the contemplation of it may become, on this account, so painful as to
amount to agony. But that Goodness can be hated for its own sake we do
not believe, except by a devil, or some irredeemable incarnation of
evil, if such there be on this side the grave. But it is objected,
that bad men have sometimes a pleasure in Evil from which they neither
derive nor hope for any personal advantage, that is, simply _because
it is evil_. But we deny the fact. We deny that an unmixed
pleasure, which is purely abstracted from all reference to self, is in
the power of Evil. Should any man assert this even of himself, he is
not to be believed; he lies to his own heart,--and this he may do
without being conscious of it. But how can this be? Nothing more
easy: by a simple dislocation of words; by the aid of that false
nomenclature which began with the first Fratricide, and has
continued to accumulate through successive ages, till it reached
its consummation, for every possible sin, in the French Revolution.
Indeed, there are few things more easy; it is only to transfer to the
evil the name of its opposite. Some of us, perhaps, may have witnessed
the savage exultation of some hardened wretch, when the accidental
spectator of an atrocious act. But is such exultation pleasure? Is it
at all akin to what is recognized as pleasure even by this hardened
wretch? Yet so he may call it. But should we, could we look into his
heart? Should we not rather pause for a time, from mere ignorance of
the true vernacular of sin. What he feels may thus be a mystery to all
but the reprobate; but it is not pleasure either in the deed or the
doer: for, as the law of Good is Harmony, so is Discord that of Evil;
and as sympathy to Harmony, so is revulsion to Discord. And where is
hatred deepest and deadliest? Among the wicked. Yet they often hate
the good. True: but not goodness, not the good man's virtues; these
they envy, and hate him for possessing them. But more commonly the
object of dislike is first stripped of his virtues by detraction; the