virtue, inward rectitude) to godlikeness, with all the acts, exercises, and disciplines of mind, will, and affection, that are requisite or conducive to the great design of our redemption from the form of the evil one, and of our second creation or birth in the divine image.* APHORISM XXXII. It may be an additional aid to reflection, to distinguish the three kinds severally, according to the faculty to which each corresponds, the part of our It is worthy of observation, and may furnish a fruitful subject for future reflection, how nearly this scriptural division coincides with the Platonic, which, commencing with the prudential, or the habit of act and purpose proceeding from enlightened self-interest, [qui animi imperio, corporis servitio, rerum auxilio, in proprium sui commodum et sibi providus utitur, hunc esse prudentem statuimus], ascends to the moral, that is, to the purifying and remedial virtues; and seeks its summit in the imitation of the divine nature. In this last division, answering to that which we have called the spiritual, Plato includes all those inward acts and aspirations, waitings, and watchings, which have a growth in godlikeness for their immediate purpose, and the union of the human soul with the supreme good as their ultimate object. Nor was it altogether without grounds that several of the Fathers ventured to believe that Plato had some dim conception of the necessity of a divine mediator, whether through some indistinct echo of the patriarchal faith, or some rays of light refracted from the Hebrew prophets through a Phoenician medium (to which he may possibly have referred in his phrase, Θεοπαραδότος σοφία, the wisdom delivered from God), or by his own sense of the mysterious contradiction in human nature between the will and the reason, the natural appetences and the not less innate law of conscience (Romans ii. 14, 15), we shall in vain attempt to determine. It is not impossible that all three may have cooperated in partially unveiling these awful truths to this plank from the wreck of paradise thrown on the shores of idolatrous Greece, to this divine philosopher, Che in quella schiera andó piú presso al segno Petrarch, Del Trionfo della Fama, cap. iii. 1. 5, 6. human nature which is more particularly its organ. Thus the prudential corresponds to the sense and the understanding; the moral to the heart and the conscience; the spiritual to the will and the reason, that is, to the finite will reduced to harmony with, and in subordination to, the reason, as a ray from that true light which is both reason and will, universal reason, and will absolute. REFLECTIONS INTRODUCTORY TO MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. ON SENSIBILITY. Ir prudence, though practically inseparable from morality, is not to be confounded with the moral principle; still less may sensibility, that is, a constitutional quickness of sympathy with pain and pleasure, and a keen sense of the gratifications that accompany social intercourse, mutual endearments, and reciprocal preferences, be mistaken, or deemed a substitute, for either. Sensibility is not even a sure pledge of a good heart, though among the most common meanings of that many-meaning and too commonly misapplied expression. So far from being either morality, or one with the moral principle, it ought not even to be placed in the same rank with prudence. For prudence is at least an offspring of the understanding; but sensibility (the sensibility, I mean, here spoken of), is for the greater part a quality of the nerves, and a result of individual bodily temperament. Prudence is an active principle, and implies a sacrifice of self, though only to the same self projected, as it were, to a distance. But the very term sensibility, marks its passive nature; and in its mere self, apart from choice and reflection, it proves little more than the coincidence or contagion of pleasurable or painful sensations in different persons. Alas! how many are there in this over-stimulated age, in which the occurrence of excessive and unhealthy sensitiveness is so frequent, as even to have reversed the current meaning of the word, nervous. How many are there whose sensibility prompts them to remove those evils alone, which by hideous spectacle or clamorous outcry are present to their senses and disturb their selfish enjoyments. Provided the dunghill is not before their parlour window, they are well contented to know that it exists, and perhaps as the hotbed on which their own luxuries are reared. Sensibility is not necessarily benevolence. Nay, by rendering us tremblingly alive to trifling misfortunes, it frequently prevents it, and induces an effeminate selfishness instead, pampering the coward heart With feelings all too delicate for use. Sweet are the tears, that from a Howard's eye But even this, this cold benevolence, Seems worth, seems manhood, when there rise before me The sluggard pity's vision-weaving tribe, Who sigh for wretchedness yet shun the wretched, Nursing in some delicious solitude Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies. Lastly, where virtue is, sensibility is the ornament and becoming attire of virtue. On certain occasions it may almost be said to become* virtue. But sen sibility and all the amiable qualities may likewise be * There sometimes occurs an apparent play on words, which not only to the moralizer, but even to the philosophical etymologist, appears more than a mere play. Thus in the double sense of the word, become. I have known persons so anxious to have their dress become them, as to convert it at length into come, and too often have become, the pandars of vice, and the instruments of seduction. So must it needs be with all qualities that have their rise only in parts and fragments of our nature. A man of warm passions may sacrifice half his estate to rescue a friend from prison: for he is naturally sympathetic, and the more social part of his nature happened to be uppermost. The same man shall afterwards exhibit the same disregard of money in an attempt to seduce that friend's wife or daugh ter. All the evil achieved by Hobbes and the whole school of materialists will appear inconsiderable if it be compared with the mischief effected and occasioned by the sentimental philosophy of Sterne, and : his numerous imitators. The vilest appetites and the most remorseless inconstancy towards their objects, acquired the titles of the heart, the irresistible feelings, the too tender sensibility: and if the frosts of prudence, the icy chains of human law thawed and vanished at the genial warmth of human nature, who could help it? It was an amiable weakness! About this time, too, the profanation of the word, Love, rose to its height. The French naturalists, Buffon and others, borrowed it from the sentimental novelists the Swedish and English philosophers took the contagion; and the muse of science condescended to seek admission into the saloons of fashion and frivolity, rouged like a harlot, and with the harlot's wanton leer. I know not how the annals of guilt could be better forced into the service of virtue, than by such a comment on the present paragraph, as would be afforded by a selection from the sentimental correspondence produced in courts of justice their proper self, and thus actually to become the dress. Such a one, (safeliest spoken of by the neuter pronoun), I consider as but a suit of live finery. It is indifferent whether we sayit becomes he, or, he becomes it. |