vegetables in general. This falt is what chemifts commonly, call Vitriolated Tartar, and may be generated by a proper combination of any two fubftances which contain the vitriolic acid and vegetable alkali. But what renders our Author's unacquaintance. with chemistry more confpicuous, is, that, in the very next article, he comments upon vitriolated tartar as being a different falt from the foregoing.

After all, if we compare this volume with the generality of, books formerly written on the Materia Medica, it merits praise,, on account of its greater fimplicity; though we take the liberty, to affure the Author, that he might expunge a very confiderable, number both of his fimple and compound medicines, without any detriment to the art of healing. B-t

TH

Meditazioni fulla Felicità.

Reflections on Happiness. 12mo.

12mo. Milan, 1765.

HERE is, perhaps, no word in the vocabulary, whose meaning is fo vague and indeterminate as that of happinefs. Nothing is more natural than for individuals, in making ufe of that term, to have an eye to their own peculiar emolument or gratification. But as it is impoffible, from phyfical causes, for a man to poffefs any constant state of fatisfaction, in, himself; fo it is equally impoffible, from moral caufes, for him to enjoy any fuch conftant ftate of fatisfaction in fociety.

Without defires there can be no gratification, and every gratification is neceffarily fooner or later disgusted by fatiety. Whether our defires and gratifications, therefore, are of the phyfical or moral kind, we fee there is an incapacity in the very nature of our constitution for conftant gratification. By happiness, then, if we mean any thing really attainable*, we must mean fome ftate of enjoyment, in which the moderation of our defires may prevent the groffer difguft of gratification. But how far fuch a state is, with regard to the individual, raised above a state of indolence and infipidity, will poffibly admit of difpute; fince every motive of action is apparently attended with fome defire, and the degree of activity is proportioned to the vehemence of that defire. Hence, to confider man merely as a physical and inde

* And if we do not, to what purpofe is it made the object of moral or philofophical difquifition? The happiness, we hope for in a future life, being a different object; the poffeffion of which we are to be invefled with, in confequence of a total change in our conftitution; and of our putting off the corporeal body for the spiritual body.

pendent

pendent being, it does not appear that he can be any farther a gainer by moderating the warmth of his defires, than in thereby diminishing the mortification of difappointment, or preventing the difguft attendant on gratification. With his defires we rank alfo his hopes and expectations; all which are equally oppofed to difguft, fear or disappointment. And thus while pain and pleasure, in all their modes, are relative and reciprocal, we fee as little poffibility of defining, as of attaining, phyfical happiness. There is a fpecies of happiness, however, which is both definable and attainable, and which may with propriety be called focial or political happiness. It will hardly be doubted by thofe, who have made matters of this kind their study, that the life of a favage is as phyfically happy, as that of the moft polifhed citizen. If the former hath fewer pleasures and indulgences, his mortifications and difappointments are proportionably less the fenfibility of both is adapted to their difference of fituation, and though they deal not, for the fame amount, in the commerce of pleafure and pain, their balance, in fettling the account, is equal. It is very different with regard to focial and political happiness. The merchant, who trades for the revenue of princes, and annually returns millions, tho' he should fave no more at the year's end, than the petty trader who deals for pence, is yet held in a very different light in point of refpect and authority. His perfonal influence is greater, his enjoyments in every refpect fuperior; although at the fame time his perfonal concern, affiduity and rifk rife in the fame proportion. And yet that he is more happy, in a political fenfe, than a mean trader, whofe credit will barely enable him to pay his bills, cannot be doubted. In like manner, it cannot be difputed, that a polished nation is, in the same sense, much happier than a nation of savages.

Now civilized man, being both a phyfical and political being, his happiness is of courfe dependant both on his natural conftitution as a man, and on the civil conftitution of the state or community of which he is a political member. Confidered merely as the former, happine's is out of the queftion; he hath neither words to define it, nor means to attain it. As the latter, both the object, and the means of purfuing it, are obvious but till he can feparate the citizen from the man, and vice verfa, he will naturally look for thofe gratifications as a man, to which he hath a right only as a citizen, and will make ufe of the means of the latter to gratify the defires and inclinations of the former. Hence it is, that the happinefs of man, in a state of society, becomes a very intricate and complicated affair, both in its means and end.

APP. to Vol. XXXIII.

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The

The very ingenious Author of the little piece before us, *feems indeed to confider it in this light, by his manner of treating the fubject, although he does not make thofe diftinctions, with which we have thought it expedient to introduce this Article. We fhall proceed, however, to give the Reader an abftract of his piece.

The cause of our unhappiness, fays this Writer, is the excefs of our défires beyond the power of gratifying them: the only way to be happy, therefore, is either to diminish our defires, or to increase our power to gratify them, or both.-Now, the fum of our defires depends on the original fenfibility of our difpofition, on our conftitution, and the affociation of our ideas: that of our power depending on the laws of nature, and the will of other intelligent beings. The end of our defires is to avoid pain, and feek pleasure; both of which the imagination is naturally difpofed to exaggerate; as we find that neither one nor the other please or offend in reality fo much as they do in expectation. Hence an impartial examination into the very nature of our defires, tends to give us a new train of ideas, which ferves to diminish the fum of our defires themselves. Again, it is in the power of art fometimes to augment that natural power of gratification, which depends on the physical action of external caufes. Thus a particular regimen, for inftance, may augment that which depends on the organization of the body: or the affiftance or non-refiftance of other intelligent beings may, by various means, be purchased, obtained, or rendered indifferent to our happinefs; fo that by this means our powers of gratification may be increased.

To confider thefe principles in their order: and, first, of the nature of our defires. The most general object of our defires is wealth and it must be confefled that riches, being the ufual token of that power which men have over things, thofe who are rich feem to extend their own exiftence, and to intereft a much greater part of nature in their pleafures. Reafon ought to confine our thirst after riches within the bounds of phyfical and moral utility; for the art of enjoying wealth is much more difficult than that of acquiring it. Whofoever is once arrived at the poffeffion of a competency, generally multiplies his defires; either becaufe, for want of due forefight, he prefers the gratification of his prefent caprice to that of future wants; or because, from a contrary principle, he is ridiculously provident of fantaftical exigencies to come, neglecting the gra

*Said to be a man of tank and fortune, now refiding at Milan, and Author of the little tract entitled Dei Delitti e delle pene. See our last Appendix.

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tification of his prefent neceffities. The prodigal and the mifer are equally mistaken in their reckoning; the error of both lying in the greater concern they beftow on chimerical and imaginary wants, than on real ones. We may be clearly con-" vinced, by an attentive examination into the nature of riches, that, whenever they furpafs the limits of competency, they neceffarily bring with them the defire of increasing, and the embarrassment of fecuring them; befides numerous other fufpicions and inquietudes, which multiply the fum of our defires beyond our power of gratifying them.'

From the confideration of riches, our author paffes to that of rank and honours; endeavouring to fhew, that a thirst after ambition, is in every refpect fimilar to that after wealth, and attended with like effects. He confiders next more particularly the influence, which imagination has over both our pains and pleasures; and here he fuppofes that our voluptuous fensations lose more than any other, in their tranfition from imagination to reality. On the other hand, he conceives that our fears and anxieties depend much lefs on the organization of our frame, and the real nature of the object, than on the error of our imagination, which exaggerates the distress or the danger. An attentive and careful examination, therefore, into the nature of things, fays he, will greatly diminish the inAuence of that faculty, which is perpetually exciting irregular and immoderate defires; all which, in fact, arise from our ignorance. Such an examination alfo, he conceives, would tend to make us prefer that vigorous activity, in which the gratification of our moderate defires always leaves the foul; and which never deprives us of the more agreeable sensations, viz. those arifing from the fatisfying thofe phyfical wants, which fpontaneously arife from our conftitution.

The diftinction made by our author between moderate and immoderate defires, may poffibly feem to clash with what we obferved in the beginning of this article, respecting the relative nature of pleasure and pain in general. It is to be observed, however, that we are limited by our very nature and constitution, both to the enjoyment of pleafure, and the fuffering of pain within certain bounds; even as a fpring, whofe elafticity, we fay, is always equal to its compreffure. But this is to be understood with certain limits; for if it be ftretched or compreffed too far, it lofes the very virtue by which it is either compreffed or dilated. It is thus with our capacity for pleasure and pain; our fenfations of which, how moderate foever, are proportioned to each other*. At the fame time, nevertheless,

we

So that tho' the moderation of our defires would make us more politically

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we may entertain defires fo immoderate, that their gratification will debilitate even the capacity of enjoyment; in which cafe the difguft arifing from that gratification will not be proportionably fo great; but the confequences will be still worse, becaufe it will weaken the faculty of future enjoyment, even as the overbending or ftretching a fpring deftroys its elafticity.

But, to return to our author; who, confidering man as a compound being, conceives his power of gratification capable of being increafed not only by phyfical, but political means. In regard to the former, he prefcribes various rules to augment animal vigour and fentimental fortitude: all these, however, amount to no more than faying, "preferve health, and acquire knowledge." But tho' happiness be incompatible with ficknefs and ignorance, yet it is not neceffarily conferred by health and knowledge: his remarks on the political means of encreafing our power of gratification, are more pertinent; these tending to a point, which, as we before obferved, is actually, tho' ftill comparatively, attainable *. Our power of gratification, fays he, is to be confiderably augmented by the affiftance of others; whose concurrence in our favour is to be purchased either by riches or fervices. It were neceffary, however, to poffefs a boundless and inexhaustible refource of riches, in order to intereft a great number of perfons, for any confiderable time, to contribute to our peculiar gratification. The influence of wealth, fays our author, is in this refpect temporary; and is employed to the greatest advantage in those conjunctures, which may ferve to give a lafting establishment to that fuperiority which it occafionally gives us. The influence of our fervices is of larger duration; but it rather tends to prevent others from injuring us, than to excite them to be active in our favour. When people are attached to us on account of our wealth, their attachment is immediately united to a sense

cally happy, it would not make us more phyfically fo, unless we place fuch happiness in the duration of our capacity for the alternate fucceffion of pain and pleafure: but this is nothing more than longevity, which if the fum of our pains and pleafures fhould be perfectly equal, would be a ftate of infipidity not of happiness.

What we mean is this; it is poffible that the phyfical happiness of individuals in all ages and climes may be equal; but it cannot be doubted that the political happinefs of an European, or of any other inhabitant of polished nations, is much greater than that of the barbarians of primitive ages, or the favages of the prefent. It is hence evident alto, that political happiness, tho' attainable, is only fo in a comparative degree; for we know not that the most refined, voluptuous and independent people on earth, have as yet attained the ne plus ultra of political happiness.