account of wealth, equipage, honours, or the undue influence of friends, but the PLAIN result of an honourable and religious affection between the contracting parties, and that GOD who first instituted the "holy estate of matrimony.” 7. As gold is an iucorruptible metal, that is, if thrown into the mire, or embedded in the most impure soil, it will never become corrupt, corrode, or imbibe, one speck of rust or impurity; so should the marriage love and friendship, however it may sometimes be obliged to descend from the elevation of affluence into the deep valley of penury or distress, be doomed-" to waste its sweetness in the desert air,"-be incarcerated within the gloomy confines of the prison-cell, or associate with the poor, the mean, or the illiterate, still, like its incorruptible emblem, should it continue as bright and beautiful as ever. 8. As gold is the most ductile of all metals, so that an ounce can be beaten out to cover an acre of ground, or' gild a finely attenuated thread to embrace the circumference of the world's surface, so should the result of the marriage union fulfil the original command, to increase, multiply, and cover the earth, with "the precious sons of Zion comparable to fine gold." are 9. As the marriage ring exhibits nothing to imply pre-eminence of the one party over the other, notwithstanding that the word "obey" is applied to the lady rather than the gentleman, yet the gentleman should ever recollect, that as in forensic courts, especially courts of equity, the plaintiff must appear with what called "clean hands;" so, before he can claim any right to command, or the wife be under obligation to obey, he must remember the test of his love and sincerity, which is given in Holy Scripture, viz. "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church :" but how did Christ prove his love for the church?—by dying for it. When a love, of which this is the model, predominates in the husband's heart, he can require no obedience from his wife, but she will feel it to be her honour, pride, and privilege to render. When a lady reads, marks, learns, and inwardly digests the foregoing, with all its implied suggestions and endearments, and then glances at the honoured finger which bears the pure insignia of such voluminous delights and serious responsibility; how inexpressibly happy she must feel, that she can be at all times, and under all circumstances, the bearer of so dear and portable a pledge of all that constitutes real 38 terrestrial felicity, and she may often recur to the title or motto, and-"think well on it." "This alone is worth commending, Still beginning, never ending." Manchester, Nov. 19th, 1829. CAROLUS. ON READING.-NO. I. TO THE EDITOR, SIR.-A knowledge of the use of letters, whoever invented them, is the grandest acquisition to fallen incarnation, of which the art of man can boast; seeing they disseminate and perpetuate ideas, once conceived, without that incessant variation, so fatal to truth, to which, from a host of circumstances, the memory of man is ever liable. Books, however, are so rapidly increasing, and printing affords such facility to the dissemination of sentiment, bad as well as good, that reading may be made subservient to almost every purpose mental luxury can devise. Not a passion, not an appetite of the soul can be imagined, to which books will not, in some way or other, administer. Such being the case, if it meets your approbation, I purpose calling, in a series of short essays, the attention of your readers to this important subject; first warning them against various evils, and secondly pointing out certain advantages which result from a course of reading; in order that the good may be made their own, and the evil removed far away from their souls, Your obedient Servant, A CURSORY reader skims over the surface of a subject, and is struck only with prominent features or full-blown incidents, during his rapid passage from the commencement to the development of the historic fragment he engages to run over; and, unmindful of numerous beauties, as to diction and manner, and a greater multitude of interesting notations as to men and things, hies forward to the end of the narration, and contents himself with a bare knowledge of the main facts recorded therein : like that alert summer emigrant, the swallow, which, over the water and over the earth, darts in every direction, without touching either, while its sole occupation is that of catching flies. What do these persons acquire by their reading? Food for vanity. They can boast how much they have devoured, just as a glutton or a drunkard can boast how much he has eaten or drunk without digestion. They are no wiser, no better than when they set out, The flies they have caught are not food for nourishment. A reader biased by a particular passion, no matter what, generally reads with the view of procuring food for his favourite propensity: he, therefore, chooses such books, and selects such parts of them, as minister thereto; disregarding almost every other notation, however wise, however interesting, or however useful, in any other respect. The affinity of congeniality seizes upon the favourite viand, and, with gluttonous ecstasy, gorges this to surfeiting; while a frightful vacuity pervades the soul, as to every other subject. A succession of such readings acts upon the mind like strong drink upon the vitals of the drunkard. Benumbed by the intoxicating power of the preceding dose, the succeeding stimulant must be stronger, in order to produce a sensation upon languishing vitality, overheated and debilitated by continued excess; and, as from weak mixtures of spirit and water, the drunkard increases the strength of his potations, until proof brandy itself is drunk alone, and even accounted not too ardent for the cravings of the sot; so the reading of a person under the influence of passion, must be less and less diluted with extraneous matter, until nothing will please but the clear ardent spirit of the passion itself. Wanton youth and libidinous age read, with increasing avidity, those luscious themes which minister to the baser passions; while within their frame, in unison with the theme, sensations of unhallowed delights debauch their spirits. Myriads, who once blushed as they read, although alone, have eventually familiarized the subject to their souls, by perpetuated recurrences to the same lustful ideas, until at length they have even gloried in what occasioned their former shame. Alas! for youth! While the fear of a tarnish to their fair reputation keeps them aloof from the abandoned multitude, too many indulge, in secret, in the unhallowed debauch of obscene reading; not sufficiently aware of the awful consequences; and, indeed, not even aware of that trite observation, "Shew me the company he keeps, and I will shew you the man!" or, what is precisely the same, "Shew me the books he reads, and I will shew you his character!" Is it possible the books which any man or any woman constantly reads, can be long kept a profound secret? Poetry, the heroes of which are debauchees and seducers, and the heroines strumpets, dignified with names high and 40 ..... pompous, and trimmed with sentiments specious and imposing, flaming with all the paraphernalia of royal, princely, or ducal dignity, and wearing the semblance of honesty and honour, with pretensions to integrity and worth above the greatest of the great of mankind, is one of those vehicles of seduction to the soul. Clothed in well-set terms, eloquent, yea, sublime, and decked with all the pearls and jewels of metaphor and simile, enticing to betray, delusive sentiment abounds in every page, irreligious, yea profane, all is false and hollow. This debauch leads down the infatuated spirit to the chambers of death, amidst the ecstasy of admiration! Alas! with the gorgeous hues of a deadly serpent are these enchanted away from truth; they view the destroyer, and yet are destroyed by him! Fuel to the flame of lust, and to the baseness of depravity, thus piled up, they erect a pyre, amidst which the soul is consumed. Prose, also, under the names of novels, romances, and tales, an endless labyrinth of lewdness and debauchery; clothing crime in robes of honesty, and guilt in garments of celestial hue; portraying life, not as it is or ever can be, but in inflated forms and colourings of the most florid glare, is twin-sister to such poetry; they alike consume their votaries by over excitement, and few who early enter their pavilions escape destruction. Blessed is the man who gives his youth to Jehovah; and equally so the woman: these early acquire a zest for superior reading; the Word of GOD-the revelation made by Him to man becomes their delight; and therein do they meditate continually. Instead of mental debauchery, theirs is the purity of devotional feelingtheir reading leads up the soul to Him who purifies the heart, and enkindles that hallowed flame of love which is an earnest of, and terminates in, the ecstacy of glory. (To be continued.) AN ESSAY ON INSTINCT. In its most general acceptation, instinct is a natural disposition, or sagacity, wherewith animals are endued; and by virtue whereof they are enabled to provide for themselves, and know what is good for them, and are determined to preserve and propagate their species. The term instinct, however, has been variously explained and defined. Instinct, acording to Dr. Reid, is a natural blind impulse to certain actions, without having any end in view, without deliberation, and 41 An Essay on Instinct. very often without any conception of what we do; and he considers instinct as one species of the most mechanical principles of action, the other being habits. Archdeacon Paley defines instinct to be "a propensity prior to experience, and independent of instruction."-volume iii. p. 177. An ingenious writer, of whose observations we avail ourselves in the compilation of this article, defines instinct to be a tendency implanted in the minds of animals, when under the influence of certain feelings or sensations, to perform spontaneously, unerringly, independently of all teaching and experience, and without any determinate view to consequences, certain actions necessary for the preservation of the individual and the continuation of the kind. Instinct in brutes bears some analogy to reason in men. There have been many systems adopted, to explain the principles which produce and direct the spontaneous actions of brute animals. Many of the ancient philosophers ascribed to brutes an understanding differing only in degree from that of man, and attributed their inferiority to the want of proper and sufficient bodily organs. This system has been very strenuously supported by M. Helvetius, de l'Esprit, tom. i. p. 2, &c. Among the moderns, the learned Cudworth endeavoured to explain the instinct of animals, by means of a certain plastic nature. 42 tween pleasure and pain, together with a strong inclination to the former and aversion from the latter. By these inclinations and aversions he undertakes to account for all, even the most striking operations of animals; affirming, that, in consequence of impressions made on the brain by means of the sensitive organs, and by the re-action of the brain and nerves on the muscles, these machines acquire a motion conformable to the nature of the animal, and of the impressions of the different objects which act upon their organs, and excite desire or aversion. The pre-established harmony of Leibnitz has also been applied to explain the actions of brute animals. Others have considered the actions of animals as produced by the constant and immediate influence of the divine energy, directing all their inclinations and motions: such appears to have been the opinion of Mr. Addison, in the second volume of the Spectator. The late ingenious Hermann Samuel Reimar, professor of philosophy at Hamburgh, has enumerated and exposed these and other opinions, with regard to the instinct of animals, in his Observations Physiques, &c. published in two vols, 12mo. at Amsterdam and Paris, 1770: and, defining instinct, in the most comprehensive sense of the word, to be every natural inclination, accompanied with a power, in animals, to perform certain actions, he divides instincts into three parts. The first, which he calls mechaDes Cartes thought that all the actions nical instincts, belong to the body conof brute animals might be explained by sidered as an organized substance, and the simple laws of mechanism; and he are exercised blindly and independently of considers them as machines totally devoid the will of the animal. Such are those of life and sentiment, but so curiously which produce the motion of the heart and constructed by the Creator, that the mere lungs, the contraction and dilatation of the impressions of light, sound, and other pupil, digestion, &c. This class of external agents, on their organs, produced instincts is possessed in common both by a series of motions in them, and caused them men and brutes, and in some measure even to execute those various operations, which by vegetables. The second class comprehad before been ascribed to an internal hends those which he terms representative principle of life and spontaneity. But the instincts, which consist partly in the power actions and manners of animals, which are of perceiving external objects by their totally incompatible with the mere prin- present impression, on the senses, and ciples and laws of mechanism, evince the partly in the faculty of rendering the ideas absurdity of this opinion. The dogma of of these objects present to the mind by Des Cartes is said to have been first intro- the powers of imagination, or of memory, duced by Pherecydes, the master of in a lax sense of the word. These are Pythagoras; and though Des Cartes had common to men and other animals, exthe merit of developing and applying this cepting that brutes possess only the faculty hypothesis, the doctrine was before pub-of imagination in common with us, and lished by the Spaniard Pereira. not that of memory, in the strict and M. Buffon adopts the opinion of Des proper sense of the word. Indeed, this Cartes in part, but grants brute animals author endeavours to prove, that the knowlife, and the faculty of distinguishing be-ledge of brutes does not merely differ in 43 An Essay on Instinct. degree from that of man, but that it is of a kind entirely different from it; and that they are incapable both of memory and reasoning: the faculty of imagination serving to give them a confused idea of events that are past, by the view, or other impressions, of objects that are present. The third and principal class of instincts is that which comprehends all those which M. Reimar calls spontaneous. This species of instinct is not attended with any power of reflection, determining the animal to decide freely between two different modes of action present to his imagination; nor is it merely corporeal or mechanical. It is put into action by the natural and primitive principle of self-love, implanted in all animated beings; or by a love of pleasure and aversion to pain, producing a voluntary inclination to perform certain actions which tend to their well-being and preservation. To the performance of these actions they are particularly prompted by their present sensations, by imagination supplying the place of memory, and by other causes. The wonderful effects produced by these instinctive appetites, are farther to be attributed to the exquisite mechanism in their bodily conformation, particularly in the structure of the various organs with which they execute their operations, and to the superior perfection and acuteness of their external senses, by which they are quickly and distinctly informed of those qualities of objects which most materially concern them. In order to account for the more curious and surprising operations of brute animals, M. Reimar adds two other principles, viz. 1st, an internal distinct perception of the precise power and proper use of their various bodily organs, together with an innate knowledge of the qualities of those objects around them in which they are interested; and, 2ndly, certain innate and determinate powers and inclinations, impressed by the Author of nature, à priori, on the soul itself; by which they are arbitrarily, and without their own knowledge or consciousness, directed and irresistibly impelled to the performance of these various operations, which they execute with such unremitting industry and art. These determinate forces, which constitute the principal part of M. Reimar's system, are no where so visible and distinguishable as in that numerous set of instincts which he classes under the title of the industrious instincts of animals. The majority of philosophers, even in Des Cartes's time, maintained, that the actions of the brutes were mostly instinctive, 44 and not mechanical. This prevailing sentiment was altered a little by a wrong application of the principles of Locke. But the balance was soon afterwards restored to its former preponderance in behalf of instinctive principles, by the writings of lord Shaftesbury and Dr. Hutcheson; and still more particularly by those of Dr. Reid. Some authors, who, with Locke, reject innate notions and innate principles, both speculative and practical, allow that the mind acts sometimes instinctively; others, who reject Locke's ideal theory altogether, detail a great number of instinctive principles of mind; whilst a third class of writers will have the actions, that have been generally denominated instinctive, to be either habitual, associated, or mechanical. Nor does the matter rest here; for some authors of a very modern date go so far even as to maintain that the word instinct is unphilosophical; since all that has been referred to this principle, whether in man or in the brutes, may be the result of experience, or of imitation. Some writers confound the actions that have been generally deemed instinctive with those that spring from reason; some with those that spring from mechanism ; and others with such as spring from habit and association. But it is easy, we think, to distinguish them from each and all of these, by pointing out actions which differ from such as are called rational, habitual, or mechanical. An action is called rational when it is performed under the influence of a motive; that is, with a view to consequences: thus, to worship the Deity for having created us, for his goodness towards us, and that he may reward us hereafter, is a rational action. are of opinion that the motive, or the end we have in view in our rational actions, is the cause of these actions; but as we learn from experience that the human mind can act not only in opposition to the strongest external motive, but against all external motives whatever, properly so called, we cannot help thinking it more correct to call thern simply inducements, and to consider the mind itself solely and properly as the cause. Some › Mechanical actions also have a cause as well as those that are rational; namely, mechanism or organization. But this cause is not an end proposed, or a motive; neither is it an inward feeling, disposition, or sensation : thus a clock goes through its course of hours, minutes, and seconds, without a view to consequences, without spontaneity, and even without being able to check its own action. To 45 An Essay on Instinct. 46 this class belong the actions of the heart | man seem to want altogether that spontaand arteries, the vermicular action of the neity which we observe in the instinctive intestines, and those of secretion and actions of the other animals; such as nestrespiration in animals. Instinctive actions building, for instance, and the operations may be traced to a cause, as well as both of bees, described in a subsequent part of the preceding; but this cannot be referred this article, or the migrations of birds of to the class of motives, as they are not passage "through the pathless air without performed with a view to consequences; chart or compass." One instance of an neither can the cause be said to be mecha-action confessedly habitual will illustrate nism, as they are accompanied with spon taneity. The proper cause, however, is the internal feeling, sensation, or disposition, that leads to the performance of them, without design or intelligence on the part of the animal. Thus an infant, in a few minutes | after birth, seeks the breast, without any knowledge whatever of its necessity for his preservation; and a pair of young birds, without teaching or experience, build their first nest with as much skill and exactness as the oldest of their tribe could do; and that, too, of the customary materials of their species, and in the situations best calculated for depositing and hatching their eggs. Instinct and mechanism have been oftener confounded with each other, particularly of late, than any other of those principles of action which we are considering; and yet we cannot help thinking that the distinction between habit and instinct will not appear..as palpable as those we have already made, particularly as some habits are formed at so early an age, that it is very difficult to ascertain whether the actions that spring from them are from habit or from nature. But supposing such a principle as instinct, such as we have described it, the actions that spring from it must differ from such as are habitual, in this, "that the former must be from nature, and the latter acquired." Habit has been defined to be a facility of doing, and not only a facility, but also a proneness to do certain things, from having done them frequently before. This definition, however, is manifestly not applicable to habits of art, but only to such as can be properly called principles of action. Instinctive actions agree with habitual ones of the latter kind in this, that they are both performed without intelligence, will, or design; and this has accordingly induced Dr. Reid to confound them, and to class them, very improperly we think, under the head of mechanical actions. Their agreeing in a few particulars could not warrant him in reducing them to the same class, particularly when he tells us himself, that "the origin of one is natural, of the other acquired." But, besides this, the habitual actions of this more fully. Let us take that motion of the eye-lids which occurs almost every instant. This action cannot be the necessary result of mechanism, as we see that children do not, for some days after birth, close their eye-lids on the approach of external objects. But as soon as some object (suppose too much light) has made them feel inconvenience or pain, and thus produced a voluntary or mechanical motion of the eye-lids, this effect becomes gradually so intimately associated with its cause, that even the appearance of the candle will produce the effect. And, finally, habit gives us so great a proneness to this action, that we perform it constantly, amidst all our occupations, without consciousness, will, or spontaneity; and even without perceiving that, in every waking minute of our lives, we are several moments totally in the dark. And so far is this motion from being a voluntary act, that it requires a strong exertion of will and attention to check it, even for a short time; but, do what we will, we can never check it altogether. To avoid being misunderstood, it will be necessary to illustrate more fully the distinction between habits of art, in which we acquire a facility only from frequent practice, such as playing expertly on the violin or harpsichord, and those habits, which, besides a facility, induce also a proneness to act; for instance, in that motion of the eye-lids just described, and many other awkward motions and habits learned from bad example and bad company. Habits of the latter kind may be properly called principles of action; habits of art cannot. These require thought, attention, and will in the performance of their operations; whilst the others require no small exertion of thought, attention, and will to check them. Nor can they, even thus, be completely overcome, until, by repeated exertions, a counter-habit is established, which is the best way to obviate their effects. It was this that made Dr. Reid say, "I conceive it to be a part of our constitution, that what we have been accustomed to do, we acquire not only a facility, but a proneness to do on like occasions; so that it requires a particular |