manifestation is in the perfect unison with the Divine
Will. We may, however, consider it in the next degree, as it is known,
and as we believe often realized, among men: we mean Goodness.

We presume it is superfluous to define a good act; for every one
knows, or ought to know, that no act is good in its true sense, which
has any, the least, reference to the agent's self. Nor is it necessary
to adduce examples; our object being rather to show that the
recognition of goodness--and we beg that the word be especially
noted--must result, of necessity, in such an emotion as shall partake
of its own character, that is, be entirely devoid of self-interest.

This will no doubt appear to many a startling position. But let it be
observed, that we have not said it will _always_ be recognized.
There are many reasons why it should not be, and is not. We all know
how easy it is to turn away from what gives us no pleasure. A long
course of vice, together with the consciousness that goodness has
departed from ourselves, may make it painful to look upon it. Nay,
the contemplation of it may become, on this account, so painful as to
amount to agony. But that Goodness can be hated for its own sake we do
not believe, except by a devil, or some irredeemable incarnation of
evil, if such there be on this side the grave. But it is objected,
that bad men have sometimes a pleasure in Evil from which they neither
derive nor hope for any personal advantage, that is, simply _because
it is evil_. But we deny the fact. We deny that an unmixed
pleasure, which is purely abstracted from all reference to self, is in
the power of Evil. Should any man assert this even of himself, he is
not to be believed; he lies to his own heart,--and this he may do
without being conscious of it. But how can this be? Nothing more
easy: by a simple dislocation of words; by the aid of that false
nomenclature which began with the first Fratricide, and has
continued to accumulate through successive ages, till it reached
its consummation, for every possible sin, in the French Revolution.
Indeed, there are few things more easy; it is only to transfer to the
evil the name of its opposite. Some of us, perhaps, may have witnessed
the savage exultation of some hardened wretch, when the accidental
spectator of an atrocious act. But is such exultation pleasure? Is it
at all akin to what is recognized as pleasure even by this hardened
wretch? Yet so he may call it. But should we, co