Of the abuses to which fiction has been prostituted, the present age affords a startling number and variety of illustrations. These abuses have been made to assume the form of biography, history, of the drama, of the novel and romance. No department of literature has entirely escaped. But the novel and romance are the vehicles most frequently employed. Under these forms, the prolific press has, within a few years, poured forth a stream of corrupt literature, which, it is no exaggeration to say, seriously threatens the foundations of morality and religion.

The attention of the public has been directed to the dangerous character and tendency of these works, by men of sound sense and acknowledged authority. The public, upon subjects of this nature, is not so much censurable for slowness in perception, as for slowness in action. No one, were he to consult his reason and belief, would object to the establishment of a censorship so severe that it would amount to an annihilation of immoral books; but to admit that there was a necessity for such a censorship, or an occasion for serious apprehension, might require longer reflection and a more careful observation. Between the cause and the effect there is a space, which, at first glance, seems to be occupied by conjectures and doubts; which conjectures and doubts experience and investigation may perhaps alone dissipate and remove. Nevertheless it would appear to be no difficult task to show

that the connection between them is of the most intimate and indissoluble nature; that, the existence of the cause being admitted, the certain sequence of the effect cannot be denied.

Let us, then, for a moment, consider the effect of fiction upon the intellect.

To form and fashion images, ideas, and fancies from the conceptions of the mind, is the peculiar and legitimate office of the imagination. It is with conceptions, therefore, that the imagination has to deal. And what are conceptions? As defined by philosophers, they are the sensations and perceptions suggested to or awakened in the mind, by the presence of external objects and scenes, and by the recalling of past objects and events. According to the character of these objects and events will be the character of the conceptions. If the objects be real, so will be the conceptions; and vice versa. In the one case, the imagination is employed with what is actual, probable, or possible; in the other, with what is fanciful, impossible, and visionary.

Now, of itself, and by its own nature, the imagination is the most active of the mental faculties. Less than any other one does it require a stimulant to its exercise; more than any other does it require restraint. In childhood, it peoples the darkness with phantoms, fairies, and ghosts; in youth, it fills the future with bright visions of promise and enjoyment, and gilds the rugged pathway of life with its magic and dazzling light. Even mature age is

oftener led astray by this faculty than by all others. Bishop Butler, whose studies brought him to investigate its pernicious influence on the reasonings of his contemporaries and predecessors in morals and religion, passed upon it a severe sentence of unqualified censure: "We are accustomed, from our youth up, to indulge that forward, delusive faculty, ever obtruding beyond its sphere; of some assistance, indeed, to apprehension, but the author of all error."

Not only is it the most active of the mental powers, but it is the most independent also. To a greater or less extent, it controls, influences, and quickens each of the other faculties; but it is itself, or it may be, wholly independent of the control of each and all of the others. It can even induce the mind to question, set aside, and wholly disbelieve the evidence of the senses, the most positive and tangible of all proof. It attests its marvellous power in the watches of the night, when, seizing the helm, it hurries the mind through regions of the wildest improbability and conjecture; at a single leap, passes from meditation to conclusion, from earth to heaven; and scorning all barriers of time and space, whirls the intellect, captive and powerless, from one extreme of the universe to the other; nor leaves it, until, trembling and affrighted, it bursts from its control with a quivering shock, unable longer to support the fierce and unnatural excitement. But it displays its terrible ascendency the most fearfully, when, by sufferance or misfortune, it has at length

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acquired despotic control over the waking thoughts and faculties; when it has conquered reason and sports with realities; when it has transformed a noble intelligence into a drivelling idiot; a manly and ambitious aspirant into a silly and wavering gazer; a generous enthusiast into a raving and furious maniac.

To this ever-active, bold, and restless faculty, fiction itself the creation of imagination - addresses itself. The natural tendency to a constant and controlling exercise is thus increased by the appliance of a most powerful stimulant. It is as though the morbidly nervous man should surrender himself to the influence of opiates and narcotics; as though the slave of appetite should be furnished with the means of gratifying all the senses;, as though the victorious warrior should discover new enemies and new provocations. The natural order of the faculties is inverted. Reason, which should be the guide, becomes the slave of the fancy; and the throne of calm judgment is usurped by credulous enthusiasm. Lost in a chaos of reveries, the mind no longer performs its high functions; figments are mistaken for facts; conjectures become certainties; hopes assume the form of expectations; dreams and chimeras receive the consideration due to actual existences. The natural and legitimate connection between means and ends dissolves into an absurd and irrational one; labor, industry, and application are abandoned for the contemplation of chance,

accident, or some happy casualty; the attainable objects of a worthy ambition are overlooked and despised, and the energies of the mind are wasted in attempting unattainable and fanciful results.

Such are some of the effects which fiction produces on the intellect. These results are by no means all that would admit of an enumeration in detail. Yet they are what seem to be the more general and noticeable effects. A mere outline sketch has been drawn, which, in the filling up, might be made to assume a force and vividness of expression which would at once be recognized, and which could not fail of being remembered. For this purpose, illustrations must be adduced. History abounds in them. Observation, such observation as the most careless practise, will have noted them. The deplorable effects in degree may not have been observed; but the same effects in kind. It is not of the degree of the effect of fiction on the intellect that we have remarked, but of the kind. This last must depend upon the nature of the intellectual faculties, and upon the attributes of fiction; the former, upon the extent of the abuse, and the amount of the indulgence.

Debasing fiction not only affects the intellect, but produces more lamentable and serious consequences on the moral nature; and so intimate is the connection which exists between these component parts of the human mind, that one cannot be affected, for better or worse, without affecting the other.