is the course of our investigation obstructed, nor the chain of our reasoning embarrassed even in a single link by such an admission. The coolness of moral philosophy will thus indeed receive a warmth, and its formality an interest which it never before ac quired; and what in our view of the subject is of far the greatest importance, its abstract speculations will be resolved into principles of practice and motives of duty.

The great design of Dr. Hey in the work before us is to vin dicate the goodness of the Creator, in giving us those affections which are generally termed malevolent, and to show that being placed by him in our hearts for those good purposes which our present state requires, they are abused by us for the very worst ; and also to shew what part man ought to take in their discipline and regulation. Dr. Hey reduces these Malevolent Sentiments under four principal heads: 1. Hatred. 2. Envy. 3. Malice. 4. Resentment. The method which he pursues with respect to each is, first to consider its nature, secondly to enumerate its good and bad effects; and thirdly to offer practical rules for its discipline and management:

In considering Hatred, Dr. Hey enumerates the various feelä ings of disgust for which the term is indiscriminately used, separating them from those of envy, jealousy, contempt, &c. with which they are apt to be confounded. He considers it as opposite to love, and to be strictly speaking, that sentiment which is generated in the mind by a being either animate or inanimate, having so frequently caused unpleasant and painful feelings, that the idea of it becomes habitually associated with such feelings. This definition will appear to the reader imperfect, it has done so indeed already to its author, who very justly observes, that we may use a sentiment for the purposes of life, when we are unable to give a satisfactory and a metaphysical account of its nature, which he exemplifies particularly in our notion of Beauty, which is sufficiently clear for all practical purposes, yet most difficult to be accurately determined or satisfactorily defined. Dr. Hey resorts thierefore to another method of ap proximating the idea of this feeling to his readers minds, by presenting to their view its object.

"Think then what it is that you feel when you see a person of a rude, haughty character, coarse manner and ungraceful appearance; despising the rules of decency and decorum; hard, insen. șible, uncivilized; inattentive to the feelings of those with whom he converses; overbearing the delicacy of modest sense, and making meek virtue and unassuming worth shrink in silent confusion. Or think what you feel when you meet with one who is mean, sordid, effeminate, cowardly, without love of order, neatness, cleanliness; void of elegance and taste, of narrow mind

mind and confused intellect, yet busy, officious, curious, impertinent; deficient in wisdom, yet full of low artifice and hidden duplicity. All these qualities heightened by an ill-contrived exterior, and expressed in an illiberal countenance. Think what you feel on the sight of a person who has been frequently the occasion of making you yourself in particular dissatisfied; or appear unfortunate or despicable. Whether by his unmerited and ill-applied prosperity, or his insolence in boasting of it, or by his base ness in attaining it, or in any other way. Think what has been the effect when you have been eager to indulge your finer feelings; to expand yourself, as it were; to communicate your love of truth or virtue; or your relish for some liberal art; to expatiate on whatever has struck you as lovely, noble, ingenious; as likely to enlarge your sphere of beneficence; and all these efforts have been checked by want of sympathetic spirit; have been blighted by the chilling coldness of your companion. Or think, lastly, what has been the state of your mind when all the expectations were disappointed, which you had formed on the character, age, profession of those with whom you have conversed. When from men in years you have expected sound sense and unembarrassed argument, the result of practice and experience; or moderation and serene cheerfulness, with settled habits of easy virtue, the effects having nearly finished their earthly labours, and of looking forward to a better world:-And you have been struck with the prevalence of some animal propensity, some cunning craftiness, eager ambition, sordid avarice, or perhaps vain affectation of youthful vivacity and licentiousness. Or when from a robust form and habit of body you have expected fortitude and magnanimity and have been surprised and disgusted with childish cowardly apprehensions, and effeminate terrors.

"A due attention to our conceptions and feelings in such circumstances as these would make our idea of hatred much less vague than it appears to be at present." P. 6.

After a long disquisition upon its nature, and an examination into the scriptural usage of the term, Dr. Hey proceeds to consider the beneficial purposes for which it was implanted in our

breasts.

"Hatred, like other malevolent sentiments, when considered as a good, or as the work of our Creator, must be classed with those remedies for evils, (for it is impossible but that evils will come) which are not in themselves perfectly free from evil. Poi sons which are antidotes to poisons, medicines or operations which cause bodily pain in order to diminish bodily pain upon the whole, are of this class: And indeed so are all punishments, which are painful methods of preventing evils; of preventing hurtful attacks on person and property. And so is war, since that must be estimated as good which lessens evil; all these are good, so long as evil is lessened by them." P.18.

"Nor

"Nor must it be thought trifling or unimportant to found the utility of hatred upon its tendency to civilize mankind, and polish human nature; It is as much the design of Providence that Man should be improved and refined, as that he should subsist, or continue his species. Were not this. the case, numberless provisions of Providence would be wholly thrown away. When we say that odious qualities probably tend to injure health, it should at the same time be understood, that every disorder of our bodily frame affects the mind, and therefore hurts or impedes our finer faculties and perceptions, to an extent beyond any limits which we can assign. And these are parts of man, as much as his bodily members. In this sense it is true, that "Man shall not live by bread alone." Indeed the lowest classes amongst us are allowed to consider many accommodations as necessaries of life, to which an uncivilized human being is an utter stranger.

"Now if things which ought to be odious, or which would be odious to the best regulated mind, are really of the nature of noxious weeds, or hurtful luxuriances, it is easy to see, that it is much better for mankind to have their growth checked by means of a sentiment, than by mere reason and experience. A sentiment acts instantaneously, whereas the deductions of reason and experience are slow. Sentiment can repel any attack upon the finer parts of our Nature before they are thoroughly understood, and so lead us to study and esteem them; whereas if reason and experience alone inform us when we should restrain what would corrupt our nobler enjoyments, we must wait till our taste for virtue, and the fine arts has been reduced to a regular theory: a thing not very near now, but which would be at a much greater distance than it now is, if we never had any guide but what was purely intellectual. Not that hatred is a mere blind instinct: although it acts, or makes us act, instantaneously, it is subject to the correction of reason: its operations are examined, judged, regulated by our superior faculties; and after regulation it acquires the prudence, as it were, of calm judgment, at the same time that it retains the quickness, versatility, and energy of sentiment." P. 20,

"The good effects of Hatred spring up, both in the character of him who feels the passion, and of him who is the object of it. If certain qualities, actions, appearances are hateful to you, you yourself will of course avoid them; and that person in whom you hate them, is naturally induced to avoid them by the pain which your hatred inflicts. In this manner must the good effects of hatred, as it becomes better managed, increase and multiply." P. 21. Its bad effects are too well known to be presented to our readers; it will be sufficient to say that they are represented with great fidelity, and that the rules which are given for the discipline and management of this sentiment are such as cannot fail if applied, to reduce it under the laws of perfect justice and the controul of Christian benevolence,

Upon a subject intimately connected with the sentiment of

5

Hatred

Hatred, Dr. Hey enlarges with all the precision of a reasoning and thoughtful mind, and with all the animation of a kind and Christian heart. Had we not positive evidence that this volume was printed in 1801, we should have thought that our author had drawn the following masterly picture, from a character too well known in the present day. So striking is the accuracy of delineation, and so remarkable is the colouring of the features, that the portrait is almost prophetic.

:

"If we ask the Man-hater why he hates Mankind; he answers, because they are so vicious; so selfish, mean, cruel; so false and faithless. He cannot tolerate such infamous proceedings as he beholds in the world; he is too warm a friend of virtue to be placid and indifferent; and he is above flattery; he is too frank, sincere, and too little of a coward even to dissemble; therefore he must be permitted to vent an honest indignation; he means in private society; as to public matters, though he will not flatter the great, he will keep himself aloof. He can see that public transactions are all oppression, corruption, and iniquity; and therefore he will undertake no office; he will not appear to countenance abuses which he cordially detests, Is he a writer? he runs into virulent satire; his pen expresses nothing but gloominess and malignity; sometimes it is envenomed with the most poisonous slander: it wounds, and there is no cure. If he is not a writer, he gratifies himself by embittering conversation with austerity and invective he alarms the cheerful tranquillity, the social security. of convivial enjoyment, by representing every character and every pransaction not as unpleasing only, but as shocking and detestable, He holds them up to view on the most unfavourable side, and rails at them as if they were incapable of any more favourable representation. His pleasure consists in the indulgence of his rancour and abhorrence: offer him an idea or expression that is candid or pleasing; he loaths it, as nauseously sweet and cloying. His companions, when companions he admits, are those who are best qualified to join with him in drawing gloomy pictures of man kind; in making malignant jests and acrimonious strictures; with such entertainment he gluts himself, as the savage animal with his prey. A cheerful moderate companion is at best but insipid to him, generally odious. Such one is called unfeeling, time serving, and a traitor to the cause of virtue. If any thwart his views, or interfere with his rights, they are immediately put upon the footing of enemies: however innocent they may be no trial is held; they are calumniated with virulence, and hated with bitterness: chagrin and ill-humour, in various shapes, take possession of his mind; and leave no authority to calm dispassionate reason, no room for mild forbearance. Yet he pretends to reason; the form of argument is kept up; nay he would be thought a man of deep reflection; of such penetration as to see through all hypocritical pretences: the complacent mask which men wear, does not

impose upon him; no; he can strip it off; and discover beneath it the hidden features of moral deformity." P. 37.

After this masterly delineation of the selfish and conceited victim of wretched and malignant gloom, our author proceeds to consider the fallacies under which misanthropy is generally desirous of sheltering its deformity. In his detection of these miserable subterfuges, Dr. Hey is peculiarly happy. He first shews that the misanthrope deceives himself firstly, in founding his pretensions to superior virtue on conduct inconsistent with human happiness; and secondly, with respect to his since rity and his fortitude. So far from possessing this latter qualification, Dr. Hey clearly proves misanthropy to be the result of cowardice and the want of that resolution, which enables the soul to bear up against the storms of life," the rich man's contumely, the proud man's scorn." The mischiefs caused by the misanthropist are enumerated at length, and the remedies proposed are such as if administered by a judicious and persevering hand, might be attended with a beneficial result.

We now come to the passion or sentiment of Envy, which our Author defines to be" that uneasy sentiment, of which we are conscious, when we observe the success of those with whom we compare ourselves to be greater than our own." Jealousy is considered as a branch of envy, applicable to personal favour, esteem, or affection. The beneficial effect of envy are universally acknowledged under the nanie of emulation. The justice, the candour, and the piety of the following statement will be received with much admiration.

"The beneficial effects of envy must be seen in the same light with those of hatred; it is a remedy for evil, itself wholly free from evil. In order to make ourselves sensible of its value, we must consider how men probably would have acted, and what improvements they would have made, had they felt no uneasi ness on seeing themselves surpassed. As far as we can judge from experience, the want of such a spring, or spur, or motive, would have occasioned a very great difference in human exertions, and therefore in human improvements. Men would certainly have had their Reason to prompt them to improve themselves and their condition; and a prospect of advantage; but it has been observed, that it is chiefly uneasiness which impells men to determine on any change. (Locke, Hum. Und. 2.21. 29.) Taking men as they are, our most natural conclusion is, that without some uneasiness they would have continued in a state of indolence and stagnation. The finer feelings would have lain dormant; that alacrity and animation, which we now perceive, would have remained unseen and unknown. It may not indeed be easy to ascertain the precise quantity of good which envy has occasioned in the world; because we do not know exactly what we should have been, and how we should