It is not an eafy matter to add weight to the teftimony of the wifeft man, upon the pleasure of doing good; or else the evidence of the philofopher Epicurus is very remarkable, whofe word in this matter is the more to be trufted, because a profeffed fenfualift; who amidst all the the delicacies and improvements of pleafure which a luxuriant fancy might strike out, ftill maintained, that the best way of enlarging human happiness was, by a communication of it to others.

And if it was neceffary here, or there was time to refine upon this doctrine, one might further maintain, exclufive of the happiness which the mind itself feels in the exercife of this virtue, that the very body of man is never in a better ftate than when he is moft inclined to do good offices: — that as nothing more

con

contributes to health than a benevolence of temper, fo nothing generally was a ftronger indication of it.

opi

And what seems to confirm this c nion, is an obfervation, the truth of which must be fubmitted to every one's reflection—namely -that a difinclination and backwardnefs to do good, is often attended, if not produced, by an indifpofition of the animal as well as rational part of us : So naturally do the foul and body, as in other cafes fo in this, mutually befriend, or prey upon each other. And indeed, fetting aside all abftrufer reasoning upon the point, I cannot conceive, but that the very mechanical motions which maintain life, must be performed with more equal vigour and freedom in that man whom a great and good foul perpetually inclines

to fhew mercy to the miferable, than they can be in a poor, fordid, felfifh wretch, whofe little, contracted heart, melts at no man's affliction; but fits brooding fo intently over its own plots and concerns, as to fee and feel nothing;. and in truth, enjoy nothing beyond him felf: and of whom one may fay what that great mafter of nature has, fpeaking of a natural fenfe of harmony, which I think, with more juftice may be faidof compaffion, that the man who had it not,

Was fit for treasons, ftratagems "and Spoils :

"The MOTIONS of his fpirits are dull as night;

" And his affections dark as EREBUS:

Let no fuch man be trufted.

What

What divines fay of the mind, naturalifts have obferved of the body; that there is no paffion fo natural to it as love, which is the principle of doing good;

and though inftances like this just mentioned feem far from being proofs of it, yet it is not to be doubted, but that every hard-hearted man has felt much inward opposition before he could prevail upon himself to do aught to fix and deferve the character: and that what we fay of long habits of vice, that they are hard to be fubdued, may with equal truth be faid concerning the natural impreffions of benevolence, that a man muft do much violence to himself, and fuffer many a painful ftruggle, before he can tear away fo great and noble a part of his nature. Of this antiquity has preferved a beautiful inftance in an anecdote of Alexander, the tyrant of Phe

res,

res, who though he had fo industriously hardned his heart, as to feem to take delight in cruelty, infomuch as to murder many of his fubjects every day, without cause and without pity; yet, at the bare representation of a tragedy which related the misfortunes of Hecuba and Andromache, he was fo touched with the fictitious diftrefs which the poet had wrought up in it, that he burst out into a flood of tears. The explication of which inconfiftency is eafy, and cafts as great a luftre upon human nature, as the man himself was a difgrace to it.. The cafe feems to have been this: in real life he had been blinded with paffons, and thoughtlessly hurried on by intereft or refentment: but here, there

LE

was no room for motives of that kind; fo that his attention being firft caught hold of, and all his vices laid asleep;

then.