OF BENEVOLENCE.
"Benevolence is necessary, because it enlarges our sphere of happiness by rendering us participators in the happiness of others—besides producing, by sympathy, similar feelings in others."
In a series of propositions on the exercise of mind, he impresses the mischief of admitting or indulging erroneous trains of thought, as illustrated by "the fears arising from bad management in childhood,—by persistence in vice after the gratification has ceased and the destruction certain; and also in contributing to the production of insanity." Or, on the other hand, he considers the advantage of exercise in correct trains of thought; that the powers evinced by Newton, and, in certain cases, by Johnson, to have been unattainable, but as the result of such exercise. He enlarges on the moral effects of habitual increase of power in diverting the mind at will to other objects, and so subduing anger, mitigating calamity, &c.
In illustrating the intensity that recurrence of impression is apt to give to the feelings, he says: "Benevolence indulged, leads to lasting friendship; whilst the harbouring sensations of even trivial disgust are too likely to develop animosity," &c.
In speaking of the difficulty of ascertaining all the facts and feelings which enter into the formation of any one's opinions, he says: "It ought to incline us to think modestly of our own, and pay deference to those of others,"