heart of his friend? Has it not brought together an armed nation around the walls of a devoted city, the site of which, after being soaked with the blood of men, women, and babes, was to be covered with perpetual ruin? Does not this same robust instinct every day sustain the most humane minds in discharging the sad duty of conducting a fellow-man to death? We see too, to what a degree of frenzy the common desire of retribution may be inflamed by the suggestions of self-love. Now may it not be conceived of that an equal intensity of this emotion might be obtained by the means of some other sentiment than self-love, and by one more firm because more sound than the selfish principle? If so, then we have under our actual inspection powers which, in a future life, may be found vigorous enough to carry human nature through scenes or through services too appalling even to think or speak of. If, for example, it were asked-" Is it credible that man, his sensibilities being such as they are, should take his part, even as spectator, in the final procedures of the Divine Government?" We might fairly reply by referring to certain signal instances of the force of the vindictive passions, and on the ground of such facts assume it as possible that, whoever could go so far, might go further still. And this hypothetic inference would not be invalidated merely because revenge is malign and evil: for although it be

so, the fulcrum of its power is nothing else than the unalterable laws of the moral world; we only want therefore a righteous motive to supplant the selfish one, and then an equal, or perhaps a much greater force, would be displayed by these same principles.

If it be allowable to advance to this point, we then shall need only one more idea to give distinctness to our conception of the retributive processes of the future world;-and it is thisThat the infatuations of self-love, which, in the present state, defend every mind from the application to itself of the desire of retribution-in the same manner as the principle of animal life defends the vital organs of a body from the chemical action of its own caustic secretionsthat these infatuations, we say, being then quite dispersed, the Instinct of Justice-perhaps the most potent of all the elements of the spiritual life, shall turn inward upon each consciously guilty heart, so that every such heart shall become the prey of a reflected rage, intense and corrosive as the most virulent revenge! Whoever is now hurrying on without thought of consequences through a course of crimes, would do well to imagine the condition of a being left without relief to breathe upon itself the flames of an insatiable hatred!

SECTION III.

ALLIANCE OF THE MALIGN EMOTIONS WITH THE IMAGINATION.*

If nature denies to the irascible passions any attendant sense of pleasure, she absolutely refuses them also, at least in their simple state, the power of awakening the sympathy, or of exciting

The copiousness of our subject must exclude whatever does not directly conduce to its illustration. Otherwise it would be proper here to mention those complex dispositions which spring from the union of the malignant passions with the elements of individual character. The irascible sentiment, for example, takes a specific form from the peculiarities of the animal structure. Combined with conscious muscular vigour, and a sanguineous temperament, it becomes a stormy rage, and constitutes either the bully, or the dread devastator of kingdoms, as circumstances may determine. The same irascibility, joined with a feeble constitution, begets petulance, in those various forms which depend upon the particular seat of debility; namely, whether it be the nervous system-the arterial system-the mesenteric glands-the liver, or the stomach; each of which imparts a peculiarity to the temper. An attentive observer of the early developement of character will also leave room, in any theory of the passions he may construct, for a hitherto unexplored and undefined influence of conformation— ought we to say of the brain, or of the mind? How much soever (from various motives) any might wish to simplify their philosophy of human nature, and especially to exclude from it certain facts which give rise to painful perplexities, they can do so only (as we think) by refusing to turn the eye toward the real world.

After receiving their first characteristic from the physical temperament, the malign emotions next ally themselves with the instinct of

the admiration of those who witness their ebullition. These harsh elements of the moral system must be taken into combination with sentiments of a different, and a happier order, and must almost be concealed within such sentiments, before they can assume any sort of beauty, or appear in splendour. That such combinations do actually take place, and in conformity too with the intentions of nature, is true; but it is true also, that by the very means of the mixture, the worse or rancorous element is vastly moderated and refined. Let it be granted, for example, that wars have often originated in the military ambition and false thirst of glory to

self-love, and generate either a sullen and obdurate pride, which makes every other being an enemy, as a supposed impugner of rights and honours that are its due; or else (and especially as combined with derangement of the hepatic functions) begets a rabid jealousy or reptile envy-passion of the most wretched natures! Our modern intellectual science yet wants a term to serve in the place of that theologico-metaphysic one-THE WILL. Analysis must be pushed a little further than it has gone before the deficiency can be well supplied. Meanwhile let us say that the malign passions have a characteristic alliance with "the will"-an alliance if not clearly to be distinguished from those it forms with self-love, yet distinct enough to arrest attention. As a single example we might name that undefined, and not easily analysed, cruelty or wanton and tranquil delight in torments, bloodshed, and destruction, which has given a dread notoriety to some few names in history. In such cases it has seemed as if the spontaneous principle would prove its force and its independence in the mode that should, more effectively than any other, make all men confess it to be free. Instances of malignity meet us which are at once too placid to be charged entire upon the irascible emotions, and too vague to be accounted for by the inducements of either selfishness or pride, and which, if they do not declare the presence of a determining cause that has no immediate dependence upon assignable motives, must remain quite unexplained.

which certain gorgeous sentiments give an appearance of virtue. This may be true, but can we easily estimate the degree in which war universally has been softened and relieved in its attendant horrors, by the corrective influence of these very mixed emotions, extravagant and false as they are? And is it certain that there would have been altogether less bloodshed on earth, if mere sanguinary rage, and if the cupidity of empire, had been left to work their ends alone? For every thousand victims immolated at the altar of martial pride, have not ten thousand been rescued by the noble and generous usages that have belonged to the system of warfare among all civilized nations? Surely it may be said that, unless the imaginative sentiments had thus blended themselves with the destructive passions, the ambition of men would have been like that of fiends, and the human family must long ago have suffered extermination.

Ideas of chivalrous virtue and of royal magnanimity (ideas directly springing from the imagination) much more than any genuine sentiments of humanity, have softened the ferocious pride of mighty warriors. For though it may be true that some sparks or rare flashes of mere compassion have, once and again, gleamed from the bosoms of such men; yet assuredly if good will to their fellows had been more than a transient emotion, the sword would never have been their toy. But the imaginative sentiments are a