fhip; as, indeed, what fubject is there, which thefe fubtle geniuses have not tortured with their fophiftry?

The authors to whom i refer, diffuade their disciples from entering into any strong attachments, as unavoidably creating fupernumerary difquietudes to thofe who engage in them; and, as every man has more than fufficient to call forth his folicitude, in the course of his own affairs, it is a weakness, they contend, anxiously to involve himself in the concerns of others. They recommend it also, in all connections of this kind, to hold the bands of union extremely loofe; fo as always to have it in one's power to straiten or relax them, as circumstances and fituations shall render molt expedient. They add, as a capital article of their doctrine, that, "to live exempt from cares, is an effential ingredient to conftitute human happiness: but an ingredient, however, which he, who voluntarily diftreffes himself with cares, in which he has no neceffary and perfonal intereft, muft never hope to poffefs."

1 have been told likewife, that there is another fet of pretended philofophers, of the fame country, whofe tenets, concerning this fubject, are of a ftill more illiberal and ungenerous caft.

The propofition they attempt to establish, is, that "friendship is an affair of felf intereft entirely; and that the proper motive for engaging in it, is, not in order to gratify the kind and benevolent affections, but for the benefit of that affiftance and fupport which are to be derived from the connection." Accordingly they affert, that thofe perfons are moft difpofed to have recourfe to auxiliary alliances of this kind, who are leaft qualified by nature, or fortune, to depend upon their own strength and powers: the weaker fex, for instance, being generally more inclined to engage in friendships, than the male part of our species; and those who are depreffed by indigence, or labouring under misfortunes, than the wealthy and the profperous.

Excellent and obliging fages, thefe, undoubtedly! To ftrike out the friendly affections from the moral world would be like extinguishing the fun in the natural; each of them being the fource of the best and most grateful fatisfactions, that Heaven has conferred on the fons of men. But I fhould be glad to know, what the real value of this boafted exemption from care, which they promise their difciples, justly amounts to? an exemption flattering to selflove, I confefs; but which, upon many occurrences in hu

man life, fhould be rejected with the utmoft difdain. For nothing furely, can be more inconfiftent with a well poised and manly spirit, than to decline engaging in any laudable action, or to be difcouraged from perfevering in it, by an apprehenfion of the trouble and folicitude, with which it may probably be attended. Virtue herfelf, indeed, ought to be totally renounced, if it be right to avoid every poffible means that may be productive of uneafinefs: for who, that is actuated by her principles, can observe the conduct of an oppofite character, without being affected, with fome degree of fecret diffatisfaction? Are not the juft, the brave, and the good, neceffarily expofed to the difagreeable emotions of diflike and averfion, when they refpectively meet with inftances of fraud, of cowardice, or of villany? It is an effential property of every well conftituted mind to be affected with pain, or pleasure, according to the nature of those moral appearances that prefent themselves to obfervation.

If fenfibility, therefore, be not incompatible with true wifdom (and it furely is not, unless we fuppofe that philofophy deadens every finer feeling of our nature,) what just reafon can be affigned, why the fympathetic fufferings, which may refult from friendship, fhould be a fufficient inducement for banishing that generous affection from the human breaft? Extinguish all emotions of the heart, and what difference will remain, I do not fay between man and brute, but between man and a mere inanimate clod? Away then with thofe auftere philofophers, who reprefent virtue as hardening the foul againft all the fofter impresfions of humanity! The fact, certainly, is much otherwife.

A truly good man is, upon many occafions, extremely fufceptible of tender fentiments; and his heart expands with joy, or fhrinks with forrow, as good or ill fortune accompanies his friend. Upon the whole, then, it may fairly be concluded, that, as in the cafe of virtue, fo in that of friendship, those painful fenfations, which may fometimes be produced by the one, as well as by the other, are equally insufficient grounds for excluding either of them from taking poffeffion of our bofoms.

They who infift that "utility is the firft and prevailing motive, which induces mankind to enter into particular frindships," appear to me to diveft the affociation of its moft amiable and engaging principle. For, to a mind rightly difpofed, it is not fo much the mere receiving of benefits, as the affectionate zeal from which they flow, that gives

them their best and most valuable recommendation. It is fo far indeed from being verified by fact, that a sense of our wants is the original caufe of forming these amicable alliances; that, on the contrary, it is obfervable, that none have been more distinguished in their friendships than thofe, whofe power and opulence, but above all, whofe fuperior virtue. (a much firmer fupport) have raised them above every neceffity of having recourfe to the affiftance of others.

The true diftinction, then, in this question is, that "although friendship is certainly productive of utility, yet utility is not the primary motive of friendship." Those selfish fenfualifts, therefore, who, lulled in the lap of luxury, prefume to maintain the reverse, have furely no claim to attention as they are neither qualified by reflection, nor experience, to be competent judges of the fubject.

Is there a man upon the face of the earth, who would deliberately accept of all the wealth, and all the affluence this world can beftow, if offered to him upon the fevere terms of his being unconnected with a fingle mortal whom he could love, or by whom he should be beloved? This would be to lead the wretched life of a detefted tyrant, who, amidst perpetual fufpicions and alarms, paffes his miferable days a ftranger to every tender fentiment; and utterly precluded from the heartfelt fatisfactions of friendship. Melmoth's translation of Cicero's Lalius.

SECTION VI.

On the Immortality of the Soul.

I was yesterday walking alone, in one of my friend's woods, and loft myfelf in it very agreeably, as I was running over, in my mind, the feveral arguments that establifh this great point; which is the bafis of morality, and the fource of all the pleafing hopes and fecret joys, that can arife in the heart of a reasonable creature. 1 confidered thofe feveral proofs drawn,

Firft, from the nature of the foul itfelf, and particularly its immateriality; which, though not abfolutely neceffary to the eternity of its duration, has, I think, been evinced to almoft a demonftration.

Secondly, from its paffions and fentiments: as, particularly, from its love of existence; its horror of annihilation; and its hopes of immortality; with that fecret fatisfaction which it finds in the practice of virtue; and that uneafinefs which fellows upon the commiffion of vice.

Thirdly, from the nature of the Supreme Being, whose juftice, goodnefs, wifdom, and veracity, are all concerned in this point.

But among thefe, and other excellent arguments for the immortality of the foul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progrefs of the foul to its perfection, without a poffibility of ever arriving at it: which is a hint that I do not remember to have feen opened and improved by others, who have written on this subject, though it seems to me to carry a very great weight with it. How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the foul, which is capable of immenfe perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, fhall fall away into nothing, almost as foon as it is created? Are fuch abilities made for no purpose? A brute arrives at a point of perfection, that he can never pafs; in a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of; and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the same thing he is at prefent. Were a human foul thus at ftand in her accomplishments; were her faculties to be full blown, and incapable of farther enlargements; I could imagine fhe might fall away infenfibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being, that is in perpetual progress of improvement, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of her Creator, and made a few difcoveries of his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power, muft perifh at her first fetting out, and in the very beginning of her inquiries?

Man, confidered only in his prefent ftate, feems fent into the world merely to propagate his kind. He provides himself with a fucceffor; and immediately quits his poft to make room for him. He does not feem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others. This is not furprifing to confider in animals, which are formed for our use, and which can finish their business in a short life. The filk. worm, after having fpun her task, lays her eggs and dies. But a man cannot take in his full measure of knowledge, has not time to fubdue his paffions, establish his foul in virtue, and come up to the perfection of his nature, before he is hurried off the stage. Would an infinitely wife Being make fuch glorious creatures for fo mean a purpofe? Can he delight in the production of fuch abortive intelligences, fuch fhort lived reasonable beings? Would he give us talents that are not to be exerted? Capacities that are

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never to be gratified? How can we find that wisdom which fhines through all his works, in the formation of man, without looking on this world, as only a nursery for the next; and without believing that the feveral generations of rational creatures, which rife up and disappear in fuch quick fucceffions, are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and afterwards to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may fpread and flourish to all eternity?

There is not, in my opinion, a more pleafing and triumphant confideration in religion, than this of the perpetual progrefs, which the foul makes towards the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving at a period in it. To look upon the foul as going on from strength to ftrength; to confider that the is to fhine forever with new acceffions of glory, and brighten to all eternity: that fhe will be ftill adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge; carries in it fomething wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man Nay, it must be a profpect pleafing to God himself, to fee his creation forever beautifying in his eyes; and drawing nearer to him, by greater degrees of refemblance.

Methinks this fingle confideration, of the progress of a finite fpirit to perfection, will be fufficient to extinguish all envy in inferior natures, and all contempt in . fuperior. That cherub, which now appears as a god to a human foul, knows very well that the period will come about in eternity, when the human foul fhall be as perfect as he himself now is nay, when she shall look down upon that degree of perfection as much as the now falls fhort of it. It is true, the higher nature ftill advances, and by that means preferves his distance and fuperiority in the scale of being; but he knows that, how high foever the ftation is of which he ftands poffeffed at prefent, the inferior nature will at length mount up to it and fhine forth in the fame degree of glory.

With what aftonishment and veneration may we look into our own fouls, where there are fuch hidden stores of virtue and knowledge, fuch inexhaufted fources of perfection! We know not yet what we shall be ; nor will it ever enter into the heart of man, to conceive the glory that will be always in referve for him. The foul, confidered with its Creator, is like one of thofe mathematical lines, that may draw nearer to another for all