obferve, that the experience of ages teftifies, that marriage, at a proper time of life, whereby one man is confined to one woman, is most favourable to health and the true enjoyment of life. It is a means of raising the greatest number of healthy children, and makes the beft provifion for their inftruction and fettlement in life; and nothing more need be faid to fhew that this ftate of life has every character of what is right, and what ought to be adopted, in preference to every other mode of indulging our natural paffions.

Marriage is, moreover, of excellent use as a means of transferring our affections from ourfelves to others. We fee, not in extraordinary cafes, but generally, in common life, that a man even prefers the happiness of his wife and children to his own; and his regard for them is frequently a motive to such industry, and such an exertion of his powers, as would make him exceedingly unhappy, if it were not for the confideration of the benefit that accrues to them from it. Nay, in many cafes, we fee men rifking their lives, and even rushing on certain death, in their defence. The fame, also, is generally the attachment of wives to their hufbands, and fometimes, but not fo generally, the attachment of children to their parents.

We may add, that when once a man's affections have been transferred from himself to others,

even his wife and children, they are more eafily extended to other perfons, ftill more remote from him, and that, by this means, he is in the way of acquiring a principle of general benevolence, patriotism, and public spirit, which persons who live to be old without ever marrying are not fo generally remarkable for. The attention of these perfons having been long confined to themfelves, they often grow more and more selfish and narrow spirited, so as to be actuated in all their pursuits by a joyless defire of accumulating what they cannot confume themselves, and what they must leave to those who, they know, have but little regard for them, and for whom they have but little regard.

A feries of family cafes (in which a confiderable degree of anxiety and painful fympathy have a good effect) greatly improves, and as it were mellows, the mind of man. It is a kind of exercise and difcipline, which eminently fits him for great and generous conduct; and, in fact, makes him a fuperior kind of being, with respect to the generality of those who have had no family connections.

On the other hand, a course of lewd indulgence, without family cafes, finks a man below his natural level. Promifcuous commerce gives an indelible vicious taint to the imagination, fo that, to the latest term of life, thofe ideas will be predominant, which are proper only to youthfuj

vigour.

vigour. And what in nature is more wretched, abfurd, and defpicable, than to have the mind continually haunted with ideas of pleasures which cannot be enjoyed; and which ought to have been long abandoned, for entertainments more fuited to years; and from which, if perfons had been properly trained, they would, in the course of nature, have been prepared to receive much greater and fuperior fatisfaction.

Befides, all the pleasures of the fexes in the human fpecies, who cannot fink themfelves fo low as the brutes, depend much upon opinion, or particular mental attachment; and confequently, they are greatly heightened by fentiments of love and affection, which have no place with common proftitutes, or concubines, where the connection is only occafional or temporary, and confequently flight. Those perfons, therefore, who give themfelves up to the lawless indulgence of their paffions, befides being expofed to the most loathfome and painful diforders, befides exhaufting the powers of nature prematurely, and subjecting themselves to fevere remorfe of mind, have not (whatever they may fancy or pretend) any thing like the real pleafure and fatisfaction that perfons generally have in the married state.

§ 2. Of

§ 2. Of the pleasures of imagination.

As we ought not to make the gratification of our external fenfes the main end of life, so neither ought we to indulge our tafte for the more refined pleasures, thofe called the pleasures of imagination, without fome bounds. The cultivation of a tafte for propriety, beauty, and sublimity, in objects natural or artificial, particularly for the pleafures of mufic, painting, and poetry, is very proper in younger life; as it ferves to draw off the attention from grofs animal gratifications, and to bring us a step farther into intellectual life; fo as to lay a foundation for higher attainments. But if we ftop here, and devote our whole time, and all our faculties to thefe objects, we shall certainly fall short of the proper end of life.

1. These objects, in general, only give pleafure to a certain degree, and are a source of more pain than pleasure when a person's tafte is arrived to a certain pitch of correctness and delicacy: for then hardly any thing will please, but every thing will give disgust that comes not up to fuch an ideal standard of perfection as few things in this world ever reach fo that, upon the whole, in this life, at leaft in this country, a perfon whose taste is no higher than a mediocrity, ftands the best chance for enjoying the pleasures of imagination; and confequently,

fequently, all the time and application that is more than neceffary to acquire this mediocrity of tafte, or excellence in the arts respecting it, are wholly loft.

Since, however, the perfons and objects with which a man is habitually converfant, are much in his own power, a confiderable refinement of taste may not, perhaps, in all cases, impair the happi. nefs of life, but, under the direction of prudence may multiply the pleasures of it, and give a person a more exquifite enjoyment of it.

2. Very great refinement and tafte, and great excellence in thofe arts which are the object of it, are the parents of fuch exceffive vanity, as expofes a man to a variety of mortifications, and difappointments in life. They are also very apt to produce envy, jealoufy, peevishness, malice, and other difpofitions of mind, which are both uneafy to a man's felf, and disqualify him for contributing to the pleasure and happinefs of others. This is more especially the cafe where a man's excellence lies chiefly in a fingle thing, which, from confining his attention to it, will be imagined to be of extraordinary confequence, while every other kind of excellence will be undervalued.'

3 With respect to many perfons, a great refinement of tafte is attended with the fame inconveniences as an addictedness to fenfual pleafure; for it is apt to lead them into many expences, and make,