With a view to happiness as the end, another qua lity will easily present itself as indispensable. Con ceive that a man knows the materials which can be employed as means, and is prompt and unerring in the mode of combining them; all this power is lost, if there is any thing in his nature which prevents him from using it. If he has any appetite in his nature which leads him to pursue certain things with which the most effectual pursuit of happiness is inconsist ent, so far this evil is incurred. A perfect command, then, over a man's appetites and desires; the power of restraining them whenever they lead in a hurtful direction ; that possession of himself which insures his judgment against the illusions of the passions, and enables him to pursue constantly what he deli.. berately approves, is indispensably requisite to enable him to produce the greatest possible quantity of bap.. piness. This is what the ancient philosophers called temperance ; not exactly the same with what is call. ed the virtue or race of temperance, in theological morality, which includes a certain portion (in the doctrines of some theological instructors, a very large portion) of abstinence, and not only of ab• stinence, or the gratuitous renunciation of pleasure, but of the infliction of voluntary pain. This is done with a view to please the God, or object of worship, and to provide, through his favour, for the happiness of a second or future life. The temperance of the ancient philosophers had a view only to the happi• ness of the present life • and consisted in the power of resisting the immediate propensity, if yielding to it would lead to an overbalance of evil, or prevent the enjoyment of a superior good, in whatever the good or evil of the present life consists. This resist mg power consists of two parte : the power of resist ing the allurements of pleasure; and that of resisting the terrors of pain; the last of which has an appro priate name, and is called Fortitude.
These two qualities, the intelligence which can always choose the best possible means, and the strength which overcomes the misguiding propensi ties, appear to be sufficient for the happiness of the individual himself; to the pursuit of which it cannot be doubted that he has always sufficient motions. But education, we have said, should be an instru ment to render the individual the best possible arti ficer of happiness, not to himself alone but also to others. What, then, are the qualities with which he ought to be lendowed, to make him produce the greatest possible quantity of happiness to others ? It is evident enough to see what is the first grand division. A man can effect the happiness of others either by abstaining from doing them harm, or by doing them positive good. To abstain from doing them harm, receives the name of Justice; to do po. sitive good receives that of Generosity. Justice and generosity, then, are the two qualities by which man is fitted to promote the happiness of his fellow-crea tures. And it thus appears, that the four Cardinal Virtues of the ancients do pretty completely include all the qualities, to the possession of which it is de. sirable that the human mind should be trained. The defect, however, of this description is, that it is far too general. It is evident that the train of mental events which conduct to the proposed results must be far more particularized to insure, in any consi derable degree, the effects of instruction ; and it must be. confessed that the ethical instructions of the an•
ciente failed by remaining too much in generals. What is wanting is, that the incidents of human We should be skilfully classified ; both those on the cc easion of which they who are the objects of the good ' acts are pointed out for the receipt of them, and those, on the occasion of which they who are to be the instruments are called upon for the performance. It thus appears that the science of ethics, as well as the science of intellectuals, must be carried to per fection, beat foundation is obtained for the science of education.
III. We have spoken of the qualities which are subservient to human happiness, as means to an end. But, before means can be skilfully adapted to an end, the end must be accurately known. To know how the human mind is to be trained to the promo tion of happiness, another inquiry, then, is necessary, Wherein does human happiness consist ? This is a controverted question,- and we have introduced it rather with a view to show the place which it occu pies in the theory of education, than that we have it in our power to elucidate a subject about which there is so much diversity of opinion, and which some of the disputants lead into very subtile and in tricate inquiries. The importance of the question is sufficiently evident from this, that it is the grand central point, to which all other questions and in quiries converge; that point, by their bearing upon which the value of all other things is determined. That it should remain itself undetermined, implies, that this branch of philosophy is yet far from its highest point of perfection.
The speculations on this subject, too, may be di vided into two great classes ; that of those who trace up all the elements of happiness, as they do all those of intellect, to the simple sensations which, by their transformation into ideas, and afterwards into various combinations, compose, they think, all the intellec tual and moral phenomena of our nature • another, that of those who are not satisfied with this humble origin; who affirm that there is something in human happiness, and in the human intellect, which soars high above this corporeal level ; that ,here are intel lectual as well as moral forms, the resplendent ob jects of human desire, which can by no means be re solved into the grosser elements of sense. These philosophers speak of eternal and immutable truths ; .truths which are altogether independent of our li mited experience; which are truly uuiversal; which the mind recognises without the aid of the senses ; and which are the objects of pure intellect. They affirm, also, that there is a notion of right and of wrong wholly underived from human experience, and independent of the laws which regulate, in this world, the happiness and misery of human life ; a right and wrong, the distinction between which is perceived, according to some, by a peculiar sense; according to others, by the faculty which discerns pure truth; to others by common sense ; it is the same, acco to some, with the notion of the fitness and unfitness of things according to others, with the law of nature; according to others, with truth ; and there is one eminent philosopher who makes it depend upon sympathy, without de termining very clearly whether sympathy depends upon the senses or not.