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same disregard of money in an attempt to seduce that friend's wife or daughter. No man ever sacrificed the half of his estate for friendship, on a sudden, instinctive, constitutional impulse of temperament. Such an act could only have been performed by a generous man. And, although a generous man may commit a wicked action, he is less inclined to do so, we think, than an ungenerous man, more especially an action of consummate baseness and deliberate cruelty. The illustration is striking, but it is not satisfying, and shows the advocate, not the judge. Finally, to assert that all the evil produced 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, is altogether monstrous, and in the direct teeth of a hundred of Mr Coleridge's moral speculations in the Friend,' and his Lay Sermons,' in which he has, with considerable force, struck at the root of the selfish system of the Philosopher of Malmsbury. A few fantastic and mawkish novels what were they to the host-not yet extinct of hard-featured wretches, who, in the name of morality, have laboured to destroy all moral responsibility, and to found duty on power?

But we cannot help thinking that, had Mr Coleridge taken a more philosophical view of the constitution of our nature, he would have seen that the term Sensibility does, in its best and truest signification, denote one great constituent of our being, by which we are capable of being affected in various and sometimes extraordinary degrees of pleasure and pain, and with various and sometimes extraordinary degrees of will and desire, by different objects made known to us by our powers of understanding. It denotes a capacity, by which we are susceptible of suffering and misery, by which the whole variety and strength of our moral nature is unfolded, and from which our intellectual reason draws its amplest and most precious stores. It is open to the impression of all the objects which the world may offer it. These present themselves, and the emotion arises, making to the mind disclosure of itself, bringing out to its sight, with visible force and strong undoubted reality, 7, powers which lie there often unknown, and always unmeasured till

the very act shows them forth in their native shape and proper dimensions. From this first strong movement, which, however, is not single, but may spread itself in great diversity of forms through the mind-from this first passive sway of emotion, the mind returns, and rises up in its strength to act on the object, either with power of will and desire to escape from it, or with power of will and desire to possess and enjoy it. This power of feeling, of will, or of desire, is thus far no otherwise dependent on the intellectual mind than as the intellectual faculties mix in all its acts—conceiving and understanding the object, conceiving and understanding the means to pursue or to fly from it. They act perfectly, and with great subtlety and force, but in mere subservience to passion-as a part of it, but separable from it.

In all passion, we find two states perfectly distinct fron each otherthe emotion arising from contemplation of the object, which is an affection of pleasure and pain, and in which the mind may be passive merely; and, arising out of this, the movement of the mind to or from the object. There is also a third state, intimately connected with this last, and yet differing from it-the state of the will.

The first point, then, is the susceptibility of impression and emotion. În some minds, this exists to a great ex-. tent, without producing strong exertion of the will. It is then properly called Sensibility, which regards simply the capacity of being strongly and deeply affected. However, Sensibility itself may be of very different charac ters; as it may be quick and vivid, but transient; or its affections may be more calm, but deep and fixed. The susceptibility of great exhilaration of heart, for example, or of sudden and passionate sorrow, is found under the first character. Under the second, deep and steadfast joy, which sustains in the mind no more, perhaps, than a calm bright serenity, and yet implies, not a tranquil indisposition to be affected, but an extreme and fine sensibility to pleasure. On the other hand, the same temper of mind may produce a settled and enduring melancholy. This is the first affection in which the mind is nearly passive.

Now, though we may regard those impressions on the Sensibility as given merely in order to prepare and lead

on those movements of the will through which the mind is carried into action, which may be conceived as the ultimate purpose and proper end of those affections of pleasure and pain-yet, if the emotion should not reach to will, we by no means necessarily es teem this falling short of its seemingly desired end, as a defect in the working of the mind. On the contrary, the affections of the Sensibility are often very touching to us to contemplate, or beautiful, majestic, and sublime, when they reach not to the production of any purpose in the will;-as the sorrow which is felt for those who mourn, when our sympathy can offer them nothing but its sorrow ;-as the grief of those who mourn the loss of that which they have loved, when their piety restrains all impatient murmuring at their own privation, and all vain longing towards that which is gone. Their grief, in its simplicity, is most affecting and beautiful. So the happiness of children, on whom joy falls like the sunshine, and passes away. Such, too, is the admiration we feel for characters of greatness, who, in the humility of our reverence, seem to us lifted up far above our imitation. In those instances, and numberless others that might be supposed, all that we see is, the first simple emotion strongly declared in the soul, but not passing on to the effects that naturally and properly arise out of the primary feeling.

We have not room now to say more on this subject; but the little we have said may, perhaps, serve to show, that in his vituperation of Sensibility, Mr Coleridge has either confined his consideration to the popular, and, we might say, vulgar meaning of the term; or that, if he had in his mind any reference to its proper and philosophical meaning, his invective betrays a very imperfect knowledge of the essence and agency of this part of the constitution of our na

ture.

It would likewise appear, from the sneer at Sympathy in the long passage now quoted, as well as from other more direct allusions elsewhere, that Mr Coleridge held very cheap the moral system of Adam Smith. But we suspect that, notwithstanding his too frequent expressions of slight towards what he and others of his school are pleased to call the Scotch Philosophy, neither he nor they are

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Sympathy is supposed by Dr Smith to act towards the production of Moral Sentiment in three ways:-First, by enabling us to judge others, viz.-by enabling us to put ourselves in the place of others, and thus to compare their conduct with what ours would be; upon which comparison we approve or condemn. Secondly, by enabling us to conceive the judgment which others make of us. Thirdly, by participation in the gratitude and resentment of those who are benefited or injured either by ourselves or others. On the first of these views, an observation of a simple kind suggests itself, and has been made. If sympathy did no more towards the production of moral sentiment than to enable us to judge others by taking their place, it might be said that the doctrine would contain nothing at variance with any other theory of morality; since sympathy would then do no more than place us in the necessary situation for forming the judgment. The cause of our judgment would still have to be shown. When we imagine ourselves in the place of another, and conceive how we shouid act, and approve or condemn him accordingly, there must be some principle in our mind, not only determining our conception of how we should act, but determining also our satisfaction in that conception, and this must be already a moral principle. This is the argument of Mr Stewart and Dr Brown, and would probably occur to many other enquirers, as it is not unobvious. It does not appear, however, on further consideration, entirely satisfactory.

The object of Dr Smith is to set aside the idea of an independent, original, moral principle, by showing that it is made up in many different ways; but he has not himself explained, as distinctly as he might have done, the part which Sympathy takes, under his first head, in superseding an original principle. To understand him consistently, we must explain the first point of his doctrine for ourselves. Thus :

When I place myself in the situation of another, and, conceiving my own conduct, find it to be in some essential point at variance with his, I feel a pain in the contemplation of his act. Now, this is not necessarily a pain of moral condemnation, but a

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upon it. He may have even fluctuated between the two views. The theory of a writer is not always to be tried merely by the words in which he has given it. His book cannot contain all his thoughts. Nor is it, finally, to be considered altogether and merely as personal to him:-It is a suggestion in philosophy; and it is allowable to philosophy to complete, in a specious.

theory, what has been imperfectly presented to its author, previously to trying it. Admitting what has been said, the question arises (which we cannot now discuss), whether this dislike is to be acknowledged as an element of a composite moral sense, or only as one of the supports, of which there are many, of native conscience.

CORONATION ODE FOR QUEEN VICTORIA I.
JUNE 28, 1838.

THE Sceptre in a maiden-hand,
The reign of Beauty and of Youth,
Awake to gladness all the land,
And Love is Loyalty and Truth.

Rule, VICTORIA, rule the Free;
Hearts and hands we offer Thee.

Not by the tyrant-law of might,
But by the Grace of God, we own,
And by the People's Voice, thy right
To sit upon thy Fathers' throne.-

Rule, VICTORIA, rule the Free;
Heaven defend and prosper Thee!

Thee isles and continents obey,
Kindreds and nations, nigh and far,
Between the bound-marks of thy
sway

The Morning and the Evening Star.-
Rule, VICTORIA, rule the Free,
Millions rest their hopes on Thee.

Sheffield.

No Slave within thine empire breathe,
Before thy steps oppression fly;
The Lamb and Lion play beneath
The meek dominion of thine eye.-

Rule, VICTORIA, rule the Free,
Chains and fetters yield to Thee.

With Mercy's beams yet more benign,
Light to thy realms in darkness send,
Till none shall name a God but thine,
None at an Idol-altar bend.—

Rule, VICTORIA, rule the Free,
Till they all shall pray for Thee.

At home, abroad, by sea, on shore,
Blessings on Thee and thine increase;
The sword and cannon rage no more,
The whole world hail Thee Queen of
Peace!-

Rule, VICTORIA, rule the Free,
And the Almighty rule o'er Thee!

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Company, Paul's Work.

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ON THE FOOD of the HerRING AND SALMON. BY JOHN STARK,

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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS,
THE LACE-MERCHANT OF NAMUR,

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CHRISTOPHER IN HIS CAVE,

268

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SOns, 45, george street,

EDINBURGH:

AND T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON.

To whom Communications (post paid) may be addressed.
SOLD ALSO BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED Kingdom.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE and co. EDINBURGH.

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