opinion in certain parts of the globe, changes which are still going on with accelerated rapidity.

Undoubtedly there exists a great difference in the original sensibility of different individuals to the pains and pleasures of benevolence, as well as to all other pains and pleasures; a difference which no process of education or discipline can remove or overcome. Nevertheless the degree of force which that sentiment actually and ordinarily exercises, will depend, to a very great degree, on the extent to which it is called into operation during the flexible periods of childhood and youth.

9. The second means of increasing the force of the sentiment of benevolence, and which, indeed, is essential to the employment of the first means, depends upon a fact, pointed out in the first part of this Treatise, the fact, namely, that the presence of other pains ordinarily tends just in proportion to their intensity to neutralize or to counteract the force of the sentiment of benevolence. While men are tormented with hunger, thirst, fatigue, bodily diseases, the pains of sexual desire, of inferiority, of malevolence, of envy, of fear, or by any other great pains, it is absurd to expect them to grow virtuous, or to attempt to make them so. All these pains, when carried to a high degree, have power enough, not only to neutralize the sentiment of benevolence, but to impel to actions directly opposed to it. It is not PLEASURE, as the great majority of moralists, from superficial observations, have hastily concluded, it is PAIN, which is the great enemy of virtue ; and to render mankind more virtuous it is essentially necessary, in the first place, to relieve their pains, to

/render them more happy. The power of pleasure to produce virtue, is at least equal to that of virtue to produce pleasure.

10. These considerations will enable us to understand how it is, that civilization is considered favorable both to happiness and to virtue; and it will also enable us to explain how Rousseau, a writer of great benevolence and sagacity, fell into the paradox in which he found so many followers, of exalting the savage above the civilized state.

The progress of civilization doubtless tends to relieve the whole community from certain pains, especially those terrible pains of famine, to which savage communities are particularly exposed, and to create a large class of persons, who, as they enjoy a superior degree of knowledge and wealth, which are the means of many pleasures, become capable, in consequence, of a superior degree of happiness, and of a superior degree of virtue.

But, though it be true that existing civilization, to a certain extent and among a certain class, is favorable to happiness, and therefore to virtue, — as is proved by the large increase of what is called the middle class, throughout Europe, and the attendant rise of the standard of morals during several centuries last past; yet it must be confessed that a very large portion of most communities have shared these benefits only to a very small extent; and that they purchase that small share, only by the most assiduous and fatiguing labor; while at the same time, they find themselves exposed to new pains of inferiority, among the acutest of all pains, and new pains of desire which, with the discovery of new

means of enjoyment, and the more general diffusion of knowledge, increase day by day, and prove hardly less fatal to happiness and to virtue, than the worst evils of the savage state.

It is easy, therefore, to understand how a man like Rousseau, at once observant and imaginative, keenly alive to pains of inferiority, and whom his own varied experience had made familiar with all the evils of existing social arrangements in every department of society, should have been led to cry out against that civilization, the evils of which he felt so keenly, and knew so well; and even to prefer to it the rudeness of savage life; especially when we consider that Rousseau had no accurate knowledge of what savage life is; and that the old fable of a primitive golden age of simplicity and innocence served to give it a poetic coloring.*

11. The same circumstances which led Rousseau to the adoption of this opinion, give it, so soon as it was promulgated, a remarkable currency.

Shortly after Rousseau's death, the influence of those pains felt not by him only, but by a vast multitude whose eloquent spokesman he was, joined to the rapid decay of old feudal and mystic prejudices, impelled men to act in a new direction, and gave birth to a Revolution in which all the maxims of traditional morals were, for a time, forgotten and superseded; and, though old notions, after suffering great curtailments, and after the overthrow of many of the

* There are some additional circumstances serving to give plausibility to this idea of the superior happiness of the savage state, which will be stated in the Theory of Wealth.

most obnoxious of those institutions of which Rousseau and his followers complained, have again recovered the ascendency, it is, however, with difficulty that they retain it.

12. As yet we have seen only the beginning of the end. Notwithstanding all the beneficial changes that have taken place, a vast deal remains to be done. A revolution half finished, a revolution in progress, is often worse, for the time, than the very grievances in which it originated. The existing social condition of Europe and her colonies, if things were to stop where they are, is, perhaps, even less favorable to happiness and to virtue, than that against which Rousseau and the philosophers of the eighteenth century so earnestly protested, and which led to that great social crisis known as the French Revolution.

As things now are, the higher, and even the middle classes, suffer almost as much as the lower. Recollections of the past and dread of the future inspire them with constant feelings of doubt and anxiety. Conceptive pains upon the part of the few, pains of all sorts upon the part of the many; and as a necessary consequence, Hatred upon both sides! In the midst of so much suffering, Humanity is hard pressed; and Virtue can with difficulty hold her own.

Here, however, we have arrived at topics which belong to other branches of these Rudiments, the Theory of Politics and the Theory of Wealth.