26 LECTURE LXVII. ul. PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 4. DESIRE OF SOCIETY.-5. de SIRE OF KNOWLEDGE. GENTLEMEN, after the desires which I examined in my last Lecture, that which is next to be considered by us, is our desire of society. Man, as I have already said, is born in society, and dependent on it, in some of its most delightful forms, for the preservation of his infant being, which, without the protection of those who love him the more for the very helplessness that is consigned to their protection, would seem thrown into the world, only to suffer in it for a few hours, and, ceasing to suffer, to cease also to exist. If man be thus dependent on society for the preservation of his early existence, he is not less dependent on it for the comfort and happiness of his existence in other years. It is to be the source of all the love which he feels,-of all the love which he excites, and, therefore, of almost all the desires and enjoyments which he is capable of feeling. There is not one of his actions, which may not, directly or indirectly, have some relation to those among whom he lives; and I may say even, that there is scarcely a moment of his existence, in which the social affection, in some one of its forms, has not an influence on some feeling or resolution, some delightful remembrance of the past, some object of future benevolence or resentment. We are born, as I have said, in society, and dependent on it for our existence; but, even if we could exist without society, we should not exist as men, not even as savage men,—for savages, rude as their intercourse is, are still united together by domestic affinities and friendships, and have one common land, as dear to them, or, perhaps, more dear to them, than the country of the civilized is to its polished inhabitants. With our immortal spirit, and with all the glorious capacities that are developed in society, we should, but for the society that almost gives us a different soul, be only a species of wild animal,-that might not yield as readily, perhaps, to the stronger animals around as the weak of a less noble race, but which would hold with them, at best a perilous contest,-miserable within the E- cave, and trembling to venture beyond it. "Make us single and solitary," says an eloquent Roman moralist, "and what are we? The prey of other animals, and their victim,-the prey which it would be most easy for them to seize, the victim which it would be most easy for them to destroy. Those other animals have in their own strength, sufficient protection. If they be born to live apart, each has its separate arms to defend it. Man has no tusks or talons to make him terrible. He is weak, and naked; but, weak and naked as he is, society surrounds him and protects him. It is this which submits to his power all other living things, and not the earth merely, which seems in some measure his own by birth, but the very ocean, that is to him like another world of beings of a different nature. Society averts from him the attack of diseases,-it mitigates his suffering when he is assailed by them, -it gives support and happiness to his old age,-it makes him strong in the great combat of human life, because it leaves him not alone to struggle with his fortune."-"Fac nos singulos: quid sumus? præda animalium et victimæ, ac imbecillissimus* et facilliLus sanguis; quoniam cæteris animalibus in tutelam sui, satis virium est. Quæcunque vaga nascuntur, et actura vitam segregem, armata sunt. Hominem imbecillitas cingit: non unguium vis, non dentium, terribilem ceteris fecit. Nudum et infirmum, societas munit.--Societas illi dominium omnium animalium dedit; societas terris genitum, in alienæ naturæ transmisit imperium, et dominari etiam in mari jussit. Hæc morborum impetus arcuit, senectuti adminicula prospexit, solatia contra dolores dedit; hæc fortes nos facit, quod licet contra fortunam advocare."† Al. imbecillimus-al. vilissimus. + Seneca de Beneficiis, lib. iv. c. 18. Of a society, to which man thus owes all his strength, as well as all his happiness, it is not wonderful, that nature should have formed him desirous; and it is in harmony with that gracious provision, which we have seen realized so effectually in our other emotions, that she has formed him to love the society which profits him, without thinking of the profit which it affords,-that is to say, without regard to this benefit, as the primary source of a love that would not have, arisen, but from the prospect of the selfish gain. We exist in society, and have formed in it innumerable affections, long before we have learned to sum and calculate the consequences of every separate look and word of kindness, or have measured the general advantage which this spontaneous and ready kindness yields, with the state of misery in which we should have existed, if there had been no society to receive and make us happy. These affections, so quick to awake in the very moment almost of our waking being, are ever spreading in the progress of life; because there is no moment to the heart, in which the principle of social union is cold or powerless. The infant does not cling to his nurse more readily than the boy hastens to meet his playmates, and man to communicate his thoughts to man. If we were to see the little crowd of the busy school-room rush out, when the hour of freedom comes, and, instead of mingling in some general pastime, betake themselves, each to some solitary spot, till the return of that hour which forced them again together, we should look on them with as much astonishment, as if a sudden miracle had transformed their bodily features, and destroyed the very semblance of men. As wonderful would it appear, if, in a crowded city, or even in the scattered tents of a tribe of Arabs, or in the huts or very caves of the rudest savages, there were to be no communing of man with man,-no voice or smile of greeting, no seeming consciousness of mutual presence,-but each were to pass each with indifference, as if they had never met, and were never to meet again,-or rather, with an indifference which even those cannot wholly feel, who have met once in the wildest solitudes, and to whom that moment of accidental meeting was the only tie which connects them afterwards in their mutual recognition. The mere presence of a human being,—at least when there is no fear to counteract and overcome the affection, is sufficient to give him a sort of interest in our wishes,—— certainly, if he be in pain or want, an interest in our compassionate wishes, as if he were not wholly a stranger; or rather, such is our love of society, that to be, in the strictest sense of the term, a stranger, is to us a sort of recommendation, as to be a friend, or even a common acquaintance, is also a recommendation, more or less strong, to the same diffusive regard. Qualities, thus seemingly opposite, excite an interest that is similar; because, opposite as the qualities are, they are still qualities of man,—of one, who, whether a stranger or a friend, shares our nature, and who cannot be wholly indifferent to those by whom that common nature is shared. What is every language but a proof of the agency of that feeling which makes it delightful to us to speak and to listen, because it is delightful to us to make our thoughts pass into other hearts, or to share the thoughts of those other hearts? We use speech, indeed, in its vulgar offices, to express to each other the want of bodily accommodations, which can be mutually supplied by those who know each other's necessities;—and, as a medium by which these wants can instantly be made known, it is, in these vulgar offices, unquestionably, an instrument of the highest convenience,— even though it were incapable of being adapted to any other purpose. But how small a part of that language, which is so eloquent an interpreter of every thought and feeling, is employed for this humble end! If we were to reflect on all those gracious communications, and questions, and answers, and replies, that, in a little society of friends, form, for a whole day, a happiness which nothing else could give, the few words significant of mere bodily wants would, perhaps, scarcely be remembered, in our retrospect of an eloquence that was expressive of wants of a very different kind, of that social impulse, which, when there are others around who can partake its feelings, makes it almost impossible for the heart, whether sad or sprightly, to be sad or sprightly alone,—and to which no event is little, the communication of which can be the expression of regard. In that infinite variety of languages which are spoken by the nations dispersed on the surface of the earth, there is one voice which animates the whole, a voice which, in every country and every time, and in all the changes of barbarism and civilization, still utters a truth, the first to which the heart has assented, and the last which it can ever lose, the voice of our social nature bringing its irresistible testimony to the force of that universal sympathy, which has found man every where, and preserves him every where, in the community of mankind. I have said, that the mere presence of a human being is sufficient to give him a sort of interest in our wishes, except in cases where there is some fear to counteract the affection that is thus formed; and I have made this exception, to guard you against the fallacy of the theory, which by dwelling on the cases that form the exceptions only, and omitting all notice of the happier feelings that are universal and original, would represent the natural state of man,―of him who exists only as he has been an object of affection, as a state of mutual hostility, in which every individual is at war with every other individual. Of this theory, which, if not first stated, was at least first developed fully, by Hobbes,-I cannot but think, that it would be idle to offer any elaborate confutation, and that the attention which has been paid to it by philosophers, is far greater than it deserves. We need but think of the state in which man is born-of the fondness of the parent for the child, of the child for the parent,-of that affection which binds a whole family together, to perceive, that all individuals, who are only those very members of the families which we have been considering, cannot, in any state of society, be the foes of all, or even indifferent to their mutual interests; since in that case, the whole race of mankind must have ceased to exist before the period at which they could be capable of existing, even in a state of war. Every one, it is said, is born to war with every one! But where are these natural combatants to be found? The army which Cadmus raised from the earth, arose indeed only to combat and to perish in mutual destruction;-but they rose vigorous and ready armed. Man is not, in the circumstance of his birth, like those fabulous monsters that sprung, in his mere outward semblance, from the serpent's teeth;-he is the offspring of love, and his mind is as different as his origin. If he be born to war with man, he must be preserved for years, when his warfare may be effectual:—and where is he to be found in those years of weakness that intervene ?-In looking for the natural combatants who are to be brought upon the stage of blood, where can the sophist hope to find them,-unless he look for them among those whom peace and affection have previously been nurturing? Wherever |