ever breaking forth on some new subject, he can appease again every day of his life by some new execution. But we mistake it if we think otherwise than that, in spite of these distinct and very numerous, nay daily gratifications, if he so choose, it is not a life of fierce internal agony notwithstanding. It seems indispensable to the nature of every desire, and to form part indeed of its very idea, that there should be a distinctly felt pleasure, or, at least, a removal at the time of a distinctly felt pain, in the act of its fulfilment—yet, whatever recreation or relief may have thus been rendered, without doing away the misery, often in the whole amount of it the intense misery, inflicted upon man by the evil propensities of his nature. Who can doubt, for example, the unhappiness of the habitual drunkard?—and that, although the ravenous appetite, by which he is driven along a stormy career, meets every day, almost every hour of the day, with the gratification that is suited to it. The same may be equally affirmed of the voluptuary, or of the depredator, or of the extortioner, or of the liar. Each may succeed in the attainment of his specific object; and we cannot possibly disjoin from the conception of success the conception of some sort of pleasure—yet, in perfect consistency, we affirm, with a sad and heavy burthen of unpleasantness or unhappiness, on the whole. He is little conversant with our nature who does not know of many a passion belonging to it, that it may be the instrument of many pleasurable, nay delicious or exquisite sensations, and yet be a wretched passion still-the domineering tyrant of a bondsman, who at once knows himself to be degraded and feels himself to be unhappy. A sense of guilt is one main ingredient of this misery; yet physically, and notwithstanding the pleasure or the relief inseparable at the moment from every indulgence of the passions, there are other sensations of bitterness, which of themselves, and apart from remorse, would cause the suffering to preponderate.

There is an important discrimination made by Bishop Butler in his sermons, and by the help of which this phenomenon of apparent contradiction or mystery in our nature may be satisfactorily explained. He distinguishes between the final object of any of our desires, and the pleasure attendant on, or rather inseparable from, its gratification. The object is not the pleasure, though the pleasure be an unfailing and essential accompaniment on the attainment of the object. This is well illustrated by the appetite of hunger, of which it were more

proper to say that it seeks for food than that it seeks for the pleasure which there is in eating the food. The food is the object; the pleasure is the accompaniment. We do not here speak of the distinct and secondary pleasure which there is in the taste of food, but of that other pleasure which strictly and properly attaches to the gratification of the appetite of hunger. This is the pleasure, or relief, which accompanies the act of eating; while the ultimate object, the object in which the appetite rests and terminates, is the food itself. The same is true of all our special affections. Each has a proper and peculiar object of its own, and the mere pleasure attendant on the prosecution or the indulgence of the affection, as has been clearly established by Butler and fully reasserted by Dr. Thomas Brown, is not that object. The two are as distinct from each other, as a thing loved is distinct from the pleasure of loving it. Every special inclination has its special and counterpart object. The object of the inclination is one thing; the pleasure of gratifying the inclination is another; and, in most instances, it were more proper to say, that it is for the sake of the object than for the sake of the pleasure that the inclination is gratified. The distinction that we now urge, though felt to be a subtle, is truly a substantial one, and pregnant both with important principle and important application. The discovery and clear statement of it by Butler may well be regarded as the highest service rendered by any philosopher to moral science; and that, from the light which it casts both on the processes of the human constitution and on the theory of virtue. Ás one example of the latter service, the principle in question, so plainly and convincingly unfolded by this great Christian philosopher in his Sermon on The Love of our Neighbour,'* strikes, and with most conclusive effect, at the root of the selfish system of morals—a system which professes that man's sole object, in the practice of all the various moralities, is his own individual advantage. Now, in most cases of a special, and more particularly of a virtuous affection, it can be demonstrated that the object is a something out of himself and distinct from himself. Take compassion for one instance out of the many. The object of this affection is the relief of another's misery, and, in the fulfilment of this, does the affection meet with its full solace and gratification, that is, in a something altogether external from him

* Butler has two Sermons on this subject. The Sermon to which Dr. Chalmers alludes in this passage is the first of these.

self. It is true that there is an appropriate pleasure in the indulgence of this affection, even as there is in the indulgence of every other; and in the proportion, too, to the strength of the affection will be the greatness of the pleasure. The man who is doubly more compassionate than his fellow will have doubly a greater enjoyment in the relief of misery; yet that, most assuredly, not because he of the two is the more intently set on his own gratification, but because he of the two is the more intently set on an outward accomplishment, the relief of another's wretchedness. The truth is, that, just because more compassionate than his fellow, the more intent is he than the other on the object of this affection, and the less intent is he than the other on himself the subject of this affection. His thoughts and feelings are more drawn away to the sufferers, and therefore more drawn away from himself. He is the most occupied with the object of this affection, and on that very account the least occupied with the pleasure of its indulgence. And it is precisely the objective quality of these regards which stamps upon compassion the character of a disinterested affection. He surely is the most compassionate whose thoughts and feelings are most drawn away to the sufferer, and most drawn away from self; or, in other words, most taken up with the direct consideration of him who is the object of this affection, and least taken up with the reflex consideration of the pleasure that he himself has in the indulgence of it. Yet this prevents not the pleasure from being actually felt; and felt, too, in very proportion to the intensity of the compassion; or, in other words, more felt the less it has been thought of at the time, or the less it has been pursued for its own sake. It seems unavoidable in every affection that the more a thing is loved, the greater must be the pleasure of indulging the love of it; yet it is equally unavoidable that the greater in that case will be our aim towards the object of the affection, and the less will be our aim towards the pleasure which accompanies its gratification. And thus, to one who reflects profoundly and carefully on these things, it is no paradox, that he who has had doubly greater enjoyment than another in the exercise of compassion is doubly the more disinterested of the two; that he has had the most pleasure in this affection who has been the least careful to please himself with the indulgence of it; that he whose virtuous desires, as being the strongest, have in their gratification ministered to self the greatest satisfaction, has been the least actuated of all his fellows by the wishes, and stood at the greatest distance from the aims, of selfishness.

49.-DEATH OF CESAR.

PLUTARCH.

[PLUTARCHUS, "the only writer of antiquity who has established a lasting reputation in the department of biography," was a native of Cheronæa, in Boeotia, and was a youth in the time of the Roman emperor Nero. His Lives are equally the delight of boys and men, of the cursory reader and the philosopher. He had a distinct object in view -to exhibit character, and thence deduce or suggest moral lessons. The old English translation, by Sir Thomas North, from the French of Amyot, is the best complete version of this most interesting writer. That of Langhorne is feeble and unidiomatic. Mr. Long, late Latin Professor at University College, and now Reader of Roman Law at the Middle Temple, is proceeding with a translation from the Greek of those Lives which illustrate the Civil Wars of Rome; and his accomplished scholarship and profound historical knowledge leave us nothing to desire in a version of Plutarch. May he be able, amongst the various occupations of his useful life, to give us an entire translation of this great work. The following narrative of the death of Cæsar is from Mr. Long's version.]

The most manifest and deadly hatred towards him was produced by his desire of kingly power, which to the many was the first, and to those who had long nourished a secret hatred of him the most specious cause. And indeed those who were contriving this honour for Cæsar spread about a certain report among the people, that according to the Sibylline writings it appeared that Parthia could be conquered by the Romans if they advanced against it with a king, but otherwise could not be assailed. And as Cæsar was going down from Alba to the city, they ventured to salute him as king, but, as the people showed their dissatisfaction, Cæsar was disturbed, and said that he was not called king, but Cæsar; and, as hereupon there was a general silence, he passed along with no great cheerfulness nor good humour on his countenance. When some extravagant honours had been decreed to him in the Senate, it happened that he was sitting above the Rostra, and when the consuls and prætors approached with all the senate behind them, without rising from his seat, but just as if he were transacting business with private persons, he answered that the honours required rather to be contracted than enlarged. This annoyed, not the senate

only, but the people also, who considered that the state was insulted in the persons of the Senate; and those who were not obliged to stay went away forthwith with countenance greatly downcast, so that Cæsar perceiving it forthwith went home, and as he threw his cloak from his shoulders he called out to his friends, that he was ready to offer his throat to any one who wished to kill him; but afterwards he alleged his disease as an excuse for his behaviour, saying that persons who are so affected cannot usually keep their senses steady when they address a multitude standing, but that the senses being speedily convulsed and whirling about bring on giddiness and are overpowered. However, the fact was not so, for it is said that he was very desirous to rise up when the senate came, but was checked by one of his friends or rather one of his flatterers, Cornelius Balbus, who said, "Will you not remember that you are Cæsar, and will you not allow yourself to be honoured as a superior?"

There was added to these causes of offence the insult offered to the tribunes. It was the festival of the Lupercalia, about which many writers say that it was originally a festival of the shepherds, and had also some relationship to the Arcadian Lycæa. On this occasion many of the young nobles and magistrates run through the city without their toga, and for sport and to make laughter strike those whom they meet with strips of hide that have the hair on; many women of rank also purposely put themselves in the way, and present their hands to be struck like children at school, being persuaded that this is favourable to easy parturition for those who are pregnant, and to conception for those who are barren. Cæsar was a spectator, being seated at the Rostra on a golden chair in a triumphal robe; and Antonius was one of those who ran in the sacred race, for he was consul. Accordingly, when he entered the Forum, and the crowd made way for him, he presented to Cæsar a diadem which he carried surrounded with a crown of bay; and there was a clapping of hands, not loud, but slight, which had been already concerted. When Cæsar put away the diadem from him, all the people clapped their hands, and when Antonius presented it again only a few clapped; but when Cæsar declined to receive it again all the people applauded. The experiment having thus failed, Cæsar rose and ordered the crown to be carried to the Capitol. But as Cæsar's statues were seen crowned with royal diadems, two of the tribunes, Flavius and Marullus, went up to them and pulled off the