of its varied aspects of grandeur, and loveliness, and sublimity?

For what are all

The forms which brute unconscious matter wears,
Greatness of bulk or symmetry of parts?
Not reaching to the heart, soon feeble grows
The superficial impulse; dull their charms,
And satiate soon and pall the languid eye.
Not so the moral species, nor the powers
Of genius and design; the ambitious mind
There sees herself: by these congenial forms
Touch'd and awaken'd, with intenser art

She bends each nerve, and meditates well-pleas'd
Her features in the mirror*.

Such is the interest connected with the subjects of our inquiry in metaphysical and moral science. To every mind capable of reflecting in any degree on its own operations, it possesses attractions of a high and permanent order.

That it tends, in a high degree, to improve and elevate the mind, will, I am persuaded, be universally admitted. It may, I am aware, be urged, that the same remark holds true of every branch of science, and that the mere exercise of our mental faculties, either in the acquisition or communication of knowledge, tends to their improvement; and that, on this ground, the study of natural philosophy, or history, or chemistry, has precisely the same claim on our attention. I am cordially willing to concede that even, in this view, the physical sciences, and especially astronomy, which raises the mind to the consideration of the movements and the laws of other worlds, should occupy a distinguished place in every system of

*AKENSIDE's Pleasures of Imagination,

education;-that the varied and magnificent objects which they bring within the range of observation cannot fail to enlarge and invigorate the intellec tual powers; and that by accustoming the mind to continued processes of reasoning, to compare and arrange its ideas, they are most conducive to the evolution of all its faculties. But it requires a still greater degree of abstraction to reflect on the subjects of our consciousness, to mark the different operations of our mind, our trains of thought, and the laws by which they are regulated; and to analyze and classify the various workings of the immaterial part of our nature. The habits of clear discernment and close reasoning on all subjects, and especially on subjects connected with moral and political science, must be greatly confirmed; and the very niceties of speculation to which metaphysical science, more than any other, will always give rise, must communicate a facility of embodying in language and in reasonings, the silent reflections of the mind. That such a faculty is of the first importance to all who are called to the high situation of communicating the benefits of knowledge to others, is sufficiently obvious.

The next advantage which I shall mention as resulting from the study of moral philosophy is, an enlarged acquaintance with human nature; and who is there possessing any share of liberal curiosity for whom such a subject has no interest? or, in what situation of life is it possible to be placed where its advantage is not very obvious? If the proper study of mankind is man, if that branch of knowledge which closely concerns the usefulness and the happiness of every one,

and especially of such as are appointed to direct the views and the prejudices of others, consist in an extended acquaintance with the operations of the human mind, and the habits of human nature, there cannot, in this case, be too much attention bestowed on that science whose object it is to consider man as a sensitive, an intelligent, a moral, and a social being. How very different in its effects on the understanding and the heart is the knowledge of human nature acquired in the exercise of those liberal views and kind dispo sitions which are congenial to youth, from that which is the result of a partial acquaintance with the worst part of the species, and which so generally sours the temper, and dries up the springs of generous affections! The Philosophy of the Human Mind leads us to study the elements of morals, to view the principles and tendencies from which the complex phenomena of the moral world proceed, and to teach us to regard with benevolence and candour a nature whose endowments and whose weaknesses are our own, and on which the Deity has so visibly impressed his image. Whilst it gives us the knowledge of ourselves, and of mankind, it gives us that which is of still higher value, an affection and reverence for that common nature which we inherit; and by fixing our thoughts on the powers and susceptibilities of man, we are reminded of the immortality to which, by his Creator, he has been evidently designed.

Though the Philosophy of the Human Mind conferred no greater benefit than this, it would be well deserving of our attention; since it would prevent us from being misled by those partial, and consequently

erroneous views of the nature of man, which render the writings of certain authors so injurious to the best interests of mankind. "As man (says Addison) is a creature made up of different extremes, he has something in him very great and very mean. A skilful artist may draw an excellent picture of him in either of these views. The finest authors of antiquity have taken him on the more advantageous side. They cultivate the natural grandeur of the soul, raise in her a generous ambition, feed her with hopes of immortality and perfection, and do all they can to widen the partition between the virtuous and the vicious, by making the difference betwixt them as great as between gods and brutes. It is impossible to read a page in Plato, Tully, and a thousand other ancient moralists, without being a greater and a better man for it. On the contrary, I could never read any of our modish French authors, or those of our own country who are the imitators and the admirers of that trifling nation, without being for some time out of humour with myself, and at every thing about me. Their business is to depreciate human nature, and consider it under its worst appearances. They give mean interpretations and base motives to the worthiest actions; they resolve virtue and vice into constitution; in short, they endeavour to make no distinction between man and man, or between the species of man and that of brutes *.”

That the useless disquisitions of the schoolmen, which went under the denomination of metaphysics, have little tendency to afford the student correct and enlarged views of human nature, has been observed

*Tatler, No. 108.

by every one who has given the smallest attention to the subject. They answered some important purposes, however, in the ages of barbarism and of darkness; they preserved awake some share of attention to literary and scientific pursuits; and by the powerful, though ridiculous, contentions which they occasioned, they may be regarded as the means of transmitting the acquirements of Greece and Rome to future times. That knowledge is not altogether profitless which elevates the mind above the grossness of mere animal enjoyment, and which prevents it from sinking into that state of total inactivity, which while it continues, renders amelioration, either in the savage of the wood, or in the vassal of the tyrant, hopeless. "Whatever," says Dr. Johnson, "withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings." Viewed in this light, the quibbles of the schoolmen, and the trifling disputations of a Thomas, and a Scotus, have not been without their use.

That science, however, which is known in modern times by the Philosophy of the Human Mind, is found. ed, not on hypothetical reasonings, but on a careful induction of facts; and while its study is attended with the incidental advantages of the scholastic disquisitions, it puts within our reach the means of obtaining a just and extended acquaintance with the nature of man. We are, in truth, engaged in ascertaining, not what were the opinions of Aristotle, or what were the theories which in succeeding ages amused the idle disputants who bowed to the authority of so great a