ty, according as the comparison may be made with the greater or with the less.

Of two minds, then, possessing equal excellence, which is the more noble? that which, however high the excellence attained by it, has still some nobler excellence in view, to which it feels its own inferiority, or that, which having risen a few steps in the ascent of intellectual and moral glory, thinks only of those beneath, and rejoices in an excellence which would appear to it of little value, if only it lifted a single glance to the perfection above? Yet this habitual tendency to look beneath, rather than above, is the character of mind which is denominated pride; while the tendency to look above rather than below, and to feel an inferiority, therefore, which others, perhaps, do not perceive, is the character which is denominated humility. Is it false, then, or even extravagant to say, that humility is truly the nobler; and that pride, which delights in the contemplation of the abject things beneath, is truly in itself more abject than that meekness of heart, which is humble because it has greater objects, and which looks with reverence to the excellence that is above it, because it is formed with a capacity of feeling all the worth of that excellence which it reveres?

It has, accordingly, been the universal remark of all who make any remarks whatever, that it is not in great and permanent excellence that we expect to find the arrogant airs of superiority, but in the more petty or sudden distinctions of the little great. It is not the man of science who is proud, but he who knows inaccurately a few unconnected facts, which he dignifies with the name of science, and of which he forms, perhaps, what he is pleased to dignify, by a similar misnomer, with the name of a theory, to the astonishment and admiration of others, a very little more ignorant than himself. She, whose personal charms are acknowledged by a whole metropolis, and the wit who delights the wise and the learned, may have no slight pride, indeed, but they are very likely to be surpassed in pride by the Wit and the Beauty of a country town, as much as they may truly surpass them in all the attractions on which the pride is founded.

"I have read," says Montesquieu, "in the relation of the voyage of one of our vessels of discovery, that some of the crew having landed on the coast of Guinea to purchase some sheep,

were led to the presence of the sovereign, who was administering justice to his people under a tree. He was on his throne, that is to say on a block of wood, on which he sat with all the dignity of the Mogul. He had three or four guards with wooden pikes, and a large umbrella served him for a canopy. His whole royal ornaments, and those of her majesty the queen, consisted in their black skin and a few rings. This prince, still more vain than miserable, asked the strangers, if they spoke much about him in France. He thought that his name could not fail to be carried from one pole to the other; and, unlike that conqueror of whom it was said, that he put all the earth to silence, he believed, for his part, that he set all the universe a talking.

"When the Khan of Tartary has dined, a herald cries out, that now all the sovereigns of the earth may go to dinner as soon as they please; and this barbarian, whose banquet is only a little milk, who has no house, and who exists but by plunder, looks upon all the kings of the world as his slaves, and insults them regularly twice a day."

Such is the ignorance from which pride usually flows. The child, the savage, the illiterate,-who, in every stage of society, are intellectually savages,-have feelings of self-complacent exultation, which, ludicrous as they may seem to those who consider from a more elevated height the little attainments that may have given birth to those proud emotions, are the natural result of the very ignorance to which such proud emotions seem so very little suited. To him who has just quitted a jail, every step is an advance that is easily measured; but the more advanced the progress, the less relatively does every step appear. The child, at almost every new lesson which he receives, may be considered as nearly doubling his little stock of knowledge; and he is not the last himself to feel, that his knowledge is thus doubled, or, at least, that those who are but a little behind him have scarcely half as much wondrous wisdom as is heaped in his own little brain. What is true of the child in years is true of the child in science, whatever his years may be; and to increase knowledge, far from increasing the general pride of the individual, is often the surest mode of diminishing it. It is the same with all the arts and sciences, considered as one great stock of excellence. He whose whole attention has been devoted to any one of these will run

some risk of a haughty exultation, which is not felt by those, who with equal, or perhaps greater excellence in that one, are acquainted also with what is excellent in other sciences, or other arts. The accomplished philosopher and man of letters, to whom the great names of all who have been eminent in ancient and modern times, in all the nations in which the race of man has risen to glory, are familiar, almost like the names of those with whom he is living in society,-who has thus constantly before his mind images of excellence of the highest order, and who, even in the hopes which he dares to form, feels how small a contribution it will be in his power to add to the great imperishable stock of human wisdom, may be proud indeed; but his pride will be of a sort that is tempered with humility, and will be humility itself, if compared with the pride of a pedant or sciolist, who thinks, that in adding the result of some little discovery which he may have fortunately made, he is almost doubling that mass of knowledge, in which it is scarcely perceived as an element.

Pride, then, as a character of self-complacent exultation, is not the prevailing cast of mind of those who are formed for genuine excellence. He who is formed for genuine excellence, has before him an ideal perfection, that semper melius aliquid,—which makes excellence itself, however admirable, to those who measure it only with their weaker powers, seem, to his own mind, as compared with what he has ever in his own mental vision, a sort of failure. He thinks less of what he has done, than of what it seems possible to do,—and he is not so much proud of merit attained, as desirous of a merit that has not yet been attained by him.

It is in this way, that the very religion, which ennobles man, leads him not to pride, but to humility. It elevates him from the smoke and dust of earth; but it elevates him above the darkness, that he may see better the great heights which are above him. It shews him not the mere excellence of a few frail creatures, as fallible as himself, but excellence, the very conception of which is the highest effort, that can be made by man; exhibiting thus constantly, what it will be the only honour worthy of his nature to imitate, however faintly, and checking his momentary pride, at every step of his glorious progress, by the brightness and the vastness of what is still before him.

May I not add to these remarks, that it is in this way, we are to account for that humility, which is so peculiarly a part of the Christian character, as contrasted with the general pride which other systems either recommend or allow. The Christian relig. ion is, indeed, as has been often sarcastically said by those who revile it, the religion of the humble in heart; but it is the religion of the humble, only because it presents to our contemplation, a higher excellence than was ever before exhibited to man.

The proud look down upon the earth, and see nothing that creeps upon its surface more noble than themselves. The humble look upward to their God.

479

LECTURE LXIII.

II. RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS.—SUBDIVISION OF THEM, AS THEY RELATE TO OTHERS, OR TO OURSELVES.-I. ANGER. -GRATITUDE.

GENTLEMEN, my remarks on the emotions of Pride and Humility, those vivid feelings which attend the belief of our excellence or superiority, in any circumstances, internal or external,— brought to a conclusion, in my last Lecture, the observations, which I had to offer, on one set of our emotions,-those which I have termed immediate, that arise from the consideration of objects as present, or not involving, at least, any necessary reference to time.

The emotions, which, according to the general principles of our arrangement, we are next to consider, are those which relate to objects as past;-the conception of some object of former pleasure or pain, being essential to the complex feeling. To this set of emotions, accordingly, I have given the name of retrospective. These may be subdivided, as they relate to others, and to ourselves.

Our retrospective emotions, which relate to others, are anger for evil inflicted, and gratitude for good conferred,—to which emotions, as complex feelings, in all their variety, the conception of evil, as past, or of good, as past, is, you will perceive, essential.

Those, which relate to ourselves, are either simple regret or satisfaction, that arises from the consideration of any circumstances or events, which may have been productive of joy or sorrow, or may promise or threaten to be productive of them, or that