and the fire of suffering,-to them that will learn. For clay is hardened and wax softened by the same fire; the same punishment which subdues the good, only exasperates the evil :—and so convinced are we of this, that we will say that there is no affliction, no suffering, even no wrong and no evil or injustice, that is, by his fellows inflicted upon a man, that may not by himself be made the means of calling forth more clearly in his heart the fire of the affections, and rendering him towards man more lovely and more loving; and no joy of theirs that shall not awake in him a like emotion, and by Sympathy, give him, as it were, a two-fold pleasure, one of his own and one of his neighbour's.

Having thus examined these two points* in reference to the "Heart" or the "Affections," we would bring forth a moral inference deducible from them, and urge it upon our readers.

The "Affections" are directed towards "persons" and not "things," and in them receive their full and perfect exercise and gratification. The "Appetites" and the "Desires"-these are towards things. This is the law of their nature, and so a rule of it.

And from it comes most plainly the principle of Moral Action, that when the affections are directed exclusively towards the Person or Individual, without respect to the advantages that may come from the Affection, then are they so far pure and noble. He that has friendship and love towards any individual, must keep altogether out of thought the benefits he may derive from him in consequence of that love of his. If once the thought of these benefits be mixed in with his Affection and calculated upon, then desire takes gradually the place of affection, which becomes decayed, and may perish utterly.

So it is with regard to the child in respect to the parent and the parent in respect to the child. Nature tells us that filial love should be directed to the Parent as Parent; and the moment the child begins to think of loving, because of benefits or advantages, of measuring its love by these advantages, and weighing so much of the one against so much of the other, so soon does Affection depart, being adulterated with Desire. So with the Father towards the Child: Paternal Affection, if mixed up with thoughts of benefit,

* That the affections are towards "persons"-and these " ciety."

persons in So

is alloyed and changed into something else that is not "affection," but is selfishness and "calculation." And so of the Husband "towards the Wife," of the betrothed or engaged towards one another. Let Father or Son, or Brother or Sister, or Husband or Wife, or any else whose bounden duty it is to render "Affection," let them permit selfish considerations to enter in, and "the Desires," whether of money, or comfort, or station, or of anything else to intrude, and they shall find out, that craftily as they may disguise it, there is an instinct that pierces through this concealment. And they may find, too, that even in the Social Nature of man, there is such a law as this: "He that hath, it shall be given unto him, and he shall have more abundance, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that he hath.”

I say not this under any high romantic feeling, or in any hasty fervor, but in a common sense way, as a natural inference from a natural rule. And seeing the amount of unhappiness that has been in families for the last seventy or eighty years, seeing also how generally men calling themselves Moral Philosophers, have taught actual selfishness as a rule,* I believe that the cause and effect are these two-" Selfishness in matters of the Affections," taught by these philosophers and acted upon by persons that knew not the wrong,—and then misery as a consequence from that action.

Now, all the relations existing between persons wherein "Affection" is due, all these are attended with a multitude of actual and real advantages over and above the Affection, upon which, as the Highest Goodt of them all, the relation is founded. Each and all of them, in their natural and proper operation, tend to heighten the "Affection," but if each and all of them were gone, then the Affection should be retained. Now, the assertion we make is this: that if any of them separately, or all of them together, assume the influence, or be the leading principle, then the Affection is degraded and debased into a "desire," and the relation is injured in its integrity and pureness.

The husband that truly loves his wife, loves her the more for her various wife-like qualities, for everything that makes him in his house more happy, more comfortable, more respectable. All

* The Moral Philosophy of Paley has been commonly called the "Selfish Philosophy."

† See in Book I. the doctrine of the Highest Good.

these qualities become, as it were, fuel to increase his affections and love. But he that desires to have all these, and for that reason takes a woman to be a wife, he may find himself disappointed. And so for every relation in life wherein affection is due-if men would have all, let them have this the first.

A parallel case I may state as confirming this conclusion. I have known many men who because they were religious prospered in worldly affairs; and I have noticed that just as soon as they began to substitute the consequence as a motive for its cause, to say in their hearts, "I shall remain religious in order that I may prosper in worldly affairs," just so soon their religious feeling begins to decay. The one fact and the other depend upon the same principle.

Now, wherein "the Affections" are kept clear from the Desires by the man, with his own will, consciously, there is seen a peculiar character of mind easily recognized by all, and in the common language of all given as a distinguishing name. This word is "Nobleness;" and he is "noble" in Heart who to all to whom affection is due gives that affection unalloyed by the "Desires" and "Appetites."

"Nobleness of mind" we shall therefore use henceforth as a word to which a distinct and definite meaning in Ethical Science is attached. And opposite to it directly is what we call Meanness, the character of which is that it makes "affection a pretence and a means for gratifying and indulging the "Desires,"-lawful, indeed, in themselves, if lawfully used, but when taking the place of the Affections and substituted for them, most evil.

That the "Affections" are intended for "Persons" in "Society:" from this the second principle, a multitude of practical inferences of the highest moral value are deducible; but these, most properly, shall come under the particular examination of the several relations to which they are referred, and therein our readers shall find them. In the meantime we go on to another part of this subject.

CHAPTER II.

Sympathy. Two kinds.-Passive and Active.-Passive Sympathy, the sense of harmony of feeling with others.-Illustrations of it and its uses.- A moral precept founded upon it.-Second kind of Sympathy, the active power of entering voluntarily into the feelings of others.-It is vicarious. -Misery is in this world more than happiness for man unprotected.-.But Society in all its forms is defensive against misery.-We sympathize more with sorrow than joy.-Hence its uses manifest.-Sympathy in a great measure voluntary.-Natural and acquired deficiency of this affection.Hardheartedness. Its natural punishments.-Sentimentalism a disease of the Sympathy.-Rousseau.-Law of sympathy.-Moral conclusions from this arising.

THERE is one especial difficulty about Ethics, in that it is a science of which each one has the requisite knowledge in his own consciousness; and the presentation of it, then, in an external systematic form, is almost impossible. The business, therefore, of the writer, so far as he can, is to present the truths in such a manner, that each one may recognize them as facts of his own nature, and accede to the rules drawn forth by the author; but for putting it in a mechanically systematic order, it is a thing which the very nature of the science forbids. The true system in it is not of external arrangement, but of internal sequency, so that fact shall lead to fact, and principle be made a foundation-stone to principle: that so the reader shall be led to think upon his own nature and to see by it, that the principles of the science are true. For often it happens that a fact or truth shall be denied by him under the influence of prejudice or of ignorance, which, had he seen it in its Ethical connexion with others of which he would make no doubt, though they have never been brought up consciously to his mind, he would at once have acknowledged to be true. Let not the reader, then, expect this external, mechanically systematic order from us; we are content if we present the various truths of Ethical Science in the peculiar systematic method which we have described above, that form which we feel most appropriate to a science, all the facts of which are in existence in each one's breast. In accordance with these views, we would, in this chapter, as in its

peculiar and appropriate place, present the subject of Sympathy (and perhaps some kindred truths,) to the thought of our readers.

The original meaning of the word Sympathy is "Harmony of the Affections," (sympatheia). It originally implied not merely that state in which of two persons the feelings of the one being affected in a particular way, the feelings of the other, because of sympathy, shall be so affected, so that "we rejoice with them which do rejoice, and weep with them which weep," although we have not the motive to rejoicing, or to sorrow, that they have, but only our sympathy with them. It was not taken, then, solely as this the passive effect, but also as a particular power that brings about the effect, and is a part of our nature.

And by many beautiful comparisons this idea was supported,— by marvels of the most wondrous kind it was proved or impressed. The Philosophy of ancient Greece and of Middle-age Europe, teems with the wonders of that miraculous principle, Sympathy. It was pointed out that two harps being tuned alike, and one being played, the chords of the other would follow the tune with a faint, sympathetic music. It was believed that precious stones had sympathies with peculiar persons and characters. Nay, even the influence of the stars shed their virtues upon men by Sympathy. And the herbs of the field wrought by "Sympathy." And, stranger still, wounds could be healed at a distance by an ointment whose force depended upon "Sympathy," the ointment being smeared upon the weapon, not upon the wound! In fact, he that shall look at the works of "Baptista Porta," or "Albertus Magnus," shall find there the strangest Natural Philosophy ever dreamed of, and all of it founded upon the one principle, Sympathy.

But perhaps the Platonic notion, that supposes marriage to be the union of two souls that once, in their pre-existent state, were one, and the "sympathy" which urges them again to union, to send them unconsciously seeking it over the world, is the most interesting fable upon the point. Although hardly inferior to it may be counted that which supposes the mother's heart to be endued with such natural affection towards her child, that after it has been lost, if brought again into her presence, through secret sympathy her heart shall yearn towards it. And then again, that Middle-age persuasion, by which two perfect friends shall, at the remotest distance have, under certain conditions, a true and perfect knowledge of one another's state; because of their friendship,