place in the guilty object of our passion. He too feels a violent emotion; but it is the enervation of his strength; the fall of his courage; the pallidness of his cheeks; while fear, remorse, and shame, inspire him with the dread of meeting the retribution which he knows to be his desert, and which is called punishment. Upon certain actions," says an ingenious author,* " hurtful to others, the stamp of impropriety and wrong is impressed in legible characters, visible to all, not excepting even the Delinquent. Passing from the Action to its Author, we feel that he is guilty; and we also feel that he ought to be punished for his guilt. He himself, having the same feeling, is filled with remorse; and, which is extremely remarkable, his remorse is accompanied with an anxious dread that the punishment will be inflicted, unless it be prevented by his making reparation or atonement." This necessary relation between the sufferer and the delinquent is, in my view, of great importance to prove, that it is a part of the constitution of our nature intended to protect us against wilful agression; and consequently to promote the happiness and improvement of society.

* Lord Kaimes' History of Criminal Law, p. 1. See also note (B) Appendix.

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The next observation to be noticed is one, which, as far as my reading has enabled me to judge, was first made by Bishop Butler* in an admirable sermon on Resentment; and since enlarged upon by Lord Kaimes in his "Elements of Criticism," and "History of the Criminal Law;" and again by Dr. Reid in his " Essays on the Active Powers of Man." It is this; that Resentment is of two kinds, the one hasty and sudden; the other settled and deliberate. mon language does not supply us with terms. to distinguish them; and what Butler has called hasty and sudden, Lord Kaimes has called instinctive, and Dr. Reid animal. The unanimous sentiment of these illustrious authors is, that we possess a passion, in common with the brutes, which is enkindled instantaneously by a sense of injury threatened or received, without any regard to reasonableness; and has its origin in the mere instincts of our natúre. Such is the anger of infants; and not very unlike, is the senseless vengeance, which a disappointed gambler will wreak upon his cards and dice. Reid indeed differs from Butler in thinking there cannot be resentment against a thing,

* Vid. his Sermons, Ser. VIII.

which at that very moment is considered as inanimate; but the point in hand does not hinge upon this. They also agree, that the exercise of this instinctive feeling, when under the direction of the reason, is fully authorized, and of the utmost importance to our well-being.

The whole of animated nature is provided more or less with the means of defence. Even if we examine the vegetable world, we shall find a variety of means employed to protect the numerous species of it from injury. To some are given thorns; to others prickles; to others hairs of a viscous quality; to some unpleasant scents; and to a few the power of destroying their enemies.

Animals again exhibit a similar economy in a more extensive degree. The teeth and talons of the feline tribe; the horns of kine ; the tusks of the elephant; the heels of the horse; the fangs of the serpent; and the sting of the bee and wasp; are of this kind, with innumerable other instances, which form an amusing study in natural history. Some which are denied formidable weapons, have the power of repelling the assailant by insupportable scents; or by being endowed

with a larger share of timidity and swiftness, so as to elude their pursuers.

Most of those animals, to which nature has given the means of defence, are capable of being excited to fierce anger; but perhaps no stronger instance of pure animal resentment can be referred to, than the storge of females. It is alike violent and sudden, regardless of danger, and seems to inspire a little creature, usually timid and weak, with the greatest courage and a preternatural strength.

Does any person doubt the end of these passions as implanted in animals? And is it not a principle pervading every part of the animate world, that what the Deity has condescended to create, he has endued with the means of self-preservation and protection, in different degrees, and that none are left totally destitute of them?

But man, like the animals, is surrounded with a variety of enemies, whose powers of mischief are encreased as they rise in the scale of being. His own species is for ever on the watch to take advantage of his slumbers; to benefit themselves by encroaching

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on him; to encrease their own possessions by intrenching on his. Nor will there be wanting some in every stage of society, who will gratify their own selfishness by violent attacks upon person and property; or, what is equally dear to man, by filching his character, which the virtuous value for its own sake, and which the vicious do homage to by the indignation they express when it is slandered.

To be thus exposed to the loss of property, rightfully obtained, be it ever so small, and of character, and of life, without any means of resisting the injury, would be to suppose, that the Deity has endowed us with the means of oppression without the means of resisting it; and that force and tyranny might riot in the world to the utter extinction of right and virtue. Such an idea involves a contradiction not to be endured.

The prescience of God, however, has not abandoned his designs to such a consequence. He has not even left---as among animals,----agression to be opposed by agression, or force by force; but he has endowed the man, who has right and virtue on his side, with a class of passions fully adequate