encourage the growth of benevolence in the infant mind.

The pleasures they receive from others, naturally incline children to sociality and good-will; and were they, while they receive them, always made sensible of their own helplessness, they would at the same time be inspired with the feelings of generosity and gratitude. But the tenderness of parents so seldom is judicious, that the wise provision of nature for inspiring children with benevolence is commonly rendered abortive; and, instead of the amiable dispositions arising from love and gratitude, the seeds of moroseness, anger, revenge, jealousy, cruelty, and malice, are often prematurely planted in the little heart.

Let us examine into the cause of this. And here the doctrine of association presents us with a clue, by means of which we may easily explore the labyrinth.

Nature early impels the mind to seek for happiness; but before the dawn of reason and experience, the judgments concerning it must be erroneous. In infancy, all ideas concerning it are comprised in the gratification of will; the propensity to this gratification is encouraged by frequent indulgence, till every notion of happiness becomes connected with it. The idea of misery becomes consequently assoGiated with disappointment; and how far these associations may affect the mind, by producing the malevolent passions, will appear evident on a very little reflection.

We have already remarked, that the painful sensations make a more vivid as well as a more lasting impression than the pleasurable; from which it

evidently follows, that the happiness derived from the gratification of will can never bear any proportion to the misery occasioned by its disappointment. Where the propensity to this gratification is strengthened by indulgence, the frequent repetition of disappointment will deeply impress the mind with the feelings of resentment, and thus render it liable to the reception of all the malevolent passions connected with it; while the pleasurable sensation occasioned by indulgence will produce no other effects than to augment the desire of future gratification.

An admirable illustration of this doctrine is given by Hartley, who, after observing that the gratification of self-will, if it does not always produce pleasure, yet is always so associated with the idea of pleasure in the mind, that the disappointment of it never fails to produce pain, proceeds as follows: "If the will was always gratified, this mere associated pleasure would, according to the present frame of our natures, absorb, as it were, all other pleasures; and thus, by drying up the source from whence it sprung, be itself dried up at last; and the first disappointments would we intolerable. Both of which things are observable in an inferior degree, both in adults and in children after they are much indulged. Gratifications of the will without the consequent expected pleasure, disappointments of it without the consequent expected pain, are here par ticularly useful to us. And it is by this, amongst other means, that the human will is brought to a conformity with the Divine, which is the only radical cure for all our evils and disappointments, and

the only earnest medium for obtaining everlasting happiness."

By the above reasoning, which is I think conclusive, it evidently appears that were the constant gratification of will possible, (which, in the present state of things, certainly is not) it would only tend to make the being so gratified miserable. The constant gratification of self-will must necessarily exclude the exercise of all the grateful passions. Where success is certain, hope can have no existence; nor can joy be produced by attaining that which is considered as a right. Let hope and joy be excluded from the human mind, and where is happiness?

Further, the habitual gratification of will, not only precludes the grateful passions of hope and joy, but tends to produce all the unamiable and hateful passions and dispositions of the human heart. Anger, peevishness, and pride, are, almost without exception, produced by the constant gratification of every wayward desire. The first is the father of revenge and cruelty; the second, of displacency and discontent; and the third of arrogance, ingratitude, and contempt. Think of this, ye mothers, who, by a weak and blind indulgence of the infant will, lay the foundation of future vice and misery to your ill-fated offspring!

Were the happiness of the child and the happiness of the man incompatible, so that whatever contributed to the latter must be deducted from the former, the overweening indulgence of parents might be excused, and the common apology, viz. "that as life is uncertain, the poor things ought to be permitted to enjoy the present," accepted as sa

tisfactory. But may we not appeal to every person who has had the misfortune to live for any time with a family of spoiled children, for a sanction to our assertion, that the gratification of will has only been productive of misery.

In the career of indulgence the fondest parents must somewhere stop. There are certain boundaries which folly itself will not at all times be willing to overleap. The pain of the disappointment that must then ensue, will be intolerably aggravated by all the discordant passions fostered by preceding indulgence.

A child, whose infant will has been habituated to the discipline of obedience, submits to disappointment, as to inevitable necessity, with cheerfulness. Nor will disappointment to such an one so frequently occur, a wholesome check having been early put upon the extravagance of desire. Whilst, on the contrary, the satiety consequent upon the fruition of every wish sets the imagination to work to find out new and untried sources of pleasure. I once saw a child make itself miserable for a whole evening, because it could not have the birds that flew through the garden, to play with. In vain did the fond mother promise that a bird should be procured to-morrow, and that it should be all his own, and that he should have a pretty gilded cage to keep it in, which was far better than the nasty high trees on which it now perched. "No, no, that would not do; it must be caught now; he would have it now, and at no other time!"

Well, my pretty darling, don't cry,' returns Mamma," and you shall have a bird, a pretty bird,

love, in a minute;" casting a significant look on her friends, as she retired to speak to the servants. She soon returned with a young chicken in her hand, which she covered so as not to be immediately seen. "Here, darling, is a pretty, pretty bird for you; but you must not cry so. Bless me, if you cry at that rate, the old black dog will come and fetch you in a minute. There now, that's my good boy! now dry your eyes, love, and look at the pretty bird."

At these words little master snathes it from her hand, and perceiving the deception, dashes it on the ground with tenfold fury. All was now uproar and dismay, till the scene becoming rather too oppressive, even for the mother, a servant was called, who took the little struggling victim of passion in his arms, and conveyed him to the nursery. Such are the effects of the unlimited indulgence of selfwill! Yet this fond mother persuaded herself that she obeyed the dictates of pure affection! Had she, however, been accustomed to reflect upon the motives that influenced her conduct, she would have found selfishness in this instance the governing principle.

Parental affection has been described by many philosophers as a refined species of self-love. Considered merely as an instinct, it undoubtedly is sp. But the same instinct in the brute creation only leads to the care and protection of their young, and I may add, to the education also; the care of the dams in this particular, both in the feathered and four-footed race, being well known. But never does it lead to a false and dangerous indulgence.

Were parental affection in man, as in the brute Creation, merely instinctive, instinct might be trust,