Lecture Ii.

It was observed on a former occasion, that material objects produce their effect upon taste chiefly as signs; but it is the opinion of Mr. Alison, of Mr. Jeffries, and others of high authority on this point, that it is solely as signs--solely as suggesting intellectual and moral qualities--that they have an effect. It is quite evident that mere matter in a chaotic state, or in any state which is not either produced by mind or such as mind would produce, cannot be beautiful; and hence it is said that it can be beautiful only as a means of indicating qualities that do not belong to itself.

The great difficulty which this theory has to encounter arises from the apparent instantaneousness with which the emotion seems to arise when a beautiful object is presented. But this is not a conclusive objection, because emotions which can arise only from association seem to come in the same way. How instantaneous, for instance, are the emotions that throng up when he who has been long on a foreign shore sees, for the first time, the stars and stripes of his country's flag as it enters the port where he is;--and yet, these emotions can be awakened by it only as a link of association with scenes that are past, or as a sign of his country's presence and protection. I have heard the rainbow adduced as an instance of an object which produces the emotion of beauty without a reference to any thing beyond itself. But what was the impression made by it more than two thousand years ago, upon the mind of one who had no theory to maintain?--"Look upon the rainbow," says he, "and praise Him that made it: very beautiful it is in the brightness thereof. It compasseth the heavens about with a glorious circle, and the hands of the Most High have bended it." How apparently instantaneous, yet how different, are our emotions when looking at the cheek flushed by the bloom of health, or suffused by the blush of shame, or reddened by anger, or wearing that hectic flush which is the flag of distress held out by nature when she is sinking in consumption!--And yet no one can doubt, if these indications were reversed, that the emotions would be reversed also. It is conceded by all, that it is the expression, the indication of mental and moral qualities, that gives its highest beauty to the human countenance. There are no features which may not be so lighted up with noble or tender emotion as to be beautiful. But is there, it will be asked, no beauty in any combination of features, or of matter, except as connected with expression? I am inclined to think there is what may be called an instinctive beauty on the perception of certain colors and forms; but it is of little value compared with that of which a rational and reflective being can give an account to himself. Even this, however, presupposes the action of mind upon matter, though that action is not recognized by us as the cause of our emotion. It is therefore still true that, as the beauty of the early morning is produced solely by a reflexion from the sun while he is still below the horizon, so the beauty of matter is wholly a reflexion from that great central orb of mind which has never yet beamed upon the eye of man in its direct effulgence--that, to him who views it aright, the beauty of this world is but the morning twilight of heaven.

But, however this question may be decided, the fact that it can be made a question at all, shows how largely moral ideas and emotions enter into the province of taste, and the intimate connexion there is between taste and morals. What is called moral taste is, in fact, discriminated from taste in general, only as it has the moral actions of free and intelligent agents for its object. When we look at a moral action, there is a plain difference between our perception of it as right, and our perception of it as beautiful. In one case there arises the feeling of approbation, in the other of admiration, which are entirely distinct, and may exist in very different proportions.

It is, indeed, not always easy to distinguish the point at which approbation and admiration run into each other; and in treating of this subject, I shall first say a few words of that border-ground between taste and morals where the dividing line seems to be unsettled. Where, for example, shall we place that feeling which we have in view of the manner of doing a thing, in distinction from the thing done? Is that feeling merely the result of taste, or are there mingled with it some elements of moral approbation or disapprobation? Where will you place a mean action in distinction from a dishonest one? I have heard it disputed whether neatness is a virtue, a matter of moral obligation, or merely a requisition of taste. Is a man under moral obligation to be neat in his person? It is along this dividing line that all those actions lie which relate to the proprieties and courtesies of life--all those smaller attentions to the convenience and comfort of others, and that delicate regard to their feelings, which have been designated by the French as the smaller morals.

In regard to this very extensive, and therefore important department of human conduct, there seem to be two common mistakes. The first consists in disregarding it altogether. There are many men whose characters, in their sketching and outline, are fine, and which, seen at a distance, appear well; but on approaching them, they seem coarse and very imperfect. In all the great duties of life they appear to advantage; but through negligence, or some greater failing, the minor duties, and especially the department of manners, is entirely neglected. They seem like stately trees, in the trunk and main branches of which the sap circulates vigorously, but does not reach and animate the smaller twigs, and give to the leaves their perfect green.

A second, and more common mistake, is the giving up of this department to the control of taste under the guidance of selfishness. The manners are polished, and all the forms of politeness adopted, not for the purpose of making others happy, but of securing to ourselves their esteem, and of effecting our own ends in life. This is the school of manners recommended by Chesterfield, and young persons are often exhorted to pay attention to their manners on this ground. In this case the sap does not circulate at all, and the leaves are painted.

But to me it seems, that this whole class of actions falls within the province of morality. Wherever human happiness is concerned, there is room for principle to operate, and the constitution of society will never be sound, and its beauty will never be perfect, till the sap of principle circulates to the extremities of human action. The true polish and beauty of society can result only from the principle of benevolence showing itself in a graceful and practical attention to the minor wants and to the feelings of others. But whatever we may decide in regard to their respective limits in this department, it is obvious that taste, so far as it goes, must be favorable to morals.

We now pass to what is indisputably the province of morals. And here our first inquiry will be, what are the circumstances under which the emotions of taste are awakened by moral actions? In reply to this inquiry I observe, that the emotion of beauty, leaving sublimity for the present out of the question, is awakened by a moral action chiefly, and perhaps solely, when it springs from the principle of duty acting in coincidence with the desires, the affections, or some other natural and inferior principle of action. This point is of practical importance, and requires illustration. Man, as we all know, has various principles of action,--such as instincts, desires, affections, passions. These may impel him to a course of action directly opposed to that indicated by a sense of duty, and they may also lead him to perform the same actions as are dictated by it; and the position is, that moral beauty arises when there is a partial or entire coincidence between the principle of duty and these inferior powers.

That this is so is evident, because there are many actions which are right, which are imperatively required by duty, which yet do not awaken in the mind of the impartial spectator any admiration--for we must here keep in mind the distinction already made between admiration and approbation. The simple payment of a debt, for example, does not awaken any admiration, though we approve the act and should strongly condemn him who should not do it when it was in his power. In this case, there can be mingled with the performance of duty no play of the generous emotions. He who performs all his actions solely from a sense of duty, has our approbation, our respect; but he who, in addition to this, is possessed of warm affections, which always coincide in their promptings with what is right, has also our admiration and love. Duty is to the affections, in the conduct of life, what logic is to rhetoric in a discourse. Logic forms an excellent body for a discourse; we assent to it, we approve it, it is good, all good, but it awakens no admiration. It is not till rhetoric sends its warm life-blood to mantle on the cold cheek of logic, and clothes its angular form in the garments of taste, that we begin to admire the discourse. And so it is with duty. It is an excellent body to the course of our conduct in life; nothing else will do, but it may be so performed as to appear unamiable and even repulsive. In order to be beautiful, there must be connected with it some manifestation of natural affection or graceful emotion.

And here I may remark, that though we have a right to expect of every man that he will do his duty, yet the display of this beauty is not equally within the power of all, since the existence and manifestation of emotion depend, to some extent, upon the temperament. As there are some who have naturally a meagre intellect, so there are others whose minds seem to be barren of those finer sympathies and affections of our nature which are the verdure of the soul, and upon which the eye always rests with pleasure. The characters of some good men are dry and unattractive. They are harsh, and hard-visaged, and seem too much like wooden men, moved by rule and calculation. Such persons often seem better, and worse, than they really are. Their freedom from extravagancies on the one hand, and on the other, that want of feeling which is wrongly termed by many hardness of heart, is equally the result of temperament.

That the doctrine which I now advocate is correct, appears also from the effect produced upon our feelings when we observe habit taking the place of sentiment in the performance of duty. We have all seen persons enter upon a course of virtuous activity, and continue it for a time from a sense of duty, sustained by ardent feeling; but after a time the feeling has died away, and there has come in its stead habit, or a regard to consistency, to sustain the sense of duty in keeping up the same course of external action. When this change has taken place, we are all conscious that the beauty of the conduct is greatly diminished;--its spirit has vanished; the dew of its youth is exhaled.

I said that this was a practical point, and I now wish to show, in connexion with it, precisely how it is that mischief arises from the perversion of moral taste; as was shown, in the former Lecture, how it arises from its perversion in other things. In opposition to the hard and dry characters mentioned above, there are those whose susceptibilities are acute, whose sympathies are quick, whose feelings are generous, whose affections are ardent, who do every thing so promptly and so heartily that impulse seems almost to supply the place of principle. There is something very attractive in a character of this kind; there is an ease and freedom about it which seems to put aside all labor of calculation, and it moreover exhibits our nature in the pleasing garb of natural goodness. It is for this reason that novelists, who draw men as they wish to have them, and not as they are, have almost universally made these fine instincts of humanity the guide of their hero, and the basis of his character. This is, indeed, if I understand it, the basis of this kind of literature, and one chief source of the injury it produces. The exhibition of these instincts, and affections, and emotions, springing up at random and acting without the control of principle, holds out no stimulus to exertion; and their possession and exercise is often in fact, and often too in books, connected with great corruption of moral character.

Taking, therefore, as the main ingredient in the character of those who are to make the chief figure in this kind of writing, what Miss Martineau calls spontaneousness, and which she and a certain wise friend of hers in Boston thought should by all means be encouraged and reverenced, we may mix the other materials somewhat to our taste. An excellent and much-approved receipt for the hero of a novel is the following:--1st. Make him handsome, for beauty is to the body what spontaneousness is to the mind, a sort of physical spontaneousness. Or, if you do not make him handsome, do what amounts to much the same thing, give him an air; let him have something about him that is peculiar, so that those who scan him closely may observe, under those apparently indifferent features, a certain something, a sign of the fire that is slumbering within. 2d. If you find it necessary, for fashion's sake, to put him at school, or at any place for study, make him idle, generous, somewhat mischievous, a great hater of mathematics, (for, so far as my knowledge extends, no hero of a novel ever yet knew any thing about mathematics,) give him some whimsical pursuit for the hours when he chooses to do any thing, and then make him speak, as he has occasion, Italian, French and Spanish, which he learned by instinct. 3d. Make him act from impulse, and not from principle, and get him into difficulty through the influence of these same generous impulses. It is on difficulties thus created that the plot must turn. 4th. Get him in love. 5th. Make him run a gauntlet of difficulties a volume and a half long, furnishing a new illustration of that old adage, "the course of true love never did run smooth." 6th. Marry him, and let him live many years in perfect felicity.

We commonly hear it said, that the chief mischief of novel-reading arises from the false pictures of life which novels present. This is doubtless a source of no small mischief; but in my view, a much greater evil arises from their holding up, directly or indirectly, false principles of action, and casting contempt upon the true; from their leading young persons to admire that which they esteem graceful rather than that which is respectable and right in the conduct of life. There is in those works an unnatural separation made between the principle of virtue and that which gives to virtue its beauty; and principle is represented as formal and cold, and perhaps ridiculous. Prudence, especially, is a virtue which no heroine of a novel must ever be guilty of. In a recent work, which deserves great credit for avoiding the general fault just mentioned, we are yet told that prudence was a virtue for which the heroine was never famous, and a slight odium is cast upon the virtue itself by making it appear, in the rival of the heroine, somewhat stiff and pragmatical.

It is thus that these works awaken extensively, in the minds of the young, associations unfavorable to the sterner and sterling virtues; and in many cases, these amiable qualities are so associated with vice as to render it attractive. It is thus that we are presented by popular novelists--and in such a manner as I know carries along the sympathies of many young men, while their imaginations are rendered familiar with the haunts of vice--with gentlemen robbers who rob in style; who are so generous that they never rob the poor; who never shed human blood if people will give up their money without it; and if they are occasionally obliged to blow out the brains of some agent of the law, they are really sorry for it, though they do not see how such impertinent fellows could expect any thing better. It is thus that the impression is received, that a certain class of impulses is sufficient to secure success in life, and even to excuse the want of principle; and young men with their heads full of pictures, not perhaps so bad as this, yet fundamentally the same, rush eagerly into life without fixed principles and fixed aims.

To him who is without experience, there is no sight more beautiful than that of a young man of an ingenuous nature entering upon life, and resting upon his own good impulses to keep him from evil. But such a sight, even when there has been no corruption like that just spoken of, now causes apprehension in me; for I have seen him who had every thing, in his person and in his sensibilities, to excite admiration and love, tarrying long at the wine, and seeking mixed wine; I have seen him going to that "house" which "is the way to hell;" and therefore it is that I would utter a solemn protest against any thing which would divorce the beauty of virtue from the principle of virtue, or which would give an impression that there is security without fixed principle. Even "genius," with all these amiable qualities--

"Yet may lack the aid Implored by humble minds and hearts afraid, May leave to timid souls the shield and sword Of the tried faith and the resistless word; Amid a world of dangers venturing forth, Frail but yet fearless, proud in conscious worth, Till strong temptation, in some fatal time, Assails the heart and wins the soul to crime."

Then,

"All that honor brings against the force Of headlong passion, aids its rapid course; Its slight resistance but provokes the fire, As wood-work stops the flame, and then conveys it higher."

With such a basis to the characters presented, it will follow of course, that the emotions and the sensibilities will be chiefly addressed in these works, and thus they become the principal means of promoting that false and selfish sensibility which is so often cultivated in refined society. This is a more refined species of intemperance, and is to the mind what intemperance in strong drink is to the body. It causes excitement for the mere selfish enjoyment produced by it, without leading to any exertion. And as the grosser species of intemperance is more common among one sex, so it is to be feared, that this more refined species is more common among the other; and that for both, circulating libraries, and other libraries, instead of furnishing wholesome entertainment, are too often converted into mere intellectual dram-shops. There are many who seek chiefly for excitement, who have a constant craving for it, whose emotions and mental sensibilities have become accustomed to a set of artificial stimulants till they are sensible to no other, and they become as remorselessly selfish as the drunkard himself. I would sooner apply for an act of genuine kindness, one which should reach actual want, to a woman in a log-house, upon the side of a mountain, surrounded by hungry children, than to the daintiest young lady whose sensibilities have spindled up and wilted in the artificial heat of novel-reading. In order to perform the duties of benevolence and philanthropy, it is indispensable that the sensibilities should be kept alive to the impressions of misery as it actually presents itself in all its squalid accompaniments.

"Sweet are the tears that from a Howard's eye Drop on the cheek of one he lifts from earth; And he who works me good with unmoved face, Does it but half; he chills me while he aids, My benefactor, not my fellow-man. But even this, this cold benevolence, Seems worth, seems manhood, when there rise before me The sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe, Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched, Nursing, in some delicious solitude, Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies!"

It was this esteem in which mankind hold the sensibilities and impulses, this preference of spontaneousness without its connexion with principle, which gave its popularity to what has been called the sentimental school--the results of which ought to teach society a lesson not soon to be forgotten. Concerning this school, it is justly remarked by Coleridge, that "all the mischief achieved by Hobbes, and the whole school of materialists, will appear inconsiderable if it be compared with the mischief effected and occasioned by the sentimental philosophy of Sterne and his numerous imitators. The vilest appetites, and the most remorseless inconstancy towards their objects, acquired the title of the heart--the irresistible feelings--the too tender sensibility: and if the frosts of prudence, the icy chains of human law, thawed and vanished at the genial warmth of human nature, who could help it? It was an amiable weakness."

I would here remark, that I have no objection to fictitious writings as such. There are those to which I do not object. Let them cease, first, to present false pictures of life: secondly, to array the sensibilities and associations of the mind against principle: and, thirdly, let them cease to create and feed a morbid craving for excitement, and to destroy the balance between the feelings and the judgment: and I shall not object to them. The mass of these writings, however, do produce each and all of these effects, and are, so far, indisputably pernicious.

I have been thus particular in pointing out the evils which arise from arraying what is beautiful and graceful in morals and in conduct against that which is right, because I do not believe that the community are sufficiently warned against the mischief it is working, and in many cases are not perhaps aware of the manner in which it is wrought. Evil gains advantage over man by dividing him against himself, by bringing into collision faculties that were intended to work harmoniously together; and we may regard it as settled, that whoever or whatever would set up mere impulses, or sensibilities, or emotions, in the place of the reason and conscience of man, is thus dividing him against himself. It is with the conscience of man as it is with a king. He may have his prime minister, who is his chief favorite, and next to himself, but he must never abandon his power, or suffer the highest subject to depose him from the throne. The desires and affections are then only truly beautiful, when they are in ready attendance at the court of their rightful sovereign.

Having now spoken of the manner in which evil is done by those who care to please rather than to improve mankind, I cannot leave this part of the subject without suggesting, to the friends of principle and of religion, how much, if what has been said is correct, they may do to counteract this evil by a free, a hearty, a joyful, and therefore an attractive, mode of doing that which is right. Whence have arisen those associations of coldness and formality and gloom, as connected with duty, which haunt the imaginations of many young persons, and which have just as little existence in reality as other spectres of the night? Is it not in part from an unnatural austerity, or from a cowardly and faltering step, a want of freedom and power and beauty in the exhibitions of virtue and principle on the part of those who profess to adhere to them? It is not as it should be, when the glad and the graceful emotions readily spring up by the side of every path that we walk in except the path of duty. He who marches under the banner of principle is not only to feel that he is engaged in a good cause, but is also to see in that cause a beauty which shall be to him what music is to the soldier, giving cheerfulness to his countenance and alacrity to his step. His is not indeed to be the unchastened, and reckless, and merely animal joy that is unconscious of the evil that exists, and that is to be met; but it is to be the joy of him who, though he is travelling in a difficult and obscure path, yet sees before him the bright and steady light of his own happy home. The more those who act from principle are able to combine, with the most perfect rectitude and uncompromising faithfulness, the cultivation and play of all the graceful and tender emotions, the more will they do to promote the cause in which they labor. I know, and here is the difficulty, that most virtue is too feeble for this; and I would not that there should be put on any affectation of freedom or ease. Virtue should move easily and gracefully only as it is strong, but it should become strong that it may move easily and gracefully, and thus become to all men as beautiful as it is obligatory.

It is not a little that the Christian religion has suffered from the mistakes of its adherents on this point. It had been better if they had more regarded the spirit of its Founder when He commanded his disciples, even when they fasted, not to be of a sad countenance, as the hypocrites were. The impression we get of Paul, notwithstanding his labors and sufferings, is that he was a happy man. If he was sometimes "sorrowful," he was yet "always rejoicing." The movements of his spirit were so ready and free, in view of the great subjects that filled his mind, that he reminds us more than any other man of the "rapt seraph that adores and burns." What is it, indeed, that gives its perfect beauty to our conception of the worship of heaven? Is it not, that the most perfect law is there fully obeyed, and is yet no restraint upon the highest and freest expansion of feeling? It is when this is so, and then only, that moral beauty is perfect.

We have thus far considered moral beauty only. We now pass to another branch of our subject, the moral sublime. When speaking on taste in general, it was not necessary, for any purposes I then had in view, that I should make a distinction between beauty and sublimity, either as they exist in themselves, or as they are occasioned by outward objects. Indeed, it is the opinion of many writers, that there is no radical distinction between them, but that sublimity is merely the feeling of beauty heightened. This seems to me doubtful, even in material beauty; but in our present department, the occasions on which they arise are so different, that they must be distinguished. It was for this reason that I treated of beauty by itself.

It has been observed, that the emotion of moral beauty arises when there is a coincidence between the sense of duty and certain inferior principles of action. I now observe, that the emotion of moral sublimity is awakened, when the sense of duty is opposed by inclination, or affection, or by any or all the inferior principles of action, and triumphs over them. Its principle consists in a power of self-control and of self-sacrifice, in those cases in which they are difficult.

The illustration of this point will lead to a further confirmation of what was said in reference to moral beauty. No sight, for example, can be more beautiful than that of a family in which there is mutual attachment, and in which the performance of every duty is sweetened by affection. How beautiful is the assiduity of a child, who bears with every infirmity, and soothes every care, and anticipates every want, of a parent in sickness or in age! It is beautiful, but not sublime. The conduct of that young man, who labors hard and denies himself the ordinary pleasures of the young that he may support an aged mother, or add to her comfort, is highly beautiful; but natural affection coöperates with a sense of duty, and therefore it is not sublime. No one has ever considered as sublime the conduct of Æneas, when he bore his aged father upon his shoulders from the flames of Troy. But when the ancient Brutus, with a power that was supreme, sat in judgment on his own son who was accused of being a traitor, and when he gave the sign to the lictor to take him to execution, then there was a struggle, then inflexible justice triumphed over natural affection, and it was--not beautiful, it was too awful for that--but it was sublime. That act of our Saviour, (if I may be permitted to refer to such a scene in this connexion,) by which he remembered his mother upon the cross and provided for her wants, was beautiful--how beautiful! His prayer for his murderers was sublime. It is, in general, acts of tenderness, gentleness, condescension, pity, gratitude, humanity, that are beautiful; while it is, on the other hand, acts of magnanimity, of fortitude, of inflexible justice, of high patriotism, and, on proper occasions, of contempt of danger and of death, that are sublime. In all these latter cases it will be seen that the principle is the same, and that the sublime emotion is awakened by virtuous self-control, in union with high resolve.

We hence see why it is that periods of difficulty, and oppression, and persecution, are favorable to the exhibition of the moral sublime. They test the amount of attachment to principle which there is among men, and the sacrifices which they are willing to make for it. Accordingly, it has been in such emergencies that men have arisen, who, under the inspiration of the great principles of civil and religious liberty, have been ready to go in the face of every danger, wherever their duty should call them; as Luther was determined to go to the diet of Worms, though he should find as many devils in that city as there were tiles upon the houses. These are the men, who, though they have been opposed, and vilified, and persecuted in their day, have yet received the homage of after ages; who have stood as the beacon-lights of the world, and whose names have been the watchword of those who have rallied and struck for the united reign of liberty and law. Such men have almost always been in advance of their age, and the people of that age have not comprehended them. They have reverenced the great men of former times; they have built the sepulchres of the prophets, but have persecuted those who were sent unto them. It is not therefore surprising that Seneca has spoken so largely of the benefits of adversity, as alone giving an opportunity for the display of the heroic virtues, and has said that a good man, struggling with adversity, was a spectacle worthy of the gods.

But it is not necessary to the existence, though it may be to the exhibition, of moral heroism, that we should be placed in circumstances of external adversity. Wherever there is moral combat, there may be moral sublimity, and this combat is necessary for the accomplishment of that triumph which every man is called to gain over himself. The force and grandeur of virtue are then seen when we sacrifice to it our appetites, our avarice, our pride, our vanity, our ambition, our resentments, till every evil passion is brought into subjection to reason and conscience.

Such being the nature of the moral sublime, it is obvious that there is much less danger to morals from its perversion than from the perversion of the beautiful. There is here no natural passion to come in as an ally of principle; and which may take the place of it, but it is duty struggling single-handed, and triumphing over all the might of external nature, and all the force of human propensity. Virtue may indeed exist in perfect serenity, and be exercised without an obstacle; but in this world, and it is that which makes it a place of probation, there is little virtue except on the condition of struggling against and overcoming inclination or passion. If we succeed in this struggle, we feel in our own breasts a peace which is not only present happiness, but the promise of future reward; and we awaken in the breasts of others the emotions of moral sympathy, of approbation, of sublimity in its highest forms, till they are ready to welcome us with acclaim, and we find that virtue is not only happiness, but is also "glory, and honor, and immortality."

But though moral beauty and sublimity are so different in their nature and in the occasions on which they arise, it must not be supposed that they do not often blend with each other in actual life. The general course of Howard, for instance, being in accordance with the dictates of humanity, had great moral beauty, and yet the sacrifices which he made were often so great as to cause that course to partake of the moral sublime.

If the account of moral taste, now given, be correct, the analysis of the subject is the only argument needed. Its cultivation must, of course, be favorable to morals, since it would lead, in its perfect state, to the same course of conduct as would be required by principle. There is, indeed, a whole school of philosophers, that of Shaftesbury, who have looked upon virtue, and have recommended it, as beautiful rather than as obligatory; who have regarded it as a sentiment rather than a principle; and whose writings have been calculated to awaken enthusiasm in the cause of virtue, but not to give it its proper sanctions. So far, however, as this class of feelings would lead us, it is in the direct path of virtue, and they may, no doubt, be so cultivated, and especially by the young, as to furnish efficient aid to the principle of duty. Perhaps few persons, rightly educated, are aware how many wrong actions they avoid with the greater care because they are also mean; how many right actions they perform with the greater readiness because they are in accordance with the requisitions of a cultivated moral taste. Considered as a principle of action, such a taste provides an effectual security against the grossness connected with many vices, and cherishes a temper of mind friendly to all that is amiable, or generous, or elevated in our nature. While, therefore, we regard taste as an important ally to the sense of duty, we are not to rely chiefly upon it. It would need stability, and would be constantly liable to be led astray by the influence of fashion, or of casual association. We may however do more, we should do more to combine them; to unite taste and principle in the conduct of life; to do, ourselves, and to lead others to do, what is becoming, as well as what is right.

Man is capable of forming to himself an ideal model, of embodying a conception of excellence such as he has never seen, and of acting with reference to it. It is this which renders him capable of progression; and one great reason why men are stationary, is, that they have in their minds no fixed and definite standard of excellence after which they are reaching. Young men, to whom I speak, here is the point at which many of you doubtless fail. You are borne on by the current, and form to yourselves no worthy object of pursuit, after which you bring yourselves, by self-discipline, steadily to labor. But without doing this, no man ever yet exerted a high and worthy influence; no man ever can. Permit me then to propose to you, in your capacity as social beings, an object after which you may thus strive. It is the combination of perfect moral principle with perfect simplicity and refinement of manners--the union, in the conduct of life, of Morals and Taste.

There remains but a single consideration which I shall adduce, to show that there is the connexion between taste and morals for which I contend. It is, that we naturally associate with goodness, beauty of form; and that in a perfect state, we conceive of goodness as surrounded by objects that are pleasing to the taste. Perhaps this may not have been noticed by all, but a little attention to what passes in our own minds will convince us that it is so. This natural association of beauty and goodness perhaps arises from the fact, that every indication of goodness as expressed in the countenance is pleasing, and may be heightened into beauty. It is surprising how soon we come to regard as pleasing, the most ordinary features, when we have associated with them a fund of good qualities; or rather, the features soon become like the letters of a book, which we regard only for the meaning they convey. As I have said before, no features are so ordinary that they may not come to appear to us beautiful by the expression of good qualities; and if I may suppose, which I would by no means assert, that there are any homely persons present, I would congratulate them on the inducements they have to cultivate the only beauty that is permanent, or that can be the foundation of lasting attachment.

Not only however may homely features become beautiful by their expression, but we have, I think, a natural association of positive beauty as connected with the goodness which we have not seen, and of positive deformity as connected with vice. When we read of good men even, we regard them as having something in their appearance corresponding with their character, and no man, I am sure, can suppose that Benedict Arnold had a countenance that was pleasant to look upon. But what is conclusive on this point is, that no man ever conceived of Satan in his proper form, as beautiful, or ever conceived of an angel, except as clothed in light and beauty.

It is this natural supposition of the connexion of beauty of mind with beauty of form, that gives its plausibility and point to a dream of Sir Isaac Bickerstaff, as related in one of the Tattlers. He seemed to himself to be in an open plain, surrounded by an immense assembly of females, in the midst of whom the goddess of justice sat enthroned, and holding in her hand a mirror of such peculiar properties as to reflect the faces of those who looked into it in exact correspondence with their characters. This mirror was held up and turned before the assembly, and the effect may well be imagined. Some beautiful women had the satisfaction of seeing their faces become still more beautiful, while many more were shocked to see themselves converted into perfect frights. Some who were homely before, became still more so; while many unassuming and modest persons, who had never dreamed of being handsome, and so had sought the approbation of their own consciences, were surprised to see how their faces were brightened up. There was however one face, which seemed to beam with a celestial radiance, and was so surprisingly beautiful that Sir Isaac determined at once on making proposals to the lady, if he could but ascertain to whom it belonged. This, by careful attention, he was soon enabled to do, and found that it was a little, grey-headed, wrinkled old woman who stood by his side.

There is something ludicrous in the manner in which this is set forth, but it involves a most serious and pleasing truth. It is as much a part of the disorders of the present state of things, that goodness is ever connected with any thing but beauty, as it is that virtue is depressed while vice triumphs. In a perfect organization and state of things, matter would be entirely flexible to the action of spirit, and, of course, intellectual and moral beauty, as well as their opposites, must stamp their impress perfectly on the features. This we believe will be the case when the physical nature of man shall be reorganized, and the good shall not only be beautiful, but, as I have already remarked that we are naturally led to expect, shall be surrounded with all those objects that are pleasing to the taste. That these expectations are natural may be shown from the writings of all the heathen poets, and it is pleasing to observe how perfectly they coincide with the representations of the Scriptures on this point. We are there taught, not only that the righteous shall shine forth as the sun, but their dwelling-place is described as a city whose foundations are garnished with all manner of precious stones, whose streets are of pure gold, and whose gates are of pearl.

Thus, as we associate with royalty its regalia, so do we associate with goodness, beauty, which seems to be its natural appendage; and not only in the Scriptures, but also in our own constitution, do we find a promise, that Goodness and Beauty shall be finally and forever united.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

Text in italics is surrounded with underscores: italics.