sit lightly on the mind, and help to occupy its vacuities with a superior cast of thought. If it be essential to the perfect adjustment of the being, to the tranquillity and contentment of the frame, that no indefinite desires should exist, it is equally essential to the dignity of human nature, that the highest objects of existence should never cease to be aspired after.

5. The right enjoyment of society is with propriety laid down by Paley among the prime constituents of happiness. Not only does sociability bear a high proportion to the other tendencies and impulses of human nature, but it has also been adopted by all tribes of men as the organising nucleus of enjoyments in general. Perhaps a strict examination might shew that sociability is apt to be overdone, like any other source of gratification. There is certainly no necessity in human nature for a person never to be out of the sight of others, nor to know what solitude means. But the crowding of our cities and homes, and the artificial craving produced by people incessantly herding together, fritters away the free and spontaneous energies of the individual being, and extinguishes a whole class of emotions, not to speak of the ennui and languor often resulting from it. A certain minority of constitutions, with the sociable tendencies below the average of strength or endurance, are the more especial sufferers by the excessive system of crowding that now obtains. Hardly any human being can do justice to his own powers or his own happiness without the alternation of times of solitude with his hours spent among others. There may be extreme instances of social temperaments which never feel weary of companionship; but the great majority must come below this standard, while a minority require solitude as a necessity of life. It becomes, therefore, one of the points for each one's decision to adjust, so far as he can, his indulgence of social pleasures to his actual strength and capacity. Perhaps, for the vigour of the frame in the execution of all works that depend on the individual energy, a certain abstemiousness from the pleasures and waste of social encounters is indispensable. But at all events, as society furnishes the highest of the ordinary gratifications of human nature, the enjoyment ought to be raised to its height by intervals of total privation and solitary effort. And the maxim of moderation and alternate exercise holds good equally in all the forms of associated relation, from the enthusiastic presence of the multitude, to the intense intimacy of friendship or love.

6. In society, happiness is sought as the immediate end; there are other things that human beings engage in where happiness follows only as an indirect consequence in the pursuit of other ends. Such is the case in the all-important matter of occupation,

profession, or the line of industry chosen as the means of subsistence, and the source of position in the general community. If professional industry occupied no more than half one's time and strength, the nature of the work would, so far as happiness is concerned, be of little moment, for the remaining half of the existence given to what was in keeping with the real bent of the character, would make up for incongruity in the other half. But this distribution, which one might fancy not unreasonable under a more perfect state of things, being very different from the established system-a system that leaves very little, either of time or strength, for other pursuits-each one's happiness is very intimately bound up with his daily occupation. If the occupation fit the character and the likings, there is an immediate and direct pleasurable result; if otherwise, the individual has small chance of ever knowing what perfect happiness is. There are many practical difficulties in the way of this desirable adjustment. It is not easy to procure the fitting employment on all occasions; the character itself is not always understood; youth have to be destined and entered upon their occupation before education has displayed their genuine tendencies; and, lastly, there belongs to early years an extravagance of fancy and ambition that disguises the perennial tastes and faculties. These are natural obstacles that only superior means of choice and of judgment can remove. The artificial obstacles are almost equally formidable—namely, the desires of wealth and of worldly consequence as the supreme objects of a professional life. Of course, these objects, if attained or in prospect, are sources of pleasure; but we must ever maintain that they are insignificant in their influence upon happiness as compared to a thorough congeniality with the work of every coming day. If there is repulsiveness, friction, or even mere cold insipidity about what must engross five-sixths of one's life, it is hard to see how any employment of the remaining sixth, be it what it may, shall provide the compensation requisite to make a joyous existence.

As things usually go, it becomes almost essential to individual happiness to possess an alternate pursuit, and to save with a rigorous economy the shreds and parings of time and vigour that are left at the disposal. Here the free-will and practical wisdom of the slave of industry are put to the test. If there is the true appreciation of the character, and the resolution needful for avoiding all petty dissipations, a human being may still wrest a portion of felicity from niggard destiny. Some valuable and ennobling pursuit may be entered on where all the best gifts of the individual may have room for displaying themselves and for acquiring their fullest proportions. In this supplemental chapter of existence, happiness will be found, whatever be the shortcomings experienced

in the field of toil. In some constitutions, the love of knowledge would manifest itself wherever openings of leisure and opportunity could be made the acquisition of mathematical, physical, or other science, or the more universally engaging departments of natural history. To others, the prevailing aptitude being literary and artistic, would shew itself in the love of literature and the culture of refined expression. A different class of temperaments might require lofty and transcendental speculation. Music, drawing, modelling, or other fine arts, would find votaries. Original speculation and research come within the scope of particular minds; while for others, acquired knowledge, erudition, and scholarship would suffice. Political or philanthropic activity is fascinating to many, and if due preparation of study is made for it, the pursuit is highly laudable. These are only a specimen, by way of illustration, of the resources open in our day to the man of industry as the means of supplying the deficiencies of an industrial life. By having thus some engaging pursuit of a superior order, in thorough unison with the character, a provision is made for the much-desired day when good fortune shall come to bring a release from toil while life is yet inexhausted.

7. There is involved in every one of the foregoing heads a tacit reference to education, discipline, or training, as indispensable to happiness at every turn. Whenever a mode of exertion is indicated that is not born with a man, he must undergo a training to acquire it. Everything that is laborious requires discipline to render it easier; our pleasures are made more lasting in proportion as we are educated for them. Whether it be for physical skill and endurance, for moral energy, or for intellectual range, education improves everything. To acquire the best manner of executing every movement, and receiving every impression, as regards both ease and grace, makes 'high breeding,' and must be ranked among the constituents of happiness. Refinement softens and diffuses the more violent emotions, and increases the persistence in exhausting efforts. For the daily toil, the favourite pursuits, the intercourse of society, and pleasure in general, a careful training in every point may be pronounced as a first requisite. Whatever a person has to do habitually, he should be expressly instructed for, by whoever is responsible for his happiness. Exercise does, as a matter of course, give facility in manual art, in speech, address, business, in the amenities and courtesies of life, and in the higher walks of thought and artistic execution; but the undisciplined, unguided exercise that goes on in the absence of the schoolmaster, confirms vices at the same time. All such vices are a drawback from human happiness. In the wealthier ranks of society, a special attention is paid to one class of

acquirements-those connected with the amenities of social intercourse; but the cultivation that renders easy all the more difficult exertions of life, such as judgment in affairs, and powers of intellect generally, is not usually coupled with the other department of training.

The duty devolving upon parents, of providing the most comprehensive training for their sons and daughters, does not end with the parents. The 'finished' youth is a monster, an absurdity, a foppery. To continue the early training into the higher gymnastics of manhood, is a duty that every one owes to his own happiness and dignity. If there is any art or accomplishment that would lighten the pressure of toil, enhance a favourite pursuit, give an enlargement to the compass of the thoughts, or even plant an exterior grace on the character, such an art is desirable to be attained; and acquisitions are rarely too late.

Cultivation, or acquisition, in a certain small proportion, mixes agreeably with the stream of life at all ages. The feeling of progress and of novelty may be taken into account among perennial pleasures; and hence to keep up a constant engagement with some master, or to devote a portion of time steadily to instructive studies, is profitable up to the extreme term of life.

8. We could not have avoided the most fatal of errors, if we had not endeavoured, in the whole course of the foregoing exposition, to keep constantly in view the radical differences of human character. Not satisfied with making this a qualifying clause at every step, we think it necessary to mark it explicitly as a leading element in the question. All universal prescriptions, and all inferences from 'me to thee,' are, as a general rule, vicious. There is no greater art in human life than the art of judging of the natural bent of characters, and of the pursuits, occupations, and training that are likely to bring them to their highest perfection. An ordinarily gifted mind grown to maturity, and reflecting upon itself in cool moments, may judge of its own bent and likings, and if the decision is not then too late, it may begin to act upon them; but who can look forward through a training, not yet accomplished, to predict the result?

There is a distinction to be drawn in character between the powers and the likings, or between what a person is specially gifted to do, and the things that of all others such person would wish to do. These two points seem to bear no relation to each other in the human constitution. The special knack may not gratify the favourite taste. One may have a most felicitous turn for mechanical contrivance, or manual execution, and with it an insatiable craving for being a metaphysician, or a preacher. Both things should be respected. Happiness will issue from giving full swing

to the superior active gift, and also from a cultivation of the desired excellence. If he that thinks a violin player the most enviable of mortals, has any aptitude for that part, it ought to be cultivated; if the aptitude do not exist, he must be content with listening and admiring others. But, on the other hand, it would be an error to allow a real aptitude to sleep because the fascination of the mind points mainly to something different.

We cannot quit the present subject without protesting in the strongest manner against the first of Paley's two concluding assertions—namely, ‘that happiness is pretty equally distributed amongst the different orders of civil society.' Of this proposition, it is not enough to say, that it stamps with futility all the exertions of men to raise their condition in life, or to maintain their inherited rank; rendering the notion tenable, that philanthropic aims should be directed as much towards the highest aristocracy as to the lowest of the labouring population. Apart from this consideration, the statement is utterly and demonstrably false: the evidence against it is so overwhelming, as to reduce all the opposite appearances to a mere nothing in the comparison. In the first place, the fact-not so well established in Paley's timethat the duration of life in the middle and upper ranks is very much greater than in the labouring and artisan population, is of itself sufficient to give arithmetical certainty to the inequality of the different conditions. Shortened life proves not merely the loss of so many years of existence, but also an inferiority of lot in the years actually enjoyed. The agency that prematurely undermines the system, tells upon the happiness long before it takes away the life. The domestic misery of the reiterated loss of parents and children, with all the large proportion of widowhood and orphanage, must also be added to the account.

Without dwelling upon the evils of penury, to which a counterstatement of the miseries of wealth might be made, there is one point of the comparison that defies all attempts at adducing compensation; that is, the education or training of the upper classes for the labours and enjoyments of life. There is hardly any proposition respecting classes of men so certain as that the most carefully educated class is the most happy. A good training in all the recognised gifts and accomplishments of human nature has happiness for its most assured consequence: it may not bring about intellectual greatness, or sublime virtue, but if it do anything at all, it will sweeten the flow of human existence. The only chance of competition in the race of happiness between the poor and the rich, lies in a more equally diffused system of training in all the qualities that can invigorate or adorn human nature.]