they are of the highest importance and value; a due regard to them is essential to the highest well-being, and the neglect or abuse of them brings its own sure and speedy punishment. To be ashamed of our animal nature, is to be ashamed of ourselves, and of the constitution that God gave us; to think lightly of it, is to despise the divine wisdom and be nevolence. It is no part of an intelligent and rational nature to contemn the casket that contains all its treasure. Even were that casket worthless in itself, it would be valuable for the office it performs; much more when it is itself a piece of rare workmanship, curiously and wonderfully wrought.

Not selfish. The appetites are not to be regarded as essentially selfish, in their nature. They relate, indeed, to our own personal wants; so do all our desires, and, in some measure, all our sensibilities. But when exercised within due bounds, they are not inconsistent with the rights and happiness of others, but the rather promotive of these results; and, therefore, not in the proper sense of the term are they selfish propensities. Their ultimate aim is not the securing of a certain amount of enjoyment to the individual by their gratification, but the securing of a certain end, not otherwise reached, by means of that enjoyment. They are to be set down as original and implanted principles of our nature, rather than as selfish and acquired propensities.

Dangerous Tendency. — I would, by no means, however overlook the fact that the animal desires are of dangerous tendency when permitted to gain any considerable control over the mind, and that they require to be kept within careful bounds. They are liable to abuse. When suffered to become predominant over other and higher principles of action, when, from subjection and restraint, they rise to the mastery, and govern the man, then sinks the man to the level of the brute, and there is presented that saddest spectacle of all that the sun beholds in his course about the earth, a mind endowed with capacity of reason and intelligence, but enslaved to its own base passions. There is no slavery

so degrading as that, none so hopeless. The most earnest efforts, the best and most sincere purposes and resolutions are too often made in vain, and the mind, struggling, to little purpose, with its own propensities, and its own vitiated nature, is swept on by the fearful current of its ungoverned, and now ungovernable, appetites, as the ship over which ueither sail nor helm have any further power, is swept along in swift and ever lessening circles by the fatal maëlstrom.

Curious Law of our Nature.—It seems to be the law of our nature, that while our active principles gain strength by exercise, the degree of enjoyment or of suffering which they are capable of affording, diminishes by repetition. This has been clearly stated by Mr. Stewart. It follows from this, that while by long and undue indulgence of any of the animal desires, the gratification originally derived from such indulgence is no longer capable of being enjoyed, the desire itself may be greatly increased, and constantly increasing, in its demands. It is hardly possible to conceive a condition more wretched and miserable, than that of a mind compelled thus to drain the bitter dregs of its cup of pleasure, long since quaffed, and to repeat, in endless round, the follies that no longer have power to satisfy, even for the brief moment, the poor victim of their enchantment. The drunkard, the glutton, the debauchee, afford illustrations of this principle.

Acquired Appetites. - Beside the natural appetites of which I have hitherto spoken, and which are founded in the constitution of the physical system, there are certain appe tites which must be regarded as artificial and acquired, such as the desire, so widely and almost universally prevalent, in countries both savage and civilized, for narcotic and stimu lating drugs of various kinds, and for intoxicating drinks.

CHAPTER III.

DESIRES ARISING FROM THE CONSTITUTION OF THE MIND

§ I. DESIRE OF HAPPINESS.

Propriety of the Designation Self-love. Among that class of desires that have their foundation in the mental rather than in the physical constitution, one of the most im portant is the desire of happiness, or, as it is frequently called, self-love. The propriety of this designation has been called in question. "The expression," says Mr. Stewart, "is exceptionable, for it suggests an analogy (where there is none, in fact) between that regard which every rational being must necessarily have to his own happiness, and those benevolent affections which attach us to our fellow-creatures. There is surely nothing in the former of these principles analogous to the affection of love; and, therefore, to call it by the appellation of self-love, is to suggest a theory with respect to its nature, and a theory which has no foundation in truth."

This Position questionable. I apprehend that in this remark, Mr. Stewart may have gone too far. The regard which we have for our own happiness certainly differs from that which we entertain for the happiness of others, as the ojects differ on which, in either case, the regard is fixed. That the emotion is not essentially of the same nature, how ever, psychologically considered, is not so clear. Love or affection, as it has been defined in the preceding chapters, is the enjoyment of an object, mingled with a wish or desire of good to the same. Love of friends is the pleasure felt in, and the benevolent regard for, them. Love of self, in like

manner, is the enjoyment of, and the desire of, good to self Whoever, then, enjoys himself, and wishes his own good, exercises self-love; and the essential ingredient of this affec tion is the desire for his own happiness. Not only, then, is there an analogy between the two principles, the desire of our own happiness, and the regard which we feel for others, but something more than an analogy; they are essentially of the same nature so far as regards the mental activity es ercised in either case, and the term love as properly desig nates the one, as the other, of these states cf mind. I may Love myself, as truly as I love my friend, nor is it the part of a rational nature to be destitute of the principle of self-love.

Not to be confounded with Selfishness.-There is more force in the objection, also urged by Mr. Stewart, against the phrase self-love, used to denote the desire of happiness, that it is, from its etymology, liable to be confounded, and in fact, often is confounded, with the word selfishness, which denotes a very different state of mind. The word selfish ness is always used in an unfavorable sense, to denote some disregard of the happiness and rights of others; but no such idea properly attaches to self-love, or the desire of happiness, which, as Mr. Stewart justly remarks, is inseparable from our nature as rational and sensitive beings.

Views of Theologians. — Misled, perhaps, by the resemn blance of the words, many theological writers, both ancie: t and modern, have not only represented self-love as essentially sinful, but even as the root and origin of evil, the principle of original sin.

So Barrow expressly affirms, citing Zuingle as authority. English moralists have sometimes taken the same view, and the earlier American divines very generally held it.

Self-love not criminal.-It can hardly be that a prin ciple, which seems to belong to our nature as intelligent and rational beings, should be essentially criminal in it nature, The mistake, doubtless, arises from overlooking the distinc tion, already indicated, between self-love and selfishness

The love of self, carried to the extreme of disregarding the happiness of others, and trespassing upon the rights of others, in the way to self-gratification, is indeed a violation of the principles of right, and is equally condemned by nature, speaking in the common sense and reason of man, and by Jivine revelation. But neither reason, nor the divine law, forbid that regard to our own happiness which self-love, in its true and proper sense, implies, and which exists, it may safely be affirmed, in every human bosom in which the light of intelligence and reason has not gone out in utter darkness. The sacred Scriptures nowhere forbid this principle. They enjoin upon us, indeed, the love of our neighbor; but the very command to love him as myself, so far from forbidding self-love, implies its existence as a matter of course, and presents that as a standard by which to measure the love I ought to bear to others.

Opinion of Aristotle. Much more correct than the opinions to which I have referred, is the view taken by Aristotle in his Ethics, who speaks of the good man as necessarily a lover of himself, and, in the true sense, preëmi nently so. "Should a man assume a preeminence in exercising justice, temperance, and other virtues, though such a man has really more true self-love than the multitude, yet nobody would impute his affection to him as a crime. Yet he takes to himself the fairest and greatest of all goods, and those the most acceptable to the ruling principle in his naCure, which is, properly, himself, in the same manner as the Jovereignty in every community is that which most properly constitutes the state. He is said, also, to have, or not to nave, the command of himself, just as this principle bears sway, or as it is subject to control; and those acts are con sidered as most voluntary which proceed from this legisla tive or sovereign power. Whoever cherishes and gratifies this ruling part of his nature, is strictly and peculiarly a lover of himself, but in quite a different sense from that ir which self-love is regarded as a matter of reproach." (Ethic.