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Now let us go at once to the main point in argument, which is proposed to be illustrated in this discourse. What need, I ask, of speaking of human debasement in such indignant or sneering tones, if it is the real and only nature of man? There is nothing to blame or scorn in man, if he is naturally such a poor and insignificant creature. If he was made only for the senses and appetites, what occasion, I pray, for any wonder or abuse that he is sensual and debased? Why waste invectives on such a being? The truth is, that this zealous depreciation of human nature betrays a consciousness that it is not so utterly worthless after all. It is no sufficient reply to say, that this philosophic scorn has been aroused by the extravagance of human pretensions. For if these pretensions were utterly groundless, if the being who aspired to virtue were fit only for sensation, or if the being whose thoughts swelled to the great hope of immortality, were only a higher species of the animal creation, and must share its fate if this were true, his pretensions could justly create only a feeling of wonder, or of sadness.

We might say much to rebut the charge of the philosopher; so injurious to the soul, so fatal to all just self-respect, so fatal to all elevated virtue and devotion. We might say that the most ordinary tastes and the most trifling pursuits of man carry, to the observant eye, marks of the nobler mind. We might say that vain trifling, and that fleeting, dying pleasure, does not satisfy the immortal want; and that toil does not crush the soul, that the body cannot weigh down the spirit to its own drudgery. We might ask our proud reasoner, moreover, whence the moral and

metaphysical philosopher obtains the facts with which he speculates, and argues, and builds up his admirable theory? And our sceptic must answer that the metaphysical and moral philosopher goes to human nature; that he goes to it in its very attitudes of toil and its free actings of passion, and thence takes his materials and his form, and his living charm of representation, which delight the world. We might say still more. We might say that all there is of vastness and grandeur and beauty in the world, lies in the conception of man: that the immensity of the universe, as we term it, is but the reach of his imagination—that immensity, in other words, is but the image of his own idea; that there is no eternity to him, but that which exists in his own unbounded thought; that there is no God to man, but what has been conceived of in his own capacious and unmeasured understanding.

These things we might say; but I will rather meet the objector on his own ground, confident that I may triumph even there. I take up the indignant argument, then. I allow that there is much weight and truth in it, though it brings me to a different conclusion. I feel that man is, in many respects and in many situ ations and, above all, compared with what he should be that man is a mean creature. I feel it, as I should if I saw some youth of splendid talents and promise plunging in at the door of vice and infamy. Yes, it is meanness for a MAN-who stands in the of his God and among the sons of heaven-it is meanness in him to play the humble part of sycophant before his fellows-to fawn and flatter, to make his very soul a slave, barely to gain from that fellow-man

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his smile, his nod, his hand-his favour, his vote, his patronage. It is meanness for a man to prevaricate and falsify, to sell his conscience for advantage, to barter his soul for gain, to give his noble brow to the smiting blush of shame, or his cheek to the deadly paleness of convicted dishonesty. Yes, it is a degradation unutterable, for a man to steep his soul in gross, sensual, besotting indulgence; to live for this, and in this one poor, low sensation to shut up the mind with all its boundless range; to sink to a debasement more than beastly: below where an animal can go. Yes, all this, and much beside this is meanness; but why, now I ask-why do we speak of it thus, unless it is because we speak of a being who might have put on such a nobility of soul, and such a loftiness and independence, and spiritual beauty and glory, as would fling rebuke upon all the hosts of sin and temptation, and cast dimness upon all the splendour of the world?

It may be proper, under the head of philosophical objections, to take notice of the celebrated maxim of Rochefoucauld; since it is among the written, and has as good a title as others to be among the philosophic, objections. This maxim is, that we take a sort of pleasure in the disappointments and miseries of others, and are pained at their good fortune and success. If this maxim were intended to fix upon mankind the charge of pure, absolute, disinterested malignity, and if it could be sustained, it would be fatal to my argument. If I believed this, I should believe not only in total, but in diabolical depravity. And I am aware that the apologists for human nature, receiving the maxim in this light, have usually contented themselves with indignantly denying its truth. I shall, how

ever, for myself take different ground. I suppose, and I admit, that the maxim is true to a certain extent. Yet I deny that the feelings on which it is founded are malignant. They may be selfish, they may be bad; but they are not malicious and diabolical. But let us explain. It should be premised, that there is nothing wrong in our desiring the goods and advantages of life, provided the desire be kept within proper bounds. Suppose, then, that you are pursuing the same object with your neighbour,—a situation, an office, for instance,-and suppose that he succeeds. His success, at the first disclosure of it to you, will, of course, give you a degree of pain; and for this reason-it immediately brings the sense of your own disappointment. Now it is not wrong, perhaps, that you do regret your own failure; it is probably unavoidable that you should. You feel, perhaps, that you need or deserve the appointment more than your rival. You cannot help, therefore, on every account, regretting that he has obtained it. It does not follow that you wish him any less happy. You may make the distinction in your own mind. You may say—"I am glad he is happy, but I am sorry he has the place; I wish he could be as happy in some other situation.” Now, all this, so far from being malignant, is scarcely selfish; and even when the feeling, in a very bad mind, is altogether selfish, yet it is very different from a malignant pain at another's good fortune. But now let us extend the case a little, from immediate rivalship, to that general competition of interests which exists in society-a competition which the selfishness of men makes to be far more than is necessary, and conceives to be far greater than it is. There is an

erroneous idea, or imagination, shall I call it-and certainly it is one of the moral delusions of the world,— that something gained by another is something lost to one's self; and hence the feeling, before described, may arise at almost any indifferent instance of good fortune. But it always rises in this proportion:—it is stronger, the nearer the case comes to direct competition. You do not envy a rich man in China, nor a great man in Tartary. But if envy, as it has been sometimes called, were pure malignity, a man should be sorry that any body is happy, that any body is fortunate or honoured in the world. But this is not true; it does not apply to human nature. If you ever feel pain at the successes or acquisitions of another, it is when they come into comparison or contrast with your own failures or deficiencies. You feel that those successes or acquisitions might have been your own; you regret, and perhaps rightly, that they are not; and then, you insensibly slide into the very wrong feeling of regret that they belong to another. This is envy; and it is sufficiently base; but it is not purely malicious, and it is, in fact, the perversion of a feeling originally capable of good and valuable uses.

But I must pursue the sceptical philosopher a step farther-into actual life. The term, philosopher, may seem to be but ill applied here; but we have probably all of us known or heard those, who, pretending to have a considerable knowledge of the world, if not much other knowledge, take upon them, with quite an air of philosophic superiority, to pronounce human nature nothing but a mass of selfishness; and to say, that this mass, whenever it is refined, is only refined into luxury and licentiousness, duplicity and knavery.

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