58

IMPORTANT CONCLUSIONS.

emotion becomes weakened, it is succeeded by cold insensibility or barren selfishness.

137. There are two conclusions arising out of this subject. The one relates to the bad effects of fictitious scenes of sorrow, as represented on the stage, or in works of fancy. The emotion is produced without the corresponding action, and the consequence is likely to be a cold and useless sentimentalism, instead of a sound cultivation of the benevolent affections.

The second conclusion is, that, in cultivating the benevolent affections in the young, we should be careful to observe the process pointed out in the philosophy of the moral feelings. They should be familiarized with scenes of actual suffering, but this ought to be accompanied by deeds of minute and active kindness, so as to produce a full and lively impression of the wants and feelings of the sufferer. [Abercrombie.]

131. What is the nature of the influence exerted by attention, aided by a certain act of imagination?

132. What is the tendency of all emotions?

133. What is the tendency of actions?

134. What is the nature of an affection?

135. How is the proper exercise of affection illustrated?

136. What should follow emotion?

137. What important conclusions arise out of this subject respecting the cultivation of the benevolent affections?

CHAPTER V.

THE DESIRES.

138. OUR desires differ from our appetites, in not taking their rise from the body; in not operating periodically, after certain intervals; and in not ceasing on the attainment of a particular object. While pursuing the objects of desire, we are acting a part more suited to our rational nature than when yielding to the dominion of indolence or of appetite; and it is not till we pervert them from their true end that we fall in the esteem of our fellow

creatures.

139. The mental condition which we call desire ap

THE DESIRES.-DESIRE OF SAFETY.

59

pears to lie in a great measure at the foundation of character; and, for a sound moral condition, it is required that the desires be directed to worthy objects; and that the degree or strength of the desire be accommodated to the true and relative value of each of these objects. If the desires are thus directed, worthy conduct will be likely to follow in a steady and uniform manner. If they are allowed to break from these restraints of reason and the moral principle, the man is left at the mercy unhallowed passion, and is liable to those irregularities which result from such a derangement of the moral feelings.

of

140. The desires may indeed exist in an ill-regulated state, while the conduct is restrained by various principles; such as submission to human laws, a regard to character, or even a certain feeling of what is morally right, contending with the vitiated principle within. But this cannot be considered as the healthy condition of a moral being.

It is only when the desire itself is sound that we can say the man is in moral health. This, accordingly, is the great principle so often and so strikingly enforced in the sacred writings, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, because out of it are the issues of life." "Blessed are the

pure in heart, for they shall see God."

Thus there are desires that are folly, and there are desires that are vice, even though they should not be followed by indulgence; and there are desires which tend to purify and elevate the moral nature, though their objects should be beyond the reach of our full attainment in the present state of being.

[See Exposition of the Tenth Commandment.]

141. Our principal desires are, the desire of safety, the desire of having, the desire of society, the desire of superiority, the desire of knowledge, the desire of moral improvement, the desire of action, the desire of happiness, the desire of esteem.

(1.) The Desire of Safety.

142. The desire of safety is originated by a knowledge of our exposure to the effects of the conflicting desires of other men. The instinctive love of life, the instinctive desire to avoid privation, pain, and constraint, are ex

60

DESIRE OF PROPERTY-OF SOCIETY.

panded and unfolded by memory, reflection, and foresight, so that life, ease, and comfort become objects to which man tends with conscious thought, as well as from blind impulse. He is not satisfied with present safety, but is anxious to have security for the future.

(2.) The Desire of Property.

143. This desire is apparent in all stages of society. Food, clothing, weapons, tools, ornaments, houses, carriages, ships, are universally objects of his desire. At first these things are desired as a means of gratifying his natural appetites, or his affections; of supporting and sheltering his family; of repelling and mastering his enemies. But afterward he delights to consider them as connected with himself in a permanent and exclusive manner, and to look upon them as his, as his own, as his property. The things which he thus looks upon as his own he is disturbed at the prospect of losing, and is angry at any one who attempts to take them from him.

144. The pursuit of wealth derives its moral character from the end for which it is sought. A man may desire wealth as a means of luxury and sensuality: and in such a case the desire of wealth is opposed to temperance, rather than to justice.

Or, it may be desired as a means of benevolent action, or of right action in many other ways. A person's power of doing good, of many kinds, depends much upon the station and influence which wealth bestows. The desire of wealth for this purpose is virtuous.

145. Though wealth may be desired for ends which make the desire virtuous, the progress of men's habits is such that, when sought at first as a means, it is afterward desired as an end. The desire to acquire money is then unlimited; and is covetousness, avarice.

(3.) The Desire of Society.

146. The most prominent forms in which this desire appears are, the desire of family society, and of civil society, images of which may be seen in the instincts of animals of the former, in pairing animals; of the latter, in gregarious animals. This desire springs up in early. childhood, before the dawn of reason.

DESIRE OF SOCIETY.

61

The desire of safety and the desire of property may be supposed to give rise to a desire of civil society, as of a means by which such objects may be secured. But beside this consideration, man is by his very constitution a social animal. He is nowhere found, nor can he exist in any other state than in society, in one form or other.

The social principle shows itself at all periods of life and in all conditions of civilization. In persons shut up from intercourse with their fellow men, it has manifested itself in the closest attachment to animals; as if the human mind could not exist without some object on which to exercise the feelings intended to bind man to his fellows. It is said that the Count de Lauzun, during a nine years' confinement in a room where no light was admitted but through a chink in the roof, attached himself to a spider, and continued for some time to amuse himself with attempting to tame it, with catching flies for its support, and with superintending the progress of its web. When the cruel jailer discovered the count thus amusing himself, he killed the spider, the loss of whose society was felt by the count as the loss of a beloved child is felt by a mother.

The desire of society shows itself in the union of men in civil society and social intercourse; in the offices of friendship, and in the still closer union of the domestic circle.

The abuse of this principle produces the contracted spirit of party.

Men desire to act, and are fitted to act, in common; declaring and enforcing rules by which the conduct of all shall be governed. They thus act as governors, legislators, judges, subjects, citizens. Without such community of action, and such common rules really enforced, there can be no tolerable comfort, peace, or order. Without civil society man cannot act as man.

147. Another spring of action, intimately connected with the continuance of the social state, is a mutual understanding among men, by which they may learn to anticipate and to depend upon the actions of each other. A large part of the actions that take place among men are regulated by their mutual understanding established by promises, or in some other way. In the different employ ments of life there is a mutual dependence, the result of

62

DESIRE OF SUPERIORITY.

a mutual understanding, which serves as a bond of society, and is to be ranked among the principal springs of human action.

(4.) The Desire of Superiority and of Power.

148. The desire of superiority is only a modification of

the desire of power. There is one particular, however, in which the desire of superiority differs from the desire of power. The desire of superiority, or the principle of emulation, is only excited by competition; whereas power is sought after in the absence of every kind of rivalship.

149. It is interesting to trace the different ways in which different individuals acquire an ascendency over others. And as all the gifts of rank and fortune, and intellect, as well as of moral goodness, may be made in some way or other subservient to this end, they are all the objects of pursuit for the sake of the notice which they attract, and the power which they communicate.

A man desires to be more wealthy than his neighbors; and hence accumulates riches by labor, agriculture, trade, or traffic.

A man wishes not only to surpass, but to guide and control other men. He wishes that they should obey when he commands. He has a desire of power. To this ob

ject, strength and skill, and riches and eloquence, may all be as means to ends. When it becomes the governing propensity, the strongest principles of human nature give way before it, even those of personal comfort and safety. We see this in the conqueror and in the statesman.

The individual under its control, often is hurried away from the attainment of one degree of influence to another, till he begins to aim at a point of elevation which he cannot reach without deep criminality. In the poet's Lady Macbeth is drawn the most vivid picture of a case not very uncommon, in which the principle of ambition has entirely subdued every suggestion of conscience and all the gentler emotions of humanity. The deliberate sacrifice of all other considerations to the gaining "sole sovereign sway and masterdom," by the murder of Duncan, is forcibly expressed in her invocation on hearing of his fatal entrance under her battlements :