The Saviour of men "became flesh, and dwelt among us,' ,"the flagrant evils that abound in the world, and when open because no violence could be done, even on the most urgent impiety and unbelief are to be reproved, we should use a seand singular of all occasions, to the established principles of rious severity; but then, when we turn homeward, shall we the moral system. The harmony of the intellectual world, in at once moderate our tones, and drop our voice, and plead for the constitution of which the Divine Wisdom is so signally a sort of indulgence, as the favourites of heaven, which we displayed, must not be disturbed, notwithstanding that the are by no means forward to grant to the uninstructed and irreEternal Majesty himself was coming to the rescue of the ligious portion of mankind! Shall our thunders always have lost; and in this illustrious instance we have a proof, appli- a distant aim? Alas! how many generations of men have cable to every imaginable case, and always sufficient to con- already lived and died untaught, while the Church has delivince us-That the saving mercy of God to man moves only cately smothered her failings, and has asked for an inobser along the line of rational and moral agency;—that if a sinner vant reverence from the profane world! True it is that the is to be "converted from the error of his way," it must be by vices of heathens and infidels are grievous; but it is also true the word or personal influence of one like himself. Was it that the vices of the Church, if much less flagrant, and less not (other purposes being granted) to give sanction to this mischievous in their immediate operation, are loaded with a very mode of procedure, that he who "was rich" in the ful- peculiar aggravation, inasmuch as they destroy or impair the ness of divine perfections, "became poor," that we, through ONLY EXISTING MEANS for the repression and extermination of the poverty of his human nature, "might be made rich?" all error and all vice!

Vain supposition then that God, who would not at first save If then the alleged dependence of the religious welfare of the world at the cost, or to the damage of the settled maxims mankind upon the vigor and purity of the Christian body be of his government, shall in after instances wave them; or put real, we find a full apology for whatever methods (even the contempt in private cases upon that to which he attributed most rigorous) that may conduce to its cleansing. All we the highest importance on the most notable of all occasions! need take care of is the spirit and intention of our reproofs. Christianity, such as it actually exists in the bosoms of Should there be any, calling himself a disciple of Christ, who those who entertain it, is the Instrument of God's mercy to would protest against such impartial proceedings, he might the world :—and the Effect in every age will be as is the In- properly be told that the inquiry in hand is too momentous, strument. In these times we have not quite lost sight of this and is far too extensive in its consequences, than that it great principle; much less do we deny it :-and yet every should be either diverted or relinquished in deference to the day we give more attention to other truths, than to this. We feelings or interests of the parties immediately concerned.honour the capital doctrine of the agency of the Spirit of Be it so,' we might say to the reluctant and faulty Christian, Grace in the conversion of men; and then we turn to proxi- be it so, that your spiritual delinquencies are not of so fatal a mate and visible means, and pay due regard to all the ordi-kind as to put in danger your personal salvation (an assump nary instruments of instruction. And thus having rendered tion, by the way, always hazardous) and let it be granted homage in just proportion, to the Divine Power and sove- that you are chargeable only with certain infirmities of judg reignty on the one hand, and to human industry on the other, ment, or with mere exuberances in temper or conduct;-yes, we think too little of that Middle Truth which, nevertheless, but these faults in you, as a Christian, and especially at the to ourselves is the most significant of the three, namely-That present critical moment, exert a negative power, the circle of the moral and intelligent imstrumentality from the which the which none can measure. Can you then desire that we Sovereign Grace refuses to sever itself, is nothing else than should exercise a scrupulous tenderness toward you, while the vital force which animates each single believer. we forget pity towards the millions of mankind? Nay, Does not the Omnipresent Spirit, rich in power to renovate rather, let every instrument of correction, and the most severe, human hearts, even now brood over the populous plains and be put in play, which may seem needful for restoring its procrowded cities of India and of China, as well as over the per force to the Gospel-the only means as it is of mercy to cities and plains of England? Is not God-even our God, the world. No, we must not flinch, although the sensitivelocally present among the dense myriads that tread the pre-ness and the vanity of thousands among us were to be intensecincts of idol worship?-Is He not ever, and in all places at ly hurt. Let all-all be humbled, if such humiliation is indeed hand; and wherever at hand, able also to save? Yes, but a necessary process that shall facilitate the conversion of the alas! the moral and rational instrumentality is not present in world.

those dark places; and the immutable law of the spiritual| Such then is the prime motive which should animate the world forbids that, apart from this system of means, the souls difficult labour we have in hand. But there are other reaof men should be rescued. sons, nor those very remote, that may properly be kept in

Nor is the bare presence of the moral and rational instru-view when it is attempted, as now, to lay bare the pernicious ment of conversion enough; for its POWER resides in its sentiments that have so often and so severely afflicted manQUALITY. The very same law-awful and inviolable, which kind.-If, just at the present moment, there seems little or demands its presence, demands also its quality, as the condi- no probability that sanguinary and malignant superstitions tion of its efficiency. Yes, indeed, awful and inviolable should regain their lost ascendancy, can we say it is certain law;-awful because inviolable; and awful to the Church, that no such evils, congruous as they are with the universal because it makes the salvation to mankind, in each suc- passions of man, shall henceforth be generated, and burst cessive generation, to lean with undivided stress, upon the abroad? Manifest as it is that the human mind has a leanpurity and vigor of faith and charity, as found in the hearts of ing toward gloomy and cruel excesses in matters of religion, the Christians of each age, severally and collectively! whence can we derive a firm persuasion that this tendency

There might, we grant, seem more urgent need to make in- shall, in all future ages, be held as much in check as now it quiry concerning the intrinsic condition of the Christian body is ?-Not surely from broad and comprehensive calculations, in those times when its diffusive influence had sunk to the such as a sound philosophy authenticates. The supposition lowest point, or seemed quite to have failed, than when this that human nature has forever discarded certain powerful influence was growing. And yet, inasmuch as hope is a mo-emotions which awhile ago raged within its circle, must be tive imcomparably more efficacious than despondency, we deemed frivolous and absurd. How soon may we be should be prompt to avail ourselves of its aid whenever it taught to estimate more wisely the forces we have to guard makes its auspicious appearance. But the present hour is an against in our political and religious speculations! The hour of hope; let us then seize the fair occasion, and turn it frigid indifference and levity we see around us is but the to the utmost advantage. This age of expectation is the time fashion of a day; and a day may see it exchanged for the ut when vigilance and scrutiny, of every sort, should be put in most extravagance, and for the highest frenzy of fanatical movement, and should be directed inward upon the Church zeal. Human nature, let us be assured, is a more profound itself: for in the bosom of the Church rests the hope of the and boisterous element than we are apt to imagine, when it has happened to us for a length of time to stand upon the

conversion of the world?

How culpable, then, and how ignoble too, must we deem brink of the abyss in a summer season, idly gazing upon the that spirit of jealousy or reluctance which would divert such rippled surface-gay in froth and sunbeams. What shall be a scrutiny, as if the honour of the Gospel were better secured the movements of the deep, and what the thunder of its rage, by cloaking the faults of its adherents, than by labouring to at night-fall, and when the winds are up!

dispel them! Shall we, as Christians, wish to creep under Nothing less than the ample testimony of history can sup the shelter of a corrupt lenity? Shall we secretly wish that port general conclusions as to what is probable or not, in the the time may never come-or at least, not come while we live, course of events. And yet even the events of the last few when the inveterate and deep-seated errors of the religious years might be enough to prove that mankind, whatever may body shall be fairly dealt with, and honestly spread to the be the boasted advance of civilization, has by no means outlight? It may indeed be true that when we have to denounce grown its propensity to indulge vindictive passions. Or can

we have looked around during our own era, and believe that influence that will probably out-measure the accession we the fascinations of impudent imposture and egregious delusion may make of personal power? It is only on particular occaare quite spent and gone? Rather let it be assumed as pro- sions that we regulate our conduct, or repress the violence of bable, at least as not impossible, that whatever intemperance, passion by self-derived inferences from what we know; while whatever atrocity, whatever folly, history lays to the charge ordinarily and almost unconsciously, we apply to our modes of man, shall be repeated, perhaps in our own age, perhaps of action and to our sentiments, those general maxims that in the next. float in the society of which we are members. If every The security which some may presume upon, against the man's personal intelligence absolutely governed his behareappearance of religious excesses, if founded on the pres-viour, the empire of knowledge would indeed be much more ent diffusion of intellectual and Biblical light, is likely to firm than it is, because truth would take effect at all points of prove fallacious in two capital respects. In the first place, the surface of society, instead of touching only a few. But the inference is faulty because this spread of knowledge (in this not being the fact, whatever blind impulse awakens the both kinds) though indeed wide and remarkable-or remark- passions of mankind affects all, individually, in a degree that able by comparison, is still in fact very limited, and its range bears little relation to the individual intelligence of each. bears an inconsiderable proportion to the broad surface of soci-The movements of a community when once excited, are far ety, even in the most enlightened communities. If a certain more passionate and less rational, than an estimate of its number has reached that degree of intelligence which may be average intelligence might lead us to expect. reckoned to exclude altogether the probability of violent If it be so, it must happen that when once a turn is made movements, the dense masses of society, on all sides, have in the general tendency of men's feelings-when once a cerhitherto scarcely been blessed by a ray of genuine illumina-tain order of sentiment, or a certain course of conduct has tion; moreover, there is in our own country, and in every come to be authenticated;-if, for example, some dark, cruel, country of Europe, a numerous middle class, whose progress or profligate rule of policy is assented to as necessary or in knowledge is of that sort which, while it fails to insure just, all men in particular, in yielding themselves to the moderation or control of the passions, renders the mind only stream of affairs, will plunge into it with an impetuosity proso much the more susceptible of imaginative excitements. portioned to their personal intelligence and energy of mind. Torpor, it is true, has to a great extent been dispelled from Every man in assenting to the general conclusion, because the European social system; but who shall say in what assented to by others, would strengthen himself and others, manner, or to what purposes, the returning powers of in the common purpose, by all those means of knowledge life shall be employed? In now looking upon the popu- and powers of argument which he possessed. If the error lace of the civilized world, such as the revolutionary ex- or extravagance had been his own, exclusively, his faculty citements of the last fifty years have made it, one might fancy and furniture of mind would have been employed in defendto see a creature of gigantic proportions just rousing itself, ing himself from the assaults of other men's good sense; and after a long trance, and preparing to move and act among the human nature does not, under such circumstances, often living. But, what shall be its deeds, and what its tem- accumulate such force. But the same faculties moving forper ?—The most opposite expectations might be made to ap- ward with the multitude, on a broad triumphant road, swell pear reasonable. Every thing favourable may be hoped and expand and possess themselves of the full dominion of for ;-whatever is appalling may be feared. At least we the soul.

may affirm that the belief entertained by some, that great agi- At this present moment of general indifference the breaktations may not again produce great excesses; or that egre- ing forth of any species of fanaticism may seem highly gious delusions may not once more, even on the illuminated improbable. We ought however to look beyond to-day and field of European affairs, draw after them, as in other ages, yesterday; we should survey the general face of history, myriads of votaries, rests upon no solid grounds of experience and should inspect too the depths of the human heart, and or philosophy, and will be adopted only by those who judge calculate the power of its stronger passions. Disbelief is of human nature from partial or transient aspects, or who the ephemeron of our times; but disbelief, far from being think that the frivolous incidents of yesterday and to-day natural to man, can never be more than a reaction that comes afford a sufficient sample of all Time. on, as a faintness, after a season of credulity and supersti

But a persuasion of this sort, founded on the spread of in- tion. And how soon may a revulsion take place! How telligence, whether secular or religious, seems faulty in an- soon, after the hour of exhaustion has gone by, may the other manner-namely, in attributing to knowledge, of either pleasurable excitements of high belief and of unbounded confikind, more influence than it is actually found to exert over dence be eagerly courted!-courted by the vulgar in complithe passions and the imagination of the bulk of mankind. ance with its relish of whatever is pungent and intense;— Education does indeed produce, in full, its proper effect to courted by the noble as a means, or as a pretext of power;moderate the emotions, and as a preservative against delu- courted by the frivolous as a relief from lassitude; and by sion, in cold, arid, and calculating spirits; and it exerts also, the profound and thoughtful, as the proper element of minds in a good degree, the same sort of salutary influence over of that order!

even the most turbulent or susceptible minds, up to that Whenever the turn of BELIEF shall come round (we are critical moment when the ordinary counterpoise of reason is not here speaking of a genuine religious faith), empassioned overborne, and when some paramount motive gains ascend- sentiments, of all kinds, will follow without delay: nor can ancy. This sudden overthrow of restraining principles-an any thing less than a revival of Christianity in its fullest overthrow to which sanguine and imaginative temperaments force then avail to ward off those excesses of fanaticism and are always liable, is not often duly allowed for when it is intolerance, and spiritual arrogance, which heretofore have attempted to forecast the course of human affairs. We form raged in the world. The connexion of CREDULITY With VIRUour estimate of moral causes according to that rate of power LENCE is deep seated in the principles of human nature, and at which we observe them now to be moving; but fail to it should not be deemed impertinent or unseasonable at any anticipate what they shall become, perhaps the next instant, time to attempt to trace to its origin this order of sentiments, that is to say, when existing restraints of usage or feeling or to lay bare the fibres of its strength :-unless, indeed, we have been burst asunder. will profess to think that man is no more what once he was.

SECTION II.

THE MEANING OF TERMS-RISE OF THE MALIGN EMOTIONS.

The rush of the passions, on such occasions, is impetuous, just in proportion to the force that may have been overthrown; and whatever has given way before the torrent, goes forward to swell the tide. There are those who, from their personal history, might confirm the truth that, when they have fallen, their fall was aggravated, not softened, by whatever advantages they possessed of intelligence or sensibility. And it is especially to be observed that, when the balance of the mind has once been lost, the power of intelligence or of knowledge to enhance the vehemence of malignant emo- Every term, whether popular or scientific, which may be tions, or to exaggerate preposterous conceits, is immeasura- employed to designate the affections or the individual dispobly greater on occasions of general excitement, or of public sitions of the human mind, is more or less indeterminate, delusion, than in the instance of private and individual errors. and is liable to many loose and improper extensions of the Whence in fact does knowledge draw the chief part of its sense which a strict definition might assign to it. This discontrolling force over the mind, but from the susceptibility it advantage-the irremediable grievance of intellectual philosengenders to the opinions of those around us? In entering ophy, has its origin in the obscurity and intricacy of the the commonwealth of intelligence, do we not come under an subject; and is besides much aggravated by the changing

fashions of speech, which neither observe scientific precision, (once and again) at some of the ancient and long-obsolete nor are watched over with any care. Men speak not entirely forms of religious extravagance, it is with the modern species as they think; but as they think and hear; and in what (practical inferences being our prime object) that we shall, in relates to things impalpable few either think or hear atten- the following pages, chiefly be conversant. tively. All ethical and religious phrases, and those psycho- In a former instance (Natural History of Euthusiasm) the logical terms which derive their specific sense from the author was not insensible of the disadvantage he laboured principles of religion, besides partaking fully of the above- under in adopting a phrase which perhaps more than any named disparagements, common to intellectual subjects, la- other (the one he has now to do with excepted) is employed bour under a peculiar inconvenience, not shared by any in every imaginable diversity of meaning, and to which, in others of that class. For if the mass of men are inaccurate truth, every man, as he utters it, assigns a sense that reflects and capricious in their mode of employing the abstruse por- his personal rate of feeling in matters of religion. One man's tion of language, they entertain too often, in what relates to Enthusiasm being only another man's Sobriety. Before religion, certain capital errors-errors which ordinarily pos- such diversities can be harmonized not only must mankind sess the force and activity of virulent prejudices, and which be taught to think with precision, but must come also to an impart to their modes of speaking, not indistinctness indeed, agreement on the great principles of piety. but the vivid and positive colours of a strong delusion. Discordances, still more extreme, belong to the popular It is not the small minority of persons soundly informed senses of the word FANATICISM; for inasmuch as it takes up in matters of religion, that gives law to the language of a a more pungent element than the term Enthusiasm, it comcountry; or even if it did, this class is not generally quali-monly draws some special emphasis from the virulence or fied, by habits or education, to fix and authenticate a philo- prejudices of the mouth whence it issues:-the word is the sophical nomenclature. From these peculiar disadvantages favourite missile of that opprobrious contempt wherewith it inevitably follows that when, by giving attention to facts, Irreligion defends itself in its difficult position; and it is we have obtained precise notions on subjects of this sort, or hurled often with the indiscriminate vehemence that belongs at least have approximated to truth, it will be found imprac- to infuriate fear. The sense attached to a term when so emticable to adjust the result of our inquiries to the popular ployed must of course differ immensely from that which it and established sense of any of the terms which may offer bears in the mind of the dispassionate observer of mankind, themselves to our option. The mass of mankind, besides and especially of one who takes up the truths of Christianity their backwardness always to exchange a loose and vague, as the best and most certain clew to the philosophy of human for a definite and restricted notion, do not fail to descry, in nature.

any definition that is at once philosophical and religious, Once for all, then, the author requests the reader to rememsome cause of offence. The new-sharpened phrase is felt to ber that he is not professing to be either lexicographer or have an edge that wounds inveterate prejudice, and rankles scholastic disputant; nor does he assume it as any part of his in the heart; and the writer who is seen to be thus whetting business to adjust the nice proprieties of language; but aims afresh his words, is deemed to entertain a hostile purpose, rather, on a very important subject, to make himself underand is met with a correspondent hostility. Nor is much stood, while he describes a certain class of pernicious sentimore favour to be looked for from the religious classes who, ments, which too often have been combined with religious always alarmed at the slightest change in venerable modes belief. In another volume spurious and imaginative religious of speech, will scent a heresy in every such definition. emotions were spoken off: our present task is to describe the If then new terms are not to be created (a procedure al- various combinations of THE SAME SPURIOUS PIETISM with the ways undesirable), and if the intolerable inconvenience of a MALIGN PASSIONS.

ponderous periphrasis is also to be avoided, the best that can After quite rejecting from our account that opprobrious be done, amid so many difficulties, is to select a phrase sense of the word Fanaticism which the. virulent calumniator which, more nearly than any other (of those commonly in of religion and of the religious assigns to it, it will be found, use) conveys the notion we have obtained; and then to ap-as we believe, that the elementary idea attaching to the term pend a caution, explicit or implied, against the misunder-in its manifold applications, is that of fictitious fervour in relistandings to which the writer, from the peculiar circumstances gion, rendered turbulent, morose or rancorous, by junction of the case, is exposed. with some one or more of the unsocial emotions. Or, if a In the instance of every term connected with religious definition as brief as possible were demanded, we should say, principles or modes of feeling, there must of course be ad- that FANATICISM IS ENTHUSIASM INFLAMED BY HATRED. mitted a far wider departure from the etymological or ancient, A glance at the rise and reason of the irascible emotions than from the modern and popular sense they bear. If the will facilitate our future progress. Our subject being an inrecent and vulgar meaning of such phrases be incorrect, or stance of the combination of these emotions with other prindelusive, how much more so must be the remote and original ciples, we ought distinctly to have in view the elements; and meaning!-Whither does the etymon carry us, but to alto- to note also some of their coalescent forms. gether a foreign region of thought? In matters of religion The difficulty that attends analysis in the science of mind a revolution has taken place, upon all lettered nations, which, (science so called) belongs in a peculiar manner to those inwhile it leaves human nature the same, has imparted a new stances in which we endeavour to trace the original construcsubstance, a new form, and a new relative position, to every tion of passions or impulses that scarcely ever present themnotion that respects Invisible Power, and human conduct. selves otherwise than in an exaggerated and corrupted Preposterous therefore would be the pedantry of a writer condition. It is usual, if an object of philosophic curiosity who, in discoursing, for example, of Superstition, or Enthusi- be obscure or evanescent, to single out for examination the asm, should confine himself to such a definition of those most marked examples of the class. But to take this course terms as might comport with the sense they bore, centuries in an analysis of the passions is to seek for primitive eleago, in the minds of Lucian, Plutarch, Epictetus, or Aristotle! ments where most they have lost their original form, and have Even many of the less fluctuating ethical abstractions have suffered the most injury.

dropped almost the whole of their primeval significance in What the contour and symmetry of the moral form was, as the course of ages. Is Justice, in the sense of an Athenian it came from the hand of the Creator, may be more readily populace, or in the sense of the "Senate and People of determined in the dry method of ethical definition, than vividly Rome," the justice either of English law, or of English conceived of; and this is especially true of those emotions opinion? Has the Virtue of Sparta much analogy with the which imply the presence of evil. How delicate is the task virtue of Christian ethics? Where, in modern times (except if indeed it be a practicable one, to trace the line between indeed among the slaveholders of Republican America) where nature (in the best sense) and deformity-between the true shall we find a meaning of the word Liberty which has even and false, in these instances! And yet, not the most rancora remote resemblance to the sense attached to it by the fero-ous or foul of the malign sentiments can be thought any thing cious lords of miserable Lacedæmonian helots? else than a disordered state of some power indispensable to The passions of man are permanent; but the difference be- the constitution of a rational and independent agent. We tween polytheism and true theology-how much soever true need then take care lest, in our haste to condemn what is evil, theology may in any instance be encumbered or obscured, is we should denounce as such that of which God himself is so vast, as to leave nothing that belongs to the circle of reli- author, and which, if we think closely, cannot even be congious emotion unchanged. ceived of as altogether wanting in a being placed where man

Thus it is that the FANATIC of the Grecian and Roman is placed. writers is hardly, if at all, to be recognized as predecessor of Within a certain line there can however be no difficulty in the Fanatic of Christendom; and although, for purposes of deciding between good and evil. It is quite obvious that a illustration, or of mere curiosity, we may hereafter glance passion or appetite, subservient to some specific purpose, is

in an irregular state when it overpasses or fails to secure sudden peril is gone by. Malign dispositions and vindictive that purpose; the end must give law to the means; and habits are, shall we say, miserable incumbrances of the mind; where the end may clearly be defined, the limit which the as if a man would sustain the load of bulky armour, night means should reach is not hard to ascertain. Either by and day, and carry shield and lance, though probably he will EXCESS and too great intensity-or by PERVERSION, or mis- not encounter a foe once in the year. The checks of opinion, direction from their proper object-or by PROLONGATION from the motives of mutual interest; and at last the provisions of momentary impulses to habits and permanent qualities, as law, and the arm of the body politic, are in readiness to dewell the animal appetites as the irascible passions assume a fend us from every aggression, those only excepted which pernicious form, and derange the harmony of nature. must be repelled at the instant they are made, or not at Which of the emotions or desires is it that may justly all. claim to be not subservient, but paramount, and may therefore That brisk excitement of the faculties which a sudden safely be prolonged, and impart themselves as qualities to perception of danger occasions, not merely bears proportion the mind. Nature distinctly informs us, by rendering them to the nearness and extent of the peril, but has a relation to always agreeable; while some uneasiness, or even positive its quality and its supposed origin. This excitement, to pain, is attached to the continuance of every one of those answer its end, must possess an affinity with the aggressive feelings which, in her intention, are only to measure out a cause. The repellant power must be such as is the assailmomentary occasion, and which ought to rise and disappear ant power. A quick sympathy with the hostile purpose of in the same hour. an antagonist belongs to the emotion at the impulse of which

It is thus, we need hardly say, with the bodily appetites, we are to withstand his attack. Simple ear, and its attendant which disturb the system (as well corporeal as mental) when-courage, are enough if the danger we have to meet arises ever they do more than accomplish their definite purpose. from material causes only; or if a mechanical injury is all Indispensable as these impulses are to the machiery of life, that is thought of. But anger, and the courage peculiar to they take a noxious quality when they are detained: their anger, is called up when MIND contends with MIND, that is to property should be to evaporate without residuum. Each, say, when an injury is to be warded off which (whether truly moreover, has its specific object, and throws every other so or not) we believe to spring from the inimical intention of function into disorder if it become fastidious; and each too a being like ourselves. In this case matter and its propermust observe its due amount of force. ties are forgotten, or are thought of as the mere instruments of the threatened harm, while we rouse ourselves to grapple, soul against soul with our foe.

The same is true of all forms of the irascible emotions, and which never go beyond their purpose, and especially can never pass into dispositions, without vitiating the character. Each For the very same reason that some knowledge, more or single instance of excessive excitement contributes, shall we less accurate, of the laws of matter (whether acquired by the say, the whole amount of its excess to the formation of a methods of science, or by common experience) is indispensahabit of the same class; and then these habits-emotions ble as our guide in avoiding or repelling physical evils, so is parted from their occasions, soon run into some sort of per- an intuition of motives necessary to our safety when it is a version, or become misdirected. Unoccupied desire strays hostile purpose that originates the danger we are exposed to. from its path, and attaches itself perniciously to whatever Successfully to resist an impending harm, we must rightly objects it may meet. It is thus that human nature subsides conceive of its occult cause.

into the most corrupted states. A certain mode of feeling is There may be those who would ask-"Why should we generated, of the utter unreasonableness of which the mind is suppose these irascible emotions, liable as they are to abuse, dimly conscious, and to rid itself of the uneasy sense of and destructive as they often become, to be original ingredi being absurd, rushes on towards sentiments still more pre-dients of our nature; or why needs man be furnished with posterous, that by their aid it may quite surround itself with any impulses more potent or complex than those given him false impressions, and lose all recollection of calm truths. as a defence against physical injuries?" The answer is not As there is an intoxication of the animal appetites, so is there difficult.-An additional motive and a more vigorous spring is an intoxication of the malign passions; and perhaps if we needed in the one case which is not requisite in the other, could completely analyse some extreme instance of dark and because the danger in the one is of a far more recondite qualatrocious hatred-hatred when it constitues the fixed condi-ity than in the other, and demands a commensurate provision. tion of the soul, we should find that the miserable being has If, for our safety, we must know to what extent, at what disbecome what he is by the impulse of a perpetual endeavour to tances, and under what conditions, fire may destroy or tordrown self-reproach and inward contempt in deeper and deeper ment us; we must, for a like reason, know the nature, extent, draughts of the cup of poison. and conditions of the harm that may arise from the rage of a Up to that point where the subordinate principles of our furious man. Now it does not appear that the extreme exinature become transmuted into permanent qualities, impart-gency of the moment could be met in any way so efficaciously ing a character to the mind, it is easy to discern their reason—if at all, as by this sudden sympathy with the ill intention and propriety as constituents of the physical and moral life: of our enemy-a sympathy which, as by a flash of consciousnor can we fail to perceive that each is attended with a pro-ness, puts us into possession of his evil purpose. The rage vision for restraining it within due limits. Thus it is, as we or the malice of the aggressor, thus reflected (if dimly yet have said, that while the machinery of animal life is impell-truly) upon the imagination of whoever is its object, informs ed by the sense of pleasure which is attached to the brief him with the rapidity of lightning, of all he should prepare activity of the appetites, an admonitory uneasiness attends himself to meet. May we not properly admire the simplicity the excessive indulgence or protracted excitement of them. and the fitness of this machinery?

Consistently with this same regard to ulterior purposes, the It is quite another question, and one which does not now irascible emotions in their native state, are denied any attend-press upon us-Whence comes that first malignant purpose ant pleasurable sense; or at most so small an element of or hostile intention against which the irascible emotions are pleasure belongs to them, that the pain consequent upon their provided? Evil existing as it does, we are here concerned excess or their continuance is always paramount. The dash of only with the arrangement made for repelling it. Let it then gratification, if there be any, does but give momentary life to be remembered, that inasmuch as the hostile powers of MIND the rising energy, and then passes off. are far more pernicious, because more various, insidious and

The irascible passions can be allowed to have respect to pertinacious than those of matter (which can move only in a nothing beyond the preservation of life, or of its enjoyments, single direction) there is required more motive and more in those unforeseen occasions when no other means but an energy to resist them. Now this necessary accession of instantaneous exertion of more than the ordinary force, both power is, might we say, borrowed for the moment when it is of body and mind, and especially of the latter, could avail for wanted, by sympathy from the aggressor. He who rises in the purpose of defence:-anger is the safeguard of beings fatal rage upon his fellow, does, by the contrivance of nature, not housed, like the tortoise, within an impenetrable crust; and at the very instant of his violent act, put into the hand and if man had been born cased in iron, or were an ethereal of his victim a weapon that may actually avert the stroke. substance, he would probably have been furnished with no The vicious and exaggerated condition in which these paspassionate resentments. Nevertheless every good purpose sions usually present themselves (a condition accidental, not of such emotions has been answered when the faculties have necessary) should not prevent our assigning to the wisdom received that degree and kind of stimulus which the exi- and benignity of the Creator what conspicuously exhibits gency of the moment demanded; and their continuance must both. And surely it is becoming to us to rescue (if so we be always (if it were nothing worse) a waste and a perversion may speak) the praise of the Supreme in those instances of power; since the conservative ends they may seem to have where most it is obscured by the evils that have supervened in view are far more certainly secured by other means when the upon his work.

Yet all we see around us of the wisdom and benevolence life. All kinds of introverted mental action, even of the most of the Author of Nature, especially as displayed in the con- innocent sort, are more or less debilitating to both mind and stitution of the sentient orders, would stand contradicted if body, and trebly so when attended by powerful emotions. it appeared that passionate resentments were otherwise than Might it not be said, that health-both animal and intellecpainful. In fact we do not find them to be entertained as tual, is Emanative movement, or a progression from the cenmodes of gratification until after they have gone into the un- tre, outwards: and is not disease a movement in the reverse natural condition of permanent qualities; and even then the direction? Assuredly those vices are the most destructive, gratification, if such it can be called, is wrung out from the the most rancorous, and the most inveterate, which are pecuvery torments of the heart. When indeed these dark emotions liarly meditative, or the characteristic of which is rumination. have formed alliance with imaginative sentiments, they at By extending themselves beyond their immediate occasion, once lose a portion of their virulence, and borrow a sense of the irascible passions are quickly converted from acts into pleasure, which may become very vivid. Some remarka- habits. Thus anger becomes petulance or hatred :—wrath ble cases of this sort our proper subject will lead us to con- slides into cruelty; disgust into moroseness; dislike into ensider. vy; and at last the whole course of nature is "set on fire;" There is, however, an instance that may seem to be at va- or worse, undergoes the tortures of a slow and smothered riance with our assumptions; and it is one which should be combustion.

fairly looked at. Of what sort then is the pleasure of con- The transition of the passions from momentary energies to summated revenge; and whence does it spring?-or must settled dispositions, does not advance far (much less does it we trace it to the original constitution of the mind? To an- reach its completion) without the aid of what may be termed swer such a question we should go back to the elements of a reverberative process, not very difficult to be traced. That the moral sense. Let it then be remembered that this sense, quick sympathy which vivifies the impressions of anger, by indispensable as it is to rational agency and to responsibility, attributing an ill intention to him who assails us, accompaimplies, not only a consciousness of pleasure in the view of nies, and even in a higher degree, the same class of feelings what is good, benign, and generous; but an equal and cor- in their transmuted form of permanent sentiments. A malign respondent feeling (necessarily painful) towards the opposite temper imputes to an adversary, not a momentary hostility; qualities, whether of single actions or of character. We but an evil nature and a settled animosity like its own. The cannot so much as form a conception of a moral sense that supposition takes its measure and its quality from the sentishould possess one of these faculties apart from the other:-ment whence it springs; and as the irascible emotion has now as well suppose the eye to be percipient of light, but uncon- become a constant mood of the mind, so is malignant charscious of darkness. The power of approval is a nullity, if it acter made over and assigned to whoever is its object. Evil do not involve a power of disapproval and disgust. What passions at this stage, are fast attaining their maturity, and sort of languid and vague instinct were it, which, though ca- fail not soon to gain absolute mastery over the soul. The pable of high delight in the comtemplation of virtue and be- meditation of evil abroad, inflames evil at home: the infatuneficence, should look listlessly and without emotion upon ated being in idea challenges its adversary to take a lodgethe infliction of wanton torture, or upon acts of injustice, ment even within the palpitating ramparts of the heart, so fraud, or impurity? We may indeed imagine a world into that the conflict may go on as an intestine war at all hours, which no evils and no discords or deformities should gain and in all seasons: night does not part the combatants; nay admission; but it is impossible to conceive of sentient beings rather is it then that, like other savage natures which stalk endowed with faculties of pleasure, such as should involve forth from their lairs in the dark, envenomed hatreds (while no power of suffering. Whoever would be capable of exalt-children of peace are sleeping) wake up, and rend their prey. ed happiness must undergo the possibility of misery, equally If anger be simply painful, hatred involves the very subintense; or if the power of enjoyment be greater than the stance of misery. How should it then, we may ask, subsist power of suffering, the whole amount of the difference is just in the human mind, the first instinct of which is the desire of so much torpor, or so much relaxation. A sense or faculty happiness? Strong as is this instinct, it takes effect only may indeed be numbed or paralyzed; but although such under certain conditions. There are circumstances which damage should secure an exemption from pain, no one would impel us to hold even our love of enjoyment in abeyance, or boast of it as a natural perfection. which make us refuse to taste the least gratification until the

The sense of fitness, whence arises our acquiescence in disturbance of feeling that has happened is adjusted. Do not retributive proceedings, as well penal as remunerative, im- minds of a sensitive order repel every solicitation of pleasure plies an uneasiness not to be dismissed, or even an intense so long as one beloved suffers; and this, even when the obconsciousness of pain, so long as merited punishment is di-ject of fondness is far distant, and quite beyond the reach of verted, or delayed, or its ultimate arrival is held in doubt. any active service? The happiness of those we love, if inFew emotions, perhaps none, are more racking than that deed we be capable of love, is an indispensable condition of which attends the indeterminate delay of righteous retribu-Jour own. And there are other necessary conditions of pertion. And then, as every faculty of pleasure involves a lia-sonal peace, and some so inseparable from human nature that bility to pain, so does a sudden release from pain, mental or they can never be evaded. Of these we have already menbodily, bring with it a sensation which, if we must hesitate tioned that which belongs to the Retributive sentiment, and to call it pleasure, it will be hard to designate at all. Thus which forbids us to rest while the author of a wrong enjoys the extreme uneasiness that attends the delay of retribution, impunity.

is, when at length relieved by the infliction of due punish- A sort of fascination leads on the tortured soul that is the ment, followed by an emotion (very transient in benignant victim of these feelings in a double line; on the one hand it minds) which, if it may not be called pleasurable, must re- eagerly pursues its desire of revenge; and on the other, lamain undescribed. We have only to add that, as the exag-bours with indefatigable zeal to establish its own conviction gerations of self-love render the common desire of retribution of the malignant nature of its adversary. In its efforts to obIntense-shall we say intolerable, if self be the sufferer, so, tain this double satisfaction, it revolves hourly all evidences, and in the same degree, will the pleasurable sense of relief real or imaginary, of the innate atrocity of its foe; for if this he enhanced when, after a doubtful delay, ample retribution point were but fully settled, SELF would be cleared of the imalights on its victim. The continuance, or the brief duration putation of wrong, and the arrival of retribution would seem of this malign gratification might well be taken as a guage so much the more probable. But far from reaching a definite of the nobility or baseness of the mind that entertains it. If conclusion of this sort, with which it might rest satisfied, and a generous spirit admits at all any such emotion, it will refuse so return to the common enjoyment of life, the racked spirit to give it lodgment longer than a moment, and will gladly feels from day to day that the very cogitation of its doubt onreturn to sentiments of compassion and forgiveness. On the ly enhances the motives that give it force. Inflamed and incontrary, a mind, by disposition and habit rancorous, derives satiate, the distracted being returns ever and again to the salt from an achieved revenge a sweetness not soon spent, and stream that, at every draught, aggravates its thirst! In this which is resorted to year after year as a cordial. fever of the heart the assuagement of the inward torment by So jealous is Nature of her constitutions, that she rigorously the destruction of its adversary, is the only happiness it can visits every infringement of them. To revolve or entertain think of.

any desire at a distance from its due occasion, and in the ab- And yet even the most extreme and deplorable instances sence of its fit object, is always to undergo some degree of that could be adduced of the predominance of the malignant corruption of the faculties-a corruption which, if not check-passions, would serve to attest, at once, the excellence of the ed, spreads as a canker even through the powers of animal original constitution of human nature, and the indestructible property of its moral instincts. Not the most furious or irascible of men can indulge his passion until after he has attri

ὁ δὲ ὀργῆ ποιῶν πᾶς, ποιες λυπούμενος.