all the records of past experience to establish a fact which our conscious ness is sufficient to demonstrate; namely, that the highest enjoyment does arise from the performance of generous actions; but we shall not then have approached at all nearer to a solution of the difficulty, unless we can also show, that the aim which governed the mind, previously to the performance of such actions,-that the object to procure which they were performrd,-was the pleasure that we know must have followed them unless it can be proved that the gratification of the individual, as it was to be the consequence, must, therefore, have been the cause of his conduct. Here is the matter at issue between the sects; and the advocates of the system in question must immediately be worsted, unless they can veuture to affirm, that no wish is ever present to the mind, previous to the performance of any action, except the desire for our own enjoy ment. On this subject there is no judge but our own experience, no oracle but in our bosoms; to this ar biter we must refer for au answer, and before this tribunal we may safe ly challenge our opponents. The natural infirmities of the mind, degrading systems of education, corrupt forms of government, sophistical codes of morality, and the tyraunous laws of a public opinion, which these things, together with partial, though despotic, interests, and an ignorance censecrated by ages, have united to pollute and pervert,-all these have exercised an almost unrestrained dominion over every human being. There is no one living who has not ample cause to blush at the recollection, and weep over the cffects, of habitual and almost unnoticed immoralities,-if not to feel a remorse, which most of us are doomed to experience, for errors of a deeper dye. Yet there is not, we may trust, a single individual of our species, who cannot draw consolation from remembering at least one moment of uumingled virtue, in which, without shrinking from personal dan

ger, and without a thought of personal enjoyment, his voice has been uplifted to warn, or his hand outstretched to save. We may not have rescued a life by perilling our own: we may not have exalted a nation from wretchedness, by presenting ourselves as victims to the swift vengeance of the dungeon and the scaffold, or to the more agonizing mar tyrdom of long and universal obloquy; we may not have sacrificed our dearest and most intimate affections in the cause of truth, and charity, and religion ;-but who is there that cannot cheer his hours of sorrow, or calm the fierceness of inquietude, by recalling some unostentatious impulse of love, some humble deed of selfdenial, which has gushed pure from the fresh fountains and deep recesses of the spirit, undarkened by a tinge of that feeling which aims but at our own pleasure? Such sensations are the most consoling enjoyments, such recollections are the holiest relics, which our existence affords; but make the prospect of this delight the object of our exertions, and it will fly from the grasp that seeks it. It is a shadow which follows the journeyings, and will assuredly bless the aspirations, of virtue; but it for ever eludes our embrace, when we turn back from the appointed path to pursue its footsteps. It has been wisely ordained, that on the purity of the motive shall depend the sweetness of the reward—that, if we calculate the amount of the hire, the worthless task will have been performed in vain. We can never hope to participate in this noblest gratification, this solemn harmony of the soul, but by cherishing that inward glory and immortal fire, which, like the coal from the altar, has power to purify our lips, and, like the blazing column, will guide our footsteps through the wilderness. And for those, in whose breasts it has been choked and stifled, to them we cannot prove the existence of feelings, on which they have habitually trampled. These men have thrown away that which is of greater price than members, or

organs, or senses; and the boldness of their unbelief is a guarantee for nothing but the misery and debasement of their condition.

But it may be replied, you merely delude yourselves with a dream of unuatural sentiment. You arrive, by habit, at hiding from your own apprehensions the feelings under which you act; and the calculation, whether any benevolent action which you contemplate will procure enjoyment, is, at length, performed so rapidly, that you overlook the steps of the process. Such is a common, and a bold assertion, the refutation of which is simply this :-We have no evidence as to the state of our minds, under any circumstances, except from consciousness; and there are innumerable cases in which we are conscious of no such process as that supposed, but are conscious of sensations directly opposed to, and utterly incompatible with it. Again, it will be asserted, the desire of performing a beneficent action is a want analogons to hunger, and the gratification of it is attended with pleasure, as is the satisfying our appetite with food. But the obvious and direct tendency of appeasing the cravings of hunger is, to give pleasure to no one but ourselves; the plain and immediate effect of this supposed moral want is, to give enjoyment to others; and when the cases differ in so material a circumstance, it is an impudent assumption of the whole matter in dispute, to infer that they are similar in other respects. Here, as before, it is merely assertion against assertion. But the statement of the disciples of Epicurus and Bentham is sometimes, we may trust, rendered worthless even by their own conduct; and there are men that maintain this theory, who, if a case occurred that required their exertions, would undoubtedly rush forward, without a moment's reference to self, in the might of that glorious impulse which they deny in words, but which would best be demonstrated by the overpowering voices of their own bosoms. Even allowing that the greater 32 ATHENEUM, VOL. 9, 2d series.

part of men are conscious of no such feelings,- -an opinion which the hearts of the most ignorant and debased of our kind are powerful to refute,even allowing this, yet are there recorded spirits of a loftier nature, and deeds of a purer beneficence, with which we never can sympathise, but by lifting our minds to the concep tion of emotions far different from those imputed to the whole species. When we picture the Swiss patriot who hurled himself on the spears of Burgundy for the salvation of his country, is it possible to imagine that, during those moments of brief and burning excitement, any sentiment can have throbbed in his breast, but the passion to redeem a people from instant and overwhelming tyranny. Or stand in the dungeon of the martyr, and he will be seen looking through its shadows, to the prospect of a futurity that shall exalt the destinies of mankind; not coiling his soul into its own recesses, to meditate on the reward of his sufferings, but with hopes that embrace all time and all existence, and with a brow that throbs, and an eye that gleams, under the vision of generations yet to come, who will find in his memory the prolific seeds of human amelioration, and will kindle a torch to enlighten the world, at the eternal flame which burns in the tomb of the persecuted philosopher.

It seems to many minds the most certain of all the phenomena in the science of moral philosophy,—it is one of the truth of which we have not the slightest doubt,-that the enjoyment, which we are intended to derive from the practice of virtue, is entirely dependent on the motive under which we act. Thus far we may agree with our opponents-that it is the duty of every man, to build up his own mind into the greatest perfection of which it is susceptible. But as to the character in which that perfection consists, we should differ on every point. That perfection is dependent far more on the moral excellence, than on the intellectual power, of the mind, inasmuch as he

is more likely to arrive at his object, who pursues the right path, at how ever great a distance, than he who, apparently far nearer, and journeying more rapidly, yet moves in a wrong direction. The object of the purest and noblest ambition must ever be, in despite of passion and of interest, to rear, from that holy germ which is planted in the heart of every man, the healing and immortal herb, the Moly of a porer deity than Hermes, and of a wiser than Pallas, which alone can strengthen us against temptation, and alone can soothe us in sorrow; than which no other can enable us to be uniformly ministers to the happiness of others, and thereby to secure our own. It was in cherishing these seeds of love, and feeding them with the sustenauce of lofty thoughts-it was in this labour that Plato lived his life, and Socrates encountered death; it was this endeavour which enlightened the blindness, and consecrated the studies, of Milton; it is this high exertion which has poured over the pages of Leighton and of Pestalozzi its flood of tenderness and beauty; it is to such glorious attempts, neglect ed as they are, by self-styled philosophers, for the miserable triumphs of vanity, and the degrading struggles of avarice and sensuality; it is to such attempts that we must look for all real improvement of our kind: for the principle of the soul's perfection is universal love-the principle which has made the martyrs, the heroes, the poets, and the philosophers of the world, the strength of the humble, the only consolation of the broken spirit.

The most important influence of philosophical belief is that which it exerts on the education of the young. To this purpose Miss Edgeworth has directed her opinions, and exactly in proportion as her moral system is false, are her schemes of education erroneous. We do not say that it is not an object with her to make men self-denying, benevolent, brave, and true; but that the main end which she proposes to herself is, to produce

the habit of governing the mind by calculation and self-interest. The basis of her plan is the general prin ciple, that we should associate plea

sure with whatever we wish that our pupils should pursue, and pain with whatever we wish that they should avoid. Now, this practice will infallibly tend to consecrate, in the eyes of children, the belief that they ought to make their own enjoyment the object of their actions; and, to say nothing of the impossibility of any man uniformly calculating rightly, the custom, of constantly regarding the result of our actions to ourselves, produces a selfish state of mind, which necessarily brings with it dis content and misery. Moreover, if we make the motive of conduct to be the prospect of the consequences which we have experienced to follow certain actions, those consequences having sprung from the arrangement and will of the persons around us, we shall speedily learn, when we get beyond the domain of these prepr ed influences, that the same disci pline and government are no longer at work, and we shall cease to let our past experience control us, when we know that we are released from any similar operation for the future. It may, undoubtedly, be said, in de fence of Miss Edgeworth's principle, though not of her application of it, that, by the ordination of God and the nature of man, suffering is consequent upon evil doing, and that en joyment waits upon the footsteps of virtue. But this is not the suffering or the enjoyment wherewith Miss Edgeworth would pay or punish. This system is one which, being founded in the first principles of humanity, must always be independ ent of times and circumstances; but it is one of the gravest defects of the plan we are considering, that it al most entirely omits to make use of the means supplied to us by the Creator. Miss Edgeworth founds none of her processes upon the feel ing of the difference between right and wrong, upon the innate tendency to benevolence, or upon the idea of

were inconsistent, the world could better be without the inventions of art, and the discoveries of science, without steam-engines and political economy, than it could want earnestness and goodness, kindly affections, generosity, piety, and truth. But, thanks be to Heaven! there is no such inconsistency; and the more freely and completely our best feelings are developed, the stronger will be our motives for pursuing every inquiry, and undergoing every labour, which can tend to the advantage of mankind.

THE HE periodical rains were over, the beautiful gardens round about Damascus were assuming every hour a more verdant appearance, and as the fervent rays fell upon the moist earth, the Spring seemed ready to leap alive out of the ground. Every thing attested the vivifying influence of the season. You could almost see the vegetation bursting into green life: it became manifest that universal Nature was awaking as if from sleep, opening her eyes in the shape of innumerable flowers, and preparing for a great and joyous change. A poetical fancy might have imagined that the yet undeveloped germs of future beauty and enjoyment anticipated the vernal delights in store for them; that the flowers in the blossom were dreaming of sunshine and rich odours; that the leaves in the bud, thrilling with pleasure as they waved to and fro in the soft breeze, longed to leap out of their close prisons into the sparkling air; that the roots in the ground yearned and stretched themselves upwards, proud beforehand of the superb colours, and graceful or stately forms which would arrest the eye of the passenger when they rose up out of their temporary graves in all their

renovated loveliness. Bright and beautiful, and associated with all cheerful and delicious thoughts, is the infancy of vegetation. Never had the celebrated gardens of Alfadhel Alderamy, the great merchant, worn a more glorious appearance of promise: and yet they retained him not in the noble mansion which they decorated; they scarcely even occupied a place in his thoughts. As he passed pensively through them, he heard not the splashing of the numerous fountains with which they were adorned; he noticed not the alcoves and arbours; the fragrance wafted upon the breeze passed by him unheeded; his ear was deaf to the songs of the birds, some of which were already warbling amid the palms and acacias, while others were twittering in their dreams,-for as yet the sun had hardly lighted up the towers and mosques and minarets of Damascus, or thrown his golden bloom upon the numerous streams that surround it with perpetual music and fertility. For Alfadhel Alderamy the splendours of nature possessed no charms, the beauties of the most romantic city in the world were utterly lost to his eye. His thoughts, I might almost have said his senses,

were with the great caravan which had departed a few hours before for Aleppo, carrying with it no small portion of his fortune in the shape of diamonds and other precious stones. These he had entrusted to the care of his only son Yezid, who had received ample instructions how and where to dispose of them, and had sworn implicit obedience to his father's orders. He loved his son with no common affection; but Yezid was young and giddy, and as it now seemed to his anxious father, scarcely competent to undertake so important a charge. This misgiving thought had prevented his closing his eyes during the whole night: not a moment's peace had he known since the caravan had departed, and after taking two or three disconsolate turns in his gardens, he determined to pursue it instantly, that he might accompany Yezid, and assume the care and management of his own precious jewels.

Alfadhel possessed a fleet mare, called in the language of Oriental exaggeration, the Outstripper of the wind. Perhaps there was little hyperbole in the name, for many an Arabian horse-dealer would seriously maintain that when she threw the foam from her mouth, she had been known to gallop out of sight before it could reach the ground. It is not impossible, however, if these men were like their European brethren, that they might occasionally deviate in some trifling degree from the extreme rigour of truth. At all events, the mare was one of surpassing fleetness, and Alfadhel having thrown himself upon her back, doubt ed not that he should soon overtake the caravan. His own anxiety being not less urgent than the fiery impatience of his barb, he suffered her to gallop forward for some hours with unchecked velocity, until by her exhaustion and panting the outstripper of the wind seemed indeed to have earned her name, and to have left behind her the very air which was required for her respiration. The rider, whose thoughts had gone after

the caravan still faster than his barb, no sooner perceived her distress than he reined in the generous animal, and for the sake of the grateful shade, drew up in a lane overhung with wild figs and tamarinds, interspersed with kopals and gum trees. It was customary with the Arabs at this period, as it had been with the ancient Hebrews, to manufacture a species of sackcloth from the hair of camels, which they wore at funerals and upon other occasions of sorrow. The numerous camels of the caravan that had lately passed through this narrow defile, having left a portion of their hair on the hedges, the neighbouring peasants had sent their little children to gather it, and a troop of these half-naked gleaners, with black eyes and curly polls, were busily employed in collecting the spoil. Sun-burnt and tawny, their scanty discoloured rags harmonised well with the red-ochreous bank of earth up which they were climbing, while their glee, their clamours, and their agility, found a marked contrast in the person of a venerable austerelooking Dervise, who, having seated himself cross-legged at the bottom of the bank, retained his immovable position, blowing his horn whenever a traveller passed, and pointing to his turban upon the ground by way of soliciting charity. Alfadhel, hav ing thrown a trifle into it, remained gazing upon the scene before him while his horse took breath, when he was startled by a tittering over-head, and upon looking up he beheld with amazement a group of long-bearded brats, perched upon the bough of a tree, gibbering and mocking and mowing at him. His amazement at this inexplicable apparition was, probably, visible in his countenance; for the urchins beneath, and the ju venile grey-beards above, set up a simultaneous shout of laughter; whereat the bewilderment of Alfad hel was beginning to kindle into wrath, when the Dervise, propitiat ed by the alms he had received, informed him that the frolicsome or chins, after having satiated their ap