for the purpose of strengthening the expression of the disapprobation of the rulers; and they have always undermined those religious tenets on behalf of which they have been resorted to. Opinions or principles can

really be changed or maintained only by operating, not on the flesh and bones of people, but directly on their

understanding.

The most monstrous and horrible use of pains inflicted for the purpose of influencing other minds, is warfare. The rulers of two nations quarrel, and forthwith they send armies and assault each other's subjects, burning, murdering, and devastating with the fury of demoniacs. This, doubtless, is for the purpose of ultimately reaching the rulers themselves, annoying them, impoverishing them, weakening their power, perhaps expelling them, or seizing them, or accomplishing their destruction. But what a fearful amount of human suffering is occasioned for the purpose of ultimately causing one or two individuals to suffer? And these individuals usually take care to preserve themselves from personal injury, often putting a stop to the carnage and devastation before it reaches themselves, though not sooner, by procuring peace. Or where the quarrel is that not merely of the rulers of the nation, but of the nations themselves, the chief amount of suffering falls on the peaceful inhabitants, together with the women and children, who know nothing of the quarrel, and who care nothing about it.

3. The communication of pleasure, or the bestowing of the means of obtaining pleasant sensations, is effective in influencing the minds of others, chiefly when such measures are adopted for the purpose of manifesting good will to them and interest in their welfare. Anything given as a bribe, suggests the suspicion that it is given from interested motives,-not for the benefit of the receiver, but of the giver; and therefore, although it may purchase the outward acts of men, even contrary to their convictions of what is right, it can have no

permanent effect upon their minds such as the giver intended. But when pleasure is communicated, or the means of obtaining pleasure are bestowed, or pain is alleviated, as an expression of kindly feelings, it may remove prejudices, predispose the objects of such conciliatory measures to listen to those who use them, and thus open a way for information into minds that would otherwise have rejected it. Missionaries endeavouring to gain an entrance for Christianity among savage nations, always endeavour to introduce among them the comforts of civilised life. To this measure is frequently added with the happiest effects, medical advice, and the administration of medicine. The relief of pain and deliverance from danger have been often found effectual in arresting attention to the instructions and exhortations of the missionary, and in opening a way for the truth to the inner man.

CHAPTER II.

OF THOSE CASES IN WHICH WE SEEK TO INFLUENCE OTHERS, WITHOUT EMPLOYING THE AGENCY PAINFUL OR PLEASANT SENSATIONS.

OF

THE means employed in these cases are the communicating of our thoughts to others.

We have two modes of effecting this purpose,-namely, 1st, natural,—and, 2nd, artificial language.

1. In regard to natural language, certain effects are produced on our own bodies by certain mental emotions, or rather, He who formed our bodies, and who breathed into them the breath of life, who made body and soul, and instituted their connection with one another, has appointed certain movements of the muscles of the body, particularly of the face, to be the signs of various

mental emotions; so that when the mind is thus permitted to express itself, we can read the emotions of others in their countenances and their gestures, and others can of course read ours. We can thus express before others approbation, disapprobation, satisfaction, anger, joy, grief, fear, hope, love, hatred: and we can thus excite sympathy with our emotions in other minds, or awaken in them those emotions which our emotions towards them are fitted to awaken. Thus the expression of anger may excite anger in others by sympathy; or it may excite anger in them from resentment; or it may excite fear or grief in them, because they have displeased us, and exposed themselves to injury from us; or it may excite satisfaction in them to see us angry with others. And so with regard to other emotions.

2. But the chief and most varied means which we possess of influencing others by simply communicating our thoughts to them, are the various uses of artificial language. Certain sounds are, as we have seen, associated in our minds, and in the minds of others who speak the same language, with certain sensations, perceptions, recognitions, reasonings, emotions, and, in short, with all mental states and operations, so that in proportion to the compass, and expressiveness of the language that we use, we can convey conceptions more or less vivid of the various states and operations of our own mind, as the information that we possess, the inferences that we draw from it, our reasonings, our emotions, and the causes of them; and thus we possess a most powerful implement for acting on the minds of others.

The use of this implement is greatly extended by the invention of written language and of printing. By associating with the sounds used in our language certain visible or tangible forms, we obtain the power of conveying our thoughts to distant places, or of placing them on record for the producing of effects on minds that are

not to appear on the world's stage till we shall have been removed from it for ever. The thoughts of men who lived several thousands of years ago, are thus yet living, and active in producing important effects on individuals and on society.

When natural and artificial language are used in conjunction, that is, when the communication of the thoughts by speech is accompanied with those tones of voice, those modifications of the countenance, and those gestures, which are the natural expressions of the emotions conveyed by the sounds of the artificial language, or when the words are so selected in written language as to convey the emotions of the mind, then the influence on other minds is at its maximum.

THE chief, the most important, and the most permanent effect of one mind on another, is produced by the communication of facts. Facts always interest, when they are first communicated and understood, by their novelty. Many facts are fitted to suggest new views of familiar objects, and lead to new trains of thought; many to excite emotions of various kinds; many to stimulate to action and to regulate the conduct.

False statements communicated as facts, produce the same effects as if they were facts, so long as they are believed. When they are discovered to be false, they instantly lose their power over the mind, and the deception that has been practised upon it, renders it more cautious in believing statements, so as often to lead to the rejection of those that are true and important.

Next to statements of fact, inferences from facts and reasonings upon them are most influential. But inferences and reasonings, unless strictly demonstrative, being more liable to fallacy and less easily understood than statements of fact, proportionally less confidence is placed upon them.

When the statements of fact, or quasi fact, or the

inferences from them, are accompanied with the expres sion of such emotions as the statements, if believed, would naturally excite, the influence of them is greatly augmented, because the reality of them is more vividly presented to the mind. It is thus that the fictitious statements of the theatre produce their effect. The statements are made, accompanied with the expression of these emotions which, if they were true and were believed, they would naturally excite. The audience is thus, for a moment, made to believe them, and to sympathise strongly with the persons who are affected by them

The principles on which facts, or quasi facts, may be stated, inferences drawn from them, reasonings built upon them, so as to produce the most powerful effects on the hearers or readers of the statements, are treated of in the arts of grammar, logic, rhetoric, poetry, and elocution; and to treatises on these arts we must refer the reader.

THE Construction of the Holy Scriptures furnishes a marvellous and beautiful example of the most effective use of the power of influencing the minds of men simply by the communication of thought. The Scriptures were written by men, not, as in Mahomet's Koran, personating the Deity in what they wrote, but by menunder the guidance of God indeed, but stating truths which they believed, and expressing emotions which they felt.

These writings consist mainly of two distinct series of facts: the first consisting of a narrative of historical facts, capable of being proved or disproved by the ordinary means by which historical statements are ascertained to be true or false; the second consisting of facts of a spiritual nature, referring to the existence, attributes, and works of God, the spiritual part of our nature, the relation in which we stand to God, the mission of the Son of God to save us from sin and its consequences,