view, but also from the subordinate motives that regard only ourselves. To be querulously impatient, is but to add another evil, that might be avoided, to evil that already exists, and at the same time to throw from us one of the most powerful consolations which even that amount of existing evil admitted, the consolation of knowing, that we are able to bear what it is virtue to bear, and of trusting that we shall be able, in like manner, to endure, without repining, whatever other ills it may be our mortal allotment to encounter, and our duty to overcome, in the only way in which such ills can be overcome, by the patience that sustains them. By yielding to habits of cowardly discontent, we continually lessen more and more that internal vigour, which might save us from the miserable cowardice, that makes almost every act of virtue a painful effort, till we become, at last, the moral slaves of every physical evil, and therefore, of every human being who is capable of inflicting on us any one of those ills. He never can be the master of his own resolutions, who does not know how to endure what it may be impossible to avoid, without the sacrifice of virtue. When we hear of the usurper and oppressor of Roman liberty, who, when a whole world was prostrate before him, had subdued every thing but the inflexible spirit of a single heroic scorner of slavery, and of the inflictor of slavery, Et cuncta terrarum subacta, Præter atrocem animum Catonis-* we do not need to be told, that he who could thus dare to offer to liberty its last homage, was not one whom mere suffering could appal. 542 LECTURE XCIX. ON OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES. IN In my last Lecture, Gentlemen, I began the consideration of that minor species of moral obligation which constitutes the propriety of certain actions, considered merely as terminating in the individual who performs them,-the duty, as it has been termed, which we owe to ourselves. This duty I represented as having two great objects; in the first place, the moral excellence of the individual; and, in the second place, his happiness when any enjoyment, or the acquisition of the means of future enjoyment, is not inconsistent with that moral excellence, the cultivation of which is in every case, even with respect to the mere personal duty, of primary obligation. In my last Lecture, accordingly, I considered the former of these divisions of our duty to ourselves,-illustrating, especially, the relation which a single action may bear to the whole moral character in after life, by the increased tendency which it induces to a repetition of it, and a corresponding diminution of the abhorrence with which the action, if vicious, was previously viewed; and endeavouring, therefore to impress you strongly with the importance of habits of self-command, by which alone, as enabling us to resist alike the gayer seductions of luxury, and the terror of personal suffering, we may be masters of our own moral resolutions, in circumstances in which vice might seem attended only with present pleasure, and virtue only with present pain After considering that division then, which regards the cultiva tion of our moral excellence, I proceed, now, to consider the other branch of our duty to ourselves, of which our happiness is the immediate object. When happiness is to be attained, without the breach of any duty, it becomes a positive duty to pursue it, as in like manner, though no other duty were to be violated than that which we owe to ourselves, it would still be a violation of this duty, to act in such a manner, as to lessen our own happiness, or to occasion to ourselves actual distress. It is a virtue, in short, to be prudent, a vice to be imprudent; or, if prudence and imprudence should be considered as implying rather the knowledge or the ignorance of actions that may be advantageous to us or hurtful, than the performance of actions which we know to be advantageous to us or hurtful, it is a virtue, to act in such a manner, as seems to us most prudent, a vice to act in such a manner, as seems to us imprudent. That there is not merely a satisfaction or regret, as at some piece of good or bad fortune, but a moral duty observed or violated, in these cases, is evident from the conscience of the agent himself, and from the feelings of those who contemplate his action. He who suffers, from acting in a manner which he had reason to consider as imprudent, feels that he is justly punished; and all who consider his action, and its consequences, agree in this reference of demerit to the agent, and in the feeling of propriety in the punishment which he has received, or rather, which he may be said to have inflicted on himself. Nor can we wonder, that the Deity, who willed the happiness of his creatures, and who made virtue, upon the whole, the most efficacious mode of contributing even to happiness in this life, should have made the wilful neglect of that which was in so many important respects the great object of moral feeling, an object itself of a species of moral disapprobation. If every individual of mankind were in every respect perfectly careless of his own happiness, every individual of mankind would be unhappy; and mere imprudence, if universal, would thus have the same injurious consequences, as the universal oppression by all of all. From the harmony which the Deity has pre-established of virtue and utility, that conduct alone can be most virtuous, which, if universally adopted, would contribute most to the good of the universe; and the imprudent, therefore, are to the extent of their wilful violation of the happiness of one individual, violators of the universal system of good. Our own happiness then, is a moral object, as the happiness of others is a moral object. There is much more reason, howev er, upon the whole to fear, that individuals will be neglectful of the happiness of others than of their own, when opportunities of furthering either may have occurred to them; since with respect to each personally, his own desire of pleasure, and consequently of all the means of pleasure, may be considered as so powerful, as scarcely to require the aid of any mere feeling of moral duty, to call on him to be prudent. It is accordant, therefore, with the gracious benevolence of the power who has arranged our suscep tibilities of feeling in relation to the circumstances in which we are placed, that the sentiment of moral obligation should there be strongest, where the additional influence is most needed; and that, while it is of our own happiness, we are, at least in ordinary cir cumstances, most desirous, it should yet seem to us in the very privacy of our own consciences, a greater moral delinquency, to invade any enjoyment possessed by another, than to sacrifice, by any rash folly, the means of similar enjoyment possessed by our selves. It is still, however, more than mere regret which we feel, on considering any such imprudent sacrifice. There is truly a feeling of moral disapprobation-a feeling, that in thus injuring the happiness of one individual of mankind, we have violated a part of the general system of duty, which in the actions that relate to himself only, as well as in the actions which relate directly to others, a wise and virtuous man should have constantly before him for the direction of his conduct. It is morally fit, then, that every individual should endeavour to acquire and treasure the means of happiness, when the happiness is to be acquired or preserved without the breach of any of the duties of still stronger obligation, which he may owe to communities, or to other individuals. But if the acquisition of happiness be his duty, in what manner is he to seek it, that is to say, in what objects is he to hope to find it ? (o Happiness! our being's end and aim! Good, pleasure, ease, coutent, whate'er thy name ! Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies, Say in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow? Where grows,-where grows it not?—If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil; Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere, —or everywhere. I 'Tis no where to be found, Happiness, considered as mere happiness, may be defined to be, a state of continued agreeable feeling, differing from what is commonly termed pleasure, only as a whole differs from a part. Pleasure may be momentary; but to the pleasure of a moment we do not, at least in common language, give the name of happiness, which implies some degree of permanence in the pleasure. As happiness, however, is only a more lasting state of pleasure, or agreeable feeling, it is evident that every object, the remembrance, or possession, or hope of which is agreeable, is a source of happiness,—one of many sources, because there are innumerable objects, which, as remembered, possessed, or hoped, are agreeable. Some of these may, indeed, exclude others, and the objects excluded may be sources of purer or more lasting pleas ure, which it would be imprudent, therefore, to abandon for a less good. But all are still sources of happiness, if happiness be agreeable feeling; and the only moral question relates to the choice. It is evident too, that this choice of happiness, as far as it depends on the intensity and duration of enjoyment, must be various in its objects, in different individuals, according to their original constitution, education, habits, rank in life, or whatever else may be conceived to modify the desires of mankind. The saving of a few guineas, which, to the greater number, of the rich at least, would afford no gratification, may be a source of very great delight to those whose circumstances of humbler fortune, condemn them to be necessarily frugal; or even to the possessor of many thousand acres, if he have the misfortune to be a miser. With every variety of taste, in whatever manner induced, there is a * Essay on Man, Ep. IV. v. 1-17. 69 VOL. II. |