buted an ill intention to the object of his wrath. To be angry constituted as to detest only what he thinks to be evil? The with that which is seen and confessed to be innoxious or de- fact indeed is appalling, that rational agents should any where void of hostile feeling, is a reach of malignity that lies be-exist who can set themselves in array against the source and yond the range of human passions, even when most corrupted centre of all perfection. But how much more appalling, nay, or most inflamed. How else can we account for the absurd how horrible a thing were it, to find any beings whose nature use which the angry man makes of the prosopopæia when he allowed them to hate the Sovereign Goodness without first happens to be hurt, torn or opposed by an inanimate object: defaming it!

the stone, the steel, the timber, which has given him a fall, The lower we descend into the depths of the malignant or has obstructed his impatience, he curses on the hypothesis passions, the more striking are the proofs we meet with of the that it is conscious and inimical: nay, he would fain breathe vigour of the prime principles of the moral life. There are, a soul into the senseless mass, that he might the more reason-alas! scarcely any bounds to the degree of corruption or deably revile and crush it. pravity which man may reach, but corruption or decay is And so, when hatred has become the settled temper of the something far less than destruction of elements; and no facts mind, there attends it a bad ingenuity, which puts the worst come within our sphere of observation which would imply possible construction upon the words, actions, looks of the that the original principles of the rational economy are in any abhorred object. Yet why is this but because the laws of the case annulled. We have already spoken of the instinct of Retmoral system forbid that any thing should be hated but what ribution, or the vehement desire to see wrong visited with actually deserves, or is at the moment thought to deserve ab- punishment; and we discern, in even the darkest purpose of horrence? The most pernicious and virulent heart has no revenge nothing more than a particular instance of this same power of ejecting its venom upon a fair surface; it must slur instinct, inflamed and misdirected by preposterous self-love. whatever it means to poison. To hate that which is seen No case can be more conclusive in proof of this position than and confessed to be not wicked, is as impossible as to be an- the revenge of jealousy. When the firmest, and the most gry with that which is not assumed to be hostile. And the religious of the social ties has been torn asunder by the hand most depraved souls, whose only element is revenge, feel the of ruthless lust, and an affection, more sensitive than any stress of this necessity not a whit less than the most benign other, is left to bleed and ulcerate in open air, the inner strucand virtuous. Whether the universe any where contains spi-ture of the vindictive passion may be said to be laid open, and rits so malignant as to be capable of hating without assign- it is seen in what way an emotion so violent as to lead to fament of demerit, or attributing of ill purpose to their adver- tal acts, yet connects itself with virtuous sentiments, and in sary, we know not; but certainly man never reaches any such fact springs from them. The revenge of jealousy seems to frightful enormity.* the injured man to be justified at once by the best impulses What is the constant style of the misanthrope? What the of our nature, by the express sanction of God, by the opinion burden of the dull echoes that shake the damps from the roof of mankind, and by the formal institutes of society. These of his cavern? Is not his theme ever and again, the malig-authorities, or some of them, lend a palliation (deemed alnity, the cruelty, the falseness of the human race? To hate most valid by the common feeling of men) even to deeds of mankind is indeed his rule; but yet he must calumniate be- a murderous kind; and they actually avail to put out of view fore he can detest it. Nature is here stronger than corrup- the exaggerations which self-love has added to the sense of tion, and a tribute is borne to the unalterable principles of wrong. Thus it is that some, who, in no other case would virtue, even by those unnatural lips that breathe universal for a moment harbour so hateful and torturing a passion, yield imprecations! How does the solitary wretch, prisoner as he to its sway when thus injured, and feel as if uncondemned by is of his own malignity, toil from day to day in the work of even the strictest rules of virtue. It is true that principles ingenious detraction! how does he recapitulate and refute, of conduct of a higher kind are applicable, as well to this, as untired the thousandth time, every alleged extenuation of to all other instances of injury, and are fully adequate to ashuman frailty or folly! How does he strive to justify the suage even so extreme a vindictive impulse. But whether bad passion that rules him; how eagerly does he listen to any they are actually brought to bear upon it or not, it is certain new proof of his poisonous dogma-That man is altogether that the revenge of jealousy affords evidence that the elements abominable, and ought to be hated! Inwardly he feels the of the moral system are the foundation of even the most fatal sheer absurdity of perpetual malice, and is always defending of the malignant passions, and in their most aggravated himself against the accusation of doing immense wrong to forms.

his species. But this very labour and this painful ingenuity Let leave here be taken to draw an inference which sugrefutes itself; for if human nature were, as he affirms it to gests itself, bearing perhaps upon the future destinies of man. be, simply and purely evil, his own bosom would not be thus Does not then the history of human nature declare that all tortured by the endeavour to prove mankind abominable, as a other emotions of the soul, as well as every inducement of necessary condition of his malice. Most evident it is that if interest or pride, may give way, and be borne down by the man were not formed to love what is good and follow virtue, sovereign desire of retribution? Has not this feeling more he would find himself able to hate his fellows without first than once impelled a father to consign his sons to the sword imputing to them wickedness and crimes. of public justice? Has it not strengthened the arm of a man, There might be adduced a still more frightful case of ma- not murderous in disposition, to drive an assassin's sword inlignancy, which, horrid as it is, furnishes the very same tes- to the heart of his friend? Has it not brought together an timony in favour of the original benign structure of the hu- armed nation around the walls of a devoted city, the site of man mind. If there are indeed miserable beings that harbour which, after being soaked with the blood of men, women, deliberate animosity against Him who is worthy of supreme and babes, was to be covered with perpetual ruin? Does not affection, as well as reverence, yet this hatred must always this same robust instinct every day sustain the most humane be preceded by blasphemy. In word or in thought, there must minds in discharging the sad duty of conducting a fellowbe charged upon the Sovereign Ruler injustice, rigour, malev-man to death? We see, too, to what a degree of phrenzy the olence, before impiety can advance a step toward its bold common desire of retribution may be inflamed by the suggesand dread climax. Thus does the Supreme Benevolence se- tions of self-love. Now may it not be conceived of that an cure and receive an implicit homage, even from the most en-equal intensity of this emotion might be obtained by the venomed lips; for why should the divine character be im- means of some other sentiment than self-love, and by one peached, if it were not that the fixed laws of the moral more firm because more sound than the selfish principle? If world-those very laws of which God is author, forbid hatred so, then we have under our actual inspection powers which, to exist at all (at least in human nature) except on a pretext in a future life, may be found vigorous enough to carry huwhich is itself drawn from the maxims of goodness? What man nature through scenes or through services too appalling proof can be more convincing than this is, that these same even to think or speak of. If, for example, it were askedmaxims, these rules of virtue and benevolence, were actually "Is it credible that man, his sensibilities being such as they the guiding principles of the creation, and must therefore be-are, should take his part, even as spectator, in the final prolong as essential attributes to the Creator? If man, by the cedures of the Divine Government?" We might fairly reply necessity of his nature, must calumniate and blacken whom- by referring to certain signal instances of the force of the vinsoever he would call his enemy, is it not because he is so dictive passions, and on the ground of such facts assume it as possible that, whoever could go so far, might go further The mere supposition may seem to be a contradiction in terms; ted merely because revenge is malign and evil: for although still. And this hypothetic inference would not be invalidathat what is not hateful should be hated. But the analysis of emotions of this sort, if carried on a little further, brings us to some such it be so, the fulcrum of its power is nothing else than the notion as that of maliguity separable from an object confessed to be unalterable laws of the moral world; we only want therefore a righteous motive to supplant the selfish one, and then an VOL. II.-2 W

odious.

equal, or perhaps a much greater force, would be displayed pearance of virtue. This may be true, but can we easily by these same principles. estimate the degree in which war universally has been softIf it be allowable to advance to this point, we then shall ened and relieved in its attendant horrors, by the corrective need only one more idea to give distinctness to our conception influence of these very mixed emotions, extravagant and false of the retributive processes of the future world;-and it is as they are? And is it certain that there would have been this-that the infatuations of self-love, which, in the present altogether less bloodshed on earth, if mere sanguinary rage, state, defend every mind from the application to itself of the and if the cupidity of empire, had been left to work their ends desire of retribution-in the same manner as the principle of alone? For every thousand victims immolated at the altar animal life defends the vital organs of a body from the chem- of martial pride, have not ten thousand been rescued by the ical action of its own caustic secretions-that these infatua- noble and generous usages that have belonged to the system tions, we say, being then quite dispersed, the Instinct of of warfare among all civilized nations? Surely it may be Justice-perhaps the most potent of all the elements of the said that, unless the imaginative sentiments had thus blended spiritual life, shall turn inward upon each consciously guilty themselves with the destructive passions, the ambition of men heart, so that every such heart shall become the prey of a would have been like that of fiends, and the human family reflected rage, intense and corrosive as the most virulent re- must long ago have suffered extermination. venge! Whoever is now hurrying on without thought of consequences through a course of crimes, would do well to imagine the condition of a being left without relief to breathe upon itself the flames of insatiable hatred!

SECTION III.

Ideas of chivalrous virtue and of royal magnanimity (ideas directly springing from the imagination) much more than any genuine sentiments of humanity, have softened the ferocious pride of mighty warriors. For though it may be true that some sparks or rare flashes of mere compassion have, once and again, gleamed from the bosoms of such men; yet assuredly if good will to their fellows had been more than a transient emotion, the sword would never have been their toy. But the imaginative sentiments are a middle power, in the hands of nature, which, because they may be combined more readily than some higher principles with the gross and dark ingredients of the human mind, serve so much the better to chasten or ameliorate what cannot be quite expelled. Except If nature denies to the irascible passions any attendant for emotions of this order, Alexander would have been as sense of pleasure, she absolutely refuses them also, at least Tamerlane, and Tamerlane as the Angel of Death. in their simple state, the power of awakening the sympathy, The beneficial provisions of Nature are especially to be or of exciting the admiration of those who witness their ebul- observed in one remarkable fact-namely-that the alliance lition. These harsh elements of the moral system must be of the malign passions with the Imagination-an alliance taken into combination with the sentiments of a different, and from which the former draw both their mitigation, and an a happier order, and must almost be concealed within such extension of their field, is not permitted to take place upon the sentiments, before they can assume any sort of beauty, or narrow ground of self-love. This fact, for such we deem it, appear in splendour. That such combinations do actually deserves to be distinctly noticed.

ALLIANCE OF THE MALIGN EMOTIONS WITH THE IMAGINATION.*

take place, and in conformity too with the intentions of na- Nothing appears too great, sometimes, to be grasped by the ture, is true; but it is true also, that by the very means of conceits of self-importance; nothing too big for the stomach the mixture, the worse or rancorous element is vastly mode-of vanity: and yet it is found that the Imagination refuses to rated and refined. Let it be granted, for example, that wars yield itself, except for a moment, or in a very limited degree, have often originated in the military ambition and false thirst to those excitements that are drawn from the solitary bosom of glory to which certain gorgeous sentiments give an ap- of the individual. Man, much as he may boast himself, is by far too poor at home to maintain the expense of his own

The copiousness of our subject must exclude whatever does not splendid conceptions of personal greatness. Not even when directly conduce to its illustration. Otherwise it would be proper he revolves the vast idea of his immortality, is he able to here to mention those complex dispositions which spring from the accumulate the materials of sublimity, without looking abroad union of the malignant passions with the elements of individual

character. The irascible sentiment, for example, takes a specific and beyond himself, in search of objects fitted to quicken the form from the peculiarities of the animal structure. Combined with emotions of greatness and dignity. And yet surely if any conscious mucular vigour, and a sanguineous temperament, it be- idea, purely selfish, had power to call up and sustain such comes a stormy rage, and constitutes either the bully, or the dread emotions, the idea and the hope of endless existence might do devastator of kingdoms, as circumstances may determine. The same so. But whenever we meditate upon eternity, and think of irascibility, joined with a feeble constitution, begets petulance, in our own part in it, we dwell much more upon the scenes, the those various forms which depend upon the particular seat of debility;

namely, whether it be the nervous system-the arterial system-the personages, and the events it shall connect us with, than conmesenteric glands-the liver, or the stomach; each of which imparts ceive of ourselves, simply, as destined to live for ever. It is a peculiarity to the temper. An attentive observer of the early de- no wonder then if this same rule holds good, when nothing velopment of character will also leave room, in any theory of the beyond the present scene of things is contemplated. We can passions he may construct, for a hitherto unexplored and undefined hardly err in assigning the reason of a mechanism so remarkinfluence of conformation-ought we to say of the brain, or of the able. If human nature had been so constituted as that the mind? How much sover (from various motives) any might wish to simplify their philosophy of human nature, and especially to exclude imaginative emotions could have found sufficient range within from it certain facts which give rise to painful perplexities, they can the lone precincts of the soul, and if there had been opened do so only (as we think) by refusing to turn the eye toward the real to every one (or at least to heroic spirits) a world of splendid illusions-such that he should have had no need to look After receiving their first characteristic from the physical tem- abroad, man must have become, in a frightful sense, an insuperament, the malign emotions next ally themselves with the instinct lated being; nor perhaps would any other impulse, drawn of self-love, and generate either a sullen and obdurate pride, which either from his wants, his fears, or his affections, have availed makes every other being an enemy, as a supposed impugner of rights

world.

and honours that are its due; or else (and especially as combined to connect him firmly and permanently with his fellows. No with derangement of the hepatic functions) begets a rabid jealousy conception much more appalling can be entertained than that or reptile envy-passions of the most wretched natures! Our modern of a proud demigod, who, finding an expanse of greatness intellectual science yet wants a term to serve in the place of that within his own bosom-an expanse wherein he could take theologico-metaphysic one-THE WILL. Analysis must be pushed a ample sweep, and incessantly delight himself, should start off little further than it has gone before the deficiency can be well sup-from the populous universe, and dwell content in the centre of plied. Meanwhile let us say that the malign passions have a characteristic alliance with "the will"-an alliance if not clearly to be an eternal solitude!

distinguished from those it forms with self-love, yet distinct enough It may well be assumed as probable that the Creator has to arrest attention. As a single example we might name that unde-granted to none of his rational family the prerogative of so fined, and not easily analysed, cruelty or wanton and tranquil delight fatal a sort of self-sufficiency. Assuredly no such power is in torments, bloodshed, and destruction, which has given a dread no-granted to man. Even those instances that may seem the toriety to some few names in history. In such cases it has seemed

as if the spontaneous principle would prove its force and its inde-most nearly to approach the idea just now mentioned, do in pendence in the mode that should, more effectively than any other, fact, when accurately looked at, support the general princimake all men confess it to be free. Instances of malignity meet us ple. The man of the wilderness, for example, is still a social which are at once too placid to be charged entire upon the irascible being, though in a very perverted manner; and we should emotions, and too vague to be accounted for by the inducements of find convincing proof of the fact if we could only listen to either selfishness or pride, and which, if they do not declare the those often rehearsed and monotonous soliloquies of which presence of a determining cause that has no immediate dependence the great world-its noise, its vanity, and its corruptions are upon assignable motives, must remain quite unexplained.

the theme. Yes, he congratulates himself anew every day ligence and a better knowledge of the science of government, that mankind is far remote from his cell. But why can he and more skill in war, ordinarily come in with extended emnot drop this reference altogether? Why not cease to think pire to supply the place of personal enthusiasm, the history of what he does not see-does not feel? It is because the of nations would present (in a perpetual series) what in gloomy and vexed imagination of the solitary-spite of itself, fact it has often presented the destruction or subjugation of can find none but the faintest excitements within its own larger social bodies by the smaller. But thus is the great circle, and so is driven to roam abroad in search of stimu- polity of mankind balanced:-men possess vastly more indilants. The world, we may be assured, is as indispensable a vidual motive, and more spontaneous power, as members of material to the enthusiasm of the anchoret as it is to that of a small than of a large community. Meanwhile the greater the busiest and most ambitious votary of fame. Only let bodies have at command, not only a larger sum of physical some breathless messenger-like those that brought tidings of force, but more knowledge, and principle, and order, than dismay to the Arabian patriarch, reach the cavern of the her- often exists in petty states. So it is that the small and the mit and announce to him that his love of solitude was at great coexist upon the same surface; and that the course of length effectively and for ever sealed by the utter extinction of conquest has been alternate-in one age a fraction has broken the human race;-solitude, from that instant, would not merely up the mass-in another the mass has absorbed the fractions. lose all its fancied charms, but would become terrible and It may subserve our purpose to compare still more disinsufferable; and this man of seclusion, starting like a maniac tinctly the steady martial temper that ordinarily belongs to from his wilderness, would run round the world, in search, the armies of a great empire, with the ferocious or desperate if happily it might be, of some straggling survivors! valour that distinguishes the warriors of a horde, a canton,

Nor is it a few foreign materials that are enough to give or a petty republic. The first (extraordinary occasions exeffect to the alliance of the imagination with the selfish prin- cepted) is a calm perfunctory courage, drawing much more ciple. A vigorous enthusiasm must embrace a broad field. of its motive from usage, opinion, and reasons of interest or Thus patrician pride, and the arrogance of illustrious blood honour, than from the impulse of the malignant passions. must not only go very far back, but stretch itself very widely An accomplished general of such an army excludes from his too, before it can acquire the alacrity or the force that dis- calculation of what may be effected by the tremendous entinguishes imaginative sentiments. The pride of ancestry is gine which he wields, the rage or the rancour of the individa sullen grace, and has always about it an air akin to melan-ual combatants. But, on the contrary, this very mulus anicholy or depression. The enthusiasm of the very meanest mus constitutes the principal ingredient in the bravery of the member of a warrior-clan is tenfold more animate than that clan; and it does so because the human mind readily admits, of the head of a house laden with the decorations of heraldry. under these circumstances, of an exaltation, which, in the In the former instance the imagination grasps the compass of other case, nothing can produce short of the most unusual the community of which the individual is a part: in the latter, excitements. The irascible passions are not to be raised to one slender line, terminating in self, is all that engages the a height unless self-love, in some form, is immediately enfancy; and it is in vain, with so attenuated an object only in gaged in a quarrel; but the vast interests of an empire, and view, that pride chides itself for its dull and sluggish move-the immensity of an army that covers a province, and that is ments. The chief must think of his people more than of his never seen as a whole, are quite disproportioned to the share ancestry, if he would, on any special occasion, gain a power-each individual may have in the public weal. And then, as ful spring of action. In truth it is more as a chief than as every one of the sentiments that infuse generosity into the the offspring and representative of an illustrious stock, that practice of war, draws much of its force from the imaginathe energetic patrician exults in his distinctions, and achieves tion, they will of course exist in the greatest vigour where deeds worthy of the name he bears. the imagination is the most wrought upon. There are how

Martial enthusiasm especially demands the social elements ever very few minds, or they are minds only of the largest as its ground:-and here we reach that very compound senti- capacity and of the finest conformation, that can derive the ment which, as to its construction, stands immediately parallel stimulants of a vigorous enthusiasm from the idea of an exwith religious rancour and Fanaticism. The one species of tensive empire. On the other hand, few minds are so insenardent emotion differs from the other more in adjuncts and sitive as not to entertain a degree of such enthusiasm when objects, than in innate quality or character. The battle-fury the various emotions of patriotism and civil affection spring of the CLAN is only self-love, inflamed by hatred, and ex-up from a space that may all be seen at once from the summit panded, by aid of the imagination, over the width of the of a hill.

community with which the individual consorts. It is this And it is on the very same principle, as we shall find, that envenomed enthusiasm that renders the CHIEF of the horde Fanaticism must attach itself always to a limited order of (as visible centre of all emotions) the object of a more zealous things, and is necessarily factious. What is fanaticism but and efficient idolatry than is offered to the GOD of the horde: rancorous Enthusiasm? And inasmuch as enthusiasm springs and it is this that lends a measure of nobility and importance from the imagination, it must embrace a circle just wide to even the most abject son of the tribe. It is this feeling enough to give it powerful impulse, and yet not too wide to which knits the phalanx, shoulder to shoulder, when the mar- exhaust its forces.

shalled family advances to meet its ancient rival in the field. The valour of the clan not only stands parallel with reliIt is this passion-the enthusiasm of gregarious rage, that gious fanaticism; that is to say, has one and the same Natuputs contempt upon death, gives a brazen firmness to the ral History; but is most often found in combination with it. nerves when torture is to be endured, seals the lips in im- The two classes of passion are so nearly allied that the one penetrable secresy when a trust has to be preserved; and, in readily follows upon the other. The vehement patriotism of a word, imparts to human nature a terrible greatness, which the horde or little free state puts the minds of men into a we are compelled at once to abhor and to admire. ferment that will not long fail to introduce the stirring con

What is the clangorous music of barbarous armies-what ceptions of Invisible Power: and when so brought in, the the rhapsodies of their poetry, but the modulated express- two ingredients become intimately blended the civil and ions of a ferocity which the imagination has already inflamed, the religious frenzy form a compact sentiment of such vivaennobled, purified, and softened? Shall the frigid philoso- city as to carry human nature-if the solecism might be pher affirm that music and poetry are incentives to the des-admitted, above and beyond the range of human agency. tructive battle passions? It is true that they are; yet take While the gods have been hovering over a field of carnage, away such incentives, and man is thrown back upon his the intrepidity of men has risen to the audacity of immortals; mere malignity, and becomes more dreadful to his species and their ferocity has resembled the rage of fiends! than a tiger. Although it may be true, and we confidently assume it to But the imagination has a limit beyond which it does not be so, that a beneficial mitigation and refinement of the vigorously act. If it is not, as we have said, to be stimu- grosser elements of our nature accrues from their alliance lated by ideas merely selfish, it becomes, on the other hand, with imaginative sentiments, yet it does by no means follow languid, or ceases to exert an efficient influence over the that such sentiments ought to supplant the genuine principles passions, when the field of its exercise is very much ex- of morals, wherever these may take effect. No one would tended. The men of a mighty empire that embraces many maintain such a doctrine in the abstract; nevertheless, when and various tribes, know little of the intense patriotism or of we turn to the real world, we find that true virtue and piety the unconquerable courage that distinguishes the heroes of a have always had to contend (and often with little success) petty clan, or small community. Self, in this case, cannot against those splendid forms of excellence which are but vice retain its hold of an aggregate so vast; and although the in disguise, and which owe all their specious graces and fair object be immensely greater, the motive is incomparably less colours to the admixture we are speaking of. than in the other instance. If it were not that general intel- The unalterable maxims of rectitude, purity and mercy,

such as we find them in the Scriptures, being well under- feeling of alliance with the illusions that gave impulse to stood and firmly instated in their just authority, then indeed such abhorrent intestine wars has (do we assume too much?) we may allow the imagination to take the part that belongs utterly passed away, nor could by any means be rekindled; to it as the general cement-or as the common medium of and the two emotions of pity for the sufferers, and of detestthe various ingredients of animal, social, and intellectual ation of the actors in the scenes of fratricide, are the only life. There meets us however a special difficulty in assign- sentiments which the narrative can call up. Yet there was ing its proper office to this faculty when it comes to mingle a time when men-born of women, and fashioned like ouritself, as it readily does, with the malign emotions; and this selves-yes, and men softened by education, and not uninembarrassment is much enhanced by those modes of feeling formed by Christianity-saints and doctors, delicate recluses, which are found to have got possession of every lettered and unearthly contemplatists-men who slept only three people. How large a portion of the pleasurable excitement hours in the twenty-four, and prayed six or ten-when such that attends the reading of history springs directly from the men gave all the passion of their souls, and all the eloquence recommendations which vindictive or inexorable passions of their lips, to the work of hunting thousands of their fellows, borrow from imaginative emotions! Then in the world of innocent and helpless, into the greedy fires of the Church! fiction-dramatic or poetic, perhaps half of the power which Thus it appears that the very order of sentiment which such creations possess over the mind is attributable to the once was allowed and lauded as magnanimous, and even same cause. The moralist and the preacher (especially divine, we have learned to regard as either purely ridiculous, when he has to do with the educated classes) and if he or as abominable. A like reprobation inevitably awaits (if would discharge his office without showing favour to invete- mankind is really advancing on the road of virtue) every rate prejudices, finds that he has to loosen many of the most mode of feeling which, being essentially malevolent, draws cherished associations of sentiment, and must denounce as specious colours from the imagination. That which is true purely evil very much that is passionately admired, and will and just, in conduct and character, must at lenght supplant be eagerly emulated. whatever, if stripped of its decorations, is loathsome or

To affirm in absolute and exclusive terms that the irasci- absurd. So certainly as the calm reason of Christianity ble passions ought in no case to be allowed to blend with the spreads itself through the world, will the ground fall in imagination, so as may fit them to enkindle emotions of beneath the gorgeous but tottering edifice of spurious imagipleasure or admiration, would be going very far, and might native virtue. Let but the irresistible process go on a little bring an argument into serious embarrassments. We stop further, and it will become as impracticable to uphold in short then of so stern a conclusion, and shall urge only this credit the still extant opinion which admits of honour withmore general rule, that the pinciples of benevolence, and of out justice or purity, and of magnanimity without benevolence, forbearance, and meekness, and gentleness, and humility, as and of that thirst of glory which is sheer selfishness, as it taught in the discourses of Christ, and as enforced by his would be now, after the mechanic arts have reached an unapostles, should in all instances to which they are clearly thought-of perfection, to keep in use the cumbrous hand-maapplicable, be carried fully home, notwithstanding the repug-chines of the last century.

nance of certain modes of feeling commonly honoured as Much of the conventional law, and many of the usages of generous and noble; and moreover that every one professing private life, and especially the unwritten code of international obedience to the Gospel should exercise an especial vigilance policy, have yet to undergo a revolution as great perhaps as toward that entire class of sentiments over which profane that which makes the difference between the twelfth and history, romance, poetry, and the drama, have shed a glory. the eighteenth centuries. All the vices, and all the talents, The time perhaps shall come-nay we devoutly expect it, and all the institutions interested in the preservation of corwhen by the universal diffusion of a sound and pure Ethics rupt practices may oppose the advance of this renovation; -the ethics of the Bible, no room shall be left, no need but nothing short of the overthrow of Christianity and of shall be felt for the chastening influence which hitherto the civilization can arrest its progress. Nature (we use the imagination has exerted over the ferocious dispositions of word in a religious sense) NATURE is here at work with her mankind. Yes, an age shall come, when the gods and noiseless mighty hand; whatever is spurious is marked alheroes of history shall hasten to those shades of everlasting ready for oblivion, and moves on to its home. forgetfulness which have closed upon their patrons-the gods and heroes of mythology. In the same day the charm of fiction shall be dissolved, and the gaudiness of false sentiment, in all kinds, shall be looked at with the cold contempt which now we bestow upon the follies of false worship. Then, too, the romance (as well practical as literary) of this nineteenth century shall be bound in the bundle that contains

SECTION IV.

the decayed and childish fables of olden times, and both FANATICISM THE OFFSPRING OF ENTHUSIASM; OR COMBINATION together shall be consigned, without heed or regret, to sheer oblivion.

OF THE MALIGN EMOTIONS WITH SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS SENTI-
MENTS.

The slow but sure progress of society brings with it many substitutions of this sort, in which a less rational principle of The Imagination, when inflamed by anger, or envenomed action gives way to one that is more so. At the present mo- by hatred, exerts a much more decisive influence over the ment we occupy just that mid-way position which, while it active principles and the character of men than otherwise allows us to gaze with idle curiosity upon the blood-stained ever belongs to it. Or we might rather say, that by the aid stage of chivalry, and upon the deluged field of lawless am- of those strenuous elements of our nature, imaginative sentibition, quite forbids that any such modes of conduct should ments extend their empire, and bring under their sway minds find a place among us as living realities. We are too wise of a robust order which would never have yielded to any softand virtuous to give indulgence to that to which we largely er impulses. A thousand fanatics have run their course of give our admiration! May not yet another step or two be mischief who would have spurned religious motives altotaken on the path of reason, and then we shall cease even gether in the simple form of enthusiasm. Rancour has been to admire that which we have long ceased to tolerate? the true reason of their religion, and its rule and end.

So already it has actually happened in relation to those And as the empire of spurious religious sentiments is greatmalign and sanguinary religious excitements which a few ly extended by their alliance with the malignant passions, so centuries ago kindled entire communities, and inflamed kings do they acquire, from the same quarter, far more energy than and mendicants, nobles and serfs, priests and wantons, ab- they could boast in their simple state. A malign Enthusi stracted monks and the dissolute rabble, with one purpose of asm carries human nature to the very extreme boundaries of sacred ambition. Though we now peruse with wonder and emotion possible to man; nothing which the heart may know curiosity the story (for example) of the Crusades, there are lies beyond the circle occupied by fanatical extravagance; very few readers in the present day-perhaps hardly one, and this circle of vehement sentiments includes many enor who can rouse up a sympathy with that vehement feeling mities of feeling or of conduct of which scarcely a sample is which was the paramount motive of the enterprise. Only to be found in a country and in an age like our own. let us strip the history of the crusades of all its elements of In truth, little more than the trite surface of human nature martial and secular glory, and the simple religious residue meets the eye among a people like ourselves. Our theories the proper fanaticism of the drama, would scarcely touch any and system of morals hardly take account of upper and lower modern imagination. How much more is this true of those instances, while they are busied with what may be found in horrid crusades of which the internal enemies of the Church the mid region of mixed and moderate passions. Living as of Rome have, at different times, been the victims! All we do under the meridian of caution and mediocrity, history,

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when most faithful, often sounds like romance; or even if we not at all known to the mere Enthusiast; and before we degive credit to its narrations, we regard its lessons as of little scend to the particular instances it will be advantageous to practical significance now, inasmuch as whatever is virulent ascertain the general (if not universal) characteristics of the or terrible has fallen, we think, from the usage of mankind. spurious malign Religion which animates his bosom ;-they It has become somewhat difficult even to place ourselves so may be reduced to three capital articles; namely, 1st. A defar in sympathy with extreme emotions as is necessary for ference to MALIGNANT INVISIBLE POWER; 2d. The natural understanding them. In all things what is profound has giv- consequence of such a deference-rancorous contempt or en way to what is familiar; or what once was fact is now detestation of the mass of mankind, as religiously cursed and thought of only as fit subject for fiction. Men of the present abominable; and 3d. The belief of corrupt favouritism on the age are care-worn much oftener than melancholy; merry or part of Invisible Powers, towards a sect or particular class of jovial, rather than joyous; sagacious or ingenious, more than men; and this partiality is the antithesis of the relentless tymeditative; and so keenly attached to the passing moment, as ranny of which all other men are the objects.

to throw up their interest as well in the past as in the future. I. We have named-A Deference, or religious regard to Order, custom, and utility, set bounds-and very narrow MALIGN INVISIBLE POWERS, whether Supreme or Subordinate, bounds to all modes of conduct: the spirit of raillery quench- which will be found to enter, as primary ingredient, into every es, or imposes a disguise upon whatever emotions are not tri- form of Fanaticism, ancient and modern, and may well be vial. It is not indeed to be regretted that the firm constitu- called its GERM.

tions of society, in modern times, and its established notions, To believe that evil has affected other races of rational repress or confine so much as they do the profounder and agents besides the human, and that such depraved and mamore virulent impulses of the soul. But the fact of this lignant beings, though unseen, infringe in some manner upon change and improvement should always be kept in mind when the human system-is one thing: and it is a belief which the power of such emotions is to be calculated, or when con- reason admits, and revelation confirms; but either to impute jecture is employed upon the possible events of another age. in any sort, malignancy to the Supreme Power, or to make A free and equal government (and this is its praise) super-subordinate malignant powers the objects of deference, direct sedes, nay almost extinguishes the stronger passions. Pri- or indirect, or to grant to their agency the prime place among vate life, happily is too secure, and public affairs are too well religious notions, is quite another thing; and it is a perversettled, to afford those sudden and extraordinary excitements sion of this sort, more or less gross, and more or less appawhich awaken the latent energies of men. It is despotism, rent, which imparts force to every species of rancorous reliplunging a ruthless hand into the bosom of domestic peace-gious sentiment.

it is ambition, immolating a thousand victims in an hour-it On a field like this the imagination, if it be troubled by a is popular fury, led on or repulsed by a single arm, that dis-gloomy temper, or made turgid by fierce passions, and espeplay the expansive force of the human mind when urged to cially if it be saddened by actual sufferings, will never want the utmost excess of feeling. scope or fail of excitements. Nothing less in fact than the

Even those visible and natural excitements of the imagi- hope which it is the prerogative of true religion to impart can nation, whence the deeper passions are wont to draw much of bar the entrance of the mind into this realm of fear-a realm their vigour, are denied to us. England has all the beauties upon which mankind has in every age eagerly sought to make of picture; but they are beauties in miniature. What we look incursions. If we are to employ phrases in accordance with upon around us is the scenery of poetry, rather than of trage- the facts which history presents, we are bound to affirm that dy. And it is a fact, if not constant, yet ordinary, that those the NATURAL RELIGION of man, is the fear and service of Maportentous corruscations of the passions which ally themselves lignant Powers. Gloomy superstition springs up involuntareadily with the imagination, have burst out from the thick rily in the human mind, depraved as it is, and exposed to so gloom of a frowning nature. Such excesses have chiefly ap- many pains, wants, and cruelties, and liable withal to death. peared where awful scenery, or extreme violences of climate Man does not become religious by mere force of gratitude: have seemed well to comport with egregious sentiments and the unnoticed benefits of every hour lead him not to the shrine frenzied actions. Man (that is to say when once effectively of the Supreme Beneficence: it is danger and sorrow that roused to action) acts quite another part than we think of, if drive him to the altar. The necessities and miseries of the his lot be to roam through howling solitudes-to traverse animal frame-the confusion and misrule that prevail in the boundless and burning sands-to hide himself among cloud-social system-the stifled sense of guilt in every bosom, and covered precipices-to gaze upon the unalterable and intoler- the boding of future punishment, as well as the hatreds which able splendour of the sky;-if often he stand aghast amid the woe and oppression cherish, are active and pungent elements, earthquake or the hurricane, or be overtaken by sultry tem-working in the soul with incomparably more force than bepests, fraught with suffocation. It is in the heart of forests longs to the mild sentiments that may be engendered either that are the ancient domain of enormous reptiles, or of savage by the spectacle of the order and beauty of the material world, beasts-it is where horror and death lurk in the way, that the or by the fruition of the common goods of life. darker passions reach their fullest growth, and are to be seen The theism of philosophers has never availed to counterin their proper force. All the principal or most characteristic act that natural tendency which draws on mankind to the forms of fanaticism have had their birth beneath sultry skies, worship of Evil Powers. Neither the ancient nor the modern and have thence spread into temperate climates by transport- systems of abstract philosophy have taken any strong hold ation, or infection. of the spirits of men; and the failure has happened, not so

No such rule must be assumed as absolute-few rules that much because such systems were too refined or too abstruse relate to human nature are so, but it is one as uniform as for vulgar apprehension; but because they have not made most, that where neither reason, nor the genuine affections, provision for the actual position of man in the present state. but imagination, acts as the prime impulse in religion, the Sages have announced the Divine perfections, and there have malign emotions are found in close attendance, and seldom stopped;-but to bring these perfections to bear, in any mode fail to convert spurious piety into an energetic rancour. Then of effective relief, upon the guilt and sorrows of mankind, again this rancour reacts upon the enthusiasm whence it was a problem quite beyond their power. Let it be granted sprang;-the child schools the parent (an inverted order of that philosophical theism may be true in some far distant upthings not unusual where the progeny has much more vigour per sphere; but ON EARTH it serves to explain nothing; it than the parent). Enthusiasm, when it has come to sustain assuages no trouble; it is no more applicable to the real occaFanaticism, is far more darkly coloured, is more profound, sions of life, than are the dreams of the poet. The sage and more mysterious, than the illusory piety that has no such the poet must alike be looked upon as mere men of idleness load upon its shoulders. Things bright and fair, although and speculation;-their theories of the world-the one abunreal, are the chosen objects of this; but the other asks struse, the other gorgeous, ask to be carried back many whatever is terrific and destructive. This sort of transmuta- ages, or carried forward as many, before space can be found tion of sentiments, which happens when the enthusiast be- where they may be lodged. Stern experience indignantly or comes the fanatic-when malignity is shed upon illusion, contemptuously rejects both.

much resembles what often takes place in feverish sleep;- Of all the popular modes which have been devised for counwho has not seen in his dreams, splendid and smiling pa-teracting the tendency of mankind to malign superstition, geants, gradually relinquishing the brilliant colours they first that embodied in the mythology of the people of Greece may showed, just as if the summer's sun were sinking from the claim to have been the most successful, as well as the most skies; but presently a murky glimmer half reveals menacing rich and splendid. This system of worship-not so much forms; and in the next moment some horrid and gory phan- the work of design, as the spontaneous product of the national tom starts forth, and becomes master of the scene! mind, avoided provoking the resentment of tortured hearts by The false religion theu of the FANATIC includes elements giving a direct contradiction to gloomy surmises;-it did not