1 more so. Can we, for one moment, believe that a mere juxtaposition of parts is able to convey the highest activity and energy, to that whose very essence it is, to be, on all other occasions, of all created things, the most inactive and inert. If we request the materialist to explain this kind of hocus pocus, I suspect he can only do it by repeating hoc est corpus, the well known etymology of the term. In a former part of this article, I have quoted a passage from Mr. Hume; the passage occurs in a work which he afterwards apologized for, and requested that the public would not consider it as containing his more matured philosophical opinions. He embodied, however, a great part of this work afterwards into his essays, against which he enters no such caveat; and it is known that he himself considered these essays his masterpiece, and in them the positions contained in the article I have quoted, are repeatedly referred to, and confirmed. In these essays the following passage occurs: "Is there any principle in all nature more mysterious than the union of soul with body; by which a supposed spiritual substance acquires such an influence over a material one, that the most refined thought is able to actuate the grossest matter? were we empowered by a secret wish, to remove mountains, or control the planets in their orbit, this extensive authority would not be more extraordinary, nor more beyond our apprehension." How unfortunate was Mr. Hume that he did not live in this enlightened age; when he might have been informed that this most inexplicable phanomenon was, after all, the result of the most simple contrivance, arising from nothing more nor less than a very slight alteration in the juxtaposition of a few particles of matter!! for the thinking faculty (we hear) is only the result of a more curious aud complicated organization! Nature, then, it would seem, no less than art, has her cups, and her balls, and a small portion of matter thrown into the inside of a little globe of bone, acquires properties and powers diametrically opposite to all those, which on the outside of it, it has been Cascertained invariably to possess. Neither does that gulph of insurmountable ignorance, under which we labour as to the nature of this mysterious union of body with mind, invali date in the slightest degree the proofs of its existence; for no one, I présume, will be hardy enough to deny the existence of life, and yet the union of life with body is quite as inexplicable as the union of mind, superadded to both. Let us then be as candid in the one case, as in other, and apply the same reasoning to mind, that we have all consented to, with regard to life. Let us affirm of both of them, that we know nothing of either, but by their effects, which effects, however, do most fully and firmly establish their existence. } If indeed that marvellous microcosm man, with all the costly cargo of his faculties and powers, were indeed a rich Argosy, fitted out and freighted only for shipwreck and destruction, who amongst us that tolerate the present only from the hope of the future, who that have any aspirings of a high and intellectual nature about them, could be brought to submit to the disgusting mortifications of the voyage? as to the common and the sensual herd, who would be glad, perhaps, under any terms, to sweat and groan beneath the load of life, they would find that the creed of the materialist, would only give a fuller swing to the suicidal energies of a selfism as unprincipled as unrelenting; a selfism that would not only make that giftless gift of life a boon the most difficult to preserve, but would at the same time render it wholly unworthy of the task and the trouble of its preservation. Knowledge herself, that fairest daughter of heaven, would be immediately transformed into a changeling of hell; the brightest reason would be the blackest curse, and weakness more salutary than strength; for the villainy of man would increase with the depravity of his will, and the depravity of his will, with every augmentation of his power. The force of intellect imparted to that which was corrupt, would be like the destructive energies communicated by an earthquake, to that which is inert; where even things inanimate, as rocks and mountains, seem endowed with a momentary impulse of motion and of life, only to overwhelm, to destroy and to be destroyed. Justice is usually depicted as having no eyes, but holding a sword in the one hand, and a pair of scales in the other. But under a system that destroyed the awful obligations of an oath, what could justice weigh? she must renounce her scales, and apply both her hands to the sword; The awful importance of the above article must excuse the length of it, and to show that I am not singular in my view of its scope, and bearings, I shall finish by a quotation from a work just published, which has many readers, and will certainly have more. "But there is another more important relation in which the mind is still to be viewed, that relation which connects it with the Almighty Being to whom it owes its existence. Is man, whose frail generations begin and pass away, but one of the links of an infinite chain of beings like himself, uncaused, and co-eternal with that self-existing world of which he is the feeble tenant? or, Is he the offspring of an all-creating Power, that adapted him to nature, and nature to him, formed, together with the magnificent scene of things around him, to enjoy its blessings, and to adore, with the gra titude of happiness, the wisdom and goodness from which they flow? What attributes, of a Being so transcendent, may human reason presume to explore? and, What homage will be most suitable to his immensity, and our nothingness? Is it only for an existence of a few moments, in this passing scene, that he has formed us? or, Is there something within us, over which death has no power, something, that prolongsta and identifies the consciousness of all which we have done on earth, and that, after the inortality of the body, may yet be a subject of the moral government of God? When compared with these questions, even the sublimest physical inquiries are comparatively insignificant. They seem to differ, as it has been said, in their relative importance and dignity, almost as philosophy itself differs from the mechanical arts that are subservient to it. Quantum inter philosophiam interest,—et cæteras artes; tantum interesse existimo in ipsa philosophia, inter illam partem quæ ad homines et hanc quæ ad Deos spectat. Altior est hæc et animosior: multum permisit sibi; non fuit oculis contenta. Majus esse quiddam suspicata est, ac pulchrius, quod extra conspectum natura posuisset." It is when ascending to these sublimer objects, that the mind seems to expand, as if already shaking off its earthly fetters, and returning to its source; and it is scarcely too much to say, that the delight which it thus takes in things divine is an internal evidence of its own divinity. Cum illa tetigit, alitur, crescit: ac velut vinculis liberatus, in originem redit. Et hoc habet argumentum divinitatis suæ, quod illam divina delectant.” * Vide Introduction to Brown's Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind.e of plas " and it would be a bloody sword, strong indeed to exterminate, but feeble to correct. As to Justice herself, she would not only be more blind than Polyphemus, but she would also want more hands than Briareus, to enable her to combat the Hydra-headed monster of crime ! LXIII. THERE are some characters who appear to superficial observers to be full of contradiction, change, and inconsistency, and yet they that are in the secret of what such persons are driving at, know that they are the very reverse of what they appear to be, and that they have one single object in view, to which they as pertinaciously adhere, through every circumstance of change, as the hound to the hare, through all her mazes and doublings. We know that a windmill is eternally at work to accomplish one end, although it shifts with every variation of the weathercock, and assumes ten different positions in a day. THERE is nothing that requires so strict an deco nomy as our benevolence. We should husband our means as the agriculturist his manure, which if he spread over too arge a superficies produces no crop, if over too small a surface, exuberates in rankness and in weeds, dep LXV. THE women are satisfied with less than the men; and yet, notwithstanding this, they are less easily satisfied. In the first place preference and precedence are indispensable articles with them, if we would have our favours graciously received; they look moreover to the mode, the manner, and the address, rather than to the value of the obligation, and estimate it more by the time, the cost, and the trouble we may have expended upon it, than by its intrinsic worth. Attention is ever current coin with the ladies, and they weigh the heart much more scrupulously than the hand. A wealthy suitor purchases a watch for his idol, studded with gems, an artificer makes a far less costly one for his favourite, and I need not add which will be most propitiously received, since there will be one person at least, in the world, who will be certain that during the whole process of the fabrication of the present, the donor was thinking of her for whom it was designed. LXVI. PRIDE differs in many things from vanity, and by gradations that never blend, although they may be somewhat indistinguishable.* Pride may perhaps be termed a too high opinion of ourselves, founded on the overrating of certain qualities that we do actually possess; whereas vanity is more easily satisfied and can extract a feeling of self-complacency, from qualifications that are imaginary. Vanity can also feed upon externals, but pride must have more or less of that which is intrinsic; the proud therefore do not set so high a value upon wealth as the vain, neither are they so much depressed by poverty. Vanity looks to the many, and to the moment, pride to the future, and the few; hence pride has more difficulties, and vanity more disappointments; neither does she bear them so well, for she at times distrusts herself, whereas pride despises others. For the vain man cannot always be certain of the validity of his pretensions, because they are often as empty as that very vanity that has created them; therefore it is necessary for his happiness, that they should be confirmed by the opinion of his neighbours, and his own vote in favour of himself, he thinks of little weight, until it be backed by the suffrages of others. The vain man idolizes his own person, and here he is but he cannot bear his own company, and here he is right. But the proud man wants no such confirmations; his preten wrong; * See a very short and acute distinction between Pride and Vanity in an Analytical Dictionary on a novel and very ingenious plan by Mr. David Booth. 4 |