as mean or groveling, unless when it takes indirect measures for its gratification. Shame and remorse, though they fink the fpirits, are not mean. Pride, a difagreeable paffion, bestows no dignity in the eye of a fpectator. Vanity always appears mean; and extremely so where founded, as commonly happens, on trivial qualifications.

I proceed to the pleasures of the understanding, which possess a high rank in point of dignity. Of this every one will be fenfible, when he confiders the important truths that have been laid open by fcience; fuch as general theorems, and the general laws that govern the material and moral worlds. The pleasures of the understanding are fuited to man as a rational and contemplative being; and they tend not a little to ennoble his nature. Even to the Deity he stretches his contemplations, which, in the discovery of infinite power wisdom and benevolence, afford delight of the most exalted kind. Hence it appears, that the fine arts ftudied as a rational science, afford entertainment of great dignity; fuperior far to what they afford as a subject of taste merely.

But

But contemplation, though in itself valuable, is chiefly refpected as fubfervient to action; for man is intended to be more an active than a contemplative being. He accordingly fhows more dignity in action than in contemplation. Generosity, magnanimity, heroism, raise his character to the highest pitch. These best exprefs the dignity of his nature, and advance him nearer to divinity than any other of his attributes.

By every production that shows art and contrivance, our curiofity is excited upon two points; firft how it was made, and next to what end. Of the two, the latter is the more important inquiry, because the means are ever fubordinate to the end; and in fact our curiofity is always more inflamed by the final than by the efficient caufe. This preference is no where more visible, than in contemplating the works of nature. If in the efficient cause, wifdom and power be displayed, wisdom is not lefs confpicuous in the final caufe; and from it only can we infer benevolence, which of all the divine attributes is to man the moft important.

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important. Having endeavoured to affign the efficient cause of dignity and meanness, and to unfold the principle on which they are founded, we proceed to explain the final cause of the dignity or meannefs bestowed upon the feveral particulars above mentioned, beginning with corporeal pleasures. These, so far as ufeful, are like justice fenced with fufficient fanctions to prevent their being neglected. Hunger and thirst are painful fenfations; and we are incited to animal love by a vigorous propensity. Were they dignified over and above with a place in a high clafs, they would infallibly overturn the balance of the mind, by outweighing the focial affections. This is a fatisfactory final caufe for refufing to corporeal pleasures any degree of dignity. And the final caufe is not lefs evident of their meannefs, when they are indulged to excefs. The more refined pleasures of external fenfe, conveyed by the eye and the ear from natural objects and from the fine arts, deferve a high place in our esteem, because of their fingular and extenfive utility. In fome cafes they arife to a confiderable dig

nity. The very lowest pleasures of the

kind, are never efteemed mean or groveling. The pleasure arifing from wit, humour, ridicule, or from what is fimply ludicrous, is useful, by relaxing the mind after the fatigue of more manly occupation. But the mind, when it surrenders itself to pleasure of this kind, lofes its vigor, and finks gradually into floth. The place this pleasure occupies in point of dignity, is adjusted to these views. To make it useful as a relaxation, it is not branded with meannefs. To prevent its ufurpation, it is removed from this place but a fingle degree. No man values himself upon this pleasure, even during the gratification; and if more time have been given to it than is requifite for relaxation, a man looks back with fome degree of shame.

In point of dignity, the focial paffions rise above the selfish, and much above the pleafures of the eye and ear. Man is by his nature a focial being; and to qualify him for fociety, it is wifely contrived, that he should value himself more for being focial than felfifh,

The

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The excellency of man is chiefly difcernible in the great improvements he is fufceptible of in fociety. These, by perfeverance, may be carried on progreffively to higher and higher degrees of perfection, above any affignable limits; and, even abstracting from revelation, there is great probability, that the progress begun in this life will be completed in fome future ftate. Now, as all valuable improvements proceed from the exercise of our rational faculties, the author of our nature, in order to excite us to a due use of these faculties, hath affigned a high rank to the pleasures of the understanding. Their utility, with respect to this life as well as a future, intitles them to this rank.

But as action is the end of all our improvements, virtuous actions juftly poffefs the highest of all the ranks. These, I find, are by nature diftributed into different claffes, and the first in point of dignity affigned to actions which appear not the first in point of use. Generofity, for example, in the fense of mankind, is more refpected than justice, though the latter is undoubtedly more effential to fociety. And magnanimi

ty,