MALEVOLENT FEELINGS.

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If the act be one which violently transgresses common rules, it is an outrage.

Anger at pain received, impelling a man to inflict pain in return, is revenge. This term also implies the object or aim of the feeling, as well as the feeling itself. A man is stimulated by revenge, and seeks his revenge.

The same may be said of the word vengeance, another form of the word, but of the same origin. The man who admits into his heart this affection, and retains it, is revengeful, vengeful, vindictive.

118. Resentment naturally leads to the infliction of punishment; the object of which is to prevent similar conduct in others, not to gratify personal vengeance. Hence it is required to be done in a public manner; with proper deliberation and coolness ; and with an exact adaptation of the penalty to the offense, and to the object to be attained.

119. The injured party is not likely to inflict punishment with the requisite impartiality and candor; for we are apt to feel too deeply injuries offered to ourselves, and not to make the proper allowance for the feelings of others, and the circumstances which led to the offense. Beside, they who are most susceptible of offenses, and most irritable under them, are generally least inclined to make allowances for others.

Hence, in all cases, our disapprobation of personal vengeance, or of a man taking the law into his own hands; and our perfect sympathy with the protectors of the public peace, when they dispassionately investigate a case of injury, and calmly adapt their measures to the real object to be attained by them-the protection of the public.

120. When the malevolent feelings, as manifested in the external behavior, affect our disposition to a person, without necessarily leading to action, they are ill-will. When they disturb the usual current of cheerful thoughts, they are ill-humor. When malevolent feelings lead us to speak or act with a view of giving pain to others, they are ill-nature. When they make us rejoice in another's pain, they are malignity.

121. Malevolent pain at the good which happens to -another, and at our own want of this good, is envy.

[Whewell. Consult also Dewar, vol. i. pp. 371-388.]

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GOVERNMENT OF THE PASSIONS.

113. What is to be said of the irascible affections?

114. Are resentment and indignation a part of virtue?

115. When are the irascible or malevolent affections vices?

116. When do our angry emotions become especially vicious?

117. What are the emotions called, which arise from pain inflicted on

us?

118. What is the utility and proper exercise of resentment, in cases which concern the public peace?

119. Is it safe or proper to intrust the punishment of offenses to the injured party?

120. What names are applied to the malevolent feelings, as manifested in the external behavior?

121. How are the malevolent affections modified by a regard to the circumstances of the object?

SECTION III.-THE PROPER GOVERNMENT OF THE APPETITES AND PASSIONS.

122. THE government of the passions is a difficult work; but absolutely necessary, if we wish to be happy either in the next world or in this. And as it is the more difficult the longer it is delayed, it is the part of prudence, as well as a matter of duty, to begin it without delay.

123. In order to acquire a command over our passions, habits of temperance and of useful industry must be maintained; the imagination must be guided and controlled; the love of nature, simplicity, and truth must be cherished; in the midst of lawful pleasure, we must maintain moderation and self-command; we are to oppose early the beginnings of passion, and avoid particularly all such objects as are apt to excite passions which we know predominate within us; when an improper passion is felt, we must direct our minds to objects which will call up emotions of an opposite character; above all an humble and ardent piety leading us to prayer, must be continually practiced.

124. We must beware lest bad passions impose on us by assuming a false name; for this often happens, and is often fatal to virtue.

Men are apt to mistake their own avarice for frugality, profusion for generosity, suspicion for cautious discernment, pride for magnanimity, ostentation for liberality, detraction for the love of truth, insolence for plain dealing, revenge for resentment, envy for emulation, and sensuality for necessary amusement.

125. We are to avoid all trains of thought, all companies, all books, and all opportunities of action, by which

OBJECTS TO BE AVOIDED.

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we have reason to apprehend that irregular passions may be raised or encouraged.

How much good manners may be corrupted by evil communications, the sad experience of every age, and of almost every man, can abundantly testify. The world judges of men from the company they keep: and it is right that it should be so. No man will choose for his companion the person whom he either despises or disapproves. He therefore who associates with the wicked and the foolish gives proof of his own wickedness and folly.

126. Those books are eminently pernicious, by which criminal passions may be inflamed, or good principles subverted: they should be avoided as the pestilence.

To take pleasure in such books is a mark of as great corruption of mind, and ought to be accounted as dishonorable, as to keep company with pickpockets, gamblers, and atheists.

127. Games of chance, where money is the object, are dangerous in the extreme: they cherish evil passions without number; as avarice, anger, selfishness, discontent; and give rise to altercation and quarreling, and sometimes to the most shocking impiety. They occasion, as long as they continue, a total loss of time, and of all the rational pleasures of social life. They are generally_detrimental to health, by keeping the body inactive, and encroaching on the hours of rest. They produce a feverish agitation of the spirits, as hurtful to the mind, as habitual dram-drinking would be to the body. They level all dis. tinctions of sense and folly, of virtue and vice; and bring together on the same footing, men and women of decent, and of the most abandoned manners.

[Beattie.]

122. Is the government of the passions a difficult or easy duty? 123. By what measures may we acquire a command over our passions? 124. What caution is sometimes necessary to be observed in respect to our passions?

125. What things are to be avoided, that we may have our passions under proper control?

126. What books are to be considered dangerous?

127. How may it be shown that games of chance, where money is the object, are dangerous in the extreme?

SECTION IV.-THE MORAL CULTURE OF THE BENEVOLENT

AFFECTIONS.

128. Ir may be said that we have not the power of generating or directing our affections, and of forming our own character.

129. We reply that this objection involves much too large an assertion. It is very far from being true, that we have no power over our own affections or our own character. The universal voice of mankind recognizes the existence of such a power, by the condemnation which it awards to the want of benevolent affections. This implies that a man's affections are, in some way, subject to his own control.

130. The will is not in contact with the emotion or affection, but it is in contact with the idea of that object which awakens the emotion; and therefore, although not in contact with the emotion, it may be vested with an effectual control over it. It cannot bid compassion into the bosom, apart from the object which awakens it; but it can bid a personal entry into the house of mourning, and then the compassion will flow apace: or it can bid a mental conception of the bereaved and afflicted family there, and then the sensibility will equally arise, whether a suffering be seen or a suffering be thought of.

It is thus that we can will the right emotions into being, not immediately, but mediately: as the love of God, by thinking on God; a sentiment of friendship, by dwelling in contemplation on the congenial qualities of our friend; the admiration of moral excellence, by a steady attention to it.

It is thus too that we can bid away the wrong emotions, not separately and in disjunction from their objects, but by ridding our mind of the thoughts which excite and originate emotions. We may rid ourselves of anger, for example, by forgetting the injury, or by directing our attention to some other object. Hence the culture or regulation of the heart is mainly dependent on the regulation of the thoughts. [Chalmers' Works, vol. v. pp. 206, 207.]

128. What objection here deserves to be considered? 129. What reply shall be made to this objection? 130. In what manner can we control our affections?

INFLUENCE OF ATTENTION AND HABIT.

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SECTION V.-INFLUENCE EXERTED UPON THE AFFECTIONS BY ATTENTION AND HABIT.

I. Influence of Attention.

131. THE act of attention consists in directing the mind intensely and habitually to all the considerations which ought to guide us in the particular relation to which the affection refers. It leads us to place ourselves in the situation of others; and, with a kind of personal, almost selfish interest, to enter into their wants, their anxieties, and their feelings; and thus, in their place, to judge of the emotions and the conduct which are due from us to them. Such is the exercise of one who wishes to follow the great rule of doing to others as he would that they should do to him.

II. Influence of Habit.

132. The tendency of all emotions is to become weaker by repetition, or to be less acutely felt the oftener they are experienced.

133. The tendency of actions is to become easier by repetition, so that those which require at first close attention come to be performed without effort, and almost without consciousness.

134. An affection consists of an emotion leading to an action; and the natural progress of the mind, in the proper exercise of the affection, is, that the emotion becomes less acutely felt as the affection becomes easier and more familiar.

135. Thus, a scene of wretchedness, or a tale of sorrow, will produce in the inexperienced an intensity of emotion not felt by him whose life has been devoted to deeds of mercy; and a superficial observer is apt to consider the condition of the latter as one of insensibility, produced by familiarity with scenes of distress. But this is not so. It is that healthy and natural progress of the mind, in which the emotion is gradually diminished in force as it is followed by its proper actions; that is, as the mere intensity of feeling is exchanged for the habit of active benevolence.

136. The emotion must be steadily followed by the action which belongs to it. If this be neglected, the harmony of the moral process is destroyed, and, as the