was in our own power, and inaccessible to the strokes of fortune; and those, instead of instructing us to master and direct our passions, taught that we should be perpetually guarding against the occasions of them, treating the mind as Sanctorius did his body, who spent his life in guarding it from injury.

But inquiries into human happiness have not been abandoned to philosophers alone. Hints and reflections thereupon are to be met with every where, in prose works having no pretensions to great accuracy, in poems, plays, and even in daily conversation. In modern times, indeed, the subject has generally been considered merely as a popular one, perhaps as beneath the notice of persons of exalted attainments ; and while the appellation of men of science has been awarded to those who studied grubs and butterflies, it has often been denied to such as addicted themselves to morals and politics. But even when these were allowed to be real sciences, it seems mostly to have been overlooked that a higher and more general philosophy reigns over all branches of knowledge which especially relate to the actions of man, whether considered in his individual or in his social capacity. Attempts, as we have seen, were made by the ancients towards founding a philosophy of this description, but with no great success. Their systems differed as much among themselves, and were as partial as the opinions met with daily in the world.

And this brings me to remark a difficulty belonging to all moral science, but in a peculiar degree to that comprehensive one now to be treated of, and

which will sufficiently account for the great diversity of opinions here alluded to.

Those who cultivate other branches of human knowledge require a keen intellect, and that alone. The mathematician who reasons of number and quantity; the natural philosopher who calculates mechanical forces; the chemist who analyses earths and alkalis, and determines the laws of heat, and of all insensible motion; the geologist who attempts to discover the causes of the changes already undergone, or now in progress near the earth's surface; the physiologist who investigates the causes of life and death and the functions of every organ in the body; even the metaphysician, so far as he studies our intellectual nature alone; lastly, the natural historian, who examines, describes, and classifies every mineral, vegetable, and animal, all have to do with objects cognizable by the intellect or the senses. Not so the moral philosopher. The grand end which he has in view is happiness, and happiness to be known must be felt. If it be allowed that no description could possibly give to a man born blind or deaf any clear notion of colours or of sounds, it must equally be true that no one could form any idea of an emotion which he had never at all felt. How should we proceed to give such an one a conception of beauty or sublimity, of love, hatred, or ambition? In vain should we heap words upon words till we had exhausted all the riches of language, for his mind would remain as before, dead to all notions of the sort. The only way in which we could succeed in opening the avenues of his heart would be to bring him to a spot commanding a

beautiful prospect, or place him in situations fit to call forth the passions. If still he should prove insensible, we would give up the case as hopeless. We should consider him as a moral anomaly cut off by natural deficiency, not only from the principal sources of enjoyment, but from the means of acquiring knowledge. He might, indeed, pursue one or other of the sciences above enumerated, and even attain to eminence, supposing the passion of curiosity not to be extinct with the rest; but were he to attempt moral subjects, he would instantly appear wanting in the first elements of success. He might often have read of love and ambition, and might even write down the words on his pages, but it is clear he could know nothing about them. By carefully attending to what others had said, he might be able to conceal his ignorance, and so compose a plausible book, but it could not add a tittle to the sum of information we before possessed. Now what is true of a person such as we have here imagined must apply in a less degree to many individuals in the world. Some have intellects of a high order, and yet are very deficient in sensibility or delicacy of feeling; so that when they come to reason on human happiness, they are sure to form some very partial system at best, if it be not quite erroneous. Here their intellect stands them in no stead from the want of data to go upon. Not being able to conceive what they have never felt, they are ignorant of all sorts of felicity except a few, and to these, therefore, they turn their attention, neglecting all the rest. Of this we have a very remarkable instance in Hobbes, a man of the highest order of

intellect, but who from want of sensibility composed a false and narrow system of morals. The same observation, though in a very modified degree, is applicable to one of the greatest philosophers of our day, Jeremy Bentham. It would be the utmost injustice to compare his moral writings with those of Hobbes; but it is nevertheless certain, that they often evince a want of knowledge of the human heart, and take a confined estimate of the various sources of enjoyment open to mankind. One who could consider poetry and the fine arts as no more useful than the game of solitaire or tee-totum, must be allowed to have been deficient in that comprehensive sensibility so necessary in moral science. Nor are intellect and delicacy of feeling alone sufficient. A man may be capable of feeling, and may have actually felt to a certain extent every emotion of which human nature is susceptible, but it is impossible that he can have experienced them all in great intensity. It is necessary, however, that he should be able to conceive them existing in every possible degree of force, otherwise his estimate of their influence on action and happiness will be imperfect. Now imagination alone can disclose this new world to his view, and can magnify passions weak in himself, till they rise before him in all their strength and majesty. Herein lies the art of all great dramatic writers and actors. Obedient to the call of fancy, the gates of the mind fly wide open before them, and allow them to see the inmost recesses of the heart. They do not reason about the passions, but they can imagine what they are, and know practically, though not theoretically, on what occasions

they are apt to be called forth. So ought the moral philosopher.

Here then is the grand difficulty of this branch of knowledge. It requires a combination of qualities very rarely to be met with, Intellect, Sensibility, Imagination, all in a high degree. If we cannot be surprised that monks and schoolmen who passed their lives in cloisters should have had very narrow notions on the subject, removed, as they were, from the busy world, from the society of women, and from all domestic ties and endearments, we must allow that those philosophers who spend most of their time in their closets, who lead either a solitary existence, or one confined to a few intimates, and whose social affections have been little cultivated, are on these accounts peculiarly unfitted for laying down plans of human happiness. How can any one give comprehensive views of happiness, without a mind so framed as to feel enjoyments of different kinds, and imagine them stronger or weaker in others? Could he who was dead to the pleasures of the affection and the imagination form any just estimate of their importance? This is evidently impossible.

The same difference of feeling and dulness of imagination in men explain what has often been observed, that one half of mankind pass their lives in wondering at the pursuits of the other. Not being able either to feel or to fancy the pleasure derived from other sources than their own, they consider the rest of the world as little better than fools, who follow empty baubles. They hug themselves as the only wise, while in truth they are only narrow-minded.