advantage, is its being generally susceptible of much stronger evidence than the future. The lights of the mind are, if I may so express myself, in an opposite situation to the lights of the body. These discover clearly the prospect lying before us, but not the ground we have already passed. By the memory, on the contrary, that great luminary of the mind, things past are exhibited in retrospect; we have no correspondent faculty to irradiate the future; and even in matters which fall not within the reach of our memory, past events are often clearly discoverable by testimony, and by effects at present existing; whereas we have nothing equivalent to found our arguments upon in reasoning about things to come. It is for this reason that the future is considered as the province of conjecture and uncertainty.

"Local Connection, the fifth in the above enumeration, hath a more powerful effect than proximity of time. Duration and space are two things (call them entities, or attributes, or what you please) in some respects the most like, and in some respects the most unlike, to one another. They resemble in continuity, divisibility, infinity, in their being deemed essential to the existence of other things, and in the doubts that have been raised as to their having a real or independent existence of their own. They differ in that the latter is permanent, whereas the very essence of the former consisteth in transitoriness; the parts of the one are all successive, of the other all coexistent. The greater portions of time are all distinguished by the memorable things which have been transacted in them, the smaller portions by the revolutions of the heavenly bodies: the portions of place, great and small, (for we do not here consider the regions of the fixed stars and planets,) are distinguished by the various tracts of land and water, into which the earth is divided and

subdivided; the one distinction intelligible, the other sensible; the one chiefly known to the inquisitive, the other in a great measure obvious to all.

"Hence perhaps it arises, that the latter is considered as a firmer ground of relation than the former. Who is not more curious to know the notable transactions which have happened in his own country from the earliest antiquity, than to be acquainted with those which have happened in the remotest regions of the globe during the century wherein he lives? It must be owned, however, that the former circumstance is more frequently aided by that of personal relation than the latter. Connection of place not only includes vicinage, but every other local relation, such as being in a province under the same government with us, in a State that is in alliance with us, in a Country well known to us, and the like. Of the influence of this connection in operating on our passions we have daily proofs. With how much indifference, at least with how slight and transient emotion, do we read in newspapers the accounts of the most deplorable accidents in countries distant and unknown! How much, on the contrary, are we alarmed and agitated on being informed that any such accident hath happened in our own neighborhood, and that, even though we be totally unacquainted with the persons

concerned !

"Still greater is the power of relation to the persons concerned, which was the sixth circumstance mentioned, as this tie is more direct than that which attacheth us to the scene of action. It is the persons, not the place, that are the immediate objects of the passions, love or hatred, pity or anger, envy or contempt. Relation to the actors commonly produces an effect contrary to that produced by relation to the sufferers, the first in extenuation, the second in aggravation, of the

crime alleged. The first makes for the apologist, the second for the accuser. This, I say, is commonly the case, not always. A remote relation to the actors, when the offence is heinous, especially if the sufferers be more nearly related, will sometimes rather aggravate than extenuate the guilt in our estimation. But it is impossible with any precision to reduce these effects to rules; so much depending on the different tempers and sentiments of different audiences. Personal relations are of various kinds. Some have generally greater influence than others; some again have greater influence with one person, others with another. They are consanguinity, affinity, friendship, acquaintance, being fellow-citizens, countrymen of the same surname, language, religion, occupation, and innumerable others.

"But of all the connexive circumstances, the most powerful is interest, which is the last. Of all relations, personal relation, by bringing the object very near, most enlivens that sympathy which attaches us to the concerns of others; interest in the effects brings the object, if I may say so, into contact with us, and makes the mind cling to it, as a concern of its own. Sympathy is but a reflected feeling, and therefore, in ordinary cases, must be weaker than the original. Though the mirror be ever so true, a lover will not be obliged to it for presenting him with a figure of his mistress, when he hath an opportunity of gazing on her person. Nor will the orator place his chief confidence in the assistance of the social and sympathetic affections, when he hath it in his power to arm the selfish.

"Men universally, from a just conception of the difference, have, when self is concerned, given a different name to what seems originally the same passion in a higher degree. Injury, to whomsoever offered, is to every man that observes it, and

whose sense of right is not debauched by vicious practice, the natural object of indignation. Indignation always implies resentment, or a desire of retaliating on the injurious person, so far at least as to make him repent the wrong he hath committed. This indignation in the person injured, is, from our knowledge of mankind, supposed to be, not indeed universally, but generally so much stronger, that it ought to be distinguished by another appellation, and is accordingly denominated revenge. In like manner, beneficence, on whomsoever exercised, is the natural object of our love; love always implies benevolence, or a desire of promoting the happiness of the beneficent person; but this passion in the person benefited is conceived to be so much greater, and to infer so strong an obligation to a return of good offices to his benefactor, that it merits to be distinguished by the title gratitude. Now by this circumstance of interest in the effects, the speaker, from engaging pity in his favor, can proceed to operate on a more powerful principle, self-preservation. The benevolence of his hearers he can work up into gratitude, their indignation into revenge.

"The two last-mentioned circumstances, personal relation and interest, are not without influence, as was hinted in the enumeration, though they regard the speaker only, and not the hearers. The reason is, a person present with us, whom we see and hear, and who by words, and looks, and gestures, gives the liveliest signs of his feelings, has the surest and most immediate claim upon our sympathy. We become infected with his passions. We are hurried along by them, and not allowed leisure to distinguish between his relation and our relation, his interest and our interest." CAMPBELL'S Rhetoric, pp. 184-190. (Book I. chap. 7, § 5. ports 4, 5, 6, 7.) ·

[I]. Part II. Chap. II. p. 230.

A good illustration of what has been said is supplied by the following extract from Mr. Milman's Bampton Lectures, (Lecture VI. p. 269.)" Conceive then the apostles of Jesus Christ, the tentmaker or the fisherman, entering, as strangers, into one of the splendid cities of Syria, Asia Minor, or Greece. Conceive them, I mean, as unendowed with miraculous powers, having adopted their itinerant system of teaching from human motives, and for human purposes alone. As they pass along to the remote and obscure quarter, where they expect to meet with precarious hospitality among their coun trymen, they survey the strength of the established religion, which it is their avowed purpose to overthrow. Every where they behold temples on which the utmost extravagance of expenditure has been lavished by succeeding generations; idols of the most exquisite workmanship, to which, even if the religious feeling of adoration is enfeebled, the people are strongly attached by national or local vanity. They meet processions, in which the idle find perpetual occupation, the young excitement, the voluptuous a continual stimulant to their passions. They behold a priesthood, numerous, sometimes wealthy; nor are these alone wedded by interest to the established faith; many of the trades, like those of the makers of silver shrines in Ephesus, are pledged to the support of that to which they owe their maintenance. They pass a magnificent theatre, on the splendor and success of which the popularity of the existing authorities mainly depends; and in which the serious exhibitions are essentially religious, the lighter as intimately connected with the indulgence of the baser passions. They behold another public building, where even worse feelings, the cruel and the sanguinary, are pampered