toricians, and even in the perusal of all the master-pieces of ancient and modern times, unless, to an acquaintance with these, he add an accurate acquaintance with that intellectual and moral nature of man, the beautiful conformity to which was the essential charm of all the pathos, and all the eloquence, which he has admired. There is another art, however, to which knowledge of the intellectual and moral nature of man is still more important-that noble art, which has the charge of training the ignorance and imbecility of infancy into all the virtue, and power, and wisdom of maturer manhood-of forming, of a creature, the frailest and feeblest perhaps which heaven has made, the intelligent and fearless sovereign of the whole animated_creation, the interpreter, and adorer, and almost the representative of the Divinity. The art, which performs a transformation so wondrous, cannot but be admirable itself; and it is from observation of the laws of mind, that all which is most admirable in it is derived. These laws we must follow indeed, since they exist not by our contrivance, but by the contrivance of that nobler wisdom, from which the very existence of the mind has flowed; yet, if we know them well, we can lead them, in a great measure, even while we follow them. And, while the helpless subject of this great moral art is every moment requiring our aid,—with an understanding that may rise, from truth to truth, to the sublimest discoveries, or may remain sunk for ever in ignorance, and with susceptibilities of vice that may be repressed, and of virtue that may be cherished, can we know too well the means of checking what is evil, and of fostering what is good? It is too late to lie by, in indolent indulgence of affection, till vice be already formed in the little being whom we love, and to labour then to remove it, and to substitute the virtue that is opposite to it. Vice already formed, is almost beyond our power. It is only in the state of latent propensity, that we can with much reason expect to overcome it by the moral motives which we are capable of presenting; and to distinguish this propensity before it has expanded itself, and even before it is known to the very mind in which it exists, to tame those passions which are never to rage, and to prepare, at a distance, the virtues of other years,-implies a knowledge of the mental constitution, which can be acquired only by a diligent study of the nature, and progress, and successive transformations of feeling. It is easy to know, that praise or censure, reward or punishment, may increase or lessen, the tendency to the repetition of any particular action; and this, together with the means of elementary instruction, is all which is commonly termed education. But the true science of education is something far more than this. It implies a skilful observation of the past, and that long foresight of the future, which experience and judgment united afford. It is the art of seeing, not the immediate effect only, but the series of effects which may follow any particular thought or feeling, in the infinite variety of possible combinations-the art often of drawing virtue from apparent evil, and of averting evil that may rise from apparent good. It is, in short, the philosophy of the human mind,-applied practically to the human mind, enriching it, indeed, with all that is useful or ornamental in knowledge, but at the same time giving its chief regard to objects of yet greater moment-averting evil, which all the sciences together could not compensate, or producing good, compared with which all the sciences together are as nothing. LECTURE IV. RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND TO THE CULTIVATION OF MORAL FEELING. We have already, gentlemen, considered the relation which the philosophy of mind bears to the sciences in general, and its particular application to those sciences and arts, in which the mind is not merely the instrument with which we carry on our intellectual operations, but the very subject on which we operate, as in the great arts of reasoning, and persuading, of delighting with all the charms of poetry and eloquence, of judging of the degrees of excellence that have been attained in these delightful arts; and, still more, its application to the noblest, though, in proportion to its value, the least studied of all the arts, the art of education. It remains still, to point out some moral effects which the study of the science of mind produces in the inquirer himself, effects which may not be obvious at first sight, but which result from it, as truly as the intellectual advantages already pointed out. One very powerful and salutary influence of moral science arises directly from the mere contemplation of the objects with which it is conversant-the benevolent affections, the pleasure which attends these, the sacrifices that are made by generous virtue, and all the sublime admiration which they excitethe sordid and malevolent, and joyless passions of the selfish-the fear and shame that attend the guilty in society, and the horrors, that, with a certainty of constant return more dreadful than their very presence, await them in their solitary hours. It is good to have these often before us, and to trace and contrast all the immediate, and all the remote effects of vice and virtue, even though we should form, at the time, no direct reference to our own past or future conduct. Without any such reference to ourselves, we must still be sensible of the pleasure and serene confidence which attend the one, and of the insecurity and remorse which for ever hang over the other; and the remaining impressions of love and disgust, will have an influence on our future conduct, of which we may probably be altogether unconscious at the time. It is, in truth, like the influence of the example of those with whom we habitually associate, which no one perceives at any particular moment, though all are every moment subject to it; and to meditate often on virtue and happiness, is thus almost to dwell in a sort of social communion with the virtuous and happy. The influence of moral conceptions has, in this respect, been compared to that of light, which it is impossible to approach, without deriving from it some faint colouring, even though we should not sit in the very sunshine, or to that of precious odours, amid which we cannot long remain, without bearing away with us some portion of the fragrance. "Ea enim philosophiæ vis est, ut non solum studentes, sed etiam conversantes juvet. Qui in solum venit, licet non in hoc venerit, colorabitur: qui in unguentaria taberna resederunt, et paulo diutius commorati sunt, odorem secum loci ferunt: et qui apud philosophiain fuerunt, traxerint aliquid necesse est, quod prodesset etiam negligentibus."* * Seneca, Ep. 106. The nature of the process, by which this moral benefit arises from the mere contemplation of moral objects, frequently repeated, is far from obscure, though it depends on a cause to which you may perhaps as yet have paid little attention, but which, in an after part of the course, I shall have an opportunity of illustrating at length, the influence of the associating principle in the mind, of that principle, by which ideas and other feelings, that have often co-existed, acquire, for ever after, an almost indissoluble union. It is not merely, therefore, by having traced, more accurately than others, the consequences of vice and virtue, as affecting the general character, that the lover of moral science strengthens his admiration of virtue, and his abhorrence of vice. But, by the frequent consideration of virtue, together with the happiness which it affords, and of vice, together with its consequent misery, the notions of these become so permanently, and so deeply associated, that future virtue appears almost like happiness about to be enjoyed, and future vice like approaching misery. The dread of misery, and the love of happiness, which are essential principles of our very physical existence, are thus transformed into principles of moral conduct, that operate, before reflection, with the rapidity, and almost with the energy of instincts,—and that, after reflection, add to our virtuous resolutions a force and stability, which, as results of mere reasoning, they could not possess. It is, besides, no small advantage of the abstract consideration of virtue, as opposed to the miseries of vice, that, in considering these philosophically, we regard them as stripped of every thing that can blind or seduce us; and we behold them, therefore, truly as they are. It is not in the madness of intemperate enjoyment, that we see drunkenness in the goblet, and disease in the feast. Under the actual seduction of a passion, we see dimly, if we see at all, any of the evils to which it leads; and if the feelings, of which we are then conscious, were those which were for ever after to be associated with the remembrance of the passion, it would appear to us an object, not of disgust or abhorrence, but of delight and choice, and almost of a sort of moral approbation. It is of importance, then, that we should consider the passion, at other moments than these, that the images associated with it may be not of that brief and illusive pleasure, which stupifies its unfortunate victim, but of its true inherent character, of deformity, and of the contempt and hatred which it excites in others. Such is the advantage of the point of view, in which it is seen by the moral inquirer, to whom it presents itself, not under its momentary character of pleasure, but under its lasting character of pain and disgust. By habituating himself to consider the remote, as well as the immediate results of all the affections and passions, he learns to regard virtue, not merely as good in itself, at the moment in which it is called into exercise, but as an inexhaustible source of good which is continually increasing; and vice not merely as a temporary evil in itself, but as a source of permanent and yet deeper misery and degradation. Every generous principle, which nature has given him, is thus continually deriving new strength, from the very contemplation of the good which it affords; and if, in the frailty of mortality, he should still be subject to the occasional influence of those very passions, which, in cooler moments, he detests, he yet does not fall, thoroughly and hopelessly. There are lingering associations of moral beauty and happiness in his mind, which may save him still,-associations that must render it, in some degree at least, more difficult for hit than for others, to yield to seductions, of which he has long known the vanity, and which perhaps even inay, in some happier hour, lead him back to that virtue, of which he has never wholly forgotten the charms. The charms of virtue, indeed, it is scarcely possible, for him who has felt them, wholly to forget. There may be eyes that can look unmoved on the external beauty which once delighted them. But who is there that has ever been alive to its better influence, who can think of moral loveliness without a feeling of more than admiration,-without a conscious enjoyment, in the possession of what is so truly admirable, or a sigh at having lost the privilege of dwelling on it with delight, and at being obliged to shrink from the very thought of what it once appeared? "For what can strive With virtue? which of nature's regions vast Which Envy's self contemplates, and is turn'd With smiles, and sweet discourse, and gentle deeds, A rival's life to rescue?" The study of moral science, then, we have seen, has a direct tendency to strengthen our attachment to the virtues which we habitually contemplate. Another most important advantage derived from it, relates to us in our higher character of beings capable of religion, increasing our devotion and gratitude to the Divinity, by the clearest manifestation which it gives us of his provident goodness in the constitution and government of the moral world. The external universe, indeed, though our study were confined to the laws which regulate its phenomena, would afford, in itself, abundant proof of_the power and wisdom by which it was created. But power and wisdom alone excite admiration only, not love; which, though it may be feigned in the homage that is universally paid to power, is yet, as an offering of the heart, paid to it only when it is combined with benevolence. It is the splendid benevolence, therefore, of the Supreme Being, which is the object of our grateful adoration; and to discover this benevolence, we must look to creatures that have not existence merely, like inanimate things, but a capacity of enjoyment, and means of enjoyment. It is in man,-or in beings capable of knowledge and happiness, like man,-that we find the solution of the wonders of the creation; which would otherwise, with all its regularity and beauty, be but a solitary waste, like the barren magnificence of rocks and deserts. God, says Epictetus, has introduced man into the world, to be the spectator of his works. and of their divine author; and not to be the spectator only, but to be the announcer and interpreter of the wonders which he sees and adores. Ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον θεατην εισηγαγεν αὐτοῦ τε καὶ τῶν ἔργων τῶν αὐτοῦ· καὶ οὗ μόνον θέα την ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐξηγητην αὐτῶν.* "Hæc qui contemplatur," says another ancient Stoic, with a little of the bold extravagance of his school,-" Hæc qui contemplatur, quid Deo præstat? Ne tanta ejus opera sine teste sint.". "Curiosum nobis natura ingenium dedit; et artis sibi ac pulchritudinis suae conscia, spectatores nos tantis rerum spectaculis genuit, perditura fructum sui, si tam magna, tam clara, tam subtiliter ducta, tam nitida, et non uno genere formosa solitudini ostenderet."+ In the study of what might be considered as the very defects of our moral nature, how pleasing is it, to the philosophic inquirer, to discover that provident arrangement of a higher Power, which has rendered many of the most striking of the apparent evils of life subservient to the production of a general utility, that had never entered into the contemplation of its remote authors. He who has never studied the consequences of human actions, perceives, in the great concourse of mankind, only a multitude of beings consulting each his own peculiar interest, or the interest of the very small circle immediately around him, with little, if any, apparent attention to the interests of others. But he who has truly studied human actions and their consequences, sees, in the prosecution of all these separate interests, that universal interest which is their great result; and the very principle of self-regard thus contributing to social happiness,-unconsciously indeed, but almost as surely as the principle of benevolence itself. Each individual seeks a several goal, But Heaven's great view is one, and that tho whole. I have already,-when treating of the influence of just views of the extent and limits of our faculties, in fixing the proper tone of inquiry, and lessening equally the tendency to the opposite extremes of dogmatism and scepticism,-stated some important moral advantages that arise from this very moderation of the tone of inquiry, particularly with respect to the temper with which it prepares us to receive dissent from our opinions without anger or insolent disdain, or even astonishment. So much of the intercourse of human society consists in the reciprocal communication of opinions which must often be opposed to each other, that this preparation of the temper, whether for amicable and equal discussion, or for mutual silent forbearance, is not to be lightly appreciated as an element in the sum of human happiness. On this point, however, and on its relation to the still greater advantages, or still greater evils, of national or legislative tolerance or intolerance, I before offered some remarks, and therefore merely allude to it at present. The tolerance with which we receive the opinions of others is a part, and an indispensable part, of that general refinement of manners to which we Dissertat. ab Arrian, collect. lib. i. c. 6.-p. 35. Edit. Upton. + Seneca de otio Sapient. c. 32. Pope's Essay on Man, Ep. ii. v. 237-240, and 245-248. & Lect. III. |