Distinction between Pleasure and Happiness. 149

there is as wide a difference as between earths and plants, insects and animals. Pleasure consists in the indulgence of the senses; happiness in the cultivation of the mind, and in the right direction of our passions. While the one soothes us into content, the other intoxicates, as the bird of paradise becomes intoxicated with the strong sent of the nutmeg; and, as was finely observed by Tertullian, stings us to death. Philosophy, teaching the knowledge of things, as language teaches the knowledge of words, like an argument ending in a just corollary, never fails to reward her followers with a commensurate measure of happiness. For as the Saracenic architects multiply and combine arches in every possible direction, so virtue and philosophy open a thousand inlets to happiness, multiply our capabilities, and teach us that useful and acknowledged truth, that as one philosopher is worth a thousand sophists, so one moment of real happiness is to be preferred to a thousand of illegitimate pleasure.

He can never be esteemed an honest well-wisher of society, who would teach us to indulge in pleasure; who would take fear from the eyes of the base; or who would rob unmerited misfortune of its best and

cheapest consolation. Who robs us of our purse, steals that, which is of little value;-who robs us of our reputation steals that, which may be again recovered; but he who weakens and undermines our faith in the justice and the love of heaven, takes from us all consolation for the past, all happiness for the present, and all hope for the future. Were

I a Mahometan, I should wish to believe in Mahomet, till the man, who told me he was an impostor, gave me a better and a nobler creed than his. Why will our sceptics rob us of our diamonds, and give us pebbles in return?

II.

True philosophy, despising those dogmas, which, resting on secondary causes, would undermine the happiness of millions, without leaving an adequate value in return, is as grateful to the soul, as it is oné of the highest enjoyments of life, to meet with objects, worthy of our esteem, and capable of exciting an honourable admiration. Naturally inducing mildness of manners and an enlightened enthusiasm, you will find in the cultivation of it, enjoyments which no wealth can purchase; of which neither treachery nor envy can deprive you; and which has this peculiar excellence, that the more the world seeks to render you miserable, the more will she struggle to render you happy. It was a knowledge of this, that enabled Colonna to reply to a waspish kind of neighbour, who occasionally annoyed him :-"Nature has endowed me, Sir, with such a disposition for happiness, that I should be in danger of losing all appetite for enjoyment, had she not kindly blest me with such an enemy as you, to act as an occasional pungent to my palate." Philosophy, my friend, like other great and good characters, has been much mistaken by the weak, and wantonly injured by the subtle.-As the wolf is fabled to have borrowed the fleece of the

sheep, so have the artful and designing, of every age, assumed the robe of Philosophy; and sparkling with fictitious splendour, imposed upon the credulity, and insulted the faith of the ignorant and imbecile. And to such an extent has this imposture been carried; and with such success has the empiricism been attended; that Philosophy herself,-pure and immaculate as she is,-having so long been associated with such dishonourable companions, has been in urgent danger of a total dissolution. As the palmtree, however, when burnt to its root, rises again more beautifully than ever; so Philosophy, elevating herself above every difficulty, rises, like the phoenix, from her own ashes. Deceived by the gravity of the pedant,—a gravity which is the essence of imposture ! -the world, undervaluing precision of thought, and a consequent perspicuity of style, has long conceived philosophy to be dull, obscure, and mysterious. Totally ignorant, that real science is simplicity personified, they mistake mystery for depth; and an affectation of knowledge for the quintessence of learning : not being sufficiently advanced in the grand school of Nature to know, that mystery and pedantry are nothing but hiding-cloaks for the concealment of ignorance and nonsense. Hence arises the spurious association of real with fictitious philosophy. The latter, always at war with truth, like an inverted pyramid, stands upon a slender basis, and must, of necessity, be difficult of comprehension :—while the former never becomes obscure, till, ceasing to be solid, it degenerates into the latter; which, in all ages, has been ac

tive in the propagation of error, and industrious in the composition of fools.

III.

There is no one, who has not heard of the clown, that was lost in astonishment, when he discovered his sovereign to be a man like himself. In the same manner, those, who conceive Philosophy to be abstruse, would be equally astonished to find how elegantly simple she is.' To find her so, however, it is, of course, necessary to seek her in the proper road, and after a proper manner. The man, desirous of learning Greek, consults his grammar before he turns the pages of a lexicon; and a mechanic, before he presumes to erect a steam engine, thoroughly acquaints himself with the nature and properties of heat. No one must aspire to enter the temple of phi

› “ When men," says Professor Stewart, "have succeeded at length in cultivating their imagination, things the most familiar and unnoticed disclose charms, invisible before. The same objects and events, which were lately beheld with indifference, occupy now all the powers and capacities of the soul; the contrast between the present and the past serving only to enhance and to endear so unlooked-for an acquisition. What Gray has so finely said of the pleasures of vicissitude conveys but a faint image of what is experienced by the man, who, after having lost in vulgar occupation and vulgar amusements his earliest and most precious years, is thus introduced at last to a new heaven and a new earth.

The meanest floweret of the vale,

The simplest note that swells the gale ;
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise."

Philosophical Essays, 4to., p. 509.

losophy by the cupola;-there is but one entrance, and that entrance is the vestibule.

Well was it observed by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus," that though a man may not be a logician, or a naturalist, yet he is not the less so, for being either liberal, modest, or charitable." For his mind is not the less philosophic, who, making allowances for the natural imbecility of human nature, and knowing the influence of opinion, cultivates the respect and the admiration of the world at large. In this experiment, however, never will he be anxiously solicitous. An over-weaning desire of obtaining the esteem of every man we meet is a sure indication of mental imbecility. He is not, at all times, the best of men, of whom the generality of mankind speak well: for, in its estimate of character, the world, captivated by appearances, too often overlooks motive; and too frequently, associating fortune with virtue, mistakes ostentation for charity, in the same manner as it mistakes license for liberty, and freedom of morals for liberality of sentiment.

IV.

Neither is he to be esteemed the worst of men, of whom a certain description of persons speak ill. Vice and virtue will no more willingly associate with each other, than seeds will germinate in oil; mercury amalgamate with iron; or exotics naturalize in Egypt. The votaries of the one, therefore, are, of necessity, enemies to the other; with this remarkable distinction ;-that virtue (from the excellence of its own nature) is not capable of hating vice to the excess, that vice is capable of hating virtue. To