No. 85. SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1794, Nemo læditur nisi seipso. PETRARCH. PRÆF. DE REM.. Our sorrows originate in ourselves. I HAVE often considered with myself, how it should come to pass that an addiction to melancholy is more common among my countrymen than other Europeans. That physical causes have some share in this conformation of mind, can be doubted by no one who regards the variableness of our climate, and that dependance on the atmosphere to which the human frame is reduced by the enervations of modern refinement. There are good grounds, however, for thinking that little more belongs to climate than a predisposing influence in human affairs, which physically inclines us to a particular form of government, or particular bent of manners, but which readily gives place to such counter tendencies, as the existing government, by whatever forms established, can oppose to its progress. The moral opposition which we are able to set up in our civil and social capacity, to the capricious rule of the elements, denotes one of our great prerogatives above the brute creation, and marks that ascendancy which reason holds in all the concerns and attributes of our being. This supremacy of the mind, this mastery of the spiritual part of us, is a cheerful and elevating thought amidst those hourly prostrations of human pride, which fill up the date of this perishable existence. It is certainly some proof, if proofs were wanting, that the world was created for man's use and sovereignty, when we reflect that while other animals are confined to particular spots of the globe, and degenerate in strange latitudes, the human species flourishes in every part of the earth, accommodates itself to every change of climate, and maintains its pre-eminence wherever it is situated by nature or by accident. It should seem, therefore, that man is a much more independant animal than we suppose him, on the influence of outward adventitious causes, and that a more internal and spiritual source is at the bottom of all its varieties and revolutions of character. It is an easy and indolent way of accounting for the phænomena of the mind, to derive them from physical and irremediable causes; but the more accurate thinker perceives, and acknowledges the great preponderancy of habit in all that respects our qualities, attainments, and dispositions, and discerns how clear and speaking a truth it is, that man was meant to be the framer of his own happiness, and the instrument of his own elevation. In conformity with these principles, we are to look for the origin of the different casts and complexions of the mind, by which different men and countries are characterized, not so much in the operation of climate, or in the effects of a physical organization, as in the influences of that second nature which results from our habits, or educations, and the circumstances of our political condition. There is in the savage world, under all latitudes and climates, a prevailing uniformity of character, which affords a powerful inference, that the various modifications of mind, which branch out under circumstances of civilization, are not the immediate consequences of local or atmospherical peculiarities; I say, not the immediate consequences, because I have allowed them to be often ultimately derivable from this source, in admitting its predisposing influence on the subsequent political arrangements which gradual civilization introduces. If some complexional differences appear in the character of the savage, they are small and proximate, like shades of the same colour, and are hardly strong enough to appropriate the different histories which travellers have related of them, so that one might not serve for the other, unless for the topographical differences by which they are distinguished. The minds of men may not ill be compared to those plants, of which a multitude of different species are enumerated; in the stems, however, and early shoots of which, but small distinction is discerned, and which wait until culture has decked them in the graceful maturity of their foliage and flowers, for their peculiarities and variations to be pronounced and recognized. Melancholy is among those modifications of the human character, which wait the fecundating efficacy of social refinement, ere they break out in all their diversities of shade and colouring: like those other qualities which manifest themselves principally or solely in the members of civil society, it is more justly traced to moral than to physical causes; and I cannot help thinking, that, in the idea which imputes so great a measure of it to atmosphere and climate, there is much bad philosophy, and much ignorance of human nature. Plautus observes well, in speaking of the mind of man Hospitium est calamitatis, quid verbis opus est; If, therefore, in our search after the grounds of this melancholy, we look no farther than the mind which it inhabits, what abundant sources of secret sorrow, what a laboratory of pains and afflictions, do we there discover! In the cruel fondness of parents; in the early plantation of deceitful hopes, and not seldom of vicious principles; in the selfish luxury. which is permitted to youth, and in the barren occupations to which our manhood is surrendered; in the unripe consequence with which children are invested; and in the fastidious satiety which, in our present forcing system of culture, teaches us to spurn at simple pleasures, before even half our capacities of delight are unfolded—I read the long history of human sorrows, and see the whole mischief developed in its series of causes and effects. It would ask too much room to consider how far the political circumstances of a people may nourish a national bias towards melancholy; but it plainly appears that they have some sort of influence on this part of the general character. Every thing in life has its antidotes and compensations; and the real evils and advantages of different conditions of humanity are in the main so evenly balanced, that, in accomplishing thoses changes which promise the fairest for human felicity, we are not always gainers by our most splendid bargains; and perhaps even the boasted liberty to which Englishmen have attained, has not, on a cool calculation, made any actual addition to their substantial happiness. It is perhaps, the natural effect of a high degree of poli tical liberty, to exalt and refine the spirits to a pitch bordering on excess, to inspire a melancholic enthusiasm, to overheat the passions and the imagina tion, and to foster an irritable and tenacious sort of pride, that is fruitful in discontented and gloomy speculations. I hope it may only be the timorous observation of an old man, for it is, indeed, a dispiriting consideration, that as we gradually mount from slavery to freedom, as we gradually draw towards that state of society most honourable to our natures, and most favourable to our natural search after knowledge and improvement, the melancholy of our mind increases, and new shapes of inward sorrow are tacitly blended with our triumphs. If, after all, this statement be the truth, there is something ridiculous in the compassion which we bestow upon the subjects of despotic governments; it is something, perhaps, like our mode of estimating the amenity or gloominess of a mansion, as we view it at a distance, from the appearance it affords when contemplated from the spot on which we stand, instead of invertedly considering how the spot on which we stand, and the surrounding objects might appear, when beheld from the mansion itself. If then there be any thing in the liberty we enjoy, which favours this disposition of my countrymen towards melancholy, and if, as I have contended, this melancholy is bred more out of the mind itself, than any circumstance of our physical allotment, we see a necessity for constant exertions to oppose its progress, and perceive that the only remedy on which a reasonable dependance can be placed, is such as points immediately to the seat and source of the malady. But, since the mind that has once admitted this importunate guest, has rarely a sufficiency of spirit remaining to rally its original strength, preparatives for resistance must commence at an early period, and education must raise her ramparts against future invasion. It is beyond my present purpose to consider what modes of culture are best calculated to obtain this |