hopes even of those men who are the most faithful to the cause of justice and humanity. Nevertheless, they ought to take courage from the reflection, that, in the history of the human mind, there has never existed one useful thought, nor one important truth, which has not found its age and its admirers." * The influence of the temper on happiness is much increased by another circumstance; that the same causes which alienate our affections from our fellow creatures are apt to suggest unfavorable views of the course of human affairs, and lead the mind by an easy transition to gloomy conceptions of the general order of the universe. In this state of mind, when, in the language of Hamlet, "Man delights us not,"-the sentiment of misanthropy seldom fails to be accompanied with that dark and hopeless philosophy which Shakspeare has, with such exquisite knowledge of the human heart, described as springing up with it from the same root. "This goodly frame, the earth, appears a sterile promontory; —this majestical roof, fretted with golden fires, a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors;-and Man himself-noble in reason, infinite in faculties- this beauty of the world—this paragon of animals, seems but the quintessence of dust." Such a temper and such views are not only to the possessor the completion of wretchedness, but, by the proofs they exhibit of insensibility and ingratitude towards the Great Source of happiness and perfection, they argue some defect in those moral feelings to which many men lay claim, who affect an indifference to all serious impressions and sentiments. They argue at least what Milton has finely called a sullenness against nature,—a disposition of mind which no man could possibly feel whose temper was rightly constituted towards his fellow creatures. How congenial to the best emotions of the heart is the following sentiment in his Tractate on Education. "In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is soft and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go * De la Littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les Institutions Sociales; par Mad. de Staël-Holstein.-Introduction, p. 4. out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicings with heaven and earth.” The true foundation of the vernal delight which is here so beautifully described,-of this sympathy, if I may be allowed the expression, with rejoicing Nature, is a benevolent heart to mankind; a disposition to rejoice with our Maker in the general happiness of his whole creation. To this disposition, when displayed in the lesser offices of ordinary life, we commonly give the name of good humor; an expression which, though we sometimes connect with it the idea of levity, yet, when it denotes an habitual state of mind, originating in candor, indulgence, and benevolence, is descriptive of that precise frame which best prepares us to speculate with success on the gravest and most important of all subjects. "Good humor," says Lord Shaftesbury, "is not only the best security against enthusiasm, but the best foundation of piety and true religion: for if right thoughts and worthy apprehensions of the Supreme Being are fundamental to all true worship and adoration, 'tis more than probable that we shall never miscarry in this respect, except through ill humor only. Nothing beside ill humor, can bring a man to think seriously, that the world is governed by any devilish or malicious power. I very much question whether any thing, besides ill humor, can be the cause of atheism. For there are so many arguments to persuade a man in good humor, that, in the main, all things are kindly and well disposed, that one would think it impossible for him to be so far out of conceit with affairs, as to imagine they all ran at adventures; and that the world, as wise and venerable a face as it carried, had neither sense nor meaning in it. This, however, I am persuaded of, that nothing beside ill humor can give us dreadful or ill thoughts of a Supreme Manager. Nothing can persuade us of sullenness or sourness in such a Being, beside the actual fore feeling of somewhat of this kind within ourselves." As the temper has an influence on our speculative opinions, so the views we form of the administration of the Universe, and, in particular, of the condition, and prospects of Man, have a reciprocal effect on the tem per. The belief of overruling wisdom and goodness communicates the most heartfelt of all satisfactions; and the idea of prevailing order and happiness has an habitual effect in composing the discordant affections, similar to what we experience when, in some retired and tranquil scene, we enjoy the sweet serenity of a summer evening. This tendency of the mind, on the one hand, to harmonize its affections, and, on the other, to suffer the passions to run into anarchy, according as it thinks well or ill of the order of the universe; or (which comes to the same thing) this influence of an enlightened religion on the temper, is alluded to more than once in that beautiful poem the Pleasures of Imagination. In the following passage of one of his odes, Akenside has employed, in confirmation of this doctrine, the same illustration to which I have just alluded; I mean the effect which particular aspects of the material universe have on the moral and social feelings. "Thron'd in the sun's descending car, What Genius smiles on yonder flood; "O Thou, whate'er thine awful name, And half disarm our pains; "Let universal candor still, Nor this, nor that man's crooked ways To injure human kind.” II. Influence of the Imagination on Happiness. One of the principal effects of a liberal education is to accustom us to withdraw our attention from the ob jects of our present perceptions, and to dwell at pleasure on the past, the absent, and the future. How much it must enlarge in this way the sphere of our enjoyment or suffering is obvious; for (not to mention the recollection of the past) all that part, of our happiness or misery, which arises from our hopes or our fears, derives its existence entirely from the power of Imagination. It is not, however, from education alone that the differences among individuals in respect of this faculty seem to arise. Even among those who have enjoyed the same advantages of mental culture, we find some men in whom it never makes any considerable appearance,-men whose thoughts seem to be completely engrossed with the objects and events with which their senses are conversant, and on whose minds the impressions produced by what is absent and future are so comparatively languid, that they seldom or never excite their passions or arrest their attention. In others, again, the coloring which imagination throws on the objects they conceive is so brilliant, that even the present impressions of sense are unable to stand the comparison; and the thoughts are perpetually wandering from this world of realities to fairy scenes of their own creation. In such men, the imagination is the principal source of their pleasurable or painful sensations, and their happiness or misery is in a great measure determined by the gay or melancholy cast, which this faculty has derived from original constitution or from acquired habits. When the hopes or the fears which imagination inspires prevail over the present importunity of o" sensual appetites, it is a proof of the superiority which the intellectual part of our character has acquired over the animal; and as the course of life which wisdom and virtue prescribe requires frequently a sacrifice of the present to the future, a warm and vigorous imagination is sometimes of essential use, by exhibiting those lively prospects of solid and permanent happiness which may counteract the allurements of present pleasure. In those who are enslaved completely by their sensual appetites, imagination may indeed operate in anticipating future gratification, or it may blend itself with memory in the recollection of past enjoyment; but where this is the case, imagination is so far from answering its intended. purpose, that it establishes an unnatural alliance between our intellectual powers and our animal desires; and extends the empire of the latter, by filling up the intervals of actual indulgence with habits of thought, more degrading and ruinous, if possible, to the rational part of our being, than the time which is employed in criminal gratification. In such individuals, imagination is but a prolongation of sensual indulgences, and scarcely merits the appellation of an intellectual power. It brutifies the man, indeed, still more than he could possibly become, if it did not form a part of his constitution, and if he were merely a compound of reason and passion. To such men, it surely cannot be considered as a constituent of what deserves the name of happiness. On the contrary, by increasing the importunate cravings of desire beyond those limits which nature prescribes, it abridges that sphere of innocent gratification which the Beneficent Author of our Being intends us to enjoy. In mentioning, however, the influence of imagination on happiness, what I had chiefly in view was the addition which is made to our enjoyments or sufferings, on the whole, by the predominance of hope or of fear in the habitual state of our minds. One man is continually led, by the complexion of his temper, to forebode evil to himself and to the world; while another, after a thousand disappointments, looks forward to the future with exultation, and feels his confidence in Providence unshaken. principal cause of such differences is undoubtedly the natural constitution of the mind in point of fortitude. The weak and the timid are under continual alarm from the apprehension of evils which are barely possible, and One |