in regard to Mirabeau which is applicable here: "In the tribune he was immoveable. They who have seen him well know that no agitation in the assembly had the least effect upon him, and that he remained master of his temper even under the severest personal attacks. I once recollect to have heard him make a report upon the city of Marseilles. Each sentence was interrupted from the cote droit with low abuse; the words calumniator, liar, assassin, and rascal, were very prodigally lavished upon him. On a sudden he stopped, and with a honeyed accent, as if what he had stated had been most favourably received, 'I am waiting, gentlemen,' said he, 'until the fine compliments you are paying me are exhausted.'”*

§ 168. Illustrated from the prosecution of some general plan. We find further illustration and proof of that energy which is appropriate to the Will, in instances where individuals adopt and pursue, for a length of time, some general plan. Not unfrequently they fix upon an object which involves either their interest or their duty, and prosecute it with a perseverance and resolution which is truly astonishing. Nor is this state of things limited to those who have been elevated by rank, or have had the advantages of learning. It is often the case that we see this fixedness of purpose, this unalterable resolution, among those who have been greatly depressed by poverty, and who are ignorant as well as poor.

Not long since a poor Irish girl came to this country from her native land, for the purpose of making some provision, and obtaining a situation of greater comfort, for her depressed and suffering family. Alone and unprotected, and with a very small sum of money, she left the home of her father; travelled

*NOTE.-The reader will find an interesting statement, illustrative of this view of the subject, in Count Segur's History of the Expedition to Russia, book ix., ch. vi. It is an account of an interview between Napoleon and the German general Winzingerode. On the part of Napoleon the interview was violent and angry. But Segur very correctly remarks, "there was calculation even in his wrath."

on foot many miles to the city of Dublin; succeeded in obtaining a passage on board a vessel bound for Quebec, and ultimately found her way into the United States. She there pursued her object through longcontinued trial and suffering, until the smiles of a kind Providence rewarded her filial piety, and furnished the means which soon brought to her arms the beloved family she had left behind. Now here is a case in common life, without any artificial aids and excitement which can be supposed to have sustained it; and if we could open and expose to the view of the world the records of the suffering and virtuous poor, we should undoubtedly find many like it. "In the obscurity of retirement," says the author of Lacon, "amid the squalid poverty and revolting privations of a cottage, it has often been my lot to witness scenes of magnanimity and self-denial as much beyond the belief as the practice of the great; a heroism borrowing no support, either from the gaze of the many or the admiration of the few, yet flourishing amid ruins and on the confines of the grave; a spectacle as stupendous in the moral world as the Falls of Niagara in the natural." And can we explain this greatness of soul, this fixedness of purpose, this indomitable resolution, which is displayed in every condition of society, in humble as well as in elevated life, consistently with the supposition that the Will has no power?

But there are other facts of a higher character and a more general interest, as they involve the welfare, not only of individuals and families, but of whole classes of men. They are too numerous to be mentioned here; but they are recorded, and will long continue to be so, in the faithful register of grateful hearts. Are there not many individuals, who, like the benevolent Clarkson (whose history has already been referred to in a former chapter for another purpose), have fixed upon some plan of good-will to men, embracing a great variety and degree of effort, and have pursued it amid every form of trial and opposi

tion for years and tens of years? The individual just referred to proposed the simple object of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. To this one object he consecrated his life and all his powers. He permitted no opposition to divert him from his purpose. But amid great apathy of the public mind, and great opposition on the part of those who were personally interested in his defeat; amid the most arduous labours, attended with a thousand discouragements, and protracted for many years; in rebuke, and sickness, and sorrow, this one object was the star that guided him on, the light that sustained him, and which he followed without giving way to his trials or relaxing in the least from his efforts until it was secured.

§ 169. Subject illustrated from the first settlers of New England. The course of the first settlers of New England is an instance favourable for the illustration of the subject before us. Their simple object was to find a residence somewhere where they could live in the full and free exercise and enjoyment of their religion. And this was an object which, under the circumstances of the case, was not to be carried into effect without great firmness and perseverance. They left behind them, in their native country, a thousand objects which the world holds most dear. Despised and outcast, they came to these inhospitable shores in sorrow, and weakness, and poverty. They suffered from the want of provisions, from the prevalence of wasting sickness, from the storms and cold of winter, and from the watchful jealousy and hostility of the savage tribes. Though sincerely and ardently religious, it cannot be denied that they had their seasons of discouragement, and often feared and often doubted. But when all without was darkness, and when even the inward lights burned dimly, the high purpose which they had once deliberately and prayerfully formed remained unchanged. They held on by the anchor of a determined RESOLVE. So that it can be said with almost strict truth, that the Will sustained them when the Heart was broken.

§ 170. Illustrated by the fortitude exhibited by Savages. We might go on multiplying illustrations of this subject almost without number; drawn, too, from every class of men, and from every condition of society, savage as well as civilized. We have often thought that the life of the savage warrior furnished an interesting philosophical problem. Let the reader go with us a moment to yonder dark and boundless forest. Behold beneath the light of the uncertain and shuddering moon, the fire kindled which is destined to consume the victim taken in war. View him fastened to the stake, his flesh slowly consumed, and, as it is burning, torn piecemeal from his blackened bones. What inexpressible suffering! And yet this dark son of the forest, this poor ignorant child of nature, betrays no weakness of purpose, sheds no tear, utters no exclamation of impatience. His enemies can take from him his distant wigwam, his wife and children, his burning body, his expiring life; but the sudden death-song, rising loudly and triumphantly, is a proof that they have not taken, nor are they able to take from him, the firm resolve, the unconquerable Will.

Here are the facts which are presented before us; not all, indeed, which can be brought forward, and perhaps they are not those which are best adapted to our purpose; but, such as they are, they are undeniable. They are inscribed on every page of the history of the human race. And we may challenge philosophy or anything else satisfactorily to explain them, except on the ground of the innate energy, not merely of the mind as a whole, but specifically and especially of the faculty of the Will.

§ 171. On the self-determining power of the will.

It may, perhaps, be asked here, What meaning we attach to a form of expression, which it may sometimes be convenient to employ, namely, the self-determining power of the will? In view of that analysis which we have felt it necessary to make of the human mind, including what has been said of the two

great classes of motives which are immediately antecedent to and furnish a basis to the will's action, and in view also of the distinction made between liberty and power, we can attach but one meaning. The self-determining power of the will, as we understand it, cannot be made to mean anything more or otherwise than this, that the will, possessing, in the fact of its own existence, and as an element of that existence, the attribute of power, does of itself, in view of the different and sometimes conflicting motives around it, arbitrate, determine, or decide among them. In other words, and philosophically more exact, developing itself in action at its appropriate time, and standing central in the midst of the motive forces around it, and by virtue of that which is in itself, and not extraneous to itself, it simply acts in the time of its action; it simply decides in the time of its decision; and in this simplicity of action, with motives before it, and with nothing behind it but the sustaining power of God, it fulfils the great unitive and executive function which God and nature have assigned it.

CHAPTER III.

DIFFERENCES OF VOLITIONAL POWER.

§ 172. Differences in volitional power seldom noticed. THERE is one aspect in which this subject remains to be contemplated, which may tend to throw some light on what has already been stated under the general head of Power of the Will; we refer to DIFFERENCES OF VOLUNTARY POWER. This is a view of the human mind which has seldom, owing perhaps to erroneous or indistinct views on the whole subject of mental power, received that attention to which it appears to be entitled. It is no uncommon thing to hear remarks made upon differences of strength in the passions of men, or in their faculties of perception and reasoning, but it is exceedingly seldom that we notice anything said in explanation of differences in the ca