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and evil, as actually experienced, are the main features of this cast of mind. If the principal end be health and physical sensation, it is necessary that all the pains of disease and low vitality should be strongly remembered by the intellect, and represented powerfully in idea, when there is any danger of incurring them. So with any other end, or with the sum total of objects of pursuit. The intellect must lend itself to the purpose of vividly retaining those ends in their full magnitude, to give them the power of resisting present impulses that conflict with them. There may be, as I have already said, a prudential genius, as well as a mathematical or a musical genius; the fact of intense persistence in idea of the characteristic impressions of the department being common to all. Now, whenever we have the evidence of such an endowment, we take for granted that the person will certainly act in a way corresponding, and in striking opposition to all that class of minds, in whom there is no effective remembrance of the sweet and bitter experiences of life, for the future control of the actions. Our genius of prudence has imbibed a thorough sense of the good and evil consequences of actions; has submitted to instruction and example in favour of a course of careful living; has given good heed to advice, warning, and persuasive address in the same direction; has laid up store of information availing for the furtherance of collective interests against partial and temporary good; is disposed to the practice of meditation above mentioned; and in all ways is employed in building up an immense fortress, a mental stronghold of prudential forethought. The operations of such a mind are singularly amenable to calculation. We know that it is in vain to seduce it into the commonplace dissipation of the unthinking, light-hearted throng.

5. Such being the moving forces on the side of prudence, the counter forces are not difficult to assign. They are chiefly our actual and pressing sensations and emotions, which are by nature stronger than what is merely remembered or anticipated, and gain the day until such time as these others have been artificially invigorated. Intemperance, indolence, pro

digality, neglect of opportunities, giving offence to those that would assist us, and all sorts of reckless behaviour,-are sins against prudence, incurred simply because the sense of our lasting interests does not move the will with the same energy as the relish for stimulants, for ease, for indulgence of emotions, and such like. There is a volitional or moral weakness in the case, which, if once fairly manifested and put in evidence, can be assumed as the law of our being, just as it is the law of smoke to ascend, and of water to descend. It is true enough, that we are under no compulsion in the common sense of the word, like the compulsion whereby a child is made to take physic, or a vagrant sleeps in the open field, because there is no shelter accessible. But the law of action is just as sure in the one case as in the other, allowance being made for the various susceptibility of the mind to various motive agencies. The person that cannot withstand temptations to self-injury may be properly said to be under a moral weakness or inability, because the defect is possible to be supplied by moral means, or by raising new feelings, having in them strong volitional promptings. The weakness of intemperate indulgence is not such as can be met only by shutting a man up, and limiting his meals by the strong hand. This would be to pass beyond mere moral inability into the domain of infatuation or insanity. You may make up for any ordinary weakness by adding new motives on the side of restraint, and when this is possible, the weakness consists simply in the character of the impulses that act upon the will. You may represent to the person's mind the evil consequences more vividly than they occur to himself; you may interpose authority, which means the laying on of new evils of a deterring kind; you may announce the promise of some pleasure as an incitement to the same effect; you may preach, warn, exhort, and fill the mind with examples of the horrors of indulgence, and the felicity of moderation. By some or all of these means you rescue your victim, or you do not. If you do, you have simply been able to add motives enough to supply the deficient side; very much as you fortify a building against

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479 a storm, or increase the power of artillery to demolish a citadel.

6. As regards any object that a person takes up, as the great or crowning end of life, he will be disposed, more or less, to subordinate all other motives to it. His character is complete as regards the carrying out of the chief end, when nature, the force of will, habits, and concurring circumstances, have succeeded in securing a total subordination. The observations now made with reference to prudential ends apply equally to the ambition of Alexander, the philanthropy of Howard, or the career of any devotee to literature, science, or political amelioration. As a general rule, no one is equal to the full maintenance of the crowning object, against every conflicting solicitation. Nevertheless, we know full well that agencies could be brought to bear that would make up for the insufficient power of a principal end. A man is betrayed by his feeling of fatigue, by his love of some sensual pleasure, by his fear, his affections, his anger, his sensibility to the charms of fine art, to throw away an opportunity of furthering his cause. We note the circumstance, and expect that if all things are the same, he will show the same inability at another time. We know further, however, that if any friend, monitor, or person having authority with him, take to heart the failure thus exhibited, they may ply him with extra motives, which may possibly secure the right determination. We know besides, that if the person himself feels remorse and self-crimination at his own moral weakness, the recollection will be a new motive in favour of his high purpose on the next occasion. After a few experiments, we can tell pretty closely what is the value of repentance as a motive upon the individual supposed. In some we find that remorse is a powerful spur to the will for a long time after, and in others we have to set it down as nothing at all. As our opportunites of watching a person are increased, we are to that degree enabled certainly to foretell how he will behave, and to take our course accordingly. If the event ever disappoints us, we ascribe it to no uncertainty in the sequences of motive and action; but

to our not being able to foresee accurately the motives that were present. In speculating beforehand on the decisions of a deliberative body, we may know the opinions and inclinations of each member with absolute certainty; but we may not be able to say who are to be present on a given day. Very much the same thing holds in our attempting to predict the decisions of a single mind. We can know from a tolerable experience what will be the result of any one motive when we know it to be present, but it is not always within our power to ascertain beforehand what number of susceptibilities shall be acted upon on each occasion. An untoward event may render a man of open sympathies for a moment obdurate. The irascible temperament may accidentally pass by an affront; or the penurious man surprise us by his liberality. No one ever supposes that these exceptions imply that the connexion between motive and act is for the time suspended by a caprice of nature, or the relaxation of the usual link of antecedent and consequent. The only explanation that we ever think of entertaining, is the presence of some second motive that for the time holds the prevailing bias in check. We should not think of countenancing the supposition, that a man intensely avaricious in the main current of his life, does nevertheless, on certain days, become paralyzed to the love of money, behaving in all things as if the character could never be attributed to him. We know the uniformity of human actions too well to maintain the possibility of an absolute suspension of motive, while we are no less prepared for the interposition of new motives, and the occasional defeat of some of the strongest of men's usual impulses.

7. To pass next to the consideration of Duty. The illustration here is of an exactly parallel nature. The various branches of what is termed duty, or obligation, all point to the interests of our fellow-beings, which we have to respect while in the pursuit of our own. Justice, truth, fulfilment of contracts, the abstaining from violence to the person or character of our neighbour, the respect to other men's property and rights, obedience to legal authority,—are so many

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modes of conduct enforced upon us as members of a community bound together for common protection. There are in human nature certain primary impulses that would dictate actions falling under the heads now indicated. The operation of Sympathy identifies us with the pleasures and pains of sentient beings at large, and supplies a motive to work for these to some extent as if they were our own. In the small group of Intellectual emotions, there is a feeling hostile to inconsistency, inequality, and unfairness, ministering therefore to the support of the duties of Truth and Justice. These are the slender contributions of our nature to the cause of social duty. Much more formidable is the array of the unsocial feelings that have influence upon the will. Fortunately however, the purely self-regarding impulses can be wrought upon in this cause, otherwise it is very doubtful if the multifarious exigencies of duty or morality could be at all complied with.

8. I have given it as my deliberate opinion (Ethical Emotions, § 1) that authority, or punishment, is the commencement of the state of mind recognised under the various names-Conscience, the Moral Sense, the Sentiment of Obli

gation.

The major part of every community adopt certain rules of conduct necessary for the common preservation, or ministering to the common well-being. They find it not merely their interest, but the very condition of their existence, to observe a number of maxims of individual restraint, and of respect to one another's feelings in regard to person, property, and good name. Obedience must be spontaneous on the part of the larger number, or on those whose influence preponderates in the society; as regards the rest, compulsion may be brought to bear. Every one, not of himself disposed to follow the rules prescribed by the community, is subjected to some infliction of pain to supply the absence of other motives; the infliction increasing in severity until obedience is attained. It is the familiarity with this régime of compulsion, and of suffering constantly increasing, until resistance is overborne, that plants in the infant and youthful mind the