No More Learning

It is, assuredly, neither from hypocrisy,
nor from dryness of character, that a writer
of real and excellent genius has imagined, in
the novel of Woldemar, situations in which
every personage sacrifices sentiment by means
of sentiment, and anxiously seeks a reason
for not loving what he loves. But Jacobi,
who had felt from his youth a lively inclina-
tion towards every species of enthusiasm, has
here sought out for a romantic mysterious-
ness in the attachments of the heart, which
i9 very ingeniously described, but is quite
foreign to nature. .
It seems to mc that Jacobi understands
religion better than love, for he is too de-
sirous of confounding them. It is not true
that love, like rejigion, can find all its.
happiness in the renunciation of happiness
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? WOLD EM A R. . 229
itself. We change the idea that we ought
to entertain of virtue, when we make it con-
sist in a sort of exalted feeling which has no
object, and in sacrifices for which there is
no necessity. All the characters in Jacobi's
novel are continually tilting with their gene-
rosity against their love :--not only is this
unlike what happens in life, but it has no
moral beauty when virtue does not require
it; for strong and passionate feelings honour
human nature; and religion is so impressive
as it is, precisely because it can triumph
over such feelings. Would it have been
necessary for God himself to condescend to
address the human heart, if there were only
found in that heart some cold and grace-
ful affections which it would be so easy to
renounce?
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? 230 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Of a romantic Bias in the Affections of the
Heart.
The English philosophers have founded vir-
tue, as we have said, upon feeling, or rather
upon the moral sense; but this system has
no connexion with the sentimental morality
of which we are here talking: this morality
(the name and idea of which hardly exist
out of Germany) has nothing philosophical
about it; it only makes a duty of sensibility,
and leads to the contempt of those who are
deficient in that quality.
Doubtless, the power of feeling love is
very closely connected with morality and
religion: it is possible then that our repug-
nance to cold and hard minds is a sublime
sort of instinct--an instinct which apprizes
us, that such beings, even when their con-
duct is estimable, act mechanically, or by
calculation; and that it is impossible for any
sympathy to exist between us and them. In
Germany, where it is attempted to reduce all
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? OP A ROMANTIC BIAS. 231
impressions into precepts, every thing has
been deemed immoral which was destitute
of sensibility--nay, which was not of a ro-
mantic character. Werther had brought ex-
alted sentiments so much into fashion, that
hardly any body dared to show that he was
dry and cold of nature, even when he was
condemned to such a nature in reality. From
thence arose that forced sort of enthusiasm
for the moon, for forests, for the country,
and for solitude; from thence those nervous
fits, that affectation in the very voice, those
looks which wished to be seen; in a word,
all that apparatus of sensibility, which vi-
gorous and sincere minds disdain.
The author of Werther was the first to
laugh at these affectations; but, as ridicu-
lous practices must be found in all countries,
perhaps it is better that they should consist
in the somewhat silly exaggeration of what
is good, than in the elegant pretension
to what is evil. As the desire of success
is unconquerable among men, and still
more so among women, the pretensions of
mediocrity are a certain sign of the ruling
taste at such an epoch, and in such a
society; the same persons who displayed
their sentimentality in Germany, would have
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? 232 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
elsewhere exhibited a levity and supercilious-
ness of character.
The extreme susceptibility of the German
character is one of the great causes of the
importance they attach to the least shades of
sentiment; and this susceptibility frequently
arises from the truth of the affections. It is
easy to be firm when we have no sensibility;
the sole quality which is then necessary is
courage; for a well-regulated severity must
begin with self:--but, when the proofs of
interest in our welfare, which others give or
refuse us, powerfully influence our happiness,
we must have a thousand times more irrita-
bility in our hearts than those who use their
friends as they would an estate, and endea-
vour solely to make them profitable. At the
same lime we ought to be on our guard
against those codes of subtle and many-
shaded sentiment, which the German writers
have multiplied in such various manners, and
with which their romances are filled. The
Germans, it must be confessed, are not
always perfectly natural. Certain of their
own uprightness, of their own sincerity in all
the real relations of life, they are tempted to
regard the affected love of the beautiful as
united to the worship of the good, and to
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? OF A ROMANTIC BIAS. 233
indulge themselves, occasionally, in exagge-
rations of this sort, which spoil every thing.
This rivalship of sensibility, between some
German ladies and authors, would at the
bottom be innocent enough, if the ridiculous
appearance which it gives to affectation did
not always throw a kind of discredit upon
sincerity itself. Cold and selfish persons find
a peculiar pleasure in laughing at passionate
affections; and would wish to make every
thing appear artificial which they do not ex-
perience. There are even persons of true
sensibility whom this sugared sort of exagge-
ration cloys with their own impressions; and
their feelings become exhausted, as we may
exhaust their religion, by tedious sermons
and superstitious practices.
It is wrong to apply the positive ideas
which we have of good and evil to the sub-
tilties of sensibility. To accuse this or that
character of their deficiencies in this respect,
is like making it a crime not to be a poet.
The natural susceptibility of those who
think more than they act, may render them
unjust to persons of a different description.
We must possess imagination to conjecture
all that the heart can make us suffer; and the
best sort of people in the world are often dull
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? 234 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
and stupid in this respect: they march right
across our feelings, as if they were treading
upon flowers, and wondering that they fade
away. Are there not men v! hd have no
admiration for Raphael, who hear music
without emotion, to whom the ocean and
the heavens are but monotonous appearances?
How then should they comprehend the tem-
pests of the soul?
Are not even those who are most endowed
with sensibility sometimes discouraged in
their hopes? May they not be overcome by
a sort of inward coldness, as if the God-
head was retiring from their bosoms? They
remain not less faithful to their affections;
but there is no more incense in the temple, no
more music in the sanctuary, no more emo-
tion in the heart. Often also does misfor-
tune bid us silence in ourselves this voice of
sentiment, harmonious or distracting in its
tone, as it agrees, or not, with our destiny.
It is then impossible to make a duty of sen-
sibility; for those who own it suffer so much
from its possession, as frequently to have the
right and the desire to subject it to restraint.
Nations of ardent character do not talk of
sensibility without terror: a peaceable and
dreaming people believe they can encourage
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? OF A ROMANTIC BIAS. 235
it without alarm. For the rest, it is pos-
sible, that this subject has never been written
upon with perfect sincerity; for every one
wishes to do himself honour by what he
feels, or by what he inspires. Women en-
deavour to set themselves out like a romance;
men like a history; but the human heart is
still far from being penetrated in its most in-
timate relations. At one time or another,
perhaps, somebody will tell us sincerely all
he has felt; and we shall be quite astonished
at discovering, that the greater part of
maxims and observations are erroneous, and
that there is an unknown soul at the bottom
of that which we have been describing.
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? 236 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
CHAPTER XIX.
Of Love in Marriage.
It is in marriage that sensibility is a duty:
in every other relation virtue may suffice;
but in that in which destinies are inter-
twined, where the same impulse, so to speak,
serves for the beatings of two hearts, it seems
that a profound affection is almost a ne-
cessary tie. The levity of manners has in-
troduced so much misery into married life,
that the moralists of the last age were ac-
customed to refer all the enjoyments of the
heart to paternal and maternal love; and
ended by almost considering marriage only
in the light of a requisite condition for en-
joying the happiness of having children.
This is false in morals, and still more false
with regard to happiness. ?
It is so easy to be good for the sake of
our children, that we ought not to make a
great merit of it. In their first years they
can have no will but that of their parents;
and when they have arrived at youth, they
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? OF LOVE IN MARRIAGE. 2Sf
exist by themselves. Justice and goodness
compose the principal duties of a relation
which nature makes easy. It is not thus in
our connexions with that half of ourselves,
who may find happiness or unhappiness in
the least of our actions, of our looks, and of
our thoughts. It is there alone that mo-
rality can exert itself in its complete energy;
it is there also that is placed the true source
of felicity.
A friend of the same age, in whose pre-
sence you are to live and die; a friend whose
every interest is your own; all whose pro-
spects are partaken by yourself, including
that of the grave: here is a feeling which
constitutes all our fate. Sometimes, it is
true, our children, and more often our
parents, become our companions through
life; but this rare and sublime enjoyment is
combated by the laws of nature; while the
marriage-union is in accord with the whole
of human existence.
Whence comes it, then, that this so holy
union is so often profaned? I will venture to
say it--the cause is, that remarkable inequality
which the opinion of society establishes be-
tween the duties of the two parties. Chris-
tianity has drawn women out of a state that
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? 538 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
resembled slavery. Equality, in the sight
of God, being the basis of this wondeful re-
ligion, it has a tendency towards maintain-
ing the equality of rights upon earth :--di-
vine justice, the only perfect justice, admits
no kind of privilege, and, above all, refuses
that of force. Nevertheless, there have been
left, by the slavery of women, some preju-
dices, which, combining with the great li-
berty that society allows them, have occa-
sioned many evils.
It is right to exclude women from politi-
cal and civil affairs; nothing is more opposite
to their natural destination than all that
would bring them into rivalry with men;
and glory itself would be for woman only a
splendid mourning-suit for happiness. But,
if the destiny of women ought to consist in
a continual act of devotion to conjugal love,
the recompense of this devotion is the strict
faithfulness of him who is its object.
Religion makes no distinction between the
duties of the two parties; but the world
establishes a wide difference; and out of this
difference grows intrigue in women, and re-
sentment in men.
"What heart can give itself entirely up,
"Nor wish another heart alike entire? "
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? OF LOVE IN MARRIAGE. 239
Who then, in good faith, accepts friendship
as the price of love? Who, sincerely, pro-
raises constancy to voluntary infidelity? Re-
ligion, without doubt, can demand it; for
she alone knows the secret of that mysterious
land where sacrifices are enjoyments:--but
how unjust is the exchange to which man
endeavours to make his companion submit!
"I will love you," he says, "passion-
"ately, for two or three years; and then,
"at the end of that time, I will talk reason
"to you. " And this, which they call reason,
is the disenchantment of life. "I will show,
"in my own house, coldness and weari-
"someness of spirit; I will try to please else-
"where: but you, who are ordinarily pos-
"sessed of more imagination and sensibility
"than lam; you, who have nothing to em-
"ploy, nor to distract you, while the world
"offers me every sort of avocation; you,
"who only exist for me, while I have a
"thousand other thoughts; you will be sa-
"tisfied with that subordinate, icy, divided
"affection, which it is convenient to me to
"grant you; and you will reject with dis-
41 dain all the homage which expresses more
"exalted and more tender sentiments. "
How unjust a treaty! all human feeling
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? 240 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
revolts from it. There is a singular con-
trast between the forms of respect towards
women, which the spirit of chivalry intro-
duced in Europe, and the tyrannical sort of
liberty which men have allotted to them-
selves. This contrast produces all the mis-
fortunes of sentiment, unlawful attachments,
perfidy, abandonment, and despair. The
German nations have been less afflicted than
others with these fatal events; but they
ought, upon this point, to fear the influence
which is sure to be exerted at length by mo-
dern civilization. It would be better to shut
up women like slaves, neither to rouse their
understanding nor their imagination, than to
launch them into the middle of the world,
and to develope all their faculties, in order
to refuse them at last the happiness which
those faculties render necessary to them.
There is an excess of wretchedness in an
unhappy marriage which transcends every
other misery in the world. The whole soul
of a wife reposes upon the attachment of
her husband :--to struggle alone against for-
tune; to advance towards the grave without
the friend who should regret us; this is an
isolated state, of which the Arabian desert
gives but a faint idea:--and, when all the
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? OF LOVE IN MARRIAGE. 241
treasure of your youthful years has been re-
signed in vain; when you hope no longer,
at the end of life, the reflection of those
early rays; when the twilight has nothing
more that can recall the dawn, but is pale
and discoloured as the phantom that fore-
runs the night:--then your heart revolts;
and if you still love the being who treats you
as a slave, since he does not belong to you,
and yet disposes of you, despair seizes all
your faculties, and Conscience herself grows
troubled at the intensity of your distress.
Women might address those husbands
who treat their fate with levity in these lines
of the fable :--
"Yes! for you it is but play--
"But it steals our lives away. "
And uatil some revolution of ideas shall take
place, which changes the opinion of men as
to the constancy which the marriage-tie im-
poses upon them, there will be always war
between the two sexes; secret, eternal, cun-
ning, perfidious war; and the morals of both
will equally suffer by it.
In Germany there is hardly any inequality
in marriage between the two sexes; but it is
because the women, as often as the men,
break the most holy bonds.
The facility of
VOL. III. R
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? 242 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
divorce introduces in family connexions a sort
of anarchy which suffers nothing to remain
in its proper truth or strength. It would be
much better, in order to maintain something
sacred upon earth, that there were one slave
in marriage, rather than two free-thinkers.
Purity of mind and conduct is the first
glory of a woman. What a degraded being
would she be, deprived of both these qua-
lities! But general happiness, and the dig-
nity of the human species, would perhaps
not gain less by the fidelity of man in mar-
riage. In a word, what is there more beau-
tiful in moral order than a young man who
respects this sacred tie? Opinion does not
require it of him; society leaves him free:
a sort of savage pleasantry would endeavour
to ridicule even the complaints of the heart
which he had broken; for censure is easily,
turned upon the sufferer. He then is the
master, but he imposes duties on himself;
no disagreeable result can arise to himself
from his faults; but he dreads the evil he
may do to her who has intrusted herself to
his heart; and generosity attaches him so
much the more, because society dissolves his
attachment.
Fidelity is enjoined to women by a thou-
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? Ofc LOVE IN MARRIAGE. 243
sand different considerations. They may
dread the dangers and the disgraces which
are the inevitable consequences of one error.
The voice of Conscience alone is audible by
man; he knows he causes suffering to an-
other; he knows that he is destroying, by his
inconstancy, a sentiment which ought to last
till death, and to be renewed in heaven:--
alone with himself, alone in the midst of se-
ductions of every kind, he remains pure as
an angel; for if angels have not been repre-
sented under the characters of women, it is
because the union of strength and purity is
more beautiful, and also more celestial, than
even the most perfect modesty itself in a
feeble being.
Imagination, when it has not memory for
a bridle, detracts from what we possess, em-
bellishes what we fear we shall not obtain,
and turns sentiment into a conquered diffi-
culty. But; in the same manner as in the
arts, difficulties vanquished do not require
real genius; so in sentiment security is ne-
cessary, in order to experience those affec-
tions which are the pledges of eternity, be-
cause they alone give us an idea of that
which cannot come to an end.
To the young man who remains faithful,
r3
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? 244 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
every day seems to increase the preference he
feels towards her he loves; nature has be-
stowed on him unbounded freedom, and for
a long time, at least, he never looks forward
to evil days: his horse can carry him to the
end of the world; war, when to that he
devotes himself, frees him (at least at the
moment) from domestic relations, and seems
to reduce all the interest of existence to vic-
tory or death. The earth is his own, all its
pleasures are offered to him; no fatigue in-
timidates him, no intimate association is ne-
cessary to him ; he clasps the hand of a com-
panion in arms, and the only tie he thinks
necessary to him is formed. A time will,
no doubt, arrive when Destiny will reveal to
him her dreadful secrets; but, as yet, he sus-
pects them not. Every time that a new ge-
neration comes into possession of its domain,
does it not think that all the misfortunes of
its predecessors arose from their weakness?
Is it not persuaded that they were born weak
and trembling, as they now are seen? Well!
From the midst of so many illusions, how
virtuous and sensible is he who devotes him-
self to a lasting attachment; the tie which
binds this life to the other! Ah, how noble
is a manly and dignified expression, when,
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? OP LOVE IN MARRIAGE. 245
at the same time, it is modest and pure!
There we behold a ray of that heavenly
shame which beams from the crown of holy
virgins, to light up even the warrior's brow.
If a young man chooses to share with one
object the bright days of youth, he will,
doubtless, amongst his contemporaries, meet
with some who will pronounce the sentence
of dupery upon him, the terror of the children
of our times. But is he, who alone will be
truly loved, a dupe? for the distresses, or
the enjoyments of self-love, form the whole
tissue of the frivolous and deceitful affections.
Is he a dupe who does not amuse himself in
deceiving others? to be, in his turn, still
more deceived, more deeply ruined perhaps
than his victim? In short, is he a dupe
who has not sought for happiness in the
wretched combinations of vanity, but in the
eternal beauties of nature, which all proceed
from constancy, from duration, and from
depth?
No; God, in creating man the first, has
made him the noblest of his creatures; and
the most noble creature is that one which
has the greater number of duties to perform.
It is a singular abuse of the prerogative of a
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? 246 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
superior nature to make it serve as an in-
strument to free itself from the most sacred
ties, whereas true superiority consists in the
power of the soul; and the power of the
soul is virtue.
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? MODERN WRITERS, &C 247
CHAPTER XX.
Modern Writers of the ancient School in
Germany.
Before the new school had given birth in
Germany to two inclinations, which seem to
exclude each other, metaphysics and poetry,
scientific method and enthusiasm, there were
some writers who deserved an honourable
place by the side of the English moralists.
Mendelsohn, Garve, Suleer, Engel, &c. have
Avritten upon sentiments and duties with
sensibility, religion, and candour. We do
not, in their works, meet with that ingenious
knowledge of the world, which characterizes
the French authors, La Rochefoucault, La
Bruyere, &c. German moralists paint so-
ciety with a certain degree of ignorance
which is interesting at first, but at last be-
comes monotonous.
Garve is the writer, of all others, who
has attached the highest importance to speak-
ing well of good company, fashion, polite-
ness, &c. There is, throughout his manner
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? 248 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
of expressing himself on this head, a great
desire to appear a man of the world, to know
the reason of every thing, to be knowing
like a Frenchman, and to judge favourably
of the court and of the town; but the
common-place ideas which he displays in
his writings on these different subjects prove,
that he knows nothing but by hearsay,
and has never taken those refined and
delicate views which the relations of society
afford.
When Garve speaks of virtue, he shows
a pure understanding and a tranquil mind:
he is particularly engaging, and original, in
his treatise on Patience. Borne down by a
cruel malady, he supported it with admirable
fortitude; and whatever we have felt our-
selves inspires new ideas.
Mendelsohn, a Jew by birth, devoted
himself, from commerce, to the study of the
fine arts, and of philosophy, without re-
nouncing, in the smallest degree, either the
belief or the rites of his religion; and being
a sincere admirer of the Phedon, of which
he was the translator, he retained the ideas
and the sentiments which were the pre-
cursors of Jesus Christ; and, educated in
the Psalms and in the Bible, his writings
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? MODERN WRITERS, &C. 249
preserve the character of Hebrew simplicity.
He delighted in making morality perceptible,
by parables in the eastern style; and that
style is certainly the more pleasing, as it
deprives precepts of the tone of reproach.
Among these fables, I shall translate one,
which appears to me remarkable:--" Under
"the tyrannical government of the Greeks,
"the Israelites were once forbidden, under
"pain of death, to read amongst themselves
"the divine laws. Rabbi Akiba, notwith-
"standing this prohibition, held assemblies,
"where he gave lectures on this law. Pappus
"heard of it, and said to him, 4 Akiba, dost
"thou not fear the threats of these cruel
"men Y--4 I will relate thee a fable/ re-
"plied the Rabbi. --* A Fox was walking on
"the bank of a river, and saw the Fishes col-
"lecting together, in terror, at the bottom of
"the river. "What causes your alarm Y'
"said the Fox. --" The children of men," re-
"plied the Fishes, "are throwing their lines
"into the river, to catch us, and we are
"trying to escape from them. "--" Do you
"know what you ought to do? " said the
"Fox. "Go there, upon the rock, where men
u cannot reach you. "--" Is it possible," cried
"the Fishes, "that thou canst be the Fox,
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? 250 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
"esteemed the most cunning amongst ani-
"mals? If thou seriously givest us this
"advice, thou showest thyself the most
"ignorant of them all. The water is to us
"the element of life; and is it possible for
"us to give it up because we are threatened
"by dangers ? "--Pappus, the application of
"this fable is easy: religious doctrine is to
"us the source of all good; by that, and for
"that alone, we exist; if we are pursued
"into that refuge, we will not withdraw
"ourselves from danger, by seeking shelter
"in death. '"
The greater part of the world give no
better advice than the fox: when they see
persons of sensibility agitated by heart-aches,
they always propose to them to quit the air
where the storm is, to enter into the vacuum
which destroys life.
Engel, like Mendelsohn, teaches morality
in a dramatic manner: his fictions are tri-
fling; but they bear an intimate relation to
the mind. In one of them he represents an
old man become mad by the ingratitude of
his son; and the old man's smile, while his
misfortune is being related, is painted with
heart-rending truth. The man who is no
longer conscious of his own existence, is ail
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? MODERN WRITERS, &C. 251
frightful an object as a corpse walking with-
out life. "It is a tree," says Engel, " the
"branches of which are withered; its roots
"are still fixed in the earth, but its top is
"already seized upon by death. " A young
man, at the sight of this unfortunate crea-
ture, asks his father, if there is on earth a
destiny more dreadful than that of this poor
maniac? --All the sufferings which destroy,
all those of which our reason is witness,
seem to him nothing when compared with
this deplorable self-ignorance. The father
leaves his son to unfold all the horrors of
the situation before him ; and then suddenly
asks him, if that of the wretch who has
been the cause of it, is not a thousand times
more dreadful? The gradation of the ideas
is very well kept up in this recital, and the
picture of the agonies of the mind is repre-
sented with eloquence that redoubles the
terror caused by the most dreadful of all
remorse.
I have in another place quoted a passage
from the Messiah, in which the poet sup-
poses, that, in a distant planet, where the
inhabitants are immortal, an angel arrived
with intelligence, that there existed a world
where human beings were subject to death.
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? 252 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
Klopstock draws an admirable picture of the
astonishment of those beings who knew not
the grief of losing those they loved. Engel
ingeniously displays an idea not less striking.
A man has seen all he held most dear, his
wife and his daughter, perish. A sentiment
of bitterness and of revolt against Providence
takes possession of him: an old friend en-
deavours to re-open his heart to that deep
but resigned grief, which pours itself out on
the bosom of God; he shows him that death
is the source of all the moral enjoyments of
man.
Would there be affection between parent
and child if man's existence was not at once
lasting and transitory; fixed by sentiment,
hurried away by time? If there was no
longer any decline in the world, there would
be no longer any progress: how then should
we experience fear and hope? In short, in
every action, in every sentiment, in every
thought, death has its share. And not only
in reality, but in imagination also, the joys
and sorrows, which arise from the instability
of life, are inseparable. Existence consists
entirely in those sentiments of confidence,
and of anxiety, with which the soul is filled,
wandering between heaven and earth, and
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? MODERN WRITERS, &C. 253
death is the principal cause of our actions in
life. ?
A woman, alarmed at the storms of the
South, wished to remove to the frigid zone,
where thunder is not heard, nor lightning
seen:--our complaints against our lots are
much of the same sort, says Engel. In fact,
nature must be disenchanted, if all its dan-
gers are to be removed. The charm of the
world seems to belong to pain. as much as to
pleasure, to fear as much as to hope; and it
may be said, that human destiny is ordered
like a drama, in which terror and pity are
necessary. ;. '
Undoubtedly, these thoughts are not suf-
ficient to heal up the wounds of the heart:
whatever we feel we consider as the over-
turning of nature, and no one ever suffered
without thinking that a great disorder existed
in the universe. But, when a long space of
time has given room for reflection, repose is
found in general considerations, and we unite
ourselves to the laws of the universe by de-
taching ourselves from ourselves.
The German moralists of the ancient school
are, for the most part, religious and feeling;
their theory of virtue is disinterested; they
do not admit that doctrine of utility, which
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? 254 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.