the greatest confidence to recommend to youth as the most solid foundation for the future comfort of their lives; more particularly when we consider how very little the pleasures of the understanding depend on external circumstances, and on the caprice of fortune. The happiest individuals certainly whom I have happened to know have been men, who, with a due relish for the pleasures of imagination, have devoted themselves steadily and ardently to philosophical pursuits, and more particularly to the study of the severer sciences. V. Pleasures of the Heart. Under this title I comprehend the Pleasures of Benevolence, of Friendship, of Love, of Pity, of enjoying the Favor and Esteem of others, and above all, the pleasure resulting from the consciousness of doing our Duty; the purest and most exquisite enjoyments undoubtedly of which we have any experience; and which, by blending in one way or other with our other gratifications, impart to them their principal charm. This has been often remarked with respect to the pleasures of sense; and the same remark may be extended to the pleasures of activity and of the understanding. The practical conclusion resulting from the inquiry is, that the wisest plan of economy, with respect to our pleasures, is not merely compatible with a strict observance of the rules of morality, but is, in a great measure, comprehended in these rules; and therefore, that the happiness, as well as the perfection of our nature, consists in doing our duty with as little solicitude about the event as is consistent with the weakness of humanity. Nothing is indeed more remarkable in this view of human nature than the tendency of virtuous habits to systematize the conduct for the purpose of happiness, and to open up all the various sources of enjoyment in our constitution without suffering any one to encroach upon the rest. They establish a proper balance among our different principles of action, and by doing so produce a greater sum of enjoyment on the whole, than we could have obtained by allowing any one in particular to gain an ascendant over our conduct. It was from a mistaken view of this very important fact that the Epicurean system of old arose, as well as those modern theories which represent virtue as only a different name for rational self-love. They indeed coincide so wonderfully together, as to illustrate, in the most striking manner, the unity as well as the beneficence of design in the human constitution. But still, (as I before remarked) notwithstanding these happy effects of a virtuous life, the principle of duty, and the desire of happiness are radically distinct from each other. The peace of mind, indeed, which is the immediate reward of good actions, and the sense of merit with which they are accompanied, create, independently of experience, a very strong presumption in favor of the connexion between happiness and virtue; but the facts in human life which justify this conclusion are not obvious to careless spectators; nor would philosophers in every age have agreed so unanimously in adopting it, if they had not been led to the truth by a shorter and more direct process, than an examination of the remote concequences of virtuous and of vicious. conduct. To this observation it may be added, that if the desire of happiness were the sole, or even the ruling principle of action in a good man, it could scarcely fail to frustrate its own object, by filling his mind with anxious conjectures about futurity, and with perplexing calculations of the various chances of good and evil; whereas he, whose ruling principle of action is a sense of duty, conducts himself in the business of life with boldness, consistency and dignity; and finds himself rewarded by that happiness which so often eludes the pursuit of those who exert every faculty of the mind in order to attain it. tracted to a much longer period without any danger of injuring the health, or of impairing the faculties, or of exhausting that inestimable fund of constitutional enjoyment, which we commonly express by the phrase animal spirits. On the contrary, they have a tendency to raise the taste above the grossness of sensuality, and to diminish the temptation to vicious indulgences, by furnishing agreeable and innocent resources for filling up the blanks of life. By supplying us, too, with pleasures more refined than those the senses afford, they gradually prepare us for the still higher enjoyments which belong to us as rational and moral beings; and indeed, when properly regulated, they may be rendered subservient, in a high degree, both to our intellectual and moral improvement. ' Even to this class of our pleasures, however, certain limits are prescribed by nature; for although in enjoying them the mind is not quite so passive as in receiving the gratifications of sense, yet many of its most important principles are left wholly unemployed; and accordingly, when they are prolonged beyond their due bounds, we lose all relish for them, and feel a desire of more active and more interesting engagements. I shall not insist at present on the effects which result to the moral character from an excessive indulgence in the pleasures of the imagination, in consequence of their tendency to unfit us for action, and to give us a disrelish for real life, as my object in these observations is merely to consider them as sources of enjoyment. I have treated besides of this subject at some length in the first volume of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. IV. Pleasures of the Understanding. The Pleasures which I have referred to the Understanding might perhaps have been characterized more explicitly, as pleasures arising from the exercise of our reasoning and of our inventive powers." Of this kind is the pleasure of investigation (which resolves partly into the pleasure of activity, partly into that resulting from the employment of skill, partly into that arising from expectation and hope, or, in other words, from the anticipation of discovery.) 2. The pleasure of generalization, or of rising from particular truths to comprehensive theorems,—a process which, beside the satisfaction it yields by the relief it brings to the memory, communicates to us a sentiment of our intellectual power, by subjecting completely to our command a mass of information which before only served to distract our attention and to oppress our faculties. 3. To all this we may add, the pleasure resulting from the gratification of curiosity, and from the discovery of truth, of which I had formerly occasion to treat under the article of the Active Powers. With these pleasures, too, which are peculiar to the understanding, various accessory ones are combined; the pleasure (for example) of extensive utility, when our studies happen to be directed to objects interesting to mankind; the pleasure arising from the gratification of ambition; and the social satisfaction of communicating our knowledge to others. Perhaps, however, the principal recommendation of this class of our pleasures is derived from the constant and inexhaustible resources they supply to the mind in its progress through life. In this respect they possess many advantages over the pleasures of imagination; not only as they depend much less on the state of the spirits, but as they may be extended to a much longer period without satiety or a desire of change, and are frequently enjoyed with increasing relish in old age; while, on the other hand, the objects which interest the imagination gradually lose their charms when we begin to engage in the business of the world, and furnish at best but an amusement and relaxation to diversify our habitual and more serious occupations. Upon the whole, among the various subordinate pursuits to which men are led to devote themselves by inclination or taste, (I say subordinate, for I do not speak at present of our moral duties) a turn for science may be safely pronounced to be the happiest of any; and that which we may venture with the greatest confidence to recommend to youth as the most solid foundation for the future comfort of their lives; more particularly when we consider how very little the pleasures of the understanding depend on external circumstances, and on the caprice of fortune. The happiest individuals certainly whom I have happened to know have been men, who, with a due relish for the pleasures of imagination, have devoted themselves steadily and ardently to philosophical pursuits, and more particularly to the study of the severer sciences. V. Pleasures of the Heart. Under this title I comprehend the Pleasures of Benevolence, of Friendship, of Love, of Pity, of enjoying the Favor and Esteem of others, and above all, the pleasure resulting from the consciousness of doing our Duty; the purest and most exquisite enjoyments undoubtedly of which we have any experience; and which, by blending in one way or other with our other gratifications, impart to them their principal charm. This has been often remarked with respect to the pleasures of sense; and the same remark may be extended to the pleasures of activity and of the understanding. The practical conclusion resulting from the inquiry is, that the wisest plan of economy, with respect to our pleasures, is not merely compatible with a strict observance of the rules of morality, but is, in a great measure, comprehended in these rules; and therefore, that the happiness, as well as the perfection of our nature, consists in doing our duty with as little solicitude about the event as is consistent with the weakness of humanity. Nothing is indeed more remarkable in this view of human nature than the tendency of virtuous habits to systematize the conduct for the purpose of happiness, and to open up all the various sources of enjoyment in our constitution without suffering any one to encroach upon |