requires a considerable share of refinement, of taste, and culture of understanding, to relish the beauties of mountain scenery; and that minds, untutored by philosophy and science, are incapable of receiving any favourable impression from the most striking and majestic phenomena of the universe. This hypothesis is as much at variance with sound philosophical theory as with fact. For might we not suppose that the contemplation of the operations of nature, in her grandest and most impressive scale of magnificence, is most calculated to awaken the sensibilities of the human heart? We are here in the school of nature, removed from the deadening intercourse of the world, and allowed to cherish in solitude those solemn and touching reflections which dullness itself can scarcely resist, when excited by the sublime manifestations of a power, which weighs the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. Whatever opinions may be entertained as to this point, there is no doubt that the natives of the most mountainous regions of Europe are distinguished for their love of country. The bleak and inhospitable mountains of Norway present beauties to the eyes of their inhabitants which they only can see ; and so great is their fondness for the untrodden deserts which surround them, that they would not relinquish the pleasure of beholding them, and of being finally interred amid their solitude, for all the wealth and abundance of more genial climes. Ev'n those hills, that round their mansion rise Dear is that shed to which their soul conforms, The transference of affection from the territory to the institutions of our native land is natural; and there is also a similar transference of affection from the institutions to the country in which they are enjoyed. Those institutions which are the inheritance of free men, and which form the bulwark of freedom, give interest to the land which they ennoble and adorn ; and such institutions confer beauty on the most inhospitable regions, and have rendered Attica, and Switzerland, and Britain, dear as their own, their native land, to all in every age who revere the principles which make man like Him that made him. The institutions of freemen cherish not only the love of freedom, but that public and patriotic spirit which causes the hero and the legislator to toil for the safety and the happiness of the commonwealth; and which burns to shew itself in some act of generous sacrifice or of noble daring for the public good. 389 CHAPTER VI. ON THE MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. THE feelings of hatred, of jealousy, envy, revenge, and misanthropy, are called malevolent. There is good reason for doubting both the propriety of the appellation, and the existence of such affections, as original principles of human nature. That their influence is co-extensive with the human race cannot be denied; but apart from the consideration of the extreme improbability that malignant passions should be implanted in the human mind by a Being of goodness and beneficence, I think it may be shewn that they all take their rise from that power of our nature which prompts us to punish injustice whether done to ourselves or to others. It matters little by what name we distinguish this power; whether it be resentment, or a sense of justice, and a desire to retaliate on the violator of its rules: since all our evil affections are either grafted upon this by our erroneous opinions and criminal habits, or result from the perversion and abuse of our other active principles. I can only agree to call resentment malevolent, on account of the evil affections that are usually allied to it, and because its excess or abuse is the source of the malevolence which is to be found among men. And though it must be maintained, that envy, and hatred, and jealousy, and revenge, are solely imputable to man; yet, the history of the species gives too ample evidence of the extent to which they have predominated in the human breast, and of the powerful influence which they have exerted on society. When we consider the crimes of public and of private life which have directly proceeded from deliberate malevolence, the long and the desolating wars to which revenge or some other passion equally base has given rise, the propensity to detraction and slander which has been the subject of complaint among to moralists in every age, we cannot regard the description as coloured, which holds out the majority of our race as serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. The evil affections, like the benevolent, are so closely allied to each other, that the indulgence of the one naturally gives rise to the indulgence of the rest. Envy prepares the way for malice, and malice produces guile, and guile is the parent of hypocrisy. Malice consists in either wishing evil, or in procuring evil, to another; and that it has a wide influence is evident from the ill-concealed satisfaction which is often felt, in giving currency to the tale of detraction, and in dwelling on the misfortunes of others. Guile and hypocrisy are its necessary products. Few persons, especially in civilized society, are willing to avow that they wish evil to others; and fewer still will openly shew the satisfaction which they feel in the calamity and humiliation of their fellow-creatures; they would rather persuade us, while in the very act of gratifying their malignity, that they are the objects of their compassionate sympathy, and would cheerfully put forth all their power to relieve them. They would have us believe, that they are under the dominion of the most amiable and benevolent affections, when it is obvious to others, and when they might be conscious themselves, that they are under the ascendency of malice and hatred. So closely and necessarily is hypocrisy allied to the indulgence of evil affections, that wherever we have indications of the prevailing influence of the latter, we may be certain that the former cannot be absent. The aspect of benevolence is hypocritically assumed even towards the person who is the object of malicious feelings, when his presence renders it expedient to employ the specious words of guile; but no sooner does he withdraw than the mask is dropt; and those affections which were restrained or rather concealed for temporary ends, are allowed to manifest themselves in all their naked deformity and hatefulness. Envy is that feeling which repines at the good of others, and which induces us to detract from their merits. "This," says Dr. Reid, " is the most malignant passion that can lodge in the human breast; which devours, as its natural food, the fame and the happiness of those who are most deserving of our esteem." There cannot be a stronger proof of the truth of this remark, than the opposition with which this evil affection has uniformly assailed those who have been successful in the paths of honour and of virtue. "Where shall a man come," says the pious Leighton, "but his ears shall be beaten with the unpleasant noise of one detracting and disparaging another: and yet this is extreme baseness, and the practice only of false counterfeit goodness, to make |