SBraRSHHiBHBS 
 
 KNDOTHEREiSSAYS 
 
 ,
 
 From LANGFORD & SON, 
 
 FAMILY GROCERS, 

 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER ESSAYS. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN FOSTER 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 WARD, LOCK, & TYLER, WARWICK HOUSE, 
 PATERNOSTER ROW.
 
 LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN FOSTER, 
 
 JOHN FOSTER, the celebrated essayist, was born on the 
 September, 1770, in a small farmhouse in the parish of 
 Halifax, between Wainsgate and Hebden Bridge. His 
 parents were John and Ann Foster, a worthy couple, who 
 in addition to the labours of the farm devoted part of their 
 time to weaving. John was an old-fashioned child. Before 
 reaching his twelfth year he had, to quote his own words, 
 " a painful sense of an awkward but entire individuality." 
 His early antipathies were strong, and his imagination 
 intensely vivid. He was soon set to work to aid his parents 
 in weaving, and till his fourteenth year worked at spinning 
 wool to a thread by the hand-wheel. While thus employed, 
 however, he " had no idea of being permanently engaged 
 in handicraft ; " he was ambitious, and secretly indulged in 
 romantic dreams for the future. At the age just named he 
 entered into the service of a master manufacturer, but his 
 inveterate habit of mental abstraction led him constantly 
 to live in an ideal world, and as his weaving in consequence 
 was often executed in a slovenly and unworkmanlike style, 
 his employer was dissatisfied, and discharged him from the 
 service. 
 
 2034064
 
 vi Life of Jolm Foster. 
 
 Six days after the completion of his seventeenth year John 
 became a member of .-the Baptist church, at Hebden Bridge. 
 The venerable pastor, Dr. Fawcett, and other friends who 
 had watched him up to this time with deep interest, now 
 urged him to dedicate his talents to the ministry. He con- 
 sented, and was " set apart " by a special religious service. 
 For purposes of study he shortly afterwards became an in- 
 mate at Brearley Hall, where Dr. Fawcett then directed the 
 studies of a few theological candidates. Part of each day, 
 however, was spent in assisting his parents at their usual 
 employments. During the rest of the time his mental 
 exertions were intense. He thought deeply and read ex- 
 tensively, not only at Brearley, where he remained about 
 three years, but at the Baptist College, Bristol, to which he 
 afterwards removed. During the whole of his college 
 curriculum he exhibited the same mental qualities by which 
 he was so much distinguished in after life an irrepressible 
 curiosity to examine everything, great decision of character, 
 an ambition of intellectual superiority, and a morbid desire 
 to impart an air of novelty and freshness to old and familiar 
 subjects, by striking out into original paths of illustration, 
 or clothing them in the garb of an unwonted phraseology. 
 
 On leaving Bristol, the first place in which Foster was 
 regularly engaged as a preacher was Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
 where his Baptist flock was under fifty in number. Of his 
 sermons it may be said that, in consequence of his strain- 
 ing after originality, his hearers were not unfrequently 
 more startled and perplexed than edified. Once he dis- 
 coursed from the text " I am the way, the truth, and the 
 life," and his mode of treatment was so novel that an old 
 man was overheard saying, " I don't know what he has 
 been driving at all this afternoon, unless to set riddles." 
 " He is going to take us to the stars again," was a frequent 
 observation of his hearers. His style of preaching, it can- 
 not be denied, though powerful, and a great treat to an in- 
 tellectual audience, was little fitted to make an impression 
 on the popular mind. 
 
 Foster remained at Newcastle little more than three 
 months ; he left it about the end of November, 1792. We 
 find him, soon after, ministering to a Baptist society which 
 held its meetings in Swift's Alley, Dublin. He did not 
 prove a success there ; the congregation was very small
 
 Life of John Foster. vii 
 
 when he began, and had dwindled away to almost nothing 
 when he voluntarily resigned. 
 
 Early in 1797 he took up his abode at Chichester as the 
 minister of a general Baptist church. He remained there 
 about two years and a half, and applied himself with con- 
 siderable earnestness to his pastoral duties. " But though 
 treated," says Foster's biographer, Mr. Ryland, " with much 
 personal kindness, he met with little encouragement to 
 prosecute his labours. A spirit of religious indifference 
 seems to have pervaded the society ; frequent deaths and 
 removals reduced its numbers, and not long after his de- 
 parture it became extinct." 
 
 About midsummer, 1799, Foster left Chichester and went 
 to Battersea. Here he was kept rather busy. " I have 
 preached," he says, " several of the Sabbaths, and made a 
 journey of perhaps forty miles in the country to preach to 
 heathens, at one place, in a sort of coal-hole ; and to plain 
 good saints at another, in a little shop. I .stood behind the 
 counter, and some of the candles hanging above touched 
 my wig." He also took charge of a score of African black 
 boys, who had been brought over to this country by some 
 philanthropic traders to be civilized. About this time he 
 first met Miss Maria Snooke, " the friend "to whom the 
 essays here reprinted were first addressed. It was she who 
 afterwards became his wife. 
 
 In 1800 he made another move and pitched his tent in 
 the village of Downend, five miles from Bristol, where he 
 preached regularly at a little chapel erected by Dr. Caleb 
 Evans. After a residence at Downend of four years he 
 was invited to become the minister of a congregation meet- 
 ing in Sheppard's Barton, Frome, " a large and surpass- 
 ingly ugly town, in Somersetshire." He accepted the 
 invitation, one great inducement being that the stipend was 
 considerably higher than at Downend. 
 
 It was during his residence at Frome that the Essays, by 
 which Foster attained his great celebrity, were published. 
 They appear to have originated in his conversations with 
 his interesting friend (afterwards Mrs. Foster) while on 
 a visit to her brother-in-law, the late Dr. Joseph Mason 
 Cox, of Overn. " In our many conversations while you 
 were here," Foster observes in a letter designed to be intro- 
 ductory to the Essays, " it could not fail to occur to us, by
 
 viii Life of John Foster. 
 
 what a vast world of subjects for consideration we are 
 surrounded. Any glance into the distance in quest of a 
 limit found no limit to the diffused and endless multitude 
 of subjects, though it would soon find one to the power of 
 investigating and understanding them. ... In these 
 letters I shall revive some of the subjects which engaged 
 and interested the social hour, and shall perhaps recall some 
 of the hints or views that there presented themselves, in 
 order to display them with greater amplitude and precision." 
 
 When the Essays appeared they met with well-deserved 
 success, a second edition being called for in about four 
 months. The autumn and a great part of the winter of 
 1805 were devoted to their careful revision. " The book 
 that I published," he writes, to a correspondent at Downend, 
 " had at least five thousand faults : and two or three thou- 
 sand I have felt it necessary to try and mend 
 
 The book will be in substance the very same, but very many 
 pages, and a multitude of single sentences, will be different." 
 A third edition of the Essays was published in the summer 
 of 1806. It contained a few small alterations : the bulk 
 of the corrections had been inserted in the preceding edition. 
 
 In 1805 the subject of our sketch mentions that, " I am 
 now beginning an Essay on the Improvement of Time, for 
 which I have thrown together a large quantity of rude 
 material, and which I foresee cannot be finished in less than 
 a moderate volume. The subject suits me much, and I 
 hope, if well, I may be able to finish it by the end of the 
 year." He seems to have worked at this essay at intervals 
 during the two following years, and at last to have abandoned 
 it, in consequence of his becoming a regular contributor to 
 the Eclectic Review. " So fully," says Mr. Ryland, " was 
 he occupied in this department of literature, that upwards of 
 thirteen years elapsed before he again appeared before the 
 public in his own name." 
 
 A swelling of one of the glands of the neck now threatened 
 to put a stop to all public speaking on Foster's part. He 
 determined to resign his pastoral charge, and rely for support 
 on his pen. The Eclectic 'Review presented a fair field for 
 his energies, and his first critical essay a review of Carr's 
 Stranger in Ireland appeared in that periodical towards 
 the close of 1806. In the following year he contributed no 
 fewer than thirteen articles to the same publication. The
 
 Life of jfohn Foster. ix 
 
 Eclectic, we may add, was for several years the only periodical 
 that combined the advocacy of " Spiritual Christianity " 
 with liberal views on social and political questions. 
 
 An important change in Foster's life took place in 1808. 
 In May of that year he married, and the event, it is plea- 
 sant to record, proved in every way singularly happy. The 
 essayist took up his abode at Bourton, a village in the 
 upper part of Gloucestershire, where Mrs. Foster had lived 
 previous to her marriage. It was a quiet place, being 
 described as " the one place in the world where nothing can 
 be said to happen in the whole course of the year : nothing 
 that is worth telling at the distance of five miles off." 
 Foster's life here was enlivened by the birth of five children, 
 two of whom died in infancy, and by expeditions here and 
 there for pleasure and for preaching the morbid affection 
 of the throat being now considerably less troublesome but 
 he seems to have led for many years about as studious and 
 retired an existence as it is possible to conceive. 
 
 About the close of 1817 he left Bourton and became 
 once, more a resident and stated preacher at Downend. 
 Whatever they may have been before, his pulpit ministra- 
 tions were not now appreciated. Scarcely six months were 
 over when the failure of his efforts was so conspicuous that 
 he resigned the appointment. 
 
 In 1818 he published a Discourse on Missions, and in 1820 
 gave to the world an Essay on the Evils of Popular 
 Ignorance, on which he had bestowed a positively painful 
 amount of labour. In the autumn of that year he began 
 to revise it for a second, edition, a task which occupied him 
 for several months. Next he removed to Stapleton, within 
 three miles of Bristol, and there he resided till his death. 
 He had had more than enough, no doubt, by this time of shift- 
 ing residences. After his removal he delivered a series of 
 discourses at Broadmead Chapel, which were well attended 
 by persons of almost all denominations. On Robert Hall's 
 settling in Bristol, he declined to continue this service. 
 " Now Jupiter is come," said he, " I can try it no more." 
 
 He now undertook a theological essay, which in point of 
 direct religious utility has been surpassed by none of his 
 writings his Introduction to Doddridge's Rise and Progress 
 of Religion. A few years later he engaged actively in what 
 was termed the Scrampore Controversy, a dispute between
 
 Life of jfohn Foster. 
 
 three missionaries and the committee of the Baptist 
 Missionary Society. It is an occurrence which may fitly be 
 left to sleep in oblivion. This was the one interruption to 
 a sober existence. 
 
 The six years which followed 1832 formed the saddest 
 period of Foster's life. It began with the fatal illness of 
 his wife, who died in September of the year just named. 
 It was to her that Foster owed, not only a very great 
 portion of happiness, but a great deal of the mental im- 
 provement he had made during their married life, a period 
 of twenty-five years. Mrs. Foster's intellect was remarkably 
 strong and correct, and in refinement of perception and 
 depth of reflective feeling she had few equals. Not long 
 after three of Foster's most intimate friends also died ; and, 
 last of all, came the death of his only brother. 
 
 The Serampore Controversy, together with his domestic 
 concerns, so fully absorbed Foster's attention that for almost 
 nine years he prepared nothing for the press except Observa- 
 tions on Mr. Hall as a Preacher, and a new edition (the 
 ninth) of the Essays. This ninth edition underwent a final 
 revision at the suggestion of a Mr. Anderson, " the acute 
 literary friend " alluded to in the preface.* In addition to 
 these publications Foster gave to the world two letters on 
 the Church and the Voluntary Principle, and three on 
 the Ballot, all which were sent to the public journals. 
 
 The literary career of our essayist came to a close in 
 1839 with an article in the Eclectic Review for July, on 
 Polack's New Zealand. The last time of his appearing on 
 any public occasion was in June, 1843, at the annual meet- 
 ing of the Bristol Baptist College. His health now was 
 rapidly failing. On the 24th of September he took to his 
 room, which he never left again. On the night of Saturday, 
 the i4th of October, he was in a state of considerable 
 exhaustion, but refused to allow any one to sit up with him. 
 About six o'clock in the morning an old servant went to his 
 door : she heard no sound, and entered. Foster was at rest, 
 his arms gently extended and his countenance as tranquil 
 as if he had been in a deep sleep. Death had taken place 
 but a short time before, for only the forehead was cold. 
 
 "Foster," says an able critic, "was a man of deep but 
 
 * See p. xv.
 
 Life of John Foster. xi 
 
 sombre piety. The shadows that overhung his soul were, 
 however, those of an inborn melancholy, and had nothing 
 in common with the repulsive gloom of bigotry and 
 fanaticism. His thinking is rugged, massive, and original; 
 and at times, when his great imagination rouses itself from 
 sleep, a splendour of illustration breaks over his pages 
 that startles the reader, both by its beauty and its sugges- 
 tiveness." 
 
 Of the Essays, in a series of letters, here reprinted, there 
 remains little to be said. They were first published, as we 
 have told, in 1805, while Foster was officiating as pastor 
 of the Baptist chapel at Frome. They are only four in 
 number, yet Sir James Mackintosh did not hesitate to affirm 
 that they showed their author to be " one of the most pro- 
 found and eloquent writers that England has produced." 
 They have been remarkably popular, especially among the 
 more thoughtful of the community, and have gone through 
 upwards of twenty editions. 
 
 " Multitudes of young persons," remarks a writer in the 
 Encyclopedia Britannicd, " have regarded as a bright era 
 in their mental history the hour when this volume first 
 came into their hands, and have never ceased to rejoice in 
 its stimulating and elevating influence on their faculties. 
 It has been to them a dayspring, revealing a world of living 
 beauty and wonders where all was before involved in death- 
 like torpor and gloom. Its intellectual power and deep- 
 toned eloquence have dissolved in many minds the unhappy 
 and absurd association of piety with mental weakness and 
 vulgarity ; while, on the other hand, it has released from 
 their trammels not a few who had been wont to regard 
 general literature and freedom of thought as the exclusive 
 property of the profane. The last of the four essays, On 
 Sonic of the Causes by which Evangelical Religion has been 
 rendered unacceptable to Persons of Cultivated Taste, has 
 probably contributed more than anything else to that refor- 
 mation in style which is perceptible in our modern religious 
 literature." 
 
 To the present edition we have added a few foot-notes 
 illustrative of the various allusions made by the author, 
 and these, it is hoped, will be found serviceable and 
 interesting. 
 
 J. M.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 PERHAPS it will be thought that pieces written so much in 
 the manner of set compositions as the following, should not 
 have been denominated Letters ; it may therefore be proper to 
 say that they are so called because they were actually addressed 
 to a friend." They were written however with an intention to 
 put them in print, if, when they were finished, the writer could 
 persuade himself that they deserved it ; and the temper of 
 even the most inconsiderable pretenders to literature in these 
 times is too well known for any one to be surprised that he 
 could so persuade himself. 
 
 When he began these letters, his intention was to confine 
 himself within such limits, that essays on twelve or fifteen 
 subjects might be comprised in a volume. But he soon found 
 that so narrow a space would exclude many illustrations not 
 less appropriate or useful than any which would be introduced. 
 
 It will not seem a very natural manner of commencing a 
 course of letters to a friend, to enter formally on a subject in 
 the first sentence. In excuse for this abruptness it may be 
 mentioned, that there was an introductory letter; but as it was 
 written in the presumption that a considerable variety of sub- 
 jects would be treated in the compass of a moderate number 
 of letters it is omitted, as not being adapted to precede what is 
 executed in a manner so different from the design. 
 
 See the Life f>f John Fn^f-r prefixed to this edition, p. v.
 
 xiv Advertisement. 
 
 When writing which has occupied a considerable length, and 
 has been interrupted by considerable intervals, of time, which 
 is also on very different subjects, and was perhaps meditated 
 under the influence of different circumstances, is at last all 
 gone over in one short course of perusal, this immediate 
 succession and close comparison make the writer sensible of 
 some things of which he was not aware in the slow separate 
 stages of the progress. On thus bringing the following essays 
 under one review, the writer perceives some reason to appre- 
 hend, that the spirit of the third may appear so different from 
 that of the second, as to give an impression of something like 
 inconsistency. The second may be thought to have an appear- 
 ance of representing that a man may effect almost everything, 
 the third that he can effect scarcely anything. But the writer 
 would say, that the one does not assert the efficacy of human 
 resolution and effort under the same conditions under which 
 the other asserts their inefficacy ; and that therefore there is 
 no real contrariety between the principles of the two essays. 
 From the evidence of history and familiar experience we know 
 that, under certain conditions, and within certain limits, (strait 
 ones indeed,) an enlightened and resolute and human spirit 
 has great power, this greatness being relative to the measures 
 of things within a small sphere : while it is equally obvious 
 that this enlightened and resolute spirit, if disregarding these 
 conditions, and attempting to extend its agency over a much 
 wider sphere, shall find its power baffled and annihilated, till 
 it draws back within the boundary. Now the great power of 
 the human mind within the narrow limit being forcibly and 
 largely insisted on at one time, and its impotence beyond that 
 limit, at another, the assemblage of sentiments and exempli- 
 fications most adapted to illustrate, (and without real or con- 
 siderable exaggeration,) that power alone, will form apparently 
 so strong a contrast with the assemblage of thoughts and facts 
 proper for illustrating that imbecility alone, that on a super- 
 ficial view the two representations may appear contradictory. 
 The author appeals to the experience of such thinking men as 
 are accustomed to commit their thoughts to writing, whether 
 sometimes, on comparing the pages in which they had endea- 
 voured to place one truth in the strongest light, with those in 
 which they have endeavoured a strong but yet not extravagant 
 exhibition of another, they have not felt a momentary difficulty 
 to reconcile them, even while satisfied of the substantial
 
 Advertisement to the. Ninth Edition. xv 
 
 justness of both. The whole doctrine on any extensive moral 
 subject necessarily includes two views which may be considered 
 as its extremes ; and if these are strongly stated quite apart 
 from their relations to each other, both the representations 
 may be perfectly true, and yet may require, in order to the 
 reader's perceiving their consistency, a recollection of many 
 intermediate ideas. 
 
 In the fourth essay, it was not intended to take a compre- 
 hensive or systematic view of the causes contributing to 
 prevent the candid attention and the cordial admission due to 
 evangelical religion, but simply to select a few which had 
 particularly attracted the writer's observation. One or two 
 more would have been specified and slightly illustrated, if the 
 essay had not been already too long. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 TO THE NINTH EDITION. 
 
 As it is signified in the title-page that the book is corrected in 
 this edition, it may not be impertinent to indicate by a few 
 sentences the nature and amount of the correction. After a 
 revisal which introduced a number of small verbal alterations 
 in one of the later of the preceding editions, the writer had 
 been willing to believe himself excused from any repetition of 
 that kind of task. But when it was becoming probable that 
 the new edition now printed would be called for, an acute 
 literary friend strongly recommended one more and a final 
 revisal; enforcing his recommendation by pointing out, in 
 various places, what the writer readily acknowledged to be 
 faults in the composition/'' This determined him to try the 
 effect of a careful inspection throughout with a view to such 
 an abatement of the imperfections of the book, as might make 
 him decidedly content to let it go without any future revision. 
 In this operation there has been no attempt at novelty 
 
 * See the Life of y,, 7 .n. /v\,',v prefixed to this edition, p. v.
 
 xvi Advertisement to the Ninth Edition. 
 
 beyond such slight changes and diminutive additions as ap- 
 peared necessary in order to give a more exact or full expres- 
 sion of the sense. There is not, probably, more of anything 
 that could properly be called new, than might be contained in 
 half a dozen pages. Correction, in the strict sense, has been 
 the object. Sentences, of ill-ordered construction, or loose or 
 inconsequential in their connection, have been attempted to be 
 reformed. la some instances a sentence has been abbreviated, 
 in others a little extended by the insertion of an explanatory 
 or qualifying clause. Here and there a sentence has been 
 substituted for one that was not easily reducible to the exact 
 direction of the line of thought, or appeared feeble in expres- 
 sion. In several instances some modification has been re- 
 quired to obviate a seeming or real inconsistency with what is 
 said in other places. This part of the process may have taken 
 off in such instances somewhat of the cast of force and spirit, 
 exhibited or attempted in the former mode of expression ; and 
 might have been objected to as a deterioration, by a person 
 not aware of the reason for the change. Here and there an 
 epithet, or a combination of words, bordering on extravagance, 
 has yielded to the dictate of the maturer judgment, or more 
 fastidious taste, or less stimulated feelings, of advanced life, 
 and given place to a somewhat moderated language. The 
 general course of thought is not affected by these minute alter- 
 ations ; except that (as the writer would persuade himself), it 
 is in parts a little more distinctly and palpably brought out. 
 The endeavour has been to disperse any mists that appeared 
 to lie on the pages, that the ideas might present themselves in 
 as defined a form as the writer could give to any of them 
 which had seemed obscure, and ineffective to their object, from 
 indeterminate or involved enunciation. In the revised diction, 
 as in the original writing, he has designedly and constantly 
 avoided certain artificial forms of phraseology, much in con- 
 ventional use among even good writers ; and aimed at falling 
 on the words most immediately, naturally, and simply appro- 
 priate to the thoughts. 
 
 If his book be of a quality to impart any useful instruction, 
 he will hope that the benefit may be conveyed with perhaps 
 a little more clearness and facility, in consequence of these 
 last corrections it will receive from his hand. 
 
 January, 1830.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ESSAY I. 
 
 ON A MAN'S WRITING MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Affectionate interest with which we reve; t to our past life It deserves a brief 
 record for our own use Very few things to be noted ot" the multitude that have 
 occurred Direction and use of such a review as would be required for writing 
 a ilemoir Importance of our past life considered as the beginning of an endless 
 duration of existence General deficiency of self-observation Oblivion of the 
 greatest number of our past feelings Occasional glimpses of vivid recollection 
 Associations with things and places The different and unknown associations 
 of different persons with the same places PACE i 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 All past life an education Discipline and influence from direct instruction com- 
 panionship books scenes of nature and the state of society p. 8 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Very powerful impressions sometimes from particular facts, tending to form 
 discriminated characters Yet very few strongly discriminated and individual 
 characters found Most persons belong to general classes of character Immense 
 number and diversity of impressions, of iml< finitely various tendency, which the 
 moral being has undergone in the course of liie Might be expected that sue h a 
 confusion of influences would not permit the formation of any settled character 
 That such a character is, nevertheless, acquired and in: ; ntained, is owing to 
 some one leading determination, given by whatever meai'.s, to the mind, gene- 
 rally in early life Common self-deceptive belief that we have maintained moral 
 rectitude, and the exercise of sound reason, under the impressions that have been 
 forming our characters p. 14 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Uost of the influences under which the characters of men are forming unfavourable 
 lo wisdom, virtue, and happiness Proof of this if a uumber of persons suppose
 
 xviii Contents. 
 
 a hundred, were to give a clear account of the circumstances that have most 
 affected the state of their minds A. few examples a misanthropist a lazy 
 prejudiced thinker a man fancying himself a genius a projector an antiquary 
 in excess a petty tyrant p. 22 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 An Atheist Slight sketch of the process by which a man in the humbler order of 
 abilities and attainments may become one p. o- 
 
 1 LETTER VI. 
 
 The influence of Religion counteracted by almost all other influences Pensive 
 reflections on the imperfect manifestation of the Supreme Being on the in- 
 efficacy of the belief of such a being on the strangeness of that inefficarv 
 and on the debasement and infelicity consequent on it Happiness of a devout 
 man p. 33 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 Self-knowledge being supposed the principal object in writing the memoir, the 
 train of exterior fortunes and actions will claim but a subordinate notice in it 
 If it were intended for the amusement of the public, the writer would do well to 
 fill it rather with incident and action Yet the mere mental history of some men 
 would be interesting to reflecting readers of a man, for example, of a specula- 
 tive disposition, who has passed through many changes of opinion Influences 
 that warp opinion Effects of time and experience on the notions and feelings 
 cherished in early life Feelings of a sensible old man on viewing a picture of 
 his own mind, drawn by himself when he was young Failure of excellent de- 
 signs ; disappointment of sanguine hopes Degree of explicitness required in 
 the record Conscience Impudence and canting false pretences of many writers 
 of " confessions " Rousseau ;>i p. 30 
 
 ESSAY II. 
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Exa-nples of the distress and humiliation incident to an irresolute mind Such a 
 mind cannot be said to belong to itself Manner in which a man of decisive spirit 
 deliberates, and passes into action Caesar Such a spirit prevents the fretting 
 away, in harassing alternations of will, of the animated feelings required for 
 sustaining the vigour of action Averts impertinent interference Acquires, if 
 free from harshness of manner, an undisputed and beneficial ascendency over 
 associates Its last resource, inflexible pertinacity Instance in a man on a 
 jury p. 53 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Brief inquiry into the constituents ot this commanding quality Physical constitu- 
 tion Possibility, nevertheless, of a firm mind in a feeble body Confidence in a 
 man's own judgment This an uncommon distinction Picture of a man who 
 wants it This confidence distinguished irom obstinacy Partly founded on ex- 
 perience Takes a high tone of independence in devising schemes Distressing 
 dilemmas p. 61
 
 Contents. xix 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Energy of feeling as necessary as confidence of opinion Conduct that results from 
 their combination Effect and value of a ruling passion Great decision of char- 
 acter invests even wicked beings with something- which we are tempted to admire 
 Satan Zanga A Spanish assassin Remarkable example of this quality in a 
 man who was a prodigal and became poor, but turned miser and became rich 
 Howard Whiteiield Christian missionaries p. 68 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Courage a chief constituent of the character Effect of this in encountering cen- 
 sure and ridicule Almagro, Pizarro, and De Luques Defiance of danger 
 Luther Daniel Another indispensable requisite to decision is the full agreement 
 of all the powers of the mind Lady Macbeth Richard III Cromwell A father 
 who had the opportunity of saving one of two sous from death p. 75 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 :Formidable power of mischief which this high quality gives to bad men Care 
 required to prevent its rendering good men unconciliating and overbearing 
 Independence and overruling manner in consultation Lord Chatham Decision 
 of character not incompatible with sensibility and mild manners Hut probably 
 the majority of the most eminent examples of it deficient in the kinder affec- 
 tions King of Prussia Situations in which it may be an absolute duty to act 
 in opposition to the promptings of those affections p. 82 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 ESSAY III. 
 
 ON THE APPLICATION OF THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Great convenience of having a number of words that will answer the purposes of 
 ridicule or reprobation without having any precise meaning Puritan Methodist 
 Jacobin The word Romantic of the greatest service to persons, who, wanting 
 to show their scon-., have not wherewithal in the wav ot sense or wit Whenever 
 this epithet is applied, let tin- exact meaning be demanded Does it attribute, to 
 what it is applied to. the kind of absurdity prevalent in the works called 
 Romances : I'hat absurdity was from the predominance, in various modes, of 
 imagination over judgment Mental character of the early Romance writers 
 Opposite character ot Cervantes Delightful, delusive, and mischievous opera- 
 tion of a predominant imagination Yet desirable, for several reasons, that the 
 imagination should have tiis ascendency in early hie .'p. 101
 
 xx Contents. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Ons of the modes of this ascendency justly called Romantic, is, the unfounded 
 persuasion of something peculiar and extraordinary in a person's destiny This 
 vain expectation may be relative to great talent and achievement, or to great 
 felicity Things ardently anticipated which not only cannot be attained, but 
 would be unadapted to the nature and condition of man if they could A person 
 that hoped to out-do rather than imitate Gregory Lopez, the hermit Absurd 
 expectations of parents Utopian anticipations of philosophers Practical 
 absurdity of the age of chivalry The extravagant and exclusive passion for what 
 is grand p. in 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Tiie epithet applicable to hopes and projects inconsistent with the known relations 
 between ends and means Reckoning- on happy casualties Musing on instances 
 of good luck Novels go more than half the length of the older Romance in pro- 
 moting this pernicious tendency of the mind Specimen of what they do in this 
 way Fancy magnifies the smallest means into an apparent competence to the 
 greatest ends This delusive calculation apt to be admitted in schemes of bene- 
 volence Projects for civilizing savage nations Extravagant expectations of 
 the efficacy of direct instruction, in the lessons of education, and in preaching 
 Reformers apt to overrate the power of means The fancy about the omnipo- 
 tence of truth Our expectations ought to be limited by what we actually see 
 and know of human nature Estimate of that nature Prevalence of passion and 
 appetite against conviction p. 119 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Christianity the grand appointed mean of reforming the world But though the 
 religion itself be a communication from heaven, the administration of it by 
 human agents is to be considered as a merely human mean, excepting so fir as 
 a special divine energy is made to accompany it Its comparatively small 
 success proves in what an extremely limited measure that energy, as yet, accom- 
 panies it Impotence of man to do what it leaves undone Irrational to expect 
 from its progressive administration a measure of success indefinitely surpassing 
 the present state of its operations, till we see some signs ot a great change in the 
 Divine Government of the world Folly of projects to reform mankind which 
 disclaim Religion Nothing in human nature to meet and give effect to the 
 schemes and expedients of the moral revolutionist Wretched state of that 
 nature Sample of the absurd estimates of i:s condition by the irreligious 
 menders of society.. , p. 132 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Melancholy reflections No consolation amidst the mysterious economy but in an 
 assurance that an infinitely good Being presides, and will at length open out a 
 new moral world Yet many moral projectors are solicitous to keep their 
 schemes for the amendment of the world clear of any reference to the Almighty 
 Even good men are guilty of placing too much dependence on subordinate 
 powers and agents The representations in this Essay not intended to depreciate 
 to nothing the worth and use of the whole stock of means, but to reduce them, 
 and the effects to be expected from them, to a sober estimate A humble thing 
 to be a man Inculcation of devout submission, and diligence, and pra5'er 
 Sublime quality and indefinite efficacy of this last, as a mean Conclusion; 
 briefly marking out a few general characters of sentiment and action to which, 
 though very uncommon, the epithet Romantic is unjustly applied p. 130
 
 Contents. 
 
 xxi 
 
 ESSAY IV. 
 
 ON SOME OF THE CAUSES BY WHICH EVANGELICAL RELIGION HAS 
 
 BEEN RENDERED UNACCEPTABLE TO PERSONS OF 
 
 CULTIVATED TASTE. 
 
 LETTER L 
 
 Nature of the displacency with which some of the most peculiar featuies of 
 Christianity are regarded by many cultivated men, who do not deny or doubt 
 the divine authority of the religion Brief notice of the terra Evangelical p. 149 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 One of the causes of the displacency is, that Christianity, being the religion of a 
 {Treat number of persons of weak and uncultivated minds, presents its 
 doctrines to the view of men of taste associated with the characteristics of 
 those minds ; and though some parts of the religion instantaneously 
 redeem themselves from that association by their philosophic dignity, other 
 parts may require a considerable effort to detach them from it This easily 
 done if the men of taste were powerfully pre-occupied and affected by tho 
 religion Reflections of one of them in this case But the men of taste no\y in 
 question are not in this case Several specific causes of injurious impression, 
 from this association of evangelical doctrines and sentiments, with the 
 intellectual littleness of the persons entertaining them Their deficiency and 
 dislike of all strictly intellectual exercise on religion Their reducing the whole 
 of religion to one or two favourite notions, and continually dwelling on them 
 The perfect indifference of some of them to general knowledge, even when not 
 destitute of means of acquiring it; and the consequent voluntary and contented 
 poverty of their religious ideas and language Their admiration of things in a 
 literary sense utterly bad Their complacency in their deficiencies Their 
 injudicious habits and ceremonies Their unfortunate metaphors and similes 
 Suggestion to religious teachers, that they should not run to its last possiblo 
 extent the parallel between the pleasures of piety, and those of eating and 
 drinking Mischief of such practices Effect of the ungracious collision 
 between uncultivated seniors and a young person of literary and philosophic 
 taste Expostulation with this intellectual young person, on the folly and 
 guilt of suffering his mind to take the impression of evangelical religion from 
 anything which he knows to be inferior to that religion itself, as exhibited by the 
 New Testament, and by the most elevated of its disciples p. 154 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Another cause, tlie Peculiarity of Language adopted in religious discourse and 
 writing Classical standard of language The theological deviation from it 
 barbarous Surprise and perplexity of a sensible heathen foreigner who, having 
 learnt our language according to its best standard alone, should be introduced 
 to hear a public evangelical discourse Distinctive characters of this 
 Theological Dialect Reasons .igainst employing it Competence of our 
 language to express all religious ideas without the aid of this uncouth peculiarity 
 Advantages that would attend the use of the language of mere general 
 intelligence, with the addition of an extremely small number of words that may 
 be considered as necessary technical terms in theology p. i;a
 
 xxii Contents. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Answer to the plea, in behalf of the dialect in question, that it is formed from the 
 language of the Bible Description of the manner in which it is so formed 
 This way of employing biblical language very different from simple quotation. 
 Grace and utility with which brief torms of words, whether sentences or single 
 phrases, may be introduced from the Bible, if they are brought in as pure pieces 
 and particles of the sacred composition, set in our own composition as 
 something distict from it and foreign to it But the biblical phraseology in the 
 Theological Dialect, instead of thus appearing in distinct bright points and 
 gems, is modified and mixed up throughout the whole consistence of the diction, 
 so as at once to lose its own venerable character, and to give a pervading 
 uncouthness, without dignity, to the whole composition Let the scripture 
 language be quoted often, but not degraded into a barbarous compound 
 phraseology Even if it were advisable to construct the language of theological 
 instruction in some kind of resemblance to that of the Bible, it would not follow 
 that it should be constructed in imitation of the phraseology of an antique 
 version License to very old theologians to retain in a great degree this peculiar 
 dialect Young ones recommended to learn to employ in religion the language 
 in which cultivated men talk and write on general subjects The vast mass of 
 writing in a comprehensive literary sense bad, on the subjects of evangelical 
 theology, one great cause of the distaste felt by men of intellectual refinement 
 Several kinds of this bad writing specified p. 18 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 A grand cause of displacency encountered by evangelical religion among men of 
 taste is, that the great school in which that taste is formed, that of polite 
 literature, taken in the widest sense of the phrase, is hostile to that religion 
 Modern literature intended principally to be animadverted on Brief notice of 
 the ancient Heathen theology, metaphysics, and morality Harmlessness of 
 the two former; deceptlveness of the last But the chief influence is from so 
 much of the history as may be called Biography, and from the Poetry Homer 
 Manner in which the interest he excites is hostile to the spirit of the Christian 
 religion Virgil p. 201 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 Lucan Influence of the moral sublimity of his heroes Plutarch The 
 Historians Antichristian effect of admiring the moral greatness of the eminent 
 heathens Points of essential difference between excellence according to 
 Christian principles, and the most elevated excellence of the Heathens An 
 unqualified complacency in the latter produces an alienation of affection and 
 admiration from the former p. 212 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 When a communication, declaring the true theory of both religion and morals, 
 was admitted as coming from heaven, it was reasonable to expect that, from the 
 time of this revelation to the end of the world, all by whom it was so admitted 
 \\ould be religiously careful to maintain, in whatever they taught on subjects 
 within its cognizance, a systematic andpunctilious conformity toils principles 
 Absurdity, impiety, and pernicious effect, of disregarding this sovereign claim to 
 conformity The greatest number of our fine writers have incurred this guilt, 
 und done this mischief They are antichristian, in the first place, by omission ; 
 they exclude from their moral sentiments the modifying interference of the- 
 Christian principles Extended illustration of the fact, and of its conse- 
 quences p. 221
 
 Contents. 
 
 xxiu 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 More specific forms of their contrariety to the principles of Revelation Their 
 good man not a Christian Contrasted with St. Paul Their theory of happi- 
 ness essentially different from the evangelical Short statement of both In 
 moralizing on life, they do not habitually consider, and they prevent their readers 
 from considering, the present state as introductory to another Their conso- 
 lations for distress, old age, and death, widely different, on the whole, from those 
 wliirh constitute so much of the value of the Gospel The grandeur and 
 heroism in death, which they have represented with irresistible eloquence, 
 emphatically and perniciously opposite to the Christian doctrine and examples 
 of sublimity and happiness in death Examples from tragedy p. 230 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 The estimate of the depraved moral condition of human nature is quite different 
 
 ity ot this pa 
 
 argued The earnest repression of it shown to be a duty Some of the lighter 
 onler of our popular writers have aided the counteraction of literature to 
 evangelical religion by careless or malignant ridicule of things associated with 
 it Brief notice of the several classes ot fine writers, as lying under the charge 
 of contributing to alienate men of taste from the doctrines and moral spirit of 
 
 the New Testament Moral philosophers Historians Essayists Addison 
 
 Johnson The Poets Exception in favour of Milton. &c. Pope Antichristian 
 
 quality of his Essay on Man Novels Melancholy reflections on the Review 
 
 Conclusion , p- 247
 
 ESSAY I. 
 
 ON A MAN'S WRITING MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 EVERY one knows with what interest it is natural to retrace 
 the course of our own lives. The past states and periods 
 of a man's being are retained in a connection with the pre- 
 sent by that principle of self-love, which is unwilling to 
 relinquish its hold on what has once been his. Though he 
 cannot but be sensible of how little consequence his life can 
 have been in the creation, compared with many other trains 
 of events, yet he has felt it more important to himself than 
 all other trains together; arid you will very rarely find him 
 tired of narrating again the little history, or at least the 
 favourite parts of the little history, of himself. 
 
 To turn this partiality to some account, I recollect having 
 proposed to two or three of my friends, that they should 
 write, each principally however for his own use, memoirs of 
 their own lives, endeavouring not so much to enumerate the 
 mere facts and events of life, as to discriminate the succes- 
 sive states of the mind, and so trace the progress of what 
 may be called the character. In this progress consists the chief 
 importance of life ; but even on an inferior account also to 
 this of what the character has become, and regarded merely 
 as supplying a constant series of interests to the affections 
 and passions, we have all accounted our life an inestimable 
 possession which it deserved incessant cares and labours to 
 retain, and which continues in most cases to be still held 
 with anxious attachment. What has been the object of so 
 much partiality, and has been delighted and pained by so 
 many emotions, might claim, even if the highest interest 
 were out of the question, that a short memorial should be
 
 On a Math Writing 
 
 retained by him who has possessed it, has seen it all to this 
 moment depart, and can never recall it. 
 
 To write memoirs of many years, as twenty, thirty, or 
 forty, seems, at the first glance, a very onerous task. To 
 reap the products of so many acres of earth indeed might, 
 to one person, be an undertaking of mighty toil. But the 
 materials of any value that all past life can supply to a 
 recording pen, would be reduced by a discerning selection 
 to a very small and modest amount. Would as much as 
 one page of moderate size be deemed by any man's self- 
 importance to be due, on an average, to each of the days 
 that he has lived ? No man would judge more than one 
 in ten thousand of all his thoughts, sayings, and actions, 
 worthy to be mentioned, if memory were capable of recalling 
 them.* Necessarily a very large portion of what has occu- 
 pied the successive years of life was of a kind to be utterly 
 useless for a history of it; being merely for the accommoda- 
 tion of the time. Perhaps in the space of forty or fifty years, 
 millions of sentences are proper to be uttered, and many 
 thousands of affairs requisite to be transacted, or of journeys 
 to be performed, which it would be ridiculous to record. 
 They are a kind of material for the common expenditure and 
 waste of the day. Yet it is often by a detail of this sub- 
 ordinate economy of life that the works of fiction, the 
 narratives of age, the journals of travellers, and even grave 
 biographical accounts, are made so unreasonably long. As 
 well might a chronicle of the coats that a man has worn, 
 with the colour and date of each, be called his life, for any 
 important uses of relating its history. As well might a man, 
 of whom I inquire the dimensions, the internal divisions, 
 and the use of some remarkable building, begin to tell me 
 how much wood was employed in the scaffolding, where the 
 mortar was prepared, or how often it rained while the work 
 was proceeding. 
 
 But, in a deliberate review of all that we can remember 
 of past life, it will be possible to select a certain proportion 
 which may with the most propriety be regarded as the his- 
 tory of the man. What I am recommending is, to follow the 
 
 * An exception may be admitted for the few individuals whose daily 
 deliberations, discourses and proceedings, affect the interests of mankind 
 on a grand scale.
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 
 
 order of time, and reduce your recollections, from the earliest 
 period to the present, into as simple a statement and expla- 
 nation as you can, of your feelings, opinions, and habits, and 
 of the principal circumstances through each stage that have 
 influenced them, till they have become at last what they now 
 are. 
 
 Whatever tendencies nature may justly be deemed to 
 have imparted in the first instance, you would probably find 
 the greater part of the moral constitution of your being 
 composed of the contributions of many years and events, 
 consolidated by degrees into what we call character; and by 
 investigating the progress of the accumulation, you would 
 be assisted to judge more clearly how far the materials are 
 valuable, the mixture congruous, and the whole conformation 
 worthy to remain unaltered. With respect to any friend 
 who greatly interests us, we have a curiosity to obtain an 
 accurate account of the past train of his life and feelings ; 
 and whatever other reasons there may be for such a wish, 
 it partly springs from a consciousness how much this 
 retrospective knowledge would assist to complete our esti- 
 mate of that friend; but our estimate of ourselves is of more 
 serious consequence. 
 
 The elapsed periods of life acquire importance too from 
 the prospect of its continuance. The smallest thing rises 
 into consequence when regarded as the commencement of 
 what has advanced, or is advancing, into magnificence. The 
 first rude settlement of Romulus would have been an 
 insignificant circumstance, and might justly have sunk into 
 oblivion, if Rome had not at length commanded the world. 
 The little rill near the source of one of the great American 
 rivers is an interesting object to the traveller, who is apprised, 
 as he steps across it, or walks a few miles along its bank, 
 that this is the stream which runs so far, and which gradually 
 swells into so vast a flood. So, while I anticipate the endless 
 progress of life, and wonder through what unknown scenes 
 it is to take its course, its past years lose that character of 
 vanity which would seem to belong to a train of fleeting, 
 perishing moments, and I see them assuming the dignity 
 of a commencing eternity. In them I have begun to be that 
 conscious existence which I am to be through endless 
 duration ; and I feel a strange emotion of curiosity about 
 this little life, in which I am setting out on such a progress ; 
 
 B 2
 
 On a Man's Writing 
 
 I cannot be content without an accurate sketch of the 
 windings thus far of a stream which is to bear me on for 
 tver. I try to imagine how it will be to recollect, at a far 
 distant point of my era, what I was when here ; and wish 
 if it were possible to retain, as I advance, some clear trace 
 :>f the whole course of my existence within the scope of 
 reflection ; to fix in my mind so strong an idea of what I 
 have been in this original period of my time, that I may 
 possess this idea in ages too remote for calculation. 
 
 The review becomes still more important, when I learn 
 the influence which this first part of the progress will have 
 on the happiness or misery of the next. 
 
 One of the greatest difficulties in the way of executing 
 the proposed task will have been caused by the extreme 
 deficiency of that self-observation, which is of no common 
 habit either of youth or any later age. Men are content to 
 have no more intimate sense of their existence than what 
 they feel in the exercise of their faculties on extraneous 
 objects. The vital being, with all its agency and emotions, 
 is so blended and absorbed in these its exterior interests, 
 that it is very rarely collected and concentrated in the 
 consciousness of its own absolute self, so as to be recognized 
 as a thing internal, apart and alone, for its own inspection 
 and knowledge. Men carry their minds as for the most 
 part they carry their watches, content to be ignorant of the 
 constitution and action within, and attentive only to the little 
 exterior circle of things, to which the passions, like indexes, 
 are pointing. It is surprising to see how little self-knowledge 
 a person not watchfully observant of himself may have 
 gained in the whole course of an active, or even an inquisi- 
 tive life. He may have lived almost an age, and traversed 
 a continent, minutely examining its curiosities, and interpret- 
 ing the half-obliterated characters on its monuments, un- 
 conscious the while of a process operating on his own mind, 
 lo impress or to erase characteristics of much more im- 
 portance to him than all the figured brass or marble that 
 Europe contains. After having explored many a cavern or 
 dark, ruinous avenue, he may have left undetected a darker 
 recess within where there would be much more striking 
 discoveries. He may have conversed with many people, 
 in different languages on numberless subjects ; but, having 
 neglected those conversations with himself by which his
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 
 
 whole moral being should have been kept continually dis- 
 closed to his view, he is better qualified perhaps to describe 
 the intrigues of a foreign court, or the progress of a foreign 
 trade ; to depict the manners of the Italians, or the Turks ; 
 to narrate the proceedings of the Jesuits, or the adventures 
 of the gipsies ; than to write the history of his own mind. 
 
 If we had practised habitual self-observation, we could 
 not have failed to be made aware of much that it had been 
 well for us to know. There have been thousands of feelings, 
 each of which, if strongly seized upon, and made the sub- 
 ject of reflection, would have shown us what our character 
 was, and what it was likely to become. There have been 
 numerous incidents, which operated on us as tests, and so 
 fully brought out our prevailing quality, that another person, 
 who should have been discriminatively observing us, would 
 speedily have formed a decided estimate. But unfortunately 
 the mind is generally too much occupied by the feeling or 
 the incident itself, to have the slightest care or conscious- 
 ness that anything could be learnt, or is disclosed. In ven; 
 early youth it is almost inevitable for it to be thus lost to 
 itself even amidst its own feelings, and the external objects 
 of attention; but it seems a contemptible thing, and cer- 
 tainly is a criminal and dangerous thing, for a man in 
 mature life to allow himself this thoughtless escape from 
 self-examination. 
 
 We have not only neglected to observe what our feelings 
 indicated, but have also in a very great degree ceased to re- 
 member what they were. We may wonder how we could 
 pass away successively from so many scenes and conjunc- 
 tures, 'each in its time of no trifling moment in our apprehen- 
 sion, and retain so light an impression that we have now 
 nothing distinctly to tell about what once excited our utmost 
 emotion. As to my own mind, I perceive that it is becoming 
 uncertain of the exact nature of many feelings of consider- 
 able interest, even of comparatively recent date ; and that 
 the remembrance of what was felt in very early life has nearly 
 faded away. I have just been observing several children of 
 eight or ten years old, in all the active vivacity which enjoys 
 the plenitude of the moment without "looking before or 
 after ; " and while observing, I attempted, but without suc- 
 cess, to recollect what I was at that age. I can indeed re- 
 member the principal events of the period, and the actions
 
 On a Main's Writing 
 
 and projects to which my feelings impelled me ; but the 
 feelings themselves, in their own pure juvenility, cannot be 
 revived so as to be described and placed in comparison with 
 those of later life. What is become of all those vernal fancies 
 which had so much power to touch the heart ? What a 
 number of sentiments have lived and revelled in the soul that 
 are now irrevocably gone ! They died like the singing birds 
 of that time, which sing no more. The life we then had now 
 seems almost as if it could not have been our own. We are 
 like a man returning, after the absence of many years, to visit 
 the embowered cottage where he passed the morning of his 
 life, and finding only a relic of its ruins. 
 
 Thus an oblivious shade is spread over that early tract of 
 our time, where some of the acquired propensities which re- 
 main in force to this hour may have had their origin, in a 
 manner of which we had then no thought or consciousness. 
 When we met with the incident, or heard the conversation, 
 or saw the spectacle, or felt the emotion, which were the first 
 causes or occasions of some of the chief permanent ten- 
 dencies of future life, how little could we think that long 
 afterwards we might be curiously and in vain desirous to 
 investigate those tendencies back to their origin. 
 
 In some occasional states of the mind, we can look back 
 much more clearly, and much further, than at other times. 
 I would advise to seize those short intervals of illumination 
 which sometimes occur without our knowing the cause, and 
 in which the genuine aspect of some remote event, or long- 
 forgotten image, is recovered with extreme distinctness in 
 spontaneous glimpses of thought, such as no effort could have 
 commanded; as the sombre features and minute objects of 
 a distant ridge of hills become strikingly visible in the strong 
 gleams of light which transiently fall on them. An instance 
 of this kind occurred to me but a few hours since, while read- 
 ing what had no perceptible connection with a circumstance 
 of my early youth, which probably I have not recollected for 
 many years, and which was of no unusual interest at the time 
 it happened. That circumstance came suddenly to my mind 
 with a clearness of representation which I was not able to 
 retain to the end of an hour, and which I could not at this 
 instant renew by the strongest effort. I seemed almost to 
 see the walls and windows of a particular room, with four 
 pr five persons in it, who were so perfectly restored to my
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 
 
 imagination, that I could recognize not only the features, but 
 even the momentary expressions, of their countenances, and 
 the tones of their voices. 
 
 According to different states of the mind, too, retrospect 
 appears longer or shorter. It may happen that some me- 
 morable circumstance of very early life shall be so powerfully 
 recalled, as to contract the wide intervening space, by banish- 
 ing from the view, a little while, all the series of intermediate 
 remembrances ; but when this one object of memory retires 
 again to its remoteness and indifference, and all the others 
 resume their proper places and distances, the retrospect 
 appears long. 
 
 Places and things which have an association with any of 
 the events or feelings of past life, will greatly assist the re- 
 collection of them. A man of strong associations finds me- 
 morials of himself already traced on the places where he has 
 conversed with happiness or misery. If an old man wished 
 to animate for a moment the languid and faded ideas which 
 he retains of his youth, he might walk with his crutch 
 across the green, where he once played with companions who 
 are now laid to repose probably in another green spot not far 
 off. An aged saint may meet again some of the affecting 
 ideas of his early piety, in the place where he first found it 
 happy to pray. A walk in a meadow, the sight of a bank of 
 flowers, perhaps even of some one flower, a landscape with 
 the tints of autumn, the descent into a valley, the brow of a 
 mountain, the house where a friend has been met, or has re- 
 sided, or has died, have often produced a much more lively 
 recollection of our past feelings, and of the objects and events 
 which caused them, than the most perfect description could 
 have done ; and we have lingered a considerable time for the 
 pensive luxury of thus resuming the long-departed state. 
 
 But there are many to whom local associations present 
 images which they fervently wish they could exorcise ; images 
 which haunt the places where crimes had been perpetrated, 
 and which seem to approach and glare on the criminal as he 
 hastily passes by, especially if in the evening or the night. 
 No local associations are so impressive as those of guilt. It 
 may here be observed that as each one has his own separate 
 remembrances, giving to some places an aspect and a signifi- 
 cance which he alone can perceive, there must be an unknown 
 number of pleasing, or mournful, or dreadful associations,
 
 8 On a Man's Writing 
 
 spread over the scenes inhabited or visited by men. We pass 
 without any awakened consciousness by the bridge, or the 
 wood, or the house, where there is something to excite the 
 most painful or frightful ideas in another man if he were to 
 go that way, or it may be in the companion who walks along 
 with us. How much there is in a thousand spots of the 
 earth, that is invisible and silent to all but the conscious 
 individual ! 
 
 I hear a voice you cannot hear ; 
 
 I see a hand you cannot see.* 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 WE may regard our past life as a continued though irregular 
 course of education, through an order, or rather disorder of 
 means, consisting of instruction, companionship, reading, 
 and the diversified influences of the. world. The young mind, 
 in the mere natural impulse of its activity, and innocently 
 unthinking of any process it was about to undergo, came for- 
 ward to meet the operation of some or all of these plastic 
 circumstances. It would be worth while to examine in 
 what manner and measure they have respectively had their 
 influence on us. 
 
 Few persons can look back to the early period when they 
 were most directly the subjects of instruction, without a 
 regret for themselves, (which may be extended to the human 
 race,) that the result of instruction, excepting that which 
 leads to evil, bears so small a proportion to its compass and 
 repetition. Yet some good consequence must follow the 
 diligent inculcation of truth and precept on the youthful 
 mind; and our consciousness of possessing certain advan- 
 tages derived from it will be a partial consolation, in the 
 review which will comprise so many proofs of its compara- 
 tive inefficacy. You can recollect, perhaps, the instructions 
 to which you feel yourself permanently the most indebted, 
 and some of those which produced the greatest effect at the 
 
 * I hear a voice you cannot hear, 
 Which says I must not stay ; 
 I see a hand you cannot see, 
 Which beckons me away. 
 
 THOMAS TICKEI.L. " Colin and Lucy."
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 
 
 time, those which surprised, delighted, or mortified you. 
 You can partially remember the facility or difficulty of 
 understanding, the facility or difficulty of believing, and the 
 practical inferences which you drew from principles, on the 
 strength of your own reason, and sometimes in variance 
 with those made by your instructors. You can remember 
 what views of truth and duty were most frequently and 
 cogently presented, what passions were appealed to, what 
 arguments were employed, and which had the greatest in- 
 fluence. Perhaps your present idea of the most convincing 
 and persuasive mode of instruction, may be derived from 
 your early experience of the manner of those persons with 
 whose opinions you felt it the most easy and delightful to 
 harmonize, who gave you the most agreeable consciousness 
 of your faculties expanding to the light, like morning flowers, 
 and who, assuming the least of dictation, exerted the greatest 
 degree of power. You can recollect the submissiveness 
 with which your mind yielded to instructions as from an 
 oracle, or the hardihood with which you dared to examine 
 and oppose them. You can remember how far they became, 
 as to your own conduct, an internal authority of reason and 
 conscience, when you were not under the inspection of those 
 who inculcated them ; and what classes of persons or things 
 around you they contributed to make you dislike or approve. 
 And you can perhaps imperfectly trace the manner and the 
 particulars in which they sometimes aided, or sometimes 
 counteracted, those other influences which have a far stronger 
 efficacy on the character than instruction can boast. 
 
 Some persons can recollect certain particular sentences 
 or conversations which made so deep an impression, perhaps 
 in some instances they can scarcely tell why, that they have 
 been thousands of times recalled, while innumerable others 
 have been forgotten, or they can revert to some striking 
 incident, coming in aid of instruction, or being of itself a 
 forcible instruction, which they seem even now to see as 
 plainly as when it happened, and of which they will retain 
 a perfect idea to the end of life. The most remarkable 
 circumstances of this kind deserve to be recorded in the 
 supposed memoirs. In some instances, to recollect the 
 instructions of a former period will be to recollect too the 
 excellence, the affection, and the death, of the persons who 
 gave them. Amidst the sadness of such a remembrance,
 
 io On a Man's Writing 
 
 it will be a consolation that they are not entirely lost to us. 
 Wise monitions, when they return on us with this melan- 
 choly charm, have more pathetic cogency than when they 
 were first uttered by the voice of a living friend. It will be 
 an interesting occupation of the pensive hour, to recount 
 the advantages which we have received from the beings who 
 have left the world, and to reinforce our virtues from the 
 dust of those who first taught them. 
 
 In our review, we shall find that the companions of our 
 childhood, and of each succeeding period, have had a great 
 influence on our characters. A creature so prone to con- 
 formity as man, and at the same time so capable of being 
 moulded into partial dissimilarity by social antipathies, 
 cannot have conversed with his fellow beings thousands of 
 hours, walked with them thousands of miles, undertaken 
 with them numberless enterprises, smaller and greater, and 
 had every passion, by turns, awakened in their company, 
 without being immensely affected by all this association. 
 A large share, indeed, of the social interest may have been 
 of so common a kind, and with persons of so common an 
 order, that the effect on the character has been too little 
 peculiar to be perceptible during the progress. We were 
 not sensible of it, till we came to some of those circum- 
 stances and changes in life, which make us aware of the state 
 of our minds by the manner in which new objects are accept- 
 able or repulsive to them. On removing into a new circle 
 of society, for instance, we could perceive, by the number of 
 things in which we found ourselves uncomplacent and 
 unconformable with the new acquaintance, the modification 
 which our sentiments had received in the preceding social 
 intercourse. But in some instances we have been in a short 
 time sensible of a powerful force operating on our opinions, 
 tastes, and habits, and reducing them to a greatly altered 
 cast. This effect is inevitable, if a young susceptible mind 
 happens to become familiarly acquainted with a person in 
 whom a strongly individual character is sustained and 
 dignified by uncommon mental resources ; and it may be 
 found that, generally, the greatest measure of effect has been 
 produced by the influence of a very small number of persons ; 
 often of one only, whose master-spirit had more power to 
 surround and assimilate a young ingenuous being, than the 
 collective influence of a multitude of the persons, whose
 
 Memoirs of Himself. n 
 
 characters were moulded in the manufactory of custom, and 
 sent forth like images of clay of kindred shape and varnish 
 from a pottery. I am supposing, all along, that the person 
 who writes memoirs of himself, is conscious of something 
 more peculiar than a mere dull resemblance of that ordinary 
 form and insignificance of character, which it strangely 
 depreciates our nature to see such a multitude exemplifying. 
 As to the crowd of those who are faithfully stamped, like 
 bank notes, with the same marks, with the difference only 
 of being worth more guineas or fewer, they are mere particles 
 of a class, mere pieces and bits of the great vulgar or the 
 small ; they need not write their history, it may be found in 
 the newspaper chronicle, or the gossip's or the sexton's 
 narrative. 
 
 It is obvious, in what I have suggested respecting the 
 research through past life, that all the persons who are 
 recalled to the mind, as having had an influence on us, must 
 stand before it in judgment. It is impossible to examine 
 our moral and intellectual growth without forming an esti- 
 mate, as we proceed, of those who retarded, advanced, or 
 perverted it. Our dearest relations and friends cannot be 
 exempted. There will be in some instances the necessity of 
 blaming where we would wish to give entire praise ; though 
 perhaps some worthy motives and generous feelings may, 
 at the same time, be discovered in the conduct, where they 
 had hardly been perceived or allowed before. But, at any 
 rate, it is important that in no instance the judgment be 
 duped into delusive estimates, amidst the examination, and 
 so as to compromise the principles of the examination, by 
 which we mean to bring ourselves to rigorous justice. For 
 if any indulgent partiality, or mistaken idea, of that duty 
 which requires a kind and candid feeling to accompany the 
 clearest discernment of defects, may be permitted to beguile 
 our judgment out of the decisions of justice in favour of 
 others, self-love, a still more indulgent and partial feeling, 
 will not fail to practise the same beguilement in favour of 
 ourselves. But indeed it would seem impossible, besides 
 being absurd, to apply one set of principles to judge of our- 
 selves, and another to judge of those with whom we have 
 associated. 
 
 Every person of tolerable education has been considerably 
 influenced by the books he has read ; and remembers with a
 
 12 On a Man's Writing 
 
 kind of gratitude several of those that made without injury 
 the earliest and the strongest impression. It is pleasing at 
 a more advanced period to look again into the early favour- 
 ites ; though the mature person may wonder how some of 
 them had once power to absorb his passions, make him re- 
 tire into a lonely wood in order to read unmolested, repel the 
 approaches of sleep, or, when it came, infect it with visions. 
 A capital part of the proposed task would be to recollect the 
 books that have been read with the greatest interest, the 
 periods when they were read, the partiality which any of them 
 inspired to a particular mode of life, to a study, to a system 
 of opinions, or to a class of human characters ; to note the 
 counteraction of later ones (where we have been sensible of 
 it) to the effect produced by the former ; and then to endea- 
 vour to estimate the whole and ultimate influence. 
 
 Considering the multitude of facts, sentiments, and cha- 
 racters, which have been contemplated by a person who has 
 read much, the effect, one should think, must have been very 
 great. Still, however, it is probable that a very small num- 
 ber of books will have the pre-eminence in our mental history. 
 Perhaps your memory will promptly recur to six or ten that 
 have contributed more to your present habits of feeling and 
 thought than all the rest together. It may be observed here, 
 that when a few books of the same kind have pleased us 
 emphatically, it is a possible ill consequence that they may 
 create an almost exclusive taste, which is carried through 
 all future reading, and is pleased only with books of that 
 kind. 
 
 It might be supposed that the scenes of nature, an amaz- 
 ing assemblage of phenomena if their effect were not lost 
 through familiarity, would have a powerful influence on open- 
 ing minds, and transfuse into the internal economy of ideas 
 and sentiment something of a character and a colour corres- 
 pondent to the beauty, vicissitude, and grandeur, which 
 press on the senses. They have this effect on minds of 
 genius ; and Beattie's Minstrel may be as just as it is a 
 captivating description of the perceptions and emotions of 
 such a spirit/ 1 ' But on the greatest number this influence 
 
 * Beattie's famous poem of "The Minstrel " traces the progress of a 
 poetical genius, born in a rude age, from the first dawning of fancy and 
 reason, till that period at which he may be supposed capable of appearing 
 in the world as a minstrel.
 
 Memoirs of Himself 13 
 
 operates feebly ; you will not see the process in children, nor 
 the result in mature persons. That significance is unfelt, 
 which belongs to the beauties of nature as something more 
 than their being merely objects of the senses. And in many 
 instances even the senses themselves are so deficient in 
 attention, so idly passive, and therefore apprehend these 
 objects so slightly, undefinedly, and transiently, that it is no 
 wonder the impressions do not go so much deeper than the 
 senses as to infuse a mood of sentiment, awaken the mind 
 to thoughtful and imaginative action, and form in it an order 
 of feelings and ideas congenial with what is fair and great in 
 external nature. This defect of sensibility and fancy is un- 
 fortunate amidst a creation infinitely rich with grand and 
 beautiful objects, which can impart to a mind adapted and 
 habituated to converse with nature an exquisite sentiment, 
 that seems to come as by an emanation from a spirit dwelling 
 in those objects. It is unfortunate I have thought within 
 these few minutes while looking out on one of the most 
 enchanting nights of the most interesting season of the year, 
 and hearing the voices of a company of persons, to whom I 
 can perceive that this soft and solemn shade over the earth, 
 the calm sky, the beautiful stripes of cloud, the stars, the 
 waning moon just risen, are things not in the least more 
 interesting than the walls, ceiling, and candle-light of a room. 
 I feel no vanity in this instance ; for perhaps a thousand 
 aspects of night not less striking than this, have appeared 
 before my eyes and departed, not only without awaking 
 emotion, but almost without attracting notice. 
 
 If minds in general are not made to be strongly affected 
 by the phenomena of the earth and heavens, they are 
 however all subject to be powerfully influenced by the 
 appearances and character of the human world. I suppose 
 a child in Switzerland, growing up to a man, would have 
 acquired incomparably more of the cast of his mind from 
 the events, manners, and actions of the next village, 
 though its inhabitants were but his occasional companions, 
 than from all the mountain scenes, the cataracts, and every 
 circumstance of beauty or sublimity in nature around him 
 We are all true to our species, and very soon feel its im- 
 portance to us, (though benevolence be not the basis of the 
 interest,) far beyond the importance of anything that we 
 see besides. Beginning your observation with children,
 
 14 On a Man's Writing 
 
 you may have noted how instantly they will turn their 
 attention away from any of the aspects of nature, however 
 rare or striking, if human objects present themselves to 
 view in any active manner. This "leaning to our kind" 
 brings each individual not only under the influence attend- 
 ing immediate association with a few, but under the opera- 
 tion of numberless influences, from all the moral diversities 
 of which he is a spectator in the living world ; a complicated 
 though insensible tyranny, of which every fashion, folly, 
 and vice, may exercise its part. 
 
 Some persons would be able to recollect very strong and 
 influential impressions made, in almost the first years of 
 life, by some of the events and appearances which they 
 witnessed in surrounding society. But whether the opera- 
 tion on us of the formative power of the community began 
 with impressions of extraordinary force or not, it has been 
 prolonged through the whole course of our acquaintance 
 with mankind. It is no little effect for the living world to 
 have had on us, that very many of our present opinions are 
 owing to what we have seen and experienced in it. That 
 thinking which has involuntarily been kept in exercise on 
 it, however remiss and desultory, could not fail to result in 
 a number of settled notions, which may be said to be shaped 
 upon its facts and practices. We could not be in sight of 
 it, and in intercourse with it, without the formation of 
 opinions adjusted to what we found in it ; and thus far it 
 has been the creator of our mental economy. But its opera- 
 tion has not stopped here. It will not confine itself to 
 occupying the understanding, and yield to be a mere subject 
 for judgments to be formed upon ; but all the while that the 
 observer is directing on it the exercise of his judicial capa- 
 city, it is reactively throwing on him various moral in- 
 fluences and infections. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 A PERSON capable of being deeply interested, and ac- 
 customed to reflect on his feelings, will have observed in 
 himself this subjection to the influences of what has been 
 presented to him in society. Their force may have been 
 sufficient in some instances to go far toward new-modelling
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 15 
 
 the habit of the mind. Recollect your own experience. 
 After witnessing some remarkabletransaction, or some new 
 and strange department of life and manners, or some striking 
 disclosure of character, or after listening to some extra- 
 ordinary conversation, or impressive recital of facts, you may 
 have been conscious that what you have heard or seen has 
 given your mind some one strong determination of a nature 
 resulting from the quality of that which has made the im- 
 pression. It is true, that your receiving the effect in this 
 one manner implies the existence of an adapted predisposi- 
 tion, for many other persons might not have been similarly 
 affected; yet the newly-acquired impulse might be so 
 different from the former action of your mind, and at the 
 same time so strong, as to give you the consciousness of a 
 greatly altered moral being. In the state thus suddenly 
 formed, some of the previously existing dispositions had 
 .sunk subordinate, while others, which had been hitherto 
 inert, were grown into an imperious prevalence : or even a 
 new one appeared to have been originated.* While this 
 state continues, a man is in character another man ; and if 
 the moral tendency thus excited or created, could be pro- 
 longed into the sequel of his life, the difference might be 
 such, that it would be by means only of his person that he 
 would be recognized for the same ; while an observer 
 ignorant of the cause would be perplexed and surprised at 
 the change. Now this permanence of the new moral 
 direction might be effected, if the impression which causes 
 it were so intensely powerful as to haunt him ever after ; 
 or if he were subjected to a long succession of impressions 
 of the same tendency, without any powerfully opposite ones 
 intervening to break the process. 
 
 You have witnessed perhaps a scene of injustice and 
 oppression, and have retired with an indignation which has 
 imprecated vengeance. Now supposing that the image of 
 this scene were to be revived in your mind, in all its odious- 
 ness, as often as any iniquitous circumstance in society 
 should present itself to your notice, and that you had an 
 entire persuasion that your feeling was the pure indignation 
 of virtue ; or, supposing that you were repeatedly to witness 
 
 * So great an effect, however, as this last, is perhaps rarely experienced 
 from even the most powerful causes, except in early life.
 
 1 6 On a Man's Writing 
 
 similar instances, without diminution of the abhorrence by 
 familiarity with them ; the consequence might be that you 
 would acquire the spirit of Draco* or Minos. f 
 
 It is easy to imagine the impression of a few atrocious 
 facts on an ardent constitution, converting a humane horror 
 of cruelty into the vindictive fanaticism of Montbar, the 
 Buccaneer.^ A person of gentler sensibility, by accidentally 
 witnessing a scene of distress, of which none of the cir- 
 cumstances caused disgust toward the sufferers, or indigna- 
 tion against others as the cause of the suffering, having 
 once tasted the pleasure of soothing woes which perhaps 
 death alone can terminate, might be led to seek other 
 instances of distress, acquire both an aptitude and a 
 partiality for the charitable office, and become a pensive 
 philanthropist. The repulsion which has struck the ob- 
 server of some extravagance of ostentatious wealth, or some 
 excess of frivolity and dissipation, and acted on him again at. 
 sight of every succeeding and inferior instance of the same 
 kind, with a greater force than -would have been felt in these 
 inferior instances, if the offensive effect did not run into the 
 vestiges of the first indelible impression, may produce a 
 cynic or a miser, a recluse or a philosopher. Numberless 
 other illustrations might be brought to show how much the 
 characters of human beings, entering on life with unwarned 
 carelessness of heart, are at the mercy of the incalculable 
 influences which may strike them from any point of the 
 surrounding world. 
 
 It is true that, notwithstanding so many influences are 
 acting on men, and some of them apparently of a kind and 
 of a force to produce in their subjects a notable peculiarity, 
 comparatively few characters determinately marked from all 
 around them are found to arise. In looking on a large 
 company of -persons whose dispositions and pursuits are 
 substantially alike, we cannot doubt that several of them 
 
 * Draco, an Athenian lawgiver, whose code punished almost all crimes 
 with death. 
 
 f Minos was a king and lawgiver in Crete, and so distinguished 
 for his incorruptible justice, that, after death, he was made supreme judge 
 in the lower regions. 
 
 % See " A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and 
 Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies," translated from the 
 French of the Abbe Raynal, 8 vols., London, 1783.
 
 Memoirs of Himself, 17 
 
 have met with circumstances, of which the natural tendency 
 must have been to give them a determination of mind ex- 
 tremely dissimilar to the character of those whom they now 
 so much resemble. And why does the influence of such 
 circumstances fail to produce such a result? Partly, because 
 the influences which are of a more peculiar and specific 
 operation are overborne and lost in that wide general influ- 
 ence, which accumulates and conforms each individual to the 
 crowd ; and partly, because even were there no such general 
 influence to steal away the impressions of a more peculiar 
 tendency, few minds are of so fixed and faithful a consistence 
 as to retain, in continued efficacy, impressions of a kind 
 which the common course of life is not adapted to reinforce, 
 nor prevailing example to confirm. The mind of the greater 
 proportion of human beings, if attempted to be wrought into 
 any boldly specific form, proves like a half-fluid substance, in 
 which angles or circles, or any other figures may be cut, but 
 which recovers, while you are looking, its former state, and 
 closes them up ; or like a quantity of dust, which may be 
 raised into momentary reluctant shapes, but which is relaps- 
 ing, amidst the operation, towards its undefined mass. 
 
 But if characters of strong individual peculiarity are some- 
 what rare, such as are marked with the respective distinc- 
 tions which discriminate moral classes are very numerous ; 
 the decidedly avaricious for instance ; the devoted slaves of 
 fashion ; and the eager aspirers to power, in however con- 
 fined a sphere, the little Alexanders of a mole-hill, quite as 
 ambitious, in their way, as the great Alexander of a world. 
 It is observable here, how much more largely the worse pro- 
 minences of human character meet our attention than the 
 better. And it is a melancholy illustration of the final basis 
 of character, human nature itself, that both the distinctions 
 which designate a bad class, and those which constitute a 
 bad individual peculiarity, are attained with far the greatest 
 frequency and facility. While, however, I have the most 
 entire conviction of this mighty inclination to evil, which is 
 the grand cause of all the diversified forms of evil ; and 
 while, at the same time, I hold the vulgar belief of a great 
 native difference between men, in the original temperament 
 of those principles, which are to be unfolded by the progress 
 of time into intellectual powers and moral dispositions ; I yet 
 cannot but perceive that the immediate and occasional causes 
 
 c
 
 1 8 On a Man's Writing 
 
 of the greater portion of the prominent actual character of 
 human beings, are to be found in those moral elements 
 through which they pass. And if one might be pardoned for 
 putting in words so fantastic an idea, as that of its being 
 possible for a man to live back again to his infancy, through 
 all the scenes of his life, and to give back from his mind and 
 character, at each time and circumstance, as he repassed it, 
 exactly that which he took from it, when he was there before, 
 it would be most curious to see the fragments and exuvice of 
 the moral man lying here and there along the retrograde 
 path, and to find what he was in the beginning of this train 
 of modifications and acquisitions. Nor can it be doubted 
 that any man, whose native tendencies were ever so deter- 
 minate, and who has passed through a course of events and 
 interests adapted to develop and confirm them according 
 to their determination, might, by being led through a different 
 train, counteractive to those native tendencies, have been an 
 extremely different man from what he now is. I am sup- 
 posing his mind to be in either case equally cultivated, and 
 referring to another kind of difference than that which would 
 in any case be made by the different measure or quantity, if 
 I may express it so, of intellectual attainment. 
 
 Here a person of your age might pause, and look back 
 with great interest on the world of circumstances through 
 which life has been drawn. Consider what thousands of 
 situations, appearances, incidents, persons, you have been 
 present with, each in its time. The review would carry you 
 over something like a chaos, with all the moral, and all other 
 elements, confounded together ; and you may reflect till you 
 begin almost to wonder how an individual retains the same 
 essence through all the diversities, vicissitudes, and counter- 
 actions of influence, that operate on it during its progress 
 through the confusion. While the essential being might, 
 however, defy the universe to extinguish, absorb, or trans- 
 mute it, you will find it has come out with dispositions and 
 habits which will show where it has been, and what it has 
 undergone. You may descry on it the marks and colours of 
 many of the things by which it has, in passing, been touched 
 or arrested. 
 
 Consider the number of meetings with acquaintance, 
 friends, or strangers ; the number of conversations you have 
 held or heard : the number of exhibitions of good or evil,
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 19 
 
 virtue or vice ; the number of occasions on which you have 
 been disgusted or pleased, moved to admiration or to abhor- 
 rence ; the number of times that you have contemplated the 
 town, the rural cottage, or verdant fields ; the number of 
 volumes you have read ; the times that you have looked over 
 the present state of the world, or gone by means of history 
 into past ages; the number of comparisons of yourself with 
 other persons, alive or dead, and comparisons of them with 
 one another ; the number of solitary musings, of solemn 
 contemplations of night, of the successive subjects of 
 thought, and of animated sentiments that have been kindled 
 and extinguished. Add all the hours and causes of sorrow 
 which you have known. Through this lengthened, and, if 
 the number could be told, stupendous multiplicity of things, 
 you have advanced, while all their heterogeneous myriads 
 have darted influences upon you, each one of them having 
 some definable tendency. A traveller round the globe would 
 not meet a greater variety of seasons, prospects, and winds, 
 than you might have recorded of the circumstances capable 
 of affecting your character, during your journey of life. 
 You could not wish to have drawn to yourself the agency 
 of a vaster diversity of causes ; you could not wish, on the 
 supposition that you had gained advantage from all these, 
 to wear the spoils of a greater number of regions. The 
 formation of the character from so many materials reminds 
 one of that mighty appropriating attraction, which, on the 
 fanciful hypothesis that the resurrection should re-assemble 
 the same particles which composed the body before, must 
 draw them from dust, and trees, and animals, from ocean, 
 and winds. 
 
 It would scarcely be expected that a being which should 
 be conducted through such anarchy of discipline, in which 
 the endless crowd of influential powers seem waiting, each 
 to take away what the last had given, should be permitted 
 to acquire, or to retain, any settled form of qualities at all. 
 The more probable result would be, either several qualities dis- 
 agreeing with one another, or a blank neutrality. And in 
 fact, a great number of nearly such neutralities are found 
 everywhere ; persons, who, unless their sharing of the general 
 properties of human nature, a little modified by the insigni- 
 ficant distinction of some large class, can be called character, 
 have no character. It is therefore somewhat Strange, if you, 
 
 c 2
 
 20 On a Man's Writing 
 
 and if other individuals, have come forth with moral features 
 of a strongly marked and consistently combined cast, from 
 the infinity of miscellaneous impressions. If the process has 
 been so complex, how comes the result to be apparently so 
 simple ? How has it happened that the collective effect of 
 these numerous and jarring operations on your mind, is that 
 which only a few of these operations would have seemed 
 adapted to produce, and quite different from that which many 
 others of them should naturally have produced, and do ac- 
 tually produce in many other persons ? Here you will per- 
 ceive that some one capital determination must long since 
 have been by some means established in your mind, and 
 that, during your progress, this predominant determination 
 has kept you susceptible of the effect of some influences, 
 and fortified against many others. Now, what was the pre- 
 vailing determination, whence did it come, how did it acquire 
 its power ? Was it an original tendency and insuppressible 
 impulse of your nature; or the result of your earliest im- 
 pressions ; or of some one class of impressions repeated 
 oftener than any other; or of one single impression of ex- 
 treme force ? What was it, and whence did it come ? This 
 is the great secret in the history of character ; for, it is scarcely 
 necessary to observe, that as soon as the mind is under the 
 power of a predominant tendency, the difficulty of growing 
 into the maturity of that form of character, which this ten- 
 dency promotes or creates, is substantially over. Because, 
 when a determined principle is become ascendant, it not 
 only produces a partial insensibility to all impressions that 
 would counteract it, but also continually augments its own 
 ascendency, by means of a faculty or fatality of finding out 
 everything, and attracting to itself every cause of impression, 
 that is adapted to coalesce with it and strengthen it ; like 
 the instinct of animals, which instantly selects from the 
 greatest variety of substances those which are fit for their 
 nutriment. Let a man have some leading and decided pro- 
 pensity, and it will be surprising to see how many more 
 things he will find, and how many more events will happen, 
 than any one could have imagined, of a nature to reinforce 
 it. And sometimes even circumstances which seemed of 
 an entirely counteractive order, are strangely seduced by 
 this predominant principle into an operation that confirms it ; 
 just in the same manner as polemics most self-complacently
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 21 
 
 avow their opinions to be more firmly established by the 
 strongest objections of the opponent. 
 
 It would be easy to enlarge without end on the influences 
 of the surrounding world in forming the character of each 
 individual. Yet while there is no denying that such in- 
 fluences are effectively operating, a man may be unwill- 
 ing to allow that he has been quite so servilely passive 
 as he would probably find that he has been, if it were 
 possible for him to make a complete examination. He may 
 be disposed to think that his reason has been an independent 
 power, has kept a strict watch, and passed a right judgment 
 on his moral progress, has met the circumstances of the ex- 
 ternal world on terms of examination and authority, and has 
 permitted only such impressions to be received, or at least 
 only such consequences to follow from them, as it wisely 
 approved. But I would tell him, that he has been a very 
 extraordinary man, if the greater part of his time has not 
 been spent entirely without a thought of reflecting what im- 
 pressions were made on him, or what their tendency might 
 be ; and even without a consciousness that the effect of any 
 impressions was of importance to his moral habits. He 
 may be assured that he has been subjected to many gentle, 
 gradual processes, and has met many critical occasions, on 
 which, and on the consequences of which to himself, he 
 exercised no attention or opinion. And again, it is unfortu- 
 nately true, that even should attention be awake, and opinions 
 be formed, the faculty which forms them is very servile to 
 the other parts of the human constitution. If it could be 
 extrinsic to the man, a kind of domestic Pythia, or an atten- 
 dant genius, like the demon of Socrates,* it might then be a 
 dignified regulator of the influences which are acting on his 
 character, to decide what should or should not be permitted 
 to affect him, and in what manner; though even then its dis- 
 approving dictates might fail against some extremely power- 
 ful impression which might give a temporary bias, and such 
 repetitions of that impression as should confirm it. But the 
 case is, that this faculty, though mocked with imperial names, 
 being condemned to dwell in the company of far more active 
 
 * Socrates was under the belief that a divine voice (afterwards spoken 
 of as his Damon or Genius') habitually interfered to restrain him from 
 certain actions
 
 22 On a Man's Writing 
 
 powers than itself, and earlier exercised, becomes humbly 
 obsequious to them. Thepassionseasily beguile thismajestic 
 reason, or judgment, into neglect, or bribe it into acquies- 
 cence, or repress it into silence, while they receive the im- 
 pressions, and while they acquire from those impressions, 
 that determinate direction, which will constitute the cha- 
 racter. If, after thus much is done during the weakness, or 
 without the notice, or without the leave, or under the conni- 
 vance or corruption of the judgment, it be called upon to 
 perform its part in estimating the quality and actual effect 
 of the modifying influences, it has to perform this judicial 
 work with just that degree of rectitude which it can have 
 acquired and maintained under the operation of those very 
 influences. In acting the judge, it is itself in subjection to 
 the effect of those impressions of which its office was, to 
 have previously decided whether they should not be 
 strenuously repelled. Thus its opinions will unconsciously 
 be perverted ; like the answers of the ancient oracles, dic- 
 tated for the imaginary god by beings of a very terrestrial 
 sort, though the sly intervention could not be perceived. 
 It is quite a vulgar observation, how pleased a man may 
 be with the formation of his own character, though you smile 
 at the gravity of his persuasion, that his tastes, preferences, 
 and qualities, have on the whole grown up under the sacred 
 and faithful guardianship of judgment, while, in fact, his 
 judgment has accepted every bribe that has been offered to 
 betray him. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 You will agree with me, that in a comprehensive view of the 
 influences which have formed, and are forming, the characters 
 of men, we shall find, religion excepted, but little cause to 
 felicitate our species. Make the supposition that any assort- 
 ment of persons, of sufficient number to comprise the most 
 remarkable distinctions of character, should write memoirs 
 of themselves, so exactly and honestly telling the story, and 
 exhibiting so clearly the most effective circumstances, as to 
 explain, to your discernment at least, if not to their own con- 
 sciousness, the main process by which their minds have at- 
 tained their present state. If they were to read these memoirs
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 23 
 
 to you in succession, and if your benevolence could so long 
 be maintained in full exercise, and your rules for estimating 
 lost nothing of their determinate principle in their applica- 
 tion to such a confusion of subjects, you would often, during 
 the disclosure, regret to observe how many things may be the 
 causes of irretrievable mischief. Why is the path of life, 
 you would say, so haunted as if with evil spirits of every 
 diversity of noxious agency, some of which may patiently 
 accompany, or others of which may suddenly cross, the un- 
 fortunate wanderer ? And you would regret to observe into 
 how many forms of intellectual and moral perversion the 
 human mind readily yields itself to be modified. 
 
 As one of the number concluded the account of himself, 
 your observation would be, I perceive with compassion the 
 process under which you have become a misanthropist. If 
 your juvenile ingenuous ardour had not been chilled on 
 your entrance into society, where your most favourite sen- 
 timents were not at all comprehended by some, and by others 
 deemed wise and proper enough perhaps for the people 
 of the millennium ; if you had not felt the mortification of 
 relations being uncongenial, of persons whom you were 
 anxious to render happy being indifferent to your kindness, or 
 of apparent friendships proving treacherous or transitory; if 
 you had not met with such striking instances of hopeless 
 stupidity in the vulgar, or of vain self-importance in the 
 learned, or of the coarse or supercilious arrogance of the 
 persons whose manners were always regulated by the con- 
 sideration of the proportion of gold and silver by which they 
 were better than you ; if your mortifications had not given 
 you a keen faculty of perceiving the all-pervading selfishness 
 of mankind, while, in addition, you had perhaps a peculiar 
 opportunity to observe the apparatus of systematic villany, 
 by which combinations of men are able to arm their sel- 
 fishness to oppress or ravage the world you might even 
 now, perhaps, have been the persuasive instructor of beings, 
 concerning whom you are wondering why they should have 
 been made in the form of rationals ; you might have con- 
 ciliated to yourself and to goodness, where you repel and 
 are repelled ; you might have been the apostle and pattern 
 of benevolence, instead of envying the powers and vocation 
 of a destroying angel. Yet not that the world should bear 
 all the blame. Frail and changeable in virtue, you might
 
 24 On a Man's Writing 
 
 perhaps have been good under a series of auspicious cir- 
 cumstances ;- but the glory had been to be victoriously good 
 against malignant ones. Moses lost none of his generous 
 concern for a people, on whom you would have invoked the 
 waters of Noah or the fires of Sodom to return ; and that 
 Greater than Moses, who endured from men such a match- 
 less excess of injustice, while for their sake alone he so- 
 journed and suffered on earth, was not alienated to misan- 
 thropy, in his life, or at his death. 
 
 A second sketch might exhibit external circumstances not 
 producing any effect more serious than an intellectual stag- 
 nation. When it was concluded, your reflection might be, 
 if I did not know that mental freedom is a dangerous thing, 
 peculiarly in situations where the possessor would feel it a 
 singular attainment ; and if I did not prefer even the qui- 
 escence of unexamining belief, when tolerably right in the 
 most material points, to the indifference or scepticism which 
 feels no assurance or no importance in any belief, or to the 
 weak presumption that darts into the newest and most daring 
 opinions as therefore true I should deplore that your life 
 was destined to preserve its sedate course so entirely un- 
 animated by the intellectual novelties of the age, the agita- 
 tions of ever-moving opinion ; and under the habitual and 
 exclusive influence of one individual, worthy perhaps and 
 in a certain degree sensible, but of contracted views, whom 
 you have been taught and accustomed to regard as the 
 comprehensive repository of all the truth requisite for you 
 to know, and from whom you have derived, as some of 
 your chief acquisitions, a contented assurance that the trouble 
 of inquiry is needless, and a superstitious horror of inno- 
 vation, without even knowing what points are threatened 
 by it. 
 
 At the end of another's disclosure, you would say, How 
 unfortunate, that you could not believe there might be 
 respectable and valuable men, who were not born to be 
 wits or poets. And how unfortunate were those first even- 
 ings that you were privileged to listen to a company of 
 men, who could say more fine things in an hour than their 
 biographers will be able, even with the customary aid of 
 laudatory fiction, to record them to have done in the whole 
 space of life. It was then you discovered that you too 
 were of the progeny of Apollo, and that you had been
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 25 
 
 iniquitously transferred at your nativity into the hands of 
 ignorant foster-parents, who had endeavoured to degrade 
 and confine you to the sphere of regular employments and 
 sober satisfactions. But, you would " tower up to the 
 region of your sire." You saw what wonderful things 
 might be found to be said on all subjects ; you found it not 
 so very difficult yourself to say different things from other 
 people : and everything that was not common dulness, was 
 therefore pointed, everything that was not sense by any 
 vulgar rule, was therefore sublime. You adopted a certain 
 vastitude of phrase, mistaking extravagance of expression 
 for greatness of thought. You set yourself to dogmatize 
 on books, and the abilities of men, but especially on their 
 prejudices ; and perhaps to demolish, with the air of an 
 exploit, some of the trite observations and maxims current 
 in society. You awakened and surprised your imagination, 
 by imposing on it a strange new tax of colours and meta- 
 phors ; a tax reluctantly and uncouthly paid, but perhaps 
 in some one instance so luckily, as to gain the applause of 
 the gifted (if they were not merely eccentric) men, into 
 whose company you had been elated by admittance. This 
 was to you the proof and recognition of fraternity : and it 
 has since been the chief question that has interested you 
 with each acquaintance and in each company, whether they 
 too could perceive what you were so happy to have dis- 
 covered, yet so anxious that the acknowledgment of others 
 should confirm. Your own persuasion, however, became 
 as pertinacious as ivy climbing a wall. It was almost of 
 course to attend to necessary pursuits with reluctant irregu- 
 larity, though suffering by the consequences of neglecting 
 them, and to feel indignant that genius should be reproached 
 for the disregard of these ordinary duties and employments 
 to which it ought never to have been subjected. 
 
 During a projector's story of life and misfortunes, you 
 might regret that he should ever have heard of Harrison's 
 time-piece,* the perpetual motion, or the Greek fire.f 
 
 * John Harrison, celebrated as the inventor of the time-piece for ascer- 
 taining the longitude at sea, 1693-1776. 
 
 f Greek fire is a composition supposed to have been of nitre, sulphur, 
 and naphtha as a leading ingredient, with which the I Greeks of the 
 Byzantine empire used to defend themselves against their Saracen foes.
 
 26 On a Man's Writing 
 
 After an antiquary's history, you might be allowed to 
 congratulate yourself on not having fallen under the spell 
 which confines a human soul to inhabit, like a spider in 
 one of the corners, a dusty room, consecrated with religious 
 solemnity to old coins, rusty knives, illuminated mass 
 books, swords and spurs of forgotten kings, and slippers of 
 their queens ; with perhaps a Roman helmet, the acquisi- 
 tion of which was the first cause of the collection and of 
 the passion, elevated imperially over the relics of kings and 
 queens and the whole museum, as the eagle was once in 
 "proud eminence" over subjugated kingdoms. And you 
 might be inclined to say, I wish that helmet had been a 
 pan for charcoal, or had been put on the head of one of 
 the quiet equestrian warriors in the Tower, or had aided 
 the rattlings of Sir Godfrey, haunting the baron's castle 
 where he was murdered, or had been worn by Don Quixote, 
 instead of the barber's basin, or had been the cauldron of 
 Macbeth's witches, or had been in any other shape, place, 
 or use, rather than dug up an antiquity, in a luckless hour, 
 in a bank near your garden. 
 
 I compassionate you, would, in a very benevolent hour, be 
 your language to the wealthy unfeeling tyrant of a family 
 and a neighbourhood ', who seeks, in the overawed timidity 
 and unretaliated injuries of the unfortunate beings within his 
 power, the gratification that should have been sought in their 
 happiness. Unless you had brought into the world some 
 extraordinary refractoriness, to the influence of evil, the pro- 
 cess that you have undergone could not fail of being effica- 
 cious. If your parents idolized their own importance in their 
 son so much, that they never themselves opposed your incli- 
 nations, nor permitted it to be done by any subject to their 
 authority; if the humble companion, sometimes summoned 
 to the honour of amusing you, bore your caprices and inso- 
 lence with the meekness without which he had lost his 
 privilege; if you could despoil the garden of some harmless 
 dependent neighbour of the carefully-reared flowers, and 
 torment his little dog or cat, without his daring to punish 
 you or to appeal to your infatuated parents ; if aged men 
 addressed you in a submissive tone, and with the appellation 
 of " Sir," and their aged wives uttered their wonder at your 
 condescension, and pushed their grandchildren away from 
 around the fire for your sake, if you happened, though with
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 
 
 the strut of supercilious pertness, and your hat on your head, 
 to enter one of their cottages, perhaps to express your con- 
 tempt of the homely dwelling, furniture, and fare ; if, in 
 maturer life, you associated with vile persons, who would 
 forego the contest of equality, to be your allies in trampling 
 on inferiors; and if, both then and since, you have been 
 suffered to deem your wealth the compendium or equivalent 
 of every ability, and every good quality it would indeed be 
 immensely strange if you had not become, in due time, the 
 miscreant, who may thank the power of the laws in civilized 
 society, that he is not assaulted with clubs and stones ; to 
 whom one could cordially wish the opportunity and the con- 
 sequences of attempting his tyranny among some such 
 people as those submissive sons of nature in the forests of 
 North America ; and whose dependents and domestic 
 relations may be almost forgiven when they shall one day 
 rejoice at his funeral. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 I WILL imagine only one case more, on which you would 
 emphatically express your compassion, though for one of the 
 most daring beings in the creation, a contemner of God, who 
 explodes his laws by denying. 
 
 If you were so unacquainted with mankind, that such a 
 being might be announced to you as a rare or singular 
 phenomenon, your conjectures, till you saw and heard the 
 man, at the nature and the extent of the discipline through 
 which he must have advanced, would be led toward some- 
 thing extraordinary. And you might think that the term of 
 that discipline must have been very long; since a quick train 
 of impressions, a short series of mental gradations, within 
 the little space of a few months and years, would not seem 
 enough to have matured such a portentous heroism. Surely 
 the creature that thus lifts his voice, and defies all invisible 
 power within the possibilities of infinity, challenging what- 
 ever unknown being may hear him, and may appropriate 
 that title of Almighty which is pronounced in scorn, to evince 
 his existence, if he will, by his vengeance, was not as 
 yesterday a little child that would tremble and cry at the 
 approach of a diminutive reptile.
 
 a8 On a Man's Writing 
 
 But indeed it is heroism no longer, if he know that there 
 is no God. The wonder then turns on the great process, by 
 which a man could grow to the immense intelligence which 
 can know that there is no God. What ages and what lights 
 are requisite for THIS attainment ! This intelligence involves 
 the very attributes of Divinity, while a God is denied. For 
 unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment 
 in every place in the universe, he cannot know but there 
 may be in some place manifestations of a Deity, by which 
 even he would be overpowered. If he does not know 
 absolutely every agent in the universe, the one that he does 
 not know may be God. If he is not himself the chief agent 
 in the universe, and does not know what is so. that which is 
 so may be God. If he is not in absolute possession of all 
 the propositions that constitute universal truth, the one 
 which he wants may be, that there is a God. If he cannot 
 with certainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to 
 exist, that cause may be a God. If he does not know every- 
 thing that has been done in the immeasurable ages that are 
 past, some things may have been done by a God. Thus, 
 unless he knows all things, that is, precludes all other divine 
 existence by being Deity himself, he cannot know that the 
 Being whose existence he rejects, does not exist. But he 
 must know that he does not exist, else he deserves equal 
 contempt and compassion for the temerity with which he 
 firmly avows his rejection and acts accordingly. And yet a 
 man of ordinary age and intelligence may present himself to 
 you with the avowal of being thus distinguished from the 
 crowd ; and if he would describe the manner in which he 
 has attained this eminence, you would feel a melancholy 
 interest in contemplating that process of which the result is 
 so prodigious. 
 
 If you did not know that there are more than a few such 
 examples, you would say, in viewing this result, I should 
 hope this is the consequence of some malignant intervention 
 so occasional that ages may pass away before it return among 
 men ; some peculiar conjunction of disastrous influences must 
 have lighted on your selected soul ; you have been struck by 
 that energy of evil which acted upon the spirits of Pharaoh 
 and Epiphanes. But give your own description of what you 
 have met with, in a world which has been deemed to present 
 in every part the indications of a Deity. Tell pf the
 
 Memoirs Of Himself,. 29 
 
 mysterious voices which have spoken to you from the deeps 
 of the creation, falsifying the expressions marked on its face. 
 Tell of the new ideas, which, like* meteors passing over the 
 solitary wanderer, gave you the first glimpses of truth while 
 benighted in the common belief of the Divine existence. 
 Describe the whole train of causes which have operated to 
 create and consolidate that state of mind, which you carry 
 forward to the great experiment of futurity under a different 
 kind of hazard from all other classes of men. 
 
 It would be found, however, that those circumstances, by 
 which even a man who had been presented from his infancy 
 with the ideas of religion, could be elated into a contempt of 
 its great object, were far from being extraordinary. They 
 might have been incident to any man, whose mind had been 
 cultivated and exercised enough to feel interested about 
 holding any system of opinions at all ; whose pride had been 
 gratified in the consciousness of having the liberty of select- 
 ing and changing opinions; and whose habitual assent to 
 the principles of religion, had neither the firmness resulting 
 from decisive arguments, nor the warmth of pious affection.* 
 Such a person had only, in the first place, to come into 
 intimate acquaintance with a man who had the art of alluding 
 to a sacred subject in a manner which, without appearing 
 like intentional contempt, divested it of its solemnity : and 
 who had possessed himself of a few acute observations or 
 plausible maxims, not explicitly hostile to revealed religion, 
 but which, when opportunely brought into view in connexion 
 with some points of it, tended to throw a degree of doubt on 
 
 * It will be obvious that I am describing the progress of one of the 
 humbler order of aliens from all religion, and not that by which the great 
 philosophic leaders have ascended the dreary eminence where they look 
 with so much complacency up to a vacant heaven, and down to the gulf 
 of annihilation. Their progress undoubtedly is much more systematic 
 and deliberate, and accompanied often by a laborious speculation, which, 
 though in ever so perverted a train, the mind is easily persuaded to identify, 
 because it is laborious, with the search after truth and the love of it. 
 While, however, it is in a persevering train of thought, and not by the 
 hasty movements of a more vulgar mind, that they pursue their deviation 
 from some of the principles of religion into a final abandonment of it all, 
 they arc very greatly mistaken if they assure themselves that the moral 
 causes which contribute to guide and animate their progress are all of a 
 sublime order ; and if they could be fully revealed to their own view, they 
 might perhaps be severely mortified to find what vulgar motives, while 
 they were despising vulgar men, have ruled their intellectual career.
 
 3<3 On a Man's Writing 
 
 their truth and authority. Especially if either or both of 
 these men had any decided moral tendencies and pursuits of 
 a kind which Christianity "condemned, the friend of intellec- 
 tual and moral freedom was assiduous to insinuate, that, 
 according to the principles of reason and nature at least, it 
 would be difficult to prove the wisdom or the necessity of 
 some of those dictates of religion, which must, however, be 
 admitted, be respected, because divine. Let the mind have 
 once acquired a feeling, as if the sacred system might in 
 some points be invalidated, and the involuntary inference 
 would be rapidly extended to other parts, and to the whole. 
 Nor was it long probably before this new instructor plainly 
 avowed his own entire emancipation froma popularprejudice, 
 to which he was kindly sorry to find a sensible young man 
 still in captivity. But he had no doubt that the deductions 
 of enlightened reason would successfully appeal to every 
 liberal mind. And accordingly, after perhaps a few months 
 of frequent intercourse, with the addition of two or three 
 books, and the ready aid of all the recollected vices of pre- 
 tended Christians, and pretended Christian churches, the 
 whole venerable magnificence of revelation was annihilated. 
 Its illuminations respecting the Divinity, its miracles, its 
 Messiah, its authority of moral legislation, its regions of 
 immortality and retribution, the sublime virtues and devotion 
 of its prophets, apostles, and martyrs, together with the 
 reasonings of so many accomplished advocates, and the 
 credibility of history itself, were vanished all away ; while 
 the convert, exulting in his. disenchantment, felt a strange 
 pleasure to behold nothing but a dreary train of impostures 
 and credulity stretching over those past ages which lately 
 
 Pride, which idolizes self, which revolts at everything that comes in the 
 lorm of dictates, and exults to find that there is a possibility of controvert- 
 ing whether any dictates come from a greater than mortal source ; repug- 
 nance as well to the severe and comprehensive morality of the laws reputed 
 of divine appointment, as to the feeling of accountableness to an all- 
 powerful Authority, that will not leave moral laws to be enforced solely 
 by their own sanctions ; contempt of inferior men ; the attraction of a few 
 brilliant examples ; the fashion of a class ; the ambition of showing what 
 ability can do, and what boldness can dare if such things as these, after 
 all, have excited and directed the efforts of a philosophic spirit, the un- 
 believing philosopher must be content to acknowledge plenty of com- 
 panions and rivals among little men, who are quite as capable of being 
 actuated by such elevated principles as himself.
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 31 
 
 appeared a scene of divine government ; and the thickest 
 Egyptian shades fallen on that total vast futurity toward 
 which the spirit of inspiration had thrown some grand though 
 partial gleams. 
 
 Nothing tempts the mind so powerfully on, as to have suc- 
 cessfully begun to demolish what has been long regarded as 
 most sacred. The soldiers of Caesar probably had never 
 felt themselves so brave, as after they had cut down the Mas- 
 silian grove ; nor the Philistines, as when the ark of the God 
 of Israel was among their spoils : the mind is proud of its 
 triumphs in proportion to the reputed greatness of what it has 
 overcome. And many examples would seem to indicate, that 
 the first proud triumphs over religious faith, involve some 
 fatality of advancing, however formidable the mass of argu- 
 ments which may obstruct the progress, to further victories. 
 But perhaps the intellectual difficulty of the progress might 
 be less than a zealous believer would be apt to imagine. 
 As the ideas which give the greatest distinctness to our con- 
 ception of a Divine Being are imparted by revelation, and 
 rest on its authority, the rejection of that revelation would 
 in a great measure banish those ideas, and destroy that dis- 
 tinctness. We have but to advert to pure heathenism, to 
 perceive what a faint conception of this Being could be formed 
 by the strongest intellect in the absence of revelation ; and 
 after the rejection of it, the mind would naturally be carried 
 very far back toward that darkness ; so that some of the attri- 
 butes of the Deity would immediately become, as they were 
 'with the heathens, subjects of doubtful conjecture and hope- 
 less speculation. But i'rom this state of thought it is perhaps 
 no vvast transition to that in which his being also shall begin 
 to appear a subject of doubt ; since the reality of a being is 
 with difficulty apprehended, in proportion as its attributes are 
 undefinable. And when the mind is brought into doubt, we 
 know it easily advances to disbelief, if to the smallest plausi- 
 bility of arguments be added any powerful moral cause for 
 wishing such a conclusion. In the present case, there might 
 be a very powerful cause, besides that pride of victory which 
 I have just noticed. The progress in guilt, which generally 
 follows a rejection of revelation, makes it still more and more 
 desirable that no object should remain to be feared. It was 
 not strange, therefore, if this man read with avidity, or even 
 strange if he read with something which his wishes completed
 
 32 On a Man's Writing 
 
 into conviction, a few of the writers, who have attempted the 
 last achievement of presumptuous man. After inspecting 
 these pages awhile, he raised his eyes, and the Great Spirit 
 was gone. Mighty transformation of all things ! The 
 luminaries of heaven no longer shone with his splendour ; 
 the adorned earth no longer looked fair with his beauty ; 
 the darkness of night had ceased to be rendered solemn by 
 his majesty ; life and thought were not an effect of his all- 
 pervading energy; it was not his providence that supported 
 an infinite charge of dependent beings ; his empire of justice 
 no longer spread over the universe ; nor had even that 
 universe sprung from his all-creating power. Yet when 
 you saw the intellectual course brought to this signal con- 
 clusion, though aware of the force of each preceding and 
 predisposing circumstance, you might nevertheless be some- 
 what struck with the suddenness of the final decision, and 
 might be curious to know what kind of argument and 
 eloquence could so quickly finish the work. You would 
 examine those pages with the expectation probably of some- 
 thing more powerful than subtlety attenuated into inanity, 
 and, in that invisible and impalpable state, mistaken by 
 the writer, and willingly admitted by the perverted reader, 
 for profundity of reasoning ; than attempts to destroy the 
 certainty, or preclude the application, of some of those 
 great familiar principles which must be taken as the basis 
 of human reasoning, or it can have no basis ; than suppo- 
 sitions which attribute the order of the universe to such 
 causes as it would be felt ridiculous to pronounce ade- 
 quate to produce the most trifling piece of mechanism ; 
 than mystical jargon which, under the name of nature, 
 alternately exalts almost into the properties of a god, and 
 reduces far below those of a man, some imaginary and un- 
 definable agent o^ agency, which performs the most 
 amazing works without power, and displays the most 
 amazing wisdom without intelligence ; than a zealous pre- 
 ference of that part of every great dilemma which merely 
 confounds and sinks the mind to that which elevates while 
 it overwhelms it ; than a constant endeavour to degrade as 
 far as possible everything that is sublime in our specula- 
 tions and feelings ; or than monstrous parallels between 
 religion and mythology. You would be still more unpre- 
 pared to expect on so solemn a subject the occasional wit,
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 33 
 
 or affectation of wit, which would seem rather prematurely 
 expressive of exultation that the grand Foe is retiring. 
 
 A feeling of complete certainty would hardly be thus 
 rapidly attained ; but a slight degree of remaining doubt, 
 and of consequent apprehension, would not prevent this 
 disciple of darkness from accepting the invitation to pledge 
 himself to the cause in some associated band, where pro- 
 faneness and vice would consolidate impious opinions 
 without the aid of augmented conviction ; and where the 
 fraternity, having been elated by the spirit of social daring 
 to say, What is the Almighty that we should serve him ? 
 the individuals might acquire each a firmer boldness to 
 exclaim, Who is the Lord that 7 should obey his voice ? 
 Thus easy it is, my friend, for a man to meet that train of 
 influences which may seduce him to live an infidel, though 
 it may betray him to die a terrified believer ; of which the 
 infatuation, while it promises him the impunity of non- 
 existence, and degrades him to desire it, impels him to fill 
 the measure of his iniquity, till the divine wrath come upon 
 him to the uttermost. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 IN recounting so many influences that operate on man, it is 
 grievous to observe that the incomparably noblest of all, reli- 
 gion, is counteracted with a fatal success by a perpetual con- 
 spiracy of almost all the rest, aided by the intrinsic predispo- 
 sition of this our perverted nature, which yields itself with 
 such consenting facility, to every impression tending to 
 estrange it still further from God. 
 
 It is a cause for wonder and sorrow, to see millions of 
 rational creatures growing into their permanent habits, 
 under the conforming efficacy of everything which it were 
 good for them to resist, and receiving no part of those 
 habits from impressions of the Supreme Object. They are 
 content that a narrow scene of a diminutive world, with 
 its atoms and evils, should usurp and deprave and finish 
 their education for endless existence, while the Infinite 
 Spirit is here, whose sacred energy, received on their 
 minds, might create the most excellent condition of their 
 nature, and, in defiance of a thousand malignant forces 
 attempting to stamp on them an opposite image, convey 
 
 D
 
 ,34 On a Man's Writing 
 
 .them into eternity in his likeness. Oh, why is it so 
 possible that this greatest inhabitant of every place where 
 men are living, should be the last to whose society they 
 are attracted, or of whose continual presence they feel the 
 importance ? Why is it possible to be surrounded with the 
 intelligent Reality, which exists wherever we are, with 
 attributes that are infinite, and not feel respecting all other 
 things which may be attempting to press on our minds and 
 affect their character, as if they retained with difficulty 
 their shadows of existence, and were continually on the 
 point of vanishing into nothing ? Why is this stupendous 
 Power so unperceived and silent, while present, over all 
 the scenes of the earth, and in all the paths and abodes of 
 men ? Why does he keep his glory veiled behind the 
 shades and visions of the material world ? Why does not 
 this latent glory sometimes beam forth with such a mani- 
 festation as could never be forgotten, nor could ever be 
 remembered without an emotion of religious awe ? And 
 why, in contempt of all that he has displayed to excite 
 either fear or love, is it still possible for a rational creature 
 so to live, that it must finally come to an interview with 
 him in a character completed by the full assemblage of those 
 acquisitions, which have separately been disapproved by 
 him through every stage of the accumulation ? Why is it 
 possible Jfor feeble creatures to maintain their little de- 
 pendent beings fortified and invincible in sin, amidst the 
 presence of essential purity ? Why does not the apprehen- 
 sion of such a Being strike through the mind with such 
 intense antipathy to evil, as to blast with death every active 
 principle that is beginning to pervert it, and render gradual 
 additions of depravity, growing into the solidity of habit, as 
 impossible as for perishable materials to be raised into 
 structures amidst the fires of the last day ? How is it 
 possible to escape the solicitude, which should be inseparable 
 from the knowledge that the beams of all-searching intelli- 
 gence are continually darting on us, and pervading us ; that 
 we are exposed to the piercing inspection, compared to 
 which the concentrated attention of all the beings in the 
 universe besides, would be but as the powerless gaze of an 
 infant ? Why is faith, that faculty of spiritual apprehen- 
 sion, so absent, or so incomparably less perceptive of the 
 grandest of its objects, than the senses are of theirs ?
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 35 
 
 While there is a Spirit in infinite energy through the uni- 
 verse, why have the few particles of dust which enclose our 
 spirits the power to intercept all sensible communication 
 with him, and to place them as in a vacuity, where the 
 sovereign Essence had been precluded or extinguished? 
 
 The reverential submission, with which you contemplate 
 the mystery of omnipotent benevolence forbearing to exert 
 the agency, which could assume an instantaneous ascendency 
 in every mind over the causes of depravation and ruin, will 
 not avert your compassion from the unhappy persons who 
 are practically "without God in the world." And if your 
 intellect could be enlarged to a capacity for comprehending 
 the whole measure and depth of disaster contained in this 
 exclusion, (an exclusion under which a human being having 
 the full and fearful truth of his situation revealed to him 
 would behold, as relatively to his happiness, the whole 
 resources of the creation sunk as into dust and ashes, and 
 all the causes of joy and hope reduced to insipidity and 
 lost in despair,) you would feel a distressing emotion at 
 each recital of a life in which religion had no share ; and 
 you would be tempted to wish that some spirit from the 
 other world, empowered with an eloquence that might 
 threaten to alarm the slumbers of the dead, would throw 
 himself in the way of this one mortal, and this one more, 
 to protest, in sentences of lightning and thunder, against 
 the infatuation that can at once acknowledge there is a God, 
 and be content to forego every connection with him, but 
 that of danger. You would wish they should rather be 
 assailed by the "terror of the Lord," in whatever were its 
 most appalling form, than retain the satisfaction of careless- 
 ness till the day of his mercy be past. 
 
 But you will need no such enlargement of comprehension, 
 in order to compassionate the situation of persons who, with 
 reason sound to think, and hearts not strangers to feeling, 
 have advanced far into life, perhaps near to its close, with- 
 out having felt the influence of religion. If there is such a 
 Being as we mean by the term God, the ordinary intelligence 
 of a serious mind will be quite enough to see that it must 
 be a melancholy thing to pass through life, and quit it, just 
 as if there were not. And sometimes it will appear as 
 strange as it is melancholy ; especially to a person who has 
 been pious from his youth. He would be inclined to say, 
 
 D 2
 
 36 On a Man's Writing 
 
 to a person who has nearly finished an irreligious life, What 
 would have been justly thought of you, if you could have 
 been habitually in the society of the wisest and best men on 
 earth, and have acquired no degree of conformity ; much 
 more, if you could all the while have acquired progressively 
 the meanness, prejudices, follies, and vices, of the lowest 
 society with which you might have been at intervals thrown 
 in unavoidable contact ? You might have been asked how 
 that was possible. But then through what fatality have you 
 been able, during so many years spent in the presence of 
 a God, to continue even to this hour as clear of all signs 
 of assimilation or impression as if the Deity were but a 
 poetical fiction, or an idol in some temple of Asia ? Evi- 
 dently, as the immediate cause, through want of thought 
 concerning him. 
 
 And why did you not think of him ? Did a most solemn 
 thought of him never once penetrate your soul, while admit- 
 ting it true that there is such a Being ? If it never did, 
 what is reason, what is mind, what is man ? If it did once, 
 how could its effects stop there ? How could a deep thought 
 on so transcendent a subject, fail to impose on the mind 
 a permanent necessity of frequently recalling it ; as some 
 awful or magnificent spectacle would haunt you with a 
 long recurrence of its image, even were the spectacle itself 
 seen no more ? 
 
 Why did you not think of him ? How could you estimate 
 so meanly your mind with all its capacities, as to feel no 
 regret that an endless series of trifles should seize, and 
 occupy as their right, all your thoughts, and deny them 
 both the liberty and the ambition of going on to the greatest 
 Object ? How, while called to the contemplations which 
 absorb the spirits of Heaven, could you be so patient of 
 the task of counting the flies of a summer's day ? 
 
 Why did you not think of him ? You knew yourself to 
 be in the hands of some Being from whose power you could 
 not be withdrawn ; was it not an equal defect of curiosity 
 and prudence to indulge a careless confidence that sought 
 no acquaintance with his nature, as regarded in itseli and in 
 its aspect on his creatures ; nor ever anxiously inquired what 
 conduct should be observed toward him, and what expecta- 
 tions might be entertained from him ? You would have been 
 alarmed to have felt yourself in the power of a mysterious
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 37 
 
 stranger, of your own feeble species; but let the stranger 
 be omnipotent, and you cared no more. 
 
 Why did you not think of him ? One would deem that 
 the thought of him must, to a serious mind, come second 
 to almost every thought. The thought of virtue would 
 suggest the thought of both a lawgiver and a rewarder ; the 
 thought of crime, of an avenger; the thought of sorrow, 
 of a consoler ; the thought of an inscrutable mystery, of an 
 intelligence that understands it ; the thought of that ever- 
 moving activity which prevails in the system of the universe, 
 of a supreme agent ; the thought of the human family, of a 
 great father ; the thought of all being not necessary and 
 self-existent, of a creator ; the thought of life, of a preserver ; 
 and the thought of death, of an uncontrollable disposer. By 
 what dexterity, therefore, of irreligious caution, did you 
 avoid precisely every track where the idea of him would 
 have met you, or elude that idea if it came ? And what 
 must sound reason pronounce of a mind which, in the 
 train of millions of thoughts, has wandered to all things 
 under the sun, to all the permanent objects of vanishing 
 appearances in the creation, but never fixed its thought on 
 the Supreme Reality ; never approached, like Moses, " to 
 see this great sight ? " 
 
 If it were a thing which we might be allowed to imagine, 
 that the Divine Being were to manifest himself in some 
 striking manner to the senses, as by some resplendent 
 appearance at the midnight hour, or by rekindling on an 
 elevated mountain the long-extinguished fires of Sinai, and 
 uttering voices from those fires ; would he not compel from 
 you an attention which you now refuse ? Yes, you will 
 say, he would then seize the mind with irresistible force, 
 and religion would become its most absolute sentiment; but 
 he only presents himself to faith. Well, and is it a worthy 
 reason for disregarding him, that you only believe him to 
 be present and infinitely glorious ? Is it the office of faith 
 to veil, to irustrate, to annihilate in effect, its object ? Can- 
 not you reflect, that the grandest representation of a 
 spiritual and divine Being to the senses would bear not only 
 no proportion to his glory, but no relation to his nature ; 
 and could be adapted only to an inferior dispensation of 
 religion, and to a people who, with the exception of a most 
 extremely small number of men, had been totally untaught
 
 38 On a Man's Writing 
 
 to carry their thoughts beyond the objects of sense ? Are 
 you not aware, that such a representation would considerably 
 tend to restrict you in your contemplation to a defined image, 
 and therefore a most inadequate and subordinate idea of 
 the divine Being? while the idea admitted by faith, though 
 less immediately striking, is capable of an illimitable ex- 
 pansion, by the addition of all that progressive thought can 
 accumulate, under the, continual certainty that all is still 
 infinitely short of the reality. 
 
 On the review of a character thus grown, in the exclusion 
 of the religious influences, to the nature and perhaps 
 ultimate state, the sentiment of pious benevolence would 
 be, I regard you as an object of great compassion, unless 
 there can be no felicity in friendship with the Almighty, 
 unless there be no glory in being assimilated to his excellence, 
 unless there be no eternal rewards for his devoted servants, 
 unless there be no danger in meeting him, at length, after 
 a life estranged equally from his love and his fear. I 
 deplore, at every period and crisis in the review of your 
 life, that religion was not there. If that had been there, 
 your youthful animation would neither have been dissipated 
 in the frivolity which, in the morning of the short day of 
 life, fairly and formally sets aside all serious business for 
 that day, nor would have sprung forward into the emulation 
 of vice, or the bravery of'profaneness. If religion had been 
 there, that one despicable companion, and that other malig- 
 nant one, would not have seduced you into their society, 
 or would not have retained you to share their degradation. 
 And if religion had accompanied the subsequent progress of 
 your life, it would have elevated you to rank, at this hour, 
 with those saints who will soon be added to " the spirits of 
 the just." Instead of which, what are you now, and what 
 are your expectations as looking to that world, where piety 
 alone can hope to find such a sequel of existence, as will 
 inspire exultation in the retrospect of this introductory life, 
 in which the spirit took its impress for eternity from com- 
 munication with God ? 
 
 On the other hand, it would be interesting to record, or to 
 hear, the history of a character which has received its form, 
 and reached its maturity, under the strongest efficacy of reli- 
 gion. We do not know that there is a more beneficent. or a 
 more direct mode of the divine agency in any part of the
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 39 
 
 creation than that which " apprehends" a man (as apostolic 
 language expresses it), amidst the unthinking crowd, con- 
 strains him to serious reflection, subdues him under per- 
 suasive conviction, elevates him to devotion, and matures 
 him in progressive virtue, in order to his passing finally to a 
 nobler state of existence. When he has long been com- 
 manded by this influence, he will be happy to look back to its 
 first operations, whether they were mingled in early life 
 almost insensibly with his feelings, or came on him with 
 mighty force at some particular time, and in connection with 
 some assignable and memorable circumstance which was 
 apparently the instrumental cause. He will trace the progress 
 of this his better life, with grateful acknowledgment to the 
 sacred power that has wrought him to a confirmation of reli- 
 gious habit which puts the final seal on his character. In 
 the great majority of things, habit is a greater plague than 
 ever afflicted Egypt : in religious character, it is eminently a 
 felicity. The devout man exults to feel that in aid of the 
 simple force of the divine principles within him, there has 
 grown by time an accessional power, which has almost taken 
 place of his will, and holds a firm though quiet domination 
 through the genera 1 action of his mind. He feels this con- 
 firmed habit as the grasp of the hand of God, which will never 
 let him go. From this advanced state he looks with confidence 
 on futurity, and says, I carry the indelible mark upon me that 
 I belong to God ; by being devoted to him I am free of the 
 universe ; and I am ready to go to any world to which he 
 shall please to transmit me, certain that everywhere, in height 
 or depth, he will acknowledge me for ever. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 THE preceding letters have attempted to exhibit only general 
 views of the influences, by which a reflective man may 
 perceive the moral condition of his mind to have been 
 determined. 
 
 In descending into more particular illustrations, there 
 would have been no end of enumerating the local circum- 
 stances, the relationships of life, the professions and employ- 
 ments, and the accidental events, which may have affected 
 the character. A person who feels any interest, in reviewing 
 what has formed thus far his education for futurity, may carry
 
 4-6 On a Man's Writing 
 
 his own examination into the most distinct particularity. A 
 few miscellaneous observations will conclude the essay. 
 
 You will have observed that I have said comparatively 
 little of that which forms the exterior, c.nd in general account 
 the main substance, of the history of a man's life the train 
 of his fortunes and actions. If an adventurer or a soldier 
 writes memoirs of himself for the information or amusement 
 of the public, he may do well to keep his narrative alive by a 
 constant crowded course of facts; for the greater part of his 
 readers will excuse him the trouble of investigating, and he 
 might occasionally feel it a convenience to be excused from 
 disclosing, if he had investigated, the history and merits of 
 his internal principles. Nor can this ingenuousness be any 
 part of his duty, any more than it is that of an exhibiter in a 
 public show, as long as he tells all that probably he professes 
 to tell where he has been, what he has witnessed, and the 
 more reputable portion of what he has done. Let him go on 
 with his lively anecdotes, or his legends of the marvellous, 
 or his gazettes of marches, stratagems and skirmishes, and 
 there is no obligation for him to turn either penitent or philo- 
 sopher on our hands. But I am supposing a man to retrace 
 himself through his past life, in order to acquire a deep self- 
 knowledge, and to record the investigation for his own in- 
 struction. Through such a retrospective examination, the 
 exterior life will hold but the second place in attention, as 
 being the imperfect offspring of that internal state, which it 
 is the primary and more difficult object to review. From an 
 effectual inquisition into this inner man, the investigator may 
 proceed outward, to the course of his actions ; of which he 
 will thus have become qualified to form a much juster esti- 
 mate, than he could by any exercise of judgment upon them 
 regarded merely as exterior facts. No doubt that sometimes 
 also, in a contrary process, the judgment will be directed 
 upon the dispositions and principles within by a considera- 
 tion of the actions without, which will serve as a partial 
 explication of the interior character. Still it is that interior 
 character, whether displayed in actions or not, which forms 
 the leading object of inquiry. The chief circumstances of his 
 practical life will, however, require to be noted, both for the 
 purpose of so much illustration as they will afford of the 
 state of his mind, and because they mark the points, and 
 distinguish the stages, of his progress.
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 41 
 
 Though in memoirs intended for publication, a large share 
 of incident and action would generally be necessary, yet there 
 are some men whose mental history alone might be very in- 
 teresting to reflective readers ; as, for instance, that of a think- 
 ing man, remarkable for a number of complete changes of 
 his speculative system. From observing the usual tenacity 
 of views once deliberately adopted in mature life, we regard 
 as a curious phenomenon the man whose mind has been 
 a kind of caravansera of opinions, entertained awhile, and 
 then sent on pilgrimage ; a man who has admired and dis- 
 missed systems with the same facility with which John 
 Buncle found, adored, married, and interred, his succes- 
 sion of wives, each one being, for the time, not only better 
 than all that went before, but the best in the world.* You 
 admire the versatile aptitude of a mind, sliding into succes- 
 sive forms of belief, in thh intellectual metempsychosis by 
 which it animates so many ucv/ bodies of doctrines in their 
 turn. And as none of those dying pangs which hurt you in 
 a tale of India, attend the desertion of each of these specu- 
 lative forms which the soul has awhile inhabited, you are 
 extremely amused by the number of transmigrations, and 
 curious to see what is to be the next ; for you never reckon 
 on the present state of such a man's views, as to be for per- 
 manence, unless perhaps when he has terminated his course 
 of believing everything, in ultimately believing nothing. 
 Even then, unless he be very old, or feel more pride in 
 being a sceptic, the conqueror of all systems, than he ever 
 felt in being the champion of one, even then, it is very pos- 
 sible he may spring up again, like an igneous vapour from 
 a bog, and glimmer through new mazes, or retrace his 
 course through half of those he went errant through before. 
 You will observe, that no respect is attached to this Proteus 
 of opinion, after his changes have been multiplied ; as no 
 party expect him to remain with them, or account him 
 
 * John Buncle is the hero of a fantastic book, "The Life of John 
 Euncle, Esq., containing various observations and reflections made in 
 several parts of the world, and many extraordinary revelations." He is said 
 to be the representative of his author, Thomas Amory (1691-1789), an 
 eccentric person of whose history little is known. " John," says Leigh 
 Hunt, " is a kind of innocent Henry the Eighth in private life, without 
 the other's fat, fury, and solemnity. He marries seven wives, whom he 
 disposes of by the lawful process of fever and small-pox."
 
 42 On a Man's Writing 
 
 much of an acquisition if he should. One, or perhaps two, 
 considerable changes, will be regarded as signs of a liberal 
 inquirer, and therefore the party to which his first or his 
 second intellectual conversion may assign him, will receive 
 him gladly. But he will be deemed to have abdicated the 
 dignity of reason, when it is found that he can adopt no 
 principles but to betray them ; and it will be perhaps justly 
 suspected that there is something extremely infirm in the 
 structure of that mind, whatever vigour may mark some of 
 its operations, to which a series of very different and some- 
 times contrasted theories, can appear in succession demon- 
 stratively true, and which imitates sincerely the perverseness 
 which Petruchio only affected, declaring that which was 
 yesterday, to a certainty, the sun, to be to-day, as certainly, 
 the moon.* 
 
 It would be curious to observe in a man who should 
 make such an exhibition of the course of his mind, the sly 
 deceit of self-love. While he despises the system which he 
 has rejected, it must not imply so great a want of sense in 
 him once to have embraced it, as in the rest, who were 
 then or are now its adherents and advocates. No, in him 
 it was no debility of intellect, it was at most but its imma- 
 turity or temporary lapse ; and probably he is prepared to 
 explain to you that such peculiar circumstances, as might 
 warp a very strong and liberal mind, attended his consider- 
 ation of the subject, and misled him to admit the belief of 
 what others prove themselves fools by believing. 
 
 Another thing apparent in a record of changed opinions 
 would be, what I have noticed before, that there is scarcely 
 any such thing in the world as simple conviction. It would 
 be amusing to observe how the judgment had, in one in- 
 stance, been overruled into acquiescence by the admiration 
 
 * Petruchio was a gentleman of Verona in Shakspeare's "Taming of 
 the Shrew." "Petruchio," says Hazlitt, "is a madman in his senses, a 
 very honest fellow, who hardly speaks a word of truth, and succeeds in all 
 his tricks and impostures. " The passage referred to in the text is in Act 
 IV., Scene 5 
 
 Petruchio. How bright and goodly shines the moon ! 
 
 Katharina. The moon ! the sun ; it is not moonlight now. 
 
 Pet. I say it is the moon that shines so bright. 
 
 Kath. I know it is the sun that shines so bright. 
 
 Pet. Now, by my mother's son, and that's myself, 
 It shall be moon, or star, or what I list.
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 43 
 
 of a celebrated name, or in another, into opposition by the 
 envy of it ; how most opportunely judgment discovered 
 the truth just at the time that interest could be essentially 
 served by avowing it ; how easily the impartial examiner 
 could be induced to adopt some part of another man's 
 ' opinions, after that other had zealously approved some 
 favourite, especially if unpopular part of his ; as the 
 Pharisees almost became partial even to Christ, at the 
 moment that he defended one of their doctrines against 
 the Sadducees. It would be curious to see how a re- 
 spectful estimate of a man's character and talents might be 
 changed, in consequence of some personal inattention ex- 
 perienced from him, into depreciating invective against 
 him or his intellectual performances, and yet the railer, 
 though actuated solely by petty revenge, account himself, 
 all the while, the model of equity and sound judgment. :;: 
 It might be seen how the patronage of power could elevate 
 miserable prejudices into revered wisdom, while poor old 
 Experience was mocked with thanks for her instruction ; 
 and how the vicinity and society of the rich, and as they are 
 termed, great, could perhaps transmute a mind that seemed 
 to be of the stern consistence of the early Roman republic, 
 into the gentlest wax on which Corruption could wish to 
 imprint the venerable creed, "The right divine of kings to 
 govern wrong," with the pious and loyal inference of the 
 flagrant iniquity of expelling Tarquin.f I am supposing 
 the observer to perceive all these accommodating dexterities 
 of reason ; for it were probably absurd to expect that any 
 mind should itself be able, in its review, to detect all its 
 own obliquities, after having been so long beguiled, like the 
 mariners in a story which I remember to have read, who 
 followed the direction of their compass, infallibly right as 
 they could have no doubt, till they arrived at an enemy's 
 port, where they were seized and made slaves. It hap- 
 pened that the wicked captain, in order to betray the ship, 
 had concealed a large loadstone at a little distance on one 
 side of the needle. 
 
 * I remember several remarkable instances of this. 
 
 f Tarquinius, surnamed Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud, the seventh 
 and last mythical King of Rome, was a tyrant and usurper, who rendered 
 himself odious to the Romans by his pride and cruelty.
 
 44 On a Man's Writing 
 
 On the notions and expectations of one stage of life, 1 
 suppose most reflecting men look back with a kind of com- 
 passionate contempt, though it may be often with a min- 
 gling wish that some of its enthusiasm of feeling could be 
 recovered, I mean the period between childhood and matu- 
 rity. They are prompted to exclaim, What fools we have 
 been while they recollect how sincerely they entertained 
 and advanced the most ridiculous speculations on the in- 
 terests of life, and the questions of truth ; how regretfully 
 astonished they were to find the mature sense of some of 
 those around them so completely wrong ; yet in other in- 
 stances what veneration they felt for authorities for which 
 they have since lost all their respect ; what a fantastic im- 
 portance they attached to some most trivial things ; * what 
 complaints against their fate were uttered on account of 
 disappointments which they have since recollected with 
 gaiety or self-congratulation ; what happiness of Elysium 
 they expected from sources which would soon have failed 
 to impart even common satisfaction; and how sure they 
 were that the feelings and opinions then predominant 
 would continue through life. 
 
 If a reflective aged man were to find at the bottom of an 
 old chest, where it had lain forgotten fifty years, a record 
 which he had written of himself when he was young, 
 simply and vividly describing his whole heart and pursuits, 
 and reciting verbatim many recent passages of the lan- 
 guage sincerely uttered to his favourite companions ; would 
 he not read it with more wonder than almost any other 
 writing could at his age excite ? His consciousness would 
 be strangely confused in the attempt to verify his identity 
 with such a being. He would feel the young man, thus 
 introduced to him, separated by so wide a distance as to 
 render all congenial communion impossible. At every sen- 
 tence, he might repeat, Foolish youth ! I have no sympathy 
 with your feelings, I can hold no converse with your under- 
 standing. Thus you see that in the course of a long life a 
 man may be several moral persons, so dissimilar, that if 
 
 *I recollect a youth of some acquirements, who earnestly wished the 
 time might one day arrive when his name should be adorned with the 
 addition of D.D., which he deemed one of the sublimest of human dis- 
 tinctions.
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 45 
 
 you could find a real individual that should nearly exemplify 
 the character in one of these stages, and another that 
 should exemplify it in the next, and so on to the last, and 
 then bring these several persons together into one com- 
 pany, which would thus be a representation of the succes- 
 sive states of one man, they would feel themselves a most 
 heterogeneous party, would oppose and probably despise 
 one another, and soon separate, not caring if they were 
 never to meet again. The dissimilarity in mind between 
 the two extremes, the youth of seventeen and the sage of 
 seventy, might perhaps be little less than that in coun- 
 tenance; and as the one of these contrasts might be con- 
 templated by an old man, if he had a true portrait for 
 which he sat in the bloom of life, and should hold it beside 
 a mirror in which he looks at his present countenance, the 
 other would be powerfully felt if he had such a genuine and 
 detailed memoir as I have supposed. Might it not be 
 worth while for a self-observant person in early life, to 
 preserve, for the inspection of the old man, if he should 
 live so long, such a mental likeness of the young one ? If 
 it be not drawn near the time, it can never be drawn with 
 sufficient accuracy." 
 
 If this sketch of life were not written till a very mature 
 or an advanced period of it, a somewhat interesting point 
 would be, to distinguish the periods during which the mind 
 made its greatest progress in the enlargement of its faculties, 
 and the time when they appear to have reached their insu- 
 perable limits. 
 
 And if there have been vernal seasons (if I may so ex- 
 press it) of goodness also, periods separated off from the 
 latter course of life by some point of time subsequent to 
 which the Christian virtues have had a less generous 
 growth, this is a circumstance still more worthy to be 
 strongly marked. No doubt it will be with a reluctant hand 
 
 * It is to be acknowledged that the above representation of the changes 
 and the contrast is given in the strongest colouring it will admit. Many 
 men, perhaps the majority, retain through life so much of the chief charac- 
 teristic quality of the dispositions developed or acquired in youth, and of 
 the order of notions then taken in, that they remain radically of the same 
 character, notwithstanding very great modifications effected by time and 
 events ; so that in a general account of men, the mental difference be- 
 tween the two extremes of life may be less than the physical.
 
 46 On a Man's Writing 
 
 that a man marks either of these circumstances ; for he 
 could not reflect, without regret, that many children have 
 grown into maturity and great talent, and many unformed 
 or defective characters into established excellence, since 
 the period when he ceased to become abler or better. Pope, 
 at the age of fifty, would have been incomparably more 
 mortified than, as Johnson says, his readers are, at the fact, 
 if he had perceived it, that he could not then write materi- 
 ally better than he had written at the age of twenty. And 
 the consciousness of having passed many years without 
 any moral and religious progress, ought to be not merely 
 the regret for an infelicity, but the remorse of guilt ; since, 
 though natural causes must somewhere have circumscribed 
 and fixed the extent of the intellectual power, an advance- 
 ment in the nobler distinctions has still continued to be 
 possible, and will be possible till the evening of rational 
 life. The instruction resulting from a clear estimate of 
 what has been effected or not in this capital concern, is the 
 chief advantage to be derived from recording the stages of 
 life, comparing one part with another, and bringing the 
 whole into a comparison with the standard of perfection, 
 and the illustrious human examples which have approached 
 that standard the nearest. In forming this estimate, we 
 shall keep in view the vast series of advantages and moni- 
 tions, which has run parallel to the train of years ; and it 
 will be inevitable to recollect, with severe mortification, the 
 sanguine calculations of improvement of the best kind, 
 which at various periods the mind delighted itself in making 
 for other given future periods, should life be protracted till 
 then, and promised itself most certainly to realize by the 
 time of their arrival. The mortification will be still more 
 grievous, if there was at those past seasons something more 
 hopeful than mere confident presumptions, if there were 
 actual favourable omens, which partly justified while they 
 raised, in ourselves and others, anticipations that have 
 mournfully failed. My dear friend, it is very melancholy 
 that EVIL must be so palpable, so hatefully conspicuous to 
 an enlightened conscience, in every retrospect of a human 
 life. 
 
 If the supposed memoirs be to be carried forward as life 
 advances, each period being recorded as soon as it has 
 elapsed, they should not be composed by small daily or
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 
 
 weekly accumulations (though this practice may have its 
 use, in keeping a man observant of himself), but at certain 
 considerable intervals, as at the end of each year, or any 
 other measure of time that is ample enough for some de- 
 finable alteration to have taken place in the character or 
 attainments. 
 
 It is needless to say that the style should be as simple as 
 possible unless indeed the writer accounts the theme 
 worthy of being bedecked with brilliants and flowers. If he 
 idolize his own image so much as to think it deserves to 
 be enshrined in a frame or cabinet of gold, why, let him 
 enshrine it. 
 
 Should it be asked what degree of explicitness ought to 
 prevail through this review, in reference to those particulars 
 on which conscience has fixed the most condemning mark ; 
 I answer, that if a man writes it exclusively for his own use, 
 he ought to signify the quality and measure of the delin- 
 quency, so far explicitly, as to secure to his mind a defined 
 recollection of the verdict pronounced by conscience before 
 its emotions were quelled by time ; and so far as, in default 
 of an adequate sentence then, to constrain him to pronounce 
 it now. Such honest distinctness is necessary, because this 
 will be the most useful part of his record for reflection to 
 dwell upon ; because this is the part which self-love is most 
 willing to diminish and memory to dismiss ; because 
 mere general terms or allusions of censure will but little aid 
 the cultivation of his humility ; and because this license 
 of saying so much about himself in the character of a 
 biographer may become only a temptation to the indul- 
 gence of vanity, and a protection from the shame of it, 
 unless he can maintain the feeling in earnest that it is 
 really at a confessional, a severe one, that he is giving 
 his account. 
 
 But perhaps he wishes to hold this record open to an 
 intimate relation or friend ; perhaps even thinks it might 
 supply some interest and some lessons to his children. 
 And what then ? Why then it is perhaps too probable that 
 though he could readily confess some of his faults, there 
 may have been certain states of his mind, and certain 
 circumstances in his conduct, which he cannot persuade 
 himself to present to such inspection. Such a difficulty of 
 being quite ingenuous, when it is actually guilt, and not
 
 48 On a Man's Writing 
 
 merely some propriety of discretion or good taste, that 
 creates it, is in every instance a cause for deep regret. 
 Should not a man tremble to feel himself not daring to 
 confide to an equal and a mortal, what has been all observed 
 by the Supreme Witness and Judge ? And the consideration 
 of the large proportion of men, constituting such instances, 
 throws a melancholy hue over the general human character. 
 It has several times, in writing this essay, occurred to me 
 what strangers men may be to one another, whether as to 
 the influences which have determined their characters, or as 
 to the less obvious parts of their conduct. What strangers 
 too we may be with persons who have the art of conceal- 
 ment, to the principles which are at this moment prevailing 
 in the heart. Each mind has an interior apartment of its 
 own, into which none but itself and the Divinity can enter. 
 In this secluded place the passions mingle and fluctuate in 
 unknown agitations. Here all the fantastic and all the 
 tragic shapes of imagination have a haunt, where they can 
 neither be invaded nor descried. Here the surrounding 
 human beings, while quite insensible of it, are made the 
 subjects of deliberate thought, and many of the designs 
 respecting them revolved in silence. Here projects, con- 
 victions, vows, are confusedly scattered, and the records of 
 past life are laid. Here in solitary state sits Conscience, 
 surrounded by her own thunders, which sometimes sleep, 
 and sometimes roar, while the world does not know. The 
 secrets of this apartment, could they have been even but 
 very partially brought forth, might have been fatal to that 
 eulogy and splendour with which many a piece of biography 
 has been exhibited by a partial and ignorant friend. If, in 
 a man's own account of himself, written on the supposition 
 of being seen by any other person, the substance of the 
 secrets of this apartment be brought forth he throws open 
 the last asylum of his character, where it is well if there 
 be nothing found that will distress and irritate his most 
 partial friend, who may thus become the ally of his con- 
 science to condemn, without the leniency which even con- 
 science acquires from self-love. And if it be not brought 
 forth, where is the integrity or value of the history, sup- 
 posing it pretend to afford a full and faithful estimate ; and 
 what ingenious man could bear to give a delusive assurance 
 of his being, or having been, so much more worthy of
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 49 
 
 applause or affection than conscience all the while pro- 
 nounces ? It is obvious then that a man whose sentiments 
 and designs, or the undisclosed parts of whose conduct, have 
 been deeply criminal, must keep his record sacred to him- 
 self; unless he feels such an unsupportable longing to re- 
 lieve his heart by confiding its painful consciousness, that he 
 can be content to hold the regard of his friend on the strength 
 of his penitence and recovered virtue. As to those, whose 
 memory of the past is sullied by shades if not by stains, 
 they must either in the same manner retain the delineation 
 for solitary use, or limit themselves in writing it, to a 
 deliberate and strong expression of the measure of conscious 
 culpabilities, and their effect in the general character, with 
 a certain, not deceptive but partially reserved explanation, 
 that shall equally avoid particularity and mystery ; or else 
 they must consent to meet their friends, who share the 
 human frailty and have had their deviations, on terms of 
 mutual ingenuous acknowledgment. In this confidential 
 communication, each will learn to behold the other's trans- 
 gressions fully as much in that light in which they certainly 
 are infelicities to be commiserated, as in that in which they 
 are also faults or vices to be condemned ; while both 
 earnestly endeavour to improve by their remembered errors. 
 But I shall find myself in danger of becoming ridiculous, 
 amidst these scruples about an entire ingenuousness to a 
 confidential friend or two, while I glance into the literary 
 world, and observe the number of historians of their own 
 lives, who magnanimously throw the complete cargo, both 
 of their vanities and their vices, before the whole public. 
 Men who can gaily laugh at themselves for ever having 
 even pretended to goodness ; who can tell of having sought 
 consolation for the sorrows of bereaved tenderness, in the 
 recesses of debauchery ; whose language betrays that they 
 deem a spirited course of profligate adventures a much finer 
 thing than the stupidity of vulgar virtues, and who seem to 
 claim the sentiments with which we regard an unfortunate 
 hero, for the disasters into which these adventures led them ; 
 venal partisans whose talents would hardly have been bought, 
 if their venom had not made up the deficiency ; profane 
 travelling coxcombs ; players, and the makers of immoral 
 plays all can narrate the course of a contaminated life with 
 the most ingenuous hardihood. Even courtezans, grieved 
 
 E
 
 50 On a Man's Writing 
 
 at the excess of modesty with which the age is afflicted, have 
 endeavoured to diminish the evil, by presenting themselves 
 before the public in their narratives, in a manner very analo- 
 gous to that in which the Lady Godiva is said to have con- 
 sented, from a most generous inducement, to pass through 
 the city of Coventry. They can gravely relate, perhaps with 
 intermingled paragraphs and verses of plaintive sensibility, 
 (a kind of weeds in which sentiment without principle apes 
 and mocks mourning virtue,) the whole nauseous detail of 
 their transitions from proprietor to proprietor. They can 
 tell of the precautions for meeting some "illustrious person- 
 age," accomplished in depravity even in his early youth, with 
 the proper adjustment of time and circumstances to save 
 him the scandal of such a meeting ; the hour when they 
 crossed the river in a boat ; the arrangements about money; 
 the kindness of the " personage " at one time, his contemp- 
 tuous neglect at another ; and everything else that can turn 
 the compassion with which we deplore their first misfortunes 
 and errors, into detestation of the effrontery which can take 
 to itself a merit in proclaiming the commencement, sequel, 
 and all, to the wide world. 
 
 With regard to all the classes of self-describers who thus 
 think the publication of their vices necessary to crown their 
 fame, one should wish there were some public special mark 
 and brand of emphatic reprobation, to reward this tribute to 
 public morals. Men that court the pillory for the pleasure 
 of it, ought to receive the honour of it too, in all those con- 
 tumelious salutations which suit the merits of vice grown 
 proud of its impudence. They who " glory in their shame" 
 should, like other distinguished personages, "pay a tax for 
 being eminent." Yet I own the public itself is to be con- 
 sulted in this case; for if the public welcomes such produc- 
 tions, it shows there are readers who feel themselves akin to 
 the writers, and it would be hard to deprive congenial souls 
 of the luxury of their appropriate sympathies. If such is the 
 taste, it proves that a considerable portion of the public 
 deserves just that kind of respect for its virtue, which is very 
 significantly implied in this confidence of its favour. 
 
 One is indignant at the canf pretence and title of Confes- 
 sions, sometimes adopted by these exhibiters of their own 
 disgrace ; as if it were to be believed, that penitence and 
 humiliation would ever excite men to call thousands to
 
 Memoirs of Himself. 51 
 
 witness a needless disclosure of what oppresses them with 
 grief and shame. If they would be mortified that only a few 
 readers should think it worth while to see them thus per- 
 forming the work of self-degradation, like the fetid heroes of 
 the Dunciad in a ditch, would it be because they are desirous 
 that the greatest possible number should have the benefit of 
 being averted from vice through disgust and contempt of 
 them as its example ? No, this title of Confessions is only 
 a nominal deference to morality, necessary indeed to be paid, 
 because mankind never forget to insist, that the name of 
 virtue shall be respected, even while vice obtains from them 
 that practical favour on which these writers place their 
 reliance for toleration or applause. This slight homage being 
 duly rendered and occasionally repeated, they trust in the 
 character of the community that they shall not meet the kind 
 of condemnation, and they have no desire for the kind of 
 pity, which would strictly belong to criminals : nor is it any 
 part or effect of their penitence, to wish that society may be 
 made better by seeing in them how odious are folly and vice. 
 They are glad the age continues such, that even they may 
 have claims to be praised ; and honour of some kind, and 
 from some quarter, is the object to which they aspire, and 
 the consequence which they promise themselves. Let them 
 once be convinced, that they make such exhibitions under 
 the absolute condition of subjecting themselves irredeemably 
 to opprobrium, as in Miletus the persons infected with a 
 rage for destroying themselves were by a solemn decree 
 assured of being exposed in naked ignominy after the per- 
 petration of the deed and these literary suicides will be 
 heard of no more. 
 
 Rousseau has given a memorable example of this volun- 
 tary humiliation. And he has very honestly assigned the 
 degree of contrition which accompanied the self-inflicted 
 penance, in the declaration that this document with all its 
 dishonours, shall be presented in his justification before the 
 Eternal Judge.* If we could, in any case, pardon the kind 
 of ingenuousness which he has displayed, it would certainly 
 
 * " Whenever the last trumpet shall sound, I will present myself before 
 the Sovereign Judge with this book in my hand, and loudly proclaim, thus 
 have I acted ; these were my thoughts ; such was I." ROUSSEAU, "Confes- 
 sions,'' Book i- 
 
 E 2
 
 52 On a Man's Writing Memoirs of Himself. 
 
 be in the disclosure of a mind so wonderfully singular as 
 his.* We are almost willing to have such a being preserved 
 to all the unsightly minutiae and anomalies of its form, to 
 be placed, as an unique in the moral museum of the world. 
 Rousseau's impious reverence to the Divine Judge leads 
 me to suggest, as I conclude the consideration, that the 
 history of each man's life, though it should not be written 
 by himself or by any mortal hand, is thus far unerringly 
 recorded, will one day be finished in truth, and one other day 
 yet to come, will be brought to a final estimate. A mind 
 accustomed to grave reflections is sometimes led involun- 
 tarily into a curiosity of awful conjecture, which asks, What 
 are those words which I should read this night, if, as to 
 Belshazzar, a hand of prophetic shade were sent to write 
 before me the identical expression, or the momentous im- 
 port, of the sentence in which that final estimate will be 
 declared ? 
 
 * There is indeed one case in which this kind of honesty would be so 
 signally useful to mankind, that it would deserve almost to be canonized 
 into a virtue. If statesmen, including monarchs, courtiers, ministers, 
 senators, popular leaders, ambassadors, &c., would publish, before they go 
 in the triumph of virtue, to the " last audit," or leave to be published after 
 they are gone, each a frank exposition of motives, intrigues, cabals, and 
 manoeuvres, the worship which mankind have rendered to power and rank 
 would cease to be, what it has always been, a mere blind superstition, when 
 such rational grounds should come to be shown for the homage. It might 
 contribute to a happy exorcism of that spirit which has never suffered 
 nations to be at peace ; while it would give an altered and less delusive 
 character to history. Great service in this way, but unfortunately late, is in 
 the course of being rendered in our times, by the publication of private 
 memoirs, written by persons connected or acquainted with those of the 
 highest order. Let any one look at the exhibition of the very centre of the 
 dignity and power of a great nation, as given in Pepys's Memoirs, though 
 with the omission in that publication, as I am informed on the best 
 authority, of sundry passages contained in the manuscript, of such a colour 
 that their production would have exceeded the very utmost license allowable 
 by public decorum. I need not revert to works no\r comparatively ancient, 
 such as Lord Melbourn's Diary.
 
 ESSAY II. 
 
 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 WE have several times talked of this bold quality, and ac- 
 knowledged its great importance. Without it, a human 
 being, with powers at best but feeble and surrounded by in- 
 numerable things tending to perplex, to divert, and to frus- 
 trate, their operations, is indeed a pitiable atom, the sport 
 of divers and casual impulses. It is a poor and disgraceful 
 thing, not to be able to reply, with some degree of certainty 
 to the simple questions, What will you be ? What will 
 you do ? 
 
 A little acquaintance with mankind will supply numberless 
 illustrations of the importance of this qualification. You 
 will often see a person anxiously hesitating a long time 
 between different, or opposite determinations, though impa- 
 tient of the pain of such a state, and ashamed of the debility. 
 A faint impulse of preference alternates toward the one, and 
 toward the other; and the mind, while thus held in a trem- 
 bling balance, is vexed that it cannot get some new thought, 
 or feeling, or motive ; that it has not more sense, more reso- 
 lution, more of anything that would save it from envying 
 even the decisive instinct of brutes. It wishes that any 
 circumstance might happen, or any person might appear, 
 that could deliver it from the miserable suspense. 
 
 In many instances, when a determination is adopted, it is 
 frustrated by this temperament. A man, for example, re- 
 solves on a journey to-morrow, which he is not under an ab 
 solute necessity to undertake, but the inducements appear, 
 this evening, so strong, that he does not think it possible 
 he can hesitate in the morning. In the morning, however, 
 
 53
 
 54 On Decision of Character. 
 
 these inducements have unaccountably lost much of their 
 force. Like the sun that is rising at the same time, they 
 appear dim through a mist ; and the sky lowers, or he fan- 
 cies that it does, and almost wishes to see darker clouds 
 than there actually are ; recollections of toils and fatigues 
 ill repaid in past expeditions rise and pass into anticipation ; 
 and he lingers, uncertain, till an advanced hour determines 
 the question for him, by the certainty that it is now too late 
 to go. 
 
 Perhaps a man has conclusive reasons for wishing to re- 
 move to another place of residence. But when he is going 
 to take the first actual step towards executing his purpose, 
 he is met by a new train of ideas, presenting the possible 
 and magnifying the unquestionable, disadvantages and un- 
 certainties of a new situation ; awakening the natural reluc- 
 tance to quit a place to which habit has accommodated his 
 feelings, and which has grown warm to him, (if I may so 
 express it,) by his having been in it so long ; giving a new 
 impulse to his affection for the friends whom he must leave ; 
 and so detaining him still lingering, long after his judgment 
 may have dictated to him to be gone. 
 
 A man may think of some desirable alteration in his 
 plan of life ; perhaps in the arrangements of his 
 family, or in the mode of his intercourse with society. 
 Would it be a good thing ? He thinks it would be a good 
 thing. It certainly would be a very good thing. He wishes it 
 were done. He will attempt it almost immediately. The 
 following day, he doubts whether it would be quite prudent. 
 Many things are to be considered. May there not be in the 
 change some evil of which he is not aware ? Is this a pro- 
 per time ? What will people say ? And thus, though he 
 does not formally renounce his purpose, he shrinks out of 
 it, with an irksome wish that he could be fully satisfied of 
 the propriety of renouncing it. Perhaps he wishes that 
 the thought had never occurred to him, since it has diminished 
 his self-complacency, without promoting his virtue. But 
 next week, his conviction of the wisdom and advantage of 
 such a reform comes again with great force. Then, is it so 
 practicable as I was at first willing to imagine ? Why not ? 
 Other men have done much greater things ; a resolute mind 
 may brave and accomplish everything ; difficulty is a 
 stimulus and a triumph to a strong spirit ; " the joys of
 
 On Decision of Character. 
 
 conquest are the joys of man." What need I care for peo- 
 ple's opinion ? It shall be done. He makes the first 
 attempt. But some unexpected obstacle presents itself; he 
 feels the awkwardness of attempting an unaccustomed man- 
 ner of acting; the questions or the ridicule of his friends 
 disconcert him ; his ardour abates and expires. He again 
 begins to question whether it be wise, whether it be neces- 
 sary, whether it be possible ; and at last surrenders his 
 purpose to be perhaps resumed when the same feelings 
 return, and to be in the same manner again relinquished. 
 
 While animated by some magnanimous sentiments which 
 he has heard or read, or while musing on some great exam- 
 ple, a man may conceive the design, and partly sketch the 
 plan, of a generous enterprise ; and his imagination revels 
 in the felicity, to others and himself, that would follow from 
 its accomplishment. The splendid representation always 
 centres in himself as the hero who is to realize it. 
 
 In a moment of remitted excitement, a faint whisper from 
 within may doubtfully ask, Is this more than a dream ; or 
 am I really destined to achieve such an enterprise ? Des- 
 tined ! and why are not this conviction of its excellence, 
 this conscious duty of performing the noblest things that 
 are possible, and this passionate ardour enough to constitute 
 a destiny ? He feels indignant that there should be a failing 
 part of his nature to defraud the nobler, and cast him below 
 the ideal model and the actual examples which he is admir- 
 ing ; and this feeling assists him to resolve, that he will 
 undertake this enterprise, that he certainly will, though the 
 Alps or the Ocean lie between him and the object. Again, 
 his ardour slackens ; distrustful of himself, he wishes to 
 know how the design would appear to other minds ; and 
 when he speaks of it to his associates, one of them wonders, 
 another laughs, and another frowns. His pride, while with 
 them, attempts a manful defence; but his resolution gra- 
 dually crumbles down toward their level ; he becomes in a 
 little while ashamed to entertain a visionary project, which 
 therefore, like a rejected friend, desists from intruding on 
 him or following him, except at lingering distance ; and he 
 subsides, at last, into what he labours to believe a man too 
 rational for the schemes of ill-calculating enthusiasm. And 
 it were strange if the effort to make out this favourable 
 estimate of himself did not succeed, while it is so much
 
 56 On Decision of Character. 
 
 more pleasant to attribute one's defect of enterprise to 
 wisdom, which on maturer thought disapproves it, than to 
 imbecility which shrinks from it. 
 
 A person of undecisive character wonders how all the 
 embarrassments in the world happened to meet exactly in 
 his way, to place him just in that one situation for which he 
 is peculiarly unadapted, but in which he is also willing to 
 think no other man could have acted with facility or confi- 
 dence. Incapable of setting up a firm purpose on the basis 
 of things as they are, he is often employed in vain specula- 
 tions on some different supposable state of things, which 
 would have saved him from all this perplexity and irresolu- 
 tion. He thinks what a determined course he could have 
 pursued, if his talents, his health, his age, had been different ; 
 if he had been acquainted with some one person sooner ; if 
 his friends were, in this or the other point, different from 
 what they are ; or if fortune had showered her favours on 
 him. And he gives himself as much license to complain, 
 as if all these advantages had been among the rights of his 
 nativity, but refused, by a malignant or capricious fate, to 
 his life. Thus he is occupied instead of marking with a 
 vigilant eye, and seizing with a strong hand, all the possi- 
 bilities of his actual situation. 
 
 A man without decision can never be said to belong to 
 himself; since, if he dared to assert that he did, the puny 
 force of some cause, about as powerful, you would have 
 supposed, as a spider, may make a seizure of the hapless 
 boaster the very next moment, and contemptuously exhibit 
 the futility of the determinations by which he was to have 
 proved the independence of his understanding and his will. 
 He belongs to whatever can make capture of him ; and one 
 thing after another vindicates its right to him, by arresting 
 him while he is trying to go on ; as twigs and chips, floating 
 near the edge of a river, are intercepted by every weed, and 
 whirled in every little eddy. Having concluded on a design, 
 he may pledge himself to accomplish it if the hundred 
 diversities of feeling which may come within the week will 
 let him. His character precluding all foresight of his 
 conduct, he may sit and wonder what form and direction his 
 views and actions are destined to take to-morrow ; as a 
 farmer has often to acknowledge that next day's proceedings 
 are at the disposal of its winds and clouds.
 
 On Decision of Character. 57 
 
 This man's notions and determinations always depend 
 very much on other human beings ; and what chance for 
 consistency and stability, while the persons with whom he 
 may converse, or transact, are so various ? This very 
 evening, he may talk with a man whose sentiments will 
 melt away the present form and outline of his purposes, 
 however firm and defined he may have fancied them to be. 
 A succession of persons whose faculties were stronger than 
 his own, might, in spite of his irresolute reaction, take him 
 and dispose of him as they pleased. Such infirmity of spirit 
 practically confesses him made for subjection, and he passes, 
 like a slave, from owner to owner. Sometimes indeed it 
 happens, that a person so constituted falls into the train, and 
 under the permanent ascendency, of some one stronger 
 mind, which thus becomes through life the oracle and guide, 
 and gives the inferior a steady will and plan. This, when 
 the governing spirit is wise and virtuous, is a fortunate relief 
 to the feeling, and an advantage gained to the utility, of 
 the subordinate, and as it were, appended mind. 
 
 The regulation of every man's plan must greatly depend 
 on the course of events, which come in an order not to be 
 foreseen or prevented. But in accommodating the plans of 
 conduct to the train* of events, the difference between two 
 men may be no less than that, in the one instance, the man 
 is subservient to the events, and in the other, the events are 
 made subservient to the man. Some men seem to have 
 been taken along by a succession of events, and, as it were, 
 handed forward in helpless passiveness from one to another; 
 having no determined principle in their own characters, by 
 which they could constrain those events to serve a design 
 formed antecedently to them, or apparently in defiance of 
 them. The events seized them as a neutral material, not 
 they the events. Others, advancing through life with an 
 internal invincible determination, have seemed to make the 
 train of circumstances, whatever they were, conduce as 
 much to their chief design as if they had, by some directing 
 interposition, been brought about on purpose. It is wonder- 
 ful how even the casualties of life seem to bow to a spirit 
 that will not bow to them, and yield to subserve a design 
 which they may, in their first apparent tendency, threaten 
 to frustrate. 
 
 You may have known such examples, though they are
 
 58 On Decision of Character. 
 
 comparatively not numerous. You may have seen a man 
 of this vigorous character in a state of indecision concern- 
 ing some affair in which it was necessary for him to 
 determine, because it was necessary for him to act. But in 
 this case, his manner would assure you that he would not 
 remain long undecided ; you would wonder if you found him 
 still balancing and hesitating the next day. If he explained 
 his thoughts, you would perceive that their clear process, 
 evidently at each effort gaining something toward the result, 
 must certainly react it ere long. The deliberation of such 
 a mind is a very different thing from the fluctuation of one 
 whose second thinking only upsets the first, and whose 
 third confounds both. To know how to obtain a determina- 
 tion, is one of the first requisites and indications of a 
 rationally decisive character. 
 
 When the decision was arrived at, and a plan of action 
 approved, you would feel an assurance that something would 
 absolutely be done. It is characteristic of such a mind, to 
 think for effect ; and the pleasure of escaping from temporary 
 doubt gives an additional impulse to the force with which 
 it is carried into action. The man will not re-examine his 
 conclusions with endless repetition, and he will not be 
 delayed long by consulting other persons, after he had 
 ceased to consult himself. He cannot bear to sit still among 
 unexecuted decisions and unattempted projects. We wait 
 to hear of his achievements, and are confident we shall not 
 wait long. The possibility or the means may not be obvious 
 to us, but we know that everything will be attempted, and 
 that a spirit of such determined will is like a river, which, in 
 whatever manner it is obstructed, will make its way some- 
 where. It must have cost Caesar many anxious hours of 
 deliberation, before he decided to pass the Rubicon ; but it 
 is probable he suffered but few to elapse between the decision 
 and the execution.* And any one of his friends, who should 
 
 * The Rubicon was a small stream which formed the boundary between 
 Italy and Cisalpine Gaul. When Csesar arrived at its banks on his way to 
 Rome " his reflections," says Plutarch, "became more interesting in pro- 
 portion as the danger grew near. At last, upon some sudden impulse, 
 bidding adieu to his reasonings, and plunging into the abyss of futurity, in 
 the words of those who embark in doubtful and arduous enterprises, he cried 
 out, ' The die is cast ! ' and immediately passed the river." PLUTARCH'S 
 "Lives, Ccesar"
 
 On Decision of Character. 59 
 
 have been apprised of his determination, and understood his 
 character, would have smiled contemptuously to hear it 
 insinuated that though Caesar had resolved, Caesar would 
 not dare ; or that though he might cross the Rubicon, whose 
 opposite bank presented to him no hostile legions, he might 
 come to other rivers, which he would not cross ; or that 
 either rivers, or any other obstacle, would deter him from 
 prosecuting his determination from this ominous commence- 
 ment to its very last consequence. 
 
 One signal advantage possessed by a mind of this cha- 
 racter is, that its passions are not wasted. The whole mea- 
 sure of passion of which any one, with important transac- 
 tions before him, is capable, is not more than enough to 
 supply interest and energy for the required practical exer- 
 tions ; therefore as little as possible of this costly flame 
 should be expended in a way that does not augment the 
 force of action. But nothing can less contribute or be more 
 destructive to vigour of action, than protracted anxious 
 fluctuation, through resolutions adopted, rejected, resumed, 
 suspended ; while yet nothing causes a greater expense of 
 feeling. The heart is fretted and exhausted by being sub- 
 jected to an alternation of contrary excitements, with the 
 ultimate mortifying consciousness of their contributing to 
 no end. The long-wavering deliberation, whether to perform 
 some bold action of difficult virtue, has often cost more to 
 feeling than the action itself, or a series of such actions, 
 would have cost ; with the great disadvantage too of not being 
 relieved by any of that invigoration which the man in action 
 finds in the activity itself, that spirit created to renovate the 
 energy which the action is expending. When the passions 
 are not consumed among dubious musings and abortive 
 resolutions, their utmost value and use can be secured 
 by throwing all their animating force into effective opera- 
 tion. 
 
 Another advantage of this character, is, that it exempts 
 from a great deal of interference and obstructive annoyance, 
 which an irresolute man may be almost sure to encounter. 
 Weakness, in every form, tempts arrogance ; and a man 
 may be allowed to wish for a kind of character with which 
 stupidity and impertinence may not make so free. When a 
 firm decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to see how 
 the space clears around a man, and leaves hint room and
 
 60 On Decision of Character. 
 
 freedom. The disposition to interrogate, dictate, or banter, 
 preserves a respectful and politic distance, judging it not 
 unwise to keep the peace with a person of so much energy. 
 A conviction that he understands and that he wills with 
 extraordinary force, silences the conceit that intended to 
 perplex or instruct him, and intimidates the malice that was 
 disposed to attack him. There is a feeling, as in respect to 
 Fate, that the decrees of so inflexible a spirit must be right, 
 or that, at least, they will be accomplished. 
 
 But not only will he secure the freedom of acting for him- 
 self, he will obtain also by degrees the coincidence of those 
 in whose company he is to transact the business of life. If 
 the manners of such a man be free from arrogance, and he 
 can qualify his firmness with a moderate degree of insinua- 
 tion ; and if his measures have partly lost the appearance 
 of being the dictates of his will, under the wider and softer 
 sanction of some experience that they are reasonable ; both 
 competition and fear will be laid to sleep, and his will may 
 acquire an unresisted ascendency over many who will be 
 pleased to fall into the mechanism of a' system, which they 
 find makes them more successful and happy than they could 
 have been amidst the anxiety of adjusting plans and 
 expedients of their own, and the consequences of often ad- 
 justing them ill. I have known several parents, both 
 fathers and mothers, whose management of their families 
 has answered this description ; and has displayed a striking 
 example of the facile complacency with which a number of 
 persons, of different ages and dispositions, will yield to the 
 decisions of a firm mind, acting on an equitable and en- 
 lightened system. 
 
 The last resource of this character is, hard, inflexible 
 pertinacity, on which it may be allowed to rest its strength 
 aiter finding it can be effectual in none of its milder forms. 
 I remember admiring an instance of this kind, in a firm, 
 sagacious and estimable old man, whom I well knew, and 
 who has long been dead. Being on a jury, in a trial of life 
 and death, he was satisfied of the innocence of the prisoner ; 
 the other eleven were of the opposite opinion. But he was 
 resolved the man should not be condemned ; and as the first 
 effort for preventing it, very properly made application to 
 the minds of his associates, spending several hours in la- 
 bouring to Convince them. But he found he made no im-
 
 On Decision of Character. 61 
 
 * _ 
 
 pression, while he was exhausting the strength which it was 
 necessary to reserve for another mode of operation. He 
 then calmly told them that it should now be a trial who 
 could endure confinement and famine the longest, and that 
 they might be quite assured he would sooner die than release 
 them at the expense of the prisoner's life. In this situation 
 they spent about twenty-four hours ; when at length all 
 acceded to his verdict of acquittal. 
 
 It is not necessary to amplify on the indispensable impor- 
 tance of this quality, in order to the accomplishment of any- 
 thing eminently good. We instantly see, that every path 
 to signal excellence is so obstructed and beset, that none 
 but a spirit so qualified can pass. But it is time to ex- 
 amine what are the elements of that mental constitution 
 which is displayed in the character in question. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 PERHAPS the best mode would be, to bring into our thoughts, 
 in succession, the most remarkable examples of this char- 
 acter that we have known in real life, or that we have read 
 of in history or even in fiction ; and attentively to observe, 
 in their conversations, manners, and actions, what princi- 
 ples appear to produce, or to constitute, this commanding 
 distinction. You will easily pursue this investigation your- 
 self. I lately made a partial attempt, and shall offer you a 
 number of suggestions. 
 
 As a previous observation, it is beyond all doubt that 
 very much depends on the constitution of the body. It 
 would be for physiologists to explain, if it were explicable, 
 the manner in which corporeal organization affects the 
 mind ; I only assume it as a fact, that there is in the mate- 
 rial construction of some persons, much more than of 
 others, some quality which augments, if it do not create, 
 both the stability of their resolution, and the energy of 
 their active tendencies. There is something that, like the 
 ligatures which one class of the Olympic combatants bound 
 on their hands and wrists, braces round, if I may so describe 
 it, and compresses the powers of the mind, giving them a 
 steady forcible spring and reaction, which they would pre- 
 sently lose if they could be transferred into a constitution
 
 62 On Decision of Character. 
 
 of soft, yielding, treacherous debility. The action of strong 
 character seems to demand something firm in its material 
 basis, as massive engines require, for their weight and for 
 their working, to be fixed on a solid foundation. Accord- 
 ingly I believe it would be found, that a majority of the 
 persons most remarkable for decisive character, have pos- 
 sessed great constitutional physical firmness. I do not 
 mean an exemption from disease and pain, or any certain 
 measure of mechanical strength, but a tone of vigour, the 
 opposite to lassitude, and adapted to great exertion and 
 endurance. This is clearly evinced in respect to many ot 
 them, by the prodigious labours and deprivations which 
 they have borne in prosecuting their designs. The physi- 
 cal nature has seemed a proud ally of the moral one, and 
 with a hardness that would never shrink, has sustained the 
 energy that could never remit. 
 
 A view of the disparities between the different races ot 
 animals inferior to man, will show the effect of organiza- 
 tion on disposition. Compare, for instance, a lion with the 
 common beasts of our fields, many of them larger in bulk 
 of animated substance. What a vast superiority of cour- 
 age, and impetuous and determined action; which difference 
 we attribute to some great dissimilarity of modification in 
 the composition of the animated material. Now it is 
 probable that a difference somewhat analogous subsists 
 between some human beings and others in point of what 
 we may call mere physical constitution ; and that this is 
 no small part of the cause of the striking inequalities in 
 respect to decisive character. A man who excels in the 
 power of decision has probably more of the physical quality 
 of a lion in his composition than other men. 
 
 It is observable that women in general have less inflexi- 
 bility of character than men ; and though many moral 
 influences contribute to this difference, the principal cause 
 may probably be something less firm in the corporeal con- 
 stitution. Now that physical quality, whatever it is, from 
 the smaller measure of which in the constitution of the 
 frame women have less firmness than men, may be 
 possessed by one man more than by men in general in a 
 greater degree of difference than that by which men in 
 general exceed women. 
 
 If there have been found some resolute spirits powerfully
 
 On Decision of Character. 63 
 
 asserting themselves in feeble vehicles, it is so much the 
 better ; since this would authorize a hope, that if all the 
 other grand requisites can be combined, they may form a 
 strong character, in spite of an unadapted constitution. 
 And on the other hand, no constitutional hardness will form 
 the true character, without those superior properties ; though 
 it may produce that false and contemptible kind of decision 
 which we term obstinacy ; a stubbornness of temper, which 
 can assign no reasons but mere will, for a constancy which 
 acts in the nature of dead weight rather than of strength ; 
 resembling less the reaction of a powerful spring than the 
 gravitation of a big stone. 
 
 The first prominent mental characteristic of the person 
 whom I describe, is, a complete confidence in his own 
 judgment. It will perhaps be said, that this is not so un- 
 common a qualification. I however think it is uncommon. 
 It is indeed obvious enough, that almost all men have a 
 flattering estimate of their own understanding, and that as 
 long as this understanding has no harder task than to form 
 opinions which are not to be tried in action, they have a 
 most self-complacent assurance of being right. This 
 assurance extends to the judgments which they pass on the 
 proceedings of others. But let them be brought into the 
 necessity of adopting actual measures in an untried situa- 
 tion, where, unassisted by any previous example or practice, 
 they are reduced to depend on the bare resources of judg- 
 ment alone, and you will see in many cases, this confidence 
 of opinion vanish away. The mind seems all at once 
 placed in a misty vacuity, where it reaches round on all 
 sides, but can find nothing to take hold of. Or if not lost 
 in vacuity, it is overwhelmed in confusion ; and feels as if 
 its faculties were annihilated in the attempt to think of 
 schemes and calculations among the possibilities, chances, 
 and hazards which overspread a wide untrodden field ; and 
 this conscious imbecility becomes severe distress, when it 
 is believed that consequences, of serious or unknown good 
 or evil, are depending on the decisions which are to be 
 formed amidst so much uncertainty. The thought painfully 
 recurs at each step and turn, I may by chance be right, 
 but it is fully as probable I am wrong. It is like the case 
 of a rustic walking in London, who, having no certain 
 direction through the vast confusion of streets to the place
 
 64 On Decision of Character. 
 
 where he wishes to be, advances, and hesitates, and turns, 
 and inquires, and becomes, at each corner, still more inex- 
 tricably perplexed.* A man in this situation feels he shall 
 be very unfortunate if he cannot accomplish more than he 
 can understand. Is not this frequently, when brought to 
 the practical test, the state of a mind not disposed in general 
 to undervalue its own judgment ? 
 
 In cases where judgment is not so completely bewildered, 
 you will yet perceive a great practical distrust of it. A 
 man has perhaps advanced a considerable way towards a 
 decision, but then lingers at a small distance from it, till 
 necessity, with a stronger hand than conviction, impels 
 him upon it. He cannot see the whole length of the ques- 
 tion, and suspects the part beyond his sight to be the most 
 important, for the most essential point and stress of it may 
 be there. He fears that certain possible consequences, if 
 they should follow, would cause him to reproach himself 
 for his present determination. He wonders how this or the 
 other person would have acted in the same circumstances ; 
 eagerly catches at anything like a respectable precedent ; 
 would be perfectly willing to forego the pride of setting an 
 example, for the safety of following one ; and looks anxiously 
 round to know what each person may think on the subject ; 
 while the various and opposite opinions to which he listens, 
 perhaps only serve to confound his perception of the track 
 of thought by which he had hoped to reach his conclusion. 
 Even when that conclusion is obtained, there are not many 
 minds that might not be brought a few degrees back into 
 dubious hesitation, by a man of respected understanding 
 saying, in a confident tone, Your plan is injudicious ; your 
 selection is unfortunate ; the event will disappoint you. 
 
 It cannot be supposed that I am maintaining such an 
 absurdity as that a man's complete reliance on his own 
 judgment is a proof of its strength and rectitude. Intense 
 stupidity may be in this point the rival of clear-sighted 
 wisdom. I had once some knowledge of a person whom 
 no mortal could have surpassed, not Cromwell or Strafford, 
 
 * " Why does not the man call a hackney-coach ? " a gay reader, I 
 am aware, will say of the person so bemazed in the great town. So he 
 might, certainly; (that is, if he know where to find one;) and the gay 
 reader and I have only to deplore that there is no parallel convenience for 
 the assistance of perplexed understandings.
 
 On Decision of Character. 65 
 
 in confidence in his own judgment and consequent inflexi- 
 bility of conduct; while at the same time his successive 
 schemes were ill-judged to a degree that made his dis- 
 appointments ridiculous still more than pitiable. He was 
 not an example of that simple obstinacy which I have men- 
 tioned before ; for he considered his measures, and did not 
 want for reasons which seriously satisfied himself of their 
 being most judicious. This confidence of opinion may be 
 possessed by a person in whom it will be contemptible or 
 mischievous ; but its proper place is in a very different 
 character, and without it there can be no dignified actors 
 in human affairs. 
 
 If, after it is seen how foolish this confidence appears as 
 a feature in a weak character, it be inquired what, in a 
 rightfully decisive person's manner of thinking it is that 
 authorizes him in this firm assurance that his view of the 
 concerns before him is comprehensive and accurate ; he 
 may, in answer, justify his confidence on such grounds as 
 these : that he is conscious that objects are presented to 
 his mind with an exceedingly distinct and perspicuous 
 aspect, not like the shapes of moonlight, or like Ossian's 
 ghosts, dim forms of uncircumscribed shade ; that he sees 
 the different parts of the subject in an arranged order, not 
 in unconnected fragments; that in each deliberation the 
 main object keeps its clear pre-eminence, and he perceives 
 the bearings which the subordinate and conducive ones 
 have on it ; that perhaps several trains of thought, drawn 
 from different points, lead him to the same conclusion; and 
 that he finds his judgment does not vary in servility to the 
 moods of his feelings. 
 
 It may be presumed that a high degree of this character 
 is not attained without a considerable measure of that kind 
 of certainty, with respect to the relations of things, which 
 can be acquired only from experience and observation. A 
 very protracted course of time, however, may not be indis- 
 pensable for this discipline. An extreme vigilance in the 
 exercise of observation, and a strong and strongly exerted 
 power of generalizing on experience, may have made a 
 comparatively short time enough to supply a large share of 
 the wisdom derivable from these sources ; so that a man 
 may long before he is old be rich in the benefits of experi- 
 ence, and therefore may have all the decision of judgment 
 
 F
 
 66 On Decision of Character. 
 
 legitimately founded on that accomplishment. This know- 
 ledge from experience he will be able to apply in a direct 
 and immediate manner, and without refining it into general 
 principles, to some situations of affairs, so as to anticipate 
 the consequences of certain actions in those situations by 
 as plain a reason, and as confidently, as the kind of fruit 
 to be produced by a given kind of tree. Thus far the facts 
 of his experience will serve him as precedents ; cases of 
 such near resemblance to those in which he is now to act 
 as to .afford him a rule by the most immediate inference. 
 At the next step, he will be able to apply this knowledge, 
 now converted into general principles, to a multitude of 
 cases bearing but a partial resemblance to anything he has 
 actually witnessed. And then, in looking forward to the 
 possible occurrence of altogether new combinations of cir- 
 cumstances, he can trust to the resources which he is per- 
 suaded his intellect will open to him, or is humbly confident, 
 if he be a devout man, that the Supreme Intelligence will 
 not suffer to be wanting to him, when the occasion arrives. 
 In proportion as his views include, at all events, more cer- 
 tainties than those of other men, he is with good reason 
 less fearful of contingencies. And if, in the course of 
 executing his design, unexpected disastrous events should 
 befall, but which are not owing to anything wrong in the 
 plan and principles of that design, but to foreign causes ; 
 it will be characteristic of a strong mind to attribute these 
 events discriminatively to their own causes, and not to the 
 plan, which, therefore, instead of being disliked and relin- 
 quished, will be still as much approved as before, and the 
 man will proceed calmly to the sequel of it without any 
 change of arrangement ; unless, indeed, these sinister 
 events should be of such consequence as to alter the whole 
 state of things to which the plan was correctly adapted, and 
 so create a necessity to form an entirely new one, adapted 
 to that altered state. 
 
 Though he do not absolutely despise the understandings 
 of other men, he will perceive their dimensions as com- 
 pared with his own, which will preserve its independence 
 through every communication and encounter. It is how- 
 ever a part of this very independence, that he will hold 
 himself free to alter his opinion, if the information which 
 may be communicated to him shall bring sufficient reason.
 
 On Decision of Character. 67 
 
 And as no one is so sensible of the importance of a complete 
 acquaintance with a subject as the man who is always 
 endeavouring to think conclusively, he will listen with the 
 utmost attention to the information, which may sometimes 
 be received from persons for whose judgment he has no 
 great respect. The information which they may afford him 
 is not at all the less valuable for the circumstance, that his 
 practical inferences from it may be quite different from 
 theirs. If they will only give him an accurate account of 
 facts, he does not care how indifferently they may reason on 
 them. Counsel will in general have only so much weight 
 with him as it supplies knowledge which may assist his 
 judgment ; he will yield nothing to it implicitly as authority, 
 except when it comes from persons of approved and eminent 
 wisdom ; but he may hear it with more candour and good 
 temper, from being conscious of this independence of his 
 judgment, than the man who is afraid lest the first person 
 that begins to persuade him, should baffle his determination. 
 He feels it entirely a work of his own to deliberate and to 
 resolve, amidst all the advice which may be attempting to 
 control him. If, with an assurance of his intellect being of 
 the highest order, he also holds a commanding station, he 
 will feel it gratuitous to consult with any one, excepting 
 merely to receive statements of facts. This appears to be 
 exemplified in the man, who has lately shown the nations of 
 Europe how large a portion of the world may, when Heaven 
 permits, be at the mercy of the solitary workings of an 
 individual mind.* 
 
 The strongest trial of this determination of judgment is 
 in those cases of urgency where something must imme- 
 diately be done, and the alternative of right or wrong is of 
 important consequence ; as in the duty of a medical man, 
 treating a patient whose situation at once requires a daring 
 practice, and puts it in painful doubt what to dare. A still 
 stronger illustration is the case of a general who is com- 
 pelled, in the very instant, to make dispositions on which 
 the event of a battle, the lives of thousands of his men, or 
 perhaps almost the fate of a nation, may depend. He may 
 even be placed in a dilemma which appears equally dread- 
 ful on both sides. Such a predicament is described in 
 
 * In allusion to the extraordinary career and gigantic influence of the 
 great Napoleon.
 
 68 On Decision of Character. 
 
 Denon's account of one of the sanguinary conflicts between 
 the French and Mamelukes, as having for a while held in 
 the most distressing hesitation General Desaix, though a 
 prompt and intrepid commander. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 THIS indispensable basis, confidence of opinion, is, how- 
 ever, not enough to constitute the character in question. 
 For many persons, who have been conscious and proud of 
 a much stronger grasp of thought than ordinary men, and 
 have held the most decided opinions on important things to 
 be done, have yet exhibited, in the listlessness or incon- 
 stancy of their actions, a contrast and a disgrace to the 
 operations of their understandings. For want of some 
 cogent feeling impelling them to carry every internal deci- 
 sion into action, they have been still left where they were ; 
 and a dignified judgment has been seen in the hapless 
 plight of having no effective forces to execute its decrees. 
 
 It is evident then (and I perceive I have partly anticipated 
 this article in the first letter), that another essential prin- 
 ciple of the character is, a total incapability of surrendering 
 to indifference or delay the serious determinations of the 
 mind. A strenuous will must accompany the conclusions 
 of thought, and constantly incite the utmost efforts to give 
 them a practical result. The intellect must be invested, if 
 I may so describe it, with a glowing atmosphere of passion, 
 under the influence of which, the cold dictates of reason 
 take fire, and spring into active powers. 
 
 Revert once more in your thoughts to the persons most 
 remarkably distinguished by this quality. You will perceive, 
 that instead of allowing themselves to sit down delighted 
 after the labour of successful thinking, as if they had 
 completed some great thing, they regard this labour but as 
 a circumstance of preparation, and the conclusions resulting 
 from it as of no more value, (till going into effect,) than the 
 entombed lamps of the Rosicrucians.* They are not dis- 
 
 * The Rosicrucians were a secret society of the seventeenth century. 
 They are involved ia much mystery, and their history has led to a great 
 deal of discussion.
 
 On Decision of Character. 69 
 
 posed to be content in a region of mere ideas, while they 
 ought to be advancing into the field of corresponding 
 realities ; they retire to that region sometimes, as ambitious 
 adventurers anciently went to Delphi, to consult, but not to re- 
 side. You will therefore find them almost uniformly in deter- 
 mined pursuit of some object, on which they fix a keen and 
 steady look, never losing sight of it while they follow it 
 through the confused multitude of other things. 
 
 A person actuated by such a spirit, seems by his manner 
 to say, Do you think that I would not disdain to adopt a 
 purpose which I would not devote my utmost force to effect ; 
 or that having thus devoted my exertions, I will intermit or 
 withdraw them, through indolence, debility, or caprice ; or 
 that I will surrender my object to any interference except 
 the uncontrollable dispensations of Providence ? No, I 
 am linked to my determination with iron bands ; it clings 
 to me as if a part of my destiny ; and if its frustration be, 
 on the contrary, doomed a part of that destiny, it is doomed 
 so only through calamity or death. 
 
 This display of systematic energy seems to indicate a 
 constitution of mind in which the passions are commensurate 
 with the intellectual part, and at the same time hold an 
 inseparable correspondence with it, like the faithful sympathy 
 of the tides with the phases of the moon. There is such an 
 equality and connection, that subjects of the decisions of 
 judgment become proportionally and of course the objects 
 of passion. When the judgment decides with a very strong 
 preference, that same strength of preference, actuating also 
 the passions, devotes them with energy to the object, as 
 long as it is thus approved ; and this will produce such a 
 conduct as I have described. When therefore a firm, self- 
 confiding, and unaltering judgment fails to make a decisive 
 character, it is evident either that the passions in that mind 
 are too languid to be capable of a strong and unremitting 
 excitement, which defect makes an indolent or irresolute 
 man ; or that they perversely sometimes coincide with 
 judgment, and sometimes clash with it, which makes an 
 inconsistent or versatile man. 
 
 There is no man so irresolute as not to act with deter- 
 mination in many single cases, where the motive is power- 
 ful and simple, and where there is no need of plan and 
 perseverance ; but this gives no claim to the term character*
 
 7o On Decision of Character. 
 
 which expresses the habitual tenour of a man's activ^ 
 being. The character may be displayed in the successive 
 unconnected undertakings, which are each of limited extent, 
 and end with the attainment of their particular objects. 
 But it is seen in its most commanding aspect in those 
 grand schemes of action, which have no necessary point of 
 conclusion, which continue on through successive years, 
 and extend even to that dark period, when the agent him- 
 self is withdrawn from human sight. 
 
 I have repeatedly, in conversation, remarked to you the 
 effect of what has been called a Ruling Passion. When 
 its object is noble, and an enlightened understanding re- 
 gulates its movements, it appears to me a great felicity ; 
 but whether its object be noble or not, it infallibly creates, 
 where it exists in great force, that active ardent constancy, 
 which I describe as a capital feature of the decisive char- 
 acter. The Subject of such a commanding passion wonders, 
 if indeed he were at leisure to wonder, at the persons who 
 pretend to attach importance to an object which they make 
 none but the most languid efforts to secure. The utmost 
 powers of the man are constrained into the service of the 
 favourite Cause by this passion, which sweeps away, as it 
 advances, all the trivial objections and little opposing 
 motives, and seems almost to open a way through impossi- 
 bilities. This spirit comes on him in the morning as soon 
 as he recovers his consciousness, and commands and impels 
 him through the day, with a power from which he could not 
 emancipate himself if he would. When the force of habil 
 is added, the determination becomes invincible, and seems 
 to assume rank with the great laws of nature, making it 
 nearly as certain that such a man will persist in his course 
 as that in the morning the sun will rise. 
 
 A persisting untamable efficacy of soul gives a seductive 
 and pernicious dignity even to a character which every moral 
 principle forbids us to approve. Often in the narrations of 
 history and fiction, an agent of the most dreadful designs 
 compels a sentiment of deep respect for the unconquerable 
 mind displayed in their execution. While we shudder at 
 his activity, we say with regret, mingled with an admiration 
 which borders on partiality, What a noble being this would 
 have been, if goodness had been his destiny ! The partiality 
 is evinced in the very selection of terms by which we show
 
 On Decision of Character. 71 
 
 that we are tempted to refer his atrocity rather to his destiny 
 than to his choice. I wonder whether an emotion like this,- 
 have not been experienced by each reader of Paradise Lost, 
 relative to the Leader of the infernal spirits ; a proof, if such 
 were the fact, of some insinuation of evil into the magnifi- 
 cent creation of the poet. In some of the high examples of 
 ambition (the ambition which is a vice), we almost revere 
 the force of mind which impelled them forward through the 
 longest series' of action, superior to doubt and fluctuation, 
 and disdainful of ease, of pleasures, of opposition, and of 
 danger. We bend in homage before the ambitious spirit 
 which reached the true sublime in the reply of Pompey to 
 his friends, who dissuaded him from hazarding his life on a 
 tempestuous sea in order to be at Rome on an important 
 occasion : " It is necessary for me to go, it is not necessary 
 for me to live."* 
 
 Revenge has produced wonderful examples of this unre- 
 mitting constancy to a purpose. Zangais a well-supported 
 illustration. And you may have read of a real instance of 
 a Spaniard, who, being injured by another inhabitant of the 
 same town, resolved to destroy him; the other was apprised 
 of this, and removed with the utmost secrecy, as he thought, 
 to another town at a considerable distance, where however 
 he had not been more than a day or two, before he found 
 that his enemy also was there. He removed in the same 
 manner to several parts of the kingdom, remote from each 
 other ; but in every place q.uickly perceived that his deadly 
 pursuer was near him. At last he went to South America, 
 where he had enjoyed his security but a very short time 
 before his relentless pursuer came up with him, and accom- 
 plished his purpose. 
 
 You may recollect the mention in one of our conversations, 
 of a young man who wasted in two or three years a large 
 patrimony, in profligate revels with a number of worthless 
 
 * See Plutarch's " Lives, Pompey." It was at a time when Pompey 
 had been entrusted with the care of providing and importing corn. He 
 had gone in person into Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa, and had collected 
 large quantities. "When he was on the point of re-embarking a violent 
 wind sprung up, and the mariners made a difficulty of putting to sea, but he 
 was the first to go on board, and he ordered them to weigh anchor with 
 these decisive words, ' It is necessary to go, it is not necessary to live ! ' 
 His success was rnswerableto his spirit and intrepidity."
 
 72 On Decision of Character. 
 
 associates calling themselves his friends, till his last means 
 were exhausted, when they of course treated him with 
 neglect or contempt. Reduced to absolute want, he one day 
 went out of the house with an intention to put an end to his 
 life ; but wandering awhile almost unconsciously, he came to 
 the brow of an eminence which overlooked what werelatelyhis 
 estates. Here he sat down, and remained fixed in thought 
 a number of hours, at the end of which he sprang from the 
 ground with a vehement exulting emotion. He had formed 
 his resolution, which was that all these estates should be 
 his again ; he had formed his plan too, which he instantly 
 began to execute. He walked hastily forward, determined 
 to seize the very first opportunity, of however humble a kind, 
 to gain any money, though it were ever so despicable a 
 trifle, and resolved absolutely not to spend, if he could help 
 it, a farthing of whatever he might obtain. The first thing 
 that drew his attention was a heap of coals shot out of carts 
 on the pavement before a house. He offered himself to 
 shovel or wheel them into the place where they were to be 
 laid, and was employed. He received a few pence for the 
 labour; and then, in pursuance of the saving part of his 
 plan, requested some small gratuity of meat and drink, which 
 was given him. He then looked out for the next thing that 
 might chance to offer ; and went, with indefatigable industry 
 through a succession of servile employments, in different 
 places, of longer and shorter duration, still scrupulously 
 avoiding, as far as possible, the expense of a penny. He 
 promptly seized every opportunity which could advance his 
 design, without regarding the meanness of occupation or 
 appearance. By this method he had gained, after a con- 
 siderable time, money enough to purchase, in order to sell 
 again, a few cattle, of which he had taken pains to under- 
 stand the value. He speedily but cautiously turned his first 
 gains into second advantages ; retained without a single 
 deviation his extreme parsimony ; and thus advanced by 
 degrees into larger transactions and incipient wealth. I did 
 not hear, or have forgotten the continued course of his life ; 
 but the final result was, that he more than recovered his 
 lost possessions, and died an inveterate miser, worth 
 60,000^. I have always recollected this as a signal instance, 
 though in an unfortunate and ignoble direction, of decisive 
 character, and of the extraordinary effect, which, according
 
 On Decision of Character. 73 
 
 to general laws, belongs to the strongest form of such n 
 character. 
 
 But not less decision has been displayed by men of virtue. 
 In this distinction no man ever exceeded, or ever will exceed, 
 for instance, the late illustrious Howard. 
 
 The energy of his determination was so great, that if, 
 instead of being habitual, it had been shown only for a 
 short time on particular occasions, it would have appeared 
 a vehement impetuosity; but by being unintermitted, it had 
 an equability of manner which scarcely appeared to exceed 
 the tone of a calm constancy, it was so totally the reverse 
 of anything like turbulence or agitation. It was the calm- 
 ness of an intensity kept uniform by the nature of the 
 human mind forbidding it to be more, and by the character 
 of the individual forbidding it to be less. The habitual 
 passion of his mind was a pitch of excitement and impulsion 
 almost equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms of 
 common minds ; as a great river, in its customary state, 
 is equal to a small or moderate one when swollen to a 
 torrent. 
 
 The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, and 
 commencing them inaction, was the same. I wonder what 
 must have been the amount of that bribe, in emolument or 
 pleasure, that would have detained him a week inactive after 
 their final adjustment. The law which carries water down 
 a declivity was not more unconquerable and invariable than 
 the determination of his feelings toward the main object.. 
 The importance of this object held his faculties in a state of 
 determination which was too rigid to be affected by lighter 
 interests, and on which therefore the beauties of nature and 
 of art had no power. He had no leisure feeling which he 
 could spare to be diverted among the innumerable varieties 
 of the extensive scene which he traversed ; his subordinate 
 feelings nearly lost their separate existence and operation, 
 by falling into the grand one. There have not been wanting 
 trivial minds, to mark this as a fault in his character. But 
 the mere men of taste ought to be silent respecting such a 
 man as Howard ; he is above their sphere of judgment. 
 The invisible spirits, who fulfil their commission of philan- 
 thropy among mortals, do not care about pictures, statues, 
 and sumptuous buildings; and no more did he, when the 
 time in which he must have inspected and admired them,.
 
 74 On Decision of Character. 
 
 would have been taken from the work to which he had 
 consecrated his life. The curiosity which he might feel, 
 was reduced to wait till the hour should arrive, when its 
 gratification should be presented by conscience, (which kept 
 a scrupulous charge of all his time,) as ihefhity of that hour. 
 If he was still at every hour, when it came, fated to feel the 
 attractions of the fine arts but the second claim, they might 
 be sure of their revenge ; for no other man will ever visit 
 Rome under such a despotic acknowledged rule of duty as 
 to refuse himself time for surveying the magnificence of its 
 ruins. Such a sin against taste is very far beyond the reach 
 of common saintship to commit. It implied an inconceiv- 
 able severity of conviction, that he had one thing to do, and 
 that he who would do some great thing in this short life, 
 must apply himself to the work with such a concentration 
 of his forces, as, to idle spectators, who live only to amuse 
 themselves, looks like insanity. 
 
 His attention was so strongly and tenaciously fixed on his 
 object, that even at the greatest distance, as the Egyptian 
 pyramids to travellers, it appeared to him with a luminous 
 distinctness as if it had been nigh, and beguiled the toil- 
 some length of labour and enterprise by which he was to 
 reach it. So conspicuous was it before him, that not a 
 step deviated from the direction, and every movement 
 and every day was an approximation. As his method 
 referred everything he did and thought to the end, and 
 as his exertion did not relax for a moment, he made the 
 trial, so seldom made, what is the utmost effect which 
 may be granted to the last possible efforts of a human 
 agent : and therefore what he did not accomplish, he 
 might conclude to be placed beyond the sphere of mortal 
 activity, and calmly leave to the immediate disposal of 
 Providence. 
 
 Unless the eternal happiness of mankind be an insig- 
 nificant concern, and the passion to promote it an in- 
 glorious distinction, I may cite George Whitefield as a 
 noble instance of this attribute of the decisive character, 
 this intense necessity of action. The great cause which 
 was so languid a thing in the hands of many of its 
 advocates, assumed in his administrations an unmitigable 
 urgency. 
 
 Many of the Christian missionaries among the heathens,
 
 On Decision of Character. 75 
 
 such as Brainerd,* Eliot, f and Schwartz, J have displayed 
 memorable examples of this dedication of their whole being 
 to their office, this abjuration of all the quiescent feelings. 
 
 This would be the proper place for introducing (if I did not 
 hesitate to introduce in any connection with merely human 
 instances) the example of him who said, " I must be about 
 my Father's business. My meat and my drink is to do the 
 will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. I have a 
 baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it 
 be accomplished ! " 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 AFTER the illustrations on the last article, it will seem but a 
 very slight transition when I proceed to specify Courage as 
 an essential part of the decisive character. An intelligent 
 man, adventurous only in thought, may sketch the most ex- 
 cellent scheme, and after duly admiring it, and himself as its 
 author, may be reduced to say, What a noble spirit that 
 would be which should dare to realize this ! A noble spirit ! 
 is it I ? And his heart may answer in the negative, while 
 he glances a mortified thought of inquiry round to recollect 
 persons who would venture what he dares not, and almost 
 hopes not to find them. Or if by extreme effort he has 
 brought himself to a resolution of braving the difficulty, he 
 is compelled to execrate the timid lingerings that still keep 
 him back from the trial. A man endowed with the complete 
 character, might say, with a sober consciousness as remote 
 from the spirit of bravado as it is from timidity, Thus, and 
 thus, is my conviction and my determination ; now for the 
 phantoms of fear ; let me look them in the face ; their me- 
 nacing glare and ominous tones will be lost on me ; " I dare 
 do all that may become a man. " I trust I shall firmly con- 
 
 David Brainerd, a celebrated American missionary who devoted him- 
 self to the conversion of the Indians on the Susquehannah, Delaware, &c. 
 Died, aged 29, 1747. 
 
 t John Eliot, known as the Apostle of the Indians, born in the West o 
 England about 1604, died 1669. 
 
 J Christian Frederick Schwartz, a German missionary to the East Indies 
 Born 1726, died 1788. 
 
 Shakespere's " Macbeth," Act I, Scene 7.
 
 On Decision of Character. 
 
 front everything that threatens me while prosecuting my 
 purpose, and I am prepared to meet the consequences of it 
 when it is accomplished. I should despise a being, though 
 it were myself, whose agency could be held enslaved by the 
 gloomy shapes of imagination, by the haunting recollections 
 of a dream, by tne whistling or the howling of winds, by the 
 shriek of owls, by the shades of midnight, or by the threats 
 or frowns of man. I should be indignant to feel that, in the 
 commencement of an adventure, I could think of nothing but 
 the deep pit by the side of the way where I must walk, into 
 which I may slide, the mad animal which it is not impos- 
 sible that I may meet, or the assassin who may lurk in a 
 thicket of yonder wood. And I disdain to compromise the 
 interests that rouse me to action, for the privilege of an 
 ignoble security. 
 
 As the conduct of a man of decision is always individual, 
 and often singular, he may expect some serious trials of 
 courage. For one thing, he may be encountered by the 
 strongest disapprobation of many of his connections, and the 
 censure of the greater part of the society where he is known. 
 In this case, it is not a man of common spirit that can show 
 himself just as at other times, and meet their anger in the 
 same undisturbed manner as he would meet some ordinary 
 inclemency of the weather ; that can, without harshness or 
 violence, continue to effect every moment some part of his 
 design, coolly replying to each ungracious look and indig- 
 nant voice, I am sorry to oppose you : I am not unfriendly 
 to you, while thus persisting in what excites your displea- 
 sure ; it would please me to have your approbation and con- 
 currence, and I think I should have them if you would 
 seriously consider my reasons ; but meanwhile, I am superior 
 to opinion, I am not to be intimidated by reproaches, nor 
 would your favour and applause be any reward for the sacri- 
 fice of my object. As you can do without my approbation, 
 I can certainly do without yours ; it is enough that I can 
 approve myself, it is enough that I appeal to the last autho- 
 rity in the creation. Amuse yourselves as you may, by con- 
 tinuing to censure or to rail ; / must continue to act. 
 
 The attack of contempt and ridicule is perhaps a still 
 greater trial of courage. It is felt by all to be an admirable 
 thing, when it can in no degree be ascribed to the hardness 
 of either stupidity or confirmed depravity, to sustain for a
 
 On Decision of Character. 77 
 
 considerable time, or in numerous instances, the looks of 
 scorn, or an unrestrained shower of taunts and jeers, with 
 perfect composure, and proceed immediately after, or at the 
 time, on the business that provokes all this ridicule. This 
 invincibility of temper will often make even the scoffers them- 
 selves tired of the sport : they begin to feel that against such 
 a man it is a poor sort of hostility to joke and sneer; and 
 there is nothing that people are more mortified to spend in 
 vain than their scorn. Till, however, a man shall become a 
 veteran, he must reckon on sometimes meeting this trial in 
 the course of virtuous enterprise. And if, at the suggestion 
 of some meritorious but unprecedented proceeding, I hear 
 him ask, with a look and tone of shrinking alarm, But will 
 they not laugh at me? I know that he is not the person 
 whom this essay attempts to describe. A man of the right 
 kind would say, They will smile, they will laugh, will they ? 
 Much good may it do them. I have something else to do 
 than to trouble myself about their mirth. I do not care if 
 the whole neighbourhood were to laugh in a chorus. I 
 should indeed be sorry to see or hear such a number of fools, 
 but pleased enough to find that they considered me as an 
 outlaw to their tribe. The good to result from my project 
 will not be less, because vain and shallow minds that cannot 
 understand it, are diverted at it and at me. What should I 
 think of my pursuits, if every trivial thoughtless being could 
 comprehend or would applaud them ; and of myself, if my 
 courage needed levity and ignorance for their allies, or could 
 be abashed at their sneers ? 
 
 I remember, that on reading the account of the project for 
 conquering Peru, formed by Almagro, Pizarro. and De 
 Luques, while abhorring the actuating principle of the men, 
 I could not help admiring the hardihood of mind which made 
 them regardless of scorn. These three individuals, before 
 they had obtained any associates, or arms, or soldiers, or 
 more than a very imperfect knowledge of the power of the 
 kingdom they were to conquer, celebrated a solemn mass in 
 one of the great churches, as a pledge and a commencement 
 of the enterprise, amidst the astonishment and contempt ex- 
 pressed by a multitude of people for what was deemed a 
 monstrous project. They, however, proceeded through the 
 service, and afterwards to their respective departments of 
 preparation, with an apparently entire insensibility to all this
 
 78 On Decision of Character. 
 
 triumphant contempt ; and thus gave the first proof of pos- 
 sessing that invincible firmness with which they afterwards 
 prosecuted their design, till they attained a success, the 
 destructive process and many of the results of which 
 humanity has ever deplored. 
 
 Milton's Abdiel is a noble illustration of the courage that 
 rises invincible above the derision not only of the multitude, 
 but of the proud and elevated.* 
 
 But there may be situations where decision of character 
 will be brought to trial against evils of a darker aspect than 
 disapprobation or contempt. There maybe the threatening 
 of serious sufferings ; and very often, to dare as far as con- 
 science or a great cause required, has been to dare to die. 
 In almost all plans of great enterprise, a man must syste- 
 matically dismiss, at the entrance, every wish to stipulate 
 with his destiny for safety. He voluntarily treads within 
 the precincts of danger ; and though it be possible he may 
 escape, he ought to be prepared with the fortitude of a self- 
 devoted victim. This is the inevitable condition on which 
 heroes, travellers or missionaries, among savage nations, 
 and reformers on a grand scale, must commence their career. 
 Either they must allay their fire of enterprise, or abide the 
 liability to be exploded by it from the world. 
 
 The last decisive energy of a rational courage, which 
 confides in the Supreme Power, is very sublime. It makes 
 a man who intrepidly dares everything that can oppose or 
 attack him within the whole sphere of mortality ; who will 
 still press toward his object while death is impending over 
 him ; who would retain his purpose unshaken amidst the 
 ruins of the world. 
 
 It was in the true elevation of this character that Luther, 
 when cited to appear at the Diet of Worms, under a very 
 
 * Abdiel is represented in Milton's "Paradise Lost" as one of the 
 seraphim who, when Satan tried to stir up a revolt among the angels 
 subordinate to his authority, alone and boldly withstood his traitorous 
 designs. 
 
 " So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found 
 Among the faithless ; faithful only he ; 
 Among innumerable false, unmoved, 
 Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, 
 His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal." 
 
 "Par. Lost," Book V.
 
 On Decision of Character. 79 
 
 questionable assurance of safety from high authority, said 
 to his friends, who conjured him not to go, and warned him 
 by the example of John Huss, whom, in a similar situation, 
 the same pledge of protection had not saved from the fire, 
 " I am called in the name of God to go, and I would go, 
 though I were certain to meet as many devils in Worms as 
 there are tiles on the houses."* 
 
 A reader of the Bible will not forget Daniel, f braving in 
 calm devotion the decree which virtually consigned him to 
 the den of lions : or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, 
 saying to the tyrant, " We are not careful to answer thee 
 in this matter," J when the " burning fiery " furnace was in 
 sight. 
 
 The combination of these several essential principles 
 constitutes that state of mind which is a grand requisite to 
 decision of character, and perhaps its most striking dis- 
 tinction the full agreement of the mind with itself, the 
 consenting co-operation of all its powers and all its dis- 
 positions. 
 
 What an unfortunate task it would be for a charioteer, 
 who had harnessed a set of horses, however strong, if he 
 could not make them draw together ; if while one of them 
 would go forward, another was restive, another struggled 
 backward, another started aside. If even one of the four 
 were unmanageably perverse, while the three were tractable, 
 an aged beggar with his crutch might leave Phaeton behind. 
 So in a human being, unless the chief forces act consentane- 
 ously, there can be no inflexible vigour, either of will or 
 execution. One dissentient principle in the mind not only 
 deducts so much from the strength and mass of its agency, 
 but counteracts and embarrasses all the rest. If the judg- 
 ment holds in low estimation that which yet the passions 
 incline to pursue, the pursuit will be irregularand inconstant, 
 though it may have occasional fits of animation, when those 
 passions happen to be highly stimulated. If there is an 
 
 * The conclusion of his defence before the assembled princes and 
 prelates was quite of a piece with this declaration. " Let me then be 
 refuted and convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures, or by the clearest 
 arguments, otherwise I cannot and will not recant ; for it is neither safe nor 
 expedient to act against conscience. Here I take my stand ; I can do no 
 otherwise, so help me God ! Amen." 
 
 f Daniel vi. 1 6. J Daniel iii. 1 6.
 
 So On Decision of Character. 
 
 opposition between judgment and habit, though the .man 
 \vill probably continue to act mainly under the sway of habit 
 in spite of his opinions, yet sometimes the intrusion of 
 those opinions will have for the moment an effect like that 
 of Prospero's wand on the limbs of Ferdinand ; and to be 
 alternately impelled by habit, and checked by opinion, will 
 be a state of vexatious debility. If two principal passions 
 are opposed to each other, they will utterly distract any 
 mind, whatever might be the force of its faculties if acting 
 without embarrassment. The one passion may be some- 
 what stronger than the other, and therefore just prevail 
 barely enough to give a feeble impulse to the conduct of the 
 man ; a feebleness which will continue till there be a greater 
 disparity between these rivals, in consequence of a rein- 
 forcement to the slightly ascendant one, by new impressions, 
 or the gradual strengthening of habit forming in its favour. 
 The disparity must be no less than an absolute predomi- 
 nance of the one and subjection of the other, before the pre- 
 vailing passion will have at liberty from the intestine conflict 
 any large measure of its force to throw activity into the 
 system of conduct. If, for instance, a man feels at once 
 the love of fame which is to be gained only by arduous 
 exertions, and an equal degree of the love of ease or 
 pleasure which precludes those exertions ; if he is eager to 
 show off in splendour, and yet anxious to save money ; if 
 he has the curiosity of adventure, and yet that solicitude 
 for safety, which forbids him to climb a precipice, descend 
 into a cavern, or explode a dangerous wild ; if he has the 
 stern will of a tyrant, and yet the relentings of a man ; if 
 he has the ambition to domineer over his fellow-mortals, 
 counteracted by a reluctance to inflict so much mischief as 
 it might cost to subdue them ; we may anticipate the 
 irresolute contradictory tenour of his actions. Especially 
 if conscience, that great troubler of the human breast, 
 loudly declares against a man's wishes or projects, it will be 
 a fatal enemy to decision, till it either reclaim the delinquent 
 passions, or be debauched or laid dead by them. 
 
 Lady Macbeth may be cited as a harmonious character, 
 though the epithet seem strangely applied. She had capacity, 
 ambition, and courage ; and she willed the death of the king. 
 Macbeth had still more capacity, ambition, and courage ; 
 and he also willed the murder of the king. But he had,
 
 On Decision of Character. 81 
 
 besides, humanity, generosity, conscience, and some measure 
 of what forms the power of conscience, the fear of a Superior 
 Being. Consequently, when the dreadful moment approached, 
 he felt an insupportable conflict between these opposite prin- 
 ciples, and when it was arrived his utmost courage began to 
 fail. The worst part of his nature fell prostrate under the 
 power of the better ; the angel of goodness arrested the 
 demon that grasped the dagger ; and would have taken that 
 dagger away, if the pure demoniac firmness of his wife, who 
 had none of these counteracting principles, had not shamed 
 and hardened him to the deed. 
 
 The poet's delineation of Richard III. offers a dreadful 
 specimen of this indivisibility of mental impulse. After his 
 determination was fixed, the whole mind with the com- 
 pactest fidelity supported him in prosecuting it. Securely 
 privileged from all interference of doubt that could linger, or 
 humanity that could soften, or timidity that could shrink, he 
 advanced with a concentrated constancy through scene after 
 scene of atrocity, still fulfilling his vow to " cut his way 
 through with a bloody axe." He did not waver while he 
 pursued his object, nor relent when he seized it. 
 
 Cromwell (whom I mention as a parallel, of course not to 
 Richard's wickedness, but to his inflexible vigour,) lost his 
 mental consistency in the latter end of a career which had 
 displayed a superlative example of decision. It appears that 
 the wish to be a king, at last arose in a mind which had 
 contemned royalty, and battled it from the land. As far as 
 he really had any republican principles and partialities, this 
 new desire must have been a very untoward associate for 
 them, and must have produced a schism in the breast where 
 all the strong forces of thought and passion had acted till 
 then in concord. The new form of ambition became just 
 predominant enough to carry him, by slow degrees, through 
 the embarrassment and the shame of this incongruity, into 
 an irresolute determination to assume the crown; so irreso- 
 lute, that he was reduced again to a mortifying indecision 
 by the remonstrances of some of his friends, which he could 
 have slighted, and by an apprehension of the public dis- 
 approbation, which he could have braved, if some of the 
 principles of his own mind had not shrunk or revolted 
 Irom the design. When at last the motives for relinquishing 
 this design prevailed, it was by so small a degree of 
 
 G
 
 82 On Decision of Character. 
 
 preponderance, that his reluctant refusal of the offered crown 
 was the voice of only half his soul. 
 
 Not only two distinct counteracting passions, but one 
 passion interested for two objects, both equally desirable, 
 but of which the one must be sacrificed, may annihilate in 
 that instance the possibility of a resolute promptitude of 
 conduct. I recollect reading in an old divine, a story from 
 some historian, applicable to this remark. A father went to 
 the agents of a tyrant, to endeavour to redeem his two sons, 
 military men, who, with some other captives of war, were 
 condemned to die. He offered, as a ransom, a sum of 
 money, and to surrender his own life. The tyrant's agents 
 who had them in charge, informed him that this equivalent 
 would be accepted for one of his sons, and for one only, 
 because they should be accountable for the execution of two 
 persons ; he might therefore choose which he would redeem. 
 Anxious to save even one of them thus at the expense of 
 his own life, he yet was unable to decide which should die, 
 by choosing the other to live, and remained in the agony of 
 this dilemma so long that they were both irreversibly ordered 
 for execution. 
 
 LETTER- V. 
 
 IT were absurd to suppose that any human being can attain 
 a state of mind capable of acting in all instances invariably 
 with the full power of determination ; but it is obvious that 
 many have possessed an habitual and very commanding 
 measure of it ; and I think the preceding remarks have 
 taken account of its chief characteristics and constituent 
 principles. A number of additional observations remains. 
 
 The slightest view of human affairs shows what fatal and 
 wide-spread mischief may be caused by men of this char- 
 acter, when misled or wicked. You have but to recollect 
 the conquerors, despots, bigots, unjust conspirators, and 
 signal villains of every class, who have blasted society by 
 the relentless vigour which could act consistently and hero- 
 ically wrong. Till therefore the virtue of mankind be greater, 
 there is reason to be pleased that so few of them are endowed 
 with extraordinary decision. 
 
 Even when dignified by wisdom and principle, this quality
 
 i Decision of Character. 83 
 
 requires great care in the possessors of it to prevent its 
 becoming unamiable. As it involves much practical asser- 
 tion of superiority over other human beings, it should be as 
 temperate and conciliating as possible in manner; else pride 
 will feel provoked, affection hurt, and weakness oppressed. 
 But this is not the manner which will be most natural to 
 such a man ; rather it will be high-toned, laconic, and care- 
 less of pleasing. He will have the appearance of keeping 
 himself always at a distance from social equality ; and his 
 friends will feel as if their friendship were continually sliding 
 into subserviency : while his intimate connexions will think 
 he does not attach the due importanceeither to their opinions 
 or to their regard. His manner, when they differ from 
 him, or complain, will be too much like the expression of 
 slight estimation, and sometimes of disdain. 
 
 When he can accomplish a design by his own personal 
 means alone, he maybe disposed to separate himself to the 
 work with the cold self-enclosed individuality on which no 
 one has any hold, which seems to recognize no kindred 
 being in the world, which takes little account of good 
 wishes and kind concern, anymore than it cares for opposi- 
 tion ; which seeks neither aid nor sympathy, and seems to 
 say, I do not want any of you, and I am glad that I do not ; 
 leave me alone to succeed or die. This has a very repel- 
 lent effect on the friends who wished to feel themselves of 
 some importance, in some way or other, to a person whom 
 they are constrained to respect. When assistance is indis- 
 pensable to his undertakings, his mode of signifying it win 
 seem to command, rather than invite, the co-operation. 
 
 In consultation, his manner will indicate that when he 
 is equally with the rest in possession of the circumstances 
 of the case, he does not at all expect to hear any opinions that 
 shall correct his own ; but is satisfied that either his present 
 conception of the subject is the just one, or that his own 
 mind must originate that which shall be so. This difference 
 will be apparent between him and his associates, that their 
 manner of receiving his opinions is that of agreement or 
 dissent ; his manner of receiving theirs is judicial that of 
 sanction or rejection. He has the tone of authoritatively 
 deciding on what they say, but never of submitting to de- 
 cision what he himself says. Their coincidence with his views 
 does not give him a firmer assurance of his being right, 
 
 G 2
 
 84 On Decision of Character. 
 
 nor their dissent any other impression than that of their 
 incapacity to judge. If his feeling took the distinct form of 
 a reflection, it would be, Mine is the business of compre- 
 hending and devising, and I am here to rule this company,, 
 and not to consult them ; I want their docility, and not their 
 arguments; I am come, not to seek their assistance in 
 thinking, but to determine their concurrence in executing, 
 what is already thought for them. Of course, many sug- 
 gestions and reasons which appear important to those they 
 come from will be disposed of by him with a transient 
 attention, or a light facility, that will seem very disrespectful 
 to persons who possibly hesitate to admit that he is a 
 demi-god, and that they are but idiots. Lord Chatham, in 
 going out of the House of Commons, just as one of the 
 speakers* against him concluded his speech by emphatically 
 urging what he perhaps rightly thought the unanswerable 
 question, " Where can we find means to support such a 
 war ? " turned round a moment, and gaily chanted, " Gentle 
 shepherd tell me where ? " 
 
 Even the assenting convictions, and practical compliances, 
 yielded by degrees to this decisive man, may be somewhat 
 undervalued ; as they will appear to him no more than 
 simply coming, and that very slowly, to a right apprehen- 
 sion ; whereas he understood and decided justly from the 
 first, and has been right all this while. 
 
 He will be in danger in rejecting the just claims of 
 charity for a little tolerance to the prejudices, hesitation* 
 and timidity, of those with whom he has to act. He will 
 say to himself, I wish there were anything like manhood 
 among the beings called men ; and that they could have 
 the sense and spirit not to let themselves be hampered by 
 so many silly notions and childish fears ! Why cannot 
 they either determine with some promptitude, or let me, 
 that can, do it for them ? Am I to wait till debility become 
 strong, and folly wise ? If full scope be allowed to these 
 tendencies, they may give too much of the character of a 
 tyrant to even a man of elevated virtue, since, in the 
 consciousness of the right intention and the assurance of 
 the wise contrivance, of his designs, he will hold himself 
 
 * The speaker was Mr. George G'renville, who barely escaped the 
 sobriquet of Gentle Shepherd for the rest of his life.
 
 On Decision of Character 85 
 
 lustified in being regardless of everything but the accomplish- 
 ment of them. He will forget all respect for the feelings 
 and liberties of beings who are accounted but a subordinate 
 machinery, to be actuated, or to be thrown aside when not 
 actuated, by the spring of his commanding spirit. 
 
 I have before asserted that this strong character may be 
 exhibited with a mildness, or at least temperance, of man- 
 ner ; and that, generally, it will thus best secure its efficacy. 
 But this mildness must often be at the cost of great effort ; 
 and how much considerate policy or benevolent forbearance 
 it will require, for a man to exert his utmost vigour in the 
 very task, as it will appear to him at the time, of cramping 
 that vigour ! Lycurgus :;: appears to have been a high 
 example of conciliating patience in the resolute prosecution 
 of designs to be effected among a perverse multitude. 
 
 It is probable that the men most distinguished for decision, 
 have not in general possessed a large share of tenderness ; 
 and it is easy to imagine, that the laws of our nature will, 
 with great difficulty, allow the combination of the refined 
 sensibilities with a hard, never-shrinking, never-yielding 
 firmness. Is it not almost of the essence of this tempera- 
 ment to be free from even the perception of such impressions 
 as cause a mind, weak through susceptibility, to relax or 
 Avaver ; just as the skin of the elephant, or the armour of 
 the rhinoceros, would be but indistinctly sensible to the 
 application of a force by which a small animal, with a skin 
 of thin and delicate texture, would be pierced or lacerated 
 to death ? No doubt, this firmness consists partly in a 
 commanding and repressive power over feelings, but it may 
 consist fully as much in not having them. To be exquisitely 
 alive to gentle impressions, and yet to be able to preserve, 
 when the prosecution of a design requires it, an immovable 
 heart amidst-the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, 
 is perhaps not an impossible constitution of mind, but it 
 must be the rarest endowment of humanity. 
 
 If you take a view of the first rank of decisive men, you 
 will observe that their faculties have been too much bent to 
 arduous effort, their souls have been kept in too military an 
 
 *Lycuriis, the celebrated Spartan legislator; said to have been the 
 son of Eunomus, King of Sparta, and to have lived in thi ninth 
 century B.C.
 
 86 On Decision of Character. 
 
 attitude, they have been begirt with too much iron, for the 
 melting movements of the heart. Their whole being ap- 
 pears too much arrogated and occupied by the spirit of 
 severe design, urging them toward some denned end, to be 
 sufficiently at ease for the indolent complacency, the soft 
 lassitude of gentle affections, which love to surrender them- 
 selves to the present felicities, forgetful of all "enterprises 
 of great pith and moment." The man seems rigorously 
 intent still on his own affairs, as he walks, or regales, or min- 
 gles with domestic society; and appears to despise all the 
 feelings that will not take rank with the grave labours and 
 decisions of intellect, or coalesce with the unremitting 
 passion which is his spring of action ; he values not feelings 
 which he cannot employ either as weapons or as engines. 
 He loves to be actuated by a passion so strong as to compel 
 into exercise the utmost force of his being, and fix him in a 
 tone, compared with which, the gentle affections, if he had 
 felt them, would be accounted tameness, and their exciting 
 causes insipidity. 
 
 Yet we cannot willingly admit that those gentle affections 
 are totally incompatible with the most impregnable resolu- 
 tion and vigour ; nor can we help believing that such men 
 as Timoleon, Alfred, and Gustavus Adolphus, must have 
 been very fascinating associates in private and domestic life, 
 whenever the urgency of their affairs would allow them to 
 withdraw from the interests of statesmen and warriors, to 
 indulge the affections of men : most fascinating, for, with 
 relations or friends who had any right perceptions, an effect 
 of the strong character would be recognized in a peculiar 
 charm imparted by it to the gentle moods and seasons. The 
 firmness and energy of the man whom nothing could subdue, 
 would exalt the quality of the tenderness which softened him 
 to recline. 
 
 But it were much easier to enumerate a long train of 
 ancient and modern examples of the vigour unmitigated by 
 the sensibility. Perhaps indeed these indomitable spirits 
 have yielded sometimes to some species of love, as a mode 
 of amusing their passons for an interval, till greater engage- 
 ments have summoned them into their proper element ; when 
 they have shown how little the sentiment was an element of 
 the heart, by the ease with which they could relinquish the 
 temporary favourite. In other cases, where there have not
 
 On Decision of Character. 87 
 
 been the selfish inducements, which this passion supplies, 
 to the exhibition of something like softness, and where they 
 have been left to the trial of what they might feel of the 
 sympathies of humanity in their simplicity, no rock on earth 
 could be harder. 
 
 The celebrated King of Prussia occurs to me, as a capital 
 instance of the decisive character; and there occurs to me, 
 at the same time, one of the anecdotes related of him.* 
 Intending to make, in the night, an important movement in 
 his camp, which was in sight of the enemy, he gave orders 
 that by eight o'clock all the lights in the camp should be put 
 out, on pain of death. The moment that the time was passed, 
 he walked out himself to see whether all were dark. He 
 found a light in the tent of a Captain Zietern, which he 
 entered just as the officer was folding up a letter. Zietern 
 knew him, and instantly fell on his knees to entreat his 
 mercy. The king asked to whom he had been writing; he 
 said it was a letter to his wife, which he had retained the 
 candle these few minutes beyond the time in order to finish. 
 The king coolly ordered him to rise, and write one line more, 
 which he should dictate. This line was to inform his wife, 
 without any explanation, that by such an hour the next day 
 he should be a dead man. The letter was then sealed, and 
 despatched as it had been intended ; and, the next day, the 
 captain was executed. I say nothing of the justice of the 
 punishment itself; but this cool barbarity to the affection 
 both of the officer and his wife, proved how little the decisive 
 hero and reputed philosopher was capable of the tender 
 affections, or of sympathizing with their pains. 
 
 At the same time, it is proper to observe, that the case 
 may easily occur, in which a man, sustaining a high respon- 
 sibility, mustbe resolute to act in a manner which may make 
 him appear to want the finer feelings. He may be placed 
 
 * The authenticity of this anecdote, which I read in some trifling fugitive 
 publication many years since, has been questioned. Possibly enough it 
 might be one of the many stories only half true which could not fail to go 
 abroad concerning a man who made, in his day, so great a figure. But as 
 it does not at all misrepresent the general character of his mind, since there 
 are many incontrovertible facts proving against him as great a degree of 
 cruelty as this anecdote would charge on him, the want of means to prove 
 this one fact does not seem to impose any necessity for omitting the illus- 
 tration.
 
 88 On Decision of Character* 
 
 under the necessity of doing what he knows will cause pain 
 to persons of a character to feel it severely. He may be 
 obliged to resist affectionate wishes, expostulations, entrea- 
 ties, and tears. Take this same instance. Suppose the 
 wife of Zietern had come to supplicate for him, not only the 
 remission of the punishment of death, but an exemption from 
 any other severe punishment, which was perhaps justly due 
 to the violation of such an order issued no doubt for impor- 
 tant reasons ; it had then probably been the duty and the 
 virtue of the commander to deny the most interesting sup- 
 pliant, and to resist the most pathetic appeals which could 
 have been made to his ieelings. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 VARIOUS circumstances might be specified as adapted to 
 confirm such a character as I have attempted to describe. 
 I shall notice two or three. 
 
 And first, opposition. The passions which inspirit men 
 to resistance, and sustain them in it, such as anger, indigna- 
 tion, and resentment, are evidently far stronger than those 
 which have reference to friendly objects ; and if any of these 
 strong passions are frequently excited by opposition, they 
 infuse a certain quality into the general temperament of the 
 mind, which remains after the immediate excitement is past. 
 They continually strengthen the principle of re-action; they 
 put the mind in the habitual array of defence and self- 
 assertion, and often give it the aspect and the posture of a 
 gladiator, when there appears no confronting combatant. 
 When these passions are provoked in such a person as I 
 describe, it is probable that each excitement is followed by 
 a greater increase of this principle of re-action than in other 
 men, because this result is so congenial with his naturally 
 resolute disposition. Let him be opposed then, throughout 
 the prosecution of one of his designs, or in the general 
 tenour of his actions, and this constant opposition would 
 render him the service of an ally, by augmenting the resist- 
 ing and defying power of his mind. An irresolute spirit 
 indeed might be quelled and subjugated by a formidable and 
 persisting opposition ; but the strong wind which blows out
 
 On Decision of Character. 89 
 
 a taper, exasperates a powerful fire (if there be fuel enough) 
 to an indefinite intensity. It would be found, in fact, on a 
 recollection of instances, that many of the persons most 
 conspicuous for decision, have been exercised and forced to 
 this high tone of spirit in having to make their way through 
 opposition and contest ; a discipline under which they were 
 wrought to both a prompt acuteness of faculty, and an 
 inflexibility of temper, hardly attainable even by minds of 
 great natural strength, if brought forward into the affairs of 
 life under indulgent auspices, and in habits of easy and 
 friendly coincidence with those around him. Often, how- 
 ever, it is granted, the firmness matured by such discipline 
 is, in a man of virtue, accompanied with a Catonic severity, 
 and in a mere man of the world is an unhumanized repulsive 
 hardness. 
 
 Desertion may be another cause conducive to the con- 
 solidation of this character. A kind mutually reclining 
 dependence, is certainly for the happiness of human beings ; 
 but this necessarily prevents the development of some great 
 individual powers which would be forced into action by a 
 state of abandonment. I lately happened to notice, with 
 some surprise, an ivy, which, finding nothing to cling to 
 beyond a certain point had shot off into a bold elastic stem, 
 with an air of as much independence as any branch of oak 
 in the vicinity. So a human being thrown, whether by 
 cruelty, justice, or accident, from all social support and 
 kindness, if he have any vigour of spirit, and be not in the 
 bodily debility of either childhood or age, will begin to act 
 for himself with a resolution which will appear like a new 
 faculty. And the most absolute inflexibility is likely to 
 characterize the resolution of an individual who is obliged 
 to deliberate without consultation, and execute without 
 assistance. He will disdain to yield to beings who have 
 rejected him, or to forego a particle of his designs or ad- 
 vantages in concession to the opinions or the will of all the 
 world. Himself, his pursuits, and his interests, are em- 
 phatically his own. " The world is not his friend, nor the 
 world's law ; " :: and therefore he becomes regardless of 
 everything but its power, of which his policy carefully takes 
 the measure, in order to ascertain his own means of 
 
 * See Shakespere's " Romeo and Juliet," Act V., Scene. I.
 
 9 On Decision of Character. 
 
 action and impunity, as set against the world's means of 
 annoyance, prevention, and retaliation. 
 
 If this person have but little humanity or principle, he 
 will become a misanthrope, or perhaps a villain, who will 
 resemble a solitary wild beast of the night, which makes 
 prey of everything it can overpower, and cares for nothing 
 but fire. If he be capable of grand conception and enter- 
 prise, he may, like Spartacus,* make a daringattempt against 
 the whole social order of the state where he has been 
 oppressed. If he be of great humanity and principle, he 
 may become one of the noblest of mankind, and display a 
 generous virtue to which society had no claim, and which 
 it is not worthy to reward, if it should at last become in- 
 clined. No, he will say, give your rewards to another ; as 
 it has been no part of my object to gain them, they are not 
 necessary to my satisfaction. I have done good, without 
 expecting your gratitude, and without caring for your 
 approbation. If conscience and my Creator had not been 
 more auspicious than you, none of these virtues would 
 ever have opened to the day. When I ought to have been 
 an object of your compassion, I might have perished ; now, 
 when you find I can serve your interests, you will affect to 
 acknowledge me and reward me ; but I will abide by my 
 destiny to verify the principle that virtue is its own reward. 
 In either case, virtuous or wicked, the man who has 
 been compelled to do without assistance, will spurn inter- 
 ference . 
 
 Common life would supply illustrations of the effect of 
 desertion, in examples of some of the most resolute men 
 having become such partly from being left friendless in early 
 life. The case has also sometimes happened, that a wfie 
 and mother, remarkable perhaps for gentleness and ac- 
 quiescence before, has been compelled, after the death of 
 her husband on whom she depended, and when she has met 
 with nothing but neglect or unkindness from relations and 
 those who had been accounted friends, to adopt a plan of 
 her own, and has executed it with a resolution which has 
 astonished even herself. 
 
 One regrets that the signal examples, real or fictitious, 
 
 * Spartacus, leader of the revolt of the gladiators in Italy. Killed 
 B.C. 72.
 
 On Decision of Character. gi 
 
 that most readily present themselves, are still of the de- 
 praved order. I fancy myself to see Marius* sitting on the 
 ruins of Carthage, where no arch or column, that remained 
 unshaken amidst the desolation, could present a stronger 
 image of a firmness beyond the power of disaster to subdue. 
 The rigid constancy which had before distinguished his 
 character, would be aggravated by his finding himself thus 
 an outcast from all human society ; and he would proudly 
 shake off every sentiment that had ever for an instant 
 checked his designs in the way of reminding him of social 
 obligations. The lonely individual was placed in the 
 alternative of becoming the victim or the antagonist of the 
 power of the empire. While, with a spirit capable of con- 
 fronting that power, he resolved, amidst those ruins, on a 
 great experiment, he would enjoy a kind of sullen luxury in 
 surveying the dreary situation into which he was driven, 
 and recollecting the circumstances of his expulsion ; since 
 they would seem to him to sanction an unlimited vengeance ; 
 to present what had been his country as the pure legitimate 
 prize for desperate achievement ; and to give him a proud 
 consequence in being reduced to maintain singly a mortal 
 quarrel against the bulk of mankind. He would exult that 
 the very desolation of his condition rendered but the more 
 complete the proof of his possessing a mind which no mis- 
 fortunes could repress or intimidate, and that it kindled an 
 animosity intense enough to force that mind from firm 
 endurance into impetuous action. He would feel that he 
 became stronger for enterprise, in proportion as his exile 
 and destitution rendered him more inexorable ; and 
 the sentiment with which he quitted his solitude would 
 be, Rome expelled her patriot, let her receive her evil 
 genius. 
 
 The decision of Satan, in Paradise Lost, is represented 
 as consolidated by his reflections on his hopeless banish- 
 ment from heaven, which oppress him with sadness for 
 some moments, but he soon resumes his invincible spirit, 
 and utters the impious but sublime sentiment, 
 
 " What matter where, if /be still the same."t 
 
 * Marius, a celebrated Roman general and popular leader, who 
 seven times consul. Born B.C., 157 ; died B.C. 86. 
 t Paradise Lost. Book i., C. 256. 
 
 was
 
 On Decision of Character. 
 
 You remember how this effect of desertion is represented 
 in Charles de Moor.* His father's supposed cruel rejection 
 consigned him irretrievably to the career of atrocious enter- 
 prise, in which, notwithstanding the most interesting 
 emotions of humanity and tenderness, he persisted with 
 heroic determination till he considered his destiny as 
 accomplished. 
 
 Success tends considerably to reinforce this commanding 
 quality. It is true that a man possessing it in a high 
 degree will not lose it by occasional failure ; for if the 
 failure was caused by something entirely beyond the reach 
 of human knowledge and ability, he will remember that 
 fortitude is the virtue required in meeting unfavourable 
 events which in no sense depended on him ; if by something 
 which might have been known and prevented, he will feel 
 that even the experience of failure completes his compe- 
 tence, by admonishing his prudence, and enlarging his 
 understanding. But as schemes and measures of action 
 rightly adjusted to their proposed ends will generally attain 
 them, continual failure would show something essentially 
 wrong in a man's system, and destroy his confidence, or 
 else expose it as mere absurdity or obstinacy. On the 
 contrary, when a man has ascertained by experiment the 
 justness of his calculations and the extent of his powers, 
 when he has measured his force with various persons, when 
 he has braved and vanquished difficulty, and partly seized 
 the* prize, he will carry forward the result of all this in 
 an intrepid self-sufficiency for whatever may yet await 
 him. 
 
 In some men, whose lives have been spent in constant 
 perils, continued success has produced a confidence beyond 
 its rational effect, by inspiring a presumption that the 
 common laws of human affairs were, in their case, superseded 
 by the decrees of a peculiar destiny, securing them from 
 almost the possibility of disaster; and this superstitious 
 feeling, though it has displaced the unconquerable resolution 
 from its rational basis, has often produced the most wonder- 
 ful effects. This dictated Caesar's expression to the mariner 
 who was terrified at the storm and billows, " What art thou 
 
 * A wildly extravagant, certainly, but most imposing and gigantic 
 character in Schiller's tragedy, The Robbers.
 
 On Decision of Character. 93 
 
 afraid of? thy vessel carries Caesar." :|: The brave men in 
 the times of the English Commonwealth were, some of them 
 indebted in a degree for their magnanimity to this idea of a 
 special destination, entertained as a religious sentiment. 
 
 The wilfulness of an obstinate person is sometimes forti- 
 fied by some single instance of remarkable success in his 
 undertakings, which is promptly recalled in every case where 
 his decisions are questioned or opposed, as a proof, or ground 
 of just presumption, that he must in this instance too be 
 right ; especially if that one success happened contrary to 
 your predictions. 
 
 I shall only add, and without illustration, that the habit 
 of associating with inferiors among whom a man can 
 always, and therefore does always, take the precedence and 
 give the law, is conducive to a subordinate coarse kind of 
 decision of character. You may see this exemplified any 
 day in an ignorant country 'squire among his vassals ; espe- 
 cially if he wear the lordly superaddition of Justice of the 
 Peace. 
 
 In viewing the characters and actions of the men who 
 have possessed in imperial eminence the quality which I have 
 attempted to describe, one cannot but wish it were possible 
 to know how much of this mighty superiority was created 
 by the circumstances in which they were placed ; but it is 
 inevitable to believe that there was some vast intrinsic differ- 
 ence from ordinary men in the original constitutional struc- 
 ture of the mind. In observing lately a man who appeared 
 too vacant almost to think of a purpose, too indifferent to 
 resolve upon it, and too sluggish to execute it if he had 
 resolved, I was distinctly struck with the idea of the distance 
 between him and Marius, of whom I happened to have been 
 reading ; and it was infinitely beyond my power to believe 
 
 * " Unluckily that night a strong sea-wind sprung up, which overpowered 
 that from the land, so that by the rage, of the sea and the counteraction 
 of the stream, the river became extremely rough, the waves dashed 
 against each other with a tumultuous noise, and formed such dangerous 
 eddies, that the pilot despaired of making good his passage, and ordered 
 the mariners to turn back. Caesar perceiving this rose up, and showing 
 himself to the pilot, who was greatly astonished at the sight of him, said 
 4 Go forward, my friend, and fear nothing; thou earnest Ca?sar and his 
 fortune.' The mariners then forgot the storm, and plying their oars with 
 the utmost vigour and alacrity, endeavoured to overcome the resistance of 
 the waves." 1'LUTARCH's " Lives, Casar"
 
 94 On Decision of Character. 
 
 that any circumstances on earth, though ever so perfectly 
 combined and adapted, would have produced in this man, if 
 placed under their fullest influence from his childhood, any 
 resemblance (unless perhaps the courage to enact a diminu- 
 tive imitation in revenge and cruelty) of the formidable 
 Roman. 
 
 It is needless to discuss whether a person who is prac- 
 tically evinced, at the age of maturity, to want the stamina 
 of this character, can, by any process, acquire it. Indeed 
 such a person cannot have sufficient force of will to make 
 the complete experiment. If there were unconquerable will 
 that would persist to seize all possible means, and apply 
 them in order to attain, if I may so express it, this stronger 
 mode of active existence, it would prove the possession 
 already of a high degree of the character sought ; and if 
 there is not this will, how then is the supposed attainment 
 possible ? 
 
 Yet though it is improbable that a very irresolute man 
 can ever become an habitually decisive one, it should be 
 observed, that since there are degrees of this powerful 
 quality, and since the essential principles of it, when partially 
 existing in those degrees, cannot be supposed subject to 
 definite and ultimate limitation, like the dimension of the 
 bodily stature, it might be possible to apply a discipline 
 which should advance a man from the lowest degree to the 
 next, from that to the third, and how much further it will 
 be worth his trying, if his first successful experiments have 
 not cost more in the efforts for making the attainment, than 
 he judges likely to be repaid by any good he shall gain from 
 its exercise. I have but a very imperfect conception of the 
 discipline ; but will suggest a hint or two. 
 
 In the first place, the indispensable necessity of a clear 
 and comprehensive knowledge of the concerns before us, 
 seems too obvious for remark ; and yet no man has been 
 sufficiently sensible of it till he has been placed in circum- 
 stances which forced him to act before he had time, or after 
 he had made ineffectual efforts, to obtain the needful informa- 
 tion and understanding. The pain of having brought things 
 to an unfortunate issue, is hardly greater than that of pro- 
 ceeding in the conscious ignorance which continually 
 threatens such an issue. While thus proceeding at hazard, 
 under some compulsion which makes it impossible for him
 
 On Decision of Character. 95 
 
 to remain in inaction, a man looks round for information 
 as eagerly as a benighted wanderer would for the light of a 
 human dwelling. He perhaps labours to recall what he 
 thinks he once heard or read, as relating to a similar situa- 
 tion, without dreaming at that time that such instruction 
 could ever come to be of importance to him ; and is distressed 
 to find his best recollection so indistinct as to be useless. 
 He could give a considerable sum, if some particular book 
 could be brought to him at the instant ; or a certain docu- 
 ment which he believes to be in existence ; or the detail of 
 a process, the terms of a prescription, or the model of an 
 implement. He thinks how many people know, without 
 its being of any present use to them, exactly what could be 
 of such important service to him, if he could know it. In 
 some cases, a line, a sentence, a monosyllable of affirming 
 or denying, or a momentary sight of an object, would be 
 inexpressibly valuable and welcome. And he resolves that 
 if he can once happily escape from the present difficulty, 
 he will apply himself day and night to obtain knowledge, 
 not concerning one particular matter only but divers others, 
 in provision against possible emergencies, rather than be 
 so involved and harassed again. It might really be of 
 service .to have been occasionally forced to act under the 
 disadvantage of conscious ignorance (if the affair was not 
 so important as to allow the consequence to be very 
 injurious), as an effectual lesson on the necessity of know- 
 ledge in order to decision either of plan or execution. It 
 must indeed be an extreme case that will compel a con- 
 siderate man to act in the absence of knowledge ; yet he 
 may sometimes be necessitated to proceed to action when 
 he is sensible his information is far from extending to the 
 whole of the concern in which he is going to commit him- 
 self. And in this case, he will feel no little uneasiness, 
 while transacting that part of it in which his knowledge is 
 competent, when he looks forward to the point where that 
 knowledge terminates ; unless he be conscious of possess- 
 ing an exceedingly prompt faculty of catching information at 
 the moment that he wants it for use ; as Indians set out on 
 a long journey with but a trifling stock of provision, because 
 they are sure that their bows or guns will procure it by the 
 way. It is one of the nicest points of wisdom to decide 
 how much less than complete knowledge, in any question
 
 96 On Decision of Character. 
 
 of practical interest, will warrant a man to venture on an 
 undertaking, in the presumption that the deficiency will be 
 supplied in time to prevent either perplexity or disaster. 
 
 A thousand familiar instances show the effect of complete 
 knowledge on determination. An artisan may be said to' be 
 decisive as to the mode of working a piece of iron or wood, 
 because he is certain of the proper process and the effect. 
 A man perfectly acquainted with the intricate paths of a 
 woodland district, takes the right one without a moment's 
 hesitation ; while a stranger, who has only some very 
 vague information, is lost in perplexity. It is easy to 
 imagine what a number of circumstances may occur in the 
 course of a life, or even of a year, in which a man cannot thus 
 readily determine, and thus confidently proceed without a 
 compass and an exactness of knowledge which few persons 
 have application enough to acquire. And it would be 
 frightful to know to what extent human interests are com- 
 mitted to the direction of ignorance. What a consolatory 
 doctrine is that of a particular Providence ! 
 
 In connexion with the necessity of knowledge, I would 
 suggest the importance of cultivating, with the utmost in- 
 dustry, a conclusive manner of thinking. In the first place, 
 let the general course of thinking partake of the nature of 
 reasoning ; and let it be remembered that this name does 
 not belong to a series of thoughts and fancies which follow 
 one another without deduction or dependence, and which can 
 therefore no more bring a subject to a proper issue, than a 
 number of separate links will answer the mechanical purpose 
 of a chain. The conclusion which terminates such a series, 
 does not deserve the name of result or conclusion, since it 
 has little more than a. casual connexion with what went 
 before ; the conclusion might as properly have taken place 
 at an earlier point of the train, or have been deferred till that 
 train had been extended much further. Instead of having 
 been busily employed in this kind of thinking, for perhaps 
 many hours, a man might possibly as well have been sleep- 
 ing all the time ; since the single thought which is now to 
 determine his conduct, might have happened to be the first 
 thought that occurred to him on awaking. It only happens- 
 to occur to him now ; it does not follow from what he has 
 been thinking these hours ; at least, he cannot prove that 
 some other thought might not just as appropriately have
 
 On Decision of Character. 97 
 
 come in its place at the end, and to make an end, of this long 
 series. It is easy to see how feeble that determination is 
 likely to be, which is formed on so narrow a ground as the 
 last accidental idea that comes into the mind, or on so loose 
 a ground as this crude uncombined assemblage of ideas. 
 Indeed it is difficult to form a determination at all on such 
 slight ground. A man delays, and waits for some more 
 satisfactory thought to occur to him ; and perhaps he has 
 not waited long, before an idea arises in his mind of a quite 
 contrary tendency to the last. As this additional idea is not, 
 more than that which preceded it, the result of any process 
 of reasoning, nor brings with it any arguments, it may be 
 expected to give place soon to another, and still another ; 
 and they are all in succession of equal authority, that is 
 properly of none. If at last an idea occurs to him which 
 seems of considerable authority, he may here make a stand, 
 and adopt his resolution, with firmness, as he thinks, and 
 commence the execution. But still, if he cannot see whence 
 the principle which has determined him derives its authority 
 on what it holds for that authority his resolution is likely 
 to prove treacherous and evanescent in any serious trial. A 
 principle so little verified by sound reasoning, is not terra 
 firma for a man to trust himself upon ; it is only as a slight 
 incrustation on a yielding element; it is like the sand com- 
 pacted into a thin surface on the lake Serbonis, which broke 
 away unSer the unfortunate army which had begun to 
 advance on it, mistaking it for solid ground. These remarks 
 may seem to refer only to a single instance of deliberation ; 
 but they are equally applicable to all the deliberations and 
 undertakings of a man's life ; the same connected manner 
 of thinking, which is so necessary to give firmness of deter- 
 mination and of conduct in a particular instance, will, if 
 habitual, greatly contribute to form a decisive character. 
 
 Not only should thinking be thus reduced, by a strong 
 and patient discipline, to a train or process, in which all the 
 parts at once depend upon and support one another, but 
 also this train should be followed on to a full conclusion. 
 It should be held as a law generally in force, that the ques- 
 tion must be disposed of before it is let alone. The mind 
 may carry on this accurate process to some length, and 
 then stop through indolence, or start away through levity; 
 but it can never possess that rational confidence in its 
 
 H
 
 g8 On Decision of Character. 
 
 opinions which is requisite to the character in question, till 
 it is conscious of acquiring them from an exercise of thought 
 continued on to its result. The habit of thinking thus 
 completely is indispensable to the general character of deci- 
 sion ; and in any particular instance, it is found that short 
 pieces of courses of reasoning, though correct as far as 
 they go, are inadequate to make a man master of the im- 
 mediate concern. They are besides of little value for aid 
 to future thinking ; because from being left thus incomplete 
 they are but slightly retained by the mind, and soon sink 
 away ; in the same manner as the walls of a structure left 
 unfinished speedily moulder. 
 
 After these remarks, I should take occasion to observe, 
 that a vigorous exercise of thought may sometimes for a 
 while seem to increase the difficulty of decision, by discover- 
 ing a great number of unthought-of reasons for a measure 
 and against it, so that the most discriminating mind may. 
 during a short space, find itself in the state of the magnetic 
 needle under the equator. But no case in the world can 
 really have a perfect equality of opposite reasons ; nor will 
 it long appear to have it, in the estimate of a clear and 
 well-disciplined intellect, which after some time will ascer- 
 tain, though the difference is small, which side of the ques- 
 tion has ten, and which has but nine. At any rate, this is 
 the mind to come nearest in the approximation. 
 
 Another thing that would powerfully assist toward com- 
 plete decision, both in the particular instance, and in the 
 general spirit of the character, is for a man to place himself 
 in a situation analogous to that in which Ctesar placed his 
 soldiers, when he burnt the ships which brought them to 
 land. If his judgment is really decided, let him commit 
 himself irretrievably, by doing something which shall oblige 
 him to do more, which shall lay on him the necessity of doing 
 all. If a man resolves as a general intention to be a phil- 
 anthropist, I would say to him, form some actual plan of 
 philanthropy, and begin the execution of it to-morrow (if I 
 may not say to-day], so explicitly that you cannot relinquish 
 it without becoming degraded even in your own estimation. 
 If a man would be a hero, let him, if it be possible to find 
 a good cause in arms, go presently to the camp. If a man 
 is desirous of a travelling adventure through distant coun- 
 tries, and deliberately approves both his purpose and his
 
 On Decision of Character. gg. 
 
 scheme, let him actually prepare to set off. Let him not 
 still dwell, in imagination, on mountains, rivers, and tem- 
 ples ; but give directions about his remittances, his personal 
 equipments, or the carriage, or the vessel, in which he is to 
 go. Ledyard" surprised the official person who asked him 
 how soon he could be ready to set off for the interior of Africa, 
 by replying promptly and firmly, "To-morrow." 
 
 Again, it is highly conducive to a manly firmness, that 
 the interests in which it is exerted should be of a dignified 
 order, so as to give the passions an ample scope, and a 
 noble object. The degradation they suffer in being devoted 
 to mean and trivial pursuits, often perceived to be such in 
 spite of every fallacy of the imagination, would in general, 
 I should think, also debilitate their energy, and therefore 
 preclude strength of character, to which nothing can be 
 more adverse, than to have the fire of the passions damped 
 by the mortification of feeling contempt for the object, as 
 often as its meanness is betrayed by failure of the delusion 
 which invests it. 
 
 And finally, I would repeat that one should think a man's 
 own conscientious approbation of his conduct must be of 
 vast importance to his decision in the outset, and his per- 
 severing constancy ; and I would attribute it to defect of 
 memory that a greater proportion of the examples, intro- 
 duced for illustration in this essay, do not exhibit goodness 
 in union with the moral and intellectual power so conspi- 
 cuous in the quality described. Certainly a bright constella- 
 tion of such examples might be displayed ; yet it is the 
 mortifying truth that much the greater number of men pre- 
 eminent for decision, have been such as could not have their 
 own serious approbation, except through an utter perversion 
 of judgment or abolition of conscience. And it is melan- 
 choly to contemplate beings represented in our imagination 
 as of adequate power (when they possessed great external 
 means to give effect to the force of their minds), for the 
 grandest utility, for vindicating each good cause which has 
 languished in a world adverse to all goodness, and for 
 
 * John Lcdyard, an adventurous American traveller, who was born in 
 1751. He was employed by the African Association to explore the inte- 
 rior of Africa, but he had proceeded no further than Grand Cairo when 
 he \ras attacked with a fatal disease, and died in i"88. 
 
 H 2
 
 ioo On Decision of Character. 
 
 intimidating the collective vices of a nation or an age to 
 contemplate such beings as becoming themselves the mighty 
 exemplars, giants, and champions of those vices ; and it is 
 fearful to follow them in thought, from this region, of which 
 not all the powers and difficulties and inhabitants together 
 could have subdued their adamantine resolution, to the 
 Supreme Tribunal where that resolution must tremble and 
 melt away.
 
 ESSAY III. 
 
 ON THE APPLICATION OF THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 A THOUGHTFUL judge of sentiments, books, and men, will 
 often find reason to regret that the language of censure is 
 so easy and so undefined. It costs no labour, and needs no 
 >itellect, to pronounce the words, foolish, stupid, dull, odious, 
 absurd, ridiculous. The weakest or most uncultivated mind 
 may therefore gratify its vanity, laziness, and malice, all at 
 once, by a prompt application of vague condemnatory words, 
 where a wise and liberal man would not feel himself 
 warranted to pronounce without the most deliberate con- 
 sideration, and where such consideration might perhaps 
 result in applause. Thus excellent performances, in the 
 department of thinking or of action, might be consigned to 
 contempt, if there were no better judges, on the authority 
 of those who could not so much as understand them. A 
 man who wishes some decency and sense to prevail in the 
 circulation of opinions, will do well, when he hears these 
 decisions of ignorant arrogance, to call for a precise explica- 
 tion of the manner in which the terms of the verdict apply 
 to the subject. 
 
 There is a competent number of words for this use of 
 cheap censure ; but though a man doubts not he is giving 
 a tolerable proof of sagacity in the confident readiness to 
 condemn, even with this impotence of language, he may 
 however have an irksome consciousness that there is 
 wanting to him a certain dexterity of biting expression that 
 would do more mischief than the words dull, stupid, and 
 ridiculous, which he is repeating many times to compensate 
 for the incapacity of hitting off the right thing at once. 
 
 101
 
 IO2 On the Application of 
 
 These vague epithets describe nothing, discriminate nothing; 
 they express no species, are as applicable to ten thousand 
 things as to this one, and he has before employed them on 
 a numberless diversity of subjects. He has a fretted feeling 
 of this their inefficiency ; and can perceive that censure or 
 contempt has the smartest effect, when its expressions 
 have a special cast which fits them more peculiarly to the 
 present subject than to another; and he is therefore secretly 
 dissatisfied in uttering the expressions which say " about 
 it and about it," but do not say the thing itself; which 
 showing his good will betray his deficient power. He wants 
 words and phrases which would make the edge of his 
 clumsy meaning fall just where it ought. Yes, he wants 
 words; for his meaning is sharp, he knows, if only the 
 words would come. 
 
 Discriminative censure must be conveyed, either by a 
 marked expression of thought in a sentence, or by an epithet 
 or other term so specifically appropriate, that the single 
 word is sufficient to fix the condemnation by the mere 
 precision with which it describes. But as the censurer 
 perhaps cannot succeed in either of these ways, he is willing 
 to seek some other resource. And ,he may often find it in 
 cant terms, which have a more spiteful force, and seem to 
 have more particularity of meaning, than plain common 
 words, while yet needing no shrewdness for their applica- 
 tion. Each of these is supposed to denominate some one 
 class or character of scorned or reprobated things, but so 
 little defines it, that dull malice may venture to assign to 
 the class anything which it would desire to throw under the 
 odium of the denomination. Such words serve for a mode 
 of collective execution, somewhat like the vessels which, in 
 a season of outrage in a neighbouring country, received a 
 promiscuous crowd of reputed criminals, of unexamined and 
 dubious similarity, and were then sunk in the flood. You 
 cannot wonder that such compendious words of decision, 
 which can give quick vent to crude impatient censure, emit 
 plenty of antipathy in a few syllables, and save the condemner 
 the difficulty of telling exactly what he wants to mean, 
 should have had an extensive circulation. x 
 
 Puritan was, doubtless, welcomed as a term most luckily 
 invented or revived, when it began to be applied in contempt 
 to a class of men of whom the world was not worthy. Its
 
 the Epithet Romant'.c 103 
 
 odd peculiarity gave it almost such an advantage as that of 
 a proper name among the lumber of com mon words by which 
 they were described and reviled ; while yet it meant any- 
 thing, everything, which the vain world disliked in the 
 devout and conscientious character. To the more sluggish 
 it saved, and to the more loquacious it relieved, the labour 
 of endlessly repeating " demure rogues," " sanctimonious 
 pretenders," " formal hypocrites." 
 
 The abusive faculty of this word has long been extinct, 
 and left it to become a grave and almost venerable term in 
 history ; but some word of a similar cast was indispensably 
 necessary to the vulgar of both kinds. The vain and 
 malignant spirit which had decried the elevated piety of the 
 Puritans, sought about (as Milton describes the wicked one 
 in Paradise) for some convenient form in which it might 
 again come forth to hiss at zealous Christianity ; and in 
 another lucky moment fell on the term Methodist. If there 
 is no sense in the word, as now applied, there seems how- 
 ever to be a great deal of aptitude and execution. It has 
 the advantage of being comprehensive as a general 
 denomination, and yet opprobrious as a special badge, for 
 everything that ignorance and folly may mistake for 
 fanaticism, or that malice may wilfully assign to it. When- 
 ever a formalist feels it his duty to sneer at those operations 
 of religion on the passions, by which he has never been 
 disturbed, he has only to call them methodistical ; and 
 though the word be both so trite and so vague, he feels as 
 if he had uttered a good pungent thing. There is a satiric 
 smartness in the word, though there be none in the man. 
 In default of keen faculty in the mind, it is delightful thus 
 to find something that will do as well, ready bottled up in 
 odd terms. It is not less convenient to a profligate, or a 
 coxcomb, whose propriety of character is to be supported 
 by laughing indiscriminately at religion in every form ; 
 the one, to >vince that his courage is not sapped by 
 conscience, the other, to make the best advantage of his 
 instinct of catching at impiety as a compensative substitute 
 for sense. The word Methodism so readily sets aside all 
 religion as superstitious folly that they pronounce it with 
 an air as if no more needed to be said. Such terms have 
 a pleasant facility of throwing away the matter in question 
 to scorn, without any trouble of making a definite intelligible
 
 104 On the Application of 
 
 charge of extravagance or delusion, and attempting to 
 prove it. 
 
 In politics, Jacobinism has. of late years, been the brand 
 by which all sentiments referring to the principles of liberty, 
 in a way to censure the measures of the ascendant party in 
 the State, have been sentenced to execration. What a 
 quantity of noisy zeal would have been quashed in dead 
 silence, if it had been possible to enforce the substitution of 
 statements and definitions for this vulgar, senseless, but 
 most efficacious term of reproach ! What a number of 
 persons have vented the superabundance of their loyalty, or 
 their rancour, by means of this and two or three similar 
 words, who, if by some sudden lapse of memory they had 
 lost these two or three words, and a few names of persons, 
 would have looked round with an idiotic vacancy, totally at 
 a loss what was the subject of their anger or their approbation. 
 One may here catch a glimpse of the policy of men of a 
 superior class, in employing these terms as much as the 
 vulgar, in order to keep them in active currency. If a rude 
 populace, whose understandings they despise, and do not 
 wish to improve, could not be excited and kept up to loyal 
 animosity, but by means of a clear comprehension of what 
 they were to oppose, and of the reasons why, a political 
 party would have but feeble hold on popular zeal, and might 
 vociferate, and intrigue, and fret itself to nothing. But if a 
 single word, devised in hatred and defamation of political 
 liberty, can be made the symbol of all that is absurd and 
 execrable, so thatthe very sound of it shall irritate the passions 
 of this ignorant and scorned multitude, as dogs have been 
 taught to bark at the name of a neighbouring tyrant, it is a 
 commodious expedient for rendering these passions available 
 and subservient to the interests of those who despise, while 
 they cajole, their duped auxiliaries. The popular passions 
 are the imps and demons of the political conjurer, and he 
 can raise them, as other conjurers affect to do theirs, by 
 terms of gibberish.* 
 
 * It is curious that, within no long time after this was first printed, the 
 terms jacobin and jacobinism became completely worn out and obsolete. 
 It is not worth a guess how long the term radical, to which the duty of the 
 defunct ones was transferred, may continue of any service against the 
 doctrines and persons of reformists.
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 105 
 
 The epithet romantic has obviously no similarity to these 
 words in its coinage, but it is considerably like them in the 
 mode and effect of its application. For having partly quitted 
 the rank of plain epithets, it has become a convenient 
 exploding word, of more special deriding significance than 
 the other words of its order, such as wild, extravagant, 
 visionary. It is a standard expression of contemptuous 
 despatch, which you have often heard pronounced with a 
 very self-complacent air, that said, "How much wiser I am 
 than some people," by the indolent and inanimate on what 
 they would not acknowledge practicable, by the apes of 
 prudence on what they accounted foolishly adventurous, and 
 by the slaves of custom on what startled them as singular. 
 The class of absurdities which it denominates is left so 
 undefined, that all the views and sentiments which a narrow 
 cold mind could not like or understand in an ample and 
 fervid one, might be referred thither; and yet the word seems, 
 or assumes, to discriminate their character so conclusively 
 as to put them out of argument. With this cast of sapience 
 and vacancy of sense, it is allowed to depreciate without 
 being accountable; it has the license of a parrot, to call names 
 without being taxed with insolence. And when any senti- 
 ments are decisively stigmatized with this denomination, it 
 would require considerable courage to attempt their rescue 
 and defence ; since the imputation which the epithet fixes on 
 them will pass upon the advocate ; and he may expect to be 
 himself enrolled among the heroes of whom Don Quixote is 
 from time immemorial the commander-in-chief. At least 
 he may be assigned to that class which occupies a dubious 
 frontier space between the rational and the insane. 
 
 If, however, the suggestions and sketches which I had 
 endeavoured to exhibit as interesting and practicable, were 
 attempted to be turned into vanity and "thin air" by the 
 enunciation of this epithet, I would say, Pray now what do 
 you mean by romantic ? Have you, as you pronounce it 
 any precise conception in your mind, which you can give in 
 some other words, and then distinctly fix the charge ? Or 
 is this a word, which because it is often used in some such 
 way as you now use it, may be left to tell its own meaning 
 better than the speaker knows how to explain it ? Or per- 
 haps you mean, that the notions which I am expressing 
 recall to your mind, as kindred ideas, the fantastic images
 
 106 On the Application of 
 
 of Romance ; and thai you cannot help thinking of enchanted 
 castles, encounters with giants, solemn exorcisms, fortunate 
 surprises, knights and wizards. You cannot exactly distin- 
 guish what the absurdity in my notions is, but you fancy 
 what it is like. You. therefore condemn it, not by denning 
 its nature and exposing its irrationality, but by applying an 
 epithet which arbitrarily assigns it to a class of things of 
 which the absurdity stands notorious and unquestioned : for 
 evidently the epithet should signify a resemblance to what 
 is the prominent folly in the works of romance. Well then, 
 take advantage of this resemblance, to bring your censure 
 into something of a definite form. Delineate precisely the 
 chief features of the absurdity of the works of romance, and 
 then show how the same characteristics are flagrant on my 
 notions or schemes. I will then renounce at once all my 
 visionary follies, and be henceforward at least a very sober, 
 if I cannot be a very rational man. 
 
 The great general characteristic of those works has been 
 the ascendency of imagination over judgment. And the 
 description is correct as applied to the books however well 
 endowed with intellect the authors of them might be. It 
 they chose, for their own and others' amusement, to dismiss 
 a sound judgment awhile from its office, to stimulate their 
 imagination to the wildest extravagances, and to depicture 
 the fantastic career in writing, the book might be partly the 
 same thing as if produced by a mind in which sound judg- 
 ment had no place ; it would exhibit imagination actually 
 ascendent by the writer's voluntary indulgence, though not 
 necessarily so by the constitution of his mind. It was a 
 different case, if a writer kept his judgment active amidst 
 these very extravagances, with the intention of shaping and 
 directing them to some particular end, of satire or sober 
 truth. But however, the romances of the ages of chivalry 
 and the preceding times were composed under neither of 
 these intellectual conditions. They were not the productions 
 either of men who, possessing a sound judgment, chose 
 formally to suspend its exercise, in order to riot awhile in 
 scenes of extravagant fancy, only keeping that judgment so 
 far awake as to retain a continual consciousness in what 
 degree they were extravagant ; or of men designing to give 
 effect to truth or malice under the disguise of a fantastic 
 exhibition. It is evident that the authors were under the
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 107 
 
 real ascendency of imagination ; so that, though they must 
 at times have been conscious of committing great excesses, 
 yet they were on the whole wonderfully little insensible of 
 the enormous extravagance of their fictions. They could 
 drive on their career through monstrous absurdities of 
 description and narration, without, apparently, any check 
 from a sense of inconsistency, improbability, orimpossibility ; 
 and with an air as if they really reckoned on being taken for 
 the veritable describers of something that could exist or 
 happen within the mundane system. And the general state 
 of intellect of the age in which they lived seems to have been 
 well fitted to allow them the utmost license. The irration- 
 ality of the romancers, and of the age, provoked the observ- 
 ing and powerful mind of Cervantes to expose it by means 
 of a parallel and still more extravagant representation of the 
 prevalence of imagination over reason, drawn in a ludicrous 
 form, by which he rendered the folly palpable even to the 
 sense of that age. From that time the delirium abated ; the 
 works which inspirited its ravings have been blown away 
 beyond the knowledge and curiosity of any but bibliomaniacs; 
 and the fabrication of such is gone among the lost branches 
 of manufacturing art. 
 
 Yet romance was in some form to be retained, as indispens- 
 able to the craving of the human mind for something more 
 vivid, more elated, more wonderful, than the plain realities 
 of life ; as a kind of mental balloon, for mounting into the 
 air from the ground of ordinary experience. To afford this 
 extra-rational kind of luxury, it was requisite that the fictions 
 should still partake, in a limited degree, of the quality of the 
 earlier romance. The writers were not to be the dupes of wild 
 fancy ; they were not to feign marvels in such a manner as 
 if they knew no better ; they were not wholly to lose sight 
 of the actual system of things, but to keep within some 
 measures of relation and proportion to it ; and yet they were 
 required to disregard the strict laws of verisimilitude in 
 shaping their inventions, and to magnify and diversify them 
 with an indulgence of fancy very considerably beyond the 
 bounds of probability. Without this their fictions would have 
 lost what was regarded as the essential quality of romance. 
 
 If, therefore, the epithet Romantic, as now employed for 
 description and censure of character, sentiments, and 
 schemes, is to be understood as expressive of the quality
 
 loS On the Application of 
 
 which is characteristic of that class of fictions, it imputes, in 
 substance, a great excess of imagination in proportion to 
 judgment; and it imputes, in particulars, such errors as 
 naturally result from that excess. It may be worth while to 
 look for some of the practical exemplifications of this un- 
 fortunate disproportion between these two powers of the 
 mind. 
 
 It should first be noted that a defective judgment is not 
 necessarily accompanied by anything in the least romantic 
 in disposition, since the imagination may be as inert as the 
 judgment is weak ; and this double and equal deficiency pro- 
 duces mere dulness. But it is obvious that a weak judgment 
 may be associated with an active strength of that faculty 
 which is of such lively power even in childhood, in dreams, 
 and in the state of insanity. 
 
 Again, there may be an intellect not positively feeble (sup- 
 posing it estimated separately from the other power) yet 
 practically reduced to debility by a disproportionate imagi- 
 nation, which continually invades its sphere, and takes 
 everything out of its hands. And then the case is made 
 worse by the unfortunate circumstance, that the exercise of 
 the faculty which should be repressed, is incomparably more 
 easy and delightful, than of that which should be promoted. 
 Indeed the term exercise is hardly applicable to the activity 
 of a faculty which can be active without effort, which is so 
 far from needing to be stimulated to its works of magic, that 
 it often scorns the most serious injunctions to forbear. It 
 is not exercise, but indulgence ; and even minds possessing 
 much of the power of understanding, may be little disposed 
 to undergo the labour of it, when amidst the ease of the 
 deepest indolence they can revel in the activity of a more 
 animating employment. Imagination may be indulged till 
 it usurp an entire ascendency over the mind, and then every 
 subject presented to that mind will be taken under the action 
 of imagination, instead of understanding; imagination will 
 throw its colours where the intellectual faculty ought to draw 
 its lines ; will accumulate metaphors where reason ought to 
 deduce arguments ; images will take the place of thoughts, 
 and scenes of disquisitions. The whole mind may become 
 at length something like a hemisphere of cloud-scenery, 
 filled with an ever-moving train of changing melting forms, 
 of every colour, mingled with rainbows, meteors, and an
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 109 
 
 occasional gleam of pure sunlight, all vanishing away, the 
 mental like this natural imagery, when its hour is up, with- 
 out leaving anything behind but the wish to recover the 
 vision. And yet, the while, this series of visions may be 
 mistaken for operations of thought, and each cloudy image 
 be admitted in the place of a proposition or a reason ; or it 
 may even be mistaken for something sublimer than thinking. 
 The influence of this habit of dwelling on the beautiful falla- 
 cious forms of imagination, will accompany the mind into 
 the most serious speculations, or rather musings, on the real 
 world, and what is to be done in it, and expected ; as the 
 image from looking at any dazzling object still appears be- 
 fore the eye wherever it turns. The vulgar materials that 
 constitute the actual economy of the world, will rise up to 
 sight in fictitious forms, which the mind cannot disenchant 
 into plain reality ; which indeed it may hardly suspect of 
 being illusory ; and would not be very desirous to reduce to 
 the proof if it did. For such a mind is not disposed to 
 examine, with any severity of inspection, the real condition 
 of things. It is content with ignorance, because environed 
 with something far more delicious than such knowledge, in 
 the paradise which imagination creates. In that paradise it 
 walks delighted, till some imperious circumstance of real life 
 call it thence, and gladly escapes thither again as soon as 
 the cause of the avocation can be got rid of. There, every- 
 thing is beautiful and noble as could be desired to form the 
 residence of angels. If a tenth part of the felicities that have 
 been enjoyed, the great actions that have been performed, 
 the beneficent institutions that have been established, and 
 the beautiful objects that have been seen, in that happy 
 region, could have been imported into this terrestrial place 
 what a delightful thing, my dear friend, it would have been 
 each morning to awake and look on such a world once more. 
 It is not strange that a faculty, of which the exercise is so 
 easy and bewitching, and the scope infinite, should obtain a 
 predominance over judgment, especially in young persons, 
 and in such as may have been brought up, like Rasselas and 
 his companions, in great seclusion from the sight and 
 experience of the world. Indeed, a considerable vigour of 
 imagination, though it be at the expense of a frequent pre- 
 dominance over juvenile understanding, seems necessary, in 
 early life, to cause a generous expansion of the passions, by
 
 no On the Application of 
 
 giving the most lively aspect to the objects which must at- 
 tract them in order to draw forth into activity the faculties 
 of our nature. It may also contribute to prepare the mind 
 for the exercise of that faith which converses with things un- 
 seen, but converses with them through the medium of those 
 ideal forms in which imagination presents them, and in 
 which only a strong imagination can present them impres- 
 sively.* And I should deem it the indication of a character 
 not destined to excel in the liberal, the energetic, or the de- 
 vout qualities, if I observed in the youthful age a close con- 
 finement of thought to bare truth and minute accuracy, with 
 an entire aversion to the splendours, amplifications, and 
 excursions of fancy. The opinion is warranted by instances 
 of persons so distinguished in youth, who have become sub- 
 sequently very intelligent indeed, in a certain way, but dry, 
 cold, precise, devoted to detail, and incapable of being carried 
 away one moment by any inspiration of the beautiful or the 
 sublime. They seem to have only the bare intellectual me- 
 chanism of the human mind, without the addition of what is 
 to give it life and sentiment. They give one an impression 
 analogous to that of the leafless trees observed in winter, 
 admirable for the distinct exhibition of their branches and 
 minute ramifications so clearly defined on the sky, but desti- 
 tute of all the green soft luxury of foliage which is requisite 
 to make a perfect tree. And the affections which may exist 
 in such minds seem to have a bleak abode, somewhat like 
 those bare deserted nests which you have often seen in such 
 trees. 
 
 If, indeed, the signs of this exclusive understanding indi- 
 cated also such an extraordinary vigour of the faculty, as to 
 promise a very great mathematician or metaphysician, one 
 would perhaps be content to forego some of the properties 
 which form a complete mind, for the sake of this pre-emi- 
 nence of one of its endowments ; even though the person 
 were to be so defective in sentiment and fancy, that, as the 
 
 * The Divine Being is the only one of these objects which a Christian 
 would wish it possible to contemplate without the aid of imagination ; and 
 every reflective man has felt how difficult it is to apprehend even this Object 
 without the intervention of an image. In thinking of the transactions and 
 personages of history, the final events of time foretold- by prophecy, the 
 state of good men in another world, the superior ranks of intelligent agents, 
 &c., he has often had occasion to wish his imagination much more vivid.
 
 the Epithet Romantic. in 
 
 story goes of an eminent mathematician, he could read 
 through a most animated and splendid epic poem, and on 
 being asked what he thought of it, gravely reply, " What 
 does it prove ? " But the want of imagination is never an 
 evidence, and perhaps but rarely a concomitant, of superior 
 understanding. 
 
 Imagination may be allowed the ascendency in early 
 youth ; the case should be reversed in mature life ; and if it 
 is not, a man may consider his mind either as not the most 
 happily constructed, or as unwisely disciplined. The latter 
 indeed is probably true in every such instance. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 THE ascendency of imagination operates in various modes ; 
 I will endeavour to distinguish those which may justly be 
 called romantic. 
 
 The extravagance of imaginat'on in romance has very 
 much consisted in the display of a destiny and course of life 
 totally unlike the common condition of mankind. You may 
 have observed in living individuals, that one of the effects 
 sometimes produced by the predominance of this faculty is, 
 a persuasion in a person's own mind that he is born to some 
 peculiar and extraordinary destiny, while yet there are no 
 extraordinary indications in the person or his circumstances. 
 There was something rational in the early presentiment 
 which some distinguished men have entertained of their 
 future career. When a celebrated general of the present 
 times exclaimed, after performing the common military ex- 
 ercise, as one of a company of juvenile volunteers, " I shall 
 be a commander-in-chief,"* a sagacious observer of the signs 
 of talents yet but partially developed, might have thought it 
 indeed a rather sanguine but probably not a quite absurd 
 anticipation. An elder and intelligent associate of Milton's 
 youth might without much difficulty have believed himself 
 listening to an oracle, when a spirit which was shaping in 
 such gigantic proportions avowed to him a confidence, of 
 being destined to produce a work which should distinguish 
 
 * Related of Moreau.
 
 1 12 On the Application of 
 
 the nation and the age. The opening of uncommon faculties 
 may be sometimes inspirited by such anticipations ; which 
 the young genius may be allowed to express, perhaps as a 
 stimulus encouraged to indulge. But in most instances 
 these magnificent presumptions form, in the observer's eye, 
 a ludicrous contrast with the situation and apparent abilities 
 of the person who entertains them. And in the event, how 
 few such anticipations have been proved the genuine prompt- 
 ings of an extraordinary mind. 
 
 The visionary presumption of a peculiar destiny is enter- 
 tained in more forms than that which implies a confidence 
 of possessing uncommon talent. It is often the flattering 
 self-assurance simply of a life of singular felicity. The 
 captive of fancy fondly imagines his prospect of life as a 
 delicious vale, where from each side every stream of pleasure 
 is to flow down to his feet ; and while it cannot but be seen 
 that innumerable evils do harass other human beings, some 
 mighty spell is to protect him against them all. He takes 
 no deliberate account of what is inevitable in the lot of 
 humanity, of the sober probabilities of his own situation, or 
 of any principles in the constitution of his mind which are 
 perhaps very exactly calculated to frustrate the anticipation 
 and the scheme of happiness. 
 
 If this excessive imagination is combined with tendencies 
 to affection, it makes a person sentimentally romantic. 
 With a great, and what might, in a mind of finer elements, 
 be a just contempt of the ordinary rate of attachments, both 
 in friendship and love, he indulges a most assured confidence 
 that his peculiar lot is to realize all the wonders of generous, 
 virtuous, noble, unalienable friendship, or of enraptured, 
 uninterrupted, and unextinguishable love, that the inebria- 
 tion of fiction and poetry ever sung ; while perhaps a shrewd 
 indifferent observer can descry nothing in the horoscope, or 
 the character, or the actual circumstances of the man, or in 
 the qualities of the human creatures that he adores, or in 
 the nature of his devotion, to promise an elevation or per- 
 manence of felicity beyond the destiny of common mortals. 
 
 If a passion for variety and novelty accompanies this 
 extravagant imagination, it will exclude from its bold 
 sketches of future life everything like confined regularity, 
 and common plodding occupations. It will suggest that / 
 was born for an adventurer, whose story will one day be a
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 113 
 
 wonder of the world. Perhaps I am to be an universal 
 traveller ; and there is not on the globe a grand city, or ruin, 
 or volcano, or cataract, but I must see it. Debility of con- 
 stitution, deficiency of means, innumerable perils, unknown 
 languages, oppressive toils, extinguished curiosity, worn-out 
 fortitude, failing health, and the shortness of life, are very 
 possibly all left out of the account. 
 
 If there is in the disposition a love of what is called glory, 
 and an idolatry of those capacious and intrepid spirits one 
 of which has often, in a portentous crisis, decided, by an 
 admirable series of exertions, or by one grand exploit of 
 intelligence and valour, the destiny of armies and of empires, 
 a predominant imagination may be led to revel amidst the 
 splendours of military achievement, and to flatter the man 
 that he too is to be a hero, a great commander. 
 
 When a mind under thisinfluence recurs to precedents as 
 a foundation and a warrant of its expectations, they are 
 never the usual, but always the extraordinary examples, 
 that are contemplated. An observer of the ordinary in- 
 stances of friendship is perhaps heard to assert that the 
 sentiment is sufficiently languid in general to admit of an 
 almost unqualified self-interest, of absence without pain, 
 and of ultimate indifference. Well, so let it be ; Damon 
 and Pythias were friends of a different order, and our friend- 
 ship is to be like theirs.* Or if the subject of musing and 
 hope is the union in which love commonly results, it may 
 be true and obvious enough that the generality of instances 
 would not seem to tell of more than a mediocrity of happi- 
 ness in this relation ; but a visionary person does not live 
 within the same world with these examples. The few in- 
 stances which have been recorded of tender and never- 
 dying enthusiasm, together with the numerous ones which 
 romance and poetry have created, form the class to which 
 
 * Damon was a noble Pythagorean of Syracuse, memorable for his 
 friendship for Pythias, or Phintias, a member of the same sect. The 
 latter, having been condemned to death by Dionysius, the tyrant of Syra- 
 cuse, begged leave to go home for the purpose of arranging his affairs, 
 Damon pledging his own life for the return of his friend. Dionysius con- 
 sented, and Pythias came back just in season to save Damon from death. 
 Struck by so rare and noble an example of mutual friendship, the tyrant 
 pardoned Pythias, and entreated to be admitted as a third into their sacred 
 fellowship. Wheeler. 
 
 I
 
 H4 On the Application of 
 
 he belongs, and from whose enchanting history, excepting 
 their misfortunes, he reasons to his own future experience. 
 So too the man, whose fancy anticipates political or martial 
 distinction, allows his thoughts to revert continually to 
 those names which a rare conjunction of talents and cir- 
 cumstances has elevated into fame ; forgetting that many 
 thousands of men of great ability have died in at least com- 
 parative obscurity, for want of situations in which to dis- 
 play themselves ; and never suspecting it possible that his 
 own abilities are not competent to anything great, if some 
 extraordinary event were just now to place him in the most 
 opportune concurrence of circumstances. That there has 
 been one very signal man to a million, more avails to the 
 presumption that he shall be a signal man, than there having 
 been a million to one signal man, infers a probability of his 
 remaining one of the multitude. 
 
 You will generally observe, that persons thus self- 
 appointed, of either sex, to be exceptions to the usual lot 
 of humanity, endeavour at a kind of consistency of charac- 
 ter, by a great aversion to the common modes of action and 
 language, and a habitual affectation of something extraor- 
 dinary. They will perhaps disdain regular hours, punctuality 
 to engagements, usual dresses, a homely diction, and common 
 forms of transacting business ; this you are to regard as the 
 impulse of a spirit whose high vocation authorizes it to 
 renounce all signs of relation to vulgar minds. 
 
 The epithet romantic then may be justly applied to those 
 presumptions (if entertained after the childish or very 
 youthful age) of a peculiarly happy or important destiny in 
 life, which are not clearly founded on certain palpable dis- 
 tinctions of character or situation, or which greatly exceed 
 the sober prognostics afforded by those distinctions. It 
 should be observed here that wishes merely do not consti- 
 tute a character romantic. A person may sometimes let 
 his mind wander into vain wishes for all the fine things on 
 earth, and yet be too sober to expect any of them. In this 
 case however he will often check and reproach himself 
 for the folly of indulging in such mental dissoluteness. 
 
 The absurdity of such anticipations consists simply in the 
 improbability of their being realized, and not in their objects 
 being uncongenial with the human mind ; but another effect 
 of the predominance of imagination may be a disposition to
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 115 
 
 form schemes or indulge expectations essentially incon- 
 gruous with the nature of man. Perhaps however you will 
 say, What is that nature ? Is it not a mere passive thing, 
 variable almost to infinity, according to climate, to institu- 
 tions, and to the different ages of time ? Even taking it in 
 a civilized state, what relation is there between such a form 
 of human nature as that displayed at Sparta, and, for in- 
 stance, the modern society denominated Quakers, or the 
 Moravian Fraternity ? And how can we ascertain what is 
 congenial with it or not, unless itself were first ascertained ? 
 Allow me to say, that I speak of human nature in its most 
 general principles only, as social, self-interested, inclined to 
 the wrong, slow to improve, passing through several states 
 of capacity and feeling in the successive periods of life, and 
 the few other such permanent distinctions. Any of these 
 distinctions may vanish from the sight of a visionary mind, 
 while forming, for itself, or for others, such schemes as 
 could have sprung only from an imagination become way- 
 ward through its uncontrolled power, and its victory over 
 sober reason. I remember, for example, a person, very 
 young I confess, who was so enchanted with the stories of 
 Gregory Lopez, and one or two more pious hermits, as 
 almost to form the resolution to betake himself to some 
 wilderness and live as Gregory did. At any time, the very 
 word hermit was enough to transport him, like the witch's 
 broomstick, to the solitary hut, which was delightfully sur- 
 rounded by shady solemn groves, mossy rocks, crystal 
 streams, and gardens of radishes. While this fancy lasted, 
 he forgot the most obvious of all facts, that man is not 
 made for habitual solitude, nor can endure it without misery, 
 except when transformed into a genuine superstitious as- 
 cetic ; questionable whether even then.* 
 
 Contrary to human nature, is the proper description of 
 those theories of education, and those flatteries of parental 
 hope, which presume that young people in general may be 
 
 * Lopez indeed was often visited by pious persons who sought his in- 
 structions ; this was a great modification of the loneliness, and of the trial 
 involved in enduring it ; but my hermit was fond of the idea of an unin- 
 habited island, or of a wilderness so deep that these good people would 
 not have been able to come at him, without a more formidable pilgrimage 
 than was ever yet made for the sake of obtaining instruction. 
 
 I 3
 
 n6 On the Application of 
 
 matured to eminent wisdom, and adorned with the univer- 
 sality of noble attainments, by the period at which in fact 
 the intellectual faculty is but beginning to operate with any- 
 thing like clearness and sustained force. Because some 
 individuals, remarkable exceptions to the natural character 
 of youth, have in their very childhood advanced beyond the 
 youthful giddiness, and debility of reason, and have dis- 
 played, at the age perhaps of twenty, a wonderful assem- 
 blage of all the strong and all the graceful endowments, it 
 therefore only needs a proper system of education to make 
 other young people, (at least those of my family, the parent 
 thinks,) be no longer what nature has always made youth to 
 be. Let this be adopted, and we shall see multitudes at 
 that age possessing the judgment of sages, or the diversified 
 acquirements and graces of all-accomplished gentlemen and 
 ladies. And what, pray, are the beings which are to become, 
 by the discipline of ten or a dozen years, such finished ex- 
 amples of various excellence ? Not, surely, these boys here, 
 that love nothing so much as tops, marbles, and petty mis- 
 chief and those girls, that have yet attained but few ideas 
 beyond the dressing of dolls ? Yes, even these ! 
 
 The same charge of being unadapted to man, falls on 
 the speculations of those philosophers and philanthropists, 
 who have eloquently displayed the happiness, and asserted 
 the practicability, of something near an equality of property 
 and modes of life throughout society. Those who really 
 anticipated or projected the practical trial of the system, 
 must have forgotten on what planet those apartments were 
 built, or those arbours were growing, in which they were 
 favoured with such visions. For in these visions they 
 beheld the ambition of one part of the inhabitants, the craft 
 or audacity of another, the avarice of another, the stupidity 
 or indolence of another, and the selfishness of almost all, as 
 mere adventitious faults, superinduced on the character of 
 the species; and instantly flying off at the approach of better 
 institutions, which shall prove, to the confusion of all the 
 calumniators of human nature, that nothing is so congenial 
 to it as industry, moderation, and disinterestedness. It is 
 at the same time but just to acknowledge, that many of them 
 have admitted the necessity of such a grand transformation 
 as to make man another being previously to the adoption 
 of the system. This is all very well : when the proper race
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 
 
 of men shall come from Utopia, the system and polity may 
 very properly come along with them ; or these sketches of 
 it, prepared for them by us, may be carefully preserved here, 
 in volumes more precious than those of the Sibyls, against 
 their arrival. Till then, the sober observers of the human 
 character will read these beautiful theories as romances, 
 offering the fairest game for sarcasm in their splenetic 
 hours, when they are disgusted with human nature, and 
 infusing melancholy in their benevolent ones, when they 
 look on it with a commiserating and almost desponding 
 sentiment. 
 
 The character of the age of chivalry presents itself con- 
 spicuously among this class of illustrations. One of its 
 most prominent distinctions was, an immense incongruity 
 with the simplest principles of human nature. For instance, 
 in the concern of love : a generous young man became 
 attached to an interesting young woman interesting as he 
 believed, from having once seen her : for probably he never 
 heard her speak. His heart would naturally prompt him to 
 seek access to the object whose society, it told him, would 
 make him happy ; and if in a great measure debarred from 
 that society, he would surrender himself to the melting 
 mood of the passion, in the musings of pensive retirement. 
 But this was not the way. He must exile himself for 
 successive years from her society and vicinity, and every 
 soft indulgence of feeling, and rush boldly into all sorts of 
 hardships and perils, deeming no misfortune so great as not 
 to find constant occasions of hazarding his life among the 
 roughest foes, or, if he could find or fancy them, the strangest 
 monsters : and all this, not as the alleviation of despair, but 
 as the courtship of hope. And when he was at length 
 betrayed to flatter himself that such a probation, through 
 every kind of patience and danger, might entitle him to 
 throw his trophies and himself at her imperial feet, it was 
 very possible she might be affronted at his having presumed 
 to be still alive. It is unnecessary to refer to the other parts 
 of the institution of chivalry, the whole system of which 
 would seem more adapted to any race of beings exhibited in 
 the Arabian Nights, or to any still wilder creation of fancy, 
 than to a community of creatures appointed to live by 
 cultivating the soil, anxious to avoid pain and trouble, 
 seeking the reciprocation of affection on the easiest terms,
 
 Ii8 On the Application of 
 
 and nearest to happiness in regular pursuits and quiet 
 domestic life. 
 
 One cannot help reflecting here, how amazingly ac- 
 commodating this human nature has been to all institu- 
 tions but wise and good ones : insomuch that an order of 
 life and manners conceived in the wildest deviation from all 
 plain sense and native instinct, could be practically adopted 
 by some of those who had rank and courage enough, and 
 adored and envied by the rest of mankind. Still, the 
 genuine tendencies of nature have survived the strange but 
 transient sophistications of time, and remain the same after 
 the age of chivalry is gone far toward that oblivion, to 
 which you will not fail to wish that many other institutions 
 might speedily follow it. Forgive the prolixity of these 
 illustrations intended to show, that schemes and specula- 
 tions respecting the interests either of an individual or of 
 society, which are inconsistent with the natural constitution 
 of man, may, except where it should be reasonable to expect 
 some supernatural intervention, be denominated romantic. 
 
 The tendency to this species of romance, may be caused, 
 or very greatly promoted, by an exclusive taste for what is 
 grand, a disease with which some few minds are affected. 
 They have no pleasure in contemplating the system of 
 things as the Creator has ordered it, a combination of great 
 and little, in which the great is much more dependent on 
 the little, than the little on the great. They cut out the 
 grand objects, to dispose them into a world of their own. 
 All the images in their intellectual scene must be colossal 
 and mountainous. They are constantly seeking what is 
 animated into heroics, what is expanded into immensity, what 
 is elevated above the stars. But for great empires, great battles, 
 great enterprises, great convulsions, great geniuses, great 
 temples, great rivers, there would be nothing worth naming 
 in this part of the creation.* All that belongs to connection, 
 gradation, harmony, regularity, and utility, is thrown out 
 of sight behind these forms of vastness. The influence of 
 this exclusive taste will reach into the system of projects and 
 
 * Just as, to employ a humble comparison, a votary of fashion, after 
 Visiting a crowded public place which happened at that time not to be 
 graced by the presence of many people of consequence, tells you, with an 
 affected tone, "There was not a creature there."
 
 the Epithet Romantic ng 
 
 expectations. The man will wish to summon the world to 
 throw aside its tame accustomed pursuits, and adopt at 
 once more magnificent views and objects, and will be 
 indignant at mankind that they cannot or will not be sub- 
 lime. Impatient of little mean and slow processes, he will 
 wish for violent transitions and entirely new institutions. 
 He will perhaps determine to set men the example of perform- 
 ing something great, in some ill-judged sanguine project in 
 which he will fail ; and, after being ridiculed by society, 
 both for the scheme and its catastrophe, may probably 
 abandon all the activities of life, and become a misanthrope 
 the rest of his days. At any rate, he will disdain all labour 
 to perform well in little or moderate things, when fate 
 has frowned on his higher ambition. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 ONE of the most obvious distinctions of the works of 
 romance is, an utter violation of all the relations between 
 ends and means. Sometimes such ends are proposed as 
 seem quite dissevered from means, inasmuch as there are 
 scarcely any supposable means on earth to accomplish 
 them: but no matter; if we cannot ride we must swim, if 
 we cannot swim we must fly ; the object is effected by a 
 mere poetical omnipotence that wills it. And very often 
 practicable objects are attained by means the most fantastic, 
 improbable, or inadequate ; so that there is scarcely any 
 resemblance between the method in which they are 
 accomplished by the dexterity of fiction, and that which we 
 are condemned to follow if we will attempt the same things 
 in the actual economy of the world. Now, when you see 
 this absurdity of imagination prevailing in the calculations 
 of real life, you may justly apply the epithet romantic. 
 
 Indeed a strong and habitually indulged imagination may 
 be absorbed in the end, if it be not a concern of absolute 
 immediate urgency, as for a while quite to forget the process 
 of attainment. That power has incantations to dissolve 
 the rigid laws of time and distance, and place a man in 
 something so like the presence of his object, as to create 
 the temporary hallucination of an ideal possession ; and it 
 is hard, when occupying the verge of Paradise, to be flung
 
 120 On the Application of 
 
 far back in order to find or make a path to it, with the slow 
 and toilsome steps of reality. In the luxury c. f promising 
 himself that what he wishes will by some means take place 
 at some time, he forgets that he is advancing i.o nearer to 
 it rexcept on the wise and patient calculation that he must, 
 by the simple fact of growing older, be coming somewhat 
 nearer to every event that is yet to happen to him. He is 
 like a traveller, who, amidst his indolent musings in some 
 soft bower, where he has sat down to be shaded a little while 
 from the rays of noon, falls asleep, and dreams he is in the 
 midst of all the endearments of home, insensible that there 
 are many hills and dales for him yet to traverse. But the 
 traveller will awake ; so too will our other dreamer ; and if 
 he has the smallest capacity of just reflection he will regret 
 to have wasted in reveries the time which ought to have been 
 devoted to practical exertions. 
 
 But even though reminded of the necessity of intervening 
 means, the man of imagination will often be tempted to 
 violate their relation with ends by permitting himself to 
 dwell on those happy casualties, which the prolific sorcery 
 of his mind will promptly figure to him as the very things, 
 if they would but occur, to accomplish his wishes at 
 once, without the toil of a sober process. If they would 
 occur and things as strange might and do happen : he 
 reads in the newspapers that an estate of ten thousand 
 per annum was lately adjudged to a man who was work- 
 ing on the road. He has even heard of people dreaming 
 that in such a place something valuable was concealed ; 
 and that, on searching or digging that place, they found an 
 old earthen pot, full of gold and silver pieces of the times 
 of good King Charles the Martyr. Mr. B. was travelling 
 by the mail-coach, in which he met with a most interesting 
 young lady whom he had never seen before ; they were mu- 
 tually delighted, and were married in a few weeks. Mr. C., 
 a man of great merit in obscurity, was walking across a 
 field when Lord D., in chase of a fox, leaped over the hedge 
 and fell off his horse into a ditch. Mr. C. with the utmost 
 alacrity and kind solicitude helped his lordship out of the 
 ditch, and recovered for him his escaped horse. The conse- 
 quence was inevitable ; his lordship, superior to the pride 
 of being mortified to have been seen in a condition so 
 unlucky for giving the impression of nobility, commenced
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 121 
 
 a friendship with Mr. C., and introduced him into honour- 
 able society and the road to fortune. A very ancient maiden 
 lady of a large fortune happening to be embarrassed in a 
 crowd, a young clergyman offered her his arm and politely at- 
 tended her home ; this attention so captivated her, that she 
 bequeathed and soon after left him her whole estate though 
 she had many poor relations. 
 
 That class of fictitious works called novels, though much 
 more like real life than the romances which preceded, is yet 
 full of those lucky incidents and adventures, which are in- 
 troduced as the chief means toward the ultimate success. 
 A young man, without fortune, for instance, is precluded 
 from making his addresses to a your.: female in a superior 
 situation, whom he believes not indifferent to him, until he 
 can approach her with such worldly advantages as it might 
 not be imprudent or degrading for her to cast a look upon. 
 Now how is this to be accomplished ? Why, I suppose, by 
 the exertion of his talents in some practicable and respectable 
 department ; and perhaps the lady, besides, will generously 
 and spontaneously condescend to abdicate from partiality to 
 him, some of the trappings and luxuries of rank. You really 
 suppose this is the plan ? I am sorry you have so much 
 less genius than a novel writer. This young man has an 
 uncle, who has been absent many years, nobody knew where, 
 except the young man's lucky stars. During his absence, 
 the old uncle has made a large fortune, with which he returns 
 to his native land, at a time most opportune for every one 
 but a highwayman, who, attacking him in a road through a 
 wood, is frightened away by the young hero, who happens to 
 come there at the instant, to rescue and recognize his uncle, 
 and to be in return recognized and made the heir to as many 
 thousands as the lady or her family could wish. Now what 
 is the intended impression of all this on the reader's mind ? 
 What if he certainly have no uncle in any foreign fortune- 
 making country ? But there are rich old gentlemen who 
 are uncles to nobody. Is our novel-reader to reckon on it 
 as a likely and a desirable chance, that one of these, just 
 after returning from the Indies with a ship-load of wealth, 
 shall be set upon by a highwayman ; and to take it lor 
 certain that in that case he, the novel reader, shall have the 
 luck to come to the very spot in the nick of time, to send 
 the dastard robber galloping off, to make an instant and
 
 122 On the Application of 
 
 entire seizure of the old gentleman's affections, find himself 
 constrained to go and take a present share of the opulence, 
 and the heirship of the whole, and have his patron to join 
 his pleading that Amelia, or Alicia, or Cecilia, (as the case 
 may be,) may now be willing and be permitted to favour 
 his addresses ? One's indignation is excited at the immoral 
 tendency of such lessons to young readers, who are thus 
 taught to undervalue and reject all sober regular plans for 
 compassing an object, and to muse on improbabilities till 
 they become foolish enough to expect them ; thus betrayed, 
 as an inevitable consequence, into one folly more, that of 
 being melancholy when they find they may expect them in 
 vain. It is unpardonable that these pretended instructors 
 by example should thus explode the calculations and exer- 
 tions of manly resolution, destroy the connection between 
 ends and means, and make the rewards of virtue so depen- 
 dent on chance, that if the reader does not either regard 
 the whole fable with contempt, or promise himself he shall 
 receive the favours of fortune in some similar way, he must 
 close the book with the conviction that he may hang or 
 drown himself as soon as he pleases ; that is to say, unless 
 he has learnt from some other source a better morality and 
 religion than these books will ever teach him. 
 
 Another deception in respect to means, is the facility with 
 which fancy passes along the train of them, and reckons to 
 their ultimate effect at a glance, without resting at the 
 successive stages, and considering the labours and hazards of 
 the protracted slow process from each point to the next. 
 If a given number of years are allowed requisite for the 
 accomplishment of an object, the romantic mind vaults from 
 one last day of December to another, and seizes at once the 
 whole product of all the intermediate days, without conde- 
 scending to recollect that the sun never shone yet on 365 
 days at once, and that they must be slowly told and laboured 
 one by one. If a favourite plan is to be accomplished by 
 means of a certain large amount of property, which is to be 
 produced from what is at present a very small one, the cal- 
 culations of a sanguine mind can change shillings into 
 guineas, and guineas into hundreds of pounds, a thousand 
 times faster than, in the actual experiment, those lazy 
 shillings and guineas can be compelled to mount to these 
 higher denominations of value. You remember the noble
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 123 
 
 calculation of Alnaschar on his basket of earthenware, which 
 was so soon to obtain him the Sultan's daughter.* 
 
 Where imagination is not delusive enough to embody 
 future casualties as effective means, it may yet represent 
 very inadequate means as competent. In a well-balanced 
 mind, no conception will grow into a favourite purpose, 
 unaccompanied by a process of the judgment, deciding its 
 practicability by an estimate of the means ; in a mind under 
 the ascendency of imagination this is a subordinate after- 
 task. By the time that this comes to be considered, the 
 projector is too much enamoured of an end that is deemed to 
 be great, to abandon it because the means are suspected to 
 be little. But then they must cease to appear little ; for there 
 must be an apparent proportion between the means and the 
 end. Well, trust the whole concern to the plastic faculty, 
 and presently every insignificant particle of instrumentality, 
 and every petty contrivance for its management, will swell 
 into magnitude ; pigmies and Lilliputians with their tiny 
 arrows will soon grow up into giants wielding spears ; and 
 the diffident consciousness which was at first somewhat 
 afraid to measure the plan, as to its means of execution, 
 against the object, will give place to a generous scorn of the 
 timidity of doubting. The mind will most ingeniously place 
 the apparatus between its eye and the object at a distance, 
 and be deluded by the false position which makes the one 
 look as large as the other. 
 
 The consideration of the deceptive calculations on the 
 effect of insufficient means, would lead to a wide variety of 
 particulars ; I will only touch slightly on a few. Various 
 projects of a benevolent order would come under this charge. 
 Did you ever listen to the discussion of plans for the civiliza- 
 tion of barbarous.nations without the intervention of conquest? 
 I have, with the most sceptical kind of interest.! That very 
 many millions of the species should form only a brutal adjunct 
 to civilized and enlightened man is a disastrous thing, 
 notwithstanding the whimsical attempts of some ingenious 
 men to represent the state of roving savages as preferable 
 
 See "The Story of the Barber's Fifth Brother" in the " Arabian 
 Nights." 
 
 t I here place out of view that religion by which Omnipotence will at 
 length transform the world.
 
 124 n ^ ie Application of 
 
 to every other condition of life ; a state for which, no doubt, 
 they would have been willing, if they could have the requisite 
 physical seasoning for it, to abandon their fame and proud 
 refinements. But where are the means to reclaim these 
 wretched beings into the civilized family of man ? A few 
 examples indeed are found in history, of barbarous tribes 
 being formed into well-ordered and considerably enlightened 
 states by one man, who began the attempt without any power 
 but that of persuasion, and perhaps delusion. There are 
 other instances, of the success obtained by a small combina- 
 tion of men employing the same means ; as in the great 
 undertaking of the Jesuits in South America. But have not 
 these moral phenomena been far too few to be made a 
 standard for the speculations of sober men ? And have 
 they not also come to us with too little explanation to illus- 
 trate any general principles ? To me it appears extremely 
 difficult to comprehend how the means, recorded by historians 
 to have been employed by some of the unarmed civilizers, 
 could have produced so great an effect. In observing the 
 half-civilized condition of a large part of the population of 
 these more improved countries, and in reading what tra- 
 vellers describe of the state and dispositions of the various 
 orders of savages, it would seem a presumption unwarranted 
 by anything we ever saw of the powers of the human mind to 
 suppose that any man, or any ten men now on earth, if landed 
 and left on a savage coast, would be able to transform a number 
 of stupid or ferocious tribes into a community of mild intelli- 
 gence and regular industry. We are therefore led to believe 
 that the few unaccountable instances conspicuous in the his- 
 tory of the world, of the success of one or a few men in this 
 work, must have been the result of such a combination of 
 favourable circumstances, co-operating with their genius and 
 perseverance, as no other man can hope to experience. Such 
 events seem like Joshua's arresting the sun and moon, things 
 that 1: ave been done, but can be done no more. Pray, which 
 of you, I should say, could expect to imitate with success, if 
 indeed he could think it right to try, the deception of Manco 
 Capac,* and awe a wild multitude into order by something 
 analogous to a pretended commission from the sun ? What 
 
 * Manco Capac, the founder and legislator of the Peruvian Empire, who 
 is supposed to have flourished in the twelfth century.
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 125 
 
 would be your first expedient in the attempt to substitute 
 that regularity and constraint which they hate, for that 
 lawless liberty which they love ? How could you reduce 
 them to be conscious, or incite them to be proud, of those 
 wants, for being subject to which they would regard you as 
 their inferiors ; wants of which, unless they could compre- 
 hend the refinement, they must necessarily despise the 
 debility ? By what magic are you to render visible and 
 palpable any part of the world of science or of abstraction, to 
 beings who have hardly words to denominate even their 
 sensations ? And by what concentrated force of all kinds of 
 magic together, that Egypt or Chaldea ever pretended, are 
 you to introduce humanity and refinement among such 
 creatures as the Northern Indians, described by Mr. Hearne ?* 
 If an animated young philanthropist still zealously main- 
 tained that it might be done, I should be amused to think 
 how that warm imagination would be quelled, if he were 
 obliged to make the experiment. It is easy for him to be 
 romantic while enlivened by the intercourse of cultivated 
 society, while reading of the contrivances and the patience 
 of ancient legislators, or while infected with the enthusiasm 
 of poetry. He feels as if he could be the moral conqueror 
 of a continent. He becomes a Hercules amidst imaginary 
 labour; he traverses untired, while in his room, wide tracts 
 of the wilderness; he surrounds himself with savage men, 
 without either trembling or revolting at their aspects or 
 fierce exclamations, or the proudly exhibited and vaunted 
 trophies of their sanguinary exploits ; he makes eloquent 
 speeches to them, not knowing a word of their language, 
 which language, if he did know it, he would find a wretched 
 vehicle for the humblest of his meanings ; they listen with 
 the deepest attention, are convinced of the necessity of 
 adopting new habits of life, and speedily soften into humanity 
 and brighten into wisdom. But he would become sober 
 enough, if compelled to travel half a thousand miles through 
 the desert, or over the snow, with some of these subjects of 
 his lectures and legislation; to accompany them in a hunting 
 excursion ; to choose in a stormy night between exposure in 
 the open air and the smoke and grossness of their cabins: 
 
 * See " A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay, to the 
 Northern Ocean." By Samuel Hearne. London, 1795, 4^.
 
 ia6 On the Application of 
 
 to observe the intellectual faculty narrowed almost to a point, 
 limited to a scanty number of the meanest class of ideas ; to 
 find by repeated experiments that his kind of ideas could 
 neither reach their understanding nor excite their curiosity; 
 to see the ravenous appetite of wolves succeeded for a 
 season by a stupefaction insensible even to the few interests 
 which kindle the ardour of a savage ; to witness loathsome 
 habits occasionally diversified by abominable ceremonies ; 
 or to be for once the spectator of some of the circumstances 
 attendant on the wars of savages. 
 
 But there are many more familiar illustrations of the ex- 
 travagant estimate of means. One is, the expectation of far 
 too much from mere direct instruction. This is indeed so 
 general, that it will hardly be denominated romantic, except 
 in the most excessive instances. Observe it, however, a mo- 
 ment in the concern of education. Nothing seems more 
 evident than the influence of external circumstances, distinct 
 from the regular discipline of the parent or tutor, in forming 
 the character of youth. Nothing again seems more evident 
 than that direct instruction, though an useful co-operator 
 with the influence of these circumstances when they are 
 auspicious, is a feeble counteractor if they be malignant. 
 And yet this mere instruction is enough, in the account of 
 thousands of parents, to lead the youth to wisdom and happi- 
 ness ; even that very youth whom the united influence of 
 almost all things else which he is exposed to see, and hear, 
 and participate, is drawing, with the unrelaxing grasp of a 
 fiend, to destruction. 
 
 A too sanguine opinion of the efficacy of instruction, has 
 sometimes possessed those who teach from the pulpit. Till 
 the dispensations of a better age shall be opened on the 
 world, the measure of effect which may reasonably be ex- 
 pected from preaching, is to be determined by a view of the 
 visible effects which are actually produced on congregations 
 from week to week ; and this view is far from flattering. 
 One might appeal to preachers in general What striking 
 improvements are apparent in your societies ? When you 
 inculcate charity on the Sunday, do the misers in your con- 
 gregations liberally open their chests and purses to the dis- 
 tressed on Monday ? Might I not ask as well, whether the 
 stones and trees really did move at the voice of Orpheus ? 
 After you have unveiled even the scenes of eternity to the
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 127 
 
 gay and frivolous, do you find in more than some rare in- 
 stances a dignified seriousness take place of their follies ? 
 What is the effect, on the splendid, sumptuous, and fashion- 
 able professors of Christianity, of your inculcation (if indeed 
 you venture it) of that solemn interdiction of their habits, 
 " Be not conformed to this world ? " :;c Yet, notwithstanding 
 this melancholy state of facts, some preachers, from the per- 
 suasion of a mysterious apostolic sacredness in the office, or 
 from a vain estimate of their talents, or from mistaking the 
 applause with which the preacher has been flattered, for the 
 proof of a salutary effect on the minds of the hearers, or, in 
 some instances, from a much worthier cause, the affecting 
 influence of sacred truth on their own minds, have been in- 
 clined to anticipate striking effects from their public minis- 
 trations. Melancthon was a romantic youth when he began 
 to preach. He expected that all must be inevitably and imme- 
 diately persuaded, when they should hear what he had to 
 tell them. But he sdon discovered, as he said, that old Adam 
 was too hard for young Melancthon. In addition to the grand 
 fact of the depravity of the human heart, there are so many 
 causes operating injuriously through the week on the charac- 
 ters of those who form a congregation, that a thoughtful man 
 often feels an invading melancholy amidst his religious ad- 
 dresses, from the reflection that he is making a feeble effort 
 against a powerful evil, a single effort against a combi- 
 nation of evils, a temporary and transient effort against 
 evils of almost continual operation, and a purely intel- 
 lectual effort against evils, many of which act on the senses. 
 When the preacher considers the effect naturally resulting 
 from the sight of so many bad examples, the communications 
 of so many injurious acquaintance, the hearing and talking 
 of what would be, if written, so many volumes of vanity and 
 nonsense, the predominance of fashionable dissipation in a 
 higher class, and of a coarser corruption in a lower ; he must 
 indeed imagine himself endowed with a superhuman power 
 of eloquence, if the instructions expressed in an hour or two 
 on the Sabbath, and soon, as he might know, forgotten by 
 most of his hearers, are to leave in the mind something which 
 shall be, through the week, the efficacious repellant to the 
 contact and contamination of all these forces of mischief. But 
 
 * Romans xii. 2.
 
 128 On the Application of 
 
 how soon he would cease to imagine such an efficacy in his 
 exhortations, if the greater number of his hearers could sin- 
 cerely and accurately tell him, toward the end of the week, in 
 what degree these admonitions had affected and governed 
 them, in opposition to their corrupt tendencies, their habits, 
 and their temptations ! What would be, in the five or six 
 days, the number of the moments and the instances in which 
 these instructions would be proved to have been effectual, 
 compared with the whole number of moments and circum- 
 stances to which they were applicable by appropriateness of 
 instruction and warning ? How often, while hearing such a 
 week's detail of the lives of a considerable proportion of a 
 congregation, a man would have occasion to say, By whose 
 instructions were these persons influenced then, in that ne- 
 glect of devout exercises, that excess of levity, that waste of 
 time, that avowed contempt of religion, that language of pro- 
 faneness and imprecation, those contrivances of selfishness, 
 those paroxysms of passion, that study of sensuality, or that 
 habitual general obduracy in evil ? 
 
 But the preacher to whose sanguine temperament I am 
 reluctantly applying these cooling suggestions, may tell me, 
 that it is not by means of any force which he can throw into 
 his religious instructions, that he expects them to be effica- 
 cious ; but that he believes a divine energy will accompany 
 what is undoubtedly a message from heaven. I am pleased 
 with the piety, and the sound judgment (as I esteem it), with 
 which he expects the conversion of careless or hardened men 
 from nothing less than an operation strictly considered as of 
 divine power. But I would remind him, that the probability, 
 at any given season, that such a power will intervene, must 
 be in proportion to the frequency or infrequency with which 
 its intervention is actually manifested in the general course 
 of experience ; that is, in proportion to the number of happy 
 transformations of character which we see taking place under 
 the efficacy of religious truth. He must admit this to be sub- 
 stantially the rule : if he require that it be modified by the 
 consideration of promises and signs from the Supreme Power 
 of the near approach of an augmented divine interference for 
 the efficacy of religion I shall willingly admit what I can of 
 such a reason for conceding such a modification. 
 
 Reformers in general are very apt to overrate the power of 
 the means by which their theories are to be realized. They
 
 the. Epithet Romantic. 129 
 
 are for ever introducing the story of Archimedes, who was to 
 have moved the world if he could have found any second 
 place on which to plant his engines ; and imagination dis- 
 closes to moral and political projectors a cloud-built and truly 
 extra-mundane position, which they deem to be exactly such 
 a convenience in the department, as the mathematician, 
 whose converse with demonstrations had saved part of his 
 reason from being run away with by his fancy, confessed to 
 be a desideratum in his. This terra firma is named the 
 Omnipotence of Truth. 
 
 It is presumed, that truth must at length, through the 
 indefatigable exertions of intellect, become generally vic- 
 torious ; and that all vice, being the result of a mistaken 
 judgment of the nature or the means of happiness, must 
 therefore accompany the exit of error. By the same rule it 
 is presumed of the present times also, or at least of those 
 immediately approaching, that in every society and every 
 mind where truth is clearly admitted, the reforms which it 
 dictates must substantially follow. I have the most con- 
 fident faith that the prevalence of truth, making its progress 
 by a far mightier agency than mere philosophic inquiry, is 
 appointed to irradiate the latter ages of a dark and 
 troubled world ; and on the strength of prophetic intima- 
 tions, I anticipate its coming sooner, by at least a thousand 
 ages, than a disciple of that philosophy which rejects 
 revelation', as the first proud step toward the improvement 
 of the world, is warranted, by a view of the past and present 
 state of mankind, to predict. The assurance from the 
 same oracle is the authority for believing that when truth 
 shall have acquired the universal dominion over the under- 
 standing, it will evince a still nobler power in the general 
 effect of conforming the heart and the life to its laws. 
 But in the present state of the moral system, our expecta- 
 tions of the effect of truth on the far greater number of 
 the persons who shall assent to its dictates, have no right 
 to exceed such measures of probability as have been given 
 by experience. It would be gratifying no doubt to believe 
 that the several powers in the human constitution arc 
 in such faithful combination, that to gain the judg- 
 ment would be to secure the whole man. And if all 
 history, and the memory of our own observation and ex- 
 perience, could be merged in Lethe, it might be belieVed 
 
 K
 
 130 On the Application of 
 
 perhaps for two or three hours. How could an atten- 
 tive observer or reflector believe it longer ? How long 
 would it be that a keenly self-inspecting mind could detect 
 no schism, none at all, between its convictions and inclina- 
 tions ? And as to others, is it not flagrantly evident that 
 very many persons, with a most absolute conviction, by their 
 i own ingenuous avowal, that one certain course of action is 
 | virtue and happiness, and another, vice and misery, do yet 
 habitually choose the latter ? It is not improbable that 
 several millions of human beings are at this very hour thus 
 acting in violation of the laws of rectitude, while those laws 
 are acknowledged by them, not only as impositions of moral 
 authority, but as vital principles of their own true self- 
 interest.* And do not even the best men confess a fierce 
 discord between the tendencies of their imperfectly renovated 
 nature, and the dictates of that truth which they revere ? 
 They say with St. Paul,f " That which I do, I allow not ; 
 for what I would, that I do not ; but what I hate, that I do ; 
 to will is present with me, but how to perform that which 
 is good, I find not ; the good that I would, that I do not, 
 and the evil which I would not, that I do." The serious 
 self-observer recollects instances, (what a singularity of 
 happiness if he cannot !) in which a temptation, exactly 
 addressed to his passions or habits, has prevailed in 
 spite of the sternest interdict of his judgment, pronounced 
 at the very crisis. Perhaps the most awful sanctions by 
 
 * The criminal himself has the clearest consciousness that he violates 
 the dictates of his judgment. How trifling is the subtilty which affects to 
 show that he does not violate them by alleging that every act of 
 choice must be preceded by a determination of the judgment, and that 
 therefore in choosing an evil, a man does at the time judge it to be on 
 some account preferable, though he may know it to be wrong. It is not 
 to be denied that the choice does imply such a conclusion of the judgment. 
 But this conclusion is made according to a narrow and subordinate scale 
 of estimating good and evil, while the mind is conscious that, judging 
 according to a larger scale, that is, the rightfully authoritative one, the 
 opposite conclusion is true. It judges a thing better for immediate 
 pleasure, which it knows to be worse for ultimate advantage. The crimi- 
 nal therefore may be correctly said to act according to his judgment, in 
 choosing it for present pleasure. But since it is the great office of the 
 judgment to decide what is wisest and best on the -whole, the man may 
 be said to act against his judgment, who acts in opposition to the conclu- 
 sion which it forms on this greater sin. 
 
 t Romans vii. 15.
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 
 
 which the judgment can ever enforce its authority, were 
 distinctly brought to his view at the same moment with its 
 dictates. In the subsequent hour he had to reflect, that the 
 ideas of God, a future account, a world of retribution, could 
 not prevent him from violating his conscience. That he 
 did not at the critical moment dwell deliberately on these 
 remonstrant ideas, in order to give them effect on his will, is 
 nothing against my argument. It is of the very essence of 
 the fatal disorder, that the passions will not let the mind 
 strongly fix on the preventive considerations. And what 
 greater power than this could they need to defeat the power 
 of truth ? If the passions can thus prevent the mind from 
 strongly fixing on the most awful considerations when 
 distinctly presented by truth in counteraction to tempta- 
 tion, they can destroy the efficacy of the truth which 
 presents them. Truth can do no more than discriminate 
 the good from the evil before us, enforce the inducements 
 to choose right, and declare the consequences of our choice. 
 When this is inefficacious, its power has failed. And no 
 fact can be more evident than that perceptive truth, appre- 
 hended and acknowledged, often thus fails. Let even its 
 teacher and advocate confess honestly whether he have not 
 had to deplore numberless times the deficient efficacy of his 
 own clearest convictions. And if we survey mankind as 
 under an experiment relative to this point, it will be found, 
 in instances innumerable, that to have informed and con- 
 vinced a man may be but little toward emancipating him 
 from the habits which he sincerely acknowledges to be 
 wrong. There is then no such inviolable connection as 
 some men have supposed between the admission of truth, 
 and consequent action. And therefore, most important 
 though it is that truth be exhibited and admitted, the 
 expectations that presume its omnipotence, without extra- 
 ordinary intervention, are romantic delusion. 
 
 You will observe that in this case of trying the efficacy of 
 the truth on others, I have supposed the great previous 
 difficulty of presenting it to the understanding so luminously 
 as to impress irresistible conviction, to be already overcome ; 
 though the experimental reformer will find this introductory 
 work such an arduous undertaking, that he will be often 
 tempted to abandon it as hopeless. 
 
 K 2
 
 OH the Application of 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 WHEN the gloomy estimate of means and of plans for the 
 amendment of mankind does not make an exception of the 
 actual human administration of the religion of Christ, I am 
 anxious not to seem to fail in justice to that religion, by 
 which I believe that every improvement of a sublime order 
 yet awaiting our race must be effected. I trust I do not 
 fail ; since I keep in my mind a clear distinction between 
 Christianity itself as a thing of divine origin and na- 
 ture, and the administration of it by a system of merely 
 human powers and means. These means are indeed 
 of divine appointment, and to a certain extent are accom- 
 panied by a special divine agency. But how far this 
 agency accompanies them is seen in the measure and limit 
 of their success. Where that stands arrested, the fact itself 
 is the proof that further than so the superior operation does 
 not attend the human agents and means. There it stops, 
 and leaves them to accomplish, if they can, what remains. 
 What is it that remains ? If the general transformation of 
 mankind into such persons as could be justly deemed true 
 disciples of Christ, were regarded as the object of his re- 
 ligion, how mysteriously small a part of that object has the 
 divine agency ever yet been exerted to accomplish ! And 
 then, the awful and immense remainder evinces the inex- 
 pressible imbecility of the means, when left to be applied as 
 a mere human administration. The manifestation of its 
 incompetency is fearfuly conspicuous in the vast majority, 
 the numerous millions of Christendom, and the millions of 
 even our own country, on whom this religion has no direct 
 influence. I need not observe what numbers of these latter 
 have heard or read the evangelic declaration thousands of 
 times, nor how very many of them are fortified in an insensi- 
 bility, on which its most momentous announcements strike 
 as harmless as the slenderest arrows on the shield of Ajax. 
 Probably each religious teacher can recollect, besides his 
 general experience, very particular instances, in which he 
 has set himself to exert the utmost force of his mind, in 
 reasoning, illustration, and serious appeal, to impress some 
 one important idea, on some one class of persons to whom 
 it was most specifically applicable and needful ; and has 
 perceived the plainest indications, both at the instant and
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 133 
 
 immediately after, that it was an attempt of the same kind 
 as that of demolishing a tower by assaulting it with pebbles. 
 Nor do I need to observe how generally, if a momentary 
 impression be made, it is forgotten the following hour. 
 
 A man convinced of the truth and excellence of Christi- 
 anity, yet entertaining a more flattering notion of the reason 
 and moral dispositions of man than any doctrine of that 
 religion agrees to, maybe very reluctant to admit that there 
 is such a fatal disproportion between the apparatus, if I 
 may call it so, of the Christian means as left to be actuated 
 by mere human energy, and the object which is to be 
 attempted. But how is he to help himself? Will he reject 
 the method of conclusion from facts, in an affair where they 
 so peculiarly constitute the evidence ? He cannot look at the 
 world of facts and contradict the representation in the pre- 
 ceding paragraph, unless his imagination is so illusive as 
 to interpose an absolute phantasm between his eyes and 
 the obvious reality. He cannot affirm that there is not an 
 immense number of persons, even educated persons, re- 
 ceiving the Christian declarations with indifference, or 
 rejecting them with a carelessness partaking of contempt. 
 The right means are applied, and with all the force that 
 human effort can give them, but with a suspension, in these 
 instances, of the divine agency, and this is the effect ! 
 While the fact stands out so palpably to view, I listen with 
 something of wonder, and something of curiosity, when 
 some professed believers and advocates of the gospel are 
 avowing high anticipations of its progressive efficacy, chiefly 
 or solely by means of the intrinsic force which it carries as 
 a rational address to rational creatures. I cannot help in- 
 quiring what length of time is to be allowed for the experi- 
 ment, which is to prove the adequacy of the means 
 independently of special divine intervention. Nor can it 
 be impertinent to ask what is, thus far, the state of the 
 experiment and the success, among those who scout the 
 idea of such a divine agency, as a dream of fanaticism. 
 Might it not be prudent, to moderate the expressions of 
 contempt for the persuasion which excites an importunity 
 for extraordinary influence from the Almighty, till the 
 success without it shall be greater ? The utmost arrogance 
 of this contempt will venture no comparison between the 
 respective success, in the conversion of vain and wicked
 
 134 On the Application of 
 
 men, of the Christian means as administered by those who 
 implore and rely upon this special agency of heaven, and by 
 those who deny any such operation on the mind ; deny it in 
 sense and substance, whatever accommodating phrases they 
 may sometimes employ. Has there indeed been any success 
 at all, in that great business of conversion, to vindicate 
 the calculations of this latter class from the imputation 
 of all the vainest folly that should be meant by the word 
 Romantic ? 
 
 But, when I introduced the mention of reformers and 
 their projects, I was not intending any reference to delusive 
 presumptions of the operations of Christianity, but to those 
 speculations and schemes for the amendment of mankind 
 which anticipate their effect independently of its assistance ; 
 some of them perhaps silently coinciding with several of its 
 principles, while others expressly disclaim them. Unless 
 these schemes bring with them, like spirits from heaven, 
 an intrinsic competence to the great operation, without re- 
 quiring to be met or aided by forwardness in the nature of 
 the Subject, it may be predicted they will turn to the morti- 
 fication of their fond projectors. There is no avoiding the 
 ungracious perception, in surveying the general character of 
 the race, that, after some allowance for what is called natural 
 affection, and for compassionate sympathy, (an excellent 
 principle, but extremely limited and often capricious in its 
 operation,) the main strength of human feelings consists in 
 the love of sensual gratification, of trifling amusement, of 
 distinction, of power, and of money. And by what suicidal 
 inconsistency are these principles to lend their force to 
 accomplish the schemes of pure reason and virtue, which, 
 they will not fail to perceive, are plotting against them ?* 
 And if they have far too perfect an instinct to be trepanned 
 into such an employment of their force, and yet are the pre- 
 ponderating agents in the human heart, what other active 
 principles of it can the renovator of human character call to 
 his effectual aid, against the evils which are accumulated 
 and defended by what is at once the baser and the stronger 
 
 * I am here reminded of the Spanish story, of a village where the devil, 
 having made the people excessively wicked, was punished by being com- 
 pelled to assume the appearance and habit of a friar, and to preach so 
 eloquently, in spite of his internal repugnance and rage, that the inhabi- 
 tants were completely reformed,
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 135 
 
 part ? Whatever principles of a better kind there may be 
 in the nature, they can hold but a feeble and inert existence 
 under this predominance of the worse, and could make but 
 a faint insurrection in favour of the invading virtue. The 
 very worst of them may indeed seem to become its allies 
 when it happens, as it occasionally will, that the course of 
 action which reforming virtue enforces, falls in the same 
 line in which some of these meaner principles can attain 
 their own ends. Then, and so far, an unsound coincidence 
 may take place, and the external effect of those principles 
 may be clad in specious appearances of virtue ; but the 
 moment that the reforming projector summons their co- 
 operation to a service in which they must desert their own 
 object and their corrupt character, they will desert him. 
 As long as he is condemned to depend, for the efficacy of 
 his schemes, on the aid of so much pure propensity as he 
 shall find in the corrupted subject, he will be nearly in the 
 case of a man attempting to climb a tree by laying hold, 
 first on this side, and then on that, of some rotten twig, 
 which still breaks off in his hand, and lets him fall among 
 the nettles. 
 
 Look again to the state of facts. Collective man is human 
 nature ; and the conduct of this assemblage, under the diver- 
 sified experiments continually made on it, expresses its true 
 character, and indicates what maybe expected from it. Now 
 then, to what principle in human nature, as thus illustrated 
 by trial, could you with confidence appeal in favour of any 
 of the great objects which a benevolent man desires to see 
 accomplished ? If there were in it any one grand principle 
 of goodness which an earnest call, and a great occasion, 
 would raise into action, to assert or redeem the character of 
 the species, one should think it would be what we call, in- 
 correctly enough, Humanity. Consider then, in this nation 
 for instance, which extols its own generous virtues to the sky, 
 what lively and rational appeals have been made to the whole 
 community, respecting the slave trade, :;: the condition of the 
 
 * Happily this topic of accusation is in a measure now set aside ; but 
 it would have remained as immovable as the continent of Africa, if the 
 legislature had not been forced into a conviction that, on the whole, the 
 slave trade was not advantageous in point of pecuniary interest. At least 
 the guilt would so have remained upon the nation acting in its capacity of 
 a state. This note is added subsequently to the first edition. It may be
 
 136 0)1 the Application of 
 
 poor, the immensity of cruelty perpetrated on brute animals, 
 and the general, national, desperate complacency manifested 
 for what is named honourable war, during a whole half 
 century of lofty Christian pretension appeals substantially 
 in vain. And why in vain ? If humanity were a powerful 
 principle in the nature of the community, they would not, 
 in contempt of knowledge, expostulation, and spectacles of 
 misery, persist in the most enormous violations of it. Why 
 in vain ? but plainly because there is not enough of that 
 virtue of humanity, even in what is deemed a highly culti- 
 vated state of the human nature, to answer to the impor- 
 tunate call. Or if this be not the cause, let the idolaters ot 
 human divinity call, like the worshippers of Baal, in a louder 
 voice. Their success is likely to be the same ; they will 
 obtain no extraordinary exertion of power, though they cry 
 from morning till the setting sun. And meanwhile the 
 observer, who foresees their disappointment, would think 
 himself warranted, but for the melancholy feeling that the 
 nature in question is his own, to deride their expectations. 
 You know that a multitude of exemplifications might be 
 added. And the thought of so many great and interesting 
 objects, concerning the welfare of the human economy, as 
 a sober appreciation of means, seems to place beyond the 
 reach of the moral revolutionist, * will often, if he has a 
 genuine benevolence, make him sad. He will repeat to 
 himself, " How easy it is to conceive these inestimable im- 
 provements, and how nobly they would exalt my species ; 
 but how to work them into the actual condition of man ! 
 Are there somewhere in possibility," he will ask, " intel- 
 lectual and moral engines mighty enough to perform the 
 great process ? Where in darkness is the sacred repository 
 
 subjoined, in qualification of the reproach relative to the next article the 
 condition of the poor that during a later period there has been an increase 
 of the attention and exertion directed to that condition ; which has, never- 
 theless, become worse and worse. 
 
 * It is obvious that I am not supposing this moral revolutionist to be 
 armed with any power but that of persuasion. If he were a monarch, and 
 possessed virtue and talents equal to his power, the case would be materi- 
 ally different. Even then, he would accomplish but little compared with 
 what he could imagine, and would desire ; yet, to all human appearance, he 
 might be the instrument of wonderfully changing the condition of society 
 within his empire. If the soul of Alfred could return to the earth !
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 137 
 
 in which they lie ? What Marraton* shall explore the un- 
 known way to it ? The man who would not, as part of the 
 price of the discovery, be glad to close up all the trans- 
 atlantic mines, would deserve to be immured as the last 
 victim of those deadly caverns." 
 
 But each projecting visionary thinks the discovery is 
 made ; and while surveying his own great magazine of ex- 
 pedients, consisting of Fortunatus's cap, the philosopher's 
 stone, Aladdin's lamp, and other equally efficient articles, he 
 is confident that the work may speedily be done. These 
 powerful instruments of melioration perhaps lose their indi- 
 vidual names under the general denomination of Philosophy, 
 a term that would be venerable, if it could be rescued from the 
 misfortune of being hackneyed into cant, and from serving 
 the impiety which substitutes human ability to divine power. 
 But it is of little consequence what denomination the pro- 
 jectors assume to themselves or their schemes ; it is by their 
 fruits that we shall know them. Their work is before them ; 
 the scene of moral disorder presents to them the plagues 
 which they are to stop, the mountain which they are to 
 remove, the torrent which they are to divert, the desert 
 which they are to clothe in verdure and bloom. Let them 
 make their experiment, and add each his page to the humi- 
 liating records in which experience contemns the folly of 
 elated imagination.! 
 
 * Spectator, No. 56. 
 
 t In reading lately some part of a tolerably well-written book published 
 a few years since, I came to the following passage, which though in con- 
 nexion indeed with the subject of elections, expresses the author's general 
 opinion of the state of society, and of the means of exalting it to wisdom 
 and virtue. " The bulk of the community begin to examine, to feel, to 
 understand, their rights and duties. They only require the fostering care 
 of the Philosopher to ripen them into complete rationality, and furnish 
 them with the requisites of political and moral action." Here I paused 
 in wondering mood. The fostering care of the Philosopher ! Why then 
 is not the Philosopher about his business ? Why does he not go and in- 
 doctrinate a company of peasants in the intervals of a ploughing or a 
 harvest day, when he will find them far more eager for his instructions 
 than for drink ? Why does he not introduce himself among a circle of 
 farmers, who cannot fail, as he enters, to be very judiciously discussing, 
 with the aid of their punch and their pipes, the most refined questions 
 respecting their rights and duties, and wanting but exactly his aid, instead of 
 more punch and tobacco, to possess themselves completely of the requisites 
 of political and moral action ? The populace of a manufactory is another 
 most promising seminary, where all the moral and intellectual endowments
 
 138 On the Application of 
 
 All the speculations and schemes of the sanguine pro- 
 jectors of all ages, have left the world still a prey to infinite 
 legions of vices and miseries, an immortal band, which has 
 trampled in scorn on the monuments and the dust of the self- 
 idolizing men, who .dreamed, each in his day, that they 
 were born to chase these evils out of the earth. If these 
 vain demigods of an hour, who trusted to change the world, 
 and who perhaps wished to change it only to make it a 
 temple to their fame, could be awaked from the unmarked 
 graves into which they sunk, to look a little while round 
 on the scene for some traces of the success of their pro- 
 jects, would they not be eager to retire again into 
 the chambers of death, to hide the shame of their re- 
 membered presumption ? The wars and tyranny, the rancour, 
 cruelty and revenge, together with all the other unnumbered 
 vices and crimes with which the earth is still infested, are 
 enough, if the whole mass could be brought within 'One 
 section of the inhabited world, of the extent of a considerable 
 kingdom, to constitute its whole population literally infernal, 
 all but their being incarnate ; which last they would soon, 
 through mutual destruction, cease to be. Hitherto the 
 power of the radical cause of these many forms of evil, the 
 corruption of the human heart, has sported with the weak- 
 ness, or seduced the strength, of all human contrivances to 
 subdue them. Nor are there as yet more than glimmering 
 signs that we are commencing a better era, in which the 
 means that have failed before, or the expedients of a new 
 
 are so nearly "ripe," that he will seem less to have the task of cultivating 
 than the pleasure of reaping. Even among the company in the ale-house, 
 though the Philosopher might at first be sorry, and might wonder, to per- 
 ceive a slight merge of the moral part of the man in the sensual, and to find 
 in so vociferous a mood that inquiring reason which, he had supposed, would 
 be waiting for him with the silent anxious docility of a pupil of Pythagoras, 
 yet he would find a most powerful predisposition to truth and virtue, and 
 there would be everything to hope from the accuracy of his logic, the com- 
 prehensiveness of his views, and the beauty of his moral sentiments. But 
 perhaps it will be explained, that the Philosopher does not mean to visit 
 all these people in person ; but that having first secured the source of in- 
 fluence, having taken entire possession of princes, nobility, gentry, and 
 clergy, which he expects to do in a very short time, he will manage them 
 like an electrical machine, to operate on the bulk of the community. 
 Either way the achievement will be great and admirable ; the latter event 
 seems to have been predicted in that sibylline sentence, " When the sky 
 falls we shall catch larks."
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 139 
 
 and more fortunate invention, are appointed to victory and 
 triumph. The nature of man still " casts ominous conjecture 
 on the whole success.' While that is corrupt, it will pervert 
 even the very schemes and operations by which the world 
 should be improved, though their first principles were pure 
 as heaven. The innate principle of evil, instead of indiffer- 
 ently letting them alone, to work what good they can, will 
 put forth a stupendous force to compel them into subserviency ; 
 so that revolutions, great discoveries, augmented science, 
 and new forms of polity, shall become in effect what may be 
 denominated the sublime mechanics of depravity. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 THIS view of moral and philosophical projects, added to 
 that of the limited exertion of energy which the Almighty 
 has made to attend, as yet, the dispensation of true religion, 
 and accompanied with the consideration of the impotence of 
 human efforts to make that dispensation efficacious where 
 his will does not, forms a melancholy and awful contempla- 
 tion. In the hours when it casts its gloom over the mind 
 of the thoughtful observer, unless he can fully resign the 
 condition of man to the infinite wisdom and goodness of 
 his Creator, he will feel an emotion of horror, as if standing 
 on the verge of a hideous gulf, into which almost all the 
 possibilities, and speculations, and efforts, and hopes, relating 
 to the best improvements of mankind, are brought down by 
 the torrent of ages, in a long abortive series, to be lost in 
 final despair. 
 
 To an atheist of enlarged sensibility, if there could be 
 such a man, how dark and hideous, beyond all power of 
 description, must be the long review and the undefinable 
 prospect of this triumph of evil, unaccompanied, as it must 
 be presented to his thoughts, by any sublime process of 
 intelligent power, converting, in some manner unknown to 
 mortals, this evil into good, either during the course or in 
 the result. A devout theist, when he becomes sad amidst 
 his contemplations, recovers a submissive tranquillity, by 
 reverting to his assurance of such a wise and omnipotent 
 sovereignty and agency. As a believer in revelation, he is 
 consoled by the confidence both that this dark train of evils
 
 140 On the Application of 
 
 will ultimately issue in transcendent brightness, and that 
 the evil itself in this world will at a future period almost 
 cease. He is persuaded that the Great Spirit, who presides 
 over this mysterious scene, has an energy of influence yet 
 in reserve to beam forth on the earth, such as its inhabitants 
 have never, except in a few momentary glimpses, beheld ; and 
 that when the predestined period is completed for his king- 
 dom to come, he will command this chaos of turbulent and 
 malignant elements to become transformed into a fair and 
 happy moral world. 
 
 And is it not strange, my dear friend, to observe how care- 
 fully some philosophers, who deplore the condition of the 
 world, and profess to expect its melioration, keep their specu- 
 lations clear of every idea of divine interposition ? No 
 builders of houses or cities were ever more attentive to guard 
 against the access of flood or fire. If He should but touch 
 their prospective theories of improvement, they would re- 
 nounce them, as defiled and fit only for vulgar fanaticism. 
 Their system of Providence would be profaned by the intru- 
 sion of the Almighty. Man is to effect an apotheosis for 
 himself, by the hopeful process of exhausting his corruptions. 
 And should it take a long series of ages, vices, and woes, to 
 reach this glorious attainment, patience may sustain itself 
 the while by the thought that when it is realized, it will be 
 burdened with no duty of religious gratitude. No time is too 
 long to wait, no cost too deep to incur, for the triumph of 
 proving that we have no need of a Divinity, regarded as 
 possessing that one attribute which makes it delightful to 
 acknowledge such a Being, the benevolence that would make 
 us happy. But even if this noble self-sufficiency cannot be 
 realized, the independence of spirit which has laboured for it 
 must not sink at last into piety. This afflicted world, " this 
 poor terrestrial citadel of man," is to lock its gates, and keep 
 its miseries, rather than admit the degradation of receiving 
 help from God. 
 
 I wish it were not true that even men who firmly believe 
 in the general doctrine of the divine government of the world, 
 are often betrayed into the impiety of attaching an excessive 
 importance to human agency in its events. How easily a 
 creature of their own species is transformed by a sympathetic 
 pride into a God before them ! If what they deem the cause 
 of truth and justice, advances with a splendid front of dis-
 
 tkc Epithet Romantic. 141 
 
 tinguished names of legislators, or patriots, or martial heroes, 
 it must then and must therefore triumph ; nothing can with- 
 stand such talents, accompanied by the zeal of so many 
 faithful adherents. If these shining insects of fame are 
 crushed, or sink into the despicable reptiles of corruption, alas, 
 then, for the cause of truth and justice ! All this while, there 
 is no due reference to the " Blessed and only Potentate." If, 
 however, the foundations of their religious faith have not 
 been shaken, and they possess any docility to the lessons of 
 time, they will after awhile be taught to withdraw their de- 
 pendence and confidence from all subordinate agents, and 
 habitually regard the Supreme Being as the sole possessor 
 of real and absolute power. 
 
 Perhaps it is not improbable, that the grand moral im- 
 provements of a future age may be accomplished in a manner 
 that shall leave nothing to man but humility and grateful 
 adoration. His pride so obstinately ascribes to himself what- 
 ever good is effected on the globe, that perhaps the Deity 
 will evince His own interposition, by events as evidently in- 
 dependent of the might of man as the rising of the sun. It 
 may be that some of them may take place in a manner but 
 little connected even with human operation. Or if the 
 activky of men shall be employed as the means of producing 
 all of them, there will probably be as palpable a disproportion 
 between the instruments and the events, as there was be- 
 tween the rod of Moses and the amazing phenomena which 
 followed when it was stretched forth.* No Israelite was 
 foolish enough to ascribe to the rod the power that divided 
 the sea ; nor will the witnesses of the moral wonders to come 
 attribute them to man. " Not by might, nor by power, but 
 by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." 
 
 I hope these extended observations will not appear like 
 an attempt to exhibit the whole stock of means, as destitute 
 of all value, and the industrious application of them as a 
 labour without reward. It is not to depreciate a thing, if, 
 in the attempt to ascertain its real magnitude, it is proved 
 to be little. It is no injustice to mechanical powers to say 
 that slender machines will not move rocks and massive 
 timbers ; nor to chemical ones, to assert that though an 
 earthquake may fling a promontory from its basis, the 
 
 * Exodus xvii. 6.
 
 142 On the Application of 
 
 explosion of a canister of gunpowder will not. Between 
 moral forces also, and the objects to which they are to be 
 applied, there are constituted measures of proportion ; and 
 it would seem an obvious principle of good sense, that an 
 estimate moderately correct of the value of each of our 
 means according to those measures, as far as they can be 
 ascertained, should precede every application of them. 
 Such an estimate has no place in a mind under the ascen- 
 dency of imagination, which, therefore, by extravagantly 
 magnifying the virtue of its means, inflates its projects with 
 hopes which may justly be called romantic. The best cor- 
 rective of such irrational expectation is an appeal to experi- 
 ence. There is an immense record of experiments, which 
 will assign the force of almost all the engines, as worked by 
 human hands, in the whole moral magazine. And if a man 
 expects any one of them to produce a greater effect than 
 ever before, it must be because the talents of him that re- 
 peats the trial are believed to transcend those of all former 
 experimenters, or else because the season appears more 
 auspicious. 
 
 The estimate of the power of means, which comes in 
 answer to the appeal to experience, is indeed most humiliat- 
 ing ; but what then ? It is an humble thing to be a man. 
 The feebleness of means is, in fact, the feebleness of him 
 that employs them ; for instruments to all human appre- 
 hension the most inconsiderable, can produce the most 
 prodigious effects when wielded by celestial powers. Till, 
 then, the time shall arrive for us to attain a nobler rank of 
 existence, we must be content to work on the present level 
 of our nature, and effect that little which we can effect ; 
 unless it be greater magnanimity and piety to resolve that 
 because our powers are limited to do only little things, they 
 shall therefore, as if in revenge for such an economy, do 
 nothing. Our means will do something ; that something 
 is what they were meant to be adequate to in our hands, 
 and not some indefinitely greater effect, which we may all 
 be tempted to wish, and which a sanguine visionary con- 
 fidently expects. 
 
 This disproportion between the powers and means with 
 which mortals are confined to work, and the great objects 
 which good men would desire to accomplish, is a part of 
 the appointments of Him who determined all the relations
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 143 
 
 in the universe ; and he will see to the consequences. For 
 the present, he seems to say to his servants, " Forbear to 
 inquire why so small a part of those objects to which I have 
 summoned your activity, is placed within the reach of your 
 powers. Your feeble ability for action is not accompanied 
 by such a capacity of understanding, as would be requisite 
 to comprehend why that ability was made no greater. 
 Though it had been made incomparably greater, would there 
 not still have been objects before it too vast for its opera- 
 tion ? Must not the highest of created beings still have 
 something in view, which they feel they can but partially 
 accomplish till the sphere of their active force be en- 
 larged ? Must there not be an end of improvement in 
 my creation, if the powers of my creatures had become per- 
 fectly equal to the magnitude of their designs ? How mean 
 must be the spirit of that being that would not make an 
 effort now, toward the accomplishment of something higher 
 than he will be able to accomplish till hereafter. Because 
 mightier labourers would have been requisite to effect all that 
 you wish, will you murmur that I have honoured you, the 
 inferior ones, with the appointment of making a noble exer- 
 tion with however limited success ? If there is but little 
 power in your hands, is it not because I retain the power in 
 mine ? Are you afraid lest that power should fail to do all 
 things right, only because you are so little made its instru- 
 ments ? Be grateful that all the work is not to be done 
 without you, and that God employs you in that in which he 
 also is employed. But remember, that while the employ- 
 ment is yours, the success is altogether his ; and that your 
 diligence therefore, and not the measure of effect which it 
 produces, will be the test of your characters. Good men 
 have been employed in all ages under the same economy of 
 inadequate means, and what appeared to them inconsiderable 
 success. Go to your labours : every sincere effort will 
 infallibly be one step more in your own progress to a perfect 
 state ; and as to the Cause, when / see it necessary for a 
 God to interpose in his own manner, I will come." 
 
 I might deem a train of observations of the melancholy 
 hue which shades some of the latter pages of this essay of 
 too depressive a tendency, were I not convinced that a serious 
 exhibition of the feebleness of human agency in relation to 
 all great objects, may aggravate the impression, often so
 
 144 On the Application of 
 
 insufficient, of the absolute supremacy of God, of the total 
 dependence of all mortal strength and effort on him, and of 
 the necessity of maintaining habitually a devout respect to 
 his intervention. It might promote that last attainment of 
 a zealously good man, the resignation to be as diminutive 
 and as imperfectly successful an agent as God pleases. I 
 am assured also that, in a pious mind, the humiliating 
 estimate of means and human sufficiency, and the con- 
 sequent sinking down of all lofty expectations founded on 
 them, will leave one single mean, and that far the best of all, 
 to be held not only of undiminished but of more eminent 
 value than ever was ascribed to it before. The most excel- 
 lent of all human means must be that of which the effect is 
 to obtain the exertion of divine power. The means which 
 are to be employed in a direct, immediate instrumentality 
 toward the end, seem to bear such a measured proportion to 
 their objects, as to assign and limit the probable effect. This 
 regulated proportion exists no longer, and therefore the 
 possible effects become too great for calculation, when that 
 expedient is solemnly employed which is appointed as the 
 mean of engaging the divine energy to act on the object. If 
 the only means by which Jehoshaphat sought to overcome 
 his superior enemy, had been his troops, horses, and arms, 
 there would have been nearly an assignable proportion 
 between these means and the end, and the probable result of 
 the conflict would have been a matter of ordinary calculation. 
 But when he said, " Neither know we what to do, but our 
 eyes are up unto thee," * he moved (if I may reverently 
 express it so) another and an infinite force to invade the 
 host of Moab and Ammon ; and the consequence displayed 
 in their camp the difference between an irreligious leader, 
 who could fight only with arms and on the level of the 
 plain, and a pious one who could thus assault from 
 Heaven. It may not, I own, be perfectly correct to cite, 
 in illustration of the efficacy of prayer, the most memo- 
 rable ancient examples. Nor is it needful, since the expe- 
 rience of devout and eminently rational men, in latter times, 
 has supplied numerous striking instances of important 
 advantages so connected in time and circumstance with 
 prayer, that with good reason they regarded them as the 
 
 * In the authorized version, " Our eyes are upon thee." 2 Chroni- 
 cles xx. 12.
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 145 
 
 evident result of it.* This experience, taken in confirmation 
 of the assurances of the Bible, warrants ample expectations 
 of the efficacy of an earnest and habitual devotion ; provided 
 still, as I need not remind you, that this means be employed 
 as the grand auxiliary of the other means, and not alone, 
 till all the rest are exhausted or impracticable. And no doubt 
 any man who should, amidst his serious projects, become 
 sensible, with anything approaching to an adequate appre- 
 hension, of his dependence on God, would far more earnestly 
 and constantly press on this great resource than is common 
 even among good men. He would as little, without it, 
 promise himself any distinguished success, as a mariner 
 would expect to reach a distant coast by means of his sails 
 spread in a stagnation of the air. I have intimated my fear 
 that it is visionary to expect an unusual success in the 
 human administration of religion, unless there were unusual 
 omens ; now an emphatical spirit of prayer would be such an 
 omen ; and the individual who should solemnly resolve to 
 make proof of its last possible efficacy, might probably find 
 himself becoming a much more prevailing agent of good in 
 his little sphere. And if the whole, or the greater number, 
 of the disciples of Christianity, were, with an earnest unfail- 
 ing resolution of each, to combine that Heaven should not 
 withhold one single influence which the very utmost effort 
 of conspiring and persevering supplication would obtain, 
 it would be the sign of a revolution of the world being at 
 hand. 
 
 My dear friend, it is quite time to dismiss this whole 
 subject ; though it will probably appear to you that I have 
 entirely lost and forgotten the very purpose for which I 
 took it up, which certainly was to examine the correctness 
 of some not unusual applications of the epithet Romantic. 
 It seemed necessary, first, to describe, with some exempli- 
 fications, the characteristics of that extravagance which 
 ought to be given up to the charge. The attempt to do 
 this, has led me into a length of detail far beyond all expecta- 
 tion. The intention was, next, to display and to vindicate, 
 in an extended illustration, several schemes of life, and 
 models of character ; but I will not prolong the subject. I 
 shall only just specify, in concluding, two or three of those 
 
 * Here I shall not be misunderstood to believe the multitude of stories 
 which have been told by deluded fancy, or detestable imposture. 
 
 L
 
 146 On the Application of 
 
 modes of feeling and action on which the censure of being 
 romantic has improperly fallen. 
 
 One is, a disposition to take high examples for imitation. 
 I have condemned the extravagance which presumes on 
 rivalling the career of action and success that has been the 
 appointment of some individuals, so extraordinary as to be 
 the most conspicuous phenomena of history. But this 
 delirium of ambitious presumption is distinguishable enough 
 from the more temperate, yet warm aspiration to attain 
 some resemblance to examples, which it will require the 
 most strenuous and sustained exertion to resemble. Away 
 with any such sobriety and rationality as would repress the 
 disposition to contemplate with a generous emulation the 
 class of men who have been illustrious for their excellence 
 and their wisdom ; to observe with interested self-reference 
 the principles that animated them and the process of their 
 attainments ; and to fix the standard of character high by 
 keeping these exemplars in view. A man may, without a 
 presumptuous estimate of his talents, or the expectation of 
 passing through any course of unexampled events, indulge 
 the ambition to resemble and follow, in the essential deter- 
 mination of their characters, those sublime spirits who are 
 now removed to the kingdom where they are to " shine as 
 the stars for ever and ever," and those yet on earth who are 
 evidently on their way to the same illustrious end. 
 
 A striking departure from the order of custom in the 
 rank to which man belongs", exhibited in his devoting the 
 privileges of that rank to a mode of excellence which the 
 generality of the people who compose it never dreamed to 
 be a duty, will by them be denominated and scouted as 
 romantic. They will wonder why a man who ought to be 
 like themselves, should affect quite a different style of life, 
 a deserter and alien from the reign of fashion, should 
 attempt unusual plans of doing good, and should put him- 
 self under some extraordinary discipline of virtue while 
 yet every point in his system may be a dictate of reason 
 and conscience, speaking in a voice heard by him alone. 
 
 The irreligious will apply this epithet to the determina- 
 tion to make, and the zeal to inculcate, great exertions and 
 sacrifices for a purely moral ideal reward. Some gross 
 and palpable prize is requisite to excite their energies ; and 
 therefore self-denial repaid by conscience, beneficence with-
 
 the Epithet Romantic. 147 
 
 out fame, and the delight of resembling the Divinity, 
 appear visionary felicities. 
 
 The epithet will be in readiness for application to a man 
 who feels it an imperious duty to realize, as far as possible, 
 and as soon as possible, everything which he approves and 
 applauds in theory. You will often hear a circle of perhaps 
 respectable persons agreeing entirely that this one thing 
 spoken of is a worthy principle of action, and that other an 
 estimable quality, and a third a sublime excellence, who 
 would be amazed at your fanaticism, if you were to adjure 
 them thus : " My friends, from this moment you are bound, 
 from this moment we are all bound, on peril of the dis- 
 pleasure of God, to realize in ourselves, to the last possible 
 extent, all that we have thus in good faith deliberately 
 applauded." Through some fatal defect of conscience 
 there is a very general feeling, regarding the high order of 
 moral and religious attainments, that though it is a happy 
 exaltation to possess them, yet it is perfectly safe to stop 
 contented where we are, on a far lower ground. One is 
 confounded to hear irritable persons praising a character 
 of self-command ; persons who trifle away their days pro- 
 fessing to admire the instances of a strenuous improvement 
 of time ; rich persons lavishing fine words on examples of 
 beneficence which they know to be far surpassing them- 
 selves, though perhaps with no larger means ; and all 
 expressing deep respect for the men who have been most 
 eminent in piety ; and yet all this apparently with the 
 ease of a perfect freedom from any admonition of con- 
 science, that they are themselves standing in the very 
 serious predicament of having to choose, whether they will 
 henceforward earnestly and practically aim at these higher 
 attainments, or resign themselves to be found wanting in 
 the day of final account. 
 
 Finally, in the application of this epithet, but little allow- 
 ance is generally made for the great difference between a 
 man's entertaining high designs and hopes for himself 
 alone, and his entertaining them relative to other persons. 
 It might be very romantic for a man to reckon on effecting 
 such designs with respect to others, as it may be reason- 
 able to meditate for himself. If he feels the powerful 
 habitual impulse of conviction, urging and animating him 
 to the highest attainments of wisdom and excellence, he 
 
 L 2
 
 148 On the Application of the Epithet Romantic. 
 
 may perhaps justly hope to approach them himself, though 
 it would be most extravagant to extend the same hope to 
 all the persons to whom he may wish and try to impart 
 the impulse. I specify the strictly personal attainments^ 
 wisdom and excellence, for the reason that, besides the 
 difference, in probability of realization, between large 
 schemes and hopes as indulged by a man for himself or 
 entertained for others, there is a distinction to be made in 
 respect to such as he might entertain only for himself. 
 His extraordinary plans and expectations for himself might 
 be of such a nature as to depend on other persons for their 
 accomplishment, and might therefore be as extravagant as 
 if other persons alone, persons in no degree at his com- 
 mand, had been their object. Or, on the contrary, they 
 may be of a kind which shall not need the co-operation of 
 other persons, and may be realized independently of their 
 will. The design of acquiring immense riches, or becom- 
 ing the commander of an army, or a person of high official 
 importance in national affairs, must in its progress be 
 dependent on other men in incalculably too many points 
 and ways for a considerate man to presume that he shall 
 be fortunate in them all. But the schemes of eminent 
 personal improvement, depending comparatively little 
 on the will, capacity, or conduct of other persons, are 
 romantic only when there is some fatal intellectual or 
 moral defect in the individual himself who has adopted 
 them.
 
 ESSAY IV. 
 
 ON SOME OF THE CAUSES BY WHICH EVANGELICAL RELIGION 
 HAS BEEN RENDERED UNACCEPTABLE TO PERSONS OF 
 CULTIVATED TASTE. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 IT is striking to observe, under what various forms of char- 
 acter men are passing through this introductory season of 
 their being, to enter on its future greater stage. Some one 
 of these, it may be presumed, is more eligible than all the 
 rest for proceeding to that greater stage ; and to ascertain 
 which it is, must be felt by a wise man the most important 
 of his inquiries. We, my friend, are persuaded that the 
 inquiry, if made in good faith, will soon terminate, and that 
 the Christian character will be selected as the only one, in 
 which it is wise to advance to the entrance on the endless 
 futurity. Indeed the assurance of our permanent existence 
 itself rests but on that authority which dictates also the right 
 introduction to it. 
 
 The Christian character is simply a conformity to the 
 whole religion of Christ. This implies a cordial admission 
 of that whole religion ; but it meets, on the contrary, in 
 many minds not denying it to be a communication from 
 God, adisposition to shrink from some of its peculiar properties 
 and distinctions, or an effort to displace or neutralize them. 
 I am not now to learn that the substantial cause of this is 
 that repugnance in human nature to what is purely divine, 
 which revelation affirms, and all history proves, and which 
 perhaps some of the humiliating points of the Christian 
 system are more adapted to provoke, than any other thing 
 that bears the divine impress. Nor do I need to be told how 
 much this chief cause has aided and aggravated the power 
 
 149
 
 150 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 of those subordinate ones, which may have conspired to 
 prevent the success of evangelical religion among a class 
 of persons that I have in view, I mean those of refined 
 taste, whose feelings, concerning what is great and excellent, 
 have been disciplined to accord to a literary or philosophical 
 standard. But even had there been less of this natural 
 aversion in such minds, or had there been none, some of the 
 causes which have acted on them would have tended, neces- 
 sarily, to produce an effect injurious to the claims of pure 
 Christianity. I wish to illustrate several of these causes, 
 after briefly describing the antichristian feelings in which I 
 have observed that effect. 
 
 It is true that many persons of taste have, without any 
 formal disbelief of the Christian truth, so little concern about 
 religion in any shape, that the unthinking dislike to the 
 evangelical principles, occasionally rising and passing 
 among their transient moods of feeling with no distinctness 
 of apprehension, hardly deserves to be described. These 
 are to be assigned, whatever may be their faculties or improve- 
 ments, to the multitude of triflers relatively to the gravest 
 concerns, on whom we can pronounce only the general con- 
 demnation of irreiigion, their feelings not being sufficiently 
 marked fora more discriminative censure. But the aversion 
 is of a more defined character, as it exists in a mind too 
 serious for the follies of the world and the neglect of all 
 religion, and in which the very sentiment itself becomes, at 
 times, the subject of painful and apprehensive reflection, 
 from an internal monition that it is an unhappy symptom, if 
 the truth should be that the religious system which excites 
 the displacency, has really the sanction of divine revelation. 
 If a person in this condition of mind disclosed himself to 
 you, he would describe how the elevated sentiment, inspired 
 by the contemplation of other sublime subjects, is con- 
 founded, and sinks mortified into the heart, when this new 
 subject is presented to his view. It seems to require almost 
 a total change of his mental habits to admit this as the most 
 interesting subject of all, while yet he dares not reject the 
 authority which supports its claim. The dignity of religion, 
 as a general and refined speculation, he may have long 
 acknowledged ; but it appears to him as if it lost that aspect 
 of dignity, in taking the specific form of the evangelical 
 system ; just as if an ethereal being were reduced to combine
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 
 
 his radiance and subtility with an earthly conformation. He 
 is aware that religion in the abstract, or in other words, the 
 principles which constitue the obligatory relation of all in- 
 telligent creatures to the Supreme Being, must receive a 
 special modification, by means of the addition of some 
 other principles, in order to become a peculiar religious 
 economy for a particular race of those creatures, especially 
 for a race low in rank and corrupted in nature. And the 
 Christian revelation assigns the principles by which this re- 
 ligion in the abstract, the religion of the universe, is thus 
 modified into the peculiar form required for the nature 
 and condition of man. But when he contemplates 
 some of these principles, framed on an assumption, and 
 conveying a plain declaration of an ignominious and 
 deplorable condition of our nature, he can hardly help 
 regretting that, even if our condition be so degraded, the 
 system of our relations with the Divinity, though constituted 
 according and in adaptation to that degraded state, is not 
 an economy of a brighter character. The gospel indeed 
 appears to him like the image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream ; 
 it is refulgent with a head of gold ; the sublime truths or 
 facts of religious theory, which stand antecedent and superior 
 to every peculiarity of the special dispensations of religion, 
 are luminously exhibited ; but the doctrines which are added 
 as distinctive of the peculiar circumstances of the Christian 
 economy, appear less splendid, and as if descending towards 
 the qualities of iron and clay. If he must admit this portion 
 of the system as a part of the truth, his feelings amount to 
 the wish that a different theory had been true. It is there- 
 fore with a degree of shrinking reluctance that he sometimes 
 adverts to the ideas peculiar to the gospel. He would 
 willingly lose this specific scheme of doctrines in a more 
 general theory of religion, instead of resigning every wider 
 speculation for this scheme, in which God has comprised, 
 and distinguished by a very peculiar character, all the religion 
 which he wills to be known, or to be useful, to our world. 
 It is not a welcome conviction, that the gospel, instead of 
 being a modification of religion exhibited in competition 
 with others, and subject to choice or rejection according to 
 his taste, is peremptorily and exclusively the religion for our 
 lapsed race ; insomuch that he who has not a religion con- 
 formed to the model in the New Testament does not stand
 
 152 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 in the only right and safe relation to the Supreme Being. 
 He suffers himself to pass the year in a dissatisfied uncer- 
 tainty, and a criminal neglect of deciding, whether his cold 
 reception of the specific views of Christianity will render 
 unavailing his regard for those more general truths, respect- 
 ing the Deity, moral rectitude, and a future state, which 
 are necessarily at the basis of the system. He is afraid to 
 examine and determine the question, whether he may with 
 impunity rest in a scheme composed of the general principles 
 of wisdom and virtue, selected from the Christian oracles 
 and the speculations of philosophy, harmonized by reason, 
 and embellished by taste. If it were safe, he would much 
 rather be the dignified professor of such a philosophic 
 refinement on Christianity, than yield himself a submissive 
 and wholly conformed disciple of Jesus Christ. This refined 
 system would be clear of the undesirable peculiarities of 
 Christian doctrine, and it would also allow some different 
 ideas of the nature of moral excellence. He would not be 
 so explicitly condemned for indulging a disposition to 
 admire and imitate some of those models of character which, 
 however opposite to pure Christian excellence, the world 
 has always idolized. 
 
 I wish I could display, in the most forcible manner, the 
 considerations which show how far such a state of mind 
 is wrong. But my object is to remark on a few of the 
 causes which may have contributed to it. 
 
 I do not, for a moment, place among these causes that 
 continual dishonour which the religion of Christ has suf- 
 fered through the corrupted institutions, and the depraved 
 character of individuals or communities, of what is called 
 the Christian world. Such a man as I have supposed, 
 understands what the dictates and tendency of that religion 
 really are, so far at least, that in contemplating the bigotry, 
 persecution, hypocrisy, and worldly ambition, which have 
 been forced as an opprobrious adjunct on Christianity during 
 all ages of its occupancy on earth, his mind dissevers, by a 
 decisive glance of thought, all these evils, and the pretended 
 Christians who are accountable for them, from the religion 
 which is as distinct from them as the Spirit that pervades 
 all things is pure from matter and from sin. In his view, 
 these odious things and these wicked men, that have arro- 
 gated and denied the Christian name, sink out of sight
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 153 
 
 through a chasm like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram,* and 
 leave the camp and the cause holy, though they leave the 
 numbers small. It needs so very moderate a share of 
 discernment, in a Protestant country at least, where a well- 
 known volume exhibits the religion itself, genuine and 
 entire as it came from heaven, to perceive the essential 
 disunion and antipathy between it and alltheseabominations, 
 that to take them as congenial and inseparable, betrays, in 
 every instance, a detestable want of principle, or a most 
 wretched want of sense. The defect of cordiality toward the 
 religion of Christ, in the persons that I am accusing, does 
 not arise from this debility or this injustice. They would 
 not be less equitable to Christianity than they would to some 
 estimable man, whom they would not esteem the less because 
 villains that hated him, knew, however, so well the excellence 
 of his name and character, as gladly to avail themselves of 
 them in any way they could to aid their schemes, or to 
 shelter their crimes. But indeed these remarks are not 
 strictly to the purpose ; since the prejudice which a weak or 
 corrupt mind receives from such a view of the Christian 
 history, operates, as we see by facts, not discriminately 
 against particular characteristics of Christianity, but against 
 the whole system, and leads towards a denial of its divine 
 origin. On the contrary, the class of persons now in question 
 fully admit its divine authority, but feel a repugnance to 
 some of its most peculiar distinctions. These peculiarities 
 they may wish, as I have said, to refine away ; but in 
 moments of impartial seriousness, are constrained to admit 
 something very near at least to the conviction, of their being 
 inseparable from the sacred economy. This however fails 
 to subdue or conciliate the heart ; and the dislike to some of 
 the parts has often an influence on the affections in regard 
 to the whole. That portion of the system which they think 
 they could admire, is admitted with the coldness of a mere 
 speculative assent, from the effect of the intruding recollec- 
 tion of its being combined with something else which they 
 cannot admire. Those distinctions from which they recoil, 
 are chiefly comprised in that view of Christianity which, 
 among a large proportion of the professors of it, is de- 
 nominated in a somewhat specific sense, Evangelical ; and 
 
 See Numbers xvi.
 
 154 O H th e Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 therefore I have adopted this denomination in the title of this 
 letter. Christianity taken in this view contains a humiliat- 
 ing estimate of the moral condition of man, as a being 
 radically corrupt the doctrine of redemption from that 
 condition by the merit and sufferings of Christ the doctrine 
 of a divine influence being necessary to transform the cha- 
 racter of the human mind, in order to prepare it for a higher 
 station in the universe and a grand moral peculiarity by 
 which it insists on humility, penitence, and a separation 
 from the spirit and habits of the world. I do not see any 
 necessity for a more formal and amplified description of 
 that mode of understanding Christianity which has acquired 
 the distinctive epithet Evangelical ; and which is not, to say 
 the least, more discriminatively designated among the 
 scoffing part of the wits, critics, and theologians of the day, 
 by the terms Fanatical, Calvinistical, Methodistical. 
 
 I may here notice that, though the greater share of the 
 injurious influences on which I may remark operates more 
 pointedly against the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, yet 
 some of them are perniciously effectual against its moral 
 sentiments and laws, which are of a tenour corresponding 
 to the principles it prescribes to our faith. I would observe 
 also, that though I have specified the more refined and 
 intellectual class of minds, as indisposed to the religion of 
 Christ by the causes on which I may comment, and though 
 I keep them chiefly in view, yet the influence of some of these 
 causes extends in a degree to many persons of subordinate 
 mental rank. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 IN the view of an intelligent and honest mind the religion 
 of Christ stands as clear of all connection with the corruption 
 of men, and churches, and ages, as when it was first revealed. 
 It retains its purity like Moses in Egypt, or Daniel in Baby- 
 lon, or the Saviour of the world Himself while He mingled 
 with scribes and pharisees, or publicans and sinners. But 
 though it thus instantly and totally separates itself from all 
 appearance of relation to the bad vices of bad men, a degree 
 of effort may be required in order to display it, or to view it 
 in an equally perfect separation from the weakness of good
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 155 
 
 ones. It is in reality no more identified with the one than 
 with the other ; its essential sublimity is as incapable of 
 being reduced to littleness, as its purity is of uniting with 
 vice. But it may have a vital connection with a weak mind, 
 while it necessarily disowns a wicked one ; and the quali- 
 ties of that mind with which it confessedly unites itself, will 
 much more seem to adhere to it, than of that with which all 
 its principles are plainly in antipathy. It will be more 
 natural to take those persons who are acknowledged the real 
 subjects of its influence, as illustrations of its nature, than 
 those on whom it is the heaviest reproach that they pretend 
 to be its friends. The perception of its nature and dignity 
 ;nust be clear and absolute, in the man who can -observe it 
 under the appearance it acquires in intimate combination 
 with the thoughts, feelings, and language of its disciples, 
 without ever losing sight of its own essential qualities and 
 lustre. No possible associations indeed can diminish the 
 grandeur of some parts of the Christian system. The doc- 
 trine of immortality, for instance, cannot be reduced to take 
 even a transient appearance of littleness, by the meanest or 
 most uncouth words and images that shall ever be employed 
 to represent it. But some other things in the system have 
 not the same obvious philosophic dignity ; and these are 
 capable of acquiring, from the mental defects of their be- 
 lievers, such associations as will give a character much at 
 variance with our ideas of magnificence, to so much as they 
 constitute of the evangelical economy. One of the causes 
 therefore which I meant to notice, as having excited in 
 persons of taste a sentiment unfavourable to the reception of 
 evangelical religion, is, that this is the religion of many weak 
 and uncultivated minds. 
 
 The schools of philosophy have been composed of men of 
 superior faculties and extensive accomplishments, who could 
 sustain, by eloquence and capacious thought, the dignity of 
 the favourite themes; so that the proud distinctions of the 
 disciples and advocates appeared as the attributes of the 
 doctrines. The adepts could attract refined and aspiring 
 spirits by proclaiming, that the temple of their goddess was 
 not profaned by being a rendezvous for vulgar men. On the 
 contrary, it is the beneficent distinction of the gospel, that 
 though it is of a magnitude to interest and to surpass angelic 
 investigation (and therefore assuredly to pour contempt on
 
 156 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 the pride of human intelligence rejecting it for its meanness), 
 it is yet most expressly sent to the class which philosophers 
 have always despised. And a good man feels it a cause of 
 grateful joy, that a communication has come from heaven, 
 adapted to effect the happiness of multitudes in spite of 
 natural debility or neglected education. While he observes 
 that confined capacities do not preclude the entrance, and 
 the permanent residence, of that sacred combination of truth 
 and power, which finds no place in the minds of many philo- 
 sophers, and wits, and statesmen, he is grateful to him who 
 has " hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and 
 revealed them to babes."* 
 
 But it is not to be denied that the natural consequence 
 follows. Contracted and obscured in its abode, the inhabi- 
 tant will appear, as the sun through a misty sky, with but 
 little of its magnificence, to a man who can be content to 
 receive his impression of the intellectual character of the re- 
 ligion from the form of its manifestation made from the minds 
 of its disciples ; and, in doing so, can indolently and per- 
 versely allow himself to regard its weakest display as its 
 truest image. In taking such a dwelling, the religion seems 
 to imitate what was prophesied of its Author, that, when he 
 should be seen, there would be no beauty that he should be 
 desired. This humiliation is inevitable ; for unless miracles 
 were wrought, to impart to the less intellectual disciples an 
 enlarged power of thinking, the evangelic truth must accom- 
 modate itself to the dimensions and habitudes of their minds. 
 And perhaps the exhibitions of it will come forth with more 
 of the character of those minds, than of its own celestial dis- 
 tinctions : insomuch that if there were no declaration of the 
 sacred system, but in the forms of conception and language 
 in which they give it forth, even a candid man might hesi- 
 tate to admit it as the most glorious gift of heaven. Happily, 
 he finds its quality declared by other oracles ; but while from 
 them he receives it in its own character, he is tempted to 
 wish he could detach it from all the associations which he 
 feels it has acquired from the humbler exhibition. And 
 he does not greatly wonder that other men of the same 
 intellectual habits, and with a less candid solicitude to 
 receive with simplicity everything that really comes from 
 
 * Matthew xi. 25.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 157 
 
 God, should have admitted a prejudice from these associa- 
 tions. 
 
 They would not make this impression on a man already 
 devoted to the religion of Jesus Christ. No passion that has 
 become predominant is ever cooled by anything which can- 
 be associated with its object, while that object itself con- 
 tinues unaltered. The passion is even willing to verify its 
 power, and the merit of that which interests it, by sometimes 
 letting the unpleasing associations surround and touch the 
 object for an instant, and then chasing them away ; and it 
 welcomes with augmented attachment that object coming 
 forth from them unstained ; as happy spirits at the last day 
 will receive with joy their bodies recovered from the dust in 
 a state of purity that will leave everything belonging to the 
 dust behind. A zealous Christian exults to feel in contempt 
 of how many counteracting circumstances he can still love 
 his religion ; and that this counteraction, by exciting his 
 understanding to make a more defined estimate of its excel- 
 lence, has resulted in his loving it the more. It has now in 
 some degree even pre-occupied those avenues of taste 
 and imagination, by which alone the ungracious effect 
 of associations could have been admitted. The thing 
 itself is close to his mind, and therefore the causes 
 which would have misrepresented it by coming between, 
 have lost their power. As he hears the sentiments of 
 sincere Christianity from the weak and illiterate, he says to 
 himself All this is indeed little, but I am happy to feel that 
 the subject itself is great, and that this humble display of it 
 cannot make it appear to me different from what I absolutely 
 know it to be ; any more than a clouded atmosphere can 
 diminish my idea of the grandeur of the heavens, after I 
 have so often beheld the pure azure, and the host of stars. 
 I am glad that it has in this man all the consolatory and all 
 the purifying efficacy, which I wish that my more elevated 
 views of it may not fail to have in me. This is the chief 
 end for which a divine communication can have been granted 
 to the world. If this religion, instead of being designed to 
 make its disciples pure and happy amidst their littleness, 
 had required to receive lustre from their mental dignity, it 
 would have been sent to none of us. At least, not to me; 
 for though I would be grateful for my intellectual advantage 
 over my uncultivated fellow-Christian, I am conscious that
 
 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 the noblest forms of thought in which I apprehend, or could 
 represent, the subject, do but contract its amplitude, do bu'c 
 depress its sublimity. Those superior spirits who are said 
 to rejoice over the first proof of the efficacy of divine truth, 
 have rejoiced over its introduction, even in so humble a 
 form, into the mind of this man, and probably see in fact but 
 little difference, in point of speculative greatness, between 
 his manner of viewing and illustrating it and mine. If 
 Jesus Christ could be on earth as before, he would receive 
 this disciple, and benignantly approve, for its operation on 
 the heart, that faith in his doctrines, which men of taste 
 might be tempted to despises for its want of intellectual 
 refinement. And since all his true disciples are destined to 
 attain greatness at length, the time is coming, when each 
 pious, though now contracted mind, will do justice to this 
 high subject. Meanwhile, such as this subject will appear 
 to the intelligence of immortals, and such as it will be ex- 
 pressed in their eloquence, such it really is now; and I 
 should deplore the perversity of my mind, if I felt more 
 disposed to take the character of the religion from that style 
 of its exhibition in which it appears humiliated, than from 
 that in which I am assured it will be sublime. If, while we 
 are all advancing to meet the revelations of eternity, I have 
 a more vivid and comprehensive idea than these less privi- 
 leged Christians, of the glory of our religion, as displayed in 
 the New Testament, and if I can much more delightfully 
 participate the sentiments which devout genius has uttered 
 in the contemplation of it, I am therefore called upon tt 
 excel them as much in devotedness to this religion, as I 
 have a more luminous view of its excellence. 
 
 Let the spirit of the evangelical system once have the 
 ascendency, and it may thus defy the threatening mischief 
 of disagreeable associations with its principles ; as the 
 angels in the house of Lot repelled the base assailants.* 
 But it requires a most extraordinary cogency of conviction, 
 and indeed more than simple intellectual conviction, to 
 obtain a cordial reception for these principles, if such 
 associations are in prepossession of the mind. And that 
 they should be so in the man of taste is not wonderful, if 
 you consider how early, how often, and by what diversities 
 
 * Gen. xix. n.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 159 
 
 of the same general cause, they may have been made cm 
 him. As the gospel comprises an ample assemblage of 
 intellectual views, and as the greater number of Christians 
 are inevitably incapable of presenting them in a dignified 
 character of conception and language from the same causes 
 which disqualify them to do such justice to other intellectual 
 subjects, it is not improbable that far the greater number of 
 expressions which he has heard in his whole life, have been 
 utterly below the subject. Obviously this is a very serious 
 circumstance ; for if he had heard as much spoken on any 
 other subject of high intellectual rank, as moral philosophy, 
 or poetry, or rhetoric, in which perhaps he now takes great 
 interest, and if a similar proportion of what he had heard 
 had been as much below the subject, it is probable that he 
 and the subject would have remained strangers. And it is 
 a melancholy deposition against the human heart, that fewer 
 unfavourable associations will cause it to recoil from the 
 gospel, than from any other subject which comes with high 
 claims. 
 
 The prejudicial influence of mental deficiency or mean- 
 ness associated with evangelical doctrine, may have beset 
 him in many ways. For instance, he has met with some 
 zealous Christians, who not only were very slightly ac- 
 quainted with the evidences of the truth, and the illustra- 
 tions of the reasonableness, of their religion, but who 
 actually felt no interest in the inquiry. Perhaps more than 
 one individual attempted to deter him from pursuing it, by 
 suggesting that inquiry either implies doubt, which was 
 pronounced a criminal state of mind, or will probably lead 
 to it, as a judgment on the profane inquisitiveness which, on 
 such a subject, is not satisfied with implicitly believing. An 
 attempt to examine the foundation would be likely to end in 
 a wish to demolish the structure. 
 
 He may sometimes have heard the discourse of sincere 
 Christians, whose religion involved no intellectual exercise, 
 and, strictly speaking, no subject of intellect. Separately from 
 their feelings, it had no definition, no topics, no distinct 
 succession of views. And if he or some other person 
 attempted to talk on some part of the religion itself, as a 
 thing definable and important, independently of the feelings 
 of any individual, and as consisting in a vast congeries of 
 ideas, concerning the divine government of the world, the
 
 160 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 relations of rational creatures with the Creator, the genera) 
 nature of the economy disclosed by the Messiah, the system 
 of moral principles and rules, and the greatness of the future 
 prospects of man, they seemed to have no concern in that 
 religion, and impatiently interrupted such discourse with the 
 observation That is not experience. 
 
 Others he has heard continually recurring to two or three 
 points of opinion, adopted perhaps in servile addiction to a 
 system, or perhaps by some chance seizure of the individual's 
 preference, and asserted to be the life and essence of 
 Christianity. These opinions he has heard zealously though 
 not argumentatively defended, even when they were not 
 attacked or questioned. If they were called in question, it 
 was an evidence not less of depraved principle than of per- 
 verted judgment. All other religious truths were repre- 
 sented as deriving their authority and importance purely 
 from these, and as being so wholly included and subordi* 
 nate, that it is needless and almost impertinent to give them 
 a distinct attention. The neglect of constantly repeating 
 and enforcing these opinions was said to be the chief cause 
 of the comparative failure of the efforts to promote Chris- 
 tianity in the world, and of the decay of particular religious 
 societies. Though he perhaps could not perceive how these 
 points were essential to Christianity, even admitting them 
 to be true, they were made the sole and decisive standard 
 for distinguishing between a genuine and a false profession 
 of it. And perhaps they were applied in eager haste to any 
 sentiment which he happened to express concerning religion 
 as a test of its quality, and a proof of its corruptness. 
 
 Instances may have occurred in which he has observed 
 some one idea or doctrine, that was not the distinctive 
 peculiarity of any system, to have so monopolized the mind,, 
 that every conversation, from whatever point of the compass 
 it started, was certain to find its way to the favourite topic, 
 while he was sometimes fretted, sometimes amused, never 
 much improved, by observing its instinctive progress to the 
 appointed place. If his situation and connections rendered 
 it unavoidable for him often to hear this unfortunate manner 
 of discoursing on religion, his mind probably fell into a 
 fault very similar to that of his well-meaning acquaintance. 
 As this worthy man could never speak on the subject with- 
 out soon bringing the whole of it down to one particular
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 161 
 
 point, so the indocile and recusant auditor became unable 
 to think on the subject without adverting immediately to 
 the narrow illustration of it exhibited by this one man ; 
 insomuch that this image of combined penury and conceit 
 became established in his mind as representative of the 
 subject. In consequence of this connexion of ideas, he 
 perhaps became disinclined to think on the subject at all ; 
 or, if he was disposed or constrained to think of it, he was 
 so averse to let his views of Christianity thus converge to 
 the littleness of a point, that he laboured to expand them 
 till they lost all specifically evangelical distinctions in the 
 wideness of generality and abstraction. 
 
 Again, the majority of Christians are precluded, by their 
 condition in life, from any considerable acquirement of 
 general knowledge. It would be unpardonable in the more 
 cultivated man not to make the large allowance for the 
 natural effect of this on the extent of their religious ideas. 
 But it shall have happened, that he has met with numbers 
 who had no inconsiderable means, both in the way of money, 
 judging by their unnecessary expenses, and of leisure, judging 
 by the quantity of time consumed in trivial talk, or in need- 
 less sleep, to furnish their minds with various information, 
 but who were quite on a level, in this respect, with those of the 
 humblest rank. They never even suspected that knowledge 
 could have any connexion with religion ; or that they could 
 not be as clearly and comprehensively in possession of the 
 great subject as a man whose faculties had been exercised, 
 and whose extended acquaintance with things would supply 
 an ample diversity of ideas illustrative of religion. He has 
 perhaps even heard them make a kind of merit of their in- 
 difference to knowledge, as if it were the proof or the result 
 of a higher value for religion. If there was ventured a hint 
 of reprehensive wonder at their reading so little, and within 
 so very confined a scope, it would be replied, that they 
 thought it enough to read the Bible ; as if it were possible 
 for a person whose mind fixes with inquisitive attention on 
 what is before him, to read through the Bible without thou- 
 sands of such questions being started in his thoughts, as can 
 be answered only from sources of information extraneous to 
 the Bible. But he perceived that this reading the Bible was 
 no work of inquiring thought ; and indeed he has commonly 
 found, that those who have no wish for anything like a 
 
 M
 
 1 62 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 general improvement in knowledge, have no disposition for 
 the real business of thinking even in religion, and that their 
 discourse on that subject is the exposure of intellectual 
 poverty. He has seen them live on for a number of years 
 content with the same confined views, the same meagre list 
 of topics, and the same uncouth religious language. In 
 so considerable a space of time, the habitual inquisitive- 
 ness after various truth would have given much more clear- 
 ness to their faculties, and much more precision to the 
 articles of their belief. They might have ramified the few 
 leading articles into a rich variety of subordinate principles 
 and important inferences. They might have learned to 
 place the Christian truth in all those combinations with the 
 other parts of our knowledge, by which it is enabled to 
 present new and striking aspects, and to multiply its argu- 
 ments to the understanding, and its appeals to the heart. 
 They might have enriched themselves by rendering nature, 
 history, and the present views of the moral world, tributary 
 to the illustration and the effect of their religion. But they 
 neglected, and even despised, all these means of enlarging 
 their ideas of a subject which they professed to hold of 
 infinite importance. Yet perhaps, if this man of more 
 intellectual habits showed but little interest in conversing 
 with them on that subject, or seemed intentionally to avoid 
 it, this was considered as pure aversion to religion ; and 
 what had been uninteresting to him as doctrine, then became 
 revolting as reproof.* 
 
 He may not unfrequently have heard worthy but illiterate 
 persons expressing their utmost admiration of sayings, 
 passages in books, or public discourses, which he could not 
 help perceiving to be hardly sense, or to be the dictates of 
 conceit, or to be common-place inflated to fustian. While 
 on the other hand, if lie has introduced a favourite passage, 
 or an admired book, they have perhaps acknowledged no 
 perception of its beauty, or expressed a doubt of its tendency, 
 from its not being in canonical diction. Or perhaps they 
 have directly avowed that they could not understand it, in a 
 manner plainly implying that therefore it could be of no 
 value. Possibly when he has expressed his high admiration 
 
 *I own that what I said of Jesus Christ's gladly receiving one of the 
 humbler intellectual order for his disciple, would be but little applicable 
 to some of the characters that I describe.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. . 163 
 
 of some of the views of the gospel, not ordinarily recognized 
 or exhibited, and bearing what I may perhaps call a philoso- 
 phical aspect, (such, for instance, as struck the mind of 
 Rousseau,) he has been mortified to find, that some peculiar 
 and even sublime distinctions of the religion of Christ are 
 lost to many of his disciples, from being of too abstract a 
 kind for the apprehension of any but improved and intel- 
 lectual men. 
 
 If he had generally found in those professed Christians 
 whose mental powers and attainments were small, a candid 
 humility, instructing them, while expressing their animated 
 gratitude for what acquaintance with religion they had been 
 able to attain, and for the immortal hopes springing from 
 it, to feel that they had but a confined view of a subject 
 which is of immense variety and magnitude, he might have 
 been too much pleased by this amiable temper, to be much 
 repelled by the defective character of their conceptions and 
 expressions. But often, on the contrary, they may have 
 shown such a complacent assurance of sufficiency in the 
 little sphere, as if it self-evidently comprised everything 
 which it is possible, or which it is of consequence, for any 
 mind to see in the Christian religion. They were like 
 persons who should doubt the information that myriads more 
 of stars can be seen through a telescope than they ever 
 beheld, and who should have no curiosity to try. 
 
 Many Christians may have appeared to him to attach an 
 extremely disproportionate importance to the precise modes 
 of religious observances, not only in the hour of controversy 
 respecting them, when they are always extravagantly mag- 
 nified, but in the habitual course of their religious references. 
 These modes may be either such as are adhered to by 
 communities and sects of Christians, perhaps as their re- 
 spective marks of distinction from one another ; or any 
 smaller ceremonial peculiarities, devised and pleaded for 
 by particular individuals or families. 
 
 Certain things in the religious habits of some Christians 
 may have disgusted him excessively. Everything which 
 could even distantly remind him of grimace, would inevit- 
 ably do this ; as, for instance, a solemn lifting up, artificial 
 impulses of the breath, grotesque and regulated gestures 
 and postures in religious exercises, and alTected faltering of 
 the voice, and, I might add, abrupt religious exclamations 
 
 M 2
 
 164 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 in common discourse, though they were even benedictions 
 to the Almighty, which he has often heard so ill-timed as 
 to have an irreverent and almost a ludicrous effect. In a 
 man of correct and refined taste, the happiest improvement 
 in point of veneration for genuine religion will produce no 
 tolerance for such habits. Nor will the dislike to them be 
 lessened by ever so perfect a conviction of the sincere piety 
 of any of the persons who have fallen into them. I shall 
 be justified in laying great stress on this particular; for I 
 have known instances of extreme mischief done to the 
 feelings relative to religion, in young persons especially, 
 through the continued irritation of disgust caused by such 
 displeasing habits deforming personal piety. 
 
 In the conversation of illiterate Christians the supposed 
 man of taste has perhaps frequently heard the most unfortu- 
 nate metaphors and similes, employed to explain or enforce 
 evangelical sentiments ; and probably, if he twenty times 
 recollected one of those sentiments, the repulsive figure was 
 sure to recur to his imagination. If he has heard so many 
 of these, that each Christian topic has acquired its appropri- 
 ate offensive images, you can easily conceive what a lively 
 perception of the importance of the subject itself must be 
 requisite to overcome the disgust of the associations. The 
 feeling accompanying these topics, as connected with these 
 distasteful ideas, will be somewhat like that which spoils 
 the pleasure of reading a noble poet, Virgil for instance, 
 when each admired passage recalls the phrases and images 
 into which it has been degraded in that kind of imitation 
 denominated travesty. It may be added, that the reluctance 
 to think of the subject because it is connected with these 
 ideas, strengthens the connexion. For often the striving 
 not to dwell on the disagreeable images, produces a mis- 
 chievous reaction by which they press in more forcibly. 
 The tenacity with which ideas adhere to the mind, is in pro- 
 portion to the degree of interest, whether pleasing or un- 
 pleasing with which they affect it : and an idea cannot 
 well excite a stronger kind of interest than the earnest 
 wish to escape from it. If we could cease to dislike it, 
 it would soon cease to haunt us. It may also be observed, 
 that the infrequency of thinking on the evangelical subjects, 
 will confirm the injurious associations. The same mental 
 law prevails in regard to subjects as to persons. If any
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 165 
 
 unfortunate incident, or any circumstance of expression or 
 conduct, displeased us in our first meeting with a person, 
 it will be strongly recalled each time that we see him again, 
 if we meet him but seldom ; on 'the contrary, if our inter- 
 course become frequent or habitual, such a first unpleasing 
 circumstance, and others subsequent to it, may be forgotten. 
 This observation might be of some use to a man who really 
 wishes to neutralize in his mind the offensive associations 
 with evangelical subjects ; as he may be assured that one 
 of the effectual means would be, to make those subjects 
 familiar by often thinking on them. 
 
 While remarking on the effect of unpleasing images 
 employed to illustrate Christian principles, I cannot help 
 wishing that religious teachers had the good taste to avoid 
 amplifying the metaphors of an undignified order, which may 
 have a kind of coarse fitness for illustration, and are perhaps 
 employed, in a short and transient way, in the Bible. I 
 shall notice only that common one, in which the benefits 
 and pleasures of religion are represented under the image of 
 food. I do not recollect that in the Scriptures this metaphor 
 is ever drawn to a great length. But from the facility of 
 the process, it is not strange that it has been amplified, both 
 in books and discourses, into the most extended parallel 
 descriptions ; exhausting the dinner-room of images, and 
 ransacking the language for substantives and adjectives, to 
 stimulate the spiritual palate. The figure is combined with 
 so many terms in our language, that it will unavoidably 
 occur ; and the analogy briefly and simply suggested may 
 sometimes assist the thought without lessening the subject. 
 But it is degrading to spiritual ideas to be extensively and 
 systematically transmuted, I might say cooked, into sensual 
 ones. The analogy between meaner and more dignified 
 things should never be pursued further than one or two 
 points of obviously useful illustration ; for, if it be traced to 
 every particular in which a resemblance can be found or 
 fancied, the meaner thing abdicates its humble office of 
 merely indicating somequalities of the greatone, and becomes 
 formally its representative and equal. By their being made 
 to touch at all points, the meaner is constituted a scale to 
 measure and to limit the magnitude of the superior, and thus 
 the importance of the one shrinks to the insignificance of 
 the other. It will take some time for a man to recover any
 
 i66 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 great degree of solemnity in thinking on the delights or the 
 supports of religion, after he has seen them reduced into all 
 the forms of eating and drinking. In such detailed analo- 
 gies it often happens,, that the most fanciful, or that the 
 coarsest points of the resemblance, remain longest in the 
 thoughts. When the mind has been taught to descend to a 
 low manner of considering divine truth, it will be apt to 
 descend to the lowest. There is no such violent tendency 
 to abstraction and sublimity, in the minds of the generality 
 of readers and hearers, as to render it necessary to take any 
 great pains for the purpose of retaining their ideas in some 
 degree of alliance with matter. 
 
 We are to acknowledge, then, the serious disadvantage 
 under which evangelical religion presents itself to persons 
 of mental refinement, with the associations which it has 
 contracted from its uncultivated and injudicious professors. 
 At the same time, it would be unjust not to observe that 
 some Christians, of a subordinate intellectual order, are 
 distinguished by such an unassuming simplicity, by so much 
 rectitude of conscience, and by a piety so warm and even 
 exalted, as to leave a cultivated man convicted of a great 
 perversion of feeling, if the faith, of which these are living 
 representatives, did not appear to him in stronger attractive 
 association with their excellence, than in repulsive associa- 
 tion with their intellectual inferiority. But I am supposing 
 his mind to be in a perverted state, and am far from seeking 
 to defend him. This supposition however being made, I 
 feel no surprise, on surveying the prevailingmental condition 
 of evangelical communities, that this man has acquired an 
 accumulation of prejudices against some of the distinguishing 
 features of the gospel. Permitting himself to feel as if the 
 circumstances which thus diminish or distort an order of 
 Christian sentiments, were inseparable from it, he is inclined 
 to regret that there should be any divine sanctions against 
 his framing for himself, on the foundation of some selected 
 principles in Christianity which he cannot but admire, but 
 with a qualifying intermixture of foreign elements, a more 
 liberalized scheme of religion. 
 
 It was especially unfortunate if, in the advanced stage of 
 this man's perhaps highly cultivated youth, while he was 
 exulting in the conscious enlargement of intellect, and the 
 quickening and vivid perceptiveness of taste, but was still to
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 16? 
 
 be regarded as in a degree the subject of education, it was his 
 lot to have the principles of religion exhibited and inculcated 
 in a repulsive language and cast of thought by the seniors 
 of his family or acquaintance. In that case, the unavoid- 
 able frequency of intercourse must have rendered the counter- 
 active operation of the unpleasing circumstances, associated 
 with Christian truth, almost incessant. And it would natu- 
 rally become continually stronger. For each repetition of 
 that which offended his refined mental habits, would incite 
 him to value and cherish them the more, and to cultivate 
 them according to a standard still more foreign from all con- 
 geniality with his instructors. These habits he began and 
 continued to acquire from books of elegant sentiment or 
 philosophical speculation, which he read in disregard of the 
 advice, perhaps, to occupy himself much more with works 
 specifically religious. To such literary employment and 
 amusement he has again and again returned, with a delightful 
 rebound from systematic common-places, whether delivered 
 in private or in public instruction ; and has felt the full con- 
 trast between the force, lustre, and mental richness, brighten- 
 ing and animating the moral speculations or poetical visions 
 of genius, and the manner in which the truths of the gospel 
 had been conveyed. He was not serious and honest enough 
 to make, when in retirement, any deliberate trial of abstract- 
 ing these truths from the vehicle and combination in which 
 they were thus unhappily set forth, and in a measure dis- 
 guised, in order to see what they would appear in a better 
 form. This change of form he was competent to effect, or, 
 if he was not, he had but a very small portion of that mental 
 superiority, of which he was congratulating himself that his 
 disgusts were an evidence. But his sense of the duty of 
 doing this was perhaps less cogent, from his perceiving that 
 the evangelical doctrines were inculcated by his relations 
 with no less deficiency of the means of proving them true, 
 than of rendering them.interesting ; and he could easily dis- 
 cern that his instructors had received the articles of their 
 faith implicitly from a class of teachers, or the standard creed 
 of a religious community, without even perhaps a subsequent 
 exercise of reasoning to confirm what they had thus adopted. 
 They believed these articles through the habit of hearing 
 them, and maintained them by the habit of believing 
 them. The recoil of his feelings, therefore, did not alarm
 
 168 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 his conscience with the apprehension that it might be abso- 
 lutely the truth of God, that, under this uninviting form, he 
 was loath to embrace. Unaided by such an impression 
 already existing, and unarmed with a force of argument to 
 work conviction, the seriousness, perhaps sometimes 
 harsh seriousness, of his friends, reiterating the asser- 
 tion of his mind being in a fatal condition, till he should 
 think and feel exactly as they did, was little likely to con- 
 ciliate his repugnance. When sometimes their admoni- 
 tions took the mild or pathetic tone, his respect for their 
 piety, and his gratitude for their affectionate solicitude, had 
 perhaps a momentary effect to make him earnestly wish he 
 could renounce his intellectual fastidiousness, and adopt in 
 pious simplicity all their feelings and ideas. But as the con- 
 tracted views, the rude figures, and the mixture of systematic 
 and illiterate language, recurred, his mind would again 
 revolt, and compel him to say, This cannot, will not, be my 
 mode of religion. 
 
 Now, one wishes there had been some enlightened friend 
 to say to such a man, Why will you not understand that 
 there is no necessity for this to be the mode of your religion? 
 By what want of acuteness do you fail to distinguish between 
 the mode, (a mere extrinsic and accidental mode,) and the 
 substance ? In the world of nature you see the same ele- 
 ments wrought into the plainest and the most beautiful, into 
 the most diminutive and the most majestic forms. So the 
 same simple principles of Christian truth may constitute the 
 basis of a very inferior, or a very noble, order of ideas. The 
 principles themselves have an essential quality which is not 
 convertible ; but they were not imparted to man to be fixed 
 in the mind as so many bare scientific propositions, each 
 confined to one single mode of conception, without any 
 collateral ideas, and to be always expressed in one unalter- 
 able form of words. They are placed there in order to spread 
 out, if I might so express it, into a great multitude and 
 diversity of ideas and feelings. These ideas and feelings, 
 forming round the pure simple principles, will correspond, 
 and will make those principles themselves seem to corres- 
 pond, to the meaner or the more dignified intellectual rank 
 of the mind. Why will you not perceive, that if the subject 
 takes so humble a style in its less intellectual believers, it 
 is not that it cannot unfold greater proportions through a
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 169 
 
 gradation of larger and still larger faculties, and with facility 
 occupy the whole capacity of the amplest, in the same manner 
 as the ocean fills a gulf as easily as a creek ! Through this 
 climax it retains an identity of its essential principles, and 
 appears progressively a nobler thing only by gaining a position 
 for more conspicuously displaying itself. Why will you not 
 go with it through this gradation, till you see it presented in 
 a greatness of character adequate to the utmost that you 
 can, without folly, attribute to yourself of large and improved 
 faculty ? Never fear lest the gospel should prove not sublime 
 enough for the elevation of your thoughts. If you could 
 attain an intellectual eminence from which you would look 
 with pity on the rank you at present hold, you would still 
 find the dignity of this subject on your level, and rising above 
 it. Do you doubt this ? What then do you think of such 
 spirits for instance, as those of Milton and Pascal ? And by 
 how many degrees of the intellectual scale shallyours surpass 
 them, to authorize your feeling that to be little which they 
 felt to be great ? They were at times sensible of the magni- 
 ficence of Christian truth, filling, distending, and exceeding, 
 their faculties, and could have wished for even greater 
 powers to do it justice. In their loftiest contemplations, 
 they did not feel their minds elevating the subject, but the 
 subject elevating their minds. Now consider that their 
 views of the gospel were, in essence, the same with those of 
 its meanest sincere disciples ; and that therefore many 
 sentiments which, by their unhappy form, have disgusted 
 you so much, bore a faithful though humble analogy to the 
 ideas of these illustrious Christians. Why then, while hear- 
 ing such sentiments, have you not learnt the habit of 
 recognizing this analogy, and in pursuance of it casting 
 your thought upward to the highest style of the subject, 
 instead of abandoning the subject itself in the recoil from the 
 unfortunate mode of presenting it? Have you not cause to 
 fear that your dislike goes deeper than this exterior of its 
 exhibition ? For, else, would you not anxiously seek, and 
 rejoice to meet, the divine subject in that transfiguration of 
 aspect by which its grandeur would thus be redeemed. 
 
 I would make a solemn appeal to the understanding and 
 the conscience of such a man. I would say to him, Is it 
 to the honour of a mind of taste, that it loses, when the 
 religion of Christ is concerned, all the value of its discrimi-
 
 170 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 nation ? Do you not absolutely know that the littleness 
 which you see investing that religion is adventitious ? Are 
 you not certain that in hearing the discourse of such men, 
 if they were now to be found, as those I have named, the 
 evangelical truths would appear to you- sublime, and that 
 they cannot be less so in fact than they would appear as 
 displayed from those minds ? But even suppose that they 
 also failed, and that all modern Christians, without exception, 
 had conspired to give an unattractive and unimpressive 
 aspect to the subject of their profession, there is still the 
 Christian Revelation may I not presume that you some- 
 times read it? But this is to be done in that state of sus- 
 ceptible seriousness, without which you will have no just 
 apprehension of its character; without which you are but like 
 an ignorant clown, who, happening to look at the heavens, 
 perceives nothing more awful in that immeasurable wilder- 
 ness of suns than in the row of lamps along the streets. If 
 you do read that book, in the better state of feeling, I have 
 no comprehension of the constitution of your mind, if the 
 first perception would not be that of a simple venerable 
 dignity, and if the second would not be that of a certain 
 abstract undefinable magnificence ; a perception of some- 
 thing which, behind this simplicity, expands into a greatness 
 beyond the compass of your mind ; an impression like that 
 which a thoughtful and imaginative man might be supposed 
 to have looked on the countenance of Newton, feeling a kind 
 of mystical absorption in the attempt to comprehend the 
 magnitude of the soul residing within that form. When in 
 this state of serious susceptibility, have you not also per- 
 ceived in the character and the manner of the first apostles 
 of this truth, while they were declaring it, an expression of 
 dignity, altogether different from that of other distinguished 
 men, and much more elevated and unearthly ? If you 
 examined the cause, you perceived that the dignity arose 
 partly from their being employed as living oracles of this 
 truth, and still more from their whole characters being per- 
 vaded by its spirit. And have you not been sometimes 
 conscious, for a moment, that if it possessed your soul in 
 the same manner as it did theirs, it would raise you to be 
 one of the most excellent order of mortals ? You would 
 then stand forth in a combination of sanctity, devotion, 
 disinterestedness, superiority to external things, energy, and
 
 to Evangelical Religion. I 7 t 
 
 aspiring hope, in comparison of which the ambition of a 
 conqueror, or the pride of a self-admiring philosopher, would 
 be a very vulgar kind of dignity. You acknowledge these 
 representations to be. just; you allow that the kind of 
 sublimity which you have sometimes perceived in the New 
 Testament, that the qualities of the apostolic spirit, and that 
 the intellectual and moral greatness of some modern Chris- 
 tians, express the genuine character of the evangelical re- 
 ligion, showing that character to be of great lustre. But 
 then, is it not most disingenuous in you to suffer the mean- 
 ness which you know to be but associated and separable, 
 to be admitted by your own mind as an excuse for its aliena- 
 tion from what is acknowledged to be in itself the very 
 contrary of meanness ? Ought you not to turn on yourself 
 with indignation at that want of rectitude which resigns you 
 to the effect of these associations, or with contempt of 
 the debility which tries in vain to break them ? Is it for you 
 to be offended at the mental weakness of Christians, you, 
 whose intellectual vigour, and whose sense of justice, but 
 leave you to sink helpless in the fastidiousness of sickly 
 taste, and to lament that so many inferior spirits have been 
 consoled and saved by this divine faith as to leave on it a 
 soil which forbids your embracing it, even though your own 
 salvation depend ? At the very same time perhaps this 
 weakness takes the form of pride. Let that pride speak 
 out ; it would be curious to hear it say, that your mental 
 refinement perhaps might have permitted you to take your 
 ground on that eminence of the Christian faith where Milton 
 and Pascal stood, if so many humbler beings did not dis- 
 grace it, by occupying the declivity and the vale. 
 
 But after all, what need of referring to illustrious names ? 
 as if the claims of that which you acknowledge to be from 
 heaven should be made to depend on the number of those 
 who have received it gracefully; or as if a rational being 
 could calmly wait for his taste to be conciliated, before he 
 would embrace a system by which his immortal interest is 
 to be secured. The Sovereign Authority has signified what 
 the difference shall be in the end, between the consequences 
 of receiving or not receiving the evangelic declaration. Is 
 the difference so announced of such small account that you 
 would not, on serious consideration, be overwhelmed with 
 wonder and shame, that so minor an interference as that
 
 172 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 of mere taste should so long have made you unjust to your- 
 self in relation to what you 'are in progress to realize ? And 
 if, persisting to decline an exercise of such faithful consider- 
 ation, you go on a venture to meet a consequence unspeak- 
 ably disastrous, will an unhallowed and proud refinement 
 appear to have been a worthy cause for which to incur it ? 
 You deserve to be disgusted with a divine communication, 
 and to lose all its benefits, if you can thus let everything 
 have a greater influence on your feelings concerning it than 
 its truth and importance, and if its accidental and separable 
 associations with littleness, can counteract its essential 
 inseparable ones with the Governor and Redeemer of the 
 world, with happiness, and with eternity. With what com- 
 passion might you be justly regarded by an illiterate but 
 zealous Christian, whose interest in the truths of the 
 New Testament at once constitutes the best felicity here, 
 and securely carries him toward the kingdom of his Father ; 
 while you are standing aloof, and perhaps thinking, that if 
 he and all such as he were dead, you might, after a while, 
 acquire the spirit which should impel you also toward heaven. 
 But why do you not feel your individual concern in this 
 great subject as absolutely as if all men were dead, and you 
 heard alone in the earth the voice of God ; or as if you 
 saw, like the solitary exile of Patmos, an awful appearance 
 of Jesus Christ and the visions of hereafter ? What is it to 
 you that many Christians have given an aspect of littleness 
 to the gospel, or that a few have sustained and exemplified 
 its sublimity ? 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 ANOTHER cause which I think has tended to render evan- 
 gelical religion less acceptable to persons of taste, is the 
 peculiarity of language adopted in the discourses and books 
 of its teachers, as well as in the religious conversation and 
 correspondence of the majority of its adherents. I do not 
 refer to any past age, when an excessive quaintness deformed 
 the composition of so many writers on religion and all 
 other subjects ; my assertion is respecting the diction at 
 present in use.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 173 
 
 The works collectively of the best writers in the language, 
 of those especially who may be called the moderns of the 
 language, have created and substantially fixed a standard of 
 general phraseology. If any department is exempted from 
 the authority of this standard, it is the low one of humour 
 and buffoonery, in which the writer may coin and fashion 
 phrases at his whim. But in the language of the higher, 
 and of what may be called middle order of writing, that 
 authority is the law. It does indeed allow indefinite varie- 
 ties of what is called style, since twenty able and approved 
 writers might be cited, who have each a different style; but 
 yet there is a certain general character of expression which 
 they have mainly concurred to establish. This compound 
 result of all their modes of writing is become sanctioned as 
 the classical manner of employing the language, as the 
 form in which it constitutes the most rectified general 
 vehicle of thought. And though it is difficult to define this 
 standard, yet a well-read person of taste feels when it is 
 transgressed or deserted, and pronounces that no classical 
 writer has employed that phrase, or would have combined 
 those words in such a manner. 
 
 The deviations from this standard must be, first, by mean 
 or vulgar diction, which is below it ; or secondly, by a bar- 
 barous diction, which is out of it, or foreign to it ; or thirdly, 
 by a diction which, though foreign to it, is yet not to be 
 termed barbarous, because it is elevated entirely above the 
 authority of the standard, by some transcendent force or 
 majesty of thought, or a superhuman communication of 
 truth. 
 
 I might make some charge against the language of divines 
 under the first of these distinctions ; but my present atten- 
 tion is to what seems to me to come under the second 
 character of difference from the standard, that of being 
 barbarous. The phrases peculiar to any trade, profession, 
 or fraternity, are barbarous, if they were not low ; they are 
 commonly both. The language of law is felt by every one 
 to be barbarous in the extreme, not only by the huge lum- 
 ber of its technical terms, but by its very structure, in the 
 parts not consisting of technical terms. The language of 
 science is barbarous, as far as it differs arbitrarily, and in 
 more than the use of those terms which are indispensable to 
 the science, from the pure general model. And I am afraid
 
 Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 that, on the same principle, the accustomed diction of evan- 
 gelical religion also must be pronounced barbarous. For I sup- 
 pose it will be instantly allowed, that the mode of expression 
 of the greater number of evangelical divines, * and of those 
 taught by them, is .widely different from the standard of 
 general language, not only by the necessary adoption of 
 some peculiar terms, but by a continued and systematic 
 cast of phraseology ; insomuch that in reading or hearing 
 five or six sentences of an evangelical discourse, you ascer- 
 tain the school by the mere turn of expression, independently 
 of any attention to the quality of the ideas. If, in order to 
 try what those ideas would appear in an altered form of 
 words, you attempted to reduce a paragraph to the language 
 employed by intellectual men in speaking or writing well on 
 general subjects, you would find it must be absolutely a 
 version. You know how easily a vast mass of exemplifica- 
 tion might be quoted ; and the specimens would give the 
 idea of an attempt to create, out of the general mass of the 
 language, a dialect which should be intrinsically spiritual ; 
 and so exclusively appropriated to Christian doctrine as to 
 be totally unserviceable for any other subject, and to become 
 ludicrous when applied to it.f And this being extracted, 
 
 * When I say eva?tgelical divines, I concur with the opinion of those, 
 who deem a considerable, and, in an intellectual and literary view, a highly 
 respectable class of the writers who have professedly taught Christianity, 
 to be not strictly evangelical. They might rather be denominated moral 
 and philosophical divines, illustrating and enforcing very ably the generali- 
 ties of religion, and the Christian morals, but not placing the economy of 
 redemption exactly in that light in which the New Testament appears to 
 place it. Some of these have avoided the kind of dialect on which I am 
 animadverting, not only by means of a diction more classical and dignified 
 in the general principles of its structure, but also by avoiding the ideas 
 with which the phrases of this dialect are commonly associated. I may 
 however here observe, that it is by no means altogether confined to the 
 specifically evangelical department of writing and discourse, though it there 
 prevails the most, and with the greatest number of phrases. It extends, 
 in some degree, into the majority of writing on religion in general, and 
 may therefore be called the theological, almost as properly as the evan- 
 gelical, dialect. 
 
 j- This is so true, that it is no uncommon expedient with the would-be 
 wits, to introduce some of the spiritual phrases, in speaking of anything 
 which they wish to render ludicrous ; and they are generally so far success- 
 ful as to be rewarded by the laugh or the smile of the circle, who probably 
 may never have had the good fortune of hearing wit, and have not the 
 sense or conscience to care about religion.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 175 
 
 like the Sabbath from the common course of time, the 
 general range of diction is abandoned, with all its powers, 
 diversities, and elegance, to secular subjects and the use of 
 the profane. It is a kind of popery of language, vilifying 
 everything not marked with the signs of the holy church, 
 and forbidding any one to minister to religion except in 
 consecrated speech. 
 
 Suppose that a heathen foreigner had acquired a full 
 acquaintance with our language in its most classical con- 
 struction, yet without learning anything about the gospel 
 (which it is true enough he might do), and that he then 
 happened to read or hear an evangelical discourse he 
 would be exceedingly surprised at the cast of phraseology. 
 He would probably be arrested and perplexed in such a 
 manner as hardly to know whether he was trying his facul- 
 ties on the new doctrine, or on the singularity of the diction ; 
 whereas the general course of the diction should appear 
 but the same as that to which he had been accustomed. It 
 should be such that he would not even think of it, but only 
 of the new subject and peculiar ideas which were coming 
 through it to his apprehension ; unless there could be some 
 advantage in the necessity of looking at these ideas through 
 the mist and confusion of the double medium, created by 
 the super-induction of an uncouth special dialect on the 
 general language. Or if he were not a stranger to the sub- 
 ject, but had acquired its leading principles from some 
 author or speaker who employed (with the addition of a very 
 small number of peculiar terms) the same kind of language in 
 which any other serious subject would have been discoursed 
 on, he would still be not less surprised. " Is it possible," 
 he would say, as soon as he could apprehend what he was 
 attending to, " that these are the very same views which 
 lately presented themselves with such lucid simplicity to my 
 understanding ? Or is there something more, of which I 
 am not aware, conveyed and concealed under these strange 
 shapings of phrase? Is this another stage of the religion, 
 the school of the adepts, in which I am not yet initiated ? 
 And does religion then everywhere, as well as in my coun- 
 try, affect to show and guard its importance by relinquish- 
 ing the simple language of intelligence, and assuming a 
 sinister dialect of its own ? Or is this the diction of an 
 individual only, and of one who really intends but to
 
 176 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 convey the same ideas that I have elsewhere received in so 
 much more clear and direct a vehicle of words ? But then, 
 in what remote corner, placed beyond the authority of 
 criticism and the circulation of literature, where a noble 
 language stagnates into barbarism, did this man study his 
 religion and acquire his phrases ? Or by what incon- 
 ceivable perversion of taste and of labour has he framed, 
 for the sentiments of his religion, a mode of expression so 
 uncongenial with the eloquence of his country, and so 
 calculated to exclude it from all benefit of that eloquence ? " 
 
 My dear friend, if I were not conscious of a most sincere 
 veneration for evangelical religion itself, I should be more 
 afraid to trust myself in making these observations on the 
 usual manner of expressing its ideas. If my description 
 be exaggerated, I am willing to be corrected. But that 
 there is a great and systematical alienation from the true 
 classical diction, is most palpably obvious ; and I cannot 
 help regarding it as an unfortunate circumstance. It gives 
 the gospel too much the air of a professional thing, which 
 must have its peculiar cast of phrases, for the mutual 
 recognition of its proficients, in the same manner as other 
 professions, arts, crafts, and mysteries, have theirs. This 
 is officiously placing the singularity of littleness to draw 
 attention to the singularity of greatness, which in the very 
 act it misrepresents and obscures. It is giving an uncouth- 
 ness of mien to a beauty which should attract all hearts. 
 It is teaching a provincial dialect to the rising instructor of 
 a world. It is imposing the guise of a cramped formal 
 ecclesiastic on what is destined for an universal monarch. 
 
 Would it not be an improvement in the administration of 
 religion, by discourse and writing, if Christian truth were 
 conveyed in that neutral vehicle of expression which is 
 adapted indifferently to common serious subjects. But it 
 may be made a question whether it can be perfectly con- 
 veyed in such language. This point therefore requires a 
 little consideration. The diction on which I have anim- 
 adverted, may be described under three distinctions. 
 
 The first is a peculiar way of using various common 
 words. And this peculiarity consists partly in expressing 
 ideas by such single words as do not simply and directly 
 belong to them, instead of other single words which 
 do simply and directly belong to them, and in general
 
 to Evangelical ttcligumt 177 
 
 language are used to express them ;* and partly in using 
 such combinations of words as make uncouth phrases. 
 Now what necessity ? The answer is immediately ob- 
 vious as to the former part of the description ; there can 
 be no need to use one common word in an affected 
 and forced manner to convey an idea, which there is an- 
 other common word at hand to express in the simplest and 
 most usual manner. And then as to phrases, consisting 
 of an uncouth combination of words which are common, 
 and have no degree of technicality are they necessary ? 
 They are not absolutely necessary, unless each of these 
 combinations conveys a thought of so exquisitely singular 
 a turn, that no other conjunction of terms could have ex- 
 pressed it ; which was never suggested by one mind to 
 another till these three or four words, falling out of the 
 general order of the language, gathered into a peculiar 
 phrase ; which cannot be expressed in the language of 
 another country that has not a correspondent idiom, and 
 which will vanish from the world if ever this phrase shall 
 be forgotten. But these combinations of words have no 
 such pretensions. When you obtain their meaning, you 
 may well wonder why a peculiar apparatus of phrase should 
 have been constructed, to bring and retain such an element 
 of thought within the sphere of your understanding. But 
 indeed the very circumstance of there being nothing extra- 
 ordinary in the sense, may have been one inducement to 
 the contrivance. There may have been a discontent that 
 the import should not appear more significant, more weighty, 
 more sacred, more authoritative, than it could be made to 
 appear as conveyed in common secular language. It could 
 not be trusted to have its proper effect, without some special 
 token borne on its exterior to warn us to pay it reverence. 
 In whatever manner, however, the language came to be 
 perverted into these artificial modes, it would be easy to try 
 whether the ideas, of which they are the vehicles, are such 
 as they exclusively are competent and privileged to convey, 
 insomuch that their rejection would be the forfeiture of a 
 certain portion of religious truth and sentiment, tf hich would 
 
 * As for instance, -walk, and conversation, instead of conduct, actions, 
 or deportment; flesh, instead of, sometimes, body, sometimes natural 
 inclination.
 
 178 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 thereupon retire beyond the confines of our intelligence, 
 disdaining to stay and make an abode in common forms of 
 language. And it would be found that these phrases, as it 
 is within our familiar experience that all phrases consisting 
 of only common words, and having no relation to art or 
 science, can be exchanged for several different combinations 
 of words, without materially altering the thought or length- 
 ening the expression. Make the experiment on any para- 
 graph written in the manner in question, on any religious 
 topic whatever, and see whether you cannot melt all the 
 uncouth constructions of diction, to be cast in a new and 
 uncanonical shape, without letting any sense there was in 
 them evaporate. I conclude then, that what I have described 
 as the first part of the theological dialect, the peculiar 
 mode of using common words, is not absolutely necessary 
 as a vehicle of Christian truths. 
 
 The second part of the dialect consists, not in a peculiar 
 mode of using common words, but in a class of words pecu- 
 liar in themselves, as being seldom used except by divines, 
 but of which the meaning can be expressed, without de- 
 finition or circumlocution, by other single terms which 
 are in general use. For example, edification, tribulation, 
 blessedness, godliness, righteousness, carnality, lusts (a 
 term peculiar and theological only in the plural), could be 
 exchanged for parallel terms too obvious to need mention- 
 ing. It is true indeed that there are very few terms, if any, 
 perfectly synonymous. But when there are several words 
 of very similar though not exactly the same signification, 
 and none of them belong to an art or science, the one which 
 is selected is far more frequently used in that general mean- 
 ing by which it is merely equivalent to the others, than in 
 that precise shade of meaning by which it is distinguished 
 from them. The words instruction, improvement, for in- 
 stance, may not express exactly the sense of edification ; 
 but the word edification is probably not often used by a 
 writer or speaker with any recollection of that peculiarity of 
 its meaning by which it differs from improvement or instruc- 
 tion. This' is still more true of some other words, as, for 
 example, tribulation and affliction. Whatever small differ- 
 ence of import these words may have in virtue of derivation, 
 it is probable that no man ever wrote tribulation rather 
 than affliction on account of such difference. If, in addi-
 
 to Evangelical Reliion. 
 
 tion to these two, the word distress has offered itself, the 
 selection of anyone from the three has perhaps always been 
 determined by habit, or accident, rather than by any percep- 
 tion of a distinct signification. The same remark is appli- 
 cable to the words blessed, happy, righteous, virtuous, carnal, 
 sensual, and a multitude of others. So that though there 
 are few words strictly synonymous, yet there are very many 
 which are so in effect, even by the allowance and sanction 
 of the most rigid laws to which any of the best writers have 
 conformed their composition. Perhaps this is a defect in 
 human thinking; of which the ideal perfection may be, that 
 every conception should be so discriminative and precise, 
 that no two words, which have a definable shade of difference 
 in their meaning, should be equally and indifferently eligi- 
 ble to express that conception. But what writer or speaker 
 will ever even aspire to such perfection of thinking ? not 
 to say that if he did, he would soon find the vocabulary of 
 the most copious language deficient of single direct terms, 
 and indeed of possible combinations of terms, to mark all 
 the sensible modifications of his ideas. If a divine felt 
 that he had such extreme discrimination of thought, that 
 he meant something clearly different by the words carnal, 
 godly, edifying, and so of many others, from what he could 
 express by the words, sensual, pious, religious, instructive, 
 he would certainly do right to adhere to the more peculiar 
 words ; but if he does not, he may perhaps improve the 
 vehicle, without hurting the material, of his religious com- 
 munications, by adopting the general and what may be 
 called classical mode of expression. 
 
 The third distinction of the theological dialect consists in 
 words almost peculiar to the language of divines, and for 
 which equivalent terms cannot be found, except in the form 
 of definition or circumlocution. Sanctification, regenera- 
 tion, grace, covenant, salvation, and a few more, may be 
 assigned to this class. These may be called, in a qualified 
 sense, the technical terms of evangelical religion. Now, 
 separately from any religious considerations, it is plainly 
 necessary, in a literary view, that all those terms that ex- 
 press a modification of thought which there are no other 
 words competent to express, without great circumlocution, 
 should be retained. They are requisite to the sufficiency 
 of the language. And then, in considering those terms as 
 
 N 2
 
 180 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 connected with the Christian truth, I am ready to admit, 
 that it will be of advantage to that truth, for some of those 
 peculiar doctrines, of which it partly consists, to be perma- 
 nently denominated by certain peculiar words, which shall 
 stand as its technical terms. But here several thoughts 
 suggest themselves. 
 
 First, the definitions of some of these Christian terms are 
 not absolutely unquestionable. The words have assumed 
 the specific formality of technical terms, without having 
 completely the quality and value of such terms. A certain 
 laxity in their sense renders them of far less use in their 
 department, than the terms of science, especially of mathe- 
 matical science, are in theirs. Technical terms have been 
 the lights of science, but, in many instances, the shades of 
 religion. It is most unfortunate, when, in disquisitions or 
 instructions, the grand leading words, on which the force of 
 all the rest depends, have not a precise and indisputable 
 signification. The effect is similar to that which takes 
 place in the ranks of an army, when an officer has a doubt- 
 ful opinion, or gives indistinct orders. What I would infer 
 from these observations is, that a Christian writer or speaker 
 will occasionally do well, instead of using the peculiar 
 term, to express at length in other words, at the expense of 
 much circumlocution, that idea which he would have wished 
 to convey if he had used that peculiar term. I do not mean 
 that he should do this so often as to render the term obso- 
 lete. It might be useful sometimes, especially in verbal 
 instruction, both to introduce the term, and to give such a 
 sentence as I have described. Such an expletive repetition of 
 the idea will more than compensate for the tediousness, by 
 the distinctness and fulness of enunciation.* 
 
 Secondly, if the definitions of the Christian peculiar terms 
 were even as precise and fixed as those of scientific denomi- 
 nations, yet the nature of the subject is such as to permit 
 an indolent mind to pronounce or to hear these terms with- 
 out recollecting those definitions. In delivering or writing, 
 and in hearing or reading, a mathematical lecture, both the 
 teacher and the pupil are compelled to form in their minds 
 
 * It is needless to observe that this would be a superfluous labour with 
 respect to the most simple of the peculiar words, such for instance as 
 salvation.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 181 
 
 the exact idea which each technical term has been defined to 
 signify ; else the whole train of words is mere sound and 
 inanity. But in religion, a man has a feeling of having 
 some general ideas connected with all the words as he 
 hears them, though he perhaps never studied, or does not 
 retain the definition of one. I shall have occasion to repeat 
 this remark, and therefore do not enlarge here. The infer- 
 ence is the same as under the former observation ; it is, 
 that the technical terms of Christianity will contribute little 
 to precision of thought, unless the ideas which they signify 
 be often expressed at length in other words, either in ex- 
 planation of those terms when introduced, or in substitu- 
 tion for them when omitted. 
 
 Thirdly, it is not in the power of single theological terms, 
 however precise their definitions may at any time have 
 been, to secure to their respective ideas an unalterable 
 stability. Unless the ideas themselves, by being often ex- 
 pressed in common words, preserve the signification of the 
 terms, the terms will not preserve the accuracy of the ideas. 
 This is true no doubt of the technical terms of science ; but 
 it is true in a much more striking manner of the peculiar 
 words in theology. If the technical terms of science, at 
 least of the strictest kind of science, were to cease to mean 
 what they had been defined to mean, they would cease to 
 mean anything, and the change would be only from know- 
 ledge to blank ignorance. But in the Christian theology, 
 the change might be from truth to error; since the peculiar 
 words might cease to mean what they were once defined to 
 mean, by being employed in a different sense. It may not 
 be difficult to conjecture in what sense the terms conversion 
 and regeneration, for example, were used by the reformers, 
 and the men who may be called the fathers of the estab- 
 lished church of this country ; but what sense have they 
 subsequently borne in the writings of many of its divines ? 
 The peculiar words may remain, when the ideas which 
 they were intended to perpetuate are gone. Thus instead 
 of being the signs of those ideas, they become their monu- 
 ments ; and monuments profaned into abodes for the living 
 enemies of the departed. It must indeed be acknowledged, 
 that in some instances innovations of doctrine have been 
 introduced partly by declining the use of the words that de- 
 signated the doctrines which it was wished to render obsolete;
 
 182 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 but they have been still more frequently and successfully 
 introduced, under the advantage of retaining the terms while 
 the principles were gradually subverted. And therefore I 
 shall be pardoned for repeating this once more, that since 
 the peculiar words can be kept in one invariable sig- 
 nification only by keeping that signification clearly in 
 sight in another way than the bare use of these words 
 themselves, it would be wise in Christian authors and 
 speakers sometimes to express the ideas in common 
 words, either in expletive and explanatory connexion with 
 the peculiar terms, or, occasionally, instead of them. I 
 would still be understood to approve entirely of the use of 
 a few of this class of terms ; while the above observations 
 may deduct very much from the usual estimate of their 
 value and importance. 
 
 These pages have attempted to show, in what particulars 
 the language adopted by a great proportion of Christian 
 divines might be modified, and yet remain faithful to the 
 principles of Christian doctrine. Such common words as 
 have acquired an affected cast in theological use, might give 
 place to the other common words which express the ideas 
 in a plain and unaffected manner, and the phrases foimed 
 of common words uncouthly combined may be swept away. 
 Many peculiar and antique words might be exchanged 
 for other single words, of equivalent signification, and in 
 general use. And the small number of peculiar terms ac- 
 knowledged and established as of permanent use and ne- 
 cessity, might, even separately from the consideration of 
 modifying the diction, be often, with advantage to the explicit 
 declaration and clear comprehension of Christian truth, 
 made to give place to a fuller expression, in a number of 
 common words, of those ideas of which these peculiar terms 
 are the single signs. 
 
 Now such an alteration would bring the language of di- 
 vines nearly to the classical standard. If evangelical senti- 
 ments could be faithfully presented, in an order of words 
 of which so small a part should be of specific cast, they 
 could be presented in what should be substantially the diction 
 of Addison or Pope. And if even Shaftesbury, Boling- 
 broke, and Hume, could have become Christians by some 
 mighty and sudden efficacy of conviction, and had deter- 
 mined to write thenceforth in the spirit of the Apostles,
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 183 
 
 they would have found, if these observations be correct, no 
 radical change necessary in the consistence of their 
 language. An enlightened believer in Christianity might 
 have been sorry, if, in such a case, he had seen any of them 
 superstitiously labouring to acquire all the phrases of a 
 school, instead of applying at once to its new vocation a 
 diction fitted for the vehicle of universal thought. Are not 
 they yet sufficient masters of language, it might have been 
 asked with surprise, to express all their thoughts with the 
 utmost precision ? As their language had been found suffi- 
 ciently specific to injure the gospel, it would have been 
 strange if it had been too general to serve it. The required 
 alteration would probably have been little more than to 
 introduce familiarly the obvious denominations of the 
 Christian topics and objects, such as, redemption, heaven, 
 mediator, Christ, Redeemer, with the others of a similar 
 kind, and a very few of those almost technical words which 
 I have admitted to be indispensable. The habitual use of 
 such denominations would have left the general order of 
 their composition the same. And it would have been 
 striking to observe by how comparatively small a diflerence 
 of terms a diction which had appeared most perfectly pagan, 
 could be Christianized, when the writer had turned to Chris- 
 tian subjects, and felt the Christian spirit. On the whole 
 then, I conclude that, with the exception which I have 
 distinctly made, the evangelical principles may be clearly 
 exhibited in what may be called a neutral diction. And if 
 they may, I can imagine some reasons to justify the wish 
 that it were generally employed. 
 
 As one of these reasons, I may revert to the consideration 
 of the impression made by the dialect which I have de- 
 scribed, on those persons of cultivated taste whom this essay 
 has chiefly in view. I am aware that they are greatly 
 inclined to make an idol of their taste, and I am aware also 
 that no species of irreligion can be much worse than to sacri- 
 fice to this idol anything which essentially belongs to Chris- 
 tianity. If any part of evangelical religion, all injurious 
 associations being detached, were still of a nature to dis- 
 please a refined taste, the duty would evidently be to repress 
 its claims and murmurs. We should dread the presumption 
 which would require of the Deity that his spiritual economy 
 should be, both in reality and evidently to our view, corres-
 
 184 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 pondent in all parts to the type of order, grandeur, or beauty 
 presented to us in the constitution of the material world, or to 
 those notions of them which have become conventionally 
 established among cultivated minds. But, at the same 
 time, it is a most unwise policy for religion, that the sacri- 
 fice of taste which ought, if required, to be submissively 
 made to any part of either its essence or its form as really 
 displayed from heaven, should be exacted to anything un- 
 necessarily and ungracefully superinduced by man. 
 
 As another reason, I would observe, that the disciples of 
 the religion of Christ would wish it to mingle more exten- 
 sively and familiarly with social converse, and all the se- 
 rious subjects of human attention. But then it should have 
 every facility, that would not compromise its genuine cha- 
 racter, for doing so. And a peculiar phraseology is the 
 direct contrary of such facility, as it gives to what is already 
 by its own nature eminently distinguished from common 
 subjects, and artificial strangeness, which makes it difficult 
 for discourse to slide into it, and revert to it and from it, 
 without a formal and uncouth transition. The subject is 
 placed in a condition like that of an entire foreigner in com- 
 pany, who is debarred from taking any share in the conver- 
 sation, till some one interrupts it by turning directly to him, 
 and beginning to talk with him in the foreign language. You 
 have sometimes observed, when a person has introduced 
 religious topics, in the course of perhaps a tolerably rational 
 conversation on other interesting subjects, that, owing to 
 the cast of expression, fully as much as to the difference of 
 the subject, it was done by an entire change of the whole 
 tenour and bearing of the discourse, and with as formal an 
 announcement as the bell ringing to church. Had his 
 religious diction been more of a piece with the common 
 cast of language of intelligent discourse, he might probably 
 have introduced the subject sooner, and certainly with a 
 much better effect. 
 
 A third consideration is, that evangelical sentiments 
 would be less subject to the imputation of fanaticism, if 
 their language were less contrasted with that of other classes 
 of sentiments. Here it is unnecessary to say, that no 
 pusillanimity were more contemptible than that which, to 
 escape this imputation, would surrender the smallest vital 
 particle of the religion of Christ. We are to keep in
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 185 
 
 solemn recollection his declaration, " Whosoever shall be 
 ashamed of me and of my words, of him also shall the 
 Son of man be ashamed." * Any model of terms, which 
 could not be superseded without precluding some idea pecu- 
 liar to the gospel from the possibility of being faithfully 
 expressed, it would be for his disciples to retain in spite of 
 all the ridicule of the most antichristian age. But I am, 
 at every step, assuming that every part of the evangelical 
 system can be most perfectly exhibited in a diction but 
 little peculiar; and, that being admitted, would it not be 
 better to avert the imputation, as far as this difference 
 of language could avert it ? Better, I do not mean, in 
 the way of protective convenience to any cowardly 
 feeling, of the man who is liable to be called a fanatic 
 for maintaining the evangelical principles ; he ought, 
 on the ground both of Christian fidelity and of manly inde- 
 pendence, to be superior to caring about the charge ; but 
 better, as to the light in which these principles might appear 
 to the persons who meet them with this prejudice. You 
 may have observed that in attributing fanaticism, they 
 often fix en the phrases, at least as much as on the absolute 
 substance, of evangelical doctrines. Now would it not 
 be better to show them what these doctrines are, as divested 
 of these phrases, and exhibited clearly in that vehicle in 
 which other important truths are presented ; and thus, at 
 least, to defeat their propensity to seize on a mode of 
 exhibition so convertible to the ludicrous, in defence against 
 any claim laid on them for seriousness respecting the sub- 
 stantial matter ? If sometimes their grave attention, their 
 corrected apprehension, their partial approbation, might be 
 gained, it were a still more desirable effect. And we can 
 recollect instances in which a certain degree of this good 
 effect has resulted. Persons who had received unfavourable 
 impressions of some of the peculiar ideas of the gospel, 
 from having heard them advanced almost exclusively in 
 the modes of phrase on which I have remarked, have acknow- 
 ledged their prejudices to be somewhat diminished, after 
 these ideas had been presented in the simple general lan- 
 guage of intellect. We cannot indeed so far forget the 
 lessons of experience, and the inspired declarations concern- 
 
 * Luke ix. 26.
 
 1 86 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 ing the dispositions of the human mind, as to expect that 
 it would be more than very partially conciliated by any 
 possible improvement in the mode of exhibiting Christian 
 truth. But it were to be wished that everything should be 
 done to bring reluctant minds into doubt, at least, whether, 
 if they cannot be evangelical, it be because they are of an 
 order too rectified and refined. 
 
 As a further consideration in favour of adopting a 
 more general language, it may be observed, that hypocrisy 
 would then find a much greater difficulty, as far as speech 
 is concerned, in supporting its imposture. The usual 
 language of hypocrisy, at least of vulgar hypocrisy, is 
 cant ; and religious cant is often an affected use of the 
 phrases which have been heard employed as appropriate 
 to evangelical truth ; with which phrases the hypocrite 
 has connected no distinct ideas, so that he would be con- 
 founded if an intelligent examiner were to require an 
 accurate explanation of them ; while yet nothing is more 
 easy to be sung or said. Now were this diction, for the 
 greater part, to vanish from Christian society, leaving the 
 truth in its mere essence behind, and were, consequently, 
 the pretender reduced to assume the guise of religion on 
 the more laborious condition of acquiring an understanding 
 of its leading principles, so as to be able to give them 
 forth discriminatively in language of his own, the part 
 of a hypocrite would be much less easily acted, and less 
 frequently attempted. Religion would therefore be seldomer 
 dishonoured by the mockery of a false semblance. 
 
 Again, if this alteration of language were introduced, 
 some of the sincere disciples of evangelical religion would 
 much more distinctly feel the necessity of a positive intel- 
 lectual hold on the principles of their profession. A 
 systematic recurring formality of words tends to prevent 
 a perfect understanding of the subject, by furnishing for 
 complex ideas a set of ready-framed signs, (like stereotype 
 in printing,) which a man learns to employ without really 
 having the ideas of which the combination should consist. 
 Some of the simple ideas which belong to the combination 
 may be totally absent from his mind, the others may be 
 most faintly apprehended ; there is no precise construction 
 therefore of the thought ; and thus the sign which he uses, 
 stands in fact for nothing. If, on hearingoneof thesephrases,
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 187 
 
 you were to turn to the speaker, and say, Now what is that 
 idea ? What do you plainly mean by that expression ? 
 you would often find with how indistinct a conception, 
 with how little attention to the very idea itself, the mind 
 had been contented. And this contentment you would often 
 observe to be, not a humble acquiescence in a consciously 
 defective apprehension of some principle, of which a man 
 feels and confesses the difficulty of attaining more than 
 a partial conception, but the satisfied assurance that 
 he fully understands what he is expressing. On another 
 subject, where there were no settled forms of words to be- 
 guile him into the feeling as if he thought and understood, 
 when in fact he did not, and where words must have been 
 selected to define his own formation of the thought, his 
 embarrassment how to express himself would have made 
 him aware that his notion had no shape, and have com- 
 pelled an intellectual effort to give it one. But it is against 
 all reason that Christian truth should be believed and pro- 
 fessed with a less concern for precision, and at the expense 
 of less mental exercise, than any other subject would require. 
 And of how little consequence it would seem to be, in this 
 mode of believing, whether a man entertains one system of 
 principles or the opposite. 
 
 But if such arguments could not be alleged, it would still 
 seem far from desirable, without evident necessity, to clothe 
 evangelical sentiment in a diction varying in more than a 
 few indispensable terms from the general standard, for the 
 simple reason, that it must be barbarous ; unless, as I have 
 observed, it be raised quite above the authority of this 
 standard, and of the criticism and the taste which appeal 
 to it, by the venerable dignity of inspiration, which we have 
 no more to expect, or by the intellectual power of a genius 
 almost surpassing human nature. I do not know whether 
 it be absolutely impossible that there should arise a man 
 whose manner of thinking shall be so transcendent in origin- 
 ality and demonstrative vigour, as to authorize him to throw 
 the language into a new order, all his own : but it is 
 questionable whether there ever appeared such a writer, in 
 any language which had been cultivated to its maturity. 
 Even Milton, who might, if ever mortal might, be warranted 
 to sport with all established authority and usage, and to 
 run the language into whatever unsanctioned forms would
 
 1 88 On the Aversion of Men of Taste. 
 
 enlarge his freedom in grand mental enterprise, has been, for 
 presuming in a certain degree to create for himself a pe- 
 culiar diction, charged by Johnson vjith writing in a " Baby- 
 lonish dialect." * And Johnson's own mighty force of mind 
 has not defended his Roman dialect from being condemned 
 by all men of taste. The magic of Burke's eloquence is 
 not enough to beguile the perception, that it is of less 
 dignified and commanding tone, has less of the clsirn to be 
 " for all time," than if the same marvellous affluence of 
 thought and fancy had been conveyed in a langu? ge of less 
 arbitrary, capricious, and mannerish character. To revert 
 to the theological peculiarity of dialect ; we may look in 
 vain for any theologian of genius so supereminently 
 powerful as might impress on it either a dignity to over- 
 awe, or a grace to conciliate, literary taste. But indeed 
 if we had such a one he wowld not attempt it. If he dis- 
 regarded the classical standard, and chose to speak in an 
 alien dialect, it would be a dialect of his own, formed in 
 still more complete independence and disregard of the 
 model which so many theological teachers have concurred 
 to establish for the language of religion. 
 
 It may be said, perhaps, that any such splendid inter- 
 vention, in authorization of that model, can be spared ; for 
 that the class contains so many of great ability, and so many 
 more of great piety and usefulness, that the peculiar diction 
 will maintain its ground. Probably it will do so, in a 
 considerable degree, for a long time. But no numbers, 
 ability, or piety, will ever redeem it from the character of 
 barbarism. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 IN defence of the diction which I have been describing, 
 it will be said that it has grown out of the language of the 
 
 * " Of Milton . . . may be said what Jonson says of Spenser, that ' he 
 wrote no language,' but has formed what Butler calls a Babylonish dialect, 
 in itself harsh and barbarous, but made by exalted genius and extensive 
 learning the vehicle of so much instruction, and so much pleasure, that, 
 like all other lovers, we find grace in its deformity." JOHNSON, "Life of 
 Milton"
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 189 
 
 Bible. To a great extent, this is evidently true. Many 
 phrases indeed which casually occurred in the writings of 
 divines, and many which were laboriously invented by those 
 who wished to give to divinity a complete systematic 
 arrangement, and therefore wanted denominations or titles for 
 the multitude of articles in the artificial distribution, have 
 been incorporated in the theological dialect. But a large pro- 
 portion of its phrases consists partly in such combinations 
 of words as were taken originally from the Bible, and still 
 more in such as have, from familiarity with that book, 
 partly grown in insensible assimilation, and partly been 
 formed intentionally, but rudely, in resemblance to its 
 characteristic language. 
 
 Before proceeding further, I do not know whether it may 
 be necessary in order to prevent misapprehension, to advert 
 to the high advantage and propriety of often introducing 
 sentences from the Bible, not only in theological, but in any 
 grave moral composition. Passages of the inspired writings 
 must necessarily be cited, in some instances, in proof of the 
 truth of opinions, and may be most happily cited, in many 
 others, to give a venerable and impressive air to serious 
 sentiments which would be admitted as just though unsup- 
 ported by such a reference to the authority. Both complete 
 sentences, and striking short expressions, consisting perhaps 
 sometimes of only two or three words, may be thus intro- 
 duced with an effect at once useful and ornamental, while 
 they appear pure and unmodified amidst the composition, 
 as simple particles of scripture, quite distinct from the 
 diction in which they are inserted. When thus appearing 
 in their own genuine quality, as lines or parts of lines taken 
 from a venerable book which is written in a manner very 
 different from our common mode of language, they are read 
 as expressions foreign to the surrounding composition, 
 and, without an effort, referred to the work from which 
 they are brought, and of which they retain the unaltered 
 consistence ; in the same manner as passages, or striking 
 short expressions, adopted from some respected and 
 well-known classic in our language. Whatever dignity 
 therefore characterizes the great work itself, is possessed 
 also by these detached pieces in the various places where 
 they are inserted, but not, if I may so express it, infused. 
 And if they be judiciously inserted, they impart their
 
 190 On the Aversion of Men of Tasid 
 
 dignity to the sentiments which they are employed to 
 enforce. This employment of the sacred expressions may 
 be very frequent, as the Bible contains such an immense 
 variety of ideas, applicable to all manner of interesting 
 subjects. And from its being so familiarly known, its sen- 
 tences, or shorter expressions may be introduced without 
 the formality of noticing, either in terms or by any other 
 mark, from what other volume they are drawn. These 
 observations are more than enough, to obviate any imputa- 
 tion of wanting a due sense of the dignity and force which 
 maybe imparted by a judicious introduction of the language 
 of the Bible. 
 
 It is a different mode of using biblical language, that 
 constitutes so considerable a part of the dialect which I 
 have ventured to disapprove. When insertions are made from 
 the Bible in the manner here described as effective and 
 ornamental, the composition exhibits two kinds of diction, 
 each bearing its own separate character ; the one being the 
 diction which belongs to the author, the other that of the 
 sacred book whence the citations are drawn. We pass 
 along the course of his language with the ordinary feeling 
 of being addressed in a common general phraseology ; and 
 when the pure scripture expressions occur, they are recog- 
 nised in their own peculiar character, and with the sense that 
 we are reading, in small detached portions, just so much of 
 the Bible itself. This distinct recognition of the two sepa- 
 rate characters of language prevents any impression of an 
 uncouth heterogeneous consistence. But in the theological 
 dialect, that part of the phraseology which has a biblical 
 cast, is neither the one of these two kinds of language nor 
 the other, but an inseparable though crude amalgam of both. 
 For the expressions resembling those of scripture are 
 blended and moulded into the substance of the diction. I 
 say resembling ; for though some of them are precisely 
 phrases from the Bible, yet most of them are phrases a little 
 modified from the form in which they occur in the sacred 
 book, by changing or adding words, by compounding two 
 phrases into one, and by fitting the rest of the language to 
 the biblical phrases by an imitative antique construction. 
 In this manner the scriptural expressions, instead of appear- 
 ing as distinguished points on a common ground, as gems 
 advantageously set in an inferior substance, are reduced to
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 
 
 become an ordinary and desecrated ingredient in an uncouth 
 phraseology. They are no longer brought directly from the 
 scriptures, by an act of thought and choice in the person 
 who uses them, and with a recollection of their sacred 
 origin ; but merely recur to him in the common usage of 
 the diction, into which they have degenerated in the school of 
 divines. They therefore are now in no degree of the nature 
 of quotations, introduced for their special appositeness in 
 the particular instance, as the expressions of an admired 
 and revered human author would be repeated. 
 
 This is the kind of biblical phraseology which I coukl 
 wish to see less employed, unless it be either more vener- 
 able or more lucid than that which I have recommended. 
 We may be allowed to doubt how far such language can be 
 venerable, after considering that it gives not the smallest 
 assurance of striking or elevated thought, since in fact a 
 vast quantity of most inferior writing has appeared in this 
 kind of diction ; that it is not now actually drawn from the 
 sacred fountains ; that the incessant repetition of its 
 phrases in every kind of religious exercise and performance 
 has worn out any solemnity it might ever have had ; and that 
 itis the very usual concomitant and sign of a servilely system- 
 atic and cramped manner of thinking. It may be considered 
 also, that, from whatever high origin any modes and figures 
 of speech may be drawn, they are reduced, in point of dignity, 
 to the quality of the material with which they become inter- 
 fused ; so that if the whole character of the dialect of divines 
 is not adapted to excite veneration, the proportion of it 
 which gives a colour of scripture-phraseology, not standing 
 out distinct from the composition, will have lost the virtue 
 to excite it. And again, let it be considered, that in almost 
 all cases, an attempt to imitate the peculiarity of form in 
 which a venerable object is presented, not only fails to excite 
 veneration, but provokes the contrary sentiment ; especially 
 when all things in the form of the venerable model are homo- 
 geneous, while the imitation exhibits some features of 
 resemblance incongruously combined with what is mainly 
 and unavoidably of a different cast. A grand ancient edifice, 
 of whatever order, or if it were of a construction peculiar to 
 itself, would be an impressive object ; but a modern little 
 one raised in its neighbourhood, of a conformation for the 
 greatest part glaringly vulgar, but with a number of antique
 
 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 windows and angles in imitation of the grand structure, 
 would be a grotesque and ridiculous one. 
 
 Scriptural phrases then can no longer make a solemn im- 
 pression, when modified and vulgarized into the texture of 
 a language which, taken altogether, is the reverse of every- 
 thing that can either attract or command. Such idioms may 
 indeed remind one of prophets and apostles, but it is a re- 
 collection which prompts to say, Who are these men that, 
 instead of respectfully introducing at intervals the direct 
 words of those revered dictators of truth, seem to be mocking 
 the sacred language by a barbarous imitative diction of their 
 own ? They may affect the forms of a divine solemnity, but 
 there is no fire from heaven. They may show something 
 like a burning bush, but it is without an angel. 
 
 As to perspicuity, there will not be a question whether 
 that be one of the recommendations of this corrupt modi- 
 fication of the biblical phraseology. Without our leave, the 
 mode of expression habitually associated with the general 
 exercise of our intelligence, conveys ideas to us the most 
 easily and the most clearly. And not unfrequently even in 
 citing the pure expressions of scripture, especially in doc- 
 trinal subjects, a religious instructor will find it indispensable 
 to add a sentence in order to expose the sense in a plainer 
 manner ; and that not as comment, but as explanation. He 
 has many occasions for seeing that unless he do this, there 
 will not be, in the minds of the persons to be instructed, 
 exactly and definitively the idea which he understands to be 
 expressed in the cited passage. Even to possess himself of 
 a clear apprehension, there is, he might perceive in his 
 mind, a kind of translating operation, embodying the idea 
 in more common language, equivalent to the biblical. 
 
 But would not the disuse of a language which seems to 
 bear a constant reference to the Bible, by this intimate 
 blending of its phraseology, tend to put the Bible out of 
 remembrance ? It may be answered that the Bible, as a 
 book which will be read beyond all comparison" more than 
 any other, will keep itself in remembrance, among the serious 
 part of mankind. Besides, it may be presumed that reli- 
 gious teachers and writers, however secularized the lan- 
 guage they may adopt, will too often bring the sacred book 
 in view by direct reference and citation, to admit any danger, 
 from them, of its 1%-ng forgotten. And though its distinct
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 193 
 
 unmodified expressions should be introduced much seldomer 
 in the course of their sentences, than the half-scriptural 
 phrases are recurring in the diction under consideration, 
 they would remind us of the Bible in a more advantageous 
 manner, than a dialect which has lost the dignity of a sacred 
 language without acquiring the grace of a classical one. I 
 am sensible in how many points the illustration would be 
 defective, but it would partly answer my purpose to observe, 
 that if it were wished to promote the study of some vene- 
 rated human author of a former age, suppose Hooker, the 
 way would not be to attempt incorporating a great number 
 of his turns of expression into the essential structure of our 
 own diction, which would generally have a most uncouth 
 effect, but to make respectful references, and often to insert 
 in our composition sentences, and parts of sentences, dis- 
 tinctly as his, while our own cast of diction was conformed 
 to the general modern standard. 
 
 Let the oracles of inspiration be cited continually, both as 
 authority and illustration, in a manner that shall make the 
 mind instantly refer each expression that is introduced to the 
 venerable book whence it is taken ; but let our part of 
 religious language be simply ours, and let those oracles retain 
 their characteristic form of expression unimitated, unparodied, 
 to the end of time.* 
 
 * In the above remarks, I have not made any distinction between the 
 sacred books in their own language, and as translated. It might not, 
 however, be improper to notice, that though there is a great peculiarity of 
 language in the original, yet a certain proportion of the phraseology, as it 
 stands in the translated scriptures, does not properly belong to the struc- 
 ture of the original composition, but is to be ascribed to the complexion 
 of the language at the time when the translation was made. A translation, 
 therefore, made now, and conformed to the present state of the language, 
 in the same degree in which the earlier translation was conformed to the 
 state of the language at that time, would make an alteration in some parts 
 of that phraseology which the theological dialect has attempted to incor- 
 porate and imitate. If therefore it were the duty of divines to take the 
 biblical mode of expression for their model, it would still be quite a work 
 of supererogation to take this model in a wider degree of difference from 
 the ordinary language suited to serious thoughts than as it would appear 
 in such a later version. This would be a homage, not to the real diction 
 of the sacred scriptures, but to the earlier cast of our own language. At 
 the same time it must be admitted, both that the change of expression 
 which a later version might, on merely philological principles, be justified 
 by the progress and present standard of our language for making, would not 
 be great : and that every sentiment of prudence and devotional taste forbids 
 
 O
 
 ig4 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 An advocate for the theological diction, who should hesitate 
 to maintain its necessity or utility on the ground that a 
 considerable proportion of it has grown out of the language 
 of scripture, may yet think it has become necessary in con- 
 sequence of so many people having been so long accustomed 
 to it. I cannot but be aware, that many respectable teachers 
 of Christianity would find a very great difficulty to depart 
 from their inveterate usage. Nor could they acquire, if the 
 change were attempted, a happy command of a more general 
 language, without being considerably conversant with good 
 writers on general subjects, and sedulously exercising them- 
 selves to throwtheir thoughts into a somewhat similar current 
 of language. Unless, therefore, this study has been cul- 
 tivated, or is intended to be cultivated, it will perhaps be 
 better for them, especially if far advanced in life, to retain 
 the accustomed mode of expression with all disadvantages. 
 Younger theological students, however, are supposed to 
 become acquainted with those authors who have displayed 
 the utmost extent and powers of language in its freest form : 
 and it is right for them to be told that evangelical doctrine 
 would incur no necessary corruption or profanation by being 
 conveyed in so liberal, diversified, and what I may call natural 
 a diction ; a language which may be termed the day-light of 
 'thought, as compared with the artificial lights of the peculiar 
 dialect. With regard also to a considerable proportion of 
 
 to make quite so much alteration as those principles might warrant. All 
 who have long venerated the scriptures in their somewhat antique version, 
 would protest against their being laboriously modernized into every nice 
 conformity with the present standard of the language, and against any other 
 than a very literal translation. If it could be supposed that our language 
 had not yet attained a fixed state, but would progressively change for ages 
 to come, it would be desirable that the translation of the Bible should 
 always continue, except in what might essentially affect the sense, a 
 century or two behind, for the sake of that venerable air which a shade of 
 antiquity confers on the form, of what is so sacred and authoritative in 
 substance. But I cannot allow that the same law is to be extended to the 
 language of divines. They have no right to assume the same ground and 
 the same distinctions as the Bible ; they ought not to affect to keep it 
 company. There is no solemn dignity in their writings, which can claim to 
 be invested with a venerable peculiarity. Imitate the Bible or not, their 
 composition is merely of the ordinary human quality, and subject to the 
 same rules as that of their contemporaries who write on other subjects. 
 And if they remain behind the advanced state of the classical diction, those 
 contemporaries will not allow them to excuse themselves by pretending to 
 identify themselves with the Bible.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 195 
 
 Christian readers and hearers, I am sensible that a reformed 
 language would be excessively strange to them. But may 
 I not allege, without any affectation of paradox, that its bein^ 
 so strange to them would be a proof that it is quite time it 
 were adopted ? For the manner in which some of them 
 would receive this altered dialect, would prove that the 
 customary phraseology had scarcely given them any clear 
 notions. It would be found, as I have observed before, that 
 to them the peculiar phrases had been not so much the 
 vehicles of ideas, as substitutes for them. So undefined has 
 been their understanding of the sense, while they mechani- 
 cally chimed to the sound, that if they hear the very ideas 
 which these phrases signify, or did or should signify, expressed 
 ever so plainly in other language, they do not recognize 
 them ; and are instantly on the alert with the epithets, sound, 
 orthodox, and all the watch-words of ecclesiastical suspicion. 
 For such Christians, the diction is the convenient asylum of 
 ignorance, indolence, and prejudice. 
 
 But I have enlarged far beyond my intention, which was 
 only to represent, with a short illustration, that this peculiar 
 dialect is unfavourable to a cordial reception of evangelical 
 doctrines in minds of cultivated taste. This I know to be a 
 fact from many observations in real life, especially among 
 intellectual youngpersons, not altogether regardless of serious 
 subjects, and not seduced, though not out of danger of being 
 so, by the cavils against the divine authority of Christianity 
 itself. 
 
 After dismissing the consideration of the language, which 
 has unfortunately been made the canonical garb of religion, 
 I meant to have taken a somewhat more general view of the 
 accumulation of bad writing, under which the evangelical 
 theology has been buried ; and which has contributed to 
 bring its principles in disfavour with too many persons of 
 accomplished mental habits. A large proportion of that 
 writing may be sentenced as bad, on more accounts than 
 merely the peculiarity of dialect. But this is an invidious 
 topic, and I shall make only a few observations. 
 
 Proofs of an intellect considerably above the common level, 
 with a literary execution disciplined to great correctness, and 
 partaking somewhat of elegance, are requisite on the lowest 
 terms of acceptance for good writing, with cultivated readers. 
 Superlatively strong sense will "Indeed command attention, 
 
 02
 
 ig6 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 and even admiration, in the absence of all the graces, and 
 notwithstanding much incorrectness or clumsiness in the 
 workmanship of the composition. But when thus standing 
 the divested and sole excellence, it must be pre-eminently 
 conspicuous to have this power. Below this pitch of single 
 or of combined merit, a book cannot please persons of dis- 
 cerning judgment and refined taste, though its subject be the 
 most interesting on earth ; and for acceptableness, there- 
 fore, the subject is unfortunate in coming to those persons 
 in that book. A disgusting cup will spoil the finest element 
 which can be conveyed in it, though that were the nectar of 
 immortality. 
 
 Now, in this view, I suppose it will be acknowledged that 
 the evangelical causehas been, on the whole, far from happy 
 in its prodigious list of authors. A number of them have 
 displayed a high order of excellence; but one regrets as to a 
 much greater number, that they did not revere the dignity 
 of their religion too much, to beset and suffocate it with their 
 superfluous offerings. To you I need not expatiate on the 
 character of the collective Christian library. It will have 
 been obvious to you that there is a multitude of books which 
 form the perfect vulgar of religious authorship ; a vast 
 exhibition of the most subordinate materials that can be called 
 thought, in language too grovelling to be called style. Some 
 of these writers seem to have concluded that the greatness of 
 the subject was to do everything, and that they had but to 
 pronounce, like David, the name of " the Lord of Hosts, "* 
 to give pebbles the force of darts and spears. Others appear 
 to have really wanted the perception of any great difference, 
 in point of excellence, between the meaner and the superior 
 modes of writing. If they had read alternately Barrow's or 
 South's pages and their own, they probably might have 
 doubted on which side to assign the palm. A number of 
 them, citing, in a perverted sense, the language of St. Paul, 
 " not with excellency of speech," "not with enticing words 
 of man's wisdom," "not in the words which man's wisdom 
 teacheth,"f expressly disclaim everything that belongs to 
 fine writing, not exactly as what they could not have attained, 
 but as what they judge incompatible with the simplicity of 
 
 I Samuel xvii. 45. f j Corinthians ii. I, et seq.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 197 
 
 evangelical truth and intentions. In the books of these 
 several but kindred classes you are mortified to see how low 
 religious thought and expression can sink ; and you almost 
 wonder how it was possible for the noblest ideas that are 
 known to the sublimest intelligences, the ideas of God, of 
 Providence, of redemption, of eternity, to shine on a serious 
 human mind without imparting some small occasional degree 
 of dignity to the strain of thought. The indulgent feelings, 
 which you entertain for the intellectual and literary deficiency 
 of humble Christians in their religious communications in 
 private, are with difficulty extended to those who make for 
 their thoughts this demand on public attention : it was 
 necessary for them to be Christians, but what made it their 
 duty to become authors ? Many of the books are indeed 
 successively ceasing, with the progress of time, to be read 
 or known ; but the new supply continually brought forth is 
 so numerous, that a person who turns his attention to 
 religious reading is certain to meet a variety of them. Now 
 only suppose a man who has been conversant and enchanted 
 with the works of eloquence, glowing poetry, finished elegance, 
 or strong reasoning, to meet a number of these books in the 
 outset of his more serious inquiries ; in what light would the 
 religion of Christ appear to him, if he did not find some 
 happier illustrations of it ? 
 
 There is another large class of Christian books, which 
 bear the marks of learning, correctness, and an orderly 
 understanding ; and by a general propriety leave but little to 
 be censured; but which display no invention, no prominence 
 of thought, or living vigour of expression ; all is flat and dry 
 as a plain of sand. It is perhaps the thousandth iteration of 
 common-places, the listless attention to which is hardly an 
 action of the mind ; you seem to understand it all, and 
 mechanically assent while you are thinking of something 
 else. Though the author has a rich immeasurable field of 
 possible varieties of reflection and illustration around him, 
 he seems doomed to tread over again the narrow space of 
 ground long since trodden to dust, and in all his movements 
 appears clothed in sheets of lead. 
 
 There is a smaller class that might be called mock elo- 
 quent writers. These saw the effect of brilliant expression 
 in those works of eloquence and poetry where it was dictated 
 and animated by energy of thought ; and very reasonably
 
 198 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 wished that Christian sentiments might assume a language 
 as impressive as any subject had ever employed to fascinate 
 or command. But unfortunately they forgot that eloquence 
 resides essentially in the thought, and that no words can 
 make genuine eloquence of that which would not be such 
 in the plainest that could fully express the sense. Or 
 probably, they were quite confident of the excellence of the 
 thoughts that were demanding to be so finely sounded forth. 
 Perhaps they concluded them to be vigorous and sublime 
 from the very circumstance, that they disdained to show 
 themselves in plain language. The writers would be but 
 little inclined to suspect of poverty or feebleness the thoughts 
 which seemed so naturally to be assuming, in their minds 
 and on their page, such a magnificent style. A gaudy 
 verbosity is always eloquence in the opinion of him that 
 writes it; but what is the effect on the reader?* Real 
 eloquence strikes with immediate force, and leaves not the 
 possibility of asking or thinking whether it be eloquence ; 
 but the sounding sentences of these writers leave you cool 
 enough to examine with doubtful curiosity a language that 
 seems threatening to move or astonish you, without actually 
 doing so. It is something like the case of a false alarm of 
 thunder; where a sober man, who is not apt to startle at 
 sounds, looks out to see whether it be not the rumbling 
 of a cart. Very much at your ease, you contrast the pomp 
 of the expression with the quality of the thoughts ; and then 
 read on for amusement, or cease to read from disgust. In 
 a serious hour, indeed, the feelings both of amusement and 
 disgust give place to the regret, that it should be in the 
 power of bad writing to bring the most important subjects 
 in danger of something worse than failing to interest. The 
 unpleasing effect it has on your own mind will lead you to 
 apprehend its having a very injurious one on many 
 others. 
 
 A principal device in the fabrication of this style, is, to 
 multiply epithets, dry epithets, laid on the surface, and into 
 which no vitality of the sentiment is found to circulate. 
 You may take a number of the words out of each page, and 
 
 * I should be accurate, and say, the reader of disciplined judgment and 
 good taste ; for it is true enough that the readers are not wanting, nor few, 
 who can be taken with glare and bombast.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 199 
 
 find that the sense is neither more nor less for your having 
 cleared the composition of these epithets of chalk of various 
 colours, with which the tame thoughts had submitted to be 
 dappled and made fine. 
 
 Under the denomination of mock-eloquence may also be 
 placed the mode of writing which endeavours to excite the 
 passions, not by presenting striking ideas of the object of 
 passion, but by the appearance of an emphatical enunciation 
 of the writer's own feelings concerning it. You are not 
 made to perceive how the thing itself has the most interesting 
 claims on your heart ; but are required to be affected in mere 
 sympathy with the author, who attempts your feelings by 
 frequent exclamations, and perhaps by an incessant applica- 
 tion to his fellow-mortals, or to their Redeemer, of all the 
 appellations and epithets of passion, and sometimes of a 
 kind of passion not appropriate to the object. To this last 
 great Object, especially, such forms of expression are 
 occasionally applied, as must excite a revolting emotion 
 in a man who feels that he cannot meet the same 
 being at once on terms of adoration and of caressing 
 equality. 
 
 It would be going beyond my purpose, to carry my re- 
 marks from the literary merits, to the moral and theological 
 characteristics, of Christian books ; else a very strange 
 account could be given of the injuries which the gospel has 
 suffered from its friends. You might often meet with a 
 systematic writer, in whose hands the whole wealth, and 
 variety, and magnificence, of revelation, shrink into a 
 meagre list of doctrinal points, and who will let no verse 
 in the Bible tell its meaning, or presume to have one, till it 
 has taken its stand by one of those points. You may 
 meet with a Christian polemic, who seems to value 
 the arguments for evangelical truth as an assassin 
 values his dagger, and for the same reason ; with 
 a descanter on the invisible world, who makes you think 
 of a popish cathedral, and from the vulgarity of whose 
 illuminations you are glad to escape into the solemn 
 twilight of faith ; or with a grim zealot for such a theory 
 of the divine attributes and government, as seems 
 to delight in representing the Deity as a dreadful 
 king of furies, whose dominion is overshadcd with 
 vengeance, whose music is the cries of victims, and
 
 200 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 whose glory requires to be illustrated by the ruin of his 
 creation. 
 
 It is quite unnecessary to say, that the list of excellent 
 Christian writers would be very considerable. But as to 
 the vast mass of books that would, by the consenting 
 adjudgment of all men of liberal cultivation, remain after 
 this deduction, one cannot help deploring the effect which 
 they must have had on unknown thousands of readers. It 
 would seem beyond all question that books which, though 
 even asserting the essential truths of Christianity, yet 
 utterly preclude the full impression of its character ; which 
 exhibit its claims on admiration and affection with insipid 
 feebleness of sentiment ; or which cramp its simple 
 majesty into an artificial form at once distorted and mean ; 
 must be seriously prejudicial to the influence of this sacred 
 subject, though it be admitted that many of them have 
 sometimes imparted a measure both of instruction and of 
 consolation. This they might do, and yet at the same time 
 convey extremely contracted and inadequate ideas of the 
 subject.* There are a great many of them into which 
 an intelligent Christian cannot look without rejoicing that 
 they were not the books from which he received his im- 
 pressions of the glory of his religion. There are many 
 which nothing would induce him, even though he did 
 not materially differ from them in the leading articles 
 of his belief, to put into the hands of an inquiring young 
 person ; which he would be sorry and ashamed to see 
 on the table of an infidel ; and some of which he regrets 
 to think may still contribute to keep down the standard 
 of religious taste, if I may so express it, among the public 
 instructors of mankind. On the whole it would appear, 
 that a profound veneration for Christianity would induce 
 the wish, that, after a judicious selection of books had 
 
 * It is true enough that on every other subject, on which a multitude of 
 books have been written, there must have been many which in a literary 
 sense were bad. But I cannot help thinking that the number coming 
 under this description, bear a larger proportion to the excellent ones in 
 the religious department than any other. On.e chief cause of this has 
 been, the mistake by which many good men, professionally employed in 
 religion, have deemed their respectable mental competence to the office 
 of public speaking, the proof of an equal competence to a work which is 
 subjected to much severer literary and intellectual laws.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. cor 
 
 been made, the Christians also had their Caliph Omar, 
 and their General Amrou. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 THE injurious causes which I have thus far considered, 
 are associated immediately with the object, and, by misre- 
 presenting it, render it less acceptable to refined taste ; but 
 there are others, which operate by perverting the very prin- 
 ciples of this taste itself, so as to put it in antipathy to the 
 religion of Christ, even though presented in its own full and 
 genuine character, cleared of all these associations. I 
 shall remark chiefly on one of these causes. 
 
 I fear it is incontrovertible, that what is denominated 
 Polite Literature, the grand school in which taste acquires 
 its laws and refined perceptions, and in which are formed, 
 much more than under any higher austerer discipline, the 
 moral sentiments, is, for the far greater part, hostile to the 
 religion of Christ ; partly, by introducing insensibly a 
 certain order of opinions unconsonant, or at least not 
 identical, with the principles of that religion ; and still more, 
 by training the feelings to a habit alien from its spirit. And 
 in this assertion, I do not refer to writers palpably irreligious, 
 who have laboured and intended to seduce the passions 
 into vice, or the judgment into the rejection of divine truth ; 
 but to the general community of those elegant and ingenious 
 authors who are read and admired by the Christian world, 
 held essential to a liberal education and to the progressive 
 accomplishment of the mind in subsequent life, and studied 
 often without an apprehension, or even a thought, of their 
 injuring the views and temper of spirits advancing, with a 
 New Testament for their chief instructor and guide, into 
 another world. 
 
 It is modern literature that I have more particularly in 
 view ; at the same time, it is obvious that the writings of 
 heathen antiquity have continued to operate till now, in the 
 very presence and sight of Christianity, with their own 
 proper influence, a correctly heathenish influence, on the 
 minds of many who have never thought of denying or 
 doubting the truth of that religion. This is just as if an 
 eloquent pagan priest had been allowed constantly to accom-
 
 202 On the A version of Men of Taste 
 
 pany our Lord in his ministry, and had divided with him 
 the attention and interest of his disciples, counteracting, of 
 course, as far as his efforts were successful, the doctrine and 
 spirit of the Teacher from heaven.* 
 
 The few observations which the subject may require to 
 be made on ancient literature, will be directed to the part 
 of it most immediately descriptive of what may be called 
 human reality, representing character, sentiment, and action. 
 For it will be allowed, that the purely speculative part of 
 that literature has in a great measure ceased to interfere 
 with the intellectual discipline of modern times. It obtains 
 too little attention, and too little deference, to contribute 
 materially to the formation of the mental habits, which are 
 adverse to the Christian doctrines and spirit. Divers learned 
 and fanatical devotees to antiquity and paganism, have 
 indeed made some effort to recall the long departed venera- 
 tion for the dreams and subtleties of ancient philosophy. 
 But they might with as good a prospect of success recom- 
 mend the building of temples or a pantheon, and the revival 
 of the institutions of idolatrous worship. The greater number 
 of intelligent, and even learned men, would feel but little 
 regret in consigning the largest proportion of that philoso- 
 phy to oblivion ; unless they may be supposed to like it as 
 heathenism more than they admire it as wisdom ; or unless 
 their pride would wish to retain a reminiscence of it for 
 contrast to their own more rational philosophizing. 
 
 * It is however no part of my object in these letters to remark on the 
 influence, in modern times, of the fabulous religion that infested the ancient 
 works of genius. That influence is at the present time, I should think, 
 extremely small, from the fables being so stale : all readers are sufficiently 
 tired of Jupiter, Apollo, Minerva, and the rest. As long however as they 
 could be of the smallest service, they were piously retained by the Christian 
 poets of this and other countries, who are now under the necessity of seek- 
 ing out for some other mythology, the northern or the eastern, to support 
 the languishingspirit of poetry. Even the ugly pieces of wood, worshipped 
 in the South Sea Islands, will probably at last receive names that may 
 more commodiously hitch into verse, and be invoked to adorn and sanctify 
 the belles lettres of the next century. The Mexican abominations and 
 infernalities have already received from us their epic tribute. The poet has 
 no reason to fear that the supply of gods may fail ; it is at the same time 
 a pity, one thinks, that a creature so immense should have been placed in a 
 world so small as this, where all nature, all history, all morals, all true 
 religion, and the whole resources of innocent fiction, are too little to 
 furnish materials enough for the wants and labours of his genius.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 203 
 
 The ancient speculations of the religious order include 
 indeed some splendid ideas relating to a Supreme Being ; 
 but these ideas impart no attraction to that immensity of 
 inane and fantastic follies from the chaos of which they 
 stand out, as of nobler essence and origin. For the most 
 part they probably were traditionary remains of divine 
 communications to man in the earliest ages. A few of 
 them were, possibly, the utmost efforts of human intellect, 
 at some happy moments excelling itself. But in whatever 
 proportions they be referred to the one origin or the other, 
 they stand so distinguished from the accumulated multi- 
 farious vanities of pagan speculation on the subject of Deity, 
 that they throwcontempt on those speculations. They throw 
 contempt on the greatest part of the theological dogmas and 
 fancies of even the very philosophers who would cite and 
 applaud them. They rather direct our contemplation and 
 affection toward a religion divinely revealed, than obtain 
 any degree of favour for those notions of the Divinity, which 
 sprang and indefinitely multiplied from a melancholy com- 
 bination of ignorance and depraved imagination. As to the 
 apparent analogy between certain particulars in the pagan 
 religions, and some of the most specific articles of Chris- 
 tianity, those notions are presented in such fantastic, and 
 varying, and often monstrous shapes, that they can be of no 
 prejudice to the Christian faith, either by pre-occupying in 
 our minds the place of the Christian doctrines, or by indispos- 
 ing us to admit them, or by perverting our conception of 
 them. 
 
 As to the ancient metaphysical speculation, whatever may 
 be the tendency of metaphysical study in general, or of the 
 particular systems of modern philosophers, as affecting the 
 cordial and simple admission of Christian doctrines, the 
 ancient metaphysics may certainly be pronounced inopera- 
 tive and harmless. If it were possible to analyze the mass 
 of what may be termed our effective literature, so as to 
 ascertain what elements and interfusions in it have been of 
 influential power, and in what respective proportions, in 
 forming our habits of thinking and feeling, it is probable 
 that a very small share would be found derived from the ideal 
 theories of the old philosophers. It is probable also, that in 
 future not one of a thousand men, cultivated in a respect- 
 able degree, will ever take the trouble of a resolute and
 
 204 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 persisting effort to master those speculations. Besides the 
 too prevailing and still increasing indisposition to metaphy- 
 sical study in any school, there is a settled conviction that 
 those speculations were baseless and useless, and that who- 
 ever aspires to the high and abstracted wisdom must learn 
 it from the later philosophers. And as the only thing we 
 can seek and value in pure abstracted speculations is truth, 
 when the persuasion of their truth is gone their attraction 
 and influence are extinct. That which could please the 
 imagination or interest the affections, might in a considerable 
 degree continue to please and interest them, though convicted 
 of much fallacy. But that which is too subtile and intangi- 
 ble to please the imagination, loses all its power when it is 
 rejected by the judgment. This is the predicament to 
 which time has reduced the metaphysics of the old philoso- 
 phers. The captivation of their systems seems almost as far 
 withdrawn from us as the songs of their Syrens, or the 
 enchantments of Medea. 
 
 While these thin speculations have been suspended in 
 air, taking all the forms and colours of clouds or rainbows, 
 meteors or fogs, the didactic morality of some of the ancient 
 philosophers, faithfully keeping to the solid ground of human 
 interests, has doubtless had a considerable influence on the 
 moral sentiments of cultivated men, progressively on to the 
 present time. A certain quality, derived from it into litera- 
 ture, has perpetuated its operation indirectly on many who 
 are not conversant with it immediately at its origin. But 
 it may have a considerable direct influence on those who 
 are in acquaintance with the great primary moralists them- 
 selves. After a long detention among the vagaries and 
 monsters of mythology, or a bewildered adventure in the 
 tenebrious and fantastic region of ancient metaphysics, in 
 chase of that truth which the pursuer sometimes thinks, 
 though doubtfully, that he sees, but which still eludes him, 
 the student of antiquity is gratified at meeting with a sage 
 who leads him among interesting realities, and discourses 
 to him in plain and impressive terms of direct instruction 
 concerning moral principles and the means of happiness. 
 And since it is necessarily the substantial object of this 
 instruction to enforce virtue, excellence, goodness, he 
 feels little apprehension of any vitiating effect on his 
 moral sentiments. He entirely forgets that moral excel-
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 205 
 
 lence or virtue has been defined and enforced by another 
 authority ; and that though a large portion of the scheme 
 must be, as matter of practice, mainly the same in the 
 dictates of that authority, and in the writings of Epictetus, 
 or Cicero, or Antoninus, yet there is a specific difference of 
 substance in certain particulars, and a most important one 
 in the principles that constitute the general basis. While 
 he is admiring the beauty of virtue as displayed by one 
 accomplished moralist, and its lofty independence as exhib- 
 ited by another, he is not admonished to suspect that anything 
 in their sentiments, or his animated coalescence with them, 
 can be wrong. 
 
 But the part of ancient literature which has had incom- 
 parably the greatest influence on the character of cultivated 
 minds, is that which has turned, if I may so express it, 
 moral sentiments into real beings and interesting com- 
 panions, by displaying the life and actions of eminent 
 individuals. A few of the personages of fiction are also to 
 be included. The captivating spirit of Greece and Rome 
 dwells in the works of the biographers ; in so much of the 
 history as might properly be called biography, from its 
 fixing the whole attention and interest on a few signal 
 names ; and in the works of the principal poets. 
 
 No one, I suppose, will deny that both the characters and 
 the sentiments, which are the favourites of the poet and 
 the historian, become the favourites also of the admiring 
 reader; for this would be a virtual denial of the excellence 
 of the performance, in point of eloquence or poetic spirit. 
 It is the high test and proof of genius that a writer can 
 render his subject interesting to his readers, not merely in 
 a general way, but in the very same manner in which it 
 interests himself. If the great works of antiquity had not 
 this power, they would long since have ceased to charm. 
 We could not long tolerate what caused a revolting of our 
 moral feelings, while it was designed to please them. But 
 if their characters and sentiments really do thus fascinate 
 the heart, how far will this influence be coincident with the 
 spirit and with the design of Christianity ? * 
 
 * It may be noticed here that a great part of what could be said on 
 heathen literature as opposed to the religion of Christ, must necessarily 
 refer to the peculiar moral spirit of that religion. It would border on the
 
 2o6 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 Among the poets, I shall notice only the two or three 
 pre-eminent ones of the Epic class. Homer, you know, is 
 the favourite of the whole civilized world ; and it is many 
 centuries since there needed one additional word of homage 
 to the prodigious genius displayed in the Iliad. The object 
 of inquiry is, what kind of predisposition will be formed to- 
 ward Christianity in a young and animated spirit, that 
 learns to glow with enthusiasm at the scenes created by the 
 poet, and to indulge an ardent wish, which that enthusiasm 
 will probably awaken, for the possibility of emulating some 
 of the principal characters ? Let this susceptible youth, 
 after having mingled and burned in imagination among 
 heroes, whose valour and anger flame like Vesuvius, who 
 wade in blood, trample on dying foes, and hurl defiance 
 against earth and heaven ; let him be led into the company 
 of Jesus Christ and his disciples, as displayed by the 
 evangelists, with whose narrative, I will suppose, he is but 
 slightly acquainted before. What must he, what can he, do 
 with his feelings in this transition ? He will find himself 
 flung as far as " from the centre to the utmost pole ; " and 
 one of these two opposite exhibitions of character will in- 
 evitably excite his aversion. Which of them is that likely 
 to be, if he is become thoroughly possessed with the Homeric 
 passions ? 
 
 Or if, reversing the order, you will suppose a person to 
 have first become profoundly interested by the New Testa- 
 ment, and to have acquired the spirit of the Saviour of the 
 world, while studying the evangelical history ; with what 
 sentiments will he come forth from conversing with heavenly 
 mildness, weeping benevolence, sacred purity, and the elo- 
 quence of divine wisdom, to enter into a scene of such 
 actions and characters, and to hear such maxims of merit 
 and glory, as those of Homer ? He would be still more 
 confounded by the transition, had it been possible for him 
 to have entirely escaped that deep depravation of feeling 
 which can think of crimes and miseries with little emotion, 
 and which we have all acquired from viewing the prominent 
 portion of the world's history as composed of scarcely any- 
 
 ^ ridiculous to represent the martial enthusiasm of ancient historians and 
 poets as counteracting the doctrines of the gospel, meaning by the term 
 those dictates of truth that do not directly involve moral distinctions.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 
 
 207 
 
 thing else. He would find the mightiest strain of poetry 
 employed to represent ferocious courage as the greatest of 
 virtues, and those who do not possess it as worthy of their 
 fate, to be trodden in the dust. He will be taught, at least 
 it will not be the fault of the poet if he be not taught, to 
 forgive a heroic spirit for finding the sweetest luxury in 
 insulting dying pangs, and imagining the tears and despair 
 of distant relations. He will be incessantly called upon to 
 worship revenge, the real divinity of the Iliad, in comparison 
 of which the Thunderer of Olympus is but a subaltern pre- 
 tender to power. He will be taught that the most glorious 
 and enviable life is that, to which the greatest number of 
 other lives are made a sacrifice ; and that it is noble in a 
 hero to prefer even a short life attended by this felicity, to a 
 long one which should permit a longer life also to others. 
 The terrible Achilles, a being whom, if he had really existed, 
 it had been worth a temporary league of the tribes then called 
 nations to reduce to the quietness of a dungeon or a tomb, is 
 rendered interesting even amidst the horrors of revenge 
 and destruction, by the intensity of his affection for his 
 friend, by the melancholy with which he appears in the 
 funeral scene of that friend, by one momentary instance 
 of compassion, and by his solemn references to his own 
 impending and inevitable doom. A reader who has even 
 passed beyond the juvenile ardour of life, feels himself 
 interested, in a manner that excites at intervals his own 
 surprise, in the fate of this fell exterminator; and he 
 wonders, and he wishes to doubt, whether the moral 
 that he is learning, be, after all, exactly no other than 
 that the grandest employment of a great spirit is the 
 destruction of human creatures, so long as revenge, am- 
 bition, or even caprice, may choose to regard them 
 under an artificial distinction, and call them enemies. But 
 this, my dear friend, is the real and effective moral of the 
 Iliad, after all that critics have so gravely written about 
 lessons of union, or any other subordinate moral instruc- 
 tions, which they discover or imagine in the work. Who 
 but critics ever thought or cared about any such drowsy 
 lessons? Whatever is the chief and grand impression 
 made by the whole work on the ardent minds which are 
 most susceptible oi the influence of poetry, that shows the 
 real moral ; and Alexander, and Charles XII. through the
 
 208 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 medium of " Macedonia's madman," correctly received 
 the genuine inspiration. 
 
 If it be said, that such works stand on the same ground, 
 except as to the reality or accuracy of the facts, with an 
 eloquent history, which simply exhibits the actions and 
 characters, I deny the assertion. The actions and characters 
 are presented in a manner which prevents their just impres- 
 sion, and empowers them to make an opposite one. A 
 transforming magic of genius displays a number of atrocious 
 savages in a hideous slaughter-house of men, as demi-gods 
 in a temple of glory. No doubt an eloquent history might 
 be so written as to give the same aspect to such men, and 
 such operations; but that history would deserve to be com- 
 mitted to the flames. A history that should give a faithful 
 representation of miseries and slaughter, would set no one, 
 who had not attained the last depravation, on fire to imitate 
 the principal actors. It would excite in a degree the same 
 emotion as the sight of a field of dead and dying men after 
 a battle is over ; a sight at which the soul would shudder 
 and revolt, and earnestly wish that this might be the last 
 time the sun should behold such a spectacle : but the ten- 
 dency of the Homeric poetry, and of a great part of epicpoetry 
 in general, is to insinuate the glory of repeating such a 
 tragedy. I therefore ask again, how it would be possible 
 for a man whose mind was first completely assimilated to 
 the spirit of Jesus Christ, to read such a work without a most 
 vivid antipathy to what he perceived to be the moral spirit 
 of the poet ? And if it were not too strange a supposition, 
 that the most characteristic parts of the Iliad had been read 
 in the presence and hearing of our Lord, and by a person 
 animated by a fervid sympathy with the work do you not 
 instantly imagine Him expressing the most emphatical 
 condemnation? Would not the reader have been made to 
 know, that in the spirit of that book he could never become 
 a disciple and a friend of the Messiah ? But then, if he 
 believed this declaration, and were serious enough to care 
 about being the disciple and friend of the Messiah, would he 
 not have deemed himself extremely unfortunate to have been 
 seduced, through the pleasures of taste and imagination, 
 into habits of feeling which rendered it impossible, till their 
 predominance should be destroyed, for him to receive the 
 only true religion, and the only Redeemer of the world ? To
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 209 
 
 show how impossible it would be, I wish I may be pardoned 
 for making another strange and indeed a most monstrous 
 supposition, namely, that Achilles, Diomede, Ulysses, and 
 Ajax had been real persons, living in the time of our Lord, 
 and had become his disciples, and yet, (excepting the mere 
 exchange of the notions of mythology for Christian opinions,) 
 had retained entire the state of mind with which their poet 
 has exhibited them. It is instantly perceived that Satan, 
 Beelzebub, and Moloch might as consistently have beeo re- 
 tained in heaven. But here the question comes to a point : 
 if these great examples of glorious character pretending to 
 coalesce with the transcendent Sovereign of virtues, would 
 have been probably the most enormous incongruity existing, 
 or that ever had^Kfsfed, in the creation, what harmony can 
 there be^ixftween a man who has acquired a considerable 
 degregm congeniality with the spirit of these heroes, and 
 that paramount Teacher and Pattern of excellence ? And 
 who will assure me that the enthusiast for heroic poetry does 
 not acquire a degree of this congeniality ? But unless I can 
 be so assured, I necessarily persist in asserting the noxious- 
 ness of such poetry. 
 
 Yet the work ol Corner is, notwithstanding, the book 
 which Christian poets hayetranslated, which Christian divines 
 have edited and commente^ion with pride, at which Christian 
 ladies have been delighted^^p see their sons kindle into 
 rapture, and which forms an essential part of the course of 
 a liberal education, over all those countries on which the 
 gospel shines. And who can tell how much that passion 
 for war which, from the universality of its prevalence, might 
 seem inseparable from the nature of man, may have been, 
 in the civilized world, reinforced by the enthusiastic admi- 
 ration with which young men have read Homer, and similar 
 poets, whose genius transforms what is, and ought always 
 to appear, purely horrid, to an aspect of grandeur ? Should 
 it be asked, What ought to be the practical consequence of 
 such observations ? I may surely answer that I cannot 
 justly be required to assign that consequence. I cannot be 
 required to do more than exhibit in a simple light an im- 
 portant point of truth. // such works do really impart 
 their own spirit to the mind of an admiring reader, and if 
 this spirit be totally hostile to that of Christianity, and if 
 Christianity ought really and in good faith to be the supreme 
 
 P
 
 2io On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 regent of all moral feeling, then it is evident that the Iliad, 
 and all books which combine the same tendency with great 
 poetical excellence, are among the most mischievous things 
 on earth. There is but little satisfaction, certainly, in il- 
 lustrating the operation of evils without proposing any 
 adequate method of contending with them. But in the 
 present case, I really do not see what a serious observer of 
 the character of mankind can offer. To wish that the works 
 of Homer, and some other great authors of antiquity, should 
 cease to be read, is just as vain as to wish they had never 
 been written. As to the far greater number of readers, it 
 were equally in vain to wish that pure Christian sentiments 
 might be sufficiently recollected, and loved, to accompany 
 the study, and constantly prevent the injurious impression, 
 of the works of pagan genius. The few maxims of Chris- 
 tianity to which the student may have assented without 
 thought, and for which he has but little veneration, will but 
 feebly oppose the influence ; the spirit of Homer will vanquish 
 as irresistibly as his Achilles vanquished. It is also most 
 perfectly true, that as long as pride, ambition, and vindic- 
 tiveness, hold so mighty a prevalence in the character and 
 in the nature of our species, they would still amply display 
 themselves, though the stimulus of heroic poetry were with- 
 drawn, by the annihilation of all those works which have 
 invested the worst passions and the worst actions with a 
 glare of grandeur. With or without the infections of heroic 
 poetry, men and nations will continue to commit offences 
 against one another, and to avenge them ; to assume an 
 arrogant precedence, and account it and laud it as noble 
 spirit ; to celebrate their deeds of destruction, and call them 
 glory ; to idolize the men who possess, and can infuse, the 
 greatest share of an infernal fire ; to set at nought all prin- 
 ciples of virtue and religion in favour of some thoughtless 
 vicious mortal who consigns himself in the same achieve- 
 ment to fame and perdition ; to vaunt in triumphal entries 
 or funeral pomps, or bombastic odes, or strings of scalps, 
 how far human skill and valour can surpass the powers of 
 famine and pestilence ; men and nations will continue thus 
 to act, till a mightier intervention from heaven shall estab- 
 lish the dominion of Christianity. In that better season, 
 perhaps the great works of ancient genius will be read in 
 such a disposition of mind as can receive the intellectual
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 211 
 
 improvement derivable from them, and at the same time as 
 little coincide or be infected with their moral spirit, as in 
 the present age we venerate their mythological vanities. 
 
 In the mean time, one cannot believe that any man, who 
 seriously reflects how absolutely the religion of Christ 
 claims a conformity of his whole nature, will without regret 
 feel himself animated with a class of sentiments, of which 
 the habitual prevalence would be the total preclusion of 
 Christianity. 
 
 And it seems to show how little this religion is really 
 understood, or even considered, in any of the countries 
 denominated Christian, that so many who profess to adopt 
 it never once thought of guarding their own minds, and 
 those of their children, against the eloquent seductions of so 
 opposite a spirit. Probably they would be more intelligent 
 and vigilant, if any other interest than that of their professed 
 religion were endangered. But a thing which injures them 
 only in that concern, is sure to meet with all possible indul- 
 gence. 
 
 With respect to religious parents and preceptors, whose 
 children and pupils are to receive that liberal education 
 which must inevitably include the study of these great works, 
 it will be for them to accompany the youthful readers 
 throughout, with an effort to show them, in the most pointed 
 manner, the inconsistency of many of the sentiments, both 
 with moral rectitude in general, and with the special dictates 
 of Christianity. And in order to give the requisite force to 
 those dictates, it will be an important duty to illustrate to 
 them the amiable tendency, and to prove the awful authority, 
 of this dispensation of religion. This careful effort will 
 often but partially prevent the mischief; but it seems to be 
 all that can be done. 
 
 Virgil's work is a kind of lunar reflection of the ardent 
 effulgence of Homer ; surrounded, if I may extend the 
 figure, with a beautiful halo of elegance and tenderness. 
 So much more refined an order of sentiment might have 
 rendered the heroic character far more attractive, to a mind 
 that can soften as well as glow, if there had actually been a 
 hero in the poem. But none of the personages intended for 
 heroes take hold enough of the reader's feelings to assimi- 
 late them in moral temper. No fiction or history of human 
 characters and actions will ever powerfully transfuse its 
 
 P 2
 
 212 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 spirit, without some one or some very few individuals of 
 signal peculiarity or greatness, to concentrate and embody 
 the whole energy of the work. There would be no danger 
 therefore of any one's becoming an idolater of the god of 
 war through the inspiration of the ^Eneid, even if a larger 
 proportion of it had resounded with martial enterprise. 
 Perhaps the chief counteraction to Christian sentiments 
 which I should apprehend to an opening susceptible mind, 
 would be a depravation of its ideas concerning the other 
 world, from the picturesque scenery which Virgil has opened 
 to his hero in the regions of the dead, and the imposing 
 imageswith whichhe hasshadedtheavenuetothem. Perhaps 
 also the affecting sentiments which precede the death of 
 Dido * might tend to lessen, especially in a pensive mind, 
 the horror of that impiety which would throw back with 
 violence the possession of life, as if in reproach to its great 
 Author, for having suffered that there should be unhappi- 
 ness in a world where there is sin. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 IN naming Lucan, I am not unaware that an avowal of 
 high admiration may hazard all credit for correct discern- 
 ment. I must, however, confess that, in spite of his rhetori- 
 cal ostentation, and all the offences of a too inflated style, 
 he does in my apprehension greatly surpass all the other 
 ancient poets in direct force of the ethical spirit ; and that 
 he would have a stronger influence to seduce my feelings, 
 in respect to moral greatness, -into a discordance from 
 Christian principles. His leading characters are widely 
 different from those of Homer, and of an eminently superior 
 order. The mighty genius of Homer appeared and departed 
 in a rude age of the human mind, a stranger to the intel- 
 lectual enlargement which would have enabled him to com- 
 bine in his heroes the dignity of thought, instead of mere 
 physical force, with the energy of passion. For want of 
 
 * According to Virgil, when JEneas was shipwrecked on his voyage to 
 Italy, Dido hospitably entertained him, fell in love with him, and, 
 because he did not requite her passion, stabbed herself in despair.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 213 
 
 this, they are great heroes without being great men. They 
 appear to you only as tremendous fighting and destroying 
 animals ; a kind of human mammoths. The prowess of 
 personal conflict is all they can understand and admire, and 
 in their warfare their minds never reach to any of the sub- 
 limer views and results even of war; their chief and final 
 object seems to be the mere savage glory of fighting, and 
 the annihilation of their enemies. When the heroes of 
 Lucan, both the depraved and the nobler class, are employed 
 in war, it seems but a small part of what they can do, and 
 what they intend ; they have always something further and 
 greater in view than to evince their valour, or to riot in the 
 vengeance of victory. Ambition as exhibited in Pompey 
 and Caesar seems almost to become a grand passion, when 
 compared to the contracted and ferocious aim of Homer's 
 chiefs ; while this passion, even thus elevated, serves to 
 exalt by comparison the far different and nobler sentiments 
 and objects of Cato and Brutus. The contempt of death, 
 which in the heroes of the Iliad often seems like an incapacity 
 or an oblivion of thought, is in Lucan's favourite characters 
 the result, or at least the associate, of high philosophic 
 spirit ; and this strongly contrasts their courage with that 
 of Homer's warriors, which is, (according indeed to his own 
 frequent similes,) the reckless daring of wild beasts. Lucan 
 sublimates martial into mortal grandeur. Even if you could 
 deduct from his great men all that which forms the spe- 
 cific martial display of the hero, you would find their 
 greatness little diminished ; they would still retain their 
 commanding and interesting aspect. The better class of 
 them, amidst war itself, hate and deplore the spirit and 
 destructive exploits of war. They are indignant at the 
 vices of mankind for compelling their virtue into a career 
 in which such sanguinary glories can be acquired. And 
 while they deem it their duty to exert their courage in con- 
 flict for a just cause, they regard camps and battles as vulgar 
 things, from which their thoughts often turn away into a 
 train of solemn and presaging reflections, in which they 
 approach sometimes the most elevated sublimity. You 
 have a more absolute impression of grandeur from a speech 
 of Cato, than from all the mighty exploits that epic poetry 
 ever blazoned. The eloquence of Lucan's moral heroes 
 does not consist in images of triumphs and conquests, but
 
 214 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 in reflections on virtue, sufferings, destiny, and death ; and 
 the sentiments expressed in his own name have often a 
 melancholy tinge which renders them irresistibly interesting. 
 He might seem to have felt a presage, while musing on 
 the last of the Romans, that their poet was soon to follow 
 them. The reader becomes devoted both to the poet, and 
 to these illustrious men ; but, under the influence of this 
 attachment, he adopts all their sentiments, and exults in 
 the sympathy ; forgetting, or unwilling, to reflect, whether 
 this state of feeling be concordant with the religion of 
 Christ, and with the spirit of the apostles and martyrs. 
 The most captivating of Lucan's sentiments, to a mind 
 enamoured of pensive sublimity, are those concerning 
 death. I remember the very principle which I would wish 
 to inculcate, .that is, the necessity that a believer of the 
 Gospel should preserve the Christian tenour of feeling pre- 
 dominant in his mind, and clear of incongruous mixture, 
 having struck me with great force amidst the enthusiasm 
 with which I read many times over the memorable account 
 of Vulteius, the speech by which he inspired his gallant 
 band with a passion for death, and the reflections on death 
 with which the poet closes the episode. I said to myself, 
 at the suggestion of conscience, What are these sentiments 
 with which I am glowing? Are these the just ideas of 
 death ? Are they such as were taught by the Divine Author 
 of our religion ? Is this the spirit with which St. Paul 
 approached his last hour ? And I felt a painful collision 
 between this reflection and the passion inspired by the poet. 
 I perceived clearly that the kind of interest which I felt was 
 no less than a real adoption, for the time, of the very same 
 sentiments with which he was animated. 
 
 The epic poetry has been selected for the more pointed 
 application of my remarks, from the belief that it has had 
 a much greater influence on the moral sentiments of 
 succeeding ages than all the other poetry of antiquity, by 
 means of its impressive display of individual great 
 characters. And it will be admitted that the moral spirit 
 of the epic poets, taken together, is as little in opposition 
 to the Christian theory of moral sentiments as that of the 
 collective poetry of other kinds. Some just and fine senti- 
 ments to be found in the Greek tragedies are in the tone of 
 the best of the pagan didactic moralists. And they infuse
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 215 
 
 themselves more intimately into our minds when thus 
 coming warm in the course of passion and action, and 
 speaking to us with the emphasis imparted by affecting and 
 dreadful events ; but still are of less vivid and penetrating 
 charm, than as emanating from the insulated magnificence 
 of such striking and sublime individual characters as those 
 ot epic poetry. The mind of the reader does not, from 
 those dramatic scenes, retain for months and years an ani- 
 mated recollection of some personage whose name con- 
 stantly recalls the sentiments which he uttered, or with 
 which his conduct inspired us. The Greek drama is ex- 
 tremely deficient in both grand and interesting characters, 
 in any sense of the epithets that should imply an imposing 
 or a captivating moral power. Much the greatest number 
 of the persons and personages brought on the scene are 
 such as we care nothing about, otherwise than merely on 
 account of the circumstances in which we see them acting 
 or suffering. With few exceptions they come on the stage, 
 and go off, without possessing us with either admiration or 
 affection. When therefore the maxims or reflections which 
 we hear from them have an impressive effect, it is less 
 from any commanding quality in the persons, than from the 
 striking, and sometimes portentous and fearful situations, 
 that the sentiments have their pathos. There are a few 
 characters of greater power over our respect and our sym- 
 pathies, who draw us, by virtue of personal qualities, into 
 a willing communion with them, at times, in moral princi- 
 ples and emotions. We are relieved and gratified, after 
 passing through so much wickedness, misfortune, and inane 
 common-place moralizing,to be greeted with fine expressions 
 of justice, generosity, and fidelity to a worthy purpose, by 
 persons whom we can regard as living realizations of such 
 virtues. It is like finding among barbarous nations (as 
 sometimes happens), some individual or two eminently and 
 unaccountably above the level of their tribe, whose intelli- 
 gence and virtues have, by the contrast and the surprise, a 
 stronger attraction than similar qualities meeting us in a 
 cultivated community. But the delight sometimes kindled 
 by sentiments of magnanimous or gentle virtue, is exceed- 
 ingly repressed, and often quenched, in the reader of the 
 Greek drama, by the incessant intrusion of a hideous moral 
 barbarism ; especially by the implication of the morality
 
 216 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 with an execrable mythology. There is an odious inter- 
 ference of " the gods," sometimes by their dissensions with 
 one another perplexing and confounding the rules of human 
 obligation ; often contravening the best intentions and 
 efforts ; depriving virtue of all confidence and resource ; 
 despising, frustrating, or punishing it ; turning its exertions 
 and sacrifices to vanity or disaster; and yet to be the 
 objects of devout homage, a homage paid with intermingled 
 complaints and reproaches, extorted from defeated or 
 suffering virtue, which is trying to be better than the gods. 
 Nothing can be more intensely dreary than the moral 
 economy as represented in much of that drama. Let any 
 one contemplate it as displayed, for example, in the Prome- 
 theus Chained, or the whole stories of CEdipus and Orestes. 
 On the whole I have conceded much in saying, that a small 
 portion of the morality of that drama may have a place 
 with that of the best of the didactic moralists. 
 
 I shall not dwell long on the biography and history, since 
 it will be allowed that their influence is very nearly coinci- 
 dent with that of the epic poetry. The work of Plutarch, 
 the chief of the biographers (a work so necessary, it would 
 seem, to the consolations of a Christian, that I have read 
 of some learned man declaring, and without any avowed 
 rejection of the Bible, that if he were to be cast on a 
 desert island, and could have one book, and but one, it 
 should be this), the work of Plutarch delineates a greatness 
 partly of the same character as that celebrated by Homer, 
 and partly of the more dignified and intellectual kind which 
 is so commanding in the great men of Lucan, several of 
 whom indeed are the subjects also of the biographer;* 
 Various distinctions might, no doubt, be remarked in the 
 impression made by great characters as illustrated in poetry, 
 and as exposed in the plainness of historical record : but I 
 am persuaded that the habits of feeling which will grow 
 from admiring the one or the other, will be substantially 
 
 * " The book of books," says Alfieri, the Italian tragic poet, in his 
 "Autobiography," "the one which made me pass away the hours of 
 that winter (1769) with ravished delight, was Plutarch ! His' lives of those 
 truly great men, as Timoleon, Csssar, Brutus, Polopidas, Cato, I read four 
 or five times with such transport of excitement, tears, and enthusiasm, that 
 a person in an adjoining room would have supposed I was mad."
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 217 
 
 the same as affecting the temper of the mind in regard to 
 Christianity. 
 
 A number of the men exhibited by the biographers and 
 historians, rose so eminently above the general character 
 of the human race, that their names have become in- 
 separably associated with our ideas of moral greatness. A 
 thoughtful student of antiquity enters this majestic com- 
 pany with an impression of mystical awfulness, resembling 
 that of Ezekiel in his vision. In this select and revered as- 
 sembly we include only those who were distinguished by 
 elevated virtue, as well as powerful talents and memorable 
 actions. Undoubtedly the magnificent powers and energy 
 without moral excellence, so often displayed on the field of 
 ancient history, compel a kind of prostration of the soul in 
 the presence of men, whose surpassing achievements seem 
 to silence for a while, and but for a while, the sense of 
 justice which must execrate their ambition and their crimes ; 
 but where greatness of mind seems but secondary to great- 
 ness of virtue, as in the examples of Phocion, Epaminondas, 
 Aristides, Timoleon, Dion, Cimon, and several more, the 
 heart applauds itself for feeling an irresistible captivation. 
 This number indeed is small, compared with the whole 
 galaxy of renowned names ; but it is large enough to fill 
 the mind, and to give as venerable an impression of pagan 
 greatness, as if none of its examples had been the heroes 
 whose fierce brilliance lightens through the blackness of 
 their depravity ; or the legislators, orators, and philosophers, 
 whose wisdom wasdegraded by imposture, venality, orvanity. 
 
 A most impressive part of the influence of ancient charac- 
 ter on modern feelings, is derived from the accounts of two 
 or three of the greatest philosophers, whose virtue, protest- 
 ing and solitary in the times in which they lived, whose 
 intense devotedness in the pursuit of wisdom, and whose 
 occasional sublime glimpses of apprehension, received from 
 beyond the sphere of error in which they were enclosed and 
 benighted, present them to the mind with something like the 
 venerableness of the prophets of God. Among the exhibi- 
 tions of this kind, it is unnecessary to say that Xenophon's 
 Memoir of Socrates stands unrivalled and above com- 
 parison.* 
 
 * Xenophon's Reminiscences (Memorabilia) of Socrates arc a series of
 
 2i8 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 Sanguine spirits without number have probably been in- 
 fluenced in modern times by the ancient history of mere 
 heroes ; but persons of a reflective disposition have been in- 
 comparably more affected by the contemplation of those men 
 whose combination of mental power with illustrious virtue 
 constitutes the supreme glory of heathen antiquity. And 
 why do I deem the admiration of this noble display'of moral 
 excellence pernicious to these reflective minds, in relation 
 to the religion of Christ ? For the simplest possible reason ; 
 because the principles of that excellence are not identical 
 with the principles of this religion ; as I believe every serious 
 and self-observant man who has been attentive to them both, 
 will have verified in his own experience. He has felt the 
 animation which pervaded his soul, in musing on the virtues, 
 the sentiments, and the great actions, of these dignified men, 
 suddenly expiring, when he has attempted to prolong or 
 transfer it to the virtues, sentiments, and actions, of the 
 apostles of Jesus Christ. Sometimes he has, with mixed 
 wonder and indignation, remonstrated with his own feelings, 
 and has said, I know there is the highest excellence in the 
 religion of the Messiah, and in the characters of his most 
 magnanimous followers ; and surely it is excellence also that 
 attracts me to those other illustrious men; why then cannot 
 I take a full delightful interest in them both ? But it is in 
 vain ; he finds this amphibious devotion impossible. And 
 he will always find it so ; for, antecedently to experience, it 
 would be obvious that the order of sentiments which ani- 
 mated the one form of excellence, is extremely diverse from 
 that which is the vitality of the other. If the whole system 
 of a Christian's sentiments is required to be exactly adjusted 
 to the economy of redemption, they must be widely different 
 from those of the men, however wise or virtuous, who never 
 thought or heard of the Saviour of the world ; else where is 
 the peculiarity or importance of this new dispensation, which 
 does however both avow and manifest a most signal pecu- 
 liarity, and with which heaven has connected the signs and 
 declarations of infinite importance ? If, again, a Christian's 
 grand object and solicitude is to please God, this must con- 
 stitute his moral excellence (even though the facts, the mere 
 
 dialogues intended to refute the charges upon which that philosopher was 
 executed.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 219 
 
 actions, were the same) of a very different nature from that 
 of the men who had not in firm faith any god that they 
 cared to please, and whose highest glory it might possibly 
 become, that they boldly differed from their deities ; as Lucan 
 undoubtedly intended it as the most emphatical applause of 
 Cato, that he was the inflexible patron and hero of the cause 
 which was the aversion of the gods.* If humility is re- 
 quired as a characteristic of a Christian's mind, he is here 
 again placed in a state of contrariety to that self-idolatry, the 
 love of glory which accompanied, and was applauded as a 
 virtue while it accompanied, almost all the moral greatness 
 of the heathens. If a Christian lives for eternity, and ad- 
 vances towards death with the certain expectation of judg- 
 ment, and of a new and awful world, how different must be 
 the essential quality of his serious sentiments, as partly 
 created, and wholly pervaded, by this mighty anticipation, 
 from the order of feeling of the virtuous heathens, who had 
 no positive or sublime expectations beyond death. The 
 interior essences, if I may so speak, of the two kinds of 
 excellence, sustained or produced by these two systems of 
 principles, are so different, that they will hardly be more 
 convertible or compatible in the same mind than even ex- 
 cellence and turpitude. Now it appears to me that the 
 enthusiasm, with which a mind of deep and thoughtful sen- 
 sibility dwells on the history of sages, virtuous legislators, 
 and the worthiest class of heroes of heathen antiquity will 
 be found to beguile that mind into an order of sentiments 
 congenial with theirs, and therefore thus seriously different 
 from the spirit and principles of Christianity. f It is not ex- 
 actly that the judgment admits distinct pagan propositions, 
 
 * Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni, " The conquering cause 
 was pleasing to the Gods, the conquered one to Cato." Such was an ex- 
 travagant co.npliment paid by Lucan to the heroic patriotism of Cato, of 
 Utica. 
 
 t Should it be pretended that, in admiring pagan excellence, the mind 
 takes the mere facts of that excellence, separately from the principles, and 
 as far as they are identical with the facts of Christian excellence, and then, 
 connecting Christian principles with them, converts the whole ideally into 
 a Christian character before it cordially admires, I appeal to experience 
 that this is not true. If it were, the mind would be able to turn with full 
 complacency from an affectionate admiration of an illustrious heathen, to 
 admire, in the same train of feeling and with still warmer emotion, the 
 excellence of St. Paul which is not the fact.
 
 22O On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 but the heart insensibly acquires an unison with many 
 of the sentiments which imply those propositions, and 
 are wrong unless those propositions be right. It forgets 
 that a different state of feeling, corresponding to a greatly 
 different scheme of pr;nciples, is appointed by the Sove- 
 reign Judge of all things as (with relation to us) an 
 indispensable preparation for entering the eternal paradise ;* 
 and that now, no moral distinctions, however splendid, are 
 excellence in his sight, if not conformed to his declared 
 standard. It slides into a persuasion that, under any 
 economy, to be like one of those heathen examples should 
 be a competent fitness for any world to which good spirits 
 are to be assigned. The devoted admirer contemplates 
 them as the most enviable specimens of his nature, and 
 almost wishes he could have been one of them ; without 
 reflecting that this would probably have been under the 
 condition, among many other circumstances, of adoring 
 Jupiter, Bacchus, or J^sculapius, and yet despising the 
 deities that he adored ; and under the condition of being a 
 stranger to the Son of God, and to all that he has disclosed 
 and accomplished for the felicity of our race. It would even 
 throw an ungracious chill on his ardour, if an evangelical 
 monitor should whisper, " Remember Jesus Christ," and 
 express his regret that these illustrious men could not have 
 been privileged to be elevated into Christians. If precisely 
 the word " elevated " were used, the admonished person 
 might have a feeling, at the instant, as if it were not the 
 right word. But this state of mind is no less in effect than 
 hostility to the gospel, which these feelings are practically 
 pronouncing to be at least unnecessary ; and therefore that 
 noblest part of ancient literature which tends to produce it, 
 is inexpressibly injurious. It had been happy for many 
 cultivated and aspiring minds, if the men whose characters 
 are the moral magnificence of the classical history, had been 
 such atrocious villains, that their names could not have been 
 recollected without execration. Nothing can be more dis- 
 astrous than to be led astray by eminent virtue and intelli- 
 gence, which can give a sense of congeniality with grandeur 
 in the deviation. 
 
 * I hope none of these observations will be understood to insinuate the 
 impossibility of the future happiness of virtuous heathens. But a question 
 on that subject would here be out of place.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 221 
 
 ^Th. . * . . . .- . , , __ - _. _ _ _^ 
 
 It will require a very affecting impression of the Christian 
 truth, a decided conception of the Christian character, and 
 a habit of thinking with sympathetic admiration of the most 
 elevated class of Christians, to preserve the genuine evange- 
 lical spirit amidst this ideal society with personages who 
 might pardonably have been esteemed of the noblest form 
 of human nature, if a revelation had not been received from 
 heaven. Some views of this excellence it were in vain for 
 a Christian to forbid himself to admire ; but he must learn 
 to admire under a discriminative restriction, else the emo- 
 tion involves a desertion of his cause. He must learn to 
 assign these men in thought to another sphere, and to 
 regard them as beings under a different economy with 
 which our relations are dissolved ; as wonderful examples 
 of a certain imperfect kind of moral greatness, formed on a 
 model foreign to true v religion, and which is crumbled to 
 dust and given to the winds. At the same time, he may 
 well, while beholding some of these men, deplore that if so 
 much excellence could be formed on such a model, the 
 sacred system which gives the acknowledged exemplar for 
 his own character should not have far more assimilated him 
 to heaven. So much for the effect of the most interesting 
 part of ancient literature. 
 
 In the next letter I shall make some observations on 
 modern polite literature, in application of the same rule of 
 judgment. Many of them must unavoidably be very analo- 
 gous to those already made ; since the greatest number of 
 the modern fine writers acquired much of the character of 
 their minds from those of the ancient world. Probably 
 indeed the ancients have exerted a much more extensive 
 influence in modern times by means of the modern writers 
 to whom they have communicated their moral spirit, than 
 immediately by their own works. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 To a man who had long observed the influences which 
 tyrannize over human passions and opinions, it would not 
 perhaps have appeared strange, that when the Grand Reno- 
 vator came on earth, and during the succeeding ages, a 
 number of the men, whose superior talents were to carry 
 on the course of literature, and promote and guide the
 
 222 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 progress of the human mind, should reject his religion. 
 These I have placed out of the question, as it is not my 
 object to show the injuries done to Christianity by its avowed 
 enemies. But it might have been expected, that all the 
 intelligent men, from that hour to the end of time, who 
 should really admit the truth of this religion, would perceive 
 the sovereignty and universality of its claims, feel that 
 everything unconsonant with it ought instantly to vanish 
 from the whole system of approved sentiments and the 
 whole school of literature, and to keep as clearly aloof as 
 the Israelites from the boundary that guarded the sanctity 
 of Mount Sinai. It might have been presumed, that all 
 principles which the new dispensation rendered obsolete, 
 or declared or implied to be wrong, should no more be 
 regarded as belonging to the system of principles to be 
 henceforward received and taught, than dead bodies in their 
 graves belong to the race of living men. To retain or recall 
 them would therefore be as offensive to the judgment , as to take 
 up these bodies and place them in the paths of men would be 
 offensive to the senses ; and as absurd as the practice of the 
 ancient Egyptians, who made their embalmed ancestors their 
 companions at their festivals. It might have been supposed, 
 that whatever Christianity had actually substituted, abol- 
 ished, or supplied, would therefore be practically regarded 
 by these believers of it as substituted, abolished, or supplied ; 
 and that they would, in all their writings, be at least as 
 careful of their fidelity in this great article, as an adherent 
 to the Newtonian philosophy would be certain to exclude, 
 from his scientific discourse, all notions that seriously 
 implied the Ptolemaic or the Tychonic system to be true. 
 Necessarily, a number of these literary believers would write 
 on subjects so completely foreign to what comes within the 
 cognizance of Christianity, that a pure neutrality, which 
 should avoid all interference with it, would be all that could 
 be claimed from them in its behalf : though at the same time, 
 one should feel some degree of regret, to see a man of enlarged 
 mind exhausting his ability and his life on these foreign sub- 
 jects, without devoting some short interval to the service of 
 that which he believes to be of far surpassing moment.* 
 
 x -i could not help feeling a degree of this regret in reading lately the 
 memoirs of the admirable and estimable Sir William Jones. Some of 
 his researches in Asia have incidentally served the cause of religion but
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 223 
 
 But the great number who chose to write on subjects that 
 come within the relations of the Christian system, as on the 
 various views of morals, the distinctions and judgments of 
 human character, and the theory of happiness, with almost 
 unavoidable references sometimes to our connexion with 
 Deity, to death, and to a future state, ought to have written 
 every page under the recollection, that these subjects are 
 not left free for careless or arbitrary sentiment since the time 
 that " God has spoken to us by his Son ;" and that the finest 
 composition would be only so much eloquent impiety, if 
 essentially discordant with the dictates of the New Testa- 
 ment. Had this been an habitual and influential recollection 
 with the admired writers of the Christian world, an ingenuous 
 mind might have been conversant alternately with their 
 works and those of evangelists and apostles, without being 
 confounded in the conflict of antipathy between the inspira- 
 tions of genius and the inspirations of heaven. 
 
 I confine my view chiefly to the elegant literature of our 
 own country. And there is a presumption in its favour, 
 independently of actual comparison, that it is much less 
 exceptionable than the belles lettres of the other countries of 
 modern Europe ; for this plain reason, that the extended 
 prevalence of the happy light of the Reformation through 
 almost the whole period of the production of our works of 
 genius and taste, must necessarily, by presenting the religion 
 of Christ in an aspect more true to its genuine dignity, have 
 compelled from the intellectual men who did not deny its 
 truth, and could not be entirely ignorant of its most essential 
 properties, a kind and degree of respect which would not 
 be felt by the same order of men in popish countries, whose 
 
 did he think that nothing more remained possible to be done in sen-ice to 
 Christianity, that his accomplished mind was left at leisure for hymns to 
 the Hindoo gods ? Was not this even a violation of the neutralr 
 an offence, not only against the gospel, but against theism itself? I know 
 what may be said about personification, license of poetry, and so on ; but 
 should not a worshipper of God hold himself under a solemn obligation to 
 abjure ail tolerance of even poetical figures that can seri. in any 
 
 way whatever, to recognize the pagan divinities or abominations, a>; tin- 
 prophets of Jehovah would have called them ? What would Klij.ih have 
 said to such an employment of talents in his time ? It would have availed 
 little to have told him that these divinities were only personifications (with 
 their appropriate representative idols) of objects in nature, of elements, or 
 of abstrac tions. He would have sternly replied, And was not Baal, whose 
 prophets I destroyed, the same ?
 
 224 n ^ ie -Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 belief in Christianity was no more than a deference to the 
 authority of the church, and whose occasional allusions or 
 testimonies to it would recognise it in no higher character 
 than that in which it appears as degraded into a superstition ; 
 so that there would be only a fallacious or equivocal glimmer 
 of Christianity thrown occasionally on their pages of moral 
 sentiment. 
 
 In this assumption in favour of our polite literature, against 
 that of the popish countries, I set out of view, on both sides, 
 that portion which is of directly immoral or infidel tendency; 
 since it is not at all my object to comment on the antichris- 
 tian effect of the palpably vicious part of our literature, but 
 to indicate a certain moral and religious insalubrity in much 
 of that which, in general account, is for the most part 
 tolerably accordant, and in many instances actively subser- 
 vient, to truth and virtue. 
 
 Going over from the vicious and irreligious to the directly 
 opposite quarter, neither do I include in the literature on 
 which I am animadverting any class of authors formally 
 theological, not even the most admired sermon writers in 
 our language ; because it is probable that works specifically 
 theological have not been admitted to constitute more than 
 a small part of that school of thinking and taste, in which 
 the generality of cultivated men have acquired the moral 
 habitude of their minds. That school is composed of poets, 
 moral philosophers, historians, essayists, and you may add 
 the writers of fiction. If the great majority of these authors 
 have injured, and still injure, their pupils in the most impor- 
 tant of all their interests, it is a very serious consideration, 
 both in respect to the accountableness of the authors, and 
 the final effect on their pupils. I maintain that they are 
 guilty of this injury. 
 
 On so wide a field, my dear friend, it would be in vain to 
 attempt making particular references and selections to verify 
 all these remarks. I must appeal for their truth to your 
 own acquaintance with our popular fine writers. 
 
 In the first place, and as a general observation, the alleged 
 injury has been done, to a great extent, by Omission, or 
 rather it should be called Exclusion. I do not refer so 
 much to that unworthy care, maintained through the works 
 of our ingenious authors to avoid formally treating on any 
 topics of an expressly evangelical kind, as to the absence of that
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 225 
 
 Christian tinge and modification, (rendered perceptible partly 
 by a plain recognition occasionally of some great Christian 
 truth, and partly by a solicitous, though it were a tacit, 
 conformity to every principle of the Christian theory,) which 
 should pervade universally the sentiments regarding man 
 as a moral being. Consider how small a portion of the 
 serious subjects of thought can be detached from all con- 
 nexion with the religion of Christ, without narrowing the 
 scope to which he meant it to extend, and repelling its 
 intervention where he required it should intervene. The 
 book which unfolds it, has exaggerated its comprehensive- 
 ness, and the first distinguished Christians had a delusive 
 view of it, if it does not actually claim to mingle its prin- 
 ciples with the whole system of moral ideas, so as to give 
 them a special modification ; as the principle of fire, inter- 
 fused through the various forms and combinations of the 
 elements, contributes essentially to constitute that condition 
 by which they are adapted to their important uses, which 
 condition and adaptation therefore they would lose if that 
 principle were no longer inherent. 
 
 And this claim for the extensive interference of the Chris- 
 tian principles, made as a requirement from authority, 
 appears to be just in virtue of their own nature. For they 
 are not of a nature which necessarily restricts them to a 
 peculiar department, like the principles appropriate to some 
 of the sciences. We should at once perceive the absurdity 
 of a man who should be pretending to adjust all his ideas 
 on general subjects according to the rules of geometry. ;;ml 
 should maintain (if any man could do so preposterous a 
 thing) that geometrical laws ought to be taken as the basis 
 of our reasoning on politics and morals. Or, if this be too 
 extreme a supposition, let anyother class of principles, fc. 
 to moral subjects, be selected, in order to show how absurd 
 is the effect of an attempt to stretch them beyond their pro- 
 per sphere, and force them into some connexion with ideas 
 with which they have no natural relation. Let it be shown 
 how such principles can in no degree modify the subject to 
 which they are attempted to be applied, nor mingle with the 
 reasons concerning it, but refuse to touch it, like magnetism 
 applied to brass. I would then show, on the contrary, that 
 the Christian principles are of a quality which puts them 
 in relation with something in the nature of almost all serious 
 
 Q
 
 226 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 subjects. Their introduction into those subjects therefore 
 is not an arbitrary and forced application of them ; it is 
 merely permitting their cognizance and interfusion in what- 
 ever has some quality of a common nature with them. It 
 must be evident in a moment that the most general doc- 
 trines of Christianity, such as those of a future judgment, 
 and immortality, have a direct relation with everything 
 that can be comprehended within the widest range of moral 
 speculation and sentiment. It will also be found that the 
 more particular doctrines, such as those of the moral pravity 
 of our nature, an atonement made by the sacrifice of Christ, 
 the interference of a special divine influence in renewing 
 the human mind, and conducting it through the discipline 
 for a future state, together with all the inferences, conditions, 
 and motives resulting from them, cannot be admitted and 
 religiously regarded, without combining in numberless 
 instances with a man's ideas on moral subjects. That 
 writer must therefore have retired beyond the limits of an 
 immense field of important and most interesting specula- 
 tions, indeed beyond the limits of all speculation most 
 important to man, who can say that nothing in the religion 
 of Christ bears, in any manner, on any part of his subject, 
 any more than if he were a philosopher of Saturn. 
 
 In thus habitually interfering and combining with moral 
 sentiments and speculations, the Christian principles will 
 greatly modify them. The ideas infused from those prin- 
 ciples to be combined with the moral sentiments, will not 
 appear as simply additional ideas in the train of thought, 
 but as also affecting the character of the rest. A writer 
 whose mind is so possessed with the Christian principles 
 that they continually suggest themselves in connexion with 
 his serious speculations, will unavoidably present a moral 
 subject in a somewhat different aspect, even when he makes 
 no express references to the gospel, from that in which it 
 would be presented by another writer, whose habits of 
 thought were clear of evangelical recollections. Now in 
 every train of thinking in which the recognition of those 
 principles would effect this modification, it ought to be 
 effected ; so that the very last idea within the compass of 
 speculation which would have a different cast as a ray of 
 the gospel falls, or does not fall, upon it, should be faith- 
 fully presented in that light. The Christian principles can-
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 227 
 
 not be true, without determining what shall be true in the 
 mode of representing every subject in which there is any- 
 thing belonging to them by essential relation. Obviously, 
 as far as the gospel can go, and does by such relation with 
 things claim to go, with a modifying action, it cannot be a 
 matter of indifference whether it do go or not ; for nothing 
 on which its application would have this effect, would be 
 equally right as so modified and as not so modified. That 
 which is made precisely correct by this qualified condition, 
 must therefore, separately from it, be incorrect. He who 
 has sent a revelation to declare the theory of sacred truth, 
 and to order the relations of all moral sentiment with that 
 truth, cannot give his sanction at once to this final consti- 
 tution, and to that which refuses to be conformed to it. He 
 therefore disowns that which disowns the religion of Christ. 
 And what he disowns he condemns ; thus placing all moral 
 sentiments in the same predicament with regard to the 
 Christian economy, in which Jesus Christ placed his con- 
 temporaries, " He that is not with me is against me."* 
 The order of ideas dissentient from the Christian system, 
 presumes the existence, or attempts the creation, of some 
 other economy. 
 
 Now, in casting a recollective glance over our elegant 
 literature, as far as I am acquainted with it, I cannot help 
 thinking that much the greater part falls under this con- 
 demnation. After a comparatively small number of names 
 and books are excepted, what are called the British Classics, 
 with the addition of very many works of great literary merit 
 that have not quite attained that rank, present an immense 
 vacancy of Christianized sentiment. The authors do not 
 give signs of having ever deeply studied Christianity, or of 
 having been aware that any such thing is a duty. What- 
 ever has strongly occupied a man's attention, affected his 
 feelings, and filled his mind with ideas, will even uninten- 
 tionally show itself in the train and cast of his discourse ; 
 these writers do not in this manner betray that their 
 faculties have been occupied and interested by the special 
 views unfolded in the evangelic dispensation. Of their 
 coming from the contemplation of these views you discover 
 no notices analogous, for instance, to those which appear 
 
 * Matthew xii. 30.
 
 228 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 in the writing or discourse of a man, who has been passing 
 some time amidst the wonders of Rome or Egypt, and who 
 shows you, by almost unconscious allusions and images 
 occurring in his language even on other subjects, how 
 profoundly he has been interested in beholding triumphal 
 arches, temples, pyramids, and cemeteries. Their minds 
 are not naturalized, if I may so speak, to the images and 
 scenery of the kingdom of Christ, or to that kind of light 
 which the gospel throws on all objects. They are some- 
 what like inhabitants of those towns within the vast salt 
 mines of Poland, who, seeing every object in their region 
 by the light of lamps and candles only, have in their con- 
 versation hardly any expressions describing things in such 
 aspects as never appear but under the lights of heaven. 
 You might observe, the next time that you open one of 
 these works, how far you may read, without meeting with 
 an idea of such a nature, or so expressed, as could not have 
 been unless Jesus Christ had come into the world ; * 
 though the subject in hand may be one of those which he 
 came in a special manner to illuminate, and to enforce on 
 the mind by new and most cogent arguments. And where 
 so little of the light and rectifying influence of these com- 
 munications has been admitted into the habits of thought, 
 there will be very few cordially reverential and animated 
 references to the great Instructor himself. These will 
 perhaps occur not oftener than a traveller in some parts of 
 Africa, or Arabia, comes to a spot of green vegetation in 
 the desert. You might have read a considerable number 
 of volumes, without becoming clearly apprised of the 
 existence of the dispensation, or that such a sublime 
 Minister of it had ever appeared among men. And you 
 might have diligently read, for several years, and through 
 several hundred volumes, without discovering its nature or 
 importance, or that the writers, when alluding to it, 
 acknowledged any peculiar and essential importance as 
 belonging to it. You would only have conjectured it to be 
 a scheme of opinions and discipline which had appeared, in 
 its day, as many others had appeared, and left us, as the 
 
 * Except perhaps in respect to humanity and benevolence, on which 
 subject his instructions have improved the sentiments of infidels them- 
 selves, in spite of the rejection of their divine authority.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 229 
 
 others have left us, to follow our speculations very much 
 in our own way, taking from those schemes, indifferently, 
 any notions that we may approve, and facts or fictions that 
 we may admire. 
 
 You would have supposed that these writers had heard 
 of one Jesus Christ, as they had heard of one Confucius, as 
 a teacher whose instructions are admitted to contain many 
 excellent things, and to whose system a liberal mind will 
 occasionally advert, well pleased to see China, Greece, and 
 Judea, as well as England, producing their philosophers, of 
 various degrees and modes of illumination, for the honour 
 of their respective countries and periods, and for the con- 
 current promotion of human intelligence. All the informa- 
 tion which they would have supplied to your understanding, 
 and all the conjectures to which they might have excited 
 your curiosity, would have left you, if not instructed from 
 other sources, to meet the real religion itself, when at 
 length disclosed to you, as a thing of which you had but 
 slight recognition, further than its name ; as a wonderful 
 novelty. How little you would have expected, from their 
 literary and ethical glimpses, to find the case to be, that 
 the system so insignificantly and carelessly acknowledged 
 in the course of their fine sentiments, is the actual and sole 
 economy by the provisions of which their happiness can be 
 secured, by the laws of which they will be judged, which has 
 declared the relations of man with his Creator, and specified 
 the exclusive ground of acceptance ; which is therefore of 
 infinite consequence to you, and to them, and to all their 
 readers, as fixing the entire theory of the condition and 
 destinies of man on the final principles, to which all theories 
 and sentiments are solemnly required to be " brought into 
 obedience." 
 
 Now, if the fine spirits, who have thus preserved an 
 ample, rich, diversified, crowded province of our literature, 
 clear of evangelical intrusion, are really the chief instructors 
 of persons of taste, and form, from early life, their habits of 
 feeling and thought, the natural result must be a state of 
 mind very uncongenial with the gospel. Views habitually 
 presented to the mind in its most susceptible periods, and 
 during the prolonged course of its improvements, in the 
 varied forms and lights of sublimity and beauty, with every 
 fascination of the taste, ingenuity, and eloquence, which it
 
 230 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 has admired still more each year as its faculties have ex- 
 panded, will have become the settled order of its ideas. And 
 it will feel the same complacency in this intellectual order, 
 that we feel, as inhabitants of the material world, in the 
 great arrangement of nature, in the green blooming earth, 
 and the splendid hemisphere of heaven. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 IT will be proper to specify, somewhat more distinctly, 
 several of the particulars in which I consider the majority 
 of our fine writers as at variance with the tenour of the 
 Christian revelation, and therefore beguiling their readers 
 into a complacency in an order of sentiments, that some- 
 times virtually, and sometimes directly disowns it. 
 
 One thing extremely obvious to remark is, that the good 
 man, the man of virtue, who is necessarily coming often in 
 view in the volumes of these writers, is not a Christian. His 
 character could have been formed though the Christian 
 revelation had never been opened on the earth, or though 
 the New Testament had perished ages since ; and it might 
 have been a fine spectacle, but of no striking peculiarity. 
 It has no such complexion and aspect as would have appeared 
 foreign and unaccountable in the absence of the Christian 
 truth, and have excited wonder what it should bear relation 
 to, and on what model, or in what school, such a conforma- 
 tion of principles and feelings could have taken its consist- 
 ence. Let it only be said, that this man of virtue had 
 been conversant whole years with such oracles and examples 
 as Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Antoninus, and Seneca, select- 
 ing what in any of them appeared the wisest or best, and 
 all would be explained ; there would be nothing to suggest 
 the question, " But if so, with whom has he conversed since, 
 to lose so strangely the proper character of his school, under 
 the broad impression of some other mightier influence ? " 
 
 The good man of our polite literature never talks with 
 affectionate devotion of Christ, as the great High Priest of 
 his profession, as the exalted friend and lord, whose injunc- 
 tions are the laws of his virtues, whose work and sacrifice 
 are the basis of his hopes, whose doctrines guide and awe
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 231 
 
 his reasonings, and whose example is the pattern which he 
 is earnestly aspiring to resemble. The last intellectual and 
 moral designations in the world by which it would occur to 
 you to describe him, would be those by which the apostles 
 so much exulted to be recognised, a disciple, and a servant, 
 of Jesus Christ; nor could you imagine him as at all grati- 
 fied by being so described. You do not hear him express, 
 that he accounts the habitual remembrance of Christ 
 essential to the nature of that excellence which he is culti- 
 vating. He rather seems, with the utmost coolness of 
 choice, adopting virtue as according with the dignity of a 
 rational agent, than to be in the least degree impelled to 
 the high attainment by any relations with the Saviour of 
 the world. 
 
 If you suppose a person of such character to have fallen 
 into the company of St. Paul, you can easily imagine the 
 total want of congeniality. Though both avowedly devoted 
 to truth, to virtue, and perhaps to religion, the difference 
 in the cast of their sentiments would have been as great as 
 that between the physical constitution and habitudes of a 
 native of the country at the equator, and those of one from 
 the arctic regions. Would not that determination of the 
 apostle's mind, by which there was a continual intervention 
 of ideas concerning one great object, in all subjects, places, 
 and times, have appeared to this man of virtue and wisdom 
 inconceivably mystical ? In what manner would he have 
 listened to the emphatical expressions respecting the love 
 of Christ constraining us, living not to ourselves, but to 
 him that died for us and rose again, counting all things but 
 loss for the knowledge of Christ, being ardent to win Christ 
 and be found in him, and trusting that Christ should be 
 magnified in our body, whether by life or by death ? 
 Perhaps St. Paul's energy of temperament, evidently com- 
 bined with a vigorous intellect, might have awed him into 
 silence. But amidst that silence, he must have decided, in 
 order to defend his self-complacency, that the apostle's 
 mind had fallen, notwithstanding its strength, under the 
 dominion of an irrational association ; for he would have 
 been conscious that no such ideas had ever kindled his 
 affections, and that no such affections had ever animated 
 his actions ; and yet lie was indubitably a good man, 
 according to a generally approved standard, and could, in
 
 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 another style, be as eloquent for goodness as St. Paul him- 
 self. He would therefore have assured himself, either that 
 it was not necessary to be a Christian, or that this order of 
 feelings was not necessary to that character. But if the 
 apostle's sagacity had detected the cause of this reserve, 
 and the nature of his associate's reflections, he would most 
 certainly have declared to him with en.phasis that both 
 these things were necessary or that he l.ad been deceived 
 by inspiration ; and he would have parted from this self- 
 complacent man with admonition and compassion. Would 
 St. Paul have been wrong ? But if he would have been 
 right, what becomes of those authors, whose works, 
 whether from neglect or design, tend to satisfy their readers 
 of the perfection of a form of character which he would 
 have pronounced essentially unsound ? 
 
 Again, moral writings are instructions on the subject of 
 happiness. Now the doctrine of this subject is declared in 
 the evangelical testimony : it had been strange indeed if it 
 had not, when the happiness of man was expressly the 
 object of the communication. And what, according to this 
 communication, are the essential requisites to that condition 
 of the mind without which no man ought to be called happy ; 
 without which ignorance or insensibility alone can be 
 content, and folly alone can be cheerful ? A simple reader 
 of the Christian scriptures will reply that they are a 
 change of heart, called conversion, the assurance of the 
 pardon of sin through Jesus Christ, a habit of devotion 
 approaching so near to intercourse with the Supreme 
 Object of devotion that revelation has called it " com- 
 munion with God," a process named sanctification, of im- 
 provement in all internal and external virtue, a confidence 
 in the divine Providence that all things shall work together 
 for good, and a conscious preparation for another life, 
 including a firm hope of eternal felicity. And what else can 
 he reply ? Did the lamp of heaven ever shine more clearly 
 since omnipotence lighted it, than these ideas display them- 
 selves through the Christian revelation ? Is this then 
 absolutely and exclusively the true account of happiness ? 
 It is not that which our accomplished writers in general 
 have chosen to sanction. Your recollection will tell you 
 that they have most certainly presumed to avow, or to 
 insinuate, a doctrine of happiness which implies much of
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 233 
 
 the Christian doctrine to be a needless intruder on our 
 speculations, or an imposition on our belief; and I wonder 
 that this grave fact should so little have alarmed the Chris- 
 tian students of elegant literature. The wide difference 
 between the dictates of the two authorities is too evident to 
 be overlooked ; for the writers in question have very rarely, 
 amidst an immense assemblage of sentiments concerning 
 happiness, made any reference to what the inspired teachers 
 so explicitly declare to be its constituent and vital principles. 
 How many times you might read the sun or the moon to its 
 repose, before you would find an assertion or a recognition, 
 for instance, of a change of the mind being requisite to 
 happiness, in any terms commensurate with the significance 
 which this article seems to bear, in all the varied proposi- 
 tions and notices respecting it in the New Testament ! 
 Some of these writers appear hardly to have admitted or 
 to have recollected even the maxim', that happiness must 
 essentially consist in something so fixed in the mind itself, 
 as to be substantially independent of worldly condition, for 
 their most animated representations of it are merely 
 descriptions of fortunate combinations of external circum- 
 stances, and of the feelings so immediately depending on 
 them, that they will expire the moment that these combi- 
 nations are broken up. The greater number, however, have 
 fully admitted so plain a truth, and have given their illustra- 
 tions of the doctrine of happiness accordingly. And what 
 appears in these illustrations as the brightest image of 
 happiness? It is, probably, that of a man feeling an 
 elevated complacency in his own excellence, a proud con- 
 sciousness of rectitude ; privileged with freedom of thought, 
 and extended views, cleared from the mists of prejudice and 
 superstition ; displaying the generosity of his nature in the 
 exercise of beneficence, without feeling, however, any grate- 
 ful incitement from remembrance of the transcendent 
 generosity of the Son of Man ; maintaining, in respect to 
 the events and bustle of the surrounding scene, a dignified 
 indifference, which can let the world go its own way, un- 
 disturbed by its disordered course ; temperately enjoying 
 whatever go'od grows on his portion of the field of life, and 
 living in a cool resignation to fate, without any strong 
 expressions of a specific hope, or even solicitude, with regard 
 to the termination of life and to all futurity. Now, notwith-
 
 234 O' 1 ^ ie A version of Men of Taste 
 
 standing a partial coincidence of this description with the 
 Christian theory of happiness," it is evident that on the 
 whole the two modes are so different that no man can 
 realize them both. The consequence is clear; the natural 
 effect of incompetent and fallacious schemes, prepossessing 
 the mind by every grace and force of genius, will be an 
 aversion to the Christian scheme ; which will be seen to 
 place happiness in elements and relations much less flatter- 
 ing to what will be called a noble pride ; to make it consist 
 in something of which it were a vain presumption for 
 the man to fancy that himself can be the sovereign 
 creator. 
 
 It is, again, a prominent characteristic of the Christian 
 revelatiop, that having declared this life to be but the in- 
 troduction to another, it systematically preserves the 
 recollection of this great truth through every representation 
 of every subject ; so that the reader is not allowed to con- 
 template any of the interests of life in a view which detaches 
 them from the grand object and conditions of life itself. An 
 apostle could not address his friends on the most common 
 concerns, for the length of a page, without the final refer- 
 ences. He is like a person whose eye, while he is conversing 
 .with you about an object, or a succession of objects, 
 immediately near, should glance every moment toward some 
 great spectacle appearing on the distant horizon. He 
 seems to talk to his friends in somewhat of that manner of 
 expression with which you can imagine that Elijah spoke, 
 if he remarked to his companion any circumstance in the 
 journey from Bethel to Jericho, and from Jericho to the 
 Jordan ; a manner betraying the sublime anticipation which 
 was pressing on his thoughts. The correct consequence of 
 conversing with our Lord and his apostles would be, that 
 the thought of immortality should become almost as 
 habitually present and familiarized to the mind as the 
 countenance of a domestic friend ; that it should be the 
 grand test of the value of all pursuits, friendships, and 
 
 * No one can be so absurd as to represent the notions which pervade 
 the works of polite literature as totally, and at all points, opposite to the 
 principles of Christianity ; what I am asserting is, that in some important 
 points they are substantially and essentially different, and that in others they 
 disown the Christian modification.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 235 
 
 speculations ; and that it should mingle a certain noble- 
 ness with everything which it permitted to occupy our time. 
 Now, how far will the discipline of modern polite literature 
 coincide ? 
 
 I should be pleased to hear a student of that literature 
 seriously profess that he is often and impressively reminded 
 of futurity ; and to have it shown that ideas relating to this 
 great subject are presented in sufficient number, and in a 
 proper manner, to produce an effect which should form a 
 respectable proportion of the whole effect produced by these 
 authors on susceptible minds. But there is no ground for 
 expecting this satisfaction. 
 
 It is true that the idea of immortality is so exceedingly 
 grand, that many writers of genius who have felt but little 
 genuine interest in religion, have been led by their percep- 
 tion of what is sublime to introduce an allusion which is one 
 of the most powerful means of elevating the imagination : 
 and, in point of energy and splendour, their language has 
 been worthy of the subject. In these instances, however, 
 it is seldom found that the idea is presented in that light 
 which, while displaying it prominent in its individual 
 grandeur, shows also its extensive necessary connexion with 
 other ideas : it appears somewhat like a majestic tower, 
 which a traveller in some countries may find standing in a 
 solitary scene, no longer surrounded by the great assem- 
 blage of buildings, the ample city, of which it was raised to 
 be the centre, the strength, and the ornament. Immortality 
 has been had recourse to in one page of an ingenious work 
 as a single topic of sublimity, in the same manner as a 
 magnificent phenomenon, or a brilliant achievement, has 
 been described in another. The author's object might 
 rather seem to have been to supply an occasional gratifica- 
 tion to taste, than to reduce the mind and all its feelings 
 under the dominion of a grand practical principle. 
 
 It is true also, that a graver class of fine writers, who have 
 expressed considerable respect for religion and for Chris- 
 tianity, and who, though not writing systematically on morals, 
 have inculcated high moral principles, have made references 
 to a future state as the hope and sanction of virtue. But these 
 references are made less frequently, and with less enforce- 
 ment and emphasis, than the connexion between our present 
 conduct and a future life must be acknowledged to claim.
 
 236 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 The manner in which they are made seems to betray either 
 a deficiency of interest in the great subject, or a pusillani- 
 mous anxiety not to offend those readers who would think it 
 too directly religious. It is sometimes adverted to as if 
 rather from a compelling sense that if there is a future state, 
 moral speculation must be defective, even to a degree of 
 absurdity, without some allusions to it, than from feeling a 
 profound delight in the contemplation. When the idea of 
 another life is introduced to aggravate the force of moral 
 principles, and the authority of conscience, it is done so as 
 to appear like a somewhat reluctant acknowledgment of the 
 deficiency of inferior sanctions. The consideration comes 
 and vanishes in transient light, afterthe writer has eloquently 
 expatiated on every circumstance by which the present life 
 can supply motives to goodness. In some instances, a 
 watchful reader will also perceive what appears too much 
 like care to divest the idea, when it must be introduced, of 
 all direct references to that sacred Person who first completely 
 opened the prospect of immortality, or to some of those other 
 doctrines which he taught in immediate connexion with 
 this great truth. There seems reason to suspect the writer 
 of being pleased that, though it is indeed to the gospel alone 
 that we owe the positive assurance of immortality, yet it 
 was a subject so much in the conjectures and speculation of 
 the heathen sages, that he may mention it without therefore 
 so expressly recognising the gospel, as he must in the case 
 of introducing some truth of which not only the evidence, 
 but even the first explicit conception, was communicated by 
 that dispensation. 
 
 Taking this defective kind of acknowledgment of a future 
 state, together with that entire oblivion of the subject which 
 prevails through an ample portion of elegant literature, I 
 think there is no hazard in saying, that a reader who is 
 satisfied without any other instructions, will learn almost 
 every lesson sooner than the necessity of habitually living 
 for eternity. Many of these writers seem to take as much 
 care to guard against the inroad of ideas from that solemn 
 quarter, as the inhabitants of Holland do against the irrup- 
 tion of the sea ; and their writings do really form a kind of 
 moral dyke against the invasion from the other world. They 
 do not instruct a man to act, to enjoy, and to suffer, as a 
 being that may by to-morrow have finally abandoned this
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 237 
 
 orb : everything is done to beguile the feeling of his being 
 a 'I stranger and a pilgrim on the earth." The relation 
 which our nature bears to the circumstances of the present 
 state, and which individuals bear to one another, is mainly 
 the ground on which their considerations of duty proceed 
 and conclude. And their schemes of happiness, though 
 formed for beings at once immortal and departing, include 
 little which avowedly relates to that world to which they are 
 removing, nor reach beyond the period at which they will 
 properly but begin to live. They endeavour to raise the 
 groves of an earthly paradise, to shade from sight that vista 
 which opens to the distance of eternity. 
 
 Another article in which the anti-christian tendency of a 
 great part of our productions of taste and genius is apparent 
 is, the kind of consolation administered to distress, old age, 
 and death. Things of a mournful kind make so large a 
 portion of the lot of humanity, that it is impossible for 
 writers who take human life and feelings for their subject 
 to avoid, (nor indeed have they endeavoured to avoid,) con- 
 templating man in those conditions in which he needs 
 very benignant aid to save him from despair. And here, 
 if any where, we may justly require an absolute coincidence 
 of all moral instructions with the religion of Christ : since 
 consolation is eminently its distinction and its design ; 
 since a being in distress has peculiarly a right not to be 
 trifled with by the application of unadapted expedients ; 
 and since insufficient consolations are but to mock it, and 
 deceptive ones are to betray. It should then be clearly 
 ascertained by the moralist, and never forgotten, what are 
 the consolations provided by this religion, and under what 
 condition they are offered. 
 
 Christianity offers even to the irreligious, who relent 
 amidst their sufferings, the alleviation springing from 
 inestimable promises made to penitence : any other system, 
 which should attempt to console them, simply as suffering, 
 and without any reference to the moral and religious state 
 of their minds, would be mischievous, if it were not 
 inefficacious. What are the principal sources of consola- 
 tion to the pious, is immediately apparent. The subjects 
 of adversity and sorrow are assured that God exercises his 
 paternal wisdom and kindness in afflicting his children : 
 that this necessary discipline is to refine and exalt them by
 
 238 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 making them " partakers of his holiness ; " that he merci- 
 fully regards their weakness and pains, and will not let 
 them suffer beyond what they shall be able to bear ; that 
 their great Leader has suffered for them more than they 
 can suffer, and compassionately sympathizes with them 
 still ; that this short life was far less designed to confer a 
 present happiness, than to mature them to a fitness for 
 being happy for ever ; and that patient constancy shall 
 receive a resplendent crown. An aged Christian is soothed 
 by the assurance that his Almighty Friend will not despise 
 the enfeebled exertions, nor desert the oppressed and faint- 
 ing weakness, of the last stage of his servant's life. When 
 advancing into the shade of death itself, he is animated by 
 the faith that the great sacrifice has taken the malignity of 
 death away ; and that the divine presence will attend the 
 dark steps of this last and lonely enterprise, and show the 
 dying traveller and combatant that even this melancholy 
 gloom is to him the utmost limit of the dominion of evil, 
 the very confine of paradise, the immediate access to the 
 region of eternal life. 
 
 Now, in the greater number of the works under review, 
 what are the modes of consolation which sensibility, 
 reason, and eloquence, have most generally exerted them- 
 selves to apply to the mournful circumstances of life, and 
 to its close ? You will readily recollect such as these : a 
 man is suffering well, it is the common destiny, every one 
 suffers sometimes, and some much more than he ; it is 
 well it is no worse. If he is unhappy now, he has been 
 happy, and he could not expect to be so invariably. It 
 were folly to complain that his nature was constituted 
 capable of suffering, or placed in a world where it is ex- 
 posed to the infliction. If it were not capable of pain, it 
 would not be capable of pleasure. Would he be willing to 
 lose his being, to escape these ills ? Or would he consent, 
 if such a thing were possible, to be any person else ? The 
 sympathy of each kind relation and friend will not be want- 
 ing. His condition may probably change for the better; 
 there is hope in every situation ; and meanwhile, it is 
 an opportunity for displaying manly fortitude. A strong 
 mind can proudly triumph over the oppression of 
 pain, the vexations of disappointment, and the tyranny of 
 fortune. If the cause of distress is some irreparable
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 239 
 
 deprivation, it will be softened by the lenient hand of 
 time.* 
 
 The lingering months of an aged man are soothed almost, 
 it is pretended, into cheerfulness, by the respectful attention 
 of his neighbours ; by the worldly prosperity and dutiful 
 regard of the family he has brought up ; by the innocent 
 gaiety and amusing activity of their children; and by the 
 consideration of his fair character in society. If he is a 
 man of thought, he has the added advantage of some 
 philosophical considerations : the cares and passions of his 
 former life are calmed into a wise tranquillity ; he thinks he 
 has had a competent share of life ; it is as proper and 
 necessary for mankind to have their " exits," as their 
 " entrances ; " and his business will now be to make 
 a " well-graced " retreat from the stage, like a man 
 that has properly acted his part, and may retire with 
 applause. 
 
 'As to the means of sustaining the spirit in death, the 
 general voice of these authors asserts the chief and only 
 all-sufficient one to be the recollection of a well-spent life. 
 Some minor repellents of fear are added ; as for instance, 
 that death is in fact a far less tremendous thing than that 
 dire form of it by which imagination and superstition are 
 haunted ; that the sufferings in death are less than men 
 often endure in the course of life ; that it is only like one 
 of those transformations with which the world of nature 
 abounds ; and that it is easy to conceive, and reasonable to 
 expect, a more commodious vehicle and habitation. It 
 would seem almost unavoidable to glance a thought toward 
 what revelation has signified to us of " the house not made 
 with hands," of the " better country, that is, the heavenly." 
 But the greater number of the writers of taste advert to the 
 scene beyond this world with apparent reluctance, unless it 
 can be done, on the one hand, in the manner of pure 
 philosophical conjecture, or on the other, under the form of 
 
 * Can it be necessary to notice here again, that every system of moral 
 sentiments must inevitably contain some principles not i!i 
 Christianity; with whose dictates various particulars in this as 
 consolations are not inconsistent if held in a subordinate r.u>'. 
 enumeration taken altogether, and exclusively of the grand Clniti..n prin- 
 ciples, forms a scheme of consolation essentially different from ti 
 beneficently displayed in the religion of Christ.
 
 240 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 images, bearing some analogy to the visions of classical 
 poetry.* 
 
 The arguments for resignation to death are not so much 
 drawn from future scenes, as from a consideration of the 
 evils of the present life; the necessity of yielding to a general 
 and irreversible law ; the dignity of submittingwith that calm- 
 ness which conscious virtue is entitled to feel ; and the impro- 
 bability (as these writers sometimes intimate) that any 
 formidable evils are to be apprehended after death, except by 
 a few of the very worst of the human race. Those arguments 
 are in general rather aimed to quiet fear than to animate 
 hope. The pleaders of them seem more concerned to 
 convey the dying man in peace and silence out of the 
 world, than to conduct him to the celestial felicity. Let us 
 but see him embarked on his unknown voyage in fair wea- 
 ther, and we are not accountable for what he may meet, or 
 _ whither he may be carried when he is gone out of sight. 
 They seldom present a lively view of the distant happiness, 
 especially in any of those images in which the Christian 
 revelation has intimated its nature. In which of these 
 books, and by which of the real or fictitious characters 
 whose last hours and thoughts they sometimes display, will 
 you find, in terms or in spirit, the apostolic sentiments 
 adopted, " To depart and be with Christ is far better ; " f 
 " Willing rather to be absent from the body, and present 
 with the Lord ? " J The very existence of that sacred 
 testimony which has given the only genuine consolations in 
 death, and the only just conceptions of what is beyond it, 
 seems to be scarcely recollected ; while the ingenious 
 moralists are searching the exhausted common-places of the 
 stoic philosophy, or citing the treacherous maxims of a 
 religion perverted to accordance with the corrupt wishes of 
 mankind, or even recollecting the lively sayings of the few 
 
 * I am very far from disliking philosophical speculation, or daring flights 
 of fancy, on this high subject. On the contrary, it appears to me strange 
 that any one firmly holding the belief of a life to come, should not have 
 both the intellectual faculty and the imagination excited to the utmost effort 
 in the trial, however unavailing, to give some outlines of definite form to the 
 unseen realities. What I mean to censure in the mode of referring to 
 another life, is, the care to avoid any direct resemblance or recognition of 
 the ideas which the New Testament has given to guide, in some small, very 
 small degree, our conjectures. 
 
 t Phil. i. 23. J 2 Corinthians v. 8.
 
 to Evangelical Religion* 241 
 
 whose wit has expired only in the same moment with life, 
 to fortify the pensive spirit for its last removal. " Is it not 
 because there is not a God in Israel, that ye have sent to 
 inquire of Baalzebub the God of Ekron ? " * 
 
 Another order of sentiments concerning death, of a char- 
 acter too bold to be called consolations, has been represented 
 as animating one class of human beings. In remarking on 
 Lucan, I noticed that desire of death which has appeared 
 in the expressions of great minds, sometimes while merely 
 indulging solemn reflections when no danger or calamity 
 immediately threatened, but often in the conscious approach 
 towards a fatal catastrophe. Many writers of later times 
 have exerted their whole strength, and have even excelled 
 themselves, in representing the high sentiments in which 
 this desire has displayed itself; genius has found its very 
 gold mine in this field. If this grandeur of sentiment had 
 been in the genuine spirit to animate piety while it exalts 
 the passions, some of the poets would have ranked among 
 our greatest benefactors. Powerful genius, aiding to inspire 
 a Christian triumph in the prospect of death, might be 
 revered as a prophet, might be almost loved as a benignant 
 angel. Few men's emotions can have approached nearer 
 to enthusiasm than mine, in reading the sentiments made 
 to be uttered by sages and reflective heroes in this prospect. 
 I have felt these passages as the last and mightiest of the 
 enchantments of poetry, of power to inspire for a little while 
 a contempt of all ordinary interests, of the world which we 
 inhabit, and of life itself. While the enthusiast is elated 
 with such an emotion, nothing mayappear so captivating as 
 some noble occasion of dying; such an occasion as that 
 when Socrates died for virtue; or that when Brutus at 
 Philippi fell with falling liberty-! Poetry has delighted to 
 display personages of this high order, in the same fatal 
 predicament ; and the situation of such men has appeared 
 
 * 2 Kings i. 3. 
 
 t Poetry will not easily exceed many of the expressions which mere 
 history has recorded. I should little admire the capability of feeling, or 
 greatly admire the Christian temper, of the man who could without emotion 
 read, for instance, the short observations of Brutus to his friend, (in con- 
 templation even of a self-inflicted death,) on the eve of the battle which 
 extinguished all hope of freedom ; " We slir.U either be victorious, or pass 
 away beyond the power of those that are so. We shall deliver our country 
 by victory, or ourselves by death." 
 
 R
 
 242 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 inexpressibly enviable, by means of those sublime sentiments 
 by which they illuminated the gloom of death. The reader 
 has loved to surround himself in imagination with that gloom, 
 for the sake of irradiating it with that sublimity. All other 
 greatness has been for a while eclipsed by the greatness of 
 thought displayed by these contemplative and magnanimous 
 spirits, though untaught by religion, when advancing to meet 
 their fate. 
 
 But the Christian faith recalls the mind from this enchant- 
 ment, to recollect that the Christian spirit in dying can be 
 the only right and noble one, and to consider whether these 
 examples be not exceedingly different. Have not the most 
 enlightened and devout Christians, whether they have 
 languished in their chambers, or passed through the fire of 
 martyrdom, manifested their elevation of mind in another 
 strain of eloquence ? The examples of greatness in death, 
 which poetry has exhibited, generally want all those senti- 
 ments respecting the pardon of sin, and a Mediator who has 
 accomplished and confers the deliverance, and often the 
 explicit idea of meeting the Judge, with which a Christian 
 contemplates his approaching end. Their expressions of 
 intrepidity and exultation have no analogy with the language 
 of an incomparable saint and hero, " O death, where is thy 
 sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? Thanks be to God, 
 who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."* 
 The kind of self-authorized confidence of taking possession 
 of some other state of being, as monarchs would talk of a 
 distant part of their empire which they were going to enter ; 
 the proud apostrophes to the immortals, to prepare for the 
 great and rival spirit that is coming ; their manner of con- 
 signing to its fate a good but falling cause, which will sink 
 when they are gone, there not being virtue enough on earth 
 to support, or in heaven to vindicate it ; their welcoming the 
 approach of death in an exultation of lofty and bitter scorn 
 of a hated world and a despicable race are not the humility, 
 nor the benevolence, nor the reverential submission to the 
 Supreme Governor, with which it is in the proper character 
 of a Christian to die. If a Christian will partly unite with 
 these high spirits in being weary of a world of dust and 
 trifles, in defying the pains of death, in panting for an 
 
 * I Corinthians xv. 55, 57.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 243 
 
 unbounded liberty, it will be at the same time with a most 
 solemn commitment of himself to the divine mercy, which 
 they forget, or were never instructed, to implore. And as 
 to the vision of the other world, you will observe a great 
 difference between the language of sublime poetry and that 
 of revelation, in respect to the nature of the sentiments and 
 triumphs of that world, and still more perhaps in respect to 
 the associates with whom the departing spirit expects soon 
 to mingle. The dying magnanimity of poetry anticipates 
 high converse with the souls of heroes, and patriots, and 
 perhaps philosophers ; a Christian feels himself going, (I 
 may accommodate the passage,) to " an innumerable com- 
 pany of angels, to the general assembly and church of the 
 first-born, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just 
 men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new 
 covenant." : - 
 
 In defence of those who have thus given attractions to 
 the image of death by means foreign and opposite to the 
 evangelical principles, it may be said, that many of the 
 personages whom their scenes exhibit in the contemplation 
 of death, or in the approach to it, were necessarily, from the 
 age or country in which they lived or are feigned to have 
 lived, unacquainted with Christianity ; and that therefore it 
 would have been absurd to represent them as animated by 
 Christian sentiments. Certainly. But then I ask, on what 
 ground men of genius will justify themselves for choosing, 
 with a view to the improvement of the heart, as they will 
 profess, examples of which they cannot preserve the 
 consistency, without making them pernicious ? Where is 
 the conscience of that man, who is anxiously careful that 
 every sentiment expressed by the historical or fictitious 
 personage, in the fatal season, should be harmonious with 
 every principle of the character, but feels not the smallest 
 concern about the consistency of selecting or creating the 
 character itself, with his conviction of the absolute authority 
 of the religion of Christ ? In glancing forward, he knows 
 that his favourite is to die, and that he cannot die as a Chris- 
 tian ; yet he is to depart in a splendour of moral dignity. 
 Would it not therefore be a dictate of conscience to warn 
 his readers, that he expects to display the exit with a 
 
 * Hebrews xii. 22-2}. 
 
 R 2
 
 244 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 commanding sublimity, of which the natural effect is to be, 
 a complacency, or an elation, in the idea of such a death as 
 a Christian cannot die. But how would he feel while giving 
 such a warning? Might it not be said to him, And are you 
 then willing to die otherwise than as a Christian ? If you 
 are, you virtually pronounce Christianity an imposture, and, 
 to be consistent, should avow the rejection. If you are not, 
 how can you endeavour to seduce your readers into an 
 enthusiastic admiration of such a death as you wish may 
 now be yours ? How can you endeavour to infect your 
 reader with sentiments which you could not hear him utter 
 in his last hours without alarm for the state of his mind ? Is 
 it necessary to the pathos and sublimity of poetry, to intro- 
 duce characters which cannot be justly represented without 
 falsifying our view of the most serious of all subjects ? If 
 this be necessary, it would be better that poetry with all its 
 charms were exploded, than that the revelation of God should 
 be frustrated in the great object and demand of fixing its 
 own ideas of death, clearly and alone, in the minds of beings 
 whose manner of preparing for it is of infinite consequence. 
 But there is no such dilemma; since many examples could 
 be found, and an unlimited number may with rational 
 probability be imagined, of Christian greatness in death. 
 Are not then the preference of examples adverse to Chris- 
 tianity, and that temper of the poet's mind which is in such 
 full sympathy with them, empowering him to personate them 
 with such entireness and animation, and to express for them 
 all the appropriate feelings, a worse kind of infidelity, as it 
 is far more injurious, than that of the cold dealer in cavils 
 and quibbles against the gospel ? What is the Christian 
 belief of that poet worth, who would not on reflection feel 
 self-reproach for the affecting scene, which may for a while 
 have betrayed some of his readers to regard it as a more 
 dignified thing to depart in the character of Socrates or Cato, 
 than of St. John or a Christian martyr ? What would have 
 been thought of the pupil of an apostle, who, after hearing 
 his master describe the spirit of a Christian's departure from 
 the world, in language which he believed to be of conclusive 
 authority, and which asserted or clearly implied that this 
 alone was greatness in death, should have taken the first 
 occasion to expatiate with enthusiasm on the closing scene 
 of a philosopher, or on the exit of a stern hero, that, acknow-
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 245 
 
 lodging within the visible creation no object for either con- 
 fidence or fear, departed with the aspect of a being who 
 should be going to summon his gods to judgment for the 
 misfortunes of his life ? And how will these careless men 
 of genius give their account to the Judge of the world, for 
 having virtually taught many aspiring minds that, notwith- 
 standing his first coming was to conquer for man the king 
 of terrors, there needs no recollection of him, in order to 
 look toward death with noble defiance or sublime desire ? 
 
 Some of their dying personages are so consciously unin- 
 formed of the realities of the invisible state, that the majestic 
 sentiments which they disclose on the verge of life, can only 
 throwa faintglimmeringon unfathomable darkness ; but some 
 anticipate the other world, as I have already observed, in 
 very defined images. I recollect one of them, after some 
 just reflections on the vanity and wretchedness of life, thus 
 expressing his complacency in view of the great deliverer : 
 
 " Death joins us to the great majority ; 
 'Tis to be born to Platos and to Caesars ; 
 'Tis to be great for ever. 
 'Tis pleasure, 'tis ambition then, to die." 
 
 Another, an illustrious female, in a tragedy which I lately 
 read, welcomes death with the following sentiments : 
 
 " Oh 'tis wondrous well ! 
 
 Ye gods of death, that rule the Stygian gloom ! 
 
 Ye who have greatly died, I come ! I come ! 
 
 The hand of Rome can never touch me more ; 
 
 Hail ! period freedom, hail ! " 
 " My free spirit should ere now have join'd 
 
 That great assembly, those devoted shades, 
 
 Who scorn'd to live till liberty was lost! 
 
 But, ere their country fell, abhorr'd the light. 
 " Shift not thy colour at the sound of death ; 
 
 It is to me perfection, glory, triumph. 
 
 Nay, fondly would I choose it, though persuaded 
 
 It were a long dark night without a morning ; 
 
 To bondage far prefer it, since it i> 
 
 Deliverance from a world where Romans ru.i-. 
 
 1 Then let us spread 
 
 A bold exalted wing, and the last voice we hear, 
 Be that of wonder and applause." 
 And is the sacred moment then so near ? 
 The moment when yon sun, those heavens thtt c.mh,
 
 246 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 Hateful to me, polluted by the Romans, 
 And all the busy slavish race of men, 
 Shall sink at once, and straight another state 
 Rise on a sudden round ? 
 Oh to be there ! " * 
 
 You will recollect to have read many equally improper to 
 engage a Christian's full sympathy, and therefore, convicting 
 the poetic genius which produced them of treachery to the 
 true faith, in such efforts to seduce our feelings. It is a 
 pernicious circumstance in passages of this strain, that the 
 special thoughts and images which are alien from the spirit 
 of Christianity, are implicated with those general sentiments 
 of anticipation, those emotions aspiring to greatness and 
 felicity in indefinite terms, which a dying Christian may 
 energetically express ; so that through the animated sym- 
 pathy with the general, and as it were elementary sentiments, 
 the reader's mind is beguiled into complacency in the more 
 special ones of an antichristian spirit. 
 
 Sometimes even very bad men are made to display such 
 dignity in death, as at once to impart an attraction to their 
 false sentiments, and to mitigate the horror of their crimes. 
 I recollect the interest with which I read many years since, 
 in Dr. Young's Busiris,f the proud magnanimous speech at 
 the end of which the tyrant dies : these are some of the 
 lines : 
 
 " I thank these wounds, these raging pains, which promise 
 An interview with equals soon elsewhere. 
 Great Jove, I come ! " 
 
 Even the detestable Zanga,J in the prospect of death, while 
 assured by his conscience that " to receive him hell blows 
 all her fires," rises to a certain imposing greatness, by 
 heroic courage tempered to a kind of moral dignity, through 
 the relenting of revenge and the ingenuous manifestation of 
 sentiments of justice. To create an occasion of thus com- 
 
 * This is not perhaps one of the best specimens : it is the last that has 
 come under my notice. I am certain of having read many, but have not 
 recollection enough to know where to find them. 
 
 t Of Young's tragedy of Busiris Dr. Johnson remarks, " In Busiris there 
 are the greatest ebullitions of imagination ; but the pride of Busiris is such 
 as no other man can have, and the whole is too remote from known life to 
 raise either grief, terrpr, or indignation." 
 
 See Young's tragedy, " The Revenge," brought out in 1721, at Drury 
 Lane.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 
 
 247 
 
 pelling us to do homage to the dying magnanimity of wicked 
 men, is unfaithfulness to the religion which condemns such 
 magnanimity as madness. It is no justification to say that 
 such instances have been known, and therefore such repre- 
 sentations are only vividly reflected images of reality ; for 
 if the laws of criticism do not enjoin, in works of genius, a 
 careful adaptation of all examples and sentiments to the 
 purest moral purpose, as a far higher duty than the study of 
 resemblance to the actual world, the laws of piety most 
 certainly do. Let the men who have so much literary 
 conscience about this verisimilitude, content themselves with 
 the office of mere historians, and then they may relate with- 
 out guilt, provided the relation be simple and unvarnished, 
 all the facts, and speeches of depraved greatness within the 
 memory of the world. But when they choose the higher 
 office of inventing and combining, they are accountable for 
 the consequences. They create a new person, and, in sending 
 him into society, they can choose whether his example shall 
 tend to improve or pervert the minds that will be compelled 
 to admire him. 
 
 It is an immense transition from such instances as those 
 I have been remarking on, to Rousseau's celebrated de- 
 scription of the death of his Eloisa, which would have been 
 much more properly noticed in an earlier page. It is long 
 since I read that scene, one of the most striking specimens 
 probably of original conception and interesting sentiment 
 that ever appeared ; but though the representation is so 
 extended as to include everything which the author thought 
 needful to make it perfect, there is no explicit reference to 
 the peculiarly evangelical causes of complacency in death. 
 Yet the representation is so admirable, that the serious 
 reader is tempted to suspect even his own mind of fanaticism , 
 while he is expressing to his friends the wish that they, and 
 that himself, may be animated, in the last day of life, by a 
 class of ideas which that eloquent writer would have been 
 ashamed to introduce. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 DOES it not appear to you, my dear friend, that an approving 
 reader of the generality of our ingenious authors will acquire
 
 248 On the A version of Men of Taste 
 
 an opinion of the moral condition of our species very differ- 
 ent from that which is dictated by the divine declarations ? 
 The Governor of all intelligent creatures has spoken of this 
 nation or family of them, as exceedingly remote from con- 
 formity to that standard of perfection which alone can ever 
 be his rule of judgment. And this is pronounced not only 
 of vicious individuals, who are readily given up to condem- 
 nation by those who entertain the most partial or the 
 proudest estimate of human nature, but of the constitutional 
 quality of that nature itself. The moral part of the Consti- 
 tution of man is represented as placing him immensely 
 below that rank of dignity and happiness to which, by his 
 intellectual powers, and his privilege of being immortal, he 
 would otherwise have seemed adapted to belong. The 
 descriptions of the human condition are such as if the 
 nature had, by a dreadful convulsion, been separated off at 
 each side from a pure and happy system of the creation, 
 and had fallen down an immeasurable depth, into deprava- 
 tion and misery. In this state man is represented as loving, 
 and therefore practically choosing, the evils which subject 
 him to the condemnation of God ; and it is affirmed that no 
 expedient, but that very extraordinary one which Christianity 
 has revealed, can change this condition, and avert this con- 
 demnation with its formidable consequences. 
 
 Every attempt to explain the wisdom and the exact 
 ultimate intention of the Supreme Being, in constituting 
 a nature subject in so fatal a degree to moral evil, will 
 fail. But even if a new revelation were given to turn this 
 dark inquiry into noonday, it wovJ.d make no difference in 
 the actual state of things. An extension of knowledge could 
 not reverse the fact, that the human nature has displayed, 
 through every age, the most aggravated proofs of being in a 
 deplorable and hateful condition, whatever were the reasons 
 for givinga moral agent a constitution which it was foreseen 
 would soon be found in this condition. Perhaps, if there 
 were a mind expanded to a comprehension so far beyond all 
 other created intelligences, that it could survey the general 
 order of a great portion of the universe, and look into distant 
 ages, it might understand in what manner the melancholy 
 fact could operate to the perfection of the vast system ; and 
 according to what principles, and in reference to what ends, 
 all that has taken place within the empire of the Eternal
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 249 
 
 Monarch is right. But in this contemplation of the whole, 
 it would also take account of the separate condition of each 
 part ; it would perceive that this human world, whatever 
 are its relations to the universe, has its own distinct economy 
 of interests, and stands in its own relation and accountable- 
 ness to the righteous Governor ; and that, regarded in this 
 exclusive view, it is an awful spectacle. Now, to this ex- 
 clusive sphere of our own condition and interests revelation 
 confines our attention ; and pours contempt, though not more 
 than experience pours, on all presumption to reason on those 
 grand unknown principles according to which the Almighty 
 disposes the universe ; all our estimates therefore of the state 
 and relations of man must take the subject on this insulated 
 ground. Considering man in this view, the sacred oracles 
 have represented him as a more melancholy object than 
 Nineveh or Babylon in ruins ; and an infinite aggregate of 
 obvious facts confirms the doctrine. This doctrine then is 
 absolute authority in our speculations on human nature. 
 But to this authority the writers in question seem to pay, 
 and to teach their readers to pay, but little respect. And 
 unless those readers are pre-occupied by the grave con- 
 victions of religious truth, rendered still more grave by 
 painful reflection on themselves, and by observation on 
 mankind; or unless they are capable of enjoying a mali- 
 cious or misanthropic pleasure, like Mandeville and Swift, 
 in detecting and exposing the degradation of our nature, 
 it is not wonderful that they should be prompt to entertain 
 the sentiments which insinuate a much more flattering 
 estimate. Our elegant and amusing moralists no doubt 
 copiously describe and censure the follies and vices of man- 
 kind ; but many of these, they maintain, are accidental to 
 the human character, rather than a disclosure of intrinsic 
 qualities. Others do indeed springradically from the nature ; 
 but they are only the wild weeds of a virtuous soil. Man is 
 still a very dignified and noblebeing, with strong dispositions 
 to all excellence, holding a proud eminence in the ranks of 
 existence, and (if such a Being is adverted to) high in the 
 favour of his Creator. The measure of virtue in the world 
 vastly exceeds that of depravity ; we should not indulge a 
 fanatical rigour in our judgments of mankind ; nor be always 
 reverting to an ideal perfection ; nor accustom ourselves to 
 contemplate the Almighty always in the dark majesty of
 
 250 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 justice. None of their speculations seem to acknowledge 
 the gloomy fact which the New Testament so often asserts 
 or implies, that all men are "by nature children of wrath." 
 
 It is quite of course that among sentiments of this order, 
 the idea of the redemption by Jesus Christ (if any allusion 
 to it should occur,) can but appear with equivocal import, and 
 " shorn of the beams" which constitute the peculiar light of 
 his own revelation. While man is not considered as lost, 
 the mind cannot do justice to the expedient, or to "the only 
 name under heaven," by which he can be redeemed.* Ac- 
 cordingly the gift of Jesus Christ does not appear to be 
 habitually recollected as the most illustrious instance of the 
 beneficence of God that has come within human knowledge, 
 and as the fact which has contributed more than all others 
 to relieve the oppressive awfulness of the mystery in which 
 our world is enveloped. No thankful joy seems to awake at 
 the thought of so mighty an interposition, and of him whose 
 sublime appointment it was to undertake and accomplish it. 
 When it is difficult to avoid making some allusion to him, he 
 is acknowledged rather in any of his subordinate characters, 
 than as absolutely a Redeemer; or if the term Redeemer, or, 
 our Saviour, is introduced, it is done as with a certain 
 inaptitude to pronounce a foreign appellative ; as with a 
 somewhat irksome feeling at falling in momentary contact 
 with language so specifically of the Christian school. And 
 it is done in a manner which betrays, that the author does 
 not mean all that he feels some dubious intimation that such 
 a term should mean. Jesus Christ is regarded rather as 
 having added to our moral advantages, than as having 
 conferred that without which all the rest were in vain ; rather 
 as having made the passage to a happy futurity somewhat 
 more commodious, than as having formed the passage itself 
 over what was else an impassable gulf. Thus that com- 
 prehensive sum of blessings, called in the New Testament 
 Salvation, or Redemption, is shrunk into a comparatively 
 inconsiderable favour, which a less glorious messenger might 
 have brought, which a less magnificent language than that 
 dictated by inspiration might have described, and which a 
 less costly sacrifice might have secured. 
 
 It is consistent with this delusive id_ea of human nature, 
 
 * Acts iv. 12.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 251 
 
 and these crude, and faint, and narrow conceptions of the 
 Christian economy, that these writers commonly represent 
 felicity hereafter as the pure reward of merit. I believe you 
 will find this, as far as any allusions are made to the subject, 
 the prevailing opinion through the school of polite literature. 
 You will perceive it to be the real opinion of many writers 
 who do sometimes advert, in some phrase employed by way 
 of respectful ceremony to our national creed, to the work or 
 . sacrifice of Christ. 
 
 I might remark on theantichristian motivesto action which 
 are sanctioned and inspirited by many of these authors : I 
 will only notice one, the love of glory; that is, the desire of 
 being distinguished, admired, and praised. 
 
 No one will think of such a thing as bringing the Christian 
 laws in absolute prohibition of our desire to possess the 
 favourable opinion of our fellow men. In the first place, a 
 material portion of human happiness depends on the attach- 
 ment of relations and friends, and it is right fora man to wish 
 for the happiness resulting from such attachment. And since 
 the degree in which he will obtain it, must depend very 
 much on the higher or lower estimate which these persons 
 entertain of his qualities and abilities, it is right for him to 
 wish, while he endeavours to deserve, that their estimate 
 may be high, in order that he may enjoy a large share ot 
 their affection. 
 
 In the next place, it is too plain to be worth an observation, 
 that if it were possible for a man to desire the respect and 
 admiration of mankind purely as a mean of giving a greater 
 efficacy to his efforts for their welfare, and for the promotion 
 of the cause of heaven, while he would be equally gratified 
 that any other man, in whose hands this mean would have 
 exactly the same effect, should obtain the admiration instead 
 of himself, this would be something eminently more than 
 innocent ; it would be the apotheosis of a passion which in 
 its ordinary quality deserves no better denomination than 
 vanity. But where is the example ? 
 
 In the third place, as the Creator has included this desire 
 in the essential constitution of our nature, he intended its 
 gratification, in some limited degree, to be a direct and 
 immediate cause of pleasure. The good opinion of man- 
 kind, expressed in praise, or indicated by any other signs,
 
 252 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 pleases us by a law of the same order as that which con- 
 stitutes mutual affection a pleasure, or that which is the 
 cause that we are gratified by music, or the beauties and 
 gales of spring. The indulgence of this desire is thus 
 authorized, to a certain extent, by its appointment to be 
 a source of pleasure. 
 
 But to what extent ? It is notorious that this desire 
 has, if I may so express it, an immense voracity. It has 
 within itself no natural principle of limitation, since it is 
 incapable of being gratified to satiety. A whole continent 
 applauding or admiring has not satisfied some men's 
 avarice of what they called glory. To what extent, I repeat, 
 may the desire be indulged ? Evidently not beyond that 
 point where it begins to introduce its evil accessories, envy, 
 or ungenerous competition, or resentful mortification, or 
 disdainful comparison, or self-idolatry. But I appeal to 
 each man who has deeply reflected on himself, or observed 
 those around him, whether this desire under even a con- 
 siderably limited degree of indulgence be not very apt to 
 introduce some of these accessories ; and whether, in order 
 to preclude them from his own mind, he have not at times 
 felt it necessary to impose on this desire a restraint almost 
 as unqualified as if he had been aiming to suppress it alto- 
 gether. In wishing to prohibit an excess of its indulgence, 
 he has perceived that even what had seemed to him a 
 small degree has amounted, or powerfully tended, to that 
 excess except when the desire has been operating under 
 the kindly and approved modification, of seeking to engage 
 the affection of relations or a few friends. The measure 
 therefore of this passion, compatible with the best condition 
 of the mind, will be found to be exceedingly limited. 
 
 Again, the desire cannot be cherished without becoming 
 a motive of action exactly in the degree in which it is 
 cherished. Now if the most authoritative among a good 
 man's motives of action must be the wish to please God, it 
 is evident that the passion which supplies another motive, 
 ought not to be allowed in a degree that will empower the 
 motive thus put in force to contest, in the mind, the supre- 
 macy of the pious motive. But here, again, I appeal to the 
 reflective man of conscience, whether he have not found that 
 the desire of human applause, indulged in only such a de- 
 gree as he had not, for a while, suspected of being im-
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 253 
 
 moderate, may be a motive strong enough, not only to main- 
 tain a rivalry with what should be the supreme motive, but 
 absolutely to prevail over it. In each pursuit or perfor- 
 mance in which he has excelled, or endeavoured to excel, 
 has he not sometimes been forced to observe, with indig- 
 nant grief, that his thoughts much more promptly adverted 
 to human praise, than to divine approbation ? And when 
 he has been able in some measure to repress the passion, 
 has he not found that a slight stimulus was competent to 
 restore its impious ascendency ? Now what is it that 
 should follow from these observations ? What can it be 
 as a general inference, but plainly this, that though the 
 desire of human applause, if it could be a calm, closely 
 limited, and subordinate feeling, would be consistent with 
 Christian virtue ; yet, since it so mightily tends to an excess, 
 destructive of the very essence of that virtue, it ought, 
 (except in the cases where human estimation is sought as 
 a mean toward some valuable end,) to be opposed and re- 
 pressed in a manner NOT MUCH LESS general and uncondi- 
 tional than if it were purely evil ? The special inference, 
 available to the design of this essay, is, that so much of 
 our literature as, on the contrary, tends to animate the 
 passion with new force, is most pernicious. 
 
 These assertions are certainly in the spirit of the New 
 Testament, which, not exacting a total extinction of the 
 love of human applause, yet alludes to most of its opera- 
 tions with censure, exhibits, probably, no approved instance 
 of its indulgence, and abounds with emphatically cogent 
 representations, both of its pernicious influence when it 
 predominates, and of its powerful tendency to acquire the 
 predominance. The honest disciple of that divine school, 
 being at the same time a self-observer, will be convinced 
 that the degree beyond which the passion is not tolerated 
 by the Christian law, is a degree which it will be sure to 
 reach and to exceed in his mind in spite of the most 
 systematical opposition. The most resolute and persevering 
 repression will still leave so much of this passion as 
 Christianity will pronounce a fault or a vice. He will be 
 anxious to assemble, in aid of the repressive discipline, all 
 the arguments of reason, all striking examples, and all the 
 interdictions of the Bible. 
 
 Now I think I cannot be mistaken in asserting, that a
 
 254 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 great majority of our fine writers have gone directly counter 
 to any such doctrine and discipline. No advocate will 
 venture to deny, that they have commended and instigated 
 the love of applause, of fame, of glory, or whatever it may 
 be called, in a degree which, if the preceding representation 
 be just, places them in pointed hostility to the Christian 
 religion. Sometimes, indeed, when it was the planetary 
 hour for high philosophy, or when they were in a splenetic 
 mood, occasioned perhaps by some chagrin of disappointed 
 vanity, they have acknowledged, and even very rhetorically 
 exposed, the inanity of this same glory. Most of our 
 ingenious authors have, in one place or another, been moral 
 or satirical at the expense of what Pope so aptly deno- 
 minates the "fool to fame." :;< They perceived the truth, 
 but as the truth did not make them free, they were willing 
 after all to dignify a passion to which they felt themselves 
 irretrievable slaves. And they have laboured to do it by 
 celebrating, with every splendid epithet, the men who were 
 impelled by this passion through the career in which they 
 were the idols of servile mankind and their own ; by 
 describing glory as the best incentive to noble actions, and 
 their worthiest reward ; by placing the temple of Virtue 
 (proud station of the goddess) in the situation to be a mere 
 introduction to that of Fame; by lamenting that so few, 
 and their unfortunate selves not of the number, can " climb 
 the steep where that proud temple shines afar: "f and by 
 intimating a charge of meanness of spirit against those, 
 who have no generous ardour to distinguish themselves from 
 the crowd, by deeds calculated and designed to pitch them 
 aloft in gazing admiration. If sometimes the ungracious 
 recollection strikes them, and seems iikely to strike their 
 readers, that this admiration is provokingly capricious and 
 perverse, since men have gained it without rightful claims, 
 and lost it without demerit, and since all kinds of fools have 
 
 * "As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, 
 
 I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." 
 
 POPE, " Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot" line 127. 
 
 t The author is not over-exact in the wording of his quotations : 
 " Ah ! who can tell how hard it is to climb 
 file steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar ! " 
 
 BEATTIE, " The Minstrel" line I.
 
 to Evangelical Rcll^ 255 
 
 offered the incense to all kinds of villains, they escape from 
 the disgust and from the benefit of this recollection by 
 saying, that dishonourable fame that noble spirits seek; 
 for they despise the ignorant multitude, and seek applause 
 by none but worthy actions, and from none but worthy 
 judges. Almost every one of these writers will sometimes, 
 perhaps, advert to the approbation of the Supreme Being, 
 as what wise and good men will value most ; but such an 
 occasional acknowledgment feebly counteracts the effect of 
 many glowing sentiments and descriptions of a contrary 
 tendency. If this be a correct animadversion on our 
 popular fine writers, there can be no question whether they 
 be likely to animate their readers with Christian motives of 
 action. 
 
 I will remark only on one particular more, namely, the 
 culpable license, careless, if not sometimes malignant, 
 taken by the lighter order of these writers, and by some 
 even of the graver, in their manner of ridiculing the cant 
 and extravagance by which hypocrisy, fanaticism, or the 
 peculiarities of a sect or a period, may have disgraced or 
 falsified Christian doctrines. Sometimes, indeed, they have 
 selected and burlesqued modes of expression which were 
 not cant, and which ignorance and impiety alone would 
 have dared to ridicule. And often, in exposing to contempt 
 the follies of notion or language or manners, by which a 
 Christian of good taste deplores that the profession of the 
 gospel should ever have been deformed, they take not the 
 smallest care to preserve a clear separation between what 
 taste and sense have a right to explode, and what piety bids 
 to reverence. By this criminal carelessness (to give it no 
 stronger denomination), they have fixed repulsive and 
 irreverent associations on the evangelical truth itself, for 
 which many persons, when afterwards they have yielded 
 their faith and affection to that truth, have had cause 
 wish that certain volumes had gone into the fire, instead of 
 coming into their hands. Many others, who have not t 
 become its converts, retain the bad impression unaba 
 and cherish the disgust. Gay writers ought to know that 
 this is dangerous ground. 
 
 I am sorry that this extended censure on works of geniua
 
 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 and taste could not be prosecuted with a more marked 
 application, and with more discriminative references, 
 than the continual repetition of the expressions, " ele- 
 gant literature," and "these writers." It might be a 
 service of some value to the evangelical cause, if a work 
 were written containing a faithful estimate, individually, of 
 the most popular writers of the last century and a half, in 
 respect to the important subject of these comments ; with 
 formal citations from some of their works, and a candid 
 statement of the general tendency of others. In an essay 
 like this it is impossible to make an enumeration of names, 
 or pass a judgment, except in a very cursory manner, on 
 any particular author. Even the several classes of authors, 
 which I mentioned some time back, as coming under the 
 accusation, shall detain you but a short time. 
 
 The Moral Philosophers for the most part seem anxious 
 to avoid everything that might render them liable to be 
 mistaken for Christian Divines. They regard their depart- 
 ment as a science complete in itself ; and they investigate 
 the foundation of morality, define its laws, and affix its 
 sanctions, in a manner generally so much apart from 
 Christianity, that the reader would almost conclude that 
 religion to be another science complete in itself.* An 
 entire separation, it is true, cannot well be preserved ; since 
 Christianity has decided some moral questions on which 
 reason was dubious or silent ; and since that final retri- 
 bution, which the New Testament has so luminously fore- 
 shown, brings evidently the greatest of sanctions. To 
 make no reference in the course of inculcating moral prin- 
 ciples, to a judgment to come, if there be an understood 
 admission that it is actually revealed, would look like 
 systematic irreligion. But still it is striking to observe how 
 small a portion of the ideas (relative to this and other points 
 of the greatest moral interest), which distinguish the New 
 Testament from other books, many moral philosophers have 
 thought indispensable to a theory in which they professed to 
 
 * When it happens sometimes, that a moral topic hardly can be dis- 
 posed of without some recognition of its involving, or being intimately 
 connected with, a theological doctrine, it is curious to notice, with what an 
 air of indifference, somewhat partaking of contempt, one of these writers 
 will observe, that tint view of the matter is the business of the divines, 
 with whose department he does not pretend to interfere.
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 257 
 
 include the sum of the duty and interests of man. A serious 
 reader is constrained to feel that either there is too much in 
 that book, or too little in theirs. He will perceive that, in 
 the inspired book, the moral principles are intimately inter- 
 woven with all those doctrines which could not have been 
 known but through revelation. He will find also in this 
 superior book, a vast number of ideas avowedly designed 
 to interest the affections in favour of all moral principles 
 and virtues. The " quickening spirit," thus breathed among 
 what might else be dry and lifeless, is drawn from consider- 
 ations of the divine mercy, the compassion of the Redeemer, 
 the assurance of aid from heaven in the difficult strife to be 
 what the best principles prescribe, the relationship subsist- 
 ing between good men on earth and those who are departed ; 
 and other kindred topics, quite out of the range to which 
 the mere moral preceptors appear to hold themselves limited. 
 The system of morals, as placed in the temperature of such 
 considerations, has the character and effect of a different 
 zone. Thus, while any given virtue, equally prescribed in 
 the treatise of the moral philosopher and the Christian code, 
 would in mere definition be the same in both, the manner 
 in which it bears on the heart and conscience must be 
 greatly different. 
 
 It is another difference also of momentous consequence, 
 if it be found that the Christian doctrine declares the virtues 
 of a good man not to be the cause of his acceptance with 
 God, and that the philosophic moralists disclaim any other. 
 On the whole it must be concluded, that there cannot but 
 be something very defective in that theory of morality which 
 makes so slight an acknowledgment of the religion of Christ, 
 and takes so little of its peculiar character. The philosophers 
 place the religion in the relation of a diminutive satellite to 
 the sphere of moral interests ; useful as throwing a few rays 
 on that side of it on which the solar light of human wisdom 
 could not directly shine; but that it can impart a vital warmth, 
 or claims to be acknowledged paramount in dignity and 
 influence, some of them seem not to have a suspicion. 
 
 No doubt, innumerable reasonings and conclusions may 
 be advanced on moral subjects which shall be true on a 
 foundation of their own, equally in the presence of the 
 evangelical system and in its absence. Independently of 
 that system, it were easy to illustrate the utility of virtue, 
 
 s
 
 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 the dignity which it confers on a rational being, its accord- 
 ance to the " reason and fitness of things," its conformity 
 and analogy to much of what may be discerned in the 
 order of the universe. It would also have been easy to pass 
 from virtue in the abstract, into an illustration and enforce- 
 ment of the several distinct virtues, as arranged in a prac- 
 tical system. And if it should be asked, Why may not 
 some writers employ their speculations on those parts and 
 views of moral truth which are thus independent of the 
 gospel, leaving it to other men to Christianize the whole 
 by the addition of the evangelical relations, motives, and 
 conditions ? I readily answer, that this may sometimes 
 very properly be done. An author may render good service 
 by demonstrating, for instance, the utility of virtue in general, 
 or of any particular virtue, as shown in its effect on the pros- 
 perity of states, of smaller communities, and of individuals ; 
 in its conduciveness to health, mental tranquillity, social 
 confidence, and the like. In doing this, he would expressly 
 take a marked ground, and aim at a specific object. He 
 would not (or should not) let it be imagined for a moment 
 that such particular views embrace all that is of essential 
 interest in the reasons and relations of moral rectitude. It 
 would be plainly understood that other considerations, of the 
 highest importance, recognising, in all our obligations to 
 virtue, our relations with God, with a spiritual economy, 
 with a future life, are indispensable to a complete moral 
 theory. But the charge against the moral philosophers is 
 meant to be applied to those who, not professing to have 
 any such specific and limited scope, but assuming the office 
 of moralist in its most comprehensive character, and making 
 themselves responsible as teachers of virtue in its whole 
 extent, have yet quite forgotten the vital implication of ethical 
 with evangelical truth. 
 
 When I mention our Historians, it will instantly occur to 
 you, that the very foremost names in this department import 
 everything that is deadly to the Christian religion itself, as 
 a divine communication, and therefore lie under a condem- 
 nation of a different kind. But may not many others, who 
 would have repelled the imputation of being enemies to the 
 Christian cause, be arraigned of having forgotten what was 
 due from its friends ? The historian intends his work to
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 259 
 
 have the effect of a series of moral estimates of the persons 
 whose actions he records ; now, if he believes that a Judge 
 of the world will come at length, and pronounce on the very 
 characters that his work adjudges, it is one of the plainest 
 dictates of good sense, that all the awards of the historian 
 should be faithfully coincident with the judgments which 
 may be expected ultimately from that supreme authority. 
 Those distinctions of character which the historian applauds 
 as virtues, or censures as vices, should be exactly the same 
 qualities, which the language already heard from that Judge 
 certifies us that he will approve or condemn. It is worse 
 than foolish to erect a literary court of morals and human 
 character, of which the maxims, the language, the decisions, 
 and the judges, will be equally the objects of contempt before 
 Him, whose intelligence will instantly distinguish and place 
 in light the right and the wrong of all time. What a 
 wretched abasement will overwhelm on that day some of 
 the pompous historians, who were called by others, and ac- 
 counted by themselves, the high authoritative censors of an 
 age, and whose verdict was to fix on each name perpetual 
 honour or infamy, if they shall find many of the questions 
 and the decisions of that tribunal proceed on principles which 
 they would have been ashamed to apply, or never took the 
 trouble to understand ! How will they be confounded, if 
 some of the men whom they had extolled, are consigned to 
 ignominy, and some that they had despised, are applauded 
 by the voice at which the world will tremble and be silent ! 
 But such a sad humiliation may, I think, be apprehended 
 for many of the historians, by every serious Christian reader 
 who shall take the hint of this subject along with him through 
 their works. He will not seldom feel that the writers seem 
 uninformed, while they remark and decide on actions and 
 characters, that a final Lawgiver has come from heaven, or 
 that he will come, or on what account he will come, yet 
 once more. Their very diction often abjures the plain Chris- 
 tian denominations of good and evil ; nor do I need to recount 
 the specious and fallacious terms which they h.ivc employed 
 in their place. How then can a mind which learns to think 
 in their manner, learn at the same time to think in his from 
 whom it will, however, be found no light matter to have 
 dissented, when his judgment shall be declared for the last 
 time in this world ? 
 
 S 2
 
 260 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 The various interesting sets of short Essays, with the 
 Spectator and Rambler at their head, must have had a very 
 considerable influence, during a season at least, and not yet 
 entirely extinct, on the moral taste of the public. Perhaps, 
 however, it is too late in the day for any interest to be taken 
 in religious animadversions which might with propriety have 
 been ventured upon the Spectator, when it was the general 
 and familiar favourite with the reading portion of the com- 
 munity.* A work of such wide compass, and avowedly 
 assuming the office of guardian and teacher of all good prin- 
 ciples, gave fair opportunities for a Christian writer to 
 introduce, excepting what is strictly termed science, a 
 little of every subject affecting the condition and happiness 
 of men. Why then was it fated that the stupendous cir- 
 cumstance of the redemption by the Messiah, of which the 
 importance is commensurate with the whole interests of man, 
 with the value of his immortal spirit, with the government 
 of his Creator in this world, and with the happiness of 
 eternity, should not a few times, in the long course and 
 extensive moral jurisdiction of that work, be set forth in the 
 
 * "Within the thirty or forty years antecedent to the date of the 
 present edition," says Foster, writing in 1830, " and even within 
 the shorter interval since the slight remarks in the text were written, 
 there has been a surprising change in the tone of our literature, and 
 in the public taste which it both consults and forms. The smooth 
 elegance, the gentle graces, the amusing, easy, and not deep current of 
 sentiment, of which Addison is our finest example, have come to be re- 
 garded as languid, and almost insipid ; and the passion is for force, energy, 
 bold development of principles, and every kind of high stimulus. This 
 has been the inevitable accompaniment of the prodigious commotion in 
 the state of the world, the rousing of the general mind from its long lethargy, 
 to an activity and an exertion of power which nothing can quell, which is 
 destined to a continually augmenting operation till the condition of the 
 world be changed. This new spirit of our literature is a great advantage 
 gained ; but gained at a grievous cost ; for we have in its train an immense 
 quantity of affectation : all sorts and sizes of authors must be aiming at 
 vigour, point, bold strokes, originality. The consequence is, an ample 
 exhibition of contortion, tricks of surprise, paradox, headlong dash, facti- 
 tious fulmination, and turgid inanity. In some of the grossest instances, 
 this ape of mental force and freedom stares and swaggers, and spouts a 
 half-drunken rant. One wonders to see how much even some of the ablest 
 among the writers of the present times have gone into the bad fashion, 
 have discarded the masculine simplicity so graceful to intellectual power, 
 and spoiled compositions admirable for vigorous thinking by a continual 
 affectation, which carries them along in a dashing capering sort of style, 
 as if determined that the ' march of intellect ' shall be a dance to a fiddle."
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 261 
 
 most explicit, uncompromising, and solemn manner, in the 
 full aspect and importance which it bears in the Christian 
 revelation, with the directness and emphasis of apostolic 
 fidelity? Why should not a few of the most peculiar of the 
 doctrines, comprehended in the primary one of salvation by 
 the Mediator, have been clothed with the fascinating elegance 
 of Addison, from whose pen many persons would have re- 
 ceived an occasional evangelical lesson with incomparably 
 more candour than from any professed divine ? A pious 
 and benevolent man, such as the avowed advocate of Christi- 
 anity ought to be, should not have been contented that so many 
 thousands of minds as his writings were adapted to instruct 
 and to charm, should have been left, for anything that he 
 very unequivocally attempted to the contrary in his most 
 popular works, to end a life which he had contributed to 
 refine, acquainted but slightly with the grand security of 
 happiness after death. Or if it could not be deemed his 
 duty to introduce in a formal manner any of the most 
 specifically evangelical subjects, it might at least have been 
 expected, that some of the many serious essays scattered 
 through the Spectator should have more of a Christian strain, 
 more recognition of the great oracle, in the speculations 
 concerning the Deity, and the gravest moral subjects. There 
 might, without hazard of symbolizing with the dreaded 
 fanaticism of the preceding age, have been more assimila- 
 tion of what may be called, as it now stands, a literary 
 fashion of religion, to the spirit of the New Testament. 
 From him also, as a kind of dictator among the elegant 
 writers of the age, it might have been expected that he 
 would set himself, with the same decision and virtuous 
 indignation which he made his Cato display against the 
 betrayers of Roman liberty and laws, to denounce that ridi- 
 cule which has wounded religion by a careless or by a crafty 
 manner of holding up its abuses to scorn : but of this 
 impropriety (to use an accommodating term,) the Spectator 
 itself is not free from examples. 
 
 Addison wrote a book expressly in defence of the religion 
 of Christ;* but to be the dignified advocate of a cause, and 
 to be its humble disciple, may be very different things. An 
 advocate has a feeling of making himself important ; he 
 
 * See the " Evidences of the Christian Religion," &c. London, 1730. 
 Many editions of this work have been publi-1
 
 262 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 seems to confer something on the cause ; but as a disciple, 
 he must surrender to feel littleness, humility, and submis- 
 sion. Self-importance might find more to gratify it in 
 becoming the patron of a beggar, than the servant of a 
 potentate. Addison was, moreover, very unfortunate, for 
 anything like justice to genuine Christianity, in the class of 
 persons with whom he associated, and among whom he did 
 not hold his pre-eminence by any such imperial tenure, as 
 could make him careless of the policy of pleasing them by a 
 general conformity of sentiment. One can imagine with 
 what a perfect storm of ridicule he would have been greeted, 
 on entering one of his celebrated coffee-houses of wits on 
 the day after he should have published in the Spectator a 
 paper, for instance, on the necessity of being devoted to the . 
 service of Jesus Christ. The friendship of the world ought 
 to be a " pearl of great price," for its cost is very serious. 
 
 The powerful and lofty spirit of Johnson was far more 
 capable of scorning the ridicule, and defying the opposition, 
 of wits and worldlings. And yet his social life must have 
 been greatly unfavourable to a deep and simple consideration 
 of Christian truth, and the cultivation of Christian sentiment. 
 Might not even his imposing and unchallenged ascendency 
 itself betray him to admit, insensibly, an injurious influence 
 on his mind ? He associated with men of whom many 
 were very learned, some extremely able, but comparatively 
 few made any decided profession of piety ; and perhaps 
 a considerable number were such as would in other society 
 have shown a strong propensity to irreligion. This 
 however dared not to appear undisguisedly in Johnson's 
 presence ; and it is impossible not to revere the strength 
 and noble severity that made it so cautious. But this con- 
 strained abstinence from overt irreligion had the effect of 
 preventing the repugnance of his judgment and religious 
 feelings to the frequent society of men from whom he would 
 have recoiled, if the real temper of their minds, in regard to 
 the most important subjects, had been unreservedly forced on 
 his view. Decorum toward religion being preserved, he would 
 take no rigorously judicial account of the internal character 
 of those who brought so finely into play his mental powers 
 and resources, in conversations on literature, moral philo- 
 sophy, and general intelligence ; and who could enrich every 
 matter of social argument by their learning, their genius,
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 263 
 
 or their knowledge of mankind. But if, while every- 
 thing unequivocally hostile to Christianity was kept silent 
 in his company, there was nevertheless a latent impiety in 
 possession of the heart, it would inevitably, however un- 
 obviously, infuse something of its spirit into the communi- 
 cations of such men. And, through the complacency which 
 he felt in the high intellectual intercourse, some infection 
 of the noxious element would insinuate its way into his own 
 ideas and feelings. For it is hardly possible for the strongest 
 and most vigilant mind, under the genial influence of 
 eloquence, fancy, novelty, and bright intelligence, inter- 
 changed in amicable collision, to avoid admitting some 
 effluvia (if I may so express it) breathing from the most 
 interior quality of such associates, and tending to produce 
 an insensible assimilation ; especially if there should 
 happen to be, in addition, a conciliating exterior of accom- 
 plishment, grace, and liberal manners. Thus the very 
 predominance by which Johnson could repress the direct 
 irreligion of statesmen, scholars, wits, and accomplished 
 men of the world, might, by retaining him their intimate or 
 frequent associate, subject him to meet the influence of that 
 irreligion acting in a manner too indirect and refined to 
 excite either hostility or caution. 
 
 But indeed if his caution was excited, there might still 
 be a possibility of self-deception in the case. The great 
 achievement and conscious merit of upholding, by his 
 authority, a certain standard of good principles among such 
 men, and compelling an acquiescence at least, wherever he 
 was present, might tend to make himself feel satisfied with 
 that order of sentiments, though materially lower than the 
 standard which his conscientious judgment must have 
 adopted, if he had formed it under the advantage of long 
 and thoughtful retirement and exemption from the influence 
 of such associates. It would be difficult for him to confess 
 to himself that what was high enough for a repressive 
 domination over impiety, might yet be below the level of 
 true Christianity. It is hard for a man to suspect himself 
 deficient in that very thing in which he not only excels other 
 men, but mends them. Nothing can well be more untor- 
 tunate for Christian attainments, even in point of I 
 judgment, than to be habitually in society where a n 
 feel as if he held a saintly eminence of character in merely
 
 264 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 securing a decent neutrality, or a semblance of slight partial 
 assent, in other words a forbearance of hostility, to that 
 divine law of faith and morals, which is set up over that 
 society and all mankind, as the grand distinguisher between 
 those who are in light and those who are in darkness, those 
 who are approved and those who are condemned; and which 
 has been sent on earth with a demand, not of this worthless 
 non-aggression, but of cordial entire addiction and devoted 
 zeal. 
 
 If there be any truth in the representations which make 
 so large a part of this essay, Johnson's continual immersion 
 in which is denominated polite literature, must have sub- 
 jected him to the utmost action and pervasion of an influence 
 of which the artichristian effect cannot be neutralized, 
 without a more careful study than we have reason to believe 
 he gave, or even had time to give, to the doctrine of religion 
 as a distinct independent subject. 
 
 It must, however, be admitted that this illustrious author, 
 who, though here mentioned only in the class of essayists, 
 is to be ranked among the greatest moral philosophers, is 
 less at variance with the essentials of the Christian economy, 
 than the very great majority of either of these classes of 
 authors. His speculations tend in a far less degree to be- 
 guile the approving and admiring reader into a spirit which 
 feels repelled in estrangement and disgust on turning to the 
 instructions of Christ and his apostles ; and he has more 
 explicit and solemn references to the grand purpose of human 
 life, to a future judgment, and to eternity, than almost any 
 other of our elegant moralists has had the piety or the 
 courage to make. There is so much that most powerfully 
 coincides and co-operates with Christian truth, that the dis- 
 ciple of Christianity the more regrets to meet occasionally 
 a sentiment, respecting, perhaps, the rule to judge by in the 
 review of life, the consolations in death, the effect of repent- 
 ance, or the terms of acceptance with God, which he cannot 
 reconcile with the evangelical theory, nor with those prin- 
 ciples of Christian faith in which Johnson avowed his belief. 
 In such a writer he cannot but deem such deviations a 
 matter of grave culpability. 
 
 Omission is his other fault. Though he did introduce in 
 his serious speculations more distinct allusions to religious 
 ideas, than most other moralists, yet he did not introduce
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 265 
 
 them so often as may be claimed from a writer who fre- 
 quently carries seriousness to the utmost pitch of solemnity. 
 There scarcely ever was an author, not formally theological, 
 in whose works a large proportion of explicit Christian senti- 
 ment was more requisite for a consistent entireness of 
 character, than in the moral writings of Johnson. No writer 
 ever more completely exposed and blasted the folly and 
 vanity of the greatest number of human pursuits. The 
 visage of Medusa could not have darted a more fatal glance 
 against the tribe of gay triflers, the competitors of ambition, 
 the proud exhibiters in the parade of wealth, the rhapsodists 
 on the sufficiency of what they call philosophy for happi- 
 ness, the grave consumers of life in useless speculations, 
 and every other order of " walkers in a vain show." His 
 judicial sentence is directed, as with a keen and mephitic 
 blast, on almost all the most favourite pursuits of mankind. 
 But it was so much the more peculiarly his duty to insist, 
 with fulness and emphasis, on that one model of character, 
 that one grand employment of life, which is enjoined by 
 heaven, and will stand the test of that unshrinking severity 
 of judgment, which should be exercised by every one who 
 looks forward to the test which he is finally to abide. No 
 author has more impressively displayed the misery of human 
 life ; he laid himself under so much the stronger obligation 
 to unfold most explicitly the only effectual consolations, the 
 true scheme of felicity as far as it is attainable on earth, and 
 that delightful prospect of a better region, which has so often 
 inspired exultation in the most melancholy situations. No 
 writer has more expressively illustrated the rapidity of time, 
 and the shortness of life ; he ought so much the more fully 
 to have dwelt on the views of that great futurity at which his 
 readers are admonished by the illustration that they will 
 speedily arrive. No writer can make more poignant reflec- 
 tions on the pains of guilt ; was it not indispensable that he 
 should oftener have directed the mind suffering this bitterest 
 kind of distress to that great saciifice once offered for sin ? 
 No writer represents with more striking, mortifying, humi- 
 liating truth the failure of human resolutions, and the feeble- 
 ness of human efforts, in the contest with corrupt propensity, 
 evil habit, and adapted temptation ; why did not this melan- 
 choly observation and experience prompt a very frequent 
 recollection, and emphatical expression of the importance
 
 266 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 of that assistance from on high, without which the divine 
 word has so often repeated the warning that our labours 
 will fail ? 
 
 In extending the censure to the Poets, it is gratifying to 
 meet an exception in the most elevated of all their tribe. 
 Milton's consecrated genius might harmoniously have 
 mingled with the angels that announced the Messiah to be 
 come, or that, on the spot and at the moment of his depar- 
 ture, predicted his coming again ; might have shamed to 
 silence the muses of paganism ; or softened the pains of a 
 Christian martyr. Part of the poetical works of Young, 
 those of Watts, and of Cowper, have placed them among 
 the permanent benefactors of mankind ; as owing to them 
 there is a popular poetry in the true spirit of Christianity; 
 a poetry which has imparted, and is destined to impart, the 
 best sentiments to innumerable minds. Works of great 
 poetical genius that should be thus faithful to true religion, 
 might be regarded as trees by the side of that " river of the 
 water of life," having in their fruit and foliage a virtue to 
 contribute to " the healing of the nations." But on the 
 supposition that there were a man sufficiently discerning, 
 impartial, and indefatigable for a research throughout the 
 general body of our poetical literature, it would be curious 
 to see what kind of religious system, and what account of 
 the state of man, as viewed under moral estimate, and in re- 
 lation to the future destiny, would be afforded by a digested 
 assemblage of all the most marked sentiments, supplied by 
 the vast majority of the poets, for such a scheme of moral 
 and religious doctrine. But if it would be exceedingly 
 amusing to observe the process and the fantastic result, it 
 would in the next place be very sad to consider, that these 
 fallacies have been iiir.irr.ated by the charms of poetry into 
 countless thousands ui' minds, with a beguilement that has, 
 first, diverted them from a serious attention to the gospel, 
 then confirmed them in a habitual dislike of it, and finally 
 operated to betray some of them to the doom which, beyond 
 the grave, awaits the neglect or rejection of the religion cf 
 Christ. 
 
 You have probably seen Pope cited as a Christian poet, 
 by some pious authors, whose anxiety to impress reluctant 
 genius into an appearance of favouring Christianity, has ere-
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 267 
 
 dulously seized on any occasional verse, which seemed an 
 echo of the sacred doctrines. No reader can exceed me in 
 admiring the discriminative thought, the shrewd moral 
 observation, the finished and felicitous execution, and the 
 galaxy of poetical beauties, which combine to give a peculiar 
 lustre to the writings of Pope. But I cannot refuse to per- 
 ceive, that almost every allusion in his lighter works to the 
 names, the facts, and the topics, that specially belong to the 
 religion of Christ, is in a style and spirit of profane banter ; 
 and that, in most of his graver ones, where he meant to be 
 dignified, he took the utmost care to divest his thoughts of 
 all the mean vulgarity of Christian associations. " Off, ye 
 profane ! " might seem to have been his signal to all evan- 
 gelical ideas, when he began his Essay on Man ; and they 
 were obedient, and fled ; for if you detach the detail and 
 illustrations, so as to lay bare the outline and general 
 principles of the work, it will stand confest an elaborate 
 attempt to redeem the whole theory of the condition 
 and interests of man, both in life and death, from all 
 the explanations imposed on it by an unphilosophical 
 revelation from heaven. And in the happy riddance 
 of this despised though celestial light, it exhibits a sort 
 of moon-light vision, of thin impalpable abstractions, at 
 which a speculatist may gaze, with a dubious wonder 
 whether they be realities or phantoms ; but which a 
 practical man will in vain try to seize and turn to account ; 
 and which an evangelical man will disdain to accept in 
 exchange for those forms of truth which his religion brings 
 to him as real living friends, instructors, and consolers ; 
 which present themselves to him, at his return from a pro- 
 fitless adventure in that shadowy dreary region, with an 
 effect like that of meeting the countenances of his affec- 
 tionate domestic associates, on his awaking from the fan- 
 tastic succession of vain efforts and perplexities, among 
 strange objects, incidents, and people, in a bewildering 
 dream. But what deference to Christianity was to I 
 expected, when such a man as Bolingbroke was the genius 
 whose imparted splendour was to illuminate, and the demi- 
 god* whose approbation was to crown, the labours which, 
 
 * He is so named somewhere in Pope's Works. " In the conclr. 
 says Dr. Johnson, in his ' Life of Pope," " it is sufficiently acknowledged
 
 268 On the Aversion of Men of Taste 
 
 according to the wish and presentiment of the poet, were 
 to conjoin these two venerable names in endless fame ? 
 
 If it be said for some parts of these dim speculations, 
 that though Christianity comes forward as the practical 
 dispensation of truth, yet there must be, in remote abstrac- 
 tion behind, some grand, ultimate, elementary truths, which 
 this dispensation does not recognise, but even intercepts 
 from our view by a system of less refined elements, in which 
 doctrines of a more contracted, palpable, and popular form, 
 of comparatively local purport and relation, are imposed in 
 substitution for the higher and more general and abstracted 
 truths I answer, And what did the poet, or " the master of 
 the poet and the song," know about those truths, and how 
 did they come by their information. 
 
 A serious observer must acknowledge with regret, that 
 such a class of productions as novels, in which folly has 
 tried to please in a greater number of shapes than the poet 
 enumerates in the Paradise of Fools, is capable of producing 
 a very considerable effect on the moral taste of the commu- 
 nity. A large proportion of them however are probably of 
 too slight and insipid a consistence to have any more 
 specific counteraction to Christian principles than that of 
 mere folly in general ; excepting indeed that the most flimsy 
 of them will occasionally contribute their mite of mischief, 
 by alluding to a Christian profession, in a manner that 
 identifies it with the cant by which hypocrites have aped it, 
 or the extravagance with which fanatics have inflated or 
 distorted it. But a great and direct force of counteracting 
 influence is emitted from those, which eloquently display 
 characters of eminent vigour and virtue, when it is a 
 virtue having no basis in religion ; a factitious thing 
 resulting from the mixture of dignified pride with generous 
 feeling ; or constituted of those philosophical principles 
 which are too often accompanied, in these works, by an 
 avowed or strongly intimated contempt of the interference 
 of any religion,' especially the Christian. If the case is 
 mended in some of these productions into which an awk- 
 ward religion has found its way, it is rather because the 
 
 that the doctrine of the '.Essay on Man' was received from Bolingbroke. 
 .... What Bolingbroke supplied could only be the first principles ; the 
 order, illustration, and embellishments must all be Pope's,"
 
 to Evangelical Religion. 269 
 
 characters excite less interest of any kind, than because any 
 which they do excite is favourable to religion. No reader 
 is likely to be impressed with the dignity of being a Chris- 
 tian by seeing, in one of these works, an attempt to com- 
 bine that character with the fine gentleman, by means of a 
 most ludicrous apparatus of amusements and sacraments, 
 churches and theatres, morning-prayers and evening-balls. 
 Nor will it perhaps be of any great service to the Chris- 
 tian cause, that some others of them profess to exemplify 
 and defend, against the cavils and scorn of infidels, a 
 religion of which it does not appear that the writers would 
 have discovered the merits, had it not been established by 
 law. One may doubt whether any one will be more than 
 amused by the venerable priest, who is introduced probably 
 among libertine lords and giddy girls, to maintain the 
 sanctity of terms, and attempt the illustration of doctrines, 
 which these well-meaning writers do not perceive that the 
 worthy gentleman's college, diocesan, and library, have but 
 very imperfectly enabled him to understand. If the reader 
 even wished to be more than amused, it is easy to imagine 
 how much he would be likely to be instructed and affected, 
 by such an illustration or defence of the Christian religion, 
 as the writer of a fashionable novel would deem a graceful 
 or admissible expedient for filling up his plot. 
 
 One cannot close such a review of our fine writers with- 
 out melancholy reflections. That cause which will raise all 
 its zealous friends to a sublime eminence on the last and 
 most solemn day the world has to behold, and will make 
 them great for ever, presented its claims full in sight of 
 each of these authors in his time. The very lowest of 
 those claims could not be less than a conscientious solici- 
 tude to beware of everything that could in any point 
 injure the sacred cause. This claim has been slighted 
 by so many as have lent attraction to an order of moral 
 sentiments greatly discordant with its principles. And 
 so many are gone into eternity under the charge oi 
 having employed their genius, as the magicians their 
 enchantments against Moses, to counteract the Saviour 
 of the world. 
 
 Under what restrictions, then, ought the study of polite 
 literature to be conducted ? I cannot but have foreseen 
 that this question must return at the end of these obscrva-
 
 270 A version of Men of Taste to Evangelical Religion. 
 
 tions ; and I am sorry to have no better answer to give 
 than before, when the question came in the way, incon- 
 veniently enough, to perplex the conclusion to be drawn 
 from the considerations on the tendency of the classical 
 literature. Polite literature will necessarily continue to be 
 a large department of the grand school of intellectual and 
 moral cultivation. The evils therefore which it may con- 
 tain will as certainly affect in some degree the minds of 
 the successive pupils, and teachers also, as the hurtful 
 influence of the climate, or of the se'asons, will affect their 
 bodies. To be thus affected, is a part of the destiny under 
 which they are born, in a civilized country. It is indispen- 
 sable to acquire the advantage ; it is inevitable to incur the 
 evil. The means of counteraction will amount, it is to be 
 feared, to no more than palliatives. Nor can these be 
 proposed in any specific method. All that I can do, is, to ) 
 urge on the reader of taste the very serious duty of con- / 
 tinually recalling to his mind, and if he be a parent or pre- / 
 ceptor, of cogently representing to those he instructs, the j 
 real character of religion as exhibited in the Christian 
 revelation, and the reasons which command an inviolable 
 adherence to it. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
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 13- 
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 WARD. 
 
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 1 1 Autobiography of a Tkief . and Jack 
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 related to his Young Friends by UNCLS JOHN. 
 
 2. Fifty Celebrated Men : Their Lives and Trials, and the Deeds 
 
 that made them Famous. Illustrated with numerous Wood Engravings. 
 
 3. The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of 
 
 York, Mariner. By DANIEL DHFOH. With a Biographical Sketch of the 
 Author. Embellished with a great number of Engravings on Wood. 
 
 4. The History of Sandford and Merton. By THOMAS DAY. 
 
 Illustrated with 100 Engravings by the Brothers DAI.ZIEL. 
 
 5. A Boy's Life Aboard Ship, as it is Told by Himself. Fall of 
 
 Adventure and Daring Deeds. 
 
 6. Life in a Whaler ; or, Perils and Adventures in the Tropical Seas. 
 
 By SAILOR CHARLEY. 
 
 7. Great Inventors : The Sources of their Usefulness, and the Re- 
 
 sults of their Efforts. Embellished with numerous Engravings. 
 
 8. Household Stories. Collected by the Brothers GRIMM. To 
 
 which is added, " The Caravan ": An Eastern Tale. By WILLIAM HAI-PF. 
 Profusely Illustrated with Wood Engravings from Designs by Eminent Arii-.i% 
 
 9. The Marvels of Nature ; or, Outlines of Creation. By KLISHA 
 
 NOYCB. With 400 Engravings by the Brothers DALZIEL. 
 
 10. The Boy's Book of Industrial Information. By ELISHA 
 
 NrwcE. With 365 Engravings by the Brothers DALZIKL. 
 
 11. Famous Boys, and How they Became Famous Men. By tbc 
 
 Author of " Clever Boys." Numerous Enpavings. New Edition. 
 
 12. Toe Triumphs of Perseverance and Enterprise. By THOMAS 
 
 COOPER. Fully Ilhistrated. Xew Edition. 
 
 13. Edgar's Crusades and Crusaders. With numerous Illustrations. 
 
 New Edition. 
 
 14. The Merchant's Clerk ; or, Mark Wilton. A Book for Vcung 
 
 Men. P.y the Rev. C. B. TAYLKR, M.A. 
 
 15. Sailor Hero; or, The Frigate and the Lugger. By Captain F. 
 
 C. ARMSTRONG. With Illustrations. 
 
 16. Cruise of the Daring : A Tale of the Sea. By Captain F. C. 
 
 ARMSTRONG. With Illustrations. 
 
 Published by Ward, Lock, and Tyler.
 
 ! 22 Neiv Books and New Editions. 
 
 THE BOYS' FAVOURITE LIBRARY, continued. 
 
 17. Pyrotechny; or, The Art of making Fireworks at little Cost, 
 
 and with complete Safety and Cleanliness. With 124 Illustrations of Forms 
 and Diagrams for Manufacture and Exhibition. 
 
 18. Mont Blanc, A Boy's Ascent of. By ALBERT SMITH. Illus- 
 
 trated. With a Memoir of the Author by EDMUND YATES. 
 
 19. Poe's Tales of Mystery, Imagination, and Humour. 
 
 20. Ballads and Poetical Tales. Selected from PERCY, RITSON, 
 
 EVANS, JAMIESON, SCOTT, &c. &c. 
 
 The sale of this very Popular Series of Useful Penny Book* is enormous. 
 
 All these Books are most carefully written, and contain complete information upon 
 every subject within their province. 
 
 1. Life of the Prince of Wales, comprising all the events in the 
 
 Career of His Royal Highness, from his Birth to the Present Day. 
 
 2. Beeton's Penny Cookery Book. 
 
 3. Beeton's Penny Song Book (Popular Collection). 
 
 4. Beeton's Penny Song Book (National Collection). 
 
 5. Beeton's Penny County Court Book. 
 
 6. Beeton's Penny Gardening Book. 
 
 7. Beeton's Penny Doctor's Book. 
 
 8. Beeton's Penny Ready Reckoner. 
 
 9. Beeton's Penny Watts' s Songs for Children. 
 
 10. Beeton's Penny Landlord, Tenant, and Lodger. 
 
 1 1. Beeton's Penny Poultry Book. 
 
 12. Beeton's Penny Domestic Service Guide. No. 1. For Lady's 
 
 Maid, Upper and Under Nurse. 
 
 13. Beeton's Penny Domestic Recipe Book. 
 
 14. Beeton's Penny Stamps and Taxes. 
 
 15. Beeton's Penny Nine Hours Wages Book. 
 
 16. Beeton's Penny Letter Writer. 
 
 17. Beeton's Penny Domestic Service Guide. No. 2. For General 
 
 Servant, Laundry and Dairy Maid. 
 
 18. Ditto. No. 3. For Cook and Housemaid. 
 
 19. Ditto. No. 4. For Butler, Housekeeper, Footman, Valet, Coach- 
 
 man, and Groom. 
 
 20. Beeton's Penny Cab Fares. 
 
 Published by Ward, Lock, and Tyler.
 
 New Books and New Editions. 23 
 
 (girls' labourite ^ibrarg." 
 
 Price 3*. 6if. each, Illustrated. 
 
 These ate all books which have gained a reputation far containing Jtet 
 interest and amusement with pleasantly conveyed instruction. TMty art rrally 
 "favourites" ; books wkick Girls will read and preserve at indispensable to tht 
 Library of tlie School or the Home. 
 
 1. Fifty Celebrated Women : Their Virtues and Failings, and the 
 
 Lessons of their Lives. Illustrated with numerous Engravings on Wood. 
 
 2. Evenings at Home ; or, The Juvenile Budget Opened. Con- 
 
 sisting of a variety of Miscellaneous Pieces, for the Instruction and Amuse- 
 ment of Young Persons. By Dr. AIKEN and Mrs. HARBAI I t>. 
 
 3. Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio. First and Second Series, 
 
 Complete. Beautifully Illustrated with page and other Engravings. 
 
 4. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (from this World to that which 
 
 is to Come;. A New Edition, with a Memoir. Illustrated with 100 Engrav- 
 ings by the Brothers DALZIKL. 
 
 5. Orange Blossoms. A Book for afl who have worn, are wearing, 
 
 or are likely to wear them. Edited by T. S. ARTHUR. With Illustrations. 
 
 6. Julamerk ; or, The Converted Jewess. By the Author of 
 
 " Naomi." With numerous Illustrations. 
 
 7. Martyrs of Carthage ; or, The Christian Converts. A Tale of 
 
 the Times of Old. 
 
 8. Margaret Catchpole, the Suffolk Girl. By the Rev. R. COBBOLD. 
 
 9. Modern Accomplishments ; or, The March of Intellect. By 
 
 CATHERINE SINCLAIR. 
 
 10. Mary Bunyan, The Dreamer's Blind Daughter. By S AU.il 
 
 ROCHESTER FORD. 
 
 11. Aunt Jane's Hero, and Stepping Heavenward. By L'. 
 
 PRENTISS, Author of " The Flower of the Family." 
 
 12. Faith Gartney's Girlhood, and a Summer in Leslie Gold- 
 
 thwaite's Life. By the Author of "The Gayworthys." 
 
 13. Little Women, and Good Wives. Being Stories for Girls. By 
 
 Miss L. M. ALCOTT. 
 
 14. The Lamplighter ; or, An Orphan Girl's Struggles ami Triumphs. 
 
 Miss CUMMINC,. Illustrated. 
 
 15. Queechy. By the Author of "The Wide, Wide World." 
 
 16. The Wide, Wide World. By Miss \Vi.i IIKKKI.I.. Illustrated. 
 
 17. Uncle Tom's Cabin ; or, Life Among the Lowly. By Mrs. 
 
 HARRIET BKKCHKR STOWB. Illustrated. 
 
 18. Maternal Counsels to a Daughter. By Mrs. Pri.i.AN. 
 
 19. The Mothers of Scripture. Showing theif Influence on their 
 
 Sons. 
 
 20. The School-Girl in France. By Miss McCaiNDKLL. 
 
 Published by Ward, Lock, and Tyler.
 
 24 New Books and New Editions. 
 
 "(Due pttlc (Dues'" fibvart}. 
 
 Price 3$. 6d. each, Illustrated. 
 
 AN ENTIRELY NEW WoEK BY SUSAN CoOLIDGE. 
 
 1. Little Miss Mischief, and other Stories. By SUSAN COOLIDGE, 
 
 Author of "The New Year's Bargain," "What Katy Did," c. With 
 Illustrations by ADDIE LEDYARD. 
 
 2. Moral Nursery_Tales for Children. By the Author of "The 
 
 Golden Harp." 
 
 3. Holiday House. By CATHERINE SINCLAIR. Illustrated. 
 
 4. Story of Stories (T-he) ; or, Bible Narratives for the Young. By 
 
 Mrs. LEATHLEY, Author of " Chickseed without Chickwced." Beautifully 
 Illustrated with full-page Engravings. 416 pages. 
 
 5. The Child's Own Book of Country Pleasures. Sixteen 
 
 Coloured and numerous other Illustrations. 
 
 6. Fanny Fern's New Stories for Children. By the Author of 
 
 "Fern Leaves." Illustrated. 
 
 7. Good Old Stories and Fairy Tales. Told for the Hundredth 
 
 Time by H. W. DULCKEN, Ph.D. Eight Coloured and numerous other 
 Illustrations. 
 
 8. Old Nursery Tales and Famous Histories. Re-told by H. W. 
 
 Dui.cK.iN, Ph.D. Illustrated with Eight Coloured and numerous othei 
 Illustrations. 
 
 9. Harry's Ladder to Learning. Numerous plain Engravings, and 
 
 Sixteen Coloured Plates. 
 
 io. Songs for the Little Ones at Home. Coloured and other Illus- 
 trations. 
 n. Half -Hours with the Bible ; or, Scripture Scenes and Characters : 
 
 described in a simple and attractive form, suitable for Young People. Beauti- 
 fully and profusely illustrated with Engravings. 
 
 ] 12. Brave Old Ballads (The Book of). With Sixteen Coloured 
 
 Illustrations, from designs by JOHN GILBERT. 
 i 13. Nursery Songs and Ballads. Uniform with "Harry's Ladder." 
 
 Eight Coloured Cuts and numerous Plain Illustrations. 
 
 , 14. Little Mary's Nursery Story Book. Imperial i6mo, numerous 
 
 Illustrations. 
 j 15. Nursery Tales and Stones. Uniform with "Songs for the 
 
 Little Ones." Eight Coloured Cuts and numerous Plain Illustrations. New 
 Edition. Just published. 
 
 16. Papa's Pretty Gift-Book for all Good Little Boys and Girls. 
 
 Enriched with numerous clever Engravings. 
 
 16. Nursery Rhymes, Old and New. A Collection of all the most 
 
 Favourite Nursery Rhymes, Jingles, and Stories ; also many new ones new 
 for the first time- printed. Imperial sr.mo. Numerous clever Illustrations. 
 
 17. Short Stories and Poems for Children. Original and select, 
 
 with numerous Wood Engravings. New and Revised Edition. 
 
 Published by Ward, Lock, and Tyler.
 
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