up our own esteem out of the ruins of the good name of others: real virtue neither needs nor can endure that dishonest shift: it can subsist of itself, and therefore ingenuously commends and acknowledges what good is in others, and loves to hear it acknowledged ; and neither readily speaks nor hears evil of any, but rather, where duty and conscience not discovers, casts a veil on men's failings to hide them; this is the true temper of the children of God." The fruit of envy is evil-speaking; and this is generally the vice of persons of idle habits, and of uninformed minds. They have the command of the time and the wealth which place them above manual labour; but they are destitute of the intelligence and the moral principles and sensibilities which would teach them how to employ those blessings without injury to themselves, or the violation of the obligations which they owe to the reputation of their neighbour. They use no effectual means to furnish their minds with any of the treasures of knowledge; religion is to them so totally a form, as never to have interested their affections, or awakened the powers of reflection; their thoughts are few, and these are mean, and sensual, and grovelling; and when they meet together, they feel as incapable as they are disinclined, to enter on any rational or innocent topic of conversation. Is it any wonder that such persons in such circumstances fasten on the failings of others as their appropriate prey, and that they take manifest pleasure in talking of the frailties, and in bringing down to the very level of their own littleness, the virtues and attainments of that immortal nature of which they form the disgrace. Like the unclean birds which are said to follow in the rear of an army, that from the carcasses of the slain they may derive that species of food for which they have the keenest relish, they find their chief satisfaction in descrying the blemishes of human character, and in only selecting out of the thousand objects presented to their contemplation, the weaknesses and the corruptions of the species. Dr. Reid considers emulation and resentment as the only two principles of our nature which can in any sense be called malevolent. These he takes to be parts of the human constitution, given us by our Maker for good ends, and, when properly directed and regulated, of excellent use. But as their excess or abuse, to which human nature is very prone, is the source and spring of all the malevolence that is to be found among men, he calls them on that account malevolent. Now, it appears to me, that emulation is no more connected with our malevolent feelings, than any other of our desires and affections; and that the desire of power and the desire of knowledge might, because they are susceptible of perversion and abuse, with as much propriety be placed in this class, as emulation, or the desire of superiority. As to resentment, its essence consists in a desire to retaliate on the person who has done us an injury. This feeling is the same, or nearly the same, as anger. It has now, I apprehend, acquired a degree of strength far beyond its original design, and far beyond what any necessity requires; and the extent to which it hurries us, regardless of the dictates of reason and of conscience, forms the ground of self-condemnation and of deep criminality. Butler, whose merits are not sufficiently acknowledged even by those who owe their best thoughts to his writings, was among the first who noticed the distinction between sudden resentment, which is a blind impulse arising from our constitution, and that which is deliberate. The first may be raised by hurt of any kind; but the last can only be raised by injury, real or conceived. The one, properly speaking, is an animal sensation; the other, the result of reason and intelligence. We possess the former in common with the inferior animals, and it was no doubt given to us and to them for the same important end; -to guard both against sudden violence, in cases where reason would come too late to our assistance. The characteristic of this species of resentment is, that it subsides as soon as we are satisfied that no injury was intended. Deliberate resentment is excited only by intentional injury, and implies, therefore, a sense of justice, or of moral good and evil. When an injury is done to ourselves, the desire of retaliation directed against its author is called resentment; whereas, when the injury is done to other persons, as has been noticed by Professor Stewart, the feeling is properly called indignation. When we analyze this feeling, and consider what is its ultimate object, we shall find that the term malevolent is far from being the most appropriate that might be employed to express it, and that it is only in a qualified sense that it can at all be applied. Is its object the communication of suffering to a sensitive being; or the punishment of injustice and cruelty? A little reflection will convince us that the latter was its original and proper object. That species of resentment, indeed, which we term instinctive, and which we possess in common with the inferior animals, is so sudden in its impulse, as sometimes to wreak itself on inanimate things, as if they had life and intelligence. For the moment, and before reflection comes to my aid, I regard the object of my resentment as capable of punishment. This may partly be accounted for by that prejudice of our early years which leads us to ascribe to the objects around us, the feelings of which we ourselves are conscious. CHAPTER VII. ON THE PASSIONS. THERE are certain lively emotions, which, from their greater vivacity, are called passions. Nearly all our affections may become lively emotions or passions, in consequence of a greater degree of ardour and intenseness; and in this state they have more power in influencing the thoughts and determinations of the mind; forcibly directing them into one channel, and presenting every object through the medium of their own colouring. The mind has less command over its perceptions and resolutions when under the dominion of passion; the voice of reason and of conscience is feebly heard, and the most beautiful or the most hateful object, is seen either as beautiful or hateful only as it happens to accord with the ruling emotion. When passion assumes its highest degree of violence, it acts like a temporary fit of insanity; trains of thought associated with the particular passion, and tending to increase its ardour, pass in rapid succession through the mind; and the man is hurried to the accomplishment of that which he knows will be the ground of shame and of self-crimination. Some writers are of opinion that the only difference between an emotion and passion is, that while the former is never accompanied with desire, the latter is always followed by it. " Is passion in its nature and feeling distinguishable from emotion?" asks Kaimes in his Elements of Criticism. "I have been apt to think that there must be such a distinction; but, after the strictest examination, I cannot perceive any. In what consists the passion of resentment, but in a painful emotion occasioned by the injury, accompanied with desire to chastise the guilty person? In general, as to passion of every kind, we find no more in its composition, but the particulars now mentioned, - an emotion pleasant or painful accompanied with desire. What then shall we say? Are emotion and passion synonymous terms? That cannot be averred; because no feeling nor agitation of the mind, void of desire, is termed a passion; and we have discovered that there are many emotions which pass away without raising desires of any kind. "How is the difficulty solved? An internal motion or agitation of the mind, when it passeth away without desire, is denominated an emotion; when desire follows, the emotion is denominated a passion. A fine face, for example, raiseth in me a pleasant feeling; |