APPENDIX,

CONT

AN ESSAY

ON THE

Analogy between the methods by which the perfection and happiness of men are promoted, according to the difpenfations of natural and revealed religion.

HE perfection of intelligent beings confifts

THE

in comprehenfion of mind, or that principle whereby ideas of the past and the future mix with those of the present, and excite one common fenfation; in which the good and evil fo perfectly coalefce, and are fo intimately united, that the medium only is perceived. Confequently, if happinefs be apprehended to prevail, in that portion of time of which we have this perfect comprehenfion, and every part of which may be faid to be prefent to us, we are conscious of pleasure only in the contemplation of it, the pain being loft, and abforbed, together with fo much pleasure as was VOL. II. E equivalent

equivalent to it. By this means happiness comes to be of a more stable nature; and it is lefs in the power of fingle accidents to produce a sense of mifery.

A

If we have any reafon to think that our existence will, upon the whole, be comfortable and happy; fince (man being immortal) our happiness muft be infinite upon the whole, though it be limited and finite at any particular time, the thought is fo great and fo glorious, that the full apprehenfion of it muft contribute ftill more to overpower the sense of any prefent evils, and give fuch an intenfeness to all pleasurable feelings, as cannot fail to make our present ftate unspeakably more eligible than it could otherwise have been.

Such is the conftitution of human nature, and fuch are the influences to which we are expofed in this world, that this comprehenfion of mind muft neceffarily be enlarged with the experience of every day. Infants are fenfible of nothing but what paffes in the prefent moment. The inftant that

the impreffion of actual pain is removed, they are perfectly easy in mind, not being disturbed either with the remembrance of the paffed, or the apprehenfion of the future. By degrees, ideas, which have frequently been prefent to the perceptive power at the fame time, begin to be affociated; fo that one of them cannot occur without introducing the other, and fo making the perception complex. By

this means expectation begins to awake in the infant mind; but still, from the moment that, by the intervention of an affociated circumftance, the idea of any pleasure is conceived, the child is impatient till it be enjoyed. Indeed, it is generally feveral months before children fhow the leaft fign of patience in waiting for any thing. The moft evident figns of preparing to give them food, ferve only to quicken their appetite, and their impatience to get it fatisfied; nor are they easy, till the meat be actually in their mouths.

In this ftate, therefore, or at our entrance upon life, we are influenced almost wholly by fenfation, or the actual impreffion of external objects upon our fenfes. But when traces of these impreffions, i. e. ideas are left in the fenforium, which may be excited by other ideas affociated with them, fo that notices of things may be had without the presence of real objects, we are capable of being influenced by them, as well as by the objects themfelves. And fince the stock of our ideas increases without limits, and is accumulating through the whole course of our lives, we must be continually more and more actuated by them; and there will be less occafion for the prefence of external objects, either to roufe us to action, or to give us the fenfe of pleasure or pain; that is, we grow more intellectual, and lefs fenfual every day.

When our stock of ideas is become confiderable, and, confequently, their mutual affociations are pretty extenfive and intimate; if the circumftances that have always been found to precede any gratification be perceived, the gratification itself is immediately anticipated; we look upon it as certain, and have a real enjoyment of it, though it be not prefent. In this cafe, when the gratification actually comes, it makes but little alteration in what we feel, and is but a small addition to our previous happiness; which now depends chiefly upon ideas, which are continually increafing, and to which external fenfations bear, every day, a lefs and lefs proportion.

The probable expectation of happiness hath a fimilar effect, and hence the great power of mere hope to leffen the evils of life, and make us bear up under great difficulties and trials. If any pleasure hath been abfolutely depended upon, for a long space of time, the happiness 'we have experienced in the frequent contemplation of it, may far exceed that of the enjoyment, which is single and momentary, and, moreover, accompanied with the difagreeable idea of its being fo. For the fame reason, the fear of evil may, in time, be far more diftreffing and grievous than the evil itself. The man who lofes a limb by a fudden accident is to be envied, in comparison of him who hath been fentenced to that lofs, as a punishment, fome months before the operation,

operation. In like manner, if two perfons be confined in prifon, and one of them be released without any previous expectation of fo agreeable an event, while the other knew that he was to be confined only for the fame limited time; the former will feel more tumultuous joy upon the occafion, but the latter will have had the idea of it present to his mind, during the whole time of his confinement, fweetening all the bitterness of it, and will never have known the diftrefs of uncertainty, or the agony of despair.

When ideas only are concerned, and not both ideas and fenfations, the influence of hope and fear is much more diftinctly perceived, and the nature of this comprehenfion of mind will be better understood by it. Inftead, then, of putting a cafein which we ourselves are concerned, let us put the cafe of a wife, a child, or any other near relation, or friend, with whom we can truly fympathife, taking part in all their joys and forrows. If we see them in prison, and, after apprehending that their confinement will be for life, have private information that they will be released, and placed in very agreeable circumstances in a few days, weeks, or months; we can see them in the mean time, even though we are not allowed to communicate our intelligence to them, with joy almoft unmixed; because the future is realized, and the agreableness of it heightened in our ideas by its contraft with the prefent; E 3 which