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way, to interrupt the uniform and pleasurable exertion of their faculties in the pursuit of their proper objects.

The days of our infancy are happy for the same reason, notwithstanding the imperfection of our faculties, and the greater proportion of pains and disorders we are then liable to. Those years of our lives slide away in unmixed enjoyment; except when they are interrupted by the actual sensations of pain: for we are then incapable o suffering any thing from the fear of evil. It is not 'till after a considerable time that we get the abstract idea of self; an idea, which the brutes, probably, never arrive at, and which is of excellent use to us, as will be shewn in its proper place, in our pursuit of happiness, but is often abused to the great increase of our misery, as will appear by the facts we are now considering.

Why are persons whose situation in life obliges them to constant labour, either of body or mind, generally more happy than those whose circumstances do not lay them under a necessity to labour, and whose own inclination does not lead them to it; but because the former have their thoughts constantly employed in the pursuit of some end, which keeps their faculties awake, and

fully

fully exerted? And this is always attended with a state of vigorous, and consequently pleasurable sensations. Persons thus employed have not much leisure to attend to the idea of self, and that anxiety which always attends the frequent recurring of it; whereas a person who has no object foreign to himself, which constantly and necessarily engages his attention, cannot have his faculties fully exert. ed; and therefore his mind cannot possibly be in that state of vigorous sensation in which happiness consists.

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The mind of such a person, having nothing without him sufficient to engage its attention, turns upon itself. He feels he is not happy, but he sees not the reason of it. This again excites his won. ders, vexation, and perplexity. He tries new expedients; but, as these are only temporary, and generally whimsical choices, none of them have sufficient power to fix and confine his attention. He is still perpetually thinking about himself, and ⚫ wondering and uneasy that he is not happy. This anxious perplexed state of mind, affecting the nervous system, necessarily occasions a more irritable state of the nerves, and of the brain, which makes the unhappy "person subject to more frequent alarms, to greater anxiety and distress than

before;

before; 'till, these mental and bodily disorders mutually increasing one another, his condition is at length the most wretched and distressing that can be conceived. No bodily pain, no rack, no torture, can equal the misery and distress of a human being whose mind is thus a prey to itself. No wonder that, in this situation, many persons wish the utter extinction of their being, and often put a period to their lives.

This is certainly the most deplorable situation to which a human being can be reduced in this world, and is doubly the object of our compassion, when the disorder has its seat originally in the body, in such a manner, as that no endeavours to engage a man's thought upon other objects can force his attention from himself.

It is no wonder that we see more of this kind of unhappiness in the higher ranks of life, and among persons who are in what is called easy circumstances than in any other. Indeed, the case is hardly possible in any other than in easy circumstances: for did a man's circumstances really find constant employment for his thoughts, were his business so urgent as to leave him no leisure for suspence and uncertainty what to do, it is plain, from the preceding principles, that such anxiety and distress could

not

not take place. It is well known that the mind suffers more in a state of uncertainty and suspense, for want of some motive to determine a man's choice, than he can suffer in the vigorous prosecution of the most arduous undertaking. I appeal to men of leisure, and particularly to persons who are naturally of an active and enterprizing dis position, for the truth of this fact.

These principles likewise, as is evident without entering into a detail of particulars, furnish us with a good reason why we generally see fathers and mothers of large families infinitely more easy, chearful, and happy, than those persons who have no family-connexions. The greater affluence, ease, and variety of pleasures which these can command (subject to the inconveniences I have mentioned, and which are commonly visible enough in the case I refer to) are a poor equivalent for the neces sary, constant, and vigorous exertion of their faculties, and consequently the strong sensations, and lively enjoyments, which a variety of family-cares, conjugal and parental tenderness, supply for the others.

This would be the case universally, where large families could subsist, if the parents had sufficient employment, and if an early-acquired taste for superfu

superfluities had not taken too deep root in their minds.

Happy is it for the world, and a great mark of the wisdom and goodness of divine providence, that men's minds are so constituted, that though they be in easy circumstances, they are never completely satisfied. The passions of most men are still engaging them in a variety of pursuits, in which they are as eager, and which they prosecute with as much alacrity and earnestness, as if necessity compelled them to it. Otherwise, every person who could live easy would be inevitably miserable.

Infinitely happier would it be for themselves, and for the world, if all their pursuits were such as would give them satisfaction upon the reflection as well as in the pursuit, and be of real advantage to the rest of mankind; which two circumstances never fail to coincide. However, with regard to a person's self in this life, any end is unspeakably better than no end at all: and such is the wise appointment of providence, that bad ends tend, in a variety of ways, to check and defeat themselves, and to throw the minds of men into better, nobler, and more satisfactory pursuits; a consideration, which cannot fail to suggest, to a benevolent and pious

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