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The amputated limb has certainly no connection whatever with the proper interest of the nominal identity it left, but the matter of the limb, diffusing itself into the general circula tion of the whole sensitive system, will meet in an infinitely multiplied ratio, a proportion of good or evil that its previ ous agency, while a constituent part of the human body, might have augmented or diminished in its future state of pa tiency.

Hence we may observe, with the completest evidence, that though there exists no unity of interest between the two iden tities, (personal and material,) in their separation, but only in influence, while combined, the personal identity possessing the whole agency is obliged, by the laws of sympathy in the moral world, to provide good for its own succession of thoughts or sensation, and to extend that good to the interests of the material identity, in the transmutation of its indestructible atoms, throughout the great circle of patiency, in the whole sensitive system.

All human action must be guided and governed by the ob servation of facts, and the criterion of experience, to ascer tain their relations in science or knowledge. The transmu tion of matter from body to body, is ascertained by the sense of smelling, and the contagion of diseases. This fact, founded on experience, forms a positive law of sensation, or thought, which directs man to extend the sphere of his agency, from the interest of the personal, to that of the ma terial identity, in the circulation or transmutation of its individual atoms, throughout the whole sensitive system; and whatever conjectures may be formed, on rational analogy, relative to the quantity or duration of such interest, as these can never be brought to the test of experience, they can have no influence on human action, or the moral conduct of mankind.

This demonstration of the unity of interest throughout the sphere of sensitive life reveals an important principle, which is, that the word worship, which in the present chaos of the moral world, means adulation, fear and prostration of one atom for another, in the true laws of the constitution of Nature means only the coöperation of the various genera and species of indestructible atoms to augment the sum of good and diminish the sum of evil throughout the whole sensitive

existence, in which the previous agency of matter identifies and multiplies in an incalculable ratio in its interest with the patiency of all successive modification of life.

Men, bubbles like, on sea of matter borne,
Rise, break, and to and from the sea return.

This important law of the constitution of Nature, as revealed in the Opus Maximum, or Scripture of Reason and Nature, proves it to be the interest of all human matter to tranquillize the immense ocean of sensitive existence, into which it must incessantly break and circulate, and consequently suffer all the agitation and enjoy all the calm. in an incalculable ratio of interest in the unbounded influence of agency over patiency, independent of the connection of reminiscence and the oblivion of past combi

nations.

The efforts of physical power, in arms, victory or conquest; these, if unaccompanied with moral energies, do but gibbet the infamy of heroic folly, through a short pe riod of babbling history; and then break and disperse like waves on the shore, leaving the transmuted atoms of the hero to agonize as patients of their own previous energy, in the diffusion of human misery to an incalculable period of duration, and sphere of extension; while pompous monuments, statues, poems, and histories will sing but a vain and empty lullaby of glory to his suffering atoms, in their vast circle of patiency, diffused throughout the whole system of sensitive life.

Instruction should be conducted through the medium of chemistry, to make man acquainted with the laws of Nature, relative to his own self-being, and his relations to the Universe; acquiring with such instruction, the true station of manhood. These perfectable beings might form small societies of natural life, opposed to civil life, where the relation of man, absorbing all factitious relations of kindred, property and community, the majority of numbers should form the governing will to protect the individal tyranny, and thereby augment his pleasures, his liberty, his safety, and his power, following the code of moral Nature; Think; Speak as you think; Violate not the inoffensive will of any sensitive being.

ESSAY ON MATERIALISM, CONTINUED,

FROM STEWARTS LECTURES AND DISCOURSES.

The moralist who can discern the complicate, delicate and fleeting relations of man with self, with the whole sensitive system, and progressively with all Nature in the fu gitive and changeable relations of the moral science, is as much above Newton, as the discovery of the laws of human happiness excels those of physical science. That this sentiment may not appear hyperbolical, I must support it with the authority of John Locke, who declares that there exists as much difference between the intellect of one man and another, as between man and beast.

I once held an opinion, that animal sensation, augmented by the wants, desires, activity, and knowledge of civilized refinement, grew at length into mental sensation, but my experience in travels has enabled me to correct this error. I found that the inhabitants of the northern nations, as Germany, Norway, and Sweden, whose animal sensibility had less exercise in the arts and sciences, in mental sensibility far surpassed the inhabitants of the south in France, Spain, and Italy.

In the revolution of France the scientific sages were the most active leaders to precipitate and thoughtless innovation: A German or Norwegian shepherd would think, doubt, examine, reflect, and hesitate more to lead his flock to a new pond, than a French philosopher would to have decreed the whole nation of France, with all its subjugated allies-a Moravian society.

Any species of action which brings evil upon its agent is in itself no virtue in the immutable code of Nature's laws. I never performed or felt a benevolent act, but in a just measure of pleasureable sensation and suitability of circumstances; and for every object of distress that I relieve, either by act or compassion, upon a fair statement of the debt and credit of sacrifice and enjoyment, I find myself a considerable gainer in happiness, and such experience teaches me that virtue so far from being selfdenial, is nothing but wise self-interest, calculated upon its most remote relations of all sensitive life.

My mind, assuming the principle of sympathy or be

nevolence as its object, imagination, like the sun, projects the shadow of relation to the whole sensitive system. This elongated shadow I contrast to the semblance of experience in my own sensations, and I perceive a great improvement, or increase of pleasure therein, by a total abstinence of all violence to the brute species.

Benevolence, like every other virtue, must be limited in its action by the necessity of circumstances. If, for example, I am overtaken in my pedestrian travels by stormy weather, I get into the stage; and, if debility of constitution requires animal food, I become a customer to the butcher.

This conduct will, by the generality of mankind, be regarded as inconsistent, but when the true knowledge of virtue shall be understood as the art of happiness (and not a cold, insipid homily of injurious duties,) these apparent inconsistencies will be regarded as the necessary deviations of the mariner from his course, to reach with more facility his haven.

The humane Quaker, who will not fight, or innocent Bramin, who will not destroy animal life, may be taught by the inverting speculum, or discipliner of conscience, that evil is often the indispensible mean of good in the enjoyment of happiness and advancement of human perfectibility. The true criterion of a disciplined conscience is to hold principles inflexible, but rules pliable, and accommodative to circumstances; the disposition of benevolence towards the whole sensitive system must be an immutable principle, but the rules of execution must quadrate with the circumstances of social condition. Charity is an immutable and indispensible disposition of happiness, but its execution must not be prostituted to indolence and imposture. Probity is an essential principle of serene content and self-estimation, but we must not suffer its execution to expose us to the resentment of idiots or madmen.

A man of disciplined conscience may fall into error, but he never can become either a fool or a knave-he follows the paramount law of Nature; man be happy, and make the discipline of the will and the understanding the true art of life and the development of human energy.

That class of society in possession of opulence, instead of spending their property in the ostentatious vanity of luxury, which is the modern substitute to joyous hospitali ty, should follow the laws of sagacity in the discipline of the moral powers, by estimating the pain of luxury in plate, furniture, dress, equipage, palaces, noxious and redundant aliment in solemn feasts-and compare these habitudes of false pleasure with the intellectual joys of study, conversation, composition, and cheerful company of constant, domestic hospitality, to join in dance, sport, mirth, and music, and philosophic conversation. If we take a comparative view of the present mode of modern life in both Europe and America, with the old hospitality of our ancestors, we shall be obliged to acknowledge that all the real pleasures of domestic life are sacrificed to a gloomy pomp and loathsome etiquette of pride and luxu ry. This extreme folly of the opulent classes, exhibited in the economy of life, resembles the practice of the savages, who purchase a few hours deadly intoxication with the whole labor of a hunting season.

The same stupidity of conduct is exhibited by the European mechanic or artist, who toils like a slave all the week to get deadly drunk or dress like a fop on a Sunday. The American farmer follows this degrading practice, and sacrifices the toil and labor of life to procure a state of beastly insensibility-while his wife and daughters apply the surplus of a toilsome and slavish economy to the decorations of vanity in their houses and persons. Thus all classes of human life and population strongly exemplify the defective and undisciplined state of human reason in the false standard of civilized or savage enjoy ment. If happiness or human perfectibility has any meaning, it must be effected by the means of an improved economy of social life to multiply the sum total of physical and moral energy in the human species; to increase those powers in individual man, that he may be enabled to distinguish real from artificial wants, and true pleasure from habitudes or custom, with increased intellect to feel his happiness; and all the lectures delivered from the schools or the pulpits against ambition, folly, or vice, will avail as little as reproof to the tempest, while laws, ha

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