shall find few instances of remarkable progress which may not be ascribed to a spirit of emulation. To become the first in a school, or in a class, will generally prove a more powerful stimulus to application than all the beauties of Homer and Virgil. This ambition of pre-eminence, this love of excelling, more than of excellence, accompanies every stage and condition of human life.

It is not indeed every man that ardently wishes to be a poet or a philosopher, a judge or a bishop, the general of an army or a minister of state, as there are few whose capacity or situation will admit of such prospects; though it must be confessed, on the other hand, that there is scarce any one so disgraced by nature, unfavoured by education/ or depressed by fortune, that may not, if he can find his place, obtain a degree of consequence. And who does not wish to be a great man someivhere; or does not affect to be chief in some system, however small and inconsiderable; and if he cannot attain his object by fair and gentle means,

Hence it is that no political society, in which the point of precedence is not firmly established, can long subsist without contest. For as every citizen, if he cannot attain the first place, will endeavour to approach it as nearly as possible, he must have many rivals to encounter; and consequently will be put to a full trial of his strength, and perhaps suffer many defeats, before he falls into his proper rank. Hence too arise most of those wars and violent commotions which so often agitate the world; while, like Pompey and Caesar, one prince or state will not endure a superior, nor another an equal; or rather, while each strives for mastery, since (as before observed) it is not mere equality, but dominion, that is naturally the object of human ambitiop. And it may justly be questioned, whether many examples can be produced of a lasting friendly union between two private individuals, without a tacit demand of superiority on the one part, and a generous compliance with it on the other.

The assertion therefore of some, that a sense is ,true; taking war as softened and mitigated by an infusion of equity and humanity. For, in his present condition,

"Under hope of heavenly grace, and God proclaiming peace,"

man is not utterly abandoned to his vile and malignant passions.

Nor is this spirit of pride and domination confined to social or political life; it invades the retreats of the learned, and kindles intellectual war among grammarians and critics, historians and poets, philosophers and metaphysicians; nay, it early invaded the church itself, producing heresies, schisms, and persecutions; and under the management of a succession of men, who styled themselves servants of the servants of God, grew into a system of tyranny beyond what the world had before known; extended itself over both soul and body; over this life and the life to come. Surely there must be a strange power in this ambitious principle, which could thus make its way in opposition to a religion whose foundation is humility, and whose perfection, charity; an engine for accomplishing its own purposes.

Again: It is not only in situations of importance, or in the stated intercourse of life, but on the most trivial and accidental occasions, that a spirit of consequence will display itself. Let two travellers who never met before, and may never meet again, pass only a few hours together at the same inn, or in the same stage-coach, and there will probably be some exhibition of this nature. In whatever circumstances of society a man is placed, he is willing to impress a flattering idea of himself. - Nor is it inconsistent with this, that persons will sometimes seem to court disgrace, by a voluntary submission to degradation and contempt; which may either arise from an occasional prevalence of some other principle over pride, or be no more than a stratagem of this passion itself. Many cringe to a man in power only to rival or supplant him; or, if their ambition soar not so high, they seek a compensation for the indignities they encounter, in the conse

ness amongst those who are placed at a distance. '•

But however he may stand in the opinion of others, and with whatever contempt or indifference they may think fit to treat him, there is scarce any man who does not appear considerable to himself; he discovers some endowment of nature, some acquired ability, or circumstance of fortune on which to ground his importance. If not distinguished by the inventive power of genius, he finds this defect compensated by a solid understanding; if he cannot, like a certain Greek, raise a small village into a great city, he could do what it seems that Greek could not, play upon the lute; if he has neither to boast of place nor pension, he may perhaps pride himself as an independent country gentleman; or, if destitute of all external advantage, and conscious of none within, he will still imagine some latent excellence, which, if happily brought to light, would elevate him to enviable distinction.

Lastly: From the above observations it may appear, that the principle of Avhich we