with most other goods and gifts of fortune; so far, at least, as concerns the possession of power. He may be neither great, nor learned, nor of noble birth; neither elegant in person, nor accomplished in manners, distinguished neither for science, nor virtue; he may command no armies, he may sit upon no throne; yet with all his deficiencies, and even his vices, if so he have wealth, he has power. Unnumbered hands are ready to task their skill at his bidding, unnumbered arms, to move and toil and strive in his service, unnumbered feet hasten to and fro upon his errands. He commands the skill and labor of multitudes whom he has never seen, and who know him not. In distant quarters of the globe, the natives of other zones and climes hasten upon his errands; swift ships traverse the seas for him; the furs of the extreme North, the rich woods and spices of the tropics, the silks of India, the pearls and gems of the East- whatever is costly, and curious, and rare, whatever can contribute to the luxury and the pride of man - these are his, and for him. No wonder that he who desires power, should desire that which is one of the chief avenues and means to the attainment of power, and that what is valued, at first, rather as an instrument than as an end, should presently come to be regarded and valued for its own sake.

A twofold Aspect-Covetousness, Avarice.

There are,

if I mistake not, two forms which the desire of possession assumes. The one is the simple desire of acquiring, that there may be the more to spend; the other of accumulating, adding to the heaps already obtained — which may be done by keeping fast what is already gotten, as well as by getting more. The one is the desire of getting, which is not inconsistent with the desire of spending, but, in fact, grows out of that in the first instance; the other is the desire of in creasing, and the corresponding dread of diminishing, what is gotter, which, when it prevails to any considerable de gree, effectually prevents all enjoyment of the accumulated treasure, and becomes one of the most remarkable and most

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odious passions of our perverted nature. The term covet ousness answers somewhat nearly to the one, avarice to the other, of these forms of desire. It must be added, also, that it seems to be the natural tendency of the primitive and milder form of this principle, to pass into the other and more repulsive manifestation. He who begins with desiring wealth as a means of gratifying his various wants, too frequently ends with desiring it for its own sake, and becomes that poorest and most miserable of all men, the miser.

The inordinate love of Money not owing wholly to Association. Whence arises that inordinate value which the miser attaches to money, which, in reality, is but the mere representative of enjoyment, the mere means to an end? Why is he so loth to part with the smallest portion of the representative medium, in order to secure the reality, the end for which alone the means is valuable? Is it that, by the laws of association, the varied enjoyments which gold has so often procured, and which have a fixed value in our minds, are transferred with all their value to the gold which procured them? Doubtless this is, in some measure, the case, and it may, therefore, in part, account for the phenomenon in question. The gold piece which I take from my drawer for the purchase of some needful commodity, has, it may be, an increased value in my estimation, from the recollection of the advantages previously derived from the pos session of just such a sum. But why should such associations operate more powerfully upon the miser, than upon any other person? Why are we not all misers, if such associations are the true cause and explanation of avarice? Nay, why is not the spendthrift the most avaricious of all men, since he has more frequently exchanged the representative medium for the enjoyment which it would procure, and has, therefore, greater store of such associations connected with his gold?

The true Explanation. - Dr. Brown, who has admi:ably treated this part of our mental constitution, has suggested, I think, the true explanation of this phenomenon

So long as the gold itself is in the miser's grasp, it is, and is felt to be, a permanent possession; when it is expended, it is usually for something of a transient nature, which perishes with the using. It seems to him afterward as so much utter loss, and is regretted as such. Every such regretted expenditure increases the reluctance to part with another portion of the treasure. There is, moreover, another circumstance which heightens this feeling of reluctance. The enjoyment purchased is one and simple. The gold with which it was purchased is the representative, not of that particular form of enjoyment alone, but of a thousand others as well, any one of which might have been procured with the same money. All these possible advantages are now no longer possible. Very great seems the loss. Add to this the circumstance that the miser, in most cases, probably, has accumulated, or set his heart upon accumulating, a certain round sum, say so many thousands or hundreds of thousands. The spending a single dollar breaks that sum, and, therewith, the charm is broken, and he who was a millionaire before that unlucky expenditure, is a millionaire no longer. It is mainly in these feelings of regret, which attend the necessary expenses of the man who has once learned to set a high value upon wealth, that avarice finds, if not its source, at least its chief strength and aliment.

Odiousness of this Vice. There is, perhaps, no passion or vice to which poor human nature is subject, that is, in some respects, more odious and repulsive than this. There is about it no redeeming feature. It is pure and unmingled selfishness, without even the poor apology that most other vices can offer, of contributing to the present enjoyment and sensual gratification of the criminal. The miser is denied even this. He covets, not that he may enjoy, but that be may refrain from enjoying.

Strongest in old Age.—"In the contemplation of many of the passions that rage in the heart with greatest fierceness," says Dr. Brown, "there is some comfort in the

thought that, violent as they may be for a time, they aro not to rage through the whole course of life, at least if life be prolonged to old age; that the agitation which at every period will have some intermissions, will grow gradually less as the body grows more weak, and that the mind will at last derive from this very feebleness a repose which it could not enjoy when the vigor of the bodily frame seemed to give to the passion a corresponding vigor. It is not in avarice, however, that this soothing influence of age is to be found. It grows with our growth and with our strength but it strengthens also with our very weakness. There are no intermissions in the anxieties which it keeps awake; and every year, instead of lessening its hold, seems to fix it more deeply within the soul itself, as the bodily covering around it slowly moulders away. * The heart which is

weary of every thing else is not weary of coveting more gold; the memory which has forgotten every thing else. continues still, as Cato says in Cicero's dialogue, to remember where its gold is stored; the eye is not dim to gold that is dim to every thing beside; the hand which it seems an effort to stretch out and fix upon any thing, appears to gather new strength from the very touch of the gold which it grasps, and has still vigor enough to lift once more, and count once more, though a little more slowly, what it has Deen its chief and happiest occupation thus to lift and count for a period of years far longer than the ordinary life of man. When the relations or other expectant heirs gather around his couch, not to comfort, nor even to seem to comfort, but to await, in decent mimicry of solemn attendance, that moment which they rejoice to view approaching; the dying eye can still send a jealous glance to the coffer near which it trembles to see, though it scarcely sees, so many human forms assembled; and that feeling of jealous agony, which follows and outlasts the obscure vision of floating forms that are scarcely remembered, is at once the last mis ery and the last consciousness of life"

A natural Principle.

There can be little doubt that the desire of society is one of the original principles of our nature. It shows itself at a very early period of life, and under all the diverse conditions of existence. Its universal manifestation, and that under circumstances which preclude the idea of education or imitation in the matter, proves it an implanted principle, having its seat in the constitution of the mind.

Manifested by Animals of every Species. The child rejoices in the company of its fellows. The lower animals manifest the same regard for each other's society, and are unhappy when separated from their kind. Much of the attachment of the dog to his master may, not improbably, be owing to the same source. The beast of labor is cheered and animated by his master's presence, and the patient ox as he toils along the furrow, or the highway, moves more willingly when he hears the well-known step and voice of his owner trudging by his side. Every one knows how much the horse is inspirited by the chance companionship, upon the way, of a fellow-laborer of his own species. Horses that have been accustomed to each other's society on the road, or in the stall, frequently manifest the greatest uneasiness and dejection when separated; and it has been observed by those acquainted with the habits of animals, that cattle do not thrive as well, even in good pasture, when solitary, as when feeding in herds.

Accordingly wa

Social Organizations of Animals. find most animals, when left to the instinct of nature, associating in herds, and tribes, larger or smaller, according to the habits of the animal. They form their little communities, have their leaders, and, to some extent, their laws, ac knowledged and obeyed by all, their established customs and modes of procedure in which associations, thus regu lated, it is impossible not to recognize the essential feature