morose, or rancorous, by junction with some one or more of the unsocial emotions. Or if a definition as brief as possible were demanded, we should say, that FANATICISM IS ENTHUSIASM INFLAMED BY HATRED.

A glance at the rise and reason of the irascible emotions will facilitate our future progress. Our subject being an instance of the combination of these emotions with other principles, we ought distinctly to have in view the elements; and to note also some of their coalescent forms.

The difficulty that attends analysis in the science of mind (science so called) belongs in a peculiar manner to those instances in which we endeavour to trace the original construction of passions or impulses that scarcely ever present themselves otherwise than in an exaggerated and corrupted condition. It is usual, if an object of philosophic curiosity be obscure or evanescent, to single out for examination the most marked examples of the class. But to take this course

in an analysis of the passions is to seek for primitive elements where most they have lost their original form, and have suffered the most injury.

What the contour and symmetry of the moral form was, as it came from the hand of the Creator, may be more readily determined in the dry method of ethical definition, than vividly conceived of; and this is especially true of those

emotions which imply the presence of evil. How delicate is the task-if indeed it be a practicable one, to trace the line between nature (in the best sense) and deformity-between the true and the false, in these instances! And yet, not the most rancorous or foul of the malign sentiments can be thought any thing else than a disordered state of some power indispensable to the constitution of a rational and independent agent. We need then take care lest, in our haste to condemn what is evil, we should denounce as such that of which God himself is author, and which, if we think closely, cannot even be conceived of as altogether wanting in a being placed where man is placed.

Within a certain line there can however be no difficulty in deciding between good and evil. It is quite obvious that a passion or appetite, subservient to some specific purpose, is in an irregular state when it overpasses or fails to secure that purpose :-the end must give law to the means; and where the end may clearly be defined, the limit which the means should reach is not hard to ascertain. Either by EXCESS and too great intensity-or by PERVERSION, or misdirection from their proper object-or by PROLONGATION from momentary impulses to habits and permanent qualities, as well the animal appetites as the irascible passions assume a pernicious form, and derange the harmony of nature.

Which of the emotions or desires it is that may justly claim to be not subservient, but paramount, and may therefore safely be prolonged, and impart themselves as qualities to the mind, Nature distinctly informs us, by rendering them always agreeable; while some uneasiness, or even positive pain, is attached to the continuance of every one of those feelings which, in her intention, are only to measure out a momentary occasion, and which ought to rise and disappear in the same hour.

It is thus, we need hardly say, with the bodily appetites, which disturb the system (as well corporeal as mental) whenever they do more than accomplish their definite purpose. Indispensable as these impulses are to the machinery of life, they take a noxious quality when they are detained: their property should be to evaporate without residuum. Each, moreover, has its specific object, and throws every other function into disorder if it become fastidious and each too must observe its due amount of force.

The same is true of all forms of the irascible emotions, which can never go beyond their purpose, and especially can never pass into dispositions, without vitiating the character. Each single instance of excessive excitement contributes, shall we say, the whole amount of its excess to the formation of a habit of the same class; and then these habits-emotions parted from

their occasions, soon run into some sort of perversion, or become misdirected. Unoccupied desire strays from its path, and attaches itself perniciously to whatever objects it may meet. It is thus that human nature subsides into its most corrupted states. A certain mode of feeling is generated, of the utter unreasonableness of which the mind is dimly conscious, and to rid itself of the uneasy sense of being absurd, rushes on toward sentiments still more preposterous, that by their aid it may quite surround itself with false impressions, and lose all recollection of calm truths. As there is an intoxication of the animal appetites, so is there an intoxication of the malign passions; and perhaps if we could completely analyse some extreme instance of dark and atrocious hatred-hatred when it constitutes the fixed condition of the soul, we should find that the miserable being has become what he is by the impulse of a perpetual endeavour to drown self-reproach and inward contempt, in deeper and deeper draughts of the cup of poison.

Up to that point where the subordinate principles of our nature become transmuted into permanent qualities, imparting a character to the mind, it is easy to discern their reason and propriety as constituents of the physical and moral life; nor can we fail to perceive that each is attended with a provision for restraining it within due limits. Thus it is, as we have said,

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that while the machinery of animal life is im pelled by the sense of pleasure which is attached to the brief activity of the appetites, an admonitory uneasiness attends the excessive indulgence, or protracted excitement of them. Consist

ently with this same regard to ulterior purposes, the irascible emotions, in their native state, are denied any attendant pleasurable sense; or at most so small an element of pleasure belongs to them, that the pain consequent upon their excess or their continuance is always paramount. The dash of gratification, if there be any, does but give momentary life to the rising energy, and then passes off.

The irascible passions can be allowed to have respect to nothing beyond the preservation of life, or of its enjoyments, in those unforeseen occasions when no other means but an instantaneous exertion of more than the ordinary force, both of body and mind, and especially of the latter, could avail for the purpose of defence :anger is the safeguard of beings not housed, like the tortoise, within an impenetrable crust; and if man had been born cased in iron, or were an ethereal substance, he would probably have been furnished with no passionate resentments. Nevertheless every good purpose of such emotions has been answered when the faculties have received that degree and kind of stimulus which the exigency of the moment demanded; and their continuance must be always