NOTES.

NOTES.

The history of circumstances under which I commenced reading the book of M. Droz, sur l’ art d’ étre heureux, the substance of the first chapter of which is given as above, will not be irrelevant, I would hope, to you, if to others. It was a beautiful April morning, and I had wandered away from the town, with the book in my hand, among the hills. I inhaled a bland atmosphere that just ruffled half formed leaves, and shook from trees, shrubs and flowers the pearly drops and the delicious aroma of the season. A dun, purple, smoky vapor veiled the brilliancy of the sun and gave the face of nature its most exquisite coloring. A repose, like sleep, seemed to rest upon the earth, only interrupted by the ruminating of the flocks and herds on the hill sides. The bees sped away to their nectar cells from tree and flower, leaving upon the dark and fleeting line of their passage through the air a lulling hum like the tones of an Eolian harp. A large town, with its ceaseless and heavy roll of mingled sounds, lay outstretched beneath my feet. Painted boats were slowly wending their way along a canal from the town, and winding their course round the foot of the hills. Before me was a vast panorama of activity, business, commerce and all the accompaniments of a busy town. A few paces behind me, and I was plunged in a forest where town and commerce and life were hidden as if by the shifting of a scene, and the jay screamed, and the woods showed as to the red man who had seen them centuries before. A beautiful spring branch murmured by me in its deep and flood-worn channel down the glen. A little advance spread the town before me. A little retreat gave me back to the wildness of nature in the forest. Here I had often enjoyed much of the little that life allows us to enjoy, in quiet communion with nature and my own thoughts. I had never experienced it in higher measures than at this moment. Could I, by a volition, have arrested the flight of time and the succession of sensations, here would I have fixed the punctum stans of existence, and been content to have this scene always around me, and the enjoyment of this union of meditation and repose, perpetual.

But a change came over my thoughts, as I read the quaint axiom, laid down with such mathematical precision, man is formed to be happy. What I saw and what I felt, my own consciousness assented to the proposition. But, startled by a transient feeling of pain, a new train of ideas succeeded. I have only to pass, said I, the short interval between this repose, verdure, quietness and internal satisfaction, to reach the scene of dust and smoke before me. Besides spires and mansions, I shall see hovels, poor, blind, lame, squalid, blaspheming youth, imbecile age, prostitutes, beggars, haunts of felons and outlaws; and even in the abodes of what shows external comfort and opulence, the sick and dying hanging in agonies of suspense upon the countenance of their physician and friends, as they catch gleams of hope or shades of despair from their aspect. Many of these sick, even if they recover, will only be restored to trembling age, to perpetual and incurable infirmity, and to evils worse than death. Yet, unhappy in living, and afraid to die, they cling to this wretched existence as though it were the highest boon. These varied shades of misery that the picture before me will present to the slightest inspection, in ten thousand forms and combinations, are visible in every part of our world. I, too, shall soon add to the deepness of the shading. My friends will depart in succession; and in my turn, on the bed of death, I shall look in the faces of those most dear to me, as I am compelled to depart out of life. What an affecting contrast with what I see and what I am!

Why there is this partial evil in the world is not a question which I shall here attempt to vex; for I could add nothing to what has already been said upon the subject. It is enough that the evil does actually exist. Is it remediless? Can life be so spent as to leave a balance of enjoyment set over against the evil? These are my questions. There will always be inequality, ignorance, vice, disease, a measureless amount of misery and death. What portion of the evils of life can be cured? What portion must be manfully, piously endured? What transient gleams of joy can be made to illumine the depth of shade?

I yield entire faith to the doctrine before you, that, estimate these evils as highly as you may, a balance of enjoyment may still be struck in favor of life. I do not doubt, that more than one half the suffering and sorrow which every individual endures is simply of his own procuring, and not only that it might have been wholly avoided, but that positive enjoyment might have been substituted in its place. An inconceivable mass of misery would at once be struck from the sum if, as I have already remarked, we knew the physical, organic and moral laws of our being, and conformed ourselves to them. A uniform, consistent and thorough education would cure us of innumerable errors of opinion, injurious habits, and a servile conformity to established and prescribed prejudices, and would impart to us wisdom, force of character and resignation, to enable us to sustain, as we ought, those that are unavoidable. Imperfection, pain, decay and death, in the inevitable measures belonging to organized beings, would remain. The dignity of true philosophy, the stern consciousness of the necessity of courage, profound and filial submission to the divine will, and the well defined and investigated hopes of religion would accomplish the remainder.

Consider one single evil—fear, unnecessary fear, an entirely gratuitous infusion of bitterness in the cup of life. I ask the man who has seen fourscore winters to tell me, were all that he has suffered in his pilgrimage cast into one account, what would be the greatest item in the sum? I believe that almost every one might answer, that more than half might be charged to one single source of suffering—fear—fear of opinion, reproach, shame, poverty, pain, danger, disease and death. I pause not to consider the usual dull illustrations of the wisdom and utility of assigning to us the instinct of fear, to put us on our guard and to enable us to ward off evils. It is not this instinctive shrinking and vigilance to avoid evil that I consider. Let education have its most perfect work in raising us superior to this servile and tormenting passion, and too much of it would still remain. Of all that we have suffered from fear, what portion has been of any service in shielding us from that which we apprehended? Not only have we avoided no evil in consequence, but the enervating indulgence of this passion has taken from us our quickness of foresight, our coolness of deliberation, our firmness of action and resolve, by the exercise of which, we might have escaped all that we dreaded. We may calculate then, that every pang we have felt from this source has been just so much gratuitous agony.

Not only natural instincts, but acquired habits are transmitted; and this evil of fearfulness, this foreboding of apprehension, shaping the fashion of uncertain ills, has been the growing inheritance of countless generations; and a shrinking and effeminate timidity has been woven into our mental constitution by nature. Education, instead of resisting, or counteracting, or diminishing the transmitted mischief, has labored with terrible effect, to make it a principle and a motive to action, and the most efficient engine of the inculcated systems of morality and religion. Fear of death, and a slavish terror, springing from misapprehensions of the character of the divine being, and unmanly and debilitating horrors in regard to the unknown future in another life, these have been the chief sources of this evil. Terribly have the father and the mother, the minister and the school-master, and general prescription and example concurred, to strengthen this barbarous instrument of governing, which never inspired a good action, and which it would be cruel to apply to a slave. Horrible have been the bondage, the mean abjectness of spirit, the long agony of the soul, which this inculcation has inspired.—We have been sedulously trained in a course of discipline which has made us afraid of our own shadows in the dark, and inspired us with shrinking and terror in view of a silent and peaceful corpse, which, in the eye of sober reason, should originate associations no more fearful, than a waxen figure. We, who are the victims of this inborn and instinctive inheritance, we, who have had it inwoven by precept, education and example, and the prevalent impression, that it is one of the purest and most religious motives of action, are best able from our own consciousness, and the memory of what we have suffered from it, to present just views of it to others.—It may be in us an ingrafted principle, too deep to be uprooted by any rules, or reasons, or system of discipline; a habit too unyieldingly become a part of our nature, to be overcome. But with minds more docile, with temperaments more pliant, with habits less fixed, it may be otherwise. The next generation may transmit a more manly and less timid nature to the generations to come. Education, building on the basis of minds of more force, may then accomplish its perfect work, imbuing them with a filial confidence in the Almighty, a sense of the beauty of well-doing, and a perfect fearlessness in regard to everything, but doing wrong. The happier generation of that era, will be spared the agony of all deaths, but the single one of nature; and will be fortified by discipline, and the force of general opinion and example, to regard this inevitable law of our being, this merciful provision of providence, this rest for the worn and weary, as the hireling regards the evening shade, when he reposes from his labors and receives his reward. I shall elsewhere advert to this evil in more detail, and point out such remedies, as appear to me to be suggested by reason, education and religion.

This classification of the great divisions of our species, as they are occupied in the pursuit of happiness, seems to me to unite truth with poetry and philosophy, and to be both happy and just. The disappointed, who affirm that the earth offers no happiness, the gloomy, who view life as a place of penance, austerity and tears, the dissipated and voluptuous, who seek only pleasure, and whose doctrine is, that life offers no happiness but in unbridled indulgence, the ambitious, who consider happiness to consist only in wealth, power and distinction, and a very numerous class, who have no object in view, but to vegetate through life by chance, constitute the great mass of mankind. The number of those who have lived by system, and disciplined themselves to the wise and calculating pursuit of happiness, has always been small. But there have still been some, enough to prove the practicability of the art.—Wherever we find a person, who declares that he has lived happily, if his enjoyments have been of a higher kind, than the mere vegetative easiness of a felicitous temperament and an unthinking joyousness, we shall find on inquiry, that he has been a philosopher in the highest and best sense. He may scarcely understand the import of the term; but, however ignorant of systems, and the learning of the schools, if he have made it his chief business, to learn by the study of himself, and general observation, how to be happy, he is the true sage. He may well be content, let others regard him as they may; for he has put in requisition the best wisdom of life. No one maxim, especially, ever included more important and practical truth, than that, to be happy, we must assiduously train ourselves to retain through life a keen and juvenile freshness of sensibility to enjoyment, and must early learn to anticipate the effect of experience and years in cultivating a stern indifference, a strong spirit of endurance, and unshrinking obtuseness to pain. It has been my fortune to see examples of persons who enjoyed life even to old age with all the ardor and the quick perception of the young, and who had always been as remarkable for their impassive and heroic endurance of pain.

We are told, in ridicule of this study, that men have been very happy without rules, and before any system had been laid down, and will continue to be happy, unconscious of the means by which they arrived at their enjoyment. So have men reasoned without acquaintance with the rules of logic; but this proves not the inutility of the study. Let the objector convince us that the happy without thought and rules would not have been happier if they had sought enjoyment with the keen and practical intelligence of a Franklin.

Whatever men do well without definite aim and without rules, it is clear to me, they would do better with these advantages. The same argument equally militates with all means of moral instruction. ‘The world,’ the objector may say, ‘will proceed as before, say what we may.’ But this would be deemed no just ground of objection to an attempt to improve the age, though the efforts may have little visible and apparent effect.

No term has been more hackneyed, in these days, than education. We have had system upon system, and treatise upon treatise; and more has been written and declaimed upon this subject than almost any other. And yet, scarcely a word has been said upon a grand and radical defect in all existing systems which reduces to a very humble scale the results of the best concerted efforts. I lay out of the question all other incongruities, that I might easily mention, and come directly to that which I have chiefly in my mind. Each of the different instructors, through whose forming hands the pupil passes, communicates to him different, militant and incompatible impulses; so that, instead of a continuous operation and an onward movement, it seems to be the work of each successive teacher to undo that of all the others. The father and mother, besides various minor inculcations, labor, as their highest object, to infuse into the mind of their child, ambition, the desire of preëminence and distinction. The school-master instils the same principles under such different circumstances as to render the envy, rivalry and competition of the school-room almost another series of impulses. The minister and the catechism enjoin humility, meekness and a disposition to prefer others in honor before themselves. ‘Be honest and high-minded,’ say the parents and teachers. ‘Be adroit, and circumvent those who are watching to take advantage of your weakness and inexperience,’ says the master at the counting-desk. The elder friends teach one class of maxims, and the younger another. The actual world inculcates rules different from all the rest. Thus the parents, the school-master, the minister, the politician, society and the world are continually varying the direction of the youthful traveller. No wonder that most people either have no character, or one that is a compound of the most incongruous elements. A pupil, to have a strong, wise, marked and efficient character, should have had it steadily trained to one end; and every impulse ought to have been in a right line and concurrent with every other. Such must be the case before honest and uniform characters will be formed.

There is little force in the objection, that he who has not been constantly happy himself ought not to presume to teach others to be happy. On the contrary, as the author beautifully suggests, none can discuss, with so much experience and force of truth, the dangers of shipwreck, as they who have themselves suffered it. If the art of happiness can be taught, the teacher must necessarily have paid the price of a qualification to impart it, in having been himself unhappy. Conscious that he had the susceptibility of enjoyment, and wanted only the right direction of the means, he will be able to set up way-marks, as a warning to others, at the points where he remembers that he went astray himself.

The necessity of moderating our desires and reducing them within the limits of what we may reasonably hope to acquire, has been the beaten theme of prose and song for so many ages that the triteness of repetition has finally caused the great truth to be almost disregarded by moralists. Yet, who can calculate the sum of torment that has been inflicted by wild and unreasonable desires, by visionary and puerile expectations, beyond all probable bounds of means to realize them, indulged and fostered until they have acquired the force of habit! Whose memory cannot recur to sufferings from envy and ill will, generated by cupidity, for the possessions and advantages of others that we have not! Who can count the pangs which he has endured from extravagant and unattainable wishes! Poetry calls our mortal sojourn a vale of tears; yet what ingenuity to multiply the gratuitous means of self-torment! Has another health, wealth, beauty, fortune, endowment, which I have not? Envy will neither take them from him, nor transfer them to me. Why, then, should I allow vultures to prey upon my spirit? Learn neither to regret what you want and cannot supply, nor to hate him who is more fortunate. With all his apparent advantages over you, he wants, perhaps, what you may possess, a tranquil mind. There is little doubt that you are the happier person if you contemplate his advantages and his possessions with a cheerful and unrepining spirit.

I present two considerations only, as inducements to control and regulate your desires. 1. In indulging them beyond reason you are fostering internal enemies and becoming a self-tormentor. In the quaint language of the ancient divines, they are like fire, good servants but terrible masters. 2d. The higher gifts of fortune, the common objects of envious desire, are awarded to but a few. The number of those who may entertain any reasonable hope of reaching them is very small. But every one can moderate his desires. Every one can set bounds to his ambition. Every one can limit his expectations. What influence can fortune, events, or power exercise over a person, who has learned to be content with a little, and who has acquired courage to resign even that without repining? Franklin might well smile at the impotent malice of those who would deprive him of his means and his business, when he proved to them that he could live on turnips and rain water. It is not the less true or important, because it has been a million times said, that happiness, the creature of the mind, dwells not in external things.

Wherever civilized man has been found, the first effort of his mind, beyond the attainment of his animal wants, has been to travel into the regions of imagination, to create a nobler and more beautiful world than the dull and common-place existing one, to assign to man a higher character and purer motives than belong to the actual race. To possess a frame inaccessible to pain and decay, and to dwell in eternal spring, surrounded by beauty and truth, is an instinctive desire. A mind of any fertility can create and arrange such a scene; and in this dreaming occupation the sensations are tranquillizing and pleasant beyond the more exciting enjoyment of actual fruition. With the author, I deem the propensity for this sort of meditation neither unworthy in itself, nor tending to consequences to be deprecated. So far as my own experience goes, and I am not without my share, it neither enervates nor satiates. It furnishes enjoyment that is calm and soothing; and such enjoyment, instead of enfeebling, invigorates the mind to sustain trials and sorrows. Why should we not enter into every enjoyment that is followed by no painful consequences? Why should we not be happy when we may? Is he not innocently employed who is imagining a fairer scene—a better world—more benevolence, and more joy than this ‘visible diurnal sphere’ affords? Addison is never presented to me in a light so amiable as when he relates his day-dreams, his universal empire, in which he puts down all folly and all wickedness, and makes all his personages good and happy. Every writer who has produced a romance worth reading, has been endowed in this way, as a matter of course; and I confidently believe that the greatest and best of men have been most strongly inclined to this sort of mental creation. May not their noblest achievements have been the patterns of those archetypes? I have no doubt that imaginings infinitely more interesting than any recorded in romances, Arabian tales, or any other work of fiction, have imparted their transient exhilaration to meditative minds, and have passed away with the things that never grew into the material and concrete grossness of sensible existence. If ink and paper and printing could have been created as cheaply and readily as a new earth and better men and women, and scenes more like what we hope for at last, the world would have had bequeathed to it more volumes, than would have weighed down all the ponderous dulness of by-gone romance. I cannot assure myself, that you would have been amused, or instructed in reading; but you would then have been able to form some idea of the hours of pain, embarrassment, lack of all external means of pleasant occupation, journeying, cold and watching, that have been beguiled by this employment. I only add that, so far as my experience extends, the first calm days of spring, and the period of Indian summer in autumn are most propitious to this sort of revery.

These and the subsequent views of ambition in this essay of M. Droz, have been the theme of severe and sweeping strictures upon the general tendency of his book. Ambitious and aspiring men will find it ridiculous, of course, to exact, as a pre-requisite to the pursuit of happiness, the abandonment, or the moderation of ambitious thoughts, especially in such a country as ours, where some boon is held out to tempt these aspirings in almost every condition, from the mansion to the cabin. It may not be amiss for men, who are themselves aspirants, and to whom the access to distinction and power is easy, and the attainment probable, to declaim against the tendency of these maxims. I know well, that in every rank and position, the inculcation of aspiring thoughts, emulation and rivalry is the first and last lesson, the grand and beaten precept, upon which the million are acting. I am well aware how many hearts are wrung by all the fierce and tormenting passions, associated with this devouring one. I affirm nothing in regard to my own interior views, respecting what the world calls fame, glory and immortality. Those who are most dear to me, will not understand me to be entering my caveat to dissuade them from this last infirmity of noble minds. Could I do it with more eloquence than ever yet flowed from tongue or pen, there will always be a hundred envious competitors for every single niche in the temple of fame. It can be occupied but by one; and he who gains it will exult in his elevation only during its freshness and novelty. The rest, to the torment of fostered and devouring desires, will add the bitterness of disappointment.

Since it is a fact out of question, that the greater portion of the species can never secure the objects of their ambition, is it ill-judged in one who treats upon the science of happiness, to write for the million instead of the few favorites of fortune? The principles of a philosophic investigation ought not to be narrowed down to meet the wishes of the few. The question is, whether, taking into view ambition and all the associated feelings, the toil of pursuit, and the difficulty and unfrequency of the attainment of its objects, it is, on the whole, favorable to happiness to cherish the passion, or not? I am clear, that even the successful aspirants, if their rivalry were more generous and philanthropic, and their indulgence of the cankering and corroding of ill-concealed envy, derision, hate and scorn, were regulated, would be not the less rapid in reaching the goal, or happy in the fruition of their attainment. I have little doubt, if an exact balance of enjoyment and suffering could be struck, at the last hour between two persons, whose circumstances in other respects had been similar, one of whom had been distinguished in place and power, in consequence of cultivating ambition; and the other obscure in peaceful privacy, in consequence of having chosen that condition, that the scale of happiness would decidedly incline in favor of the latter. In a word, it is the index of sound calculation, to prepare for the fate of the million, rather than that of the few. Repress ambition, as much as we may, there will always remain enough to render the world an aceldama, and the human heart a place of concentrated torment.

It is clear, therefore, to me, that in making up the debt and credit account of life, in relation to happiness, most of the sentiments associated with ambition, and its prolific family of self-tormenting passions, may be set down as gratuitous items of misery, superinduced by our own voluntary discipline. I shall be asked, what is to stimulate to exertion, to study, toil and sacrifice, to great and noble actions, and what shall lead to fame and renown, if this incentive be taken away? I answer, that, what is ordinarily dignified with the appellation of ambition, is a vile mixture of the worst feelings of our nature. There is in all minds, truly noble, a sufficient impulse towards great actions, apart from these movements, which are generally the excitements of little and mean spirits. Take the whole nature of man into the calculation, and there can never be a want of sufficient impulse towards distinction, without a particle of those contemptible motives, which are generally put to the account of praiseworthy incitement. Truly great men have been remarkable for their exemption from envy, the inseparable concomitant of conscious deficiency; and for a certain calm and tranquil spirit, indicating moderation and comparative indifference in the struggle of emulation. They are able to say, in regard to the highest boon of ambition,

Why, then, in a world, and in an order of society, where ambition, with its associated passions, brings in an enormous amount to the mass of human self-inflicted torment, should he be censured, who advises, that in the philosophic and calculating pursuit of happiness, this element of misery should be, as much as possible, repressed? The question may be more strongly urged, when we take into the account, the consideration, that the far greater portion of the species must calculate on the bitterness of disappointment, in addition to the miseries which are inseparable from the indulgence of this passion. All the inordinate thirst for power and fame of the countless aspirants, who desire to be Alexanders, Cæsars and Napoleons, not only is so much subtracted from their enjoyment, and added to their misery, but has little tendency to aid them to attainments, which, after all, are as frequently the award of contingency, as of calculation.

Let the evils of retirement and obscurity, be fairly balanced with those of gratified ambition, and let the aspirant feel, that they are absolutely incompatible, the one with the other.—Let him then make his election, in view of the consequences, and not foolishly expect that he can unite incompatible advantages. If he chooses the dust and scramble of the arena, and the intoxicating pleasures at the goal, let him not repine, that he cannot unite with them those of repose, retirement and a tranquil mind. If, on the contrary, he prefers to hold on the noiseless tenor of his way, in peace and privacy, let not the serpents of envy sting him, when he sees the car of the fortunate aspirant drawn forward by the applauding million. Let not murmurs arise in his heart, when he hears, or reads of the rewards, honors and immortality of those whom he may believe to be endowed no higher than himself with talents or virtues. Let him say, ‘no one can show me the mind, or paint me the consciousness of that man. Fortune and my own choice have assigned me the shade. Let me not embitter its coolness and its satisfactions, by idle desires to unite advantages, that are, in their nature, incongruous. Let me remember, that mine is the condition of the million. My Creator cannot have doomed so vast a proportion of his creatures to a state, which is necessarily miserable. All that remains to me, is to make the best of the common lot.’

Severe strictures have, also, been passed upon this maxim. I well know, that the common rules proposed to the young, in commencing their serious and more advanced studies, lead them to look forward to happiness, as a garland suspended from the goal, an object only in remote expectation, the fruition of which should be hoped for only at a period of life, when few are capable of enjoyment, even if the means were in their power. To calculate on comfort and repose, early in life, has been considered as a sort of effeminate weakness.

These unphilosophic views of education have, more than almost any other, thrown over the whole course of preparatory discipline for life, a repulsive gloom, tending to fill the mind of the pupil with dismay and disgust in view of his studies.—The young should be early imbued with the sentiment, that God sent them here to be happy, not in indolence, intoxication, voluptuousness or insanity; but in earnest and vigorous discipline for coming duties. And at this bright epoch, when nature spreads a charm over existence, a philosophic teacher may easily train them to invest their studies, labors, and pursuits, and perhaps even their privations and severer toils, with a coloring of cheerfulness and gayety, when contemplated as the only means of discipline by which they may hope to reach a desired end. They should be trained to meet events, and brave the shock of adversity with a firm and searching purpose, to find either a way to mitigate the pressure, or to increase self-respect by the noble pride of manifesting to themselves, with how much calmness and patient endurance they can overcome the inevitable ills of their condition. In other words, they should make enjoyment a means, as well as an end, that they may carry onward, from their first days, an accumulating stock of happiness, with which courage and cheerfulness may paint future anticipations in the mellow lustre of past remembrances. In this way the bow of promise may be made to bend its brilliant arch over every period of this transient existence, connecting what has been, and what will be, in the same radiant span.

Entertaining such views of the direction which might be given to the juvenile mind, I mourn over those weak parents, who are nursing their children with effeminate fondness, not allowing the winds to visit them too roughly, pampering their wishes, instead of teaching them to repress them: and rather striving to ward from them all pains and privations, than teaching them that they must encounter innumerable sorrows and disappointments, and disciplining them to breast the ills of life with a conquering fortitude. Opulence generally gives birth to this injudicious plan of parental education. Penury, as little directed by sound views, but impelled by the stern teaching of necessity, imparts to the children of the poor, a much more salutary discipline, and they ordinarily come forward with a more robust spirit, with more vigor, power and elasticity; and it is in this way, that providence adjusts the balance of advantages between these different conditions.

We have all admired the practical philosophy of the man, who, when sick of a painful disease, thanked God that he was not subject to a still more painful one; and when under the pressure of the latter, found cause for cheerfulness, that he was not visited with both diseases at the same time. Akin to this was the noble fortitude of the mariner, who, when a limb was carried away by a cannon-ball, congratulated himself that it was not his head. I do not say that any one can find cheerfulness in contemplating such Spartan spirits, but that a philosophy of this sort would disarm the common ills of life of much of their power, and would even enable the sufferer to find enjoyment in the midst of them.

It would be no disadvantage even to the ambitious and aspiring to abstract, from the toils of their pursuit, the bitter and corroding spirit of rivalry and envy, and in its stead to cultivate sentiments of kindness, complacency and moderation. Let their ends be so noble, as to give an air of dignity to the means that they employ, and they will throw a splendor of self-respect over their course. Let the aspirant say, ‘I struggle not for myself, but to procure competence for aged parents, to gild their declining years with the view of my success. It is for dependent relatives, orphans, the poor and friendless, whom Providence has given particular claims on me, that I struggle. It is to benefit and gladden those who are dearer to me than life, and not for my own sordid vanity and ambition, that I strive to toil up the ascent of fame.

In fine, the author, while he inculcates the maxim that we should, from the beginning, study to number happy days, would not teach, as he has been charged with teaching, that we may give labor and study and the toil of preparation to the winds, and consult only the indolent leading of our passions; for he knows, as do we all, that this course results in anything but ‘happy days.’ He would send us, on the contrary, in pursuit of happiness, to the teaching of wisdom and experience, that never bestow impracticable lessons. He would only inculcate, that while others have taught us to seek ultimate happiness through means of pain, we should make the means themselves immediate sources of enjoyment. It is a fact out of question, that we may train ourselves to find enjoyment in those toils and privations, which are to others, sources of disgust and sorrow. Who has not thrilled, as he read of the author, who, oppressed with cares, infirmities and years, took leave of a book, the result of the most laborious and protracted study, that was to be published only after his death, with a pleasant ode of thankfulness to it, as having furnished him agreeable occupation, and beguiled years of sorrow and pain? On this subject, I too can speak experimentally. I have often experienced an inward conscious satisfaction in realizing the pleasure and enjoyment, which I found in the same pursuits and labors, which were the most painful drudgery to others, equally qualified to pursue them with myself. The bee extracts honey from the same flower which to the spider yields only poison.

Nothing but experience can teach us to what extent force of character, and a capacity without cowardly shrinking, to face danger, pain and death, may be acquired.—Compare, for example, a militia-man torn from the repose of his retreat, and forced into immediate battles, with the same person in the same predicament, when he shall have become a trained veteran. Compare the only child of weak, fond and opulent parents, as he is seen in the hour of apprehended shipwreck, or of fierce conflict with the enemy, with the sailor-boy, born in the same vicinity, but compelled by the rough discipline of poverty, to encounter the elements, and the aspect of danger and death from boyhood.

I shall take occasion hereafter, to remark on the stubborn and invincible apathy of the red men of our forests, in the endurance of slow fire, and all the forms of torture, which the ingenuity of Indian revenge can devise. I no longer trace this apparent insensibility to pain and fear, as I formerly did, to a more callous frame, and nerves of obtuser feeling. I see in it the astonishing result of their institutions, and the influence of public opinion upon them. In the same connexion, I shall remark upon the testimony which the conduct of martyrs bears to the same point. Place a sufficient motive before the sufferer, and the proper witnesses around him, and he may be disciplined to endure anything without showing a subdued spirit. The most timid woman will not shrink from a surgical operation, when those she loves and respects, surround her and applaud her courage. Leave her alone with the surgeon, and the very sight of his instrument will produce shrieks and faintings. The mad personage who leaped the Genesee falls, fell a victim, to the influence which encouraged vanity and ambition exert upon their subject to spur him on to any degree of daring. If the right application of a motive, so little worthy as the mere gratification of a moment’s vanity, can harden the spirit for such attempts, what might not be effected by a discipline, wisely guided by a simple purpose to impart force, energy and unshrinking courage, to meet and vanquish the inevitable evils of life? To me there is nothing incredible in the story of the Spartan boy, who had stolen the fox, and allowed the animal, while concealed under his mantle, to tear his entrails, rather than, by uttering a groan, to commit his character for hardihood and capability of adroit thieving. Parents, your children will be compelled to encounter fatigue, privation and pain, under any circumstances in which they can be placed. You can easily pamper them to an effeminacy that will shrink from any effort, and, if I may so quote, ‘to die of a rose in aromatic pain;’ to be feeble, timid, repining, and yet voluptuous. You can as easily teach them to find pleasure in labor, and in the sentiment of that force of mind, with which they can firmly meet pain, privation, danger and death. Train them for the world in which they are destined to live. Teach them to quit themselves like men, and be strong.

It is impossible to present a better summary of the essentials of happiness. As the author remarks, they are difficult to unite. Yet, whoever lacks either, must be peculiarly unfortunate, or indulgent to himself, if he cannot trace the want to some aberration or neglect of his own. Health, perhaps, is the least within our power; for, by the fault of our ancestors, we may have inherited a constitution and temperament essentially vitiated and unhealthy. We may lose health by casualty or by the influence of causes utterly beyond our knowledge or our control. But for one person thus afflicted with want of health, it is notorious that a hundred are so from causes which they may trace to their own mismanagement. Tranquillity of mind, is certainly a frame, on which we have a controlling influence. Whoever, in our country, has not competence, must assuredly seek the cause, if he have health, in his own want of industry or management. Most of the complaints of the caprice, infidelity and unworthiness of friends would have a more equitable application to our own want of temper, truth and disinterestedness. These things, indispensable to happiness, are far more subject to our command, than our self-flattery will allow us to imagine. The greater portion of those about us might unite all these advantages. Yet, if all misery, other than that which arises from want of being able to unite all these numerous and difficult requisites to happiness, were abstracted from human nature, I am confident that a moiety of the sorrows of earth would be removed; in other words, that a philosophic pursuit of happiness, would at once deliver us from more than half of our suffering here below.

The memory of almost every person who has been present at a funeral, attended by a protestant minister of a certain class, will furnish him with recollections of these preposterous harangues of attempted consolation. The mourners are instructed that it is sinful to grieve; that grief implies want of faith in the great truths of the gospel; that Christianity forbids it; and, more than all, that it argues doubt of the happiness of the deceased; or a murmuring want of submission to the Divine will. Such doctrines, in the minds of weak and superstitious mourners who feel that it is not in their power to repress grief, inspire painful distrust and self-reproach; and, in men more disciplined in the ways of the world, and more acquainted with human nature, contempt for the ignorant folly or gross hypocrisy of the declaimer. The unchanging constitution of human nature revolts at such maxims. Whoever affects to be insensible to the loss of a child, relative, or friend, is either a stranger to his own perceptions, practises deceit, or has no heart to be grieved. Christianity is preëminently the religion of tenderness, and forbids the indulgence of no inherent emotion of our nature within its proper limits. It is most absurd of all, to suppose that God has forbidden, or interprets as murmurs, the sorrows that we feel from his stroke. There are few persons so disinterested, even if they were assured beyond a doubt, that the person they mourn is happy, as not to grieve at the final earthly severance which cuts off the accustomed communion of heart; and interdicts the mourner from the sight and participation of that happiness. The cause of Christianity has suffered beyond calculation, from the exaggeration of its requirements by weak enthusiasts, or designing bigots. Distorted views and impracticable requisitions have disgusted more persons with the system of the gospel than Hume’s argument against miracles, or all the sophistry of unbelief. The gospel takes into view the whole nature of man, and all its precepts announce, nolumus leges naturæ mutari—we will that the laws of nature should not be changed.

It is not necessary to recur to the history of great revolutions to furnish the most impressive examples of human vicissitude and instability. The Latin poet had reason for his maxim, who said,

Life in every country and in all time has been full of affecting instances of the young, beautiful, endowed and opulent struck down in the brightest presage of their dawn. That is the true philosophy which draws, from continual exposure to these blows, a motive, to make the most, in the way of innocent enjoyment, of the period that is in our power.

This beautiful painting furnishes an impressive emblem of the capability of the human constitution, corporeal and mental, to assimilate itself to any change; and of becoming insensible, by habit, to any degree of uniform endurance. Those fanatics in the early ages of the church, preposterously called saints, and others like them, professing all forms of religion, that may still be found in the oriental countries, who sit for years on a pillar under the open sky, or curve themselves into a half circle and remain in that position until their forms grow to it, shortly cease to feel much uneasiness in a posture which becomes habitual. To restore them to their original forms, after nature has affixed her seal of consent to the distortion, would, probably, cause as much pain as was requisite to acquire the habit. We have all read the affecting tale of the prisoner released from the Bastille after a confinement of more than a quarter of a century. He found the ordinary pursuits and intercourse of life insupportable, and begged to be restored to his dungeon. This is a most important aspect of the nature of man which parents and instructers have as yet scarcely taken into view in their efforts to mould the youthful character. Children can as easily be formed to be Spartans as Sybarites; and, in the former case, they not only acquire the noble attributes of courage and force of character, but contract habits of patient and manly endurance, furnishing a better shield against the ills of life than any in the command of opulence or foresight.

‘Fate leads the willing, drags the unwilling on,’ and the single question is, by which of these processes would we choose to meet our lot? No doctrine of the true philosophy lies so obviously on the surface as the wisdom of resignation; the disposition, in the exercise of which, more than in any order, a wise man differs from the million of murmuring and repining beings about him, who are madly struggling with the inexorable powers of nature, and doubting their evils by this useless and painful resistance. When we can no longer either evade or resist fortune, we can, at least, half disarm her by a calm and manly resignation.

The instinctive sentiment of the love of country and home is beautifully described in these paragraphs. In health and good fortune, the amusements and distractions of life, may keep this sentiment out of sight. But ‘dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos’ is the feeling with which most strangers die in a foreign land. In every heart, rightly constituted, the moment the absence of adventitious pleasures forces the mind back upon itself, the instinctive feeling resumes its original force. It seems to me always an unfavorable trait in the character of an immigrant from abroad, that he is disposed to speak unfavorably of his native country, or does not seem to prefer it to all others. God has wrought into the mind of every good man a filial feeling towards his native country.

None of the sentiments and maxims of M. Droz have been more severely censured than those of the succeeding paragraphs. I am as little disposed to inculcate an indolent philosophy, as any other person. These views seem peculiarly unfitted for the genius of our country, where everything respires, as it ought, energy, industry, a fixed purpose and a keen pursuit. That such are the requirements of our institutions is a truth too strongly forced upon us by the order of everything in our country, to require any other proof. I would be the last person to feel disposed to recommend a philosophy, which would tend to quench that busy and daring spirit which is the most striking characteristic of our nation. No elevation or opulence among us can dispense with a definite pursuit. So forcibly is every citizen reminded of this, by all he sees about him, that without a pursuit, no one among us can sustain his own self-respect. He, who courts seclusion and retirement, on the principles of the author is obliged, even in his retirement, to keep himself engaged. He must devote himself to agriculture, manufactures, or some other absorbing pursuit.

It is hardly necessary to add that no American is in danger of subscribing to his disqualifying views of the law, or any other profession. A freeman ought to hold, that he can confer respectability upon whatever pursuit circumstances may impel him to follow. Happily, no harm would result, in our country, from the dislike of the author to the law. By what seems to me an unhappy general consent among us, the law is absorbing in the temptations that it offers to our young men. It is the prescribed avenue to all honor and place. All our functionaries must have passed into the temple of power and fame through this portico. Hence it is, and probably long will be thronged by a great corps of supernumeraries. I would certainly be the last, not to think respectfully of the profession; but still I dislike to see so many of our aspiring young men crowding into it, to meet inevitable disappointment.

But critics will moderate their strictures upon the author, when they call to mind, that although there is no such class, as people of leisure in our country, it constitutes a great and powerful one in France; perhaps greater in proportion, than any other country. The chief application of these paragraphs must be to men of that condition, of whom the better class make literature at once their amusement and pursuit. For such, these are, probably, the wisest and best precepts that could be given. The whole of that part of this chapter, which inculcates an inactive retirement, is altogether calculated for another meridian, than that of our country. I have entirely omitted some of the passages, as not only of erroneous general tendency, but altogether inapplicable to any order of things among us. But admitting this, and a few other trifling exceptions, I have been astonished at the charges which have been brought against the moral tendency of the general opinions of M. Droz.

This short chapter upon health seems to me full of the soundest practical wisdom. Every one must be aware, that the wise pursuit of happiness must be preceded by the preserving of health. The wise ancients justly made the mens sana in corpore sano, to be the condition, if not the essence of human happiness. Most treatises upon health have oppressed the subject by too many, and too intricate rules. It would be difficult to add to the author’s precepts, brief as they are, so far as they relate to the moral and intellectual regimen necessary to health. I add a remark, or two, touching some physical appliances, that should be appended to the moral rules.

So far as my reading and observation extend, there are but three circumstances, which have almost invariably accompanied health and longevity. The favored persons have lived in elevated rather than in low and marshy positions; have been possessed of a tranquil and cheerful temperament, and active habits; and have been early risers.

It is related that the late King George the Third, who made the causes of longevity a subject of constant investigation, procured two persons, each considerably over a hundred years of age, to dance in his presence. He then requested them to relate to him their modes of living, that he might draw from them, if possible, some clue to the causes of their vigorous old age. The one had been a shepherd, remarkably temperate and circumspect in his diet and regimen; the other a hedger, equally noted for the irregularity, exposure, and intemperance of his life. The monarch could draw no inference, to guide his inquiries, from such different modes of life, terminating in the same result. On further inquiry, he learned, that they were alike distinguished by a tranquil easiness of temper, active habits, and early rising.

After all the learned modern expositions of the causes of dyspepsia, I suspect that not one in a thousand is aware how much temperance and moderation in the use of food conduce to health. There are very few among us who do not daily consume twice the amount of food, necessary to satisfy the requisitions of nature. The redundant portion must weigh as a morbid and unconcocted mass upon the wheels of life. Every form of alcohol is unquestionably a poison, slow or rapid, in proportion to the excess in which it is used. Disguise it is as we may, be the pretexts of indulgence as ingenious and plausible, as inclination and appetite can frame, it retains its intrinsic tendencies under every sophistication. Wine, in moderation, is, doubtless, less deleterious than any of its disguises. In declining age, and in innumerable cases of debility, it may be indicated as a useful remedy; but even here, only as a less evil to countervail a greater. Pure water, all other circumstances equal, is always a healthier beverage for common use. Next to temperance, a quiet conscience, a cheerful mind, and active habits, I place early rising, as a means of health and happiness. I have hardly words for the estimate which I form of that sluggard, male or female, that has formed the habit of wasting the early prime of day in bed.—Laying out of the question the positive loss of life, the magna pars dempta solido de die, and that too of the most inspiring and beautiful part of the day, when all the voices of nature invoke man from his bed; leaving out of the calculation, that longevity has been almost invariably attended by early rising; to me, late hours in bed present an index to character, and an omen of the ultimate hopes of the person who indulges in this habit. There is no mark, so clear, of a tendency to self-indulgence. It denotes an inert and feeble mind, infirm of purpose, and incapable of that elastic vigor of will which enables the possessor always to accomplish what his reason ordains. The subject of this unfortunate habit cannot but have felt self-reproach, and a purpose to spring from his repose with the freshness of the dawn. If the mere indolent luxury of another hour of languid indulgence is allowed to carry it over this better purpose, it argues a general weakness of character, which promises no high attainment or distinction.—These are never awarded by fortune to any trait, but vigor, promptness and decision. Viewing the habit of late rising, in many of its aspects, it would seem as if no being, that has any claim to rationality, could be found in the allowed habit of sacrificing a tenth, and that the most pleasant and spirit-stirring portion of life, at the expense of health, and the curtailing of the remainder, for any pleasure which this indulgence could confer.

From personal experience and no inconsiderable range of observation, I am convinced that the author has by no means overrated the influence of imagination upon health and disease. It is indeed astonishing, at this late period, when every physiologist and physician is ready to proclaim his own recorded observations upon the medicinal influence of the moral powers, the passions, and especially the imagination, that so few medical men have thought it an object to employ them as elements of actual application. Hitherto these unknown and undefined powers of life and death have been in the hands of empirics, jugglers, mountebanks and pretended dispensers of miraculous healing. It is, at the same time, matter of regret, that scientific physicians, instead of questioning their undeniable cures, and pouring attempted ridicule upon them, have not separated the true from the false, and sought access to the real fountain of the efficacy of their practice, the employment of confident faith, hope, and the unlimited agency of the all pervading power of the imagination. Many physicians are sufficiently wise, and endowed with character, to exercise circumspection in giving their opinions and pronouncing upon the prognostics of their patients. They regulate their words, countenance and deportment with a caution and prudence which speak volumes in regard to their conviction of the influence which imprudence in these points might have.

In fact, it is only necessary to observe the intense and painful earnestness with which the patient and the friends watch his countenance and behaviour, to be aware what an influence may be thus exerted. It is only requisite to understand with what prying anxiety the sick man questions those around him, what the physician thinks and predicts of his case, to make him sensible how vigilantly he should be on his guard, in spending his judgment rashly in the case. All this negative wisdom, in the application of moral means, is sufficiently common. Not to possess it, in a considerable degree, would indicate a physician unacquainted with the most common etiquette of a sick chamber.

But, as yet, we see the positive employment of these means almost wholly interdicted by custom to regular physicians. We contend for their exercise only within the limits of the most scrupulous veracity and the most severe discretion. What powers would he not exert, who, snatching these moral means from the hands of empirics, and who, to thorough acquaintance with all that can be known in regard to physical means, should join the wise and discriminating aid of an imagination creating a healing world of hope and confidence about the patient? Such a benefactor of our species will, ere long, arise, who will introduce a new era into medicine.

Who can doubt that implicit faith in the healing powers of prince Hohenlohe may have wrought cures, even in cases of paralysis, without the least necessity for introducing the vague and misapplied term, a miracle; or that some out of many persons in an asylum of paralytics would find themselves able to fly when bombs fell upon the roof of their receptacle?

The influence of a vigorous will upon the physical movements of our frame has scarcely been conjectured, much less submitted to the scrutiny of experiment. Yet it would be easy, I think, to select innumerable cases where, by its means, men have exerted powers previously unknown to themselves. We see the immediate application of almost superhuman energy upon the access of frenzy to the patient; and this affords conclusive proof that, upon the addition of the due amount of excitement, the body and mind become capable of incredible exertions, and yet sink into infantine debility the moment that the excitement is withdrawn. Every one has been made aware of what mere resolution can do, in sustaining the frame in cases of cold, exposure, hunger and exhaustion. All these instances are only different forms of proof, which might be multiplied indefinitely, of the agency of moral powers upon physical nature. Under similar influences, omens and predictions, in weak and superstitious minds, become adequate causes of their own completion. Since perfect knowledge alone can deliver the mind from more or less susceptibility of this influence, it is important that it should be wisely directed to bear, as far as it may, upon the imagination, in kindling it to confidence, cheerfulness and hope.

Because he was sustained by a cheerful reliance upon Providence, a firm determination to do his duty, and have no fear of consequences. The whole scope of my own observation, beside the sick bed, perfectly coincides with these views. I do not say that there are not numberless exceptions. But of this I am confident, that the general rule is, that persons who attend the sick and dying, in cases of epidemic disease of a mortal type, with a fearless and cheerful mind, escape; while the timid, who are alarmed and have an implicit belief in the danger of contagion, succumb.

If there ever was an age when invalids and the suffering might promise themselves sympathy in the dolorous detail of their symptoms, which is questionable, it certainly is not now, during the era of labor-saving machinery, political economy, and the all-engrossing influence of money and corporate achievement. He who now suffers from acute pain, in any form, will do wisely to summon all his strength and philosophy to suppress any manifestation in his countenance and muscles, rather than task his eloquence in framing his tale of symptoms.

This whole chapter upon health abounds in the highest practical wisdom, and the hints in it might easily be expanded to a volume. I only add, that I earnestly recommend a poem upon the same subject, one, as it seems to me, among the most classical and beautiful in our language, and which has become strangely and undeservedly obsolete—Dr Armstrong’s Art of Health.

How often have similar thoughts pressed upon my mind, as I have stood over the bed of the sick and dying! Here is the peculiar empire of minds truly and nobly benevolent, where the head and main prop of a family is preparing to conflict with the last enemy: where pain and groans, terror and death, fill the foreground, and the dim but inevitable perspective of desolation, struggle and want, in contact with indifference and selfishness, opens in the distance before the survivors. Let us thank God for religion. Philosophy may inculcate stern endurance and wise submission; but knows not a fit and adequate remedy. The hopes and the example imparted by him who went about doing good, are alone sufficient for the relief of such cases, of which, alas! our world is full.

No view of human life is more consoling or just than that presented in these paragraphs. Yet no human calculation will ever reach the sum of agony that has been inflicted by the jealousy, envy and heart-burning that have resulted from that most erroneous persuasion, that certain conditions and circumstances of life bring happiness in themselves. Beautifully has the bible said, that ‘God has set one thing over against another’—has balanced the real advantages of the different human conditions. The result of my experience would leave me in doubt and at a loss, in selecting the condition which I should deem most congenial to happiness. I should have to balance abundance of food, on the one hand, against abundance of appetite, on the other; the habit superinduced by the necessity of being satisfied with a little, with the habit of being disgusted with the trial of much. There are joys, numerous and vivid, peculiar to the rich; and others, in which none but those in the humbler conditions of life can participate. In the whole range of the enjoyment of the senses, if there be any advantage, it belongs to the poor. The laws of our being have surrounded the utmost extent of human enjoyment with adamantine walls, which one condition can no more overleap than another. It is wonderful to see this admirable adjustment, like the universal laws of nature, acting everywhere and upon everything. Even in the physical world, what is granted to one country is denied to another; and the wanderer who has seen strange lands and many cities, in different climes, only returns to announce, as the sum of his experience and the teaching of years, that light and shadow, comfort and discomfort, pleasure and pain, like air and water, are diffused in nearly similar measures over the whole earth.

It needs but little acquaintance with human condition to perceive, in the general adjustment of advantages settled by Providence, that great proportions of them have been thrown into opposite scales, and so contrasted that the selection of one class implies the rejection of the other. For example, smitten with the thousand temptations of wealth, you are determined to be rich. Be it so. Industry, frugality and the convergence of your faculties to this single point will hardly fail to render you so. But then you will not be so absurd as to envy another the fame of talents and acquirements which required absorbing devotion to pursuits incompatible with yours.

You are rich, and complain of satiety and ennui. Knew you not, when you determined to be rich, that poor people sing and dance about their cabin fires? You have gained power and distinction and discovered the heartless selfishness of your competitors and dependents. Were you ignorant that friendship can only be purchased by friendship; and that, in selecting your all-engrossing pursuit, you have precluded yourself from furnishing your quota of the reciprocity? The choices of life are alternatives. You may select from this scale, or that. But, in most cases, you cannot take from both. How much murmuring would be arrested if this most obvious truth were understood and men would learn to be satisfied with their alternative! Choose wisely and deliberately; and then quietly repose on your choice. Say, ‘I have this; another has that. I am certain that I have my choice. I do not know but his condition was forced upon him.’

If I have ever allowed myself the indulgence of envy, it is after having tasted the pleasure of rewarding merit, or relieving distress, in thinking how continually such celestial satisfactions are within the reach of the opulent. What a calm is left in the mind after having wiped away tears! What aspirations are excited in noting the joy and gratitude consequent upon misery relieved! How delightful to recur to the remembrance during the vigils of the night watches! How it expands the heart to reflect upon the consciousness of the all powerful and all good Being, measuring the circuit of the universe in doing good! Unhappily, the experience of all time demonstrates that the possession of opulence and power not only has no direct tendency to inspire increased sensibility to such satisfactions, but has an opposite influence. For one, rendered more kind and benevolent by good fortune, how many become callous, selfish and proud by it! Kindly and wisely has Providence seen fit to spare most men this dangerous trial.

This chapter of the author, among the rest, has been obnoxious to severe strictures. I am sensible that the young require the exercise of cautious discretion in few questions more than in this, ‘How far is it wise to disregard public opinion?’ To press the point too far is to incur the reputation of eccentricity and arrogant confidence in our own judgment. Implicitly to copy the expressions and habits of the multitude precludes all pursuit of happiness by system; and reduces the whole inquiry to the injunction, to walk with the rest, and add our ennui and disappointment to the mass of the unhappiness of all those who have gone before. If certain modes appear to me, after the most deliberate examination, conducive to my happiness, why should I be deterred from adopting them, because I am not countenanced by the general opinion and example of a crowd, each individual of which I should altogether reject as a teacher and an example? If I avow that the ten thousand, in all time, have formed the most erroneous judgments, touching the wisdom of human pursuits, why should I continue blindly to copy their errors? He is certainly the most fortunate man who, if an exact account of his sensations and thoughts could be cast into a sum at his last hour, would be found to have enjoyed the greatest number of agreeable moments, pleasurable sensations and happy reflections. If to court retirement, repose, the regulation of the desires and passions, and the cultivation of those affections which are best nurtured in the shade, be the most certain route to happiness, why should I be swayed from choosing that path by the suggestions of ambition, avarice and the spirit of the world, which enjoin the common course?

Yet every one is, more or less, a slave to the prevalent fashions of thinking and acting. How much vile hypocrisy does this slavery which covers the face of society with a vast mask of semblance, engender? Contemplate the routine of all the professions which we make and infringe in a single day, in the manifest violation of our inward thought and belief; and we must admit that the world agrees to enact a general lie, alike deceiving and deceived, through terror of being the first to revolt against the thraldom of opinion. The very persons, too, who cherish the profoundest secret contempt for the judgment of the multitude, are generally the loudest and the first in decrying any departure from the standard of public opinion almost as an immorality.

I would by no means desire to see those most dear to me arrogantly setting at defiance received ideas and usages. These have, as the author justly remarks, a salutary moral sway in repressing the influence of the impudent and abandoned. I am not insensible to the danger of following our independent judgment beyond the limits of a regulated discretion. But there is no trait in the young for which I feel a more profound respect, than the fixed resolve to consult their own light, in setting the rules of their conduct and selecting their alternatives. A calm and reflecting independence, an unshaken firmness in encountering vulgar prejudices, is what I admire as the evidence of strong character, fearless thinking and capability of self-direction.

How often must every reflecting mind have been led to similar views of human nature! To form just estimates and entertain right sentiments of our kind, we must not contemplate men under the action of the narrowness of sectarian hate, or through the jaundiced vision of party feeling. We must see them in positions like those so happily presented by the author, when great and sweeping calamities level men to the consciousness and the sympathies of a common nature, and a sense of common exposure to misery, and open the fountains of generous feeling. Who has not seen men, on such occasions, forget their pride, their miserable questions of rank and precedence, and meet with open arms and the mingled tears of gratitude and relief, persons, the view of whom under other circumstances, would have called forth only feelings of scornful comparison and reckless contempt?

The incident of the hostile French and German posts is a singularly touching one. In what a horrid light does it place the character and passions of princes, generals, conquerors and warriors, in all time, who for their measureless cupidity, or the whim of their ambition, have used these amiable beings, formed with natural sympathies to aid and love each other, as the mechanical engines of their purposes, to meet breast to breast as enemies, and plunge the murderous steel into each others’ hearts! Hence, rivers of life blood have flowed as uselessly as rain falls upon the ocean! It is difficult to determine whether we ought most to execrate the accursed ambition of the few, or despise the weak stupidity of the many who have been led, unresistingly, like animals to the slaughter, only the more firmly to rivet the chains of the survivors. What a view does war present, of the miserable ignorance, the brute stupidity of the mass of the species, and the detestable passions of those called the great, in all time! Who does not exult to see the era, every day approaching, when men will be too wise, too vigilant and careful of their rights to become instruments in the hands of others; when the rational consciousness of their own predominant physical power shall be guided by wisdom, self-watchfulness and self-respect? Then, instead of being tamely led out to slay each other, when invoked to this detestable sport of kings, they will show their steel to their oppressors.

I am as much impressed with the eloquence of this passage as with its truth. I reserve more particular views of religion for comments on the letter upon the subject. I wish to present in this place, as consonant with the spirit of this passage, one view of religion which has long been one of my most fixed and undoubting conclusions. It is, that man is a religious being, by the organic constitution of his frame, still more than by any intellectual process of reasoning. I have no doubt, that a rightly organized and well endowed man, born and reared in a desert isle, without ever being brought into contact with man or any discipline to call forth reason or speech, would be subject to precisely the same emotions as, varied and moulded by the circumstances of birth and education, constitute the substance of all the religions in the world; in other words, that man is constituted a religious animal in the same way as he clearly is an animal with other instincts and passions. I am aware, that divines and moralists do not often insist upon the religious instinct, as one of the most conclusive and convincing arguments (to me, at least,) of the soul’s immortality. It seems with them the favorite view to consider religion a science that may be taught, like geometry or chemistry.

To me, this absorbing subject presents a very different aspect. I see man everywhere religious in some form. The sentiment takes the molding of his accidental circumstances. It is poetry, enthusiasm, eloquence, bravery; but in every form an aspiration after the vast, illimitable, eternal, shadowy conceptions of an unknown hereafter, that the senses have not embodied. It is rational or fanciful, it is respectable or superstitious, it is a pure abstraction or a gorgeous appeal to the senses, according to one’s country, training and temperament. But man, whether he be a dweller in the far isles of the sea, or in the crowded mart, whether christian or savage, is everywhere found, in some form, invoking a God and reposing the hopes and affections of his worn heart in another and a better world; and extending his faith to an immortal life and an eternal sphere of action.

Instead of searching for this universal principle with metaphysicians, pronouncing upon it with dogmatists, or deducing it from creeds, or creeds from it, I behold in it the same unwritten revelation which we call instinct. Vague and undefined as is this law, and questioned by some as is even its existence, it announces to us one of the most impressive and beautiful homilies upon the truth and goodness of the Author of our being. It may be called the scripture of the lower orders, guiding them, with unerring certainty, to their enjoyments and their end. Beasts feel it, and graze the plain. Birds feel it, and soar in the air. Fishes feel it, and dart along their liquid domain; each feeding, moving, resting, playing and perpetuating its kind, according to its organic laws. Winter comes upon the gregarious tribes of water fowls enjoying themselves in the Canadian lakes. They listen to this call from heaven, and mount the autumnal winds; and without chart or compass, by a course to which that of circumnavigators is devious, they sail to the shores of the south, where a softer atmosphere and new supplies of food await them. It leads the young one of these animals, scarcely yet disengaged from the shell, to patter its bill in the dry sand, impatiently to search for water before it has yet seen it. It creates in the new born infant a purpose to search for its supplies in the yet untasted fountains of the maternal bosom. It guides all the lower orders of being through the whole mysterious range of their peculiar habits and modes of life. Under its influence, animals and men exercise powers which transcend the utmost efforts of our reason. Who can tell me why the duckling plunges into the water with the shell on its head? Who can inform me how the affectionate house dog, blindfolded and conveyed in utter darkness in a carriage to a distance of fifty leagues, the moment he is emancipated, returns by a more direct route than that by which he came? There would be no use in presenting the most extended details of these developments of instinct through the whole range of animated nature. Every one knows that wherever we discern them, either in the structure or habits of the animal, or both, they are indications of unerring guidance, the voice of eternal and unswerving truth, which, as soon as promulgated, is received as the parental counsel of the Author of nature.

He who could interpret the language and the gestures of the lower orders would see in the structure and manifested wants of fishes, that water was provided as a home for them, had he seen them in the air. When he had noted the movements and heard the cries of the new born infant, he would be in no doubt, that the nutriment in the maternal bosom was stored for it somewhere. Seeing the structure, the starting pinions and plumage of the unfledged bird in its nest, he could be at no loss in reasoning, that as these indications of contrivance for other modes of life were lost in its present manner of existence, it was intended for movements, where pinions and plumage would avail it.

As certain as these instincts and indications are the pledged verity of the Author of nature, that a sphere is provided for the exercise of these undeveloped powers, and a corresponding gratification for these instinctive desires, so sure as they point out, in a language, which can neither deceive nor be mistaken, the aim and end of the animal to which they belong, so sure, if religion be an instinctive sentiment, and the hope, and the persuasion of another existence result from the organic constitution of our nature, there must be another life. That it is so, the usages and modes of all people that have yet been known, the people of the first ages, and the last, the people of the highest refinement, and those, who scarcely know the use of fire, have concurred to prove to us. Superficial travellers, indeed, have told us of newly discovered tribes, who had no visions of a God—a worship, or an hereafter. Other travellers have followed them, and observed better, and discovered, that their predecessors based the fact on their own ignorance. They have been found to belong to the general analogy, and to look to

It seems to me, that this universal agreement of religious ideas is the most unequivocal manifestation, that the sentiment of religion is an instinct, that is exhibited in the whole range of animated nature. If so, it is the offered pledge of the divine veracity, that the soul is immortal; and that as certain as the instinct of migrating birds is proof, that the milder skies which they seek, exist, and are prepared for them, so surely the undeveloped powers of the spirit, which have no range on the earth, have a country prepared also for them. Our aspirations, our longings after immortality, every mode of worship, and every form of faith—are the rudiments, the germs, the starting pinions of the embryo spirit, which is to escape from its nest at death, and fly in the celestial atmosphere, in which it was formed to move.

To me these universal religious manifestations are proofs, that religion springs not, as some suppose, from tradition; or, as others think, from reasoning. It is a sentiment. It is an inwrought feeling in our mental constitution, an unwritten, universal, and everlasting gospel, pointing to God and immortality. Bring the most uninstructed peasant, who has seen nothing of the earth, but its plains, in sight of Chimborazo. The thrill of awe and sublimity, that springs within him at the view, and lifts his spirit above the blue summits to the divinity, is one of the forms, in which this sentiment acts. The natural mental movements, in view of the illimitable main, of the starry firmament, of elevated mountains, of whatever is vast in dimension, irresistible in power, terrible in the exercise of anger, in short, all those emotions, which we call the sublime, are modified actings of the religious sentiment. Justly has the author pronounced the universality of these ideas the highest testimony to the elevation of human nature. It is the most impressive and interesting attribute of the soul, that it is subject to these impulses. It is a standing index, that the godlike stranger, imprisoned in clay, has, inwrought in its consciousness, indelible impressions of its future destiny.

Whoever philosophically considers the constitution of the human mind—how much we are the creatures of our circumstances, how much we are blown about by impulse and passion, the dimness of our own mental vision upon most subjects, the narrow limit, which separates between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, and moreover, that we ourselves view everything through the coloring of our own pride and prejudice—will perceive at once, that, under all circumstances of error and even of crime, men are quite as worthy of pity, as of vindictive blame. A little, cold and selfish mind invariably finds much matter for bitter censure in every act, that, according to its own chart, is an aberration. On the contrary, nothing, in my estimate, so decidedly marks a generous and noble, as well as an enlightened and a philosophic spirit, as the disposition to be indulgent in its construction of the views and conduct of others, and to interpret all by the comment of palliation and kindness, whenever the case will admit of them. Great minds fail not to be conscious what a weak, miserable compound of vanity, impulse, ignorance and selfishness is that lord of creation, that passive molding of circumstances, which we call man. Of course in calmly scanning his views and conduct, all other sensations than those of pity and kindness, die away within him. As the human mind is exalted by its light, and its intrinsic elevation towards the divinity, in the same proportion it soars above the mists of its own passions and prejudices, and sees little in humanity to inspire other feelings, than those of compassion and benevolence. What is the view of human nature, presented to a wise and good man?

I am not certain, that the real spirit of tolerance has made so much progress in this age, as is commonly imagined. Who among us admits in practice, as well as theory, that the mind is passive in receiving evidence, and forming conclusions, which it cannot shape, except according to impressions, which it has much less power to exclude, or evade, than is generally believed? Who among us acts on the conviction, that errors of opinion are almost invariably involuntary? Every view of human nature, and the laws of the human mind ought to inspire us with an unlimited feeling of tolerance towards those who differ from us in opinion, howsoever widely. We cannot fail so to feel, if we reflect that, had we been in their situation, and under their circumstances, and they in ours, our views might have been reversed. Yet it is scarcely possible to converse with any one a few moments, without starting them by some opposing opinion, that jars with their excited feelings and a certain amount of estrangement is the result. Who can conduct a disputed point, in politics or religion, with an unruffled temper? Angry disputation is only another form of intolerance. If we narrowly inspect the actings of human nature, we shall discover, that the whole world is composed of individuals, almost every one of whom thinks he has a right to be offended with every other one, who does not adopt his opinions.

It is very true, that the age of actual persecution, by fines, imprisonment and death, is gone by. But this results rather from practical political progress of ideas, than from a settled conviction that no one mind has a right to find, in the opinions of another mind, cause of offence. Whoever cannot look upon the most opposite faith and opinions of his neighbor, in religion, in politics, and the ordinary concerns of life, without any feeling of temper and bitterness, in view of that difference, is in heart and spirit intolerant. In this view, who can justly and fully lay claim to toleration? The whole world is divided into millions of little parties and sects, often finding the bitterest germs of contention in the smallest differences. Scarcely one in ten thousand, of all these sects and parties, has real philosophic magnanimity enough to perceive, that all other men have as much claim for indulgence to their opinions, as he exacts for his own.

It would be amusing, if such important consequences did not flow from the error, to perceive, how much weight most people attach to the sect and party to which the persons, about whom they are forming an estimate, belong. The externals, the deportment, dress and manner are often strongly influenced by these matters; but the mental complexion or temperament far less than is commonly supposed. We meet with people, every day, of the most exclusive and bigoted creeds, who act liberally: and again with people, who have much liberality and catholicism in their mouths, and very little in their temper and spirit. I have met with liberal and illiberal people, in almost equal proportions, in all the sects, parties and denominations, with which I have been acquainted. Still, I do not, as from these remarks it might be inferred that I do, deem error, even in abstract opinions, such as those which appertain to religious and metaphysical subjects, as of no consequence. But I have not time, nor have I place, in a note, for explaining my convictions on this subject.

An indiscreet and exaggerating zeal often injures the cause it would wish to serve. The gospel is best sustained by its own unborrowed glory, and is prejudiced by adventitious appendages. I have often heard ministers declare, from the pulpit, that the duty of forgiveness, and of loving and doing good to enemies was a peculiar discovery of the gospel, a precept unknown before. We have never considered it among the objects of the mission of our Lord, to reveal a new code of morals. The grand eternal principles of this science were originally engraven on the heart. Man could not have existed in society without them. Whoever has read the elaborate and eloquent treatises of heathen moralists, will perceive, that there was little left incomplete in the code; and that these sublime virtues were eulogized, as beautiful and just in theory, if not to be expected in practice. It is the spirit, unction and tenderness of gospel inculcation, that is unique and original. The heathen ethical writers had not failed to enjoin it upon the members of communities, to aid and love one another. But it is only necessary to glance upon the apostolic epistles, to see that Christians were a new and peculiar people, bound together by cords of affection, altogether unknown in the previous records of the human heart. What tenderness, what love, stronger than death, what sublime disinterestedness! How reckless to the sordid motives of ambition and interest, which ruled the surrounding world! We scarcely need other evidence, that this simplicity of love, so unlike aught the world had seen before, was not an affection of earthly mold; and that this new and strong people were not bound together by ties, which had relation to the grossness of earthly bonds. To me there is something inexpressibly delightful and of which I am never weary, in contemplating the originality and simplicity of early Christian affection, nor is it one of the feeblest testimonies to the glory and divinity of the gospel.

For the rest, I have much abridged the paragraphs, to which this note alludes, and have interpolated some expressions, not found in the original—because I would not allow myself to leave anything equivocal, touching my own views of the importance of Christian morals and example.

It would be useless to add to the beautiful views, presented by the author, of the disposition to oblige, and the necessity of cultivating modesty, and an equal and serene temper. One cannot enlarge upon these beaten topics, as he has foreseen, without running into common-places. These virtues are preëminently their own reward. Whoever chooses to indulge the opposite tempers has only to reflect, that he assumes the thankless office of becoming a self-tormentor, and injures no one so much as himself. Of these fierce passions, the heathen poets have given us an affecting emblem in the undying vultures, gnawing upon the ever growing entrails of Tityus. If you would form the sublimest conceptions of the eternal and underived satisfaction of the divinity, cultivate dispositions to oblige, and seize occasions to practise beneficence. If you would image more impressive ideas of the torment of demons than poets have dreamed, muse upon injuries; cultivate envy and revenge, and wish that you had the bolts of the thunderer, only that you might hurl them upon your foes. If you would experience the eternal gnawing of the vulture allow yourself in the constant indulgence of your temper.

To those, who have already assumed this tie, or contemplate assuming it, not a word need be said upon the most worn of all themes, the paramount influence of marriage, beyond all other relations, in imparting the coloring of brightness or gloom to all subsequent life. The place, in which the only satisfactions of life, that are worth any serious pursuit, are to be found, is within the domestic walls. Honor, fame, wealth, luxury, literary distinction, everything is extrinsic, and hollow, everything the mere mockery and shadow of joy, but the comfort of a quiet and affectionate home. Whoever does not share this faith with me, will hardly be enlightened to the true sources of enjoyment by any lucubrations of mine. Instead of details and declamation upon this truth, I present an unvarnished, unexaggerated view, an abstract, if I may so say, of the circumstances, under which the greater number of marriages are consummated in our country, and I imagine, in most civilized countries. It may not embrace the exact train of the incidents connected with every case; but will serve, in the phrase of the makers of calendars, ‘without material variation,’ as an outline of the history of those courtships that terminate in matrimony. What wonder, that wedded life is so often unhappy!

I am compelled to believe, that very few marriages take place in consequence of such an intimate acquaintance of the parties with each other’s unsophisticated and interior character, as to justify the chances of affection and domestic happiness. The first adverse circumstance is, that both are constantly on such a trial to make a show of wit, good temper, and manners, as to render the whole scene, from commencement to close, a drama, in which all is acting; in which there is no admission to the real life behind the scenes, until after marriage. How often does the actor or actress, who successfully personated a wit, and an angel, detect in the other party a simpleton, a brute, or a termagant! The walk of life, in which they are found, may vary the shades, but it changes not the natural circumstances of a picture, which, in its broader features, applies alike to elevated and humble life.

The parties, in the bloom of life, in all the excitement of juvenile buoyancy, moving in the illumined atmosphere of imagination, meet at the party, ball-room, assembly, church, or other place of concourse, for which the young dress, to look around, and be gazed upon. They are clad in their gayest, and stand on their best. No airs, or graces, that mothers, or friends, or society, or their Chesterfield, or their imaginations can suggest, are pretermitted. No attempted inflictions are spared from any relentings of mercy. Many gratuitous nods and smiles and remarks, and much odious affectation, inspired by the love of conquest, pass well enough in the tinsel illusion of the scene and circumstances. Accident brings the couple into contact. They sing, dance, walk, converse, or, in some of these ways, are thrown together. Or, perhaps, some officious mediator reports, to the one, flattering remarks made by the other. The first impulses to the acquaintance are those of vanity, and the instinctive attraction of persons, so situated, towards each other. A vague and momentary liking, which might be effaced, as easily as mists vanish in the sun, is the result. The lady, from the delicacy of her organization, and the quickness of her perceptions, is the first aware of the new state of mutual feeling; and by conjoining a happy combination of coquetry, shyness, and encouragement, adds fuel to the kindling spark. They converse apart, and the masonic pressure of hands is interchanged. Compliments ensue, more or less polished, and eloquent, according to their native readiness and artificial training. Vanity comes in with her legion of auxiliaries, and, in the same proportion as memory invests this intercourse with pleasant sensations and agreeable associations, conversation with other persons, between whom and themselves these processes have not commenced, becomes tasteless and irksome; and ennui in all other society does its part to put imagination in action. They find themselves weary and sad in separation. Fancy runs riot and begins to weave her fairy tissue, and to build her oriental bowers. The parties are now in love, as they believe, and as the world pronounces. Now commence the hours of poetry and sentimentality; and the spring time of their new born passion. Not a moment, for discriminating observation of each other’s character, has yet occurred.

The freshness of the vernal inclination acquires the fervor of settled and summer passion. The preliminaries of form are commenced; and under such associations, and with such mutual inclinations, incompatibility, unfitness, opposition of friends, all obstacles that are not absolutely insurmountable, disappear. What parent can resist the impassioned eloquence of a child, or contemplate for a moment the prospect of inflicting the agony of a disappointed and hopeless love! Have they measured each other’s understanding and good sense? No: this requires a discrimination, for which in the fever, the delirium of the senses, they have no capacity. Know they aught of each other’s worth and good temper? No. Lovers find nothing to jar their temper, or try their disposition. Surrounded by a halo of imagination, everything about them is invested with its brilliancy. The silliest remark of the inamorata sounds in the ears of the lover, like the response of an oracle; and he is astonished and enraged that all others do not see, and hear with him. Everything that is said becomes wisdom, and everything done noble and graceful. Who has not heard all these ascriptions, all these extravagant eulogies, applied to a fair female, uttering nothing, and incapable of uttering anything, but voluble and vapid nonsense; or worse, ebullitions of envy, detraction and bad feeling! Meanwhile, the parties, enveloped in illusion, would not see real character, if they could; and could not, if they would. Is this extravagant, or exaggerated? Let the well known fact, that sensible men oftener marry fools, and gifted women coxcombs, than otherwise, be received as evidence, that this great transaction is generally commenced, and terminated under a spell, in which the actors see nothing, as it really is, and as it appears to disinterested spectators. After having united many hundred pairs myself, and seen all aspects of society, such seem to me the most common circumstances appended to the beginning, progress and issue of courtship, in its common forms.

When ambitious views, the lust of wealth, and purposes of aggrandizement, are the prompting incitements, the order of circumstances indeed may be essentially varied, without much altering the result. The excitement of the senses and the illusions of the imagination give place to these more sordid motives. They are, however, equally absorbing with the former. The faculties, having converged to the point of cautious and keen speculation, allow no greater scope, and furnish no happier facilities, for noting the development of understanding, character and temper, than in the other predicament. The appetite for money, and the burning of ambition may as effectually blind the aspirant to the silliness and bad temper of her who is seen through the flattering medium of his plans and his hopes, as could his vanity and his youthful inclinations. How can a person be expected to compare, and discriminate traits, and the almost imperceptible lights and shades of character, whose whole mind is intensely concentrated on the chances of his speculation, the fear of rivals, the danger of mishap, and the means of hastening the issue? Who, under such circumstances, inquires about the elements of happiness or misery, the good sense, the regulated temper, the discretion, health, temperament, and habits, that appertain to the means, by which a fortune and a name are to be obtained? These are passed by, as subordinate considerations. Suppose inquiries touching these points to glance through the mind. Suppose the speculator to have lucid glimpses, and some startling premonitions of the importance of settled and discriminating views, in relation to these matters; contemplated through golden associations and in the glare of ambitious hopes, they will be hardly likely to undergo a very severe or sifting scrutiny.