*

toms. For a man to keep himself tied and bound by necessity to one only course, is but bare existence, not living. It was an honorable character of the elder Cato, (huic versatile ingenium sic pariter ad omnia fuit, ut natum ad id unum diceres, quodcunque ageret.') 'So versatile was his genius, that whatever he took in hand, you would be apt to say that he was formed for that very thing only.' Were I to choose for myself, there is no fashion so good that I should care to be so wedded to it as not to have it in my power to disengage myself from it. Life is a motion, uneven, irregular, and ever varying its direction. A man is not his own friend, much less his own master, but rather a slave to himself, who is eternally pursuing his own humor, and such a bigot to his own inclinations, that he is not able to abandon or to alter them." +

The only thing to be censured in this passage is, that the author makes no distinction between good and bad habits; between those which we are induced to cultivate by reason, and by the original principles of our nature; and those which reason admonishes us to shun, on account of the mischievous consequences with which they are likely to be followed. With respect to these two classes of habits considered in contrast with each other, it is extremely worthy of observation, that the former are incomparably more easy in the acquisition than the latter; while the latter, when once acquired, are (probably in consequence of this very circumstance, the difficulty of overcoming our natural propensities) of at least equal efficacy in subjecting all the powers of the will to their dominion.

That such habits as are reasonable and agreeable to nature are more easily acquired than others of a contrary description, is an old and common remark. It is well expressed, and very happily illustrated in the following passage of Quinctilian. "The discipline of a virtuous and happy life is short and easy, nature having formed us for whatever is excellent, and having so facilitated to a willing mind every acquisition which tends

* Liv. lib. xxxix. c. 40.

† Montaigne, b. iii. c. 3. Cotton's Translation.

to its improvement, as to render it wonderful that vice should be so prevalent in the world. For as to fishes, water is the appropriate element; to terrestrial animals, the dry land; and to birds, the surrounding atmosphere; so to man it is certainly more easy to follow the suggestions of Nature than to pursue a plan of life contrary to her obvious intentions and arrangements." *

Of the peculiar difficulty of shaking off such inveterate habits, as were at first the most repugnant to our taste and inclinations, we have a daily and a melancholy proof in the case of those individuals who have suffered themselves to become slaves to tobacco, to opium, and to other intoxicating drugs, which, so far from possessing the attractions of pleasurable sensations, are in a great degree revolting to an unvitiated palate. The same thing is exemplified in many of those acquired tastes which it is the great object of the art of cookery to create and gratify; and still more remarkably in those fatal habits which sometimes steal on the most amiable characters, under the seducing form of social enjoyment, and of a temporary respite from the evils of life.

I am inclined, however, to think that Montaigne meant to restrict his observations chiefly, if not solely, to habits which are indifferent or nearly indifferent in their moral tendency, and that all he is to be understood as asserting amounts to this, that we ought not, in matters connected with the accommodations of human life, to enslave ourselves to one set of habits in preference to another. In this sense his doctrine is just and important; and I have only to add to it, that in this point of view also virtuous habits possess a distinguished superiority not only over those which are immoral, but over those which are merely innocent or inoffensive, inasmuch as they lead us to associate the idea of happiness with objects which depend infinitely less than any others on the caprice of fortune, or rather with such as

"Brevis est institutio vitæ honestæ beatæque. Natura enim nos ad mentem optimam genuit: adeoque discere meliora volentibus promptum est, ut verè intuenti mirum sit illud magis, malos esse tam multos. Nam ut aqua piscibus, ut sicca terrenis, circumfusus nobis spiritus volucribus convenit, ita certè facilius esse oportebat secundum naturam, quàm contra eam vivere.”—Quinct. lib. xii. c. 11.

every wise and prudent man has it in his power at all times to enjoy. This observation I had occasion to illustrate formerly, when treating of the leading Principles of the Stoical Philosophy.

SECTION IV.

Continuation of the same Subject.

THE foregoing remarks relate to what may be called the essentials of happiness;-the circumstances which constitute the general state or habit of mind that is necessary to lay a ground work for every other enjoy

ment.

This foundation being supposed, the sum of happiness enjoyed by an individual will be proportioned to the degree in which he is able to secure all the various pleasures belonging to our nature.

The most important of these pleasures may be referred to the following heads :

1. The Pleasures of Activity and of Repose.

2. The Pleasures of Sense.

3. The Pleasures of Imagination.

4. The Pleasures of the Understanding.

5. The Pleasures of the Heart.*

An examination and comparison of these different classes of our enjoyments is necessary, even on the Stoical principles, to complete the inquiry concerning happiness, in order to ascertain the relative value of the different objects of choice and rejection.

Such an examination, however, would lead into details inconsistent with the plan, and foreign to the design of this work. To those who choose to prosecute the subject, it opens a field of speculation equally curious and useful, and much less exhausted by moralists than might have been expected from its importance. The following slight hints will be sufficient to justify the classification now mentioned, and may perhaps suggest some useful practical reflections.

*To make the enumeration more complete, I might have added the Pleasures of Taste; but as these are confined to a comparatively small number of the species, they did not seem to require a particular consideration at present.

I.

Pleasures of Activity and of Repose.

I observed before, in treating of our Active Powers, that our occasional propensities to Action and to Repose are in some respects analogous to our bodily appetites. They are common, too, like them, to man and to the brutes; for every animal we know is prompted by an instinctive impulse to take that degree of exercise which is conducive to health and vigor, and is prevented from passing the bounds of moderation, by that languor and desire of repose which are consequences of continued exertion.

A fact perfectly similar to this takes place with respect to the mind. We are impelled by nature to the exercise of its different faculties, and we are warned, when we are in danger of overstraining them, by a consciousness of fatigue. In both cases there is a pleasure annexed to the exercise of our powers; and this pleasure seems to be an ultimate fact in our constitution, not resolvable into any more simple or general source of enjoyment. If I were disposed to suspect the possibility of any such reference, it would be to the pleasure arising from the consciousness of power, of which I treated formerly, when considering our Natural Desires. But although these pleasures are commonly so blended together, that it is difficult to discriminate them, it might be clearly shown, (if it were worth while to enter into the metaphysical discussion,) that they have each their distinct origin in our frame. As the view of the subject, however, which I mean to take at present is entirely practical, I do not think it necessary for me to attempt drawing the line between two classes of enjoyment so very nearly allied; and it is for the same reason that I have avoided lengthening the enumeration, by stating the pleasures of power as a separate article, the distinction between these and the pleasures of activity being too subtle and refined to strike the generality of readers without a commentary.

It is not only with the pleasures of power that those of activity may be united. They blend also with all the various pleasures of sense, of the imagination, of the understanding, and of the heart; and it is owing to the different effects of these combinations that some kinds of activity are more delightful than others. And as the pleasures of activity are heightened by their union with other gratifications, so a certain mixture of activity is necessary to give a zest to every other enjoyment, or at least to prevent them from ending in languor and satiety. Hence the satisfaction with which we may continue to enjoy the pleasures of the understanding during a length of time, to which it is impossible, by any artifice, to extend the more passive gratifications of the senses or of the imagination, an important circumstance in our constitution, which I shall afterwards illustrate more fully.

As I made several observations on the pleasures of activity, when attempting to reconcile the physical evils in the condition of man with a beneficent intention in the Author of his being, I shall not enlarge further on that topic at present. The reasonings that were then stated, were, I flatter myself, sufficient to authorize the general conclusion, that those very circumstances in the order of Providence, on which gloomy moralists have founded their complaints, are impressed with the strongest marks of beneficent wisdom. That, during our progress through life, we are destined never to arrive at the completion of our desires, but to be invited from stage to stage, by one phantom of hope succeeding to another, is obviously a necessary part of that constitution of things which appointed constant activity to be an essential ingredient in human happiness.

Of these pleasures of activity which invite man during the period of his vigor to a continued course of exertion, either of body or mind, the pleasures of repose may be considered as, in our present state of imperfection, a natural and a necessary consequence. They presuppose a general state of activity, without which they can hardly be said to have any existence, and for re