simplicity with which knowledge can perform that which it costs wealth such an effort to accomplish. And one would think, that, in viewing these proud remains of Roman wealth and Roman ignorance, a feeling of the painfully ludicrous would stifle our rising admiration of their sublimity, and that the very grandeur of their structure, when compared with their design, would remind us of

-"an ocean into tempest wrought To waft a feather, or to drown a fly."

But though, in the present instance, wealth, by the mightiness of the effort, may seem to rival knowledge in solving the problem, there are many instances were she is left far behind, and, cannot, by the very mightiest efforts, come up with knowledge.

By the assistance of knowledge, we are enabled almost by a touch of our finger, to raise the most immense weights, and may almost be said to weigh the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. By her assistance can we scour the unknown regions of ether, and penetrate the still more secret caverns of the deep. By her assistance too, can we guide a floating city over the main, and turn it at our will by a little helm. By her assistance, too, can we impress the very elements into our service, and make the winds our messengers, and the water and the fire our slaves. And by her assistance, too, can we give to inanimate objects all the vigor of animal life; thus creating for ourselves a Behemoth, whose bones are brass, and sinews bars of iron, thus making him our slave, and forcing him to prepare for us those necessaries and conveniences which formerly we obtained by the sweat of our brow. Such is

the power of knowledge; and, till our adversaries can give us instances of the power of wealth, which can be compared with them, we think that we have gained the question.

We intended next to have treated of political power; but we shall first hear refuted the arguments we have already adduced.

None of my young friend's Essays have pleased me more than the one, which is now to follow. It was read to the moral class, on the 10th of January, 1825. The subject afforded a favorable opportunity of introducing the evangelical system, and that opportunity was not neglected. But there is more than the introduction of the system, there is a beautiful exposition of it, in which the writer steers clear of the selfish system of Sandeman on the one hand, and the ultra-spirituality of some of the American divines on the other. The one does not sufficiently distinguish between self-love, and selfishness; the other treats man as if he were a being capable of merging all his personal feelings and interests, in a vague and undefined idea of God, and of holiness. The Scriptures never require us to lose sight of our personal interest in the divine favor; but they never urge it as the principal or the only plea, that we should do the will of God. They bring us, as is here well stated, under the influence of the great principles which govern Deity himself; and thus combine the perfect enjoyment of blessedness, with the perfect exercise of benevolence.

AN

ESSAY

ON THE

SELFISH SYSTEM.

We are told of the Emperor Nero, among his other unnatural actions, that no sooner was his appetite so satiated with one course of gluttony, as to refuse more food, than he again fitted himself in a most revolting manner for renewing the round of sensual gratification. Of another individual we are told that such was his dread of future disease and death, that he sat continually in one scale of a balance, with a counterpoise in the other, and that it was his constant employment to watch the deflections of the beam, and most studiously to preserve the equality of the balance, so that he never took food till his own scale ascended, and stopped eating as soon equilibrium was restored. As the motives which induced each of these individuals to take food are evidently very different from each other, so are the motives of both strikingly different from those which in this matter actuate the great mass of

as the

mankind. Of the first individual we would say, that pleasure was his object, and that he took food merely as a means of obtaining this pleasure. With regard to the second again, we would say that it was self-love that dictated his extraordinary conduct; that he took food, not like the other, for the sake of gratifying his palate, but purely from a consideration of the posterior advantages which would thence accrue to him. With the great mass of mankind, again we would say, that hunger is the primary and ruling incitement, that they eat not in general to gratify their palate, and far less from a consideration of any posterior advantage; but chiefly for the purpose of satisfying their appetite. Food is not used by them as the mere means of obtaining something else, it is itself the primary and terminating object of their desire.

From these familiar illustrations, we think we may discover the difference between self-love, and the more special affections of our nature. The chief distinction seems to be that the latter terminate in some external object, while the former uses that object as a means of promoting some plan of future interest. Of all the characters we have mentioned, only one seems to have been actuated by self-love, he who took food from a sense of the beneficial effects which would follow. It may be thought, that Nero, too, was actuated by selfishness, in as much as he used the food as a means of obtaining something else; but, on a close examination, we shall find that it was not the love of self, but the love of pleasure, which was his actuating motive; that if he had had any regard to self-interest, his conduct would have been altogether different: that he was in fact pursuing a line of conduct in direct

opposition to all that self-love would dictate. We may here just remark by the way, the wisdom displayed in this constitution of our animal frame. Our Creator has not left us to discover that without being invigorated by food, and refreshed by sleep, our bodies could not long subsist; and thus, from a principle of self-love to attend to the taking of food and repose, as duties which it was necessary to perform, in order to self-preservation: but He has endowed us with special affections; with a desire for food and sleep when the body requires them: just as he has given us a sense of injury, and a feeling of resentment, to preserve us from the injustice of our fellow men.

Now in morals there are facts analogous to those which we have just mentioned, with regard to our animal frame. As there is a desire for food altogether apart from any future consequences; and as there is a more immediate pleasure, and a more remote advantage which attend the satisfying of this desire, so is there a motive to the performance of a virtuous action, altogether for its own sake, and apart from all its consequences; and there is also a more immediate pleasure; and a more remote happiness attending the performance of such an action. As it has appeared that there are different motives which may induce us to take food, so are there different motives which may urge us to the performance of a virtuous deed. The abettors of the selfish system seem to have erred in confounding these together, or rather in making the one motive of selfishness swallow up the rest.

It may be true that much of the seeming virtue of our world must be put to the account of selfishness; and much of it, too, to the account of