ON HUMAN HAPPINESS. 



445 



quently and more intimately, we become, from the great and powerful 

 principle of habit, still more kindred parts of each other. And hence the 

 origin of the higher public virtues of patriotism, generosity, gratitude, 

 friendship, conjugal fidelity, parental love, and fihal reverence ; the exer- 

 cise of all which in our relative situations of life, whether we contemplate 

 it at the time, or whether we do not, is by our own constitution, or, which 

 is the same thing, by the will of the great Creator, rendered essential to 

 our individual happiness. 



Mr. Pope, from a hint furnished by Dr. Donne, finely compares this 

 origin and spread of the different circles of private and public virtues from 

 the salient point of self4ove, or the desire of individual happiness in the 

 breast, to the series of circles within circles excited on the bosom of a still 

 and peaceful lake by the throw of a pebble ; while all natuie smiles around, 

 and, from this very agitation, the face of the heavens is reflected with an 

 additional degree of lustre. 



" Self-love but serves the virtuous breast to wake, 

 As the smooth pebble stirs the peacelul lake. 

 The centre mov'd, a circle strait succeeds, 

 Another still, and stili another spreads. 

 Friend, parents, neighbour, first it will embrace, 

 Our country next, and next ail human race. 

 Wide, and more wide, th' o'erflowiug of the mind 

 Takes every creature in of every kind. i 

 Earth smiles around, in boundless beauty dress'd ; 

 And heav'n reflects its iraa^e in his breast." 



We stand in need, then, of no pra3C0gnita or innate ideas, of no fanci- 

 ful instinct whatever ; — arguing as intelhgent beings, and fairly exercising 

 the discursive faculty of reason, we come to the clear conclusion that vir- 

 tue is the path to human happiness. The case, indeed, is so manifest, 

 that while many of the instincts we actually possess are often tempting 

 us against such a conduct and such a conclusion, whenever reason is 

 appealed to, we never fail to return to the same estabhshed dictum. 



The Stoics, with a sort of romantic refinement, pretended to have fallen 

 into a love of virtue for her own sake ; and to sustain and to abstain^ to 

 hear ^ndi forbear^ to be patient and continent, comprised the summary of 

 their moral system. But while they were thus enraptured with the means, 

 hke every other society of mankind, they had th^ full advantage of the 

 end. They may, indeed, have practised virtue for the love of virtue, but 

 they also practised virtue, and reaped the benefit of their own happiness. 



The Epicureans, on the contrary, regarded all these sublime pretensions 

 as mere cant and affectation. They also enjoined and practised, and not- 

 withstanding the false reproach that has attached to their name, enjoined 

 and practised with more rigidity than even the Stoics, the laws and re- 

 straints of moral virtue ; yet boldly and unequivocally avowed that it was 

 chiefly as a mean towards an end : that it was not so much from a love 

 of virtue, as from a love of pleasure or happiness : and hence pleasure 

 and happiness were in this school used as synonymous terms, as were also 

 vice and folly, and wisdom and virtue ; or, rather, wisdom was regarded 

 as the first of all virtues, as being that which teaches us that a life of real 

 pleasure or happiness is to be obtained alone by the exercise of the gene- 

 ral cluster of virtues. In one of his letters to Mensceus, that has yet 

 survived the ravage of time, Epicurus has a passage upon this subject pe- 

 culiarly striking, and that cannot be too strongly impressed on our memo- 

 ries. Wisdom," says he, '-'is the chief blessing of philosophy, since shf; 



