guilty to purchase impunity, and compelling the injured to purchase a right to demand redress.-Brit. Rev. No. 24. Art. Critique on Mill's British India.

CCCLVIII.

Man a Compound of Habits.-In one sense, indeed, and that a very important one, the process of education is perpetually going forward. Man, regarded as a moral agent, and an accountable being, is a compound of habits. According as his habits are good or bad, he is to be esteemed and qualified as virtuous or vicious. Now, it is a matter of common observation, that the habits of an individual are generally formed in consequence of the precepts with which he is imbued—and in a much greater degree, in consequence of the examples which are presented for his imitation. Whosoever, therefore, is under the influence either of the conduct, or the principles of others (and who is not under such influence?) may be justly said to be so far educated by them to moral good or ill. Much is it to be wished, that those who are interested in the welfare of youth, would attend to this most important maxim. It would preserve them from many pernicious errors, and would convince them of the folly of entertaining unreasonable and inconsistent expectations. -Shepherd and Joyce's Systematic Education.

CCCLIX.

Youth. Youth is the time of enterprise and hope; having yet no occasion of comparing our force with any opposing power, we naturally form presumptions in our own favour, and imagine that obstruction and impediment will give way before us. The first repulses rather inflame vehemence than teach prudence; a brave and generous

mind is long before it suspects its own weakness, or submits to sap the difficulties which it expected to subdue by storm. Before disappointments have enforced the dictates of philosophy, we believe it in our power to shorten the interval between the first cause and the last effect; we laugh at the timorous delays of brooding industry, and fancy that by increasing the fire we can, at pleasure, accelerate the projection.—Johnson.

CCCLX.

Anger. It is told by Prior, in a panegyric on the Earl of Dorset, that his servants used to put themselves in his way when he was angry, because he was sure to recompense them for any indignities he made them suffer. This is the round of a passionate man's life; he contracts debts when he is furious, which his virtue, if he has virtue, obliges him to discharge at the return of reason. He spends his time in outrage and acknowledgment, injury and reparation. Or, if there be any who hardens himself in oppression, and justifies the wrong because he has done it, his insensibility can make small part of his praises or his happiness; he only adds deliberate to hasty folly, aggravates petulance by contumacy, and destroys the only plea that he can offer for the tenderness and patience of mankind.

Yet, even this degree of depravity we may be content to pity, because it seldom wants a punishment equal to its guilt. Nothing is more despicable or more miserable than the old age of a passionate man. When the vigour of youth fails him, and his amusements pall with frequent repetition, his occasional rage sinks by decay of strength into peevishness; that peevishness, for want of novelty and variety, becomes habitual; the world falls off from

around him; and he is left, as Homer expresses it, to devour his own heart in solitude and contempt.-Johnson.

CCCLXI.

Dissimulation.-Dissimulation in youth is the forerunner of perfidy in old age; its first appearance is the fatal omen of growing depravity, and future shame. It degrades parts and learning, obscures the lustre of every accomplishment, and sinks us into contempt.-The path of falsehood is a perplexing maze. After the first departure from sincerity, it is not in our power to stop; one artifice unavoidably leads on to another; till, as the intricacy of the labyrinth increases, we are left entangled in our snare.-Dr. Blair.

CCCLXII.

Progress of Truth--The few smooth all paths for the many. The precepts of knowledge it is difficult to extricate from error; but once discovered, they gradually pass into maxims; and thus what the sage's life was spent in acquiring, becomes the acquisition of a moment to posterity. Knowledge is like the atmosphere; in order to dispel the vapour and dislodge the frost, our ancestors felled the forest, drained the marsh, and cultivated the waste; and we now breathe without an effort in the purified air and the chastened climate, the result of the labour of generations and the progress of ages. As to-day the common mechanic may equal in science, however inferior in genius, the friar whom his contemporaries feared as a magician, so the opinions which now startle as well as astonish, may be received hereafter as acknowledged axioms, and pass into ordinary practice. We cannot even -18

VOL. I.

tell how far the sanguine theories of certain philosophers deceive them, when they anticipate for future ages a knowledge which shall bring perfection to the mind, baffle the diseases of the body, and even protract to a date now utterly unknown the final duration of life; for wisdom is a palace of which only the vestibule has yet been entered; nor can we guess what treasures are hid in those chambers of which the experience of the past can afford us neither analogy nor clew.-E. L. Bulwer-The Disowned.

CCCLXIII,

Pride. With regard to the provocations and offences, which are unavoidably happening to a man in his commerce with the world, take it as a rule-as a man's pride is, so is always his displeasure; as the opinion of himself rises, so does the injury, so does his resentment: 'tis this which gives edge and force to the instrument which has struck him, and excites that heat in the wound which renders it incurable.

The proud man,-see! he is sore all over: touch him, you put him to pain: and though, of all others, he acts as if every mortal was void of sense and feeling, yet is possessed with so nice and exquisite a one himself, that the slights, the little neglects, and instances of disesteem, which would scarce be felt by another man, are perpetually wounding him, and oft times piercing him to his very

heart.

Pride is a vice which grows up in society so insensibly; steals in unobserved upon the heart upon so many occa sions; forms itself upon such strange pretensions; and, when it has done, veils itself under such a variety of unsuspected appearances, sometimes even under that of humility itself; in all which cases self-love, like a false

friend, instead of checking, most treacherously feeds this humour, points out some excellence in every soul to make him vain, and thinks more highly of himself than he ought to think;-that, upon the whole, there is no one weakness into which the heart of man is more easily betrayed, or which requires greater helps of good sense and good principles to guard against.-Sterne's Sermons.

CCCLXIV.

Reason. It is the immediate province of the reasoning faculty to discover abstract truths in the mind, investigate their connexions, and determine how far their tendency is productive of good. It is by reasoning that we are enabled to judge of causes from their effects, and to discern in what connexions these effects may become causes themselves. By virtue of this power, we are qualified to argue that in cases perfectly similar the issue will be the same; and to infer from the known properties of bodies what will be the result of the applications of these properties to particular cases. It is by reason, founded on observation and experience, that we acquire a conviction that certain dispositions or actions will prove beneficial or injurious; that certain stations will be advantageous, or the reverse. It is by reason that we determine concerning the truth of historic events, and form our opinions of the characters and motives of distin guished agents, &c.—Cogan.

CCCLXV.

Excellences of Knowledge.-There are in knowledge these two excellences; first, that it offers to every man the most selfish and the most exalted, his peculiar inducement to good. It says to the former, "Serve mankind, and you