gination is the
grand instrument of virtue. The mind is the seat of pleasure and pain.
It is not by what we see, but by what we infer and suppose, that we are
taught, that any being is the object of commiseration. It is by the
constant return of the mind to the unfortunate object, that we are
strongly impressed with sympathy. Hence it is that the too frequent
recurrence of objects of distress, at the same time that it blunts the
imagination, renders the heart callous and obdurate.

The sentiment that the persons about us have life and feeling as well as
ourselves, cannot be of very late introduction. It may be forwarded by
cultivation, but it can scarcely at any rate be very much retarded. For
this sentiment to become perfectly clear and striking, and to be applied
in every case that may come before us, must undoubtedly be an affair
gradual in its progress. From thence to the feelings of right and wrong,
of compassion and generosity, there is but one step.

It has, I think, been fully demonstrated by that very elegant
philosopher Mr. Hutcheson, that self-love is not the source of all our
passions, but that disinterested benevolence has its seat in the human
heart. At present it is necessary for me to take this for granted. The
discussion would lead me too far from my subject. What I would infer
from it is, that benevolent affections are capable of a very early
commencement. They do not wait to be grafted upon the selfish. They have
the larger scope in youthful minds, as such have not yet learned those
refinements of interest, that are incident to persons of longer
experience.

Accordingly no observation is more common, than that mankind are more
generous in the earlier periods of their life, and that their affections
become gradually contracted the farther they advance in the vale of
years. Confidence, kindness, benevolence, constitute the entire temper
of youth. And unless these amiable dispositions be blasted in the bud by
the baneful infusions of ambition, vanity and pride, there is nothing
with which they would not part, to cherish adversity, and remunerate
favour.

Hence we may infer, that the general ideas of merit and character are
perfectly competent to the understanding of children of ten years. False
glory is the farthest in the world from insinuating its witchcraft into
the undepraved heart, where the vain and malignant passions have not yet
erected their standard. It is true, the peculiar sublimities of