surgeon who rises to eminence, must have risen to it through the suffering which he has inflicted, and the death which he has brought upon hundreds of the poor. The effect of the entire abolition of the practice of dissecting the dead, would be, to convert poor-houses and public hospitals into so many schools where the surgeon, by practising on the poor, would learn to operate on the rich with safety and dexterity. This would be the certain and inevitable result: and this, indeed, would be to treat them with real indignity, and horrible injustice; and proves, how possible it is to show an apparent consideration for the poor, and yet practically to treat them in the most injurious and cruel manner."

In one passage, the reviewer seems to labor under some misapprehension relative to the provision which the state of NewYork has made for the promotion and support of anatomical and physiological science. He supposes that this state has in no way provided for the schools of anatomy and surgery. A reference to the laws on this subject may, on many accounts, not be unnecessary. By an Act, passed April 3, 1801, by the Legislature of New-York, exhumation for the purpose of dissection is made a public offence, and the offender is liable to fine and imprisonment at the discretion of the court. An Act, passed March 19, 1813, provides that the bodies of all persons executed, and of all persons dying in the State Prison, may be delivered up for the purpose of dissection; the former at the discretion of the Court, the latter at the discretion of the inspectors of the prison. Again, by an act passed March 30, 1820, the bodies of all persons dying in the State Prison at Auburn, shall be delivered to the agent of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the western district, unless the body shall be claimed within twenty-four hours by the friends of the deceased.

Whether this provision is sufficiently ample for the purposes of successfully cultivating anatomical knowledge, is quite another question, and may admit of a reasonable doubt. For ourselves, we are convinced that it is not; and if so, every friend of the poor will be happy to see any arrangements by which the necessity of experimenting on their living bodies may be effectually avoided. We are not among those who apprehend any violent opposition to an extension of anatomical facilities. On the contrary, we profess an entire confidence in the good sense and discretion of our poorest fellow-citizens, and we should think that we grossly insulted them, if we showed by our suspicions that we held them incapable of comprehending their true rights and best interests.

From the doctrines set forth in the fifth article, we beg leave nearly altogether to dissent. That public institutions avowedly provided for the relief of the poor, in which the funds

appropriated to their relief are collected from the pockets of those who never see and never think of the objects of their charitable contributions, are pregnant with the most pernicious influence on society, and only promotive of the evil they awkwardly attempt to arrest, we are compelled to acknowledge, whatever be our wishes to the contrary. But that the well regulated and discreet indulgence of charitable feelings, whenever those feelings are excited, is forbidden by the true interests of humanity, is a doctrine which we candidly confess we can neither understand nor believe. We are aware that some writers have indiscriminately condemned all charitable donations whatsoever, on the ground that whatever is given to a mendicant or pauper is taken from the pockets of some other, to whom it would have gone, in return for some equivalent received. It is not a little surprising that this sophism, glaring as it is, is seriously urged in opposition to almsgiving in an admirable paper on the causes andcure of pauperism in the Edinburg Review, for March, 1817. It is easy to prove that the author of the article in question has fallen into error; and as it may not be improper to show that an able and sensible writer may sometimes be guilty of extraordinary oversights in matters of argument, we shall here take the liberty to insert the whole passage to which we allude, with a notice of the fallacy which vitiates the inference.

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"Indeed," says the reviewer, "without entering into the theory of lation at all, it seems pretty evident, that should I retrench my own enjoyments, and give the produce of all this economy to the poor, I should only give to one set of human beings what I am withholding from another. The suin now expended in the relief of poverty, was formerly expended in payments for the articles of my own accommodation,--in the shape of support to those who supplied these articles,--or of remuneration to those who had vested their capital, or bestowed their industry, upon the preparation of them. And thus it appears, that wherever a great mass of wealth is directed to the maintenance of the poor, this is done by a great withdrawment of wealth from its former channels of distribution; by a great impoverishment of those who were formerly upheld by this wealth in the exercise of their callings; and, in fact, by the creation of poor in one quarter, just as you divert money away from those who were industriously earning the price of your articles of consumption, to the relief of poverty already exercising in some other quarter. And hence it may be seen, how, if all the men of wealth in the country were to reduce themselves to the mere necessaries of life, they would just dismiss from their service a mighty train of dependent artificers and workmen; they would just. without forwarding by a single inch the cause of human enjoyment, exchange an industrious for a beggarly population."

Now, although we are convinced that most of our readers will detect the mistake into which the reviewer has fallen be

fore we get through with what we have to say in reply, yet, as we have seen before now as bad reasoning as this impose upon sensible people, we shall venture, at the risk of seeming dull or superfluous, to point out the flaw in the foregoing argu

ment.

It is not enough to reply to this position, that when A gives alms to B, the number of distributors of wealth is increased; for it may be said in answer to this, that as A would have given to C in exchange for some enjoyment, the same sum which he has given to B, C would have become as much a distributor as B, and the number of course is not increased. But the proper reply to the argument against the humanity of almsgiving seems to us to be this-that it is an error to distinguish in political economy between what is called a gift, and what is called wages, or hire, or compensation. The amount of enjoyment which is actually gained to society in every exchange, is measured by the difference between the sum of human enjoyments before, and the same sum after the exchange. Thus, in a case in which no third person is affected by an interchange of values between A and B, the exchange gives a gain to society, equal to the difference between the sum of the pleasurable emotions of A and B before, and the same sum after the exchange. Now let us suppose that A instead of giving a certain sum to B in exchange for a horse, a watch or an instrument of music, gives this same sum to C in exchange for his gratitude, or the pleasurable emotions which an unrestrained charitable act is calculated to produce. If we do not take into the estimate the remote good or evil consequences of these exchanges, the only way to compare their effects upon the happiness of society is to calculate what actual addition each has made to this happiness. When A for example, gives to B one hundred dollars for a horse, it will generally happen (if no fraud nor force has intervened in the exchange,) that A and B have each gained some slight addition to their enjoyments. It is not probable that either A or B can have gained much, (though this may sometimes happen.) because the tendency of mutual competition between the sellers and the purchasers of horses will be towards such a disposition of the price of horses, that the gains of A and B will be as small as the means of subsistence will allow. On the other hand, it cannot happen that either A or B can lose by the exchange unless where one of them is cheated, deluded, or compelled into the barter. In the second case, where A gives B one hundred dollars in exchange for thanks or blessings, it very often happens that B gains greatly by the exchange, and if the

gift have been a willing one, it proves that A has also gained in giving and receiving what he did. A beggar may be considered in the light of the producer of an immaterial product, with quite as much propriety as a dancer, singer, or theatrical performer. The dancer furnishes a product to the consumer, in the shape of graceful movements, which inspire agreeable emotions; and the beggar has done the same, in the form of certain moral capabilities to move and gratify the finest feelings of our nature. In the first consequences, therefore, of that exchange which is called an act of charity, the addition to the sum of human pleasures is sometimes very great indeed, not only on the part of the receiver, but also on the part of the giver of all voluntary alms. We have only mentioned, as a value received in exchange for a charitable donation, the gratification of the donor's feelings; but it is obvious we might have added other values which are not unfrequently received; viz. the escape from vexatious importunities, from the sense of shame which attends the rejection of a needy man's petition, and from the censure of society which always attaches to the man who habitually refuses to relieve the distresses of the indigent; the anticipation of the mendicant's good word to others in praise of our liberality; the hope that the generous act we have performed may be known of men, and be an honor and a profit to us; the gratification of a curiosity to witness the proofs of thankfulness or submission in the mendicant ; the satisfaction of the pride we feel in being able to impress the beggar with a high opinion of our wealth or generosity, and many other considerations which occasionally enter into the aggregate of moral values which we purchase with our charitable gifts. It cannot then be said with any sort of propriety that the charitable man receives nothing in exchange for what he gives. If his recompense is the happiness he enjoys in communicating happiness, the recompense is frequently the highest and the purest he can possibly receive; and is no less real and effective than any other value recognised as such by political economists. If his compensation is some pleasure which less virtuous interests afford, then it may be said of him still more emphatically, Verily he has his reward.'

How far this augmentation of human happiness may afterwards be affected by the evils which even private charity sometimes gives occasion to, we are not at present ready to discuss. That these evils have been overrated, we feel confident; particularly with respect to what regards the alleged stimulus given to population. The calculations of the poor man, when discussing with himself the propriety of marrying,

are certainly not affected by the mode in which the means of subsistence which he possesses were obtained; except inasmuch as he must necessarily look up to the succour of the charitable as a very precarious and discreditable support. Population will be therefore only increased (in case of almsgiving) in population to the added means which the humane have thus provided; and we really cannot see why it should not be permitted to increase in this proportion, as well when the additional subsistence has been in exchange for the equivalents of charity, as when it has been given in return for more physical and palpable productions.

The desire of administering relief, even when no object of compassion is before us, is as natural a desire, and one which as imperiously requires its appropriate gratification, as any other instinct or appetite whatever. The ardent longings and strong tendencies of love are not more incident to human nature, than the sympathies of pity, and the sweetnesses of charity. There exists, we are convinced, in almost every bosom, a yearning for an object of compassion, and an opportunity of exercising and employing the tenderer and gentler attections of the heart. 6 Pity is akin to love' in a sense not intended by the poet. Each searches for an object and a resting place, and each derives from a temperate indulgence of its wishes, the highest and the holiest of pleasures. But the very essence of the joy which attends upon the exercise of charity, resides in its voluntary character. Touch it with the finger of constraint, and it changes into absolute indifference, and soon into downright aversion. The law may compel us to relieve, but it can never force us to pity the distressed; and in extorting the duties of beneficence, the very violence extinguishes the recompense; that recompense we mean, which constitutes at once the value and reward of well-directed charitythe pleasure of communicating pleasure, by a voluntary effort of our own.

Our defence, it will be seen, has been confined to private charity alone. When that charity is wrested from the wealthy by main force (whether by the strong arm of the beggar, or by the violence of law, it matters not a jot,) there is an end of that mutual satisfaction which results only from a voluntary bargain, and which constitutes the only test of the actual increase of positive enjoyments. It may sometimes happen, that the increased pleasures of the indigent may more than balance the lost pleasures of the rich man who is compelled against his will to contribute to the succour of the poor; but this again