On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    eyes and sleep to fly from our pillows , now excites a more moderate sympathy , and leaves our attention at liberty for other cares and interests ; and even our devotional feelings are less ardent , and the promises and threatenings of religion no longer produce emotions of ecstacy and despair . This change ought , undoubtedly , to stimulate us to inquiry into the state of our minds . If we find , on examination , that we have gained no equivalent for

    what we have lost , if we are convinced that feelings , innocent and virtuous in their nature and tendency , have passed away and left nothing to supply their place , it is , indeed , time to tremble ; and we may well fear that there is a canker at the root of our affections . But if we can satisfy ourselves that evanescent feelings have given place to permanent principles , if we can

    acknowledge to ourselves that our employments are of a more useful nature than formerly , and that our piety , though less ardent , is more influential , our benevolence , though less warm , more active and equable , we may dismiss all fear , and , without apprehension , leave our feelings to take their course , while we exercise our cares on the preservation of the good habits which have sprung from them .

    The chief value of good feelings arises from their being instruments in the formation of good principles and habits . Children begin life without a bias towards any course of action , but with a large capacity for pleasure and pain , and a lively sensibility to them . It is the work of a good education to engage these sensibilities on the side of virtue , and to make them act as a stimulus to virtuous actions . The misery which a kind-hearted child feels at the sight of a starving family , ( and which is more acute than that which

    is experienced by the most benevolent person of maturer age , ) supplies the place of that good principle which time has not allowed to grow up into strength , and prompts him to bestow all that he has in order to impart relief . His sensibility is no less wounded by the sight of a nest of unfledged birds , deprived of their parents' care , or of the writhings of the fish upon the hook ; and this vivid emotion tends to confirm his newly-formed habits of humanity towards the brute creation . These feelings are , in themselves , evanescent , and if not connected with action , are worse than useless ; as

    excitement causes a waste of energy which can only be repaired by increased vigour of action . But if they be made the immediate impulse to some effort of benevolence , they have answered the purpose for which they were bestowed , and in departing , have left behind something more than equivalent to themselves in their utmost intensity and depth . A frequent repetition of these feelings produces a series of actions , till , by the unfailing power of association , the emotion and consequent action become inseparably connected ; and the feeling , rising in dignity and importance , becomes a principle .

    How much more valuable , as a guide and stimulus , principle is than feeling , it is needless to shew ; but principle itself , in its earlier operations , is wavering and uncertain , and still needs the aid and companionship of those vivid emotions which may long continue to impart strength , and to cherish its purity . This aid , this companionship , is granted for a while , and

    principle goes on from weakness to strength , till , by a constant succession of single efforts , a habit of action is formed , and the great end for which feelings were bestowed is attained . Now that they have done their work , they hold a subordinate place in our moral being ; from being our masters , they descend to become our servants ; and happy are we if we exact from them reasonable service , and know how to direct their agency for the promotion of our

    Untitled Article

    On the Agency of Feelings in the Formation of Habit * . 103

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1829, page 103, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2569/page/31/