which takes its' central point in conscious selfishness, whatever be the forms or names that act on the selfish passion, a Ghost or a Constable, can have but a distant relationship to that Religion, which places its' Essence in our loving our Neighbour as ourselves, and God above ali) I know not, by what arguments i could repel the sarcasm. But what are my Metaphysics, but the referring of the Mind to its' own Consciousness for Truths indispensible to its' own Happiness? To what purposes do I, or am I about, to employ them? To perplex our clearest notions and living moral instincts? To deaden the feelings of Will and free Power, to extinguish the Light of Love and of Conscience, to make myself and others Worth-less, Soul-less, God-less? No! To expose the Folly and the Legerdemain of those who have thus abused the blessed machine of Language; to support all old and venerable Truths; and by them to support, to kindle, to project the Spirit; to make the Reason spread Light over our Feelings, to make our Feelings, with their vital warmth, actualize our Reason; these are my objects, these are my subjects, and are these the Metaphysics which the bad Spirits in Hell delight in? But how shall I avert the scorn of those Critics who laugh at the oldness of my Topics, Evil and Good, Necessity and Arbitrement, Immortality and the ultimate Aim? By what shall I regain their favour? My Themes must be new, a French Constitution; a Balloon; a change of Ministry; a fresh Batch of Kings on the Continent, or of Peers in our happier Island; or who had the best of it of two parliamentary Gladiators, and whose Speech, on the subject of Europe bleeding at a thousand wounds, or our own Country struggling for herself and all human nature, was cheered by the greatest number of Laughs, loud Laughs, and very loud Laughs: (which, carefully marked by italics, fort most conspicuous and strange parentheses in the Newspaper Reports). Or if I must be philosophical, the last chemical discoveries, provided 1 do not trouble my Reader with the Principle which gives them their highest interest, and the character of intellectual grandeur to the Discoverer; or the last shower of stones, and that they were supposed, by certain Philosophers, to have been projected from some Voicano in the Moon, taking care, however, not to add any of the crump reasons for this Opinion! Something new, however, it must be, quite new and quite out of themselves: for whatever is within them, whatever is deep within them, must be as old as the first dawn of human Reason. But to find no contradiction in the union of old and new, to contemplate the ANCIENT OF DAYS with feelings as fresh as if they then sprang forth at his own fiat, this characterizes. the minds that feel the Riddle of the World, and may help to unravel it! To carry on the feelings of Childhood into the powers of Manhood, to combine the Child's sense of wonder and novelty with the Appearances which every day for perhaps forty years had rendered familiar, With Sun and Moon and Stars throughout the year, this is the character and privilege of Genius, and one of the marks which distinguish Genius from Talents. And so to represent familiar objects as to awaken the minds of others to a like freshness of sensation concerning them (that constant accompaniment of mental, no less than of bodily convalescence)-to the same modest questioning of a self-discovered and intelligent ignorance, which, like the deep and massy Foundations of a Roman Bridge, forms half of the whole Structure (prudens interrogatio dimidium scientiæ, says Lord Bacon)-this is the prime merit of Genius, and its' most unequivocal mode of manifestation. Who has not, a thousand times, seen it snow upon water? Who has not seen it with a new feeling, since he has read Burns's comparison of sensual pleasure To snow that falls upon a river, A moment white-then gone for ever! In Philosophy equally as in Poetry, Genius produces the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues the stalest and most admitted Truths from the Impotence caused by the very circumstances of their universal admission. Extremes meet-a proverb, by the bye, to collect and explain all the instances and exemplifications of which, would employ a Life. Truths, of all others the most awful and mysterious, yet being at the same time of universal interest, are too often considered as so true that they lose all the powers of Truth, and lie bedridden in the Dormitory of the Soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded Errors. But as the Class of Critics whose contempt I have anticipated, commonly consider themselves as Men of the World, instead of hazarding addition al sneers by appealing to the Authorities of recluse Philosophers (for such in spite of all History, the men who have distinguished themselves by profound thought, are generally deemed, from Plato and Aristotle to Tully, and from Bacon to Berkeley), I will refer them to the Darling of the polished Court of Augustus, to the Man, whose Works have been in all ages deemed the models of good sense, and are still the pocket-companion of those who pride themselves on uniting the Scholar with the GentleThis accomplished Man of the World has given us an account of the Subjects of Conversation between himself and the illustrious Statesmen who governed, and the brightest Luminaries who then adorned the Empire of the civilized World: Sermo oritur non de villis domibusve alienis Nec, male, nec ne lepus saltet. Sed quod magis ad nos Et quo sit natura boni? summumque quid eius? HORAT. Serm. L. II. Sat. 6. v. 71 * Berkeley indeed asserts, and is supported in his Assertion by the great Statesmen, Lord Bacon and Sir Walter Raleigh, that without an habitual interest in these Subjects, a Man may be a dexterous Intriguer, but never can be a Statesman. Would to Heaven that the Verdict to be passed on my Labours depended on those who least needed them! The Water Lilly in the midst of Waters lifts up its' broad Leaves, and expands its' Petals at the first pattering of the Shower, and rejoices in the Rain with a quicker Sympathy, than the parched Shrub in the Sandy Desart. God created Man in his own Image. To be the Image of his own Eternity created he Man! Of Eternity and Self-existence what other Likeness is possible in a finite LITERAL TRANSLATION. Conversation arises not concerning the Country Seats or Families of Strangers, nor whether the dancing Hare performed well or ill. But we discuss what more nearly concerns us, and which it is an Evil not to know: whether Men are made happy by Riches or by Virtue? And in what consists the nature of Good? and what is the ultimate or supreme Good? (i. e. the Summum Bonum). Being, but Immortality and moral Self-determination! In addition to Sensation, Perception, and practical Judgement (instinctive or acquirable) concerning the notices furnished by the organs of Perception, all which in kind at least, the Dog possesses in common with his Master; in addition to these, God gave us REASON, and with Reason he gave us reflective SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS; gave US PRINCIPLES, distinguished from the maxims and generalizations of outward Experience by their absolute and essential Universality and Necessity; and above all, by superadding to Reason the mysterious faculty of Free Will and consequent personal Amenability, he gave us CONSCIENCE that Law of Conscience, which in the power, and as the indwelling WORD, of an holy and omnipotent Legislator commands us from among the numerous IDEAS mathematical and philosophical, which the Reason by the necessity of its' own excellence * The following paragraphs in this reprinted Copy I have transplanted from the Text to the Notes, in order that they may be read or passed over ad libitum. They are addressed to the Few among my Readers, who have directed their attention to psychological analysis from the Rest I entreat that same toleration, which, if they are purchasers of new books, they must have been in the habit of giving to wide margins and empty spaces; which are called Fat, I believe, by the Printers, whether in consideration of the Good of the Trade in general and their own relief and profit in par ticular, or (ex opposito, as the Grammarians say) from the contrary effect on the Readers Information, ut mons a non movenda, I am unable to decide. Chrisippus, in one of his stoical Aphorisms (preserved by Cicero in his Dialogue de nat. deor. lib. 2. sect. 160.) says: Nature has given to the Hog a soul instead of salt, in order to keep it from putrifying. This holds equally true of Man considered as an animal. Modern Physiologists have substituted the words vital power (vis vitae) for that of soul, and not without good reason: for from the effect we may fairly deduce the inherence of a power producing it, but are not entitled to hypostasize this power (that is, to affirm it to be an individual substance) any more than the Steam in the Steam Engine, the power of Gravitation in the Watch, or the magnetic Influence in the Loadstone. If the Machine consists of Parts mutually dependant, as in the Time-piece or the Hog, we cannot dispart without destroying it: if otherwise, as in a mass of Loadstone and in the Polypus, the power is equally divisible with the substance. The most approved Definition of a living Substance is, that its' vitality consists in the susceptibility of being acted upon by external stimulants joined to the necessity of re-action; and in the due balance of this action and re-action, the healthy state of Life consists. We creates for itself, unconditionally commands us to attribute Reality, and actual Existence, to those Ideas and to those only, without which the Conscience itself would be baseless and contradictory, to the Ideas of Soul, of Free Will, of Immortality, and of God! must, however, further add the power of acquiring Habits, and Facilities by repetition. This being the general idea of Life, is common to all living Beings; but taken exclusively, it designates the lowest Class, Plants and Plant Animals. An addition to the mechanism gives locomotion. A still costlier and more complex apparatus diversly organizes the impression sreceived from the external powers that fall promiscuously on the whole surface. The light shines on the whole face, but it receives form and relation only in the Eyes. In them it is organized. To these Organs of sense we suppose (by analogy from our own experience) sensation attached, and these sensuous impressions acting on other parts of the Machine, framed for other stimulants included in the Machine itself, namely, the Organs of Appetite; and these again working on the instru ments of locomotion, and on those by which the external substances (corresponding to the sensuous impressions) can be acted upon, (the Mouth, Teeth, Talons, &c.) constitute our whole idea of the perfect Animal. More than this Des Cartes denied to all other Animals but Man, and to Man himself as an animal: (for that this truly great Man considered Animals insensible, or rather insensitive, Machines, though commonly asserted, and that in Books of highest authority, is an error; and the charge was repelled with disdain by himself, in a Letter to Dr. Henry More, which, if I mistake not, is annexed to the small Edition of More's Ethics.) The strict analogy, however between certain actions of sundry Animals and those of Mankind, forces upon us the belief, that they possess some share of a higher faculty: which, however closely united with Life in one person, can yet never be educed out of the mere idea of vital power. Indeed if we allow any force to the universal opinion, and almost instinct, concerning the difference between Plants and Animals, we must hold even sensation as a fresh power added to the Vis Vitæ, unless we would make an end of Philosophy, by comprizing all things in each thing, and thus denying that any one Power of the Universe can be affirmed to be itself and not another. However tihs may be, the Understanding or regulative faculty is manifestly distinct from Life and Sensation, its' function being to take up the passive affections of the Sense into distinct Thoughts and Judgements, according to its' own essential forms, These Forms however, as they are first awakened by impressions from the Senses, so have they no Substance or Meaning unless in their application to Objects of the Senses; and if we would remove fromthem, by careful Abstraction, all the influences and intermixtures of a yet far higher Faculty (Self-consciousness for instance), it would be difficult, if at all possible, to distinguish its' Functions from those |