has made a happy application of it to explain the origin and progress of criminal law. Which of these two authors first conceived the idea of applying it to jurisprudence does not appear to me to be perfectly certain. Both of them have evidently been much indebted in their speculations concerning this part of human nature to the Sermons of Bishop Butler.

I shall conclude this subject at present with remarking, that, as all the benevolent affections are accompanied with pleasant emotions, so all the malevolent affections are sources of pain and disquiet. This is true even of resentment, how justly soever it may be roused by the injurious conduct of others. Here, too, we may perceive a final cause perfectly analogous to that of which I formerly took notice in treating of the benevolent affections. As the pleasant emotion accompanying these seems evidently to have been intended as an incitement to us to cultivate and cherish them, so the painful feeling accompanying resentment, and every other affection which is hostile to our fellow creatures, serves as a check on the habitual indulgence of them, and induces us, as soon as the first impulse of passion is over, and reason begins to reassume her empire, to obliterate every trace of them from the memory. Dr. Reid has expressed this last observation with great beauty, and has enforced it with uncommon felicity of illustration. "When we consider that, on the one hand, every benevolent affection is pleasant in its nature, is health to the soul, and a cordial to the spirits; that nature has made even the outward expression of benevolent affections in the countenance pleasant to every beholder, and the chief ingredient of beauty in the human face divine; that, on the other hand, every malevolent affection, not only in its faulty excesses, but in its moderate degrees, is vexation and disquiet to the mind, and even gives deformity to the countenance, it is evident that by these signals nature loudly admonishes us to use the former as our daily bread, both for health and pleasure, but to consider the latter as a nauseous medicine, which is never to be taken without necessity, and even then in no greater quantity than the necessity requires."

After the clear, and, at the same time, cautious terms in which Butler, Kames, and Smith have expressed themselves concerning Resentment, it is surprising to find some late writers of considerable name speaking of the pleasure of Revenge as a natural gratification, of which every man is entitled to look forward to the enjoyment; and which, after the establishment of the political union, every man has a right to insist upon at the hands of the criminal magistrate. Such, in particular, seems to be the opinion of Mr. Bentham, and of his very ingenious and eloquent commentator, M. Dumont. "Toute espèce de satisfaction entrainant une peine pour le délinquant, produit naturellement un plaisir de vengeance pour la partie lésée. Ce plaisir est un gain. Il rappelle la parabole de Samson. C'est le miel recueilli dans la gueule du lion. Produit sans frais, résultat net d'une opération nécessaire à d'autres titres, c'est une jouissance à cultiver comme toute autre; car le plaisir de la vengeance, considéré abstraitement, n'est comme tout autre plaisir, qu'un bien en lui-même. Il est innocent tant qu'il se renferme dans les bornes de la loi ; il ne devient criminel qu'au moment où il les franchit. Utile à l'individu, ce mobile est même utile au public, ou pour mieux dire nécessaire; c'est cette satisfaction vindicative qui délie la langue des témoins; c'est elle qui anime l'accusateur, et l'engage au service de la justice, malgré les embarras, les dépenses, les inimitiés auxquelles il s'expose. C'est elle qui surmonte la pitié publique dans la punition des coupables .

"Je sais bien que les moralistes communs, toujours dupés de mots, ne sauroient entrer dans cette vérité. L'esprit de vengeance est odieux; toute satisfaction puisée dans cette source est vicieuse; la pardon des injures est la plus belle des vertus. Sans doute, les caractères implacables, qu' aucune satisfaction n'adoucit, sont odieux, et doivent l'être. L'oubli des injures est une vertu nécessaire à l'humanité, mais c'est une vertu quand la justice a fait son œuvre, quand elle a fourni ou refusé une satisfaction. Avant cela, oublier les injures, c'est inviter à en commettre; ce n'est pas être l'ami,

mais l'ennemi de la societé. Qu'est-ce que la méchanceté pourroit désirer de plus qu'un arrangement où les offences seroient toujours suivies de pardon." *

The observations above quoted from Butler, Kames, and Smith, will at once point out the limitations with which this passage must be understood, and will furnish a triumphant reply to it where it departs from the truth.

• Bentham de la Satisfaction Vindicative. Trad. par Dumont.

BOOK SECOND.

OF OUR RATIONAL AND GOVERNING PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.

CHAPTER FIRST.

OF A PRUDENTIAL REGARD TO OUR OWN HAPPINESS, OR, WHAT IS COMMONLY CALLED BY MORALISTS, THE PRINCIPLE of self-love.

THE Constitution of man, if it were composed merely of the active principles hitherto mentioned, would, in some important respects, be analogous to that of the brutes. His reason, however, renders his nature and condition, on the whole, essentially different from theirs ; and, by elevating him to the rank of a moral agent, distinguishes him from the lower animals still more remarkably than by the superiority it imparts to his intellectual endowments.

Of this want of reason in the brutes, it is an obvious result, that they are incapable of looking forward to consequences, or of comparing together the different gratifications of which they are susceptible; and, accordingly, as far as we can perceive, they yield to every present impulse. Among the inhabitants of this globe it is the exclusive prerogative of man, as an intelligent being, to take a comprehensive survey of his various principles of action, and to form plans of conduct for the attainment of his favorite objects. He is possessed, therefore, of the power of self-government; for how could a plan of conduct be conceived and carried into execution without a power of refusing occasionally to particular active principles the gratification which they demand?

•To various active principles which have been already under our consideration, such, for instance, as the desire of knowledge, the desire of esteem, pity to the distressed, &c. &c. the epithet rational may undoubtedly be applied in one sense with propriety, as they exclusively belong to rational beings; but they are yet of a nature essentially different from those active principles of which we are now to treat, and which I have distinguished by the title of Rational and Governing. My reasons for using this language will appear from the sequel.

This difference between the animal and the rational natures is well and concisely described by Seneca in the following words: "Animalibus pro ratione impetus ; homini pro impetu ratio." *

According to the particular active principle which influences habitually a man's conduct, his character receives its denomination of covetous, ambitious, studious, or voluptuous; and his conduct is more or less systematical as he adheres to his general plan with steadiness or inconstancy.

It is hardly necessary for me to remark how much a man's success in his favourite pursuit depends on the systematical steadiness with which he keeps his object in view. That an uncommon measure of this quality often supplies, to a great degree, the place of genius, and that, where it is wanting, the most splendid endowments are of little value, are facts which have been often insisted on by philosophers, and which are confirmed to us by daily experience. The effects of this concentration of the attention to one particular end on the developement and improvement of the intellectual powers in general have not been equally taken notice of. They are, however, extremely remarkable, as every person will readily acknowledge, who compares the sagacity and penetration of those individuals who have enjoyed its advantages, with the weakness and incapacity and dissipation of thought produced by an undecided choice among the various pursuits which human life presents to us. Even the systematical voluptuary, while he commands a much greater variety of sensual indulgences, and continues them to a much more advanced age than the thoughtless profligate, seldom fails to give a certain degree of cultivation to his understanding, by employing his faculties habitually in one direc

tion.

The only exception perhaps, which can be mentioned to this last remark, occurs in the case of those men whose leading principle of action is VANITY, and who, as their rule of conduct is borrowed from without, must,

* Seneca, II. de Ira. 16.