he would be the better of something, he means that he desires it, and his expression contains a just analysis of that mental state, but he desires it only moderately. If, again, he say that he wants such a thing, then he means that he desires it, and will have it immediately if possible.

is not always so philosophically correct.

Language

Desire always arising from comparison, the eagerness of it will depend on the degree of superiority which the one condition is conceived to possess over the other. I may be allowed to borrow two illustrations of this. The gentleman who has a fortune of 100,000/. does not form a very eager desire for an additional sixpence, because there is but a paltry degree of superiority in 100,000l. Os. 6d. over 100,000l. But with what intense desire does many a wretched man contemplate a sixpence! To him, perhaps, between the possession and the want of it, there is all the difference between a little and nothing, between a supply of food and absolute starvation. The poor fisherman, who accidentally discovers at some distance a floating log of wood, regards it with desire. He conceives it as useful firewood which may add comfort to his miserable hut, and contribute to cheer the circle of his family when assembled round the hearth. But how incalculably more ardent would be the desire of the drowning mariner at the sight of such a treasure. To him there would be, between the attaining and the loss

L

of it, not merely the difference between heat and cold, between cheerfulness and gloom, there would be all the difference between life and death.

Some philosophers have enumerated several species of desire as separate and distinct principles, such as the desire of power,—the desire of esteem, the desire of knowledge. But it is obvious that these are only the same principle directed to different objects. The state of mind called desire is the same in all. Its aspect may be varied in ambition, emulation, or curiosity, but this arises only from the dissimilarity of the objects sought after.

It appears from what has been said that desire ought not to be referred to any department of the mind separate from the intellect. It may, when strong and continued, be accompanied, like any emotion, with a peculiar bodily state, such as languor and retarded breathing, which may be felt as if ingredients in it. These are so characteristic as even to be made descriptive of it; and we say a man sighs for something or languishes for it, meaning that it is the object of his steady and continued desire. But, these bodily feelings being deducted, desire is strictly an intellectual state, and subject to all the laws of such.

The knowledge of that power which we possess over the motions of our bodies gives rise to that state called Volition, which may be considered as

Desire directed to some bodily movement conceived to be in our power, accompanied by the full belief that the motion desired will immediately follow. Now Desire and Belief being both intellectual states, it follows that Volition is so too, Accordingly we find that volitions are subject to the same laws of association which regulate all our conceptions.

The application of these laws to volition originates the phenomena of Habit, which are of so much importance for the acquiring of dexterity, and in the formation of character. By the frequent repetition of a certain series of volitions, they become so associated, as afterwards easily and rapidly to follow one another in the same train. Thus the musician, by at first slowly exerting the successive volitions in their proper order, associates them so closely, that, after practice, his fingers fly over the notes so rapidly as to astonish us. Before every movement of every finger there must be a volition, but these volitions having become associated in trains, they instantaneously suggest one another in their proper order, without any effort on the part of the performer. It would even require an effort for him to stop suddenly short at some particular note, and he would probably experience much difficulty in doing so, because this would be interrupting a train, the parts of which had become closely connected by association. Habit not only gives a facility of

certain actions but a tendency to them. Hence it becomes exceedingly important in a moral point of view to be judicious in the formation of habits, that so we may avoid forming a habitual tendency to any vice, and, on the other hand, may avail ourselves of all the strength of this principle for the support of virtue.

The Passions are, of all the principles of human nature, those which appear most anomalous, and most irregular in their operation. But in their most tumultuous state they are subject to the ordinary laws of the mind. The violence of the tempest and the boiling of the waves, obey the same laws which govern the air and ocean in their most tranquil state. Even the lightning in its destructive course is guided by invariable laws. And just so is it with the passions. We have but to investigate more closely the constitution of the mind, in order to discover that they form no exception to the common principles of human nature in its composed state. They are governed by universal and invariable laws, the same which regulate all our intellectual operations, and are by no means to be regarded as instinctive states operating independently of the understanding. Witness the power of the orator. He can transfuse into the breasts of thousands, at the same moment, the same enthusiasm for the cause which he advocates, rouse them to thirst of military glory, or fire them with the spirit of revenge,-melt them with

sympathy for the afflicted, -or animate them with patriotic ardour. Such effects he could not produce on his hearers unless their passions were all governed by fixed, uniform, and known laws. He does not influence his audience by any magical communication with hidden springs or principles of their minds. No: he sets his cause before them in such a manner as to raise in them lively conceptions of its advantages, and to cover its weakness from their view he presents to their imagination every circumstance which may tend to heighten the colours of his picture, or aggravate the objections to the cause which he opposes: he avails himself of ideas which have previously acquired a prominent place in their minds, -ideas of duty, of religion, of morality, -ideas of their own superior wisdom, or valor, or ancestry, or national character: and he endeavours to make the conceptions which he wishes to raise in them, so coincide with these ideas, that the latter may assist his arguments, and enliven and enforce his representation. Thus all his arts are directed simply to raise strong and vivid conceptions of the advantages of his cause. When he has succeeded in doing this, all the effects necessarily follow which he desired. His hearers are melted to tears, or struck with fear, or fired to resentment, just as the conceptions which he has led them to form are those of sorrow, or of danger, or of injury; and the degree of their excitement precisely corresponds to the strength of