LIBRARY OF rRINCnCN NOV 2 T 2000 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY THE BRIDGEWATER TREATISES ON THE POWER, WISDOM, AND GOODNESS OF GOD, AS MANIFESTED IN THE CREATION. TREATISE I. ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE, TO THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. BY THE REV. T. CHALMERS, D. D. ^^X Of fHlHo^ ON THE ( . OCT 20 1933 ^ POWER, WISDOM, AND GOODNESS OF GOD, AS IVIANIFESTED IN THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE, TO THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. BY THE REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D., PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. A NEW EDITION. CAREY, LEA, & BLANCHARD 1835. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND CHARLES JAMES, LORD BISHOP OF LONDON. MY LORD, Your Lordship's personal kindness to myself would alone have inclined me to solicit for this work the honour of your patronage and name. But I must further confess the peculiar satisfaction which 1 feel, in offering it as a tribute and a public acknowledgment of my admiration for an order of men, who, more than all others, have enriched by their labours the moral and theological literature of England. In the prosecution of that arduous and hitherto almost unat- tompted theme which the late President of the Royal Society has, by your Lordship's recommendation, assigned to me, I have de- rived greater aid from the views and reasonings of Bishop Butler, than I have been able to find besides, in the whole range of our existent authorship. With his powerful aid I commenced the high investigation to which your Lordship has called me. To imagine that I have completed it, would be to forget at once the fulness of the Crea- VI. DEDICATION. tion, and the finitude of the Creature. Whatever the department of Nature may be which we explore, in quest of evidence for the perfections of its Author, there is no inquirer, though even of the most transcendent powers, who shall ever attain the satisfaction of having traversed the whole length and breadth of the land. He will have but entered and proceeded a certain way, within the margin of a territory, whose riches are inexhaustible. That your Lordship may long continue, by your zeal, and ta- lents, and lofty erudition, to sustain the honours, and to promote the vital good of our Religious Establishments in this empire, is the fervent desire and prayer of My Lord, Your Lordship's most obliged and obedient Servant, Thomas Chalmers. Edin. May 13, 1833. NOTICE. The series of Treatises, of which the present is one, is piib- Hshed under the following circumstances : The Right Honourable and Reverend Francis Henry, Earl of Bridgewater, died in the month of February, 1829 ; and by his last Will and Testament, bearing date the 25th of February, 1825, he directed certain Trustees therein named to invest in the public funds the sum of Eight thousand pounds sterling ; this sum, with the accruing dividends thereon, to be held at the disposal of the President, for the time being, of the Royal Society of London, to be paid to the person or persons nomi- nated by him. The Testator further directed, that the person or persons selected by the said President should be appointed to write, print, and publish one thousand copies of a work On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation ; iUustraiing such work by all reasonable arguments, as for instance the varichj and formation of GocVs creatures in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms ; the effect of digestion, and thereby of conversion ; the construction of the hand of man, and an infinite variety of other arguments ; as also by discoveries ancient and modern, in arts, sciences, and the whole extent of litera- ture. He desired, moreover, that the profits arising from the sale of the works so published should be paid to the authors of the works. The late President of the Royal Society, Davies Gilbert, Esq. requested the assistance of his Grace the Archbishop of Canter- bury and of the Bishop of London, in determining upon the best mode of carrying into eflect the intentions of the Testator. Act- ing with, their advice, and with the concurrence of a nobleman immediately connected with the deceased, Mr. Davies Gilbert appointed the following eight gentlemen to write separate Trea- tises on the difTerent branches of the subject as here stated : VIII. NOTICE. THE REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D, PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY L\ THK UNIVKKSITY OF EDINBURGH. ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. JOHN KIDD, M. D. F. R. S. RKOIUS PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF MAN. THE REV. WILLIAM WIIEWELL, M. A. F. R. S. FELLOW OF TRINIPY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. ON ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL PHYSICS. SIR CHARLES BELL, K. IL F. R. S. THE HAND: ITS MECHANISM AND VITAL ENDOWMENTS AS EVINCING DESIGN. PETER MARK ROGET, M. I). FELLOW OF AND SECRETARY TO THE ROVAL SOCIE'i'Y. ON ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. THE REV. WILLIAM BUCKLANU, I). 1). F. R. S. CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. ON GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. THE REV. WILLIAM KHIBY, Bl. A. F. R. S. ON THE HISTORY, HABITS, AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. WILLIAM PROUT, M. I). F. R. S. ON CHEIVUSTRY, METEOROLOGY, AND THE FUNCTION OF DIGESTION. His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, President of the Royal Society, having desired that no unnecessary delay should take place in the pubhcation of the above mentioned treatises, they will appear at short intervals, as they are ready for publication. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 15 PART I. On the Adaptation op External Nature to the Moral Constitution of Man. Chap. I. On the Supremacy of Conscience 41 II. Second General Argument. On the Inherent Pleasure of the Virtuous, and Misery of the Vicious Affections 62 III. Third General Argument. The Power and Operation of Habit 80 IV. On the General Adaptation of External Natiure to the Moral Constitution of Man 93 V. On til e Special and Subordinate Adaptations of External Na- ture to the Moral Constitution of Man 108 YI. On those Special Affections which conduce to the Civil and Political Well-being of Society ....... 123 VII. On those Special Affections wWch conduce to the Econo- mic Well-being of Society 156 VIII. On the Relation in which the Special Affections of our Nature stand to Virtue ; and on the Demonstration given forth by it, both to the Character of man and the Charac- ter of God 182 IX. Miscellaneous Evidences of Virtuous and Benevolent De- sign, in the Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral Constitution of Man 191 X. On the Capacities of the World for making a virtuous Spe- cies happy ; and the Argument deducible from this, both for the Character of God and the Immortality of Man . 205 X CONTENTS. PART II. Oh the Adaptation of External Nature to the Intellectual Constitution of Man. Chap. I. Chieflnstancesof this Adaptation 222 II. On the Connexion between the Intellect and the Emotions . 247 III. On the Connexion between the Intellect and the Will . . 266 IV. On the Defects and the Uses of Natural Theology . . . 285 PREFACE. It is an incongruous thing, when there is any want of con- formity between the subject matter of an essay, and its title. The object of this explanatory preface is to shew that it is an incongruity into which we have not fallen. In the first place we were not in fair circumstances for ex- pounding the adaptation of external nature to the mental consti- tution of man, till we had made manifest in some degree what that constitution is. There is no distinct labourer in that con- junct demonstration of the divine attributes which is now being offered to the world, to whom this essentially preliminary topic had been assigned as the subject of a separate work. It was therefore unavoidable, that, to a certain extent we should under- take it ourselves, else, in proceeding to the constniction of our argument, we might have incurred the charge of attempting to rear a superstructure, without a foundation to rest upon. But in the execution of this introductory part of our subject, we could scarcely have refrained from noticing the indications of divine wisdom and goodness in our mental constitution itself, even though our strictly proper, because our assigned task, was to point out these indications in the adaptation of this constitu- tion to external nature. We could not forget that the general purpose of the work was to exhibit with all possible fulness the argument for the character of the Deity, as grounded on the laws and appearances of nature. But we should have left out a very rich and important track of argument, had we forborne all observation on the evidence for the divine perfections, in the structure and processes of the mind itself, and confined our- XU PREFACE. selves to the evidence afforded by the relations which the mind bore to the external world. In the adaptation of external nature to man's physical constitution, there are many beautiful and decisive indications of a God. But prior to these, there is a multitude of distinct indications, both in the human anatomy, and the human physiology, viewed by themselves, and as separate objects of contemplation. And accordingly, in this joint undertak- ing, there have been specific labourers assigned to each of these departments. But we have not had the advantage of any pre- vious expounder for the anatomy of the mind, or the physiology of the mind ; and we felt that to have left unnoticed all the vivid and various inscriptions of a Divinity, which might be collected there, would have been to withhold from view some of the best attestations in the whole range and economy of nature, for the wisdom and benevolence of its great architect. But to construct a natural theology on any subject, it is not necessary to make of that subject a full scientific exposition. The one is as distinct from the other, as the study of final is from the study of efficient causes — the former often lying patent to observation, while the latter may be still involved in deepest obscurity. It were a manifest injury to our cause, it were to bedim the native lustre of its evidences — did we enter with it among the recondite places of the mental philosophy, and there enwrap it in the ambiguity of questions yet unresolved, in the mist of controversies yet unsettled. Often, though not always, the argument for a God in some phenomenon of nature depends upon its reality, and not upon its analysis, or the physical mode of its organization — on the undoubted truth that so it is, and not on the undetermined, perhaps indeterminable question of how it is. We should not have shrunk from the obscurer investigation, had it been at all necessary. But that is no reason why time must be consumed on matters which are at once obscure and irrelevant. It is all the more fortunate that we are not too long detained from an entry on our proper task, among the depths or the difficulties of any preliminary disquisition which comes before PREFACE. Xlll it — and that the main strength of the argument which our mental constitution, taken by itself, furnishes to the cause of theism, Hes not in those subtiltics which are apprehended only by few, but in certain broad and palpable generalities which are recog- nised by all men. But there is another explanation which we deem it necessary to make, in order fully to reconcile the actual topics of our essay, with the designation which has been prefixed to it. If by external nature be meant all that is external to mmd, then the proper subject of our argument is the adaptation of the material to the mental world. But if by external nature be meant all that is external to one individual mind, then would the subject be very greatly extended ; for beside the reciprocal in- influence between that individual mind, and all sensible and material things, we should consider the reciprocal influence be- tween it and all other minds. By this contraction of the idea from the mental world to but one individual member of it ; and this proportional extension in the idea of external nature from the material creation to the whole of that living, as well as inani- mate creation, by which any single man is surrounded ; we are introduced not merely to the action and reaction whrch obtain between mind and matter ; but, which is far more proline of evi- dence for a Deity, to the action and reaction which obtain be- tween mind and mind. We thus find access to a much larger territory, which should otherwise be left unei:plored — and have the opportunity of tracing the marks of a divine intelligence in the mechanism of human society, and in the frame-work of the social and economical systems to which men are conducted, when they adhere to that light, and follow the impulse of those affections which God has bestowed on them. But in the progress of our argument, we come at length to be engaged with the adaptations of external nature, even in the most strict and limited sense of the term. In the origin and rights of property, as well as in the various economic interests of society, we behold the purest exemplification of that adjustment which XIV PREFACE. obtains between the material system of things and man's moral nature — and when we proceed to treat of his intellectual consti- tution, it will be found that the harmonies between the material and the mental worlds are still more numerous, and more palpa- bly indicative of that wisdom which originated both, and con- formed them with exquisite and profound skill to each other. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. GENERAL AND PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 1. External nature, when spoken of in contradistinction to mind, suggests chiefly, if not solely, the idea of the material uni- verse. Even though restricted to this limited and proper sense of the term, we should still behold the proofs of beneficent design in the fitnesses of the one to the other ; but far more abundantly and decisively, it must be confessed, in the adaptation of exter- nal nature to the physical, than in its adaptation to the moral and intellectual constitution of man. For fully developing our pecu- liar argument, an enlargement of the meaning commonly affixed to external nature seems indispensable, — an enlargement that we should not have ventured on, if in so doing we crossed the legitimate boundaries of our assigned subject ; and that, for the mere purpose of multiplying our topics, or possessing ourselves of a wider field of authorship. But the truth is, that did we confine our notice to the relations which obtain between the world of mind and the world of matter, we should be doing injustice to our own theme, by spoiling it of greatly more than half its richness — beside leaving unoccupied certain fertile tracts of evidence, which, if not entered upon in our division of the general work, must, as is obvious from the nature of the respective tasks, be altogether omitted in the conjunct demonstration that is now being oflered to the public, of the Goodness and Wisdom of the Deity. 2. It is true that, with even but one solitary human mind in midst of the material creation, certain relations could be traced between them that would indicate both skill and a benevolent purpose on the part of Jlim who constructed the framework of nature, and placed this single occupier within its confines. And, notwithstanding this limitation, there would still be preserved to us certain striking adaptations in the external system of things to the intellectual, and some too, though fewer and less noticeable, to the moral constitution of man. But, born as man obviously is for the companionship of his fellows, it must be evident that the main tendencies and aptitudes of his moral constitution should be looked for in connection with his social relationships, with the action and reaction which take place between man and the brethren 16 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. of his species. We therefore understand external nature to com- prehend in it, not merely all that is external to mind, but all that is external to the individual possessor of a human mind,— who is surrounded not only by an economy of complex and extended materialism, but who is surrounded by other men and other minds than his own. Without this generalized view of external nature, we should be left in possession of but scanty materials for evinc- ing its adaptation to the moral constitution of man, though an ample field of observation would still lie open to us, in unfolding the aptitude of the human understanding, with its various instincts and powers, for the business of physical investigation. For the purpose then of enhancing our argument, or rather of doing but justice to it, we propose to consider not merely those relations between mind and matter, but those relations between mind and mind, the establishment of which attests a w-ise and beneficent contrivance. We shall thus be enabled to enter on a department of observation distinct from that of all the other labourers in this joint enterprize, — and while their provinces respectively are to trace the hand of a great and good Designer in the mechanism of the heavens, or the mechanism of the terrestrial physics, or the mechanism of various organic structures in the animal and vege- table kingdoms ; it will be part of ours, more especially, to point out the evidences of a forming and presiding, and withal benevo- lent intelligence in the mechanism of human society. 3. We conceive of external nature then that it comprehends more than the mute and unconscious materialism, and the objec- tive truth — it comprehends also the living society by which the possessor of a moral and intellectual constitution is surrounded. Did we exclude the latter from our regards, we should be keep- ing out of view a number of as wise, and certainly, in the degree that mind is of higher consideration than body, of far more bene- ficial and important adaptations than any which are presented to our notice in the mechanical, or chemical, or physiological depart- ments of creation. Both in the reciprocities of domestic life, and in those wider relations, which bind large assemblages of men into political and economical systems, we shall discern the incontestable marks of a divine wisdom and care ; principles or laws of human nature in virtue of which the social economy moves rightly and prosperously onward, and apart from which all would go into derangement ; affinities between man and his fel- lows, that harmonize the individual with the general interests, and are obviously designed as provisions for the well-being both of families and nations. 4. It might help to guard us against a possible misconception, if now, at the outset of our argument, we shall distinguish be- INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 17 tvveen the moral constitution of man, and that moral system of doctrine which embodies in it the outer trutlis or principles of ethical science. The two are as distinct from each other, as are the objective and subjective in any quarter of contemplation whatever, and ought no more to be confounded than, in optics, the system of visible things with the anatomical structure of the eye. The organ which perceives or apprehends truth is sepa- rate in reality, and should be kept separate in thought, from the truth which is apprehended ; and thus it is that we should view the moral constitution of man and the moral system of virtue as diverse and dis:tinct from each other. The one belongs to the j)hysiology of the mind, and is collected, like all other experi- mental truth, by a diligent observation of facts and phenomena. The other, involving, as it does, those questions which relate to the nature of virtue, or to the origin and principles of moral obligation, directs the attention of the mind to another cpiarter than to its own processes, and presents us with a wholly distinct matter of contemplation. The acts of moral judgment or feel- ing should not be confounded with the objects of moral ju.dgment or feeling, any more, in fact, than the rules of logic should be confounded with the laws which govern the procedure of the hu- man understanding. The question, "what is virtue?" or " what is that which constitutes virtue ?" is one thing. The question, '* what is the mental process by which man takes cognizance of virtue?" is another. They are as distinct Irom each other as are the principles of good reasoning from the processes of the reasoning faculty. It is thus that the mental philosophy, whose proper and legitimate province is the physics of the mind, should be kept distinct from logic and ethics, and the philosophy of taste. The question, " what is beautiful in scenery ?" or " what is right in character?" or " what is just in argument ?" is distinct from the question, •' what is the actual and historical procedure of the mind in addressing itself to these respective objects of contem- plation?" as distinct, indeed, as the question o[ '■^ Quid esV^ is from ^^ Quid oporlet;" or as the question of " what is" from " what ought to be."* A sound objective system of ethics may be framed, irrespective of any attention that we give to man's moral constitution. A sound system of logic may be framed, irrespective of any attention that we give to man's intellectual + See the Introduction to Sir James Macintosh's Ethical Dissertation. " The purpose of the physical sciences, throughout all their provhices, is to answer the ques- tion, " IVIiatisP'' The purpose of the moral sciences is to answer the question, <' What ought to be ?" — It should be well kept in view, that mental philosophy is one province of the physical sciences, and belongs to the first of these two departments, bein" distinct from moral philosophy, which forms the second of them. 2-^ 18 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. constitution. And on the other hand, however obscure or un- settled these sciences may still be ; and more especially, what- ever controversies may yet obtain respecting the nature and the elementary principles of virtue, — such notwithstanding, may be the palpable and ascertained facts in the nature and history of subjective man, that, both on his mental constitution, and on the adaptation thereto of external nature, there might remain a clear and unquestionable argument for the power, and wisdom, and goodness of God. 5, Having thus referred our argument, not to the constitu- tion of morality in the abstract, but to the constitution of man's moral nature — a concrete and substantive reality, made up of facts that come within the domain of observation ; let us now consider how it is that natural theology proceeds with her de- monstrations, on other constitutions and other mechanisms in creation, that we may learn from this in what manner we should commence and prosecute our labours, on that very peculiar, we had almost said, untried field of investigation which has been assigned to us. 6. The chief then, or at least the usual subject-matter of the argument for the wisdom and goodness of God, is the obvious adaptation wherewith creation teems, throughout all its borders, of means to a benencial end. And it is manifest that the argu- ment grows in strength with the number and complexity of these means. The greater the number of independent circum- stances which must meet together for the production of a use- ful result — then, in the actual fact of their concurrence , is there less of probability for its being the effect of chance, and more of evidence for its being the effect of design. A beneficent combination of three independent elements is not so impressive cr so strong an argument for a divinity, as a similar combina- tion of six or ten such elements. And every mathematician, conversant in the doctrine of probabilities, knows how with every addition to the number of these elements, the argument grows in force and intensity, with a rapid and multiple augmen-' tation — till at length, in some of the more intricate and manifold conjunctions, those more particularly having an organic cha- racter and structure, could we but trace them to an historical commencement, v.e should find, on the principles of computa- tion alone, that the argument against their being fortuitous pro- ducts, and for theii" being the products of a scheming and skil- fid artificer, was altogether overpowering. 7. We might apply this consideration to various departments in nature. In astronomy, the independent elements seem but few and simple, which must meet together for the composition INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 19 of a planetarium. One uniform law of gravitation, with a force of projection impressed by one impulse on each of the bodies, could suffice to account for the revolutions of the planets round the sun, and of the satellites around their primaries, along with the diurnal revolution of each, and the varying inciinatiims of the axes to the planes of their respective orbits. Out of such few contingencies, the actual orrery of the heavens has been framed. But in anatomy, to fetch the opposite illustration from another science, what a complex and crowded combination of individual elements must first be effected, ere v/e obtain the composition of an eye, — for the completion of which mechan- ism, there must not only be a grCvater number of separate laws, as of refraction and muscular action and secretion ; but a vastly greater number of separate and distinct parts, as the lenses, and the retina, and the optic nerve, and the eye-lid and eye-lashes, and the various muscles v>herev»ith this delicate organ is so curiously beset, and each of which is indispensable to its per- fection, or to the right performance of its functions. It is pass- ing marvellous that we should have more intense evidence for a God in the construction of an eye, than in the construction of the mighty planetarium — or that, within less than the compass of a handbreadth, we should find in this lower world a more pregnant and legible inscription of the Divinity, than can be gathered from a broad and magnificent survey of the skies, lighted up though they be, with the glories and the wonders of astronomy. 8. But while nothing can be more obvious than that the proof for design in any of the natural Ibrmations, is the stronger, in proportion to the number of separate and independent ele- ments which have been broujijht toijether, and each of which contributes essentially to its usefulness — we have long held it of prime importance to the thei:jtical argument, that clear exhibition vshould be made of a distinction not generally adverted to, which obtains between one set of these elements and another. We shall illustrate this by a material, ere we apply it to a mental workmanship. 9. There is, then, a difiercnce of great argumentative im- j>ortance in this whole question, between the Laws of Matter and the Dispositions of Matter. In astronomy, for example, when attending to the mechanism of the planetary system, we should instance at most but two laws — the law of gravitation ; and perhaps the law of perseverance, on the part of all bodies, whether in a state of rest or of motion, till interrupted by some external cause. But had we to state the dispositions of matter in the planetary system, we should instance a greater number of 20 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. particulars. We should describe the arrangement of its various parts, whether in respect to situation, or magnitude, or figure — as the position of a large and luminous mass in the centre, and of the vastly smaller but opaque masses which circulated around it, but at such distances as not to interfere with each other, and of the still smaller secondary bodies which revolved about the planets : And we should include in this description the impulses in one direction, and nearly in one plane, given to the different moving bodies ; and so regulated, as to secure the movement of each, in an orbit of small eccentricity. The dispositions of matter in the planetary system were fixed at the original setting up of the machine. The laws of matter were ordained for tho working of the machine. The former, that is the disposition-^, make up the frame-work, or what may be termed the apparatus of the system. The latter, that is the laws, ujihold the perform- ance of it. 10. Now the tendency of atheistical writers is to reason ex- clusively on the laws of matter, and to overlook its dispositions. Could all the beauties and benefits of the astronomical svsteni be referred to the single law of gravitation, it would greatly re- duce the strength of the argument for a designirsg cause. La Place, as if to fortify still more the atheism of such a speculation, endeavoured to demonstrate of this lav,' — that, in respect of its being inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the centre, it is an essesitial property of matter. La Grange had previously established — that but for such a pro})ortion, or by the deviation of a thousandth part from it, the planetary system would go into derangement — or, in other ^vords, that the law, such as it is, was essential to the stability of the present mun- dane constitution. Jja Place would have accredited the law, the unconscious and unintelligent law, that thing according to him of blind necessity, with the whole of this noble and beauti- ful result — overlooking what La Grange held to be indispensa- ble as concurring elements in his demonstration of it — certain dispositions along with the law — such as the movement of all the planets, first in one direction, second nearly in one phme, and then in nearly circular orbits. We are aware that according to the discoveries, or rather perhaps to the guesses of some later analysts, the three last circumstances might be dispensed with ; and yet notwithstanding, the planetary system, its errors still remaining periodical, Avould in virtue of the single law oscil- late around a mean state that should be indestructible and ever- lasting. Should this come to be a conclusively settled doctrine in the science, it will extenuate, we admit, the argument for a designing cause in the formation of the planetarium. But it will INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 21 not annihilate that argument — for there do remain certain pal- pable utilities in the dispositions as well as laws of the planetary system, acknowledged by all the astronomers ; such as the vastly superior weight and quantity of matter accumulated in its centre, and the local establishment there of that great fountain of lif?ht and heat from which the surroundino; worlds receive throughout the whole of their course an equable dispensation. ^Vhat.a mal-adjustment would it have been, had the luminous and the opaque matter changed places in the firmament ; or the planets, by the eccentricity of their orbits, been subject to such vicissitudes of temperature, as would certainly, in our own at least, have entailed destruction both on the animal and vegetable kingdoms. 11. But whatever defect or doubtfulness of evidence there may be in the mechanism of the heavens — this is amply made up for in a more accessible mechanism, near at hand. If either the dispositions of matter in the former mechanism be so few, or the demonstrable results of its single laAv be so independent of them, that the agency of design rather than of necessity or chance be less manifest than it otherwise would be in the astronomical system ; nothing on the other hand can exceed the force and con- centration of that proof, which is crowded to so marvellous a de- gree of enhancement within the limits of the anatomical system. It is this which enables us to draw so much weightier an argument for a God, from the construction of an eye than from the con- struction of a planetarium. And here it is quite palpable, that it is in the dispositions of matter more than in the laws of matter, where the main strength of the argument lies, though we hear much more of the wisdom of Nature's laws, than of the wisdom of her collocations.* Now it is true that the law of refraction is indispensable to the faculty of vision ; but the laws indispensable to this result are greatly outnumbered by the dispositions which * This distinction between the laws and collocations of matter is overlooked hy atheistical writers, as in the following specimen from the " Sysleme dc la Nature" of Mirabaud. " These prejudiced dreamers," speakinfj of believers in a God, " arc iti an extacy at the sight of the periodical motion of the planets ; at the order of the stars ; at the various productions of the earth ; at the astonishing harmony in the component parts of animals. In that moment however, they forget the laws of motion ; the pow- er of gravitation ; the forces of attraction and repulsion ; they assign all these striking phenomena to unknown causes, of which they have no one substantive idea." When Professor Robison felt alarmed by the attempted demonstration of La Place, that the law of gravitation was an essential property of matter, lest ihe cause of natural theology should be endangered by it — he might have recollected that the main evidence for a Divinity lies not in the laws of matter, but in their collocations — because of the utter inadequacy in the existing laws to have originated the existing collocations of the material world. So that if ever a time was, when these collocations were not — there is no virtue in the laws that can account for their commencement, or that supersedes the fiat of a God. 22 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. are indispensable to it — such as the rightly sized and shaped lenses of the eye ; and the rightly placed retina spread out behind them, and at the precise distance where the indispensable picture of external nature might be formed, and presented as it were for the information of the occupier within ; and then, the variety and proper situation of the numerous muscles, each entrusted with an important function, and all of them contributing to the power and perfection of this curious and manifoldly complicated organ. It is not so much the endowment of matter with certain proper- ties, as the arrangement of it into certain parts, that bespeaks here the hand of an artist ; and this will be found true of the ana- tomical structure in all its departments. It is not the mere chem- ical property of the gastric juice that impresses the belief of con- trivance ; but the presence of the gastric juice, in the very situa- tion whence it comes forth to act with advantage on the food, when received into the stomach, and there submitted to a diges- tive process for the nourishment of the animal economy. It is well to distinguish these two things. If we but say of matter that it is furnished with such powers as make it subservient to many useful results, we keep back the strongest and most unassailable part of the argument for a God. It is greatly more pertinent and convincing to say of matter, that it is distributed into such parts as to ensure a right direction and a beneficial application for its powers. It is not so much in the establishment of certain laws for matter, that we discern the aims or the purposes of intelli- gence, as in certain dispositions of matter, that put it in the way of being usefully operated upon by the laws. Insomuch, that though we conceded to the atheist, the eternity of matter, and the essentially inherent character of all its laws — we could still point out to him, in the manifold adjustments of matter, its adjustments of place, and figure, and magnitude, the most impressive signa- tures of a Deity. And what a countless variety of such adjust- ments within the compass of an animal, or even a vegetable frame-work. In particular, what an amount and condensation of evidence for a God in the workmanship of the human body. IVhat bright and convincing lessons of theology might man, (would he but open his eyes,) read on his ov^^n person — that mi- crocosm of divine art, where as in the sentences of a perfect epi- tome, he might trace in every lineament or member the finger and authorship of the Godhead. 12. In the performances of human art, the argument for de- sign that is grounded on the useful dispositions of matter, stands completely disentangled from the argument that is grounded on th© useful laws of matter — lor in every implement or piece of mechanism constructed by the hands of man, it is in the lattei INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 23 apart from the former, that the indications of contiivance wholly and exclusively he. We do not accredit man with the establish- ment of any laws for matter — yet he leaves enough by which to trace the operations of his intelligence in the collocations of mat- ter. He does not give to matter any of its properties ; but he arranges it into parts — and by such arrangement alone, does he impress upon his workmanship the incontestable marks of de- sign ; not in that he has communicated any powers to matter, but in that he has intelligently availed himself of these powers, and directed them to an obviously beneficial result. The watch- maker did not give its elasticity to the main-spring, nor its regu- larity to the balance-wheel, nor its transparency to the glass, nor the momentum of its varying forces to the levers of his mecha- nism, — yet is the whole replete with the marks of intelligence notwithstanding, announcing throughout the hand of a maker who had an eye on all these properties, and assigned the right place and adjustment to each of them, in fashioning and bringing to- gether the parts of an instrument for the measurement and the indication of time. Now, the same distinction can be observed in all the specimens of natural mechanism. It is true that we accredit the author of these with the creation and laws of matter, as well as its dispositions ; but this does not hinder its being in the latter and not in the former, where the manifestations of skill are most apparent, or where the chief argument for a divinity lies. The truth is, that mere laws, without collocations, would have afforded no security against a turbid and disorderly chaos. One can imagine of all the substantive things which enter into the composition of a watch, that they may have been huddled together, without shape, and without collocation, into a little chaos, or confused medley ; — where, in full possession of all the properties which belong to the matter of the instrument, but without its dispositions, every evidence of skill would have been wholly obliterated. And it is even so with all the substantive things which enter into the composition of a world- Take but their forms and collocations away from them, and this goodly universe would instantly lapse into a heaving and disorderb chaos — yet without stripping matter of any of its properties ^I" powers. There might still, though operating with randr * " undirected activity, be the laws of impulse, and g^^vjJ-'-^hern" magnetism, and temperature, and light, and the foi'S^vever abo try, and even those physiological tendencies, whicj^pj,.jj ^^ ^ q ' tive in a state of primitive rudeness, or before fitrht distributi moved on the face of the waters, waited ht'ull effect and est of the parts of matter, to develope int(?is. The thiiio- wanted blishment of animal and vegetable kir 24 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. for the evolution of this chaos into an orderly and beneficial sys- tem is not the endowing of matter with right properties ; but the forming of it into things of right shape and magnitude, and the marshalling of these into right places. This last alone would suffice for bringing harmony out of confusion ; and, apart alto- gether from the first, or, without involving ourselves in the metaphysical obscurity of those questions which relate to the origination of matter and to the distinction between its arbitrary and essential properties, might we discern, in the mere arrange- ments of matter, the most obvious and decisive signatures of the artist hand which has been employed on it. 13. That is a fine generalization by the late Professor R obi- son, of Edinburgh, which ranges all philosophy into two sciences — one the science of contemporaneous nature ; the other, the science of successive nature. When the material world is view- ed according to this distinction, the whole science of its contem- poraneous phenomena is comprehended by him under the gener- al name of Natural History, which takes cognizance of all those characters in external nature that exist together at the instant, and which may be described without reference to time — as smell, and colour, and size, and weight, and form, and relation of parts, whether of the simple inorganic or more complex organic struc- tures. But when the elements of time and motion are introduc- ed, we are then presented with the phenomena of successive na- ture ; and the science that embraces these is, in contradistinction to the former, termed Natural Philosophy. This latter science may be separated or subdivided further into natural philosophy, strictly and indeed usually so called, whose province it is to in- vestigate those changes which take effect in bodies by motions that are sensible and measurable ; and chemistry, or the science of those changes which take effect in bodies by motions which are not sensible or, at least, not measurable, and which cannot therefore be made the subjects of mathematical computation or reasoning. This last, again, is capable of being still further par- titioned into the science which investigates the changes effected by means of insensible motion in all inorganic matter, or chemis- '^■'^ strictly and usually so called ; and the science of physiology, ^^. ^ e province it is to investigate the like changes that take P ^ organic bodies, whether of the animal or vegetable king- doms. & ' & to * g ^^distinction between these two sciences of contem- TV» one or nit'ccessive nature may otherwise be stated thus. r natural phil history, is conversant with objects — the oth- ' ^,.oonf with evxhy in its most comprehensive meaning, is conversani wiui«-vvj K. ^v. j- -,■ c It IS obvious that the dispositions ot INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 25 matter come within the province of the former science — while the laws of matter, or the various moving forces by which it is actu- ated, fall more properly under the enquiries of the latter science. Now, adopting this nomenclature, we hold it a most important assertion for the cause of natural theology, that should all the present arrangements of our existing natural history be destroy- ed, there is no power in the laws of our existing natural philoso- phy to replace them. Or, in other words, if ever a time was, when the structure and dispositions of matter, under the present economy of things were not — there is no force known in nature, and no combination of forces that can account for their com- mencement. The laws of nature may keep up the working of the machinery — but they did not and could not set up the ma- chine. The human species, for example, may be upholden, through an indefinite series of ages, by the established law of transmission — but were the species destroyed, there are no ob- served powers of nature by which it could again be originated. For the continuance of the system and of all its operations, we might imagine a sufficiency in the laws of nature ; but it is the first construction of the system which so palpably calls for the intervention of an artificer, or demonstrates so powerfully the fiat and finger of a God. 15. This distinction between nature's laws and nature's collo- cations is mainly lost sight of in those speculations of geology, the object of which is to explain the formation of new systems emerging from the wreck of old ones. They proceed on the sufficiency of nature's laws for building up the present economy of things out of the ruins of a former economy, which the last great physical catastrophe on the face of our earth had overthrown. Now, in these ruins, viewed as materials for the architecture of a renovated world, there did reside all those forces, by which the processes of the existing economy are upholden; but the g'3ologists assign to them a function wholly distinct from this, when they labour to demonstrate, that by laws, and laws alone, the frame-work of our existing economy was put together. It is thus that they would exclude the agency of a God from the transition between one system, or one formation, and another, although it be precisely at such transition when this agency seems most palpably and peculiarly called for. We feel assured that the necessity for a divine intervention, and, of course, the evi- dence of it would have been more manifest, had the distinction between the laws of matter and its collocations been more formally announced, or more fully proceeded on \jy ihe writers on natural theism. And yet it is a distinction that must have been present to the mind of our great Newton, M'ho cxprcs^l/ 3 26 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. affirms that a mechanism of wonderful structure could not arise by the mere laws of nature. In his third printed letter to Bent- lev, he says, that " the growth of new systems out of old ones, without the mediation of a divine power, seems to me apparent- ly absurd ;" and that " the system of nature was set in order in the beginning, with respect to size, figure, proportions, and pro- perties, by the counsels of God's own intelligence." In the last extracts, by his admission of the properties along with the dispositions of matter, he somewhat confounds or disguises again the important distinction which, at times, he had clearly in his view.* 16. But one precious fruit of the recent geological discoveries may be gathered from the testimony v.hich they afford to the de- struction of so many terrestrial economies now gone by, and the substitution of the existing one in their place. If there be truth at all in the speculations of this science, there is nothing which appears to have been more conclusively established by them, than a definite origin or commencement for the present animal and vegetable races. Now we know what it is which upholds the whole of the physiological system that is now before our eyes, — even the successive derivation of each individual member from a parent of its own likeness ; but we see no force in nature, and no complication of forces which can tell us what it was that origi- nated the system. It is at this passage in the history of nature, where we meet with such pregnant evidence for the interposition of a designing cause, — an evidence, it will be seen, of prodigious density and force, when we compute the immense number and variety of those aptitudes, whether of form or magnitude or rela- tive position, which enter into the completion of an organic slruc- ture. It is in the numerical superiority of the distinct collocations to the distinct laws of matter, that the superior evidence of the former lies. We do not deny that there is argument for a God in the number of beneficial, while, at the same time, distinct and independent laws wherewith matter is endowed. We only affirm a million-fold intensity of argument in the indefinitely greater number of beneficial, and at the same time distinct and indepen- * Towards the end of the third book of Newton's Optics, wc have the following very distinct testimony upon tliis subject: " For it became Him who created them to set them in order. And if he did so, it is unpliilosophical to seek for any other origin of the world, or to pretend that it might arise out of a chaos by the mere laws of nature ; though being once formed, it may continue by those laws for many ages." This disposition to resolve the collocations into the laws of nature proves, in the expressive language of Granville Penn, how strenuously, not " physical science, but only some of its disciples have laboured to exclude the Creator from the details of his own creation ; straining every nerve of ingenuity to ascribe them all to secondary causes,^' INTRODUCTOIIY CJJAPTLR. 27 dent number of collocations whereinto matter has been arranged. In this resjject the human body may be said to present a more close and crowded and multifarious inscription of the divinity, than any single object within the compass of visible nature. It is instinct throughout with the evidence of a builder's hand ; and thus the appropriate men of science who can expound those dis- positions of matter which constitute fhe anatomy of its frame- work, and which embrace the ])hysiology of its various processes, are on secure and firm vantage ground for an impressive demon- stration. 17. Now there are many respects in which the evidence for a God, given Ibrth by the constitution of the liunmn body, differs from the evidence given forth by the constitution of the human spirit. It is with the latter evidence that we have more peculiar- larly to deal ; but at present we shall only advert to a few of its distinct and special characteristics. The subject will at length open into greater detail, and developement before us, — yet a brief preliminary exposition may be useful at the outset, should it only convey some notion of the difficulties and particularities of the task which has been put into our hands. 18. A leadinjr distinction between the material and the mental fabrications is, the far greater complexity of the former, at least greater to all human observation. Into that system of means which has been formed for the object of seeing, there enter at least twenty separate contingencies, the absence of any one of which would either derange the proper function of the eye, or altogether destroy it. We have no access to aught like the ob- servation of a mental structure, and all of which our conscious- ness informs us is a succession of mental phenomena. Now in these we are sensible of nothing but a very simple antecedent follov.ed up, and that generally on the instant, by a like simple consequent. We have the feeling and still more the purpose of benevolence, followed up by complacency. "VVe have the feel- ing or purpose, and still more the execution of malignity, or rather the recollection of that execution, followed up by remorse. How- ever manifold the apparatus may be which enables us to see an external object, — when the sight itself, instead of the consequ«?nt in a material succession, becomes the antecedent in a mental one ; or, in other words, when it passes from a material to a purely mental process ; then, as soon, does it pass from the complex into the simple ; and, accordingly, the sight of distress is followed up, without the intervention of any curiously elabo- rated mechanism that we are at all conscious of, by an immedi- diate feeling of compassion. These examples will, at least, suffice to mark a strong distinction between the two enquiries, 28 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. and to show that the several arguments drawn from each must at least be formed of very different materials. 19. There are two distinct ways in which the mind can be viewed, and which constitute different modes of conception, rather than diversities of substantial and scientific doctrine. The mind may either be regarded as a congeries of different faculties ; or as a simple and indivisible substance, with the susceptibility of passing into different states. By the former mode of viewing it, the memory, and the judgment, and the con- science, and the will, are conceived of as so many distinct but co-existent parts of mind, wliich is thus represented to us some- what in the light of an organic structure, having separate mem- bers, each for the discharge of its own appropriate mental func- tion or exercise. By the latter, which we deem also the more felicitous mode of viewing it, these distinct mental acts, in.stead of being referred to distinct parts of the mind, are conceived of as distinct acts of the whole mind, — insomuch that the whole mind remembers, or the whole mind judges, or the whole mind wills, or, in short, the whole mind passes into various intellect- ual states or states of emotion, according to the circumstances by which at the time it is beset, or to the present nature of its employment. We might thus either regard the study of mind as a study in contemporaneous nature ; and we should then, in the delineation of its various parts, be assigning to it a natural his- tory, — or we might regard the study of mind as a study in suc- cessive nature ; and we should then, in the description of its various states, be assigning to it a natural philosophy. When such a phrase as the anatomy of the human mind is employed by philosophers, we may safely guess that the former is the conception which they are inclined to form of it.* When such a phrase again as the physiology of the human mind is made use of, the latter is the conception by which, in all pro- babihty, it has been suggested. It is thus that Dr. Thomas Brown designates the science of mind as mental physiology. With him, in fact, it is altogether a science of sequences, his very analysis being the analysis of results, and not of com- pounds. 20. Now, in either view of our mental constitution there is the same strength of evidence for a God. It matters not for this, whether the mind be regarded as consisting of so many useful parts, or as endowed with as many useful properties. It is the number, whether the one or other, of these — out of which the product is formed of evidence for a designing cause. The only * It is under this conception too that writers propose to lay down a map of the liutnan faculties. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 29 reason why the uscliil dispositions of matter are so greatly more prohfic of this evidence than the useful laws of matter, is, that the former so greatly outnumber the latter. Of the twenty in- dependent circumstances which enter into beneficial concurrence in the formation of an eye, that each of tliem should be found in a situation of optimism, and none of them oc(;i:pying either an indifferent or a hurtful position — it is this which speaks so em- j)hatically agahist the hypotiiesis of a random distribution, and for the hypothesis of an intcliigent order. Yet this is but one out of the many like specimens, ^^ herewith the animal economy thickens and teems in such marvellous profusion. By the doc- trine of probabilities, the mathematical evidence, in this question between the two suppositions of intelligence or chance, will be found, even on many a single organ of the human frame-work, to preponderate vastly more than a million-fold on the side of the former. We do not atiinn of the human mind that it is so destitute of all complication and variety, as to be deficient alto- gether in this sort of evidence. Let there be but six laws or ultimate facts in the mental constitution, with the circumstance of each of them being beneficial ; and this of itself would yield no inconsiderable amoimt of precise and calculable proof, for our mental economy being a formation of contrivance, rather than one that is fortuitous or of blind necessity. It will at once be seen, however, why mind, just from its greater simplicity than matter, should contribute so much less to the support of natural theism, of that definite and mathematical evidence which is founded on combination. 21. But, although in the mental department of crcatiou. the argu- ment for a God that is gathered out of such materials, is not so strong as in the other great department — yet it does furnish a i)ecu- liar argument of its own, which, though not grounded on mathe- matical data, and not derived from a lengthened and logical j)rocess of reasoning, is of a highly cifectivc and practical cha- racter notwithstanding. It has not less in it of the substance, though it may have greatly less in it of the semblance of demon- stration, that it consists of but one step between the premises and the conclusion. It is briefly, but cannot be more clearly and emphatically expressed than in the following sentence. — '* He that formed the eye, shall he not see ? He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that teacheth man know- ledge, shall ho not know ?" That the parent cause of intelligent beings shall be itself intelligent is an aphorisin, which, if not de- monstrable in the forms of logic, carries in the very announce- ment of it a challenging power over the acquiescence of all spirits. It is a thing of instant conviction, as if seen in the light 3* 30 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. of its own evidence, more than a thing of lengthened and labo- rious proof. It may be stigmatized as a mere impression — nevertheless the most of intellects go as readily along with it, as they would from one contiguous step to another of many a stately argumentation. If it cannot be exhibited as the conclusion of a syllogism, it is because of its own inherent right to be admitted there as the major proposition. To proscribe every such truth, or to disown it from being truth, merely because incapable of deduction, would be to cast away the first principles of all reasoning. It would banish the authority of intuition, and so reduce all philosophy and knowledge to a state of universal scepticism — for what is the first departure of every argument but an intuition, and what but a series of intuitions are its suc- cessive stepping-stones? We should soon involve ourselves m helpless perplexity and darkness, did we insist on every thing being proved and on nothing being assumed — for valid assump- tions are the materials of truth, and the only office of argument is to weave them together into so many pieces of instruction for the bettering or enlightening of the species. 22. That blind and unconscious matter cannot, by any of her combinations, evolve the phenomena of mind, is a proposition seen in its own immediate light, and felt to be true with all the speed and certainty of an axiom. It is to such truth, as being of instant and almost universal consent, that, more than to any other, we owe the existence of a natural theology among men : yet, because of the occult mysticism wherewith it is charged, it is well that ours is a case of such rich and various argument ; that in her service we can build up syllogisms, and expatiate over wide fields of induction, and amass stores of evidence, and, on the useful dispositions of matter alone, can ground such large computations of probability in favour of an intelligent cause or maker for all things, as might silence and satisfy the reasoners. 23. But we forget that the object of the joint compositions ■which enter into this work, is not properly to demonstrate the being but the attributes of God, and more especially His power, and wisdom, and goodness. We start from that point at which the intuitions and proofs of the question have performed their end of convincing man that God is ; and from this point, wc set forth on an enquiry into the character which belongs to him. Now this is an enquiry which the constitution of the mind, and the adaptation of that constitution to the external world, are pre-eminently fitted to illustrate. Wc hold that the material universe affords decisive attestation to the natural perfections of the Godhead, but that it leaves the question of his moral per- INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 31 fections involved in profoundest mystery. The machinery of a serpent's tooth, for the obvious infliction of pain and death upon its victims, may speak as distinctly for the power and intel- ligence of its Maker as the machinery of those teeth which, formed and inserted for simple mastication, subserve the pur- poses of a bland and beneficent economy. An apparatus of suffering and torture might furnish as clear an indication of de- sign, though a design of cruelty, as does an apparatus for the ministration of enjoyment furnish the indication also of design, but a design of benevolence. Did M^e confine our study to the material constitution of things, we should meet with the enigma of many perplexing and contradictory appearances. We hope to m.ake it manifest, that in the study of the mental constitution, this enigma is greatly alleviated, if not wholly done away ; and, at all events, that within our peculiar province there lie the most full and unambiguous demonstrations, which nature hath any where given to us, both of the benevolence and the righteous- ness of God. 2i. If, in some respects, the phenomena of mind tell us less decisively than the phenomena of matter, of the existence of God, tbcy tell us far more distinctly and decisively of His attributes. We have already said that, from the simplicity of the mental sys- tem, we met with less there of that evidence for design which is founded on combination, or on that right adjustment and adapta- tion of the numerous particulars, which enter into a complex assemblage of thin^rs, and which are essential to some desirable fulfilment. It is not, therefore, through the medium of this par- ticular evidence — the evidence a\ hich lies in combination ; that the phenomena and processes of mind are the best for telling us of the Divine existence. But if otherwise, or previously told of this, v/e hold them to be the best throughout all nature for teHinir us of the Divine character. For if once convinced, on di tinct gromids, that God is, it matters not how simple the antecedents or the consequents of any particular succession may be. It is enough that we know what the terms of the suc- cession are, or what the effect is wherewith God wills any given thing to be followed up. The character of the ordination, and so the character of the ordainer, depends on the terms of the succession ; and not on the nature of that intervention or agency, whether more or less complex, by which it is brought about. And should either term of the succession, either the antecedent or consequent, be some moral feeling, or characteristic of the mind, then the inference comes to be a very distinct and decisive one. That the sight of distress, for example, should be follow- ed up by compassion, is an obvious provision of benevolence, 32 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. and not of cruelty, on the part of Him who ordained our mental constitution. Again, that a feeling of kindness in the heart should be followed up by a feeling of complacency in the heart, that in every virtuous affection of the soul there should be so much to gladden and harmonize it, that there should always be peace within when there is conscious purity or rectitude within ; and, on the other hand, that malignity and licentiousness, and the sense of any moral transgression whatever, should always have the effect of discomforting, and sometimes even of agoniz- ing the spirit of man — that such should be the actual workman- ship and working of our nature, speaks most distinctly, we ap- prehend, for the general righteousness of Him who constructed its machinery and established its laws. An omnipotent patron of vice would have given another make, and a moral system w ith other and opposite tendencies to the creatures whom he had Ibrmed. He would have established different sequences ; and, instead of that oil of gladness which now distils, t^s if from a secret spring of satisfaction, upon the upright ; and, instead of that bitterness and disquietude which are now the obvious attendants on every species of delinquency, we should have had the reverse phenomena of a reversely constituted species, whose minds were in their state of wildest disorder when kindling with the resolves of highest excellence ; or Avere in their best and liappiest, and most harmonious mood, v.dien brooding over the purposes of dishonesty, or frenzied Avith the passions of hatred and revenge. 2-5. In this special track of observation, we have at least the means or data for constructing a tUr more satisfactory denion- stration of the divine attributes, than can possibly be gathered, we think, from the ambiguous phenomena of the external world, f n other words, it will be found that the mental phenomena speak more distinctly and decisively for the character of God than do the material phenomena of creation. And it should not be for- gotten that whatever serves to indicate the character, serves also to confirm the existence of the Divine Being. For this charac- ter, whose signatures are impressed on Nature, is not an abstrac- tion, but must have residence on a concrete and substantive Being, who hath connnunicated a transcript of Himself to the workmanshij) of His oanu hands. It is thus, that, although in our assigned deparfmont there is greater poverty of evidence for a God, in as far as that evidence is grounded on a skilful dispo- sition of parts, — yet, in respect of another kind of evidence, there is no such poverty ; for, greatly more replete as we hold our spe- cial department to be with the unequivocal tokens of a moral ciiaracter, we, by that simole but strong ligament of proof which INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 33 connects a character with an existence, can, in the study of mind alone, find a firm stepping-stone to the existence of a God. Our universe is sometimes termed the mirror of Him who made it. But the optical reflection, whatever it may be, must be held as indicating the reality which gave it birth ; and, whether we dis- cern there the expression of a reigning benevolence, or a reign- ing jiistice, these must not be dealt with as the aerial or the fan- ciful personifications of qualities alone, but as the substantial evidences of a just and benevolent, and, withal, a living God. 26. But, in the prosecution of our assigned task, we shall, after all, meet with much of that evidence, which lies in the manifold, and, withal, happy conjunction of many individual things, by the meeting together of which, some distinctly bene- ficial end is accomplished, brought about in that one way and in no other. For it ought further to be recollected, that, simple as the constitution of the human mind is, and proportionally unfruit- ful, therefore, as it may be of that arg'ament for a God, which is founded on the right assortment and disposition of many parts, or even of many principles ; yet, on studying the precise terms of the commission v.hich has been put into our hands, it will be found that the materials even of this peculiar argument lie abun- dantly within our province. For it is not strictly the mental constitution of man which forms the subject of our prescribed essay, but the adaptation to that constitution of external nature. ^Ve have to demonstrate, not so much that the mind is rightly constituted in itself, as that the mind is rightly placed in a befit- ting theatre for the exercise of its pov/ers. It is to demonstrate that the world and its various objects are suited to the various capacities of this inhabitant — -this moral and intelligent creature, of whom we have to prove that the things w hich are around him bear a fit relation to the laws or the properties which are within him. There is ample room here for the evidence of colloca- tion. Yet there remains this distinction between the mental and the corporeal economy of man, that whereas the evidence is more rich and manifold in the bodily structure itself, than even in its complex and numerous adaptations to the outer world ;* the like evidence, in our peculiar department, is meagre, as afforded by the subjective mind, when compared with the evi- dence of its various adjustments and fitnesses to the objective universe around it, whether of man's moral constitution to the state of human society, or of his intellectual to the various ob- jects of physical investigation. * Yet Paley lias a most interesting chapter on the adaptations of external nature to the human frame-work, though the main strength and copiousness of his argument lies in the anatomy of the frame-work itself. 34 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 27. The great object of philosophy is to ascertain the simple or ultimate principles, into which all the phenomena of nature may by analysis be resolved. But it often happens that in this attempt she stops short at a secondary law, which might be de- monstrated by further analysis to be itself a complex derivative of the primitive or elementary laws. Until this work of analy- sis be completed, we shall often mistake what is compound for what is simple, both in the i)hilosophy of mind and the philo- sophy of matter — being frequently exposed to intractable sub- stances or intractable phenomena in both, which long Avithstand every effort that science makes for their decomposition. It is thus that the time is not yet come, and may never come, when we shall fully understand, what be all the simple elements or simple laws of matter ; and what be all the distinct elementary laws, or, as they have sometimes been termed, the ultimate facts in the constitution of the human mind. But we do not need to wait for this communication, ere we can trace, in either depart- ment, the wisdom and beneiicence of a Deity — tor many are both the material and the mental processes which might be re- cognized as pregnant with utility, and so, pregnant with evidence for a God, long before the processes themselves are analyzed. The truth is, that a secondary law, if it do not exhibit any addi- tional proof of design, in a distinct useful principle, exhibits that proof in a distinct and useful disposition of parts — for, generally speaking, a secondary law is the result of an operation by some primitive law, in peculiar and new circumstances. For exam- ple, the law of the tides is a secondary law, resolvable into one more general and elementary — even the law of gravitation. But we might imagine a state of things, in which the discovery of this connection would have been impossible, — as a sky perpetu- ally mantled with a cloudy evelopement, which, while it did not intercept the light either of the sun or moon, still hid these bodies from our direct observation. In these circumstances, the law of the tides and the law of gravitation, though identical in them- selves, could not have been identified by us ; and so, we might have ascribed this wholesome agitation of the sea and of the atmosphere to a distinct power or principle in nature — affording the distinct indication of both a kind and intelligent Creator. Now this inference is not annihilated — it is not even enfeebled by the discovery in question ; for although the good arising from tides in the ocean and tides in the air, is not referable to a pecu- liar law — it is at least referable to a pecuHar collocation. And this holds of all the useful secondary laws in the material world. If they cannot be alleged in evidence for the number of benefi- cial princioles in nature — they can at least be alleged in evidence INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 35 for the number of nature's beneficial arrangements. If they do not attest the multitude of useful properties, they at the least attest the multitude of useful parts in nature ; and the skill, guided by benevolence which has been put forth in the distribu- tion of them. So that long ere the philosophy of matter is per- fected, or all its phenomena and its secondary laws have been resolved into their original and constituent principles — may we, in their obvious and immediate utility alone, detect as many separate evidences in nature as there are separate facts in nature, for a wise and benevolent Deity. 2S. And the same will be found true of the secondary laws in the mental world, which, if not as many distinct beneficial prin- ciples in the constitution of the mind, are the effect of as many distinct and beneficial arrangements in the objects or circum- stances by which it is surrounded. We have not to wait the completion of its still more subtle and difficult analysis, ere we come within sight of those varied indications of benevolent de- sign which are so abundantly to be met with, both in the consti- tution of the mind itselt^, and in the adaptation thereto of external nature. Some there are, for example, who contend that the laws of taste are not primitive but secondary ; that our admiration of beauty in material objects is resolvable into other and original emotions, and, more especially, by means of the associafing prin- ciple, into our admiration of moral excellence. Let the justness of this doctrine be admitted ; and its only effect on our peculiar argument is, that the benevolence of God in thus multiplying our enjoyments, instead of being indicated by a distinct law for suit- ing the human mind to the objects which surround it, is indicat- ed both by the distribution of these objects and by their invest- ment with such qualities as suit them to the previous constitution of the mind — that he hath pencilled them with the very colours, or moulded them into the very shapes which suggest either the graceful or the noble of human character ; that he hath imparted to the violet its hue of modesty, and clothed the lily in its robe of purest innocence, and given to the trees of the forest their respec- tive attitudes of strength or delicacy, and made the whole face of nature one bright reflection of those virtues which the mind and character of man had originally radiated. If it be not by the im- plantation of a peculiar law in mind, it is at least by a peculiar disposition of tints and forms in external nature, that he hath spread so diversified a loveliness over the panorama of visible things ; and thrown so many walks of enchantment around us ; and turned the sights and the sounds of rural scenery into the ministers of so much and such exquisite enjoyment ; and caused the outer world of matter to image forth in such profusion those 36 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. various qualities, which at first had pleased or powerfully affected us in the inner world of consciousness and thought. It is by the modifying operation of circumstances that a primary is transmut- ed into a secondary law ; and if the blessings which we enjoy under it cannot be ascribed to the insertion of a distinct principle in the nature of man, they can at least be ascribed to a useful disposition of circumstances in the theatre around him. 29. It is thus that philosophical discovery, which is felt by many to enfeeble the argument for a God, when it reduces two or more subordinate to simpler and anterior laws, does in fact leave that argument as entire as before — for if, by analysis, it diminish the number of beneficial properties in matter, it re- places the injury which it may be supposed to have done in this way to the cause of theism, by presenting us with as great an additional number of beneficial arrangements in nature. And further, it may not be out of place to observe, that there appear to be two distinct ways by which an artificer might make mani- fest the wisdom of his contrivances. He may either be conceiv- ed of, as forming a substance and endowing it with the fit proper- ties ; or as finding a substance with certain given properties, and arranging it into fit dispositions for the accomplishment of some desirable end. Both the former and the latter of these we ascribe to the divine artificer — of whom we imagine, that He is the Crea- tor as well as the Disposer of all things. It is only the latter that we can ascribe to the human artificer, who creates no sub- stance, and ordains no property ; but finds the substance with all its properties ready made and put into his hands, as the raw ma- terial out of which he fashions his implements and rears his struc- tures of various design and workmanship. Now it is a common- ly received, and has indeed been raised into a sort of universal maxim, that the highest property of wisdom is to achieve the most desirable end, or the greatest amount of good, by the fewest pos- sible means, or by the simplest machinery. When this test is applied to the laws of nature — then we esteem it, as enhancing the manifestation of intelligence, that one single law, as gravita- tion, should, as from a central and commanding eminence, sub- ordinate to itself a whole host of most important phenomena ; or that from one great and parent property, so vast a family of ben- eficial consequences should spring. And when the same test is applied to the dispositions,whether nature or art — then it enhances the manifestation of wisdom, when some great end is brought about with a less complex or cumbersome instrumentahty, as of- ten takes place in the simplification of machines, when, by the device of some ingenious ligament or wheel, the apparatus is made equally, perhaps more effective, whilst less unwieldy or INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 37 less intricate than before. Yet there is one way in which, along with an exceeding complication in the mechanism, there might be given the impression, of the very highest skill and capacity hav- ing been put forth on the contrivance of it. It is when, by means of a very operose and complex instrumentality, the triumph of art has been made all the more conspicuous, by a very marvel- lous result having been obtained out of very unpromising mate- rials. It is true, that, in this case too, a still higher impression of skill would be given, if the same or a more striking result were arrived at, even after the intricacy of the machine had been re- duced, by some happy device, in virtue of which, certain of its parts or circumvolutions had been superseded ; and thus, without injury to the final effect, so much of the complication had been dispensed with. Still, however, the substance, whether of the machine or the manufacture, may be conceived so very intract- able as to put an absolute limit on any further simplification, or as to create an absolute necessity for all the manifold contrivance which had been expended on it. When this idea predominates in the mind — then all the complexity which we may behold does not reduce our admiration of the artist, but rather deepens the sense that we have, both of the reconditeness of his wisdom, and of the wondrous vastness and variety of his resources. It is the extreme wideness of the contrast, between the sluggishness of matter and the fineness of the results in physiology, which so enhances our veneration for the great Architect of Nature, when we behold the exquisite organizations of the animal and vegetable kingdoms.* The two exhibitions are wholly distinct from each other — yet each of them may be perfect in its own way. The first is held forth to us, when one law of pervading generality is foiind to scatter a myriad of beneficent consequences in its (rain. The second is held forth, when, by an infinite complexity of means, a countless variety of expedients with (heir multiform combinations, some one design, such as the upholding of life in plants or animals is accomplished. Creation presents us in mar- vellous profusion with specimens of both these — at once confirm- ing the doctrine, and illustrating the significancy of the expression in which Scripture ha(h conveyed it to us, when it tells of the manifold wisdom of God. 30. But while, on a principle already often recognised, this multitude of necessary conditions to the accomplishment of a given end, enhances the argument for a God, because each se- parate condition reduces the hypothesis of chance to a more *Dr. Paley would state the problem thus. The laws of matter being given, so lo organize it, as that it shall produce or sustain tiie phenomena, wlietlier of vegetation or of life. 4 38 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. violent improbability than before ; yet it must not be disguised that there is a certain transcendental mystery which it has the effect of aggravating, and which it leaves unresolved. We can understand the complex machinery and the circuitous processes to which a human artist must resort, that he might overcome the else uncomplying obstinacy of inert matter, and bend it in sub- serviency to his special designs. But that the Divine artist who first created the matter and ordained its laws, should find the same complication necessary for the accomplishment of his purposes ; that such an elaborate workmanship, for example, should be required to establish the functions of sight and hear- ing in the animal economy, is very like the lavish or ostensible ingenuity of a Being employed in conquering the difficulty which himself had raised. It is true, the one immediate pur- pose is served by it which we have just noticed, — that of pre- senting, as it were, to the eye of enquirers a more manifold in- scription of the Divinity. But if, instead of being the object of inference, it had pleased God to make himself the object of a direct manifestation, then for the mere purpose of becoming known to his creatures, this reflex or circuitous method of reve- lation would have been altogether uncalled for. That under the actual system of creation, and with its actual proofs, he has made his existence most decisively known to us, we most thankfully admit. But when question is made between the ac- tual and the conceivable systems of creation which God might have emanated, we are forced to confess, that the very circum- stances which, in the existing order of things, have brightened and enhanced the evidence of His being, have also cast a deeper secrecy over what may be termed the general policy of His government and ways. And this is but one of the many difficulties, which men of unbridled speculation and unobservant of that sound philosophy that keeps within the limits of human observation, will find it abundantly possible to conjure up on the field of natural theism. It does look an impracticable enigma that the Omnipotent God, who could have grafted all the capacities of thought and feeling on an elementary atom, should have deemed fit to incorporate the human soul in the midst of so curious and complicated a frame-work. For what a variegated structure is man's animal economy. What an ap- paratus of vessels and bones and ligaments. What a complex mechanism. What an elaborate chemistry. What a multitude of parts in the anatomy, and of processes in the physiology of this marvellous system. What a medley, we had almost said, what a package of contents. What an unwearied play of se- cretions and circulations and other changes incessant and innu- INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 89 merable. In short, what a laborious compUcation ; and all to uphold a living principle, which, one might think, could by a simple fiat of omnipotence, have sprung forth at once from the great source and centre of the spiritual system, and mingled with the world of spirits — just as each new particle of light is sent forth by the emanation of a sunbeam, to play and glisten among the fields of radiance. 31. But to recall ourselves from this digression among the possibilities of what might have been, to the realities of the mental system, such as it actually is. Ere we bring the very general observations of this chapter to a close, we would briefly notice an analogy between the realities of the mental and those of the corporeal system. The enquirers into the latter have found it of substantial benefit to their science, to have mixed up with the prosecution of it a reference to final causes. Their reasoning on the lil^ely uses of a part in anatomy, has, in some instances, suggested or served as a guide to speculations, which have been at length verified by a discovery. We believe, in like manner, that reasoning on the likely or obvious uses of a principle in the constitution of the human mind, might lead, if not to the discovery, at least to the confirmation of important truth — not perhaps in the science itself, but in certain of the cognate sciences which stand in no very distant relation to it. For example, we think it should rectify certain errors which have been committed both in jurisprudence and political economy, if it can be demonstrated that some of the undoubted laws of hu- man nature are traversed by them ; and so, that violence is thereby done to the obvious designs of the Author of Nature. We shall not hold it out of place, though we notice one or two of these instances, by which it might be seen that the mental philosophy, when studied in connection with the palpable views of Him by whom all its principles and processes were ordained, is fitted to enlighten the practice of legislation, and more espe- cially to determine the wisdom of certain arrangements which have for their object the economic well-being of society. 32. We feel the arduousness of our peculiar task, and the feeling is not at all alleviated by our sense of its surpassing dignity. The superiority of mind to matter has often been the theme of eloquence to moralists. For what were all the won- ders of the latter and all its glories, without a spectator mind that could intelligently view and that could tastefully admire them? Let every eye be irrevocably closed, and this were equivalent to the entire annihilation in nature of the clement of light ; and in like manner, if the light of all consciousness were put out m the world of mind, the world of matter, though as rich 40 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. in beauty, and in the means of benevolence as before, were thereby reduced to a virtual nonentity. In these circumstances, the lighting up again of even but one mind would restore its being, or at least its significancy to that system of materialism, which, untouched itself, had just been desolated of all those be- ings in whom it could kindle reflection, or to whom it could minister the sense of enjoyment. It were tantamount to the second creation of it, — or, in other words, one living intelligent spirit is of higher reckoning and mightier import than a dead universe. PART I. ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. CHAPTER I. On the Supremacy of Conscience. I. An abstract question in morals is distinct from a question respecting the constitution of man's moral nature ; and the for- mer ought no more to be confounded with the latter, than the truths of geometry with the faculties of the reasoning mind which comprehends them. The virtuousness of justice was a stable doctrine in ethical science, anterior to the existence of the species ; and would remain so, though the species were de- stroyed — just as much as the properties of a triangle are the en- during stabilities of mathematical science ; and that, though no matter had been created to exemplify the positions or the figures of geometry. The objective nature of virtue is one thing. The subjective nature of the human mind, by which virtue is felt and recognized, is another. It is not from the former, any more than from the eternal truths of geometry, that we can demon- strate the existence or attributes of God — but from the latter, a« belonging to the facts of a creation emanating from His will, and therefore bearing upon it the stamp of His character. The nature and constitution of virtue form a distinct subject of en- quiry from the nature and constitution of the human mind. Vir- tue is not a creation of the Divine will, but has had everlasting residence in the nature of the Godhead. The mind of man is a creation ; and therefore indicates, by its characteristics, the cha- racter of Him, to the fiat and the forthgoing of whose will it owes its existence. We must frequently, in the course of this discussion, advert to the pnnciples of ethics ; but it is not on the system of ethical doctrine that our argument properly is founded. It is on the phenomena and the laws of actual human nature, which itself, one of the great facts of creation, may be regarded 4* 42 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. like all its facts, as bearing on it the impress of that mind which gave birth to creation. 2. But further. It is not only not with the system of ethical doctrine — it is not even with the full system of the philosophy of our nature that we have properly to do. On this last there is still a number of unsettled questions ; but our peculiar argument does not need to wait for the conclusive determination of them. For example, there is many a controversy among philosophers respecting the primary and secondary laws of the human consti- tution. Now, if it be an obviously beneficial law, it carries evidence for a God, in the mere existence and operation of it, independently of the rank which it holds, or of the relation in which it stands to the other principles of our internal mechanism. It is thus that there may, at one and the same time, be grounded on the law in question a clear theological inference ; and yet there may be associated with it an obscure philosophical specula- tion. It is well that we separate these two ; and, more especially, that the decisive attestation given by any part or phenomenon of our nature to the Divine goodness, shall not be involved in the mist and metaphysical perplexity of other reasonings, the object of which is altogether distinct and separate from our own. The facts of the human constitution, apart altogether from the philosophy of their causation, demonstrate the wisdom and be- nevolence of Him who framed it : and while it is our part to follow the light of this philosophy, as far as the light and the guidance of it are sure, we are not, in those cases, when the final cause is obvious as day, though the proximate efficient cause should be hidden in deepest mystery, — we are not, on this account, to confound darkness with light, or light with darkness. 3. By attending throughout to this observation, we shall be saved from a thousand irrelevancies as well as obscurities of argument ; and it is an observation peculiarly applicable, in an- nouncing that great fact or phenomenon of mind, which, for many reasons, should hold a foremost place in our demonstration — we mean the felt supremacy of conscience. Philosophers there are, who have attempted to resolve this fact into ulterior or ultimate ones in the mental constitution ; and who have denied to the fa- culty a place among its original and uncompounded principles. Sir James Macintosh tells us of the generation of human con- science ; and, not merely states, but endeavours to explain the phenomenon of its felt supremacy within us. Dr. Adam Smith also assigns a pedigree to our moral judgments ; but, with all his peculiar notions respecting the origin of the awards of con- science, he never once disputes their authority ; or, that, by the general consent of mankind, this authority is, in sentiment and ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 43 opinion at least, conceded to them.* It is somewhat like an antiquarian controversy respecting the first formation and sub- sequent historical changes of some certain court of government, the rightful authority of whose decisions and acts is, at the same time, fully recognized. And so, philosophers have disputed re- garding the court of conscience — of what materials it is con- structed, and by what line of genealogy from the anterior prin- ciples of our nature it has sprung. Yet most of these have admitted the proper right of sovereignty which belongs to it ; its legitimate place as the master and the arbiter over all the appe- tites and desires and practical forces of human nature. Or, if any have dared the singularity of denying this, they do so in op- position to the general sense and general language of mankind, whose very modes of speech compel them to affirm that the bid- dings of conscience are of paramount authority — its peculiar office being to tell what all men should, or all men ought to do. 4. The proposition, however, which we are now urging, is not that the obligations of virtue are binding, but that man has a conscience which tells him that they are so — not that justice and truth and humanity are the dogmata of the abstract moral system, but that they are the dictates of man's moral nature — not that in themselves they are the constituent parts of moral recti- tude, but that there is a voice within every heart which thus pro- nounces on them. It is not with the constitution of morality, viewed objectively, as a system or theory of doctrine, that we have properly to do ; but with the constitution of man's spirit, viewed as the subject of certain phenomena and laws — and, more particularly, with a great psychological fact in human na- ture, namely, the homage rendered by it to the supremacy of conscience. In a word, it is not of a category, but of a creation that we are speaking. The one can tell us nothing of the divine character, while the other might afford most distinct and deci- sive indications of it. We could found no demonstration what- ever of the divine purposes, on a mere ethical, any more than we could, on a logical or mathematical category. But it is very different with an actual creation, whether in mind or in mat- * " Upon whatever," observes Dr. Adam Smith, " we suppose our moral faculties to be founded, whether upon a certain modification of reason, upon an original instinct called a moral sense, or upon some other principle of our nature, it cannot be doubted that they were given us for the direction of our conduct in this life. They carry along with them the most evident badges of this authority, which denote that they were set up within us to be the supreme arbiters of all our actions, to superintend all our senses, passions and appetites, and to judge how far each of them was either to be indulged or restrained. It is the peculiar office of these faculties to judge, to bestow censure or applause upon all the other principlesof our nature." Theory nf Moral Sentiments, Part iii. chap, v 44 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. ter — a mechanism of obviou3 contrivance, and whose workings and tendencies, therefore, must be referred to the design, and so to the disposition or character of that Being, whose spirit hath devised and whose fingers have framed it. 5. And neither do we urge the proposition that conscienceTiasl in every instance, the actual direction of human affairs, for this ■ were in the face of all experience. It is not that every man j obeys her dictates, but that every man feels he ought to obey ! them. These dictates are often in life and practice disregarded : | so that conscience is not the sovereign de facto. Still there is! a voice within the hearts of all which asserts that conscience is \ the sovereign de jure ; that to her belongs the command right- ■ fully, even though she do not possess it actually. In a season of national anarchy, the actual power and the legitimate au- thority are often disjoined from each other. The lawful mo- narch may be dethroned, and so lose the might ; while he conti- nues to possess — nay, while he may be ackno\\ledged through- out his kingdom to possess the right of sovereignty. The dis- tinction still is made, even under this reign of violence, between the usurper and the lawful sovereign ; and there is a similar dis- tinction among the powers and principles of the human consti- tution, when an insurrection takes place of the inferior against the superior ; and conscience, after being dethroned from her place of mastery and control, is still felt to be the superior, or rather supreme faculty of our nature notwithstanding. She may have fallen from her dominion, yet still wear the badges of a fal- len sovereign, having the acknowledged right of authority, though the power of enforcement has been wrested away from her. She may be outraged in all her prerogatives by the lawless appetites of our nature, — but not without the accompanyini' sense within of an outrage and a wrong having been inflicted^ and a reclaiming voice from thence which causes itself to be heard and which remonstrates against it. The insurgent and inferior principles of our constitution may, in the uproar of (heir wild mutiny, lift a louder and more effective voice than the small still voice of conscience. They have the might but not (he rif^ht. Conscience, on the other hand, is felt to have the right though^not the might — the legislative office being that which" properly be- longs to her, though the executive power should be wanting to enforce her enactments. It is not the reigning but the rightful authority of conscience that we, under the name of her suprema- cy, contend for ; or, rather the fact that, by the consent of all oui- higher principles and feelings, this rightful authority is reputed to be hers ; and, by the general concurrence of mankind awarded to her. ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 45 6. And here it is of capital importance to distinguish between an original and proper tendency, and a subsequent aberration. This has been well illustrated by the regulator of a watch., whose office and primary design, and that obviously announced by the relation in which it stands to the other narts of the machinery, is to control the velocity of its movements. And we should still perceive this to have been its destination, even though, by acci- dent or decay, it had lost the power of command which at the first belonged to it. We should not misunderstand the purpose of its maker, although, in virtue of some deterioration or de- rangement which the machinery had undergone, that purpose were now fmstrated. And we could discern the purpose in the very make and constitution of the mechanism. We might even see it to be an irregular watch ; and yet this needs not prevent us from seeing, that, at its original fabrication, it was made for the purpose of moving regularly. The mere existence and po- sition of the regulator might suffice to indicate this, — although it had become powerless, either from the wearing of the parts, or from some extrinsic disturbance to which the instrument had been exposed. The regulator, in this instance, may be said to have the right, though not the power of command, over the movements of the timepiece ; yet the loss of the power has not obliterated the vestiges of the right ; so that, by the inspection of the machinery alone, we both learn the injury which has been done to it, and the condition in which it originally came from the "hand of its maker — a condition of actual as well as rightful su- premacy, on the part of the regulator, over all its movements. And a similar discovery may be made, by examination of the va- rious parts and principles which make up the moral system of man : for we see various parts and principles there. We see Ambition, having power for its object, and without the attainment of which it is not satisfied ; and Avarice, having wealth for its object, without the attainment of which it is not satisfied ; and Benevolence, having for its object the good of others, without the attainment of which it is not satisfied ; and the love of Reputation, having for its object their applause, without which it is not satis- fied ; and lastly, to proceed no further in the enumeration. Con- science, which surveys and superintends the whole maur whose\ distinct and appropriate object it is to have the entire control both of his inward desires and outward doings, and without the attain- \ ment of this it is thwarted from its proper aim, and remains un- ' satisfied.' Each appetite, or affection of our nature, has its own distinct object ; but this last is the object of Conscience, which may be termed the moral affection. The place which it occu-" pies, or rather which it is felt that it should occupy, and which 46 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. naturally belongs to it, is that of a governor, claiming the supe- riority, and taking to itself the direction over all the other powers and passions of humanity. If this superiority be denied to it, there is a felt violence done to flie whole economy of man. The sentiment is, that the thing is not as it should be : and even after conscience is forced, in virtue of some subsequent derange- ment, from this station of rightful ascendency, we can still dis- tinguish between what is the primitive design or tendency, and what is the posterior aberration. We can perceive, in the case of a deranged or distempered watch, that the mechanism is out of order ; but even then, on the bare examination of its work- manship, and more especially from the place and bearing of its regulator, can we pronounce that it was made for moving regu- larly. And in like manner, on the bare inspection of our mental economy alone, and more particularly from the place which conscience has there, can we, even in the case of the man who refuses to obey its dictates, affirm that he was made for walking conscientiously. 7. The distinction which we now labour to establish between conscience, and the other principles of our nature, does not re- spect the actual force or prevalence which may, or may not, severally belong to them. It respects the universal judgment which, by the very constitution of our nature, is passed on the question of rightness — on the question, which of all these should have the prevalence, whenever there happens to be a contest between them. All which we affirm is, that if conscience pre- vail over the other principles, then every man is led, by the very make and mechanism of his internal economy, to feel that this is as it ought to be ; or, if these others prevail over conscience,, that this is not as it ought to be. One, it is generally felt, may! be too ambitious, or too much set on wealth and fame,*or too resentful of injury, or even too facile in his benevolence, when carried to the length of being injudicious and hurtful ; but no one is ever felt, if he have sound and enlightened views of mo-i rality, to be too conscientious. When we" affirm tliis' oT c^n** science, we but concur in the homage rendered to it by all men, as being the rightful, if not the actual superior, among all the feelings and faculties of our nature. It is a truth, perhaps, too simple for being reasoned ; but this is because, like many of the most important and undoubted certainties of human belief, it is a truth of instant recognition. When stating the supremacy of conscience, in the sense that we have explained it, we but state what all men feel ; and our only argument, in proof of the assertion, is — our only argument can be, an appeal to the expe- rience of all men. ON THE SUPREMACY OP CONSCIENCE. 47 8. Bishop Butler has often been spoken of as the first dis- coverer of this great principle in our nature ; though, perhaps, no man can properly be said to discover what all men are con- scious of. But certain it is, that he is the first who hath made it the subject of a full and reflex cognizance. It forms the ar- gument of his three first sermons, in a volume which may safely be pronounced, the most prf^pious repository of sound ethical principles extant in any language. The authority of conscience, says Dugald Stewart, " although beautifully described by many of the ancient moralists, was not sufficiently attended to b_y modern writers, as a fundamental principle in the science of ethics, till the time of Dr. Butler." It belongs to the very es- sence of the principle, that we clearly distinguish, between what we find to be the actual force of conscience, and what we feel to be its rightful authority. These two may exist in a state of separation from each other just as in a Civil Government, the reigning power may, in seasons of anarchy, be dissevered from that supreme court or magistrate to whom it rightfully be- longs. The mechanism of a political fabric is not adequately or fully described by the mere enumeration of its parts. There must also enter into the description, the relation which the parts bear to each other ; and more especially, the paramount relation of rightful ascendency and direction, which that part, in which the functions of Government are vested, bears to the whole. Neither is the mechanism of man's personal constitution fully or adequately described, by merely telling us in succession the several parts of which it is composed — as the passions, and the appetites, and the affections, and the moral sense, and the in- tellectual capacities, which make up this complex and variously gifted creature. The particulars of his mental system must not only be stated, each in their individuality ; but the bearing or connection which each has with the rest — else it is not described as a system at all. In making out this description, we should not only not overlook the individual faculty of conscience, but we must not overlook its relative place among the other feel- ings and faculties of our nature. That place is the place of command. What conscience lays claim to is the mastery or regulation over the whole man. Each desire of our nature rests or terminates in its own appropriate object, as the love of fame in applause, or hunger in food, or revenge in the infliction of pain upon its object, or affection for another in the happiness and I company of the beloved individual. But the object of the mo- j ral sense is to arbitrate and direct among all these propensities. ' It claims the station and the prerogative of a mistress over them. Its peculiar office is that of superintendence, and there is a 48 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. certain feeling of violence or disorder, when the mandates which it issues in this capacity, are not carried into effect. Every affection in our nature is appeased by the object that is suited to jThe object of conscience is the subordination of the whole to its dictates. Without this it remains unappeased, and as if bereft of its rights. It is not a single faculty, taldng its own se- parate and unconnected place an^Hsng the other feelings and fa- culties which belong to us. Its proper place is that of a guide I or a governor. It is the ruling power in our nature ; and its f proper, its legitimate business, is to prescribe that man shall be 'as he ought, and do as he ought. But instead of expatiating any further at present in language of our own, let us here admit a few brief sentences from Butler himself, that great and inva- luable expounder both of the human constitution, and of moral science. " That principle by which we survey, and either ap- prove or disapprove our own heart, temper, and actions, is not only to be considered as what in its turn is to have some influ- ence, which may be said of every passion, of the basest appe- tites : but likewise as being superior ; as from its very nature manifestly claiming superiority over all others : insomuch that you cannot form a notion of this faculty conscience, without taking in judgment direction and superintendency. This is a constituent part of the idea, that is of the faculty itself: and to preside and govern, from the very economy and constitution of man, belongs to it. Had it strength, as it has right ; had it power, as it has manifest authority ; it would absolutely govern the w^rW«" ".iThis faculty was placed within us to be our pro- r per governor ; to direct and regulate all under principles, pas- sions, and motives of action. This is its right and office. Thus sacred is its authority. And how often soever men violate and rebeUiously refuse to submit to it, for supposed in- terest which they cannot otherwise obtain, or for the sake of passion which they cannot otherwise gratify ; this makes no alteration as to the natural right and office of conscience. _.^ 9. ISTowTtis in these phenomena of Conscience that Nature ; offers to us, far her strongest argument, for the moral character ' of God. Had He been an unrighteous Being himself, would He have given to this the obviously superior faculty in man, so dis- tinct and authoritative a voice on the side of righteousness? Would He have so constructed the creatures of our species, as to have planted in every breast a reclaiming witness against him- self? Would He have thus inscribed on the tablet of every heart the sentence of his own condemnation ; and is not this just as unlikely, as that He should have inscribed it in written cha- racters on the forehead of each individual ? Would He so have I ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 49 fashioned the workmanship of His own hands ; or, if a God of cru- elty, injustice, and falsehood, would He have placed in the station of master and judge that faculty which, felt to be the highest in our nature, would prompt a generous and high-minded revolt of all our sentiments against the Being who formed us? From a God possessed of such characteristics, we should surely have ex- pected a differently-moulded humanity ; or, in other words, from the actual constitution of man, from the testimonies on the side of all righteousness, given by the vicegerent within the heart, do we infer the righteousness of the Sovereign who placed it there. He would never have established a conscience in man, aiid in- vested it with the authority of a monitor, and given to it those legislative and judicial functions which it obviously possesses ; i and then so framed it, that all its decisions should be on the side \ of that virtue which he himself disowned, and condemnatory of J that vice which he himself exemplified. This is an evidence for \ the righteousness of God, which keeps its ground, amid all the i disorders and aberrations to which humanity is liable ; and can ! no more, indeed, be deafened or overborne by these, than is the | rightful authority of public opinion, by the occasional outbreak- y ^ ings of iniquity and violence which take place in society. This public opinion may, in those seasons of misrule when might pre- vails over right, be deforced from the practical ascendency which it ought to have ; but the very sentiment that it so ought, is our reason for believing the world to have been originally formed, in order that virtue might have the rule over it. In like maniierTl when, in the bosom of every individual man, we can discern a conscience, placed there with the obvious design of being a guide and a commander, it were difficult not to believe, that, whatever the partial outrages may be which the cause of virtue has to sustain, it has the public mind of the universe in its favour ; * and that therefore He, who is the Maker and the Ruler of such a ' universe, is a God of righteousness. Amid all the subsequent j obscurations and errors, the original design, both of a deranged watch and of a deranged human nature, is alike manifest ; first, of the maker of the watch, that its motions should harmonize with time; second, of the maker of man, that his movements should harmonize with truth and righteousness. We can, in most cases, discern between an aberration and an original law ; between a direct or primitive tendency and the effect of a disturb- ing force, by which that tendency is thwarted and overborne. And so of the constitution of man. It may be now a loosened and disproportioned thing, yet we can trace the original structure — even as from the fragments of a ruin, we can obtain the per- fect model of a building from its capital to its base. It is thus 5 60 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE* that, however prostrate conscience may have fallen, we can still discern its place of native and original pre-eminence, as being at once the legislator and the judge in the moral system, though the executive forces of the system have ma^insurrection against it, and thrown the whole into anar chy.^ There is a depth of mys- f iGxy in every thing connected withthe existence or the origin of evil in creation ; yet, even in the fiercest uproar of our stormy passions. Conscience, though in her softest whispers, gives to the supremacy of rectitude the voice of an undying testimony ; and her light still shining in a dark place, her unquelled ac- cents still heard in the loudest outcry of Nature's rebellious ap- petites, form the strongest argument within reach of the human faculties, that, in spite of all partial or temporary derangements. Supreme Pqwfir and Supreme Goodness are at one. It is true ~that reT)ellious man hath, with daring footstep, trampled on the lessons of Conscience ; but why, in spite of man's perversity, is conscience, on the other hand, able to lift a voice so piercing and so powerful, by which to remonstrate against the wrong, and to reclaim the honours that are due to her? How comes it that, in the mutiny and uproar of the inferior faculties, that faculty in man, which wears the stamp and impress of the highest, should remain on the side of truth and holiness 1 Would humanity have thus been moulded by a false and evil spirit ; or would he have com- mitted such impolicy against himself, as to insert in each mem- ber of our species a principle which would make him feel the greatest complacency in his own rectitude, when he feels the most high-minded revolt of indignation and dislike against the Being who gave him birth? It is not so much that Conscience takes a part among the other faculties of our nature ; but that Conscience takes among them the part of a governor, and that man, if lie do not obey her suggestions, still, in despite of him- self, acknowledges her rights. It is a mighty argument for the virtue of the governor above, that ail the laws and injunctions of the governor below are on the side of virtue. It seems as if He had left this representative, or remaining witness, for Himself, in a world that had cast off its allegiance ; and that, from the voice of the judge within the breast, we may learn the will and the character of Him who hath invested with such authority his dictates. It is this which speaks as much more demonstratively for the presidency of a righteous God in human affairs, than for that of impure or unrighteous demons, as did the rod of Aaron, when it swallowed the rods of the enchanters and magicians in Egypt. In the wildest anarchy of man's insurgent appetites and sins, there is still a reclaiming voice — a voice which, even when in practice disregarded, it is impossible not to own ; and to which. ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 51 at the very moment that we refuse our obedience, we find that we cannot refuse the homage of what ourselves do feel and acknowledge to be the best, the highest principles of our nature. ro. However difficult from the very simplicity of the subject it may be, to state or to reason the argument for a God, which is founded on the supremacy of conscience — still, historically and experimentally, it will be found, that it is of more force than all other arguments put together, for originating and upholding the natural theism which there is in the world. The theology of conscience is not only of wider diffusion, but of far more practi- cal influence than the theology of academic demonstration. The Tatlociiiation by which this theology is established, is not the less firm or the less impressive, that, instead of a lengthened process, there is but one step between the premises and the conclusion — or, that the felt presence of a judge within the breast, powerfully and immediately suggests the notion of a Supreme Judge and Sovereign, who placed it there. Upon this question, the mind does not stop short at mere abstraction ; but, passing at once from the abstract to the concrete, from the law of the heart, it makes the rapid inference of a lawgiver. It is the very rapidity of this inference which makes it appear like intuition ; and which has given birth to the mystic theology of innate ideas. Yet the the- ology of conscience disclaims such mysticism, built, as it is, on a foundation of sure and sound reasoning ; for the strength of an argumentation in nowise depends upon the length of it. The sense of a governing principle within, begets in all men the sen- timent of a living governor without and above them, and it does so with all the speed of an instantaneous feeling ; yet it is not an impression, it is an inference notwithstanding — and as much so as any inference from that which is seen, to that which is unseen. There is, in the first instance, cognizance taken of a fact — if not by the outward eye, yet as good, by the eye of consciousness which has been termed the faculty of internal observation. And the consequent belief of a God, instead of being an instinctive sense of the Divinity, is the fruit of an inference grounded on that fact. There is instant transition made, from the sense of a Mo- nitor within to the faith of a living Sovereign above ; and this argument, described by all, but with such speed as almost to warrant the expression of its being felt by all, may be regarded, notwithstanding the force and fertility of other considerations, as the great prop of natural religion among men. 11. And we mistake, if we think it was ever otherwise, even in the ages of darkest and most licentious paganism. This the- ology of conscience has often been greatly obscured, but never, 52 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. in any country or at any period in the history of the world, has it been wholly obliterated. We behold the vestiges of it in the sim- ple theology of the desert; and, perhaps, more distinctly there, than m the complex superstitions of an artificial and civilized heathenism. In confirmation of this, we might quote the invocations to the Great Spirit from the wilds of North America. But, indeed, in every quarter of the globe, where missionaries have held converse with savages, even with the rudest of nature's cliildren — when speaking on the topics of sin and judgment, they did not speak to them in vocables unknown. And as this sense of a universal law and a Supreme Lawgiver never waned into total extinction among the tribes of ferocious and untamed wanderers — so neither was it altogether stifled by the refined and intricate polytheism of more enlightened nations. The whole of classic authorship teems with allusions to a Supreme Governor and Judge : And when the guilty Emperors of Rome were tempest-driven by remorse and fear, it was not that they trembled before a spectre of their own imagination. When terror mixed, which it often did, with the rage and cruelty of Nero, it was the theology of conscience which haunted him. It was not the suggestion of a capricious fancy which gave him the disturbance — but a voice issuing from the deep recesses of a moral nature, as stable and uniform throughout the species as is the material structure of humanity ; and in the lineaments of which we may read that there is a moral regimen among men, and therefore a moral Governor who hath instituted, and who presides over it. Therefore it was that these imperial despots, the worst and haughtiest of recorded monarchs, stood aghast at the spectacle of their own worthlessness. It is true, there is a wretchedness which naturally and essentially belongs to a state of great moral unhingement; and this may account fqr_ their discomforts, but it will not account for their fears. /'They may, because of this, have felt the torments of a present misery. But whence their fears of a coming vengeance ? They would not have trembled at nature's law, apart from the thought of nature's lawgiver. The imagination of an unsanctioned law would no more have given disquietude, than the imagination of a vacant throne. But the law, to their guilty apprehensions, bespoke a judge. The throne of heaven, to their troubled eye, was filled by a living monarch. Righteousness, it was felt, would not have been so enthroned in the moral system of man, had it not been previously enthroned in the system of the universe ; nor would it have held such a place and pre-eminence in the judgment of all spirits, had not the father of spirits been its friend and ulti- mate avenger. This is not a local or geographical notion. It is a universal feeling — to be found wherever men are to be found* ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 53 because interwoven with the constitution of humanity. It is not, therefore, the pecuUarity of one creed, or of one country. It circulates at large throughout the family of man. We can trace it in the theology of savage life ; nor is it wholly overborne by the artificial theology of a more complex and idolatrous paganism. Neither crime nor civilization can extinguish it ; and, whether in the " conscientia scelerum" of the fierce and frenzied Cataline, or in the tranquil contemplative musings of Socrates and Cicero, we find the impression of at once a righteous and a reigning Soxfixgign. 12. And it confirms still more our idea of a government — that conscience not only gives forth her mandates with the tone and authority of a Superior ; but, as if on purpose to enforce their ', observance, thus follows them up with an obvious discipline of j rewards and punishments. It is enough but to mention, on the / one hand, that felt complacency which is distilled, like some I precious elixir, upon the heart by the recollection of virtuous , deeds and virtuous sacrifices ; and, on the other hand, those in- i^flictions of remorse, which are attendant upon wickedness, and jwherewith, as if by the whip of a secret tormentor, the heart of jevery conscious sinner is agonized. We discern in these the /natural sanctions of morality, and the moral character of Him Vwho hath ordained them. We cannot otherwise explain the peace and triumphant satisfaction which spring from the con- sciousness of well doing — nor can we otherwise explain the degradation as well as bitter distress, which a sense of demerit .bnn^^-aloiig with it. Our only adequate interpretation of these /phenomena is, that they are the present remunerations or the \ present chastisements of a God who loveth righteousness, and •who hateth iniquity. Nor do we view them as the conclusive res'utts of virtue and vice, but rather as the tokens and the pre- cursors either of a brighter reward or of a heavier vengeance, that are coming. It is thus that the delight of self-approbation, instead of standing alone, brings hope in its train ; and remorse, instead of standing alone, brings terror in its train. The ex- pectations of the future are blended with these joys and suffer- ings of the present ; and all serve still more to stamp an impres- sion, of which traces are to be found in every quarter of the earth — that we live under a retributive economy, and that the God who reigns over it takes a moral and judicial cognizance of the creatures whom He hath formed. 13. What then are the specific injunctions of conscience ? for on this question essenfially depends every argument that we can derive from this power or property of our nature, for the moral character of God. If, on the one hand, the lessons given forth 5* 54 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. by a faculty, which so manifestly claims to be the pre-eminent and ruling faculty of our nature, be those of deceit and licen- tiousness and cruelty — then, from the character of such a law, should we infer the character of the lawgiver ; and so feel the conclusion to be inevitable, that we are under the government of a malignant and unrighteous God, at once the patron of vice and the persecutor of virtue in the world. If on the other hand, temperance, and chastity, and kindness, and integrity, and truth, be the mandates which generally, if not invariably proceed from her — then, on the same principles of judgment, should we reckon that He who is the author of conscience, and who gave it the place of supremacy and honour, which it so obviously possesses in the moral system of man, was himself the friend and the ex- emplar of all those virtues which enter into the composition of perfect moral rectitude. In the laws and the lessons of human conscience, would we study the character of the Godhead, just as we should study the views and dispositions of a monarch, in the instructions given by him to the viceroy of one of his pro- vinces. If, on the one hand, virtue be prescribed by the autho- rity of conscience, and followed up by her approval, in which very approval there is felt an inward satisfaction and serenity of spirit, that of itself forms a most delicious reward ; and if, on the other hand, the perpetrations of wickedness are followed up by the voice of her rebuke, in which, identical with remorse, there is a sting of agony and discomfort, amounting to the severest penalty — then, are we as naturally disposed to infer of Him who ordained such a mental constitution that He is the righteous Governor of men, as, if seated on a visible throne in the midst of us. He had made the audible proclamation of His law, and by His own immediate hand, had distributed of His gifts to the obedient, and inflicted chastisements on the rebellious. The law of conscience may be regarded as comprising all those vir- tues which the hand of the Deity hath inscribed on the tablet of the human heart, or on the tablet of natural jurisprudence ; and an argument for these being the very virtues which characterize and adorn Himself, is that they must have been transcribed from the prior tablet of His own nature. ..,— »— — ^^ — — 14. We are sensible that there is much to obscure this infe- rence in the actual circumstances of the world. More especially — it has been alleged, on the side of scepticism, that there is an exceeding diversity of moral judgments among men ; that, out of the multifarious decisions of the human conscience, no con- sistent code of virtue can be framed ; and that, therefore, no con- sistent character can be ascribed to Him, who planted this fa- culty in the bosom of our species, and bade it speak so uncer- ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 65 tainly and so variously.* But to this it may be answered, in the first place, that the apparent diversity is partly reducible into the blinding, or, at least, the distorting effect of passion and interest, which sometimes are powerful enough to obscure our perception, even of mathematical and historical truths, as well as of moral distinctions ; and without therefore affecting the sta- bility of either. It is thus, for example, that mercantile cupidity has blinded many a reckless adventurer to the enormous injus- tice of the slave trade ; that passion and interest together have transmuted revenge into a virtue ; and that the robbery, which, if prosecuted only for the sake of individual gain, would have appeared to all under an aspect of most revolting selfishness, puts on the guise of patriotism, when a whole nation deliberates on the schemes, or is led by a career of daring and lofty hero- ism, to the spoliations of conquest. In all such cases, it is of capital importance to distinguish between the real character of any criminal action, when looked to calmly, comprehensively, and fully ; and what that is in the action which the perpetrator singles out and fastens upon as his plea, when he is either defending it to others, or reconciling it to his own conscience. In as far as he knows the deed to be incapable of vindication, and yet rushes on the performance of it, there is but delinquency of conduct incurred, not a diversity of moral judgment ; nor does Con- science, in this case, at all betray any caprice or uncertainty in her decisions. It is but the conduct, and not the conscience which is in fault ; and to determine whether the latter is in aught chargeable with fluctuation, we must look not to the man's per- formance, but to his plea. Two men may difter as to the moral character of an action ; but if each is resting the support of his own view on a different principle from the other, there may still be a perfect uniformity of moral sentiment between them. They own the authority of the same laws ; ihey only disagree in the application of them. In the first place, the most vehement de- nouncer of a guilty commerce is at one with the most strenuous of its advocates, on the duty which each man owes to his family ; and again, neither of them would venture to maintain the lawful- ness of the trade, because of the miseries inflicted by it on those * On the uniformity of our moral judgments, we would refer to the 74th and 75tli of Dr. Brown's Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind. " If we hear in mind" says Sir .Tames Mackintosh, " that the question relates to the coincidence of all men in considering the same qualities as virtues, and not to the preference of one class of vii-tues by some, and of a different class by others, the exceptions from the agreement of manltind, in their systems of practical morality, will be reduced to abso- lute insignificance ; and we shall learn to view them as no more affecting die harmony of the moral faculties, than the resemblance of the limbs and features is affected by monstrous conformations, or by the unfortunate effects of accident and disease in a very few individuals." 66 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. wretched sufferers who were its victims. The defender of this ruthless and rapacious system disowns not, in sentiment at least, however much he may disown in practice, the obligations of jus- tice and humanity — nay, in all the palliations which he attempts of the enormity in question, he speaks of these as undoubted virtues, and renders the homage of his moral acknowledgments to them all. In the sophistry of his vindication, the principles of the ethical system are left untouched and entire. He meddles not with the virtuousness either of humanity or justice ; but he tells of the humanity of slavery, and the justice of slavery. It is true, that he heeds not the representations which are given of the atrocities of his trade — that he does not attend because he wills not to attend; and in this there is practical unfairness. Still it but resolves itself into perversity of conduct, and not into perversity of sentiment. The very dread and dislike he has for the informations of the subject, are symptoms of a feeling that his conscience cannot be trusted with the question ; or, in other words, prove him to be possessed of a conscience M'hich is just like that of other men. The partialities of interest and feeling may give rise to an infinite diversity of moral judgments in our estimate of actions; while there may be the most perfect uni- formity and stability of judgment in our estimate of principles : and, on all the great generalities of the ethical code. Conscience may speak the same language, and own one and the same moral directory all the world over. I'en consciences then pronounce differently of the same action, it is for the most part, or rather, it is almost always, be- cause understandings view it differently. It is either because the controversialists are regarding it with unequal degrees of knowledge ; or, each, through the medium of his own partiali- ties. The consciencies of all would come forth with the same moral decision, were all equally enlightened in the circumstan- ces, or in the essential relations and consequences of the deed in question ; and, what is just as essential to this uniformity of judgment, were all viewing it fairly as well as fully. It matters not, whether it be ignorantly or wilfully, that each is looking at this deed, but in the one aspect, or in the one relation that is favourable to his own pecuUar sentiment. In either case, the diversity of judgment on the moral qualities of the same action, is just as little to be wondered at as a similar diversity on the material qualities of the same object — should any of the spec- tators labour under an involuntary defect of vision, or volunta- rily persist either in shutting or in averting his eyes. It is thus that a quarrel has well been termed a misunderstanding, in which each of the combatants may consider, and often honestly con- ON THE SUPREMACY OP CONSCIENCE. 57 sider, himself to be in the right ; and that, on reading the hostile memorials of two parties in a litigation, we can perceive no diffe- rence in their moral principles, but only in their historical state- ments ; and that, in the public manifestoes of nations when en- tering upon war, we can discover no trace of a contrariety of conflict in their ethical systems, but only in their differently put or differently coloured representations of fact ; all proving, that, with the utmost diversity of judgment among men respecting the moral qualities of the same thing, there may be a perfect identity of structure in their moral organs notwithstanding ; and that Conscience, true to her office, needs but to be rightly in- formed, that she may speak the same language, and give forth the same lessons in all the countries of the earth. 16. It is this which explains the moral peculiarities of different nations. It is not that justice, humanity, and gratitude are not the canonized virtues of every region ; or that falsehood, cruelty, and fraud would not, in their abstract and unassociated naked- ness, be viewed as the objects of moral antipathy and rebuke. It is, that, in one and the same material action, when looked to in all the lights of which, whether in reality or by the power of imagination, it is susceptible, various, nay, opposite moral cha- racteristics may be blended ; and that while one people look to the good only without the evil, another may look to the evil only without the good. And thus the identical acts which in one nation are the subjects of a most reverent and religious obser- vance, may, in another be regarded with a shuddering sense of abomination and horror. And this, not because of any difference in what may be termed the moral categories of the two people, nor because, if moral principles in their unmixed generality were offered to the contemplation of either, either would call evil good or good evil. When theft was publicly honoured and rewarded in Sparta, it was not because theft in itself was reckoned a good thing ; but because patriotism, and dexterity, and those services by which the interests of patriotism might be supported, were reckoned to be good tilings. When the natives of Hindostan assemble with delight around the agonies of a human sacrifice, it is not because they hold it good to rejoice in a spectacle of pain ; but because they hold it good to rejoice in a spectacle of heroic devotion to the memory of the dead. When parents are exposed, or children are destroyed, it is not because it is deemed to be right that there should be the infliction of misery for its own sake ; but because it is deemed to' be right that the wretchedness of old age should be curtailed, or that the world should be saved from the miseries of an over-crowded species. In a word, in the very worst of these anomalies, some form of 58 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. good may be detected, which has led to their estabhshnient ; and still, some universal and undoubted principle of morality, how- ever perverted or misapplied, can be alleged in vindication of them. A people may be deluded by their ignorance ; or mis- guided by their superstition ; or, not only hurried into wrong deeds, but even fostered into wrong sentiments, under the influ- ences of that cupidity or revenge, which are so perpetually ope- rating in the warfare of savage or demisavage nations. Yet, in spite of all the topical moralities to which these have given birth, there is an unquestioned and universal morality notwithstanding. And in every case, where the moral sense is unfettered by these associations ; and the judgment is uncramped, either by the par- tialities of interest or by the inveteracy of national customs which habit and antiquity have rendered sacred — ^Conscience is found to speak the same language, nor, to the remotest ends of the world, is there a country or an island, where the same uniform and consistent voice is not heard from her. Let the mists of ignorance and passion and artificial education be only cleared away ; and the moral attributes of goodness and righteousness and truth be seen undistorted, and in their own proper guise ; and there is not a heart or a conscience throughout earth's teem- ing population, which could refuse to do them homage. And it is precisely because the Father of the human family has given such hearts and conscience, to all his children, that we infer these to be the very sanctities of the Godhead, the very attri- butes of his own primeval nature. 17. There is a countless diversity of tastes in the world, be- cause of the infinitely various circumstances and associations of men. Yet is there a stable and correct standard of taste not- withstanding, to which all minds, that have the benefit of culture and enlargement, are gradually assimilating and approximating. It holds far more emphatically true, that in spite of the diversity of moral judgments, which are vastly less wide and numerous than the former, there is a fixed standard of morals, rallying around itself all consciences, to the greater principles of which, a full and unanimous homage is rendered from every quarter of the globe ; and even to the lesser principles and modifications of which, there is a growing and gathering consent, with every onward step in the progress of light and civilization. In propor- tion as the understandings of men become more enlightened, do their consciences become more accordant with each other. Even now there is not a single people on the face of the earth, among whom barbarity and licentiousness and fraud are deified as virtues, — where it does not require the utmost strength, whe- ther of superstition or of patriotism in its most selfish and con- ON THE SUPREMACY OP CONSCIENCE. 59 tracted form, to uphold the delusion. Apart from these local and, we venture to hope, these temporary exceptions, the same moralities are recognized and honoured ; and, however prevalent in practice, in sentiment at least, the same vices are disowned and execrated all the world over. In proportion as superstition is dissipated, and prejudice is gradually weakened by the larger intercourse of nations, these moral peculiarities do evidently wear away ; till at length, if we may judge from the obvious tendency of things, conscience will, in the full manhood of our species, assert the universality and the unchangeableness of her decisions. There is no speech nor language, where her voice is not heard ; her line is gone out through all the earth ; and her words to the ends of the world. 18. On the whole, then, conscience, whether it be an original or a derived faculty, yet as founded on human nature, if not forming a constituent part of it, may be regarded as a faithful witness for God the author of that nature, and as rendering to his character a consistent testimony. It is not necessary, for the establishment of our particular lesson, that we should turn that which is clear into that which is controversial by our enter- ing into the scientific question respecting the physical origin of conscience, or tracing the imagined pedigree of its descent from simpler or anterior principles in the constitution of man. For, as has been well remarked by Sir James Mackintosh — " If con- science be inherent, that circumstance is, according to the com- mon mode of thinking, a sufficient proof of its title to veneration. But if provision be made, in the constitution and circumstances of all men for uniformity, producing it by processes similar to those which produce other acquired sentiments, may not our reverence be augmented by admiration of that supreme wisdom, which, in such mental contrivances, yet more highly than in the lower world of matter, accomplish mighty purposes by instruments so simple ?" It is not therefore the physical origin, but the fact, of the uniformity of conscience, wherewith is concerned the theo- logical inference that we attempt to draw from it. This as- cendant faculty of our nature, which has been so often termed the divinity within us, notwithstanding the occasional sophistry of the passions, is on the whole, representative of the Divinity above us ; and the righteousness and goodness and truth, the lessons of which it gives forth every where, may well be re- garded, both as the laws which enter into the juridical constitu- tion, and as the attributes which enter into the moral character ofGod.,.^ 19. We admit a considerable diversity of moral observation in the various countries of the earth, but without admitting any ^0 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. correspondent diversity of moral sentiment between them. When human sacrifices are enforced and applauded in one nation — this is not because of their cruelty, but notwithstanding of their cru- elty. Even there, the universal principle of humanity would be acknowledged, that it were wrong to inflict a wanton and un- called for agony on any of our fellows — but there is a local superstition which counteracts the universal principle, and over- bears it. When in the republic of Sparta, theft, instead of being execrated as a critne, was dignified into an art and an accom- pUshment, and on that footing admitted into the system of their youthful education — it was not because of its infringement on the rights of property, but notwithstanding of that infringement, and only because a local patriotism made head against the uni- versal principle, and^prgxajLaiover it. Apart from such disturb- ing forces a s these, ^t will be found that the sentiments of men ; gravitSte' to\vards one and the same standard all over the globe ; I and that, when once the obscurations of superstition and selfish- \ ness are dissipated, there will be found the same moral light in 1 every mind, a recognition of the same moral law, as the immu- / table and eternal code of righteousness for all countries and all (ages. \ The following is the noble testimony of a heathen, who tells us with equal eloquence and truth, that, even amid all the perversities of a vitiated and endlessly diversified creed, con- science sat mistress over the whole earth, and asserted the su- premacy of her own unalterable obligations. " Est quidem vera lex, recta ratio, naturae congruens, diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna, quae vocet ad officium jubendo, vetando a fraude de- terreat ; quae tamen neque probos frustra jubet aut vetat, nee ■ improbos jubendo aut vetando mo vet. Huic legi nee obrogari fas est, neque derogari ex hac aliquid licet, neque tota abrogari potest. Nee vero, aut per senatum aut per populum solvi hac lege possumus. Neque est quaerendus explanator aut interpres ejus alius. Nee erit alia lex Romas, 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 in- ventor, disceptator, lator ; cui qui non parebit, ipse se fugiet, ac naturum hominus aspernabitur, atque hoc ipso luet maximas )oeiias»_£tiam si csetera supplicia quae putantur effiigerit." 20. Such then is our first argument for the moral character of God — even the moral character of the law of conscience ; that conscience which He hath inserted among the faculties of our nature ; and armed with the felt authority of a master ; and fur- nished with sanctions for the enforcement of its dictates ; and so framed, that, apart from local perversities of the understanding ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 61 or the habits, all its decisions are on the side of righteousness. "The inference is neither a distant nor an obscure one, from the" character of such a law to the character of its law-giver. Nei- ther is it 'an inference, destroyed by the insurrection which has taken place on the part of our lower faculties, or by the actual prevalence of vice in the world. For this has only enabled con- science to come forth with another and additional demonstration of its sovereignty — just as the punishment of crime in society bears evidence to the justice of the government which is esta- blished there. In general, the inward complacency felt by the virtuous, does not so impressively bespeak the real purpose and character of this the ruling faculty in man, as do the remorse, and the terror, and the bitter dissatisfaction, wherewith the hearts of the wicked are exercised. It is true, that, by every act of iniqui- ty, outrage is done to the law of conscience ; but there is a felt reaction within which tells that the outrage is resented ; and then it is, that conscience makes most emphatic assertion of its high prerogative, when, instead of coming forth as the benign and generous dispenser of its rewards to the obedient, it comes forth like an offended monarch in the character of an avenger. Were we endowed with prophetic vision, so as to behold, among the yet undisclosed secrets of futurity, the spectacle of a judge, , and a judgment-seat, and an assembled world, and the retribu- tions of pleasure and pain to the good and to the evil ; this were fetching from afar an argument for the righteousness of God. But the instant pleasure and the instant pain wherewith con- science follows up the doings of man, brings this very argument within the limits of actual observation. Only, instead of being manifested by the light of a preternatural revelation, it is sug- gested to us by one of the most familiar certainties of experience, for in these phenomena and feelings of our own moral nature, do we behold not only a present judgment, but a present execution of the sentence. 62 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND CHAPTER II. SECOND GENERAL ARGUMENT. On the inherent Pleasure of the Virtuous, and JMisery of the Vicious Jiffeclions. 1. We are often told by moralists, that there is a native and es- sential happiness in moral worth ; and a like native and essential wretchedness in moral depravity — insomuch that the one may be regarded as its own reward, and the other as its own punish- ment. We do not always recollect that this happiness on the one hand, and this misery on the other, are each of them made up, severally of distinct ingredients ; and that thus, by mental analysis, we might strengthen our argument both for the being and the character of God. When we discover, that, into this alleged happiness of the good there enter more enjoyments than one, we, thereby obtain two or more testimonies of the divine regard for virtue ; and the proof is enhanced in the same peculiar way, that the evidence of design is, in any other department of creation, when we perceive the concurrence of so many separate and independent elements, which meet together for the produc- tion of some complex and beneficial result.* 2. We have already spoken of one such ingredient. There is a felt satisfaction in the thought of having done what we know to be right ; and, in counterpart to this complacency of self-ap- probation, there is a felt discomfort, amounting often to bitter and remorseful agony, in the thought of having done what con- science tells us to be wrong. This implies a sense of the rec- titude of what is virtuous. But without thinking of its rectitude at all, without viewing it in reference either to the law of con- science or to the law of God, with no regard to jurisprudence in the matter — there is, in the virtuous affection itself, another and a distinct enjoyment. We ought to cherish and to exercise bene- volence ; and there is a pleasure in the consciousness of doing what we ought : but beside this moral sentiment, and beside the pe- culiar pleasure appended to benevolence as moral, there is a sen- sation in the merely physical affection of benevolence ; and that sensation of itself, is in the highest degree pleasurable. The primary or instant gratification which there is in the direct and ♦See Chap, 1. 6. MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 63 immediate feeling of benevolence is one thing : the secondary or reflex gratification which there is in the consciousness of bene- volence as moral is another thing. The two are distinct of them- selves ; but the contingent union of them, in the case of every virtuous affection, gives a multiple force to the conclusion, that God is the lover, and, because so, the patron or the rewarder of virtue. He hath so constituted our nature, that in the very flow and exercise of the good affections, there shall be the oil of glad- ness. There is instant dehght in the first conception of benevo- lence. There is sustained delight in its continued exercise. There is consummated delight in the happy smiling and prosper- ous result of it. Kindness, and honesty, and truth, are, of them- selves, and irrespective of their rightness, sweet unto the taste of the inner man. Malice, envy, falsehood, injustice, irrespec- tive of their wrongness, have of themselves, the bitterness of gall and wormwood. The Deity hath annexed a high mental enjoy- ment, not to the consciousness only of good affections, but to the very sense and feeling of good affections. However closely these may follow on each other — nay, however implicated or blended together they may be at the same moment into one com- pound state of feeling ; they are not the less distinct on that ac- count, of themselves. They form two pleasurable sensations, instead of one ; and their apposition, in the case of every virtu- ous deed or virtuous desire, exhibits to us that very concurrence in the world of mind, which obtains with such frequency and ful- ness in the world of matter — affording, in every new part that is added, not a simply repeated only, but a vastly multiplied evi- dence for design, throughout all its combinations. There is a pleasure in the very sensation of virtue ; and there is a plea- sure attendant on the sense of its rectitude. These two pheno- mena are independent of each other. Let there be a certain num- ber of chances against the first in a random economy of things, and also a certain number of chances against the second. In the actual economy of things, where there is the conjunction of both phenomena — it is the product of these two numbers which represents the amount of evidence afforded by them, for a mo- ral government in the world, and a moral Governor over them. 3. In the calm satisfactions of virtue, this distinction may not be so palpable, as in the pungent and more vividly felt disqui- etudes which are attendant on the wrons affections of our nature. The perpetual corrosion of that heart, for example, which frets in unhappy peevishsness all the day long, is plainly distinct from the bitterness of that remorse which is felt, in the recollection of its harsh and injurious outbreakings on the innocent sufferers within its reach. It is saying much for the moral character of 64 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND God, that he has placed a conscience within us, which adminis- ters painful rebuke on every indulgence of a wrong affection. But it is saying still more for such being the character of our Maker — so to have framed our mental constitution, that in the very working of these bad affections there should be the pain- fulness of a felt discomfort and discordancy. Such is the make or mechanism of our nature, that it is thwarted and put out of sorts, by rage and envy, and hatred ; and this, irrespective of the adverse moral judgments which conscience passes upon them. Of themselves, they are unsavoury ; and no sooner do they enter the heart, than they shed upon it an immediate distil- lation of bitterness. Just as the placid smile of benevolence bespeaks the felt comfort of benevolence ; so, in the frown and tempest of an angry countenance, do we read the unhappiness of that man who is vexed and agitated by his own malignant af- fections — eating inwardly as they do on the vitals of his enjoy- ment. It is, therefore, that he is often styled, and truly, a self- tormentor ; or, his own worst enemy. The delight of virtue in itself, is a separate thing from the delight of the conscience which approves it. And the pain of moral evil in itself, is a sepa- rate thing from the pain inflicted by conscience in the act of condemning it. They offer to our notice two distinct ingredi- ents, both of the present reward attendant upon virtue, and of the present penalty attendant upon vice ; and so, enhance the evidence that is before our eyes, for the moral character of that administration, under which the world has been placed by its au- thor. The appetite of hunger is rightly alleged, in evidence of the care, wherewith the Deity hath provided for the v. ell-being of our natural constitution ; and the pleasurable taste of food is rightly alleged as an additional proof of the same. And so, if the urgent voice of conscience within, calling us to virtue, be al- leged in evidence of the care, wherewith the Deity hath provided for the well-being of our moral constitution ; the pleasurable taste of virtue in itself, with the bitterness of its opposite, may well be alleged as additional evidence thereof. They alike af- ford the present and the sensible tokens of a righteous adminis- tration, and so of a righteous God. 4. Our present argument is grounded, neither on the recti- titude of virtue, nor on its utihty in the grosser and more palpa- ble sense of that term — but on the immediate sweetness of it. It is the office of conscience to tell us of its rectitude. It is by experience that we learn its utility. But the sweetness of it — the dulce of virtue, as disthiguished from its utile, is a thing of instant sensation. It may be decomposed into two ingredients, with one of which conscience has to do — even the pleasure we 1 MrSERV OF VICIOUS A^TECTIONS. 65 have, when any deed or any affection of ours receives from her a favourable verdict. But it has another ingredient which forms the proper and the distinct argument that wc are now urging — even the pleasure we have in the mere rehsh of the affection itself. If it be a proof of benevolence in God, that our external organs of taste should have been so framed, as to have a liking for wholesome food ; it is no less the proof both of n benevolent and a righteous God, so to have framed our mental economy, as that right and wholesome morality should be pala- table to the taste of the inner man. Virtue is not only seen to be right — it is felt to be delicious. There is hap[)iness in the very wish to make others happy. There is a heart's ease, or a heart's enjoyment, even in the first purposes of kindness, as well as in i(s subsequent performances. There is a certain rejoicing sense of clearness in the consistency, the exactitude of justice and truth. There is a triumphant elevation of spirit in magnanimity and honour. In perfect harmony with this, there is a placid feeling of serenity and blissful contentment in gentleness and humility. There is a noble satisfaction in those victories, which, at the bidding of principle, or by the power of self-command, may have been achieved over the propensities of animal nature. There is an elate independence of soul, in the consciousness of having nothing to hide, and nothing to be ashamed of. In a word, by the constitution of our nature, each virtue has its ap- propriate charm ; and virtue, on the whole, is a fund of varied, as well as of perpetual enjoyment, to him who hath imbibed its spirit, and is under the guidance of its principles. He feels all to be health and harmony within ; and without he seems as if to breathe in an atmosphere of beauteous transparency — .proving how much the nature of man and the nature of virtue are in unison with each other. It is hunger which urges to the use of food ; but it strikingly demonstrates the care and benevolence of God, so to have framed the organ of taste, as that there shall be a superadded enjoyment in the use of it. It is conscience which urges to the practice of virtue ; but it serves to enhance the proof of a moral purpose, and therefore of a moral character in God, so to have framed our mental economy, that, in addi- tion to the felt obligation of its rightness, virtue should of itself, be so regaling to the taste of the inner man. 5. In counterpart to these sweets and satisfactions of virtue, is the essential and inherent bitterness of all that is morally evil. We repeat, that, with this particular, argument, we do not mix up the agonies of remorse. It is the wretchedness of vice in itself, not the wretchedness which we suffer because of its recollected and felt wrongness that we now speak of. It is not 6* 66 , PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND the painfulness of the compunction felt because of our angei', upon wliich we at this moment insist ; but the painfulness of the emotion itself; and the same remark applies to all the malig- nant desires of the human heart. True, it is inseparable from the very nature of a desire, that there must be some enjoyment or other, at the time of its gratification ; but, in the case of these evil affections, it is not unmixed enjoyment. The most ordinary observer of his own feelings, however incapable of an- alysis, must be sensible, even at the moment of wreaking, in full indulgence of his resentment, on the man who has provoked or injured him, that all is not perfect and entire enjoyment within ; but that, in this, and indeed in every other malignant feeling, there is a sore burden of disquietude — an mihappiness tumultuating in the heart, and visibly pictured on the counte- nance. The ferocious tyrant who has only to issue forth his mandate, and strike dead at pleasure the victim of his wrath, with any circumstance too of harbaric caprice and cruelty, which his fancy in the very waywardness of passion unrestrained and power unbounded might suggest to him — he may be said to have experienced through life a thousand gratifications, in the solaced rage and revenge, which, though ever breaking forth on some new subject, he can appease again every day of his hfe by some new execution. But we mistake it if we think otherwise than that, in spite of these distinct and very numerous nay daily grati- fications if he so choose, it is not a life of fierce internal agony notwithstanding. It seems indispensable to the nature of every desire, and to form part indeed of its very idea, that there should be a distinctly felt pleasure, or at least, a removal at the time of a distinctly felt pain, in the act of its fulfilment. — yet, whatever re- creation or rehef may have thus been rendered, v.ithout doing away the misery often in the whole amount of it the intense misery, inflicted upon man by the evil propensities of his nature. Who can doubt for example the unhappiness of the habitual drunk- ard? and that, although the ravenous appetite, by which he is driven along a stormy career, meets every day, almost every hour of the day, with the gratification that is suited to it. The same may be equally affirmed of the volv.ptuary, or of the depre- dator, or of the extortioner, or of the liar. Each may succeed in the attainment of his specific object ; and we cannot possibly dis- join from the conception of success the conception of some sort of pleasure — yet in perfect consistency, we affirm, with a sad and hea.vy burthen of unpleasantness or unhappiness on the whole. He is little conversant with our nature who does not know of many a passion belonging to it, that it may be the instrument of many pleasurable, nay delicious or exquisite sensations, and MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 67 yet be a wretched passion still ; the domineering tyrant of a bondsman, who at once knows himself to be degraded, and feels himself to be unhappy. A sense of guilt is one main in- gredient of this misery — yet physically^ and notwithstanding the pleasure or the relief inseparable at the moment from every in- dulgence of the passions, there are other sensations of bitter- ness, which of themselves, and apart from remorse, would cause the suffering to preponderate. 6. There is an important discrimination made by Bishop Butler in his sermons ; and, by the help of which, this phenomenon, of apparent contradiction or mystery in our nature, may be satisfac- torily explained. He distinguishes between the final object of any of our desires, and the pleasure attendant on or rather inseparable from its gratification. The object is not the pleasure, though the pleasure be an unfailing and essential accompaniment on the attainment of the object. This is well illustrated by the appe- tite of hunger, of which it were more proper to say that it seeks for food, than that it seeks for the pleasure which there is in eating (he food. The food is the object ; the pleasure is the accom- paniment. We do not here speak of the distinct and secondary pleasure which there is in the taste of food, but of that other pleasure which strictly and properly attaches to the gratification of the appetite of hunger. This is the pleasure, or relief, which accompanies the act of eating ; while the ultimate object, the object in Avhich the appetite rests and terminates, is the food itself. The same is true of all our special affections. Each has a proper and peculiar o])ject of its own, and the mere plea- sure attendant on the prosecution or the indulgence of the affec- tion is not, as has been clearly established by Butler and fully reasserted by Dr. Thomas Brown-, is not that object. The two are as distinct from each other, as a thing loved is distinct from the pleasure of loving it. Every special inclination has its spe- cial and counterpart object. The object of the inclinalion is one thing ; the pleasure of gratifying the inclination is another; and, in most instances, it were more proper to say, that it is for the sake of the object than for the sake of the pleasure that the in- clination is gratified. The distinction that we now urge, though felt to be a subtle, is truly a substantial one ; and pregnant, both with important principle and important a[)plication. The dis- covery and clear statement of it by Butler may well be regarded as the highest service rendered by any philosopher to moral science ; and that, from the light which it casts, both on the pro- cesses of the human constitution and on the theory of virtue. As one example of the latter service, the principle in question, so plainly and convincingly unfolded by this great Christian phi- 68 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND losopher in his sermon on the love of our neighbour, strikes, and with most conckisive effect, at the root of the selfish system of morals ; a system which professes that man's sole object, in the practice of all the various morahties, is his own individual advantage. Now, in most cases of a special, and more particu- larly of a virtuous affection, it can be demonstrated, that the ob- ject is a something out of himself and distinct from himself. Take compassion for one instance out of the many. The object of this affection is the relief of another's misery, and, in the fulfilment of this, does the affection meet with its full solace and gratification ; that is, in a something altogether external from himself. It is true, that there is an appropriate pleasure in the indulgence of this affection, even as there is in the indulgence of every other ; and in proportion, too, to the strength of the affec- tion, will be the greatness of the pleasure. The man who is doubly more compassionate than his fellow, will have doubly a greater enjoyment in the relief of misery ; yet that, most assur- edly, not because he of the two is the more intently set on his own gratification, but because he of the two is the more intently set on an outward accomplishment, the relief of another's wretch- edness. The truth is, that, just because more compassionate than his fellow, the more intent is he than the other on the object of this affection, and the less intent is he than the other on him- self the subject of this affection. His thoughts and feelings are more drawn away/o the sufferer, and therefore more drawn away from himself. He is the most occupied with (he object of this affection ; and, on that very account, the least occupied with the pleasure of its indulgence. And it is precisely the objective quality of these regards, which stamps upon compassion the character of a disinterested affection. He surely is the most compassionate whose thoughts and feelings are most drawn away to the sufferer, and most drawn away from self; or, in other words, most taken up with the direct consideration of him who is the object of this affection, and least taken up with the reflex consideration of the pleasure that he himself has in the indulgence of it. Yet this prevents not the pleasure from being actually felt ; and felt, too, in very proportion to the intensity of the com- passion ; or, in other words, more felt the less it has been thought of at the time, or the less it has been pursued for its own sake. It seems unavoidable in every affection, that, the more a thing is loved, the greater must be the pleasure of indulging the love of it: yet it is equally unavoidable, that the greater in that case will be our aim towards the object of the affection, and the less will be our aim towards the pleasure which accompanies its gratificatjon. And thus, to one who reflects profoundly and MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 69 carefully on these things, it is no paradox that he who has had doubly greater enjoyment than another in the exercise of com- passion, is doubly the more disinterested of the two ; that he has had the most pleasure in this affection who has been the least careful to please himself with the indulgence of it ; that he whose virtuous desires, as being the strongest, have in their gratifica- tion ministered to self the greatest satisfaction, has been the least actuated of all his fellows by the wishes, and stood at the greatest distance from the aims of selfishness.* 7. And moreover, there is a just and philosophical sense, in which many of our special affections, besides the virtuous, are alike disinterested with these ; even though they have been commonly ranked among the selfish affections of our nature. The proper object of self-love is the good of self; and this calm general regard to our own happiness may be considered, in fact, as the only interested affection to which our nature is compe- tent. The special affections are, one and all of them, distinct from self-love, both in their objects, and in the real psycho- logical character of the affections themselves. The object of the avaricious affection is the acquirement of wealth ; of the re- sentful, the chastisement of an offender; of the sensual, some- thing appropriate or suited to that corporeal affection which forms the reigning appetite at the time. In none of these, is the good of self the proper discriminative object of the affection; and the mind of him who is under their power, and engaged in their pro- secution, is differently employed, from the mind of him, who, at the time, is either devising or doing aught for the general or ab- stract end of his own happiness. None of these special affec- tions is identical with the affection which has happiness for its '•hject. So far from this, the avaricious man often, conscious "t'the strength of his propensity, and at the moment of being urged forward by it to new speculations, acknowledges in his heart, that he would be happier far, could he but moderate its violence, and be satisfied with a humbler fortune than that to which his aspirations would carry him. And the resentful man, in the very act of being tempest driven to some furious onset against the person who has affronted or betrayed him, may yet be sensible that, instead of seeking for any benefit to himself, he is rushing on the destruction of his character, or fortune, or even life. And many is the drunkard who under the goadings of an appetite which he cannot withstand, in place of self-love being the principle, and his own greatest happiness the object, knows himself to be on the road to inevitable ruin. There is * The purely disinterested character of aright religious affection might be proved by these considerations. 70 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND an affection which has happiness for its object ; but this is not the affection which rules and has the ascendency in any of these instances. These are all special affections, grounded on the affinities which obtain between certain objects and certain parts of human nature ; and which cannot be indulged beyond a given extent, without distemper and discomfort to the whole nature ; so that, in spite of all the particular gratifications which follow in their train, the man over whom they tyrannize may be un- happy upon the whole. The very distinction between the affec- tion of self-love and the special affections proves that there is a corresponding distinction in their objects ; and this again, that many of the latter may be gratified, while the former is disap- pointed, — or, in other words, that, along with many particular enjoyments the general state of man may be that of utter and extreme wretchedness. It is therefore a competent question, what those special affections are, which most consist with the general happiness of the mind ; and this, notwithstanding that they all possess one circumstance in common — the unavoidable pleasure appendant to the gratification of each of them.* 8. This explanation will help us to understand wherein it is that the distinction in point of enjoyment, between a good and an evil affection of our nature properly lies. For there is a cer- tain species of enjoyment common to them all. It were a con- tradiction in terms to affirm otherwise ; for it were tantamount to saying, that an affection may be gratified, Mithout the actual experience of a gratification. There must be some sensation or * The following are the clear and judicious observations of Sir James Mackintosh on this subject : — " In contending, therefore, that the benevolent affections are disinterested, no more is claimed for them than must be granted to mere animal appetites and to malevolent passions. Each of these principles alike seeks its own object, for the sake simply of obtaining it. Pleasure is the result of the attainment, but no separate part of the aim of the agent. The desire that another person may be gratified, seeks that outward object alone, according to the general course of human desire. Resentment is as disinterested as gratitude or pity, but not more so. Hunger or thirst may be as much as the purest benevolence, at variance with self-love, A regard to our own general happiness is not a vice, but in itself an excellent quality. It were well if it prevailed more generally over craving and shortsighted appetites. The weakness of the social affections, and the strength of the private desires, properly constitute selfishness ; a vice utterly at variance with the happiness of him who harbours it, and as such, con- demned by self-love. There are as few who attain the greatest satisfaction to them- selves, as who do the greatest good to others. It is absurd to say with some, that the pleasure of benevolence is selfish, because it is felt by self. Understanding and rea- soning are acts of self, for no man can think by proxy ; but no man ever called them selfish, why ? Evidently because they do not regard self. Precisely the same reason applies to benevolence. Such an argument is a gross confusion of self, as it is a subject of feeling or thought, with self considered as the object of either. It is no more just to refer the private appetites to self-love because they commonly promote happiness, than it would be to refer them to self-hatred, in those frequent cases where their gratification obstructs it." / MISERY OF VICIOUS ArFECTlONS. 71 Other of happiness, at the time when a man obtains that which he is seeking for ; and if it be not a positive sensation of pleasure, it will at least be the sensation of a relief from pain, as when one meets with the opportunity of wreaking upon its object, that in- dignation which had long kept his heart in a tumult of disquietude. We therefore would mistake the matter, if we thought, that a state even of thorough and unqualified wickedness was exclusive of all enjoyment — for even the vicious affections must share in that enjoyment, which inseparably attaches to every affection, at the moment of its indulgence. And thus it is, that even in the veriest Pandemonium, might there be lurid gleams of ecstacy, and shouts of fiendish exultation — the merriment of desperadoes in crime, who send forth the outcries of their spiteful and savage delight, when some deep-laid villany has triumphed ; or when in some dire perpetration of revenge, they have given full satisfaction and discharge to the malignity of their acursed nature. The asser- tion therefore may be taken too generally, when it is stated, that there is no enjoyment whatever in the veriest hell of assembled outcasts ; for even there, might there be many separate and spe- cific gratifications. And we must abstract the pleasure essen- tially involved in every affection, at the instant of its indulgence, and which cannot possibly be disjoined from it, ere we see clearly and distinctively wherein it is that, in respect of enjoy- ment, the virtuous and vicious affections differ from each other. For it is true, that there is a common resemblance between them ; and that, by the universal law and nature of affection, there must be some sort of agreeable sensation, in the act of their obtaining that which they are seeking after. Yet it is no less true, that, did the former affections bear supreme rule in the heart, they would brighten and tranquillize the whole of human existence — whereas, had the latter the entire and practical ascendency, they would distemper the whole man, and make him as completely wretched as he were completely worthless. 9. There is one leading difference then between a virtuous and a vicious affection — that there is always a felt sweetness in the very presence and contact of the former ; whereas, in the presence and contact of the latter, there is generally or very often at least, a sensation of bitterness. Let them agree as they may in the undoubted fact of a gratification in the attainment of their respective ends, the affections themselves may be long in exis- tence and operation before their ends are arrived at ; and then it is, we affirm, that if compared, there will be found a wide distinc- tion and dissimilarity between them. The very feeling of kind- ness is pleasant to the heart ; and the very feeling of anger is a painful and corrosive one. The latter, we know, is often said 72 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND to be a mixed feeling — because of both the pleasure and the pain which are said to enter into it. But it will be found that the pleasure, in this case, hes in the prospect of a full and final gratification ; and very often, in a sort of current or partial gra- tification which one may experience beforehand, in the mere vent or utterance by words, of the labouring violence that is within — seeing that words of bitterness, when discharged on the object of our wrath, are sometimes the only, and even the most effective executioners of all the vengeance that we meditate ; besides that by their means, we may enlist in our favour the grateful sympa- thy of other men — thus obtaining a solace to ourselves, and aggravating the punishment of the offender, by exciting against him, in addition to our own hostility, the hostile indignation of his fellows. And thus too is it, that, in the case of anger, there may not only be a completed gratification at the last, by the in- fliction of a full and satisfactory chastisement ; but a gratification, as it were by instalments, with every likely purpose of retaliation that we may form in our bosoms, and every sentence of keen and reproacliful eloquence that may fall from our lips. And so anger has been affirmed to be a mixed emotion, from confound- ing the pleasure that lies in the gratification of the emotion, with the pleasure that is supposed to lie in the feeling of the emotion. But the truth is, that, apart from the gratification, the emotion is an exceedingly painful one — insomuch that the gratification mainly lies in the removal of a pain, or in the being ridded of a felt uneasiness. Compassion may in the same way be termed a mixed feeling. But on close attention to these two affections and comparison between them, it will be found, that all the plea- sure of anger lies in its gratification, and all the pain of it in the feeling itself — whereas all the pain of compassion lies in the dis- appointment of its gratification, while in the feeling itself there is nought but pleasure. Let the respective gratifications of these two affections — the one, by the fulfilled retahation of a wrong ; the other, by the fulfilled relief of a suffering — let these gratifica- tions be put out of notice altogether, that we might but attend to the yet ungratified feelings themselves : and we cannot imagine a greater difference of state between two minds, than that of one which luxuriates in the tenderness of compassion, and that of another which breathes and is infuriated with the dark passions and the still darker purposes of resentment. Or we may appeal to the experience of the same mind, which at one time may have its hour of meditated kindness, and at another its hour of medi- tated revenge. We speak of these two, not in the moment of their respective triumphs, not of the sensations attendant on the success of each — but of the direct and instant sensations which lie MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 73 in the feelings themselves. They form two as distinct states in the moral world, as sunshine and tempest are iii the physical world. We have but to name the elements which enter into the composition of each, in order to suggest the utter contrariety which obtains between them — between the calm and placid cheer- fulness on the one hand of that heart which is employed in con- ceiving the generous wishes, or in framing the liberal and fruitful devices of benevolence ; and, on the other hand, the turbulence and fierce disorder of the same heart, when burning disdain, or fell and implacable hatred has taken possession of it — the reaction of its own affronted pride, or aggrieved sense of the injury which has been done to it. 10. But perhaps the most favourable moment for comparison between them, is when each is frustrated of its peculiar aim ; and so each is sent back upon itself, with that common suffer- ing to which all the affections are liable — the suffering of a dis- appointment. We shall be at no loss to determine on which side the advantage lies, if we have either felt or witnessed be- nevolence in tears, because of the misery which it cannot alle- viate ; and rage, in the agonies of its defeated impotence, be- cause of the haughty or successful defiance of an enemy, whom with vain hostility it has tried to assail, but cannot reach. We have the example of a good affection under disappointment, in the case of virtuous grief or virtuous indignation ; and of a bad affection under disappointment, in the case of envy, when, in £pite of every attempt to calumniate or depress its object, he shines forth to universal acknowledgment and ^plause, in all the lustre of his vindicated superiority. It marks how distinct these two sets of feelings are from each other, that, with the former, even under the pain of disappointment, there is a some- thing in the very taste and quality of the feelings themselves, which acts as an emollient or a charm, and mitigates the pain- fulness — while, with the latter, there is nought to mitigate, but every thing to exasperate, and more fiercely to agonize. The malignant feelings are no sooner turned iuMardly, by the arrest of a disappointment from without, than they eat inwardly ; and, when foiled in the discharge of their purposed violence upon others, they recoil — and, without one soothing ingredient to calm the labouring effervescence, they kindle a hell in the heart of the unhappy owner. Internally, there is a celestial peace and satisfaction in virtue, even though in the midst of its out- v»ord discomfiture, it be compelled to weep over the unredressed wrongs and sufferings of humanity. On the other hand, the very glance of disappointed malevolence, bespeaks of this evil affection, that, of itself, it is a fierce and fretting distemper of the 7 74 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND soul, an executioner of vengeance for all the guilty passions it may have fanned into mischievous activity, and for all the crimes it may have instigated. 11. And this contrast between a good and an evil affection, this superiority of the former to the latter is fully sustained, when, instead of looking to the state of mind which is left by the dis- appointment of each, we look to the state of mind which is left by their respective gratifications — the one a state of sated com- passion, the other of sated resentment. There is one most observable distinction between the states of feeling, by which an act of compassion on the one hand, and of resentment on the other, are succeeded. It is seldom that man feasts his eyes on that spectacle of prostrate suffering which, in a moment of fury, he hath laid at his feet ; in the same way that he feasts his eyes on that picture of family comfort which smiles upon him from some cottage home, that his generosity had reared. This looks as if the sweets of benevolence were lasting, whereas the sweets of revengeful malice, such as they are, are in general but mo- mentary. An act of compassion may extinguish for a time the feeling of compassion, by doing away that suffering which is the object of it; but then it generally is followed up by a feeling of permanent regard. An act of revenge, when executed to the full extent of the desire or purpose, does extinguish and put an end to the passion of revenge; and is seldom, if ever, followed up by a feeling of permanent hatred. An act of kindness but attaches the more, and augments a friendly disposition towards its object, rf were both untrue in itself, and unfair to our na- ture to say, that an act of revenge but exasperates the more, and always augments, or even often augments, a hostile dispo- sition towards its object. It has been said that wc hate the man whom we have injured: but whatever the truth of this observa- tion may be, certain it is, that we do not so hate the man of whom we have taken full satisfaction for having injured us ; or, if we could imagine aught so monstrous, and happily so rare, as the prolonged, the yet unquelled satisfaction of one, who could be regaled for hours with the sighs of him whom his own hands had wounded ; or, for months and years, with the pining destitu- tion of the household whom himself had impoverished and brought low; this were because the measure of the revenge had not equalled the measure of the felt provocation, only perhaps to be appeased and satiated by death. This, at length, would ter- minate the emotion. And here a new insight opens upon us into the distinction between a good and a bad affection. Benevo- lence, itself of immortal quality, would immortalize its objects: ir.aitgnity, if not appeased by an infliction short of death, would MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 75 destroy them.* The one is ever stiengthening itself upon old objects, and fastening upon new ones ; the other is ever extin- guishing its resentment towards old objects by the pettier acts of chastisement, or, if nothing short of a capital punishment will appease it, by dying with their death. The exterminating blow, the death which "clears all scores" — this forms the natm-al and necessary limit even to the fiercest revenge ; Avhereas, the outgoings of benevolence are quite indefinite. In revenge, the affection is successively extinguished ; and, if returned, it is upon new objects. In benevolence, the affection is kept up for old objects, while ever open to excitement from new ones; and hence a hving and a multiplying power of enjoyment, which is peculiarly its own. On the same princi})lo that we water a shrub just because we had planted it, does our friendship grow and ripen the more towards him on whom we had formerly exer- cised it. The affection of kindness for each individual object survises the act of kindne.ss, or, rather, is strengthened by the act. Whatever sweetness may have been originally in it, is en- hanced by the exercise ; and, so far from being stifled by the first gratification, it lemains in greater freshness than ever for higher and larger gratitications than before. It is the perennial quality of their gratification, which stamps that superiority ou the good affections, we are now contending for. Benevolence both perpetuates itself upon its old objects, and expands itself into a wider circle as it meets with new ones. Not so with re- venge, which generally disposes of the old object by one gratifi- cation ; and then must transfer itself to a new object, ere it can meet with another gratification. I^et us grant that each affection has its peculiar walk of enjoyment. The history of the one walk presents us with a series of accumulations ; (he history of the other with a series of extinctions. 12. But in dwelling on this beautiful peculiarity, by which a good affection is distinguished from a bad one, we are in danger of weakening our immediate argument. We bring forward the matter a great deal too favourably for the malignant desires of the human heart, if, while reasoning on the supposition of an enjoyment, however transitory in their gratification, we give any room for the imagination that even this is unmixed enjoyment. We have already stated, that, of themselves and anterior to their gratification, there is a painfulness in these desires ; and that when by their gratification we get quit of this painfulness, we might after all obtain little more than a relief from misery. But the truth is, that, generally speaking, we obtain a great deal less * So true it is, that he who hateth his brother with implacable hatred is a mur- derer. 76 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND on the side of nappiness than this ; for, in most cases, all that we obtain by tho gratification of a malignant passion, is but the exchange of one misery for another ; and this apart still from the remorse of an evil perpetration. There is one familiar in- stance of it, which often occurs in conversation — when, piqued by something offensive in the remark or manner of our fellows, we react with a severity which humbles and overwhelms him. In this case, the pain of the resentment is succeeded by the pain we feel in the spectacle of that distress which ourselves have created : and this, too, aggravated perhaps by the reprobation of all the by-standers, affording thereby a miniature example of the painful alternations which are constantly taking place in the his- tory of moral evil ; when the misery of wrong affections is but replaced, to the perpetrator himself, by the misery of the wrong actions to which they have hurried him. It is thus that a life of frequent gratification may, notv.ithstanding, be a life of in- tense wretchedness. It may help our imagination of such a state, to conceive of one, subject every hour to the agonies of hunger, with such a mal-conformation at the same time in his organ of taste, that, in food of every description, he felt a bitter and universal nausea. There were here a constant gratification, yet a constant and severe endurance — a mere alternation of cruel sufferings — the displacement of one set of agonies, by the substitution of other agonies in their room. This is seldom, perhaps never realized in the physical world ; but in the moral world it is a great and general phenomenon. The example shows at least the possibility of a constitution, under which a series of incessant gratifications may be nothing better than a restless succession of distress and disquietude ; and that such should be the constitution of our moral nature as to make a life of vice a life of vanity and cruel vexation, is strong experi- mental evidence of Him who ordained this constitution, that He hateth iniquity, that He loveth righteousness. 13. But the peculiarity which we have been incidentally led to notice, is, in itself, pregnant with inference also. We should augur hopefully of the final issues of our moral constitution, as well as conclude favourably of Him who hath ordained it — when we find its workings to be such, that, on the one hand, the feel- ing of kindness towards an individual object, not only survives, but is indefinitely strengthened by the acts of kindness; and, on the other hand, that, not only does an act of revenge satiate and put an end to the feeling of revenge, but even, that certain acts of hostility towards the individual object of our hatred will make us relent from this hatred, and at length extinguish it al- together. May we not perceive in this economy a balance in MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 77 point of tendency, and ailength of ultimate effect on the side of virtue ? May it not wainant the expectation, that, wliile bene- volence, that great conservative principle of being-, has in it a principle conservative of itself cas well as of its objects, the out- breakings of evil are but partial and temporary ; and that the moral world, viewed as a progressive system and now only in its transition state, has been so constructed as to secure both the j)crpetuity of all the good afiections and the indefinite expansion of them to ncAV objects and over a larger and ever-widening territory ? At all events, whatever reason there may be to fear, that, in the future arrangements of nature and providence, both virtue and vice will be capable of immortality — we might gather from what passes under our eyes, in this rudimental and incipient stage of human existence, that even with our present constitution virtue alone is capable of a blissful immortality. For malice and falsehood carry in them the seeds of their own wretchedness, if not of their own destruction. Only grant the soul to be imperishable ; and if the character of the governor is to be gathered from the final issues of the government over which he presides — it says much for the moral character of Him who framed us, that, unless there be an utter reversal of the na- ture which Himself has given, then, in respect to the power of conferring enjoyment or of maintaining the soul in its healthiest and happiest mood, it is righteousness alone which eiidureth for ever, and charity alone which never faileth. 14. And beside taking account of the special enjoyments wliich attach to the special virtues, we might observe on the gen- eral state of that mind, which, under the consistent and compre- hensive prhiciple of being or doing what it ought, studies rightly to acquit itself of all the moral obligpiions. Beside the perpe- tual feast of an approving conscience, and the constant recur- rence of those particular gratifications which attach to the indul- gence of every good affection, — is it not quite obvious of every mind which places itself under a supreme regimen of morality, that then, it is in its best possible condition with regard to enjo}- ment : like a- well strung instrument, in right and proper tone, because all its parts are put in right adjustment with each other ? If conscience be indeed the superior faculty of our nature, then, every time it is cast down from this pre-eminence, there must be a sensation of painful dissonance ; and the whole man feels out of sorts, as one unhinged or denaturalized. This perhaps is the main reason that a state of well-doino; stands associated ^^ith a state of well-being ; and why the special virtur of temperance is not more closely associated with the health of the body, than the general habit of virtue is with a wholesome and well-conditioned 7* 78 PLEASURE OF VIRTUOUS, AND state of the soul. There is then no derangement as it were in the system of our nature — all the powers, whether superior or subordinate, being in their right places, and all moving without discord and without dislocation. It were anticipating our argu- ment, did we refer at present to the confidence and regard wherewith a virtuous man is surrounded in the world. We have not yet spoken of the adaptations to man's moral constitution from without, but only of the inward pleasures and satisfactions which are yielded in the workings of the constitution itself. And surely when we find it to have been so constructed and at- tuned by its maker, that, in all the movements of virtue there is a felt and grateful harmony, wliile a certain jaiTing sense of vio- lence and discomposure ever attends upon the opposite — we cannot imagine how the moral character of that being who Him- self devised this constitution and established all its tendencies, can be more clearly or convincingly read, than in phenomena like these. 15. We have already said that the distinction so well estab- lished by Butler, between the object of our affection and its ac- companying, nay, inseparable pleasure, was the most effectual argument that could be brought to bear against the selfish sys- tem of morals. The virtuous affection that is in a man's breast simply leads him to do w^hat he ought ; and in that object he rests and terminates. Like every other affection, there must be a pleasure conjoined with the prosecution of it ; and at last a full and final gratification in the attainment of its object. But the object must be distinct from the pleasure, which itself is founded on a prior suitableness betweeen the mind and its object. When a man is actuated by a vntuous desire ; it is the virtue itself that he is seeking, and not the gratification that is in it. His single object is to be or to do rightly — though, the more intent he is up- on this object, the greater will, the greater must be his satisfac- tion if he succeed in it. Nevertheless, it is not the satisfaction which he is seeking ; it is the object Mhich yields the satisfac- tion — the object too for its own sake, and not for the sake of its accompanying or its resulting enjoyment. Nay, the more strongly and therefore the more exclusively set upon virtue for its own sake ; the less will he thinii of its enjoyment, and yet the greater will his actual enjoyment be. In other words, vir- tue, the more disinterested it is, is the more prolific of happiness to him who follows it ; and then it is, that, when freed from all the taints of mercenary selfishness, it yields to its votary the most perfect and supreme enjoyment. Such is the constitution of our nature, that virtue loses not its disinterested character ; and yet man loses not his reward ; and the author of this consti,- MISERY OF VICIOUS AFFECTIONS. 79 tution, He who hath ordained all its laws and its consequences, has given signal proof of His own supreme regard for virtue, and therefore, of the supreme virtue of His own character, in that He hath so framed the creatures of His will, as that their perfect goodness and perfect happiness are at one. Yet the union of these does not constitute their unity. The union is a contingent appointment of the Deity ; and so is at once the evidence and the effect of the goodness that is in His own nature. 16. This then is our second general argument for the moral character of God, grounded on the moral constitution of man ; and prior, as yet, to any view of its adaptation to external nature. It is distinct from the first argument, as grounded on the pheno- mena of conscience, which assumes the office of judge within the breast, all whose decisions are on the side of benevolence and justice ; and which is ever armed with a certain power of enforcement, both in the pains of remorse and the pleasures of self-approbation. These, however, are distinct and ought to be distinguished from the direct pleasures of virtue in itself, and the direct pains of vice in itself, which form truly separate ingre- dients, on the one hand of a present and often very painful cor- rection, on the other hand, of a present and very precious reward. CHAPTER III. THIRD GENERAL ARGUMENT. The Power and Operation of Habit. 1. We have as yet beeu occupied with what may be termed the instant sensations, wherewith moraUty is beset in the mind of man — witli the voice of conscience which goes immediateJy before, or with tlie sentence whether of approval or condemna- tion, which comes immediately after it ; and latterly, with those states of feeling which are experienced at the moment when under the power of those affections, to which any moral desig- nation, be it of virtue or vice, is applicable — the pleasure which there is in the very presence and contact of the one, the distaste, the bitterness which there is in the presence and contact of the other. 2. These phenomena of juxtaposition, as they may be termed ; these contiguous antecedents and consequents of the moral and the immoral in man, speak strongly the purpose of Him who ordained our mental constitution, in having inserted there such a constant power of command and encouragement on the side of the former, and a like constant operation of checks and dis- couragement against the latter. But, perhaps, something more may be collected of the design and character of God, by stretch- ing forward our observation prospectively in the history of man, and so extending our regards to the more distant consequences of virtue or vice, both on the frame of his character and the state of his enjoyments. By studying these posterior results, we ap- jiroximate our views towards the final issues of that administra- tion under which we are placed. That defensive apparatus, wherewith the embryo seed of plants is guarded and protected, might indicate a special care or design in the preserver of it. What that design particularly is comes to be clearly and cer- tainly known, when, in the future history of the plant, we learn what the functions of the seed are, after it has come to maturity ; and then observe, that, had it been suffered universally to perish, it would have led, — not to the mortality of the individual, for that is already an inevitable law, but to the extinction and mor- tality of the species. 3. For tracing forward man's moral history, or the changes which take place in his moral state, it is necessary that we should POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 81 advert to the influence of habit. Yet it is not properly the philo- sophy of habit wherewith our argument is concerned, but with the leading facts of its practical operation. A beneficial effect might still remain an evidence of the divine goodness, by what- ever steps it should be efficiently or physically brought about — its power in this way depending not on the question how it is, but on the fact that so it is. It were really, therefore, deviating from our own strict and pertinent line of enquiry, did we stop to discuss the philosophic theory of habit, or suspend our own in- dependent reasoning till that theory was settled — beside most unwisely and unnecessarily attacliing to our theme, all the dis- credit of an obscure or questionable speculation. It is with pal- pable and sure results both in the material and mental world, more than with the recondite processes in either, that theism has chiefly to do ; ' and it is by the former more than by the latter that the cause of theism is upholden. 4. We might only observe, in passing, that the modification introduced by Dr. Thomas Brown into the theory of habit, was perhaps uncalled for, even for the accomplishment of his own purpose, which was to demonstrate that it required no peculiar or original law of the human constitution to account for its phe- nomena. He resolves, and we are disposed to think rightly, the whole operation of habit into the law of suggestion — only, he would extend that law to states of feelings, as well as to thoughts or states of thoughts.* We are all aware that if two objects have been seen or thought of together on any former occasion, then the thought of one of them is apt to suggest the thought of the other, and the more apt the more frequently that the suggestion has taken place — insomuch, that, if the suggestion have taken place very often, we shall find it extremely difficult, if not im- possible, to break the succession between the thought which suggests and the thought which is suggested by it. Now Dr. Brown has conceived it necessary to extend this principle to feelings as well as thoughts — insomuch, that, if on a former oc- casion a certain object have l^een followed up by a certain feel- * The following is the passage taken from his forty-third lecture, in which Dr. Brown seems to connect fueling with feeling by the same mental law which connects thought with tiiought. " To explain the influence of habit in increasing the tendency to certain actions I must remark — what I have already more than once repeated — that the suggesting influence which is usually expressed in the phrase association of ideas, though that very improper phrase would seem to limit it to our ideas or concep- tions only, and has unquestionably produced a mistaken belief of this partial operation of a general influence — is not limited to those more than to any other states of mind, but occurs also with equal force in other feelings, which are not commonly termed ideas or conceptions ; that our desires or other emotions, for example, may, like them, form a part of our trains of suggestion," &c. See another equally ambiguous passage in his sixty-fourth lecture. 82 POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. ing, or even if one feeling have been followed up by another, then the thought of the object introduces the feeling, or the one feeling introduces the other feeling into the mind, on the same principle that thought introduces thought. Now we should ra- ther be inclined to hold that thought introduces feeling, not in consequence of the same law of suggestion whereby thought introduces thought, but in virtue of the direct power which lies in the object of the thought to excite that feeling. When a vo- luptuous object awakens a voluptuous feeling, this is not by sug- gestion, but by a direct influence of its own. When the picture of that voluptuous object awakens the same voluptuous feeling, we would not ascribe it to suggestion, but still put it down to the power of the object, whether presented or only represented, to awaken certain emotions. And as little would we ascribe the excitement of the feeling to suggestion, but still to the direct and original power of the object — though it were pictured to us only in thought, instead of being pictured to us in visible imagery. In like manner, when the thought of an injury awakens in us anger, even as the injury itself did at the moment of its infliction, we should not ascribe this to that peculiar law which is termed the law of suggestion, and which undoubtedly connects thought with thought. But we should ascribe it wholly to that law which connects an object with its appropriate emotion — whether that object be present to the senses, or have only been recalled by the memory and is present to the thoughts. We sustain an in- jury, and we feel resentment in consequence, without, surely, the law of suggestion having had aught to do with the sequence. We see the aggressor afterwards, and our anger is revived against him, and with this particular succession the law of suggestion has certainly had to do — not, however, in the way of thought sug- gesting feeling, but only in the way of thought suggesting thought. In truth it is a succession of three terms. The sight of the man awakens a recollection of the injury ; and the thought of the in- jury awakens the emotion. The first sequence, or that which obtains between the first and second term, is a pure instance of the suggestion of thought by thought, or, to speak in the old lan- guage, of the association of ideas. The second sequence, or that which obtains between the middle and last term, is still. Dr. Brown would say, an instance of suggestion, but of thought sug- gesting the feeling wherewith it was formerly accompanied. Whereas, in our apprehension, it is due, not to the law of sug- gestion but to the law which connects an object, whether present at the time or thought upon afterwards, with its counterpart emo- tion. Still the result is the same, however differently accounted for. One can think, surely, of the resentment which now oc- POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 83 cupies him, as well as he can think of a past resentment — indeed it is difficult to imagine how he can feel a resentment without thinking of it. Let some one thought, then, by the proper law of suggestion, have introduced the thought of an injury that had been done to us ; this second thought introduces the feeling of resentment, not by the law of suggestion, but by the law which relates an object, whether present or thought upon, to its appro- priate emotion ; this emotion is thought upon, and, not the emo- tion, but the thought of the emotion recalls the thought of the first emotion that was felt at the original infliction of the injury ; and this thought again recalls to us the thought of the injury itself, and perhaps the thought of other or similar injuries, which, as at the first, excites anew the feeling of anger, but, at this par- ticular step, by means of a law different trom that of suggestion, even the law of our emotions, in virtue of which, certain objects, when present in any way to the cognizance of the understanding, awaken certain sensibilities in the heart. It is thus that thoughts and feelings might reciprocally introduce each other, not bv means of but one law of suggestion extending in common to them both, but by the intermingling of two laws in this repeating or circulating process, — even the law of suggestion, acting only upon the thoughts ; and the law of emotion, by which certain objects, when presented to the senses or to the memory, have the power to awaken certain correspondent emotions. We in this way get quit of the mysticism which attaches to the notion of mere feelings either suggesting or being suggested by other feelings, separately from thoughts — more especially when, by the association of thoughts or of ideas alone, and the direct power which lies in the objects of these ideas to awaken certain emo- tions, all the phenomena are capable of being explained. A cer- tain thought or object may suggest the thought of a former pro- vocation; this thought might excite a feeling of resentment; the resentment, thus felt or thought u})on, might send back the mind to a still more vivid impression of its original caut e ; and this again might prolong or waken the resentment anew, and in greater freshness than before. The ultimate effect might be a fierce and fiery effervescence of irascible feehng. Yet not by the operation of one law, but of two distinct laws in the human constitution ; the first that, in virtue of which, thoughts suggest thoughts ; the second that, in virtue of which, the object thus thought upon awakens the emotion that is suited to it. 5. But though for once we have thus adverted to the strict philosophy of the subject, it will be apparent, that, in this in- stance, it is of no practical necessity for the purposes of our argu- ment ; and it is truly the same in many other instances, where, 84 POWER AND OPERATION OP HABIT. if instead of reasoning theologically on the palpable operations of the mechanism, we should reason scientifically on the modus operandi^ we would run into really irrelevant discussions. The theme of our present chapter is the effect of Habit, in as far as these effects serve to indicate the design or character of Him who is the author of our mental constitution. It matters not to any conclusion of ours, by what recondite, or, it may be, yet un- discovered process these effects are brought about ; and whether the common theory, or that of Dr. Brown, or that again as mo- dified and corrected by ourselves, is the just one. It is enough to know, that, if any given process of intermingled thought and feeling have been described by us once, there are laws at work, which, on the first step of that process again recurring, would incline us to describe the whole of the process over again ; and with the greater power and certainty, the more frequently that process has been repeated. We are perfectly sure that the more frequently any particular sequence between thought and thought may have occurred, the more readily will it recur ; — so that when once the first thought has entered the mind, we may all the more confidently reckon on its being followed up by the second. This we hold enough for explaining the ever recurring force and facility, wherewith feelings also will arise and be followed up by their indulgence — and that, just in proportion to the frequency wherewith in given circumstances they have been awakened and indulged formerly. In as far as the objects of gratification are the exciting causes which stimulate and awaken the desires of gratification ; then, any process which ensures the presence and application of the causes, will also ensure the fulfilment of the effects which result from them. If it be the presence or perception of the wine that stands before us which stirs up the appetite ; and if, instead of acting on the precept of looking not unto the wine when it is red, we continue to look till the appetite be so enflamed that the indulgence becomes in- evitable — then, as we looked at it continuously when present, will we, by the law of suggestion, be apt to think of it contigu- ously when absent. If the one continuity was not broken by any considerations of principle or prudence — so the less readily will the other continuity be broken in like manner. When we revisit the next social company, we shall probably resign our- selves to the very order of sensations that we did formerly; and the more surely, the oftener that that order has already been de- scribed by us. And as the order of objects with their sensa- tions when present, so is the order of thoughts with their desires when absent. This order forces itself upon the mind with a strength proportional to the frequency of its repetition ; and POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 85 desires, when not evaded by the mind shifting its attention away from the objects of them, can only be appeased by their indul- gence. 6. It is thus that he who enters on a career of vice, enters on a career of headlong degeneracy. If even for once we have de- scribed that process of thought and feeling, wliich leads, whether through the imagination or the senses, from the first presentation of a tempting object to a guilty indulgence — this ofitself estab- lishes a probability, that, on the recurrence of that object, we shall pass onward by the same steps to the same consummation. And it is a probability ever strengthening with every repetition of the process, till at length it advances towards the moral certainty of a helpless surrender to the tyranny of those evil passions, which we cannot resist, just because the will itself is in thraldom, and we choose not to resist them. It is thus that we might trace the progress of intemperance and licentiousness, and even of dishonesty, to whose respective solicitations we have yielded at the first — till, by continuing to yield, we become the passive, the prostrate subjects of a force that is uncontrollable, only be- cause we have seldom or never in good earnest tried to control it. It is not that we are struck of a sudden with moral impo- tency ; but we are gradually benumbed into it. The power of temptation has not made instant seizure upon the faculties, oi taken them by storm. It proceeds by an influence that is gently and almost insensibly progressive — just as progressive in truth, as the association between particular ideas is strengthened by the frequency of their succession. But even as that associa- tion may at length become inveterate, insomuch that when the first idea finds entry into the mind, we cannot withstand the im- portunity wherewith the second insists upon following it ; so might the moral habit become alike inveterate — -thoughts suc- ceeding thoughts, and urging onward their counterpart desires, in that wonted order, which had hitherto connected the begin- ning of a temptation with its full and final victory. At each re- petition, would we find it more difficult to break this order, or to lay an arrest upon it — till at length, as the fruit of this wretched regimen, its unhappy patient is lorded over by a power of moral evil, which possesses the whole man, and wields an irresistible or rather an unresisted ascendency over him. 7. But this melancholy process, leading to a vicious indul- gence, may be counteracted by an opposite process of resistance, though with far greater facility at the first — yet a facility ever augmenting, in proportion as the effectual resistance of tempta- tion is persevered in. That balancing moment, at which plea- sure would allure, and conscience is urging us to refrain, may 8 86 POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. be regarded as the point of departure or divergency, whence one or other of the two processes will take their commencement. Each of them consists in a particular succession of ideas with their attendant feelings; and whichever of them may happen to be described once, has, by the law of suggestion, the greater chance, in the same circumstances, of being described over again. Should the mind dwell on an object of allurement, and the considerations of principle not be entertained — it will pass onward from the first incitement to the final and guilty indulgence by a series of stepping stones, each of which will present itselt more readily in future ; and with less chance of arrest or inter- ruption by the suggestions of conscience than before. But should these suggestions be admitted, and far more should they prevail — then, on the principle of association, will they be all the more apt to intervene, on the repetition of the same circum- stances ; and again break that line of continuity, which but for this intervention, would have led from a temptatioa to a turpitude or a crime. If on the occurrence of a temptation formerly, con- science did interpose, and represent the evil of a compliance, and so impress the man with a sense of obligation, as led him to dis- miss the fascinating object from the presence of his mind, or to hurry away from it — the likelihood is, that the recurrence of a similar temptation will suggest the same train of thoughts and feelings and lead to the same beneficial result; and this is a like- lihood ever increasing with every repetition of the process. The train which would have terminated in a vicious indulgence, is dispossessed by the train which conducts to a resolution and an act of virtuous self-denial. The thoughts which tend to awaken emotions and purposes on the side of duty find readier entrance into the mind; and the thoughts which awaken and urge forward the desire of what is evil more readily give way. The positive force on the side of virtue is augmented, by every repetition of the train which leads to a virtuous determination. The resistance to this force on the side of vice is weakened, in proportion to the frequency wherewith that train of suggestions which would have led to a vicious indulgence, is broken and discomfited. It is thus that when one is successively resolute in his opposition to evil, the power of making the achievement and the facihty of the achievement itself are both upon the increase ; and virtue makes double gain to herself, by every separate conquest which she may have won. The humbler attainments of moral worth are first mastered and secured ; and the aspiring disciple may pass on- ward in a career that is quite indefinite to nobler deeds and nobler sacrifices. 8. And this law of habit when enlisted on the side of righte- POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 87 ousness, not only strengthens and makes sure our resistance to vice, but facilitates the most arduous performances of virtue. The man whose thoughts, with the purposes and doings to which they lead, are at the bidding of conscience, will, by frequent re- petition, at length describe the same track almost spontaneously — even as in physical education, things, laboriously learned at the first, come to be done at last without the feeling of an effort. And so, in moral education, every new achievement of principle smooths the way to future achievements of the same kind ; and the precious fruit or purchase of each moral victory is to set us on higher and firmer vantage-ground for the conquests of prin- ciple in all time coming. He who resolutely bids away the suggestions of avarice, when they come into conflict with the in- cumbent generosity; or the suggestions of voluptuousness, when they come into conflict with the incumbent self-denial; or the suggestions of anger, when they come into conflict with the in- cumbent act of magnanimity and forbearance- — will at length ob- tain, not a respite only, but a final deliverance from their intru- sion. Conscience, the longer it has made way over the obstacles of selfishness and passion — the less will it give way to these adverse forces, themselves weakened by the repeated defeats which they have sustained in the warfare of moral discipline : Or, in other words, the oftener that conscience makes good the supremacy which she claims — the greater would be the work of violence, and less the strength for its accomplishment, to cast her down from that station of practical guidance and command which of right belongs to her. It is just because, in virtue of the law of suggestion, those trains of thought and feeling, which connect her first biddings with their final execution, are the less exposed at every new instance to be disturbed, and the more likely to be repeated over again, that every good principle is more strengthened by its exercise, and every good affection is more strengthened by its indulgence than before. The acts of virtue ripen into habits ; and the goodly and permanent result is, the formation or establishment of a virtuous character. 9. This then forms the subject of our third general argument. The voice of authority within, bidding us to virtue ; and the im- mediate delights attendant on obedience, certainly, speak strong- ly for the moral character of that administration under which we are placed. But, by looking to posterior and permanent results, we have the advantage of viewing the system of that adminis- tration in progress. Instead of the insulated acts, we are led to regard the abiding and the accumulating consequences — and by sti-etching forward our observation through larger intervals and to more distant points in the moral history of men ; we a;:e in 88 POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. likelier circumstances for obtaining a glimpse of their final desti- nation ; and so of seizing on this mighty and mysterious secret — the reigning policy of the divine government, whence we might collect the character of Him who hath ordained it. And surely, it is of prime importance to be noted in this examination, that by every act of virtue we become more powerful for its service; and by every act of vice we become more helplessly its slaves. Or, in other words, were these respective moral regimens fully developed into their respective consummations, it would seem, as if by the one, we should be conducted to that state, where the faculty, within, which is felt to be the rightful, would also become the reigning sovereign, and then we should have the full enjoy- ment of all the harmony and happiness attendant upon virtue — whereas, by the other, those passions of our nature felt to be in- ferior, would obtain the lawless ascendency, and subject their wretched bondsmen to the turbulence, and the agony, and the sense of degradation, which, by the very constitution of our being, are inseparable from the reign of moral evil. 10. We might not fully comprehend the design or meaning of a process, till we have seen the end of it. Had there been no death, the mystery of our present state might have been some- what alleviated. We might then have seen, in bolder relief and indelible character, the respective consummations of vice and virtue — perhaps the world partitioned into distinct moral territo- ries, where the habit of many centuries had given fixture and es- tablishment, first, to a society of the upright, now in the firm pos- session of all goodness, as the well-earned result of that whole- some discipline through which they had passed ; and, second, to a society of the reprobate, now hardened in all iniquity, and aban- doned to the violence of evil passions no longer to be controlled and never to be eradicated. We might then have witnessed the peace, the contentment, the universal confidence and love, the melody of soul, that reigned in the dwellings of the righteous ; and contrasted these with the disquietudes, the strifes, the fell and fierce collisions of injustice and mutual disdain and hate im- placable, the frantic bacchanalian excesses with their dreary in- tervals of remorse and lassitude, which kept the other region in perpetual anarchy, and which, constituted as we are, must trouble or dry up all the well-springs of enjoyment, whether in the hearts of individuals or in the bosom of families. We could have been at no loss, to have divined, from the history and state of such a world, the policy of its ruler. We should have recognized in that peculiar economy, by which every act whether of virtue or vice, made its performer still more virtuous or more vicious than before, a moral remuneration on the one hand and a moral pe- POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 89 nalty on the other — with an enhancement of all the consequences, whether good or evil, which flowed from each of them. We could not have mistaken the purposes and mind of the Deity — when we saw thus palpably, and through the demonstrations of experience, the ultimate etrects of these respective processes ; and, in this total diversity of character, with a like total diver- sity of condition, were made to perceive, that righteousness was its own eternal reward, and that wickedness was followed up and that for ever, with the bitter fruit of its own ways. 11. Death so far intercepts the view of this result, that it is not here the object of sight or of experience. Still, however, it re- mains the object of our likely anticipation. The truth is, that the process which we are now contemplating, the process by which character is formed and strengthened and perpetuated, suggests one of the strongest arguments within compass of the light of nature, for the immortality of the soul. In the system of the world we behold so many adaptations, not only between the iaculties of sentient beings, and their counterpart objects in ex- ternal nature ; but between every historical progression in nature, and a fulfdment of corresponding interest or magnitude which it ultimately lands in — that we cannot believe of man's moral his- tory, as if it terminated in death. More especially when we think of the virtuous character, how laboriously it is reared, and how slowly it advances to perfection ; but, at length, how indefi- nite its capabilities of power and of enjoyment are, after this edu- cation of habits has been completed — it seems like the breach of a great and general analogy, if man is to be suddenly arrested on his way to the magnificent result, for which it might well be deemed that the whole of his life Avas but a prei)aration ; having just reached the full capacity of an enjoyment, of which he had only been permitted, in this evanescent scene, a few brief and passing foretastes. It were like the infliction of a violence on the continuity of things, of which we behold no similar example, if a being so gifted were thus left to perish in the full maturity of his powers and moral acquisitions. The very eminence that he has won, we naturally look upon as the guarantee and the pre- cursor of some great enlargement beyond it — warrantingthe hope, therefore, that Death but transforms without destroying him, or, that the present is only an embryo or rudimental state, the final develoi)ment of which is in another and future state of existence. 12. This is not the right place for a full exposition of this ar- gument. We might only observe, that there is an evidence of man's unmortality, in the moral state and history of the bad upon earth, as well as of the good. The truth is, that nature's most vivid anticipations of a conscious futurity on the other side of 8* 90 POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. death, are the forebodings of guilty fear, not the bright anticipa- tions of confident and rejoicing hope. We speak not merely of the unredressed wrongs inflicted by the evil upon the righteous, and which seem to demand an afterplace of reparation and ven- geance. Beside those unsettled questions between man and man, which death breaks otfat the middle, and for the adjustment of which one feels as if it were the cry of eternal justice that there should be a reckoning afterwards — beside these, there is felt, more directly and vividly still, the sense of a yet unsettled con- troversy, between the sinner and the God whom he has offended. The notion of immortality is far more powerfully and habitually suggested by the perpetual hauntings or misgivings of this sort of undefined terror, by the dread of a coming penalty — rather than by the consciousness of merit, or of a yet unsatisfied claim to a well-earned reward. Nor is the argument at all lessened by that observed phenomenon in the history of guilt, the decay of conscience ; a hebetude, if it may be so termed, of the moral sensibilities, which keeps pace with the growth of a man's wick- edness, and, at times, becomes quite inveterate towards the ter- mination of his mortal career. The very torpor and tranquillity of such a state, would only appear all the more emphaticrJily to tell, that a day of account is yet to come, when, instead of rioting, as heretofore, in the impunity of a hardihood that shields him alike from reproach and fear, conscience will at length re-awaken to upbraid him for his misdoings ; at once the assertor of its own cause, and the executioner of its own sentence. And even the most desperate in crime, do experience, at times, such gleams and resuscitations of moral light, as themselves feel to be the pre- cursors of a revelation still more tremendous — when their own conscience, fully let loose upon them, shall, in the hands of an angry God, be a minister of fiercest vengeance. Certain it is, that, if death, instead of an entire annihilation, be but a removal to another and a different scene of existence, we see in this, when combined with the known laws and processes of the mind, the possibility, at least, of such a consummation. There is much in the business, and entertainments, and converse, and day-light of that urgent and obtruding world by which we are surrounded, to carry off the attention of the mind from its own guiltiness, and so, to suspend that agony, which, when thrown back upon itself and dissevered from all its objects of gratification, will be felt, with- out mitigation and without respite. In the busy whirl of life, the mind, drawn upon in all directions, can find, outwardly and abroad, the relief of a constant diversion from the miseiy of its own internal processes. But a slight change in its locality or its circumstances, would deliver it up to the full burthen and agony POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. 91 of these; nor can we imagine a more intense and intolerable wretchedness, than that which would ensue, simply by rescinding the connexion which obtains in this world between a depraved mind and its external means of gratification — when, forced in- wardly on its own haunted tenement, it met with nothing there but revenge unsatiated, and raging appetites, that never rest from their unappeased fermentation ; and withal, to this perpetual sense of want, a pungent and pervading sense of worthlessness. It is the constant testimony of criminals, that, in the horrors and the tedium of solitary imprisonment, they undergo the most ap- palling of all penalties — a penalty, therefore, made up of moral elements alone ; as neither pain, nor hunger, nor sickness, ne- cessarily forms any of its ingredients. It strikingly demonstrates the character of Him who so constructed our moral nature, that from the workings of its mechanism alone, there should be evolved a suffering so tremendous on the children of iniquity, inso- much that a sinner meets with sorest vengeance when simply left to the fruit of his cwn ways — whether by the death which carries his disembodied spirit to its Tartarus ; or by a resurrec- tion to another scene of existence, where, in full possession of his earthly habits and earthly passions, he is nevertheless doom- ed to everlasting separation from their present counterpart and earthly enjoyments. 13. There is a distinction sometimes made between the na- tural and arbitrary rewards of virtue, or between the natural and arbitrary punishments of vice. The arbitrary is exemplified in the enactments of human law ; there in general bdng no natural or necessary connection between the crimes which it denounces, and the penalties which it ordains for them — as between the fine, or the imprisonment, or the death, upon the one hand ; and the act of violence, whether more or less outrageous, upon the other. The natural again is exemplified in the workings of the human constitution ; there being a connexion, in necessity and nature, between the temper which prompted the act of violence, and the wretchedness which it inflicts on him who is the unhappy subject, in his own bosom, of its fierce and wrestkss agitations. It is thus that not only is virtue termed its own reward, but vice its own i!;reatest plague or self-tormentor. We have no information of the arbitrary rewards or pvmishments in a future state, but from revelation alone. But of the natural, we have only to suppose, that the existuig constitution of man, and his existing habits, shall be borne with him to the land of eternity ; and we may infornr ourselves now of these, by the experience of our own felt and familiar nature. Our own experience can tell that the native de- lights of virtue, unaided by any high physical gratifications, and 92 POWER AND OPERATION OF HABIT. only if not disturbed by grievous physical annoyances, were enough of themselves to constitute an elysium of pure and peren- nial happiness : and again, that the native agonies of vice, unaided by any inflictions of physical suffering, and only if unalleviated by a perpetual round of physical enjoyments, were enough of them- selves to constitute a dire and dreadful Pandemonium. They are not judicially awarded, but result from the workings of that constitution which God hath given to us ; and they speak as deci- sively the purpose and character of Him who is the author of that constitution — as would any code of jurisprudence proclaimed from the sanctuary of heaven, and which assigned to virtue on the one hand, the honours and rewards of a blissful immortality, to vice on the other a place of anguish among the outcasts of a fiery condemnation. CHAPTER IV. On the General Jldaptation of External JVatiire to the JVIoral Constitution of JWan. 1 . It needs but a cursory observation of life to be made sensible, that man has not been endowed with a conscience, without, at the same time, being placed in a theatre which afforded the most abundant scope and occasion for its exercise. The truth is, that, in the multitude of feilow-beings by whom he is surrounded, and in the manifold variety of his social and family relations, there is a perpetual call on his sense of right and wrong — insomuch, that to the doings of every hour throughout his waking existence, one or other of these moral designations is applicable. It might have been stigmatized as the example of a mal-adjustment in the circumstances of our species, had man been provided with a Avaste feeling or a waste faculty, which remained dormant and unemployed from the want of counterpart objects that were suit- ed to it. The wisdom of God admits of a glorious vindication against any such charge in the physical department of our nature, where the objective and subjective have been made so marvel- lously to harmonize with each other ; there being, in the material creation, sights of infinitely varied loveliness, and sounds of as varied melody, and many thousand tastes and odours of exquisite gratification, and distinctions innumerable of touch and feeling, to meet the whole compass and diversity of the human senses — multiplying wthout end, both the notice that we receive from ex- ternal things, and the enjoyments that we derive from them. And as little in the moral department of our nature, is any of its faculties, and more especially the great and master faculty of all, left to languish from the want of occupation. The whole of life, in fact, is crowded with opportunities for its employment — or, rather, instead of being represented as the subject of so many distinct and ever-recurring calls, conscience may well be repre- sented as the constant guide and guardian of human life ; and, for the right discharge of this its high office, as being kept on the alert perpetually. The creature on whom conscience hath laid the obligation of refraining from all mischief, and rendering to soci- ety all possible good, lives under a responsibility which never for a single moment is suspended. He may be said to possess a conti- nuity of moral being ; and morality whether of a good or evil hue, tinges the whole current of his history. It is a thing of con- 94 ADAPTATION OP EXTERNAL NATURE TO stancy as well as a thing of frequency — for, even when not car- ried forth into action, it is not dormant ; but possesses the mind in the form of a cherished purpose or cherished principle, or, as the Romans expressed it, of a perpetual will either to that which is good or evil. But over and above this, the calls to action are innumerable. In the wants of others ; in their powers of enjoy- ment ; in their claims on our equity, our protection, or our kind- ness ; in the various openings and walks of usefulness ; in the services which even the humblest might render to those of their own family, or household, or country ; in the application, of that comprehensive precept, to do good unto all men as we have op- portunity — we behold a prodigious number and diversity of oc- casions for the exercise of moral principle. It is possible that the lessons of a school may not be arduous enough nor diversi- fied enough for the capacity of a learner. But this cannot be affirmed of that school of discipline, alike arduous and unremit- ting, to which the great author of our being hath introduced us. Along with the moral capacity by which He hath endowed us, He hath provided a richly furnished gymnasium for its exercises and its trials — where we may earn, if not the triumphs of virtue, at least some delicious foretastes of that full and final blessed- ness for which the scholarship of human life, with its manifold engagements and duties, is so obviously fitted to prepare us. 2. But let us now briefly state the adaptation of external na- ture to the moral constitution of man, \Wth a reference to that three-fold generality which we have already expounded. We have spoken of the supremacy of conscience, and of the inherent pleasures and pains of virtue and vice, and of the law and opera- tion of habit — as forming three distinct arguments for the moral goodness of Him, who hath so constructed our nature, that by its workings alone, man should be so clearly and powerfully warned to a life of righteousness — should in the native and im- mediate joys of rectitude, earn so precious a reward — and, finally, should be led onward to such a state of character, in re- spect of its confirmed good or confirmed evil, as to afford one of the likeliest prognostications which nature offers to our view of an immortality beyond the grave, where we shall abundantly reap the consequence of our present doings, in either the happiness of established virtue, or the utter wretchedness and woe of our then inveterate depravity. But hitherto we have viewed this nature of man, rather as an individual and insulated constitu- tion, then as a mech£uiism actuated upon by any forces or influ- ences from without. It is in this latter aspect that we are hence- forth to regard it ; and now only it is that we enter on the proper theme of our volume, or that the adaptations of the objective to THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 95 the subjective begin to open upon us. It will still be recollected, however,* that in our view of external nature, we comprehend, not merely all that is external to the world of mind — for this would have restricted us to the consideration of those reciprocal actings which take place between mind and matter. We further comprehend all that is external to one individual mind, and there- fore the other minds which are around it ; and so we have appro- priated, as forming a part of our legitimate subject, the actings and reactings that take place between man and man in society. 3. And first, in regard to the power and sensibihty of con- science, there is a most important influence brought to bear on each mdividual possessor of this faculty from without, and by his fellow men. It will help us to understand it aright, if we re- flect on a felt and familiar experience of all men — even the effect of a very slight notice, often of a single word from one of our companions, to recall some past scene or transaction of our lives, which had Ions: vanished from our remembrance ; and would, but for this reawakening, have remained in deep oblivion to the end of our days. The phenomenon can easily be explained by the laws of suggestion. Our wonted trains of thought might never have conducted the mind to any thought or recollection of the event in question — whereas, on the occurence of even a very partial intimation, all the associated circumstances come into vivid recognition ; and we are transported back again to the departed reahties of former years, that had lain extinct within us for so long a period, and might have been extinct for ever, if not lighted up again by an extraneous application. How many are the days since early boyhood, of. which not one trace or vestige now abides upon the memory. Yet perhaps there is not one of these days, the history of which could not be recalled, by means of some such external or foreign help to the remembrance of it. Let us imagine, for example, that a daily companion had, unknown to us, kept a minute and statis- tical journal of all the events we personally shared in ; and the likelihood is, that, if permitted to the perusal of this docu- ment, even after the lapse of half a hfe time, our memory would depone to many thousand events which had else escaped, into utter and irrecoverable forgetfulness. It is certainly re- markable, that, on some brief utterance by another, the stories of former days should suddenly reappear, as if in illumined characters, on the tablet from which they had so totally faded ; that the mention of a single circumstance, if only the link of a train, should conjure to life again a whole host of sleeping recollections : And so, in each of our fellow men, might w^e have * See Introductory Chapter, 1, 2, 3. 96 ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO a remembrancer, who can vivify our consciousness anew, re- specting scenes and transactions of our former history which had long gone by ; and which, after having vanished once from a sohtary mind left to its own processes, would have vanished everlastingly. 4. It is thus, that, not only can one man make instant transla- tion of his own memory ; but on certain subjects, he can even make instant translation of his own intelhgence into the mind of another. A shrewd discerner of the heart, when laying upon its heretofore unrevealed mysteries, makes mention of things which at the moment we feel to be- novelties ; but which, almost at the same moment, are felt and recognized by us as truths — and that, not because we receiv e them upon this authority, but on the independent view that ourselves have of their own evidence. His utterance, in fact, has evoked from the cell of their imprisonment, remembrances, which but for him, might never have been awakened ; and which, when thus summon- ed into existence, are so many vouchers for the perfect wisdom and truth of what he tells. A thousand pecuharities of life and character, till then unnoticed, are no sooner heard by us, although for the first time in our lives, than they shine before the mind's eye, in the light of a satisfying demonstration. And the reason is, that the materials of their proof have been ac- tually stored up within us, by the history and*experience of for- mer years, though in chambers of forgetfulness — whence, however, they are quickly and vividly called forth, as if with the power of a talisman, by the voice of him, who no sooner an- nounces his proposition, than he suggests the by-gone recollec- tions of our own wliich serve to confirm it. The pages of the novelist, or the preacher, or the moral essayist, though all of them should deal in statements alone, without the formal al- legation of evidence, may be informed throughout with evidence, notwithstanding ; and that, because each of them speaks to the consciousness of his readers, unlocking a treasvuy of latent recollections, which no sooner start again into being, than they become witnesses for the sagacity and admirable sense of him with whom all this luminous and satisfying converse is held. It is like the holding up of a mirror, or the response of an echo to a voice. What the author discovers, the reader promptly and presently discerns. The one utters new things ; but that light of immediate manifestation in which the other beholds them, is struck out of old materials which himself too had long since appropriated, but laid up in a dormitory, where they might have slumbered for ever — had it not been for that voice which charmed them anew into life and consciousness. This is the THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 97 only way in which the instant recognition of truths before unheard of and unknown can possibly be explained. It is be- cause their evidence lies enveloped in tlie reminiscences of other days, which had long passed into oblivion ; but are again presented to the notice of the mind by the power of association. 5. This is properly a case of intellectual rather than of moral adaptation ; and is only now adverted to for the purpose of illus- tration. For a decayed conscience is susceptible of like resus- citation with a decayed memory. In treating of the effects of habit, we briefly noticed* the gradual weakening of conscience, as the indulgences of vice were persisted in. Its remonstran- ces, however ineffectual, may, at the first, have had a part in that train of thought and feeling, which commences with a temptation, and is consummated in guilt; but in proportion to the frequency, wherewith the voice of conscience is hushed, or overborne, or refused entertainment by the mind, in that proportion does it lift a feebler and a fainter voice afterwards — till at length it may come to be unheard ; and any suggestions from this faculty may either pass unheeded, or perhaps drop out of the train altogether. It is thus that many a foul or horrid immorality may come at length to be perpetrated without the sense or feeling of its enor- mity. Conscience, with the repeated stiflings it has undergone, may, as if on the eve of extinction, have ceased from its exor- cises. This moral insensibility forms, in truth, one main con- stituent in the hardihood of crime. The conscience is cradled into a state of stupefaction ; and the criminal, now a desperado in guilt, may prosecute his secret depravities, with no relentings from within, and no other dread upon his spirit, than that of dis- covery by his fellow men. 6. And it is on the event of such discovery, that we meet with the phenomenon in question. When that guilt, to which he had himself become so profoundly insensible, is at length beheld in the light of other minds — it is then that the scales are made to fall from the eyes of the offender; and he, as if suddenly awoke from lethargy, stands aghast before the spectacle of his own worthlessness. It is not the shame of detection, nor the fear of its consequences, which forms the whole of this distress. These may aggravate the suffering ; but they do not altogether com- pose it — for often besides, is there a resurrection of the moral sensibilities within the bosom of the unhappy criminal, as if re- lumed at the touch of sympathy, with the pronounced judgments and feelings of other men. When their unperverted and un- warped consciences, because free from the delusions which encompass his own, give forth a righteous sentence — they enlist * Sec Chap. iii. 6. of this Section. 9 98 ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO his conscience upon their side, which then reasserts its power, and again speaks to him in a voice of thunder. When that con- tinuous train between the first excitement of some guilty passion, and its final gratification, from which the suggestions of the mo- ral faculty had been so carefully excluded, is thus arrested and broken — then does conscience, as if emancipated from a spell, at times recover from the infatuation which held it ; £Uid utter reproaches of its own, more terrible to the sinner's heart, than all the execrations of general society. And whatever shall forci- bly terminate the guilty indulgence, may, by interrupting the accustomed series of thoughts and purposes and passions, also dissipate and put an end to the inveteracy of this moral or spiri- tual blindness. The confinement of a prison-house may do it. The confinement of a death-bed may do it. And accordingly, on these occasions, does conscience, after an interval it would seem, not of death but only of suspended animation, come forth with the might of an avenger, and make emphatic representation of her wrongs. 7. But this influence which we have attempted to exhibit in bold relief, by means of rare and strong exemplification, is in busy and perpetual operation throughout society — and that, more to prevent crime than to punish it ; rather, to maintain the con- science in freshness and integrity, than to reanimate it from a state of decay, or to recall its aberrations. Indeed its restorative efficacy, though far more striking, is not so habitual, nor in the whole amount so salutary, as its counteractive efficacy. The truth is, that we cannot frequent the companionships of human life, without observing the constant circulation and reciprocal play of the moral judgments among men — with whom there is not a more favourite or famihar exercise, than that of discussing the conduct and pronouncing on the deserts of each other. It is thus that every individual, liable in his own case to be misled or blinded by the partialities of interest and passion, is placed under the observation and guardianship of his fellows — who, exempted from his personal or particular bias, give forth a righteous sen- tence and cause it to be heard. A pure moral light is by this means kept up in society, composed of men whose thoughts are ever employed in ' accusing or else excusing one another' — so that every individual conscience receives an impulse and a di- rection from sympathy with the consciences around it. We are aware that the love of applause intervenes at this point as a dis- tinct and auxiliary influence. But the primary influence is a moral one. Each man lives under a consciousness of the vigi- lant and discerning witnesses who are on every side of him ; and his conscience, kept on the alert and kept in accordance THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 99 with theirs, acts both more powerfully and more purely, than if left to the decay and the self-deception of its own withering soli- tude. The lamp which might have waxed dim by itself, revives its fading lustre, by contact and communication with those which burn more brightly in other bosoms than its own ; and this law of interchange between mind and mind, forms an important adaptation in the mechanism of human society. 8. But, to revert for a moment to the revival of conscience after that its sensibilities had become torpid for a season ; and they are quickened anew, as if by sympathy, with the moral judgments of other men. This phenomenon of conscience seems to afford another glimpse or indication of futurity. It at least tells with what facility that Being, who hath all the re- sources of infinity at command, could, and that by an operation purely mental, inflict the vengeance of a suffering the most ex- quisite, on the children of disobedience. He has only to re- open the fountains of memory and conscience ; and this will of itself cause distillation within the soul of the waters of bitter- ness. And if in the voice of earthly remembrancers and earthly judges, we observe such a power of re-awakening — we might infer, not the possibility alone, but the extreme likelihood of a far more vivid re-awakening, when the offended lav. giver him- self takes the judgment into His own hands. If the rebuke of human tongues and human eyes be of such force to revive the sleeping agony within us, what may we not feel, when the ad- verse sentence is pronounced against us from the throne of God, and in the midst of a universal theatre] If, in this our little day, the condemnation is felt to be insupportable, that twinkles upon us from the thousand secondary and subordinate lustres by which we are surrounded — what must it be, when He, by whose hand they have all been lighted up, turns towards us the strength of His own countenance; and, with His look of reprobation sends forth trouble and dismay over the hosts of the rebellious.* 9. But besides the pleasures and pains of conscience, there is, in the very taste and feeling of moral qualities, a pleasure or a pain. This formed our second general argument in favour of God's righteous administration ; and our mental constitution, even when viewed singly, furnishes sufficient materials on which to build it. But the argument is greatly strengthened and en- hanced by the adaptation to that constitution of external nature, + Dr. Abercroniby, in his interesting work on the intellectual powers, states some remarkable cases of resuscitated and enlarged memory, whicli remind one of the ex- planation given by Mr. Coleridge of the opening of the books in the day of judg- ment. It is on the opening of the book of conscience that the sinner is made to feel die truth and righteousness of his condemnation. 100 ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO more especially as exemplified in the reciprocal influences Avhich take place between mind and mind in society : for the effects of this adaptation is to multiply both the pleasures of virtue and the sufferings of vice. The first, the original pleasure, is that which is felt by the virtuous man himself ; as, for example, by the be- nevolent, in the very sense and feeling of that kindness whereby his heart is actuated. The second is felt by him who is the ob- ject of this kindness — for merely in the conscious possession of another's good-will, there is a great and distinct enjoyment. And then the manifested kindness of the former awakens gratitude, in the bosom of the latter ; and this, too, is a highly pleasurable emotion. And lastly, gratitude sends back a delicious incense to the benefactor who awakened it. By the purely mental inter- change of these affections, there is generated a prodigious amount of happiness ; and that, altogether independent of the gratifications which are yielded by the material gifts of liberality on the one hand, or by the material services of gratitude on the other. Insomuch, that we have only to imagine a reign of perfect virtue ; and then, in spite of the physical ills which essentially and inevitably attach to our condition, we should feel as if we had approximated very nearly to a state of perfect enjoyment among men — or, in other words, that the bliss of paradise would be al- most fully realized upon earth, were but the moral graces and . charities of paradise firmly established there, and in full opera- tion. Let there be honest and universal good- will in every bosom, and this be responded to from all who are the objects of it by an honest gratitude back again ; let kindness, in all its various effects and manifestations, pass and repass trom one heart and countenance to another ; let there be a universal courtecusness in our streets, and let fidelity and affection and all the domestic virtues take up their secure and lasting abode in every family ; let the succour and sympathy of a willing neighbourhood be ever in readiness to meet and to overpass all the want and wretchedness to which humanity is liable ; let truth, and honour, and inviolable friendship between man and man, banish all treachery and in- justice from the world ; in the walks of merchandise, let an un- failing integrity on the one side, have the homage done to it of unbounded confidence on the other, insomuch, that each man re- posing with conscious safety on the uprightness and attachment of his fellow, and withal rejoicing as much in the prosperity of an acquaintance, as he should in his own, there would come to be no place for the harassments and the heart-burnings of mutual suspicion or resentment or envy : who does not see, in the state of a society thus constituted and thus harmonized, the palpable evidence of a nature so framed, that the happiness of the world THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 101 and the righteousness of the world kept pace the one with the other ? And it is all important to remark' of this happiness, that, in respect both to quality and amount, it mainly consists of moral elements — so that while every giver who feels as he ought, experiences a delight in the exercise of generosity v/hich rewards him a hundred-fold for all its sacrifices ; every receiver who feels as ho ought, rejoices infinitely more in the sense of the benefactor's kindness, than in the physical gratification or fruit of the benefactor's liberality. It is saying much for the virtu- ousness of Him who hath so moulded and so organized the spirit of mauj that, apart from sense and from all its satisfactions, but from the ethereal play of the good affections alone, the highest felicity of our nature should be generated ; that, simply by the interchange of cordiality between man and man, and one benevo- lent emotion re-echoing to another, there should be yiekied to human hearts, so much of the truth and substance of real enjoy- ment — so that did justice, and charity, and holiness, descend from heaven to earth, taking full and universal possession of our species, the happiness of heaven would be sure to descend along with them. Could any world be pointed out, where the universality and reign of vice effected the same state of blissful and secure enjoyment that virtue would in ours — we should in- fer that he was the patron and the friend of vice, who had dominion over it. But when assured, on the experience vv^e have of our actual nature, that in ths world we occupy, a perfect morality would, but for certain physical calamities, be the har- binger of a perfect enjoyment — we regard this as an incontesta- ble evidence for the moral goodness of our own actua.1 Deity. 10. And in such an argument as ours, although the main beatitudes of virtue are of a moral and spiritual character, its subserviency 'to the physical enjoyments of life ought not to be overlooked, though, perhaps, too obvious to be dwelt upon. The most palpable of these subserviencies is the effect of bene- volence in diffusing abundance among the needy, and so allevi- ating the ills of their destitution. This is so very patent as not to require being expatiated on. Yet we might notice here one important adaptation, connected with the exercise of this mo- rality — realized but in part, so long as virtus has only a partial occupation in society ; but destined, we hope, to receive its en- tire and beautiful accomplishment, when virtue shall have become universal. It is well known that certain collateral but very serious mischiefs attend the exercise of a profuse and ca- pricious and indiscriminate charity ; that it may, in fact, aug- ment and ao;2;ravate the indigence which it tries to relieve, beside working a moral deteriorartioil among the humbler clas- 9* 102 ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO ses, by ministering to the reckless improvidence of the dissi- pated and the idle ; an operation alike injurious to the physical comfort of the one party, and to the moral comfort of the other. These effects are inevitable, so long as the indiscriminate be- nevolence of the rich meets with an indefinite selfishness and rapacity on the part of the poor. But this evil will be mitigated and at length done away, .with the growth of principle among mankind ; and more especially, when, instead of being confined to one of these classes, it is partitioned among both. Let the wealthy be as generous as they ought in their doings, and the poor be as moderate as they ought in their expectations and desires ; and then will that problem, which has so baffled the politicians and economists of England, find its own sponta- neous, while, at the same time, its best adjustment. Let an exubevant yet well directed liberality on the one side come into encounter, instead of a sordid and insatiable appetency, with the recoil of delicacy and self-respect upon the other, and the noble independence of men who will work with their own hands rather than be burthensome ; and then will the benefactions of the wealthy and the wants of the indigent, not only meet but over- pass. The willingness of the one party to give, will exceed the willingness of the other to receive ; and an evil which threatens to rend society asunder, and which law in her attempts to re- medy has only exasperated, will at length give way before the omnipotence of moral causes. This, as being one of many specimens, tells most significantly that man was made for virtue, or that this was the purpose of God in making him — when wc find, that through no other medium than the morality of the people, can the sorest distempers of society be healed. The impotence of human wisdom, and of every political expedient which this wisdom can devise for the well-being; of a state, when virtue languishes among the people, is one of the strongest proofs which experience affords, that virtue was the design of our creation. And we know not how more emphatic demon- stration can be given of a virtuous Deity, than when we find so- ciety to have been so constructed by His hands, that virtue forms the great alternative on which the secure or lasting pros- perity of a commonwealth is hinged — so that for any aggregate of human beings to be right physically and right economically, it is the indispensable, while at the same time the all efltctual condition, that tliey should be right morally. 11. Nothing can be more illustrative of the character of God, or more decisive of the question, whether His preference is for universal virtue or for universal vice in the world, than to con- sider the effect of each on the well-being of human society — THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 103 even that society which He did Himself ordain, and whose me- chanism is the contrivance oi* His own intellect, and the work of His own hands. It may not be easy to explain the origin of that moral derangement into which the species has actually fallen ; but it affords no obscure or uncertain indication of what the species was principally made for, when we picture to our- selves the difference between a commonwealth of vice and n commonwealth of virtue. We have already said enough on the obvious connexion which ol)tains between the righteousness of a nation and the htippiness of its families ; and it were super- fluous to dilate on the equally obvious connexion whicli obtains between a state of general depravity, and a state of general wretchedness and disorder. And the counterpart observation holds true, that, as the beatitudes of the one condition, so the sufferings of the other are chiefly made up of moral elements. If, in the former, there be a more precious and heartfelt enjoy- ment in the possession of another's kindness, than in all the ma- terial gifts and services to v/hich that kindness has prompted him — so in the latter, may it often happen, that the agony ari- sing from simple consciousness of another's malignity, will greatly exceed any physical hurt, Vvhether in person or pro- perty, that we ever shall sustain from him. A loss that we suffer from the dishonesty of another is far more severely telt, than a ten-fold loss occasioned by accident or misfortime — or, in other words, we find the moral provocation to be greatly more pun- gent and intol-erable than the physical calamity. So that beside the material damage, too palpable to be insisted on at any length, which vice and violence inHict upon society, there should be taken into account the soreness of spirit, the purely mental dis- tress and disquietude which follow in their train — of which we have already seen, how much is engendered even in the work- ings of one individual mind; but susceptible of being inflamed to a degree indefinitely higher, by the reciprocal working of minds, a-ll of them hating and all hateful to each other. In this mere antipathy of the heart, more especially when aided by nearness and the opportunities of mutual expression, there arc sensations of most exquisite bitterness. There is a wretch- edness in the mere collision of hostile feehngs themselves, though they should break not forth into overt-acts of hostility ; in the simple demonstrations of malignity, apart from its doings; in tlie war but of words and looks and fierce gesticulations, though no violence should be inflicted on the one side or sus- tained upon the other. To make the aggressor in these purely mental conflicts intensely miserable, it is enough that he should experience within him the agitations and the fires of a resentful 104 ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO heart. To make the recipient intensely miserable, it is enough that he should be demoniacally glared upon by a resentful eye. Were this power which resides in the emotions by themselves sufficiently reflected on, it would evmcc how intimately con- nected, almost how identified, wickedness and wretchedness are with each other. To reahze the miseries of a state of war, it is not necessary that there should be contests of personal strength. The mere contests of personal feeling will suffice. Let there be mutual rage and mutual revilings ; let there be the pangs and the outcries of fierce exasperation ; let there be the continual droppings of peevishness and discontent ; let disdain meet with equal disdain ; or even, instead of scorn from the lofty, let there be but the slights and the insults of contempt from men, who themselves are of the most contemptible ; let there be haughty defiance, and spitefid derision, and the mortifications of affronted and iifitated pride — in the tumults of such a scene, though tu- mults of the mind alone, there were enough to constitute a hell of assembled maniacs or of assembled malefactors. The very presence and operation of these passions would form their own aorest punishment. To have them perpetually in ourselves is to have a hell in the heart. To meet with them perpetually in others is to be compassed about with a society of fiends, to be beset v/ith the miseries of a Pandemonium. 12. Whether we look then to the separate or the social con- stitution of humanity, we observe abundant evidence for the mind and meaning of the Deity, who both put together the ele- ments of each individual nature, and the elements which enter i;ito the composition of society. We cannot imagine a more decisive indication of His favour being on the side of moral good, and His displeasure against moral evil, than that, by the workmg of each of these constitutions, virtue and happiness on the one hand, vice and wretchedness on the other, should -be so intimately and inseparably allied. Such sequences or laws of nature as these, speak as distinctly the character of him who established them, as any laws of jurisprudence would the cha- racter of the monarch by whom they were enacted. And to learji this lesson, we do not need to wait for the distant con- sequences of vice or virtue. We at once feel the distinction put upon them by the hand of the Almighty, in the instant sensations which He hath appended to each of them — implicated as their efiects are with the very fountain-head of moral being, and turning the hearts which they respectively occupy, into the seats either of wildest anarchy, or of serene and blissful enjoy- ment. 13. The law and operation of habit, as exemplified in one in- THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 105 dividual mind, formed the theme of our third general argument. The only adaptation which we shall notice to this part of our mental constitution in the frame-work of society, is that aflbrded by the changes which it undergoes in the flux of its successive generations — in virtue of which, the tender susceptibilities of childhood are placed under the influence of that ascendant se- niority which precedes or goes before it. At first sight it may be thought of this peculiarity, that it tells equally in both direc- tions — that is, either in the transmission and accumulation of vice, or in the transmission and accumulation of virtue in the world. But there is one circumstance of superiority in favour of the latter, which bids us look hopefully onward to the final prevalence of the good over the evil. We arc aware of the virulence wherewith, in families, the crime and profligacy of a depraved parentage must operate on the habits of their offspring; and of the deadly poison which, in crowded cities, passes with quick descent from the older to the younger, along the links of youthful companionship ; and even of those secret, though we trust rare and monstrous societies, which, in various countries and various ages, wcfe held for the celebration of infernal orgies, for the initiation of the yet unknowing or unpractised in the mysteries of vice. But after every deduction has been made for these, who does not see that the systematic and sustained effort, the wide and general enterprize, the combination of numbers in the face of day and with the sympathies of an approving public, give a prodigious balance on the side of moral education ? The very selfishness of vice and expansiveness of virtue give rise to this difference between them — the one concentered on its own personal enjoyments, and, with a few casual exceptions, rather heedless of the principles of others than set on any schemes or speculations of proselytism ; the other, by its very nature, aspir- ing after the good of the whole species, and bent on the propa- gation of its own likeness, till righteousness and truth shall have become universal among men. Accordingly, all the ostensible countenance and exertion, in the cause of learning, whether by governments or associations, is on the side of virtue ; while no man could dare to front the public eye, A\ith a scheme of disci- pleship in the lessons whether of fraud or profligacy. The clear tendency then is to impress a right direction on the giant power of education ; and when this is brought to bear, more systema- tically and generally than heretofore, on the pliant boyhood of the land — we behold, in the operation of habit, a guarantee for the progressive conquests, and at length the ultimntc and univer- sal triumph of good over evil in society. Our confidence in this result is greatly enhanced, when we witness the influence even 106 ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO of but one mind among the hundreds of any given neighbour- hood — if zealously and wisely directed to the object of moral and economical improvement. Let that most prolific of all philan- thi'opy then be fully and fairly set on foot, which operates, by means of education, on the early germs of character ; and we shall have the most effective of all agency engaged, for the pro- duction of the likeliest of all results. The law of habit, when looked to in the manageable ductility of its outset, presents a mighty opening for the production of a new era^ in the moral history of mankind ; and the same law of habit, when looked to in the maturity of its fixed and final establishment, encourages the expectation of a permanent as well as universal reign of vir- tue in the world. 14. Even in the yet chaotic and rudimental state of the world, we can observe the powers and the likelihoods of such a con- sum.mation ; and what gives an overbearing superiority to the chances on the side of virtue is, that parents, although the most sunken in depravity themselves, welcome the proposals, and re- ceive with gratitude, the services of Christian or moral philan- thropy in behalf of their families. However hopeless then of reformation among those whose vicious habits have become in- veterate, it is well that there should be so wide and unobstructed an access to those, among whom the habits have yet to be formed. It is this which places education on such firm vantage- ground, if not for reclaiming the degeneracy of individuals, yet for reclaiming after the lapse of a few generations the degeneracy of the species ; and, however abortive many of the schemes and enterprizes in this highest walk of charity may hitherto have proved, yet the manifest and growing attention to the cause does open a brilliant moral perspective for the ages that are to come. The experience of what has been done locally by a few zealous individuals, warrants our most cheering anticipations of what may yet be done universally — when the powers of that simple but mighty instrument which they employ, if brought to bear on that most malleable of all subjects, the infancy of human exist- ence, come to be better vmderstood, and put into busy operation over the whole length and breadth of the land. In the grievous defect of our national institutions, and the wretched abandonment of a people left to themselves, and v/ho are permitted to live recklessly and at random as they list — we see enough to account both for the profligacy of our crowded cities, and for the sad de- moralization of our neglected provinces. But on the other hand we feel assured, that, in an efficient system of wise and well principled instruction, there are capabilities within our reach for a great and glorious revival. We might not know the reason, THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 107 why, in the moral world, so many ages of darkness and depravity should have been permitted to pass by — any more than we know the reason, why, in the natural world, the trees of a forest, in- stead of starting all at once into the full efflorescence and stateli- ness of their manhood, have to make their slow and laborious advancement to maturity, cradled in storms, and alternately drooping or expanding with the vicissitudes of the seasons. But, though unable to scan all the cycles either of the moral or natu- ral economy, yet may we recognize such influences at work, as when multiplied and developed to the uttermost, are abundantly capable of regenerating the world. One of the likeliest of these influences is the power of education — to the perfecting of which so many minds are earnestly directed at this moment ; and for the general acceptance of which in society, we have a guarantee, in the strongest affections and fondest ^vishes of the fathers and mothers of families. 108 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO CHAPTER V. Oil the special and subordinate Adaptations of external JS'ature to the moral Constittition of JWan. 1. ^Ve have hitherto confined our attention to certain great and simple phenomena of our moral nature, which, though affording a different sort of evidence for the being of God from the organic and complicated structures of the material world — yet, on the hypothesis of an existent Deity, are abundantly decisive of His preference for virtue over vice, and so of the righteousness of His own character. That he should have inserted a great mas- ter faculty in every human bosom, all whose decisions are on the side of justice, benevolence, and truth, and condemnatory of their opposites ; that He should have inserted this conscience with such powers of instant retribution, in the triumphs of that complacency wherewith he so promptly rewards the good, and the horrors of that remorse wherewith He as promptly chastises the evil ; that beside these, He should have so distinguished be- tween virtue and vice,* as that the emotions and exercises of the former should all be pleasureable, and of the latter painful to the taste of the inner man ; that He should have so ordained the human constitution, as that by the law of habit, virtuous and vi- cious lives, or series of acts having these respective moral quali- ties, should issue in the fixed and permanent results of virtuous and vicious characters — these form the important generalities of our moral nature : And while they obviously and immediately announce tons a present demonstration in favour of virtue ; they seem to indicate a preparation and progress towards a state of things, when, after that the moral education of the present life has * Biiiler, in Part. I, Chapter 3d of hi^5 Analogy, makes the following admirable dis- crimination between actions themselves and that qualify ascribed to them which we call virtuous or vicious. — " An action by which any natural passion is gratified, or fortune acquired, procures deligiit or advantage, abstracted from all consideration of the morality of such action, conserjuently the pleasure or advantage in this case is gained by the action itself, not by the morality, the virtuousness, or viciousness of it, though it be, perhaps, virtuous or vicious. Thus to soy, such an action or course of behaviour, procured such pleasure or advantage, or brought on such inconvenience and pain, is quite a different thing from saying that such good or bad effect was owing to the virtue or vice of such action or behaviour. In one case, an action abstracted from all moral consideration, produced its effect. In the other case, for it will appear that there are such cases, the morality of the action, the action under a moral consi- deration, i, e. the virtuousness or viciousness of it, produced the effect. THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 109 been consummated, the great Ruler of men will manifest the eternal distinction which he puts between the good and the evil. 2. Now in these few simple sequences, however strongly and unequivocally they evince the character of a God already proved or already presupposed, we have not the same intense evidence for design, which is afforded by the distinct parts or the distinct principles of a very multifarious combination. Yet the constitu- tion of man's moral nature is not defective in this evidence — though certainly neither so prolific nor so palpable in our mental, as in our anatomical system. Still, however, there is a mechan- ism in mind as well as body, with a diversity of principles, if not a diversity of parts, consisting of so many laws, grafted it may be on a simple and indivisible substance, yet yielding in the fact of their beneficial concurrence, no inconsiderable argument for the wisdom and goodness of Him who framed us. Nor does it matter, as we have already said, whether these are all of them original, or some of them, as the analysts of mind have laboured to manifest, only derivative laws in the human constitution. If the former, we have an evidence grounded on the beneficial con- junction of a greater number of independent laws. If the latter, we are reduced to fewer independent laws — but these all the more prolific of useful applications, each of which applications is grounded on a beneficial adaptation of some peculiar circum- stances, in the operation of which it is, that the primary is trans- muted into a secondary law.* But w^iether the one or the other, they exhibit phases of humanity distinct from any that we have yet been employed in contemplating ; a number of special affec- tions, each characterized by its own name, and pointing to its own separate object, yet all of them performing an important subsidiary part, for the moral good both of the individual and of the species ; and presenting us, therefore, with the materials of additional evidence for a moral and beneficent design in the for- mation of our race. 3. When we look to the beauty which overspreads the face of nature, and the exquisite gratification which it ministers to the senses of man — we cannot doubt, either the taste for beauty which resides in the primeval mind that emanated all this grace- fulness ; or the benevolence that endowed man with a kindred taste, and so fitted him for a kindred enjoyment. This conclusion, however, like any moral conclusion we have yet come to, re- *And besides this, would it not bespeak a more comprehensive wisdom on the part of a human artificer, that by means of one device, or by the application of one prin- ciple, he effected not a few, but many distinct and beneficial purposes ; and does it not in like manner enhance the exiiibition of divine skill in the workmanship of nature, when a single law is found to subserve a vast and manifold variety of important uses? 10 110 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO specting the perfections or the purposes of God, is founded on generalities, — on the general amount of beauty in the world, and the delight wherewith men behold and admire it. Yet, beside this, we may draw a corroborative evidence for the same, from the machinery of certain special contrivances — as the con- struction of the calyx in plants, for the defence of the tender Ijlossom previous to its expansion ; and the apparatus for scat- tering seeds, whereby the earth is more fully invested with its mantle of rich and varied garniture. And notwithstanding the blight which has so obviously passed over the moral world, and defaced many of its original lineaments, while it has left the ma- terialism of creation, the loveliness of its scenes and landscapes, in a great measure untouched — still we possess very much the same materials for a Natural Theology, in reasoning on the ele- ment of virtue, as in reasoning on the element of beauty. We have first those generalities of argument which are already ex- pounded by us at sufficient length ; and we have also ihe evi- dence, now to be unfolded, of certain special provisions for the preservation and growth of the immortal plant, in the study of which, we shall observe more of mechanism than we have yet contemplated ; and more, therefore, of that peculiar argument tor design, which lies in the adaptation of varied means, in the con- currence of distinct expedients, each helping the other onward to a certain beneficial consummation. 4. But we must here premise an observation extensively ap- plicable in mental science. When recognising the obvious sub- serviency of some given feeling or principle in the mind to a beneficial result — we are apt to imagine that it was somehow or other, in the contemplation of this result, that the principle was generated ; and that therefore, instead of a distinct and original part of the human constitution, it is but a derivative from an anterior process of thought or calculation on the part of man, in the act of reflecting on what was most for the good of himself, or the good of society. In this way man is conceived to be in some measure the creator of his own mental constitution ; or, at least, there are certain parts of it regarded as secondary, and the form- ation of which is ascribed to the wisdom of man, which, if re- garded as instinctive and primary, would have been directly ascribed to the wisdom of God. There are many writers, fo> example, on the origin and rights of property, who, instead of admitting what may be termed an instinct of appropriation, would hold the appropriating tendency to be the result of human intel- ligence, after experience had of the convenience and benefits of such an arrangement. Now on this subject, we may take a lesson from the physical constitution of mnn. It is indispensable THE MOKAL CONSTITUTIO^T OV MAN. Ill to the preservation of our animal system, tliat food should be received at certain intervals into the stomach. Yet, notwith- standing all the strength which is ascribed to the })rhiciple of *" self-preservation, and all the veneration which is professed by the expounders of our nature for the wisdom and foresight of man — the author of our frame has not left this important interest merely to our care, or our consideration. He has not so trusted us to ourselves ; but has inserted among the other affections and j)rinciples wherewith He has endowed us, the appetite of hunger — a strong and urgent and ever-recurring desire for food, which, it is most certain, stands wholly unconnected with any thought on our part, of its physical or posterior uses for the- sustenance of the body ; and from which it would appear, that we need to be not only reminded at proper intervals of this incumbent duty, but goaded on to it. Could the analysts of our nature have ascertained of hunger, that it was the product of man's reflection on the necessity of food, it might have been quoted as an in- stance of the care which man takes of himself. But it seems that he could not be thus confided, either with his own indi- _ vidual preservation, or with the preservation of his species ; and so, for the security of both these objects, strong appetites had to be given him, which, incapable of being resolved into any higher principles, stand distinctly and unequivocally forth, as instances of the care that is taken of him by God. 5. Now this, though it does not prove, yet may prepare us to expect similar provisions in the constitution of our minds. In- deed tiie operose and complicated system, which the great Architect of nature hath devised for our bodies, carries in it a sort of warning to those, who, enamoured of the simplifications of theory, would labour to reduce all our mental phenomena to one or two principles. There is no warrant for this in the examples which Anatomy and Physiology, those sciences that have to do with the animal economy of man, have placed before our eves. Now, though we admit not this as evidence for the actual complexity of man's moral economy — it may at least school away those prepossessions of the fancy or of the taste, that would lead us to resist or to dislike such evidence when offered. We hold it not unlikely that the same Being, who, to supplement the defects of human prudence, hath furnished us with distinct corporeal appetites, that might promj)t us to ope- rations, of the greatest subservient benefit both to the individual and the species — might also, to supplement the defects of human wisdom and principle, have furnished u^ with distinct mental affections or desires, both for our own particular good and the good of society. If man could not be left to his own guidance, 112 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TQ in matters which needed but the anticipation of a few hours ; but to save him from the decay and the death which must have otherwise ensued, had so powerful a remembrancer and insti- gator given to him as the appetite of hunger — we ought not to marvel, should it be found that nature, in endowing him mentally, hath presumed on his incapacity, either for wisely devising or for regularly acting, with a view to distant consequences, and amid the complicated relations of human society. It may, on the one hand, have inserted forces, when the mere consideration of good effects would not have impelled ; or, on the other hand, may have inserted checks, when the mere consideration of evil effects would not have arrested. Yet so it is, that, because of the good that is thereby secured and of the evil that is thereby shunned — we are apt to imagine of some of the most useful principles of our nature, that they are, somehow, the product of human manufacture ; the results of human intelhgence, or of rapid pro- cesses of thought by man, sitting in judgment on the conse- quences of his actions, and wisely providing either for or against them. Now it is very true, that the anger, and the shame, and the emulation, and the parental affection, and the compassion, and the love of reputation, and the sense of property, and the conscience or moral sense — are so many forces of a mechanism, which if not thus furnished, and that too within certain propor- tions, would run into a disorder that might have proved destruc- tive both of the individual and of the species. For reasons already hinted at, we hold it immaterial to the cause of natural theism, whether these constitutional propensities of the human mind are its original or its secondary laws ; but, a^ all events, it is enough for any argument of ours, that they are not so gene- i"ated by the wisdom of man, as to supersede the in.'erence which we drav/ from them, in favour both of the wisdom and goodness of God. 6. The common definition given of anger, is m instance of the tendency on the part of philosophers, if net to derive, at least to connect the emotions of which we have heen made sus- ceptible with certain anterior or higher principles of our nature. Dr. Reid tells us that the proper object of resentment is an in- jury ; and that as " no man can have the notion of injustice, without having the notion of justice," then, " if resentment be natural to man, the notion of justice must be no less natural."* * In glaring contradiction to this, is Dr. Reid's own affirmation regarding the brutes. He says, " that conscience is peculiar to man, we see no vestige of it in the brute animals. It is one of those prerogatives by which we are raised above them." But animals are most abundantly capable of anger — even of that which, by a very general definition, is said to be the emotion that is awakened by a sense of injury, THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 113 And Dr. Brown defines anger to be " that emotion of instant displeasure, which arises from the foehng of injury done or the discovery of injury intended, or, in many cases, from the dis- covery of the mere omission of good offices to which we con- ceived ourselves entitled, though this very omission may, of itself, be regarded as a species of injury." Now the sense of injury implies a sense of its opposite — a sense of justice, there- fore, or the conception of a moral standard from which the in- jury that has awakened the resentment, is felt to be a deviation. Ikit as nothing ought to form part of a definition, which is not indispensable to the thing defined, it would appear, as if, in the judgment of both these philosophers, all who were capable of tmger must also have, to a certain degree, a capacity of moral judgment or moral feeling. The property of resenting a hurt inllicted upon ourselves, would, at this rate, argue, in all cases, a perception of what the moral and equitable adjustment would be between ourselves and others. Now, that these workings of a moral nature are essential to the feeling of anger, is an idea which admits of most obvious and decisive refutation — it being an emotion to which not only infants are competent, ante- rior to the first dawnings of their moral nature ; but even idiots, with whom this nature is obliterated, or still more the inferior animals who "want it altogether. There must be a sense of an- noyance to originate the feeling ; but a sense of injury, injply- ing, as it does, a power of moiai judgment or sensibility, can be in no way indispensable to an emotion, exemj)lified in its utmost force and intensity by sentient creatures, in whom there caimct be detected even the first rudiments of a moral nature. Two dogs, when fighting for a bone, make as distinct and declared an exhi- l;ition of their anger, as two human beings when disputing about the boundary of their contiguous fields. The emotion flashes as unequivocally from any of the inferior, as it does from the only rational and moral species on the face of oi:r globe ; as in the vindictive glare of an infuriated bull, or of a lioness'robbed of her whelps, and who as ii' making proclamation of her wrong;-, gives forth her deep and reiterated cry to the echoes of the w ii- derness. It is an emotion, in fact, which seems cr^.tensive, not only with moral, but with physical sensation. Aiul, if any faith can be placed in the physiognomy, or the natural signs, by which irrational creatures represent what passes within them ; this passion announces itself as vividly and discernibly in the outcries of mutual resentment which ring throughout the aiTipli- «liich sense of injury must im;)ly in ii the sense of its opposite, even of justice, and so land us in the conclusion that brutes are capable of moral conception, or that they have a conscience. 10* 114 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO tildes of savage aiid solitary nature, as in the contests of civi- lized man. 7. The truth, then, seems to be, that the office of the moral faculty is, not to originate, but rather to confine and qualify and regulate this emotion. Anger, if we but study its history and actual exhibitions, will be found the primary and the natural re- sponse to a hurt or harm or annoyance of any sort inflicted on us by others ; and, as such, may be quite expansive and unre- strained and open to excitation from all points of the compass — anterior to and apart from any consideration of its justice, or whether in the being who called it forth, there have been the purpose or not of violating our rights. Infants are fully capable of the feeling, long before they have a notion of equity, or of what is rightfully their own and rightfully another's. The anger of animals, too, is, in like manner, destitute of that moral ingre- dient, which the definitions we have quoted suppose indispen- sable to the formation of it. And yet their emitted sounds have the very expression of fierceness, that we meet with so often among the fellows of our own species. The provocation, the resentment, the kindling glance of hostility, the gradual height- ening of the wrath, its discharge in acts of mutual violence, and lastly, its glutted satisfaction in the flight and even the death of the adversary — these are all indicative of kindred workings within, that have their outward vent in a common and kindred physiognomy, between him who is styled the lord of the crea- tion, and those beneath his feet, who are conceived to stand at a distance that scarcely admits of comparison in the phenomena of their nature. Even man, in the full growth of his rational and moral nature, will often experience the outbreakings of an anger merely physical ; as, to state one instance out of the many, may be witnessed in the anger wreaked by him on the in- ferior animals, when, all unconscious of injury to him, they enter upon his fields, or damage the fruit of his labours. The object of a just resentment towards others, is the purposed in- justice of others towards us ; and, so far from purposing the in- justice, animals have not even the faculty of conceiving it. The moral c(^ideration, then, does not enter as a constituent part into all resentment. It is rather a superadded quality which designates a species of it. It is not the epithet v/hich charac- terizes all anger, but is limited to a certain kind of it. It may be as proper to say of one anger that it is just, and of another that justice or morality has had nothing to do with it — as it is to say of one blow by the hand that it has been rightfully awarded, and of another blow that such a moral characteristic is wholly inapplicable. Morality may at times characterize both the men- THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 115 tal feeling, and the muscular performance ; but it should be as little identified with the one as with the other. And however much analysts may have succeeded on other occasions, in re- ducing to sameness what appeared to be separate constituents of our nature, certain it is, that anger cannot thus be regarded as a resulting manufacture from any of its higher principles. It forms a distinct and original part of our constitution, of which morality, whenever it exists and has the predominance, might take the direction, without being at all essential to the presence or operation of it. So far from this, it is nowhere exhibited in greater vivacity and distinctness than by those creatures who possess but an aniinal, without so much as the germ, or the rudest elements of a moral nature. S. Anger then is an emotion that may rage and tumultuate in a bosom into which one moral conception has never entered. For its excitement nothing more seems necessary than to thwart any desire however unreasonable, or to disappoint any one object which the heart may chance to be set upon. So far from a sense of justice being needful to orginate this emo- tion — it is the man who, utterly devoid of justice, would mo- nopolize to himself all that lies within (he visible horizon, who is most exposed to its visitation. He is the most vulnerable to wrath from every point of the vast circumference around him — ^\ ho, conceiving the Universe to be made for himself alone, is most insensible to the rights and interests of other men. It is in fact because he is so unfurnished with the ideas of justice, that he is so unbridled in resentment. Justice views the world and all its interests as already partitioned among the various members of the human population, each occupying his own little domain ; and, instead of permitting anger to expatiate at random over the universal face of things, justice would curb and over-rule its ebullitions in the bosom of every indi\idual, till a trespass was made within the limits of that territory which is properly and peculiarly his own. In other words, it is the office of this virtue, not to inspire anger, but to draw landmarks and limitations around it ; and, so far from a high moral prin- ciple originating this propensity, it is but an animal propensity, restrained and kept within check and confinement at the bidding of principle. 9. The distinction between reflective and unreflective anger did not escape the notice of the sagacious Butler, as may be seen in the following passages of a sermon upon resentment. — " Resentment is of two kinds — hasty and sudden, or settled and deliberate. The former is called anger and often passion, wliich, though a general word, is frequently appropriated and 116 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO confined to the particular feeling, sudden anger, as distinct from deliberate resentment malice and revenge." " Sudden anger upon certain occasions is mere instinct, as merely so, as the disposition to close our eyes upon the apprehension of some- thing falling into them, and no more necessarily implies any degree of reason. I say necessarily, for, to be sure, hasty as well as deliberate anger, may be occasioned by injury or con- tempt, in which cases reason suggests to our thoughts the in- jury and contempt which is the occasion of the emotion : But I am speaking of the former, only in so far as it is to be distin- guished from the latter. The only way in which our reason and understanding can raise anger, is by representing to our mind an injustice or injury of some kind or other. Now mo- mentary anger is frequently raised, not only without any rule, but without any reason ; that is, without any appearance of in- jury .;3 distinct from hurt or pain. It cannot, I suppose, be thought that this passion in infants and the lower species of ani- mals, and which is often seen in man towards them, it cannot, I say, be imagined that these instances of this emotion are the effect of reason : no, they are occasioned by mere sensation and feeling. It is opposition, sudden hurt, violence which na- turally excites this passion ; and the real demerit or fault of him who offers that violence, or is the cause of that opposition or hurt, does not in many cases so much as come into thought." " Tlie reason and end for which man was made thus liable to this emotion, is that he might be better qualified to prevent, and likewise or perhaps chiefly to resist and defeat sudden force, violence, and opposition, considered merely as such, and with- out regard to- the fault or demerit of him who is the author of them ; yet since violence may be considered in this other and further view, as implying fault, and since injury as distinct from harm may raise sudden anger, sudden anger may likewise acci- dentally serve to prevent or remedy such fault and injury. ]:ut considered as distinct from settled an^er, it stands in our nature for self-defence, and not for the administration of justice. Tlicie are plainly cases, and in the uncultivated parts of the world, m.d v/here regular governments are not formed, they frequently hai)- peii, in which there is no time for considering, and yet to be passive is certain destruction, in which sudden resistance is the only security." — It is an exceeding good instance that Bishop Butler gives of the distinction between instinctive and what may be called rational anger, when he speciiies the anger that we often feel towards the inferior animals. There is properly no injury done, where there is no injury intended. And he who is incapable of conceiving what an injury is, is not a rightful ob- THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 117 ject for at least any moral resentment. But that there is what may be called a physical as well as a moral resentment, is quite ! palpable from the positive wrath which is felt when any thing i untoward or hurtful is done to us even by the irrational crea- : tures. The men who use them as instruments of service often ! discharge the most outrageous wrath upon them — acting the part of ferocious tyrants towards these \Metched victims of their '. cruelty. When a combat takes place between man and one of ] the inferior animals, there is a resentment felt by the former just i as keen and persevering, as if it were between two human com- batants. This makes it quite obvious that there may be anger I without any sense of designed injury on the part of him who is the object of it. Even children, idiots, lunatics, might all be the objects of such a resentment. 10. The final cause of this emotion in the inferior animals is abundantly obvious. It stimulates and ensures resistance to that violence, which, if not resisted, would often terminate I in the destruction of its object. And it probably much oftener serves the purpose of prevention than of defence. The first demonstration of a violence to be offered on the one hand, when met by the preparation and the counter-menace of an incipient resentment on the other, not only repels the aggression after it has begun, but still more frequently, we believe, through the re- action and restraint of fear on the otherwise attacking party, prevents the aggression from being made. The stout and for- midable antagonists eye each other with a sort of natural re- spect ; and, as if by a common though tacit consent, wisely abstain on either side from molestation, and pass onward with- out a quarrel. It is thus that many a fierce contest is forborne, which, but for the operation of anger on the one side and fear upon the other, would most certainly have been entered upon. And so by a system, or machinery of reciprocal checks and counteractives, and where the mental affections too perform the part of essential forces, there is not that incessant warfare of extermination Mhich might have depopulated the world. And here we might observe, that, in studying that balance of powers and of preserving influences, which obtains even in a common- wealth of brutes, the uses of a mental are just as palpable as those of a material collocation. The anger which prompts to the resistance of aggression is as obviously inserted by the hand I of a contriver, as are the horns or the bristles or any other de- fensive weapons where^^^th the body of the animal is furnished. The fear which wings the flight of a pursued animal is as ob- j viously intended for its safety, as is its nuscular conformation or capacity for speed. The affection of a mother for her young 118 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO points as intelligibly to a designer's care for the preservation of the species, as does that apparatus of nourishment wherewith nature hath endowed her. The mother's fondness supplies as distinct and powerful an argument as the mother's milk — or, in other words, a mental constitution might, as well as a physical constitution, be pregnant with the indications of a God. 11. But to return to the special affection of anger, with a re- ference more particularly to its worldng in our own species, where we have the advantage of nearer and distincter observa- tion. We must be abundantly sensible of the pain which there is, not merely in the feeling of resentment, v/hen it burns and festers within our own hearts, but also in being, the objects of another's resentment. They are not the effects only of his anger that we are afraid of; we are afraid of the anger itself, of but the looks and the words of angry violence, though we should be perfectly secure from all the deeds of violence. The simple displeasure of another is formidable, though no chastisement - whatever shall follow upon it. We are so constituted,, that we tremble before the frown of an oflended countenance, and per- haps as readily as we would under the menace of an uplifted arm ; and would often make as great a sacrifice to shun the moral discomfort of another's wrath, as to shun the physical in- fliction which his wrath might impel him to lay upon us. It is thus that where there is no strength for any physical infliction, still there may be a power of correction that amply makes up for it, in the rebuke of an indignant eye or an indignant \oice. This goes far to repair the inequalities of muscular force emiong men ; and forms indeed a most important mound of defence against the effervescence and the outbreakings of brute violence in society. It is incalculable how much we owe to this influ- ence for the peace and courteousness that obtain in every neigh- bourhood. The more patent view of anger is, that it is an in- strument of defence aixainst the aoffressions of violence or in- justice ; and by which they are kept in check, from desolating, as they otherwise would, the face of society. But it not only operates as a corrective against the outrages that are actually made. It has a preventive operation also ; and we are wholly unable to say, in how far the dread of its forth-breaking, serves to soften and to subdue human intercourse into those many thousand decencies of mutual forbearance and complaisance, by which it is gladdened and adorned. There is a recoil from anger in the heart of every man when directed against liimself ; and many who would disdain to make one sacrifice by which to appease it, after it had thrown down the gauntlet of hostility, will in fact make one continued sacrifice of their tone and manner THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 119 and habit, that it may not be awakened out of its slumbers. It were difficult to compute how much we are indebted, for the blandness and the amenity of human companionships, to the con- sciousness of so many sleeping fires, in readiness to blaze forth, at the touch or on the moment of any provocation being offered. We dou])t not, that, in military and fashionable, and indeed in all society, it acts as a powerful restraint on every thing that is offensive. The domineering insolence of those v.ho, with the instrument of anger too, would hold society in bondage, is most effectually arrested, when met by an anger which throws back the fear upon themselves, and so quiets and composes all their violence. It is thus that a balance is maintained, without which human society might go into utter derangement ; and without which too, even the animal creation might lose its stability and disappear. And there is a kind of moral power in the anger itself, that is separate from the animal or the physical strength which it puts into operation ; and which invests with command, or at least provides with defensive armour those who would otherwise be the most helpless of our species — so that de- crepid age or feeble womanhood has by the mere rebuke of an angry countenance made the stoutest heart to tremble before them. It is a moral force, by which the inequalities of muscu- lar force are repaired ; and, while itself a firebrand and a de- stroyer, yet, by the very terror of its ravages, which it diffuses among all, were it to stalk abroad and at large over the world — does it contribute to uphold the pacific virtues among men. 12. When the ano;er of one individual in a household is the terror of the rest, then that individual may become the little des- pot of the establishment ; and thus it is that often the feeblest of them all in muscular strength may wield a domestic tyranny by which the stoutest is overpowered. But when the anger of this one is fortunately met by the spirit and resolution of another, then, kept at bay with its own weapon, it is neu- tralized into a state of innocence. It is not necessary for the production of this effect, that the parties ever should have come to the extremity of an open and declared violence. If there be only a mutual consciousness of each other's energy of passion and of purpose, then a mutual awe and mutual forbearance may be the result of it. And thus it is, that, by the operation of these reciprocal checks in a family, the peace and order of it may be securely upholden. We have witnessed how much a wayward and outrageous temper has been sweetened, by the very presence in the same mansion, of one who could speak I again, and would not succumb to any unreasonable violence. The violence is abated. And we cannot compute how much it 120 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO is that the blandness and the mutual complaisance which obtain in society, are due to the secret dread in which men stand of each other's irritation ; or, in other words, little do we know to what extent, the smile and the courteousness and the urbanity of civilized life, that are in semblance so many expressions of human benevolence, may, really and substantially, be owing to the fears of human selfishness. Were this speculation pursued, it might lead to a very humiliating estimate indeed of the virtue of individuals — though we cannot but admire the wisdom of that economy, by wliich, even without virtue, individuals may be made, through the mutual action and reaction of their emotions, to form the materials of a society that can stand. Anger does in private life, what the terrors of the penal code do in the com- munity at large. It acts with salutary influence, in a vast mul- tiplicity of cases, which no law could possibly provide for ; and where the chastisements of law, whether in their corrective or preventive influence, cannot reach. The good of a penal dis- cipline in society extends far and wide beyond the degree in which it is actually inflicted ; and many are the pacific habits of a neighbourhood, that might be ascribed, not to the pacific vir- tues of the men who compose it, but to the terror of those con- sequences which all men know would ensue upon their violation. 'And it is just so of anger, in the more frequent and retired in- tercourse of private life. The good which it does by the feai of its ebullitions is greater far than all which is done by the actual ebullitions themselves. But we cannot fail to perceive that the amount of service which is done in this way to t»he spe- cies at large, must all be regarded as a deduction from the amount of credit which is due to the individuals who belong to it. We have already remarked on the propensity of moralists to accredit the wisdom of man with effects, which, as being pro- vided for not by any care or reflection of ours, but by the ope- ration of constitutional instincts — are more properly and imme- diately to be ascribed to the wisdom of God. And in like man- ner, there is a propensity in moralists to accredit the wisdom of man with effects, which, as being provided for not by any con- sciousness or exercise of principle on our part, but by the opera- tion still of constitutional instincts — are more properly and immediately to be ascribed to the goodness of God.* * The following extract from Brown tends well to illustrate one of the final causes for the implantatiyon of this principle in our constitution. — " What human wants re- quired, that all-foreseeing Power, who is the guardian of our infirmities, has supplied to human weakness. There is a principle in our mind, which is to us like a constant protector, which may slumber, 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 THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 121 13. There is another special affection which we feel more par- ticularly induced to notice, from its palpable effect in restraining the excess of one of nature's strongest appetites. Its position in the mental system reminds one of the very obvious adaptation to each other of the antagonist muscles in anatomy. We allude to the operation of shame between the sexes, considered as a check or counteractive to the indulgence of passion between the sexes. The former is as clear an instance of moral, as the lat- ter is of physical adaptation. And in their adjustment the one to the other, we observe that sort of exquisite balancing, which, perhaps more than any thing else, indicates the wisdom and the hand of a master — as if when, in the execution of some very nice and difficult task, he is managing between contraiy extremes, or is devising in just proportion for contrary interests. We might better comprehend the design of tliis strikingly peculiar mechan- ism, by imagining of the two opposite instincts, that either of them was in excess, or either of them in defect. Did the con- stitutional modesty prevail to a certain conceivable extent — it might depopulate the world. Did the animal propensity prepon- derate, on the other hand — it might land the world in an anarchy of unblushing and universal licentiousness — to the entire break- ing up of our present blissful economy, by which society is par- titioned into sepai'ate families ; and, with the interests of domestic life to provide for, and its affections continually to recreate the heart in the midst of anxieties and labours, mankind are kept in a state both of most useful activity and of greatest enjoyment. We cannot conceive a more skilful, we had almost said a more delicate or dexterous adjustment, than the one actually fixed upon — by which, in the first instance, through an appetency suffi- ciently strong the species is upholden ; and, in the second in- violence of the attack which it has to dread. What should we think of the provi- dence 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 inter- vention 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 \vith that which we receive from the 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 consequently, 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 wjiich arises does more than many such weapons. It gives the spirit, which knows how to make a wea- pon 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 arises, fear is gone ; there is no coward, for all aro 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." Lect. Ixiii. 11 122 ADAPTATIONS OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO stance, through the same appetency sufficiently restrained, those hallowed decencies of life are kept unviolate, which are so indis- pensable to all order and to all moral gracefulness among men. We have only to conceive the frightful aspect which society would put on, did unbridled licentiousness stalk at large as a destroyer, and rifle every home of those virtues which at once guard and adorn it. The actual and the beautiful result, when viewed in connexion with that moral force, by the insertion of which in our nature it is accomplished, strongly bespeaks a presiding intellect — which in framing the mechanism of the human mind, had re- spect to what was most beneficent and best for the mechanism of human society. 14. It is well that man is so much the creature of a constitu- tion which is anterior to his own wisdom and his own will, and of circumstances which are also anterior to liis wisdom and his will. It would have needed a far more comprehensive view than we are equal to, both of what was best for men in a community and for man as an individual, to have left a creature so short-sighted or of such brief and narrow survey, with the fixing either of his own principles of action or of his relation with the external world. That constitutional shame, that quick and trembling delicacy, a prompt and ever-present guardian, appearing as it does in verv early childhood, is most assuredly not a result from any anticipa- tion by us, either of future or distant consequences. Even the moral sense within us, does not speak so loudly or so distinctly the evil of this transgression, as it does of falsehood, or of inju- rious freedom with the property of a neighbour, or of personal violence. Other forces than those of human prudence or human principle seem to have been necessary, for resisting a most pow- erful and destructive fascination, which never is indulged, without deterioration to the whole structure of the moral character and con- stitution ; and which, when once permitted to loid it over the habits, so often terminates in the cruel disruption of families, and the irretrievable ruin and disgrace of the offender. It is not by any prospective calculation of ours, that this natural modesty, act- ing as a strong precautionary check against evils which however tremendous, we are too heedless to reflect upon, has been estab- lished within us. It is directly implanted by one, who sees the end from the beginning ; and so forms altogether a most palpable instance, in which we have reason to congratulate ourselves, that the well-being of man, instead of being abandoned to himself, has been placed so immediately under the management of better and higher hands. 15. There are many other special affections in our nature — the principal of which will fall to be noticed in succeeding THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 123" chapters ; and the interests to which they are respectively sub- servient form a natural ground of division, in our treatment of them. Certain of these atfections stand related to the civil, and certain of them to the economic well-being of society ; and each of these subserviencies will form the subject of a sepa- rate argument. CHAPTER VI. On those sjyecial Jlffections which conduce lo the civil and jjolitical Well-being of Socielij. 1. The first step towards the aggregation of men into a community, or the first departure from a state of perfect isola- tion, could that state ever have subsisted for a single day, is the patriarchal arrangement. No sooner indeed is the infant creature ushered into being, than it is met by the cares and the caresses of those who are around it, and who have either attended or welcomed its entry on this scene of existence — as if, in very proportion to the extremity of its utter helpless- ness, was the strength of that seciu-ity which nature hath pro- vided, in the workings of the human constitution, for the pro- tection of its weakness and the supply of all its little wants. That there should be hands to receive and to manage this tender visitant, is not more obviously a benevolent adaptation, than that there should be hearts to sympathise v/ith its cries of impotency or distress. The maternal aflection is as ex- j)ress an instance of this as the maternal nourishment — nor is the inference at all weakened, by the attempts, even though they should be successful, of those v,ho would demonstrate of this universal fondness of mothers, that, instead of an original in stiiict, it is but a derived or secondary law of our nature. Were that analysis as distinct and satisfactory as it is doubtful and obscure, which would resolve all mental phenomena into the single principle of association — still the argument would stand. A secondary law, if not the evidence of a distinct principle^ re- (juires at least distinct and peculiar circumstances for its de- velopement ; and the right ordering of these for a beneficial result, is just as decisively the proof and the characteristic of a plan, as are the collocations of Anatomy. It might not have been necessary to endow matter with any new property for the preparation of a child's aliment in the breast of its mother — - 124 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO yet the frame- work of that very peculiar apparatus by which the milk is secreted, and the suckling's mouth provided with a duct of conveyance for the abstraction of it, is, in the many fit- nesses of time and place and complicated arrangement, preg- nant with the evidence of a designer's contrivance and a de- signer's care. And in like manner, though it should be estab- hshed, that the affection of a mother for her young from the moment of their birth, instead of an independent principle in her nature, was the dependent product of remembrances 5.nd feelings which had accumulated during the period of gesta- tion, and were at length fixed, amidst the agonies of parturi- tion, into the strongest of all her earthly regards — the argu- ment for design is just as entire, though, instead of connecting it with the pecuharity of an original law, we connect it with the pecuharity of those circumstances which favor the develope- ment of this maternal feeling, in the form of a secondary law. There is an infinity of conceivable methods, by which the succes- sive generations of men might have risen into being ; and our ar- gument is entire, if, out of these, that method has been selected, whereof the result is an intense affection on the part of mo- thers for their offspring. It matters not whether this universal propensity of theirs be a primary instinct of nature, or but a resulting habit which can be traced to the process which they have been actually made to undergo, or the circumstances in which they have actually been placed. The ordination of this pro- cess, the mandate for the assemblage and collocation of these circumstances, gives as distinct and decisive indication of an ordaining mind, as would the establishment of any peculiar law. Let it suffice once for all to have said this — for if in the prosecution of our inquiry, we stopped at every turn to enter- tain the question, whether each beneficial tendency on which we reasoned, were an original or only a secondary principle in nature — we should be constantly rushing uncalled into the mists of obscurity ; and fastening upon our cause an element of doubt and weakness, which in no wise belongs to it. 2. The other affections which enter into the composition, or rather, form the cement of a family, are more obviously of a de- rivative, and less obviously of an instinctive character, than is that strong maternal affinity which meets so opportunely with the extreme helplessness of its objects, that but for the succour and sympathy of those whose delight it is to cherish and sustain them, would perish in the infancy of their being. However questionable the analysis might be, which would resolve the universal fondness of mothers for their young into something an- terior — the paternal and brotherly and filial affections seem, on WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 125 surer grounds, and which arc accessible to observation, not to be original but originated feehngs. Inquirers, according to their respective tastes and tendencies, have deviated on both sides of the evidence — that is, either to an excessive and hypothetic simplification of nature, or to an undue multiplication of her first principles. And certain it is, that when told of the mystic ties which bind together into a domestic community, as if by a sort of certain peculiar attraction, all of the same kindred and the same blood — we are reminded of those occult qualities, which, in the physics both of matter and of mind, afforded so much of entertainment, to the scholastics of a former age. But with the adjustment of this philosophy we properly have no concern. It matters not to our argument whether the result in question be due to the force of instincts or to the force of circumstances, — any more than whether in the physical system, a certain benefi- cial result may be ascribed to apt and peculiar laws, or to apt and peculiar collocations. In virtue of one or other or both of these causes, we behold the individuals of the species grouped together — or, as it may be otherwise expressed, the aggregate mass of the species, broken asunder into distinct families, and generally living by themselves, each family imder one common roof, but apart from all the rest in distinct habitations ; while the members of every little commonwealth are so linked by certain atTections, or by certain feelings of reciprocal obligation, that each member leels almost as intensely for the wants and suffer- ings of the rest as he would for his own, or labours as strenuously for the sustenance of all as he would for his own individual suste- nance. There is very geucLally a union of hearts, and still oftiiner a union of hands, lor the common interest and provision of the household. 3. The benefits of such an arrangement arc too obvious to be enumerated. Even though the law of self-preservation had suf- lii-ed in those cases where the individual has adequate wisdom to devise, and adecpiate strength to provide for his own mainte- nance — of itself, it could not have availed, when this strength and thirj wisdom are wanting. It is in the bosom of families, and under the touch and imj)ulse of family aHcctions, that helpless infancy is nurtured into manhood, and hol[)less disease or age have the kindliest and most efl'ectivc succour aflbrded to them. fOven when the strength for labour, instead of being confined to one, is slmred among several of the household, there is often an incalculable benefit, in the very concert of their forces and com- munity of their gams — so long, for example, as a brotherhood, yet advancing towards maturity, continue to live under the same roof, and to live under the direction of one authority, or by the 11* 126 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO movement of one will. We shall not expatiate, either on the enjoyment that might be had under such an economy, while it lasts, in the sweets of mutual affection ; or minutely explain how, after the economy is dissolved, and the separate members betake themselves each to his own way in the world — -the duties and the friendships of domestic life are not annihilated by this dispersion ; but, under the powerful influence of a felt and acknowledged re- lationship, the affinities of kindred spread and multiply beyond their original precincts, to the vast increase of mutual sympathy and aid and good offices in general society. It will not, we sup- pose, be questioned — that a vastly greater amount of good is done by the instrumentality of others, and that the instrumenta- lity itself is greatly more available, under the family system, to which we are prompted by the strong affections of nature, than if that system were dissolved. But the remarkable thing is, that these affections had to be provided, as so many impellent forces — guiding men onward to an arrangement the most prolific of ad- vantage for the whole, but which no care or consideration of the general good would have led them to form. This provision for the wants of the social economy, is analogous to that, which we have already observed, for the wants of the animal ecovAiny. Neither of these interests was confided to any cold generality, whether of principle or prudence. In the one, the strong appetite of hunger supplements the deficiency of the rational principle of self-preservation. In the other, the strong family affections supplement the deficiency of the moral principle of general be- nevolence. Without the first, the requisite measures would not have been taken for the regular sustenance of the individual. Without the other, the requisite measures would not have been taken for the diffused sustenance of the community at large. 4. Such is the mechanism of human society, as it comes di- rect, from the hand of nature or of nature's God. But many have been the attempts of human wisdom to mend and to med- dle with it. Cosmopolitism, in particular, has endeavoured to substitute a sort of universal citizenship, in place of the family affections — regarding these as so many disturbing forces ; be- cause, operating only as incentives to a partial or particular be- nevolence, they divert the aim from that which should, it is con- tended, be the object of every enlightened philanthropist, the general and greatest good of the whole. It is thus that certain transcendental speculafists would cut asunder all the special affinities of our nature, in order that men, set at large from the ties and the duties of the domestic relationship, might be at liberty to prosecute a more magnificent and god-like career of virtue ; and, in every single action, have respect, not to the well-being WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 127 of the individual, but to the well-being of the species. And thus also, friendship and patriotism have been stigmatized, along with the family affections, as so many narrow minded- virtues, which, by their distracting influence, seduce men from that all-compre- hensive virtue, whose constant study being the good of the world — a happy and regenerated world, it is the fond imagination of some, would be the result of its universal prevalence among men. 5. Fortunately, nature is too strong for this speculation, which, therefore, has only its full being, in the reveries or the pages of those who, in authorship, may well be termed the philosophical novelists of our race. But, beside the actual strength of those special propensities in the heart of man, which no generalization can overrule, there is an utter impotency in human means or human expedients, for carrying this hollow, this heartless gene- ralization into effect. It is easy to erect into a moral axiom, the principle of greatest happiness ; and then, on the strength of it, to denounce all the special atTections, and propose the substitu- tion of a universal affection in their place. But in prosecuting the object of this last affection, what specific and intelligible thing are they to do ? How shall they go about it ? What conventional scheme shall men fall upon next for obtaining the maximum of utility, after they have broken loose, each from his own little home, and have been emancipated from those intense regards, which worked so effectively and with such force of concentration there ? It has never been clearly shown, how the glorious sim- plifications of those cosmopolites admit of being practically re- alized — whether by a combination, of which the chance is that all men might not agree upon it ; or by each issuing quixotically forth of his own habitation, and labouring (he best he may to realize the splendid conception by which he is fired and actuated. And it does not occur to those who would thus labour to extir- pate the special affections from ovu- nature, that it is in the indul- gence of them that all conceivable happiness lies ; and that, in being bereft of them, we should be in truth bereft of all the means and materials of enjoyment. And there is the utmost diflerence in point of eflect, as well as in point of feeling, between the strong love wherewith nature hath endued us for a few particular men, and the general love wherewith philosophers would inspire us for men in the abstract — the former philanthropy leading to a de- voted and sustained habit of well directed exertion, for supi)lying the wants and multiplying the enjoyments of every separate household ; the latter philanthropy, at once indefinite in its aim , and intangible in its objects, overlooking every man just because charging itself with the oversight of all men. It is by a summa- tion of particular ufilities which each man, under the impulse of 128 AFFECTIONS WHiCIi CONDUCE TO his own particular affections, contributes to the general good, that nature provides for the happiness of the world. But ambi- tious and aspiring man would take the charge of this happiness upon himself; and his first step would be to rid the heart of all its special affections — or, in other words, to unsettle the moral dynamics which nature hath established there, without any other moral dynamics, either of precise direction or of operative force, to establish in their room. After having paralized all the ordi- nary principles of action, he would, in his newly modelled sys- tem of humanity, be able to set up no principle of action what- ever. His v^isdom, when thus opposed to the wisdom of nature, is utterly powerless to direct, however much, in those seasons of delusion when the merest nonentities and names find a tem- porary sway, it may be powerful to destroy. 6. Now there is nothing which so sets off the superior skill of one a.tist, as the utter failure of every other artist in his attempts to improve upon it. And so the failure of every philanthropic or political experiment v»'hich proceeds on the distrust of nature's strong and urgent and general affections, may be regarded as an impressive while experimental demonstration for the matchless vvisdom of nature's God. The abortive enterprises of wild \et benevolent Utopianism ; the impotent and hurtful schemes of aj-tiiicial charity which so teem throughout the cities and parishes of our land ; the pernicious legislation, which mars instead of medicates, whenever it intermeddles with the operations of a pre- vious and betttr mechanism than its own — have all of them mis- given only because, instead of conforming to nature, they have tried to divert her from her courses, or have thwarted and tra- versed the strongest of her implanted tendencies, it is thus that every attempt for taking to pieces, whether totally or partially, the actual frame-work of society, and reconstructing it in a new w-ay or on new principles — is altogether fruitless of good ; and often fruitful of sorest evil both to the happiness and virtue of the commonwealth. That economy by Avhich the family system would have been entirely broken up ; and associated m.en, living together in planned and regulated villages, would have labourcil for the common good, and given up their children wholly undo- mesticated to a common education — could not have been carried into effect, without overbearing the parental affection, and other strong propensities of nature besides ; and so, it was stifled in embryo, by the instant revolt of nature against it. That legisla- tion, which, instead of overbearing, would but seduce nature from her principles, may subsist for generations — yet not without such distemper to society, as may at leng'th amount to utter disor- ganization. And ihia is precisely the mischief which the pau- WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 129 perism of England hath inflicted on the habits of English taniilies. It hath, by the most pernicious of all bribery, relaxed the ties and obligations of mutual relationship — exonerating parents on the one hand from the caie and maintenance of their own offspring ; and tempting children on the other to cast off the parents who gave them birth, and, instead of an asylum gladdened by the as- sociations and sympathies of home, consigning them for the last closing years of w eakness and decrepitude to the dreary impri- sonment of a poor house. Had the beautiful arrangements of nature not been disturbed, the relative affections which she her- self has implanted would have been found strong enough, as in other countries, to have secured, through the means of a do- mestic economy alone, a provision both for young and old, in far greater unison with both the comfort and the virtue of fami- lies. The corrupt and demoralizing system of England might well serve as a lesson to philanthropists and statesmen, of the hazard, nay of the positive and undoubted mischief, to which the best interests of humanity are exposed — when they traverse the processes of a better mechanism instituted by the wisdom of God, through the operation of another mechanism devised by a wis- dom of their own. 7. And those family relations in which all men necessarily find themselves at the outset of life, serve to strengthen, if they do not originate certain other subsequent affections of wider operation, and which bear with most important effect on the state and security of a commonwealth. Each man's house may be regarded as a preparatory school, where he acquires in boyhood, those habits of subordination and dependence and reverence for superiors, by which he all the more readily conforms in after-life, to the useful gradations of rank and authority and wealth which obtain in the order of general society. We are aware of a cos- mopolitism that would unsettle those principles which bind to- gether the larger commonwealth of a state ; and that too with still greater force and frequency, than it would unsettle those affections which bind together the little commonwealth of a family. It is easier to undermine in the hearts of subjects, their reverence for rank and station ; than it is to dissolve the ties of parentage and brotherhood, or to denaturalize the hearts of chil- dren. Accordingly we may remember those seasons, when, in the form of what may be termed a moral epidemic, a certain spirit of lawlessness went abroad upon the land ; and the minds of men were set at large from the habit of that homage and re- spect, which in more pacific times, they, without pusillanimity and in spite of themselves, do render to family or fortune or office in society. We know that in specific instances, an adequate 130 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO cause is too often given why men should cast off that veneration for rank by which they are naturally and habitually actuated — , as, individually, when the prince or the noble, however elevated, may have disgraced himself by his tyranny or his vices ; or, generally, when the patrician orders of the state may have en- tered into some guilty combination of force and fraud against the liberties of mankind, and outraged nature is called forth to a generous and wholesome re-action against the oppressors of their species. This is the revolt of one natural principle against the abuse of another. But the case is very different — when, in- stead of an hostility resting on practical grounds and justified by the abuses of a principle, there is a sort of theoretical yet withal virulent and inflamed hostility abroad in the land against the principle itself — when wealth and rank without having abused their privileges, are made j)er se the objects of a jealous and resentful malignity — when the people all reckless and agog, because the dupes of designing and industrious agitators, have been led to regard every man of afl^uence or station as their natural enemy — and when, with the bulk of the community in this attitude of stout and sullen defiance, authority is weakened and all the natural influences of rank and wealth are suspended. Now nature never gives more effectual demonstration of her wisdom, than by the mischief which ensues on the abjuration of her own principles ; and never is the lesson thus held forth more palpable and convincing, than when respect for station and re- spect for office cease to be operating principles in society. We are abundantly sensible that both mighty possessions and the honours of an industrious ancestry may be disjoined from indi- vidual talent and character, — nay, that they may meet in the person of one so utterly weak or worthless, as that our reverence because of the adventitious circumstanx^es in which he is placed, may be completely overborne by our contempt either for the imbecility or the moral turpitude by which he is deformed. But this is only the example of a contest between two principles, and of a victory by the superior over the inferior one. We are not, however, because of the inferiority of a principle to lose sight of its existence ; or to betray such an imperfect discernment and analysis of the human mind, as to deny the reality of any one principle, because liable to be modified, or kept in check, or even for the time rendered altogether powerless, by the interpo- sition and the conflict of another principle. If, on the one hand, rank may be so disjoined from righteousness as to forfeit all its claims to respect — on the other hand, to be convinced that these claims are the objects of a natural and universal acknowledg- ment, and have therefore a foundation in the actual constitution THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 131 of human nature, let us only consider the effect, when pre-emi- nent rank and pre-eminent or even but fair and ordinary righ- teousness, meet together in the person of the same individual. The effect of such a composition upon human feelings may well persuade us that, while a respect for righteousness admitted by all enters as one ingredient, a respect for rank has its distinct and substantive being also as another ingredient. We have the former ingredient by itself in a state of separation, and are therefore most sensible of its presence, when the object of con- templation is a virtuous man. But we are distinctly sensible to the superaddition of the latter ingredient, when, instead of a vir- tuous man, the object of contemplation is a virtuous monarch — though it becomes more palpable still, when it too is made to exist in a state of separation, \\hich it does, when the monarch is neither hateful for his vices nor very estimable for his virtues ; but stands forth in the average possession of those moralities and of that intellect which belong to common and every day humanity. Even such a monarch has only to appear among his subjects ; and, in all ordinary times, he will be received with the greetings of an honest and heartfelt loyalty, while any mi- wonted progress through his dominions is sure to be met all over the land, by the acclamations of a generous enthusiasm. E^en the sturdiest demagogue, if he come within the sphere of the royal presence, cannot resist the infection of that common sentiment by which all are actuated ; but, as if struck with a moral impotency, he also, carried away by the fascination, is constrained to feel and to acknowledge its influence. Some there are, v»ho might affect to despise human nature for such an exhibition, and indignantly exclaim that men are born to be slaves. But the truth is, that there is nothing prostrate, nothing pusillanimous in the emotion at all. Instead of this, it is a lofty chivalrous emotion, of which the most exalted spirits are the most susceptible, and which all might indulge without any for- feiture of their native or becoming dignitv. We do not affirm of this respect either for the sovereignty of an empire, or for the chieftainship of a province — that it forms an original or consti- tuent part of our nature. It is enough for our argument, if it be a universal result of the circumstances in every land, where such gradations of power and property are established. In a word, it is the doing of nature, and not of man ; and if man, in the proud and presumptuous exercise of his own wisdom, shall lift his rebel hand against the wisdom of nature, and try to up- root this principle from human hearts — he will find that it cannot be accomplished, without tearing asunder one of the strongest of those ligaments, which bind together the component parts of 132 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO V human society into a harmonious and well-adjusted mechanism. And it is then that the msdom wliich made nature, will demon- strate its vast superiority over the wisdom which would mend it — when the desperate experiment of the latter has been tried and found wanting. There are certain restraining forces (and reverence for rank and station is one of them) which never so convincingly announce their own importance to the peace and stability of the commonwealth, as in those seasons of popular frenzy, when, for a time, they are slackened or suspended. For it is then that the vessel of the state, as if shpped from her moorings, drifts headlong among the surges of insurrectionary violence, till, as the effect of this great national effervescence, the land mourns over its ravaged fields and desolated families ; when, after, the sweeping anarchy has blown over it, and the sore chastisement has been undergone, the now schooled and humbled people seek refuge anew in those very principles, which they had before traduced and discarded : And it will be fortunate if, when again settled down in the quietude of their much needed and much longed-for repose, there be not too vigorous a re-action of those conservative influences, which, in the moment of their wantonness, they had flung so recklessly away — in virtue of which the whips may become scorpions, and the mild and well-balanced monarchy may become a grinding despotism. 8. Next to the wisdom which nature discovers in her implan- tation or developement of those affections, by which society is parcelled down into separate families ; is the wisdom v/hich she discovers in those other affections, by which the territory of a nation, and all upon it that admits of such a distribution, is like- wise parcelled and broken off into separate properties. Both among the analysts of the human mind, and among metaphy- sical jurists and politicians, there is to be found much obscure and unsatisfactory speculation respecting those principles, whe- ther elementary or complex, by which property is originated and by which property is upholden. We are not called to enter upon any subtle analysis for the purpose of ascertaining either what that is which gives birth to the possessory feeling on the part of an owner, or what that is which leads to such a universal recognition and respect for his rights in general society. It will be enough if we can evince that neither of these is a facti- tious product, devised by the wisdom or engendered by the au- thority of patriots and legislators, deliberating on what was best for the good and order of a community ; but that both of them are the results of a prior wisdom, employed, not in framing a con- stitution for a state, but in framing a constitution for human THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 133 nature. It will suffice to demonstrate this, if we can show, that, in very early childhood, there are germinated both a sense of property and a respect for the property of others ; and that, long before the children have been made the subjects of any artificial training on the thing in question, or are at all capable of any anticipation, or even wish, respecting the public and collective well-being of the country at large. Just as the affection of a mother is altogether special, and terminates upon the infant, without any calculation as to the superiority of the family system over the speculative systems of the cosmopolites ; and just as the appetite of hunger impels to the use of food, without the least regard, for the time being, to the support or preservation of the animal economy — so, most assuredly, do the desires or notions of property, and even the principles by which it is limited, spring up in the breasts of children, without the slightest appre- hension, on their part, of its vast importance to the social economy of the world. It is the provision, not of man, but of God. 9. That is my property, to the use and enjoyment of which I, without the permission of others, am free, in a manner that no other is ; and it is mine and mine only, in as far as this use and enjoyment are limited to myself — and others, apart from any grant or permission by me, are restrained from the like use and the like enjoyment. Now the first tendency of a child, instead of regarding only certain things, as those to the use and enjoy- ment of which it alone is free, is to regard itself as alike free to the use and enjoyment of all things. We should say that it regards the whole of external nature as a vast common, but for this difference — that, instead of regarding nature as free to all, it rather regards it as free to itself alone. When others inter- meddle with any one thing, in a way that suits not its fancy or pleasure, it resents and storms and exclaims like one bereft of its rights — so that, instead of regarding the universe as a com- mon, it were more accurate to say, that it regarded the whole as its own property, or itself as the universal proprietor of all on which it may have cast a pleased or a wishful eye. Whatever it grasps, it feels to be as much its own as it does the fingers which grasp it. And not only do its claims extend to all within its reach, but to all within the field of its vision — insomuch, that it will even stretch forth its hands to the moon in the firmament ; and wreak its displeasure on the nurse, for not bringing the splendid bauble within its grasp. Instead then of saying, that, at this particular stage, it knows not how to appropriate any thing, it were more accurate to say, that a universal tyrant and monopolist, it would claim and appropriate all things — exacting from the whole of nature a subserviency to its caprices ; and, 12 134 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO the little despot of its establishment, giving forth its intimations and its mandates, with the expectation, and often with the real power and authority of instant obedience. We before said that its anger was coextensive with the capacity of sensation ; and we now say that, whatever its rectified notion of property may be, it has the original notion of an unlimited range over which itself at least may, expatiate, without let or contradiction — the self-constituted proprietor of a domain, wide as its desires, and on which none may interfere against its will, without awakening in its bosom, somewhat like the sense and feeling of an injuri- ous molestation.* 10. And it is instructive to observe the process, by which this original notion of property is at length rectified into the sub- sequent notion, which obtains in general society. For this pur- pose we must enquire what the circumstances are which limit and determine that sense of property, which was quite general and unrestricted before, to certain special things, of which the child learns to feel that they are peculiarly its own — and that too, in a manner which distinguishes them from all other things, which are not ?o felt to be its own. The child was blind to any such distinction before — its first habit being to arrogate and monopolize all things ; and the question is, what those circum- stances are, which serve to signalize some things, to which, its feelings of property, now withdrawn from wide and boundless generality, are exclusively and specifically directed. It will make conclusively for our argument, if it shall appear, that this sense of property, even in its posterior and rectified form, is the work of nature, operating on the hearts of children ; and not the work of man, devising, in the maturity of his political wisdom, such a regulated system of things, as might be best for the order and well being of society. 11. This matter then might be illustrated by the contests of very young children, and by the manner in which these are adjusted to the acquiescence and satisfaction of them all. We might gather a lesson even from the quarrel which sometimes a/ises among them, about a matter so small as their right to the + From what has been already said of resentment, it would appear, that the in- stinctive feeling of property, and instinctive anger arc in a state of co-relation with ea^'h other. It is by offence being rendered to the former, that the latter is called foilh. Anterior to a sense of justice, our disposition is to arrogate every tiling — and it is then that we are vulnerable to anger from all points of the compass. Let another meddle, to our anoyance, with any thing whatever, at this early stage, and we shall feel the very emotion of anger, which in a higher stage of moral and mental cultivation, is only called forth by its meddling with that which really and rightfully belongs to us. The sense of justice, instead of originating either the emotion of anger, or a sense of property, has the effect to limit and restrain both. THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 135 paiticular chairs of a room. If one for example, have just sat on a chair, though only for a few minutes, and then left it for a moment — it will feel itself injured, if, on returning, it shall find the chair in the possession of another occupier. The brief occupation which it has already had, gives it the feeling of a right to the continued occupation of it — insomuch, that, when kept out by an intruder, it has the sense of having been wrong- ously dispossessed. The particular chair of which it was for some time the occupier, is the object of a special possessory affection or feeling, which it attaches to no other chair ; and by which it stands invested in its own imagination, as being, for the time, the only rightful occupier. This then may be regarded as a very early indication of that possessory feeling, which is after- wards of such extensive influence in the economy of social life — a feeling so strong, as often of itself to constitute a plea, not only sufficient in the apprehension of the claimant, but sufficient in the general sense of the community, for substantiating the right of many a proprietor. 12. But there is still another primitive ingredient which enters iiito this feeling of property ; and we call it primitive, because anterior to the sanctions or the application of law. Let the child in addition to the plea that it had been the recent occupier of the chair in question, be able further to advance in argument for its right — that, with its own hands, it had just placed it beside the fire, and thereby given additional value to the occupation of it. This reason is both felt by the child itself, and will be admitted by other children even of a very tender age, as a strengthener of its claim. It exemplifies the second great principle on which the natural right of property rests — even that every man is pro- prietor of the fruit of his own labour ; and that to whatever extent he may have impressed additional value on any given thing by the work of his own hands, to that extent, at least, he should be held (he owner of it. 13. This then seems the way, in which the sense of his right \) any given thing arises in the heart of the claimant ; but some- thing more must be said to account for the manner in which this right is deferred to by his com})anions. It accounts for the manner, in which the possessory feeling arises in the hearts of one and all of thejn, when similarly circumstanced ; but it does not account for the manner in whi(^.h this possessory feeling, in the heart of each, is respected by all his fellows — so that he is suffered to remain, in the secure and unmolested possession of that which ho rightfiilly claims. The circumstances which ori- ginate the sense of property, serve to explain this one fact, the existence of a possessory feeling, in the heart of every individual N 136 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO who is actuated thereby. But the deference rendered to this feehng by any other individuals, is another and a distinct Tact ^ and we must refer to a distinct principle from that of the mere sense of property, for the explanation of it. This new or distinct principle is a sense of equity — or that which prompts to likeness or equality, between the treatment which I should claim of others and my treatment of them ; and in virtue of which, I should hold it unrighteous and unfair, if I disregarded or inflicted violence on the claim of another, which, in the same circumstances with him, I am conscious that I should have felt, and would have advanced for myself. Had I been the occupier of that chair, in like man- ner with the little claimant who is now insisting on the possession of it, I should have felt and claimed precisely as he is doing. Still more, had I like him placed it beside the fire, I should have felt what he is now expressing — a still more distinct and decided right to it. If conscious of an identity of feeling between me and another in the same circumstances — then let mv moral nature be so far evolved as to feel the force of this consideration ; and, under the operation of a sense of equity, I shall defer to the very claim, which I should myself have urged, had I been simi- larly placed. And it is mai-vellous, how soon the hearts of chil- dren discover a sensibility to this consideration, and how soon they are capable of becoming obedient to the power of it. It is, in fact, the principle on which a thousand contests of the nursery are settled, and many thousand more are prevented ; what else would be an incessant scramble of rival and ravenous cupidity, being mitigated and reduced to a very great, though unknown and undefinable extent, by the sense of justice coming into play. It is altogether worthy of remark, however, that the senfee of property is anterior to the sense of justice, and comes from an anterior and distinct source in our nature. It is not justice v.hich originates the proprietary feeling in the heart of any individual. It only arbitrates between the proprietary claims and feelings of different individuals — after these had previously arisen by the operation of other principles in the human constitution. Those writers on jurisprudence are sadly and inextricably puzzled, who imagine that justice presided over the first ordinations of property — utterly at a loss as they must be, to find out the principle that could guide her initial movements. Justice did not create pro- perty ; but found it already created — her only office being to decide between the antecedent claims of one man and another : And, in the discharge of this office, she but compares the rights which each of them can alleoe, as founded either on the length of undisputed and undisposed of possession, or on the value they had impressed on the thing at issue by labour of their own. In THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 137 other words, she bears respect to those two great priini(i\ c ingre- dients by which property is constituted, before that she had ever bestowed any attention, or given any award whatever regarding it. The matter may be ilhistrated by the peciiHar relation in which each man stands to his own body, as being, in a certain view, the same with the pecidiar relation in which each man stands to his own property. His sensitive feelings are hurt, by the infliction of a neighbour's violence upon the one ; and his proprietary feelings are hurt by the encroachment of a neighbour's violence upon the other. But justice no more originated the proprietary, than it did the sensitive feelings — no more gave me the peculiar affection which I feel for the property I now occupy as my own, than it gave me my peculiar aflectiou for the person v.'hich I now occupy as my own. Justice pro- nounces on the iniquity of any hurtful infliction by us on the person of another — seeing that such an infliction upon our own person, to which we stand similarly related, would be resented by ourselves. And Justice, in like manner, pronounces on the inequality or iniquity of any hurtful encroachment by us on the property of another — also seeing, that such an encroachment upon oiu' own property, to which we stand similarly related, would be lelt and resented by ourselves. Man feels one kind of pain, when the hand which belongs to him is struck by another; 1 lid he feels another kind of pain, when some article which it holds, and which he conceives to belong to him, is wrested by another from its grasp. But it was not justice which instituted either the animal economy in the one case, or the proprietary economy in the other. Justice found them both already iusti- titted. Property is not the creation of justice ; but is in truth a [)vior creation. Justice did not form this material, or command it into being; but in the course of misunderstanding or contro- versy between man and man, property, a material {)re-existent or already made, forms the subject of many of those questions which are put into her hands. 11. But, recurring to the juvenile controversy which we have already imagined for tbe pur[)ose of illustration, there is still a third way in which we may conceive it to be conclusively and delinitively settled. The parents may interpose their authority, and assign his own particular chair to each member of the house- hold. The instant efl'ect of such a decree, in fixing and distin- guishing the respective properties in all time coming, h;is led, we believe, to a misconception regarding the real origin of pro- perty — in consequence of a certain obscure analogy between this act of parents or legislators over the family of a household, and a supposed act of rulers or legislators over the great family of a 12* 138 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO nation. Now, not only have the parents this advantage over the magistrates — that the property which they thus distribute is pre- viously their own ; but there is both a power of enforcement and a disposition to acquiescence within the limits of a home, which exist in an immeasurably weaker degree within the limits of a kingdom. Still, with all this superiority on the part of the house- hold legislators, it would even be their wisdom, to conform their decree as much as possible to those natural principles and feel- ings of property, which had been in previous exercise among their children — to have respect, in fact, when making distribution of the chairs, both to their habits of previous occupation, and to the additional value which any of them may have impressed upon their favourite seats, by such little arts of upholstery or me- chanics, as they are competent to practice. A wise domestic legislator would not thwart, but rather defer to the claims and ex- pectations which nature had previously founded. And still more a national legislator or statesman, would evince his best wisdom, by, instead of traversing the constitution of property which nature had previously established, greatly deferring to that sense of a possessory right, which long and unquestioned occupation so universally gives ; and greatly deferring to the principle, that, whatever the fruit of each man's labour may be, it rightfully, and therefore should legitimately belong to him. A government could, and at the termination of a revolutionary storm, often does, tra- verse these principles ; but not w ithout the excitement of a thou- sand heai-t-burnings, and so the establishment of a strong coun- teraction to its ow n authority in the heart of its dominions. It is the dictate of sound policy — that the natural, on the one hand, and the legal or political on the other, should quadrate as much as possible. And thus, instead of saying with Dr. Paley that property derived its constitution and being from the law of the land — we should say that law never exhibits a better understand- ing of her own place and functions, than when, founding on ma- terials already provided, she feels that her wisest part is but to act as an auxiliary, and to ratify that prior constitution which na- ture had put into her hands. 15. [n this exposition which we have now attempted of the ori- gin and rights of property, we are not insensible to the mighty use of law. By its power of enforcement, it perpetuates or de- fends from violation that existent order of things which itself had established, or, rather, which itself had ratified. Even though at its first ordinations it had contravened those natural principles which enter into the foundation of property, these very principles will, in time, re-appear in favour of the new system, and yield to it a firmer and a stronger support witheverydayofits continuance. THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 139 Whatever fraud or force may have been concerned at the histori- cal commencement of the present and actual distribution of pro- perty — the then new possessors have at length become old ; and, under the canopy and protection of law, the natural rights have been superadded to the factitious or the political. Law has gua- ranteed to each proprietor a long continued occupation, till a strong and inveterate possessory feeling has taken root and arisen in every heart. And secure of this occu))ation, each may, in the course of years, have mixed up to an indelinite amount, the im- provements of his own skill and labour with those estates — which, as the fruit whether of anarchy or of victorious invasion, had fallen into his hands. So that these first and second prin- ciples of natural jurisprudence, whatever violence may have been done to them at the overthrow of a former regiine, are again fos- tered into all their original efficacy and strength during the con- tinuance of a present one. Insomuch, that if, at the end of half a century, those outcasts of a great revolutionary hurricane, the descendants of a confiscated noblesse, were to rally and combine for the recovery of their ancient domains — they would be met in the encounter, not by the force of the existing government only, but by the outraged a.Md resentful feelings of the existing propri- etors, whose possessory and prescriptive rights, now nurtured into full and firm establishment, would, in addition to the sense of interest, enhst even the sense of justice upon their side. Apart from the physical, did we but compute the moral forces which enter into such a conflict, it will often be found that the superiority is in favour of the actual occupiers. Those feelings, on the one hand, which are associated with the recollection of a now de- parted ancestry and their violated rights, are found to be inoper- ative and feeble, when brought into comparison or colfision with that strength which nature has annexed to the feelings of actual possession. Regarded as but a contest of senthnent alone, the disposition to recover is not so strong as the disposition to retain. The recollection that these were once my parental acres, though wrested from the hand of remote ancestors by anarchists and marauders, would not enlist so great or so practical a moral forco on the aggressive side of a new warfare, as the reflection that these are now my possessed acres, which, though lef\ but by im- mediate ancestors, I have been accustomed from infancy to call my own, would enlist on the side of the defensive. In the course of generations, those sedative influences, which tend to the pre- servation of the existing order wax stronger and stronger ; and those disturbing influences, which tend to the restoration of the ancient order, wax weaker and weaker — till man at last ceases to charge himself with a task so infinitely above his strength, as 140 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO the adjustment of the quarrels and the accumulated wrongs of the centuries which have gone by. In other words, the constitution of law in regard to property, which is the work of man, may l)e so framed as to sanction, and, therefore, to encourage the enormities which have been perpetrated by the force of arms — while the constitution of the mind in regard to property, which is the work of nature, is so framed, as, with conservative virtue, to be alto- gether on the side of perpetuity and peace. 16. Had a legislator of supreme wisdom and armed with des- potic power been free to establish the best scheme for augmenting the wealth and the comforts of human society — he could have de- vised nothing more effectual than that existing constitution of pro- perty, which obtains so generally throughout the world ; and by which, each man, secme within the limits of his own special and recognized possession, might claim as being rightly and origin- ally his, the fruit of all the labour which he may choose to ex- pend upon it. But this v.as not left to the discovery of man, or to any ordinations of his consequent upon that discovery. He was not led to this arrangement by the experience of its cor;^ e- quences ; but pronipted to it by certain feelings, as muchprioi to that experience, as the appetite of hunger is prior to our ex- perience of the use of food. In this matter, too, the wisdom of nature has anticipated the wisdom of man, by providing him with original princijiles of her own. Man was not left to find out the direction in which his benevolence might be most productive of enjoyment to others ; but he has been irresistibly, and, as far as he is concerned, blindly impelled thereto by nK^ans of a family ufiection — which, concentrating his eflorts on a certain few, has made them a hundred times more prolific of benefit to mankind than if all had been left to provide the best they may for the whole, without a precise or determinate impulse to any. And in like manner, man was not left to find out the direction in which his industry might be made most productive of the mate- rials of enjoyment ; but, with the efforts of each concentrated by means of a special possessory affection on a certain portion of the territory, the universal produce is incalculably greater than under a medley s>'Stem of indifference, with every field alike open to all, and, therefore, alike unreclaimed from the w ilderness — unless one man shall consent to labour it in seed time, although another should reap the fruit of his labour in the harvest. It is good that man was not trusted with the whole disintanglemcnt of this chaos — but that a natural jurispiaidence, founded on the constitution of the human mind, so far advances and facilitates the task of that artificial jurisprudence, which frames the various codes^ or constitutions of human law. It is well that nature has THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETV. 141 connected with the past and actual possession of any thing, so strong a sense of right to its continued possession ; and that she has so powerfully backed this principle, by means of another as strongly and universally felt as the former, even that each man has a right to possess the fruit of his own industry. The human legislator has little more to do than to conform, or rather to pro- mulgate and make known his determination to abide by principles already felt and recognized by all men. Wanting these, he could have fixed nothing, he could have perpetuated nothing. The legal constitution of every state, in its last and finished form, comes from the hand of man. But the great and natural prin- ciples, which secure for these constitutions the acceptance of whole communities — im})lanted in man from his birth, or at least evincing their presence and power in very early childhood — these are what bespeak the immediate hand of God. 17. But these principles, strongly conservative though they be, on the side of existing property do not at all times prevent a revolution — which is much more frequently, however, a revolu- tion of power than of property. But when such is the degree of violence abroad in society, that even the latter is effected — this most assuredly, does not arise from any decay or intermission of the possessory feelings, that we have just been expounding ; but from the force and fermentation of other causes which pre- vail in opposition to these, and in spite of them. And, after that such revolution has done its work and ejected the old dynasty of proprietors, the mischief to them may be as irrecoverable, as if their estates had been wrested from them, by an irruption from the waters of the ocean, by earthquake, or the sweeping resist- less visitation of any other great physical calamity. The moral world has its epochs and its transitions as well as the natural, during which the ordinary laws are not suspended but only for the time overborne ; but this does not hinder the recurrence and full reinstatement of these laws during the long eras of interme- diate repose. And it is marvellous, with what certainty and speed, the conservative influences, of which we have treated, gather around a new system of things, with whatever violence, and even injustice, it may have been ushered into the world — insomuch that, under the guardianship of the powers which be, those links of a natural jurisprudence, now irretrievably torn from the former, are at length transferred in all their wonted tenacity to the exist- ing proprietors ; riveting each of them to his own several property, and altogether establishing a present order of as great firmness and strength as ever belonged to the order a\ hich went before it, but which is now superseded and forgotten. It is well that nature hath annexed so potent a charm to actual possession ; and a 142 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO charm which strengthens with every year and day of its continu- ance. This may not efface the historical infamy of many ancient usurpations. But the world cannot be kept in a state of perpe- tual effervescence ; and now that the many thousand wrongs of years gone by, as well as the dead on whom they have been in- llicted, are fading into deep oblivion — it is well for the repose of its living generations, that, in virtue of the strong possessory feelings which nature causes to arise in the hearts of existing proprietors and to be sympathized with by all other men, the possessors de facto have at length the homage done to them of })ossessors de jure ; strong in their own consciousness of right, and strong in the recognition thereof by all their contemporaries. 18. But ere we have completed our views upon this subject, we must shortly dwell on a principle of very extensive application in morals ; and which itself forms a striking example of a most beauteous and beneficent adaptation in the constitution of the human mind to the needs and the well-being of human society. It may be thus announced, briefly and generally : — however strong the special affections of our nature may be, yet, if along with them there be but a principle of equity in the mind, then, these affections, so far from concentrating our selfish regards upon their several objects to the disregard and injury of others, will but enhance oui respect and our sympathy for the like affections in other m.en. 19. This may be illustrated, in the first instance, by the equity observed between man and man, in respect to the bodies which they wear — endowed, as we may suppose them to be, with equal, at least a\ ith like capacities of pain and suffering from external violence. To inflict that very pain upon another which I should resent or shrink from in agony, if inflicted upon myself — this to all sense of justice appears a very palpable iniquity. Let us now conceive then, that the sentient frame-work of each of the parties vv'as made twice more sensitive, or twice more alive to pain and pun- gency of feeling than it actually is. In one view it may be said that each would become twice more selfish than before. Each would feel a double interest in warding off external violence from him- self; and so be doubly more anxious for his ovrn protection and safety. But, wiih the very samx moral nature as ever, each, now aware of the increased sensibility, not merely in himself but in his fellows, w ould feel doubly restrained from putting forth upon him a hand of violence. So, grant him to have but a sense of equity — and, exactly in proportion as he became tender of himself, would he become tender of another also. If the now superior exquisite- ness of his own frame afforded him a topic, on which, what may be called his selfishness would feel more intensely than before — the now superior cxquisiteness of another's frame would, in like THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETT. 143 manner, afford a topic, on which his sense of justice would feel more intensely than before. It is even as when men of very acute sensibilities company together — each has, on that very account, a more delicate and refined consideration for the feel- ings of all the rest; and it is only among men of tougher pellicle and rigid fibre, where coarseness and freedom prevail, because there coarseness and freedom are not felt to be offensive. Grant me but a sense of equity — and the very fineness of my sensations which weds me so much more to the care and the defence of my own person, would also, on the imagination of a similar fineness in a fellow-man, restrain me so much more from the putting forth of any violence upon his person. If I had any compassion at all, or any horror at the injustice of inflicting upon another, that which I should feel to be a cruelty, if inflicted upon myself — I would experience a greater recoil of sympathy from the bl-ow that was directed to the surface of a recent wound upon another, precisely as I would feel a severer agony in a similar infliction upon myself. So, there is nothing in the quickness of my physical sensibilities, and by which I am ren- dered more alive to the care and the guardianship of my own person — there is nothing in this to blunt, far less to extinguish my sensibilities for other men. Nay, it may give a quicker moral delicacy to all the sympathies which I before felt for them. And especially, the more sensitive I am to the hurts and the annoy- ances which others bring upon my own person, the more scru- pulous may I be of being in any way instrumental to the hurt or the annoyance of others. 20. The same holds true between man and man, not merely of the bodies which they wear, but of the families which belong to them. Each man, by nature, hath a strong affection for his own offspring — the young whom he hath reared, and with whom the daily habit of converse under the same roof, hath strength- ened all the original affinities that subsisted between them. But one man a parent knows that another man, also a parent, is actu- ated by the very same appropriate sensibilities towards his off- spring ; and nought remains but to graft on these separate and special affections in each, a sympathy between one neighbour and another ; that there might be a mutual respect for each other's family affections. After the matter is advanced thus far, we can be at no loss to perceive, that, in proportion to the strength of the pai-ental affection with each, will be the strength of the fellow-feeling that each has with the affection of the other — insomuch that he who bears in his heart the greatest tender- ness for his own offspring, would feel the greatest revolt against an act of severity towards the offspring of his friend. Now it is 144 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO altogether so with the separate and original sense of property in each of two neighbours, and a sense of justice grafted thereupon — even as a mutual neighbourlike sympathy may be grafted on the separate family affections. One man a proprietor, linked by many ties, with that which he hath possessed and been in the habitual use and management of for years, is perfectly conscious of the very same kind of affinity, between another man a pro- prietor and that which belongs to him. It is not the justice which so links him to his own property, any more than it is the sympathy with his neighbour which has linked him to his own children. But the justice hath given him a respectful feeling for his neighbour's rights, even as the sympathy would give him a tenderness for his neighbour's offspring. And so far from there being aught in the strength of the appropriating principle that relaxes this deferencG to the rights of his neighbour, the second principle may in fact grow with the growth, and strengthen with the strength of the first one. 21. For the purpose of maintaining an equitable regard, or an equitable conduct to others — it is no more necessary that v.e should reduce or extirpate the special aflections of our nature, than that, in order to make room for the love of another, we should discharge from the bosom all love of ourselves. So far from this, the affection we have for ourselves, or for those va- rious objects which by the constitution of our nature we are formed to seek after and to delight in — is the measure of that duteous regard which we owe to others, and of that duteous re- spect which we owe to all their rights and all their interests. The very highest behest of social morality, while at the same time the most comprehensive of its rules, is that we should love our neishbour as we do ourselves. Love to our neighbour is the thing which this rule measures off — and love to ourselves is the thing which it measures by. These two then, the social and the selfish affections, instead of being as they too often are in- versely, might under a virtuous regimen be directly proportional to each other. At all events the way to advance or magnify the one, is not surely to weaken or abridge the other. The strength of certain prior affections which by nature we do have, is the standard of certain posterior affections which morality tells thai w^e ought to have. Morality neither planted these prior affec- tions, nor does she enjoin us to extirpate them. They were in- serted by the hand of nature for the most useful purposes ; and morality, instead of demolishing her work, applies the rule and compass to it for the construction of her own, 22. It v/as not justice which presided over the original distri- bution of property. It was not she who assigned to each man his separate field, any more than it was she who assigned to each THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 145 man his separate fiimily. It was nature that did both, l)y invest- ing with such power those anterior circumstances of habit and possession, which gave rise — first, to the special love that each man bears to his own children, and secondly, to the special love that each man bears to his own acres. Had there been no such processes beforehand, for thus isolating the parental regards of each on that certain household group which nature placed under hi-< roof, and the proprietary regards of each on that certain local territory which history casts into his possession : or, had each man been so constituted, that, instead of certain children whom he felt to be his own, he was alike loose to them or susceptible of a like random and indiscriminate affection for any children ; or, instead of certain lands which he felt to be his own, he was alike loose to them or susceptible of a like tenacious adherence to any lands — had such been the rudimental chaos which nature put into the hands of man for the exercise of his matured facul- ties, neither his morality nor his wisdom would have enabled him to unravel it. But nature prepared for man an easier task ; and when justice arose to her work, she found a territory so far aheady partitioned, and each proprietor linked by a strong and separate tie of peculiar force to that part which he himself did occupy. She found this to be the land which one man wont to possess and cultivate, and that to be the land which another man wont to possess and cultivate — the destination, not originally, of justice, but of accident, which her office nevertheless is not to reverse, but to confirm. We hold it a beautiful part of our constitution, that, the firmer the tenacity wherewith the first man adheres to his own, once that justice takes her place among the other principles of his nature, the prompter will be his recogni- tion of the second man's right to his ovv^n. If each man sat more loosely to his own portion, each would have viewed more loosely the right of his neighbour to the other portion. The sense of property, anterior to justice, exists in the hearts of all ; and the principle of justice, subsequent to property, does not extirpate these special affections, but only arbitrates between them. In proportion to the telt strength of the proprietary affec- tion in the hearts of each ; vv^ill be the strength of that defer- ence which each, in so far as justice has the mastery over him, renders to the rights and the property of his neighbour. These are the principles of the histoire raisGnnee, that has been more or less exemplified in all the countries of the world ; and which might still be exemplified in the appropriation of a desert island. If we had not had the prior and special determinations of nature, justice v/ould have felt the work of appropriation to be an inex- tricable problem. If we had not had justice, with each mnn 13 146 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO obeying only the impulse of his own affections and unobservant of the like affection of others, we should have been kept in a state of constant and interminable war. Under the guidance of nature and justice together, the whole earth might have been parcelled out, without conflict and without interference. 23. If a strong self-interest in one's person may not only be consistent with, but, by the aid of the moral sense, may be con- ducive to a proportionally strong principle of forbearance from all injury to the persons of other men — why may not the very same law be at work in regard to property as to person ? The fondness wherewith one nourishes and cherishes his own flesh, might, we have seen, enhance his sympathy and his sense of jus- tice for that of other men ; and so, we affirm, might it be of the fondness wherewith one nourishes and cherishes his own field. The relation in which each man stands to his own body, v/as an- terior to the first dawnings of his moral nature ; and his instinc- tive sensibilities of pain and suflering, when any violence is inflicted, were also anterior. But as his moral perceptions ex- pand, and he considers others beside himself who are similarly related to their bodies — these very susceptibilities not only lead him to recoil from the violence that is offered to himself; but they lead him to refrain from the offering of violence to other men. They may have an air of selfishness at the first ; yet so far from being obstacles in the way of justice, they are indispensable helps to it. And so may each man stand related to a property as well as to a person ; and by ties that bind him to it, ere he thought of his neighbour's property at all — by instinctive affections, which operated previously to a sense of justice in his bosom ; and yet which, so far from acting as a thwart upon his justice to others, give additional impulse to all his observations of it. He feels what has passed within his own bosom, in reference to the field that he has possessed, and has laboured, and that has for a time been respected by society as his ; and he is aware of the very same feelino; in the breast of a neighbour in relation to another field ; and in very proportion to the strength of his own feelmg, does he defer to that of his fellow-men. It is at this point that the sense of justice begins to operate — not for the purpose of leading him to appropriate his own, for this he has already done ; but for the purpose of leading him to respect the property of others. It was not justice which gave to either of them at the first that feeling of property, which each has in his own separate domain ; any more than it was justice which gave to either of them that feeling of affection which each has for his own children. It is after, and not before these feelings are formed, that justice steps in with her golden rule, of not doing to others as we would THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 147 not others to do unto us ; and, all conscious as we are of the dis- like and resentment we should feel on the invasion of our pro- perty, it teaches to defer to a similar dislike and a similar re- sentment in other men. And, so far from this original and instinctive regard for this property which is my own serving at all to impair, when once the moral sense comes into play, it en- hances my equitable regard for the property of others. It is just with me the proprietor, as it is with me the parent. My affection for my own family does not prompt me to appropriate the family of another ; but it strengthens my sympathetic consideration for the tenderness and feeling of their own parent towards them. My affection for my own field does not incline me to seize upon that of another man ; but it strengthens my equitable considera- tion for all the attachments and the claims which its proprietor has upon it. In proportion to the strength of that instinct which binds me to my own offspring, is the sympathy I feel with the tenderness of other parents. In proportion to the strength of that instinct which binds me to my own property, is the sense of equity I feel towards the rights of all other proprietors. It was not justice which gave either the one instinct or the other ; but justice teaches each man to bear respect to that instinct in another, which he feels to be of powerful operation in his own bosom. 24. It is in virtue of my sentient nature that I am so painfully alive to the violence done upon my own body, as to recoil from the infliction of it upon myself. And it is in virtue of my moral nature, that, alive to the pain of other bodies than my own, I re- frain from the infliction of it upon them. It is not justice which gives the sensations ; but justice pronounces on the equal re- spect that is due to the sensations of all. Neither does justice give the sensations of property, but it finds them ; jmd pronoun- ces on the respect which each owes to the sensations of all the rest. It was not justice which gave the personal feeling ; neither is it justice which gives the possessory feeUng. Justice has nothing to do with the process by which this body came to be my own ; and although now, perhaps, there is not a property, at least in the civilized world, which may not have passed into the hand of their actual possessors, by a series of purchases, over which justice had the direction — yet there was a time when it might have been said, that justice has had nothing to do with the process by which this garden came to be my own ; and yet, then as well as now, it would have been the utterance of a true feeling^ that he who touches this garden, touches the apple of mine eye. And it is as much the dictate of justice, that we shall respect the one sensation as the other. He, indeed, who has the greatest 148 AFFECTIOJNS WHICH CONDUCE TO sensitiveness, whether about his own person or his own property, will, with an equal principle of justice in his constitution, have the greatest sympathy, both for the personal and the proprietary rights of others. This view of it saves all the impracticable mys- ticism that has gathered around the speculations of those, who conceive of justice, as presiding over the first distiibutions of property ; and so have fallen into the very common mistake, of trying to account for that which had been provided for by the wisdom of nature, as if it had been provided by the wisdom and the principle of man. At the first allocations of property, justice may have had no hand in them.' They were altogether fortui- tous. One man set himself dov/n, perhaps on a better soil than Ills neighbour, and chalked out for himself a larger territory, at a time when there was none who interfered or who offered to share it with him ; and so he came to as firm a possessory feeling in reference to his wider domain, as the other has in reference to his smaller. Our metaphysical jurists are sadly puzzled to ac- count for the original inequalities of property, and for the practi- cal acquiescence of all men in the actual and very unequal dis- tribution of it — having recourse to an original social compact, and to other fictions alike visionary. But if there be truth in our theory, it is just as easy to explain, why the humble propri- etor, would no more think of laying claim to certain acres of his rich neighbour's estate because it was larger than his own, than he would think of laying claim to certain children of his neigh- bour's family because it was larger — -or even of laying claim to certain parts of his neighbour's person because it v.as larger. He is sufficiently acquainted with his own nature to be aware, that, were the circumstances changed, he should feel precisely as his affluent neighbour does ; and he respects the feeling ac- cordingly. He knows that, if himself at the head of a larger property, he v/ould have the same affection for all its fields that the actual proprietor has ; and that, if at the head of a largt-r fa- mily, he would have the same affection vvith the actual parent for all its children. It is by making justice come in at the right place, that is, not prior to these strong affections of nature but posterior to them, that the perplexities of this inquiry are done away. The principle on which it arbitrates, is, not the comparative mag- nitude of the properties, but the relative feelings of each actual possessor towards each actual property ; and if it find these in every instance, to be the very feelings v.hich all men would have in the circumstances belonging to that instance — it attempts nc new distribution, but gives its full sanction to the distribution which is already before it. This is the real origin and upholder of that conservative influence which binds together the rich and THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 149 the poor in society ; and thus it is that property is respected throughout all its gradations. 25. It is from the treatment of an original as if it were a de- rived affection, that the whole obscurity on this topic has arisen. It is quite as impossible to educe the possessory feeling from an anterior sense of justice, or from a respect for law — as it is to educe the parental feeling from a previous and comprehensive regard for the interests of humanity. There is no doubt that the general good is best promoted by the play of special family affec- tions ; but this is the work of nature, and not the work of man. And there is no doubt that the wealth and comfort of society are inconceivably augmented by those influences, which bind each individual nearly as much to his own property, as he is bound to his ow\i offspring. But in the one case as well as the other, there were certain instinctive regards that came first, and the ofBce of justice is altogether a subsequent one ; not to put these regards into the breast of any, but to award the equal deference that is due to the regards of all — insomuch that the vast domain of one individual, perhaps transmitted to him from generation to generation, throughout the lengthened series of an ancestry, whose feet are now upon the earth, but whose top reaches the clouds and is there lost in distant and obscure antiquity — is, to the last inch of its margin, under a guardianship of justice as un- violable, as that which assures protection and ownership to the humble possessor of one solitary acre. The right of property is not the less deferred to, either because its divisions are unequal, or because its origin is unknown. And, even when history tells us that it is founded on some deed of iniquitous usurpation, there is a charm in the continued occupation, that prevails and has the mastery over our most indignant remembrance of the villany of other days. It says much for the strength of the possessory feel- ing, that, even in less than half a century, it will, if legal claims are meanwhile forborne, cast into obliteration, all the deeds, and even all the delinquencies, which attach to the commencement of a property. At length the prescriptive right bears every thing before it, as by the consuetude of English, by the use and wont of Scottish law. And therefore, once more, instead of saying, with Dr. Paley that it is the law of the land which constitutes the basis of property — the law exhibits her best wisdom, when she founds on the materials of that basis, which nature and the common sense of mankind have laid before her. 26. Dr. Thomas Brown, we hold to have been partly right and partly wrong upon this subject. He evinces a true discern- ment of what may be termed the pedigree of our feelings in re- gard to property, when he says and says admirably well — that, 13* 150 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO * "Justice is not what constitutes property; it is a virtue which presupposes property and respects it however constituted." And further, that — "justice as a moral virtue is not the creation of property, but the conformity of our actions to those views of pro- perty, which vary in the various states of society." But it is not as he would affirm, it is not because obedience to a system of law, of which the evident tendency is.to the public good, is the object of our moral regard — it is not this, which moralizes, if we may be allowed such an application of the term, or rather, which constitutes the virtuousness of our respect to another man's pro- perty. This is the common mistake of those moralists, who would ascribe every'useful direction or habitude of man to some previous and comprehensive view taken by himself of what is best for the good of the individual or the good of society ; instead of regarding such habitude as the fruit of a special tendency im- pressed direct by the hand of nature, or a previous and compre- hensive view taken by its autlior, and therefore bearing on it a pal- pable indication both of the goodness and the wisdom of nature's God — even as hunger is the involuntary result of man's physical constitution, and not of any care or consideration by man on theuscs of food, the trutli is — v.hen, deferring to another's right of pro- perty, we do not think of the public good in the matter at all. But we are glad, in the first instance, each to possess and to use and to improve all that we are able to do without molestation, whether that freedom from molestation has been secured to us by lavv^ or by the mere circumstances of our state ; and, in virtue of princi- ples, not resulting from any anticipations of wisdom or any views of general philanthropy, (because developed in early chiklhood and long before we are capable of being either philanthropists or legislators) we feel a strong link of ownership with that which we have thus possessed and used, and on which we have be- stowed our improvements ; and \vc are aware that another man, in similar relation with another property, will lecl tov.ards it in like manner; and a sense of justice, or its still more significant and instructive name, of equity, suggests this equality between me and him — that, in the same manner as I would regard his encroachment on myself as injurious, so it were alike injurious in me to make a similar encroachment upon m.y neighbour. 27. We have expatiated thus long on the origin and rights of property — because of all subjects, it is the one, regarding which our writers on jurisprudence have sent forth the greatest amount of doubtful and unsatisfactory metaphysics. They labour and are in great perplexity to explain even the rise of the feeling or * Lecture Ixxxiii. THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. . 151 desire that is in the mind regarding it. They reason, as if the very conception of property was that, which could not have en- tered into the heart ot"man without a previous sense of justice. In this we hold them to have antedated matters wrong. The conception of property is aboriginal ; and the office of justice is not to put it into any man's head ; but to arbitrate among the rival feelings of cupidity, or the arrogant and overpassing claims that are apt to get into all men's heads — not to initiate man into the notion of property ; but, in fact, to limit and restrain his notion of it — not to teach the creatures who at first conceive themselves to have nothing, what that is which they might call their own ; but to teach the creatures Avhose iirst and earliest tendency is to call every thing their own, what that is which they must refrain from and concede to others. When justice rises to authority among men, her office is, not to wed each individual by the link of property to that which he formerly thought it was not competent for him to use or to possess ; but it is to divorce each individual from that, which it is not rightly competent for him to use or to possess — and thus restrict each to his own rightful {)ortion. Its office in fact is restrictive, not dispensatory. The use of it is, not to give the first notion of jjroperty to those who were destitute of it, but to limit and restrain the notion with those among whom it is apt to exist in a state of overflow. The use of law, in short, the great expounder and enforcer of property, is not to instruct the men, who but for her lessons would appropri- ate none ; but it is to restrain the men who, but for her checks and prohibitions, would monopolize all. 2S. Such then seems to have been the purpose of nature in so framing our mental constitution, that we not only appropriate from the first ; but feel, each, such a power in those circumstan- ces, which serve to limit the appropriation of every one man and to distinguish them from those of others — that all, as if with com- mon and practical consent, sit side by side together, without con- flict and without interference, on their own respective portions, however unequal, of the territory in which they are placed. On the uses, the indispensable uses of such an arrangement, we need not expatiate.* The hundred-fold superiority, in the * " The effect (of tlie abolition of property) would be a« 'nstant as inevi'ablc. The cultivation of the fields would be abandoned. The population would be broken up into straggling bands — each prowling in quest of a share in the remaining subsistence for themselves ; and in the mutual contests of rapacity, they would anticipate, by deaths of violence, those still crueller deaths that would ensue, in the fearful destitu- tion which awaited them. Yet many would be left whom the sword had spared, but whom famine would not spare — that overwhelming calamity under which a w hole na- tion might ultimately disappear. — But a few miserable survivors would dispute the spontaneous fruits of the earth with the beast? of the ficld.who now multiplied and over- 152 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO amount of produce for the subsistence of human beings, which an appropriated country has over an equal extent of a hke fertile but unappropriated, and, therefore, unreclaimed wilderness, is too obvious to be explained. It may be stated however; and when an economy so beneficial, without which even a few strag- glers of our race could not be supported in comfort ; and a large human family, though many times inferior to that which now peo- ples our globe, could not be supported at all — when the effect of this economy, in multiplying to a degree inconceivable the ali- ment of human bodies, is viewed in connexion with those prior tendencies of the human mind which gave it birth, we cannot but regard the whole as an instance, and one of the strongest which it is possible to allege, of the adaptation of external nature to that mental constitution, wherewith the Author of nature hath endow- ed us. 29. In connexion with this part of our subject, there is one es- pecial adaptation, the statement of which we more willingly bring forward, that, beside being highly important in itself, it forms an instance of adaptation in the pure and limited sense of the term* — even the influence of a circumstance strictly material on the state of the moral world, in all the civilized, and indeed in all the appropriated countries on the face of the earth. We ad- vert to the actual fertility of the land, and to the circumstances purely physical by which the degree or measure of that fertility is determined. It has been well stated by some of the expound- ers of geological science, that, while the vegetable mould on the earth's surface is subject to perpetual waste, from the action both of the winds and of the waters, either blowing it away in dust, or washing it down in rivers to the ocean — the loss thus sustained, is nevertheless perpetually repaired by the operation of the same material agents on the uplands of the territory — whence the dust and the debris, produced by a disintegration that is constantly going on even in the hardest rocks, is either strewed by the atmosphere, or carried down in an enriching se- diment by mountain streams to the lands which are beneath ran that land uhich had been desolated of its people. And so by a scries, every step of which was marked with increasinor wretchedness, the transition would at length be made to a thinly scattered tribe of hunters, on what before had been a peopled ter- ritory of industrious and ( •titivated men. Thus, on the abolition of this single law, the fairest and most civilized region of the globe, which at present sustains its millions of families, out of a fertility that now waves over its cultivated, because its appropriated acres, would, on the simple tie of appropriation being broken, lapse in a very few years into a frightful solitude, or, if not bereft of humanity altogether, would at last be- come as desolate and dreary as a North American wilderness." — Political Economy in connexion with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of Society. * See the first paragraphs of the introductor)' chapter. THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 163 them. It has been rightly argued, as the evidence and example of a benevolent design, that the opposite causes of consumption and of supply are so adjusted to each other, as to have ensured the perpetuity of our soils.* But even though these counter- acting forces had been somewhat ditTerently balanced ; though the wasting operation had remained as active and as powerful, while a more difficult pulverization of the rocks had made the restorative operation slower and feebler than before — still we might have had our permanent or stationary soils, but only all of less fertility than that in which we now find them. A some- what different constitution of the rocks ; or a somewhat altered proportion in the forces of that machinery which is brought to bear upon them — in the cohesion that withstands, or in the im- pulse and the atmospherical depositions and the grinding frosts and the undermining torrents that separate and carry off the ma- terials — a slight change in one or all of these causes, might have let down each of the various soils on the face of the world to a lower point in the scale of productiveness than at present be- longs to them. And when we think of the mighty bearing which the determination of this single element has on the state and in- terests of human society, we cannot resist the conclusion that, depending as it does on so many influences, there has, in the ^ " It is highly interesting to trace up, in tliis manner, the action of causes with wliich we are familiar, to the production of effects, \vhich at first seem to require the introduction of unknown and extraordinary powers ; and it is no less interesting to observe, how skilfully nature has balanced the action of all the minute causes of waste and reu'lered them conducive to the general good. Of this we have a most remarkable instance, in the provision made for preserving the soil, or the. eoat of ve- getable mould, spread out over the surface of the earth. This coat, as it consists of loose materials, is easily washed away by the rains, and is continually carried down by the rivers into the sea. This effect is visible to every one ; the earth is removed not only in the form of sand and gravel, but its finer particles suspended in the waters, tinge those of some rivers continually, and those of all occasionally, that is, when they are flooded or swollen with rains. The quantify of earth thus carried down, va- ries according to circumstances ; it ha.s been computed in some instances, that the water of a river in a flood, contains earthly matter suspended in it, amounting to more than the two hundred and fiftieth part of its own bulk. The soil therefore, is continually diminished, its parts being delivered from higher to lower levels, and fmally delivered into the sea. But it is a fact, (hat the soil, notwithstanding, remains the same in quantity, or at least nearly the same, and must have done so, ever since the earth was ihe receptacle of animal or vegetable life. The soil therefore is aug- mented from other causes, just as much, at an average, as it is diminished by those now mentioned ; and this augmentation evidently can proceed from nothing but the constant and slow disintegration of the rocks. In the permanence, therefore, of a coat of vegetable mould on the surface of the earth, we have a demonstrative proof of the continual destruction of tlie rocks ; and cannot but admire the skill, with which the powers of the many chemical and mechanical agents employed in this complicated work, are so adjusted, as to make the supply and the waste of the soil exactly equal to one another." — Plavfair's Illustrations of the Hultonian Theory. Section iii Art. 13. 154 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO assortment of these, been a studied adaptation of the material and the mental worlds to each other. For only let us consider the effect, had the fertility been brought so low, as that on the best of soils, the produce extracted by the most strenuous efforts of human toil, could no more than repay the cultivation bestowed on them — or that the food, thus laboriously raised, would barely suffice for the maintenance of the labourers. It is obvious that a fertility beneath this point would have kept the whole earth in a state of perpetual barrenness and desolation — when, though performing as now its astronomical circuit in the heavens, it would have been a planet bereft of life, or at least unfit for the abode and sustenance of the rational generations by whom it is at present occupied. But even with a fertility at this point, although a race of men might have been upholden, the tenure bv which each man held his existence behoved to have been a life of unremitting drudgery ; and we should have beheld the whole species engaged in a constant struggle of penury and pain for the supply of their animal necessities. And it is be- cause of a fertility above this point, the actual fertility of vast portions of land in most countries of the earth — that many and extensive are the soils which yield a large surplus pro- duce, over and above the maintenance of all, who are en- gaged, whether directly or indirectly, in the work of their cultiva- tion. The strength of the possessory feelings on the one hand, giving rise to possessory rights recognized and acquiesced in by all men ; these rights investing a single i^di^'idual with the ownership of lands, that yield on the other hand a surplus pro- duce, over which he has the uncontrolled disposal — make up together, such a constitution of the moral, combined with such a constitution of the material system, as demonstrates that the gradation of wealth in human society has its deep and its lasting foundation in the nature of things. And that the construction of such an economy, with all the conservative influences by which it is upholden,* attests both the wisdom and the benevo- lence of Him who is the Author of nature, mav best be evinced by the momentous purposes, to which this surplus produce of land, (the great originator of all that can be termed affluence in the world) is subservient. — " Had no ground yielded more in return for the labour expended on it, than the food of the culti- vators and their secondaries, the existence of one and all of the human race would have been spent in mere labour. Every man would have been doomed to a life of unremitting toil for his bodily subsistence ; and none could have been supported in a * See Art. 7 of this Chapter. THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 166 State of leisure, either for idleness, or for other employments than those of husbandry, and such coarser manufactures as serve to provide society with the second necessaries of existence. •The species would have risen but a few degrees, whether phy- sical or moral, above the condition of mere savages. It is just because of a tertility in the earth, by which it yields a surplus over and above the food of the direct and secondary labourers, that we can command the services of a disposable population, who, in return for their maintenance, minister to the proprietors of this surplus, all the higher comforts and elegancies of life. It is precisely to this surplus we owe it, that society is provided with more than a coarse and a bare supply for the necessities of animal nature. It is the original fund out of which are paid the expenses of art, and science, and civilization, and luxury, and law, and defence, and all, in short, that contributes either to strengthen or to adorn the commonwealth. Without this surplus, we should have had but an agrarian population — consisting of husbandmen, and those few homely and rustic artificers, who, scattered in hamlets over the land, would have given their se- condary services to the whole population. It marks an interest- ing connexion between the capabilities of the soil, and the con- dition of social life, that to this surplus we stand indispensably indebted for our crowded cities, our thousand manufactories for the supply of comforts and refinements to society, our wide and diversified commerce, our armies of protection, our schools and colleges of education, our halls of legislation and justice, even our altars of piety and temple services. It has been remarked ' ^y geologists, as the evidence of a presiding design in nature, j that the waste of the soil is so nicely balanced by the supply : from the disintegration of the upland rocks, which are worn and pulverized at such a rate, as to keep up a good vegetable mould on the surface of the earth. But each science teems with the like evidences of a devising and intelligent God ; and when we I view aright the many beneficent functions, to which, through 1 the instrumentality of its siu-plus produce, the actual degree of I the earth's fertility is subservient, we cannot imagine a more I wondrous and beautiful adaptation between the state of external nature and the mechanism of human society."* * Political Economy in connexion with the moral State and Moral Prospects of ; Society. C. ii, Art. 10. In the appendix to this work on the subject of rent, there 'are further observations tending to prove that " there is an optimism in the actual constitution of the land, as in every thing else that has proceeded from the hand of the Almighty. 166 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO CHAPTER VII. On those special Affections ivhich conduce to the economic well- being of Society. 1. We now proceed to consider the economic, in contra-dis- tinction to the civil and poHtical well-being of society, to the ex- tent that this is dependent on certain mental tendencies — whether these can be demonstrated by analysis to be only secondary results or in themselves to be simple elements of the human constitution. We may be said indeed, to have already bordered on this part of our argument — when considering the origin and the rights of property ; or the manner in which certain posses- sory affections, that appear even in the infancy of the mind and anticipate by many years the exercise of human wisdom, lead to a better distribution, both of the earth and of all the valuables which are upon it, than human wisdom could possibly have de- vised, or at least than human power without the help of these special affections could have carried into effect. For there might be a useful economy sanctioned by law, yet which law could not have securely established, unless it had had a foundation in na- ture. For in this respect, there is a limit to the force even of the mightiest despotism — insomuch that the most absolute monarch on the face of the earth must so far conform himself, to the in- delible human nature of the subjects over whom he proudly bears the sway ; else, in the reaction of their outraged principles and feelings, they would hurl him from his throne. And thus it is well, that, so very generally in the different countries of the world, law, both in her respect for the possessory and acquired rights of property and in her enforcement of them, has, instead of chalking out an arbitrary path for herself, only followed where nature beforehand had pointed the way. It is far better, that, rather than devise a jurisprudence made up of her ov/n capri- cious inventions — she should, to so great an extent, have but ra- 1 tified a prior jurisprudence, founded on the original or at least] the universal affections of humanity. We know few things more instructive than a study of the mischievous effects, which attend 1 a deviation from this course — of which, we at present shall state two remarkable instances. The evils Avhich ensue when law traverses any of those principles, that lie deeply seated in the very make and constitution of the mind, bring out into more striking exhibition the superior wisdom of that nature from which she has THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OP SOCIETY. 157 departed — even as the original perfection of a mechanism is never more fully demonstrated, than by the contrast of those re- peated failures, which shows of every change or attempted im- provement, that it but deranges or deteriorates the operations of the instrument in question. And thus too it is, that a lesson of sound theology may be gathered, from the errors with their ac- companying evils of unsound legislation — on those occasions when the wisdom of man comes into conflict and collision with the wisdom of God. 2. Of the two instances that we are now to produce, in which law hath made a deviation from nature, and done in consequence a tremendous quantity of evil, the first is the the Tythe System of England. We do not think that the provision of her esta- blished clergy is in any way too liberal — but very much the re- verse. Still we hold it signally unfortunate that it should have been levied so, as to do most unnecessary violence to the pos- sessory feeling, both of the owners and occupiers of land all over the country. Had the tythe, hke some other of the public bur- thens, been commuted into a pecuniary and yearly tax on the proprietors — the possessory feeling would not have been so pain- fully or so directly thwarted by it. But it is the constant intro- mission of the tythe agents or proctors with the fields, and the ipsa corpora that are within the limits of the property- -Avhich exposes this strong natural affection to an annoyance that is felt to be intolerable."''' But far the best method of adjusting the state of the law to those principles of ownership which are anterior to law, and which all its authority is unable to quench — would be a commutation into land. Let the church property in each pa- rish be dissevered in this way from its main territory ; and then, both for the lay and the ecclesiastical domain, there would be an accordance of the legal v,'ith the possessory right. It is because these are in such painful dissonance, under the existing state of things, that there is so much exasperation in England, connected with the support and maintenance of her clergy. No doubt law * The following example of the thousands which might be alleged will show how apt the possessory feeling is to revolt against the legal right, and at length to overbear it. The fee-simple of '-he Church property of the Dean and Chapter of Durham is in the Dean and Chapter of Durham. The custom for ages has been to let houses on leases of forty years, and lands on leases of iwenty-one' years, at small reserved rents, these leases being renewable at the end of seven years, at the pleasure of the Dean and Chapter on the payment of arbitrary fines— which fines however as aof ually levied are exceedingly moderate, one year and a quarter being asked for houses, and one and a half for lands. Several of the families of the occupiers of lands and houses so leased have been in possession for generations— and long possession has given to some of these occupiers such a strength of possessory feeling, that they have the sense of being aggrieved, if they do not get the renewals on their own terms. 14 168 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO can enforce her own aiTangements, however arbitrary and unna- tural they might be ; but it is a striking exhibition, we have al- ways thought, of the triumph of the possessory over the legal, that, in the contests between the two parties, the clergy have con- stantly been losing ground. And, in resistance to all the oppro- brium which has been thrown upon them, do we affirm, that, with a disinterestedness which is almost heroic, they have, in deed and in practice, forborne to the average extent of at least one half, the assertion of their claims. The truth is, that the felt odium which attaches to the system ought never to have fallen upon them. It is an inseparable consequence of the aiTangement itself, by which law hath traversed nature — so as to be constantly rubbing, as it were, against that possessory feeling, which may be regarded as one of the strongest of her instincts. There are few reformations that would do more to sweeten the breath of Eng- lish society, than the removal of this sore annoyance — the brood- ing fountain of so many heartburnings and so many festerments, by which the elements of an unappeasable warfare are ever at work between the landed interest of the country, and far the most important class of its public functionaries ; and, what is the sad- dest perversity of all, those, whose office it is by the mild per- suasions of Christianity, to train the population of our land in the lessons of love and peace and righteousness — they are forced by the necessities of a system which many of them deplore, into the attitude of extortioners ; and placed in that very current, along which a people's hatred and a people's obloquy are wholly unavoidable.* Even under the theocracy of the Jews, the sys- tem of tithes was with difficulty upholden ; and many are the re- monstrances which the gifted seers of Israel held with its people, for having brought of the lame and the diseased as offerings. Such, in fact, is the violence done by this system to the posses- sory feelings, that a conscientious submission to its exactions, may be regarded as a most decisive test of religious obedience — such an obedience, indeed, as was but ill maintained, even in the days of the Hebrew polity, although it had the force of tem- poral sanctions, with the miracles and manifestations of a pre- siding deity to sustain it. Unless by the express appointment of heaven, this yoke of Judaism, unaccompanied as it now is by * There is often the utmost injustice in tliat professional odium which is laid upon a whole order, and none have suffered more under it, than the clergy of England have, from the sweeping and indiscriminate charges, which have been preferred against them, by the demagogues of our land. We believe that nothing has given more of edge and currency to these invectives, than the very unfortunate way in which their maintenance has been provided for ; and many are the amiable and accomplished in- dividuals among themselves to whom it is a matter of downright agony. THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY 159 the peculiar and preternatural enforcements of that dispensation, ought never to have been perpetuated in the days of Christianity. There are distinct, and, wc hold, valid reasons, for the national maintenance of an order of men in the capacity of religious in- structors to the people. But maintenance in a way so obnox- ious to nature, is alike adverse to a sound civil and a sound Christian policy. Both the cause of religion and the cause of loyalty have suffered by it. The alienation of the church's wealth, were a deadly blow to the best and highest interests of England ; but there are few things which would conduce more to the strength and peace of our nation, than a fair and right commu- tation of it. 3. Our next very flagrant example of a mischievous collision between the legal and the possessory, is the English system of poor laws. By law each man who can make good his plea of necessity, has a claim for the relief of it, from the owners or oc- cupiers of the soil, or from the owners and occupiers of houses ; and never, till the end of time, will all the authority, and all the enactments of the statute-book, be able to divest them of the feeling, that their property is invaded. Law never can so coun- terwork the strong possessory feeling, as to reconcile the propri- etors of England to this legalized enormity, or rid them of the sensation of a perpetual violence. It is tliis mal-adjustment be- tween the voice that nature gives forth on the right of property, and the voice that arbitrary law gives forth upon it — it is this, which begets something more than a painful insecurity as to the stability of their possessions. There is besides, a positive, and what we should call, a most natural irritation. That strong possessory feeling, by which each is wedded to his own domain in the relation of its rightful proprietor ; and which they can no more help, because as much a part of their original constitution, than the parental feeling by which each is wedded to his own family in the relation of its natural protector — this strong pos- sessory feeling, we say, is, under their existing economy, sub" ject all over England to a perpetuat and most painful annoyance. And accordingly we do find the utmost acerbity of tone and temper, among the upper classes of England, in reference to their poor. We are not sure, indeed, if there be any great dif- ference, with many of them, between the feeling which they have towards the poor, and the feeling which they have towards poachers. It is true that the law is on the side of the one, and against the other. Yet it goes most strikingly to prove, how impossible it is for law to carry the acquiescence of the heart, when it contravenes the primary and urgent affections of na- ture — that paupers are in any degree assimilated to poachers in 160 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO the public imELgination ; and that the inroads of both upon pro- perty should be resented, as if both alike were a sort of tres- pass or invasion. 4. And it is further interesting to observe the effect of this unnatural state of things on the paupers themselves. Even in their deportment, we might read an unconscious homage to the possessory right. And whereas, it has been argued in behalf of a poor-rate, that, so far from degrading, it sustains an inde- pendence of spirit among the peasantry, by turning that which would have been a matter of beggary into a matter of rightful and manly assertion — there is none who has attended the meet- ing of a parish vestry, that will not readily admit, the total dis- similarity which obtains between the assertion to a right of main- tenance, and the assertion of any other right whatever, whether in the field of war or of patriotism. There may be much of the insolence of beggary ; but along with this, there is a most discernible mixture of its mean, and crouching, and ignoble sor- didness. There is no common quality whatever between the clamorous onset of this worthless and dissipated crew, and the generous hatt\e-cry pro aris et focis, in which the humblest of our population will join — when paternal acres, or the rights of any actually holden property are invaded. In the mind of the pauper, with all his challenging and all his boisterousness, there is still the latent impression, that, after all, there is a certain want of firmness about his plea. He is not altogether sure of the ground upon which he is standing ; and, in spite of all that law has done to pervert his imagination, the possessory right of those against whom he prefers his demand, stares him in the face, and disturbs him not a little out of that confidence, wherewith a man represents and urges the demands of unquestionable jus- tice. In spite of himself, he cannot avoid having somewhat the look and the consciousness of a poacher. And so the eftect of England's most unfortunate blunder, has been, to alienate on the one hand her rich from her poor ; and on the other to debase into the very spirit and sordidness of beggary, a large and ever-increasing mass of her population. There is but one way, we can never cease to afllirm, by which this grievous dis- temper of the body politic can be removed. And that is, by causing the law of property to harmonize with the strong and universal instincts of nature in regard to it ; by making the pos- sessory right to be at least as inviolable as the common sense of mankind would make it ; and as to the poor, by utterly recall- ing the blunder that England made, when she turned into a matter of le^al constraint, that which should ever be a matter of love and liberty, and when she aggravated ten-fold the depen- THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 161 dence and misery of the lower classes, by divorcing the cause of humanity from the willing generosities, the spontaneous and unforced sympathies of our nature. 5. But this brings into view another of our special affections — our compassion for the distress, including, as one of its most prominent and frequently recurring objects, our compassion for the destitution of others. We have already seen, how nature hath provided, by one of its implanted affections, for the esta- blishment of property ; and for the respect in which, amid all its inequalities, it is held by society. But helpless destitution forms one extreme of this inequaUty, which a mere system of property appears to leave out ; and which, if not otherwise provided for by the wisdom of nature in the constitution of the human mind, would perhaps justify an attempt by the wisdom of man to pro- vide for it in the constitution of human law. We do not in- stance, at present, certain other securities which have been in- stituted by the hand of nature, and which, if not traversed and enfeebled by a legislation wholly uncalled for, would of them- selves, prevent the extensive prevalence of want in society. These are the urgent law of self-preservation, prompting to in- dustry on the one hand and to economy on the other ; and the strong law of relative affection — which laws, if not tampered with and undermined in their force and eflicacy by the law of pauperism, would not have relieved, but greatly better, would have prevented (he vast majority of those cases which fill the workhouses, and swarm around the vestries of England. Still these, however, woidd not have prevented all poverty. A few instances, like those which are so quietly and manageably, but withal effectually met in the country parishes of Scotland, would still occur in every little community, however virtuous or well regulated. And in regard to these, there is another law of the mental constitution, by which nature hath made special provision for them — even the beautiful law of compassion, in virtue of which the sight of another in agony, (and most of all perhaps in the agony of pining hunger,) would, if unrelieved, create a sensation of discomfort in the heart of the observer, scarcely inferior to what he should have felt, had the suffering and the agony been his own. 6. But in England, the state, regardless of all the hidices which nature had planted in the human constitution, hath taken the regulation of this matter into its own hands. By its law of pauperism, it hath, in the first instance, ordained for the poor a legal property in the soil ; and thereby, running counter to the strong possessory affection, it hath done violence to the natural and original distribution of the land, and loosened tlie secure 14* 162 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO hold of each separate owner, on the portion which belongs to him. And in the second instance, distrustful of the efficacy of compassion, it, by way of helping forward its languid energies, hath applied the strong hand of power to it. Now it so hap- pens, that nothing more effectually stifles compassion, or puts it to flight, than to be thus meddled with. The spirit of kind- ness utterly refuses the constraints of authority ; and law in England, by taking the business of charity upon itself, instead of supplementing, hath well nigh destroyed the anterior provi- sion made lor it by nature — thus leaving it to be chiefly provided for, by methods and by a machinery of its own. The proper function of law is to enforce the rights of justice, or to defend against the violation of them ; and never does it make a more flagrant or a more hurtful invasion, beyond the confines of its own legitimate tenitory — than, when confounding humanity v^ith justice, it would apply the same enforcements to the one virtue as to the other. It should have taken a lesson from the strong and evident distinction which nature hath made between these two virtues, in her construction of our moral system ; and should have observed a corresponding distinction in its own treatn^cnt of them — resenting the violation of the one ; but leaving the other to the free interchanges of good-will on the side of the dispenser, and of gratitude on the side of the recipient. When law, distrustful of the compassion that is in all hearts, enacted a system of compulsory relief, lest, in our neglect of others, the indigent should starve ; it did incomparably worse, than if, dis- trustful of the appetite of hunger, it had enacted for the use of food a certain regimen of times and quantities, lest, neglectful of ourselves, our bodies might have perished. Nature has made a better provision than this for both these interests ; but law has done more mischief by interference with the one, than it could ever have done by interference with the other. It could not have quelled the appetite of hunger, which still, in spite of all the law's officiousness, would have remained the great practical im- pellent to the use of food, for the well-being of our physical economy. But it has done much to qv.eW and to overbear the affection of compassion — that never-failing impellent, in a free and natural state of things, to deeds of charity, for the Mell-being of the social economy. The evils v.hich have ensued are of too potent and pressing a character to require description. They have placed England in a grievous dilemma, from which she can only be extricated, by the new modelling of this part of her statute-book, and a nearer conformity of its provisions to the principles of natural jurisprudence. Meanwhile they afford an emphatic demonstration for the superior wisdom of nature, which THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 163 is never so decisively or so triumphantly attested, as by the mis- chief that is done, when her processes are contravened or her principles are violated.* 7. We are aware of a certain ethical system, that would ob- literate the distinction between justice and humanity, by running or resolving the one into the other — affirming of the former more particularly, that all its virtue is founded on its utility ; and that therefore justice, to which may be added truth, is no further a virtue, than as it is instrumental of good to men — thus making both truth and justice, mere species or modifications of benevo- lence. Now, as we have already stated, it is not with the theory of morals, but with the moral constitution of man that we have properly to do; and, most certain it is, that man does feel the moral rightness both of justice and truth, irrespective altogether of their consequences — or, at least, apart from any such view to these consequences at the time, as the mind is at all conscious of There is an appetite of our sentient nature wliich terminates in food, and that is irrespective of all its subsequent utilities to the animal economy ; and there is an appetite for doing ^vhat is right which terminates in virtue, and which bears as little respect to its utilities — whether for the good of self or for the good of society. The man whom some temptation to what is dishonor- able would put into a state of recoil and restlessness, has no other aim, in the resistance he makes to it, than simply to make full acquittal of his integrity. This is his landing place ; and he looks no further. There maybe a thousand dependent blessings to humanity, trom the observation of moral rectitude. But the pure and simple appetency for rectitude, rests upon this as its object, without any onward reference to the consequences which shall flow from it. This consideration alone is sufiicicnt to dis- pose of the system of utility — as being metaphysically incorrect in point of conception, and incorrect in the expression of it. If a man can do virtuously, when not aiming at the useful, and not so much as thinking of it — then to design and execute what is useful, may be and is a virtue ; but it is not all virtue. "f" * Without contending for the langiiase of our older moralists, the distinction which they mean to express, by virtues of perfect and imperfect obligation, lias a foundation in reality and in the nature of things — as between justice where the obli- gation on one side implies a counterpart right upon the other, and benevolence to which, whatever the obligation may be on the part of the dis].)enser, there is no corresponding right on the part of the recipient. The proper office of law is to enforce the former virtues. When it attempts to enforce the latter, it makes a mischievous extension of itself beyond its own legitimate boundaries. t If our moral judgment tell that some particular thing is right, without our advert- ing to its utility — then though all that we hold to be morally right should be proved by observation to yield the maximum of utility, utility is not on that account the mind's 164 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO 8. There is one way in which a theorist may take refuge from this conckision. It is quite palpable, that a man often feels himself to be doing virtuously — when, to all sense, he is not thinking of the utilities which follow in its train. But then it may be affirmed, that he really is so thinking — although he is not sensible of it. There can be little doubt of such being the ac- tual economy of the world, such the existing arrangement of its laws and its sequences — that virtue and happiness are very closely associated ; and that, no less in those instances, where the resulting happiness is not at all thought of, than in those where happiness is the direct and declared object of the virtue. Who can doubt that truth and justice bear as manifold and as important a subserviency to the good of the species as benefi- cence does ? — and yet it is only with the latter, that this good is the object of our immediate contemplation. But then it is af- firmed, that, when two terms are constantly associated in nature, there must be as constant an association of them in the mind of the observer of nature — an association at length so habitual, and therefore so rapid, that we become utterly unconscious of it. Of this we have examples, in the most frequent and familiar ope- rations of human life. In the act of reading, every alphabetical letter must have been present to the mind — yet how many thou- sands of them, in the course of a single hour, must have passed in fleeting succession, without so much as one moment's sense of their presence, which the mind has any recollection of. And it is the same in listening to an acquaintance, when we receive the whole meaning and effect of his discourse, without the distinct consciousness of very many of those individual words which still were indispensable to the meaning- Nay, there are other and yet more inscrutable mysteries in the human constitution ; and which relate, not to the thoughts that we conceive without being sensible of them, but even to the volitions that we put forth, and to very many of which we are alike insensible. We have only to reflect on the number and complexity of those muscles which are put into action, in the mere processes of writing or walking, or even of so balancing ourselves as to maintain a posture of stability. It is understood to be at the bidding of the will, that each of our muscles performs its distinct office ; and yet, out of the countless volitions, which had their part and their play, in criterion for the rightness of this particular thing. God hath given us the sense of what is right ; and He hath besides so ordained the system of things, that what is right is generally that which is most useful — yet, in many instances, it is not the perceived usefulness, which makes us recognize it to be right. We agree too with Bishop But- ler in not venturing lo assume that God's sole end in creation was the production of the greatest happiness. THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 165 these complicated, and yet withal most familiar and easily prac- ticable operations — how many there are which wholly escape the eye of consciousness. And thus too, recourse may be had to the imagination of certain associating processes, too hidden for being the objects of sense at the time, and too fugitive for being the objects of remembrance afterwards. And on the strength of these it may be asked — how are we to know, that the utility of truth and justice is not present to the mind of man, when he dis- charges the obligation of these virtues ; and how are we to know, that it is not the undiscoverable thought of this utility, which forms the impellent principle of that undiscoverable volition, by which man is urged to the performance of them 1 9. Now we are precluded from replying to this question in any other way, than that the theory which requires such an argument for its support, may be said to fetch all its materials from the region of conjecture. It ventures on the affirmation of what is going on in a terra incognita ; and we have not the means within our reach, for meeting it in the terms of a posi- tive contradiction. But we can at least say, that a mere argumentiim ah ignoranfia is not a sufficient basis on which to ground a philosophic theory ; and that thus to fetch an hy- pothesis from among the inscrutabilities of the mind, to speak of processes going on there so quick and so evanescent that the eye of consciousness carmot discover them — is to rear a superstructure not upon the facts which lie within the limit of separation between the known and the unknov/n, but upon the fancies which lie without this limit. A great deal more is ne- cessary for the establishment of an assertion, than that an adversary cannot disprove it. A thousand possibilities may bo affirmed which are susceptible neither of proof nor of disproof ; and surely it were the worst of logic to accept as proof, the mere circumstance that they are beyond the reach of dis- proof. They, in fact, he alike beyond the reach of both ; in which case they should be ranked among the figments of mere imagination, and not among the findings of experience. How are we to know but that, in the bosom of our great plane- tary amplitude, there do not float, and in elliptic orbits round the sun, pieces of matter vastly too diminutive for oui tele- scopes ; and that thus the large intermediate spaces between the known bodies of the system, mstead of so many deso- late blanks, are in fact peopled with little worlds — all of them teeming, like our own, with busy and cheerful animation. Now, in the powerlessness of our existing telescopes, we do not know but it may be so. But we will not believe that it is so, till a telescope of power enough be invented, for disclosing this 166 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO scene of wonders to our observation. And it is the same of the moral theory that now engages us. It rests, not upon what it finds among the arcana of the human spirit, but upon what it fancies to be there ; and they are fancies too which we cannot deny, but which we will not admit — till, by some im- proved power of internal observation, they are turned into findings. We are quite sensible of the virtuousness of truth ; but we have not yet been made sensible, that we always recog- nize this virtuousness, because of a glance we have had of the utility of truth — though only perhaps for a moment of time, too minute and microscopical for being noticed by the naked eye of consciousness. We can go no further upon this question than the light of evidence will carry us. And, while we both feel in our own bosoms and observe in the testi- mony of those around us, the moral deference which is due to truth and justice — we have not yet detected this to be the same with that deference, which we render to the virtue of benevo- lence. Or, in other words, we do venerate and regard these as virtues — while, for aught ive knoiv, the utility of them is not in all our thoughts. We agree with Dugald Stewart in think- ing, that, " considerations of utility do not seem to us the only ground of the approbation we bestow on this disposi- tion." He further observes, that, " abstracting from all re- gard to consequences, there is something pleasing and amiable in sincerity, openness, and truth ; something disagreeable and disgusting in duplicity, equivocation, and falsehood. Dr. Hutcheson himself, the great patron of that theory which re- solves all moral qualities into benevolence, confesses this — for he speaks of a sense which leads us to approve of veracity, dis- tinct from the sense which approves of qualities useful to man- kind."* 10. However difficult it may be, to resolve the objective question which respects the constitution of virtue in itself — in the subjective question, which respects the constitution of the mind, we cannot but acknowledge the broad and palpable distinction, which the Author of our moral frame hath made, between justice and truth on the one hand, and benevolence on the other. And it had been well, if law-givers had discrimina ted, as nature has done, between justice and humanity — although the mischief of their unfortunate deviation serves, all the more strikingly, to prove the adaptation of our moral constitution ta the exigencies of human society. The law of pauperism hath assimilated beneficence to justice, by enacting the former, ♦ Stewart's " Outlines of Moral Philosophy," Art. Veracity. THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 167 m the very way that it does the latter ; and enforcing what it has thus enacted by penalties. Beneficence loses altogether its proper and original character — when, instead of moving on the impulse of a spontaneous kindness that operates from within, it moves on the impulse of a legal obligation from without. Should law specify the yearly sum that must pass from my hands to the destitute around me — then, it is not beneficence which has to do with the matter. What I have to surrender, law hath already ordained to be the property of another ; and I, in giving it up, am doing an act of justice and not an act of liberality. To exercise the virtue of beneficence, I must go beyond the sum that is specified by law ; and thus law in her attempts to seize upon beneficence, and to bring her under rule, hath only forced her to retire within a narrower territory, on which alone it is that she can put forth the free and native characteristics which belong to her. Law, in fact, cannot, with any possible ingenuity, obtain an imperative hold on beneficence at all — for her very touch transforms this virtue into another. Should law go forth on the enterprize of arresting beneficence upon her own domain, and there laying upon her its authoritative dictates — it would find that beneficence had eluded its pursuit ; and that all which it could possibly do, was to wrest from her that part of the domain of which it had taken occupation, and bring it under the authority of justice. When it thought to enact for beneficence, it only, in truth, enacted a new division of property ; and in so doing, it con- travenes the possessory, one of nature's special affections — while, by its attempts to force what should have been left to the free exercise of compassion, it has done much to supersede or to extinguish another of these affections. It hath so pushed for- ward the line of demarcation — as to widen the space which jus- tice might call her own, and to contract the space which benefi- cence might call her own. But never will law be able to make a captive of beneficence, or to lay personal arrest upon her. It might lessen and limit her means, or even starve her into utter an- nihilation. But never can it make a living captive of her. It is altogether a vain and hopeless undertaking to legislate on the duties of beneficence ; for the very nature of this virtue, is to do good freely and willingly with its own. But on the mo- ment that law interposes to any given extent with one's pro- perty, to that extent it ceases to be his own ; and any good that is done by it is not done freely. The force of law and the free- ness of love cannot amalgamate the one with the other. Like water g.nd oil they are immiscible. We cannot translate benefi- cence into the statute-book of law, without expunging it from the statute-book of the heart ; and, to whatever extent 168 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO we make it the object of compulsion, to that extent we must destroy it. 11. And in the proportion that beneficence is put to flight, is gratitude put to flight along with it. The proper object of this emotion is another's good-will. But I do not hold as from the good- will of another, that which law hath enabled me to plea as my own right — nay to demand, with a front of hardy and resolute assertion. It is this which makes it the most delicate and dan- gerous of all ground — when law offers to prescribe rules for the exercise of beneficence, or to lay its compulsory hand on a virtue, the very freedom of which is indispensable to its existence. And it not only extinguishes the virtue ; but it puts an end to all those responses of glad and grateful emotion, which its presence and its smile and the generosity of its free-will oflferings awaken in society. It is laying an arrest on all the music of living inter- course, thus to forbid those beautiful and delicious echoes, which are reflected, on every visit of unconstrained mercy, from those families that are gladdened by her footsteps. And what is worse, it is substituting in their place, the hoarse and jarring discords of the challenge and the conflict and the angry litigation. We may thus see, that there is a province in human affairs, on v^hich law should make no entrance — a certain department of human virtue wherein the moralities should be left to their ov, n unfettered play, else they shall be frozen into utter apathy — a field sacred to liberty and good-will that should ever be kept beyond the reach of jurisprudence ; or on which, if she once obtain a footing, she will spoil it of all those unbought and unbidden graces that na- tively adorn it. So that while to law we would commit the de- fence of society from all the aggressions of violence, and confide the strict and the stern guardianship of the interests of justice — we should tremble for humanity lest it withered and expired under the grasp of so rough a protector ; and lest before a countenance grave as that of a judge, and grim as that of a messenger-at-arms, this frail but loveliest of the virtues should be turned, as if by the head of Medusa, into stone. 12. But there are other moral ills in this unfortunate perver- sion, beside, the extinction of good-will in the hearts of the affluent and of gratitude in the hearts of the poor — though it be no shght mischief to any community, that the tie of kindliness between these two orders should have been broken ; and that the business of charity, which when left spontaneous is so fertile in all the amenities of life, should be transformed into a fierce war- fare of rights, from its very nature incapable of adjustment, and, whether they be the encroached upon or the repelled, subjecting both parties to the sense of a perpetual violence. But over and THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETT. 169 above this, there are other distempers, wherewith it hath smitten the social economy of England, and of which experience will ««p^;^he English observer with many a vivid recollection. The reckless but withal most natural improvidence of those whom the state has undertaken to provide for, seeing that law hath pro- claimed in their favour a discharge from the cares and the duties of self-preservation — the headlong dissipation, in consequence — the dissolution of family ties, for the same public and pro- claimed charity which absolves a man from attention to him- self will absolve him also from attention to his relatives — the jdecay and interruption of sympathy in all the little vicinities of town and country, for each man under this system of an assured and universal provision feels himself absolved too from attention to his neighbours — These distempers both social and economic have a common origin ; and the excess of them above what taketh place in a natural state of things may all be traced to the unfortunate aberration, which, in this instance, the constitution of human law hath made from the constitution of human nature. 13. In our attempts to trace the rise of the possessory affec- tion and of a sense of property, we have not been able to disco- ver any foundation in nature, for a sentiment that we often hear impetuously urged by the advocates of the system of pauperism — that every man has a right to the means of subsistence. Na- ture does not connect this right with existence ; but with con- tinned occupation, and with another principle, to which it also gives the sanction of its voice — that, each man is legitimate owner of the fruits of his own industry. These are the principles on which nature hath drawn her landmarks over every territory that is peopled and cultivated by human beings. And the actual distribution of property is the fruit, partly of man's own direct aim and acquisition, and partly of circumstances over which he had no control. The right of man to the means of existence on the sole ground that he exists has been loudly and vehemently asserted ; yet is a factitious sentiment notwithstanding — tending to efface the distinctness of nature's landmarks, and to traverse those arrangements, by which she hath provided far better for the peace and comfort of society, nay for the more sure and liberal support of all its members. It is true that nature, in fixing the principles on which man has a right to the fruits of the earth, to the materials of his subsistence, has left out certain individuals of the human family — some outcast stragglers, who, on neither of nature's principles, will be found possessed of any right or of any property. It is for their sake that human law hath interposed, in some countries of the world ; and, bv creating or ordaining a 15 170 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO right for them, has endeavoured to make good the deficiency of natm-e. But if justice alone could have ensured a right ^stribu- tion for the supply of want, and if it must be through the medium of a right that the destitute shall obtain their maintenance — then, would there have been no need for another principle, which stands out most noticeably in our nature ; and compassion would have been a superfluous part of the human constitution. It is thus that nature provides for the unprovided — not by unsetthng their limits which her previous education had established in all minds — not by the extension of a right to every man ; but by estabhshing in behalf of those some men, whom accident or the necessity of cir- cumstances or even their own misconduct had left without a right, a compassionate interest in the bosom of their fellows. They have no advocate to plead for them at the bar of justice ; and therefore nature hath furnished them with a gentler and more persuasive advocate, who might solicit for them at the bar of mercy ; and, for their express benefit, hath given to most men an ear for pity, to many a hand open as day for melting charity. But it is not to any rare, or romantic generosity, that she hath confided the relief of their wants. She hath made compassion one of the strongest, and, in spite of all their depravations to which humanity is exposed, one of the steadiest of our universal instincts. It were an intolerable spectacle even to. the inmates of a felon's cell, did they behold one of their fellows in the ago- nies of hunger ; and rather than endure it, would they share their own scanty meal with them.* It were still more intolerable to the householders of any neighbourhood — insomuch that, where law had not attempted to supersede nature, every instance of dis- tress or destitution would, whether in town or country, give rise to an internal operation of charity throughout every little vicinity of the land. The mischief which law hath done, by trying to mend the better mechanism which nature had instituted, is itself a most impressive testimony to the wisdom of nature. The perfection of her arrangements, is never more strikingly exhi- bited, than by those evils which the disturbance of them brings upon society — as when her law in the heart has been overborne * The certainty of this operation is beautifully exemplified in a passage of Mr. Buxton's interesting book on prisons — from which it appears that there is no allow- ance of food to the debtors, and a very inferior allowance of food to the criminals, who are confined in the gaol at Bristol. The former live on their ovm means or the ca- sual charity of the benevolent. Instances have occurred when both of these resources failed them — and starvation would have ensued, had not the criminals, rather than endure the neighbourhood of such a suffering, shared their own scanty pittance along with them — thus affording an argumentum a fortiore for a like strength of compassion tliroughout the land — seeing that it had survived the depraving process which leads to the malefactor's cell, THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 171 i by England's wretched law of pauperism ; and this violation of the natural order has been followed up, in consequence, by a tenfold increase both of poverty and crime. 14. It is interesting to pursue the outgoings of such a sys- tem ; and to ascertain whether nature hath vindicated her wis- dom, by the evil consequences of a departure from her guidance on the part of man — for if so, it will supply another proof, or furnish us with another sight of the exquisite adaptation which she hath established between the moral and the physical, or be- tween the two worlds of mind and matter. Certain, then, of the parishes of England have afibrded a very near exemplification of the ultimate state to which one and all of them are tending — a state which is consummated, when the poor rates form so large a deduction from the rents of the land, that it shall at length cease to be an object to keep them in cultivation.* It is thus that some tracts of country are on the eve of being ac- tually vacated by their proprietors ; and as their place of super- intendance cannot be vacated by others, who have no right of superintendance — the result might be, that whole estates shall be as effectually lost to the wealth and resources of the country, as if buried by an earthquake under water, or, as if some blight of nature had gone over them and bereft them of their powers of vegetation. Now we know not, if the whole history of the world furnishes a more striking demonstration than this, of the mischief that may be done, by attempting to carry into practice a theoretical speculation, which, under the guise and even with the real purpose of benevolence, has for its plausible object, to equalize among the children of one common humanity, the blessings and the fruits of one common inheritance- The truth is that we have not been conducted to the present state of our rights and arrangements respecting property, by any artificial process of legislation at all. The state of property in which we find ourselves actually landed, is the result of a natural process, under which, all that a man earns by his industry is acknow- + The following is an extract from the report of a select committee on tlie poor law printed in 1817. " The consequences which are likely to result from this state of things, are clearly set forth in the petition from the parish of Wombridge in Salop, which is fast approaching to this state. The petitioners state 'that the annual value of lands, mines and houses in this parish, is not sufficient to maintain the numerous and increasing poor, even if the same were set free of rent; and that these circum- stances will inevitably compel the occupiers of lands and mines to relinquish them; and the poor will be without relief, or any known mode of obtaining it, unless some assistance be speedily afforded to them.' And your committee apprehend, from the petition before them, that this is one of many parishes that are fast approaching to a state of dereliction." The inquiries of the present Poor law Commission have led to a still more aggra- vated and confirmed view of the evils of the system. 172 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO ledged to be his own — or, when the original mode of acquisition is lost sight of, all that a man retains by long and undisturbed possession is felt and acknowledged to be his ov. n also. Legis- lation ought to do no more than barely recognize these princi- ples, and defend its subjects against the violation of them. And when it attempts more than this — when it offers to tamper with the great arrangements of nature, by placing the rights and the securities of property on a footing different from that of nature — when, as in the case of the English poor-laws, it does so, under the pretence and doubtless too with the honest design of esta- blishing between the rich and the poor a nearer equality of en- joyment ; we know not in what way violated nature could have inflicted on the enterprize a more signal and instructive chas- tisem.ent, than when the w hole territory of this pbiisible but pre- sumptuous experiment is made to droop and to wither under it as if struck by a judgment from heaven — till at length that earth out of which the rich draw all their wealth and the poor all their subsistence, refuses to nourish the children who have abandoned her ; and both parties are involved in the wreck of one common and overwhelming visitation. 15. But we read the same lesson in all the laws and move- ments of political economy. The superior wisdom of nature is demonstrated in the mischief which is done by any aberration therefrom — when her processes are disturbed or mtermeddled with by the wisdom of man. The philosophy of free trade is grounded on the principle, that society is most enriched or best served, w^hen commerce is left to its own spontaneous evolu- tions ; and is neither fostered by the artificial encouragements, nor fettered by the artificial restraints of human policy. The greatest economic good is rendered to the community, by each man being left to consult and to labour for his own particular good — or, in other words, a more prosperous result is obtained by the spontaneous play and busy competition of many thousand wills, each bent on the prosecution of its own selfishness, than by the anxious superintendance of a government, vainly attempt- ing to medicate the fancied imperfections of nature, or to im- prove on the arrangements of her previous and better mechan- ism. It is when each man is left to seek, with concentrated and exclusive aim, his own individual benefit — it is then, that mar- kets are best supplied ; that commodities are furnished for general use, of best quality, and in greatest cheapness and abun- dance ; that the comforts of life are most multiphed ; and the most free and rapid augmentation takes place in the riches and resources of the commonwealth. Such a result, which at the same time not a single agent in this vast and compUcated system THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 173 of trade contemplates or cares for, each caring only for himself — strongly bespeaks a higher agent, by whose transcendental wis- dom it is, that all is made to conspire so harmoniously and to terminate so beneficially. We are apt to recognize no higher wisdom than that of man, in those mighty concerts of human agency — a battle, or a revolution, or the accomplishment of some prosperous and pacific scheme of universal education ; where each who shares in the undertaking is aware of its object, or acts in obedience to some master-mind who may have de- vised and who actuates the whole. But it is widely difierent, when, as in political economy, some great and beneficent end both unlooked and unlaboured for, is the result, not of any con- cert or general purpose among the thousands who are engaged in it — but is the compound effect, nevertheless, of each looking severally, and in the strenuous pursuit of individual advantage, to some distinct object of his own. When we behold the work- ing of a complex inanimate machine, and the usefulness of its products — we infer, from the unconsciousness of all its parts, that there must have been a planning and a presiding wisdom in the construction of it. The conclusion is not the less obvious, Me think it emphatically more so, when, instead of this, we be»- hold in one of the animate machines of human society, the busy world of trade, a beneficent result, an optimism of public and economical advantage, wrought out by the free movements of a vast multitude of men, not one of whom had the advantage of the public in all his thoughts. When good is effected by a combination of unconscious agents incaj)able of all aim, we ascribe the combination to an intellect that devised and gave it birth. When good is effected by a combination of conscious agents capable of aim, but that an aim wholly difTerent with each from the compound and general result of their united operations — this bespeaks a higher will and a higher wisdom than any by which the individuals, taken separately, are actuated. When we look at each striving to better his own condition, we see nothing in this but the selfishness of man. When we look at the effect of this universal principle, in cheapening and multiply- ing to the uttermost all the articles of human enjoyment, and establisliing a thousand reciprocities of mutual interest in the world — we see in this the benevolence and comprehensive wis- dom of God. 16. The whole science of Political Economy is full of those exquisite adaptations to the wants and the comforts of human life, which bespeak the skill of a master-hand, in the adjustment of its laws, and the working of its profoundly constructed me- chanism. We shall instance, first, that speciality in the law of 15* 174 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO prices, by which they oscillate more largely with the varieties in the supply of the necessaries, than they do in the mere comforts or luxuries of human life. The deficiency of one tenth in the imports of sugar, would not so raise the price of that article, as a similar deficiency in the supply of corn, which might rise even a third in price, by the diminution of a tenth from the usual quan- tity brought to market. It is not with the reason, but with the beneficial efiect of this phenomenon, that we at present have to do — not with its efficient, but with its final cause ; or the great and obvious utilities to which it is subservient. Connected with this law of wider variation in the price than in the supply of first necessaries, is the reason why a population survive so well those years of famine, when the prices perhaps are tripled. This does not argue that they must be therefore three times worse fed than usual. The food of the country may only, for aught we know, have been lessened by a fourth part of its usual supply — or, in other words, the families may at an average be served Avith three- fourths of their usual subsistence, at the very time that the cost of it is three times greater than usual. And to make out this large payment, they have to retrench for the year in other arti- cles — altogether, it is likely, to give up the use of comforts ; and to limit themselves more largely in the second, than they can possibly do in the first necessaries of life — to forego perhaps many of the little seasonings, wherewith they wont to impart u relish to their coarse and humble fare — to husband more strictly their fuel ; and be satisfi.ed for a time with vestments more threadbare, and even more tattered, than what in better times they would choose to appear in. It is thus that- even although the fi.rst necessaries should be tripled in price for a season, and although the pecuniary income of the labouring classes should not at all be increased — yet they are found to weather the hardships of such a visitation. The food is still served out to them at a much larger proportion than the cost of it would in the first instance appear to indicate. And in the second instance they are enabled to purchase at this cost — because, and more especially if .they be a well-habited and well- conditioned peasantry, with a pretty high standard of enjoyment in ordinary years, they have more that they can save and retrench upon in a year of severe scarcity. They can disengage much of that revenue wiiich before went to the purchase of dress, and of various luxuries that might for a season be dispensed with ; and so have the more to expend on the materials of subsistence. It is this which explains how roughly a population can bear to be handled, both by adverse seasons and by the vicissitudes of trade ; and how after all, there is a stability about a people's THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 175 means, which will keep its oiound against many checks, and amidst many fluctuations. It is a mystery and a marvel to many an observer, how the seemingly frail and precarious inte- rest of the labouring classes should after all, have the stamina of such endurance as to weather the most fearful reverses l)oth of commerce and of the seasons ; and that,- somehow or other, we find after an interval of glooiny suffering and still gloomier fears, that the families do emerge again into the same state of sufficiency as before. We know not a fitter study for the phi- lanthropist than the working of that mechanism, by which a pro- cess so gratifying is caused, or in which he will find greater reason to admire the exquisite skill of those various adaptations that must be referred to the providence of Him who framed society, and suited so wisely to each other the elements of which it is composed. 17. There is nought which appears more variable than the operation of those elements by which the annual supply of the national subsistence is regulated. How imlike in character is one season to another ; and between the extremes of dryness and moisture, how exceedingly different may be the amount of that produce on which the sustenance of man essentially de- pends. Even after that the promise of abundance is well nigh realized, the hurricane of a single day, passing over the yet un- cut but rijJened corn ; or the rain of a fev/ weeks, to drench and macerate the sheaves that lie piled together on the harvest-field, were enough to destroy the food of milhons. We are aware of a compensa.tiori, in the varieties of soil and exposure, so that the weather which is adverse to one part of the country might be favourable to another : besides that the mischief of a desolating tempest in autumn must only be partial, from the harvest of the plains and uplands falling upon difierent months. Still, with all these balancing causes, the produce of different years is very far from being equalized ; and its fluctuations would come charged with still more of distress and destitution to families — were there not a counterpoise to the laws of nature, in what may be termed the laws of political economy. IS. The price of human food does not immediately depend on the quantity of it that is produced, but on the quantity of it that is brought to market ; and it is well that, in every year of scarcity, there should be instant causes put into operation for in- creasing the latter quantity to the uttermost — so as to repair as much as possible the deficiencies of the former. It is well that even a small short-coming in the crop should be so surely fol- lowed by a great advance of prices ; for this has instantly the effect of putting the families of the land upon that shortness of 176 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO allowance, which might cause the supply, limited as it is, to serve throughout the year. But, besides the wholesome restraint which is thus imposed on the general consumption of families, there is encouragement given by this dearness to abridge the consumption upon farms, and by certain shifts in their manage- ment to make out the gi-eatest possible surplus, for the object of sale and supply to the population at large. With a high price, the farmer feels it a more urgent interest, to carry as much of his produce to market as he can ; and for this purpose, he will retrench to the uttermost at home. And he has much in his power. More particularly, he can and does retrench consi- derably upon the feed of his cattle, and in as far as this wont to consist of potatoes or grain, there must an important addition be gained in this way to the supplies of the market. One must often have been struck with the comparative cheapness of ani- mal food in a year of scarcity. This is because of the greater slaughter of cattle which takes place in such a year, to save the heavy expense of maintaining them ; and which, besides afford- ing a direct accession to the sustenance of man, lightens still more the farm consumption, and disengages for sale a still greater amount of the necessaries of life. We do not say but that the farm suffers a derangement by this change of regimen, from which it might take years to recover fully. But the evil . becomes more tolerable by being spread. The horrors of ex- treme scarcity are prevented. The extremity is weathered at its furthest point. The country emerges from the visitation, and without, in all probability, the starvation of one individual ; and all because, from the operation of the causes that we have now explained, the supply of the market is made to oscillate within smaller limits than the crop — insomuch that though the latter should be deficient by one-third of the whole, the former might not be deficient by one-fifth or one-sixth of what is brought to market annually. 19. This effect is greatly increased by the suspending of dis- tillation in years of scarcity. And after all, should the supplies be yet very short, and the prices therefore far more than propor- tionally high, this will naturally and of itself, bring on the impor- tation of grain from forefgn parts. If such be the variety of weather and soil, even within the limits of a country, as in some measure to balance the scarcity which is experienced in one set of farms, by the comparative abundance of another set — this will apply with much greater force to a whole continent, or to the world at large. If a small deficiency in the home supply of grain induce a higher price than with other articles of commerce, this is just a provision for a securer and readier filling up of the THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 177 deficiency by a movement from abroad — a thing of" far greater importance with the necessaries than with the mere comforts or luxuries of hfe. That law of wider and more tremulous oscil- lation in the price of corn, which we have attempted to expound, is in itself a security for a more equal distribution of it over the globe by man, in those seasons when nature has been partial — so as to diffuse the more certainly and the more speedily through the earth that which has been dropped upon it unequally from Heaven. It is well that greater efficacy should thus be given to that corrective force, by which the yearly supplies of food are spread over the world with greater uniformity than they at first descend upon it ; and, jiowever much it may be thought to ag- gravate a people's hardships, that a slight failure in their home supply should create such a rise in the cost of necessaries — yet certainly it makes the impulse all the more powerful, by which corn flows in from lands of plenty to a land of famine. But what we have long esteemed the most beautiful part of this operation, is the instant advantage, which a large importation from abroad gives to our export manufactures at home. There is a limit in the rate of exchange to the exportation of articles from any country ; but up to this limit, there is a class of la- bourers employed in the preparation of these articles. Now the effect of an augmented importation upon the exchange is such as to enlarge this limit — so that our export traders can then sell with a larger profit, and carry out a greater amount of goods than before, and thus enlist a more numerous population in the service of preparing them. An increased importation always gives an impulse to exportation, so as to make employment spring up in one quarter, at the very time that it disappears in another. Or, rather, at the very time when the demand for a particular commodity is slackened at home, it is stimulated abroad. We have already adverted to the way in which fami- lies shift their expenditure in a year of scarcity, directing a far greater proportion of it than usual to the first necessaries of life, and withdrawing it proportionally from the comforts, and even second necessaries of life. Cloth may be regarded as one of the second necessaries ; and it were woful indeed, i^ on the pre- cise year when food was dearest, the numerous workmen en- gaged in this branch of industry should find that employment was scarcest. But in very proportion as they are eibandoned by customers at home, do they find a compensation in the more quickened demand of customers from abroad. It is in these various ways that a country is found to survive so well its hardest and heaviest visitations ; and even under a triple price for the first articles of subsistence, it has been found to emerge into 178 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO prosperity again, without an authentic instance of starvation throughout all its families.* 20. When any given object is anxiously cared for by a legis- lature, and all its wisdom is put forth in devising measures for securing or extending it — it forms a pleasing discovery to find, that what may have hitherto been the laborious aim and effort of human policy, has already been provided for, v/ith all perfection and entireness in the spontaneous workings of human nature ; and that therefore, in this instance, the Avisdom of the state has been anticipated by a higher wisdom — or the wisdom which pre- sides over the ordinations of a human government, has been anti- cipated by the wisdom which ordained the laws of the human con- stitution. Of this there are manifold examples in political economy — as in the object of population, for the keeping up and increase of which, there was at one time a misplaced anxiety on the part of rulers ; and the object of capital for the preservation and growth of which there is a lifee misplaced anxiety, and for the decay and disappearance of which there is an equally misplaced alarm. Both, in fact, are what may be termed self-regulating interests — or, in other words, mterests which result with so much certainty from the checks and the principles that nature hath already instituted, as to supersede all public or patriotic regulation in regard to either of them. This has now been long understood on the subject of popu- lation; but it holds equally true on the subject of capital. There is, on the one hand, throughout society enough of the appetite for enjoyment, to secure us against its needless excess ; and, on the other, enough of the appetite for g-ain, to secure us against its hurtful deficiency. And, by a law of oscillation as beautiful as that which obtains in the planetary system, and by which amid all disturbances and errors, it is upheld in its mean state indestructible and inviolate — does capital, in like manner, constantly tend to a condition of optimism, and is never far from it, amid all the variations, whether of defect, or redundancy, to which it is exposed. When in defect, by the operation of high prices, it almost instantly recovers itself^ — when in excess, it, by the operation of low profits, or rather of losing speculations, almost instantly collapses into a right mediocrity. In the first case, the inducement is to trade rather than to spend ; and there is a speedy accumulation of capital. In the second case, the in- ducement is to spend rather than to trade ; and there is a speedy reduction of capital. It is thus that capital ever suits itself, * It is right to mention Uiat the four preceding paragraphs are taken in substance, and very much in language, from a former publication — as presenting a notable adap- tation of external to human nature which offered itself, in the course of other investi- gations, and at a time 'ivhen we were not in quest of it. THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 179 in the way that is best possible, to the circumstances of the country — so as to leave uncalled for, any economic regula- tion by the wisdom of man ; and that precisely because of a previous moral and mental regulation by the wisdom of God. 21. But if any thing can demonstrate the hand of a righteous Deity in the nature and workings of what may well be termed a mechanism the very peculiar mechanism of trade ; it is the healthful impulse given to all its movements, wherever there is a reigning principle of sobriety and virtue in the land — so as to ensure an inseparable connexion between the moral worth and the economic comfort of a people. Of this we should meet with innumerable verifications in political economy — did we make a study of the science, with the express design of fixing and ascer- taining them. There is one very beautiful instance in the effect, which the frugality and foresight of workmen would have, to control and equalize the fluctuations of commerce — acting with the power of a fl}fin mechanics ; and so as to save, or at least indefinitely to shorten, those dreary intervals of suspended work or miserable wages, which nov/ occur so often, and with almost periodic regularity in the trading world. What constitutes a sore aggravation to the wretchedness of such a season, is the neces- sity of overworking — so as, if possible, to compensate by the amount of labour for the deficiency of its remuneration ; and yet the inverse effect of this in augmenting and perpetuating that glut, or overproduction, which is the real origin of this whole calamity. It would not happen in the hands of a people elevated and exempted above the urgencies of immediate want ; and nothing will so elevate and exempt them, but their own accumu- lated wealth — the produce of a resolute economy and good management in prosperous times. Would they only save during high wages, what they might spend during low wages — so as when the depression comes, to slacken, instead of adding to their work, or even cease from it altogether — could they only afford to live through the months of such a visitation, on their well husbanded means, the commodities of the overladen market would soon clear away ; v»'hen, with the retin-n of a brisk de- mand on empty warehouses, a few weeks instead of months would restore them to importance and prosperity in the common- wealth. This is but a single specimen from many others of that enlargement which awaits the labouring classes, after that by their own intelligence and virtue, they have won their way to it. With but wisdom and goodness among the common people, the whole of this economic machinery would work most benefi- cently for them — a moral ordination, containing in it most di- rect evidence for the wisdom and goodness of that Being by 180 AFFECTIONS WHICH CONDUCE TO whose hands it is that the machinery has been framed and con stituted ; and who, the Preserver and Governor, as well as the Creator of His works, sits with presiding authority over all its evolutions. 22. But this is only one specimen out of the many — the par- ticulai' instance of a quality that is universal, and which may be detected in almost all the phenomena and principles of the sci- ence ; for throughout, political economy is but one grand exem- plification of the aUiance, which a God of righteousness hath established, between prudence and moral principle on the one hand, and physical comfort on the other. However obnoxious the modem doctrine of population, as expounded by Mr. Malthus, may have been, and still is, to weak and limited sentimentalists, it is the truth which of all others sheds the greatest brightness over the earthly prospects of humanity — and this in spite of the hideous, the yet sustained outcry which has risen against it. This is a pure case of adaptation, between the external nature of the world in which we live, and the moral nature of man, its chief occupier. There is a demonstrable inadequacy in all the mate- rial resources which the globe can furnish, for the increasing wants of a recklessly increasing species. But over and against this, man is gifted with a moral and a mental power by which the inadequacy might be fully countervailed ; and the species, in virtue of their restrained and regulated numbers, be upholden on the face of our world, in circumstances of large and staple suf- ficiency, even to the most distant ages. The first origin of this blissful consummation is in the virtue of the people ; but carried into sure and lasting effect by the laws of political economy, through tlie indissoluble connexion which obtains between the wages and the supply of labour — so that in every given state of commerce and civilization, the amount of the produce of industry and of the produce of the soil, which shall fall to the share of the work-men, is virtually at the determination of the work-men themselves, who, by dint of resolute prudence and resolute prin- ciple together, may rise^to an indefinitely higher status than they now occupy, of comfort and independence in the commonwealth. This opens up a cheering prospect to the lovers of our race ; and not the less so, that it is seen through the medium of popular in- telligence and virtue — the only medium through which it can ever be realized. And it sheds a revelation, not only on the hopeful destinies of man, but on the character of God — in having insti- tuted this palpable alliance between the moral and the physical ; and so assorted the economy of outward nature to the economy of human principles and passions. The lights of modern science have made us apprehend more clearly, by what steps the con- THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY. 181 dition and the character of the common people rise and fall with each other — insomuch, that, while on the one hand their general destitution is the inevitable result of their general worthlessness, they, on the other, by dint of wisdom and moral strength, can augment indefinitely, not the produce of the earth, nor the pro- duce of human industry, but that proportion of both which falls to their own share. Their economic is sure to follow by suc- cessive advances in the career of their moral elevation ; nor do we hold it impossible, or even unlikely — that gaining, every ge- neration, on the distance which now separates them from the upper classes of society, they shall, in respect both of decent sufficiency and dignified leisure, make perpetual approximations to the fellowships and the enjoyments of cultivated life. 16 182 RELATION OF THE SPECIAL AFFECTIONS CHAPTER VIII. On the Relation in which the special Affections of our JYature stand to Virtue ; and on the Demonstration given forth by ity both to the Character of JMan and the Character of God. 1. There are certain broad and decisive indications of moral design, and so of a moral designer, in the constitution of our world, which instead of expounding at great length, we have only stated briefly or incidentally — because, however effective as proofs, they possess a character of such extreme obviousness, as to require no anxious or formal explanation ; but, on the in- stant of being presented to their notice, are read and recognized by all men. One patent example of this in the constitution of man, is the force and prevalence of compassion — an endowment which could not have proceeded from a malignant being ; but which evinces the Author of our nature to be himself compas- sionate and generous. Another example may be given alike patent and recognizable, if not of a virtuous principle in the hu- man constitution, at least of such an adaptation of the external world to that constitution — that, with the virtuous practice which that principle would both originate and sustain, the outward and general prosperity of man is indispensably connected. We mean the manifest and indispensable subserviency of a general truth in the world, to the general well-being of society. It is difficult to imagine, that a God of infinite power, and consummate skill of workmanship, but withal a lover of falsehood, would have de- vised such a world ; or rather, that he would not, in patronage to those of his own likeness, have ordered the whole of its system differently — so reversing its present laws and sequences, as that, instead of honour and integrity, duplicity disingenuousness and fraud, should have been the usual stepping-stones to the posses- sion both of this world's esteem and of this world's enjoyments. How palpably opposite this is to the actual economy of things, the whole experience of life abundantly testifies — making it evi- dent, of individual examples, that the connexion between honesty and success in the world is the rule ; the connexion between dishonesty and success is the exception. But perhaps, instead of attempting the induction of particular cases, we should ob- serve a still more distinct avowal of the character of God, of his favour for truth, and of the discountenance which he has laid upon falsehood, by tracing, which could be easily done in imagination, OF OUR NATURE TO VIRTUE. 183 the effect it would have in society, if, all things else remaining unaltered, there should this single difference be introduced, of a predominant falsehood, instead of a predominant truth in the world. The consequences of a universal distrust, in the almost universal stoppage that would ensue of the useful interchanges of life, are too obvious to be enumerated. The world of trade would henceforth break up into a state of anarchy, or rather be paralyzed into a state of cessation and stillness. The mutual confidence between man and man, if not the mainspring of com- merce, is at least the oil, without which its movements were im- practicable. And were truth to disappear, and all dependence on human testimony to be destroyed, this is not the only interest which would be ruined by it. It would vitiate, and that incu- rably, every social and every domestic relationship ; and all the charities as well as all the comforts of life would take their depart- ure from the world. 2. Seeing then that the observation of honesty and truth is of such vital importance to society, that without it society would cease to keep together — it might be well to ascertain, by what special provision it is in the constitution of man, that the practice of these virtues is upheld in the world. Did it proceed in every instance, from the natural power and love of integrity in the heart — we should rejoice in contemplating this aUiance between the worth of man's character, on the one hand ; and the security, a^3 well as the abundance of his outward comforts upon the other. And such, in fact, is the habitual disposition to truth in the world — that, in spite of the great moral depravation into wliich our species has obviously fallen, we probably do not overrate the pro- portion, when we affirm, that at least a hundred truths are uttered among men for one falsehood. But then, in the vast majority of cases, there is no temptation to struggle with, nothing by whichi to try or to estimate the strength of the virtue so that, without virtue being at all concerned — in it, man's words might spontane- ously flow in the natural current of his ideas, of the knowledge or the convictions which belong to him. But more than this. Instead of selfishness seducing man, which it often does, from the observations of truth and honesty — it vastly oftcner is on the side of these observations. Generally speaking, it is not more his interest that he should have men of integrity to deal with — than that he himself should, in his own dealings, be strictly obser- vant of this virtue. To be abandoned by the confidence of his fellows, h€ would find to be not more mortifying to his pride, than ruinous to his prosperity in the world. We are aware that many an occasional harvest is made from deceit and injustice ; but, in the vast majority of cases, men would cease to thrive when they 184 RELATION OF THE SPECIAL AFFECTIONS ceased to be trusted. A man's actual truth is not more beneficial to others, than the reputation of it is gainful to himself. And therefore it is, that, throughout the mercantile M^orld, men are as sensitive of an aspersion on their name, as they would be of an encroachment on their property. The one, in fact, is tantamount to the other. It is thus, that, under the constraints of selfishness alone, fidelity and justice maybe in copious and current observa- tion among men ; and while, perhaps, the principle of these vir- tues is exceedingly frail and uncertain in all hearts — human so- ciety may still subsist by the literal and outward observation of them. 3. Here then is the example, not of a virtue in principle, but of a virtue in performance, with all the indispensable benefits of that performance, being sustained on the soil of selfishness. Were a profound observer of human life to take account of all the honesties of mercantile intercourse, he would find, that, in the general amount of them, they were mainly due to the opera- tion of this cause ; or that they were so prevalent in society, be- cause each man was bound to their observance, by the tie of his own personal interest — insomuch, that if this particular tie were broken, it would as surely derange or break up the world of trade, as the world of matter would become an inert or turbid chaos, on the repeal or suspension of the law of gravitation. Confidence, the very soul of commercial enterprize, and without which the transactions of merchandize were impossible, is the goodly re- sult, not of that native respect which each man has for another's rights, but of that native regard which each man has for his own special advantage. This forms another example of a great and general good wrought out for society — while each component member is intently set, only on a distinct and specific good for himself — a high interest, which could not have been confided to human virtue ; but which has been skilfully extracted from the workings of human selfishness. In as far as truth and justice prevail in the world, not by the operation of principle but of po- licy, in so far' the goodness of man has no share in it : but so beneficent a result out of such unpromising materials, speaks all the more emphatically both for the wisdom and the goodness of God. 4. But in this there is no singularity. Other examples can be named, of God placing us in such circumstances, as to enlist even our selfishness on the side of virtuous conduct ; or im- planting such special afl?ections, as do, by their own impulse, lead to that conduct, although virtuousness is not in all our thoughts. We are often so actuated, as to do what is best for society, at the very time that the good of society is forming no part of our OF OUR NATURE TO VIRTUE. 185 concern ; and our footsteps are often directed in that very path, which a moral regard to the greatest happiness of the species would dictate — without any moral purpose having been conceived or any moral principle been in exercise within us. It is thus that our resentment operates as a check on the injuriousness of others, although our single aim be the protection of our own in- terests — not the diminution of violence or injustice in the world : And thus too our own dread of resentment from others, works the same outward effect, which honour or a respect for their rights would have had upon our transactions, which delicacy or a re- spect for their feelings would have had upon our converse with those around us. It is in this way that God makes the wrath of man to praise Him ; and the same is true of other affections of our nature, which have less the character of selfishness, than either anger or fear. It is not because prompted by a sense of duty, but under the force of a mere natural proneness, that mo- thers watch so assiduously over the helplessness, and fathers toil so painfully for the subsistence of their children. Even com- passion, with the speed and the discrimination of its movements, does for human life, more than man is capable of doing with his highest efforts of morality and reason — yet, not in the shape of a principle, but in the shape of a strong constitutional propensity. The good is rendered, not by man acting as he thinks that he ought, or under the force of a moral suggestion ; but man acting because he feels himself constrained, as if by the force of a ph} - sical necessity — not surely because, in the exercise of a sove- reign liberty, he hath assumed a lordly ascendant over all the in- ferior passions of his nature ; but because himself is lorded over by a law of his nature, having in it all the might and mastery of a passion. It is v^hen, in the contemplation of phenomena like these, we are enabled to view man as an instrument, that we are also led more clearly to perceive who the agent is — not the being who is endowed, but the Being who has endowed him. The instinct of animals is a substitute for their wisdom ; but, at the same time, a palpable demonstration of the wisdom of God. Man also has his instincts, which serve as the substitutes of mo- ral goodness in him ; but which therefore mark all the more strongly, by their beneficial operation the goodness of his Maker.* * Dr. Smilh in his Theory of Moral Scntimonts has well remarked that — " thougli iti accountinjj for the operations of bodies, we never fjiil to distinguish the efficient from the final cause, in accounlinj; for thoae of the mind, we are very apt to confound these two different things with one anotlier. Wlien by natural principles we are led to advance those ends which a refined and enlightened reason would recommend to us, we are very to impute to that reason, as to their efficient cause, the sentiments and actions by which we advance those ends, and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God," 16* 186 RELATION OF THE SPECIAL AFFECTIONS 5. To see how widely these gifts or endowments of our nature by the hand of God, may stand apart from aught Hke proper goodness or virtue in the heart of man — we have only to witness the similar provision which has been made for the care and pre- servation of the inferior animals. The anger which arouses to defence against injury, and the fear which prompts to an escape from it, and the maternal affection which nourishes and rears for- ward the successive young into a condition of strength and inde- pendence for the protection of themselves — these all have their indispensable uses, for upholding and perpetuating the various tribes of living creatures, who at the same time are alike inca- pable of morality and reason. There is no moral purpose served by these implantations, so far at least as respects the creatxires themselves, with whom virtue is a thing utterly incompetent and unattainable. In reference to them, they may be viewed simply as beneficent contrivances, and as bespeaking no other charac- teristic on the part of the Deity than that of pine kindness, or regard for the happiness and salety, throughout their respective generations, of the treatures whom He has made. This might help us to distinguish between those mental endoM iiicnts of our own species, wliich have but for their object the comfort and pro- tection ; and those which have for their object the character of man. The former we have in common with the inferior ani- mals ; and so far they only discover to us the kindness of the divine natinc, or the parental and benevolent concern which God takes in us. The latter are peculiar to our race, and are indi- cated by certain phenomena of our mental nature, in which the Deasts of the field and the fowls of the air have no share with us — by the conscience within us, asserting its own rightful supre- macy over all our affections and doings ; by our capacities for virtue and vice, along with the pleasures or the pains which are respectively blended with them ; and finally by the operation of habit, whose office, like that of a schoolmaster, is to perfect our education, and to fix, in one way or other, but at length unmove- ably, the character of its disciples. These present us with a dis- tinct exhibition of the Deity, or a distinct and additional relation in which He stands to us — revealing to us, not Him only as the affectionate Father, and ourselves only as the fondlings of His regard ; but Him also as the great moral Teacher, the Lawgiver, and moral Governor of man, and ourselves in a state of pupil- lage and probation, or as the subjects of a moral discipline. 6. And here it may be proper to remark, that we understand by the goodness of God, not His benevolence or His kindness alone. The term is comprehensive of all moral excellence. Truth, and justice, and that strong repugnance to moral evil OF OUR NATURE TO VIRTUE. 187 which has received the peculiar denomination of HoHness — these are all good moral properties, and so enter into the com- position of perfect moral goodness. There are some who have analyzed, or, in the mere force of their own wishfulness, would resolve the whole character of the Deity into but one attribute — that of a placid undistinguishing tenderness ; and, in virtue of this tasteful or sentimental but withal meagre imagination, would they despoil Him of all sovereignty and of all sacredness — hold- ing Him forth as but the indulgent father, and not also as the righteous Governor of men. But this analysis is as impractica- ble in the character of God, as we have already found it to be in the character of man.* Unsophisticated conscience speaks dif- ferently. The forebodings of the human spirit in regard to futurity, as well as the present phenomena of human life, point to truth and righteousness, as distinct and stable and independent perfections of the divine nature — however glossed or disguised they may have been, by the patrons of a mild and easy religion. In the various provisions of nature for the defence and security of the inferior animals, we may read but one lesson — the bene- volence of its Author. In the like provisions, whether for the defence and prolongation of human life, or the maintenance of human society — we read that lesson too, but other lessons ia conjunction with it. For in the larger capacities of man, and more especially in his possession of a moral nature, do we regard him as born for something ulterior and something higher than the passing enjoyments of a brief and ephemeral existence. And so wfien we witness in the provisions, whether of his animal or mental economy, a subserviency to the protection, or even to the enjovmento of his transition state — we cannot disconnect this with subserviency to the remoter objects of that ultimate state whither he is going. In the instinctive fondness of parents, and the affinities of kindness from the fellows of our species, and even the private affections of anger and fear, — v/e behold so many elements conjoined into what may be termed an apparatus of guardianship ; and such an apparatus has been reared by Providence in behalf of every creature that breathes. But in the case of man, with his larger capacities and prospects, the terminating object, even of such an intermediate and temporary apparatus, is not to secure for him, the safety or happiness of the present life. It is to fulfil the period, and subserve the purposes of a moral discipline. For meanwhile character is ripening ; and, whether good or bad, settling by the power and operation of habit into a state of inveteracy — and so, as to fix * Chap. vii. Art. 7. 188 RELATION OF THE SPECIAL AFFECTIONS and prepare the disciples of a probationary state for their final destinations. What to the inferior animals are the provisions of a life, are to man the accommodations of a journey. In the one we singly behold the indications of a divine benevolence. With the other, we connect the purposes of a divine administra- tion ; and beside the love and liberality of a Parent, we recog- nize the designs of a Teacher, and Governor, and Judge. 7. And these special afl'ections, though their present and more conspicuous use be to uphold the existing economy of life, are not without their influence and their uses in a system of moral discipline. And it is quite obvious, that, ere v.e can pronounce on the strict and essential virtuousness of any human being, they must be admitted into the reckoning. In estimating the precise moral quality of any beneficence which man may have executed, it is indispensable to know, in how far he was schooled into it at the bidding of principle, and in hov/ far urged forward to it by the impulse of a special affection. To do good to another because he feels that he ought, is an essentially distinct exhibition from doing the same good, by the force of parental love, or of an instinctive and spontaneous compassion — as distinct as the strength of a constitutionally implanted desire is from the sense of a morally incumbent obligation. In as far as I am prompted to the relief of distress, by a movement of natural pity — in so far less is left for virtue to do. In as far as I am restrained from the out-breakings of an anger which tumultuates within, by the dread of a counter-resentment and retaliation from without — in so far virtue has less to resist. It is thus that the special affections may at once lighten the tasks and lessen the tempta- tions of virtue ; and, whether in the way of help at one time or of defence at another, may save (he very existence of a princi- ple, which in its own unaided frailty, might, among the rude conflicts of life, have else been overborne. It is perhaps indis- pensable to the very being of virtue among men, that, by means of the special affections, a certain force of inclination has been superadded to the force of principle — we doubt not, in propor- tions of highest v/isdom, of most exquisite skill and delicacy. But still the strength of the one must be deducted, in computing the real amoimt and strength of the other ; and so the special affections of our nature not only subserve a purpose in time, but are of essential and intimate effect in the processes of our moral preparation, and will eventually tell on the high retributions and judgments of eternity. 8. Man is not a utilitarian either in his propensities or in his principles. When doing what he likes — it is not always, it is not generally, because of its perceived usefulness, that he so OF OUR NATURE TO VIRTUE. 189 likes It. But his inclinations, these properties of his nature, have been so adapted both to the material world and to human society, that a great accompanying or great resulting usefulness, is the effect of that particular constitution which God hath given to him. And when doing what he feels that he ought, it is far from always because of its perceived usefulness, that he so feels. But God hath so formed our mental constitution, and hath so adapted the whole economy of external things to the stable and everlast- ing principles of virtue, that, in effect and historical fulfilment, the greatest virtue and the greatest happiness are at one. But the union of these two does not constitute their unity. Virtue is not right, because it is useful ; but God hath made it useful, because it is right. He both loves virtue, and wills the happi- ness of his creatures — this benevolence of will, being itself, not the whole, but one of the brightest moralities in the character of the Godhead. He wills the happiness of man, but wills his vir- tue more ; and accordingly, hath so constructed both the system of humanity, and the system of external nature, that, only through the medium of virtue, can any substantial or lasting happiness be realized. The utilitarians have confounded these two elements, because of the inseparable yet contingent alliance, which a God of virtue hath established between them. The Cosmopolites are for merging all the particular affections into one ; and would substitute in their place a general desire for the greatest possible amount of good to others, as the alone guide and impellent of human conduct. And the UtiUtarians are for merging all the particular virtues into one ; and would substitute in their place the greatest usefulness, as the alone principle to which every question respecting the morality of actions should be referred. The former would do away friendship, and patriotism, and all the partialities or even instincts of relationship, from the system of human nature. The latter would at least degrade, if not do away, truth and justice from the place which they now hold in the system of Ethics. The desolating effect of such changes on the happiness and security of social life, would exhibit the vast superiority of the existent economy of things, over that specula- tive economy into which these theorists would transform it ; or, in other words, would prove by how mighty an interval, the good- ness and the wisdom of God transcended both the goodness and the wisdom of man. 9. The whole of this speculation, if followed out into its just and legitimate consequences, would serve greatly to humble and reduce our estimate of human virtue. Nothing is virtuous, but what is done imder a sense of duty ; or done, simply and solely because it ought. It is only in as far as this consideration is 190 RELATION OF THE SPECIAL AFFECTIONS present to the mind, and is of practical and prevalent operation there — that man can be said to feel virtuously, or to act vir- tuously. We should not think of affixing this moral character- istic to any performance hovi^ever beneficial, that is done under the mere impulse of a headlong sensibility, without any sense or any sentiment of a moral obligation. In every good action, that is named good because useful to society, we should subduct or separate all which is due to the force of a special affection, that we might precisely ascertain how much or how little remains, which may be due to the force of principle. The inferior ani- mals, destitute though they be of a moral nature and therefore incapable of virtue, share with us in some of the most useful and amiable instincts which belong to humanity ; and when we stop to admire the workings of nature's sensibility — whether in the tears that compassion sheds over the miseries of the unfor- tunate, or in the smiles and endearments which are lavished by a mother upon her infant family, we seldom reflect how little of the real and proper character of virtue is there. We accredit man, as if they were his own principles, with those instincts which the divinity hath implanted within him ; and it aggravates the error, or rather the guilt of so perverse a reckoning — that, while we offer this incense to humanity, we forget all the while the hand of Him, by whom it is that humanity is so bountifully gifted and so beauteously adorned. CHAPTER IX. J\liscellaneous Evidences of virtuous and benevolent Design^ in the Adaptation of External JYature to the JVForal Constitution of Man, 1. It will be enough, if, after having led the way on a new territory of investigation, we shall select one or two out of the goodly number of instances, as specimens of the richness and fertility of the land. We have already endeavoured to prove, why a number of distinct benefits, even though reducible by analysis into one principle or law, still affords not a solitary, but a multiple of evidence, of the wise and benevolent Creator.* This evidence, in fact, is proportioned to the number, not of efficient but final causes in nature — so that each separate exam- ple of a good rendered to humanity, in virtue of its actual con- stitution, may be regarded as a separate and additional evidence, of its having been formed by an artificer, at once of intelligent device and kind purposes. The reduction of these examples into fewer laws does not extenuate the argument for His good- ness ; and it may enhance the argument for His wisdom. 2. The first instance which occurs to us is that law of affec- tion, by which its intensity or strength is proportioned to the help- lessness of its object. It takes a direction downwards ; de- scending, for example, with much greater force from parents to children, than ascending from children to parents back again — save when they lapse again into second infancy, and the duteous devoted attendance by the helpful daughters of a family, through- out the protracted ailments and infirmity of their declining years, instead of an exception, is in truth a confirmation of the law — as much so, as the stronger attraction of a mother's heart to- wards the youngest of the family ; or, more impressive still, her more special and concentrated regard towards her sickly or de- crepit or even idiot boy. It is impossible not to recognize in this beautiful determination of nature, the benevolence of nature's God. 3. Such instances could be greatly multiplied ; and we invite the future explorers of this untrodden field to the task of collect- ing them. We hasten to instances of another kind, which we all the more gladly seize upon, as being cases of purest and * Introductory Chapter. Art. 27, 28, 29. 192 * MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. Strictest adaptation, not of the external mental, but of the external material world, to the moral constitution of man. 4. The power of speech is precisely such an adaptation. Whether we regard the organs of utterance and hearing in man, or the aerial medium by which sounds are conveyed — do we be- hold a pure subserviency of the material to the mental system of our world. It is true that the great object subserved by it, is the action and reaction between mind and mind — nor can we es- timate this object too highly, when we think of the mighty influ- ence of language, both on the moral and intellectual condition of our species. Still it is by means of an elaborate material construction that this pathway has been formed, from one heart and from one understanding to another. And therefore it is, that the faculty of communication by words, with all the power and flexibility which belong to it, by which the countless benefits of human intercourse are secured, and all the stores of sentiment and thought are turned into a common property for the good of mankind, may well be ranked among the highest of the examples that we are now in quest of — it being indeed as illustrious an adaptation as can be named of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man. Of the converse of disembodied spirits we know nothing. But to man cased in materialism, cer- tain material passages or ducts of conveyance, for the interchange of thought and feeling between one mind and another seem in- dispensable. The exquisite provision which has been made for these, both in the powers of articulation and hearing, as also in that intermediate element, by the pulsations of which ideas are borne forward, as on so many winged messengers from one intellect to another — bespeaks, and perhaps more impressively than any other phenomena in nature, the contrivance of a su- preme artificer, the device and finger of a Deity.* 5. But articulate and arbitrary sound is not the only vehicle, either of meaning or sentiment. There is a natural as well as artificial language, consisting chiefly of expressive tones — though greatly reinforced both by expressive looks and express- ive gestures. The voice, by its intonations alone, is a powerful instrument for the propagation of sympathy between man and man ; and there is similarity enough between us and the infe- rior animals, in the natural signs of various of the emotions, * It will at once be seen that the same observations may be extended to written language, and to the fitness of those materials which subserve through its means, the wide and rapid communication of human thoughts. We in truth could have multi- plied indefinitely such instances of adaptation as we are now giving — but we judge it better to have confined ourselves throughout the volume, to matters of a more rudi- mental and general character — leaving the manifold detail and fuUer developements of the argument to future labourers in the field. MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 193 as anger and fear and grief and cheerfulness, for the sympathy being extended beyond the limits of our own species, and over a great part of the sentient creation. We learn by experience and association the significancy of the merely vocal apart from vocables ; for almost each shade of meaning, at least each dis- tinct sensibility, has its own appropriate intonation — so that, without catching one syllable of the utterance, we can, from its melody alone, often tell what are the workings of the heart, and even what are the workingrs of the intellect. It is thus that music, even though altogether apart from words, is so powerfully fitted, both to represent and to awaken the mental processes — insomuch that, without the aid of spoken charac- ters, many a story of deepest interest is most impressively told, many a noble or tender sentiment is most emphatically conveyed by it. It says much for the native and original pre- dominance of virtue — it may be deemed another assertion of its designed pre-eminence in the world, that our best and highest music is that which is charged with loftiest principle, whether it breathes in orisons of sacredness, or is employed to kindle the purposes and to animate the struggles of resolved patriotism ; and that never does it fall with more exquisite cadence on the ear of the dehghtful listener, than when attuned to the home sympathies of nature, it tells in accents of love or pity, of its woes and its wishes for all humanity. The power and express- iveness of music may well be regarded as a most beauteous adaptation of external Nature to the Moral Constitution of Man — for what can be more adapted to his moral constitution, than that which is so helpful as music eminently is, to his moral cul- ture ? Its sweetest sounds are those of kind affection. Its sub- limest sounds are those most expressive of moral heroism ; or most fitted to solemnize the devotions of the heart, and prompt the aspirations and resolves of exalted piety. 6. A philosophy of taste has been founded on this contem- plation ; and some have contended that both the beauty and the sublimity of sounds are derived from their association with moral qualities alone. Without affirming that association is the only, or the universal cause, it must at least be admitted to have a very extensive influence over this class of our emotions. If each of the mental affections have its own appropriate intonation; and there be the same or similar intonations given forth, either by the inanimate creation or by the creatures having life which are inferior to man — then, frequent and familiar on every side of him, must be many of those sounds by which human passions are suggested, and the tnemory of things awakened which are fitted to affect and interest the heart. And thus it is, that, to 17 194 MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. the ear of a poet, all nature is vocal with sentiment ; and he can fancy a genius or residing spirit, in the ocean, or in the tempest, or in the rushing waterfall, or in the stream whose softer mur- murs would lull him to repose — or in the mighty forest, when he hears the general sigh omitted by its innumerable leaves as they rustle in the wind, and from whose fitful changes he seems to catch the import of some deep and mysterious soliloquy. But the imagination will be still more readily excited by the notes and the cries of animals, as when the peopled grove awakens to harmony ; or when it is figured, that, amid the amplitudes of savage and solitary nature, the lioness robbed of her whelps, calls forth the echoes of the wilderness — making it to ring with the proclamation of her wrongs. But, without conceiving any such rare or extreme sensibility as this, there is a common, an every-day enjoyment which all have in the sounds of nature ; and, as far as sympathy with human emotions is awakened by them, and this forms an ingredient of the pleasure, it affords another fine example, of an adaptation in the external world to the mental constitution of its occupiers. 7. But the same philosophy has been extended to sights as well as sounds. The interchange of mind with mind is not restricted to language. There is an interchange by looks also ; and the ever-varying hues of the mind are represented, not by the complexion of the face alone or the composition of its fea- tures, but by the attitude and gestures of the body.* It is thus that human sentiment or passion may come to be expressed by the colour and form and even the motion of visible things ; by a kindred physiognomy for all the like emotions on the part of the inferior animals — nay, by a certain countenance or shape in the objects of mute and unconscious nature. It is thus that a moral investment sits on the aspects of the purely material world ; and we accordingly speak of the modesty of the violet, the innocence of the lily, the commanding mountain, the smihng landscape. Each material object has its character, as is amply set forth in the beautiful illustrations of Mr. Alison ; and so to the poet's eye, the whole panorama of nature is one grand personification, lighted up throughout by consciousness and feeling. This is the reason why in all languages, material images and moral characteristics are so blended and identified. * We may here state that as the air is the medium by which sounds are conveyed — so light may be regarded as standing in the same relation to those natural signs whether of colour, gesture or attitude, which are addressed to the eye. Much could be said respecting the adaptation of light to the moral constitution of man — arising from the power which the very observation of our fellow-men has in repressing, so long as we are under it, indecency or crime. The works of iniquity are called works of dsu'kness. MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 195 It is the law of association which thus connects the two worlds of sense and of sentiment. Sublimity in the one is the counter- part to moral greatness in the other ; and beauty in the one is the counterpart to moral delicacy in the other. Both the grace- ful and the grand of human character are as effectually embo- died in the objects and scenery of nature, as in those immortal forms which have been transmitted by the hand of sculptors to the admiration of distant ages. It is a noble testimony to the righteousness of God, that the moral and the external loveUness are thus harmonized — as well as to the wisdom which has so adapted the moral and the material system to each other, that supreme virtue and supreme beauty are at one. " ?Jind, mind alone, bear witness eartli and heaven ! The living fountain, in itself contains Of beauteous and sublime. There hand in hand sit paramount the graces ; There enthroned, celestial Venus with divinest airs Invites the soul to never fading joy." Akenside. 8. And we may here remark a certain neglect of external things and external influences, which, however enlightened or transcendentally rational it may seem, is at variance with truth of principle and sound philosophy. We would instance the un- dervaluing of the natural signs in eloquence, although their effect makes all the difference in point of impression and power be- tween spoken and written language — seeing that, superadded to articulate utterance, the eye and the intonations and the gestures also serve as so many signals of conveyance for the transmis- sion of sentiment from one mind to another. It is thus that in- difference to manner or even to dress, may be as grievous a dereliction against the real philosophy of social intercourse — as indifference to the attitude and the drapery of figures would be against the philosophy of the fine arts. Both proceed on the forgelfulness of that adaptation, in virtue of which materialism is throughout instinct with principle, and both in its colouring and forms, gives forth the most significant expressions of it. On this ground too we would affirm, both of state ceremonial and professional costume, that neither of them is insignificant ; and that he who in the spirit of rash and restless innovation would upset them, as if they were the relics of a gross and bar- baric age, may be doing violence not only to the usages of vene- rable antiquity, but to the still older and more venerable consti- tution of human nature — weakening in truth the bonds of social union, by dispensing with certain of those influences which the Great Author of our constitution desio;ned for the consolidation and good order of society. This is not accordant with the phi- 196 MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. losophy of Butler, who wrote on the " use of externals in mat^ ters of reUgion," — nor with the philosophy of those who prefer the findings of experience, however irreducible to system they may be, to all the subtleties or simplifications of unsupported theory.* 9. Before quitting this subject, we remark, that it is no proof against the theory which makes taste a derivative from morality, that our emotions of taste may be vivid and powerful, v/hile our principles of morality are so weak as to have no ascendant or governing influence over the conduct. This is no unusual phe- nomenon of our mysterious nature. There is a general homage rendered to virtue in the world ; but it is the homage, more of a dilettanti than of an obedient and practical devotee. This is not more surprising, than that the man of profligate habits should have a tasteful admiration of sacred pictures and sacred melo- dies ; or that, with the heart of a coward, he should nevertheless catch the glow of at least a momentary inspiration from the music of war and patriotism. It seems the effect and evidence of some great moral derangement, that there should be such an incongruity in subjective man between his taste and his princi- ples ; and the evidence is not lessened but confirmed, when we observe a like incongruity in the objective nature by which he is surrounded — we mean, between the external mental and ex- ternal material world. We have only to open our eyes and see how wide, in point of lovelinesss, the contrast or dissimilarity is, between the moral and the material of our actual contemplation — the one coming immediately from the hand of God ; the other tainted and transformed by the spirit of man. We believe with Alison and others, that, to at least a very great extent, much of the beauty of visible things lies in association ; that it is this which gives its reigning expression to every tree and lake and waterfall, and which may be said to have impregnated with cha- racter the whole of the surrounding landscape. How comes it then, that, in the midst of living society, where we might expect to meet with the originals of all this fascination, we find scarcely any other thing than a tame and uninteresting level of the flat and the sordid and the ordinary — whereas, in that inanimate scenery, which yields but the faint and secondary reflection of moral qualities, there is, on every line and on every feature, so vivid an impress of loveliness and glory ? One cannot go forth of the crowded city to the fresh and the fair of rural nature, with- out the experience, that, while in the moral scene, there is so * The perusal of those works which Ireat scientifically of the fine arts, as Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses, is well adapted to rebuke and rectify the light estima- tion, in which all sensible accompaniments are apt to be held by us. MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 197 much to thwart and to revolt and to irritate — in the natural scene, all is gracefulness and harmony. It reminds us of the contrast which is sometimes exhibited, between the soft and flowery lawn of a cultivated domain, and the dark or angry spirit of its owner — of whom we might almost imagine, that he scowls from the battlements of his castle, on the intrusion of every un- licensed visitor. And again the question may be put — whence is it that the moral picturesque in our world of sense, as it beams upon us from its woods and its eminencies and its sweet recesses of crystal stream or of grassy sunshine, should yield a delight so unqualified — while the primary moral characteristics, of which these are but the imagery or the visible representation, should, in our world of human spirits, be so wholly obliterated, or at least so wofully deformed ? Does it not look as if a blight had come over the face of our terrestrial creation, which hath left its materialism in a great measure untouched, while it hath inflicted on man a sore and withering leprosy 1 Do not the very openness and benignity which sit on the aspect of nature reproach him, for the cold and narrow and creeping jealousies that be at work in his own selfish and suspicious bosom ; and most impressively tell the difference between what man is, and what he ought to be ? 10. There are certain other adaptations; but on which we forbear to expatiate.* Some of them indeed border on a terri- * It must be obvious that \vc cannot exhaust the subject, but only exemplify it, by means of a few specimens. There is an adaptation, which, had it occurred in time, might have been stated in the text — suggested by the celebrated fjuestion respecting tlie liberty of the human will. We cannot but admit how much it would have dete- riorated the constitution of humanity, or rather destroyed one of its noblest and most essential parts, had it been so constructed, as that either inan was not accountable f->r his own acLionS; or that these actions were free in the sense contended for by one of the parties in the controversy — that is, were so many random contingencies vvliich hid no parentage in any events or influenries that went before them, or occupied no p'a:6 in a train of causation. Of the reasoners on the opposite sides of this sorely agitated question — the one contending for the moral liberty, and the other for the physical necessity of human actions — it is clear that there are many who hold the one to be destructive of the other. But what the wisdom of man cannot argumcwta- tively harmonize in the world of speculation, the power and wisdom of God have executively harmonized in the world of realities — so that man, on the one hand, irre- sistibly feels himself to be an accountable creature ; and yet, on the other, his doings are as much the subject of calculation and of a philosophy, as many of those classes of phenomena in the material world, which, fixed and certain in themselves, are only uncertain to us, not because of their contingency, but because of their complication. We are not sure if the evolutions of the will are more beyond the reach of prediction than the evolutions of the weather. It is this union of the moral character with the historical certainty of our volitions, which has proved so puzzling, to many of our controversialists ; but in proportion to the difficulty felt by us in the adjustment of these two elements, should be our admiration of that profound and exquisite skill which has mastered the apparent incongruity — so that while every voluntary action of man is, in point of reckoning, the subject of a moral, it is, in point of result, no less the subject of a physical law. 17* 198 MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. tory distinct from our own, if they do not altogether belong to it. The relation between food and hunger, between the object and the appetite, is an instance of the adaptation between external nature and man's physical constitution — yet the periodical recur- rence of the appetite itself, with its imperious demand to be satisfied, viewed as an impellent to labour even the most irksome and severe, has an important effect both on the moral constitu- tion of the individual and on the state of society. The super- fices of the human body, in having been made so exquisitely alive at every pore to the sensations of pain, may be regard- ed as nature's defensive covering against those exposures from without, which else might injure or destroy it. This is purely a physical adaptation, but it involves a moral adaptation also ; for this shrinking and sensitive avoidance, at the first ap- proaches of pain affords a similar protection against certain hazards from within — as self-mutilation in the moment of the spirit's wantonness, or even self-destruction in the moment of its despair. But, without enlarging further on s})ecific instances, we shall now advert to one subject, furnished by the history of moral science ; and replete, we have long thought, with the materials of a very strong and comprehensive argument. 11. We have already adverted to the objective nature of virtue, and the subjective nature of man, as forming two wholly distinct objects of contemplation. It is the latter and not the former which indicates the moral character of God. The mere system of ethical doctrine is no more fitted to supj)ly an argu- ment of this character, than would the system of geometry. It is not geometry in the abstract, but geometry as embodied in the Heavens, or in the exquisite structures of the tenes- trial physics — which bespeaks the skill of the artificer who framed them. In like manner it is not moral science in the abstract — but the moral constitution of beings so circumstanced and so made, that virtue is the only element in which their permanent individual or social happiness can be realized, which bespeaks the great Parent of the human family to be Himself the lover and the exemplar of righteousness. In a word, it is not from an abstraction, but from the facts of a creation, that our lesson respecting the divine character, itself a fact, is to be learn- ed ; and it is by keeping this distinction in view, that we obtain one important help for drawing from the very conflict and diver- sity of moral theories on the nature of virtue, a clear, nay a cumulative argument for the virtuous nature of the Godhead. 12. The painful suspicion is apt to intrude upon us, that virtue may not be a thing of any substance or stability at all — when we witness the confusion and the controversy into which moralists MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 199 have fallen, on the subject of its elementar}' principles. But, to allay this feeling, it should be observed, in the first place, that, with all the perplexity which obtains on the question of what virtue, in the abstract or in its own essential and constituting quality, is — there is a pretty general agreement among moralists, as to what the separate and specific virtues of the human cha- racter are. According to the selfish system, temperance may be a virtue, because of its subservience to the good of the indi- vidual ; while by the system of utility it is a virtue, because through its observation, our powers and services are kept entire for the good of society. But again, beside this controversy which relates to the nature of virtue in itself, and which may be termed the objective question in morals — there is a subjective or an or- ganic question which relates, not to the existence, but to the ori- gin and formation of the notion or feeling of virtue in the human mind. The question, for example, whether virtue be a thing of opinion or a thing of sentiment, belongs to this class. Now, in regard to all those questions which respect the origin or the pedi- gree of our moral judgments, it should not be forgotten, that, while the controvertists are at issue upon this, they are nearly unanimous, as to morality itself being felt by the mind as a matter of supreme obligation. They dispute about the moral sense in man, or about the origin and constitution of the court of con- science ; but they have no dispute about the supreme authority of conscience — even as, in questions of civil polity and legisla- tion, there may be no dispute about the rightful authority of some certain court, while there may be antiquarian doubts and differ- ences on the subject of its origin and formation. Dr. Smith, for example, while he has his own peculiar views on the origin of our moral principles, never questions their authority. lie differs from others, in regard to the rationale, or the anterior steps of that process, which at length terminates in a decision of the mind, on the merit or demerit of a partit uiar action. The right- ness and the supremacy of that decision are not in the least doubted by him. There may be a metaphysical controversy about the mode of arriving at our moral judgment, and at the same time a perfect concurrence in it as the guide and the regu- lator of human conduct — just as there may be an anatomical con- troversy about the structure of the eye or the terminations of the optic nerve, and a perfect confidence with all parties, in the cor- rectness of those intimations which the eye gives, of the position of external objects and their visible properties. By attending to this we obtain a second important help for eliciting from the di- versity of theories on the nature of virtue, a cumulative argument for the virtuous nature of the Godhead. 200 MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. ' 13. When the conflict then of its opposing theories, would seem to bring fearful insecurity on moral science, let it not be forgotten, that the very multitude of props and securities, by which virtue is upholden, is that which has given rise to the con- flict. There is little or no scepticism, in regard to the worth or substantive being of morality, but chiefly in regard to its sustain- ing principle ; and it is because of so much to sustain it, or of the many distinct and firm props which it rests upon, that there has been such an amount of ethical controversy in the world. There has been many a combat, and many a combatant — not because of the baselessness of morality, but because it rests on a basis of so many goodly pillars, and because of such a varied convenience and beauty in the elevation of the noble fabric. The reason of so much controversy is, that each puny contro- versialist, wedded to his own exclusive view of an edifice too mighty and majestic for his grasp, has either selected but one of the upholding props, and affirmed it to be the only support of the architecture ; or attended to but one of its graces and utilities, and affirmed it to be the alone purpose of the magnificent build- ing. The argument of each, whether on the foundation of vir- tue or on its nature, when beheld aright, will be found a distinct trophy to its worth — for each can plead some undoubted excel- lence or good effect of virtue in behalf of his own theory. Each may have so magnified the property which himself had selected — as that those properties of virtue which others had selected, were thrown into the shade, or at most but admitted as humble attendants, in the retinue of his own great principle. And so the controversy is not, whether morality be a solidly constituted fabric ; but what that is which constitues its solidity, and which should be singled out as the keystone of the fabric. Each of the champions in this warfare has fastened on a different key- stone ; and each pushes the triumph against his adversary by a demonstration of its firmness. Or in other words, virtue is com- passed about with such a number of securities, and possesses such a superabundance of strength, as to have given room for the question that was raised about Samson of old — what that is, wherein its great strength lies. It is like the controversy which sometimes arises about a building of perfect symmetry — when sides are taken, and counter-explanations are advanced and ar- gued, about the one characteristic or constituting charm, which hath conferred upon it so much gracefulness. It is even so of mo- rality. Each partisan hath advocated his own system; and each, in doing so, hath more fully exhibited some distinct property or perfection of moral rectitude. Morality is not neutralized by this conflict of testimonies ; biit rises in statelier pride, and with aug- MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 201 merited security, from the foam and the turbulence which play around its base. To her this conflict yields, not a balance, but a summation of testimonies ; and, instead of an impaired, it is a cumulative argument, that may be reared out of the manifold controversies to which she has given rise. For when it is as- serted by one party in the strife, that the foundation of all mora- lity is the right of God to the obedience of his creatures — let God's absolute right be fully conceded to them. And when others reply, that, apart from such right, there is a native and essential rightness in morality, let this be conceded also. There is indeed such a rightness, which, anterior to law, hath had ever- lasting residence in the character of the Godhead ; and which prompted him to a law, all whose enactments bear the impress of purest morality. And when the advocates of the selfish sys- tem affirm, that the good of self is the sole aim and principle of virtue ; while we refuse their theory, let us at least admit the fact to which all its plausibility is owing — that nought conduces more surely to happiness, than the strict observation of all the recognized moralities of human conduct. And when a fourth party affirms that nought but the useful is virtuous ; and, in sup- port of their theory, can state the unvarying tendencies of virtue in the world towards the highest good of the human family — let it forthwith be granted, that the same God, who blends in his own person, both the rightness of morality and the right of law, that He hath so devised the economy of things and so directs its processes, as to make peace and prosperity follow in the train of righteousness. And when the position that virtue is its own reward, is cast as another dogma into the whirlpool of debate, let it be fondly allowed, that the God, who delights in moral ex- cellence himself, hath made it the direct minister of enjoyment to him, who, formed after his own image, delights in it also. And when others, expatiating on the beauty of virtue, would almost rank it among the objects of taste rather than of prin- ciple — let this be followed up by the kindred testimony, that, in all its exhibitions, there is indeed a supreme gracefulness ; and that God, rich and varied in all the attestations which He has given of his regard to it, hath so endowed His creatures, that, in moral worth, they have the beatitudes of taste as well as the beatitudes of conscience. And should there be philosophers who say of morality that it is wholly founded upon the emotions — let it at least be granted, that He whose hand did frame our internal mechanism, has attuned it in the most correct and deli- cate respondency, with all the moralities of which human nature is capable. And should there be other philosophers who affirm \ that morality hath a real and substantive existence in the nature 202 MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. of things, so as to make it as much an object of judgment dis- tinct from him who judges, as are the eternal and immutable truths of geometry — let it with gratitude be acknowledged that the mind is so constituted as to have the same firm hold of the moral which it has of the mathematical relations ; and if this prove nothing else, it at least proves, that the Author of our con- stitution hath stamped there, a clear and legible impress on the side of virtue. We should not exclude from this argument even the degrading systems of Hobbes and Mandeville ; the former representing virtue as the creation of human policy, and the latter representing its sole principle to be the love of human praise — for even they tell thus much, the one that virtue is linked with the well-being of the community, the other that it has an echo in every bosom. We would not dissever all these testi- monies ; but bind them together into the sum and strength of a cumulative argument. The controversialists have lost them- selves, but it is in a wilderness of sweets — out of which the ma- terials might be gathered, of such an incense at the shrine of morality, as should be altogether overpowering. Each party hath selected but one of its claims ; and, in the anxiety to exalt it, would shed a comparative obscurity over all the rest. This is the contest between them — not whether morality be destitute of claims ; but what, out of the number that she possesses, is the great and pre-eminent claim on which man should do her homage. Their controversy perhaps never may be settled ; but to make the cause of virtue suffer on this account, would be to make it suffer from the very force and abundance of its recommendations. 14. But this contemplation is pregnant with another inference, beside the worth of virtue — even the righteous character of Him, who, for the sake of upholding it hath brought such a number of cantingencies together. When we look to the systems of utility and selfishness, let us look upwardly to Him, through whose ordination alone it is, that virtue hath such power to prosper the arrangements of life and of society. Or when told of the prin- ciple that virtue is its own reward, let us not forget Him, who so constituted our moral nature, as to give the feeling of an ex- quisite charm, both in the possession of virtue and in the con- templation of it. Or when the theory of a moral sense offers itself to our regards, let us bear regard along with it to that God, who constructed this organ of the inner man, and endowed it with all its perceptions and all its feelings. In the utility where- with He hath followed up the various observations of moral rectitude ; in the exquisite relish which He hath infused into the rectitude itself; in the law of conformity thereto which He hath written on the hearts of all men ; in the aspect of eternal and MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. 203 unchangeable fitness, under which He hath made it manifest to every conscience — in these, we behold the elements of many a controversy, on the nature of virtue ; but in these, when viewed aright, we also behold a glorious harmony of attestations to the nature of God. It is thus that the perplexities of the question, when virtue is looked to as but a thing of earthly residence, are all done away, when we carry the speculation upward to heaven. They find solution there ; and cast a radiance over the charac- ter of Him who hath not only established in righteousness His throne, but, by means of a rich and varied adaptation, hath pro- fusely shed over the universe that He halh formed, the graces by which He would adorn, and the beatitudes by which He would reward it. 15. Although the establishment of a moral theory is not now our proper concern, we may nevertheless take the opportunity of expressing our dissent from the system of those, who would resolve virtue, not into any native or independent rightness of its own, but unto the will of Him who has a right to all our services. Without disparagement to the Supreme Being, it is not His law which constitutes virtue ; but, far higher homage both to Him and to His law, the law derives all its authority and its being from a virtue of anterior residence in the character of the Divi- nity. It is not by the authority of any law over Him, that truth and justice and goodness and all the other perfections of supreme moral excellence, have, in His person, had their everlasting resi- dence. He had a nature, before that He uttered it forth into a law. Previous to creation, there existed in His mind, all those conceptions of the great and the graceful, which He hath embo- died into a gorgeous universe; and of which every rude subhmity of the wilderness, or every fair and smiling landscape, gives such vivid representation. And in like manner, previous to all go- vernment, there existed in His mind, those principles of righ- teousness, which afterwards, with the right of an absolute sove- reign. He proclaimed into a law. Those virtues of which we now read on a tablet of jurisprudence were all transcribed and taken off from the previous tablet of the divine character. The law is but a reflection of this character. In the fashioning of this law. He pictured forth Himself; and we, in the act of ob- serving His law, are only conforming ourselves to His hkeness. It is there that we are to look for the primeval seat of moral goodness. Or, in other words, virtue has an inherent character of her own — apart from law, and anterior to all jurisdiction. 16. Yet the right of God to command, and the rightness of His commandments, are distinct elements of thought, and should not be merged into one another. We should not lose 204 MISCELLANEOUS ADAPTATIONS. sight of the individuahty of each, nor identify these two things— because, instead of antagonists, they do in fact stand side by side, and act together in friendly co-operation. Because two influences are conjoined in agency, that is no reason why they should be confounded in thought. Their union does not con- stitute their unity — and though, in the conscience of man, there be an approbation of all rectitude ; and all rectitude, be an obh- gation laid upon the conduct of man by the divine law — yet still, the approbation of man's moral nature is one thing, and the obli- gation of God's authority is another. 17. That there is an approval of rectitude, apart from all legal sanctions and legal obligations, there is eternal and unchangea- ble demonstration in the character of God Himself He is under no law, and owns the authority of no superior. It is not by the force of sanctions, but by the force of sentiments that the divi nity is moved. Morality with Him is not of prescription, but of spontaneous principle alone ; and He acts virtuously, not be- cause He is bidden ; but because virtue hath its inherent and eternal residence in His own nature. Instead of deriving mo- rality from law, we should derive law, even the law of God, from the primeval morality of His own character ; and so far from looking upwardly to His law as the fountain of morality, do we hold it to be the emanation from a higher fountain that is seated in the depths of His unchangeable essence, and is eternal as the nature of the Godhead. 18. The moral hath antecedency over the juridical, God acts righteously, not because of jurisdiction by another, but because of a primary and independent justice in Himself. It was not law which originated the moralities of the divine character ; but these morahties are self-existent and eternal as is the being of the Godhead. The virtues had all their dwelling-place in the constitution of the Divinity — ere He stamped the impress of them on a tablet of jurisprudence. There was an inherent, be- fore there was a preceptive morality ; and righteousness, and goodness, and truth, which all are imperative enactments of law, were all prior characteristics, in the underived and uncreated excellence of the Lawgiver. CHAPTER X. On the capaciiies of the WoyM for making a virtuous Species happy ; and the Argument deducible from this, both for the Character of God, and the Immortality of Man. 1. We have already stated the distinction, between the theology of those, who would make the divine goodness consist of all mo- ral excellence ; and of those, who would make it consist of be- nevolence alone. Attempts have been made to simplify the science of morals, by the reduction of its various duties or obli- gations into one element — as when it is alleged, that the virtu- ousness of every separate morality is reducible into benevolence, which is regarded as the central, or as the great master and generic virtue that is comprehensive of them all. There is a theoretic beauty in this imagination — yet it cannot be satisfac- torily established, by all our powers of moral or mental analysis. We cannot rid ourselves of the obstinate impression, that there is a distinct and native virtuousness, both in truth and in justice, apart from their subserviency to the good of men ; and accord- ingly, in the ethical systems of all our most orthodox expounders, they are done separate homage to — as virtues standing forth in their own independent character, and having their own indepen- dent claims both on the reverence and observation of mankind. Now, akin witli this attempt to generalize the whole of virtue into one single morality, is the attempt to generalize the character of God into one single moral perfection. Truth and justice have been exposed to the same treatment, in the one contemplation as in the other — that is, regarded more as derivatives from the higher characteristic of benevolence, than as distinct and primary characteristics themselves. The love of philosophic simplicity may have led to this in the abstract or moral question ; but something more has operated in the theological question. It falls in with a still more urgent affection than the taste of man ; it falls in with his hope and his sense of personal interest, that the truth and justice of the Divinity should be removed, as it were, to the back-ground of his perspective. And accordingly, this inclina- tion to soften, if not to suppress, the sterner affections of righ- teousness and holiness, appears, not merely in the pleasing and poetic effusions of the sentimental, but also in the didactic expo- sitions of the academic theism. It is thus that Paley, so full and effective, and able in his demonstrations of the natural, is yet so 18 206 THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD FOR meagre in his demonstrations of the moral attributes. It is, in truth, the general defect, not of natural theology in itself — but of natural theology, as set forth at the termination of ethical courses, or as expounded in the schools. In this respect, the natural theology of the heart, is at variance, with the natural theology of our popular and prevailing literature. The one takes its lesson direct from conscience, which depones to the authority of truth and justice, as distinct from benevolence ; and carries this lesson upwards, from that tablet of virtue which it reads on the nature of man below, to that higher tablet upon which it reads the character of God above. The other again, of more lax and adventurous speculation, would fain amalgamate all the qualities of the God- head into one ; and would make that one the beautiful and undis- tinguishing quality of tenderness. It would sink the venerable or the awful into the lovely ; and to this it is prompted, not merely for the sake of theoretic simplicity — but in order to quell the alarms of nature, the dread and the disturbance which sinners feel, when they look to their sovereign in heaven, as a God of judg- ment and of unspotted holiness. Nevertheless the same con- science which tells what is sound in ethics, is ever and anon sug- gesting what is sound in theology — that we have to do with a God of truth, that we have to do with a God of righteousness ; and this lesson is never perhaps obliterated in any breast, by the imagery, however pleasing, of a universal parent, throned in soft and smiling radiance, and whose supreme delight is to scatter beatitudes innumerable through a universal family. We cannot forget, although we would, that justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne ; and that His dwelling-place is not a mere blissful elysium or paradise of sweets, but an august and inviolable sanctuary. It is an elysium, but only to the spirits of the holy ; and this sacredness, we repeat, is immediately forced upon the consciousness of every bosom, by the moral sense which is within it — however fearful a topic it may be of recoil to the sinner, and of reticence in the demonstrations of philosophy. The sense of heaven's sacredness is not a superstitious fear. It is the instant suggestion of our moral nature. What conscience apprehends virtue to be in itself, that also it will apprehend virtue to be in the Author of conscience ; and if truth and justice be constituent elements in the one, these it will regard as constituent elements in the other also. It is by learning direct of God from the phenomena of human conscience ; or taking what it tells us to be virtues in themselves, for the very virtues of the Godhead, realized in actual and living exemplification upon His character — it is thus that we escape from the illusion of poetical religion- ists, who, in the insense which they offer to the benign virtues MAKING A VIRTUOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 207 of the parent, are so apt to overlook the virtue.^ of the Lawgiver and Judge. 2. When we take this fuller view of God's moral nature — when we make account of the righteousness as well as the bene- volence — when we yield to the suggestion of our own hearts, that to Him belongs the sovereign state, and, if needful, the severity of the lawgiver, as well as the fond affection of the parent — when we assign to Him the character, which, instead of but one virtue, is comprehensive of them all — wc are then on firmer vantage- ground for the establishment of a natural Theology, in harmony, both with the lessons of conscience, and with the phenomena of the external world. Many of our academic theists have greatly crippled theii* argument, by confining themselves to but one fea- ture in the character of the Divinity — as if His only wish in re- ference to the creatures that He had made,was a wish for their happiness; or as if, instead of the subjects of a righteous and moral government, they were but the nurslings of His tenderness. They have exiled and put forth every thing like jurisprudence from the relation in which God stands to man ; and by giving the foremost place in their demonstrations to the mere beneficence of the Deity, they have made the difficulties of the subject far more perplexing and unresolvable than they needed to have been. For with benevolence alone we cannot even extenuate and much less extricate ourselves, from the puzzling difficulty of those physical sufferings to which the sentient creation, as far as our acquaintance extends with it, is universally liable. It is only by admitting the sanctities along with what may be termed the humanities of the divine character, that this enigma can be at all alleviated. Whereas, if, apart from the equities of a moral government, we look to God in no other light, than mere taste- ful and sentimental religionists do, or as but a benign and indul- gent Father whose sole delight is the happiness of his family — there are certain stubborn anomalies which stand in the way of this frail imagination, and would render the whole subject a hopeless and utterly intractable mystery. 3. A specimen of the weakness which attaches to the system of Natural Theology, when the infinite benevolence of the Deity is the only element which it will admit into its explanations and Its reasonings, is the manner in which its advocates labour to dispose of the numerous ills, wherewith the world is infested. They have recourse to arithmetic — balancing the phenomena on each side of the question, as they would the columns of a ledger. They institute respective summations of the good and the evil ; and by the preponderance of the former over the latter, hold the difli^"!ty amed us. 15. But there are furthermore, in this life, unfinished ques- tions between man and his Maker. The same conscience which asserts its own supremacy within the breast, suggests the God and the Moral Governor who placed it there. It is thus that man not only takes cognizance of his own delinquencies ; but he connects them with the thought of a law-giver to whom he is accountable. He passes by one step, and with rapid inference, from the feeling of a judge who is within, to the fear of a Judge who sitrf in high authority over him. W'ith the sense of a reign- ing principle in his own constitution, there stands associated the sense of a reigning power in the universe — the one challenging the prerogatives of a moral law, the other avenging the violation of them. Even the hardiest in guilt arc not insensible to Ihe force of this sentiment. They feel it, as did Cataline and the 19 218 THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD FOR worst of Roman emperors, in the horrors of remorse. There is, in spite of themselves, the impression of an avenging God — not the less founded upon reasoning, that it is the reasoning of but one truth or rather of but one transition, from a thing intimately known to a thing immediately concluded, from the reckoning of a felt and u present conscience within, to the more awful reckon- ing of a God \\ho is the author of conscience and who knoweth all things. Now, it is thus, that men are led irresistibly to the anticipation of a future state — not by their hopes, we think, but by their fears ; not by a sense of unfulfilled promises, but by the sense and the terror of unfulfilled penalties ; by their sense of a judgment not yet executed, of a wrath not yet discharged upon them. lience the impression of a futurity upon all spirits, whither are carried forward the issues of a jurisprudence, which bears no marks but the contrary of a full and final consummation on this side of death. I'he prosperity of many wicked who impend their days in resolute and contemptuous irreligion ; the practi- cal defiance of their lives to the bidding of conscience, and yet a voice of remonstrance and of warning from this said con- science which they are unable wholly to quell ; the many em- phatic denunciations, not uttered in audible thunder from above, but uttered in secret and impressive whispers from within — these all point to accounts between God and His creatures that are yet unfinished. If there be no future state, the great moral question between lieaven and earth, broken ofl' at the m.iddle, is frittered into a degrading mockery. There is violence done to the continuity of things. The moral constitution of man is stript of its signiiicancy and the Author of that constitution is stript of His wisdom and authority and honour. That consistent march which we behold in all the cycles, and progressive movements of the natural economy, is, in the moral economy, brought to sud- den arrest and disruption — if death annihilate the man, instead of only transforming him. Audit is only the doctrine of his im- mortality by which all can be adjusted and harmonized.* 16. And there is one especial proof for the immortality of the soul, founded on adaptation ; and therefore so identical in prin- ciple with the sul)ject and main argument of our essay — that we feel its statement to be our best and most appropriate termina- tion of this especial enquiry. The argument is this. For every desire or every faculty, whether in man or in the in- ferior animals, there seems a counterpart object in external na- * It is well sai(i by Mr. Davison, in his profound and original Mcrk on. Prophecy — tliat " Conscience and \he jrresent constitution of things are not con-esponding terms. The one is not the object of perception to tlie other. It is conscience and the issue of things which go together." MAKING A VIRTUOUS SPECIES HAPPV. 219 ture. Let it be either an appetite or a power ; and let it reside either in the sentient or in* the intellectual or in the moral eco- nomy — still there exists a something without that is altogether suited to it, and which seems to be expressly provided tor its gratification. There is light for the eye ; there is air for the lungs ; there is food for the ever-recurring appetite of hunger ; there is water for the appetite of thirst ; there is society for the love, whether of fame or of fellowship ; there is a boundless field in all the objects of all the sciences for the exercise of cu- rosity — in a word, there seems not one affection m the living crea- ture, which is not met by a counterpart and a congenial object in the surrounding creation. It is this, in fact, which forn)s an im- portant class of those adaptations, on which the argument for a Deity is founded. The adaptation of the parts to each other A\ithin the organic structure, is distinct from the adaptation of the whole to the tilings of circumambient nature ; and is well unfolded in a separate chapter by Paiey, on the relation of inanimate bodies to animated nature. But there is another chapter on })rospective contrivances, in which he unfolds to us other adaptations, that approximate still more nearly to our argument. They consist of embryo arrangements or parts, not of immediate use, but to be of use eventually — preparations going on in the animal economy, whereof the full benefit is not to be realized, till some future and often considerably distant developement shall have taken place ; such as the teeth buried in their sockets, that would be incon- venient during the first months of infancy, but come forth when it is sufficiently advanced for another and a new sort of nourish- ment ; such as the manifold preparations, anterior to the birth, that are of no use to the foetus, but are afterwards to be of in- dispensable use in a larger and freer state of existence ; such as the instructive tendencies to action that appear before even the instruments of action are provided, as in the calf of a day old to butt with its head before it has been furnished with horns. Nature abounds, not merely in present expedients for an imme- diate use, but in providential expedients for a future one ; and, as far as we can observe, we have no reason to believe, that, either in the fii-st or second sort of expedients, there has ever aught been noticed, which either bears on no object now, or lands in no result afterwards. We may perceive in this, the jl ghmpse of an argument for the soul's immortality. TVe may enter into the analogy, as stated by Dr. Ferguson, when he says — " whoever considers the anatomy of the fcetus, will find, in the strength of bones and muscles, in the organs of respira- tion and digestion, sufficient indications of a design to remove his being into a different state. The observant and the intel- 220 THE CAPACITIES OF THE WORLD FOR ligent may perhaps find in the mind of man parallel signs of his future destination.* 17. Now what inference shall we draw from this remarkable law in nature, that there is nothing waste and nothing meaning- less in the feelings and faculties wherewith living creatures are endowed? For each desire there is a counterpart object, for each faculty there is room and opportunity of exercise — either in the present, or in the coming futurity. Now, but for the doc- trine of immortality, man Avould be an exception to this law. He would stand forth as an anomaly in nature — with aspirations in his heart for which the universe had no antitype to offer, with capacities of understanding and thought, that never were to be followed, by objects of corresponding greatness, through the whole history of his being. It were a violence to the harmony of things, whereof no other example can be given ; and, in as far as an argument can be founded on this harmony for the wisdom of Him who made all things — it were a reflection on one of the conceived, if not one of the ascertained attributes of the God- head. To feel the force of this argument, we have only to look to the obvious adaptation of his powers to a larger and more en- during theatre — to the dormant faculties which are in him for the . mastery and acquisition of all the sciences, and yet the partial ig- norance of all, and the profound or total ignorance of many, in which he spends the short-Hved years of his present existence — to the boundless, but here, the unopened capabilities which lie up in him, for the comprehension of truths that never once draw * Dr. Fero-iison's reasoning upon this subject is worthy of being extracted more largely than we have room for in the text — " If the human foetus," he observes, " were qualified to reason of his prospects in the womb of his parent, as he may afterwards do in his range on this terrestrial globe, he might no doubt apprehend in the breach of his umbilical chord, and in his separation from the womb a total extinction of life, for how could he conceive it to continue after his only supply of nourishment from the vital stock of his parent had ceased ? He might indeed observe many parts of his organization and frame which should seem to have no relation to his state in the womb. For what purpose, he might say, this duct which leads from the mouth to the intestines ? Whv these bones that each apart become hard and stiff", while ihey are separated from one another by so many flexures or joints? Why these joints in particular made to move upon hinges, and these germs of teeth, which are pushing to be felt above the surface of the gums ? Why the stomach through which nothing is made to pass ? And these spungy lungs, so well fitted to drink up the fluids, but into which the blood that passes every where else is scarcely permitted to enter? " To these queries, which the fcEtus was neither qualified to make nor to answer, we are now well apprized the proper answer would be — the life which you now enjoy is but temporary ; and those particulars which now seem to you so preposterous, are a provision which nature has made for a future course of life which you have to run, and in which their use and propriety will appear sufficiently evident. " Such are the prognostics of a future destination that might be collected from the state of the foetus ; and similar prognostics of a destination still future might be col- lected from present appearances in the life and condition of man." MAKING A VIRTUOUS SPECIES HAPPY. 221 his attention on this side of death, for the contemplative enjoy- ment both of moral and intellectual beauties which have never here revealed themselves to his gaze. The whole labour of this mortal life would not suffice, for traversing in lull extent any one of the sciences ; and yet, there may lie undeveloped in his bo- som, a taste and talent for them all — none of which he can even singly overtake ; for each science, though definite in its com- mencement, has its out-goings in the inlinite and the eternal. There is in man, a restlessness of ambition; an interminable longing after nobler and higher things, Avhich nought but immor- tality and the greatness of immortality can satiate; a dissatis- faction with the present, which never is appeased by all that the world has to offer ; an impatience and distaste with the felt lit- tleness of all that he finds, and an unsated appetency for some- thing larger and better, which he fancies in the perspective be- fore him — to all which there is nothing like among any of the inferior animals, with whom, there is a certain squareness of ad- justment, if we may so term it, between each desire and its cor- respondent gratification. The one is evenly met by the other; and there is a fulness and definiteness of enjoyment, up to the capacity of enjoyment. Not so wifh man, who both from the Vcistness of his propensities and the vastness of his pov/ers, feels jiimself straitened and beset in a field too narrow for him. He alone labours under the discomfort of an incongruity betv/een his circumstances and his powers; and, unless there be new cir- cumstances awaiting him in a more advanced state of being, he, the noblest of Nature's products here below, would turn out to 'ye the g\tsXof-d of her failures. 222 THE INTELLECTUAL PART II. ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE INTEL- LECTUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. CHAPTER I. Chief Instances of this Jldaptation, 1. (1.) The law of most extensive influence over the pheno- mena and processes of the mind, is the law of association, or, as denominated by Dr. Thomas Brown, the law of suggestion. If two objects have been seen in conjunction, or in immediate succession, at any one time — then the sight or thought of one of them afterwards, is apt to suggest the thought of the other also ; and the same is true of the objects of all the senses. The same smells or sounds or tastes which have occurred formerly, when they occur again, will often recall the objects from which they then proceeded, the occasions or other objects with which they were then associated. When one meets with a fragrance of a particular sort, it may often instantly suggest a fragrance of the same kind experienced months or years ago ; the rose-bufh from which it came ; the garden where it grew ; the friend with whom we then walked ; his features, his conversation, his re- latives, his history. When two ideas have been once in juxta- position, they are apt to present tliemselves in juxta-position over again — an aptitude ^\'hich ever increases the oftener that the conjunction has taken place, till, as if by an invincible ne- cessity, the antecedent thought is sure to bring its usual conse- quent along with it ; and, not oidy single sequences, but length- ened trains or progressions of thought, may in this manner be explained. 2. And such are the great speed and facility of these succes- sions, that many of the intermediate terms, though all of them undoubtedly present to the mind, flit so quickly and evanescent- ly, as to pass unnoticed. This will the more certainly happen, if the antecedents are of no further use than to introduce the CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 223 consequents ; in which case, the consequents remain as the sole objects of attention, and the antecedents arc forgotten. In the art of reading, the ultimate object is to obtain possession of the author's sentiments or meaning ; and all memory of the words, still more of the component letters, though each of them must have been present to the mind, pass irrecoverably away from it. In like manner, the anterior steps of many a mental process may actually be described, yet without consciousness — the attention resting, not on the fugitive means, but on the important end in which they terminate. It is thus that we seem to judge, on the instant, of distances, as if under a guidance that was imme- diate and instinctive, and not by the result of a derivative pro- cess — because insensible to the rapid train of inference which led to it. The mind is too much occupied with the information itself, for looking back on the light and shadowy footsteps of the messenger wlio brought it, which it Avould find difficult if not impossible to trace — and besides, having no practical call upon it for making such a retrospect. It is thus that, when looking intensely on some beautiful object in Nature, we are so much occupied with the resulting enjoyment, as to overlook the inter- mediate train of unbidden associations, which connects the sight of that which is before us, with the resulting and exqui- site pleasure, that we feel in the act of beholding it. The prin- ciple has been much resorted to, in expounding that process by which the education of the senses is carried forward ; and, more especially, the way in which the intimations Df sight and touch are made to correct and to modify each other. It has also been employed with good effect, in the attempt to establish a philosophy of taste. But these rapid and fugitive associa- tions, while they form a real, form also an unseen process ; and we are not therefore to wonder, if, along with many solid expla- nations, (hey should have been so applied in the investigation of mental phenomena, as occasionally to have given rise to subtle and fantastic theories. 3. But our proper business at present is with results, rather than with })rocesses ; and instead of entering on the more re- condite inquiries of the science, however interesting and how- ever beautiful or even satisfactory the conclusions may be to which they lead — it is our task to point out those palpable bene- fits and subserviencies of our intellectual constitution, which demonstrate, without obscurity, the benevolent designs of Ilnn who framed us. There are some of our mental philosophers, indeed, who have theorised and simplified beyond the evidence of those facts which lie before us ; and our argument should be kept clear, for in reality it does not partake, in the uncertainty or 224 THE INTELLECTUAL error of their speculations. The law of association, for exam- ple, has been of late reasoned upon, as if it were the sole parent and predecessor of all the mental phenomena. Yet it does not explain, however largely it may influence, the phenomena of memory. When by means of one idea, any how awakened in the mind, the whole of some past transaction or scene is brought to recollection, it is association which recalls to our thoughts this portion of our former history. But association cannot ex- plain our recognition of its actual and historical truth — or what it is, which, beside an act of conception, makes it also an act of remembrance. By means of tiiis law we may understand how it is, that certain ideas, suggested by certain others which came before it, are now present to the mind. But superadded to the mere presence of these ideas, there is such a perception of the reality of their archetypes, as distinguishes a case of remem- brance from a case of imagination — insomuch that over and above the conception of certain objects, there is also a convic- tion of their substantive being at the time wliich we connect with the thought of them ; and this is what the law of association can- not by itself account for. It cannot account for our reliance upon memory — not as a conjurer of visions into the chamber of im- agery, but as an informer of stable and objective truths which h-ad place and fulfilment in the actual world of experience. 4. And the same is true of our believing anticipations of the future, which we have now affirmed to be true of our believing retrospects of the past. The confidence wherewith we count on the same sequences in future, that we have observed in the course of our past experience, has been resolved by some philosophers, into the principle of association alone. Now when we have seen a certain antecedent followed up by a certain consequent, the law of association does of itself afford a sufficient reason, why the idea of that antecedent should be followed up by the idea of its consequent ; but it contains within it no reason, why, on the actual occurrence again of the antecedent, we should believe that the consequent will occur also. That the thought of the ante- cedent should suggest the thought of the consequent, is one men- tal phenomenon. That the knov/ledge of the antecedent having anew taken place, should induce the certainty, that the conse- quent must have taken place also, is another mental phenomenon. We cannot confound these two, without being involved in the idealism of Hume or Berkeley. Were the mere thought of the consequent all that was to be accounted for, we need not go farther than to the law of association. But when to the exist- ence of this thought, there is superadded a belief in the reaHty of its archetype, a distinct mental phenomenon comes into view, CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 225 which the law of association docs not explain ; and which, Cot aught that the analysts of the mind have yet been able to trace or to discover, is an idtiniate principle of the human understand- ing. This behef, then, is one thing. But ere we can make out an adaptation, we must be able to allege at least two things. And they are ready to our hands — for, in addition to the belief in the subjective mind, there is a correspondent and counterpart reality in objective nature. If we have formerly observed that a given antecedent is followed by a certain consequent, then, not only does the idea of the antecedent suggest the idea of the con- sequent ; but there is a belief, that, on the actual occurrence of the same antecedent, the same consequent will follow over again. And the consequent does follow ; or, in other words, this our instinctive faith meets with its unexcepted fulfilment, in the ac- tual course and constancy of nature. The law of association does of itself, and without going further, secure this general convenience — that the courses of the mind are thereby conform- ed, or are made to quadrate and harmonize with the courses of the outer world. It is the best possible construction for the best and most useful guidance of the mind, as in the exercise of memory for example, that thought should be made to follow thought, according to the order in which the objects and events of nature are related to each other. But a belief in the certainty and uniformity of this order, with the counteri)art verification of this belief in the actual history of thmgs, is that which we now are especially regarding. It forms our iirst instance, perhaps the most striking and marvellous of all, of the adaptation of ex- ternal natiue to the intellectual constitution of man. 5. This disposition to count on the uniformity of Nature, or even to anticipate the same consequents from the same antece- dents — is not the fruit of experience, but anterior to it ; or at least anterior to the very earliest of those of her lessons, which can be traced backward in the history of an infant mind. Indeed it has been well observed by Dr. Thomas Brown, that the future constancy of Nature, is a lesson, which no observation of its past constancy, or no experience could have taught us. Be- cause we have observed A a thousand times to be followed in immediate succession by B, there is no greater logical connex- ion between this proposition and the })roposition that A will always be followed by B ; than there is between the propositions that we have seen A followed once by B, and therefore A will always be followed by B. At whatever stage of the experience, the inference may be made, whether longer or shorter, whether oftener or seldomer repeated — the conversion of the past into the future seems to require a distinct and independent principle 226 THE INTELLECTUAL of belief; and it is a principle which, to all appearance, is as vigorous in childhood, as in the full maturity of the human un- derstanding. The child who strikes the table with a spoon for the first time, and is regaled by the noise, will strike again, with as confident an expectation of the same result, as if the succes- sion had been familiar to it for years. There is the expectation before the experience of Nature's constancy ; and still the topic of our wonder and gratitude is, that this instinctive and universal faith in the heart, should be responded to by objective nature, in one wide and universal fulfilment. 6. The proper office of experience, in this matter, is very ge- nerally misapprehended ; and this has mystified the real principle and philosophy of the subject. Her office is not to tell, or to re- assure us of the constancy of Nature ; but to tell, Avhat the terms of her unalterable progressions actually are. The human mind from its first outset, and in virtue of a constitutional bias coeval with the earliest dawn of the understanding, is prepared, and that before experience has begun her lessons, to count on the con- stancy of nature's sequences. But at that time, it is profoundly ignorant of the sequences in themselves. It is the proper busi- ness of experience to give this information ; but it may require many lessons before that her disciples be made to understand, what be the distinct terms even but of one sequence. Nature presents us with her phenomena in complex assemblages ; and it is often difficult, in the work of disentangling her trains from each other, to single out the proper and causal antecedent with its re- sulting consequent, from among the crowd of accessary or acci- dental circumstances by which they are surrounded. There is never any uncertainty, as to the invariableness of nature's suc- cessions. The only uncertainty is as to the steps of each succes- sion ; and the distinct achievement of experience, is to ascertain these steps. And many mistakes are committed in this course of education, from our disposition to confound the similarities with the samenesses of Nature. We never misgive in our ge- neral confidence, that the same antecedent will be followed by the same consequent ; but we often mistake the semblance for the reality, and are as often disappointed in the expectations that we form. This is the real account of that growing confidence, where- with we anticipate the same results in the same apparent circum- stances, the oftener that that result has in these circumstances been observed by us — as of a high- water about twice every day, or of a sun-rise every morning. It is not that we need to be more assured than we are already of the constancy of Nature, in the sense that every result must always be the sure efl^ect of its strict and causal antecedent. But we need to be assured of the real CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 227 presence of this antecedent, in that mass of contemporaneous things under which the result has taken place hitherto ; and of this we are more and more satisfied, with every new occurrence of the same event in the same apparent circumstances. This too Is our real object in the repetition of experiments. Not that we suspect that Nature will ever vacillate from her constancy — for if by one decisive experiment we should fix the real terms of any succession, this experiment were to us as good as a thousand. But each succession in nature is so liable to be obscured and complicated by other influences, that we must be quite sure, ere we can proclaim our discovery of some new sequence, that we have properly disentangled her separate trains from each other. For this purpose, we have often to question Nature in many difr ferent ways ; we have to combine and apply her elements va- riously ; we have sometimes to detach one ingredient, or to add another, or to alter the proportions of a third — and all in order, not to ascertain the invariableness of Nature, for of this we have had instinctive certainty from the beginning ; but, in order to as- certain what the actual footsteps of her progressions are, so as to connect each effect in the history of Nature's changes with its strict and proper cause. Meanwhile, amid all the suspense and the frequent disappointments which attend this search into the pro- cesses of nature, our confidence in the rigid and inviolable uni- formity of these processes remains unshaken — a confidence not learned from experience, but amply confirmed and accorded to by experience. For this instinctive expectation is never once refuted, in the whole course of our subsequent researches. Na- ture though stretched on a rack, or put to the torture by the in- quisitions of science, never falters from her immutability ; but persists, unseduced and unwearied, in the same response to the same question ; or gives forth, by a spark, or an explosion, or an effervescence, or some other definite phenomenon, the same re- sult to the same circumstances or combination of data. The anticipations of infancy meet with their glorious verification, in all the findings of manhood ; and a truth which would seem to require Omniscience for its grasp, as coextensive with all Nature and all History, is deposited by the hand of God, in the little cell of a nursling's cogitations. 7. Yet the immutability of Nature has ministered to the athe- ism of some spirits, as impressing on the universe a character of blind necessity, instead of that spontaneity, which might mark the intervention of a willing and a living God. To refute this notion of an unintelligent fate, as being the alone presiding Di- vinity, the common appeal is to the infinity and exquisite skill of nature's adaptations. But to attack this infidelity in its fortress, 228 THE INTELLECTUAL and dislodge it thence, the more appropriate argument would be the very, the individual adaptation on which we have now in- sisted — the immutabiUty of Nature, in conjunction with the uni- versal sense and expectation, even from earliest childhood, that all men have of it ; being itself one of the most marvellous and strikingly beneficial of these adaptations. When viewed aright, it leads to a wiser and sounder conclusion than that of the fatal- ists. In the instinctive, the universal faith of Nature's constancy, we behold a promise. In the actual constancy of Nature, we behold its fulfilment. When the two are viewed in connexion, then, to be told that Nature never recedes from her constancy, is to be told that the God of Nature never recedes from his faith- fulness. If not by a whisper from His voice, at least by the im- press of His hand. He hath deposited a silent expectation in every heart ; and He makes all Nature and all History conspire to realize it. He hath not only enabled man to retain in his memory a faithful transcript of the past ; but by means of this constitutional tendency, tliis instinct of the understanding as it has been termed, to look with prophetic eye upon the future. It is the Unk by which we connect experience with anticipation — a power or exercise of the mind coeval with the first dawnings of consciousness or observation, because obviously that to Vvhich we owe the confidence so early acquired and so firmly esta- bhshed, in the information of our senses.* This disposition to *It is from our tactual sensations that we obtain our first original perceptions of dis- tance and magnitude ; and it is only because of the invariable connexion which sub- sists between the same tactual and the same visual sensations, that by means of the latter we obtain secondary or acquired perceptions of distance and magnitude. It is obvious that without a faith in the uniformity of nature, this rudimental education could not have taken effect ; and from the confidence wherewith we proceed in very early childhood on the intimations of the eye, we may infer how strongly this principle must have been at work throughout the anterior stage of our still earlier infancy. The lucid and satisfactory demonstration upon this subject in that delightful little work, the Tiieory of Vision, by Bishop Berkeley, has not been superseded, because it has not been improved upon, by the lucubrations of any subsequent author. The theology which he would found on the beautiful process which he has unfolded so well, is some- what tinged with tlic mysticism of that doctrine which represents our seeing all things in God. Certain it is, however, that the process could not have been advanced or consummated, without an aboriginal faith on the part of the infant mind in the unifor- mity of nature's sequences, a disposition to expect the same consequents from the same antecedents — an inference which is at length made, and that in very early childhood, with such rapidity as well as confidence, that it leads all men to confound their ac- quired with their original perceptions ; and it requires a subtle analysis to disentangle the two from each other. Without partaking in the metaphysics of Berkeley, we fully concur in the strength and certainty of those theistical conclusions which are ex- pressed by him in the following sentences — " Something there is of divine and admi- rable in this language addressed to our eyes, that may well awaken the mind, and de- serve its utmost attention ; it is learned with so little pains, it expresses the difference of things so clearly and aptly, it instructs with such facility and dispatch, by one glance of the eye conveying a greater variety of advices, and a more distinct knowledge of CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 229 presiunie on the constancy of nature, commences with the faculty of thought, and keeps by it through hfe, and enables the mind to convert its stores of memory into the treasures of science and wisdom ; and so to elicit from the recollections of the past, both the doctrines of a general philosophy, and the lessons of daily and familiar conduct — and that, by means of prognostics, not one of which can fail, for, in respect of her steadfast uniformity, Nature never disappoints, or, which is equivalent to this, the Au- thor of Nature never deceives us. The generality of Nature's laws is indispensable, both to the formation of any system of truth for the understanding, and to the guidance of our actions. But ere we can make such use of it, the sense and the confi- dent expectation of this generality must be previously in our minds ; and the concurrence, the contingent harmony of these two elements ; the exquisite adaptation of the objective to the subjective, with the manifest utilities to which it is subservient ; the palpable and perfect meetness which subsists, between this intellectual propensity in man, and all the processes of the out- ward universe — while they afford incontestable evidence to the existence and unity of that design, which must have adjusted the mental and the material formations to each other, speak most decisively in our estimation both for the truth and the wis- dom of God. 8. We have long felt this close and unexcepted, while at the same time, conti'.igent harmony, between the actual constancy of Nature and man's faith in that constancy, to be an effectual preservative against that scepticism, wliich would represent the whole system of our thoughts and perceptions to be founded on an illusion. Certain it is, that beside an indefiaite number of truths received by the understanding as the conclusions of a proof more or les:^ lengthened, there arc truths recognized with- things', than could be got by a discourse of several hours ; and, while it informs, it amuses and entertains the mind with such sincrular ])leasure and delight ; it is of such excellent use in giving a stability and permanency to liunian discourse, in recording sounds and bestowing life on dead languages, enabling us to converse with men of re- mote ages and countries ; and it answers so apposite to the uses and necessities of mankind, informing us more distinctly of those objects, whose nearness or magnitude qualify them to be of greatest detriment or benefit to our bodies, and less exactly in proportion as their littleness or distance make them of less concern to us. IJut these things are not strange, they are familiar, and tliat makes them to l>e overlooked. Things which rarely happen strike •, whereas frequency lessens the admiration of things, though hi themselves ever so admirable. Hence a common man who is not used to think and make reflections, would probably be more convinced of the being of a God by one single sentence heard once in his life from the sky, than by. all the experi- ence he has had of this visual language, contrived with such exquisite skill, so con- stantly addressed tohis eyes, and .so plainly declaring the nearness, wisdom, and pro- vidence of Him with whom we have to do." Minute Philosopher. Dialogue IV. Art. XV. 20 230 THE INTELLECTUAL out proof by an instant act of intuition — not the results of a rea- soning process, but themselves the first principles of all reason- ing. At every step in the train of argumentation, we affirm one thing to be true, because of its logical connexion with another thing known to be true ; but as this process of derivation is not eternal, it is obvious, that, at the commencement of at least some of these trains, there must be truths, which, instead of borrowinof their evidence from others, announce themselves immediately to the mind in an original and independent evidence of their own. Now they are these primary convictions of the understanding, these cases of a behef without reason, which minister to the phi- losophical infidelity of those, who, professing to have no depen- dance on an instinctive faith, do in fact alike discard all truth, whether demonstrated or undemonstrated — seeing that underived or unreasoned truth must necessarily form the basis, as well as the continuous cement of all reasoning. They challenge us to account for these native and original convictions of the mind ; and affirm that they may be as much due to an arbitrary organi- zation of the percipient faculty, as to the objective trueness of the things which are perceived. And we cannot dispute the possibility of this. We can neither establish by reasoning those truths, whose situation is, not any where in the stream, but at the fountain of ratiocination ; nor can we deny that beings might have been so differently constituted, as that, with reverse intui- tions to our own, they might have recognized as truths what we mstantly recoil from as falsehoods, or felt to be absurdities our first and foremost principles of truth. And when this suspicion is once admitted, so as to shake our confidence in the judgments of the intellect, it were but consistent that it should be extended to the departments both of morality and taste. Our impressions of what is virtuous or of what is fair, may be regarded as alike accidental and arbitrary with our impressions of what is true — being referable to the structure of the mind, and not to any ob- jective reality in the things which are contemplated. It is thus that the absolutely true, or good, or beautiful, may be conceived of, as having no stable or substantive being in nature ; and the mind, adrift from all fixed principle, may thus lose itself in uni- versal Pyrrhonism. 9. Nature is fortunately too strong for this speculation ; but still there is a comfort in being enabled to vindicate the con- fidence which she has inspired — as in those cases, where some original principle of hers admits of being clearly and decisively tested. And it is so of our faith in the constancy of nature, met and responded to, throughout all her dominions by nature's actual constancy — the one being the expectation, the other its CONSTITUTION OP MAN. 231 rigid and invariable fulfilment. This perliaps is tlie most palpable mstance which can be quoted, of a belief anterior to experience, yet of which experience aflbrds a mde and unexcepted verifica- lion. It proves at least of one of our implanted instincts, that it is unening ; and that, over against a subjective tendency in the mind, there is a great objective reality in circumambient nature to which it corresponds. This may well convince us, that we live, not in a world of imaginations — but in a world of realities. It is a noble example of the harmony which obtains, between the original make and constitution of the human spirit upon the one hand, and the constitution of external things upon the other ; and nobly accredits the faithfulness of Him, who, as the Creator of both, ordained this happy and wondrous adaptation. The monstrous suspicion of the sceptics is, that we are in the hands of a God, who, by the insertion of falsities into the human sys- tem, sports himself with a laborious deception on the creatures whom He has made. The invariable order of nature, in con- junction with the apprehension of this invariableness existing in all hearts ; the universal expectation with its universal fulfilment, is a triumphant refutation of this degrading mockery — evincing, that it is not a phantasmagoria in which we dwell, but a world peopled with realities. That we are never misled in our in- stinctive belief of nature's uniformity, demonstrates the perfect safety wherewith we may commit ourselves to the guidance of our original principles, whether intellectual or moral — assured, that, instead of occupying a land of shadows, a region of uni- versal doubt and derision, they are the stabilities, both of an everlasting truth and an everlasting righteousness with which we have to do. 10. This lesson obtains a distinct and additional confirmation from every particular instance of adaptation, which can be found, of external nature, either to the moral or intellectual constitution of man. 11. (2.) To understand our second adaptation we must advert to the difference that obtains between those truths which are so distinct and independent, that each can only be ascertained by a separate act of observation ; and those truths which are either logically or mathematically involved in each other.* For ex- * See this distinction EidmiraHy expounded in Whately's Logic — a work of pro- found judgment, and which effectually vindicates the honours of a science, that sinco the days of Bacon, or rather (which is more recent) since the days of his extrava- gant because exclusive authority, it has been too much the fashion to depreci- ate. The author, if I might use the expression without irreverence, has given to Bacon the things which are Bacon's, and to Aristotle the things which are Aristotle's. He has strengthened the pretensions of logic by narrowing them — that is, instead ot placing all the intellectual processes under its direction, by assigning to it as itg 232 THE INTELLECTUAL ample, there is no such dependence between the colour of a flower and its smell, as that the one can be reasoned from the other ; and, in every different specimen therefore, we, to ascertain the two facts of the colour and the smell, must have recourse to two observations. On the other hand, there is such a dependence between the proposition that self-preservation is the strongest and most general law of our nature, and the proposition that no man will starve if able and in circumstances to work for his own maintenance — that the one proposition can be deduced by in- ference from the other, as the conclusion from the premises of aii argument. And still more there is such a dependence between the proposition, that the planet moves in an elliptical orbit round the sun, having its focus in the centre of that luminary, and a thousand other propositions — so that without a separate observa- tion for each of the latter, they can be reasoned from the former ; just as an infinity of truths and properties can, without observa- tion, be satisfactorily demonstrated of many a curve from the simple definition of it. We do not affirm, that, in any case, we can establish a dogma, or make a discovery independently of all observation — any more than in a syllogism we are independent of observation for the truth of the premises — both the major and the minor propositions being generally verified in this way ; while the connexion between these and the conclusion, is all, in the syllogism, wherewith the art of logic has properly to do. In none of the sciences, is the logic of itself available for the pur- poses of discovery ; and it can only contribute to this object, when furnished with sound data, the accuracy of which is deter- mined by observation alone. This holds particularly true of the mixed mathematics, where the conclusions are sound, only in as far as the first premises are sound — which premises, in like manner, are not reasoned truths, but observed truths. Even in the pure mathematics, some obscurely initial or rudimental pro- cess of observation may have been necessary, ere the mind could arrive at its first conceptions, either of quantity or number. Certain it is, however, that, in all the sciences, however de- pendent on observation for the original data, we can, by reason- proper subject the art of deduction alone. He has made most correct distinction between the inductive and the logical ; and it is by attending to the respective pro- vinces of each, that we come to perceive the incompetency of mere logic for the pur- pose of discovery strictly so called. The whole chapter on discovery is particu- larly valuable — leading us clearly to discriminate between that which logic can, and that which it cannot achieve. It is an instrument, not for the discovery of truth pro- perly new, but for the discovery of truths which are enveloped or virtually contained in propositions already known. It instructs but does not inform ; and has nought to do in syllogism with the truth of the premises, but only with the truth of the con- ne.xion between the premises and the conclusion. CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 233 ing on the data, establish an indefinite number of distinct and important and useful propositions — .which, if soundly made out, observation will afterwards verify ; but which, anterior to the application of this test, the mind, by its own excogitations, may have made the objects of its most legitimate conviction. It is thus that, on the one hand, we, by the inferences of a sound logic, can, on an infinity of subjects, discover what should for ever have remained unknown, had it been left to the findings of direct observation ; and that, on the other hand, though obser- vation could not have made the discovery, it never fails to attest it. Visionaries, on the one hand, may spurn at the ignoble pa- tience and drudgery of observers ; and ignorant practitioners, whether in the walks of business or legislation, may, on the other, raise their senseless and indiscriminate outcrv against the reasoners — but he who knows to distinguish between an hypo- thesis based on imagination, and a theory based on experience, and [)erceives how helpless either reason or observation is, when not assisted by the other, will know how to assign the parts, and to estimate the prerogatives of both. 12. When the mind has retired from direct converse with the external world, and brought to its own inner chamber of thought the materials which it has collected there, it then deli- vers itself up to its own process — first ascending analytically from observed phenomena to principles, and then descending synthetically from principles to yet unobserved phenomena. We cannot but recognize it as an exquisite adaptation between the subjective and the objective, betw6en the mental and the material systems — that the results of the abstract intellectual process and the realities of external nature should so strikingly harmonize.* It is exemplified in all the sciences, in the econo- ^ Tliere arc some fine remarks by Sir John Herscliell in his prcliminarv discourse on the study of Natural Philosopliy on this adaptation of the abslract ideas to the con- crete realities, of the discoveries made in the region of pure thought to the facts and phenomena ©factual nature — as when the properties of conic sections, demonstrated hy a laborious analysis, remained inapplicable till they came to be embodied in the real masses and movements of astronomy. " These marvellous computations might almost seem to have been devised on pur- pose to show how closely tliC extremes of speculative refinement and practical utility can be brought to approximate," HerscheiFs Discourse, p. 28. " They show how large a part pure reason has to perform in the examination of nature, and how implicit our reliance ought to be on tliat powerful and methodical system of rules and processes, which constitute the modern mathematical analysis, in all the more difficult applications of exact calculation to her phenomena." p. 33. "Almost all the great combinations of modem mechanism and many of its re- fmements and nicer improvements, are creations of pure intellect, grounding its ex- ertion upon a very moderate number of elementary propositions, in theoretical me- chanics and geometry." p. 63. The discovery of the principle of the achromatic telescope, is termed by Sir John 234 THE INTELLECTUAL mical, and the mental, and the physical, and most of all in the physico-mathematical — as when Newton, on the calculations and profound musings of his solitude, predicted the oblate spheroidal figure of the earth, and the prediction was confirmed by the mensurations of the academicians, both in the polar and equatorial regions, or as, when abandoning himself to the devices and the diagrams of his own construction, he thence scanned the cycles of the firmament, and elicited from the scroll of enigmatical characters which himself had framed, the secrets of a sublime astronomy, that high field so replete with wonders, yet surpassed by this greatest wonder of all, the intellectual mas- tery which man has over it. That such a feeble creature should have made this conquest — that a light struck out in the little cell of his own cogitations should have led to a disclosure so magnificent— that by a calculus of his own formation, as with the power of a talisman, the heavens, with their stupendous masses and untrodden distances, should have thus been opened to his gaze — can only be explained by the intervention of a Being having supremacy over all, and who has adjusted the laws of matter and the properties of mmd to each other. It is only thus we can be made to understand, how mr.u by the mere workings of his spirit, should have penetrated so far into the workmanship of Nature ; or that, restricted though he be to a spot of earth, he should nevertheless tell of the suns and the systems that be afar — as if he had travelled Mith the line and plummet in his hand to the outskirts of creation, or carried the torch of discoverv round the universe. 13. (3.) Our next adaptation is most notably exemplified in those cases, when some isolated phenomenon, remote and having at first no conceivable relation to human affairs, is nevertheless converted by the plastic and productive intellect of man, into some application of mighty and important effect on the interests of the world. One example of this is the use that has been made of the occultations and emersions of Jupiter's satellites, in (he compvitation of longitudes, and so the perfecting of naviga- tion. When one contemplates a subserviency of this sort fetch- ed to us from afar, it is difficult not to imagine of it as being the fruit of some special adjustment, that came within the purpose of Him, who, in constructing the vast mechanism of Nature, overlooked not the humblest of its parts — but incorporated the good of our species, with the wider generalities and laws of a " a memorable case in science, though not a singular one, where the speculative geometer in his chamber, apart from the world, and existing among abstractions, has originated views of the noblest practical application." p. 255. CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 235 universal system.* The conclusion is rather enhanced than otherwise by the seemingly incidental way in which the teles- cope was discovered. The observation of the polarity of the magnet is an example of the same kind — and with the same result, in multiplying, by an enlarged commerce the enjoyments of life, and speeding onward the science and civilization of the globe. There cannot a purer instance be given, of adapta- tion between external nature and the mind of man — than when some material, that would have remained for ever useless in the hands of the unintelligent and unthoughtful, is converted, by the fertility and power of the human understanding, into an instru- ment for the further extension of our knowledo;e or our means of gratification. The prolongation of their eyesight to the aged by the means of convex lenses, made from a substance at once * The author of the Natural History of Entnusiasni, in his edition of Edward's treatise on the will, presents us with the following energetic sentences on this subject. " Every branch of modern science abounds with instances of remote correspon- dences between the great system of the world, and the artificial {the truly natural) condition to which knowledge raises him. If these correspondences were single or rare they might be deemed merely fortuitous ; like the drifting of a plank athwart the track of one who is swimming from a wreck. But when they meet us on all sides and invariably, we must be resolute in atheism not to confess that they are emanations from one and the same centre of wisdom and goodness. Is it nothinir more than a lucky accommodation which makes the polarity of the needle to sub- serve the purposfif of the mariner ? or may it not safely be atfirmcd, both that the magnetic influence (whatever its primary intention may be) had reference to the business of navigation — a reference incalculably important to the spread and im- j)rovcmcnt of the human race ; and that the discovery and the application of this influence arrived at the destined moment in the revolution of human affairs, when in combination with other events, it would produce the greatest effect ? Nor should we scruple to affirm that the relation between the inclination of the earth's axis and the conspicuous star which, without a near rival, attracts even the eye of the vulgar, and shows the north to the wanderer on the wilderness or on the ocean, is in like manner a beneficent arrangement. Those who would spurn the supposition that the celestial locality of a sun immeasurably remote from our system, should have reference to the accommodation of the inhabitants of a planet so inconsiderable as our own, forget the style of the Divine Works, which is, to serve; some great or principal end, compatibly with ten thousand lesser and remote interests. Man if he would secure the greater, must neglect or sacrifice the less ; not so the Omnipotent Contriver. It is a fact full of meaning, that those astronomical phenomena (and so others) which offer themselves as available for the pur})Oses of art, as for instance of navitralion, or geography, do not fully or effectively yield the end they promise, until ailer long and elaborate jtrucesses of calculation have disentangled them from variations, disturbing forces and apparent irregularities. To the rude fact, if so wo might designate it, a mass of recondite science must be appended, before it can be brought to bear Avith precision upon the arts of life. Thus the polarity of the needle or the eclipses of Jupiter's moons are as nothing to the mariner, or the geographer, without the voluminous commentary furnished by the mathematics of astronomy. The fact of the expansivi; force of steam must employ the intelligence and energy ol the mechanicians of an empire, during a century, before the whole of its beneficial powers can be put in activity. Chemical, medical, and botanical science is filled with parallel instances ; and they all affirm, in an articulate marmer, the two-fold purpose of the Creator — to benefit man and to educate him. 236 THE INTELLECTUAL transparent and colourless — the force of steam with the manifold and ever growing applications which are made of it — the disco- very of platina, which, by its resistance to the fiercest heats, is so available in prosecuting the ulterior researches of chemis- try* — even the very abundance and portability of those mate- rials by which written characters can be multiplied, and, through the impulse thus given to the quick and copious circulation of human thoughts, mind acts with rapid diffusion upon mind though at the distance of a hemisphere from each other, concep- tions and informations and reasonings these products of the intellect alone being made to travel over the world by the intervention of material substances — these, "vvhile but them- selves only a few taken at random from the iiiultitude of stiictly appropriate specimens which could be alleged of an adapta- tion between the systems of mind and matter, are sufficient to mark an obvious contrivance and forth-putting of skill in the adjustment of the systems to each other. Enough has been already done to prove of mind with its various po\^•er^^, that it is the fittest agent which could have been employed for working upon matter ; and of matter, with its various properties and combinations, that it is the fittest instrument ^^hich ci^uld have been placed under the disposal of mind. Every new triumph achieved by the human intellect over external nature, whether in the way of discovery or of art, serves to make the proof more illusti-ious. In the indefinite progress of science and invention, the mastery of man over the elements which surround him is every year becoming more conspicuous — the pure result of adaptatiori, or of the way in which mind and mat- ter have been conformed to each other ; the first endowed by the Creator with those powers which qualify it to command ; the second no less evidently endowed with those corresponding sus- ceptibilities which cause it to obey. 14. (4.) The way is now prepared for our next adaptation which hinges upon this — that the highest efforts of intellectual power, and to which few men are competent ; the most difficult + This among many such lessons will teach us that the most important uses of na- tural objects are not those which offer themselves to us most obviously. The chief t«e of the moon for man's immediate purposes remained unknown to him for fivQ thousand years from his creation. And since it cannot but be that innumerable and most important uses remain to be discovered among the materials and objects already known to us, as well as among those which the progress of science must hereafter disclose, we may here conceive a well-grounded expectation, not only of constant increase in the physical resources of mankind, and the consequent improvement of their condition, but of continual accessions to our power of penetrating into the arcana of nature, and becoming acquainted with her highest laws. Sir John Herschell's Discourse, p. 308, 309. CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 237 intellectual process, requiring the utmost abstractioti and leisure for their developement, are often indispensable to discoveries, which, when once made, are found capable of those useful appli- cations, the value of which is felt and recognized by all men. The most arduous mathematics had to be put into requisition, for the establishment of the lunar theory — without which our pre- sent lunar observations could have been of no use for the deter- mination of the longitude. This dependence of the popular and the practical on an anterior profound science runs through much of the business of life, in the mechanics and chemistry of manu- factures as well as in navigation ; and indeed is more or less exemplified so widely, or rather universally, throughout the va- rious departments of human industry and art, that it most essen- tially contributes to the ascendency of mind over muscular force in society — beside securing for mental qualities, the willing and reverential homage of the nmltitude. This peculiar influence stands complicated with other arrangements, requiring a multifa- rous combination, that speaks all the more emphatically for a presiding intellect, which must have devised and calculated the whole. We have already stated,* by what peculiarity in the soil it was, that a certain number of the species was exempted from the necessity of labour ; and without which, in fact, all science and civilization would have been impossible. We have also expounded in some degree the principle, which both originated the existing arrangements of property, and lead men to acquiesce in them. But still it is a precarious acquiescence, and liable to be disturbed by many operating causes of distress and discon- tent in society. If there be influences on the side of the esta- blished order of things, there are also counteractive influences on the opposite side, of revolt and irritation against it ; and by which, the natural reverence of men for rank and station, may at length be overborne. In the progress of want and demoral- ization among the people, in the pressure of their increasing numbers, by which, they at once outgrow the means of instruc- tion, and bear more heavily on the resources of the land than before ; in the felt straitness of their condition, and the propor- tionate vehemence of their aspirations after enlargement — nothing is easier than to give them a factitious sense of their wrongs, and to inspire them with the wrankling imagination of a heartless and haughty indifference on the part of their lordly su- periors towards them, whose very occupation of wealth, they may be taught to regard as a monopoly, the breaking down of which were an act of generous patriotism. Against these brooding * Part I. c. VI. 29. 238 THE INTELLECTUAL elements of revolution in the popular mind, the most effectual preservative certainly, were the virtue of the upper classes, — or that our great men should be good men. But a mighty help to this, and next to it in importance were, that to the power which lies in wealth, they should superadd the power which lies in knowledge — or that the vulgar superiority of mere affluence and station, should be strengthened in a way that would command the willing homage of all spirits, that is, by the mental superiority which their opportunities of lengthened and laborious education enable them to acquire. By a wise ordination of Nature, the possessors of rank and fortune, simply as such, have a certani ascendant power over their fellows ; and, by the same ordination, the possessors of learning have an ascendency also — and it would mightily conduce to the strength and stability of the com- monwealth, if these influences were conjoined, or, in other words, if the scale of wealth and the scale of intelligence, in as far as that was dependent on literary culture, could be made to harmo- nize. The constitution of science, or the adaptation which ob- tains between the objects of knowledge and the Imowing facul- ties, is singularly favourable to the alliance for which we now plead — insomuch that, to sound the depths of philosophy, time and independence and exemption from the cares and labours of ordinary life seem indispensable ; and, on the other hand, pro- found discoveries, or a profound acquaintance v/ith them, are sure to command a ready deference even from the multitude, whether on account of the natural respect which all men feel for pre-eminent understanding, or on account of the palpable utilities to which, in a system of tilings so connected as ours, even the loftiest and most recondite science is found to be subservient. On the same principle that, in a ship, the skilful navigation of its captain will secure for him the prompt obedience of the crew to all his directions ;* or that, in an army, the consummate general- + We have before us an anecdote communicated to us by a naval officer, (Captain Basil Hall,) distinguished for the extent and variety of his attainments, which shows how impressive such results may become in practice. He sailed from San Bias on the west coast of Mexico, and after a voyage of 8000 miles, occupying eighty-nine days, arrived off Rio Janeiro, having in this interval passed through the Pacific Ocean, rounded Cape Horn, and crossed the South Atlantic, without making any land, or even seeincr a single sail, with the exception of an American whaler off Cape Horn. Arrived within a week's sail of Rip, he set seriously about determining, by lunar ob- servations, the precise line of the ship's course, and its situation in it at a determinate moment, and having ascertained this within from five to ten miles, ran the rest of the way by those more ready and compendious methods, known to navigators, which can be safely employed for short trips between one known point and another, but which cannot be trusted in long voyages, where the moon is their only guide. The rest of the tale we are enabled by his kindness to state in his own words : — " We steered towards Rio .Janeiro for some days after taking the lunars above described, and hav- ing arrived within fifteen or twenty miles of the coast, I hove-to till four in the morning CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 239 ship of its commander will subordinate all the movements of the immense host, to the power of one controlling and actuating will — so, in general society, did wealth by means of a thorough scholarship on the part of the higher classes, but maintain an intimate fellowship with wisdom and sound philosophy — then, with the same conservative influence as in these other examples, would the intellectual ascendency thus acquired, be found of mighty effect, to consolidate and maintain all the gradations of the commonwealth. 15. It is thus that a vain and frivolous aristocracy, averse to severe intellectual discipline, and beset with the narrow preju- dices of an order, let themselves down from that high vantage- ground on which fortune hath placed them — where, by a right use of the capabilities belonging to the state in which they were born, they might have kept their firm footing to the latest generations. Did all truth lie at the surface of observation, and it was alike ac- cessible to all men, diey could not with such an adaptation of ex- ternal nature to man's intellectual constitution, have realized the pecuhar advantage on which we are now insisting. But it is be- cause there is so much of important and applicable truth, which lies deep and hidden under the surface, and which can only be appropriated by men, who combine unbounded leisure with the habit or determination of strenuous mental cfTort — it is only be- cause of such an adaptation, that they who are gifted with property are, as a class, gifted with the means, if they would use it, of a great intellectual superiority over the rest of the species. There is a strong natural veneration for wealth, and also a strong natural veneration for wisdom. It is by the union of the two that the horrors of revolutionary violence, might for ever be averted from the land. Did our high-born children of affluence, for every ten among them, the mere loungers of effeminacy and fashion, or the mere lovers of sport and sensualit}'^ and splendour — did they, for when the day should break, and then bore up ; for althougli it was very hazy, we could see before us a couple of miles or so. About eight o'clock it became so foggy that I did not like to stand in farther, and was just bringing the ship to the wind again before sendinor the people to breakfast, when it suddenly cleared off, and T had the satisfaction of seeing the great sugar-loaf peak, which stands on one side of the harbour's mouth, so nearly right a-head that we ha3 not to alter our course above a point, in order to hit the entrance of Rio. This was the first land we had seen for three months, after cross- \na so many seas, and being set backwards and forwards by innumerable currents and foul winds." " The effect on all on board might v.-ell be conceived to have been elec- tric ; and it is needless to remark how essentially the auUiority of a commanding offi- cer over his crew may be strengthened by the occurrence of such incidents, indicative of a decree of knowledge and consequent power beyond their reach." — Herschell's Discourse, p. 28, 29. It is an extreme instance of th^ connexion between mental power and civil or po- litical ascendency, though oflen verified in the history of the world — that military sci- ence has often led to the establishment of a military despotism. 240 THE INTELLECTUAL every ten of such, furnish but one enamoured of higher gymnas- tics, the gymnastics of the mind ; and who accompHshed him- self for the work and warfare of the senate, by his deep and com- prehensive views in all the proper sciences of a statesman, the science of government, and politics, and commerce, and eco- nomics, and history, and human nature, — by a few gigantic men among them, thus girded for the services of patriotism, a nation might be saved — because arrested on that headlong descent, which, at the impulse of the popular will, it might else have made, from one measure of fair but treacherous promise, from one ru- inous plausibihty to another. The thing most to be dreaded, is that hasty and superficial legislation, into which a government may be humed by the successive onsets of public impatience, and under the impulse of a popular and prevailing cry. Now the thing most needed, as a counteractive to this evil, is a thoroughly in- tellectual parliament, where shall predominate Ihat masculine sense which has been trained for act and application by mascu- line studies ; and where the silly watch-word of theory shall not be employed, as heretofore, to overbear the lessons of soundly generaUzed truth — because instead of being discerned at a glance, they are fetched from the depths of philosophic observation, or shone upon by lights from afar, in the accumulated experience of ages. We have infinitely more to apprehend from the dema- gogues than from the doctrinaires of our present crisis ; and it will require a far profounder attention to the principles of every question than many deem to be necessary, or than almost any are found to bestow, to save us from the crudities of a blindfold legis- lation.* * This mental superiority which the higher classes might and ought to cuhivate, is not incompatible, but the contrary, with a general ascent in the scholarship of the po- jwlation at large. On this subject we have elsewhere said— that " there is a bigotry on the side of endowed seminaries which leads those wliom it actuates to be jealous of popular institutions. And, on the other hand, there is a generous feeling towards these institutions, which is often accompanied with a certain despite towards the en- dowed and established seminaries. W^e tliink that a more comprehensive considera- tion of the actings and reactings which take place in society, should serve to abate llie heats of this partizanship, and that what in one view is regarded as the conflict of jarring and hostile elements, should, in another, be rejoiced in as a limiinous concourse of influences, tending to accomplisli the grand and beneficent result of an enlightened nation. It is just because we wish so well to colleges, that we hail the prosperity of mechanic institutions. The latter will never outrun the former, but so stimulate them onwards, that the literature of our higher classes shall hold the same relative advancement as before over the literature of our artizans. It will cause no derange- ment and no disproportion. The liglit whicli shall then overspread the floor of the social edifice, will only cause the lustres which are in the higher apartments to blaze more gorgeously. The basement of the fabric will be greatly more elevated, yet with- out violence to the symmetry of the whole architecture ; for the pinnacles and upper stories of the building will rise as proudly and as gracefully as ever above the platform which sustains them. There is indefinite room in trutli and science for an ascending \ CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 241 16. And it augurs portentously for the coming destinies of our land, that, in the present rage for economy, such an indiscrimi- nate havock should have been made — so that pensions and en- dowments for the reward or encouragement of science, should have had the same sentence of extinction passed upon them, as the most worthless sinecures. The difficulties of our most sub- lime, and often too our most useful knowledge, make it inacces- sible to all but to those who are exempt from the care of their own maintenance — so that unless a certain, though truly insig- nificant portion of the country's wealth, be expended in this way, all high and transcendental philosophy, however conducive as it often is to the strength as well as glory of a nation must vanish from the land. When the original possessors of wealth neglect individually this application of it; and, whether from indolence or the love of pleasure, fall short of that superiority in mental cul- ture, of which the means have been put into their hands — we can only reproach their ignoble preference, and lament the as- cendant force of sordid and merely animal propensities, over the principles of their better and higher nature. But when that which individuals do in slavish compliance with their indolence and pas- sions, the state is also found to do in the exercise of its deUbera- tive wisdom, and on the maxims of a settled policy — when instead of ordaining any new destination of wealth in favour of science, it would divorce and break asunder the goodly aUiance by a re- morseless attack on the destinations of wiser and better days — such a gothic spoliation as this, not a deed of lawless cupidity but the mandate of a senate-house, were a still more direct and glaring- contravention to the wisdom of Nature, and to the laws of that economy which Nature hath instituted. The adaptation of which we now speak, between the external system of the universe, and the intellectual system of man, were grossly violated by such an outrage ; and it is a violence which Nature would resent by one ' of those signal chastisements, the examples of which are so fre- quent in history. The truth is that, viewed as a manifestation of the popular will, which tumultuates against all that wont to con\- movemcnt, and the taking up of higher positions ; and if, in virtue of a popular plillo- sophy now taught in schools of art, we are to have more lettered mechanics, this will be instantly followed up by a higher philosophy in colleges than heretofore ; and in virtue of which we shall also have a more accomplished gentry, a more intellectual parliament, a more erudite clergy, and altogether a greater force and fulness of mind throughout all the departments of the commonwealth. The whole of society will as- cend together, and therefore without disturbance to the relation of its parts. But, in every stage of this progress, the endowed colleges will continue to be the highest places of intellect ; the coimtry's richest lore and its most solid and severest philosophy will always be found in them." Use and Abuse of Literary and Ecclesiastical En- dowments. 21 242 THE INTELLECTUAL mand the respect and admiration of society, and is strong enough to enforce its dictations — it may well be regarded, as one of the deadliest symptoms of a nation ripening for anarchy, that dread consummation, by which however, the social state, relieved of its distempers, is at length renovated like the atmosphere by a storm, after throwing off from it, the dregs and the degeneracy of an iron age.* 17. (5.) We shall do little more than state two other adapta- tions, although more might be noticed, and all do admit of a much fuller elucidation than we can bestow upon them. And first, there is a countless diversity of sciences, and correspondent to this, a Hke diversity in the tastes and talents of men, present- ing, therefore, a most beneficial adaptation, between the objects of human knowledge and the powers of human knowledge. Even in one science there are often many subdivisions, each re- quiring a separate mental fitness, on the part of those, who might select it as their own favourite walk, which they most love, and in which they are best qualified to excel. In most of the physi- cal sciences, how distinct the business of the observation is from that of the philosophy; and how important to their progress, that, for each appropriate work, there should be men of appro- priate faculties or habits, who in the execufion of their respec- tive tasks, do exceedingly multiply and enlarge the products of the mind — even as the grosser products of human industry are multiplied by the subdivision of employment. | It is well, that, for that infinite variety of intellectual pursuits, necessary to ex- plore all the recesses of a various and complicated external na- ture, there should be a like variety of intellectual predilections and powers scattered over the species — a congruity between the world of mind and the world of matter, of the utmost importance, both to the perfecting of art, and to the progress and perfecting of science. Yet it is marvellous of these respective labourers, though in effect they work simultaneously and to each other's hands, how little respect or sympathy, or sense of importance, they have for any department of the general field, for any section in the wide encyclopaedia of human learning, but that on which their own faculties are concentrated and absorbed. We cannot imagine aught more dissimilar and uncongenial, than the intent- * The same effect is still more likely to ensue from the spoliation and secularization of ecclesiastical property. t There is no accounting for the difference of minds or inclinations, which leads one man to observe with interest the developement of phenomena, another to speculate on their causes 5 but were it not for this happy disagreement, it may be doubted whether the higher sciences could ever have attained even their present degree of perfection." Sir John Herschell's Discourses, p. 131, COxXSTITUTION OF 31AN. 243 ness of a niatheniatician on his demonstrations and diagrams, and the equal intentness, nay delight, of a collector or antiqua- rian on the faded manuscripts and uncial characters of other days. Yet in the compound result of all these multiform labours, there is a goodly and sustained harmony, between the practition- ers and the theorists of science, between ths pioneers and the monarchs of literature — even as in the various offices of a well- arranged household, although there should be no mutual intelli- gence between the subordinates who fill them, there is a supreme and cormecting wisdom which presides over and animates the whole. The goodly system of philosophy, when viewed as the product of innumerable contributions, by minds of all possible variety and men of all ages — bears like evidence to the universe being a spacious household, under the one and consistent direc- tion of Him who is at once the Parent and the Master of a uni- versal family."^" IS. And here it is not out of place to remark, that it is the very perfection of the Divine v, orkmanship, which leads every enqui- rer to imagine a surpassing worth and grace and dignity in his own special department of it. The fact is altogether notorious, that in order to attain a high sense of the importance of any sci- ence, and of the worth and beauty of the objects which it embra- ces — nothing more is necessary than the intent and persevering study of them. Whatever the walk of philosophy may be on which man shall enter, that is the walk which of all others he conceives to be most enriched, by all that is fitted to entertain the intellect, or arrest the admiration of the enamoured scholar. The astronomer who can unravel the mechanism of the heavens, or the chemist who can trace the atomic processes of matter upon earth, or the metaphysician who can assign the laws of human thought, or the grammarian who can discriminate the niceties of language, or the naturalist who can classify the flow- ers and the birds and the shells and the minerals and the insects which so teem and multiply in this world of wonders — each of these respective enquirers is apt to become the worshipper of his own theme, and to look with a sort of indifference, bordering on contempt, towards what he imagines the fiir less interesting track of his fellow-labourers. Now each is right in the admiration he renders to the grace and grandeur of that field which himself has explored ; but all are wrong in the distaste they feel, or rather in the disregard they cast on the other fields which they have never * The benefit of subdivsion in science should lead to the multiplication of professor- ships in our literary institutes, and at all events should prevent the parsimonious sup- pression of them, or the parsimonious amalgamation, of the duties of two or more into one. 244 THE INTELLECTUAL entered. We should take the testimony of each to the worth of that which he does know, and reject the testimony of each to the comparative worthlessness of that which he does not know ; and then the unavoidable inference is that that must be indeed a re- plete and a gorgeous universe in which we dwell — and still more glorious the Eternal Mind, from whose conception it arose, and whose prolific fiat gave birth to it, in all its vastness and variety. And instead of the temple of science having been reared, it were more proper to say, that the temple of nature had been evolved. The archetype of science is the universe ; and it is in the disclo- sure of its successive parts, that science advances from step to step — not properly raising any new architecture of its own, but rather unveiling by degrees an architecture that is old as the crea- tion. The labourers in philosophy create nothing ; but only bring out into exhibition that which was before created. And there is a resulting harmony in their labours, however widely apart from each other they may have been prosecuted — not because they have adjusted one part to another, but because the adjustment has been already made to their hands. There comes forth, it is true, of their labours, a most m.agnificent harmony, yet not a har- mony which they have made, but a pre-existent harmony which they have only made visible — so that when tempted to idolize phi- losophy, let us transfer the homage to him who both formed the philosopher's mind, and furnished his philosophy with all its materials. 19. (6.) The last adaptation that we shall instance is rather one of mind to mind, and depends on a previous adaptation in each mind of the mental faculties to one another. For the right working of the mind, it is not enough that each of its separate powers shall be provided with adequate strength — they must be mixed in a certain proportion — for the greatest inconvenience might be felt, not in the defect merely, but in the excess of some of them. We have heard of too great a sensibility in the organ of hearing, giving rise to an excess in the faculty, which amount- ed to disease, by exposing the patient to the pain and disturbance of too many sounds, even of those so faint and low, as to be in- audible to the generality of men. In like manner we can ima- gine the excess of a property purely mental, of memory for exam- ple, amounting to a malady of the intellect, by exposing the victim of it to the presence and the perplexity of too many ideas, even of those which are so insignificant, that it would lighten and re- lieve the mind, if they had no place there at all.* Certain it is * It has been said of Sir James Mackintosh, that the excess of his memorywas felt by him as an incumbrance in the writing of history — adding as it did to the difficulty CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 245 that the more full and circumstantial is the memory, the more is given for the judgment to do — its proper work of selecting and comparing becoming the more oppressive, with the number and distraction of irrelevant materials. It vvould have been better that these had found no original admittance within the chamber of recollection ; or that only things of real and sufficient import- ance had left an enduring impression upon its tablet. In other words, it would have been better, that the memory had been less susceptible or less retentive than it is ; and this may enable us to perceive the exquisite balancing that must have been requi- site, in the construction of the mind — when the very defect of one faculty is thus made to aid and to anticipate the operations of another. He who alone knoweth the secrets of the spirits, formed them with a wisdom to us unsearchable. 20. Certain it is however that variety in the proportion of their faculties, is one chief cause of the difference between the minds of men. And whatever the one faculty may be, in any individual, which predominates greatly beyond the average of the rest — that faculty is selected as the characteristic by wliich to distinguish him ; and thus he may be designed as a man of judgment, or in- formation, or fancy, or vv^it, or oratory. It is this variety in their respective gifts, which originates so beautiful a dependence and reciprocity of mutual services among men ; and, more especially, when any united movement or united counsel is requisite, that calls forth the co-operation of numbers. No man combines all the ingredients of mental power; and no man is wanthig in all of them — so that, while none is wholly independent of others, each possesses some share of importance in the commonwealth. The defects, even of the highest minds, may thus need to be supple- mented, by the counterpart excellencies of minds greatly in- ferior to their own — and, in this way, the pride of exclusive supe- riority is mitigated ; and the respect which is due to our common humanity is more largely diiTused throughout society, and shared more equally among all the members of it. Nature hath so dis- tributed her gifts among her children, as to promote a mutual helpfulness, and, what perhaps is still more precious, a mutual humility among men. 21. In almost all the instances of mental superiority, it will be found, that it is a superiority above the average level of the species, in but one thing — or that arises from the predominance of one faculty above all the rest. So much is this the case, that when of selection. It is on ihe same principle that the very muldtude of one's ideas and vVords may form an obstacle to extemporaneous speaking, as has been illustrated by Dean Swift under the comparison of a thin church emptying faster than a crowded one. 21* 246 THE INTELLECTUAL, &C. the example doe.^ occur, of an individual, so richly gifted as to excel in two of the general or leading powers of the mind, his reputation for the one will impede the establishment of his repu- tation for the other. There occurs to us one very remarkable case of the injustice, done by the men who have but one faculty, to the men who are under the misfortune of having two. In the writings of Edmund Burke, there has at length been discovered, a rich mine of profound and strikingly just reflections, on the philosophy of pubhc affairs. But he felt as well as thought, and saw the greatness and beauty of things, as well as their relations ; and so, he could at once penetrate the depths, and irradiate the surface of any object that he contemplated. The light which he flung from him, entered the very innermost shrines and recesses of his subject ; but then it was light tinged with the hues of his own brilliant imagination, and many gazing at the splendour, re- cognized not the weight and the wisdom underneath. They thought him superficial, but just because themselves arrested at the surface ; and either because with the capacity of emotion but without that of judgment, or because with the capacity of judg- ment but ^vithout that of emotion — they, from the very meagreness and mutilation of their own faculties, were incapable of that com- plex homage, due to a complex object which had both beauty and truth for its ingredients. Thus it was that the very exuberance of his genius, injured the man, in the estimation of the pigmies around him ; and the splendour of his imagination detracted from the credit of his wisdom. Fox had the sagacity to see this ; and posterity now see it. Now that, instead of a passing meteor, he is fixed by authorship in the literary hemisphere, men can make a study of him ; and be at once regaled by the poetry, and in- structed by the profoundness of his wondrous lucubrations. CHA1»TER II. On the Connexion helwecn the Intellect and the Emotions, 1. The intellectual states of the mind, and its states of ennotion, •belong to distinct provinces of the mental constitution — the former to the percipient, and the latter to what Sir James Mackintosh would term the emotive or pathematic part of our nature. Ben- tham applies the term pathology to the mind in somewhat the same sense — not expressive, as in medical science, of states of disease, under which the body suifers ; but expressive, in mental science, of states of susceptibility, under which the mind is in any way affected, whether painfully or pleasurably. Had it not been for the previous usurpation or engagement of this term by medical writers, who restrict the application of it to the distempers of our corporeal frame, it might have been conveniently extended to all the susceptibilities of the mental constitution — even when that constitution is in its healthful and natural state. According to the medical use of it, the Greek ■naax'^ from which it is de- rived, is understood in the sense of the Latin translation, patior, to suffer. According to the sense which we now propose for it, in treating of mental phenomena, the Greek Trao-xw would bo uiiderstood in the sense of the Latin translation afficior to be af- fected. When treat 'rg of the mental pathology, we treat, not of mental sufferings, but, more general, of mental susceptibilities. The TTrtffxw of the Greek, whence the term comes, is equivalent, cither to the " patior" or the "afficior" of Latin, — the former signifying " to suffer," and the latter simply " to be affected," — the former sense being the one that is retained in medical, and the latter in mental pathology. The two differ as much the one from the other as passion does from affection, or the violence of a distempered does from the due and pacific effect of a natural influence. Even the Latin patior might be translated, not merely into " suffer" but into " the being acted upon" or into " the being passive." Medical pathology is the study of those diseases un- der which the body suffers. Mental pathology is the study of all those phenomena that arise from influences acting upon the mind viewed as passive, or as not putting forth any choice or ac- tivity at the time. Now, when thus defined, it will embrace all that we understand by sensations, and aflections, and passions. It is not of my will that certain colours impress their appropriate sensations upon my eye, or that certain sounds impress their 248 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE sensations upon my ear. It is not of my jvill, but of an organi- zation which I often cannot help, that I am so nervously irritable, under certain disagreeable sights and disagreeable noises. It is not of my will, but of an aggressive influence which I cannot withstand, that, when placed on an airy summit, I forthwith swim in giddiness, and am seized with the imagination, that if T turn not my feet and my eyes from the frightful precipice's margin, I shall topple to its base. Neither is it of my will that I am vi- sited with such ineffable disgust at the sight of some loathsome animal. But these are strong instances, and perhaps evince a state bordering upon disease. Yet we may gather from them some general conception of what is meant by mental pathology, whose design it is to set forth all those states of feeling, into which the mind is throwTi, by the influence of those various ob- jects that are fitted to excite, either the emotions or the sensitive affections of our nature. And, to keep the subject of mental pathology pure, we shall suppose these states of feeling to be altogether unmodified by the will, and to be the very states which result from the law of the external senses, or the laws of emotion, operating upon us at the time, when the mind is either v. holly pow- erless or wholly inactive. To be furnished with one comprehen- sive term, by which to impress a mark on so large an order of phenomena, must be found very commodious ; and though we have adverted to the etymology of the term, yet, in truth, it is of no consequence whether the process of derivation be accurate or not — seeing that the most arbitrary definition, if it only ])e pre- cise in its objects, and have a precisely expressed sense affixed to it, can serve all the purposes for which a definition is de- sirable. 2. The emotions enter largely into the pathological depart- ment of our nature. They are distinguishable both from the appetites and the external affections, in that they are mental and not bodily — though, in connnon ^\ith these, they are character- ized by a peculiar vividness of feeling, which distinguishes them from the intellectual states of the mind. It may not be easy to express the difference in language ; but we never confound them in specific instances — being at no loss to which of the two classes we should refer the acts of memory and judgment ; and to which we should refer the sentiments of fear, or gratitude, or shame, or any of the numerous affections and desires of which the mind is susceptible. 3. The first belonging to this class that we shall notice is the desire of knowledge, or the principle of curiosity — having all the appearance and character of a distinct and original tendency in the mind, implanted there for the purpose to which it is so INTELLECT AJND THE EBIOTIONS. 249 obviously subservient. This principle evinces its reality and strength in very early childhood, oven anterior to the faculty of speech — as might be observed in the busy manipulations and exploring looks of the little infant, on any new article that is placed within its reach ; and afterwards, by its importunate and never-ending questions. It is this avidity of knowledge which forms the great impellent to the acquisition of it — being in fact the hunger of the mmd, and strikingly analogous to the corres- ponding bodily appetite, in those respects, by which each is ma- nifested, to be the product of a higher wisdom than ours, the effect of a more providential care than man would have taken of liimself. The corporeal appetency seeks for food as its termi- nating object, without regard to its ulterior effect in the sustain- ing of life. The mental appetency seeks for knowledge, the food of the mind, as its terminating object, without regard to its ulterior benefits, both in the guidance of life, and the endless multiplication of its enjoyments. The prospective wisdom of man could be trusted with neither of these great interests ; and so the urgent appetite of hunger had to be pro\dded for the one, and the like urgent principle of curiosity had to be provided for the other. Each of them bears the same evidence of a special contrivance for a special, object — and that by one who took a more comprehensive view of our welfare, than we are capable of taking for ourselves ; and made his own additions to the me- chanism, for the express purpose of supplementing the deficiency of human foresight. The resemblance betv/een the two cases goes strikingly to demonstrate, how a mental constitution might as effectually bespeak the hand of an intelligent Maker, as does a physical or material constitution. It is true, that, with the great majority of men, the intellectual is not so urgent or impe- rious, as is the animal craving. But even for this difference, we can perceive a reason, which would not have been found, under a random economy of things. Each man's hunger would need to be alike strong, or at least strong enough to ensure the taking of food for himself — for to this effect, he will receive no benefit from another man's hunger. But there is not the same reason why each man's curiosity should be alike strong — for the curiosity of one man might subserve the supply of information and intellectual food to the rest of the species. To enlarge the knowledge of the world, it is not needed, that all men should be endowed with such a strength of desire for it, as to bear them onward through the toils of original investigation. The domi- nant, th^ aspiring curiosity, which impels the adventurous travel- ler to untrodden regions, will earn discoveries, not for himself alone, but for all men — if their curiosity be but strong enough 250 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE for the perusal of his agreeable record, under the shelter, and amid the comforts of their own home. And it is so in all the sciences. The unquenchable thirst of a few, is ever drawing supplies of new truth, which are shared in by thousands. There is an obvious meaning in this variety, between the stronger cu- riosity of the few who discover truth, and the weaker curiosity of the many who acquire it. The food which hunger impels man to take, is for his own aliment alone. The fruit of that study to which the strength of his own curiosity impels him, may become the property of all men. 4. But, apart from this singularity, we behold in curiosity, viewed as a general attribute, a manifest adaptation to the cir- cumstances in which m-an is placed. If, on the one hand, we look to the rich and exhaustless variety of truth, in a universe fraught with the materials of a most stupendous and ever grow- ing philosophy, and each department of which is fitted to stimu- late and regale the curiosity of the human mind — we should say of such an external nature as this, that, presenting a most appro- priate field to the inquisitive spirit of our race, it was signally adapted to the intellectual constitution of man. Or if, on the other hand, besides looking to the world as a theatre for the de- lightful entertainment of our powers, we behold it, in the intri- cacy of its phenomena and laws, in its recondite mysteries, in its deep and difficult recesses yet conquerable to an indefinite extent by the perseverance of man, and therefore as a befitting theatre for the busy and most laborious exercise of his powers— we should say of such an intellectual constitution as ours, that it was signally adapted to the system of external nature. It would require a curiosity as strong and steadfast as Nature hath given us, to urge us onward, through the appalling difficulties of a search so laborious. Hunger is the great impellent to corporeal labour, and the gratification of this appetite is its reward. Curiosity is a great impellent to mental labour, and, whether we look to the de- lights or the difficulties of knov/ledge, we cannot fail to perceive, that this mental appetency in man, and its counterpart objects in Nature, are suited v/ith marvellous exactness to each other. 5. But the analogy between the mental and the corporeal af- fections does not stop here. The appetite of hunger would, of itself, impel to the use of food — although no additional pleasure had been annexed to the use of it, in the gratifications of the palate. The sense of taste, with its various pleasurable sensa- tions, has ever been regarded, as a distinct proof of the benevo- lence and care of God. And the same is true of the^dehghts which are felt by the mind, in the acquisition of knowledge — as when truth discloses her high and hidden beauties to the eye of INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 251 ' the enraptured student ; and lie breathes an ethereal satisfac- tion, having in it the very substance of enjoyment, though the world at large cannot sympathize with it. The pleasures of the intellect, though calm, are intense : insomuch, that a life of deep philosophy were a life of deep emotion, when the understanding receives of its own proper aliment — having found its way to those harmonies of principle, those goodly classifications of phe- nomena, which the disciples of science love to gaze upon. And the whole charm does not lie in the ultimate discovery. There is a felt triumph in the march, and along the footsteps of the de- monstration which leads to it ; in the successive evolutions of the reasoning, as well as its successful conclusion. Like every other enterprize of man, there is a happiness in the cur- rent and continuous pursuit, as well as in the final attainment — as every student in geometry can tell, who will remember, not only the delight he felt on his arrival at the landing place, but the delight he felt when guided onw ard by the traces and concatena- tions of the pathway. Even in the remotest abstractions of con- templative truth, there is a glory and a transcendental pleasure, which the world knoweth not ; but which becomes more intelli- gible, because more embodied, when the attention of the en- quirer is directed to the realities of substantive nature. And though there be few who comprehend or follow Newton in his gigantic walk, yet all may participate in his triumphant feeling, when he reached that lofty summit, where the whole mystery and magnificence of Nature stood submitted to his gaze — an eminence won by him through the power and the patience of in- tellect alone ; but from which he descried a scene more glorious far than imagination could have formed, or than ever had been pictured and set forth, in the sublimest visions of poetry. 6. It is thus that while the love of beauty, operating upon the susceptible imagination of the theorist, is one of those seducing influences, which lead men astray from the pursuit of experimen- tal truth — he, in fact, who at the outset resists her fascinations, because of his supreme respect for the lessons of observation, is at length repaid by the discoveries and sights of a surpass- ing loveliness. The inductive philosopW began its career, by a renunciation, painful we have no doul/i at first to many of its disciples, of all the systems and hari^ionies of the schoolmen. But in the assiduous prosecution of i^ labours it worked its way to a far nobler and more magnificentiarmony at the last — to the real system of the universe, more excellent than all the schemes of human conception — not in the syiidity of its evidence alone, but as an object of tasteful contemplation. The self-denial which is laid upon us by Bacon's yihilosophy, like all other self- 252 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE denial whether in the cause of truth or virtue, hath its reward. In giving ourselves up to its guidance, we have often to quit the fascinations of beautiful theory ; but in exchange for these, are at length regaled by the higher and substantial beauties of actual nature. There is a stubbornness in facts before which the specious ingenuity is compelled to give way ; and perhaps the mind never suffers more painful laceration, than when, after having vainly attempted to force nature into a compliance with her own splen- did generalizations, she, on the appearance of some rebellious and impracticable phenomenon, has to practise a force upon her- self, when she thus finds the goodly speculation superseded by the homely and unwelcome experience. It seemed at the outset a cruel sacrifice, when the world of speculation, with all its ma- nageable and engaging simplicities had to be abandoned; and, on becoming the pupils of observation, we, amid the varieties of the actual world around us, felt as if bewildered, if not lost among the perplexities of a chaos. This was the period of great- est sufferance, but it has had a glorious termination. In return for the assiduity wherewith the study of nature hath been pro- secuted, she hath made a more abundant revelation of her charms. Order hath arisen out of confusion; and, in the ascertained struc- ture of the universe, there are now found to be a state and a sub- limity, beyond all that ever was pictured by the mind, in the days of her adventurous and unfettered imagination. Even viewed in the light of a noble and engaging spectacle for the fancy to dwell upon, who would ever think of comparing with the system of Newton, either that celestial machinery of Dos Cartes, ^^hich was impelled by whirlpools of ether, or that still more cumbrous machinery of cycles and epicycles which was the progeny of a remoter age ! It is thus that at the commencement of this ob- servational process, there is an abjuration of beauty. But it soon reappears in another form, and brightens as we advance ; and tliere at length arises, on sohd foundation, a fairer and goodlier system, than ever floated in airy romance before the eye of ge- nius.* Nor is it difficult to perceive the reason of this. What we discover by observa^^^ion, is the product of the divine imagina- tion — bodied forth by creative power, into a stable and enduring * In tlie " Essays of Joim Sh-ppard," — a work very recently published, and alike characterised by the depth of its Christian intelligence and feeling, and tJie beauty of its thoughts there occurs the foJowing passage, founded on the Manuscript Notes token by the author, of Playfair's Lectures. ' It was impressively stated in a preli- minary lecture by a late eminent S'oltish Professor of Natural Philosophy, that the actual physical wonders of creation far transcend the boldest and most hyperbolical imaoinin^s of poetic minds ;" " that the reason of Newton and Gallileo took a sub- lime'i- flight than the fancy of Milton aid Ariosto." That this is quite true I need only refer you to a few astronomical facts gh.nced at in subsequent pages of this volume in order to evince.' Sheppard's Essays, {. 69. INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 253 universe. What we devise by our own ingenuity is l)ut the pro- duct of human imagination. The one is the soHd archetype of those conceptions which are in the mind of God. The other is the shadowy representation of those conceptions which are in the mind of man. It is even as with the labourer, who, by ex- cavating the rubbish which hides and besets some noble archi- tecture, does more for the gratification of our taste, than if, with his unpractised hand, he should attempt to regale us by plans and sketches of his own. And so the drudgery of experimental science, in exchange for that beauty, whose fascinations it resisted at the outset of its career, has evolved a surpassing beauty from among the realities of truth and nature. The pain of the initial sacriiice is nobly compensated at the last. The views contem- plated through the medium of observation, are found, not only to have a justness in them, but to have a grace and a grandeur in them, far above all the visions which are contemplated through the medium of tancy, or which ever regaled the fondest enthusiast in the enraptured walks of speculation and poetry. But the toils of investigation must be endured first, that the grace and the gran- deur might be enjoyed afterwards. The same is true of science in all its departments, not of simple and sublime astronomy alone, but throughout of terrestrial physics ; and most of all in chemistry, where the internal processes of actual and ascer- tained Nature are found to possess a beauty, which far surpasses the crude though specious plausibilities of other days. We per- ceive in this too, a fine adaptation of the external world to the faculties of man ; a happy ordination of Nature by which the la- bour of the spirit is made to precede the luxury of the spirit, or every disciple of science must strenuously labour in the in- vestigation of its truths, ere he can luxuriate in the contemplation of its beauties. It is by the patient seeking of truth first, that the pleasures of taste and imagination are superadded to him. For, in these days of stern and philosophic hardihood, nothing but evidence, strict and scrutinized and thoroughly sifted evi- dence, will secure acceptance for any opinion. Whatever its authority, whatever its engaging likelihood may be, it must first be made to undergo the freest treatment from human eyes and human hands. It is at one time stretched on the rack of an ex- periment. At another it has to pass through fiery trial in the bottom of a crucible. At another, it has to undergo a long ques- tionary process among the fumes, and the filtrations, and the in- tense heat of a laboratory ; and, not till it has been subjected to all this inquisitorial torture and survived it, is it preferred to a place in the temple of truth, or admitted among the laws and the les- sons of a sound philosophy. 22 254 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 7. But, beside those rev/ards and excitements to science which lie in science itself, as the curiosity which impels to the prosecu- tion of it, and the delights of prosperous study, and the pleasures that immediately spring from the contemplation of its objects — besides these, there is a remoter but not less powerful influence, and to which indeed we owe greatly more than half the philosophy of our world. We mean the respect in which high intellectual en- doM-ments are held by general society. We are not sure but that the love of fame has been of more powerful operation, in speed- ing onward the march of discovery, than the love of philosophy for the sake of its own inherent charms ; and there are thousands of our most distinguished intellectual labourers, who but for an expected harvest of renown, would never have entered on the secret and solitary prosecution of their arduous walk. We are abundantly sensible, that this appetency for fame may have helped to vulgarise both the literature and science of the country ; that men, capable of the most attic refinement in the one, may, for the sake of a wider popularity, have descended to verbiage and the false splendour of a meretricious eloquence ; and that men, capable of the deepest research and purest demonstration in the other, may, by the same unworthy compliance with the flip- pancy of the public taste, have exchanged the profound argument for the showy and superficial illustration — preferring to the ho- mage of the exalted few, the attendance and plaudits of the mul- titude. It is thus, that, when access to the easier and lighter parts of knowledge has been suddenly enlarged, the heights of philosophy may be abandoned for a season — the men who wont to occupy there, being tempted to come down from their eleva- tion, and hold converse with that increasing host, who have en- tered within the precincts, and now throng the outer courts of the temple. It is thus, that at certain transition periods, in the in- tellectual history of the species, philosophy may sustain a tem- porary depression — from which when she recovers, we shall com- bine, with the inestimable benefit of a more enlightened com- monality, both the glory and the substantial benefit of as cultured a literature and as lofty and elaborate a philosophy as before. And we greatly mistake, if we think, that in those minds of no- bler and purer ambition, the love of fame is extinguished, because they are willing to forego the bustling attendance and the clamo- rous applauses of a crowd. They too are intensely set on praise, but it must be such praise as that of Atticus, ' the incense of which, though not copious, is exquisite — that precious aroma, which fills not the general atmosphere, but by which the few and the finer spirits of our race are satisfied. Theirs is not the broad day-light of popularity. It is a fame of a higher order, upheld INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 256 by the testimony of the amateurs or the eliie in science, and grounded on those rare achievements which the pubHc at large can neither comprehend nor sympatliize with. " They sit on a hill apart," and there breathe of an ethereal element, in the calm brightness of an upper region, rather than in that glare and gor- geousness by which the eye of the multitude is dazzled. It is not the eclat of a bonfire for the regaling of a mob, but the endu- ring though quiet lustre of a star. The place which they occupy is aloft in the galaxy of a nation's literature, where the eyes of the more finely intellectual gaze upon them with dehght, and the hearts only of such are lighted up in reverence and con amove towards them. Theirs is a high though hidden praise, flowing in secret course through the savcms of a community, and felt by every true academic to be his most appropriate reward.'* S. The emotions of which we have yet spoken stand con- nected, either in the way of cause or of consequence, with the higher efforts of the intellect — as the curiosity which prompts to these efforts, and the delights attendant on the investigation and discovery of truths which reward them ; beside the grateful in- cense of those praises, whether general or select, that are awarded to mental superiority, and form perhaps the most powerful incite- ment to the arduous and sustained prosecution of mental labour. But there is a connexion of another sort, between the emotions and the intellect, of still higher importance — because of the alli- ance which it establishes between the intellectual and the moral departments of our nature. We often speak of the pleasure that we receive from one class of the emotions, as those of taste — of the clanger or disagreeableness of another, as anger or fear, or envy — of the obligation that lies upon us to cherish and retain certain other emotions, insomuch that the designation of virtuous is generally given to them, as gratitude, and compassion, and the special love of relatives or country, and in one word, all the be- nevolent affections of our nature. Now, however obvious when stated, it is not sufficiently adverted to, even when studying the philosophy of the subject, and still less in the pi-actical govern- ment and regulation of the heart — that, for the very being of each of these specific emotions in the heart, there must a certain ap- ])ropriate and counterpart object, whether through the channel of sense or of the memory, be present to the thoughts. We can only feel the emotion of beauty, in the act of beholding or con- ceiving a beautiful object ; an emotion of terror, in the view of some danger which menaces us ; an emotion oi' gratitude, in the recollection of a past kindness, or of the benefactor who con- * Use and Abuse ot'Literary and Ecclesiastical Endowments, p. 165 — 166. 256 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE ferred it. Such then is the necessary dependence between per- ception and feeling, that, without the one, the other cannot pos- sibly be awakened. Present an object to the view of the mind, and the emotion suited to that object, whether it be love or re- sentment, or terror, or disgust, must consequently arise ; and with as great sin-eness, as, on presenting visible things of differ- ent colour to the eye, the green and red and yellow and blue im- press their different and peculiar sensations on the retina. It is very obvious, that the sensations owe their being to the external objects, without the presence and the perception of which they could not possibly have arisen. And it should be alike obvious, that the emotions owe their being to a mental perception, whe- ther by sense or by mem.ory, of the objects which are fitted to awaken them. Let an object be introduced to the notice of the mind, and its correlative emotion instantly arises in the heart ; let the object be forgotten or disappear from the mental view, and the emotion disappears along Avith it. 9. We deem it no exception to the invariableness of that rela- tion, which subsists between an object and its counterpart emo- tion, that, in many instances, a certain given object may be pre- sent and in full viev/ of the observer, \\ithout awakening that sensibility which is proper to it. A spectacle of pain does gene- rally, but not always, awaken compassion. It would always, \\ti think, if a creature in agony were the single object of the mind's contemplation. But the person, now in suffering, may be under- going the chastisement of some grievous provocation ; and the emotion is different, because the object is really different — an offender who has excited the anger of our bosom, and, in the view of whose inflicted sufferings, this indignant feel- ing receives its gratification. Or the pain may be inflicted by our own hand on an unoffending animal in the prosecu- tion of some cruel experiment. If compassion be wholly un- felt, it is not because in this instance the law has been repealed which connects this emotion with the view of pain ; but it is be- cause the attention of the mind to this object is displaced by another object ; even the discovery of truth — and so what but for this might have been an intense compassion, is overborne by an intenser curiosity. And so with all the other emotions. Were danger singly the object of the mind's contemplation, fear, we think, would be the universal feeling ; but it may be danger connected with the siglit or the menaces of an insulting enemy Avho awakens burning resentment in the heart, and when anger rises fear is gone ; or it may be danger shared with fellow-com- batants, whose presence and observation kindle in the bosom the love of glory and impel to deeds of heroism — not because INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 257 any law which connects, and connects invariably, certain emo- tions with certain objects, is in any instance reversed or sus- pended ; but because, in this conflict and composition of moral I'orces, one emotion displaced another iVom the feelings, only, however, because one object displaced another from the thoughts. Still, in every instance, tlie object is the stepping-stone to the emotion — insomuch, that if we want to recall a certain emotion, we must recall to the mind that certain object which awakens it ; it' we want to cease from the emotion, we must cease from think- ing of its object, we must transfer the mind to other objects, or occupy it with other thoughts. 10. This connexion between the percipient faculties of the mind and its feelings, reveals to us a connexion between the intel- lectual and the moral departments of our nature. How the one is brought instrumentally to bear upon the other, will be after- wards explained. But meanwhile it is abundantly obvious, that the presence or the absence of certain feelings stands connected with the presence or the absence of certain thoughts. We can MO more break up the connexion between the thought of any object that is viewed mentally, and the feeling which it impresses on the heart, than we can break up the connexion between the sight of any object that is viewed materially, and the sensatioii which it impresses upon the retina. If we look singly and stead- fastly to an object of a particular colour, as red, there is an or- ganic necessity for the peculiar sensation of redness, from which we cannot escape, but by shutting our eyes, or turning them away to objects that are differently coloured. If we think singly and steadfastly on an object of a particular character, as an in- jvuy, there seems an organic necessity also for the peculiar emo- tion of resentment, from which there appears to be no other way of escaping, than by stifling the thought, or turning the mind away to other objects of contemplation. Now we hear both of virtuous emotions and of vicious emotions ; and it is of capital importance to know how to retain the one and to exclude the other — which is by dwelling in thought on the objects that awaken the former, and discharging from thought the objects that awaken the latter. And so it is by thinking in a certain way that wrong sensibilities are avoided, and right sensibilities are upholden. It is by keeping up a remembrance of the kindness, that we keep up the emotion of gratitude. It is by forgetting the provocation, that we cease from the emotion of anger. It is by reflecting on the misery of a fellow creature in its vivid and affecting details, that pity is called forth. It is by meditating on the perfections of the Godhead, that we cherish and keep ahve our reverence for the highest virtue and our loTe for the highest goodness. In one 22* 258 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE word, thought is at once the harbinger and the sustainer of feehng : and this, of itself, forms an important hnk of communication be- tween the intellectual and the moral departments of our nature. 11. We shall not be able to complete our viev.s, either on the moral character of the emotions, or their dependence on the per- cipient faculties of the mind, until we have established a certain ulterior principle which comes afterwards into notice. Neither do we now expatiate on their uses, of v, hich we have already given sufficient specimens, in our treatm.ent of the special affec- tions. We would only remark at present, on their vast impor- tance to human happiness — seeing that a state of mental happi- ness cannot even be so much as im.agined without a state of emotion. They are (he emotions, in fact, and the external affec- tions together, which share between them the whole interest, whether pleasurable or painful, of human existence. And what a vivid and varied interest that is, may be rendered evident, by a mere repetition of those words which compose the nomenclature of our feelings — as hope, and fear, and grief, and joy, and love diversified into so many separate affections tov»'ards wealth, fame, power, knowledge, and all the other objects of human desire, L^e- sides the tasteful and benevolent emotions — which altogether keep their unremitting play in the heart, and sustain or fill up the continuity of our sensible being. It says enough for the adap- tation of external nature to a mental constitution so complexly and variously endowed, that numerous as these susceptibilities are, the world is crowded with objects, that keep them in full and busy occupation. The details of this contemplation are inex- haustible ; and we are not sure but that the general lesson of the Divine care or Divine benevolence, which may be founded u[)on these, could be more effectually learned by a close attention of the mind upon one specific instance, than by a complete enume- ration of all the instances, with at the same time only a briefer and slighter notice of each of them. 12. And it would make the lesson all the more impressive, if, instead of selecting as our example, an emotion of very exalted character, and of which the influence on human enjoyment stood forth in bright daylight to the observation of all, such as the sen- sibility of a heart that was feelingly alive to the calls of benevo- lence, or feehngly alive to the beauties of nature — v»e should take for our case some other kind of emotion, so common perhaps as to be ignobly familiar, and on which one would scarcely think of constructing aught so dignified or so serious as a theological ar- gument. Yet we cannot help thinking, that it most emphatically tells us of the teeming, the profuse benevolence of the Deity — when we reflect on those homelier and those every-day so^irces, INTELLECT AND THE EMOTIONS. 259 out of which, the whole of human hie, through the successive hours of it, is seasoned witli enjoyment ; and a most agreeable zest is imparted from tliem, to the ordinary occasions of converse and companionship amont; men. When the love of novelty finds I in the walks of science the gratification that is suited to it, we ( can reason gravely on the final cause of the emotion, and speak of the purpose of Nature, or rather of the Author of Nature, in having iuslitutcd such a reward for intellectual labour. But we lose sight of all the wisdom and all the goodness that are con- nected with this mental ordination — when the very same prin- ciple, which, in the lofty and liberal savant, we call the love of novelty, becomes, in the plain and ordinary citizen, the love of news. Yet in this humbler and commonplace form, it is need- less to say, how prolific it is of enjoyment — giving an edge as it were to the whole of one's conscious existence, and its principal charm to the innocent and enlivening gossip of every social party. Perhaps a still more effective exemj)lification may be had in another emotion of this class, that which arises from our sense of the ludicrous — which so often ministers to the gaiety of man's heart, even when alone ; and which, when he congregates uith his fellows, is ever and anon breaking forth into some humo- rous conception, that infects alike the fancies of all, and finds vent in one common shout of ccstacy. Like every other emotion, it stands allied with a perception as its antecedent, the object of the perception in this instance being the conjunction of things I hat are incongruous with each other — on the first discovery or conception of which, the mirth begins to tumultuate in the heart of some one ; and on the first utterance of which, it passes with irrepressible sympathy into the hearts of all who are around him — whence it obtains the same ready discharge as before, in a loud and general efTervcscencc. To perceive how inexhaustible the source of this enjoyment is, we have only to think of it in con- nexion with its cause ; and then try to compute, if we can, all the possibilities of wayward deviation, from the sober literalities of truth and nature, whether in the shape of new imaginations by the mind of man, or of new combinations and events in actual history. It is thus that the pleasure connected with our sense of the ludicrous, forms one of the most current gratifications of human life; nor is it essential that there should be any rare pe- culiarity of mental conformation, in order to realize it. We find it the perennial source of a sort of gentle and quiet delectation, even to men of the most sober temperament, and whose habit is as remote as possible from that of fantastic levity, or wild and airy extravagance. When acquaintances meet together in the street, and hold colloquy for a few minutes, they may look grave 260 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE enough, if business or politics or some matter of serious in- telligence be the theme — yet how seldom do they part before some coruscation of playfulness has been struck out between them ; and the interview, though begun perhaps in sober earnest, but seldom passes off, without some pleasantry or other to en- liven it. We should not dwell so long on this part of the hu- man constitution, were there not so much of happiness and so aiuch of benevolence allied with it — as is obvious indeed from {he very synonymes, to which the language employed for the ex- ()ression of its various phenomena and feeling has given rise. To what else but to the pleasure we have in the ludicrous is it owing, that a ludicrous observation has been termed a pleasan- try ; or how but to the affinity between ha{>piness and mirth can ive ascribe it, that the two terms are often employed as equivalent to each other ; and whence but from the strong connexion which subsists between benevolence and humour can it be explained, fhat a man is said to be in good humour, when in a state of placid- ness and cordiality with all who are around him ? We are aware