in a great measure on its object: it possesses a low place when founded on external properties merely ; and is mean when bestowed on a person of inferior rank without any extraordinary qualification : but when founded on the more elevated internal properties, it assumes a considerable degree of dignity. The same is the case of friendship. When gratitude is warm, it animates the mind; but it scarce rises to dignity. Joy bestows dignity when it proceeds from an elevated cause.

If I can depend upon induction, dignity is not a property of any disagreeable passion: one is slight, another severe; one depresses the mind, another animates it; but there is no elevation, far less dignity, in any of them. Revenge in particular, though it inflame and swell the mind, is not accompanied with dignity, nor even with elevation: it is not, however, felt as mean or grovelling, unless when it takes indirect measures for gratification. Shame and remorse though they sink the spirits are not mean. Pride, a disagreeable passion, bestows no dignity in the eye of a spectator. Vanity always appears mean; and extremely so where founded; as commonly happens, on trivial qualifications.

I proceed to the pleasures of the understanding, which possess a high rank in point of dignity. Of this every one will be sensible, when he considers the important truths that have been laid open by science; such as general theorems, and the general laws that govern the material and moral worlds. The pleasures of the understanding are suited to man as a rational and contemplative being; and they tend not a little to ennoble his nature; even to the Deity he stretcheth his contemplations, which, in the discovery of infinite power, wisdoin, and benevolence, afford delight of the most exalted VOL. I.

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kind. Hence it appears, that the fine arts, studied as a rational science, afford entertainment of great dignity; superior far to what they afford as a subject of taste merely.

But contemplation, however in itself valuable, is chiefly respected as subservient to action ; for man is intended to be more an active than a contemplative being. He accordingly shows more dignity in action than in contemplation: generosity, magnanimity, heroism, raise his character to the highest pitch: these best express the dignity of his nature, and advance him nearer to divinity than any other of his attributes.

By every production that shows art and contrivance, our curiosity is excited upon two points; first, how it was made; and next, to what end. Of the two, the latter is the more important inquiry, because the means are ever subordinate to the end; and, in fact, our curiosity is always more inflamed by the final than by the efficient cause. This preference is no where more visible, than in contemplating the works of nature : if in the efficient cause, wisdom and power be displayed, wisdom is no less conspicuous in the final cause; and from it only can we infer benevolence, which of all the divine attributes is to man the most important.

Having endeavoured to assign the efficient cause of dignity and meanness, by unfolding the principle on which they are founded, we proceed to explain the final cause of the dignity or meanness bestowed upon the several particulars above mentioned, beginning with corporeal pleasures. These, as far as usual, are, like justice, fenced with sufficient sanctions to prevent their being neglected : hunger and thirst are painful sensations; and we are incited to animal love by a vigorous propensity: were corporeal pleasures dignified over and above

with a place in a high class, they would infallibly disturb the balance of the mind, by outweighing the social affections. This is a satisfactory final cause for refusing to these pleasures any degree of dignity: and the final cause is no less evident of their meanness, when they are indulged to excess. The more refined pleasures of external sense, conveyed by the eye and the ear from natural objects and from the fine arts, deserve a high place in our esteem, because of their singular and extensive utility : in some cases they rise to a considerable dignity; and the very lowest pleasures of the kind are never esteemed mean or grovelling.

grovelling. The pleasure arising from wit, humour, ridicule, or from what is simply ludicrous, is useful, by relaxing the mind after the fatigue of more manly occupation : but the mind, when it surrenders itself to pleasure of that kind, loses its vigour, and sinks gradually into sloth.* The place this pleasure occupies in point of dignity, is adjusted to these views; to make it useful as a relaxation, it is not branded with meanness; to prevent its usurpation, it is removed from that place but a single degree: po man values himself for that pleasure, even during gratification ; and if it have engrossed more of his time than is requisite for relaxation, he looks back with some degree of shame.

In point of dignity, the social emotions rise above the selfish, and much above those of the eye and ear: man is by his nature a social being, and to qualify him for society, it is wisely contrived, that

he should value himself more for being social than selfish.*

The excellency of man is chiefly discernable in the great improvements he is susceptible of in society: these, by perseverance, may be carried on progressively above any assignable limits; and, even abstracting from revelation, there is great probability, that the progress begun here will be completed in some future state. Now, as all valuable improvements proceed from the exercise of our rational faculties, the author of our nature, in order to excite us to a due use of these faculties, hath assigned a high rank to the pleasures of the understanding : their utility, with respect to this life as well as a future, entitles them to that rank.

But as action is the aim of all our improvements, virtuous actions justly possess the highest of all the ranks. These, we find, are by nature distributed into different classes, and the first in point of dignity assigned to actions that appear not the first in point of use: generosity, for example, in the sense of mankind is more respected than justice, though the latter is undoubtedly more essential to society ; and magnanimity, heroism, undaunted courage, rise still higher in our esteem. One would readily think that the moral virtues should be esteemed according to their importance. Nature has here deviated from her ordinary path, and great wisdom is shown in the deviation: the efficient cause is explained above, and the final cause explained in the Essays of Morality and Natural Religionit

We proceed to analyse grace, which being in a good measure an uncultivated field, requires more than ordinary labour.

Graceful is an attribute: grace and gracefulness express that attribute in the form of a noun.

That this attribute is agreeable, no one doubts.

As grace is displayed externally, it must be an object of one or other of our five senses. That it is an object of sight, exery person of taste can bear witness, and that it is confined to that sense, ap

; pears from induction; for it is not an object of smell, nor of taste, nor of touch. Is it an object of hearing ? Some music, indeed, is termed graceful; but that expression is metaphorical, aš when we say

of other music that it is beautiful : the latter metaphor, at the same time, is more sweet and easy; which shows how little applicable to music or to sound the former is, when taken in its proper sense.

That it is an attribute of man, is beyond dispute. But of what other beings is it also an attribute? we perceive at first sight that nothing inanimate is entitled to that epithet. What animal, then, beside man, is entitled ? Surely, not an elephant, nor even a lion. A horse may have a delicate shape with a lofty mein, and all his motions may be exquisite; but he is never said to be graceful. Beauty and grandeur are common to man with some other beings; but dignity is not applied to any being inferior to man; and, upon the strictest examination, the same appears to hold in grace. Confining then grace to man, the next inquiry is,

, whether, like, beauty, it makes a constant appearance, or in some circumstances only. Does a person display this attribute at rest as well as in motion, asleep as when awake? It is undoubtedly connected with motion; for when the most grace

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