which may suggest either the enjoyment that may be afforded by it, or the regret that may attend its loss, suggests one of these rather than the other, we are to account for those sudden alternations of avarice and generosity which occasionally appear in the same character. " There is no one circumstance," says Fielding, " in which the distempers of the mind bear a more exact analogy to those which are called bodily, than in that aptness which both have to a relapse. This is plain in the violent diseases of ambition and avarice. I have known ambi- tion, when cured at court by frequent disappointments, (which are the only physic for it,) to break out again in a contest for foreman of the grand jury at an assizes,-and have heard of a man who had so far conquered avarice, as to give away many a sixpence, that comforted himself at last, on his death- bed, by making a crafty and advantageous bargain concerning his ensuing funeral with an undertaker who had married his only child." It is very evident, according to that analysis of the passion of the miser, on which I have ventured, that the mere circumstance of approaching and certain death, as in the case now quoted, could not have any great effect in lessening the delight of such a bargain ; because the delight of profit to the miser does not depend on enjoyment afterwards to arise from it, but on feel- ings of the past, associated with the mere gain itself, or with the loss of gain. Gain is still delightful, loss still painful to him, in the same way as in emo- tions that agree scarcely in any other respect,-the scenes and countenances which he loves, are still beautiful to him who knows that death is soon to separate him from every thing which he admires on earth, and that the love- liness, therefore, which he still sees in all its eloquent expression of continued gentleness and kindness, is a loveliness that in all which it expresses, must be lost to him. It is equally evident, according to the same analysis, that an accession of wealih, however great, to that which was perhaps only a competence before, will have little chance of lessening avarice, but may, on the contrary, as we see with surprise in many cases of this strange moral anomaly, increase the very avarice that was before scarcely marked as sordid, by rendering more valuable that rich amount which it would be painful to diminish by such ordi- nary expenses as even frugality allows. The larger the sum possessed, the more nearly does it approach to that beautiful combination of arithmetical figures which delights the imagination as often as it rises like a dream of heaven, and which is, indeed, the only dream of heaven that does arise to the miser, in that voluntary wretchedness to which he has condemned himself,- a wretchedness that has all the mortifications of penance, without the thoughts of virtue and holiness, by which penance is more than soothed, and that must be ever miserable, because a cessation of the miseries that are thus volunta- rily induced, would be itself a wretchedness still more dreadful than what is voluntarily suffered. There are various applications of' the theory, which flow from it so evi- dently, that it is unnecessary to occupy your time in pointing them out. One conclusion, however, of great practical importance, it may be of advantage to state particularly. If avarice, as I conceive, has its origin chiefly in the feelings of regret that attend the early expenses of the child, it must be of the utmost importance to prevent, as much as possible, these primary feel- ings of regret, by endeavouring to lead him to employ the little money which is at his disposal, in such a manner as may make the very remembrance of Vol. II. 194 HL PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, the little transfer pleasing to him. When the child hastens to throw away whatever is given to him, in the gratification of his gluttonous appetite, we think that we perceive only prodigality arising. It is future parsimony, on the contrary, which we chiefly see,-a parsimony which will be quick to regret, because it has been thoughtlessly quick to squander,-or rather, it is that mixture of prodigality and avarice which almost every prodigal exhibits, -that societas luxuries et sordium, of which the younger Pliny speaks with so much detestation, when he describes them as singly most unworthy of the noble nature of man, but still more wretchedly disgraceful, when combined, " qute cum sint turpissima, discreta ac separata, turpius junguntur." Even in mature life, the very necessities to which luxurious extravagance leads', preclude all possibility of being generous; ftnd the generous desires which it is thus impossible to gratify, merely on account of selfish indidgencies, soon cease to be felt at all. The prodigal is thus almost necessarily a miser, without thinking that he is so; because he is constantly throwing away the money which he obtains, he forgets the rapacity of his desires themselves; his avarice is not, indeed, the avarice of him who lives and dies in rags and wretchedness,-but to borrow a very happy expression of Marmontel, it "is a mixture of all the passions which can be satisfied with gold." LECTURE LXX. III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS-6. DESIRE OF POWER-OF INDIRECT POW ER, AS IN AVARICE,-CONCLUDED?-7. DESIRE OF THE AFFECTION OF THOSE AROUND US-3. DESIRE OF GLORY. My last Lecture, gentlemen, was occupied with an inquiry into the nature of one of the most seemingly anomalous of human passions,-a passion that has for its object what is directly valuable only in relation to other desires, that disregards, however, the gratification of these very desires to which its object may be considered only as instrumental, and that yet continues, with mad avidity, to labour to accumulate what, but for the enjoyments which are despised and viewed almost with terror, is a burden, and nothing more,-a mass of cumbrous matter, which it is difficult to acquire, and anxious to keep, of no more value in itself when stamped with the marks of national curren- cy, than when it was buried, with other dross, in the original darkness of the mine. In what manner the passion of avarice is most probably formed in the mind, I endeavoured to explain to you, by a retrospect of the circumstances that may be supposed most likely to diversify the early pecuniary of the little barterer, who begins, in his exchange of pence for toys and sweetmeats, that traffic, which, in more important purchases, is to continue through life,-which renders the preservation of life itself, and the enjoy- ment of all its external pleasures a sort of commerce, and makes merchants, therefore, in the strictest sense of that term, of the proudest of mankind, who may think, perhaps, that the merchandise which they exercise is dig- fled by the name of expense, but who, in their most luxurious and prodigal expenses, are only traders in gold and commodities,-the barterers of cer- tain sums of gold for certain quantities of other commodities, which, by mu- tual consent, are received as equivalents. In this retrospect of the circumstances in which the passion of the young miser may be supposed to originate, we found reason to ascribe it to a pro- cess different from that which is commonly assigned as its origin : and ex- plained, I flatter myself, in conformity with the theory which we were led to form, many seeming irregularities with respect to the influence of the pas* sion, for which it does not seem easy to account, on any other principle. In relation to the general moral character of the individual who is subject to it, it would not be easy to find a passion that strips him so completely of all that was originally noble in his constitution, as avarice in its extreme de- gree. Almost every other passion, however inconsistent it may be, with the higher honours of our social nature, has yet some direct relation to mankind. Sensuality itself is not wholly selfish. The more refined voluptuary seeks society to enliven and embellish his pleasures ; and even he who has stupified in drunken excesses, not his intellectual faculties only, but almost the very feelings that render him a moral being, finds the madness of the maddest drunkenness a more animating pleasure, when shared with some wretched half-human maniac like himself. Even the passions that are absolutely ma- lignant, and that, in separating their victim from the kind offices, and from the common courtesies of life, seem to break the very bond of social affinity, still bring the feelings, the thoughts, the emotions of living beings, as objects ever present to the mind, and thus connect man, in some measure, with man, even on appearing to throw them off with violence from each other. He who hates must at least have man before him, and must feel some common tie that connects him with the very object of his hate. But to the miser there is no tie of human feeling. There are no propinquities to him, no friendships; but the place of these is supplied, and fully supplied, by the single passion which occupies his heart. It is not man, but a mass of inani- mate matter, which is ever before his mind, and almost ever before his very eyes,-or at least which would be almost ever before his eyes, if there were no fear of exposing, as booty, what would otherwise be the delight of his unceasing contemplation. He thinks, indeed, and toils; but he thinks only of gold,-toils only for gold ; and if his gold could be doubled by the anni- hilation of all beside, he would care little, perhaps, though no other ob- ject were to exist, but the mass which he has to measure or compute, and himself the sole happy measurer or computer of it. In his very nature, in- deed, he becomes himself almost as little human, as that which he adores. Where his gold is buried, his affections, too, are buried. The figure which Salvian uses, in speaking of this moral torpor of the miser, is scarcely too bold a one,-that his soul assimilates itself to his treasure, and is transmuted, as it were, into a mere earthly mass. " Mens thesaurizontis thesaurum suum sequitur, et quasi, in naturam terrestris substantiae demutatur." Even if this moral torpor to every kind affection were all, the passion of the miser, contemptible as it might seem, would still be only an object of contempt, or of a mixture of disgust and pity. But with how many positive vices is avarice connected-and how difficult is it for him, who values the possession of wealth as far transcending every thing beside, to respect, in any of its forms, when it is opposed to his unjust gain, the restraint of that moral 6. DESIRE OF POWER. 195 196 principle, which, in all its forms, seems so poor and insignificant, in compari- son with the wealth which it would preclude him from acquiring, or which it would prevent him at least from preserving in all its undiminished beauty ! The miser,-even though he were the most sordid of his sordid class,- might, perhaps, fulfil some of the social duties of life, if these duties had no relation to gold ; but the great misery of his scanty morality, when we con- sider him in his social connexions, is, that the gold which he loves, is, by its universality of application, as a medium of every external comfort and en- joyment, and consequently of every action by which these can be communi- cated to others, connected with all, or almost all the duties of life ; in requir- ing which from him, therefore, virtue seems to make from him too extrava- gant and costly a demand. If no sacrifices were required of him, or if he could be benevolent at a cheaper rate, he might have no great reluctance to be be- nevolent. To relieve the lowest and most wretched necessities of the indi- gent, however, even by the pettiest arms, would be to take some few parti- cles from the precious heap. To bring forward into public notice, the genius that is still obscure, because it is beaming only in poverty,-or even the pa- tient industry, that may not yet have found any one to whom its humble talent is an object of demand,-would take from the heap a still greater number of particles;-and to remember, in some cases, the claims of consanguinity or friendship,-even without that dreadful lavishness of expense, which the world would scarcely count generosity,-to remember them with the most cautious sparingness in the well-measured benefaction, would be to take from the heap, perhaps, what, if the whole sum were very accurately measured, would make it almost sensibly less. In the ordinary dealings of life,-in which generosity, on any side, is out of the question, and mere justice is all that is required,-the miser maybe honest; but his honesty, if he have for- titude enough to preserve it, is always in peril, and escapes only by a con- tinual struggle. Not to be a knave is in him a sort of magnanimity. To avoid even the meanest fraud,-at least to avoid it from any other motive than a fear of law,--is a sacrifice to heroic virtue of the same sort, as it would be to a very generous man to strip himself of the half, or more than the half, of all which he possessed, for the comfort of a suffering stranger- in the contemplation of many of the passions, that rage in the heart with greatest fierceness, there is some comfort in the thought, that, violent as they may be for a time, they are not to rage through the whole course of life, at least if life be prolonged to old age,-that the agitation, which at every period will have some intermissions, will grow gradually less as the body grows more weak ;-and that the mind will at last derive from this very feebleness a re- pose, which it could not enjoy, when the vigour of the bodily frame seemed to give to the passion a corresponding vigour. It is not in avarice, however, that this soothing influence of age is to be found. It grows with our growth and with our strength,, but it strengthens also with our very weakness. There are no intermissions in the anxieties which it keeps awake ;-and every year, instead of lessening its hold, seems to fix it more deeply within the soul itself, as the bodily covering around it slowly moulders away. What was scarcely necessary in the first fresh years of youth, when, in the alacrity of health, and with senses quick to every enjoyment, it might have seemed reasonable to attach a high value to the means of providing for the long series of luxu- ries of a long life,-what was even then scarcely necessary for this abundant nrovision, is desired more impatiently, when a few spare meals more are all III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, which nature seems to ask for the few remaining hours of exhausted age; and when some other disease, perhaps, in aggravation of the sure disease of age itself, is lessening even the small number of those meals, which nature scarcely can be said still to require. The heart which is weary of everv thing else, is not weary of coveting more gold ;-the memory, which has forgotten every thing else, continues still, as Cato says in Cicero's Dialogue, to remember where its gold is stored ;-the eye is not dim to gold, that is dim to every thing beside ;-the hand, which it seems an effort to stretch out and to fix upon any thing, appears to gather new strength from the very touch of the gold which it grasps, and has still vigour enough to lift, once more, and count once more, though a little more slowly, what it has been its chief and happiest occupation thus to lift and count for a period of years far longer than the ordinary life of man. When the relations, or other expect- ant heirs, gather around his couch, not to comfort nor even to seem to comfort, but to await, in decent mimicry of solemn attendance, that moment which they rejoice to view approaching,-the dying eye can still send a jealous glance to the coffer, near which it trembles to see, though it scarcely sees, so many human forms assembled ; and that feeling of jealous agony, which fol- lows and outlasts the obscure vision of floating forms that are scarcely remem- bered, is at once the last misery, and the last consciousness of life. Can a passion so odious, and almost so loathsome to our heart, as that which I have now been describing, be subservient to any happy purposes in the general economy of life ? It may seem at first, as little capable of having any relation to good, as of enjoying good ; and, if we consider any particu- lar case of the passion, in its extreme degree of sordid parsimony, without regard to the elementary feelings that have composed it, and that may exist in other degrees of combination, avarice wrould truly seem to be without any relation to good, as, in like manner, it would seem, if we were to consider any particular case of the violence of revenge or of any of the malevolent passions, that the passion which was unquestionably productive of unhappiness to the individual, would be productive also, in this extreme degree, of injury rather than of advantage to society. Yet, injurious as it may be in some cases, we have seen that the susceptibility of resentment, which Heaven has placed in our breasts for the terror of the guilty, is, while there is any possibility of aggression on the part of others, productive of good upon the whole, far sur- passing all the amount of evil to which, in rarer cases of intemperate vio- lence, it may give rise. It is the general result of the elementary feelings that may have constituted in slow growth our various passions, which we are to consider in an estimate of this kind,-not their mere occasional evil in certain cases of unfortunate combinations. What we exclusively term ava- rice, is evil,-as that form of implacable or disproportioned resentment which exclusively we call revenge, is evil. But avarice is, as we have seen, the re- sult, in certain peculiar circumstances, of feelings which are themselves not advantageous merely, but essential to the happiness, and almost to the very existence of society. If the analysis of the passion of the miser, which I ventured to deliver to you, be just, it is the result of early feelings of regret, that in the particular circumstances in which they arose, were reasonable feel- ings ;-and if man were, by his very nature, incapable of feeling regret, however absurd and ruinous his expense might have been, what a scene of misery would life have been continually presenting to our eyes ? What reli- ance, amid so many temptations to inconsiderate luxury, could be placed on 6. DESIRE OF POWER. 197 198 the fortune of any one even for a single day? And what domestic happiness could there be if the father, the wife, the son, however rich in the morning, might be expected, almost with certainty, to be in indigence at night ? Our provident Creator has arranged better the moral economy of the world. Will) our sensibility to external enjoyments, and our consequent possibility of being seduced into luxurious and disproportionate indulgence, he has corrected in a great measure this possible evil of what is good in itself, by rendering re- gret the necessary and uniform, or almost uniform attendant of any dispro- portionate indulgence that lessens in any considerable degree our fortune, and our consequent means of usefulness. Avarice indeed, may be, as we have seen, an occasional result of this very feeling ; but what is avarice in a few, is frugality, in all beside; and the advantages, which the general fru- gality is every moment affording to almost every family of mankind, are not too dearly purchased,-certainly not purchased at a dearer rate than any other amount of equal good is purchased,-by the small portion of evil that may be found to attend these advantages, as spread over the whole social commu- nity. The general sum of evil in the world would certainly not be lessened, if the possibility of a few cases of avarice were prevented, by the cessation of those simple feelings in which avarice and frugality alike have their rise ; but would, on the contrary, be increased almost to infinity, if these simple feelings were suspended that secure to every family a permanence of enjoy- ment, by checking the momentary desire of every individual. There is no fear that in the multitude of individuals who form a nation-when there are so many solicitations to enjoyment, and therefore to the expense, without which enjoyment cannot be purchased-any very considerable number of them will be misers ;-and the wealth of the few who may be denominated misers, however closely it may be coffered for a time, is ever ready to make its es- cape, and seldom requires more for its deliverance than a mere change of its master:- HI. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, ' Ask we, what makes one keep and one bestow ? The Power, which bids the ocean ebb an4 flow, Bids seed-time, harvest, equal course maintain, Through reconcil'd extremes of drought and rain ; Builds life on death,-on change duration founds, And gives the eternal wheels to know their rounds Riches, like insects, when conceal'd they lie, Wait but for wings, and in their season fly. Who sees pale Mammon pine amid his store, Sees but a backward steward for the poor, This year a reservoir to keep and spare, The next a fountain, spouting through his heir In lavish streams to quench a country's thirst, And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst."* The desire which is next in order to those already considered by us, is the desire of the. affection of those around us. Of the nature of that delightful emotion, which constitutes love itself, in the various relations in which it may exist, 1 have already treated too fully, to be under the necessity of making any additional remarks on it. But though love,-that feeling of affection for the object that is, or seems to us, amiable, -cannot continue for more than a moment, or at least cannot continue long, without a desire of reciprocal affection in the object beloved, the regard * Pope's Moral Essays, Ep. III. v. 163-176. 7. DESIRE OF THE AFFECTION OF OTHERS. 199 which arises instantly on the contemplation of the amiable object, is itstlf, as a mere state of the mind, distinct from the desires which may instantly, or almost instantly, succeed it. What, in common language, is termed love, in- deed,-even without comprehending in it the desire which we are at present considering,-is itself, as we have seen, a complex state of mind, including a delight in the contemplation of its object, and a wish of good to that object; and the term, in its common use, is a very convenient one for expressing the various kindred feelings, whatever they may be, that are so immediately suc- cessive, or so intimately conjoined, as to admit of being briefly expressed to- gether ip a single word, without any possibility of mistake. But still it docs not require any very subtile discernment to discover, that our feeling of regard whether simple or complex, is itself different from the desire of tliat'regard, which we wish to be reciprocally felt for ourselves-. We may separate them in our philosophic analysis, therefore, though in nature they may usually ex- ist together. In treating of this desire of the love of others as an object of happiness to ourselves, it would be idle to speak of the necessity of one of these forms of affection, for our very existence in those years, when, without the parental love which cherished us, it would have been as little possible for us to exist, as for the plant to flourish without the continued support of the soil from which it sprung. But even after we have risen to maturity, and are able to exist by our own care,-or, at least, by those services which we can purchase or command,-hoyv miserable would it be for us to be deprived of all feel- ings of this happy class! How miserable,-though we should still retain the pleasure that is involved in the affection and the benevolent wishes which we might continue to feel for others,-to think, that these very wishes of affec- tion were not answered by any reciprocal regard ; that not a being around us, -not even one of those whose welfare we were eager to promote, and whose sorrows we felt almost as our own,-had for us any feelings more tender than for the inanimate objects, which were seen and passed without any wish of seeing them again ? I alluded, in a former Lecture, to the misery we should feel, if we lived in a world of breathing and moving statues, capable of performing for ms what- ever man is capable of performing, but, unsusceptible, by their very nature, of any feelings which connected them with us by relations more intimate than those which connect us with the earth on which we tread, or the fruits that nourish us. Yet if these breathing and moving beings were statues only to us, and were to each other what the individuals of*our race, in all their de- lightful charities, are to those who love them, and those by whom they are loved, how much more painful would our strange loneliness be, since we should then seem not insulated merely, but excluded, and excluded from a happiness which was every instant before our eyes ! Even though the same mutual offices were to be continued, there would be no comfort in these mere forms of kindness, if we knew that every hearty however warm to others, was still cold to us. To think that services performed for us, were per- formed without the slightest wish for our welfare, would indeed be to feel them as something which it would rather grieve than rejoice us to receive; and perfect solitude itself, with all its inconveniences, would certainly be less dreadful to us, than the ghastly solitude of such a crowd. So important is it to our happiness, then, that those whom we love should feel for us a reciprocal regard, that nature has, with a happy provision for III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, 200 this morai appetite, if I may so term it,-this want or necessity of our heart, which is scarcely less urgent than our other necessities,-endowed us with a ready susceptibility of affection for all who give any demonstration of their affection for us. "Si vis amari, ama,"-Love, if you wish to beloved,-is a very ancient precept, of which all must have felt the force. Not to love those who love us, is to our conception a sort of ingratitude, and an ingratitude which would be attended with as much remorse as if we had sought the affection as a favour to be conferred on us- The assiduities of a lover, though in most casesarising, without any intention on his part, from the pleasure of the mere assiduities themselves, are still, in some slight degree, prompted by his know- ledge of this part of .our mental constitution. He knows, indeed, that the thousand attentions which he seeks every opportunity of paying are trifling in their own nature ; but he knows that they are, at least, the expressions of affection, and, with all the graces and virtues with which he may conceive himself to be adorned, it is to the sense of his affection that he trusts, as much, perhaps, as to his own personal endowments, for those gentler feel- ings which he wishes to excite. If it were possible,-to make a supposition, which I purposely make extravagant, that I may leave nothing but the influ- ence of affection itself,-if it were possible that, on the most distant and sa- vage spot of the globe, which was scarcely ever visited but by some annual vessel from our island, there could exist a human being, who felt for us an affection such as friends only feel,-though this solitary being had never met our eye, and never could be expected to be seen by us,-though in every thing, but in his love for us, he were as dull as the very brutes around him,- if only we could know that he existed, and that he felt, for us this ardent sympathy, would it be possible for us to withhold our own sympathy from him 2 Should we have no eagerness, at the return of the annual ship, to in- quire into the fate of him to whom that vessel had so often carried tidings of us; and, whatever insensibility we might imagine ourselves to possess, is it possible for us to imagine it such, as could enable us to hear without emotion that the friend, the unknown but faithful friend, for whom we inquired, exist- ed no more ? Such is the influence of affection, and so happy that adaptation of Nature by which love produces love. In the multitudes which exist together in so- ciety, how many are there, whose amiable qualities may be considered as nearly similar; and there would, therefore, have been no tie to connect us, in the delightful intercourse of friendship, with one more than with another, if it had not been for the secret and incessant reaction of kindness on kind- ness,-a reaction that augments courtesy into regard, and warms common regard into all the ardour and devotion of the most zealous love. But for this progressive and mutual agency, the wish of reciprocal interest which at tends affection, and the gratification of which is so delightful a part of affec- tion, would, indeed, have been a cruel gift. It is a gracious boon of nature, only because she has thus happily adapted, to the love which already exists, the love that is soon to be providing for our desire of fonder regard in tlie bosoms in which we wish to excite it,-a tenderness, which this very desire is sufficient of itself to awake, and which requires no other influence to che- rish it afterwards, than a continuance of the same delightful wishes by which it was originally produced. The desire to the consideration of which we are next to proceed, is one akin to that wish of reciprocal affection, which we have now been consider- ing,-the desire of glory,.-that passion, to the infinity of whose view the nar- row circle which contains all the objects of our affection, is scarcely a point; which connects us with every human being that exists; and not with these only, but also with ever-y human being that is to exist in the long succession of ages. " Nature," says Longinus, " has not intended man for a low or ignoble being; but has brought us into life in the midst of this wide universe, as before a multitude assembled at some heroic solemnity, that we might be spectators of all her magnificence, and candidates for the prize'of glory which she holds forth to our. emulation." 8. DESIRE OF GLORY. 201 ' Say, why was man so eminently raised Amid the vast creation,-why ordain'd Through life and death to dart his piercing eye, With thoughts beyond the limit of his frame;- But that the Omnipotent might send him forth, In sight of mortal and immortal powers, As on a boundless theatre, to run The great career of justice,-to exalt His generous aim <o all diviner deeds,- To chase each partial purpose from his breast , And through the mists of passion and of sense, And through the tossing tideofchance and pain, To hold-his course unfaltering, while the voice Of truth and virtue, up the steep ascent Of nature, callshim to his high reward,- The applauding smile of Heaven."* It is in this boundless theatre, with mankind for our witnesses, and God for our Judge and Rewarder, that we have to struggle with our fortune in that great combat, which is either glory or disgrace, and according to the re- sult of which, life is, oris not, a blessing. We know, indeed the awful pre- sence of our Judge, and this very thought is to us, at times, like the inspiration of some better power with which he deigns to invigorate our weakness. But he is himself unseen by us ; and it is not wonderful, therefore, that, while He is unseen, and his. judgment, on which we depend, still doubtful, we should sometimes cast an anxious look to the eyes of those witnesses who surround us, that we may-see, in the approbation or disapprobation which they express, not the certainty, indeed, but at least some probable omens of that high Approval, without which there can be no victory, though all around approve,' and with which no failure, though all around condemn. The Jove of glory, it has.been said, is "the last infirmity of noble minds," novissima ejeuitur. It is not itself virtue, indeed, but " What other passion, virtue's friend, So like to virtue's self appears ?" " Contempta fama, contemnantur virtutes."-To despise fame," says Taci- tus, " is to despise the virtues which lead to itand there can be no ques- tion, that he, who is altogether heedless whether every human being regard him as a glory to mankind, or as an object of infamy in himself and of disgrace to that nature which he partakes, must be almost a god, and raised above the very virtues, as well as the vices of humanity, or he must be the most ignoble of the works of God. To have even our earthly being extended in everlasting remembrance,-to be known wherever the name of virtue can reach,-and to be known as the benefactors of every age, by the light which we have dif- * Pleasures of Imagination, B. I. v. 151-166. Vol. IL 202 fused, or the actions which we have performed or prompted,-who is lhej c that does not feel some desire of this additional immortality ?-If to obtain the mere remembrance ofhis name, the ferocious oppressor of millions can dare to load himself with every crime, and submit to be held in universal execra- tion, that the world may still know, by the very hatred and curses, which lie continues to call forth, that there was on the earth, at a period of many ages back, some malignant being, who could exist only within a circle of misery, and who passed from kingdom to kingdom, carrying with him that desolation, the principle of which seemed inherent in him, and essential toJiis very exist- ence,-if even this dreadful remembrance be so valuable in the eyes of man, how much more delightful must be the certainty, that the name which we leave is never to be forgotten, indeed ; but is never to be forgotten, only be- cause it is to be an object of eternal love and veneration ; and that when we shall be incapable ourselves of benefiting the world, there will still be actions performed for its benefit, which would not have been conceived and perform- ed, if we had not existed I The desire of glory, then, far from being unworthy of a good man, is aS truly wTorthy of him, as any of those other secondary desires which minister to that primary desire, which is the only one that cannot be too vivid,-the desire of rendering ourselves acceptable by our virtues to Him who made us. This best wish, though it is to be the primary wish of every good heart, surely does not require that we should be indifferent to the regard of those whom it is to be our duty to benefit. If it be not wrong to wish for the affection of those around us,-the loss of which would deprive us, I will not say merely of some of our highest delights, but of some of the most persuasive excitements to moral excellence,-it cannot be wrong to extend this wish of affection be- yond the circle that immediately encloses us, and to derive from the greater number of those to whose approbation we look, a still stronger excitement to that excellence, on which we found our hope of their approval. God and our conscience,-these are, indeed, the awarders of our true praise; and, without the praise of these, the praise of the world is scarcely worthy of be- ing estimated as any thing. But, insignificant as it is, when the voice of our conscience does not accord with it, it is still something when it echoes.to us that voice, and when, as distinct from our own self-approval, it seems to us the presage of still higher approbation. It is enough to us, indeed, if God love us-But that great Being knew well, how feeble is our nature, and what aid, as well as happiness, it would derive from other affections. He has not formed us, therefore, to love Himself only, but to love our parents, our chil- dren, our relatives of every order, the wide circle of our friends, our country, mankind. For the same reason, He has given us a love of glory,-not as superseding our love of His favourable judgment of our actions, but as sup- porting us, while we scarcely dare to look with confidence to that perfect judgment,-and, representing it to us in some measure, as the affection of the virtuous on earth, represents to us that supreme affection which is in heaven. Those who would banish the love of glory from our breast, because God is all, must remember then, that the very,same principle would make the love of a father, a wife, a child, a friend, as indifferent to us, as if they were not in existence, or were incapable of loving or being loved. Our domestic and so- cial affections may be perverted, as our love of glory may be perverted Both may lead to vice, but as general principles of our constitution, both are auxiliary to virtue. III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, 8. DESIRE OF GLORY. It is not to love glory much, that is unworthy of us, as beings that can look to a higher judgment than that of man, and that are formed for a still higher reward than man can bestow,-but to love glory for unworthy objects, or to love it even for worthy objects, more than we prize that approbation which is far nobler. It is, in the first place, truly contemptible, when we seek to be distin- guished for qualities, to excel in which, though it may be what the world calls glory, is moral infamy,-that infamy, which the heart in secret feels, even while it strives to comfort itself with a praise which it knows to be void of consolation. The world, that must have distinctions of some sort to which to look with astonishment, gives a distinction even to vice that tran- scends all other vice, and every age has follies which are fashionable. But who is there, who, in all those situations in which the heart most needs to be comforted, in adversity, in sickness, in the feebleness of old age, has ever derived comfort from the thought of having been the first in every folly, or every crime, it may have been the fashion of the idle and profligate to achieve, and of their idle and profligate imitators to regard with an ad- miration, still more foolish or criminal than the very crime or folly which was its object ? ♦ When glory is thus sought, even by an humble individual, in unworthy ob- jects, it is sufficiently contemptible,-but how much worse than contemptible is it, how afflicting to the whole race of mankind, when the individual, who thus seeks glory, is one who is incapable of feeling the excellence of true glory, and has the melancholy power of seeking, in the misery of others, a hateful celebrity, still more miserable than the misery amid which it is sought I " If, Sire," says an orator, who was worthy, by bis virtue and eloquence, of being the teacher of kings, in one of his noble addresses to the young King of France,-"if this poison infect the heart of the prince-if, forget- ting that he is the protector of public tranquillity, he prefer his own false glory to the love and the happiness of his people-if he had rather conquer provinces than reign over hearts, and think it more illustrious to be the de- stroyer of every neighbouring nation, than the father of that which is con- fided to his care-if the lamentations of his subjects be the only song of triumph that accompanies his victories,-what a scourge has God in his wrath, given to man, in giving him such a master! His glory, Sire, will be ever sullied with blood. Some madmen will sing, perhaps, his victories, but the provinces, the cities, the villages, will weep them. Superb monu- ments will be erected to immortalize his conquests; but the ashes, still smoking, of cities that once were flourishing-the wide desolation of plains stripped of their fertility and beauty-the ruins of the walls under which peaceable citizens lie buried-so many public marks of calamities that are to subsist after him, will be sad monuments which are to immortalize his vanity and folly. He will have passed, like a torrent, to ravage the earth,- not like a majestic river, to bear to it joy and abundance. His name will have its place among conquerors in the annals of posterity, but it will not be to be found in the list of good kings; and as often as the history of his reign shall be recalled, it will be only as a memorial of the evils which he has inflicted on mankind." 203 " The Grecian chief, the enthusiast of his pride, With rage and terror stalking by his side, 204 Raves round the globe ;-he soars into a god 1 Stand fast, Olympus ! and sustain his nod '• The pest Divine in horrid grandeur reigns, And thrives on mankind's miseries and pains. What slaughter'd hosts, what cities in a blaze, What wasted countries, and what crimson seas ! With orphan's tears his impious bowl o'erflows; And cries bf kingdoms lull him to repose."* III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS Such is the melancholy influence of this passion, when it is content with that dreadful celebrity which crimes can give. The desire of glory, how- ever, is not criminal only when it is fixed on unworthy objects; it may err, too, even when fixed on-objects that are worthy in themselves, if the praise itself be preferred to the virtues which deserve it. There are situations in life in which it is necessary to -submit even to the dispraise of men for imputed vices, from which we know that we are free, rather than by the sacrifice of our duty, to appear more virtuous by being less worthy of that glorious name. " Non vis esse justus sine gloria 1 At, mehercule saepe justus esse debebis, cum infamia." Such a trial of virtue is, indeed, one of the hardest trials which virtue has to bear; but it is still'a trial which virtue can bear. To have the certainty, that by violating a single trust which we have yet tile for- titude not to violate, by revealing, in a few words, a secret confided to us, we should immediately appear noble in the eyes of those who look on us now with contempt, is to be in a situation of which the generous, who alone are capable of a moral triumph so exalted alone are worthy; a situation that is painful, indeed, in many respects, but the pain of which is richly remu- nerated by the feelings that accompany it, and by the feelings that are to be its eternal reward. LECTURE LXXI. III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS.-8. DESIRE OF GLORY. Gentlemen, after considering the desire, which it is impossible for any one not to share in some degree, of the affection of those for whom he him- self feels regard, and with whom he has to mingle in the familiar intercourse of social life, I proceeded, in the close of my last Lecture, to consider the kindred desire of glory,-the desire of those feelings of wonder and vene- ration that are to arise in bosoms, of which not the veneration merely, but the very existence, is to be unknown to us. We have seen how strong this desire of glory is as a passion, whatever may be the nature of the delight which the glory itself yields when attained. Let us now then consider this delight, which is evidently not a simple plea- sure, as a subject of analysis, like that which we have employed in consider- ing the happiness that attends some of our other complex emotions. In the first place, there is involved in the complex pleasure, that pleasure of simple esteem which is an object of our desire, even though one individu- • Young's Love of Fame, Sat. VII. 8. DESIRE OF GLORY. al only were to feel it for us,-a modification of that general desire of affec- tion, which is most obvious and most vivid in the domestic relations of life, but which, in its wide circle, embraces all mankind. In the next place, there is a pleasure in the approbation of others, as it confirms our own doubtful sentiments. Conscience, indeed, is the great es- timater of our actions; but we feel,- that even Conscience may sometimes flatter us. and we seek an additional security on which to lean, while we look back on our own merits or demerits. The desire of glory, therefore, it has been truly said, 205 " Is virtue's second guard, Reason her first; but reason wants an aid; Our private reason is a flatterer ; Thirst of applause calls public judgment in, To poise our own.'' The praise which we receive unjustly, cannot, indeed, unless where the heart is corrupted, make vice appear to us virtue; but when it is not thus unjustly given, it makes us surer that we see virtue where it is ; and that we have seen it where it was,-that we have done well, when we trusted in our own heart that we had done well. This then is a second, and very important element of the pleasure of glory. < . A third element of the complex delight, is that which, by the greater number of the lovers of glory, is felt as the most important elerrfent of the whole,-the pleasure of mere distinction of a superiority attained over others, in that of which all are ambitious, or are supposed to be ambi- tious. Life is a competition, or a number of competitions. We are continu- ally measuring ourselves with others in various excellencies,-in excellencies so various, that there is scarcely any thing in which one human being can dif- fer from another, that may not be a subject of internal measurement, and therefore of some degree of joy or sorrow, as the measurement is or is not in our favour. It is in the eyes of others, however, that the competitors for honour wish to distinguish themselves*; and the internal measurement, there- fore, when it is unfavourable, is painful chiefly, because it is considered by them as representing or corresponding with that which others, too, will form. The voice of glory, then, the most delightful of all voices to tlieir ear, is, at every stage of their progress, a proof that the distinction which they sought has been, to a certain extent, obtained ;-that they are recognised as supe- riors,-that they have risen above the crowd,-and that they have now among their enviers those to whom the multitude beneath are looking with envy, only because they dare not, in their very wishes, look so high as that prouder eminence which they have reached. There is yet, I cannot but think, in the complex delight of glory, a fourth pleasure, and one which, though it may be less obvious, and founded only on illusion, is not less real in itself. The pleasure to which I allude, consists in the feeling of a sort of extension which glory gives to our being. He who thinks of us, is connected with us. We seem to exist in his heart. We are no longer one, we are more than one, or at least have a wider unity, commensurate with the wideness of the applause which we receive, or flat- ter ourselves that we are receiving. If we could imagine, at any moment, that there was not a being, in the whole multitude of mankind, whose thought 206 was not fixed on us, and fixed with admiration, we should feel as if our own existence, in this delightful moment, were spread over all. It would be impos- sible for any one, in such circumstances, to think of himself as limited to that little point of space to which he is truly confined. He would live, as it were, along the whole nations of the globe, with a feeling of diffusive con- sciousness almost like omnipresence, or rather with a feeling of intimate union that is more than omnipresence. Some illusion, then, must be in the vivid interest which we attach to undeserved praise. The common theory of the illusion is, that we merely believe ourselves to be where we are prais- ed, and to hear what is said of us. The illusion, however, appears to me to extend to something which is far more than this, to a momentary exten- sion of our capacity of feeling, as if enlarged by that of every one in whose mind and heart we conceive our thought to arise. We have gained, as it were, a thousand souls, at least we seem for the moment to live in a thou- sand souls ; and it is not wonderful that such an extension of our being should seem to us delightful, when the emotions through which it is expand- ed are those of admiration and love. Such, then, are the important elements that together form, as I conceive, the delight of contemporary glory. And the praise which we hear, or which we are capable of hearing, may, it will perhaps be allowed, be justly regarded by us as desirable. But what is posthumous glory ? and how can man, who reasons at all, it will be said, give to such idle and profitless re- nown, a single thought, that might be better employed on acquisitions which he is capable of knowing that he has made, and therefore of enjoying. The same expansion of our being, as if it existed wherever the thought of us exists, which I conceive to form so important a part of the pleasure of con- temporary praise, seems to me to furnish the chief circumstance that solves the apparent difficulty of accounting for a desire which to reason may appear so very absurd. There are some circumstances in it, however, which may require a little fuller consideration. Of the universality of the desire of a praise that is not to terminate with the life that is capable of feeling it, there can be no doubt. . . "• Love of Fame, the universal Passion," is the title which an ingenious satirist has given to a very lively series of poems; and in another poem, he describes it, in a happy allegory, as the great object which, in the general voyage of life, is sought by all, though attained by few of the adventurers who seek it. III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, " Some sink outright; O'er them, and o'er their names, the billows close; To-morrow knows not they were ever born. Others a short memorial leave behind, Like a flag floating, when the bark's cngulph'd; It floats a moment, and is seen no more ; One C®sar lives; a thousand are forgot."* Yet, if to extinguish a passion, nothing more were necessary than to show its absolute futility, the love of posthumous glory must long have ceased to be a passion, since almost every moralist has proved, with most accurate demonstration, the absurdity of seeking that which must, by its nature, be beyond the reach of our enjoyment,-and almost every poet has made the madness of such a desire a subject of his ridicule; though, at the same * Young's Night Thoughts, N. VIII. v. 195-201. time, it cannot be doubted, that if the passion could have been extinguished, either by demonstration or ridicule, we should have had fewer demonstra- tions, and still less wit on the subject. " Can glory be any thing," says Se- neca, " when he, who is said to be the very possessor of it, himself is no- thing 1"-" Nulla est omnino gloria, cum is, cujus ea esse dicitur, non extet omnino." ''Thirst for glory," says Wollaston, " when that is desired merely for its own sake, is founded in ambition and vanity ; the .thing itself is but a dream, and imagination, since, according to the differing humours and sentiments of nations and ages, the same thing may be either glorious or inglorious; the effect of it considered still by itself, is neither more health,-nor estate, nor knowledge, nor virtue to him who has it; or, if that be any thing, it is but what must cease when the man dies,-and after all, as it lives* but in the breath of the people, a little sly envy, or a new turn of things, extinguishes it,-or, perhaps, it goes quite out of itself. Mon please themselves with no- tions of immortality, and fancy a perpetuity of fame secured to themselves, by books and testimonies of historians. But, alas 1 it is a stupid delusion, when they imagine themselves present and enjoying that fame at the read- ing of their story after their death. And besides, in reality, the man is not known ever.the more to posterity, because his name is transmitted to them. lie does not live because his name does. When it is said Julius Caesar sub- dued Gaul, beat Pompey, changed the Roman commonwealth into a monar- chy, &.C. it is the same thing as to say, the conqueror of Pompey, &cc. was Caesar,-that is, Caesar and the conqueror of Pompey are the same thing; and Caesar is as much known by the one designation as by the other. The amount, then, is only this, that the conqueror of Pompey conquered Pom- pey, or somebody conquered Pompey ; or rather, since Pompey is as little known now as Caesar, somebody conquered somebody. Such a poor business is this boasted immortality ; and such as has been here described, is the thing called glory among us." " What's fame ?" says Pope, addressing Lord Bolingbroke.- S. DESIRE OF GLORY. 207 " A fancied life in others' breath, A thing beyond us, even before our death, Just what you hear you have,-and what's unknown, The same, my lord, if Tully's or your own. All that we feel of it begins and ends In the small circle of our foes and friends ; To all beside, as much an empty shade, An Eugene living, as a Caesar dead, Alike, or when, or where they shone, or shine, Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine."* If, then, after we are no more, the reputation of Tully and our own be, with respect to us who can enjoy neither precisely the same, why is it that the praise, which the eloquence of the Roman orator must continue to receive from the generations that are to come, affects us with no particular interest,- and that we attach so very strong an interest to the praise, which we flatter ourselves is to accompany our own name ? The common explanation which is given of the difference in the two cases is, that we imagine ourselves still present, and conscious of our own glory. But this very imagination is the difficulty to be explained, since it does not depend on any accidental caprice of fancy, but is so permanently attached to the nature of our glory, that * Essay on Man, Ep. IV v. 237-246. 208 whatever number of ages we may suppose to intervene, and though we are abundantly convinced that the praise can never reach us in the tomb, we yet cannot think of this praise for a single moment with indifference. • It has thus every appearance of being an essential part of the complex notion itself; and the explanation which I am about to submit to you, therefore, seems to me the more accurate, as it proceeds on this very circumstance. The dif- ference of the interest felt in the two cases supposed, must, if the imaginary glory be the same in both, depend on the difference of the conceptions which we form of ourselves and others, as the subjects of the praise that is to be lavished in the distant periods of which we think ; since the imaginary glory, as combined with the conception either of ourselves or of others, forms our whole notion of posthumous reputation. What then is the difference of these two conceptions on which the whole resulting difference depends ? The conception which we have of another person, is chiefly of that external form and other qualities, which make him an object of our senses. The concep- tion of ourselves, however, is very different, not different merely as oqr con- ceptions of other individuals are different-but in kind more than in degree. It is not so much the conception of our external form, as of the various feel- ings by which we have become sensible of our own existence-the retro- spect, in short, of that general consciousness which pervades, or rather which constitutes, these feelings, and identifies them all as affections of one sentient mind. To think of the reputation of any one, however, is, as I have already remarked, to have the feeling of reputation combined with that complex no- tion which we have formed of the person ; which is usually, when it is not of ourselves we think, little more than the conception of a certain form, or perhaps of certain works of art, of which he has been the author. But the complex notion of ourselves, as I have said, is very different. Of this, con- sciousness forms an essential part; and to combine the reputation, as ima- gined, with the notion of ourselves, is therefore, necessarily, to combine it with the consciousness which is involved in the very notion of ourfeelves. We cannot think of what we call self, but as that which is the subject of the various feelings that form to us all which we remember of our life, as the living and sen- tient being that is capable of hearing praise, and of feeling delight in praise ; and to take away this capacity of sense and enjoyment, and to substitute a total insensibility, would be to change the complex notion of that which we call self, into one as completely different from it, as our complex conception of any one individual is different from our complex conception of any other individual of opposite features and form. What is recognised by us as ours, then, has been already, and must have been already combined in our thought, with this very notion of consciousness. It is not enough, therefore, to say, that when we take pleasure in the contemplation of our own future glory, we imagine ourselves present and enjoying it; since we can go still farther and say, that, in consequence of the very nature of our conceptions, it is impos- sible for us .to consider future glory as our own, without imagining it as com- bined with that consciousness, which is an elementary and essential part of the very conception of ourselves,-and without which, though the glory itself would be the same, it could not be felt by us as ours. It is, in a great measure, from the same cause, that we think with so much horror of the physical circumstances which succeed our death:- III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, " The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave, The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the worm." 8. DESIRE OF GLORY. In explanation of this horror, of which it is impossible for us to divest our- selves, it is usually said, that we imagine ourselves suffering what the insen- sibility which death produces must have rendered altogether indifferent:- and it is true that we do form this imagination. But the reason of our form- ing this very imagination is, that the notion of consciousness, as I have now stated, is an actual component part of the complex notion of ousselves, and that, accordingly, whatever it may be which we combine with the complex notion of ourselves, to that We must attach the consciousness which is a part of it. To think of ourselves in the grave, is not to think of a mere mass of matter, for our notion of ourselves is very different. It is to think of that, which without some capacity of feeling, is not, in our momentary illusion, recognised by us as our self,-that self which we know only as it is capable of feelings, and which, divested of feeling, therefore, would be, to oUr con- ception, like another individual. In these cases, the feeling of our own reality blends itself with the ideas of imagination, and thus gives a sort of present existence to the objects of these ideas, however unexisting and remote. We are present in future ages, in the same way as We are present in distant climates, when we think of our own glory as there,-because, to the-conception of our glory the conception of that being whom we call self is necessary; and the being whom we call self is known to us only as that which lives and feels. We do not delight in the contemplation of our posthumous glory, then, because we imagine our- selves present:-but, considering the glory as our glory, it is impossible not to imagine ourselves present, and, therefore, impossible not to feel, in some degree, during the brief illusion, as if the praise itself were actually heard and enjoyed by us. Such, then, it appears to me, is glory, in the analysis of the complex de- light which the attainment of it affords, and in the nature of that illusion which connects us with praise that is never to be heard by us in the most dis- tant climate or age,-converting, in the mere conception of this praise, the praise itself almost into a part of our very being, and rendering the passion for glory one of the strongest passions that influence the conduct of mankind. The relation which this powerful passion bears to our moral character, I have already, in some measure, endeavoured to exhibit to you. I represent- ed it to you as an affection which is far from being unworthy of man, in it- self, though often leading, like all the other affections of our nature, to moral improprieties, when the desire is directed on an object that is unworthy of it; as the misdirection of any other of our desires may in like manner be vice, or productive of vice. Many moralists and pious writers,-undoubtedly with the purest intention of elevating above every thing earthly our love of virtue, and our love of that great Being, of whom virtue is the worship,- have been led to represent the love of glory as a passion that ought not to co-exist with these nobler desires, and as necessarily derogating from their sublimer influence. The same argument, however, as I endeavoured to show you, which would thus render culpable, in some degree, the wish of the es- teem of mankind, would render also culpable, in some degree, the wish of the esteem of the smaller number of our relatives and friends-that portion of mankind more immediately connected with us. If it would be wrong to feel pleasure in the thought, that our virtuous use of the talents which Heaven has given us, has excited the esteem and emulation of fifty or one hundred, or hundreds of thousands,-it would be wrong to feel pleasure in the thought, 209 Vol. II 210 that the same good qualities had excited the esteem of ten or twelve, since the esteem of those ten or twelve is, in strictness of argument, as little es- sential to our love of virtue, and the God of Virtue, as the esteem of mil- lions. If our actions are to be governed simply by those great views, and if every other affection which co-exists with these, and co-operates with them, is to be torn from our bosom, before we can aspire to the character of virtue, how many affections, that foster virtue as much as they promote happiness, must instantly be torn away ! Did Epaminondas love his country less, and was his courage or his conduct less formidable to its enemies, because he re- joiced, on the day of his great victory, that his parents were still alive to hear of it?-and do we love our Creator less, because, in practising what he com- mands, we rejoice that there are hearts which sympathize with ours,-which loving the same virtue that is loved by us, feel for us the esteem which we should have felt in our turn for them, if the action had been theirs ? If, in- deed, Epaminondas, to gratify some vindictive feeling of those whom he ho- noured, had deserted to the enemy, we should then have looked on the filial affection as truly immoral in this instance, and unworthy of a mind that bail the glorious sense of higher motives ;-and if, in our enjoyment of glory, in- stead of deriving pleasure from the sympathy which others feel in our vir- tues, we were to derive pleasure from their approbation of some vice or folly, our love of glory would, in like manner, be a passion, of which, in this instance at least, it would have been well for us to be divested. The opponents of the love of glory, then, either say too much, or they say too little. If they were to contend that no affection should be felt but for God alone, no desire of the esteem of any other individual being, however intimately connected with us by the ties of nature or of friendship,-though we might think their doctrine false in itself, and in the highest degree injuri- ous to the happiness of the world, we should at least in the very error of their doctrine, see some consistency of principle. But if they say, that in our love of approbation and esteem we may virtuously extend our wishes be- yond the judgment of that Supreme Excellence, which, in placing us in the midst of multitudes of our fellow men, cannot have placed us there to be absolutely indifferent to their opinion, where is it that the limit is to be placed ? If a line of virtue be to be drawn around us, beyond which it would be vice for a single thought of earthly approbation to look, how wide is this moral di- ameter to be, and how is that feeling, which would be virtue if it related to one hundred, to become instantly vice, when it relates to one hundred and one ? Man should, undoubtedly, love mankind, though they were incapable, by their very nature, of returning his kindness. But our Divine Author has not given us duties only to perform. He has made those duties delightful by the reciprocities of affection which he has diffused from breast to breast; and we love mankind, not merely because we feel that it is morally right to love them, or because it is the will of Heaven, but from a social impulse that pre- cedes or accompanies these views, and in some degree also, because the very intercourse of good offices is a source of some of the happiest gratifi- cations of our life. Of those secondary affections, with which Heaven has graciously sweetened our duties, the esteem or veneration of mankind,-of which the glory is the expression,-is one of the most pleasing; and, though it may occasionally mislead to vice, its general direction is, unquestionably, favourable to that virtue which cherishes it, and delights in feeling its reci- procal support. III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, But still, the love of glory,-though not meriting in itself disapprobation, and though powerful in the aid which it gives even to our noblest feelings, is, it must be owned, a desire only of secondary importance. It derives its high value from its concurrence with the voice within our own breast; which it reflects to us in a thousand gladdening sympathies; and when it is in oppo- sition to these, to obey it, or even to wish to obey it, is not to be in danger of being guilty, but to have been already guilty. It is to be considered, there- fore, rather as a delightful excitement, subsidiary to our weakness, than as itself a great directing principle,-and, either when the glory is sought in un- worthy objects, or when the praise of virtue is preferred to virtue itself, it is not merely unworthy of influencing us, but, as the history of every nation shows in terrifying examples of the past, may lead to excesses which the world, whose mad admiration, or at least the hope of whose mad admiration, excited or encouraged them, may for ages lament. "It has been often asked," says an eloquent French philosopher, " whe- ther a sense of duty alone may not supply the place of glory. The ques- tion does honour to those who make it; but the answer to it is simple. Render all governments just, and give to all men individually, elevated senti- ments,-and then glory will perhaps be useless to mankind. Far be it from me to calumniate human nature. I cannot doubt that there are heroic indi- viduals, who, in doing good, have thought of their duty; and only of their duty; and from whom great actions have escaped in silence. At Athens, there was an altar erected to the unknown god ; we might erect, in like man- ner, an altar with this inscription-To the virtuous who are unknown-Un- known during life, forgotten after death, (they were great, though they did not seek the praise of greatness,) the less they sought the praise of greatness, the greater they truly were. But, in doing justice to our nature, let us not flatter ourselves with too high an estimate of it. There are few of those souls which are sufficient to themselves, and which march on with a firm step beneath the eye of reason, which guides them, and of God who looks upon them. The greater number of men, weak by the frailties and inconsis- tencies of their nature,-weaker still by the examples that are every mo- ment assailing them, and by the value which circumstances too often add to crimes and meannesses,-having neither courage enough to be always virtu- ous nor audacity enough to be always wicked, but embracing, by turns, good and evil, without the power of fixing in either,-feel their virtue principally in their remorse, and their strength chiefly in the secret reproaches which they often make to themselves for their weakness. In this state of feeble- ness, they require a support. The desire of reputation, coming in aid of their too weak sense of duty, binds them to that virtue which otherwise they might quit. They would dare, perhaps, to blush to themselves;-they would fear to blush before their nation and their age." " Nor must we think," he continues, " that even those souls of a more vigorous character, which do not stand in need of glbry as a support, do not require it at least as a relief and a compeheation. We cry out against Athens for its proscription of great men. But the ostracism, of which we complain, is every where. There is every where envy striving to sully what is beauti- ful, and to bring down what is elevated. It may be said, that, at the very mo- ment, when Merit appeared in the world, Envy, too, was born, and began her persecution. But Nature, at the same instant, created Glory, and gave it to her in charge, to atone for all the miseries which that persecution was to occasion." 8. DESIRE OF GLORY. 211 212 III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, "It seems, indeed, as if virtue and genius, so often oppressed on earth, took refuge, far from the real world, in this imaginary world of glory, as in an asylum in which justice is re-established. There Socrates is avenged,- Galileo acquitted,-Bacon remains a great man. There Cicero fears no longer the sword of the assassin, nor Demosthenes the poison. There A irgil is far above that emperor whom he deified. Gold and vanity are not to distribute places, and exalt the unworthy. Each individual, by tlie mere ascendency of his genius, or of his virtues, mounts, and takes bis rank. The oppressed arise, and recover their dignity. Those who have been assailed and insulted during the whole progress-of their life, find glory at least at the entrance of that tomb which is to cover their ashes. Envy disappears, and immortality commences." , The desire of glory, then, of which it is impossible for mankind to divest themselves, it would not be well for the happiness of mankind if it were in their power to shake off. But the desire of glory is one state of mind,-the consciousness of the glory itself, as attained, is another state ; and all may feel the desire of that which only few attain. It is not the attainment of glory, accordingly, which adds to the amount of happiness in the world, so much as the mere desire itself in its general influence on action. In treating of the desire of power, I was led to notice, how much more equally happiness is distributed, than the external differences of pomp and authority would lead us to imagine,--though there can be no reason to fear, that any demonstration of this most important equality will ever lead mankind to give up that desire of power, w hich, to far the greater number of mankind, is almost an essential part of their very nature, and which it would be truly unfortunate for mankind, if all should relinquish. The same remark is not less applicable to mere glory than to power. The illustrious and the obscure are, indeed, very different to the eyes of others; but the amount of happiness in the hearts of both, when every necessary deduction is made, is probably very little different; and is, upon the whole, perljaps, at-least in many instances, likely to be greater in those breasts, in which few would think of seeking it. The love of glory resembles the love of mere power in this circumstance too, as well as in others, that it must rise still higher, or scarcely feel the pleasure of the height which it has reached ; and the tenure of the possessor, I may remark, is almost equally precarious in both cases. " Denied the public eye, the public voice, As if he, lived on others' breath, he dies. Fain would he make the world his pedestal, Mankind the gazers, the sole figure, he. Knows he, that mankind praise against their will, And myc as much detraction as they can ? Knows he, that faithless Fame her whisper has As well as trumpet,-that his vanity Is so much tickled,-from not hearing all?"* If all were, indeed, heard,-the detracting whispers of Fame, as well as her clamorous applause,-what lessons of humility would be taught to the vain and credulous, whose ears the whispers cannot reach : and who, therefore, listening only to the louder flatteries that are intended to reach them, consi- der the praise which is addressed to them, as but a small part of that universal praise, which is every where, as they believe, proclaiming their merits; and * Young's Night Thoughts, B' VII1. v. 490-498 8. DESIRE OF GLORY. 213 in their reputation of a few months, which is to fade perhaps before the close of a single year, regard themselves as already possessing immortality ! In our estimates of glory, however, as a source of distinction, the whispers which are not heard are to be taken into account with the praises which are heard ; and then f if the real heartfelt virtues qf both be the s'ame, liow very near to equilibrium will be tli£ happiness of the obscure and the illustrious I The most humble, to be happy, must, indeed, have that feeling of self- approval, which, if a thought of the opiniqns of others arise, may be sufficient of itself to give the delightful cofivictiop, that, if the heart could be laid ogen to every gaze, no one 'could disapprove. There is thus a sort of purer silent glory implied in the very consciousness of moral excellence ; but where this moral satisfaction truly exists, and exists in a mind that does not require to be confirmed -in its own internal estimate by the opinion of others, what the world regards as renowm would scarcely be Tait as an accession of pleasure. As mere glory, indeed,-if no evil were to attend it,-that is to say, as an expression of the esteem and gratitude of a world, which the virtuous had sought to benefit, it could not fail to be but, however pleasing it might be in itself, there are'minds, by which,* when taiken together with all its consequences, it would be dreaded, perhaps, rather than desired, as necessa- rily depriving of pleasures, which are. inconsistent with public eqiinence, and which they valued still more than the celebrity that would preclude them. In such circumstances of virtuous privacy, " How far above all glory sits* The illustrious master of a name unknown, Whose worth, unrivall'd and unwjtness'd, loves Life's sacred shades, where gods converse with men."f Delightful then, as glory may be in itself, and. useful as the desire of it most truly is, as a general auxiliary principle of our najture, the attainment of the glory that is'so generally wished is far from being necessary to happiness, which in many cases may have accessions of enjoyment from other sources, that would be incompatible with the tumult of glory, and which that tumul- tuous pleasure scarcely could repay. The highest happiness may, indeed, be that of him who is known as widely as wisdom and virtug can be known -loved and reyered for qualities which are worthy of universal reverence. Yet we may still, not the less, say, " Bene qui latuit bene vixit." If there are many who regret that they are doomed to the shade, there are many too, wrho repent that they have ever quitted it;-or. at least there are many who might so repent, if the loss of this very power of repentance were not itself an evil, and one of the worst evils of guilty distinction. " He," says Seneca, in one of the choruses of his tragedy of Thyestes-" he feels, indeed, the heaviness of death, who, known too,well to all the world, dies unknown to himself." " Stet quicunque volet potens Aula; culmine lubrico: Me dulcis saturet quies. Obscuro positus loco, Lehi perfruar otio. Nullis nota Quiritibus iEtas per taciturn fluat. Sic cum transierint mei * How far above Lorenzo's glory sits.-Orig. t Young's Night Thought's, B. VIII. v. 481-484. 214 JII. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, Nullo cum strepitu dies Plebeius moriar senex. Illi mors gravis incubat Qui notus nitnis omnibus Ignotus inoritur sibi,"* High renown can as little be the possession of many as high station; and, if Heaven had appropriated happiness to it, it must have left almost all mankind in misery. It has, in this as in every other instance, dealt more equally with those whom it has raised into glory, and those whom it has left obscure. Each has his appropriate enjoyments; and while guilt alone can be miserable, it scarcely matters to virtue, whether it be known and happy, or happy and unknown. LECTURE LXXII. III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS-9. DESIRE OF THE HAPPINESS OF OTH ERS-10. DESIRE OF THE UNHAPPINESS OF THOSE WHOM WE HATE.- GENERAL REMARKS ON CONCLUDING THE CONSIDERATION OF OUR PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. Gentlemen, the pleasure which glory affords, being evidently not a sim- ple, but a complex pleasure, engaged us yesterday in an inquiry into the nature of the elementary feelings that compose it,-and we were led, I flatter myself, into some interesting analyses, both of the complex delight of glory itself, and of that peculiar illusion of present reality, which, however far we may conceive our glory to spread over the earth, and through the ages that are to succeed us, still seems to carry with it, as if necessarily diffused in the very conception, our own ever-present feeling, our own capacity of knowing and enjoying praises which never are to reach our ears. The two desires which remain to be considered by us, will require but little examination ; since they flow so readily from some emotions before examined at length, as to appear almost parts of them, rather than any distinct emotions. The first is our desire of the happiness of others,-a de- sire that forms, as I have already said in my analysis of love, a part of every affection to which we commonly give that name, and that increases in vivid ness with every increase of the mere regard; but which, like the desire of reciprocal affection, that is also a part of what is commonly termed love, is a state of mind distinguishable from the mere admiration, respect, regard, which the sight or conception of the beloved object directly induces, admit- ting of a ready separation in our thought, however complex the love may be, as it usually exists in nature. It is this desire of the happiness of those whom we love, which gives to the emotion of love itself its principal delight, by affording to us constant means of gratification. He who truly wishes the happiness of any one, cannot be long without discovering some mode of contributing to it. Reason itself, with all its light, is not so rapid, in discoveries of this sort, as simple affection, which * Last verses of the Chorus concluding the second Act. sees means of happiness, and of important happiness, where reason scarcely could think that any happiness was to be found, and has already, by many kind offices, produced the happiness of hours, before reason could have suspected that means so slight could have given even a moment's pleasure. It is this, indeed, vvluch contributes in no inconsiderable degree to the per- petuity of affection. Love, the mere feeling of tender admiration, would, in many cases, have soon .lost its power over the fickle heart, and, in many other cases, would have had its power greatly lessened, if the desire of giving Imp piness, and the innumerable little courtesies and cares to which this desire gives birth, had not thus, in a great measure, diffused over a single passion the variety of many emotions. The love itself seems new at every moment, because there is, every moment, some new wish of love that admits of being gratified,-or rather, it is at once, by the most delightful of all combinations, new, in the tender wishes and cares with which it occupies us, and familiar to us, and endeared the more, by the remembrance of hours and years of well-known happiness. The desire of the happiness of others, though a desire always attendant on love, does not, however, necessarily, suppose the previous existence of some one of these emotions which may strictly be termed love. 1 already showed you, when treating of compassion, that this feeling is so far from arising necessarily from regard for the sufferer, that it is impossible for us not to feel it, when the suffering is extreme and before our very eyes, though we may, at the same time, have the utmost abhorrence of him who is agoniz- ing in our sight, and whose very look, even in its agony, still seems to speak only that atrocious spirit which could again gladly perpetrate the very horrors for which public indignation, as much as public justice, had doomed it to its dreadful fate. It is sufficient, that extreme anguish is before us-we wish it relief before we have paused to love, or without reflecting on our causes of hatred-the wish is the direct and instant emotion of our soul in these cir- cumstances-an emotion which, in such peculiar circumstances, it is impos- sible for hatred to suppress, and which love may strengthen, indeed, but is not necessary for producing. It is the same with our general desire of hap- piness to others. We desire in a particular degree, the happiness of those whom we love, because we cannot think of them without tender admiration. But, though we had known them, for the first time, simply as human beings, we should still have desired their happiness,-that is to say, if no opposite in- terests had arisen, wre should have wished them to be happy, rather than to have any distress-yet there is nothing in this case, which corresponds with ■the tender esteem that is felt in love. There is the mere wish of happiness to them-a wish, which itself, indeed, is usually denominated love, and which may, without any inconvenience, be so denominated in that general humanity, which we call a love of mankind, but which we must always remember does not afford, on analysis, the same results as other affections of more cordial re- gard, to which we give the same name. To love a friend, is to wish his happiness, indeed, but it is to have other emotions at the same instant, emo- tions without which this mere wish would be poor to constant friendship To love the natives of Asia or Africa, of whose individual virtues or vices, talents or imbecility, wisdom or ignorance, we know nothing, is to wish their happiness j but this wish is all that constitutes the faint and feeble -love. It is a wish, however, which, unless when the heart is absolutely corrupted, renders it impossible for man to be wholly indifferent to man ; and this great 9. DESIRE OF THE HAPPINESS OF OTHERS. 215 216 object is that which nature had in view. She has, by a provident arrange- ment, which we cannot but admire the moats the more attentively we examine it, accommodated our emotions to our means,-making our love most ardent, where our wish of giving happiness might be most effectual, and less, gradu- ally, and less, in proportion to our diminished means. From the affection of the mother for her new-born infant, which has been rendered the strongest of all affections, because it was to arise in circumstances where affectjpii would be most needed,-to that general philanthropy, which extends itself to.the remotest stranger, on spots of the earth which we never are to visit, and which we as little think of ever visiting, as of exploring any of the distant planets of our system,-there is a scale of benevolent desire, which corre- sponds with the necessities to be relieved, and our pouter of relieving them ; or with the happiness to be afforded, and our power of affording happiness. How many opportunities have we of giving delight to those who Jjve in our domestic circle, which would be lost before we could diffuse it, to those who are distant from us ! Our love, therefore,-our desire of giving happiness, -our pleasure in having given it, are stronger within the limits of this sphere of daily and hourly intercourse, than beyond it. Of those who are beyond this sphere, the individuals most familiar to us are those whose happiness we must always know better how to promote, than the happiness of strangers, with whose particular habits and inclinations we are little, if at all, acquainted. Our love and the desire of general happiness which attends therefore, by the concurrence of many constitutional tendencies of our nature in foster- ing the generous wish, stronger, as felt for an intimate friend, than for one who is scarcely known to us. If there be an exception to this gradual scale of importance, according to intimacy, it must be in the case of one. who is absolutely a stranger,---a foreigner, who comes among a people with wliose general manners lie is, perhaps, unacquainted, and who has no friend to whose attention he . can lay claim, from any prior intimacy- In this case, indeed, it is evident, that our benevolence might be more usefully directed to one who is absolutely unknown, than to many who are better known by us, that live in our very neighbourhood, in the enjoyment of domestic loves and friendships of their own. Accordingly, we find, that by a provision which might be termed singular, if we did not think of the universal bounty and- wisdom of God,-a modification of our general regard has been prepared, in the sympa- thetic tendencies of our nature, for this case also. There is a species of affection to which the stranger gives birth, merely as being a stranger. He is received and sheltered by our hospitality, almost with the zeal with which our friendship delights to receive one with whom we have lived in cordial union, whose virtues we know and revere, and whose kindness has been to us no smell part of the happiness of our life. Is it possible to perceive this general proportion of our desire of giving happiness, in its various degrees, to the means which we possess, in various circumstances of affording it, without admiration of an arrangement so simple in the principles from which it flows, and at the same time so effectual,-an arrangement which exhibits proofs of goodness in our very wants, of wisdom in our very weaknesses, by the adaptation of these to each other, and by the ready resources which want and weakness find in these affections which every where surround them, like the presence and protection of God him- self ? • "O humanity !" exclaims Philocles in the Travels of Anacharsis, "gene- III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, 10. DESIRE OF EVIL TO OTHERS. rous and sublime inclination, announced in infancy by the transports of a simple tenderness, in youth by the rashness of a blind but happy confidence, in the whole progress of life by the facility with which the heart is ever ready to contract attachment! O, cries of nature ! which resound from one extre- mity of the universe to the other, which fill us with remorse, when we op- press a single human' being ; with a pure delight, when we have been able to give one comfort! love, friendship, beneficence, sources of a pleasure that is inexhaustible ! Men are unhappy, only because they refuse to listen to your voice ; and, ye divine authors of so many blessings ! what gratitude do those blessings demand ! If all which was given to man had been a mere instinct, that led beings, overwhelmed with wants and evils, to lemj to each other a reciprocal support, this might have been sufficient to bring the miserable near to the miserable; but it is only a 'goodness, infinite as yours, which could have formed the design of assembling us together by the attraction of love, and of diffusing, through the great associations which cover the earth, that vital warmth which renders society eternal, by rendering it delightful."* The last desire in our arrangement,-that which we are next to consider, -may seem, indeed, at first to be inconsistent with these delightful feelings of social regard, the importance of which 1 have repeatedly endeavoured to illustrate to you, though, to those who have felt them, as you all must have felt them, they do not require any argument to prove their importance. The de- sire which still remains to be noticed, is our desire of evil to others,-a desire that bears the same relation to hatred in all its forms, which the desire of hap- piness to others bears to all the diversities of love. It is an element of the complex affection, not the mere hatred itself, as the desire of diffusing hap- piness is only an element of the complex affection, which is usually termed love. I have already, in treating of the simple modifications of hatred itself, anticipated the remarks which it might otherwise have been necessary to offer now, on the importance to the happiness of society, of this class of our affections, while society presents any temptations to violence or fraud, that are kept in awe by individual and general resentment; and that, without these guards, which protect the innocent, would lay waste all that beautiful expanse of security and happiness which forms the social world, making a desert of nature, and converting the whole race of mankind into fearful and ferocious savages, worthy only of inhabiting such a wilderness. As the whole system of things is at present constituted, in other respects, therefore, it is not of less importance that man should be susceptible of malevolence on certain occa- sions, than that he should be susceptible of benevolence in the general con- cerns of life ; and man, accordingly, is endowed with the susceptibility of both. Like our other emotions, however, our malevolent wishes, important as they truly are, and relatively good as a part of our general constitution, may, as we know too well, be productive of evil when misdirected; and though they have this in common with all our desires, even with those which are. essen- tially most benevolent, that may, in like manner, by misdirection or excess, occasion no slight amount of evil to individuals and society ; the misdirec- tion, in the case which we are nowT considering, may be far more fatal to happiness, and therefore requires a stronger check of misery to restrain it. We may produce evil, indeed, to those whom we wish to benefit, and may produce it, in consequence of our very desire of benefiting them ; but at least, the desire itself was one which it was happiness to feel. It was something 217 * Chap. Ixxviii. Vol. II. 218 gained to social enjoyment, though more may have been lost. In our male- volent wishes, however, when they arise where they should not arise, there is no addition to the general happiness of the world, to allow even the slightest deduction from the misery that is added; but, on the contrary, there is a double evil,-not merely the evil that may be inflicted on others, who are the objects of the malevolence, but that which may be said to have been al- ready inflicted on the mind itself, which has had the painful wish of inflicting evil. The desire of evil to others,-since it is necessary to the protection of the world only in certain cases, is to be measured, then, in our moral esti- mates, by the nature of the brief or permanent hatred in which it may have originated ; and is allowable, therefore, only in the cases in which the hatred is truly a feeling that is necessary in such circumstances for the protection of this social scene. It is virtuous, for example, to feel indignation at op- pression • and it is virtuous, therefore,/to wish that the oppressor, if he con- tinue to be an oppressor, may not finish his career without punishment, so as to present to the world the dangerous example of guilt, that seems, by its external prosperity, to defy at once humanity and heaven. To take a case of a very different sort, however, it is not virtuous, to wish even for a mo- ment, evil to some successful competitor, who has outstripped us in any ho- nourable career; and the desire of evil in this case is not virtuous because there is no moral ground for that hatred in which the desire originated, when the hatred was not directed to any quality that could be injurious to general happiness, but had for its only object an excellence that has surpassed us, by exhibiting to the world qualities which are capable of benefiting or at least of adorning it, still more than the qualities of which we are proudest in ourselves. Before we think ourselves morally justifiable, then, in any wish of evil to those whom we hate, we must be certain that the hatred which we feel is itself morally justifiable, as directed to actions or qualities which it would not be virtuous to view with complacency, or even with indifference ; and that, as it is the guilty frame of mind alone which is hateful in the eyes of a good man, the hatefulness must cease in the very moment of repen- tance, and the wish of the repentance, therefore, as the most desirable of all changes, be a wish that is ever present, to temper even that pure and gentle indignation which the virtuous feel. There are minds, however, of which the chief wishes of evil are not to those whom it is virtuous to view with disapprobation, but to those whom it is vice not to view with emotions of esteem and veneration. We are eager for distinction in that great theatre of human life, in the wide, and tumultuous, and ever varying spectacles of which we are at once actors and spectators; and when the distinction which we hoped is pre-occupied by another of greater merit, our own defect of merit seems to us not so much a defect in ourselves, as a crime in him. We are, perhaps, in every quality exactly what we were before ; but we are no longer to our own eyes what we were before. The feeling of our inferiority is forced upon us; and he who has forced it upon us has done us an injury to the extent of the uneasiness which he has occasioned, and an injury which, perhaps, we do not feel more as it has affected us in the estimation of others, than we feel it in the mode in which it has affected us in our estimate of ourselves. An injury, then, is done to us; and the feelings which heaven has placed within our breasts, as necessary for repelling injury, arise on this III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, 10. DESIRE OF EVIL TO OTHERS. 219 instant feeling of evil which we have been made to suffer. But what were necessary for repelling intentional injury, arise where no injury was intended; and though the minds in which they thus arise must be minds that are in the highest degree selfish, and incapable of feeling that noble love of what is noble, which endears to the virtuous the excellence that transcends them, there still are minds, and many minds, so selfish, and so incapable of delight- ing in excellence that is not their own. The malevolent affection, with which some unfortunate minds are ever dis- posed to view those whom they consider as competitors, is denominated jea- lousy, when the competitor, or supposed competitor, is one who has not yet attained their height, and when it is the future that is dreaded. It is de- nominated envy, when it regards some actual attainment of another. But the emotion, varying with this mere difference of the present and the future, is the same in every other respect. In both cases, the wish is a wish of evil, -a wish of evil to the excellent,-and a wish which, by a sort of anticipated retribution, is itself evil to the heart that has conceived it. If we were to imagine present together, not a single small group only of those whom their virtues or talents had rendered eminent in a single nation, but all the sages and patriots of every country and period, without one of the frail and guilty contemporaries that mingled with them when they lived on earth,-if we were to imagine them collected together, not on an earth of occasional sunshine and alternate tempests, like that which we inhabit, but in some still fairer world, in which the only variety of the seasons con- sisted in a change of beauties and delights,-a world in which the faculties and virtues that were originally so admirable, continued still their glorious and immortal progress,-does it seem possible that the contemplation of such a scene so nobly inhabited, should not be delightful to him who might be transported into it! Yet there are minds to which no wide scene of torture would be half so dreadful an object of contemplation as the happiness and purity of such a scene,-minds that would instantly sicken at the very sight, and wish, in the additional malevolence of the vexation which they felt, not, that all were reduced to the mere level of earthly things, but that every thing which met the eye were unmixed weakness, and misery, and guilt. This scene is imaginary only; but what is imaginary as thus combined, is true in its separate parts. There is happiness on earth, virtue on earth, intellectual excellence on earth ; and where these exist and are seen by it, envy is as in that imaginary world. He who has not a whole system of which to wish the physical and moral loveliness destroyed, may have wishes that would gladly blast at least whatever peculiar beauty is to be found in this mixed system. He may wish all mankind to remain in ignorance of important truths, when the most important truths that could be revealed to them were to be the discovery of any other genius than his own. He may sigh over the relief which multitudes are to receive from institutions of a sage benevolence, which he was not the first to prompt. If his country be re- joicing at triumphs, that have been triumphs of freedom and humanity still more than of the arms of a single state, he may add his silent consternation and anguish to the rage and grief of the tyrant whose aggressions have been successfully resisted, and may lament that he has not himself become a slave by national disasters, which, in making all slaves, would at least have lessen- ed the glory of a rival. He may wish evil even here, as he would have wished it in that better scene ; and if he wish it less, it is only because the 220 multitude with whom he has to mix on earth have more imperfections of every sort; and being less worthy, therefore, of love or veneration, are less objects of a hatred that extends in its deadliest rancour only to what is worthy of being loved and venerated. There is one change, indeed, which, in a single moment, would dissipate all the malevolence of this malevolent spirit. To convert the hatred into a feeling which might not be very different, perhaps, from complacency, it would be necessary only to take away every quality that is worthy of love, -to make wisdom, folly,-kindness, cruelty,-heroic generosity, a sordid selfishness,-and the glory which was the result of all those better qualities, the execration or disgust of mankind. When the hatred of the virtuous might begin, then the hatred of the envious certainly might cease. The wishes of evil which flow from such a breast, are, as I have said, evil, in the first place, to the breast which feels them ;-as the poisonous exhala- tion, which spreads death perhaps to others, is itself a proof of the disease of the living carcass that exhales it. Envy is truly, in its own miseries, the punishment of itself.- III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, " Risug abest-nisi quem visi movere dolpres, Nec fruiter somno, vigilantibus excita curis; Sed vidit ingratos, intabescitque videndo Successus liominum carpitque et carpitur una Suppliciumque •suum est." It is hence, by a sort of contradictory character, what one of the old theo- logical writers has strongly stated it to be,-" at once the justest of pas- sions, and the most unjust,"-"ex omnibus affectibus iniquisibus simul et tequissimus-the most unjust, in the wrongs which it is ever conceiving or perpetrating against him who is its object; the justest, in the punishment with which it is ever avenging on itself the wrongs of which it has been guilty- If even in thinking of the happiness of those whom they hate, the envi- ous saw only that happiness, as it truly is, mixed with. many anxieties, that lessen the enjoyment of honours and dignities to their possessor, the misery with which those dignities of others are regarded would be less. But the chief misery of a mind of this cast is, that the happiness on which it dwells is a happiness which it creates in part to its own conception,-a pure happi- ness that seems intense in itself only because it is intensely hated, and that continually grows more and more vivid to the hatred that is continually dwelling on it. The influence of happiness, as thus contemplated by a diseased heart, is like that of light on a diseased eye, that merely, as pained by rays which give no pain to others, imagine the faint colours which are gleaming on it to be of dazzling brilliancy. When a statue had been erected by his fellow citizens of Thasos to The- agenes, a celebrated victor in the public games of Greece, we are told, that it excited so strongly the envious hatred of one of his rivals, that he went to it every night, and endeavoured to throw it down by repeated blows, till at last, unfortunately successful, he was able to move it from its pedestal, and was crushed to death beneath it on its fall. This, if we consider the self- consuming misery of envy, is truly what happens to every envious man. He may, perhaps, throw down his rival's glory ; but he is crushed in his whole soul, beneath the glory which he overturns. In thus making the malevolent wishes of the envious heart a source of in- ternal misery, Nature has shown a provident regard for the happiness of mankind, which would have suffered far more general violation, if it had been as delightful to wish evil, as to wish good. Nor is this true only in cases, in which the malevolent wishes are misdirected against excellence, merely as excellence. The same gentle tempering influence has been pro- vided, as we have seen, for the virtuous malevolence of those, who are ma- levolent only to cruelty and injustice. It is necessary, indeed, that man should be capable of feeling indignation and resentment in these cases, as of feeling benevolence in the more ordinary happy intercourse of social life. But, since excess in one of these classes of feelings might lead to far more dangerous consequences, than excess in the other, Nature, as 1 took occasion to point out to you in a former Lecture, has been careful to provide against the more hurtful excess, by rendering benevolence delightful in itself, even while its wishes exist merely as> wishes,-and resentment painful in itself, while its object is unattained, and, unless in some very obdurate hearts, ready to be appeased by slight atonements,-by the very acknowledgment of the evil done,-'-or by the mere intervention of a few months or days, between the injury and the moment of forgiveness*. On the nature of these feelings, it would be unnecessary, however, to dwell longer :-my only object at pre- sent being to point out the place of their arrangement as prospective emo- tions, capable of being separated by internal analysis from those immediate emotions of dislike which constitute the varieties of simple hatred. When 1 began the consideration of our prospective emotions, those emo- tions which regard the future, and which may regard it either with desire or fear,-I stated that it would be unnecessary to discuss at length, first all our desires, and, then, all our fears,-that there was no abject, which might not, in different circumstances, be an object of hope and fear alternately, accord- ing as the good or evil w'as present or remote, or more or less probable, and that the discussion of one set of the emotions might, therefore, fie considered as supplying the place of a double and superfluous discussion. When, how- ever, any important circumstance of distinction attended the fears opposed to the desires considered by us, I have endeavoured occasionally to point these out to you. I shall not, therefore, at present enlarge on them. In treating of our emotions,-particularly of those which I have termed prospective,-I have dwelt only on the more prominent forms which they assume,-because, in truth, they exist in innumerable forms, as diversified by slight changes of circumstances. It is easy for us to invent generic names, and to class, under these, various affections of the mind, which, though not absolutely similar in every respect, are at least analogous in some important respects. But we must not forget, on that account, thatlhe affec- tions, thus classed together, and most conveniently classed together, are still different in themselves-that what we have termed the desire of knowledge, for example, as if wTe had one simple desire of this kind, is generically in- clusive of complex feelings as numerous as the objects existing in the uni- verse ; and even far more numerous, since they find objects in the abstract relations of things as much as in things themselves-emotions that have stimulated, and still stimulate, and will for ever continue to stimulate, every inquiry of man, from the first gaze of the infant's trembling eye, which he scarcely knows how to direct on the little object before him, to the sublimest speculations of the philosopher, who scarcely finds, in infinity itself, an ob- 10. DESIRE OF EVIL TO OTHERS. 221 222 ject sufficient for his research. On many of our emotions, that shadow into each other by gradations almost imperceptible, it would have been interesting, if my limits had permitted, to dwell at greater length, and to trace and developc them, as varied by the changes of circumstances in which they arise. In- deed, as I have before remarked, under this comprehensive and most inte- resting class of our mental affections, might be considered every thing which has immediate reference to the whole ample field of moral conduct- whatever renders man worthy or unworthy of the approving and tranquillizing voice within, and of that eternal approbation of the great Awarder of hap- piness, of whose judgment, in its blessings or its terrors, the voice of con- science itself, powerful as it may be, is but the short and feeble presage. The narrowness of my limits, then, I trust, will apologize sufficiently for a brevity of discussion, in many cases, which was unavoidable. In our view of those emotions, however, which, by their peculiar complexity, or general importance, seemed to me worthy of nicer examination, I have endeavoured to direct your thought as much as possible to habits of minute analysis, with- out which there can be no advance in metaphysical science. This very minuteness of analysis,-to which I wished to accustom you, as much for the sake of habit as for the nicer results of the particular inquiries themselves, -may, in some instances, have led to distinctions, which, to many of you, perhaps, may have seemed superfluous, or too subtile, as requiring from you a little more effort of thought than would have been necessary in following arrangements more familiar to you, though, I conceive, less accurate.-You are not to suppose, however, that in analysing our complex emotions, and arranging, in different subdivisions, the various feelings that seem to me to be involved in them as elements,-I object to the use of the common phraseology on the subject, which expresses, in a single term, many feelings that are truly in nature, either immediately consecutive, or intimately conjoined,-though, in our stricter analysis, I may have found it necessary to divide them. This, you are not tp think, any more than you are to suppose, that the chemist, who inquires into the elements of vegetable matter, which exist in a rose or a hyacinth,-and who, after his decomposition of those beautiful aggregates, arranges their elementary particles in different orders, as if the aggregates themselves were nothing, and the elements all,-objects to the use of the simple terms rose and hyacinth, as significant of the flowers which have been the subjects of his art, and which still continue to have a delightful unity to his senses, even while he knows them to have no real unity, and to be only a multitude of atoms, similar or dissimilar. What the rose and the hyacinth are to him, our complex feelings are to us. We may know and consider separately, and arrange separately their various elements, but when we con sider them as they exist together, we may still continue to give them, as com plex feelings, the names by which, as complex feelings, they are familiarly and briefly expressed. J now then conclude the remarks which I had to offer on the last order of our mental affections,-the important order of our emotions,-those affec- tions of various kinds, in which almost all that is valuable in our earthly life is to be found, and many of which, we have every reason to believe, are not to be limited to those scenes in which they first were felt, but are to share the immortality of our existence, and to become more vivid, as our capacity be- comes quicker, for the discernment of that moral or divine excellence which inspired them here,-excellence on the contemplation of which we have de- REMARKS ON CONCLUDING THIS lighted to dwell on earth, even amid the distraction of cares, and follies, and vices, from which, in a nobler state of being, we may hope to be exempt. In our benevolent emotions we have remarked, what it is impossible not to remark, their obvious relation to the supreme benevolence of Him who has communicated to us these delightful feelings, and who may be said to have made us after his own imagej more in this universality of generous desire with which we are capable of embracing the whole orb of being, than in our feeble intellectual faculties, which, proud as they are of their range of thought, are unable to comprehend the relations of a single atom to any other single atom. In our malevolent emotions we have traced in like manner their ad- mirable harmony with the other parts of the great system of our moral world, as necessary in the community for the punishment of evil in the guilty indivi- dual, and consequently, for the prevention of evil in others,-or for that equally salutary punishment of its own evil, which the mind in remorse in- flicts upon itself. VIEW OF OUR PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 223 " This double lot Of evil in the inheritance of man Required for his protection no slight force, In ceaseless watch ;* and, therefore, was his breast Fenced round with passions, quick to be alarmed, Or stubborn to oppose,-with fear, more swift Than beacons, catching flame from hill to hill, Where armies land ; with anger uncontroll'd, As the young lion bounding on his prey ;- With sorrow, that locks up the struggling heart, And shame, that overcasts the drooping eye, As with a cloud of l ightning. These the part Perform of eager monitors, and goad The soul, more sharply than with points of steel, Her enemies to shun, or to resist."! It is in our moral constitution, as in the physical universe. To him who knows the beautiful arrangements of the planetary motions, the very gloom of night suggests the continued influence of that orb which is shining in other climes, and which could not have carried light and cheerfulness to them, but for the darkness in which we are reposing. To him who considers our ma- levolent emotions only, these emotions may seem like absolute darkness in our moral day; but he who views them in their relation to the whole, per- ceives their necessity for the preservation of those very feelings of gentle re- gard to which they seem opposed. In the very resentment of individuals, and the indignation of society, he perceives at a distance, those emotions of benevolence, which like the unfading sunshine, are not quenched by the tem- porary gloom that darkens our little portion of the social sphere, preserving even in absence that inexhaustible source of radiance, which is speedily to shine on us as before, with all the warmth and brilliancy of the past. * "No careless watch."-Orig. t Pleasures of Imagination, second form of the Poem, B. II. v. 570-584 224 LECTURE LXXIJI. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON CONCLUDING THE PHYSIOLOGY OF MIND.-COMMENCEMENT OF ETHICS-OBLIGATION, VIRTUE, MERIT. DIFFER ONLY IN THEIR RELATION TO- TIME- AN ACTION IN MORALS IS NOTHING ELSE THAN THE AGENT ACTING. In my last Lecture, gentlemen, I brought to a conclusion my remarks on the various emotions of which the mind is susceptible, and, with these, con- sequently, my physiological view of the mind, in all the which it presents to our observation; the order of our emotions, being, as you will remember, the last of the orders into which 1 divided the mental pheno- mena. We have reviewed, then, all the principal phenomena of the mind ; and I flatter myself, that now, after this review, you will see better the reasons which have led me, in so many instances, to deviate from the order of former arrangements; since every former arrangement of the phenomena would have been absolutely inconsistent with the results of the minuter analysis into which we have been led. With the views of other philosophers, as to the nature and composition of our feelings, I might, indeed, have easily adhered to their plan ; bu.t I must then have presented to you views which appeared to myself defective; and, however eminent the names of those from whom 1 may have differed, it appeared to me my duty, in every instance in which I believed their opinions to be erroneous, to express to you my dissent firmly, though, 1 hope, always with that candour, which not the eminent only de- serve, but even the humblest of those who have contributed their wish at least, and their effort to enlighten us. In reducing to two generic powers or susceptibilities of the mind, the whole extensive tribe of its intellectual states, in all their variety, I was aware that I could not fail at first to be considered by you as retrenching too largely that longlist of intellectual faculties to which they have been commonly referred. But I flatter myself you have now seen, that this reference to so long a list of powers, has arisen only from an inaccurate view of the phenomena referred to them, and particularly from inattention to the different aspects of the pheno- mena, according as they are combined or not combined with desire, in the different processes of thought, that have thence been termed inventive, or creative, or deliberative. In like manner, when I formed one great comprehensive class of our emo- tions, to supersede what appeared to me to have been misnamed, by a very obvious abuse of nomenclature, the active, powers of the mind, as if the mind were more active in these than in its intellectual functions, I may have seemed to you at the time, to make too bold a deviation from established arrange- ment. But I venture to hope, that the deviation now does not seem to»you without reason. It is only now, indeed, after our comprehensive survey of the whole phenomena themselves has been completed, that you can truly judge of the principles which have directed our arrangement of them in their different classes. I know well the nature and the force of that universal self- illusion, by which analyses and classifications that have been made by our- selves, seem always to us the most accurate classifications and analyses which could be made ; but, if all the various phenomena of the mind admit of being readily reduced to the classes under which I would arrange them, the ar- rangement itself, I cannot but think, is at least more simple and definite than any other previous arrangement which I could have borrowed and adopted. In treating of the extensive order of our emotions, which comprehends all our moral feelings, you must have remarked that I did not confine myself to the mere physiology of these feelings as a part of pur mental constitution, but intermixed many discussions as to moral duty, and the relations of the obvi- ous contrivances of our moral frame, to the wisdom and goodness of its Au- thor,-discussions which you might conceive to be an encroachment on other parts of the Course, more strictly devoted to the inquiries of ethics and na- tural theology. These apparent anticipations, however, were not made with- out intention;-though, in treating of phenomena, so admirably illustrative of the gracious purposes of our Creator, it would not have been very wonderful, if the manifest display of these had of itself, without any farther view, led to those very observations which I intentionally introduced. It was my wish on a subject so important to the noblest feelings and opinions which you are ca- pable of forming, to impress you with sentiments, which seem to me far more necessary for your happiness, than even for your instruction,-and to pre- sent these to you at the time, when the particular phenomena, which we were considering, led most directly to these very sentiments. It was my wish, too, 1 will confess, to accustom your minds, as much as#possible, to this species of reflection-a species of reflection which renders philosophy not valuable in itself only,-admirable as it is even when considered in itself alone-but still more valuable, for the feelings to which it may be made sub- servient. I wished the great conceptions of the moral society in which you are placed,-of the duties which you have to perform in it,-and of that Eternal Being, who placed you in it,-to arise frequently to your mind, in cases in which other minds might think only that one phenomena was very like another phenomena, or very different from it-that the same name might or might not, be given to both-and that one philosopher, who lived on a cer- tain part of the earth at a certain time, and was followed by eight or ten com- mentators, affirmed the phenomena to be different, while another philosopher, with almost as many commentators, affirmed them to be the same. Of this at least I am sure, that your observation of the phenomena themselves will not be less quick, nor your analysis of them less nicely accurate, because you discover in them something more than a mere observer or analyst, who inquires into the moral affinities with no higher interest than he inquires into the affinity of a salt or a metal, is inclined to seek; and even though your observation and analysis of the mere phenomena were to be, as only the ignorant could suppose, less just on that account, there can be no question, that if you had learned to think with more kndness of man, and with more gratitude and veneration of God, you would have profited more by this simple amelioration of sentiment, than by the profoundest discovery that was to terminate in the accession which it gave to mere speculative science. I now, however, proceed to that part of my Course, which is more strictly ethical. The Science of Ethics, as you know, has relation to our affections of mind, not simply as phenomena, but as virtuous, or vicious, right or wrong. INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 225 " Quid sumus et quidnam victuri gignimur-Ordo Quis met® quam mollis flexus, et unde, Vol. IL 226 ON obligation, virtue, merit, Quis modus argento-quid fas optare-quid asper Utile nummus habet-patrire charisque propinquis Quantum elargiri deceat,-quern te Deus esse Jussit,-et humana qua parte locatus es in re."* In the consideration of questions such as these, we feel, indeed, that philo- sophy, as I have already said, is something more than knowledge-that it at once instructs and amends us,-blending, as a living and active principle, in our moral constitution, and purifying our affections and desires, not merely after they have arisen, but'in their very source. It is thus, In its relation to our conduct truly worthy, and worthy, in a peculiar sense, of that noble etymolo- gy, which a Roman philosopher has assigned to it as the most liberal of studies. " Quare liberalia stfidia dicta sint vides,-quia homine libero jdigmj? sunt. Ceterum unum studiuin vere liberate est, quod liberum facit,-hoc sapienti®, sublime, forte, magnanimum, caatera pusilia et puerilia sunt." The knowledge of virtue is, indeed, that only knowledge, which make§ map ffee j and the which has this for its object, does not merely teach tis what we are to do, but affords us the highest aids and incitements when the toil of virtue might seem difficult, by pointing out to us not the glory only, but the charms and tranquil delight of that excellence which is before us, and the horrors of that internal shame which we avoid by continuing steadily our ca- reer. Its office is thus, in a. great measure, to be the guardian of our happi- ness, by guarding that without which there is no happiness,- " Whether, on the rosy'mead, When Summer smiles, to warn the melting heart Of Luxury's allurement,-whether, firm Against the torrent, and the stubborn hill To urge free Virtue's steps, and to her side Summon that strong divinity of soul Which conquers Chafice and Fate;-or on the height, The her, haply to proclaim Iler triumph,-on her brow the crown Of uncorrupted praise,-through future worlds To follow her interminated way, And bless Heaven's image in the heart of man."! What, then, is the virtue, which it is the practical object of this science to recommend ? That the natural state of tnan is a state of society, I proved in a former Lecture, when in treating of our desires in general, in their order as emo- tions, I considered the desire of society as one of these. That man, so existing in society, is capable of receiving from others benefit or injury, and, in his turn, of benefiting or injuring them by his actions, is a mere physical fact, as to which there cannot be any dispute. But, though the physical fact 6f benefit or injury is all which we consider, in the action of inanimate things, it is far from being all of which we think in the cage of voluntary agents, when there is not merely benefit or injury pro- duced, but a previous intention of producing it. In every case of this kind, in which we regard the agent, as willing that particular good or evil which he may have produced, there arise certain distinctive emotions of moral appro- bation or disapprobation-rtbose immediate emotions, of which, as mere states or affections oi the mind, I before treated, when I considered the order of our * Persius, Sat. III. v. 66-72. t Pleasures of Imagination, 2d form ofthe poem, v. 504-515. emotions in general. We regard the action, in e%ery stich case, when the benefit or injury is believed by us to;liave entered into the intention oS him who performed the action, not as advantageous or hurtful only, but as right or wrong,-or, in other words', the person, w1k> performed the particu- lar action, seems to us to have moral merit or demerit in that particular action. To say that any action, which we are considering, is right or wrong, and to say, that the person who performed it has moral merit or demerit, are to say precisely the same thing,-though writers on the theory of morals have endeavoured to make these different questions, and have even multiplied the question still more by- other divisions, which seem to me to be only varie- ties of tautological expression, or at least to be, as we shall find, only the reference to different objects of one simple feeling of the mind. When certain actions are witnessed by us, or described to us, they excite instantly certain vivid feelings, distinctive to us of the agent, as virtuous or vicious, worthy or unworthy of esteem. His action, we say, is right,-T himself meritorious. But are these moral estimates of the action and of the agent founded on different feelings, or do we not mean simply, that he, performing this action, excites in us a feeling of moral approbation or di ap- probation, and that all others, in similar circumstances, performing the same actioh,-*-that is to say, willing, in relations exactly similar, a similar amount of benefit or injury, for the sake of that very benefit or injury,-will excite in iis a similar feeling of approbation in the one ease, and of disapprobation in' tlje other cose ? The action cannot truly have any quality which t,he agent hae not, because the action is truly nothing, unless as. significant of the agent whom we know, or of some other agent whom we imagine. Virtue, as distinct from the virtuous person, is a mere name; as is vice, distinct from the vicious. The 'action, if it be any thing more than a mere insignifi- cant word, i$ a certain agent in certain circumstances, willing and producing a certain effect; and the emotion, whatever it may be, excited by the action, is, in«truth, and must always be, the emotion excited by an agent real or sup-, posed. We may spoak of the fulfilment of duty, virtue, propriety, merit, a*nd we may ascribe these, variously, to the action, and to him who perform? ecl it; but, whether we speak of the action or of the agent, we mean no- thing more, than that a certain feeling of moral approbation has been excited in our mindf by the contemplation of a certain intentional production in cer- tain circumstances, of a certain amount of benefit or injury. When we think within ourselves,-Is this what we ought to do ? we do not make two inquiries, -'-first, whether the action be. right ? and then, whether wTe should not have merit in doing what is wrong, or demerit in doing what is right for us to do ? tfe only consider, whether, doing it, we shall excite in others approbation.or disapprobation, and in ourselves a corresponding emotion of complacency or remorse. According to the answer which we give to our own heart, in this respect,-an answer which relates to the single feeling of moral appro,- bation or disapprobation,-weshall conceive that we are doing what we ought to do, or what we ought not to do,-and knowing this, we can have no further moral inquiry to make afe to the merit or demerit of doing what is previously felt by us to be right or wrong. Much of the perplexity which has attended inquiries into the theory of morals, has arisen, 1 have little doubt, from distinctions, which seem to those who made them to be the result of nice and accurate analysis, but in which AND THE NATURE OF AN ACTION IN MORALS. 227 228 ON OBLIGATION, VIRTUE, MERIT, the analysis was verbal only, not real, or at least related to the varying circum- stances of the action, not to the moral sentiment which the particular action, in certain particular circumstances, excited. What is it that constitutes an action virtuous ? What is it which constitutes the moral obligation to perform certain actions ? What is it which constitutes the merit of him who performs certain ac- tions ? These have been considered ag questions essentially distinct; and, be- cause philosophers have been perplexed in attempting to give different answers to all these questions, and have still thought that different answers Were ne- cessary, they have wondered at difficulties which themselves created, end, struggling to discover what could not be discovered, have often, from this very circumstance, been led into a scepticism which otherwise they might have avoided,-or have stated so many unmeaning distinctions, as to furnish occasion of ridicule and scepticism to others. One simple proposition has been converted into an endless circle of propositions, each proving and proved by that which precedes or follows it. Why has any one merit in a particular action? Because he has done an action that was virtuous. And why was it virtuous ? Because it was an action which it was his duty, in such circumstances, to do. And why was it his duty to do it in such cir- cumstances? Because there was a moral obligation to perform it. And why do we say, that there was a moral obligation to perform it ? Because if he had not performed it, he would have violated his duty, and been unworthy of our approbation.-In this circle we might proceed for ever, with the semblance of reasoning, indeed, but only with the semblance; our answers, though verbally different, being merely the same proposition repeated in dif- ferent forms, and requiring, therefore, in all its forms to be proved, or not requiring proof in any. To have merit, to be virtuous, to have done our duty, to have acted in conformity with obligation,-all have Yeference to one feeling of the mind,-that feeling of approbation, which attends the consider- ation of virtuous actions. They are merely, as I have said, different modes of stating one simple truth,-that the contemplation of any one, acting as we have done in a particular case, excites a feeling of moral approval. To this simple proposition, therefore, we must always come in our moral estimate, whatever divisions, or varied references, we may afterwards make. Persons acting in a certain manner, excite in us a feeling of approval; per- sons acting in a manner opposite to this, cannot be considered by us, with- out an emotion, perhaps as vivid, or more vivid, but of an opposite kind. The difference of our phraseology, and of our reference to the action or the agent, from which, indeed, that difference of phrase is derived, is found- ed chiefly on the difference of the time, at which we consider the action as meditated, already performed, or in the act of performance. To be virtu- ous, is to act in' this way,-to have merit, is to have acted in this way,-to feel the moral obligation or duty, is merely to think of the action and its con- sequences. We imagine, in these cases, a difference of time, as present, in the virtue of performing it-past, in the merit of having performed it,- future, in the obligation to perform it; but we imagine no other differ- ence. Why does it seem to us virtue to act in this way ? Why does he seem to us to have merit, or, in other words, to be worthy of our approbation, who has acted in this way ?-Why have we a feeling of obligation or duty, when we think of acting in this way ? The only answer which we can give to these questions is the same to all,-that it is impossible for us to consider the AND THE NATURE OF AN ACTION IN MORALS. action, without feeling that, by acting in this way, we should look upon our- selves, and others would look on us, with appproving regard; and that, if we were to act in a different way, We should look upon ourselves, and others would look upon us, with abhorrence, or at least with disapprobation. It is, indeed, easy to go, perhaps, a single step or two back, and to say, that we approve of the action as meritorious, because it is an action which tends to the good of the world, or because it is the inferred will of Heaven, that we should act in a certain manner,-but it is very obvious that, an answer of this kind does nothing more than go back a single step or two, where the same questions press with equal force. Why is it virtue, obligation, merit, to do that which is for the good of the world, or which Heaven seems to us to indicate as fit to be done? We have here the same answer, and only the same an- swer, to give, as in the former case, when we had not gone back this step. It appears to us virtue, obligation, merit,-because the very contemplation of the action excites in us a certain feeling of vivid approval. It is this ir- resistible approv ableness, if I may use such a word -to express briefly the relation of certain actions to the emotion that is instantly excited by them, which constitutes to us, who consider the action, the virtue of the action itself, the merit of him who performed it, the moral obligation on him to have performed it. There is one emotion; and it seems to us more than one, only because we make certain abstractions of times and circum- stances from the agent himself, and apply every thing which is involved in our present emotion to these abstractions which we have made- to the action, as something distinct from the agent, and involving, there- fore, a sort of virtue, separate from' his personal merit,-to his own concep- tion of the action, before performing it, as something equally distinct from himself, and involving in it the notion of moral obligation as prior to the action. If we had not been capable of making such abstractions, the action must have been, to us, only the agent himself;-and the virtue of the action, and the virtue of the agent been, therefore, precisely the same. But we are capable of making the abstraction,-of considering the good or evil deed, not as performed by one individual, in certain circumstances peculiar to him but as performed by various individuals, in every possible variety of circum- stances. The same action, therefore, if that can truly be called the same action, which is performed perhaps with very different views, in different circumstances,-is, as we might naturally have supposed, capable of excit- ing in us different emotions, according to this difference of supposed views, or of the circumstances in which those views are supposed to have been formed. It may excite our approval in one case ;-or, in another case, be so indifferent as to excite no emotion whatever,-and in another case, may ex- cite in us the most vivid disapprobation. The mere fact, however, of this difference of our approbation or disapprobation, when we consider the cir- cumstances in which an action is performed to have been different, is evi- dently not indicative in itself of any thing arbitrary in the principle of our constitution, on which our emotions of moral approbation or disapprobation depend ; by which an action, the same in all its circumstances, is approved by us and condemned, since it is truly not the same action which we are considering, when we thus approve, in one set of circumstances, of an action, of which we perhaps disapprove when we imagine it performed in different circumstances. The action is nothing, but as it is the agent himself, having certain feelings, placed in certain circumstances, producing certain changes. 229 230 The agent whom we have imagined, when the emotion which we feel is dif- ferent, in ope whom we have supposed to have different views, or to be placed in different circumstances; and though the mere changes, or bene- ficial or injurious effects produced in both cases, which seemjte our eyes to constitute the action, may be the same in both cases, all that is moral in the action, the frame of mind of the agent himself, is as truly different, as if the visible action, in the mere changes or effects produced, had itself been ab- solutely different. The miser, whose sordid parsimony we scor», exhibits, in his whole life, at least, as much mortification of sensual appetite?, as the most abstemious hermit, whose voluntary penance we pity and almost re- spect. The coward, when it is impossible to fly, will often perform actions which would do honour to the most fearless gallantry,-the seeming patriot, who, even in the pure ranks of tlrose generous guardians ofjbe public who sincerely defend the freedom and happiness of the land which they love, is a patriot perhaps most unwillingly, because he has no other prospect of shar- ing that public corruption at which he rails, will still expose the corruption with as much ardour as if he truly*thought the preservation of the.liberty of his country a more .desirable thing than an office in the treasury,-and he, who, being already a placeman, has of course a memory and a fancy that suggests to him very different topics of eloquence, will describe the hap- piness of that land, over the interests of which be presides, witli nearly the same zeal of oratory, whether he- truly at heart take pleasure in the pro- spect which he pictures, or think the comforts of his own high station .by far the most important part of that generarhappiness, which is hi« favourite and delightful theme. If we were to watch minutely the externa) actions of a very skilful hypocrite for half a (Jay, it is impossible that we might not dis- cover one, in which the secret passion within curst through its disguise ; yet, if we had reason before to regard him as a hypocrite, the very 'closeness of the resemblance of his actions, in every external circumstance, to those of virtue, would only excite*still more our indignation. They excite these dif- ferent feelings, however, as I have before said, because the actions, in truth, are not the same;-tire action, in its moral aspect, being only the mind im- pressed with certain views, forming certain and thus willing and producing certain changes ;-and the mind, in all the cases of apparent simi- larity, to which I have now alluded, having internal views, as different as the external appearances were similar. Obvious as the remark may seem, that an*action cannot -be any thing dis- tinct from the agent, more than beauty from some object that is beautiful,- and that when we speak of an action, therefore, as virtuous, without regard to the merit of the particular agent, we only conceive some other agent, acting in different circumstances, and exciting in us consequently a different feeling of approbation, by the difference of tlje frame of mind which we suppose our- selves to contemplate,-it strangely happens that little attention has been paid to this obvious distinction,-5that the actionhas been considered as something separately existing, and that we' suppose accordingly, that two feelings are excited in us immediately by the contemplation of 5n action,-a feeling of right or wrong in the actiop, and of virtue or vice, merit or demerit in the agent,- may correspond, indeed, but which may not always be the same; as if the agent could be virtuous, and the action wrong, or the action right, and he not meritorious, but positively guilty. In this way, a sort of con- fusion and apparent contradiction have seemed to exist in the science of mo- ON OBLIGATION, VIRTUE, MERIT, AND THE NATURE OF AN ACTION IN MORALS. rals, which a clearer view of the agent and the action as one would have pre- vented, and the apparent confusion and contradiction, where none truly ex- ists, have been supposed to justify in part, or at least have led in some de- gree to conclusions as false in principle as dangerous in their practical tendency. No voluntary act, intentionally productive of benefit or injury, can, as it appears to me, excite directly any such opposite sentiments of right in the action, and demerit in the agent, or wrong in the action, and merit in the agent. We take into account, in every case, the whole circumstances of the individual; and his action in these circumstances is indifferent to us, or it excites an emotion of approbation or disapprobation more or less vivid. The agent and the circumstances in which he is placed, the agent and the changes which he intentionally produces, these are all which truly constitute the action; and the action, thus compounded of all these circumstances, seems to us right if we approve of it, wrong if the emotion, which constituteshneral disapprobation, arise when we consider it. We may, however, as in the instances which I have already used, after approving or disapproving a particular action, consider some other individual, of different habits and different views, or in circumstances in some -other re- spects different, performing a similar action, that is to say, producing a similar amount of benefit or injury,-in the same way, as, after having seen a green lull* we can imagine a hill yellower black exactly of the same figure,-and it is as little wonderful, that the new combination of moral circumstances should excite in us a new emotion, as that a yellow or black hill shoidd seem to us less or more beautiful than a green one. Thoqgh virtue, as different from the virtuous agent, is a mere abstraction, like greenness, yellowness, black- ness, as different from objects that are green, yellow, black, it is still an ab- straction which we are capable of making; and, having made it in any par- ticular case, we can conceive multitudes to exist with different views in the situation in which the single individual existed, whose action we have considered as virtuous. The action,-eventhough in its effects it may be precisely the same,-will then perhaps excite in us very different feelings. It may seem to us worthy of blame rather than of praise, or scarcely worthy of praise at all, or worthy of still higher admiration ; but the differ- ence arises from the change of circumstances supposed, not from any necessary difference in the principle of our moral judgments. In this way, by imagining some other agent with different views, or in different circum- stances, and in this way only, I conceive, we learn to consider actions sepa- rately from the particular agent, and to regard the morality of the one as distinct from the merit of the other; when, in truth, the action which we choose to denominate the same, is, as a moral object, completely different. If we were present, when any one, unacquainted with the nature of the different lenses of the optician, looked at any small animal through a magni- fier, or a multiplier, in a piece of qilain coloured glass, we should never think of blaming his sense of vision as imperfect, though he were seriously to be- lieve, that the animal, at which he looked, was much larger than it is, or was not one merely, but fifty, or was blue, not white. If, however, we were to conceive others, or the same individual himself, to look at the same object without the medium interposed, and to form the same opinion, we should then unquestionably ascribe to their vision what we before ascribed to the mere lens interposed ; and, if we conceived our own sight to be perfect, we could 231 232 AN ACTION IN MORALS, not but conceive theirs to be imperfect. It is precisely the same in that dis- tinction of the virtue of an action and the virtue of the agent, which has pro- duced so much confusion in the theory of moi'als. We conceive, in the one case, the moral vision of the agent with the lens interposed, in the other case without the lens ; and we make in the one case an allowance, which We can- not make in the other. But'still I must repeat, that, in making-this very allowance, it is only oh account of the difference of circumstances that we make it, and that we cannot justly extend the difference from the mere me- dium to the living principle on which moral vision depends. When we speak of an action, then, as virtuous, we speak of it as-separated from all those accidental intermixtures of circumstances, which may cloud the discrimination of an individual; when we speak of a person as virtuous, we speak of him as acting perhaps under the influence of such accidental circumstances ; and though his action, Considered as an action which might have been performed by any man under the influence of other circumstan- ces, may excite our moral disapprobation in a very high degree, our disap- probation is not extended to him. The emotion which he excites is pity not any modification of dislike. We wish that he had been better informed and when his general conduct has impressed us favourably, we feel perfect confidence, that, in the present instance also, if he had been better informed he would have acted otherwise. In reducing all the various conceptions, or at least the conceptions wind are supposed to be various, of duty, virtue, obligation, merit, to this one feel- ing, which arises on the contemplation of certain actions-a feeling which 1 am obliged to term moral approbation or disapprobation, because there is no other word in use to denote it, though I am aware, that approbation and dis- approbation, which seem words of judgment rather than of emotion, are not terms sufficiently vivid to suit the force and liveliness of the sentiment which I wish to express, I flatter myself, that I have in some degree freed this most interesting subject from much superfluous argumentation. Why du we consider certain actions as morally right,-certain actions as morally wrong*? why do we consider ourselves as morally bound to perform ceftain actions -to abstain from certain other actions? why do we feel moral approbation of those who perform certain actions,-moral disapprobation of those who perform certain other actions? For an answer to all these, I would refer to the simple emotion, as that on which alone the moral distinction is founded. The very conceptions of the rectitude, the obligation, the- approvablencss, are involved in the feeling of the approbation itself. It is impossible for us to have the feeling, and not to have these,-or, to speak still more precisely, these conceptions are only the feeling itself variously referred in its relation to the person and the circumstance. To know7 that we should feel ourselves un- worthy of self-esteem, and objects rather of self-abhorrencd, if we did not act in a certain manner, is to feel the moral obligation to act in a certain manner, as it is to feel the moral rectitude of the action itself. We are so constituted, that it is impossible for us in certain circumstances, not to have this feeling; and, having the we must have the notions of virtue, obligation, merit. It is vain for us to inquire why we are so constituted,-as it is vain for us to inquire why we are so constituted as to rejoice at any pros- perous event, or to grieve at any calamity;-or why we cannot perceive any change, without believing, that in future the same antecedent circum- stances will be followed by the same consequents. I may remark, too, that, as in the case now mentioned, it is impossible for us to have the belief of the similarity of the future to the past, .simple as this belief may seem to be, with- out having at the same time the conceptions of cause, effect, power; so, in the case of moral approbation, and disapprobation, it is impossible for us to have these feelings, however simple they may at first appear, without the conception of duty, obligation, virtue, merit, which are involved in the dis- tinctive moral feeling, but do not produce it, as our notions of power,.cause, effect, are involved in our belief of the similarity of the future to the past; but are not notions which previously existed and produced the belief; or, to speak more accurately, these notions are not involved in the fueling, which is sim- ple, but are rather references made of this one simple feeling to different objects. When I say, however, that it is vain to inquire ivhy we feel the obligation to perform certain actions, I must be understood as speaking only of inquiries into the nature of the mind itself. Beyond it we may still inquire, and dis- cover what we wish to find, not in our own nature, but in the nature of that Supreme Benevolence wdiich formed us. We do not see, indeed, in the nature of the mind itself, any reason that the present should be considered by us as representative of the future. We know, however, that if man had not been so formed as to believe the future train of physical events to resem- ble the past, it would have been impossible for him to exist, because he could not have provided what was necessary for preserving his existence, nor avoided the dangers which would then, as now, have hung over him at every step ; and knowing the necessity of this belief to our very existence, we cannot think of Him who formed us to exist without discovering, in His provident goodness, the reason of the belief itself. But if the existence of man would have been brief and precarious, without this faith in the similar- ity of the future, it would not been so wretched as if the mind had not been rendered susceptible of the feelings which we have now been consider- ing, the feelings of approbation and disapprobation, and the notions and affec- tions that originate in these. I shall not attempt to picture to you this wretchedness-the wretchedness of a world, in which such feelings were not a part of the mental constitution-a world without virtue-without love of man or love of God-in which, wherever a human being met a human being, he met him as a robber or a murderer, living only to fear, and to destroy, and dying, to leave on the earth a carcass still less loathsome in all its loathsome- ness, than the living form which had been animated but with guilt. Our only comfort in considering such a dreadful society is, that it could not long subsist, and that the earth must soon have been freed from the misery which disgraced it. We know, then, in this sense, why our mind has been so constituted as to have these emotions; and our inquiry leads us, as all other inquiries ultimately 'ead us, to the provident goodness of Him by whom we were made. God, the author of all our enjoyments, has willed us to be moral beings, for he could not will us to be happy, in the noblest sense of that term, without ren- dering us capable of practising and admiring virtue. IS NOTHING BUT THE AGENT ACTING. 233 Vol. II. 234 LECTURE LX XIV. AN ACTION IN MORALS, IS NOTHING BUT THE AGENT ACTIN.G -APPA- RENT EXCEPTIONS TO THIS DOCTRINE-SOPHISTRY OF THOSE WHO CONTEND THAT MORAL DISTINCTIONS ARE ACCIDENTAL.-MISTAKES OF SOUNDER MORALISTS THAT HAVE GIVEN SOME COUNTENANCE TO THIS SOPHISTRY.-VIRTUE AND VICE MERE ABSTRACTIONS.-THE MIND SOMETIMES IS INCAPABLE QF PERCEIVING MORAL DISTINCTIONS, AS WHEN UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF EXTREME PASSION-2. THE COM- PLEXITY OF ACTIONS MAY MISLEAD US IN OUR ESTIMATE OF GOOD AND EVIL.-3. ASSOCIATION MAY ALSO MISLEAD US. The object of my last Lecture, gentlemen, was to make you acquainted with the nature and source of our notiohs of moral excellence and moral de- linquency,-the primary moral notions to which, as the directors of conduct, every ethical inquiry must relate. In this elucidation of a subject, the most interesting of all thd subjects which can come under our review, sinte it comprehends all that is admired and loved by us in man, and all that is loved by us and adored in God, I en- deavoured to free the inquiry, as much as possible, from every thing which might encumber it,-particularly to explain to you the tfeal meaning of some distinctions, which, as commonly misunderstood, have led to much superflu- ous disputation on the theory of virtue, and partly in consequence of the in- consistencies and confusion which they seem to involve, have bad the still more unfortunate effect of leading sopie minds to disbelief, or 'doubt, of the essential distinctions of morality itself. The most important of these misconceptions relate to our notions of virtue, obligation, merit,-for the origin of which, writers on ethics are accustomed to have recourse to different feelings, and different sources of feeling, but which, I endeavoured to show you, have all their origin in one emotion, 'or vivid sentiment of the mind-that vivid sentiment which is the immediate re- sult of the contemplation of certain actions, and to which we give the name of moral approbation. An action, though we often speak of it abstractly, is not, and cannot be, any thing which exists independently of the agent. It is some agent, therefore, real or supposed, whom we contemplate when this sentiment of approbation, in any case arises,-an agent placed, or imagined to be placed, in certain circumstances, having certain views, willing and pro- ducing certain effects of benefit or injury. ■What the agent is, as an object of our approbation or disapprobation, that his action is-for his action is himself acting. We say, indeed, in some cases, that an action is wrong, without tiny loss of virtue on the part of the figent it? the peculiar circumstances in which he may have been placed,-that it is absolutely wrong, relatively right; but, in this case, the action, of which wTe speak as right and wrong in differ- ent circumstances, is truly, as I showed you, in these different circumstances, a different action ;-that is to say, we consider a different agent, acting with different views-in whiph case it is as absurd to term the moral action, that which excites our approbation or disapprobation,-the same as it would be to term a virtuous sovereign and his tyrannical successor the same, because they have both been seated on the same throne, and worn the same robes and diadem. One individual putting another individual to death excites in us abhorrence, if we think of the murderer and the murdered as friends, or even as indifferent strangers. But we say, that the same action of putting to death implies, relatively nothing immoral, if the individual slaimwere a robber entering our dwelling at midnight, or an enemy invadihg*our country. It surely, however, requires no very subtile discernment to perceive, that the murderer of tire friend and the destroyer of the foe,-being agents, acting with different views, in different circumstances,-their actions, which are only brief expressions of themselves, as acting in different circumstances, are truly different; and, being different, may of collide be supposed to excite different feelings in him who considers them, without any anomaly of moral judgment. The same action, in its only true sense of sameness,'*-that is to say, the same frame of mind, in circumstances precisely similar,-cannot, then, be relatively right and absolutely wrong; as if the moral distinction were loose and arbitrary. If it be relatively right, it is absolutely right; and what we call the absolute action that is wrong, is a different action-an ac- tion as different from that which we term relatively right, as a morass is dif- ferent from a green meadow-which are both plains,-or a Clear rivulet from a muddy canal-which are both streams. We do not say, that a mo- rass, though relatively ugly, is, with all its relative ugliness, absolutely beau* tiful, because ft would be beautiful in other circumstances,-if drained, and covered with verdure, and blooming with the wild flowers of summer,--Hind still gayer with the happy faces of little groups, that may perhaps be frolick- ingin delight, where before all was stillness and desolation. Such a meadow is, indeed, beautiful; but, to our senses, that judge only of what is before them, not of what the immediate object might have been, or might still be in other circumstances, such a meadow is not a morass ; and as little, or rather far less, is the slaughter of half an army of invaders, in one of those awful fields on which the liberty or slavery of a people waits on the triumph of a single hour, to be classed in the same list of actions with the murder of the innocent and the helpless, though with complete similarity of result in the death of others. If the effect alone could be said to constitute the moral action-both terminate equally in the destruction of human life, and both im- ply the intention of destroying. An action, then, as capable of bffng considered by us, is not a thing in itself, which may have various relations to various agents, but is onlj another name for some agent, of whom we speak, real or supposed.; and whatever emotion an action excites,, is therefore necessarily some feeling for an agent. The virtue of an action is the virtue of the agent,-his merit,- his conformity to duty or moral obligation. There is, in short, an approva- bleness, which is felt on considering certain actions ; and our reference of this vivid sentiment to the action that excites it, is all which is meant by any of those terms. We are not to make separate inquiries into the nature of that principle of the mind, by which we discover the rectitude of an action, and then into.the nature of the moral obligation to perform it, and then-into the merit of the agent; but we have one feeling excited in us by the agent act- ing in a certain manner-,-which is virtue, moral obligation, merit, according as the same action is considered in point of time, when it is the subject, be- fore performance, of deliberation and choice,-of actual performance, when chosen,-or of memory, when already performed. Lt is all which we mean by moral obligation, when we think of the agent as feeling previously to his action, that, if he were not to perform the action, he would have to look on AN ACTION IN MORALS, ETC. 235 236 himself with disgust, and with the certainty that others would look on him with abhorrence. It is all which we mean by the virtue of the agent, when we consider him acting in conformity with this view. It is merit, when we consider him to have acted in this way;-the term which we use, varying, you perceive, in all these cases, as the action is regarded' by us as present, past, or future, and the moral sentiment in all alike being only that one sim- ple vivid feeling, which rises immediately on the contemplation of the adtion. The approvableness of an action, then,-to use a barbarous, but expres- sive word,-is at once all these qualities ; and the approvableness is merely the relation which certain actions bear to certain feelings that arise in our mind on the contemplation of these actions,-feelings, that arise to our feeble heart with instant warning or direction, as if they were the voice of some guardian power within us, that, in the virtues of others, points out what is worthy of our imitation,-in their vices what we cannot imitate, without being unworthy of the glorious endowments of which we are conscious ; and unwor- thy, too, of the love of Him, who, though known to us by His Power, is known to us still more as the Highest Goodness, and who, in all the infinite gifts which he has lavished on us, has conferred on us no blessing so inestimable, as the capacity which we enjoy of knowing and loving what is good. To say that an action excites in us this feeling, and to say, that it appears to us right, or virtuous, or conformable to duty, are to say precisely the same thing; and an action, which does not excite in us this feeling, cannot appear to us right, virtuous, conformable to duty,-any more than an object can be counted by us brilliant, which uniformly appears.to us obscure,-or obscure, which ap- pears to us uniformly brilliant. To this ultimate fact, in the constitution of of our nature,-the principle, or original tendency of the mind, by which, in certain circumstances, we are susceptible of moral emotions,-we'must al- ways come in estimating virtue, whatever analyses we may make, or may think that we have made. It is in this respect, as in many others, like the kindred emotion of beauty. Our feeling of beauty is not the mere percep- tion of forms and colours, or the discovery of the uses of certain combina- tions of forms ; it is an emotion arising from these, indeed, but distinct from them. Our feeling of moral excellence, in like manner, is not the mere per- ception of different actions, or the discovery of the physical good which these may produce ; it 's an emotion of a very different kind,-a light within our breast, from wLicn, as from the very effulgence of the purest of all truths, SOPHISTICAL ARGUMENT AGAINST u Is human fortune gladden'd with the rays Of Virtue,-with the moral colours thrown On every walk of this our social scene, Adorning for the eye of gods and men The passions, actions, habitudes of life, And rendering Earth, like Heaven, a sacred place, Where love and praise may take delight to dwell."* That we do feel this approbation of certain actions, and disapprobation of certain other actions, no one denies. But the feeling is, by many sophistical moralists, ascribed wholly to circumstances that are accidental, without any greater original tendency of the mind to feel, in different circumstances of human action, one or other of these emotions. If man could be born with every faculty in its highest excellence, capable of distinguishing all the re- * Pleasures of Imagination,-2d form of the Poem, B. II. v. 151-157 mote as well as all the immediate consequences of actions, but free from the prejudices of education, he would, they suppose, look with equal moral love, or rather, with uniform and equal indifference of regard, on him who has plunged a dagger in the breast of his benefactor, and on him who has risked his own life for the preservation of his enemy. There are philosophers, and philosophers, too, who consider themselves peculiarly ■worthy of that name, from the nicety of their analysis of all that is complex in action,-who can look on the millions of millions of mankind, in every climate and age, min- gling together in a society that subsists only by the continued belief of the moral duties of ah to all,-who can mark every where, sacrifices made by the generous, to the happiness of those whom they love, and every where an admiration of such sacrifices,-not the -voices of the timid and the igno- rant only mingling in the praise, but warriors, statesmen, poets, philosophers, bearing, with the peasant and the child, their united testimonies to the great truth, that man is virtuous in promoting the happiness of man ;-there are minds which can see and hear all this, and which can turn away, to seek, in some savage island, a few indistinct murmurs that may seem to be discor- dant with the whole great harmony of mankind I When an inquirer of this class, after perusing every narrative of every nation, in every part of the globe,-with a faith for all that is monstrous in morality, as ready as his disbelief of prodigies in physics less marvellous, which the same voyagers and travellers relate,-has collected his little stock of facts, or of reports which are to him as facts,-he comes forward, in the confidence of overthrowing with these the whole system of public morals, as far as that system is supposed to be founded on any original moral difference of actions. He finds, indeed, every where else, parricide looked upon with abhorrence ; but he can prove this to be wholly accidental, because he has found, on some dismal coast, some miserable tribe, in which it is customary to put the aged to death when very infirm, and in which the son is the per- son who takes upon him this office. For almost every virtue, which the w'orld acknowledges as indicated to us by the very constitution of our social nature, he has, in like manner, some little fact, which proves the world to be in an error. Some of these he finds even in the usages of civilized life. What is right on one side of a mountain, is wrong on the opposite side of it; and a river is sometimes the boundary of a virtue, as much as of an empire. " How, then, can there be any fixed principles of morality," he says, " when morality itself seems to be incessantly fluctuating?" Morality is incessantly fluctuating; or rather, according to this system, there is no morality, at least no natural tendency to the distinction of actions, as moral or immoral, and we have only a few casual prejudices, which we have chosen to call virtues,-prejudices which a slight difference of circum- stance might have reversed, making the lover of mankind odious to us, and giving all our regard to the robber and the murderer. We* prefer, indeed, at present, Aurelius to Caligula ; but a single prejudice, more or less, or at least a few prejudices additional, might have made Caligula the object of universal love, to which his character is iri itself as well entitled, as the cha- racter of that philosophic emperor, who was as much an honour to philoso- phy as to the imperial purple. And in what w'orld is this said ? In a world in which Caligula has never had a single admirer, in all the multitudes to whom his history has become known,-a world, in which, if we were to consider the innumerable actions that are performed in it, at any one instant, ORIGINAL MORAL DISTINCTION. 237 238 we should be wearied with counting those which furnish evidence of the truth of moral distinctions, by the complacency of virtue, or the remorse of vice, and the general admiration or disgust and abhorrence, with which the virtue, when known to others, is loved, and the vice detested, Jong before we.should be able to discover a single action that, in the contrariety of gene- ral sentiment with respect to it, might furnish even one feeble exception. Some apparent exceptions, however, it must still be allowed, the moral scene does truly exhibit. But are they, indeed, proofs of the absolute ori- ginal indifference of all actions to our jegard ? Or do they not merely seem to be exceptions, because we have not made distinctions and limitations which it was necessary to make ? It often happens, that by contending for too much in a controversy, we fail to establish truths that appear doubtful, only because they are mingled with doubtful, or false propositions, for which we contend as strenuously as for the true. This, 1 think, has taken place, in some degree, in the great con- troversy as to morals. In our zeal for the absolute immutability of moral distinctions, we have made the argument for original tendencies to moral feeling appear less strong, by extending it too far; and facts, therefore, have seemed to be exceptions, \vhich could not have seemed to be so, if we had been a little more moderate in our universal affirmation. Let us consider, then, what the species of accordance is for which we may safely contend. That virtue is nothing in itself, but is only a'general name for certain ac- tions, which agree in exciting, when contemplated, a certain emotion of the mind, I trust, 1 have already sufficiently shown. There is no virtue, no vice, but there are' virtuous agents, vicious agents,-that is tp say, persons whose actions we.cannot contemplate without a certain instant emotion ; and what we term the law of nature, in its relation to certain actions, is nothing more than the general agreement of this sentiment, in relation to those actions. In thinking of virtue, therefore, it is evident that we are not to look for any thing self-existing, like the universal essences of the schools, and eternal, like the Platonic ideas; but a felt relation and nothing more. We are to consider only agents, and the emotions which these agents excite ; and all which we mean by the moral differences of actions, is their tendency to ex- cite orfe emotion father than another. Virtue, then, being a term expressive only of the relation of certain ac- tions, as contemplated, to certain emotions, in the minds of those who con- template them, cannot, it is evident, have any universality beyond that of the minds in which these emotions arise. We speak always, therefore, relative- ly to the constitution of our minds, not to what we might have been consti- tuted to admire, if we had been created by a different Being, but to what we are constituted to admire, and what, in our present circumstances, approv- ing or disapproving with instant love or abhorrence, it is impossible for us not to believe to be, in like manner, the objects of approbation or disappro- bation, to him who has endowed us with feelings so admirably accordant with all those other gracious purposes which we discover in the economy of nature. « Virtue, however, is still, in strictness of philosophic a term ex- pressive only of the relation of certain emotions of our mjnd to certain ac- tions that are contemplated by us;-its universality is co-extensive with the minds in which the emotions arise, and this is all which we can mean by the THE* MIND IS BLINDED TO MORAL DISTINCTIONS, essential distinctions of morality, even though ah mankind were supposed by us at every moment, to feel precisely the same emotions, on contemplating the same actions. But it must be admitted, also, that all mankind do not feekat every mo- ment precisely the same emotions, on contemplating actions that are precise- ly the same; and it is necessary, therefore, to make some limitations, even of this relative universality. * « In the first place, it must be admitted, that there are moments in which the mind is wholly incapable of perceiving moral differences-that is to say, in which the emotions that constitute the feeling of these moral differences do not arise. Such are all the moments of very violent passion. When the impetuosity of the passion is abated, indeed, we perceive that we have done what we now look upon with horror, but when our passion was most violent, we were truly blinded by it, or at least saw only what it permitted us to see. The moral emotion has not arisen, because the* whole soul was occupied with a different species of feeling. The> moral distinctions, however, or general tendencies of actiqns to excite this emotion, are not on this account less cer- tain ; or we must say, that'the truths of arithmetic, and ah other truths, are uncertain, since the mind, in a state of passion, would be equally incapable of distinguishing these. He who has lived for years in the hope of revenge, and who has at length laid 1ms foe at his feet, may, indeed, while he pulls out his dagger from the heart that is quivering beneath it, be incapable of feeling the crime which he has committed; but would he at tliat moment be abler to tell the square of four, or the cube of two? All in his mind, at that moment, is one wild state of agitation, whioh allows nothing to be felt but the agitation itself. " While the human heart is thus agitated," it has been said, "by the f}ux and reflux of a thousand passions, that sometimes unite and sometimes op- pose each other,-to engrave laws on it, is to engrave them not on sand, but on a' wave that is never at rest. What eyes are piercing enough to read the sacred characters !" •. "Vain declamation!" answers the writer from whom I quote. "If we do not read the characters, it is not because our sight is too weak to discern them, it is because we do not fix our eyes on them; or, if they be indistin- guishable, it is only for a moment." "The heart of man," he continues, " may be considered, allegorically, as an island, almost level with the water which bathes it. On the pure white marble of the island are engraved the holy precepts of the law of nature. Near these characters is one who bends his eyes respectfully on the inscrip- tion, and reads it aloud. He is the lover of Virtue, the Genius of the island. The water around is in continual agitation. The slightest zephyr raises it into billqws. It then covers the inscription. We no.longer see the charac- ters. We no longer hear the Genins read. But the calm soon rises from the bosom of the storm. The island re-appears white as before,-and the Genius resumes his employment." That passion has a momentary influence in blinding us -to n\oral distinc- tions, or, which is the same thing, an influence to prevent the rise of certain emotions, that, but for the stronger feeling of the passion itself, would arise, may then be admitted; but the influence is momentary, or little more than momentary, and extends, as we have seen, even to those truths which are commonly considered as best entitled to the appellation of universal. The 1. BY EXTREME PASSIONS. 239 THE MIND IS BLINDED TO MORAL DISTINCTIONS, 240 moral truths, it must be allowed,-if I may apply the name of truths to the felt moral differences of actions,-are to the impassioned mind, as little universal as the truths of geometry. Another still more important limitation of the universality for which we contend, relates to actions which are so complex as to have various opposite results of good and evil, or of which it is not easy to trace the -consequences. An action, when it is the object of our moral approbation or disapprobation, is, as I have already said, the agent himself acting with certain views'. These views, that is to say, the intentions of the agent, are necessary to be taken into account, or rather, are the great moral circumstances to be con- sidered ; and the intention is not visible to us like tlie external changes pro- duced by it, but is, in many cases, to be inferred from the apparent results. When these results, therefore, are too obscure, or too complicated, to furnish clear and immediate evidence of the intention, we may pause in estimating actions, which we should not fail to have approved instantly, or disapproved instantly, if we had known the intention of the agent, or could have inferred it more easily from a simpler result; or, by fixing our attention chiefly on one part of the complex result, that was perhaps not the part which the agent had in view, we may condemn what was praiseworthy, or applaud what de- served our condemnation. If the same individual may thus have different moral sentiments, according to the different parts of the complex result on which his attention may have beep fixed, it is surely not wonderful, that dif- ferent individuals, in regarding the same action, should sometimes approve, in like manner, and disapprove variously, not because the principle of moral emotion, as an original tendency of the mind, is absolutely capricious, but because the action considered, though apparently the same, is really different as an object of conception in different minds, according to the parts of the mixed result which attract the chief attention. Such partial views, it is evident, may become the views of a whole nation, from the peculiar circumstances in which the nation may be placed as to other nations, or from peculiarity of general institutions. The legal permis- sion of theft in Sparta, for example, may seem to us with our pacific habits, and security of police, an exception to that moral principle of disapprobation for which I contend. But there can be no doubt, that theft, as mere theft, -or, in other words, as a mere production of a certain quantity of evil by one individual to another individual,-if it never had been considered in relation to any political object, would in Sparta also have excited disapprobation as with us. As a mode of inuring to habits of vigilance a warlike people, how- ever, it might be considered in a very different light; the evil of the loss of property, though in itself an evil to the individual, even in a country in which differences of property were so slight, being nothing in this estimate, when compared with the more important national accession of military virtue ; and, indeed, the reason of the permission seems to be sufficiently marked, in the limitation of the impunity to cases, in which the aggressor escaped detection at the time. The law of nature,-the law written in the heart of man, then came again into all its authority,-or rather the law of nature had not ceased to have authority, even in those permissions which seemed to be di- rectly opposed to it; the great object, even of those anomalous permissions, being the happiness of the state, the pursuit of which nature points out to our approbation in the same manner, though not with such vivid feelings, as she points out to us for approbation the endeavour to render more happy the individuals around us. It would be a very interesting inquiry to consider in this way, all those instances which have been adduced as exceptions to natu- ral law, and to detect the circumstances of real or supposed good accompa- nying the evil permitted, for which the evil itself might, in many cases, seem to have been permitted,-or which, at least lessened so much the result of evil, in the eyes of those who considered it in the particular circumstances of the age and country, that a very slight temptation might overcome the disap- probation of it, as we find at present, in our civilized society, many evils tole- rated,-not because they are not considered to be evil, but because the evil seems so slight, as not to imply any gross disregard of morality. This mi- nute analysis of the instances alleged, however,-though it might not be dif- ficult to discover in every case some form of good, which, in the mixed result of good and evil, was present to the approver's mind,-my limits will not allow me to extend ; but there is one general remark, which may, in some measure, supply the place of more minute discussion, since it may al- most be said to convert these very instances into proofs of that general accordance of moral sentiment, in disproof of which they are adduced. When these supposed exceptions are tolerated, why is it that they are tole- rated ? Is it on account of the benefit or of the injury that co-exists in one complex mixture ? Is it said, for example, by the ancient defenders of sui- cide, that it is to be commended, because it deprives mankind of the further aid of one who might still be useful to society, or because it will give sorrow to every relation and friend, or because it is a desertion of the charge which Heaven has assigned to us ? It is for reasons very different, that it is said by them to be allowable; because the circumstances, they say, are such, as seem of themselves to point out, that the Divine Being has no longer occasion for our service on earth, and because our longer life would be only still greater grief or disgrace to our friends, and a burthen rather than an aid to society. When the usages of a country allow the exposure of infants, is it not still for some reason of advantage to the community, falsely supposed to require it, that the permission is given ? Or is it for the mere pleasure of depriving the individual infant of life, and of adding a few more sufferings to the general sufferings of humanity ? Where is the land that says, Let misery be produced, or increased', because it is misery ? Let the production of happiness to an individual be avoided, because it is happiness ? Then, indeed, might the distinctions of morality in the emotions which attend the production of good and evil, be allowed to be wholly accidental. But, if nature has every where made the production of good desirable for itself, and the produc- tion of evil desirable, when it is desired and approved, only because it is accompanied, or supposed to be accompanied, with good, the very desire of the compound of good and evil, on this account, is itself a proof not of love of evil, but of love of good. It is pleasing thus to find nature in the wildest excesses of savage ignorance, and in those abuses to which the imperfect knowledge even of civilized nations sometimes gives rise, still vindicating as it were her own excellence,-in the midst of vice and misery asserting still those sacred principles, which are the virtue and the happiness of nations,- principles of which that very misery and vice attest the power, whether in the errors of multitudes who have sought evil for some supposed good, or in the guilt of individuals, who, in abandoning virtue, still offer to it an allegiance which it is impossible for them to withhold in the homage of their remorse. • It never must be forgotten, in estimating the moral impression which ac- 2. BY THE COMPLEXITY OF ACTIONS. 241 Vol. IL 242 tions produce, that an action is nothing in itself,-that -all which we truly consider in it is the agent placed in certain circumstances, feeling certain de- sires, willing certain changes-and, that our approbation and disapprobation may therefore vary, without any fickleness on our part, merely in conse- quence of the different views which we form of the intention of the agent. In every complicated case, therefore, it is so far from wonderful, that differ- ent individuals should judge differently, that it would, indeed, be truly won- derful if they should judge alike, since it would imply a far nicer measure- ment than any of which we are capable, of the mixed good and evil of the complex results of human action, and a power of discerning what is secretly passing in the heart, which man does not possess, and which it is not easy for us to suppose man, in any circumstances, capable of possessing. In complicated cases, then, we may approve differently, because we are, in truth, incapable of distinguishing all the moral elements of the action, and may fix our attention on some of these to the exclusion of others. Our taste, in like manner, distinguishes what is sweet and what is bitter, when these are simply presented to us;-and there are substances, which are no sooner put in the little mouth of the infant, than he seems to feel from them pleasure or pain. He distinguishes the sweet from the bitter, as he distinguishes them in after life. Who is there who denies that there is, in the original sensibility of the infant, a tendency to certain preferences of this kind ;-that there are substances which are naturally agreeable to the taste,-substances which are naturally disagreeable,-and that it requires no process of education, no la- bour of years, no addition of prejudice after prejudice, to make sugar an object of desire to the child, and wormwood of disgust? Yet, in the luxury of other years, there are culinary preparations which the taste of some ap- proves, while the taste of others rejects them ; and in all of which it is diffi- cult to distinguish the prevailing element, whether acid, austere, sweet, bitter, aromatic. If the morals of nations differed half as much as the cookery of different nations, we might allow some cause for disbelief of all the natural dis- tinctions of right and wrong. But what sceptic is there, who contends, from the approbation which one nation gives to a sauce or a ragout, which almost sickens him-that the sweet does not naturally differ from the bitter, as more agreeable, the aromatic from the insipid; and that to the infant, sugar, worm- wood, spice, are, as sources of pleasure, essentially the same ? We approve of what we know, or suppose ourselves to know, and we ap- prove according as we know or suppose, not according to circumstances which truly exist, but which exist unobserved by us and unsuspected. It is not contended, that we come into the world with a knowledge of certain ac- tions, which we are afterwards to approve or disapprove, for we enter into the world ignorant of everything which is to happen in it; but that we come into existence with certain susceptibilities of emotion, in consequence of which, it will be impossible for us, in after life, but for the influence of counteracting circumstances, momentary or permanent, not to be pleased with the contem- plation of certain actions as soon as they have become fully known to us, and not to have feelings of disgust, on the contemplation of certain other actions. I am astonished, therefore, that Paley, in stating the objection, " that, if we be prompted by nature to the approbation of particular actions, we must have received also from nature a distinct conception of the action we are thus prompted to approve, which we certainly have not received," should have stated this as an objection, to which " it is difficult to find an answer," since THE MIND IS BLINDED TO MORAL DISTINCTIONS, there is no objection to which the answer is more obvious. There is not a feeling of the mind, however universal, to the existence of which precisely the same objection might not be opposed. There is no part of the world, for example, in which the proportions of number and quantity are not felt to be the same. Four are to twenty as twenty to a hundred, wherever those numbers are distinctly conceived ; but, though we come into the world capa- ble of feeling the truth of this proportion, when the numbers themselves shall have been previously conceived by us, no one surely contends that it is ne- cessary, for this capacity, that we should come into the world with an accu- rate knowledge of the particular numbers. The mind is, by its original constitution, capable of feeling all the sensations of colour, when different va- rieties of light are presented to the eye ; and it has this original constitution, without having the actual sensations, which are to arise only in certain cir- cumstances that are necessary for producing them, and which may never, therefore, be states of the mind, if the external organ of vision be imperfect. Even the boldest denier of every original distinction of vice and virtue, must still allow that we do at present look with approbation on certain actions, with disapprobation on other actions, and that, having these feelings, we must by our original constitution, have been capable of the feelings ; so that if the mere capacity were to imply the existing notions of th6 actions that are to be approved or disapproved, he would be obliged, if this objection had any weight, to allow, that, on his own principles, we must equally have innate no- tions of right and wrong which we have not, or that we feel certain emotions which we yet had no capacity of feeling. But on an objection which ap- pears to me so very obviously futile, it is idle to dwell so long. We have made, then, two limitations of that universality and absolute uni- formity of moral sentiment, for which some ethical writers have too strongly contended;-in the first place, when the mind is, as it were, completely oc- cupied, or hurried away by the violence of extreme passion; and, in the second place, when the action which we consider is not the simple intentional production of good as good, or of evil as evil, in certain definite circumstan- ces, but when the result that has been willed is a mixture of good and evil, which it is difficult to discriminate, and in which the good may occur to some minds more readily, the evil to other minds ; or in different stages of society, or different circumstances of external or internal situation, the good may be more or less important, and the evil more or less important, so as to have a higher relative interest than it otherwise would have possessed. To these two limitations it is necessary to add a third, that operates very powerfully and widely on our moral estimates,-the influence of the principle of association. We are not to suppose, that because man is formed with the capacity of certain moral emotions, he is, therefore, to be exempt from the in- fluence of every other principle of his constitution. The influence of associ- ation, indeed, does not destroy his moral capacity, but it gives it new objects, or at least varies the objects in which it is to exercise itself, by suggesting, with peculiar vividness, certain accessory circumstances, which may vari- ously modify the general sentiment that results from the contemplation of particular actions. One very extensive form of the influence of association on our moral sen- timents, is that which consists in the application to particular cases of feelings that belong to a class. In nature there are no classes. There are only par- ticular actions, more or less beneficial or injurious. But we cannot consider 2. BY THE COMPLEXITY OF ACTIONS. 243 244 these particular actions long, without discovering in them, as in any other number of objects that may be considered by us at the same time, certain re- lations of analogy or resemblance of some sort in consequence of which we class them together, and form for the whole class one comprehensive name. Such are the generic words, justice, injustice, malevolence, benevolence. To these generic words, which, if distinguished from the number of separate actions, denoted by them, are mere words invented by ourselves, we gradu- ally, from the influence of association in the feelings that have attended the particular cases to which the same name has been applied, attach one mixed notion, a sort of compound, or modified whole, of the various feelings which the actions separately would have excited, more vivid therefore, than what would have arisen on the contemplation of some of these actions, less vivid than what others might have excited. It is enough that an action is one of a class which we term unjust;-we feel instantly not the mere emotion which the action of itself would originally have excited, but we feel also that emo- tion which has been associated with the class of actions to which the parti- cular action belongs ; and though the action may be of a kind, which, if we had formed no general arrangement, would have excited but slight emotion, as implying no very great injury produced or intended, it thus excites a fat- more vivid feeling, by borrowing, as it were, from other analogous and more atrocious actions, that are comprehended under the same general term, the feeling which they would originally have excited. It is quite evident, for ex- ample, that, in a civilized country, in which property is largely possessed, and complicated in its tenure, and as in the various modes in which it may be transferred, the infringement of property must be an object of peculiar impor- tance, and what is commonly termed justice, in regard to it, be a virtue of essential value, and injustice a crime against which it is necessary to pre- pare many checks, and which is thence regarded as of no slight delinquency. The offence of the transgressor is estimated, in such a case, not by the little evil which, in any particular case, he may intentionally have occasioned to another individual, but, in a great degree also, by the amount of evil which would arise in a system of society constituted as that of the great nations of Europe is constituted, if all men were to be equally regardless of the right of property in others. When we read, therefore, of the tendency to theft, in many barbarous islanders of whom navigators tell us, and of the very little shame which they seemed to feel on detection of their petty larcenies, we carry along with us our own classes of actions, and the emotions to which our own general rules, resulting from our own complicated social state, have giv- en rise. We forget, that, to those who consider an action simply as it is, the guilt of an action is an object that is measured by the mere amount of evil in- tentionally produced in the particular case,-and that the theft which they con- template, is not, therefore, in its moral aspect, the same offence that is contem- plated by us. I need not trace out, in other cases, the influence of general rules, which you must be able to trace with sufficient precision for yourselves. Such, then, is one of the modes in which association operates. But it is not in general rules alone that the influence of the associating principle is to be traced. It extends in some degree to all our moral feelings. There is no education, indeed, which can make the pure benevolence of others hate- ful to us, unless by that very feeling of our own inferiority which implies in envy itself our reverence, and consequently, our moral approbation of what we hate,-no education which can make pure deliberate malice in others au THE MIND IS BLINDED TO MORAL DISTINCTIONS object of our esteem. But, if there be any circumstances accompanying the benevolence and malice, which tend to the disparagement of the one, and the elevation of the other, the influence of association may be excited powerfully, in this way, by fixing our attention more vividly on these slight accompanying circumstances. The fearlessness which often attends vice, may be raised into an importance beyond its merit, in savage ages, in which fearlessness is more important for the security of the state, and in which pow- er and glory seem to wait on it; the yielding gentleness of benevolence may, in such circumstances, appear timidity, or, at least, a degree of softness un- worthy of the perfect man. In like manner, when a vice is the vice of those whom we love,-of a friend, a brother, a parent,-the influence of associa- tion may lessen, and overcome our moral disapprobation, not by rendering the vice in itself an object of our esteem, but by rendering it impossible for us to feel a vivid disapprobation of those whom we love, and mingling, there- fore some portion of this very regard in our contemplation of all their actions. It is because we have the virtue of loving'our benefactor, or friend, or parent, that we seem not to feel, in so lively a manner, the unworthiness of that vice, which is partly lost to our notice, in the general emotion of our gratitude. But when we strip away these illusions, or when the vice is pure intentional malice, which no circumstance of association can embellish, it is equally im- possible for us to look upon it with esteem, as it is impossible for us to turn away with loathing from him whose whole existence seems to be devot- ed to the happiness of others, and to rejoice, as we look upon him, that we are not what he is. 3. BY ASSOCIATION. 245 " Ite ipsi in vestre penetralia mentis et intus Incisos apices, et scripta volumina mentis Inspicite, et genitam vobiscum agnoscite legem. Quis vitiis adeo stolide, oblectatur apertis, Ut quod agit velit ipse pati ? Mendacia fallax, Furta rapax, furiosum atrox, homicida cruentum Damnat et in mcechum gladios distringit adulter. Ergo omnes una in vita cum lege creati Venimus, et fibris gerimus quse condita libris." I have made these limitations, because it appears to me that much confu sion on the subject of morals has arisen from inattention to these, and from the too great claims which have sometimes been made by the assertors of what they have termed immutable morality. The influence of temporary passion,-of the complication of good with evil, and of evil with good, in one mixed result,-and of general or individual associations, that mingle with these complex results some new elements of remembered pain or pleasure, dislike or regard, it seems to me absurd to attempt to deny. But, admitting these, indisputable influences, it seems to me equally unreasonable not to ad- mit the existence of that original susceptibility of moral emotion, which pre- cedes the momentary passion, and outlasts it,-which, in admiring the com- plex result of good and evil, admires always some form of good,-and which is itself the source of the chief delights or sorrows which the associa- tions of memory furnish as additional elements in our moral estimate. 246 LECTURE LXXV. RETROSPECT OF LAST LECTURE-THE PRIMARY DISTINCTIONS OF MORALITY IMPLANTED IN EVERY HUMAN HEART, AND NEVER COM PLETELY EFFACED. Gentlemen, having traced, in a former Lecture, our notions of virtue, obligation, merit, to one, simple feeling of the mind,-a feeling of vivid ap- proval of the frame of mind of the agent,-which arises on the contempla- tion of certain actions, and the capacity of which is as truly essential to our mental constitution, as the capacity of sensation, memory, reason, or of any of the other feelings of which our mind is susceptible,-1 considered, in my last Lecture, the arguments in opposition to this principle, as an original ten- dency of the mind, drawn from some apparent irregularities of moral senti- ment in different ages and countries. For determining the force of such instances, however, as objections to the original distinctions of morality, it was necessary to consider precisely, what is meant by that general accordance of moral sentiment, which the world may be considered as truly exhibiting. It is only by contending for more than the precise truth, that, in many instances, we furnish its opponents with the little triumphs, which seem to them like perfect victory. We give to the truth itself an appearance of doubtfulness, because we have combined it with what is doubtful, or, perhaps, altogether false. In the first place, the language which the assertors of virtue are in tliie habit of employing, when they speak of the eternity and absolute immutabili- ty of moral truth, might almost lead to the belief of something self-existing which could not vary in any circumstances, nor be less powerful at any mo- ment, than at any other moment. Virtue, however, it is evident, is nothing in itself, but is only a general name for certain actions, which excite, when contemplated by us, certain emotions. It is a felt relation to certain emo- tions, and nothing more, with no other universality, therefore, than that of the minds in which, on the contemplation of the same actions, the same emotions arise. We speak always of what our mind is formed to admire or hate,-not of what it might have been formed to estimate differently; and the supposed immutability, therefore, has regard only to the existing consti- tution of things under that Divine Being, who has formed our social nature as it is, and who, in thus forming it, may be considered as marking his own approbation of that virtue which we love, and his own disapprobation of that vice, which he has rendered it impossible for us not to view with indignation or disgust. Such is the moderate sense of the absolute immutability of virtue, for which alone we can contend ; a sense in which virtue itself is supposed to become known to us as an object of our thought only, in consequence of certain emotions which it excites, and with which it is Co-extensive and com- mensurable ; but, even in this moderate sense, it was necessary to make some limitations of the uniformity of sentiment supposed; since it is abun- dantly evident, that the same actions,-that is to say, the same agents, in the lame circumstances, willing and producing the same effects,-are not re- RETROSPECT OF LAST LECTURE. 247 garded by all mankind with feelings precisely the same, nor even with feel- ings precisely the same by the same individual in every moment of his life. The first limitation which I made relates to the moments, in which the mind is completely occupied and absorbed in other feelings,-when, for example, it is under the temporary influence of extreme passion, which in- capacitates the mind for perceiving moral distinctions, as it incapacitates it for perceiving distinctions of every sort.-Virtue, though lost to our percep- tion, for a moment, however, is immediately perceived again with distinct vision as before, as soon as the agitation subsides:-It is like the image of the sky on the bosom of a lake, which vanishes, indeed, while the waters are ruffled, but which re-appears more and more distinctly, as every little wave sinks gradually to rest,-till the returning calm shows again in all its purity the image of that Heaven, which has never ceased to shine on it. The influence of passion then, powerful as it unquestionably is in obstruct- ing those peculiar emotions in which our moral discernment consists, is limited to the short period during which the passion rages. We are then as little capable of perceiving moral differences, as we should be, in the same circumstances, of distinguishing the universal truths of geometry; and in both cases, from the same law of the mind,-that general law, by which one very vivid feeling of any sort lessens in proportion the vividness of any other feeling that may co-exist with it, or, in other cases, prevents the rise of feel- ings that are not accordant with the prevailing emotion, by inducing in more ready suggestion, the feelings that are accordant with it. The next limitation which we made is of more consequence, as being far more extensive, and operating, therefore, in some degree, in almost all the moral estimates which we form. This second limitation relates to cases in which the result of actions is complicated by a mixture of good and evil, and in which we may fix upon the good, when others fix on the evil, and may infer the intention in the agent of producing this good, which is a part of the mixed result, while others may conceive him to have had in view the partial evil. The same actions, therefore, may be approved and disapproved in different ages and countries, from the greater importance attached to the good or to the evil of such compound results, in relation to the general cir- cumstances of society, or the influence, perhaps, of political errors, as to the consequences of advantage or injury to society of these particular ac- tions; and, in the same age, and the same country, different individuals may regard the same action with very different moral feelings, from the higher attention paid to certain partial results of it, and the different presumptions thence formed as to the benevolent or injurious intentions of the agent. All this, it is evident, might take place without the slightest mutability of the principle of moral sentiments; because, though the action which is estimated may seem to be the same in the cases in which it is approved and condemned, it is truly a. different action which is so approved and condemned ;-a differ- ent action in the only sense in which an action has any meaning, as signify- ing the agent himself having certain views, and willing, in consequence, cer- tain effects of supposed benefit or injury. A third limitation, often co-operating with the former, relates to the influ- ence of habit and association in general, whether as extending to particular actions the emotions that have been gradually connected with the whole class of actions under which they have been arranged, or as modifying the senti- ments of individuals by circumstances peculiar to the individuals themselves. 248 THESE LIMITATIONS DO NOT IMPAIR It ic pleasing to love those who are around us; it is pleasing, above all, to love our immediate friends, and those domestic relations to whom we owe our being, or to whose society, in the first friendships which we were capa- ble of forming, before our heart bad ventured from the little world of home into the great world without, we owed the happiness of many years, of which we have forgotten every thing but that they were delightful. It is not merely pleasing to love these first friends; we feel that it .is a duty to love them;-that is to say, we feel that, unless in circumstances of extraordinary profligacy on their part, if we were not to love them, w.e should look upon ourselves with moral disapprobation. The feeling of this very duty mingles in our estimates of the conduct of those whom we love ; and it is in this way that association in such cases operates ;-not by rendering vice in itself less an object of disapprobation than before, but by blending with our dtsap? probation of the action that love of the agent, which is, as it were, an oppo- site duty. It is the good which is mixed with the bad that we love, not the bad which is mixed with the good ; and the primary and paramount love of the good, and hatred of the bad remain, though we may seem, in certain cases, to love the one less or more, or to hate the other less or more,, in con- sequence of the vivid images which association affords to heighten or reduce the force of the opposite sentiment,-when the actions of which we approve or disapprove have a resemblance to the actions of those who have loved or made us happy ; whose love, therefore, and the consequent happiness produc- ed by them, arise, perhaps, to our mind at the very moment at which the similar action is contemplated by us. These three limitations, then, we must make;-limitations, the necessity of which it would have been natural for us to anticipate, though no objec- tions had been urged to the original differences of actions as objects of moral sentiment. But, making these limitations,-to some one or other of which the apparent anomalies may, I conceive, be referred,-do we not still leave unimpaired the great fundamental distinctions of morality itself,-the moral, approbation of the producer of unmixed good as good, the moral disappro- bation of him who produces unmixed evil for the sake of evil ? Where moral good and evil mix, the*. emotions may indeed be different; but they are different, not because the production of evil is loved as the mere pro- duction of evil, and the production of good hated as the mere production of good ;-it is only because the evil is tolerated for the good which is loved, and the good, perhaps, in other cases, forgotten or unremarked, in the abhor- rence of the evil which accompanies it. When some country is found, in which the intentional producer of pure unmixed misery is preferred, on that very account, to the intentional producer of as much good as an individual is capable of producing,-some country, in which it is reckoned more meri- torious to hate than to love a benefactor, merely for being a benefactor, and to love rather than to hate the betrayer of his friend, merely for being the betrayer of his friend,-then may the distinctions of morality be said to be as mutable, perhaps, as any other of the caprices of the most capricious fancy. But the denier of moral distinctions knows well, that it is impossi- ble for him to prove the original indifference of actions in this wav. He knows that the intentional producer of evil, as pure evil, is always hated, the intentional producer of good, as pure good, always loved ; and he flatters himself, that he has succeeded in proving, by an easier way, that we are naturally indifferent to what the prejudiced term moral good and evil, merely by proving, that we love the good so very much, as to forget, in the contem- plation of it, some accompanying evil; and hate the evil so very much, as to forget in the contemplation of it, some accompanying good. One of our most popular moralists begins his inquiry into the truth of the natural distinctions of morality, by quoting from Valerius Maximus, an anecdote of most atrocious profligacy,-which, he supposes, related to a savage, who had been " cut off in his infancy from all intercourse with his species, and consequently, under no possible influence of example, authority, education, sympathy, or habit: and whose feelings, therefore, in hearing such a relation, if it were possible for us to ascertain what the feelings of such a mind would be, he would consider as decisive of the question." I quote the story as he has translated it. " The father of Caius Toranius had been proscribed by the Triumvirate. Caius Toranius, coming over to the interests of that party, discovered to the officers who were in pursuit of his father's life, the place where he had con- cealed himself, and gave them a description by which they might distinguish his person. The old man, more anxious for the safety and fortunes of his son, than about the little that might remain of his own life, began immediate- ly to inquire of the officers who seized him, whether his son was well,- whether he had done his duty to the satisfaction of his generals. ' Thatson,' replied one of the officers, ' that son, so dear to thy affections, betrayed thee to us. By his information thou art apprehended and diest.' The officer, with this, struck a poniard to the old man's heart: and the unhappy parent fell, not so much affected by his fate, as by the means to which he owed it." -Auctore cedis quam ipsa caedi miserior.* It is necessary, for the very supposition which is made, that the savage should understand, not merely what is meant by the simple relations of son and father, and all the consequences of the treachery of the son, but that he should know also the additional interest which the paternal and filial relation »in the whole intercourse of good offices from infancy to manhood, receives from this continued intercourse. The author of our mere being is not all which a father, in such circumstances, is,-he is far better known and loved by us as the author of our happiness in childhood and youth, and the vene- rable friend of our maturer years. If the savage, knowing this relation in its fullest extent, could yet feel no different emotions of moral regard and dislike, for the son and for the father, it would be easier to suppose, that a life of total privation of society had dulled his natural susceptibilities of emotion, than that he was originally void of these. But what reason is there to imagine, that, with this knowledge, he would not have the emotions which are felt by every human being to whom this story is related ? It is easy to assert, that knowing every relation of a son and a father, as well as the con- sequence of the action, the savage would not feel what every other human being feels, because it is easy to assume, by begging the question, any point of controversy. But where is the proof of the assertion ? We cannot verify the supposition by exact experiment, indeed,-for such a savage, so thoroughly exempted from every social prejudice, is not to be found, and could not be made to understand the story even if he were found. But, though we cannot have the perfect experiment, we may yet have an approxi- mation to it. Every infant that is born may be considered very nearly as THE PRIMARY DISTINCTIONS OF MORALITY. 249 * Paley's Moral Philosophy. Vol. II. 250 THE PRIMARY DISTINCTIONS OF MORALITY such a savage; and as soon as the child is capable of knowing the very meaning of the words, without feeling half the force of the filial relation, he shudders at such a tale, with as lively abhorrence, perhaps, as in other years, when liis prejudices and habits, and every thing which is not originally in his constitution, may be said to be matured. We pan imagine vessels sent on voyages of benevolence, to diffuse over the world the blessings of a pure religion,-we can imagine voyages of this kind to diffuse the improvements of our sciences and arts. But what should we think of a voyage, of which the sole object was to teach the world that all actions are not, in the moral sense of the term, absolutely indifferent, and that those who intentionally do good to the society to which they belong, or to any individual of that society, ought to be objects of greater regard than he whose life has been occupied in plans to injure the society in general, or at least, as many individuals of it as his power could reach ? What shore is there at which such a vessel could arrive,-however barren the soil, and savage the inhabitants,-where these simple doctrines, which it came to diffuse, could be regarded as giving any instruction ? The half naked animal, that has no hut in which to shelter himself,-no provision beyond the precarious chase of the day,--whose language of numeration does not extend beyond three or four, and who knows God only as something which produces thunder and the whirlwind,-even this miserable creature, at least as ignorant as he is help- less, would turn away from his civilized instructors with contempt, as if he had not heard any thing of which he was not equally aware before. The vessel which carried out these simple primary essential truths of morals might return as it went. It could not make a single convert, because there would not have been one who had any doubts to be removed. If, indeed, instead of teaching these truths, the voyagers had endeavoured to teach the natives whom they visited the opposite doctrine, as to the absolute moral indifference of actions, there could then be little doubt that they might have taught some- thing new, whatever doubt there might justly be as to the number of the converts. When Labienus, after urging to Cato a variety of motives, to induce him to consult the oracle of Ammon, in the neighbourhood of whose temple the little army had arrived, concludes with urging a motive, which he supposed to have peculiar influence on the mind of that great man,-that he should at least make use of the opportunity of inquiring of a being who could not err, what it is which constitutes that moral perfection, which a good man should have in view for the guidance of his life, " Saltern virtutis amator Quaere quid est virtus, et posce exemplar honesti;"- How sublimely does the answer to this solicitation express the omnipotent divinity of virtue ! " Die Deo plenus, tacita quem mente gerebat, EiTudit dignas adytis, e pectore voces. ' Quid quari, Labiene, jubes ? An liber in armis Occubuisse velitn potius, quam regna videre ? An noceat vis ulla bono ? Fortunaque perdat Opposita virtute minas? Laudendaque velle Sic satis,-et nunquam success!! crescat honestum Scimus,-et hoc nobis non altius inseret Ammon Hseremus cuncti Superis, templooue tacente. NEVER EFFACED FROM THE HUMAN HEART. 251 Nil facimus non sponte Dei ; nec vocibus ullis Nunien eget ; dixitque semel nascentibus auctor Quicquid scire licet : sterilis nec legit arenas, Ut caneret paucis, mersitque hoc pulvere veruin."* " Cast your eyes," says Rousseau, " over all the nations of the world, and all the histories of nations. Amid so many inhuman and absurd supersti- tions-amid that prodigious diversity of manners and characters, you will find every where the same principles and distinctions of moral good and evil. The paganism of the ancient world produced, indeed, abominable gods, who on earth would have been shunned or punished as monsters, and who offered as a picture of supreme happiness, only crimes to commit, and passions to satiate. But Vice, armed with this sacred authority, descended in vain from the eternal abode : She found, in the heart of man, a moral instinct to repel her. The continence of Xenocrates was admired by those who celebrated the debaucheries of Jupiter-the chaste Lucretia adored the unchaste Venus -the most intrepid Roman sacrificed to Fear. He invoked the god who dethroned his fattier, and he died without a murmur by the hand of his own. The most contemptible divinities were served by the greatest men. The holy voice of Nature, stronger than that of the gods, made itself heard, and respected, and obeyed on earth, and seemed to banish as it were to the con- finement of Heaven, guilt, and the guilty." There is, indeed, to borrow Cicero's noble description, one true and ori- ginal law, conformable to reason and to nature, diffused over all, invariable, eternal, which calls to the fulfilment of duty and to abstinence from injustice, and which calls with that irresistible voice, which is felt in all its authority wherever it is heard. This law cannot be abolished or curtailed, nor affect- ed in its sanctions by any law of man. A whole senate, a whole people, can- not dispense from its paramount obligation. It requires no commentator to render it distinctly intelligible, nor is it different at Rome, at Athens now, and in the ages before and after, but in all ages and in all nations, it is and has been, and will be one and everlasting,-one as that God, its great author and promulgator, who is the common Sovereign of all mankind, is himself one. Man is truly man, as he yields to this divine influence. He cannot resist it, but by flying as it were from his own bosom, and laying aside the general feelings of humanity-by w'hich very act he must already have inflicted on himself the severest of punishments, even though he were to avoid whatever is usually accounted punishment. " Est quidem vera lex, recta ratio, naturae congruens,-diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna ; quae vocet ad officium jubendo, vetando a fraude deterreat; quae tamen neque probos frustra jubet aut vetat, nec improbos jubendo aut vetando movet. Huiclegi, nec abrogari fas est, neque derogari ex hac aliquidlicet, neque tota abrogari potest. Nec vero, aut per senatum aut per populum, solvi hac lege possumus. Neque est querendus explanator aut interpres ejus alius. Nec erit Romae alia Athenis,-alia nunc, alia posthac ; sed et omnes gentes, et omni tempore, una lex et sempiterna, et immortalis continebit; unusque erit communis quasi magister, et Imperator omnium, Deus,-Ille legis hujus inventor, disceptator, lator1; cui qui non parebit, ipse se fugiet, ac naturam hominis aspernabitur; atque hoc ipso luet maximas poenas, etiam si caetera supplicia quae putantur effugerit." 1 have already, in a former Lecture, alluded to the strength of the evi- * Lucani Pharsalia, Lib. ix. v. 562-567, and 560-577. 252 THE PRIMARY DISTINCTIONS OF MORALITY dence, which is borne by the guilty to the truth of those distinctions which they hatfe dared to disregard. If there be any one who has an interest in gathering every argument which even sophistry can suggest, to prove that virtue is nothing, and vice therefore nothing, and who will strive to yield him- self readily to this consolatory persuasion, it is surely the criminal who trem- bles beneath a weight of memory which he cannot shake off. Yet even he who feels the power of virtue omy in the torture which it inflicts, does still feel this power, and feels it with at least as strong conviction of its reality, as those to whom it is every moment disusing pleasure, and who might be con- sidered perhaps as not very rigid questioners of an illusion which they felt to be delightful. The spectra1 forms of superstition have, indeed, vanished; but there is one spectre which will continue to haunt the mind, as long as the mind itself is capable of guilt,"and1 has exerted this dreadful capacity,-the spectre of a 'guilty life, which does not haunt only the darkness of a few hours of night, but comes in fearful visitations, whenever the mind has no othbr ob- ject before it that can engage every thought, in the most splendid scenes, and in the brightest hours of day. What enchanter is there who can come to the relief of a sufferer of this class, and put the terrifying spectre to flight ? We may say to the murderer, that in poisoning his friend, to succeed a little sooner to the estate, which he knew that his friendship had bequeathed to him, he had done a deed as, meritorious in itself, as if he had saved the life of his friend at the risk of his own; and that all for which there was any reason to upbraid himself was. that he had suffered his benefactor to remain so many years in the possession of means of enjoyment, which a few grains of opium or arsenic might have transferred sooner to him. We may strive to make him laugh at the absurdity of the scene, when, on the very bed of death, that hand which had often pressed his with kindness before, seemed to press again with delight the very band which had mixed and presented the potion. But, though we may smile-if We can smile-at such a scene as this, and point out the incongruity with as much ingenious pleasantry as if we were describing some ludicrous mistake, there will be no laughter on that face from which we strive to force a smile. He who felt the grasp of that hand will feel it still, and will shudder at our description ; and shudder still more at the tone of jocular merriment with which we describe what is to him so dreadful. ' • '• What, then, is that theory of the moral indifference of actions, which is evi- dently so powerless,-of which even he, who professes to regard it as sound philosophy, feels the importance as much as other men,-when he loves the virtuous, and hates the guilty,-when he looks back with pleasure on some generous action, or with shame and horror on actions of a different kind, which his own sound philosophy would teach him to be, in every thing that relates to jjis own internal feelings, exclusively of the errors and prejudices of education, equal and indifferent ? It is vain to say, as if to weaken the force of this argument, that the same self-approving complacency, and the same remorse, are felt for actions, which are absolutely insignificant in themselves, -for regular observance or neglect of the most frivolous rites of superstition. There can be no question that self-complacency and remorse are felt in such cases. But it surely requires little philosophy to perceive, that, though a mere ceremony of devotion may be truly insignificant in itself, it is far from insignificant when considered as the command of Him, to whose goodness we owe every thing which we value as great,-and to disobey whose com- mand, therefore, whatever the command may be, never can be a slight of- fence. To consider the ceremonial rite alone, without regard to Him who is believed to have enjoined it, is an error as gross, as it would be to read the statutes of some great people, and paying no attention to the legislative pow- er which enacted them, we laugh, perhaps, at the folly of those who thought it necessary to conform their conduct to a law, which was nothing but a se- ries of alphabetic characters on a scrap of paper or parchment, that in a sin- gle moment could be torn to pieces or burnt. Why do we smile on reading, in the list of the works of the hero of a ce- lebrated philosophic romance, that one of these was " a complete digest of the law of nature, with a review of thos£ 'laws' that are obsolete or repealed, and of those that are ready to be renewed, and put in force?" We feel that the laws of nature are laws which no lapse of ages can render obsolete, be- cause they are every moment operating in every heart; and which, for the same reason, never can be repealed, till man shall have ceased to be man. After these remarks on the general theory of the original moral indiffer- ence of actions, which considers all morality as adventitious without any original tendencies in the mind, that could of themselves lead it to approve or. disapprove, it may be necessary still to take some notice of that peculiar mo- dification of the theory, which denies all original obligation of justice, but as- serts the authority of political enactment,-not as attaching merely rewards to certain actions, and punishments to certain other actions, but as producing the very notions of just and unjust, with all the kindred notions involved in them, and consequently a right, which it would be immorality, as well as imprudence, to attempt to violate. Of this doctrine, which is to be traced in some writers of antiquity, but which is better known as the doctrine of Hobbes, who stated it with all the force which his acuteness could give it,-a doctrine to which he was led in some measure perhaps by a horror of the civil dissensions of the period in which he wrote, and by a wish to lessen the inquisitorial and domineering in- fluence of the priesthood of that fanatical age, by rendering even religion itself subject to the decision of the civil power;-the confutation is surely sufficiently obvious. A law, if there be no moral obligation, independent of the law, and prior to it, is only the expression of the desire of a multitude, who have power to punish, that is to say, to inflict evil of some kind on those who resist them,-it may be imprudent, therefore, to resist them ; that is to say, imprudent to run the risk of that precise quantity of physical suffering which is threatened; but it can be nothing more. If there be no essential morality that is independent of law, an action does not acquire any new qua- lities by being the desire of one thousand persons rather than of one. There may be more danger, indeed, in disobeying one thousand than in disobeying one, but not more guilt. To use Dr. Cudworth's argument, it must either be right to obey the law, and wrong to disobey it, or indifferent whether we obey it or not. If it be morally indifferent whether we obey it or not, the law which may or may not be obeyed, with equal virtue, cannot be a source of vir- tue ; and if it be right to obey it, the very supposition that it is right to obey it, mplies a notion of right and wrong that is antecedent to the law, and gives it its moral efficacy. But, without reasoning so abstractly, are there, indeed, no differences of feeling in the breast of him who has violated a law, the es- sential equity of which he feels, and of him whom the accumulated and ever- increasing wrongs of a whole nation have driven to resist a force, which, NEVER EFFACED FROM THE HUMAN HEART. 253 THE DISTINCTIONS OF MORALITY 254 however long it may have been established, he feels to be usurpation and ini- quity ;-who, with the hope of giving freedom to millions, has lifted against a tyrant, though armed with all the legal terrors, and therefore with all the morality and virtue of despotism, that sword, around which other swords are soon to gather in hands as firm, and which, in the arm of him who lifts it, is almost like the standard of liberty herself? Why does the slave, who is led to the field, in which he is to combat for his chains against those who would re- lease him and avenge his wrongs, feel himself disgraced by obedience, when to obey implicitly whatever the power may be which he obeys, is the very perfection of heroic virtue ? and when he looks on the glorious rebel, as he comes forward with his fearless band, why is it that he looks not with indig- nation, but with an awful respect; and that he feels his arm weaker in the fight, by the comparison of what he morally is, and of what those are whom he servilely opposes ? " A sovereign," it has been truly said, " may enact and rescind laws ; but he cannot create or annihilate a single virtue." It might be amusing to con- sider, not one sovereign only, but all the sovereigns of the different nations of the earth, endeavouring by law to change a virtue into a vice,-a vice into a virtue. If an imperial enactment of a senate of kings were to declare, that it was in future to be a crime for a mother to love her child,-for a child to ve- nerate his parent,-if high privileges were to be attached to the most un- grateful, and an act of gratitude to a benefactor declared to be a capital offence,-would the heart of man obey this impotent legislation ? Would re- morse and self-approbation vary with the command of man, or of any num- ber of men ? and would he, who, notwithstanding these laws, had obstinately persisted in the illegality of loving his parent, or his benefactor, tremble to meet his own conscience with the horror which the parricide feels? There is, indeed, a power by which " princes decree justice but it is a power above the mere voice of kings,-a power, which has previously fixed in the breasts of those who receive the decree, a love of the very virtue which kings, even when kings are most virtuous, can only enforce. And it is well for man, that the feeble authorities of this earth cannot change the sentiments of our hearts with the same facility, as they can throw fetters on our hands. There would then, indeed, be no hope to the oppressed. The greater the oppression, the stronger motive would there be to make obedience to oppression a virtue, and every species of guilt which the powerful might love to exercise, amiable in the eyes even of the miserable victims. All virtue, in such circumstances, would soon perish from the earth. A single tyrant would be sufficient to de- stroy what all the tyrants, that have ever disgraced this moral scene, have been incapable of extinguishing,-the remorse which was felt in the bo- som of him who could order every thing but vice and virtue,-and the scorn, and the sorrow, and the wrath of every noble heart, in the very con- templation of his guilty power. Nature has not thrown us upon the world with such feeble principles as these. She has given us virtues of which no power can deprive us, and has fixed in the soul of Him whom more than fifty nations obey, a restraint on his power, from which the servile obedience of all the nations of the globe could not absolve him. There may be flatterers to surround a tyrant's throne, with knees ever ready to bow on the very blood with which its steps are stained, and with voices ever ready to applaud the guilt that has been already perpetrated, and to praise, even with a sort of prophetic quickness of discernment, the cruelties in prospect which they only anticipate. There may be servile warriors, to whom it is indifferent whether they succour or oppress, whether they enslave or free, if they have only drowned in blood, with sufficient promptness, the thousands of human beings whom they have been commanded to sweep from the earth. There may be statesmen as. servile, to whom the people are nothing, and to whom every thing is dear, but liberty and virtue. These eager emulators of each other's baseness, may sound for ever in the ears of him on whose vices their own power de- pends, that what he has willed must be right, because he has willed it-and priests still more base, from the very dignity of that station which they dis- honour, not content with proclaiming that crimes are right, may add their consecrating voice and proclaim that they are holy, because they are the deeds of a vicegerent of that Holiness, which is supreme. But the flatte- ries, which only sound in the ear, or play, perhaps, with feeble comfort around the surface of the heart, are unable to reach that deeper-seated sense of guilt, which is within. In subjecting, for the evident good of all, whole multitudes to the sway of a few, or of one, Nature then, as we have seen, has thrown over them a shelter, which power may indeed violate, but which it cannot violate with impunity; since even when it is free from every other punishment, it is forced, however reluctantly, to become the punisher of itself. This shelter, under which alone human weakness is safe, and which does not give protection only but happiness, is the shelter of virtue, the shelter of moral love and hate, of moral pity and indignation, of moral joy and remorse. Life, indeed, and many of the enjoyments which render social life delightful, may at least, on a great part of the surface of the. earth, be at the mercy of a power that may seem to attack or forbear with no restraint but the caprice of its own will. Yet, before even these can be assailed, there is a voice which warns to desist, and a still more awful voice of condemnation, when the warning has been disregarded. For our best enjoyments,-our remembrances of virtue, and our wishes of virtue-we are not dependent on the mercy, nor even on the restraints of power. Nature has provided for them with all her care, by placing them where no force can reach. In freedom or under tyran- ny they alike are safe from aggression ;-because, wherever the arm can find its way, there is still conscience beyond. The blow which reaches the heart itself, cannot tear from the heart what, in life, has been happiness or con- solation, and what, in death, is a happiness that needs not to be comforted. Our own felicity is then, truly, in no slight degree, as Goldsmith says, consigned to ourselves, amidst all the varieties of social institutions INDEPENDENT OF POLITICAL ENACTMENT. 255 " In every government, though terrors reign, Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain, How small, of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws 6r kings can cause or cure Still to ourselves, in every place, consign'd, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy. The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel, Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel To men remote from power but rarely known, Leave reason, faith, and conscience all our own.''* * Concluding verses of the Traveller. ON THE SYSTEM OF MANDEVILLE. 256 " So far," says Cicero, "is virtue from depending on the enactmentof kings, that it is as ancient as the system of nature itself, or as the great Being by whom nature was formed."-" Vis ad recte facta vocandi et a peccatis avo- candi, non modo senior est, quam astas popiilorum et civitatum, sed aequalis illius coelum atque terras tuentis et regentis Dei-Nec si, regnante Tarquinio, nulla erat Rom re scripta Jex de stupris, idcirco non contra illam legem sem- piternam, sextus Tarquinius vim Lucretiae attulit. Erat enim ratio profecta a rerum natura, et ad recte faciendum impellens et a delicto avocans, que non turn denique incipit lex esse cum scripta est, sed turn cum orta est; orta autem simul est cum mente divina."* The law, on which right and wrong depend, did not begin to be law when it was written : it is older than the ages of nations and cities, and contemporary with the very eternity of God. * '• • - - . . • LECTURE LXXVI. ON THE SYSTEM OF MANDEVILLE ; ON THE INFLUENCE OF REASON ON OUR MORAL SENTIMENTS ; ON THE SYSTEMS OF CLARKE AND WAL- LASTON. Gentlemen, In the inquiries, which have last engaged us, we have seen, what that susceptibility of moral emotion is, to which we owe our notions of virtue and vice, in all their relative variety of aspects,-we have seen, in what sense it is to be understood as an original principle of our common nature, and what limitations it is necessary to give to its absolute universality. There is a sophistry, however, the errors of which it was ne- cessary to state to you, that confounds, in these limitations, the primary distinctions themselves; and supposes that it has shown the whole system of morals to be founded on accidental prejudices, when, in opposition to the millions of millions of cases, that obviously confirm the truth of an original tendency to certain moral preferences, it has been able to exhibit a few facts which it professes to regard as anomalous. The fallacy of this objection, I endeavoured accordingly to prove to you, by showing, that the supposed anomalies arise, not from defect of original moral tendencies, but from the operation of other principles which are essential parts of our mental consti- stution, like our susceptibility of moral emotion;-which are not, however, more essential parts of it than that moral susceptibility itself,-and which, even in modifying our sentiments of approbation and disapprobation produce this effect, not by altering the principle which approves and disapproves, but the object which we contemplate when these emotions arise. In the con- clusion of my lecture, I examined the kindred sophistry of those political moralists, who, considering right and wrong as of human institution, in their denial of every primary distinction of morals, found a sort of artificial virtue * De Legibus, lib. II. c. 4. of Gruter's Notation-or c. 8,9, 10, of the common Notation- with some alterations and omissions. on obedience to the civil power; forgetting that their very assertion of the duty of obedience, supposes a feeling of duty antecedent to the law itself, and that there are principles of equity, according to which even positive laws are judged, and, though approved in many cases, in many cases also con- demned, by the moral voice within the breast, as inconsistent with that feel- ing of justice which is prior and paramount to the law itself. In some measure akin to the theory of these political moralists, since it ascribes morality, in like manner, to human contrivance, is the system of Mandeville,-who considers the general praise of virtue to be a mere arti- fice of political skill; and what the world consents to praise as virtue in the in- dividual, to be a mere imposition on the part of the virtuous man. Human life, in short, according to him, is a constant intercourse of hypocrisy with hypo- crisy ; in which, by an involuntary self-denial, present enjoyment of some kind or other is sacrificed for the pleasure of that praise which society, as cunning as the individual self-denier, is ready indeed to give, but gives only in return for sacrifices that are made to its advantage. His system, to describe it a little more fully, as stated in the inquiry into the origin of moral virtue, pre- fixed to his remarks on his own Fable of the Bees, is simply this,-that man, like all other animals, is naturally solicitous only of his personal gratification, without regard to the happiness or misery of others,-that the great point, with the original lawgivers or tamers of these human animals, was to obtain from them the sacrifice of individual gratification, for the greater happiness of others,-that this sacrifice, however, could not be expected from crea- tures that cared only for themselves, unless a full equivalent were offered for the enjoyment sacrificed,-that as this, at least in the greater number of cases, could not be. found in objects of sensual gratification, or in the means of obtaining sensual gratification which are given in exchange in common purchases, it was necessary to have recourse to some other appetite of man, -that the natural appetite of man for praise readily presented itself, for this useful end, and that, by flattering him into the belief that he would be count- ed nobler for the sacrifices which he might make, he was led, accordingly, to purchase this praise by a fair barter of that, which, though he valued it much, and would not have parted with it but for some equivalent or greater gain, he still valued less than the praise which he was to acquire,-that the moral virtues, therefore, to use his strong expression, are " the political off- spring which flattery begot upon pride,"-and that, when we think that we see virtue, we see only the indulgence of some frailty, or the expectation of some praise.* Such is the very licentious system, as to moral virtue, of this satirist of man; whose doctrine, false as it is, as a general view of human nature, has, in the world, so many instances which seem to correspond with it, that a su- perficial observer, who is little accustomed to make distinctions, extends readily to all mankind, what is true only of a part, and because some who wish to appear virtuous are hypocrites, conceives, that all virtue is hypocrisy, -in the same way, as such a superficial thinker would have admitted any other error, stated in language as strong, and with images and pictures as vivid. It would be idle to repeat, in particular application to this system, the general remarks which I made in my former Lectures, on the early appear- ON THE SYSTEM OF MANDEVILLE. 257 * Fable of the Bees, Vol. I. p. 28-30, 8vo. Lond. 1728. Vol. II. 258 ances of moral emotion, as marking an original distinction of actions, that excite in us moral approbation, from those which do not excite it. and which excite the opposite feeling of moral disapprobation. I shall not even appeal to the conscience of him, who has had the happiness of performing a gene- rous action, without the slightest regard to the praise of man, which was per- haps not an object even of conception at all, and certainly not till the action itself was performed. But we may surely ask, in this case, as much as in any other physical hypothesis, by what authority so extensive a generaliza- tion is made from so small a number of particular cases? If, indeed, we previously take for granted that all virtu? is hypocrisy, every case of virtue, which wre perceive, seeming to us a case of hypocrisy, may be regarded only as an illustration of the doctrine, to the universal truth of which we have al- ready given our assent. But if we consent to form our general conclusion before examination, and then to adapt our particular conclusions to the pre- vious general belief, this sort of authority may be found, for the wildest hy- pothesis in physics, as much as for that moral hypothesis, the licentiousness of which is founded on the same false logic. We have only to take the hypothesis, however wild, for granted ;-and then the facts will be, or will be considered to be, illustrative of it. The question is not, whether on the supposition of uni- versal hypocrisy, all seeming virtue be imposition, for, in that case there could be no doubt; but, whether all virtue be hypocrisy; and for this, it is surely ne- cessary to have some stronger proof, than the mere fact that some men are hypocrites; or even the very probable inference, that there is a great deal of hypocrisy, (as there is a great deal of virtuous benevolence or self-com- mand,) which we are not capable of discovering, and to which, accordingly, we may erroneously have given the praise of virtue. The love of praise may be an universal principle ; but it is not more truly universal than the feeling of right and wrong, in some one or other of their forms,-and of two feelings, equally universal, it is as absurd to deny the reality of one, as the reality of the other. All actions have not one object. Some are the result of a selfish love of praise ; some of a generous love of virtue, that is to say, of love of those whose happiness virtue can promote. The secret motives of mankind, indeed, in this variety of possible objects, cannot be known, and the paradox of Dr. Mandeville, therefore, has this advantage, that it is impossible to say, in any case of virtue, " Here is virtue that has no regard to praise," since he has still the power of answering, that there may be a desire of praise, though it is not visible to us. But, to reasoning of this sort there is no limit. If we be fond of paradoxes, it is easy to assert that there is no such state as that of health,-and to prove it in exactly the same manner, by showing, that many who seem blooming and vigorous are the victims of some inward malady ; and that it is, therefore, impossible for us, in pointing out any one, to say, there is health in this young and active form ; since the bloom which we admire may be only the covering of a disease that is soon to prey on the very beauty which it seemed, perhaps for the time, to heighten with additional loveliness. If it be easy to make a little system like that of Mandeville, which reduces all virtue to the love of praise, it is just as easy to reverse the system, and to make all love of praise a modification of the purest virtue. We love it, it may be said, merely that we may give delight to those who love us, and who feel a lively interest in all the honours which can be lavished on us. This theory may be false,-or rather truly is so; hut however false or even absurd, it is as philosophic in every respect as the ON THE SYSTEM OF MANDEVILLE. ON THE SYSTEM OF MANDEVILLE. opposite theory of Mandeville, since it proceeds, exactly in the same way, on the exclusive consideration of a certain elementary part of our mixed nature, and extends universally what is only partially true. Indeed, the facts which support it,-if every one were to consult his memory, in the earliest years to which he can look back on his original feelings, are stronger, in sup- port of this false generous hypothesis, than of that false ungenerous hypothe- sis, to which 1 have opposed it. What delight did the child feel, in all his little triumphs, when he thought of the pleasure' which his parents were to feel ? When his lesson was well learned, and rewarded with its due com- mendation, there were other ears than those around, which he would have wished to have heard; and if any little prize was allotted as a memorial of excellence, the pleasure which he felt on receiving it was slight, compar- ed with the pleasure, with which he afterwards saw it in other hands, and looked to other eyes, when he returned to his home. Such, it might be said, is the origin of that love of praise which we feel; and its growth, in the progress of life, when praise is sought in greater objects, is only the growth of the same generous passion. But I will not dwell longer on an hypothe- sis which I have stated as false, and obviously false-, though, obviously false as it is, it is at least as well founded as that of Mandeville. My only object is to show you, by this complete reversal of his reasoning, with equal sem- blance of probability, that his hypothesis is but an hypothesis. But how comes it in this system, which must account for our own emotions, as well as for the emotions of others, that we do approve of certain actions, as virtuous, without valuing them for the mere love of praise ; and condemn even the love of praise itself, when the good of the world is intentionally sa- crificed to it ? I will admit, for a moment, to Mandeville, that we are all hypocrites-that we know the game of human life, and play our parts in it accordingly. In such circumstances, we may indeed assume the appearance of virtue ourselves, but how is it, that we feel approbation of others assuming the same disguise, when we are aware of its nature, and know virtue in all the actions which go under that well sounding name, to be only a more or less skilful attempt at imposition ? The mob, in the gallery, may indeed, wonder at all the transmutations in the pantomime ; and the silliest among them may believe that Harlequin has turned the down into a fruit-stand, and himself into a fruit-woman : but however wide the wonder, or the belief may be, he who invented these very changes, or is merely one of the subordinate shifters of the scenery, cannot surely be a partaker of the illusion. What juggler ever deceived his own eyes ? Katerfelto, indeed, is described by Cowper, as, " with his hair on end, at his own wonders wondering." But Katerfelto him- self, who " wondered for his bread," could not feel much astonishment, even when he was fairly giving the greatest astonishment to others. It must be the same with the moral juggler. He knows the cheat; and he cannot feel admiration. If he can truly feel esteem, he feels that love of virtue, and con- sequently that distinction of actions, as virtuous or worthy of moral approba- tion, which Mandeville denies. He may be a dupe, indeed, in the particu- lar case, but he cannot even be a dupe, without believing, that virtue is some- thing nobler than a fraud ; and if he believe virtue to be more noble, he must have feelings nobler than any which the system of Mandeville allows. In be lieving that it is possible for man not to be a hypocrite, he may be considered almost as proving, that he has not, uniformly, been a hypocrite himself. Even if the belief of a system of this sort, which, as we have seen, has no 259 260 force but that which it derives from the very common paralogism, of assert- ing the universal truth of a partial conclusion-even if this miserable belief were to have no tendency directly injurious to the morals of those who ad- mit it, the mere loss of happiness which it would occasion, by the constant feeling of distrust to which it must give rise, would of itself be no slight evil. To regard even every stranger, on whom our eyes could fall, as engaged in one unremitting plan of deceit,-all deceiving, and all to a certain de- gree deceived, would be to look on society with feelings that would make absolute solitude comparatively pleasing; and, if to regard strangers in this light would be so dreadful, how far more dreadful would it be, to look, with the-same distrust, on those in whom we had been accustomed to confide as friends-to see dissimulation in every eye,-in the look of fondness of the parent, the wife, the child, the very caress and seeming innocence of infancy -and to think, that, the softer every tone of affection was to our ear, the more profound was the falsehood, which had made it softer, only that it might the more surely deceive ! It is gratifying to find, that a system, which would make this dreadful transformation of the whole moral world, is but an hypothesis ; and an hypothesis so unwarrantable, because so inconsistent with every feeling of our heart. Yet it is unfortunately a paradox, which admits of much satirical picturing ; and, while few pause sufficiently to discover its logical imperfections, it is very possible that some minds may be seduced by the mere lively colouring of the pictures to suppose, in spite of all the better feelings of which they are conscious, that the representation which is given of human life is true, because a few characters in human life are truly drawn. A rash assent may be given to the seeming penetration which such a view of the supposed artifices of morality involves ; and after assent is once rashly given, the very generosity that might have appeared to confute the system, will be regarded only as an exemplification of it. 1 feel it the more my duty therefore,- to warn you against the adoption of a system, so false to the ex- cellence of our moral nature-not because it is false only-though, even from the grossness of its theoretic falsehood alone, it is unworthy of a single moment's philosophic assent; but still more because the adoption of it must poison the virtue, and the happiness still more than the virtue, of every mind which admits it. There is scarcely any action for which it is not possible to invent some unworthy motive. If our system requires the invention of one, the invention, we may be sure, will very speedily take place ; and with the loss of that amiable confidence of virtue, which believed and was believed, how much of happiness, too, will be lost; or rather, how little happmesa will afterwards remain ! A slight extension of the system of Mandeville, produces that general self- ish system of morals, which reduces all virtue to the desire of the individual good of the agent. On this it will be necessary to dwell a little fully, not so much for the purpose of exposing the fallacy of the system it-elf,- important as this exposure is, as for explaining that relation of utility to virtue, of which we so frequently hear, without any very accurate meaning at'achpd to the relation. In the first place, however, since actions can be estimated as more or less usefid, only by that faculty which analyzes and compares, it will be oi advan- tage to make some remarks on the influence of reason on our mor*i senti- ments,-and on those theories which, proceeding beyond this indisputable in- fluence, would reduce to mere reason, as if it were the great principle of OF THE SYSTEM OF MANDEVILLE. ON OUR MORAL SENTIMENTS. 261 virtue itself, the whole moral phenomena of our approbation of good and dis- approbation of evil. If all the actions of which man is capable, had terminated in one simple result of good or evil, without any mixture of both, or any further consequen- ces, reason, I conceive, would have been of no advantage whatever, in deter- mining moral sentiments, that must, in that case, have arisen immediately on the consideration of the simple effect, and of the will of producing that simple effect. Of the intentional production of good, as good/we should have ap- proved instantly-of the intentional production of evil, as evil, we should as instantly have disapproved ;-and reason could not, in such circumstances, have taught us to love the one more, or hate 1 he other less ;-certainly not to love what we should otherwise have hated, nor to hate what we should other- wise have loved. But actions have not one simple result in most cases. In producing enjoyment to some, they may produce misery to others,-eitlier by consequences that are less or more remote, or by their own immediate but compound operation. It is impossible, therefore, to discover instantly, or certainly,'in any particular case, the intention of the agent from the appa- rent result; and impossible for ourselves to know, instantly, when we wish to perform a particular action, for a particular end, whether it may not produce more evil than good,-when the good was our only object,-or more good than evil, when our object was the evil only. Reason, therefore,-that pow- er by which we discover the various relations of things, comes to our aid, and pointing out to us all the probable physical consequences of actions, shows us the good of what we might have conceived to be evil, the evil of what we might have conceived to be good, weighing each with each, and calculating the preponderance of either. It thus influences >our moral feelings indirectly, -but it influences them only by presenting to us new objects, to be admired or hated, and still addresses itself to a principle which admires or hates. Like a telescope, or microscope, it shows us what was too distant, or too minute, to come within the sphere of our simple vision ; but it does not alter the nature of vision itself. The best telescope, or the best microscope, could give no aid to the blind. They imply the previous power of visual discernment, or they are absolutely useless. Reason, in like manner, supposes in us a discriminating- vision of another kind. By pointing out to us innumerable advantages or disad- vantages, that flow from an action, it may heighten or reduce our approbation of the action, and consequently, our estimate of the virtue of him whom we sup- pose to have had this whole amount of good or evil in view, in his intentional production of it; but it does this only because we are capable of feeling moral regard for the intentional producer of happiness to others, indepen- dently of any analyses which reason may make. If we did not love what is for the good of mankind, and love, consequently, those actions which tend to the good of mankind, it would be vain for reason to show, that an action was likely to produce good, of which we were not aware, or evil, of which we were not aware. It is very different, however, when wre consider theTmind, as previously susceptible of moral emotion. If our emotion of approbation, when we meditate on the propriety of a particular action, depend, in any de- gree, on our belief of resulting good, and our disapprobation, in any degree on our belief of resulting evil; to show that the good of which we think is slight, when compared with the evil which accompanies or follows it, is, per- haps, to change wholly our approbation into disapprobation. We should feel m such circumstances, a disapprobation of ourselves, if, with the clearer view ON THE SYSTEMS OF 262 of consequences now presented to us, we were to continue to desire to per- form the very action, to have abstained from which before, would have excited our remorse. The utility of reason, then, is sufficiently obvious, even in mora- lity; since, in a world so complicated as this, in which various interests are continually mingling, and in which the good of one may be the evil of many ; a mere blind obedience to that voice, which would tell us instantly, and with- out reflection in every case, to seek the good of any one, as soon as it was in our power to be instrumental to it, might produce the misery of many nations, or of many ages, in the relief of a few temporary wants of a few individuals. By far the greater portion of political evil, which nations suffer, arises, indeed, from this very source,-not so much from the tyranny of power, however tyrannical power may too frequently.have been,-as from its erring benevo- lence, in the far greater number of cases, in which it was exercised with the wish of promoting that very good which was delayed, or, perhaps, wholly im- peded, by the very means that were chosen to further it. If those rulers, who were truly desirous of the happiness of their people, had only known how they could most effectually produce that happiness which they wished, there can be no question, that the earth at present would have exhibited appear- ances very different from those which, on the greater part of its surface, meet our melancholy view; that it would then have presented to us an aspect of general freedom and happiness, which not man only, but the great father and lover of man might have delighted to behold. Reason, then, though it is incapable of giving birth to the action of moral excellence, h*s yet impor- tant relations to that good which is the direct object of morJity. Let none, with heedless tongue from truth disjoin The reign of virtue ! Ere the day-spring flowed Like sisters link'd in concord's golden chain, They stood before the great Eternal Mind, Their common parent: and by him were both Sent forth among his creatures, hand in hand, Inseparably joined ; nor e'er did Truth Find an apt ear tp listen to her lore, Which knew not Virtue's voice': nor, save where Truth's Majestic words are heard and understood, Doth Virtue deign to inhabit. Go, inquire Of nature-not among Tartarian rocks, Whither the hungry vulture with its prey Returns ;-not where the lion's sullen roar At noon resounds along the lonely banks Of ancient Tigris ;-but her gentler scenes, The dovecot, and the shepherd's fold at morn, Consult;-or by the meadow's fragrant hedge In spring time, when the woodlands first are greea, Attend the linnet singing to his mate, Couch'd o'er their tender young. To this fond care Thou dost not Virtue's honourable name Attribute wherefore, save that not one gleam Of truth did e'er discover to themselves Their little hearts, or teach them, by the effects Of that parental love, the love itself To judge, and measure its officious deeds? But man, whose eyelids truth has fill'd with day, Discerns, how skilfully to bounteous ends His own affections move,-with free accord Adopts their guidance ; yields himself secure To Nature's proudest impulse ; and converts Instinct to duty and to sacred love.* * Pleasures of Imagination, B. JL CLARKE AND WOLLASTON. 263 Important, however, as reason is, in pointing out all the possible physical consequences of actions, and all the different degrees of probability of these, it must not be forgotten, that this is all which it truly does,-that our moral sentiment itself depends on another principle of our mind-and that, if we had not previously been capable of loving the good of others as good, and of hating the production of evil as evil, to show us that the happiness of every created being depended on our choice, would have excited in us as little ea- gerness to do what was to be so extensively beneficial, as if we had conceiv- ed, that only a single individual was to profit by it, or no individual whatever. These remarks will show you the inadequacy of the moral systems, which make virtue, in our contemplation of it, a sort of product of reasoning, like any other abstract relation, which we are capable of discovering intellectual- ly ;-that of Clarke, for example, which supposes it to consist in the regulation of our conduct, according to certain fitnesses which we perceive in things, or a peculiar congruity of certain relations to each other; and that of Wollas- ton, which supposes virtue to consist in acting according to the truth of things in treating objects according to their real character, and not according to a character or properties which they truly have not-a system which is virtu- ally the same as that of Clarke, expressing only more awkwardly what is not very simply developed, indeed, even in Dr. Clarke's speculations. These systems, independent, of their general defect, in making incongruity,-which, as mere incongruity, bears no proportion to vice, but is often greatest in the most frivolous improprieties,-the measure of vice, assume, it must be re- membered, the previous existence of feelings, for which all the congruities of which they speak, and the mere power of discovering such congruities, are insufficient to account. There must be a principle of moral regard, indepen- dent of reason, or reason may, in vain, see a thousand fitnesses, and a thousand truths; and would be warmed with the same lively emotions of indignation, against an inaccurate time-piece, or an error in arithmetical calculation, as against the wretch who robbed, by every fraud which could elude the law, those who had already little of which they could be deprived, that he might riot a little more luxuriously, while the helpless, whom he had plundered, were starving around him. Fitness, as understood by every one, is obviously a word expressive only of relation. It indicates skill indeed, in the artist, whatever the end may be, but, considered abstractly from the nature of the end, it is indicative of skill only. It is to the good or evil of the end. that we look, and that we must always look, in estimating the good or evil of the fitness itself; and ifit be the nattire of the end which givt's value to the fitness, it is not the fitness, but the end to which the fitness is subservient, that must be the true object of moral regard. The fitness of virtue for producing serene delight is not, as mere fitness, greater than that of vice for producing disquietude and wretchedness; and we act, therefore, as much according to the mere fitness of things, in be- ing vicious as being virtuous. If the world had been adapted for the produc- tion of misery, with fitnesses opposite, indeed, in kind, but exactly equal in numoer and nicety of adjustment to those which are at present so beautifully employed in the production of happiness,-we should still have framed our views and our actions according to these fitnesses; but our moral view of the universe and o'f its Author would have been absolutely reversed. We should have seen the fitnesses of things precisely as before, but we should have seen them with hatred instead of love. 264 Since every human action, then, in producing any effect whatever, must be in conformity with the fitnesses of things, the limitation of virtue to actions which are in conformity with these fitnesses, has no meaning, unless we have previously distinguished the ends which are morally good, from the ends which are morally evil, and limited the conformity of winch we speak, to the one of these classes. In this case, however, the theory of fitnesses, it is evi- dent, far from accounting for the origin of moral distinctions, proceeds on the admission of them ; it presupposes a distinctive love of certain virtuous ends, by their relation to which all the fitnesses of actions are measured ; and the sys- tem of Dr. Clarke, therefore, if stripped of its pompous phraseology, and translated into common language, is nothing more than the very simple tru- ism or tautology, that to act virtuously is to act in conformity with virtue. From this doctrine of conformity to the fitness of things, the theory of Wollaston, in which virtue is represented to consist in the conformity of our actions to the true nature of things, scarcely differs, as 1 have said, in any respect, unless as being a little more circuitous and complicated. The truth, of which Wollaston speaks, is only virtue under another name ; and if we had no previous notions of moral good and evil,-no love of the happiness of others more than of their misery, it would be absolutely impossible to determine whether virtue or vice were truth or falsehood, even in the sense in which he uses these terms. If, indeed, we previously take for granted, that it is the nature,-the true nature of the parent, to be loved by the child, of the child to love the parent, we cannot then, it will be allowed, have any hesitation in admitting, that the child, in performing offices of tenderness to the parent, treats the parent according to his true nature; and that, if he were to treat him unkindly, he would treat him not according to his true nature, but as if he were a foe, to whose true nature such usage would be accordant. In taking for granted this very nature, however,-the agreement or disagree- ment with which, we liave cliosen to denominate truth or falsehood,-is it not evident that we have taken for granted all those duties which are strangely said to depend on the perception of an agreement, that cannot even be conceived by us, till the duties themselves, as constituting the real nature or truth of oyr various relations, in the actions which are said to agree with it, have been pre- viously supposed ? If there were no previous belief of the different moral relations of foes and friends, but all were regarded by us as indifferent, how could any species of conduct which was true with respect to the one, be false with respect to the other? It is false, indeed, to nature, but it is false to nature only, because it is false to that, virtue which, before we thought of truth or falsehood, distinguished, with the clear perception of different moral duties, our benefactor from our insidious enemy. The work of Mr. Wollaston, which with all its pedantry of ostentatious erudition, and the manifest absurdity of its leading principle, has many pro- found reflections and acute remarks, which render it valuable on its own ac- count, appears to me, however, I must confess, more valuable for the light which it indirectly throws on the nature of the prejudioes that pervert our judgment, than for the truths which it contains in itself. If 1 were desirous of convincing any one of the influence of a system in producing, in the mind of its author, a ready acquiescence in errors the most absurd, and in expla- nations far more necessary to be explained than the very difficulties which they professed to remove or illustrate, I know no work which I could put into his hands, better suited for this purpose, than " The Religion of Nature ON THE SYSTEMS OF Delineated." Who, but the author of such a system, could believe for a mo- ment, that parricide is a crime, only for the same reason which would make it a crime for any one, (and if the great principle of the system be just, a crime exactly of the same amount,), to walk across a room on his hands and feet, because he would then be guilty of the practical untruth of using bis hands, not as if they were hands, but as if they were feet,-as, in parricide, he would be guilty of the practical untruth of treating a parent, as if he were not a parent, but a robber or a murderer? Even without considering guilt so atrocious, is common cruelty, in any of its forms, made hateful to us as it should be, or even hateful in the slightest degree of moral disgust, by being represented only as the half ludicrous falsehood of affirming practically, that a man is not a man capable of feejing, but an insensible and is it only for a similar falsehood, in this tacit proposition, which we are supposed by our negligence to affirm, that we should reproach ourselves, if wp had left any one to perish, whom a slight effort on our part would have saved from destruction ? " Should I find a man grievously hurt by some accident,", says Wollaston, " fallen down, alone, and without present help, like to perish,- or see his house on fire, nobody being near, to help or call out;-in this ex- tremity, if I do not give him my assistance immediately, I do not do it at all; -and by this refusing to do it according to my ability, I deny his case to be what it is; human nature to be what it is ; and even those desires and ex- pectations which 1 am conscious to myself I should have under the like mis- fortune, to be what they are."* These strange denials we certainly do not make ; all which we tacitly declare is, on the contrary, a truth, and a truth of the most unquestionable kind. We affirm ourselves to be what we are, indifferent to the miseries of others ; and if to affirm a truth by our actions be all which constitutes virtue, we act as virtuously in this tacit declaration of our insensibility, as if we had flown instantly to the aid of the sufferer, with the most compassionate declaration of our feeling ; or rather, if, with the same indifference at heart, we had stooped our bydy, or stretched out our band to relieve him, our very attempt to give the slightest relief, according to the theory of moral falsehood, would have begn only a crime additional. Reason then, as distinguishing the conformity or unconformity of actions with the fitnesses of things, or the moral truth or falsehood of actions, is not the principle from which we derive our moral sentiments. These very sen- timents, on the contrary, are necessary, before we can feel that moral fitness or jnoral truth, according to which we are said to estimate actions, as right or wrong. All actions, virtuous and vicious, have a tendency or fitness of one soitor other; and every action, which the benevolent and malevolent perform with a view to a certain end, may alike have a fitness for producing that end. There is not an action then, which may not be in conformity with the fitnesses of things; and if the feelings of exclusive approbation and disapprobation that constitute our moral emotions be not presupposed, in spite of the thousand fitnesses, which reason may have shown us, all actions must be morally indifferent. They are not thus indifferent, because the ends to which reason shows certain actions to be most suitable, are ends which we have previously felt to be worthy of our moral choice; and we are virtuous in conforming our actions to these ends, not because our actions have a physical relation to the end, as the wheels and pullies of a machine CLARKE AND WOLLASTON. 265 * Relig. of Nat. Delin. p. 18.4to, Lond. 1738. Vol. II. 266 ON HUME'S SYSTEM. have to the motion which is to result from them; but because the desire of producing this very end has a relation, which has been previously felt, to our moral emotion. The moral truth, in like manner, which reason is said to show us, consists, in the agreement of our actions with a certain frame of mind which nature has previously distinguished to us as virtuous; without which previous distinction, the actions of the most ferocious tyrant, and of the most generous and intrepid patriot,- would be equally true, as alike indi- cative of the real nature of the oppressor of a nation, and of the assertor and guardian of its rights. The fitness and the truth then, in every case, presuppose virtue as an ob- ject of moral sentiment, and do not constitute or evolve it. The moral use of reason, in influencing our approbation and disapproba- tion, is, as 1 before remarked, to point out to us the remote good, which we do not perceive, or the elements of mixed good and evil, which also, but for the analytic power of reason, we should be incapable of distinguishing with accuracy, in the immediate compound result. If the mere discovery of greater utility, however, is sufficient to affect our approbation, utility must, it is evident, have a certain relation to virtue. Utility, it is said, is the mea- sure of virtue. Let us consider what meaning is to be attached to this phrase. • ♦ « • LECTURE LXXVII. ON HUME'S SYSTEM, THAT UTILITY IS THE CONSTITUENT OR MEA- . • . . • SURE OF VIRTUE. Tn my last Lecture, gentlemen, I examined, at as great a length, as a doctrine so false in its principles requires, the system of Dr. Mandeville with respect to virtue,-a system in which the actions that commonly go under that honourable name, are represented as,- in every instance, where any seeming sacrifice is made lo the happiness of another, the result of a calcu- lating vanity, that, in its love of praise, consents to barter, for a suitable equivalent of commendation, the means of enjoyment which it would not give without a due equivalent, but which it values less than the applause that is to be offered in purchase of them. The pretender to generosity, who is a speculator in this species of traffic, is of course a hypocrite by the very quality of the moral ware in which he jobs; and the applauders of the os- tensible generosity, who are as little capable of unpaid admiration, as he of gratuitous bounty, are hypocrites of equal skill, in the supposed universal cheat of social life. All are impostors, or all are dupes;-or rather, all are at once impostors and dupes, dupes easily deceived by impostors whom it is easy to deceive. On a system, of which, I may safely take for granted, that every one of you-has in the delightful remembrances of his-own breast innumerable confutations, I should not have thought it necessary to dw'ell, if there had been less peril in the adoption of it to happiness and virtue. As a philosophic system it is scarcely worthy of discussion. It is an evident ON HUME'S SYSTEM. example of an error that is very common in hypothetical systems,-the error of supposing, notwithstanding the most striking seeming contrarieties, that what is true of a few cases out of many is, therefore, necessarily true of all. Some men are hypocrites, therefore all men are hypocrites :-it is not absolutely impossible, that he whom the world honours as virtuous for a life, which, from youth to old age, has had the uniform semblance of regard for the happiness of others, may have no virtue whatever at heart, therefore, it may be affirmed, with certainty, that he has no virtue whatever; such are the two propositions, which, though not expressed in these precise terms, constitute truly the whole logic of Mandeville. They are the very essence of his system; and unless we admit them as logically just, we must reject his system as logically false. But it is in his rhetoric that he trusts far more than in his defective logic ;-and, if he have given us a few lively picturings of hypocrisy, he flatters himself that we shall not pause to inquire, whether pictures so lively, are representations of a few only, or of all mankind. What should we think of a moral theorist, who, after painting some coarse debauch in the midnight profligacy of the lowest alehouse, or the wider drunkenness and riot of a fair or an election, should seriously exhibit to us those pictures as evidence of an universal conclusion, that all men are drunk- ards? We might admire the verbal painting, indeed, as we admire the pictures of Hogarth; but we should admire as little the soundness of the philosophy, as we should have admired the accuracy of one of Hogarth's pictures, if he had exhibited to us the interior of a brothel, as a represen- tation of domestic life,-a faithful sketch of one of those virtuous and smil- ing groups, that around a virtuous and delighted father at hi§ own parlour fire, seem to enclose him, as it were, within a circle of happiness I It is certainly not more absurd, to argue, that, because some men are drunkards all men are drunkards, than to contend that all men are, in every action of their life, indifferent to the happiness of every other being, because some may be hypocrites in affecting to regard any happiness but their own ; and he who, in adoping this theory, can seriously believe that there is not a single parent, or wife, or child, who has any other view than the selfish one of ac- quiring praise, in any one office, of seeming kindness to those whom they would wish us to regard as dear to them,-may certainly believe with equal reason, and admire as ingenious and just, the wildest absurdity which the wildest propounder of absurdities can offer to his assent and admira- tion. This system, by a little extension to all the sources of selfish enjoyment, and by a little purification of the selfishness, as the enjoyment is rendered less prominently selfish by being more remote and more connected by many direct or indirect ties with the happiness of others, assumes the form of the more general theory of selfish morals, in which the most refined virtue is re- presented only as disguised self-love; though the veil, which is thin in itself so as often to afford no disguise to the passion which glows through it, is sometimes thickened in so many folds, that it is scarcely possible to guess what features of ugliness or beauty are beneath. Before considering, how- ever, this finer system of moral selfishness, which is founded on views of remote personal advantage, and therefore, in a great measure on the skill that detects those elements of distant good, I conceived that we might derive some aid to our inquiry, by considering first the relations which reason, the great analyzer and detector of those elements of distant good, 267 268 bears to morality ; and consequently, as in their fittest place, those systems which would reduce all our moral feelings to intellectual discoveries made by that power, which is supposed, in these systems, to determine the very nature of vice and virtue, in the same way as it extracts roots, measures angles, and determines specific gravities or affinities, or quantities of mo- tion. We consider, then, two celebrated systems of this sort, that found morali- ty on reason ; one which supposes virtue to consist in the accommodation of our actions to the fitnesses of things,-and another which supposes it to consist in actions that are conformable to truth. In both cases 1 showed you, that the systems, far from accounting for our moral feelings, or showing them to be the result of a process of ratiocination, proceed on the suscepti- bility of these feelings, as an essential part of our mental constitution, inde- pendent of every thing that can be resolved into reasoning. If we were not formed to love previously the happiness of others, and to have a moral approbation of the wish of producing happiness, in vain would reason tell us, after tracing a thousand consequences, that an action will be more generally beneficial, than, but for this analytic investigation, we should have supposed. If we were not formed to love certain endsoi moral good rather than certain other ends of moral evil, the mere fitnesses, or means of producing these ends, must be as indifferent to us, as that indifferent good or evil which they tend to produce. If we have formed no previous moral conception of cer- tain duties, as forming that truth of character, to which vice is said to be false, there will be as little falsehood-and, therefore, if vice be only a want of conformity to truth, as little vice-in the most cruel and unrelenting ma- lignity, as in the most generous benevolence. In every case, in which we suppose reason to be thus morally exercised, we must, as I said, presuppose certain feelings of love and approbation, that constitute all which is truly moral in our sentiments of actions;-or the discovery of mere consequen- ces of general good, mere fitnesses, mere truths, will be as powerless to affect us with moral regard, as a new combination of wheels and pullies, or a new solution of a geometric problem. But, though the discovery of certain fitnesses' or congruities, such as those of which Clarke speaks,-or of a certain conformity to truth, such as that of which Wollaston speaks,-or of the beneficial and injurious consequences of certain actions, considered as a mere series of consequences, discovera- ble by the understanding, like any other series of physical effects,-may not be capable of giving birth to moral feeling, without some peculiar and pre- vious susceptibility in the mind of being so affected,-may they not at least indirectly give birth to it, by presenting to this original susceptibility of moral emotion, its peculiar objects? Whatever may be the principle that developes it, does not the approving sentiment arise, on the contemplation of -actions that are in their tendency beneficial to individuals, and thus to society in general, and only on the contemplation of actions that are thus beneficial ? Is not utility, therefore, since it appears to be essential in some greater or less degree, to the whole class of actions that are termed virtuous,-the con- stituent or the measure of virtue itself? The doctrine of the utility of actions, as that which constitutes them vir- tuous, has been delivered, with all the force of which the doctrine seems capable, by the genius of Mr. Hume, who has formed it into an elaborate system of morals. It has ever since entered largely into the vague specula- ON HUME'S SYSTEM. lions on the principles of virtue, in which minds, that are rather fond of theorizing than capable of it, are apt to indulge;-and we seldom hear, in familiar discussion, any allusion to the principle or principles of moral senti- ment, without some loose reference to this relation, which that moral senti- ment is supposed to bear to the utility of the actions approved. That it does bear a certain relation to it is unquestionable,-though a relation which is not always very distinctly conceived by those who are in the frequent habit of speaking of it. It will be the more important, then, to endeavour to separate what is true in the common language on the from the error which frequently accompanies it. Benevolence, as the very name implies, is always a wish of good to others; and every benevolent action, therefore, must be intended to be of advantage to somebody. But if, by the measure of virtue,-when utility is said to be the constituent or measure dof the actions that are denominated virtuous,- be meant that to which the virtue is an exact proportion,-increasing always as the mere physical advantage increases, and decreasing always as the mere physical advantage decreases,-and if it be said, that such actions only are felt to be meritorious, in which the agent is supposed to have willed directly that which appeared to him, at the moment of his willing it most useful, and to have willed it with moral approbation for this reason only, because it ap- peared to him most useful,-utility, in this general sense, is so far from be- ing the measure of virtue, that there is, comparatively, but a very small number of virtuous actions to which the measure can be applied, and very few, indeed, in which the proportion will be found to hold with exactness. That virtuous actions do all tend, in some greater or less degree, to the advantage of the world, is, indeed, a fact, with respect to which there can be no doubt. The important question, however, is, whether the specific amount of utility be that which we have in view, and which alone we have in view, in the approbation which we give to certain actions;-sincb this ap- probation is the direct feeling of virtue itself, without which, as intervening, it will be allowed, that even the most useful action could not be counted by us virtuous ;-whether we love the generosity of our benefactor, with an emotion exactly the same in kind, however different it may be in degree, as that with which we love the bank-bill, or the estate which he may have given us ;- in short, to use Dr. Smith's strong language, whether, " we have no other reason for praising a man, than that for which we commend a chest of drawers." It may be necessary, in this discussion, to remind you once more, that virtue is nothing in itself, any more than our other general terms, which we have invented to express a number of particulars comprehended in them; that what is true of virtue, then, must be true of all the particular actions to which we give that name ; and that all which we have to consider, in the present argument, is, not the vague general term, but some particular action, that is to say some particular agent, in certain circumstances, willing a certain effect; since the feeling which rises in the mind on the contemplation of this particular action, is that which leads us to class it with other actions that may have excited a similar vivid sentiment, and to employ for the whole the com- mon term virtue. The question then is, whether it be necessary to the rise of this vivid sentiment-the moral emotion of approbation or disapproba- tion-that we should have in immediate contemolation, as the sole object of ON HUME'S SYSTEM. 269 270 ON HUME'S SYSTEM. the emotion, the utility or inutility of the action; and whether the emotion it- self be always exactly proportioned by us to the quantity of usefulness which we may have found, by a sort of intellectual calculation or measurement, in the action itself, or in the principle of the action. It is the vivid feeling of moral approbation alone, which leads us to distinguish actions as virtuous or vicious; and the supposed measure or standard of virtue, therefore, must re- late to this.vivid feeling in all its degrees, or it cannot have any relation to the virtue, that, in all its degrees, is marked by that vivid feeling only. If the utility of actions be their moral standard, then, it must be present to the contemplation of the agent himself, when he morally prefers one mode of conduct to another; and to the contemplation of others, when they morally approve or disapprove of his action. In every moral action that can be estimated by us, these two sets of feel- ings may be taken into account; the feelings of the agent when he meditated and willed the action ; and the feelings of the spectator, or of him who calmly contemplates the action at any distance of space or time. Let us consider, then, in the first place, the agent himself. The agent, indeed, may be under the influence of passions, from which the spectator is free, and may thus have his moral discernment less clear, so as to be hurried, perhaps into actions, which, with better moral vision, he would have shunned. But the principle of ap- probation itself is not essentially different in his mind, when the action which he contemplates is one which lie meditates himself, and when he contem- plates the action of another already performed : and if it be not according to any measurement of exact utility that the approbation and consequent moral will or resolution of the most virtuous agent is formed, it must be allowed to be a powerful presumption at least, or more than a mere presumption, that the approbation of the spectator, arising from the same principle, is not the re- sult of such a measurement of the good that is to be added, by that particu- lar action, to the general good of the world, or of the general utility of the principle from which it flows. With respect to the views of the agent, how- ever, there seems to be little ground for dispute. His views, even when he seems to ourselves most commendable, but rarely extend to such general in- terests. The exact scale of utility of an action, in short, or of the principle of the action, is not present to his mind as the standard by which he regu- lates his conduct. Does the mother, when she hangs sleepless, night after night, over the cradle of her sick infant, think, even for a single moment, that it is for the good of the society of mankind, that she should labour to pre- serve that little being which is so dear to her for itself, and the abandonment of which, though no other being in the universe were to be affected by it, would seem to her a crime of scarcely conceivable atrocity ;-and are we to refuse to her patience and tenderness, and watchfulness of regard, the name of virtue, because she has thought only of some little comfort that might pos- sibly flow to the individual ; and has not measured her own personal sacrifi- ces with that gener'al good, to which they should have been exactly adapted, nor estimated the general advantage of maternal love, as a principle of conduct which operates, and is continually to operate, in all the families of mankind ? When we enter some wretched hovel, and see that wretchedness, which is so much more dreadful to the eye of him who beholds it, than to the ear of him who is told in his splendid apartment, that there is misery upon the earth,-and who thinks that in pitying it, with the very idleness of pity, he has felt as a good man should feel; when we look through the darkness, to which there is no sunshine, on some corner, darker still,-where the father of those who have strength only to hang over him and weep, is giving to them his last bless- ing, which is all that remains to him to give ; do we feel, on looking at this mixture of death and sickness, and despair, and want, in dreadful assemblage, -that it would be well for the work! if a little relief were given to miseries so hopeless; or that compassion, as a principle of conduct, is of the highest usefulness, where there are so many sufferers on the earth who may be ob- jects of compassion ? Of the principle of the action in its relation to general utility, we never think. We hasten to do, what it is in our power to do ; and we have already obtained looks -of as much gratitude, as could be felt in a moment of such affliction, long before we have thought of any thing more than what was before our very eyes. In all the small courtesies of society, as well as in these higher duties, we act, not from any estimate of the princi- ple of courtesy as a general principle, but from the temporary views of indi- vidual gratifications to those who mingle with us, and> we act well. The amount of general good, which a philosopher might estimate, or attempt to estimate, by considering the relation of these particular actions to the advan- tage of the community, never occurs as an object of contemplation to the mul- titude of mankind,' when they approve or disapprove, with feelings at least as vivid, as those of him who measures every action by its remotest consequen- ces. It occurs but seldom even to philosophers themselves, who may derive, indeed, an additional enjoyment from tracing that relation, and an additional reason to adore the goodness of Him who has established it; but who in the common transactions of life, act from the same immediate feelings of approv- ableness,-the same immediate impulses of virtuous emotion, as those to whom ethical and political generalizations are absolutely unknown. The imme- diate virtuous impulse is the mere feeling of rapid approbation, that becomes still more rapidly, choice or determination ; a feeling, which has relation only to the particular case,-and which, far from pausing for any extensive view and measurement of remote consequences of utility, has arisen in the instant, or almost in the very instant in which the action was conceived. But the feelings of the agent himself, whom alone we have yet considered, it may, perhaps, be said, furnish no decisive confutation of the supposed mo- ral measurement of the virtue of actions, by the feeling of their precise de- grees of general utility ; they may afford a presumption, but nothing more ; and it is in the calm contemplation of the indifferent spectator, or reader, or hearer of an action only, that we are to look for the grounds of a just moral estimate of the virtue or vice, which the action itself involves. The exclusion of the feelings of the agent himself, in the moral estimate of the propriety or impropriety of the actions, which circumstances call'on him to perform, and on account of which he is .to be ranked with the virtuous or the guilty,-may seem a very bold use of the privilege of unlimited supposi- tion, which a theorist assumes. Let the assumption, however, be admitted. Let the feelings of the agent be left wholly out of account, and let us think only of the feelings of him who contemplates the actions of another. Is the approbation of virtue, in this case, the feelings of mere utility,-our indigna- tion, disgust, abhorrence of vice, in its aspects of greatest atrocity, a feeling of nothing more than of the uselessness, or physical incumbrance and detri- ment to society, of that profitless thing which we call a tyrant or a parricide ? The doctrine of utility, as the felt essence of virtue, is, in this case, as little in agreement with the moral facts which it would explain, as in the case of the ON HUME'S SYSTEM. 271 272 feelings of the agent himself,-as little accordant with them as any false hy- pothesis in mere physics, with the stubbornly resisting physical facts, which it would vainly endeavour to reconcile, or, at least, to force together. If the approbation which we give to virtue, be only the emotion excited in us by the contemplation of what is useful to mankind, it is very evident that such utility is to be found, not in the actions only of voluntary agents, and in the general principles of conduct from which the particular actions flow', but in inanimate matter also; and, indeed, on earth at least, it is only by the in- tervention of matter, that one mind can indirectly be of any utility whatever to any other mind. Let us imagine, then, not a mere chest of drawers before us,-for that may be counted of too trifling convenience, but the most useful machine which the art of man has been able to devise,-a loom, for exam- ple, a ship, a printing-press-, instruments which have certainly contributed to the happiness of the world a far greater amount of good, than any moral ac- tion of any generous benefactor, whose voluntary production of a little limited good, perhaps to a single individual only,-may yet have excited in us the liveliest emotions of a regard that is almost veneration, or more than mere veneration. When we think of any one of these noble instruments, as placed before our eyes, or when any one of them is actually before our eyes, and when we trace all the contrivances of its parts, and think of the good which has for many ages resulted, and will still continue to result from'the whole ; does it seem to us possible, that any one should assert,-or almost that any one should imagine for a moment,-the sameness in kind of the intellectual admiration, if I may so express it, which we feel in such a case, with the moral admiration that is excited in us by the patriot or the martyr; or even by the humblest of those, who in their little sphere of private life, in the ordi- nary circumstances of peaceful society, exert for the good of the few who are around them, an energy of active benevolence, as powerful as that, which in a more elevated station, and in a tumultuous age, ennobles the leader and the sufferer in the cause of nations and of the world ? Our admiration of a steam-engine,-our admiration of an heroic sacrifice of personal comfort, or of life itself-are feelings that can scarely be said to have any greater resem- blance, than the brightness of scarlet and the shrillness of a trumpet; and the blind man who asserted the similarity of these two sensations, was, I cannot but think, (if our consciousness is to decide on the comparative merit of the theories,) at least as sound a theorist, as he who would convince us of the similarity of the two emotions. Indeed if we were to strive to conceive all the possibilities of extravagant assertion, it would not be easy to imagine one, less warranted by fact, than that which would affirm, that we love a benefac- tor exactly with the same feelings as those, with which we regard a house or a loaf of bread ; or, at least, that there is no difference, but as one or the other may have been, in degree, more or less useful to us, or to the world in general. If, indeed, mere matter could by the most beautiful subserviency to our happiness, become a reasonable object of moral admiration, by what means have we been able to escape an universal idolatry ? How is it that we are not, at this moment, all adorers of that earth on which we dwell, or of that great luminary which renders our earth, not habitable merely, but delightful ? The ancient worshippers of the universe, at least, supposed it to be animated with a soul. It was the soul of the world which they adored. The savage, who trembles at the thunder, and bends before the whirlwind that knee' which ON HUME'S SYSTEM. does not bow to man, believes that there is some being greater than man, who presides over the awful darkness. But, according to the system of utility, the belief of a soul of the world, or of a ruler of th.e lightning and the storm, which even the savage feels necessary, before he deign to worship, is super- fluous for our more philosophic veneration. The earth, whether animated or inanimate, is alike that which supports and feeds us. The sun, whether animated or inanimate, is alike to us the source of warmth and light, and of all that infinity of blessings, which these simple words involve. The earth and the sun, then, if mere utility were to be considered as virtue,-the sole stan- dard on the contemplation of which certain moral emotions arise, and by which we measure their vividness,-are the most virtuous beings that come beneath our view ; and love, respect, veneration, such as we give to the virtues of the most virtuous human beings, are far too slight an offering of the heart, to utilities so transcendent, , • It is evidently, then, not mere utility which constitutes the essence of vir- tue, or which constitutes the measure of virtue ; since we feel, for the most useful inanimate objects,-even when their usefulness is to continue as long as the whole race of beings, that from age to age are to be capable of profit- ing by them.-no emotions of the kind which we feel, when we consider the voluntary actions of those who are capable of knowing and willing the good which they produce. A benevolent man, and a steam-engine, may both be instrumental to the happiness of society ; and the quantity of happiness pro- duced by the unconscious machine may be greater, perhaps, than that pro- duced by the living agent; but there is no imaginary increase or diminution of the utility of the one and of the other, that can make the feelings with which we view them shadow into each other, or correspond in any point of the scaje. • * ♦ Though it is impossible for the theorist, not to feel the irresistible force of this argument, when it strives in vain to think of some infinite accession of utility to a mere machine, which may procure for it ah the veneration that is given to virtue ; he can yet take refuge in the obscurity of a verbal distinc- tion. Utility, he will tell us, is not in every instance followed by this venera- tion ;-it is only utility in the actions of living beings that is followed by it; and when even all the useful actions of living beings are shown not to produce it, but only such actions as had in view that moral good which we admire ; he will consent to narrow his limitation still more, and confine the utility, which he regards as the same with virtue, to certain voluntary actions of living be- ings. Does he not perceive, however, that in making these limitations, he has conceded the very point in question ? He admits, that the actions of men are not valued merely as being useful, in which case they must have ranked in virtue, with all things that are useful, exactly according to their place in the scale of utility,-but for something which may be useful, or ra- ther which is useful, yet which merely as useful never could have excited the feelings, which it excites when considered as a voluntary choice of good He admits an approvableness then, peculiar to living and voluntary agents, a capacity of exciting certain vivid moral emotions which are not commen- surable with any utility, since no accession of mere utility could produce them. In short, he admits every thing, for which the assertor of the pecu- liar and essential distinctions of virtue contends ; and all which he gains by his verbal distinction of utilities, is, that his admission of the doctrine which he professes to oppose, is tacit only, not open and direct. ON HUME'S SYSTEM. 273 Vol. II. It is, indeed, by. a verbal distinction of this sort that Mr. Hume himself, the most ingenious and liberal supporter of this.system, endeavours to obvi ate the force of the objection, which may be drawn from inanimate matter, as useful and yet incapable of excitihg moral emotion, He dqesfor the purpose ol saving bis theory, what is noVeasy to be reconciled with tjie acutenesS of a mind so subtile as his, anti & well practised Ip detecting, or at least so fond of detect- ing, what he.considers as illogical in the speculations of other writers, or in tlie general easy faith of the half reasoning multitude. He fairly takes for granted, as independent of any measurement of mere utility, those very moral feelings which he yet wishes us to believe to arise from the perception of mere utility, -thus abandoning his theory as false in orden that we may admit it as true. The utility of inanimate things, he says, does not seem to .us virtuous, be- cause it is not accompanied with esteem and approbation which are peculiar to living beings j and he states this distinction of the two utilities, without seeming to be lit all aware that, in supposing a mo'ral esteem and approbation distinct from the febjing of usefulness, he is thus presupposing the very feel- ing for which he professes to account ;• and .denying that strict relation of utility to virtue, which his theory would bold out as the only standard, or ra- ther as the only constituent of virtue. ' The passage is tbo important not to be quoted in his own words* " We ought not to imagine,'' he says, "because an inanimate object may be'useful as well as?a man, that, therefore," it ought also, according to this system, to. merit the appellation of virtuous. The sentiments excited by utility are iti the two cases very different; and the one is mixed with affection, esteem, approbation, sac. and not the other."* Now it is obviously of these Very*sentiments,'alone, which are said - by Hume tp be mixed with the feeling bf utility and not produced by it, that the moral theo- rist has to trace the origin. If the sentiments excited by the utility in tlje two cases be, as he most justly observes, very different, eVen when the amount of mere utility may be the same injboth.; then, most indubitably, it is not as being useful that actions are counted virtuous, and rated, in differept degrees of virtue according to their different degrees 6f -usefulness' but on account of something that must be superadded to this usefulness; and if, in- dependently of the sum of good which they may produce, and'equally pro- duce., one utility, and not the other, be attended with esteem and approba- tion, is not this a proof that the moral esteem and approbation are not com- mensurable with mere physical usefulness; that they are feelings, of-a pecu- liar class, which even he,who would represent actions, as felt to be virtuous only because they are regarded as physically useful, is obliged td presuppose, *-and that there is in virtud, therefore, an independent and peculiar approv- ableness, or capacity of exciting " esteem and approbation,?' which utility Is incapable either of constituting or of measuring ? ' '' In this argument, I have opposed to the actions which we feel immediately as virtuous, the utility only of inanimate matter, because this furnishes a more striking 'contrast,-but the same argument, as you Capndt fail to have perceived, might have been extended to many qualities of the mind itself,- in all those varieties of original genius, or the ridi endowments of science, that, have progressively raised us from barbarism to civilization, with.an in- fluence .on the happiness' of the world, to which it is scarcely possible in our conception to fix a limit,-of talents which we admire indeed, and honour 274 ON HUME'S SYSTEM. * Hume's Essays, Vol. II. Note Z. ON HUME'S SYSTEM. 275 with a respect of a peculiar kind; but our respect for which, even when they exist in their highest order of excellence, we feel to be of a species very different from the moral esteem which we give to an, act of virtue. The inventors of the printing-press certainly did more good to the world by that mere invention, than the Man of Ross himself by all his charities, yet how different are the moral emotions with which we view them ! The mere usefulness of certain actions, then, I repeat, is not that which, as felt by us at the moment of our approbation, constitutes to us or mea- sures their virtue ;•-it is not that which is immediately felt by the agent;-it is not that which is immediately felt by the spectator, or heareY of the action; -and yet utility and virtue are related, so intimately related, that there is, perhaps, no action generally felt by us as virtuous, which it would not be ge- nerally beneficial, that all mankind in similar circumstances should imitate. This general relation, however, is one which we discover only on reflection, and of which multitudes have, perhaps, never once thought during the whole course of their life ; yet these have esteemed and hated like other people. The utility accompanies, indeed, our moral approbation; but the perception of that utility does not constitute our moral approbation, nor is it necessarily presupposed by it. I may remark, by the way,-as a 'circumstance which has certainly con- tributed, in a great degree, to this misconception of the immediate object of moral approbation,-that in cases of political legislation, die very end of whioh is not to look to the present only, but to the future, we estimate the propriety of certain measures by their usefulness. That which is to be in- jurious, we do not enact; and those who contend that we should enact it, think it necessary to show that it will be for general advantage. Expediency being thus the circumstance, on which the debates as to the propriety or improprie- ty of public measures, in almost every case depend, we learn to consider it very falsely, as the measure, of our moral approbation in the particular cases that are constantly occurring in domestic life. We forget that the legisla.- tor is appointed for the express purpose of consulting the general good ; and of looking to the future, therefore., and distant, as well as to the present or the near. His object is to see ne quid detriments respublica capiat. His re- lation is to the community, not to any particular individual; and, in neglecting the general good, for the good of a few', he would be guilty of a breach of trust, as much as the possessor of a deposit, if he were to give to the wants of some indigent sufferer, the money which another had intrusted to his care. In the general transactions of ordinary life, then, our feeling of approba- tion or disapprobation, we may conclude, does not depend on the mere per- ception of utility. The virtuous, by the very constitution of heaven, which has pre-established the connexion of virtue and happiness, will, indeed, that which is useful; but they will it, in each particular case, without regard to the general utility of the principle of conduct, to which their action conforms; and, in considering the actions of others, w'e approve of that which is useful, but we do not approve of it, because we have estimated according to a scale of specific value, the mere usefulness of the general principle. We per- ceive a moral excellence, as something very different from the amount of physical advantage that flows from the particular action, or from all the simi- lar actions of the same class,-an excellence, wdbich, of itself, constitutes the approvableness,-a virtue, which is independent of every thing but the breast of him who conceived it; which is not ennobled by success, and which 276 becomes more interesting to us by the very misfortunes to which it may have led. ' ' The coincidence of general good, with those particular affections which are felt by us to be virtuous, is, indeed, it must be admitted, a proof that this general good has been the object of some Being who has adapted them to each other. But it was of a Being far higher than man,-of Him who alone is able to comprehend the whole system of things; and who allots to our humbler faculties and affections, those partial objects which alone they are able to comprehend,-giving us still, however, the noble privilege ON HUME'S SYSTEM. To join Our partial movements, with the master-wheel Of the great world, and serve that sacred end, Which He, the unerring reason, keeps in view. By this relation, of which few think or are capable of thinking, of parti- cular good with public good,-of general utility and private virtue,-the pub- lic good is as effectually insured, as if all were every moment thinking of the relation, and is insured with a still greater accession and profusion of de- light. ... " Happiness," it has been truly said,* " is best provided for, by the division of affection, as wealth, by the division of labour. Were all men to mea- sure their actions by utility," the same writer justly remarks, " that variety of sentiments and passions, which at present renders human society so inter- esting ; and like a happy combination of notes in music, produces an enchant- ing harmony, must be reduced to the dull monotony of one tranquil sentiment. Every man,it is true, would meet his neighbour with the mild aspect ofcalm philosophy, and with the placid smile of perfect benevolence; but no eye must be seen sparkling with rapture, or melting with tenderness; no tongue must utter words of kindness, which have not first been exactly measured on the scale of universal benevolence. In short, the moral world would become one flat unvaried scene, resembling the aspect, which the natural world would assume, were all its mountains and vallies levelled, and its whole surface converted into a smooth and grassy plain." That virtue is useful, is, indeed, true then-so useful, that without it, exis- tence would not have been a blessing, but a source of misery; and a society of mankind, but a combination of the miserable, labouring to become in- dividually more wretched by making each other more wretched. Yet, it is not more true, that virtue is useful, than that this utility of the general prin- ciples of virtuous conduct is not the ground of our immediate approbation. It is not the standard of our approbation, for we have approved, long before we think of that which is said to have been the measure according to which we have approved. This priority of the approbation in all its degrees, to any thought of specific utility, is true even of philosophers, who know that there is such a coincidence of the relations of virtue and usefulness: but of all who feel virtue, who love and hate, who esteem, and honour, and despise,- how few are they who kqow that there is any such relation. They do not approve or disapprove the less however; but it is because God has willed the happiness of the world, which, as a great whole, they are unconsciously promoting, not because they individually have thought of it. He, indeed, who fixed the relations of things, before the system of things itself was formed by him, established this paramount relation of our generous desires, ON HUME'S SYSTEM. to an aggregate of happiness far greater than that momentary benefit which was their particular aim. The good of the universe was the gracious object of his will,-his object, not more in the physical enjoyments, which he has poured upon us, than in the virtues of which he gave us the noble capacity. But though it was for that universality of happiness, which the eternal Au- thor of the universe alone, could fully comprehend in his conception and de- sign, that man was rendered virtuous; our limited virtues themselves have their particular objects, which they are better able to embrace. By their joint operation, they produce that great result, of which they do not think even while they are most busy in promoting it; intent perhaps only on courtesies and kindnesses, which appear to terminate in the individual who receive.? them; like the sunshine, that seems to be only flowing around the blossom in soft and brilliant varieties of light, while it is slowly and silently maturing fruits that are yet unseen ;-or like the breeze, which seems only to flutter in the sail, or to dimple the wave before the prow, but which is at the same time wafting along the majestic vessel, that is to mingle the treasures of every clime; to carry plenty to the barren soil, and the richer stores of science, to the still more desolate barrenness of the mind. 277 LECTURE LXXVI1I. EXAMINATION OF HUME'S SYSTEM CONCLUDED; ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM. My last Lecture, gentlemen, was employed in considering the relation, which the utility of actions bears to our approbation of them as virtuous. That in acting, the agent himself, in cases in which no one would hesitate for a moment in terming him virtuous, except those who deny every distinc- tion of vice and virtue, performs the action which is approved, without any regard to the amount of general good which would flow to society, if all men were to act as he acts,-that is to say, without any regard to the spe- cific utility of such actions,-is evident, from the slightest examination of human conduct. Of all the virtuous actions which are performed, at any one moment, on the earth, from the slightest reciprocation of domestic courtesies, to the most generous sacrifices of heroic friendship; there is per- haps scarcely one, in which this thought of the supposed scale of utility, ac- cording to which his action is to be measured, is present to the mind of the agent, and is the influencing circumstance in his choice,-the immediate motive, which confers on his conduct the character of virtue. He is useful to the world, indeed, when he relieves the sufferings even of a single indivi- dual being. But he relieves that suffering, not because the world, if he gives the relief, will, as a whole, have less misery; or because it would be for the advantage of the world that others should imitate him in similar cases; but that the individual before him may have less misery ; or, if he thinks of any thing but that particular misery and its relief, he thinks only of the manner in which he would appear to himself, if he were to abstain from giving the 278 relief which is in his power. He bears sufferings of his own m like manner, without lamentation ; not because a single groan from him, in any case of bodily anguish, would increase the misery of the world, or lessen its happiness,-but because a single groan, though it might leave the happiness of the world precisely the same as before, would degrade him in his own estimation. Whether in doing or in suffering, therefore, his virtue, if any virtue be allowed to him, does not depend on his views of the general utility which the world derives from a frame of mind like that which his conduct displays: that comprehensive usefulness is not present to his mind, as a scale or measure of his virtue. But, though it be not tht precise measure of approbation and preference in bis own mind, it may perhaps be the precise and sole measure of approba- tion, when his actions or patient sufferings are considered by other minds. In this case, too, we found, that the supposed standard is far from being the real standard. We approve, not from any wide calculation of probable con- sequences to the world, if all were to act as the individual has acted ; but from an instant feeling of moral excellence, which makes it impossible for us not to approve, as soon as the action, in all its circumstances, is known to us. If we think of the general utility of such a general mode of conduct, it is not before, but after the approbation; and it is no paradox to say, that our ap- probation has, in truth, least reference to general conduct and general conse- quences, in cases in which the virtue of which we. approve is greatest; be*- cause, in such cases, the moral excellence produces an emotion so vivid, as to preclude the consideration of every remote circumstance. The hero him- self, bearing what he bore, or doing what he did, is all which our mind can see. Who is there, that in the contemplation of Thermopylae, and of the virtues that have made that desolate spot for ever sacred to us, can think of Leonidas and his little band, without any emotion of reverence, till the thought occur, how useful it must be to nations to have defenders so intrepid I Our admiration is not so tardy a calculator. It is instant, indeed, in all its fervour; and, when we begin to think of the exact point in the scale of uti- lity at which the action may be ranked, this very thought is itself a proof that our emotion has already become less vivid. The question, indeed, is one which our consciousness may decide in a moment, if we only trust to the evi- dence of our consciousness, a sort of trust which, simple as it may seem, is no slight intellectual effort, when our consciousness is opposed to errors that are brilliant, and that have the authority of any great name. Our conscious- ness, if we appeal to it, will tell us, that to admire what is useful and to re- vere what is virtuous, are feelings as different as any two feelings which are not absolutely opposite; and that, if we class them as the same, we with as much reason, class as the same, and reduce, under a single term, our moral veneration and our sensation of fragrance, because they are both pleasing ;' or our admiration ol what is useful, and our notion of a circle, because they are both states or feelings of the mind. Who ever looked on his conscience precisely in the same manner as he looked upon his estate ; and felt not re- gret merely, but all the agonies of remorse, because his acres were less pro- ductive than the richer fields of his neighbour ? We may respect the inven- tor of a machine, but we certainly do not respect the machine itself; though it is only in reference to the instruments which he invents that the inventor, as an inventor, has any utility: and, even in respecting his intellectual talents as an inventor,-though he may have contributed more by this one exercise ON HUME'S SYSTEM. of them, to the permanent happiness of the world, than all the virtues of all the multitude that existed around him at the time,-do we feel for his new and beautiful application of the physical powers, the moral emotion which we feel for the humblest of those virtues? It is enough, as I have said, to appeal to your consciousness on this point. If your reverence for virtue ap- pear to you,-as it cannot but appear to you,-a feeling essentially different from your mere admiration of what is useful; if, in short, you perceive that no addition of usefol properties to any piece.of inanimate matter could so alter it, as to make it an object of moral love ; that the philosopher's stone itself, if it really existed, though capable of conferring inexhaustible wealth, and eternal youth on its possessor, would yet be incapable of producing one feel- ing of cordial regard ; that alb the stores of knowledge, and all the talents of the most vigorous intellect, unless accompanied with a generous desire of the happiness of those who profit by them, cannot excite the moral emotions that are excited so readily by the humblest benevolence ;-then, surely, you can- not hesitate, for an instant, in rejecting the tlieory, which supposes virtue to be felt as virtue only from its utility ; from that utility, which may be greater or less than the usefulness of external things or of qualities of the under- standing J but which, as mere utility, is precisely the same in its relation to oqr emotions, as the intellectual qualities of memory or judgment; or as. the house which shelters us, the coat which keeps us warm, or the watch which tell us the hour and minute of the day. The approbation which we give to actions as virtuous, then, whether we be ourselves the agents,-or merely consider the actions of others,-is not giv- en to them simply as useful. Utility, in either case, is not the measure of moral approbation,-the measure to which we must previously have adjusted the particular action, before any approbation of it can have arisen ; and with which, in all its exact gradations, the feeling of the rank of virtue exactly corresponds. It may be said, indeed, that it is .not mere utility which excites moral ap- probation, but the utility only that results from the actions of living. agents. This latter species of usefulness may be verbally distinguished from the other, as being that which is accompanied with esteem and approbation ; and, in- deed, this very distinction we find to-be that which is made by Mr. Hume, the most acute defender of the-theory which we have been examining; yet it is surely very evident, that the verbal distinction thus made is an abandon- ment of the theory,-an admission that there is, in certain actions of volun- tary agents, something more than utility which is morally admired by us; since, in degrees of utility, they may be. strictly commensurable with other objects of thought that excite in us no such emotion. The esteem and ap- probation, which Mr. Hume finds it so easy to pre-suppose, are all which it is of much consequence, in any theory of virtue, to consider. They are in truth the very feeling of virtue itself under another name; the very feeling, therefore, which he should have shown, not to be mixed only with our per- ception of utility, but to arise from it, or to be reducible to it; and if,-in ac- counting for our moral approbation of certain actions, as distinguished from our admiration of any useful contrivance ip mechanics, or any useful qualities of natural inanimate objects, or any excellence of mere intellect,-he say, that, together with our feeling of the utility of the actions, there is a feeling of esteem and approbation, which distinguishes this usefulness from every other usefulness of the same amount; he admits in this very supposition that there ON HUME'S SYSTEM. 279 280 ON HUME'S SYSTEM. is in certain actions an approvableness which has not its source in the feeling of utility,-an approvableness which is independent, therefore, of the mere quantity of physical good produced-and that, when an action has been use- ful, is still necessary to convert utility itself into virtue. It is true, indeed, as we have seen in our review of such actions, that ac- tions which are virtuous are actions of which the general principle is useful; but they are virtuous and useful; not felt by us to be virtuous, merely be- cause they are of a certain rank of usefulness,-as innumerable objects in ex- ternal nature are in like manner useful, or many valuable qualities of the un- derstanding. The coincidence in this respect, which the Deity who adapted our emotions to the happiness designed by him, has from his own universal goodness established, may be compared in some measure to that pre-esta- blished harmony of which the followers of Leibnitz speak. According to that hypothesis,-of which I gave you a sketch in the early part of this course,- the body and mind, you will remember, have an exact correspondence of motions and feelings, but are absolutely independent of each other, e'ven when they seem most exactly to correspond ; the limbs running of themselves when the mind wishes them to run, and running faster or slower exactly as the mind wishes them to be more or less fleet,-but having, in consequence of their own peculiar mechanism, a tendency to run so independent of the voli- tion of that mind which longs to escape from the enemy, that if the soul of the coward were, by a sudden miracle to be annihilated, his legs would not run the less. Such a harmony the Deity has established of virtue and utility. That of which we approve as virtuous is, as a general mode of conduct, use- ful ; though it is not on account of our estimate of its general useful tendency that we give it our immediate approbation. That of which we disapprove as vice, is, as'a general mode of conduct, injurious to society; though it is not on that general account we regard it with instant contempt, or indigna- tion, or horror. By this adaptation of our emotions, however, the same ad- vantage is obtained, as if we approved of virtue directly as useful to the world in the same manner as we approve of any useful mechanical contrivance ; while it leaves us the enjoyment of all that far greater delight, which arises from the contemplation of the moral excellence of the individual; and from the love, so infinitely surpassing every preference of mere utility, which moral excellence and moral excellence only can excite. It is this independent pre-established relation of virtue and utility, which, as I conceive, has rendered less apparent the error of the theory that would reduce moral approbation itself, to the perception of this mere usefulness; and the allusion has certainly been aided in a great degree, by the circum- stance which I pointed out in my last Lecture,-the reference to the public advantage, in the enactments of laws, and the discussion of national measures of external or internal policy. These measures, to be virtuous, must indeed, always have the public good in immediate view; because the legislative and executive functions of the state are either expressly or virtually trusts for this very purpose ;-and a neglect of the public good in those who exercise such functions, has therefore, all the guilt of a breach of trust, in addition to any other partial delinquencies that may have been added to the crime. It is not very wonderful, however, that we should thus learn to extend to all particu- lar actions, what is true of those actions of general delegated power, which are the great subjects of temporary debate ; and should erroneously suppose all men in their little sphere to be swayed, when they are virtuous, by the mo ON HUME'S SYSTEM. 281 tives which alone we recognise as giving virtue to the actions of legislators, judges, or sovereigns,-those actions about which all men speak, and which furnish so much nice casuistry to the political discourse of every day. Though it is not from the calculations of general happiness, then, that we approve or disapprove, in estimating the conduct of others, or our own ;-in many cases, it will still be admitted that general happiness bears, not an indi- rect relation only, but a direct relation to our moral sentiments. The good of the world is not our only moral object, but it is a moral object. The sacrifices of mere personal advantage that are made to it, excite our regard,- the wilful violation of it, for purposes of personal gkin, would excite our scorn or detestation,-but they excite these moral feelings not in any peculiar manner as if primary and paramount. They excite them precisely in the same man- ner as sacrifices to parental, or filial, or conjugal affection, made without the slightest consideration of public advantage, give immediate rise to our de- lightful sympathies,-or, as the breach of any of the domestic duties, which circumstances of cruelty to the individuals injured, but without any intention of injuring the community of the world, awakes a wrath or a disgust aknost as instant as the very knowledge of the injury. We should have loved our parents and our friends, though public utility bad never been an object of our thought -it is not quite so certain, at least it is not so manifest, that we should have loved the good of the world, if we had never known what it is to love a parent or a friend. For my own part, indeed, I do not doubt that even in this case, if our mental constitution in other respects had. remained as at present, the happiness of mankind would have been an object of our de- sire ; and that we should have felt a moral disapprobation of any one who wilfully lessened that sum of general happiness, for the mere pleasure of giv- ing pain. But still the passion for universal utility is not so manifest in every individual,-certainly not so vivid in every individual, as the private af- fections ; and, if we were to judge from the feelings alone, therefore, it would seem a juster theory, to derive our love of the happiness of the world from our love of the friends who first surrounded us in life,-than to suppose that our early essential notions of virtue and vice, in the observance or neglect of the filial or fraternal duties, are measured by a scale of general utility which has never been present to our mind ; that general utility and virtue, in our estimates of actions, are in truth convertible terms; and that we should have felt no wonder or dislike, even of parricide itself, if we had not previously been enamoured of public usefulness,-enamoured of that good of the uni- verse, of which the good of a parent is a small elementary part. When the political moralist is said to correct our moral sentiments, as he unquestionably does often correct our views of particular actions, by pointing out to us general advantages or disadvantages which flow more or less im- mediately from certain actions; and when he thus leads us to approve of ac- tions of which we might otherwise have disapproved, to disapprove of actions of which otherwise we should have approved, he does not truly alter the nature of our moral feelings ; he only presents new objects to our moral discrimina- tion. From the mixture of good and evil, in the complicated results of almost every action ; and from the innumerable relations which our actions bear in their results, not to the individuals alone, of whom alone we may have thought, but to others whose interest was unknown to us at the time, or unremem- bered in the eager precipitancy of our benevolence; we may approve at times of actions of which we disapprove at other times,-not because we hate Vol. IL 282 the good which we loved before, or love the evil which before we hated,- but because the action, though seemingly tlje sames, is truly to our concep- tion different. It is v.aried to our mental view, with every nicer analysis of its results ; and, in estimating.the same apparent action, the new-discovered compound of good and evil which we now love., is as different from that sem- blance of mere evil which we before hated, as our love itself, as a present emotion, differs from our former emotion of hatred or disgust. Reason, then,-even in analyzing compound results of good and. evil, and showing us the relation which actions that qre truly virtuous bear to the good of the world, is not th? source from which our moral Sentiments flow-we have admired and loved the virtue before its political advantages were point- ed out, or even suspected. The conclusion to Which we are led, therefore, with respect to utility, is, that it is not the-scale yvhich is present to the mind, whenever we approve or disapprove, and according to which our moral emo- tions .are in every case exactly graduated ; that though the g®od of the world is an object which we cannot consider, without feeling that the wish to pro- mote it is a.moral wish, it is not the only object which it is virtuous to desire, but one of many, virtuous objects; and that, if we are virtuous once, in acting with this single object in view, we are virtuous a thousand times; in actipg without the slightest reference to it, with regard only to tile happiness or dis- tress of individuals,-which we caifnot.consider without a wish to preserve the happiness, or to lessen the distress,-a wish which we should have felt in like maimer, though, with the exception of the individuals of whom we think at the moment, there bad be<5n no world to be benefited by pur wishes and our aid, or by the &id of those who, in similar circumstances, may act as we have done. . • • The most important circumstance, however, with respect to the theory of utility as the essence of virtuous actions, is that which I remarked before, in entering on this discussion-that it does nbt profess to account for tlye origin of our moral feelings, but proceeds on our susceptibility of these as an un- doubted principle of the mind. Why should I love that which may be pro- ductive of benefit tp all the individuals of the world, more than th?t which would be productive of similar benefit only to one individual ? or, to put a question still stronger, why should I love that.which would be of advantage even to one individual, more than that which would be of injury to every being but myself? The only answer which can be given, even according to the theory which supposes all virtue to consist in utility, is, that it is impossi- ble for me, by my very nature, not to feel approbation of that.which .is gene- rally useful; disapprobation of tliat which is in its general consequences hurtful. There is a moral principle-a susceptibility of moral is a part of my constitution, with which I can as little abstain from approving or disap- proving, when 1 hear of certain actions, as I can abstain from simply hearing the words of that voice which relates them to me. . ' The error which we have been considering at so much length, as to the identity of virtue and the general utility of actions,-though I must confess that it appears to me, notwithstanding the high authorities by which it has been sanctioned, an error of no slight kind,-is yet an error which is not in- consistent with the most generous virtue; sinpe, though it assert utility to be the measure of our approbation, it does not confine this utility to our own individual advantage; but gives to us, as a great object of regard, whatever can be useful to the community of mankind. It is a very different doctrine ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM. ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM. that makes the utility according to which we measure virtue, in every case our own individual advantage. To the consideration of this doctrine,- which is in truth only an extension of the principles'of Mandeville, allow- ing less to the mere love of praise, and more to*our other passions-you may remember, that 1 was about to proceed, after treating of the system of that licentious satirist of our nature, when 1 suspended this progress to make you acquainted with the general doctrines of the influence of reason on mo- ral sentiment, and of the relation of virtue and usefulness ; as 1 conceived that my remarks on those doctrines would render more apparent to you the futility of the selfish system of morals. Virtue, according to this system, is the. mere search of pleasure. It gives up one pleasure, indeed, but it gives it up for a greater. It sacrifices a present enjoyment; but it sacrifices it only to obtain some enjoyment, in in- tensity and duration, which is fairly worth the sacrifice. In every .instance in which it seems to pursue the good of others, as good, it is its own gratifica- tion, and nothing but its own gratification, which it seeks. To this system, which from the days of Aristippus, has, both in ancient and modern times, been presented in various forms, the remarks which I made on the system of general utility are equally applicable. We do un- questionably love our own well being-our bodily ease, and that pleasure which is still dearer than ease ; but, loving ourselves, we as unquestionably love others; and, loving them, we cannot fail to desire their happiness, since the desire may be considered as the natural consequence of the love. In such cases, the immediate object of our desire-and it is this immediate ob- ject alone which we have theoretically to consider-is as truly the good of others, as our own good is our immediate object, when we wish for freedom from any bodily pain, or for the possession of any object which appears to us productive of positive pleasure. All of which we think, at the moment of the action, is purely benevolent; and the action therefore, if justly desig- nated, must itself be regarded as purely benevolent. There is, indeed, as I remarked in a former Lecture, one very simple ar- gument, by which every attempt to maintain the disinterested nature of virtue is opposed. If we ivill the happiness of any one, it is said, it must be agreeable to us that he should be happy, since we have willed it; it must be painfid to us not to obtain our wish; and, with the pleasure of the gratifica- tion before us, and the pain of failure,-can we doubt that we have our own happiness in view, however zealously we may seem to others, and even per- haps to ourselves, to have in view only some addition to another's happiness? This argument, though often urged with an air of triumph, as if it were ir- resistible, is a quibble, and nothing more. The question is not, whether it be agreeable to act in a certain manner, and painful not to act in thAt man- ner ; but whether the pleasure and the pain be the objects of our imme- diate contemplation in the desire? and this is not proved by the mere asser- tion, that virtue is delightful, and that, to be restrained from the exercise of virtue, if it were possible, would be the most oppressive restraint under which a good man could be placed. There is a pleasure, in like manner, attend- ing moderate exercise of our limbs; and, to fetter our limbs, when we wish to move them, would be to inflict on us no slight disquietude. But how absurd would that sophistry seem, which should say, that, when we hasten to the relief of one who is in peril, or in sorrow, whom we feel that we have the power of relieving, we hasten, because it is agreeable to us to walk; and be- 283 284 cause, if we were prevented from walking, when we wished thus to change our place, the restraint imposed on us would be very disagreeable. Yet this is the very argument, under another form, which the selfish philosophers adduce, in support of their miserable system. They forget, or are not aware, that the very objection which they thus urge, contains in itself its own con- futation-a confutation stronger than a thousand arguments. • Why is it that the pleasure is felt in the case supposed? It is because the generous desire is previously felt; and if there had been no previous generous desire, there could not be the pleasure that is afterwards felt in the gratification of the desire. Why is it, in like manner, that pain is felt, when the desire of the happiness of others has not been gratified ? It is surely because we have previously desired the happiness of others. That very delight, therefore, which is said to give occasion to the selfish wish, is itself a proof, and a convincing proof, that man is not selfish ;-unless we invert all reasoning, and suppose, that it is in every instance the effect which gives occasion to the cause, not the cause which produces the effect. The virtuous man feels delight in the sacrifices which he makes ! unquestionably he does feel this delight-a delight, which he would not yield for any thing, but for the knowledge that his sacrifice has been of the advantage which he desired to the friend for whom it was made,-if the loss of the pleasure which he feels could have been made a part of the sacrifice. The virtuous man is happy; and if it were necessary, for proving that he is not selfish, that we should show him to be miserable, for having done his duty, the cause of disinterested virtue, I confess, must be given up; and, perhaps, in that case, if the attending pleasure or pain, and not the motive, is to be consi- dered, the name of absolute disinterestedness might be appropriated to those whom we now count selfish-to him, who deceives and plunders, and op- presses,-and finds no satisfaction in his accumulated frauds and villanies of every kind. Why does it seem to us absurd to say, that a wretch, who is incapable of any generous feeling, and who never acts but with a view to some direct personal enjoyment, is not to be counted selfish, because he derives no actual enjoyment from the attainment of his sordid wishes ? If it be absurd to say, that, in thinking only of his own good, he is not selfish, because no happiness has attended his selfishness ; it is just as absurd to say, that the virtuous man, in thinking of the good of others, is selfish, because happiness has attended the very sacrifices which he has made. The one is selfish though not happy, because his immediate and sole motive was his own happiness; the other is disinterested though happy, because in acting, his immediate motive was the happiness of others. The more the benevo- lent live for others, the more, there can be no doubt, they live fqr themselves ; but they live for themselves in this case, without thinking of themselves. Their great object is to make man happy, wherever the happiness of a sin- gle individual is in their power ; and their own happiness they safely leave to him, who has not forgotten the virtuous, in the distribution which he has made of enjoyment. It comes to them without their seeking it;-or rather, it does not come to them; it is for ever within their heart. Even if virtue were as selfish, as it is most strangely said to be, I may ob- serve, that it would be necessary to form two divisions of selfish actions ; one, of those selfish actions in which self was the direct object, and another, of those very different selfish actions, in which the selfish gratification was sought in the good of others. He who submitted to poverty, to ignominy, ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM. to death, for the sake of one who had been his friend and benefactor, would be still a very different being, and ought surely, therefore, to be classed still differently, from him who robbed his friend of the scanty relics of a fortune, which his credulous benevolence had before divided with him; and not con- tent with this additional plunder, calumniated, perhaps, the very kindness which had snatched him from ruin. ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM. 285 A self there is, Of virtue fond, that kindles at her charms. A self there is, as fond of every vice, While every virtue wounds it to the heart. Humility degrades it,-Justice robs, Blest Bounty beggars it, lair Truth betrays, And godlike Magnanimity destroys.* By what perversion of language is the same term to be given to affections so different ? the foreigner of whom Dr. Franklin speaks, who, on seeing the Tragedy of Othello, conceived, that all the emotion which the actor ex- hibited was for the loss of a handkerchief, did indeed, form a theory as just as that of many very ingenious philosophers, when they would labour to con- vince us, that a little personal gratification was the only object of those, who, in the dreadful ages of Roman tyranny, followed their friend into exile or imprisonment, or who, after he had nobly perished, still dared to proclaim that innocence, the very assertion of which was a crime, which the tyrant,- who knew only how to pardon what was atrocious, and not what was virtuoys, -was, by the habits which he had wrought into the dreadful constitution of his nature, incapable of forgiving. If virtue be nothing but personal gain, what is it which we individually can hope to acquire from the virtues of others?-We surely cannot hope, that all the virtues of all mankind, will give us more wealth than is possessed by the wealthiest individual existing; more power than is possessed by the most powerful; more.vigour of body and intellect than is possessed by the healthi- est and the wisest. Let us imagine, then, all these promised to us, on the condition of our admiration; let us conceive that some human demon, a Nero, a Tiberius, a Caligula, were to show to any one of us, all the king- doms of the world, and to say, AH these thou shalt have, if thou wilt but esteem me,"-would our esteem arise at all more readily ? Should we feel, in that case, for the guilty offerer of so many means of happiness, a single emotion like that which we feel for the humblest virtue of one, who we know never can be of any aid to our worldly advancement ? If a virtuous action be in itself nothing, except as a source of personal gain, why, in such a case as that which I have supposed, does not our heart feel its sentiments of es- teem and abhorrence vary with every new accession of happiness which is promised to us ? At first, indeed, we may feel a loathing for the tyrant,- not because tyranny is in itself less worthy of approbation than the mildest benevolence,-but because it may be more injurious to our interest. It would require no trifling equivalent; but still, as it is only a quantity of injury which is dreaded, an equivalent may be found ; and, with every new bribe for our esteem, there is of course a nearer approach to this equivalent. Our abhorrence should gradually subside into slight indignation, and this into very * Young's Night Thoughts. Night 8, p. 196, 12mo. Lond. 1751 286 ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM. slight dislike, and this again, when the bribe is increased, become at length some slight emotion of approbation, which may rise, with the still increasing bribe, through all'the stages of love,-through esteem, respect, veneration, till we feel ultimately for the tyrant, whose power is to us a source of so much happiness, all that devotion of the heart which we so readily yield to power that is exerted for the benefit of mankind. When we labour to think of this progressive transmutation of moral sentiment, while the guilty object of it continues the same, in every respect, but as he offers a greater *or less bribe for our affection,-do we not feel, by the inconsistency which strikes us at every supposed stage of the progress, that affection, -the pure affection which loves virtue and hates vice,-is not any thing which could be bought, but by that noble price which is the virtue itself, that is honoured by us ;-and that to bribe us to love what is viewed by us with horror, or to hate what is viewed by us with tenderness, or reverence, is an attempt as hopeless, as it would be to bribe us to regard objects as purple, which are yellowr, or yellow which are purple? We may, indeed, agree, by a sacrifice of truth, to call that purple which we see to be yellow, as we may agree, by a still more profligate sacrifice of every noble feeling, to offer to tyranny the homage of our adulation,-to say to the murderer of Thrasia Poetus, " Thou hast done well,"-to the parricide who murdered Agrippina, " Thou hast done more than well." As every new vic- tim falls, we may lift our voice in still louder flattery. We may fall at the proud feet,-we may beg, as a boon, the honour of kissing that bloody hand which has been lifted against the helpless,-wTe may do more,-we may bring the altar, and the sacrifice, and implore the God not to ascend too soon to Heaven. This we may do, for this we have the sad remem- brance, that beings of a human form, and soul, have done. But this is all which we can do. We can constrain our tongue to be false; our features to bend themselves to the semblance of that passionate adoration which we wish to express; our knees to fall prostrate ;-but our heart we cannot con- strain. There, virtue must still have a voice which is not to be drowned by hymns and acclamations,-there the crimes which we laud as virtues, are crimes still,-and he whom we have made a God is the most contemptible of mankind-if, indeed, we do not feel perhaps that we are ourselves still more contemptible. When is it, I may ask, that the virtue of any one ap- pears to us most amiable ? Is it when it seems attended with every thing that can excite the envy even of the wicked,-with wealth, with power, with all which is commonly termed good fortune; and when, if its influence on our emotions depend on the mere images of enjoyment which it suggests, these may surely be supposed to arise most readily ? It is amiable, indeed, even in such circumstances ; but how much more interesting is it to us, when t is loaded with afflictions from which it alone can derive happiness ? It is Socrates in the prison of whom wc think-Aristides in exile,-and perhaps Cato, whatever comparative esteem he might have excited, would have been little more interesting in our eyes than Ckesar himself, if Caesar had not been a successful usurper. • , It is in describing the retreat and disasters to which that last defender of Roman freedom was exposed, that Lucan exclaims, with a sympathy almost of exultation, Hunc ego per Syrtes, Libiceque extrema, triumphum Ducere malueriin, quainter Capitolia, curru Scandere Pompeii, quam frangere colla Jugurthae.* ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM. 287 What proof can be imagined, stronger than this, that virtue and the source of personal gain are not identical phrases; since no accession of personal interest can make that a virtue which was before a vice; nor any' loss of personal interest make, that a vice which was before a virtue ? If, in any physical science, a similar ei*ror were maintained, there is not a philosopher who would not instantly reject it. Let us conceive, for example, some one ignorant enough, or bold enough to affirm, that the gravity of bodies depends on their quantity of heat. We should think that we bad nothing more to do, for showing the absurdity of such an opinion, than to try the effect of in- creasing and diminishing the warmth of the gravitating bodies; and, if we found the weight to remain the same during all these changes,-if we found one body to be warmer' than another and yet heavier, colder than a third body and yet heavier, we should think ourselves fairly entitled to infer, that warmth and gravity were not the same; that a body might gravitate and be warm,-iiS, indeed', every body which gravitates may be said to have some heat, as every substance which is warm has some weight,-but that the gravity did not depend on the warmth, and bore no measurable proportion to it. This, in extdrhhl physics, vvershould think a sufficient demonstration. But, in • morals,- the sophist finds a sort of shelter in the indistinct con- ceptions of those to.whom he addresses himself. Tt ia proved, as indubitable, that our admiration of virtue has no measurable proportion to otir feeling of personal profit which may fie reaped from it; that the profit may be in- creased, indefinitely, without the slightest diminution of out abhorrence of vice ; and the loss increased, indefinitely, without any diminution of our ad- miration of virtue. But, notwithstanding this demonstration, that virtue is conceived by us as something more than a mere source of personal enjoyment 1,0 us, he- still asserts that they- are strictly synonymous ; and renews, with as brilliant ingenuity as before, that sly logic, which would be irresistible if an epigram were an argument, and a series of epigrams a perfect demonsfra- tion% v • ** We have seen, then, that the admiration of actions as virtuous, is not affect- ed by calculations of loss and gain ; qnd must, therefore, be something more than that loss or gain which, in our calculation, we perceive to be manifestly increased or diminished. There is another demonstration which seems not less irresistible. If what we admire in the virtue .of others be nothing more than its tendency, morq or less direct, to our individual advantage, the rela- tions on which this tendency depends must be perceived by us before we ad- mire; 'and the discernment of these is not a simple and easy intellectual ef- fort. The mind that is matured by long observation of society, and by pro- found reflection on those ties which make the action of one man a source of profit or injury to remote individuals, may, indeed, look with esteem on cer- tain actions, and with indignation on others. Our love of virtue and hatred of vice, if they arise from such knowledge, must be in every case progres- sive as the knowledge itself, from infancy to old age. To relate, to a child, some action of qruelty, must be to speak to an indifferent heart,-to a heart which cannot have made these nice reflections, and which cannot, therefore, feel what is not to be felt without die knowledge which those reflections give * Lib. IX. v. 598-600. 288 ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM, Every nursery, then, exhibits a fair field for an experiment that may be said to be decisive ; and will the selfish moralist submit his theory to the test ? Will he take upon his knee that little creature which has, perhaps, scarcely felt a pain since it entered into life; which knows only that it has a friend in every living being that has met its eye; and which has never thought of its own jnisery as a thing that is possible ? Will he watch that listening coun- tenance, every look of which is fixed on his own, as he repeats verse after verse of the ballad which describes some act of injustice and atrocious cru- elly,-and will he expect to see no tear in those eyes,-to hear no sobbings when the misery is extreme,-to discover no demonstrations of an indignant wrath, that thinks not of itself at the time, but thinks only of the oppressed whom it would gladly succour,-of the oppressor on whom it would gladly inflict vengeance ? It will be well for that child if, in the corruption of the world, he retain a sympathy with the good and the wretched, and a hatred of guilt, as ardent as he feels in those years of ignorance,-if, on learning the relations of virtue to his own happiness, he love it merely as he loved it when he had never thought of the relation. The love of virtue, then, I conclude, is different, and essentially different, from the mere love of selfish gain. It is an affection which leads us to es- teem often what is directly injurious to us,-which makes it impossible for the good man not to honour in his heart, as well as in the praise which might seem forced from him,-the virtues of that rival by whom he is outstripped in the competition of public dignity,-which gains from the commander of an army a respect which nothing can suppress, for the valour and all the milita- ry virtues of the commander opposed to him ; though these very virtues have disquieted him more than the vices of half a nation,-though they have rob- bed him of repose, and, which is still worse, have robbed him of the glory which was his great object,-by bringing on the army, which he has led in vain to successive fields, disaster after disaster. It is an affection which can find objects in lands the most remote ;-which makes us feel delight in the good qualities of those who lived in ages, of which the remembrance of their virtues are the only relics ; and which preserves to our indignation and ab- horrence, the crimes of those whom the tomb itself, already in ruins, has ren- dered powerless to injure us. It is an affection which is itself the truest pros- perity of him who feels it ; and which, when the virtuous man does truly seem to suffer what the world calls adversity, endears to him in his very af- flictions, still more, that virtue, without which he might have been what the world terms prosperous. LECTURE LXXIX. EXAMINATION OF THE SELFISH SYSTEM, AND ITS MODIFICATIONS, CONTINUED. A great part of my last Lecture, gentlemen, was employed in consider- ing that theory of morals which would represent all the feelings that appear to us most disinterested, as only the results of selfish calculation;-the gene rons sacrifices of friendship as the barter of some good which we value less for a good which we value more ; without any regard to the happiness of those whom it is our policy to distinguish by the flattering term of friends, but who are merely the purchasers and seller? of the different wares of wealth, or power, or honour, or sensual pleasures, which it is our trade as human be- ings, to sell and buy. In that wretched exhibition which is made to us of the social intercourse of the word, the friendship of any one,--as implying in every instance, some stratagem or invention of deceit on his part,-is, there- fore, in every instance, to be dreaded and shunned far more than absolute in- difference, or, even, perhaps, than avowed enmity. Nor is it only common friendship which this system would represent as the simulation, and nothing more than the simulation of the generous feelings that are professed. The virtues which gather us under the domestic roof in delightful confidence of affection, of which we never question the sincerity in others, because we feel it to be sincere in ourselves, when it prompts in us the kindnesses which we delight to receive, because we have known the delight of conferring them ; these gentle virtues which almost consecrate to us our home,-as if, in the midst of that wide scene in which the anxieties and vices of the world may rage, it were some divine and sacred place, where distrust and fear cannot enter,-would be driven, by this cold and miserable sophistry, from the roof under which they delighted to repose,-if human folly could prevail over an influence so celestial, and if a man could, indeed, become that wretched thing which he would so laboriously represent himself to be. In the tenderness of connubial love, which years of affection have only rendered more vivid, how many are there who, in their chief wishes of happiness, scarcely think of them- selves ; or, at least think of themselves far less as objects of exclusive ' inter- est, than as beings whose happiness is necessary to the enjoyment of those whom they delight to render happy ! This seeming devotion, we are told, may, indeed, be a selfishness a little more refined; but it is not less the growth or developement of absolute and exclusive self-regard. It is a selfish- ness which sees and seeks its own individual good at a little greater distance ; but, since it is its own individual good, which alone, at whatever distance, it is incessantly wishing to see, and as incessantly labouring to obtain, it is still selfishness, as much when it pursues the distant as when it grasps the near ; -a selfishness to which the happiness of those who appear to be loved, is as .the mere happiness of another,-if we analyse our desires with sufficient sub- ijjitv,-far more uninteresting than the acquisition of the idlest gewgawwhich vanity, with all its covetous eagerness, would scarcely Stoop to add to its stores. ' The fallacy of this system, as I endeavoured to show you, arises chiefly from the pleasure which truly attends our virtuous affections; but which, though uni- versally attending them, it seems to require no very great nicety of discrimina- tion to distinguish, as their consequence, not their cause. We have pleasure, in- deed, in conferring a kindness,but it is because we confer the kindness, and have • had the previous desire of conferring it, that we feel this pleasure of being kind ; not because we feel this pleasure, that we confer the kindness, and if we had never been beneficent,we should as little have known the delight of beneficence, as we should have known what external beauty is, without the previous percep- tion of the forms and colours of the objects which we terra beautiful. It would, indeed, have been as just a theory of the primary sensations of vision, to say, -that it is because We have a pleasing emotion in beholding the proportions AND ITS MODIFICATIONS. 289 Vol. II 290 and colours of certain forms, we see those forms and colours which excite in us the pleasing emotion ; as, of our moral approbation or disapprobation, to say,-that it is because wfe have pleasure in the performance and con- templation of virtuous actions, and pain in the contemplation and perform- ance of vicious actions, we perceive that very virtue and vice,-and form those very desires, virtuous or vicious, to which, as previously existing, we owe the pleasure and the pain, that have resulted from them, not produced them, and that cannot even be conceived as pleasure and pain, without necessarily preslipposing them. In acting virtuously, we do what it is pleasant to do; but it is noton account of the pleasure that we perform the action, which it is delightful to us to do, and almost as delightful to us to have done. Indeed, to destroy our pleasure altogether, nothing more would be necessary, than to im- press us with the belief, that the actions were performed by us, with no other view than to the selfish gratification which we might feel in thinking of them ; and with a total carelessness as to the happiness of those to whose welfare the world conceived us to be making a generous sacrifice. If conformity to selfish gain were all which constitutes virtue, why should onr pleasure in this-case cease ? It ceases for the best of all reasons, that it arises from vir- tue, and can arise only from virtue ; and that in such a case, as there would no longer be any virtue, there would, therefore, no longer be any thing to be contemplated with satisfaction. Such is that gross and revolting system which would represent all the seeming moral excellencies of the world,- every generous exertion, every magnanimous forbearance,-as one universal deceit,-one constant unwearied search of personal good, in which not a single wish ever wanders beyond that personal enjoyment of the indivi- dual. There is another form in which the selfish system may be presented to us, less unjust to our nature than that which we have been considering. It may be said, that we now do truly wish for the happiness of others, without any regard to our own immediate interest; but that we have become thus disin- terested by the very influence of selfishness, only because our own interest has formerly, been felt to be connected with the interest of others, diminishing and increasing with theirs in so many instances, that the love, which was ori- ginally confined, and confined in the strictest sense of exclusion so ourselves, is now diffused in some measure to them, as if almost parts of ourselves; that we have learned to, value their happiness, however, only on account of the relation which it has been found to bear to ours; but for which relation, as evolved tousjnore and more distinctly in the whole progress of social life, we should be absolutely incapable of a single wish for their happiness,-of a single wish for their freedom from the severest agony, even when their ago- ny was beneath our very view, and could be suspended by our utterance of a single word of command, to him who waited in dreadful ministry on the rack or on the stake; or at least, if, in such circumstances we could have wished any relief to their torture, it must have been merely to free our ears from the noise of groans or shrieks, that, like any other noise, mightbe a little too loud to be agreeable to us. According to this system, the happiness of others is loved as representative of our own-in the same way, as any ob- ject with which our own pleasure has been associated, becomes itself an ob- ject of pleasure to us. Our virtues, therefore, arising in every case from the discovery of some relation which the happiness of others bears to oUr own physical happiness, are not so much the causes of enjoyment, as the results ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM, of it; they depend, then, on circumstances that are accidental, varying as the accidental relations to our pleasure vary; and, if they seem to us to have any uniformity, it is only because the circumstances of pleasure, on which they depend, may be regarded as nearly uniform in all the nations of the earth. Every where the parent, the wife, the child, must have been useful to the son, the husband, the father ;-everywhere, therefore, these relations, as produc- tive of happiness, or protection, or comfort, in some degree, are relations of love,-and every where, in consequence of this factitious love, there are cor- responding factitious feelings of duty, filial, connubial, parental. This modification of the selfish system, as distinguished from the former, has at least the comparative merit of not being in absolute opposition to almost every feeling of our nature; and, since it allows us to be at present disinterested, and refers us for the period of absolute moral indifference, to a time, antecedent to that which our remembrance can reach, it is not so easy to expose its falsehood, as to expose the gross and obvious falsehood of the sys- tem which ascribes to us one lasting selfishness,-a selfishness so unremitting as to be, not for the first years of our life only, but in infancy, in youth, in mature manhood, in the last sordid wishes, of a long age of sordid wishes, absolutely incompatible with any affection that is directly and purely bene- volent. But though it may be less easy to show7 the inaccuracy of the view of the great principles of our moral nature, which such a modification of the doctrine of general selfishness presents ; the view, which even this modifi- cation of the doctrine presents, is false to the noble principles, of a nature, that, even in the sophist himself, is far nobler than that which his degrad- ing sophistries would represent him as possessing. There are feelings of moral approbation, independent of all views of personal interest. The hap- piness of others is to us more than the representation of our own; and the way in which it contributes most powerfully to our own, is by the generous disinterested wishes which it has previously excited in our breast. I trust it is superfluous for me to say, that, in contending for the indepen- dence and originality of our moral feelings, I do not contend, that we are capa- ble of these feelings, at a period, at which we are incapable of forming any conception of the nature and consequences of actions-that, for example, we must feel Instant gratitude, to our mother or our nurse, for the first suste- nance or first cares which we receive, before we are conscious of any thing but of our momentary pleasure or pain-and, far from knowing the existence of those kind hearts which watch over us, scarcely know that we have our- selves an existence which is capable of being prolonged. This blind virtue, it would, indeed, be manifestly absurd to suppose; but this no philosopher has maintained. All which a defender of original tendencies to the emotions that are distinctive of virtue and vice, can be supposed to assert, is, that when we are capable of understanding the circumstances of actions, we then have those feelings of moral approbation or disapprobation, w'hich in their various rela- tions to time, as present, past, or future, I suppose to constitute our moral no- tions of virtue, merit, obligation. It then becomes impossible for us, not to feel, that in giving pain, for the mere pleasure of giving pain, to one whose delight it has been to contribute to our happiness, we should do that, which we could not contemplate without a feeling of self-reproach,-as we should have an opposite feeling of self-approbation, in every sacrifice which we might make of our own convenience, to the happiness or the comfort of a person, to whom our mutual services were so justly due. An action, I have already AND ITS MODIFICATIONS. 291 292 ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM, frequently repeated, is, as a moral object, not the mere production of good or evil, but the intentional production of good or evil. It lias no moral mean- ing whatever, but as it is significant of the frame ot mind ol the agent him- self, willing and producing a particular and where the frame of mind of the agent cannot be supposed to be known, or even guessed, it is not to be supposed that any moral feeling should arise, whatever susceptibility the mind may possess of being affected with certain moral emotions, by the con- templation of certain frames of mind of the voluntary producers of good or evil. There is a knowledge then of intention on which our moral sentiments unquestionably depend ; but it is only on this knowledge they do depend; and it would be as absurd to refuse to them the appellation of original feel- ings, on this account, as it would be to refuse to the mind any original •suscep- tibility of the sensations of vision, because there can be no vision, till a lumi- nous object be present, nor, even then, any distinct perception tiK we have* opened our eyelids. There was, indeed, a period, at which we had ifo mo- ral feelings, as there was a period, at which we had no serfsations-of colour: but though we had not the actual feelings, from the absence of the cih-iHit- stances which are necessary for producing them, we could as little-he'said to *be blind to morality in the one case, as blind to all the splendour and beauty of light in the other. i < Tp return, however, to that form of the selfish system of morals, which is under our review,-I may remark, in the first place, that, as tjnx thdory-of our affections adfnits them to be at present disinterested, and refer&us for the period of exclusive self-regard, to a time of which the consciousness is abso- lutely lost to our memory, it would not be entitled to the praise of Certainty, even though no objection could be urged against it. It would still be pnlv an hypothesis, and an hypothesis, which, even by the confession of those who maintain it, supposes a state of our feelings absolutely opposite to that yi they have continued to display, during all that long period of our neSs which we are capable of remembering. It is an hypothesis, all lh;e^Mir-!\' then of the proof of which must rest with the asseilers of it,-an hypo(Wjis'.' which, even though it were just, it would be impossible to verify-and tfti'w 1 pothesis which affirms the mind to have been, with respect to the vely feqfk ings that are attempted to be explained by it, the reverse of what is at sent. But is there no other objection, which can be made to this system, thank that it is an hypothesis only, which may, if we consent to admit it without'; proof, be made to tally with the phenomena ; but which the phenomena themselves do not at least very obviously appear to warrant-us to frame? There is still another very important inquiry:-does it correspond, even as an hypothesis, with the moral appearances, which it is invented to illus- trate ? We have moral affections, it is allowed, at present, which are disinterested ; but they have become so, it is said, in consequence of the association of our own past pleasures with their objects ; and our experience that the safety, aix! in some, measure the comfort, of others,-for whom, on their own account, we should be perfectly indifferent whether they be in health or disease, joy or misdry,-are necessary to enable them to contribute most effectually to bur happiness. We at last seek their happiness for their sake, because we have been accustomed to seek it for our own ; and the wilful violations of their pleasure or ease: which were regarded by us at first as inexpedient', be- cause they might be hurtful to ourselves, are at last regarded by us as immo- AND ITS MODIFICATIONS. 293 ral, when we have been so perfectly selfish, for a sufficient length of time, as to cease to be selfish, from the very force of our habits of selfishness. In opposition to this hypothesis I need not repeat arguments which have been already urged by me against other fiilse views of our moral nature; and which, as not less applicable to this view of it, 1 flatter myself that you will have no difficulty in remembering and applying for yourselves. The nur- sery, to which 1 referred in my last; Lecture as the scene of an experiment that might be considered as decisive with respect to the theory of universal selfishness, would be equally valuable for a similar experiment in the present instance, as to that selfishness, which,. though hpt universal during the whole course of life, is said to be universal at least during childhood. Such an ex- periment would indeed be still more valuable in the present instance ; as al- lowing us the nearest approach which we can make to the time at which the mysterious transmutation of selfishness into disinterested affection is supposed to begin to take place. If all actions, which do not immediately affect our own means of physical well-being, be originally indifferent to us,-and if we learn, only by the relations of certain actions to physical well-being, to regard one species of conduct as virtuous, and another species of conduct as vicious, the child,whose never-failing enjoyments have seemed to him to form a regular part of the day, almost like the hours which compose it,-who expects to find to- morrow what he found yesterday,-and who as little thinks that he is indebt- ed to any one for the regular food which gratifies his appetite, or the gar- ments which keep him warm, or the little couch on which he lies down hap- py to awake happy next morning,-as he thinks, that he is indebted to any one of those around him for the sunny radiance which shines on him, or for the air which he breathes without knowing that he is breathing it,-while he lives among smiles and caresses, and regards even these not as marks of in- dulgence, but only as proofs of the mere presence of those whose very coun- tenance is love ;-the little reasoner on his own comforts, and disregarder of all comforts but his own, may indeed be beginning to form the inductions w hich are to terminate in the belief, that the happiness of others may be in- strumental to his happiness; and that the universe would suffer, and conse- quently himself, as a'part of the universe,- be in danger of suffering, by the spreading and midtiplying relations of guilt to guilt, if an instance of rapacity or cruelty were to occur in some obscure cottage in a distant kingdom. But though lie may be beginning to make philosophic analysis and generalization of tfie remote relations of things by which crimes perpetrated in the most re- mote part of the world, and of a kind from which he has never suffered, may be conceived by him to have ultimately some relation to his own selfish en- joyment ; he is surely only beginning to make them. His selfishness is not of sufficient growth to have ceased to be selfish ; and his morality, therefore, , if morality be the result of fine inductions, which show the good of others to be in some measure representative of our own, cannot have begun to be de- veloped. When he quits his sport,, therefore, to listen to the tale which his nurse has promised him,-suspending not this particular exercise only, but the very activity that would be every moment urging him to new exprcjse,- as he remains fixed at her knee in a state of quiet of every limb,'that, but for the delightful horrors which he hears and expects to hear, would be .too powerful to be borne,-if there be no disinterested affection then, or at least only the faint dawning of such affections,-the tale which is related to'him., however full it (nay be of injustice and cruelty, cannot have any powerful in- 294 fluence on his feelings. His love of novelty, indeed, may be gratified by the adventures of the generous warrior, who, at the peril of his own life, attacked the castle of the giant, and opened at last, to give liberty to a.hundred trem- bling prisoners, those dungeon gates which had never before been opened, but to fling some new wretch to the living heap of wretchedness, or out of the heap already gathered to select some one for torture and death. He may lis- ten to such a marvellous tale as he would listen to any thing else that is equal- ly marvellous; but it is only as marvellous that he can be supposed to listen to it. There is no generous interest in virtue to be gratified in his little heart; because, in his state of secure and tranquil enjoyment, he has had too little experience of the relations, of things to know that vice and virtue have that great difference-their only difference-which consists in their likelihood of being of greater or less advantage or disadvantage to him. In hearing of the deliverance of the good, and of the punishment of the wicked, he should have no thought but of the wonderful things which he is to hear next. In short, according to the system which would represent all virtue to be of self- ish growth, he should be that cold and indifferent creature which no nursery has ever seen ; and which if every nursery saw, in those who are to furnish the mature population of other years, the earth would soon be an unpeopled waste, or, at best, a prison-house of the rapacious and the cruel. If, without having heard of any hypotheses on the subject, we were told, that there is a period of the life of man, in which a tale of cruelty may be re- lated to him, and understood without exciting any emotion ; and in which the intentional producer of. misery. who produces it in the mere wantonness of power, only that he may have the delight of thinking that he has produced it, and the mild and unrepining sufferer whom he has made his victim, are regarded with equal indifference; is it to his early years that we all should look in making our reference ? or, rather, is there not reason to think, that, at least, an equal number of the estimators of different ages would look to years, when, if generous affections were the result of experience, and grew more purely disinterested, as the experience of the relations of things extended over a larger portion of life, there could not be one sordid and selfish wish remain- ing with its ancient dominion in the heart. But, omitting every objection that may be drawn from the appearances of lively motal feeling, at a time when, according to the hypothesis of original in- sensibility to every distinction of virtue and vice, there could be no moral feeling of any kind ; what, I may ask, is the nature of the change which is supposed to take place in this purification of selfish desires, and are the circumstances assigned as the cause of the purification sufficient to produce it ? We are absolutely regardless of the happiness or misery of others ; and the actions that would lead to their happiness or misery seem to us to have those differ- ent physical tendencies, but are regarded by us only as physically different. Such is said to be the state of the mind at one period. Afterwards we learn to look on others with regard; in consequence of the pleasure which has flowed from them, or attended their presence,-and, not to look on them with disinterested regard only, and to wish their happiness, but,-which is a much more important circumstance,-to feel that the neglect or violation of their happiness would be attended with feelings of self-reproach on our part, essentially different from mere regret. The explanation proposed might, perhaps, be thought to account for the affection which we acquire for persons as well as for things that were previously indifferent to us ; and even for our ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM, wish to add to the happiness of those whom we love, since there scarcely can be affection without such a wish. But the sense of duty is something more than this consciousness of mere affection and of kind wishes. When we have failed to act in conformity with it, we have not a mere feeling of misfortune as when we have failed in any wish, the success of which did not depend on ourselves ; but a moral feeling of self-disapprobation, for which the growth of mere affection, and of all the wishes to which affection can give rise, is in- sufficient to account. Here, then, is the important transition which should be explained,-that by which we pass from love that is factitious, to a feeling of duty that is factitious. It is this feeling of moral approbation or disappro- bation,-the difference of common regret from remorse,-of common joy from the delightful complacencies of virtue,-which is the real subject in controversy ; and this feeling the selfish system, even in that best modifica- tion of it which we are considering, leaves wholly unexplained. It asserts us to be selfish, but it does not show, nor even profess to show, how we are thus selfish with notions of morality. It must never be forgotten, in estimating any theory of morals, that it is not a mere quantity of pleasure or pain, love or dislike, for which the theorist has to account; but an order of moral notions, pleasant, indeed, in certain refer- ences to ourselves or others, painful in certain other references, yet essen- tially distinct from any varieties of mere physical delight or uneasiness. It is not the joy of a prosperous man for which he has to give a reason, but the complacency of a good conscience,-not the regret of one who has formed wishes of dignified station or wealth that are ungratified,-but the remorse of one who has formed guilty wishes, and whose chief misery, perhaps, arises from the gratification of the very wishes which he had formed. It is not the mere wish of contributing to the happiness of those whom we love, but the feeling of obligation to contribute to their happiness,-and often even to con- tribute to the happiness of individuals for whom we feel no peculiar tender- ness of regard. For these peculiar feelings, however, for all that can strictly be said to be moral in love, or even in morality itself; the asserters of the selfish system do not think it necessary to assign any reason, though it is of these only that any explanation is required : and yet they speak of their sys- tem as if it were a theory, not of mere pleasure or pain, love or dislike, but of all the phenomena of moral sentiment. They think that they have shown enough, if they have shown how we may love our friends that live around us as we love our house or our estate; and if they can account for this mere affection, tliey take for granted, that our feelings of duty, virtue, obligation, and all the moral feelings of conscience follow of course. Even with respect to mere affection, unimportant as this is, in a theory of morals, when considered as mere affection, exclusively of all feeling of duty or moral approbation,-the cause assigned for the production and extension of this regard is far from being shown to be adequate. It is a cause which con- nects us only with a few individuals, and which is yet adduced as explanatory of feelings that are extended in vivid diffusion to all mankind. The associ- ating principle is the cause to which we are directed,-that principle which, in a former part of the course, we found to be capable of attaching a very high interest, to objects that might be considered as in themselves almost indiffer- ent,-a snuff-box, a cane, or any other inanimate thing,- which had long been our companion. But though this sort of companionship may render our own cane important to us, as if it were a symbol of our happiness, like the white AND ITS MODIFICATIONS. 295 296 wands and gold sticks that are symbols of the dignity of office ; this love of our own cane does not render every other walking suck, which we may see in ashop, or in the hands of others, of much greater value in our conception, than if we had been in the habit of walking without any support. If then it be, as is asserted,' precisely in the same manner, that we- acquire our affec- tion for the living beings around us,-who, otherwise,-would have been as in- different to 'our regard, as it is possible for a snuff-box or a cane to be,- why is not the effect confined, or nearly confined, to those immediately around us, with whom the associations of pleasure have been formed ?• Be- yond the circle to whjch the magic of association Spreads, every thing sltould be as before, or at least very nearly as before. For the stranger whom we have never seen, in the same manner as for the snuff-box of another, we should retain feelings that scarcely pass beyond indifference; and should as little look with affection on all mankind, in consequence of the pleasure w hich has attended our intimacy with a few-if affection be in itself foreign to our nature, and the result of factitious circumstances,-;as we should look with n covetous eye on every walking stick, because we should feel sorrow, far be- yond its intrinsic worth, on the loss of our own. If, indeed, man be natu- rally more precious to our affection than the paltry baubles of a toyshop, we may suppose, in his ease, a more extensive diffusion of every feeling of re- gard. But to ascribe to man any original title to our love, independent of the use which we may learn to derive from him, as from a machine that may be instrumental to our convenience, would be to abandon the very principle on which the whole strange system of moral selfishness is founded. Even as a theory, then, of mere affection, the selfish theory is inadequate. But however widely affection may be supposed to be spread, in consequence of the association and ready suggestion of pleasures received from a few in- dividuals only-though it were admitted, that, by the remembrance of these, we might be led to love all the individuals of mankind, and loving them to wish their happiness-it must still be remembered, that the only influence of affection, as mere affection, is to render the happiness of others desirable, like the attainment of any other object of desire. Instead of wishing merely the gratification of our sensual appetites,-of our intellectual curiosity,-of our ambition, we have now other wishes to mingle with these that relate to the happiness of others ;' and, we may regret, tiiat the happiness of others has not been produced by certain actions, in the same way, as we mav re- gret, that we have not attained the objects of any of our other wishes,-that we are not the possessors of a fortunate ticket in the lottery, or have not had the majority of votes in an election to some office of honour or emolument. But joy and regret are all which we can feel, even in love itself; and obliga- tion, virtue, merit, the self-complacency or remorse of conscience, are as lit- tle explained by the growth of mere love and hatred, as if every object of these affections had remained indifferent to us. We have considered, then, the selfish system in two aspects : first, as it represents mankind as universally, in every hour and minute of their waking existence, intent on one sole object, their own convenience,-incapable of . feeling any disinterested affection for another ; and, therefore, when appear- ing to wish the happiness of a father, or wife, or son, or friend, wishing at heart only their own. We have afterwards considered that less sordid mo- dification of the system, which supposes us, indeed, to have been, originally, as selfish as the other represents us to be for the whole course of our life ; ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM, but which does a little more justice to the feelings of our maturer years, by admitting, that we become susceptible of affections that prompt us to act, even when our own convenience is not the immediate object before our eyes , and in our examination of both forms of the doctrine, we have seen, how in- capable it is of explaining those notions of obligation, virtue, Merit, that con- stitute the moral phenomena, which a theory that professes to be a theory of morals, ought as little to omit,-as a theory of light to omit all notice of the radiant fluid, the properties of which it professes to examine, while it con- fines its attention to the forms of the mirrors or lenses which variously reflect or transmit it. • . ' After these two lights, in which the system commonly distinguished by the name of the Selfish System of Morals has been considered by us, there re- mains still one other light, in which it is to be viewed ; that in which the ob- ligation of virtue is supposed to consist merely, in an exclusive regard to our own individual eternity of happiness, in another life ; and virtue itself to con- sist in obedience to the will of the Supreme Being; not on account of the moral excellence of that Supreme Being, or of his bounty to us, which might seem of itself to demand compliances, that are the only possible expressions of the gratitude ofdependent creatures, to him from whom their power as well as their happiness is derived,-but without any such views of reverence or gra- titude, at least without any such views, as are in the slightest degree necessa- ry io the virtue of their motives,-merely on account of the power which the Ruler of the universe possesses, to give or withhold the happiness which- is our only object. This form of the selfish system, which has been embrac- ed by many theological writers of undoubted piety and purity, is notwithstand- ing, I cannot but think, as degrading to the human character, as any other form ofihe doctrine of absolute selfishness; or rather, it is in itself the most degrading of all the forms which the selfish system can assume: because,, while tlie selfishness which it maintains is as absolute and unremitting, as if the objects of personal gain were to be found in the wealth or honours, or sensual pleasures of this earth ; this very selfishness is rendered more offen- sive, by the noble image of the Deity which is continually presented to our mind, and presented in all his benevolence, not to be loved, but to be court- ed with a mockery of affection. The sensualist of the common system of selfishness, who never thinks of any higher object in the pursuit of the little pleasures which he is miserable enough to regard as happiness, seems to me, even in the brutal stupidity in which he is sunk, a being more worthy of esteem than the selfish of another life ; to whose view God is ever present, but who view him always only to feel constantly in their heart, that in loving him who has been.the dispenser of all the blessings which they have enjoyed, and who lias revealed himself in the glorious character of the diffuser of an immorta- lity of happiness, they love not the Giver himself, but only the gifts which they have received, or the gifts that are promised. Yet, such is the influ- ence of the mere admission of the being of a God, and of the images of holi- ness and delight which that divine name is sufficient to suggest; that while the common system of the universal selfishness of virtue has been received by the virtuous themselves, with an indignant horror that was itself almost a confuta- tion of the system; the equally universal selfishness of the doctrine of these theological moralists, has been received, not merely without any emotion of disgust, but with the approbation and assent of no small portion of those, who, in opposition to the very doctrine which they have embraced, are truly in AND ITS MODIFICATIONS. 297 Vol. IL 298 their hearts disinterested lovers of man, and equally disinterested lovers and worshippers of God. The doctrine of the absolute selfishness of our homage to God, and of our social virtues, considered as the mere conformity of our wills to the command of Him who is the dispenser of eternal happiness and eternal misery,-for the sole reason of his power of thus dispensing happiness or misery, and not on account of his own transcendent excellence, that of itself might seem to demand such a conformity,-is a doctrine of very old date. But the writer who in modern times has led to the widest diffusion of this doctrine, is Archdeacon Paley, the most popular of all our ethical writers; and one of the most judicious in the mere details of ethics, however false and dangerous I consider his leading doctrines to be. Virtue, he defines to be, " the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness."* The last part of the definition is the most important part of the whole; for, the knowledge of this everlasting happiness he supposes to be all which constitutes moral obligation ; meaning by obligation, not any feeling of moral love, but the influence of happiness as an object of physical desire, and of pain as an object of physical aversion ; one or other of which is to follow our obedience or disobedience to the com- mand of the Power who is the supreme dispenser of both. The will of God is our rule, he says, but " private happiness is our motive," and therefore our.obli- gation. In short, the inducement or temptation to be virtuous, which is all that constitutes our obligation to be virtuous, is precisely of the same kind with the inducements or temptations to vice, which may be said in like manner to constitute an obligation to be vicious. The only difference is, that a good man,-that is to say, a person whom we distinguish by the flattering title of good,-is more prudent than those whom we have chosen to denominate wicked. Both act from an obligation which may be said to be moral in one case as much as in the other ; since in neither is disinterestedness of affection necessary to virtue ; and in both there is that desire of pleasure which is sufficient to constitute an inducement, and therefore* in his acceptation of the word, which he regards as synonymous with inducement, an obligation. That we have a moral sentiment of obligation, virtue, merit, which is very different from the mere inducements of pleasure, near or remote, 1 surely need not attempt to demonstrate to you, after the remarks already made on the selfish system in general. The doctrine of Paley differs, as you per- ceive, from the general selfish system, only by the peculiar importance which it very justly gives to everlasting happiness and misery, w'hen compared with the brief pains or pleasures of this life. In the scale of selfish gain, it is a greater quantity of physical enjoyment which it has in view. It is a sager selfishness, but it is not less absolute selfishness which it maintains; and it is therefore subject to all the objections which I urged before at great length, and which it would now therefore be idle to repeat. One great answer obviously presents itself to all those selfish systems which convert the whole of virtue into prudence; and make the differences of virtue and vice in every respect precisely the same in kind, as those of speculators in the market of commerce, who have employed their capital more or less advantageously, in the different bargains that have been offered to them. All those systems are of course intended to be faithful pictures of our feelings. The virtue which they profess to explain is the virtue which ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM, • Mor. and Pol. Philosophy, Vol. I. p. 42. Lond. 1818. AND ITS MODIFICATIONS. we feel; and if we felt no moral approbation of certain actions, no moral disapprobation of certain other actions, it would be manifestly absurd to speak of virtue or of vice. It is to our consciousness then, ♦hat we must look for determining the fidelity of the picture ;-and what features does our consciousness exhibit? If two individuals were to expose themselves to the same peril, for the same common friend,-and if we could be made to un- derstand, that the one had no other motive for this apparently generous ex- posure, than the wish of securing a certain amount of happiness to himselfy at some time, either near or remote-on earth, or after he has quitted earth ; -the other no motive but that of saving a life which was dearer to him than his own,-in which case would our feeling of moral approbation more strongly arise ? Is it the more selfish of the two whom alone we should consider as the moral hero; or rather, is it not only, in thinking of him who forgot every thing but the call of friendship, and the disinterested feeling of duty which prompted him to obey the call,-that we should feel any moral approbation whatever ? It is precisely in proportion as selfish happiness is absent from the mind of the agent, or is. supposed to be absent from it, in any sacrifice which is made for another, that the moral admiration arises;- and what then can we think of a theory of this very moral admiration, which asserts it to arise only when it does not arise, and not to arise only when it does arise? We should not hesitate long in rejecting a theory of fluidity which should ascribe congelation to an increase of heat, and liquefaction to a diminution of it;-and as little ought we to hesitate in rejecting a theory of virtue that supposes the moral approbation which gives birth to our very notion of virtue, to arise only w.hen the immediate motive of the agent has been the view of his own happiness in this or any other world,-and to be precluded, therefore, by the very generosity of the agent, in every case in which he thought only of the happiness of others which he could increase, of the misery of others which he could relieve. That part of the system of Dr. Paley, then, which makes the sole motive to virtue the happiness of the agent himself, is false as a picture of the feelings of moral approbation and disapprobation for which it professes to ac- count. The other part of his system of virtue, however, which resolves it into conformity to the will of God, as obeyed from this motive of personal gain, may merit a little fuller investigation. 299 LECTURE LXXX. EXAMINATION OF THE SELFISH SYSTEM, CONCLUDED j EXAMINATION OF DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. Gentlemen, In the close of my last Lecture, after examining different modifications of the selfish system, I proceeded to consider one form of it which has not usually been ranked with the others, but which is not less ab- solutely selfish ; since it supposes the sole motive to virtue to be the view of our own personal advantage: the only difference being, that, instead of fixing its 300 desires on the quantity of pleasure which can be enjoyed in this life, it ex- tends then) to the greater quantity of pleasure which may be enjoyed by us hi the everlasting life that awaits us,.-having still, however, no other motive than tlx? desire- of this personal enjoyment, and the corresponding fear of pain, in the actions which may seem, but only seem, to arise from a disin- terested love of God, or a disinterested love of those whom God has com- mitted to our affection. The greater or less quantity of pleasure, however, which is coveted by us, either hi intensity or duration, does not altfer the nature of the principle which covets it: if the perception of the means of gratifying our own individual ap- petite for. enjoyment, whether the pleasure be great or slight, near or remote, brief or everlasting, be all which constitutes what is in that case strangely termed moral obligation ; and the system of Paley, therefore, to which I particular- ly alluded,-a system which defines virtue to be "the doing good to .man- kind, in obedience to the will of God, for the sake of everlasting happiness," and which makes, not the love of God, nor the love of mankind, but this love of everlasting happiness, the motive and sole obligation to the good which otherwise we should have had as little moral desire of producing or promoting, as of producing an equal- or greater amount of evil,-must be allowed to be, in its very essence, as truly selfish, as if it had defined virtue to be the pursuit of mere wealth, or fame, or of the brief dignities, or still briefer pleasures of this mortal existence. If the most prudent labourer after bis own selfish interest, without the slightest regard for the happiness of others, unless as that happiness may be instrumental to his? own, be constantly actuated by the same moral motive which influeikces the most generous lovers of mankind, how strange an illu- sion is all moral sentiment, which views, with such different feelings, objects that are in every moral respect precisely the same ? But it is in our emo- tions alone, that our notions of morality have their rise-; and bow illusive, therefore, and radically false, I should rather say, must be that system which is founded on the absolute similarity of feelings that are recognised by every bosom as absolutely diesiiftilar. Though I trust, then, it is sufficiently evident to you, from the results of the long discussion in which we have been engaged, that the moral obliga- tion to virtue is not, as Paley says, the mere inducement of pleasure held out to us by power which we cannot disobey, without losing the pleasure, and encountering pain, but an inducement of a nobler kind;-since plea- sure,. though it may lead us to be virtuous, may surely, as mere plea- sure, if there be no essential distinction of it, as pure or impure, right qt wrong, often lead us into what we are at present accustomed to denominate vice ; and though I shall, therefore, not repeat, in application to this enlarged selfishness, which extends its interested view through immortality, the objec- tions previously urged against that more limited selfishness which looks only to the surface of the earth, and to the few years in which we are to be moving along it; it may be of importance to make a few remarks on that other part of the doctrine of this celebrated moralist, which makes conformity to the will of God the rule of virtue. That virtuous actions-those actions which excite in us the feelin2: of moral approval, are conformable to the will of God, there can be no reason to doubt; since the very universality of this approval may be regarded as a sort of expression of the divine approbation. As little can we doubt, that, ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM, AND ITS MODIFICATIONS. 301 when the declared will of God is present to our mind, and we think of cer- tain actions as commanded by him, of certain other actions, as prohibited by him,-and when, in designing or meditating any action, we feel that it is one of those which he has prohibited,-there would arise in our mind, an instant feeling' of disapprobation, that is to say, of vice or demerit, in the perform- ance of the prohibited action. But the question is not whether it be virtue to conform our will to that of the Deity, when that will is revealed to us, or clearly implied, for of this there can be no doubt. It is, whether there be not irddur nature, a principle of moral approbation, from which our feelings of obligation, virtue, merit, flow; and which operates, not independently of the Divine will Indeed, for it was the Divine will which implanted in uS this very principle,-but without the necessary consideration, at the time, of the ex- pression of the Divine will; and .consequently without any intentional con- formity to it or disobedience, or which in our'obedience itself, as often as we think of the Divine will is the very principle by which we feel the duty of siijch conformity. The mother, though she should, at the moment, forget altogether that there is a God in nature, would still turn with moral horror Horn the'thqught of murdering the little prattler who is sporting at her knee ; and who is not more beautiful to her eye by external charms and graces, than beautiful to her heart by the thousand tendernesses which every day, and almost every hour, is developing ; while the child who, perhaps, has scarcely heard that there is a God, or who, at least, is ignorant of any will of God, in conformity with which virtu? consists, is still in his very igno- rance, developing these! moral feelings which are supposed to be inconsistent with such ignorance ; and would not have the same feeling of complacency, in r< paying'the parental caresses with acts of intentional injury, as when he repays them with expressions of reciprocal love. Of ah the mothers, who, at this moment, on the earth, are exercised, and vir-tiibusly exercised, in maternal duties around the cradles of their infants, there is, perhaps, not one who is. thinking, that God has commanded her to love her offspring, and to perform for them the many offices of loye that are necessary for preserving* the lives whirl) are so dear to her. The expression of the Divine will, indeed, not merely gives us dew and nobler duties to perform,-it gives a new and no- bler delight also to the very duties, which our 'nature prompts.-but still there,are duties, which our nature prompts; and the violation of which is felt as moral wrong, even when God is known and worshipped, only as a Demon of power, still less benevolent than the very barbadians who howl itround his altar hi their savage sacrifice. But, Ibr the principle of moral approbation which the Divine Being has fixed in our nature, the expression of his will would itsjelf have no moral power, whatever physical pain or pleasure it might bold out to our prudent choice. It may be asked, why should we obey lhe Divine command, with as much reason as it may be asked, why should we love our parents or our country ? and our only answer to both questions, as far as morality can be said to be concerned, or any feeling different from that of a mere calcula- tion of physical loss or gain, is, that such is our nature-that, in consider- ing the command of God, our greatest of benefactors, or in considering tho happiness of our parents, our country, mankind-which it is in our power to promote, we feel, that, to act in conformity with these, will be followed by our nforal approbation,-as, to act, in opposition to theni, will be followed by inevitable self-reproach. There is a principle of moral discrimination already 302 ON THE SELFISH SYSTEM. existing in us, that even when we conform our conduct to the Divine will, is the very principle by which we have felt the duty of this delightful con- formity ;-and, if there be no such principle in our nature, by which we dis- cover the duty of the conformity, it is surely very evident that there can be no such duty to be felt, any more than there can be colour to the blind, or melody to the deaf. ' ' % \ . God may be loved by us, or feared by us. He may be loved by us as the source of all our blessings, conferred or promised. He may be feared by us as a Being who has the power of inflicting on us eternal anguish. In one of these views, we may, when we obey him, act from gratitude; in the other from a sense of the evils which we have to dread in offending him. But, if it be a duty of gratitude to obey God, we must previously have been capable of knowing that gratitude is a virtue,-as much as we must have been capa- ble of knowing the power of God, before we could hav'e known to fear his awful dominion. We consider the Deity as possessing the highest moral perfection ; but, in that theological view of morality which acknowledges no mode of estimating excellence beyond that Divine command itself, whatever it might have been,-these words are absolutely meaningless ; since, if, in- stead of what we now term virtue, he had commanded only what we now term vice, his command must still have been equally holy. If, indeed, the system of Paley, and of other theological moralists, were just, what excel- lence, beyond the excellence of mere power, could we discover in that Di- vine Being whom we adore as the Supreme Goodness, still more than we fear him as the Omnipotent? God has indeed, commanded certain actions, and it is our virtue to conform our actions to his will; but if the virtue de- pend exclusively on.obedience to the command, and, if there be no peculiar moral excellence in the actions commanded, he must have been equally' ado- rable, though nature had exhibited only appearances of unceasing malevo- lence in its author; and every command which he had delivered to his creatures had been only to add new voluntary miseries to the physical mise- ries which already surrounded them. In the system of Hobbes, which con- siders law itself as constituent of moral right, a tyrant, if his power of enacting Jawr be sufficiently established, is not to be distinguished, in his very' tyranny, from the generous sovereign of the free ; because the measure of right is to be found in his will alone. In the system of Paley, in like man- ner, if virtue be conformity to the will of God, whatever that will may be, and there be no moral measure of the excellence of that will itself,-God and the most malignant demon have no moral difference to our heart, but as the one and not the other is the irresistible sovereign of the universe. The will of God, then, though it is unquestionably the source of virtue, in the most important sense ; as it was his will, that formed all the principles of our con- stitution, of udiich the principle of moral approbation is one-is not the source of virtue, in the sense in which that phrase is understood by some theological writers, as limited to the mere declaration of his will, sanctioned by punish- ment and reward ? There is an earlier law of God which he has written in our hearts; and the desire of our mere personal happiness or misery', in this or in another world, is, truly, an object of our approbation, not the source of it,-since the love of mere selfish enjoyment is at least as powerfully the mo- tive to vice, in some cases, as it is in other cases the motive to virtue. We do not merely submit to the will of God as we submit to any power which it is impossible for us to resist. We feel that it would not be imprudence onlv, ON DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. but guilt, to wish to disobey it. We seek, in the constitution of our nature, the reason which leads us to approve morally of the duty of this conformity of our will to his beneficent and supreme will; and we find, in one of the essential principles of our nature, the moral reason which we seek. After this examination of the various systems, which may be considered as more or less directly opposed to the belief of that principle of moral feeling -the original susceptibility of moral emotion on the contemplation of certain actions-for which I have contended, there is still one system which deserves to be considered by us, in relation to this belief-not as being subversive of morality in any one of its essential distinctions, but as appearing to fix mora- lity bn a basis, that is not sufficiently firm ; with the discovery of the instabi- lity of which, therefore, the virtues that are represented as supported on it, might be considered as themselves unstable ; as tbe statue, though it be the image of a god, or the column, though it be a part of a sacred temple, may fall, not because it is not sufficiently cohesive and firm in itself, but because it is too massy, for the feeble pedestal on which it has been placed. The system to which I allude, is that which is delivered by Dr. Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments,-a work, unquestionably of the first rank, in a science u'hich I cannot but regard, as to man the most interesting of scien- ces. Profound in thought, it exhibits, even when it is most profound, an ex- ample of the graces with which a sage imagination knows how to adorn the simple and majestic form of science; that it is severe and cold, only to those who are themselves cold and severe,-as in those very graces, it exhibits in like manner, an example of the reciprocal embellishment which imagination receives from the sober dignity of truth. In its minor details and illustra- tions, indeed, it may be considered as presenting a model of philosophic beauty, of which all must acknowledge the power, who are not disqualified by their very nature for the admiration and enjoyment of intellectual excel- lence,-so dull of understanding, as to shrink with a painful consciousness of incapacity at tbe very appearance of refined analysis-or so dull and cold of heart, as to feel no charm in the delightful varieties of an eloquence, that in the illustration and embellishment of the noblest truths seems itself to live and harmonize with those noble sentiments which it adorns. It is chiefly in its minor analyses, however, that I conceive the excellence of this admirable work to consist. Its leading doctrine I am far from ad- mitting. Indeed it seems to me as manifestly false, as tbe greater number of its secondary and minute delineations appear to me faithful, to the fine lights and faint and flying shades, of that moral nature which they re- present. * . • , According to Dr. Smith, we do not immediately approve of certain ac- tions, or disapprove of certain other actions, when we have become acquaint- ed- with the intention of the agent, and the consequences beneficial or injuri- ous, of what he has done. All these we might know thoroughly, without a feeling of the slightest approbation or disapprobation. It is necessary, before any moral sentiment arise, that the mind should go through another process, -that by which we seem, for the time, to enter into the feelings of the agent, and of those to whom his action has related, in its consequences, or in- tended consequences, beneficial or injurious. If, by a process of this kind, -on considering all the circumstances in which the agent was placed, we feel a complete sympathy with the passions or calmer emotions that actuated him, and with the gratitude of him who was the object of the action,-we 303 ON DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. 304 approve of the action itself as right, and feel the merit of the airent;-our sense of the propriety of the action depending on our sympathy with the agent; our sense of the merit of the agent on our sympathy with the object of the action. If our sympathies be of an opposite kind, we disapprove of the action itself as improper, that is to say, unsuitable to the circumstances, and aserrbe, not merit but demerit, to the agent. In sympathizing with the gratitude of others, we should have regarded the agent as worthy of reward ; in sympathizing with the resentment of others, we regard him as worthy of punishment. Such is the supposed process in estimating the actions of others. When we regard our own conduct, we in some measure reverse this process ; or rather by a process stall more refined, we imagine others sympathing with us, and svmpathize with their sympathy. We consider how our conduct would appear to an impartial spectator. We approve of it, if it be that of which we feel that l*e would approve ;-we disapprove of it, if it be that which we feel by the* experience of our own former emotions', when we have ourselves, in similar circumstances, estimated the actions of others, would excite his dis- approbation. We are able to form a judgment as to our own conduct, there- fore, because we have previously judged of the moral conduct of others,- that is to say, have' previously sympathized with the feelings of others and but for the presence, or supposed presence, of some impartial spectator, as a mirror to represent to ourselves, we should as little havQ known the beauty or deformity of our own moral character, as we-should have known the beauty or ugliness of our external features, without some mirror to reflect theirt to our . ' • ' • • • » ' In this brief outline of Dr. Smith's system, I have, of course, confined myself to flie leading doctrine, of which bis theory is the devclopement. If this doctrine of the necessary antecedence of sympathy to our moral ap- prbbhtion or disapprobation be just, the system may be admijted, even though many of his minor illustrations should appear to be lalse. If this primary doctrine be Hot just, the .system, however ingenious and just in its explana liod of many phenomena of the mind, must fail as a theory of our moral sen- timn.n<s. • * To derivfc our mural sentiments,-which arc as universal as the actions bf mankind that come under our. review,-from the occasional 'sympathies, that warm dr sail leu Cis with pys turd griefs and sentiments which are not our can., seems to mo, I confess, very'nearly the same sort of error, as it would be'to derive the* witters of an ever-flowing stream from the sunshine or shade which may occasionally gleam over it. That we h ive a principle of social feeding, which, in its rapid participation of the vivid emotions of others, seetps to identify in, in many cases, with the happy or the sorrowful, the grateful or the indignant, it is impossible to deny. But this sympathy, quick as it truly is to arise, in cases in which the primary 'feelings are vivid and . strongly marked, is not a perpetual accompaniment of every, action of every one around us. Tbare must be some vividness of feeling in others, or the display of vi- vithwss of feeling,-or at least such a situation as usually excites vivid feel- ing of some sort, in those who are placed in it, to call the syrnpathv itself iirfb action". In the number of petty affairs which are hourly before our eyes, what smypathy Is felt, either with those who are actively or those wh© are passively concerned,-when the agent himself performs his little offices with emotions as slight as those which the objects of his actions reciprocally feel: yet, in these cases, we are as capable of judging, and approve or disapprove, -not with die same liveliness of emotion, indeed, but with as accurate esti- mation of merit or demerit,-as when we consider the most heroic sacrifices which the virtuous can make, or the most atrocious crimes of which the sor- did and the cruel can be guilty. It is not the absolute vividness of our emo- tion, however, but its mere correspondence in degree with the emotion of others, which affects our estimates of the propriety of their actions; and it must be remembered, that it is not any greater or less vividness of our sym- pathetic feeling, but the accuracy of our estimation of merit and demerit, whether great or slight, by the sympathetic feelings supposed, which is the only point in question. There is no theory of our moral distinctions, which supposes that we are to approve equally of all actions that are right, and to disapprove equally of all actions which are wrong ; but it is essential to one theory-that theory which we are considering-that there should be no feel- ing of right or wrong, merit or demerit,-and consequently, no moral estima- tion whatever, where there is no previous sympathy in that particular case. The humblest action, therefore, which we denominate right, must have awak- ened our sympathy, as much as those glorious actions which we are never weary of extolling,-in the very commendation of which we think not of the individual only with thankfulness, but with a sort of proud delight of ourselves, of our country, of the common nature of man, as ennobled by the virtue, that, instead of receiving dignity from the homage of our praises, confers dig- nity on the very gratitude and reverence which offer them. If we were to think only those actions right, in which our sympathy is excited, the class ol indifferent actions would comprehend the whole Ine, or nearly the whole life, of almost all the multitude of those around us, and, indeed, of almost all mankind. A few great virtues and great iniquities would still remain in our system of practical ethics, to be applauded or censured ; but the morality of the common transactions of life, which, though less important in each particu- lar case is, upon the whole, more important, from its extensive diffusion, would disappear altogether, as morality-as that which it is right to observe, and wrong to omit,-and though it might still be counted useful, would ad- mit of no higher denomination of praise. The supposed necessary universa- lity then, in our moral sentiments, of that, which, however frequent, is surely far from universal, would of itself seem to me a sufficient objection to the the- ory of Dr. Smith. Even if the sympathy for which he contends were as universal, as it is ab- solutely necessary for the truth of his theory that it should be, it must still be admitted that our sympathy is, in* degree at least, one of the most irregular and sebmingly capricious of principles in the constitution of the mind; and on this very account, therefore, not very likely to be the commensurable test or standard of feelings, so regular upon the whole, as our general estimates of right and wrong. But though it would be very easy to show the force of this objection, I hasten from it, and from all objections of this kind, to that which seems to me to be the essential error of the system. This essential error, the greatest of all possible systematic errors, is no less than the every case, of those very moral feelings, which are supposed to flow from sympathy,-the assumption.of them as necessarily existing before that very sympathy in which they are said to originate. Let us allow, then, every thing which we can suppose it possible for the author of the theorv to have claimed,-let us admit, that the sympathy of ON DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. 305 Vol. II. 306 which he speaks, instead of being limited to a few cases of vivid feeling, is as uni- versal as he contends,-that it is as little variable in kind, or in degree, as our notions of right and wrong,-and, in short, that it is in perfect accordance with our moral sentiments;-even though, with all these admissions, we were to ad- mit also the very process which Dr. Smith supposes to take place exactly in the manner which he supposes,-it would be very evident, that still, after so many important concessions, the moral sentiments could not be regarded as having their source in the sympathy, but as preceding it; or, if no moral sen- timents of any kind preceded it, the sympathy itself could not afford them -more than a mirror, which reflects to us, from the opposite landscape, the sunny hill, the rock, and the trees, gleaming through the spray of the water- fall, could of itself, without any external light, produce all that beautiful vari- ety of colours with which it delights our vision, as if it were the very scene on which we have loved to gaze. Let us consider, then, with a little nicer analysis, the process of which Dr. Smith speaks, admitting the sympathy for which he contends, and admitting it in the fullest extent which can be conceived necessary to his theory. In this theory, as you have seen, he has separated our feeling of the pro- priety or impropriety of the action from our feeling of the merit or demerit of the agent,-ascribing the one to our sympathy with the emotions of the agent in the circumstances in which he was placed-the other to our sympa- thy with the gratitude or resentment of those who have been affected by the action. I have already endeavoured to show you, that we have only one feeling of approvableness, arising on the contemplation of an action, which, as variously referred-to the agent, or to the action considered abstractly-is at once the felt propriety of the action and the felt merit of the agent. In- deed, it seems to me as absurd to suppose that we can conceive an action to be wrong, in the moral sense of that word, without any notion of the demerit of the voluntary agent-or conceive the demerit of the voluntary agent, with- out any notion of the impropriety of his action, as it would he to suppose that we can imagine a circle without a centre, or a centre without a circle. But let us adopt, without objection, the supposed analysis which Dr. Smith has made of our moral sentiments ; and admit, that, in the constitution of these, there are two distinct feelings, that give occasion to corresponding moral no- tions of propriety and merit,-which one of these feelings alone could not have produced;-in short, let us admit, that we might ha-ve conceived an action to be morally wrong, without any demerit on the part of the agent, or Irave conceived the greatest demerit on bis part, without any moral impropriety in his action. The first supposed sympathy which we have to consider, is that which is said to give occasion to our moral estimates of actions as proper or improper, without regard to the merit or demerit of the agent, that are felt by us only through the medium of another sympathy. This notion of moral propriety or impropriety, we are told, could not have been produced in us by the most attentive consideration of the action, and of all its circumstances ; another process must intervene. We feel the propri- ety of the action, only because we sympathize with the agent. We make his circumstances our own, and our passion being in unison with his, we regard it as suitable to the circumstances, and therefore as morally proper. If we have, indeed, previous notions of moral right and wrong, or some other source in which they may be found, this belief of the propriety of cer- ON DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. tain feelings that accord with ours, might be sufficiently intelligible ; but the most complete sympathy of feelings, the most exact accordancy, is not suffi- cient to constitute or give rise to the moral sentiments of which we are treating, -when there is nothing more than a sympathy of feelings, without that pre- vious moral sentiment, which in Dr. Smith's system, we must always tacitly presuppose. In the very striking emotions of taste, for example, we may feel, on the perusal of the same poem, the performance of the same musical air, the sight of the same picture, or statue, a rapture or disgust, accordant with the rapture or disgust expressed by another reader, or listener, or spec- tator ;-a sympathy far more complete than takes place in our consideration of the circumstances in which he may have had to regulate his conduct in any of the common affairs of life,-in which our secondary emotion, if it be at all excited, is excited but faintly. If mere accordance of emotion, then, imply the feeling of moral excellence of any sort, we should certainly feel a moral regard for all whose taste coincides with ours ; yet, however gratifying the sympathy in such a case may be, we do not feel, in consequence of this sympathy, any morality in the taste that is most exactly accordant with our own. There is an agreement of emotions,-a sort of physical suitableness, that is felt by us of the emotions as effects, to the works of art as causes, but nothing more ; and, if we had not a principle of moral approbation, by which, independently of sympathy, and previously to it, we regard actions as right; the most exact sympathy of passions would, in like manner, have been a proof to us of an agreement of feelings, but of nothing more. It proves to us more, because the emotions, which we compare with our own, are recognis- ed by us as moral feelings, independently of the mere agreement. We do not merely share the sentiments of the agent, but we share his moral senti- ments, the recognition of which, as moral sentiments, has preceded our very sympathy. Why is it that we regard emotions which do not harmonize with our own, not merely as unlike to ours, which is one view of them,-but as morally im- proper, which is a very different view of them ? It must surely be, because we regard our own emotions which differ from them as morally proper; and, if we regard our own emotions as proper, before we can judge the emotions, which do not harmonize with them, to be improper on that account, what in- fluence can the supposed sympathy and comparison have had, in giving birth to that moral sentiment which preceded the comparison ? They show us only feelings that differ from ours, and that are improper because ours are proper. The sympathy, therefore, on which the feeling of propriety is -said to depend, assumes the previous belief of that very propriety ;-or if there be no previous belief of the moral suitableness of our own emotions, there can be no reason, from the mere dissonance of other emotions with ours, to regard these dissonant emotions as morally unsuitable to the circumstances in which they have arisen. We may, perhaps, conceive them to be physically unsuit- able, in the same manner as we regard the taste as erroneous, which approves of poetry as sublime that to us appears bombastic or mean ; but we can as little feel any moral regard in the one case as in the other, unless we have previously distinguished the one set of emotions as moral emotions, the other set as emotions of taste. With respect to the former of the two sympathies, then, which Dr. Smith regards as essential to our moral sentiments, the sympathy from which he supposes us to derive our notions of actions, as right or wrong, proper or im- ON DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. 307 308 ON DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. proper,-that is to say, as morally suitable or unsuitable to the circumstances in which the action takes place,-we have seen that it assumes as indepen- dent of the sympathy, the very feelings to which the sympathy is said to give rise. Let us next consider the latter of the two sympathies, to which we are said to owe our notion of merit or demerit in the agent, as distinct from the propriety or impropriety of bis action. These sentiments of merit or demerit arise, we are told, not from any di- rect consideration of the agent, and of the circumstances of his action, but from our sympathy with the gratitude or resentment of those who have de- rived benefit or injury; or at least whom he is supposed to have wished to derive benefit or injury, from that good or evil which he proposed. If, on considering the circumstances of the case, we feel that our emotions of this sort would, in a similar situation, harmonize with theirs; we regard the agent in the same light in which they regard him, as worthy of reward in the one case, or of punishment in the other, that is to say, as having moral merit or demerit. If our sense of merit, were confined to cases in which the action had a direct relation to others, with whose gratitude we might be supposed to sym- pathize, this theory of merit would at least be more distinctly conceivable. But what are we to think of cases, in which the action begins and terminates, without a thought of the happiness of others, in the amelioration of the indi- vidual himself,-of sacrifices resolutely but silently made to the mera sense of duty,-the voluntary relinquishment of luxurious indulgences,-the struggle, and at last the victory over appetites and passions that are felt to be inconsistent with the sanctity of virtue,-and over habits, still more difficult to be subdued, than the very appetites or passions which may have given them their power. In such cases, our sense of the merit of the victor in this noble strife,-when we do not think of the gratitude of a single indivi- dual, because there is in truth no gratitude of which to think,-is, notwith- standing, as vivid, as if we had around us whole families and tribes of the grateful to excite our sympathy, and to continue to harmonize with it. The world, indeed, the great community of individuals, it may be said, is truly benefited by every increase of virtue, in any one of the individuals who compose it; and it may be possible, in this way,.to invent some species of gratitude *of the whole multitude of mankind, that may be supposed to awake our sympathy, and thus to make us feel a merit etfen in such cases, which otherwise we should not have felt. But, though it may be possible for us, with due care and effort of thought, to invent this abstract or remote grati- tude with which ours may be supposed to harmonize; can it be imagined by any one, but the most obstinate defender of a system, that this strange sym- pathy, of which no one, perhaps, has been conscious in any case,, truly and constantly takes place whenever we thus approve,-that wc do not feel any merit whatever in the voluntary privations which virtue makes, till we have previously excited ourselves to admire them, by reflecting on a grateful world ? Such a reflex thankfulness, if it occur at all, does not occur to one of many thousands, who require, for their instant perception of the merit, only the knowledge of the sacrifices of present enjoyment which have been made, and of the pure motives which led to the sacrifices. It is not only the Hercules who freed the world from robbers and monsters that we ad- mire. We admire, at least, as much, in the beautiful ancient allegory, the ON DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. same moral hero when he resisted the charms and the solicitations of Pleasure herself. The choice of Hercules, indeed, is fabulous. But the choice which he is fabled to have made, has been the choice of the virtuous of every age; and in every age, the sacrifices internally and silently made to duty and con- science, have been ranked in merit with the sacrifices which had for their direct object the happiness of others, and, for their immediate reward, the gratitude of the happy. Why is it that we look with so much honour on the martyr in those early ages of persecution, which, collecting around the victim every instrument of torture, required of him only a few grains of incense to be thrown before a statue,-more noble, indeed, than the imperial murderer whom it represented, but still only a statue,-the effigy of a being of human form, who, under the purple which clothed him, with the diadem and the sceptre, and the altar,-far from being a god, was himself one of the lowest, of the things which God had made ! When, placed thus between idolatry and every form of bodily anguish,-with life and guilt before him, and death and innocence,-the hero of a pure faith looked fearlessly on the cross or on the stake, and calmly, and without wrath, on the statue which he refused to worship, and on all the ready ministers of cruelty, that were rejoicing in the new work which they had to perform, and the new amusement which they were to give to the impatient crowd,-do we feel that there was no merit in the magnanimity, because we cannot readily discover some gratitude which we may participate ?-or, if we do feel any merit, is it only on account of some gratitude which we have at last succeeded in discovering ? We do not think of any thankfulness of man. We think only of God and virtue,- and of the heroic sufferer, to whom God and virtue weye all, and the suffering of such a moment nothing. That our feeling of merit, then, is not a reflected gratitude, but arises from the direct contemplation of the meritorious action, might, if any proof were necessary, appear sufficiently evident from the equal readiness of this feeling to arise in cases in which it would be difficult to discover any grati- tude with which we can be supposed to sympathize, and in which the indivi- dual himself, and the circumstances of his 'action, are all that is before us. But though this, and every other objection to Dr. Smith's theory of our feel- ing of merit were to be abandoned, there woifld still remain the great ob- jection,-that the sympathy which he supposes in this case, as in that for- merly examined by us, proceeds on the existence of that very moral senti- ment which it is stated by him to prodnce. •We discover the merit of the agent, in any case, it is said, by that sym- pathetic tendency of our nature, in consequence of which, on considering any particular action, we place ourselves in the situation of those who are benefited by the action, when, if we feel an emotion of gratitude like theirs, we of course consider the agent himself as meritorious,-worthy of the re- ward of which they consider him to be worthy ; and, in like manner, on con- sidering any action of injustice or malevolence, we feel the demerit of the agent, by sympathizing with the resentment of those whom the action has injured. Such is the process asserted. But what is it that is truly supposed in this process, as distinguishing the sympathetic and secondary feelings, from the primary feelings of those who were directly concerned ? We place ourselves in the situation of others-or, rather without willing it, or knowing the change till it is produced, we feel ourselves, by some sud- 309 den illusion, as if placed in their situation. In this imaginary sameness of circumstances, we have feelings similar to theirs. They view their benefac- tor as worthy of reward. We, therefore, considering for the moment the benefit as if conferred on us, regard him likewise as worthy of reward :-or if they consider him worthy of punishment, wTe too consider him worthy of pu- nishment. Their gratitude or resentment is founded on real benefit received, or real injury. Our gratitude or resentment is founded on the illusive mo- mentary belief of benefit or injury. But this difference of reality and illu- sion in the circumstances which give occasion to them, is the only difference of the feelings; unless, indeed, that, as the illusion cannot be of very long continuance, and is probably, even while it lasts, less powerful than the reality, our sympathetic feelings, however similar in kind, may be supposed to be weaker in degree. The effect of the sympathy, then, fieing only to transfuse into our breasts the gratitude or resentment of those who have been immediately benefited or injured, by any generous or malevolent action ;-if the original gratitude imply belief of merit in the object of the gratitude, and the original resent- ment imply belief of demerit in its object, we may, by our sympathy with these direct original feelings,be impressed with similar belief of merit or demerit. But, in this case, it is equally evident, that, if our reflex gratitude and re- sentment involve notions of merit and demerit, the original gratitude and re- sentment which we feel by reflection, must in like manner have involved them ; and must even have involved them with more vivid feeling, since the difference of vividness was the chief or only circumstance of difference in the direct and the sympathetic emotions. The sympathy, then, to which we are supposed to owe our moral sentiments of merit and demerit, presup- poses those very sentiments; since the feelings which arise in us by sympa- thy only, from the illusion by which we place ourselves in the situation of others, must, in those w'ho were truly in that very situation, have arisen di- rectly with at least equal power. It is some previous gratitude with which we sympathize; it is some previous resentment with which we sympathize; and merit is said to be only that worthiness of reward which the gratitude itself implies, and demerit that worthiness of punishment which is implied in the primary resentment. If the feeling of gratitude implied no notion of any relation of worthiness, which our benefactor's generosity bears to the re- ward which we wish that we were capable of bestowing on him,-and our resentment, in like manner, implied no notion of a similar relation of the in- justice or cruelty of him who has injured us, to that punishment of his of- fence which we wish and anticipate,-we might then, indeed, be obliged to seek some other source of these felt relations. But if the actual gratitude or resentment of those who have profited or suffered, imply no feelings of merit or demerit, we may be certain, at least, that in whatever source we are to strive to discover these feelings, it is not in the mere reflection of a fainter gratitude or resentment, that we can hope to find them. After admitting to Dr. Smith, then, every thing which he could be supposed to claim, or even to wash to claim, with respect to the universality, the steadiness, and the vividness of our sympathetic feelings, we have seen, that in both the sympathies, which he supposes to take place,-that from which we are said to derive our moral sentiments of the propriety or impro- priety of actions, and that from which we are said in like manner to derive our moral sentiments of merit or demerit in the agent,-the process to which 310 ON DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. ON DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. he ascribes the origin of these moral sentiments cannot even be understood, without the belief of their previous existence. The feelings with which we sympathize, are themselves moral feelings or sentiments; or, if they are not moral feelings, the reflection of them from a thousand breasts cannot alter their nature. 311 LECTURE LXXXI. EXAMINATION OF DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM, CONCLUDED ; RECAPITULA- TION OF THE DOCTRINES OF MORAL APPROBATION. My last Lecture, gentlemen, was chiefly employed in considering a theory of our moral sentiments which has been stated and defended with great elo- quence, by one of the profoundest philosophers, whom our country and our science can boast-a theory which founds our moral sentiments, not on the direct contemplation of the actions which we term virtuous; but on a sym- pathy, which it is impossible for us not to feel, with the emotions of the agent, in the circumstances in which he has been placed, and with the emotions, also, of those to whom his actions have been productive of benefit or injury; -our direct sympathy with the agent, giving rise to our notion of the pro- priety of his actions,-our indirect sympathy with those whom his actions have benefited, or injured, giving rise to our notions of merit or demerit in the agent himself. Both these supposed sympathies 1 examined with a more minute review, than that to which they have usually been submitted ; and, in both cases, we found that, even though many other strong ob- jections to which the theory is liable were abandoned; and though the pro- cess for which the theorist contends were allowed to take place, to the fullest extent, to which he contends for it; his system would still be liable to the in- superable objection, that the moral sentiments which he ascribes to our se- condary feelings, of mere sympathy, are assumed as previously existing, in those original emotions with which the secondary feelings are said to be in unison. If those to whom an action has directly related, are incapable of discovering, by the longest and minutest examination of it-however much they may have been benefited by it, or injured, and intentionally benefited or injured-any traces of right or wrong, merit or demerit, in the performer of the action ; those whose sympathy consists merely in an illusory participa- tion of the same interest, cannot surely derive, from the fainter reflex feel- ings, that moral knowledge which even the more vivid primary emotions were incapable of affording,-any more than we can be supposed to acquire from the most faithful echo, important truths that were never uttered by the voices which it reflects. The utmost influence of the liveliest sympathy,-can be only to render the momentary feelings the same, as if the identity of situa- tion with the object of the sympathy were not illusive, but real; and what it would be impossible for the mind to fee], if really existing, in the circum- stances supposed, it must be impossible for it also to feel, when it believes itself to exist in them, and is affected in the same manner, as if truly that very mind, with whose emotions it sympathizes. 312 If, indeed, we had previously any moral notions of actions as right ot wrong, we might very easily judge of the propriety or impropriety of the sentiments of others, according as our own do or do not sympathize with them ; and it is this previous feeling of propriety or impropriety which Dr. Smith tacitly assumes, even in contending for the exclusive influence of the sympathy, as itself the original source of every moral sentiment. The sen- timents of others could not fail, indeed, in that case, to appear to us proper, if they coincided with sentiments which w.e had before, in our own mind, re- cognised as proper, or morally suitable to the circumstances-improper if they differed from these. But, if we have no previous moral notions what- ever, the most exact sympathy of feelings can tell us only that our feelings are similar to the feelings of some other person,-which they may be, as much when they are vicious as when they are virtuous, or when they are neither virtuous nor vicious;-the most complete dissonance, in like manner, can tell us only that our feelings are not similar to those of some other per- son. When another calls scarlet or green what we have previously felt to be scarlet or green, we think that his vision and ours agree ; but we presup- pose in him, as in ourselves, that visual sensibility which distinguished the colours; and we do not consider him an object of moral regard, because his vision coincides with ours. When he is affected with a delightful emotion, similar to ours, on the contemplation of a work of art, we acknowledge men- tally, and are pleased, perhaps, with this coincidence of taste. But the co- incidence does not seem to us to be that which constitutes the emotion of taste. On the contrary, it presupposes, in both, an independent susceptibility of these emotions, by which we should, individually, have admired what is beautiful, and distinguished from it what is ugly, though no one had been present with us to participate our sentiments. When in like manner, wc ad- mire, with vivid approbation, some generous action,-that is to say, accord- ing to Dr. Smith's language, when we sympathize with the feelings of any one in the circumstances in which he has been placed,-we have a coinci- dence of feelings, indeed, as exact, though probably not more exact, than in a case of simple vision, or admiration of some work of art, in which no moral sentiment was felt;-and this very coincidence, in like manner, pre- supposes a capacity of distinguishing and admiring what is right,-without which, there would have been a similarity of feelings, and nothing more, precisely as in the other cases. It is not a mere coincidence of feeling, how- ever, which we recognise in our moral sentiments, like that which we recog- nise in the most exact coincidence of taste. We feel, not merely that ano- ther has acted as we should have done, and that his motives, in similar cir- cumstances, have been similar to ours. We feel, that, in acting as he has done, he has acted properly;-because, independently of the sympathy which merely gives us feelings to measure with our own, as we might mea- sure with our own any other species of feelings, we are impressed with the propriety of the sentiments, according to which we trust that wre should our- selves have acted ;-so thoroughly impressed with these previous distinctions of right and wrong, that, in the opposite case of some act of atrocious de- linquency, no sympathy in vice of one villain with another, can make the common crime seem a virtue in the eyes of his accomplice,-who is actuat- ed by similar motives, and therefore by similar feelings, in a sympathy of the finest unison,-when he adds his arm to the rapine, and afterwards to the murder which is to conceal and to consummate the guilt. ON DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. The moral sentiments which we have as yet considered, are those which relate to the conduct and feelings of others. The same inconsistencies which are found, in the theory of these, are to be found, as might be supposed, in the application of the principle to other species of supposed sympathy which we have still to consider,-in the sentiments which we form of our own mo- ral conduct. That we should be capable, indeed, of forming a moral esti- mate of our own actions, from the direct contemplation of the circumstances in which we may have been placed, and of the good or evil which we may have intentionally produced, would evidently be subversive of the whole theory of sympathy; since, with the same knowledge of circumstances, and of inten- tion, if we could form any moral judgment of our own actions, we might be equally capable of forming some moral judgment of the actions of others. It was absolutely necessary, therefore, for Dr. Smith to maintain, that we have no power of judging of our own actions directly,-that, knowing the choice which we have made, antkali the circumstances which led to our choice, and all the consequences of benefit or injury to individuals and to the world, which our choice may have produced,-it is yet absolutely impossible for us to distinguish, without the aid of the real or supposed sentiments of others, any difference of propriety or impropriety, right or wrong, merit or demerit, or whatever other names we may use to express the differences of vice and virtue;- though our vice had been the atrocious fury of plunging a dagger in the heart of her who had been our happiness in many connubial years, and who was slumbering beside us on the same pillow in the calmness of unsuspecting love; or our virtue, the clemency of drawing back from the bosom of the assassin whom we had laid at our feet, the dagger which we had' wrenched from his murderous hand. Even of actions so different as these, it would be abso- lutely impossible for us, we are told, to form any moral distinction, if we were to look on them only with our own eyes, and measure them by the feelings of our own heart. Before the one can appear to us less virtuous than the other, we must imagine some witnesses, or hearers, of what has been done, and sympathize with their sympathy. Such is the process which Dr. Smith be- lieves to take place. But, surely, if our original feelings, on the considera- tion of all the circumstances of an action, involve no notion of right or wrong, -the sympathy with our feelings, or our sympathy with that sympathy, or even an infinite series of reciprocal sympathies, if these should be thought necessary, cannot afford the moral notions of which the original feel- ings, themselves more vivid, afforded no elements. If the impartial spectator be able to discover merit or demerit, by making our case his own, and be- coming conscious as it were of our feelings ; our feelings, which he thus makes his own, must speak to us with the same voice of moral instruction, with which, during his temporary illusion, they speak to him. If, considering our action and all its consequences, we cannot discover any merit or demerit, they, considering our action in all its circumstances as theirs, must be alike insensible of any merit or demerit:-or, if they have feelings essentially differ- ent from ours, they have not made our case their own ;-and what is mis- named sympathy has not been sympathy. Unless we presuppose, as I be- fore said, on their part some moral notions of what is right or' wrong, merito- rious or worthy of punishment, by which they may measure our conduct and feelings,-all the knowledge which the most complete sympathy can afford, is merely that they have certain feelings, that we have had certain feelings, and that these feelings are similar to each other; as our feelings have coincided ON DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. 313 Vol. IL 314 before in various other emotions, perceptions, judgments that involved or suggested no moral notion whatever. We have now then considered, both in its relation to our sentiments of our own moral conduct, and its relation to our sentiments of the conduct of others, the very celebrated theory of Dr. Smith,-a theory, which I cannot but re- gard as involving, in morals, the same error that would be involved in a the- ory of the source of light, if an optician, after showing us many ingenious contrivances, by which an image of some beautiful form may be made to pass from one visible place to another, were to contend that all the magnifi- cent radiations of that more than ethereal splendour which does not merely adorn the day, but constitutes the day, had their primary origin in reflection, -when reflection itself implies, and cannot be understood but as implying the previous incidence, and, therefore, the previous existence, of the light which is reflected. A mirror presents to us a fainter copy of external things; but it is a copy which it presents. We are, in like manner, to each other, mirrors, that reflect from breast to breast joy, sorrow, indignation, and all the vivid emotions of which the individual mind is susceptible; but though, as mirrors, we mutually give and receive emotions, these emotions must have been felt before they could be. communicated. To ascribe original moral feelings to this mental reflection, is truly, then, as much an error, in the the- ory of morality, as the doctrine of the production of light by reflection withr out the previous incidence of light, would be an error in the theory of catoptrics. The argument, after the fuller views of it which I have given, may be re- capitulated in very brief .compass. There are only two senses in which sympathy can be understood ; one haying immediate relation to the feelings, the other to the situation, of him with whom we are said to sympathize. We partake his emotions directly, as if by instant contagion ; or we partake them indirectly, by first imagining ourselves in the cir- cumstances in which he is placed ; the emotion in this latter case, being simi- lar, merely because the situation, in which we imagine ourselves for the moment is similar, and arising in us when the situation is imagined to be ours, precisely in the same manner, and according to the same principles, as it arose in the mind of him who truly existed in the circumstances in which our imagination only has placed us. In either case, it is equally evident, that sympathy can- not be the source of any additional knowledge:-it only gives a wider diffu- sion, to feelings that previously exist, or that might have previously existed. If it reflect to us the very emotions of others, as if by contagion, without any intervening influence of imagination on our part; it reflects feelings that have been directly excited in them, the primary subjects of the feelings, by their real situation; and which they would not the less have had, though no one had been present to sympathize with them, or even though the tendency to sympathy had not formed a part of the mental constitution. If, on the other hand, sympathy do not reflect to us the very emotions of others, but make us first enter, by a sort of spiritual transmigration, into their situation, and thus, indirectly, impress us with their feelings; it still, in making their situation ours, while the illusion lasts, excites in us only the feelings, which we should have had, if the situation had been really ours; and which the same tenden- cies to emotion that produce them now, would then have produced, though no sympathy whatever had been concerned in the process. All which is peculiar to the sympathy is, that instead of one mind only, affected with cer- ON DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. ON DR. SMITH'S SYSTEM. tain feelings, there are two minds affected with certain feelings, and a recog- nition of the similarity of these feelings-a similarity which, far from being confined to our moral emotions, may occur as readily, and as frequently, in every other feeling of which the mind is susceptible. What produces the moral notions, therefore, must evidently be something more than a recogni- tion of similarity of feeling, which is thus common to feelings of every class. There must be an independent capacity of moral emotion, in consequence of which we judge those sentiments of conduct to be right, which coincide with sentiments of conduct previously recognised as right-or the sentiments of others to be improper, because they are not in unison with those which we have'previously distinguished as proper. Sympathy, then, may be the dif- fuser of moral sentiments, as of various other feelings ; but, if no moral sen- timents exist previously to our sympathy, our sympathy itself cannot give rise to them. • Such, in outline, is the great objection to Dr. Smith's theory, as a theory of our moral sentiments. It professes to explain, by the intervention of sym- pathy, feelings, which must have existed previously to the sympathy :-or at least, without the capacity of which, as original feelings, in the real cir- cumstances supposed, the illusive reality, which sympathy produces, would have been incapable of developing them. It is on a mere assumption, then, -or rather on an inconsistency, still more illogical than a mere assumption, -that the great doctrine of his system is founded ; yet, notwithstanding this essential defect, which might seem to you inconsistent with the praise that was given when I entered on the examination of it, the work of Dr. Smith is, without all question, one of the most interesting works-perhaps I should have said the most interesting work,-in moral science. It is valuable, how- ever, as I before remarked, not for the leading doctrine of which we have seen the futility ; but for the minor theories which are adduced in illustration of it,-for the refined analysis which it exhibits in many of these details,- and for an eloquence which, adapting itself to all the temporary varieties of its subject,-familiar with a sort of majestic grace, and simple even in its magnificence,-can play amid the little decencies and proprieties of common life, or rise to all the dignity of that sublime and celestial virtue which it seems to bring from heaven, indeed, but to bring down gently and humbly, to the humble bosom of man. That his own penetrating mind should not have discovered the inconsis- tencies that are involved in his theory, and that these should not have readi- ly occurred to the many philosophic readers and admirers of his work, may, in part, have arisen,-as many other seeming wonders of the kind have aris- en,-from the ambiguities of language. The meaning of the important word sympathy is not sufficiently definite, so as to present always one clear notion to the mind. It is generally employed, indeed, to signify a mere participa- tion of the feelings of others ; but it is also frequently used as significant of approbation itself. To say that we sympathize with any one in what he has felt or done, means often that we thoroughly approve of his feelings ; and in consequence of this occasional use of the term as synonymous with approba- tion, the theory, which would identify all our moral approbation with sympa- thy, was, I cannot but think, more readily admitted, both by its author, and by those who have followed him ; since what was not true of sympathy, in its strict philosophic sense, was yet true of it in its mixed popular sense. In- deed, if the word had been always strictly confined to its two accurate mean- 315 316 ings,-as significant either of the mere direct participation of feelings previously existing, or of the indirect participation of them in consequence of the illusive belief of similarity of circumstances,-it seems to me as little possible that any one should have thought of ascribing to sympathy original feelings, as in the analogous cases which I before instanced, of ascribing to an echo the original utterance of the voices which it sends to'our ear,-or the production of the'colours which it sends to our eye, to the mirror which has only receiv- ed and reflected them. Of all the principles of our mixed nature, sympathy is perhaps one of the most irregular,-varying not in different individuals only, but even in the same individual in different hours or different minutes of the same day ; and varying not with slight differences, but with differences of promptness and liveliness, with which only feelings the most capricious could be commensurable, if our virtuq and vice, therefore, or our views of actions as right and wrong, va- ried with our sympathy, we might bd virtuous at morning, vicious at noon, and virtuous again at night, without any change in the circumstances of our ac- tion, except in our greater of less tendency to vividness of sympathy, or to the expectation of more or less vivid sympathies in others. How absurd and impertinent seems to us, in our serious hours, the mirth that, in more careless moments, would have won from us, not our smile only, but our full sympathy of equal laughter; and how dull, when our mind is sportive, seemc to us the gravity of the sad and serious,-of the venerable moralizers on years that are long past, and years that are present,-to whose chair, under the influence of any sorrow that depressed us, we loved to draw our own, while we felt a sort of comfort as we listened to them, in the slow and tranquil tone, and the gentle solemnity of their fixed but placid features. What is true of our sym- pathy with mere mirth or sadness, is true of every other species of sympathy; original temperament, habit, the slightest accident of good or bad fortune, may modify, in no slight degree, the .readiness, or, at least, the liveliness of moral sympathy with which we' should have entered into the feelings of others,-into their gratitude, or anger, or common love or hate; and if, there- fore, our estimate of the propriety or impropriety of actions had been altoge- ther dependent on the force of our'mere sympathetic emotion, it would not have been very wonderful, if the greater number of mankind had regarded the very propriety or impropriety, as not less accidental than the sympathies from which they flowed. Having now, then, examined all the systems of philosophers, which may be considered as more or less directly opposed to the simple view which I gave you of our moral constitution,-in which our notions of moral obligation, virtue, merit, were traced to a single feeling of the mind ; -and the susceptibility of this feeling found to be as truly original in the mind, as any of its other pow- ers or susceptibilities-its capacity, for example, of memory, judgment, love, hate, hope, fear-I flatter myself, that the evident inadequacy of every sys- tem, which professes to account for the moral phenomena, without this origi- nal distinctive principle, will be regarded as at least a strong corroboration of the positive evidence of the theory which has been submitted to you. The review in which we have been engaged may, therefore, I hope, be of double value,-both as giving you a sketch of the opinions of the most emi- nent philosophers who have written on this most interesting subject, and an exposition of the errors of those opinions, which, in many instances, it requires considerable minuteness of analysis to detect,-and as enabling you, at the RECAPITULATION OF THE DOCTRINES same time, better to appreciate the truth of those original distinctions of moral good and evil, the belief of which seems to me as just in philosophy, as it is salutary in its practical tendencies, and delightful to the heart that loves virtue,-and that feeling in itself, all the blessings which virtue diffuses, perceives with joy, that the principle which gives to life all its happiness, is a principle that does not depend for its developement on accidents of world- ly station, or time, or place ; but in all regions, and ages, and circumstances of fortune, is coeval with the race of man, and present with its joys or conso- lations, which it is always ready to offer to our very wishes, wherever a hu- man being exists. •• e The review itself,-however important it may have been in its relation to the history of moral science, and to the great truths which it is the object of moral science to develope and illustrate,-has presented to your attention so many explanations, or rather so many attempted explanations, of the same moral phenomena, that the rapid succession of these different opinions may have tended, perhaps,-at least in the minds of such of you as are not accus- tomed to consider together and compare many discordant systems,-to per- plex and obscure the notions which you had derived from the view of the subject, as it was originally presented to you. It may be of advantage, there- fore, to take a short retrospect of our original speculation. In surveying either our own conduct, or the conduct of others, we do not regard the actions that come under our review, as merely useful or hurtful, in the same manner as we regard inanimate things, or parts even of our living mental constitution, that are independent of our will. There is a peculiar set of emotions, to which the actions of voluntary agents, in certain circum- stances, give rise, that are the source of our moral sentiments, or rather, which are themselves our moral sentiments, when considered in reference to the ac- tions that excite them. To these emotions we give the name of moral ap- probation or moral disapprobation,-feelings that are of various degrees of vividness, as the actions which we consider are various. The single princi- ple upon which these feelings depend is the source of all our moral notions, -one feeling of approbation, as variously regarded in time, being all which is truly meant when we speak of moral obligation, virtue, and merit, that in the works of ethical writers, are commonly treated as objects of distinct inquiry ; and that, in consequence of the distinct inquiries to which they have led, and the vain attempts to discover essential differences where none truly exist, have occasioned so much confusion of thought and verbal tautology, as to throw a sort of darkness on morality itself. Instead, then, of inquiring first, what it is which constitutes virtue, and then what it is which constitutes merit, and then what it is which constitutes our moral obligation to da what we have seen to be right and meritorious ; we found that one inquiry alone was neces- sary-what actions excite in us, when contemplated, a. certain vivid feeling, -since this approving sentiment alone, in its various references, is all which we seek in these different verbal inquiries; If a particular action be meditat- ed by us, and we feel on considering it, that it is one of those which, if per- formed by us, will be followed, in our own mind, by the painful feeling of self-reproach, and in the minds of others, by similar disapprobation if a different action be meditated by us, and we feel that our performance of it would be followed in our own minds, and the minds of others, by an oppo- site emotion of approbation, this view of the moral emotions that are conse- quences of the actions, is that which I consider as forming what is termed OF MORAL APPROBATION. 317 318 moral obligation,-the moral inducement which we feel to the performance of certain actions, or to abstinence from certain other actions. We are vir- tuous, if we act in conformity with this view of moral obligation; we are vicious, if we act in opposition to it; virtuous and vicious, meaning nothing more than the intentional performance of actions that excite, when contem- plated, the moral emotions. Our action, in the one case, we term morally right, in the other case morally wrong,-right and wrong, like virtue and vice, being only words that express briefly the actions, which are attended with the feeling of moral approbation in. the one case, of moral disapproba- tion in the other case. When we speak of the merit of any one, or of his demerit, we do not suppose any thing to be added to the virtue or vice ; we only express in other words, the fact that he has performed the action which it was virtuous or vicious to perform,-the action which, as contemplated by us, excites our approval, or the emotion that is opposite to that of approval. Moral obligation, virtue, vice, right, wrong, merit, demerit, and whatever other words may be synonymous with these, all denote then, as you perceive, relations to one simple feeling of the mind,-the distinctive sentiment of mo- ral approbation or disapprobation, which arises on the contemplation of cer- tain actions; and which seems itself to be various, only because the action of w'hich we speak or think, meditated, willed, or already performed, is vari- ously regarded by us, in time, as future, present, past. There are, in short, certain actions, which cannot be contemplated, without the instant feeling of approval, and w'hich may therefore, be denominated morally right.' To feel this character of approvableness, in an action, whjch we have not yet per- formed, and are only meditating on it as future, is to feel the moral obligation, or moral inducement to perform it;■-when we think of the action, in the moment of volition, we term the voluntary performance of it virtue,-when we think of the action, as already performed, we denominate it merit,-in all which cases, if we analyze our moral sentiment, we cannot fail to discern, that it is one constant feeling of moral approval, with which we have been impressed, that is, varied only by the difference of the time, at which we re- gard the action, as future, immediate, or past. A great part of the confusion, which has prevailed in the theory of morals, has arisen, I have little doubt, from indistinctness of conception, with respect to the identity or the difference, of these moral notions of obligation, virtue, merit. Much of the confusion also, I have as little doubt, has arisen from the abuse of one very simple abstraction-that by which we consider an action as stripped of circumstances peculiar to an individual agent, and forming, as it were, something of itself, which could be an object of moral regard, inde- pendently of the agent. We thus learn to speak of actions that are abso- lutely right and relatively wrong, or absolutely wrong and relatively right,- that is to say, of actions which are right, when the agent with his particular views is wrong; and of agents that continue as meritorious as before, when their actions in ordinary circumstances would have been ranked in some de- gree of delinquency. Convenient as these distinctions may verbally have been, in some cases where brevity was the only advantage desired, they have had an injurious tendency, in other more important respects ; by leading the inconsiderate to suppose, that of actions which are thus at once right and wrong, the morality cannot be very stable and definite. I was careful, therefore, to point out to you the nature of the abstraction, and the futility of any distinction more than what is purely verbal, of absolute and relative rec- RECAPITULATION OF THE DOCTRINES OF MORAL APPROBATION. titude. What is absolutely right is relatively right, what is relatively right is absolutely right. An action cannot excite feelings different from those which an agent excites, for it is itself the agent, or it is nothing. It is the brief ex- pression of some agent, real, or supposed,placed in certain circumstances, will- ing and producing certain effects ; and when an action, which in one set of circumstanes is right, is said to be wrong in other circumstances, the ac- tion, of which we speak, in the new circumstance supposed, is truly, as I showed you, a different action, in the only sense in which an action has any meaning, as significant of a living being, having certain definite views, and producing certain definite effects. A clear view of this definition of an action, as uniformly comprehending in it the notion of some agent, without whom it would be nothing-though, but for the general misconception on the subject, it would seem to me so obvious, as scarcely to require to be pointed out-is, in consequence of that general misconception, one of the most important views in the philosophy of morals which you can make familiar to your mind. It is no small progress in Ethics, as in Physics, to have learned to distinguish ac- curately abstractions from realities, to know that an action is only another name for an agent in certain circumstances; virtue, vice, only briefer ex- pressions of an agent virtuous or vicious, that is to say, of an agent perform- ing actions of which we and mankind in general approve or. disapprove. Indeed, I scarcely know a single ethical writer, to whose mind the nature of these and other similar abstractions has been duly present; and who does not sometimes think, or at least speak, of virtue and vice, as beings that have cer- tain properties, independently of all the virtuous and vicious in the universe. Though there is not vice or virtue, however, there are virtuous or vicious agents. Certain actions, as soon as considered, excite a feeling of approba- tion, which leads us to class them together as virtuous; certain other actions excite a feeling of moral disapprobation, which leads us to class them to- gether as vicious. There is then, in the mind of each individual, a princi- ple which leads him thus to divide actions into two great classes. But if, in the minds of different individuals, this distinction were very differently formed, so that the actions which seemed virtuous to one, were the very actions which seemed vices to another, it is evident, that the social happi- ness, and even the social union of mankind, could not be preserved in this strange mixture of love and hate-of crimes and virtues, rewarded or pu- nished, as the admirers of truth or deceit, of cruelty or benevolence, chanc- ed to obtain a precarious superiority in numbers or power. It is necessary for general peace,-even though no other relation were to be considered,- that there .should be some great rules of conduct, according to which all may direct their actions in one harmonious course of virtue ; or according to which, at least, in any partial discord of the actions of individuals, the moral sentiment of the community may be harmoniously directed, in checking what would be generally injurious, and furthering what would be generally beneficial. There is, therefore, we found, such an accordance of sentiment -of sentiment, that is directed by the provident benevolence of God, to the happiness of all who live in the great social communion of mankind,- even when the individual, acting in conformity with the sentiment, has no thought beyond the sufferer whose anguish he relieves,-or the friend to whose happiness he feels it more than happiness to contribute,-or the pre- servation of his own internal character of moral excellence, in cases in which pain is encountered, or pleasure sacrificed, with no other object than 319 320 RECAPITULATION OF THE DOCTRINES that moral excellence itself. Since the world was created, there have in- deed been myriads of human beings on the earth; but there has been only one God, and there is only one God. There is, therefore, only one great voice of approbation, in all the myriads of mankind; because, He, the great ap- prover and the great former of our moral constitution, is one. We may re- frain from virtue ; we may persecute virtue ; but though our actions may be the actions of hatred, there is a silent reverence which no hatred can suppress. The omnipresent Judge of human actions speaks in the cause of the wicked as in the cause of the good ; and has made it impossible for us, even in the wildest abuses of our power, not to revere, at least in heart, the virtue which he has honoured with his love. In asserting the wide accordance of this moral voice, however, it was necessary to consider the objections to the harmony of sentiment which have been drawn, from §ome practices and institutions, that seem, at least as first considered, to be proofs df discord rather than harmony. That there are instances, and many instances, of such apparent anomaly, it would have been absurd to endeavour to disprove. But it might still be inquired, whether even these instances are really anomalous, or only seem so, from erroneous opinions of the nature of that modified agreement which alone is necessary to the supporter of the original tendencies,-distinctive emotions of vice and virtue. This consideration of the species of accordance which the moral pheno- mena might, from our knowledge of the general nature of the mind, be ex- pected to indicate, on the supposition of an original principle of moral feel- ing, led us into some very interesting trains of inquiry ; of which the result was the ascertainment of certain limits, within which remains, unaffected by the sophistries opposed to it, all that uniformity for which it is wisdom to contend,-limits that do not imply any defect of original tendency to cer- tain moral emotions, but only the operation of other causes, that concur with this original influence ; and that might, a priori, have been expected to have this modifying effect, if, without considering any of the objections urg- ed, we had only reflected on the analogous phenomena of other principles of the mind, that are allowed to be essential to it and universal, and that are yet capable of similar modification. The limitations to which we were led were of three kinds,-first, the temporary influence of every feeling that completely occupies the mind, es- pecially of any violent passion, which blinds us at the moment'to moral distinctions, that is to say, prevents, by its own vividness, the rise of the less vivid feelings of approbation or disapprobation; in the same manner as, in similar circumstances, it would blind to the discernment even of the univer- sal truths of science,-that is to say, would not allow us to perceive for the time the simplest and least mutable of all relations,-the proportions of number and quantity,-if an arithmetician or geometer, when we were under the influence of anger, sudden jealousy, or any other violent emotion, were to discourse to us calmly of square or cube roots, or of the properties of right angled triangles. These arithmetical or geometrical properties we dis- cover readily, when our passion has subsided; and, in like manner, we dis- cover readily, when our passion has wholly subsided, the moral distinctions which we were incapable of perceiving before. A second limitation, which we found it necessary to form, arises from the complex results of good and evil, in a single action,-the difficulty of calcu- lating the preponderance of good or evil, according to which felt preponde- rance alone, our approbation or disapprobation arises,-and the various de- grees of importance attached, and justly attached, in different ages and na- tions, to parts of the complex result, which are most in harmony with the spirit of the nation or the age,-that is to say, which tend, or are conceived to tend, most to the production of that particular national good, which it may have been an error in policy, indeed, to desire, but which still ivas the object of a policy, wise or unwise. What wd esteem evil upon the whole, others may esteem good upon the whole ; because there'is, in truth, a mixture of good and evil, the parts of which may be variously estimated, but of which no one loves the evil as evil, or hates the good as good. It is some form of good, which is present to the mind of the,agent, when he regards as morally right, that compound result of good and evil, of which we with better discernment, appreciate better the relative amount. Even the atrocious virtues,-if I may use that combination of words,-of which voyagers relate to us instan- ces in savage life, or which have sometimes prevailed even in nations more civilized-we found in our inquiry, might very naturally, without any defect, or inconsistency of moral emotion, arise from some misconception of this sort. Vices may every where be found prevailing as vides ; but when they are generally revered as virtues, it is because there is in them something which is truly, in those circumstances, virtue, however inferior the amount of good may be to the amount of evil. It is for some prominent moral good, however, that they are approved; and the defective analysis, which does not perceive the amount of accompanying evil, is an error of judgment, not an approbation of that which is injurious to individuals or mankind, for the sake of that very injury. • ,*• , The third limitation which we were led to form, is that which arises from the influence of the associating principle,-an influence that concurs with the former in almost every instance, and promotes it. When actions have com- plicated results, this principle may lead us to think more of one part of the result than of another part; and, by the remembrances which it yields of the virtues of those whom we have loved, adds all the force of its own lively impressions to the particular virtues that are so recommended to us, or to actions that might otherwise have been absolutely indifferent. This influence, however, far from disproving the reality of original tendencies to moral feeling, is, as I showed you, in many of the cases in which it operates most powerfully, one of the most interesting exemplifications of those very moral emotions. It is by loving those whom it is virtue to love, that wre learn often to value too highly, what otherwise we should have valued with a juster estimate. The same principle, we found too, to operate strongly in exciting through the medium of general terms and general rules, a dispro- portionate emotion in some cases, in which we have learned to apply to in- dividual cases, an emotion that has resulted from many previous analogous emotions. Such are the limits within which alone, the original tendency of our nature to certain moral emotions, and the consequent accordance of moral distinctions can be defended,-but, within these limits, it may safely be maintained. There is in our breast a susceptibility of moral emotion, by which we ap- prove or condemn ; and the principle which thus approves or condemns in us, is the noblest of the ties that connect us with the universal community of mankind. OF MORAL APPROBATION. 321 Vol. II. 322 LECTURE LXXXIL ON THE USE OF THE TERM MORAL SENSEI; ARRANGEMENT OF THE • PRACTICAL VIRTUES. . Gentlemen, in my Lecture yesterday, after concluding my remarks on the theory of our moral sentiments which Dr. Smith has proposed--the last of the theories on this subject, which required our consideration, as differing in its principles, from the view which I have given you,-I briefly recapitu- lated the general doctrines which we had previously been led to form .of the phenomena of moral approbation. All our moral sentiments, then, of obligation, virtue, merit, are in them- selves, as we have seen, nothing more than one simple feeling, variously re- ferred to actions, as future, present, or past. With the loss of die suscepti- bility of this one peculiar species of emotion, all practical morality would instantly cease; for, if the contemplation of actions excited in us no feeling of approval, no foresight, that, by omitting to perform them9 wp should re- gard ourselves, and others would regard us, with abhorrence or contempt, or at least with disapprobation; it would be absurd to suppose, that there could be any moral obligation to perforni certain actions, and not to perform cer- tain other actions, which seemed io us morally equal and indifferent. There could in like manner, be no virtue nor vice in performing, and no merit nor demerit in having performed an action, the omission of vthich would have seemed to the agent as little proper, or as little improper, as the performance of it,-in that state of equal indiscriminate regard or disregard, in which the plunderer and the plundered, the oppressor and the oppressed, were consi- dered only as the physical producers of a different result of happiness or misery. , 1 - ♦ * • It is by this one susceptibility, then, of certain vivid distinctive emotions, that we become truly moral beings, united under the guardianship of heaven, in one great social system, benefiting and benefited, and not enjoy- ing the advantage of this mutual protection, only in th'e protection itself, that is constantly around us; but enjoying also the pleasure of affording thd re- ciprocal benefit, and even a sort of pleasure of no slight amount, in the va- rious wants themselves, which are scarcely felt as wants, when we know that they are to be remedied by the'kind hearts and'gentle hands, wlwse offices of aid we have before delighted to receive, and are in perfect, confidence of again receiving. Such is the great system of social duties,, that connects mankind by ties of which our souls do not feel the power less truly, because they are ties, which only the soul can feel, and which do not come witbin .the sphere of our bodily perception. By that delightful emotion, which follows the contemplation of virtue, we can enjoy it, even while it is not exercised, in all its aspects as past or future, as- much as present, Jn our meditations on it, it is like some tranquil delight that awaits us,-which, in the very act of virtue, comes like an immediate reward, to actions that seem to need no other recompense, while they are thus rewarded; and to look back upon the generous toil, or the general self-privation, as among the things which have been, is at once to enjoy again the past delight, and to feel in it a sort of pledge of future returns of similar enjoyment,-increased trust of being able and worthy to perform again, whenever the opportunity of them shall recur, actions as worthy of delight, and as delightful. It is by this unceasing delight, which virtue is ever spreading out before us,-not merely in the direct exercise of the actions which we term virtuous, but in the contemplation of them as future in our wishes, or as past, in the remembrance of a good conscience,-that moral excellence is truly and phi- losophically worthy of the glorious distinction, by which the author of the Essay on Man would characterize it, of being what " aloqe is happiness be- low.'' ON THE USE OF THE TERM MORAL SENSE. 323 The only point, where human bliss stands still, And tastes the good, without the fall to ill; Where only Merit constant pay receives, Is blest, in what it takes and what it gives : The joy unequall'd, ifits end it gain, And, if it lose, attended with no pain ; Without satiety, tho' e'er so blest, And but more relish'd as the more distress'd, The broadest mirth unfeeling Folly wears, Less pleasing far, tharuvirtue's very tears; Good from each object, from each place acquir'd; For ever exercis'd, yet never tir'd ; Never elated, while one man'sppprest, Never dejected, while another's blest, And where no wants, no wishes can remain, Since but to wish more virtue is to gain* In tracing to an original susceptibility of the mind our moral feelings, of ob- ligation, in the conception of certain actions as future-of virtue, in the pre- sent performance or wish to perform certain actions-and of merit,dn the past performance or past resolution to perform certain actions,-we may be con- sidered as arriving at a principle like that which Dr. Hutcheson, after Lord Shaftesbury, has distinguished by the name of the Moral Sense,-and of which, as an essential principle of our constitution, he has defended the re- ality with so much power of argument, in his various works on morals. In our moral feelings, however, I discover no peculiar analogy to perceptions, or sensations, in the philosophic meaning of those terms; and the phrase moral sense, therefore, I consider as having had a very unfortunate influence on the controversy as to the original moral differences of actions, from the false analogies which it cannot fail to suggest. Were I to speak of a moral sense at present, you would understand me as speaking rather metaphori- cally, than according to the real place which we should be inclined to give in our arrangement, to the original principle of our nature, on which the moral emo- tions depend. But by Hutcheson it was asserted to be truly and strictly a sense, as much a sense as any of those which are the source of our direct exter- nal perceptions; and though this difference of nomenclature and arrangement on his part, evidently arose from a misconception, or, at least, a very loose meaning, of the word sense, different from that in which it is commonly un- derstood, as limited to the feelings, which we acquire directly from affections of our bodily organs,-still this loose meaning of the term which he intended it to convey, was, in some measure, mingled and confused in the minds of others, with the stricter meaning commonly assigned to it; and the assertion of a moral sense has been regarded almost as the assertion of the existence * Essay on Man, Ep. iv. v. 311-327 324 of some primary medium of perception, which conveys to us directly moral knowledge-as the eye enables us to distinguish directly the varieties of colours, or the ear the varieties of sounds; and the scepticism, which would have been just with respect to such an organ of exclusive moral feel- ing, has been unfortunately extended to the certain moral principle itself, as an original principle of our nature. Of the impropriety of ascribing the mo- ral feelings to a sense, I am fully aware then, and the place which I have as- signed to them among the moral phenomena is, therefore, very different. In the emotions, which the contemplation of the voluntary actions of those around us produces, there is nothing that seems to demand, for the produc- tion of such emotions, a peculiar sense, more than is to be found in any of our other emotions. Certain actions excite in us, when contemplated, the vivid feelings, which we express too coldly when, from the poverty of lan- guage, we term them approbation or disapprobation ; and which are not es- timates formed by an approving or disapproving judgment, but emotions that accompany and give warmth to such estimates. Certain other objects of thought excite in us other vivid feelings, that are in like manner classed as emotions, -hope, jealousy, resentment; and, therefore, if all emotions, excited by the contemplation of objects, were to be referred to a peculiar sense, we might as well speak of a sense of those emotions, or of a sense of covetousness or de- spair,-as of a sense of moral regard. If sense, indeed, were understood, in this case, to be synonymous with mere susceptibility, so that, when we speak of a moral sense, we were to be understood to mean only a susceptibility of moral feeling of some sort,-we might be allowed to have a sense of mo- rals, because we have, unquestionably, a susceptibility of moral emotion ;- but, in this very wide extension of the term, we might be said, in like manner, to have as many senses as we have feelings of any sort; since, in whatever manner the mind may have been effected, it must have had a previous sus- ceptibility of being so affected, as much as in the peculiar affections that are denominated moral. The great error of Dr. Hutcheson, and of other writers who treat of the susceptibility of moral emotion, under the name of the moral sense, appears to me to consist in their belief of certain moral qualities in actions, which ex- cite in us what they consider as ideas of these qualities,-in the same manner as external things give us, not merely pain or pleasure, but notions or ideas of hardness, form, colour. Indeed, it is on this account that the great cham- pion of this doctrine professes to regard the moral principle as a sense ; from its agreement, as he says, with this definition, which he conceives to be the accurate definition of a sense, " a determination of the mind to receive any idea from the presence of an object which occurs to us independent of our will." What he terms an idea, in this case, is nothing more than an emotion considered in its relation to-the action which has excited it. A certain action is considered by us-a certain emotion arises. There is no idea, in the phi- losophic meaning of that term, but of the agent himself and of the circum- stances in which he was placed, and the physical changes produced by him ; and our ideas or notions of these we owe to other sources. To the moral principle, the only principle of which Hutcheson could mean to speak as a moral sense, we owe the emotion itself, and nothing but the emotion. In one use of the word, indeed, we may be said to owe, to our susceptibility of moral emotions, ideas-because we owe to it, as the primary source, the emotions of this species which we remember; and remembrances of past ON THE USE OF » feelings are often termed ideas of those feelings;-but in this application of the word, as synonymous with a mere remembrance, every feeling, as capa- ble of being remembered, may be a source of ideas independently of the will, and, therefore, according to the definition which is given by Hutcheson, equally a sense. There is yet another meaning of the word, however, and a still more im- portant one, in relation to our present inquiry, in which our susceptibility of moral emotion is productive of what, in the general loose language of meta- physical writers, have been termed ideas ; and it is by his defective analysis, of what is truly meant in the phrase moral ideas, and of the process which evolves them, that I conceive Hutcheson to have been chiefly misled, in sup- posing us to be endowed with a sense of moral qualities of actions. The process to which I allude, is the common process of generalization, to which alone we owe the general notions of virtue, vice, right, and wrong, which he ascribes to a particular sense that affords us these ideas. If we had never contemplated more than a single virtuous or vicious action, we should have had only the particular emotion which followed that particular contemplation ; and should as little have formed the general notions of virtue and vice, as we should have formed the notion which is expressed by the word quadruped if we had seen only a single animal with four legs. It is not by one action only of one definite kind, however,-that is to say, by an agent placed only in one set of circumstances, and producing only one particular effect, that our moral emotion is excited ; nor is there only one varying feeling of the mind, of one exact degree of intensity, which we denominate a moral emotion, as excited by various moral actions. There are various analogous actions, which excite various analogous moral feelings of approbation or disapproba- tion ; and it is in consequence of the feeling of the similarity of these emo- tions, that we learn to class together the different actions that excite these similar emotions under a single word, virtuous, or right, or proper, or vicious, wrong, improper. The ideas, of which Hutcheson speaks, are these gene- ral notions only. There are virtuous agents, not virtue,-as there are minds that have certain feelings approving or disapproving,-notapprobation or dis- approbation, as one simple state, in all the varieties of these feelings. Vir- tue, vice, right, and wrong, are, in short, mere general terms, as much as any other mere general terms, which we have formed to express the similarities of particular things or particular qualities. The general notions, and, con- sequently, the general terms, that denote them, we derive, indeed, from our susceptibility of moral feeling,-since we must have the moral emotions themselves, before we can discover them to be like or unlike, and invent words for expressing briefly their similarities ; but what Dr. Hutcheson and other writers would term our ideas of virtue and vice, right and wrong,- though, in this sense, derived from our susceptibility of moral feeling, which gives us the emotions that are felt and classed as similar,-are derived from it, only as any other general notions of resemblances of any other feelings, or of the circumstances which induce in the mind certain similar feelings,-ne- cessarily presuppose the capacity of the feelings themselves, whatever they may be, which are afterwards considered as having this relation of similarity. There are no two feelings, perhaps, which may not be found to have some re- lation to each other, as there are, perhaps, no two external things which may not be found to have some analogy ; and if, therefore, we suppose that we have a particular internal sense for every general notion of agreement of THE TERM MORAL SENSE. 325 326 ON THE USE OF any kind, which we are capable of framing, we may be said to have as many senses as we have pairs of feeling, which we are capable of comparing. There are innumerable similarities which are felt by us every hour, and consequent- ly innumerable general notions, though we may have invented names only for a few of them. Our moral emotioas, like our other emotions,.and Qur other feelings of every kind, impress us with certain resemblances which tltey mutually bear; and the importance of the actions, which agree in exciting the analogous feelings of moral approbation or disapprobation,-from the influence which they widely exercise on happiness as beneficial or injurious,-has led, in every age and country, to the designation of them by certain general pames, as virtuous or vicious, proper or improper ;-but these general terms are, not the less, general terms, and only general terms,-significant merely of the resem- blance of various particular actions, which agree in exciting in the mind certain feelings that are analogous. This distinction of virtue, vice, right, wrong, merit, demerit, as mere general termg, expressive only of an analogous relation, which certain actions bear to certain emotions, I conceive to be of the utmost impor- tance, for your clear understanding of the theory of morals ; and I have dwell- ed on it, therefore, with the wish that it'should become familiar to your minds. You are not to conceive, as Dr. Hutefiteson's view of our moral emotions might lead you to imagine, that we discover a certain idea of right or wrong, virtue or vice, from the contemplation of any one particular action,-as if there were a sense for the reception of such ideas,-that flow from them like light from the sun, or fragrant particles from a rose. There is no right or wrong, virtue or vice,-but there are agents, whose actions cannot be contemplated by us without an emotion of approbation or disapprobation, and all actions,- that is to say, all agents, that agree in exciting moral feelings, which are .thus analogous, we class together as virtuous or vicious, from this circumstance of felt agreement, alone. The similarity ofthe'emotions which we, feel, in these particular cases, is thus all to which we owe the notions, or, as Dr. Hutche- son calls them, the ideas of right and wrong, virtue and vice ; and it is not more wonderful that we should form these general notions, than that we should form any other general notions whatever. The error of Dr. Hutcheson with respect to qualities in objects that excite in us what he terms moral ideas, is similar to that which led rnaqy ethical writers,-as we saw7 in reviewing their different systems, to refer our moral sentiments to reason or judgment, as the principle w'hich measures the fitnesses of certain actions for producing certain ends ; and which approves or dis- approves accordingly, as different, actions seem more or less adapted for pro- ducing the desired end. The truth is, that moral approbation or disappro- bation-though from the common use of those terms, and the poverty of our language, I have been obliged to employ them in our past discussions,-are terms that are very inadequate to express the liveliness of the moral feelings, to which we give those names. The moral emotions are more akin to love or hate, than to perception or judgment. What we call our approbation of an action, inasmuch as the moral principle is concerned, is a sort of moral love, when the action is the action of another; or moral complacency when the action is our own, and nothing more. It is no exercise of reason, disco- vering congruities, and determining one action to be better fitted than another action, for affording happiness or relieving misery. This logical or physical approbation may precede, indeed, the moral emotion, and may mingle with it, and continue to render it more and more lively, while we are under its influ- THE TERM MORAL SENSE. 327 ence; but, even when such approbation precedes it, it is distinct from the emotion itself; and we might judge and approve of the fitness, or disapprove of the unfitness, of certain actions to produce happiness, with the same pre- cision as we now judge and approve, or disapprove,-though we had not been, as we are, moral beings, desirous of the happiness of others, and feel- ing a vivid delightful emotion, on the contemplation of Such actions as tend to produce that happiness. However our judgment, as mere judgment, may have been exercised before, in discerning the various relations of actions to the happiness of the world, the moral principle is the source only of the emotion which follows the discovery of such fitness; and not, in the slight- est degree, of the judgment which measures and calculates the fitness, any more than it is a source of the fitness itself. When we speak of our moral approbation of an action,- we may inde.ed, from the convenience of such brief expressions, have some regard to both feelings-to our judgment of the fitness of an action to produce goocj to an individual, or to the world,- and to our moral love of the beneficial action which follows this discovery. But still it is not to be forgotten, that it is the latter part only,-the distinc- tive moral regard, that belongs to the principle which we have been consi- dering;-the discovery of the fitness is a common exercise of judgment, that differs no more from the other exercises of it, than these differ from each other. It is in the ordei1 of our emotions, accordingly, that I have assigned a place to our moral feelings, in my arrangement of the phenomena of the mind;-because, though we are accustomed to speak of moral approbation, moral judgments, or moral estimates of actions, the feelings which we thus comprehend under a.single term are not the-simple vivid feeling, w'hich is all that truly constitutes the moral emotion,-but a combination of this vivid feeling with the judgment, as to the fitness or tendency of the action, which, as a mere judgment, preceded and gave rise to the emotion. What is strictly the mor.al part of the Compound, is however, as I have already said, the emotion, and the emotion only. There is, in this case, with respect to mere judgment, precisely the same error which we have traced in the reasons that led Dr. Hutcheson to the sup- position of a moral sense, What are termed moral ideas of virtue, merit, obligation-the consideration of which, as moral ideas, was, as his definition and his general reasoning show, the very circumstance which led him into his error,-are merely, as I have repeatedly endeavoured to demonstrate to you, the one vivid moral emotion, referred to the actions which excite it. There are no ideas, therefore, which require the supposition of a peculiar sense for affording them, even if a sense were necessary for all those feel- ings which are termed simple ideas. There is only a particular emotion- indicating, of consequence, a peculiar susceptibility of this emotion in the mind-and together with this vivid feeling, actions, or ideas of certain actions, and their consequences, which may be said, indeed, to be moral ideas, when combined with this vivid feeling, but which, as ideas, are derived from other sources. It is not the moral principle which sees the agent, and all the cir- cumstances of his action, or which sees the happiness or misery that has flowed from it,-but when these are seen, and all the motives of the agent divined, it is the moral principle of our nature which then affords the emotion that may afterwards, in our conception, be added to these ideas derived from other sources; and form, with them compound notions of all the varieties of actions that are classed by us as forms of virtue or vice* The reference of our moral love of certain actions, and moral abhorrence of other actions, to a peculiar sense, termed the moral sense, has arisen, then, we may conclude, from a defective analysis, or at least from a misconcep- tion of the nature of those moral ideas of which the defenders of this sense speak, and which seem to them falsely to indicate the necessity of such a sense for affording them. The ideas of which they speak are truly com- plex feelings of the mind. We have only to perform the necessary analysis, and all which we discover, is a certain emotion of moral love, that, accord- ing to circumstances, is more or less lively,-and the notion of certain ac- tions, that is to say, of agents real or supposed, willing and producing certain effects. We may, for the sake of brevity, invent the general words virtue, right, propriety, as significant of all the actions which are followed in us by this emotion. But these are mere generalizations; like other generalizations; and there is no virtue in nature, more than there is quadruped or sub- stance. But, though Dr. Hutcheson may have erred in not analyzing with suffi- cient minuteness the moral ideas of which he speaks, and in giving the name of a moral sense to the susceptibility of a mere emotion .akin to our other emotions,-this error is of little consequence as to the moral distinc- tions themselves. Whether the feeling that attends the contemplation of certain actions admit of being more justly classed with our sensations or perceptions, or with our emotions, there is still a susceptibility of this feel- ing, or set of feelings, original in the mind, and as essential to its very na- ture, as any other of the principles or functions, which we regard as univer- sally belonging to our mental constitution;-as truly essential to the mind, indeed, as any of those senses among which Dr. Hutcheson would fix its place. . ... The sceptical conclusions which some writers have conceived to be dedu- cible from the doctrine of a moral sense, might, if they could be justly drawn from that doctrine, be equally deducible from the doctrine of moral emotions for which I have contended ; since the emotions may be regarded as almost the same feelings under a different name. A very slight notice, hpwevw, of the objection which these conclusions are supposed to furnish, will be sufficient for showing the radical error in which the objection has its source. You will find it stated and illustrated at great length in Dr. Price's.elaborate, but very tedious, and not very clear, Review of the principal Questions of Morals. It is more briefly stated by Mr. Stewart in his Outlines. "From the hypothesis of a moral sense, various sceptical conclusions have been deduced by later writers. The words Right and Wrong, it has been alleged, signify nothing, in the objects themselves to which they are applied, any more than the words sweet and bitter, pleasant and painful; but only certain effects in the mind of the spectator. As it is improper, there- fore, (according to the doctrines of modern philosophy,) to-say of an object of taste, that it is sweet; or of heat, that it is in the fire; so it is equally im- proper to say of actions, that they are right or wrong. It is absurd to speak of morality as a thing independent and unchangeable : inasmuch as it arises from an arbitrary relation between our constitution and particular ob- jects. " In order to avoid these supposed consequences of Dr. Hutcheson's phi- losophy, an attempt has been made by some later writers, in particular by Dr. Price, to revive the doctrines of Dr. Cudworth, and to prove, that moral 328 ON THE USE OF distinctions, being perceived by reason or the understanding, are equally im- mutable with all other kinds of truth."* That right and ivrong signify nothing in- the objects themselves, is, indeed, most true. They are words expressive only of -relation, and relations are not existing parts of objects, or things, to be added to objects, or taken from them. There is no right nor wrong, virtue nor vice, merit nor demerit, ex- isting independently of the agents who are virtuous or vicious; and, in like manner, if there had been no moral emotions to arise on the contemplation of certain actions, there' would have been no virtue, vice, merit, or demerit, which express only relations to these emotions. But, though there be no right or wrong in an agent, the virtuous agent is not the same as the vicious agent, -I do not say merely to those whom he benefits or injures, but to the most remote individual who contemplates that intentional production of benefit or injury. All are affected, on the contemplation of these with different emo- tions ; and it is only by the difference of these moral emotions that these actions are recognised as morally different. We feel that it will be impos- sible, while the constitution of nature remains as it is,-and we may say, even from the traces of the divine benevolence which the universe displays, impossible, while God himself the framer of our constitution, and adapter of it to purposes of happiness, exists,-that the lover, and intentional producer of misery, as misery, should ever be viewed with tender esteem; or that he whose only ambition has been to diffuse happiness more widely than it could have flowed without his aid, should be regarded with the detestation on that account, which we now feel for the murderer of a single helpless individual, or for the oppressor of as many sufferers as a nation can contain in its whole wide orb of calamity ; and a distinction which is to exist while God himself exists, or at least which has been, and as we cannot but believe will be, coe- val with the race of man, cannot surely be regarded as very precarious. It is not to moral distinctions only that this objection, if it had any force, would be applicable. Equality, proportion, it might be said, in like, manner, sig- nify nothing in the objects themselves, to which they are applied, more than vice or They are as truly mere relations, as the relations of morality. Though the three sides of a right angled triangle, exist in the triangle itself, and constitute it what it is; what we term the properties of such a triangle do not exist in it, but are reSults of a peculiar capacity of the comparing mind. It is man, or some thinking being like man, whose comparison gives birth to the very feeling that is termed by us a dfscovery of the equality of the squares of one of the sides to the squares of the other two ; that is to say,-for the discovery of this truth is nothing more,-it is man who, con- templating such a triangle, is impressed with this relation, and who feels af- terwards that it would be impossible for him to contemplate it without such an impression. If this feeling of the relation never had arisen, and never were to arise in any mind, though the squares themselves might still exist as separate figures, their equality would be nothing,-exactly as justice and in- justice would be nothing, where no relation of moral emotion had ever been felt; for equality, like justice, is a relation, not a thing ; and, if-strictly ana- lyzed, exists only, and can exist only, in the mind, which, on the contemplation of certain objects, is impressed with certain feelings of relation;-in the same manner as right and wrong, virtue, vice, relate to emotions excited in some THE TERM MORAL SENSE. 329 * Outlines of Moral Philosophy, 4th od. 8vo. p. 132. Vol. II. 330 ON THE USE OF mind that has contemplated certain actions,-without whose contemplations of the actions, it will readily be confessed, there could be no right nor wrong, virtue nor vice, as there could be ho other relation without a mind that con- templates the objects said to be related. Certain geometrical cannot be contemplated by us without exciting certain feelings of the contemplating mind,-which are notions Of equality or proportion. Is it necessary that the equality should be itself something existing in the separate figures them- selves, without reference to any mind that contemplates them, before we put any confidence' in geometry ? Or is it not enough that every mind which does contemplate them together, is impressed with that particular feeling-, in Consequence of which they are ranked as equal. And, if it be not acces- sary, in the case of a .science which .vye regard as' the swrekt of all sciences, that the proportions of figures should' be any thing inherent in the figures,- why should it ■ be required, before'we put cbnfidence in mbrality, that right and wrong should be something Existing.in* the individual agents? It is not easy, indeed, to understand what is meant by such an inherence as is required in this postulate; or what other relations, actions can be supposed to have as right or wrong-, than to the minds which are impressed by them with cer- tain feelings. Of this, at least, we ipay be sure, that, if any doubt can truly exist, as to relations which we and all mankind have felt, sitice»tbe creation of the very race of man,-because, though, with our present constitution, we feel it impossible to consider cruelty as amiable, and greater cruelty as more amiable, we might, if the frame of our mind were altered, love the ferocity which we now detest, and fly from freedom and general benevo- lence, to take shelter in some more delightful waste, whpre there might be the least possible desire* of good, and .the least possible enjoyment of it, among plunderers whom we loved much, and murderers whom we loved, and ho- noured more-if any doubt of this* kind could truly be felt, the reference which Dr. Price would make of our moral sentiments to reason, would leave the difficulty and the doubt exactly where they were before ; since reason is but a principle of our mental frame, like the principle which is the source of moral emotion, and has no peculiar claim to remain unaltered in the sup- posed general alteration of our mental constitution. What we term reason, is only a brief expression of a number of separate feelings of relation, of which the mind might or might not have been formed to be susceptible. If the mind of man remain as it is, our moral feelings, in relation to their par- ticular objects, aye as stable as our feelings of any other class; and, if the mind of man be altered in all its functions, it is absurd for us to make dis- tinctions of classes of feelings, in the general dissolution of every thing which we at present know,-absurd even to guess at the nature of a state which arises from a change that is imaginary only, and that, by our very supposi- tion, is to render Us essentially different, in every respect, from the state with which we are at present acquainted. It is a very powerless scepticism, indeed, which begins by supposing a total change of our nature. We might, perhaps, have been formpd to admire only the cruel, and to hate only the benevolent; as in spite of an axiom that now seems to us self-evident, we all might have been formed to think with the lunatic, that the cell in which he is confined is larger than the whole earth, of which it is a part. What the mind of a single' madman is, the minds of all men might certainly be; and we might no longer feel the same moral relations, a§ we might no longer feel the same geometrical relations of space. But if the moral distinctions be as regular as the whole system of laws which carry on, in unbroken harmony, the motions of the universe, this regularity is sufficient for us, while we exist on earth; and when we leave this earth, we carry with us a conscience, which can have little fear that the virtues which Heaven has made it so delightful for us to practise below,-and which have been the chief instruments of producing a happiness which, when the universe was formed with such innumerable adaptations to the enjoyment of all who live, was surely not foreign to the intention of its Author,-will, in that immortality, which is only a prolongation of this mortal life, be regarded with abhorrence by that great Being, whose perfections, however faintly we have endeavoured to image, and who has here been so lavish tp us of a love, as constant in its approbation of moral good, as the moral excellence which it has made happy. We have now, then, examined very fully the great question, as to the dis- tinctions which we find man every where to have made of actions, as moral- ly right or wrong ; and I trust, for the sake of your happiness in life at least, as much as for the accuracy of your philosophy, that you are not inclined to withhold your logical assent from the doctrine of the moral distinction of vice and virtue,-a doctrine which seems to me to have every character of truth as a faithful picture of the phenomena of the mind; and which it would, therefore, be as erroneous, as it would be miserable, to deny. Certain actions, then, excite, when considered by us, certain emotions of moral regard. But, what are those actions, and how are they to be ar- ranged ? In this inquiry, which involves the whole doctrine of practical ethics, phi- losophers have been very generally misled, by that spirit of excessive sim- plification, of which, in the course of tire various discussions that have occu- pied us together, we have had occasion to remark many striking instances ; and in part, too, by the influence of another error, which also we hive had frequent occasion of remarking,-the error of considering mere abstractions as realities. In considering the emotion, or rather the various emotions excited by the various objects which are termed beautiful, we observed the constant ten- dency of inquiries into these interesting phenomena, to suppose that there is one universal Beauty, which is diffused in all the objects that are termed beautiful, and forms, as it were, a constituent part of them. THE TERM MORAL SENSE. 331 One Beauty of the world entire, The universal Venus,-far beyond The keenest effort of created eyes, And their most wide horizon,-dwells enthroned In ancient silence. At her footstool stands An altar burning with eternal fire, Unsullied, unconsumed. Here, every hour,- Here, every moment, in their turns arrive Her offspring ;-an innumerable band Of sisters, comely all, but differing far In age, in stature, and expressive mien, More than bright Helen from her new-born babe. To this maternal shrine, in turns they come Each with her sacred lamp;-that, from the source Of living flatne, which here immortal flows, Their portions of its lustre they may draw For days, for months, for years-for ages some, As their great Parent's discipline requires. Then to their several mansions they depart, 332 ON THE ARRANGEMENT In stars, in planets, through the unknown shores Of yon ethereal ocean.-Who can tell, Even on the surface of this rolling earth, How many make abode ? The fields, the groves, The winding rivers, and the azure main, Are rendered solemn by their frequent feet, Their rites sublime. There each her destin'd home. Informs with that pure radiance from the skies Brought down, and shines throughout her littlp sphere Exulting.* • This universal Venus, from the undecaying flame of whose altar, has been derived whatever warms us with dplight, in the myriads of myriads of objects that are lovely in nature, is indeed one of the most magnificent personifica- tions of poetry. But philosophy has, in truth, been as fond of this personifi- cation as poetry itself, and is for ever seeking in objects that are beautiful, the charm of this universal beauty. It has been not less fond of personification in its ethical inquiries, and has for ever been employed in the search of one uni- versal virtue-of something, that is capable of existing, as it were, in various forms-and that may be supposed to form a part of all the actions whibh are denominated virtuous. There is no virtue, however, as* I have already re- peatedly said-there are only virtuous actions, or to speak still more correct- ly, only virtuous agents: and it is not one virtuous agent only, or any number of virtuous agents, acting in one uniform manner, that excite our moral emotion of regard; but agents acting in many different ways-in ways, that are not less different in themselves, on account of the real or sup- posed simplicity of the generalizations and classifications, which we may have made. By some all virtue has been said ty Consist in benevolence-as if tempe- rance, patience, fortitude-all the heroic exercises of self-command, in ad- versity and every species of suffering, were not regarded by us with moral love, till we had previously discovered, in the heroic sufferer, some benevo- lent desire, which led him thus to endure,-without a single mtirmur, or ra- ther in all the circumstances of the case, with choice,-an amount of physi- cal evil, from which others would have shrunk with cowardly feebleness. By another sect of philosophers, the virtues of self-command have been exalted even above the gentler virtues of benevolence. By others the calm exercise of justice has been said to involve all moral excellence; and almost every ethical writer has had some favourite virtue, to which he has built his altar, and ascribed to it a sort of omnipresence, in all the other virtues, that are adored ; and that, but for the presence of this, as the inherent divinity, would have been objects of a worship that was idolatrous. From this very circumstance, indeed, of the different favourite virtues of different philosophers, some sophistical writers have endeavoured to draw conclusions, subversive of the very distinctions of virtue and vice. They forget, that even those, who form their little exclusive systems, are still thus exclusive in their systems only-that, in their hearts, they feel the same re- gard for every virtue as if they had never entered into ethical controversy, and that the asserters of benevolence, as all which constitutes moral wrnrth, did not, on that account, deny a moral difference of patience and impatience; -they only laboured to prove, though they might not be very successful in their demonstration, that to be patient was but a form of being benevolent, * Pleasures of the Imagination, B. I. OF THE PRACTICAL VIRTUES. and was valued by us for nothing more than the benevolence which it im- plied. Of these two narrow systems, it would be useless, however, to enter into any examination at present. Tlieir error will be best seen, by considering the virtues which they would exclude. The classification of these virtues, that may be regarded as the most convenient, is that which.considers them as duties, in their relation to different individuals, and, in the first place, as the most comprehensive of all classification,-the arrangement of them as duties »vhich relate primarily to others, and duties which relate directly to our- selves. 333 LE£TURI> LXXXIIL DIVISION OF THE PRACTICAL VIRTUES INTO THREE CLASSES-DUTIES THAT RELATE PRIMARILY TO OTHERS-DUTIES THAT RELATE DI- RECTLY TO OURSELVES-AND DUTIES TO G£)D. Gentlemen, after the discussions in which we have been of ]ate engag- ed, of the theory of morals, we are now to enter on the consideration of those practical duties of which we hdve been investigating the source. Man is not formed to know only,-he is formed still more to avail himself of his know- ledge, by acting in conformity with it. In the society in which he is placed, he is surrounded with a multitude, to almost every one of whom some effort of his may be beneficial,-who, if they do not require the aid of his strenu- ous and long-continued exertions, which are necessary only on rare occasions, require, at least, in the social intercourse of life, those little services of easy courtesy, which are not to be estimated as slight, from the seeming insignifi- cance of each separate act; since they contribute largely to the amount of general happiness by the universality of their diffusion, and the frequency of the repetition. While his actions may thus have almost unremitting useful- ness, Nature has, with a corresponding provision, made it delightful to man to be active ; and, not content with making it delightful to him to be merely ac- tive,-since this propensity to action, which of itself might lead him some- times to benefit others, might of itself also lead him to injure as well as to be- nefit,-she has, as we have seen, directed him how to act, by that voice of conscience which she has placed within his breast; and given still greater ef- ficacy to that voice by the pain which she has attached to disobedience, and the pleasure that is felt in obeying it, and remembering it as obeyed. Of this moral pleasure it is, indeed, the high Character, that it is the only plea- sure which no situation can preclude ; since it is beyond the reach of all those external aggressions and chances, which can lessen only the power of diffusing happiness, not the wish of diffusing it,-and which, even in robbing the virtuous of every thing beside, must still leave with them the good which they have done, and the good which they would wish to do. Human life, then, when it is such, as not impartial spectators only, but the individual himself, can survey with pleasure, is the exercise, and almost the unremitting exercise, of duties. To have discharged these best, is to have 334 ON THE ARRANGEMENT lived best It is truly to have lived the most nobly, though there may have been no vanities of wealth in the simple home, which was great only because it contained a great inhabitant,-and no vanities of heraldry on the simple tomb, under the rude stone of which, or under the turf which is unmarked by any memorial, or by any ornament but the herbage and the flowers which na- ture every where sheds,-the ashes of a great man repose. What mere sym- bols of honour, indeed, which man can confer, could add to the praise of him who possesses internally, all which those symbols, even when they are not falsely representative of a merit that does not exist, can only picture to the gazer's eye,-to the praise of him who has done every thing which it was right for him to do,-who has abstained, in his very desires, from every thing which it would have required a sacrifice of virtue to possess,-and who, in suffering the common ills of our nature, has suffered them as common ills, not repining at affliction, nor proud of enduring it without a murmur, but feeling only that it is a part of a great system which is good, and that it is that which it is easy to bear. Human life, then, when it is worthy of the name of life, is, as I have said, the exercise of duties. In treating of our practical virtues, I shall consider, first, those which di- rectly relate to our fellow-creatures, and afterwards, those which immediate- ly relate to ourselves. Besides these two classes of duties, indeed, there are others of a still higher kind,-the duties which we owe to the great Being who formed us,-duties which, though they do not absolutely produce.all the others, at least add to them a force of obligation, which more than doubles their own moral urgency; and with the wilftfl violation or neglect of whiqh, there can be as little moral excellence of character in the observance of other duties, as there would be in the virtue of any one, who after boasting of a thousand good deeds, should conclude by confessing, that he had never felt the slightest affection for the parent to whom he owed existence, and wis- dom, and worldly honour,-or for some generous benefactor who had been to him like a parent. These duties of gratitude and reverence which we owe to God, will admit, however, of more appropriate illustration, after the inqui- ries on which we are to enter in another part of the course, with respect to the traces of the divine perfections, that are revealed to us in the frame and order of the universe. At present, then, the practical virtues which we have to consider, are those that relate immediately, only to our fellow-creatures and Of these two great classes of duties, let us consider, in the first place, the duties that primarily relate to others. Of the living multitude in the midst of which we are placed on this earth which is our common home, by far the greater number have no other relation to us, than simply as they are human beings,-who may, indeed, sometimes come within the sphere of our usefulness, and who, even when they are far beyond this sphere of active aid, are still within the range of our benevolent affection, to which there are no limits even in distance the most remote,- but to whom this benevolence of mere wishes is the only duty which, in such circumstances, is consigned to us. There are others, with whom we feel ourselves connected by peculiar ties, and to whom, therefore, we owe pecu- liar duties, varying in kind and importance, with the nature of the circumstan- ces that connect us with them. The general duties which we owe to all man- kind, may be treated first,-before we enter on the consideration of the pe- culiar duties which we owe to certain individuals only, of this wide commu- nity. The general offices which we owe to every individual of mankind, may be reduced to two great generic duties,-one negative, the other positive,-one leading us to abstain from all intentional -injury of others, the other leading us to be actively beneficial to them. With the former of these, at least with the greater number of the specific duties which it generically comprehends, justice is very neairly synonymous; with the other set of specific duties, benevolence; -which, though it may, in truth, be made to comprehend thfc negative du- ties also, since, to wish to benefit, is at the same time to wish not to injure, is usually confined to the desire of positive incteftse of good, without including mere abstinence from injury. I proceed, then, to the consideration of the former set of duties, which are negative only,-as limited to abstinence from every thing which might be in- jurious to others. These duties, of course, are, specifically, asvarious as the different sorts of injury which it is in our pow,er to occasion, directly or indirectly. Such injuries,-if man were wicked enough and fearless enough both of indivi- dual resentment and of the law, to do whatever it is in his power to do,- would, in their possible complication and variety, be almost beyond our pow- er of numbering them, and giving them names. The most important, how- ever, if arranged according to the objects which it is the direct immediate intention of the injurer, at the moment of an injury, to assail, may be consi- dered as reducible to the following general heads :-They are injuries which affect the sufferer1 directly in his person,-in his property,-in the affections of others,-in his character,-in his knowledge or belief,-in his virtue,-in his tranquillity. They are injuries, I repeat, which are intended tb affect the Sufferer directly in his person,-in his property,-in the affections of others, -in bis character, &;c. ' « Let us now,, then, proceed to the consideration of these subdivisions of our merely negative duty, in the order in which I have now stated them. Of in- juries to the person of another, the most atrocious, I need not say, is that which deprives him of life ; and as it is the only evil which is* absolutely irre- parable by .us, and is yet one to which many of our most impetuous passions might lead us,-jegJousy, envy, revenge, or even sudden wrath itself,-with- out taking into account those instances of violence in which murder is only the dreadful mean of accomplishing a sordid end,-the Creator hnd Preserv- er of man has provided against the frequency of a crime to which there might seem so many fearful inducements and facilities,-by rendering the contem- plation of it something, from which even the most abandoned shrink with a loathipg which is, perhaps, the only human feeling which still remains in their heart; and the commission of it a source of a wilder agony of horror than can be borne, even by the gloomy heart which was capable of conceiving the crime. " Homo homini res sacra." When we reed or hear of the assassin, who is driven, by the anguish of his own conscience, to reveal to those whom most he dreaded, the secret which he was most anxious to hide,-addressing him- self to the guardians, not of the mere lawrs, which he has offended, (for of the laws of man he does not think, except that he may submit himself to that death which they only can award,) but to the guardians of the life and happi- ness of those whose interests have been assigned to them,-the guardians of the individual whom their protection, at that moment, which is ever before OF THE PRACTICAL VIRTUES. 335 ON THE NEGATIVE DUTIES his memory, was too powerless to save ; when we think of the number of years that in many instances of this kind have elapsed, since the mortal blow was given, and of the inefficacy of time, which effaces all other sorrows, to lessen that remorse, which no one suspected to be the cause of the wasting of the cheek, and the gloomy melancholy of the eye,-can we fail to regard a spectacle like this as an awful testimony to the goodness of that Almighty Protector of the world, who proportions the internal restraints of conscience to the iniquity that needs to be restrained, and to the amount of evil which would flow from it if unrestrained,-and who, seeming to leave the life of every individual at the mercy of every arm, has secured for it a defence, in the very bosom of him, whos§ watchful glance had already marked its vic- tim, and whose hand was already almost raised to give the blow. The reign of superstition,-its wide and general reign, is now over, at least in our land. We do not need to have recourse to volumes of philosophy, to convince us, that the ghost which haunts the murderer is but an image of his own fancy. This, now; the very children will tell us, while they laugh, not so gaily, per- haps, as at other tales, but still with laughter which, though mixed with a lit- tle horror, is sincere, at the spectres which their predecessors in the same nursery, a single generation back, would, on hearing the same story, have seen before their eyes for*more than half the night. There is no fear then, now, that we should be tempted to suppose any peculiar supernatural visita- tion, in the shape that seems for ever rising to the eye of the murderer. It is to the influence of his strong conception alone, that all will agree in as- cribing it; and if it be, as it most certainly is, the result only of conception that is awfully vivid, how strongly does it mark the horror, so far surpassing the horror of every other offence, which must have given to the imagination, this agonising sensibility. The robber may plunder,-the traitor may be- tray, without any moral superstition of this sort; but let one human being give his last gasp beneath the dagger of another humay being; and, though superstition had before been banished from the earth, there is at least one individual, to whom this single crime would be sufficient to call it back. The species of injury which I have placed next in order, is that which relates to the property of others. Were we to consider, for the first time, the unequal distribution of pro- perty in society, without reflecting on the amount of general happiness to which that unequal distribution is subservient, we should scarcely know, in our astonishment at the seeming rapacity of the- few, and the acquiescence of the many, whether the boldness of such an usurpation,-at least of that which, on such a first unreflecting view would seem usurpation,-or the strange submission by all the plundered, to an usurpation which they might have prevented, were the more wonderful. It would not be easy to repre- sent this first aspect of society, in a more lively, manner than has been done by Paley. "If you should see a flock of pigeons in a field of corn: and if, (instead of each picking where and what it liked, taking just as much as it wanted, and no more,) you should see ninety-nine of them gathering all they got into a heap; reserving nothing for themselves, but the chaff and the refuse ; keeping this heap for one, and that the weakest, perhaps worst pigeon of the flock; sitting round, and looking on all the winter, whilst this one was de- vouring, throwing about, and wasting it; and if a pigeon, more hardy or hungry than the rest, touched a grain of the hoard, all the others instantly 336 RELATING TO THE PROPERTY OF OTHERS. flying upon it, and tearing it to pieces; if you should see this, you would see nothing more-than what is every day practised and established among men. Among men, you see the ninety-and-nine toiling and scraping together a heap of superfluities for one, (and this one, too, oftentimes the feeblest and worst of the whole set, a child, a womag, a madman, or a fool;) getting nothing for themselves all the while, but a little of the coarsest of the pro- vision. which their own industry produces; poking* quietly on, while they see tne fruits of all their labour spent or spoiled; and if one of-the number take or touch a particle of the hoard, the others joining against him, and hanging him for the theft."* There must, indeed, as this author adds, be " some very important advan- tages to account for an institution which, in this view of it, is so paradoxical and unnatural," and such advantages it is very easy to discover. The gross inequality of property, strange as it may seem to be at any one moment, is, it is evident, only the effect of that security and absolute command of pro- perty, which allow the continual accumulation of it by continued industry; and, without such security, and absolute command of the profits of exertion, the arm of the strong would soon have been weary of the little toil which was necessary for mere subsistence; and the ingenuity of the wise would have contented itself with enjoying, rather than augmenting, its scanty but precarious acquisitions. If all things had been common to all, that com- mon all would truly have been of little worth to the individuals, who would have seen nothing appropriated, indeed, but nothing enjoyed. Instead of that beautiful and populous earth which we behold,-where cities pour wealth on the fields, and the fields, in their turn, send plenty |o the cities,- where all are conferring aid and receiving aid, and the most sensual and selfish cannot consume a single- luxury, without giving, however, uninten- tionally, some comfort, or the means of comfort to others,-instead of this noble dwelling-place of so many noble inhabitants, we should have had a waste or a wilderness, and a few miserable stragglers, half famished on that wide soil which now gives abundance to millions. Nor would the loss of mere external convenience and splendour have been the chief evil. The intellectual sciences, and arts, and systems of moral polity, which distinguish the civilized from the savage, by differences far.rpore important than any which the eye can perceive, never would have arisen on such a scene. It was property, that very exclusive property, which is now better secured by the civilization to which it gave rise, that was itself, at a still earlier period, the great civilizer of man. If, indeed, in considering these comforts of society, which flow from the distribution of property, that could not be secure, without becoming soon unequal,-we considered only the comfort of the few who possess the greater share, the happiness of the few might seem-and, it will be allowed, would truly be comparatively-an object of too little value, to be set against any great loss of comfort on the part of the multitude. But it requires only a very slight reflection on the circumstances of society, as it is at present before us, to discover, that, even if the few have gained more, the many have gained much; and, perhaps, (o a very nice observer and estimator of the situation pf both,-of the enjoyment that is involved in mere occupation, and of the misery that is involved in the total want of it,-it might seem neces- 337 • Paley's Moral Philosophy, 21st Ed. Svo. Vol. I. p. 106. Vol. II. 338 ON THE NEGATIVE DUTIES sary to reverse the scale, and to ascribe the greater gain to the many rather than to the few. They profit by the results of every science and art, which they enable the studious, whom they support, to prosecute at their leisure ; the speculations of the sage, whom they perhaps'-count idle, that teach new processes, mechanical or chemical, to the innumerable busy hands that are every moment producing, almost blindly, the beautiful results, of which they know little more than that they arfe of their ovtn producing, -may be found at last embodied, as it were, in some humble implement, or humble luxury, in the obscurest cottage ;-and even the wretch, who, in the common prison, earns a part of his subsistence by the meanest operations to which, in the divisiomof manufacturing Jabour, the human hand can be put, has accommodations, which,-miserable as they are,•compared with the luxu- ries of the rich and the free, are yet themsblves luxuries, compared with the far more miserable accommodations'which, if there never had been any ine- quality of property among mankind, would, in that system of •'sloth, and con- sequent imbecility, have been the common. lot of all. This, influence of wealth, and of the division of labour in the enjoyments of die lowest of- the people, is very strongly pictured by Dr. Mandeville in one of the most strik- ing passages of his work... . . . • • r- " A man would be laughed at, that should discover luxury in.the plain dress of a poor creature that walks along, in a thick parish gown and a coafse shirt underneath it; and yet what a number of people, how many different trades, and what a variety of skill and tools, must' be employed* to have the most ordinary Yorkshire cloth? What depth of thought.and ingenuity, what toil and. labour, and what length of time must it have cost, before a man could learn from a seed to raise and prepare so useful -a product as linen?- Must that society not be vainly curious, among whom this admirable commodity, after it is made, shall not be thought fit to be used,- even by the poorest of all, before it is brought to a perfect whiteness which is not to be procured but by the assistance of all the elements, joined to a world of in- dustry and patience ? I have not done yet: Can we reflect, not only on the cost laid out upon this luxurious invention, but likewise oh the little time the whiteness of it continues; in which part of its beauty consists; that every six or seven days, at farthest, it wants cleaning, and, while it lasts, is-a continual charge to the wearer ; can we, I say, reflect on all this, and not think it an extravagant piece of nicety, that even those who receive alms.of the parieh, should not only have whole garments made of this operose manufacture, but likewise that, as soon as they are soiled, to restore them to tfiejr pnstme pu- rity, they should make use of one of the most judicious as well as difficult compositions that chemistry can boast of; with whicli,'.disSqlfed in water by the help of fire, the most detersive and yet innocent lixivinm\s prepared, that-human industry has hitherto been able to invent?"* The feeling Of a breach of duty in the violation of the property of another, though uniformly attendant on the notion of property, of course, this notion as antecedent to the moral feeling; and property is, in a great measure, the creature of the public law, not because our moral feelings are arbitrary results, of the arbitrary institutions of man,-but because, as soon as we are acquainted with the. nature of social ordinances, and the advan- tages to which they give rise, these ordinances become themselves an object • Fable of the Bern. Vol. I. p. 182. Lond. 1728. RELATING TO THE PROPERTY OF OTHERS. 339 of that moral regard, the susceptibility of which, as an essential principle of the mind, preceded all law,-and transfer this regard which themselves ex- cite, to forms of succession and transfer, which might, otherwise, have been arbitrary and indifferent. It is not, in such cases, however, the social ordi- nance which is loved merely as an ordinance, but the good to which it is perceived that such ordinances, upon the whole, tend to give rise : and this obedience to that which is an evident source of good upon the whole, and which in the particular case of property, is obviously productive of the greatest good, as a standard, to which, in cases of doubtful right, all might be obliged to bend-and peace be thus preserved, when otherwise there could not fail to be hostility, is the circumstance that has extended to artifi- cial arrangements of property, those moral emotions which originally had a narrower field ; but which still have the same great object as before, when they embrace the widest plans of legislative wisdom. The writers, who attempt to prove justice to be a virtue, wholly adventi- tious, and not the result of any original moral tendency of our nature, be- cause, in different stages or circumstances of society, there are different views of property,-forget that justice, as a moral virtue, is not the creation of property, but the conformity of our actions to those views,-that, though all men, in every part of the earth, and in every age since the earth was peo- pled, had, without even the exception of a single monstrous individual, united in their notions of what is termed property, there might still have been the most complete injustice,-a desire of invading this property, not merely as frequent, as in the present circumstances of mankind, but equally universal with the notion of property itself. There might, then,-the mere notion of property remaining in every respect precisely the same,-have been either perfect justice or perfect injustice, or such a mixture of both, as the present order of society presents. It is justice, not to invade that which is recognised as belonging to another; and though law cannot produce justice, it may present to it new objects, by the standard which it fixes of transfers and successions, that otherwise might have been arbitrary; and may present these new ob- jects to our justice, without any breach of moral principle ; since, though law, as mere law, or the expression of the will of many individuals, can never be felt by us to be morally obligatory, on this account alone,-obedi- ence to a system of laws, of which the evident tendency is to the public good, is itself an object of our moral regard, as soon as we are capable of know- ing what law is, and what are its general beneficial tendencies. In the dif- ferent rights of property, then, in different nations and ages, as variously sanctioned, in various systems of jurisprudence, I perceive no inconsis- tency of the moral principle. I perceive every where, on the contrary, a moral principle, which, among the rude and the civilized, and in all the innu- merable gradations of civilized life, and of systems of law more or less sage and refined, feels that there are certain things, which it would be wrong to invade ;-in savage life, perhaps, only the objects which are in the immedi- ate occupation of another, or on which he has exercised his labour, for pur- poses of utility to himself,-in more civilized society, innumerable objects, which the circumstances of that society have rendered essential to the com- fort of their possessor, and which law, with a view to the preservation and furtherance of general happiness, has allotted in various ways. Till it can be shown, therefore, that this regard for social ordinances, that are manifestly, upon the whole, productive of good, and, consequently, the regard for that good of which they are productive, are inconsistent with the moral princi- ple, of which the great object is that very good-the sophist, who would represent the varying rights of property, as proofs of a varying morality, has no argument, in showing the mere influence of such ordinances, that teach us to respect, what otherwise might have been indifferent. It is the same moral principle of justice still, though directed to new objects : as it is still the same power of vision, that traces the stars of the firmament, though, but for the nice contrivances of the optician, and the labour of all the ruder artificers, who have furnished him with the materials of his beautiful art,-eye after eye might for ages have gazed upon the great vault above, without knowing the very existence of brilliant multitudes of worlds, which, with the aid of this skilful but simple contrivance, it is now impossible for the rudest observer not to perceive. Who is there, that, on this account, will deny to the mind its original visual sensibility ? That mental sensibility is tiie same,-the bodily organ of sight is the same,-yet how deffereht in power and extent is our vision itself!-at least as different, as the wider and narrower influence of justice, that respects in one state of society, a thou- sand objects which are unknown to it in a state of ruder polity. In contending for essential principles of morals, no one asserts that, in circumstances which are absolutely different, the moral sentiments should be the same,-more than that an eye, with and without a telescope, should form the same views of the nature that is before it. In savage life, the notions of property are few, because there are, in truth, in such a state, few objects that can be useful to the individual. It is luxury, which, creating new ob- jects, and new wants, creates also new objects to be appropriated. It is pro- bable,-if we are to suppose man ever to have been absolutely savage, with- out the exercise of a single art,-that mere occupancy was then the only title. Indeed, what other title to the common gifts of nature, could there, in such circumstances, be ? When his labour, however, had been employ- ed in rendering useful, what in itself had no use, he would not merely feel the work of his art to be his own ; but the work would be respected as his, by those' who knew the labour which he had employed, and the purposes of personal advantage, to which it was meant to be instrumental; or at least, if, in stich circumstances of temptation, it were.an object of rapine lo others, there would still, unless in circumstances of mutual enmity, be a feeling of conscious wrong in the aggressor. This species of property, we accordingly find recognised wherever man is to be found; and is it wonderful, that other species of property, which could not even be conceived in savage life, how- ever useful in the circumstances of refined society, should not lie regarded as sacred, by those to whom the possession of it would seem to confer no utility on the possessor,-who would rather have the trouble of excluding others, thtm the pleasure of enjoying that from which he excluded them ? • The mere history of property then,-interesting as it is in the illustra- tions which it affords, of many beautiful phenomena of our moral nature, and of the advantages which man receives from the social government, to the force of which his own individual power has contributed as an element, like the other elements that mingle with it-is yet valuable only, as illustra- tive. The moral principle, which in the various stages of society, in all the varieties of property which social ordinances have made or secured, im- presses on us the duty of respecting the various objects which are property, -that is to say, which are objects, that, in these partf cular circumstances of 340 ON THE NEGATIVE DUTIES RELATING TO THE PROPERTY OF OTHERS. society, could not be violated without a feeling of self-reproach in the invader -is all which, ethically, we have to consider. That such a feeling does arise in the breast of him who invades, what in the general circumstances of society, is regarded as property, even the sophist who would found so much on the varying circumstances, in which it arises, does not dispute ; and it is this feeling, in whatever circumstances, and in whatever manner it may have arisen, from which the duty flows. Whether the object be of a kind, which eveq in the fabled state of nature, we should have felt it right 'to respect, as the property of him who had won and occupied it, with his own unwearied labour, or of a kind which we respect as property, because we respect that social good which arises from the laws that have declared it to be property- it is not wonderful that our feeling of respect for it, should seem, in these twu cases, to be the same; since the respect is only that feeling of moral duty, the object of which, that is always some form of good to others, is in both cases truly the same. Justice, then, I repeat,-and the distinction is one which is of great impor- tance, is not what constitutes property-it is that virtue which presupposes property, and respects it, however constituted. It may vary, therefore, with all the ordinances of different social states-but it is still the same virtue*. if it respect what, in those different states, is legally assigned to individuals ; and as the same virtue, in all these cases, directed to the same object of abstain- ing from what is previously affirmed or recognised as property, it not vary, in the variations of human policy, that may assign to individuals in one state, what, from different views of general good, would not be assigned to them in a different state,-but which still, in every case, points out to justice, what is to be understood as the property, which that unvarying virffiq does not fail to respedt. . * • To point out to you the advantages which flow from the general observ- ance of this duty, that leads us to abstain from the property of others, how- ever much it might seem capable of contributing to our own gratification, would surely be a superfluous labour. Indeed, in picturing to you the ad-, vantages which flow from the very inequality of property itself, I have al- ready exhibited to you, the benefit of the principle which respects prqperty, and of the duty which consists in our conformity to this principle,-;a duty, without which, indeed, the mere acknowledgment of the various things pos- sessed, as things of which the possession ought not to be violated, would be of no avail. The general feelings of mankind, with respect to the importance of this duty, are indeed sufficiently shown, in the laws which they have, esta- blished for punishing the breach of it. Even under our own excellent legal system, in which death is appointed to him, who premeditates anfl executes the death of another, it is appointed also to him, who has assailed the pro- perty only, not the person ; and politically and morally erroneous, as this equal allotment of punishment, to offences so unequal, most truly is,-it still.marks sufficiently the general feeling of the evil, which would arise to society from the frequent violation of this simple duty, that such an allotment of punish- ment should still continue, in such a nation, and in such an age. When we consider the multitude who are in possession of means of enjoy- ment, that are to them the means only of selfish avarice or of profligate waste,-in both cases, perhaps, productive rather of evil than of good to the individual possessor, and when, at the same time, we consider the multitudes, far more numerous, to whom a small share of that cumbrous and seemingly 341 342 unprofitable wealth, would, in an instant, diffuse a comfort that would make the heart of the indigent gay in his miserable hovel, and be like a beam of health itself to that pale cheek, which is slowly wasting, on its wretched bed of straw, in cold and darkness, and a famine that is scarcely felt, only be- cause appetite itself is quenched by disease,-it might almost seem to the inconsiderate, at least for a moment, in contemplating such a scene, that no expression of the social voice could be so beneficial, as that which should merely say, let there be no restraint of property, but let all the means of provi- sion for the wants of mankind, be distributed according to the more or less imperious necessity of those wants, which all partake. It requires only the consideration of a moment however, to perceive, that this very distribution would, itself, be the most injurious boon that could be offered to indigence,- that soon, under such a system of supposed freedom from the usurpations of the wealthy,-instead of the wealth which supports, and the industry which is supported, the bounty which relieves, and the penury that is relieved,-there would only be one general penury, without the possibility of relief; and an industry that would be exercised, not in plundering the wealthy, for there could not then be wealth to admit of plunder, but in snatching from the weak- er some scanty morsel of a wretched aliment, that would scarcely be suffi- cient to repay the labour of the struggle, to him who was too powerful not to prevail. Die vices that would tyrannise uncontrolled, in such an iron age, 1 do not attempt to picture. I speak only of the mere physical wants of man, and of the means, which different states of society afford, for the gratification oi those wants, according as possession is more or less secured, though no other original difference were supposed, than of the simple right of property. There would be no palaces, indeed, in such a system of equal rapine,-and this might be considered as but a slight evil, from the small number ot those who were stripped of them ; but when the chambers of state had disappear- ed, where would be the cottage, or rather the whole hamlet of cottages, that might be expected to occupy its place ? The simple dwellings of a happy peasantry might be the last, indeed, to be invaded $ but when the magnificent mansion had been stripped by the first band of plunderers, these too woukl soon find plunderers as rapacious. No elegant art could be exercised,-no science cultivated,-where the search of a precarious subsistence for the day, would afford us no leisure for studies or exercises, beyond the supply of mere animal wants; and man, who, with property, is what we now behold him, and is to be, in his glorious progress even on earth, a being far nobler than we are capable, in our present circumstances, of divining,-would, without property, soon become, in the lowest depth of brutal ignorance and wretch- edness, what it is almost aS difficult for our imagination to picture to us, as it would be for it to picture what he may become on earth, after the many long ages of progressive improvement. Such is the state to which we should be reduced, if all men were to do what the robber individually does. He contri- butes whatever a single heart and a single arm can contribute, to make of the social and happy world around us, that unsocial and miserable world, which we vainly labour to conceive. His crime is not perpetrated against an indi- vidual only, but against the very union that binds society together ; and the abhorrence with which his crime is considered, is not the mere wrath that is felt by the aggrieved individual, it is the sympathizing resentment of all man- kind. ON THE NEGATIVE DUTIES, ETC. 343 LECTURE LXXXIV. ON OUR NEGATIVE DUTIES TO OTHERS-ABSTAINING FROM ROBBING THEM OF THE AFFECTIONS OF OTHERS-ON ABSTAINING FROM IN- JURING THE CHARACTER OF OTHERS-ON VERACITY. Gen-Tdemen, in treating of the general duties which we owe to all man- kind,. I considered these, rn my last Lecture, as of two classes, negative and positive;-the one set leading us to abstain from injuring others, the other set leading us to be actively useful to them. An individual, it is evident, may be injured by us, in various ways, with which, of course, in . the obligation to abstain from the different forms of inju- ry, there is a variety of duty. He may be injured directly in his person,-in his property,-in thpse affections of others, which are almost a species of property,-in his character,-in his knowledge or belief,-in his virtue,-in his tranquillity. • • • • * , Of these various modes of injury we have considered two. I proceed then, now, to the third in order,-the injury which we may do to an'y one, by robbing him of the affections of those, whose love may, perhaps, be to him, the most precious of his possessions-. Affection, I have said, may be considered almost as a form of wealth pos- sessed; and the fnost delightful affection which can be given to us, is truly, if I may apply the cold terms of merchandise to the pure commerce of the heart, a species of property, for which the price of similar affection has been paid,, and to which the laws'of wedlock have given a legal and holy title. It is to the robbery of conjugal affection, therefore, as the most important, that 1 shall confine the few remarks which I have to offer on this species of injury. ' . ' ' . . ' . ; If the guilt of the robber were to be estimated, in proportion to the quantity of evil, which he knowingly produces, where is it, that our most indignant ha- tred of the crime should be fixed ? Not surely on him, Whom alone* we are accustomed to denominate a robber. The wretch, who perishes on the scaffold'for his sordid thefts', unpitied,■ perhaps, by a single individual in the whole;crowd of gazers, that fpark the last faint convulsion of his limbs, only to wonder when the quiverings are to cease,-may deserve the horrors of that ignominious punishment under which he sinks. But does he truly rank in villany with the robber of another class,-with him, who would be astonish- ed, perhaps, to have a place assigned to him among common pilferers,-but who is in guilt the barest of them all,-however noble he may Be in titles, and splendid with all that pomp, which can be alike the covering of vice and of virtue ? There may pass, in some stately carriage, while the crowd are still gazing on'the body that hangs lifeless before them, some criminal; of far deeper iniquity, too may turn, where all«other eyes are fixed, and who may wonder at the increase of crimes, and moralize on their causes, and rejoice at their punishment,-while the carriage in which he reclines, and moralizes at his ease, is bearing him to the house of his friend, by a secret appointment with her who is the mistress of it,-whpm months of incessant falsehoods and treacheries were unable to subdue, but whom, by the influ- ence of some finer simulation, he is at last to carry off, as a noble booty, from the virtue and happiness to which she never is to return. 344 The common thief, who steals or forces his way into the house at mid- night, has never been treated with kindness and confidence, by him whose property he invades; and all which he carries off may, usually, be repaired, without very much difficulty, or may, perhaps, be of a kind which is scarcely of sufficient importance to our convenience, to be replaced by the easy efforts that might replace it. But what is to repair the plunder of him, whose rob- bery is of that description which exists only in the heart,-who steals not the object of regard only, but the very capacity of feeling affection and confidence again,-and who, by a single crime, converts, in the eyes of the sufferer, that world of social harmony, which God has made so beautiful, into a world of deceivers and the deceived ! of pleasures, that are but illusion, and of misery that is reality ! . . Let us imagine one of those domestic groups which form, to the lover of happiness, one of the loveliest spectacles with which the earth is .embellish- ed-a family, in the small circle of which, there is no need of distracting and noisy gaieties without, because there are constant tranquillity and enjoyment within,-in which the pleasure of loving is, in the bosom of the wedded pair, a delight, that, as blending in one uniform emotion with the pleasure of be • ing loved, is scarcely to be distinguished from that affection which is ever flowing around it,-a delight that grows not weaker, but more intense, by dif- fusion to the little frolickers around, who, as yet, know little more than the affection which they feel, and the affection of which they are the objects,-but who are rising into virtue, amid the happiness which virtue sheds. In consi- dering such a scene, would it require any very long and subtle effort of reflec- tion, to determine, what would be the greatest injury, which human malice could devise against it, if it were in the power of malice to execute every atrocity which it might conceive? It would be,that very injury which the adulterer perpetrates,-the crime of him who can see all this happiness, and can say in his heart, this happiness shall exist no longer. A time may in- deed come when, if his artifices be successful, this happiness will exist no more,-when, she, who was once as innocent as she was happy, shall have been consigned to that remorse, which is to hurry her, too slowly for her own wishes, to the grave,-and when the home which she has deserted, shall be a place of wretchedness and desolation,-where there is one miserable be- ing, who knows his misery, and others who still smile, while they inquire anxiously, with a sort of fearful wonder, for the presence of her, whose ca- resses they no longer enjoy,-and are as yet ignorant that a time is to ar- rive, when they are to blush at the very name of her, to whose knee and embrace of fondness, they are longing to return. When Milton describes the Leader of the fallen spirits, as witnessing, on his entrance into Paradise, the' happiness of the first pair, he knew well how necessary it was to the poetic interest which he wished us to feel, in the cha- racter and enterprise even of this audacious Rebel, that, in the very pros- pect of executing his infernal purpose, he should have some reluctance to disturb that beautiful happiness, which was before his eyes : ON ABSTAINING FROM ROBBING INDIVIDUALS O hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold ! Into our room of bliss thus high advanced Creatures of other mould-earth-born perhaps, Not spirits-yet to heavenly spirits bright Little inferior;-whom my thoughts pursue With wonder, and could love, so lively shines In them divine resemblance, and such grace OF THE AFFECTIONS OF OTHERS. The hand that form'd them on their shape hath pour'd. Ah, gentle pair! ye little think how nigh Your change approaches,-when all these deliglrts Will vanish, and deliver ye to wo,- More wo, the more your taste is now ofjoy. Ill-fenc'd your heaven to keep out such a foe As now is enter'd :-yet no purpos'd foe To you-whom I could pity thus forlorn, Though I unpitied. League with you I seek, And mutual amity.-Hell shall enfold To entertain you two, her widest gates. And send forth all her kings :-There will be room- Not like these narrow limits-to receive Your numerous offspring if no better place, Thank him who.puts me, loath, to this revenge On you, who wrong me not, for him who wrong'd. And should I at your harmless innocence Melt, (as I do,) yet public reAson just, Honour and empire with revenge enlarg'd, By conquering tnis new world, compel me now To do what else, though damned, I should abhor.* 345 It is similar happiness, which the adulterer invades. But he has not the compunction of the fiend, in invading it. He enters into paradise, eager to destroy. He invades it because it is happiness. In many cases, it is his vanity, which he seeks to gratify, far more than his sensual appetite ; the beauty with which the eye is most attractive to him, is the love with which it is already beaming on another ; and if there were less previous conjugal af- fection to be overcome, and, therefore, less wretchedness to be produced by the conquest which he is ambitious of achieving, he would often forbear his seductions, and reserve them for those, who may afford to his insatiable wishes of moral desolation, a greater harvest of misery. Such is the adulterer ;-and of all this mass of wretchedness which he produces, and of all the iniquity which can calmly meditate amj plan such wretchedness, what is the palliation which he assigns? It is the violence of his love alone which he pleads. He is not aware, what aggravation there is of his guilt, in that which he regards, or professes to regard, as the apology of it. If, by love, he mean mere sexual appetite, his excuse is of the same kind, as that of tire common robber, who should think, that he had given a moral justification of his rapacity, by describing the debaucheries which it enabled him to pursue, and the difficulty which, without his thefts, he should feel, in visiting as frequently the tavern and the brothel. And if, by the love which is asserted, be meant an affection more worthy of that name-what are we to think of the sincerity of his love, who, to gratify his own lust, is eager to plunge into guilt and wretchedness the very being whom he pro- fesses to regard with an interest, which should have led him, if sincere, to expose himself to every thing but guilt, to save her from misery, like that which he is intentionally preparing for her ? To speak; of affection, therefore, or of feelings to which he dares to give the name of affection, is, on his part, to double his crime. It is to confess, that, while he is not merely regardless of the happiness of the husband whom he robs, but equally regardless of the happiness of her of whom he robs him, he is as completely and brutally selfish, in his love, as he could be in his indifference or his hatred;-and that the peace, and honour, and virtue of the being, whom he professes to regard as the dearest to him in existence, are, therefore, as nothing, when he must • Par. Lost, B. IV. v. 358-392. Vol. II. 346 either sacrifice them, or make a sacrifice which is far more painful to him, of one of his own desires. In the present state of manners,-in which, at least among the higher or- ders of society, there is so very little of what was once considered as domes- tic life, and in the place of its simple unpretending enjoyments, such constant and close succession of almost theatrical exhibitions, on stages, on which each is to each mutually spectacle and spectator,-to perform gracefully their part is as much an object of ambition to tjie unpaid actors and actresses, in this volun- tary and unremitting drama, as it is to the actors and actresses, on another stage,-whose livelihood, as well as glory, depends on the number of hands, which they can render by their best efforts, most noisy in applause. That there is a very powerful charm, in elegant manners, and in the lighter elo- quence of conversation, which can adapt itself readily to every subject, from the statesmanship of the day to the flower or the feather, 1 am far frofn de- nying,-and that, even in a moral view, from the influence which it gives to the opinions of the' individual, and the easy happiness which it spreads to all aroupd him, this excellence, frivolous as it may seem, is not to be despised, -however humble and comparatively insignificant it must always be rated, when placed in the sbale of merit with nobler wisdom, or still nobler excel- lence of the heart. . One great evil of this system of universal display, how- ever, and of the familiar and sprightly levities which it involves,, is, that, where this gay excellence is of high value, the praise of it must be sought from all. To all alike must be paid those gallantries of manners, which all alike are to admire. The wedded and the unwedded may thus be said to live in a constant interchange of symbols of affection, which, though under- stood to be mere symbols, may yet, as symbols, excite that very affection which they were never seriously intended to aw&ke. Nor is this all. In the eagerness for general admiration, there may be a wish to excite feel- ings, that, without amounting to love, may approach love, in the heart that is already the property of another;-an assiduity of attention, which, though there May be no thought of leading, the way to. absolute infide- lity, has a great portion of the guilt of adultery itself, and may almost be con- sidered as a. minor species of it; since its object is to excite a peculiar ad- miration, which cannot be felt, without some estrangement, or tendency to es- trangement, of conjugal regard. In this way, indeed, I have no doubt, that more disquietude of domestic happiness has been produced upon the whole, than by adultery itself,-and produced in bosoms that would have shrunk in- dignantly from tfie solicitations of the adulterer. The next species of general duty, to which we have to proceed, is that which relates, to the character of others. • • ' The extent of the injury which we may occasion to any one, by wounding his reputation, is not to be estimated merely by the advantages which a pure and honourable character directly affords. It is necessary to take into ac- count also, the value, above even its high intrinsic excellence, which every individual from the very constitution of our common nature,-as explained to you in a former part of the course, when I treated of the desire of fame- is led to attach to it. The Conscience of the virtuous is, indeed, in one sense of the word, sufficient to itself. It cannot be unhappy, while afflictions 'are all from without, and .there is no self-reproach within, to lay open the bosom to their cruel power ; yet, even to the virtuous, the approving voice of those who are moving along with them in their earthly path, is one of the most ON ABSTAINING FROM INJURING pleasing accessions which their happiness can receive; and to rob them of this voice, or to convert it into murmurs or whispers of reprehension, is to do all the evil which malice, that cannot rob them of the consciousness of merit itself, is able to effect. The consciousness itself, indeed, is happily not with- in the power of the calumniator. But if it were within his power, who can doubt that that power would be gladly exercised ;-that he who defames at the risk of detection, would, if the virtues of others were submitted to his will, prevent all peril of this kind, by tearing from the heart every virtue, of which he must now be content with denying the existence,-and thus at once con- sign his victim to ignominy, and rob him of its only consolation ?• So hateful, indeed, to the wicked, is the very thought of moral excellence, that, if even one of the many slanderers with whom society is filled, had this tremendous power, there might not be a single virtue remaining on the earth. The evil, however, which calumny can do to those whose virtue is scarce- ly in need of any support from public approbation, is slight, when compared with the evil which it may produce to those, whose weaker virtue is mixed with much imperfection, that affords an easy pretext for censure, even when censure is unmerited ; while the loss of the encouraging regard of others is more injurious, when withheld from frailty, that, even when it wishes to do what is worthy of praise, is too ready to fall, without the support to which it clings. The real imperfections of mankind are, therefore, delightful to the heart of the slanderer, who sees in them only a warrant for all those addi- tional charges of guilt or error, which it may be his interest to add to the real amount. They are the elements of the poison which he prepares,-without which, he would have as little power to cloud the moral' scene, as the chantresses of ancient fable would have had to obscure the sun, or bring down the moon from the sky, without the baleful herbs that were essential to the incantation. ' ' •* It is our duty, I will not say only to love the good, but even with our indig- nation against the wicked, to mix some portion of pity,-that pity which-would lead us always to wish, that even their names could still be added to the list of the virtuous. If such be our duty then, what are we to think of those, who, far from pitying the wicked, would gladly double all their atrocities; and who, still farther from loving the good, would point them out, as the wicked, to public execration ? There is one species of atrocity, indeed, which such malignant industry does not fail to render clear, but it would be well for him who exhibits it, if that guilt were the guilt of others. " He of whom you delight to speak evil," says a sententious French mo- ralist, "may become acquainted with what you have said, and he will be your enemy ; he may remain in ignorance of it, and, even though what you have said were true, you would still have to reproach yourself with the mean- ness of attacking one who had no opportunity of defending himself. If scan- dal is to be secret, it is the crime of a coward ; if it is to become known, it is the crime of a madman."* The moral dilemma in this argument, is, indeed, addressed to one who may be supposed to have still a love of virtue in gene- ral, and a detestation of that which it would be cowardly to do; but even those, who are insensible to the better motive, may feel, at least, the force of the selfish one; and if the secret history of the hearts of all the malig- nant were known, and the feelings also known, with which they are univer- sally regarded,-it would appear, in the estimate of all which is gained and THE CHARACTER OF OTHERS. 347 * St. Lambert, CEuv. Philosophiques, Tome II. p. 251 all which is lost, that detraction is truly madness or folly, as much as it is guilt. • ; But, if the tale we love to whisper be just, can it be a crime to lament over guilt that is real! It is not a crime to lament over guilt, if we do lament over it. But if we do truly lament over the probable appearances of it, we shall not be very eager to circulate a doubt that may be injurious, till we have rea- son ourselves, not to doubt merely, but to believe. 1 do not wish to recom- mend that weakness of humanity, which, in the world, often passes current for virtue, though it implies rather a defect of moral feeling, than any refine- ment of it,-or which, at least, if it be virtue, is a virtue that can hear qf op- pression, and even witness it, without feeling indignation against the oppres- sor ; and which rather would see a thousand repetitions of the injury, than give to the wicked the name and the odium which he deserves. When crimes are walking secretly in darkness, as much as when they present tlaem- selves proudly in the very sunshine of day, it is our duty, to the innocent who have suffered, to give to them the consolation of our sympathy, in the indig- nant feeling of their wrongs,-as it is our duty to the innocent who may suffer, to call to them to beware. Even in denouncing guilt, however, the office which we exercise is an office o(duty, not cd pleasure. It is to be .exercised, not with the pagerness of one who rejoices in discovering something which he may condemn ; but with the sorrow of a lover of human kind, wfio is forced to add another moral ill, to the catalogue of human delinquencies. Such are the feelings of a generous spirit, even when the vipe which it discovers, is of a species that implies more than ordinary , moral turpitude ; and when it discovers only such foibles as are not inconsistent with the ordinary pro- portion of human virtue, it will love rather to speak of the virtue than of the failing,-it will think not of what the individual is only, but of what human nature is ; and will not'withhold from one the indulgence which it must ex- tend to all, and of which it must, even on some occasions, have too good reason for wishing the extension to itself. When the propagators of tales of scandal think that they have completely justified themselves by declaring.that all which they have said is true, they forget that there are virtues of which they are silent, that are true, as well as the defects of which they speak with such minute and exact remembrance ; -and that, if they were to omit all notice of what is excellent in a character, and to cull only what is defective, the most illustrious of mankind, without any positive violation of biographic truth, might soon cease to be illus- trious. When detraction arises from envy, malice, or motives of sordid interest, it is evident, that it can be cured only by the cure of the passions from which it springs. But though these, at first sight, might seem to be the common sources of defamation, it is to another source that it is chiefly to be,traced,- to the mere flippancy of the gay and the idle, and the necessity of filling up, with amusement of some sort, a conversation tha,t would flag but for this ever ready resource. In these circumstances, nothing is so quick to present itself as the fault of another, even though we may have fairly begun with speaking of his virtues. " What pleasure," it has been truly said, " can two or three per- sons have together, who have no mutual psteem,-whose hearts are as void of feeling as their heads are void of ideas ! What charm could their con- versation possess, without the aid of a little scandal ? The sacrifice of a third person is almost always the chief pleasure of a tete-a-tete.. A vain idler, who 348 ON ABSTAINING FROM INJURING fHE CHARACTER OF OTHERS. would otherwise be as wearisome to every body as he is weary of himself, speaks to men and women of the same character. He flatters, at the ex- pense of the absent, their vanity and their envy :-he thus animates their lan- guor :-and they pay him in the same coin. If he is gifted with some ima- gination, and can express agreeably the flattering things which he wishes to appear to think of you, and the evil which he thinks of others, he is treated and caressed ; becomes the favourite of every circle, and will continue for his whole life to cultivate the talent of slandering gracefully."* There is considerable truth in a remark of another French writer, to the same purport, " That there is now-a-days less scandal than there was for- merly, because there is more plcly. Cards,' he says, have saved more repu- tations than a whole host of itinerant preachers could have done, though their only business had been to preach against evil-speaking. But we cannot play always ; and, therefore, we may sometimes amuse ourselves with a little de- famation." The moral cpnclusion to be drawn from this remark is, that what cards may thus have tended in part to do, may be effected by other better means. If scandal arise, in a great measure, from poverty of conversation, it will di- minish in proportion as minds become more cultivated, so as not to have every subject of discussion exhausted, when the health of the visitor and of the visit- ed, having once been ascertained, cannot again, with any decency, be made a subject of inquiry,-and when the meteorology of thfj day and of the sea- son has, after a little debate, been settled in ail its physical exactness. It is to this general increase of mental cultivation that the lessening of scandal is to be attributed, far more than to mere card-playing,-which, even when the use of cards was more prevalent than now, could afford only a suspension 01 hostilities that were even.' ready to begin again with new violence, when the game was finished,-rwith, perhaps, a little additional bitterness on the part of the losers, against the vices of the wicked, and the frailties of the weak. The only true and permanent source of peace and amity with the faults of the absent is that interest in better subjects, which enables the present to ani- mate their Conversation, and to sustain it in rich variety, without the necessity of wandering to that resource, which marks the folly of the head, still more than the uncharitableness of the heart. It is pleasing to trace, in this, as in all its other influences, the connexion of intellectual culture, with the virtues which it not merely embellishes but invigorates;-to perceive that philosophy, which, in senates and councils, teaches purer humanity to statesmen and kings, extend its gentle influence to the private circle, and diffuse a more amiable cheerfulness on the very pleasured of the gay. The next duty of which we have to treat, is that of veracity, which relates to the knowledge or belief of others, as capable of being affected by the meanings, true or false, which our words or our conduct may convey ; and consists in the faithful conformity of our language, or of our- conduct when it is intended tacitly to supply the place of language, to the truth which we pro- fess to deliver, or, at least, to that which is at the time believed by us to be true. So much of the happiness of social life is derived from the use of language, and so profitless would the mere power of language be, but for the truth which dictates it, that the abuse of the confidence, which is placed in our 349 * St. Lambert, CEuv. Phil Tome II. p. 250 350 declarations, may not merely be in the highest degree injurious to the indivi- dual deceived,-but would tend, if general, to throw back the whole race of mankind into that barbarism from which they have emerged, and progressive- ly ascended through still purer air and still brighter sunshine, to that noble height which they have reached. It is not wonderful, therefore, that veracity, so important to the happiness of all, and yet subject to so many temptations of personal interest in the violation of it, should, in all nations, have had a high place assigned to it among the virtues. That, in the case of a virtue, so essential to the commerce of life, man should have been led instinctively to the practice of it, would not of itself appear absurd, or even very wonderful, to those, who consider the other in- structive tendencies in our constitution ; and since all, in uttering falsehood, are conscious of an effort which represses the truth that seems to start of it- self to the lips, and all seem to believe what is told them, till the experience of frequent deceit have induced some degree of doubt in the young listener, who begins to be a sceptic; it has been supposed, by many philosophers, that there are, in our nature, two instinctive tendencies, adapted to each other,- a tendency lo speak truth, and a tendency to believe what is spoken. On this subject, it is not very easy to decide with absolute confidence; since it must be admitted by all, that, whether there were, or were not, such original tendencies in th.e mind, they now do truly form a part of it,-that we have a disposition to speak truth as often as we speak, without any positive motive to be deceitful; and a disposition to believe what is related to us, if, in the circumstances of the relater, there be no obvious interest in falsehood, and in the circumstances of the narrative itself, no apparent improbability. But since principles are not to be multiplied, without urgent necessity, Icon- fess, that 1 do not see, in the phenomena of veracity and belief, sufficient rea- son to assert peculiar instincts, as concerned in the production of them; since they admit of a sufficient explanation, by other more general princi- ples. • . That there is a love of society in man, and a desire of sympathetic feeling in the society that is loved, I am far from denying ; and if this general love of sympathy with our feelings, to which truth contributes, were all which is meant by the assertion of instinctive veracity, it would be absurd to object to the principle. But this is not what is meant by the assertors of the doctrine. The tendency, of which they speak, is an instinct additional; and it is to this additional instinct only, that the remarks which I have to offer, are meant to be applied. If in our inquiry we are to go back to the very origin of language, it may be presumed, that some want, or wish, would be felt, when words were uttered. The very motive, therefore, which led to the use of speech, would lead to the truth of it; since no wish could be attained, by the use of language, unless the wish were truly expressed. It surely cannot seem wonderful, that the expression of wants should be sincere ; though it might, indeed, have seemed very won- derful, if, with the wish of obtaining food from a brother savage, the savage had employed his power of utterance, only to declare, that he was not hun- gry. He might speak falsehoods on some occasion, indeed, on the same principle as that which led him, on ordinary occasions to be sincere,-that is to say, from the influence of a powerful desire. He would have some se- cret wish to gratify by the deceit, and having this wish, he might say what was not, as he was before in the habit of saying what was. ON VERACITY. What is true of the savage, is true of the child. He, too, has wishes to gratify ; and he speaks truth, because the expression of his wishes must be truth. Nor is this all. The simple laws of suggestion, on which the use of arbitrary signs depend, have themselves an obvious relation to veracity, that connects the utterance of the tongue with the emotions of the heart. Lan- guage, as a mere series of symbols, is associated with Certain feelings. The feeling of warmth, for example, is more closely associated with the verbal sign that expresses it, than with any other of the various signs of which lan- guage is composed; and when we think of this feeling, the word warmth will occur more readily than any other. It is the same with all our other feelings. They suggestof themselves, by mere association, the correspond- ing phrases expressive of them ; and truth is the result of this very suggestion. We are conscious ofan effort in speaking falsehood, because, but for this ef- fort, our feelings would, of themselves, suggest their corresponding signs ; and we have thus to repress the truth that rises spontaneously, and to invent laboriously the combinations of words, that are in discord with our belief. What wonder is there, that, when we walk through a meadow in a sunny evening of autumn, there should arise to the mind, and thus to ready utterance, phrases expressive of the real feelings,-how beautiful is this scene, and how happy these cattle appear,-rather than phrases which have no connexion with the real feelings, and which cannot be supposed, therefore, to be readily uttered, because they are not readily suggested,-phrases which would say, what a scene of ruggedness and sterility is this before us,, and how terrible are those wolves and tigers ! When the common laws of association are re- versed, by which things signified suggest their signs, as conversely, signs suggest the objects of feelings which they signify, then, indeed, it may be ne- cessary, in accounting for the accordance of words and sentiments, to have recourse to a peculiar inslihct of veracity. ... There seems, then, no necessity for a peculiar instinct, to account for the general tendency to speak truth, rather than falsehood, independently of all moral consideration of the difference of truth and falsehood ; though this moral feeling, in aid of the common principle of association,, and of the ge- neral love of sympathy, is certainly an important element in the habitual pro- duction of truth. As little reason does there appear to be for the supposi- tion of a peculiar corresponding instinct of credulity. All which seems ne- cessary to account for this, is the influence of common experience. If there be, as we have seen, some very obvious reasons to account for the tendency to speak truth, those who hear must, for the same reasons, be hearers of truth ; and they who are in the constant, or almost constant habit of hearing truth, will, of course, from the same principle which directs their reasoning in other cases, soon learn to draw the conclusion, that what is said may be regard- ed, almost with certainty to be true. It would be as wonderful that they should not draw this conclusion as to general truth, from the general concurrence of the phenomena, as that they should not draw a similar general conclusion, with respect to any of the laws of nature, in which a similar concurrence was dis- covered. If all men had universally spoken truth, all men would universally, in consequence of this uniform connexion,have believed truth ; or if we deny this consequence, it would really be difficult for us to explain, why we do not put our hand as readily in the fire as in water, or jump down a precipice, with as little fear as we walk along a plain. But all men do not speak truth, as certainly as fire burns; and therefore, we believe in the one case, with ON VERACITY. 351 some little doubt, in the other with certainty. It seems to us more pro bable that what is said to us is true, than that it is untrue;-the probability increasing, in our estimation, according to the circumstances in which we have previously found truth to be most exactly conformable to the declara- tions made,-and, in many cases, making a near approximation to absolute certainty; because, in cases of the same sort, we have rarely, if ever, dis- covered any disagreement of the fact and the assertion. That, even if we possess the instinctive credulity supposed, we yet do not believe every thing which is told us, must be admitted by those who contend for the principle. And why do we not believe whatever is told us? The only answer which can be given by them is, that we do not believe every thing, because we have occasionally been deceived :-and if the doubt oan be explained by the experience of the small number of instances in which we have been deceived, why may not the tendency>to the moderate assent, that is temper- ed by this little mixture of doubt, be admitted to arise, jn like manner, from our experience of die greater number of instances, in which we have not been deceived ? That we should be more credulous in childhood than in mature life, is not wonderful, when we consider, that the probabilities of truth are always far greater than the probabilities of falsehood,-that the discovery of many of the possible motives td falsehood, op which our doubt, in after life, is found- ed, requires an analysis much nicer than children can be supposed to per- form,-and that it is the very nature of the mind, when untrained to habits of reflection, to think only of the majority of cases, when the number is very greatly superior, and to forget the few exceptions. The general ana- logies of a language are, in this way, made absolutely universal by a child, as they are in many instances, too, regarded by the vulgar,-who under- stand, indeed, the irregular inflections when pronounced, but continue, in their own discourse, to employ the more general forms of termination, in the particular substantives and verbs, in which grammatical usage requires a de- parture from the ordinary rules of inflection. The child will learn to doubt better, as he will learn to speak more idiomatically ; but still the too regular language which he uses, does not flow from any peculiar instinct, nor does the too regular belief. The only original principle, that seems to me to be truly concerned in the phenomena of veracity,-at least, the only principle in addition to the gene- ral social propensity, by which we delight in the sympathy of others, is the susceptibility of moral emotion, to the influence of which, in aiding habits of truth, 1 have already alluded. We feel, that in injuring another in his belief, we are guilty of what is morally wrong; as we feel that we are guilty of moral wrong, in injuring any one, however slightly, in his person or his pro- perty. We abstain from the one species of injury, therefore, as we abstain from the other ; and though I cannot think that we speak truth, from an in- stinctive propensity that is independent of all experience or reflection, I have no doubt that we speak it, in many cases, from a moral disapprobation of deceit, which is itself the result of a tendency as truly original as any of our instincts. 352 ON VERACITY. 353 LECTURE LXXXV. ON OUR NEGATIVE DUTIES CONTINUEDON ABSTAINING FROM IN- JURING THE VIRTUE OF OTHERS-EITHER DIRECTLY BY OUR SE- DUCTIONS-OR INDIRECTLY BY OUR EXAMPLE ; ON ABSTAINING FROM INJURING THE MENTAL TRANQUILLITY OF OTHERS. In my last Lecture, gentlemen, in prosecution of the inquiry, on which we had entered, into the great class of negative duties, I considered those which relate to our power of injuring others, in three very important respects; -in the affection of those whom they love,-in their general reputation,- and in their knowledge or belief, as affected by the confidence which they attach to our false declarations. There still remain two other modes of in- jury to be considered by us, in the two corresponding negative duties to which they give rise. Of these the next in order is the dangerous power which we may exer- cise over the virtue of another. This power over the virtues of others, may be exercised in two ways,- directly, by our seductions,-indirectly, by our example. The very name seduction excites, immediately, the thought of one par- ticular form of allurement to guilt, to which that name is peculiarly affixed; and which deserves this peculiar distinction, by the amount of irreparable in- jury that may thus be produced, by the persuasion of a few fatal moments. The remarks, however, which 1 made in my last Lecture on the crime of adultery, are, in many respects, so applicable to this, as to render superflu- ous any long discussion of the evil which the seducer perpetrates,-and of the selfishness which must be in the heart, before it could meditate so much evil. There is not, indeed, in simple seduction, the theft of affection belong- ing to another, of which the adulterer is guilty; but there is the theft of the affection of the individual herself,-the fraudulent acquisition of it, by false- hoods and artifices, which, in every other species of intercourse, would be universally considered as lasting disgrace; and which are surely not less dis- graceful, when the wretchedness produced by the fraud, is far greater than any other fraud could produce,-and is the wretchedness of one of whom man, who betrays her fondness, was appointed the protector. Whatever other consequences may attend the treachery of the seducer, there is, as in adul- tery,-at least in almost every case, the production of misery to more than the individual directly betrayed, to a whole family perhaps-that lose in a single moment, as if by some sudden desolation, or total change of scene, whatever was delightful in the thought of the past, or a promise of delight in the thought of the future; and that must either cease to love one whom it would be agony to abandon, or retain a love that involves more intense and lasting anguish, because it is- the love of one who never can be happy. But, -though there were no parent or friend to share her sufferings, and to ag- gravate them to her by this very participation, there is still the great sufferer herself,-the production of present guilt, and future shame and misery, that admit almost as little of consolation as of remedy, to one, for whom the pro- ducer of all this moral depravation, and anguish of heart, professes feelings, Vol. IL 354 ON ABSTAINING FROM INJURING which he honours with the name of love,'-and who, in the dreadful sacri- fices which she has made, has shown too strongly the force of that attachment of which he has availed himself, to render her his victim. If it be justly considered, as adding tenfold horror to the crime of murder, that he, on whom death was inflicted, was a friend and benefactor of the assassin, and forgave the deadly blow, even while he recognised the arm from which itcame, -"what weight of guilt does the very love, which, even after ruin, still lingers in her gentle heart that was betrayed, add to the atrocious selfishness of him who rejoiced to perceive the tenderness of love, only as a proof that his arti- fices had not been wasted ;-who, in abandoning her afterwards to all her misery, regretted only the difficulty which he might have, in shaking off a love so obstinate; and, on receiving, perhaps, one of those letters of up- braiding,-in which, in the very vehemence of indignation, it is still evident that it is love which upbraids,-could see those gleams of tenderness, with no other thought than that of gratified vanity,-a conscious pride of attrac- tions, which might succeed with other hearts, as they had succeeded with that heart, over which they still retained so lasting a hold. The period which intervenes, between the first artifices of the seducer, and the misery to which he is ultimately to give occasion, surely does not lessen his guilt, as a moral agent, deliberately planning those very means of wretchedness. Let us imagine then, gathered into one terrible moment, all this amount of wretchedness-the distraction of parents-the tears of sisters -the shame and remorse of the frail outcast; or perhaps, in the dreadful progress of depravation of what once was shame and remorse-a wild ex- cess of gui't, that seeks only to forget the past, and that scarcely knows, in the distraction of many acquired vices, what it is which constitutes at the moment, the anguish which it feels-if all this combination of miseries could be made visible, as it were, to the very eyes of the seducer, in a single mo- ment, and the instant production of it were to depend on a single word of renewed solicitation on his part; what love, I will not say-but even what passion that calls itself love-in any human breast, can we conceive to be so unmoved by such a sight, as to utter calmly a word so destructive :-and if a single moment of the miserable result be so dreadful to be contemplated, how much more terrible is it, when regarded as the misery of years-of years that, after their course of earthly wretchedness is finished, consign to immortality a spirit, that, but for the guilt of him who rendered it what it is, might have looked back upon the earth, with the calm pleasure of those who turn their eyes on a scene, which their acts of virtue have rendered de- lightful ; and quit it only for scenes which they are to render delightful, by the continuance of similar acts, or wishes of virtue. It is this species of seduction of the purity of female love, as I have said, to which the name is usually attached.-But there are vicious seductions, of as many kinds, as there are vicious objects to be obtained, by vicious means. He, who knowingly and wilfully lessens a single virtue in the heart of ano- ther, or introduces into it a single vice, or increases the power of any guilty passion, is a seducer,-guilty himself, to the extent at least, or more than the extent, of the guilt which he occasions. The flatterer is a seducer- and, in thinking of flattery, we are not to think only of the courts of kings, and of the palaces of those who have almost the splendour of kings. There is a scale, which comprehends in it all mankind,-a scale of the great who are great to those beneath them, as they are little to those abfive them ; and, every where, there are flatterers, because, at every point of the scale, there is some little power or patronage, which can gratify some little desire that corresponds with the gifts which the flatterers of flatterers can offer to those who pay to them a similar homage. As it would be difficult to find any one too great to be the subject of adulation, it would be difficult also to fin'd one too little to be the subject of it, if only we could find one, still meaner, who might look to him with hope. Of the various corruptions, therefore, with which virtue may be assailed, flattery is not merely one of the most powerful, but the most general of all; because it is at once the most easy to be offered, and the surest to be received. "We believe that we hate flattery," says La Rochefoucault, " when all which we hate is the awkward- ness of the flatterer." It is the very nature of this species of blandishment, as has been truly remarked, to please, even when rejected ; and however frequently refused admission, to be admitted at last. " Habent hoc in se naturale blanditiae, etiam cum rejiciuntur placent: saepe exclusae, novissime recipiuntur." Flattery, then, the fosterer of vanity, and often of affections more degrad- ing, implies, in whatever station the flatterer and the flattered may be, a dis- regard of the virtue of others, which in itself is no slight vice. But the sly bribery of praise, is not the only bribery, with which human selfishness would strive to seduce human selfishness. There are grosser bribes, which those who count themselves honourable men, and are aspiring to stations of still higher honour, have no hesitation in employing, for the furtherance of useful vice. A little perjury, real or implied, is all which they require ; and they are content to pay for it its fair market price, or even to raise a little the market price, if perjury should have grown more reluctant than before, or more skilful in the calculations of its own exact value. It is painful to think, that an offence against public morals, of such serious import, should be so lightly estimated by those, who strive to forget their own delinquency, in the equal and familiar delinquency of others; as if the very wideness of guilt were not an additional reason, for ceasing to contribute to that which has been already so extensively baneful; and that the first step to the legislation of the freest and most virtuous nation on the earth, to the noblest of all the trusts which a nation can bestow,-that of enacting the means by which its own tendencies to guilt may be lessened,-should, in so many instances, be the purchase of a crime, or of many crimes. If, however, the purchase even of* a few crimes, be an offence so worthy of reprehension, not merely for the encouragement which it gives to the venal barterers of their conscience, but still more, for the corruption of moral principle, which it tends to diffuse through the whole community,-what deeper reprobation belongs to those, to whom this general debasement of a people, is itself an object of desire,-who can see millions sunk in igno- rance, and in all the vices of ignorance, and know the means which might have accelerated their moral progress, and rejoice with a secret triumph, that they have been instrumental in withholding them. How many nations are there on the earth, in which nothing is so much feared by those who have the miserable charge of the general servitude, as that man should become a little nobler, than it is possible for him to be, when he has to bow his head at the feet of the oppressor;-and in which the diffusion of knowledge is dreaded, as the diffusion of that which the slave cannot feel long, and continue to be a slave. To withhold, for purposes of selfish gain, the means by which the moral THE VIRTUE OF OTHERS. 355 356 condition of a state might be ameliorated, is to be guilty of an injury to vir- tue, compared with the atrocity of which, the guilt of seducing to vice a single individual, is as insignificant as would be the crime of a single assassi- nation, compared with the butchery of millions in the massacre of a whole nation,-of which none were to survive but the murderers themselves, and those by whom the murder was sanctioned and applauded. The various species of seduction which we have been considering, have had some object of direct personal gain in view. The betrayer of female innocence has previously yielded himself to the control of appetites and passions, that are to him what reason and morality are to the good ; and that must be gratified, though he seek the gratification of them in misery itself. The flatterer seeks the favour of him whom he flatters, and seeks it usually for interests without which, the mere favour would be of little value to him. The briberies of money, or place, or pension, present or future, near or re- mote,-or whatever else can be offered to the rapacity of avarice or ambi- tion, or of all the passions which avarice and ambition can gratify,- are not gifts or promises that are gratuitous, but expect a return of profit of some sort, to the passions of the briber. Even those who de- light in keeping nations in ignorance and servility, and who care not how many vices may accompany, or flow from these, still see the connexion of servility as an effect, with ignorance as a cause; and, perhaps, wrould have no great objection to allow a little more wisdom to a people, if they were to become more obsequious by their wisdom, or to remain even as truly slaves in heart as before. There is one species of corruption, however, which is exercised from a love of the corruption itself, or, at least, from the mere pleasure of companionship in guilt,-a spirit of malicious proselytism, which forms the last dreadful stage of vice; when the gray-headed veteran of debaucheries, that began in youth, and have been matured by a long life of unceasing excess in all that is gross and depraved, till he have acquired a sort of oracular gravity of profligacy, among gayer profligates,-collects around him his band of youthful disciples, whom he has gathered wherever his watchful eye could mark out another victim,-relates to them the tales of merriment of other years, as an excitement to present passions,-observes in each the few virtues which will need, even yet, to be repressed, the irre- solute vices that will require to be strengthened, and if, in some ingenuous cheek, a blush should still arise, marks it with a sort of joy, that almost cal- culates the moment of triumph, when that blush shall have been washed away, to appear again no more. If there be a being on this earth whom it is permitted to us to hate, with full and absolute detestation, it is surely a human demon like this; and, if we could trace through all its haunts, the licentiousness of a single great city,-from the splendid gaming-house of the rich, to the obscure chambers of vulgar riot, in which the dissolute of ano- ther order, assemble to plan the frauds or robberies of the night, or to turn to the only uses to which they know how to turn them, the frauds or robbe- ries of the preceding day,-of how many demons of this class should we trace the horrible power, in the lessons which they are giving, and the results of lessons which have been given! With these circumstances, which lead to the intentional and wilful cor- ruption of others, is unfortunately often joined the vanity of a display of profligacy, surpassing the conception of ordinary profligates, or the equally hurtful vanity of an audacious wit, that can dare to jest, where others, if thev ON ABSTAINING FROM INJURING do not revere, as the pure revere, are at least accustomed to tremble, as the superstitious tremble. How many are there, who assume the appearance of this audacity which they do not feel, shuddering, perhaps, with a secret horror of conscience, at the very epigram in which they seem to have been gaily impious, when they poured out their merry obscenities, or still merrier blasphemy. There are other minds, which have a due abhorrence of all such blasphemy when the blasphemy is in verse,-who require most rigidly that it be in prose, and have too great regard for the virtue and holiness of man, to allow them to be corrupted by the licentious iniquity of rhyming. If, however, they can invent an argument which may logically make men miserable, by mood and figure-an argument, that, to those who are not very nice distinguishers of truth, and the semblance of truth, may seem to prove God to be only a sort of poetic personification, and virtue and immor- tality to be words as meaningless;-they have no hesitation in supposing that the happiness of mankind, which the credit of an epigram should not be allowed to outweigh, is yet too light in the scale to be poised against the credit of any acute sophistry, that can be wrought into the form of a phi- losophic dissertation. They are too wise not to discern, that the evident tendency of that which they value only as acute, is to corrupt human virtue, and extinguish the best hopes and consolations of human suffering. But it is sufficient comfort to them, that, if they render miserable those whose vir- tue they corrupt, they have at least not corrupted them, without the observ- ance of some of the most exact technicalities of logic. Such are various forms of direct corruption, in which we are seducers to vice. It- is not by direct and intentional corruption only, however, that we produce injury to the virtue of others. There is an indirect influence, which, in some situations, is not less injurious-the influence of example. We are formed to live together in society,--and, in those who are to live together, it is necessary, for happiness, and almost for social union, that there should be some resemblance of manners, and agreement of sentiment, at least, in the general subjects, in which the interests of all are equally involv- ed. To this agreement, the various humours of mankind, and the very dif- ferent circumstances in which different individuals of the same society are placed, would seem indeed, to oppose causes of division that are almost in- superable. By one principle of the mind, however,-the principle of sug- gestion-or, as it is commonly termed, the principle of association-nature has, in a great measure, softened down the most prominent and offensive peculiarities. What we have seen done in one situation, is recalled to us by the very feeling of this situation, when we are placed in it; and, as it arises to us thus more readily, and is sometimes, perhaps, the only mode of con- duct which arises clearly to our mind, we proceed on it without further re- flection, and act in a certain manner, because others have acted in a certain manner ; and because we have seen them act, or heard of their action. It is evident, that, in resolving to act in a certain manner, on any occasion, we must have had a previous conception of the manner in which the action may be performed; and that we may, therefore, often prefer one mode of action, from the advantages which it seems to present, when it would not have been preferred in competition with other modes of action, still more advantageous, but not conceived at the time. The wise, indeed, on this very account, even when they see good that may flow from one mode of conduct, pause to con- sider various possibilities, and appreciate the differences of the good and the THE VIRTUE OF OTHERS. 357 358 ON ABSTAINING FROM INJURING b'tter; but how few are the wise; and how much more numerous they who, when any immediate good presents itself, do not wait to consider whether a better may not be found. The first conceptions that arise, are the concep- tions which regulate half their conduct; and these first conceptions, when the circumstances of the case are similar, are, by the natural influence of association, the conceptions either of what they have themselves done before, or of what others were observed to do, in those simitar circumstances. It is impossible to will any particular action, without having previously conceived that particular action; and the various consequences of various modes of conduct, have seldom entered into the contemplation of the multitude. They see what others do ; and their thought has scarcely wandered beyond what is commonly before their eyes, or what is the subject of common discourse. As soon, there- fore, as similar circumstances recur, the image recurs of what has been thus familiar to them ; and it recurs more strongly and vividly, because its influence is not lessened by that of any other accompanying image. They act, therefore, as others have acted, not so much from a feeling of respect for general senti- ment, as from mere ignorance, and the absence of any other conception, that might give a different momentary impulse. They see only one path, and they move on, accordingly, in that only path which their dim and narrow glance is capable of perceiving. How powerfully the conduct is influenced by any vivid conception, is shown very strikingly, in those phenomena of panic terror, to which I have more than once alluded for illustration, because they throw light on many of the most perplexing phenomena of the mind. When astonishment is once produced in any very lively degree.'however rich in knowledge a mind may have been, it is, for the moment, like the ignorant minds around. It cannot deliberate and choose, because no objects of choice occur to it. What is called presence of mind, is only such a state of mastery of the feeline; of astonishment, and other lively emotions, as allows the conceptions to arise, which would have arisen, if there had been no circumstances productive of lively emotion : and the want of presence of mind is the temporary wawt of such conceptions, from the overwhelming influence of one lively emotion. The image of what others are doing is, therefore, the only image before the mind ; and each individual thus augments and multiplies the panic, by present- ing to others the ready image of that flight, which, as presented to him by those who were first to fly, had made him for the moment that cowardly thing, which, in hours of freer choice, he would hat e conceived it impossible for him to become. In every case of this species of moral sway, then, it is to the similar in- fluence of mere suggestion, in presenting to us a clear image of one mode of conduct out of many possible modes, that are not conceived so distinctly, because they have never been seen, that I am inclined to ascribe the chief part of that power, which is attributed, and justly attributed to example; though, to this direct influence of the principle, must be added various in- direct and auxiliary influences of it, in the notions of moral worth, or dignity of character, of those who performed the action before-or the remem- brance even of accidental circumstances of pride or pleasure, that may have been connected with it. When all the direct and indirect influences of the suggesting principle, then, are added together, it cannot seem wonderful that there should be such a propensity in the great imitator, man, to moral imitation ; and that the conduct of him who is born to-day, should de- pend almost as much on the nature of the minds of those who are to sur- round him hereafter, as on the nature of the mind, that is animating his own little frame. In considering the influence of example on national virtue, we are too apt to think only of the authority of those who are placed in eminent stations; and to forget the more direct influence of domestic examples, on those in- dividuals, who must always indeed be ranked as individuals, but whose vir- tues or vices united, are, the virtues or vices of the nation. The example of the great may give the primary impulse, but the force descends progres- sively from rank to rank ; and each is affected chiefly by those who are around him, or a very little above him. The parents who hang over our cradle, thinking for us before we have formed what can be called a thought, and who continue, during life, to be viewed by us with a peculiar sort of tender veneration, which no other created being seems to us entitled to pos- sess,-the comrades of our pastimes in boyhood, and the friends who par- take with us the graver occupations and graver pastimes of our maturer years,-these are they who transfuse into us their feelings, and from whom, without thinking of them as examples, we derive all that good or evil which example can afford ; and yield ourselves more completely to the influence, because we are not aware that we are yielding to any influence whatever. To be frequently with the good is to know, on almost every occasion, how the good would act in the situation in which we are placed,-and to feel, at the same time, that reverence for the action itself, as it seems to us recom- mended by their choice, which we must have felt for those whom we ima- gine as performers of it. Whatever impresses on us strongly the image of the virtuous, therefore, cannot be indifferent to our virtue. The very meet- ing of a great man, as Seneca strongly says, may be of lasting advantage to us; and we derive instruction from his very silence. "Nulla res magis animis honesta induit, dubiosque et in pravum inclinabiles, revocat ad rec- tum, quam bonorum virorum conversatio. Paullatim enim descendit in pec- tora;*et vim praeceptorum obtinet frequenter audiri, adspici frequenter. Occursus mehercule ipse sapientium juvat; et e$t aliquid, quod ex magno viro, vel tacente, proficias."* It is this universal radiation of example, reflecting light upon example, which forms the moral splendour of an age,-without some portion of the light of which good laws are powerless, and, with which, it is almost a mat- ter of little moment, at least to the existing generation, how few the laws may be, under which good men are living in peace. " When a citizen is inspired by the genius of virtue," says an eloquent declaimer on morals, " he feels no embarrassment, in those cases, for which the law has made no provision. His own heart is his legislator. He has there a species of instinct, less likely to err than even reason itself. A good man divines, as it were, good laws, that, as laws, are yet unexisting. It is not so much in the head, indeed, that the true genius of legislation has its seat, as in the heart ; and wise as Solon and Lycurgus were, who can doubt that they had still more virtue than wis- dom ? When Rome was in peril, what was her resource r She did not form new laws. She ordered the laws to be silent, and gave herself up to the guidance and example of a single good man. The conscience of Camillus was, for a long time, all the legislation of Rome. That Rome, which had scarcely begun to exist, was already almost expiring under the assault of the Gauls. But what is THE VIRTUE OF OTHERS. 359 * Epistolee, Ep. xciv. p. 447. Amst. 1672. 360 ON ABSTAINING FROM INJURING there which a great man cannot do, when he is sure of the courage and of the virtue of his fellow-citizens I Rome, delivered by his arm, had no longer a foe to dread ; and with her proud morals, and but a handful of laws, rose from the very brink of the grave, to march like a Queen to the conquest of the universe. The firmness of Brutus, the good faith of Regulus, the mo- deration of Cincinnatus, the calm probity of Fabricius, the chastity of the Lucretias and Virginias, the disinterestedness of Paulus TEmilius, the pa- tience of Fabius-these were the best laws of Rome. A virtuous man is a living law,-he is more;-precepts can only point to us what tract we should pursue,-but examples hurry us along. What a difference there is between a law that speaks but once, and Cato ever acting! This Cato was to Rome its thirteenth table of laws; and without the thirteenth, how defec- tive would the twelve other have been !" The influence of moral feeling is, indeed, what this author considers it to be, the supplement of the deficiencies of law; the thirteenth table of the early laws of Rome, and many volumes of statutes, where laws are more voluminous. The direct power of example, then, in those who surround us, and whose conduct is the first to rise to our conception, in all the similar cir- cumstances, in which ourselves are placed, is a power which the unreflect- ing can scarcely fail to obey. But though chiefly to be traced to those, who mingle with us in the familiar scenes and occurrences of domestic life, the influence is yet referable in part also directly, and indirectly in a very high degree, to the smaller number, who do not so much surround us, as shine upon us from a distance,-the eminent of every class, whose real dignity of merit, or even whose accidental dignity of station, has raised them to a height, which brings their image frequently before us ; and presents it asso- ciated with all the respect which the heart readily pays to the one species of dignity, and which, for the peace and good order of states, it is necessary to pay in some degree to the other also-at least when tiie dignity of mere rank is not so dishonoured by the profligacy of its possessor, as to cover, in our detestation of the profligacy, the feebler titles of the rank itself. It is this moral or immoral influence, in promoting or injuring the virtues of others-an influence of which it is impossible for them to divest them- selves, that gives to those,who are in any way distinguished above the crowd, a fearful responsibility with which they are, unfortunately, not always suffi- ciently impressed. It is not their own conscience only, for which they are answerable ;-they are answerable also, in some measure, for the consciences of others. Componitur orbis Regis ad exemplum; nec sic inflectere sensus Hurnanos edicta valent, ut vita r eg ent is ; Mobile mutatur semper cum principe vulgns. " Princeps optimus," says Paterculus, with a forcible brevity of expres- sion, " faciendo docet; et licet sit imperio maximus, exemplo major est." In the life of a sovereign, then, there is nothing private. His friendships, his very amusements, are not friendships and amusements only :-they are public virtue or public guilt. If he think more of the trappings of his state than of its duties,-if the splendour of some courtly festival be more impor- tant to him, than that noblest of spectacles, which is to be found in the gene- ral happiness of a peaceful and virtuous land,-if the favourites of his private confidential hours, whom he thus offers to his people, as models of the con- duct that is worthiest of being honoured, be those who are known to die world only by superior profligacy, and whom every virtuous father of a fami- ly would exclude from the dwelling of those, for whose innocence he would tremble if the corrupters were admitted,-there may be virtue still in that state; but it is only because there are in it principles of virtue too powerful to be overcome by the vicious authority even of the most powerful. The guilt of the sovereign, however, in such circumstances, is to be estimated, not by the vices which have spread among his people, but by the vices which his own conduct has authorized ; and would not be increased in the amount of its moral delinquency, though all mankind had become, what he has said, by his example and his favour, that it is noble to be. If, however, a prince be, indeed, what a prince should be, he has the comfort of knowipg, that he is not enjoying, only, the happiness of virtue, but diffusing it; that since his actions must be lessons, they are lessons of good ; and that, if, by his exam- ple, he exercise a sway more extensive than that of his laws or his arms, it is a sway, which, like that of his laws and his arms, is exercised only for the happiness of the world. An influence so extensive, indeed, belongs only to a few of mankind ; but even the humble must not think, on this account, that they have no influ- ence. It is indirectly, I have already said, as spreading through them, that the influence of the powerful is chiefly exercised. In their homes among their friends,-on all those who come within their little sphere, they exercise power over the vice or virtue of others, and thus indirectly an influence on the amount of moral good and evil in the world, in every future generation, -an influence, which it is as little possible for them to shake off, as for the sovereign of many states to abdicate his moral sway, and to be a sovereign only with his sceptre or his sword. From this inevitable influence of example, by which every moral or immo- ral action that is performed by us, may have consequences that never enter- ed into our design or our wish, when we planned or performed it, arises one very important duty,-the duty of attending to the appearances of our ac- tions. It is not enough for us to have willed what is virtuous, and to have executed it, by means that in themselves imply no immorality, if they have been such as might lead others to suspect the purity of what was truly pure. The loss which we might, ourselves, suffer in this way, in our character and authority, is not the only evil, nor, in many cases, the greatest evil, of such seeming improprieties. We may, without due care as to appearances, act virtuously, and yet give all the authority of our station and character to vice, -misleading those to whom our example may have the force of precept, and, perhaps, by some of the most generous sacrifices of which our nature is capable, inducing the inconsiderate, who suppose that they are imitating us, to quit that moral good which we truly sought, for the evil which we only seemed to them to pursue. The only remaining species of injury to others, the duty of abstaining from which, we have still to consider, is that which relates to their mental tranquillity. This, indeed, all the other species of injury already considered by us, tend indirectly to disturb. But the injury of which I speak at present, is the direct violation of the peace of others, by our immediate intentional influence on their feelings. THE VIRTUE OF OTHERS. 361 Vol. II. 362 In treating of the emotions of pride, particularly in the form of that haugh- tiness which the proud are so apt to assume,-1 have already treated of one of the most injurious influences of this sort, my remarks on which it would be unnecessary now to repeat. You must be sufficiently aware, tliat the aim of the' haughty is to excite in others the mortifying feeling of their abject inferi- ority ; and that, if they could always produce the feelings which they wish to excite, they would not merely have all the guilt of a cruel tyranny,-for that they have, even in their most powerless wishes,-but would truly in their very effects, be the most severe of Im man tyrants. It is not the insolence of the haughty, however, which is the only inten- tional disquieter of others. There is a power in every individual, over the tran- quillity of almost every individual. There are emotions, latent in the mind of those whom we meet, which a few words of ours may at any time call forth; and the moral influence which keeps this power over the uneasy feel- ings qf others, under due restraint, is not the least important of the moral in- fluences, in its relation to general happiness. There are minds which can delight in exercising this cruel sway,-which rejoice in suggesting thoughts that may poison the confidence of friends, and render the very virtues that were loved, objects of suspicion to him who loved them. In the daily and hourly intercourse of human life, there are human beings, who exert their malicious skill, in devising what subjects may be most likely to bring into the mind of him with whom they converse, tlie most mor- tifying remembrances ;-rwho pay visits of condolence, that they may be sure of making grief a little more severely felt;-who are faithful in conveying to every one the whispers of unmerited scandal, of which otherwise, he never would have heard, as he never could have suspected them,-though, in ex- ercising this friendly office, they are careful to express sufficient indignation against the slanderer, and to briqg forward as many grounds of suspicion against different individuals, as their fancy can call up ;-who talk to some disappointed beauty, of all the splendid preparations for the marriage of her rival,-to the unfortunate dramatic poet, of the success of the last night's piece, and of the great improvement which has taken place in modern taste ; >-and who, if they could have the peculiar good fortune of meeting with any one, whose father was hanged, would probably find no subject so attractive to their eloquence, as the number of executions that were speedily to take place. • Such power man niay exercise over the feelings of man; and, as it is im- possible to frame laws which can comprehend injuries of this sort, such pow- er man may exercise over man with legal impunity. But it is a power of which the virtuous man will as little think of availing himself, for purposes of cruelty, as if a thousand laws had made it as criminal as it is immoral;-a power which he will as little think of exercising, because it would require only the utterance of a few easy words, as of inflicting a mortal blow, be- cause it would require only a single motion of his hand. The true preservative against this power, is that which is the protector of the virtuous from all other injury-their own purity of conscience. It is not easy to excite permanently, any unpleasant images in the mind of one who, in the retrospect of life, has only virtuous actions or virtuous desires to re- member-who has wished to keep nothing secret from the world, but the be- nefactions that provided as carefully for the virtuous shame, as for the very wants of poverty ; and who, therefore, if his whole mind could become visi- ON ABSTAINING FROM INJURING THE MENTAL TRANQUILLITY OF OTHERS. 363 ble, w'ould be not less, but more beloved. The tranquillity of such a mind may, indeed, be disturbed, for a moment, by the petty malice that would strive to awake in it, disagreeable remembrances ; but, even when it may be thus disturbed, there is no painful feeling so likely to arise in it, as regret for that malice itself which it disdains, indeed, but which it cannot disdain without some accompanying pity. LECTURE LXXXVL ON OUR POSITIVE DUTIES; ON THE DUTIES OF BENEVOLENCE. In my last Lecture, .gentlemen, I concluded my remarks on the order of our general duties, which arfc negative only-that is to say, which consist in abstinence from the different sorts of injury, which it is in our power, directly or indirectly, to occasion to others. These we considered under seven heads-as our actions may be injurious to others, in their person-in their property-in the affection of those whom they love-in their general character-in their knowledge or belief, as affect- ed by the confidence which they place in the truth of our declarations-in their virtue, as subject to the influence of our intentional seductions, or to the unintended influence of our mere example ; and, lastly, in their peace of mind,-which, as liable to be disturbed by mortifying reflections, that are in most cases easy to be excited, is in some measure under our control,-from the power which the principle of suggestion gives us over the trains of thought of others, and consequently over the general emotions, pleasing or unpleasing, which result from those trains of thought, or form a part of them. . , To abstain, however, from every species of injury, which it is in our power to occasion to others, though it is an important part of virtue, is but a part of it. Even in our most scrupulous forbearance from all the evil which we might produce, if this abstinence, however complete, were all, the world would still be only as if we bad not been. There might be before our very eyes mise- ry, which, though not produced by ourselves, was not the less an evil, and which a slight effort on our part-a word-a very look expressive of a wish, might have been sufficient to remove. There might, in like manner, be means of easy happiness to individuals or whole families, which required only the same simple wishes on our part, to convert them into happiness it- self, but which would be wholly unproductive without us ; and yet, if we had no feelings which led us to be more than passively and negatively good, the misery would remain unrelieved, and the happiness be unproduced or unpro- moted. Nature, then, when she conferred on us, in so many noble powers of mind and body, such abundant facilities of usefulness, did not leave us desti- tute of the wishes, which alone could make these facilities valuable. She has given us a benevolence that desires the good of all, and a principle of moral feeling, which, when we allow an opportunity of being widely benefi- cial to escape, speaks to us with a voice of reproach, which it is not easy for us 364 ON THE DUTIES OF BENEVOLENCE. to still. By the one, we merely desire the happiness of mankind-by the other, we feel, that to promote this happiness of mankind is a duty. it is in this latter aspect, that we are at present to consider our power of being beneficial, as giving occasion to a duty, or set of duties, corresponding with the particular species of good, which any exertion on our part can occa- sion or further. So important is this duty of benevolence, that, as I formerly mentioned, some very eminent moralists have been led to maintain, that whatever is felt by us to be virtuous, is felt to deserve that name merely as involving some benevolent desire,-an opinion which is evidently founded on a partial view of the phenomena ; since the experience of every one, if he attend sufficiently to his own feelings, without regard to any system, must convince him, that he has a similar emotion of moral regard, in cases in which, the thought of per- sonal duty, as in many of the noblest efforts of self-command, was all which could have been present to the mind of the agent; or in which, though it might be possible to invent some benevolent motive, as what might influence the fortitude of the heroic sufferer, the moral admiration was at least far more rapid than the tardy invention of the benevolence. The doctrine of virtue, as consisting in benevolence, false as it is when maintained as univer- sal and exclusive, is yet, when considered as having the sanction of so many enlightened men, a proof at least of the very extensive diffusion of benevolence in the modes of conduct, which are denominated virtuous. It may not, in- deed, comprehend all the aspects, under which man is regarded by us, as worthy of our moral approbation, but it comprehends by far the greater num- ber of them,-his relations to bis fellow-men, and to all the creatures that live around him,-though not the moral relations which bind him to the great- est of all beings, nor those which are directly worthy of our approbation, as confined to the perfection of his own internal character. That benevolence, the moral link which connects man with man, is in it- self virtuous, may, indeed, appear to some very rigid questioners of every feeling, to require proof; but it can appear to require it, only to those who deny altogether the very moral distinction of virtue and vice, in that general scepticism, which has been already fully considered by us. Of those who allow virtue to be more than a name, there is no one who will refuse to be- nevolent exertions, the praise of this excellence,-no one who can read the history of any of those heroes of the moral scene, whose life has been one continued deed of generosity to mankind,-without feeling, that if there be virtue on earth, there has been virtue in that bosom, which has suffered much, or dared much, that the world might be free from any of the ills which dis- graced it. The strong lines, with which the author of the Botanic Garden concludes his praise of one of the most illustrious of these heroes of benevo- lence, scarcely express more than we truly feel on the contemplation of such a character. It does seem, as if man, when he acts as man should act, is a being of some higher order, than the frail erring creatures among whom we ourselves pass a life, that, with all its occasional acts of generosity and self- command, is still, like theirs, a life of frailty and error : And now, Philanthropy thy rays divine Dart round the globe, from Zembla to the Line ; O'er each dark prison plays the cheering light Like northern lustres, o'er the vault of night. From realm to realm, with cross or crescent crown'd, Where'er Mankind and Misery are found, ON THE DUTIES OF BENEVOLENCE. 365 O'er burning sands, deep waves, or wilds of snow, Thy Howard, journeying, seeks the house of wo. Down many a winding step to dungeons dank, Where anguish wails aloud, and fetters clank, To caves bestrew'd with many a mouldering bone, And cells, whose echoes only learn to groan ; Where no kind bars a whispering friend disclose, No sunbeam enters, and no Zephyr blows, He treads, inemulous of fame or wealth. Profuse of toil, and prodigal of health, With soft assuasive eloquence expands Power's rigid heartj and opes his clenching hands ; Leads stern-eyed Justice to the dark domains, If not to sever, to relax the chains; Or guides awakened Mercy through the gloom, And shows the prison, sister to the tomb; Gives to her babes the self-devoted wife, To her fond husband liberty and life. The spirits of the good, who bend from high Wide o'er these earthly scenes their partial eye, When first array'd in Virtue's purest robe, They saw her Howard traversing the globe ; Mistook a mortal for an angel-guest, And ask'd, what Seraph foot the earth imprest, -Onward he moves. Disease and death retire,- And murmuring Demons hate him and admire. The benevolent spirit, as its object is the happiness of all who are capable of feeling happiness, is as universal in its efforts, as the miseries which are capable of being relieved, or the enjoyments which it is possible to extend to a single human being, within the reach of its efforts, or almost of its wishes. When we speak of benefactions, indeed, we think only of one species of good action ; and chanty itself, so comprehensive in its etymological meaning, is used as if it were nearly synonymous with the mere opening of the purse. But "it is not money only which the unfortunate need, and they are but slug- gards in well-doing," as Rousseau strikingly expresses the character of this indolent benevolence, " who know to do good only when they have a purse in their hand." Consolations, counsels, cares, friendship, protection, are so many resources which pity leaves us for the assistance of the indigent, even though wealth should be wanting. The oppressed often continue to be op- pressed, merely because they are without an organ to render their complaints known, to those who have the power of succour. It requires sometimes but a word which they cannot say; a reason which they know not how to state, -the opening of a single door of a great man, through which they are not per- mitted to pass', to obtain for them all of which they are in need. The intrepid support of a disinterested virtue is, in such cases, able to remove an infinity of obstacles : and the eloquence of a single good man, in the cause of the injur- ed, can appal tyranny itself in the midst of its power. If, indeed, there be in the heart those genuine wishes of diffusive good, which are never long absent from the heart of the virtuous, there will not long be wanting occasions of exertion. It will not be easy for an eye, that has been accustomed to the search of objects of generous regard, to look around without the discovery of something which may be remedied, or something which may be improved ; and in relieving some misery, or producing or spreading some happiness, the good man will already have effected his de- * Bot. Gar. Canto II. v. 43!)-472. lightful purpose, before others would even have imagined that there was any good to be done. It would be a waste of time, to attempt to examine, with any minuteness of analysis, the various ways in which benevolence may be usefully exerted. In considering the species of injury; that give rise to our duties of a negative order, I have in some measure considered our positive duties also; since to abstain from injuring, and to wish to promote the good which we have thus forborne to lessen, are, in spirit, results of the same species of benevolent re- gard, and of the same moral principle, that commands us to further the hap- piness, which it would be vice, by any conduct of ours, to diminish. To pass slightly over these objects of social regard, then, in the order in which they were before considered-the benevolent man will be eager to re- lieve every form di personal suffering. Public institutions arise, by bis zeal, for receiving the-sick, who have no home, or a home which it is almost sick- ness to inhabit, and for restoring them in health, to those active employments of which they would otherwise have been incapable. In the humblest ranks of life, when no other aid can be given by the generous poor, than that which their attendance and sympathy administer, this aid they never hesitate to af- ford. When their own toils of the day are over, they often give the hours of a night, that is to terminate in a renewed call to their fatiguing -not to the repose, which their exhausted strength might seem to demand,- but to a watchful anxiety around the bed of some feverish sufferer, who is scarcely sufficiently conscious of what is around him, to thank them for their care, and whose look of squalid yvretchedness, seems to be only death begun, and the infection of death, to all who gaze upon it. The same benevolence, wdiich prompts to the succour of the infirm, prompts to the succour also of the indigent. Though charity is not mere pecuniary aid, pecuniary aid, when such aid is needed, is still one of the most useful, because one of the most extensive, in its application, of all the services of charity. Nor is it va- luable, only for the temporary relief which it affords to sufferings, that could not otherwise be relieved. It has a higher and more comprehensive office. It brings together those whose union seems necessary for general happiness, and almost for explaining the purposes of Heaven, in the present system of things. There are every where the rich, who have means of comfort which they know not how to enjoy, and scarcely how to ivaste;-and every where some, who are poor without guilt on their part, or at least rather guilty be- cause they are poor, than poor because they are guilty. All which seems necessary for the comfort of both, is, that they should be brought together. Benevolence effects this union. It carries the rich to the cottage, or to the very hovels of the poor ;-it allows the poor admission into the palaces of the rich-and both become richer in the only true sense of the word, because to both there is an accession of happiness. The wealthy obtain the pleasure of doing good, and of knowing that there are hearts which bless them-the indigent obtain the relief of urgent necessities, and the pleasure of loving a generous benefactor. Such are the delightful influences of positive benevolence, in their relation to the personal sufferings, and to the pecuniary wants of those, who, if they have no property to be assailed by injustice, have at least necessities, the dis- regard of which is equal in moral delinquency, to injustice itself. In its re- lation to the affections of those around, who are connected with each other by various ties of regard, benevolence is not less powerful, as a producer, o'* 366 ON THE DUTIES OF BENEVOLENCE. fosterer of good. Wherever there are causes of future jealousy, among those who love each other at present, it delights in dispelling the elements of the cloud, when the cloud itself, that has not yet begun to darken, scarcely can be said to have arisen. If suspicionshave already gathered in the breast of any one, who thinks, but thinks falsely, that he has been injured; it is quick, with all the ready logic of kindness, to show that the suspicions are without a cause.-If it find not suspicion only, but dissension that has burst out, in all the violence of mutual acrimony, it appears in its divine character of a peace maker, and almost by the influence of its mere presence, the hatred disappears and the love returns-as if it were as little possible, that discord should continue where it is, as that the mists and gloom of night should not disappear, at the mere presence of that sun which shines upon them. " The virtuous man," it has been beautifully said, " proceeds without con- straint in the path ofhis duty. His steps are free ; his gait is easy; he has the graces of virtue. He moves along in benevolence, and he sees arising in others, the benevolence which is in him. Of all our virtuous emotions, those of kind regard are the most readily imitated. To feel them is to inspire them ; to see them is to partake them. Are they in your heart?-they are m your looks, in your manners, in your discourse. Your presence recon- ciles enemies ; and hatred, which cannot penetrate to your heart, cannoteven dwell around you."* If benevolence is eager to preserve the affection of those who love each other, it cannot fail to be careful of their character, on which so much of affec- tion depends. The whispers of insidious- slanders may come to it as they pass,-with.a secrecy, which has nothing in it of real secrecy, but mere low- ness of tone,-from voice to voice, in eager publication ; but if there be no other voice to bear them further, they will cease and perish, when it is bene- volence which has heard. It is not, indeed, that senseless and indifferent praiser of all actions, which cannot be said to applaud any thing, when it does not know what it is right to condemn. Benevolence itself can despise, can hate, can raise a voice of terrible indignation, when cruelty hag been inflict- ing bodily tortures, or oppression torturing the soul. It is love, however, which is the principle of its very hatred. It hates the oppressors of those whom it loves, and it hates oppression every where, because it loves all hu- man kind. In loving all human kind, and wishing their happiness, it is impossible that the benevolent should not love also the diffusion of knowledge and virtue to human kind,-since to wish permanent happiness, without these, would be almost to wish for warmth without heat, or colours without light. In my last Lecture, I considered the motives which lead men to desire, that the multitude of their fellow-men should be kept down in a state of intellectual and moral darkness; and the motives which lead to the corruption of individuals,-those who have selfish passions to gratify by the debasement of some pure and holy principle in some ingenuous heart, or at least in some heart not wholly corrupted, that, if suffered to remain, would be inconsistent with the selfish gratification which they seek. Such motives benevolence cannot feel. The objects which it seeks are of a kind which it would be wisdom to pursue, and virtue to pursue ; and wishing, therefore,-the universality of such pursuits, it cannot fail to wish, in like manner, the universality of the knowledge and virtue, ON THE DUTIES OF BENEVOLENCE. 367 * St. Lambert, CEuv. Phil. Tome III. p. 179 368 which would see happiness where it is best to be found ; and would not seek it, therefore, where it is often sought, in misery itself, or in the causes of mi- sery. It is not easy to imagine a mind, that is truly desirous of the good of the world, which can sincerely, in its very desire of this good, recommend ignorance as a purifying principle, essential to the moral civilization of man, -who, according to this strange system, is a savage only because he knows too much. It is not easy to give credit to the sincerity of this desire ; be- cause one who is desirous of public good, must have felt how often, in his own actions, he has injured when he wished to benefit, merely from the want of some better light which he has since received ;-and must have seen in the history of legislation, still more striking proofs of the insufficiency of mere virtuous for the purposes of virtue,-when a very little truth addi- tional, might have convinced the planner of much social improvement, that he was ignorantly retarding that very improvement which the individual in- terests of society itself would have produced far sooner, but for the erring pa- triotism that laboured to urge it on ; and that could not employ its too forci- ble efforts, without breaking some of the delicate springs, on which the beau- tiful mechanism of its seemingly spontaneous progress depended. He who feels in himself, then, the importance of knowledge even to his more enlight- ened efforts, to be beneficial, cannot patriotically wish its light to be obscur- ed ; or resist the communication of any additional light, to those few gleams, which on the greater portion of the surface of the earth, even in nations which we term civilized, show the multitude how to use their hands, indeed, in of- fices of labour, but scarcely serve to show them more. The virtue of man- kind, and the general knowledge, which invigorates that virtue, and renders it more surely useful,-these are the greatest objects which benevolence can have in view; and a benevolence that professes not to value them, and to look only to the quantity of manual labour, which the band can most expedi- tiously perform, and the bodily comforts which that more active labour may purchase,-even though these objects could be obtained, as well without mental light, gis with it,-is a benevolence that is almost as little worthy of the name, as it can ever hope to be worthy of the more useful distinction of beneficent. These forms of benevolent desire, in their relation to various means of hap- piness or comfort, lead us naturally to the wish of preserving that tranquillity of mind in others, the violation of which we considered last, in treating, in corresponding order, of tlie negative duties. The power which nature has given us over the trains of thought and emo- tion, which we may raise more or less directly, in the minds of others, the benevolent man will employ as an instrument of his generous wishes, not as an instrument of cruelty. It will be his care to awake, in the mind of every one who approaches him, the most delightful feelings which he can awake, consistently with the permanent virtue and happiness of him whom he address- es. He will not flatter, therefore, and speak of faults as if they were excellen- cies, for this would be to give a little momentary pleasure at. the expense of the virtuous happiness of years. But without flattery, he will produce more pleasure, even for the time, than flattery itself could give :-in the interest which he seems to feel, he will show that genuine sincerity, which impresses with irresistible belief, and of which the confidence is more gratifying to the vir- tue,-I had almost said to the very vanity of man,-than the doubtful praises to which the heart, though it may love to hear them, is incapable of yielding itself. ON THE DUTIES OF BENEVOLENCE. ON THE DUTIES OF BENEVOLENCE. 369 Benevolence, in this amiable form, of course, excludes all haughtiness. The great, however elevated, descend, under its gentle influence, to meet the happiness and the grateful affection of those who are beneath them j and in descending to happiness and gratitude,-which themselves have produced, they do not feel that they are descending. Whatever be the scene of its ef- forts or wishes to do good is to the heart always to rise ; and the lieight of its elevation is, therefore, always in proportion to the quantity of good which it has effected, or which, at least, it has had the wish of effecting. Politeness,-which is, when ranks are equal, what affability is, when the more distinguislred mingle with the less distinguished-is the natural effect of that benevolence which regards always with sympathetic complacency, and is fearful of disturbing, even by the slightest momentary uneasiness, the sereni- ty of others. A breach of attention in any of the commop offices of civility, to which the arbitrary usages of social life have attached importance, even when nothing more is intended, is still a neglect, and neglect is itself an in- sult ; it is the immediate cause of a pain which no human being is entitled, where there has been no offence, to give to any other human being. Polite- ness then,-the social virtue that foresees and provides against every unplea- sant feeling that may arise in the breasts arotind, as if it were some quick- sighted and guardian Power, intent only on general happiness,-is something far more dignified in its nature, than ti>e cold courtesies which pass current under that name, the mere knowledge ofJ'ashionable manners, and an exact adherence to them. It is, in its most essential respects, what may be pos- sessed by those, who know little of the varying vocabulary, and varying usages of the season. The knowledge of these is, indeed, tfecessary to such as mingle in the circles which reqirire the;n ; but th'ey are necessary only as the new fashion of the coat or splendid robe, which leaves him or her who wears it, tire same human being, in every rospect, as before ; and are not more a part of either, than the ticket of admission, which opens to their ready en- trance, the.splendid apartment, from which the humftle are.excluded. The true politeness of the heart, is something which cannot be given by those who minister to mere decoration. It is the moral grace of life, if I may vjepture so to term it,-the grace of the mind, and what the world counts graces, are little more than graces of the body. Such is benevolence in the various forms in which it may be instrumental to happiness,-and, in being thus instrumental to the'happinCss of others, it has truly a source of happiness within itself. It may not feel indeed, all the en- joyment which it wishes to diffuse-for its wishes are unlimited-but it feels an enjoyment, that is as wide as all the happiness which it sees around it, or the still greater and wider happiness of which it anticipates the existence. The very failure of a benevolent wish only breaks its? delight, without destroying it; for when one wish of good has failed, it-has still other wishes o'f equal or greater good that arise, and occupy- and bless it as before. In considering the various ways jn which benevolence may be active, we have seen how extensive it may be as a feeling of the heart. If wealth, in- deed, were necessary, there would be few who could dbjoy it, or, at least, who could enjoy it largely. But pecuniary aid, as we have seen, is only one of many forms of being useful, To correct some error, moral or intellectual, -to counsel those who are in doubt, and who, in such Circumstances, require instruction, as the indigent require alms,-even though nothing more were in our power, to show' an interest in the welfare, of the happy, and a sincere com- Vol. II. 370 miseration of those who are in sorrow,-in these, and in innumerable other ways, the benevolent, however scanty may be their means of conferring what alone the world calls benefactions,-are not benevolent only, but beneficent, as truly beneficent or far more so, as those who squander in loose, prodigalities, to the deserving and the undeserving, the sufferers from their own thouglxless dissipation, or tlie sufferers from the injustice or dissipation of.others, almost as much as they loosely squander on a few hours of their own sensual appetites. Even in pecuniary liberalities, benevolence'does not merely produce good, but it knows well, or it learns to l<now, the greatest amount of good which its liberalities can produce. To be the cause of less happiness or comfort, than might be diffused at the same cost,'is almost a species of the same vice which withholds aid from those who require it. The benevolent, therefore, are magnificent in their bounty, because they are economical even in bounty itself. Their heart is quick to perceive sources of relief where others do not see them ; and the. whole result of happiness produced by them', seems often to have arisen from a superb munificence which few could- command when it may, perhaps, have proceeded only from humble means, which the posses- sor of similar means, without similar benevolence, would think scarcely more than necessary -for his own strict, necessities. How beautifully,' in Pope's well-known description of an individual, whose simple charities have made him as illustrious as the most costly profusion of charity in other circum- stances could have done, is this quick tendency to minister to every little comfort marked, in the provision which he is represented as making, not Tor gross and obvious miseries only, but for the very ease of the traveller or common passenger. ON THE DUTIES OF BENEVOLENCE. " But all our praises", why should Lords engross ! Rise, honest muse, and sing the Man of Ross ! Pleas'd Vaga. echoes through her winding bounds, And rapid Severn hoarse applause resoupds. Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow ? From the dry rock, who bade the waters flow ?- Not to the skies, in useless columns, tqst, Or in proud falls magnificently lost,- But clear and artless, p&uring through the plain Health to the sick, and solace to the swain. Whose causeway parts the with shady rows ? Whose seats the weary traveller repose ? Who'taught that heaven-directed sjnre to rise? The Man of Ross-'each lisping babe replies.- Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread ! The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread- He feeds ton almshouse-n6at, but void of state, Where Age and Want sit smiling at the gate. Him portion'd maids-apprenticed orphans blest- The young who labour, and the old who regt. Is any sick ?-The Man of RosS relieves, Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes and gives.- Is there a variance ?-enter but his door, Balked are the courts-and Contest is no more." What is it which makes this picture, of benevolence so peculiarly pleasing ? It is not the mere quantity of happiness produced, even when taken in con- nexion with the seemingly disproportionate* income,-the, few hundred pounds a-year, which were so nobly devoted to the production of that * Moral Essays, Ep. III. v. 249- ON THE DUTIES OF BENEVOLENCE. happiness It is pleasing, chiefly from the air of beautiful consistency that appears in so wide a variety of good,'-the evidence of a genuine tenderness of heart, that was quick, as I have said, to perceive, not the great evils only, which force themselves upon every eye, hut the little comforts also, which might be administered to those, of whom the rich^-even when they are dis- posed to extend to them the indolent succour of their alms, and sometimes, too, the more generous succour of their personal aid,-are yet accustom- ed to think only as sufferers, who are to be kept alive,, rather than as human beings, who are to be made happy. We admire, indeed, the active services, with which the Man of Ross distributed the weekly bread, built houses that were to be homes of repose for the aged and the indigent, visited the sick, and settled amicably the controversies of neighbours and friends, vVho might otherwise have become foes in becoming litigants; but it is when, together with these prominent acts of obvious beneficence, we consider the acts of attention to humbler, though less obvious, wants, that we feel, with lively de- light and confidence, the kindness of a heart, which, in its charitable medi- tations, could think of happiness as well as of misery,-and foresee means of happiness, which the benevolent, indeed, can easily produce, but which are visible only to the benevolent. It is by its inattention to the little wants of man that ostentation distinguishes itself from charity; and a sagacious observer needs no other test, in •the*'silent disdain or eager reverence of his heart, to separate the seeming benevolence, which seeks the applauding voices of crowds, from the real benevolence, which seeks only to be the spreader of happiness or consolation. It is impossible for the most ostenta- tious producer of the widest amount of good', with all his largesses, and with all his hypocrisy, to be consistent in his acts of seeming kindness; because, to be consistent, he must have- that real kindness, which sees, what the cold simulator of benevolence is incapable of seeing, and does, therefore, what such a cold dissembler is incapable even of imagining. 371 LECTURE LXXXV1I. ON THE POSITIVE DUTIES WHICH WE OWE TO CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS ONLY-ARISING FROM AFFINITY, FRIENDSHIP, BENEFITS RECEIVED, CONTRACT. In my last Lecture, gentlemen, I concluded the remarks which I had to offer, on the duties, negative and positive, which we owe to all the indivi- duals of mankind,-on the species of injury from which we are under a moral obligation to abstain, whoever he may be whom it is in our power to injure, and on the good, which we are under a similar obligation to produce to every one who comes within the sphere of our usefulness. After the consideration of these general duties, then, I proceed to the class of additional duties, which we owe to certain individuals only, with whom we are connected by peculiar ties. These may be considered by us under five heads: as the duties which 372 arise from affinity,-rfrom friendship,-from benefits received, from contract, -from' citizenship. The duties of this class, as I have said, are additional duties, not dyties exclusive of any of the former. We owe to our relations, -to our friends',-to our benefactors,-to those with whom we have entered into engagements of atty sort,-to our fellow-citizens, all which we owe to others, who are connected with us only eS human beings ; but we owe them more ; and it is this accession of dbty which'we have now to consider. If the only moral offices of which we had been formed by nature to feel the obligation, were those which'connect us alike with every individual of our race,-whose happiness we should, In that £trse, as now, have felt it to be our duty to augment when it was in our power to augment it, and when there was no opportunity of this accession, at least not to lessen its amount, -it might, perhaps, seetn to' the unreflecting, fiiat a provision as ample would haue been made for the happiness of the wrorld, as that which is now so abundantly made for it,-under the reciprocal kindness of a system of rela- tive duties, that vary in foWe as the peculiar relation is nearer or more remote, but, in all, add*to the general feelings of humanity, some newr influence of benevolent regard. There have, indeed, even in our own time, been phi- losophers, or moral writers that assume the name, who have contended for this equal diffusion of duty, or at feast, foY a gradation of duty that varies only with the absolute merits of the individual, hrdepdndenfly of all particular re- lationship to tfie agent,-asserting, in consequence, that every preference to which the private affections lead, is vicious on this very account, as being inconsistent with that exact conformity to the scale of absolute merit, in which alone they conceive virtue to .consist. It is right, in- deed, on some occasions, according to this,system, to do good to a parent or a benefactor,-or rather, it is not absolutely impossible, that a case should occur, in which it may. not bq guilt to'do good to a parent or a benefactor ; but it is not only in rare cases, thfit the choice implied in the singling out of such an object, is proper or allowable-in those rare cases, in which it would have been right to prefer to every other individual of mankind, the same individual, though unconnected with us by any tie but our knowledge of his virtues;-and when he, wifli whom we consider ourselves as peculiarly con- nected, .by the mere accident of our birth, or of kindnesses conferred on us, -is not the individual whom, in other circumstances, it would have been, in like manner, our duty thus to prefer, it does, not become more our duty, on account of these accidental circumstances. Far frQm beifig virtuous, therefore, in bestowing on him any limited good which it is in our power to bestow only on one', we are guilty, with no slight degree of delinquency, in the very action, which we may strive to cover with the seemingly honoura- ble. name of gratjtude or filial duty. These names, indeed, are honourable only in sound or semblance for* to those who are capable of appreciating them ethically, they are as void of moral meaning, as the words tall or short, fat or thin-; which, in like manner, express, qualities of human beings, whom it may be right to prefer, or wrong 'to prefer,-but not the more right, nor the more wrong, to prefer' them on account of these physical qualities, to those who may be of greater merit, thbugh flitter, or thinner, taller, or shorter. , . ' • . '• The errors of this system of sole universal duty, I have already en- deavoured to point out to you, when I explained the importance to happiness, of all the private affections,-the great accession to the general good, which ON THE POSITIVE DUTIES WHICH WE OWE TO CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS ONLY. 373 fe every moment flowing from the indulgence of a'fegard, that in thinking with a more lively interest of the individual loved, than it would be possi- ble to think of a community, is then, perhaps, tire most effective contributor to the happiness of mankind, when the happiness of mankind is most for- gotten by it, in the happiness of one or of a few of the number. The hu- man race, as distinguishable from families and individuals, is but a mere ab- straction; and expresses truly- nothing mpre than the very individuals, wlio are thu$ at every moment gratifying and gratified. What produces the greatest amount of good to all, in the enjoyment df the private affections, is not that which we can readily suppose the framer of a world, that is blessed by this very production, to have formed every ipdividtfal to regard as vice; and to regard as virtue only tlte disregard of that, with which the world would be more happy. We find, accordingly, the' universal, feelings of mankind ac- cordant with the system of particular duties, that largely-productive of happiness. In every region of the earth, and in all circuinstances of society, the indulgence of the private affections is considered not as allowable merely, but as obligatory,-so obligatory on all, that the guilt which would produce every where the most general abhorrence, would be, not the forgetfulness of the good of the world,-for of this, the thousands that live around us, in the continued exercise of many virtues, seldom if ever tbiu'k,--but the violation of some one of these private duties,-tlie injury done to a friend, a bene- factor, a parent,-or even without positive injury; the mere neglect of them, in circumstances of want or of suffering of any kind, which our bounty, or exertions of active aid, could relieve. We are to prefer to the happiness of our parent or benefactor, it is said, the happiness of a stranger, who, without any particular relation to us, is a degree or two higher in the scale of absolute merit. But why are we to seek his happiness, and why is it immoral to disregard it ? In this system, as in every other system of vice and virtue, there must be some source of the distinctive feelings. It is to our moral emotions, as they rise on the contemplation of certain actions, that .the theorist must look; or, if he disregard these he must allow that vice and virtue, are words without a meaning;-and if virtue and vice have their sole origin in these moral emo- tions, is there an observer of our nature, who can have the boldness to main- tain, that, in relation to these feelings,-in which all that is morally obligatory is to be found,-gratitude to a benefactor is a vice, and the disregard of the sufferings of a parent a virtue, whenever, without the power of relieving both, we see before us, at the same time, a suffering stranger, who is capable of doing a little more good to the .world ? The very feeling of duty, then, has its source, and" its only source, in the very moral emotions, by which the private affections are particularly rocom- mended to us. To exclude, therefore, from a system of duty, the exercise of the private affections, in those preferences which are only the private affections be- coming active,-and in excluding these, to maintain at the same time that there is a system of duty, a virtue in certain preferences,'a vice in certain other pre- ferences,-is to be guilty of inconsistency, far more illogical, than the licen- tiousness which-denit's all virtue and Vice whatever. To prove there is some truth in moral obligation, this universalist, as wTe have seen, must ne- cessarily appeal to those moral feelings of which we are conscious, without which it. would be in vain for him to speak of moral distinction of any sort. For his sole proof, then, of the virtue of disregarding wholly every personal 374 relationship and affection, he appeals to feelings, that, if they establish any obligation whatever, establish none so firmly as that of the private relative duties, which they are every moment sanctioning and approving;-and his system, therefore, if we trace its principles to their source, in the approving and disapproving* principle within us, is precisely the same in import, as if its radical doctrine were,-that it is right for us to do certain actions, because it is wrong for us to do them,-or wrong for us to do certain other actions, because to do them would be right. It is surely, 1 repeat, by a very strange paralogism, that he would found his assertion of an exclusive universal duty on the moral feelings of our heart, whifch alone enable us to distinguish what is virtuous from what is vi- ' cious,-and would yet contend that these very feelings of our heart, which are rising at every moment in the vbry conception of our parents, our friends, our country, are* at evety'moment to be disregarded. But, even though this radical objection were omitted, and though we were to concede to the universalist, that the private affections are not recommended to us, by nature, on their own account; that to our moral feelings, the equal sufferings of our benefactor, and of a stranger of equal general merit, are exactly of the same interest; and that all which is truly an object of interest to us, is the amount of public happiness of the great community of mankind ;-still, if we regard the general happiness, are not the means of the greatest amount of general happiness to! be viflubd at least as means6} And if the indulgence of the private affections tends, upon the whole, to-a greater amount of good, is not our calculating virtue, which should prefer always what is to contribute most largely to the great sum of happiness, to rank as virtuous what is so extensively beneficial ? In treating of our emotions of love, as they vary in relation to their dif- ferent objects, I endeavoured to exhibit to' you that beautiful arrangement, with which, in all these varieties, Heaven has adapted the vividness of our affections, to our power of being beneficial;-the love being most lively in those moral connexions, in which the opportunities of usefulness are most frequent, and capable of being most accurately applied, in relation to the peculiar want$ of him who is to be benefited. The scale of duty, which corresponds with this scale of affection, and of probable usefulness, the ethi- cal destroyers of private affection of course exclude. We are not to think more of those, whom it is in our power., almost at every instant, to make happier than they were,-than of those who are at the remotest distance from our sphere of usefulness. We are to view them according to their indivi- dual merits, as human beings only; the parent as the stranger, the stranger as the parent; and, when we strive thus to view them with equal affection, it is not difficult to discover which metamorphosis of feeling will be the more probable, in this one equalized emotion. It will be impossible for us to look on a stranger with the emotions of vivid regard, of which we are conscious, as often as we think of those from whom we derived existence, and what- ever has made existence' a gift of value. It is far from impossible, however, that,' by frequently'considering these earliest benefactors, as possessing no higher moral claim to our regard and good offices, than those who stand in the Same relationship to any other person, we may learn, at least, to make an approximation to this indifference; and to regard a parent with the af- fection which we now feel for a stranger, more nearly than we regard a stranger, with the affection which we now feel for a parent. ON THE POSITIVE DUTIES In the wide communion of the social world, each individual is, as it were, the centre of many circles. Near him, are those from whom he has derived most happiness, and to whom, reciprocally, it is in his power todiffuse most hap- piness, in continual interchange1 of kindness. In the circle beyond, are they who have had less opportunity of such mutual benefits than those who are nearer, but more than the widening number in the circles that progressively enlarge, as the distance from the centre increases,-and enlarge in expansion and distance, with a corresponding inverse diminution of benefits conferred, and of the capacity of being benefited. It would have beeq a system of a very different adaptation for the production of happiness, if the scale of regard had been reversed; so that our benevolent wishes had been more and more vivid, in opposite progression, for those whom it was,less- and less in our pow- er to serve. In such a case, it is very evident, that the general amount of happiness would have been reduced in two ways,-by the omission of many opportunities-of doing good* to those immediately around us, of which, with livelier affection, we should not have failed to avail ourselves ; and still more by the painful wish of relief to sufferers at a distance, to whose miseries this very distance deprived us of all power df contributing, even the slightest means of alleviation. The evil of such a reversal of the present scale of af- fection and duty, is scarcely more than the evil that'would arise to the world, from the equalization of regard in the system of universal duty, that excludes from its moral estimate every private affection. 1 do not speak at present of the impossibility of such a system, as inconsistent with some of the strong- est principles of our nature. I proceed On the supposition of its possibility, and consider its influence, on the happiness of the world, in comparison with the system on which we at present act. If we are to regard mankind, only accord- ing to their individual excellence, as members of one great society, and to sacri- fice, therefore, all private feelings to one great public feeling that has this society of mankind for its object, the equal diffusion of our love to all, whose absolute merit is precisely the same, must, if produced at all, he produced in one of two ways,-either by increasing, in a very high degree, the liveliness of our regard for those who are strangers to us, at a distance-or by lessening, in an equal de- gree, the liveliness of our regard for whosurround us in our immediate neighbourhood, and under the very shelter of our domestic roof. If the equality be produced by levelling these kinder feelings, so that, when an op- portunity of doing good occurs to us, we think not of those who are beside us, and who may be speedily profited by it,-but of some one at a greater distance, whom our action, if deferred, may never profit,-if, with a constant moral fear of erring in the allotment of our expressions of benevolence, .we look coldly on every one, on whom our eye is every moment falling, in the domestic intercourse of the day ; and reserve our courtesies, our smiles, our very tones of kindness, for some one of greater absolute merit, whom we ex- pect to see before the day is closed, or whom we have at least a chance of seeing before we quit the world,-it is evident, that far more than half of the happiness of every day, would be destroyed to every bosom, by this cal- culating appreciation of kindness: It is not a mere faint desire of good to any one, that is quick to find the good which it desires. It is the lively benevo- lence that sees, in almost every thing,'some relation to the happiness of the object loved ; because the happiness of the object loved, is constantly in the mind of him who feels that liveliness of benevolence. Opportunities of produc- ing good, therefore, are never wanting to him who is strongly desirous of WHICH WE OWE TO CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS ONLY. 375 376 producing it; and to lessen the liveliness of our kind wishes for those who are around us, would, therefore, be to render ineffectual a thousand occasions of enjoyment or relief. Such would bo the evil of reducing the force of the peculiar interest which we feel, in the happiness of our relations, of our friends, of all who are con- nected with us, by any of the closer bonds of social union. But the evil that could not fail to arise in this, way, would be slight, compared with that which would arise, in tlte other circumstances supposed-if our affection for the most distant stranger were raised, so as to correspond, in intensity, with the liveliness of our feeling for those immediately around us. If it be Our duty to wish, in as jivqly a manner, the happiness of the natives-of some African tribe, as of our friend or pur father, we must either feel very little interest in the happiness of our friend or our father, or we must have a strong wish of bene- fiting that tribe of Africans,--which, such a wish must be wholly ineffec- tual on tire part of the greater number of mankind, cannot fail to be a source of continued uneasiness. This would be the case', even though we were to think only of accessions to happiness, witbofit taking into account the absolute misery of those, in whose evils of every sort we are to sympathize, with all the quickness of commiseration, which transfers instantly, to our . own bosom, a share of every evil that is suffered by those whoth wo love: Let us ima- gine a,single individual, who, in accordance with such a system, feels for every wretchedness of pvery victim of disease, or captivity, or want, in every nation of the globe, a thousandth part of the agony which be would feel, if that victim were his parent or. his 'dearest friend ;-and let us then think, what the state of man would be, if all the sympathies of his nature had been thus arranged, in adaptation to a system of duties that 'excluded every local and accidental influence, and estimated human beings only as human beings. It would, indeed, be no slight evil, if we could learn to look with total disre- gard on the sorrows of others. But while there was misery in the world, if the misery of all individuals of all nations, were to be equally felt by us,-or not felt by us at all-an universal indifference would probably be less destruc- tive to general happiness, than the anguish of sharing so many miseries at the distance, perhaps, of half the earth, which it would be almost as vain for us to think of relieving as of relieving the sufferings of the inhabitants of another planet. In proportioning our duties with our affections, to our facilities of affording aid to the miserable, and of affording happiness to the few whom it is most easy to render happy, nature has consulted best for general happi- ness ; all are every where most active in administering relief or enjoyment, where activity may be most useful; and the beautiful result of the moral ex- cellence of a state, is thus produced, in the same way as the political wealth and power of a state are produced,-by innumerable little efforts, that indivi- dually increase the general amount, which is, at the time, no object of con- ception, but which, as it rises at last from the efforts of all, attracts the admi- ration of those who unconsciously contributed to it, and- who, in admiring it when it has risen, are scarcely aware that the efforts which raised it were their own. To hope to produce greater virtue and happiness, by the exclusion of every particular duty, is, in truth, a speculation as wild, as it would be to hope to augment the political resources of an empire, by urging individuals to re- gard not their own profit in any case,-but the profit of their thousand com- petitors, in the equal market of industry. It is not evil, then, for man, upon the whole, that, in wishing the happiness ON THE POSITIVE DUTIES of all mankind, he should wish, in an especial manner, the happiness of those who are connected with him by peculiar ties,-by those ties of addition- al duty which I have already enumerated.-To the first of these I now proceed. • Of the ties of relationship, and the duties of which that relationship is the source, we may consider, in the first place, those under which man enters into life,-the ties which bind together with reciprocal .duties the parent and the child. If we consider merely the powers of the individual, in .relation to the evils to which he is exposed, man is born the most helpless of all created things. But if we consider the affection that exists in the bosoms, to which he is for the first time pressed-the moral principle, wliich, in those bosoms, would ren- der the neglect of his wants one of the most atrocious of crimes,-and the eager tendency to anticipate, with the necessary relief, the slightest expres- sion of these wants,-a tendency which is instant of itself, and which requires no moral principle to call it into action, man, we.may truly say, is born as poioerj'ul as he is to be in years, when bis own wisdom, and the vigour of his own arm, are to be to him what he may count a.surer protection'. He may afterwards speak with a voice of command to those whpse services he has purchased, and who obey him, because in the barter which they have made of their services, it is their trade to obey ; but he cannot, even then, by the most imperious orders which he addresses to the most obsequious slaves, ex- ercise an authority more commanding than that, which, in the first hours of his life, when a few indistinct cries and tears were his only language, he ex- ercised, irresistibly, over hearts, of the very existence of which he was igno- rant. • * . This feeling of regard is so strong in every breast,-and so simple, in its relation to the mere sustenance and protection of the little object of so many cares,-that it would be a waste of time, to treat of the primary under which the parents lie, to save from perishing, that human creature, to which they have given existence, and which could not fail to perish, but for the aid which it is in their power to give to it. It is only with respect to the more complicated duties of the relation, in maturer years, that any difficulty can be felt. These duties relate to the education of the child,-to the provision which is made for his mere worldly accommodation-and to the expression of that internal love, which should accompany all these cares, and without which it would be impossible to feel them as acts of kindness. That such an education is to be given in every case, as is suitable to the pecuniary circumstances of the parents-, and to the rank which the child may be expected afterwards to fill, there is probably no one, who would deny,- however much individuals may differ as to the meaning of the term education. In the lotvest ranks of life-at least in far the 'greater part even of civilized Europe,-it means nothing more, than the training of the hands, to a certain species of motion, which forms one of the subdivisions of mechanical indus- try. In the higher ranks, it implies, in like manner, a certain training of the limbs to series of motions, which are, however, not motions of mere utility, like those of the artisan, but of g race,-and, in addition to those bodily move- ments, a training of the mind to a due command of certain graceful forms of expression-to which, in a few happier cases, is added the knowledge, more or less extensive and accurate, of the most striking truths of science. When WHICH WE OWE TO CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS ONLY. 377 Vol. II. all this is performed, education is thought to be complete. To express this completion, by the strongest possible word; the individual is said to be accom- plished ; and if graceful motions of the limbs, and motions of the tongue, in well-turned phrases of courteous elegance,-and a knowledge of some of the brilliant expressions of poets, and wits, and orators, of different countries,-of a certain number of the qualities of the masses or atoms which surround him, --were sufficient to render -man what -God intended him to be, the parent who had taken every necessary care for adorning his child with these bodily and mental graces, might truly exult in the consciousness, that he had done his part to the generation which was to succeed, by accomplishing at least one in- dividual, for the noble duties which he had to perform in it. But, if the du- ties, wlfich mag has to perform, whatever ornament they may receive from the corporeal ahd intellectual graces that may flow around them, imply the operation of principles of action of a very different kind-if it is in the heart, that we are to seek the source of the feelings which are our rtoblest distinc- tion,-with which, we are.what even God may almost approve, and ivithout which, we are worthy of the condemnation even of beings frail and guilty as ourselves; and if the heart require to be protected from vice, with far more care than the understanding itself, fallible as it is, to be protected from error, -can he, indeed, lay claim to the praise of having discharged the parental office of education, who has left the heart to its own passions, while he has contented himself with furnishing to those passions, the means of being more extensively baneful to the world than, with less accomplished selfishness, they could have been? How many parents do we see, who, after teaching their sons, by example, every thing which is licentious in manners, and lavishing on them the means of similar licentiousness, are rigid only in one point-in the strictness of that intellectual discipline, which may prepare them for the worldly stations, to which the parental ambition has been unceasingly looking for them, before the filial ambition was .rendered sufficiently intent of itself!-how many, who allow to the vices of the day full liberty, if the lesson of the day be duly me- ditated ; and who-are content that those-whose education they direct, should be knaves and sensualists, if only they be fitted, by intellectual culture, to be the leaders of other knaves, and the acquirers pf wealth, that may render their sensuality more delicately luxurious! To such persons, the mind of the little creature, whom they are training to worldly stations for worldly purposes, is an object of interest only as that without which it would be impossible to arrive at the dignities expected. It is a necessary instrument for becoming rich and powerful; and, if he .could become powerful, and rich, and envied, without a soul,-exhibit the same spectacle of magnificent luxu- ry, and be capable of adding to the means of present pomp, what might fur- nish out a luxury still more magnificent,-they would scarcely feel that he was a being less noble than now. In what they term education, they have never once thought, that the virtues were to be included as objects ; and they would truly feel something very like astonishment, if they were told, that the first and most essential part of the process of educating the moral being, whom Heaven had consigned to their charge,'was yet to be begun,-in the abandonment of their own vices, and the purification of their own heart, by better feelings than those which had corrupted it,-without which primary sell-amendment, the very authority that is implied in the noble office which 378 ON. THE PARENTAL DUTIES. they were to exercise, might 'be a source, not of good, but of evil, to him who was unfortunately born to be its subject. ON THE PARENTAL DUTIES. 379 Corrumpunt vitiornm exempla domestica, inagnis Cum subeunt animos auctoribus. Unus et altei Forsitan, base spernant juvenes, quibus arte benigna Et rneliore luto, finxit praecordia Titan ; Sed reliqups fiigienda patriun vestigia ducunt, Et monsfrata diu veteris trahit orbita ellipse. Abstineas igitur damnandis,<hujus enim vel Una potens ratio pst,-tie crimina nostra sequantur Ex nobis geniti ; quoniatn docites imitandis- Turbibus gc pravisomnes sumus ; pt Catilinam Quocunqye in populo vjdeas, quocunque sub axe; Sed dec Brutus ent, Briiti nee avunculus usquam. Maxima debetur puero reverentia ; si quid Turpe paras, ne tu pueri contempseris annos, Sed peecaturo ebsistat tibi filius iufans.*a Though the enjoyments of this world, which so many seek as all, were truly all,-and we Ceased to exist when our mortal existence terminated, it would still be the duty of the parent to consult the happiness of the child, more than those circumstances of accidental happiness, which may sometimes lead to it, but often, perhaps as often, are productive of misery ;-and, even of the short happiness of this shortlife, how large is the part which we have to ascribe to our virtuous affections,-or rather, how very little is there of pure happiness which we can ascribe to any other source. But when we think how small a portion of our immortal existence is comprised in this earthly life,-when, amid sensual pleasures that fade almost in the moment in wThich they are en- joyed,-and wealth and dignities that are known more in their rapid changes, as passing from possessor to possessor, than as truly possessed by any one of the multitude, who, in their turns, obtain and lose them,-we feel that, amid so many perishable and perishing things, virtue, the source of all which it is delightful to remember, is the only permanent acquisition which can be made -how completely must he seem to have neglected the duty of a parent, who has thought only of a few years that are as nothing, and neglected that immortality which is all. If we had a long voyage to undertake, it would be but a cruel kindness that should pour forth its bounty on a single day, and provide for us only one repast, however costly. It is surely a kindness not less cruel which, in the common offices of education, thinks but of a single day, and makes provision only for its comfort, in that endless course, not of years, but of ages, on which we enter in entering into life. In giving to society another individual, we owe to it every care, on our part, that the individual, thus given to it, may not be one whose existence may be counted by society, among the evils that have oppressed it. Gratum est, quod patri® civem, populoque dedisti • Si facis, ut patri® sit idoneus.-t Nor is it only to the country to which we give a new citizen, that our gift is to be estimated, as a blessing or an injury, according to the nature of the living offering that is presented to it. To that very citizen him- self, the gift of existence is the greatest of all blessings, or the greatest of all injuries, only as his character is to be virtuous or vicious ; and, whe- ther the character is to be virtuous or vicious may often depend on circum- * Juvenal Sat. XIV. v. 32-49. t Juvenal. Sat. XIV. v. 70. stances, which Were almost at the disposal of him by whom the doubtful gift ol mere existence w*as bestowed. " It is not a blessing," says an ancient philoso- pher, " to live merely, but to live well. Life in itself, if life without wisdom be a good, is a good that is common to me with the meanest reptiles ; and he who gave me nothing more than life, gave me only what a fly or a worm may boast. If, in the love and hope of virtue, I have employed that life which my parents conferred oil me, in studies that were to render me more noble in the sight of Heaven, 1 hav6 paid back to them more than ,1 have received. Aly father gave me to myself rude and ignorant, I have given him a son, of whom it may delight him to be the father. " Non est bopum vivere, sed bene vivere. Si vitam imputas inihi, per se, nudam, egentem consilii, et id ut magnum bonum jactas, cogita te mibi imputare muScarum ac vermium bo- num. Deinde, ut nihil -aliud dicam, quam bonis artibus, mq studuisse, ut cursum ad rectum iter vitae dirigerim ; in ipso beneficio tuo majus qudm quod dederas, recepisti. Tu enim mq mihi, rudetn et imperitum dedisti: ego tibi filium, qualem genuisse gauderes."* The neglect of parental duty, in the comparative inattention to the moral discipline of the mind, iqay indeed be considered, only as a continuation to the offspring, of the errors which influence the parent in conduct that relates wholly to himself. He seeks for them what he seeks for himself; and as he is ambitious to be rich or powerful, rather than happy, he wishes to enable them, in like manner, to be rich or powerful,-and leaves their happiness as he has left his own, to be the Casual result of circumstances, that may or may not produce it. The importance attached by parents to tho mere temporary circumstances of earthly splendour,-which leads to one most fatal species of violation of pa- rental duty, in the sort of culture which they are most anxious to bestow,- aggravates in a very high degree, the second species of violation of it, to which 1 alluded in enumerating the parental duties,-that which consists in inadequate provision of those very mqans, to which they attach so much importance. I do not speak, at present, of the extreme prodigality of those, who think only of themselves, and who scarcely think even ■of themselves beyond an hour,-the prodigality which leaves, in indigence, those who have been brought up in ha- bits of luxury, that have rendered luxury like that of their extravagant parents, almost an object of necessity to them. I allude to the intentional deliberate sacrifice, which is made of the comforts of many children to the wealth of one, -a sacrifice which has usually, or, at least, often tended only to make one less virtuous than he would have been, and -many less happy. The national consequences of the privileges of primogeniture, and of sex,-belong to in- quiries in political jurisprudence. At present, it is not of these that 1 speak. It is only of the wants of the children, and the affection and duty of the pa- rent. These wants are obviously equal in all; and, if the merits of all be equal, the affection of the parent should be the same, and his duty equal to all, who, with equal wants and equal merits, are consigned to his equal love. It is-vain, now, to look for a justification of breaches of this equal duty, to periods of violence, in which it Was necessary, for the happiness of all, that inequality of distribution should take place, that there might be one sufficient- ly powerful, to protect the scantier pittance of the maqy. These circumstan- ces of violence are now no more subsisting, in the regular polities of Europe. 380 ON THE PARENTAL DUTIES. * Seneca, De Beneficiis, Lib. III. cap,, xxxj. The affections are allowed without peril to exercise themselves freely. The father of many virtuous children, may safely be to all, what he is to one; and if he lay aside this equal character, and, sheltering himself in the forced manners of barbarous and tumultuous ages, make many poor, that he may make one rich, he is guilty of a gross violation of his duties as a parent,-and the more guilty, in exact proportion to the value which he attaches to the possession of the wealths© unequally distributed. Nor is it only to those whom he directly wills to impoverish, that he is guilty of a breach of duty ; -he is equally guilty'of it, io many cases, to the single individual whom he exclusively enriches,--if, in estimating what be confers, we consider the vir- tue and happiness, or vice and misery, that may arise from it, and not the mere wealth, which,-in itself, is nothing. The superiority which is thus be- stowed on a single individual, is a superiority that may, indeed, like every possession of power, lead to the exercise of corresponding virtues;-to the generous mind it may present, as it has often presented, only wider occasions of generosity :-yet beautiful as such examples may be, it is not what the ge- neral circumstances of our nature authorize us to expect; and the power of being thus generous,-when, without that dubious generosity, those who have been made dependent on it, may suffer, what perhaps it was not intended that they should suffer,-is a power of too great peril tQ human virtue, to be rashly imposed upon human weakness. » Such are two of the great duties of parents,-those which relate to provi- sion for the mental culture, and temporal accommodation of their offspring. I have mentioned, as a third duty, that of tempering the parental authority with all the kindness of parental love,--which, even in exacting obedience, only where obedience is necessary for the good, of him who obeys, is still the exacter of sacrifices, which require to be sweetened by the kindness that de- mands them. This duty, indeed, may be considered as in some degree in- volved in the general duty of moral education ; since it is not a slight part of that duty, to train the mind of the child to those affections which suit the filial nature, and which are the chief element of every other affection, that adorns in after life, the friend, the citizen, the lover of mankind. The father who has no voice but that of stern command, is a tyrant to all the extent of his power, and will excite only such feelings as tyrants excite ; a ready obedi- ence, perhaps, but an obedience that is the trembling haste of a slave, not the still quicker fondness of an ever ready love ; and that will be withheld in the very instant in which the terror has lost its dominion. It is impossible to have, in a single individual, both a slave and a son ; and he who chooses rather to have a slave, must not expect that filial fondness, which is no part of the moral nature of a bond man. In thinking that he increases his authority, he truly diminishes it;-for more than half the authority of the parent is in the love which he excites,-in that zeal to obey, which is scarcely felt as obedience, when a wish is expressed,-and in that ready imitation of the vir- tues that are loved, which does not require even the expression of a wish, but without a command, becomes all which a virtuous parent could have commanded. ON THE PARENTAL DUTIES. 381 382 LECTURE LXXXVIII. ON THE DUTIES OF AFFINITY-PARENTAL DUTIES; FILIAL DUTIES; FRATfcRNAL DUTIES ; CONJUGAL DUTIES. In my last Lecture, gentlemen, I arranged the duties which we owe to particular individuals, under five heads :-as arising from affinity,-from friendship,-from benefits received,-from contract,-from the general pa- triotism which connects together all the citizens that live on the same soil, or under the protection of the same system of polity. In considering the duties of affinity we entered on our inquiry with those which belong to the first relationship of life,-the relationship that connects together, with a tie as delightful as it is indissoluble, the parent and the child. We begin to exist under the protection of the duties of others; the objects of a moral regard, of which we are soon ourselves to share the reciprocal influence ; and, from the moment at which we are capable of understanding that there are beings around us who have benefited us, or to whom it is in our power to give a single our duties too commence, and life itself may be said to be a series of duties fulfilled or violated. We are the objects of duty, however, before we are capable of feeling its force, or of knowing that we have ourselves duties to fulfil; and the nature of this primary obligation of the parent, of which we are the objects as soon as we have begun to breathe,' and which death only can dissolve, was con- sidered fully in my last Lecture. The preservation of the mere animal ex- istence of the child, is an office of parental obligation, too obvious, however, and too simple, to require elucidation. Our attention, therefore,, was given to the other duties which the parental relation involves;-in the first place, the duty of giving to him, whose wisdom or ignorance, virtue or vice, happi- ness or misery, may depend, in a great measure, on the nature of the. instruc- tion and example which he may receive,-such education as, while it trains him for all the honour and usefulness, which his rank in life may seem to pro- mise to the reasonable expectation of the parent,-may not forget, that this life is but the commencement of immortality, and the thoughts and feelings, therefore, which it is most important to cultivate-not those which have rela- tion only to worldly wealth and dignity, but those to which the proudest ho- nours of earthly life, are but the accidents of a day. In the second place, even with respect to the short period of earthly existence, which, short as it is when compared with immortality, still admits of many enjoyments, which we may supply, or withhold, or lessen, and of many evils which we might have prevented,-the duty of affording to the child such a provision of the means of worldly comfort and usefulness, as is suitable to lhe circumstan-. ces of the parent,-and of affording this provision to the different members of a family, not in the manner which may seem best fitted to gratify the per- sonal vanity of the'provider, but in the manner that is best fitted to contri- bute to the happiness of all who, with a relationship that is precisely the same, if their merits and wants be equal, have a moral claim to equal regard, in the distribution that is to provide for those wants. In the third place,-the duty of exercising with kindness the parental power ; of imposing no restraint which has not for its object some good, greater than the temporary evil of the restraint itself, of making the necessary obedience of the chW ;n this way, ON THE FILIAL DUTIES. not so much a duty as a delight,-and of thus preparing him to be, in other years, the grateful and tender friend of a parent whose authority, even in its most rigid exactions, lie has felt only as the watchful tenderness of a friend- ship, that was rigid in withholding only what it would have been dangerous to grant. , «• Having considered, then, the duties of the parent, in ah their relations to the being to whom he has given existence, let us now proceed to consider the reciprocal duties of the child. These arise from two sources,-from the power of the parent, and from his past kindness. As morally responsible, to a certain degree, for the happiness of the child, it is evident that he inust have over it an authority of some sort, without which there could be no pow- er of guarding it from the greatest of all dangers-tiie dangers of its own ig- norance and obstinacy. It is- equally evident, that, as the author of all the benefits which a parent can confer, he has a just claim to more than mere authority. From the salutary and indispensable power of the parent, flows the duty of filial obedience ;-from the benevolence of the parent,' the duty of filial love, and of all the services to which that love can lead. Obedience, then, is the first filial duty,-a duty which varies in the extent of obligation at different periods of life, but which does not wholly at any period. The child must obey, with a subjection that is complete ; because he is incapable of judging what'would be most expedient for him, without the direction of another ; and no other individual can be supposed so mnch interested, in di- recting to what is expedient for him, as the parent, who must- reap an acces- sion of happiness from his happiness, or suffer in bis sufferings. The man should obey in every thing, indeed, in which the obedience will not involve the sacrifice of a duty, but.only some loss of comfort on his part; yet he is not like the child, to obey blindly; for the reason which required the blind- ness of obedience, does not exist in his case. He is capable of weighing accurately duty with duty; because he is capable of seeing consequences which the child cannot see. He is not to obey, where he could obey only by a crime ; nor, even when the evil to be suffered would be only a loss of happiness to himself, can he be morally bound to make himself miserable, for the gratification of a desire tliat, even in a parent, may be a desire of ca- price or folly. Where the duty of obedience, in such cases, should be con- sidered as terminating, it would not be easy to define by words ; since the limit varies, not merely with the amount of the sacrifice required, but with the extent of former parental favour, that may have required a greater or less return of grateful compliances, from the tenderness of filial obligation. I need not add, that in any case of doubtful duty, a virtuous son will always be inclined to widen, in some degree, rather than to narrow, the sphere .of his obedience. As the duty of obedience flows from the necessary power of the parent, in relation to the ignorance and weakness of those who are new to life, and therefore need his guidance, the filial duties of another class flow from the benefits conferred by the parent-benefits greater than can be conferred by any other; since to them is due the very capacity of profiting by the bene- fits of others. Of how many cares must every human being have been the subject, before he could acquire even the thoughtless vigour of boyhood ; and how many cares additional were necessary then, to render that thought- less vigour something more than the mere power of doing injury to itself! They whose constant attendance was thus necessary to preserve our very 383 ON THE FILIAL DUTIES. 384 being,-to whom we owe the instruction which we have received,-and, in a great measure, too, our very virtues, may have sometimes, perhaps, exer- cised a rigour that Was unnecessary; or abstained from affording us comforts which we might have enjoyed without any loss of virtue. But still the amount of advantage is not to be forgotten on account of same slight evil. We owe them much, though we might have owed them more; and, owing them much, we cannot morally abstain from paying them the duties of those who owe much. They should have no wants, while we have even the hum- blest superfluity,-or rather, while want is opposed, to want, ours is not that of which we should be the first to think. In their bodily infirmities, we are the attendants who should be most assiduous round their couch or their chair; and even those mental infirtnities of age which are more disgusting-the occasional peevishness, which reproaches for failures of duty that were not intended-the caprice that exacts one day what it would not permit the day before, and what it is again to refuse on the succeeding day;-we are to bear, not as if it were an effort to bear them, and a sacrifice to duty; but with that tenderness of affection which bears much, because it loves much; and does not feel the sacrifices which it occasionally makes, because it feels only the love which delights in making them. Lovely as virtue is in all its forms, there is no form in which it is more lovely than in this tender ministry of office's of kindness,'-where the kind- ness, perhaps, is scarcely felt, or considered less as kindness, than as the duty which might have, been fairly demanded, and which there is no merit therefore, in having paid. Though we have often the gratification of seeing, in the progress of life, many beautiful examples of age, that is not more venerable for its past virtues, than amiable with a lasting and still increasing gentleness, which softens the veneration, indeed, but augments it even while it softens it,-it is not always that the last years of life present to us this de- lightful aspect; and when the temper is, in these last years, unfortunately clouded,-when there is no smile of kindness in the faded eye, that grows bright again for moments, only when there is fretfulness in the heart,-when the voice that is feeble, only in the utterance of grateful regard, is still some- times loud, with tones of a very different expression,-the kindness which, in its unremitting attention, never shows by a word or look, the sadness that is felt on these undeserved reproaches, and that regards them only as proofs of a weakness that requires still more to be comforted,-is a kindness which virtue alone can inspire and animate, but which, in the bosom that is capable of it, virtue must already have well rewarded. How delightful is the spec- tacle, when, amid all the temptations of youth and beauty, we witness some gentle heart that gives to the couch of the feeble, and, perhaps, of the thank- less and repining, those hours which others find too short for the successive gaieties with which an evening can be filled; and that prefers to the smile of universal admiration, the single smile of enjoyment which, after many vain efforts, has at last been kindled on one solitary cheek ! If filial - love be thus ready to bear with bodily and moral infirmities, it is not less ready to. bear with intellectual weakness. There is often, especially in the middle classes of life, as great a difference of mental culture in the parent and the child, as if they had lived at the distance of many centuries. The wealth that has been acquired by patient industry, or some fortunate adventure, may be employed in diffusing all the refinement of science and literature to the children of those, to whom the very words, science, and litera- ture, are words of which they would scarcely be able, even with the help of a dictionary, to understand the meaning. In a rank of life still lower, there are not wanting many meritorious individuals, who, uninstructed themselves, labour indefatigably to obtain the means of liberal instruction-for one, whose wisdom, in after years, when he is to astonish the village,' may gratify at once their ambition and love. It would, indeed, be painful to think, that any one, whose superiority of knowledge has cost his parents so much fatigue, and so many privations of comforts, which, but for the expense of the means of his acquired superiority, they might have enjoyed, should turn against them, in his own mind, the acquirements which were to them of so costly a pur- chase,-despising them for the very ignorance which gave greater merit to their sacrifice, and proud of a wisdom far less noble, when it ean thus feel contempt, than the humble ignorance which it despises. He who, in the fulfilment of every filial duty, has obeyed as a son should obey, and loved as a son should love, may not, indeed, with all his obedience and affection, have been able to return an amount of benefit equal to that which he has received; but, in being thus virtuous, he has at least made the return that is most grateful to a virtuous parent's heart. He has not been unsuccessful in that contest of mutual love, in which, as Seneca truly says, it is happy to conquer and happy to be overcome. " Alia ex aliis exempla subeunt,"-he remarks, after citing many instances of filial duty,-" eorum qui parentes suos periculis eripuerunt, qui ex infimo ad summum protulerunt; ct e plebe acervoque ignobili nunquam tacendos saeculis dederunt. Nulla vi verborum, nulla' ingenii facilitate exprimi potest, quantum opus sit, quam lau- dabile, quamque nunquam a memoria hominum exiturum, posse hoc dicere, Parentibus meis parui, cessi: imperio eorum, sive tequum, sive iniquum ac du- rum fuit, obsequentem submissumque me prasbui: ad hoc unum cqntumax fui, ne beneficiis vincerer: Felices qui vicerint: felices qui vincentur. Quid eo adolescente praeclarius, qui sibi ipsi dicere poterit (neque enim fa's est alteri dicere) Patrem meum beneficiis vici 1 Quid eo fortunatius sene, qui omni- bus ubique praedicabit, a filio suo se beneficiis victum !"* Such is that beautiful arrangement of Heaven, to which I have already so often alluded, that, in adapting the weakness of one generation to the strength of the generation which preceded it, and to the love which finds an object of increasing regard in the very wants winch are every moment relieved or prevented, has made that which might seem to common eyes, a provision only for the continued existence of the race of man, a source of more than half the virtues of mankind. It is thus truly, as Pope says, that He ON THE FILIAL DUTIES. 385 Who fram'd a whole, the whole to bless, On mutual wants built mutual happiness. So, from the first, eternal order ran, And creature link'd to creature, man to man. Whate'er of life all-quickening ether keeps Or breathes through air, or shoots beneath the deeps, Or pours profuse on earth, one nature feeds The vital flame, and swells the genial seeds. Thus beast and bird their common charge attend, The mothers nurse it, and the sires defend ; The young dismiss'd to wander earth or air, There stops the instinct, and there ends the care, The link dissolves, each seeks a fresh embrace * De Benef. Lib. III. cap. xxxviii. Vol. II. 386 ON THE FRATERNAL DUTIES. Another love succeeds, another race. A longer care Man's helplesss kind demands ; That longer care contracts more lasting bands. Still as one brood, and as another rose, These natural love maintained, habitual, those. Reflection, rgaeon, tdill ties improve, At once extend the interest atid the love; And still new deeds, new helps, new habits rise, , That graft benevolente'on charities.* in order to the relationship of the parent and child, may be consi- dered the relation which the child bears to those who are united with him by the same tie, to the 'same parental bosoms. If friendship be delightful,-if it be above all delightful to enjoy the ■continued friendship of those who are endeared to us by the intimacy of many years, who can discourse with us of the frolics of the .school, of the adventures and studies of the college, of the years when we first ranked ourselves with men in the free society of the world,-how delightful must be the friendship of those who, accompanying us through all this long period, with a closer union than any casual friend, can go still farther back, from the school to the very nursery, which witness- ed our common pastimes,-who have had an interest in every event that has related to us, and in eVery person that has excited our love or our hatred,- who have honoured with us those to whom we have paid every filial honour in life, and wept with us over those whose death has been to vis the most lasting sorrow of our heart. Such, in its wide unbroken sympathy, is the friendship of brothers,--considered even as friendship-only-.and how many circutnstances of additional interest does this union receive, from the com- mon relationship to those.who have original claims to our still higher regard, and to whom we offer an acceptable service, in extending our affection to those whom they love. In treating of the circumstance?, that tend peculiar- ly to strengthen this tie, Cicero extends his view even to the common sepul- chre that is at last to enclose us" Sanguinis conjunctio devincit caritate homines. Magnum est enim, eadem habere monumenta iisdem uti sacris, sepulchra habere conjmunia." It is, indeed, a powerful image, a symbol and almost a lesson of unanimity. Every dissension of man with man, excites in us a feeling of painful incongruity. But we feel a peculiar incongruity in the discord of those, whom one roof has continued to shelter during life, and whose dust is afterwards to be mingled under a single stone. ,. . .. v •. On the fraternal duties, however, I need not dwell, because they may be considered very nearly in the same light, as the duties of that friendship, to which I have already compared them,-the duties of a cordial intimacy, rendered more sacred by relationship to the parents from whom we have sprung, and to whom we owe common ' duties, as we have been objects of common cares. By the peculiar domestic attachments of this sort, and the mutual services thence arising, the world is benefited with the accession to its general happiness, of the reciprocal enjoyments of a regard that lifts al- ready found friends, before it could have thought of seeking them. Sur- rounded by the aged,-or at least by those who are aged in relation to his first years of boyhood, the child would hgve learned only to respect and obey. With the little society of his equals around him, he learns that inde- * Essay on Man, Ep. III. v. Ill, &c pendence and equality of friendship, which train him to the affections that are worthy of a free and undaunted spirit, in the. liberty and equal society of maturer years. As a son, he learns to be a good subject;-as a brother,he learns to be a good citizen., ' • The duties which we owe- to more distant relations, vary, as might naturally be supposed, with the circumstances of society, according to the varyingmeces- sity of mutual aid. Where the protection of law is feeble', and it is necessary, therefore, for many to unite', in common defence,- the families that spring from one copimon stock, continue to cling to each Other for aid, almost as if they lived together under the same roof;-it is truly one wide family rather than a number of families ; the history of the tribe, in its most remote years of warfare and victory, is the history of each individual of the tribe; and the mere remembrance of the exploits of those, who fought with one com- mon object, around the.representative of their common ance'stor, is like the feeling of the fraternal or filial relation itself, prolonged from age to age ; while the affection thus flowing from the remembrance of other years, is continually strengthened, by the important services, which qach individual is still able to perform for the whole, qn occasions of similar peril. In other circumstances of society, the necessity of this mutual aid is obviated by the happier protection of equal law ; and objects of new ambition, separating the little community into families, that have their own peculiar interests, with little if any necessity for reciprocations of assistance, the duty of giving such assistance is at once less important, and no longer receives any aid from the powerful circumstances of association, which, in a different state of manners, rendered the most distant relative an object of almost sacred regard. " It is not many years .ago," says Dr. Smith, " that, in the Highlands of Scotland, the chieftain used to consider the poorest man of his clan as his cousin and relation. The same- extensive regard to kindred is said to take place among the Tartars, the Arabs, the Turkomans,'and, I believe, among all other nations who are nearly in the same state of society in which the Scots Highlanders were about the beginning of the present century. . " In commercial countries, where the authority of law is always perfectly sufficient to protect the meanest man in the state, the descendants of the same family, having no such motive for keeping together, naturally separate and disperse, as interest or inclination may direct. They soon cease to be of importance to one another; and, in a few generations not only lose all care about one another, but all remembrance of their common origin, and of the connexion which took place among their ancestors. Regard for remote relations becomes, in every country, less and less, according as this state of civilization has been longer and more completely established. It has been longer and more completely established in England than in Scotland; and remote relations are, accordingly, more considered in the latter country than in the former, though, in this respect, the difference between the two coun- tries is growing less and less every day. Great lords, indeed, are, in every country, proud of remembering and acknowledging their connexion with one another, however remote. The remembrance of such illustrious relations flatters not a little the family pride of them al]; and it is neither from affec- tion, nor any thing which resembles affection, but from the most frivolous and childish of all vanities, that this remembrance is so carefully kept up. Should some more humble, though, perhaps, much nearer kinsman, pre- sume to put such great men in mind of his relation to their family, they ON THE FRATERNAL DUTIES. 387 388 seldom fail to tell him that they are bad genealogists, and miserably ill-in- formed concerning their own family history. It is not in that order, I am afraid, that we are to expect any extraordinary extension of what is called natural affection."* The duties to which I next proceed, are those which flow from an affec- tion, that is one of the most powerful indeed of the affections which nature prompts, but to which she does not point out any particular individual as de- manding it, without our choice. The only influence which she exercises, is on our choice itself. ' • . . « It is the conjugal relation of which 1 speak, a relation of which the duties, like the duties of aH our other reciprocal affinities, however minutely divid- ed and subdivided, are involved in the simple obligation to make those who are the'objects of it,- as -happy as it is in our power to make them. In these few simple words, however, what a complication of duties is in- volved,-of duties which it is.less easy for the ethical inquirer to state and define, than for the heart which feels affectiqp, to exercise them all with in- stant readiness ! He who loves sincerely the object of any one of those re- lations, which bind us together in amity, and who is wise enough to discern the difference of conferring a momentary gratification, which may produce more misery than happiness, and of conferring that which is not merely pre- sent happiness, but a source of future enjoyment,--needs no rule of duty, as far at least as relates to that single individual, for tlie direction of a conduct, of which love itself, unaided by any other guidance;, will be a quick and vigi- lant director. The husband should have, then, as his great object and rule of conduct, the happiness of the wife. Of that happiness, the confidence in his affection is the chief element; and the proofs of this affection on his part, therefore, constitute his chief duty,-an affection that is not lavish of caresses only, as if these were the only demonstrations of love, but of that respect which dis- tinguishes love as a principle, from that brief passion which assumes, and only assumes, the name,-a respect which consults the judgment, as well as the wishes, of the object beloved,-which considers her, who is worthy of being taken to the heart, as worthy of being admitted to all the counsels of the heart. If there be any delights, of which he feels the value as essential to his own happiness,-if his soul be sensible to the charms of literary excel- lence,-and if he considers the improvement of his own understanding, and the cultivation of his Own taste, aS a duty, and one of the most delightful du- ties of an intellectual being,-he will not consider it as a duty or a delight that belongs only to man, but will feel it more delightful, as there is now ano- ther soul that may share with him all the pleasure of the progress. To love the happiness of her whose happiness is in his affection, is of course to be conjugally faithful; but it is more than to be merely faithful; it is, not to al- low room even for a doubt as to that fidelity, at least for such a doubt as a reasonable mind might form. It is truly to love her best-but it is also to seem to feel that love which is truly felt. As the happiness of the wife is the rule of conjugal duty to the husband, the happiness of the husband is in like manner the rule of conjugal duty to the wife. There is no human being, whose affection is to be <o her like his affection, as there is no happiness which is to be to her like the happiness which he enjoys. AH which I have said of the moral obligation of the hus- ON THE DUTIES * Theory of Moral Sentiments, Vol II. p. 70-7'2. ]Oth edit. band, then, is not less applicable to her duty ; but, though the gentle duties belong to both, it is to her province that they more especially belong; be- cause she is at once best fitted by nature fbr the ministry of tender courtesies, and best exercised in the offices that inspire them. While man is occupied in other cares during the business of the day, the business of her day is but the continued discharge of many little duties, that have a direct relation to wedlock, in the common household which it has formed. He must often forget her, or be useless to the world : she is- most useful to the world, by remembering him. From the tumultuous scenes which agitate many of his hours, he returns to the calm scene, where peace awaits him, and happiness is sure to await him-because she is there waiting, whose smile is peace, and whose very presence is more than happiness to his heart. OF THE CONJUGAL RELATION. 389 " Here Love his golden shafts employs,-Imre lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings- Here reigns and revels." The vows, which constitute a solemn part of the matrimonial engagement, give to this duty of reciprocal love the sanction of an additional authority ; but they only give an additional sanction, and increase the guilt of violating duties, which, without these vows, it would still have been guilt to vio- late. * • • The husband is to seek the happiness of his wife, the wife to seek the happiness of her husband. This rule is sufficiently simple and efficacious, where affection is sufficiently strong, as in the domestic scenes of harmony and delight which I have pictured. But there maybe cases of occasional disagreement, and then what is the duty? In such cases, it is obviously ne- cessary, that for mutual peace the will of one should be submitted to the will of the other ;-and, if a point, so importantas this, were left to the decision of the individuals themselves without any feeling of greater duty .on either side,-the disagreement, it is evident, would still be continued, under a dif- ferent name ; and, instead of combating who should concede, the controver- sy .would be, of whom it was the duty to make the concession. It is.of most important advantage, therefore, upon the whole, tliat there should be a feel- ing of duty to be called in for decision, in such unfortunate cases ; and since from various circumstances, natural and factitious, man is every where in possession of physical and political superiority,-since his education is usual- ly less imperfect, and since the charge of providing for the support of the fa- mily, in almost every instance, belongs to him-it is surely, from all- these circumstances, fit upon the whole, that, if the power of decision, in doubtful matters, should be given to one rather than to the other, it should be with man that it is to rest-whatever number of exceptions there may be, in which but for the importance of the general rule, it would have been of advan- tage, that woman, in those cases the wiser and more virtuous, were the decider. The power of decision, therefore, which for the sake of peace, must be understood as resting somewhere, should rest with man; but though it rest with him, it is only in unfortunate cases, as I before said, that the power of authoritative decision should be exercised. In the general circumstances,of conjugal life, there should be absolute equality, because, where love should be equal, there should be that equal desire of conferring happiness, which is implied in equality of love ; and he, who, from the mere wish of gratifying 390 ON THE DUTIES his feeling of superiority, can wilfully thwart a wish of her, whose wishes,- where they do not lead to any moral or prudential impropriety,-should be to him, like his own, or even deafer thq.n his own, if they did not truly be- come his wishes, when known <o be hers,--would deserve»no slight punish- ment, as the violator of conjugal obligation, if he were not almost Sufficiently punished in the v*ery want of that better affection, the delightful feeling of which would have saved him from his tyranny of power. " The husband, it has been said, should decide, in affairs of-importance,-- the wife in smaller matters. But the husband should decide, in consulting his wife,-the'wife in seeking what is to please her. husband. Let them learn, often, the pleasure of mutual concessions. Let them say often, I wish this because it is right; but let them say sometimes, too, 1 wish this much, be- cause* I love you."* The great evil, in - matrimonial life,'is the cessation of those cares, which were regarded as necessary lor obtaining love, but which are unfortunately conceived to be les§.necessary,, when love is once obtained. The careless- nesses of a husbaild are not less severely felt, however, because-they wo the neglects of one whose attentions are more valuable, as lie who offers them is more valued; and frequent inattentions, by producing frequent displeasure, may at last, though they do not destroy love wholly, destroy the best happi- ness of love. No advice can- be more salutary for happiness-than that which recommends an equal attention to please, and anxiety not to offend, after twenty years of wedlock, as when it was the object of the lover to awake the passion, on which he conceited every enjoyment of bib life to depend. We gain at least as much, in preserving a heart, as in conquering one. • . • »' The cessation of these cares would be, of itself, no slight evil, even though love had originally been less profuse of them, than it usually is, in the extra- vagance of ah unreflecting passion. She who has been worshipped as a god- dess, must feel doubly the insult of the neglect, which afterwards disdains to bestow on Iter, tire common honour that is paid to woman ; and with the or- dinary passions of a human being, it will be difficult for her to retain, 1 will not say love-for that is abandoned-but the decorous and dignified sem- blance of love, for him who has cared little for the reality of it. It is not easy to say by how insensible a transition, in many cases, this conjugal re- sentment, or forced indifference, passes into conjugal infidelity ;-though it is easy in such a case, to determine, to whom the greater portion of the guilt is to be ascribed. But it will perhaps be said, love is not dependent on our mere will-and how can we continue to love one, whom no effort of ours can prevent us from discovering to be unworthy of our continued affection ? But by whom is this objection usually made ?-Not by those, who, in engaging to love, and ho- nour, and cherish during life, have been careful in considering who it was, to whom they entered under this solemn engagement. It is, in almost every instance, the objection of those, who, when they formed the engagement, made a vow, of the real import of which they were regardless ; .and who af- terwards dare to plead one crime as the justification of another. There are duties of marriage, which begin before the marriage itself, in the provision that is made for matrimonial virtue and happiness; and he who neglects the means of virtuous love, in a state of which virtuous love is to be the prin- * St. Lambert, CEuv. Phil. Tome ITT. p. OF THE CONJUGAL RELATION. 391 oipal charm, is far more inconsiderate, and far more guilty, than the heed- less producer of misery, who forms a matrimonial connexion, without the prospect of any means of subsistence, for one who is to exist with him; only to suffer with him in indigence, and for die little sufferers who are afterwards to make indigence still more painfully felt. He who has vowed to love one to whom he pledges love, only because he knows that she is worthy of such a pledge, will not afterwards have reason to complain bf the difficulty of loving the unworthy. If, however, it be necessary for man to be careful to whom he engages him- self by a vow so solemn, it is surely not less necessary ibr the gentler tender- ness,of woman. She, too, has duties to fulfil, that depend on love, Qr at least that can be sweetened only by love ; and when she engages to perform them where love is not felt, she is little aware of the precariousness of such a pledge, and of the perils to which she is exposing herself. It is truly pain- ful, then, to see, in the-intercourse of the world, how seldom affection is con- sidered as a necessary matrimonial preliminary,-at least in one of the par- ties, and in the one to. whom it is die rfiore necessary ; and how much quick- er the judgment of fathers, mothers, friends, is to estimate the wealth or the worldly dignity, than the wisdom or the virtue, which they present as a fit offering to her, whom wealth and worldly dignity may render only weaker and more miserable, but whom wisdom might counsel, and virtue cherish. It is painful to see one, who has in other respects; perhaps, many moral ex- cellencies, consent as an accomplice in this fraud, to forego the moral deli- cacy which condemns the apparent sale of affection, that is not to be sold,- rejoice in the splendid sacrifice which is thus made of her peace,-consign her person to one whom she despises, with the same indifference as she con- signs her hand,-a prostitute for gold, not less truly because the prostitution is to be for life, and not less criminally a prostitute, because to the guilt, and meanness of the pecuniary barter, are added the guilt of a mock,ery of ten- derness, that wishes to deceive man, and the still greater guilt of a perjury, that, in vows which the heart belies, would wish to deceive God, on whom it calls to sanction the deceit. When marriages are thus formed, it is not for the sufferer to complain, if she find that she has acquired a few more trappings of wealth, but not a hus- band. She has her house, her carriage, and the living machines that are paid to wait around her and obey her; she takes rank in public specta- cles, and presides in her own mansion, in spectacles as magnificent; sire has obtained all she wished to obtain ;-and the affection and happiness, which she scorned, she must leave to those who sought them. " There is a place on the earth," it has been said, " where pure joys are unknown-from which politeness is banished, and has given place to selfish- ness, contradiction, and half-veiled insults. Remorse and inquietude, like fu- ries, that are never weary of assailing, torment the inhabitants. This place is the house of a wedded pair, who have no mutual love nor even esteem.- There is a place on the earth, to which vice has no entrance,-where the gloomy passions have no empire,-where pleasure and innocence live con- stantly together,-where cares and labours are delightful,-where every pain is forgotten in reciprocal tenderness,-where there is an equal enjoyment of the past, the present, and the future. It isffie house, too, of a wedded pair - but of a pair who, in wedlock, are lovers still."* * St. Lambert, CEuv. Phil. Tome II. p. 68. 392 LECTURE L XXXIX. ON THE DUTIES OF FRIENDSHIP; DUTIES OF GRATITUDE. Gentlemen, in our arrangement of the duties which we owe to particular individuals, as reducible to five orders,-those which arise from affinity,-you will remember, constituted the first division. The particular duties, as yet considered by us, have all belonged to the first division-the duties of relationship,-parental, filial, fraternal, con- jugal; in the exercise of which, and in the reciprocal enjoyment of them as exercised by others, is to be found that gracious system of domestic virtue, under the shelter of which man reposes in happiness-and resting thus, in the confidence of affection and delight, becomes purer of heart, and more actively beneficent, by the very happiness which he feels. It is of these domestic virtues that we must think, when we think of the morals of a nation. A nation is but a shorter name for the individuals who compose it; and when these ate good fathers, good sons, good brothers, good husbands, they will be good citizens; because the principles which make them just and kind under the domestic roof, will make them just and kind to those who inhabit with them that country, which is only a larger home. The household fire, and the altar, which are coupled together in the exhortations of the leaders of armies, and in the hearts of those whom they address, havd a relation more intimate than that of which they think, who combat for both. It is before the household fire, that every thing which is holy and worthy of the altar is formed. There, arose the virtues that were the virtues of the child, before they were the virtues of the warrior or the statesman; and the mother who weeps with delight at the glory of her son, when a whole nation is exulting with her, rejoices over the same heroic for- titude that, at a period almost as delightful to her, in the little sacrifices which boyish generosity could make, had already often gladdened her heart, when she thought only of the gentle virtues before, her, and was not aware of half the worth of that noble offering, which she was speedily to make to her country, and to the world. From the domestic affinities, the transition is a very easy one, to that bond of affection which unites friend to friend, and gives rise to an order of duties almost equal in force, to those of the nearest affinity. We are formed to be virtuous,-to feel pleasure, in contemplating those parts of our life, which present to us the remembrance of good deeds, as we feel pain, in contemplating other portions of it, which present to us onlv remembrances of moral evil; and the same principle, which makes us love in ourselves what is virtuous, renders it impossible for us to look with indif- ference on the virtues of another. The principle of moral emotion alone, would thus be sufficient to lead to friendship, though there were no other principle in our nature, that could tend to make a single human being an ob- ject of our regard- * But we are not lovers of virtue only,-we are lov.ers of many other qualities, which add to our happiness, not so much as our own virtues indeed, but often as much as we could derive, in the same space of time, from the mere virtue of those with whom we mix in society. We love gaiety, and we, therefore, love those who can render us gay, by their wit, by the fluency of their social eloquence, by those never-ceasing- smiles of good humour, which are almost to our quick sympathy of emotion, like wit and eloquence;-we hate sorrow, and we love those, who, by the same powerful aid, can enable us to shake off the burden of melancholy, from which our own efforts are, as we have too often found, unable of them- selves to free us;-we have plans of business or amusement; and we love those whose co-operation is necessary to their success, and who readily afford* to us that co-operation which we need;-we are doubtful, in many cftses, as to the propriety of our own conduct; and, if all others acted differently,' we should be driven back to the uncertainty or the reproach of our own conscience, without any consolation from without; we, therefore, love those who, by acting as we act, seem to say to us that we have-.done well;, or who, at least, when it is impossible for us to flatter ourselves with this illusion, comfort us with the only palliation which our conscience can admit, that we are not more reprehensible than others around ns. Even without regard to all these causes of love, it is miserable to us to be alone. The very nature of. all our emotions leads them to pour themselves out to some other breast; and the stronger the emotion, the more ardent is this propensity. We* must make some one know why we are glad, or our gladness will be an oppres- sion to us, almost as much as a delight. If we are in wrath, our anger seems to us incomplete, till not one only, but many, share our resentment. The sovereign would feel little pleasure, in all the splendour of his if he were to sit upon it for ever, with subjects around him, to whom he was to be always a sovereign, and only a sovereign ; and the very misanthrope, who abandons the race of mankind, in his detestation of their iniquity,-must still have some one with whom he may give vent to his indignation, by de- scribing the happiness which he feels in having left the wicked to that univer- sal wickedness which is worthy of them, and which he almost loves, be- cause it enables him to hate them more thoroughly. Thus lavish has nature been to us, of the principles of friendship. With all these causes, that, singly, might dispose to cordial intercourse, and that exert in most cases an united influence, it is not wonderful, that the tenden- cy to friendship of some sort, should be a part of our mental constitution, almost as essential to it, as any of our appetites. It is scarcely a metaphor, indeed, which we employ, when we term it an appetite,-an appetite arising from our very nattire as social beings; and, if our appetites, like our other desires, bear any proportion to the amount of the good which is their object, it must be one of the most vivid which it is possible for us to feel; because it relates to a species of happiness, which is among the most vivid of our enjoyments,-in many cases approaching the delight of the most intimate domestic relations,-and scarcely to be counted inferior to tire delight arising from any other source, unless when we think of that virtue which is essehtial to the enjoyment of all. To take friendship from life, says Cicero, would be almost the same thing, as to take the sun from the world. " Solem a mundo tollere videntur, qui amicitiam e vita tollunt." It is, indeed, the sun- shine of those who otherwise would walk in darkness; it beams with un- clouded radiance on our moral path, and is itself warmth and beauty to the very path, along which it invites us to proceed. He know-s not, how poor all the splendours of worldly prosperity are in themselves, who enjoys them with that increase of happiness which friendship has given to them ; and he who is still rich enough to have a friend, cannot know what extreme poverty ON THE DUTIES OF FRIENDSHIP. 393 Vol. II. 394 and misery are; because the only misery which is truly misery, is that which has no one to comfort it. ON THE DUTIES OF FRIENDSHIP. Celestial Happiness, whene'er she stoops To visit Earth,-one shrine the Goddess finds. And one alone,-to make her sweet amends For absent Heaven,-the boson! of a friend,- Where heart meets heart, reciprocally soft, Each other's pillow to repose divine.* " Quantum bonum est, ubi sunt praeparata peetdra, in qute tuto secretum omnd descendat, quorum conscientiam minus quam tuam timeaS, quorufh sermo solicitwdinem leniat, sententia consilium expediat, hilaritas tristitiam dissipet, conspectus ipse delectet." How great a blessing is it, to have bosoms ever ready for receiving and preserving faithfully, whatever we may wish to confide, whose conscious memory of our actions we may fear less than our own,-wltose discourse may alleviate our anxiety, whose Counsel may fix our own doubtful judgment, whose hilarity may dissipate our sorrow', whose very aspect may delight. There is unquestionably, in the very presence of a friend, a de1ight*of this sort, which has no other source than the consciousness of the presence of one who feels for us the regard which we feel for him. " When 1 ask myself," says Montaigne, after a very lively description which he gives of his affection for his friend,-"When I ask myself, whence it is, that J feel this joy, this ease, this serenity, when I see him,-it is because it is he, it is because it is I, 1 answer ; and this'is all which 1 can say." On the delights which friendship affords, however, it would be idle to ex- patiate. There is no subject, scarcely even with the exception of love itself, on which so much has been written, by philosophers and deciaimers of ah sorts, in prose and poetry. I might repeat to you innumerable common places on the subject, and prove to you, logically, by many arguments, that what you have all felt to be-delightful, is delightful. For the evidence of this, however, I may safely leave you to your own consciousness. You have many friendships, arid, perhaps, your most important and permanent friend- ships still to form; but if you have never yet felt what friendship is, thoae is little reason to think that you will eVer feel it; and if you have felt it, though you may not yet have been in situations, that might enable you to derive from it all the advantages which it is capable of yielding, the very consciousness of the regard itself will enable you to anticipate them alb. He who has never been in poverty, in long and almost hopeless disease, in any deOp dis- tress of any sort, may yet know, what consolation the attentions of friend- ship would administer to the sorrow, which lie has never felt; and if he ever feel the sorrow and the consolation, will not acquire any new knowledge of the extent of the delightful influence which he had long known how to ap- preciate, but only a new cause of gratitude to him, who, in doing much-, had done only what it was expected of his ready tenderness and generosity to do. " There is, indeed," as it has been truly said, " only one species of misery which friendship cannot comfort,-the misery of atrocious guilt,-but hearts capable of genuine friendship, are not capable of committing ('rimes. Though it cannot comfort guilt, however, which ought not to be comforted, friendship is still, able to console, at least, the too powerful remembrance of efur faults and weaknesses; its voice reconciles us to ourselves ; it shows us * Night Thoughts. Night Second. the means of rising again from our fall ; and our fall itself leads others to forget, in the same manner as it leads us to forget it, by recalling to us, and to others, our estimable qualities, and prompting us to the* exercise of them. Friendship repairs every thing-remedies every thing-comforts every thing."*. ♦ . Friendship, however, is not a source of pleasure only ; it is also a source of duty ; and it is chiefly in this respect that we are now to regard it. The duties that relate to friendship may be'considered'in three lights-as they regard the of it-the continuance of it-and its close. Our first duties are those which relate to the clxfice of a friend. If we were sufficiently aware, how great a command over our whole life, we givfe to any one whom we admit to our intimacy-how ready we are to adopt the errors of those whom we love ; and to regard their very faults, not merely as excusable, but as objects of imitation,-or at least to imitate them without thinking whether they ought to be imitated, and without know- ing even that we are imitating them,-we should be' a little more careful than we usually are, in making a choice, which is to decide, in a great mea- sure, whether we are to be virtuous or vicious, happy or miserable,-or which, in many cases, if we still continue happy, upon the whole, must often disturb our happiness; and, if we still continue virtuous, make virtue a greater -effort. " The bandage which, in our poetic fictions, we, give to Love," says the Marchioness de Lambert, " we have neve? thought of hang- ing over the clear and piercing eyes of Friendship. Friendship has no blind- ness : it examines before it engages, and attaches itself only to merit."f The picture is a beautiful one; but it is a picture rather of what friendship ought to be, than of what friendship always is. The bandage; indeed, is not so thick, as that which covers the eyes of love, and it is not so constantly worn ; but when it is worn, though it admits some light, it does not admit all. We must tear it off, before we see clearly ; or we must.be careful, at least, what hands they are which we permit to put it on. It is before we yield ourselves, then, to the regard, that we should strive to estimate the object of it, and to estimate his value, not by the gratification of a single day, but by the influence which he may continue to exercise on our life. If friendship, indeed, were a mere pastime, that ended with the amusement of some idle hours, it might be allowed to us to Select, for our companions, those who might best amuse our idleness; it would be enough to us, then, that our friend was gay, and had the happy talent of making others gay. If it were a mere barter of courtesy, for a little wealth or dis- tinction, it might be allowed to us, in like manner, to select those whose power and opulence seemed to promise, to our ambition and avarice, the best re- turn of gain ;-it would then be enough, if our friend possessed a station that might enable him to elevate us, not perhaps, to his own rank, but at least a little higher than we are. Then, indeed, the propriety or impropriety of friendship might be estimated as readily, and almost in the same manner, as we estimate the worth of any common marketable commodity. But if it be an alliance of heart with heart,-if, in giving our sorrows or projects to be shared by another, we are to partake, in our turn, his sorrows or designs, whatever thev may be,-to consider the virtue of him whom we admit to OF THE DUTIES OF FRIENDSHIP. 395 * St. Lambert, CEuv. Phil. Tyme III. p. 82. t CEuv. Tome I. p. 236,18mo. Parte, 1761. 396 this diffusion with us of one common being and to yield our affection, only as we discover the virtue which alone is worthy of it, is almost the same thing as to consult for our own virtue. The vice of him whom we k>ve,- the vice which we must palliate to every censurer, and which we strive to palliate even to our own severe judgment, will soon cease to appear to us what it is ; and it will require but a little longer habit of palliation, and a little louger intercourse of pordial regard, to win from us that occasional con- formity, which, with us too, may soon become a habit. Even though we escape from the vices of the wicked, however, it would be impossible for us to escape from their misery. We must share the embarrassments and vexa- tions, the fear and the disgrace, to which their moral errors must inevitably lead them; and, though the friendship of the virtuous had no other superio- rity of attraction than this one, it would still be enough to determine the choice of the wise,-that, in becoming the friends of the good, they would have nothing to fear but misfortunes, which require pity only, and consola- tion,-not shame ; that, if they had no reason to blush for themselves, they would have no reason to blush for those, whom, by their selection, they had exhibited to the world as images of their own character; nor to feel, in the very innocence of their own heart, by the moral perplexities in which their sympathies involved them, if not what is hateful in guilt, at least all which is wretched in it. A single line of one of our old poets conveys, in this respect, a most sen- tentious lesson, in bidding us consider what sort of a friend he is likely to prove to us, who has been the destroyer, or at least the constant disquicter, of his own happiness. " See if he be Friend to himself, who would be friend to thee." The necessity of virtue, then, in every bosom of which we resolve to share the feelings, would be sufficiently evident, though we were to consider those feelings only ; but all the participation is not be on our part. We are to place confidence, as well as to receive it,-we are not to be comforters only, but sometimes too, the comforted ;-and our own conduct may require the defence, which we are sufficiently ready to afford to the conduct of our friend. Even with respect to the pleasure of the friendship itself,-if it he a pleasure on which We set a high value,-it is not a slight consideration, whether it be fixed on one, whose regard is likely to be as stable as ours, or on one, who may in a few months, or perhaps, even in a few weeks, withhold from us the very pleasure of that intimacy, which before had been profusely lavished on us. In every one of these respects, I need not point out to ypu the manifest superiority of virtue over vice. Virtue only is stable, because virtue only is consistent; and the caprice which, under a momentary impulse, begins an eager intimacy with one, as it began it frqm an impulse, as momen- tary with another, will soon find a third, with whom it may again begin it, with the.same exclusion, for the moment, of every previous attachment. Nothing can be juster than the observation of Rousseau on these hasty starts of kind- ness, that "he that treats us at first sight, like a friend of twenty years stand- ing, will, very probably, at the end of twenty years, treat us as a stranger, if we have any important service to request of him." If without virtue, we have a little to hope in stability, have we, even while ON THE DUTIES OF FRIENDSHIP. the semblance of friendship lasts, much more to hope, as to those services of kindness which we may need from our friends? The secrets, which it may be of no importance to divulge, all may keep with equal fidelity; be- c ause nothing is to be gained by circulating, what no man would take suffi- cient interest in hearing, to remember after it was heard ; but, if the secret be of a kind, which, if made known, would gain the favour of some one, whose favour it would be more profitable to gain than to retain ours, can we expect fidelity from a mind, that thinks only of what is to be gained by vice, in the great social market of moral feelings, not of what it is right to do? Ciin we expect consolation in our affliction, from one, who regards our ad- versity only as a sign, that there is nothing more to be hoped from our inti- macy; or trust our virtues to the defence of him, who defends or assails as interest prompts, and who may see his interest, in representing us as guilty of the very crimes, with which slander has loaded us! In such cases, we have no title to complain of the treacheries of friendship,-for it was not friendship in which we trusted,-the treachery, is as much the fault of the deceived as of the deceiver; we have ourselves violated some of the most important duties of friendship, the duties which relate to its commence- ment. ■ • . » • When friendship has commenced, after all those necessary cautions, which form its first set of duties, a new set of duties begin their obligation. We have chosen cautiously ; and we are now to confide;-we have chosen one whom it is virtuous to love, and we are to perform to him all the services of love. We are to confide, in the first place, not with that timid, irresolute commu- nication of our plans and wishes, which almost provokes to the very infidelity that appears to be suspected, but with that full opening of the heart, without which there is no confidence, and therefore none of the advantages of co .- fidence. "If you think any one your friend," a Roman moralist says, " in whom you do not put the 'same confidence as in yourself, you know not the real power of friendship. Consider long, whether the individual whom you view with regard, is worthy of being admitted to your bosom ; but when you have judged, and found him truly worthy, admit him to your very heart. You should so live, indeed, as to trust nothing to your conscience, which you would not trust to your enemy ; but, at least to your friend, let all be open. He will be the more faithful, as your confidence in his fidelity is more com- plete. " Si aliquerri atnicum existimas, cui non tantundem credis quantum tibi, vehementer erras, et non satis nosti vim verae amicitiae. Tu vero omnia cum amico delibera, sed de ipso prius. Post amicitiam credendum est, ante ami- citiam judicandum. Isti vero praepostere officia permiscent, qui contra prae- cepta Theophrasti, cum amaverint judicant, et non amant cum judicaverint. Diu cogita, an tibi in amicitiam aliquis recipiendus sit; cum placuerit fieri, toto ilium pectore admitte. Tam audacter cum illo loquere quam tecum. Tu quidem ita vive, ut nihil tibi committas, nisi quod committere etiam ini- mico possis : sed quia interveniunt quaedam, quae consuetudo facit arcana, cum amico omnes curas, omnes cogitationes tuas misce. Fidelem si putave- ris facies."* He who is worthy of our confidence is worthy of our kindness; and, therefore, of all the aid which our kindness can bestow. 1 need not say that ON THE DUTIES OF FRIENDSHIP. 397 * Senec. Ep. iii. Vol, II. p. 6. Amst. 398 we are guilty of a breach of duty, if with the power of furthering his ad<- vancement in life, we withhold our assistance. If he be in want, we should consider it not as a favour on our part, but as an additional value which he has conferred on oqr wealth, that he has given us an opportunity of making a more delightful rise of it, than any to which we, could iTave'kitowxi how to apply it, in any other circumstances. If be be in grief, we have an affection that knows how to diffuse a tender pleasure over sadness itself; and that, if it cannot overcome affliction,, can thus, at least,.alleviate it. If Ije be suffer- ing unmerited igpominy, we have a heart that knows his innocence, and a voice that can make itself be'heard, wherever virtue is allowed to syaeak. These duties are easy to be performed. The only duty; which is not easy, but ivhicjji is still more.necosBjiry than the others, is that which relates to mo- ral imperfections that may truly arise in him, or may become visible in him, only after our friendship has been given and received ; imperfections, which, slight as they may be at first, may, if suffered to continue, vitiate that whole character, which it is so delightful to us to love ; and which, in every import- ant respect, is still so worthy of being loved. The correction of these is our chief duty ; and every effort which it is in our potver to use for tins mo- ral emendation, is to be employee} sedulppsly, anxiously, urgently;-but .with ah the tenderness which such efforts admit, if in. presenting to him that form of perfect virtue, tp the imitation of which we wdsh to lead him, we make him feel more his own imperfection, titan the tenderness of that regard which seeks his amendment above every other object,-the error is not his alone. The duty which leads us to seek the moral reformation of our friend, whenever we perceive an imperfection that requires-to be removed, is, as 1 have said, tlie highest duty of friendship, because it is a duty that has for its object the highest good which it is in our power to confer; and he who re- frains from the necessary endeavour, because he fears to give pain to one whom he loves, is guilty of the same weakness which, in a case of bodily accident or disease, would withhold the salutary potion, because it is nau- seous, or the surgical operation which is to preserve life, and to preserve it with comfort-because the use of the instrument, which is to be attended with relief and happiness, implies a little momentary addition of suffering. To abstain'from every moral effort of this sort, in the mere fear of offending, is, from the selfishness of the motive, a still greater breach, of duty, and al- most, too, a still greater weakness. He, whom we truly offend, by such gentle admonitions as friendship dictates-admonitions of which the chief authority is sought in the very excellence of him whom we wish to make still more excellent-is not worthy of the friendship which we have waited on him ; and, if we thus lose his friendship, we are delivered from one who could not be sincere in his past professions of regard, and whose treachery, therefore, we might afterwards have had reason to lament. If he be worthy of us, he will not love us less, but love us more; lie will feel that we have done that which it vvas our duty to do;-and \ve shall have the double grati- fication, of witnessing the amendment which we desired, and of knowing that we have contributed to an effect, which was almost like the removal of a vice ft'orn ourselves, or a virtue added to our own moral character. The last set of duties, in relation to friendship, are those which regard its close. When friendship has been fixed, where alone it should be fixed, the close of ON THE DUTIES OP FRIENDSHIP. friendship is only the termination of the existence of those who feel it. But' with all the caution which it is possible for the best and wisest to employ in selection, it is still possible that they may be deceived, even as to important defects of character; though they may not be deceived as to the essen- tial virtues of the character, they may at least have failed to remark unfortu- nate circumstances of temper or general disposition, which nifty frustrate, afterwards, all the care that can be used to avoid what might lead to irrita- tioits and fretful suspicions, incompatible with permanent confidence. Friend- ship, then-that is to say, the cordial intimacy of friendship,-may cease, while those still live, who were its subjects ; but, when it ceases, from causes that would render it impossible to be. renewed with the' same interest as be-, fore, or that would render the renewal of it unwise, even though it were pos- sible,-it should be a. cessation of intimacy, and nothing more. The great duty of fidelity still remains; and in some measure too,-unless where there has been die provocation of injustice that.cancels the past, because it shows the seeming affection of the past, even when affection was credited, to have bpen deceit,-there remains still the deity of an interest, stronger than we should feel in the welfare of a stranger, who had never been connected with us by any tie of peculiar regard. Even when there has been such a disco- very of guilt, as would render immoral this remaining.interest, the duty of fidelity, as I have .said, renjains in all its force. What was confided to us, in years of confidence,.should still be as safe in our bosom a£ before. The only dispensation, by which it can be morally allowable for us to violate the trust, is the slander of our reputation by the confider himself, if be dare to assail our character, when the disclosure of the secret which he has trusted to us, would render manifest our innocence. His very attack, in that case, may be considered as a sort of tacit intimation to us, that his trust is at an end. When friendship, after continuing uninterrupted through life, not merely without diminution, but with perpetual accessions of confidence and happi- ness, is at last broken by the' death of one of the parties, its duties do not terminate to the survivor. He has a source of new duties in the remem- brances of the past, in the glory of his friend, which is ever present with him, -and in the expectation of that future life, in which he hopes to rejoin him, and which, by this.very hope, presents a new' motive to his own virtues. "Some persons,", says the Marquise de Lambert, "believe that there are no longer aqy duties to be fulfilled beyond the tomb; and there are but few who know how to be friends to the dead. Though the most magnificent fune- ral pomp be the tears and the silent sorrow of those who survive, and the most honourable sepulture be in their hearts, we must not think that tears which are shed from the sensibility of the moment, and sometimes too from causes, which in part at least, relate, to ourselves, acquit us of all our obliga- tion. The name of our-friends, their glory, their family, have still claims on our affection, which it would be guilt, not to feel. They should live still in our heart by the emotions which subsist there,-in our memory, by our fre- quent remembrance of them,-in our voice, by our eulogiums,-in our con- duct, by our imitation of their virtues."* After our consideration of the duties of friendship, which necessarily in- volve in them many feelings of gratitude for kindnesses received, it cannot require any long discussion to convince you of the duty of gratitude to our benefactors in general. ON THE DUTIES OF FRIENDSHIP. 399 * CEuv. Tome I. p. 248 ON THE DUTY OF GRATITUDE. 400 Of this, indeed, I have already treated so fully, in a former part of the course,-when,, in examining our moral emotions, 1 considered the emotion of gratitude itself as one of these,-that it would be almost superfluous to make any further remarks on it. It is one of the most pleasing proofs of the benevolence of Heaven, that the very production of good by one human being to another, is not attended with delight only to him who receives the favour, but with equal delight to him who confers it; and, with respect to the future also, that the desire of new beneficent exertions is not more deeply impressed on the mind ©f tl>e beneficent, by every repetition of his kindness, than on the mind of him who is the object of the kindness. Both are made happier,-both are made more eager to render happy. Our first emotion, on receiving good, is love of him from whom we receive it; our second emotion, is the wish of being able to render to him some mutual service; and he, whose generous life is a continued diffusion of happiness, may thus delight himself with the thought, that he has not -diffused happiness only, but that, in diffusing it, he has been, at the same timp, the diffuser of virtue,-at least, of wishes that were virtue for the time; and required nothing to convert them into beneficence, but the means of exercising them. So ready is gratitude to arise in almost every mind, that ingratitude to a benefactor, in every age of the world, has been regarded almost with the same species of abhorrence, as the violation of the dearest duties of consanguinity itself. He who could plunge a dagger into the heart of one who had con- ferred on him any signal service, would be viewed by us almost with the same fearful astonishment, with which we gaze on the parricide, who plunged his dagger into the heart that gave'him life. The tie which connects the benefactor with him on whom he has conferred a kindness, does not, however, give its whole duties to one party, though its principal duties belong to one. It is the duty of one, to love him from whom he has received important kindnesses,--to studjT the interests of him, by whom his own have been promoted,-and in every service which requires only zeal, and not a sacrifice of virtue, to be assiduous in repaying what can be repaid,-not from an eager wish to shake off the obligation, which is truly in itself a species of ingratitude, but from the sincere desire of increas- ing the happiness of one who is sincerely loved, and who has given so much reason to love him. These are the duties of the obliged. But though we are not much ac- customed to think of the duties of benefactors, the obliger too has moral ob- ligations to fulfil, and obligations which, while they are as truly incumbent as the duties of the obliged, are far more difficult to be fulfilled ;-the duty of making his benefits press as lightly, as benefits to the same amount can press, by unfailing attentions to him whom he has obliged,-a condescension, that makes itself felt, however, not as condescension, which would recall the obligation more powerfully, but only as kindness, which seems to arise with- out any thought of former benefits, from the overflowing goodness of a bene- volent heart. It would be manifestly cruel to repeat to any one, on whom we had conferred an important favour, " Remember the favour which I conferred on you but since it is not in the direct words only that such a meaning can be conveyed, it is cruel also, by excessive and ill placed forms of ostentatious civility, to seem constantly to say to him, that we are thus very kind, and that we have never forgotten the generosity which we showed him, at the distance, perhaps, of many years. When a benefactor forgets his duties, and makes a cruel use of the favours which he may have conferred, there is no tyrant whose cruelty is more op- pressive ; because it is the tyranny of one whom we cannot oppose like other tyrants. They may, indeed, shackle our arms ; but the iron clasp of this moral oppressor is placed where it is most powerfully felt, upon the heart itself, that may feel the worthlessness, but that is deprived of all power of raising against it. There are beings of this kind, who use the means of beneficence, only for purposes the most malevolent,-whose very gifts are snares,-who oblige that they may afterwards be malicious with im- punity,-exacting, ever after, from their unfortunate victim, assiduities and services which it is unreasonable to pay,-and rejoicing, if he fail in them, that they may have the still greater pleasure of proclaiming his ingratitude. " Ingratitude, indeed," as Rousseau justly observes, " would be far rarer than it is, if the benefactor were less frequently an usurer. What has done us good, is dear to us, by the very sentiment of our nature. Ingratitude is not in the heart of man; but interest is there; and the obliged who are un- grateful, are far fewer in number than the obligers, who are interested, and who have sold what they have only feigned to give. When is it," he con- tinues, " that we see any one who is forgotten by his benefactor, forget him ! A benefactor who can thus forget, the obliged never fails to remember,-he speaks of him with pleasure, as he thinks of him with tenderness. If an op- portunity occur, in which he can show, by any unexpected service, that he remembers the service which was before conferred upon himself,-with what internal delight does he then satisfy his gratitude,-with what expression of joy does he make himself recognised,-with what transport does he say, My turn is come ! Such is the genuine voice of nature. A kindness, that was truly a kindness, never yet found a bosom that was ungrateful."* The expression, if it were meant to be understood strictly, would certainly be a little too strong; since there may be ingratitude, even to the most gene- rous, as there may be any other atrocious offence. But it is only in the bo- soms of the most atrocious, that such ingratitude can arise : and of this, at least, we may be sure, that the best preservative against a failure of duty on the part of the obliged, is for the obliger himself to fulfil all the duties of a benefactor. ON THE DUTY OF GRATITUDE. 401 LECTURE XC. ON THE DUTIES OF CONTRACT; ON THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP. Gentlemen, we have now considered the nature of the duties which arise from our peculiar connexion with certain individuals, as are relatives in consanguinity or wedlock,-our friends,-our benefactors. There remain still to be considered by us, two species of duties, that arise from connexions of a more general kind, the duties of contract, which of course vary with the nature of our particular engagements,-and the duties of citizenship, or * (Euv. de J. J. Rousseau, Emile, liv. iv. Tome VII. p. 56. Paris. 1819. Vol. II. of patriotic regard, which extend to all tbe individuals that are comprehend- ed with us, under one system of government. Though the practical rules of morality, which regard contracts, strictly as contracts, are all founded on the great principle, that each party in the con- tract is under a moral obligation to fulfil what he has undertaken to perform, in the manner in which he had reason to believe the engagement to be un- derstood, by the party with whom he contracted,-it may be of advantage, to consider, separately, the contracts, which relate to objects of commercial barter, and those which relate to personal service. Some personal, services, indeed, are truly objects of barter, as much as any of the articles of daily sale, of which we usually think when we speak of commerce; but still thpre are so many other circumstances of moral influence connected with the contracts of service, that they may very fairly,-at least the most important of them, which connects the master and the servant, and admits a stranger into the general system of relationships,-be regarded in ethics, as constitut- ing a species apart. The command which mere barter gives us, even when the objects of the barter are present objects exchanged for present objects, is no slight acces- sion to the comfort of mankind. What is useless to ourselves is thus in- stantly invested with utility, by becoming the medium of acquiring for us, what is directly useful. But such direct barter, of present objects for pre- sent objects, would be only a small part of the commerce from which our wants might receive aid, if no more than the possessions of the present mo- ment, were allowed to enter into the mutual transference. We may have present wants, which the superfluities of others might gratify, though we may be, at present, without the possession of any thing which can purchase them as a fair equivalent; and we may have this inability of present purchase, with the certainty, that we shall at some period more or less near, love that which, if possessed by us now, would be gladly purchased from us, by the cession of those articles of use or luxury, which our wants of the moment require. A contract is truly, in its moral operation, such a transfer of the future for the present,-or of some future object, which we value less, for a future object which we value more. Its effect is to free us, in a great mea- sure, from the influence of time, as far as our mere commerce is concerned, -to render every thing which our power, in any moment of our life, may command, present, as it were, at the very hour in which we make our purchase,-enabling us thus to form, of all the property which we are ever to possess, and of all the energies which we are ever to be capable of exert- ing, one great fund, which we may employ with equal and ready command, for all the purposes that seem to us, at any one moment, most essential to our happiness. If that power, by which we are thus enabled to bargain for the future, be so important an instrument of public convenience, the breach of the con- tracts, on the stability of which, that is to say, on the good faith of which,- the power is founded, we may well suppose, will be regarded by the com- munity as an injury to its essential interests ; and the individual guilty of it, should feel, not merely the self-disapprobation, which arises from the thought of having deceived, for purposes of selfish profit, any one member of the community,-but that also, which arises from the thought of having contri- buted to weaken the great support of public confidence, and to reduce the whole power of society, to those few exertions, which it is capable of mak 402 ON THE DUTIES OF CONTRACT. ON THE DUTIES OF CONTRACT. 403 mg at any one instant, or the few immediate objects of barter, which are at any one instant absolutely possessed. Of that most useful power, which the general system of contracts gives us over time itself, he does all which an individual can do to deprive us;- for he does that, which if all other individuals did in like manner, the power of bargaining for the future, which exists only by mutual confidence, would cease instantly in mutual distrust. From a command over every moment of our life, we should be reduced to a single moment of it,-the moment, in which we could give with one hand, while we received with the other. Man, therefore, is morally bound to perform the engagements which he has undertaken to fulfil,-whether there be or be not, in the individual with whom the contract was made, any power of enforcing the fulfilment. In this obligation, where it has been voluntarily made, there are truly no limits but the physical power of the individual, and the independent morality of that which is undertaken to be performed. Where we have undertaken to perform, what no exertions on our part, however active and unremitting, could accomplish, we cannot feel remorse at not having done what we were unable to do; whatever moral disapprobation we may feel of our engage- ment itself, as undertaken rashly, and as tending to excite expectations in others, which, as they were beyond our power of gratifying them, we had no title to excite. In like manner, when the action which we have under- taken to perform, is one which, as affecting the happiness, or means of hap- piness of others whose happiness we have no title to disturb, it would be im- moral in us toperform, if we had not entered into the engagement,-the per- formance of it would be immoral still, though we may have entered into the most solemn engagement,-for there is no form of words, no promise, no oath, which can render just, what was injustice to others before. In sitch a case it cannot excite our remorse, that we have not done what it would be re- morse to have done:-our moral disapprobation of ourselves may arise, in- deed, and should rise :-but it arises at the remembrance of the engagement itself, not at the thought of the failure in the engagement. We have now to regret one delinquency. But if we had performed what we had en- gaged to do, we should then, instead of one species of moral regret, have been subject to two feelings of that sort. We should have had to repent, as now, of the guilt of engaging to do what was morally wrong,-and to repent also of the continued guilt of wilfully persisting in an action, which we feel to be iniquitous. When that which we have engaged to do, is truly within our power,-when it is undertaken voluntarily, and when the performance involves no violation of moral duty,-it would be a violation of moral duty not to perform it,-or, though perhaps, with more verbal exactness, to perform it less fully than we know to have been understood and intended, in the spirit of the mutual convention. The contract may, indeed, if we consider the mere words of it, often imply more or less than was understood by the parties at the time ; and though, in some cases, it may be legally expedient, for the advantage of the general rule,-as applicable to cases, in which the discovery of the intended meaning would not be easy, and in which, notwithstanding, it is necessary that some exact meaning should be presumed,-that that meaning should be presumed to be, what the strict grammatical or technical construction of the language bears, -it is legally, only, not morally, that this forced interpretation in the particu- lar case is put on words, which, in that particular case, were intended to 404 ON THE DUTIES OF CONTRACT. convey a different sense ; and he who, with perfect certainty of the intended meaning, shelters himself under the mere forms of legal construction, and does only what the law, in its necessary limitation to general rules and general forms of expression, obliges him to do,-is, in every important re- spect, as truly a violator of the duty of contract, as if the construction of the law had exactly corresponded with that real meaning of the parties at the time of their mutual engagement, which, after entering into the engagement, he has refused to fulfil. The contract of personal service, even of that domestic service, which is the most complete of all voluntary servitudes, is, I have said, as a mere con- tract, precisely of the same nature as our other contracts. The servant who engages to obey the will of the master,-that is to say, of one who, on his part, engages to furnish the servant with maintenance and a pecu- niary remuneration corresponding with the nature of the services performed -makes a barter of advantage for advantage. He gives up his liberty, for the time bargained, to receive, in return, what he values still more than liberty. That the master and the servant are mutually bound to discharge to each other the peculiar offices which they have engaged to discharge, is a moral truth which flows from the very nature of a contract, and which needs no peculiar elucidation. But as, in the fulfilment of this particular contract, indi- viduals are brought together, who may be mutually benefited, in various ways, which the contract itself cannot strictly be understood as comprehending,- and benefited, without injury to him who confers the benefit, nature has not allowed this power of doing good to be wasted in unproductive idleness. By various beautiful processes, which take place in the mechanism of the moral universe, by the influence of the associating principle, and by all those emotions of regard, which the presence of familiar objects, merely as fami- liar objects, excites,-still more by that moral esteem, which it is impossible not to feel for the virtues that are frequently before us, whatever the rank- may be which those virtues adorn,-she has provided a source of peculiar duties, which make man, who lives with man, in the intercourse of mutual services, an object of a deeper interest, than that which begins and ends with the fewr services which were reciprocally bartered. That it is the duty of the servant, independently of the cold fulfilment of the mere drudgery, which he executes for us, as he would have executed it for any other, who paid the same price for each motion of his arm,-to feel too, some interest in our prosperity and general happiness,-in our sick- ness, for example, not merely to watch around our bed, and to wish, for his own sake, that we were again enjoying health and easy slumbers as before, -but to form that wish with sincere regret for the parched lip, and burning eye, and the feverish lassitude, that robs us of rest, even in rendering us in- capable of action,-that he should rejoice at our recovery, before he thinks that our recovery will restore him to the less fatiguing duties, that are com- paratively freedom,-all this, though it formed no part of our original con- tract with him, we are sufficiently ready to claim, or at least to expect, be- cause the duties of affection which we claim, are duties which are to be pro- fitable to ourselves. We are not quite so ready to admit, however, that our own duties to him are more than those, for which we directly contracted; and that without violating the obligation which the law would discover in the very words, or implied conditions of our bargain, we may yet violate the RELATING TO PERSONAL SERVICE. 405 moral obligation which truly subsists in it, according to that only just interpretation which our own hearts, if we consulted them, would afford. There are duties, then, which we owe to the lowest of those who serve us,-that are not fulfilled by the most bountiful allotment of wages, and lodging, and sustenance. Of these duties, which are not duties of superero- gation, but flow from the very nature of the bond which connects the master and the servant, by reciprocal benefits, the surest rule is to be found, in that brief direction, which Seneca, in the spirit of the noble Christian precept of morals, has so happily given us in one of his Epistles, in which he treats of the cruelty and the contumely of Roman masters. " So live with your inferior, as you would wish your superior to live with you-Sic cum inferiore vivas, quemadmodum tecum superiorem velles vivere." " In a servant," says Marivaux, " I see a man,-in his master, 1 see nothing more. Every one has his office to perform,-one serves at the table, one serves at the bar, one in the council, another in the field,-and he whom we call a ser- vant, is perhaps the least a servant of the whole band of menials." Those who serve us, it is impossible even for the haughtiest pride to deny, are, indeed, men like ourselves, differing from us, originally at least, only in the circumstances of their external condition, and differing, even in these, only for a period, that, in relation to the immortality of which it is a part, is scarcely more lasting than that short voluntary transformation of character, in which, for the amusement of a few hours, the richest and mightiest sometimes condescend to assume a servile garb, and act the part, which their servants on the stage of life are acting in a drama a very little longer. They are maskers, whose masquerade does not finish in an evening, but will finish when a few evenings are over, and when all will return to their original state of man. But without insisting on this similarity of state, the human equality which is soon to level the distinctions that at present are regarded by us with so much pride, it will be enough to insist on the similarity of the principles on which their feelings and ours depend. They are capable, like us, of many pleasures, and of more than pleasure, in receiving approbation;-they have passions that mislead them, as we have; and from us those passions may derive mitigation, or additional vio- lence. On these considerations our duties to them are founded. They are capable of enjoyment, like ourselves; and there are many en- joyments of which we may legally deprive them, by the constraints to which they have submitted themselves, according to the common usage of such personal contracts-but which are not incompatible with the fulfilment of all their duties to us ; and which it would, therefore, morally, be as wrong to pre- vent as it would be to prevent a similar amount of enjoyment, when the power of preventing it was not legally ours. He who, to the utmost of his power, converts the freedom of domestic service into slavery-who allows no liberty-no recreation-no pleasure, which he can interdict, has all the guilt of a tyrannical master of a slave ; or rather, has a guilt that exceeds the guilt of such oppression, because it is an oppression that is exercised in a land of freedom. Every indulgence, therefore, which does not interfere with the domestic duties, and which does not tend to vitiate the character, is a duty which the master owes. As being capable of pleasure, then, servants are to us the objects of this duty of reasonable indulgence. There is a certain moral pleasure, however, which we particularly owe to them. 406 ON THE DUTIES OF CONTRACT They may do well; and in doing well, they have the same title to our praise, which our best actions have to the glory with which we expect the world to be ready to reward us. If we withhold the approbation which is due, we take from them one powerful incentive to continuance in that species of conduct, which rendered them worthy of approbation; and, at the same time, we take from them one of the most delightful feelings, of which he, who has sold his freedom, is still capable-the feeling, that he has done something, which was not actually sold with the very labour of his hands- that, in the additional duties performed by him, he has been free still-and that our praise is something, which, as it was not an actual condition" like the livery and the daily bread, is an offering to his own gratuitous virtue. The duty of approbation, then, when approbation is due, is another of the duties which the master owes to the servant, and a duty which, though he may legally withhold it, he is not entitled morally to withhold. But servants, as I have said, share not our love of praise only, but passions of a less commendable kind. They are assailed by temptations, like those which assail us; and they sometimes fail, as we, too, fall. They neglect to do what we have desired ; and they often do what is positively injurious.to us. In such cases, they might deserve all our'severity of punishment, if we were not men, and they were not men. Our reproof they unquestionably deserve, not merely because they have failed in their part of our mutual con- tract, but also because our reproof may, even to them, be attended with mo- ral advantage. Yet, though*our reproof of any gross inattention is not excu- sable only, but, if vye consider all its consequences, an act of humanity,-it is not to be the reproof of One who seems almost pleased with the offence it- self, in the eagerness which is shown to reprehend it. In censuring, we are silently to have in mind the human weaknesses of our own moral nature ; and to remember, that, if even we, with better light and nobler recreations, err, the ignorant, who, by their very ignorance, are incapable of seeing many of the consequences of actions, and who Ijave few recreations but those which seduce them from what is good, may still more naturally be imagined to err In condemning them, therefore, we condemn ourselves; or we declare that we are frail creatures, of whom less knowledge, and less virtue, are to be ex- pected than of them. There are beings with gentle voices, and still gentlei eyes, and with smiles that seem never to be willed, and scarcely even to fade and brighten again, but to be almost the native character of the countenance, like the very lustre that is ever blooming on the cheek and on the lip,-there are beings, who seem to exist thus only in a perpetual moral atmosphere of radiance and serenity, that, on the sight of a single particle of dust on a book, or a table, or a chair, as if, in that particle, a whole mountain of misery were before them, can assume in an instant all the frowns and thunders of all the furies,-whose delicate frame is too weak to bear the violent opening of a door, but not too weak, after the door is opened, to shake the very floor with the violence of their own wrath, on the unfortunate opener of it. Indulgence to the lighter imperfections of servants is then an important part of our moral obligation, in that temporary domestic relationship which we have contracted. But though it is a duty which we owe to them, it is, at 'east, as much a source of tranquillity to ourselves. A life of constant up- braiding is very far from being a life of happiness. When we make them miserable, they have had already too good a revenge, in the very fretfulness of the anger that is wreaked on them. If the mere human tendency to evil, that exists in the bosom of the ser- vant, as it exists in his master's bosom, be a sufficient cause for the duty of indulgence, when indulgence would not be attended with hurtful consequences, as much to him whose offences are suffered to pass unrebuked, as to him who is directly injured,-this tendency to evil is a source also of another duty, which is, in truth, the most important of all the duties that attend this domes- •tic relation,-the duty of not corrupting the virtue of him, whose services only we have purchased ; and whose moral part, which was not, and could not be sold to us, we are not to enfeeble, if we do not strengthen it. He who, after living under the same roof with us for years, quits our door with- out the amiable qualities with which be first entered it,-every pure wish pol- luted, and new habits of licentiousness formed, while all that remains of early habits is a little remorse*, that is soon overwhelmed in the turbulence of vul- gar dissipation,-though he may be far better skilled than before, in all the fashionable frivolities of his craft,-and though he may have acquired, in our service, by plunder, not by economy, what would enable him to rise to a bet- ter station, if it were not soon to be exhausted by the vices which he gather- ed at the same time,-quits us poorer upon the whole, and, as a mere human being, far lower in the scale of dignity, than when, with all his clownish awk- wardness, he had virtues which it has been our misfortune, or rather, our guilt to destroy. The only remaining set of duties to particular individuals, or classes of individuals, which we have to consider, are those which connect us with our fellow citizens. That we should love the land of our birth,-of our happiness,-of that social system under which our happiness has been produced and protected, -the land of our ancestors, of all the great names and great deeds which we have been taught most early to venerate,-is surely as little wonderful as that we should feel, what we all truly feel, a sort of affection for the most trifling object, which we have merely borne about with us for any length of time. Loving the very land of our birth, we love those who inhabit it, who are to us, a part, as it were, of the land itself, and the part which brings it most immediately home to our affection and services. It is a greater recom- mendation to our good will, indeed, to be a relative, or a friend, or a bene- factor ; but it is no slight recommendation, even without any of these power- ful titles, to be a fellow-countryman-to have breathed the same air, and trod the same soil, and lent vigour to the same political institutions, to which our own aid has actively or passively contributed. While all are fellow-citizens around us, indeed, we scarcely feel the force of the tie which binds us to each because we are bound equally to all. But, let our relative situation be changed: place us on some shore at a distance-in a society as civilized as that which we have left-with a brighter sky and warmer air-and all the occupations which business can give-or all the amusements, with which ele- gant frivolity can render days and evenings short to us ;-in the very hurry of pleasure, that scarcely allows us time to think of home, let but a single ac- cent be heard of the native dialect familiar to our ear-and, if we have been long absent from our country, what benefactor or friend is there, or almost, I may say, what relative, however near to us in consanguinity and affection, who is for the moment or the hour, so interesting to our heart, as the stranger of whom we know nothing, but that he comes from the land which we love RELATING TO PERSONAL SERVICE. 407 408 above every other land, and is to us almost the representative of that land itself. Affection, though not the direct and exclusive source, is at least, by the bountiful provision of Heaven, the great accompaniment of duty ; and where affection so strong is universally felt, there must be duties of no slight obligation. Our countrymen may be considered by us individually, or as constituting one great community, in which the obligations due by us to all the separate, individuals are concentrated, so as to form together, an amount of obligation, which those who would think but little of their duties to a single member of the community, cannot, with all their indifference, wholly disregard. As individuals, their claim to our services is the same in kind, however weaker in degree, as that which a common descent gives to those who are connected with us by remote affinities of blood. We are not merely to ab- stain from injuring and to wish and endeavour to promote their happiness, when means of promoting it are in our power,-for these duties we owe to all mankind ;-but when there is a competition of interests, and no obligations of more important duty are concerned, which should influence our choice, we are to prefer them to others who compete with them, our country being to us as it were a parent, and they, with us, its common offspring. Beside this general interest in the happiness of all who live with us under the same government,-an interest in which you perceive the same beautiful relation of our affections to our means of readiest and most frequent useful- ness, which we have traced in all the other species of peculiar regard,-there are patriotic duties which we ow7e to some of our countrymen only ; though, in truth, when we trace even these duties to their source, we find them too, to have their origin in that equal regard for the happiness of al], which we owe to all our fellow citizens. The duties to which 1 allude, are the offices of external respect, which We pay to those who are invested with high sta- tions,-offices of respect, which the multitude pay, without any very nice analysis of the obligation, and which it is of the highest importance to public order, and to public happiness, that they should be ready thus to yield to the external symbols of authority,-and which a wise and good man pays with the same readiness as the multitude, because he knows at once, how import- ant they are to national tranquillity, and how7 very little it is, which, in the exter- nal forms of respect, is paid to the real happiness of the individual. Such are the civic duties which we owe to individuals. The duties which we owe to our fellow-citizens, as constituting one great community, may be considered as reducible to three :-first the duty of obedience to the system of laws under which we live, the benefit of which we all enjoy, and according to which all regulate their plans and expectations ;-secondly, the duty of de- fending that social system, of which we are a part, from violent aggressions, foreign or internal;-and thirdly, the duty of endeavouring, as far as we pos- sess any power that can be beneficially exerted, to increase the,means of public prosperity; and, above all, where political evils exist, to ameliorate a system of polity, which, though it produces much happiness, may stilf, by re- formations, as far as these are practicable, be capable of producing more. Our first patriotic duty of this general kind, is the duty of obedience. Why is it that we term obedience a duty,-what circumstances are there, in the nature of a system of government, by which, under certain limitations, it has a claim to our submission, merely because it already exists, and has long existed ? ON THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP. ON THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP. The answer to this question was, for a long time, even in our own land, a very simple one,-that power established, was established by God, and that disobedience to the individual whom he had established to exercise this power, would be a rebellion against right divine. 409 N Who first taught souls enslav'd and realms undone, The enormous faith of many made for one : That proud exception to all Nature's laws, To invert the world and counterwork its Cause ! Force first made conquest, and that conquest law, Till Superstition taught the tyrant awe,- Then shared the tyranny, then lent it. aid,- And gods of conquerors, slave's of subjects made."* The argument, for the right divine of established power, which is in lo°ic, little better than any other argument for the right divine of any thing that exists-whether good or evil merely as existing,-for the prevalent system of manners, virtuous or vicious,-or even, as has been truly said, for the right divine of a wide spread fever, or any otlrer pestilence, is as wretched in its moral consequences, as it is ridiculous in logic; and it is painful to pe- ruse the writings on the subject, which at one period-and that not a verv distant one-were so prevalent, and, in some cases, were the works of authors whom we are accustomed to venerate, not merely as philosophers, but as men who have given undoubted proofs of the most benevolent interest in the human race. Berkeley, the author of the Theory of Vision,-Berkeley, the generous possessor of " every virtue under heaven," is the same Berkeley who endea- vours to demonstrate to us, that it is as much our duty to submit to the most ferocious tyrant, as to submit to the supreme benevolence of God,-or rather, that to obey such a tyrant is to obey Supreme Benevolence. That God, the equal God of all mankind, has not formed us to be the slaves of any individual, and in furnishing our' minds with so many principles, that insure our progress in less important sciences, has not abandoned us, in the most important of all, to the selfishness of a power, which may prefer the present misery of its own despotic, sway to all that can be offered for its re* formation,-because the reformation would'abridge an authority which it is more convenient for the possessor of it, to exercise with no limit but that of will, 1 surely need not now attempt to prove to you. On the right divine of authority, whatever vague allusions to it we may sometimes find in courtly llatterers of the day, we have no writers now who require to be confuted. There is, indeed, one species of right divine which established authority does possess,-its tendency to the peace of those who submit to it, and con- sequently, in that respect to their happiness, which, as the object of our Creator, has the sanction of divine will. But it possesses this right divine, only as tending to public happiness,-it is secondary only, not primary; and when the public happiness, instead of being upon the whole, promot- ed by obedience, would, upon the whole, when every consequence, indirect as well as direct, is taken into account, be promoted, by shaking off that power which is inconsistent with its great object,-remonstrance, even rebel- lion itself,-if that name can justly be given, in such circumstances of dread- ful necessity, to the expression of the public will,-has as truly its right di- vine, as established authority, even in its best state, could be said to have it, * Pope's Essay on Man, Ep. III. 241-249. Vol. II. 410 when, as exercised with happier tenderness, it was productive of that good, in which alone the divinity of its right is to be found. We have no need, then, of all those fictions to which political writers, in periods in which the true source of political obligation was less distinctly perceived, were.obliged to have recourse, in asserting the rights of the go- verned, as paramount to the claims of mere possession, in the tyrannical governor. We no need to speak of original compacts,' of those who obey with those who command, understood as prior to the existing forms of social institutions,-and the violation of which by one party, might be con- sidered as a warrant to the other party for resuming the original rights, of which they had consented through their ancestors, to divest themselves. Such compacts never existed, and could not, independently of the good that might flow from them, be of obligation on the new individuals, who form the pre- sent race of mankind, though they had truly taken place at some remote period. The only reason for which jve could conceive it necessary-for men at present, to pay the obediende which another number of men, at any other period, paid to a certain number of their fellow-creatures, who lived in their time, is, that a failure in this obedience, of the propriety of which the exist- ing generation are equally capable of judging, or better capable, if political knowledge have made the slightest progress, would seem to be injurious to the society in which they live; and, if this reason be valid, it is valid with- out the necessity of the compact supposed. It is our duty to obey, because mankind-at least that large part of mankind, which we term our country, -would suffer, upon the whole, if we were not to obey. This is the power- ful hold which even imperfect governments possess on the obedience of the wise and good ; and the stronger holds which they may seem to have, by corruption, or by mere usage of unreflecting veneration, on the profligate and the ignorant, is truly not half sq strong. The profligate supporter of a system, for which he cares onljJ as it ministers to his vices, may see, perhaps, some more tempting promise of wealth and power, in a rebellion against that very authority, the slightest attempt to ameliorate which, he has been accus- tomed to represent as a species of treason. The ignorant, who fall on their knees to-day, merely because something is passing which is very magnificent, and before which other knees are bent, or bending, may, to-morrow, when other arms are lifted in tumultuous rebellion, join their arms to the tumult and the dreadful fury of the day. It is only in the bosom of the wise and good, as I have said, that any security of obedience is to be found. He who is worthy of those honourable names-who is wise to consult for the public weal, which his goodness wishes, has no object but the happiness of the community ; and though he may see imperfections in government which tend to lessen this happiness, he yet knows how much is to be hoped from the calm influence of diffusive knowledge, and how very little is to be hoped from the exercise of force,-which would be opposed not by mere force of arms, but by the force of as many bad passions as could be summoned to resist it, and which would too often, also, be obliged to call to its own aid passions, as little worthy of the sacred cause in which they might be engaged, as the very passions that were opposed to him. He weighs good with good, evil with evil;-and the oppression must, indeed, be severe, and the prospect of re- lief from it by other means be truly gloomy, before he will lift his voice to call his fellow-citizens to arm against their fellow-citizens. " The specula- tive line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end, and resistance must ON THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP. begin, is," as Mr. Burke truly says, " faint, obscure, and not easily defina- ble. It is not a single act, or a single event, which determines it. Govern- ments must be abused and deranged, indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past. When things are in that lamentable condition, the nature of the disease is to indicate the remedy, to those whom nature has qualified to administer, in extremities, this critical, ambiguous, bitter potion, to a distempered state. Times, and occasions, and provocations, will teach their own lessons. The wise, will determine from the gravity of the case,-the irritable, from sensi- bility to oppression,-the high-minded, from disdain and indignation at abu- sive power in unworthy hands-the brave and bold, from the love of honour- able danger in a generous cause;-but, with or without right, a revolution will be the very last resource of the thinking, and the good."* A revolution, indeed, even in such circumstances, as this eloquent writer well says, should be, and will be, the last resource of the thinking and good. But, though it will be the last resource, it still is a resource-a resource in those miserable circumstances, in which times, and occasions, and provoca- tions, teach their terrible lesson. When the rare imperious cases do occur, in which the patriotism that before made obedience a duly, allows it no more to him who feels that he has now another duty to perform;-when he sees, with sorrow, that a cause which is good in itself, will demand the use of means from which, with any other motives, he would have shrunk with abhor- rence, he will lift his voice sadly, indeed, but still loudly-he will lift his arm with reluctance, but, when it is lifted, he will wield it with all the force which the thought of the happiness of the world, as perhaps dependent on it, can give to its original vigour ;-he has made that calculation in which his own happiness, and his own life, have scarcely been counted as elements. If he survive and prevail, therefore, though in anticipating the prosperity which he has in part produced, he may sometimes look back on the past with melan- choly, he cannot look back on it with regret;-and, if he fall, he will think only of the aid which his life might have given to that general happiness which he sought,-not of his life itself, as an object of regard, or even as a thing which it would have been possible for him to preserve. ON THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP. 411 LECTURE XCI. ON THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP-OBEDIENCE TO THE LAWS-DEFEND ING OUR COUNTRY-AUGMENTING THE GENERAL HAPPINESS. In the close of my last Lecture, gentlemen, I had begun the consideration of those duties which we owe to the community of our fellow-citizens,-the duties understood as comprehended under the single term patriotism These duties of man, as a citizen, are considered as referable to three kinds;-first, the duty of obedience to the particular system of laws, under which we may live;-2dly, the duty of defending the social system under which he lives, from every species of violent aggression ;-and 3dly, the duty of increasing, to the best of his power, the means of public happiness * Burke's Works, Vol. V. p. 73. 8vo. Lond. 1803. 412 in the nation, by every aid which he can give to its external or internal re- sources,-and especially, as the most important of all ends, by every amelio- ration which it can be nationally prudent to attempt, of any existing evils, in its laws and general forms of polity. In examining the first of these duties, we were, of course, led to inquire into the nature of that principle, from which existing institutions derived a moral authority. Of the divine right, to which it was long the easy and courtly practice of almost all the writers on this subject, to refer what, as di- vinely constituted, was therefore, they contended, to be deemed sacred from all human interference of the governed, as truly sacred as religion itself,-I did not think it necessary to occupy your time with any long and serious con- futation. " The right divine of kings to govern wrong," cannot be a right derived from the Divinity. He who attached the delightful feeling of mo- ral approbation, to every wish of diffusing happiness, cannot give the sanc- tion of his own pure authority to crimes, which, as established, have nothing to distinguish them from other crimes that have not been established, except that their atrocious oppression has been more lastingly and extensively inju- rious. When a whole nation is bowed down in misery, and intellectual and moral darkness,-which, by the length of its uniform and dreary continu- ance, marks only what principles it contains of a servitude that may be per- petuated for ages as uniformly wretched,-if a single effort, the elevation of a single standard, the utterance of a single word, were all which was neces- sary to give to millions that exist, and millions of millions that are afterwards to exist, not the happiness of freedom only, but with freedom all that light of thought, and purity of generous devotion, which liberty never fails to carry along with it;-would it be virtue to keep down that standard,-to refrain from uttering that word so productive,-and rather to say calmly to the world, be miserable still? The God, who is the God of happiness, and truth, and virtue, could not surely in such circumstances have made it guilt in the patriot to wish the single effort made ; or guilt in him if he wish it made, to give his own heart, and arm, or voice, to that effort which he wished. It is vain for us, when our object is to discover, not what man has done, but what man ought to do, to think of the origin of power, as if this were sufficient to determine the duty of our present acquiescence. Where all were not equal in every physical energy, one individual must soon have be- gun to exercise authority over other individuals. If we consider a number of children at play, where all may at first have the appearance of the most complete equality, we shall soon be able to discover how the stronger, in any period of life, or in any circumstances of society, might, in some cases, as- sume dominion which, in some other cases, might be given to superior skill. But, in whatever way power may have begun among mankind, it has usually, at least for many ages in countries that suffer under despotism, been perpe- tuated, by the Submission on the part of the slave, to the mere might of its hereditary or casual possessors,-the history of power is, therefore, the his- tory of that to which men have generally or individually, considered it expe- dient to submit; but it is not on that account necessarily, the history of that to which it was the duty of man to submit. It leaves to the race of man, in every age, and in all the varying circumstances of their external and internal condition, to consider the duties of mankind in the same manner as they would have considered them in any former age; and the duty of man as a citizen, is not to prefer the happiness, or supposed happiness of one, to the ON THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP. happiness, or supposed happiness of many, but the happiness of many to the happiness of one, when these are opposed and incompatible. The happiness of many may, indeed, be best consulted, and truly is best consulted, by dis- tinctions and honours, which may seem to the inconsiderate, as if existing only for the happiness of one or of a few. But still it is of the wider happiness produced by them of which the patriot is to think, when he esta- blishes these very distinctions, or wishes them to be prolonged. It is vain, then, to have recourse to any fictions to prove the duty, dither of obeying the sovereign power of the state, in ordinary circumstances, or in rare and unfortunate circumstances, of occasional resistance to it; since these duties must always be reducible to the paramount obligation on the citi- zen, to consult the good, not of a few of his fellow-citizens, but of all, or the greater number,-an obligation, without which the fiction would be worse than absurd, and with which it is unnecessary. The theory of a social contract of the governed, and their governors, for ex- ample, in which certain rights were supposed to be abandoned for certain pur- poses of general advantage, we found to be, even when considered as a mere fiction, (and it is only as a mere poetic fiction, that it can be considered,) but an awkward circuitous mode of arriving at a truth, without the previous belief of which, the very contract supposed, would be absolutely nugatory. It assumes, in this contract, original rights of the community, which, but for the contract, it would have been unjust in the governors to arrogate to themselves ; and, if these be assumed as inherent in the very nature of man, independently of all social institutions, we must still, as men, have the rights which mankind, simply as mankind, originally possessed. The feigned contract adds nothing, it presupposes every thing. The power which we obey, is a power which exists by our will-as much as the power which our earliest ancestors obey- ed, existed only by the will of the subjects, who at once formed it, and gave it their obedience. The fiction of a social contract, then, as I have before said, is only a cir- cuitous mode of asserting the original rights, which that very contract takes for granted in the contractors. Equally false is the supposed analogy, by which political writers Would argue, from mere prescription in cases of pro- perty, for a similar prescriptive right to sovereign power, as implied in the long continued possession of it. There still remains the inquiry why pre- scription itself is legally recognised. It is for the good of the state, and only for the general good,-to prevent the evil of insecure possession, and fre- quent litigation, that such a bar to judicial scrutiny is allowed,-and if it were for the good of all the citizens, that prescription should not operate, even in cases of property, there can be little doubt that it would not have been legally established. The legal authority of prescription then, when we trace it to its source, is not a proof of the moral right of the exerciser of heredi- tary tyranny, to continued violation of public happiness, and therefore, to un- limited submission, from the nation of slaves, the offspring of a nation of slaves. It is, on the contrary, a proof of the paramount obligation of that general good, which in the right of prescription, as in every other legal right, has been professedly the great object of legislation, and which, in some cir- cumstances, may render resistance a duty, as, in the ordinary circumstances of society, it renders obedience a duty, and resistance a crime. That the power of the sovereign exists by our will, however, is not enough, of itself, to confer on us lhe right of disobeying it; and this, for a very plain ON THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP. 413 reason,-that, even when the government obeyed is not like that of our own no- ble constitution, one which is a source of greater happiness to him who obeys, than to him who governs,-the disobedience may be productive of misery, which even the slave of a bad government has no right to produce. Our duties are not all dependent on our mere power, or our mere will. If I learn that my benefactor is in indigence, it depends on my will, whether I afford any relief to his wants ; but it does not, therefore, follow, that 1 have a moral right to refuse relief. In like manner; I have no more right to pro- duce that wild disorder, which mere disobedience to law, if general, would occasion,-still less to produce the bloodshed, and the desolation, and the bad passions worse than mere bloodshed and desolation, which would be the inevitable consequence of long protracted civil dissensions. This general tendency of obedience to power and happiness, is, as 1 remarked in my last Lecture, the true right divine of authority; a right which is divine, be- cause the virtue which loves the power and happiness of all is itself of divine obligation. Since the duty of political obedience, however, important as it is in the list of moral duties, is still a duty which its force from outgeneral re- gard for the happiness of the community,-this happiness of the community which, in ordinary circumstances, gives obligation to the claim of mere power to our obedience, in other circumstances limits the obligation, and produces a moral duty that is altogether opposite. On the duties of the citizen, in circum- stances so different from those in which our inestimable constitution has placed us, we may still ethically speculate, as, in our systems of meteorology, we treat, under our own temperate sky, of the sultry heats and hurricanes of a tropical climate. The cases, however, in which it is morally right to resist, by other means than those which the established constitution itself affords, the tyranny of a government, are, in any situation of society, but of rare occurrence ; since it is not tyranny alone which justifies rebellion, but tyranny, in circumstances in which rebellion against its cruel and degrading power, affords a prospect of success, not merely in the removal of a single tyrant, but in the establishment of a happier system. In every insurrection against the most cruel despot, a certain quantity of evil must be produced; and the evil is sure while the good that is hoped is doubtful. If the insurrection fail, the evil is produced, and produced without any compensation, or rather, perhaps, serves only to render oppression more severe and the hearts of the oppressed more fearful. The tyrant, after he has crushed all the little virtue that existed within the sphere of his dark dominion, may do, in the insolence of his triumph, what before he would have feared to do,-he may destroy at once, what by a lit- tle longer continuance, could scarcely have failed to diffuse a wider virtue, which his efforts would have been powerless to crush. The increased severity of the oppression, then, is one evil of such unsuccessful attempts; and it is not less an evil, that they render for ever after, as I have said, the oppressed more fearful. The image of past defeat rises with an enfeebling influence, on those who otherwise would have lifted a far stronger arm; while the remem- brance of the treacheries which, probably, attended that defeat, and some- times of the treacheries of those whose enthusiasm in the cause seemed most generous and daring, diminishes the confidence which man might otherwise be inclined to place in man. The resistance which might speedily have been successful, but for a rash attempt in unfortunate circumstances, 414 ON THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP. may thus prove unsuccessful, merely because others had essayed and failed. Without the high probability, therefore, of a great preponderance of good, it cannot be morally right, in any circumstances, even of the most afflicting tyranny, to encourage a disobedience, which the good that is to flow from it alone Can justify. In the despotisms of the East, and in all the savage des- potisms in which men, accustomed to look on power only as something that is to be endured, obey as brutally as they are brutally governed, wbat virtue could there be in rousing a few to attempt what could not but fail in their hands, even if their number were comparatively greater, and in thus producing a few more* murders,.and a little more terror than would have ex- isted, but for the foolish effort. OBEDIENCE TO THE LAWS. 415 True fortitude.is seen in great exploits, Which justice warrants, and which wisdom guides ;- All else is tow'ring plirensy and distraction*"* In ages of extreme luxurious profligacy, it would be, in like manner, vain to call to those who have no virtues, to arm themselves, from a virtuous ha- tred of oppression, against a tyrant whom other tyrants would speedily re- place. Truth in the one case, in the other case virtue, must be previously diffused; and if truth and virtue be diffused, their own silent operation may gradually succeed in producing that very amendment, which mere force, with all the additional evils which its violence produces, would have failed to ef- fect. They form, indeed, the only useful, because the only permanent force, -operating on the mind, in which all real strength is, and operating on it for ever. * • • ' * « * • _• The great evil is, that for the diffusion of truth and virtue, a certain por- tion of freedom is necessary, which may not every where be found; but, where there is not the truth or virtue, nor so much freedom, as would allow the diffusion of them, what lover of the terhperate liberty of mankind, could hope, by mere violence, to produce it! A single tyrant, indeed, may be hurled from his throne,-for this the very ministers of his power, by whom he has been what he was, themselves may do,-while they bow the knee the very moment after, to some new tyrant of their own number,-but it is tyranny which the patriot hates, arid if that still subsists, the murder of a thousand tyrants would make tyranny an object only of more sickly loathing. . • • It is enough, then, to find in the source of political authority, a justifica- tion of disobedience to it, in the extreme cases, in which alone it is morally allowable, or rather morally incumbent on the oppressed to disobey. It is in extreme cases only, that this sanction can be required; and, in all the ordinary circumstances of society, to yield to the authority which all have concurred in obeying, when every constitutional method of obviating or miti- gating the evil has been exerted, is at once the most virtuous, as it is the simplest mode of conduct that can be pursued. The next patriotic duty, which 1 mentioned, was the duty of defending the state against every aggression. This duty of defending the land which we love, may, indeed, be con- sidered, as implied, in the very love which we bear to it. It is not neces- sary, that we should think of what we have personally to lose, before we consider the invader of our country as our enemy. It is not necessary, * Tragedy of Cato. even, that we should image to ourselves the desolation which he is to spread, -the miseries of blood and rapine, by which his conquest would be per- petrated, and the deeper miseries of oppression which would follow it. It is enough for us to think of him as the invader of our land ; and in thus thinking of him, we have already felt the duty of opposition. VVe may, in- deed, afterwards trace in our imagination, the sad series of consequences to those whom we directly love, and to those whom we love with a sort of in- direct and borrowed affection, when we know nothing more of them than that they are our countrymen. We may think more abstractly, of the ex- cellencies of our frame of laws which would be broken down, and feel an indignation at the outrage, as if this very frame of beautiful mechanism which we admire, Were itself a living thing. But though our indignation may thus be more fully developed, as we develope new causes of indignation, the strong emotion itself existed before. If the foot of an enemy with an enemy's purpose, be pressing our soil, we feel in the very moment in which we learn it, if our hearts be not thoroughly corrupt, that he who has presumed thus to advance, must either retreat or perish. In states in which the citizens themselves are trained to habits of military defence, the emotion of course is stronger, because the importance of indi- vidual exertions is there most powerfully felt.-But the feeling is one which exists, in some degree, in every people. Even under the most wretched system of government, which has united men as a nation, only to make the congregated multitude of slaves, an easier instrument of tyrannic power, than if they existed as individuals apart,-there is still some patriotic reluc- tance felt, to allow the ingress of a foreign tyrant, though only a tyrant of the same species with him who is obeyed with ready submission, merely because he is a part of the country itself; and he who in such a case, has calmly suffered the march of the invader, which be might have assisted in repelling, will,-in seeing him take possession of a land, which he can scarcely make more desolate, than its own sovereign had allowed it to con- tinue,-feel some little portion of that self-disapprobation, which the inhabit- ant of a land of freedom would have felt, if, in similar circumstances of ag- gression, he had given the aggressor as little reason to know, that the land which he was invading, was not a land of slaves, but the birth-place of men, and the dwelling-place of men. The citizen, then, is to obey the laws and to defend them. These two duties relate to the political system that exists. He has still one other great duty, which relates not to things as they are, but to things as they may be. He is not to preserve the present system only ; he is to endeavour, if it require or admit of amelioration of any sort, to render it still more exten- sively beneficial to those who live under it, and still more worthy of the ad- miration of the world than, with all its excellence, it yet may be. He is justly counted a benefactor to his nation, who has been able to open to its industry, new fields of supply, and to open to the products of its in- dustry, new distant markets of commercial demands. He too is a benefac- tor to the community, who plans and obtains the execution of the various public works, that facilitate the intercourse of district with district, or give more safety to navigation, or embellish a land with its best ornaments,- the institutions of charity or instruction. In accomplishing, or contributing our aid to accomplish, these valuable ends, we perform a part of the duty which we are considering,-the duty of augmenting, to the best of our 416 ON THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP. ability, the sum of national happiness. But important as such exercises of public spirit are, they are not so important as the efforts of him, who succeeds in remedying some error in the system of government,-some error, perhaps, which has been, in its more remote influence, the retarding cause, on account of which those very public plans, which otherwise might have been carried into effect many ages before, were not even conceived as pos- sible, till they were brought forward by that provident wisdom and active zeal, which have obtained, and justly obtained, our gratitude. The reform of a single political grievance, may, in its ultimate effects, be the producer of all which we admire in the thousand acts of individual pa- triotism,-the opener of fields of industry,-the diffuser of commerce,- the embellisher of a land,-the enlightener and blesser of those who in- habit it. It is not possible, indeed, to estimate how valuable an offering he makes to society, who gives it a single good law. There are but few words, per- haps, that compose it, but, in those few w'ords, may be involved an amount of good, increasing progressively with each new generation; which, if it could have been made known, in all its amplitude, to the legislator, at the time when he contrived his project, would have dazzled and overwhelm- ed his very power of thought. What is true a new law that relates to some positive institution is, as may be supposed, equally true of those laws which merely repeal and remedy the past; since a single error in policy may, in its long continuance, produce as much evil as a single wise enact- ment may, in its long continuance, produce of good. He, then, is not a true lover of the society to which he belongs, nor faith- ful to those duties which relate to it, who contents himself with admiring the laws which he might amend ; and who, far from wishing to amend them, re- gards, perhaps, or professes to regard, every project of reformation, not as a proposal which is to be cautiously weighed, but as a sort of insult to the dignity of the whole system, which is to be rejected with wrath, and treated almost as a subject of penal censure. This blind admiration is not patriotism, or, if it be patriotism, it is, at least, only that easy form of it which the most corrupt may assume, without any diminution of their own political profligacy. He who does not feel in his whole heart, the excellence of a wise and virtu- ous system of polity, is, indeed, unworthy of living under its protection. But he who does feel its excellence will be the swiftest to discern every improvement that can be adued to it. It is the same in the humbler concerns of private life. It is not the indifferent stranger, who, on seeing any one suffer from in- convenience of any kind, perceives most quickly the first involuntary intima- tion of uneasiness, and discovers, too, most quickly, what may be the best remedy. It is he who loves best the sufferer, and who sees best every noble endowment possessed by him. It is the mother watching her child,-the friend visiting his friend,-the son, the lover, the husband. The very nature of affection is to render us quick to imagine something which may make still better what is good ; and though he who admires least a system, may innovate most extensively, there can be no question, that the most continued tendency to innovate, in some slight degree, is in him who admires most, upon the whole, what he, therefore, wishes most ardently to improve. If such be, as I cannot but think, the tendency of affection, the loud and haughty patriotism of those who profess to see in any of the systems of hu- man policv,-which, as human, must share, in some degree, the general AUGMENTING THE GENERAL HAPPINESS. 417 Vol. IL 418 frailly of humanity,-no evil, which can require to be remedied, and even no good which can, by any means, be rendered still more ample in exten- sion or degree, seems to me, for this very reason, suspicious ;-at least as suspicious a£ the loud and angry patriotism of those, who profess to see in the whole system, nothing which is not a fit subject of instant and total altera- tion. If they loved truly what they praise so highly, they would not praise it less indeed, but they would wish, at least, to see it still more worthy of praise : there would be a quickness, therefore, to discover what would make it more worthy; and, though they might be fearful of innovating, they would yet have many wishes of innovating, which nothing but the value of the sub- ject of experiment, as too noble to be put in peril, could operate to sup- press. It is this high importance of the subject of experiment, which is the true check on tlte innovating spirit, that, but for such a check, would be constantly operating in man, though there were no other inducement, than the mere eagerness of curiosity, which wishes to see constantly new results, and is therefore constantly employed in placing objects in new circumstances. If the happiness and misery of nations were not dependent on the varying movements of the political machinery,--or were depgndent only for a few moments,, so that, by the, mere will of replacing all things in their former situation, we could truly replace them, without any diminution of good or in- crease of evil,-the game of legislation would indeed be the most magnifi- cent game, which could amuse our idleness or activity. But since happiness, which has once been injured, cannot be easily, if at all, repaired, nor misery, once produced, be immediately dissipated,-with the same ease with which we can shuffle kings, and queens, and knaves, and all the more insignificant cards, from the top to the bottom of the pack, or from the bottom to the top, and find the whole, after their successive changes, the same cards as before, with the same gaudy colouring and insignia of distinction,-the game is too costly a one for human benevolence to wish to play. The same principle, 1 may remark, directs the patriot, in the reformations which he wishes to produce, without departing from the regular usages of the constitution, that directs him in those rare and dreadful cases, in which it becomes to him a question of virtue, whether he is not to throw off the whole entanglement of usage, and reduce society again for a time to a state of barbarous contention of man with man, that, from this temporary disor- der, a better and more regular system may arise. The directing principle, in both cases, is the love of the good of the state and of mankind,-that total and ultimate result of good, on which it may be reasonable to calculate, after every deduction has been made of the evil that may* directly or indirectly, flow from the trial. It is not enough, then, that there is a great and manifest defect, in any part of the political system,-a source of evil, as manifest, perhaps, as the evil itself. This may be sufficient to the demagogue, whose only object is to produce popular discontent with a system in which he has no part to act; and who is, therefore, rather pleased to discover the evil, that may give a few animated periods to his eloquenefe, than grieved at the miseries, on which so much of his logic and rhetoric depends. But, to the sincere lover of the happiness of the community, there must be not only the certainty of existing evil, but an obvious facility, or at least a very high pro- bability of amendment,-and a probability of this, without an amount of ac- companying evil equal, or even nearly equal, to the evil which he wishes to re- ON THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP. move,-before he will attempt a reformation, that may be so perilous to the very happiness, which it is his ambition to promote. In calculating the results of good and evil, he will be careful, too, to make allowance for the iulluence of habit itself; and will consider an evil that is new, such as his wished reformation might possibly produce, as when all other circumstances are the same, a greater evil than that which already exists, and to which the mind of the suf- ferer has learned, by long usage, to accommodate itself. Above all, he will make allowance for the possible fallacies of his own judgment. That others have not before regarded as evil, that which appears to him to be evil, though not enough to alter his judgment, will at least be felt by him as a cir- cumstance which should render caution in this case more necessary, than it would have been, it there had before been no existing government; but all was to be the instant result of one act of legislation. The remarks which Dr. Smith has made, on the peculiar danger of the reforming spirit in princes, in reference to this deduction from the amount ol incitement to innovate, which the possible fallacy of our opinion should produce,-a possibility which they who are accustomed to constant obsequi- ousness and adulation of all around, are not very ready to suspect.-are fully justified by die history, with very few exceptions, of all such attempts of royal or imperial reformers. " It is upon this account," he says, " that of all political speculators, sove* reign princes are by far the most dangerous. This arrogance is perfectly familiar to them. They entertain no doubt of the immense superiority of their own judgment. When such imperial and royal reformers, therefore, condescend to contemplate the constitution of the country which is commit- ted to their government, they seldom see any thing so wrong in it as the ob- structions, which it may sometimes oppose, to the execution of their own will. They hold in contempt the divine maxim of Plato, and consider the state as made for themselves, not themselves for the state. The great ob- ject of their reformation, therefore, is to remove those obstructions,-to re- duce the authority of the nobility,-to take away the privileges of cities and provinces, and to render both the greatest individuals, and the greatest or- ders of the state, as incapable of opposing their commands, as the weakest and most, insignificant."* In these cases, however, it is not, I conceive, the mere arrogance of opi- nion of which Dr. Smith speaks, that renders princes such fash and rapid innovators. Much of the tendency, I have no doubt, arises from the facility which they have found in executing the smaller matters, which they are in the hourly habit of willing and producing,-a facility which they naturally extend to other matters, in which they suppose that all things will arrange themselves as readily, according to their will, as the actions and looks of those, whose courtly ministry it is to do and look as they are ordered. They do not merely think themselves better movers, of the machinery than others, but the machinery of national happiness seems to them more simple and easy of management than it is ; because they have been able, in innumera- ble cases, to produce the very object which they desired, in all the circum- stances which they desired, or to prevent what they considered as an evil to themselves or others, in the very way in which it seemed to them necessary or most expedient to prevent it. They innovate, therefore, with a more fearless spirit, because they think that the political machine will readily pro- AUGMENTING THE GENERAL HAPPINESS. 419 * Theory of Moral Sentiments, Vol. II. p. 105, 8vo. Edwi. 1808. ON THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP. 420 duce whatever they wish to produce,-or, at any rate, that the touch of a single spring, or the application of a weight to a single pulley, will be suf- ficient to put the machine in its former state, if the movement which they have attempted, should be found ineffectual to produce that particular equilibrium, or disturbance of equilibrium, which they desired to effect by it. The reformations which alone a sincere patriot will think of attempting, must be preceded, then, by much cautious examination of all the evils which the very desire of producing good, and good only, may often tend to occa- sion, almost as certainly as if the desire had had in view evil, and nothing more. I need not surely add, since it is of a moral duty I am treating, that the patriotic reformer will not be influenced by his own private views of am- bition or factious dislike; though these, it must be confessed, are the great movers of far more than half of that declamatory eloquence- on public abuses, which, as we cannot see the heart, is often honoured with the name of patriotism. "Arsaces," says Montesquieu, in his political romance of that name, " Arsaces loved so much to preserve the laws and ancient cus- toms of the Bactrians, that he trembled always at the very name of reform of abuses ; for he had often remarked, that every one called that law, which was conformable to his personal views, and called an abuse, whatever was likely to thwart his own interests." It is this hypocrisy of patriotism, which has been the most fatal of all evils to the reformation of a country. It is so easy to declaim against abuses, and so many personal objects may be attained by the declamation, that to the unreflecting, it seems almost a sort of logical victory, for the de- fender of real abuses to ascribe to such ambitious, or sordid, or factious mo- tives, the genuine hatred of corruption, and genuine love of man, in those who oppose the evils by which the defender of them exists. This imputa- tion of unworthy designs or wishes, is one of the greatest, or, rather, is truly the greatest evil which a patriot, who is at heart a patriot, has to dread. But it is an evil, which, like all other evils that are personal to himself, he is to brave, in that calm and temperate course of public virtue, in which he feels himself called to move. He loves, indeed, the esteem of mankind much, but there is something which he loves still more; and he will not suf- fer thq world to be miserable, that he may run a little less risk of being ac- counted a hypocrite. I now, then, conclude the remarks which I had to offer on all the duties which we owe to others,-whether they relate to mere abstinence from in- jury, or to positive beneficence,-and whether they relate to ah the indivi- duals of mankind, or merely to a limited number of them, that are connected with us by peculiar ties. I have treated, as you must have perceived, of our moral duties, with only few remarks on what are commonly denominated rights; for this best of reasons, that the terms right apd duty are, in the strictest sense, in morality at least, corresponding and commensurable. Whatever service it is my duty to do to any one, he has a moral right to receive from me: there is one moral emotion, one simple feeling of approveableness which constitutes to our heart, in the consideration of any action, the right or the duty, accord- ing as we view the agent, or him to whom his action relates. I do not speak at present, it is to be remembered, of the additional force of law as applied to particular moral duties, a force which it may be expedient variously to extend or limit, but of the moral duties alone: and in these, alike in every case, the ON THE DUTIES DENOMINATED RIGHTS. 421 moral duty implies a moral right, and the moral right a moral duty. When I say that it is my duty to perform a certain action, I mean nothing more, than that if I do not perform it, I shall regard myself, and others will regard me, with moral disapprobation. When I say that any one has a moral right to my performance of a certain action, do I mean any thing more than was said by me, in the former case,-or rather, do I not simply mean still, that if I do not perform the action, the feeling of moral disapprobation will arise in myself and others ? The laws, indeed, have made a distinction of our duties, enforcing the performance of some of them, and not enforcing the performance of others; but this partial interference of law, useful as it is in the highest degree to the happiness of the world, does not alter the nature of the duties them-' selves, which, as resulting from the moral nature of man, preceded every legal institution. The facility of determining certain duties in all their circumstances, and the impossibility of determining others, which vary with circumstances that cannot be made the subjects of judicial inquiry, and into which, for the gene- ral tranquillity of a state, it would not be expedient to make a nice inquiry, even though they could be made subjects of it, have been, of course, the great reason for which certain duties only are enforced by law, and others left to the morality of individuals themselves. It is easy, at least in most cases, and in all cases comparatively easy, to ascertain the obligation to the duties ranked together under the name justice,-the duties of abstaining from positive injury of every sort, and of fulfilling precise conventional en- gagements. It would not be easy to ascertain, in-like manner, what number of injuries, on the part of a benefactor, lessened and perhaps destroyed alto- gether, the obligation to a grateful return of services for some early benefit received; and an inquiry into such circumstances, as it might extend to many of the most delicate and confidential transactions of a long life, would, as inquisitorial, be productive of more evil, than it could be productive of good, as judicial. Gratitude, therefore, is left, and wisely left to the free moral sentiments of mankind : justice is enforced by the united power of the state. On this very simple distinction of duties which the law enforces, and of those which, for obvious reasons, it does not attempt to enforce, and on this alone, as I conceive, is founded the division of perfect and imperfect rights, which is so favourite a division with writers in jurisprudence, and with diose ethical writers whose systems, from the prevailing studies and habits of the time, were, in a great measure, vitiated by the technicalities of law. The very use of these terms, however, has unfortunately led to the belief, that in the rights themselves, as moral rights, there is a greater or less degree of per- fection or moral incumbency, when it is evident, that morally, there is no such distinction,-or, I may say, even that if there were any such distinc- tion, the rights which are legally perfect, would be often of less powerful moral force, than rights which are legally said to be imperfect. There is no one, I conceive, who would not feel more remorse,-a deeper sense of moral impropriety,-in having suffered his benefactor, to whom he owed all his affluence, to perish in a prison for some petty debt, than if he had failed in the exact performance of some trifling conditions of a contract, in the terms, which he knew well that the law would hold to be definite and of per- fect obligation. 422 ON THE DUTIES DENOMINATED RIGHTS. It is highly important, therefore, for your clear views in ethics, that you should see distinctly the nature of this difference, to which you must meet with innumerable allusions,-and allusions that involve an obscurity, which could not have been felt, but for the unfortunate ambiguity of the phrases employed to distinguish rights that are easily determinable by law, and, therefore, enforced by it,-from rights which are founded on circumstances less easily determinable, and, therefore, not attempted to be enforced by legal authority. It is, as I have said, on the one simple feeling of moral approveableness, that every duty, and therefore every right is founded. All rights are morally perfect,-because, wherever there is a moral duty to another living being, there is a moral right in that otlier; and where there is no duty, there is no right. There is as little an imperfect right in any moral sense, as there is in logic an imperfect truth or falsehood. Actions of which the right is clearly determinable in all its circumstan- ces, or may be imagined at least to be clearly determinable, the law takes under its cognizance. But into the greater number of our virtues or vices, it makes no judicial inquiry. And though it might seem, on first reflection, to be more advantageous, if all which is morally due to us, might have been judicially claimed, it is well that so many virtues are left at our own disposal. But for this freedom from legal compulsion, there could be no virtue,-at least no virtue which could to others be a source of delight, however gratify- ing the conscious disinterestedness might be to the breast of the individual. What pleasure could we derive from the ready services of affection, if the failure of one of them would have subjected the delinquent to personal pu- nishment,-if we could not distinguish, therefore, the kindness of the heart, from the selfish semblance of it which it was prudence to assume,-and if the delightful society under the domestic roof, had thus been converted into a college of students of domestic law, calculating smiles and proportioning every tone of tenderness, to the strict requisitions of the statute-book. LECTURE XCIL ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY. My last Lecture, gentlemen, brought to a conclusion my remarks on the various moral relations, which connect every individual of mankind with every other individual,-some by ties of peculiar interest, but all by the obligation of benevolent wishes and of benevolent efforts, when it is in our power to free even a stranger from suffering, or to afford him any gratification which he could not have enjoyed but for us. The ethical inquiries which have of late engaged us, may be considered, then, as developements of one great truth, which it is impossible for man to consider too often,-that he does not enter life, to be an idle spectator of the magnificence of the universe, and of the living beings like himself that ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY. 423 dwell with him on that globe, which is his temporary home,-but that he has duties to perform, as well as pleasures to enjoy, and pains to avoid,-that he has it in his power to relieve the sufferings of others, and to augment their happiness, and that having this power} he must be an object of approbation to himself, if he use it for those noble purposes, or of disapprobation to himself, if he neglect to use it,-still more, if instead of merely neglecting the happiness of others, he exert himself, intentionally to lessen it, and add to the sufferings that exist in the world independently of him, the sufferings which it is in his power to inflict on others, and the more dreadful sufferings of remorse and despair, that must be felt by his own guilty heart. I should now, in regular order, proceed to the consideration of that pro- priety of conduct with respect to the individual which constitutes what has been termed our duty to ourselves. But, as this inquiry involves chiefly the consideration of happiness, and as so much of human happiness has relation to our notions of the Divinity, and our prospects of immortal life, it seems to me better upon the whole, to deviate, in a slight degree, from our regular plan, and to give our attention, first, to those great subjects, before entering on the inquiry which must have relatioti to them. We have already considered man in*various aspects,-as a sensitive being, capable of being affected by the things arourtd him, and deriving from them not pleasure, and pain, and sustenance merely, but the elements of his know- ledge,-as an intellectual being, capable of discovering the relations of tilings, comparing, generalizing, forming systems of truth, and almost creating worlds of fiction, that arise with the semblance of truth at the mere will of his fancy, -and, lastly, as a moral agent, connected with other moral agents, by ties that are innumerable as the living objects to whom they relate. We have now to consider the more important relation, which, as a created and dependent but immortal being, he bears to that Supreme Being, who is the great source of all existence. On this subject that comprehends the sublimest of all the truths which man is permitted to attain, the benefit of Revelation may be conceived to render every inquiry superfluous, which does not flow from it. But to those who are blessed with a clearer illumination, it cannot be uninteresting to trace the fainter lights, which in the darkness of so many gloomy ages, amid the oppression of tyranny in various forms, and of superstition more afflicting than tyranny itself,-could preserve, still dimly visible to man, that virtue which he was to love, and that Creator whom he was to adore. Nor can it be without profit, even to their better faith, to find all nature thus concurring as to its most important truths, with revelation itself; and every thing living and inanimate announcing that high and Holy One, of whose perfections they have been privileged with a more splendid manifestation. We have to consider, then, not the tie which connects man with his pa- rents only, and with that race of mortal ancestors, by whom a frail existence has been successively transmitted from those who lived for a few feeble years, to those who lived afterwards for a few feeble years, but that far no- bler principle of union, by which he is connected with Him who has existed for ever,-the Creator of the universe, and the Preserver of that universe which he has created. The inquiry into the existence of the noblest of Beings,-into the existence of Him to whom we look as the source of every thing which we enjoy and admire, is itself surely the noblest of all the inqui- ries on which man can enter; and the feelings, with which we enter on it, 424 should be of a kind that is suitable to the contemplation of a nature so noble, even as possibly existing. " Si intramus templa compositi," says an eloquent Pagan writer, when beginning an inquiry into some of the mere works of God, "si ad sacrificium accessuri viritum submittimus, si in omne aigumen- tum modestiae fingimur : quanto hoc magis facere debemus, cum de sideri- bus, de stellis, de deorum natura disputamus, ne quid temere, ne quid impu- denter, aut ignorantes affirmemus, aut scientes mentiamur."* The universe exhibits indisputable marks of design, and is, therefore, not self-existing, but the work of a designing mind. There- exists, then, a great designing mind. Such is the first truth with respect to the indication of di- vinity in the universe, to which I would direct your attention. If the world had been without any of its present adaptation of parts to parts, only a mass of matter, irregular in form and quiescent,-and if we could conceive ourselves, with all our faculties as vigorous as now, contem- plating such an irregular and quiescent mass, without any thought of the order displayed in our own mental frftme-I am far from contending that, in such circumstances, with nothing before us that could be considered as indi- cative of a particular design, we should have been led to the conception of a Creator. On the contrary, I conceive, the abstract arguments which have been adduced to show, that it is impossible for matter to have existed from eternity,-by reasonings on what has been termed necessary existence, and the incompatibility of this necessary existence with the qualities of matter,- to be relics of the mere verbal logic of the schools, as little capable of produc- ing conviction, as any of the wildest and most absurd of the technical scho- lastic reasonings, on the properties, or supposed properties, of entity and non- entity. Eternal existence,-the existence of that which never had a begin- ning, must always be beyond our distinct comprehension, whatever the eter- nal object may be, material or mental,-and as much beyond our compre*- hension, in the one case, as in the other, though it is impossible for us to doubt, that some being, material or mental, must have been eternal, if any thing exists. ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY. " Had there e'er been nought, nought still had been; Eternal these must be."t In the.circumstances supposed, however, it is very probable that if we form- ed any thought at all upon the subject, we should have conceived the rude quiescent mass to have been itself eternal, as, indeed, seems to have been the universal opinion of the ancient philosophers, with respect to the matter of the universe, even though they the existence of divine beings, as authors of that beautiful regularity which we perceive. The mass alone would have been visible,-creation, as a fact unknown to eur experience,- and in the mass itself, nothing which could be regarded as exhibiting trac.es of an operating mind. Butthough matter, as an unformed mass, existing without relation of parts, would not, I conceive, of itself have suggested the notion of a Creator,- since in every hypothesis, something material or mental must have existed uncaused, and mere existence, therefore, is not necessarily a mark of pre- vious causation, unless we take for granted an infinite series of causes,-it is * Senec. Natural. Qurest. Lib. VII. p. 840. t Night Thoughts, Night Ninth. very different when the mass of matter is considered as possessing propor- tions and obvious relations of parts to each other,-relations which do not exist merely in separate pairs, but many of which concur in one more gene- ral relation, and many of these again, in relations more general still. In short, when the whole universe seems to present to us, on whatever part of it we may look, exactly the same appearances as it would have presented, if its parts had been arranged intentionally, for the purpose of producing; the results which are now perceived,-when these appearances of adaptation are not in a few objects out of many, but in every thing that meets our view, anti innumerable, therefore, as the innumerable objects that constitute to us the universe,-we feel an absolute impossibility of supposing, that so many ap- pearances of design exist without design,-an impossibility against which, it may not be difficult to adduce words in the form of argument, but which it would be as difficult to endeavour not to feel, as to divest ourselves of that very capacity of reasoning, to which the negative argument must be address- ed. It would be absurd, to attempt to state how many proportions may co- exist, and yet be imagined by us, not to imply necessarily any design in the production of them. A few types, for example, may be thrown loosely to- gether, and some of them may form a word. This we can believe without any suspicion of contrivance. If many such words, however, were to be thrown together, we should suspect contrivance, and would believe contri- vance, with the most undoubting conviction, if a multitude of types were to be found thus forming one regular and continued poem. This instance, I may remark by the way, is one which is used by Cicero ; though it is one which we should little have expected to find in an ancient writer, in ages when the blessing of the art of printing was unknown. In speaking of the opinion of those who contend that the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, he says, " Hoc qui existimat fieri potuisse, non intelligo, cur non idem putet, si innumerabiles tmius et viginti formas literarum, velaurese vel quales- libet, aliquo conjiciantur, posse ex his in terram excussis, annales Ennii ut deinceps legi possent effici; quod nescio, an ne iij uno quidem versu, possit tantuin valere fortuna."* Such is our nature, then, that it wojald seem as truly impossible, that a number of types thrown together, should form the Iliad or Odyssey, as that they should form Homer himself. We might assert, indeed, that it was by chance, that each type had found its way into its proper place ; but, in as- serting this, our understanding would belie our sceptical assertion. A certain continued series of relations, is Relieved by us to imply contrivance, as truly as the sensations produced in us are conceived to imply the existence of cor- responding sensible qualities, in the object without; or as any conclusion in reasoning itself, is felt to be virtually contained in the premises which evolve it. The great question is, whether, in the universe, there be any. such, con- tinued series of relations ? Strange as it may seem, that, by knowing more and more fully, all the uses which the different parts of the universe fulfil, we should be less dispos- ed to think of the contrivance which those concurring uses indicate, the fact is certain. As often as we do think of them, indeed, in relation to their ori- gin, and say within ourselves, is this admirable seeming arrangement fortui- tous, or the work of design6} we feel more profoundly, that there must have been contrivance, in proportion as we have discovered more traces of har- ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY. 425 * De Nat. Deorum, Lib. II. p. 509. Ernest. Lend. 1819. Vol. IL 426 ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY. mony, in the disposition of the parts, subservient to certain uses. But still we think of these less frequently, merely because they have often been before us. We have all some particular objects, on which we are intent, of plea- sure, or business, or what, at least, we take to be business. It requires some astonishment, therefore, to make us pause and suspend our thoughts, which we have already given to some other object; and astonishment requires, that the object which excites it should be new. If it had been possible for the generations of mankind, t§ have existed in society, in a world of darkness, and that splendid luminary, by the regular appearances of which we now date our existence, had suddenly arisen on the earth, how immediately would it have suspended every project and passion,-all those projects, and passions, and frivolities, which fill our hearts a"t present, with their own petty objects, so as scarcely to leave room for a single better thought. The gay- est trifler would, for an instant, have ceased to be a trifler. The most ambi- tious courtly sycophant, who had been creeping for years round the throne, labouring to supplant rivals whom he never had seen, with the same assiduity as that with which competitors for royal favour, in a world of sunshine, la- bour to supplant rivals whom they have seen, would have thought of some- thing more than of himself and them, at such a moment. The very atheists of such a world, tvhose chief amusement, in their blindness, had been the ingenuity of proving, that the world must have existed for ever, as it existed then, would almost have felt, on such an appearance, that there is a Power which can create,-and would have been believers in that power, for some moments at least, though they might have hastened, as soon as their supersti- tious fear permitted them, to accommodate the new phenomenon to their sys- tem. The sudden appearance, then, of the sun, as it rose in all its magnifi- cence, on beings who had never before enjoyed a single ray of its profusion of splendour, would have led every heart to think of some mighty Power, that had formed it. It would have produced thatgreatf effect, which Lucre- tius and Petronius, taking a casual concomitant for the cause, very falsely ascribe to fear,-but is, in truth, the effect of that admiration of the great and new, which maij be combined with fear, though not necessarily, -as it may be combined with feelings of a very different kind. Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor; ardua coclo Fulmina quum caderent, discussaque moenia flammis, Atque ictus flagraret Athos. Fear of supernatural power, in such a case, it is very evident, must be the effect of previous belief of the existence of that Power which is feared, -for no one can fear that which he does not conceive to exist. It was not the fear, therefore, but the previous admiration of the new phenomenon, which, in Petronius' sense, " made the Gods and but for this admiration 6f what was new and great, the fear of the thunderbolt, could as little have produced fear of a divine Being, before unknown and unsuspected, as the fear of being burnt to death, when our house was on fire, could of itself, have suggested the notion of a Divinity. The sudden appearance of the sun, then, in a case like that which I have supposed, would have led every mind to some thought, as to its origin. It would have indicated power of some sort. But the sun would have gone down ; and, though there might be some little hope, that what had once ap- peared, might reappear, it could have been only a slight hope. The night once passed, however, it would return in its former magnificence; and, alter a few successions of days and nights, its regularity would add to the previous conception of power, some conception of corresponding order, in the pow- er, whatever it might be, which sent it forth with so much regularity. Such would have been our feelings, if we had not known the sun ever since we remember existence. Its rising and setting are now, as it were, a part of our own life. We arrange the labours of the'day, so as to bring them to a conclusion before the darkness, with W'hich evening is to close; and we lie down at night, lull of projects for the morning, with perfect reliance, that the light, which guided us during the past day, will guide* us equally, in that which is soon to shine upon us. Yet this very circumstance, the regularity with which the sun has appeared to distribute to us its innumerable blessings,-a regu- larity which gives to the splendid phenomenon itself, more indubitable marks of the power which is its source,-is the circumstance that prevents us from thinking ol this divine source. " Sed assiduitatg quotidiana," says Cicero, " et consuetudine oculorum, assuescunt animi, neque admirantur, neque re- quirunt rationes earum rerum, quas sempeu vident; proinde quasi novitas nos magis quam magnitude rerum, debeat ad exquirendas causas excitare."* Even if, when we first beheld the wonderful appearances of nature, our faculties had been such as they are, when matured in after life, though the phenomenon, must, of course, have become equally familiar to us, we should still have retained some impression of those feelings, which the aspect of the universe must have excited in us, when we first entered into this world of glory. " The miracles of nature," says Diderot, " are exposed to our eyes, long before we have reason enough to derive any light from them. If we entered the world, with the same reason which we carry with us to an opera, the first time that we enter a theatre,-and if the curtain of the universe, if I may so term it, were to be rapidly drawn up, struck with the grandeur of every thing which we saw, and ah the obvious contrivances exhibited, we should not be capable of refusing our'homage to the Eternal power which had prepared for us such a spectacle. But who thinks of marvelling at what he has seen for fifty years? What multitudes are there, who, wholly occupied with the care of obtaining subsistence, have no time for speculation ; -the rise of the sun is only that which calls them to toil, and the finest night in all its softness, is mute to them, or tells them only that it is the hour of re- pose."f When we read, for the first time, the account which Adam gives to the angel of his feelings, when, with faculties, such as we have supposed, and every thing new before him, he found himself in existence, in that happy scene of Paradise, which Milton has described,-we are apt to think, that the poet has represented him as beginning too soon to reason, with respect to the power to which he must have owed his existence ; and yet, if we deduct the influence of long familiarity, and suppose even a mind, less vigorous than that of Adarji,-but with faculties, such as exist now only in mature life, to be placed, in the first moment of existence, in such a scene, we shall find, the more we reflect on the situation, that the individual scarcely could fail to philosophize in the same manner : ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY. 427 * De Nat. Deorum, Lib. II. p. 510. * CEuv. de Diderot, Tome I. p. 100. 12mo. a Amst. 1772. 428 ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY. " As new wak'd from soundest sleep Soft on the flow'ry herb I found me laid, In balmy sweat, which, with bis beams the sun Soon dry'd, and on the reeking moisture fed. Strait toward Heaven my wand'ring eyes I turn'd, And gaz'd awhile the ample sdcy, till rais'd By quick instinctive motion, up I sprung, As thitherward endeavouring, and upright Stood on mj» feet. About me round I saw IliH, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains, And liquid lapse of murmuring streams;-by these Creatures that liv'd and mov'd, oi* walk'd or flew, Birds on the*branches warbling ;-all things smil'd ; With fragrance, and with joy my heart o'erflow'd. Myself I then perus'd, and limb by limb Survey'd, and sometimes went, and sometimes ran, With supple joints, as lively vigour led; But who I was, or whence, or from what cause, Knew not ;-to speak 1 trf'd, and forthwith spake. My tongue pbey'd, and readily could name Whate'er I saw. Thou sun, said I, ftir light! And thou, enlighten'd Earth, so fresh and gay, Ye hills and dates, ye rivers, woods, and plains, And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell, Tell, if ye saw', how came I thusj how here ;- Not of myself;-by some great Maker then, In goodness and in power pre-eminent;- Tell me how may I know him, how adore, From whom I have, that thus I move and live, And feel that I am happier than I know."* Refined as this reasoning may seem, in such circumstances of new exist- ence, it seems to us refined,'only because on imagining the situation of ofir first parent, it is difficult for us to divest ourselves of long accustomed feel- ings, and to suppose in his vigorous mind the full influence of that primary vivid admiration, which we have never felt,-because our minds had become accustomed to the sublime magnificence of the world, before they were'ca- pable of feeling the delightful wonder, which, if it had been felt by us, as he who is so poetically described, must have felt it, would have led us too to reason in the same manner,-and to feel, perhaps, that instant gratilude td which his tongue was so ready to give utterance. All the impression, then, which the wonders of nature would produce upon us, as new, is of course lost to us now. What would have forced itself upon us, without reflection,, requires now an effort of reflection. But, when 'we make the reflection, the contrivance does not appear to us less irresist- ibly marked. We have, indeed, many more proofs of such contrivance, than wd could possibly have had,-but for that experience which has been adding to them every day. If a multitude of parts, all manifestly relating to each other, and produc- ing a result, which itself has as manifest a relation to the results of othbr proportions, cannot be observed by us without an irresistible impression of design :-if it is impossible for (is to conceive, that nine millions of alpha- betic characters could fall of themselves into a treatise or a poem,-that all the pictures, 1 will not say in the whole world, but even the few which are to be found in a single gallery, were the product of a number of colours, thrown at random from a brush upon canvass,-that a city with all its dis- tinct houses, and all the distinct apartments in those houses, and all the im- * Par. Lost. B. VIII. v. 253-282 ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY. plements of domestic use which those apartments contain, could not have existed without some designing mind, and some hands that fashioned the stone and the wood, and performed all the other operations necessary for erecting and adorning the different edifices,-if it be easier for us to believe, that our senses deceived us in exhibiting to as such a city, and that there was truly nothing seen by us, than to believe that the houses existed of themselves, without any contrivance,-the only question, as I have already said, is, whether the universe itself exhibit such combinations of parts relat- ing to each other as the poem, the picture,'the city, or any other object for fvhich we find it necessary to have recourse to designing skill. It is quite evident, that in such a case as this, all abstract reasoning is'superfluous. We have not to investigate the relation* which harmony of parts bears to design, or to enter into nice disquisitions on the theory of probabilities. We are addressing men, and we address, therefore, beings, to whom doubt of such a relation is impossible,-who require no abstract reasoning to be convinced,' that the Iliad of Homer, or Euclid's Elements- of Geometry, could not be formed by any loose and casual apposition q!' alphabetic characters after characters,-and who, for the same reason, must believe, that any similar order implies similar design. If this connexion of a regular series of rela- tions, with some regulating mind, is not felt, there is at least as much reason to suspect, that any abstract reasoning on probabilities will be as little felt,- since every reasoning must assume a principle itself unproved, and as little universal as such belief in such circumstances.' Still more superfluous must be all those reasonings with respect to the existence of the Deity, from the nature of certain conceptions of our mind, independent of the phenomena of design, which are commonly termed reasoning? a priori,-reasonings that,, if strictly analyzed, are found to proceed -on some assumption of the very truth for which they contend, and tnat, instead of throwing additional light on the argument for a Creator of the universe, htfve served only to throw on it a sort qf darkness, by leading us to conceive, that there must be some obscurity in truths, which could give occasion to reasoning so obscure. God, and the world which he has formed-these are our great objects. Every thing which we strive to place between these is nothing. \Nq see the uni- verse, and seeing it, we believe in its Maker. It is the unjverse, therefore, whidh is our argument, and our only atgument; $nd, as it is powerful to convince us, God is, or is not, an object of our belief. If proportion, order, subserviency to certain that are themselves sub- servient to other uses, and these to others, in a regular series, be, then, what it is impossible for us to consider, without the belief of design-what is the universe, but a spectacle of such relations in every part ? From the great masses that roll through space, to the atom that forms one of their imperceptible elements, every thing is conspiring for some purpose. I shall not speak of the relations of the,planetary motions to each other,-of the mutual relations of the various parts of our globe,-of the different animals of the different elements, in the conformity of their structure to the qualities of the elements which they inhabit-of man himself, in all the nice adap- tations of his organs, for purposes which the anatomist and physiologist may explain to us in more learned language, but which even the vulgar, who know only the thousandth part, or far less than the thousandth part, of the wonders of their own frame, yet see sufficiently, to be convinced of an arrangement which the physiologist sees more fully, but does not believe 429 430 more undoubtingly. To these splendid proofs, it is scarcely necessary to do more than to allude. But, when we think of the feeblest and most insignifi- cant of living things,-the minutest insect, which it requires a microscope to discover, when we think of it as a creature, having limbs that move it from place to place,-nourished by little vessels, that bear to every fibre of its frame, some portion of the food, which other organs have rendered fit for serving the purposes of nutrition,-having senses, as quick to discern the objects that bear to it any relative magnitude, as ours,-and not merely exist- ing as a living piece of most beautiful mechanism, but having the power which no mere mechanism, however beautiful, ever had, of multiplying its own existence, by the production of living machines exactly resembling it- self, in all the beautiful organic relations that are clustered, as it were, in its little frame;-when tve think of all the proofs of contrivance which are thus to be found, in what seems to us a single atom, or less than a single latom, and when we think of the myriads of myriads of such atoms, which inhabit even the smallest portion of that earth, which is itself but an almost invisible ' atopa, compared with the great system of die heavens,-what a combination of simplicity and grandeur do we perceive. It is one univer- sal design, or an infinity of designs;-nothing seems to us little, because nothing is so little as not to proclaim that omnipotence which made it;-and, I may say too, that nothing seems to us great in itself, because its very grandeur speaks to us of that immensity, before which all created greatness is scarcely to be perceived. On particular arguments of this kind, that are as innumerable as the things which exist, I feel that it is quite idle to dwell. Those whom a single or- ganized being, or even a, sibgle organ, such as the eye, the ear, the hand, does not convince of the being of a God,-who do not see him, not more in the social order of human society, that in a single instinct of animals, pro- ducing unconsciously, a Result that is necessary for their continued existence, and yet a result which they cannot have foreknown-will not see him in all the innumerable instances that might be crowded together, by philosophers and theologians. If, then, such be our nature, that regularity of parts sub- servient to certain uses, impresses us necessarily, with a feeling of previous contrivance, we speak against the conviction of our own heart, as often as we affect to shelter ourselyes in die use of a frivolous word, and say, of all the contrivanqp of the universe, that it is all the result of chance.,-of chance, to which it would seem to us .absurd, to ascribe the far humbler traces of intellect' that are to be found in a poem, or a treatise of philosophy. What should we think of any one, who should ascribe to chance the combinations of letters that form the Principia of Newton I and is the world which Newton described, less gloriously indicativesof design, than the mere description ? The word chance, in such a case, may be regarded as expressive only of unwilling assent. It is a word easily pronounced, but it is nothing more. " How long," says Tillotson, in one of his Sermons, " might twenty thou- sand blind men, which should be sent out from the several remote parts of England, wander up and down before they would all meet upon Salisbury Plains, and fall into rank and file in the exact order of an army ? And yet this is much more easy to be imagined, than how the innumerable blind parts of matter should rendezvous themselves into a world. A man that sees Henry the Seventh's chapel at Westminster, might with as good reason, maintain, (yea, with much better, considering the vast difference betwixt ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY. ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY. 431 that little structure and the huge fabric of the world,) that it was never con- trived or built by any man, but that the stones did by chance grow into those curious figures into which they seem to have bfeen cut and graven; and that upon a time (as tales usually begin) the materials of that building, the stone, mortar, timber, iron, lead, and glass, happily met together, and very fortu- nately ranged themselves into that, delicate order in which we see them now so close compacted, that it must be a very great chance that parts them again. What would the world think of a man that should advance such an opinion as this, and write a book for it ? If they would do him right, they ought to look upon him as mad ; but yet with a little more reason than any man can have to say that the world was made by chance."* The world, then, was made ;-there is a designing Power which formed it-a Power whose own admirable nature explains whatever is admirable on earth, and leaves to us, instead of the wonder of ignorance, that wonder of knowledge and veneration which is not astonishment, but love and awe. " The impious," says an eloquent French writer, " are struck with the glory of princes and conquerors, that found the little empires of this earth ; and they do not feel the omnipotence of that hand which laid the foundations of the universe. They admire the skill and the industry of workmen, who erect those palaces which a storm may throw down ; and they will not ac- knowledge wisdom, in the arrangements of that infinitely more superb work, which the revolutions of ages have respected, and must continue to respect, till he who made it shall will it to pass away. In vain, however, do they boast that they do not see God; it is because they seek him, who is perfect holiness, in a heart that is depraved by its passions. But they have only to look out of themselves, and they will find him every where;-the whole earth will announce to them its Maker; and if they refuse still their assent, their own corrupted heart will be the only thing in the universe which does not proclaim the author of its being."] So completely do we feel this universal assent of nature, in acknowledging the existence of its author, that we enter readily into those poetic personifica- tions which animate every object, and call on them to mingle, as it were, in worship with mankind To Him, ye vocal gales Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes ! O talk of Him in solitary glooms, Where o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine Fills the brown shade with a religious awe. And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, Who shake the astonish'd world, lift high to Heaven The impetuous song, and say, from whom you rage. His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills, And let me catch it, as I muse along. Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound ; Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale ;-and thou, majestic main, A secret world of wonders in thyself, Sound His stupendous praise, whose greater voice, Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.}: To that power which we thus call on them to attest, they all truly bear witness. We assign to them feelings which they have not, indeed, as much * Tillotson's Works, vol. i. Sermon i. p. 12. t Massillon. | Thomson, Hymn on the Seasons. Lond. 1752. folio. 432 as we assign to them a voice which they have not; but so strong is the evi- dence of mind which they bear, that - it seems as if we merely give them a voice expressing, in our language what they mutely feel. ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY. LECTURE XGIII. ON THE EXISTENCE,-THE UNITY,-THE OMNISCIENCE,-THE OMNIPO- TENCE,-AND THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY My last Lecture, gentlemen, was employed in considering the evidence, which the frame of nature exhibits, of the being of its Divine Author. Of this there appears to me to be only one argument which can produce conviction,-but that bn argument so irresistible, as Jo correspond, in its influence on the mind, with the power of him whose existence it forces even the most reluctant to acknowledge. The arguments commonly'termed meta- physical, on this subject, I have always regarded as absolutely void of force, unless in as far as they proceed on a tacit assumption of the physical argu- ment; and, indeed, it seems to me no small corroborative proof of the force of this physical argument, that its remaining impression on our mind has been sufficient to save us from any doubt, as to that existence, which the ob- scure ahd laborious reasonings a priori, in support of it, would have led us to doubt, rather than to believe. The universe is that which shows the existence of the Author of the uni- verse. It exhibits a harmony of relations, to perceive which is to perceive design; that is to say, it is impossible for us to perceive them without feeling immediately, that lhe harmony of parts with parts, and of their results with each other, must have had its origin in some designing mind. I did not con- ceive it necessary to occupy much of your time, in tracing the various rela- tions of this sort, which the universe presents,-in the small as in the great, in the simple as in the complicated-for there is no need to exhibit a multi- tude of contrivances to prove a contriver. " Nec avis pennulam," says St. Austin, ;t nec herbae flosculum, nec arboris folium, sine pajtium suarum con- venientia reliquit." It is pleasing, indeed, to trace, in every part of the crea- tion, the wisdom by which it was created, as often as any new proof of beneficent intention is-discovered, by us, in some part, of which the uses were before unknown, but it is pleasing, only from the accession which is thus made to our physical knowledge, and, from the interest which we feel in con- templating the works of a Power which we love,-not from any stronger faith which we thence derive in the existence of that Power. He who can examine anatomically, 1 will not say the'whole frame of a single organized being, but even a single organ, and not perceive design,-who can look, for example, at the different parts of the eye, and believe that they exist as they are, without any adaptation to the light which they refract, and to the sentient mind,-who can see the bony socket, which defends so precious an organ from eternal violence,-the flexible covering, in the lid, which can be raised or depressed at pleasure,-that preserves it from injuries of a different kind, the apparatus for preparing a due quantity of moisture to lubricate the ball, and the conduit for carrying away all superfluous moisture,-the muscles, that enable us to vary at our pleasure the field of vision, by giving motion to the visual orb, and the soft cushion on which it rests, that these motions, however swift, may be performed without injury,-who, after observing these various provisions that are merely external to it, considers what it is which is to be found within the little orb itself,-the wonderful apparatus, by which the rays of light from a wide field, that comprehends in it objects at many distances, are all made to converge', so as to form one distinct image on the small expansion of the optic nerve,-and the apparatus as wonderful, by which the quantity of light admitted or excluded, is tempered to the delicate sensibility of the nerve, and this, hot tardily at our bidding, since the injury might then be done before we were able to know the danger, but instantly, without our volition, and even without our knowledge that any such process is taking place,-he who can consider the small compass within which so many wonders are condensed, and ascribe to chance, what, if invented by a human being, he could not fail to regard as the noblest instrument which wis- dom, in all its ingenuity, had ever invented, may indeed, be an atheist,-but such an atheist would continue an atheist, though the whole wonders of the living and inanimate universe were exhibited in succession to his view. To such a being, if such a denier of the slightest intentional adaptation of parts to parts in the frame of the universe, were trqly to exist, it would, in- deed, be as difficult to prove the existence, of God,-as to prove the truths that are evolved from any process of arithmetical or geometrical reasoning, to one who denied in words, the elementary relations which the separate pro- positions of the reasoning involve ; but we do not rely the less on those truths of demonstration, on account of the mere verbal sophistry which denies them, or professes to deny them,-and, notwithstanding the similar profession of scepticism as to design, it is equally impossible for us to consider a single or- gan like the eye, without believing that there was some one, by whom the beautiful apparatus was contrived. We cannot rdad a poem or a treatise, witlrout believing that it is a work of human art; nor read the characters of divinity in the universe, without thinking of its divine author. The manifest order of the universe, in the relation of parts to parts, and of their joint results to other joint results of other parts, is a proof then of some designing power, from which all this magnificent order took its rise ; and the great Being, to whom, in discovering design, we ascribe the designing power, is the Being whom we denominate God. The harmony which is the proof of design, is itself a proof of the relative unity of that design. This design- ing power is one, then, in the only sense in which we are entitled to speak either of divine unity or plurality, as indicated by the frame of nature before us, -for it js only from the phenomena of tire universe, that we are capable of in- ferring the existence of any higher being whatever; and, therefore, as we have no traces of any other being, than the universe, directly or indirectly, exhibits to us,-the designing power is not to our reason more than one; since in every thing which we behold, there is unity of that design, from which alone we nave any reason to infer a designer. The laws of motion which prevail on our earth, prevail equally, wherever we are capable of discovering motion. On our own earth, where our observation is so ample, in the infinity of ob- jects around us, there is no irregularity or opposition of contrivances, but all ON THE UNITY OF THE DEITY. 433 Vol. II. 434 have proportions or analogies which mark them as the result of one harmoni- ous design. There may be many spiritual beings of greater or less excel- lence, though there is no evidence of them in nature, for where there is no evidence whatever, it is as absurd to deny absolutely, as to affirm. But there is, as 1 have said, no evidence of any such beings ; and the designing power then, as marked to us by all which we perceive in nature, is one, in the only sense in which the unity of the Supreme Being can, be demonstrable, or even at all conceivable by us. The powef of which we speak, exists to our reason, only as the author of the design which vye trace, and the design which we trace, various as it may be in the parts to which it extends, is all one harmo- nious contrivance. This designing unity, that is relative to what we see, is all, however, which we are logically entitled to infer from the phenomena; for the absolute and necessary unity of the Divine Power, as attempted to be proved by meta- physical arguments a priori, that are at best, only a laborious trifling with words, which either signify nothing or prove nothing, is more than in our state of ignorance, independently of Revelation, we are entitled to assert. The unity, which alone, from the light of nature, we can with confidence as- sert, is hence not strictly exclusive, but wholly relative to tfiat one design, which we are capable of tracing in the frame of the universe. This one designing power, we are accustomed to say, is omniscient, and, in the only sense in which that phrase can have any meaning, when used by creatures so ignorant as ourselves, to signify our impossibility of discovering any limits to the wisdom, which formed the magnificent design of the world, -the phrase may be used, as expressively only of admiration, that is justly due to wisdom so sublime. He who formed the universe, and adapted it, in all its parts, for those gracious purposes, to which it is subservient, must of course have known the relations which he established; and knowing every relation of every thing existing, he may trflly be said to be omniscient, in his relation to every thing which exists. But it is in this definite sense only, that the phrase has any meaning, as used by creatures, whose knowledge is itself so very limited. Beyond this universe, it is presumptuous for man to venture, even in the homage which he offers. The absolute wisdom of the Dei- ty, transcendent as it may be, when compared, even with that noble display of it which is within us, and without us, wherever we turn our eyes, we are inca- pable even of conceiving ; and admiring what we know, an awful veneration of what is unknown, is all that remains for us. Our only meaning of the term omniscience then, does not arrogate to us, any knowledge of those infi- nite relations, which we assert the Deity to know. It is merely that the Su- preme Being knows every relation of every existing thing-and that it is im- possible for us to conceive any limit to his knowledge. His omnipotence, in like manner, as conceived by us, whatever it may be in reality, is not a power extending to circumstances, of which, from our own ignorance, we must be incapable of forming a conception; but a power which has produced whatever exists, and to which we cannot discover any limit. It may be capable of producing wonders, as far surpassing those which we perceive, as the whole fabric of the universe surpasses the little workmanship of mortal hands; but the relation of the Deity to these unex- isting or unknown objects, is beyond the feebleness of our praise, as it is be- yond the arrogance of our conception. God, then, the Author of the universe, exists. He exists, with a wisdom, ON THE OMNIPOTENCE OF THE DEITY. ON THE OMNIPOTENCE OF THE DEITY. 435 which could comprehend every thing that fills infinity, in one great design,- with a power, which could fill infinity itself, with the splendid wonders that are, wherever we endeavour to extend our search. We know no limit to his wisdom, for all the knowledge which we are capable of acquiring flows from him, as from its source; we know nothing which can limit his power, for every thing of which we know' the existence, is the work of his hand. God, then, thus wise and powerful, exists, and we are subject to his sway. We are subject to his sway: but if all which we knew of his nature were his mere power and wisdom, the inquiry most interesting to us, would still re- main. The aw'ful powrer, to which we perceive no limit, may be the sway of a tyrant, with greater means of tyranny, than any earthly despot can pos- sess,-or it may be the sway of a Father who has more than parental fond- ness, and a power of blessing far more extensive, than any parental power, which is but a shadow, and a faint shadow, of the Divine goodness that has conferred it. If wTe were suddenly carried away into captivity, and sold as slaves,, how eager should we be to discover whether our task-master- were kind or cruel,-whether we could venture to look to him with hope, or only with the terror which they feel, whaare to see constantly above them a power which is to be exercised only in oppression, or whose kindness of a moment is the short interval of hours of tyranny. But I will not use such an illustra- tion) in speaking of God and man. The paternal and filial relation is the only one which can be considered as faintly representing it; and to wnat son can it be indifferent, whether his father be gentle or. severe ? The goodness of God is, of all subjects of inquiry, fliat which is most, interesting to us. It is the goodness of him to whom we owe, not merely that we exist, but that we are happy or miserable now, and according to which we are to hope or fear for a future, that is not limited to a few years, but extends through all the ages of immortality» Have we, then, reason to believe that God is good? that the designing power, which it is ftnpossible for us not to perceive and admit, is a power of cruelty or kindness? Of whom is this the question? of those whose whole life has been a continued display of the bountiful provision of Heaven from the first moment at which life began. It is the inquiry of those, who* by the goodness of that God, whose good- ness they question, found, on their very entrance into this scenes of life, sources of friendship already provided for them, merely because they had wants that already required friendship,-whose first yeqrs, were years of cheerfulness almost uninterrupted, a$ if existence were all that is necessary for happiness,-to whom, in after life, almost every exertion which they were capable of making, was a pleasure, and almost every object which met their eye, a sense of direct gratification, or of knowledge, which was itself delight- ful,-who were not formed to be only thus selfishly happy, but seemed call- ed, by some propitious voice of nature, to the diffusion of happiness, by the enjoyment which arose from that very diffusion,-and warned from injuring others, by the pain which accompanied the very wish of doing evil, and the still greater pain of remorse, when evil had at any time been intentionally inflicted. Nor is it to be counted a slight part of the goodness of God, that he has given us that very goodness -as an object of our thought, and has thus opened to us, inexhaustibly, a pure and- sublime pleasure in the contempla- tion of those divine qualities, which are themselves the source of all the pleasures that we feel. Such is the goodness of God, in its relation to mankind, in infancy, in 436 ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. manhood, in every period of life. But we are not to think, that the good- ness of God extends only to man. The humblest life, which man despises, is not despised by him who made man of nothing, and all things of nothing, and " whose tender mercies are over all his works." Has God, thou fool, work'd solely for thy good ? Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food ? Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him as kindly spread the flowery lawn. Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings ? Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. Is it for thee, the linnet pours his throat ? Loves of his own and raptures swell the note. The bounding steed you pompously bestride, Shares with his Lord the pleasure and the pride. Is thine alone the seed tit at strews the plain ? The birds of Heaven shall vindicate their grain.* In vain do we strive to represent to ourselves all nature as our own, and only our own. The happiness which we see the other races around us en- joying, is a proof that it is theirs as well as ours ; and that he, who has given us the dominion of all things that live on earth, has not forgotten the crea- tures, which he hqs entrusted to our sway. Even in the deserts, in which our sway is not acknowledged, where the lion, if man approaclied, would see no Lord, before whom to tremble, but a creature far feebler than the or- dinary victims of his hunger, or his wrath,-in the dens and the wildernesses, there are pleasures which owe nothing to us, but which are not the less felt by the fierce hearts that inhabit the dreadfid recesses. They, too, have their happiness : because they too were created by a Power that is good,-and of whose beneficent design, in forming the world, with all its myriads of myri- ads of varied races of inhabitants, the happiness of these was a part. " Nor," as it has been truly said, " is the defeign abortive. It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted exist- ence. In a spring noon, or a summer' evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. ' The insect youth are on the wing.' Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wantonf mazes, their gratuitous acti- vity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered faculties. A bee, amongst the flowers in spring, is one of the most cheerful objects that can be looked upon. Its life appears to be all enjoyment; so busy and so pleased : yet it is only a specimen of insect life, with which, by reasoti of the animal being half domesticated, we happen to be better acquainted than we are with that of others."f Such is the seemingly happy existence of that minute species of life, which is so abundant in every part of the great scene in which we dwell. I shall not attempt to trace the happiness upward, through all the alacrity and seeming delight in existence, of the larger animals,-an ever-flowing plea- sure, of which, those who have had the best opportunities of witnessing mul- titudes of gregarious animals feeding together, and rejoicing in their common pasture, will be the best able to appreciate the amount. All have means of * Pope's Essay on Man, Ep. III. v. 27-38. ! Paley's Nat. Theol. 8ve. p. 392. enjoyment within themselves; and, if man be the happy sovereign of the creation, he is not the sovereign of miserable subjects. ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 437 Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whose use ? Pride answers, *tis for mine, For me, kind Nature wjikes her genial power, Suckles each herb, and spreads out fivery flower: Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew The juice nectarious, and the balmy dew ; Forme, the mine a thousand treasures brings; For me, Health from a thousand springs ; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise ;- My footstpol earth-my canopy the skies.* All these sources of blessings that are infinite, as the living beings that en- joy them, were made, indeed, for man, whose pride makes the arrogant ex- clusive assumption,-but they were made also for innumerable beings, whose very existence is unknown to man, and who know not, in their turn, the ex- istence of him who supposes that all these means of happiness are for him- self alone. There is, at every moment, an amount of happiness on the earth, of which the happiness of all mankind is an element indeed, but only one of many elements, that perhaps bears but a small proportion to the rest; and it is not of this single element that we are to think, when we consider the benevolence of that God who has willed the whole. It is this element of the universal happiness, however, with which we are best acquainted; and, when man is the inquirer, it is to this human part of course, that we may suppose his attentiop to be chiefly turned. But man the enjoyer, is very different from man the estimator of enjoyment. In mak- ing our estimate of happiness, we think, only or chiefly, of what is remark- able, not of what is ordinary ; as, in physics, we think of the rarer phenome- na, far more than of the appearances of nature, which are every moment before our eyes. There are innumerable delights, therefore, of the senses, of the understanding, of the heart, which we forget, because they are delights to which we are every hour accustomed, and which are shared with us by all mankind, or the greater number of mankind. It is what distinguishes us from our fellows that we consider,-and this, the very 'circumstance of dis- tinction, necessarily limits to a few ;-not what is common to us with our fel- lows, which, by the very wideness of the participation, is of an amount that is incomparably greater. We think of the benevolence of the Author of the whole race of mankind, therefore, as less than it is, because it is a benevolence that has provided for the whole race of mankind ; and if the amount of good, provided for every living being, had been less in the extent of its diffusion, we should, in our erring estimate, have regarded it as more-at least if ourselves had been of the number of the privileged few, who alone enjoyed those general blessings of nature, which now are common to all. " Non dat Deus beneficia ?-unde ergo ista quae possides, quae das, quae negas, quae servas, quae rapis ? unde haec innumerabilia, oculos, aures, ani- mum mulcentia ? unde ilia luxuriant quoque instruens copia. Neque enim necessitatibus tantummodo nostris provisum est; usque in delicias amamur. -Si pauca quis tibi donasset jugera, accepisse te diceres beneficium : im- mensa terrarum late patentium, spatia negas esse beneficium !"f It is truly, * Essay on Man, Ep. I. v. 131-140 t Senec. De Benef Lib. IV. cap. v vi. 438 as this eloquent writer says, the possession of the common glories of the earth, the sky, of all nature that is before us and above us, which is the most valuable possession of man ; and the few acres which he enjoys, or thinks that he enjoys, exclusively, compared with that greater gift of Heaven to all mankind, are scarcely worthy of being counted as a proof of Divine benefi- cence. ' • But though life to man, and to his fellow-inhabitants of earth, be a source of happiness upon the whole, it is not always,'and in every instance, a source of happiness. There is not a moment, indeed, in which the quantity of agreeable sensation felt by myriads of creatures, may rfbt be far greater than all the pain which is felt at the same moment. But still there is no moment, in which pain, and a ver/ considerable amount of pain, is not felt. Can he be good, then, under whose supreme government, and therefore, almost, it may be said, at whose bidding, pain exists? Before entering on this inquiry, however, it may* be necessary to obviate an objection, that arises from the mere limitation of our nature as finite beings. Many of the complaints of those who are dissatisfied with the system of the universe, arise from this mere limitation of our faculties and enjoyments, -a limitation in which ingratitude would find an argument, in whatever state of being, short of absolute divinity, it might be placed ; and even though possessing all the functions of divinity from the moment at which it was tre- ated, might still look back through eternity,- and complain with the tsame rea- son, that it had not been created earlier, to the exercise of such sublime functions. It surely is not necessary, forMhe proof of benevolence, on the part of the Divine Being, that man should be himself a God,-that he should be omni- scient or omnipotent, any more than that he should have existed from eternity. His'senses, with all his other faculties, are limited, because they are the fa- culties of a created being ; as even his immortality may, in one sense of the wrord, be said to be limited, when considered in relation to -the eternity that preceded his existence. But how admirably does even the limitation of his nature demonstrate the gracious benevolence of Heaven, when we con- sider the innumerably relations of the universe, that must have been contrived in adaptation to the exact degree of his capacity, so as to be most productive of good in these particular circumstances. If we think only how very slight a change in the qualities of external things, though perfectly suitable, per- haps, to a different degree of sensitive and intellectual capacity, might have rendered the existence of man absolutely miserable, how sublimely benevo- lent seems that wisdom, in the very minuteness of its care, which, by pro- portioning exactly the qualities of atoms, to the qualities of that, which, in the world of spirits, may be considered as scarcely more than what an atom is in the material world, hag produced, amid so many possibilities of misery, this result of happiness. You are probably all acquainted with the lines of Pope, so often quoted on this subject, that express briefly, and with great poetic force, the reasoning of Mr. Locke on this subject, which, perhaps, suggested therrt. ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. The bliss of man,-could Pride that blessing find, Is, not to act or think beyond mankind ; No powers of body or of soul to share, But what his nature and his state can bear. , Why has not man a microscopic eye ' ON THE GOODPsESS OF THE DEITY. 439 For this plain reason,-Man is not a fly. Say, what the use were finer optics given, To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven ? Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er, To smart and agonize at every pore,- Or, quick effluvia darting through the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain ? If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears, And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres, How would he wish that Heaven had left him still The whispering zephyr and the purling rill !* We see, then, the advantage of the adaptation of our limited powers, to the particular circumstances of nature. But appearances of evil unquestionably exist, that are not to be ascribed to the mere limitation of our faculties, in relation to the finite system of things in which they are to be exercised. Let us now, then, proceed in part to the consideration of the question, as to the compatibility of these appearances with benevolence, in the contriver of the universe. The objection to the goodness of the Supreme Being, involved in this question, of course, proceeds on the supposition that the Deity had the power of forming us differently,-a power, therefore, which I need not stop to attempt to prove, since, unless this be taken for granted by the objector, the objection would be nugatory. But if the Deity had the power of forming us differently,-if, for exam- ple, he could have so constituted our nature, that every object amid which we were placed, must have been a source of pain,-that habit, instead of les- sening the sense of pain, had continually increased it,-that instead of an al- most constant tendency to hope, we had an equally constant tendency to the most gloomy apprehension,-that we had felt pleasure in inflicting pain gra- tuitously, and remorse, only, if we had inadvertently done good ;-if all this had been, it would surely have been a conclusion as just as obvious, that the contriver of this system of misery was, in his own nature, malevolent; and any happiness which seemed slightly felt at times, especially if the happiness was the manifest result of a contrivance that, upon the whole, tended far more frequently to the production of pain-might, without any violation of the principles of sound philosophy, have been ascribed to an intention purely malevolent, as indicated by the general contrivance obviously adapted for the production of pain. If, in such a system of things, any one had contended tor the benevolence of the Deity, from these few instances of pleasure, it would have been counted, as I cannot but think, a satisfactory answer, to have proved that the ordinary result -of the contrivance must be pain ; and to have pointed out the manifest subserviency of the different parts of the contrivance, to this cruel purpose. • If this answer would be lield valid, in the case now supposed, the opposite answer cannot be less valid, in the opposite circumstances in which we exist. I need not repeat, how much gratification we receive from the objects around us, nor fill up that antithesis to the former statement, which would probably occur .to yourselves, while I imagined and stated its various circumstances. I shall dwell only on the pain, that is the occasional result of the system of things, as it is. Is this the result of a contrivance, of which pain seems to be the manifest object, or of a contrivance which rs manifestly, in its general and obvious appearances, adapted for pur- * Essay on Man, Ep. 1- 189-204. 440 ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. poses of utility, and consequently of goodness'? " Evil, no doubt, exists," says Paley, " but is never, that we can perceive, the object of contrivance. Teeth are contrived to eat, not to ache ; their aching now and then is inci- dental to the contrivance, perhaps inseparable from it; or even, if you will, let it be called a defect in the contrivance; but it is not the object of it. This is a distinction which well deserves to be attended to. In describing implements of husbandry, you would hardly say of the sickle, that it was made to cut the hand ; though, from the construction of the instru- ment, and the manner of using it, this mischief often follows. But, if you had occasion to describe instruments of torture, pr execution, this engine, you would say, is to extend the sinews;-this to dislocate the joints ;-this to break the bones;-this to scorch the soles of the feet. Here pain and misery are the very objects of the contrivance. Now, nothing of this sort is to be found in the frame of nature. We never discover a train of con- trivance to bring about an evil purpose. No anatomist ever observed a sys- tem of organization calculated to produce pain and disease ; or, in explain- ing the parts of the human body, ever said,-this is to irritate,-this to in- flame,-this duct is to convey the gravel to the kidneys, this gland to secrete the humours which form the gout. If, by chance, he come to a part of which he knows not the use, the most he can say, is, that it is useless; no one ever suspects that it is put there to incommode, to annoy, or to torment."* When the direct object of all the great contrivances of nature then, is so manifestly for beneficent purposes, it would be reasonable, even though no advantage could be traced, as the consequence of the occasional evils of life, to ascribe these rather to purposes unknown to us, than to purposes that were malevolent. If the inhabitant of some other planet were to witness the kindness and solicitude of a father for his child in his long watchfulness of love, and were then to see the same parent force the child, notwithstand- ing its cries, to swallow some bitter potion, he would surely conclude, not that the father was cruel, but that the child was to derive benefit from the very potion which he loathed. What that benefit was, indeed, it would be impossible for him to conceive, but he would not conceive the less, that the intention was benevolent. He would feel bis own ignorance of the consti- tution of things on earth, and would be confident, that if he knew this con- stitution better, the seeming inconsistency of the affection, and the produc- tion of suffering, .would be removed. Such a presumption would be reasonable, even though we were incapable of discovering, in many cases, the advantage to which the seeming evil is subservient. It is very evident, that he only who knows all the relations of the parts of the universe, can justly appreciate the universe, and say with confi- dence of any part of it, it were better that this had not been. In qur state of partial and very limited knowledge, if we say this of any part of the wonder- ful mechanism, we may perhaps say it of that, which not being, the happi- ness of millions would have been destroyed ;-we may say it even of that, the loss of which would be the confusion of all the systems of the uni- verse. • Let earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly. Planets and suns run lawless through tne sky ; Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurled, Being on being wreck'd, and world on world * Moral and Pol. Philosophy, Book II. Chap. V ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 441 Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod, And nature trembles to the throne of God. All this dread order break-for whom ? For thee, Vile worm !-O ! madness, pride, impiety."* What should we think of him, who, fixing his whole attention on the dim figures in the background of a great picture, should say, that the artist had no excellence, because these figures hdd little resemblance to the clear outline of the men and horses, that seemed intended to be represented by them ! All which would be necessary to vindicate the artist, woidd not be to make the slightest alteration in these figures, but to point out to the observer the foreground, and to bid him to comprehend the whole picture in a glance. The universe is, if I may so express it, such a picture, but a picture far too large to be comprehended in our little gaze ;-the parts which we see,, have always some relation to parts which we do not set; and, if all these relations could be seen by us, there can be no doubt, that the universe would then appear to us very different, as different, perhaps, as the picture seems to him, who has looked only on the background, and who afterwards surveys the whole. All reasoning of this kind, however, that is founded merely on our impos- sibility of accurate knowledge, is, 1 am aware, and am ready to admit, of little weight, unless where there is so decided a superiority of'good or evil in the parts that may be conceived to be in a great measure known, as tp leave no reasonable doubt as to the nature of the parts, or relations of parts, that are unknown. It is on this account, and on this account only, 1 con- sider it as of peculiar force in the present instance ; for I surely need not say, after the remarks already made, how strong are the appearances of be- nevolent intention in the system of the universe, in all those manifest contri- vances, of which we are able clearly to discover the object. The Divine Being Who has contrived a sjjstem that must thus, on every hypothesis, be allowed to be productive of much good to man, must be be- nevolent, malevolent, or indifferent, or capriciously benevolent, or malevolent That he is not indifferent, every contrivance itself shows. That he is not capricious, is shown by the uniformity of all the laws of nature, since the world has been a subject of human observation. That he is not malevolent, the far greater proportion of the marks of benevolent intention sufficiently indicates; and since his benevolence, therefore, is not capricious, the only remaining supposition is, that it is the permanent character of the Divine Mind. , • ♦ The presumption, then, as to the goodness of God, even in the apparent evils of the system in which man is placed, would be a reasonable presump- tion, though, with our limited comprehension, we were incapable of dis- covering the advantages that flow from these particular seeming evils. What we see clearly, might be regarded as throwing light on other parts of the immense whole, which are too dim for our feeble vision. When a fair estimate, then, has been made of all the indications of the moral character of its author, which the universe exhibits, it is logically wise to infer, in many cases, a goodness that is not immediately apparent in the particular results. But, feeble as our faculties are, they are not so weak of vision and comprehension, as to be incapable of distinguishing many of the relations of apparent evil to real good. There are many evils,-that is to say, * Pope's Essay on Man, Ep. 1. v. 251-258- Vol. IL 442 qualities productive of uneasiness, which the ignorant, indeed, might wish re- moved, but which those who have a little more knowledge, would wish to continue, though the continuance or the disappearance of them depended on their mere will; and every discovery of this sort which we make, adds new force to that general presumption of goodness, which even though we had been incapable of making any such discovery, would have been justified by the general character of benevolent intention, in the obvious contrivances of the universe. In treating of our appetites, I took occasion to explain to you the importance of the uneasy feelings, which form a part of them. The ignorant, perhaps, might wish these removed, merely because they are un- easy feelings,-though it is only as uneasy feelings they are valuable. The evils which we-too might wish removed, are, perhaps, as important in their general relations, which wTe do not perceive, as hunger and thirst are in those relations, of which the vulgar do not think, and may almost be said, from their habits, to be incapable of thinking. The analogy of many of the ills of life in their beneficial relation to our pains of appetite, is, indeed, very striking. Without the uneasiness of un- •gratified desire, in general, how feeble, in many cases, would be the delight of the gratification itself. He, certainly would not consult wrell for human happiness, by whom every human desire, if it were in his power, would be rooted from the breast. It is in its relation to the enjoyments of conscious moral agency, however, that the existence of so much seeming evil in the world, finds its best solu- tion. To this 1 shall proceed in my next Lecture. ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. LECTURE XCIV. ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY-OBJECTIONS OBVIATED. In my last Lecture, gentlemen, I Considered the evidence which the uni- verse exhibits of the goodness of its Author,-a goodness, which, limited in its extent only by the limits of the universe itself, is present with us wher- ever we turn our eyes,-since <here is not a result of the wisdom and power of God, which is not, in its consequences,* direct or indirect, an exhibition of some contrivance, for the moral or physical advantage of his creatures. Though every thing which we behold, however, may, in its general relations, lead to this benevolent purpose-good, or, at least, what seems to be good, is far from being, in every case, the immediate result. There is misery in the world, as truly as there is happiness in the world ; and he who denies the one, as a mere phehbmenon of the living scene in which he is placed, might, with as much reason, deny the other. Whence, then, is this evil, has been the question of every age, that has been capable of in- quiries beyond those, vjhich originate in mere animal necessity. That Eternal mind, From passion*, wants, and envy, far estrang'd, ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 443 Who built the spacious universe, and deck'd Each part so richly with whate'er pertains To life, to health, to pleasure,-why bade he The viper evil, creeping-in, pollute The goodly scene; and, with insidious rage, While the poor inmate looks around and smiles, Dart her fell sting, with poison to his soul ?* Such has been the question of ages ; ami if, for answer to it in accor- dance with belief of the goodness of the Dehy, it be necessary, that the particular advantage of each particular seeming evil, be precisely demon- strated, it must be confessed, that no answei- has yet been given to it by phi- losophy ; and that, in this sense, probably the question must continue unan- swered, as long, at least, as man is a creature of this earth. To be able to answer it in this sense, indeed, would imply a knowledge of all the relations of all existing things, which is possible only tb a being, that can look iqaon the future still more clearly, than man with his dim memory is permitted to look upon the past. But, though we cannot state precisely, a particular ad- vantage of each seeming evil, we can at least infer from the general appear- ances of nature, and the more minute and intimatfi contrivances which it ex- hibits, the moral character of that power which has formed us,-so as' to know of any particular contrivance, the particular effects of which we may be incapable of tracing, whethel* he that designed it as a part of a system, was one who willed, or did not will, the happiness of mankind. We may infer it certainly, with as great accuracy, or far greater than that with which we infer the benevolent or malevolent disposition of our friends or foes: and if it be reasonable in the case of a friend, whose kindness has been the source of the chief happiness of our life, to infer, in §ome cases, in which we might have doubted of the intentions of others,-that his intentions might have been friendly to us, even when we suffer by the immediate results of his actions;-that confidence which we should blush not to feel in the case of an earthly friend, who, though known to- us by long intimacy of mutual regard, may yet have been influenced by motives of interest or momentary passion, is surely not less reasonable, when he, in whom we confide, is the only friend that cannothiave with us any rival interests,-a friend, to whom we are indebted for every thing which we possess, even for the delights of those cordial intimacies, and for that very confidence which we think it tlfe base- ness of dishonour to withhold from any friend, but from that one, who alone deserves it fully. It is surely not too much to claim for God, what in the ordinary circumstances of society, We should regard as in some measure ignominious to deny to man ; or, at least, if it seem too much for human gra- titude to extend this trust to its first o'f benefactors, let us not have the selfish inconsistency, of daring to claim from our own friefids a confidence, which, in circumstances* of far less equivocal obligation, we consider it only as wise and virtuous to deny to God. That, in all the innumerable contrivances of nature, in the Wonderful me- chanism of the living frame, there is not one of which the production of injury seems to have been the direct object,-whatever occasional evil may indirectly arise from it;-and that there are innumerable contrivances, of which the direct object is manifestly beneficial,-may be regarded as a sufficient proof of the general disposition and gracious intention of him, to whose nower and wis- * Pleasures of the Imagination, B. III. 444 dora we ascribe these contrivances. In my Lecture yesterday I endeavoured to picture to you a constitution of things, exactly the opposite of that which at present subsists ; in which the evident direct object of every contrivance, was the production of misery,-in which, in this misery, man, instead of the constant tendency to hope which now comforts him in affliction, had an equally constant tendency to despair and become more keenly sensible to pain, the more he had been habituated to it;-and as, in that case, where the direct object of every contrivance was manifestly injurious, no one would infer benevolence from any occasional tendency of the laws of that contri- vance, to produce some slight gratification to the sufferer, when the inciden- tal pleasure flowed from the same principle which produced the general anguish,-so, in the present constitution of things, in which the direct object of every contrivance is beneficial to man, there is surely as little reason to infer any malevolent desire, from evils that arise in consequence of a general provision, which is, in all those general circumstances to which it manifestly relates, decidedly productive of good. The Supreme Orderer of the frame of nature, as I have said, is not capricious, for the laws which now regulate the universe, are the same which have been observed since man was an observer. He is not indifferent to the happiness or misery of man, for man exists as a being capable of hap- piness or misery; and every relation, or almost qvery relation, which connects man with the living or inanimate objects around him, is productive to him, directly or indirectly, of some pleasure or pain. Equally evident is it, that He, whose general arrangements are all directly indicative of purposes of utility, that are only incidentally combined with any .seeming evil, is not one who has willed, as the object* of those arrangements, the misery of his living creatures ;-and, if he be not malevolent, indifferent, nor capricious, he is, and must be, permanently benevolent, and the seemipg evil has not been will- ed as evil. We are bound, therefore, not more by gratitude than by sound philosophy, to confide in the gracious intentions of Heaven, even when the graciousness of those intentions is to be determined, not by, a particular result, that of itself,-if it had existed alone,-might not have seemed indicative of it, but by the general indications of moral character,'which the system, as a whole, exhibits. All inference and extension of this kind, I have admitted, would not be reasonable, however, unless when the indications of gracious intention pre- vailed with indubitable superiority. But of this superiority, in the physical relations of things, who can doubt, who estimates the beneficent arrange- ments of the author of the universe with half the candour, with which he estimates the conduct and the character of a common earthly friend ! The operations of nature are not arbitrary, so#as to vary with the particu- lar circumstances of the individual, and of the moment; and if it be of im portance for man to be a designing agent, to have the noble consciousness of acting according to his own desire, and not to be the mere passive subject even of pleasure itself,-which, he who can doubt, is scarcely worthy of the name of man,-it is evidently of importance, that the phenomena of nature should thus take place, according to general laws, that, by his foresight of their results, he may regulate his conduct in adaptation to them. The law, or regular arrangement of the sequences of events in nature, which pro- duces good upon the whole, is not to be suspended, because it may, to an in- dividual in particular circumstances, be productive of evil; since, if it were ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. rnus variable, no one could even guess, what the result could be, in any com- bination of circumstances; and the evil which would arise from this uncer- tainty to the whole race of mankind, would unquestionably be far greater than the evil that might arise to a single individual, from the uniformity, in cases, in which it might, to that particular individual, at that particular moment, have been profitable, that the law were suspended. ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY 445 Think we, like some weak prince, the Eternal Cause, Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws ' Shall burning Etna, if a sage requires, Forget to thunder and recall her fires? On air or sea, new motions be imprest, O blameless Bethel, to relieve thy breast ? When the loose mountain, trembles from on high, Shall gravitation cease, if /ou go by ?* It is quite evident, that even Omnipotence itself, which cannot do what is contradictory, cannot combine both advantages-the advantage of regular order in the sequences of nature, and the advantage of an uniform adapta- tion of the particular circumstances of the moment, to the particular circum- stances of the individual. We may take our choice, but we cannot think of a combination of both-; and if, as is very obvious, the greater advantage be that of uniformity of operation, we must not complain of evils, to which that very uniformity which we could not fail to prefer, if the option had been allowed to us, has been the very circumstance that gave rise. You cannot fail to perceive, of yourselves, how much of that which we term evil, is re- ferable to this circumstance alone,-a circumstance which, in every instance, occasions to us momentary suffering, indeed, but which, in every instance, leaves to us, or rathe! confers on us, the gloridus privilege of conscious agency,-of that agency with design, which implies a foreknowledge of cer- tain events, as the consequents of certain other antecedent events. That the phenomena of nature should take place, then, according to general laws, and should not be various according to the particular circumstances of the individuals, to whom a temporary accommodation of them might seem more advantageous in some particular cases,-is so obvious, if man is to be at all a reflecting and conscious agent, that I conceive it unnecessary to dwell at any length on the demonstration of it. But general laws, it will be said, miglrt have been framed, possessing all the advantages of regularity, and productive of less suffering. Is there any advantage thea, of suffering itself, that* may reconcile it, more readily at least, with that Divine goodness, the reality of which, as a quality of him to whose sw*ay we are subject, it is so delightful to believe ? There are such relations of occasional suffering to lasting advantage, which, in many most important respects, could not exist, but for the suffering, and for which, all the suffering itself is not too dear a price. The great advantage, is to be found in the exercise of virtues, to which suffering or the risk of suffering, is essential, and in all the enjoyment that flows from the consciousness of these virtues in ourselves, and from our ad- miration of them as displayed by others. But, though this relation to moral character is unquestipnably the chief advantage, and that which might, of itself, be sufficient to account, in a great measure, for the mixture of apparent evil in the universe, it is not perhaps " Essay on Man, Ep. IV. v. 121-128. 446 all. I cannot but think likewise, that, independently of such moral advan- tages, some estimate is to be made of the relation, which many of our phy- sical evils bear to our mere mortalvty, as necessary for th 9 production of suc- cessive races of mankind. Of this relation, therefore, inconsiderable as it is, when compared with the moral advantage which we are afterwards to ex- amine, a few remarks may not be absolutely unimportant. It is of advantage upon the whole, if the earth, in either way, were to sup- port exactly the same numberof inhabitants, that there should be a succession of races, rather than one continued race. In the case of man, for example, of which we can best speak,-tholgh we omit all consideration of the multi- tude of beings who are thus transmitted, aftei* what is, perhaps, a necessary preparation, to a of higher existence,-and think merely of the cir- cumstances of this earth, how itfuch bf human happiness would be destroyed, but for such a provision of alternate weakness to be sheltered, and love to be the guardian of weakness.* Whejre there is no succession of races, all filial, and parental, and consanguin'eal relations of every sort, are of course out of the question ; and, consequently, all the happiness which such rela- tions bestow. Indeed, in a long life of this kind, all the associations which are now productive of so much delight, would probably be wholly powerless. The home of fifty ox a hundred would cease, perhaps, to be our home; and be succeeded by so many other homes of the same period, that the effect on our feelings, thus divided among so mqpy scenes, would be the same as if we Lad rib country t>r home whatever. As things are at present, there is not a moment in which thousands of 'our kind are not deriving plea- sure from an infinity of objects, that, to an immortal race of beings similar to us in every respect, but mortality, would long have ceased to afford grati- fication. There is a constant succession of new spirits,'full of all the ala- crity of new existence, and enjoying the deliglrt of new objects ; and the con- templation of this very scene, so beautifully diversified with the quick hopes of youth, and the slower deliberative wisdom of manhood, is one of the chief pleasures which the universe, as an object of thought, affords. But, though nothing more were gained, than the mere relations of consanguinity, to which the present system gives rise, who could hesitate for a moment, in determining by which of the two systems the greater good would be pro- duced,-by an almost immortal earthly existence, coeval with the whole sys- tem of earthly things, or by that shorter mortality which allows* therefore, room for successive generations, and for all the kind affections which these generations, as they successively arise, evolve. To remove from life that tenderness which flows from the protection and instruction of infancy, and that tenderness which is reflected back from the little smiler who is the object of it, to all who are smiling around* him,-would be, in its ultimate effects on the maturer feelings of manhood, to destroy not the happiness merely but half the virtue of mankind. The vefy briefness of life, afflicting as it is in many cases, is, in some cases,-which, comparatively few as they may be, are not to bo neglected in our general estimate,-essential to jeomfort. There are situations, in which hope, that is so little apt to desert the afflicted, scarcely arises, unless when it speaks of other scenes,-and in which Death, the opener of immor- tality, is hailed, as that gracious comforter who receives the combatant vjten the warfare of life is over ; and preparing for him at once the couch and the laurel, leads him to glory in leading him to repose. ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. I need not pause, however, to state the various advantages arising from a succession of races on earth, rather than an unvarying number. 1 may very safely consider you as taking this for granted. If it be of advantage, then, that one generation of mankind should suc- cessively yield its place to another generation, the question comes to be, in what manner it is most expedient that death should take place ? That, in whatever way it take place, it is most expedient, upon the whole, that it should occur according to some general law, and not capriciously, 1 may consider as already proved ; and the question, therefore, is, what general provision for this great change would be most advantageous ? It is evident, in the first place, that, if life had followed a certain exact proportion in point of time,-if, like a clbck for example, that is wound up so as to tell the hour for a certain number of days, and then to cease wholly its motion, human life had ceased pt a certain exact beat of the pulse, and could not cease but at that particular moment,-all* the advantage, which arises from the uncertainty of the period of death, must have been lost. Till the moment approached there could be no fear, and consequently no restraint, which fear alone imposes; and when the period approached, life, if its con- tinuation were at all an object of desire, could be only the sail calculation of the condemned criminal, who makes miserable every moment that passes, by the thought that he is on the point of losing it,-though to lose such a moment, or at least, a succession of such moments, is itself no slight gain. By that provision which has made death uncertain in its period, man does not suspend his labours, and, consequently, withdraw his portion of service from mankind, till the last moment in which he can be useful. w Sepulcri immemor, struit domos." He may toil for himself, indeed, in executing these vain projects; but in toiling for himself, he toils also for society. It is of no slight importance, then, for the happiness both of the individual himself, and of those around him,-and thus of society in .general, that the moment of death should not be exactly foreseen* It must be made to de- pend, therefore, on circumstances in the physical constitution of individuals, which may arise or be readily induced at any time. It becomes a question accordingly, whether these circumstances should be agreeable, indifferent, or disagreeable,-in short, whether there should be any malady preceding death. If the train of symptoms that constitute what we now term disease, were indifferent or agreeable, I need scarcely say how much of the salutary fear of death itself would be removed. It is not a nfere separation from life, which is commonly considered under that name, but a combination of many images, which produce a far more powerful effect than the single image of death. The brave man, in the most perilous field of battle, it has hence often' been remarked, is a coward, perhaps, on the bed of sickness. There was death, indeed, or the very near prospect of death, before him in both cases ; but, in the one case, death was combined with images that made it scarcely terrible ; in the other case, with images more terrifying than itself. If, by exposure to the common causes of disease at present, we were to expose ourselves only to a succession of delightful feelings, how rash would those be, who are even at present rash; and, even when the series of delightful feelings had begun, how little power comparatively, would these have in exciting .to the exertion that might be necessary for suspending their course. If hunger had been pleasing, who would have hastened, as now. ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 447 448 to satisfy the appetite ?-and, with respect to mortality, all the slight mala- dies resulting from exposure to causes of injury, may be considered as re- sembling the pain of hunger, that points out approaching evil, and warns howr to obviate it. It is necessary indeed, for the welfare of society, that death should not be exactly foreseen; but it is necessary, for its welfare also, that it should not be so very sudden and frequent, as to prevent a sufficient re- liance on the continued co-operation of others, in the ordinary business of the world. The present constitution of things seems, even when considered only in its civil relations, admirably adapted for such a medium as is requisite, -giving to the circumstances that precede death, that moderate terror, which is necessary for saving from rash exposure to them, and still leaving death itself as an event, which it is in out power to avert, perhaps for a time, but not wholly to avoid. All the advantage, however, which is thus produced by the painful mala- dies of life, 1 readily confess, would be too slight to put in the balance with the amount of pain, which arises from these maladies. But it is still a cir- cumstance, and an important one, to be placed in the scale, though it be not sufficient to produce a preponderance or an equipoise. The true pre- pondering weight, compared with which every other circumstance &ems almost insignificant, is that which I have next to consider,-the relation of pain to moral character. It is of advantage to the moral character in two ways,-as warning from vice by the penalties attached to vicious conduct,-and as giving strength to virtue, by the malevolent wishes which it awakes and fosters, and by the very sufferings themselves, which are borne with a feeling of moral appro- bation. That pain, in many instances, warns and saves from vice, I scarcely stop to prove. It is in this way, indeed, that our bodily ailments beedme, morally, so important. How much of temperance arises-from them! The headach, the sickness, the languor, the more lasting disease, may, indeed, hare little effect in overcoming habits of confirmed debauchery; but, which is of far more importance, how many slight and temporary indulgences in vice, do they prevent from beiijg confirmed into habits. How many ingenuous and noble minds are there, which, at a period of life when it is so difficult to re- sist example, that offers itself in the spductive form of pleasure, would pass, from excess to excess, and lose gradually all capacity of better wishes, but for those ailments, which may be considered almost a's a sort of bodily con- science,-a conscience that reproaches for the fJast, and that, in reproaching for the past, calls to beware Of the future. In addition to this, however, as warning not from intemperance merely, but from every species of vice, is the conscience, which most truly deserves that name,-the sense of self-degra- dation, when we have acted in a manner unworthy of a being so "nobly gifted, -that dreadful voice, which it is impossible to fly, because it is with us wherever we may fly, and which we can still only in one manner, by acting so as to merit not its silence only, but its applause. Such, independently of the beneficial influence of the fears of futurity, which religion superadds, are the advantages of pain, as warning from vice. By the kindness of our Creator, there is a connexion established between that bodily indulgence,-which does not merely occupy the time of virtue, but renders us incapable of virtue, and a bodily uneasiness,-that reminds us for what more important purposes we were formed; and, by a ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. still more salutary provision, there is a connexion still more permanent, by which the commission of a single crime is to us, for ever after, in the painful remorse that is felt by us, an exhortation to virtue,-and an exhortation that is more urgent and efficacious, as the painful remorse itself is more severe. The advantage of suffering then, as a warning from vice, is sufficiently obvious,-at least in that constitution of things, in which man is capable of vice and virtue. . But, in such a constitution of things, is it less necessary for the formation of virtue itself,-of that noble virtue which alone is worthy of man,-a vir- tue that for the sorrows of others, and that bears its own,-that can see a thousand pleasures tempting it from duty, and can look on them with as little desire, as it would feel to quit its path when hastening to discharge some high office, merely to gather a few wild flowers that weye blooming at a dis- tance,-a virtue to which there may be peril but not fear,-that sees nothing truly worthy of being dreaded but vice, and that counts no suffering above its strength, which has conscience for its support, and God for its approver. * When we look on some father of a family on his bed of sickness, what is it that we see ? There arer indeed, the obvious characters of suffering. On his own countenance, there is that paleness which seems as if it scarcely knew how to smile, and there is perhaps in his eye a sadness, of more than disease,-a sadness which has its cause, not in his own heart, but in the hearts of others. On the faces of those around him, there is no look, but of grief;-for the hope that may rise at limes, is but the feeling of a mo- ment, and is not sufficiently lasting, to alter the fixed character of the melan- choly countenance. All that our mere eyes behold, then, is grief. But do our hearts, when our eyes are thus occupied with an aspect of evil, see no- thing more ? Do they not look beyond the rpoment, and perceive virtue pre- sent as truly as sorrow, and diffusing her better influence, which is not to be lost, even when the grief has passed away ? The little bosoms around that bed, have already acquired a benefit of which tlrey are not conscious; and, even when this hour is not present to them, the gentleness of this hour will still remain. Thefe will be a quicker disposition to feel for others what they have themselves suffered,-a warmer love for those who have wept with them together,-a patience, more ready to endure, from the remembrance of that venerable form, who, in resigning his spirit to God, resigned with meek submission to (he same Almighty care the happiness of many, whose happiness, far dearer to him than his own, was the last object which earth presented to his thought. If the kind affections be blessings to the heart which feels them-blessings, of which the heart must be umvorthy, indeed, that would divest itself of them, for all the happiness of another kind, with which the most sensual would decorate to themselves a world of gaudy felicity,-in which passive pleasure was all that was to be known, without onp virtue to be felt, and consequently, without one virtuous act to be remembered,-if the kind affec- tions be so inestimable, that also must be inestimable, by which these affec- tions are best promoted. The grief of one, it must be remembered, may be the pity of many, and may foster, therefore, the benevolence of many,- so careful is Nature to produce what is good in itself, at the least expense of individual suffering. But there must be grief, if there be pity ;-and ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 449 Vol. IL 450 ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. without occasional feelings of pity, there is comparatively little regard. For which child is it, that the heart of the mother, who strives to divide her at- tentions equally, feels in secret, notwithstanding every effort to equalize her love, the warmest attachment ? It is for that one which has been feeble from infancy,-which has existed only by her continued care,-which has deprived her of most hours of occupation or amusement abroad,-of most hours at nigjit, of repose. This single instance might be sufficient to show the relation of pity to the growth of benevolent affection in general. There is not a house of suffering, which is not, by the very suffering which it presents, a school of virtue; and we do not distinguish the influence, on our moral character, which such lessons produce, merely because the influ- ence is the result of innumerable lessons, the effect of each of which is slight, though, without the whole, there could be little affection of any sort. It is like the influence of the dew on the plant. We do not trace the operation of a single drop of moisture, but we know, that, without the cherishing influence of many such drops, there could not be that flower, which is at once so beau- tiful, and so fragrant. If we love then, the benevolent affections, we must not repine that there exists in nature, that which gives birth to those affections, and which calls them into exercise. Vain are thy thoughts, O child of mortal birth, And impotent thy tongue. Is thy short span Capacious of this universal frame? Thy wisdom all-sufficient ? Thon, alas 1 Dost thou aspire, to judge between the Lord Of nature anti his works ? To lift thy voice, Against the sov'reign order he decreed All good and lovely blaspheme the band Of tenderness innate, and Holiest of things;-by which the general orb Of being, as by adamantine links, Was drawn to perfect union, and sustain'd From everlasting ! Hast thou jelt the pangs Of softehing sbrrow, of indignant zeal So grievous to the soul, as thence to wish The ties of nature broken from thy frame,- That so thy selfish, unrelenting hegrt, Might cease to mourn its lot,-no longer then The wretched heir of evils not its own ? O fair benevolence of generous minds ! 0<nan, by nature form'd for all mankind.* Such is the influence of suffering, in producing, or at least,cherishing into far greater vividness of affection, the virtues of benevolence,-and conse- quently, its influence in increasing the delight which the benevolent affections, so richly, or rather so inexhaustibly afford. But if its influence be decidedly favourable to this class of virtues, it is far more essential to the virtues of self-command. It is adversity in some one of its modifications, which alone teaches us what we are. We must be in situations in which it is perilous to act, before we can know that we haye the courage which is necessary for acting ; we must engage with fortune, before we know that we have the power of being its victor. It is for this reason, that Seneca accounts him the most unhappy of mankind, whom the gods have not honoured with adversity, as worthy of subduing it. " Nihil infelicius mihi videtur eo, cui nihil unquam * Pleas, of the Itnag. B. 11. ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. evenit adversi. Non licuit enim illi se experiri : ut ex voto illi fluxennt omnia, ut ante votum ; male tamen de illo Dii judicaverunt. Indignus visus est, a quo vinceretur fortuna."* There are griefs which we pity, and which it is virtue to pity. But who is there, that has ever dared to pity Mutius Scsevola, when he placed his hand in the flame,-Regulus, when he returned to torture,-Arria, when she fixed the poniard in her breast, and said so truly, Non dolet ? Should we not feel, in presuming to pity, what common minds might shrink to be- hold, or shrink even to conceive that we were guilty of a sort of insult to the magnanimity which we admired ? There is a voice within us, which would say, how enviable is that glorious spirit! and cowardly as our sotds are, there is only the feeblest of mankind, that could think of classing virtue, victorious over every sorrow which assails it, as on a level even with the empire of the world,-if that empire were to be possessed by one, who could inflict tor- ture, indeed, on thousands, but who would tremble at the thought of suffer- ing one of the evils which he inflicts,-though that evil were the slightest which could be inflicted, and the moral object for which he was called to suffer it, the noblest for which man could suffer? In vain, therefore, do we strive to say that God, if he be good, should produce happiness only;-he should, indeed, produce happinessbut if he should produce happiness,-that is to say, what the world counts happiness, -he should still more produce that, which even the world itself regards with an admiration, still greater than prosperity itself, in its most flattering form. The very throbbing of our heart, at the tale of fortitude, confutes our querulous impiety. It tells us, that even we esteem it nobler to be placed in situations, in which we may exercise virtue, with the consciousness that we are acting as beseems man, and with the approbation of all who are themselves worthy of approbation, than to be placed in situations, in which we have envy, indeed, but the envy only of tl>ose who think of t>ur fortune, and not of our- selves. Our hearts then tell us, that the world in which man is best placed, is a world like that in which he is placed,-a world in which, though he may occasionally have to struggle with affliction, he may in that very strug- gle, have the delight of knowing that he is more virtuous to-day than he was yesterday,-that he is rising in excellence,-that there are multitudes whom his example will animate to similar victory over that evil within the heart, which is the only evil that deserves our detestation or our fear; and that he has become less unworthy of admission into the presence of that God, whose presence, when virtue is admitted to it, is at once immortality and joy- If, in contrast with such a character, we were to strive to form to our- selves a picture of life without one suffering, but without one benevolent feeling, or one joy of conscience, why is it that we should blush, to ourselves, in preferring such a life,-and that we join internally with such conscious appro- bation in that great prayer which Juvenal offers to us, as all that is worthy of man ? • 451 Fortem posce animum, mortis terrore carentem ; Qui spatium vitae extremum inter munera ponat Naturse-qui ferre queat quoscunque laborea- Nesciat irasci, cupiat nihil, et potiores * De Providentia, Tom. I. p. 310. 452 ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. Herculis aerumnas credat ssevosque laborcs, Et venere, et coenis, et pluma Sardanapali.* " Ask thy own heart," says Akenside, after describing, in one of the most splendid passages of his poem, the admiration with which we still enter into the fortunes of the heroic states of antiquity, and the sorrow and indignation which we feel in thinking of the tyranny before which they sunk ; Thus de?ac'd, Thus widely mournful, when the prospect thrills Thy beating bosom,-when the patriot's tear Starts from thine eye, and thy extended arm In fanCy hurls the thunderbolt of Jove K To fire the impious wreath on Philip's brow, Or dash Octavius from his tfop|iied car; Say, does thy secret soul repine to taste The big distress? Or would'st thou then exchange TIujsc heart-ennobling sorrows for the lot Of him who sifs amid the gaudy herd Of mute barbarians bending to his nod, And bears aloft his gold-invested front, And says within himself, " I am a king, Andwberefbre should the clamorous voice of yro Intrude'upon mine ear?"-The balefill dregs Of these late agei, this inglorious draught Of servitude and fully, have not yet, Blest be the Eternal Ruler of the world ! , Defil'd to such a depth of sordid shame The native honours of the human soul; Nor so effac'd the image of its sine.t We feel in such a case, that mao is formed for something more than plea- sure-that the afflictions of this world are sources of all that is noble in us -and that, what it is for the dignity of nian to feel, it could not be unworthy of God to bestow. LECTURE XS¥. ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY-OBJECTIONS OBVIATED ; DUTIES V, TO THE DEITY. My last Lecture, gentlemen, was employed in considering the objection . commonly urged against tire goodness of God, from the existence of suffer- ing in the universe. If to suffer were, indeed, all, and no advantage flowed from it, to the indi- vidual himself, or to those around him, then might its existence be a proof, that he who willed it as a part of the great system of things, without relation to other parts of the system, was-at least to the extent of the suf- * Sat. X. v. 357-362. 1 Pleas, of the Imag. B. II. feting, which it was possible for him not to produce,-defective in be- nevolence. It is a conclusion, which we might be unwilling to admit, in- deed, because our hearts are too strongly impressed with that divine good- ness, which we feel in the constitution of our own internal frame, as much as in that magnificent display of it which is every where around us, not to shrink from such a belief, if expressed in words, as impiety and ingratitude. But, if to suffer be ctZZ, the belief, from the expression of which we should still perhaps shrink with a feeling of reluctant assent, must not the less be in our heart, irresistible* The question which is of so much importance for us, then, is, whether to suffer be the whole of suffering? or, whether there do not flow from its con- sequences, which so far overbalance the temporary evil, as to alter its very nature ? since in that case the existence of what is essential to so much good, far from being inconsistent with Divine benevolence, would be a proof of that very benevolence. If, in such circumstances of greater resulting advantage, man had not been formed capable of suffering, God would then have been less good. This question, it w?as the object of my last Lecture to consider ; and, if the observations which I then made were satisfactory, they must have shown, that, if Virtue be excellent, the capacity of suffering, by which virtue is formed or perfected, must, when this great relation of it is considered, be al- lowed to have itself an excellence, that is relative to the excellence produc- ed by it. Without it, we might, indeed, have been what the world, in its common language, terms happy,-the passive subjects of a series of agree- able sensations ; but we could not have had the delights of conscience,-we could not have'felt what it is to be magnanimous,-to have the toil, and the combat, and the victory,-to exult that we have something within us, which is superior not to danger only, but which can vanquish even pleasure itself, -to feel that we are not merely happier than we were, but nobler than we were,-worthy of being admitted to other exercises of virtue, in which we are conscious of a power that may hope to prevail in them,-and worthy almost of the approving glance of that God who sees every secret conflict, and who is its Judge and Rewarder., as well as its Witness. When I say, that without virtue we might be, perhaps, what the world terms happy, 1 do injustice even to the sordid sentiments of those, whom, in opposition to tlrj better part of mankind, we commonly designate by the name of the world. The very lowest of the mob may wish, indeed, for the grandeur, which he sees in the palace and the equipage of the indolent volup- tuary. But his highest admiration is not for him. It is, if his country was ever oppressed, foY some hern, whose adventures in struggling to resist that oppression, have become traditionary iq the very tales and ballads of the cottage,-who, in the whole, course of his struggle, had difficulty after dif- ficulty, to encqjihter, and whose life of peril at last, perhaps, was terminated, -with the triumph of conscience, indeed,-but io all the bodily torture which a tyrant could inflict. If a religious persecution have ever raged in his land, his admiration is1 in like manner kept for those whom he feels a sort of pride, in considering as martyrs of his faith,-who are known to him, not as rich or powerful, but as sufferers, poor, perhaps, like himself, and dis- tinguished only by that heroic suffering, which endears them to his reve- rence. There is not a peasant of the rudest order, who would think, for a moment of comparing to such men, the indolent and careless possessor of ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 453 454 ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. half the land which he has ever seen. If the choice were given to him of either situation, and, if he were to prefer, as, under the influence of sensual desire, he might prefer, the passive ease and luxury of the one, to the ac- tive virtue of the other, his own heart would say to him, that he had made an unworthy choice ;-it would tell him that he had preferred the less to the more noble,-he would have remorse, even in entering on the possession of what he before regarded as happiness,-and the martyr or the hero would haunt his memory like the remembrance of a crime. Even the world then, in their estimation of excellence, look to something more than a succession of passive sensations ; and it is surely a singular mis- conception of benevolence, which would require of God, that he should make man no nobler than that species of being, which even common minds feel to be less noble, than the being which man is capable of becoming, in the present system of things,-that it should be an imperfection in the Divine goodness, to have rendered us susceptible of heroic virtue,-that is to say, to have placed us in circumstances, without which there can be no heroic virtue,-and that it was incumbent on him, from the very excellence of his own nature, to have made us such, as the best and noblest of us would blush to be. Count all the advantage prosperous Vice attains, 'Tis but what Virtue flies from and disdains.* There is an ambiguity in the term happiness, like that which, on a former occasion, it seemed to me of so much importance to point out to you, in the analogous word desire, as giving rise to much of the sophistry on this and on Other kindred questions,-in which it furnished the declaimer against pure disinterested virtue, with the appearance of a deceitful triumph, when a clearer analysis of a single word explanatory of its double meaning, have shown the fallacy on which the triumph was founded. Happiness is sometimes used as synonymous with all that is desirable,-in which case, to a good mind, that can perceive all the relations of suffering, and feel the im- portant moral advantages which result from it, it may be said to include, in certain circumstances, in which pleasure could not be enjoyed without a sacrifice of virtue, even suffering itself. At other times it is used to signify only what is immediately pleasurable, and, therefore, in this sense, excludes suffering. What is pleasurable, and what is desirable, are not to be ac- counted words of exactly the same import, if we attend to all the variety of our desires. I have shown in some of my former Lectures, that in many cases,-indeed, in the greater number of cases, if we analyze, with sufficient minuteness, the whole mental process, so as to discover what it is which is directly present to the mind, at the very moment of the desire-it is not pleasure which we thus directly desire, but some other immediate object, which pleasure may indeed accompany, but to which pleasure is only an accompani- ment. That the immediate object of our desire, for example, in rushing to the relief of one who is in danger, is not the pleasure of giving relief, but the relief itself,-the subsequent contemplation of which is, indeed, by a bountiful provision of Heaven, associated with delight, as the failure in the attempt to afford it, is accompanied with pain-but which we desire instantly, • Essay on Man, Ep. IV. lines 89, 90. without regard to our own personal delight that would follow it, or the pain that would be felt by us, if the relief were not given. The same consti- tution of our nature, which has made pleasure directly desirable, has made many other objects of our thought directly desirable, and among the rest virtue,-not for the single reason that virtue is pleasant, any more than we desire pleasure as pleasure, merely because it may be consistent with virtue, -but because it is the very nature of virtue, and the very nature of plea- sure, as contemplated by us, to be desirable, whether separate or combined. These different objects, which, in many cases coincide as desirable, in many cases may be balanced against each other,-and we may, when both are in- compatible, according as one or the other, is to certain minds, or in certain circumstances, an object of greater or less desire, sacrifice a mere pleasure for a virtue,-a virtue for a mere pleasure. We may not always, then, in the competition of two objects, desire what is immediately the more pleasing, in the strict sense of that term,-for pleasure, as mere pleasure, we have seen, is far from being the sole direct object of desire ; but, it is very evi- dent, that whatever be the direct object of desire, we must always desire that which has seemed to us the more desirable-since this is only another mode of expressing the very fact of the superior desire itself; and the double sense of the term desirable, in expressing this prevailing influence, and consequently of happiness, which is regarded as synonymous with the gratification of our desires,-has led to the supposition, that pleasure, which is thus often used as synonymous with that which is desirable, is truly the uniform object of our desire. It seems, therefore, in this sense, when desi- rableness is falsely limited to mere pleasure, that to exclude suffering is ne- cessary to our happiness, and, therefore, to the goodness of that Being who wills our happiness. But if happiness be understood more generally, as the attainment of that which, in all the circumstances in which we may be plac- ed, is regarded by us as most desirable,-then suffering itself is, in many situations, essential to it, when to suffer is to be more virtuous,-and not to have produced the capacity of that virtuous suffering, which, in many cases, we prefer to pleasure, would, in those cases, have contributed less to our happiness, in this best sense,-and, consequently, been less benevolent, than not to have produced the pleasure, which even we regard as inferior to the suffering. • , ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 455 Ipsa quidem virtus pretium si bi;-solaque late, Fortunse secura nitet,-nec faeibus ullis Erigitur, plausuque petit clareacere vulgi, Nil opia externte cupiens, nil indiga laudjs Divitiis animosa suis. It is for its own sake, indeed, as indicative of tne moral excellence of our nature, that virtue truly is to us of richest value. Even though all prefer- ence. of it, however, were a mere balancing of pleasures, without any regard to its own intrinsic excellence as an object of noblest desire, the capacity of suffering, as essential to the highest pleasures of conscience, might be truly a gift of divine bounty. At present with all the distraction of earthly things, and earthly passions, there is, perhaps, no pleasure so delightful, as the re- membrance of our own heroic conduct, in any occasion that admitted of heroism ; and, in a state of purer being, the remembrance of that heroism may be still more elevating and delightful. If, with all the notions which it 456 involves, of our virtue and the approving regard of God, it constitute the highest pleasure of which a created being is capable, it is no impeachment of any divine perfection to suppose that the Deity,-though, with the power of making his creatures-happy in various ways,-could not give to a finite and dependent being any happiness greater than that which is by its very nature the greatest which the constitution of a finite and dependent being admits, -any more than <even he could make a circle triangular, or form a line larger than an infinite one. The joys of conscience, as they' extend through our immortal existence, might thus, even in a barter of pleasures and pains, be very cheaply purchased by the short sufferings of earth,-and God, there- fore, be benevolent, in placing us in circumstances which enable us to make the purchase. This might be the case, even though the most heroic generosity w«ere to be valued only as an instrument oi' pleasure, and though we were to omit in our estimate of virtue, all for which it rs most precious, in the eyes of the virtuous. " Prospera in plebem, ac vilia ingenia deveniunt; at calamities terroresque mortalium sub jugum mitte/e, proprium magni viri est. Magnus esvir; sed unde scio, si tibi fortuna non dat facultatem exhibendte virtutis. Descendisti ad Olympia; si nemo pi-eter te-coronam babes, viatorram non habes." Think not, i beseech you, Says the same eloquent writer, that the calamities with which the gods may have favoured us, as occasions of virtue, are to be dreaded as terrible. They rather are to be esteemed wretched, who lie torpid in luxurious ease, Whom a sluggish calm detains, on the great voyage, like vessels that lie weltering on a sea without a gale. The bravest of the army are they, whom the cornmander selects for the most perilous service. They do not repine at their general when they quit the camp; they say only, with a consciousness of their own strength of heart, He has known well how to choose. Such, too, be our feelings when we are requiretl to suffer, what is terrible only to the coward that shrinks from it. Let us* exult in the thought, that Heaven has counted us worthy of showing what the noble1 nature of man can overcome. Nolite', obsecro vos, expavescere ista, quae Dii immortales, velut stimulus, adfhovent animas. Calamitcw vir- tutis occasio est. lllos, merito quis dixerit miseros, qitos, velut in mari lento, tranquillitas iners detinCt. Deus quos probat, quos amat, indurat, recogno- scit, exercet. Quare, in castris quoque, pericidosa fortissimis imperantur. Dux lectissimos mittit, qui nocturnis hostes aggrediantur insidiisf, aut explo- rent iter, aut praesidium loco dejiciant. Nemo eorutn qui exeunt elicit, Male de me Imperator meruit,-sed Bene judioavil. Idem dicant, quicunque jubenlur pati timidis ignavisque flebilia : Digni visi stimus Deo, in quibus ex- periretur, quantum humana natura possit pati.'* When we see, then, what the world calls the sufferings of the virtuous, let us not think of the sufferings only,-for this would be as absurd as to count all the fatigues of the husbandman, without thinking of the harvest. Let us think of the suffering only as it is regarded by the sufferer himSelf;-as that which proves to him what he is,-which gives him the opportunity of knowing that he is so constituted as to be capable, not of pleasure merely, but of that which is far deader to him than pleasure itself, and of which he would not resign the noble consciousness for all the sluggish delights of all the luxurious. Let us think of him as the inhabitant of another world, to which his virtues, those virtues which he is now maturing, are all that can attend him from this earth,-when the luxuries of earth must long have pe- ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. risked, or be remembered only from their relation to those moral feelings, which are the only feelings that are immortal. " The opulence of a wicked man," says an ingenious French writer, " the high posts to which he is elevated, the homage which is paid to him, excite your chagrin. What! say you, is it for such men, that wealth and dignities are reserved ? Cease your unjust murmurs ! If what you regret as good were substantially good, the wicked would not enjoy it; you would be the possessor. What would you say, of a great man, a Turenne or a Conde, who, after having saved his country, sltould Complain that his services had been ill requited, because, in his presence, some sugar plums had been distributed to children, of which he had not got his share? Your complaint is not better founded. Has God, then, nothing with which to recompense you, but a few pieces of coin, and honours that are as perishable as.they are frivolous 1" ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 457 Weak, foolish inau ! will Heaven reward ufi there With the same trash mad mortals wish fyr here? Go, like the Indian, in another life, Expect thy deg, thy bottle, and thy wife; As well as dreaan such trifles are assigned As toys and empires, for 3 Godlike jnind !* " O God !" exclaims the Persian poet Sadi; " have pity on the wicked ! for thou hast done every tiling for the good, in having made them good." In giving to the good that nature by which they are 'capable of virtuous progress, God has, indeed, done every thing for the good,-far more un- questionably, than if he had placed them in a world such as those who at present object to his benevolence, would have counted, perhaps, worthy of his creation,-a world of such indolence and passive pleasure, as the most worthless, perhaps, are capable of enjoying here,-a world from which, if the option were given, a noble spirit would gladly. hasten into that better- world of difficulty, and virtue and conscience, which is the scene of our pre-, sent exertion. It is good to .have given us pleasure, but it is better to have given us that, which even ourselves feel to be nobler than pleasure. I have dwelt the longer on this point, because it seemed to me the most important on which I could have dwelt. Our relation tc God,-to our Creator,-Preserver,-Rewarder,-is smjely the relation wnich deserves most to be considered by us; and I am anxious that your minds should not, with respect to that great Being, acquire habits of unworthy suspicion, which, as 1 endeavoured to illustrate yesterday, by an allusion to the slighter rela- tionship of earthly intimacy, we should blush to feel in the case of man. If, when any kindness was conferred on us by a friend, we were to sit down and deliberately consider whether he was kind in conferring it on us,-whether it was not possible for him to have done for us a little more-and whether we ought not, therefore, to complain of him as selfishly penurious, rather than to feel gratitude to him as beneficent,-if we were to do this, in the case of an earthly friend, should we look upon ourselves with the same ap- probation ? And is God, indeed, less worthy of our confidence than man ! -the creature whom he has made I It is when we rely fully on his goodness, that we truly enjoy that good- ness,-it is then that adversity disappears as adversity,-that there is no evil * Pope's Essay on Man, Ep. II. v. 173-181. Vol. II. 458 ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. which we may not convert into a source, of advantage; because what is most afflicting is only the lesson, or the triai, or the consummation of our vir- tue ;-that all nature is embellished to us by the divine presence, as the scene of actions which it is noble to perform, or of sufferings which, when borne with the feelings with which the virtuous bear them, it would scarcely be too strong an expression to term delightful. God, then, who has poured on us sb much enjoyment, of which it is vir- tuous to partake, in the whole system of nature, and in the frame of our mind, is manifestly benevolent, in calling to us to enjoy; and though less manifestly, he is not les$ truly benevolent in the evils which he has given to our virtue to bear,-the common wants, by the influence of which the whole multitudes of our race are formed into a society, active in the reciprocation of mutual services,-and occasional sufferings, or voluntary perils, which excite the compassion,' or the veneration of others, and cherish in the heroic sufferer himself, a spirit of gentle or sublime virtue, without the con- sciousness of which, the moral scene would scarcely be an object of delight- ful interest, even to human regard. If the system of things has thu§ been framed by a God of benevolence, it is under the moral government of a benevolent God, that the world sub- sists,-under the government of a God, who has shown too clearly, by the universal feelings which he has,given to all his moral creatures, his love of virtue and his disapprobation of vice, to leave any doubt as to the nature of his own high estimate of human actions. If it be impossible for ourselves not to feel the approbation of certain actions, and the delinquency that is im- plied in certain other actions, it is impossible for us not to extend these feel- ings to other minds, which we- suppose to consider with the same freedom from passion, and the same accurate knowledge of every circumstance, the same actions that are approved or condertmed by ourselves. To believe, that pure generosity and pure malice, which every human being loves in the one case, and hates in the other case, as soon as he contemplates them,-as if pointed out to his love and hatred, by the author and enlightener of the heart,-are, to that very author and enlighterter of the heart, the same in every respect, except as he, has chosen to distinguish them in our judgment, -would be as difficult for us, or almost as difficult, as to believe that a circle and a triangle have differen.t properties, only as conceived by us, and appear to involve exactly the same proportions and relations, to that perfect Intelli- gence, whom some of the Greek philosophers have distinguished by the title of the Supreme Geometer. What we regard with moral approbation or disapprobation, we are led then by our very nature, to regard as objects of approbation or disapproba- tion, not to all mankind only, but to every Being whom we imagine to con- template the actions,-and especially to Him, who, as quickest to perceive and to know, must, as, we think, by this very superiority of discernment, be quickest also to approve and condemn. It is of this moral approbation or disapprobation in the divine nature, that we speak, when we speak of what is commonly termed the justice of God. The merit or demerit, which it is impossible for us not to feel, we consider as felt by him who has thus distinguished them to our heart, and who has the power of making happy xyhat he approves, and of verifying to the wicked the anticipations of their own remorse. The divine justice, as it is an object of conception to human beings, is nothing more than the ampler develope- ment of these human feelings,-feelings that are human indeed, in our tran- sient love or hatred, but the reference of which to the Deity depends on a principle of our nature, as universal as that which leads us to the verv conception of the Deity, as a power existing now, and existing before the world was made. It is by the analogy of human design, that we infer in the universe the operation of a mightier designer; by the analo- gy of human sentiment, we infer, in like manner, in the Creator and Ruler of the universe, those moral feelings by which he is not the creator and ruler of mankind, but their judge,-a judge whose approbation is already felt in the conscience of the good, as his disapprobation is already not less felt, in the gloomy and trembling conscience of the guilty. Such are the views of the nature of the Divine Being to which we are led, from those traces of his character which the universe, as formed by him, and especially our own spiritual frame, which is to us the most important part of the universe, exhibit. The most interesting of all inquiries terminates in the most pleasing of all results. Whatever power it might have been that created us, benevolent or cruel, to that power we must have been subject, without any means of shelter, because there was no superior sovereign of nature who might protect and avenge us. We might have been in misery, what our imagina- tion, after bringing together all the forms of torture which the oppressions of this earth can afford, would be too poor of images to represent. Instead of a tyrant, however, in the heavens, we discover a power from which we have no need to fly for succour; since whatever might be the kindness to which we might wish to fly, it would be a kindness less than that from which we fled, -a kindness far less than that, which created for us this glorious abode, and which gave us the means of rising, with the consciousness of virtue, from all that is excellent on earth, to sublimer and happier excellence in progressive stages of immortality. In this yiew of the wisdom, and power, and benevolence of the Supreme Being is involved, what is commonly termed our duty to God. In one sense of the word, indeed, all our duties are duties which we owe to him, who has endowed us with every gift which we possess, and who has commended these duties, by that voice of conscience which speaks in every breast. But the duties to which I now allude, are those which have their divine object more immediately in view, and which consider him, in those gracious charac- ters, in which his works revealed him to us. It is our duty to love the be- nevolence to which we owe so much, to feel pleasure in tracing every dis- play of that benevolence, in the happiness of every thing that lives,-and, in all that we value most in ourselves, to rejoice in feeling its relation to the Goodness from which it was derived, and in expressing our dependence, not as if the expression of it were a task enjoined, but with the readiness, of love, that overflows in acknowledgments of kindness received, only because it overflows with gratitude for the kindness. If a mere earthly friend, whose affection we have delighted to share, is separated from us, for any length of time, by the ocean or a few kingdoms that lie between, how de- lightful to us is every memorial of his former presence. Our favourite walks and favourite seats, continue still to be favourite walks and favourite seats, or rather they acquire new beauty, in the thought that they were beautiful to other eyes that are now absent. There is no conversation so pleasing to us, as that of which his virtues are the subject; and even the rudest sketch of ills drawing, or the verses which he may have left unfinished, are regarded ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 459 460 ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. by us with far more delightful admiration, than paintings and poems, which surpass them in every charm, but that which friendship alone could give. We not merely feel all this affection for our friend, but we feel too, that it would be a sort of crime against friendship, to regard with indifference any thing which related to him; and if this be a crime with respect to earthly friendship, it is surely not less a crime, when its object is the friend- ship that has been the source of all the happiness which we have felt. To be surrounded with the divine goodness, and yet to feel no joy in contem- plating the magnificent exhibition of it,-to admire any works rather than those of God,-and far from delighting to speak or think of his moral per- fections, to give our thoughts and our conversation, in. preference to the vir- tues, or still more to the vices, of those of whom the hame is, per- haps, almost all that is known to us,-this is to fail, with respect to the no- blest of Beings, in a duty, which, if that noblest of beings could divest him- self of his perfections, and become, with far less kindness to us, a creature like ourselves, we then should blush to violate to our mortal benefactor. Our first duty, then, to the Deity, is to dwell with delight on the contem- plation of his perfections,-Io cultivate our devout feelings, as the happiest and noblest feelings of which our nature is capable,-and to offer that wor- ship of the heart, which is the only offering that can be made by man to his Creator. " Primus est Deorum cultus, Deos credere ; deinde reddere illis majestatem suam, reddere bonitatem, Sine qua nulla majestas est:-scire illos esse, qui president mundo, qui univUrsa temperant, qui bumani generis tutelam gerunt, interdum curiosi singulorurn. Hi nec dant malum nec habent; ceterum castigant quosdam, pt cpercent; et irrogant poenas, et aliquando specie boni puniunt. Vis Deos propitiate? bonus esto. Satis illos coluit quisquis imitatus est."* Would you propitiate the Gods ? Be good. Whoever has imitated them, has already offered to them the most acceptable worship. Next, in'order to the duties of veneration, and devout acknowledgment of the Divine goodness, is the duty of that unrepining submission to his will, without which there can be no real belief of the providential goodness, which the lips, indeed, may have professed to belieVe, but the lips only. If it would be our duty to give ready obedience to the arrangements which an earthly sovereign makes, for the security and general happiness of his little state, in some season of peril, though it involve the sacrifice of many of our personal comforts,-to quit, perhaps, our peaceful homes, and expose our- selves, in the band of our fellow citizens, to the inconveniences and dangers of a protracted warfare, that is foreign to all our tranquil habits,--or to send to the same perilous warfare, those whose life of rising virtues is the only earthly thing, to which we have been accustomed to look, for the happiness of our own declining years,-:if we should feel it guilt and disgrace to with- hold the offering, when the happiness of a single state is the object, and when he who requires the sacrifice is but a fallible being like durselves,-how much greater guilt and moral disgrace must it be, to hesitate in making those sacrifices, or to repine when they are made, which are demanded by wisdom that is considered by us to be incapable of error, for purposes which, as our own hearts have declared, must be purposes beneficial to mankind. Shall the warrior rejoice in dying in battle for his country, or even for his prince 1 * Senec. Epist. Ep. XCV. and shall we feel no joy in finishing a life that has been accordant with the Divine will, in whatever manner the same Divine will may require it of us; or, if the easy offering of life be not that which is required, in bearing a little longer for the whole community of mankind, any of those evils, which we should never shrink from bearing, for that small portion of the community which our country comprehends ? " Shall others say, O beloved city of Cecrops," exclaims Marcus Aurelius,-and shall I not rather say, " O be- loved city of our God !" These views of the Divinity,-the habitual love of his perfections, and ready acquiescence in the dispensations of his universal providence, are not more suitable to the Divine nature, than productive of delight and consola- tion to him who entertains them. They distinguish, indeed, the virtuous from the rest of mankind, in serenity of happiness, as much as in the purity of heart, from which that delightful serenity is derived. ON THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 461 He sees with other eyes than theirs.-Where they Behold a sun, he views a Deity ; What makes them only smile, makes hint) adore. Titles and honours, if they prove his ftfte, He lays aside, to find his dignity : Himself too much he prizes to be proud ; And nothing thinks so great in man, as man. Too dear he holds his interest, to neglect Another's welfare, or his right invade ; Their interest, like a lion, lives on prey. They kindle*at the shadow of a wrong : Wrong he sustains with temper, looks on heaven, Nor stoops to .think his injurer his foe. Nought but what wounds his virtue, wounds his peace. His joys create, theirs murder future bliss. To triumph in existence his alone ; And his alone triumphantly to think, His true existence is not yet begun.* The true existence of man is, indeed, scarcely begun on earth. There is an immortality awaiting him,-and all which is most worthy of being priz- ed in the short period of his mortal life, is the relation which it may have to those endless ages that are to follow it. In my next Lecture, I shall inquire into the grounds of our belief in this future state of continued existence LECTURE XCVI. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. In my last Lecture, gentlemen, I finished the remarks which I had to offer on the relation which man, in his earthly existence, bears to that great- est of beings, from whom every thing which exists has derived its origin. We found, in the phenomena of the universe, abundant proof of a designing Power, that arranged them in their beautiful regularity ; and, in the happi- * Young's Night Thoughts, Night Eighth ness which they tend to produce, a proof not less strong, of the benevolence which has arranged them for purposes so gracious. When we consider the relation of man to bis Creator, however, do we consider only a relation that terminates with the few years of our mortal life ? When every thing external fades upon our eye, does>the spirit within, that almost gave its own life to every thing external, fade likewise,-or is tl»ere not something over which the accidents that injure or destroy our mortal frame have no power,-that continues still to subsist, in the dissolution of all our bodily elements, and that would continue to subsist, though not the body only, but the earth, and the sun, and the whole system of external things, were to pass into new forms of combination, or to perish, as if they had never been, in the void of the universe. There is within us an immortal spirit. We die to those around us,jndeed, when the bodily frame, which alone is the instrument of communion with them, ceases to be an instrument, by the absence of the mind which it obey- ed. But, though the body moulders into earth, that spirit which is of purer origin returns to its purer source. What Lucretius says of it is true, in a sense far nobler than that which he intended : 462 ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. Cedit item retro de terra quod fuit ante, In terram ; sed quod missum est ex tetberis oris, Id, rursus coeli fulgentia templa receptant.* That we do not die wholly is a belief so consolatory to our self-impor- tance,-to which annihilation seems more than a mere privation of enjoy- ment, and rather itself a positive evil-that our hope of immortality may be supposed, like every other hope, to render us credulous of that which we are eager to believe. There is a principle, too, which I pointed out to you, when I attempted to explain the peculiar vividness of our love of glory, as a mere emotion, that may aid this credulity-a principle by which the very thought of our name, as our name, at the most distant period, seems to us to involve the reality of the existence of those very feelings, which are all that seem to us, in our conception, to constitute ourselves. To think of any thing as ours at any particular period, is, as I then explained to you, to feel as if we were truly existing at that particular period ;-because it is to have combined the conception of the particular object, whatever it may be, with the conception of that self which is known to us by some conscious feeling, -and which, as conceived by us, therefore, must always carry with it the notion.of consciousness; and the frequency of this illusion, by which, in thinking of our name, or of other objects connected with us, we extend into futurity the conception of our consciousness, though it might not be sufficient to produce the belief of immortality, must be allowed, at least, to strengthen the belief, if once existing, it is necessary, therefore, in entering on an inquiry, in which we are so deeply concerned, to divest ourselves as much as possible of the influence of our wishes; and, if we cannot inquire with the impartiality of absolute indifference-to inquire, at least, with the cau- tion of those who know their own partial wishes; and, knowing these, know in what manner they are likely to be influenced. The change which death produces, is the most striking of all the changes which we can witness, even though we should not believe it to imply the dis- * De Rerum Nat. Lib. II. v. 998-1000. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. solution of the principle that felt in life, and thought. It is at least to our senses, the apparent cessation of every thought and feeling. There is no bloom on the cheek,-no motion in the limb, no lustre in the eye. Even these are but the slightest changes. There is no voice or look of reflection, -no apparent consciousness,-nothing but a little quicker tendency to de- cay, to distinguish him, who, but a few moments before, was, perhaps, wise and cheerful, and active, full of remembrances apd hopes,-from the insen- sible statue that has been dug from the quarry, and slowly fashioped into the semblance of his shape. With such a change before our eyes, it is unques- tionably allowable to doubt, at least, whether any tiling have, truly survived this change; or whether thought and feeling have not ceased, wholly, by the injury of that mechanism, in connexion with which alone, they become ob- jects of our knowledge. It is unquestionably allowable, as 1 have said, to those who have never made the phenomena of the mind, and the nature of the substance which exhibits these phenomena, objects of their reflection to doubt whether, all the functions of life may not be destroyed, in that moment which destroys the more obvious functions, that alone come under the survey of our senses. If the phenomena of thought be phenomena that consist only in the play of certain organs, the destruction of those organs must be the destruction of the thought itself. It would, then, be as absurd to speak of the continuance of consciousness, when there are no conscious organs, as to speak of the con- tinuance of musical vibrations, without a single Elastic body. If there be nothing, then, distinct from the material frame, which is mani- festly subject to decay, our doubt may be converted into certainty,, or at least, may almost be converted into certainty. We may say then, that death which destroys the organization, destroys the capacity of feeling, because it destroys that in which feeling consists. The elements of that which once thought, may subsist in a different form, and may, perhaps, even at some re- mote period, become again elements of a similar organization, and again con- stitute propositions or passions, as they before constituted some truth or error, or emotion of love or hate ; but they must meet again, by some newr arrange- ment, before they can thus become feelings ; and, in the mean time, they may have been blown about by the winds, or become a part of these very winds, or formed elements of various bodies, solid, liquid, or gaseous, as little sentient as the other insensible elements with which they mingled, in all the play of chemical compositions and decompositions. This conclusion, as to the absolute mortality or chemical decomposition of that which feels and thinks, seems irresistible, if our reasonings and passions, and whatever forms our consciousness, be only certain particles variously mingled, and variously adhering or changing their place, according to the new play of chemical affinities, as new elements may be added to disturb the particles of thought, or certain other elements subtracted from the think- ing compound. But on this supposition of particles of thought, the whole force of the conclusion, from the change in decomposition, of the other bodily particles, depends. If our material frame be not thought itself, but only that which has a certain relation to the spiritual principle of thought, so as to be subservient to its feelings and volitions, and to perform the beautiful functions of life, as long as the relation, which He who established it made to depend on a certain state of the corporeal organs, remains,-it is as little reasonable to conclude from the decay or change of place of the particles of the organs 463 464 esSentia. to the mere state of relative subserviency, that the spirit, united with these mere organs, has ceased to exist, as it would be to conclude, that the musician to whom we have often listened with rapture, has ceased to exist, when the strings of his instrument are broken or torn away. It no longer, indeed, pours on our ear the same delightful melodies; but the skill which poured from it those melodies, has- not perished with the delightful sounds themselves, nor with the instrument that was the organ of enchant- ment. The enchanter himself, without whom the instrument would have been powerless, exists, still, to produce sounds as delightful; and in the in- tervals of melody, the creative spirit from which the melody originally flow- ed, can delight itself with remembered or imagined airs, which exist only as remembered or imagined, and are themselves, as it were,- a part of the very spirit which conceives tlrem. It is on the nature of the principle of thought, then, as mere matter,, or as something distinct from Matter, that the chief force of the argument seems to me to depend. If matter be all,-and that \vhich thinks and feels, decay like every other part of the body, though the catfee of immortality may even then not be absolutely hopeless, it mustije allowed to have many difficulties not easy to be removed. If mattpr be not all,-or rather, if matter have nothing in common with thought, but be absolutely and wholly distinct from the thinking principle, the decay of matter cannot be considered as indica- tive of the decay of mind, upless some other reason can be shown for the mental dissolution, than the mere external dec?ay itself; still less can it be considered as indicative pf such mental decay, if every notion which we are led to form of the mind, imply qualities inconsistent with the very possibility of such a change of decomposition, as the body exhibits. The great inquiry then is, whether otir thoughts and feelings be in the strictest sense of the term, particles of matter-a certain number of parti- cles affected in a certain manner in that which we term an organ, forming half a hope,-a different number of particles forming half a fear $ or the quarters and halves of our hopes and fears, being formed not merely of dif- ferent numbers of sentient particles, but perhaps too of particles that arc themselves in their absolute nature, or in their specific affection at the mo- ment, essentially different. In the whole course of ohr inquiries into the phenomena of the mind, I abstained from allusion to the great controversy of the materialists and imma- terialists, or at least made only very slight allusion to it,-because the analy- sis and arrangement of the mental phenomena, considered simply as pheno- mena, that sncceed each other in a certain order, and are felt to bear to each other certain relations, are independent of any views which we may be led to form of the nature of the substance itself, which exhibits these various but regular phenomena of thought,-and 1 was desirous of accustoming you to fix your attention chiefly on those simpler and more productive investiga- tions. But though the materialist and immaterialist may unite, in the re- sults of their analytical inquiries into the complex phenomena of thought, and though they may form similar arrangements of those phenomena, sim- ple or compound,' their different opinions as to the nature of the substance which displays these phenomena, cannot be regarded as unimportant, in a question which relates to the mere permanence of the substance itself,-a permanence which is to be admitted or rejected, very nearly, according as one or other of those opinions is itself to be admitted or rejected. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 465 Is there any principle of thought and feeling, then, distinct from that ex- tended, divisible mass which we term the corporeal frame ? If our consciousness were to be trusted, as to the indivisibility of the sen- tient principle, it would scarcely be necessary to make any inquiry beyond it. The savage, indeed, in the lowest form of savage life, who is too much oc- cupied with bodily necessities, to think of himself in any other light, than as that which requires food, and feels pain from the want of a necessary supply of it, or as that which is capable of inflicting or receiving a deadly blow, may never have put the question to his own mind, what he is, and may- die, without having ever believed or disbelieved in a state of after existence. The philosopher, who has reflected enough to discover the folly of half the vulgar creed, which is far from being the most difficult part of philosophy,- but who has not reflected and discriminated enough, to discover the truth of the other half of a system, which he finds it easier to condemn as a whole, yet which may be true in part, though false too in part,-may leave the ex- istence of an immaterial spirit, to be believed by the believers of witchcraft and second-sight,-and giving his whole attention to the corporeal process, of which he is able to trace series of changes, that are wholly unknown to the vulgar,-may think that in thus tracing series of motions unobserved by them, he is detecting the principle of life itself. But all mankind, the mob, the sage inquirer, the very sceptic himself,-when they speak or think of themselves, feel a sort of unity, in which there are no parts,-the unity of a sentient being, which if they think of organs at all, is that which sees in the eye, hears in the ear, smells in the nostrils, itself one in all,-and not merely sentient in the strict meaning of that term, but the subject of various other feelings of different classes,-remembrances, comparisons, hopes, fears, love, indignation. The verbal proposition may never have been formed in the mind-it is one being which has been the subject of all the feelings of life,-and merely because the proposition never may have been framed in words, or clearly developed, the multitude may be regarded as not having felt the truth itself. Yet if we were to ask of anyone, however little accustomed to philosophical inquiries, whether he was the same thinking being at the end of the year, as at the beginning of it, he would smile at our question; and would not smile less, if we were to speak to him of the difference of three- fourths of a joy, and half a joy ; or of the many co-existing happinesses in the many co-existing atoms that firm the happy organ; the simplicity and sameness of the thinking principle,-of that principle of which we speak as essentially one, whenever we use the word I,-having been felt by him tacitly, without the application of those technical terms, the employment of which might, perhaps, render obscure to him, what had no obscurity till it was darkened with language. ' • * What am I, whence produc'd, and for what end ? Whence drew I being, to what period tend ? Am I the abandon'd orphan of blind chance, Dropp'd by wild atoms in disorder'd dance ? Or from an endless chain of causes wrought, And of unthinking substance born with thought- Am I but what I seem, mere flesh and blood, A branching channel with a mazy flood ? The purple stream that through my vessels glides, Dull and unconscious flows, like common tides, The pipes, through which the circling juices stray, Are not that thinking I, no more than they; Vol. II. 466 ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. This frame, compacted with transcendent skill, Of moving- joints, obedient to my will; Nurs'd from the fruitful glebe, like yonder tree, Waxes and wastes-I call it mine, not me. New matter still the mould'ring mass sustains; The mansion chang'd, the tenant still remains • And from the fleeting stream repair'd by food, Distinct, as is the swimmer from the flood. Such would be our belief if we were to attend to our consciousness alone- It would tell u§, that what we term I is not many but one,-that it is the same being which hears and sees, compares and remembers ; and that the very notion of plurality and division is as inconsistent with the notion of self, as the notions of existence and non-existence. This our mere conscious- ness would tell us. But does not reason, in this case, aid rather than lessen the force of this unreflecting belief? If any lover of paradoxes were to assert, that fragrance is a sound,- music a brilliant colour,-hope or resentment a sensation of touch, he surely could not expect a very ready assent from those whom he addressed ; and yet, void of proof as all these propositions would be, and opposite to our ex- perience, and, therefore, relatively absurd, they would imply no absolute absurdity. The same great Being who has made the sensations of fragrance, and colour, and melody, to result from affections of certain organs, might have made them to arise from causes reciprocally different. The affection of the organ of smell might, under a different arrangement, have been fol- lowed by the sensation which we now ascribe to sound,-the affection of the ear, by the sensation which we now ascribe to fragrance,-and the pro- positions that are now absurd, relatively to our present arrangement, would then have been relatively true. The assertor of materialism, however, is the assertor of a doctrine not relatively absurd only, but, as it appears to me, absolutely absurd;-a doctrine which does not state agreements of qualities, of which there is no proof but agreements of qualities which are absolutely incompatible. In affirming the principle of thought to be material, he makes an affirmation very nearly the same in kind, or, at least, as contradic- tory, as if he were to pronounce of a whole, that it is essentially different from its constituent parts,-or, of one, that it is seven hundred and fifty. So much of the fallacy of the arguments of the materialist, in endea- vouring to reconcile with his system-the simplicity of thought, arises from the false supposition of unity, which he ascribes to the thinking organ, as if it were one substance, because he has given one name to a multitude of sub- stances,-that it will be necessary to recall to your attention the inquiries which engaged us in a very early part of the course, when we considered the objects of physical investigation, and especially that department of physi- cal science, which relates to objects as co-existing in space. We then found, you will remember, that what we are accustomed to term a body as if it were one, is not one in nature, but one only in relation to our inability of distinguishing the space, or,-if there be in any case actual contact, -the lines of contact which separate the corpuscles, that are, on account of this inability of perception, which is relative to our weak organs, included by us in a single term, with an imaginary unity which ourselves alone have made; and that what we term the properties of the mass, are the proper- ties not of one substance, but of these co-existing atoms which are in them- selves, and must always be, substances separate and independent. What the materialist may be pleased to term the organ of thought,- whether it be the whole brain and nerves, or only a part of the brain, or any other part of the corporeal frame which he may choose to consider as intelligent, -is not one then, but a multitude of particles, which exist near to each other, indeed, but which are as little one, as if they existed in the different planets of our system, or in the planets or suns of different systems. The unity which we give to the organ, by considering its separate atoms in a sin- gle glance, is a unity which it does not possess ; and we must not deceive ourselves, therefore, by imagining, that we have discovered a unity which may correspond with the simplicity of our feelings, because we have dis- covered a number of independent corpuscles, to the multitude of which we have chosen to- give a single name. An organ is not one substance, but many substances. If joy or sorrow be an affection of this organ, it is an af- fection of the various substances, which, though distinct in their own exis- tence, we comprehend under this single term. If the affection, therefore, be common to the whole system of particles, it is not one joy or sorrow, but a number of joys and sorrows, corresponding with the number of separate particles thus affected,-which, if matter be infinitely divisible, may be divided into an infinite number of little joys and sorrows, that have no other relation to each other, in their state of infinitesimal division, than the relations of proximity, by which they may be grouped together in spheres or cubes, or other solids, regular or irregular, of pleasures or pains,-but by which it is impossible for them to become one pleasure or pain, more than any par- ticle of insentient matter can become any other particle of insentient matter, or any mass of such matter become any other mass. We can conceive the particles of the moon to be mingled with the particles of our earth, and to cohere with them in actual contact; but the number of particles that form the moon, cannot become the very particles that now form the earth, how- ever intimately mingled. Each particle has still its own independent affec- tions, and these affections of a myriad of particles are still only the affec- tions of a myriad of particles'. It is vain to say, then, in the hope of obviat- ing this irresistible objection, from the felt unity of the being which we term self, that our thoughts and feelings are not qualities of the particles as they exist simply, but of the whole congeries of particles as existing in one beau- tiful piece of living mechanism; for this is only to repeat the very difficulty itself, and to assign the insuperable difficulty as a deliverance from the insu- perable difficulty. The ivhole of which materialists speak, whether they term it a congeries,-ah organ,-or a system of organs, is truly nothing in itself. It is, as I have said, a mere word invented by ourselves,-a name which we give to a plurality of co-existing objects, not a new object, to be distinguished from the heap. A thousand atoms, near to each other or remote, are only a thousand atoms, near or ; and are precisely the same atoms, with precisely the same qualities, whether wre consider them singly, or divide them, in our conception, by tens, fifties, hundreds, or give to the whole one comprehensive name, as if a thousand wTere but a greater unit. There is no principle of unity in them: it is the mind considering them, that gives to them all the unity which they have, or can have. In considering the result of a combination of parts, we are too apt to con- ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 467 468 ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. found the multitude of separate effects, with that single great result, to which we give a particular name. Thus, melody is the result of a few impulses, which a bow gives to the strings of a violin ; and we consider this melody as one effect, when in truth it is one only as a feeling of our mind, that is simple and indivisible, not as a state of compound and divisible matter. All that is not mental, is a multitude of effects-a multitude of particles of the sound- ing body, of the interposed air, of the vibratory organ, alternately approach- ing and receding. A multitude of those was necessary, indeed, to produce in the mind, by their concurring influence, the musical delight. But each corpuscular effect may be distinguished, in our conception at least, from every other effect that co-exists with it. In the instrument-the air-the or- gan-the particles are all separate and independent. The material pheno- menon is truly, therefore, as long as it is» wholly material, a multitude of phenomena,-the concurrence of a multitude of states ©f«a multitude of particles, of the musical instrument-the elastic medium-the organ of sense -the brain, without any unity whatever. The properties of the co-existing atoms, in this great whole, are the properties of the parts; and, if the quali- ties, states, or affections of the parts, were laid out of estimation, nothing would remain to be estimated as a quality, state, or affection of the whole. • • « The distinction which 1 have now made, is one with which it seems to me peculiarly important, that your minds should be fully impressed ; because it is to indistinct analogies of this sort, that the materialist, when he has no other retreat, is accustomed to fly for shelter. The very analogy of melody to which I have now alluded, is a favourite example. It is.'one effect, though resulting from the state of a number'of particles ; and if music flow from a material organ, it is said, why may not thought ? If, indeed, what alone is pro- perly termed music, the sensation or series of sensations that follow certain affections of the sensorial organ-that which is felt at every moment, as one and indivisible-were itself one organic result, a state of the divisible organ and not of a substance that is by nature indivisible,-then, indeed, every thought might likewise be .material. But in asserting this, the materialist begs the very .point in question, assuming without proof, what he yet pro- fesses to attempt to prove. It is evident, as we have seen, that what alone is one in all that multitude of effects from which melody results,'the musical delight itself, is not the state of the musical instrument, nor of the vibrating air -and as little is it proved to be a state of any number of particles of the Drain. It'is one result, indeed, but it is one, only because it is an affection of that, which is in its own nature simple ; and till we arrive at the sentient principle itself, there is no unity whatever, but a multitude of states of a multitude of vibrating particles. When the materialist, then, adduces this or any other example of resulting unity, as illustrative of organic thought, all which you will find to he necessary, is simply to consider what it is which is truly one, in the result that is adduced as one, and you will find in every instance, that the point in dispute has been taken for granted in the example adduced to prove it-that there is no real unity in all the material part of the process, and that the unity assented is truly a mental unity-the unity of a mental feeling, or the unity of a mere name, for expressing briefly the many co- existing states of many separate .and independent particles, which we have chosen to denominate a single massi Jn the Letter of the Society of Freethinkers to Martinus Scriblerus, of ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 469 which I before read to you a part, the argument of those who consider thought as a quality of many particles, is stated ludicrously indeed, but with as much real force as in the reasoning of which it is a parody. " To the learned Inquisitor into Nature, Martinus Scriblefus; the Society of Freethinkers, greeting. " Grecian Coffee-House, May 7. " It is with unspeakable joy we have heard of your inquisitive genius, and we think it great pity that it should not be better employed, than in looking after that theological nonentity, commonly called the Soul: since after all your inquiries, it will appear you have lost your labour in seeking the resi- dence of such a chimera, that never had being but in the brains of some dreaming philosophers. Is it not Demonstration to a person of your sense, that, since you cannot find it, there is no such thing?. In order to set so hopeful a genius right in thjs matter, we have sent you an answer to the ill grounded- sophisms of those crack-brained fellows, and likewise an easy mechanical explication of Perception or Thinking. " One of their chief arguments is, that Self-consciousness cannot inhere in any system of matter, because all matter is made up of several distinct beings, which never can make up one individual thinking being. "This is easily answered by a familiar instance. In every Jack there is a meat-roasting quality, which neither resides in the fly, nor in the weight, nor in any particular wheel of the jack, but is the result of the whole com- position ; so, in an animal, the self-consciousness is not a real quality inhe- rent in one being, (any more than meat-roasting in a jack,) but the result of several modes or qualities in the same subject. As the fly, the wheels, the chain, the weight, the cords, &c. make one jack, so the several parts of the body make one animal. As perception, or consciousness, is said to be inherent in this animal, so is meat-roastilig said to be inherent in the jack. As sensation, reasoning, volition, memory,* &c. are the several modes of thinking, so roasting of beef, roasting of mutton, roasting of pul- lets, geese, turkeys, &c. are the several modes of meat-roasting. And as the general quality of meat-roasting, with, its several modifications as to beef, mutton, pullets, &c. does not inhere in any one part of the jack, so neither does consciousness, with its several modes of sensation, intellection, volition, &c. inhere in any one, but is the result from the mechanical composition of the whole animal. "Just so, the quality or disposition of a fiddle to play tunes, with the seve- ral modifications of this tune-playing quality in playing of preludes, sara- bands, jigs, and gavots*, are as much real qualities in the instrument, as the thought or die imagination is in the mind °f the person that composes them." " It is well known to anatomists, that the brain is a congeries' of glands, that separate the finer parts of the blood, called animal spirits ; that a gland is nothing but a canal of a great length, variously intorted and wound up to- gether. From the arietation and motion of the spirits in those canals, pro- ceed all the different sorts of thoughts." " We are so much persuaded of the truth of this our hypothesis, that we have employed one of our members, a great virtuoso at Nuremberg, to make a sort of an hydraulic engine, in which a chemical liquor, resembling blood ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. is driven through elastic channels resembling arteries and veins, by the force of an embolus like the heart, and wrought by a pneumatic machine of the nature of the lungs, with ropes, and pullies, like the nerves, tendons, and muscles;-and we are persuaded that this our artificial man will not only walk, and speak, and perform most of the outward actions of the animal life, but (being wound up once a week) will perhaps reason as well as most of your country parsons."* If, instead of asserting thought to be the result of the affection of many particles, in which case it must evidently partake the divisibility of the organ itself, and be not one but innumerable separate feelings,-the materialist as- sert it to be the affection of a single particle, a monade,-he must remem- ber that, if what he chooses to term a single particle, be a particle of matter, it too must still admit of division,-it must have, a top and a bottom, a right side and a left,-it must, as is demonstrable in geometry, admit of being cut in different points, by an infinite number of straight lines; and all the difficulty of the composition of thought, therefore, remains precisely as before. If it be supposed so completely divested of all the qualities of matter, as not to be extended, nor consequently divisible, it is then mind which is asserted under another name, and every thing which is at all important in the contro- versy is conceded; since all which can philosophically be meant by the im- materialist, when the existence of mind is asserted by him, is the existence of an indivisible subject of all those affections which constitute the variety of our thoughts and feelings. If the materialist be unwilling to admit the word mind, in allowing the reality of a simple unextended, and, conse- quently, indivisible subject of our various feelings, he may be allowed any other word which may appear to him preferable ; ewen the word atom or particle, if he choose still to retain it. But he must admit, at least, that in this case, in th6 dissolution of the body, there is no evidence, from the analogy of this very bodily dissolution itself, of the destruction of any such simple particle, as that which he finds to be necessary for the explanation of the phenomena of thought. In whatever manner, therefore, the materialist may profess to consider thought as material, it is equally evident, that bis system is irreconcilea- ole with our very notion of thought. In saying, that it is material, he says nothing, unless he mean that it has those properties which we regard as essential to matter; for, without this belief, he might as well predicate of it any barbarous term that is absolutely unintelligible, or rather might predicate of it, such a barbarous term with more philosophic accuracy ; since, in the one case, we should merely not know what was asserted, in the other case, we should conceive erroneously, that properties were affirmed of the principle of thought, which were not intended to be affirmed of it. Matter is that which resists compression, and is divisible. Mind is that which feels, re- members, compares, desires. In saying of mind that it is matter then, we must meafi, if wTe mean any thing, that the principle which thinks is hard and divisible,-and that it will be not more absurd, to speak of the twentieth part of an affirmation, or the quarter of a hope,-of the top of a remem- brance, and the North and East corners of a comparison, than of the twentieth part of. a pound, or of the different points of the compass, in reference to any part of the globe of which we may be speaking. The true answer to the statement of the materialist,-the answer which we feel in our hearts, on the 470 * Pope's Works, Vol. V. 18mo. Lond. 1812, pp. 57-61 very expression of the plurality and divisibility of feeling,-is, that it assumes what, far from admitting, we cannot even understand; and that, with every effort of attention, which we can give to our mental analysis, we are as inca- pable of forming any conception of what is meant by the quarter of a doubt, or the half of a belief, as of forming to ourselves an image of a circle without a central point, or of a square without a single angle. With respect to this.jaossiAZe geometry of sensations, as divisible into parts, I cannot but think that the too great caution of Mr. Locke, by giving the sanction of his eminent riarae to the possibility, at least of the superaddition of thought as a mere quality, to a system of particles,-which as a number of particles have no thought, and yet have as a whole, what they have not as parts of that whole,-has tended, in a great degree, to shelter the manifest inconsistency of the doctrine of the materialist. He was unwilling to limit the divine power; and from the obscurity of our notion of the connexion of the feelings of the mind in any manner, with the changes induced in the bodily frame, he conceived that the annexation of thought to the system of particles itself would be but a slight addition to difficulties, that must at any rate be admitted. He forgot, however, that a system of particles is but a name for the separate particles which alone hava any real existence in nature,-that the affirmation of what is contradictory, like plurality and unity, simplicity and complexity, is very different from the mere admission of ignorance; and that, though we may not know any reason, for which the Deity has been pleased, at least during our mortal state, to render sensations of our mind de- pendent on affections of our nervous system, there is no more absurdity in the affirmation of such a dependence, than in the assertion of any other phy- sical connexion of events,-of material phenomena with material phenomena, or of mental phenomena with other phenomena of mind. If the presence of the moon, at the immense distance of its orbit, can affect the tendencies of the parti- cles of water in our ocean, it may be supposed with equal readiness, to produce a change in the state of any other existing substance, whether divisible into parts, that is to say material or indivisible, that is to say, mind. But when thought is affirmed to be a quality of a system of particles, or to be one re- sult of many co-existing states of particles, which separately are not thought, -something more is affirmed, than that, of which we are merely ignorant of the reason. A whole is said to be different from all the separate and inde- pendent parts of a whole : this is one absurdity ; and that which is felt by us, as in its very nature, simple and indivisible, is affirmed to be only a form of that which is, by its very nature, infinitely divisible. It is no daring limitation of the divine power to suppose, that even the Omnipotent himself cannot confound the mathematical properties of squares and hexagons : and it would be no act of irreverence to his power, though it were capable of doing every thing which is not contradictory,, to suppose, that he cannot give to a system of organs a quality wholly distinct from the qualities of all the separate parts; since the organ itself is only a name which we give to those parts, that are all which truly exist as the organ, and have all an existence, and qualities that are at every moment independent of the existence and qualities of every other atom, near or remote. Our sensations we know directly,-matter we know indirectly, if we can be said to know its nature at all-as the cause of our sensations. It is that which, in certain circumstances, affects us in a certain manner. When we have said this, we have said all that can be considered as truly known ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 471 472 ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. by us with respect to it; and in saying this, it is to our own feelings that the reference is made. Of the two systems, therefore,-the system which re- jects all matter, and the system which rejects all mind-there can be no ques- tion which is the more philosophic. The materialist must take for granted every feeling, for which the follower of Berkeley contends ; he must admit, that it is impossible for us to know the absolute nature of matter ; and that all which we can know of it is relative to ourselves, as sentient beings, capable of being affected by external objects;-that our sensations are known to us directly, -the causes of our sensations only indirectly --And his system, therefore, even though we omit every other objection, may be reduced to this single proposition,-that our feelings which we know, are the same in nature with that, of which the absolute nature, as it exists independently of our feelings, is and must always be completely unknown to us. From all the remarks which have now been made, I cannot but think that it is a very logical deduction, that our feelings art* states of something which is one and simple, and not of a plurality of substances, near or remote ;- that the principle of thought, therefore, whatever it may be, is not divisible into parts; and that hence, though it may be annihilated, as every thing which exists may be annihilated, by»the will of Him who can destroy as he could create, it does not admit of that decay of which the body admits,-a decay that is relative to the frame only, not to the elements that com- pose it. When the body seems to us to perish, we know that it doesnot truly perish -that every thing which existed in the decaying frame, continues to exist entire, as it existed before ; and that the only change which takes place, is a change of apposition or proximity. From the first moment at which the earth arose, there is not the slightest reason to think that a single atom has perished. All that was is: and if nothing has perished in the material uni- verse ;-if, even in that bodily dissolution, which alone gave occasion to the belief of our mortality as* sentient beings, there is not the loss of the most inconsiderable particle of the dissolving frame,-the argument of analogy, far from leading us to suppose the destruction of that spiritual being which animated the frame, would lead us to conclude that it, too, exists, as it before existed ; and that it has only changed its relation to the particles of our mate- rial organs, as these particles still subsisting, have changed the relation which they mutually bore. As the dust has only returned to the earth from which it came, it is surely a reasonable inference from analogy to suppose, that the spirit may have returned to the God who gave it. Non secus ac quondam, tenebris et carcere rupto Immitis caveae, volucrum, regina repente Dat plausum coelo ingentem, nubesque repente Linquit, et adverso defigit lumina Phoebo Seque auras intra liquidas, et nubila condit.* The belief of the immateriality of the sentient and thinking principle, thus destroys the only analogy, on which the supposition of the limitation of its existence to the period of our mortal life could be founded. It renders it necessary for those who would contend that we are spiritually mortal, to pro- duce some positive evidence of a departure, in the single case of the mind, from the whole analogies of the economy of nature ; and it renders doubly strong all the moral arguments which can be urged for its own independent immortality. * Heinsii, De Contemptu Mortis, Lib. I 473 LECTURE XCVH. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. Gentlemen, the inquiry, to which I directed your attention in my last Lecture, was that which relates to our prospect of immortality. The appearances, which death exhibits, feeem, when we first consider them, to mark so strongly the termination of every feeling which connected us with the once living object, that the continuance of these feelings, when every external trace of them is lost, may well be supposed to be viewed with dis- belief by some, and with doubt by many. During their life, our direct com- munication with those who lived around us, was carried on by the interven- tion of bodily organs,-in thinking of their very feelings, we have been ac- customed to think of this bodily intervention, in what they looked, or said, or did : and from the mere influence of the laws of association, there- fore, it is not wonderful, that, when they can no longer look, or speak, or act, the kindness which before could not exist without these corporeal ex- pressions of it, should be regarded as no longer existing,-at least should be so regarded by those, who are not in the habit of any very nice analyses of complicated processes, or complex phenomena. Whatever other effects death may have, it is at least evident, that, when it has taken place, the bodily organs moulder away, by the influence of a decomposition more or less rapid. What was once to our eyes a human being, is a human being no more; and, when the organization is as if it had never been, every feeling and thought,-if states of mere, organs-must be also as if they had never been. The most interesting of all questions, there- fore, with respect to our hopes of immortality, is whether thought be a state of the mere organs, which decay thus evidently before our very eyes,-or a state of something, which our senses, that are confined to the mere organs, cannot reach,-of something, which, as it is beyond the reach of our senses, many therefore subsist as well, when every thing which comes under our senses exists in any one state, as in any other state. With the examination of this point, my last Lecture was almost wholly occupied; and the arguments, which I then offered, seemed to me to show decisively, that our sensations, thoughts, desires, are not particles of matter, existing in any number, or any form of mere juxtaposition,-that the sen- tient and thinking principle, in short, is essentially one,-not extended and divisible,-but incapable- by its very nature of any subdivision into integral parts, and known to us only as the subject of our consciousness, in all the variety of successive feelings, which we comprehended under that single name. When we have learned clearly to distinguish the organization from the prin- ciple of thought, the mere change of place of the- particles of the organic frame, which is all that constitutes death relatively to the body, no longer seems to imply the dissolution of the principle of thought itself,-which is essentially distinct from the organic frame, and, by its very nature, incapa- ble of that species of change, which the body exhibits; since it is very evi- dent, that what is not composed of parts, cannot by any accident be sepa- rated into parts. Vol. IL ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 474 To the mind which considers it in this view then, death presents an as- pect altogether different. Instead of the presumption, which the decaying body seemed to afford, of the cessation of every function of life, the very decay of the body affords analogies, that seem to indicate the continued existence of the thinking principle ; since that which we term decay, is itself only another name of continued existence,-of existence, as truly continued in every thing which existed before, as if the change of mere position, which alone we term decay, had not taken place. The body, though it may seem to denote a single substance, is but a single word invented by us to express many co-existing substances: every atom of it exists after death, as it existed be- fore death ; and it would surely be a very strange error in logic, to infer, from the continuance of every thing that existed in the body, the destruction of that which, by its own nature, seemed as little mortal as any of the atoms which have not ceased to exist,-and to infer this annihilation of mind, not merely without any direct proof of the annihilation, but without a single proof of destruction of any thing else, since the universe was formed. Death is a process in which every thing corporeal continues to exist; there- fore, all that is mental ceases to exist. It would not be easy to discover a link of any sort, that might be supposed to connect the two propositions of so very strange an enthymeme. The possibility of such annihilation of the mind, no one, who admits the corresponding power of creation, will deny, if the Deity have given any in- timation, tacit or expressed, that may lead us to believe his intention of de- stroying the spirit, while he saves every element of the body. But the ques- tion is not, whether it be possible for Him, who created the mind, to annihi- late it; it is whether we have reason to believe such annihilation truly to take place? and of this better proof must be offered, than the continuance, even amid apparent dissolution, of all that truly constituted the body,-every atom of which it was, without all question, equally possible for Divine power to destroy. We surely have not proved, that the whole frame of suns and planets will perish to-morrow, nor even given the slightest reason to suspect the probability of this event, because we may have shown beyond all dispute, that the Deity may, if such be his will, reduce to-morrow, or at this very moment, the whole universe to nothing. The very decay of the body, then, as I have said, bears testimony not to the destruction, but to the continuance of the undying spirit, if the principle of thought be truly different from the material frame. The mind is a sub- stance, distinct from the bodily organ, simple, and incapable of addition or subtraction-Nothing which we are capable of observing in the universe, has ceased to exist since the universe began;-these two propositions as far as analogy can have weight,-and since the mind of any one is incapable of be- ing directly known to us as an object, it is the analogy of the bodily appear- ances alone, that can have any weight,-these two propositions, instead of leading by inference to the proposition, The mind, which existed as a sub- stance before death, ceases wholly to exist after death, lead rather, as far as the mere analogy can have influence, to the opposite proposition. The mind does not perish in the dissolution of the body. In judging according to the mere light of nature, it is on the immateriglism of the thinking principle, that I consider the belief of its immortality to be most reasonably founded ; since the distinct existence of a spiritual substance, if that be admitted, renders it incumbent on the assertor of the mortality of the spirit to assign some reason, which may have led the only Being, who has the power of annihilation, to exert his power in annihilating the mind Which he is said in that case to have created, only for a few years of life. If, therefore, but for some direct divine volition, the spiritual substance we have every reason to suppose, would continue to subsist as every thing else continues to subsist,-the only remaining question, in such a case, is whether, from our knowledge of the character of the Deity, as displayed in his works,-especially in the mind itself,-we have reason to infer, with respect to the mind, this peculiar will to annihilate it,-without which, we have no reason to suppose it to be the only existing thing, that is every moment perishing in some individual of our kind. The likelihood of such a purpose in the divinity, may be inferred, if it can be at all inferred, in two ways,-from the nature of the created mind itself, as exhibiting qualities which seem to mark it as peculiarly formed for limited existence,-and from our knowledge of the Creator, as displaying to us in his works, indications of such a character, as of itself might lead us to infer such a peculiar intention. That, in the nature of the simple indivisible mind itself, there is nothing which marks it, as essentially more perishable, than the corpuscles to which we give the name of masses, when many of them are in close juxtaposition, but which are themselves the same, whether near or remote,-than the un- perishing atoms of the leaf, that continues still entire in every element, while it seems to wither before us, or of the vapour, in which all that truly existed exists as before, while it is only to our eyes that it seems to vanish into no- thing, I need not use any arguments to show. Mind, indeed, like matter, is capable of existing in various states, but a change of state is not de- struction in one more than in the other. It is as entire in all its seeming changes, as matter in all its seeming changes. There is no positive argu- ment, then, that can be drawn from the nature of the thinking principle, to justify the assertion, that while matter does not perish even in a single atom, it and it only, ceases to exist; and it would be enough, that no positive ar- gument could be dra'wn from it, in support of an opinion that is inconsistent with the general analogy of nature, and unsupported by any other proof of any kind,-though no negative arguments could be drawn from the same source. Every argument, however, which can be derived from it is of this negative sort, indicating in mind, a nature, which of itself, if there be any difference of degree, might seem not more, but less perishable, than those material atoms which are acknowledged to continue as they were, entire in all the seeming vicissitudes of the universe. I am aware, indeed, that, in judging from the mind itself, a considerable stress has often been laid on the existence of feelings, which admit of a very easy solution, without the necessity of ascribing them to any instinctive fore- knowledge of a state of immortal being. Of this sort, particularly, seems to me an argument which, both in ancient and modern times, has been brought forward, as one of the most powerful arguments for our continued existence, after life has seemed to close upon us for ever. I allude to the universal desire of this immortal existence. But, surely, if life itself be pleasing,-and even though there were no existence beyond the grave, life might still, by the benevolence of Him, who conferred it, have been rendered a source of pleasure,-it is not wonderful that we should desire futurity, since futurity is only protracted life. It would, indeed, havejjeen worthy of our astonishment, if man, loving his present life, and knowing that it was to ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 475 476 ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. terminate in the space of a very few years, should not have regretted the termination of what he loved, that is to say, should not have wished the con- tinuance of it beyond the period of its melancholy dose. The universal de- sire then, even if the desire were truly would prove nothing, but the goodness of Him who has made the realities of life, or if not the reali- ties, the hopes of life so pleasing, that the mere loss of what is possessed, or hoped, appears like a positive evil of the most afflicting kind. Equally powerless, 1 consider the argument for the reality of a state of higher gratification, which is often drawn from the constant renewal and con- stant disappointment of every earthly hope,-from that eager and unremit- ting wish of something better, which even the possession of delights, that are counted inestimable by all but their possessor, is insufficient to suppress. Old Rome consulted birds. Loienzo, thou With morb success the flight of hope survey, Of restless hope, for ever on the wing. High-perch'd o'er every thought that falcon sits, To fly at all that rises in her sight; And never stooping but to mount again, Next moment she betrays her aim's mistake, And owns her quarry lodged beyond the grave.* The mere activity of hope, however, as we thus pass ceaselessly from wishes that have been gratified to other wishes, proves only, as I before showed in treating of this principle, that the Deity has, with a gracious view to the advantage of society, formed us for action ; and, forming us for action, has given us a principle which may urge us to new pursuits, when otherwise we might, in the idleness of enjoyment, have desisted from exertions which required to be sustained in their vigour by new desires. Though nothing were to exist beyond the grave, hope, in all its variety of objects, would still be useful for animating to continued, though varied exertion; and as thus beneficial to the successive races of mortal beings, would have been even then a gift not unworthy of divine benevolence. The sublime attainments, which man has been capable of making in science and the wonders of his own creative art,, in that magnificent scene to which he has known how to give new magnificence, have been considered by many, as themselves proofs 6f the immortality of a being so richly endowed. When we view him, indeed, comprehending in his single conception, the events of ages that have preceded him, and not content with the past, anti- cipating events that are to begin, only in ages as remote in futurity, as the origin of the universe is in the past, measuring the distance of the remotest planets, and naming, in what year of other centuries, the nations, that are now gazing with astonishment on some comet, are to gaze on it in its return,- it is scarcely possible for us to believe, that a mind, which seems equally capa- cious of what is infinite in space and time, should be only a creature, whose brief existence is measurable by a few points of space, and a few moments of eternity.* « • Nonne hanc credideres mentem, qute nunc quoqire coelum Astraque pervolitat, delapsam coelitus, illuc Unde abiit remeare, suasque revisere sedes. * Night Thoughts, Night Seventh. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. Look down on earth. What seest thou ? Wond'rous things, Terrestrial wonders that eclipse the skies. What lengths of labour'd lands ! What lorded seas ; Lorded by man, for pleasure, wealth, or war. Seas, winds, and planets, into service brought, His heart acknowledge and promote his ends. Nor can the eternal rocks his will withstand, W hat levell'd mountains, and what lifted vales ! O'er vales and mountains, sumptuous cities swell, And gild our landscape with their glittering spires. How the tall temples, as to meet their Gods, Ascend the-skies ! The proud triumphal arch Shows us half heaven, beneath its ample bend. High through mid air, her streams are taught to flow ; Whole rivers there, laid by in basins, sleep ; Her plains tifrn octeans ; thefts vast oceans join, Through kingdoms, channell'd deep from shore to shore. How yon enormous mole, projecting, breaks The mid sea's furious waves ! Their roar amidst, Out-speaks the Deity, and says, " O main, Thus for, nor farther !" Measured arc the skies,*- Stars are detected in their deep recess,- Creation widens, vanquish'd Nature yields; Her secrets are extorted. Art prevails ! What monument of genius, spirit, power. And, now,-(if justly raptur'd at this scene, Whose glories render heaven superfluous,)-sly, Whose footsteps these ! Immortals here : Could less than souls immortal this have done I* 477 These glorious footsteps are indeed the footsteps of immortals ! Yet it is not the mere splendour of the works themselves, on which this argument in- sists so much, that seems directly to indicate the impiortality of their authors. Man might be mortal, and yet perform all these wonders, or wonders still more illustrious. It is not by considering the relation of the mind*to the monuments of its art, as too excellent to be the work of a perishable being, -but by considering the relations of a mind capable of these, to the Being who has endowed it with such capacities, and who is able to perpetuate or enlarge the capacities which he has given,-that we discover in the excel- lence which we admire, not a proof indeed, but a presumption of immortality ; a presumption at least, which is far from leading us to infer any peculiar in- tention in the preserver of the body, to annihilate the mind. That God has formed mankind for progressive improvement, is manifest from those suscep- tibilities of progress which are visible in the attainments of every individual mind ; and still more in the wider contrast, which the splendid results of science, in whole nations, that may be considered almost as nations of phi- losophers, now exhibit, when we think, at the same time, of the rude arts of the savage, in his hut or in the earlier cave, in which he seemed almost of the same race with the wild animal, with which he had struggled for his home. But, if God love the progress of mankind, he loves the progress of the different individuals of mankind ; for mankind is but another name for these multitudes of individuals; and, if he love the progress of the observers and reasoners, whom he has formed with so beautiful an arrangement of faculties, capable of adding attainment to attainment in continual progress, is it possible for us to conceive, that, when the mind has made an advance, which would render all future acquisitions even on earth, proportionately far more. * Night Thoughts, Night Sixth. 478 ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. easy, the very excellence of past attainments should seem a reason for sus- pending the progress altogether; and that he, who could have no other wish than the happiness and general excellence of man, in forming him what he is, should destroy his own gracious work, merely because man, if permitted to continue longer in being, would be more happy and excellent ? If the progressive faculties of man afford no proof that the Deity wills his continued progress, they surely afford no evidence of a divine unwillingness to permit it; and we must not forget, that the mind has been shown to be not more truly mortal of itself, than the undecaying elements of the body; that, if there be truly a substance mind, the annihilation of this substance is in itself as difficult to be conceived, as the annihilation of any other substance; and that, before we believe in the miraculous exclusive annihilation of it, some reason is to be found, which might seem to influence the Deity, who spares every thing corporeal, to destroy every thing mental. We have, therefore, to conceive the mind at death matured by experience, and nobler than it was when the Deity permitted it to exist, and the Deity himself with all those gracious feelings of love to. man, which the adaptation of human nature to its human scene displays ; and in these very circumstances, if we affirm without any other proof, the annihilation of the mind, we are to find a reason for this annihilation. If even we, in such a moment, abstracting from all selfish considerations, would feel it a sort of crime to destroy, with no other view than that of the mere destruction, what was more worthy of love than in years of earlier being, are we to believe that he, who loves what is noble in man more than our frail heart can love it, will regard the improvement only as a signal of destruction ? Is it not more consonant to the goodness of him who has rendered improvement progressive here, that, in separating the mind from its bodily frame, he separates it to admit it into scenes, in which the progress begun on earth may be continued with increasing facility ? Quare suiue Snimum ; neque enini sapientia dia Frustra operain iinpendit; neque mens arctabitur istis Limitibus, quibus hoc periturnm corpus ; at exsors Terrenas labis viget, aeternumque vigebit; Atqne ubi corporeis emissa, ut carcere, vinclis, Libera cognatum repetet, vetus incola, ccelum, Nectarios latiqes Veri de fonte perenni Hauriet, sfetheriumque perennis carpet amomum. In this light, in which the Deity is considered as willing the happiness of man, and the intellectual and moral progress of man-which is surely the character that is most conspicuous in the arrangements even of this earthly life,-we find, in this very character, in its relation to the separated spirit, not motives to destroy, which we must presume, at least, that we have found, before we take for granted, that what now has existence is to cease to exist, -but on the contrary, motives to prolong an existence, which as yet, has fulfilled only a part of the benevolent design of creation. It may be only a slight presumption which we are hence entitled to form, but at least, what- ever presumption we are entitled to form, is not unfavourable to our hopes of immortality. There is another moral character in which the Deity may be considered at such a moment,-the character of justice, or, at least, of a moral relation analogous to that, which in man we term justice. In this, too, may be found equal, or still stronger, presumptive evidence, that the years of our earthly joy or sorrow are not the whole of our existence. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 479 The force of the argument consists in the unequal distribution of happiness on earth, as not proportioned to the virtues or the vices of those to whom it is given. Virtue, indeed, cannot be very miserable, and Vice cannot permanently be very happy. But the virtuous may have sorrows, from which the vicious are free; and the vicious have enjoyments, not directly accompanied with vice,-enjoy- ments which the virtuous, who seem to us to merit them better, do not possess. Increase of guilt, even by stupifying the conscience, may occasion less rather than more remorse; and the atrocious profligate be less miserable, than the timid and almost penitent victim of passions, which overpower a reluctance that is sincere, even when it is too feeble to make adequate resistance to the over- whelming force. It is to futurity, therefore, that we must look for the equa- lizing, if any equalizing there be, of the present disproportions. I am aware of an argument which may be adduced to obviate the force of the reasoning that is founded on the prospect of such moral retribution. If, in the present state of things, the virtuous are regarded and the vicious punished, we do not need a future state for doing what has been done already; and, if the virtuous are not rewarded, nor the vicious punished, in that only scene of which we have any experience, what title have "we to infer, from this very disorder, qualities in the Supreme Ruler of the world, which the present scene of his government does not itself display. The argument would, indeed, be, I will readily admit, most forcible if we had no mode of discovering the moral sentiments of the Sovereign of Nature, unless in the pain or pleasure vyhich he bestows; and if no advantages were to flow from the unequal distribution of happiness on earth, that could recon- cile these, with a high moral character of the Governor of the Universe. But, if such advantages do truly arise from the temporary disproportion, as compensated afterwards'by the distributions of another life;-and if the moral character of God be discoverable by us in other ways, the argument, which supposes us to have no other mode of inferring the Divine character, than by the mere distribution of pleasure and pain, must lose its weight. If the temporary disproportion be of advantage* upon the whole, he who is be- nevolent cannot fail to will that very disproportion, which is thus by supposi- tion, advantageous; and he who has all the sources of happiness in his power, through every future age, can have no difficulty in accommodating a little temporary and necessary disproportion, to justice the most exact. These important points will deserve a little fuller elucidation. In the first place, then, the moral sentiments of the Ruler and Judge of the world are discoverable in other ways, as well as by the temporary allot- ments which he has made of pain or pleasure. He who has placed con- science in every bosom, to approve or condemn, speaks to every one in that voice of conscience. What every human being is forced to detest, cannot be regarded by us as indifferent to Him, who has rendered hatred of it in- evitable in us. What every bosom is taught, as if by some internal awarder of love, to regard with veneration, must be regarded too, as acceptable in the eyes of Him, who has made us feel it as a species of crime to withhold our love. God, then, approves of virtue,-he loves the virtuous,-he has the power of giving happiness to those whom he wills to render happy; and if, having this power, he does not make happy for the few moments of life, those whom we cannot but consider Him as loving, it must be for a reason which is itself a reason of benevolence. 480 ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. Such a reason, I may remark, in the second place, is easily discoverable, and, indeed, has been already treated by rhe at such great length, as to ren- der it unnecessary for me now to dwell on it. If the virtuous were necessa- rily happy here, and happy in proportion to their virtue, there could not be those noble lessons, by which occasional suffering strengthens the virtue which it exercises. There could not, for the same reason, be those gentle services of compassion which cherish virtues of another class. If the guilty were the only sufferers, pity would be feeble, and might even, perhaps, be morally unsuitable in some measure, rather than praise-worthy. In the case ol vice itself, we see a reason, and a most benevolent reason, why the pain ol remorse should often be more severe, in the slighter delinquencies of those who are only novices in guilt, than in the fearless cruelties and frauds of the hardened and impenitent sinner. It is in the early stages of vice, before the influence of habit is formed, that the heart may be most easily led back to better feelings ; and it is then, accordingly, when it may be most efficacious, that the voice which calls to desist, speaks with its loudest expostulations and warnings. The present system of temporary disproportion, then, is not when the general character of the Divine estimator of human actions is sufficiently marked in another manner, inconsistent in the slightest degree, with supreme moral excellence ; but, on the contrary, when all its relations, especially those most important relations to the virtue that is awakened by it and fostered, are taken into account, may be said to flow from that very excellence. But still, important as the temporary advantages [nay be, for producing that con- sciousness of virtue which could not be known without opportunities of trial, and the very virtues themselves that imply sufferings which are not the ne- cessary result of guilt, it is only by its relation to the moral advantage, that the disproportion is even at present reconcileable with the justice and good- ness, which we delight to contemplate in our Maker, and Preserver, and Judge. That conscience which he has placed within us, as if to bear his own authority, and to prompt us, as his own benevolence would prompt us, to the actions which it may be as delightful to remember as to perform- that very distingirisher of good and evil, by which, and by which only, we learn to love even the benevolence which formed us-the benevolence, to whose just and bounteous regard we look with confidence through all the ages of eternity,-this principle of all equity, by which alone we know to be just ourselves, and to reproach ourselves for any failure in justice,- seems, in the very language with which it calls on us to make compensation for our own disproportionate awards, to reveal to us the compensations of another world, as flowing necessarily, from the very goodness and power of Him, to whose comprehensive and equal view of all the ages of the uni- verse, and of all that, in those ages, is to be felt or done, futurity itself may almost be said to be constantly present. The distinction of life and death, at least, which, to our eye, is so important, is to Him but the distinction ol a moment: and if that brief moment of mortal life, though it be a moment of suffering, can give to the immortal spirit everlasting remembrances of vir- tue, He who makes it, for important purposes, a moment of suffering, can assign to the sufferer that immortality, to which the remembrance of the heroic disregard of petal, or of the equally heroic patience that disdained to repine even in torture itself, may be a source of happiness which in such circumstances it would not have been benevolence to have withheld. These considerations of the Deity, as manifestly willing the intellectual and moral progress of his creatures, which death suspends,-and, as a just estimator of the actions of mankind, whose awards may be considered as proportioned to the excellence which he loves,-these two views of the re- lation of man and his Creator, might lead us to some presumptive expecta- tion of future existence, even though we had no positive proof of any spirit- ual substance within us, that might remain entire, in the mere change of place of the bodily elements,-a change which is the only bodily change in that death, which we are accustomed to regard as if it were a cessation of existence, but in which every thing that existed before, continues to exist with as perfect physical integrity as it before existed. Even in this view of man, his future existence, as a living being, though not so obvious and easy of conception, might still seem a reasonable inference from the character of the Divinity in its relation to the earthly progress and earthly sufferings of a creature, whom it would be impossible for us to regard as an object of indifference to the Power that marked him out for our own admiration. But, in this view, the argument for immortality would be com- paratively feeble. We are not to forget, as I have already repeated, that mind is itself a substance distinct from the bodily elements,-that when death itself is only a change of the mutual relations of atoms, all of which exist as before, with all their qualities,-there is no reason of analogy that can lead us to suppose the mind, as a substance, to be the only thing which perishes, -that, in such a case, therefore, positive evidence is necessary, not to make us believe the continued existence of the mind, when nothing else is perish- ing,-but to make us believe, that the Deity, who destroys nothing else in death, destroys those very minds, without relation to which the whole mate- rial frame of the universe, though it Were to subsist for ever, would be abso- lutely void of value. It would not be a little, then, to find merely that there is no positive evidence, which can lead us to suppose such exclusive annihi- lation of spiritual existence. But how much more is it, to find, instead of such positive evidence of destruction, presumptions of the strongest kind, which the character of the Deity, as made known to us in his works, and especially in our hearts, can afford, that the life, which depended on his good- ness on earth, will be a subject of the moral dispensations of his goodness and justice, after all that is truly mortal about us, has not perished indeed, but entered into new forms of elementary combination. "Cum venerit dies file qui mixture hoc divini humanique secernat corpus, hoc, ubi inveni relin- quam, ipse me diis reddam. Nec nunc sine illis sum ; sed gravi terrenoque detineor. Per has mortalis sevi moras, illi meliori vit® longiorique proludi- tur. Quemadmodum novem mensibus nos tenet maternus uterus, et praepa- rat non sibi sed illi loco in quern videmur emitti, jam idonei spirituin trahere, et in aperto durare; sic per hoc spatiura, quod ab infantia patet in senectu- tem, in alium maturescimus partum. Alia origo nos expectat, alius rerum status. Nondum coelum nisi ex intervallo pati possumus. Quicquid circa te jacet rerum, tanquam, hospitalis loci sarcinas specta : transeundum est. Excutit redeuntem natura, sicut intrantem. Dies iste quern tanquam extre- mum reformidas, aeterni natalis est."* The day which we falsely dread as our last, is indeed the day of our better nativity. We are maturing on earth for heaven ;. and even on earth, ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 481 * Senee. Epist. Ep. CII. Vol. II 482 in those noble studies which seem so little proportioned to the wants of this petty scene, and suited rather to that state of freedom in which we may conceive our spirit to exist, when delivered from those bodily fetters, which confine it to so small a part of this narrow globe, there are presages of the diviner delights that await us,-marks of that noble origin from which the spirit was derived. These indications of its celestial origin are beautifully compared by Heinsius, in his very pleasing poem De Contemptu Mortis, to the gleams of the spirit of other years, with which a gallant courser con- demned to the drudgery of the plough, seems still to show that it was formed for a nobler office. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. Ut cum fortis equus Pis®® victfir oliv®, Aut quern sanguineus, ssva ad certamina, Mavors Depqscit, fretnitusque viriinl lituosque tubasque Nunc misero datus agricolas, pede cieber inertem Pulsat humum, patriamque domum testatur, et ignem Naribus, et curvum colto aversatur, aratrum* The continuance of our existence,.in the ages that follow the few years of our earthly life, is not to be regarded only in relation to those Even in these few years which we spend on earth, comparatively insignificant as they may seem when we tfiink at the same time of immortality, it is to him who truly looks forward to the immortality,'as that for which human life is only a preparation, the chief source of delight, or of comfort, in occasional afflictions. If this life were indeed all, the sight of a single victim of op- pression would be to us the most painful of all objects, except the sight of the oppressor himself; and though we might see sufficient proofs of goodness, to love him by whom we were made, the goodness would, at the. same time, appear to us too capricious in many instances, to allow us to rest on it with the confidence which it is now so delightful to us to feel, when we think of him in whom we confide. In the sure prospect of futurity, we see that un- alterable relation, with which God and virtue are for ev.er connected,-the victim of oppression, who is the sufferer, and scarcely the sufferer of a few moments here, is the rejoicer of endless ages,-and all those little evils which otherwise would be so great to us, seem scarcely worthy even of our regret. We feel, that it would be almost as absurd, or even more absurd, to lament over them and repine, as it would be to lament, if we were admitted to the most magnificent spectacle which human eyes had ever beheld, that some few of the crowd through which we passed, had slightly pressed against us, on our entrance. All now is vanish'd. Virtue sole survives Immortal, never failing friend to man, His guide to happiness on high? And see, 'Tis come,-the glorious m«rn,-»-the secqnd birth Of heaven and earth. Awakening Nature hears The new-creating word, and starts to life In every heighten'd form, from pain and death For ever free. The great eternal scheme, Involving all, and in a perfect whole Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads, To Reason's eye refin'd clears up apace. Ye vainly wise, ye blind presumptuous, now Confounded in the dust, adore that Power * Lib. H. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. And Wisdom oft arraign'd;-see now the cause, Why unassuming Worth in secret liv'd, And died neglected ;-why the good man's share In life was gall and bitterness of soul;- Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd In starving solitude, while luxury In palaces lay straining her low thought To form unreal wants. Why heaven-born truth And moderation fair wore the red marks Of Superstition's scourge. Ye good distress'd, Ye noble few, who here, unbending, stand Beneath life's pressure, yet bear- up awhile,- And vyhat.your bounded' view, which only saw A little part, deem'd evil, is no more. The storms of wintry time will quickly pass, And one unbounded Spring encircle all.* 483 LECTURE XCVIII. RETROSPECT OF THE ARGUMENT FOR THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL; ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES My last two Lectures, gentlemen, have been devoted to the very inter- esting inquiry, into the grounds which reason, without the aid of Revelation, affords for our belief of the immortality of the sentient and thinking princi- ple,-of that principle which is the life of our mortal frame, but which sur- vives the dissolution of the frame which it animated. The importance of the subject will justify, or rather demand, a short retrospect of the general argument. it is from the dissolution of the body, that the presumption as to the com- plete mortality of our nature is derived ; and it was therefore necessary, in the first place, to consider the force of this presumption, as founded on the organic decay. If thought be only a state of those seemingly contiguous particles, which we term organs, the separation of these particles may be the destruction x>f the thought; but if our sensations, thoughts, emotions, be states of a substance which itself exists independently of the particles, that by their juxtaposition obtain the name of organs, the separation of these particles to a greater distance from each other, (which is all the bodily change that truly takes place in death,) or even the destruction of these particles, if what we term decay, instead of being a mere form of continued existence, were abso- lute destruction, would not involve, though it might, or might not, be accom- panied by the annihilation of the separate principle of thought. The result of this primary and most important examination was, that far from being a state of any number of particles arranged together in any form -thought cannot even be conceived by us, to be a quality of number or ex- tension-that it is of its very essence, not to be divisible,-and that the top or bottom of a sentiment, or the half or quarter of a truth or falsehood, or of a joy or sorrow, is at least as absurd to our conception, as the loudness of the smell of a rose, or the scarlet colour of the sound of a trumpet. * Thomson's Seasons-conclusion of Winter 484 An organ is not one substance because we term it one. It is truly a mul- titude of bodies, the existence and qualities of each of which are independ- ent of the existence and qualities of all the others,-as truly independent, as if instead of being near to each other, they were removed to distances, re- latively as great, as those of the planets, or to any other conceivable distan- ces in the whole immensity of space. If any one were to say, the Sun has no thought, Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and all their secondaries, have no thought: but the Solar System has thought,-we should then scarcely hesitate a single moment in rejecting such a doctrine ; because, we should feel instantly that there could be no charm in the two words, solar system, which are of our own invention, to confer on the separate masses of the heavenly bodies, what under a different form of mere verbal expression, they had been declared previously not to possess. What the sun and planets have not, the solar system, which is nothing more than that sun and planets, has not; or, if so much power be ascribed to the mere invention of a term, as to suppose that we can confer by it new qualities on things, there is a realism in philosophy, far more monstrous than any which prevailed in the Logic of the Schools. If, then, the solar system cannot have properties, which the sun and planets have not, and if this be equally true, at whatever distance, near or remote, they may exist in space, it is surely equally evident, that an organ, which is only a name for a number of separate corpuscles, as the solar system is only a name for a number of larger mases of corpuscles,-cannot have any pro- perties which are not possessed by the corpuscles themselves, at the very mo- ment at which the organ as a whole, is said to possess them,-nor any affec- tions as a whole, additional to the affections of the separate parts. An or- gan is nothing ; the corpuscles, to which we give that single name, are all,- and if a sensation be an organic state, it is a state of many corpuscles, which have no more unity than the greater number of particles in the multitudes of brains, which form the sensations of all mankind. Any one of the particles in any brain, has an existence as complete in itself, and as independent of the existence of the other particles of the same brain, which are a little nearer it, as of the particles of other brains, which are at a greater distance. Even though it were admitted, however, in opposition to one of the clearest truths in science, that an organ is something more than a mere name for the sepa- rate and independent bodies which it denotes, and that our various feelings are states of the sensorial organ, it must still be allowed, that, if two hun- dred particles existing in a certain state, form a doubt, the division of these into two equal aggregates of the particles, as they exist in this state at the moment of that particular feeling, would form halves of a doubt; that all the truths of arithmetic would be predicable of each separate thought, if it were a state of a number of particles ; and the truths of geometry be, in like manner, predicable of it, if it depended on extension and form. In short, if joy or sorrow, simple and indivisible as they are felt by us to be, be not one, but a number of corpuscles separate, and divisible into an infinite number of little joys and sorrows, that may be variously arranged in spheres and parallelepipeds, any thing may, with equal probability, be said to be any thing, however apparently opposite and contradictory. When sensation is said to be the result of organization, the vagueness of the term result, throws a sort of illusive obscurity over the supposed process, and we more readily admit the assertion, with the meaning which the mate- ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. rialist would give to it,-because, however false it may be in his sense, it is true in another sense. Sensation is the result of organization, a result, however, not in the organs themselves, but in a substance of which the Deity has so arranged the susceptibilities, as to render the variety of that class of feelings which we term sensations, the effects of certain states of the particles which compose the organ. The result, therefore, is one and simple, because the mind, that alone is susceptible of the state which we term sensation, is one and simple; though the bodily particles of the state of which the one sensation is the result, are many. A sound, for example, is one, because it is an affection of the mind, which has no parts, and must always be one in all its states, though the mental affection may have required, before it could take place, innumerable motions of innumerable vibratory particles, which have no unity but in their joint relation to the mind, that considers them as one, and is affected by their concurring vibrations. In like manner, in the phenomena of chemical agency, to which the phenomena of thought and feeling, as simple results, are by the materialists most strangely asserted to be analogous, it surely requires no very subtile dis- cernment, to perceive, that, though we may speak of the result of cer- tain mixtures, as if the result were one of simple combustion, deflagration, solution, precipitation, and the various other terms which are used to de- note chemical changes, it is in the single word alone, that all the unity of the complex phenomenon is to be found,-that the solution of salt in water, or the combustion of charcoal in atmospheric air, expresses not one fact, but as many separate facts as there are separate particles dissolved or burnt;-that the unity, in short, is not in the chemical phenomena as facts, but in the mind and only in the mind, which considers all these facts together; and that the mere words combustion and solution, either signify nothing, or signify states of innumerable particles, which are not the less innumerable, bec&use they are comprehended in a single word. Sensation then, which is not more truly felt by us in any case, as a plea- sure or a pain, than it is felt to be one and incapable of division, is not a state of many particles, which would be as many separate selves, without any connecting principle that could give them unity, but a state of a single sub- stance, which we term mind, when we speak of it generally, or self, when we speak of it with reference to its own peculiar series of feeling. There is mind, then, as well as matter, or rather, if there be a difference of the degrees of evidence, there is mind, more surely than there is matter ; -and if at death, not a single atom of the body perishes, but that which we term dissolution, decay, putrefaction, is only a change of the relative positions of those atoms, which in themselves continue to exist with all the qualities which they before possessed,-there is surely no reason, from this mere change of place of the atoms that formed the body, to infer, with respect to the independent mind, any other change, than that of its mere relation to those separated atoms. The continued subsistence of every thing corporeal cannot, at least, be regarded as indicative of the annihilation of the other substance ; but must, on the contrary, as far as the mere analogy of the body is of any weight, be regarded as a presumption in favour of the continued subsistence of the mind, when there is nothing around it, which has perished, and nothing even which has perished, in the whole material universe, since the universe itself was called into being. The Deity, however, though he has not chosen to annihilate a single atom 485 486 ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. of matter, since he created the world, may, it will be admitted, have chosen to annihilate every spiritual substance. But with the strong analogy of mat- ter, which is the only substance that is capable of being perceived by us, in favour of the continued existence of the mind, it would be necessary, for the proof of the supposed spiritual mortality; to show some reason which may be believed to have influenced the Supreme Being to this exclusive annihilation. The assertor of the soul's immortality,-if the existence of the soul, as a separate substance, be previously demonstrated,-has not so much to assign reasons for the belief of its immortality, as to obviate objec- tions which may be urged against that belief. At the moment of death, there exists the spirit; there exist also the corporeal atoms,-at that mo- ment, the Deity allows every atom to subsist as before. The spirit, too, if he do not annihilate it, will subsist as before. If we suppose him to annihi- late it, we must suppose him to have some reason for annihilating it. Is any such reason imaginable, either in the nature of the spirit itself, or in the cha- racter of the Deity ? Instead of any such reason for annihilation, that might be supposed to justify the assertion of it, we found, on the contrary, reasons, which might of themselves lead us to expect the continued existence, far more probably than the destruction of the soul. If the Deity will, as it is evident from the whole frame of our minds, that he most truly wills, the progress of mankind, he must will the progress of the individuals of mankind ;-since mankind js but a name for the individuals who compose it;-and, if he will the pro- gress of individuals, there can be no reason, that he should love that progress less, when the individual is capable of making greater advances,-and that, merely on account of that greater capacity, h6 should destroy, what he sus- tained with so much care for that partial progress which he now delights to suspend. In the state of the spirit, then, at tire moment of death, there is notliing which seems to mark it out for exclusive annihilation. Are we to find a reason for this then, in the character of the Deity him- self? On the contrary, would -not his annihilation of the sou], when every motive for continuing its existence,-as far as we may presume to think of the motives of the Deity, in accordance with the general design exhibited by him, in the more obvious appearances of the universe,-seems rather stronger than weaker, imply a sort of capricious inconsistency, in the Divine character, which the beautiful regularity of his government of the world leaves us no room to infer ? may we not almost venture to say, that a future state of retribution is revealed to us, in those divine perfections which the universe so manifestly exhibits,' and in those moral feelings which are ever present to our heart ? Every seeming irregularity in the sufferings of the good, and in the unequal distribution of happiness, admits, in this way, of being reconciled with those high moral perfections which the voice of conscience within us, by its uniform approbation of virtue, and disapprobation of vice, proclaims to belong to him who has made it a part of our very nature, thus to condemn and approve. The temporary inequalities are, in the mean time, evidently of moral advantage. But still, these supposed ir- regularities of suffering and enjoyment,-though in the highest degree useful, as we found, for the production and fostering of virtue, and of all the delights of conscience which may attend the virtuous through immortality, and there- fore justly a part of the benevolent dispensations of God on earth,-are recon- £.iteable with his moral perfections, only by the immortality of the spirit, which, after suffering what virtue, can suffer for a few years of life, may re- joice for ever in the presence of that God, in devout submission to whose will, what the world counted suffering, was scarcely what required an act of fortitude to endure it. In whatever light then, at the moment of death, we consider either the soul itself or its Creator, we discover reasons rather of continuing its exist- ence than of annihilating it. The evidence of this sort may be strong, or it may be weak, but weak or strong, it is, at least, favourable to the affirma- tive side of the question. We have not merely then, the powerful presump- tion for the continued existence of the spirit, which arises from the continu- ance, even in what we term decay, of every thing corporeal; but we have, to strengthen this presumption still more, every argument which can be drawn from our knowledge of the divine character, to which alone we are to look for the evidence of his intention to annihilate or preserve, as we have seen, from the inadequacy of mere matter to account for the phenomena of thought. If there be a spiritual substance existing at the moment of death, which would continue to subsist but for the divine will,-which alone can annihilate, as it alone can create,-we find not merely that it is impossible to assign any positive reason, which may be supposed to influence the Deity to annihilate what he had formed, but that there are positive reasons which might lead us to expect his continued preservation of it. We have, in short, for the immortality of the soul, from the mere light of nature, I will not say evidence that is demonstrative and irresistible,-for that'was left to be revealed to us by a more cloudless light,-but at least as strong a combi- nation of presumptive evidence, negative and positive, as we can imagine such a subject in the obscurity of human reason to possess. The objections sometimes urged against the immortality of the thinking principle, from the influence of disease, or of age, which is indeed itself a species of disease, but an incurable one, on the mental faculties, are of no force when urged against the system of those who admit the existence both of matter and mind, and the connexion which the Deity has in so many re- lations established, of our bodily and mental part. Our sensations are as much states of the mind, as any other of our mental affections. That the slightest puncture of our cuticle by the point of a pin, or the application of a few acrid particles to our nostrils, should alter completely, for the time, the state of the thinking principle, might as well be urged in disproof of the im- mortality of the soul, as the same sort of connexion of mind and body, which the imbecility of disease exhibits. If the nervous system were to continue long, in precisely the same state as that which is produced by the puncture of a pin, it is evident that the mind would be as little capable of reflection as in dotage or madness; and in dotage or madness, the nervous system is not disordered for a few moments, but continues to exist in a cer- tain state for a length of time, with which of course, during that .ength of time, the state of the mind continues to correspond. If the momentary ner- vous affection, arising from the puncture then, be no proof of the soul's mor- tality, and prove only its susceptibility of being affected by the body to which its Creator has united it, I do not see how the more lasting influence of the more lasting nervous affection can be a proof of any thing more. " Suppose a person" says Cicero, " to have been educated from infancy in a chamber, in which he could see objects only through a small chink in the window-shutter, would he not be apt to consider this chink as essential to his ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 487 488 ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES, vision,-and would it not be difficult to persuade him that his prospect would be enlarged by the demolition of the walls of his temporary prison ?" In such a case as that which Cicero has supposed,-if the analogy may be ex- tended to the present objection,-it is evident, nt least, that, if the aperture were closed for years, or if the light transmitted through it, for the same length of time, were merely altered in tint, by the interposition of some coloured transparent body, these changes would as little imply any blindness or defect of vision, as if the darkening or tinging of the light in its passage through the aperture, had occurred only for a few moments. The longest continued disorder of the nervous system then, 1 repeat, whatever corre- sponding mental affections it may induce, proves nothing more with respect either tp the mortality or the immortality of the sentient and thinking princi- ple, than the shorter affection of the nerves and brain, which is followed in any of our momentary sensations, by its corresponding mental change. If the mind were, during our earthly existence, absolutely independent of the body, during its union with it, it would, indeed, be wonderful that any bodily disease should be found to affect it; but if it have susceptibilities of affec- tion that are, in many respects, accommodated to certain states of the bodily organs, the real wonder would be, if a disordered state of the bodily organs were not followed by any corresponding change jn the state or affections of the mind. The result of this long disquisition will, I hope, be a deeper conviction in your minds of the force of the evidence, which human reason affords, of the great truth for which I have contended. " Quicquid est illud, quod sentii, quod sapit, quod vult, quod viget, coeleste et divinum est,b says Cicero, " oh eamque rem aeternum sit neepsse est." It is of celestial origin, he says, because, in its remembrance of the past, and foresight pf the future, and wide com- prehension of the present, there are characters of the divinity, which nothing that is of the gross mixture of earth can partake. " Hine sese," says the author of one of the noblest modern Latin poems on this noble subject, De Immortalitate Animi, Hine sese in vita supra sortemque siturnque Evehit hurrianum ; nunc ccelo devocat astra', Intima nunc terr® reserat penetralia victrix; Quaeque oculos fugiunt j,enuissima corpora proinit In lucem, penditque novi miracula mundi. Ecquid enim per se pollet mngis, aut magis haustus Indicat setherios, genus et divinitus ortuin ? Atque adeo dum corporis stant foedera nixus Exit saepe foras tamen, effugioque parat se ; Ac veluti terrarum hospes, non incola, sursum Fertur, et ad patrios gestit remeare penates. After these observations, on the doctrines of Natural Theology, with re- spect to the being and perfections of God,-the services of duty which it is not so much the obligation, as it is the privilege and highest glory of our na- ture to pay, in the devotion of our heart, to a Being so transcendent,-and the prospect of that immortal existence, in which, after the scene of earthly things is closed upon our view', we are still to continue under the guardian- ship of the same provident Goodness, which sustained us during the years that are termed by us our life, as if exclusively constituting it, though they are only the infancy as it were, or the first few moments of a life that is ever- lasting-I return now to the only subdivision of our moral conduct, which remained to be considered by us,-that which relates immediately to our own welfare,-the duty, as it has been termed, which we owe to ourselves. The phrase is not a very happy one; but it is sufficiently expressive of that direct relation to self, which is all that is meant to be understood in the con- duct, to which the phrase is applied. The consideration of this, you will remember, I postponed, till we had considered those doctrines of religion, to which, in their relation to our happiness, and in a great measure to our virtue also, this part of our moral conduct particularly refers. Our duty to ourselves, to retain then the common form of expression, may be considered in two lights,-as it relates to the cultivation of our moral ex- cellence,-and to the cultivation of our happiness, in the sense in which that term is commonly understood, as significant of continued enjoyment, whatever the source of the enjoyment may be. It may be thought, indeed, that these two views exactly coincide; but though it is certain that, even on earth, they usually coincide, and must coincide still more exactly, when our immortal existence is considered,-they are yet, in reference to our will or moral choice, distinct objects. We will to be virtuous, not because virtue is produc- tive of most happiness, and is recognised by us as its purest and most perma- nent source,-but without any view at the moment to that happiness, and simply with a view to the moral excellence, without which we should feel ourselves unworthy, not of happiness merely, which we value much, but of our own self-esteem, and of the approbation of God, which we value more The attachment of happiness to the fulfilment of duty, arises only from the gratuitous goodness of heaven. The same benevolent Being who has made it delightful to us to give and to have given relief, has placed in our bosom a principle of compassion that is of earlier operation ; by which we hasten to, relieve, and have already perhaps given the relief, before we have paused to, think of the delight which the generous feel. It is the same, in our con- templation of every duty. We have already desired to be what we can es- teem, before we have thought of any thing more in the particular case, than of the duty, and of the esteem itself. The happiness may, indeed, follow the desire of moral excellence; but the happiness was not the object of thought, at the very moment when the moral excellence was desired. He who counts only the pleasure which the offices of virtue are to yield, and who acts as virtue orders therefore, only because vice does not offer to her followers so rich a salary,-is unworthy, I will not say merely of being a follower of Virtue, but even of that pleasure which virtue truly gives only to those who think less of the pleasure, than of the duty which the pleasure affords. " What calculation," says Seneca, " is so basely sordid, as that which computes the price at which it may be advantageous to be a good man ?-Inveniuntur qui honesta in mercedem colant, quibusque non placet virtus gratuita, quae nihil habet in se magnificum, si quidquam venale. Quid enim est turpius, quam aliquem computare, quanti vir bonus sit."* The duty which consists in the desire of rendering ourselves morally more excellent, and the cultivation accordingly, of all those affections which ren- der us more benevolent to others, and more firm in that heroic self-command which resists alike the influence of pleasure and of pain, is then in its direct object, different from that other branch of the duty to ourselves, which re- gards our happiness as its immediate end. It is unnecessary, however, to CULTIVATION OF MORAL EXCELLENCE. 489 • De Benef. Lib. IV. Cap. I. Vol. II. 490 enlarge on tne former of these, since the desire of our moral excellence is the desire of excellence, in all those virtues, which have been already under our review. It would be needless, therefore, to repeat, in any minute detail, with respect to the mere desire of cultivating these virtues, remarks which have been anticipated, in treating of the virtues themselves. The only ob- servations which it is still of importance to make, relate to the effect which every separate breach of duty may have in lessening the tendency to virtue, and, consequently, in derogating from the general excellence of the moral character. It thus acquires a sort of double delinquency ; first, as a breach of some particular duty, and, secondly, as an additional breach of that duty, which should lead us to confirm our moral excellence as much as possible, by every act of virtue which the circumstances of our situation will allow ns to perform ; and at least, by abstinence from vice, in situations in which no opportunity of positive virtue is allowed to us. It is this relation of present actions to the future character, indeed, which forms, to the reflecting mind, the chief element in its moral consideration of far the greater part of human condpct,-of all that part of it, which com- prehends the little actions of ordinary life. It is but rarely that we are as- sailed with temptations to great evil; and when we are so assailed, the evil itself, and the seductive circumstances that would tempt us to it, are too pro- minent and powerful not to absorb the whole attention of the mind,-dis- tracting it in a sort of conflict, or hurrying it along, according to the force of the moral hatred of guilt, that overcomes or is overcome. In such cases, then, we think of the present, and scarcely of more than of the present. But how few are the cases of this kind,-and how much more'frequently are we called to the performance of actions, in which, if the circumstances of the particular moment alone be considered, the virtue has little merit, or the vice little delinquency. It is of many such little delinquencies, however, that the guilt is ultimately formed, which is afterwards to excite the indignant wrath of every breast, extent of that one, in which the horrors of remorse, Stilled, perhaps, in the dreadful moments of active iniquity, are all that is to be felt in the still more dreadful intervals from crime to crime. It is not of base perfidy, then, nor of atrocious cruelty, that it is necessary to bid the in- genuous mind beware,-but of offences, in which that ingenuous mind, un- taught as yet to discern the future in the present, sees only the little frailties that, as proofs of a common nature, are pitied by those who contemplate them, rather than condemned ; and attract, perhaps, in this very pity, an interest which is more akin to love than to hate. It is in these circumstan- ces only, or at least chiefly in these circumstances, that the moral character is in peril. There is not a guilty passion from which the heart would not shrink, if that passion were to present itself instantly, with its own dreadful aspect. But while the Pleasures and the less hideous forms of vice mingle together, in what may almost be termed the sport or pastime of human life, we pass readily and heedlessly from one to the other, till we learn at last to look on the Passion, when it introduces itself among the playful band, only as we gaze on some fierce masquer in a pageant, that assumes features of darker ferocity only to delight us the more,-or which we approach at least with as little apprehension, as if it were the gentle form of Virtue herself that was smiling on us. It is from the beginnings of vice that we are to be saved then, if we are to be saved from vice itself. Were it given to us to picture the future, as we can paint what is before our eyes ; and could we show to ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES, CULTIVATION OF MORAL EXCELLENCE. the boy, as he returns blooming and scarcely fatigued, from the race or other active game in which he has been contending with his playmates, some form of feeble age,-the few grey hairs,-the wrinkled front,-the dim eye, -the withered cheek,-the wasted limbs,-that cannot bear, without addi- tional support, even that thin frame which bends over them, to the earth that is soon to receive all that is not yet wholly dead and consumed in the half-living skeleton,-could we say to him, as he gazes almost with terror on this mixed semblance of death and life-the form on which you are now looking is your own,-how incredulous would be his little heart to our prophetic intima- tion ! It would seem to him scarcely possible, that any number of years should convert what he then felt and saw in bis own vigorous frame, into that scarcely breathing thing of feebleness and misery, which, when a few of those years has passed over him, he was truly to become. It would be the same with the moral futurity, as with that of the mere animal being. Could we foresee and exhibit, in like manner, the future heart,-could we show to him who has dormant passions, that have not yet been awakened by any temptation, and who is therefore, full of the confidence of virtue-to him who loves, perhaps, the happiness of others, which has never interfered with his own, and is eager, therefore, to confer on them all those enjoyments which cost no sacrifice of enjoyment on his part;-to such a mind-and, in some cases, even to a mind far nobler-could we present the moral picture of some deceiver, and plunderer, and oppressor-some reveller in the luxu- ry of riches fraudulently usurped, and even of the scanty rapine of poverty itself, that had still something which could be torn from it by exactions, which it was too friendless to know how to resist,-and, in presenting this picture, could we say,-the guilt at which you shudder, is the guilt of the very bosom that is shrinking from it with indignation,-how difficult would it be, or rather how impossible, to convince the criminal of other years, of his own horrible identity with all the villanies which he loathed? Yet there can be no question that there are cases, in which the moral progression is as regular from innocence to mature and hoary iniquity, as the mere corporeal progress, from the beauty and muscular alacrity of youth, to the weakness, and pale, and withered emaciation of age. It is the knowledge of this fatal progression then, from less to greater vice, which far more than doubles the obligation of abstaining from those slight immoralities which might seem trifling if it were not for this progressive ten- dency. No evil is slight which prepares the heart for greater evil. The highest duty which we owe to ourselves is to strengthen, as much as it is in our power to strengthen, every disposition which constitutes or forms a part of moral excellence; and we err against this high duty, and prepare ourselves for erring against every other duty, as often as we yield to a single seduction, whether it be to do what is positively unworthy, or to ab- stain from the humblest act of virtue which our duty calls to us to perform. In yielding once to any vicious desire, we lose much more than the virtue of a single moment; for while the desire, whatever it may be, is increased by indulgence, the mere remembrance that we have once yielded, is to us almost like a license to yield again. The second error seems to save us from the pain of thinking, that the temptation which we before suffered to vanquish pur feeble virtue, was one which even that feeble virtue was capable of over-r coming: and our present weakness is to us, as it were, a sort of indistinct and secret justification of the past. 491 492 The virtuous man then, who loves as he should love, the noble conscious- ness of virtue, and who feels, therefore, that no gain of mere sensual plea- sure, or worldly honour, would be cheaply purchased by a sacrifice of moral excellence, will think often, when such a purchase might be made by a sa- crifice so slight, that to others, it might seem scarcely a diminution of virtue, -rather of the whole moral excellence which he endangers, than of the lit- tle portion of it, with which he is called to part. He will not say within himself, how inconsiderable and how venial would be this error; but, to what (primes may this single error lead ! He will thus be saved from the common (temptations, by which minds less accustomed to a sage foresight, are at first gently led where they gladly consent to go, and afterwards hurried along where jt is misery to follow, by a force which they cannot resist-by a force which seemed to them at first tire light touch of the gentle hand of a Grace or a Pleasure ; but which has expanded progressively at every step, till it has be- come the grasp of a giant's arm. The duty that is exercised id resisting the solicitations of evils, that can scarcely be said to be yet vices, though they are soon to become vices, and are as yet, to our unreflecting thought, only forms of gaiety and social kind- ness, is truly one of the most important duties of self-command. It is not the endurance of pain, that is the hardest trial to which fortitude can be ex- posed : it is the calm endurance, if I may so term it, of the very smiles of plea- sure herself,-an endurance that is easy only to the noble love of future as well as present virtue, that can resist what it is delightful to crowds to do, as it re- sists the less terrible forms of evil, from which every individual of the crowd would shrink. The courage of those who have strength only to resist what is commonly termed fear, is a courage that is scarcely worthy of the name, -as little worthy of it as the partial courage of the soldier on his own ele- ment, if on a different element, he were to tremble when exposed to a ship- wreck, or of the seaman, if be were, in like manner, to tremble at any of the common perils to which life can be exposed on land. The most strenu- ous combatants in the tumult of warfares, may be cowards or worse than cowards, in the calm moral fight. ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES, They yield to pleasure, though they danger brave, And show no fortitude, but in the field. His is the only genuine strength of heart, who resists, not the force of a few fears only, to which, even in the eyes of the world, it is ignominious for man to yield,-but the force of every temptation to which it would be unworthy of man to yield, even though the world, in its capricious allotments of honour and shame, might not have chosen to regard with ignominy that peculiar species of cowardice. By pleasure unsubdued, pam, He shares in that Omnipotence he trusts ; All-bearing, all-attempting, till he falls; And, when he falls, writes Vici on his shield * The duty which we owe to ourselves, as it leads us to value our own moral purity, leads us then to resist the solicitation of pleasures that would debase us, as it leads us to endure pain itself. To endure pain, is, however, in like • Night Thoughts, Night Eighth. CULTIVATION OF MORAL EXCELLENCE. manner, a part of this duty, not merely from those high motives that have been already considered by us, the motives of grateful submission, which are drawn from the contemplation of the moral government of the world, by that wisdom and goodness, under whose gracious dispensation the capacity of suffering itself has been arranged, so as to minister to the highest purposes which supreme benevolence could have in view, but also from the subordi- nate motives that regard only ourselves. To be querulously impatient, is but to add another evil, that might be avoided, to evil that already exists, and at the same time to throw from us one of the most powerful consolations which even that amount of existing evil admitted,-the consolation of know- ing, that we are able to bear what it is virtue to bear, and of trusting that we shall be able, in like manner, to endure without repining, whatever other ills it may be our mortal allotment to encounter, and our duty to overcome, in the only way in which such ills can be overcome, by the patience that sustains them. By yielding to habits of cowardly discontent, we continually lessen more and more that internal vigour, which might save us from the miserable cowardice, that makes almost every act of virtue a painful effort, till we be- come, at last, the moral slaves of every physical evil, and therefore, of every human being who is capable of inflicting on us any one of those ills. He never can be the master of his own resolutions, who does not know7 how to endure what it may be possible to avoid, without the sacrifice of virtue. When we hear of the usurper and oppressor of Roman liberty, who, when a whole world was prostrate before him, had subdued every thing but the inflexible spirit of a single heroic scorner of slavery, and of the inflicter oi slavery. 493 Et cuncta terrarum subacta, Praeter atrocem animum Catonis-* we do not need to be told, that he who could thus dare to offer to liberty its last homage, was not one whom mere suffering could appal. Justum et tenacem propositi virum Non civium ardor prava jubentium. Non vultus instantis tyranni Mente--quatit solida ;-neque Auster Dux inquieti turbidus Adri® NeC fulminantis magna Jovis manus. Si fractus illabatur orbis, Impavidum ferient ruinre.t LECTURE XCIX. In my last Lecture, gentlemen, I began the consideration of that minor species of moral obligation which constitutes the propriety of certain actions, considered merely as terminating in the individual who performs them,-the duty, as it has been termed, which we owe to ourselves. ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES. * Horat. Carm. Lib. II. Ode I. t Id. Lib. III. Ode III. ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES, 494 This duty 1 represented as having two great objects; in the first place, the moral excellence of the individual; and, in the second place, his happiness when any enjoyment, or the acquisition of the means of future enjoyment is not inconsistent with that moral excellence, the cultivation of which is, in every case, even with respect to the mere personal duty, of primary obli- gation. In my last Lecture, accordingly, I considered the former of these divisions of our duty to ourselves,-illustrating, especially, the relation which a single action may bear to the whole moral character in after life, by the increased tendency which it induces.to a repetition of it, and a corresponding diminution of the abhorrence with which the action, if vicious, was previously viewed ; and endeavouring, therefore, to impress you strongly with the importance of habits of self-command, by which alone, as enabling us to resist alike the gayer seductions of luxury, and the terror of personal suffering, we may be masters of our own moral resolutions, in circumstances in which vice might seem attended only with present pleasure, and virtue-only with present pain. After considering that division then, which regards the cultivation of our moral excellence, 1 proceed, now, to consider the other branch of our duty to ourselves, of which our happiness is the immediate object. When happiness is to be attained, without the breach of any duty, it be- comes a positive duty to pursue it,-as in like manner, though no other duty were to be violated than that which we owe to ourselves, it would still be a violation of this duty, to act in such a manner, as to lessen our own happiness, or to occasion to ourselves actual distress. It is a virtue, in short, to bo prudent, a vice to be imprudent;-or, if prudence and imprudence should be considered as implying rather the knowledge or the ignorance of actions that may be advantageous to us or hurtful, than the performance of actions which we know to be advantageous to us or hurtful, it is a virtue, to act in such a manner, as seems to us most prudent, a vice to act in'such a manner, as seems to us imprudent. That there is not merely a satisfaction or regret, as at some piece of good or bad fortune, but a moral duty observed or violated, in these cases, is evi- dent from the conscience of the agent himself, and from the feelings of those who contemplate his action. He who suffers, from acting in a manner which he had reason to consider as imprudent, feels that he is justly punished ; and all who consider his action, and its consequences, agree in this reference of demerit to the agent, and in the feeling of propriety in the punishment which he has received, or rather, which he may be said to have inflicted on him- self. Nor can we wonder, that the Deity, who willed the happiness of his creatures, and who made virtue, upon the whole, the most efficacious mode of contributing even to happiness in this life, should have made the wilful neglect of that which was in so many important respects the great object of moral feeling, an object itself of a species of moral disapprobation, if every individual of mankind were in every respect perfectly careless of his own happiness, every individual of mankind would be unhappy; and mere im- prudence, if universal, would thus have the same injurious consequences, as the universal oppression by all of all. From the harmony which the Deity has pre-established of virtue and utility, that conduct alone can be most vir- tuous, which, if universally adopted, would contribute most to the good of the universe ; and the imprudent, therefore, are to the extent of their wilful violation of the happiness of one individual, violators of the universal system of good. Our own happiness then, is a moral object, as the happiness of others is a moral object. There is much more reason, however, upon the whole, to fear, that individuals will be neglectful of the happiness of others rather than of their oivn, when opportunities of furthering either may have occurred to them ; since with respect to each personally, his own desire of pleasure and consequently of all the means of pleasure, may be considered as so powerful, as scarcely to require the aid of any mere feeling of moral duty, to call on him to be prudent. It is accordant, therefore, with the gracious benevolence of the power who has arranged our susceptibilities of feeling in relation to the circumstances in which we are placed, that the sentiment of moral obligation should there be strongest, where the additional influence is most needed; and that, while it is of our own happiness, we are, at least in ordinary circumstances, most desirous, it should yet seem to us in the very privacy of our own conscience, a greater moral delinquency, to invade any enjoyment possessed by another, than to sacrifice, by any rash folly, the means of similar enjoyment possessed by ourselves. It is still, however, more than mere regret which we feel, on considering any such imprudent sacrifice. There is truly a feeling of moral disapproba- tion-a feeling, that in thus injuring the happiness of one individual of man- kind, we have violated a part of the general system of duty, which in the actions that relate to himself only, as well as in the actions which relate di- rectly to others, a wise and virtuous man should have constantly before him for the direction of his conduct. It is morally fit then, that every individual should endeavour to acquire and preserve the means of happiness, when the happiness is to be acquired or preserved without the breach of any of the duties of still stronger obligation, which he may owe to communities, or to other individuals. But if the acquisition of happiness be his duty, in what manner is be to seek it,-that is to say, in what objects is he to hope to find it ? CULTIVATION OF HAPPINESS. 495 O Happiness '. our being's end and aim ! Good, pleasure, ease, content, whate'er thy name ! That something still which prompts the eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die ! Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies, O'erlook'd, seen double, by the fool and wise. Plant of celestial seed ! if dropt below, Say in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow ? Fair opening to some court's propitious shine, Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine, Twin'd with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield, Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field ? Where grows,-where grows it not ?-If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil; Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere, 'Tis no where to be found,-or every where* Happiness, considered as mere happiness, may be defined to be,-a state of continued agreeable feeling, differing from what is commonly termed pleasure, only as a whole differs from a part. Pleasure may be momentary; but to the pleasure of a moment we do not, at least in common language, give the name of happiness, which implies some degree of permanence in the pleasure. * Essay on Man, Ep. IV. v. 1-16. 496 As happiness, however, is only a more lasting state of pleasure, or agree- able feeling, it is evident that every object, the remembrance, or possession, or hope of which is agreeable, is a source of happiness,-one of many sources, because there are innumerable objects, which, as remembered, pos- sessed, or hoped, are agreeable. Some of these may, indeed, exclude others, and the objects excluded may be sources of purer or more lasting pleasure, which it would be imprudent, therefore, to abandon for a less good. But all are still sources of happiness, if happiness be agreeable feeling ; and the only moral question relates to the choice. It is evident too, that this choice of happiness, as far as it depends on the intensity and duration of enjoyment, must be various in its objects, in differ- ent individuals, according to their original constitution, education, habits, rank in life, or whatever else may be conceived to modify the desires of mankind. The saving of a few guineas, which, to the greater number, of the rich at least, would afford no gratification, may be a source of very great delight to those whose circumstances of humbler fortune, condemn them to be neces- sarily frugal; or even to the possessor of many thousand acres, if he have the misfortune to be a miser. With every variety of taste, in whatever man- ner induced, there is a corresponding happiness of possession ; a gem, a painting, a medal, which many would rank with the mere baubles of a toy- shop, are treasures to a few. The loss of a single book of difficult acquisi- tion, which may be a serious evil to a man of letters, is scarce felt as a loss by one who sees books before him, as mere pieces of gay and gilded furni- ture, without the slightest desire of opening them,-and whose library is per- haps the only room of his house which he never thinks of entering, or which he uses at least, only for such purposes as any other room, with any other furniture, might serve as well. What is true of these sources of enjoyment, is true of every object of desire which some value much, while others per- haps regard it as insignificant, or at least regard it as comparatively of far less value. In thinking of what is to give delight, we must think, at least, as much of the mind that is to be delighted, as of the object we may choose to term delightful. There are, perhaps, not two individuals, to whom the acquisition of exactly the same objects, would afford exactly the same quan- tity of happiness;-and in a question of mere happiness, therefore, without regard to duty, it is as absurd to inquire into one universal standard, as to think of discovering one universal stature, or universal form of the infinitely varied features of mankind. This inquiry, however, into one sole and exclusive standard of happiness, which seems so absurd when we consider the ever-varying tastes and fancies of mankind, was the great inquiry of the ancient philosophers. Happiness was to them not so much a generic name of many agreeable feelings, as a sort of universal a parte rei,-something which was one and simple, or which, at least, excluded any great diversity of the objects that corresponded with it. Instead, therefore, of sage calculations on the comparative amount of plea- sure, which different classes of objects might be expected to afford to the greater number of mankind, they have left to us a bold assertion of one spe- cies of happiness, as if it were the sole,-and many vain refinements, by which they would endeavour td reduce to it every other form of delight,- and where they could not so reduce them, to disprove the existence of en- joyments so obstinately unaccommodating, of enjoyments, however, as rea] ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES, CULTIVATION OF HAPPINESS. and as independent in themselves, as that for the sole existence of which they contended. The two principal sects opposed to each other in this inquiry into happi- ness, were the followers of Epicurus and Zeno,-the former of whom re- garded sensual pleasure as primarily the only real good, and every thing that was not directly sensual as valuable, only in relation to it; while the other sect contended, that there was no good whatever, but in rectitude of conduct,-that, but for this rectitude of choice, pleasure was not a good, pain not an evil. The slightest consideration of the nature of the mind, as susceptible of various species of enjoyment, might seem sufficient to disprove the doctrine of both these rival sects. That our chief happiness, the happiness of far the greatest portion of our life, has no direct reference to the senses, is abun- dantly evident, and is admitted even by Epicurus himself:-though he would still labour vainly to refer them remotely to that source ; and though the vir- tues and intellectual acquirements, which adorn our nature infinitely more than any superior quickness of sensation, may be so traced through all their consequences, as to be found ultimately to contribute to the amount even of the pleasures of the senses, this influence on the senses is certainly the least part of their influence on happiness. The love of the parent for the child, of the child for the parent, all the delightful charities which render home a scene of perpetual joy, and which extend themselves beyond the domestic roof, with so wide a growth of affection,-the sublime or tender remembrances of virtue,-or in mere science, the luxury of truth itself, as an object of de- sires that may almost be said to be intellectual passions,-the pleasure of the astronomer, in contemplating those seeming sparks of light, which to his senses are truly mere sparks of light, and which are magnificent orbs only to the intellect, that comprehends and measures their amplitude,-the plea- sure of the mathematician, in tracing relations of forms, which his senses are absolutely incapable of presenting to him,-of the poet, in describing scenes of beauty, which his eyes never are to see,-all these pleasures, intellectual and moral, are pleasures, whether they tend or do not tend to heighten mere sensual enjoyment; and if nothing were to be left of them but this influence on the senses, human life would scarcely be worthy, even of the brutal ap- petites that might still strive to find on earth the objects of their grovelling, and languid, and weary desire. So false, then, even as a mere physical exposition of happiness, is the system of Epicurus. But if his philosophy err more grossly, the philosophy of the Stoical school, though it err more sublimely, is still but a sublimer error. The moral excellence of man is unquestionably what Zeno and his followers maintained it to be, a devout submission to the will of the Supreme Being, by the exercise of those virtues, for which every state in which we can be placed, allows an opportunity of exercise. It never can be, accord- ing to the real excellence of his nature, to act viciously, nor a violation of his real excellence, to act virtuously; but though all pleasure which is in- consistent with virtue is to be avoided, the pleasure which is consistent with virtue is to be valued, not merely as being that which attends virtue, but as being happiness, or at least an element of happiness. Between mere plea sure and mere virtue, there is a competition, in short, of the less with the greater ; but though virtue be the greater, and the greater in every case in 497 Vol. II. 498 ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES, which it can be opposed to mere pleasure, pleasure is still good in itself, and would be covetable by the virtuous in every case in which the greater good of virtue is not inconsistent with it. Pain is, in like manner, an evil in itself; -though to bear pain without a murmur, or without even any inward mur- murs, be a good, a good dependent on ourselves,-which it is in our power to add at any moment to the mere, physical ill that does not depend on us,- and a good, more valuable than the pain in itself is evil. It is, indeed, because pleasure and pain are not in themselves absolutely indifferent, that man is virtuous in resisting the solicitations of the one, and the threats of the other; and there is thus a self-confutation in the principles of Stoicism, which it is truly astonishing that the fouudePof the system, or some one of the ancient and modern commentators on it, should not have discerned. We may praise, indeed, the magnanimity of him who dates to suffer every external evil which man can suffer, rather than give Jiis conscience one guiky remembrance-; but it is because there is evil to be endured, that we praise him for his magnanimity in bearing the evil,; and if there be no ill to be en- dured, there is no magnanimity that can be called forth to endure it. The bed of roses differs from the burning bpll, not merely as a.square differs from a circle, or as flint differs from clay, but as that which is physically good differs from that which is physically evil,-and, if they did not so differ, as good and evil, there could be as little, merit in consenting, when virtue re- quired the sacrifice, to suffer all the bodily pain which the instrument of tor- ture could inflict, rather than to rest in guilty indolence on. that luxurious couch of flovyers, as there could be in the mere preference, for any physical purpose, of a circular to an angular forni, or of the softness of to the hardness of flint. Moral excellence, is, indeed, in every *case, preferable to mere physical enjoyment; arid there is no enjoyment worthy, of the choice of man, when virtue forbids the desire. But virtue is th6 superior only, not the sole Power. She has imperial sway,-but her sway is imperial, only because there are forms of inferior good, over which it is her glory to preside. . . t x . k It was this confusion as to the distinction of moral which is one object, and of mere happiness which is another object, that led to all the extravagant declamations of the Porch, as to the equal happiness of every situation in which man can exist. Nor is.it only in their sublime defiances of pain, that the inconsistency which J have pointed out is involved ; it is in- volved equally in the scale of preferences which they present to us in our very virtues. We are to love, for example, health rather than sicknpss ; but we are thus to love it, not because health' is in itself fa greater good than sick- ness, but only because it is the will of Heaven that we should love it more than the pain and imbecility of disease. And why do we infer it to be, the will of Heaven that we should prefer health to sickness ? It is not easy to discover any reason for this inference,' but the absolute good of that which is declared in itself to be neither good nor evil. If health and sickness be in themselves, without regard to the will of Heavefi, absojutely indifferent, they must still continue absolutely indifferent,-or we must require some divine revelation, to make known to us the will which we are to obey. It is this tacit assumption'of the very circumstances denied, which forms, indeed, the radical fallacy of the system of Zeno,-a sort of fallacy which, in the course of our inquiries, we have had frequent opportunities of tracing, in the systems of philosophers of every age. The will of the Gods, as direct- CULTIVATION OF HAPPINESS. 499 ing the choice, when there was a competition of many objects, seemed to furnish a reasonable ground of preference,-a ground of preference which was felt to be the more reasonable, because every one had previously in his own mind felt, and silently admitted, those distinctions of physical good and evil, which the Stoics ostensibly denied, but which corresponded exactly with the divine intimations of preferableness,.that were only these very distinctions, under a more magnificent name. To obey the will of the Gods, in prefer- ring wealth to poverty, was, in truth, to have made the previous discovery, that wealth, as an object of desire, was preferable to poverty ; and to have inferred, from this previous belief of the physical distinction, that supposed will of Heaven, which it would have been impossible to ascertain, if the ob- jects had been indifferent in themselves. If all external things were in themselves absolutely equal, then was it impossible to infer from them that Divine preference, on which our own was to depend,-and if that Divine pre- ference could in any way, be inferred from the physical differences of things, as essentially .good and evil, then was it not to the Divine intimation, as sub- sequently inferred,, that we wjere to look for the source of that distinction from which alone, as previously felt, we inferred the intimation itself. The same erroneous notion, as to the absolute indifference, with respect to mere happiness of all things external, which were not in themselves either good or evil, but as pointed out by the Gods for our choice, led naturally, and, as I cannot but .think, necessarily, to the strange Stoical paradox of the absolute equality in merit of all virtuous actions, and the absolute equality in demerit of all vicious actions. This, indeed, with many of the other paradoxes maintained by the sect, Dr. Smith is inclined to consider as not forming a part of the system of Zeno and Cleanthes, but, rather as introduced, with other merek dialectic and technical subtleties, by their disciple and follower Chrysippus. Yet I confess, that absurd as the paradox is, and, discordant with all our moral feelings, it yet seems io me so completely involved, in the fundamental doctrine of the school, that it must have occurred, or, at least, may naturally be supposed to have' occurred, to the very founders of the school, as an obvious and inevitable consequence of their doctrine; and, if it did so occur to them, we certainly .have no reason to imagine that the as- sertors of so bold a paradox as that which stated the absolute physical indif- ference as to the happiness of rapture and agony, would be very slow of maintaining a paradox additional, if the assertion of it were necessary to the maintenance of their system. It is an error, I may remark by the way, which is not in principle at least, confined to Stoicism, but is radically involv- ed in all those theological systems of Ethics, which make the very essence of virtue to consist in mere obedience to the will of God. If all actions be equal, except as they are ordered or not ordered by heaven, which makes them objects of moral choice, simply by pointing them out to us as fit or un- fit to be performed, then is there only one virtue, and only one vice ;-the virtue of doing as Heaven commands, the vice of not doing as Heaven com- mands. Whatever the action may be, there may be this moral difference, but in the Stoical or Theological view' of virtue and vice, there can be this difference only. To suppose that certain actions, merely by being more widely beneficial, are more obligatory than others,-that certain other actions, merely by being more widely injurious, are of greater delinquency than others,-would be to suppose, in opposition to the fundamental tenet of the whole system, that what we term a benefit is a good in itself,-what we term 500 an injury an evil in itself, independently of that will which intimates to us what is fit or unfit to be done. The most beneficial action,-an action that confers the greatest amount of happiness on our nearest relative, or on our most generous benefactor, is good only because it is divinely commanded ; and this character of virtue it must share in common with every action, how- ever comparatively unimportant in itself, that is so commanded;-the most injurious action, of which the injury, too, may have been directed against those whom we were especially called to love, is evil only because it is di- vinely indicated to us as unworthy of our choice; and this character of vice it must share in common with all the actions that are marked to be evil by this prohibition, and by this prohibition only. We are astonished, indeed, that offences, which we regard as trifling, should be classed by the Stoics with crimes that appear to us of the most aggravated iniquity; but we are astonished only because we assume another estimate of virtue and vice, and have not adopted their general doctrine,-that virtue is mere obedience to the will of the Gods, and vice disobedience to it. The paradox is repug- nant, indeed, to eyery feeling of our heart, but still it must be allowed to be in perfect harmony with the system,-as it must be allowed also to be ne- cessarily involved in every system, that reduces virtue and vice to mere obe- dience or disobedience to the will of Heaven. The whole errors of the Stoical system, or at least its more important errors, may be traced then, I conceive, to that radical mistake, as to the na- ture of happiness, which we have been considering,-a mistake that, if truly allowed to influence the heart, could not fail to lessen the happiness of the individual, and in some measure too, his virtue, in all the relations which personal happiness and virtue bear to private affection. If, indeed, it had been possible for human nature to feel what the Stoics maintained,-an ab- solute indifference as to every thing external, unless from some relation which it bore, or was imagined to bear, to the will of the Divinity, how much of all that tenderness which renders the domestic and friendly relations so delightful would have been destroyed, by the mere cessation of tire little pleasures, and little exercises of kindness and compassion, which foster the benevolent regard. It is in relation to these private affections only, however, that I conceive the Stoical system to have been practically injurious to virtue, however false it may have been in mere theory, either as a physical system of the nature of man, or as a system of ethics adapted to the circumstances of his physical constitution. In every thing which terminated in the individual himself, the virtue which it recommended, was what man perhaps may never be able to attain, but what it would be well for a man if he could even ap- proach,-and the nearer his approach to it, the more excellent must he be- come. Pain is, indeed, an ill, and we must err physically whenever we pronounce that to endure this ill is not an affliction to our sensitive nature ;- but it would be well for us, in our moral resolutions,-at least in those which regard only sufferings which ourselves 'may have to overcome,-if we could be truly, what a perfect Stoic would require of us to be. The error of the philosophy of the Porch, then, in relation to the physi- cal ills of life, was at least an error of minds of the noblest character of moral enthusiasm. " If," says Montesquieu, " I could for a moment cease to think that I am a Christian, I could not fail to rank the destruction of the sect of Zeno, in the list of the misfortunes of human kind. It was extrava- gant only in feelings which have in themselves a moral grandeur,-in the ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES, contempt of pleasures and afflictions. It alone knew how to make great Citizens; it alone made great men ; it alone made Emperors worthy of be ing called great. While the Stoics regarded as nothing, riches, gran deur, pleasures, and vexations, they occupied themselves only with labouring for the happiness of others in the discharge of the various social duties. It seemed as if they regarded that holy spirit, the portion of the divinity which they believed to be in man, as a sort of bountiful providence that was watch- ing over the human race. Born for society, they considered it as their office thus to labour for it,-and they laboured, at little cost to the society which they benefited, because their reward was all within themselves :-their philosophy sufficed for their happiness; or rather, the happiness of others was the only accession which could increase their o\vn."* CULTIVATION OF HAPPINESS. 501 Hi mores, base duri immota Catonis Secta fuit, servare modum, finemque tenere, Naturamque sequi, patriseque impendere vitam ; Nec sibi, sed toti genitum se credere mundo. Huie epulae vicisse famem.-magnique penates Submovisse hyemem tecto-pretiosaque vestis Hirtam membra super Romani more Quiritis, Induxisse togam-Venerisque huiemaximus usus Progenies. Urbi pater est, Urbique maritus ; Justitias cultor, rigidi senator honesti; In commune bonus ; nullosque Catonis in actus Subrebsit, partemque tulit sibi nata voluptas.t In the peculiar circumstances of the ages in which the Stoical doctrines chiefly flourished,-the servile and wretched ages, in which, with that intellec- tual light, in a few individuals, which leads when there is virtue, to grandeur of soul, and almost leads to virtue itself,-there was every where around a cold and gloomy despotism, that left man only to gaze on misery, or to feel misery, if he did not strive to rise wholly above it,-it is not wonderful that a philo- sophy, which gave aid to this necessary elevation above the scene of human suffering and human ignominy, should have been the favourite philosophy of every better spirit: of all those names, which at the distance of so many centuries, we still venerate as the names of some more than mortal deliverers of mankind. " Among the different schools," says Apollonius, in the sublime eulogy of the Emperor M. Aurelius, " among the different schools he soon discovered one which taught man to rise above himself. It discovered to him, as it were a new world,-a world in which pleasure and pain were annihilated, where the senses had lost all their power over the soul, where poverty, riches, life, death, were nothing, and virtue existed alone. Romans! it was this phi- losophy which gave you Cato and Brutus. It was it which supported them in the midst of the ruins of liberty. It extended itself afterwards and multi- plied under your tyrants. It seemed as if it had become a want to your oppressed ancestors, whose uncertain life was incessantly under the axe of the despot. In those times of disgrace alone, it preserved the dignity of human nature. It taught to live ; it taught to die ; and while tyranny was degrading the soul, it lifted it up again with more force and grandeur. This heroic philosophy was made for heroic souls. Aurelius marked as one of * De 1'Esprit des Loix. Liv. XXIV. Chap. X. t Lucan. Civ. Bel. Lib. IL v. 380-391. 502 the most fortunate days of his life that day of his boyhood in whicn ne first heard of Cato. He preserved with gratitude, the names of those who had made him. in like manner, acquainted with Brutus and Thraseas. He thanked the Gods that he had had an opportunity, of reading the maxims of Epictetus." That great emperor, who thift looked with veneration to others,'was him- self one of the noble boasts of Stoicism, and it must always be the glory of the philosophy of the Porch, that, whatever its truths and errors might be, they were truths and errors which animated the virtues, and comforted the sufferings of some of the noblest of mankind. With all the admiration, however, which it is impossible for us not to feel, of the sublimer parts of this system, it is still, as I said, founded on a false view of our nature. Man is to be considered not in one light only, but in many lights,-in all of which he may be a subject of agreeable feelings, and con- sequently of happiness, as a series of agreeable feelings. He is a sensitive being,-an intellectual being,-a moral being,'-a religious being,--and there are species of happiness that correspond with these varieties. Though it would be unnecessary, then, to enter Vn anjr very minute details of all the varieties of agreeable feeling of which happiness, as a whole, may be composed, a few slight remarks may, still be added, on these chief specific relations of our happiness, sensitive, intellectual, moral, and reli- gious. ' * •* That the pleasure whicn may be felt by us as sensitive beings, is not to be rejected by us as unworthy of man, 1 need not prove to you, £fter the defini- tion of happiness, which I have given you. Happiness, however, though only a series of agreeable feelings, is to be estimated, not only by the inten- sity and duration of ffioge agreeable feelings which compose it, but by the relations of these, as likely to produce or not to produce, to prevent or not to prevent, other series of agreeable feelings, and to cherish or repress that moral excellence which, as an object of desire, is superior even to pleasure itself. It is according to these relations chiefly, that the pleasures of the senses are to be estimated, in themselves, as mere pleasures, they are good, and if they left the. same ardour of generous enterprise, or of patient self- command,-if they did not occupy time, which should have been employed in higher offices,-and if, in their influence on the future capacity of mere enjoyment, they did not tend to lessen or prevent happiness which would otherwise have been enjoyed, or to occasion pain which otherwise would not have arisen, and which is equivalent, or more thah equivalent, to the tempo- rary happiness afforded,-it would, in these circumstances, I will admit, be impossible for man to be too much a sensualist; since pleasure, which in itself is good, is evil, only when its copsequences are evil. He who has lavished on us so many means of delight, as.to make it impossi- ble for us in the ordinary circumstances of life, not to be sensitively happy in some greater or less degree, has not made nature so full of beauty that we should not admire it. He has not poured fragrance and music around us, and strewed with flowers the very turf on which we tread, that our heart may not rejoice as we move along, but that we may walk through this world of loveliness with the same dull eye and indifferent soul, with which we should have traversed unvaried scenes, without a colour, or an odour, or a song. The pleasures of the senses, then, are not merely allowable, under the restrictions which I stated, but to abstain from them with no other view than ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES, because they are pleasures, would be a sort of contempt of the goodness of God,-or a blasphemy against his gracious bounty, if we were to assert that such abstinence from pleasure, merely as pleasure, can be gratifying to in- finite benevolence. It is very different, however, when the solicitations of pleasure are resisted on account of those circumstances which I have mentioned as the only rea- sonablte restrictions on enjoyment,-circumstances which give to temperance its rank'as one of the virtues, and as one which is far from being the hum- blest of the glorious band. Even though excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures, had no other evil than the pains and lessening of enjoyments to which they give occasion, this reduction of the general amount of happiness would afford an irresistible reason for curbing the sensual appetite. The headach, the languor, the long and miserable diseases of intemperance, are themselves sufficient punish- ments of the luxurious indulgences which produced them. But, without taking these into account,' how great is the'loss of simpler pleasure,-of plea- sure more frequently, and more universally acquirable, but which the habit of seeking only'viole'nt enjoyments for an inflamed and vitiated appetite, has rendered too feeble to be felt. They do not Jose little, who lose only what the intemperate lose. To enjoy, perhaps, a single luxury, which even though they were truly to enjoy it, would not be worth so costly a purchase, they give up the capacity of innumerable delights. Though it were pleasing rather than painful to gaze for a few moments on the sun, the pleasure would surely be too deafly bought, if it were -to leave the eyes for hours dazzled and incapable of enjoying the beautiful colours of that wide expanse of na- ture, with which the same radiance, when more moderately shed, refreshes the very vision which it delights.' The influence of intemperance, in lessening the amount of general enjoy- ment,-injurious as it is, even in this way, to a being who loves happiness,-is slight, however, when compared with it's more fatal injury to every virtuous habit. He who has trained his whole soul to sensual indulgences, has pre- pared for himself innumerable seductions from moral good, while he has, at the same time, preparted in his own heart a greater weakness ef resisting those seductions. He' requires too' costly and cumbrous an apparahis of happiness, to feel delight at the call of virtue, which may order him where he cannot be accompanied by so many superfluous, but to him necessary things; and he will Ibarn, therefore, to consider that which would deprive him of his accustomed enjoyments, as a foe, not as a guardian or moral ad- viser. It is mentioned of a friend of Charles I. in the civil war of the Par- liament, that he had made up his mind to take horse, and join the Royal party, but for one circumstance,-that he could not Reconcile himself to the thought of being an hour or two less in bed than he had been accustomed in his quiet home; and he therefore, after duly reflecting on the impossibility of being both a good subject and a good sleeper, contented himself with re- maining to enjoy his repose. Absurd as such an anecdote may seem, it states only what passes innumerable times, through the silent heart of every voluptuary, in similar comparisons of the most important duties with the most petty, but, habitual pleasures. How many more virtuous actions would have been performed on earth, if the performance of them had not been inconsistent with enjoyments, as insignificant in themselves as an hour of unnecessary and perhaps hurtful slumber I • ' CULTIVATION OF SENSITIVE HAPPINESS. 503 504 In one of the most eloquent of the ancient writers, there is a striking pic- ture of this contrast, which the virtuous and the dissolute present almost to our very senses. " Altum quiddam est virtus, excelsum, regale, invictum, infatigabile; voluptas, humile, servile, imbecillum caducum, cujus, statio ac domicilium fornices et popinae sunt. Virtutem in templo invenies, in foro, in curia, pro muris stantem, pulverulentam coloratam, callosas habentem manus : voluptatem latitantem seepius, ac tenebras captantem; circa balnea ac suda- toria, ac loca ajdilem metuentia; mollem, enervem, mero atque unguento madentem, pallidam, aut fucatam et medicamentis pollutam."* From this tendency of excessive indulgence in mere sensual pleasure to weaken and debase the mind, and thus to expose it an easy prey to every species of evil, Epicurus, the great assertor of sensual pleasures, as the sole direct good in life, was led to maintain the importance of temperance, almost with the same appearance of rigid severity as the teachers of a different school. In mere precepts of virtue, indeed, that is to say, in every thing practical, the schools the most opposite to each other in their views of the nature of good, were nearly similar. Both set out from principles that might have seemed to lead them far from each other; yet both arrived at the same conclusions, on the points on which it was most important to form a judgment. It is gratifying to find the loose freedom of the most licentious system of immorality, thus forced, for its own happiness, to submit itself to the moral restraints which it seemed to boast of throwing off,-and Pleasure herself compelled, as it were, to pay homage to that Virtue, from which she vainly endeavoured to withdraw the worship of mankind. ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES, LECTURE C. ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES-CULTIVATION OF INTELLECTUAL- MORAL-AND RELIGIOUS HAPPINESS. Gentlemen, the greater part of my last Lecture was occupied with an examination of the erroneous opinions as to happiness entertained by some sects of ancient philosophers, and particularly of the doctrines of one memo- rable sect, whose general system, false as it was in many respects, had yet so much in it of the sublimity of virtue, and was so eminently fitted to pro- duce or to attract to it whatever was morally great, that when we read of any noble act of patriotism in the ages and countries in which the system flourished, we almost take for granted, that he who dared heroically, or suffered heroically, was of the distinguished number of this school of heroes. The error of the ancient inquirers into happiness consisted, as we found, in excessive simplification,-in the belief, that happiness was one and simple, definite, and almost self-subsisting, like an universal essence of the schools, -in the assertion, therefore, of one peculiar form of good, as if it were all that deserved that name, and the consequent exclusion of other forms, • Senec. De Vita Beata. Cap. VII. CULTIVATION OF INTELLECTUAL HAPPINESS. if good, that could not be reduced to the favourite species. He who had confined ah happiness to the pleasure of the senses, was of course under the necessity of denying that there was any moral pleasure whatever, which had not a direct relation to some mere sensual delight; while the assertor of a different system, who had affirmed virtue only to be good, was of course under an equal necessity of denying, that any pleasure of the senses, how- ever intense or pure, could be even the slightest element of happiness. Both were right in what they admitted,-wrong in what they excluded ;- and the paradoxes into which they were led, were necessary consequences of the excessive simplification. A wider and more judicious view of our nature would have shown, that humarf happiness is as various as the functions of man,-that the Deity, who has united us by so many relations to the whole living and inanimate world, has, in these relations, surrounded us with means of varied enjoyment, which it is as truly impossible for us not to partake with satisfaction, as not to behold the very scene itself, which is for ever in all its beauty before our eyes,-that happiness is the name of a series of agreeable feelings, and of such a series only,-and that whatever is capable of exciting agreeable feel- ings, is, therefore, or may be, to that extent, a source of happiness. Man is a sensitive being,-an intellectual being,-a moral being,-a reli- gious being. There are agreeable feelings which belong to him in each of these capacities,-a happiness, in short, sensitive, intellectual, moral, and re- ligious ; and though we may affect, in verbal accordance with some system, to deny any of these various forms of good, it is only in words that we can so deny them. As mere feelings, or phenomena of the mind, admitting of analysis and arrangement, these forms of pleasing emotion were considered by us, in former parts of the course, when their general relations to our hap- piness were pointed out; but as objects of moral choice, they may, perhaps, still admit of a few additional practical remarks. The remarks in my last Lecture were limited to the happiness which we are capable of enjoying in the first of these capacities,-as sensitive beings. 1 proceed then, now, to the happiness of which we are intellectually sus- ceptible. That pleasures does attend the sublime operations of intellect in the dis- covery of truth, or the splendid creations of fancy, or the various arts to which science and imagination are subservient, every one, I presume, will readily admit, to whom these operations are familiar. But the great masters in science and art are few, and the pleasure which they feel in their noblest inventions, therefore, would be but a slight element in the sum of human happiness. The joy, however, is not confined to the productive functions, which have the pride of contemplating these great results as their own. It exists to all who have the humbler capacity of contemplating them merely as results of human genius. It is delightful to learn, though another may have been the discoverer; and perhaps the pleasure which a mind truly ar- dent for knowledge, feels in those early years, in which the new world of science is opened, as it were to its view, and every step, and almost every glance, affords some new accession of admiration and power, may not be surpassed even by the pleasure which it is afterwards to feel, when it is not to be the receiver of the wisdom of others, but itself the enlightener of the wise. The peculiar and most prominent advantage of the intellectual pleasures, 505 Vol. IL ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES, 506 however, in relation to general happiness, regards as much what they pre- vent, as what they afford. It is what I had before occasion to point out to you, when treating of the common causes of fretfulness of temper, to which mere want of occupation leads, perhaps, as frequently as any positive cause. This advantage is the ready resource which these pleasures afford, in cases in which the hours would be slow and heavy without them. One of the most valuable arts of happiness, to those who are not privileged, if 1 may so ex- press it, with the necessity labour, is to know how to prepare resources that may be readily at hand, in the dreary hours that ate without employment of any other kind. It is not always in the power of the idler to command the company of other idlers, with whom he may busy himself in labouring to forget that he is not busy; and, delightful as it may be for a while, it is but a weary occupation after all, to walk along'the pavenjent or the field, and to count faces, or trees, lor the pleasure of being a little more, and but a very little more active, than if the same time had been spent on the same quiet seat, with folded arms, and drowsy eyelids, that have the dullness of begin- ning slumber, without its repose. In bad weather, and slight indisposition, when even these feeble resources are lost, the heavy burden of a day is still more insupportable to him who has nothing on which to lean, that'may aid him in supporting it,-and who, when an hour is at last shaken off, still sees other hours hanging oyer him, that are to weigh him down as drearily and heavily. In such circumstances, how much does he add to happiness, who can give the mind a resource, that is ready at its very call, in almost all the circumstances in which it can be placed ; and such a resource does the power of deriving pleasure from a book afford. The consolation which this yields, is indeed next in value to the consolation of virtue itself. It would not be easy to form a conception adequate to the amount of positive pleasure 'en- joyed, and still more, of positive pain prevented, which, in civilized life, is due to works that are, perhaps, of no value, but-as they this temporary purpose of filling up the vacuities of empty days, or empty hours 'even Of days, that in part are occupied. I need not quote to you the very beautiful passage of Cicero* on this uni- versality of the delights of literature, in youth, in old age, at home, and abroad, which has been so often quoted by every body, that it mu§t be fa- miliar to you all. There is a beautiful passage, however, of another Roman philosopher, to the same purport, with which you are, probably, less acquaint- ed,-that expressed in a manner as striking, the advantages of study, in the power which it gives us, nbt merely of occupying our hours df leisure, but of extending our existence through all the ages that have preceded us, and enjoying the communion of the noblest minds, with which those ages were adorned. "Solo omnium otiosi' sunt, qui sapientiae vacant: soli vivunt. Nec enim suam tantum aetatem bene tuentur: omne aevum suo adjiciuut. Quidquid annorum ante illos actum est, illis acquisition est. 'Nisi ingratissi- mi sumus, illi clarissimi sacrarum opinionum conditores, nobis nati sunt, nobis vitam pneparaverunt. Ad res pulcherrimas, ex tenebris ad lucem erutas, alieno laborc deducimur: nullo nobis saeculo interdictum est: in omnia ad- mittimur; et si magnitudine animi, egredi human® imbecillitatis angustias libet multum per quod spatiemur temporis est. Disputare cum Socrate licet, dubitare cum Carneade, cum Epicuro quiescere, naturam cum Stoicis vin- cere, cum Cynicis excedere, cum rerum ratura in consortium omnis aevi pa- CULTIVATION OF MORAL HAPPINESS. riter incedere."* " What happiness," he continues, " and how beautiful an old age awaits him, who has betaken himself to the communion of those great minds,-who has constantly with him those whom he may deliberate on every thing which concerns him, whom he may consult daily as to his own moral progress, and hear truth from them without contumely, praise without adulation,-to whose very similitude, by this intercourse, he may learn at last to form even his own feebler nature. We are often in the habit of complaining that our parents, and all the circumstances of our birth, are not of our choice, but of our fortune. We Itave it in our power, however, to be born as we please in this second birth of genius. Of the illustrious minds that have preceded us, we have only to determine to whom we wish to be allied; and we are already adopted, not to the*inheritance of his mere name, but to the nobler inheritance of every thing which he pos- sessed." Such, in importance, is intellectual happiness, considered merely as hap- piness, and such, consequently, the practical duty of cultivating it. Still more important, however, is the happiness of which we are susceptible as moral beings. This moral happiness may be considered, practically, in two lights,-as relating to things, and as- relating to persons ;-to- the objects of our cove- tous desires of every sort-and to the living objects of our affections of love and hate, in all their varieties. With respect to the former of these divisions, in the competition of the many objects that may attract us, a most important practical rule for happiness, is to give our chief consideration, so as to produce, indirectly, h. correspond- ing tendency of desire to the advantages of those objects which are attend- ed with least risk of disappointment,-and attended too, with fewest entangle- ments of necessary obsequiousness to the powerful, and enmities of competitors that, even though our pursuit should be ultimately successful, may disturb our peace, almost as much as if we had wholly failed. It is most .impor- tant, then, for our general happiness, to have associated the notion bf happi- ness itself, with objects that are of easy attainment, and that depend more upon ourselves than on the accidents of fortune. If it is not easy for him, who has many wishes to be tranquil, it must be still less easy for him to be happy, who has many disappointments: and the ambitious man must be for- tunate, indeed, who has not frequently such disappointments to encounter Did we know nothing more of any two individuals of moderate fortune, than that they had associated the image of supreme felicity, the one with the en- joyments of benevolence, and literature, and domestic tranquillity,--and the other with the acquisition of all the tumultuous grandeur of elevated place, -could we hesitate for a moment, to predict, to whose lot the greater sum of pleasure would fall, and the less of miserable solicitude? " How, indeed, can he be happy," to borrow the language of one who had many opportuni- ties of witnessing that ambition which he so well described-" how can he be happy, who is ever weary of homage received, and who sets a value on nothing but what is refused to him 2 He can enjoy nothing-not his glory, for it seems to him obscure-not his station, for he thinks only of mounting to some greater height-not even his very repose, for he is wretched in pro- portion as he is obliged to be tranquil." 507 * Senec. De Brevit. Vite, Cap. xiv. 508 It would be well, indeed, for those who have the misfortune of thinking that happiness is only another name for the possession of wealth and power, if they could trace the whole series of feelings, that have constituted the life of far the greater number of the wealthy and the powerful. ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES, If all united thy ambition call, From ancient story learn to scorn them all. There, in the rich, the honour'd, fam'd, and great, See the false scale of happiness complete: In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay, How happy those to ruin, these betray! Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows, From dirt and sea-weed, as proud Venice rose ! In how guilt and greatness equal ran, And all that rais'd the hero sunk the man. Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold, But stain'd with blood, or ill-exchang'd for gold. Then see them broke with toils, or sunk in ease, Or infamous ft>r plunder'd provinces ! O wealth ill-fated ! which no act of fame Ere taught to shine, or sanctified from «ba.me ! What greater bliss attends their close of life ? Some greedy minion, or imperious wife, The trophied arches, storied hails invade, And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade. Alas ! not dazzled with their noontide ray, Compute the morn and evening to the day,- The whole amount of that enormous fame, A tale that blends their glory with their shame.* Of kindred character with moderation in our wishes, which regards the future only, is the habit of considering the cheerful rather than the gloomy appearances of things,-which allows so much delight to be felt in things possessed, as scarcely to afford room for that discontent with the present, in which the greater number of our wishes of the future, and especially of those aimless and capricious wishes which it is most difficult to satisfy, have their origin. How many are there, who, surrounded with all the means of enjoyment, make to themselves a sad occupation of extracting misery from happiness itself; and who labour to be wretched, as if for no other purpose, than to show the insufficiency of fortune to confer what it seems to promise. Good and evil are so mingled together in this system of things, that there is scarcely any event so productive of evil, as not to have some good mixed with it direct or indirect; and scarcely any so good, as not to be attended with some proportion of evil, or, at least, of what seems to us for the time to be evil. As we dwell more on one or on the other, we do not indeed alter the real nature of things, but we render them in their relation to us, very nearly the same, as if their nature were really altered. If we look on them with a gloomy eye, all are gloomy. But there is a source of light within us, -an everlasting sunshine which we can throw on every thing around, till it reflect on us what has beamed from our own serene heart; like that great luminary which, ever moving through a world of darkness, is still on every side, surrounded with the radiance which flows from itself; and cannot ap- pear without converting night into the cheerfulness of day. One other practical rule with respect to our wishes, it is of still greater importance to render familiar to us,-that, in estimating the different objects which we obtain, and those which we see obtained by others, we should ac- • Essay on Man, Ep. IV. v. 285-308. custom ourselves to consider, not merely what each has acquired, but what has been given by each in purchase for it,-the time, the labour, the comfort, perhaps the virtue,-and that we do not repine, therefore, when objects which we should have wished to acquire, are possessed by those who in the great barter of happiness, or what seems to be happiness, have paid for them more than we should have consented to pay. Ail which we wish to attain in life is so truly a matter of purchase, that I know no view so powerful as this for preventing discontent in occasional failure, and I cannot urge it more forcibly to you, than has been done by one of the first female writers of the age, in a very eloquent moral Essay against Inconsistency in our Expectations. From this Essay ofMrs. Barbauld, which is confessedly founded in its great argument, on a very striking paragraph of Epictetus, I quote a few passages : " We should consider this world as a great mart of commerce, where for- tune exposes to our view various commodities, riches, ease, tranquillity, fame, integrity, knowledge. Every thing is marked at a settled price. Our time, our labour, our ingenuity, are so much ready money which we are to lay out to the best advantage. Examine, compare, choose, reject; but stand to your own judgment; and do not, like children, when you have purchased one thing repine that you do not possess another which you did not purchase. Such is the force of well-regulated industry, that a steady and vigorous ex- ertion of our faculties, directed to one end will generally insure success. Would you for instance be rich ? Do yon think that single point worth the sacrificing every thing else to ? You may then be rich. Thousands have become so from the lowest beginnings, by toil, and patient diligence, and at- tention to the minutest articles of expense and profit. But you must give up the pleasures of leisure, of a vacant mind, of a free unsuspicious temper. If you preserve your integrity, it must be a coarse-spun and vulgar honesty. Those high and lofty notions of morals which you brought with you from the schools must be considerably lowered, and mixed with the baser alloy of a jealous and worldly-minded prudence. You must learn to do hard, if not unjust things; and for the nice embarrassments of a delicate and ingenuous spirit, it is necessary for you to get rid of them as fast as possible. You must shut your heart against the Muses, and be content to feed your under- standing with plain household truths. In short, you must not attempt to en- large your ideas, or polish your taste, or refine your sentiments; but must keep on in one beaten tract, without turning aside either to the right hand or to the left. ' But I cannot submit to drudgery like this-I feel a spirit above it.' 'Tis well: be above it then; only do not repine that you are not rich. " Is knowledge the pearl of price ? That too may be purchased-by steady application, and long solitary hours of study and reflection. Bestow these and you shall be wise. ' But (says the man of letters) what a hard- ship is it that many an illiterate fellow, who cannot construe the motto of the arms on his coach, shall raise a fortune and make a figure, while I have little more than the common conveniences of life.' Et tibi magna satis! Was it in order to raise a fortune that you consumed the sprightly hours of youth in study and retirement? Was it to be rich that you grew pale over the midnight lamp, and distilled the sweetness from the Greek and Roman spring ? You have then mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry. ' What reward have I then for all my labours?' What reward ! A large compre- hensive soul, well purged from vulgar fears, and perturbations, and preju- dices ; able to comprehend and interpret the works of man-of God. A CULTIVATION OF MORAL HAPPINESS. 509 510 rich, flourishing, cultivated mind, pregnant with inexhaustible stores of enter- tainment and reflection. A perpetual spring of fresh ideas; and the con- scious dignity of superior intelligence. Good heaven I and what reward can you ask besides ? " ' But is it not some reproach upon the economy of Providence that such a one, who is a mean dirty fellow, should have amassed wealth enough to buy half a nation ?' Not in the least. He made himself a mean dirty fel- low for that very end. He has paid his health, his conscience, his liberty for it; and will you envy him his bargain ? Will you hang your head and blush in his presence because he outshines you in equipage and show ? Lift up your brow with a noble confidence, and say to yourself, I have not these things, it is true; but it is because I have not sought, because I have not de- sired them ; it is because 1 possess something better. 1 have chosen my lot, I am content and satisfied. "You are a modest man-You love quiet and independence, and have a delicacy and reserve in your temper, which renders it impossible for you to elbow your way in the world, and be the herald of your own merits. Be content then with a modest retirement, with the esteem of your intimate friends, with the praisqs of a blameless heart, and a delicate ingenuous spirit; but resign the splendid distinctions of the world to those who can better scramble for them." "The'man 'whose tender sensibility of conscience, and strict regard to the jules of morality make him scrupulous and fearful of offending, is often heard to complain of the disadvantages he lies under in every path of honour and profit. ' Could I but get over some nice points, and conform to the prac- tice and opinion of those about me, I might stand as fair a chance as others for dignities and preferment.' And why can you not ? What hinders you from discarding this troublesome scrupulosity of yours which stands so grie- vously in your way? If it be a small thing to enjoy a healthful mind, sound at the very core, that does not shrink from the keenest inspection ; inward freedom from remorse and perturbation; unsullied whiteness and simplicity of manners; a genuine integrity Pure in the last recesses of the mind; if you think these advantages an inadequate recompense for what you resign, dismiss your scruples this instant, and be a slave-merchant, a parasite, or- what you please."* • ' • ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES, " Bring then these blessings to a strict account; Make fair deductions :-see to what they mount; How much of other each is sure to cost; How each for other oft is wholly lost; How inconsistent greater goods with these, How sometimes life is risk'd-and always ease.- Think ;-and if still the things thy envy call,- Say-wouldst thou be the man to whom they fall ?"f With respect to the living objects of our affections, whom we voluntarily add to those with whom nature has peculiarly connected us, the most impor- tant, though the most obvious of all practical rules is, to consider well in every instance what it is which we are about to love or hate-that we may not love, * Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose, by John Aikin, M. D. and Anna Laetitia Barbauld. 3d Edit. pp. 62-69. Lond. 1792. 1 Essay on Man, Ep. iv. 269-276. CULTIVATION OF MORAL HAPPINESS. with any peculiar friendship, what it may be dangerous to our virtue to love ; or if not dangerous to our virtue, at least dangerous to our peace, from the vices or follies, which all our care may be vain to remedy, and of which much of the misery and disgrace cannot fail to overflow upon us. In the emotions of an opposite kind, before we consent to submit our happiness to that disquietude, which we must endure as often as we feel hatred, or anger, or lasting indignation of any sort,-it is in like manner, necessary to pause and consider whether it may not have been still possible for us to have been deceived, as to those supposed facts which appear to us to justify our malevolent feelings. We must not imagine, as they who err in this respect are very apt to imagine, that too quick a wrath is justified by the avowal that our temper is passionate; for it is the inattention to this very quickness of feeling resentment, which a passionate disposition denotes, that constitutes the chief moral evil of such exacerbations of unmerited anger, that are converted into a passionate habit by the inattention only. Our.duties arise often from our dangers, and increase with our dangers. The adulterer does not think of justifying himself by the confession of the violence of his adulterous de- sires : the liveliness of feelings which he knows to be uqworthy of him, as they show him the greater peril to which his virtue is exposed, should render him -more eager to strive to repress them; and he who feels himself most readily irritable, instead of regarding his irritability as an excuse, should, in like manner, look upon it only as an additional reason to avoid, most sedu- lously, every occasion of anger, and to consider the first slight beginning emotion, therefore, as a warning to beware. I have already spoken of the advantage of looking to the bright sides of things ; and it is not of less advantage, to have acquired the habit of looking to the bright sides'of persons. In our just resentment against a ftpv, we are not to lose our admiration and love of the whole human race. We may have been deceived; but it does not;, therefore, follow that all around us are deceivers. How much happiness does he lose who is ever on the watch for injustice, and to whom the very unsuspecting confidence of friendship itself, is only something that will require a more careful and vigilant scrutiny. 511 Farewell to Virtue's peaceful times ! Soon will you stoop to act the crimes, Which thus you stoop to fear. Guilt follows guilt; and when the train Begins with wrongs of such a stain, What horrors form the rear. Thron'd in the sun's descending car, What power unseen diffuseth far This tenderness of mind? What genius smiles on yonder flood What God, in whispers from the wood, Bids every thought be kind ? O thou, whate'er thy awful name ! Whose wisdom our untoward frame, With social love restrains, Thou, who by fair affection's ties, Giv'st us to double all our joys, And half disarm our pains1 Let universal candour still, Clear as yon heaven-reflecting rill, Preserve my open mind ; Nor this nor that man's crooked ways, One sordid doubt within me raise, To injure human kind. 512 On the general happiness which virtue, considered as one great plan of conduct, tends to afford, it would be idle to add any remarks, after the full discussions of the whole doctrine of virtue with which we were so long oc- cupied. Where it is, there is no need of effort to appear happy ; and where it is not, the effort will be vain. Nothing, indeed, can be juster than the observation of Rousseau, that " it is far easier to be happy than to appear so." What inexhaustible sources of delight are there in all those ready suggestions, which constitute the remembrances of a life well spent,-when there is not a familiar place or person, that does not recall to us the happiness which at- tended some deed of virtue, or at least some benevolent wish ' " The true secret of happiness," says Fontenelle, "is to be well with our own mind. The vexations which we must expect to happen to us from without, will often throw us back upon ourselves ; it is good to have there an agreeable retreat." The delights of virtue of course lead me to those delights of religion with which they are so intimately connected. Even these, too, are to a certain extent subjects of a practical deliberation. We must, if we value our hap- piness, be careful in determining what it is which we denominate religion, that we may not extend its supposed duties to usages inconsistent with our tranquillity; and still more, that we may not form to ourselves unworthy no- tions of Him on whom we consider our whole happiness to depend. It is not enough to believe in God, as an irresistible Power that presides over the universe ; for this a malignant demon might be; it is necessary, for our de- vout happiness, that we should believe in Him as that pure and gracious Being who is the encourager of our virtues, and the comforter of our sorrows. " Quantum r-eligio potuit suadere malorum." exclaims the Epicurean poet, in thinking of the evils which superstition, cha- racterized by that ambiguous name, had produced;-and where a fierce or gloomy superstition has usurped the influence, which religion graciously ex- ercises only for purposes of benevolence to man,-whom she makes happy with a present enjoyment, by the very expression of devout gratitude for happi- ness already enjoyed,-it would not be easy to estimate the amount of posi- tive misery, which must result from the mere contemplation of a tyrant in the heavens, and of a creation subject to his cruelty and caprice. It is a practical duty then, in relation to our own happiness, to trace assiduously the divine manifestations of goodness in the universe, that we may know with more delightful confidence, the benevolence which we adore. It is our duty, in like manner, to study the manifestations of his wisdom in the regular ar- rangement of the laws of the universe, that we may not ignorantly tremble at superstitious imaginary influences, which we almost oppose to his divine power. How often have we occasion to observe in individuals, who think that they are believers and worshippers of one omnipotent God, a species of minor superstition, which does not, indeed, like the more gigantic species, destroy happiness at once, but which, in those who are unfortunately subject to it, is almost incessantly making some slight attack on happiness, and is thus as destructive of tranquillity as it is dishonourable to the religion that is pro- fessed. There is scarcely any thing, however insignificant and contemptible, which superstition has not converted into an oracle. Spectres, and dreams, and omens of every kind, have made cowards even of the bravest men ; and though we no longer stop an expedition, or suspend an important debate, at the perking of a chicken, or the flight of a crow, the great multitude, even in ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES, nations the most civilized, are still under the influence of imaginary terrors that scarcely can be said io be less absurd. Of how much sorrow might the same account be given, as that which Gay ascribes to the farmer's wife : CULTIVATION OF RELIGIOUS HAPPINESS. 513 Alas! you know the cause too well, The salt is spilt:-to me it fell; Then, to contribute to my loss, My knife and fork were laid across ; On Friday too ! the day I dread 1 Would I were safe at home in bed ! Last night-I vow to heaven 'tis true- Bounce, from the fire a coffin flew. Next .post some fatal news shall tell; God send, my Cornish friends be well !* The difficulty of distinguishing casual successions of events, from the un- varying sequences of causation, gives unfortunately, to the ignorant, too much room for such disquieting associations, which nothing butjuster views of phi- losophy can be expected to prevent or dissipate.-The cultivation of sound opinions in science is thus, in more senses than one, the cultivation of happiness. When religion is truly free from all superstition, there can be no question that the delights which it affords, are the noblest of which our nature is ca- pable. It surrounds us with every thing which it is delightful to contemplate, -with all those gracious qualities, that even in the far less degrees of excel- lence in which they can be faintly shadowed by the humble fiature of man, constitute whatever we love and venerate in the noblest of our race. We cannot be surrounded, indeed, at every moment by patriots and sages,-by the human enlighteners and blessers of the world, for our own existence is limited to a small portion of that globe, and a few hours of those ages, which they successively enlightened and blessed,-but we can be surrounded, and are every moment surrounded, by a wisdom and goodness that transcend far more whatever patriots and sages could exhibit to us, than these transcended the meanest of the multitude, whom their generous efforts were .scarcely able to elevate to the rank of men. If we but open our heart to the benevolence that is shining on it,-as we open our eyes to the colours with which the earth is embellished, we have nature constantly before us,-and the God of nature, whose goodness is every where, like the unfading sunshine of the world. When other joys are present, indeed, the pleasures of religion, it may be thought, are superfluous. We are happy ; and happiness may suffice. Yet he knows little of the grateful influence of devotion, who has never felt it as a heightener of pleasure as well as a comforter of grief. " O speak the joy,"- says Thomson, after describing a scene of parental and cdnjugal happiness : O speak the joy, ye whom the sudden tear Surprises often, while you look around, And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss.f The tear which thus arises, is a tear of gratitude to him who has given the happiness, which the parental heart is at once sharing and producing,-the over-flowing tenderness of one who feels in the enjoyment of that very mo- ment, that the power which blesses him will be the blesser too, in gffer-life, of those whom he loves. It is in hours of affliction, however, it will be admitted, that the influence is most beneficial,-but how glorious a character is it of religion, that it is thus most powerful, when its influence is most needed, and when it, and the virtues which it has fostered, are the only influences that do not desert the * Fables, fab. xxxii. t Seasons,-conclusion of Spring, Vol. II. 514 miserable, and the only influences that can relieve. Religion is most power- ful in affliction. It is powerful, because it shows that even affliction itself can make man nobler than he was; and that there is a gracious eye which marks the conflict, and is ever ready to smile with more than approbation on the victor. To the indigent, to the oppressed, to the diseased, while life has still a single sorrow to be borne, it flings on the short twilight a portion of the splendour of that immortality into which it is almost dawning; and when life is closing, it is itself the first joy of that immortality which begins. The devout enjoyments of a grateful and confiding heart, then, are truly the noblest enjoyments of which that heart is capable,-not more from the purity, and vividness, and permanence of the direct pleasures themselves, than from the influence which they diffuse on every other pleasure, and on every pain of life. When we have accustomed our minds to the frequent contemplation of His perfections, who in requiring of virtue the little tempo- rary sacrifices which it may be called to make to duty, has not abandoned the virtue which he is training by such voluntary sacrifices for excellence, to which every thing that can be sacrificed on earth is comparatively insignifi- cant,-it is then that we learn to enjoy with a delight which no others can feel, and to suffer almost as others enjoy,-that even the aspect of nature itself appears doubly beautiful in our eyes, and that every thing which it pre- sents becomes, in one sense of the word, our own, as the work of our God, and the dwelling of those whom we love. " He," says Cowper, speaking of such a mind, He looks abroad into the varied field Of Nature, and though poor, perhaps, compared With those whose mansions glitter in his sight; Calls the delightful scenery all his own. His are the mountains, and the vallies his, And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy, With a propriety that none can feel, But who with filial confidence inspir'd, Can lift to Heaven an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say, " My father made them all." Are they not his, by a peculiar right, Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy, Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind, With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love,- That plann'd, and built, and still upholds a world, So cloth'd with beauty, for rebellious man ?* Of all that extensive variety of subjects, which in my first Lecture, I re- presented to you as belonging to my academic department, we have now, with the exception of the single division of Political Economy, considered the whole with as attentive examination as the narrow limits of such a course will admit. That one division, which, from the multiplicity of our subjects, that were more intimately related to each other, I have been obliged to omit, has been reserved by me as the subject of a separate course. Its doctrines are far too extensive, to be treated in a few Lectures; and the time, therefore, which could only have been wasted in a superficial and frivolous sketch of princi- ples, that require to be analyzed before they can be understood, or at least understood with conviction and profit, I preferred to give to a little fuller elucidation of doctrines that were more immediately under our review. ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES. * Task, Book V. THE END.