Now in forming general terms in politics or morals, the authors of them must have two objects in viewtheir inclusiveness, and their clearness. If a general term be very wide, it of course must be very inclusive; it must embrace all the cases, which the speaker wishes to cover; and the wider the general resemblances, the less the approximation to perspicuity in particular cases. I speak of a fish, for example; and I wish to include in that term, all the living creatures which inhabit the waters. But it may mean a large fish or a small one, a whale or a minnow, a shell fish or a fish with a skin, a halibut or an eel. Now it has been unfortunate, especially in immaterial things, that writers have been more intent on the inclusiveness of their general terms, than on their clearness. The question has not been so much, how much information will the term convey, as whether it covers the whole ground; and hence the accuracy of the philosopher has only been the darkness of the man. The fact is, that these two things hold an inverse ratio to each other. This is the misfortune of all generic philosophy. It only turns to us the darkest side of things. As you make a term inclusive, you must of course make it obscure. As a sun placed in a remote quarter of the heavens, becomes to a spectator on this earth, a twinkling star, shedding a feeble light, and only useful as a guide-mark to a wanderer on the wilderness or ocean, so a truth pushed to its highest generality, becomes less clear, even should its true

Suppose I

It is evident

ness not be lost. Or, it is like a candle in a room, which reflects much light when its rays are confined and returned by the walls; but remove the walls, and its straggling lustre, in the wide expanse of darkness around it, is in danger of being lost. Let us illustrate this by an example. am asking what is the nature of virtue. - here that I wish to find some term, which will cover all the cases in which virtue can be found. If I leave out one instance, or class of instances, my definition is not complete. I fix my mind on this fact, and proceed with this fear before my eyes. In other words, it is obvious that I am attending to the inclusiveness of my definition. As if I were drawing out a piece of wax, to see how far its tenacity could be carried; it is certain I should not care how fine the thread was, provided it did not absolutely break. But I may stretch my wax so that the thread may become almost invisible; and I may make my definition so inclusive as to make its clearness almost lost. In either case, I may gain my object on one side. I may show how ductile the wax is, and how inclusive my terms are; but then, I lose on the other side, and the collective advantages, required in this world of experience and practice, are perhaps comparatively unseen. The definition of virtue, I affirm to be benevolence. This is a very general word, coming from the Latin bene and volo-to wish well; to have a good will to any person or object. In this definition, I am anxious to

include all the cases of virtue which can occur in imagination or practice. But any word placed in that position insensibly gets an enlarged character. It borrows its chief force from its place; it receives as much light from the thing it seems to illuminate, as it can possibly communicate to it. Two general principles, laid beside each other, are like two parallel lines; you may dispute endlessly, which is the primitive standard of comparison. The one has as much right to that term as the other.

If instead of saying that the foundation of all virtue is benevolence, I should say that it was chamasish-a word borrowed from the language of Nootka Sound— the hearer would immediately wish to know what this word means. I could only answer him by saying it means the soul and essence of all virtue; and this definition would be much more clear than benevolence; for the word chamasish has none of those more specific expressions which always cleave to a term, when we lift it up from common use, to generic regions; and cleave to it in spite of our definitions. But such a word shows at once, that our definition is reciprocal; and of course, lets in very little light on the region of truth.

There are two reasons, which make the terms of the widest generality proportionally obscure; and the maxims we form by them. In the first place, it is hard to know whether they are true; and secondly, supposing their truth, it is harder to make the specific

deductions; for both which reasons, I have always had a less value for broad maxims in politics and religion, than some seem to put on them. I say not that they are useless; but the light is so distant, as to shed very little radiance of any practical utility on my private and purblind path.

Yet it is precisely these principles, formed by the coldest philosophers in their closets, that have had the greatest agency in exciting the popular passions, and

setting the world on fire. Robespierre kept all

France in commotion, and the guillotine moving, by certain abstract principles, taken from Helvetius and Rousseau; and I have seen religious books which seem to make the very fate of the gospel depend on the definition of virtue, i. e. that it is impartial benevolence. New England is not the only country, in which a lens of ice, taken from a polar sea of philosophy, has become a glass to collect the rays of the sun to a focus, and pour them on the regions of the burning line of popular excitement. Why is it so? How can so much passion come from such inadequate means? How can you make men fight for a metaphysical abstraction? Nothing is more common; and the reason is because the mind admires the vast, the immense, the indefinite; and where the object is obscure, the passions will be proportionably inflamed.

The truth is, the value of a general principle depends almost wholly on the deductions you make from it. Spinoza taught that all things were but develop

ments of God; confounding the author with his work, he made man, and all material things, but particles of the Deity; certain deductions were made of himself, or followers from this system, which struck mankind with horror. A pious divine of our own country, given too much perhaps to abstract speculation, approached very near to the same general principle. He too, taught, that all we see, and are, are in a sense but the developments of God. But his deductions were pious, and his general principles were embraced by a numerous class of devoted Christians. In the days of the French Revolution, thrones were overturned, churches robbed, the nobles chased from the land, property confiscated, and the sanctuary of private rights invaded by the rude hand of ruffian violence, under the shelter of the general principles of liberty and equality. I too, believe in liberty and equality; and adopt these words in what I conceive their most rigorous sense. I believe it is departing from the principles of equality, that our land is now suffering all the evils that open upon us, and will open us, until we learn to make wiser deductions from this noble principle. For what is liberty? Not the liberty to do wrong. What is equality? Not the equality of property, but of rights. Now when we can found our republic on strict equality, the only equality which justice allows-that is, when those men only vote in the disposal of property, who have property at stake; our frame of government may stand, and not