Great caution therefore is requisite

as was formerly remarked — in employing such a weapon as Ridicule.

It will often happen that it will be easier to give a new direction to the unfavorable passion, than to subdue it; e. g. to turn the indignation, or the laughter, of the hearers against a different object. Indeed, whenever the case will admit of this, it will generally prove the more successful expedient; because it does not imply the accomplishment of so great a change in the minds of the hearers. See above, Chap. II. § 6.

Lecture on the Intellectual and Moral Influences of the Professions. Delivered before the Society of the Dublin Law Institute, on the 31st of January, 1842. [See Note, page 241.]

SOME ancient writer relates of the celebrated Hannibal, that during his stay at some regal court, the evening entertainment on one occasion consisted of a discourse, (what we in these days should call a "lecture,") which an aged Greek Philosopher, named Phormio, if I remember rightly, had the honor of being permitted to deliver before the king and courtiers. It was on the qualifications and duties of a General. The various high endowments- the several branches of knowledge, and the multifarious cares and labors appertaining to an accomplished military leader, were set forth, as most of the hearers thought, with so much ability and elegance, that the discourse was received with general applause. But, as was

natural, eager inquiries were made what was thought of it by so eminent a master in the art military, as Hannibal. On his opinion being asked, he replied with soldierlike bluntness, that he had often heard old men talk dotage, but that a greater dotard than Phormio he had never met with.

at

He would not however have been reckoned a dotard least he would not have deserved it, (as he did,)—if he had had the sense, instead of giving instructions in the military art to one who knew so much more of it than himself, to have addressed an audience of military men, not as soldiers, but as human beings; and had set before them correctly and clearly, the effects, intellectual and moral, likely to be produced on them, as men, by the study and the exercise of their profession. For that is a point on which men of each profession respectively are so far from being necessarily the best judges, that, other things being equal, they are likely to be rather less competent judges than those in a different walk of life.

That each branch of study, and each kind of business, has a tendency to influence the character, and that any such tendency, if operating in excess, exclusively, and unmodified by other causes, is likely to produce a corresponding mental disease or defect, is what no one I suppose would deny. It would be reasonable as an antecedent conjecture; and the confirmation of it by experience is a matter of common remark. I have heard of a celebrated surgeon, whose attention had been chiefly directed to cases of deformity, who remarked that he scarcely ever met an artisan in the street but he was able to assure himself at the first glance what his trade was. He could perceive in persons not actually deformed, that particular gait or attitude that particular kind of departure from exact symmetry of form that disproportionate development

and deficiency in certain muscles, which distinguished, to his anatomical eye, the porter, the smith, the horse-breaker, the stone-cutter, and other kinds of laborers from each other. And he could see all this, through, and notwithstanding, all the individual differences of original structure, and of various accidental circumstances.

Bodily peculiarities of this class may be, according to the degree to which they exist, either mere inelegances hardly worth noticing, or slight inconveniences, or serious deformities, or grievous diseases. The same may be said of those mental peculiarities, which the several professional studies and habits tend, respectively, to produce. They may be, according to the degree of them, so trifling as not to amount even to a blemish; or slight, or more serious defects; or cases of complete mental distortion.

You will observe that I shall throughout confine myself to the consideration of the disadvantages and dangers pertaining to each profession, without touching on the intellectual and moral benefits that may result from it. You may often hear from persons gifted with what the Ancients called epideictic eloquence, very admirable and gratifying panegyrics on each profession. But with a view to practical utility, the consideration of dangers to be guarded against is incomparably the most important; because to men in each respective profession, the beneficial results will usually take place even without their thinking about them; whereas the dangers require to be carefully noted, and habitually contemplated, in order that they may be effectually guarded against. A physician who had a friend about to settle in a hot climate, would be not so likely to dwell on the benefits he would derive spontaneously from breathing a warmer air, as to warn him of the dangers of sun-strokes and of marsh exhalations,

And it may be added that a description of the faulty habits which the members of each profession are in especial danger of acquiring, amounts to a high eulogium on each individual, in proportion as he is exempt from those faults.

To treat fully of such a subject would of course require volumes; but it may be not unsuitable to the present occasion to throw out a few slight hints, such as may be sufficient to turn your attention to a subject, which appears to me not only curious and interesting, but of great practical importance.

There is one class of dangers pertaining alike to every profession, every branch of study every kind of distinct pursuit. I mean the danger in each, to him who is devoted to it, of overrating its importance as compared with others; and again, of unduly extending its province. To a man who has no enlarged views, no general cultivation of mind, and no familiar intercourse with the enlightened and the worthy of other classes besides his own, the result must be more or less of the several forms of narrow-mindedness. To apply to all questions, on all subjects, the same principles and rules of judging that are suitable to the particular questions and subjects about which he is especially conversant; to bring in those subjects and questions on all occasions, suitable or unsuitable; like the painter Horace alludes to, who introduced a cypress tree into the picture of a shipwreck ;- to regard his own particular pursuit as the one important and absorbing interest; to look on all other events, transactions, and occupations, chiefly as they minister more or less to that; - to view the present state and past history of the world chiefly in reference to that; and to feel a clanish attachment to the members of the particular profession or class he belongs to, as a body or class; (an attachment, by-the-by, which is often limited to the collective class, and not accompanied with kindly

feelings towards the individual members of it,) and to have more or less an alienation of feeling from those of other classes; all these, and many other such, are symptoms of that narrow-mindedness which is to be found, alike, mutatis mutandis, in all who do not carefully guard themselves against it, whatever may be the profession or department of study of each.*

Against this kind of danger the best preservative, next to that of being thoroughly aware of it, will be found in varied reading and varied society; in habitual intercourse with men, whether living or dead, — whether personally or in their works, of different professions and walks of life, and, I may add, of different Countries and different Ages from

our own.

"that

It is remarked, in a work by Bishop Copleston, Locke, like most other writers on education, occasionally confounds two things, which ought to be kept perfectly distinct, viz. that mode of education, which would be most beneficial, as a system, to society at large, with that which would contribute most to the advantage and prosperity of an individual. These things are often at variance with each other. The former is that alone which deserves the attention of a philosopher; the latter is narrow, selfish, and mercenary. It is the last indeed on which the world are most eager to inform themselves; but the persons who instruct them, however they may deserve the thanks and esteem of those whom they benefit, do no service to mankind. There are but so many good places in the theatre of life; and he who puts us in the way of procuring one of them, does to us indeed a great

* See above, Part I. Chap. III. § 2, on the Presumptions for and against the judgment of professional men.