THINKINGS, FROM DAVID HUME. HAPPINESS.-Inward peace of mind, consciousness of integrity, and a satisfactory review of our own conduct, are circumstances very requisite to happiness. Those who possess the will, besides, have the frequent satisfaction of seeing knaves, with all their pretended cunning and abilities, betrayed by their own maxims; but were they ever so successful, the honest man, if he has any tincture of philosophy, will discover that knaves are themselves in the end the greatest dupes, and have sacrificed the invaluable enjoyment of a good character, for the acquisition of worthless gew-gaws, How little is required to supply the necessities of nature; and in a view to pleasure, what comparison between the unbought satisfaction of conversation, society, study, even health and the common beauties of nature, but above all, the peaceful reflection of one's own conduct-what comparison, I say, between these and the feverish, empty, amusements of luxury and expense? These natural pleasures, indeed, are really without price; both because they are below all price in their attainment, and above all price in their enjoyment. DOGMATISM.-Nothing can be more unphilosophical than to be positive or dogmatical on any subject; and even if excessive scepticism could be maintained, it would not be more destructive to all just reasoning and inquiry. When men are the most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have therefore given the reins to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities. THE NATURE OF OUR REASONINGS CONCERNING MATTERS OF FACT.-All reasonings concerning matters of fact, seem to be founded in the relation of cause and effect. By means of that relation alone, we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses. If you were to ask a man why he believes any matter of fact which is absent—for instance, that his friend is in the country, or in France? he would give you a reason, and this reason would be some other factas a letter received from him, or the knowledge of his former resolutions and promises. A man finding a watch or any other machine in a desert island, would conclude that there had once been men in that island. All our reasonings concerning fact are of the same nature; and hence it is constantly supposed that there is a relation between the present fact and that inferred from it. Were there nothing to bind them together, the inference would be entirely precarious. The hearing of an articulate voice and rational discourse in the dark, assures us of the presence of some person. Why? Because these are the effects of the human shape and fabric, and closely connected with it. If we anatomize all the other reasonings of this nature, we shall find that they are founded on cause and effect; and that this relation is either near or remote, direct or collateral. Heat and light are collateral effects of fire; and the one may be justly inferred from the other. SELF-LOVE.-Self-love is a principle in human nature of such extensive energy, and the interest of each individual is, in general, so closely connected with that of the community, that those philosophers were excusable, who fancied, that all our concern for the public might be resolved into a concern for our own happiness and preservation. ON THE EVILS OF LIFE.-Natural evils are the lot of all animals. A perpetual war is kindled among all living creatures. Necessity, hunger, want, stimulate the strong and the courageous; fear, anxiety, terror, agitate the weak and infirm. The first entrance into life gives anguish to the new-born infant, and to its wretched parent. Weakness, impotence, distress, attend each stage of that life, and it is at last finished in agony and horror. The stronger prey upon the weaker, and keep them in perpetual terror and anxiety. The weaker, too, in their turn, prey upon the stronger, and vex and molest them without relaxation. Consider that innumerable race of insects, which are either bred on the body of each animal, or, flying about, infix their stings in him. These insects have others, still less than themselves, which torment them; and thus, on each hand, before and behind, above and below, every animal is surrounded with enemies, which incessantly seek its misery or destruction, THERE'S NO DEARTH OF KINDNESS. There's no dearth of kindness In this world of ours; Only in our blindness We gather thorns for flowers; Or love among mankind; Soul is shut from soul, That there are none so lowly But have some angel-touch; We live for self too much! We gather thorns for flowers! Life were not worth the living, GERALD MASSEY. STANZAS FOR THE TIMES. Men of England, ye have done, Men of England, can it be That the Saxon spirit's fled? Higher, nobler victories win! Birmingham. Ye have yet a nobler fight, Than ye ever fought before; Have ye e'er to fight again; Wiser, purer, than ye are; Earth subduing without war. Ye must ever take the van, Of the brotherhood of Man. SONNET ON BEAUTY. Nature is full of fair and lovely things With their immortal nature-which inspires But leads the soul to new felicity ; For, aye, while Nature's Beauty it admires, JOHN ACKROYD. Thornton, near Bradford. MORAL AND POLITICAL LESSONS OF 'GULLIVER'S TRAVELS.' An Oration; delivered at the Literary Institution, John-Street, Fitzroy Square: September 23rd, 1849. BY THOMAS COOPER. THAT man would go far to prove that he could sound the depths of human nature, who could tell us, exactly, how it is that, to instruct by fiction has evermore possessed the greatest charm with mankind. It was so in the earliest ages: it is so still. The most highly prized relics of antiquity are not its columns and temples, nor its statuary-more precious than they ; neither its histories and orations, nor its philosophical treatises, invaluable as they may be; but its written fictions. The Iliad:'-who, if he were asked what relic of the noblest nation of antiquity he would wish to have preserved at the price of all its other memorials being annihilated, would not name Homer's glorious masterpiece of fiction? And who would not wish every triumph of English literature to be lost, rather than that 'Macbeth' and ' Lear,' 'Othello' and 'Hamlet' should perish? 6 The power of fiction to instruct, the sources of the charm it exercises over the human mind-the surpassing intellect of the creator of ' Macbeth' and Lear,' of Othello' and 'Hamlet,' could have unfolded that secret— for he had learned it by practice and experience, the great teachers. But none of us possess Shakspere's magic plummet; and so our soundings of the human mind can be only imperfect. it Perhaps, the secret of the charm of fictitious writing lies in the fact that it appeals to all the powers of the mind,—and thus prevents the weariness from over-labour of any one faculty. Argument, since it appeals to but one faculty-the understanding-is distasteful to the million; and even to the few who possess the reflective faculties in the highest perfection, becomes wearisome at length, and creates a yearning for relief by the employment of some lighter faculty. History, since it chiefly exercises only the memory and understanding, also palls upon the taste, by continued application to its narratives, as truthful and instructive as they may be. Skilful fiction-for I speak not of the frivolous rubbish of this wide realm of literature-brings all the faculties of the mind into play: the fancy or imagination, the memory-the judgment, understanding, or reason (call the highest faculty of the mind which you choose)-and if the fiction be from the hand of a true master-the will, also, is summoned into action -for the fiction will be sure to have its moral which will impel the mind to make its resolve to shun the vice, and practice the virtue, that has been taught. Skilful fiction is thus a grand source of instruction. It has brought all the faculties into play: it holds them all captive till the purpose of the story is complete; and then it, all along, brings home the moral to the mind and heart. No wonder, then, can it be, that parable and allegory were the prevailing modes of instruction with the earliest men; no wonder that the professional story-teller still holds his sway over those eastern swarms who preserve ancient manners and modes of thinking; no wonder that story held so all-controlling an influence over our own forefathers before they left their northern homes to settle in our island,—and even over the whole European mind, during the Dark Ages; no wonder that it still holds its influence, over every class, in spite of changes in civilization. That prophet who says that the enlightenment of science will eventually destroy the profession of the story-teller-that it will close the market in the human intellect for his wares- -and render it impossible that the name any future Scott or Dickens should be inscribed on the rolls of literary fame-possesses not the true gift of divination or foresight. The charm of fiction and its power to instruct is indestructible,---by its profound adaptation to the nature of the human mind,---by its omnipotence to delight, absorb, excite, hold captive, and finally direct the mind to volition, and the man to moral action. of Omnipotence? Ay: for if the aim of a master in fiction be evil, he can almost unerringly accomplish it by his skill and energy,—and that as easily as he could have accomplished good. If, with his pictures of the true and beautiful, with his graphic delineations of human character, and with all his plenitude of moral lesson,-he enthrones some error of the mind, some corrupt passion of human nature,-the reader will be almost inevitably led to love that error, and to nurture in himself that corrupt passion. What matchless beauty, what deep truth, what life-like pictures of humanity, what opulence of moral, in that transcendent 'Iliad' and yet it enthrones the bad passion for war; and if one anecdote be credible, that Alexander read it every day, and slept with it under his pillow by night---we owe the record of his ambition, his ravages, and slaughterous conquests, to his reading of Homer! I do not mention this to induce any one to commit so great a folly as to throw Homer away: if he will do so, be it remembered that he must throw the older part of another old book after it, as even more pernicious---because it teaches war and slaughter under still higher sanctions. My motive is simply to shew the power of fiction to impel and govern the mind. And this power has happily been exercised by many a masterspirit in our father-land, for the most useful and edifying purposes. In our noble English verse, from homely and patriarchal Chaucer to prophetic Shelley, the guise of fiction has been employed to teach the wisest and noblest, the highest and holiest truths. In prose fiction we are almost equally rich in matter, and certainly a thousand-fold richer in measure; for it would take many hours to recapitulate the names and works of our romancers and novelists, were we to begin only at Sir Thomas More's 'Utopia-(that most invaluable political romance)-or at the courtly and sentimental Arcadia' of Sir Philip Sidney,-and so to tread our way down to Charles Dickens-most incomparably the truest genius, as a novelist, of the present day. A review of that kind could not fail to interest us with the great change it would present in the taste of different periods, and, above all, with the strangely different character of the genius of different writers. And, in this review, one name would stand out as wearing features so grotesque, and, at times, so repulsive;-then again, so profoundly wise and discerning, so piercingly acute, so pungent in sarcasm, so electric in wit, so irresistible in ridicule and drollery;-using meanwhile such apparently unnatural means to produce his effects, and those effects often of the highest moral kind; -that if one wished to mention a name which should be at once a type of the shrewdest wit and truest common sense mingled with the most strange and nondescript fancy-it would be that ever-memorable and universally known name of two syllables-Dean Swift. It is from his master-piece of prose fiction- The Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver—that I purpose drawing a few moral and political lessons, to night. I make no doubt that with the majority of the present audience, 'Gulliver's Travels' have passed as a book of amusement merely; while the coarseness of some of its pictures will have repelled many from reading the book through. Coarseness is its worst feature, indeed,--for it was a part of the author's own character; but we must not throw away a deeply instructive book because of one fault, even if it be a gross one. Others have objected to Gulliver,' that it presents the bad side of human nature almost exclusively. And this is a true criticism. We all feel in reading the book that there is too little of the excellency of man in it. But Swift had experienced too deep disappointment in the world to think much of its fair and agreeable side, or to value it very highly. Let us look at the book, however, for ourselves, and mark what degreeof truth there is in it. Gulliver, the hero of the famous imaginary Travels,' is a surgeon, tolerably well educated, who goes to sea many times, and is eventually wrecked somewhere in the South Sea, not far from Van Diemen's Land. He is the only one of the ship's crew that escapes with life, and having walked a little way into the strange country into which he is cast, lies him down, from sheer weariness upon the grass, which he says is 'soft and short,' and falls asleep. When he awakes it is just daylight, and he attempts to rise, but finds it impossible. He is fast tied down by innumerable small ligatures : even the very hairs of his head are separately fastened! He liberates one hand, at length, and then partially releases his head, so as to be able to raise himself a little on one side. Behold, above one hundred arrows, no larger than small needles, are discharged at him, he groans with grief and pain, and resigns himself to lie still. He is in the land of Lilliput, where the inhabitants are only six inches high! They erect a scaffold of half a yard high near his head, capable of holding four Lilliputians, mount it by ladders, and one of their orators makes a speech to him. Not their language, but their signs, he could understand; and he makes signs in return, to show that he is hungry, by pointing with his loosened hand to his mouth. Baskets of meat are sent up to his mouth by the little people mounting ladders-and they show that they are wonder-stricken at his capacity for eating. They bring him drink in two of their hogsheads holding less than half-a-pint, and, at their desire he throws the vessels up into the air-at which they shout for joy. (To be continued in our next number.) MORAL RULES AND SENSE OF DUTY.-The regard to the general rules of morality is what is properly called a sense of duty; a principle of the greatest consequence in human life, and the only principle by which the bulk of mankind are capable of directing their actions. There is scarce any man who, by discipline, education, and example may not be so impressed with a regard to these general rules of conduct, as to act upon almost every occasion with tolerable decency, and through the whole of his life avoid any toler able degree of blame. Without this sacred regard to the general rules of morality, there is no man whose conduct can be much depended upon. It is this which constitutes the most essential difference between a man of principle and honour, and a worthless fellow. The one adheres, on all occasions, steadily and resolutely to his maxims, and preserves through the whole of his life one even tenor of conduct. The other acts variously and accidentally, as humour, inclination, or interest, chance to be uppermost.-Dr. Adam Smith. |