ESSAYS

On feveral of the DOCTRINES Of

REVELATION.

PR

1. Propriety.

Ropriety of fentiment, and propriety of action, are so nearly related, that the one cannot be understood without the other.

What action is, needs no defining. The fame cannot be faid of fentiment. The word is common, but not fo commonly understood; neither can it be, without just views of the human frame and conftitution.

To attain this, it will not be enough to fay, that this or the other affection, paffion, or instinct, are found in all mankind, unless it can be instructed that they really are fo; nor even then, unless it can be shown, how they naturally and neceffarily arife out of the whole human conftitution taken together.

This is evident from a very obvious truth, That man is a compounded being, and compounded of very different parts; parts; each of them defigned to answer particular purposes. In their union, and fubordination one to another, the human conftitution confifts. And when the fentiments and actions are exactly conformed to this established order, then, and then only, can they be said to be either natural or proper; and when any part or particular fyftem breaks out of this order, and attempts to act fingly, or beyond its proper fphere, the fentiment formed upon it, and the action produced by it, must be improper and unnatural.

There are two very different senses in which any fentiment, or courfe of action, may, with propriety, be faid to be natural; either when it refults fo directly from the human conftitution, or is fo every way agreeable to the order established there, that it can by no means be eradicated, but is always found equally ftrong in every man, whatever alteration may be made in his circumstances or fituation. And fuch is the defire of happiness.

When the nature of happiness comes to be diftinctly understood, it will be found

to

to be, I do not fay pleasure, but being perfectly pleased. And as mens tastes and fentiments vary, fo do their pleasures. And hence arise their different purfuits, while their ultimate intentions are the fame.

These fort of cravings and defires are what they call instincts; like those of mere animals, all invariable.

It is not barely our life, nor even, strictly speaking, ourselves, that by this instinct we are influenced to love; but the comforts and enjoyments of life: and this may be so strong, that we may properly enough be faid to love them better than ourselves.

There is another courfe which may be called natural, and which takes in every thing, good or bad, which can by any means get strength enough to form the heart upon them; and fome of these may arise so naturally, and without any pains or labour of ours, that it may be doubted whether they do not belong to the first.

That which bids faireft, after the animal fenfations and appetites, is fympathy; which, like all other paffions and affections, depends not on our will or pleafure. But as that, as well as all the reft, depends entirely on the fentiments or in

ward

ward feelings of the heart; and as these are very different in different men, and formed upon the more or less perfect difpofitions of the human system, they can never be reckoned among invariable instincts.

Where the fentiment is formed upon the right difpofition of the complex human fyftem, it produces that agreeable temper which is called humanity; and where it is perfect, produces perfect fympathy. But this is feldom or never found in the prefent state of mankind. We enter warmly into the joys and forrows of those we love; to strangers our fympathy is more cool; and superstitious zeal entirely destroys it: and there are numberless well-known cafes, where the fentiments may be wrought up to fuch a pitch of brutal insensibility and favagenefs, as that the most excruciating tortures of our fellow-creatures give the most exquifite pleasure. Upon the whole, fympathy in all its forms will be found to keep pace with our love to our neighbour; and is either a certain modification of it, or a neceffary effect produced by it.

No man can love or hate what or when he will, or fo much as regulate the degree

of

of either. He must love what pleases him, and hate the contrary. And according to the degrees of pleasure or pain, such must his love or averfion be; and the degrees are innumerable, but the fame necessary paffions in every degree.

But men as well as children may be pleased with trifles. With these life begins and however one object may drive out another, it is but an exchange of trifles, unless one could fix upon what is perfectly good; i. e. fuch as is fitted to give perfect pleasure: and thence it has been the business of the wifeft men to find out what they called the chief good, such as could make one happy in the want, and even in the lofs, of every thing else; i. e. fuch as perfectly fuits the human conftitution, fo as to raise and maintain perfect pleasure,

Of the two grand fects of ancient philofophers, the Stoics took it too high, and the Epicureans as much too low. The defect of the first lay in not diftinguishing between abfolute and limited perfection and happiness; that is, fuch as the conftitution and circumstances of the being who wanted to be happy will admit of.