There is one other preliminary remark, which it may be necessary to make, before entering on the consideration of our separate desires. In the arrangement of our emotions, you must have observed, that no peculiar place has been set apart by me for the Passions; the reason of which is, that our passions are truly no separate class, but merely a name for our desires, when very vivid, or very permanent. It is impossible to state in words, at what degree of vividness or permanence, we cease to speak of a desire, and term it a passion. This, it is probable, that different individuals would do very variously; but all, unquestionably, would use these different terms, when there is any very remarkable difference in these respects. A slight desire of higher station, which comes upon us at intervals, and is soon forgotten in the cares, or in the delightful occupations of domestic life, no one would think of calling a passion, more than the individual himself; who smiles, perhaps, sometimes at his own little dreams of ambition, as if they were the idle musings of another mind, and, on awaking, looks at the tranquillity and happiness around him, with a sort of gladness that his dream was only a dream. It is when the wish of worldly power and splendour is not the emotion of a single minute, but the exclusive, or almost exclusive, wish of the heart,-when it allows, indeed, other desires occasionally to intervene, but recurs still with additional force, as if to occupy again what is its own possession, and to feed on new wishes of advancement, or new projects of obtaining what it wished before ;--it is then, when the desire is vivid and permanent, that we term it a passion, and look, perhaps, with pity on him who is its victim. After these remarks, which I flatter myself have pointed out to you some distinctions which it may be of importance for us to remember in our subsequent discussions, I proceed to the consideration of our desires in the order stated by me. The first of these is our desire of our own continued existence. Strong and permanent as our wishes of delight may be, it is not happiness only which we desire, nor misery only which we dread; we have a wish to exist, even without regard, at the moment of the wish, to the happiness which might seem all that could render existence valuable ;-and annihilation itself, which implies the impossibility of uneasiness of any kind, is to our conception almost like a species of misery. Nor is it only when life presents to us the appearance of pleasure, wherever we look, and when our heart has an alacrity of enjoying it, wherever it is to be found, that the desire of a continuation of this earthly existence remains. It remains, and, in many instances, is perhaps still stronger in those years, when death might seem to afford only the prospect of a ready passage to a better world. "Da spatium vitæ ; multos da, Jupiter, annos. Hoc recto vultu, solum hoc et pallidus optas.* "O, my coevals!"--says the author of the Night Thoughts, at a time when he was himself advanced in age,— "O, my coevals! remnants of yourselves, * Juvenal. Sat. X. v. 188, 189. To explain the apparent inconsistency of the increased love of life, that is so frequently observed in old age, when the means of enjoyment are diminished,—we must remember, that, by the influence of the suggesting principle, life, as a mere object of conception to the old, retains still many charms, which in reality it does not possess. The life, of which they think, is the life of which they have often thought; and that life was a life full of hopes and enjoyments. The feelings, therefore, which were before associated with the notion of the loss of life, are those which still occur, on the contemplation of its possible loss, with the addition of all those enjoyments which a longer series of years must have added to the complex conception, and the loss of which, as one great whole, seems to be involved in the very notion of the loss of that life, of which the enjoyments formed a part. It must be remembered, too, that if life be regarded as in any degree a blessing, the mere circumstance of the increased probability of its speedy termination, must confer on it no slight accession of interest. This is only one of many instances of the operation of a very general principle of our nature;—the likelihood of loss being itself almost a species of endearment, or at least producing, in every case, a tenderness that is soon diffused over the object which we contemplate, that seems thus to be more lovely in itself, merely because, from its precariousness, we love it more. Absurd, however, as the desire may seem, in such cases, it is, as a general feeling of our nature, a most striking proof of the kindness of that Being, who, in giving to man duties which he has to continue for many years to discharge in a world which is preparatory to the nobler world that is afterwards to receive him, has not left him to feel the place in which he is to perform the duties allotted to him, as a place of barren and dreary exile. He has given us passions which throw a sort of enchantment on every thing which can reflect them to our heart, which add to the delight that is felt by us in the exercise of our duties,—a delight that arises from the scene itself on which they are exercised,-from the society of those who inhabit it with us,—from the offices which we have performed, and continue to perform. While these earthly mitigations of our temporary exile,-if I may venture to speak of exile in relation to a world which we have not yet reached,—are thus bounteously granted to us, there may, indeed, be a fear of death more than perhaps is necessary for this benevolent purpose, in the breasts of those who are too abject in their sensual or sordid wishes, to think of heaven, or too conscious of guilt to think of it with tranquillity. But to minds of nobler hopes, which, even in loving life and all which life presents, have not forgotten how small a part it is of that existence which it only opens to them, what objects are presented, I will not say, to reconcile them merely to the simple transition in which death consists, but to make this very transition a change which, but for the tears of other eyes, and the griefs of other hearts, they may smile tranquilly, or almost exult, to see approaching! There are minds indeed, which may truly exult at this parting moment, which can look back on the conflicts of this fading scene, like the victor of some well-fought field, who closes his eye in the hour of some triumph, that has been the triumph of Freedom more than of War, amid the blessings of nations, and who, in the very praises and blessings that are the last sounds of life to his ear, hears rather the happiness which he has produced, than the glory which he has won : How admirable is that goodness which knows so well how to adapt to each other feelings that are opposite,-which gives to man a love of life enough to reconcile him, without an effort, to the earth which is to be the scene of his exertions; and which, at the same time, gives those purer and more glorious wishes which make him ready to part with the very life which he loved. LECTURE LXVI. III. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS.-I. CONSIDERATION OF THE DESIRE OF CONTINUED EXISTENCE, CONCLUDED.-II. DESIRE OF PLEASURE. IN my last Lecture, gentlemen, I began the consideration of that order of our emotions, which, from their relation to objects as future, I distinguished from our immediate and retrospective emotions, by the name of prospective, -an order which comprehends our desires and fears,-the most important of all the affections of our mind, as the immediate directors of our conduct, which our other mental affections, of whatever species, influence only indirectly, through the medium of our wishes. With respect to this order in general, I endeavoured to explain to you, how the same objects, agreeable or disagreeable, may, in different circumstances of our relation to these objects, as present or absent, give rise both to hope and to fear; and how different the feeling of the mere desirableness of an object,-which is nothing more than the relation of certain objects perceived or conceived, as antecedents to our desires as consequents,—is from the feeling of the greater amount of personal advantage, or of the moral propriety of certain actions; both which considerations, indeed, may produce the tendency to desire, in some cases, but do not necessarily constitute it in all;-the clearest perception of greater advantage from certain actions, which it would be worldly prudence to prefer, and of moral propriety in certain actions, which it would be virtue to prefer, being often insufficient to overcome other circumstances of momentary attraction, which thus obtain our momentary preference, even though felt to be in absolute opposition to our good upon the whole, and to that virtue, which is itself, indeed, a part, and the most important part of this general good. Since the objects of desire,-which are so various to different persons, VOL. II. *And feel I, then, no joy from thought of thee !-ORIG. that, perhaps, no two objects are regarded with the same interest and choice by any two individuals, are not limited, even to the infinity of existing things, but comprehend whatever the wildest imagination can conceive, stated to you the impossibility of any exact enumeration of these objects, such as might enable us to treat compendiously of the whole boundless variety of human wishes. All which I could venture to do, therefore, was to class the principal objects, that seem, in their nature, to involve that species of attraction, which, as immediately antecedent to all our wishes, I have termed desirableness, that is to say, the most important of those objects, which cannot, in the ordinary circumstances of our nature, be contemplated by us, without exciting the emotion of desire. Of these, I enumerated the following:-Our desire of the mere continuation of our being,-our desire of pleasure, our desire of action, our desire of society, our desire of knowledge, our desire of power, whether of direct power, as in what is commonly termed ambition, or of indirect power, as in avarice, our desire of the affection or esteem of those around us, our desire of glory,-our desire of the happiness of others, our desire of the unhappiness of those whom we hate. All these desires, however, I stated, may exist in various forms, according to the different degrees of probability of attainment,—a simple wish, hope, expectation, confidence, being the most remarkable gradations in the scale, though there are various intervening shades of difference, to which no name is given. They are not species of desires essentially distinct, but modes of all our desires. Our wishes, when they exist with little force and permanence, are termed simple desires,-when they rise more vividly, and occupy the mind more exclusively, they are termed passions. The vividness and permanence, therefore, are the only circumstances, which distinguish our passions,-not any essential difference in the particular nature of the desires themselves. The slightest wish, which we scarcely feel as a very vivid emotion, becomes a passion, when it affects us strongly and lastingly. The most ardent passion, which may have occupied our whole soul for half our life, if it were to rise only slightly and faintly, would be termed a mere desire. After these general preliminary distinctions, I proceeded to the consideration of our particular desires; and, in my last Lecture, offered some remarks on the first of these, in my order of enumeration. Of the great fact of that desire of life, which you must see operating universally around you, you could not need to be informed; and my observations, therefore, were chiefly illustrative of that beautiful adaptation of our nature to the scene on which we have to discharge the various duties of men, that is effected by this principle of our constitution,-a principle, which renders the scene of those duties itself delightful, as the scene of our continued being,-of that life, which we love in itself, and which is associated, in our conception, with the scene on which every moment of our life has passed. Instead, therefore, of viewing, in our love of life, a principle disgraceful to our nature, we may see in it, far more truly, a principle which does honour to our nature, because it answers admirable purposes in our moral constitution. What happiness would it be, to those who were to be confined in the most gloomy prison for a series of years, if during all this long period of confinement, the very prison itself were to seem to them a delightful habitation, and when the hour of deliverance came, we had only to open the gate, and lead the prisoner forth to sunshine and the balmy breeze, which were not to be the less delightful, then, on account of the captivity in which his former years were spent! I need not point out to you, how exactly the case, now imagined, corresponds in every circumstance, except in the gloom and narrowness of the prisoner's dismal abode, with that which truly constitutes our situation as temporary inhabitants of this delightful earth. It is not the mere love of life, which is disgraceful in itself, but the cowardly love of it, which does not yield to nobler desires. Every wish which we can feel for objects that are apt to affect ourselves, has, of course, relation to the future, and therefore, to some protraction of our existence, the wish of which must consequently be involved in every other personal wish, the most honourable which the mind can form. To desire the continuation of life, is to fear the loss of it; and to fear the loss of it, is to fear every thing which may bring it into danger. Even the brave man, then, will avoid danger, where no virtue would lead to the exposure; but, when virtue requires exposure, he will scarcely feel that it is peril to which he is exposing himself. Glory, the good of mankind, the approbation of his own heart, the approbation of God,-these are all which the brave man sees; and he, who, seeing these, can sacrifice them to the love of mere animal life, is indeed, unworthy, I will not say of vanquishing in a cause in which it is noble to prevail, but even of perishing in a cause in which it is noble to perish. The next desire, to the consideration of which I proceed, is our desire of pleasure; to which the fear of pain may be regarded as opposed. Annihilation, indeed, seems to us an evil, independently of the happiness or misery, of which it may deprive us, or from which it may free us. We love the mere contentment of our being, but we love still more our wellbeing; and existence is valuable to us, chiefly as that which can be rendered happy. He, who formed us to be happy, of course formed us to be deserving of happiness. The desire, indeed, may be considered as almost involved in the very notion of happiness itself, which could scarcely be conceived by us as happiness, if it were not conceived as that which is an object of desire. I may say of the love of pleasure, what I have said of the love of life. As it is not the love or preservation of life which is unworthy of a brave and honourable man, but the love of a life that is inconsistent with nobler objects of desire; it is, in like manner, not the love of pleasure which is unworthy of us, for pleasure, in itself, when arising from a pure source, is truly ast pure as the source from which it flows; but the love of pleasure that is inconsistent with our moral excellence. The delight which virtue gives, and which devotion gives, is no small part of the excellence, even of qualities so noble as devotion and virtue. We love men more, we love God more, because it is impossible for us to love them more, without an increase of our delight. In this sense, indeed, to borrow a beautiful line, which expresses much in a very few words,→ "Pleasure is nought but Virtue's gayer name."* Even of pleasures, which do not flow immediately from virtue, but of which virtue is far from forbidding the enjoyment, how many are there which nature Young's Night Thoughts, B. VIII. v. 573. * |