of man, as yet untamed to the modes of civilised
community, and unbroken to the steps which are not only prescribed by
the interests of our social existence, but which are even in some degree
indispensible to the improvement and welfare of the individual. I have
considered him, not as he is often acted upon by causes and motives
which seem almost to compel him to vice, but merely as he is restless,
and impatient, and disdainful both of the control of others, and the
shackles of system.

For the same reason I have not taken notice of another species of
irrationality, and which seems to answer more exactly to the Arabic
notion of the fomes peccati, the black drop of blood at the bottom of
the heart. We act from motives apprehended by the judgment; but we do
not stop at them. Once set in motion, it will not seldom happen that we
proceed beyond our original mark. We are like Othello in the play:

Our blood begins our safer guides to rule;
And passion, having our best judgment quelled,
Assays to lead the way.

This is the explanation of the greatest enormities that have been
perpetrated by man, and the inhuman deeds of Nero and Caligula. We
proceed from bad to worse. The reins of our discretion drop from our
hands. It fortunately happens however, that we do not in the majority of
cases, like Phaeton in the fable, set the world on fire; but that, with
ordinary men, the fiercest excesses of passion extend to no greater
distance than can be reached by the sound of their voice.

ESSAY VI. OF HUMAN INNOCENCE.

One of the most obvious views which are presented to us by man
in society is the inoffensiveness and innocence that ordinarily
characterise him.

Society for the greater part carries on its own organization. Each man
pursues his proper occupation, and there are few individuals that feel
the propensity to interrupt the pursuits of their neighbours by personal
violence. When we observe the quiet manner in which the inhabitants of a
great city, and, in the country, the frequenters of the fields, the
high roads, and the heaths, pass along, each engrossed by his private
contemplations, feeling no disposition to molest the strangers he
encounters, but on the contrary prepared to afford them every courteous
assistance, we cannot in equity do less than admire the innocence of our
species, and fancy that, like the patriarchs of old, we have fallen in
with "angels unawares."

There are a few men in e