Anger, in its slightest degree, neces sarily follows certain occurrences, the consequences of ftmily and social con nections : and its indulgence is allowable wider the guidance of reason, otherwise it would be impossible to correct the ag gressions of unthinking persons, or con duct the education of youth ; but beyond this boundary, it becomes brutal and degrading to our nature. Anger may be made habitual by indulgence; the nerves are, by this means, rendered diseased and irritable, and the person thus situated actually falls into an universal tremor, with a species of rage, almost at the in stant the ear hears, or the eye views the cause of offence; indeed some cases ex ist, when the mind becomes inflamed at the bare suspicion of what may he said or done. Miserable are the feelings of those who suffer anger to overpower their reason, and miserable are the ef. fects of their rapid and frequently un founded conceptions. It may be doubted whether the mind, in this state of de rangement, can be recovered to discrimi nation and gentleness in adults ; it is, therefore, doubly necessary to repress any effervescence in the breasts of infants, who are known to feel most violent pa roxisms of rage, even before their limbs are capable of supporting them, and which have been known to be fatal. This circumstance, alone, proves that our passions are received with life in their full vigour, consequently every means should be tried to soothe and repress them, rather than to encourage their in crease, by teaching resentment against animals, friends, and inanimate objects, by the detestable practice of asking a blow from a child to beat a table or wainscot, fin coming in contact with its head or limbs, or a person or animal for some offence. Revenge is a twin brother of anger or rage; we see but little of the movements of this branch of the passions, as they are generally secret, Muuded on fear, and prey on the vitals of the wretch who entertains it; it is a compound of courage and apprehension, but the latter ever predominates. Revenge is not al ways confined to acts, but descends to malice, which delights in insinuations and false conclusions ; when successful, the human face divine becomes the type of that of a fiend, and a smile sets on the features which cannot be de scribed.
Another gradation of anger is hatred, which arises from a real or supposed in jury. Inveterate hatred is a must direful passion, distorting every word mid every act of the individual the subject of it ; whose smiles are equally detested with their frowns, and whose motives in all cases are supposed to be governed by an intention of injuring the possessor of this unworthy sensation. Resentment is a her more generous inmate, because it pos sesses the power of discriminating an un intentional from a voluntary insult, and is vented generally, and immediately, in words alone. It must be obvious, that he tvho entertains haled fosters an inmate which feeds upon his own vitals, even when the object hated is unconscious of its existence, or has forgot its future con sequences.
Envy often produces hatred ; the for mer being a most unreasonable passion, seems to derive its origin from an innate principle of evil ; it is one, in short, which cannot be accounted fin' on any ra tional grounds. The person influenced by envy feels sonic deficiency, and serves another endowed with qualifica tions either beyond the reach of acquire ment, or that may be obtained without difficulty ; when the defect lies in the person or features, it might be imagined that the hopeless state of the case would produce resignation, if not content. If
the acquirements disliked or envied are attainable by all mankind, emulation might be supposed to urge an attempt at rivalry: but, no; the envious person rests in listless inactivity, and suffers his mind to tear every ornament, natural or artificial, from the subject of his dislike, his ryes to express it, and his tongue to depreciate and lessen every movement of the involuntary enemy of his repose. Aversion is often produced by a similar cause; and yet it must be admitted, that aversions do sometimes occur in minds virtuous and pure, which require the strongest efforts to subdue them. Those, however, generally proceed from the contemplation of a set of forbidding fea tures, or some peculiarity in the manners of the individual disapproved of, and may be conquered by exertion. In another sense, aversion is proper and justifiable; the good must feel an aversion for those whose conduct is wicked or dis graceful.
Hatred is expressed by contemptuous looks, or knitting- of the brows, the raising of the lips towards the nostrils, and an averted face. Envy exhibits an eagerness to see the departure of its object, when the eyes sparkle, and the voice is tuned to ri dicule. Aversion shuns the presence of the wicked, and turns the back to its sumptuous folly.
Cruelty, this perversion of our nature, for it cannot be innate, may be traced to its without a circuitous or theore tical process. Examine the domestic. economy of most families, and the result will be, that five out of six who have in tents to instruct and educate possess some animals, entertained fur the sole pur pose of amusing the tender years of their offspring, which are dragged by the neck and limbs from one to another, with the same indifference in the child and parents, and their attendants, as if they were inani mate representations of dogs, cats, rab bits, or birds ; and should the injured animal complain or resist, the family is in arms to beat, nay, hang the innocent of. fender, while the child is soothed with execrations of the animal, and assurances of a cruel revenge. Can the unfhrtunate being thus tutored he supposed to re spect the feelings of man, when opposed to his will, in the course of his linure life, after having been taught to despise the cries of suffering from his earliest days ? Impossible. To follow the aberrations of so hateful a disposition would require a relation of facts which are calculated to excite horror, as the exercise of it ex tends into a variety of acts, decidedly op posite to each other in their motives. In. stances have been known of the infliction of tortures, both mental and corporeal, which could not be traced to any rationat cause : when it arises from revenge against real or imagined injuries, we are not at a loss for the reason why a wretch should exult in the misery of his victim ; but it is shocking to reflect on the conduct of a fiend, who, after rubbing an unresist ing traveller, beats him almost to death. In this case, and in those cruelties fre quently exercised on the brute creation, we find such a total rejection of the man ly dignity of the human race, that we are almost inclined to hope the inflictors are a race of evil spirits, distinct and separate from us.