BOOK II.

OF OUR RATIONAL* AND GOVERNING PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.

CHAPTER I.

OF A PRUDENTIAL REGARD TO OUR OWN HAPPINESS, OR WHAT IS COMMONLY CALLED BY MORALISTS THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-LOVE.

I. Difference between the Animal and Rational Natures.] The constitution of man, if it were composed merely of the active principles hitherto mentioned, would, in some important respects, be analogous to that of the brutes. His reason, however, renders his nature and condition, on the whole, essentially different from theirs ; and, by elevating him to the rank of a moral agent, distinguishes him from the lower animals still more remarkably than by the superiority it imparts to his intellectual endowments.

Of this want of reason in the brutes, it is an obvious result, that they are incapable of looking forward to consequences, or of comparing together the different gratifications of which they are susceptible; and, accordingly, as far as we can perceive, they yield to every present impulse. Among the inhabitants of this globe it is the ex

* To various active principles which have been already under our consideration, such, for instance, as the desire of knowledge, the desire of esteem, pity to the distressed, &c., &c., the epithet rational may undoubtedly be applied in one sense with propriety, as they exclusively belong to rational beings; but they are yet of a nature essentially dif ferent from those active principles of which we are now to treat, and which I have distinguished by the title of Rational and Governing. My reasons for using this language will appear from the sequel.

clusive prerogative of man, as an intelligent being, to take a comprehensive survey of his various principles of action, and to form plans of conduct for the attainment of his favorite objects. He is possessed, therefore, of the power of self-government; for how could a plan of conduct be conceived and carried into execution without a power of refusing occasionally to particular active principles the gratification which they demand? This dif ference between the animal and the rational natures is well and concisely described by Seneca in the following words: "Animalibus pro ratione impetus; homini pro impetu ratio." *

According to the particular active principle which influences habitually a man's conduct, his character receives its denomination of covetous, ambitious, studious, or voluptuous; and his conduct is more or less systematical as he adheres to his general plan with steadiness or inconstancy.

II. Importance of Self-control and of systematic and concentrated Action.] It is hardly necessary for me to remark how much a man's success in his favorite pursuit depends on the systematical steadiness with which he keeps his object in view. That an uncommon measure of this quality often supplies, to a great degree, the place of genius, and that, where it is wanting, the most splendid endowments are of little value, are facts which have been often insisted on by philosophers, and which are confirmed to us by daily experience. The effects of this concentration of the attention to one particular end on the development and improvement of the intellectual powers in general have not been equally taken notice of. They are, however, extremely remarkable, as every person will readily acknowledge, who compares the sagacity and penetration of those individuals who have enjoyed its advantages with the weakness and incapacity and dissipation of thought produced by an undecided choice among the various pursuits which human life presents to us. Even the systematical voluptuary, while he commands a much

Seneca, De Ira, II. 16. "Animals have impulse for reason; man, reason for impulse.'

greater variety of sensual indulgences, and continues them to a much more advanced age than the thoughtless profligate, seldom fails to give a certain degree of cultivation to his understanding, by employing his faculties habitually in one direction.

The only exception, perhaps, which can be mentioned to this last remark, occurs in the case of those men whose leading principle of action is vanity, and who, as their rule of conduct is borrowed from without, must, in consequence of this very circumstance, be perpetually wavering and inconsistent in their pursuits. Accordingly, it will be found that such men, although they have frequently performed splendid actions, have seldom risen to eminence in any one particular career, unless when, by a rare concurrence of accidental circumstances, this career has been steadily pointed out to them, through the whole of their lives, by public opinion.

"Alcibiades," says a French writer, "was a man not of ambition, but of vanity, a man whose ruling passion was to make a noise, and to furnish matter of conversation to the Athenians. He possessed the genius of a great man, but his soul, the springs of which were too much slackened to urge him to constant application, could not elevate him, but by starts, to pursuits worthy of his powers. I can scarcely bring myself to believe that a man, whose versatility was such as to enable him, when in Sparta, to assume the severe manners of a Spartan, and, when in Ionia, to indulge in the refined voluptuousness of an Ionian, had received from nature the stamina of a great character."*

To what has been now observed in favor of systematical views in the conduct of life it may be added, that they are incomparably more conducive to happiness than a course of action influenced merely by occasional inclination and appetite. Lord Shaftesbury goes so far as to assert, that even the man who is uniformly and systematically bad enjoys more happiness (perhaps he would have been nearer the truth if he had contented himself with saying that he suffers less misery) than one of a more mixed and more

Quoted by Warburton in his note on Pope's character of the Duke of Wharton, Moral Essays, Ep. I. 190.

inconsistent character. "It is the thorough profligate knave alone, the complete unnatural villain, who can any way bid for happiness with the honest man. True interest is wholly on one side or on the other. All between is inconsistency, irresolution, remorse, vexation, and an ague fit, from hot to cold, from one passion to another quite contrary, a perpetual discord of life, and an alternate disquiet and self-dislike. The only rest or repose must be through one determined considerate resolution, which, when once taken, must be courageously kept, and the passions and affections brought under obedience to it, the temper steeled and hardened to the mind, the disposition to the judgment. Both must agree, else all must be disturbance and confusion." *

To the same purpose Horace:

"Quanto constantior idem

In vitiis, tanto levior miser, ac prior illo
Qui jam contento, jam laxo fune laboret." t

III. Examples of the Evils of Inconstancy.] Of the state of a mind originally possessed of the most splendid endowments, but where every thing had been suffered to run into anarchy from the want of some controlling and steady principle of action, a masterly picture is drawn by Cicero in the following account of Catiline.

"Utebatur hominibus improbis multis, et quidem optimis se viris deditum esse simulabat; erant apud illum illecebræ libidinum multæ ; erant etiam industriæ quidam stimuli ac laboris flagrabant libidinis vitia apud illum ; vigebant etiam studia rei militaris: neque ego unquam fuisse tale monstrum in terris ullum puto, tam ex contrariis diversisque inter se pugnantibus naturæ studiis cupiditatibusque conflatum. Quis clarioribus viris quodam tempore jucundior? quis turpioribus conjunctior? quis civis meliorum partium aliquando? quis tetrior hostis huic civitati quis in voluptatibus inquinatior? quis in labori

*

Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humor, Part IV. Sect. 1.
Hor, Sermo., Lib. II., Šat. VII. 18.

"So constant was he to his darling vice,

Yet less a wretch than he who now maintains

A steady course, now drives with looser reins."

bus patientior? quis in rapacitate avarior? quis in largitione effusior ?" *

In a person of this description, whatever indications of genius and ability he may discover, and whatever may be the great qualities he possesses, there is undoubtedly some tendency to insanity, which, if it were not the radical source of the evil, could hardly fail, sooner or later, to be the effect of a perpetual conflict between different and discordant passions. And, accordingly, this is the idea which Sallust seems to have formed of this extraordinary man. "His eyes," he observes, had a disagreeable glare; his complexion was pale; his walk sometimes quick, sometimes slow; and his general appearance indicated a discomposure of mind approaching to madness."

I would not be understood to insinuate by this last observation, that, in every case in which we observe a conduct apparently inconsistent and irregular, we are entitled to conclude, all at once, that it proceeds from accidental humor, or from a disordered understanding. The knowledge of a man's ruling passion is often a key to what appeared, on a superficial view, to be perfectly inexplicable. Some excellent reflections on this subject are to be found in the first of Pope's Moral Essays, where they are most happily and forcibly illustrated by the character of the Duke of Wharton.

"Search, then, the ruling passion there alone

The wild are constant, and the cunning known;
The fool consistent, and the false sincere ;
Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.
This clew once found unravels all the rest,

The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confessed.
Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days,
Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise.

*Oratio pro M. Cælio, Sect. V. and VI. "He was acquainted with a great number of wicked men, yet a pretended admirer of the virtuous. His house was furnished with a variety of temptations to lust and lewdness, yet with several incitements also to industry and labor: it was a scene of vicious pleasures, yet a school of martial exercises. There never was such a monster on earth, compounded of passions so contrary and opposite. Who was ever more agreeable at one time to the best citizens? who more intimate at another with the worst? who a man of better professions? who a fouler enemy to this city? who more intemperate in pleasure? who more patient in labor? who more rapacious in plundering? who more profuse in squandering?"