Since it is a fact out of question, that the greater portion of the species can never secure the objects of their ambition, is it ill-judged in one who treats upon the science of happiness, to write for the million instead of the few favorites of fortune? The principles of a philosophic investigation ought not to be narrowed down to meet the wishes of the few. The question is, whether, taking into view ambition and all the associated feelings, the toil of pursuit, and the difficulty and unfrequency of the attainment of its objects, it is, on the whole, favorable to happiness to cherish the passion, or not? I am clear, that even the successful aspirants, if their rivalry were more generous and philanthropic, and their indulgence of the cankering and corroding of ill-concealed envy, derision, hate and scorn, were regulated, would be not the less rapid in reaching the goal, or happy in the fruition of their attainment. I have little doubt, if an exact balance of enjoyment and suffering could be struck, at the last hour between two persons, whose circumstances in other respects had been similar, one of whom had been distinguished in place and power, in consequence of cultivating ambition; and the other obscure in peaceful privacy, in consequence of having chosen that condition, that the scale of happiness would decidedly incline in favor of the latter. In a word, it is the index of sound calculation, to prepare for the fate of the million, rather than that of the few. Repress ambition, as much as we may, there will always remain enough to render the world an aceldama, and the human heart a place of concentrated torment. It is clear, therefore, to me, that in making up the debt and credit account of life, in relation to happiness, most of the sentiments associated with ambition, and its prolific family of self-tormenting passions, may be set down as gratuitous items of misery, superinduced by our own voluntary discipline. I shall be asked, what is to stimulate to exertion, to study, toil and sacrifice, to great and noble actions, and what shall lead to fame and renown, if this incentive be taken away? I answer, that, what is ordinarily dignified with the appellation of ambition, is a vile mixture of the worst feelings of our nature. There is in all minds, truly noble, a sufficient impulse towards great actions, apart from these movements, which are generally the excitements of little and mean spirits. Take the whole nature of man into the calculation, and there can never be a want of sufficient impulse towards distinction, without a particle of those contemptible motives, which are generally put to the account of praiseworthy incitement. Truly great men have been remarkable for their exemption from envy, the inseparable concomitant of conscious deficiency; and for a certain calm and tranquil spirit, indicating moderation and comparative indifference in the struggle of emulation. They are able to say, in regard to the highest boon of ambition,