suming which they prepare and invigorate the mind, as sleep prepares and disposes us for entering on the duties of our waking hours. In this way they contribute not inconsiderably from the beginning to the close of life to diversify and to increase the sum of our enjoyments; but they constitute in a still more essential manner, as Dr. Paley has remarked, the supreme and the appropriate happiness of old age.

"It is not for youth alone," says this pleasing writer, "that the Great Parent of Creation hath provided. Happiness is found in the arm-chair of dozing age, as well as in either the sprightliness of the dance or the animation of the chase. To novelty, to acuteness of sensation, to hope, to ardor of pursuit, succeeds, what is in no inconsiderable a degree an equivalent for them all,-perception of ease.' Herein is the exact difference between the young and the old. The young are not happy but when enjoying pleasure; the old are happy when free from pain. And this constitution suits with the degrees of animal power which they respectively possess. The vigor of youth was to be stimulated to action by impatience of rest; whilst, to the imbecility of age, quietness and repose become positive gratifications. This same perception of ease oftentimes renders old age a condition of great comfort, especially when riding at its anchor after a busy or tempestuous life. It is well described by Rousseau, to be the interval of repose between the hurry and the end of life." *

To this passage from Dr. Paley, I shall subjoin an extract from a very different writer, M. Diderot,—an author of unquestionable eloquence and ingenuity, but who unfortunately has not always employed his great talents for the best purposes. The passage which I am to quote is, I think, far from being unexceptionable in point of sound philosophy, inasmuch as it seems to ascribe to a state of repose a positive and appropriate pleasure, independently of any reference to the lassitude produced by a former state of exertion. It is at the same time, in my opinion, highly exceptionable in

point of good taste; and may perhaps be produced without much injustice as a fair specimen of that false refinement, both in thought and in expression, which was fashionable among other philosophers of the same school.

"He alone has experienced the ineffable charm of a delicious repose, whose organs were sensible and delicate; who received from nature a soul that was tender and a frame that was voluptuous; who enjoyed perfect health; who was in the flower of his years; whose mind was overcast with no cloud, whose heart was agitated by no keen emotion; who, after the fatigue of some gentle exertion, felt, in all the parts of his frame, a pleasure so equally diffused, that he was unconscious of any local sensation. In that moment of relaxation and enchantment, no memory remained with him of the past, no desire of the future, no anxiety about the present. The flight of time was unperceived; for his happiness flowed from himself, and seemed part of his being. By an imperceptible movement he was tending towards sleep; but during the slow and insensible transition, while all his powers were sinking, he was still enough awake to enjoy the delights of his existence; an enjoyment, however, altogether passive, which excited no attachment to itself,-suggested no matter for reflection, was accompanied with no sentiment of self-congratulation. If it were possible to form a steady conception of this situation so wholly sensitive, where all the faculties of mind and of body are alive without being in action, and to attach to this delicious quietism the idea of immutability, a notion would be formed of the highest and purest happiness that the mind of man is able to imagine." *

Encyclopédie, Art. Délicieux.

I recollect to have heard somewhat more than forty years ago, at the time when Diderot's reputation was at its highest point in his own country, this passage quoted by some of his Parisian friends and admirers, as one of the richest gems to be found in his writings. That it was considered as such by himself I have no doubt, not only from the scrupulous care with which he has evidently weighed every expression it contains, but from the circumstance of his giving a place in this magnificent work to so unmeaning an article. Nothing but the overweening partiality of an author could have induced Diderot to introduce into a book of science such a comment consisting of mere verbiage, upon the import of a word which stood in need of no explanation. I subjoin the original at length as a sort of literary curiosity.

As these dreams, however, of an Epicurean happiness are but too flattering to the romantic indolence of youthful minds, it may be useful to refer the reader, (for the passage is much too long for a quotation,) to another picture drawn by a still superior hand; and (what is of still greater consequence,) a picture copied faithfully after nature. I allude to the truly eloquent description given by Gibbon of the primitive monks, a set of men whose notions of the Sovereign Good were certainly very different from those of Diderot, but whose melancholy history affords an instructive lesson to all who search for happiness in a total exemption from labor, both of body and mind. In this unnatural state, not even the prospect of lasting bliss beyond the grave was able long to support the alacrity of the spirits, or to ward off those miseries which habits of solitary inaction. entail on the imagination. "The vacant hours of the monk," says Gibbon, "heavily rolled along without business or pleasure, and before the close of each day he had repeatedly cursed the tedious progress of the sun." The whole of the passage may be perused

“Délicieux: le terme est propre à l'organe du goût; nous disons d'un mets, d'un vin, qu'il est délicieux, lorsque le palais en est flatté le plus agréablement qu'il est possible. Le délicieux est le plaisir extrème de la sensation du goût. On a généralisé son acception, et l'on a dit d'un séjour qu'il est délicieux, lorsque tous les objets qu'on y rencontre réveillent les idées les plus douces, ou excitent les sensations les plus agréables. Le suave extrème est les délicieux des odeurs. Le repos a aussi son délice. Mais qu'est-ce qu'un repos délicieux? Celui-là seul en a connu le charme inexprimable, dont les organes étoient sensibles et délicats; qui avoit reçu de la nature une âme tendre et un tempérament voluptueux; qui jouissoit d'une santé parfaite; qui se trouvoit à la fleur de son âge; qui n'avoit l'esprit troublé d'aucun nuage, l'âme agitée d'aucune émotion trop vive; qui sortoit d'une fatigue douce et légère, et qui éprouvoit dans toutes les parties de son corps un plaisir si egalement répandu, qu'il ne se faisoit distinguer dans aucune. Il ne lui restoit dans ce moment d'enchantement et de foiblesse, ni mémoire du passé, ni désir de l'avenir, ni inquiétude sur le présent. Le tems avoit cessé de couler pour lui, parce qu'il existoit tout en lui-même; le sentiment de son bonheur ne s'affoiblissoit qu'avec celui de son existence. Il passoit par un mouvement imperceptible, de la veille au sommeil; mais sur ce passage imperceptible, au milieu de la défaillance de toutes ses facultés, il veilloit encore assez, sinon pour penser à quelque chose de distinct, du moins pour sentir toute la douceur de son existence: Mais il en jouissoit d'une jouissance tout-à-fait passive, sans y être attaché, sans y réflechir, sans s'en réjouir, sans s'en féliciter ;-si l'on pouvoit fixer par la pensée cette situation de pur sentiment, où toutes les facultés du corps et de l'âme sont vivantes sans être agissantes, et attacher à ce quiétisme délicieux l'idée d'immutabilité, on se for. meroit la notion du bonheur le plus grand et le plus pur que l'homme puisse ima giner."

If the reader is desirous to see a longer and still more elaborate specimen of the same sort of writing by the same band, he may turn to the article Jouissance, in the Encyclopédie.

Decline and Fall, &c. Vol. VI. p. 262; Ed. of 1792.

with much advantage; and abundantly justifies an assertion of Dr. Ferguson's, that even the complaints of the sufferer are not so sure a mark of misery as the stare of the languid.*

II.

Pleasures of Sense.

I mentioned, in the second place, the Pleasures of Sense; another class of our enjoyments which is common to man and to the brutes; and which, notwithstanding the space they occupy in the imagination of most men, must be allowed to stand at the very bottom of the scale, whether we regard them in connexion with the nobler principles of our nature, or estimate their value from the accession they bring to the sum of our happiness. When I say this I would not be understood to dispute the real and substantial addition which they make to our happiness, in so far as it is in our power to command them. I would only observe, that their intensity is in general greatly overrated, in consequence of certain accessory pleasures of the imagination or of the heart, which are commonly associated with them. By means of these, too, their grossness is kept out of view and they appear with many borrowed attractions to the inexperienced and unsuspecting minds of youth. No epicure is to be found who will openly plead the cause of private and solitary sensuality; or who will maintain that our animal gratifications would form an important part of human happiness, if divested of those recommendations which they derive from the fancy, and from the social enjoyments with which they are blended.

But whatever may be the intensity and the value of these pleasures during the time we enjoy them, it is altogether impossible to make them fill up any considerable portion of human life. Their province is circum

* Essay on the History of Civil Society, Part i. sect. 7.

scribed by nature within very narrow bounds, and every attempt to extend these frustrates its own purpose. It does not appear, therefore, that nature intended that the pursuit of them should be considered as a serious or important object; and, indeed, wherever this is suffered to take place it is at the expense of all the worthier principles of our constitution. Health, and fortune, and fame, seldom fail to fall sacrifices in the progress of the evil, which, in its last stage, destroys the intellectual powers and the moral sensibilities, and produces a languor and depression of mind which is the completion of human misery.

To all this it may be added, that the pleasures of sense are confined to the very moment of gratification, affording no satisfaction in the retrospect, like that which follows our intellectual exertions, and still more our good actions.

The result of these observations is, not that the pleasures of sense are unworthy the regard of a wise man, but that they should be confined within those limits which are marked out by the obvious intentions of nature. That they are to be enjoyed in the greatest perfection in a life of virtue, we have the testimony of Epicurus himself; according to whose system prudence, temperance, and the other virtues, derive all their value from their tendency to increase the sum of bodily enjoyment, and to lessen that of bodily suffering,-a most erroneous and absurd doctrine undoubtedly, when considered in connexion with the theory of morals, but highly interesting in a practical light, as an acknowledgment from the professed votaries of pleasure, that a life of virtue (even if our views did not extend beyond the present scene) is the truest wisdom.

III.

Pleasures of the Imagination.

The pleasures of the Imagination are unquestionably of a higher rank than those of Sense, and may be pro