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Title: The Fable of the Bees
Or, Private Vices Public Benefits
Author: Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733)
Release Date: June 4, 2018 [EBook #57260]
Language: English
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THE
FABLE OF THE BEES;
OR,
PRIVATE VICES PUBLIC BENEFITS:
WITH AN ESSAY ON
CHARITY AND CHARITY SCHOOLS,
AND A SEARCH INTO
THE NATURE OF SOCIETY:
ALSO,
A VINDICATION OF THE BOOK FROM THE ASPERSIONS CONTAINED
IN A PRESENTMENT OF THE GRAND JURY OF MIDDLESEX,
AND AN ABUSIVE LETTER TO LORD C----.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY T. OSTELL, AVE-MARIA LANE, LONDON, AND
MUNDELL AND SON, EDINBURGH.
1806.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
Page
Preface, iii
The Grumbling Hive; or Knaves turn'd Honest, 1
The Introduction, 12
An Inquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue, 13
Remarks, 23
An Essay on Charity and Charity Schools, 155
A Search into the Nature of Society, 205
A Vindication of the Book, from the Aspersions
contained in a Presentment of the Grand Jury of
Middlesex, and an Abusive Letter to Lord C----, 237
PART II.
Preface, 261
The First Dialogue, 279
The Second Dialogue, 302
The Third Dialogue, 331
The Fourth Dialogue, 366
The Fifth Dialogue, 400
The Sixth Dialogue, 451
PREFACE.
Laws and government are to the political bodies of civil societies,
what the vital spirits and life itself are to the natural bodies
of animated creatures; and as those that study the anatomy of dead
carcases may see, that the chief organs and nicest springs more
immediately required to continue the motion of our machine, are not
hard bones, strong muscles and nerves, nor the smooth white skin,
that so beautifully covers them, but small trifling films, and little
pipes, that are either overlooked or else seem inconsiderable to vulgar
eyes; so they that examine into the nature of man, abstract from art
and education, may observe, that what renders him a sociable animal,
consists not in his desire of company, good nature, pity, affability,
and other graces of a fair outside; but that his vilest and most
hateful qualities are the most necessary accomplishments to fit him
for the largest, and, according to the world, the happiest and most
flourishing societies.
The following Fable, in which what I have said is set forth at large,
was printed above eight years ago [1], in a six penny pamphlet,
called, The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves turn'd Honest; and being soon
after pirated, cried about the streets in a halfpenny sheet. Since
the first publishing of it, I have met with several that, either
wilfully or ignorantly mistaking the design, would have it, that
the scope of it was a satire upon virtue and morality, and the whole
wrote for the encouragement of vice. This made me resolve, whenever
it should be reprinted, some way or other to inform the reader of
the real intent this little poem was wrote with. I do not dignify
these few loose lines with the name of Poem, that I would have the
reader expect any poetry in them, but barely because they are rhyme,
and I am in reality puzzled what name to give them; for they are
neither heroic nor pastoral, satire, burlesque, nor heroi-comic;
to be a tale they want probability, and the whole is rather too
long for a fable. All I can say of them is, that they are a story
told in doggerel, which, without the least design of being witty,
I have endeavoured to do in as easy and familiar a manner as I was
able: the reader shall be welcome to call them what he pleases. It
was said of Montaigne, that he was pretty well versed in the defects
of mankind, but unacquainted with the excellencies of human nature:
if I fare no worse, I shall think myself well used.
What country soever in the universe is to be understood by the
Bee-Hive represented here, it is evident, from what is said of the
laws and constitution of it, the glory, wealth, power, and industry
of its inhabitants, that it must be a large, rich and warlike nation,
that is happily governed by a limited monarchy. The satire, therefore,
to be met with in the following lines, upon the several professions
and callings, and almost every degree and station of people, was not
made to injure and point to particular persons, but only to show the
vileness of the ingredients that altogether compose the wholesome
mixture of a well-ordered society; in order to extol the wonderful
power of political wisdom, by the help of which so beautiful a machine
is raised from the most contemptible branches. For the main design of
the Fable (as it is briefly explained in the Moral), is to show the
impossibility of enjoying all the most elegant comforts of life, that
are to be met with in an industrious, wealthy and powerful nation,
and at the same time, be blessed with all the virtue and innocence
that can be wished for in a golden age; from thence to expose the
unreasonableness and folly of those, that desirous of being an opulent
and flourishing people, and wonderfully greedy after all the benefits
they can receive as such, are yet always murmuring at and exclaiming
against those vices and inconveniences, that from the beginning of the
world to this present day, have been inseparable from all kingdoms and
states, that ever were famed, for strength, riches, and politeness,
at the same time.
To do this, I first slightly touch upon some of the faults and
corruptions the several professions and callings are generally charged
with. After that I show that those very vices, of every particular
person, by skilful management, were made subservient to the grandeur
and worldly happiness of the whole. Lastly, by setting forth what
of necessity must be the consequence of general honesty and virtue,
and national temperance, innocence and content, I demonstrate that if
mankind could be cured of the failings they are naturally guilty of,
they would cease to be capable of being raised into such vast potent
and polite societies, as they have been under the several great
commonwealths and monarchies that have flourished since the creation.
If you ask me, why I have done all this, cui bono? and what good
these notions will produce? truly, besides the reader's diversion,
I believe none at all; but if I was asked what naturally ought to
be expected from them, I would answer, that, in the first place,
the people who continually find fault with others, by reading them,
would be taught to look at home, and examining their own consciences,
be made ashamed of always railing at what they are more or less guilty
of themselves; and that, in the next, those who are so fond of the ease
and comforts, and reap all the benefits that are the consequence of
a great and flourishing nation, would learn more patiently to submit
to those inconveniences, which no government upon earth can remedy,
when they should see the impossibility of enjoying any great share
of the first, without partaking likewise of the latter.
This, I say, ought naturally to be expected from the publishing of
these notions, if people were to be made better by any thing that
could be said to them; but mankind having for so many ages remained
still the same, notwithstanding the many instructive and elaborate
writings, by which their amendment has been endeavoured, I am not so
vain as to hope for better success from so inconsiderable a trifle.
Having allowed the small advantage this little whim is likely to
produce, I think myself obliged to show that it cannot be prejudicial
to any; for what is published, if it does no good, ought at least
to do no harm: in order to this, I have made some explanatory notes,
to which the reader will find himself referred in those passages that
seem to be most liable to exceptions.
The censorious, that never saw the Grumbling Hive, will tell me,
that whatever I may talk of the Fable, it not taking up a tenth
part of the book, was only contrived to introduce the Remarks;
that instead of clearing up the doubtful or obscure places, I have
only pitched upon such as I had a mind to expatiate upon; and that
far from striving to extenuate the errors committed before, I have
made bad worse, and shown myself a more barefaced champion for vice,
in the rambling digressions, than I had done in the Fable itself.
I shall spend no time in answering these accusations: where men are
prejudiced, the best apologies are lost; and I know that those who
think it criminal to suppose a necessity of vice in any case whatever,
will never be reconciled to any part of the performance; but if this
be thoroughly examined, all the offence it can give must result from
the wrong inferences that may perhaps be drawn from it, and which I
desire nobody to make. When I assert that vices are inseparable from
great and potent societies, and that it is impossible their wealth
and grandeur should subsist without, I do not say that the particular
members of them who are guilty of any should not be continually
reproved, or not be punished for them when they grow into crimes.
There are, I believe, few people in London, of those that are at
any time forced to go a-foot, but what could wish the streets of it
much cleaner than generally they are; while they regard nothing but
their own clothes and private conveniency; but when once they come
to consider, that what offends them, is the result of the plenty,
great traffic, and opulency of that mighty city, if they have
any concern in its welfare, they will hardly ever wish to see the
streets of it less dirty. For if we mind the materials of all sorts
that must supply such an infinite number of trades and handicrafts,
as are always going forward; the vast quantity of victuals, drink,
and fuel, that are daily consumed in it; the waste and superfluities
that must be produced from them; the multitudes of horses, and other
cattle, that are always dawbing the streets; the carts, coaches, and
more heavy carriages that are perpetually wearing and breaking the
pavement of them; and, above all, the numberless swarms of people that
are continually harassing and trampling through every part of them:
If, I say, we mind all these, we shall find, that every moment must
produce new filth; and, considering how far distant the great streets
are from the river side, what cost and care soever be bestowed to
remove the nastiness almost as fast as it is made, it is impossible
London should be more cleanly before it is less flourishing. Now would
I ask, if a good citizen, in consideration of what has been said,
might not assert, that dirty streets are a necessary evil, inseparable
from the felicity of London, without being the least hinderance to the
cleaning of shoes, or sweeping of streets, and consequently without
any prejudice either to the blackguard or the scavingers.
But if, without any regard to the interest or happiness of the city,
the question was put, What place I thought most pleasant to walk
in? Nobody can doubt, but before the stinking streets of London, I
would esteem a fragrant garden, or a shady grove in the country. In the
same manner, if laying aside all worldly greatness and vain glory, I
should be asked where I thought it was most probable that men might
enjoy true happiness, I would prefer a small peaceable society,
in which men, neither envied nor esteemed by neighbours, should be
contented to live upon the natural product of the spot they inhabit,
to a vast multitude abounding in wealth and power, that should always
be conquering others by their arms abroad, and debauching themselves
by foreign luxury at home.
Thus much I had said to the reader in the first edition; and have
added nothing by way of preface in the second. But since that,
a violent outcry has been made against the book, exactly answering
the expectation I always had of the justice, the wisdom, the charity,
and fair-dealing of those whose good will I despaired of. It has been
presented by the Grand Jury, and condemned by thousands who never saw
a word of it. It has been preached against before my Lord Mayor; and
an utter refutation of it is daily expected from a reverend divine,
who has called me names in the advertisements, and threatened to
answer me in two months time for above five months together. What
I have to say for myself, the reader will see in my Vindication at
the end of the book, where he will likewise find the Grand Jury's
Presentment, and a letter to the Right Honourable Lord C. which is
very rhetorical beyond argument or connection. The author shows a fine
talent for invectives, and great sagacity in discovering atheism,
where others can find none. He is zealous against wicked books,
points at the Fable of the Bees, and is very angry with the author:
He bestows four strong epithets on the enormity of his guilt, and by
several elegant innuendos to the multitude, as the danger there is
in suffering such authors to live, and the vengeance of Heaven upon
a whole nation, very charitably recommends him to their care.
Considering the length of this epistle, and that it is not wholly
levelled at me only, I thought at first to have made some extracts
from it of what related to myself; but finding, on a nearer inquiry,
that what concerned me was so blended and interwoven with what did not,
I was obliged to trouble the reader with it entire, not without hopes
that, prolix as it is, the extravagancy of it will be entertaining
to those who have perused the treatise it condemns with so much horror.
THE
GRUMBLING HIVE:
OR,
KNAVES TURN'D HONEST.
A spacious hive well stock'd with bees,
That liv'd in luxury and ease;
And yet as fam'd for laws and arms,
As yielding large and early swarms;
Was counted the great nursery 5
Of sciences and industry.
No bees had better government,
More fickleness, or less content:
They were not slaves to tyranny.
Nor rul'd by wild democracy; 10
But kings, that could not wrong, because
Their power was circumscrib'd by laws.
These insects liv'd like men, and all
Our actions they performed in small:
They did whatever's done in town, 15
And what belongs to sword or gown:
Though th' artful works, by nimble slight
Of minute limbs, 'scap'd human sight;
Yet we've no engines, labourers,
Ships, castles, arms, artificers, 20
Craft, science, shop, or instrument,
But they had an equivalent:
Which, since their language is unknown,
Must be call'd, as we do our own.
As grant, that among other things, 25
They wanted dice, yet they had kings;
And those had guards; from whence we may
Justly conclude, they had some play;
Unless a regiment be shown
Of soldiers, that make use of none. 30
Vast numbers throng'd the fruitful hive;
Yet those vast numbers made 'em thrive;
Millions endeavouring to supply
Each other's lust and vanity;
While other millions were employ'd, 35
To see their handy-works destroy'd;
They furnish'd half the universe;
Yet had more work than labourers.
Some with vast flocks, and little pains,
Jump'd into business of great gains; 40
And some were damn'd to scythes and spades,
And all those hard laborious trades;
Where willing wretches daily sweat,
And wear out strength and limbs to eat:
While others follow'd mysteries, 45
To which few folks binds 'prentices;
That want no stock, but that of brass,
And may set up without a cross;
As sharpers, parasites, pimps, players,
Pickpockets, coiners, quacks, soothsayers, 50
And all those, that in enmity,
With downright working, cunningly
Convert to their own use the labour
Of their good-natur'd heedless neighbour.
These were call'd Knaves, but bar the name, 55
The grave industrious were the same:
All trades and places knew some cheat,
No calling was without deceit.
The lawyers, of whose art the basis
Was raising feuds and splitting cases, 60
Oppos'd all registers, that cheats
Might make more work with dipt estates;
As were't unlawful, that one's own,
Without a law-suit, should be known.
They kept off hearings wilfully, 65
To finger the refreshing fee;
And to defend a wicked cause,
Examin'd and survey'd the laws,
As burglar's shops and houses do,
To find out where they'd best break through. 70
Physicians valu'd fame and wealth
Above the drooping patient's health,
Or their own skill: the greatest part
Study'd, instead of rules of art,
Grave pensive looks and dull behaviour, 75
To gain th' apothecary's favour;
The praise of midwives, priests, and all
That serv'd at birth or funeral.
To bear with th' ever-talking tribe,
And hear my lady's aunt prescribe; 80
With formal smile, and kind how d'ye,
To fawn on all the family;
And, which of all the greatest curse is,
T' endure th' impertinence of nurses.
Among the many priests of Jove, 85
Hir'd to draw blessings from above,
Some few were learn'd and eloquent,
But thousands hot and ignorant:
Yet all pass'd muster that could hide
Their sloth, lust, avarice and pride; 90
For which they were as fam'd as tailors
For cabbage, or for brandy sailors,
Some, meagre-look'd, and meanly clad,
Would mystically pray for bread,
Meaning by that an ample store, 95
Yet lit'rally received no more;
And, while these holy drudges starv'd,
The lazy ones, for which they serv'd,
Indulg'd their ease, with all the graces
Of health and plenty in their faces. 100
The soldiers, that were forc'd to fight,
If they surviv'd, got honour by't;
Though some, that shunn'd the bloody fray,
Had limbs shot off, that ran away:
Some valiant gen'rals fought the foe; 105
Others took bribes to let them go:
Some ventur'd always where 'twas warm,
Lost now a leg, and then an arm;
Till quite disabled, and put by,
They liv'd on half their salary; 110
While others never came in play,
And staid at home for double pay.
Their kings were serv'd, but knavishly,
Cheated by their own ministry;
Many, that for their welfare slaved, 115
Robbing the very crown they saved:
Pensions were small, and they liv'd high,
Yet boasted of their honesty.
Calling, whene'er they strain'd their right,
The slipp'ry trick a perquisite; 120
And when folks understood their cant,
They chang'd that for emolument;
Unwilling to be short or plain,
In any thing concerning gain;
For there was not a bee but would 125
Get more, I won't say, than he should;
But than he dar'd to let them know,
That pay'd for't; as your gamesters do,
That, though at fair play, ne'er will own
Before the losers that they've won. 130
But who can all their frauds repeat?
The very stuff which in the street
They sold for dirt t' enrich the ground,
Was often by the buyers found
Sophisticated with a quarter 135
Of good-for-nothing stones and mortar;
Though Flail had little cause to mutter.
Who sold the other salt for butter.
Justice herself, fam'd for fair dealing,
By blindness had not lost her feeling; 140
Her left hand, which the scales should hold,
Had often dropt 'em, brib'd with gold;
And, though she seem'd impartial,
Where punishment was corporal,
Pretended to a reg'lar course, 145
In murder, and all crimes of force;
Though some first pillory'd for cheating,
Were hang'd in hemp of their own beating;
Yet, it was thought, the sword she bore
Check'd but the desp'rate and the poor; 150
That, urg'd by mere necessity,
Were ty'd up to the wretched tree
For crimes, which not deserv'd that fate,
But to secure the rich and great.
Thus every part was full of vice, 155
Yet the whole mass a paradise;
Flatter'd in peace, and fear'd in wars
They were th' esteem of foreigners,
And lavish of their wealth and lives,
The balance of all other hives. 160
Such were the blessings of that state;
Their crimes conspir'd to make them great:
And virtue, who from politics
Has learn'd a thousand cunning tricks,
Was, by their happy influence, 165
Made friends with vice: And ever since,
The worst of all the multitude
Did something for the common good.
This was the state's craft, that maintain'd
The whole of which each part complain'd: 170
This, as in music harmony
Made jarrings in the main agree,
Parties directly opposite,
Assist each other, as 'twere for spite;
And temp'rance with sobriety, 175
Serve drunkenness and gluttony.
The root of evil, avarice,
That damn'd ill-natur'd baneful vice,
Was slave to prodigality,
That noble sin; whilst luxury 180
Employ'd a million of the poor,
And odious pride a million more:
Envy itself, and vanity,
Were ministers of industry;
Their darling folly, fickleness, 185
In diet, furniture, and dress,
That strange ridic'lous vice, was made
The very wheel that turn'd the trade.
Their laws and clothes were equally
Objects of mutability! 190
For, what was well done for a time,
In half a year became a crime;
Yet while they altered thus their laws,
Still finding and correcting flaws,
They mended by inconstancy 195
Faults, which no prudence could foresee.
Thus vice nurs'd ingenuity,
Which join'd the time and industry,
Had carry'd life's conveniences,
Its real pleasures, comforts, ease, 200
To such a height, the very poor }
Liv'd better than the rich before. }
And nothing could be added more. }
How vain is mortal happiness!
Had they but known the bounds of bliss; 205
And that perfection here below
Is more than gods can well bestow;
The grumbling brutes had been content
With ministers and government.
But they, at every ill success, 210
Like creatures lost without redress,
Curs'd politicians, armies, fleets;
While every one cry'd, damn the cheats,
And would, though conscious of his own,
In others barb'rously bear none. 215
One, that had got a princely store,
By cheating master, king, and poor,
Dar'd cry aloud, the land must sink
For all its fraud; and whom d'ye think
The sermonizing rascal chid? 220
A glover that sold lamb for kid.
The least thing was not done amiss,
Or cross'd the public business;
But all the rogues cry'd brazenly,
Good gods, had we but honesty! 225
Merc'ry smil'd at th' impudence,
And others call'd it want of sense,
Always to rail at what they lov'd:
But Jove with indignation mov'd,
At last in anger swore, he'd rid 230
The bawling hive of fraud; and did.
The very moment it departs,
And honesty fills all their hearts;
There shows 'em, like th' instructive tree,
Those crimes which they're asham'd to see; 235
Which now in silence they confess,
By blushing at their ugliness:
Like children, that would hide their faults,
And by their colour own their thoughts:
Imag'ning, when they're look'd upon, 240
That others see what they have done.
But, O ye gods! what consternation,
How vast and sudden was th' alteration!
In half an hour, the nation round,
Meat fell a penny in the pound. 245
The mask hypocrisy's sitting down,
From the great statesman to the clown:
And in some borrow'd looks well known,
Appear'd like strangers in their own.
The bar was silent from that day; 250
For now the willing debtors pay,
Ev'n what's by creditors forgot;
Who quitted them that had it not.
Those that were in the wrong, stood mute,
And dropt the patch'd vexatious suit: 255
On which since nothing else can thrive,
Than lawyers in an honest hive,
All, except those that got enough,
With inkhorns by their sides troop'd off.
Justice hang'd some, set others free; 260
And after gaol delivery,
Her presence being no more requir'd,
With all her train and pomp retir'd.
First march'd some smiths with locks and grates,
Fetters, and doors with iron plates: 265
Next gaolers, turnkeys and assistants:
Before the goddess, at some distance,
Her chief and faithful minister,
'Squire Catch, the law's great finisher,
Bore not th' imaginary sword, 270
But his own tools, an ax and cord:
Then on a cloud the hood-wink'd fair,
Justice herself was push'd by air:
About her chariot, and behind,
Were serjeants, bums of every kind, 275
Tip-staffs, and all those officers,
That squeeze a living out of tears.
Though physic liv'd, while folks were ill,
None would prescribe, but bees of skill,
Which through the hive dispers'd so wide, 280
That none of them had need to ride;
Wav'd vain disputes, and strove to free
The patients of their misery;
Left drugs in cheating countries grown,
And us'd the product of their own; 285
Knowing the gods sent no disease,
To nations without remedies.
Their clergy rous'd from laziness,
Laid not their charge on journey-bees;
But serv'd themselves, exempt from vice, 290
The gods with pray'r and sacrifice;
All those, that were unfit, or knew,
Their service might be spar'd, withdrew:
Nor was their business for so many,
(If th' honest stand in need of any,) 295
Few only with the high-priest staid,
To whom the rest obedience paid:
Himself employ'd in holy cares;
Resign'd to others state-affairs.
He chas'd no starv'ling from his door, 300
Nor pinch'd the wages of the poor:
But at his house the hungry's fed, }
The hireling finds unmeasur'd bread, }
The needy trav'ller board and bed. }
Among the king's great ministers, 305
And all th' inferior officers,
The change was great; for frugally
They now liv'd on their salary:
That a poor bee should ten times come
To ask his due, a trifling sum, 310
And by some well-hir'd clerk be made
To give a crown, or ne'er be paid,
Would now be call'd a downright cheat,
Though formerly a perquisite.
All places manag'd first by three, 315
Who watch'd each other's knavery
And often for a fellow-feeling,
Promoted one another's stealing,
Are happily supply'd by one,
By which some thousands more are gone. 320
No honour now could be content,
To live and owe for what was spent;
Liv'ries in brokers shops are hung,
They part with coaches for a song;
Sell stately horses by whole sets; 325
And country-houses, to pay debts.
Vain cost is shunn'd as much as fraud;
They have no forces kept abroad;
Laugh at th' esteem of foreigners,
And empty glory got by wars; 330
They fight but for their country's sake,
When right or liberty's at stake.
Now mind the glorious hive, and see
How honesty and trade agree.
The show is gone, it thins apace; 335
And looks with quite another face.
For 'twas not only that they went,
By whom vast sums were yearly spent;
But multitudes that liv'd on them,
Were daily forc'd to do the same. 340
In vain to other trades they'd fly;
All were o'er-stock'd accordingly.
The price of land and houses falls;
Mirac'lous palaces, whose walls,
Like those of Thebes, were rais'd by play, 345
Are to be let; while the once gay,
Well-seated household gods would be
More pleas'd to expire in flames, than see
The mean inscription on the door
Smile at the lofty ones they bore. 350
The building trade is quite destroy'd,
Artificers are not employ'd;
No limner for his art is fam'd,
Stone-cutters, carvers are not nam'd.
Those, that remain'd, grown temp'rate, strive, 355
Not how to spend, but how to live;
And, when they paid their tavern score,
Resolv'd to enter it no more:
No vintner's jilt in all the hive
Could wear now cloth of gold, and thrive; 360
Nor Torcol such vast sums advance,
For Burgundy and Ortolans;
The courtier's gone that with his miss
Supp'd at his house on Christmas peas;
Spending as much in two hours stay, 365
As keeps a troop of horse a day.
The haughty Chloe, to live great,
Had made her husband rob the state:
But now she sells her furniture,
Which th' Indies had been ransack'd for; 370
Contracts the expensive bill of fare,
And wears her strong suit a whole year:
The slight and fickle age is past;
And clothes, as well as fashions, last.
Weavers, that join'd rich silk with plate, 375
And all the trades subordinate,
Are gone; still peace and plenty reign,
And every thing is cheap, though plain:
Kind nature, free from gard'ners force,
Allows all fruits in her own course; 380
But rarities cannot be had,
Where pains to get them are not paid.
As pride and luxury decrease,
So by degrees they leave the seas.
Not merchants now, but companies 385
Remove whole manufactories.
All arts and crafts neglected lie;
Content, the bane of industry,
Makes 'em admire their homely store,
And neither seek nor covet more. 390
So few in the vast hive remain,
The hundredth part they can't maintain
Against th' insults of numerous foes;
Whom yet they valiantly oppose:
'Till some well fenc'd retreat is found, 395
And here they die or stand their ground.
No hireling in their army's known;
But bravely fighting for their own,
Their courage and integrity
At last were crown'd with victory. 400
They triumph'd not without their cost,
For many thousand bees were lost.
Harden'd with toils and exercise,
They counted ease itself a vice;
Which so improv'd their temperance; 405
That, to avoid extravagance,
They flew into a hollow tree,
Blest with content and honesty.
THE MORAL.
Then leave complaints: fools only strive
To make a great an honest hive. 410
T' enjoy the world's conveniences,
Be fam'd in war, yet live in ease,
Without great vices, is a vain
Eutopia seated in the brain.
Fraud, luxury, and pride must live, 415
While we the benefits receive:
Hunger's a dreadful plague, no doubt,
Yet who digests or thrives without?
Do we not owe the growth of wine
To the dry shabby crooked vine? 420
Which, while its shoots neglected stood,
Chok'd other plants, and ran to wood;
But blest us with its noble fruit,
As soon as it was ty'd and cut:
So vice is beneficial found, 425
When it's by justice lopp'd and bound;
Nay, where the people would be great, }
As necessary to the state, }
As hunger is to make 'em eat. }
Bare virtue can't make nations live 430
In splendor; they, that would revive
A golden age, must be as free,
For acorns as for honesty. 433
THE
INTRODUCTION.
One of the greatest reasons why so few people understand themselves,
is, that most writers are always teaching men what they should be,
and hardly ever trouble their heads with telling them what they really
are. As for my part, without any compliment to the courteous reader,
or myself, I believe man (besides skin, flesh, bones, &c. that are
obvious to the eye) to be a compound of various passions; that all of
them, as they are provoked and come uppermost, govern him by turns,
whether he will or no. To show that these qualifications, which we
all pretend to be ashamed of, are the great support of a flourishing
society, has been the subject of the foregoing poem. But there being
some passages in it seemingly paradoxical, I have in the preface
promised some explanatory remarks on it; which, to render more useful,
I have thought fit to inquire, how man, no better qualified, might yet
by his own imperfections be taught to distinguish between virtue and
vice: and here I must desire the reader once for all to take notice,
that when I say men, I mean neither Jews nor Christians; but mere man,
in the state of nature and ignorance of the true Deity.
AN
INQUIRY
INTO THE
ORIGIN OF MORAL VIRTUE.
All untaught animals are only solicitous of pleasing themselves,
and naturally follow the bent of their own inclinations, without
considering the good or harm that, from their being pleased, will
accrue to others. This is the reason that, in the wild state of
nature, those creatures are fittest to live peaceably together in
great numbers, that discover the least of understanding, and have the
fewest appetites to gratify; and consequently no species of animals
is, without the curb of government, less capable of agreeing long
together in multitudes, than that of man; yet such are his qualities,
whether good or bad I shall not determine, that no creature besides
himself can ever be made sociable: but being an extraordinary selfish
and headstrong, as well as cunning animal, however he may be subdued
by superior strength, it is impossible by force alone to make him
tractable, and receive the improvements he is capable of.
The chief thing, therefore, which lawgivers, and other wise men that
have laboured for the establishment of society, have endeavoured,
has been to make the people they were to govern, believe, that
it was more beneficial for every body to conquer than indulge his
appetites, and much better to mind the public than what seemed his
private interest. As this has always been a very difficult task,
so no wit or eloquence has been left untried to compass it; and the
moralists and philosophers of all ages employed their utmost skill to
prove the truth of so useful an assertion. But whether mankind would
have ever believed it or not, it is not likely that any body could
have persuaded them to disapprove of their natural inclinations,
or prefer the good of others to their own, if, at the same time,
he had not showed them an equivalent to be enjoyed as a reward for
the violence, which, by so doing, they of necessity must commit upon
themselves. Those that have undertaken to civilize mankind, were
not ignorant of this; but being unable to give so many real rewards
as would satisfy all persons for every individual action, they were
forced to contrive an imaginary one, that, as a general equivalent
for the trouble of self-denial, should serve on all occasions, and
without costing any thing either to themselves or others, be yet a
most acceptable recompence to the receivers.
They thoroughly examined all the strength and frailties of our nature,
and observing that none were either so savage as not to be charmed
with praise, or so despicable as patiently to bear contempt, justly
concluded, that flattery must be the most powerful argument that could
be used to human creatures. Making use of this bewitching engine, they
extolled the excellency of our nature above other animals, and setting
forth with unbounded praises the wonders of our sagacity and vastness
of understanding, bestowed a thousand encomiums on the rationality
of our souls, by the help of which we were capable of performing
the most noble achievements. Having, by this artful way of flattery,
insinuated themselves into the hearts of men, they began to instruct
them in the notions of honour and shame; representing the one as the
worst of all evils, and the other as the highest good to which mortals
could aspire: which being done, they laid before them how unbecoming
it was the dignity of such sublime creatures to be solicitous about
gratifying those appetites, which they had in common with brutes, and
at the same time unmindful of those higher qualities that gave them
the pre-eminence over all visible beings. They indeed confessed, that
those impulses of nature were very pressing; that it was troublesome to
resist, and very difficult wholly to subdue them. But this they only
used as an argument to demonstrate, how glorious the conquest of them
was on the one hand, and how scandalous on the other not to attempt it.
To introduce, moreover, an emulation amongst men, they divided the
whole species into two classes, vastly differing from one another:
the one consisted of abject, low-minded people, that always hunting
after immediate enjoyment, were wholly incapable of self-denial,
and without regard to the good of others, had no higher aim than
their private advantage; such as being enslaved by voluptuousness,
yielded without resistance to every gross desire, and make no use of
their rational faculties but to heighten their sensual pleasure. These
wild grovelling wretches, they said, were the dross of their kind,
and having only the shape of men, differed from brutes in nothing
but their outward figure. But the other class was made up of
lofty high-spirited creatures, that, free from sordid selfishness,
esteemed the improvements of the mind to be their fairest possessions;
and, setting a true value upon themselves, took no delight but in
embellishing that part in which their excellency consisted; such
as despising whatever they had in common with irrational creatures,
opposed by the help of reason their most violent inclinations; and
making a continual war with themselves, to promote the peace of others,
aimed at no less than the public welfare, and the conquest of their
own passion.
Fortior est qui se quàm qui fortissima Vincit
Moenia ---- ----
These they called the true representatives of their sublime species,
exceeding in worth the first class by more degrees, than that itself
was superior to the beasts of the field.
As in all animals that are not too imperfect to discover pride,
we find, that the finest, and such as are the most beautiful and
valuable of their kind, have generally the greatest share of it; so
in man, the most perfect of animals, it is so inseparable from his
very essence (how cunningly soever some may learn to hide or disguise
it), that without it the compound he is made of would want one of
the chiefest ingredients: which, if we consider, it is hardly to be
doubted but lessons and remonstrances, so skilfully adapted to the
good opinion man has of himself, as those I have mentioned, must,
if scattered amongst a multitude, not only gain the assent of most
of them, as to the speculative part, but likewise induce several,
especially the fiercest, most resolute, and best among them, to
endure a thousand inconveniences, and undergo as many hardships,
that they may have the pleasure of counting themselves men of the
second class, and consequently appropriating to themselves all the
excellencies they have heard of it.
From what has been said, we ought to expect, in the first place, that
the heroes who took such extraordinary pains to master some of their
natural appetites, and preferred the good of others to any visible
interest of their own, would not recede an inch from the fine notions
they had received concerning the dignity of rational creatures; and
having ever the authority of the government on their side, with all
imaginable vigour assert the esteem that was due to those of the second
class, as well as their superiority over the rest of their kind. In
the second, that those who wanted a sufficient stock of either pride
or resolution, to buoy them up in mortifying of what was dearest to
them, followed the sensual dictates of nature, would yet be ashamed of
confessing themselves to be those despicable wretches that belonged
to the inferior class, and were generally reckoned to be so little
removed from brutes; and that therefore, in their own defence, they
would say, as others did, and hiding their own imperfections as well
as they could, cry up self-denial and public spiritedness as much
as any: for it is highly probable, that some of them, convinced by
the real proofs of fortitude and self-conquest they had seen, would
admire in others what they found wanting in themselves; others be
afraid of the resolution and prowess of those of the second class,
and that all of them were kept in awe by the power of their rulers;
wherefore is it reasonable to think, that none of them (whatever they
thought in themselves) would dare openly contradict, what by every
body else was thought criminal to doubt of.
This was (or at least might have been) the manner after which savage
man was broke; from whence it is evident, that the first rudiments
of morality, broached by skilful politicians, to render men useful
to each other, as well as tractable, were chiefly contrived, that
the ambitious might reap the more benefit from, and govern vast
numbers of them with the greater ease and security. This foundation
of politics being once laid, it is impossible that man should long
remain uncivilized: for even those who only strove to gratify their
appetites, being continually crossed by others of the same stamp,
could not but observe, that whenever they checked their inclinations
or but followed them with more circumspection, they avoided a world
of troubles, and often escaped many of the calamities that generally
attended the too eager pursuit after pleasure.
First, they received, as well as others, the benefit of those actions
that were done for the good of the whole society, and consequently
could not forbear wishing well to those of the superior class that
performed them. Secondly, the more intent they were in seeking their
own advantage, without regard to others, the more they were hourly
convinced, that none stood so much in their way as those that were
most like themselves.
It being the interest then of the very worst of them, more than any,
to preach up public-spiritedness, that they might reap the fruits of
the labour and self-denial of others, and at the same time indulge
their own appetites with less disturbance, they agreed with the
rest, to call every thing, which, without regard to the public,
man should commit to gratify any of his appetites, vice; if in that
action there could be observed the least prospect, that it might
either be injurious to any of the society, or ever render himself
less serviceable to others: and to give the name of virtue to every
performance, by which man, contrary to the impulse of nature, should
endeavour the benefit of others, or the conquest of his own passions,
out of a rational ambition of being good.
It shall be objected, that no society was ever any ways civilized
before the major part had agreed upon some worship or other of an
over-ruling power, and consequently that the notions of good and evil,
and the distinction between virtue and vice, were never the contrivance
of politicians, but the pure effect of religion. Before I answer
this objection, I must repeat what I have said already, that in this
inquiry into the origin of moral virtue, I speak neither of Jews or
Christians, but man in his state of nature and ignorance of the true
Deity; and then I affirm, that the idolatrous superstitions of all
other nations, and the pitiful notions they had of the Supreme Being,
were incapable of exciting man to virtue, and good for nothing but
to awe and amuse a rude and unthinking multitude. It is evident from
history, that in all considerable societies, how stupid or ridiculous
soever people's received notions have been, as to the deities they
worshipped, human nature has ever exerted itself in all its branches,
and that there is no earthly wisdom or moral virtue, but at one time
or other men have excelled in it in all monarchies and commonwealths,
that for riches and power have been any ways remarkable.
The Egyptians, not satisfied with having deified all the ugly
monsters they could think on, were so silly as to adore the onions
of their own sowing; yet at the same time their country was the most
famous nursery of arts and sciences in the world, and themselves more
eminently skilled in the deepest mysteries of nature than any nation
has been since.
No states or kingdoms under heaven have yielded more or greater
patterns in all sorts of moral virtues, than the Greek and Roman
empires, more especially the latter; and yet how loose, absurd and
ridiculous were their sentiments as to sacred matters? For without
reflecting on the extravagant number of their deities, if we only
consider the infamous stories they fathered upon them, it is not to
be denied but that their religion, far from teaching men the conquest
of their passions, and the way to virtue, seemed rather contrived to
justify their appetites, and encourage their vices. But if we would
know what made them excel in fortitude, courage, and magnanimity, we
must cast our eyes on the pomp of their triumphs, the magnificence of
their monuments and arches; their trophies, statues, and inscriptions;
the variety of their military crowns, their honours decreed to the
dead, public encomiums on the living, and other imaginary rewards
they bestowed on men of merit; and we shall find, that what carried
so many of them to the utmost pitch of self-denial, was nothing but
their policy in making use of the most effectual means that human
pride could be flattered with.
It is visible, then, that it was not any heathen religion, or other
idolatrous superstition, that first put man upon crossing his appetites
and subduing his dearest inclinations, but the skilful management
of wary politicians; and the nearer we search into human nature, the
more we shall be convinced, that the moral virtues are the political
offspring which flattery begot upon pride.
There is no man, of what capacity or penetration soever, that is wholly
proof against the witchcraft of flattery, if artfully performed, and
suited to his abilities. Children and fools will swallow personal
praise, but those that are more cunning, must be managed with much
greater circumspection; and the more general the flattery is, the
less it is suspected by those it is levelled at. What you say in
commendation of a whole town is received with pleasure by all the
inhabitants: speak in commendation of letters in general, and every
man of learning will think himself in particular obliged to you. You
may safely praise the employment a man is of, or the country he was
born in; because you give him an opportunity of screening the joy
he feels upon his own account, under the esteem which he pretends to
have for others.
It is common among cunning men, that understand the power which
flattery has upon pride, when they are afraid they shall be imposed
upon, to enlarge, though much against their conscience, upon the
honour, fair dealing, and integrity of the family, country, or
sometimes the profession of him they suspect; because they know
that men often will change their resolution, and act against their
inclination, that they may have the pleasure of continuing to appear in
the opinion of some, what they are conscious not to be in reality. Thus
sagacious moralists draw men like angels, in hopes that the pride at
least of some will put them upon copying after the beautiful originals
which they are represented to be.
When the incomparable Sir Richard Steele, in the usual elegance of
his easy style, dwells on the praises of his sublime species, and
with all the embellishments of rhetoric, sets forth the excellency
of human nature, it is impossible not to be charmed with his happy
turns of thought, and the politeness of his expressions. But though
I have been often moved by the force of his eloquence, and ready to
swallow the ingenious sophistry with pleasure, yet I could, never
be so serious, but, reflecting on his artful encomiums, I thought
on the tricks made use of by the women that would teach children
to be mannerly. When an awkward girl before she can either speak
or go, begins after many entreaties to make the first rude essays
of curtseying, the nurse falls in an ecstacy of praise; "There is a
delicate curtsey! O fine Miss! there is a pretty lady! Mamma! Miss
can make a better curtsey than her sister Molly!" The same is echoed
over by the maids, whilst Mamma almost hugs the child to pieces;
only Miss Molly, who being four years older, knows how to make a very
handsome curtsey, wonders at the perverseness of their judgment, and
swelling with indignation, is ready to cry at the injustice that is
done her, till, being whispered in the ear that it is only to please
the baby, and that she is a woman, she grows proud at being let into
the secret, and rejoicing at the superiority of her understanding,
repeats what has been said with large additions, and insults over
the weakness of her sister, whom all this while she fancies to be the
only bubble among them. These extravagant praises would by any one,
above the capacity of an infant, be called fulsome flatteries, and,
if you will, abominable lies; yet experience teaches us, that by
the help of such gross encomiums, young misses will be brought to
make pretty curtesies, and behave themselves womanly much sooner,
and with less trouble, than they would without them. It is the same
with boys, whom they will strive to persuade, that all fine gentlemen
do as they are bid, and that none but beggar boys are rude, or dirty
their clothes; nay, as soon as the wild brat with his untaught fist
begins to fumble for his hat, the mother, to make him pull it off,
tells him before he is two years old, that he is a man; and if he
repeats that action when she desires him, he is presently a captain,
a lord mayor, a king, or something higher if she can think of it,
till edged on by the force of praise, the little urchin endeavours
to imitate man as well as he can, and strains all his faculties to
appear what his shallow noddle imagines he is believed to be.
The meanest wretch puts an inestimable value upon himself, and the
highest wish of the ambitious man is to have all the world, as to
that particular, of his opinion: so that the most insatiable thirst
after fame that ever heroe was inspired with, was never more than an
ungovernable greediness to engross the esteem and admiration of others
in future ages as well as his own; and (what mortification soever this
truth might be to the second thoughts of an Alexander or a Cæsar) the
great recompense in view, for which the most exalted minds have with
so much alacrity sacrificed their quiet, health, sensual pleasures,
and every inch of themselves, has never been any thing else but the
breath of man, the aerial coin of praise. Who can forbear laughing
when he thinks on all the great men that have been so serious on
the subject of that Macedonian madman, his capacious soul, that
mighty heart, in one corner of which, according to Lorenzo Gratian,
the world was so commodiously lodged, that in the whole there was
room for six more? Who can forbear laughing, I say, when he compares
the fine things that have been said of Alexander, with the end he
proposed to himself from his vast exploits, to be proved from his
own mouth; when the vast pains he took to pass the Hydaspes forced
him to cry out? Oh ye Athenians, could you believe what dangers I
expose myself to, to be praised by you! To define then, the reward
of glory in the amplest manner, the most that can be said of it,
is, that it consists in a superlative felicity which a man, who is
conscious of having performed a noble action, enjoys in self-love,
whilst he is thinking on the applause he expects of others.
But here I shall be told, that besides the noisy toils of war and
public bustle of the ambitious, there are noble and generous actions
that are performed in silence; that virtue being its own reward, those
who are really good, have a satisfaction in their consciousness of
being so, which is all the recompence they expect from the most worthy
performances; that among the heathens there have been men, who, when
they did good to others, were so far from coveting thanks and applause,
that they took all imaginable care to be for ever concealed from those
on whom they bestowed their benefits, and consequently that pride
has no hand in spurring man on to the highest pitch of self-denial.
In answer to this, I say, that it is impossible to judge of a man's
performance, unless we are thoroughly acquainted with the principle
and motive from which he acts. Pity, though it is the most gentle and
the least mischievous of all our passions, is yet as much a frailty of
our nature, as anger, pride, or fear. The weakest minds have generally
the greatest share of it, for which reason none are more compassionate
than women and children. It must be owned, that of all our weaknesses,
it is the most amiable, and bears the greatest resemblance to virtue;
nay, without a considerable mixture of it, the society could hardly
subsist: but as it is an impulse of nature, that consults neither the
public interest nor our own reason, it may produce evil as well as
good. It has helped to destroy the honour of virgins, and corrupted
the integrity of judges; and whoever acts from it as a principle,
what good soever he may bring to the society, has nothing to boast of,
but that he has indulged a passion that has happened to be beneficial
to the public. There is no merit in saving an innocent babe ready
to drop into the fire: the action is neither good nor bad, and
what benefit soever the infant received, we only obliged ourselves;
for to have seen it fall, and not strove to hinder it, would have
caused a pain, which self preservation compelled us to prevent: Nor
has a rich prodigal, that happens to be of a commiserating temper,
and loves to gratify his passions, greater virtue to boast of, when
he relieves an object of compassion with what to himself is a trifle.
But such men, as without complying with any weakness of their own,
can part from what they value themselves, and, from no other motive
but there love to goodness, perform a worthy action in silence:
such men, I confess, have acquired more refined notions of virtue
than those I have hitherto spoke of; yet even in these (with which
the world has yet never swarmed) we may discover no small symptoms
of pride, and the humblest man alive must confess, that the reward
of a virtuous action, which is the satisfaction that ensues upon it,
consists in a certain pleasure he procures to himself by contemplating
on his own worth: which pleasure, together with the occasion of it,
are as certain signs of pride, as looking pale and trembling at any
imminent danger, are the symptoms of fear.
If the too scrupulous reader should at first view condemn these notions
concerning the origin of moral virtue, and think them perhaps offensive
to Christianity, I hope he will forbear his censures, when he shall
consider, that nothing can render the unsearchable depth of the Divine
Wisdom more conspicuous, than that man, whom Providence had designed
for society, should not only by his own frailties and imperfections,
be led into the road to temporal happiness, but likewise receive, from
a seeming necessity of natural causes, a tincture of that knowledge,
in which he was afterwards to be made perfect by the true religion,
to his eternal welfare.
REMARKS.
Line 45. Whilst others follow'd mysteries,
To which few folks bind 'prentices.
In the education of youth, in order to their getting of a livelihood
when they shall be arrived at maturity, most people look out for some
warrantable employment or other, of which there are whole bodies or
companies, in every large society of men. By this means, all arts
and sciences, as well as trades and handicrafts, are perpetuated in
the commonwealth, as long as they are found useful; the young ones
that are daily brought up to them, continually supplying the loss of
the old ones that die. But some of these employments being vastly
more creditable than others, according to the great difference of
the charges required to set up in each of them, all prudent parents,
in the choice of them, chiefly consult their own abilities, and the
circumstances they are in. A man that gives three or four hundred
pounds with his son to a great merchant, and has not two or three
thousand pounds to spare against he is out of his time to begin
business with, is much to blame not to have brought his child up to
something that might be followed with less money.
There are abundance of men of a genteel education, that have but very
small revenues, and yet are forced, by their reputable callings, to
make a greater figure than ordinary people of twice their income. If
these have any children, it often happens, that as their indigence
renders them incapable of bringing them up to creditable occupations,
so their pride makes them unwilling to put them out to any of the
mean laborious trades, and then, in hopes either of an alteration
in their fortune, or that some friends, or favourable opportunity
shall offer, they from time to time put off the disposing of them,
until insensibly they come to be of age, and are at last brought up
to nothing. Whether this neglect be more barbarous to the children,
or prejudicial to the society, I shall not determine. At Athens all
children were forced to assist their parents, if they came to want:
But Solon made a law, that no son should be obliged to relieve his
father, who had not bred him up to any calling.
Some parents put out their sons to good trades very suitable to their
then present abilities, but happen to die, or fail in the world,
before their children have finished their apprenticeships, or are
made fit for the business they are to follow: A great many young men
again, on the other hand, are handsomely provided for and set up for
themselves, that yet (some for want of industry, or else a sufficient
knowledge in their callings, others by indulging their pleasures,
and some few by misfortunes) are reduced to poverty, and altogether
unable to maintain themselves by the business they were brought
up to. It is impossible but that the neglects, mismanagements, and
misfortunes I named, must very frequently happen in populous places,
and consequently great numbers of people be daily flung unprovided
for into the wide world, how rich and potent a commonwealth may be,
or what care soever a government may take to hinder it. How must
these people be disposed of? The sea, I know, and armies, which the
world is seldom without, will take off some. Those that are honest
drudges, and of a laborious temper, will become journeymen to the
trades they are of, or enter into some other service: such of them
as studied and were sent to the university, may become schoolmasters,
tutors, and some few of them get into some office or other: But what
must become of the lazy, that care for no manner of working, and the
fickle, that hate to be confined to any thing?
Those that ever took delight in plays and romances, and have a spice
of gentility, will, in all probability, throw their eyes upon the
stage, and if they have a good elocution, with tolerable mien, turn
actors. Some that love their bellies above any thing else, if they
have a good palate, and a little knack at cookery, will strive to get
in with gluttons and epicures, learn to cringe and bear all manner of
usage, and so turn parasites, ever flattering the master, and making
mischief among the rest of the family. Others, who by their own and
companions lewdness, judge of people's incontinence, will naturally
fall to intriguing, and endeavour to live by pimping for such as
either want leisure or address to speak for themselves. Those of the
most abandoned principles of all, if they are sly and dexterous, turn
sharpers, pick-pockets, or coiners, if their skill and ingenuity give
them leave. Others again, that have observed the credulity of simple
women, and other foolish people, if they have impudence and a little
cunning, either set up for doctors, or else pretend to tell fortunes;
and every one turning the vices and frailties of others to his own
advantage, endeavours to pick up a living the easiest and shortest
way his talents and abilities will let him.
These are certainly the bane of civil society; but they are fools,
who, not considering what has been said, storm at the remissness of
the laws that suffer them to live, while wise men content themselves
with taking all imaginable care not to be circumvented by them,
without quarrelling at what no human prudence can prevent.
Line 55. These we call'd Knaves, but bar the name,
The grave industrious were the same.
This, I confess, is but a very indifferent compliment to all the
trading part of the people. But if the word Knave may be understood
in its full latitude, and comprehend every body that is not sincerely
honest, and does to others what he would dislike to have done to
himself, I do not question but I shall make good the charge. To pass
by the innumerable artifices, by which buyers and sellers outwit one
another, that are daily allowed of and practised among the fairest of
dealers, show me the tradesmen that has always discovered the defects
of his goods to those that cheapened them; nay, where will you find
one that has not at one time or other industriously concealed them,
to the detriment of the buyer? Where is the merchant that has never,
against his conscience, extolled his wares beyond their worth, to
make them go off the better.
Decio, a man of great figure, that had large commissions for sugar
from several parts beyond sea, treats about a considerable parcel
of that commodity with Alcander, an eminent West India merchant;
both understood the market very well, but could not agree: Decio was
a man of substance, and thought no body ought to buy cheaper than
himself; Alcander was the same, and not wanting money, stood for his
price. While they were driving their bargain at a tavern near the
exchange, Alcander's man brought his master a letter from the West
Indies, that informed him of a much greater quantity of sugars coming
for England than was expected. Alcander now wished for nothing more
than to sell at Decio's price, before the news was public; but being
a cunning fox, that he might not seem too precipitant, nor yet lose
his customer, he drops the discourse they were upon, and putting
on a jovial humour, commends the agreeableness of the weather, from
whence falling upon the delight he took in his gardens, invites Decio
to go along with him to his country house, that was not above twelve
miles from London. It was in the month of May, and, as it happened,
upon a Saturday in the afternoon: Decio, who was a single man, and
would have no business in town before Tuesday, accepts of the other's
civility, and away they go in Alcander's coach. Decio was splendidly
entertained that night and the day following; the Monday morning,
to get himself an appetite, he goes to take the air upon a pad of
Alcander's, and coming back meets with a gentleman of his acquaintance,
who tells him news was come the night before that the Barbadoes fleet
was destroyed by a storm, and adds, that before he came out it had
been confirmed at Lloyd's coffee house, where it was thought sugars
would rise 25 per cent, by change-time. Decio returns to his friend,
and immediately resumes the discourse they had broke off at the tavern:
Alcander, who thinking himself sure of his chap, did not design to
have moved it till after dinner, was very glad to see himself so
happily prevented; but how desirous soever he was to sell, the other
was yet more eager to buy; yet both of them afraid of one another,
for a considerable time counterfeited all the indifference imaginable;
until at last, Decio fired with what he had heard, thought delays
might prove dangerous, and throwing a guinea upon the table, struck
the bargain at Alcander's price. The next day they went to London;
the news proved true, and Decio got five hundred pounds by his sugars,
Alcander, whilst he had strove to over-reach the other, was paid in his
own coin: yet all this is called fair dealing; but I am sure neither
of them would have desired to be done by, as they did to each other.
Line 101. The soldiers that were forc'd to fight,
If they surviv'd got honour by't.
So unaccountable is the desire to be thought well of in men, that
though they are dragged into the war against their will, and some
of them for their crimes, and are compelled to fight with threats,
and often blows, yet they would be esteemed for what they would have
avoided, if it had been in their power: whereas, if reason in man
was of equal weight with his pride, he could never be pleased with
praises, which he is conscious he does not deserve.
By honour, in its proper and genuine signification, we mean nothing
else but the good opinion of others, which is counted more or less
substantial, the more or less noise or bustle there is made about the
demonstration of it; and when we say the sovereign is the fountain of
honour, it signifies that he has the power, by titles or ceremonies,
or both together, to stamp a mark upon whom he pleases, that shall
be as current as his coin, and procure the owner the good opinion of
every body, whether he deserves it or not.
The reverse of honour is dishonour, or ignominy, which consists in
the bad opinion and contempt of others; and as the first is counted
a reward for good actions, so this is esteemed a punishment for bad
ones; and the more or less public or heinous the manner is in which
this contempt of others is shown, the more or less the person so
suffering is degraded by it. This ignominy is likewise called shame,
from the effect it produces; for though the good and evil of honour
and dishonour are imaginary, yet there is a reality in shame, as it
signifies a passion, that has its proper symptoms, over-rules our
reason, and requires as much labour and self-denial to be subdued, as
any of the rest; and since the most important actions of life often
are regulated according to the influence this passion has upon us,
a thorough understanding of it must help to illustrate the notions
the world has of honour and ignominy. I shall therefore describe it
at large.
First, to define the passion of shame, I think it may be called
a sorrowful reflection on our own unworthiness, proceeding from
an apprehension that others either do, or might, if they knew all,
deservedly despise us. The only objection of weight that can be raised
against this definition is, that innocent virgins are often ashamed,
and blush when they are guilty of no crime, and can give no manner of
reason for this frailty: and that men are often ashamed for others,
for, or with whom, they have neither friendship or affinity, and
consequently that there may be a thousand instances of shame given, to
which the words of the definition are not applicable. To answer this,
I would have it first considered, that the modesty of women is the
result of custom and education, by which all unfashionable denudations
and filthy expressions are rendered frightful and abominable to them,
and that notwithstanding this, the most virtuous young woman alive
will often, in spite of her teeth, have thoughts and confused ideas
of things arise in her imagination, which she would not reveal to
some people for a thousand worlds. Then, I say, that when obscene
words are spoken in the presence of an unexperienced virgin, she is
afraid that some body will reckon her to understand what they mean, and
consequently that she understands this, and that, and several things,
which she desires to be thought ignorant of. The reflecting on this,
and that thoughts are forming to her disadvantage, brings upon her
that passion which we call shame; and whatever can sting her, though
never so remote from lewdness, upon that set of thoughts I hinted,
and which she thinks criminal, will have the same effect, especially
before men, as long as her modesty lasts.
To try the truth of this, let them talk as much bawdy as they please
in the room next to the same virtuous young woman, where she is sure
that she is undiscovered, and she will hear, if not hearken to it,
without blushing at all, because then she looks upon herself as no
party concerned; and if the discourse should stain her cheeks with red,
whatever her innocence may imagine, it is certain that what occasions
her colour, is a passion not half so mortifying as that of shame;
but if, in the same place, she hears something said of herself that
must tend to her disgrace, or any thing is named, of which she is
secretly guilty, then it is ten to one but she will be ashamed and
blush, though nobody sees her; because she has room to fear, that
she is, or, if all was known, should be thought of contemptibly.
That we are often ashamed, and blush for others, which was the second
part of the objection, is nothing else but that sometimes we make
the case of others too nearly our own; so people shriek out when
they see others in danger: Whilst we are reflecting with too much
earnest on the effect which such a blameable action, if it was ours,
would produce in us, the spirits, and consequently the blood, are
insensibly moved, after the same manner as if the action was our own,
and so the same symptoms must appear.
The shame that raw, ignorant, and ill-bred people, though seemingly
without a cause, discover before their betters, is always accompanied
with, and proceeds from a consciousness of their weakness and
inabilities; and the most modest man, how virtuous, knowing, and
accomplished soever he might be, was never yet ashamed without some
guilt or diffidence. Such as out of rusticity, and want of education
are unreasonably subject to, and at every turn overcome by this
passion, we call bashful; and those who out of disrespect to others,
and a false opinion of their own sufficiency, have learned not to
be affected with it, when they should be, are called impudent or
shameless. What strange contradictions man is made of! The reverse
of shame is pride, (see Remark on l. 182) yet no body can be touched
with the first, that never felt any thing of the latter; for that
we have such an extraordinary concern in what others think of us,
can proceed from nothing but the vast esteem we have of ourselves.
That these two passions, in which the seeds of most virtues are
contained, are realities in our frame, and not imaginary qualities,
is demonstrable from the plain and different effects, that, in spite of
our reason, are produced in us as soon as we are affected with either.
When a man is overwhelmed with shame, he observes a sinking of the
spirits! the heart feels cold and condensed, and the blood flies
from it to the circumference of the body; the face glows, the neck
and part of the breast partake of the fire: he is heavy as lead;
the head is hung down, and the eyes through a mist of confusion are
fixed on the ground: no injuries can move him; he is weary of his
being, and heartily wishes he could make himself invisible: but when,
gratifying his vanity, he exults in his pride, he discovers quite
contrary symptoms; his spirits swell and fan the arterial blood;
a more than ordinary warmth strengthens and dilates the heart;
the extremities are cool; he feels light to himself, and imagines
he could tread on air; his head is held up, his eyes rolled about
with sprightliness; he rejoices at his being, is prone to anger,
and would be glad that all the world could take notice of him.
It is incredible how necessary an ingredient shame is to make us
sociable; it is a frailty in our nature; all the world, whenever
it affects them, submit to it with regret, and would prevent it
if they could; yet the happiness of conversation depends upon it,
and no society could be polished, if the generality of mankind were
not subject to it. As, therefore, the sense of shame is troublesome,
and all creatures are ever labouring for their own defence, it is
probable, that man striving to avoid this uneasiness, would, in a great
measure, conquer his shame by that he was grown up; but this would be
detrimental to the society, and therefore from his infancy, throughout
his education, we endeavour to increase, instead of lessening or
destroying this sense of shame; and the only remedy prescribed, is a
strict observance of certain rules, to avoid those things that might
bring this troublesome sense of shame upon him. But as to rid or cure
him of it, the politician would sooner take away his life.
The rules I speak of, consist in a dextrous management of ourselves,
a stifling of our appetites, and hiding the real sentiments of
our hearts before others. Those who are not instructed in these
rules long before they come to years of maturity, seldom make any
progress in them afterwards. To acquire and bring to perfection the
accomplishment I hint at, nothing is more assisting than pride and
good sense. The greediness we have after the esteem of others, and the
raptures we enjoy in the thoughts of being liked, and perhaps admired,
are equivalents that over-pay the conquest of the strongest passions,
and consequently keep us at a great distance from all such words or
actions that can bring shame upon us. The passions we chiefly ought
to hide, for the happiness and embellishment of the society, are lust,
pride, and selfishness; therefore the word modesty has three different
acceptations, that vary with the passions it conceals.
As to the first, I mean the branch of modesty, that has a general
pretension to chastity for its object, it consists in a sincere and
painful endeavour, with all our faculties, to stifle and conceal before
others, that inclination which nature has given us to propagate our
species. The lessons of it, like those of grammar, are taught us
long before we have occasion for, or understand the usefulness of
them; for this reason children often are ashamed, and blush out of
modesty, before the impulse of nature I hint at makes any impression
upon them. A girl who is modestly educated, may, before she is two
years old, begin to observe how careful the women she converses with,
are of covering themselves before men; and the same caution being
inculcated to her by precept, as well as example, it is very probable
that at six she will be ashamed of showing her leg, without knowing
any reason why such an act is blameable, or what the tendency of it is.
To be modest, we ought, in the first place, to avoid all unfashionable
denudations: a woman is not to be found fault with for going with
her neck bare, if the custom of the country allows of it; and when
the mode orders the stays to be cut very low, a blooming virgin may,
without fear of rational censure, show all the world:
How firm her pouting breasts, that white as snow,
On th' ample chest at mighty distance grow.
But to suffer her ancle to be seen, where it is the fashion for
women to hide their very feet, is a breach of modesty; and she
is impudent, who shows half her face in a country where decency
bids her to be veiled. In the second, our language must be chaste,
and not only free, but remote from obscenities, that is, whatever
belongs to the multiplication of our species is not to be spoke of,
and the least word or expression, that, though at a great distance,
has any relation to that performance, ought never to come from our
lips. Thirdly, all postures and motions that can any ways sully the
imagination, that is, put us in mind of what I have called obscenities,
are to be forbore with great caution.
A young woman, moreover, that would be thought well-bred, ought to
be circumspect before men in all her behaviour, and never known to
receive from, much less to bestow favours upon them, unless the great
age of the man, near consanguinity, or a vast superiority on either
side, plead her excuse. A young lady of refined education keeps a
strict guard over her looks, as well as actions, and in her eyes we
may read a consciousness that she has a treasure about her, not out
of danger of being lost, and which yet she is resolved not to part
with at any terms. Thousand satires have been made against prudes, and
as many encomiums to extol the careless graces, and negligent air of
virtuous beauty. But the wiser sort of mankind are well assured, that
the free and open countenance of the smiling fair, is more inviting,
and yields greater hopes to the seducer, than the ever-watchful look
of a forbidding eye.
This strict reservedness is to be complied with by all young women,
especially virgins, if they value the esteem of the polite and knowing
world; men may take greater liberty, because in them the appetite is
more violent and ungovernable. Had equal harshness of discipline been
imposed upon both, neither of them could have made the first advances,
and propagation must have stood still among all the fashionable people:
which being far from the politician's aim, it was advisable to ease
and indulge the sex that suffered most by the severity, and make the
rules abate of their rigour, where the passion was the strongest, and
the burden of a strict restraint would have been the most intolerable.
For this reason, the man is allowed openly to profess the veneration
and great esteem he has for women, and show greater satisfaction, more
mirth and gaiety in their company, than he is used to do out of it. He
may not only be complaisant and serviceable to them on all occasions,
but it is reckoned his duty to protect and defend them. He may praise
the good qualities they are possessed of, and extol their merit with as
many exaggerations as his invention will let him, and are consistent
with good sense. He may talk of love, he may sigh and complain of the
rigours of the fair, and what his tongue must not utter he has the
privilege to speak with his eyes, and in that language to say what
he pleases; so it be done with decency, and short abrupted glances:
but too closely to pursue a woman, and fasten upon her with ones eyes,
is counted very unmannerly; the reason is plain, it makes her uneasy,
and, if she be not sufficiently fortified by art and dissimulation,
often throws her into visible disorders. As the eyes are the windows
of the soul, so this staring impudence flings a raw, unexperienced
woman, into panic fears, that she may be seen through; and that the
man will discover, or has already betrayed, what passes within her:
it keeps her on a perpetual rack, that commands her to reveal her
secret wishes, and seems designed to extort from her the grand truth,
which modesty bids her with all her faculties to deny.
The multitude will hardly believe the excessive force of education,
and in the difference of modesty between men and women, ascribe that
to nature which is altogether owing to early instruction: Miss is
scarce three years old, but she is spoke to every day to hide her leg,
and rebuked in good earnest if she shows it; while little Master at
the same age is bid to take up his coats, and piss like a man. It is
shame and education that contains the seeds of all politeness, and
he that has neither, and offers to speak the truth of his heart, and
what he feels within, is the most contemptible creature upon earth,
though he committed no other fault. If a man should tell a woman,
that he could like no body so well to propagate his species upon, as
herself, and that he found a violent desire that moment to go about
it, and accordingly offered to lay hold of her for that purpose; the
consequence would be, that he would be called a brute, the woman would
run away, and himself be never admitted in any civil company. There is
no body that has any sense of shame, but would conquer the strongest
passion rather than be so served. But a man need not conquer his
passions, it is sufficient that he conceals them. Virtue bids us
subdue, but good breeding only requires we should hide our appetites. A
fashionable gentleman may have as violent an inclination to a woman
as the brutish fellow; but then he behaves himself quite otherwise;
he first addresses the lady's father, and demonstrates his ability
splendidly to maintain his daughter; upon this he is admitted into
her company, where, by flattery, submission, presents, and assiduity,
he endeavours to procure her liking to his person, which if he can
compass, the lady in a little while resigns herself to him before
witnesses in a most solemn manner; at night they go to bed together,
where the most reserved virgin very tamely suffers him to do what he
pleases, and the upshot is, that he obtains what he wanted without
ever having asked for it.
The next day they receive visits, and no body laughs at them, or
speaks a word of what they have been doing. As to the young couple
themselves, they take no more notice of one another, I speak of
well-bred people, than they did the day before; they eat and drink,
divert themselves as usually, and having done nothing to be ashamed
of, are looked upon as, what in reality they may be, the most modest
people upon earth. What I mean by this, is to demonstrate, that by
being well-bred, we suffer no abridgement in our sensual pleasures,
but only labour for our mutual happiness, and assist each other in
the luxurious enjoyment of all worldly comforts. The fine gentleman
I spoke of need not practise any greater self-denial than the savage,
and the latter acted more according to the laws of nature and sincerity
than the first. The man that gratifies his appetites after the manner
the custom of the country allows of, has no censure to fear. If he is
hotter than goats or bulls, as soon as the ceremony is over, let him
sate and fatigue himself with joy and ecstacies of pleasure, raise and
indulge his appetites by turns, as extravagantly as his strength and
manhood will give him leave, he may with safety laugh at the wise men
that should reprove him: all the women, and above nine in ten of the
men are of his side; nay, he has the liberty of valuing himself upon
the fury of his unbridled passion, and the more he wallows in lust,
and strains every faculty to be abandonedly voluptuous, the sooner
he shall have the good-will and gain the affection of the women,
not the young, vain, and lascivious only, but the prudent, grave,
and most sober matrons.
Because impudence is a vice, it does not follow that modesty is
a virtue; it is built upon shame, a passion in our nature, and
may be either good or bad according to the actions performed from
that motive. Shame may hinder a prostitute from yielding to a man
before company, and the same shame may cause a bashful good-natured
creature, that has been overcome by frailty, to make away with her
infant. Passions may do good by chance, but there can be no merit
but in the conquest of them.
Was there virtue in modesty, it would be of the same force in the
dark as it is in the light, which it is not. This the men of pleasure
know very well, who never trouble their heads with a woman's virtue,
so they can but conquer her modesty; seducers, therefore, do not make
their attacks at noon-day, but cut their trenches at night.
Illa verecundis lux est præbenda puellis,
Qua timidus latebras sperat habere pudor.
People of substance may sin without being exposed for their stolen
pleasure; but servants, and the poorer sort of women, have seldom the
opportunity of concealing a big belly, or at least the consequences
of it. It is impossible that an unfortunate girl of good parentage
may be left destitute, and know no shift for a livelihood than to
become a nursery, or a chambermaid: she may be diligent, faithful,
and obliging, have abundance of modesty, and if you will, be
religious: she may resist temptations, and preserve her chastity
for years together, and yet at last meet with an unhappy moment in
which she gives up her honour to a powerful deceiver, who afterwards
neglects her. If she proves with child, her sorrows are unspeakable,
and she cannot be reconciled with the wretchedness of her condition;
the fear of shame attacks her so lively, that every thought distracts
her. All the family she lives in have a great opinion of her virtue,
and her last mistress took her for a saint. How will her enemies,
that envied her character, rejoice! How will her relations detest
her! The more modest she is now, and the more violently the dread of
coming to shame hurries her away, the more wicked and more cruel her
resolutions will be, either against herself or what she bears.
It is commonly imagined, that she who can destroy her child, her own
flesh and blood, must have a vast stock of barbarity, and be a savage
monster, different from other women; but this is likewise a mistake,
which we commit for the want of understanding nature and the force
of passions. The same woman that murders her bastard in the most
execrable manner, if she is married afterwards, may take care of,
cherish, and feel all the tenderness for her infant that the fondest
mother can be capable of. All mothers naturally love their children:
but as this is a passion, and all passions centre in self-love,
so it may be subdued by any superior passion, to sooth that same
self-love, which if nothing had intervened, would have bid her fondle
her offspring. Common whores, whom all the world knows to be such,
hardly ever destroy their children; nay, even those who assist in
robberies and murders seldom are guilty of this crime; not because
they are less cruel or more virtuous, but because they have lost their
modesty to a greater degree, and the fear of shame makes hardly any
impression upon them.
Our love to what never was within the reach of our senses is but
poor and inconsiderable, and therefore women have no natural love
to what they bear; their affection begins after the birth: what they
feel before is the result of reason, education, and the thoughts of
duty. Even when children first are born, the mother's love is but
weak, and increases with the sensibility of the child, and grows
up to a prodigious height, when by signs it begins to express his
sorrows and joys, makes his wants known, and discovers his love to
novelty and the multiplicity of his desires. What labours and hazards
have not women undergone to maintain and save their children, what
force and fortitude beyond their sex have they not shown in their
behalf! but the vilest women have exerted themselves on this head as
violently as the best. All are prompted to it by a natural drift and
inclination, without any consideration of the injury or benefit the
society receives from it. There is no merit in pleasing ourselves,
and the very offspring is often irreparably ruined by the excessive
fondness of parents: for though infants, for two or three years,
may be the better for this indulging care of mothers, yet afterwards,
if not moderated, it may totally spoil them, and many it has brought
to the gallows.
If the reader thinks I have been too tedious on that branch of modesty,
by the help of which we endeavour to appear chaste, I shall make him
amends in the brevity with which I design to treat of the remaining
part, by which we would make others believe, that the esteem we have
for them exceeds the value we have for ourselves, and that we have no
disregard so great to any interest as we have to our own. This laudable
quality is commonly known by the name of Manners and Good-breeding,
and consists in a fashionable habit, acquired by precept and example,
of flattering the pride and selfishness of others, and concealing our
own with judgment and dexterity. This must be only understood of our
commerce with our equals and superiors, and whilst we are in peace
and amity with them; for our complaisance must never interfere with
the rules of honour, nor the homage that is due to us from servants
and others that depend upon us.
With this caution, I believe, that the definition will quadrate
with every thing that can be alleged as a piece, or an example of
either good-breeding or ill manners; and it will be very difficult
throughout the various accidents of human life and conversation, to
find out an instance of modesty or impudence that is not comprehended
in, and illustrated by it, in all countries and in all ages. A man
that asks considerable favours of one who is a stranger to him,
without consideration, is called impudent, because he shows openly
his selfishness, without having any regard to the selfishness of
the other. We may see in it, likewise, the reason why a man ought to
speak of his wife and children, and every thing that is dear to him,
as sparing as is possible, and hardly ever of himself, especially in
commendation of them. A well-bred man may be desirous, and even greedy
after praise and the esteem of others, but to be praised to his face
offends his modesty: the reason is this; all human creatures, before
they are yet polished, receive an extraordinary pleasure in hearing
themselves praised: this we are all conscious of, and therefore when
we see a man openly enjoy and feast on this delight, in which we have
no share, it rouses our selfishness, and immediately we begin to envy
and hate him. For this reason, the well-bred man conceals his joy,
and utterly denies that he feels any, and by this means consulting
and soothing our selfishness, he averts that envy and hatred, which
otherwise he would have justly to fear. When from our childhood
we observe how those are ridiculed who calmly can hear their own
praises, it is possible that we may strenuously endeavour to avoid that
pleasure, that in tract of time we grow uneasy at the approach of it:
but this is not following the dictates of nature, but warping her by
education and custom; for if the generality of mankind took no delight
in being praised, there could be no modesty in refusing to hear it.
The man of manners picks not the best, but rather takes the worst out
of the dish, and gets of every thing, unless it be forced upon him,
always the most indifferent share. By this civility the best remains
for others, which being a compliment to all that are present, every
body is pleased with it: the more they love themselves, the more they
are forced to approve of his behaviour, and gratitude stepping in,
they are obliged almost, whether they will or not, to think favourably
of him. After this manner, it is the well-bred man insinuates himself
in the esteem of all the companies he comes in, and if he gets nothing
else by it, the pleasure he receives in reflecting on the applause
which he knows is secretly given him, is to a proud man more than an
equivalent for his former self-denial, and overpays to self-love with
interest, the loss it sustained in his complaisance to others.
If there are seven or eight apples or peaches among six people of
ceremony, that are pretty near equal, he who is prevailed upon to
choose first, will take that, which, if there be any considerable
difference, a child would know to be the worst: this he does to
insinuate, that he looks upon those he is with to be of superior merit,
and that there is not one whom he wishes not better to than he does to
himself. It is custom and a general practice that makes this modish
deceit familiar to us, without being shocked at the absurdity of it;
for if people had been used to speak from the sincerity of their
hearts, and act according to the natural sentiments they felt within,
until they were three or four and twenty, it would be impossible
for them to assist at this comedy of manners, without either loud
laughter or indignation; and yet it is certain, that such behaviour
makes us more tolerable to one another, than we could be otherwise.
It is very advantageous to the knowledge of ourselves, to be able
well to distinguish between good qualities and virtues. The bond
of society exacts from every member a certain regard for others,
which the highest is not exempt from in the presence of the meanest
even in an empire: but when we are by ourselves, and so far removed
from company, as to be beyond the reach of their senses, the words
modesty and impudence lose their meaning; a person may be wicked,
but he cannot be immodest while he is alone, and no thought can be
impudent that never was communicated to another. A man of exalted
pride may so hide it, that no body shall be able to discover that he
has any; and yet receive greater satisfaction from that passion than
another, who indulges himself in the declaration of it before all
the world. Good manners having nothing to do with virtue or religion;
instead of extinguishing, they rather inflame the passions. The man
of sense and education never exults more in his pride than when he
hides it with the greatest dexterity; and in feasting on the applause,
which he is sure all good judges will pay to his behaviour, he enjoys
a pleasure altogether unknown to the short-sighted surly alderman,
that shows his haughtiness glaringly in his face, pulls off his hat
to nobody, and hardly deigns to speak to an inferior.
A man may carefully avoid every thing that in the eye of the world,
is esteemed to be the result of pride, without mortifying himself,
or making the least conquest of his passion. It is possible that he
only sacrifices the insipid outward part of his pride, which none but
silly ignorant people take delight in, to that part we all feel within,
and which the men of the highest spirit and most exalted genius feed
on with so much ecstacy in silence. The pride of great and polite
men is no where more conspicuous than in the debates about ceremony
and precedency, where they have an opportunity of giving their vices
the appearance of virtues, and can make the world believe that it is
their care, their tenderness for the dignity of their office, or the
honour of their masters, what is the result of their own personal pride
and vanity. This is most manifest in all negotiations of ambassadors
and plenipotentiaries, and must be known by all that observe what is
transacted at public treaties; and it will ever be true, that men of
the best taste have no relish in their pride, as long as any mortal
can find out that they are proud.
Line 125. For there was not a bee but would
Get more, I won't say, than he should;
But than, &c.
The vast esteem we have of ourselves, and the small value we have
for others, make us all very unfair judges in our own cases. Few
men can be persuaded that they get too much by those they sell to,
how extraordinary soever their gains are, when, at the same time,
there is hardly a profit so inconsiderable, but they will grudge
it to those they buy from; for this reason the smallest of the
seller's advantage being the greatest persuasive to the buyer;
tradesmen are generally forced to tell lies in their own defence,
and invent a thousand improbable stories, rather than discover what
they really get by their commodities. Some old standers, indeed, that
pretend to more honesty (or what is more likely, have more pride),
than their neighbours, are used to make but few words with their
customers, and refuse to sell at a lower price than what they ask at
first. But these are commonly cunning foxes that are above the world,
and know that those who have money, get often more by being surly,
than others by being obliging. The vulgar imagine they can find
more sincerity in the sour looks of a grave old fellow, than there
appears in the submissive air and inviting complacency of a young
beginner. But this is a grand mistake; and if they are mercers,
drapers, or others, that have many sorts of the same commodity, you
may soon be satisfied; look upon their goods and you will find each
of them have their private marks, which is a certain sign that both
are equally careful in concealing the prime cost of what they sell.
Line 128. --------As your gamesters do,
That, though at fair play ne'er will own
Before the losers what they've won.
This being a general practice, which no body can be ignorant of,
that has ever seen any play, there must be something in the make of
man that is the occasion of it: but as the searching into this will
seem very trifling to many, I desire the reader to skip this remark,
unless he be in perfect good humour, and has nothing at all to do.
That gamesters generally endeavour to conceal their gains before the
losers, seems to me to proceed from a mixture of gratitude, pity, and
self-preservation. All men are naturally grateful while they receive a
benefit, and what they say or do, while it affects and feels warm about
them, is real, and comes from the heart; but when that is over, the
returns we make generally proceed from virtue, good manners, reason,
and the thoughts of duty, but not from gratitude, which is a motive
of the inclination. If we consider, how tyrannically the immoderate
love we bear to ourselves, obliges us to esteem every body that with
or without design acts in our favour, and how often we extend our
affection to things inanimate, when we imagine them to contribute to
our present advantage: if, I say, we consider this, it will not be
difficult to find out which way our being pleased with those whose
money we win is owing to a principle of gratitude. The next motive
is our pity, which proceeds from our consciousness of the vexation
there is in losing; and as we love the esteem of every body, we are
afraid of forfeiting theirs by being the cause of their loss. Lastly,
we apprehend their envy, and so self-preservation makes that we
strive to extenuate first the obligation, then the reason why we
ought to pity, in hopes that we shall have less of their ill-will and
envy. When the passions show themselves in their full strength, they
are known by every body: When a man in power gives a great place to
one that did him a small kindness in his youth, we call it gratitude:
When a woman howls and wrings her hands at the loss of her child, the
prevalent passion is grief; and the uneasiness we feel at the sight
of great misfortunes, as a man's breaking his legs, or dashing his
brains out, is every where called pity. But the gentle strokes, the
slight touches of the passions, are generally overlooked or mistaken.
To prove my assertion, we have but to observe what generally passes
between the winner and the loser. The first is always complaisant, and
if the other will but keep his temper, more than ordinary obliging; he
is ever ready to humour the loser, and willing to rectify his mistakes
with precaution, and the height of good manners. The loser is uneasy,
captious, morose, and perhaps swears and storms; yet as long as he says
or does nothing designedly affronting, the winner takes all in good
part, without offending, disturbing, or contradicting him. Losers,
says the proverb, must have leave to rail: All which shows that the
loser is thought in the right to complain, and for that very reason
pitied. That we are afraid of the loser's ill-will, is plain from
our being conscious that we are displeased with those we lose to,
and envy we always dread when we think ourselves happier than others:
From whence it follows, that when the winner endeavours to conceal
his gains, his design is to avert the mischiefs he apprehends, and
this is self-preservation; the cares of which continue to affect us
as long as the motives that first produced them remain.
But a month, a week, or perhaps a much shorter time after, when the
thoughts of the obligation, and consequently the winner's gratitude,
are worn off, when the loser has recovered his temper, laughs at his
loss, and the reason of the winner's pity ceases; when the winner's
apprehension of drawing upon him the ill-will and envy of the loser
is gone; that is to say, as soon as all the passions are over,
and the cares of self-preservation employ the winner's thoughts no
longer, he will not only make no scruple of owning what he has won,
but will, if his vanity steps in, likewise, with pleasure, brag off,
if not exaggerate his gains.
It is possible, that when people play together who are at enmity,
and perhaps desirous of picking a quarrel, or where men playing
for trifles contend for superiority of skill, and aim chiefly at
the glory of conquest, nothing shall happen of what I have been
talking of. Different passions oblige us to take different measures;
what I have said I would have understood of ordinary play for money,
at which men endeavour to get, and venture to lose what they value:
And even here I know it will be objected by many, that though they
have been guilty of concealing their gains, yet they never observed
those passions which I allege as the causes of that frailty; which is
no wonder, because few men will give themselves leisure, and fewer yet
take the right method of examining themselves as they should do. It is
with the passions in men, as it is with colours in cloth: It is easy
to know a red, a green, a blue, a yellow, a black, &c. in as many
different places; but it must be an artist that can unravel all the
various colours and their proportions, that make up the compound of a
well-mixed cloth. In the same manner, may the passions be discovered
by every body whilst they are distinct, and a single one employs the
whole man; but it is very difficult to trace every motive of those
actions that are the result of a mixture of passions.
Line 163. And virtue, who from politics
Has learn'd a thousand cunning tricks,
Was, by their happy influence,
Made friends with vice.----
It may be said, that virtue is made friends with vice, when industrious
good people, who maintain their families, and bring up their children
handsomely, pay taxes, and are several ways useful members of the
society, get a livelihood by something that chiefly depends on, or is
very much influenced by the vices of others, without being themselves
guilty of, or accessary to them, any otherwise than by way of trade,
as a druggist may be to poisoning, or a sword-cutler to blood-shed.
Thus the merchant, that sends corn or cloth into foreign parts to
purchase wines and brandies, encourages the growth or manufactory
of his own country; he is a benefactor to navigation, increases
the customs, and is many ways beneficial to the public; yet it is
not to be denied, but that his greatest dependence is lavishness
and drunkenness: For, if none were to drink wine but such only as
stand in need of it, nor any body more than his health required, that
multitude of wine-merchants, vintners, coopers, &c. that make such a
considerable show in this flourishing city, would be in a miserable
condition. The same may be said not only of card and dice-makers,
that are the immediate ministers to a legion of vices; but that
of mercers, upholsterers, tailors, and many others, that would be
starved in half a year's time, if pride and luxury were at once to
be banished the nation.
Line 167. The worst of all the multitude
Did something for the common good.
This, I know, will seem to be a strange paradox to many; and I
shall be asked what benefit the public receives from thieves and
house-breakers. They are, I own, very pernicious to human society,
and every government ought to take all imaginable care to root out
and destroy them; yet if all people were strictly honest, and nobody
would meddle with, or pry into any thing but his own, half the smiths
of the nation would want employment; and abundance of workmanship
(which now serves for ornament as well as defence) is to be seen every
where both in town and country, that would never have been thought of,
but to secure us against the attempts of pilferers and robbers.
If what I have said be thought far fetched, and my assertion seems
still a paradox, I desire the reader to look upon the consumption
of things, and he will find that the laziest and most unactive, the
profligate and most mischievous, are all forced to do something for
the common good, and whilst their mouths are not sowed up, and they
continue to wear and otherwise destroy what the industrious are daily
employed about to make, fetch and procure, in spite of their teeth
obliged to help, maintain the poor and the public charges. The labour
of millions would soon be at an end, if there were not other millions,
as I say, in the fable.
--------Employ'd,
To see their handy-works destroy'd.
But men are not to be judged by the consequences that may succeed
their actions, but the facts themselves, and the motives which it
shall appear they acted from. If an ill-natured miser, who is almost
a plumb, and spends but fifty pounds a-year, though he has no relation
to inherit his wealth, should be robbed of five hundred or a thousand
guineas, it is certain, that as soon as this money should come to
circulate, the nation would be the better for the robbery, and receive
the same, and as real a benefit from it, as if an archbishop had left
the same sum to the public; yet justice, and the peace of society,
require that he or they who robbed the miser should be hanged, though
there were half a dozen of them concerned.
Thieves and pick-pockets steal for a livelihood, and either what they
can get honestly is not sufficient to keep them, or else they have
an aversion to constant working: they want to gratify their senses,
have victuals, strong drink, lewd women, and to be idle when they
please. The victualler, who entertains them, and takes their money,
knowing which way they come at it, is very near as great a villain
as his guests. But if he fleeces them well, minds his business,
and is a prudent man, he may get money, and be punctual with them
he deals with: The trusty out-clerk, whose chief aim is his master's
profit, sends him in what beer he wants, and takes care not to lose
his custom; while the man's money is good, he thinks it no business
of his to examine whom he gets it by. In the mean time, the wealthy
brewer, who leaves all the management to his servants, knows nothing
of the matter, but keeps his coach, treats his friends, and enjoys
his pleasure with ease and a good conscience; he gets an estate;
builds houses, and educates his children in plenty, without ever
thinking on the labour which wretches perform, the shifts fools make,
and the tricks knaves play to come at the commodity, by the vast sale
of which he amasses his great riches.
A highwayman having met with a considerable booty, gives a poor
common harlot, he fancies, ten pounds to new-rig her from top to toe;
is there a spruce mercer so conscientious that he will refuse to sell
her a thread sattin, though he knew who she was? She must have shoes
and stockings, gloves, the stay and mantua maker, the sempstress, the
linen-draper, all must get something by her, and a hundred different
tradesmen dependent on those she laid her money out with, may touch
part of it before a month is at an end. The generous gentleman, in the
mean time, his money being near spent, ventured again on the road, but
the second day having committed a robbery near Highgate, he was taken
with one of his accomplices, and the next sessions both were condemned,
and suffered the law. The money due on their conviction fell to three
country fellows, on whom it was admirably well bestowed. One was an
honest farmer, a sober pains-taking man, but reduced by misfortunes:
The summer before, by the mortality among the cattle, he had lost
six cows out of ten, and now his landlord, to whom he owed thirty
pounds, had seized on all his stock. The other was a day-labourer,
who struggled hard with the world, had a sick wife at home, and
several small children to provide for. The third was a gentleman's
gardener, who maintained his father in prison, where, being bound
for a neighbour, he had lain for twelve pounds almost a year and a
half; this act of filial duty was the more meritorious, because he
had for some time been engaged to a young woman, whose parents lived
in good circumstances, but would not give their consent before our
gardener had fifty guineas of his own to show. They received above
fourscore pounds each, which extricated every one of them out of the
difficulties they laboured under, and made them, in their opinion,
the happiest people in the world.
Nothing is more destructive, either in regard to the health or the
vigilance and industry of the poor, than the infamous liquor, the
name of which, derived from Juniper in Dutch, is now, by frequent
use, and the laconic spirit of the nation, from a word of middling
length, shrunk into a monosyllable, intoxicating gin, that charms
the unactive, the desperate and crazy of either sex, and makes the
starving sot behold his rags and nakedness with stupid indolence,
or banter both in senseless laughter, and more insipid jests! It is
a fiery lake that sets the brain in flame, burns up the entrails,
and scorches every part within; and, at the same time, a Lethe of
oblivion, in which the wretch immersed drowns his most pinching cares,
and with his reason, all anxious reflection on brats that cry for food,
hard winters frosts, and horrid empty home.
In hot and adust tempers it makes men quarrelsome, renders them
brutes and savages, sets them on to fight for nothing, and has often
been the cause of murder. It has broke and destroyed the strongest
constitutions, thrown them into consumptions, and been the fatal and
immediate occasion of apoplexies, phrenzies, and sudden death. But,
as these latter mischiefs happen but seldom, they might be overlooked
and connived at: but this cannot be said of the many diseases that
are familiar to the liquor, and which are daily and hourly produced
by it; such as loss of appetite, fevers, black and yellow jaundice,
convulsions, stone and gravel, dropsies, and leucophlegmacies.
Among the doting admirers of this liquid poison, many of the meanest
rank, from a sincere affection to the commodity itself, become dealers
in it, and take delight to help others to what they love themselves,
as whores commence bawds to make the profits of one trade subservient
to the pleasures of the other. But as these starvelings commonly drink
more than their gains, they seldom, by selling, mend the wretchedness
of condition they laboured under while they were only buyers. In the
fag-end and outskirts of the town, and all places of the vilest resort,
it is sold in some part or other of almost every house, frequently in
cellars, and sometimes in the garret. The petty traders in this Stygian
comfort, are supplied by others in somewhat higher station, that keep
professed brandy shops, and are as little to be envied as the former;
and among the middling people, I know not a more miserable shift for
a livelihood than their calling; whoever would thrive in it must, in
the first place, be of a watchful and suspicious, as well as a bold
and resolute temper, that he may not be imposed upon by cheats and
sharpers, nor out-bullied by the oaths and imprecations of hackney
coachmen and foot soldiers: in the second, he ought to be a dabster
at gross jokes and loud laughter, and have all the winning ways to
allure customers and draw out their money, and be well versed in the
low jests and raileries the mob make use of to banter prudence and
frugality. He must be affable and obsequious to the most despicable;
always ready and officious to help a porter down with his load, shake
hands with a basket woman, pull off his hat to an oyster wench, and
be familiar with a beggar; with patience and good humour he must be
able to endure the filthy actions and viler language of nasty drabs,
and the lewdest rakehells, and without a frown, or the least aversion,
bear with all the stench and squalor, noise and impertinence, that
the utmost indigence, laziness, and ebriety, can produce in the most
shameless and abandoned vulgar.
The vast number of the shops I speak of throughout the city and
suburbs, are an astonishing evidence of the many seducers, that, in
a lawful occupation, are accessary to the introduction and increase
of all the sloth, sottishness, want, and misery, which the abuse of
strong waters is the immediate cause of, to lift above mediocrity
perhaps half a score men that deal in the same commodity by wholesale,
while, among the retailers, though qualified as I required, a much
greater number are broke and ruined, for not abstaining from the
Circean cup they hold out to others, and the more fortunate are
their whole lifetime obliged to take the uncommon pains, endure the
hardships, and swallow all the ungrateful and shocking things I named,
for little or nothing beyond a bare sustenance, and their daily bread.
The short-sighted vulgar in the chain of causes seldom can see further
than one link; but those who can enlarge their view, and will give
themselves the leisure of gazing on the prospect of concatenated
events, may, in a hundred places, see good spring up and pullulate from
evil, as naturally as chickens do from eggs. The money that arises from
the duties upon malt is a considerable part of the national revenue,
and should no spirits be distilled from it, the public treasure would
prodigiously suffer on that head. But if we would set in a true
light the many advantages, and large catalogue of solid blessings
that accrue from, and are owing to the evil I treat of, we are to
consider the rents that are received, the ground that is tilled,
the tools that are made, the cattle that are employed, and above all,
the multitude of poor that are maintained, by the variety of labour,
requited in husbandry, in malting, in carriage and distillation, before
we can have the product of malt, which we call low wines, and is but
the beginning from which the various spirits are afterwards to be made.
Besides this, a sharp-sighted good-humoured man might pick up abundance
of good from the rubbish, which I have all flung away for evil. He
would tell me, that whatever sloth and sottishness might be occasioned
by the abuse of malt-spirits, the moderate use of it was of inestimable
benefit to the poor, who could purchase no cordials of higher prices,
that it was an universal comfort, not only in cold and weariness,
but most of the afflictions that are peculiar to the necessitous,
and had often to the most destitute supplied the places of meat,
drink, clothes, and lodging. That the stupid indolence in the most
wretched condition occasioned by those composing draughts, which
I complained of, was a blessing to thousands, for that certainly
those were the happiest, who felt the least pain. As to diseases,
he would say, that, as it caused some, so it cured others, and that
if the excess in those liquors had been sudden death to some few, the
habit of drinking them daily prolonged the lives of many, whom once
it agreed with; that for the loss sustained from the insignificant
quarrels it created at home, we were overpaid in the advantage we
received from it abroad, by upholding the courage of soldiers, and
animating the sailors to the combat; and that in the two last wars
no considerable victory had been obtained without.
To the dismal account I have given of the retailers, and what they
are forced to submit to, he would answer, that not many acquired more
than middling riches in any trade, and that what I had counted so
offensive and intolerable in the calling, was trifling to those who
were used to it; that what seemed irksome and calamitous to some,
was delightful and often ravishing to others; as men differed in
circumstances and education. He would put me in mind, that the profit
of an employment ever made amends for the toil and labour that belonged
to it, nor forget, Dulcis odor lucri e re qualibet; or to tell me,
that the smell of gain was fragrant even to night-workers.
If I should ever urge to him, that to have here and there one great
and eminent distiller, was a poor equivalent for the vile means, the
certain want, and lasting misery of so many thousand wretches, as were
necessary to raise them, he would answer, that of this I could be no
judge, because I do not know what vast benefit they might afterwards
be of to the commonwealth. Perhaps, would he say, the man thus raised
will exert himself in the commission of the peace, or other station,
with vigilance and zeal against the dissolute and disaffected, and
retaining his stirring temper, be as industrious in spreading loyalty,
and the reformation of manners, throughout every cranny of the wide
populous town, as once he was in filling it with spirits; till he
becomes at last the scourge of whores, of vagabonds and beggars,
the terror of rioters and discontented rabbles, and constant plague
to sabbath-breaking butchers. Here my good-humoured antagonist would
exult and triumph over me, especially if he could instance to me
such a bright example, what an uncommon blessing, would he cry out,
is this man to his country! how shining and illustrious his virtue!
To justify his exclamation, he would demonstrate to me, that it was
impossible to give a fuller evidence of self-denial in a grateful mind,
than to see him at the expence of his quiet and hazard of his life
and limbs, be always harassing, and even for trifles, persecuting
that very class of men to whom he owes his fortune, from no other
motive than his aversion to idleness, and great concern for religion
and the public welfare.
Line 173. Parties directly opposite,
Assist each other, as 'twere for spite.
Nothing was more instrumental in forwarding the Reformation, than the
sloth and stupidity of the Roman clergy; yet the same reformation
has roused them from the laziness and ignorance they then laboured
under; and the followers of Luther, Calvin, and others, may be said
to have reformed not only those whom they drew into their sentiment,
but likewise those who remained their greatest opposers. The clergy
of England, by being severe upon the Schismatics, and upbraiding them
with want of learning, have raised themselves such formidable enemies
as are not easily answered; and again, the Dissenters by prying into
the lives, and diligently watching all the actions of their powerful
antagonists, render those of the Established Church more cautious of
giving offence, than in all probability they would, if they had no
malicious over-lookers to fear. It is very much owing to the great
number of Huguenots that have always been in France, since the late
utter extirpation of them, that that kingdom has a less dissolute
and more learned clergy to boast of than any other Roman Catholic
country. The clergy of that church are no where more sovereign than
in Italy, and therefore no where more debauched; nor any where more
ignorant than they are in Spain, because their doctrine is nowhere
less opposed.
Who would imagine, that virtuous women, unknowingly, should be
instrumental in promoting the advantage of prostitutes? Or (what
still seems the greater paradox) that incontinence should be made
serviceable to the preservation of chastity? and yet nothing is more
true. A vicious young fellow, after having been an hour or two at
church, a ball, or any other assembly, where there is a great parcel of
handsome women dressed to the best advantage, will have his imagination
more fired, than if he had the same time been poling at Guildhall,
or walking in the country among a flock of sheep. The consequence of
this is, that he will strive to satisfy the appetite that is raised
in him; and when he finds honest women obstinate and uncomatable,
it is very natural to think, that he will hasten to others that
are more compliable. Who would so much as surmise, that this is the
fault of the virtuous women? They have no thoughts of men in dressing
themselves, poor souls, and endeavour only to appear clean and decent,
every one according to her quality.
I am far from encouraging vice, and think it would be an unspeakable
felicity to a state, if the sin of uncleanness could be utterly
banished from it; but I am afraid it is impossible: The passions of
some people are too violent to be curbed by any law or precept; and
it is wisdom in all governments to bear with lesser inconveniencies
to prevent greater. If courtezans and strumpets were to be prosecuted
with as much rigour as some silly people would have it, what locks
or bars would be sufficient to preserve the honour of our wives
and daughters? For it is not only that the women in general would
meet with far greater temptations, and the attempts to ensnare the
innocence of virgins would seem more excusable, even to the sober
part of mankind, than they do now: but some men would grow outrageous,
and ravishing would become a common crime. Where six or seven thousand
sailors arrive at once, as it often happens, at Amsterdam, that have
seen none but their own sex for many months together, how is it to
be supposed that honest women should walk the streets unmolested,
if there were no harlots to be had at reasonable prices? for which
reason, the wise rulers of that well-ordered city always tolerate an
uncertain number of houses, in which women are hired as publicly as
horses at a livery stable; and there being in this toleration a great
deal of prudence and economy to be seen, a short account of it will
be no tiresome digression.
In the first place, the houses I speak of are allowed to be no where
but in the most slovenly and unpolished part of the town, where seamen
and strangers of no repute chiefly lodge and resort. The street in
which most of them stand is counted scandalous, and the infamy is
extended to all the neighbourhood round it. In the second, they are
only places to meet and bargain in, to make appointments in order to
promote interviews of greater secrecy, and no manner of lewdness is
ever suffered to be transacted in them: which order is so strictly
observed, that bar the ill manners and noise of the company that
frequent them, you will meet with no more indecency, and generally
less lasciviousness there, than with us are to be seen at a playhouse.
Thirdly, the female traders that come to these evening exchanges are
always the scum of the people, and generally such as in the day time
carry fruit and other eatables about in wheel-barrows. The habits,
indeed, they appear in at night are very different from their ordinary
ones; yet they are commonly so ridiculously gay, that they look
more like the Roman dresses of strolling actresses than gentlewomen's
clothes: if to this you add the awkwardness, the hard hands, and coarse
breeding of the damsels that wear them, there is no great reason to
fear, that many of the better sort of people will be tempted by them.
The music in these temples of Venus is performed by organs, not out
of respect to the deity that is worshipped in them, but the frugality
of the owners, whose business it is to procure as much sound for
as little money as they can, and the policy of the government,
who endeavour, as little as is possible to encourage the breed of
pipers and scrapers. All seafaring men, especially the Dutch, are
like the element they belong to, much given to loudness and roaring,
and the noise of half-a-dozen of them, when they call themselves
merry, is sufficient to drown twice the number of flutes or violins;
whereas, with one pair of organs, they can make the whole house ring,
and are at no other charge than the keeping of one scurvy musician,
which can cost them but little: yet notwithstanding the good rules
and strict discipline that are observed in these markets of love,
the schout and his officers are always vexing, mulcting, and,
upon the least complaint, removing the miserable keepers of them:
which policy is of two great uses; first, it gives an opportunity
to a large parcel of officers, the magistrates make use of on many
occasions, and which they could not be without, to squeeze a living
out of the immoderate gains accruing from the worst of employments,
and, at the same time, punish those necessary profligates, the bawds
and panders, which, though they abominate, they desire yet not wholly
to destroy. Secondly, as on several accounts it might be dangerous to
let the multitude into the secret, that those houses and the trade
that is drove in them are connived at, so by this means appearing
unblameable, the wary magistrates preserve themselves in the good
opinion of the weaker sort of people, who imagine that the government
is always endeavouring, though unable, to suppress what it actually
tolerates: whereas, if they had a mind to root them out, their power
in the administration of justice is so sovereign and extensive,
and they know so well how to have it executed, that one week, nay,
one night might send them all a packing.
In Italy, the toleration of strumpets is yet more barefaced, as is
evident from their public stews. At Venice and Naples, impurity is
a kind of merchandise and traffic; the courtezans at Rome, and the
cantoneras in Spain, compose a body in the state, and are under a legal
tax and impost. It is well known, that the reason why so many good
politicians as these tolerate lewd houses, is not their irreligion,
but to prevent a worse evil, an impurity of a more execrable kind,
and to provide for the safety of women of honour. "About two hundred
and fifty years ago," says Monsieur de St. Didier, "Venice being
in want of courtezans, the republic was obliged to procure a great
number from foreign parts." Doglioni, who has written the memorable
affairs of Venice, highly extols the wisdom of the republic in this
point, which secured the chastity of women of honour, daily exposed
to public violences, the churches and consecrated places not being
a sufficient asylum for their chastity.
Our universities in England are much belied, if in some colleges
there was not a monthly allowance ad expurgandos renes: and time was
when monks and priests in Germany were allowed concubines on paying
a certain yearly duty to their prelate. "It is generally believed"
says Monsieur Bayle, (to whom I owe the last paragraph) "that avarice
was the cause of this shameful indulgence; but it is more probable
their design was to prevent their tempting modest women, and to quiet
the uneasiness of husbands, whose resentments the clergy do well
to avoid." From what has been said, it is manifest that there is a
necessity of sacrificing one part of womankind to preserve the other,
and prevent a filthiness of a more heinous nature. From whence I think
I may justly conclude (what was the seeming paradox I went about to
prove) that chastity may be supported by incontinence, and the best
of virtues want the assistance of the worst of vices.
Line 177. The root of evil, avarice,
That damn'd ill-natur'd baneful vice,
Was slave to prodigality.
I have joined so many odious epithets to the word avarice, in
compliance to the vogue of mankind, who generally bestow more
ill language upon this than upon any other vice, and indeed not
undeservedly; for there is hardly a mischief to be named which it has
not produced at one time or other: but the true reason why every body
exclaims so much against it, is, that almost every body suffers by
it; for the more the money is hoarded up by some, the scarcer it must
grow among the rest, and therefore when men rail very much at misers,
there is generally self-interest at bottom.
As there is no living without money, so those that are unprovided,
and have nobody to give them any, are obliged to do some service
or other to the society, before they can come at it; but every
body esteeming his labour as he does himself, which is generally
not under the value, most people that want money only to spend it
again presently, imagine they do more for it than it is worth. Men
cannot forbear looking upon the necessaries of life as their due,
whether they work or not; because they find that nature, without
consulting whether they have victuals or not, bids them eat whenever
they are hungry; for which reason, every body endeavours to get what
he wants with as much ease as he can; and therefore when men find that
the trouble they are put to in getting money is either more or less,
according as those they would have it from are more or less tenacious,
it is very natural for them to be angry at covetousness in general;
for it obliges them either to go without what they have occasion for,
or else to take greater pains for it than they are willing.
Avarice, notwithstanding it is the occasion of so many evils, is yet
very necessary to the society, to glean and gather what has been
dropt and scattered by the contrary vice. Was it not for avarice,
spendthrifts would soon want materials; and if none would lay up
and get faster than they spend, very few could spend faster than they
get. That it is a slave to prodigality, as I have called it, is evident
from so many misers as we daily see toil and labour, pinch and starve
themselves, to enrich a lavish heir. Though these two vices appear very
opposite, yet they often assist each other. Florio is an extravagant
young blade, of a very profuse temper; as he is the only son of a very
rich father, he wants to live high, keep horses and dogs, and throw his
money about, as he sees some of his companions do; but the old hunks
will part with no money, and hardly allows him necessaries. Florio
would have borrowed money upon his own credit long ago; but as all
would be lost, if he died before his father, no prudent man would lend
him any. At last he has met with the greedy Cornaro, who lets him
have money at thirty per cent. and now Florio thinks himself happy,
and spends a thousand a-year. Where would Cornaro ever have got such
a prodigious interest, if it was not for such a fool as Florio, who
will give so great a price for money to fling it away? And how would
Florio get it to spend, if he had not lit of such a greedy usurer as
Cornaro, whose excessive covetousness makes him overlook the great risk
he runs in venturing such great sums upon the life of a wild debauchee.
Avarice is no longer the reverse of profuseness, than while it
signifies that sordid love of money, and narrowness of soul that
hinders misers from parting with what they have, and makes them covet
it only to hoard up. But there is a sort of avarice which consists in a
greedy desire of riches, in order to spend them, and this often meets
with prodigality in the same persons, as is evident in most courtiers
and great officers, both civil and military. In their buildings and
furniture, equipages and entertainments, their gallantry is displayed
with the greatest profusion; while the base actions they submit to
for lucre, and the many frauds and impositions they are guilty of,
discover the utmost avarice. This mixture of contrary vices, comes
up exactly to the character of Catiline, of whom it is said, that he
was appetens alieni & sui profusus, greedy after the goods of others,
and lavish of his own.
Line 180. That noble sin----
The prodigality, I call a noble sin, is not that which has avarice
for its companion, and makes men unreasonably profuse to some of what
they unjustly extort from others, but that agreeable good-natured
vice that makes the chimney smoke, and all the tradesmen smile;
I mean the unmixed prodigality of heedless and voluptuous men,
that being educated in plenty, abhor the vile thoughts of lucre,
and lavish away only what others took pains to scrape together;
such as indulge their inclinations at their own expence, that have
the continual satisfaction of bartering old gold for new pleasures,
and from the excessive largeness of a diffusive soul, are made guilty
of despising too much what most people overvalue.
When I speak thus honourably of this vice, and treat it with so
much tenderness and good manners as I do, I have the same thing
at heart that made me give so many ill names to the reverse of it,
viz. the interest of the public; for as the avaricious does no good to
himself, and is injurious to all the world besides, except his heir,
so the prodigal is a blessing to the whole society, and injures no
body but himself. It is true, that as most of the first are knaves,
so the latter are all fools; yet they are delicious morsels for the
public to feast on, and may with as much justice, as the French call
the monks the patridges of the women, be styled the woodcocks of the
society. Was it not for prodigality, nothing could make us amends for
the rapine and extortion of avarice in power. When a covetous statesman
is gone, who spent his whole life in fattening himself with the spoils
of the nation, and had by pinching and plundering heaped up an immense
treasure, it ought to fill every good member of the society with joy,
to behold the uncommon profuseness of his son. This is refunding to the
public what was robbed from it. Resuming of grants is a barbarous way
of stripping, and it is ignoble to ruin a man faster than he does it
himself, when he sets about it in such good earnest. Does he not feed
an infinite number of dogs of all sorts and sizes, though he never
hunts; keep more horses than any nobleman in the kingdom, though he
never rides them; and give as large an allowance to an ill-favoured
whore as would keep a dutchess, though he never lies with her? Is he
not still more extravagant in those things he makes use of? Therefore
let him alone, or praise him, call him public-spirited lord, nobly
bountiful and magnificently generous, and in a few years he will
suffer himself to be stript his own way. As long as the nation has
its own back again, we ought not to quarrel with the manner in which
the plunder is repaid.
Abundance of moderate men, I know, that are enemies to extremes,
will tell me, that frugality might happily supply the place of the
two vices I speak of, that if men had not so many profuse ways of
spending wealth, they would not be tempted to so many evil practices
to scrape it together, and consequently that the same number of men,
by equally avoiding both extremes, might render themselves more happy,
and be less vicious without, than they could with them. Whoever argues
thus, shows himself a better man than he is a politician. Frugality
is like honesty, a mean starving virtue, that is only fit for small
societies of good peaceable men, who are contented to be poor, so
they may be easy; but, in a large stirring nation, you may have soon
enough of it. It is an idle dreaming virtue that employs no hands,
and therefore very useless in a trading country, where there are vast
numbers that one way or other must be all set to work. Prodigality
has a thousand inventions to keep people from sitting still, that
frugality would never think of; and as this must consume a prodigious
wealth, so avarice again knows innumerable tricks to raise it together,
which frugality would scorn to make use of.
Authors are always allowed to compare small things to great ones,
especially if they ask leave first. Si licit exemplis, &c. but to
compare great things to mean trivial ones, is unsufferable, unless it
be in burlesque; otherwise I would compare the body politic (I confess
the simile is very low) to a bowl of punch. Avarice should be the
souring, and prodigality the sweetening of it. The water I would call
the ignorance, folly, and credulity of the floating insipid multitude;
while wisdom, honour, fortitude, and the rest of the sublime qualities
of men, which separated by art from the dregs of nature, the fire of
glory has exalted and refined into a spiritual essence, should be an
equivalent to brandy. I do not doubt but a Westphalian, Laplander,
or any other dull stranger that is unacquainted with the wholesome
composition, if he was to sell the several ingredients apart, would
think it impossible they should make any tolerable liquor. The lemons
would be too sour, the sugar too luscious, the brandy he will say is
too strong ever to be drank in any quantity, and the water he will
call a tasteless liquor, only fit for cows and horses: yet experience
teaches us, that the ingredients I named, judiciously mixed, will make
an excellent liquor, liked of, and admired by men of exquisite palates.
As to our vices in particular, I could compare avarice, that causes so
much mischief, and is complained of by every body who is not a miser,
to a griping acid that sets our teeth on edge, and is unpleasant to
every palate that is not debauched: I could compare the gaudy trimming
and splendid equipage of a profuse beau, to the glistening brightness
of the finest loaf sugar; for as the one, by correcting the sharpness,
prevent the injuries which a gnawing sour might do to the bowels,
so the other is a pleasing balsam that heals and makes amends for
the smart, which the multitude always suffers from the gripes of the
avaricious; while the substances of both melt away alike, and they
consume themselves by being beneficial to the several compositions they
belong to. I could carry on the simile as to proportions, and the exact
nicety to be observed in them, which would make it appear how little
any of the ingredients could be spared in either of the mixtures; but
I will not tire my reader by pursuing too far a ludicrous comparison,
when I have other matters to entertain him with of greater importance;
and to sum up what I have said in this and the foregoing remark, shall
only add, that I look upon avarice and prodigality in the society, as
I do upon two contrary poisons in physic, of which it is certain that
the noxious qualities being by mutual mischief corrected in both, they
may assist each other, and often make a good medicine between them.
Line 180. --------Whilst luxury
Employ'd a million of the poor, &c.
If every thing is to be luxury (as in strictness it ought) that is not
immediately necessary to make man subsist as he is a living creature,
there is nothing else to be found in the world, no not even among
the naked savages; of which it is not probable that there are any
but what by this time have made some improvements upon their former
manner of living; and either in the preparation of their eatables,
the ordering of their huts, or otherwise, added something to what
once sufficed them. This definition every body will say is too
rigorous: I am of the same opinion; but if we are to abate one inch
of this severity, I am afraid we shall not know where to stop. When
people tell us they only desire to keep themselves sweet and clean,
there is no understanding what they would be at: if they made use of
these words in their genuine proper literal sense, they might be soon
satisfied without much cost or trouble, if they did not want water:
but these two little adjectives are so comprehensive, especially
in the dialect of some ladies, that nobody can guess how far they
may be stretched. The comforts of life are likewise so various and
extensive, that nobody can tell what people mean by them, except
he knows what sort of life they lead. The same obscurity I observe
in the words decency and conveniency, and I never understand them,
unless I am acquainted with the quality of the persons that make use
of them. People may go to church together, and be all of one mind
as much as they please, I am apt to believe that when they pray for
their daily bread, the bishop includes several things in that petition
which the sexton does not think on.
By what I have said hitherto I would only show, that if once we depart
from calling every thing luxury that is not absolutely necessary to
keep a man alive, that then there is no luxury at all; for if the
wants of men are innumerable, then what ought to supply them has
no bounds; what is called superfluous, to some degree of people,
will be thought requisite to those of higher quality; and neither
the world, nor the skill of man can produce any thing so curious or
extravagant, but some most gracious sovereign or other, if it either
eases or diverts him, will reckon it among the necessaries of life;
not meaning every body's life, but that of his sacred person.
It is a received notion, that luxury is as destructive to the wealth
of the whole body politic, as it is to that of every individual
person who is guilty of it, and that a national frugality enriches a
country in the same manner, as that which is less general increases
the estates of private families. I confess, that though I have found
men of much better understanding than myself of this opinion, I cannot
help dissenting from them in this point. They argue thus: We send, say
they, for example, to Turkey of woollen manufactury, and other things
of our own growth, a million's worth every year; for this we bring
back silk, mohair, drugs, &c. to the value of twelve hundred thousand
pounds, that are all spent in our own country. By this, say they, we
get nothing; but if most of us would be content with our own growth,
and so consume but half the quantity of those foreign commodities,
then those in Turkey, who would still want the same quantity of
our manufactures, would be forced to pay ready money for the rest,
and so by the balance of that trade only, the nation should get six
hundred thousand pounds per annum.
To examine the force of this argument, we will suppose (what they
would have) that but half the silk, &c. shall be consumed in England
of what there is now; we will suppose likewise, that those in Turkey,
though we refuse to buy above half as much of their commodities as
we used to do, either can or will not be without the same quantity of
our manufactures they had before, and that they will pay the balance
in money; that is to say, that they shall give us as much gold or
silver, as the value of what they buy from us, exceeds the value of
what we buy from them. Though what we suppose might perhaps be done
for one year, it is impossible it should last: Buying is bartering;
and no nation can buy goods of others, that has none of her own to
purchase them with. Spain and Portugal, that are yearly supplied with
new gold and silver from their mines, may for ever buy for ready money,
as long as their yearly increase of gold or silver continues; but then
money is their growth, and the commodity of the country. We know that
we could not continue long to purchase the goods of other nations,
if they would not take our manufactures in payment for them; and why
should we judge otherwise of other nations? If those in Turkey, then,
had no more money fall from the skies than we, let us see what would be
the consequence of what we supposed. The six hundred thousand pounds
in silk, mohair, &c. that are left upon their hands the first year,
must make those commodities fall considerably: Of this the Dutch and
French will reap the benefit as much as ourselves; and if we continue
to refuse taking their commodities in payment for our manufactures,
they can trade no longer with us, but must content themselves with
buying what they want of such nations as are willing to take what
we refuse, though their goods are much worse than ours; and thus our
commerce with Turkey must in few years be infallibly lost.
But they will say, perhaps, that to prevent the ill consequence I have
showed, we shall take the Turkish merchandise as formerly, and only
be so frugal as to consume but half the quantity of them ourselves,
and send the rest abroad to be sold to others. Let us see what this
will do, and whether it will enrich the nation by the balance of that
trade with six hundred thousand pounds. In the first place, I will
grant them that our people at home making use of so much more of our
own manufactures, those who were employed in silk, mohair, &c. will
get a living by the various preparations of woollen goods. But, in
the second, I cannot allow that the goods can be sold as formerly;
for suppose the half that is wore at home to be sold at the same rate
as before, certainly the other half that is sent abroad will want very
much of it: For we must send those goods to markets already supplied;
and besides that, there must be freight, insurance, provision, and all
other charges deducted, and the merchants in general must lose much
more by this half that is reshipped, than they got by the half that
is consumed here. For, though the woollen manufactures are our own
product, yet they stand the merchant that ships them off to foreign
countries, in as much as they do the shopkeeper here that retails
them: so that if the returns for what he sends abroad repay him not
what his goods cost him here, with all other charges, till he has the
money and a good interest for it in cash, the merchant must run out,
and the upshot would be, that the merchants in general, finding they
lost by the Turkish commodities they sent abroad, would ship no more
of our manufactures, than what would pay for as much silk, mohair,
&c. as would be consumed here. Other nations would soon find ways
to supply them with as much as we should send short, and some where
or other to dispose of the goods we should refuse: So that all we
should get by this frugality, would be, that those in Turkey would
take but half the quantity of our manufactures of what they do now,
while we encourage and wear their merchandises, without which they
are not able to purchase ours.
As I have had the mortification, for several years, to meet with
abundance of sensible people against this opinion, and who always
thought me wrong in this calculation, so I had the pleasure at
last to see the wisdom of the nation fall into the same sentiments,
as is so manifest from an act of parliament made in the year 1721,
where the legislature disobliges a powerful and valuable company,
and overlooks very weighty inconveniences at home, to promote the
interest of the Turkey trade, and not only encourages the consumption
of silk and mohair, but forces the subjects, on penalties, to make
use of them whether they will or not.
What is laid to the charge of luxury besides, is, that it increases
avarice and rapine: And where they are reigning vices, offices of
the greatest trust are bought and sold; the ministers that should
serve the public, both great and small, corrupted, and the countries
every moment in danger of being betrayed to the highest bidders: And,
lastly, that it effeminates and enervates the people, by which the
nations become an easy prey to the first invaders. These are indeed
terrible things; but what is put to the account of luxury belongs to
male-administration, and is the fault of bad politics. Every government
ought to be thoroughly acquainted with, and stedfastly to pursue the
interest of the country. Good politicians, by dexterous management,
laying heavy impositions on some goods, or totally prohibiting them,
and lowering the duties on others, may always turn and divert the
course of trade which way they please; and as they will ever prefer,
if it be equally considerable, the commerce with such countries as can
pay with money as well as goods, to those that can make no returns
for what they buy, but in the commodities of their own growth and
manufactures, so they will always carefully prevent the traffic with
such nations as refuse the goods of others, and will take nothing
but money for their own. But, above all, they will keep a watchful
eye over the balance of trade in general, and never suffer that all
the foreign commodities together, that are imported in one year,
shall exceed in value what of their own growth or manufacture is in
the same imported to others. Note, That I speak now of the interest
of those nations that have no gold or silver of their own growth,
otherwise this maxim need not to be so much insisted on.
If what I urged last, be but diligently looked after, and the imports
are never allowed to be superior to the exports, no nation can ever
be impoverished by foreign luxury; and they may improve it as much
as they please, if they can but in proportion raise the fund of their
own that is to purchase it.
Trade is the principal, but not the only requisite to aggrandize
a nation: there are other things to be taken care of besides. The
meum and tuum must be secured, crimes punished, and all other laws
concerning the administration of justice, wisely contrived, and
strictly executed. Foreign affairs must be likewise prudently managed,
and the ministry of every nation ought to have a good intelligence
abroad, and be well acquainted with the public transactions of all
those countries, that either by their neighbourhood, strength, or
interest, may be hurtful or beneficial to them, to take the necessary
measures accordingly, of crossing some, and assisting others, as
policy, and the balance of power direct. The multitude must be awed,
no man's conscience forced, and the clergy allowed no greater share in
state affairs, than our Saviour has bequeathed in his testament. These
are the arts that lead to worldly greatness: What sovereign power
soever makes a good use of them, that has any considerable nation to
govern, whether it be a monarchy, a commonwealth, or a mixture of both,
can never fail of making it flourish in spite of all the other powers
upon earth, and no luxury, or other vice, is ever able to shake their
constitution.----But here I expect a full-mouthed cry against me;
What! has God never punished and destroyed great nations for their
sins? Yes, but not without means, by infatuating their governors,
and suffering them to depart from either all or some of those general
maxims I have mentioned; and of all the famous states and empires
the world has had to boast of hitherto, none ever came to ruin, whose
destruction was not principally owing to the bad politics, neglects,
or mismanagements of the rulers.
There is no doubt, but more health and vigour is expected among
the people, and their offspring, from temperance and sobriety,
than there is from gluttony and drunkenness; yet I confess, that as
to luxury's effeminating and enervating a nation, I have not such
frightful notions now, as I have had formerly. When we hear or read
of things which we are altogether strangers to, they commonly bring
to our imagination such ideas of what we have seen, as (according to
our apprehension) must come the nearest to them: And I remember, that
when I have read of the luxury of Persia, Egypt, and other countries
where it has been a reigning vice, and that were effeminated and
enervated by it, it has sometimes put me in mind of the cramming and
swilling of ordinary tradesmen at a city feast, and the beastliness
their overgorging themselves is often attended with; at other times,
it has made me think on the distraction of dissolute sailors, as I
had seen them in company of half a dozen lewd women, roaring along
with fiddles before them; and was I to have been carried into any of
their great cities, I would have expected to have found one third of
the people sick a-bed with surfeits; another laid up with the gout,
or crippled by a more ignominious distemper; and the rest, that could
go without leading, walk along the streets in petticoats.
It is happy for us to have fear for a keeper, as long as our reason is
not strong enough to govern our appetites: And I believe, that the
great dread I had more particularly against the word, to enervate,
and some consequent thoughts on the etymology of it, did me abundance
of good when I was a school boy: But since I have seen something
in the world, the consequences of luxury to a nation seem not so
dreadful to me as they did. As long as men have the same appetites,
the same vices will remain. In all large societies, some will love
whoring, and others drinking. The lustful that can get no handsome
clean women, will content themselves with dirty drabs: and those
that cannot purchase true Hermitage or Pontack, will be glad of
more ordinary French claret. Those that cannot reach wine, take up
with most liquors, and a foot soldier or a beggar may make himself
as drunk with stale beer or malt spirits, as a lord with Burgundy,
Champaign, or Tockay. The cheapest and most slovenly way of indulging
our passions, does as much mischief to a man's constitution, as the
most elegant and expensive.
The greatest excesses of luxury are shown in buildings, furniture,
equipages, and clothes: Clean linen weakens a man no more than flannel;
tapestry, fine painting, or good wainscot, are no more unwholesome than
bare walls; and a rich couch, or a gilt chariot, are no more enervating
than the cold floor, or a country cart. The refined pleasures of men
of sense are seldom injurious to their constitution, and there are
many great epicures that will refuse to eat or drink more than their
heads or stomachs can bear. Sensual people may take as great care of
themselves as any: and the errors of the most viciously luxurious,
do not so much consist in the frequent repetitions of their lewdness,
and their eating and drinking too much (which are the things which
would most enervate them), as they do in the operose contrivances,
the profuseness and nicety they are served with, and the vast expence
they are at in their tables and amours.
But let us once suppose, that the ease and pleasures, the grandees,
and the rich people of every nation live in, render them unfit
to endure hardships, and undergo the toils of war. I will allow
that most of the common council of the city would make but very
indifferent foot soldiers; and I believe heartily, that if your
horse was to be composed of aldermen, and such as most of them are,
a small artillery of squibs would be sufficient to route them. But
what have the aldermen, the common council, or indeed all people of
any substance to do with the war, but to pay taxes? The hardships and
fatigues of war that are personally suffered, fall upon them that bear
the brunt of every thing, the meanest indigent part of the nation,
the working slaving people: For how excessive soever the plenty and
luxury of a nation may be, some body must do the work, houses and
ships must be built, merchandises must be removed, and the ground
tilled. Such a variety of labours in every great nation, require a
vast multitude, in which there are always loose, idle, extravagant
fellows enough to spare for an army; and those that are robust enough
to hedge and ditch, plow and thrash, or else not too much enervated
to be smiths, carpenters, sawyers, cloth-workers, porters or carmen,
will always be strong and hardy enough in a campaign or two to make
good soldiers, who, where good orders are kept, have seldom so much
plenty and superfluity come to their share, as to do them any hurt.
The mischief, then, to be feared from luxury among the people of war,
cannot extend itself beyond the officers. The greatest of them are
either men of a very high birth and princely education, or else
extraordinary parts, and no less experience; and whoever is made
choice of by a wise government to command an army en chef, should have
a consummate knowledge in martial affairs, intrepidity to keep him
calm in the midst of danger, and many other qualifications that must
be the work of time and application, on men of a quick penetration,
a distinguished genius, and a world of honour. Strong sinews and supple
joints are trifling advantages, not regarded in persons of their reach
and grandeur, that can destroy cities a-bed, and ruin whole countries
while they are at dinner. As they are most commonly men of great age,
it would be ridiculous to expect a hale constitution and agility of
limbs from them: So their heads be but active and well furnished, it
is no great matter what the rest of their bodies are. If they cannot
bear the fatigue of being on horseback, they may ride in coaches, or
be carried in litters. Mens conduct and sagacity are never the less
for their being cripples, and the best general the king of France
has now, can hardly crawl along. Those that are immediately under
the chief commanders must be very nigh of the same abilities, and
are generally men that have raised themselves to those posts by their
merit. The other officers are all of them in their several stations
obliged to lay out so large a share of their pay in fine clothes,
accoutrements, and other things, by the luxury of the times called
necessary, that they can spare but little money for debauches; for,
as they are advanced, and their salaries raised, so they are likewise
forced to increase their expences and their equipages, which, as well
as every thing else, must still be proportionable to their quality:
by which means, the greatest part of them are in a manner hindered
from those excesses that might be destructive to health; while their
luxury thus turned another way, serves, moreover, to heighten their
pride and vanity, the greatest motives to make them behave themselves
like what they would be thought to be (See Remark on l. 321).
There is nothing refines mankind more than love and honour. Those two
passions are equivalent to many virtues, and therefore the greatest
schools of breeding and good manners, are courts and armies; the
first to accomplish the women, the other to polish the men. What
the generality of officers among civilized nations affect, is a
perfect knowledge of the world and the rules of honour; an air of
frankness, and humanity peculiar to military men of experience, and
such a mixture of modesty and undauntedness, as may bespeak them both
courteous and valiant. Where good sense is fashionable, and a genteel
behaviour is in esteem, gluttony and drunkenness can be no reigning
vices. What officers of distinction chiefly aim at, is not a beastly,
but a splendid way of living, and the wishes of the most luxurious,
in their several degrees of quality, are to appear handsomely, and
excel each other in finery of equipage, politeness of entertainments,
and the reputation of a judicious fancy in every thing about them.
But if there should be more dissolute reprobates among officers,
than there are among men of other professions, which is not true,
yet the most debauched of them may be very serviceable, if they have
but a great share of honour. It is this that covers and makes up for a
multitude of defects in them, and it is this that none (how abandoned
soever they are to pleasure) dare pretend to be without. But as there
is no argument so convincing as matter of fact, let us look back on
what so lately happened in our two last wars with France. How many
puny young striplings have we had in our armies, tenderly educated,
nice in their dress, and curious in their diet, that underwent all
manner of duties with gallantry and cheerfulness?
Those that have such dismal apprehensions of luxury's enervating and
effeminating people, might, in Flanders and Spain have seen embroidered
beaux with fine laced shirts and powdered wigs stand as much fire,
and lead up to the mouth of a cannon, with as little concern as it
was possible for the most stinking slovens to have done in their own
hair, though it had not been combed in a month, and met with abundance
of wild rakes, who had actually impaired their healths, and broke
their constitutions with excesses of wine and women, that yet behaved
themselves with conduct and bravery against their enemies. Robustness
is the least thing required in an officer, and if sometimes strength
is of use, a firm resolution of mind, which the hopes of preferment,
emulation, and the love of glory inspire them with, will at a push
supply the place of bodily force.
Those that understand their business, and have a sufficient sense
of honour, as soon as they are used to danger will always be capable
officers: and their luxury, as long as they spend nobody's money but
their own, will never be prejudicial to a nation.
By all which, I think, I have proved what I designed in this remark
on luxury. First, that in one sense every thing may be called so,
and in another there is no such thing. Secondly, that with a wise
administration all people may swim in as much foreign luxury as
their product can purchase, without being impoverished by it. And,
lastly, that where military affairs are taken care of as they ought,
and the soldiers well paid and kept in good discipline, a wealthy
nation may live in all the ease and plenty imaginable; and in many
parts of it, show as much pomp and delicacy, as human wit can invent,
and at the same time be formidable to their neighbours, and come up
to the character of the bees in the fable, of which I said, that
Flatter'd in peace, and fear'd in wars,
They were th' esteem of foreigners;
And lavish of their wealth and lives,
The balance of all other hives.
(See what is farther said concerning luxury in the Remarks on line
182 and 307.)
Line 182. And odious pride a million more.
Pride is that natural faculty by which every mortal that has any
understanding over-values, and imagines better things of himself than
any impartial judge, thoroughly acquainted with all his qualities
and circumstances, could allow him. We are possessed of no other
quality so beneficial to society, and so necessary to render it
wealthy and flourishing as this, yet it is that which is most
generally detested. What is very peculiar to this faculty of ours,
is, that those who are the fullest of it, are the least willing to
connive at it in others; whereas the heinousness of other vices is
the most extenuated by those who are guilty of them themselves. The
chaste man hates fornication, and drunkenness is most abhorred by the
temperate; but none are so much offended at their neighbour's pride,
as the proudest of all; and if any one can pardon it, it is the most
humble: from which, I think, we may justly infer, that it being odious
to all the world, is a certain sign that all the world is troubled with
it. This all men of sense are ready to confess, and nobody denies but
that he has pride in general. But, if you come to particulars, you
will meet with few that will own any action you can name of theirs
to have proceeded from that principle. There are likewise many who
will allow, that among the sinful nations of the times, pride and
luxury are the great promoters of trade, but they refuse to own the
necessity there is, that in a more virtuous age (such a one as should
be free from pride), trade would in a great measure decay.
The Almighty, they say, has endowed us with the dominion over all
things which the earth and sea produce or contain; there is nothing
to be found in either, but what was made for the use of man; and his
skill and industry above other animals were given him, that he might
render both them and every thing else within the reach of his senses,
more serviceable to him. Upon this consideration they think it impious
to imagine, that humility, temperance, and other virtues should debar
people from the enjoyment of those comforts of life, which are not
denied to the most wicked nations; and so conclude, that without pride
or luxury, the same things might be eat, wore, and consumed; the same
number of handicrafts and artificers employed, and a nation be every
way as flourishing as where those vices are the most predominant.
As to wearing apparel in particular, they will tell you, that pride,
which sticks much nearer to us than our clothes, is only lodged in
the heart, and that rags often conceal a greater portion of it than
the most pompous attire; and that as it cannot be denied but that
there have always been virtuous princes, who, with humble hearts, have
wore their splendid diadems, and swayed their envied sceptres, void of
ambition, for the good of others; so it is very probable, that silver
and gold brocades, and the richest embroideries may, without a thought
of pride, be wore by many whose quality and fortune are suitable to
them. May not (say they) a good man of extraordinary revenues, make
every year a greater variety of suits than it is possible he should
wear out, and yet have no other ends than to set the poor at work,
to encourage trade, and by employing many, to promote the welfare of
his country? And considering food and raiment to be necessaries, and
the two chief articles to which all our worldly cares are extended, why
may not all mankind set aside a considerable part of their income for
the one as well as the other, without the least tincture of pride? Nay,
is not every member of the society in a manner obliged, according to
his ability, to contribute toward the maintenance of that branch of
trade on which the whole has so great a dependence? Besides that,
to appear decently is a civility, and often a duty, which, without
any regard to ourselves, we owe to those we converse with.
These are the objections generally made use of by haughty moralists,
who cannot endure to hear the dignity of their species arraigned;
but if we look narrowly into them, they may soon be answered.
If we had vices, I cannot see why any man should ever make more suits
than he has occasion for, though he was never so desirous of promoting
the good of the nation: for, though in the wearing of a well-wrought
silk, rather than a slight stuff, and the preferring curious fine
cloth to coarse, he had no other view but the setting of more people
to work, and consequently the public welfare, yet he could consider
clothes no otherwise than lovers of their country do taxes now;
they may pay them with alacrity, but nobody gives more than his due;
especially where all are justly rated according to their abilities,
as it could no otherwise be expected in a very virtuous age. Besides,
that in such golden times nobody would dress above his condition,
nobody pinch his family, cheat or over reach his neighbour to purchase
finery, and consequently there would not be half the consumption,
nor a third part of the people employed as now there are. But, to make
this more plain, and demonstrate, that for the support of trade there
can be nothing equivalent to pride, I shall examine the several views
men have in outward apparel, and set forth what daily experience may
teach every body as to dress.
Clothes were originally made for two ends, to hide our nakedness, and
to fence our bodies against the weather, and other outward injuries:
to these our boundless pride has added a third, which is ornament;
for what else but an excess of stupid vanity, could have prevailed
upon our reason to fancy that ornamental, which must continually put
us in mind of our wants and misery, beyond all other animals that
are ready clothed by nature herself? It is indeed to be admired
how so sensible a creature as man, that pretends to so many fine
qualities of his own, should condescend to value himself upon what
is robbed from so innocent and defenceless an animal as a sheep, or
what he is beholden for to the most insignificant thing upon earth,
a dying worm; yet while he is proud of such trifling depredations, he
has the folly to laugh at the Hottentots on the furthest promontory
of Afric, who adorn themselves with the guts of their dead enemies,
without considering that they are the ensigns of their valour those
barbarians are fine with, the true spolia opima, and that if their
pride be more savage than ours, it is certainly less ridiculous,
because they wear the spoils of the more noble animal.
But whatever reflections may be made on this head, the world has
long since decided the matter; handsome apparel is a main point,
fine feathers make fine birds, and people, where they are not
known, are generally honoured according to their clothes and other
accoutrements they have about them; from the richness of them we
judge of their wealth, and by their ordering of them we guess at
their understanding. It is this which encourages every body, who is
conscious of his little merit, if he is any ways able to wear clothes
above his rank, especially in large and populous cities, where obscure
men may hourly meet with fifty strangers to one acquaintance, and
consequently have the pleasure of being esteemed by a vast majority,
not as what they are, but what they appear to be: which is a greater
temptation than most people want to be vain.
Whoever takes delight in viewing the various scenes of low life, may,
on Easter, Whitsun, and other great holidays, meet with scores of
people, especially women, of almost the lowest rank, that wear good
and fashionable clothes: if coming to talk with them, you treat them
more courteously and with greater respect than what they are conscious
they deserve, they will commonly be ashamed of owning what they are;
and often you may, if you are a little inquisitive, discover in them
a most anxious care to conceal the business they follow, and the
place they live in. The reason is plain; while they receive those
civilities that are not usually paid them, and which they think only
due to their betters, they have the satisfaction to imagine, that they
appear what they would be, which, to weak minds, is a pleasure almost
as substantial as they could reap from the very accomplishments of
their wishes: this golden dream they are unwilling to be disturbed
in, and being sure that the meanness of their condition, if it is
known, must sink them very low in your opinion, they hug themselves
in their disguise, and take all imaginable precaution not to forfeit,
by a useless discovery, the esteem which they flatter themselves that
their good clothes have drawn from you.
Though every body allows, that as to apparel and manner of living,
we ought to behave ourselves suitable to our conditions, and follow
the examples of the most sensible, and prudent among our equals in
rank and fortune: yet how few, that are not either miserably covetous,
or else proud of singularity, have this discretion to boast of? We
all look above ourselves, and, as fast as we can, strive to imitate
those that some way or other are superior to us.
The poorest labourer's wife in the parish, who scorns to wear a
strong wholesome frize, as she might, will half starve herself and
her husband to purchase a second-hand gown and petticoat, that cannot
do her half the service; because, forsooth, it is more genteel. The
weaver, the shoemaker, the tailor, the barber, and every mean working
fellow, that can set up with little, has the impudence, with the
first money he gets, to dress himself like a tradesman of substance:
the ordinary retailer in the clothing of his wife, takes pattern
from his neighbour, that deals in the same commodity by wholesale,
and the reason he gives for it is, that twelve years ago the other
had not a bigger shop than himself. The druggist, mercer, draper,
and other creditable shopkeepers, can find no difference between
themselves and merchants, and therefore dress and live like them. The
merchant's lady, who cannot bear the assurance of those mechanics,
flies for refuge to the other end of the town, and scorns to follow
any fashion but what she takes from thence; this haughtiness alarms the
court, the women of quality are frightened to see merchants wives and
daughters dressed like themselves: this impudence of the city, they
cry, is intolerable; mantua-makers are sent for, and the contrivance
of fashions becomes all their study, that they may have always new
modes ready to take up, as soon as those saucy cits shall begin to
imitate those in being. The same emulation is continued through the
several degrees of quality, to an incredible expence, till at last
the prince's great favourites and those of the first rank of all,
having nothing left to outstrip some of their inferiors, are forced
to lay out vast estates in pompous equipages, magnificent furniture,
sumptuous gardens, and princely palaces.
To this emulation and continual striving to out-do one another it is
owing, that after so many various shiftings and changes of modes, in
trumping up new ones, and renewing of old ones, there is still a plus
ultra left for the ingenious; it is this, or at least the consequence
of it, that sets the poor to work, adds spurs to industry, and
encourages the skilful artificer to search after further improvements.
It may be objected, that many people of good fashion, who have been
used to be well dressed, out of custom, wear rich clothes with all
the indifferency imaginable, and that the benefit to trade accruing
from them cannot be ascribed to emulation or pride. To this I answer,
that it is impossible, that those who trouble their heads so little
with their dress, could ever have wore those rich clothes, if both
the stuffs and fashions had not been first invented to gratify the
vanity of others, who took greater delight in fine apparel, than they;
besides that every body is not without pride that appears to be so;
all the symptoms of that vice are not easily discovered; they are
manifold, and vary according to the age, humour, circumstances,
and often constitution of the people.
The choleric city captain seems impatient to come to action, and
expressing his warlike genius by the firmness of his steps, makes
his pike, for want of enemies, tremble at the valour of his arm:
his martial finery, as he marches along, inspires him with an unusual
elevation of mind, by which, endeavouring to forget his shop as well as
himself, he looks up at the balconies with the fierceness of a Saracen
conqueror: while the phlegmatic alderman, now become venerable both
for his age and his authority, contents himself with being thought
a considerable man; and knowing no easier way to express his vanity,
looks big in his coach, where being known by his paultry livery, he
receives, in sullen state, the homage that is paid him by the meaner
sort of people.
The beardless ensign counterfeits a gravity above his years, and with
ridiculous assurance strives to imitate the stern countenance of
his colonel, flattering himself, all the while, that by his daring
mien you will judge of his prowess. The youthful fair, in a vast
concern of being overlooked, by the continual changing of her posture,
betrays a violent desire of being observed, and catching, as it were,
at every body's eyes, courts with obliging looks the admiration of
her beholders. The conceited coxcomb, on the contrary, displaying an
air of sufficiency, is wholly taken up with the contemplation of his
own perfections, and in public places discovers such a disregard to
others, that the ignorant must imagine, he thinks himself to be alone.
These, and such like, are all manifest, though different tokens of
pride, that are obvious to all the world; but man's vanity is not
always so soon found out. When we perceive an air of humanity, and
men seem not to be employed in admiring themselves, nor altogether
unmindful of others, we are apt to pronounce them void of pride,
when, perhaps, they are only fatigued with gratifying their vanity,
and become languid from a satiety of enjoyments. That outward show
of peace within, and drowsy composure of careless negligence, with
which a great man is often seen in his plain chariot to loll at ease,
are not always so free from art, as they may seem to be. Nothing is
more ravishing to the proud, than to be thought happy.
The well-bred gentleman places his greatest pride in the skill he has
of covering it with dexterity, and some are so expert in concealing
this frailty, that when they are the most guilty of it, the vulgar
think them the most exempt from it. Thus the dissembling courtier,
when he appears in state, assumes an air of modesty and good humour;
and while he is ready to burst with vanity, seems to be wholly
ignorant of his greatness; well knowing, that those lovely qualities
must heighten him in the esteem of others, and be an addition to that
grandeur, which the coronets about his coach and harnesses, with the
rest of his equipage, cannot fail to proclaim without his assistance.
And as in these, pride is overlooked, because industriously concealed,
so in others again, it is denied that they have any, when they show
(or at least seem to show) it in the most public manner. The wealthy
parson being, as well as the rest of his profession, debarred from the
gaiety of laymen, makes it his business to look out for an admirable
black, and the finest cloth that money can purchase, and distinguishes
himself by the fullness of his noble and spotless garment; his wigs
are as fashionable as that form he is forced to comply with will
admit of; but as he is only stinted in their shape, so he takes
care that for goodness of hair, and colour, few noblemen shall be
able to match him; his body is ever clean, as well as his clothes,
his sleek face is kept constantly shaved, and his handsome nails
are diligently pared; his smooth white hand, and a brilliant of the
first water, mutually becoming, honour each other with double graces;
what linen he discovers is transparently curious, and he scorns ever
to be seen abroad with a worse beaver than what a rich banker would
be proud of on his wedding-day; to all these niceties in dress he
adds a majestic gait, and expresses a commanding loftiness in his
carriage; yet common civility, notwithstanding, the evidence of so
many concurring symptoms, will not allow us to suspect any of his
actions to be the result of pride: considering the dignity of his
office, it is only decency in him, what would be vanity in others;
and in good manners to his calling we ought to believe, that the worthy
gentleman, without any regard to his reverend person, puts himself to
all this trouble and expence, merely out of a respect which is due
to the divine order he belongs to, and a religious zeal to preserve
his holy function from the contempt of scoffers. With all my heart;
nothing of all this shall be called pride, let me only be allowed to
say, that to our human capacities it looks very like it.
But if at last I should grant, that there are men who enjoy all the
fineries of equipage and furniture, as well as clothes, and yet have
no pride in them; it is certain, that if all should be such, that
emulation I spoke of before must cease, and consequently trade, which
has so great a dependence upon it, suffer in every branch. For to say,
that if all men were truly virtuous, they might, without any regard to
themselves, consume as much out of zeal to serve their neighbours and
promote the public good, as they do now out of self-love and emulation,
is a miserable shift, and an unreasonable supposition. As there have
been good people in all ages, so, without doubt, we are not destitute
of them in this; but let us inquire of the periwig-makers and tailors,
in what gentlemen, even of the greatest wealth and highest quality,
they ever could discover such public-spirited views. Ask the lacemen,
the mercers, and the linen-drapers, whether the richest, and if
you will, the most virtuous ladies, if they buy with ready money,
or intend to pay in any reasonable time, will not drive from shop to
shop, to try the market, make as many words, and stand as hard with
them to save a groat or sixpence in a yard, as the most necessitous
jilts in town. If it be urged, that if there are not, it is possible
there might be such people; I answer that it is as possible that cats,
instead of killing rats and mice, should feed them, and go about the
house to suckle and nurse their young ones; or that a kite should call
the hens to their meat, as the cock does, and sit brooding over their
chickens instead of devouring them; but if they should all do so,
they would cease to be cats and kites; it is inconsistent with their
natures, and the species of creatures which now we mean, when we name
cats and kites, would be extinct as soon as that could come to pass.
Line 183. Envy itself, and vanity,
Were ministers of industry.
Envy is that baseness in our nature, which makes us grieve and pine at
what we conceive to be a happiness in others. I do not believe there
is a human creature in his senses arrived to maturity, that at one time
or other has not been carried away by this passion in good earnest; and
yet I never met with any one that dared own he was guilty of it, but in
jest. That we are so generally ashamed of this vice, is owing to that
strong habit of hypocrisy, by the help of which, we have learned from
our cradle to hide even from ourselves the vast extent of self-love,
and all its different branches. It is impossible man should wish
better for another than he does for himself, unless where he supposes
an impossibility that himself should attain to those wishes; and from
hence we may easily learn after what manner this passion is raised in
us. In order to it, we are to consider first, that as well as we think
of ourselves, so ill we think of our neighbour with equal injustice;
and when we apprehend, that others do or will enjoy what we think
they do not deserve, it afflicts and makes us angry with the cause
of that disturbance. Secondly, That we are employed in wishing well
for ourselves, every one according to his judgment and inclinations,
and when we observe something we like, and yet are destitute of,
in the possession of others; it occasions first sorrow in us for not
having the thing we like. This sorrow is incurable, while we continue
our esteem for the thing we want: but as self-defence is restless, and
never suffers us to leave any means untried how to remove evil from us,
as far and as well as we are able; experience teaches us, that nothing
in nature more alleviates this sorrow, than our anger against those
who are possessed of what we esteem and want. This latter passion,
therefore, we cherish and cultivate to save or relieve ourselves,
at least in part, from the uneasiness we felt from the first.
Envy, then, is a compound of grief and anger; the degrees of this
passion depend chiefly on the nearness or remoteness of the objects,
as to circumstances. If one, who is forced to walk on foot envies
a great man for keeping a coach and six, it will never be with that
violence, or give him that disturbance which it may to a man, who keeps
a coach himself, but can only afford to drive with four horses. The
symptoms of envy are as various, and as hard to describe, as those
of the plague; at some time it appears in one shape, at others in
another quite different. Among the fair, the disease is very common,
and the signs of it very conspicuous in their opinions and censures
of one another. In beautiful young women, you may often discover
this faculty to a high degree; they frequently will hate one another
mortally at first sight, from no other principle than envy; and you may
read this scorn, and unreasonable aversion, in their very countenances,
if they have not a great deal of art, and well learned to dissemble.
In the rude and unpolished multitude, this passion is very bare-faced;
especially when they envy others for the goods of fortune: They rail
at their betters, rip up their faults, and take pains to misconstrue
their most commendable actions: They murmur at Providence, and loudly
complain, that the good things of this world are chiefly enjoyed
by those who do not deserve them. The grosser sort of them it often
affects so violently, that if they were not withheld by the fear of the
laws, they would go directly and beat those their envy is levelled at,
from no other provocation than what that passion suggests to them.
The men of letters, labouring under this distemper, discover
quite different symptoms. When they envy a person for his parts
and erudition, their chief care is industriously to conceal their
frailty, which generally is attempted by denying and depreciating
the good qualities they envy: They carefully peruse his works, and
are displeased with every fine passage they meet with; they look for
nothing but his errors, and wish for no greater feast than a gross
mistake: In their censures they are captious, as well as severe,
make mountains of mole-hills, and will not pardon the least shadow
of a fault, but exaggerate the most trifling omission into a capital
blunder.
Envy is visible in brute-beasts; horses show it in their endeavours of
outstripping one another; and the best spirited will run themselves
to death, before they will suffer another before them. In dogs,
this passion is likewise plainly to be seen, those who are used to be
caressed will never tamely bear that felicity in others. I have seen
a lap-dog that would choke himself with victuals, rather than leave
any thing for a competitor of his own kind; and we may often observe
the same behaviour in those creatures which we daily see in infants
that are froward, and by being over-fondled made humoursome. If out
of caprice they at any time refuse to eat what they have asked for,
and we can but make them believe that some body else, nay, even the
cat or the dog is going to take it from them, they will make an end
of their oughts with pleasure, and feed even against their appetite.
If envy was not rivetted in human nature, it would not be so common
in children, and youth would not be so generally spurred on by
emulation. Those who would derive every thing that is beneficial to
the society from a good principle, ascribe the effects of emulation in
school-boys to a virtue of the mind; as it requires labour and pains,
so it is evident, that they commit a self-denial, who act from that
disposition; but if we look narrowly into it, we shall find, that this
sacrifice of ease and pleasure is only made to envy, and the love of
glory. If there was not something very like this passion, mixed with
that pretended virtue, it would be impossible to raise and increase
it by the same means that create envy. The boy, who receives a reward
for the superiority of his performance, is conscious of the vexation
it would have been to him, if he should have fallen short of it:
This reflection makes him exert himself, not to be outdone by those
whom he looks upon as his inferiors, and the greater his pride is,
the more self-denial he will practise to maintain his conquest. The
other, who, in spite of the pains he took to do well, has missed of
the prize, is sorry, and consequently angry with him whom he must
look upon as the cause of his grief: But to show this anger, would
be ridiculous, and of no service to him, so that he must either be
contented to be less esteemed than the other boy; or, by renewing
his endeavours, become a greater proficient: and it is ten to one,
but the disinterested, good-humoured, and peaceable lad, will choose
the first, and so become indolent and inactive, while the covetous,
peevish, and quarrelsome rascal, shall take incredible pains, and
make himself a conqueror in his turn.
Envy, as it is very common among painters, so it is of great use
for their improvement: I do not mean, that little dawbers envy great
masters, but most of them are tainted with this vice against those
immediately above them. If the pupil of a famous artist is of a
bright genius, and uncommon application, he first adores his master;
but as his own skill increases, he begins insensibly to envy what
he admired before. To learn the nature of this passion, and that
it consists in what I have named, we are but to observe, that, if a
painter, by exerting himself, comes not only to equal, but to exceed
the man he envied, his sorrow is gone, and all his anger disarmed;
and if he hated him before, he is now glad to be friends with him,
if the other will condescend to it.
Married women, who are guilty of this vice, which few are not,
are always endeavouring to raise the same passion in their spouses;
and where they have prevailed, envy and emulation have kept more men
in bounds, and reformed more ill husbands from sloth, from drinking,
and other evil courses, than all the sermons that have been preached
since the time of the Apostles.
As every body would be happy, enjoy pleasure, and, avoid pain, if
he could, so self-love bids us look on every creature that seems
satisfied, as a rival in happiness; and the satisfaction we have in
seeing that felicity disturbed, without any advantage to ourselves,
but what springs from the pleasure we have in beholding it, is called
loving mischief for mischief's sake; and the motive of which that
frailty is the result, malice, another offspring derived from the same
original; for if there was no envy, there could be no malice. When
the passions lie dormant, we have no apprehension of them, and often
people think they have not such a frailty in their nature, because
that moment they are not affected with it.
A gentleman well dressed, who happens to be dirtied all over by a
coach or a cart, is laughed at, and by his inferiors much more than his
equals, because they envy him more: they know he is vexed at it, and,
imagining him to be happier than themselves, they are glad to see him
meet with displeasures in his turn! But a young lady, if she be in a
serious mood, instead of laughing at, pities him, because a clean man
is a sight she takes delight in, and there is no room for envy. At
disasters, we either laugh, or pity those that befal them, according
to the stock we are possessed of either malice or compassion. If a
man falls or hurts himself so slightly, that it moves not the latter,
we laugh, and here our pity and malice shake us alternately: Indeed,
Sir, I am very sorry for it, I beg your pardon for laughing, I am
the silliest creature in the world, then laugh again; and again,
I am indeed very sorry, and so on. Some are so malicious, they would
laugh if a man broke his leg, and others are so compassionate, that
they can heartily pity a man for the least spot in his clothes; but
nobody is so savage that no compassion can touch him, nor any man so
good-natured, as never to be affected with any malicious pleasure. How
strangely our passions govern us! We envy a man for being rich, and
then perfectly hate him: But if we come to be his equals, we are calm,
and the least condescension in him makes us friends; but if we become
visibly superior to him, we can pity his misfortunes. The reason
why men of true good sense envy less than others, is because they
admire themselves with less hesitation than fools and silly people;
for, though they do not show this to others, yet the solidity of their
thinking gives them an assurance of their real worth, which men of weak
understanding can never feel within, though they often counterfeit it.
The ostracism of the Greeks was a sacrifice of valuable men made
to epidemic envy, and often applied as an infallible remedy to cure
and prevent the mischiefs of popular spleen and rancour. A victim of
state often appeases the murmurs of a whole nation, and after-ages
frequently wonder at barbarities of this nature, which, under the
same circumstances, they would have committed themselves. They are
compliments to the people's malice, which is never better gratified,
than when they can see a great man humbled. We believe that we love
justice, and to see merit rewarded; but if men continue long in the
first posts of honour, half of us grow weary of them, look for their
faults, and, if we can find none, we suppose they hide them, and it
is much if the greatest part of us do not wish them discarded. This
foul play, the best of men ought ever to apprehend from all who are
not their immediate friends or acquaintance, because nothing is more
tiresome to us, than the repetition of praises we have no manner of
share in.
The more a passion is a compound of many others, the more difficult it
is to define it; and the more it is tormenting to those that labour
under it, the greater cruelty it is capable of inspiring them with
against others: Therefore nothing is more whimsical or mischievous
than jealousy, which is made up of love, hope, fear, and a great deal
of envy: The last has been sufficiently treated of already; and what I
have to say of fear, the reader will find under Remark on l. 321. So
that the better to explain and illustrate this odd mixture, the
ingredients I shall further speak of in this place, are hope and love.
Hoping is wishing with some degree of confidence, that the thing
wished for will come to pass. The firmness and imbecility of our hope
depend entirely on the greater or lesser degree of our confidence,
and all hope includes doubt; for when our confidence is arrived to
that height, as to exclude all doubts, it becomes a certainty, and
we take for granted what we only hoped for before. A silver inkhorn
may pass in speech, because every body knows what we mean by it,
but a certain hope cannot: For a man who makes use of an epithet that
destroys the essence of the substantive he joins it to, can have no
meaning at all; and the more clearly we understand the force of the
epithet, and the nature of the substantive, the more palpable is the
nonsense of the heterogeneous compound. The reason, therefore, why
it is not so shocking to some to hear a man speak of certain hope,
as if he should talk of hot ice, or liquid oak, is not because there
is less nonsense contained in the first, than there is in either
of the latter; but because the word hope, I mean the essence of it,
is not so clearly understood by the generality of the people, as the
words and essence of ice and oak are.
Love, in the first place, signifies affection, such as parents and
nurses bear to children, and friends to one another; it consists
in a liking and well-wishing to the person beloved. We give an
easy construction to his words and actions, and feel a proneness
to excuse and forgive his faults, if we see any; his interest we
make on all accounts our own, even to our prejudice, and receive
an inward satisfaction for sympathising with him in his sorrows,
as well as joys. What I said last is not impossible, whatever it may
seem to be; for, when we are sincere in sharing with one another in
his misfortunes, self-love makes us believe, that the sufferings we
feel must alleviate and lessen those of our friend; and while this
fond reflection is soothing our pain, a secret pleasure arises from
our grieving for the person we love.
Secondly, by love we understand a strong inclination, in its nature
distinct from all other affections of friendship, gratitude, and
consanguinity, that persons of different sexes, after liking, bear
to one another: it is in this signification, that love enters into
the compound of jealousy, and is the effect as well as happy disguise
of that passion that prompts us to labour for the preservation of our
species. This latter appetite is innate both in men and women, who are
not defective in their formation, as much as hunger or thirst, though
they are seldom affected with it before the years of puberty. Could we
undress nature, and pry into her deepest recesses, we should discover
the seeds of this passion before it exerts itself, as plainly as we
see the teeth in an embryo, before the gums are formed. There are
few healthy people of either sex, whom it has made no impression on
before twenty: yet, as the peace and happiness of the civil society
require that this should be kept a secret, never to be talked of in
public; so, among well-bred people, it is counted highly criminal to
mention, before company, any thing in plain words, that is, relating
to this mystery of succession: by which means, the very name of the
appetite, though the most necessary for the continuance of mankind,
is become odious, and the proper epithets commonly joined to lust,
are filthy and abominable.
This impulse of nature in people of strict morals, and rigid
modesty, often disturbs the body for a considerable time before it is
understood or known to be what it is, and it is remarkable, that the
most polished, and best instructed, are generally the most ignorant
as to this affair; and here I can but observe the difference between
man in the wild state of nature, and the same creature in the civil
society. In the first, men and women, if left rude and untaught in
the sciences of modes and manners, would quickly find out the cause
of that disturbance, and be at a loss no more than other animals
for a present remedy: besides, that it is not probable they would
want either precept or example from the more experienced. But, in
the second, where the rules of religion, law, and decency, are to
be followed, and obeyed, before any dictates of nature, the youth
of both sexes are to be armed and fortified against this impulse,
and from their infancy artfully frightened from the most remote
approaches of it. The appetite itself, and all the symptoms of it,
though they are plainly felt and understood, are to be stifled with
care and severity, and, in women, flatly disowned, and if there be
occasion, with obstinacy denied, even when themselves are affected by
them. If it throws them into distempers, they must be cured by physic,
or else patiently bear them in silence; and it is the interest of the
society to preserve decency and politeness; that women should linger,
waste, and die, rather than relieve themselves in an unlawful manner;
and among the fashionable part of mankind, the people of birth and
fortune, it is expected that matrimony should never be entered upon
without a curious regard to family, estate, and reputation, and, in the
making of matches, the call of nature be the very last consideration.
Those, then, who would make love and lust synonymous, confound the
effect with the cause of it: yet such is the force of education,
and a habit of thinking, as we are taught, that sometimes persons of
either sex are actually in love without feeling any carnal desires,
or penetrating into the intentions of nature, the end proposed by
her, without which they could never have been affected with that
sort of passion. That there are such is certain, but many more
whose pretences to those refined notions are only upheld by art and
dissimulation. Those, who are really such Platonic lovers, are commonly
the pale-faced weakly people, of cold and phlegmatic constitutions
in either sex; the hale and robust, of bilious temperament, and a
sanguine complexion, never entertain any love so spiritual as to
exclude all thoughts and wishes that relate to the body; but if the
most seraphic lovers would know the original of their inclination,
let them but suppose that another should have the corporal enjoyment
of the person beloved, and by the tortures they will suffer from
that reflection they will soon discover the nature of their passions:
whereas, on the contrary, parents and friends receive a satisfaction
in reflecting on the joys and comforts of a happy marriage, to be
tasted by those they wish well to.
The curious, that are skilled in anatomizing the invisible part of
man, will observe that the more sublime and exempt this love is from
all thoughts of sensuality, the more spurious it is, and the more it
degenerates from its honest original and primitive simplicity. The
power and sagacity as well as labour and care of the politician in
civilizing the society, has been no where more conspicuous, than in
the happy contrivance of playing our passions against one another. By
flattering our pride, and still increasing the good opinion we have
of ourselves on the one hand, and inspiring us on the other with
a superlative dread and mortal aversion against shame, the artful
moralists have taught us cheerfully to encounter ourselves, and if
not subdue, at least, so to conceal and disguise our darling passion,
lust, that we scarce know it when we meet with it in our breasts:
Oh! the mighty prize we have in view for all our self-denial! can any
man be so serious as to abstain from laughter, when he considers, that
for so much deceit and insincerity practiced upon ourselves as well
as others, we have no other recompense than the vain satisfaction
of making our species appear more exalted and remote from that
of other animals, than it really is; and we, in our consciences,
know it to be? yet this is fact, and in it we plainly perceive the
reason why it was necessary to render odious every word or action by
which we might discover the innate desire we feel to perpetuate our
kind; and why tamely to submit to the violence of a furious appetite
(which is painful to resist) and innocently to obey the most pressing
demand of nature without guile or hypocrisy, like other creatures,
should be branded with the ignominious name of brutality.
What we call love, then, is not a genuine, but an adulterated appetite,
or rather a compound, a heap of several contradictory passions blended
in one. As it is a product of nature warped by custom and education,
so the true origin and first motive of it, as I have hinted already,
is stifled in well-bred people, and concealed from themselves: all
which is the reason, that, as those affected with it, vary in age,
strength, resolution, temper, circumstances, and manners, the effects
of it are so different, whimsical, surprising, and unaccountable.
It is this passion that makes jealousy so troublesome, and the envy
of it often so fatal: those who imagine that there may be jealousy
without love, do not understand that passion. Men may not have the
least affection for their wives, and yet be angry with them for their
conduct, and suspicious of them either with or without a cause: but
what in such cases affects them is their pride, the concern for their
reputation. They feel a hatred against them without remorse; when
they are outrageous, they can beat them and go to sleep contentedly:
such husbands may watch their dames themselves, and have them observed
by others; but their vigilance is not so intense; they are not so
inquisitive or industrious in their searches, neither do they feel
that anxiety of heart at the fear of a discovery, as when love is
mixed with the passions.
What confirms me in this opinion is, that we never observe this
behaviour between a man and his mistress; for when his love is gone
and he suspects her to be false, he leaves her, and troubles his head
no more about her: whereas, it is the greatest difficulty imaginable,
even to a man of sense, to part with his mistress as long as he loves
her, whatever faults she may be guilty of. If in his anger he strikes
her, he is uneasy after it; his love makes him reflect on the hurt he
has done her, and he wants to be reconciled to her again. He may talk
of hating her, and many times from his heart wish her hanged, but if
he cannot get entirely rid of his frailty, he can never disentangle
himself from her: though she is represented in the most monstrous
guilt to his imagination, and he has resolved and swore a thousand
times never to come near her again, there is no trusting him, even
when he is fully convinced of her infidelity, if his love continues,
his despair is never so lasting, but between the blackest fits of it
he relents, and finds lucid intervals of hope; he forms excuses for
her, thinks of pardoning, and in order to it racks his invention for
possibilities that may make her appear less criminal.
Line 200. Real pleasures, comforts, ease.
That the highest good consisted in pleasure, was the doctrine of
Epicurus, who yet led a life exemplary for continence, sobriety, and
other virtues, which made people of the succeeding ages quarrel about
the signification of pleasure. Those who argued from the temperance
of the philosopher, said, That the delight Epicurus meant, was being
virtuous; so Erasmus in his Colloquies tells us, that there are no
greater Epicures than pious Christians. Others that reflected on the
dissolute manners of the greatest part of his followers, would have
it, that by pleasures he could have understood nothing but sensual
ones, and the gratification of our passions. I shall not decide
their quarrel, but am of opinion, that whether men be good or bad,
what they take delight in is their pleasure; and not to look out
for any further etymology from the learned languages, I believe an
Englishman may justly call everything a pleasure that pleases him,
and according to this definition, we ought to dispute no more about
men's pleasures than their tastes: Trahit sua quemque voluptas.
The worldly-minded, voluptuous, and ambitious man, notwithstanding
he is void of merit, covets precedence every where, and desires
to be dignified above his betters: he aims at spacious palaces,
and delicious gardens; his chief delight is in excelling others
in stately horses, magnificent coaches, a numerous attendance, and
dear-bought furniture. To gratify his lust, he wishes for genteel,
young, beautiful women of different charms and complexions, that
shall adore his greatness, and be really in love with his person:
his cellars he would have stored with the flower of every country
that produces excellent wines: his tables he desires may be served
with many courses, and each of them contain a choice variety of
dainties not easily purchased, and ample evidences of elaborate and
judicious cookery; while harmonious music, and well-couched flattery,
entertain his hearing by turns. He employs even in the meanest
trifles, none but the ablest and most ingenious workmen, that his
judgment and fancy may as evidently appear in the least things that
belong to him as his wealth and quality are manifested in those of
greater value. He desires to have several sets of witty, facetious,
and polite people to converse with, and among them he would have
some famous for learning and universal knowledge: for his serious
affairs, he wishes to find men of parts and experience, that should
be diligent and faithful. Those that are to wait on him he would have
handy, mannerly, and discreet, of comely aspect, and a graceful mien:
what he requires in them besides, is a respectful care of every thing
that is his, nimbleness without hurry, dispatch without noise, and an
unlimited obedience to his orders: nothing he thinks more troublesome
than speaking to servants; wherefore he will only be attended by such,
as by observing his looks have learned to interpret his will from the
slightest motions. He loves to see an elegant nicety in every thing
that approaches him, and in what is to be employed about his person,
he desires a superlative cleanliness to be religiously observed. The
chief officers of his household he would have to be men of birth,
honour and distinction, as well as order, contrivance, and economy; for
though he loves to be honoured by every body, and receives the respects
of the common people with joy, yet the homage that is paid him by
persons of quality is ravishing to him in a more transcendent manner.
While thus wallowing in a sea of lust and vanity, he is wholly
employed in provoking and indulging his appetites, he desires the
world should think him altogether free from pride and sensuality,
and put a favourable construction upon his most glaring vices: nay,
if his authority can purchase it, he covets to be thought wise,
brave, generous, good-natured, and endued with the virtues he thinks
worth having. He would have us believe that the pomp and luxury
he is served with are as many tiresome plagues to him; and all the
grandeur he appears in is an ungrateful burden, which, to his sorrow,
is inseparable from the high sphere he moves in; that his noble
mind, so much exalted above vulgar capacities, aims at higher ends,
and cannot relish such worthless enjoyments; that the highest of his
ambition is to promote the public welfare, and his greatest pleasure
to see his country flourish, and every body in it made happy. These
are called real pleasures by the vicious and earthly-minded, and
whoever is able, either by his skill or fortune, after this refined
manner at once to enjoy the world, and the good opinion of it, is
counted extremely happy by all the most fashionable part of the people.
But, on the other side, most of the ancient philosophers and grave
moralists, especially the Stoics, would not allow any thing to be a
real good that was liable to be taken from them by others. They wisely
considered the instability of fortune, and the favour of princes; the
vanity of honour, and popular applause; the precariousness of riches,
and all earthly possessions; and therefore placed true happiness in the
calm serenity of a contented mind, free from guilt and ambition; a mind
that, having subdued every sensual appetite, despises the smiles as
well as frowns of fortune, and taking no delight but in contemplation,
desires nothing but what every body is able to give to himself: a mind
that, armed with fortitude and resolution, has learned to sustain the
greatest losses without concern, to endure pain without affliction, and
to bear injuries without resentment. Many have owned themselves arrived
to this height of self-denial, and then, if we may believe them, they
were raised above common mortals, and their strength extended vastly
beyond the pitch of their first nature: they could behold the anger
of threatening tyrants and the most imminent dangers without terror,
and preserved their tranquillity in the midst of torments: death itself
they could meet with intrepidity, and left the world with no greater
reluctance than they had showed fondness at their entrance into it.
These among the ancients have always bore the greatest sway; yet
others that were no fools neither, have exploded those precepts as
impracticable, called their notions romantic, and endeavoured to prove,
that what these Stoics asserted of themselves, exceeded all human force
and possibility; and that therefore the virtues they boasted of could
be nothing but haughty pretence, full of arrogance and hypocrisy;
yet notwithstanding these censures, the serious part of the world,
and the generality of wise men that have lived ever since to this
day, agree with the Stoics in the most material points; as that there
can be no true felicity in what depends on things perishable; that
peace within is the greatest blessing, and no conquest like that of
our passions; that knowledge, temperance, fortitude, humility, and
other embellishments of the mind are the most valuable acquisitions;
that no man can be happy but he that is good: and that the virtuous
are only capable of enjoying real pleasures.
I expect to be asked, why in the fable I have called those pleasures
real, that are directly opposite to those which I own the wise men of
all ages have extolled as the most valuable? My answer is, because I do
not call things pleasures which men say are best, but such as they seem
to be most pleased with; how can I believe that a mans chief delight is
in the embellishment of the mind, when I see him ever employed about,
and daily pursue the pleasures that are contrary to them? John never
cuts any pudding, but just enough that you cannot say he took none:
this little bit, after much chomping and chewing, you see goes down
with him like chopped hay; after that he falls upon the beef with
a voracious appetite, and crams himself up to his throat. Is it not
provoking, to hear John cry every day that pudding is all his delight,
and that he does not value the beef of a farthing.
I could swagger about fortitude and the contempt of riches as much
as Seneca himself, and would undertake to write twice as much in
behalf of poverty as ever he did; for the tenth part of his estate,
I could teach the way to his summum bonum as exactly as I know my way
home: I could tell people to extricate themselves from all worldly
engagements, and to purify the mind, they must divest themselves of
their passions, as men take out the furniture when they would clean
a room thoroughly; and I am clearly of the opinion, that the malice
and most severe strokes of fortune, can do no more injury to a mind
thus stripped of all fears, wishes, and inclinations, than a blind
horse can do in an empty barn. In the theory of all this I am very
perfect, but the practice is very difficult; and if you went about
picking my pocket, offered to take the victuals from before me when
I am hungry, or made but the least motion of spitting in my face,
I dare not promise how philosophically I should behave myself. But
that I am forced to submit to every caprice of my unruly nature, you
will say, is no argument, that others are as little masters of theirs,
and therefore, I am willing to pay adoration to virtue wherever I can
meet with it, with a proviso that I shall not be obliged to admit
any as such, where I can see no self-denial, or to judge of mens
sentiments from their words, where I have their lives before me.
I have searched through every degree and station of men, and confess,
that I have found no where more austerity of manners, or greater
contempt of earthly pleasures, than in some religious houses,
where people freely resigning and retiring from the world to combat
themselves, have no other business but subdue their appetites. What
can be a greater evidence of perfect chastity, and a superlative
love, to immaculate purity in men and women, than that in the
prime of their age, when lust is most raging, they should actually
seclude themselves from each others company, and by a voluntary
renunciation debar themselves for life, not only from uncleanness,
but even the most lawful embraces? those that abstain from flesh,
and often all manner of food, one would think in the right way, to
conquer all carnal desires; and I could almost swear, that he does
not consult his ease, who daily mauls his bare back and shoulders
with unconscionable stripes, and constantly roused at night from his
sleep, leaves his bed for his devotion. Who can despise riches more,
or show himself less avaricious than he, who will not so much as touch
gold or silver, no not with his feet? Or can any mortal show himself
less luxurious or more humble than the man, that making poverty his
choice, contents himself with scraps and fragments, and refuses to
eat any bread but what is bestowed upon him by the charity of others.
Such fair instances of self-denial, would make me bow down to virtue,
if I was not deterred and warned from it by so many persons of
eminence and learning, who unanimously tell me that I am mistaken,
and all I have seen is farce and hypocrisy; that what seraphic
love they may pretend to, there is nothing but discord among them;
and that how penitential the nuns and friars may appear in their
several convents, they none of them sacrifice their darling lusts:
that among the women, they are not all virgins that pass for such,
and that if I was to be let into their secrets, and examine some of
their subterraneous privacies, I should soon be convinced by scenes of
horror, that some of them must have been mothers. That among the men
I should find calumny, envy, and ill nature, in the highest degree,
or else gluttony, drunkenness, and impurities of a more execrable
kind than adultery itself: and as for the mendicant orders, that
they fer in nothing but their habits from other sturdy beggars, who
deceive people with a pitiful tone, and an outward show of misery,
and as soon as they are out of sight, lay by their cant, indulge
their appetites, and enjoy one another.
If the strict rules, and so many outward signs of devotion observed
among those religious orders, deserve such harsh censures, we may well
despair of meeting with virtue any where else; for if we look into the
actions of the antagonists and greatest accusers of those votaries,
we shall not find so much as the appearance of self-denial. The
reverend divines of all sects, even of the most reformed churches
in all countries, take care with the Cyclops Evangeliphorus first;
ut ventri bene sit, and afterwards, ne quid desit iis quæ sub ventre
sunt. To these they will desire you to add convenient houses, handsome
furniture, good fires in winter, pleasant gardens in summer, neat
clothes, and money enough to bring up their children; precedency in all
companies, respect from every body, and then as much religion as you
please. The things I have named are the necessary comforts of life,
which the most modest are not ashamed to claim, and which they are
very uneasy without. They are, it is true, made of the same mould,
and have the same corrupt nature with other men, born with the same
infirmities, subject to the same passions, and liable to the same
temptations, and therefore if they are diligent in their calling,
and can but abstain from murder, adultery, swearing, drunkenness,
and other heinous vices, their lives are all called unblemished,
and their reputations unspotted; their function renders them holy,
and the gratification of so many carnal appetites, and the enjoyment
of so much luxurious ease notwithstanding, they may set upon themselves
what value their pride and parts will allow them.
All this I have nothing against, but I see no self-denial, without
which there can be no virtue. Is it such a mortification not to desire
a greater share of worldly blessings, than what every reasonable
man ought to be satisfied with? Or, is there any mighty merit in not
being flagitious, and forbearing indecencies that are repugnant to
good manners, and which no prudent man would be guilty of, though he
had no religion at all?
I know I shall be told, that the reason why the clergy are so violent
in their resentments, when at any time they are but in the least
affronted, and show themselves so void of all patience when their
rights are invaded, is their great care to preserve their calling,
their profession from contempt, not for their own sakes, but to be
more serviceable to others. It is the same reason that makes them
solicitous about the comforts and conveniences of life; for should
they suffer themselves to be insulted over, be content with a coarser
diet, and wear more ordinary clothes than other people, the multitude,
who judge from outward appearances, would be apt to think that the
clergy was no more the immediate care of Providence than other folks,
and so not only undervalue their persons, but despise likewise all the
reproofs and instructions that came from them. This is an admirable
plea, and as it is much made use of, I will try the worth of it.
I am not of the learned Dr. Echard's opinion, that poverty is one of
those things that bring the clergy into contempt, any further than as
it may be an occasion of discovering their blind side: for when men
are always struggling with their low condition, and are unable to bear
the burden of it without reluctancy, it is then they show how uneasy
their poverty sits upon them, how glad they would be to have their
circumstances meliorated, and what a real value they have for the good
things of this world. He that harangues on the contempt of riches,
and the vanity of earthly enjoyments, in a rusty threadbare gown,
because he has no other, and would wear his old greasy hat no longer
if any body would give him a better; that drinks small beer at home
with a heavy countenance, but leaps at a glass of wine if he can catch
it abroad; that with little appetite feeds upon his own coarse mess,
but falls to greedily where he can please his palate, and expresses
an uncommon joy at an invitation to a splendid dinner: it is he that
is despised, not because he is poor, but because he knows not how to
be so, with that content and resignation which he preaches to others,
and so discovers his inclinations to be contrary to his doctrine. But,
when a man from the greatness of his soul (or an obstinate vanity,
which will do as well) resolving to subdue his appetites in good
earnest, refuses all the offers of ease and luxury that can be
made to him, and embracing a voluntary poverty with cheerfulness,
rejects whatever may gratify the senses, and actually sacrifices all
his passions to his pride, in acting this part, the vulgar, far from
contemning, will be ready to deify and adore him. How famous have the
Cynic philosophers made themselves, only by refusing to dissimulate
and make use of superfluities? Did not the most ambitious monarch the
world ever bore, condescend to visit Diogenes in his tub, and return
to a studied incivility, the highest compliment a man of his pride
was able to make?
Mankind are very willing to take one another's word, when they see some
circumstances that corroborate what is told them; but when our actions
directly contradict what we say, it is counted impudence to desire
belief. If a jolly hale fellow, with glowing cheeks and warm hands,
newly returned from some smart exercise, or else the cold bath, tells
us in frosty weather, that he cares not for the fire, we are easily
induced to believe him, especially if he actually turns from it, and
we know by his circumstances, that he wants neither fuel nor clothes:
but if we should hear the same from the mouth of a poor starved wretch,
with swelled hands, and a livid countenance, in a thin ragged garment,
we should not believe a word of what he said, especially if we saw
him shaking and shivering, creep toward the sunny bank; and we would
conclude, let him say what he could, that warm clothes, and a good
fire, would be very acceptable to him. The application is easy, and
therefore if there be any clergy upon earth that would be thought not
to care for the world, and to value the soul above the body, let them
only forbear showing a greater concern for their sensual pleasures
than they generally do for their spiritual ones, and they may rest
satisfied, that no poverty, while they bear it with fortitude, will
ever bring them into contempt, how mean soever their circumstances
may be.
Let us suppose a pastor that has a little flock intrusted to him,
of which he is very careful: He preaches, visits, exhorts, reproves
among his people with zeal and prudence, and does them all the kind
offices that lie in his power to make them happy. There is no doubt
but those under his care must be very much obliged to him. Now, we
shall suppose once more, that this good man, by the help of a little
self-denial, is contented to live upon half his income, accepting
only of twenty pounds a-year instead of forty, which he could claim;
and moreover, that he loves his parishioners so well, that he will
never leave them for any preferment whatever, no not a bishoprick,
though it be offered. I cannot see but all this might be an easy
task to a man who professes mortification, and has no value for
worldly pleasures; yet such a disinterested divine, I dare promise,
notwithstanding the degeneracy of mankind, will be loved, esteemed,
and have every body's good word; nay, I would swear, that though he
should yet further exert himself, give above half of his small revenue
to the poor, live upon nothing but oatmeal and water, lie upon straw,
and wear the coarsest cloth that could be made, his mean way of living
would never be reflected on, or be a disparagement either to himself
or the order he belonged to; but that on the contrary his poverty would
never be mentioned but to his glory, as long as his memory should last.
But (says a charitable young gentlewoman) though you have the heart
to starve your parson, have you no bowels of compassion for his wife
and children? pray what must remain of forty pounds a year, after it
has been twice so unmercifully split? or would you have the poor woman
and the innocent babes likewise live upon oatmeal and water, and lie
upon straw, you unconscionable wretch, with all your suppositions
and self-denials; nay, is it possible, though they should all live
at your own murdering rate, that less than ten pounds a-year could
maintain a family?----Do not be in a passion, good Mrs. Abigail,
I have a greater regard for your sex than to prescribe such a lean
diet to married men; but I confess I forgot the wives and children:
The main reason was, because I thought poor priests could have no
occasion for them. Who could imagine, that the parson who is to teach
others by example as well as precept, was not able to withstand those
desires which the wicked world itself calls unreasonable? What is
the reason when an apprentice marries before he is out of his time,
that unless he meets with a good fortune, all his relations are angry
with him, and every body blames him? Nothing else, but because at
that time he has no money at his disposal, and being bound to his
master's service, has no leisure, and perhaps little capacity to
provide for a family. What must we say to a parson that has twenty,
or, if you will, forty pounds a-year, that being bound more strictly
to all the services a parish and his duty require, has little time,
and generally much less ability to get any more? Is it not very
reasonable he should marry? But why should a sober young man, who
is guilty of no vice, be debarred from lawful enjoyments? Right;
marriage is lawful, and so is a coach; but what is that to people
that have not money enough to keep one? If he must have a wife, let
him look out for money, or wait for a greater benefice, or something
else to maintain her handsomely, and bear all incident charges. But
nobody that has any thing herself will have him, and he cannot stay:
He has a very good stomach, and all the symptoms of health; it is not
every body that can live without a woman; it is better to marry than
burn.----What a world of self-denial is here? The sober young man is
very willing to be virtuous, but you must not cross his inclinations;
he promises never to be a deer-stealer, upon condition that he shall
have venison of his own, and no body must doubt, but that if it come
to the push, he is qualified to suffer martyrdom, though he owns that
he has not strength enough, patiently to bear a scratched finger.
When we see so many of the clergy, to indulge their lust, a brutish
appetite, run themselves after this manner upon an inevitable poverty,
which, unless they could bear it with greater fortitude, than they
discover in all their actions, must of necessity make them contemptible
to all the world, what credit must we give them, when they pretend that
they conform themselves to the world, not because they take delight
in the several decencies, conveniences, and ornaments of it, but only
to preserve their function from contempt, in order to be more useful
to others? Have we not reason to believe, that what they say is full
of hypocrisy and falsehood, and that concupiscence is not the only
appetite they want to gratify; that the haughty airs and quick sense
of injuries, the curious elegance in dress, and niceness of palate,
to be observed in most of them that are able to show them, are the
results of pride and luxury in them, as they are in other people,
and that the clergy are not possessed of more intrinsic virtue than
any other profession?
I am afraid, by this time I have given many of my readers a real
displeasure, by dwelling so long upon the reality of pleasure; but I
cannot help it, there is one thing comes into my head to corroborate
what I have urged already, which I cannot forbear mentioning: It is
this: Those who govern others throughout the world, are at least as
wise as the people that are governed by them, generally speaking: If,
for this reason, we would take pattern from our superiors, we have but
to cast our eyes on all the courts and governments in the universe,
and we shall soon perceive from the actions of the great ones, which
opinion they side with, and what pleasures those in the highest
stations of all seem to be most fond of: For, if it be allowable at
all to judge of people's inclinations, from their manner of living,
none can be less injured by it, than those who are the most at liberty
to do as they please.
If the great ones of the clergy, as well as the laity of any country
whatever, had no value for earthly pleasures, and did not endeavour
to gratify their appetites, why are envy and revenge so raging among
them, and all the other passions improved and refined upon in courts
of princes more than any where else, and why are their repasts,
their recreations, and whole manner of living always such as are
approved of, coveted, and imitated by the most sensual people of that
same country? If despising all visible decorations they were only in
love with the embellishments of the mind, why should they borrow so
many of the implements, and make use of the most darling toys of the
luxurious? Why should a lord treasurer, or a bishop, or even the grand
signior, or the pope of Rome, to be good and virtuous, and endeavour
the conquest of his passions, have occasion for greater revenues,
richer furniture, or a more numerous attention, as to personal service,
than a private man? What virtue is it the exercise of which requires
so much pomp and superfluity, as are to be seen by all men in power? A
man has as much opportunity to practise temperance, that has but one
dish at a meal, as he that is constantly served with three courses,
and a dozen dishes in each: One may exercise as much patience, and be
as full of self-denial on a few flocks, without curtains or tester,
as in a velvet bed that is sixteen foot high. The virtuous possessions
of the mind are neither charge nor burden: A man may bear misfortunes
with fortitude in a garret, forgive injuries a-foot, and be chaste,
though he has not a shirt to his back: and therefore I shall never
believe, but that an indifferent sculler, if he was intrusted with it,
might carry all the learning and religion that one man can contain,
as well as a barge with six oars, especially if it was but to cross
from Lambeth to Westminster; or that humility is so ponderous a virtue,
that it requires six horses to draw it.
To say that men not being so easily governed by their equals as by
their superiors, it is necessary, that to keep the multitude in awe,
those who rule over us should excel others in outward appearance,
and consequently, that all in high stations should have badges of
honour, and ensigns of power to be distinguished from the vulgar, is
a frivolous objection. This, in the first place, can only be of use to
poor princes, and weak and precarious governments, that being actually
unable to maintain the public peace, are obliged with a pageant show
to make up what they want in real power: so the governor of Batavia,
in the East Indies, is forced to keep up a grandeur, and live in a
magnificence above his quality, to strike a terror in the natives of
Java, who, if they had skill and conduct, are strong enough to destroy
ten times the number of their masters; but great princes and states
that keep large fleets at sea, and numerous armies in the field,
have no occasion for such stratagems; for what makes them formidable
abroad, will never fail to be their security at home. Secondly,
what must protect the lives and wealth of people from the attempts of
wicked men in all societies, is the severity of the laws, and diligent
administration of impartial justice. Theft, house-breaking, and murder,
are not to be prevented by the scarlet gowns of the aldermen, the gold
chains of the sheriffs, the fine trappings of their horses, or any
gaudy show whatever: Those pageant ornaments are beneficial another
way; they are eloquent lectures to apprentices, and the use of them
is to animate, not to deter: but men of abandoned principles must be
awed by rugged officers, strong prisons, watchful jailors, the hangman,
and the gallows. If London was to be one week destitute of constables
and watchmen to guard the houses a-nights, half the bankers would
be ruined in that time, and if my lord mayor had nothing to defend
himself but his great two handed sword, the huge cap of maintenance,
and his gilded mace, he would soon be stripped, in the very streets
to the city, of all his finery in his stately coach.
But let us grant that the eyes of the mobility are to be dazzled
with a gaudy outside; if virtue was the chief delight of great men,
why should their extravagance be extended to things not understood
by the mob, and wholly removed from public view, I mean their private
diversions, the pomp and luxury of the dining-room and the bed-chamber,
and the curiosities of the closet? few of the vulgar know that there
is wine of a guinea the bottle, that birds, no bigger than larks,
are often sold for half-a-guinea a-piece, or that a single picture
may be worth several thousand pounds: besides, is it to be imagined,
that unless it was to please their own appetites, men should put
themselves to such vast expences for a political show, and be so
solicitous to gain the esteem of those whom they so much despise in
every thing else? if we allow that the splendor and all the elegancy
of a court insipid, and only tiresome to the prince himself, and are
altogether made use of to preserve royal majesty from contempt, can
we say the same of half a dozen illegitimate children, most of them
the offspring of adultery, by the same majesty, got, educated, and
made princes at the expence of the nation! therefore, it is evident,
that this awing of the multitude, by a distinguished manner of living,
is only a cloak and pretence, under which, great men would shelter
their vanity, and indulge every appetite about them without reproach.
A burgomaster of Amsterdam, in his plain black suit, followed perhaps
by one footman, is fully as much respected, and better obeyed, than
a lord mayor of London, with all his splendid equipage, and great
train of attendance. Where there is a real power, it is ridiculous
to think that any temperance or austerity of life should ever render
the person, in whom that power is lodged, contemptible in his office,
from an emperor to the beadle of a parish. Cato, in his government
of Spain, in which he acquitted himself with so much glory, had only
three servants to attend him; do we hear that any of his orders were
ever slighted for this, notwithstanding that he loved his bottle? and
when that great man marched on foot through the scorching sands of
Libya, and parched up with thirst, refused to touch the water that
was brought him, before all his soldiers had drank, do we ever read
that this heroic forbearance weakened his authority, or lessened him
in the esteem of his army? but what need we go so far off? there has
not, for these many ages, been a prince less inclined to pomp and
luxury than the [2] present king of Sweden, who, enamoured with the
title of hero, has not only sacrificed the lives of his subjects, and
welfare of his dominions, but (what is more uncommon in sovereigns)
his own ease, and all the comforts of life, to an implacable spirit
of revenge; yet he is obeyed to the ruin of his people, in obstinately
maintaining a war that has almost utterly destroyed his kingdom.
Thus I have proved, that the real pleasures of all men in nature are
worldly and sensual, if we judge from their practice; I say all men in
nature, because devout Christians, who alone are to be excepted here,
being regenerated, and preternaturally assisted by the Divine grace,
cannot be said to be in nature. How strange it is, that they should
all so unanimously deny it! ask not only the divines and moralists
of every nation, but likewise all that are rich and powerful, about
real pleasure, and they will tell you, with the Stoics, that there
can be no true felicity in things mundane and corruptible: but then
look upon their lives, and you will find they take delight in no other.
What must we do in this dilemma? shall we be so uncharitable, as
judging from mens actions, to say, that all the world prevaricates, and
that this is not their opinion, let them talk what they will? or shall
we be so silly, as relying on what they say, to think them sincere in
their sentiments, and so not believe our own eyes? or shall we rather
endeavour to believe ourselves and them too, and say with Montaigne,
that they imagine, and are fully persuaded, that they believe what
they do not believe? these are his words: "some impose on the world,
and would be thought to believe what they really do not: but much the
greater number impose upon themselves, not considering, nor thoroughly
apprehending what it is to believe." But this is making all mankind
either fools or impostors, which, to avoid, there is nothing left us,
but to say what Mr. Bayle has endeavoured to prove at large in his
Reflections on Comets: "that man is so unaccountable a creature as
to act most commonly against his principle;" and this is so far from
being injurious, that it is a compliment to human nature, for we must
see either this or worse.
This contradiction in the frame of man is the reason that the theory
of virtue is so well understood, and the practice of it so rarely
to be met with. If you ask me where to look for those beautiful
shining qualities of prime ministers, and the great favourites
of princes that are so finely painted in dedications, addresses,
epitaphs, funeral sermons, and inscriptions, I answer, there, and
no where else. Where would you look for the excellency of a statue,
but in that part which you see of it? It is the polished outside
only that has the skill and labour of the sculptor to boast of; what
is out of sight is untouched. Would you break the head, or cut open
the breast to look for the brains or the heart, you would only show
your ignorance, and destroy the workmanship. This has often made
me compare the virtues of great men to your large China jars: they
make a fine show, and are ornamental even to a chimney; one would,
by the bulk they appear in, and the value that is set upon them,
think they might be very useful, but look into a thousand of them,
and you will find nothing in them but dust and cobwebs.
Line 201. ----The very poor
Liv'd better than the rich before.
If we trace the most flourishing nations in their origin, we shall
find, that in the remote beginnings of every society, the richest and
most considerable men among them were a great while destitute of a
great many comforts of life that are now enjoyed by the meanest and
most humble wretches: so that many things which were once looked upon
as the invention of luxury, are now allowed, even to those that are so
miserably poor as to become the objects of public charity, nay, counted
so necessary, that we think no human creature ought to want them.
In the first ages, man, without doubt, fed on the fruits of the earth,
without any previous preparation, and reposed himself naked like other
animals on the lap of their common parent: whatever has contributed
since to make life more comfortable, as it must have been the result
of thought, experience, and some labour, so it more or less deserves
the name of luxury, the more or less trouble it required, and deviated
from the primitive simplicity. Our admiration is extended no farther
than to what is new to us, and we all overlook the excellency of things
we are used to, be they never so curious. A man would be laughed at,
that should discover luxury in the plain dress of a poor creature, that
walks along in a thick parish gown, and a coarse shirt underneath it;
and yet what a number of people, how many different trades, and what a
variety of skill and tools must be employed to have the most ordinary
Yorkshire cloth? What depth of thought and ingenuity, what toil and
labour, and what length of time must it have cost, before man could
learn from a seed, to raise and prepare so useful a product as linen.
Must that society not be vainly curious, among whom this admirable
commodity, after it is made, shall not be thought fit to be used even
by the poorest of all, before it is brought to a perfect whiteness,
which is not to be procured but by the assistance of all the elements,
joined to a world of industry and patience? I have not done yet: can we
reflect not only on the cost laid out upon this luxurious invention,
but likewise on the little time the whiteness of it continues, in
which part of its beauty consists, that every six or seven days at
farthest it wants cleaning, and while it lasts is a continual charge
to the wearer; can we, I say, reflect on all this, and not think it
an extravagant piece of nicety, that even those who receive alms of
the parish, should not only have whole garments made of this operose
manufacture, but likewise that as soon as they are soiled, to restore
them to their pristine purity, they should make use of one of the
most judicious as well as difficult compositions that chemistry
can boast of; with which, dissolved in water by the help of fire,
the most detersive, and yet innocent lixivium is prepared that human
industry has hitherto been able to invent?
It is certain, time was that the things I speak of would have bore
those lofty expressions, and in which every body would have reasoned
after the same manner; but the age we live in would call a man fool,
who should talk of extravagance and nicety, if he saw a poor woman,
after having wore her crown cloth smock a whole week, wash it with
a bit of stinking soap of a groat a pound.
The arts of brewing, and making bread, have by slow degrees been
brought to the perfection they now are in, but to have invented
them at once, and à priori, would have required more knowledge and
a deeper insight into the nature of fermentation, than the greatest
philosopher has hitherto been endowed with; yet the fruits of both
are now enjoyed by the meanest of our species, and a starving wretch
knows not how to make a more humble, or a more modest petition,
than by asking for a bit of bread, or a draught of small beer.
Man has learned by experience, that nothing was softer than the small
plumes and down of birds, and found that heaped together, they would
by their elasticity, gently resist any incumbent weight, and heave up
again of themselves as soon as the pressure is over. To make use of
them to sleep upon was, no doubt, first invented to compliment the
vanity as well as ease of the wealthy and potent; but they are long
since become so common, that almost every body lies upon featherbeds,
and to substitute flocks in the room of them is counted a miserable
shift of the most necessitous. What a vast height must luxury have
been arrived to, before it could be reckoned a hardship to repose
upon the soft wool of animals!
From caves, huts, hovels, tents, and barracks, with which mankind
took up at first, we are come to warm and well-wrought houses, and
the meanest habitations to be seen in cities, are regular buildings,
contrived by persons skilled in proportions and architecture. If the
ancient Britons and Gauls should come out of their graves, with what
amazement would they gaze on the mighty structures every where raised
for the poor! Should they behold the magnificence of a Chelsey-College,
a Greenwich-Hospital, or what surpasses all them, a Des Invalides
at Paris, and see the care, the plenty, the superfluities and pomp,
which people that have no possessions at all are treated with in those
stately palaces, those who were once the greatest and richest of the
land would have reason to envy the most reduced of our species now.
Another piece of luxury the poor enjoy, that is not looked upon as
such, and which there is no doubt but the wealthiest in a golden age
would abstain from, is their making use of the flesh of animals to
eat. In what concerns the fashions and manners of the ages men live
in, they never examine into the real worth or merit of the cause,
and generally judge of things not as their reason, but custom direct
them. Time was when the funeral rites in the disposing of the dead,
were performed by fire, and the cadavers of the greatest emperors were
burnt to ashes. Then burying the corps in the ground was a funeral
for slaves, or made a punishment for the worst of malefactors. Now
nothing is decent or honourable but interring; and burning the body
is reserved for crimes of the blackest dye. At some times we look
upon trifles with horror, at other times we can behold enormities
without concern. If we see a man walk with his hat on in a church,
though out of service time, it shocks us; but if on a Sunday night we
meet half a dozen fellows drunk in the street, the sight makes little
or no impression upon us. If a woman at a merry-making dresses in
man's clothes, it is reckoned a frolic amongst friends, and he that
finds too much fault with it is counted censorious: upon the stage it
is done without reproach, and the most virtuous ladies will dispense
with it in an actress, though every body has a full view of her legs
and thighs; but if the same woman, as soon as she has petticoats on
again, should show her leg to a man as high as her knee, it would be
a very immodest action, and every body will call her impudent for it.
I have often thought, if it was not for this tyranny which custom
usurps over us, that men of any tolerable good-nature could never be
reconciled to the killing of so many animals, for their daily food, as
long as the bountiful earth so plentifully provides them with varieties
of vegetable dainties. I know that reason excites our compassion but
faintly, and therefore I would not wonder how men should so little
commiserate such imperfect creatures as crayfish, oysters, cockles,
and indeed all fish in general: as they are mute, and their inward
formation, as well as outward figure, vastly different from ours,
they express themselves unintelligibly to us, and therefore it is not
strange that their grief should not affect our understanding which
it cannot reach; for nothing stirs us to pity so effectually, as when
the symptoms of misery strike immediately upon our senses, and I have
seen people moved at the noise a live lobster makes upon the spit,
that could have killed half a dozen fowls with pleasure. But in such
perfect animals as sheep and oxen, in whom the heart, the brain and
nerves differ so little from ours, and in whom the separation of the
spirits from the blood, the organs of sense, and consequently feeling
itself, are the same as they are in human creatures; I cannot imagine
how a man not hardened in blood and massacre, is able to see a violent
death, and the pangs of it, without concern.
In answer to this, most people will think it sufficient to say, that
all things being allowed to be made for the service of man, there can
be no cruelty in putting creatures to the use they were designed for;
but I have heard men make this reply, while their nature within them
has reproached them with the falsehood of the assertion. There is of
all the multitude not one man in ten but what will own (if he was not
brought up in a slaughter-house), that of all trades he could never
have been a butcher; and I question whether ever any body so much
as killed a chicken without reluctancy the first time. Some people
are not to be persuaded to taste of any creatures they have daily
seen and been acquainted with, while they were alive; others extend
their scruple no further than to their own poultry, and refuse to
eat what they fed and took care of themselves; yet all of them will
feed heartily and without remorse on beef, mutton, and fowls, when
they are bought in the market. In this behaviour, methinks, there
appears something like a consciousness of guilt, it looks as if they
endeavoured to save themselves from the imputation of a crime (which
they know sticks somewhere) by removing the cause of it as far as they
can from themselves; and I can discover in it some strong remains of
primitive pity and innocence, which all the arbitrary power of custom,
and the violence of luxury, have not yet been able to conquer.
What I build upon I shall be told is a folly that wise men are not
guilty of: I own it; but while it proceeds from a real passion inherent
in our nature, it is sufficient to demonstrate, that we are born with
a repugnancy to the killing, and consequently the eating of animals;
for it is impossible that a natural appetite should ever prompt us
to act, or desire others to do, what we have an aversion to, be it
as foolish as it will.
Every body knows, that surgeons, in the cure of dangerous wounds and
fractures, the extirpations of limbs, and other dreadful operations,
are often compelled to put their patients to extraordinary torments,
and that the more desperate and calamitous cases occur to them,
the more the outcries and bodily sufferings of others must become
familiar to them; for this reason, our English law, out of a most
affectionate regard to the lives of the subject, allows them not to
be of any jury upon life and death, as supposing that their practice
itself is sufficient to harden and extinguish in them that tenderness,
without which no man is capable of setting a true value upon the lives
of his fellow-creatures. Now, if we ought to have no concern for what
we do to brute beasts, and there was not imagined to be any cruelty
in killing them, why should of all callings butchers, and only they,
jointly with surgeons, be excluded from being jurymen by the same law?
I shall urge nothing of what Pythagoras and many other wise men
have said concerning this barbarity of eating flesh; I have gone
too much out of my way already, and shall therefore beg the reader,
if he would have any more of this, to run over the following fable,
or else, if he be tired, to let it alone, with an assurance that in
doing of either he shall equally oblige me.
A Roman merchant, in one of the Carthaginian wars, was cast away upon
the coast of Afric: himself and his slave with great difficulty got
safe ashore; but going in quest of relief, were met by a lion of a
mighty size. It happened to be one of the breed that ranged in Æsop's
days, and one that could not only speak several languages, but seemed,
moreover, very well acquainted with human affairs. The slave got upon
a tree, but his master not thinking himself safe there, and having
heard much of the generosity of lions, fell down prostrate before him,
with all the signs of fear and submission. The lion who had lately
filled his belly, bids him rise, and for a while lay by his fears,
assuring him withal, that he should not be touched, if he could
give him any tolerable reasons why he should not be devoured. The
merchant obeyed; and having now received some glimmering hopes of
safety, gave a dismal account of the shipwreck he had suffered, and
endeavouring from thence to raise the lion's pity, pleaded his cause
with abundance of good rhetoric; but observing by the countenance of
the beast, that flattery and fine words made very little impression,
he betook himself to arguments of greater solidity, and reasoning
from the excellency of man's nature and abilities, remonstrated how
improbable it was that the gods should not have designed him for
a better use, than to be eat by savage beasts. Upon this the lion
became more attentive, and vouchsafed now and then a reply, till at
last the following dialogue ensued between them.
Oh vain and covetous animal (said the lion), whose pride and avarice
can make him leave his native soil, where his natural wants might
be plentifully supplied, and try rough seas and dangerous mountains
to find out superfluities, why should you esteem your species above
ours? And if the gods have given you a superiority over all creatures,
then why beg you of an inferior? Our superiority (answered the
merchant) consists not in bodily force, but strength of understanding;
the gods have endued us with a rational soul, which, though invisible,
is much the better part of us. I desire to touch nothing of you but
what is good to eat; but why do you value yourself so much upon that
part which is invisible? Because it is immortal, and shall meet with
rewards after death for the actions of this life, and the just shall
enjoy eternal bliss and tranquillity with the heroes and demi-gods in
the Elysian fields. What life have you led? I have honoured the gods,
and studied to be beneficial to man. Then why do you fear death, if
you think the gods as just as you have been? I have a wife and five
small children that must come to want if they lose me. I have two
whelps that are not big enough to shift for themselves, that are in
want now, and must actually be starved if I can provide nothing for
them: Your children will be provided for one way or other; at least
as well when I have eat you, as if you had been drowned.
As to the excellency of either species, the value of things among you
has ever increased with the scarcity of them, and to a million of men
there is hardly one lion; besides that, in the great veneration man
pretends to have for his kind, there is little sincerity farther than
it concerns the share which every one's pride has in it for himself;
it is a folly to boast of the tenderness shown, and attendance given
to your young ones, or the excessive and lasting trouble bestowed in
the education of them: Man being born the most necessitous and most
helpless animal, this is only an instinct of nature, which, in all
creatures, has ever proportioned the care of the parents to the wants
and imbecilities of the offspring. But if a man had a real value
for his kind, how is it possible that often ten thousand of them,
and sometimes ten times as many, should be destroyed in few hours,
for the caprice of two? All degrees of men despise those that are
inferior to them, and if you could enter into the hearts of kings
and princes, you would hardly find any but what have less value for
the greatest part of the multitudes they rule over, than those have
for the cattle that belong to them. Why should so many pretend to
derive their race, though but spuriously, from the immortal gods;
why should all of them suffer others to kneel down before them,
and more or less take delight in having divine honours paid them,
but to insinuate that themselves are of a more exalted nature, and
a species superior to that of their subjects?
Savage I am, but no creature can be called cruel, but what either
by malice or insensibility extinguishes his natural pity: The lion
was born without compassion; we follow the instinct of our nature;
the gods have appointed us to live upon the waste and spoil of other
animals, and as long as we can meet with dead ones, we never hunt after
the living. It is only man, mischievous man, that can make death a
sport. Nature taught your stomach to crave nothing but vegetables; but
your violent fondness to change, and great eagerness after novelties,
have prompted you to the destruction of animals without justice or
necessity, perverted your nature, and warped your appetites which way
soever your pride or luxury have called them. The lion has a ferment
within him that consumes the toughest skin and hardest bones, as well
as the flesh of all animals without exception: Your squeamish stomach,
in which the digestive heat is weak and inconsiderable, will not so
much as admit of the most tender parts of them, unless above half
the concoction has been performed by artificial fire before hand; and
yet what animal have you spared to satisfy the caprices of a languid
appetite? Languid I say; for what is man's hunger, if compared to the
lion's? Yours, when it is at the worst, makes you faint, mine makes
me mad: Oft have I tried with roots and herbs to allay the violence
of it, but in vain; nothing but large quantities of flesh can anywise
appease it.
Yet the fierceness of our hunger notwithstanding, lions have often
requited benefits received; but ungrateful and perfidious man feeds on
the sheep that clothes him, and spares not her innocent young ones,
whom he has taken into his care and custody. If you tell me the gods
made man master over all other creatures, what tyranny was it then
to destroy them out of wantonness? No, fickle, timorous animal, the
gods have made you for society, and designed that millions of you,
when well joined together, should compose the strong Leviathan. A
single lion bears some sway in the creation, but what is single man? A
small and inconsiderable part, a trifling atom of one great beast. What
nature designs, she executes; and it is not safe to judge of what she
purposed, but from the effects she shows: If she had intended that
man, as man from a superiority of species, should lord it over all
other animals, the tiger, nay, the whale and eagle would have obeyed
his voice.
But if your wit and understanding exceeds ours, ought not the lion,
in deference to that superiority, to follow the maxims of men, with
whom nothing is more sacred, than that the reason of the strongest
is ever the most prevalent? Whole multitudes of you have conspired
and compassed the destruction of one, after they had owned the gods
had made him their superior; and one has often ruined and cut off
whole multitudes, whom, by the same gods, he had sworn to defend and
maintain. Man never acknowledged superiority without power, and why
should I? The excellence I boast of is visible, all animals tremble
at the sight of the lion, not out of panic fear. The gods have given
me swiftness to overtake, and strength to conquer whatever comes near
me. Where is there a creature that has teeth and claws like mine,
behold the thickness of these massy jaw-bones, consider the width of
them, and feel the firmness of this brawny neck. The nimblest deer,
the wildest boar, the stoutest horse, and strongest bull, are my
prey wherever I meet them. Thus spoke the lion, and the merchant
fainted away.
The lion, in my opinion, has stretched the point too far; yet, when
to soften the flesh of male animals, we have by castration prevented
the firmness their tendons, and every fibre would have come to,
without it, I confess, I think it ought to move a human creature,
when he reflects upon the cruel care with which they are fattened for
destruction. When a large and gentle bullock, after having resisted a
ten times greater force of blows than would have killed his murderer,
falls stunned at last, and his armed head is fastened to the ground
with cords; as soon as the wide wound is made, and the jugulars are
cut asunder, what mortal can, without compassion, hear the painful
bellowings intercepted by his blood, the bitter sighs that speak
the sharpness of his anguish, and the deep sounding groans, with
loud anxiety, fetched from the bottom of his strong and palpitating
heart; look on the trembling and violent convulsions of his limbs;
see, while his reeking gore streams from him, his eyes become dim
and languid, and behold his strugglings, gasps, and last efforts for
life, the certain signs of his approaching fate? When a creature has
given such convincing and undeniable proofs of the terrors upon him,
and the pains and agonies he feels, is there a follower of Descartes
so inured to blood, as not to refute, by his commiseration, the
philosophy of that vain reasoner?
Line 307. ----For frugally
They now liv'd 'on their salary.
When people have small comings in, and are honest withal, it
is then that the generality of them begin to be frugal, and
not before. Frugality in ethics is called that virtue, from the
principle of which men abstain from superfluities, and, despising
the operose contrivances of art to procure either ease or pleasure,
content themselves with the natural simplicity of things, and are
carefully temperate in the enjoyment of them, without any tincture of
covetousness. Frugality thus limited, is perhaps scarcer than many may
imagine; but what is generally understood by it, is a quality more
often to be met with, and consists in a medium between profuseness
and avarice, rather leaning to the latter. As this prudent economy,
which some people call saving is in private families the most certain
method to increase an estate. So some imagine, that whether a country
be barren or fruitful, the same method, if generally pursued (which
they think practicable), will have the same effect upon a whole nation,
and that, for example, the English might be much richer than they are,
if they would be as frugal as some of their neighbours. This, I think,
is an error, which to prove, I shall first refer the reader to what
has been said upon this head in Remark on l. 180. and then go on thus.
Experience teaches us first, that as people differ in their views
and perceptions of things, so they vary in their inclinations; one
man is given to covetousness, another to prodigality, and a third is
only saving. Secondly, that men are never, or at least very seldom,
reclaimed from their darling passions, either by reason or precept,
and that if any thing ever draws them from what they are naturally
propense to, it must be a change in their circumstances or their
fortunes. If we reflect upon these observations, we shall find,
that to render the generality of a nation lavish, the product of
the country must be considerable, in proportion to the inhabitants,
and what they are profuse of cheap; that, on the contrary, to make
a nation generally frugal, the necessaries of life must be scarce,
and consequently dear; and that, therefore, let the best politician
do what he can, the profuseness or frugality of a people in general,
must always depend upon, and will, in spite of his teeth, be ever
proportioned to the fruitfulness and product of the country, the
number of inhabitants, and the taxes they are to bear. If any body
would refute what I have said, let them only prove from history,
that there ever was in any country a national frugality without a
national necessity.
Let us examine then what things are requisite to aggrandize and
enrich a nation. The first desirable blessings for any society of men,
are a fertile soil, and a happy climate, a mild government, and more
land than people. These things will render man easy, loving, honest,
and sincere. In this condition they may be as virtuous as they can,
without the least injury to the public, and consequently as happy
as they please themselves. But they shall have no arts or sciences,
or be quiet longer than their neighbours will let them; they must
be poor, ignorant, and almost wholly destitute of what we call the
comforts of life, and all the cardinal virtues together would not so
much as procure a tolerable coat or a porridge-pot among them: for
in this state of slothful ease and stupid innocence, as you need not
fear great vices, so you must not expect any considerable virtues. Man
never exerts himself but when he is roused by his desires: while they
lie dormant, and there is nothing to raise them, his excellence and
abilities will be for ever undiscovered, and the lumpish machine,
without the influence of his passions, may be justly compared to a
huge wind-mill without a breath of air.
Would you render a society of men strong and powerful, you must touch
their passions. Divide the land, though there be never so much to
spare, and their possessions will make them covetous: rouse them,
though but in jest, from their idleness with praises, and pride will
set them to work in earnest: teach them trades and handicrafts, and you
will bring envy and emulation among them: to increase their numbers,
set up a variety of manufactures, and leave no ground uncultivated; let
property be inviolably secured, and privileges equal to all men; suffer
nobody to act but what is lawful, and every body to think what he
pleases; for a country where every body may be maintained that will be
employed, and the other maxims are observed, must always be thronged,
and can never want people, as long as there is any in the world. Would
you have them bold and warlike, turn to military discipline, make good
use of their fear, and flatter their vanity with art and assiduity:
but would you, moreover, render them an opulent, knowing, and polite
nation, teach them commerce with foreign countries, and, if possible,
get into the sea, which to compass spare no labour nor industry, and
let no difficulty deter you from it; then promote navigation, cherish
the merchant, and encourage trade in every branch of it; this will
bring riches, and where they are, arts and sciences will soon follow:
and by the help of what I have named and good management, it is that
politicians can make a people potent, renowned, and flourishing.
But would you have a frugal and honest society, the best policy is to
preserve men in their native simplicity, strive not to increase their
numbers; let them never be acquainted with strangers or superfluities,
but remove, and keep from them every thing that might raise their
desires, or improve their understanding.
Great wealth, and foreign treasure, will ever scorn to come among
men, unless you will admit their inseparable companions, avarice and
luxury: where trade is considerable, fraud will intrude. To be at once
well-bred and sincere, is no less than a contradiction; and, therefore,
while man advances in knowledge, and his manners are polished, we must
expect to see, at the same time, his desires enlarged, his appetites
refined, and his vices increased.
The Dutch may ascribe their present grandeur to the virtue and
frugality of their ancestors as they please; but what made that
contemptible spot of ground so considerable among the principal powers
of Europe, has been their political wisdom in postponing every thing
to merchandise and navigation, the unlimited liberty of conscience
that is enjoyed among them, and the unwearied application with which
they have always made use of the most effectual means to encourage
and increase trade in general.
They never were noted for frugality before Philip II. of Spain began
to rage over them with that unheard of tyranny. Their laws were
trampled upon, their rights and large immunities taken from them,
and their constitution torn to pieces. Several of their chief nobles
were condemned and executed without legal form of process. Complaints
and remonstrances were punished as severely as resistance, and those
that escaped being massacred, were plundered by ravenous soldiers. As
this was intolerable to a people that had always been used to the
mildest of governments, and enjoyed greater privileges than any of
the neighbouring nations, so they chose rather to die in arms than
perish by cruel executioners. If we consider the strength Spain
had then, and the low circumstances those distressed states were
in, there never was heard of a more unequal strife; yet, such was
their fortitude and resolution, that only seven of those provinces,
uniting themselves together, maintained against the greatest and
best disciplined nation in Europe, the most tedious and bloody war,
that is to be met with in ancient or modern history.
Rather than to become a victim to the Spanish fury, they were contented
to live upon a third part of their revenues, and lay out far the
greatest part of their income in defending themselves against their
merciless enemies. These hardships and calamities of a war within
their bowels, first put them upon that extraordinary frugality; and
the continuance under the same difficulties for above fourscore years,
could not but render it customary and habitual to them. But all their
arts of saving, and penurious way of living, could never have enabled
them to make head against so potent an enemy, if their industry in
promoting their fishery and navigation in general, had not helped to
supply the natural wants and disadvantages they laboured under.
The country is so small and so populous, that there is not land enough
(though hardly an inch of it is unimproved) to feed the tenth part
of the inhabitants. Holland itself is full of large rivers, and
lies lower than the sea, which would run over it every tide, and
wash it away in one winter, if it was not kept out by vast banks
and huge walls: the repairs of those, as well as their sluices,
quays, mills, and other necessaries they are forced to make use of
to keep themselves from being drowned, are a greater expence to them,
one year with another, than could be raised by a general land tax of
four shillings in the pound, if to be deducted from the neat produce
of the landlord's revenue.
Is it a wonder, that people, under such circumstances, and loaden
with greater taxes, besides, than any other nation, should be obliged
to be saving? but why must they be a pattern to others, who, besides,
that they are more happily situated, are much richer within themselves,
and have, to the same number of people, above ten times the extent of
ground? The Dutch and we often buy and sell at the same markets, and
so far our views may be said to be the same: otherwise the interests
and political reasons of the two nations, as to the private economy
of either, are very different. It is their interest to be frugal,
and spend little; because they must have every thing from abroad,
except butter, cheese, and fish, and therefore of them, especially
the latter, they consume three times the quantity, which the same
number of people do here. It is our interest to eat plenty of beef
and mutton to maintain the farmer, and further improve our land,
of which we have enough to feed ourselves, and as many more, if it
was better cultivated. The Dutch perhaps have more shipping, and more
ready money than we, but then those are only to be considered as the
tools they work with. So a carrier may have more horses than a man
of ten times his worth, and a banker that has not above fifteen or
sixteen hundred pounds in the world, may have generally more ready
cash by him, than a gentleman of two thousand a-year. He that keeps
three or four stage-coaches to get his bread, is to a gentleman that
keeps a coach for his pleasure, what the Dutch are in comparison
to us; having nothing of their own but fish, they are carriers and
freighters to the rest of the world, while the basis of our trade
chiefly depends upon our own product.
Another instance, that what makes the bulk of the people saving,
are heavy taxes, scarcity of land, and such things that occasion a
dearth of provisions, may be given from what is observable among the
Dutch themselves. In the province of Holland there is a vast trade,
and an unconceivable treasure of money. The land is almost as rich
as dung itself, and (as I have said once already) not an inch of it
unimproved. In Gelderland, and Overyssel, there is hardly any trade,
and very little money: the soil is very indifferent, and abundance
of ground lies waste. Then, what is the reason that the same Dutch,
in the two latter provinces, though poorer than the first, are yet
less stingy and more hospitable? Nothing but that their taxes in
most things are less extravagant, and in proportion to the number of
people, they have a great deal more ground. What they save in Holland,
they save out of their bellies; it is eatables, drinkables, and fuel,
that their heaviest taxes are upon, but they wear better clothes,
and have richer furniture, than you will find in the other provinces.
Those that are frugal by principle, are so in every thing; but in
Holland the people are only sparing in such things as are daily wanted,
and soon consumed; in what is lasting they are quite otherwise: in
pictures and marble they are profuse; in their buildings and gardens
they are extravagant to folly. In other countries, you may meet with
stately courts and palaces of great extent, that belong to princes,
which nobody can expect in a commonwealth, where so much equality
is observed as there is in this; but in all Europe you shall find
no private buildings so sumptuously magnificent, as a great many
of the merchants and other gentlemen's houses are in Amsterdam, and
some other great cities of that small province; and the generality of
those that build there, lay out a greater proportion of their estates
on houses they dwell in, than any people upon the earth.
The nation I speak of was never in greater straits, nor their affairs
in a more dismal posture since they were a republic, than in the
year 1671, and the beginning of 1672. What we know of their economy
and constitution with any certainty, has been chiefly owing to Sir
William Temple, whose observations upon their manners and government,
it is evident from several passages in his memoirs, were made about
that time. The Dutch, indeed, were then very frugal; but since those
days, and that their calamities have not been so pressing (though
the common people, on whom the principal burden of all excises and
impositions lies, are perhaps much as they were), a great alteration
has been made among the better sort of people in their equipages,
entertainments, and whole manner of living.
Those who would have it, that the frugality of that nation flows not
so much from necessity, as a general aversion to vice and luxury,
will put us in mind of their public administration, and smallness
of salaries, their prudence in bargaining for, and buying stores
and other necessaries, the great care they take not to be imposed
upon by those that serve them, and their severity against them that
break their contracts. But what they would ascribe to the virtue
and honesty of ministers, is wholly due to their strict regulations,
concerning the management of the public treasure, from which their
admirable form of government will not suffer them to depart; and
indeed one good man may take another's word, if they so agree, but a
whole nation ought never to trust to any honesty, but what is built
upon necessity; for unhappy is the people, and their constitution
will be ever precarious, whose welfare must depend upon the virtues
and consciences of ministers and politicians.
The Dutch generally endeavour to promote as much frugality among their
subjects as it is possible, not because it is a virtue, but because
it is, generally speaking, their interest, as I have shown before;
for, as this latter changes, so they alter their maxims, as will be
plain in the following instance.
As soon as their East India ships come home, the Company pays off the
men, and many of them receive the greatest part of what they have been
earning in seven or eight, or some fifteen or sixteen years time. These
poor fellows are encouraged to spend their money with all profuseness
imaginable; and considering that most of them, when they set out first,
were reprobates, that under the tuition of a strict discipline, and a
miserable diet, have been so long kept at hard labour without money,
in the midst of danger, it cannot be difficult to make them lavish,
as soon as they have plenty.
They squander away in wine, women, and music, as much as people
of their taste and education are well capable of, and are suffered
(so they but abstain from doing of mischief), to revel and riot with
greater licentiousness than is customary to be allowed to others. You
may in some cities see them accompanied with three or four lewd women,
few of them sober, run roaring through the streets by broad day-light
with a fiddler before them: And if the money, to their thinking, goes
not fast enough these ways, they will find out others, and sometimes
fling it among the mob by handfuls. This madness continues in most
of them while they have any thing left, which never lasts long, and
for this reason, by a nick-name, they are called, Lords of six Weeks,
that being generally the time by which the Company has other ships
ready to depart; where these infatuated wretches (their money being
gone) are forced to enter themselves again, and may have leisure to
repent their folly.
In this stratagem there is a double policy: First, if the sailors that
have been inured to the hot climates and unwholesome air and diet,
should be frugal, and stay in their own country, the Company would be
continually obliged to employ fresh men, of which (besides that they
are not so fit for their business), hardly one in two ever lives in
some places of the East Indies, which often would prove great charge
as well as disappointment to them. The second is, that the large
sums so often distributed among those sailors, are by this means
made immediately to circulate throughout the country, from whence,
by heavy excises, and other impositions, the greatest part of it is
soon drawn back into the public treasure.
To convince the champions for national frugality by another argument,
that what they urge is impracticable, we will suppose that I am
mistaken in every thing which in Remark, l. 180, I have said in behalf
of luxury, and the necessity of it to maintain trade: after that let
us examine what a general frugality, if it was by art and management
to be forced upon people whether they have occasion for it or not,
would produce in such a nation as ours. We will grant, then, that all
the people in Great Britain shall consume but four-fifths of what
they do now, and so lay by one-fifth part of their income; I shall
not speak of what influence this would have upon almost every trade,
as well as the farmer, the grazier, and the landlord, but favourably
suppose (what is yet impossible), that the same work shall be done,
and consequently the same handicrafts be employed as there are
now. The consequence would be, that unless money should all at once
fall prodigiously in value, and every thing else, contrary to reason,
grow very dear, at the five years end all the working people, and the
poorest of labourers (for I would not meddle with any of the rest),
would be worth in ready cash as much as they now spend in a whole
year; which, by the bye, would be more money than ever the nation
had at once.
Let us now, overjoyed with this increase of wealth, take a view of
the condition the working people would be in, and, reasoning from
experience, and what we daily observe of them, judge what their
behaviour would be in such a case. Every body knows that there is a
vast number of journeymen weavers, tailors, clothworkers, and twenty
other handicrafts, who, if by four days labour in a week they can
maintain themselves, will hardly be persuaded to work the fifth;
and that there are thousands of labouring men of all sorts, who will,
though they can hardly subsist, put themselves to fifty inconveniences,
disoblige their masters, pinch their bellies, and run in debt to make
holidays. When men show such an extraordinary proclivity to idleness
and pleasure, what reason have we to think that they would ever work,
unless they were obliged to it by immediate necessity? When we see
an artificer that cannot be drove to his work before Tuesday, because
the Monday morning he has two shillings left of his last week's pay;
why should we imagine he would go to it at all, if he had fifteen or
twenty pounds in his pocket?
What would, at this rate, become of our manufactures? If the merchant
would send cloth abroad, he must make it himself, for the clothier
cannot get one man out of twelve that used to work for him. If what I
speak of was only to befal the journeymen shoemakers, and nobody else,
in less than a twelvemonth, half of us would go barefoot. The chief
and most pressing use there is for money in a nation, is to pay the
labour of the poor, and when there is a real scarcity of it, those
who have a great many workmen to pay, will always feel it first; yet
notwithstanding this great necessity of coin, it would be easier, where
property was well secured, to live without money, than without poor;
for who would do the work? For this reason the quantity of circulating
coin in a country, ought always to be proportioned to the number of
hands that are employed; and the wages of labourers to the price of
provisions. From whence it is demonstrable, that whatever procures
plenty, makes labourers cheap, where the poor are well managed;
who as they ought to be kept from starving, so they should receive
nothing worth saving. If here and there one of the lowest class by
uncommon industry, and pinching his belly, lifts himself above the
condition he was brought up in, nobody ought to hinder him; nay,
it is undeniably the wisest course for every person in the society,
and for every private family to be frugal; but it is the interest of
all rich nations, that the greatest part of the poor should almost
never be idle, and yet continually spend what they get.
All men, as Sir William Temple observes very well, are more prone to
ease and pleasure than they are to labour, when they are not prompted
to it by pride and avarice, and those that get their living by their
daily labour, are seldom powerfully influenced by either: so that
they have nothing to stir them up to be serviceable but their wants,
which it is prudence to relieve, but folly to cure. The only thing,
then, that can render the labouring man industrious, is a moderate
quantity of money; for as too little will, according as his temper
is, either dispirit or make him desperate, so too much will make him
insolent and lazy.
A man would be laughed at by most people, who should maintain that
too much money could undo a nation: yet this has been the fate of
Spain; to this the learned Don Diego Savedra ascribes the ruin of his
country. The fruits of the earth in former ages had made Spain so rich,
that King Lewis XI. of France being come to the court of Toledo, was
astonished at its splendour, and said, that he had never seen any thing
to be compared to it, either in Europe or Asia; he that in his travels
to the Holy Land had run through every province of them. In the kingdom
of Castile alone (if we may believe some writers), there were for the
holy war, from all parts of the world got together one hundred thousand
foot, ten thousand horse, and sixty thousand carriages for baggage,
which Alonso III. maintained at his own charge, and paid every day,
as well soldiers as officers and princes, every one according to his
rank and dignity: nay, down to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella
(who equipped Columbus), and some time after, Spain was a fertile
country, where trade and manufactures flourished, and had a knowing
industrious people to boast of. But as soon as that mighty treasure,
that was obtained with more hazard and cruelty than the world until
then had known, and which to come at, by the Spaniard's own confession,
had cost the lives of twenty millions of Indians; as soon, I say, as
that ocean of treasure came rolling in upon them, it took away their
senses, and their industry forsook them. The farmer left his plough,
the mechanic his tools, the merchant his compting-house, and every
body scorning to work, took his pleasure and turned gentleman. They
thought they had reason to value themselves above all their neighbours,
and now nothing but the conquest of the world would serve them.
The consequence of this has been, that other nations have supplied
what their own sloth and pride denied them; and when every body saw,
that notwithstanding all the prohibitions the government could make
against the exportation of bullion, the Spaniard would part with his
money, and bring it you aboard himself at the hazard of his neck,
all the world endeavoured to work for Spain. Gold and silver being by
this means yearly divided and shared among all the trading countries,
have made all things dear, and most nations of Europe industrious,
except their owners, who, ever since their mighty acquisitions,
sit with their arms across, and wait every year with impatience and
anxiety, the arrival of their revenues from abroad, to pay others for
what they have spent already: and thus by too much money, the making
of colonies and other mismanagements, of which it was the occasion,
Spain is, from a fruitful and well-peopled country, with all its mighty
titles and possessions, made a barren and empty thoroughfare through
which gold and silver pass from America to the rest of the world;
and the nation, from a rich, acute, diligent, and laborious, become
a slow, idle, proud, and beggarly people: So much for Spain. The
next country where money is called the product, is Portugal, and
the figure which that kingdom with all its gold makes in Europe,
I think is not much to be envied.
The great art then to make a nation happy, and what we call
flourishing, consists in giving every body an opportunity of being
employed; which to compass, let a government's first care be to
promote as great a variety of manufactures, arts, and handicrafts,
as human wit can invent; and the second, to encourage agriculture and
fishery in all their branches, that the whole earth may be forced to
exert itself as well as man; for as the one is an infallible maxim
to draw vast multitudes of people into a nation, so the other is the
only method to maintain them.
It is from this policy, and not the trifling regulations of lavishness
and frugality (which will ever take their own course, according to
the circumstances of the people), that the greatness and felicity of
nations must be expected; for let the value of gold and silver either
rise or fall, the enjoyment of all societies will ever depend upon
the fruits of the earth, and the labour of the people; both which
joined together are a more certain, a more inexhaustible, and a more
real treasure, than the gold of Brazil, or the silver of Potosi.
Line 321. No honour now, &c.
Honour, in its figurative sense, is a chimera without truth or being,
an invention of moralists and politicians, and signifies a certain
principle of virtue not related to religion, found in some men that
keeps them close to their duty and engagements whatever they be;
as for example, a man of honour enters into a conspiracy with others
to murder a king; he is obliged to go thorough stitch with it; and
if overcome by remorse or good nature, he startles at the enormity
of his purpose, discovers the plot, and turns a witness against his
accomplices, he then forfeits his honour, at least among the party
he belonged to. The excellency of this principle is, that the vulgar
are destitute of it, and it is only to be met with in people of the
better sort, as some oranges have kernels, and others not, though the
outside be the same. In great families it is like the gout, generally
counted hereditary, and all the lords children are born with it. In
some that never felt any thing of it, it is acquired by conversation
and reading (especially of romances), in others by preferment; but
there is nothing that encourages the growth of it more than a sword,
and upon the first wearing of one, some people have felt considerable
shoots of it in four and twenty hours.
The chief and most important care a man of honour ought to have,
is the preservation of this principle, and rather than forfeit it,
he must lose his employments and estate, nay, life itself; for which
reason, whatever humility he may show by way of good-breeding, he is
allowed to put an inestimable value upon himself, as a possessor of
this invisible ornament. The only method to preserve this principle,
is to live up to the rules of honour, which are laws he is to walk by:
himself is obliged always to be faithful to his trust, to prefer the
public interest to his own, not to tell lies, nor defraud or wrong
any body, and from others to suffer no affront, which is a term of
art for every action designedly done to undervalue him.
The men of ancient honour, of which I reckon Don Quixote to have been
the last upon record, were very nice observers of all these laws,
and a great many more than I have named; but the moderns seem to be
more remiss: they have a profound veneration for the last of them,
but they pay not an equal obedience to any of the other; and whoever
will but strictly comply with that I hint at, shall have abundance
of trespasses against all the rest connived at.
A man of honour is always counted impartial, and a man of sense of
course; for nobody never heard of a man of honour that was a fool:
for this reason, he has nothing to do with the law, and is always
allowed to be a judge in his own case; and if the least injury be
done either to himself or his friend, his relation, his servant, his
dog, or any thing which he is pleased to take under his honourable
protection, satisfaction must be forthwith demanded; and if it proves
an affront, and he that gave it like wise a man of honour, a battle
must ensue. From all this it is evident, that a man of honour must
be possessed of courage, and that without it his other principle
would be no more than a sword without a point. Let us, therefore,
examine what courage consists in, and whether it be, as most people
will have it, a real something that valiant men have in their nature
distinct from all their other qualities or not.
There is nothing so universally sincere upon earth, as the love
which all creatures, that are capable of any, bear to themselves;
and as there is no love but what implies a care to preserve the thing
beloved, so there is nothing more sincere in any creature than his
will, wishes, and endeavours, to preserve himself. This is the law of
nature, by which no creature is endued with any appetite or passion,
but what either directly or indirectly tends to the preservation
either of himself or his species.
The means by which nature obliges every creature continually to stir in
this business of self-preservation, are grafted in him, and, in man,
called desires, which either compel him to crave what he thinks will
sustain or please him, or command him to avoid what he imagines might
displease, hurt, or destroy him. These desires or passions have all
their different symptoms by which they manifest themselves to those
they disturb, and from that variety of disturbances they make within
us, their various denominations have been given them, as has been
shown already in pride and shame.
The passion that is raised in us when we apprehend that mischief is
approaching us, is called fear: the disturbance it makes within us is
always more or less violent in proportion, not of the danger, but our
apprehension of the mischief dreaded, whether real or imaginary. Our
fear then being always proportioned to the apprehension we have of
the danger, it follows, that while that apprehension lasts, a man can
no more shake off his fear than he can a leg or an arm. In a fright,
it is true, the apprehension of danger is so sudden, and attacks us
so lively (as sometimes to take away reason and senses), that when
it is over we often do not remember we had any apprehension at all;
but, from the event, it is plain we had it, for how could we have
been frightened if we had not apprehended that some evil or other
was coming upon us?
Most people are of opinion, that this apprehension is to be conquered
by reason, but I confess I am not: Those that have been frightened
will tell you, that as soon as they could recollect themselves, that
is, make use of their reason, their apprehension was conquered. But
this is no conquest at all, for in a fright the danger was either
altogether imaginary, or else it is past by that time they can make
use of their reason; and therefore if they find there is no danger,
it is no wonder that they should not apprehend any: but, when the
danger is permanent, let them then make use of their reason, and they
will find that it may serve them to examine the greatness and reality
of the danger, and that, if they find it less than they imagined,
the apprehension will be lessened accordingly; but, if the danger
proves real, and the same in every circumstance as they took it to
be at first, then their reason, instead of diminishing, will rather
increase their apprehension. While this fear lasts, no creature can
fight offensively; and yet we see brutes daily fight obstinately, and
worry one another to death; so that some other passion must be able
to overcome this fear, and the most contrary to it is anger: which,
to trace to the bottom, I must beg leave to make another digression.
No creature can subsist without food, nor any species of them (I
speak of the more perfect animals) continue long unless young ones
are continually born as fast as the old ones die. Therefore the first
and fiercest appetite that nature has given them is hunger, the next
is lust; the one prompting them to procreate, as the other bids them
eat. Now, if we observe that anger is that passion which is raised
in us when we are crossed or disturbed in our desires, and that, as
it sums up all the strength in creatures, so it was given them, that
by it they might exert themselves more vigorously in endeavouring to
remove, overcome, or destroy whatever obstructs them in the pursuit
of self preservation; we shall find that brutes, unless themselves or
what they love, or the liberty of either are threatened or attacked,
have nothing worth notice that can move them to anger, but hunger
or lust. It is they that make them more fierce, for we must observe,
that the appetites of creatures are as actually crossed, while they
want and cannot meet with what they desire (though perhaps with less
violence) as when hindered from enjoying what they have in view. What
I have said will appear more plainly, if we but mind what nobody can
be ignorant of, which is this: all creatures upon earth live either
upon the fruits and product of it, or else the flesh of other animals,
their fellow-creatures. The latter, which we call beasts of prey,
nature has armed accordingly, and given them weapons and strength to
overcome and tear asunder those whom she has designed for their food,
and likewise a much keener appetite than to other animals that live
upon herbs, &c. For, as to the first, if a cow loved mutton as well as
she does grass, being made as she is, and having no claws or talons,
and but one row of teeth before, that are all of an equal length, she
would be starved even among a flock of sheep. Secondly, as to their
voraciousness, if experience did not teach us, our reason might: in the
first place, it is highly probable, that the hunger which can make a
creature fatigue, harass and expose himself to danger for every bit he
eats, is more piercing than that which only bids him eat what stands
before him, and which he may have for stooping down. In the second,
it is to be considered, that as beasts of prey have an instinct by
which they learn to crave, trace, and discover those creatures that
are good food for them; so the others have likewise an instinct that
teaches them to shun, conceal themselves, and run away from those
that hunt after them: from hence it must follow, that beasts of prey,
though they could almost eat forever, go yet more often with empty
bellies than other creatures, whose victuals neither fly from nor
oppose them. This must perpetuate as well as increase their hunger,
which hereby becomes a constant fuel to their anger.
If you ask me what stirs up this anger in bulls and cocks that
will fight to death, and yet are neither animals of prey, nor very
voracious, I answer, lust. Those creatures, whose rage proceeds from
hunger, both male and female, attack every thing they can master,
and fight obstinately against all: But the animals, whose fury is
provoked by a venereal ferment, being generally males, exert themselves
chiefly against other males of the same species. They may do mischief
by chance to other creatures; but the main objects of their hatred
are their rivals, and it is against them only that their prowess
and fortitude are shown. We see likewise in all those creatures,
of which the male is able to satisfy a great number of females, a
more considerable superiority in the male, expressed by nature in his
make and features, as well as fierceness, than is observed in other
creatures, where the male is contented with one or two females. Dogs,
though become domestic animals, are ravenous to a proverb, and those
of them that will fight being carnivorous, would soon become beasts
of prey, if not fed by us; what we may observe in them is an ample
proof of what I have hitherto advanced. Those of a true fighting
breed, being voracious creatures, both male and female, will fasten
upon any thing, and suffer themselves to be killed before they give
over. As the female is rather more salacious than the male; so there
is no difference in their make at all, what distinguishes the sexes
excepted, and the female is rather the fiercest of the two. A bull
is a terrible creature when he is kept up, but where he has twenty
or more cows to range among, in a little time he will become as tame
as any of them, and a dozen hens will spoil the best game cock in
England. Harts and deers are counted chaste and timorous creatures,
and so indeed they are almost all the year long, except in rutting
time, and then on a sudden they become bold to admiration, and often
make at the keepers themselves.
That the influence of those two principal appetites, hunger and lust,
upon the temper of animals, is not so whimsical as some may imagine,
may be partly demonstrated from what is observable in ourselves; for,
though our hunger is infinitely less violent than that of wolves and
other ravenous creatures, yet we see that people who are in health,
and have a tolerable stomach, are more fretful, and sooner put out
of humour for trifles when they stay for their victuals beyond their
usual hours, than at any other time. And again, though lust in man
is not so raging as it is in bulls, and other salacious creatures,
yet nothing provokes men and women both sooner, and more violently
to anger, than what crosses their amours, when they are heartily in
love; and the most fearful and tenderly educated of either sex, have
slighted the greatest dangers, and set aside all other considerations,
to compass the destruction of a rival.
Hitherto I have endeavoured to demonstrate, that no creature can
fight offensively as long as his fear lasts; that fear cannot be
conquered but by another passion; that the most contrary to it,
and most effectual to overcome it, is anger; that the two principal
appetites which, disappointed, can stir up this last-named passion,
are hunger and lust, and that, in all brute beasts, the proneness to
anger and obstinacy in fighting, generally depend upon the violence of
either or both those appetites together: From whence it must follow,
that what we call prowess, or natural courage in creatures, is nothing
but the effect of anger, and that all fierce animals must be either
very ravenous, or very lustful, if not both.
Let us now examine what by this rule we ought to judge of our own
species. From the tenderness of man's skin, and the great care that is
required for years together to rear him; from the make of his jaws, the
evenness of his teeth, the breadth of his nails, and the slightness
of both, it is not probable that nature should have designed him
for rapine; for this reason his hunger is not voracious as it is in
beasts of prey; neither is he so salacious as other animals that are
called so, and being besides very industrious to supply his wants,
he can have no reigning appetite to perpetuate his anger, and must
consequently be a timorous animal.
What I have said last must only be understood of man in his savage
state; for, if we examine him as a member of a society, and a taught
animal, we shall find him quite another creature: As soon as his
pride has room to play, and envy, avarice, and ambition begin to
catch hold of him, he is roused from his natural innocence and
stupidity. As his knowledge increases, his desires are enlarged,
and consequently his wants and appetites are multiplied: Hence it
must follow, that he will often be crossed in the pursuit of them,
and meet with abundance more disappointment to stir up his anger in
this than his former condition, and man would in a little time become
the most hurtful and obnoxious creature in the world, if let alone,
whenever he could over-power his adversary, if he had no mischief to
fear but from the person that angered him.
The first care, therefore, of all governments is, by severe punishments
to curb his anger when it does hurt, and so, by increasing his fears,
prevent the mischief it might produce. When various laws to restrain
him from using force are strictly executed, self-preservation must
teach him to be peaceable; and, as it is every body's business to
be as little disturbed as is possible, his fears will be continually
augmented and enlarged as he advances in experience, understanding, and
foresight. The consequence of this must be, that as the provocations
he will receive to anger will be infinite in the civilized state, so
his fears to damp it will be the same, and thus, in a little time,
he will be taught by his fears to destroy his anger, and by art to
consult, in an opposite method, the same self-preservation for which
nature before had furnished him with anger, as well as the rest of
his passions.
The only useful passion, then, that man is possessed of toward the
peace and quiet of a society, is his fear, and the more you work upon
it the more orderly and governable he will be; for how useful soever
anger may be to man, as he is a single creature by himself, yet the
society has no manner of occasion for it: But nature being always the
same, in the formation of animals, produces all creatures as like to
those that beget and bear them, as the place she forms them in, and the
various influences from without, will give her leave; and consequently
all men, whether they are born in courts or forests, are susceptible of
anger. When this passion overcomes (as among all degrees of people it
sometimes does) the whole set of fears man has, he has true courage,
and will fight as boldly as a lion or a tiger, and at no other time;
and I shall endeavour to prove, that whatever is called courage in man,
when he is not angry, is spurious and artificial.
It is possible, by good government, to keep a society always quiet
in itself, but nobody can ensure peace from without for ever. The
society may have occasion to extend their limits further, and enlarge
their territories, or others may invade theirs, or something else
will happen that man must be brought to fight; for how civilized
soever men may be, they never forget that force goes beyond reason:
The politician now must alter his measures, and take off some of
man's fears; he must strive to persuade him, that all what was told
him before of the barbarity of killing men ceases, as soon as these
men are enemies to the public, and that their adversaries are neither
so good nor so strong as themselves. These things well managed will
seldom fail of drawing the hardiest, the most quarrelsome, and the
most mischievous into combat; but unless they are better qualified,
I will not answer for their behaviour there: If once you can make
them undervalue their enemies, you may soon stir them up to anger,
and while that lasts they will fight with greater obstinacy than any
disciplined troops: But if any thing happens that was unforeseen,
and a sudden great noise, a tempest, or any strange or uncommon
accident that seems to threaten them, intervenes, fear seizes them,
disarms their anger, and makes them run away to a man.
This natural courage, therefore, as soon as people begin to have more
wit, must be soon exploded. In the first place, those that have felt
the smart of the enemy's blows, will not always believe what is said to
undervalue him, and are often not easily provoked to anger. Secondly,
anger consisting in an ebullition of the spirits, is a passion of no
long continuance (ira furor brevis est), and the enemies, if they
withstand the first shock of these angry people, have commonly the
better of it. Thirdly, as long as people are angry, all counsel and
discipline are lost upon them, and they can never be brought to use
art or conduct in their battles. Anger then, without which no creature
has natural courage, being altogether useless in a war to be managed
by stratagem, and brought into a regular art, the government must
find out an equivalent for courage that will make men fight.
Whoever would civilize men, and establish them into a body politic,
must be thoroughly acquainted with all the passions and appetites,
strength and weaknesses of their frame, and understand how to turn
their greatest frailties to the advantage of the public. In the
Inquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue, I have shown how easily men
were induced to believe any thing that is said in their praise. If,
therefore, a lawgiver or politician, whom they have a great veneration
for, should tell them, that the generality of men had within them a
principle of valour distinct from anger, or any other passion, that
made them to despise danger, and face death itself with intrepidity,
and that they who had the most of it were the most valuable of their
kind, it is very likely, considering what has been said, that most
of them, though they felt nothing of this principle, would swallow
it for truth, and that the proudest, feeling themselves moved at
this piece of flattery, and not well versed in distinguishing the
passions, might imagine that they felt it heaving in their breasts,
by mistaking pride for courage. If but one in ten can be persuaded
openly to declare, that he is possessed of this principle, and
maintain it against all gainsayers, there will soon be half a dozen
that shall assert the same. Whoever has once owned it is engaged,
the politician has nothing to do but to take all imaginable care to
flatter the pride of those that brag of, and are willing to stand by
it a thousand different ways: The same pride that drew him in first
will ever after oblige him to defend the assertion, till at last the
fear of discovering the reality of his heart, comes to be so great,
that it outdoes the fear of death itself. Do but increase man's pride,
and his fear of shame will ever be proportioned to it: for the greater
value a man sets upon himself, the more pains he will take, and the
greater hardships he will undergo, to avoid shame.
The great art to make man courageous, is first to make him own this
principle of valour within, and afterwards to inspire him with as much
horror against shame, as nature has given him against death; and that
there are things to which man has, or may have, a stronger aversion
than he has to death, is evident from suicide. He that makes death his
choice, must look upon it as less terrible than what he shuns by it;
for whether the evil dreaded be present or to come, real or imaginary,
nobody would kill himself wilfully but to avoid something. Lucretia
held out bravely against all the attacks of the ravisher, even when he
threatened her life; which shows that she valued her virtue beyond it:
but when he threatened her reputation with eternal infamy, she fairly
surrendered, and then slew herself; a certain sign that she valued
her virtue less than her glory, and her life less than either. The
fear of death did not make her yield, for she resolved to die before
she did it, and her compliance must only be considered as a bribe, to
make Tarquin forbear sullying her reputation; so that life had neither
the first nor second place in the esteem of Lucretia. The courage,
then, which is only useful to the body politic, and what is generally
called true valour, is artificial, and consists in a superlative
horror against shame, by flattery infused into men of exalted pride.
As soon as the notions of honour and shame are received among a
society, it is not difficult to make men fight. First, take care they
are persuaded of the justice of their cause; for no man fights heartily
that thinks himself in the wrong; then show them that their altars,
their possessions, wives, children, and every thing that is near and
dear to them, is concerned in the present quarrel, or at least may
be influenced by it hereafter; then put feathers in their caps, and
distinguish them from others, talk of public-spiritedness, the love of
their country, facing an enemy with intrepidity, despising death the
bed of honour, and such like high-sounding words, and every proud man
will take up arms and fight himself to death before we will turn tail,
if it be by daylight. One man in an army is a check upon another, and a
hundred of them, that single and without witness, would be all cowards,
are, for fear of incurring one another's contempt, made valiant by
being together. To continue and heighten this artificial courage, all
that run away ought to be punished with ignominy; those that fought
well, whether they did beat or were beaten, must be flattered and
solemnly commended; those that lost their limbs rewarded; and those
that were killed, ought, above all to be taken notice of, artfully
lamented, and to have extraordinary encomiums bestowed upon them;
for to pay honours to the dead, will ever be a sure method to make
bubbles of the living.
When I say, that the courage made use of in the wars is artificial,
I do not imagine that by the same art, all men may be made equally
valiant: as men have not an equal share of pride, and differ from
one another in shape and inward structure, it is impossible they
should be all equally fit for the same uses. Some men will never be
able to learn music, and yet make good mathematicians; others will
play excellently well upon the violin, and yet be coxcombs as long
as they live, let them converse with whom they please. But to show
that there is no evasion, I shall prove, that setting aside what I
said of artificial courage already, what the greatest heroe differs
in from the rankest coward, is altogether corporeal, and depends
upon the inward make of man. What I mean is called constitution; by
which is understood the orderly or disorderly mixture of the fluids
in our body: that constitution which favours courage, consists in the
natural strength, elasticity, and due contexture of the finer spirits,
and upon them wholly depends what we call stedfastness, resolution,
and obstinacy. It is the only ingredient that is common to natural
and artificial bravery, and is to either what size is to white walls,
which hinders them from coming off, and makes them lasting. That
some people are very much, others very little frightened at things
that are strange and sudden to them, is likewise altogether owing to
the firmness or imbecility in the tone of the spirits. Pride is of
no use in a fright, because while it lasts we cannot think, which,
being counted a disgrace, is the reason people is always angry with
any thing that frightens them, as soon as the surprise is over;
and when at the turn of a battle the conquerors give no quarter,
and are very cruel, it is a sign their enemies fought well, and had
put them first into great fears.
That resolution depends upon this tone of the spirits, appears likewise
from the effects of strong liquors, the fiery particles whereof
crowding into the brain, strengthen the spirits; their operation
imitates that of anger, which I said before was an ebullition of
the spirits. It is for this reason, that most people when they are in
drink, are sooner touched and more prone to anger, than at other times,
and some raving mad without any provocation at all. It is likewise
observed, that brandy makes men more quarrelsome at the same pitch of
drunkenness than wine; because the spirits of distilled waters have
abundance of fiery particles mixed with them, which the other has
not. The contexture of spirits is so weak in some, that though they
have pride enough, no art can ever make them fight, or overcome their
fears; but this is a defect in the principle of the fluids, as other
deformities are faults of the solids. These pusillanimous people,
are never thoroughly provoked to anger, where there is any danger,
and drinking makes them bolder, but seldom so resolute as to attack
any, unless they be women or children, or such who they know dare not
resist. This constitution is often influenced by health and sickness,
and impaired by great losses of blood; sometimes it is corrected
by diet; and it is this which the Duke de la Rochefoucauld means,
when he says: vanity, shame, and above all constitution, make up very
often the courage of men, and virtue of women.
There is nothing that more improves the useful martial courage
I treat of, and at the same time shows it to be artificial, than
practice; for when men are disciplined, come to be acquainted with
all the tools of death, and engines of destruction, when the shouts,
the outcries, the fire and smoke, the grones of wounded, and ghostly
looks of dying men, with all the various scenes of mangled carcases
and bloody limbs tore off, begin to be familiar to them, their fear
abate apace; not that they are now less afraid to die than before,
but being used so often to see the same dangers, they apprehend the
reality of them less than they did: as they are deservedly valued
for every siege they are at, and every battle they are in, it is
impossible but the several actions they share in, must continually
become as many solid steps by which their pride mounts up; and thus
their fear of shame, as I said before, will always be proportioned to
their pride, increasing as the apprehension of the danger decreases,
it is no wonder that most of them learn to discover little or no fear:
and some great generals are able to preserve a presence of mind,
and counterfeit a calm serenity within the midst of all the noise,
horror, and confusion, that attend a battle.
So silly a creature is man, as that, intoxicated with the fumes of
vanity, he can feast on the thoughts of the praises that shall be
paid his memory in future ages, with so much ecstacy, as to neglect
his present life, nay, court and covet death, if he but imagines that
it will add to the glory he had acquired before. There is no pitch
of self-denial, that a man of pride and constitution cannot reach,
nor any passion so violent but he will sacrifice it to another, which
is superior to it; and here I cannot but admire at the simplicity
of some good men, who, when they hear of the joy and alacrity
with which holy men in persecutions have suffered for their faith,
imagine that such constancy must exceed all human force, unless it
was supported by some miraculous assistance from Heaven. As most
people are willing to acknowledge all the frailties of their species,
so they are unacquainted with the strength of our nature, and know
not that some men of firm constitution may work themselves up into
enthusiasm, by no other help than the violence of their passions; yet,
it is certain, that there have been men who only assisted with pride
and constitution to maintain the worst of causes, have undergone
death and torments, with as much cheerfulness as the best of men,
animated with piety and devotion, ever did for the true religion.
To prove this assertion, I could produce many instances; but one
or two will be sufficient. Jordanus Bruno of Nola, who wrote that
silly piece of blasphemy, called Spaccio della Bestia triumphante,
and the infamous Vanini, were both executed for openly professing and
teaching of atheism: the latter might have been pardoned the moment
before the execution, if he would have retracted his doctrine; but
rather than recant, he chose to be burnt to ashes. As he went to the
stake, he was so far from showing any concern, that he held his hand
out to a physician whom he happened to know, desiring him to judge
of the calmness of his mind by the regularity of his pulse, and from
thence taking an opportunity of making an impious comparison, uttered
a sentence too execrable to be mentioned. To these we may join one
Mahomet Effendi, who, as Sir Paul Ricaut tells us, was put to death at
Constantinople, for having advanced some notions against the existence
of a God. He likewise might have saved his life by confessing his
error, and renouncing it for the future; but chose rather to persist
in his blasphemies, saying, "Though he had no reward to expect,
the love of truth constrained him to suffer martyrdom in its defence."
I have made this digression chiefly to show the strength of human
nature, and what mere man may perform by pride and constitution
alone. Man may certainly be as violently roused by his vanity,
as a lion is by his anger; and not only this, avarice, revenge,
ambition, and almost every passion, pity not excepted, when they
are extraordinary, may, by overcoming fear, serve him instead of
valour, and be mistaken for it even by himself; as daily experience
must teach every body that will examine and look into the motives
from which some men act. But that we may more clearly perceive what
this pretended principle is really built upon, let us look into the
management of military affairs, and we shall find that pride is no
where so openly encouraged as there. As for clothes, the very lowest
of the commission officers have them richer, or at least more gay and
splendid, than are generally wore by other people of four or five times
their income. Most of them, and especially those that have families,
and can hardly subsist, would be very glad, all Europe over, to be
less expensive that way; but it is a force put upon them to uphold
their pride, which they do not think on.
But the ways and means to rouse man's pride, and catch him by it,
are nowhere more grossly conspicuous, than in the treatment which the
common soldiers receive, whose vanity is to be worked upon (because
there must be so many) at the cheapest rate imaginable. Things we are
accustomed to we do not mind, or else what mortal that never had seen
a soldier, could look without laughing upon a man accoutred with so
much paltry gaudiness, and affected finery? The coarsest manufacture
that can be made of wool, dyed of a brickdust colour, goes down with
him, because it is in imitation of scarlet or crimson cloth; and to
make him think himself as like his officer as it is possible, with
little or no cost, instead of silver or gold lace, his hat is trimmed
with white or yellow worsted, which in others would deserve bedlam;
yet these fine allurements, and the noise made upon a calf's skin,
have drawn in, and been the destruction of more men in reality,
than all the killing eyes and bewitching voices of women ever slew
in jest. To-day the swine herd puts on his red coat, and believes
every body in earnest that calls him gentleman; and two days after
Serjeant Kite gives him a swinging wrap with his cane, for holding
his musket an inch higher than he should do. As to the real dignity
of the employment, in the two last wars, officers, when recruits were
wanted, were allowed to list fellows that were convicted of burglary
and other capital crimes, which shows that to be made a soldier is
deemed to be a preferment next to hanging. A trooper is yet worse than
a foot soldier; for when he is most at ease, he has the mortification
of being groom to a horse, that spends more money than himself. When
a man reflects on all this, the usage they generally receive from
their officers, their pay, and the care that is taken of them, when
they are not wanted, must he not wonder how wretches can be so silly
as to be proud of being called gentlemen soldiers? Yet if there were
not, no art, discipline, or money, would be capable of making them
so brave as thousands of them are.
If we will mind what effects man's bravery, without any other
qualifications to sweeten him, would have out of an army, we shall find
that it would be very pernicious to the civil society; for if man could
conquer all his fears, you would hear of nothing but rapes, murders,
and violences of all sorts, and valiant men would be like giants
in romances: politics, therefore, discovered in men a mixed-metal
principle, which was a compound of justice, honesty, and all the moral
virtues joined to courage, and all that were possessed of it turned
knights-errant of course. They did abundance of good throughout the
world, by taming monsters, delivering the distressed, and killing the
oppressors: but the wings of all the dragons being clipped, the giants
destroyed, and the damsels every where set at liberty, except some few
in Spain and Italy, who remained still captivated by their monsters,
the order of chivalry, to whom the standard of ancient honour belonged,
has been laid aside some time. It was like their armours very massy and
heavy; the many virtues about it made it very troublesome, and as ages
grew wiser and wiser, the principle of honour in the beginning of the
last century was melted over again, and brought to a new standard; they
put in the same weight of courage, half the quantity of honesty, and
a very little justice, but not a scrap of any other virtue, which has
made it very easy and portable to what it was. However, such as it is,
there would be no living without it in a large nation; it is the tie
of society, and though we are beholden to our frailties for the chief
ingredient of it, there is no virtue, at least that I am acquainted
with, that has been half so instrumental to the civilizing of mankind,
who in great societies would soon degenerate into cruel villains and
treacherous slaves, were honour to be removed from among them.
As to the duelling part which belongs to it, I pity the unfortunate
whose lot it is; but to say, that those who are guilty of it go by
false rules, or mistake the notions of honour, is ridiculous; for
either there is no honour at all, or it teaches men to resent injuries,
and accept of challenges. You may as well deny that it is the fashion
what you see every body wear, as to say that demanding and giving
satisfaction is against the laws of true honour. Those that rail at
duelling do not consider the benefit the society receives from that
fashion: if every ill-bred fellow might use what language he pleased,
without being called to an account for it, all conversation would
be spoiled. Some grave people tell us, that the Greeks and Romans
were such valiant men, and yet knew nothing of duelling but in their
country's quarrel. This is very true, but, for that reason, the kings
and princes in Homer gave one another worse language than our porters
and hackney coachmen would be able to bear without resentment.
Would you hinder duelling, pardon nobody that offends that way, and
make the laws as severe as you can, but do not take away the thing
itself, the custom of it. This will not only prevent the frequency of
it, but likewise, by rendering the most resolute and most powerful
cautious and circumspect in their behaviour, polish and brighten
society in general. Nothing civilizes a man equally as his fear,
and if not all (as my lord Rochester said), at least most men would
be cowards if they durst. The dread of being called to an account
keeps abundance in awe; and there are thousands of mannerly and
well-accomplished gentlemen in Europe, who would have been insolent
and insupportable coxcombs without it: besides, if it was out of
fashion to ask satisfaction for injuries which the law cannot take
hold of, there would be twenty times the mischief done there is now,
or else you must have twenty times the constables and other officers
to keep the peace. I confess that though it happens but seldom, it is
a calamity to the people, and generally the families it falls upon;
but there can be no perfect happiness in this world, and all felicity
has an allay. The act itself is uncharitable, but when above thirty in
a nation destroy themselves in one year, and not half that number are
killed by others, I do not think the people can be said to love their
neighbours worse than themselves. It is strange that a nation should
grudge to see, perhaps, half-a-dozen men sacrificed in a twelvemonth
to obtain so valuable a blessing, as the politeness of manners, the
pleasure of conversation, and the happiness of company in general, that
is often so willing to expose, and sometimes loses as many thousands
in a few hours, without knowing whether it will do any good or not.
I would have nobody that reflects on the mean original of honour,
complain of being gulled and made a property by cunning politicians,
but desire every body to be satisfied, that the governors of societies,
and those in high stations, are greater bubbles to pride than any
of the rest. If some great men had not a superlative pride, and
every body understood the enjoyment of life, who would be a lord
chancellor of England, a prime minister of state in France, or what
gives more fatigue, and not a sixth part of the profit of either, a
grand pensionary of Holland? The reciprocal services which all men pay
to one another, are the foundation of the society. The great ones are
not flattered with their high birth for nothing: it is to rouse their
pride, and excite them to glorious actions, that we extol their race,
whether it deserves it or not; and some men have been complimented with
the greatness of their family, and the merit of their ancestors, when
in the whole generation you could not find two but what were uxorious
fools, silly biggots, noted poltrons, or debauched whore-masters. The
established pride that is inseparable from those that are possessed of
titles already, makes them often strive as much not to seem unworthy
of them, as the working ambition of others that are yet without,
renders them industrious and indefatigable to deserve them. When a
gentleman is made a baron or an earl, it is as great a check upon
him in many respects, as a gown and cassock are to a young student
that has been newly taken into orders.
The only thing of weight that can be said against modern honour
is, that it is directly opposite to religion. The one bids you bear
injuries with patience; the other tells you if you do not resent them,
you are not fit to live. Religion commands you to leave all revenge
to God; honour bids you trust your revenge to nobody but yourself,
even where the law would do it for you: religion plainly forbids
murder; honour openly justifies it: religion bids you not shed blood
upon any account whatever; honour bids you fight for the least trifle:
religion is built on humility, and honour upon pride: how to reconcile
them must be left to wiser heads than mine.
The reason why there are so few men of real virtue, and so many of real
honour, is, because all the recompence a man has of a virtuous action,
is the pleasure of doing it, which most people reckon but poor pay;
but the self-denial a man of honour submits to in one appetite, is
immediately rewarded by the satisfaction he receives from another,
and what he abates of his avarice, or any other passion, is doubly
repaid to his pride: besides, honour gives large grains of allowance,
and virtue none. A man of honour must not cheat or tell a lie; he
must punctually repay what he borrows at play, though the creditor has
nothing to show for it; but he may drink, and swear, and owe money to
all the tradesmen in town, without taking notice of their dunning. A
man of honour must be true to his prince and country, while he is in
their service; but if he thinks himself not well used, he may quit it,
and do them all the mischief he can. A man of honour must never change
his religion for interest; but he may be as debauched as he pleases,
and never practise any. He must make no attempts upon his friend's
wife, daughter, sister, or any body that is trusted to his care;
but he may lie with all the world besides.
Line 353. No limner for his art is fam'd,
Stone-cutters, carvers are not nam'd.
It is, without doubt, that among the consequences of a national honesty
and frugality, it would be one not to build any new houses, or use
new materials as long as there were old ones enough to serve. By this
three parts in four, of masons, carpenters, bricklayers, &c. would
want employment; and the building trade being once destroyed, what
would become of limning, carving, and other arts that are ministering
to luxury, and have been carefully forbid by those lawgivers that
preferred a good and honest, to a great and wealthy society, and
endeavoured to render their subjects rather virtuous than rich. By
a law of Lycurgus, it was enacted, that the ceilings of the Spartan
houses should only be wrought by the ax, and their gates and doors only
smoothed by the saw; and this, says Plutarch, was not without mystery:
for if Epaminondas could say with so good a grace, inviting some of
his friends to his table: "Come, gentlemen, be secure, treason would
never come to such a poor dinner as this:" Why might not this great
lawgiver, in all probability, have thought that such ill-favoured
houses would never be capable of receiving luxury and superfluity?
It is reported, as the same author tells us, that Leotichidas, the
first of that name, was so little used to the sight of carved work,
that being entertained at Corinth in a stately room, he was much
surprised to see the timber and ceiling so finely wrought, and asked
his host whether the trees grew so in his country.
The same want of employment would reach innumerable callings; and,
among the rest, that of the
Weavers that join'd rich silk with plate,
And all the trades subordinate,
(as the fable has it) would be one of the first that should have
reason to complain; for the price of land and houses being, by the
removal of the vast numbers that had left the hive, sunk very low
on the one side, and every body abhorring all other ways of gain,
but such as were strictly honest on the other, it is not probable
that many without pride or prodigality should be able to wear cloth
of gold and silver, or rich brocades. The consequence of which would
be, that not only the weaver, but likewise the silver-spinner, the
flatter, the wire-drawer, the bar-man, and the refiner, would, in a
little time be affected with this frugality.
Line 367. ----To live great,
Had made her husband rob the state.
What our common rogues, when they are going to be hanged, chiefly
complain of, as the cause of their untimely end, is, next to the
neglect of the Sabbath, their having kept company with ill women,
meaning whores; and I do not question, but that among the lesser
villains, many venture their necks to indulge and satisfy their
low amours. But the words that have given occasion to this remark,
may serve to hint to us, that among the great ones, men are often
put upon such dangerous projects, and forced into such pernicious
measures by their wives, as the most subtle mistress never could have
persuaded them to. I have shown already, that the worst of women,
and most profligate of the sex, did contribute to the consumption of
superfluities, as well as the necessaries of life, and consequently
were beneficial to many peaceable drudges, that work hard to maintain
their families, and have no worse design than an honest livelihood. Let
them be banished, notwithstanding, says a good man: When every strumpet
is gone, and the land wholly freed from lewdness, God Almighty will
pour such blessings upon it, as will vastly exceed the profits that
are now got by harlots. This perhaps would be true; but I can make it
evident, that, with or without prostitutes, nothing could make amends,
for the detriment trade would sustain, if all those of that sex, who
enjoy the happy state of matrimony, should act and behave themselves
as a sober wise man could wish them.
The variety of work that is performed, and the number of hands employed
to gratify the fickleness and luxury of women, is prodigious, and if
only the married ones should hearken to reason and just remonstrances,
think themselves sufficiently answered with the first refusal, and
never ask a second time what had been once denied them: If, I say,
married women would do this, and then lay out no money but what
their husbands knew, and freely allowed of, the consumption of a
thousand things, they now make use of, would be lessened by at least
a fourth part. Let us go from house to house, and observe the way of
the world only among the middling people, creditable shop-keepers,
that spend two or three hundred a-year, and we shall find the women
when they have half a score suits of clothes, two or three of them
not the worse for wearing, will think it a sufficient plea for new
ones, if they can say that they have never a gown or petticoat, but
what they have been often seen in, and are known by, especially at
church; I do not speak now of profuse extravagant women, but such as
are counted prudent and moderate in their desires.
If by this pattern we should in proportion judge of the highest ranks,
where the richest clothes are but a trifle to their other expences,
and not forget the furniture of all sorts, equipages, jewels, and
buildings of persons of quality, we should find the fourth part I
speak of a vast article in trade, and that the loss of it would be
a greater calamity to such a nation as ours, than it is possible to
conceive any other, a raging pestilence not excepted: for the death
of half a million of people could not cause a tenth part of the
disturbance to the kingdom, than the same number of poor unemployed
would certainly create, if at once they were to be added to those,
that already, one way or other, are a burden to the society.
Some few men have a real passion for their wives, and are fond of them
without reserve; others that do not care, and have little occasion
for women, are yet seemingly uxorious, and love out of vanity; they
take delight in a handsome wife, as a coxcomb does in a fine horse,
not for the use he makes of it, but because it is his: The pleasure
lies in the consciousness of an uncontrolable possession, and what
follows from it, the reflection on the mighty thoughts he imagines
others to have of his happiness. The men of either sort may be very
lavish to their wives, and often preventing their wishes, crowd new
clothes, and other finery upon them, faster than they can ask it, but
the greatest part are wiser, than to indulge the extravagances of their
wives so far, as to give them immediately every thing they are pleased
to fancy. It is incredible what vast quantity of trinkets, as well as
apparel, are purchased and used by women, which they could never have
come at by any other means, than pinching their families, marketing,
and other ways of cheating and pilfering from their husbands: Others,
by ever teazing their spouses, tire them into compliance, and conquer
even obstinate churls by perseverance, and their assiduity of asking:
A third sort are outrageous at a denial, and by downright noise and
scolding, bully their tame fools out of any thing they have a mind
to; while thousands, by the force of wheedling, know how to overcome
the best weighed reasons, and the most positive reiterated refusals;
the young and beautiful, especially, laugh at all remonstrances and
denials, and few of them scruple to employ the most tender minutes of
wedlock to promote a sordid interest. Here, had I time, I could inveigh
with warmth against those base, those wicked women, who calmly play
their arts and false deluding charms against our strength and prudence,
and act the harlots with their husbands! Nay, she is worse than whore,
who impiously profanes and prostitutes the sacred rites of love to
vile ignoble ends; that first excites to passion, and invites to joy
with seeming ardour, then racks our fondness for no other purpose than
to extort a gift, while full of guile in counterfeited transports,
she watches for the moment when men can least deny.
I beg pardon for this start out of my way, and desire the experienced
reader duly to weigh what has been said as to the main purpose, and
after that call to mind the temporal blessings, which men daily hear
not only toasted and wished for, when people are merry and doing of
nothing; but likewise gravely and solemnly prayed for in churches,
and other religious assemblies, by clergymen of all sorts and sizes:
And as soon as he shall have laid these things together, and, from
what he has observed in the common affairs of life, reasoned upon
them consequentially without prejudice, I dare flatter myself, that
he will be obliged to own, that a considerable portion of what the
prosperity of London and trade in general, and consequently the honour,
strength, safety, and all the worldly interest of the nation consist
in, depend entirely on the deceit and vile stratagems of women; and
that humility, content, meekness, obedience to reasonable husbands,
frugality, and all the virtues together, if they were possessed of
them in the most eminent degree, could not possibly be a thousandth
part so serviceable, to make an opulent, powerful, and what we call
a flourishing kingdom, than their most hateful qualities.
I do not question, but many of my readers will be startled at this
assertion, when they look on the consequences that may be drawn
from it; and I shall be asked, whether people may not as well be
virtuous in a populous, rich, wide, extended kingdom, as in a small,
indigent state or principality, that is poorly inhabited? And if that
be impossible, Whether it is not the duty of all sovereigns to reduce
their subjects, as to wealth and numbers, as much as they can? If I
allow they may, I own myself in the wrong; and if I affirm the other,
my tenets will justly be called impious, or at least dangerous to
all large societies. As it is not in this place of the book only,
but a great many others, that such queries might be made even by a
well-meaning reader, I shall here explain myself, and endeavour to
solve those difficulties, which several passages might have raised in
him, in order to demonstrate the consistency of my opinion to reason,
and the strictest morality.
I lay down as a first principle, that in all societies, great or
small, it is the duty of every member of it to be good, that virtue
ought to be encouraged, vice discountenanced, the laws obeyed, and
the transgressors punished. After this I affirm, that if we consult
history, both ancient and modern, and take a view of what has passed
in the world, we shall find that human nature, since the fall of Adam,
has always been the same, and that the strength and frailties of it
have ever been conspicuous in one part of the globe or other, without
any regard to ages, climates, or religion. I never said, nor imagined,
that man could not be virtuous as well in a rich and mighty kingdom,
as in the most pitiful commonwealth; but I own it is my sense, that
no society can be raised into such a rich and mighty kingdom, or so
raised, subsist in their wealth and power for any considerable time,
without the vices of man.
This, I imagine, is sufficiently proved throughout the book; and as
human nature still continues the same, as it has always been for so
many thousand years, we have no great reason to suspect a future change
in it, while the world endures. Now, I cannot see what immorality there
is in showing a man the origin and power of those passions, which so
often, even unknowingly to himself, hurry him away from his reason;
or that there is any impiety in putting him upon his guard against
himself, and the secret stratagems of self-love, and teaching him the
difference between such actions as proceed from a victory over the
passions, and those that are only the result of a conquest which one
passion obtains over another; that is, between real and counterfeited
virtue. It is an admirable saying of a worthy divine, That though many
discoveries have been made in the world of self-love, there is yet
abundance of terra incognita left behind. What hurt do I do to man,
if I make him more known to himself than he was before? But we are
all so desperately in love with flattery, that we can never relish a
truth that is mortifying, and I do not believe that the immortality
of the soul, a truth broached long before Christianity, would have
ever found such a general reception in human capacities as it has,
had it not been a pleasing one, that extolled, and was a compliment
to the whole species, the meanest and most miserable not excepted.
Every one loves to hear the thing well spoke of that he has a share in,
even bailiffs, gaol-keepers, and the hangman himself would have you
think well of their functions; nay, thieves and house breakers have a
greater regard to those of their fraternity, than they have for honest
people; and I sincerely believe, that it is chiefly self-love that has
gained this little treatise (as it was before the last impression), so
many enemies; every one looks upon it as an affront done to himself,
because it detracts from the dignity, and lessens the fine notions
he had conceived of mankind, the most worshipful company he belongs
to. When I say that societies cannot be raised to wealth and power,
and the top of earthly glory, without vices, I do not think that,
by so saying, I bid men be vicious, any more than I bid them be
quarrelsome or covetous, when I affirm that the profession of the
law could not be maintained in such numbers and splendor, if there
was not abundance of too selfish and litigious people.
But as nothing would more clearly demonstrate the falsity of my
notions, than that the generality of the people should fall in
with them, so I do not expect the approbation of the multitude. I
write not to many, nor seek for any well-wishers, but among the few
that can think abstractly, and have their minds elevated above the
vulgar. If I have shown the way to worldly greatness, I have always,
without hesitation, preferred the road that leads to virtue.
Would you banish fraud and luxury, prevent profaneness and irreligion,
and make the generality of the people charitable, good, and virtuous;
break down the printing-presses, melt the founds, and burn all the
books in the island, except those at the universities, where they
remain unmolested, and suffer no volume in private hands but a Bible:
knock down foreign trade, prohibit all commerce with strangers,
and permit no ships to go to sea, that ever will return, beyond
fisher-boats. Restore to the clergy, the king and the barons their
ancient privileges, prerogatives, and professions: build new churches,
and convert all the coin you can come at into sacred utensils: erect
monasteries and alms-houses in abundance, and let no parish be without
a charity-school. Enact sumptuary laws, and let your youth be inured
to hardship: inspire them with all the nice and most refined notions
of honour and shame, of friendship and of heroism, and introduce among
them a great variety of imaginary rewards: then let the clergy preach
abstinence and self-denial to others, and take what liberty they please
for themselves; let them bear the greatest sway in the management of
state-affairs, and no man be made lord-treasurer but a bishop.
But by such pious endeavours, and wholesome regulations, the scene
would be soon altered; the greatest part of the covetous, the
discontented, the restless and ambitious villains, would leave the
land; vast swarms of cheating knaves would abandon the city, and be
dispersed throughout the country: artificers would learn to hold the
plough, merchants turn farmers, and the sinful overgrown Jerusalem,
without famine, war, pestilence, or compulsion, be emptied in the most
easy manner, and ever after cease to be dreadful to her sovereigns. The
happy reformed kingdom would by this means be crowded in no part of
it, and every thing necessary for the sustenance of man, be cheap and
abound: on the contrary, the root of so many thousand evils, money,
would be very scarce, and as little wanted, where every man should
enjoy the fruits of his own labour, and our own dear manufacture
unmixed, be promiscuously wore by the lord and the peasant. It is
impossible, that such a change of circumstances should not influence
the manners of a nation, and render them temperate, honest, and
sincere; and from the next generation we might reasonably expect a
more healthy and robust offspring than the present; an harmless,
innocent, and well-meaning people, that would never dispute the
doctrine of passive obedience, nor any other orthodox principles,
but be submissive to superiors, and unanimous in religious worship.
Here I fancy myself interrupted by an Epicure, who, not to want a
restorative diet in case of necessity, is never without live ortolans;
and I am told that goodness and probity are to be had at a cheaper rate
than the ruin of a nation, and the destruction of all the comforts of
life; that liberty and property may be maintained without wickedness
or fraud, and men be good subjects without being slaves, and religious
though they refused to be priest-rid; that to be frugal and saving
is a duty incumbent only on those, whose circumstances require it,
but that a man of a good estate does his country a service by living
up to the income of it; that as to himself, he is so much master of
his appetites, that he can abstain from any thing upon occasion; that
where true Hermitage was not to be had, he could content himself with
plain Bourdeaux, if it had a good body; that many a morning, instead
of St. Lawrence, he has made a shift with Fronteniac, and after dinner
given Cyprus wine, and even Madeira, when he has had a large company,
and thought it extravagant to treat with Tockay; but that all voluntary
mortifications are superstitious, only belonging to blind zealots
and enthusiasts. He will quote my Lord Shaftsbury against me, and
tell me that people may be virtuous and sociable without self-denial;
that it is an affront to virtue to make it inaccessible, that I make
a bugbear of it to frighten men from it as a thing impracticable;
but that for his part he can praise God, and at the same time enjoy
his creatures with a good conscience; neither will he forget any
thing to his purpose of what I have said, page 66. He will ask me
at last, whether the legislature, the wisdom of the nation itself,
while they endeavour as much as possible, to discourage profaneness
and immorality, and promote the glory of God, do not openly profess,
at the same time, to have nothing more at heart, than the ease and
welfare of the subject, the wealth, strength, honour, and what else
is called the true interest of the country? and, moreover, whether
the most devout and most learned of our prelates, in their greatest
concern for our conversion, when they beseech the Deity to turn their
own as well as our hearts, from the world and all carnal desires,
do not in the same prayer as loudly solicit him to pour all earthly
blessings and temporal felicity, on the kingdom they belong to?
These are the apologies, the excuses, and common pleas, not only
of those who are notoriously vicious, but the generality of mankind,
when you touch the copy-hold of their inclinations; and trying the real
value they have for spirituals, would actually strip them of what their
minds are wholly bent upon. Ashamed of the many frailties they feel
within, all men endeavour to hide themselves, their ugly nakedness,
from each other, and wrapping up the true motives of their hearts, in
the specious cloak of sociableness, and their concern for the public
good, they are in hopes of concealing their filthy appetites, and the
deformity of their desires; while they are conscious within of the
fondness for their darling lusts, and their incapacity, bare-faced,
to tread the arduous, rugged path of virtue.
As to the two last questions, I own they are very puzzling: to what the
Epicure asks, I am obliged to answer in the affirmative; and unless
I would (which God forbid!) arraign the sincerity of kings, bishops,
and the whole legislative power, the objection stands good against me:
all I can say for myself is, that in the connection of the facts, there
is a mystery past human understanding; and to convince the reader,
that this is no evasion, I shall illustrate the incomprehensibility
of it in the following parable.
In old heathen times, there was, they say, a whimsical country,
where the people talked much of religion, and the greatest part, as
to outward appearance, seemed really devout: the chief moral evil
among them was thirst, and to quench it a damnable sin; yet they
unanimously agreed that every one was born thirsty, more or less:
small beer in moderation was allowed to all, and he was counted an
hypocrite, a cynic, or a madman, who pretended that one could live
altogether without it; yet those, who owned they loved it, and drank
it to excess, were counted wicked. All this, while the beer itself
was reckoned a blessing from Heaven, and there was no harm in the
use of it; all the enormity lay in the abuse, the motive of the
heart, that made them drink it. He that took the least drop of it
to quench his thirst, committed a heinous crime, while others drank
large quantities without any guilt, so they did it indifferently,
and for no other reason than to mend their complexion.
They brewed for other countries as well as their own, and for the small
beer they sent abroad, they received large returns of Westphalia-hams,
neats tongues, hung-beef, and Bologna sausages, red-herrings, pickled
sturgeon, caviar, anchovies, and every thing that was proper to make
their liquor go down with pleasure. Those who kept great stores of
small beer by them without making use of it, were generally envied,
and at the same time very odious to the public, and nobody was
easy that had not enough of it come to his own share. The greatest
calamity they thought could befal them, was to keep their hops and
barley upon their hands, and the more they yearly consumed of them,
the more they reckoned the country to flourish.
The government had many very wise regulations concerning the returns
that were made for their exports, encouraged very much the importation
of salt and pepper, and laid heavy duties on every thing that was not
well seasoned, and might any ways obstruct the sale of their own hops
and barley. Those at helm, when they acted in public, showed themselves
on all accounts exempt and wholly divested from thirst, made several
laws to prevent the growth of it, and punish the wicked who openly
dared to quench it. If you examined them in their private persons,
and pryed narrowly into their lives and conversations, they seemed to
be more fond, or at least drank larger draughts of small beer than
others, but always under pretence that the mending of complexions
required greater quantities of liquor in them, than it did in those
they ruled over; and that, what they had chiefly at heart, without any
regard to themselves, was to procure great plenty of small beer, among
the subjects in general, and a great demand for their hops and barley.
As nobody was debarred from small beer, the clergy made use of it as
well as the laity, and some of them very plentifully; yet all of them
desired to be thought less thirsty by their function than others, and
never would own that they drank any but to mend their complexions. In
their religious assemblies they were more sincere; for as soon as they
came there, they all openly confessed, the clergy as well as the laity,
from the highest to the lowest, that they were thirsty, that mending
their complexions was what they minded the least, and that all their
hearts were set upon small beer and quenching their thirst, whatever
they might pretend to the contrary. What was remarkable, is, that to
have laid hold of those truths to any ones prejudice, and made use of
those confessions afterwards out of their temples, would be counted
very impertinent, and every body thought it an heinous affront to
be called thirsty, though you had seen him drink small beer by whole
gallons. The chief topics of their preachers, was the great evil of
thirst, and the folly there was in quenching it. They exhorted their
hearers to resist the temptations of it, inveighed against small beer,
and often told them it was poison, if they drank it with pleasure,
or any other design than to mend their complexions.
In their acknowledgments to the gods, they thanked them for the plenty
of comfortable small beer they had received from them, notwithstanding
they had so little deserved it, and continually quenched their thirst
with it; whereas, they were so thoroughly satisfied, that it was
given them for a better use. Having begged pardon for those offences,
they desired the gods to lessen their thirst, and give them strength
to resist the importunities of it; yet, in the midst of their sorest
repentance, and most humble supplications, they never forgot small
beer, and prayed that they might continue to have it in great plenty,
with a solemn promise, that how neglectful soever they might hitherto
have been in this point, they would for the future not drink a drop
of it, with any other design than to mend their complexions.
These were standing petitions put together to last; and having
continued to be made use of without any alterations, for several
hundred years together; it was thought by some, that the gods, who
understood futurity, and knew that the same promise they heard in June,
would be made to them the January following, did not rely much more
on those vows, than we do on those waggish inscriptions by which men
offer us their goods; to-day for money, and to-morrow for nothing. They
often began their prayers very mystically, and spoke many things in
a spiritual sense; yet, they never were so abstract from the world in
them, as to end one without beseeching the gods to bless and prosper
the brewing trade in all its branches, and for the good of the whole,
more and more to increase the consumption of hops and barley.
Line 388. Content, the bane of industry.
I have been told by many, that the bane of industry is laziness,
and not content; therefore to prove my assertion, which seems a
paradox to some, I shall treat of laziness and content separately,
and afterwards speak of industry, that the reader may judge which it
is of the two former, that is opposite to the latter.
Laziness is an aversion to business, generally attended with an
unreasonable desire of remaining unactive; and every body is lazy, who,
without being hindered by any other warrantable employment, refuses or
puts off any business which he ought to do for himself or others. We
seldom call any body lazy, but such as we reckon inferior to us, and
of whom we expect some service. Children do not think their parents
lazy, nor servants their masters; and if a gentleman indulges his
ease and sloth so abominably, that he will not put on his own shoes,
though he is young and slender, nobody shall call him lazy for it,
if he can keep but a footman, or some body else to do it for him.
Mr. Dryden has given us a very good idea of superlative slothfulness,
in the person of a luxurious king of Egypt. His majesty having bestowed
some considerable gifts on several of his favourites, is attended by
some of his chief ministers with a parchment, which he was to sign
to confirm those grants. First, he walks a few turns to and fro,
with a heavy uneasiness in his looks, then sets himself down like a
man that is tired, and, at last, with abundance of reluctancy to what
he was going about, he takes up the pen, and falls a complaining very
seriously of the length of the word Ptolemy, and expresses a great
deal of concern, that he had not some short monosyllable for his name,
which he thought would save him a world of trouble.
We often reproach others with laziness, because we are guilty of it
ourselves. Some days ago, as two young women sat knotting together,
says one to the other, there comes a wicked cold through that door;
you are the nearest to it, sister, pray shut it. The other, who was
the youngest, vouchsafed, indeed, to cast an eye towards the door,
but sat still, and said nothing; the eldest spoke again two or three
times, and at last the other making her no answer, nor offering to
stir, she got up in a pet, and shut the door herself; coming back
to sit down again, she gave the younger a very hard look; and said,
Lord, sister Betty, I would not be so lazy as you are for all the
world; which she spoke so earnestly, that it brought a colour in
her face. The youngest should have risen, I own; but if the eldest
had not overvalued her labour, she would have shut the door herself,
as soon as the cold was offensive to her, without making any words of
it. She was not above a step farther from the door than her sister,
and as to age, there was not eleven months difference between them,
and they were both under twenty. I thought it a hard matter to
determine which was the laziest of the two.
There are a thousand wretches that are always working the marrow out
of their bones for next to nothing, because they are unthinking and
ignorant of what the pains they take are worth: while others who are
cunning, and understand the true value of their work, refuse to be
employed at under rates, not because they are of an unactive temper,
but because they will not beat down the price of their labour. A
country gentleman sees at the back side of the Exchange a porter
walking to and fro with his hands in his pockets. Pray, says he,
friend, will you step for me with this letter as far as Bow-church,
and I will give you a penny? I will go with all my heart, says the
other, but I must have twopence, master; which the gentleman refusing
to give, the fellow turned his back, and told him, he would rather
play for nothing than work for nothing. The gentleman thought it
an unaccountable piece of laziness in a porter, rather to saunter
up and down for nothing, than to be earning a penny with as little
trouble. Some hours after he happened to be with some friends at a
tavern in Threadneedle-street, where one of them calling to mind that
he had forgot to send for a bill of exchange that was to go away with
the post that night, was in great perplexity, and immediately wanted
some body to go for him to Hackney with all the speed imaginable. It
was after ten, in the middle of winter, a very rainy night, and all
the porters thereabouts were gone to bed. The gentleman grew very
uneasy, and said, whatever it cost him, that somebody he must send;
at last one of the drawers seeing him so very pressing, told him
that he knew a porter, who would rise, if it was a job worth his
while. Worth his while, said the gentleman very eagerly, do not
doubt of that, good lad, if you know of any body, let him make what
haste he can, and I will give him a crown if he be back by twelve
o'clock. Upon this the drawer took the errand, left the room, and in
less than a quarter of an hour, came back with the welcome news that
the message would be dispatched with all expedition. The company in
the mean time, diverted themselves as they had done before; but when
it began to be towards twelve, the watches were pulled out, and the
porter's return was all the discourse. Some were of opinion he might
yet come before the clock had struck; others thought it impossible,
and now it wanted but three minutes of twelve, when in comes the
nimble messenger smoking hot, with his clothes as wet as dung with
the rain, and his head all over in a bath of sweat. He had nothing
dry about him but the inside of his pocket-book, out of which he took
the bill he had been for, and by the drawer's direction, presented
it to the gentleman it belonged to; who, being very well pleased
with the dispatch he had made, gave him the crown he had promised,
while another filled him a bumper, and the whole company commended his
diligence. As the fellow came nearer the light, to take up the wine,
the country gentleman I mentioned at first, to his great admiration,
knew him to be the same porter that had refused to earn his penny,
and whom he thought the laziest mortal alive.
The story teaches us, that we ought not to confound those who remain
unemployed for want of an opportunity of exerting themselves to the
best advantage, with such as for want of spirit, hug themselves in
their sloth, and will rather starve than stir. Without this caution,
we must pronounce all the world more or less lazy, according to their
estimation of the reward they are to purchase with their labour,
and then the most industrious may be called lazy.
Content, I call that calm serenity of the mind, which men enjoy while
they think themselves happy, and rest satisfied with the station
they are in: It implies a favourable construction of our present
circumstances, and a peaceful tranquillity, which men are strangers
to as long as they are solicitous about mending their condition. This
is a virtue of which the applause is very precarious and uncertain:
for, according as mens circumstances vary, they will either be blamed
or commended for being possessed of it.
A single man that works hard at a laborious trade, has a hundred a year
left him by a relation: this change of fortune makes him soon weary of
working, and not having industry enough to put himself forward in the
world, he resolves to do nothing at all, and live upon his income. As
long as he lives within compass, pays for what he has, and offends
nobody, he shall be called an honest quiet man. The victualler, his
landlady, the tailor, and others, divide what he has between them,
and the society is every year the better for his revenue; whereas,
if he should follow his own or any other trade, he must hinder
others, and some body would have the less for what he should get;
and therefore, though he should be the idlest fellow in the world, lie
a-bed fifteen hours in four and twenty, and do nothing but sauntering
up and down all the rest of the time, nobody would discommend him,
and his unactive spirit is honoured with the name of content.
But if the same man marries, gets three or four children, and still
continues of the same easy temper, rests satisfied with what he has,
and without endeavouring to get a penny, indulges his former sloth:
first, his relations, afterwards, all his acquaintance, will be alarmed
at his negligence: they foresee that his income will not be sufficient
to bring up so many children handsomely, and are afraid, some of them
may, if not a burden, become a disgrace to them. When these fears
have been, for some time, whispered about from one to another, his
uncle Gripe takes him to task, and accosts him in the following cant:
"What, nephew, no business yet! fie upon it! I cannot imagine how you
do to spend your time; if you will not work at your own trade, there
are fifty ways that a man may pick up a penny by: you have a hundred
a-year, it is true, but your charges increase every year, and what
must you do when your children are grown up? I have a better estate
than you myself, and yet you do not see me leave off my business;
nay, I declare it, might I have the world I could not lead the life
you do. It is no business of mine, I own, but every body cries, it
is a shame for a young man, as you are, that has his limbs and his
health, should not turn his hands to something or other." If these
admonitions do not reform him in a little time, and he continues
half-a-year longer without employment, he will become a discourse to
the whole neighbourhood, and for the same qualifications that once
got him the name of a quiet contented man, he shall be called the
worst of husbands, and the laziest fellow upon earth: from whence it
is manifest, that when we pronounce actions good or evil, we only
regard the hurt or benefit the society receives from them, and not
the person who commits them. (See page 17.)
Diligence and industry are often used promiscuously, to signify the
same thing, but there is a great difference between them. A poor wretch
may want neither diligence nor ingenuity, be a saving pains-taking man,
and yet without striving to mend his circumstances, remain contented
with the station he lives in; but industry implies, besides the
other qualities, a thirst after gain, and an indefatigable desire of
meliorating our condition. When men think either the customary profits
of their calling, or else the share of business they have too small,
they have two ways to deserve the name of industrious; and they must
be either ingenious enough to find out uncommon, and yet warrantable
methods to increase their business or their profit, or else supply that
defect by a multiplicity of occupations. If a tradesman takes care to
provide his shop, and gives due attendance to those that come to it,
he is a diligent man in his business; but if, besides that, he takes
particular pains to sell, to the same advantage, a better commodity
than the rest of his neighbours, or if, by his obsequiousness, or
some other good quality, getting into a large acquaintance, he uses
all possible endeavours of drawing customers to his house, he then
may be called industrious. A cobbler, though he is not employed half
of his time, if he neglects no business, and makes dispatch when he
has any, is a diligent man; but if he runs of errands when he has
no work, or makes but shoe-pins, and serves as a watchman a-nights,
he deserves the name of industrious.
If what has been said in this remark be duly weighed, we shall find
either, that laziness and content are very near a-kin, or, if there
be a great difference between them, that the latter is more contrary
to industry than the former.
Line 410. To make a great and honest hive.
This perhaps might be done where people are contented to be poor and
hardy; but if they would likewise enjoy their ease and the comforts
of the world, and be at once an opulent, potent, and flourishing,
as well as a warlike nation, it is utterly impossible. I have heard
people speak of the mighty figure the Spartans made above all the
commonwealths of Greece, notwithstanding their uncommon frugality
and other exemplary virtues. But certainly there never was a nation
whose greatness was more empty than theirs: The splendor they lived
in was inferior to that of a theatre, and the only thing they could
be proud of, was, that they enjoyed nothing. They were, indeed,
both feared and esteemed abroad: they were so famed for valour and
skill in martial affairs, that their neighbours did not only court
their friendship and assistance in their wars, but were satisfied,
and thought themselves sure of the victory, if they could but get a
Spartan general to command their armies. But then their discipline
was so rigid, and their manner of living so austere and void of all
comfort, that the most temperate man among us would refuse to submit
to the harshness of such uncouth laws. There was a perfect equality
among them: gold and silver coin were cried down; their current money
was made of iron, to render it of a great bulk, and little worth: To
lay up twenty or thirty pounds, required a pretty large chamber, and
to remove it, nothing less than a yoke of oxen. Another remedy they
had against luxury, was, that they were obliged to eat in common of
the same meat, and they so little allowed any body to dine, or sup by
himself at home, that Agis, one of their kings, having vanquished the
Athenians, and sending for his commons at his return home (because he
desired privately to eat with his queen) was refused by the Polemarchi.
In training up their youth, their chief care, says Plutarch, was to
make them good subjects, to fit them to endure the fatigues of long
and tedious marches, and never to return without victory from the
field. When they were twelve years old, they lodged in little bands,
upon beds made of the rushes, which grew by the banks of the river
Eurotas; and because their points were sharp, they were to break them
off with their hands without a knife: If it were a hard winter, they
mingled some thistle-down with their rushes to keep them warm (see
Plutarch in the life of Lycurgus.) From all these circumstances it is
plain, that no nation on earth was less effeminate; but being debarred
from all the comforts of life, they could have nothing for their pains,
but the glory of being a warlike people, inured to toils and hardships,
which was a happiness that few people would have cared for upon the
same terms: and, though they had been masters of the world, as long
as they enjoyed no more of it, Englishmen would hardly have envied
them their greatness. What men want now-a-days has sufficiently been
shewn in Remark on line 200, where I have treated of real pleasures.
Line 411. T' enjoy the world's conveniencies.
That the words, decency and conveniency, were very ambiguous, and
not to be understood, unless we were acquainted with the quality and
circumstances of the persons that made use of them, has been hinted
already in Remark on line 177. The goldsmith, mercer, or any other
of the most creditable shopkeepers, that has three or four thousand
pounds to set up with, must have two dishes of meat every day, and
something extraordinary for Sundays. His wife must have a damask bed
against her lying-in, and two or three rooms very well furnished: the
following summer she must have a house, or at least very good lodgings
in the country. A man that has a being out of town, must have a horse;
his footman must have another. If he has a tolerable trade, he expects
in eight or ten years time to keep his coach, which, notwithstanding,
he hopes, that after he has slaved (as he calls it) for two or three
and twenty years, he shall be worth at least a thousand a-year for
his eldest son to inherit, and two or three thousand pounds for
each of his other children to begin the world with; and when men of
such circumstances pray for their daily bread, and mean nothing more
extravagant by it, they are counted pretty modest people. Call this
pride, luxury, superfluity, or what you please, it is nothing but what
ought to be in the capital of a flourishing nation: those of inferior
condition must content themselves with less costly conveniencies, as
others of higher rank will be sure to make theirs more expensive. Some
people call it but decency to be served in plate, and reckon a coach
and six among the necessary comforts of life; and if a peer has not
above three or four thousand a-year, his lordship is counted poor.
Since the first edition of this book, several have attacked me with
demonstrations of the certain ruin, which excessive luxury must bring
upon all nations, who yet were soon answered, when I showed them the
limits within which I had confined it; and therefore, that no reader
for the future may misconstrue me on this head, I shall point at the
cautions I have given, and the provisos I have made in the former,
as well as this present impression, and which, if not overlooked,
must prevent all rational censure, and obviate several objections
that otherwise might be made against me. I have laid down as maxims
never to be departed from, that the [3] poor should be kept strictly
to work, and that it was prudence to relieve their wants, but folly
to cure them; that agriculture [4] and fishery should be promoted in
all their branches, in order to render provisions, and consequently
labour cheap. I have named [5] ignorance as a necessary ingredient
in the mixture of society: from all which it is manifest that I could
never have imagined, that luxury was to be made general through every
part of a kingdom. I have likewise required [6] that property should
be well secured, justice impartially administered, and in every thing
the interest of the nation taken care of: but what I have insisted
on the most, and repeated more than once, is the great regard that
is to be had to the balance of trade, and the care the legislature
ought to take, that the yearly [7] imports never exceed the exports;
and where this is observed, and the other things I spoke of are not
neglected, I still continue to assert that no foreign luxury can
undo a country: the height of it is never seen but in nations that
are vastly populous, and there only in the upper part of it, and the
greater, that is, the larger still in proportion must be the lowest,
the basis that supports all, the multitude of working poor.
Those who would too nearly imitate others of superior fortune, must
thank themselves if they are ruined. This is nothing against luxury;
for whoever can subsist, and lives above his income is a fool. Some
persons of quality may keep three or four coaches and six, and at the
same time lay up money for their children: while a young shopkeeper
is undone for keeping one sorry horse. It is impossible there should
be a rich nation without prodigals, yet I never knew a city so full
of spendthrifts, but there were covetous people enough to answer
their number. As an old merchant breaks for having been extravagant
or careless a great while, so a young beginner falling into the same
business, gets an estate by being saving or more industrious before
he is forty years old: besides, that the frailties of men often work
by contraries: some narrow souls can never thrive because they are too
stingy, while longer heads amass great wealth by spending their money
freely, and seeming to despise it. But the vicissitudes of fortune
are necessary, and the most lamentable are no more detrimental to
society, than the death of the individual members of it. Christenings
are a proper balance to burials. Those who immediately lose by
the misfortunes of others, are very sorry, complain, and make a
noise; but the others who get by them, as there always are such,
hold their tongues, because it is odious to be thought the better
for the losses and calamities of our neighbour. The various ups and
downs compose a wheel, that always turning round, gives motion to the
whole machine. Philosophers, that dare extend their thoughts beyond
the narrow compass of what is immediately before them, look on the
alternate changes in the civil society, no otherwise than they do on
the risings and fallings of the lungs; the latter of which are much
a part of respiration in the most perfect animals as the first; so
that the fickle breath of never-stable fortune is to the body politic,
the same as floating air is to a living creature.
Avarice then, and prodigality, are equally necessary to the
society. That in some countries, men are most generally lavish
than in others, proceeds from the difference in circumstances that
dispose to either vice, and arise from the condition of the social
body, as well as the temperament of the natural. I beg pardon of the
attentive reader, if here, in behalf of short memories, I repeat some
things, the substance of which they have already seen in Remark, line
307. More money than land, heavy taxes and scarcity of provisions,
industry, laboriousness, an active and stirring spirit, ill-nature,
and saturnine temper; old age, wisdom, trade, riches, acquired
by our own labour, and liberty and property well secured, are all
things that dispose to avarice. On the contrary, indolence, content,
good-nature, a jovial temper, youth, folly, arbitrary power, money
easily got, plenty of provisions and the uncertainty of possessions,
are circumstances that render men prone to prodigality: where there
is the most of the first, the prevailing vice will be avarice, and
prodigality where the other turns the scale; but a national frugality
there never was nor never will be without a national necessity.
Sumptuary laws, may be of use to an indigent country, after great
calamities of war, pestilence, or famine, when work has stood still,
and the labour of the poor been interrupted; but to introduce them
into an opulent kingdom, is the wrong way to consult the interest of
it. I shall end my remarks on the Grumbling-Hive, with assuring the
champions of national frugality, that it would be impossible for the
Persians and other eastern people, to purchase the vast quantities
of fine English cloth they consume, should we load our women with
less cargoes of Asiatic silks.
AN
ESSAY ON CHARITY,
AND
CHARITY-SCHOOLS.
Charity, is that virtue by which part of that sincere love we have for
ourselves, is transferred pure and unmixed to others, not tied to us
by the bonds of friendship or consanguinity, and even mere strangers,
whom we have no obligation to, nor hope or expect any thing from. If
we lessen any ways the rigour of this definition, part of the virtue
must be lost. What we do for our friends and kindred, we do partly
for ourselves: when a man acts in behalf of nephews or nieces,
and says they are my brother's children, I do it out of charity;
he deceives you: for if he is capable, it is expected from him, and
he does it partly for his own sake: if he values the esteem of the
world, and is nice as to honour and reputation, he is obliged to have
a greater regard to them than for strangers, or else he must suffer
in his character.
The exercise of this virtue, relates either to opinion, or to action,
and is manifested in what we think of others, or what we do for
them. To be charitable, then, in the first place, we ought to put
the best construction on all that others do or say, that things
are capable of. If a man builds a fine house, though he has not one
symptom of humility, furnishes it richly, and lays out a good estate
in plate and pictures, we ought not to think that he does it out of
vanity, but to encourage artists, employ hands, and set the poor to
work for the good of his country: and if a man sleeps at church, so
he does not snore, we ought to think he shuts his eyes to increase
his attention. The reason is, because in our turn we desire that
our utmost avarice should pass for frugality; and that for religion,
which we know to be hypocrisy. Secondly, that virtue is conspicuous
in us, when we bestow our time and labour for nothing, or employ
our credit with others, in behalf of those who stand in need of it,
and yet could not expect such an assistance from our friendship or
nearness of blood. The last branch of charity consists in giving
away (while we are alive) what we value ourselves, to such as I have
already named; being contented rather to have and enjoy less, than
not relieve those who want, and shall be the objects of our choice.
This virtue is often counterfeited by a passion of ours, called Pity
or Compassion, which consists in a fellow-feeling and condolence for
the misfortunes and calamities of others: all mankind are more or
less affected with it; but the weakest minds generally the most. It
is raised in us, when the sufferings and misery of other creatures
make so forcible an impression upon us, as to make us uneasy. It
comes in either at the eye, or ear, or both; and the nearer and more
violently the object of compassion strikes those senses, the greater
disturbance it causes in us, often to such a degree, as to occasion
great pain and anxiety.
Should any of us be locked up in a ground-room, where in a yard
joining to it, there was a thriving good humoured child at play,
of two or three years old, so near us that through the grates of the
window we could almost touch it with our hand; and if while we took
delight in the harmless diversion, and imperfect prittle-prattle of the
innocent babe, a nasty overgrown sow should come in upon the child,
set it a screaming, and frighten it out of its wits; it is natural
to think, that this would make us uneasy, and that with crying out,
and making all the menacing noise we could, we should endeavour to
drive the sow away. But if this should happen to be an half-starved
creature, that, mad with hunger, went roaming about in quest of food,
and we should behold the ravenous brute, in spite of our cries, and
all the threatening gestures we could think of, actually lay hold of
the helpless infant, destroy and devour it; to see her widely open
her destructive jaws, and the poor lamb beat down with greedy haste;
to look on the defenceless posture of tender limbs first trampled on,
then tore asunder; to see the filthy snout digging in the yet living
entrails, suck up the smoking blood, and now and then to hear the
crackling of the bones, and the cruel animal with savage pleasure
grunt over the horrid banquet; to hear and see all this, what tortures
would it give the soul beyond expression! let me see the most shining
virtue the moralists have to boast of, so manifest either to the
person possessed of it, or those who behold his actions: let me see
courage, or the love of ones country so apparent without any mixture,
cleared and distinct, the first from pride and anger, the other from
the love of glory, and every shadow of self-interest, as this pity
would be cleared and distinct from all other passions. There would
be no need of virtue or self-denial to be moved at such a scene;
and not only a man of humanity, of good morals and commiseration,
but likewise an highwayman, an house-breaker, or a murderer could
feel anxieties on such an occasion; how calamitous soever a man's
circumstances might be, he would forget his misfortunes for the time,
and the most troublesome passion would give way to pity, and not one
of the species has a heart so obdurate or engaged, that it would not
ache at such a sight, as no language has an epithet to fit it.
Many will wonder at what I have said of pity, that it comes in at the
eye or ear, but the truth of this will be known when we consider that
the nearer the object is, the more we suffer, and the more remote
it is, the less we are troubled with it. To see people executed for
crimes, if it is a great way off, moves us but little, in comparison to
what it does when we are near enough to see the motion of the soul in
their eyes, observe their fears and agonies, and are able to read the
pangs in every feature of the face. When the object is quite removed
from our senses, the relation of the calamities or the reading of them,
can never raise in us the passion called pity. We may be concerned at
bad news, the loss and misfortunes of friends and those whose cause we
espouse, but this is not pity, but grief or sorrow; the same as we feel
for the death of those we love, or the destruction of what we value.
When we hear that three or four thousand men, all strangers to us,
are killed with the sword, or forced into some river where they
are drowned, we say, and perhaps believe, that we pity them. It is
humanity bids us have compassion with the sufferings of others;
and reason tells us, that whether a thing be far off or done in
our sight, our sentiments concerning it ought to be the same, and
we should be ashamed to own, that we felt no commiseration in us
when any thing requires it. He is a cruel man, he has no bowels of
compassion; all these things are the effects of reason and humanity,
but nature makes no compliments; when the object does not strike,
the body does not feel it; and when men talk of pitying people out of
sight, they are to be believed in the same manner as when they say,
that they are our humble servants. In paying the usual civilities at
first meeting, those who do not see one another every day, are often
very glad and very sorry alternately, for five or six times together,
in less than two minutes, and yet at parting carry away not a jot
more of grief or joy than they met with. The same it is with pity,
and it is a choice no more than fear or anger. Those who have a strong
and lively imagination, and can make representations of things in
their minds, as they would be if they were actually before them,
may work themselves up into something that resembles compassion;
but this is done by art, and often the help of a little enthusiasm,
and is only an imitation of pity; the heart feels little of it, and
it is as faint as what we suffer at the acting of a tragedy; where
our judgment leaves part of the mind uninformed, and to indulge a lazy
wantonness, suffers it to be led into an error, which is necessary to
have a passion raised, the slight strokes of which are not unpleasant
to us, when the soul is in an idle unactive humour.
As pity is often by ourselves and in our own cases mistaken for
charity, so it assumes the shape, and borrows the very name of it; a
beggar asks you to exert that virtue for Jesus Christ's sake, but all
the while his great design is to raise your pity. He represents to your
view the first side of his ailments and bodily infirmities; in chosen
words he gives you an epitome of his calamities, real or fictitious;
and while he seems to pray God that he will open your heart, he is
actually at work upon your ears; the greatest profligate of them flies
to religion for aid, and assists his cant with a doleful tone, and a
studied dismality of gestures: but he trusts not to one passion only,
he flatters your pride with titles and names of honour and distinction;
your avarice he sooths with often repeating to you the smallness of the
gift he sues for, and conditional promises of future returns, with an
interest extravagant beyond the statute of usury, though out of the
reach of it. People not used to great cities, being thus attacked
on all sides, are commonly forced to yield, and cannot help giving
something though they can hardly spare it themselves. How oddly are
we managed by self-love! It is ever watching in our defence, and yet,
to sooth a predominant passion, obliges us to act against our interest:
for when pity seizes us, if we can but imagine, that we contribute to
the relief of him we have compassion with, and are instrumental to the
lessening of his sorrows, it eases us, and therefore pitiful people
often give an alms, when they really feel that they would rather not.
When sores are very bare, or seem otherwise afflicting in an
extraordinary manner, and the beggar can bear to have them exposed
to the cold air, it is very shocking to some people; it is a shame,
they cry, such sights should be suffered; the main reason is, it
touches their pity feelingly, and at the same time they are resolved,
either because they are covetous, or count it an idle expence, to
give nothing, which makes them more uneasy. They turn their eyes,
and where the cries are dismal, some would willingly stop their ears
if they were not ashamed. What they can do is to mend their pace,
and be very angry in their hearts that beggars should be about the
streets. But it is with pity as it is with fear, the more we are
conversant with objects that excite either passion, the less we are
disturbed by them, and those to whom all these scenes and tones are by
custom made familiar, they make little impression upon. The only thing
the industrious beggar has left to conquer those fortified hearts,
if he can walk either with or without crutches, is to follow close,
and with uninterrupted noise teaze and importune them, to try if he can
make them buy their peace. Thus thousands give money to beggars from
the same motive as they pay their corn-cutter, to walk easy. And many
a halfpenny is given to impudent and designedly persecuting rascals,
whom, if it could be done handsomely, a man would cane with much
greater satisfaction. Yet all this, by the courtesy of the country,
is called charity.
The reverse of pity is malice: I have spoke of it where I treat of
envy. Those who know what it is to examine themselves, will soon
own that it is very difficult to trace the root and origin of this
passion. It is one of those we are most ashamed of, and therefore the
hurtful part of it is easily subdued and corrected by a judicious
education. When any body near us stumbles, it is natural even
before reflection, to stretch out our hands to hinder, or at least
break the fall, which shows that while we are calm we are rather
bent to pity. But though malice by itself is little to be feared,
yet assisted with pride it is often mischievous, and becomes most
terrible when egged on and heightened by anger. There is nothing that
more readily or more effectually extinguishes pity than this mixture,
which is called cruelty: from whence we may learn, that to perform a
meritorious action, it is not sufficient barely to conquer a passion,
unless it likewise be done from a laudable principle, and consequently
how necessary that clause was in the definition of virtue, that our
endeavours were to proceed from a rational ambition of being good.
Pity, as I have said somewhere else, is the most amiable of all our
passions, and there are not many occasions, on which we ought to
conquer or curb it. A surgeon may be as compassionate as he pleases,
so it does not make him omit or forbear to perform what he ought
to do. Judges likewise, and juries, may be influenced with pity, if
they take care that plain laws and justice itself are not infringed,
and do not suffer by it. No pity does more mischief in the world,
than what is excited by the tenderness of parents, and hinders them
from managing their children, as their rational love to them would
require, and themselves could wish it. The sway likewise which this
passion bears in the affections of women, is more considerable than
is commonly imagined, and they daily commit faults that are altogether
ascribed to lust, and yet are in a great measure owing to pity.
What I named last is not the only passion that mocks and resembles
charity; pride and vanity have built more hospitals than all the
virtues together. Men are so tenacious of their possessions, and
selfishness is so riveted in our nature, that whoever can but any
ways conquer it shall have the applause of the public, and all the
encouragement imaginable to conceal his frailty, and sooth any other
appetite he shall have a mind to indulge. The man that supplies,
with his private fortune, what the whole must otherwise have
provided for, obliges every member of the society, and, therefore,
all the world are ready to pay him their acknowledgment, and think
themselves in duty bound to pronounce all such actions virtuous,
without examining, or so much as looking into the motives from which
they were performed. Nothing is more destructive to virtue or religion
itself, than to make men believe, that giving money to the poor,
though they should not part with it till after death, will make a
full atonement in the next world, for the sins they have committed
in this. A villain, who has been guilty of a barbarous murder, may,
by the help of false witnesses, escape the punishment he deserved:
he prospers, we will say, heaps up great wealth, and, by the advice
of his father confessor, leaves all his estate to a monastery, and
his children beggars. What fine amends has this good Christian made
for his crime, and what an honest man was the priest who directed
his conscience? He who parts with all he has in his life-time,
whatever principle he acts from, only gives away what was his own;
but the rich miser who refuses to assist his nearest relations while
he is alive, though they never designedly disobliged him, and disposes
of his money, for what we call charitable uses, after his death, may
imagine of his goodness what he pleases, but he robs his posterity. I
am now thinking of a late instance of charity, a prodigious gift,
that has made a great noise in the world: I have a mind to set it
in the light I think it deserves, and beg leave, for once, to please
pedants, to treat it somewhat rhetorically.
That a man, with small skill in physic, and hardly any learning,
should, by vile arts, get into practice, and lay up great wealth,
is no mighty wonder; but, that he should so deeply work himself into
the good opinion of the world as to gain the general esteem of a
nation, and establish a reputation beyond all his contemporaries,
with no other qualities but a perfect knowledge of mankind, and a
capacity of making the most of it, is something extraordinary. If a
man arrived to such a height of glory should be almost distracted
with pride, sometime give his attendance on a servant or any mean
person for nothing, and, at the same time, neglect a nobleman that
gives exorbitant fees, at other times refuse to leave his bottle
for his business, without any regard to the quality of the persons
that sent for him, or the danger they are in: if he should be surly
and morose, affect to be an humourist, treat his patients like dogs,
though people of distinction, and value no man but what would deify
him, and never call in question the certainty of his oracles: if he
should insult all the world, affront the first nobility, and extend
his insolence even to the royal family: if, to maintain as well as
to increase the fame of his sufficiency, he should scorn to consult
with his betters on what emergency soever, look down with contempt
on the most deserving of his profession, and never confer with any
other physician but what will pay homage to his superior genius,
creep to his humour, and never approach him but with all the slavish
obsequiousness a court-flatterer can treat a prince with: If a man,
in his lifetime, should discover, on the one hand, such manifest
symptoms of superlative pride, and an insatiable greediness after
wealth at the same time, and, on the other, no regard to religion or
affection to his kindred, no compassion to the poor, and hardly any
humanity to his fellow-creatures, if he gave no proofs that he loved
his country, had a public spirit, or was a lover of arts, of books,
or of literature, what must we judge of his motive, the principle he
acted from, when, after his death, we find that he has left a trifle
among his relations who stood in need of it, and an immense treasure
to an university that did not want it.
Let a man be as charitable as it is possible for him to be without
forfeiting his reason or good sense: can he think otherwise, but that
this famous physician did, in the making of his will, as in every thing
else, indulge his darling passion, entertaining his vanity with the
happiness of the contrivance? when he thought on the monuments and
inscriptions, with all the sacrifices of praise that would be made
to him, and, above all, the yearly tribute of thanks, of reverence,
and veneration that would be paid to his memory, with so much pomp
and solemnity; when he considered, how in all these performances,
wit and invention would be racked, art and eloquence ransacked to find
out encomiums suitable to the public spirit, the munificence and the
dignity of the benefactor, and the artful gratitude of the receivers;
when he thought on, I say, and considered these things, it must have
thrown his ambitious soul into vast ecstasies of pleasure, especially
when he ruminated on the duration of his glory, and the perpetuity he
would by this means procure to his name. Charitable opinions are often
stupidly false; when men are dead and gone, we ought to judge of their
actions, as we do of books, and neither wrong their understanding
nor our own. The British Æsculapius was undeniably a man of sense,
and if he had been influenced by charity, a public spirit, or the
love of learning, and had aimed at the good of mankind in general,
or that of his own profession in particular, and acted from any of
these principles, he could never have made such a will; because so
much wealth might have been better managed, and a man of much less
capacity would have found out several better ways of laying out the
money. But if we consider, that he was as undeniably a man of vast
pride, as he was a man of sense, and give ourselves leave only to
surmise, that this extraordinary gift might have proceeded from such
a motive, we shall presently discover the excellency of his parts,
and his consummate knowledge of the world: for, if a man would render
himself immortal, be ever praised and deified after his death, and
have all the acknowledgment, the honours, and compliments paid to
his memory, that vain glory herself could wish for, I do not think
it in human skill to invent a more effectual method. Had he followed
arms, behaved himself in five-and-twenty sieges, and as many battles,
with the bravery of an Alexander, and exposed his life and limbs to
all the fatigues and dangers of war for fifty campaigns together;
or devoting himself to the muses, sacrificed his pleasure, his rest,
and his health to literature, and spent all his days in a laborious
study, and the toils of learning; or else, abandoning all worldly
interest, excelled in probity, temperance, and austerity of life,
and ever trod in the strictest path of virtue, he would not so
effectually have provided for the eternity of his name, as after a
voluptuous life, and the luxurious gratification of his passions, he
has now done without any trouble or self denial, only by the choice
in the disposal of his money, when he was forced to leave it.
A rich miser, who is thoroughly selfish, and would receive the interest
of his money, even after his death, has nothing else to do than to
defraud his relations, and leave his estate to some famous university;
they are the best markets to buy immortality at with little merit:
in them knowledge, wit, and penetration are the growth, I had almost
said the manufacture of the place: there men are profoundly skilled
in human nature, and know what it is their benefactors want; and
their extraordinary bounties shall always meet with an extraordinary
recompence, and the measure of the gift is ever the standard of
their praises, whether the donor be a physician or a tinker, when
once the living witnesses that might laugh at them are extinct. I can
never think on the anniversary of the thanksgiving-day decreed to a
great man, but it puts me in mind of the miraculous cures, and other
surprising things that will be said of him a hundred years hence;
and I dare prognosticate, that before the end of the present century,
he will have stories forged in his favour (for rhetoricians are never
upon oath) that shall be as fabulous, at least, as any legends of
the saints.
Of all this our subtle benefactor was not ignorant; he understood
universities, their genius, and their politics, and from thence
foresaw and knew, that the incense to be offered to him would not
cease with the present or few succeeding generations, and that it
would not only for the trifling space of three or four hundred years,
but that it would continue to be paid to him through all changes and
revolutions of government and religion, as long as the nation subsists,
and the island itself remains.
It is deplorable that the proud should have such temptations to wrong
their lawful heirs: For when a man in ease and affluence, brim-full
of vain glory, and humoured in his pride by the greatest of a polite
nation, has such an infallible security in petto for an everlasting
homage and adoration to his manes to be paid in such an extraordinary
manner, he is like a hero in battle, who, in feasting of his own
imagination, tastes all the felicity of enthusiasm. It buys him up
in sickness, relieves him in pain, and either guards him against,
or keeps from his view all the terrors of death, and the most dismal
apprehensions of futurity.
Should it be said, that to be thus censorious, and look into matters,
and men's consciences with that nicety, will discourage people from
laying out their money this way; and that, let the money and the
motive of the donor be what they will, he that receives the benefit
is the gainer, I would not disown the charge, but am of opinion, that
this is no injury to the public, should one prevent men from crowding
too much treasure into the dead stock of the kingdom. There ought to
be a vast disproportion between the active and unactive part of the
society to make it happy, and where this is not regarded, the multitude
of gifts and endowments may soon be excessive and detrimental to a
nation. Charity, where it is too extensive, seldom fails of promoting
sloth and idleness, and is good for little in the commonwealth but to
breed drones, and destroy industry. The more colleges and alms-houses
you build, the more you may. The first founders and benefactors
may have just and good intentions, and would perhaps, for their own
reputations, seem to labour for the most laudable purposes, but the
executors of those wills, the governors that come after him, have
quite other views, and we seldom see charities long applied as it was
first intended they should be. I have no design that is cruel, nor the
least aim that savours of inhumanity. To have sufficient hospitals for
sick and wounded, I look upon as an indispensable duty both in peace
and war: Young children without parents, old age without support,
and all that are disabled from working, ought to be taken care of
with tenderness and alacrity. But as, on the one hand, I would have
none neglected that are helpless, and really necessitous without
being wanting to themselves, so, on the other, I would not encourage
beggary or laziness in the poor: All should be set to work that are
anywise able, and scrutinies should be made even among the infirm:
Employments might be found out for most of our lame, and many that are
unfit for hard labour, as well as the blind, as long as their health
and strength would allow of it. What I have now under consideration
leads me naturally to that kind of distraction the nation has laboured
under for some time, the enthusiastic passion for Charity-Schools.
The generality are so bewitched with the usefulness and excellency
of them, that whoever dares openly oppose them is in danger of being
stoned by the rabble. Children that are taught the principles of
religion, and can read the word of God, have a greater opportunity
to improve in virtue and good morality, and must certainly be more
civilized than others, that are suffered to run at random, and
have nobody to look after them. How perverse must be the judgment
of those, who would not rather see children decently dressed, with
clean linen at least once a-week, that, in an orderly manner, follow
their master to church, than in every open place, meet with a company
of blackguards without shirts or any thing whole about them, that,
insensible of their misery, are continually increasing it with oaths
and imprecations! Can any one doubt but these are the great nursery of
thieves and pickpockets? What numbers of felons, and other criminals,
have we tried and convicted every sessions! This will be prevented by
charity-schools; and when the children of the poor receive a better
education, the society will, in a few years, reap the benefit of it,
and the nation be cleared of so many miscreants, as now this great
city, and all the country about it, are filled with.
This is the general cry, and he that speaks the least word against
it, an uncharitable, hard-hearted and inhuman, if not a wicked,
profane, and atheistical wretch. As to the comeliness of the sight,
nobody disputes it; but I would not have a nation pay too dear for
so transient a pleasure; and if we might set aside the finery of the
show, every thing that is material in this popular oration might soon
be answered.
As to religion, the most knowing and polite part of a nation have
every where the least of it; craft has a greater hand in making rogues
than stupidity, and vice, in general, is nowhere more predominant
than where arts and sciences flourish. Ignorance is, to a proverb,
counted to be the mother of devotion; and it is certain, that we shall
find innocence and honesty nowhere more general than among the most
illiterate, the poor silly country people. The next to be considered,
are the manners and civility that by charity-schools are to be grafted
into the poor of the nation. I confess that, in my opinion, to be in
any degree possessed of what I named, is a frivolous, if not a hurtful
quality, at least nothing is less requisite in the laborious poor. It
is not compliments we want of them, but their work and assiduity. But I
give up this article with all my heart; good manners we will say are
necessary to all people, but which way will they be furnished with
them in a charity-school? Boys there may be taught to pull off their
caps promiscuously to all they meet, unless it be a beggar: But that
they should acquire in it any civility beyond that I cannot conceive.
The master is not greatly qualified, as may be guessed by his salary,
and if he could teach them manners he has not time for it: while they
are at school they are either learning or saying their lesson to him,
or employed in writing or arithmetic; and as soon as school is done,
they are as much at liberty as other poor people's children. It is
precept, and the example of parents, and those they eat, drink and
converse with, that have an influence upon the minds of children:
reprobate parents that take ill courses, and are regardless to their
children, will not have a mannerly civilized offspring though they went
to a charity-school till they were married. The honest pains-taking
people, be they never so poor, if they have any notion of goodness
and decency themselves, will keep their children in awe, and never
suffer them to rake about the streets, and lie out a-nights. Those
who will work themselves, and have any command over their children,
will make them do something or other that turns to profit as soon as
they are able, be it never so little; and such are so ungovernable,
that neither words nor blows can work upon them, no charity-school will
mend; nay, experience teaches us, that among the charity-boys there are
abundance of bad ones that swear and curse about, and, bar the clothes,
are as much blackguard as ever Tower-hill or St. James's produced.
I am now come to the enormous crimes, and vast multitude of
malefactors, that are all laid upon the want of this notable
education. That abundance of thefts and robberies are daily committed
in and about the city, and great numbers yearly suffer death for
those crimes is undeniable: but because this is ever hooked in, when
the usefulness of charity-schools is called in question, as if there
was no dispute, but they would in a great measure remedy, and in time
prevent those disorders; I intend to examine into the real causes of
those mischiefs so justly complained of, and doubt not but to make
it appear that charity-schools, and every thing else that promotes
idleness, and keeps the poor from working, are more accessary to the
growth of villany, than the want of reading and writing, or even the
grossest ignorance and stupidity.
Here I must interrupt myself to obviate the clamours of some impatient
people, who, upon reading of what I said last, will cry out, that far
from encouraging idleness, they bring up their charity-children to
handicrafts, as well as trades, and all manner of honest labour. I
promise them that I shall take notice of that hereafter, and answer
it without stifling the least thing that can be said in their behalf.
In a populous city, it is not difficult for a young rascal, that has
pushed himself into a crowd, with a small hand and nimble fingers,
to whip away a handkerchief or snuff-box, from a man who is thinking
on business, and regardless of his pocket. Success in small crimes
seldom fails of ushering in greater; and he that picks pockets with
impunity at twelve, is likely to be a house-breaker at sixteen, and a
thorough-paced villain long before he is twenty. Those who are cautious
as well as bold, and no drunkards, may do a world of mischief before
they are discovered: and this is one of the greatest inconveniencies
of such vast overgrown cities, as London or Paris; that they harbour
rogues and villains as granaries do vermin; they afford a perpetual
shelter to the worst of people, and are places of safety to thousands
of criminals, who daily commit thefts and burglaries, and yet, by
often changing their places of abode, may conceal themselves for many
years, and will perhaps for ever escape the hands of justice, unless
by chance they are apprehended in a fact. And when they are taken,
the evidences perhaps want clearness, or are otherwise insufficient;
the depositions are not strong enough; juries and often judges are
touched with compassion; prosecutors though vigorous at first, often
relent before the time of trial comes on: few men prefer the public
safety to their own ease; a man of good-nature is not easily reconciled
with taking away of another man's life, though he has deserved the
gallows. To be the cause of any ones death, though justice requires
it, is what most people is startled at, especially men of conscience
and probity, when they want judgment or resolution: as this is the
reason that thousands escape that deserve to be capitally punished,
so it is likewise the cause that there are so many offenders, who
boldly venture, in hopes that if they are taken they shall have the
same good fortune of getting off.
But if men did imagine, and were fully persuaded, that as surely as
they committed a fact that deserved hanging, so surely they would be
hanged; executions would be very rare, and the most desperate felon
would almost as soon hang himself as he would break open a house. To
be stupid and ignorant is seldom the character of a thief. Robberies
on the highway, and other bold crimes, are generally perpetrated by
rogues of spirit, and a genius; and villains of any fame are commonly
subtle cunning fellows, that are well versed in the method of trials,
and acquainted with every quirk in the law that can be of use to them;
that overlook not the smallest flaw in an indictment, and know how to
make an advantage of the least slip of an evidence, and every thing
else, that can serve their turn to bring them off.
It is a mighty saying, that it is better that five hundred guilty
people should escape, than that one innocent person should suffer:
this maxim is only true as to futurity, and in relation to another
world; but it is very false in regard to the temporal welfare of
society. It is a terrible thing a man should be put to death for a
crime he is not guilty of; yet so oddly circumstances may meet in the
infinite variety of accidents, that it is possible it should come to
pass, all the wisdom that judges, and consciousness that juries may be
possessed of, notwithstanding. But where men endeavour to avoid this,
with all the care and precaution human prudence is able to take, should
such a misfortune happen perhaps once or twice in half a score years,
on condition that all that time justice should be administered with
all the strictness and severity, and not one guilty person suffered
to escape with impunity, it would be a vast advantage to a nation,
not only as to the securing of every ones property, and the peace of
the society in general, but would likewise save the lives of hundreds,
if not thousands, of necessitous wretches, that are daily hanged for
trifles, and who would never have attempted any thing against the
law, or at least have ventured on capital crimes, if the hopes of
getting off, should they be taken, had not been one of the motives
that animated their resolution. Therefore where the laws are plain
and severe, all the remissness in the execution of them, lenity of
juries, and frequency of pardons, are in the main a much greater
cruelty to a populous state or kingdom, than the use of racks and
the most exquisite torments.
Another great cause of those evils, is to be looked for in the want
of precaution in those that are robbed, and the many temptations that
are given. Abundance of families are very remiss in looking after
the safety of their houses; some are robbed by the carelessness
of servants, others for having grudged the price of bars and
shutters. Brass and pewter are ready money, they are every where
about the house; plate perhaps and money are better secured; but an
ordinary lock is soon opened, when once a rogue is got in.
It is manifest, then, that many different causes concur, and several
scarce avoidable evils contribute to the misfortune of being pestered
with pilferers, thieves, and robbers, which all countries ever were,
and ever will be, more or less, in and near considerable towns, more
especially vast and overgrown cities. It is opportunity makes the
thief; carelessness and neglect in fastening doors and windows, the
excessive tenderness of juries and prosecutors, the small difficulty
of getting a reprieve and frequency of pardons; but above all, the
many examples of those who are known to be guilty, are destitute both
of friends and money, and yet by imposing on the jury, baffling the
witnesses, or other tricks and stratagems, find out means to escape
the gallows. These are all strong temptations that conspire to draw
in the necessitous, who want principle and education.
To these you may add as auxiliaries to mischief, an habit of sloth and
idleness, and strong aversion to labour and assiduity, which all young
people will contract that are not brought up to downright working,
or at least kept employed most days in the week, and the greatest part
of the day. All children that are idle, even the best of either sex,
are bad company to one another whenever they meet.
It is not, then, the want of reading and writing, but the concurrence
and complication of more substantial evils, that are the perpetual
nursery of abandoned profligates in great and opulent nations; and
whoever would accuse ignorance, stupidity, and dastardness, as the
first, and what the physicians call the procataric cause, let him
examine into the lives, and narrowly inspect the conversations and
actions of ordinary rogues and our common felons, and he will find
the reverse to be true, and that the blame ought rather to be laid
on the excessive cunning and subtlety, and too much knowledge in
general, which the worst of miscreants and the scum of the nation
are possessed of.
Human nature is every where the same: genius, wit, and natural parts,
are always sharpened by application, and may be as much improved
in the practice of the meanest villany, as they can in the exercise
of industry, or the most heroic virtue. There is no station of life,
where pride, emulation, and the love of glory may not be displayed. A
young pick-pocket, that makes a jest of his angry prosecutor, and
dextrously wheedles the old justice into an opinion of his innocence,
is envied by his equals, and admired by all the fraternity. Rogues
have the same passions to gratify as other men, and value themselves
on their honour and faithfulness to one another, their courage,
intrepidity, and other manly virtues, as well as people of better
professions; and in daring enterprises, the resolution of a robber
may be as much supported by his pride, as that of an honest soldier,
who fights for his country.
The evils then we complain of, are owing to quite other causes than
what we assign for them. Men must be very wavering in their sentiments,
if not inconsistent with themselves, that at one time will uphold
knowledge and learning to be the most proper means to promote religion,
and defend at another, that ignorance is the mother of devotion.
But if the reasons alleged for this general education are not the true
ones, whence comes it, that the whole kingdom, both great and small,
are so unanimously fond of it? There is no miraculous conversion to be
perceived among us, no universal bent to goodness and morality that
has on a sudden overspread the island; there is as much wickedness
as ever, charity is as cold, and real virtue as scarce: the year
seventeen hundred and twenty, has been as prolific in deep villany,
and remarkable for selfish crimes and premeditated mischief, as can
be picked out of any century whatever; not committed by poor ignorant
rogues, that could neither read nor write, but the better sort of
people as to wealth and education, that most of them were great
masters in arithmetic, and lived in reputation and splendor. To say,
that when a thing is once in vogue, the multitude follows the common
cry, that charity schools are in fashion in the same manner as hooped
petticoats, by caprice, and that no more reason can be given for
the one than the other, I am afraid will not be satisfactory to the
curious, and at the same time I doubt much, whether it will be thought
of great weight by many of my readers, what I can advance besides.
The real source of this present folly, is certainly very abstruse and
remote from sight; but he that affords the least light in matters of
great obscurity, does a kind office to the inquirers. I am willing to
allow, that in the beginning, the first design of those schools, was
good and charitable; but to know what increases them so extravagantly,
and who are the chief promoters of them now, we must make our search
another way, and address ourselves to the rigid party-men, that
are zealous for their cause, either episcopacy or presbytery; but
as the latter are but the poor mimicks of the first, though equally
pernicious, we shall confine ourselves to the national church, and
take a turn through a parish that is not blessed yet with a charity
school.--But here I think myself obliged in conscience to ask pardon of
my reader, for the tiresome dance I am going to lead him, if he intends
to follow me, and therefore I desire, that he would either throw away
the book and leave me, or else arm himself with the patience of Job,
to endure all the impertinences of low life; the cant and tittle-tattle
he is like to meet with before he can go half a street's length.
First we must look out among the young shop-keepers, that have
not half the business they could wish for, and consequently time
to spare. If such a new-beginner has but a little pride more than
ordinary, and loves to be meddling, he is soon mortified in the
vestry, where men of substance and long standing, or else your pert
litigious or opinionated bawlers, that have obtained the title of
notable men, commonly bear the sway. His stock and perhaps credit
are but inconsiderable, and yet he finds within himself a strong
inclination to govern. A man thus qualified, thinks it a thousand
pities there is no charity-school in the parish: he communicates
his thoughts to two or three of his acquaintance first; they do the
same to others, and in a month's time there is nothing else talked
of in the parish. Every body invents discourses and arguments to the
purpose, according to his abilities.--It is an arrant shame, says one,
to see so many poor that are not able to educate their children, and
no provision made for them, where we have so many rich people. What
do you talk of rich, answers another, they are the worst: they must
have so many servants, coaches and horses: they can lay out hundreds,
and some of them thousands of pounds for jewels and furniture, but
not spare a shilling to a poor creature that wants it: when modes and
fashions are discoursed of, they can hearken with great attention,
but are wilfully deaf to the cries of the poor. Indeed, neighbour,
replies the first, you are very right, I do not believe there is a
worse parish in England for charity than ours: It is such as you and
I that would do good if it was in our power, but of those that are
able there is very few that are willing.
Others more violent, fall upon particular persons, and fasten slander
on every man of substance they dislike, and a thousand idle stories
in behalf of charity, are raised and handed about to defame their
betters. While this is doing throughout the neighbourhood, he that
first broached the pious thought, rejoices to hear so many come
into it, and places no small merit in being the first cause of so
much talk and bustle: but neither himself nor his intimates, being
considerable enough to set such a thing on foot, some body must be
found out who has greater interest: he is to be addressed to, and
showed the necessity, the goodness, the usefulness, and Christianity
of such a design: next he is to be flattered.--Indeed, Sir, if you
would espouse it, nobody has a greater influence over the best of the
parish than yourself: one word of you I am sure would engage such a
one: if you once would take it to heart, Sir, I would look upon the
thing as done, Sir.--If by this kind of rhetoric they can draw in some
old fool, or conceited busy-body that is rich, or at least reputed
to be such, the thing begins to be feasible, and is discoursed of
among the better sort. The parson or his curate, and the lecturer,
are every where extolling the pious project. The first promoters
meanwhile are indefatigable: if they were guilty of any open vice,
they either sacrifice it to the love of reputation, or at least grow
more cautious and learn to play the hypocrite, well knowing that to
be flagitious or noted for enormities, is inconsistent with the zeal
which they pretend to, for works of supererogation and excessive piety.
The number of these diminutive patriots increasing, they form
themselves into a society, and appoint stated meetings, where every
one concealing his vices, has liberty to display his talents. Religion
is the theme, or else the misery of the times occasioned by atheism
and profaneness. Men of worth, who live in splendour, and thriving
people that have a great deal of business of their own, are seldom
seen among them. Men of sense and education likewise, if they have
nothing to do, generally look out for better diversion. All those
who have a higher aim, shall have their attendance easily excused,
but contribute they must, or else lead a weary life in the parish. Two
sorts of people come in voluntarily, stanch churchmen, who have good
reasons for it in petto, and your sly sinners that look upon it as
meritorious, and hope that it will expiate their guilt, and Satan
be nonsuited by it at a small expence. Some come into it to save
their credit, others to retrieve it, according as they have either
lost or are afraid of losing it: others again do it prudentially,
to increase their trade and get acquaintance, and many would own
to you, if they dared to be sincere and speak the truth, that they
would never have been concerned in it, but to be better known in the
parish. Men of sense that see the folly of it, and have nobody to fear,
are persuaded into it not to be thought singular, or to run counter
to all the world; even those who are resolute at first in denying it,
it is ten to one but at last they are teazed and importuned into a
compliance. The charge being calculated for most of the inhabitants,
the insignificancy of it is another argument that prevails much,
and many are drawn in to be contributors, who, without that, would
have stood out and strenuously opposed the whole scheme.
The governors are made of the middling people, and many inferior to
that class are made use of, if the forwardness of their zeal can
but over-balance the meanness of their condition. If you should
ask these worthy rulers, why they take upon them so much trouble,
to the detriment of their own affairs and loss of time, either
singly or the whole body of them, they would all unanimously answer,
that it is the regard they have for religion and the church, and the
pleasure they take in contributing to the good, and eternal welfare
of so many poor innocents, that in all probability would run into
perdition, in these wicked times of scoffers and freethinkers. They
have no thought of interest; even those who deal in and provide these
children with what they want, have not the least design of getting by
what they sell for their use; and though in every thing else, their
avarice and greediness after lucre be glaringly conspicuous, in this
affair they are wholly divested from selfishness, and have no worldly
ends. One motive above all, which is none of the least with the most
of them, is to be carefully concealed, I mean the satisfaction there
is in ordering and directing: there is a melodious sound in the word
governor, that is charming to mean people: every body admires sway
and superiority; even imperium in belluas has its delights: there
is a pleasure in ruling over any thing; and it is this chiefly that
supports human nature in the tedious slavery of school-masters. But
if there be the least satisfaction in governing the children, it must
be ravishing to govern the school-master himself. What fine things
are said and perhaps wrote to a governor, when a school-master is to
be chosen! How the praises tickle, and how pleasant it is not to find
out the fulsomeness of the flattery, the stiffness of the expressions,
or the pedantry of the stile!
Those who can examine nature, will always find, that what these people
most pretend to is the least, and what they utterly deny their greatest
motive. No habit or quality is more easily acquired than hypocrisy,
nor any thing sooner learned than to deny the sentiments of our hearts,
and the principle we act from: but the seeds of every passion are
innate to us, and nobody comes into the world without them. If we will
mind the pastimes and recreations of young children, we shall observe
nothing more general in them, than that all who are suffered to do it,
take delight in playing with kittens and little puppy dogs. What makes
them always lugging and pulling the poor creatures about the house,
proceeds from nothing else but that they can do with them what they
please, and put them into what posture and shape they list; and the
pleasure they receive from this, is originally owing to the love of
dominion, and that usurping temper all mankind are born with.
When this great work is brought to bear, and actually accomplished,
joy and serenity seem to overspread the face of every inhabitant,
which likewise to account for, I must make a short digression. There
are every where slovenly sorry fellows, that are used to be seen always
ragged and dirty: these people we look upon as miserable creatures in
general, and unless they are very remarkable, we take little notice
of them, and yet among these there are handsome and well-shaped men,
as well as among their betters. But if one of these turns soldier,
what a vast alteration is there observed in him for the better, as
soon as he is put in his red coat, and we see him look smart with
his grenadier's cap and a great ammunition sword! All who knew him
before are struck with other ideas of his qualities, and the judgment
which both men and women form of him in their minds, is very different
from what it was. There is something analogous to this in the sight
of charity children; there is a natural beauty in uniformity, which
most people delight in. It is diverting to the eye to see children
well matched, either boys or girls, march two and two in good order;
and to have them all whole and tight in the same clothes and trimming,
must add to the comeliness of the sight; and what makes it still more
generally entertaining, is the imaginary share which even servants,
and the meanest in the parish, have in it, to whom it costs nothing:
our parish church, our charity children. In all this there is a
shadow of property that tickles every body, that has a right to make
use of the words, but more especially those who actually contribute,
and had a great hand in advancing the pious work.
It is hardly conceivable, that men should so little know their own
hearts, and be so ignorant of their inward condition, as to mistake
frailty, passion, and enthusiasm, for goodness, virtue and charity;
yet nothing is more true than that the satisfaction, the joy and
transports they feel on the accounts I named, pass with these miserable
judges for principles of piety and religion. Whoever will consider of
what I have said for two or three pages, and suffer his imagination
to rove a little further on what he has heard and seen concerning
this subject, will be furnished with sufficient reasons, abstract
from the love of God and true Christianity, why charity-schools are
in such uncommon vogue, and so unanimously approved of and admired
among all sorts and conditions of people. It is a theme which every
body can talk of, and understands thoroughly; there is not a more
inexhaustible fund for tittle-tattle, and a variety of low conversation
in hoy-boats and stage-coaches. If a governor that in behalf of the
school or the sermon, exerted himself more than ordinary, happens
to be in company, how he is commended by the women, and his zeal and
charitable disposition extolled to the skies! Upon my word, sir, says
an old lady, we are all very much obliged to you; I do not think any
of the other governors could have made interest enough to procure us
a bishop; it was on your account, I am told, that his lordship came,
though he was not very well: to which the other replies very gravely,
that it is his duty, but that he values no trouble nor fatigue, so he
can be but serviceable to the children, poor lambs: indeed, says he,
I was resolved to get a pair of lawn sleeves, though I rid all night
for it, and I am very glad I was not disappointed.
Sometimes the school itself is discoursed of, and of whom in all the
parish it is most expected he should build one: The old room where
it is now kept is ready to drop down; such a one had a vast estate
left him by his uncle, and a great deal of money besides; a thousand
pounds would be nothing in his pocket.
At others, the great crowds are talked of that are seen at some
churches, and the considerable sums that are gathered; from whence,
by an easy transition, they go over to the abilities, the different
talents and orthodoxy of clergymen. Dr. ---- is a man of great parts
and learning, and I believe he is very hearty for the church, but
I do not like him for a charity sermon. There is no better man in
the world than ----; he forces the money out of their pockets. When
he preached last for our children, I am sure there was abundance of
people that gave more than they intended when they came to church. I
could see it in their faces, and rejoiced at it heartily.
Another charm that renders charity-schools so bewitching to the
multitude, is the general opinion established among them, that they
are not only actually beneficial to society as to temporal happiness,
but likewise that Christianity enjoys and requires of us, we should
erect them for our future welfare. They are earnestly and fervently
recommended by the whole body of the clergy, and have more labour and
eloquence laid out upon them than any other Christian duty; not by
young persons, or poor scholars of little credit, but the most learned
of our prelates, and the most eminent for orthodoxy, even those who do
not often fatigue themselves on any other occasion. As to religion,
there is no doubt but they know what is chiefly required of us, and
consequently the most necessary to salvation: and as to the world,
who should understand the interest of the kingdom better than the
wisdom of the nation, of which the lords spiritual are so considerable
a branch? The consequence of this sanction is, first, that those,
who, with their purses or power, are instrumental to the increase or
maintenance of these schools, are tempted to place a greater merit in
what they do, than otherwise they could suppose it deserved. Secondly,
that all the rest, who either cannot, or will not any wise contribute
towards them, have still a very good reason why they should speak well
of them; for though it be difficult, in things that interfere with
our passions, to act well, it is always in our power to wish well,
because it is performed with little cost. There is hardly a person so
wicked among the superstitious vulgar, but in the liking he has for
charity schools, he imagines to see a glimmering hope that it will
make an atonement for his sins, from the same principle as the most
vicious comfort themselves with the love and veneration they bear to
the church; and the greatest profligates find an opportunity in it
to show the rectitude of their inclinations at no expence.
But if all these were not inducements sufficient to make men stand
up in defence of the idol I speak of, there is another that will
infallibly bribe most people to be advocates for it. We all naturally
love triumph, and whoever engages in this course is sure of conquest,
at least in nine companies out of ten. Let him dispute with whom he
will, considering the speciousness of the pretence, and the majority
he has on his side, it is a castle, an impregnable fortress he can
never be beat out of; and was the most sober, virtuous man alive to
produce all the arguments to prove the detriment charity-schools,
at least the multiplicity of them, do to society, which I shall
give hereafter, and such as are yet stronger, against the greatest
scoundrel in the world, who should only make use of the common cant
of charity and religion, the vogue would be against the first, and
himself lose his cause in the opinion of the vulgar.
The rise, then, and original of all the bustle and clamour that is made
throughout the kingdom in behalf of charity schools, is chiefly built
on frailty and human passion, at least it is more than possible that a
nation should have the same fondness, and feel the same zeal for them
as are shown in ours, and yet not be prompted to it by any principle
of virtue or religion. Encouraged by this consideration, I shall,
with the greater liberty, attack this vulgar error, and endeavour to
make it evident, that far from being beneficial, this forced education
is pernicious to the public, the welfare whereof, as it demands of
us a regard superior to all other laws and considerations, so it
shall be the only apology I intend to make for differing from the
present sentiments of the learned and reverend body of our divines,
and venturing plainly to deny, what I have just now owned to be openly
asserted by most of our bishops, as well as inferior clergy. As our
church pretends to no infallibility even in spirituals, her proper
province, so it cannot be an affront to her to imagine that she may
err in temporals, which are not so much under her immediate care. But
to my task.
The whole earth being cursed, and no bread to be had but what we
eat in the sweat of our brows, vast toil must be undergone before
man can provide himself with necessaries for his sustenance, and the
bare support of his corrupt and defective nature, as he is a single
creature; but infinitely more to make life comfortable in a civil
society, where men are become taught animals, and great numbers of
them have, by mutual compact, framed themselves into a body politic;
and the more man's knowledge increases in this state, the greater will
be the variety of labour required to make him easy. It is impossible
that a society can long subsist, and suffer many of its members to
live in idleness, and enjoy all the ease and pleasure they can invent,
without having, at the same time, great multitudes of people that
to make good this defect will condescend to be quite the reverse,
and by use and patience inure their bodies to work for others and
themselves besides.
The plenty and cheapness of provisions depends, in a great measure,
on the price and value that is set upon this labour, and consequently
the welfare of all societies, even before they are tainted with foreign
luxury, requires that it should be performed by such of their members
as, in the first place, are sturdy and robust, and never used to ease
or idleness; and, in the second, soon contented as to the necessaries
of life; such as are glad to take up with the coarsest manufacture
in every thing they wear, and in their diet have no other aim than
to feed their bodies when their stomachs prompt them to eat, and,
with little regard to taste or relish, refuse no wholesome nourishment
that can be swallowed when men are hungry, or ask any thing for their
thirst but to quench it.
As the greatest part of the drudgery is to be done by daylight,
so it is by this only that they actually measure the time of their
labour without any thought of the hours they are employed, or the
weariness they feel; and the hireling in the country must get up in
the morning, not because he has rested enough, but because the sun
is going to rise. This last article alone would be an intolerable
hardship to grown people under thirty, who, during nonage, had been
used to lie a-bed as long as they could sleep: but all three together
make up such a condition of life, as a man more mildly educated would
hardly choose, though it should deliver him from a gaol or a shrew.
If such people there must be, as no great nation can be happy without
vast numbers of them, would not a wise legislature cultivate the
breed of them with all imaginable care, and provide against their
scarcity as he would prevent the scarcity of provision itself? No
man would be poor, and fatigue himself for a livelihood, if he could
help it: The absolute necessity all stand in for victuals and drink,
and in cold climates for clothes and lodging, makes them submit to
any thing that can be bore with. If nobody did want, nobody would
work; but the greatest hardships are looked upon as solid pleasures,
when they keep a man from starving.
From what has been said, it is manifest, that in a free nation, where
slaves are not allowed of, the surest wealth consists in a multitude
of laborious poor; for besides that they are the never-failing nursery
of fleets and armies, without them there could be no enjoyment, and no
product of any country could be valuable. To make the society happy,
and people easy under the meanest circumstances, it is requisite that
great numbers of them should be ignorant, as well as poor. Knowledge
both enlarges and multiplies our desires, and the fewer things a man
wishes for, the more easily his necessities may be supplied.
The welfare and felicity, therefore, of every state and kingdom,
require that the knowledge of the working poor should be confined
within the verge of their occupations, and never extended (as to things
visible), beyond what relates to their calling. The more a shepherd,
a ploughman, or any other peasant, knows of the world, and the things
that are foreign to his labour or employment, the less fit he will
be to go through the fatigues and hardships of it with cheerfulness
and content.
Reading, writing, and arithmetic, are very necessary to those whose
business require such qualifications; but where people's livelihood
has no dependence on these arts, they are very pernicious to the poor,
who are forced to get their daily bread by their daily labour. Few
children make any progress at school, but, at the same time, they
are capable of being employed in some business or other, so that
every hour those of poor people spend at their book is so much time
lost to the society. Going to school, in comparison to working, is
idleness, and the longer boys continue in this easy sort of life,
the more unfit they will be when grown up for downright labour,
both as to strength and inclination. Men who are to remain and end
their days in a laborious, tiresome, and painful station of life,
the sooner they are put upon it at first, the more patiently they will
submit to it for ever after. Hard labour, and the coarsest diet, are
a proper punishment to several kinds of malefactors, but to impose
either on those that have not been used and brought up to both, is
the greatest cruelty, when there is no crime you can charge them with.
Reading and writing are not attained to without some labour of the
brain and assiduity, and before people are tolerably versed in either,
they esteem themselves infinitely above those who are wholly ignorant
of them, often with so little justice and moderation, as if they
were of another species. As all mortals have naturally an aversion to
trouble and pains-taking, so we are all fond of, and apt to overvalue
those qualifications we have purchased at the expence of our ease and
quiet for years together. Those who spent a great part of their youth
in learning to read, write, and cypher, expect, and not unjustly,
to be employed where those qualifications may be of use to them; the
generality of them will look upon downright labour with the utmost
contempt, I mean labour performed in the service of others in the
lowest station of life, and for the meanest consideration. A man, who
has had some education, may follow husbandry by choice, and be diligent
at the dirtiest and most laborious work; but then the concern must be
his own, and avarice, the care of a family, or some other pressing
motive, must put him upon it; but he will not make a good hireling,
and serve a farmer for a pitiful reward; at least he is not so fit for
it as a day labourer that has always been employed about the plough
and dung cart, and remembers not that ever he has lived otherwise.
When obsequiousness and mean services are required, we shall always
observe that they are never so cheerfully nor so heartily performed,
as from inferiors to superiors; I mean inferiors not only in riches
and quality, but likewise in knowledge and understanding. A servant
can have no unfeigned respect for his master, as soon as he has
sense enough to find out that he serves a fool. When we are to
learn or to obey, we shall experience in ourselves, that the greater
opinion we have of the wisdom and capacity of those that are either
to teach or command us, the greater deference we pay to their laws
and instructions. No creatures submit contentedly to their equals;
and should a horse know as much as a man, I should not desire to be
his rider.
Here I am obliged again to make a digression, though I declare I never
had a less mind to it than I have at this minute; but I see a thousand
rods in piss, and the whole posse of diminutive pedants against me,
for assaulting the Christ-cross-row, and opposing the very elements
of literature.
This is no panic fear, and the reader will not imagine my apprehensions
ill grounded, if he considers what an army of petty tyrants I have to
cope with, that all either actually persecute with birch, or else are
soliciting for such a preferment. For if I had no other adversaries
than the starving wretches of both sexes, throughout the kingdom of
Great Britain, that from a natural antipathy to working, have a great
dislike to their present employment, and perceiving within a much
stronger inclination to command than ever they felt to obey others,
think themselves qualified, and wish from their hearts to be masters
and mistresses of charity schools, the number of my enemies would, by
the most modest computation, amount to one hundred thousand at least.
Methinks I hear them cry out, that a more dangerous doctrine never
was broached, and Popery is a fool to it, and ask what brute of
a Saracen it is that draws his ugly weapon for the destruction of
learning. It is ten to one but they will indict me for endeavouring, by
instigation of the prince of darkness, to introduce into these realms
greater ignorance and barbarity, than ever nation was plunged into by
Goths and Vandals since the light of the gospel first appeared in the
world. Whoever labours under the public odium, has always crimes laid
to his charge he never was guilty of, and it will be suspected that
I have had a hand in obliterating the Holy Scriptures, and perhaps
affirmed, that it was at my request that the small Bibles, published by
patent in the year 1721, and chiefly made use of in charity schools,
were, through badness of print and paper, rendered illegible; which
yet I protest I am as innocent of as the child unborn. But I am in
a thousand fears; the more I consider my case, the worse I like it,
and the greatest comfort I have is in my sincere belief, that hardly
any body will mind a word of what I say; or else, if ever the people
suspected that what I write would be of any weight to any considerable
part of the society, I should not have the courage barely to think
on all the trades I should disoblige; and I cannot but smile, when I
reflect on the variety of uncouth sufferings that would be prepared
for me, if the punishment they would differently inflict upon me was
emblematically to point at my crime. For if I was not suddenly stuck
full of useless pen knives up to the hilts, the company of stationers
would certainly take me in hand, and either have me buried alive
in their hall, under a great heap of primers and spelling-books,
they would not be able to sell; or else send me up against tide to
be bruised to death in a paper mill, that would be obliged to stand
still a week upon my account. The ink-makers, at the same time,
would, for the public good, offer to choke me with astringents, or
drown me in the black liquor that would be left upon their hands;
which, if they joined stock, might easily be performed in less than
a month; and if I should escape the cruelty of these united bodies,
the resentment of a private monopolist would be as fatal to me, and
I should soon find myself pelted and knocked on the head with little
squat Bibles clasped in brass, and ready armed for mischief, that,
charitable learning ceasing, would be fit for nothing but unopened
to fight with, and exercises truly polemic.
The digression I spoke of just now, is not the foolish trifle that
ended with the last paragraph, and which the grave critic, to whom
all mirth is unseasonable, will think very impertinent; but a serious
apologetical one I am going to make out of hand, to clear myself from
having any design against arts and sciences, as some heads of colleges
and other careful preservers of human learning might have apprehended,
upon seeing ignorance recommended as a necessary ingredient in the
mixture of civil society.
In the first place, I would have near double the number of professors
in every university of what there is now. Theology with us is generally
well provided, but the two other faculties have very little to boast
of, especially physic. Every branch of that art ought to have two or
three professors, that would take pains to communicate their skill
and knowledge to others. In public lectures, a vain man has great
opportunities to set off his parts, but private instructions are more
useful to students. Pharmacy, and the knowledge of the simples, are as
necessary as anatomy or the history of diseases: it is a shame, that
when men have taken their degree, and are by authority intrusted with
the lives of the subject, they should be forced to come to London to be
acquainted with the Materia Medica, and the composition of medicines,
and receive instructions from others that never had university
education themselves; it is certain, that in the city I named, there
is ten times more opportunity for a man to improve himself in anatomy,
botany, pharmacy, and the practice of physic, than at both universities
together. What has an oil shop to do with silks; or who would look
for hams and pickles at a mercers? Where things are well managed,
hospitals are made as subservient to the advancement of students in
the art of physic, as they are to the recovery of health in the poor.
Good sense ought to govern men in learning as well as in trade: no
man ever bound his son apprentice to a goldsmith to make him a linen
draper; then why should he have a divine for his tutor to become
a lawyer or a physician? It is true, that the languages, logic and
philosophy, should be the first studies in all the learned professions;
but there is so little help for physic in our universities that are
so rich, and where so many idle people are well paid for eating and
drinking, and being magnificently, as well as commodiously lodged,
that bar books, and what is common to all the three faculties, a man
may as well qualify himself at Oxford or Cambridge to be a Turkey
merchant, as he can to be a physician; which is, in my humble opinion,
a great sign that some part of the great wealth they are possessed
of is not so well applied as it might be.
Professors should, besides their stipends allowed them by the public,
have gratifications from every student they teach, that self-interest,
as well as emulation and the love of glory, might spur them on to
labour and assiduity. When a man excels in any one study or part of
learning, and is qualified to teach others, he ought to be procured, if
money will purchase him, without regarding what party, or indeed what
country or nation he is of, whether black or white. Universities should
be public marts for all manner of literature, as your annual fairs,
that are kept at Leipsic, Frankfort, and other places in Germany,
are for different wares and merchandises, where no difference is
made between natives and foreigners, and which men resort to from
all parts of the world with equal freedom and equal privilege.
From paying the gratifications I spoke of, I would excuse all students
designed for the ministry of the gospel. There is no faculty so
immediately necessary to the government of a nation as that of
theology, and as we ought to have great numbers of divines for the
service of this island, I would not have the meaner people discouraged
from bringing up their children to that function. For though wealthy
men, if they have many sons, sometimes make one of them a clergyman,
as we see even persons of quality take up holy orders, and there
are likewise people of good sense, especially divines, that from a
principle of prudence bring up their children to that profession, when
they are morally assured that they have friends or interest enough,
and shall be able, either by a good fellowship at the university,
advowsons, or other means to procure them a livelihood: but these
produce not the large number of divines that are yearly ordained,
and for the bulk of the clergy, we are indebted to another original.
Among the middling people of all trades there are bigots who have a
superstitious awe for a gown and cassock: of these there are multitudes
that feel an ardent desire of having a son promoted to the ministry of
the gospel, without considering what is to become of them afterwards;
and many a kind mother in this kingdom, without consulting her own
circumstances or her child's capacity, transported with this laudable
wish, is daily feasting on this pleasing thought, and often before her
son is twelve years old, mixing maternal love with devotion, throws
herself into ecstasies and tears of satisfaction, by reflecting on the
future enjoyment she is to receive from seeing him stand in a pulpit,
and, with her own ears, hearing him preach the word of God. It is to
this religious zeal, or at least the human frailties that pass for
and represent it, that we owe the great plenty of poor scholars the
nation enjoys. For, considering the inequality of livings, and the
smallness of benefices up and down the kingdom, without this happy
disposition in parents of small fortune, we could not possibly be
furnished from any other quarter with proper persons for the ministry,
to attend all the cures of souls, so pitifully provided for, that no
mortal could live upon them that had been educated in any tolerable
plenty, unless he was possessed of real virtue, which it is foolish
and indeed injurious, we should more expect from the clergy than we
generally find it in the laity.
The great care I would take to promote that part of learning which
is more immediately useful to society, should not make me neglect
the more curious and polite, but all the liberal arts, and every
branch of literature should be encouraged throughout the kingdom,
more than they are, if my wishing could do it. In every county, there
should be one or more large schools, erected at the public charge,
for Latin and Greek, that should be divided into six or more classes,
with particular masters in each of them. The whole should be under
the care and inspection of some men of letters in authority, who would
not only be titular governors, but actually take pains at least twice
a-year, in hearing every class thoroughly examined by the master of it,
and not content themselves with judging of the progress the scholars
had made for the themes and other exercises that had been made out
of their sight.
At the same time, I would discharge and hinder the multiplicity of
those petty schools, that never would have had any existence had
the masters of them not been extremely indigent. It is a vulgar
error, that nobody can spell or write English well without a little
smatch of Latin. This is upheld by pedants for their own interest,
and by none more strenuously maintained than such of them as are
poor scholars in more than one sense; in the mean time it is an
abominable falsehood. I have known, and I am still acquainted with
several, and some of the fair sex, that never learned any Latin,
and yet kept to strict orthography, and write admirable good sense;
where, on the other hand, every body may meet with the scribblings
of pretended scholars, at least such as went to a grammar school
for several years, that have grammar faults and are ill spelled. The
understanding of Latin thoroughly, is highly necessary to all that
are designed for any of the learned professions, and I would have
no gentleman without literature; even those who are to be brought up
attorneys, surgeons, and apothecaries, should be much better versed in
that language than generally they are; but to youth, who afterwards
are to get a livelihood in trades and callings in which Latin is not
daily wanted, it is of no use, and the learning of it an evident loss
of just so much time and money as are bestowed upon it. When men come
into business, what was taught them of it, in those petty schools is
either soon forgot, or only fit to make them impertinent, and often
very troublesome in company. Few men can forbear valuing themselves on
any knowledge they had once acquired, even after they have lost it;
and, unless they are very modest and discreet, the undigested scraps
which such people commonly remember of Latin, seldom fail of rendering
them, at one time or other, ridiculous to those who understand it.
Reading and writing I would treat as we do music and dancing, I would
not hinder them nor force them upon the society: as long as there
was any thing to be got by them, there would be masters enough to
teach them; but nothing should be taught for nothing but at church:
and here I would exclude even those who might be designed for the
ministry of the gospel; for, if parents are so miserably poor that
they cannot afford their children these first elements of learning,
it is impudence in them to aspire any further.
It would encourage, likewise, the lower sort of people to give their
children this part of education, if they could see them preferred to
those of idle sots or sorry rake-hells, that never knew what it was to
provide a rag for their brats but by begging. But now, when a boy or
a girl are wanted for any small service, we reckon it a duty to employ
our charity children before any other. The education of them looks like
a reward for being vicious and unactive, a benefit commonly bestowed on
parents, who deserve to be punished for shamefully neglecting their
families. In one place you may hear a rascal half drunk, damning
himself, call for the other pot, and as a good reason for it, add,
that his boy is provided for in clothes, and has his schooling for
nothing: In another you shall see a poor woman in great necessity,
whose child is to be taken care of, because herself is a lazy slut,
and never did any thing to remedy her wants in good earnest, but
bewailing them at a gin-shop.
If every body's children are well taught, who, by their own industry,
can educate them at our universities, there will be men of learning
enough to supply this nation and such another; and reading, writing,
or arithmetic, would never be wanting in the business that requires
them, though none were to learn them but such whose parents could
be at the charge of it. It is not with letters as it is with the
gifts of the Holy Ghost, that they may not be purchased with money;
and bought wit, if we believe the proverb, is none of the worst.
I thought it necessary to say thus much of learning, to obviate
the clamours of the enemies to truth and fair dealing, who, had I
not so amply explained myself on this head, would have represented
me as a mortal foe to all literature and useful knowledge, and a
wicked advocate for universal ignorance and stupidity. I shall now
make good my promise, of answering what I know the well-wishers to
charity schools would object against me, by saying that they brought
up the children under their care, to warrantable and laborious trades,
and not to idleness as I did insinuate.
I have sufficiently showed already, why going to school was idleness
if compared to working, and exploded this sort of education in the
children of the poor, because it incapacitates them ever after for
downright labour, which is their proper province, and, in every
civil society, a portion they ought not to repine or grumble at,
if exacted from them with discretion and humanity. What remains, is,
that I should speak as to their putting them out to trades, which I
shall endeavour to demonstrate to be destructive to the harmony of
a nation, and an impertinent intermeddling with what few of these
governors know any thing of.
In order to this, let us examine into the nature of societies, and
what the compound ought to consist of, if we would raise it to as high
a degree of strength, beauty, and perfection, as the ground we are to
do it upon will let us. The variety of services that are required to
supply the luxurious and wanton desires, as well as real necessities of
man, with all their subordinate callings, is in such a nation as ours
prodigious; yet it is certain that though the number of those several
occupations be excessively great, it is far from being infinite;
if you add one more than is required, it must be superfluous. If a
man had a good stock, and the best shop in Cheapside to sell turbants
in, he would be ruined; and if Demetrius, or any other silversmith,
made nothing but Diana's shrines, he would not get his bread, now the
worship of that goddess is out of fashion. As it is folly to set up
trades that are not wanted, so what is next to it is to increase in any
one trade, the numbers beyond what are required. As things are managed
with us, it would be preposterous to have as many brewers as there
are bakers, or as many woollen-drapers as there are shoemakers. This
proportion as to numbers, in every trade, finds itself, and is never
better kept than when nobody meddles or interferes with it.
People that have children to educate that must get their livelihood,
are always consulting and deliberating what trade or calling they
are to bring them up to, until they are fixed; and thousands think on
this, that hardly think at all on any thing else. First, they confine
themselves to their circumstances, and he that can give but ten pounds
with his son must not look out for a trade, where they ask an hundred
with an apprentice; but the next they think on, is always which will
be the most advantageous; if there be a calling where at that time
people are more generally employed than they are in any other in the
same reach, there are presently half a score fathers ready to supply
it with their sons. Therefore the greatest care most companies have,
is about the regulation of the number of apprentices. Now, when all
trades complain, and perhaps justly, that they are overstocked, you
manifestly injure that trade, to which you add one member more than
would flow from the nature of society. Besides that, the governors
of charity schools do not deliberate so much what trade is the best,
but what tradesmen they can get that will take the boys, with such a
sum; and few men of substance and experience will have any thing to
do with these children; they are afraid of a hundred inconveniencies
from the necessitous parents of them: so that they are bound, at least
most commonly, either to sots and neglectful masters, or else such
as are very needy and do not care what becomes of their apprentices,
after they have received the money; by which it seems as if we studied
nothing more than to have a perpetual nursery for charity schools.
When all trades and handicrafts are overstocked, it is a certain
sign there is a fault in the management of the whole; for it is
impossible there should be too many people if the country is able to
feed them. Are provisions dear? Whose fault is that, as long as you
have ground untilled and hands unemployed? But I shall be answered,
that to increase plenty, must at long-run undo the farmer, or lessen
the rents all over England. To which I reply, that what the husbandman
complains of most, is what I would redress: the greatest grievance
of farmers, gardeners, and others, where hard labour is required,
and dirty work to be done, is, that they cannot get servants for the
same wages they used to have them at. The day-labourer grumbles at
sixteen pence to do no other drudgery, than what thirty years ago
his grandfather did cheerfully for half the money. As to the rents,
it is impossible they should fall while you increase your numbers;
but the price of provisions, and all labour in general, must fall with
them, if not before; and a man of a hundred and fifty pounds a-year,
has no reason to complain that his income is reduced to one hundred,
if he can buy as much for that one hundred as before he could have
done for two.
There is no intrinsic worth in money, but what is alterable with the
times; and whether a guinea goes for twenty pounds or for a shilling,
it is (as I have already hinted before) the labour of the poor, and not
the high and low value that is set on gold or silver, which all the
comforts of life must arise from. It is in our power to have a much
greater plenty than we enjoy, if agriculture and fishery were taken
care of, as they might be; but we are so little capable of increasing
our labour, that we have hardly poor enough to do what is necessary
to make us subsist. The proportion of the society is spoiled, and
the bulk of the nation, which should every where consist of labouring
poor, that are unacquainted with every thing but their work, is too
little for the other parts. In all business where downright labour is
shunned or over-paid, there is plenty of people. To one merchant you
have ten book keepers, or at least pretenders; and every where in the
country the farmer wants hands. Ask for a footman that for some time
has been in gentlemen's families, and you will get a dozen that are
all butlers. You may have chamber-maids by the score, but you cannot
get a cook under extravagant wages.
Nobody will do the dirty slavish work, that can help it. I do not
discommend them; but all these things show, that the people of the
meanest rank, know too much to be serviceable to us. Servants require
more than masters and mistresses can afford; and what madness is it to
encourage them in this, by industriously increasing at our cost, that
knowledge, which they will be sure to make us pay for over again! And
it is not only that those who are educated at our own expence, encroach
upon us, but the raw ignorant country wenches and boobily fellows that
can do, and are good for nothing, impose upon us likewise. The scarcity
of servants occasioned by the education of the first, gives a handle
to the latter of advancing their price, and demanding what ought only
to be given to servants that understand their business, and have most
of the good qualities that can be required in them. There is no place
in the world where there are more clever fellows to look at, or to do
an errand, than some of our footmen; but what are they good for in the
main? The greatest part of them are rogues, and not to be trusted;
and if they are honest, half of them are sots, and will get drunk
three or four times a week. The surly ones are generally quarrelsome,
and valuing their manhood beyond all other considerations, care not
what clothes they spoil, or what disappointments they may occasion,
when their prowess is in question. Those who are good-natured, are
generally sad whore-masters, that are ever running after the wenches,
and spoil all the maid-servants they come near. Many of them are
guilty of all these vices, whoring, drinking, quarrelling, and yet
shall have all their faults overlooked and bore with, because they
are men of good mien and humble address, that know how to wait on
gentlemen; which is an unpardonable folly in masters, and generally
ends in the ruin of servants.
Some few there are, that are not addicted to any of these failings,
and understand their duty besides; but as these are rarities, so there
is not one in fifty but what over-rates himself; his wages must be
extravagant, and you can never have done giving him; every thing in
the house is his perquisite, and he will not stay with you unless
his vails are sufficient to maintain a middling family; and though
you had taken him from the dunghill, out of an hospital, or a prison,
you shall never keep him longer than he can make of his place, what
in his high estimation of himself he shall think he deserves; nay,
the best and most civilized, that never were saucy and impertinent,
will leave the most indulgent master, and, to get handsomely away,
frame fifty excuses, and tell downright lies, as soon as they can mend
themselves. A man, who keeps an half-crown or twelve-penny ordinary,
looks not more for money from his customers, than a footman does
from every guest that dines or sups with his master; and I question
whether the one does not often think a shilling or half-a-crown,
according to the quality of the person, his due as much as the other.
A housekeeper, who cannot afford to make many entertainments, and
does not often invite people to his table, can have no creditable
man-servant, and is forced to take up with some country booby, or
other awkward fellow, who will likewise give him the slip, as soon
as he imagines himself fit for any other service, and is made wiser
by his rascally companions. All noted eating-houses, and places that
many gentlemen resort to for diversion or business, more especially
the precincts of Westminster-hall, are the great schools for servants,
where the dullest fellows may have their understandings improved;
and get rid at once of their stupidity and their innocence. They are
the academies for footmen, where public lectures are daily read, on
all sciences of low debauchery, by the experienced professors of them;
and students are instructed in above seven hundred illiberal arts, how
to cheat, impose upon, and find out the blind side of their masters,
with so much application, that in few years they become graduates in
iniquity. Young gentlemen and others, that are not thoroughly versed
in the world, when they get such knowing sharpers in their service,
are commonly indulging above measure; and for fear of discovering
their want of experience, hardly dare to contradict or deny them any
thing, which is often the reason, that by allowing them unreasonable
privileges, they expose their ignorance when they are most endeavouring
to conceal it.
Some perhaps will lay the things I complain of to the charge of
luxury, of which I said that it could do no hurt to a rich nation,
if the imports never did exceed the exports; but I do not think this
imputation just, and nothing ought to be scored on the account of
luxury, that is downright the effect of folly. A man may be very
extravagant in indulging his ease and his pleasure, and render the
enjoyment of the world as operose and expensive as they can be made, if
he can afford it, and, at the same time, show his good sense in every
thing about him: This he cannot be said to do, if he industriously
renders his people incapable of doing him that service he expects from
them. It is too much money, excessive wages, and unreasonable vails,
that spoil servants in England. A man may have five and twenty horses
in his stables, without being guilty of folly, if it suits with the
rest of his circumstances; but if he keeps but one, and overfeeds it
to show his wealth, he is a fool for his pains. Is it not madness to
suffer, that servants should take three, and others five per cent. of
what they pay to tradesmen for their masters, as is so well known
to watchmakers, and others that sell toys, superfluous nicknacks,
and other curiosities, if they deal with people of quality and
fashionable gentlemen, that are above telling their own money? If
they should accept of a present when offered, it might be connived
at, but it is an unpardonable impudence that they should claim it
as their due, and contend for it if refused. Those who have all the
necessaries of life provided for, can have no occasion for money, but
what does them hurt as servants, unless they were to hoard it up for
age or sickness, which, among our skip-kennels, is not very common,
and even then it makes them saucy and insupportable.
I am credibly informed, that a parcel of footmen are arrived to that
height of insolence, as to have entered into a society together, and
made laws, by which they oblige themselves not to serve for less than
such a sum, nor carry burdens, or any bundle or parcel above a certain
weight, not exceeding two or three pounds, with other regulations
directly opposite to the interest of those they serve, and altogether
destructive to the use they were designed for. If any of them be
turned away for strictly adhering to the orders of this honourable
corporation, he is taken care of till another service is provided
for him; and there is no money wanting at any time to commence and
maintain a law-suit against any master that shall pretend to strike,
or offer any other injury to his gentleman footman, contrary to the
statutes of their society. If this be true, as I have reason to believe
it is, and they are suffered to go on in consulting and providing for
their own ease and conveniency any further, we may expect quickly to
see the French comedy, Le Maitre le Valet acted in good earnest in
most families, which, if not redressed in a little time, and those
footmen increase their company to the number it is possible they may,
as well as assemble when they please with impunity, it will be in
their power to make a tragedy of it whenever they have a mind to it.
But suppose those apprehensions frivolous and groundless, it is
undeniable that servants, in general, are daily encroaching upon
masters and mistresses, and endeavouring to be more upon the level
with them. They not only seem solicitous to abolish the low dignity
of their condition, but have already considerably raised it in the
common estimation from the original meanness which the public welfare
requires it should always remain in. I do not say that these things are
altogether owing to charity schools, there are other evils they may be
partly ascribed to. London is too big for the country, and, in several
respects, we are wanting to ourselves. But if a thousand faults were
to concur before the inconveniences could be produced we labour under,
can any man doubt, who will consider what I have said, that charity
schools are accessary, or, at least, that they are more likely to
create and increase than to lessen or redress those complaints?
The only thing of weight, then, that can be said in their behalf is,
that so many thousand children are educated by them in the Christian
faith, and the principles of the church of England. To demonstrate that
this is not a sufficient plea for them, I must desire the reader,
as I hate repetitions, to look back on what I have said before,
to which I shall add, that whatever is necessary to salvation, and
requisite for poor labouring people to know concerning religion,
that children learn at school, may fully as well either by preaching
or catechizing be taught at church, from which, or some other place of
worship, I would not have the meanest of a parish that is able to walk
to it be absent on Sundays. It is the Sabbath, the most useful day in
seven, that is set apart for divine service and religious exercise,
as well as resting from bodily labour; and it is a duty incumbent on
all magistrates, to take particular care of that day. The poor more
especially and their children, should be made to go to church on it,
both in the fore and afternoon, because they have no time on any
other. By precept and example they ought to be encouraged and used
to it from their very infancy; the wilful neglect of it ought to be
counted scandalous, and if downright compulsion to what I urge might
seem too harsh, and perhaps impracticable, all diversions at least
ought strictly to be prohibited, and the poor hindered from every
amusement abroad that might allure or draw them from it.
Where this care is taken by the magistrates, as far as it lies in their
power, ministers of the gospel may instil into the smallest capacities,
more piety and devotion, and better principles of virtue and religion,
than charity schools ever did or ever will produce; and those who
complain, when they have such opportunities, that they cannot imbue
their parishioners with sufficient knowledge, of what they stand in
need of as Christians, without the assistance of reading and writing,
are either very lazy or very ignorant and undeserving themselves.
That the most knowing are not the most religious, will be evident if
we make a trial between people of different abilities, even in this
juncture, where going to church is not made such an obligation on
the poor and illiterate, as it might be. Let us pitch upon a hundred
poor men, the first we can light on, that are above forty, and were
brought up to hard labour from their infancy, such as never went
to school at all, and always lived remote from knowledge and great
towns: Let us compare to these an equal number of very good scholars,
that shall all have had university education, and be, if you will,
half of them divines, well versed in philology and polemic learning;
then let us impartially examine into the lives and conversations of
both, and I dare engage that among the first, who can neither read
nor write, we shall meet with more union and neighbourly love, less
wickedness and attachment to the world, more content of mind, more
innocence, sincerity, and other good qualities that conduce to the
public peace and real felicity, than we shall find among the latter,
where, on the contrary, we may be assured of the height of pride and
insolence, eternal quarrels and dissensions, irreconcileable hatreds,
strife, envy, calumny, and other vices, destructive to mutual concord,
which the illiterate labouring poor are hardly ever tainted with,
to any considerable degree.
I am very well persuaded, that what I have said in the last paragraph,
will be no news to most of my readers; but if it be truth, why should
it be stifled, and why must our concern for religion be eternally
made a cloak to hide our real drifts and worldly intentions? Would
both parties agree to pull off the mask, we should soon discover
that whatever they pretend to, they aim at nothing so much in charity
schools, as to strengthen their party; and that the great sticklers
for the church, by educating children in the principles of religion,
mean inspiring them with a superlative veneration for the clergy of
the church of England, and a strong aversion and immortal animosity
against all that dissent from it. To be assured of this, we are but
to mind on the one hand, what divines are most admired for their
charity sermons, and most fond to preach them; and on the other,
whether of late years we have had any riots or party scuffles among
the mob, in which the youth of a famous hospital in this city, were
not always the most forward ringleaders.
The grand asserters of liberty, who are ever guarding themselves,
and skirmishing against arbitrary power, often when they are in no
danger of it, are generally speaking, not very superstitious, nor
seem to lay great stress on any modern apostleship: yet some of these
likewise speak up loudly for charity schools; but what they expect
from them has no relation to religion or morality: they only look
upon them as the proper means to destroy, and disappoint the power of
the priests over the laity. Reading and writing increase knowledge;
and the more men know, the better they can judge for themselves,
and they imagine that, if knowledge could be rendered universal,
people could not be priest-rid, which is the thing they fear the most.
The first, I confess, it is very possible will get their aim. But sure
wise men that are not red-hot for a party, or bigots to the priests,
will not think it worth while to suffer so many inconveniencies, as
charity schools may be the occasion of, only to promote the ambition
and power of the clergy. To the other I would answer, that if all
those who are educated at the charge of their parents or relations,
will but think for themselves, and refuse to have their reason imposed
upon by the priests, we need not be concerned for what the clergy
will work upon the ignorant that have no education at all. Let them
make the most of them: considering the schools we have for those who
can and do pay for learning, it is ridiculous to imagine that the
abolishing of charity schools would be a step towards any ignorance
that could be prejudicial to the nation.
I would not be thought cruel, and am well assured if I know any
thing of myself, that I abhor inhumanity; but to be compassionate
to excess, where reason forbids it, and the general interest of
the society requires steadiness of thought and resolution, is an
unpardonable weakness. I know it will be ever urged against me, that
it is barbarous the children of the poor should have no opportunity
of exerting themselves, as long as God has not debarred them from
natural parts and genius, more than the rich. But I cannot think
this is harder, than it is that they should not have money, as long
as they have the same inclinations to spend as others. That great
and useful men have sprung from hospitals, I do not deny; but it is
likewise very probable, that when they were first employed, many as
capable as themselves not brought up in hospitals were neglected,
that with the same good fortune would have done as well as they,
if they had been made use of instead of them.
There are many examples of women that have excelled in learning, and
even in war, but this is no reason we should bring them all up to Latin
and Greek, or else military discipline, instead of needle-work and
housewifery. But there is no scarcity of sprightliness or natural
parts among us, and no soil and climate has human creatures to
boast of better formed, either inside or outside, than this island
generally produces. But it is not wit, genius, or docility we want,
but diligence, application, and assiduity.
Abundance of hard and dirty labour is to be done, and coarse living
is to be complied with: where shall we find a better nursery for these
necessities than the children of the poor? none, certainly, are nearer
to it or fitter for it: Besides that the things I called hardships,
neither seem nor are such to those who have been brought up to them,
and know no better. There is not a more contented people among us,
than those who work the hardest, and are the least acquainted with
the pomp and delicacies of the world.
These are truths that are undeniable; yet I know few people will
be pleased to have them divulged; what makes them odious, is an
unreasonable vein of petty reverence for the poor, that runs through
most multitudes, and more particularly in this nation, and arises from
a mixture of pity, folly, and superstition. It is from a lively sense
of this compound, that men cannot endure to hear or see any thing said
or acted against the poor; without considering how just the one, or
insolent the other. So a beggar must not be beat, though he strikes
you first. Journeymen tailors go to law with their masters, and are
obstinate in a wrong cause, yet they must be pitied; and murmuring
weavers must be relieved, and have fifty silly things done to humour
them, though in the midst of their poverty they insult their betters,
and, on all occasions, appear to be more prone to make holidays and
riots than they are to working or sobriety.
This puts me in mind of our wool, which, considering the posture
of our affairs, and the behaviour of the poor, I sincerely believe,
ought not, upon any account, to be carried abroad: but if we look into
the reason, why suffering it to be fetched away is so pernicious, our
heavy complaint and lamentations that it is exported can be no great
credit to us. Considering the mighty and manifold hazards that must be
run before it can be got off the coast, and safely landed beyond sea,
it is manifest that the foreigners, before they can work our wool,
must pay more for it very considerably, than what we can have it for
at home. Yet, notwithstanding this great difference in the prime cost,
they can afford to sell the manufactures made of it cheaper at foreign
markets than ourselves. This is the disaster we groan under, the
intolerable mischief, without which the exportation of that commodity
could be no greater prejudice to us than that of tin or lead, as long
as our hands were fully employed, and we had still wool to spare.
There is no people yet come to higher perfection in the woollen
manufacture, either as to dispatch or goodness of work, at least in
the most considerable branches, than ourselves; and therefore what
we complain of can only depend on the difference in the management of
the poor, between other nations and ours. If the labouring people in
one country will work twelve hours in a day, and six days in a week,
and in another they are employed but eight hours in a day, and not
above four days in a week the one is obliged to have nine hands for
what the other does with four. But if, moreover, the living, the food,
and raiment, and what is consumed by the workmen of the industrious,
costs but half the money of what is expended among an equal number
of the other, the consequence must be, that the first will have the
work of eighteen men for the same price as the other gives for the
work of four. I would not insinuate, neither do I think, that the
difference, either in diligence or necessaries of life between us
and any neighbouring nation, is near so great as what I speak of,
yet I would have it considered, that half of that difference, and
much less, is sufficient to over-balance the disadvantage they labour
under as to the price of wool.
Nothing to me is more evident, than that no nation in any manufacture
whatever can undersell their neighbours with whom they are at best
but equals as to skill and dispatch, and the conveniency for working,
more especially when the prime cost of the thing to be manufactured
is not in their favour, unless they have provisions, and whatever
is relating to their sustenance, cheaper, or else workmen that
are either more assiduous, and will remain longer at their work,
or be content with a meaner and coarser way of living than those
of their neighbours. This is certain, that where numbers are equal,
the more laborious people are, and the fewer hands the same quantity
of work is performed by, the greater plenty there is in a country of
the necessaries for life, the more considerable and the cheaper that
country may render its exports.
It being granted, then, that abundance of work is to be done, the
next thing which I think to be likewise undeniable, is, that the more
cheerfully it is done the better, as well for those that perform it,
as for the rest of the society. To be happy is to be pleased, and the
less notion a man has of a better way of living, the more content he
will be with his own; and, on the other hand, the greater a man's
knowledge and experience is in the world, the more exquisite the
delicacy of his taste, and the more consummate judge he is of things
in general, certainly the more difficult it will be to please him. I
would not advance any thing that is barbarous or inhuman: but when a
man enjoys himself, laughs and sings, and in his gesture and behaviour
shows me all the tokens of content and satisfaction, I pronounce him
happy, and have nothing to do with his wit or capacity. I never enter
into the reasonableness of his mirth, at least I ought not to judge
of it by my own standard, and argue from the effect which the thing
that makes him merry would have upon me. At that rate, a man that
hates cheese must call me fool for loving blue mold. De gustibus
non est disputandum is as true in a metaphorical, as it is in the
literal sense; and the greater the distance is between people as to
their condition, their circumstances and manner of living, the less
capable they are of judging of one another's troubles or pleasures.
Had the meanest and most uncivilized peasant leave incognito to
observe the greatest king for a fortnight; though he might pick out
several things he would like for himself, yet he would find a great
many more, which, if the monarch and he were to exchange conditions,
he would wish for his part to have immediately altered or redressed,
and which with amazement he sees the king submit to. And again, if the
sovereign was to examine the peasant in the same manner, his labour
would be unsufferable; the dirt and squalor, his diet and amours,
his pastimes and recreations would be all abominable; but then what
charms would he find in the other's peace of mind, the calmness and
tranquillity of his soul? No necessity for dissimulation with any
of his family, or feigned affection to his mortal enemies; no wife
in a foreign interest, no danger to apprehend from his children; no
plots to unravel, no poison to fear; no popular statesman at home,
or cunning courts abroad to manage; no seeming patriots to bribe;
no unsatiable favourite to gratify; no selfish ministry to obey; no
divided nation to please, or fickle mob to humour, that would direct
and interfere with his pleasures.
Was impartial reason to be judge between real good and real evil, and
a catalogue made accordingly, of the several delights and vexations
differently to be met with in both stations; I question whether the
condition of kings would be at all preferable to that of peasants,
even as ignorant and laborious as I seem to require the latter to
be. The reason why the generality of people would rather be kings
than peasants, is first owing to pride and ambition, that is deeply
riveted in human nature, and which to gratify, we daily see men
undergo and despise the greatest hazards and difficulties. Secondly,
to the difference there is in the force with which our affection is
wrought upon, as the objects are either material or spiritual. Things
that immediately strike our outward senses, act more violently upon
our passions than what is the result of thought, and the dictates of
the most demonstrative reason; and there is a much stronger bias to
gain our liking or aversion in the first, than there is in the latter.
Having thus demonstrated that what I urge could be no injury, or
the least diminution of happiness to the poor, I leave it to the
judicious reader, whether it is not more probable we should increase
our exports by the methods I hint at, than by sitting still and
damning and sinking our neighbours, for beating us at our own weapons;
some of them out-selling us in manufactures made of our own product,
which they dearly purchased, others growing rich in spite of distance
and trouble, by the same fish which we neglect, though it is ready
to jump into our mouths.
As by discouraging idleness with art and steadiness, you may compel the
poor to labour without force; so, by bringing them up in ignorance,
you may inure them to real hardships, without being ever sensible
themselves that they are such. By bringing them up in ignorance,
I mean no more, as I have hinted long ago, than that, as to worldly
affairs, their knowledge should be confined within the verge of their
own occupations, at least that we should not take pains to extend
it beyond those limits. When by these two engines we shall have made
provisions, and consequently labour cheap, we must infallibly outsell
our neighbours; and at the same time increase our numbers. This is
the noble and manly way of encountering the rivals of our trade,
and by dint of merit outdoing them at foreign markets.
To allure the poor, we make use of policy in some cases with
success. Why should we be neglectful of it in the most important point,
when they make their boast that they will not live as the poor of other
nations? If we cannot alter their resolution, why should we applaud
the justness of their sentiments against the common interest? I have
often wondered formerly how an Englishman that pretended to have the
honour and glory, as well as the welfare of his country at heart,
could take delight in the evening to hear an idle tenant that owed
him above a year's rent, ridicule the French for wearing wooden shoes,
when in the morning he had had the mortification of hearing the great
King William, that ambitious monarch, as well as able statesman, openly
own to the world, and with grief and anger in his looks, complain of
the exorbitant power of France. Yet I do not recommend wooden shoes,
nor do the maxims I would introduce require arbitrary power in one
person. Liberty and property I hope may remain secured, and yet the
poor be better employed than they are, though their children should
wear out their clothes by useful labour, and blacken them with country
dirt for something, instead of tearing them off their backs at play,
and daubing them with ink for nothing.
There is above three or four hundred years work, for a hundred
thousand poor more than we have in this island. To make every part
of it useful, and the whole thoroughly inhabited, many rivers are
to be made navigable; canals to be cut in hundreds of places. Some
lands are to be drained and secured from inundations for the future:
abundance of barren soil is to be made fertile, and thousands of
acres rendered more beneficial, by being made more accessible. Dii
laboribus omnia vendunt. There is no difficulty of this nature,
that labour and patience cannot surmount. The highest mountains may
be thrown into their valleys that stand ready to receive them; and
bridges might be laid where now we would not dare to think of it. Let
us look back on the stupendous works of the Romans, more especially
their highways and aqueducts. Let us consider in one view the vast
extent of several of their roads, how substantial they made them,
and what duration they have been of; and in another a poor traveller
that at every ten miles end is stopped by a turnpike, and dunned for
a penny for mending the roads in the summer, with what every body
knows will be dirt before the winter that succeeds is expired.
The conveniency of the public ought ever to be the public care, and
no private interest of a town, or a whole country, should ever hinder
the execution of a project or contrivance that would manifestly tend
to the improvement of the whole; and every member of the legislature,
who knows his duty. and would choose rather to act like a wise man,
than curry favour with his neighbours, will prefer the least benefit
accruing to the whole kingdom, to the most visible advantage of the
place he serves for.
We have materials of our own, and want neither stone nor timber to do
any thing; and was the money that people give uncompelled to beggars,
who do not deserve it, and what every housekeeper is obliged to pay
to the poor of his parish, that is other wise employed or ill-applied,
to be put together every year, it would make a sufficient fund to keep
a great many thousands at work. I do not say this because I think it
practicable, but only to show that we have money enough to spare,
to employ vast multitudes of labourers; neither should we want so
much for it as we perhaps might imagine. When it is taken for granted,
that a soldier, whose strength and vigour is to be kept up at least as
much as any body's, can live upon sixpence a-day, I cannot conceive
the necessity of giving the greatest part of the year, sixteen and
eighteen pence to a day-labourer.
The fearful and cautious people, that are ever jealous of their
liberty, I know will cry out, that where the multitudes I speak of
should be kept in constant pay, property and privileges would be
precarious. But they might be answered, that sure means might be
found out, and such regulations made, as to the hands in which to
trust the management and direction of these labourers, that it would
be impossible for the prince, or any body else, to make an ill use
of their numbers.
What I have said in the four or five last paragraphs, I foresee,
will, with abundance of scorn, be laughed at by many of my readers,
and at best be called building castles in the air; but whether that
is my fault or theirs is a question. When the public spirit has left
a nation, they not only lose their patience with it, and all thoughts
of perseverance, but become likewise so narrow-souled, that it is a
pain for them even to think of things that are of uncommon extent,
or require great length of time; and whatever is noble or sublime
in such conjectures, is counted chimerical. Where deep ignorance
is entirely routed and expelled, and low learning promiscuously
scattered on all the people, self-love turns knowledge into cunning;
and the more this last qualification prevails in any country, the
more the people will fix all their cares, concern, and application,
on the time present, without regard of what is to come after them,
or hardly ever thinking beyond the next generation.
But as cunning, according to my Lord Verulam, is but left-handed
wisdom; so a prudent legislator ought to provide against this disorder
of the society, as soon as the symptoms of it appear, among which
the following are the most obvious. Imaginary rewards are generally
despised; every body is for turning the penny, and short bargains;
he that is diffident of every thing and believes nothing but what
he sees with his own eyes, is counted the most prudent; and in all
their dealings, men seem to act from no other principle than that
of the devil take the hindmost. Instead of planting oaks, that will
require a hundred and fifty years before they are fit to be cut down,
they build houses with a design that they shall not stand above twelve
or fourteen years. All heads run upon the uncertainty of things, and
the vicissitudes of human affairs. The mathematics become the only
valuable study, and are made use of in every thing, even where it
is ridiculous, and men seem to repose no greater trust in Providence
than they would in a broken merchant.
It is the business of the public to supply the defects of the society,
and take that in hand first which is most neglected by private
persons. Contraries are best cured by contraries, and therefore,
as example is of greater efficacy than precept, in the amendment of
national failings, the legislature ought to resolve upon some great
undertakings, that must be the work of ages as well as vast labour,
and convince the world that they did nothing without an anxious
regard to their latest posterity. This will fix, or at least help to
settle, the volatile genius and fickle spirit of the kingdom; put us
in mind that we are not born for ourselves only, and be a means of
rendering men less distrustful, and inspiring them with a true love
for their country, and a tender affection for the ground itself,
than which nothing is more necessary to aggrandize a nation. Forms
of government may alter; religions and even languages may change,
but Great Britain, or at least (if that likewise might lose its
name) the island itself will remain, and in all human probability,
last as long as any part of the globe. All ages have ever paid their
kind acknowledgments to their ancestors, for the benefits derived
from them; and a Christian who enjoys the multitude of fountains,
and vast plenty of water to be met with in the city of St. Peter,
is an ungrateful wretch if he never casts a thankful remembrance on
old Pagan Rome, that took such prodigious pains to procure it.
When this island shall be cultivated, and every inch of it made
habitable and useful, and the whole the most convenient and agreeable
spot upon earth, all the cost and labour laid out upon it, will be
gloriously repaid by the incense of them that shall come after us;
and those who burn with the noble zeal and desire after immortality,
and took such care to improve their country, may rest satisfied, that
a thousand and two thousand years hence, they shall live in the memory
and everlasting praises of the future ages that shall then enjoy it.
Here I should have concluded this rhapsody of thoughts; but something
comes in my head concerning the main scope and design of this essay,
which is to prove the necessity there is for a certain portion of
ignorance, in a well-ordered society, that I must not omit, because,
by mentioning it, I shall make an argument on my side, of what, if I
had not spoke of it, might easily have appeared as a strong objection
against me. It is the opinion of most people, and mine among the rest,
that the most commendable quality of the present Czar of Muscovy, is
his unwearied application, in raising his subjects from their native
stupidity, and civilizing his nation: but then we must consider it is
what they stood in need of, and that not long ago the greatest part
of them were next to brute beasts. In proportion to the extent of his
dominions, and the multitudes he commands, he had not that number
or variety of tradesmen and artificers, which the true improvement
of the country required, and therefore was in the right, in leaving
no stone unturned to procure them. But what is that to us who labour
under a contrary disease? Sound politics are to the social body, what
the art of medicine is to the natural, and no physician would treat
a man in a lethargy as if he was sick for want of rest, or prescribe
in a dropsy what should be administered in a diabetes. In short,
Russia has too few knowing men, and Great Britain too many.
A
SEARCH
INTO THE
NATURE OF SOCIETY.
The generality of moralists and philosophers have hitherto agreed
that there could be no virtue without self-denial; but a late author,
who is now much read by men of sense, is of a contrary opinion, and
imagines that men, without any trouble, or violence upon themselves,
may be naturally virtuous. He seems to require and expect goodness
in his species, as we do a sweet taste in grapes and China oranges,
of which, if any of them are sour, we boldly pronounce that they are
not come to that perfection their nature is capable of. This noble
writer (for it is the Lord Shaftesbury I mean in his Characteristics)
fancies, that as a man is made for society, so he ought to be born with
a kind affection to the whole, of which he is a part, and a propensity
to seek the welfare of it. In pursuance of this supposition, he calls
every action performed with regard to the public good, Virtuous; and
all selfishness, wholly excluding such a regard, Vice. In respect to
our species, he looks upon virtue and vice as permanent realities, that
must ever be the same in all countries and all ages, and imagines that
a man of sound understanding, by following the rules of good sense,
may not only find out that pulchrum et honestum both in morality and
the works of art and nature, but likewise govern himself, by his
reason, with as much ease and readiness as a good rider manages a
well-taught horse by the bridle.
The attentive reader, who perused the foregoing part of this book,
will soon perceive that two systems cannot be more opposite than his
Lordship's and mine. His notions I confess, are generous and refined:
they are a high compliment to human-kind, and capable, by a little
enthusiasm, of inspiring us with the most noble sentiments concerning
the dignity of our exalted nature. What pity it is that they are not
true. I would not advance thus much if I had not already demonstrated,
in almost ever page of this treatise, that the solidity of them is
inconsistent with our daily experience. But, to leave not the least
shadow of an objection that might be made unanswered, I design to
expatiate on some things which hitherto I have but slightly touched
upon, in order to convince the reader, not only that the good and
amiable qualities of men are not those that make him beyond other
animals a sociable creature; but, moreover, that it would be utterly
impossible, either to raise any multitudes into a populous, rich,
and flourishing nation, or, when so raised, to keep and maintain
them in that condition, without the assistance of what we call Evil,
both natural and moral.
The better to perform what I have undertaken, I shall previously
examine into the reality of the pulchrum et honestum, the to kalon
that the ancients have talked of so much: the meaning of this is to
discuss, whether there be a real worth and excellency in things, a
pre-eminence of one above another; which every body will always agree
to that well understands them; or, that there are few things, if any,
that have the same esteem paid them, and which the same judgment is
passed upon in all countries and all ages. When we first set out in
quest of this intrinsic worth, and find one thing better than another,
and a third better than that, and so on, we begin to entertain great
hopes of success; but when we meet with several things that are all
very good or all very bad, we are puzzled, and agree not always with
ourselves, much less with others. There are different faults as well
as beauties, that as modes and fashions alter and men vary in their
tastes and humours, will be differently admired or disapproved of.
Judges of painting will never disagree in opinion, when a fine picture
is compared to the daubing of a novice; but how strangely have they
differed as to the works of eminent masters! There are parties among
connoisseurs; and few of them agree in their esteem as to ages and
countries; and the best pictures bear not always the best prices: a
noted original will be ever worth more than any copy that can be made
of it by an unknown hand, though it should be better. The value that
is set on paintings depends not only on the name of the master, and
the time of his age he drew them in, but likewise in a great measure
on the scarcity of his works; but, what is still more unreasonable,
the quality of the persons in whose possession they are, as well as the
length of time they have been in great families; and if the Cartons,
now at Hampton-Court, were done by a less famous hand than that of
Raphael, and had a private person for their owner, who would be forced
to sell them, they would never yield the tenth part of the money which,
with all their gross faults, they are now esteemed to be worth.
Notwithstanding all this, I will readily own, that the judgment
to be made of painting might become of universal certainty, or at
least less alterable and precarious than almost any thing else. The
reason is plain; there is a standard to go by that always remains
the same. Painting is an imitation of nature, a copying of things
which men have every where before them. My good humoured reader I
hope will forgive me, if, thinking on this glorious invention, I
make a reflection a little out of season, though very much conducive
to my main design; which is, that valuable as the art is I speak
of, we are beholden to an imperfection in the chief of our senses
for all the pleasures and ravishing delight we receive from this
happy deceit. I shall explain myself. Air and space are no objects
of sight, but as soon as we can see with the least attention, we
observe that the bulk of the things we see is lessened by degrees,
as they are further remote from us, and nothing but experience,
gained from these observations, can teach us to make any tolerable
guesses at the distance of things. If one born blind should remain
so till twenty, and then be suddenly blessed with sight, he would be
strangely puzzled as to the difference of distances, and hardly able,
immediately, by his eyes alone, to determine which was nearest to him,
a post almost within the reach of his stick, or a steeple that should
be half a mile off. Let us look as narrowly as we can upon a hole
in a wall that has nothing but the open air behind it, and we shall
not be able to see otherwise, but that the sky fills up the vacuity,
and is as near us as the back part of the stones that circumscribe
the space where they are wanting. This circumstance, not to call it a
defect, in our sense of seeing, makes us liable to be imposed upon,
and every thing, but motion, may, by art, be represented to us on
a flat, in the same manner as we see them in life and nature. If a
man had never seen this art put into practice, a looking-glass might
soon convince him that such a thing was possible, and I cannot help
thinking, but that the reflections from very smooth and well-polished
bodies made upon our eyes, must have given the first handle to the
inventions of drawings and painting.
In the works of nature, worth, and excellency, are as uncertain: and
even in human creatures, what is beautiful in one country, is not so
in another. How whimsical is the florist in his choice! Sometimes the
tulip, sometimes the auricula, and at other times the carnation shall
engross his esteem, and every year a new flower, in his judgment, beats
all the old ones, though it is much inferior to them both in colour and
shape. Three hundred years ago men were shaved as closely as they are
now: Since that they have wore beards, and cut them in vast variety of
forms, that were all as becoming, when fashionable, as now they would
be ridiculous. How mean and comically a man looks, that is otherwise
well dressed, in a narrow brimmed hat, when every body wears broad
ones; and again, how monstrous is a very great hat, when the other
extreme has been in fashion for a considerable time? experience has
taught us, that these modes seldom last above ten or twelve years,
and a man of threescore must have observed five or six revolutions
of them at least! yet the beginnings of these changes, though we have
seen several, seem always uncouth, and are offensive a-fresh whenever
they return. What mortal can decide which is the handsomest, abstract
from the mode in being, to wear great buttons or small ones? the many
ways of laying out a garden judiciously are almost innumerable; and
what is called beautiful in them, varies according to the different
tastes of nations and ages. In grass plats, knots and parterres, a
great diversity of forms is generally agreeable; but a round may be
as pleasing to the eye as a square: an oval cannot be more suitable
to one place, than it is possible for a triangle to be to another;
and the pre-eminence an octogon has over an hexagon is no greater in
figures, than at hazard eight has above six among the chances.
Churches, ever since Christians have been able to build them, resemble
the form of a cross, with the upper end pointing toward the east; and
an architect, where there is room, and it can be conveniently done, who
should neglect it, would be thought to have committed an unpardonable
fault; but it would be foolish to expect this of a Turkish mosque or
a Pagan temple. Among the many beneficial laws that have been made
these hundred years, it is not easy to name one of greater utility,
and, at the same time, more exempt from all inconveniences, than that
which regulated the dresses of the dead. Those who were old enough
to take notice of things when that act was made, and are yet alive,
must remember the general clamour that was made against it. At first,
nothing could be more shocking to thousands of people than that they
were to be buried in woollen, and the only thing that made that law
supportable was, that there was room left for people of some fashion
to indulge their weakness without extravagancy; considering the other
expences of funerals where mourning is given to several, and rings
to a great many. The benefit that accrues to the nation from it is
so visible, that nothing ever could be said in reason to condemn it,
which, in few years, made the horror conceived against it lessen
every day. I observed then that young people, who had seen but few
in their coffins, did the soonest strike in with the innovation;
but that those who, when the act was made, had buried many friends
and relations, remained averse to it the longest, and I remember many
that never could be reconciled to it to their dying day. By this time,
burying in linen being almost forgot, it is the general opinion that
nothing could be more decent than woollen, and the present manner of
dressing a corps; which shows that our liking or disliking of things
chiefly depends on mode and custom, and the precept and example of our
betters, and such whom one way or other we think to be superior to us.
In morals there is no greater certainty. Plurality of wives is odious
among Christians, and all the wit and learning of a great genius in
defence of it, has been rejected with contempt: But polygamy is not
shocking to a Mahometan. What men have learned from their infancy
enslaves them, and the force of custom warps nature, and, at the same
time, imitates her in such a manner, that it is often difficult to
know which of the two we are influenced by. In the east, formerly
sisters married brothers, and it was meritorious for a man to marry
his mother. Such alliances are abominable; but it is certain that,
whatever horror we conceive at the thoughts of them, there is nothing
in nature repugnant against them, but what is built upon mode and
custom. A religious Mahometan that has never tasted any spirituous
liquor, and has often seen people drunk, may receive as great an
aversion against wine, as another with us of the least morality and
education may have against lying with his sister, and both imagine that
their antipathy proceeds from nature. Which is the best religion? is
a question that has caused more mischief than all other questions
together. Ask it at Pekin, at Constantinople, and at Rome, and you will
receive three distinct answers extremely different from one another,
yet all of them equally positive and peremptory. Christians are well
assured of the falsity of the Pagan and Mahometan superstitions:
as to this point, there is a perfect union and concord among them;
but inquire of the several sects they are divided into, Which is the
true church of Christ? and all of them will tell you it is theirs,
and to convince you, go together by the ears.
It is manifest, then, that the hunting after this pulchrum & honestum,
is not much better than a wild-goose-chase that is but little to be
depended on: But this is not the greatest fault I find with it. The
imaginary notions that men may be virtuous without self-denial, are
a vast inlet to hypocrisy; which being once made habitual, we must
not only deceive others, but likewise become altogether unknown to
ourselves; and in an instance I am going to give, it will appear, how,
for want of duly examining himself, this might happen to a person of
quality, of parts, and erudition, one every way resembling the author
of the Characteristics himself.
A man that has been brought up in ease and affluence, if he is of a
quiet indolent nature, learns to shun every thing that is troublesome,
and chooses to curb his passions, more because of the inconveniences
that arise from the eager pursuit after pleasure, and the yielding
to all the demands of our inclinations, than any dislike he has to
sensual enjoyments; and it is possible, that a person educated under
a great philosopher, who was a mild and good-natured, as well as able
tutor, may, in such happy circumstances, have a better opinion of his
inward state than it really deserves, and believe himself virtuous,
because his passions lie dormant. He may form fine notions of the
social virtues, and the contempt of death, write well of them in
his closet, and talk eloquently of them in company, but you shall
never catch him fighting for his country, or labouring to retrieve
any national losses. A man that deals in metaphysics may easily throw
himself into an enthusiasm, and really believe that he does not fear
death while it remains out of sight. But should he be asked, why,
having this intrepidity either from nature, or acquired by philosophy,
he did not follow arms when his country was involved in war; or when
he saw the nation daily robbed by those at the helm, and the affairs
of the exchequer perplexed, why he did not go to court, and make use
of all his friends and interest to be a lord treasurer, that by his
integrity and wise management, he might restore the public credit:
It is probable he would answer that he loved retirement, had no
other ambition than to be a good man, and never aspired to have any
share in the government; or that he hated all flattery and slavish
attendance, the insincerity of courts and bustle of the world. I
am willing to believe him: but may not a man of an indolent temper
and unactive spirit, say, and be sincere in all this, and, at the
same time, indulge his appetites without being able to subdue them,
though his duty summons him to it. Virtue consists in action, and
whoever is possessed of this social love and kind affection to his
species, and by his birth or quality can claim any post in the public
management, ought not to sit still when he can be serviceable, but
exert himself to the utmost for the good of his fellow subjects. Had
this noble person been of a warlike genius, or a boisterous temper,
he would have chose another part in the drama of life, and preached
a quite contrary doctrine: For we are ever pushing our reason which
way soever we feel passion to draw it, and self-love pleads to all
human creatures for their different views, still furnishing every
individual with arguments to justify their inclinations.
That boasted middle way, and the calm virtues recommended in the
Characteristics, are good for nothing but to breed drones, and
might qualify a man for the stupid enjoyments of a monastic life,
or at best a country justice of peace, but they would never fit him
for labour and assiduity, or stir him up to great achievements and
perilous undertakings. Man's natural love of ease and idleness, and
proneness to indulge his sensual pleasures, are not to be cured by
precept: His strong habits and inclinations can only be subdued by
passions of greater violence. Preach and demonstrate to a coward the
unreasonableness of his fears, and you will not make him valiant,
more than you can make him taller, by bidding him to be ten foot
high, whereas the secret to raise courage, as I have made it public
in Remark on l. 321, is almost infallible.
The fear of death is the strongest when we are in our greatest vigour,
and our appetite is keen; when we are sharp-sighted, quick of hearing,
and every part performs its office. The reason is plain, because
then life is most delicious, and ourselves most capable of enjoying
it. How comes it, then, that a man of honour should so easily accept
of a challenge, though at thirty and in perfect health? It is his
pride that conquers his fear: For, when his pride is not concerned,
this fear will appear most glaringly. If he is not used to the sea, let
him but be in a storm, or, if he never was ill before, have but a sore
throat, or a slight fever, and he will show a thousand anxieties, and
in them the inestimable value he sets on life. Had man been naturally
humble and proof against flattery, the politician could never have
had his ends, or known what to have made of him. Without vices, the
excellency of the species would have ever remained undiscovered, and
every worthy that has made himself famous in the world, is a strong
evidence against this amiable system.
If the courage of the great Macedonian came up to distraction, when he
fought alone against a whole garrison, his madness was not less when
he fancied himself to be a god, or at least doubted whether he was
or not; and as soon as we make this reflection, we discover both the
passion and the extravagancy of it, that buoyed up his spirits in the
most imminent dangers, and carried him through all the difficulties
and fatigues he underwent.
There never was in the world a brighter example of an able and complete
magistrate than Cicero: When I think on his care and vigilance,
the real hazards he slighted, and the pains he took for the safety
of Rome; his wisdom and sagacity in detecting and disappointing
the stratagems of the boldest and most subtle conspirators, and,
at the same time, on his love to literature, arts, and sciences,
his capacity in metaphysics, the justness of his reasonings, the
force of his eloquence, the politeness of his style, and the genteel
spirit that runs through his writings; when I think, I say, on all
these things together, I am struck with amazement, and the least I
can say of him is, that he was a prodigious man. But when I have set
the many good qualities he had in the best light, it is as evident
to me on the other side, that had his vanity been inferior to his
greatest excellency, the good sense and knowledge of the world he
was so eminently possessed of, could never have let him be such a
fulsome as well as noisy trumpeter as he was of his own praises, or
suffered him rather than not proclaim his own merit, to make a verse
that a school boy would have been laughed at for. O! Fortunatam, &c.
How strict and severe was the morality of rigid Cato, how steady and
unaffected the virtue of that grand asserter of Roman liberty! but
though the equivalent this stoic enjoyed, for all the self-denial and
austerity he practised, remained long concealed, and his peculiar
modesty hid from the world, and perhaps himself a vast while, the
frailty of his heart, that forced him into heroism, yet it was brought
to light in the last scene of his life, and by his suicide it plainly
appeared that he was governed by a tyrannical power, superior to the
love of his country, and that the implacable hatred and superlative
envy he bore to the glory, the real greatness and personal merit
of Cæsar, had for a long time swayed all his actions under the most
noble pretences. Had not this violent motive over-ruled his consummate
prudence, he might not only have saved himself, but likewise most of
his friends that were ruined by the loss of him, and would in all
probability, if he could have stooped to it, been the second man
in Rome. But he knew the boundless mind and unlimited generosity
of the victor: it was his clemency he feared, and therefore chose
death because it was less terrible to his pride, than the thoughts
of giving his mortal foe so tempting an opportunity of showing the
magnanimity of his soul, as Cæsar would have found in forgiving such an
inveterate enemy as Cato, and offering him his friendship; and which,
it is thought by the judicious, that penetrating as well as ambitious
conqueror would not have slipped, if the other had dared to live.
Another argument to prove the kind disposition, and real affection
we naturally have for our species, is our love of company, and the
aversion men that are in their senses generally have to solitude,
beyond other creatures. This bears a fine gloss in the Characteristics,
and is set off in very good language to the best advantage: the next
day after I read it first, I heard abundance of people cry fresh
herrings, which, with the reflexion on the vast shoals of that and
other fish that are caught together, made me very merry, though I was
alone; but as I was entertaining myself with this contemplation, came
an impertinent idle fellow, whom I had the misfortune to be known by,
and asked me how I did, though I was, and dare say, looked as healthy
and as well as ever I was or did in my life. What I answered him I
forgot, but remember that I could not get rid of him in a good while,
and felt all the uneasiness my friend Horace complains of, from a
persecution of the like nature.
I would have no sagacious critic pronounce me a man-hater from this
short story; whoever does is very much mistaken. I am a great lover
of company, and if the reader is not quite tired with mine, before
I show the weakness and ridicule of that piece of flattery made to
our species, and which I was just now speaking of, I will give him a
description of the man I would choose for conversation, with a promise
that before he has finished, what at first he might only take for a
digression foreign to my purpose, he shall find the use of it.
By early and artful instruction, he should be thoroughly imbued with
the notions of honour and shame, and have contracted an habitual
aversion to every thing that has the least tendency to impudence,
rudeness, or inhumanity. He should be well versed in the Latin tongue,
and not ignorant of the Greek, and moreover understand one or two of
the modern languages besides his own. He should be acquainted with
the fashions and customs of the ancients, but thoroughly skilled in
the history of his own country, and the manners of the age he lives
in. He should besides literature, have studied some useful science or
other, seen some foreign courts and universities, and made the true use
of travelling. He should at times take delight in dancing, fencing,
riding the great horse, and knowing something of hunting and other
country sports, without being attached to any, and he should treat
them all as either exercises for health, or diversions that should
never interfere with business, or the attaining to more valuable
qualifications. He should have a smatch of geometry and astronomy,
as well as anatomy, and the economy of human bodies; to understand
music so as to perform, is an accomplishment: but there is abundance
to be said against it; and instead of it, I would have him know so
much of drawing as is required to take a landskip, or explain ones
meaning of any form or model we would describe, but never to touch a
pencil. He should be very early used to the company of modest women,
and never be a fortnight without conversing with the ladies.
Gross vices, as irreligion, whoring, gaming, drinking and quarrelling,
I will not mention: even the meanest education guards us against them;
I would always recommend to him the practice of virtue, but I am for
no voluntary ignorance, in a gentleman, of any thing that is done in
court or city. It is impossible a man should be perfect, and therefore
there are faults I would connive at, if I could not prevent them;
and if between the years of nineteen and three-and-twenty, youthful
heat should sometimes get the better of his chastity, so it was done
with caution; should he on some extraordinary occasion, overcome by
the pressing solicitations of jovial friends, drink more than was
consistent with strict sobriety, so he did it very seldom and found
it not to interfere with his health or temper; or if by the height of
his mettle, and great provocation in a just cause, he had been drawn
into a quarrel, which true wisdom and a less strict adherence to the
rules of honour, might have declined or prevented, so it never befel
him above once: if I say he should have happened to be guilty of these
things, and he would never speak, much less brag of them himself,
they might be pardoned, or at least overlooked at the age I named,
if he left off then and continued discreet forever after. The very
disasters of youth, have sometimes frightened gentlemen into a more
steady prudence, than in all probability they would ever have been
masters of without them. To keep him from turpitude and things that are
openly scandalous, there is nothing better than to procure him free
access in one or two noble families, where his frequent attendance
is counted a duty: and while by that means you preserve his pride,
he is kept in a continual dread of shame.
A man of a tolerable fortune, pretty near accomplished as I have
required him to be, that still improves himself and sees the world till
he is thirty, cannot be disagreeable to converse with, at least while
he continues in health and prosperity, and has nothing to spoil his
temper. When such a one, either by chance or appointment, meets with
three or four of our equals, and all agree to pass away a few hours
together, the whole is what I call good company. There is nothing
said in it that is not either instructive or diverting to a man of
sense. It is possible they may not always be of the same opinion, but
there can be no contest between any, but who shall yield first to the
other he differs from. One only speaks at a time, and no louder than
to be plainly understood by him who sits the farthest off. The greatest
pleasure aimed at by every one of them, is to have the satisfaction of
pleasing others, which they all practically know may as effectually
be done, by hearkening with attention and an approving countenance,
as we said very good things ourselves.
Most people of any taste would like such a conversation, and justly
prefer it to being alone, when they knew not how to spend their time;
but if they could employ themselves in something from which they
expected, either a more solid or a more lasting satisfaction, they
would deny themselves this pleasure, and follow what was of greater
consequence to them. But would not a man, though he had seen no
mortal in a fortnight, remain alone as much longer, rather than get
into company of noisy fellows, that take delight in contradiction,
and place a glory in picking a quarrel? Would not one that has books
read for ever, or set himself to write upon some subject or other,
rather than be every night with party-men who count the island to
be good for nothing, while their adversaries are suffered to live
upon it? Would not a man be by himself a month, and go to bed before
seven a clock, rather than mix with fox-hunters, who having all day
long tried in vain to break their necks, join at night in a second
attempt upon their lives by drinking, and to express their mirth,
are louder in senseless sounds within doors, than their barking and
less troublesome companions are only without? I have no great value
for a man who would not rather tire himself with walking; or if he was
shut up scatter pins about the room in order to pick them up again,
than keep company for six hours with half a score common sailors the
day their ship was paid off.
I will grant, nevertheless, that the greatest part of mankind,
rather than be alone any considerable time, would submit to the
things I named: but I cannot see, why this love of company, this
strong desire after society, should be construed so much in our
favour, and alleged as a mark of some intrinsic worth in man, not to
be found in other animals. For to prove from it the goodness of our
nature, and a generous love in man, extended beyond himself on the
rest of his species, by virtue of which he was a sociable creature,
this eagerness after company and aversion of being alone, ought to
have been most conspicuous, and most violent in the best of their
kind; the men of the greatest genius, parts and accomplishments,
and those who are the least subject to vice; the contrary of which
is true. The weakest minds, who can the least govern their passions,
guilty consciences that abhor reflexion, and the worthless, who are
incapable of producing any thing of their own that is useful, are
the greatest enemies to solitude, and will take up with any company
rather than be without; whereas, the men of sense and of knowledge,
that can think and contemplate on things, and such as are but little
disturbed by their passions, can bear to be by themselves the longest
without reluctancy; and, to avoid noise, folly, and impertinence,
will run away from twenty companies; and, rather than meet with any
thing disagreeable to their good taste, will prefer their closet or
a garden, nay, a common or a desert to the society of some men.
But let us suppose the love of company so inseparable from our species,
that no man could endure to be alone one moment, what conclusions
could be drawn from this? Does not man love company, as he does every
thing else, for his own sake? No friendships or civilities are lasting
that are not reciprocal. In all your weekly and daily meetings for
diversion, as well as annual feasts, and the most solemn carousels,
every member that assists at them has his own ends, and some frequent
a club which they would never go to unless they were the top of it. I
have known a man who was the oracle of the company, be very constant,
and as uneasy at any thing that hindered him from coming at the hour,
leave his society altogether, as soon as another was added that could
match, and disputed superiority with him. There are people who are
incapable of holding an argument, and yet malicious enough to take
delight in hearing others wrangle; and though they never concern
themselves in the controversy, would think a company insipid where
they could not have that diversion. A good house, rich furniture,
a fine garden, horses, dogs, ancestors, relations, beauty, strength,
excellency in any thing whatever; vices as well as virtue, may all
be accessary to make men long for society, in hopes that what they
value themselves upon will at one time or other become the theme of
the discourse, and give an inward satisfaction to them. Even the
most polite people in the world, and such as I spoke of at first,
give no pleasure to others that is not repaid to their self-love,
and does not at last centre in themselves, let them wind it and turn
it as they will. But the plainest demonstration that in all clubs
and societies of conversable people, every body has the greatest
consideration for himself, is, that the disinterested, who rather
over-pays than wrangles; the good humoured, that is never waspish nor
soon offended; the easy and indolent, that hates disputes and never
talks for triumph, is every where the darling of the company: whereas,
the man of sense and knowledge, that will not be imposed upon or talked
out of his reason; the man of genius and spirit, that can say sharp
and witty things, though he never lashes but what deserves it; the man
of honour, who neither gives nor takes an affront, may be esteemed,
but is seldom so well beloved as a weaker man less accomplished.
As in these instances, the friendly qualities arise from our contriving
perpetually our own satisfaction, so, on other occasions, they proceed
from the natural timidity of man, and the solicitous care he takes
of himself. Two Londoners, whose business oblige them not to have
any commerce together, may know, see, and pass by one another every
day upon the Exchange, with not much greater civility than bulls
would: let them meet at Bristol they will pull off their hats, and
on the least opportunity enter into conversation, and be glad of one
another's company. When French, English, and Dutch, meet in China,
or any other Pagan country, being all Europeans, they look upon
one another as countrymen, and if no passion interferes, will feel
a natural propensity to love one another. Nay, two men that are at
enmity, if they are forced to travel together, will often lay by their
animosities, be affable, and converse in a friendly manner, especially
if the road be unsafe, and they are both strangers in the place they
are to go to. These things by superficial judges, are attributed to
mans sociableness, his natural propensity to friendship and love of
company; but whoever will duly examine things, and look into man more
narrowly, will find, that on all these occasions we only endeavour to
strengthen our interest, and are moved by the causes already alleged.
What I have endeavoured hitherto, has been to prove, that the pulchrum
et honestum, excellency and real worth of things are most commonly
precarious and alterable as modes and customs vary; that consequently
the inferences drawn from their certainty are insignificant, and
that the generous notions concerning the natural goodness of man
are hurtful, as they tend to mislead, and are merely chimerical: the
truth of this latter I have illustrated by the most obvious examples in
history. I have spoke of our love of company and aversion to solitude,
examined thoroughly the various motives of them, and made it appear
that they all centre in self-love. I intend now to investigate into
the nature of society, and diving into the very rise of it, make
it evident, that not the good and amiable, but the bad and hateful
qualities of man, his imperfections and the want of excellencies,
which other creatures are endued with, are the first causes that
made man sociable beyond other animals, the moment after he lost
Paradise; and that if he had remained in his primitive innocence,
and continued to enjoy the blessings that attended it, there is no
shadow of probability that he ever would have become that sociable
creature he is now.
How necessary our appetites and passions are for the welfare of all
trades and handicrafts, has been sufficiently proved throughout the
book, and that they are our bad qualities, or at least produce them,
nobody denies. It remains then, that I should set forth the variety of
obstacles that hinder and perplex man in the labour he is constantly
employed in, the procuring of what he wants; and which in other words
is called the business of self-preservation: while, at the same time,
I demonstrate that the sociableness of man arises only from these
two things, viz. the multiplicity of his desires, and the continual
opposition he meets with in his endeavours to gratify them.
The obstacles I speak of, relate either to our own frame, or the globe
we inhabit, I mean the condition of it, since it has been cursed. I
have often endeavoured to contemplate separately on the two things I
named last, but could never keep them asunder; they always interfere
and mix with one another; and at last make up together a frightful
chaos of evil. All the elements are our enemies, water drowns and
fire consumes those who unskilfully approach them. The earth in a
thousand places produces plants, and other vegetables that are hurtful
to man, while she feeds and cherishes a variety of creatures that are
noxious to him; and suffers a legion of poisons to dwell within her:
but the most unkind of all the elements is that which we cannot live
one moment without: it is impossible to repeat all the injuries we
receive from the wind and weather; and though the greatest part of
mankind, have ever been employed in defending their species from the
inclemency of the air, yet no art or labour have hitherto been able
to find a security against the wild rage of some meteors.
Hurricanes, it is true, happen but seldom, and few men are swallowed
up by earthquakes, or devoured by lions; but while we escape those
gigantic mischiefs, we are persecuted by trifles. What a vast variety
of insects are tormenting to us; what multitudes of them insult and
make game of us with impunity! The most despicable scruple not to
trample and graze upon us as cattle do upon a field: which yet is
often born with, if moderately they use their fortune; but here again
our clemency becomes a vice, and so encroaching are their cruelty and
contempt of us on our pity, that they make laystalls of our hands,
and devour our young ones if we are not daily vigilant in pursuing
and destroying them.
There is nothing good in all the universe to the best-designing man,
if either through mistake or ignorance he commits the least failing in
the use of it; there is no innocence or integrity, that can protect
a man from a thousand mischiefs that surround him: on the contrary,
every thing is evil, which art and experience have not taught us
to turn into a blessing. Therefore how diligent in harvest time is
the husbandman, in getting in his crop and sheltering it from rain,
without which he could never have enjoyed it! As seasons differ with
the climates, experience has taught us differently to make use of
them, and in one part of the globe we may see the farmer sow while he
is reaping in the other; from all which we may learn how vastly this
earth must have been altered since the fall of our first parents. For
should we trace man from his beautiful, his divine original, not
proud of wisdom acquired by haughty precept or tedious experience,
but endued with consummate knowledge the moment he was formed; I mean
the state of innocence, in which no animal nor vegetable upon earth,
nor mineral under ground was noxious to him, and himself secured from
the injuries of the air as well as all other harms, was contented
with the necessaries of life, which the globe he inhabited furnished
him with, without his assistance. When yet not conscious of guilt,
he found himself in every place to be the well obeyed unrivalled lord
of all, and unaffected with his greatness, was wholly wrapped up in
sublime meditations on the infinity of his Creator, who daily did
vouchsafe intelligibly to speak to him, and visit without mischief.
In such a golden age, no reason or probability can be alleged, why
mankind ever should have raised themselves into such large societies
as there have been in the world, as long as we can give any tolerable
account of it. Where a man has every thing he desires, and nothing to
vex or disturb him, there is nothing can be added to his happiness; and
it is impossible to name a trade, art, science, dignity, or employment,
that would not be superfluous in such a blessed state. If we pursue
this thought, we shall easily perceive that no societies could have
sprung from the amiable virtues and loving qualities of man; but,
on the contrary, that all of them must have had the origin from his
wants, his imperfections, and the variety of his appetites: we shall
find likewise, that the more their pride and vanity are displayed,
and all their desires enlarged, the more capable they must be of
being raised into large and vastly numerous societies.
Was the air always as inoffensive to our naked bodies, and as pleasant
as to our thinking it is to the generality of birds in fair weather,
and man had not been affected with pride, luxury and hypocrisy, as
well as lust, I cannot see what could have put us upon the invention of
clothes and houses. I shall say nothing of jewels, of plate, painting,
sculpture, fine furniture, and all that rigid moralists have called
unnecessary and superfluous: but if we were not soon tired with walking
a-foot, and were as nimble as some other animals; if men were naturally
laborious, and none unreasonable in seeking and indulging their ease,
and likewise free from other vices, and the ground was every where
even, solid and clean, who would have thought of coaches or ventured
on a horse's back? What occasion has the dolphin for a ship, or what
carriage would an eagle ask to travel in?
I hope the reader knows, that by society I understand a body politic,
in which man either subdued by superior force, or by persuasion drawn
from his savage state, is become a disciplined creature, that can find
his own ends in labouring for others, and where under one head or other
form of government, each member is rendered subservient to the whole,
and all of them by cunning management are made to act as one. For
if by society we only mean a number of people, that without rule or
government, should keep together, out of a natural affection to their
species, or love of company, as a herd of cows or a flock of sheep,
then there is not in the world a more unfit creature for society than
man; an hundred of them that should be all equals, under no subjection,
or fear of any superior upon earth, could never live together awake
two hours without quarrelling, and the more knowledge, strength, wit,
courage and resolution there was among them, the worse it would be.
It is probable, that in the wild state of nature, parents would keep a
superiority over their children, at least while they were in strength,
and that even afterwards, the remembrance of what the others had
experienced, might produce in them something between love and fear,
which we call reverence: it is probable, likewise, that the second
generation following the example of the first; a man with a little
cunning would always be able, as long as he lived and had his senses,
to maintain a superior sway over all his own offspring and descendants,
how numerous soever they might grow. But the old stock once dead,
the sons would quarrel, and there could be no peace long before there
had been war. Eldership in brothers is of no great force, and the
pre-eminence that is given to it, only invented as a shift to live
in peace. Man, as he is a fearful animal, naturally not rapacious,
loves peace and quiet, and he would never fight, if nobody offended
him, and he could have what he fights for without it. To this fearful
disposition, and the aversion he has to his being disturbed, are
owing all the various projects and forms of government. Monarchy,
without doubt, was the first. Aristocracy and democracy were two
different methods of mending the inconveniencies of the first, and
a mixture of these three an improvement on all the rest.
But be we savages or politicians, it is impossible that man, mere
fallen man, should act with any other view but to please himself while
he has the use of his organs, and the greatest extravagancy either
of love or despair can have no other centre. There is no difference
between will and pleasure in one sense, and every motion made in spite
of them must be unnatural and convulsive. Since, then, action is so
confined, and we are always forced to do what we please, and at the
same time our thoughts are free and uncontrouled, it is impossible we
could be sociable creatures without hypocrisy. The proof of this is
plain, since we cannot prevent the ideas that are continually arising
within us, all civil commerce would be lost, if, by art and prudent
dissimulation we had not learned to hide and stifle them; and if all
we think was to be laid open to others, in the same manner as it is
to ourselves, it is impossible that, endued with speech, we could be
sufferable to one another. I am persuaded that every reader feels the
truth of what I say; and I tell my antagonist that his conscience
flies in his face, while his tongue is preparing to refute me. In
all civil societies men are taught insensibly to be hypocrites from
their cradle; nobody dares to own that he gets by public calamities,
or even by the loss of private persons. The sexton would be stoned
should he wish openly for the death of the parishioners, though every
body knew that he had nothing else to live upon.
To me it is a great pleasure, when I look on the affairs of human
life, to behold into what various, and often strangely opposite forms,
the hope of gain and thoughts of lucre shape men, according to the
different employments they are of, and stations they are in. How gay
and merry does every face appear at a well ordered ball, and what a
solemn sadness is observed at the masquerade of a funeral! but the
undertaker is as much pleased with his gains as the dancing-master:
both are equally tired in their occupations, and the mirth of the one
is as much forced as the gravity of the other is affected. Those who
have never minded the conversation of a spruce mercer, and a young
lady his customer that comes to his shop, have neglected a scene of
life that is very entertaining. I beg of my serious reader, that he
would, for a while, abate a little of his gravity, and suffer me to
examine these people separately, as to their inside, and the different
motives they act from.
His business is to sell as much silk as he can at a price by which
he shall get what he proposes to be reasonable, according to the
customary profits of the trade. As to the lady, what she would be
at is to please her fancy, and buy cheaper by a groat or sixpence
per yard than the things she wants are commonly sold at. From the
impression the gallantry of our sex has made upon her, she imagines
(if she be not very deformed) that she has a fine mien and easy
behaviour, and a peculiar sweetness of voice; that she is handsome,
and if not beautiful, at least more agreeable than most young women
she knows. As she has no pretensions to purchase the same things with
less money than other people, but what are built on her good qualities,
so she sets herself off to the best advantage her wit and discretion
will let her. The thoughts of love are here out of the case; so on
the one hand, she has no room for playing the tyrant, and giving
herself angry and peevish airs, and, on the other, more liberty of
speaking kindly, and being affable than she can have almost on any
other occasion. She knows that abundance of well-bred people come
to his shop, and endeavours to render herself as amiable as virtue
and the rules of decency allow of. Coming with such a resolution of
behaviour, she cannot meet with any thing to ruffle her temper.
Before her coach is yet quite stopped, she is approached by a
gentleman-like man, that has every thing clean and fashionable
about him, who in low obeisance pays her homage, and as soon as her
pleasure is known that she has a mind to come in, hands her into the
shop, where immediately he slips from her, and through a by-way that
remains visible only for half a moment, with great address entrenches
himself behind the counter: here facing her, with a profound reverence
and modish phrase, he begs the favour of knowing her commands. Let
her say and dislike what she pleases, she can never be directly
contradicted: she deals with a man in whom consummate patience is
one of the mysteries of his trade, and whatever trouble she creates
she is sure to hear nothing but the most obliging language, and has
always before her a cheerful countenance, where joy and respect seem
to be blended with good humour, and altogether make up an artificial
serenity more engaging than untaught nature is able to produce.
When two persons are so well met, the conversation must be very
agreeable, as well as extremely mannerly, though they talk about
trifles. While she remains irresolute what to take, he seems to be the
same in advising her; and is very cautious how to direct her choice;
but when once she has made it and is fixed, he immediately becomes
positive, that it is the best of the sort, extols her fancy, and
the more he looks upon it, the more he wonders he should not before
have discovered the pre-eminence of it over any thing he has in his
shop. By precept, example, and great application, he has learned
unobserved to slide into the inmost recesses of the soul, sound the
capacity of his customers, and find out their blind side unknown to
them: by all which he is instructed in fifty other stratagems to
make her over-value her own judgment as well as the commodity she
would purchase. The greatest advantage he has over her, lies in the
most material part of the commerce between them, the debate about the
price, which he knows to a farthing, and she is wholly ignorant of:
therefore he no where more egregiously imposes on her understanding;
and though here he has the liberty of telling what lies he pleases,
as to the prime cost, and the money he has refused, yet he trusts not
to them only; but, attacking her vanity, makes her believe the most
incredible things in the world, concerning his own weakness and her
superior abilities; he had taken a resolution, he says, never to part
with that piece under such a price, but she has the power of talking
him out of his goods beyond any body he ever sold to: he protests that
he loses by his silk, but seeing that she has a fancy for it, and is
resolved to give no more, rather than disoblige a lady he has such
an uncommon value for, he will let her have it, and only begs that
another time she will not stand so hard with him. In the mean time,
the buyer, who knows that she is no fool, and has a voluble tongue,
is easily persuaded that she has a very winning way of talking, and
thinking it sufficient, for the sake of good-breeding, to disown
her merit, and in some witty repartee retort the compliment, he
makes her swallow very contentedly, the substance of every thing he
tells her. The upshot is, that, with the satisfaction of having saved
ninepence per yard, she has bought her silk exactly at the same price
as any body else might have done, and often gives sixpence more than,
rather than not have sold it, he would have taken.
It is possible that this lady, for want of being sufficiently
flattered, for a fault she is pleased to find in his behaviour,
or perhaps the tying of his neckcloth, or some other dislike as
substantial, may be lost, and her custom bestowed on some other of
the fraternity. But where many of them live in a cluster, it is not
always easily determined which shop to go to, and the reasons some of
the fair sex have for their choice, are often very whimsical, and kept
as great a secret. We never follow our inclinations with more freedom,
than where they cannot be traced, and it is unreasonable for others
to suspect them. A virtuous woman has preferred one house to all
the rest, because she had seen a handsome fellow in it, and another
of no bad character for having received greater civility before it,
than had been paid her any where else, when she had no thoughts of
buying, and was going to Paul's church: for among the fashionable
mercers, the fair dealer must keep before his own door, and to draw
in random customers, make use of no other freedom or importunities
than an obsequious air, with a submissive posture, and perhaps a bow
to every well dressed female that offers to look towards his shop.
What I have said last, makes me think on another way of inviting
customers, the most distant in the world from what I have been speaking
of, I mean that which is practised by the watermen, especially on
those whom, by their mien and garb, they know to be peasants. It is
not unpleasant to see half a dozen people surround a man they never
saw in their lives before, and two of them that can get the nearest,
clapping each an arm over his neck, hug him in as loving and familiar
a manner, as if he was their brother newly come home from an East
India voyage; a third lays hold of his hand, another of his sleeve,
his coat, the buttons of it, or any thing he can come at, while a fifth
or a sixth, who has scampered twice round him already, without being
able to get at him, plants himself directly before the man in hold,
and within three inches of his nose, contradicting his rivals with
an open mouthed cry, shows him a dreadful set of large teeth, and a
small remainder of chewed bread and cheese, which the countryman's
arrival had hindered from being swallowed.
At all this no offence is taken, and the peasant justly thinks they are
making much of him; therefore, far from opposing them, he patiently
suffers himself to be pushed or pulled which way the strength that
surrounds him shall direct. He has not the delicacy to find fault
with a man's breath, who has just blown out his pipe, or a greasy
head of hair that is rubbing against his chops: Dirt and sweat he
has been used to from his cradle, and it is no disturbance to him to
hear half a score people, some of them at his ear, and the furthest
not five foot from him, bawl out as if he was hundred yards off: He
is conscious that he makes no less noise when he is merry himself,
and is secretly pleased with their boisterous usages. The hawling
and pulling him about he construes the way it is intended; it is a
courtship he can feel and understand: He cannot help wishing them well
for the esteem they seem to have for him: He loves to be taken notice
of, and admires the Londoners for being so pressing in the offers of
their service to him, for the value of threepence or less; whereas,
in the country at the shop he uses, he can have nothing but he must
first tell them what he wants, and, though he lays out three or four
shillings at a time, has hardly a word spoke to him unless it be in
answer to a question himself is forced to ask first. This alacrity
in his behalf moves his gratitude, and, unwilling to disoblige any,
from his heart he knows not whom to choose. I have seen a man think
all this, or something like it, as plainly as I could see the nose in
his face; and, at the same time, move along very contentedly under
a load of watermen, and with a smiling countenance carry seven or
eight stone more than his own weight to the water side.
If the little mirth I have shown, in the drawing of these two images
from low life, misbecomes me, I am sorry for it, but I promise not
to be guilty of that fault any more, and will now, without loss
of time, proceed with my argument in artless dull simplicity, and
demonstrate the gross error of those, who imagine that the social
virtues, and the amiable qualities that are praise-worthy in us,
are equally beneficial to the public as they are to the individual
persons that are possessed of them, and that the means of thriving,
and whatever conduces to the welfare and real happiness of private
families, must have the same effect upon the whole society. This,
I confess, I have laboured for all along, and I flatter myself not
unsuccessfully: But I hope nobody will like a problem the worse for
seeing the truth of it proved more ways than one.
It is certain, that the fewer desires a man has, and the less he
covets, the more easy he is to himself; the more active he is to
supply his own wants, and the less he requires to be waited upon,
the more he will be beloved, and the less trouble he is in a family;
the more he loves peace and concord, the more charity he has for his
neighbour, and the more he shines in real virtue, there is no doubt
but that in proportion he is acceptable to God and man. But let us be
just, what benefit can these things be of, or what earthly good can
they do, to promote the wealth, the glory, and worldly greatness of
nations? It is the sensual courtier that sets no limits to his luxury;
the fickle strumpet that invents new fashions every week; the haughty
duchess that in equipage, entertainments, and all her behaviour, would
imitate a princess; the profuse rake and lavish heir, that scatter
about their money without wit or judgment, buy every thing they see,
and either destroy or give it away the next day; the covetous and
perjured villain that squeezed an immense treasure from the tears of
widows and orphans, and left the prodigals the money to spend: It is
these that are the prey and proper food of a full grown Leviathan;
or, in other words, such is the calamitous condition of human affairs,
that we stand in need of the plagues and monsters I named, to have all
the variety of labour performed, which the skill of men is capable
of inventing in order to procure an honest livelihood to the vast
multitudes of working poor, that are required to make a large society:
And it is folly to imagine, that great and wealthy nations can subsist,
and be at once powerful and polite without.
I protest against Popery as much as ever Luther and Calvin did,
or Queen Elizabeth herself; but I believe from my heart, that
the Reformation has scarce been more instrumental in rendering
the kingdoms and states that have embraced it, flourishing beyond
other nations, than the silly and capricious invention of hooped and
quilted petticoats. But if this should be denied me by the enemies
of priestly power, at least I am sure that, bar the great men who
have fought for and against that layman's blessing, it has, from its
beginning to this day, not employed so many hands, honest, industrious,
labouring hands, as the abominable improvement on female luxury,
I named, has done in few years. Religion is one thing, and trade is
another. He that gives most trouble to thousands of his neighbours,
and invents the most operose manufactures, is, right or wrong, the
greatest friend to the society.
What a bustle is there to be made in several parts of the world, before
a fine scarlet or crimson cloth can be produced; what multiplicity of
trades and artificers must be employed! Not only such as are obvious,
as woolcombers, spinners, the weaver, the cloth worker, the scourer,
the dyer, the setter, the drawer, and the packer; but others that
are more remote, and might seem foreign to it; as the mill-wright,
the pewterer, and the chemist, which yet are all necessary, as well as
a great number of other handicrafts, to have the tools, utensils, and
other implements belonging to the trades already named: But all these
things are done at home, and may be performed without extraordinary
fatigue or danger; the most frightful prospect is left behind, when
we reflect on the toil and hazard that are to be undergone abroad,
the vast seas we are to go over, the different climates we are to
endure, and the several nations we must be obliged to for their
assistance. Spain alone, it is true, might furnish us with wool to
make the finest cloth; but what skill and pains, what experience and
ingenuity, are required to dye it of those beautiful colours! How
widely are the drugs, and other ingredients, dispersed through the
universe that are to meet in one kettle! Allum, indeed, we have of our
own; argol we might have from the Rhine, and vitriol from Hungary; all
this is in Europe; but then for saltpetre in quantity, we are forced to
go as far as the East Indies. Cocheneal, unknown to the ancients, is
not much nearer to us, though in a quite different part of the earth:
we buy it, it is true, from the Spaniards; but not being their product,
they are forced to fetch it for us from the remotest corner of the
new world in the East Indies. While so many sailors are broiling in
the sun, and sweltered with heat in the east and west of us, another
set of them are freezing in the north, to fetch potashes from Russia.
When we are thoroughly acquainted with all the variety of toil and
labour, the hardships and calamities that must be undergone to compass
the end I speak of, and we consider the vast risks and perils that
are run in those voyages, and that few of them are ever made but at
the expence, not only of the health and welfare, but even the lives
of many: When we are acquainted with, I say, and duly consider the
things I named, it is scarce possible to conceive a tyrant so inhuman,
and void of shame, that, beholding things in the same view, he should
exact such terrible services from his innocent slaves; and, at the
same time, dare to own, that he did it for no other reason, than the
satisfaction a man receives from having a garment made of scarlet or
crimson cloth. But to what height of luxury must a nation be arrived,
where not only the king's officers, but likewise the guards, even
the private soldiers, should have such impudent desires!
But if we turn the prospect, and look on all those labours as so many
voluntary actions, belonging to different callings and occupations,
that men are brought up to for a livelihood, and in which every one
works for himself, how much soever he may seem to labour for others: If
we consider, that even the sailors who undergo the greatest hardships,
as soon as one voyage is ended, even after shipwreck, are looking out,
and soliciting for employment in another: If we consider, I say, and
look on these things in another view, we shall find, that the labour
of the poor is so far from being a burden and an imposition upon them,
that to have employment is a blessing, which, in their addresses to
Heaven, they pray for, and to procure it for the generality of them,
is the greatest care of every legislature.
As children, and even infants, are the apes of others, so all
youth have an ardent desire of being men and women, and become often
ridiculous by their impatient endeavours to appear what every body sees
they are not; all large societies are not a little indebted to this
folly for the perpetuity, or at least long continuance, of trades once
established. What pains will young people take, and what violence will
they not commit upon themselves, to attain to insignificant, and often
blameable qualifications, which, for want of judgment and experience,
they admire in others, that are superior to them in age! This fondness
of imitation makes them accustom themselves, by degrees, to the use
of things that were irksome, if not intolerable to them at first,
till they know not how to leave them, and are often very sorry for
having inconsiderately increased the necessaries of life without any
necessity. What estates have been got by tea and coffee! What a vast
traffic is drove, what a variety of labour is performed in the world,
to the maintenance of thousands of families that altogether depend on
two silly, if not odious customs; the taking of snuff, and smoking
of tobacco; both which, it is certain, do infinitely more hurt
than good to those that are addicted to them! I shall go further,
and demonstrate the usefulness of private losses and misfortunes
to the public, and the folly of our wishes, when we pretend to be
most wise and serious. The fire of London was a great calamity; but
if the carpenters, bricklayers, smiths, and all, not only that are
employed in building, but likewise those that made and dealt in the
same manufactures, and other merchandises that were burnt, and other
trades again that got by them when they were in full employ, were to
vote against those who lost by the fire, the rejoicings would equal,
if not exceed the complaints. In recruiting what is lost and destroyed
by fire, storms, sea-fights, sieges, battles, a considerable part of
trade consists; the truth of which, and whatever I have said of the
nature of society, will plainly appear from what follows.
It would be a difficult task to enumerate all the advantages and
different benefits, that accrue to a nation, on account of shipping
and navigation; but if we only take into consideration the ships
themselves, and every vessel great and small that is made use of for
water-carriage, from the least wherry to a first rate man of war;
the timber and hands that are employed in the building of them;
and consider the pitch, tar, rosin, grease; the masts, yards, sails
and riggings; the variety of smiths work; the cables, oars, and every
thing else belonging to them; we shall find, that to furnish only such
a nation as ours with all the necessaries, make up a considerable
part of the traffic of Europe, without speaking of the stores and
ammunition of all sorts, that are consumed in them, or the mariners,
waterman and others, with their families, that are maintained by them.
But should we, on the other hand, take a view of the manifold mischiefs
and variety of evils, moral as well as natural, that befal nations on
the score of seafaring, and their commerce with strangers, the prospect
would be very frightful; and could we suppose a large populous island,
that should be wholly unacquainted with ships and sea affairs, but
otherwise a wise and well-governed people; and that some angel, or
their genius, should lay before them a scheme or draught, where they
might see on the one side, all the riches and real advantages that
would be acquired by navigation in a thousand years; and on the other,
the wealth and lives that would be lost, and all the other calamities,
that would be unavoidably sustained on account of it during the same
time, I am confident, they would look upon ships with horror and
detestation, and that their prudent rulers would severely forbid the
making and inventing all buildings or machines to go to sea with, of
what shape or denomination soever, and prohibit all such abominable
contrivances on great penalties, if not the pain of death.
But to let alone the necessary consequence of foreign trade, the
corruption of manners, as well as plagues, poxes, and other diseases,
that are brought to us by shipping, should we only cast our eyes on
what is either to be imputed to the wind and weather, the treachery of
the seas, the ice of the north, the vermin of the south, the darkness
of nights, and unwholesomeness of climates, or else occasioned by the
want of good provisions, and the faults of mariners, and unskilfulness
of some, and the neglect and drunkenness of others; and should we
consider the losses of men and treasure swallowed up in the deep, the
tears and necessities of widows and orphans made by the sea, the ruin
of merchants and the consequences, the continual anxieties that parents
and wives are in for the safety of their children and husbands, and
not forget the many pangs and heart-aches that are felt throughout a
trading nation, by owners and insurers, at every blast of wind; should
we cast our eyes, I say, on these things, consider with due attention
and give them the weight they deserve, would it not be amazing, how a
nation of thinking people should talk of their ships and navigation
as a peculiar blessing to them, and placing an uncommon felicity in
having an infinity of vessels dispersed through the wide world, and
always some going to and others coming from every part of the universe?
But let us once, in our consideration on these things, confine
ourselves to what the ships suffer only, the vessels themselves,
with their rigging and appurtenances, without thinking on the freight
they carry, or the hands that work them, and we shall find that the
damage sustained that way only, is very considerable, and must one
year with another amount to vast sums; the ships that are foundered
at sea, split against rocks and swallowed up by sands, some by the
fierceness of tempests altogether, others by that and the want of
pilots, experience, and knowledge of the coasts: the masts that are
blown down, or forced to be cut and thrown overboard, the yards,
sails, and cordage of different sizes that are destroyed by storms,
and the anchors that are lost: add to these the necessary repairs of
leaks sprung, and other hurts received from the rage of winds, and the
violence of the waves: many ships are set on fire by carelessness,
and the effects of strong liquors, which none are more addicted to
than sailors: sometimes unhealthy climates, at others the badness of
provision breed fatal distempers, that sweep away the greatest part
of the crew, and not a few ships are lost for want of hands.
These are all calamities inseparable from navigation, and seem to be
great impediments that clog the wheels of foreign commerce. How happy
would a merchant think himself, if his ships should always have fine
weather, and the wind he wished for, and every mariner he employed,
from the highest to the lowest, be a knowing experienced sailor, and a
careful, sober, good man! Was such a felicity to be had for prayers,
what owner of ships is there, or dealer in Europe, nay, the whole
world, who would not be all day long teazing Heaven to obtain such a
blessing for himself, without regard to what detriment it would do to
others? Such a petition would certainly be a very unconscionable one;
yet where is the man who imagines not that he has a right to make
it? And therefore, as every one pretends to an equal claim to those
favours, let us, without reflecting on the impossibility of its being
true, suppose all their prayers effectual and their wishes answered,
and afterwards examine into the result of such a happiness.
Ships would last as long as timber houses to the full, because they
are as strongly built, and the latter are liable to suffer by high
winds and other storms, which the first, by our supposition, are not
to be: so that, before there would be any real occasion for new ships,
the master builders now in being, and every body under them, that is
set to work about them, would all die a natural death, if they were
not starved or come to some untimely end: for, in the first place,
all ships having prosperous gales, and never waiting for the wind,
they would make very quick voyages both out and home: secondly,
no merchandises would be damaged by the sea, or by stress of weather
thrown overboard, but the entire lading would always come safe ashore;
and hence it would follow, that three parts in four of the merchantmen
already made, would be superfluous for the present, and the stock of
ships that are now in the world, serve a vast many years. Masts and
yards would last as long as the vessels themselves, and we should not
need to trouble Norway on that score a great while yet. The sails
and rigging, indeed, of the few ships made use of would wear out,
but not a quarter part so fast as now they do, for they often suffer
more in one hour's storm, than in ten days fair weather.
Anchors and cables there would be seldom any occasion for, and one
of each would last a ship time out of mind: this article alone,
would yield many a tedious holiday to the anchor-smiths and the
rope-yards. This general want of consumption would have such
an influence on the timber-merchants, and all that import iron,
sail-cloth, hemp, pitch, tar, &c. that four parts in five of what,
in the beginning of this reflection on sea-affairs, I said, made a
considerable branch of the traffic of Europe, would be entirely lost.
I have only touched hitherto on the consequences of this blessing in
relation to shipping, but it would be detrimental to all other branches
of trade besides, and destructive to the poor of every country, that
exports any thing of their own growth or manufacture. The goods and
merchandises that every year go to the deep, that are spoiled at sea
by salt water, by heat, by vermine, destroyed by fire, or lost to the
merchant by other accidents, all owing to storms or tedious voyages,
or else the neglect or rapacity of sailors; such goods, I say, and
merchandises are a considerable part of what every year is sent abroad
throughout the world, and must have employed great multitudes of poor,
before they could come on board. A hundred bales of cloth that are
burnt or sunk in the Mediterranean, are as beneficial to the poor
in England, as if they had safely arrived at Smyrna or Aleppo, and
every yard of them had been retailed on the grand Signior's dominions.
The merchant may break, and by him the clothier, the dyer, the packer,
and other tradesmen, the middling people, may suffer; but the poor
that were set to work about them can never lose. Day-labourers
commonly receive their earnings once a-week, and all the working
people that were employed, either in any of the various branches of
the manufacture itself, or the several land and water carriages it
requires to be brought to perfection, from the sheep's back, to the
vessel it was entered in, were paid, at least much the greatest part
of them, before the parcel came on board. Should any of my readers
draw conclusions in infinitum, from my assertions, that goods sunk
or burnt are as beneficial to the poor, as if they had been well
sold and put to their proper uses, I would count him a caviller and
not worth answering: should it always rain and the sun never shine,
the fruits of the earth would soon be rotten and destroyed; and yet
it is no paradox to affirm, that, to have grass or corn, rain is as
necessary as the sunshine.
In what manner this blessing of fair winds and fine weather, would
affect the mariners themselves, and the breed of sailors, may be
easily conjectured from what has been said already. As there would
hardly one ship in four be made use of, so the vessels themselves being
always exempt from storms, fewer hands would be required to work them,
and consequently five in six of the seamen we have might be spared,
which in this nation, most employments of the poor being overstocked,
would be but an untoward article. As soon as those superfluous seamen
should be extinct, it would be impossible to man such large fleets as
we could at present: but I do not look upon this as a detriment, or
the least inconveniency: for the reduction of mariners, as to numbers
being general throughout the world, all the consequence would be,
that in case of war, the maritime powers would be obliged to fight
with fewer ships, which would be an happiness instead of an evil:
and would you carry this felicity to the highest pitch of perfection,
it is but to add one desirable blessing more, and no nation shall ever
fight at all: the blessing I hint at is, what all good Christians
are bound to pray for, viz. that all princes and states would be
true to their oaths and promises, and just to one another, as well
as their own subjects; that they might have a greater regard for the
dictates of conscience and religion, than those of state politics
and worldly wisdom, and prefer the spiritual welfare of others to
their own carnal desires, and the honesty, the safety, the peace and
tranquillity of the nations they govern, to their own love of glory,
spirit of revenge, avarice, and ambition.
The last paragraph will to many seem a digression, that makes little
for my purpose; but what I mean by it, is to demonstrate that goodness,
integrity, and a peaceful disposition in rulers and governors of
nations, are not the proper qualifications to aggrandize them, and
increase their numbers; any more than the uninterrupted series of
success that every private person would be blest with, if he could,
and which I have shown would be injurious and destructive to a large
society, that should place a felicity in worldly greatness, and being
envied by their neighbours, and value themselves upon their honour
and their strength.
No man needs to guard himself against blessings, but calamities
require hands to avert them. The amiable qualities of man put none
of the species upon stirring: his honesty, his love of company, his
goodness, content and frugality, are so many comforts to an indolent
society, and the more real and unaffected they are, the more they
keep every thing at rest and peace, and the more they will every
where prevent trouble and motion itself. The same almost may be said
of the gifts and munificence of Heaven, and all the bounties and
benefits of nature: this is certain, that the more extensive they
are, and the greater plenty we have of them, the more we save our
labour. But the necessities, the vices, and imperfections of man,
together with the various inclemencies of the air and other elements,
contain in them the seeds of all arts, industry and labours: it is
the extremities of heat and cold, the inconstancy and badness of
seasons, the violence and uncertainty of winds, the vast power and
treachery of water, the rage and untractableness of fire, and the
stubbornness and sterility of the earth, that rack our invention, how
we shall either avoid the mischiefs they may produce, or correct the
malignity of them, and turn their several forces to our own advantage
a thousand different ways; while we are employed in supplying the
infinite variety of our wants, which will ever be multiplied as our
knowledge is enlarged, and our desires increase. Hunger, thirst, and
nakedness, are the first tyrants that force us to stir: afterwards,
our pride, sloth, sensuality, and fickleness, are the great patrons
that promote all arts and sciences, trades, handicrafts and callings;
while the great task-masters, necessity, avarice, envy, and ambition,
each in the class that belongs to him, keep the members of the society
to their labour, and make them all submit, most of them cheerfully,
to the drudgery of their station; kings and princes not excepted.
The greater the variety of trades and manufactures the more operose
they are, and the more they are divided in many branches, the greater
numbers may be contained in a society without being in one another's
way, and the more easily they may be rendered a rich, potent, and
flourishing people. Few virtues employ any hands, and therefore they
may render a small nation good, but they can never make a great one. To
be strong and laborious, patient in difficulties, and assiduous in all
business, are commendable qualities; but as they do their own work,
so they are their own reward, and neither art nor industry have ever
paid their compliments to them; whereas the excellency of human thought
and contrivance, has been, and is yet no where more conspicuous than
in the variety of tools and instruments of workmen and artificers,
and the multiplicity of engines, that were all invented either to
assist the weakness of man, to correct his many imperfections, to
gratify his laziness, or obviate his impatience.
It is in morality as it is in nature, there is nothing so perfectly
good in creatures, that it cannot be hurtful to any one of the society,
nor any thing so entirely evil, but it may prove beneficial to some
part or other of the creation: so that things are only good and evil
in reference to something else, and according to the light and position
they are placed in. What pleases us is good in that regard, and by this
rule every man wishes well for himself to the best of his capacity,
with little respect to his neighbour. There never was any rain yet,
though in a very dry season when public prayers had been made for it,
but somebody or other who wanted to go abroad, wished it might be fair
weather only for that day. When the corn stands thick in the spring,
and the generality of the country rejoice at the pleasing object,
the rich farmer who kept his last year's crop for a better market,
pines at the sight, and inwardly grieves at the prospect of a plentiful
harvest. Nay, we shall often hear your idle people openly wish for the
possessions of others, and not to be injurious forsooth add this wise
proviso, that it should be without detriment to the owners: but I am
afraid they often do it without any such restriction in their hearts.
It is a happiness that the prayers as well as wishes of most people,
are insignificant and good for nothing; or else the only thing that
could keep mankind fit for society, and the world from falling into
confusion, would be the impossibility that all the petitions made
to Heaven should be granted. A dutiful pretty young gentleman newly
come from his travels, lies at the Briel waiting with impatience for
an easterly wind, to waft him over to England, where a dying father,
who wants to embrace and give him his blessing before he yields his
breath, lies hoaning after him, melted with grief and tenderness:
in the mean while a British minister, who is to take care of the
Protestant interest in Germany, is riding post to Harwich, and in
violent haste to be at Ratisbone before the diet breaks up. At the
same time a rich fleet lies ready for the Mediterranean, and a fine
squadron is bound for the Baltic. All these things may probably
happen at once, at least there is no difficulty in supposing they
should. If these people are not atheists, or very great reprobates,
they will all have some good thoughts before they go to sleep, and
consequently about bed-time, they must all differently pray for a
fair wind and a prosperous voyage. I do not say but it is their duty,
and it is possible they may be all heard, but I am sure they cannot
be all served at the same time.
After this, I flatter myself to have demonstrated that, neither the
friendly qualities and kind affections that are natural to man, nor
the real virtues he is capable of acquiring by reason and self-denial,
are the foundation of society; but that what we call evil in this
world, moral as well as natural, is the grand principle that makes
us sociable creatures, the solid basis, the life and support of all
trades and employments without exception: that there we must look
for the true origin of all arts and sciences, and that the moment
evil ceases, the society must be spoiled, if not totally dissolved.
I could add a thousand things to enforce, and further illustrate this
truth, with abundance of pleasure; but for fear of being troublesome,
I shall make an end, though I confess that I have not been half so
solicitous to gain the approbation of others, as I have studied to
please myself in this amusement: yet if ever I hear, that by following
this diversion I have given any to the intelligent reader, it will
always add to the satisfaction I have received in the performance. In
the hope my vanity forms of this, I leave him with regret, and conclude
with repeating the seeming paradox, the substance of which is advanced
in the title page; that private vices, by the dexterous management
of a skilful politician, may be turned into public benefits.
A
VINDICATION
OF THE
Book, from the Aspersions contained in a Presentment of
the Grand Jury of Middlesex,
And an Abusive Letter to Lord C----
That the reader may be fully instructed in the merits of the cause
between my adversaries and myself, it is requisite that, before he
sees my defence, he should know the whole charge, and have before
him all the accusations against me at large.
The Presentment of the Grand Jury is worded thus:
We the Grand Jury for the county of Middlesex, have, with the greatest
sorrow and concern, observed the many books and pamphlets that are
almost every week published against the sacred articles of our holy
religion, and all discipline and order in the church, and the manner
in which this is carried on, seems to us to have a direct tendency
to propagate infidelity, and consequently corruption of all morals.
We are justly sensible of the goodness of the Almighty, that has
preserved us from the plague, which has visited our neighbouring
nation, and for which great mercy, his Majesty was graciously pleased
to command, by his proclamation, that thanks should be returned to
Heaven; but how provoking must it be to the Almighty, that his mercies
and deliverances extended to this nation, and our thanksgiving that
was publicly commanded for it, should be attended with such flagrant
impieties.
We know of nothing that can be of greater service to his Majesty,
and the Protestant succession (which is happily established among
us for the defence of the Christian Religion), than the suppression
of blasphemy and profaneness, which has a direct tendency to subvert
the very foundation on which his Majesty's government is fixed.
So restless have these zealots for infidelity been in their diabolical
attempts against religion, that they have,
First, Openly blasphemed and denied the doctrine of the ever Blessed
Trinity, endeavouring, by species pretences, to revive the Arian
heresy, which was never introduced into any nation, but the vengeance
of Heaven pursued it.
Secondly, They affirm an absolute fate, and deny the Providence and
government of the Almighty in the world.
Thirdly, They have endeavoured to subvert all order and discipline
of the church, and by vile and unjust reflections on the clergy, they
strive to bring contempt on all religion; that by the libertinism of
their opinions they may encourage and draw others into the immoralities
of their practice.
Fourthly, That a general libertinism may the more effectually be
established, the universities are decried, and all instructions of
youth in the principles of the Christian religion are exploded with
the greatest malice and falsity.
Fifthly, The more effectually to carry on these works of darkness,
studied artifices, and invented colours, have been made use of to run
down religion and virtue as prejudicial to society, and detrimental
to the state; and to recommend luxury, avarice, pride, and all kind
of vices, as being necessary to public welfare, and not tending to
the destruction of the constitution: nay, the very stews themselves
have had strained apologies and forced encomiums made in their favour,
and produced in print, with design, we conceive, to debauch the nation.
These principles having a direct tendency to the subversion of all
religion and civil government, our duty to the Almighty, our love to
our country, and regard to our oaths, oblige us to present
as the publisher of a book, intituled the Fable of the Bees; or
Private Vices Public Benefits. 2d. Edit. 1723.
And also
as the publisher of a weekly paper, called the British Journal,
Numb. 26, 35, 36, and 39.
The Letter I complain of is this:
My Lord,
It is welcome news to all the king's loyal subjects and true friends
to the established government and succession in the illustrious house
of Hanover, that your Lordship is said to be contriving some effectual
means of securing us from the dangers, wherewith his Majesty's happy
government seems to be threatened by Catiline, under the name of
Cato; by the writer of a book, intituled, The Fable of the Bees,
&c. and by others of their fraternity, who are undoubtedly useful
friends to the Pretender, and diligent, for his sake, in labouring
to subvert and ruin our constitution, under a specious pretence of
defending it. Your Lordship's wise resolution, totally to suppress
such impious writings, and the direction already given for having them
presented, immediately, by some of the grand juries, will effectually
convince the nation, that no attempts against Christianity will be
suffered or endured here. And this conviction will at once rid men's
minds of the uneasiness which this flagitious race of writers has
endeavoured to raise in them; will therefore be a firm bulwark to
the Protestant religion; will effectually defeat the projects and
hopes of the Pretender; and best secure us against any change in the
ministry. And no faithful Briton could be unconcerned, if the people
should imagine any the least neglect in any single person bearing a
part in the ministry, or begin to grow jealous, that any thing could
be done, which is not done, in defending their religion from every
the least appearance of danger approaching towards it. And, my Lord,
this jealousy might have been apt to rise, if no measures had been
taken to discourage and crush the open advocates of irreligion. It is
no easy matter to get jealousy out of one's brains, when it is once
got into them. Jealousy, my Lord! it is as furious a fiend as any
of them all. I have seen a little thin weak woman so invigorated by
a fit of jealousy, that five grenadiers could not hold her. My Lord,
go on with your just methods of keeping the people clear of this cursed
jealousy: for amongst the various kinds and occasions of it, that which
concerns their religion, is the most violent, flagrant, frantic sort
of all; and accordingly has, in former reigns, produced those various
mischiefs, which your Lordship has faithfully determined to prevent,
dutifully regarding the royal authority, and conforming to the example
of his Majesty, who has graciously given directions (which are well
known to your Lordship) for the preserving of unity in the church;
and the purity of the Christian faith. It is in vain to think that
the people of England will ever give up their religion, or be very
fond of any ministry that will not support it, as the wisdom of this
ministry has done, against such audacious attacks as are made upon
it by the scribblers; for scribbler, your Lordship knows, is the just
appellation of every author, who, under whatever plausible appearance
of good sense, attempts to undermine the religion, and therefore the
content and quiet, the peace and happiness of his fellow-subjects,
by subtle and artful, and fallacious arguments and insinuations. May
Heaven avert those insufferable miseries, which the Church of
Rome would bring upon us! tyranny is the bane of human society,
and there is no tyranny heavier than that of the triple crown. And,
therefore, this free and happy people has justly conceived an utter
abhorrence and dread of Popery, and of every thing that looks like
encouragement or tendency to it; but they do also abhor and dread the
violence offered to Christianity itself, by our British Catilines,
who shelter their treacherous designs against it, under the false
colours of regard and good will to our blessed Protestant religion,
while they demonstrate, too plainly demonstrate, that the title of
Protestants does not belong to them, unless it can belong to those
who are in effect protestors against all religion.
And really the people cannot be much blamed for being a little
unwilling to part with their religion: for they tell ye that there is
a God; and that God governs the world; and that he is wont to bless or
blast a kingdom, in proportion to the degrees of religion or irreligion
prevailing in it. Your Lordship has a fine collection of books; and,
which is a finer thing still, you do certainly understand them,
and can turn to an account of any important affair in a trice. I
would therefore fain know, whether your Lordship can show, from
any writer, let him be as profane as the scribblers would have him,
that any one empire, kingdom, country, or province, great or small,
did not dwindle and sink, and was confounded, when it once failed of
providing studiously for the support of religion.
The scribblers talk much of the Roman government, and liberty, and
the spirit of the old Romans. But it is undeniable, that their most
plausible talk of these things is all pretence, and grimace, and an
artifice to serve the purposes of irreligion; and by consequence to
render the people uneasy, and ruin the kingdom. For if they did in
reality esteem, and would faithfully recommend to their countrymen,
the sentiments and principles, the main purposes and practices of the
wise and prosperous Romans, they would, in the first place, put us
in mind, that old Rome was as remarkable for observing and promoting
natural religion, as new Rome has been for corrupting that which is
revealed. And as the old Romans did signally recommend themselves to
the favour of heaven, by their faithful care of religion; so were
they abundantly convinced, and did accordingly acknowledge, with
universal consent, that their care of religion was the great means
[8] of God's preserving the empire, and crowning it with conquest
and success, prosperity and glory. Hence it was, that when their
orators were bent upon exerting their utmost in moving and persuading
the people, upon any occasion, they ever put them in mind of their
religion, if that could be any way affected by the point in debate;
not doubting that the people would determine in their favour, if
they could but demonstrate, that the safety of religion depended
upon the success of their cause. And, indeed, neither the Romans,
nor any other nation upon earth, did ever suffer their established
religion to be openly ridiculed, exploded, or opposed: and I am sure,
your Lordship would not, for all the world, that this thing would be
done with impunity amongst us, which was never endured in the world
before. Did ever any man, since the blessed revelation of the gospel,
run riot upon Christianity, as some men, nay, and some few women
too, have lately done? must the devil grow rampant at this rate, and
not to be called coram nobis? Why should not he content himself to
carry off people in the common way, the way of cursing and swearing,
Sabbath breaking and cheating, bribery, and hypocrisy, drunkenness
and whoring, and such kind of things as he used to do? never let
him domineer in mens mouths and writings, as he does now, with loud,
tremendous infidelity, blasphemy and profaneness, enough to frighten
the King's subjects out of their wits. We are now come to a short
question: God or the devil? that is the word; and time will show, who
and who goes together. Thus much may be said at present, that those
have abundantly shown their spirit of opposition to sacred things,
who have not only inveighed against the national profession and
exercise of religion; and endeavoured, with bitterness and dexterity,
to render it odious and contemptible, but are solicitous to hinder
multitudes of the natives of this island from having the very seeds
of religion sown among them with advantage.
Arguments are urged, with the utmost vehemence, against the education
of poor children in the charity schools, though there hath not one just
reason been offered against the provision made for that education. The
things that have been objected against it are not, in fact, true;
and nothing ought to be regarded, by serious and wise men, as a
weighty or just argument, if it is not a true one. How hath Catiline
the confidence left to look any man in the face, after he hath spent
more confidence than most mens whole stock amounts to, in saying, that
this pretended charity has, in effect, destroyed all other charities,
which were before given to the aged, sick, and impotent.
It seems pretty clear, that if those, who do not contribute to any
charity school, are become more uncharitable to any other object than
formerly they were, their want of charity to the one, is not owing to
their contribution to the other. And as to those who do contribute
to these schools; they are so far from being more sparing in their
relief of other objects, than they were before, that the poor widows,
the aged and the impotent do plainly receive more relief from them,
in proportion to their numbers and abilities, than from any the
same numbers of men under the same circumstances of fortune, who do
not concern themselves with charity schools, in any respect, but in
condemning and decrying them. I will meet Catiline at the Grecian
coffee-house any day in the week, and by an enumeration of particular
persons, in as great a number as he pleaseth, demonstrate the truth of
what I say. But I do not much depend upon his giving me the meeting,
because it is his business, not to encourage demonstrations of the
truth, but to throw disguises upon it; otherwise, he never could have
allowed himself, after representing the charity schools as intended to
breed up children to reading and writing, and a sober behaviour, that
they may be qualified to be servants, immediately to add these words, a
sort of idle and rioting vermin, by which the kingdom is already almost
devoured, and are become every where a public nuisance, &c. What? Is
it owing to the charity schools, that servants are become so idle,
such rioting vermin, such a public nuisance; that women-servants turn
whores, and the men-servants robbers, house-breakers, and sharpers? (as
he says they commonly do). Is this owing to the charity schools? or,
if it is not, how comes he to allow himself the liberty of representing
these schools as a means of increasing this load of mischief, which is
indeed too plainly fallen upon the public? The imbibing principles of
virtue hath not, usually, been thought the chief occasion of running
into vice. If the early knowledge of truth, and of our obligations to
it, were the surest means of departing from it, nobody would doubt,
that the knowledge of truth was instilled into Catiline very early,
and with the utmost care. It is a good pretty thing in him to spread
a report, and to lay so much stress upon it as he does, that there
is more collected at the church doors in a day, to make these poor
boys and girls appear in caps and livery-coats, than for all the
poor in a year. O rare Catiline! This point you will carry most
swimmingly; for you have no witnesses against you, nor any living
soul to contradict you, except the collectors and overseers of the
poor, and all other principal inhabitants of most of the parishes,
where any charity schools are in England.
The jest of it is, my Lord, that these scribblers would still be
thought good moral men. But, when men make it their business to
mislead and deceive their neighbours, and that in matters of moment,
by distorting and disguising the truth, by misrepresentations and
false insinuations; if such men are not guilty of usurpation, while
they take upon them the character of good moral men, then it is not
immoral, in any man, to be false and deceitful, in cases where the
law cannot touch him for being so, and morality bears no relation to
truth and fair dealing. However, I shall not be very willing to meet
one of these moral men upon Hounslow-heath, if I should happen to ride
that way without pistols. For I have a notion, that they who have no
conscience in one point, do not much abound with it in another. Your
Lordship, who judges accurately of men, as well as books, will easily
imagine, if you had no other knowledge of the charity schools, that
there must be something very excellent in them because such kind of
men as these are so warm in opposing them.
They tell you, that these schools are hindrances to husbandry and
to manufacture. As to husbandry; the children are not kept in the
schools longer than till they are of age and strength to perform the
principal parts of it, or to bear constant labour in it; and even
while they are under this course of education, your Lordship may
depend upon it, that they shall never be hindered from working in
the fields, or being employed in such labour as they are capable of,
in any parts of the year, when they can get such employment for the
support of their parents and themselves. In this case, the parents,
in the several counties, are proper judges of their several situations
and circumstances, and at the same time, not so very fond of their
children getting a little knowledge, rather than a little money,
but that they will find other employment for them than going to
school, whenever they can get a penny by so doing. And the case is
the same as to the manufactures; the trustees of the charity schools,
and the parents of the children bred in them, would be thankful to
those gentlemen who make the objection, if they would assist in
removing it, by subscribing to a fund for joining the employment
of manufacture, to the business of learning to read and write
in the charity schools. This would be a noble work: it is already
effected by the supporters of some charity schools, and is aimed at,
and earnestly desired by all the rest: but Rome was not built in a
day. Till this great thing can be brought about, let the masters and
managers of the manufactures in the several places of the kingdom,
be so charitable as to employ the poor children for a certain number
of hours in every day, in the respective manufactures, while the
trustees are taking care to fill up their other hours of the day,
in the usual duties of the charity schools. It is an easy matter for
party-men, for designing and perverted minds, to invent colourable,
fallacious arguments, and to offer railing, under the appearance of
reasoning, against the best things in the world. But undoubtedly,
no impartial man, who is affected with a serious sense of goodness,
and a real love of his country, can think this proper and just view of
the charity schools, liable to any just weighty objection, or refuse to
contribute his endeavours to improve and raise them to that perfection
which is proposed in them. In the mean time, let no man be so weak
or so wicked as to deny, that when poor children cannot meet with
employment in any other honest way, rather than suffer their tender
age to be spent in idleness, or in learning the arts of lying, and
swearing, and stealing, it is true charity to them, and good service
done to our country, to employ them in learning the principles of
religion and virtue, till their age and strength will enable them
to become servants in families, or to be engaged in husbandry, or
manufacture, or any kind of mechanic trade or laborious employment;
for to these laborious employments are the charity children generally,
if not always turned, as soon as they become capable of them: and
therefore Catiline may be pleased to retract his objection concerning
shop-keepers, or retailers of commodities, wherein he has affirmed,
that their employments, which he says ought to fall to the share of
children of their own degree, are mostly anticipated and engrossed
by the managers of the charity schools. He must excuse my acquainting
your Lordship, that this affirmation is in fact directly false, which
is an inconvenience very apt to fall upon his affirmations, as it has
particularly done upon one of them more, which I would mention. For he
is not ashamed roundly to assert, That the principles of our common
people are debauched in our charity schools, who are taught, as soon
as they can speak, to blabber out High-church and Ormond, and so are
bred up to be traitors before they know what treason signifies. Your
Lordship, and other persons of integrity, whose words are the faithful
representatives of their meaning, would now think, if I had not
given you a key to Catiline's talk, that he has been fully convinced,
that the children in the charity schools are bred up to be traitors.
My Lord, if any one master be suffered by the trustees to continue
in any charity school, against whom proof can be brought, that he is
disaffected to the government, or that he does not as faithfully teach
the children obedience and loyalty to the King, as any other duty in
the catechism, then I will gratify Catiline with a licence to pull down
the schools, and hang up the masters, according to his heart's desire.
These, and such things as these, are urged with the like bitterness,
and as little truth, in the book mentioned above, viz. The Fable of
the Bees; or, Private Vices, Public Benefits, &c. Catiline explodes
the fundamental articles of faith, impiously comparing the doctrine
of the blessed Trinity to fee-fa-fum: this profligate author of the
Fable is not only an auxiliary to Catiline in opposition to faith, but
has taken upon him to tear up the very foundations of moral virtue,
and establish vice in its room. The best physician in the world
did never labour more, to purge the natural body of bad qualities,
than this bumble-bee has done to purge the body-politic of good
ones. He himself bears testimony to the truth of this charge against
him: for when he comes to the conclusion of his book, he makes this
observation upon himself and his performance: "After this, I flatter
myself to have demonstrated, that neither the friendly qualities and
kind affections that are natural to man, nor the real virtues he is
capable of acquiring by reason and self-denial, are the foundation
of society; but that what we call evil in this world, moral as well
as natural, is the grand principle that makes us sociable creatures,
the solid basis, the life and support of all trades and employments
without exception: that there we must look for the true origin of all
arts and sciences, and that the moment evil ceases, the society must
be spoiled, if not totally dissolved."
Now, my Lord, you see the grand design, the main drift of Catiline and
his confederates; now the scene opens, and the secret springs appear;
now the fraternity adventure to speak out, and surely no band of men
ever dared to speak at this rate before; now you see the true cause of
all their enmity to the poor charity schools; it is levelled against
religion: religion, my Lord, which the schools are instituted to
promote, and which this confederacy is resolved to destroy; for the
schools are certainly one of the greatest instruments of religion and
virtue, one of the firmest bulwarks against Popery, one of the best
recommendations of this people to the Divine favour, and therefore
one of the greatest blessings to our country of any thing that has
been set on foot since our happy Reformation and deliverance from
the idolatry and tyranny of Rome. If any trivial inconvenience did
arise from so excellent a work, as some little inconvenience attends
all human institutions and affairs, the excellency of the work would
still be matter of joy, and find encouragement with all the wise
and the good, who despise such insignificant objections against it,
as other men are not ashamed to raise and defend.
Now your Lordship also sees the true cause of the satire, which
is continually formed against the clergy, by Catiline and his
confederates. Why should Mr. Hall's conviction and execution be any
more an objection against the clergy, than Mr. Layer's against the
gentlemen of the long robe? Why, because the profession of the law
does not immediately relate to religion: and therefore Catiline will
allow, that if any persons of that profession should be traitors,
or otherwise vicious, all the rest may, notwithstanding the iniquity
of a brother, be as loyal and virtuous as any other subjects in the
King's dominions: but because matters of religion are the professed
concern, and the employment of the clergy; therefore Catiline's
logic makes it out, as clear as the day, that if any of them be
disaffected to the government, all the rest are so too; or if any
of them be chargeable with vice, this consequence from it is plain,
that all or most of the rest are as vicious as the devil can make
them. I shall not trouble your Lordship with a particular vindication
of the clergy, nor is there any reason that I should, for they are
already secure of your Lordship's good affection to them, and they
are able to vindicate themselves wheresoever such a vindication is
wanted, being as faithful, and virtuous, and learned, a body of men
as any in Europe; and yet they suspend the publication of arguments
in a solemn defence of themselves, because they neither expect nor
desire approbation and esteem from impious and abandoned men; and,
at the same time, they cannot doubt that all persons, not only of
great penetration, but of common sense, do now clearly see, that
the arrows shot against the clergy are intended to wound and destroy
the divine institution of the ministerial offices, and to extirpate
the religion which the sacred offices were appointed to preserve and
promote. This was always supposed and suspected by every honest and
impartial man; but it is now demonstrated by those who before had
given occasion to such suspicions, for they have now openly declared,
that faith, in the principal articles of it, is not only needless,
but ridiculous, that the welfare of human society must sink and
perish under the encouragement of virtue, and that immorality is
the only firm foundation whereon the happiness of mankind can be
built and subsist. The publication of such tenets as these, an open
avowed proposal to extirpate the Christian faith and all virtue, and
to fix moral evil for the basis of the government, is so stunning, so
shocking, so frightful, so flagrant an enormity, that if it should be
imputed to us as a national guilt, the Divine vengeance must inevitably
fall upon us. And how far this enormity would become a national guilt,
if it should pass disregarded and unpunished, a casuist less skilful
and discerning than your Lordship may easily guess. And, no doubt,
your Lordship's good judgment, in so plain and important a case,
has made you, like a wise and faithful patriot, resolve to use your
utmost endeavours in your high station, to defend religion from the
bold attacks made upon it.
As soon as I have seen a copy of the bill, for the better security
of his Majesty and his happy government, by the better security of
religion in Great Britain, your Lordship's just scheme of politics,
your love of your country, and your great services done to it, shall
again be acknowledged by,
My Lord,
Your most faithful humble Servant;
Theophilus Philo-Britannus.
These violent accusations, and the great clamour every where raised
against the book, by governors, masters, and other champions of charity
schools, together with the advice of friends, and the reflection on
what I owed to myself, drew from me the following answer. The candid
reader, in the perusal of it, will not be offended at the repetition
of some passages, one of which he may have met with twice already,
when he shall consider that, to make my defence by itself to the
public, I was obliged to repeat what had been quoted in the Letter,
since the paper would unavoidably fall into the hands of many who
had never seen either the Fable of the Bees, or the Defamatory Letter
wrote against it. The Answer was published in the London Journal of
August 10, 1723, in these words:
Whereas, in the Evening Post of Thursday July 11, a presentment was
inserted of the Grand Jury of Middlesex, against the publisher of
a book, intituled, The Fable of the Bees; or, Private Vices, Public
Benefits; and since that, a passionate and abusive Letter has been
published against the same book, and the author of it, in the London
Journal of Saturday, July 27; I think myself indispensably obliged
to vindicate the above said book against the black aspersions that
undeservedly have been cast upon it, being conscious that I have not
had the least ill design in composing it. The accusations against it
having been made openly in the public papers, it is not equitable
the defence of it should appear in a more private manner. What I
have to say in my behalf, I shall address to all men of sense and
sincerity, asking no other favour of them, than their patience and
attention. Setting aside what in that Letter relates to others, and
every thing that is foreign and immaterial, I shall begin with the
passage that is quoted from the book, viz. "After this, I flatter
myself to have demonstrated, that neither the friendly qualities and
kind affections that are natural to man, nor the real virtues he is
capable of acquiring by reason and self-denial, are the foundation
of society; but that what we call evil in this world, moral as well
as natural, is the grand principle that makes us sociable creatures;
the solid basis, the life and support of all trades and employments
without exception: That there we must look for the true origin of
all arts and sciences; and that the moment evil ceases, the society
must be spoiled, if not totally dissolved." These words, I own,
are in the book, and, being both innocent and true, like to remain
there in all future impressions. But I will likewise own very freely,
that, if I had wrote with a design to be understood by the meanest
capacities, I would not have chose the subject there treated of; or if
I had, I would have amplified and explained every period, talked and
distinguished magisterially, and never appeared without the fescue in
my hand. As for example; to make the passage pointed at intelligible,
I would have bestowed a page or two on the meaning of the word Evil;
after that I would have taught them, that every defect, every want,
was an evil; that on the multiplicity of those wants depended all
those mutual services which the individual members of a society pay
to each other; and that consequently, the greater variety there was
of wants, the larger number of individuals might find their private
interest in labouring for the good of others, and, united together,
compose one body. Is there a trade or handicraft but what supplies us
with something we wanted? This want certainly, before it was supplied,
was an evil, which that trade or handicraft was to remedy, and without
which it could never have been thought of. Is there an art or science
that was not invented to mend some defect! Had this latter not existed,
there could have been no occasion for the former to move it. I say,
p. 236. "The excellency of human thought and contrivance has been,
and is yet nowhere more conspicuous, than in the variety of tools
and instruments of workmen and artificers, and the multiplicity of
engines, that were all invented, either to assist the weakness of
man, to correct his many imperfections, to gratify his laziness,
or obviate his impatience." Several foregoing pages run in the same
strain. But what relation has all this to religion or infidelity,
more than it has to navigation or the peace in the north?
The many hands that are employed to supply our natural wants, that
are really such, as hunger, thirst, and nakedness, are inconsiderable
to the vast numbers that are all innocently gratifying the depravity
of our corrupt nature, I mean the industrious, who get a livelihood
by their honest labour, to which the vain and voluptuous must be
beholden for all their tools and implements of ease and luxury. "The
short-sighted vulgar, in the chain of causes, seldom can see farther
than one link; but those who can enlarge their view, and will give
themselves leisure of gazing on the prospect of concatenated events,
may, in a hundred places, see good spring up, and pullulate from evil,
as naturally as chickens do from eggs."
The words are to be found p. 46. in the Remark made on the seeming
paradox; that in the grumbling hive,
The worst of all the multitude
Did something for the common good.
Where, in many instances, may be amply discovered, how unsearchable
Providence daily orders the comforts of the laborious, and even the
deliverances of the oppressed, secretly to come forth, not only from
the vices of the luxurious, but likewise the crimes of the flagitious
and most abandoned.
Men of candour and capacity perceive, at first sight, that in the
passage censured, there is no meaning hid or expressed that is not
altogether contained in the following words: "Man is a necessitous
creature on innumerable accounts, and yet from those very necessities,
and nothing else, arise all trades and employments." But it is
ridiculous for men to meddle with books above their sphere.
The Fable of the Bees was designed for the entertainment of people of
knowledge and education, when they have an idle hour which they know
not how to spend better: it is a book of severe and exalted morality,
that contains a strict test of virtue, an infallible touchstone
to distinguish the real from the counterfeited, and shows many
actions to be faulty that are palmed upon the world for good ones:
it describes the nature and symptoms of human passions, detects their
force and disguises; and traces self-love in its darkest recesses;
I might safely add, beyond any other system of ethics: the whole is a
rhapsody void of order or method, but no part of it has any thing in
it that is sour or pedantic; the style, I confess, is very unequal,
sometimes very high and rhetorical, and sometimes very low, and even
very trivial; such as it is, I am satisfied that it has diverted
persons of great probity and virtue, and unquestionable good sense;
and I am in no fear that it will ever cease to do so while it is
read by such. Whoever has seen the violent charge against this book,
will pardon me for saying more in commendation of it, than a man,
not labouring under the same necessity, would do of his own work on
any other occasion.
The encomiums upon stews complained of in the presentment are no
where in the book. What might give a handle to this charge, must
be a political dissertation concerning the best method to guard and
preserve women of honour and virtue from the insults of dissolute men,
whose passions are often ungovernable: As in this there is a dilemma
between two evils, which it is impracticable to shun both, so I have
treated it with the utmost caution, and begin thus: "I am far from
encouraging vice, and should think it an unspeakable felicity for a
state, if the sin of uncleanness could be utterly banished from it;
but I am afraid it is impossible." I give my reasons why I think it
so; and, speaking occasionally of the music-houses at Amsterdam,
I give a short account of them, than which nothing can be more
harmless; and I appeal to all impartial judges, whether, what I
have said of them is not ten times more proper to give men (even
the voluptuous of any state) a disgust and aversion against them,
than it is to raise any criminal desire. I am sorry the Grand Jury
should conceive that I published this with a design to debauch the
nation, without considering, that, in the first place, there is not
a sentence nor a syllable that can either offend the chastest ear,
or sully the imagination of the most vicious; or, in the second,
that the matter complained of is manifestly addressed to magistrates
and politicians, or, at least, the more serious and thinking part
of mankind; whereas a general corruption of manners as to lewdness,
to be produced by reading, can only be apprehended from obscenities
easily purchased, and every way adapted to the tastes and capacities
of the heedless multitude and unexperienced youth of both sexes: but
that the performance, so outrageously exclaimed against, was never
calculated for either of these classes of people, is self-evident
from every circumstance. The beginning of the prose is altogether
philosophical, and hardly intelligible to any that have not been used
to matters of speculation; and the running title of it is so far from
being specious or inviting, that without having read the book itself,
nobody knows what to make of it, while, at the same time, the price is
five shillings. From all which it is plain, that if the book contains
any dangerous tenets, I have not been very solicitous to scatter them
among the people. I have not said a word to please or engage them, and
the greatest compliment I have made them has been, Apage vulgus. But
as nothing (I say, p. 138) would more clearly demonstrate the falsity
of my notions than that, the generality of the people should fall in
with them, so I do not expect the approbation of the multitude. I write
not to many, nor seek for any well-wishers, but among the few that can
think abstractly, and have their minds elevated above the vulgar." Of
this I have made no ill use, and ever preserved such a tender regard
to the public, that when I have advanced any uncommon sentiments,
I have used all the precautions imaginable, that they might not be
hurtful to weak minds that might casually dip into the book. When
(p. 137.) I owned, "That it was my sentiment that no society could be
raised into a rich and mighty kingdom, or so raised subsist in their
wealth and power for any considerable time, without the vices of man,"
I had premised, what was true, "That I had never said or imagined,
that man could not be virtuous as well in a rich and mighty kingdom,
as in the most pitiful commonwealth:" which caution, a man less
scrupulous than myself might have thought superfluous, when he had
already explained himself on that head in the very same paragraph
which begins thus: "I lay down, as a first principle, that in all
societies, great or small, it is the duty of every member of it to
be good; that virtue ought to be encouraged, vice discountenanced,
the laws obeyed, and the transgressors punished." There is not a line
in the book that contradicts this doctrine, and I defy my enemies
to disprove what I have advanced, p. 139, "That if I have shown
the way to worldly greatness, I have always, without hesitation,
preferred the road that leads to virtue." No man ever took more
pains not to be misconstrued than myself: mind p. 138, when I say,
"That societies cannot be raised to wealth and power, and the top
of earthly glory, without vices; I do not think, that by so saying,
I bid men be vicious, any more than I bid them be quarrelsome or
covetous, when I affirm, that the profession of the law could not be
maintained in such numbers and splendour, if there was not abundance
of too selfish and litigious people." A caution of the same nature
I had already given towards the end of the Preface, on account of
a palpable evil inseparable from the felicity of London. To search
into the real causes of things, imports no ill design, nor has any
tendency to do harm. A man may write on poisons, and be an excellent
physician. Page 235, I say, "No man needs to guard himself against
blessings, but calamities require hands to avert them." And lower,
"It is the extremities of heat and cold, the inconstancy and badness
of seasons, the violence and uncertainty of winds, the vast power
and treachery of water, the rage and untractableness of fire, and
the stubbornness and sterility of the earth, that rack our invention,
how we shall either avoid the mischiefs they produce, or correct the
malignity of them, and turn their several forces to our own advantage a
thousand different ways." While a man is inquiring into the occupation
of vast multitudes, I cannot see why he may not say all this and much
more, without being accused of depreciating and speaking slightly
of the gifts and munificence of heaven; when, at the same time, he
demonstrates, that without rain and sunshine this globe would not
be habitable to creatures like ourselves. It is an out-of-the-way
subject, and I would never quarrel with the man who should tell me
that it might as well have been let alone: yet I always thought it
would please men of any tolerable taste, and not be easily lost.
My vanity I could never conquer, so well as I could wish; and I am too
proud to commit crimes, and as to the main scope, the intent of the
book, I mean the view it was wrote with, I protest that it has been
with the utmost sincerity, what I have declared of it in the Preface,
where you will find these words: "If you ask me, why I have done all
this, cui bono? And what good these notions will produce? Truly,
besides the reader's diversion, I believe none at all; but if I
was asked, what naturally ought to be expected from them? I would
answer, That, in the first place, the people who continually find
fault with others, by reading them would be taught to look at home,
and examining their own consciences, be made ashamed of always railing
at what they are more or less guilty of themselves; and that, in the
next, those who are so fond of the ease and comforts of a great and
flourishing nation, would learn more patiently to submit to those
inconveniences, which no government upon earth can remedy, when they
should see the impossibility of enjoying any great share of the first,
without partaking likewise of the latter."
The first impression of the Fable of the Bees, which came out in 1714,
was never carped at, or publicly taken notice of; and all the reason
I can think on, why this second edition should be so unmercifully
treated, though it has many precautions which the former wanted,
is an Essay on Charity and Charity Schools, which is added to what
was printed before. I confess, that it is my sentiment, that all hard
and dirty work, ought, in a well-governed nation, to be the lot and
portion of the poor, and that to divert their children from useful
labour till they are fourteen or fifteen years old, is a wrong method
to qualify them for it when are they grown up. I have given several
reasons for my opinion in that Essay, to which I refer all impartial
men of understanding, assuring them that they will not meet with such
monstrous impiety in it as reported. What an advocate I have been for
libertinism and immorality, and what an enemy to all instructions of
youth in the Christian faith, may be collected from the pains I have
taken on education for above seven pages together: and afterwards
again, page 193, where speaking of the instructions the children of
the poor might receive at church; from which, I say, "Or some other
place of worship, I would not have the meanest of a parish that
is able to walk to it, be absent on Sundays," I have these words:
"It is the Sabbath, the most useful day in seven, that is set apart
for divine service and religious exercise, as well as resting from
bodily labour; and it is a duty incumbent on all magistrates, to take
a particular care of that day. The poor more especially, and their
children, should be made to go to church on it, both in the fore and
the afternoon, because they have no time on any other. By precept and
example, they ought to be encouraged to it from their very infancy:
the wilful neglect of it ought to be counted scandalous; and if
downright compulsion to what I urge might seem too harsh, and perhaps
impracticable, all diversions at least ought strictly to be prohibited,
and the poor hindered from every amusement abroad, that might allure
or draw them from it." If the arguments I have made use of are not
convincing, I desire they may be refuted, and I will acknowledge it as
a favour in any one that shall convince me of my error, without ill
language, by showing me wherein I have been mistaken: but calumny,
it seems, is the shortest way of confuting an adversary, when men
are touched in a sensible part. Vast sums are gathered for these
charity schools, and I understand human nature too well to imagine,
that the sharers of the money should hear them spoke against with
any patience. I foresaw, therefore, the usage I was to receive, and
having repeated the common cant that is made for charity schools,
I told my readers, page 165. "This is the general cry, and he that
speaks the least word against it, is an uncharitable, hard-hearted,
and inhuman, if not a wicked, profane and atheistical wretch." For
this reason, it cannot be thought, that it was a great surprise to
me, when in that extraordinary letter to Lord C. I saw myself called
"profligate author; the publication of my tenets, an open and avowed
proposal to extirpate the Christian faith and all virtue, and what
I had done so stunning, so shocking, so frightful, so flagrant an
enormity, that it cried for the vengeance of Heaven." This is no more
than what I have already expected from the enemies to truth and fair
dealing, and I shall retort nothing on the angry author of that letter,
who endeavours to expose me to the public fury. I pity him, and have
charity enough to believe that he has been imposed upon himself, by
trusting to fame and the hearsay of others; for no man in his wits
can imagine that he should have read one quarter part of my book,
and write as he does.
I am sorry if the words Private Vices, Public Benefits, have ever
given any offence to a well-meaning man. The mystery of them is
soon unfolded, when once they are rightly understood; but no man of
sincerity will question the innocence of them, that has read the last
paragraph, where I take my leave of the reader, "and conclude with
repeating the seeming paradox, the substance of which is advanced
in the title page; that private vices, by the dexterous management
of a skilful politician, may be turned into public benefits." These
are the last words of the book, printed in the same large character
with the rest. But I set aside all what I have said in my vindication;
and if, in the whole book called the Fable of the Bees, and presented
by the grand jury of Middlesex to the judges of the King's Bench,
there is to be found the least title of blasphemy or profaneness,
or any thing tending to immorality or the corruption of manners, I
desire it may be published; and if this be done without invective,
personal reflections, or setting the mob upon me, things I never
design to answer, I will not only recant, but likewise beg pardon of
the offended public in the most solemn manner: and (if the hangman
might be thought too good for the office) burn the book myself, at any
reasonable time and place my adversaries shall be pleased to appoint.
The Author of the Fable of the Bees.
THE
FABLE OF THE BEES.
PART II.
Opinionum enim Commenta delet dies;
Naturæ judicia confirmat.
Cicero de Nat. Deor. Lib. 2.
PREFACE.
Considering the manifold clamours, that have been raised from several
quarters, against the Fable of the Bees, even after I had published
the vindication of it, many of my readers will wonder to see me come
out with a second part, before I have taken any further notice of
what has been said against the first. Whatever is published, I take
it for granted, is submitted to the judgment of all the world that
see it; but it is very unreasonable, that authors should not be upon
the same footing with their critics. The treatment I have received,
and the liberties some gentlemen have taken with me, being well known,
the public must be convinced before now, that, in point of civility,
I owe my adversaries nothing: and if those, who have taken upon them
to school and reprimand me, had an undoubted right to censure what
they thought fit, without asking my leave, and to say of me what
they pleased, I ought to have an equal privilege to examine their
censures, and, without consulting them, to judge in my turn, whether
they are worth answering or not. The public must be the umpire between
us. From the Appendix that has been added to the first part, ever
since the third edition, it is manifest, that I have been far from
endeavouring to stifle, either the arguments or the invectives that
were made against me; and, not to have left the reader uninformed
of any thing extant of either sort, I once thought to have taken
this opportunity of presenting him with a list of the adversaries
that have appeared in print against me: but as they are in nothing
so considerable as they are in their numbers, I was afraid it would
have looked like ostentation, unless I would have answered them all,
which I shall never attempt. The reason, therefore, of my obstinate
silence has been all along, that hitherto I have not been accused
of any thing that is criminal or immoral, for which every middling
capacity could not have framed a very good answer, from some part or
other, either of the vindication or the book itself.
However, I have wrote, and had by me near two years, a defence of
the Fable of the Bees, in which I have stated and endeavoured to
solve all the objections that might reasonably be made against it,
as to the doctrine contained in it, and the detriment it might be
of to others: for this is the only thing about which I ever had
any concern. Being conscious, that I have wrote with no ill design,
I should be sorry to lie under the imputation of it: but as to the
goodness or badness of the performance itself, the thought was never
worth my care; and therefore those critics, that found fault with
my bad reasoning, and said of the book, that it is ill wrote, that
there is nothing new in it, that it is incoherent stuff, that the
language is barbarous, the humour low, and the style mean and pitiful;
those critics, I say, are all very welcome to say what they please:
In the main, I believe they are in the right; but if they are not,
I shall never give myself the trouble to contradict them; for I never
think an author more foolishly employed, than when he is vindicating
his own abilities. As I wrote it for my diversion, so I had my ends;
if those who read it have not had theirs, I am sorry for it, though
I think myself not at all answerable for the disappointment. It was
not wrote by subscription, nor have I ever warranted, any where,
what use or goodness it would be of: on the contrary, in the very
preface, I have called it an inconsiderable trifle; and since that,
I have publicly owned that it was a rhapsody. If people will buy
books without looking into them, or knowing what they are, I cannot
see whom they have to blame but themselves, when they do not answer
expectations. Besides, it is no new thing for people to dislike books
after they have bought them: this will happen sometimes, even when
men of considerable figure had given them the strongest assurances,
before hand, that they would be pleased with them.
A considerable part of the defence I mentioned, has been seen by
several of my friends, who have been in expectation of it for some
time. I have stayed neither for types nor paper, and yet I have
several reasons, why I do not yet publish it; which, having touched
nobody's money, nor made any promise concerning it, I beg leave to
keep to myself. Most of my adversaries, whenever it comes out, will
think it soon enough; and nobody suffers by the delay but myself.
Since I was first attacked, it has long been a matter of wonder and
perplexity to me to find out, why and how men should conceive, that I
had wrote with an intent to debauch the nation, and promote all manner
of vice: and it was a great while before I could derive the charge from
any thing, but wilful mistake and premeditated malice. But since I have
seen, that men could be serious in apprehending the increase of rogues
and robberies, from the frequent representations of the Beggar's Opera,
I am persuaded, that there really are such wrongheads in the world,
as will fancy vices to be encouraged, when they see them exposed. To
the same perverseness of judgment it must have been owing, that some
of my adversaries were highly incensed with me, for having owned,
in the Vindication, that hitherto I had not been able to conquer
my vanity, as well as I could have wished. From their censure it
is manifest, that they must have imagined, that to complain of a
frailty, was the same as to brag of it. But if these angry gentlemen
had been less blinded with passion, or seen with better eyes,
they would easily have perceived, unless they were too well pleased
with their pride, that to have made the same confession themselves,
they wanted nothing but sincerity. Whoever boasts of his vanity, and
at the same time shows his arrogance, is unpardonable. But when we
hear a man complain of an infirmity, and his want of power entirely
to cure it, whilst he suffers no symptoms of it to appear, that we
could justly upbraid him with, we are so far from being offended,
that we are pleased with the ingenuity, and applaud his candour;
and when such an author takes no greater liberties with his readers,
than what is usual in the same manner of writing, and owns that to
be the result of vanity, which others tell a thousand lies about,
his confession is a compliment, and the frankness of it ought not
to be looked upon otherwise, than as a civility to the public, a
condescension he was not obliged to make. It is not in feeling the
passions, or in being affected with the frailties of nature, that vice
consists; but in indulging and obeying the call of them, contrary to
the dictates of reason. Whoever pays great deference to his readers,
respectfully submitting himself to their judgment, and tells them
at the same time, that he is entirely destitute of pride; whoever,
I say, does this, spoils his compliment whilst he is making of it:
for it is no better than bragging, that it costs him nothing. Persons
of taste, and the least delicacy, can be but little affected with a
man's modesty, of whom they are sure, that he is wholly void of pride
within: the absence of the one makes the virtue of the other cease;
at least the merit of it is not greater than that of chastity in an
eunuch, or humility in a beggar. What glory would it be to the memory
of Cato, that he refused to touch the water that was brought him,
if it was not supposed that he was very thirsty when he did it?
The reader will find, that in this second part I have endeavoured
to illustrate and explain several things, that were obscure and only
hinted at in the first.
Whilst I was forming this design, I found, on the one hand, that,
as to myself, the easiest way of executing it, would be by dialogue;
but I knew, on the other, that to discuss opinions, and manage
controversies, it is counted the most unfair manner of writing. When
partial men have a mind to demolish an adversary, and triumph over
him with little expence, it has long been a frequent practice to
attack him with dialogues, in which the champion, who is to lose the
battle, appears at the very beginning of the engagement, to be the
victim that is to be sacrificed, and seldom makes a better figure
than cocks on Shrove-Tuesday, that receive blows, but return none,
and are visibly set up on purpose to be knocked down. That this is
to be said against dialogues, is certainly true; but it is as true,
that there is no other manner of writing, by which greater reputation
has been obtained. Those, who have most excelled all others in it,
were the two most famous authors of all antiquity, Plato and Cicero:
the one wrote almost all his philosophical works in dialogues, and the
other has left us nothing else. It is evident, then, that the fault
of those, who have not succeeded in dialogues; was in the management,
and not in the manner of writing; and that nothing but the ill use that
has been made of it, could ever have brought it into disrepute. The
reason why Plato preferred dialogues to any other manner of writing,
he said, was, that things thereby might look, as if they were acted,
rather than told: the same was afterwards given by Cicero in the same
words, rendered into his own language. The greatest objection that
in reality lies against it, is the difficulty there is in writing
them well. The chief of Plato's interlocutors was always his master
Socrates, who every where maintains his character with great dignity;
but it would have been impossible to have made such an extraordinary
person speak like himself on so many emergencies, if Plato had not
been as great a man as Socrates.
Cicero, who studied nothing more than to imitate Plato, introduced in
his dialogues some of the greatest men in Rome, his contemporaries,
that were known to be of different opinions, and made them maintain
and defend every one his own sentiments, as strenuously, and in as
lively a manner, as they could possibly have done themselves; and
in reading his dialogues a man may easily imagine himself to be in
company with several learned men of different tastes and studies. But
to do this, a man must have Cicero's capacity. Lucian likewise,
and several others among the ancients, chose for their speakers,
persons of known characters. That this interests and engages the
reader more than strange names, is undeniable; but then, when the
personages fall short of those characters, it plainly shows, that
the author undertook what he was not able to execute. To avoid this
inconveniency, most dialogue-writers among the moderns, have made
use of fictitious names, which they either invented themselves or
borrowed of others. These are, generally speaking, judicious compounds,
taken from the Greek, that serve for short characters of the imaginary
persons they are given to, denoting either the party they side with,
or what it is they love or hate. But of all these happy compounds,
there is not one that has appeared equally charming to so many authors
of different views and talents, as Philalethes; a plain demonstration
of the great regard mankind generally have to truth. There has not been
a paper-war of note, these two hundred years, in which both parties,
at one time or other, have not made use of this victorious champion;
who, which side soever he has fought on, has hitherto, like Dryden's
Almanzor, been conqueror, and constantly carried all before him. But,
as by this means the event of the battle must always be known, as soon
as the combatants are named, and before a blow is struck; and as all
men are not equally peaceable in their dispositions, many readers have
complained, that they had not sport enough for their money, and that
knowing so much before hand, spoiled all their diversion. This humour
having prevailed for some time, authors are grown less solicitous
about the names of the personages they introduce. This careless way,
seeming to me at least as reasonable as any other, I have followed;
and had no other meaning by the names I have given my interlocutors,
than to distinguish them, without the least regard to the derivation
of words, or any thing relating to the etymology of them: all the care
I have taken about them, that I know of, is, that the pronunciation
of them should not be harsh, nor the sounds offensive.
But though the names I have chosen are feigned, and the circumstances
of the persons fictitious, the characters themselves are real, and
as faithfully copied from nature as I have been able to take them. I
have known critics find fault with play-wrights for annexing short
characters to the names they gave the persons of the drama; alleging,
that it is forestalling their pleasure, and that whatever the actors
are represented to be, they want no monitor, and are wise enough to
find it out themselves. But I could never approve of this censure:
there is a satisfaction, I think, in knowing one's company; and when
I am to converse with people for a considerable time, I desire to
be well acquainted with them, and the sooner the better. It is for
this reason, I thought it proper to give the reader some account
of the persons that are to entertain him. As they are supposed to
be people of quality, I beg leave, before I come to particulars,
to premise some things concerning the beau monde in general; which,
though most people perhaps know them every body does not always attend
to. Among the fashionable part of mankind throughout Christendom,
there are, in all countries, persons, who, though they feel a just
abhorrence to atheism and professed infidelity, yet have very little
religion, and are scarce half-believers, when their lives come to be
looked into, and their sentiments examined. What is chiefly aimed
at in a refined education, is to procure as much ease and pleasure
upon earth, as that can afford: therefore men are first instructed
in all the various arts of rendering their behaviour agreeable to
others, with the least disturbance to themselves. Secondly, they
are imbued with the knowledge of all the elegant comforts of life,
as well as the lessons of human prudence, to avoid pain and trouble,
in order to enjoy as much of the world, and with as little opposition,
as it is possible. Whilst thus men study their own private interest,
in assisting each other to promote and increase the pleasures of life
in general, they find by experience, that to compass those ends,
every thing ought to be banished from conversation, that can have
the least tendency of making others uneasy; and to reproach men
with their faults or imperfections, neglects or omissions, or to
put them in mind of their duty, are offices that none are allowed
to take upon them, but parents or professed masters and tutors; nor
even they before company: but to reprove and pretend to teach others,
we have no authority over, is ill manners, even in a clergyman out of
the pulpit; nor is he there to talk magisterially, or ever to mention
things, that are melancholy or dismal, if he should pass for a polite
preacher: but whatever we may vouchsafe to hear at church, neither
the certainty of a future state, nor the necessity of repentance, nor
any thing else relating to the essentials of Christianity, are ever
to be talked of when we are out of it, among the beau monde, upon
any account whatever. The subject is not diverting: besides, every
body is supposed to know those things, and to take care accordingly;
nay, it is unmannerly to think otherwise. The decency in fashion
being the chief, if not the only, rule, all modish people walk by,
not a few of them go to church, and receive the sacrament, from the
same principle that obliges them to pay visits to one another, and
now and then to make an entertainment. But as the greatest care of
the beau monde is to be agreeable, and appear well-bred, so most of
them take particular care, and many against their consciences, not
to seem burdened with more religion than it is fashionable to have,
for fear of being thought to be either hypocrites or bigots.
Virtue, however, is a very fashionable word, and some of the most
luxurious are extremely fond of the amiable sound; though they
mean nothing by it, but a great veneration for whatever is courtly
or sublime, and an equal aversion to every thing that is vulgar or
unbecoming. They seem to imagine, that it chiefly consists in a strict
compliance to the rules of politeness, and all the laws of honour,
that have any regard to the respect that is due to themselves. It is
the existence of this virtue, that is often maintained with so much
pomp of words, and for the eternity of which so many champions are
ready to take up arms: whilst the votaries of it deny themselves
no pleasure, they can enjoy, either fashionably or in secret,
and, instead of sacrificing the heart to the love of real virtue,
can only condescend to abandon the outward deformity of vice, for
the satisfaction they receive from appearing to be well-bred. It is
counted ridiculous for men to commit violence upon themselves, or to
maintain, that virtue requires self-denial: all court philosophers are
agreed, that nothing can be lovely or desirable, that is mortifying or
uneasy. A civil behaviour among the fair in public, and a deportment
inoffensive both in words and actions, is all the chastity the polite
world requires in men. What liberties soever a man gives himself in
private, his reputation shall never suffer, whilst he conceals his
amours from all those that are not unmannerly inquisitive, and takes
care that nothing criminal can ever be proved upon him. Si non caste,
saltem caute, is a precept that sufficiently shows what every body
expects; and though incontinence is owned to be a sin, yet never to
have been guilty of it is a character which most single men under
thirty would not be fond of, even amongst modest women.
As the world everywhere, in compliment itself, desires to be counted
really virtuous, so bare-faced vices, and all trespasses committed
in sight of it, are heinous and unpardonable. To see a man drunk in
the open street, or any serious assembly at noon-day, is shocking;
because it is a violation of the laws of decency, and plainly shows a
want of respect, and neglect of duty, which every body is supposed to
owe to the public. Men of mean circumstances likewise may be blamed
for spending more time or money in drinking, than they can afford;
but when these and all worldly considerations are out of the question,
drunkenness itself, as it is a sin, an offence to Heaven, is seldom
censured; and no man of fortune scruples to own, that he was at such
a time in such a company, where they drank very hard. Where nothing is
committed, that is either beastly, or otherwise extravagant, societies,
that meet on purpose to drink and be merry, reckon their manner of
passing away the time as innocent as any other, though most days in
the year they spend five or six hours of the four and twenty in that
diversion. No man had ever the reputation of being a good companion,
that would never drink to excess; and if a man's constitution be so
strong, or himself so cautious, that the dose he takes overnight,
never disorders him the next day, the worst that shall be said of him,
is, that he loves his bottle with moderation: though every night
constantly he makes drinking his pastime, and hardly ever goes to
bed entirely sober.
Avarice, it is true, is generally detested; but as men may be as guilty
of it by scraping money together, as they can be by hoarding it up,
so all the base, the sordid, and unreasonable means of acquiring
wealth, ought to be equally condemned and exploded, with the vile,
the pitiful, and penurious way of saving it: but the world is more
indulgent; no man is taxed with avarice, that will conform with the
beau monde, and live every way in splendour, though he should always
be raising the rents of his estate, and hardly suffer his tenants to
live under him; though he should enrich himself by usury, and all the
barbarous advantages that extortion can make of the necessities of
others: and though, moreover, he should be a bad paymaster himself,
and an unmerciful creditor to the unfortunate; it is all one, no
man is counted covetous, who entertains well, and will allow his
family what is fashionable for a person in his condition. How often
do we see men of very large estates unreasonably solicitous after
greater riches! What greediness do some men discover in extending
the perquisites of their offices! What dishonourable condescensions
are made for places of profit! What slavish attendance is given, and
what low submissions and unmanly cringes are made to favourites for
pensions, by men that could subsist without them! Yet these things
are no reproach to men, and they are never upbraided with them but by
their enemies, or those that envy them, and perhaps the discontented
and the poor. On the contrary, most of the well-bred people, that live
in affluence themselves, will commend them for their diligence and
activity; and say of them, that they take care of the main chance;
that they are industrious men for their families, and that they know
how, and are fit, to live in the world.
But these kind constructions are not more hurtful to the practice of
Christianity, than the high opinion which, in an artful education, men
are taught to have of their species, is to the belief of its doctrine,
if a right use be not made of it. That the great pre-eminence we
have over all other creatures we are acquainted with, consists in
our rational faculty, is very true; but it is as true, that the more
we are taught to admire ourselves, the more our pride increases,
and the greater stress we lay on the sufficiency of our reason: For
as experience teaches us, that the greater and the more transcendent
the esteem is, which men have for their own worth, the less capable
they generally are to bear injuries without resentment; so we see,
in like manner, that the more exalted the notions are which men
entertain of their better part, their reasoning faculty, the more
remote and averse they will be from giving their assent to any thing
that seems to insult over or contradict it: And asking a man to admit
of any thing he cannot comprehend, the proud reasoner calls an affront
to human understanding. But as ease and pleasure are the grand aim
of the beau monde, and civility is inseparable from their behaviour,
whether they are believers or not, so well-bred people never quarrel
with the religion they are brought up in: They will readily comply
with every ceremony in divine worship they have been used to, and
never dispute with you either about the Old or the New Testament,
if, in your turn, you will forbear laying great stress upon faith
and mysteries, and allow them to give an allegorical, or any other
figurative sense to the History of the Creation, and whatever else
they cannot comprehend or account for by the light of nature.
I am far from believing, that, among the fashionable people, there
are not, in all Christian countries, many persons of stricter virtue,
and greater sincerity in religion, than I have here described; but
that a considerable part of mankind have a great resemblance to the
picture I have been drawing, I appeal to every knowing and candid
reader. Horatio, Cleomenes, and Fulvia, are the names I have given
to my interlocutors: The first represents one of the modish people
I have been speaking of, but rather of the better sort of them as to
morality, though he seems to have a greater distrust of the sincerity
of clergymen, than he has of that of any other profession, and to
be of the opinion, which is expressed in that trite and specious, as
well as false and injurious saying, priests of all religions are the
same. As to his studies, he is supposed to be tolerably well versed
in the classics, and to have read more than is usual for people of
quality, that are born to great estates. He is a man of strict honour,
and of justice as well as humanity; rather profuse than covetous,
and altogether disinterested in his principles. He has been abroad,
seen the world, and is supposed to be possessed of the greatest part
of the accomplishments that usually gain a man the reputation of
being very much of a gentleman.
Cleomenes had been just such another, but was much reformed. As he
had formerly, for his amusement only, been dipping into anatomy,
and several parts of natural philosophy; so, since he was come home
from his travels, he had studied human nature, and the knowledge of
himself, with great application. It is supposed, that, whilst he was
thus employing most of his leisure hours, he met with the Fable of the
Bees; and, making a great use of what he read, compared what he felt
himself within, as well as what he had seen in the world, with the
sentiments set forth in that book, and found the insincerity of men
fully as universal, as it was there represented. He had no opinion of
the pleas and excuses that are commonly made to cover the real desires
of the heart; and he ever suspected the sincerity of men, whom he saw
to be fond of the world, and with eagerness grasping at wealth and
power, when they pretended that the great end of their labours was to
have opportunities of doing good to others upon earth, and becoming
themselves more thankful to Heaven; especially, if they conformed
with the beau monde, and seemed to take delight in a fashionable way
of living: He had the same suspicion of all men of sense, who, having
read and considered the gospel, would maintain the possibility that
persons might pursue worldly glory with all their strength, and, at the
same time, be good Christians. Cleomenes himself believed the Bible
to be the word of God, without reserve, and was entirely convinced
of the mysterious, as well as historical truths that are contained
in it. But as he was fully persuaded, not only of the veracity of the
Christian religion, but likewise of the severity of its precepts, so
he attacked his passions with vigour, but never scrupled to own his
want of power to subdue them, or the violent opposition he felt from
within; often complaining, that the obstacles he met with from flesh
and blood, were insurmountable. As he understood perfectly well the
difficulty of the task required in the gospel, so he ever opposed those
easy casuists, that endeavoured to lessen and extenuate it for their
own ends; and he loudly maintained, that men's gratitude to Heaven
was an unacceptable offering, whilst they continued to live in ease
and luxury, and were visibly solicitous after their share of the pomp
and vanity of this world. In the very politeness of conversation, the
complacency with which fashionable people are continually soothing each
other's frailties, and in almost every part of a gentleman's behaviour,
he thought there was a disagreement between the outward appearances,
and what is felt within, that was clashing with uprightness and
sincerity. Cleomenes was of opinion, that of all religious virtues,
nothing was more scarce, or more difficult to acquire, than Christian
humility; and that to destroy the possibility of ever attaining to it,
nothing was so effectual as what is called a gentleman's education;
and that the more dexterous, by this means, men grew in concealing
the outward signs, and every symptom of pride, the more entirely they
became enslaved by it within. He carefully examined into the felicity
that accrues from the applause of others, and the invisible wages
which men of sense and judicious fancy received for their labours;
and what it was at the bottom that rendered those airy rewards so
ravishing to mortals. He had often observed, and watched narrowly the
countenances and behaviour of men, when any thing of theirs was admired
or commended, such as the choice of their furniture, the politeness
of their entertainments, the elegancy of their equipages, their dress,
their diversions, or the fine taste displayed in their buildings.
Cleomenes seemed charitable, and was a man of strict morals, yet he
would often complain that he was not possessed of one Christian virtue,
and found fault with his own actions, that had all the appearances of
goodness; because he was conscious, he said, that they were performed
from a wrong principle. The effects of his education, and his aversion
to infamy, had always been strong enough to keep him from turpitude;
but this he ascribed to his vanity, which he complained was in such
full possession of his heart, that he knew no gratification of any
appetite from which he was able to exclude it. Having always been a
man of unblameable behaviour, the sincerity of his belief had made
no visible alteration in his conduct to outward appearances; but in
private he never ceased from examining himself. As no man was less
prone to enthusiasm than himself, so his life was very uniform; and
as he never pretended to high flights of devotion, so he never was
guilty of enormous offences. He had a strong aversion to rigorists
of all sorts; and when he saw men quarrelling about forms and creeds,
and the interpretation of obscure places, and requiring of others the
strictest compliance to their own opinions in disputable matters, it
raised his indignation to see the generality of them want charity, and
many of them scandalously remiss in the plainest and most necessary
duties. He took uncommon pains to search into human nature, and
left no stone unturned, to detect the pride and hypocrisy of it,
and, among his intimate friends, to expose the stratagems of the
one, and the exorbitant power of the other. He was sure, that the
satisfaction which arose from worldly enjoyments, was something
distinct from gratitude, and foreign to religion; and he felt plainly,
that as it proceeded from within, so it centered in himself: The very
relish of life, he said, was accompanied with an elevation of mind,
that seemed to be inseparable from his being. Whatever principle
was the cause of this, he was convinced within himself, that the
sacrifice of the heart, which the gospel requires, consisted in the
utter extirpation of that principle; confessing, at the same time,
that this satisfaction he found in himself, this elevation of mind,
caused his chief pleasure; and that, in all the comforts of life,
it made the greatest part of the enjoyment.
Cleomenes, with grief, often owned his fears, that his attachment to
the world would never cease whilst he lived; the reasons he gave, were
the great regard he continued to have for the opinion of worldly men;
the stubbornness of his indocile heart, that could not be brought
to change the objects of its pride; and refused to be ashamed of
what, from his infancy, it had been taught to glory in; and, lastly,
the impossibility, he found in himself, of being ever reconciled to
contempt, and enduring, with patience, to be laughed at and despised
for any cause, or on any consideration whatever. These were the
obstacles, he said, that hindered him from breaking off all commerce
with the beau monde, and entirely changing his manner of living;
without which, he thought it mockery to talk of renouncing the world,
and bidding adieu to all the pomp and vanity of it.
The part of Fulvia, which is the third person, is so inconsiderable,
she just appearing only in the first dialogue, that it would be
impertinent to trouble the reader with a character of her. I had a mind
to say some things on painting and operas, which I thought might, by
introducing her, be brought in more naturally, and with less trouble,
than they could have been without her. The ladies, I hope, will find
no reason, from the little she does say, to suspect that she wants
either virtue or understanding.
As to the fable, or what is supposed to have occasioned the first
dialogue between Horatio and Cleomenes, it is this. Horatio, who had
found great delight in my Lord Shaftsbury's polite manner of writing,
his fine raillery, and blending virtue with good manners, was a great
stickler for the social system; and wondered how Cleomenes could
be an advocate for such a book as the Fable of the Bees, of which
he had heard a very vile character from several quarters. Cleomenes,
who loved and had a great friendship for Horatio, wanted to undeceive
him; but the other, who hated satire, was prepossessed, and having
been told likewise, that martial courage, and honour itself, were
ridiculed in that book, he was very much exasperated against the
author and his whole scheme: he had two or three times heard Cleomenes
discourse on this subject with others; but would never enter into
the argument himself; and finding his friend often pressing to come
to it, he began to look cooly upon him, and at last to avoid all
opportunities of being alone with him: till Cleomenes drew him in,
by the stratagem which the reader will see he made use of, as Horatio
was one day taking his leave after a short complimentary visit.
I should not wonder to see men of candour, as well as good sense, find
fault with the manner, in which I have chose to publish these thoughts
of mine to the world: There certainly is something in it, which I
confess I do not know how to justify to my own satisfaction. That
such a man as Cleomenes, having met with a book agreeable to his own
sentiments, should desire to be acquainted with the author of it,
has nothing in it that is improbable or unseemly; but then it will be
objected, that, whoever the interlocutors are, it was I myself who
wrote the dialogues; and that it is contrary to all decency, that a
man should proclaim concerning his own work, all that a friend of
his, perhaps, might be allowed to say: this is true; and the best
answer which I think can be made to it, is, that such an impartial
man, and such a lover of truth, as Cleomenes is represented to be,
would be as cautious in speaking of his friend's merit, as he would
be of his own. It might be urged likewise, that when a man professes
himself to be an author's friend, and exactly to entertain the same
sentiments with another, it must naturally put every reader upon his
guard, and render him as suspicious and distrustful of such a man,
as he would be of the author himself. But how good soever the excuses
are, that might be made for this manner of writing, I would never
have ventured upon it, if I had not liked it in the famous Gassendus,
who, by the help of several dialogues and a friend, who is the chief
personage in them, has not only explained and illustrated his system,
but likewise refuted his adversaries: him I have followed, and I
hope the reader will find, that whatever opportunity I have had by
this means, of speaking well of myself indirectly, I had no design
to make that, or any other ill use of it.
As it is supposed, that Cleomenes is my friend, and speaks my
sentiments, so it is but justice, that every thing which he advances
should be looked upon and considered as my own; but no man in his
senses would think, that I ought to be equally responsible for every
thing that Horatio says, who is his antagonist. If ever he offers
any thing that favours of libertinism, or is otherwise exceptionable,
which Cleomenes does not reprove him for in the best and most serious
manner, or to which he gives not the most satisfactory and convincing
answer that can be made, I am to blame, otherwise not. Yet from the
fate the first part has met with, I expect to see in a little time
several things transcribed and cited from this, in that manner, by
themselves, without the replies that are made to them, and so shown to
the world, as my words and my opinion. The opportunity of doing this
will be greater in this part than it was in the former, and should I
always have fair play, and never be attacked, but by such adversaries,
as would make their quotations from me without artifice, and use me
with common honesty, it would go a great way to the refuting of me;
and I should myself begin to suspect the truth of several things I
have advanced, and which hitherto I cannot help believing.
A stroke made in this manner,----which the reader will sometimes meet
with in the following dialogues, is a sign, either of interruption,
when the person speaking is not suffered to go on with what he was
going to say, or else of a pause, during which something is supposed
to be said or done, not relating to the discourse.
As in this part I have not altered the subject, on which a former,
known by the name of the Fable of the Bees, was wrote; and the same
unbiassed method of searching after truth, and inquiring into the
nature of man and society, made use of in that, is continued in this,
I thought it unnecessary to look out for another title; and being
myself a great lover of simplicity, and my invention none of the most
fruitful, the reader, I hope, will pardon the bald, inelegant aspect,
and unusual emptiness of the title page.
Here I would have made an end of my Preface, which I know very well is
too long already: but the world having been very grossly imposed upon
by a false report, that some months ago was very solemnly made, and
as industriously spread in most of the newspapers, for a considerable
time, I think it would be an unpardonable neglect in me, of the public,
should I suffer them; to remain in the error they were led into,
when I am actually addressing them; and there is no other person,
from whom they can so justly expect to be undeceived. In the London
Evening Post of Saturday March 9, 1727-8, the following paragraph
was printed in small Italic, at the end of the home news.
On Friday evening the first instant, a gentleman, well-dressed,
appeared at the bonfire before St. James's Gate, who declared himself
the author of a book, intituled, the Fable of the Bees; and that he
was sorry for writing the same: and recollecting his former promise,
pronounced these words: I commit my book to the flames; and threw it
in accordingly.
The Monday following, the same piece of news was repeated in the Daily
Journal, and after that for a considerable time, as I have said,
in most of the papers: but since the Saturday mentioned, which was
the only time it was printed by itself, it appeared always with a
small addition to it, and annexed (with a N. B. before it) to the
following advertisement.
ARETÊ-LOGIA:
Or an Inquiry into the Original of Moral Virtue, wherein the false
notions of Machiavel, Hobbs, Spinosa, and Mr. Bayle, as they are
collected and digested by the Author of the Fable of the Bees,
are examined and confuted; and the eternal and unalterable nature
and obligation of moral virtue is stated and vindicated; to which
is prefixed, a Prefatory Introduction, in a Letter to that Author,
By Alexander Innes, D. D. Preacher Assistant at St. Margaret's,
Westminster.
The small addition which I said was made to that notable piece of news,
after it came to be annexed to this advertisement, consisted of these
five words (upon reading the above book), which were put in after,
"sorry for writing the same." This story having been often repeated in
the papers, and never publicly contradicted, many people, it seems,
were credulous enough to believe, notwithstanding the improbability
of it. But the least attentive would have suspected the whole, as soon
as they had seen the addition that was made to it, the second time it
was published; for supposing it to be intelligible, as it follows the
advertisement, it cannot be pretended, that the repenting gentleman
pronounced those very words. He must have named the book; and if he
had said, that his sorrow was occasioned by reading the ARETÊ-LOGIA,
or the new book of the reverend Dr. Innes, how came such a remarkable
part of his confession to be omitted in the first publication, where
the well-dressed gentleman's words and actions seemed to be set down
with so much care and exactness? Besides, every body knows the great
industry, and general intelligence of our news-writers: if such a farce
had really been acted, and a man had been hired to pronounce the words
mentioned, and throw a book into the fire, which I have often wondered
was not done, is it credible at all, that a thing so remarkable,
done so openly, and before so many witnesses, the first day of March,
should not be taken notice of in any of the papers before the ninth,
and never be repeated afterwards, or ever mentioned but as an appendix
of the advertisement to recommend Dr. Innes's book?
However, this story has been much talked of, and occasioned a great
deal of mirth among my acquaintance, several of whom have earnestly
pressed me more than once to advertise the falsity of it, which I
would never comply with for fear of being laughed at, as some years
ago poor Dr. Patridge was, for seriously maintaining that he was
not dead. But all this while we were in the dark, and nobody could
tell how this report came into the world, or what it could be that
had given a handle to it, when one evening a friend of mine, who had
borrowed Dr. Innes's book, which till then I had never seen, showed
me in it the following lines.
But à propos Sir, if I rightly remember, the ingenuous Mr. Law, in
his Remarks upon your Fable of the Bees, puts you in mind of a promise
you had made, by which you obliged yourself to burn that book at any
time or place your adversary should appoint, if any thing should be
found in it tending to immorality or the corruption of manners. I
have a great respect for that gentleman, though I am not personally
acquainted with him, but I cannot but condemn his excessive credulity
and good nature, in believing that a man of your principles could be
a slave to his word; for my own part, I think, I know you too well
to be so easily imposed upon; or if, after all, you should. really
persist in your resolution, and commit it to the flames, I appoint
the first of March, before St. James's Gate, for that purpose, it
being the birthday of the best and most glorious queen upon earth;
and the burning of your book the smallest atonement you can make, for
endeavouring to corrupt and debauch his majesty's subjects in their
principles. Now, Sir, if you agree to this, I hope you are not so
destitute of friends, but that you may find some charitable neighbour
or other, who will lend you a helping hand, and throw in the author
at the same time by way of appendix; the doing of which will, in my
opinion, complete the solemnity of the day. I am not your patient,
but, your most humble servant.
Thus ends what, in the ARETÊ-LOGIA Doctor Innes is pleased to call
a Prefatory Introduction, in a Letter to the Author of the Fable of
the Bees. It is signed A. I. and dated Tot-hill-fields, Westminster,
Jan. 20. 1727-8.
Now all our wonder ceased. The judicious reader will easily allow me,
that, having read thus much, I had an ample dispensation from going on
any further; therefore I can say nothing of the book: and as to the
reverend author of it, who seems to think himself so well acquainted
with my principles, I have not the honour to know either him or his
morals, otherwise than from what I have quoted here. Ex pede Herculem.
London, October 20. 1728.
THE FIRST
DIALOGUE.
BETWEEN
HORATIO, CLEOMENES, and FULVIA.
CLEOMENES.
Always in haste, Horatio?
Hor. I must beg of you to excuse me, I am obliged to go.
Cleo. Whether you have other engagements than you used to have, or
whether your temper is changed, I cannot tell, but something has made
an alteration in you, of which I cannot comprehend the cause. There
is no man in the world whose friendship I value more than I do yours,
or whose company I like better, yet I can never have it. I profess
I have thought sometimes that you have avoided me on purpose.
Hor. I am sorry, Cleomenes, I should have been wanting in civility
to you; I come every week constantly to pay my respects to you,
and if ever I fail, I always send to inquire after your health.
Cleo. No man outdoes Horatio in civility; but I thought something more
was due to our affections and long acquaintance, besides compliments
and ceremony: Of late I have never been to wait upon you, but you are
gone abroad, or I find you engaged; and when I have the honour to see
you here, your stay is only momentary. Pray pardon my rudeness for
once: What is it that hinders you now from keeping me company for an
hour or two? My cousin talks of going out, and I shall be all alone.
Hor. I know better than to rob you of such an opportunity for
speculation?
Cleo. Speculation! on what, pray?
Hor. That vileness of our species in the refined way of thinking you
have of late been so fond of, I call it the scheme of deformity, the
partisans of which study chiefly to make every thing in our nature
appear as ugly and contemptible as it is possible, and take uncommon
pains to persuade men that they are devils.
Cleo. If that be all, I shall soon convince you.
Hor. No conviction to me, I beseech you: I am determined, and fully
persuaded, that there is good in the world as well as evil; and that
the words, honesty, benevolence, and humanity, and even charity, are
not empty sounds only, but that there are such things in spite of the
Fable of the Bees; and I am resolved to believe, that, notwithstanding
the degeneracy of mankind, and the wickedness of the age, there are
men now living, who are actually possessed of those virtues.
Cleo. But you do not know what I am going to say: I am----
Hor. That may be, but I will not hear one word; all you can say is
lost upon me, and if you will not give me leave to speak out, I am gone
this moment. That cursed book has bewitched you, and made you deny the
existence of those very virtues that had gained you the esteem of your
friends. You know this is not my usual language; I hate to say harsh
things: But what regard can, or ought one to have for an author that
treats every body de haut en bas, makes a jest of virtue and honour,
calls Alexander the Great a madman, and spares kings and princes no
more than any one, would the most abject of the people? The business
of his philosophy is just the reverse to that of the herald's office;
for, as there they are always contriving and finding out high and
illustrious pedigrees for low and obscure people, so your author is
ever searching after, and inventing mean contemptible origins for
worthy and honourable actions. I am your very humble servant.
Cleo. Stay. I am of your opinion; what I offered to convince you of,
was, how entirely I am recovered of the folly which you have so justly
exposed: I have left that error.
Hor. Are you in earnest?
Cleo. No man more: There is no greater stickler for the social
virtues than myself; and I much question, whether there is any of
Lord Shaftsbury's admirers that will go my lengths!
Hor. I shall be glad to see you go my lengths first, and as many more
as you please. You cannot conceive, Cleomenes, how it has grieved me,
when I have seen how many enemies you made yourself by that extravagant
way of arguing. If you are but serious, whence comes this change?
Cleo. In the first place, I grew weary of having every body against
me: and, in the second, there is more room for invention in the other
system. Poets and orators in the social system have fine opportunities
of exerting themselves.
Hor. I very much suspect the recovery you boast of: Are you convinced,
that the other system was false, which you might have easily learned
from seeing every body against you?
Cleo. False to be sure; but what you allege is no proof of it: for if
the greatest part of mankind were not against that scheme of deformity,
as you justly call it, insincerity could not be so general, as the
scheme itself supposes it to be: But since my eyes have been opened,
I have found out that truth and probability are the silliest things in
the world; they are of no manner of use, especially among the people
de bon gout.
Hor. I thought what a convert you was: but what new madness has seized
you now?
Cleo. No madness at all: I say, and will maintain it to the world,
that truth, in the sublime, is very impertinent; and that in the arts
and sciences, fit for men of taste to look into, a master cannot commit
a more unpardonable fault, than sticking to, or being influenced by
truth, where it interferes with what is agreeable.
Hor. Homely truths indeed----
Cleo. Look upon that Dutch piece of the nativity: what charming
colouring there is! What a fine pencil, and how just are the outlines
for a piece so curiously finished! But what a fool the fellow was
to draw hay, and straw, and water, and a rack as well as a manger:
it is a wonder he did not put the bambino into the manger.
Ful. The bambino? That is the child, I suppose: why it should be in
the manger; should it not? Does not the history tell us, that the
child was laid in the manger? I have no skill in painting; but I can
see whether things are drawn to the life or not: sure nothing can be
more like the head of an ox than that there. A picture then pleases
me best when the art in such a manner deceives my eye, that, without
making any allowance, I can imagine I see the things in reality which
the painter has endeavoured to represent. I have always thought it
an admirable piece; sure nothing in the world can be more like nature.
Cleo. Like nature! So much the worse: Indeed, cousin, it is easily
seen, that you have no skill in painting. It is not nature, but
agreeable nature, la belle nature, that is to be represented: all
things that are abject, low, pitiful, and mean, are carefully to be
avoided, and kept out of sight; because, to men of the true taste,
they are as offensive as things that are shocking, and really nasty.
Ful. At that rate, the Virgin Mary's condition, and our Saviour's
birth, are never to be painted.
Cleo. That is your mistake; the subject itself is noble: Let us go
but in the next room, and I will show you the difference.----Look upon
that picture, which is the same history. There is fine architecture,
there is a colonnade; can any thing be thought of more magnificent? How
skilfully is that ass removed, and how little you see of the ox: pray,
mind the obscurity they are both placed in. It hangs in a strong
light, or else one might look ten times upon the picture without
observing them: Behold these pillars of the Corinthian order, how
lofty they are, and what an effect they have, what a noble space,
what an area here is! How nobly every thing concurs to express the
majestic grandeur of the subject, and strikes the soul with awe and
admiration at the same time!
Ful. Pray cousin, has good sense ever any share in the judgment which
your men of true taste form about pictures?
Hor. Madam!
Ful. I beg pardon, Sir, if I have offended: but to me it seems strange
to hear such commendations given to a painter, for turning the stable
of a country inn into a palace of extraordinary magnificence: This is
a great deal worse than Swift's Metamorphosis of Philemon and Baucis;
for there some show of resemblance is kept in the changes.
Hor. In a country stable, Madam, there is nothing but filth and
nastiness, or vile abject things not fit to be seen, at least not
capable of entertaining persons of quality.
Ful. The Dutch picture in the next room has nothing that is offensive:
but an Augean stable, even before Hercules had cleaned it, would be
less shocking to me than those fluted pillars; for nobody can please
my eye that affronts my understanding: When I desire a man to paint a
considerable history, which every body knows to have been transacted
at a country inn, does he not strangely impose upon me, because he
understands architecture, to draw me a room that might have served
for a great hall, or banqueting-house, to any Roman emperor? Besides,
that the poor and abject state in which our Saviour chose to appear
at his coming into the world, is the most material circumstance
of the history: it contains an excellent moral against vain pomp,
and is the strongest persuasive to humility, which, in the Italian,
are more than lost.
Hor. Indeed, Madam, experience is against you; and it is certain, that,
even among the vulgar, the representations of mean and abject things,
and such as they are familiar with, have not that effect, and either
breed contempt, or are insignificant: whereas vast piles, stately
buildings, roofs of uncommon height, surprising ornaments, and all the
architecture of the grand taste, are the fittest to raise devotion,
and inspire men with veneration, and a religious awe for the places
that have these excellencies to boast of. Is there ever a meeting-house
or barn to be compared to a fine cathedral, for this purpose?
Ful. I believe there is a mechanical way of raising devotion in silly
superstitious creatures; but an attentive contemplation on the works
of God, I am sure----
Cleo. Pray, cousin, say no more in defence of your low taste: The
painter has nothing to do with the truth of the history; his business
is to express the dignity of the subject, and, in compliment to his
judges, never to forget the excellency of our species: All his art
and good sense must be employed in raising that to the highest pitch;
Great masters do not paint for the common people, but for persons
of refined understanding: What you complain o£ is the effect of the
good manners and complaisance of the painter. When he had drawn the
Infant and the Madona, he thought the least glimpse of the ox and
the ass would be sufficient to acquaint you with the history: They
who want more fescuing, and a broader explanation, he does not desire
his picture should ever be shown to; for the rest, he entertains you
with nothing but what is noble and worthy your attention: You see he
is an architect, and completely skilled in perspective, and he shows
you how finely he can round a pillar, and that both the depth, and
the height of a space, may be drawn on a flat, with all the other
wonders he performs by his skill in that inconceivable mystery of
light and shadows.
Ful. Why then is it pretended that painting is an imitation of nature?
Cleo. At first setting out a scholar is to copy things exactly as
he sees them; but from a great matter, when he is left to his own
invention, it is expected he should take the perfections of nature,
and not paint it as it is, but as we would wish it to be. Zeuxis,
to draw a goddess, took five beautiful women, from which he culled
what was most graceful in each.
Ful. Still every grace he painted was taken from nature.
Cleo. That's true; but he left nature her rubbish, and imitated
nothing but what was excellent, which made the assemblage superior
to any thing in nature. Demetrius was taxed for being too natural;
Dionysus was also blamed for drawing men like us. Nearer our times,
Michael Angelo was esteemed too natural, and Lysippus of old upbraided
the common sort of sculptors for making men such as they were found
in nature.
Ful. Are these things real?
Cleo. You may read it yourself in Graham's Preface to The Art of
Painting: the book is above in the library.
Hor. These things may seem strange to you, Madam, but they are of
immense use to the public: the higher we can carry the excellency of
our species, the more those beautiful images will fill noble minds
with worthy and suitable ideas of their own dignity, that will seldom
fail of spurring them on to virtue and heroic actions. There is a
grandeur to be expressed in things that far surpasses the beauties of
simple nature. You take delight in operas, Madam, I do not question;
you must have minded the noble manner and stateliness beyond nature,
which every thing there is executed with. What gentle touches, what
slight and yet majestic motions are made use of to express the most
boisterous passions! As the subject is always lofty, so no posture is
to be chosen but what is serious and significant, as well as comely
and agreeable; should the actions there be represented as they are
in common life, they would ruin the sublime, and at once rob you of
all your pleasure.
Ful. I never expected any thing natural at an opera; but as persons
of distinction resort thither, and every body comes dressed, it is
a sort of employment, and I seldom miss a night, because it is the
fashion to go: besides, the royal family, and the monarch himself,
generally honouring them with their presence, it is almost become a
duty to attend them, as much as it is to go to court. What diverts me
there is the company, the lights, the music, the scenes, and other
decorations: but as I understand but very few words of Italian, so
what is most admired in the recitativo is lost upon me, which makes
the acting part to me rather ridiculous than----
Hor. Ridiculous, Madam! For Heaven's sake----
Ful. I beg pardon, Sir, for the expression, I never laughed at an
opera in my life; but I confess, as to the entertainment itself,
that a good play is infinitely more diverting to me; and I prefer
any thing that informs my understanding beyond all the recreations
which either my eyes or my ears can be regaled with.
Hor. I am sorry to hear a lady of your good sense make such a
choice. Have you no taste for music, Madam?
Ful. I named that as part of my diversion.
Cleo. My cousin plays very well upon the harpsichord herself.
Ful. I love to hear good music; but it does not throw me into those
raptures, I hear others speak of.
Hor. Nothing certainly can elevate the mind beyond a fine concert:
it seems to disengage the soul from the body, and lift it up
to heaven. It is in this situation, that we are most capable of
receiving extraordinary impressions: when the instruments cease, our
temper is subdued, and beautiful action joins with the skilful voice,
in setting before us in a transcendent light, the heroic labours we
are come to admire, and which the word Opera imports. The powerful
harmony between the engaging sounds and speaking gestures invades
the heart, and forcibly inspires us with those noble sentiments,
which to entertain, the most expressive words can only attempt to
persuade us. Few comedies are tolerable, and in the best of them, if
the levity of the expressions does not corrupt, the meanness of the
subject must debase the manners; at least to persons of quality. In
tragedies the style is more sublime; and the subjects generally
great; but all violent passions, and even the representations of
them, ruffle and discompose the mind: besides, when men endeavour to
express things strongly, and they are acted to the life, it often
happens that the images do mischief, because they are too moving,
and that the action is faulty for being too natural; and experience
teaches us, that in unguarded minds, by those pathetic performances,
flames are often raised that are prejudicial to virtue. The playhouses
themselves are far from being inviting, much less the companies, at
least the greatest part of them that frequent them, some of which
are almost of the lowest rank of all. The disgust that persons of
the least elegance receive from these people are many; besides, the
ill scents, and unseemly sights one meets with, of careless rakes and
impudent wenches, that, having paid their money, reckon themselves to
be all upon the level with every body there; the oaths, scurrilities,
and vile jests one is often obliged to hear, without resenting them;
and the odd mixture of high and low that are all partaking of the same
diversion, without regard to dress or quality, are all very offensive;
and it cannot but be very disagreeable to polite people to be in the
same crowd with a variety of persons, some of them below mediocrity,
that pay no deference to one another. At the opera, every thing charms
and concurs to make happiness complete. The sweetness of voice, in the
first place, and the solemn composure of the action, serve to mitigate
and allay every passion; it is the gentleness of them, and the calm
serenity of the mind, that make us amiable, and bring us the nearest
to the perfection of angels; whereas, the violence of the passions,
in which the corruption of the heart chiefly consists, dethrones our
reason, and renders us more like unto savages. It is incredible, how
prone we are to imitation, and how strangely, unknown to ourselves,
we are shaped and fashioned after the models and examples that are
often set before us. No anger nor jealousy are ever to be seen at
an opera, that distort the features; no flames that are noxious,
nor is any love represented in them, that is not pure and next to
seraphic; and it is impossible for the remembrance to carry any
thing away from them, that can sully the imagination. Secondly, the
company is of another sort: the place itself is a security to peace,
as well as every one's honour; and it is impossible to name another,
where blooming innocence and irresistible beauty stand in so little
need of guardians. Here we are sure never to meet with petulancy or
ill manners, and to be free from immodest ribaldry, libertine wit,
and detestable satire. If you will mind, on the one hand, the richness
and splendour of dress, and the quality of the persons that appear in
them; the variety of colours, and the lustre of the fair in a spacious
theatre, well illuminated and adorned; and on the other, the grave
deportment of the assembly, and the consciousness that appears in
every countenance, of the respect they owe to each other, you will
be forced to confess, that upon earth there cannot be a pastime more
agreeable: believe me, Madam, there is no place, where both sexes
have such opportunities of imbibing exalted sentiments, and raising
themselves above the vulgar, as they have at the opera; and there is
no other sort of diversion or assembly, from the frequenting of which,
young persons of quality can have equal hopes of forming their manners,
and contracting a strong and lasting habit of virtue.
Ful. You have said more in commendation of operas, Horatio, than I
ever heard or thought of before; and I think every body who loves
that diversion is highly obliged to you. The grand gout, I believe,
is a great help in panegyric, especially, where it is an incivility
strictly to examine and over-curiously to look into matters.
Cleo. What say you now, Fulvia, of nature and good sense, are they
not quite beat out of doors?
Ful. I have heard nothing yet, to make me out of conceit with good
sense; though what you insinuated of nature, as if it was not to be
imitated in painting, is an opinion, I must confess, which hitherto
I more admire at, than I can approve of it.
Hor. I would never recommend any thing, Madam, that is repugnant
to good sense; but Cleomenes must have some design in over-acting
the part he pretends to have chosen. What he said about painting is
very true, whether he spoke it in jest or in earnest; but he talks so
diametrically opposite to the opinion which he is known every where
to defend of late, that I do not know what to make of him.
Ful. I am convinced of the narrowness of my own understanding, and am
going to visit some persons, with whom I shall be more upon the level.
Hor. You will give me leave to wait upon you to your coach,
Madam.----Pray, Cleomenes, what is it you have got in your head?
Cleo. Nothing at all: I told you before, that I was so entirely
recovered from my folly, that few people went my lengths. What jealousy
you entertain of me I do not know; but I find myself much improved in
the social system. Formerly I thought, that chief ministers, and all
those at the helm of affairs, acted from principles of avarice and
ambition; that in all the pains they took, and even in the slaveries
they underwent for the public good, they had their private ends, and
that they were supported in the fatigue by secret enjoyments they
were unwilling to own. It is not a month ago, that I imagined that
the inward care and real solicitude of all great men centered within
themselves; and that to enrich themselves, acquire titles of honour,
and raise their families on the one hand, and to have opportunities on
the other of displaying a judicious fancy to all the elegant comforts
of life, and establishing, without the least trouble of self-denial,
the reputation of being wise, humane, and munificent, were the
things, which, besides the satisfaction there is in superiority and
the pleasure of governing, all candidates to high offices and great
posts proposed to themselves, from the places they sued for: I was
so narrow minded, that I could not conceive how a man would ever
voluntarily submit to be a slave but to serve himself. But I have
abandoned that ill-natured way of judging: I plainly perceive the
public good, in all the designs of politicians, the social virtues
shine in every action, and I find that the national interest is the
compass that all statesmen steer by.
Hor. That is more than I can prove; but certainly there have been such
men, there have been patriots, that without selfish views have taken
incredible pains for their country's welfare: nay, there are men now
that would do the same, if they were employed; and we have had princes
that have neglected their ease and pleasure, and sacrificed their
quiet, to promote the prosperity and increase the wealth and honour
of the kingdom, and had nothing so much at heart as the happiness of
their subjects.
Cleo. No disaffection, I beg of you. The difference between past and
present times, and persons in and out of places, is perhaps clearer
to you than it is to me; but it is many years ago, you know, that it
has been agreed between us never to enter into party disputes: what I
desire your attention to, is my reformation, which you seem to doubt
of, and the great change that is wrought in me. The religion of most
kings and other high potentates, I formerly had but a slender opinion
of, but now I measure their piety by what they say of it themselves
to their subjects.
Hor. That is very kindly done.
Cleo. By thinking meanly of things, I once had strange blundering
notions concerning foreign wars: I thought that many of them arose
from trifling causes, magnified by politicians for their own ends;
that the most ruinous misunderstandings between states and kingdoms
might spring from the hidden malice, folly, or caprice of one man;
that many of them had been owing to the private quarrels, piques,
resentments, and the haughtiness of the chief ministers of the
respective nations, that were the sufferers; and that what is called
personal hatred between princes seldom was more at first, than either
an open or secret animosity which the two great favourites of those
courts had against one another: but now I have learned to derive those
things from higher causes. I am reconciled likewise to the luxury
of the voluptuous, which I used to be offended at, because now I am
convinced that the money of most rich men, is laid out with the social
design of promoting arts and sciences, and that in the most expensive
undertakings their principal aim is the employment of the poor.
Hor. These are lengths indeed.
Cleo. I have a strong aversion to satire, and detest it every whit
as much as you do: the most instructive writings to understand the
world, and penetrate into the heart of man, I take to be addresses,
epithets, dedications, and above all, the preambles to patents,
of which I am making a large collection.
Hor. A very useful undertaking!
Cleo. But to remove all your doubts of my conversion, I will show
you some easy rules I have laid down for young beginners.
Hor. What to do?
Cleo. To judge of mens actions by the lovely system of Lord Shaftsbury,
in a manner diametrically opposite to that of the Fable of the Bees.
Hor. I do not understand you.
Cleo. You will presently. I have called them rules, but they are rather
examples from which the rules are to be gathered: as for instance,
if we see an industrious poor woman, who has pinched her belly,
and gone in rags for a considerable time to save forty shillings,
part with her money to put out her son at six years of age to a
chimney-sweeper; to judge of her charitably, according to the system
of the social virtues, we must imagine, that though she never paid
for the sweeping of a chimney in her life, she knows by experience,
that for want of this necessary cleanliness the broth has been often
spoiled, and many a chimney has been set on fire, and therefore to
do good in her generation, as far as she is able, she gives up her
all, both offspring and estate, to assist in preventing the several
mischiefs that are often occasioned by great quantities of soot
disregarded; and, free from selfishness, sacrifices her only son to
the most wretched employment for the public welfare.
Hor. You do not vie I see with Lord Shaftsbury, for loftiness of
subjects.
Cleo. When in a starry night with amazement we behold the glory
of the firmament, nothing is more obvious than that the whole, the
beautiful all, must be the workmanship of one great Architect of power
and wisdom stupendous; and it is as evident, that every thing in the
universe is a constituent part of one entire fabric.
Hor. Would you make a jest of this too.
Cleo. Far from it: they are awful truths, of which I am as much
convinced as I am of my own existence; but I was going to name
the consequences, which Lord Shaftsbury draws from them, in order
to demonstrate to you, that I am a convert, and a very punctual
observer of his Lordship's instructions, and that, in my judgment
on the poor woman's conduct, there is nothing that is not entirely
agreeable to the generous way of thinking set forth and recommended
in the Characteristics.
Hor. Is it possible a man should read such a book, and make no better
use of it! I desire you would name the consequences you speak of.
Cleo. As that infinity of luminous bodies, however different in
magnitude, velocity, and the figures they describe in their courses,
concur all of them to make up the universe, so this little spot
we inhabit is likewise a compound of air, water, fire, minerals,
vegetables, and living creatures, which, though vastly differing from
one another in their nature, do altogether make up the body of this
terraqueous globe.
Hor. This is very right, and in the same manner as our whole species is
composed of many nations of different religions, forms of government,
interests and manners that divide and share the earth between them;
so the civil society in every nation consists in great multitudes of
both sexes, that widely differing from each other in age, constitution,
strength, temper, wisdom and possessions, all help to make up one
body politic.
Cleo. The same exactly which I would have said: now, pray Sir, is not
the great end of men's forming themselves into such societies, mutual
happiness; I mean, do not all individual persons, from being thus
combined, propose to themselves a more comfortable condition of life,
than human creatures, if they were to live like other wild animals,
without tie or dependance, could enjoy in a free and savage state?
Hor. This certainly is not only the end, but the end which is every
where attained to by government and society, in some degree or other.
Cleo. Hence it must follow, that it is always wrong for men to pursue
gain or pleasure, by means that are visibly detrimental to the civil
society, and that creatures who can do this must be narrow-souled,
short-sighted, selfish people; whereas, wise men never look upon
themselves as individual persons, without considering the whole,
of which they are but trifling parts in respect to bulk, and are
incapable of receiving any satisfaction from things that interfere
with the public welfare. This being undeniably true, ought not all
private advantage to give way to this general interest; and ought it
not to be every one's endeavour, to increase this common stock of
happiness; and, in order to it, do what he can to render himself a
serviceable and useful member of that whole body which he belongs to?
Hor. What of all this?
Cleo. Has not my poor woman, in what I have related of her, acted in
conformity to this social system?
Hor. Can any one in his senses imagine, that an indigent thoughtless
wretch, without sense or education, should ever act from such generous
principles?
Cleo. Poor I told you the woman was, and I will not insist upon her
education; but as for her being thoughtless and void of sense, you
will give me leave to say, that it is an aspersion for which you have
no manner of foundation; and from the account I have given of her,
nothing can be gathered but that she was a considerate, virtuous,
wise woman, in poverty.
Hor. I suppose you would persuade me that you are in earnest.
Cleo. I am much more so than you imagine; and say once, more, that, in
the example I have given, I have trod exactly in my Lord Shaftsbury's
steps, and closely followed the social system. If I have committed
any error, show it me.
Hor. Did that author ever meddle with any thing so low and pitiful.
Cleo. There can be nothing mean in noble actions, whoever the persons
are that perform them. But if the vulgar are to be all excluded from
the social virtues, what rule or instruction shall the labouring poor,
which are by far the greatest part of the nation, have left them to
walk by, when the Characteristics have made a jest of all revealed
religion, especially the Christian? but if you despise the poor
and illiterate, I can, in the same method, judge of men in higher
stations. Let the enemies to the social system behold the venerable
counsellor, now grown eminent for his wealth, that at his great age
continues sweltering at the bar to plead the doubtful cause, and,
regardless of his dinner, shorten his own life in endeavouring to
secure the possessions of others. How conspicuous is the benevolence
of the physician to his kind, who, from morning till night, visiting
the sick, keeps several sets of horses to be more serviceable to many,
and still grudges himself the time for the necessary functions of
life! In the same manner the indefatigable clergyman, who, with his
ministry, supplies a very large parish already, solicits with zeal
to be as useful and beneficent to another, though fifty of his order,
yet unemployed, offer their service for the same purpose.
Hor. I perceive your drift: from the strained panegyrics you labour
at, you would form arguments ad absurdum: the banter is ingenious
enough, and, at proper times, might serve to raise a laugh; but then
you must own likewise, that those studied encomiums will not bear to
be seriously examined into. When we consider that the great business
as well as perpetual solicitude of the poor, are to supply their
immediate wants, and keep themselves from starving, and that their
children are a burden to them, which they groan under, and desire
to be delivered from by all possible means, that are not clashing
with the low involuntary affection which nature forces them to have
for their offspring: when, I say, we consider this, the virtues of
your industrious make no great figure. The public spirit likewise,
and the generous principles, your sagacity has found out in the three
faculties, to which men are brought up for a livelihood, seem to be
very far fetched. Fame, wealth, and greatness, every age can witness:
but whatever labour or fatigue they submit to, the motives of their
actions are as conspicuous as their calling themselves.
Cleo. Are they not beneficial to mankind, and of use to the public?
Hor. I do not deny that; we often receive inestimable benefits from
them, and the good ones in either profession are not only useful,
but very necessary to the society: but though there are several that
sacrifice their whole lives, and all the comforts of them, to their
business, there is not one of them that would take a quarter of the
pains he now is at, if, without taking any, he could acquire the
same money, reputation, and other advantages that may accrue to him
from the esteem or gratitude of those whom he has been serviceable
to; and I do not believe, there is an eminent man among them that
would not own this if the question was put to him. Therefore, when
ambition and the love of money are avowed principles men act from,
it is very silly to ascribe virtues to them, which they themselves
pretend to lay no manner of claim to. But your encomium upon the
parson is the merriest jest of all: I have heard many excuses made,
and some of them very frivolous, for the covetousness of priests; but
what you have picked out in their praise is more extraordinary than
any thing I ever met with; and the most partial advocate and admirer
of the clergy never yet discovered before yourself a great virtue
in their hunting after pluralities, when they were well provided for
themselves, and many others for want of employ were ready to starve.
Cleo. But if there be any reality in the social system, it would be
better for the public, if men, in, all professions, were to act from
those generous principles; and you will allow, that the society would
be the gainers, if the generality in the three faculties would mind
others more, and themselves less than they do now.
Hor. I do not know that; and considering what slavery some lawyers,
as well as physicians, undergo, I much question whether it would
be possible for them to exert themselves in the same manner though
they would, if the constant baits and refreshments of large fees did
not help to support human nature, by continually stimulating this
darling passion.
Cleo. Indeed, Horatio, this is a stronger argument against the social
system, and more injurious to it than any thing that has been said
by the author whom you have exclaimed against with so much bitterness.
Hor. I deny that: I do not conclude from the selfishness in some,
that there is no virtue in others.
Cleo. Nor he neither, and you very much wrong him if you assert that
he ever did.
Hor. I refuse to commend what is not praise-worthy; but as bad as
mankind are, virtue has an existence as well as vice, though it is
more scarce.
Cleo. What you said last, nobody ever contradicted; but I do not know
what you would be at: does not the Lord Shaftsbury endeavour to do
good, and promote the social virtues, and am I not doing the very
same? suppose me to be in the wrong in the favourable constructions
I have made of things, still it is to be wished for at least, that
men had a greater regard to the public welfare, less fondness for
their private interest, and more charity for their neighbours, than
the generality of them have.
Hor. To be wished for, perhaps, it may be, but what probability is
there that this ever will come to pass?
Cleo. And unless that can come to pass, it is the idlest thing in the
world to discourse upon, and demonstrate the excellency of virtue;
what signifies it to set forth the beauty of it, unless it was possible
that men should fall in love with it?
Hor. If virtue was never recommended, men might grow worse than
they are.
Cleo. Then, by the same reason, if it was recommended more, men
might grow better than they are. But I see perfectly well the reason
of these shifts and evasions you make use of against your opinion:
You find yourself under a necessity of allowing my panegyrics, as you
call them, to be just; or finding the same fault with most of my Lord
Shaftsbury's; and you would do neither if you could help it: From mens
preferring company to solitude, his Lordship pretends to prove the love
and natural affection we have for our own species: If this was examined
into with the same strictness as you have done every thing I have said
in behalf of the three faculties, I believe that the solidity of the
consequences would be pretty equal in both. But I stick to my text,
and stand up for the social virtues: The noble author of that system
had a most charitable opinion of his species, and extolled the dignity
of it in an extraordinary manner, and why my imitation of him should
be called a banter, I see no reason. He certainly wrote with a good
design, and endeavoured to inspire his readers with refined notions,
and a public spirit abstract from religion: The world enjoys the
fruits of his labours; but the advantage that is justly expected from
his writings, can never be so universally felt, before that public
spirit, which he recommended, comes down to the meanest tradesmen,
whom you would endeavour to exclude from the generous sentiments
and noble pleasures that are already so visible in many. I am now
thinking on two sorts of people that stand very much in need of,
and yet hardly ever meet with one another: This misfortune must have
caused such a chasm in the band of society, that no depth of thought,
or happiness of contrivance, could have filled up the vacuity, if a
most tender regard for the commonwealth, and the height of benevolence
did not influence and oblige others, mere strangers to those people,
and commonly men of small education, to afflict them with their good
offices, and stop up the gap. Many ingenious workmen, in obscure
dwellings, would be starved in spite of industry, only for want of
knowing where to sell the product of their labour, if there were not
others to dispose of it for them: And again, the rich and extravagant
are daily furnished with an infinite variety of superfluous knicknacks
and elaborate trifles, every one of them invented to gratify either
a needless curiosity, or else wantonness and folly; and which they
could never have thought of, much less wanted, had they never seen
or known where to buy them. What a blessing, then, to the public,
is the social toyman, who lays out a considerable estate to gratify
the desires of these two different classes of people? He procures
food and raiment for the deserving poor, and searches with great
diligence after the most skilful artificers, that no man shall be able
to produce better workmanship than himself: with studied civilities,
and a serene countenance, he entertains the greatest strangers; and,
often speaking to them first, kindly offers to guess at their wants:
He confines not his attendance to a few stated hours, but waits their
leisure all day long in an open shop, where he bears the summer's heat,
and winter's cold, with equal cheerfulness. What a beautiful prospect
is here of natural affection to our kind! For, if he acts from that
principle, who only furnishes us with necessaries of life, certainly
he shows a more superlative love and indulgence to his species, who
will not suffer the most whimsical of it to be an hour destitute of
what he shall fancy, even things the most unnecessary.
Hor. You have made the most of it indeed, but are you not tired yet
with these fooleries yourself?
Cleo. What fault do you find with these kind constructions; do they
detract from the dignity of our species?
Hor. I admire your invention, and thus much I will own, that,
by overacting the part in that extravagant manner, you have set
the social system in a more disadvantageous light than ever I had
considered it before: But the best things, you know, may be ridiculed.
Cleo. Whether I know that or not, Lord Shaftsbury has flatly denied
it; and takes joke and banter to be the best and surest touchstone
to prove the worth of things: It is his opinion, that no ridicule can
be fastened upon what is really great and good. His Lordship has made
use of that test to try the Scriptures and the Christian religion by,
and exposed them because it seems they could not stand it.
Hor. He has exposed superstition, and the miserable notions the vulgar
were taught to have of God; but no man ever had more sublime ideas
of the Supreme Being, and the universe, than himself.
Cleo. You are convinced, that what I charge him with is true.
Hor. I do not pretend to defend every syllable that noble Lord has
wrote. His style is engaging, his language is polite, his reasoning
strong; many of his thoughts are beautifully expressed, and his
images, for the greatest part, inimitably fine. I may be pleased
with an author, without obliging myself to answer every cavil that
shall be made against him. As to what you call your imitation of him,
I have no taste in burlesque: but the laugh you would raise might be
turned upon you with less trouble than you seem to have taken. Pray,
when you consider the hard and dirty labours that are performed to
supply the mob with the vast quantities of strong beer they swill,
do not you discover social virtue in a drayman?
Cleo. Yes, and in a dray-horse too; at least as well as I can in some
great men, who yet would be very angry should we refuse to believe,
that the most selfish actions of theirs, if the society received
but the least benefit from them, were chiefly owing to principles of
virtue, and a generous regard to the public. Do you believe that, in
the choice of a Pope, the greatest dependence of the Cardinals, and
what they principally rely upon, is the influence of the Holy Ghost?
Hor. No more than I do transubstantiation.
Cleo. But if you had been brought up a Roman Catholic, you would
believe both.
Hor. I do not know that.
Cleo. You would, if you was sincere in your religion, as thousands
of them are, that are no more destitute of reason and good sense than
you or I.
Hor. I have nothing to say as to that: there are many things
incomprehensible, that yet are certainly true: These are properly the
objects of faith; and, therefore, when matters are above my capacity,
and really surpass my understanding, I am silent, and submit with
great humility: but I will swallow nothing which I plainly apprehend
to be contrary to my reason, and is directly clashing with my senses.
Cleo. If you believe a Providence, what demonstration can you have,
that God does not direct men in an affair of higher importance to
all Christendom, than any other you can name?
Hor. This is an ensnaring, and a very unfair question. Providence
superintends and governs every thing without exception. To defend
my negative, and give a reason for my unbelief, it is sufficient,
if I prove, that all the instruments, and the means they make use of
in those elections, are visibly human and mundane, and many of them
unwarrantable and wicked.
Cleo. Not all the means; because every day they have prayers, and
solemnly invoke the Divine assistance.
Hor. But what stress they lay upon it may be easily gathered from
the rest of their behaviour. The court of Rome is, without dispute,
the greatest academy of refined politics, and the best school to learn
the art of caballing: there ordinary cunning, and known stratagems,
are counted rusticity, and designs are pursued through all the mazes of
human subtlety. Genius there must give way to finesse, as strength does
to art in wrestling; and a certain skill some men have in concealing
their capacities from others, is of far greater use with them, than
real knowledge, or the soundest understanding. In the sacred college,
where every thing is auro venale, truth and justice bear the lowest
price: Cardinal Palavicini, and other Jesuits, that have been the
stanch advocates of the Papal authority, have owned with ostentation
the Politia religiosa della chiésa, and not hid from us the virtues
and accomplishments, that were only valuable among the Purpurati,
in whose judgment over-reaching, at any rate, is the highest honour,
and to be outwitted, though by the basest artifice, the greatest
shame. In conclaves, more especially, nothing is carried on without
tricks and intrigue; and in them the heart of man is so deep, and
so dark an abyss, that the finest air of dissimulation is sometimes
found to have been insincere, and men often deceive one another,
by counterfeiting hypocrisy. And is it credible, that holiness,
religion, or the least concern for spirituals, should have any share
in the plots, machinations, brigues, and contrivances of a society,
of which each member, besides the gratification of his own passions,
has nothing at heart but the interest of his party, right or wrong,
and to distress every faction that opposes it?
Cleo. These sentiments confirm to me what I have often heard, that
renegadoes are the most cruel enemies.
Hor. Was ever I a Roman Catholic?
Cleo. I mean from the social system, of which you have been the
most strenuous assertor; and now no man can judge of actions more
severely, and indeed less charitably, than yourself, especially of
the poor cardinals. I little thought, if once I quitted the scheme
of deformity, to have found an adversary in you; but we have both
changed sides it seems.
Hor. Much alike, I believe.
Cleo. Nay, what could any body think to hear me making the kindest
interpretations of things that can be imagined, and yourself doing
quite the reverse?
Hor. What ignorant people, that knew neither of us, might have done,
I do not know: but it has been very manifest from our discourse,
that you have maintained your cause, by endeavouring to show the
absurdity of the contrary side, and that I have defended mine by
letting you see, that we were not such fools as you would represent
us to be. I had taken a resolution never to engage with you on this
topic, but you see I have broke it: I hate to be thought uncivil;
it was mere complaisance drew me in; though I am not sorry that we
talked of it so much as we did, because I found your opinion less
dangerous than 1 imagined: you have owned the existence of virtue,
and that there are men who act from it as a principle, both which I
thought you denied: but I would not have you flatter yourself that
you deceived me, by hanging out false colours.
Cleo. I did not lay on the disguise so thick, as not to have you see
through it, nor would I ever have discoursed upon this subject with
any body, who could have been so easily imposed upon. I know you to
be a man of very good sense and sound judgment; and it is for that
very reason I so heartily wish you would suffer me to explain myself,
and demonstrate to you, how small the difference is between us, which
you imagine to be so considerable: There is not a man in the world, in
whose opinion I would less pass for an ill man than in yours; but I am
so scrupulously fearful of offending you, that I never dared to touch
upon some points, unless you had given me leave. Yield something to our
friendship, and condescend for once to read the Fable of the Bees for
my sake: It is a handsome volume: you love books: I have one extremely
well bound; do; let me, suffer me to make you a present of it.
Hor. I am no bigot, Cleomenes; but I am a man of honour, and, you know,
of strict honour: I cannot endure to hear that ridiculed, and the least
attempt of it chafes my blood: Honour is the strongest and noblest tie
of society by far, and therefore, believe me, can never be innocently
sported with. It is a thing so solid and awful, as well as serious,
that it can at no time become the object of mirth or diversion;
and it is impossible for any pleasantry to be so ingenious, or any
jest so witty, that I could bear with it on that head. Perhaps I
am singular in this, and, if you will, in the wrong; be that as it
will, all I can say is, Je ne'entens pas Raillerie la dessus; and
therefore, no Fable of the Bees for me, if we are to remain friends:
I have heard enough of that.
Cleo. Pray, Horatio, can there be honour without justice?
Hor. No: Who affirms there can?
Cleo. Have you not owned, that you have thought worse of me, than now
you find me to deserve? No men, nor their works, ought to be condemned
upon hearsays and bare surmises, much less upon the accusations of
their enemies, without being examined into.
Hor. There you are in the right: I heartily beg your pardon, and to
atone for the wrong I have done you, say what you please, I will hear
it with patience, be it never so shocking; but I beg of you be serious.
Cleo. I have nothing to say to you that is distasteful, much less
shocking: all I desire is, to convince you, that I am neither so
ill-natured nor uncharitable, in my opinion of mankind, as you take
me to be: and that the notions I entertain of the worth of things,
will not differ much from yours, when both come to be looked into. Do
but consider what we have been doing: I have endeavoured to set
every thing in the handsomest light I could think of; you say,
to ridicule the social system; I own it; now reflect on your own
conduct, which has been to show the folly of my strained panegyrics,
and replace things in that natural view, which all just, knowing men
would certainly behold them in. This is very well done: but it is
contrary to the scheme you pretended to maintain; and if you judge of
all actions in the same manner, there is an end of the social system;
or, at least, it will be evident, that it is a theory never to be
put into practice. You argue for the generality of men, that they
are possessed of these virtues, but when we come to particulars,
you can find none. I have tried you every where: you are as little
satisfied with persons of the highest rank, as you are with them
of the lowest, and you count it ridiculous to think better of the
middling people. Is this otherwise than standing up for the goodness
of a design, at the same time you confess, that it never was, or ever
can be executed? What sort of people are they, and where must we look
for them, whom you will own to act from those principles of virtue?
Hor. Are there not in all countries men of birth and ample fortune,
that would not accept of places, though they were offered, that are
generous and beneficent, and mind nothing but what is great and noble?
Cleo. Yes: But examine their conduct, look into their lives, and
scan their actions with as little indulgence as you did those of
the cardinals, or the lawyers and physicians, and then see what
figure their virtues will make beyond those of the poor industrious
woman. There is, generally speaking, less truth in panegyrics, than
there is in satires. When all our senses are soothed, when we have no
distemper of body or mind to disturb us, and meet with nothing that is
disagreeable, we are pleased with our being: it is in this situation
that we are most apt to mistake outward appearances for realities, and
judge of things more favourably than they deserve. Remember, Horatio,
how feelingly you spoke half an hour ago in commendation of operas:
Your soul seemed to be lifted up whilst you was thinking on the many
charms you find in them. I have nothing to say against the elegancy of
the diversion, or the politeness of those that frequent them: but I
am afraid you lost yourself in the contemplation of the lovely idea,
when you asserted that they were the most proper means to contract
a strong and lasting habit of virtue; do you think, that among the
same number of people, there is more real virtue at an opera, than
there is at a bear-garden?
Hor. What a comparison!
Cleo. I am very serious.
Hor. The noise of dogs, and bulls, and bears, make a fine harmony!
Cleo. It is impossible you should mistake me, and you know very
well, that it is not the different pleasures of those two places I
would compare together. The things you mentioned are the least to
be complained of: the continual sounds of oaths and imprecations,
the frequent repetitions of the word lie, and other more filthy
expressions, the loudness and dissonance of many strained and untuneful
voices, are a perfect torment to a delicate ear. The frowsiness of
the place, and the ill scents of different kinds, are a perpetual
nuisance; but in all mob meetings----
Hor. L'odorat souffre beaucoup.
Cleo. The entertainment in general is abominable, and all the senses
suffer. I allow all this. The greasy heads, some of them bloody, the
jarring looks, and threatening, wild, and horrid aspects, that one
meets with in those ever-restless assemblies, must be very shocking to
the sight, and so indeed is every thing else that can be seen among
a rude and ragged multitude, that are covered with dirt, and have in
none of their pastimes one action that is inoffensive: but, after all,
vice and what is criminal, are not to be confounded with roughness
and want of manners, no more than politeness and an artful behaviour
ought to be with virtue or religion. To tell a premeditated falsehood
in order to do mischief, is a greater sin, than to give a man the lie,
who speaks an untruth; and it is possible, that a person may suffer
greater damage, and more injury to his ruin, from slander in the low
whisper of a secret enemy, than he could have received from all the
dreadful swearing and cursing, the most noisy antagonist could pelt
him with. Incontinence, and adultery itself, persons of quality are
not more free from all over Christendom, than the meaner people:
but if there are some vices, which the vulgar are more guilty of
than the better sort, there are others the reverse. Envy, detraction,
and the spirit of revenge, are more raging and mischievous in courts
than they are in cottages. Excess of vanity and hurtful ambition are
unknown among the poor; they are seldom tainted with avarice, with
irreligion never; and they have much less opportunity of robbing the
public than their betters. There are few persons of distinction, whom
you are not acquainted with: I desire, you would seriously reflect
on the lives of as many as you can think of, and next opera night on
the virtues of the assembly.
Hor. You make me laugh. There is a good deal in what you say; and I
am persuaded, all is not gold that glisters. Would you add any more?
Cleo. Since you have given me leave to talk, and you are such a
patient hearer, I would not slip the opportunity of laying before
you some things of high concern, that perhaps you never considered
in the light, which you shall own yourself they ought to be seen in.
Hor. I am sorry to leave you; but I have really business that must
be done to-night: it is about my law-suit, and I have stayed beyond
my time already: but if you will come and eat a bit of mutton with
me to-morrow, I will see nobody but yourself, and we will converse
as long as you please.
Cleo. With all my heart. I will not fail to wait on you.
THE SECOND
DIALOGUE
BETWEEN
HORATIO AND CLEOMENES
HORATIO.
The discourse we had yesterday, has made a great impression upon me;
you said several things that were very entertaining, and some which I
shall not easily forget: I do not remember I ever looked into myself
so much as I have done since last night after I left you.
Cleo. To do that faithfully, is a more difficult and a severer talk
than is commonly imagined. When, yesterday, I asked you where and
among what sort of people we were to look for those whom you would
allow to act from principles of virtue, you named a class, among
whom I have found very agreeable characters of men, that yet all have
their failings. If these could be left out, and the best were picked
and culled from the different good qualities that are to be seen in
several, the compound would make a very handsome picture.
Hor. To finish it well every way would be a great masterpiece.
Cleo. That I shall not attempt: but I do not think it would be very
difficult to make a little sketch of it, that yet should exceed nature,
and be a better pattern for imitation than any can be shown alive. I
have a mind to try; the very thought enlivens me. How charming is the
portrait of a complete gentleman, and how ravishing is the figure
which a person of great birth and fortune, to whom nature has been
no niggard, makes, when he understands the world, and is thoroughly
well-bred!
Hor. I think them so, I can assure you, whether you are in jest or
in earnest.
Cleo. How entirely well hid are his greatest imperfections! though
money is his idol, and he is covetous in his heart, yet his inward
avarice is forced to give way to his outward liberality, and an open
generosity shines through all his actions.
Hor. There lies your fault: it is this I cannot endure in you.
Cleo. What is the matter?
Hor. I know what you are about, you are going to give me the caricatura
of a gentleman, under pretence of drawing his portrait.
Cleo. You wrong me, I have no such thought.
Hor. But why is it impossible for human nature ever to be good? instead
of leaving out, you put in failings without the least grounds or
colour. When things have a handsome appearance every way, what reason
have you to suspect them still to be bad? How came you to know, and
which way have you discovered imperfections that are entirely well
hid; and why should you suppose a person to be covetous in his heart,
and that money is his idol, when you own yourself that he never shews
it, and that an open generosity shines through all his actions? This
is monstrous.
Cleo. I have made no such supposition of any man, and I protest to
you, that, in what I said, I had no other meaning than to observe,
that whatever frailties and natural infirmities persons might be
conscious of within, good sense and good manners were capable, and,
without any other assistance, sufficient to keep them out of sight:
but your questions are very reasonable, and since you have started
this, I will be very open to you, and acquaint you before hand
with my design of the description I am going to make; and the use I
intend it for; which in short is, to demonstrate to you, that a most
beautiful superstructure may be raised upon a rotten and despicable
foundation. You will understand me better presently.
Hor. But how do you know a foundation to be rotten that supports the
building, and is wholly concealed from you?
Cleo. Have patience, and I promise you, that I shall take nothing
for granted, which you shall not allow of yourself.
Hor. Stick close to that, and I desire no more: now say what you will.
Cleo. The true object of pride or vain glory is the opinion of
others; and the most superlative wish, which a man possessed, and
entirely filled with it can make, is, that he may be well thought of,
applauded, and admired by the whole world, not only in the present
but all future ages. This passion is generally exploded; but it is
incredible, how many strange and widely different miracles are, and may
be performed by the force of it; as persons differ in circumstances and
inclinations. In the first place, there is no danger so great, but by
the help of his pride a man may slight and confront it; nor any manner
of death so terrible, but with the same assistance he may court, and if
he has a firm constitution, undergo it with alacrity. In the second,
there are no good offices or duties, either to others or ourselves,
that Cicero has spoke of, nor any instance of benevolence, humanity,
or other social virtue, that Lord Shaftsbury has hinted at, but a man
of good sense and knowledge may learn to practise them from no better
principle than vain glory, if it be strong enough to subdue and keep
under all other passions that may thwart and interfere with his design.
Hor. Shall I allow all this?
Cleo. Yes.
Hor. When?
Cleo. Before we part.
Hor. Very well.
Cleo. Men of tolerable parts in plentiful circumstances, that were
artfully educated, and are not singular in their temper, can hardly
fail of a genteel behaviour: the more pride they have, and the greater
value they set on the esteem of others, the more they will make it
their study to render themselves acceptable to all they converse
with; and they will take uncommon pains to conceal and stifle in
their bosoms, every thing which their good sense tells them ought
not to be seen or understood.
Hor. I must interrupt you, and cannot suffer you to go on thus. What
is all this but the old story over again, that every thing is pride,
and all we see hypocrisy, without proof or argument? Nothing in the
world is more false than what you have advanced now; for, according
to that, the most noble, the most gallant, and the best bred man
would be the proudest; which is so clashing with daily experience,
that the very reverse is true. Pride and insolence are no where more
common than among upstarts; men of no family, that raise estates out of
nothing, and the most ordinary people, that having had no education,
are puffed up with their fortune whenever they are lifted up above
mediocrity, and from mean stations advanced to posts of honour:
whereas, no men upon earth, generally speaking, are more courteous,
humane, or polite, than persons of high birth, that enjoy the large
possessions and known seats of their ancestors; men illustrious by
descent, that have been used to grandeur and titles of honour from
their infancy, and received an education suitable to their quality. I
do not believe there ever was a nation, that were not savages, in which
the youth of both sexes were not expressly taught never to be proud
or haughty: did you ever know a school, a tutor, or a parent, that
did not continually inculcate to those under their care to be civil
and obliging; nay, does not the word mannerly itself import as much?
Cleo. I beg of you, let us be calm, and speak with exactness. The
doctrine of good manners furnishes us with a thousand lessons,
against the various appearances and outward symptoms of pride, but
it has not one precept against the passion itself.
Hor. How is that?
Cleo. No, not one against the passion itself; the conquest of it
is never attempted, nor talked of in a gentleman's education, where
men are to be continually inspired and kept warm with the sense of
their honour, and the inward value they must put upon themselves on
all emergencies.
Hor. This is worth consideration, and requires time to be examined
into; but where is your fine gentleman, the picture you promised?
Cleo. I am ready, and shall begin with his dwelling: Though he has
several noble seats in different countries, yet I shall only take
notice of his chief mansion-house that bears the name, and does the
honours of the family: this is amply magnificent, and yet, commodious
to admiration. His gardens are very extensive, and contain an infinite
variety of pleasing objects: they are divided into many branches
for divers purposes, and every where filled with improvements of
art upon nature; yet a beautiful order and happy contrivance are
conspicuous through every part; and though nothing is omitted to
render them stately and delightful; the whole is laid out to the
best advantage. Within doors, every thing bespeaks the grandeur and
judgment of the master; and as no cost is spared any where to procure
beauty or conveniency, so you see none impertinently lavished. All his
plate and furniture are completely fine, and you see nothing but what
is fashionable. He has no pictures but of the most eminent hands: the
rarities he shows are really such; he hoards up no trifles, nor offers
any thing to your sight that is shocking: but the several collections
he has of this sort, are agreeable as well as extraordinary, and rather
valuable than large: but curiosities and wealth are not confined to his
cabinet; the marble and sculpture that are displayed up and down are a
treasure themselves; and there is abundance of admirable gilding and
excellent carving to be seen in many places. What has been laid out
on the great hall, and one gallery, would be a considerable estate;
and there is a salloon and a stair-case not inferior to either;
these are all very spacious and lofty; the architecture of them is
of the best taste, and the decorations surprising. Throughout the
whole there appears a delicate mixture and astonishing variety of
lively embellishments, the splendour of which, joined to a perfect
cleanliness, no where neglected, are highly entertaining to the
most careless and least observing eye; whilst the exactness of the
workmanship bestowed on every part of the meanest utensil, gives a
more solid satisfaction, and is ravishing to the curious. But the
greatest excellency in this model of perfection is this; that as in
the most ordinary rooms there is nothing wanting for their purpose,
and the least passage is handsomely finished; so in those of the
greatest eclat there is nothing overcharged, nor any part of them
encumbered with ornaments.
Hor. This is a studied piece; but I do not like it the worse for it,
pray go on.
Cleo. I have thought of it before, I own. His equipage is rich and
well chosen, and there is nothing to be seen about him that art or
expence, within the compass of reason, could make better. At his own
table his looks are ever jovial; and his heart seems to be as open as
his countenance. His chief business there is to take care of others,
without being troublesome; and all his happiness seems to consist in
being able to please his friends: in his greatest mirth, he is wanting
in respect to no man; and never makes use of abbreviations in names,
or unhandsome familiarities with the meanest of his guests. To every
one that speaks to him, he gives an obliging attention, and seems never
to disregard any thing but what is said in commendation of his fare:
he never interrupts any discourse but what is made in his praise,
and seldom assents to any encomiums, though the most equitable that
are made on any thing that is his. When he is abroad he never spies
faults; and whatever is amiss, he either says nothing, or, in answer
to the complaints and uneasiness of others, gives every thing the
best-natured turn it can bear; but he seldom leaves a house before he
finds out something to extol in it, without wronging his judgment. His
conversation is always facetious and good-humoured, but as solid as it
is diverting. He never utters a syllable that has the least tincture
of obscenity or profaneness; nor ever made a jest that was offensive.
Hor. Very fine!
Cleo. He seems to be entirely free from bigotry and superstition,
avoids all disputes about religion; but goes constantly to church,
and is seldom absent from his family devotions.
Hor. A very godly gentleman!
Cleo. I expected we should differ there.
Hor. I do not find fault. Proceed, pray.
Cleo. As he is a man of erudition himself, so he is a promoter of
arts and sciences; he is a friend to merit, a rewarder of industry,
and a professed enemy to nothing but immorality and oppression. Though
no man's table is better furnished, nor cellars better stored; he
is temperate in his eating, and never commits excess in drinking:
though he has an exquisite palate, he always prefers wholesome meats
to those that are delicious only, and never indulges his appetite in
any thing that might probably be prejudicial to his health.
Hor. Admirably good!
Cleo. As he is in all other things, so he is elegant in his clothes,
and has often new ones: neatness he prefers to finery in his own dress;
but his retinue is rich. He seldom wears gold or silver himself, but
on very solemn occasions, in compliment to others; and to demonstrate
that these pompous habits are made for no other purpose, he is never
seen twice in the same; but having appeared in them one day, he gives
them away the next. Though of every thing he has the best of the sort,
and might be called curious in apparel; yet he leaves the care of
it to others; and no man has his clothes put on better that seem so
little to regard them.
Hor. Perfectly right; to be well dressed is a necessary article,
and yet to be solicitous about it is below a person of quality.
Cleo. Therefore he has a domestic of good taste, a judicious man, who
saves him that trouble; and the management likewise of his lace and
linen, is the province of a skilful woman. His language is courtly,
but natural and intelligible; it is neither low nor bombastic, and
ever free from pedantic and vulgar expressions. All his motions are
genteel without affectation; his mien is rather sedate than airy,
and his manner noble: for though he is ever civil and condescending,
and no man less arrogant, yet in all his carriage there is something
gracefully majestic; and as there is nothing mean in his humility,
so his loftiness has nothing disobliging.
Hor. Prodigiously good!
Cleo. He is charitable to the poor; his house is never shut to
strangers; and all his neighbours he counts to be his friends. He is
a father to his tenants; and looks upon their welfare as inseparable
from his interest. No man is less uneasy at little offences, or more
ready to forgive all trespasses without design. The injuries that are
suffered from other landlords, he turns into benefits; and whatever
damages, great or small, are sustained on his account, either from
his diversions or otherwise, he doubly makes good. He takes care to
be early informed of such losses, and commonly repairs them before
they are complained of.
Hor. Oh rare humanity; hearken ye foxhunters!
Cleo. He never chides any of his people; yet no man is better served;
and though nothing is wanting in his housekeeping, and his family is
very numerous, yet the regularity of it is no less remarkable than
the plenty they live in. His orders he will have strictly obeyed;
but his commands are always reasonable, and he never speaks to the
meanest footman without regard to humanity. Extraordinary diligence
in servants, and all laudable actions he takes notice of himself,
and often commends them to their faces; but leaves it to his steward
to reprove or dismiss those he dislikes.
Hor. Well judged.
Cleo. Whoever lives with him is taken care of in sickness as well
as in health. The wages he gives are above double those of other
masters; and he often makes presents to those that are more than
ordinary observing and industrious to please: but he suffers nobody
to take a penny of his friends or others, that come to his house,
on any account whatever. Many faults are connived at, or pardoned
for the first time, but a breach of this order is ever attended with
the loss of their places as soon as it is found out; and there is a
premium for the discovery.
Hor. This is the only exceptionable thing, in my opinion, that I have
heard yet.
Cleo. I wonder at that: why so, pray?
Hor. In the first place, it is very difficult to enforce obedience
to such a command; secondly, if it could be executed, it would be of
little use; unless it could be made general, which is impossible:
and therefore I look upon the attempt of introducing this maxim
to be singular and fantastical. It would please misers and others,
that would never follow the example at home; but it would take away
from generous men a handsome opportunity of showing their liberal
and beneficent disposition: besides, it would manifestly make ones
house too open to all sorts of people.
Cleo. Ways might be found to prevent that; but then it would be a
blessing, and do great kindness to men of parts and education, that
have little to spare, to many of whom this money to servants is a
very grievous burden.
Hor. What you mention is the only thing that can be said for it,
and I own, of great weight: but I beg your pardon for interrupting you.
Cleo. In all his dealings he is punctual and just. As he has an immense
estate, so he has good managers to take care of it: but though all his
accounts are very neatly kept, yet he makes it part of his business
to look them over himself. He suffers no tradesman's bill to lie by
unexamined; and though he meddles not with his ready cash himself,
yet he is a quick and cheerful, as well as an exact paymaster; and
the only singularity he is guilty of, is, that he never will owe any
thing on a new-year's day.
Hor. I like that very well.
Cleo. He is affable with discretion, of easy access, and never ruffled
with passion. To sum up all, no man seems to be less elevated with
his condition than himself; and in the full enjoyment of so many
personal accomplishments, as well as other possessions, his modesty
is equal to the rest of his happiness; and in the midst of the pomp
and distinction he lives in, he never appears to be entertained with
his greatness, but rather unacquainted with the things he excels in.
Hor. It is an admirable character, and pleases me exceedingly; but I
will freely own to you, that I should have been more highly delighted
with the description, if I had not known your design, and the use you
intend to make of it; which, I think, is barbarous: to raise so fine,
so elegant, and so complete an edifice, in order to throw it down,
is taking great pains to show one's skill in doing mischief. I have
observed the several places where you left room for evasions, and
lapping the foundation you have built upon. His heart seems to be as
open; and he never appears to be entertained with his greatness, I am
persuaded, that wherever you have put in this seeming and appearing,
you have done it designedly, and with an intent to make use of them as
so many back doors to creep out at. I could never have taken notice
of these things, if you had not acquainted me with your intention
before hand.
Cleo. I have made use of the caution you speak of: but with no other
view than to avoid just censure and prevent your accusing me of
incorrectness, or judging with too much precipitation; if it should
be proved afterwards, that this gentleman had acted from an ill
principle, which is the thing I own I purposed to convince you of;
but seeing, that it would be unpleasant to you, I will be satisfied
with having given you some small entertainment of the description,
and for the rest, I give you leave to think me in the wrong.
Hor. Why so? I thought the character was made and contrived on purpose
for my instruction.
Cleo. I do not pretend to instruct you: I would have offered something,
and appealed to your judgment; but I have been mistaken, and plainly
see my error. Both last night and now, when we began our discourse,
I took you to be in another disposition of thinking than I perceive
you are. You spoke of an impression that had been made upon you, and
of looking into yourself, and gave some other hints, which too rashly
I misconstrued in my favour; but I have found since, that you are as
warm as ever against the sentiments I profess myself to be of; and
therefore I will desist. I expect no pleasure from any triumph, and I
know nothing that would vex me more, than the thoughts of disobliging
you. Pray let us do in this as we do in another matter of importance,
never touch upon it: friends in prudence should avoid all subjects
in which they are known essentially to differ. Believe me, Horatio,
if it was in my power to divert or give you any pleasure, I would
grudge no pains to compass that end: but to make you uneasy, is a
thing that I shall never be knowingly guilty of, and I beg a thousand
pardons for having said so much both yesterday and to-day. Have you
heard any thing from Gibraltar?
Hor. I am ashamed of my weakness and your civility: you have not been
mistaken in the hints you speak of; what you have said has certainly
made a great impression upon me, and I have endeavoured to examine
myself: but, as you say, it is a severe task to do it faithfully. I
desired you to dine with me on purpose, that we might talk of these
things. It is I that have offended, and it is I that ought to ask
pardon for the ill manners I have been guilty of; but you know the
principles I have always adhered to; it is impossible to recede from
them at once. I see great difficulties, and now and then a glimpse of
truth, that makes me start: I sometimes feel great struggles within;
but I have been so used to derive all actions that are really good from
laudable motives, that as soon as I return to my accustomed way of
thinking, it carries all before it. Pray bear with my infirmities. I
am in love with your fine gentleman, and I confess, I cannot see how
a person so universally good, so far remote from all selfishness, can
act in such an extraordinary manner every way, but from principles of
virtue and religion. Where is there such a landlord in the world? If
I am in an error, I shall be glad to be undeceived. Pray inform me,
and say what you will, I promise you to keep my temper, and I beg of
you speak your mind with freedom.
Cleo. You have bid me before say what I would, and when I did,
you seemed displeased; but since you command me I will try once
more.----Whether there is or ever was such a man as I have described,
in the world, is not very material: but I will easily allow, that most
people would think it less difficult to conceive one, than to imagine
that such a clear and beautiful stream could flow from so mean and
muddy a spring, as an excessive thirst after praise, and an immoderate
desire of general applause from the most knowing judges; yet it is
certain, that great parts and extraordinary riches may compass all this
in a man, who is not deformed, and has had a refined education; and
that there are many persons naturally no better than a thousand others,
who by the helps mentioned, might attain to those good qualities and
accomplishments, if they had but resolution and perseverance enough,
to render every appetite and every faculty subservient to that one
predominant passion, which, if continually gratified, will always
enable them to govern, and, if required, to subdue all the rest
without exception, even in the most difficult cases.
Hor. To enter into an argument concerning the possibility of what
you say, might occasion a long dispute; but the probability, I think,
is very clear against you, and if there was such a man, it would be
much more credible, that he acted from the excellency of his nature,
in which so many virtues and rare endowments were assembled, than that
all his good qualities sprung from vicious motives. If pride could
be the cause of all this, the effect of it would sometimes appear
in others. According to your system, there is no scarcity of it, and
there are men of great parts and prodigious estates all over Europe:
why are there not several such patterns to be seen up and down,
as you have drawn as one; and why is it so very seldom, that many
virtues and good qualities are seen to meet in one individual?
Cleo. Why so few persons, though there are so many men of
immense fortune, ever arrive at any thing like this high pitch of
accomplishments; there are several reasons that are very obvious. In
the first place, men differ in temperament: some are naturally
of an active, stirring; others of an indolent, quiet disposition;
some of a bold, others of a meek spirit. In the second, it is to
be considered, that this temperament in men come to maturity is
more or less conspicuous, according as it has been either checked
or encouraged by education. Thirdly, that on these two depend the
different perception men have of happiness, according to which the love
of glory determines them different ways. Some think it the greatest
felicity to govern and rule over others: some take the praise of
bravery and undauntedness in dangers to be the most valuable: others,
erudition, and to be a celebrated author: so that, though they all love
glory, they set out differently to acquire it. But a man who hates a
bustle, and is naturally of a quiet easy temper, and which has been
encouraged in him by education, it is very likely might think nothing
more desirable than the character of a fine gentleman; and if he did,
I dare say that he would endeavour to behave himself pretty near
the pattern I have given you; I say pretty near, because I may have
been mistaken in some things, and as I have not touched upon every
thing, some will say, that I have left out several necessary ones:
but in the main I believe, that in the country and age we live in,
the qualifications I have named would get a man the reputation I have
supposed him to desire.
Hor. Without doubt, I make no manner of scruple about what you said
last; and I told you before that it was an admirable character,
and pleased me exceedingly. That I took notice of your making your
gentleman so very godly as you did, was because it is not common;
but I intended it not as a reflection. One thing, indeed, there was
in which I differed from you; but that was merely speculative; and,
since I have reflected on what you have answered me, I do not know but
I may be in the wrong, as I should certainly believe myself to be,
if there really was such a man, and he was of the contrary opinion:
to such a fine genius I would pay an uncommon deference, and with
great readiness submit my understanding to his superior capacity. But
the reasons you give why those effects which you ascribe to pride,
are not more common, the cause being so universal, I think are
insufficient. That men are prompted to follow different ends, as their
inclinations differ, I can easily allow; but there are great numbers
of rich men that are likewise of a quiet and indolent disposition,
and moreover very desirous of being thought fine gentlemen. How comes
it, that among so many persons of high birth, princely estates, and
the most refined education, as there are in Christendom, that study,
travel, and take great pains to be well accomplished, there is not
one, to whom all the good qualities, and every thing you named,
could be applied without flattery?
Cleo. It is very possible that thousands may aim at this, and not
one of them succeed to that degree: in some, perhaps the predominant
passion is not strong enough entirely to subdue the rest: love or
covetousness may divert others: drinking, gaming, may draw away many,
and break in upon their resolution; they may not have strength to
persevere in a design, and steadily to pursue the same ends; or they
may want a true taste or knowledge of what is esteemed by men of
judgment; or, lastly, they may not be so thoroughly well-bred, as is
required to conceal themselves on all emergencies: for the practical
part of dissimulation is infinitely more difficult than the theory:
and any one of these obstacles is sufficient to spoil all, and hinder
the finishing of such a piece.
Hor. I shall not dispute that with you: but all this while you have
proved nothing; nor given the least reason why you should imagine,
that a man of a character, to all outward appearance so bright and
beautiful, acted from vicious motives. You would not condemn him
without so much as naming the cause why you suspect him.
Cleo. By no means; nor have I advanced any thing that is ill natured
or uncharitable: for I have not said, that if I found a gentleman
in possession of all the things I mentioned, I would give his rare
endowments this turn, and think all his perfections derived from no
better stock, than an extraordinary love of glory. What I argue for,
and insist upon, is, the possibility that all these things might
be performed by a man from no other views, and with no other helps,
than those I have named: nay, I believe moreover, that a gentleman
so accomplished, all his knowledge and great parts notwithstanding,
may himself be ignorant, or at least not well assured of the motive
he acts from.
Hor. This is more unintelligible than any thing you have said yet;
why will you heap difficulties upon one another, without solving
any? I desire you would clear up this last paradox, before you do
any thing else.
Cleo. In order to obey you, I must put you in mind of what happens
in early education, by the first rudiments of which, infants are
taught in the choice of actions to prefer the precepts of others
to the dictates of their own inclinations; which, in short, is no
more than doing as they are bid. To gain this point, punishments and
rewards are not neglected, and many different methods are made use of;
but it is certain, that nothing proves more often effectual for this
purpose, or has a greater influence upon children, than the handle
that is made of shame; which, though a natural passion, they would
not be sensible of so soon, if we did not artfully rouse and stir
it up in them, before they can speak or go: by which means, their
judgment being then weak, we may teach them to be ashamed of what we
please, as soon as we can perceive them to be any ways affected with
the passion itself: but as the fear of shame is very insignificant,
where there is but little pride, so it is impossible to augment the
first, without increasing the latter in the same proportion.
Hor. I should have thought that this increase of pride would render
children more stubborn and less docile.
Cleo. You judge right; it would so, and must have been a great
hinderance to good manners, till experience taught men, that though
pride was not to be destroyed by force, it might be governed by
stratagem, and that the best way to manage it, is by playing the
passion against itself. Hence it is, that in an artful education,
we are allowed to place as much pride as we please in our dexterity
of concealing it. I do not suppose, that this covering ourselves,
notwithstanding the pride we take in it, is performed without a
difficulty that is plainly felt, and perhaps very unpleasant at first;
but this wears off as we grow up; and when a man has behaved himself
with so much prudence as I have described, lived up to the strictest
rules of good-breeding for many years, and has gained the esteem
of all that know him, when this noble and polite manner is become
habitual to him, it is possible he may in time forget the principle
he set out with, and become ignorant, or at least insensible of the
hidden spring that gives life and motion to all his actions.
Hor. I am convinced of the great use that may be made of pride, if
you will call it so; but I am not satisfied yet, how a man of so much
sense, knowledge, and penetration, one that understands himself so
entirely well, should be ignorant of his own heart, and the motives
he acts from. What is it that induces you to believe this, besides
the possibility of his forgetfulness?
Cleo. I have two reasons for it, which I desire may be seriously
considered. The first is, that in what relates to ourselves, especially
our own worth and excellency, pride blinds the understanding in men of
sense and great parts as well as in others, and the greater value we
may reasonably set upon ourselves, the fitter we are to swallow the
grossest flatteries, in spite of all our knowledge and abilities in
other matters: witness Alexander the Great, whose vast genius could not
hinder him from doubting seriously, whether he was a god or not. My
second reason will prove to us, that if the person in question was
capable of examining himself, it is yet highly improbable, that he
would ever set about it: for, it must be granted, that, in order to
search into ourselves, it is required we should be willing as well as
able; and we have all the reason in the world to think, that there
is nothing which a very proud man of such high qualifications would
avoid more carefully than such an inquiry: because, for all other acts
of self-denial, he is repaid in his darling passion; but this alone is
really mortifying, and the only sacrifice of his quiet for which he can
have no equivalent. If the hearts of the best and sincerest men are
corrupt and deceitful, what condition must theirs be in, whose whole
life is one continued scene of hypocrisy! therefore inquiring within,
and boldly searching into ones own bosom, must be the most shocking
employment, that a man can give his mind to, whose greatest pleasure
consists in secretly admiring himself. It would be ill manners,
after this, to appeal to yourself; but the severity of the task----
Hor. Say no more, I yield this point, though I own I cannot conceive
what advantage you can expect from it: for, instead of removing, it
will rather help to increase the grand difficulty, which is to prove,
that this complete person you have described, acts from a vicious
motive: and if that be not your design, I cannot see what you drive at.
Cleo. I told you it was.
Hor. You must have a prodigious sagacity in detecting abstruse matters
before other men.
Cleo. You wonder, I know, which way I arrogate to myself such a
superlative degree of penetration, as to know an artful cunning man
better than he does himself, and how I dare pretend to enter and look
into a heart, which I have owned to be completely well concealed
from all the world; which in strictness is an impossibility, and
consequently not to be bragged of but by a coxcomb.
Hor. You may treat yourself as you please, I have said no such thing;
but I own that I long to see it proved, that you have this capacity. I
remember the character very well: Notwithstanding the precautions
you have taken, it is very full: I told you before, that where things
have a handsome appearance every way, there can be no just cause to
suspect them. I will stick close to that; your gentleman is all of a
piece: You shall alter nothing, either by retracting any of the good
qualities you have given him, or making additions that are either
clashing with, or unsuitable to what you have allowed already.
Cleo. I shall attempt neither: And without that decisive trials may
be made, by which it will plainly appear whether a person acts from
inward goodness, and a principle of religion, or only from a motive
of vain glory; and, in the latter case, there is an infallible way of
dragging the lurking fiend from his darkest recesses into a glaring
light, where all the world shall know him.
Hor. I do not think myself a match for you in argument; but I have
a great mind to be your gentleman's advocate against all your
infallibility: I never liked a cause better in my life. Come, I
undertake to defend him in all the suppositions you can make that
are reasonable and consistent with what you have said before.
Cleo. Very well: let us suppose what may happen to the most
inoffensive, the most prudent, and best-bred man; that our fine
gentleman differs in opinion before company, with another, who is his
equal in birth and quality, but not so much master over his outward
behaviour, and less guarded in his conduct; let this adversary, mal
á propos, grow warm, and seem to be wanting in the respect that is
due to the other, and reflect on his honour in ambiguous terms. What
is your client to do?
Hor. Immediately to ask for an explanation.
Cleo. Which, if the hot man disregards with scorn, or flatly refuses
to give, satisfaction must be demanded, and tilt they must.
Hor. You are too hasty: it happened before company; in such cases,
friends, or any gentlemen present, should interpose and take care,
that if threatening words ensue, they are, by the civil authority, both
put under arrest; and before they came to uncourteous language, they
ought to have been parted by friendly force, if it were possible. After
that, overtures may be made of reconciliation with the nicest regard
to the point of honour.
Cleo. I do not ask for directions to prevent a quarrel; what you say
may be done, or it may not be done: The good offices of friends may
succeed, and they may not succeed. I am to make what suppositions I
think fit within the verge of possibility, so they are reasonable and
consistent with the character I have drawn: can we not suppose these
two persons in such a situation that you yourself would advise your
friend to send his adversary a challenge?
Hor. Without doubt such a thing may happen.
Cleo. That is enough. After that a duel must ensue, in which,
without determining any thing, the fine gentleman, we will say,
behaves himself with the utmost gallantry.
Hor. To have suspected or supposed otherwise would have been
unreasonable.
Cleo. You see, therefore, how fair I am. But what is it, pray, that
so suddenly disposes a courteous sweet-tempered man, for so small an
evil, to seek a remedy of that extreme violence? But above all, what
is it that buoys up and supports him against the fear of death? for
there lies the greatest difficulty.
Hor. His natural courage and intrepidity, built on the innocence of
his life, and the rectitude of his manners.
Cleo. But what makes so just and prudent a man, that has the good
of society so much at heart, act knowingly against the laws of his
country?
Hor. The strict obedience he pays to the laws of honour, which are
superior to all others.
Cleo. If men of honour would act confidently, they ought all to be
Roman Catholics.
Hor. Why, pray?
Cleo. Because they prefer oral tradition to all written laws: for
nobody can tell when, in what king's or emperor's reign, in what
country, or by what authority these laws of honour were first enacted:
it is very strange they should be of such force.
Hor. They are wrote and engraved in every ones breast that is a man of
honour: there is no denying of it; you are conscious of it yourself;
every body feels it within.
Cleo. Let them be wrote or engraved wherever you please, they are
directly opposite to and clashing with the laws of God; and if the
gentleman I described was as sincere in his religion as he appeared to
be, he must have been of an opinion contrary to yours; for Christians
of all persuasions are unanimous in allowing the divine laws to
be far above all other; and that all other considerations ought to
give way to them. How, and under what pretence can a Christian, who
is a man of sense, submit or agree to laws that prescribe revenge,
and countenance murder; both which are so expressly forbid by the
precepts of his religion?
Hor. I am no casuist: but you know, that what I say is true; and that,
among persons of honour, a man would be laughed at, that should make
such a scruple. Not but that I think killing a man to be a great sin,
where it can be helped; and that all prudent men ought to avoid the
occasion, as much as it is in their power. He is highly blameable who
is the first aggressor, and gives the affront; and whoever enters upon
it out of levity, or seeks a quarrel out of wantonness, ought to be
hanged. Nobody would choose it, who is not a fool; and yet, when it
is forced upon one, all the wisdom in the world cannot teach him how
to avoid it. It has been my case you know: I shall never forget the
reluctancy I had against it; but necessity has no law.
Cleo. I saw you that very morning, and you seemed to be sedate and
void of passion: you could have no concern.
Hor. It is silly to show any at such times; but I know best what I
felt; the struggle I had within was unspeakable: it is a terrible
thing. I would then have given a considerable part of my estate,
that the thing which forced me into it had not happened; and yet,
upon less provocation, I would act the same part again to-morrow.
Cleo. Do you remember what your concern was chiefly about?
Hor. How can you ask? It is an affair of the highest importance that
can occur in life; I was no boy; it was after we came from Italy;
I was in my nine and twentieth year, had very good acquaintance,
and was not ill received: a man of that age, in health and vigour,
who has seven thousand a-year, and the prospect of being a peer of
England, has no reason to quarrel with the world, or wish himself out
of it. It is a very great hazard a man runs in a duel; besides the
remorse and uneasiness one must feel as long as he lives, if he has the
misfortune of killing his adversary. It is impossible to reflect on
all these things, and at the same time resolve to run those hazards
(though there are other considerations of still greater moment),
without being under a prodigious concern.
Cleo. You say nothing about the sin.
Hor. The thoughts of that, without doubt, are a great addition; but
the other things are so weighty of themselves, that a man's condition
at such a time, is very perplexed without further reflection.
Cleo. You have now a very fine opportunity, Horatio, of looking into
your heart, and with a little of my assistance, examining yourself. If
you can condescend to this, I promise you that you shall make great
discoveries, and be convinced of truths you are now unwilling to
believe. A lover of justice and probity, as you are, ought not to be
fond of a road of thinking, where he is always forced to skulk, and
never dares to meet with light or reason. Will you suffer me to ask you
some questions, and will you answer them directly and in good humour?
Hor. I will, without reserve.
Cleo. Do you remember the storm upon the coast of Genoa?
Hor. Going to Naples? Very well; it makes me cold to think of it.
Cleo. Was you afraid?
Hor. Never more in my life: I hate that fickle element; I cannot
endure the sea.
Cleo. What was you afraid of?
Hor. That is a pretty question: do you think a young fellow of
six-and-twenty, as I was then, and in my circumstances, had a great
mind to be drowned? The captain himself said we were in danger.
Cleo. But neither he nor any body else discovered half so much fear
and anxiety as you did.
Hor. There was nobody there, yourself excepted, that had half a
quarter so much to lose as I had: besides, they are used to the sea;
storms are familiar to them. I had never been at sea before, but that
fine afternoon we crossed from Dover to Calais.
Cleo. Want of knowledge or experience may make men apprehend danger
where there is none; but real dangers, when they are known to be such,
try the natural courage of all men; whether they have been used to them
or not: sailors are as unwilling to lose their lives as other people.
Hor. I am not ashamed to own, that I am a great coward at sea: give
me terra firma, and then--
Cleo. Six or seven months after you fought that duel, I remember you
had the small-pox; you was then very much afraid of dying.
Hor. Not without a cause.
Cleo. I heard your physicians say, that the violent apprehension
you was under, hindered your sleep, increased your fever, and was as
mischievous to you as the distemper itself.
Hor. That was a terrible time; I am glad it is over: I had a sister
died of it. Before I had it, I was in perpetual dread of it, and many
times to hear it named only has made me uneasy.
Cleo. Natural courage is a general armour against the fear of death,
whatever shape that appears in, Si fractus illabatur erbis. It supports
a man in tempestuous seas, and in a burning fever, whilst he is in his
senses, as well as in a siege before a town, or in a duel with seconds.
Hor. What! you are going to show me, that I have no courage.
Cleo. Far from it; it would be ridiculous to doubt a man's bravery,
that has shown it in such an extraordinary manner as you have done
more than once: what I question, is the epithet you joined to it at
first, the word natural; for there is a great difference between that
and artificial courage.
Hor. That is a chicane I will not enter into: but I am not of your
opinion, as to what you said before. A gentleman is not required to
show his bravery, but where his honour is concerned; and if he dares
to fight for his king, his friend, his mistress, and every thing where
his reputation is engaged, you shall think of him what you please
for the rest. Besides, that in sickness and other dangers, as well
as afflictions, where the hand of God is plainly to be seen, courage
and intrepidity are impious as well as impertinent. Undauntedness in
chastisements is a kind of rebellion: it is waging war with Heaven,
which none but atheists and freethinkers would be guilty of; it is only
they that can glory in impenitence, and talk of dying hard. All others
that have any sense of religion, desire to repent before they go out of
the world: the best of us do not always live, as we could wish to die.
Cleo. I am very glad to hear you are so religious: but do not you
perceive yet, how inconsistent you are with yourself: how can a man
sincerely wish to repent, that wilfully plunges himself into a mortal
sin, and an action where he runs a greater and more immediate hazard
of his life, than he could have done in almost any other, without
force or necessity?
Hor. I have over and over owned to you that duelling is a sin; and,
unless a man is forced to it by necessity, I believe, a mortal one:
but this was not my case, and therefore I hope God will forgive me:
let them look to it that make a sport of it. But when a man comes to
an action with the utmost reluctancy, and what he does is not possibly
to be avoided, I think he then may justly be said to be forced to it,
and to act from necessity. You may blame the rigorous laws of honour,
and the tyranny of custom, but a man that will live in the world must,
and is bound to obey them. Would not you do it yourself?
Cleo. Do not ask me what I would do: the question is, what every
body ought to do. Can a man believe the Bible, and at the same time
apprehend a tyrant more crafty or malicious, more unrelenting or
inhuman than the devil, or a mischief worse than hell, and pains
either more exquisite or more durable than torments unspeakable
and yet everlasting? You do not answer. What evil is it? Think of
it, and tell me what dismal thing it is you apprehend, should you
neglect these laws, and despise that tyrant: what calamity could
befall you? Let me know the worst that can be feared.
Hor. Would you be posted for a coward?
Cleo. For what? For not daring to violate all human and divine laws?
Hor. Strictly speaking you are in the right, it is unanswerable;
but who will consider things in that light?
Cleo. All good Christians.
Hor. Where are they then? For all mankind in general would despise
and laugh at a man, who should move those scruples. I have heard and
seen clergymen themselves in company show their contempt of poltrons,
whatever they might talk or recommend in the pulpit. Entirely to quit
the world, and at once to renounce the conversation of all persons
that are valuable in it, is a terrible thing to resolve upon. Would
you become a town and table-talk? Could you submit to be the jest
and scorn of public-houses, stage-coaches, and market-places? Is
not this the certain fate of a man, who should refuse to fight, or
bear an affront without resentment? be just, Cleomenes; is it to be
avoided? Must he not be made a common laughing-stock, be pointed at in
the streets, and serve for diversion to the very children; to link-boys
and hackney-coachmen? Is it a thought to be born with patience?
Cleo. How come you now to have such an anxious regard for what may be
the opinion of the vulgar, whom at other times you so heartily despise?
Hor. All this is reasoning, and you know the thing will not bear it:
how can you be so cruel?
Cleo. How can you be so backward in discovering and owning the passion,
that is so conspicuously the occasion of all this, the palpable and
only cause of the uneasiness we feel at the thoughts of being despised?
Hor. I am not sensible of any; and I declare to you, that I feel
nothing that moves me to speak as I do, but the sense and principle
of honour within me.
Cleo. Do you think that the lowest of the mob, and the scum of the
people, are possessed of any part of this principle?
Hor. No, indeed.
Cleo. Or that among the highest quality, infants can be affected with
it before they are two years old?
Hor. Ridiculous.
Cleo. If neither of these are affected with it, then honour should be
either adventitious, and acquired by culture; or, if contained in the
blood of those that are nobly born, imperceptible until the years
of discretion; and neither of them can be said of the principle,
the palpable cause I speak of. For we plainly see on the one hand,
that scorn and ridicule are intolerable to the poorest wretches,
and that there is no beggar so mean or miserable, that contempt will
never offend him: on the other, that human creatures are so early
influenced by the sense of shame; that children, by being laughed at
and made a jest of, may be set a crying before they can well speak
or go. Whatever, therefore, this mighty principle is, it is born with
us, and belongs to our nature: are you unacquainted with the proper,
genuine, homely name of it?
Hor. I know you call it pride. I will not dispute with you about
principles and origins of things; but that high value which men
of honour set upon themselves as such, and which is no more than
what is due to the dignity of our nature, when well cultivated,
is the foundation of their character, and a support to them in
all difficulties, that is of great use to the society. The desire,
likewise, of being thought well of, and the love of praise and even of
glory are commendable qualities, that are beneficial to the public. The
truth of this is manifest in the reverse; all shameless people that are
below infamy, and matter not what is said or thought of them, these,
we see nobody can trust; they stick at nothing, and if they can but
avoid death, pain, and penal laws, are always ready to execute all
manner of mischief, their selfishness or any brutal appetite shall
prompt them to, without regard to the opinion of others: such are
justly called men of no principles, because they have nothing of any
strength within, that can either spur them on to brave and virtuous
actions, or restrain them from villany and baseness.
Cleo. The first part of your assertion is very true, when that high
value, that desire, and that love are kept within the bounds of reason:
But, in the second, there is a mistake; those whom we call shameless,
are not more destitute of pride, than their betters. Remember what I
have said of education, and the power of it; you may add inclinations,
knowledge, and circumstances; for, as men differ in all these, so they
are differently influenced and wrought upon by all the passions. There
is nothing that some men may not be taught to be ashamed of. The same
passion that makes the well-bred man, and prudent officer, value and
secretly admire themselves for the honour and fidelity they display,
may make the rake and scoundrel brag of their vices, and boast of
their impudence.
Hor. I cannot comprehend, how a man of honour, and one that has none,
should both act from the same principle.
Cleo. This is not more strange, than that self-love may make a man
destroy himself, yet nothing is more true; and it is as certain, that
some men indulge their pride in being shameless. To understand human
nature, requires study and application, as well as penetration and
sagacity. All passions and instincts in general, were given to all
animals for some wise end, tending to the preservation and happiness
of themselves, or their species: It is our duty to hinder them from
being detrimental or offensive to any part of the society; but why
should we be ashamed of having them? The instinct of high value,
which every individual has for himself, is a very useful passion:
but a passion it is, and though I could demonstrate, that we should
be miserable creatures without it, yet, when it is excessive, it
often is the cause of endless mischiefs.
Hor. But in well-bred people it never is excessive.
Cleo. You mean the excess of it never appears outwardly: But we ought
never to judge of its height or strength from what we can discover
of the passion itself, but from the effects it produces: It often is
most superlative, where it is most concealed; and nothing increases
and influences it more, than what is called a refined education, and a
continual commerce with the beau monde: The only thing that can subdue,
or any ways curb it, is a strict adherence to the Christian religion.
Hor. Why do you so much insist upon it, that this principle, this
value men set upon themselves, is a passion? And why will you choose
to call it pride rather than honour?
Cleo. For very good reasons. Fixing this principle in human nature,
in the first place, takes away all ambiguity: Who is a man of honour,
and who is not, is often a disputable point; and, among those
that are allowed to be such, the several degrees of strictness,
in complying with the rules of it, make great difference in the
principle itself. But a passion that is born with us is unalterable,
and part of our frame, whether it exerts itself or not: The essence
of it is the same, which way soever it is taught to turn. Honour
is the undoubted offspring of pride, but the same cause produces
not always the same effect. All the vulgar, children, savages, and
many others that are not affected with any sense of honour, have all
of them pride, as is evident from the symptoms. Secondly, it helps
us to explain the phenomena that occur in quarrels and affronts,
and the behaviour of men of honour on these occasions, which cannot
be accounted for any other way. But what moves me to it most of all,
is the prodigious force and exorbitant power of this principle of self
esteem, where it has been long gratified and encouraged. You remember
the concern you was under, when you had that duel upon your hands,
and the great reluctancy you felt in doing what you did; you knew it
to be a crime, and, at the same time, had a strong aversion to it;
what secret power was it that subdued your will, and gained the victory
over that great reluctancy you felt against it? You call it honour,
and the too strict, though unavoidable adherence to the rules of it:
But men never commit violence upon themselves, but in struggling with
the passions that are innate and natural to them. Honour is acquired,
and the rules of it are taught: Nothing adventitious, that some are
possessed, and others destitute of, could raise such intestine wars
and dire commotions within us; and therefore, whatever is the cause
that can thus divide us against ourselves, and, as it were, rend human
nature in twain, must be part of us; and, to speak without disguise,
the struggle in your breast was between the fear of shame and the fear
of death: had this latter not been so considerable, your struggle would
have been less: Still the first conquered, because it was strongest;
but if your fear of shame had been inferior to that of death, you
would have reasoned otherwise, and found out some means or other to
have avoided fighting.
Hor. This is a strange anatomy of human nature.
Cleo. Yet, for want of making use of it, the subject we are upon is not
rightly understood by many; and men have discoursed very inconsistently
on duelling. A divine who wrote a dialogue to explode that practice,
said, that those who were guilty of it, had mistaken notions of, and
went by false rules of honour; for which my friend justly ridiculed
him, saying, You may as well deny, that it is the fashion what you see
every body wear, as to say, that demanding and giving satisfaction,
is against the laws of true honour. Had that man understood human
nature, he could not have committed such a blunder: But when once he
took it for granted, that honour is a just and good principle, without
inquiring into the cause of it among the passions, it is impossible
he should have accounted for duelling, in a Christian pretending to
act from such a principle; and therefore, in another place, with the
same justice, he said, that a man who had accepted a challenge was
not qualified to make his will, because he was not compos mentis: He
might, with greater show of reason, have said, that he was bewitched.
Hor. Why so?
Cleo. Because people out of their wits, as they think at random,
so commonly they act and talk incoherently; but when a man of known
sobriety, and who shows no manner of discomposure, discourses and
behaves himself in every thing, as he is used to do; and, moreover,
reasons on points of great nicety with the utmost accuracy, it is
impossible we should take him to be either a fool or a madman; and
when such a person, in an affair of the highest importance, acts so
diametrically against his interest, that a child can see it, and with
deliberation pursues his own destruction, those who believe that there
are malignant spirits of that power, would rather imagine that he was
led away by some enchantment, and over-ruled by the enemy of mankind,
than they would fancy a palpable absurdity: But even the supposition
of that is not sufficient to solve the difficulty, without the help of
that strange anatomy. For what spell or witchcraft is there, by the
delusion of which a man of understanding shall, keeping his senses,
mistake an imaginary duty for an unavoidable necessity to break all
real obligations? But let us wave all ties of religion, as well as
human laws, and the person we speak of to be a professed Epicure,
that has no thoughts of futurity; what violent power of darkness
is it, that can force and compel a peaceable quiet man, neither
inured to hardship, nor valiant by nature, to quit his beloved ease
and security; and seemingly by choice go fight in cold blood for his
life, with this comfortable reflection, that nothing forfeits it so
certainly as the entire defeat of his enemy?
Hor. As to the law and the punishment, persons of quality have little
to fear of that.
Cleo. You cannot say that in France, nor the Seven Provinces. But
men of honour, that are of much lower ranks, decline duelling no
more than those of the highest quality. How many examples have we,
even here, of gallant men, that have suffered for it either by exile
or the hangman! A man of honour must fear nothing: Do but consider
every obstacle which this principle of self-esteem has conquered at
one time or other; and then tell me whether it must not be something
more than magic, by the fascination of which a man of taste and
judgment, in health and vigour, as well as the flower of his age, can
be tempted, and actually drawn from the embraces of a wife he loves,
and the endearments of hopeful children, from polite conversation
and the charms of friendship, from the fairest possessions and the
happy enjoyment of all worldly pleasures, to an unwarrantable combat,
of which the victor must be exposed either to an ignominious death,
or perpetual banishment.
Hor. When things are set in this light, I confess it is very
unaccountable: but will your system explain this; can you make it
clear yourself?
Cleo. Immediately, as the sun: If you will but observe two things,
that must necessarily follow, and are manifest from what I have
demonstrated already. The first is, that the fear of shame, in general,
is a matter of caprice, that varies with modes and customs, and may be
fixed on different objects, according to the different lessons we have
received, and the precepts we are imbued with; and that this is the
reason, why this fear of shame, as it is either well or ill placed,
sometimes produces very good effects, and at others is the cause
of the most enormous crimes. Secondly, that, though shame is a real
passion, the evil to be feared from it is altogether imaginary, and
has no existence but in our own reflection on the opinion of others.
Hor. But there are real and substantial mischiefs which a man may
draw upon himself, by misbehaving in point of honour; it may ruin
his fortune, and all hopes of preferment: An officer may be broken
for putting up an affront: Nobody will serve with a coward, and who
will employ him?
Cleo. What you urge is altogether out of the question; at least it
was in your own case; you had nothing to dread or apprehend but the
bare opinion of men. Besides, when the fear of shame is superior to
that of death, it is likewise superior to, and outweighs all other
considerations; as has been sufficiently proved: But when the fear
of shame is not violent enough to curb the fear of death, nothing
else can; and whenever the fear of death is stronger than that of
shame, there is no consideration that will make a man fight in cold
blood, or comply with any of the laws of honour, where life is at
stake. Therefore, whoever acts from the fear of shame as a motive,
in sending and accepting of challenges, must be sensible, on the one
hand, that the mischiefs he apprehends, should he disobey the tyrant,
can only be the offspring of his own thoughts; and, on the other,
that if he could be persuaded anywise to lessen the great esteem and
high value he sets upon himself, his dread of shame would likewise
palpably diminish. From all which, it is most evident, that the grand
cause of this distraction, the powerful enchanter we are seeking after,
is pride, excess of pride, that highest pitch of self-esteem, to which
some men may be wound up by an artful education, and the perpetual
flatteries bestowed upon our species, and the excellencies of our
nature. This is the sorcerer, that is able to divert all other passions
from their natural objects, and make a rational creature ashamed
of what is most agreeable to his inclination, as well as his duty;
both which the duellist owns, that he has knowingly acted against.
Hor. What a wonderful machine, what an heterogenous compound is
man! You have almost conquered me.
Cleo. I aim at no victory, all I wish for is to do you service,
in undeceiving you.
Hor. What is the reason that, in the same person, the fear of death
should be so glaringly conspicuous in sickness, or a storm, and so
entirely well hid in a duel, and all military engagements? Pray,
solve that too.
Cleo. I will as well as I can: On all emergencies, where reputation
is thought to be concerned, the fear of shame is effectually roused
in men of honour, and immediately their pride rushes in to their
assistance, and summons all their strength to fortify and support them
in concealing the fear of death; by which extraordinary efforts, the
latter, that is the fear of death, is altogether stifled, or, at least,
kept out of sight, and remains undiscovered. But in all other perils,
in which they do not think their honour engaged, their pride lies
dormant. And thus the fear of death, being checked by nothing, appears
without disguise. That this is the true reason, is manifest from the
different behaviour that is observed in men of honour, according as
they are either pretenders to Christianity; or tainted with irreligion;
for there are of both sorts; and you shall see, most commonly at least,
that your esprits forts, and those who would be thought to disbelieve
a future state (I speak of men of honour), show the greatest calmness
and intrepidity in the same dangers, where the pretended believers
among them, appear to be the most ruffled and pusillanimous.
Hor. But why pretended believers? at that rate there are no Christians
among the men of honour.
Cleo. I do not see how they can be real believers.
Hor. Why so?
Cleo. For the same reason that a Roman Catholic cannot be a good
subject, always to be depended upon, in a Protestant, or indeed any
other country, but the dominions of his Holiness. No sovereign can
confide with safety in a man's allegiance, who owns and pays homage
to another superior power upon earth. I am sure you understand me.
Hor. Too well.
Cleo. You may yoke a knight with a prebendary, and put them together
into the same stall; but honour, and the Christian religion, make no
couple, nec in unâ sede morantur, any more than majesty and love. Look
back on your own conduct, and you shall find, that what you said of the
hand of God was only a shift, an evasion you made to serve your then
present purpose. On another occasion, you had said yesterday yourself,
that Providence superintends and governs every thing without exception;
you must, therefore, have known, that the hand of God is as much
to be seen in one common accident in life, and in one misfortune,
as it is in another, that is not more extraordinary. A severe fit
of sickness may be less fatal, than a slight skirmish between two
hostile parties; and, among men of honour, there is often as much
danger in a quarrel about nothing, as there can be in the most
violent storm. It is impossible, therefore, that a man of sense,
who has a solid principle to go by, should, in one sort of danger,
think it impiety not to show fear, and in another be ashamed to be
thought to have any. Do but consider your own inconsistency with
yourself. At one time, to justify your fear of death, when pride is
absent, you become religious on a sudden, and your conscience then is
so tenderly scrupulous, that, to be undaunted under chastisements from
the Almighty, seems no less to you than waging war with Heaven; and,
at another, when honour calls, you dare not knowingly and willingly
break the most positive command of God, but likewise to own, that the
greatest calamity which, in your opinion, can befal you, is, that the
world should believe, or but suspect of you, that you had any scruple
about it. I defy the wit of man to carry the affront to the Divine
Majesty higher. Barely to deny his being, is not half so daring,
as it is to do this after you have owned him to exist. No Atheism----
Hor. Hold, Cleomenes; I can no longer resist the force of truth, and
I am resolved to be better acquainted with myself for the future. Let
me become your pupil.
Cleo. Do not banter me, Horatio; I do not pretend to instruct a
man of your knowledge; but if you will take my advice, search into
yourself with care and boldness, and, at your leisure, peruse the
book I recommended.
Hor. I promise you I will, and shall be glad to accept of the handsome
present I refused: Pray, send a servant with it to-morrow morning.
Cleo. It is a trifle. You had better let one of yours go with me now;
I shall drive home directly.
Hor. I understand your scruple. It shall be as you please.
THE THIRD
DIALOGUE
BETWEEN
HORATIO AND CLEOMENES.
HORATIO.
I thank you for your book.
Cleo. Your acceptance of it I acknowledge as a great favour.
Hor. I confess, that once I thought nobody could have persuaded me
to read it; but you managed me very skilfully, and nothing could
have convinced me so well as the instance of duelling: The argument,
à majori ad minus, struck me, without your mentioning it. A passion
that can subdue the fear of death, may blind a man's understanding,
and do almost every thing else.
Cleo. It is incredible what strange, various, unaccountable, and
contradictory forms we may be shaped into by a passion, that is not to
be gratified without being concealed, and never enjoyed with greater
ecstacy than when we are most fully persuaded, that it is well hid:
and therefore, there is no benevolence or good nature, no amiable
quality or social virtue, that may not be counterfeited by it; and,
in short, no achievement, good or bad, that the human body or mind are
capable of, which it may not seem to perform. As to its blinding and
infatuating the persons possessed with it to a high degree, there is
no doubt of it: for what strength of reason, I pray, what judgment or
penetration, has the greatest genius, if he pretends to any religion,
to boast of, after he has owned himself to have been more terrified
by groundless apprehensions, and an imaginary evil from vain impotent
men, whom he has never injured, than he was alarmed with the just
fears of a real punishment from an all-wise and omnipotent God,
whom he has highly offended?
Hor. But your friend makes no such religious reflections: he actually
speaks in favour of duelling.
Cleo. What, because he would have the laws against it as severe
as possible, and nobody pardoned, without exception, that offends
that way?
Hor. That indeed seems to discourage it; but he shows the necessity
of keeping up that custom, to polish and brighten society in general.
Cleo. Do not you see the irony there?
Hor. No, indeed: he plainly demonstrates the usefulness of it, gives
as good reasons as it is possible to invent, and shows how much
conversation would suffer, if that practice was abolished.
Cleo. Can you think a man serious on a subject, when he leaves it in
the manner he does?
Hor. I do not remember that.
Cleo. Here is the book: I will look for the passage----Pray, read this.
Hor. It is strange, that a nation should grudge to see, perhaps,
half a dozen men sacrificed in a twelvemonth, to obtain so valuable a
blessing, as the politeness of manners, the pleasure of conversation,
and the happiness of company in general, that is often so willing to
expose, and sometimes loses as many thousands in a few hours, without
knowing whether it will do any good or not. This, indeed, seems to
be said with a sneer: but in what goes before he is very serious.
Cleo. He is so, when he says that the practice of duelling, that is
the keeping up of the fashion of it, contributes to the politeness
of manners and pleasure of conversation, and this is very true; but
that politeness itself, and that pleasure, are the things he laughs
at and exposes throughout his book.
Hor. But who knows, what to make of a man, who recommends a thing
very seriously in one page, and ridicules it in the next?
Cleo. It is his opinion, that there is no solid principle to go by but
the Christian religion, and that few embrace it with sincerity: always
look upon him in this view, and you will never find him inconsistent
with himself. Whenever at first sight he seems to be so, look again,
and upon nearer inquiry you will find, that he is only pointing at,
or labouring to detect the inconsistency of others with the principles
they pretend to.
Hor. He seems to have nothing less at heart than religion.
Cleo. That is true, and if he had appeared otherwise, he would never
have been read by the people whom he designed his book for, the modern
deists and all the beau monde: It is those he wants to come at. To
the first he sets forth the origin and insufficiency of virtue, and
their own insincerity in the practice of it: to the rest he shows
the folly of vice and pleasure, the vanity of worldly greatness,
and the hypocrisy of all those divines, who, pretending to preach
the gospel, give and take allowances that are inconsistent with,
and quite contrary to the precepts of it.
Hor. But this is not the opinion the world has of the book; it is
commonly imagined, that it is wrote for the encouragement of vice,
and to debauch the nation.
Cleo. Have you found any such thing in it?
Hor. To speak my conscience, I must confess, I have not: vice is
exposed in it, and laughed at; but it ridicules war and martial
courage, as well as honour and every thing else.
Cleo. Pardon me, religion is ridiculed in no part of it.
Hor. But if it is a good book, why then are so many of the clergy so
much against it as they are?
Cleo. For the reason I have given you: my friend has exposed their
lives, but he has done it in such a manner, that nobody can say he
has wronged them, or treated them harshly. People are never more
vexed, than when the thing that offends them, is what they must not
complain of: they give the book an ill name because they are angry;
but it is not their interest, to tell you the the true reason why
they are so. I could draw you a parallel case that would clear up
this matter, if you would have patience to hear me, which, as you
are a great admirer of operas, I can hardly expect.
Hor. Any thing to be informed.
Cleo. I always had such an aversion to eunuchs, as no fine singing
or acting of any of them has yet been able to conquer; when I hear a
feminine voice, I look for a petticoat; and I perfectly loath the sight
of those sexless animals. Suppose that a man with the same dislike
to them had wit at will, and a mind to lash that abominable piece
of luxury, by which men are taught in cold blood to spoil males for
diversion, and out of wantonness to make waste of their own species. In
order to this, we will say, he takes a handle from the operation
itself; he describes and treats it in the most inoffensive manner; then
shows the narrow bounds of human knowledge, and the small assistance
we can have, either from dissection or philosophy, or any part of
the mathematics, to trace and penetrate into the cause à priori, why
this destroying of manhood should have that surprising effect upon the
voice; and afterwards demonstrates, how sure we are à posteriori, that
it has a considerable influence, not only on the pharinx, the glands
and muscles of the throat, but likewise the windpipe, and the lungs
themselves, and in short on the whole mass of blood, consequently all
the juices of the body, and every fibre in it. He might say likewise,
that no honey, no preparations of sugar, raisins, or spermaceti;
no emulsions, lozenges or other medicines, cooling or balsamic; no
bleeding, no temperance or choice in eatables; no abstinence from
women, from wine, and every thing that is hot, sharp or spirituous,
were of that efficacy to preserve, sweeten, and strengthen the voice;
he might insist upon it, that nothing could do this so effectually as
castration. For a blind to his main scope, and to amuse his readers,
he might speak of this practice, as made use of for other purposes;
that it had been inflicted as a solemn punishment for analogous crimes;
that others had voluntarily submitted to it, to preserve health and
prolong life; whilst the Romans, by Cæsar's testimony, thought it
more cruel than death, morte gravius. How it had been used sometimes
by way of revenge; and then say something in pity of poor Abelard;
at other times for precaution; and then relate the story of Combabus
and Stratonice: with scraps from Martial, Juvenal, and other poets, he
might interlard it, and from a thousand pleasant things that have been
said on the subject, he might pick out the most diverting to embellish
the whole. His design being satire, he would blame our fondness for
these castrati, and ridicule the age in which a brave English nobleman
and a general officer, serves his country at the hazard of his life,
a whole twelvemonth, for less pay than an Italian no-man of scoundrel
extraction receives, for now and then singing a song in great safety,
during only the winter-season. He would laugh at the caresses and
the court that are made to them by persons of the first quality,
who prostitute their familiarity with these most abject wretches,
and misplace the honour and civilities only due to their equals,
on things that are no part of the creation, and owe their being to
the surgeon; animals so contemptible, that they can curse their maker
without ingratitude. If he should call this book, the Eunuch is the
Man; as soon as I heard the title, before I saw the book, I should
understand by it, that eunuchs were now esteemed, that they were in
fashion and in the public favour, and considering that a eunuch is
in reality not a man, I should think it was a banter upon eunuchs,
or a satire against those, who had a greater value for them than they
deserved. But if the gentlemen of the academy of music, displeased at
the freedom they were treated with, should take it ill, that a paultry
scribbler should interfere and pretend to censure their diversion,
as well as they might; if they should be very angry, and study to do
him a mischief, and accordingly, not having much to say in behalf of
eunuchs, not touch upon any thing the author had said against their
pleasure, but represent him to the world as an advocate for castration,
and endeavour to draw the public odium upon him by quotations taken
from him proper for that purpose, it would not be difficult to raise
a clamour against the author, or find a grand jury to present his book.
Hor. The simile holds very well as to the injustice of the accusation,
and the insincerity of the complaint; but is it as true, that luxury
will render a nation flourishing, and that private vices are public
benefits, as that castration preserves and strengthens the voice?
Cleo. With the restrictions my friend requires, I believe it is, and
the cases are exactly alike. Nothing is more effectual to preserve,
mend, and strengthen a fine voice in youth than castration: the
question is not, whether this is true, but whether it is eligible;
whether a fine voice is an equivalent for the loss, and whether a man
would prefer the satisfaction of singing, and the advantages that
may accrue from it, to the comforts of marriage, and the pleasure
of posterity, of which enjoyments it destroys the possibility. In
like manner, my friend demonstrates, in the first place, that the
national happiness which the generality wish and pray for, is wealth
and power, glory and worldly greatness; to live in ease, in affluence
and splendour at home, and to be feared, courted, and esteemed abroad:
in the second, that such a felicity is not to be attained to without
avarice, profuseness, pride, envy, ambition, and other vices. The
latter being made evident beyond contradiction, the question is not,
whether it is true, but whether this happiness is worth having at
the rate it is only to be had at, and whether any thing ought to be
wished for, which a nation cannot enjoy, unless the generality of
them are vicious. This he offers to the consideration of Christians,
and men who pretend to have renounced the world, with all the pomp
and vanity of it.
Hor. How does it appear that the author addresses himself to such?
Cleo. From his writing it in English, and publishing it in London. But
have you read it through yet?
Hor. Twice: there are many things I like very well, but I am not
pleased with the whole.
Cleo. What objection have you against it?
Hor. It has diminished the pleasure I had in reading a much better
book. Lord Shaftsbury is my favourite author: I can take delight in
enthusiasm; but the charms of it cease as soon as I am told what it
is I enjoy. Since we are such odd creatures, why should we not make
the most of it?
Cleo. I thought you was resolved to be better acquainted with yourself,
and to search into your heart with care and boldness.
Hor. That is a cruel thing; I tried it three times since I saw you
last, till it put me into a sweat, and then I was forced to leave off.
Cleo. You should try again, and use yourself by degrees to think
abstractly, and then the book will be a great help to you.
Hor. To confound me it will: it makes a jest of all politeness and
good manners.
Cleo. Excuse me, Sir, it only tells us, what they are.
Hor. It tells us, that all good manners consist in flattering the
pride of others, and concealing our own. Is not that a horrid thing?
Cleo. But is it not true?
Hor. As soon as I had read that passage, it struck me: down I laid
the book, and tried in above fifty instances, sometimes of civility,
and sometimes of ill manners, whether it would answer or not, and I
profess that it held good in every one.
Cleo. And so it would if you tried till doomsday.
Hor. But is not that provoking? I would give a hundred guineas with
all my heart, that I did not know it. I cannot endure to see so much
of my own nakedness.
Cleo. I never met with such an open enmity to truth in a man of
honour before.
Hor. You shall be as severe upon me as you please; what I say is
fact. But since I am got in so far, I must go through with it now:
there are fifty things that I want to be informed about.
Cleo. Name them, pray; if I can be of any service to you, I shall
reckon it as a great honour; I am perfectly well acquainted with the
author's sentiments.
Hor. I have twenty questions to ask about pride, and I do not know
where to begin. There is another thing I do not understand; which is,
that there can be no virtue without self-denial.
Cleo. This was the opinion of all the ancients. Lord Shaftsbury was
the first that maintained the contrary.
Hor. But are there no persons in the world that are good by choice?
Cleo. Yes; but then they are directed in that choice by reason and
experience, and not by nature, I mean, not by untaught nature: but
there is an ambiguity in the word good which I would avoid; let us
stick to that of virtuous, and then I affirm, that no action is such,
which does not suppose and point at some conquest or other, some
victory great or small over untaught nature; otherwise the epithet
is improper.
Hor. But if by the help of a careful education, this victory is
obtained, when we are young, may we not be virtuous afterwards
voluntarily and with pleasure?
Cleo. Yes, if it really was obtained: but how shall we be sure of
this, and what reason have we to believe that it ever was? when it is
evident, that from our infancy, instead of endeavouring to conquer
our appetites, we have always been taught, and have taken pains
ourselves to conceal them; and we are conscious within, that whatever
alterations have been made in our manners and our circumstances,
the passions themselves always remained? The system that virtue
requires to self-denial, is, as my friend has justly observed, a
vast inlet to hypocrisy: it will, on all accounts, furnish men with
a more obvious handle, and a greater opportunity of counterfeiting
the love of society, and regard to the public, than ever they could
have received from the contrary doctrine, viz. that there is no merit
but in the conquest of the passions, nor any virtue without apparent
self-denial. Let us ask those that have had long experience, and are
well skilled in human affairs, whether they have found the generality
of men such impartial judges of themselves, as never to think better of
their own worth than it deserved, or so candid in the acknowledgment
of their hidden faults and slips, they could never be convinced of,
that there is no fear they should ever stifle or deny them. Where is
the man that has at no time covered his failings, and screened himself
with false appearances, or never pretended to act from principles of
social virtue, and his regard to others, when he knew in his heart
that his greatest care had been to oblige himself? The best of us
sometimes receive applause without undeceiving those who give it;
though, at the same time, we are conscious that the actions, for
which we suffer ourselves to be thought well of, are the result of
a powerful frailty in our nature, that has often been prejudicial to
us, and which we have wished a thousand times in vain, that we could
have conquered. The same motives may produce very different actions,
as men differ in temper and circumstances. Persons of an easy fortune
may appear virtuous, from the same turn of mind that would show their
frailty if they were poor. I£ we would know the world, we must look
into it. You take no delight in the occurrences of low life; but if
we always remain among persons of quality, and extend our inquiries no
farther, the transactions there will not furnish us with a sufficient
knowledge of every thing that belongs to our nature. There are,
among the middling people, men of low circumstances, tolerably well
educated, that set out with the same stock of virtues and vices,
and though equally qualified, meet with very different success;
visibly owing to the difference in their temper. Let us take a view
of two persons bred to the same business, that have nothing but their
parts and the world before them, launching out with the same helps and
disadvantages: let there be no difference between them, but in their
temper; the one active, and the other indolent. The latter will never
get an estate by his own industry, though his profession be gainful,
and himself master of it. Chance, or some uncommon accident, may be
the occasion of great alterations in him, but without that he will
hardly ever raise himself to mediocrity. Unless his pride affects him
in an extraordinary manner, he must always be poor, and nothing but
some share of vanity can hinder him from being despicably so. If he
be a man of sense, he will be strictly honest, and a middling stock
of covetousness will never divert him from it. In the active stirring
man, that is easily reconciled to the bustle of the world, we shall
discover quite different symptoms, under the same circumstances;
and a very little avarice will egg him on to pursue his aim with
eagerness and assiduity: small scruples are no opposition to him;
where sincerity will not serve, he uses artifice; and in compassing
his ends, the greatest use he will make of his good sense will be,
to preserve as much as is possible, the appearance of honesty; when
his interest obliges him to deviate from it. To get wealth, or even a
livelihood by arts and sciences, it is not sufficient to understand
them: it is a duty incumbent on all men, who have their maintenance
to seek, to make known and forward themselves in the world, as far as
decency allows of, without bragging of themselves, or doing prejudice
to others: here the indolent man is very deficient and wanting to
himself; but seldom will own his fault, and often blames the public for
not making use of him, and encouraging that merit, which they never
were acquainted with, and himself perhaps took pleasure to conceal;
and though you convince him of his error, and that he has neglected
even the most warrantable methods of soliciting employment, he will
endeavour to colour over his frailty with the appearance of virtue;
and what is altogether owing to his too easy temper, and an excessive
fondness for the calmness of his mind, he will ascribe to his modesty
and the great aversion he has to impudence and boasting. The man of a
contrary temper trusts not to his merit only, or the setting it off
to the best advantage; he takes pains to heighten it in the opinion
of others, and make his abilities seem greater than he knows them to
be. As it is counted folly for a man to proclaim his own excellencies,
and speak magnificently of himself, so his chief business is to seek
acquaintance, and make friends on purpose to do it for him: all other
passions he sacrifices to his ambition; he laughs at disappointments,
is inured to refusals, and no repulse dismays him: this renders the
whole man always flexible to his interest; he can defraud his body of
necessaries, and allow no tranquillity to his mind; and counterfeit,
if it will serve his turn, temperance, chastity, compassion, and piety
itself, without one grain of virtue or religion: his endeavours to
advance his fortune per fas et nefas are always restless, and have
no bounds, but where he is obliged to act openly, and has reason to
fear the censure of the world. It is very diverting to see how, in the
different persons I speak of, natural temper will warp and model the
very passions to its own bias: pride, for example, has not the same,
but almost a quite contrary effect on the one to what it has on the
other: the stirring active man it makes in love with finery, clothes,
furniture, equipages, building, and every thing his superiors enjoy:
the other it renders sullen, and perhaps morose; and if he has wit,
prone to satire, though he be otherwise a good-natured man. Self-love,
in every individual, ever bestirs itself in soothing and flattering
the darling inclination; always turning from us the dismal side of
the prospect; and the indolent man in such circumstances, finding
nothing pleasing without, turns his view inward upon himself; and
there, looking on every thing with great indulgence, admires and
takes delight in his own parts, whether natural or acquired: hence
he is easily induced to despise all others who have not the same
good qualifications, especially the powerful, and wealthy, whom yet
he never hates or envies with any violence; because that would ruffle
his temper. All things that are difficult he looks upon as impossible,
which makes him despair of meliorating his condition; and as he has
no possessions, and his gettings will but just maintain him in a low
station of life, so his good sense, if he would enjoy so much as the
appearance of happiness, must necessarily put him upon two things; to
be frugal, and pretend to have no value for riches; for, by neglecting
either, he must be blown up, and his frailty unavoidably discovered.
Hor. I am pleased with your observations, and the knowledge you display
of mankind; but pray, is not the frugality you now speak of a virtue?
Cleo. I think not.
Hor. Where there is but a small income, frugality is built upon reason;
and in this case there is an apparent self-denial, without which an
indolent man that has no value for money cannot be frugal; and we
see indolent men, that have no regard for wealth, reduced to beggary,
as it often happens, it is most commonly for want of this virtue.
Cleo. I told you before, that the indolent man, setting out as he did,
would be poor; and that nothing but some share of vanity could hinder
him from being despicably so. A strong fear of shame may gain so much
upon the indolence of a man of sense, that he will bestir himself
sufficiently to escape contempt; but it will hardly make him do any
more; therefore he embraces frugality, as being instrumental and
assisting to him in procuring his summum bonum, the darling quiet
of his easy mind; whereas, the active man, with the same share of
vanity, would do any thing rather than submit to the same frugality,
unless his avarice forced him to it. Frugality is no virtue, when it
is imposed upon us by any of the passions, and the contempt of riches
is seldom sincere. I have known men of plentiful estates, that, on
account of posterity, or other warrantable views of employing their
money, were saving, and more penurious, than they would have been,
if their wealth had been greater: but I never yet found a frugal
man, without avarice or necessity. And again, there are innumerable
spendthrifts, lavish and extravagant to a high degree, who seem not to
have the least regard to money, whilst they have any to fling away:
but these wretches are the least capable of bearing poverty of any,
and the money once gone, hourly discover how uneasy, impatient, and
miserable they are without it. But what several in all ages have made
pretence to, the contempt of riches, is more scarce than is commonly
imagined. To see a man of a very good estate, in health and strength
of body and mind, one that has no reason to complain of the world or
fortune, actually despise both, and embrace a voluntary poverty, for a
laudable purpose, is a great rarity. I know but one in all antiquity,
to whom all this may be applied with strictness of truth.
Hor. Who is that, pray?
Cleo. Anaxagoras of Clazomene in Ionia: He was very rich, of noble
extraction, and admired for his great capacity: he divided and gave
away his estate among his relations, and refused to meddle with the
administration of public affairs that was offered him, for no other
reason, than that he might have leisure for contemplation of the
works of nature, and the study of philosophy.
Hor. To me it seems to be more difficult to be virtuous without money,
than with: it is senseless for a man to be poor, when he can help it,
and if I saw any body choose it, when he might as lawfully be rich,
I would think him to be distracted.
Cleo. But you would not think him so, if you saw him sell his estate,
and give the money to the poor: you know where that was required.
Hor. It is not required of us.
Cleo. Perhaps not: but what say you to renouncing the world, and the
solemn promise we have made of it?
Hor. In a literal sense that is impossible, unless we go out of it;
and therefore I do not think, that to renounce the world signifies
any more, than not to comply with the vicious, wicked part of it.
Cleo. I did not expect a more rigid construction from you, though it is
certain, that wealth and power are great snares, and strong impediments
to all Christian virtue: but the generality of mankind, that have any
thing to lose, are of your opinion; and let us bar saints and madmen,
we shall find every where, that those who pretend to undervalue,
and are always haranguing against wealth, are generally poor and
indolent. But who can blame them? They act in their own defence;
nobody that could help it would ever be laughed at; for it must be
owned, that of all the hardships of poverty, it is that which is the
most intolerable.
Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se,
Quam quod ridiculos homines faciat.----
In the very satisfaction that is enjoyed by those who excel in,
or are possessed of things valuable, there is interwoven a spice of
contempt for others, that are destitute of them, which nothing keeps
from public view, but a mixture of pity and good manners. Whoever
denies this, let them consult within, and examine whether it is not
the same with happiness, as what Seneca says of the reverse, nemo
est miser nisi comparatus. The contempt and ridicule I speak of,
is, without doubt, what all men of sense and education endeavour to
avoid or disappoint. Now, look upon the behaviour of the two contrary
tempers before us, and mind how differently they set about this talk,
every one suitably to his own inclination. The man of action, you see,
leaves no stone unturned to acquire quod oportet habere: but this is
impossible for the indolent; he cannot stir; his idol ties him down
hand and foot; and, therefore, the easiest, and, indeed the only thing
he has left, is to quarrel with the world, and find out arguments to
depreciate what others value themselves upon.
Hor. I now plainly see, how pride and good sense must put an indolent
man, that is poor, upon frugality; and likewise the reason, why they
will make him affect to be content, and seem pleased with his low
condition: for, if he will not be frugal, want and misery are at the
door: and if he shows any fondness for riches, or a more ample way
of living, he loses the only plea he has for his darling frailty,
and immediately he will be asked, why he does not exert himself in a
better manner? and he will be continually told of the opportunities
he neglects.
Cleo. It is evident, then, that the true reasons, why men speak
against things, are not always writ upon their foreheads.
Hor. But after all this quiet easy temper, this indolence you talk of,
is it not what, in plain English, we call laziness?
Cleo. Not at all; it implies no sloth, or aversion to labour: an
indolent man may be very diligent, though he cannot be industrious:
he will take up with things below him, if they come in his way; he
will work in a garret, or any where else, remote from public view,
with patience and assiduity, but he knows not how to solicit and teaze
others to employ him, or demand his due of a shuffling, designing
master, that is either difficult of access, or tenacious of his money:
if he be a man of letters, he will study hard for a livelihood, but
generally parts with his labours at a disadvantage, and will knowingly
sell them at an under-rate to an obscure man, who offers to purchase,
rather than bear the insults of haughty booksellers, and be plagued
with the sordid language of the trade. An indolent man may, by chance,
meet with a person of quality, that takes a fancy to him; but he will
never get a patron by his own address; neither will he ever be the
better for it, when he has one, further than the unasked-for bounty,
and downright generosity of his benefactor make him. As he speaks
for himself with reluctancy, and is always afraid of asking favours,
so, for benefits received, he shows no other gratitude, than what
the natural emotions of his heart suggest to him. The striving,
active man studies all the winning ways to ingratiate himself,
and hunts after patrons with design and sagacity: whilst they are
beneficial to him; he affects a perpetual sense of thankfulness;
but all his acknowledgments of past obligations, he turns into
solicitations for fresh favours: his complaisance may be engaging,
and his flattery ingenious, but the heart is untouched: he has
neither leisure, nor the power to love his benefactors: the eldest
he has, he will always sacrifice to a new one; and he has no other
esteem for the fortune, the greatness, or the credit of a patron,
than as he can make them subservient either to raise or maintain
his own. From all this, and a little attention on human affairs,
we may easily perceive, in the first place, that the man of action,
and an enterprising temper, in following the dictates of his nature,
must meet with more rubs and obstacles infinitely, than the indolent,
and a multitude of strong temptations, to deviate from the rules of
strict virtue, which hardly ever come in the other's way; that, in many
circumstances, he will be forced to commit such actions, for which,
all his skill and prudence notwithstanding, he will, by some body or
other, deservedly be thought to be an ill man; and that to end with
a tolerable reputation, after a long course of life, he must have had
a great deal of good fortune, as well as cunning. Secondly, that the
indolent man may indulge his inclinations, and be as sensual as his
circumstances may let him, with little offence or disturbance to his
neighbour; that the excessive value he sets upon the tranquillity of
his mind, and the grand aversion he has to part with it, must prove a
strong curb to every passion, that comes uppermost; none of which, by
this means, can ever affect him in any high degree, and consequently,
that the corruption of his heart remaining, he may, with little art and
no great trouble, acquire many valuable qualities, that shall have all
the appearances of social virtues, whilst nothing extraordinary befals
him. As to his contempt of the world, the indolent man perhaps will
scorn to make his court, and cringe to a haughty favourite, that will
browbeat him at first; but he will run with joy to a rich nobleman,
that he is sure will receive him with kindness and humanity: With
him he will partake, without reluctancy, of all the elegant comforts
of life that are offered, the most expensive not excepted. Would you
try him further, confer upon him honour and wealth in abundance. If
this change in his fortune stirs up no vice that lay dormant before,
as it may by rendering him either covetous or extravagant, he will
soon conform himself to the fashionable world: Perhaps he will be a
kind master, an indulgent father, a benevolent neighbour, munificent
to merit that pleases him, a patron to virtue, and a wellwisher to
his country; but for the rest, he will take all the pleasure he is
capable of enjoying; stifle no passion he can calmly gratify, and,
in the midst of a luxuriant plenty, laugh heartily at frugality,
and the contempt of riches and greatness he professed in his poverty;
and cheerfully own the futility of those pretences.
Hor. I am convinced, that, in the opinion of virtue's requiring
self-denial, there is greater certainty, and hypocrites have less
latitude than in the contrary system.
Cleo. Whoever follows his own inclinations, be they never so kind,
beneficent, or human, never quarrel with any vice, but what is
clashing with his temperament and nature; whereas those who act
from a principle of virtue, take always reason for their guide,
and combat, without exception, every passion that hinders them from
their duty! The indolent man will never deny a just debt; but, if it
be large, he will not give himself the trouble which, poor as he is,
he might, and ought to take to discharge it, or, at least, satisfy
his creditors, unless he is often dunned, or threatened to be sued
for it. He will not be a litigious neighbour, nor make mischief among
his acquaintance; but he will never serve his friend or his country,
at the expence of his quiet. He will not be rapacious, oppress the
poor, or commit vile actions for lucre; but then he will never exert
himself, and be at the pains another would take on all opportunities,
to maintain a large family, make provision for children, and promote
his kindred and relations; and his darling frailty will incapacitate
him from doing a thousand things for the benefit of the society, which,
with the same parts and opportunities, he might, and would have done,
had he been of another temper.
Hor. Your observations are very curious, and, as far as I can judge
from what I have seen myself, very just and natural.
Cleo. Every body knows that there is no virtue so often counterfeited
as charity, and yet so little regard have the generality of men to
truth, that how gross and bare-faced soever the deceit is in pretences
of this nature, the world never fails of being angry with, and
hating those who detect or take notice of the fraud. It is possible,
that, with blind fortune on his side, a mean shopkeeper, by driving
a trade prejudicial to his country on the one hand, and grinding,
on all occasions, the face of the poor on the other, may accumulate
great wealth; which, in process of time, by continual scraping, and
sordid saving, may be raised into an exorbitant, an unheard-of estate
for a tradesman. Should such a one, when old and decrepit, lay out
the greatest part of his immense riches in the building, or largely
endowing an hospital, and I was thoroughly acquainted with his temper
and manners, I could have no opinion of his virtue, though he parted
with the money, whilst he was yet alive; more especially, if I was
assured, that, in his last will, he had been highly unjust, and had
not only left unrewarded several, whom he had great obligations to,
but likewise defrauded others, to whom, in his conscience, he knew
that he was, and would die actually indebted. I desire you to tell
me what name, knowing all I have said to be true, you would give to
this extraordinary gift, this mighty donation!
Hor. I am of opinion, than when an action of our neighbour may admit
of different constructions, it is our duty to side with, and embrace
the most favourable.
Cleo. The most favourable constructions with all my heart: But what is
that to the purpose, when all the straining in the world cannot make
it a good one? I do not mean the thing itself, but the principle it
came from, the inward motive of the mind that put him upon performing
it; for it is that which, in a free agent, I call the action: And,
therefore, call it what you please, and judge as charitably of it as
you can, what can you say of it?
Hor. He might have had several motives, which I do not pretend to
determine; but it is an admirable contrivance of being extremely
beneficial to all posterity in this land, a noble provision that will
perpetually relieve, and be an unspeakable comfort to a multitude
of miserable people; and it is not only a prodigious, but likewise a
well-concerted bounty that was wanting, and for which, in after ages,
thousands of poor wretches will have reason to bless his memory,
when every body else shall have neglected them.
Cleo. All that I have nothing against; and if you would add more,
I shall not dispute it with you, as long as you confine your praises
to the endowment itself, and the benefit the public is like to receive
from it. But to ascribe it to, or suggest that it was derived from a
public spirit in the man, a generous sense of humanity and benevolence
to his kind, a liberal heart, or any other virtue or good quality,
which it is manifest the donor was an utter stranger to, is the
utmost absurdity in an intelligent creature, and can proceed from no
other cause than either a wilful wronging of his own understanding,
or else ignorance and folly.
Hor. I am persuaded, that many actions are put off for virtuous,
that are not so; and that according as men differ in natural temper,
and turn of mind, so they are differently influenced by the same
passions: I believe likewise, that these last are born with us, and
belong to our nature; that some of them are in us, or at least the
seeds of them, before we perceive them: but since they are in every
individual, how comes it that pride is more predominant in some than
it is in others? For from what you have demonstrated already, it must
follow, that one person is more affected with the passion within
than another; I mean, that one man has actually a greater share of
pride than another, as well among the artful that are dexterous in
concealing it, as among the ill-bred that openly show it.
Cleo. What belongs to our nature, all men may justly be said to have
actually or virtually in them at their birth; and whatever is not born
with us, either the thing itself, or that which afterwards produces
it, cannot be said to belong to our nature: but as we differ in our
faces and stature, so we do in other things, that are more remote from
sight: but all these depend only upon the different frame, the inward
formation of either the solids or the fluids; and there are vices
of complexion, that are peculiar, some to the pale and phlegmatic,
others to the sanguine and choleric: some are more lustful, others more
fearful in their nature, than the generality are: but I believe of man,
generally speaking, what my friend has observed of other creatures,
that the best of the kind, I mean the best formed within, such as
have the finest natural parts, are born with the greatest aptitude
to be proud; but I am convinced, that the difference there is in men,
as to the degrees of their pride, is more owing to circumstances and
education, than any thing in their formation. Where passions are most
gratified and least controlled, the indulgence makes them stronger;
whereas those persons, that have been kept under, and whose thoughts
have never been at liberty to rove beyond the first necessaries of
life; such as have not been suffered, or had no opportunity to gratify
this passion, have commonly the least share of it. But whatever portion
of pride a man may feel in his heart, the quicker his parts are,
the better his understanding is; and the more experience he has, the
more plainly he will perceive the aversion which all men have to those
that discover their pride: and the sooner persons are imbued with good
manners, the sooner they grow perfect in concealing that passion. Men
of mean birth and education, that have been kept in great subjection,
and consequently had no great opportunities to exert their pride,
if ever they come to command others, have a sort of revenge mixed
with that passion, which makes it often very mischievous, especially
in places where they have no superiors or equals, before whom they
are obliged to conceal the odious passion.
Hor. Do you think women have more pride from nature than men?
Cleo. I believe not: but they have a great deal more from education.
Hor. I do not see the reason: for among the better sort, the sons,
especially the eldest, have as many ornaments and fine things given
them from their infancy, to stir up their pride, as the daughters.
Cleo. But among people equally well-educated, the ladies have more
flattery bestowed upon them, than the gentlemen, and it begins sooner.
Hor. But why should pride be more encouraged in women than in men?
Cleo. For the same reason, that it is encouraged in soldiers, more
than it is in other people; to increase their fear of shame, which
makes them always mindful of their honour.
Hor. But to keep both to their respective duties, why must a lady
have more pride than a gentleman?
Cleo. Because the lady is in the greatest danger of straying from it;
she has a passion within, that may begin to affect her at twelve, or
thirteen, and perhaps sooner, and she has all the temptations of the
men to withstand besides: she has all the artillery of our sex to fear;
a seducer of uncommon address and resistless charms, may court her to
what nature prompts and solicits her to do; he may add great promises,
actual bribes; this may be done in the dark, and when nobody is by
dissuade her. Gentlemen very seldom have occasion to show their courage
before they are sixteen or seventeen years of age, and rarely so soon:
they are not put to the trial, till, by conversing with men of honour,
they are confirmed in their pride: in the affair of a quarrel they
have their friends to consult, and these are so many witnesses of their
behaviour, that awe them to their duty, and in a manner oblige them to
obey the laws of honour: all these things conspire to increase their
fear of shame; and if they can but render that superior to the fear of
death, their business is done; they have no pleasure to expect from
breaking the rules of honour, nor any crafty tempter that solicits
them to be cowards. That pride which is the cause of honour in men,
only regards their courage; and if they can but appear to be brave,
and will but follow the fashionable rules of manly honour, they may
indulge all other appetites, and brag of incontinence without reproach:
the pride likewise that produces honour in women, has no other object
than their chastity; and whilst they keep that jewel entire, they can
apprehend no shame: tenderness and delicacy are a compliment to them;
and there is no fear of danger so ridiculous, but they may own it
with ostentation. But notwithstanding the weakness of their frame,
and the softness in which women are generally educated, if overcome
by chance they have sinned in private, what real hazards will they
not run, what torments will they not stifle, and what crimes will
they not commit, to hide from the world that frailty, which they were
taught to be most ashamed of!
Hor. It is certain, that we seldom hear of public prostitutes,
and such as have lost their shame, that they murder their infants,
though they are otherwise the most abandoned wretches: I took notice
of this in the Fable of the Bees, and it is very remarkable.
Cleo. It contains a plain demonstration, that the same passion may
produce either a palpable good or a palpable evil in the same person,
according as self-love and his present circumstances shall direct; and
that the same fear of shame, that makes men sometimes appear so highly
virtuous, may at others oblige them to commit the most heinous crimes:
that, therefore, honour is not founded upon any principle, either of
real virtue or true religion, must be obvious to all that will but mind
what sort of people they are, that are the greatest votaries of that
idol, and the different duties it requires in the two sexes: in the
first place, the worshippers of honour are the vain and voluptuous,
the strict observers of modes and fashions, that take delight in pomp
and luxury, and enjoy as much of the world as they are able: in the
second, the word itself, I mean the sense of it, is so whimsical,
and there is such a prodigious difference in the signification of
it, according as the attribute is differently applied, either to a
man or to a woman, that neither of them shall forfeit their honour,
though each should be guilty, and openly boast of what would be the
others greatest shame.
Hor. I am sorry that I cannot charge you with injustice: but it is
very strange; that to encourage and industriously increase pride
in a refined education, should be the most proper means to make men
solicitous in concealing the outward appearances of it.
Cleo. Yet nothing is more true; but where pride is so much indulged,
and yet to be so carefully kept from all human view, as it is in
persons of honour of both sexes, it would be impossible for mortal
strength to endure the restraint, if men could not be taught to play
the passion against itself, and were not allowed to change the natural
home-bred symptoms of it, for artificial foreign ones.
Hor. By playing the passion against itself, I know you mean placing
a secret pride in concealing the barefaced signs of it: but I do not
rightly understand what you mean by changing the symptoms of it.
Cleo. When a man exults in his pride, and gives a loose to that
passion, the marks of it are as visible in his countenance, his mien,
his gait and behaviour, as they are in a prancing horse, or a strutting
turkey-cock. These are all very odious; every one feeling the same
principle within, which is the cause of those symptoms; and man being
endued with speech, all the open expressions the same passion can
suggest to him, must for the same reason be equally displeasing: these,
therefore, have in all societies been strictly prohibited by common
consent, in the very infancy of good manners; and men have been taught,
in the room of them, to substitute other symptoms, equally evident
with the first, but less offensive, and more beneficial to others.
Hor. Which are they?
Cleo. Fine clothes, and other ornaments about them, the cleanliness
observed about their persons, the submissions that is required of
servants, costly equipages, furniture, buildings, titles of honour,
and every thing that men can acquire to make themselves esteemed
by others, without discovering any of the symptoms that are forbid:
upon a satiety of enjoying these, they are allowed likewise to have
the vapours, and be whimsical, though otherwise they are known to be
in health and of good sense.
Hor. But since the pride of others is displeasing to us in every shape,
and these latter symptoms, you say, are equally evident with the first,
what is got by the change?
Cleo. A great deal: when pride is designedly expressed in looks and
gestures, either in a wild or tame man, it is known by all human
creatures that see it; it is the same, when vented in words, by every
body that understands the language they are spoken in. These are marks
and tokens that are all the world over the same: nobody shows them,
but to have them seen and understood, and few persons ever display
them without designing that offence to others, which they never fail
to give: whereas, the other symptoms may be denied to be what they
are; and many pretences, that they are derived from other motives,
may be made for them, which the same good manners teach us never to
refute, nor easily to disbelieve: in the very excuses that are made,
there is a condescension that satisfies and pleases us. In those that
are altogether destitute of the opportunities to display the symptoms
of pride that are allowed of, the least portion of that passion
is a troublesome, though often an unknown guest; for in them it is
easily turned into envy and malice, and on the least provocation,
it sallies out in those disguises, and is often the cause of cruelty;
and there never was a mischief committed by mobs or multitudes, which
this passion had not a hand in: whereas, the more room men have to
vent and gratify the passion in the warrantable ways, the more easy
it is for them to stifle the odious part of pride, and seem to be
wholly free from it.
Hor. I see very well, that real virtues requires a conquest over
untaught nature, and that the Christian religion demands a still
stricter self-denial: it likewise is evident, that to make ourselves
acceptable to an omniscient Power, nothing is more necessary than
sincerity, and that the heart should be pure. But setting aside sacred
matters, and a future state, do not you think that this complaisance
and easy construction of one another's actions, do a great deal of good
upon earth; and do not you believe that good manners and politeness
make men more happy, and their lives more comfortable in this world,
than any thing else could make them without those arts?
Cleo. If you will set aside what ought to employ our first care,
and be our greatest concern; and men will have no value for that
felicity and peace of mind, which can only arise from a consciousness
of being good, it is certain, that in a great nation, and among a
flourishing people, whose highest wishes seem to be ease and luxury,
the upper part could not, without those arts, enjoy so much of the
world as that can afford; and that none stand more in need of them
than the voluptuous men of parts, that will join worldly prudence to
sensuality, and make it their chief study to refine upon pleasure.
Hor. When I had the honour of your company at my house, you said that
nobody knew when or where, nor in what king's or emperor's reign the
laws of honour were enacted; pray, can you inform me when or which way,
what we call good manners or politeness came into the world? what
moralist or politician was it, that could teach men to be proud of
hiding their pride?
Cleo. The resistless industry of man to supply his wants; and his
constant endeavours to meliorate his condition upon earth, have
produced and brought to perfection many useful arts and sciences,
of which the beginnings are of uncertain eras, and to which we can
align no other causes, than human sagacity in general, and the joint
labour of many ages, in which men have always employed themselves
in studying and contriving ways and means to sooth their various
appetites, and make the best of their infirmities. Whence had we the
first rudiments of architecture; how came sculpture and painting to
be what they have been these many hundred years; and who taught every
nation the respective languages they speak now. When I have a mind
to dive into the origin of any maxim or political invention, for the
use of society in general, I do not trouble my head with inquiring
after the time or country in which it was first heard of, nor what
others have wrote or said about it; but I go directly to the fountain
head, human nature itself, and look for the frailty or defect in man,
that is remedied or supplied by that invention: when things are very
obscure, I sometimes make use of conjectures to find my way.
Hor. Do you argue, or pretend to prove any thing from those
conjectures?
Cleo. No; I never reason but from the plain observations which every
body may make on man, the phenomena that appear in the lesser world.
Hor. You have, without doubt, thought on this subject before now;
would you communicate to me some of your guesses?
Cleo. With abundance of pleasure.
Hor. You will give me leave, now and then, when things are not clear
to me, to put in a word for information's sake.
Cleo. I desire you would: you will oblige me with it. That
self-love was given to all animals, at least, the most perfect,
for self-preservation, is not disputed; but as no creature can love
what it dislikes, it is necessary, moreover, that every one should
have a real liking to its own being, superior to what they have to
any other. I am of opinion, begging pardon for the novelty, that if
this liking was not always permanent, the love which all creatures
have for themselves, could not be so unalterable as we see it is.
Hor. What reason have you to suppose this liking, which creatures
have for themselves, to be distinct from self-love; since the one
plainly comprehends the other?
Cleo. I will endeavour to explain myself better. I fancy, that to
increase the care in creatures to preserve themselves, nature has given
them an instinct, by which every individual values itself above its
real worth; this in us, I mean in man, seems to be accompanied with a
diffidence, arising from a consciousness, or at least an apprehension,
that we do overvalue ourselves: it is that makes us so fond of the
approbation, liking, and assent of others; because they strengthen
and confirm us in the good opinion we have of ourselves. The reasons
why this self-liking, give me leave to call it so, is not plainly to
be seen in all animals that are of the same degree of perfection, are
many. Some want ornaments, and consequently the means to express it;
others are too stupid and listless: it is to be considered likewise,
that creatures, which are always in the same circumstances, and
meet with little variation in their way of living, have neither
opportunity nor temptation to show it; that the more mettle and
liveliness creatures have, the more visible this liking is; and that
in those of the same kind, the greater spirit they are of, and the more
they excel in the perfections of their species, the fonder they are of
showing it: in most birds it is evident, especially in those that have
extraordinary finery to display: in a horse it is more conspicuous than
in any other irrational creature: it is most apparent in the swiftest,
the strongest, the most healthy and vigorous; and may be increased
in that animal by additional ornaments, and the presence of man,
whom he knows, to clean, take care of, and delight in him. It is not
improbable, that this great liking which creatures have for their own
individuals, is the principle on which the love to their species is
built: cows and sheep, too dull and lifeless to make any demonstration
of this liking, yet herd and feed together, each with his own species;
because no others are so like themselves: by this they seem to know
likewise, that they have the same interest, and the same enemies;
cows have often been seen to join in a common defence against wolves:
birds of a feather flock together; and I dare say, that the screechowl
likes her own note better than that of the nightingale.
Hor. Montaigne seems to have been somewhat of your opinion, when he
fancied, that if brutes were to paint the Deity, they would all draw
him of their own species. But what you call self-liking is evidently
pride.
Cleo. I believe it is, or at least the cause of it. I believe,
moreover, that many creatures show this liking, when, for want of
understanding them, we do not perceive it: When a cat washes her face,
and a dog licks himself clean, they adorn themselves as much as it is
in their power. Man himself, in a savage state, feeding on nuts and
acorns, and destitute of all outward ornaments, would have infinitely
less temptation, as well as opportunity, of showing this liking of
himself, than he has when civilized; yet if a hundred males of the
first, all equally free, were together, within less than half an
hour, this liking in question, though their bellies were full, would
appear in the desire of superiority, that would be shown among them;
and the most vigorous, either in strength or understanding, or both,
would be the first that would display it: If, as supposed, they were
all untaught, this would breed contention, and there would certainly
be war before there could be any agreement among them; unless one of
them had some one or more visible excellencies above the rest. I said
males, and their bellies full; because, if they had women among them,
or wanted food, their quarrel might begin on another account.
Hor. This is thinking abstractly indeed: but do you think that two
or three hundred single savages, men and women, that never had been
under any subjection, and were above twenty years of age, could ever
establish a society, and be united into one body, if, without being
acquainted with one another, they should meet by chance!
Cleo. No more, I believe, than so many horses: but societies never were
made that way. It is possible that several families of savages might
unite, and the heads of them agree upon some sort of government or
other, for their common good: but among them it is certain likewise,
that, though superiority was tolerably well settled, and every male
had females enough, strength and prowess in this uncivilized state
would be infinitely more valued than understanding: I mean in the men;
for the women will always prize themselves for what they see the men
admire in them: Hence it would follow, that the women would value
themselves, and envy one another for being handsome; and that the
ugly and deformed, and all those that were least favoured by nature,
would be the first, that would fly to art and additional ornaments:
seeing that this made them more agreeable to the men, it would soon
be followed by the rest, and in a little time they would strive to
outdo one another, as much as their circumstances would allow of;
and it is possible, that a woman, with a very handsome nose, might
envy her neighbour with a much worse, for having a ring through it.
Hor. You take great delight in dwelling on the behaviour of savages;
what relation has this to politeness?
Cleo. The seeds of it are lodged in this self-love and
self-liking, which I have spoke of, as will soon appear, if we
would consider what would be the consequence of them in the affair
of self-preservation, and a creature endued with understanding,
speech, and risibility. Self-love would first make it scrape
together every thing it wanted for sustenance, provide against the
injuries of the air, and do every thing to make itself and young ones
secure. Self-liking would make it seek for opportunities, by gestures,
looks, and sounds, to display the value it has for itself, superior to
what it has for others; an untaught man would desire every body that
came near him, to agree with him in the opinion of his superior worth,
and be angry, as far as his fear would let him, with all that should
refuse it: he would be highly delighted with, and love every body
whom he thought to have a good opinion of him, especially those, that,
by words or gestures, should own it to his face: whenever he met with
any visible marks in others of inferiority to himself, he would laugh,
and do the same at their misfortunes, as far as his own pity would
give him leave, and he would insult every body that would let him.
Hor. This self-liking, you say, was given to creatures for
self-preservation: I should think rather that it is hurtful to men,
because it must make them odious to one another; and I cannot see what
benefit they can receive from it, either in a savage or a civilized
state: is there any instance of its doing any good?
Cleo. I wonder to hear you ask that question. Have you forgot the
many virtues which I have demonstrated, may be counterfeited to gain
applause, and the good qualities a man of sense in great fortune may
acquire, by the sole help and instigation of his pride?
Hor. I beg your pardon: yet what you say only regards man in the
society, and after he has been perfectly well educated: what advantage
is it to him as a single creature? Self-love I can plainly see,
induces him to labour for his maintenance and safety, and makes him
fond of every thing which he imagines to tend to his preservation;
but what good does the self-liking to him?
Cleo. If I should tell you, that the inward pleasure and satisfaction
a man receives from the gratification of that passion, is a cordial
that contributes to his health, you would laugh at me, and think it
far fetched.
Hor. Perhaps not; but I would set against it the many sharp vexations
and heart-breaking sorrows, that men suffer on the score of this
passion, from disgraces, disappointments, and other misfortunes, which,
I believe, have sent millions to their graves much sooner than they
would have gone, if their pride had less affected them.
Cleo. I have nothing against what you say: but this is no proof that
the passion itself was not given to man for self-preservation; and
it only lays open to us the precariousness of sublunary happiness,
and the wretched condition of mortals. There is nothing created that
is always a blessing; the rain and sunshine themselves, to which
all earthly comforts are owing, have been the causes of innumerable
calamities. All animals of prey, and thousand others, hunt after food
with the hazard of their lives, and the greater part of them perish in
their pursuits after sustenance. Plenty itself is not less fatal to
some, than want is to others; and of our own species, every opulent
nation has had great numbers, that in full safety from all other
dangers, have destroyed themselves by excesses of eating and drinking:
yet nothing is more certain, than that hunger and thirst were given to
creatures, to make them solicitous after, and crave those necessaries,
without which it would be impossible for them to subsist.
Hor. Still I can see no advantage accruing from their self-liking to
man, considered as a single creature, which can induce me to believe,
that nature should have given it us for self-preservation. What you
have alleged is obscure; can you name a benefit every individual
person receives from that principle within him, that is manifest,
and clearly to be understood?
Cleo. Since it has been in disgrace, and every body disowns the
passion, it seldom is seen in its proper colours, and disguises
itself in a thousand different shapes: we are often affected with it,
when we have not the least suspicion of it; but it seems to be that
which continually furnishes us with that relish we have for life, even
when it is not worth having. Whilst men are pleased, self-liking has
every moment a considerable share, though unknown, in procuring the
satisfaction they enjoy. It is so necessary to the well-being of those
that have been used to indulge it, that they can taste no pleasure
without it; and such is the deference, and the submissive veneration
they pay to it, that they are deaf to the loudest calls of nature,
and will rebuke the strongest appetites that should pretend to be
gratified at the expence of that passion. It doubles our happiness in
prosperity, and buoys us up against the frowns of adverse fortune. It
is the mother of hopes, and the end as well as the foundation of our
best wishes: it is the strongest armour against despair; and as long
as we can like any ways our situation, either in regard to present
circumstances, or the prospect before us, we take care of ourselves;
and no man can resolve upon suicide, whilst self-liking lasts: but as
soon as that is over, all our hopes are extinct, and we can form no
wishes but for the dissolution of our frame; till at last our being
becomes so intolerable to us, that self-love prompts us to make an
end of it, and seek refuge in death.
Hor. You mean self-hatred; for you have said yourself, that a creature
cannot love what it dislikes.
Cleo. If you turn the prospect, you are in the right: but this
only proves to us what I have often hinted at, that man is made up
of contrarieties; otherwise nothing seems to be more certain, than
that whoever kills himself by choice, must do it to avoid something,
which he dreads more than that death which he chooses. Therefore,
how absurd soever a person's reasoning may be, there is in all suicide
a palpable intention of kindness to one's self.
Hor. I must own that your observations are entertaining. I am very
well pleased with your discourse, and I see an agreeable glimmering
of probability that runs through it; but you have said nothing that
comes up to a half proof on the side of your conjecture, if it be
seriously considered.
Cleo. I told you before that I would lay no stress upon, nor draw any
conclusions from it: but whatever nature's design was in bestowing
this self-liking on creatures, and whether it has been given to
other animals besides ourselves or not, it is certain, that in our
own species every individual person likes himself better than he does
any other.
Hor. It may be so, generally speaking: but that it is not universally
true, I can assure you, from my own experience; for I have often
wished my self to be Count Theodati, whom you knew at Rome.
Cleo. He was a very fine person indeed, and extremely well
accomplished; and therefore you wished to be such another, which is
all you could mean. Celia has a very handsome face, fine eyes, fine
teeth; but she has red hair, and is ill made: therefore she wishes
for Chloe's hair and Belinda's shape; but she would still remain Celia.
Hor. But I wished that I might have been that person, that very
Theodati.
Cleo. That is impossible.
Hor. What, is it impossible to wish it?
Cleo. Yes, to wish it; unless you wished for annihilation at the
same time. It is that self we wish well to; and therefore we cannot
wish for any change in ourselves, but with a proviso, that to self,
that part of us that wishes, should still remain: for take away that
consciousness you had of yourself whilst you was wishing, and tell
me, pray, what part of you it is that could be the better for the
alteration you wished for?
Hor. I believe you are in the right. No man can wish but to enjoy
something, which no part of that same man could do, if he was entirely
another.
Cleo. That he itself, the person wishing, must be destroyed before
the change could be entire.
Hor. But when shall we come to the origin of politeness?
Cleo. We are at it now, and we need not look for it any further than
in the self-liking, which I have demonstrated every individual man to
be possessed of. Do but consider these two things: First, that from
the nature of that passion, it must follow, that all untaught men
will ever be hateful to one another in conversation, where neither
interest nor superiority are considered: for, if of two equals, one
only values himself more by half, than he does the other, though that
other should value the first equally with himself, they would both
be dissatisfied, if their thoughts were known to each other; but if
both valued themselves more by half, than they did each other, the
difference between them would still be greater, and a declaration of
their sentiments would render them both insufferable to each other;
which, among uncivilized men, would happen every moment, because,
without a mixture of art and trouble, the outward symptoms of that
passion are not to be stifled. The second thing I would have you
consider, is, the effect which, in all human probability, this
inconveniency, arising from self-liking, would have upon creatures
endued with a great share of understanding, that are fond of their ease
to the last degree, and as industrious to procure it. These two things,
I say, do but duly weigh, and you shall find that the disturbance and
uneasiness that must be caused by self-liking, whatever strugglings
and unsuccessful trials to remedy them might precede, must necessarily
produce, at long run, what we call good manners and politeness.
Hor. I understand you, I believe. Every body in this undisciplined
state, being affected with the high value he has for himself, and
displaying the most natural symptoms which you have described, they
would all be offended at the barefaced pride of their neighbours:
and it is impossible that this should continue long among rational
creatures, but the repeated experience of the uneasiness they received
from such behaviour, would make some of them reflect on the cause of
it; which, in tract of time, would make them find out, that their own
barefaced pride, must be as offensive to others, as that of others
is to themselves.
Cleo. What you say is certainly the philosophical reason of the
alterations that are made in the behaviour of men, by their being
civilized: but all this is done without reflection; and men by
degrees, and great length of time, fall as it were into these things
spontaneously.
Hor. How is that possible, when it must cost them trouble, and there
is a palpable self-denial to be seen in the restraint they put upon
themselves?
Cleo. In the pursuit of self-preservation, men discover a restless
endeavour to make themselves easy, which insensibly teaches them to
avoid mischief on all emergencies: and when human creatures once
submit to government, and are used to live under the restraint
of laws, it is incredible how many useful cautions, shifts, and
stratagems they will learn to practise by experience and imitation,
from conversing together, without being aware of the natural causes
that oblige them to act as they do, viz. the passions within, that,
unknown to themselves, govern their will and direct their behaviour.
Hor. You will make men as mere machines as Cartes does brutes.
Cleo. I have no such design: but I am of opinion, that men find out
the use of their limbs by instinct, as much as brutes do the use of
theirs; and that, without knowing any thing of geometry or arithmetic,
even children may learn to perform actions that seem to bespeak great
skill in mechanics, and a considerable depth of thought and ingenuity
in the contrivance besides.
Hor. What actions are they which you judge this from?
Cleo. The advantageous postures which they will choose in resisting
force, in pulling, pushing, or otherwise removing weight; from their
sleight and dexterity in throwing stones, and other projectiles;
and the stupendous cunning made use of in leaping.
Hor. What stupendous cunning, I pray?
Cleo. When men would leap or jump a great way, you know, they take
a run before they throw themselves off the ground. It is certain,
that, by this means, they jump farther, and with greater force than
they could do otherwise: the reason likewise is very plain. The body
partakes of, and is moved by two motions; and the velocity, impressed
upon it by leaping, must be added to so much, as it retained of the
velocity it was put into by running: Whereas, the body of a person
who takes this leap, as he is standing still, has no other motion,
than what is received from the muscular strength exerted in the act of
leaping. See a thousand boys, as well as men, jump, and they will make
use of this stratagem; but you will not find one of them that does it
knowingly for that reason. What I have said of that stratagem made
use of in leaping, I desire you would apply to the doctrine of good
manners, which is taught and practised by millions, who never thought
on the origin of politeness, or so much as knew the real benefit it is
of to society. The most crafty and designing will every where be the
first; that, for interest-sake, will learn to conceal this passion
of pride, and, in a little time, nobody will show the least symptom
of it, whilst he is asking favours, or stands in need of help.
Hor. That rational creatures should do all this, without thinking or
knowing what they are about, is inconceivable. Bodily motion is one
thing, and the exercise of the understanding is another; and therefore
agreeable postures, a graceful mien, an easy carriage, and a genteel
outward behaviour, in general, may be learned and contracted perhaps
without much thought; but good manners are to be observed every where,
in speaking, writing, and ordering actions to be performed by others.
Cleo. To men who never turned their thoughts that way, it certainly
is almost inconceivable to what prodigious height, from next to
nothing, some arts may be, and have been raised by human industry
and application, by the uninterrupted labour and joint experience of
many ages, though none but men of ordinary capacity should ever be
employed in them. What a noble, as well as beautiful, what a glorious
machine is a first rate man of war when she is under sail, well rigged,
and well manned! As in bulk and weight it is vastly superior to any
other moveable body of human invention, so there is no other that
has an equal variety of differently surprising contrivance to boast
of. There are many sets of hands in the nation, that, not wanting
proper materials, would be able in less than half a-year, to produce,
fit out, and navigate a first rate: yet it is certain, that this
task would be impracticable, if it was not divided and subdivided
into a great variety of different labours; and it is as certain,
that none of these labours require any other, than working men of
ordinary capacities.
Hor. What would you infer from this?
Cleo. That we often ascribe to the excellency of man's genius, and
the depth of his penetration, what is in reality owing to length
of time, and the experience of many generations, all of them very
little differing from one another in natural parts and sagacity. And
to know what it must have cost to bring that art of making ships for
different purposes, to the perfection in which it is now, we are only
to consider, in the first place, that many considerable improvements
have been made in it within these fifty years and less; and, in the
second, that the inhabitants of this island did build, and make use
of ships eighteen hundred years ago, and that, from that time to this,
they have never been without.
Hor. Which altogether make a strong proof of the slow progress that
art has made to be what it is.
Cleo. The Chevalier Reneau has wrote a book, in which he shows the
mechanism of sailing, and accounts mathematically for every thing
that belongs to the working and steering of a ship. I am persuaded,
that neither the first inventors of ships and sailing, or those who
have made improvements since in any part of them, ever dreamed of
those reasons, any more than now the rudest and most illiterate of the
vulgar do, when they are made sailors, which time and practice will
do in spite of their teeth. We have thousands of them that were first
hauled on board, and detained against their wills, and yet, in less
than three years time, knew every rope and every pully in the ship,
and without the least scrap of mathematics, had learned the management
as well as use of them, much better than the greatest mathematician
could have done in all his lifetime, if he had never been at sea. The
book I mentioned, among other curious things, demonstrates what angle
the rudder must make with the keel, to render its influence upon the
ship the most powerful. This has its merit; but a lad of fifteen, who
has served a year of his time on board of a hoy, knows every thing that
is useful in this demonstration, practically. Seeing the poop always
answering the motion of the helm, he only minds the latter, without
making the least reflection on the rudder, until in a year or two more
his knowledge in sailing, and capacity of steering his vessel, become
so habitual to him, that he guides her, as he does his own body, by
instinct, though he is half asleep, or thinking on quite another thing.
Hor. If, as you said, and which I now believe to be true, the people
who first invented, and afterwards improved upon ships and sailing,
never dreamed of those reasons of Monsieur Reneau, it is impossible
that they should have acted from them, as motives that induced them
à priori, to put their inventions and improvements in practice, with
knowledge and design, which, I suppose, is what you intended to prove.
Cleo. It is; and I verily believe, not only that the raw beginners,
who made the first essays in either art, good manners as well as
sailing, were ignorant of the true cause; the real foundation those
arts are built upon in nature; but likewise that, even now both arts
are brought to great perfection, the greatest part of those that are
most expert, and daily making improvements in them, know as little of
the rationale of them, as their predecessors did at first: though I
believe, at the same time, Monsieur Reneau's reasons to be very just,
and yours as good as his; that is, I believe, that there is as much
truth and solidity in your accounting for the origin of good manners,
as there is in his for the management of ships. They are very seldom
the same sort of people, those that invent arts and improvements in
them, and those that inquire into the reason of things: this latter
is most commonly practised by such as are idle and indolent, that are
fond of retirement, hate business, and take delight in speculation;
whereas, none succeed oftener in the first, than active, stirring,
and laborious men, such as will put their hand to the plough, try
experiments, and give all their attention to what they are about.
Hor. It is commonly imagined, that speculative men are best at
invention of all sorts.
Cleo. Yet it is a mistake. Soap-boiling, grain-drying, and other trades
and mysteries, are, from mean beginnings, brought to great perfection;
but the many improvements that can be remembered to have been made in
them, have, for the generality, been owing to persons, who either were
brought up to, or had long practised, and been conversant in those
trades, and not to great proficients in chemistry, or other parts of
philosophy, whom one would naturally expect those things from. In some
of these arts, especially grain or scarlet-dying, there are processes
really astonishing; and, by the mixture of various ingredients, by
fire and fermentation, several operations are performed, which the
most sagacious naturalist cannot account for by any system yet known;
a certain sign that they were not invented by reasoning à priori. When
once the generality begin to conceal the high value they have for
themselves, men must become more tolerable to one another. Now, new
improvements must be made every day, until some of them grow impudent
enough, not only to deny the high value they have for themselves,
but likewise to pretend that they have greater value for others, than
they have for themselves. This will bring in complaisance; and now
flattery will rush in upon them like a torrent. As soon as they are
arrived at this pitch of insincerity, they will find the benefit of
it, and teach it their children. The passion of shame is so general,
and so early discovered in all human creatures, that no nation can
be so stupid, as to be long without observing and making use of it
accordingly. The same may be said of the credulity of infants, which
is very inviting to many good purposes. The knowledge of parents is
communicated to their offspring, and every one's experience in life
being added to what he learned in his youth, every generation after
this must be better taught than the preceding; by which means, in two
or three centuries, good manners must be brought to great perfection.
Hor. When they are thus far advanced, it is easy to conceive the rest:
For improvements, I suppose, are made in good manners, as they are
in all other arts and sciences. But to commence from savages, men,
I believe, would make but a small progress in good manners the first
three hundred years. The Romans, who had a much better beginning,
had been a nation above six centuries, and were almost masters of
the world, before they could be said to be a polite people. What I
am most astonished at, and which I am now convinced of, is, that the
basis of all this machinery is pride. Another thing I wonder at, is,
that you chose to speak of a nation that entered upon good manners
before they had any notions of virtue or religion, which, I believe,
there never was in the world.
Cleo. Pardon me, Horatio; I have nowhere insinuated that they had none,
but I had no reason to mention them. In the first place, you asked
my opinion concerning the use of politeness in this world, abstract
from the considerations of a future state: Secondly, the art of good
manners has nothing to do with virtue or religion, though it seldom
clashes with either. It is a science that is ever built on the same
steady principle in our nature, whatever the age or the climate may
be in which it is practised.
Hor. How can any thing be said not to clash with virtue or religion,
that has nothing to do with either, and consequently disclaims both?
Cleo. This, I confess, seems to be a paradox; yet it is true. The
doctrine of good manners teaches men to speak well of all virtues,
but requires no more of them in any age or country, than the outward
appearance of those in fashion. And as to sacred matters, it is every
where satisfied with seeming conformity in outward worship; for all
the religions in the universe are equally agreeable to good manners,
where they are national; and pray what opinion must we say a teacher
to be of, to whom all opinions are probably alike? All the precepts
of good manners throughout the world have the same tendency, and
are no more than the various methods of making ourselves acceptable
to others, with as little prejudice to ourselves as is possible: by
which artifice we assist one another in the enjoyments of life, and
refining upon pleasure; and every individual person is rendered more
happy by it in the fruition of all the good things he can purchase,
than he could have been without such behaviour. I mean happy, in the
sense of the voluptuous. Let us look back on old Greece, the Roman
empire, or the great eastern nations that flourished before them,
and we shall find, that luxury and politeness ever grew up together,
and were never enjoyed asunder; that comfort and delight upon earth
have always employed the wishes of the beau monde; and that, as
their chief study and greatest solicitude, to outward appearance,
have ever been directed to obtain happiness in this world, so what
would become of them in the next, seems, to the naked eye, always to
have been the least of their concern.
Hor. I thank you for your lecture: you have satisfied me in several
things, which I had intended to ask: But you have said some others,
that I must have time to consider; after which I am resolved to wait
upon you again; for I begin to believe, that, concerning the knowledge
of ourselves, most books are either very defective or very deceitful.
Cleo. There is not a more copious, nor a more faithful volume
than human nature, to those who will diligently peruse it; and I
sincerely believe, that I have discovered nothing to you, which, if
you had thought of it with attention, you would not have found out
yourself. But I shall never be better pleased with myself, than when
I can contribute to any entertainment you shall think diverting.
THE FOURTH
DIALOGUE
BETWEEN
HORATIO AND CLEOMENES.
CLEOMENES.
Your servant.
Hor. What say you now, Cleomenes; is it not this without ceremony?
Cleo. You are very obliging.
Hor. When they told me where you was, I would suffer nobody to tell
you who it was that wanted you, or to come up with me.
Cleo. This is friendly, indeed!
Hor. You see what a proficient I am: In a little time you will teach
me to lay aside all good manners.
Cleo. You make a fine tutor of me.
Hor. You will pardon me, I know: this study of yours is a very
pretty place.
Cleo. I like it, because the sun never enters it.
Hor. A very pretty room!
Cleo. Shall we sit down in it? It is the coolest room in the house.
Hor. With all my heart.
Cleo. I was in hopes to have seen you before now: you have taken a
long time to consider.
Hor. Just eight days?
Cleo. Have you thought on the novelty I started?
Hor. I have, and think it not void of probability; for that there are
no innate ideas, and men come into the world without any knowledge
at all, I am convinced of, and therefore it is evident to me, that
all arts and sciences must once have had a beginning in somebody's
brain, whatever oblivion that may now be lost in. I have thought
twenty times since I saw you last, on the origin of good manners,
and what a pleasant scene it would be to a man who is tolerably well
versed in the world, to see among a rude nation those first essays
they made of concealing their pride from one another.
Cleo. You see by this, that it is chiefly the novelty of things
that strikes, as well in begetting our aversion, as in gaining our
approbation; and that we may look upon many indifferently, when they
come to be familiar to us, though they were shocking when they were
new. You are now diverting yourself with a truth, which eight days
ago you would have given an hundred guineas not to have known.
Hor. I begin to believe there is nothing so absurd, that it would
appear to us to be such, is we had been accustomed to it very young.
Cleo. In a tolerable education, we are so industriously and so
assiduously instructed, from our most early infancy, in the ceremonies
of bowing, and pulling off hats, and other rules of behaviour, that
even before we are men we hardly look upon a mannerly deportment as
a thing acquired, or think conversation to be a science. Thousand
things are called easy and natural in postures and motions, as well
as speaking and writing, that have caused infinite pains to others as
well as ourselves, and which we know to be the product of art. What
awkward lumps have I known, which the dancing-master has put limbs to!
Hor. Yesterday morning as I sat musing by myself, an expression of
yours which I did not so much reflect upon at first, when I heard it,
came into my head, and made me smile. Speaking of the rudiments of good
manners in an infant nation, when they once entered upon concealing
their pride, you said, that improvements would be made every day,
"till some of them grew impudent enough, not only to deny the high
value they had for themselves, but likewise to pretend that they had
greater value for others than they had for themselves."
Cleo. It is certain, that this every where must have been the
forerunner of flattery.
Hor. When you talk of flattery and impudence, what do you think of
the first man that had the face to tell his equal, that he was his
humble servant?
Cleo. If that had been a new compliment, I should have wondered much
more at the simplicity of the proud man that swallowed, than I would
have done at the impudence of the knave that made it.
Hor. It certainly once was new: which pray do you believe more ancient,
pulling off the hat, or saying, your humble servant?
Cleo. They are both of them Gothic and modern.
Hor. I believe pulling off the hat was first, it being the emblem
of liberty.
Cleo. I do not think so: for he who pulled of his hat the first time,
could not have been understood, if saying your servant had not been
practised: and to show respect, a man as well might have pulled off
one of his shoes, as his hat; if saying, your servant, had not been
an established and well-known compliment.
Hor. So he might, as you say, and had a better authority for the first,
than he could have for the latter.
Cleo. And to this day, taking of the hat is a dumb show of a
known civility in words: Mind now the power of custom, and imbibed
notions. We both laugh at this Gothic absurdity, and are well assured,
that it must have had its origin from the basest flattery; yet neither
of us, walking with our hats on, could meet an acquaintance with whom
we are not very familiar, without showing this piece of civility;
nay, it it would be a pain to us not to do it. But we have no reason
to think, that the compliment of saying, your servant, began among
equals; but rather that, flatterers having given it to princes, it grew
afterwards more common: for all those postures and flexions of body
and limbs, had in all probability their rise from the adulation that
was paid to conquerors and tyrants; who, having every body to fear,
were always alarmed at the least shadow of opposition, and never better
pleased than with submissive and defenceless postures: and you see,
that they have all a tendency that way; they promise security, and
are silent endeavours to ease and rid them, not only of their fears,
but likewise every suspicion of harm approaching them: such as lying
prostrate on our faces, touching the ground with our heads, kneeling,
bowing low, laying our hands upon our breasts, or holding them behind
us, folding our arms together, and all the cringes that can be made
to demonstrate that we neither indulge our ease, nor stand upon our
guard. These are evident signs and convincing proofs to a superior,
that we have a mean opinion of ourselves in respect to him, that we
are at his mercy, and have no thought to resist, much less to attack
him; and therefore it is highly probable, that saying, your servant,
and pulling off the hat, were at first demonstrations of obedience
to those that claimed it.
Hor. Which in tract of time became more familiar, and were made use
of reciprocally in the way of civility.
Cleo. I believe so; for as good manners increase, we see, that the
highest compliments are made common, and new ones to superiors invented
instead of them.
Hor. So the word grace, which not long ago was a title, that none but
our kings and queens were honoured with, is devolved upon archbishops
and dukes.
Cleo. It was the same with highness, which is now given to the
children, and even the grandchildren of kings.
Hor. The dignity that is annexed to the signification of the word lord,
has been better preserved with us, than in most countries: in Spanish,
Italian, high and low Dutch, it is prostituted to almost every body.
Cleo. It has had better fate in France; where likewise the word sire
has lost nothing of its majesty, and is only used to the monarch:
whereas, with us, it is a compliment of address, that may be made to
a cobbler, as well as to a king.
Hor. Whatever alterations may be made in the sense of words, by
time; yet, as the world grows more polished, flattery becomes less
barefaced, and the design of it upon man's pride is better disguised
than it was formerly. To praise a man to his face, was very common
among the ancients: considering humility to be a virtue particularly
required of Christians, I have often wondered how the fathers of the
church could suffer those acclamations and applauses, that were made
to them whilst they were preaching; and which, though some of them
spoke against them, many of them appear to have been extremely fond of.
Cleo. Human nature is always the same; where men exert themselves to
the utmost, and take uncommon pains, that spend and waste the spirits,
those applauses are very reviving the fathers who spoke against them,
spoke chiefly against the abuse of them.
Hor. It must have been very odd to hear people bawling out, as often
the greatest part of an audience did, Sophos, divinitus, non potest
melius, mirabiliter, acriter, ingeniose: they told the preachers
likewise that they were orthodox, and sometimes called them, apostolus
decimus tertius.
Cleo. These words at the end of a period might have passed, but the
repetitions of them were often so loud and so general, and the noise
they made with their hands and feet, so disturbing in and out of
season, that they could not hear a quarter of the the sermon; yet
several fathers owned that it was highly delightful, and soothing
human frailty.
Hor. The behaviour at churches is more decent, as it is now.
Cleo. Since paganism has been quite extinct in the old western world,
the zeal of Christians is much diminished from what it was, when they
had many opposers: the want of fervency had a great hand in abolishing
that fashion.
Hor. But whether it was the fashion or not, it must always have
been shocking.
Cleo. Do you think, that the repeated acclamations, the clapping,
stamping, and the most extravagant tokens of applause, that are now
used at our several theatres, were ever shocking to a favourite actor;
or that the huzzas of the mob, or the hideous shouts of soldiers,
were ever shocking to persons of the highest distinction, to whose
honour they were made?
Hor. I have known princes that were very much tired with them.
Cleo. When they had too much of them; but never at first. In working a
machine, we ought to have regard to the strength of its frame: limited
creatures are not susceptible of infinite delight; therefore we see,
that a pleasure protracted beyond its due bounds becomes a pain: but
where the custom of the country is not broken in upon, no noise, that
is palpably made in our praise, and which we may hear with decency,
can ever be ungrateful, if it do not outlast a reasonable time; but
there is no cordial so sovereign, that it may not become offensive,
by being taken to excess.
Hor. And the sweeter and more delicious liquors are, the sooner they
become fulsome, and the less fit they are to sit by.
Cleo. Your simile is not amiss; and the same acclamations that
are ravishing to a man at first, and perhaps continue to give him
an unspeakable delight for eight or nine minutes, may become more
moderately pleasing, indifferent, cloying, troublesome, and even so
offensive as to create pain, all in less than three hours, if they
were to continue so long without intermission.
Hor. There must be great witchcraft in sounds, that they should have
such different effects upon us, as we often see they have.
Cleo. The pleasure we receive from acclamations, is not in the hearing;
but proceeds from the opinion we form of the cause that produces
those sounds, the approbation of others. At the theatres all over
Italy you have heard, that, when the whole audience demands silence
and attention, which there is an established mark of benevolence and
applause, the noise they make comes very near, and is hardly to be
distinguished from our hissing, which with us is the plainest token
of dislike and contempt: and without doubt the cat-calls to affront
Faustina were far more agreeable to Cozzoni, than the most artful
sounds she ever heard from her triumphant rival.
Hor. That was abominable!
Cleo. The Turks show their respects to their sovereigns by a profound
silence, which is strictly kept throughout the seraglio, and still more
religiously observed the nearer you come to the Sultan's apartment.
Hor. This latter is certainly the politer way of gratifying one's
pride.
Cleo. All that depends upon mode and custom.
Hor. But the offerings that are made to a man's pride in silence,
may be enjoyed without the loss of his hearing, which the other cannot.
Cleo. That is a trifle, in the gratification of that passion: we
never enjoy higher pleasure, from the appetite we would indulge,
than when we feel nothing from any other.
Hor. But silence expresses greater homage, and deeper veneration,
than noise.
Cleo. It is good to sooth the pride of a drone; but an active man
loves to have that passion roused, and as it were kept awake, whilst
it is gratified; and approbation from noise is more unquestionable
than the other: however, I will not determine between them; much
may be said on both sides. The Greeks and Romans used sounds, to
stir up men to noble actions, with great success; and the silence
observed among the Ottomans has kept them very well in the slavish
submission which their sovereigns require of them: perhaps the one
does better where absolute power is lodged in one person, and the
other where there is some show of liberty. Both are proper tools to
flatter the pride of man, when they are understood and made use of as
such. I have known a very brave man used to the shouts of war, and
highly delighted with loud applause, be very angry with his butler,
for making a little rattling with his plates.
Hor. An old aunt of mine the other day turned away a very clever
fellow, for not walking upon his toes; and I must own myself, that the
stamping of footmen, and all unmannerly loudness of servants, are very
offensive to me; though I never entered into the reason of it before
now. In our last conversation, when you described the symptoms of
self-liking, and what the behaviour would be of an uncivilized man,
you named laughing: I know it is one of the characteristics of our
species; pray do you take that to be likewise the result of pride?
Cleo. Hobbes is of that opinion, and in most instances it might be
derived from thence; but there are some phenomena not to be explained
by that hypothesis; therefore I would choose to say, that laughter is
a mechanical motion, which we are naturally thrown into when we are
unaccountably pleased. When our pride is feelingly gratified; when we
hear or see any thing which we admire or approve of; or when we are
indulging any other passion or appetite, and the reason why we are
pleased seems to be just and worthy, we are then far from laughing:
but when things or actions are odd and out of the way, and happen
to please us when we can give no just reason why they should do so,
it is then, generally speaking, that they make us laugh.
Hor. I would rather side with what you said was Hobbes's opinion:
for the things we commonly laugh at are such as are some way or other
mortifying, unbecoming, or prejudicial to others.
Cleo. But what will you say to tickling, which will make an infant
laugh that is deaf and blind?
Hor. Can you account for that by your system?
Cleo. Not to my satisfaction; but I will tell you what might be said
for it. We know by experience, that the smoother, the softer, and the
more sensible the skin is, the more ticklish persons are, generally
speaking: we know likewise, that things rough, sharp, and hard, when
they touch the skin, are displeasing to us, even before they give
pain and that, on the contrary, every thing applied to the skin that
is soft and smooth, and not otherwise offensive, is delightful. It
is possible that gentle touches being impressed on several nervous
filaments at once, every one of them producing a pleasing sensation,
may create that confused pleasure which is the occasion of laughter.
Hor. But how came you to think of mechanic motion, in the pleasure
of a free agent?
Cleo. Whatever free agency we may pretend to in the forming of ideas,
the effect of them upon the body is independent of the will. Nothing
is more directly opposite to laughing than frowning: the one draws
wrinkles on the fore-head, knits the brows, and keeps the mouth shut:
the other does quite the reverse; exporrigere frontem, you know,
is a Latin phrase for being merry. In sighing, the muscles of the
belly and breast are pulled inward, and the diaphragm is pulled
upward more than ordinary; and we seem to endeavour, though in vain,
to squeeze and compress the heart, whilst we draw in our breath in a
forcible manner; and when, in that squeezing posture, we have taken in
as much air as we can contain, we throw it out with the same violence
we sucked it in with, and at the same time give a sudden relaxation to
all the muscles we employed before. Nature certainly designed this for
something in the labour for self-preservation which she forces upon
us. How mechanically do all creatures that can make any sound, cry
out, and complain in great afflictions, as well as pain and imminent
danger! In great torments, the efforts of nature are so violent that
way, that, to disappoint her, and prevent the discovery of what we
feel by sounds, and which she bids us make, we are forced to draw
our mouth into a purse, or else suck in our breath, bite our lips,
or squeeze them close together, and use the most effectual means to
hinder the air from coming out. In grief we sigh, in mirth we laugh:
in the latter little stress is laid upon the respiration, and this is
performed with less regularity than it is at any other time; all the
muscles without, and every thing within feel loose, and seem to have
no other motion than what is communicated to them by the convulsive
shakes of laughter.
Hor. I have seen people laugh till they lost all their strength.
Cleo. How much is all this the reverse of what we observe in
sighing! When pain or depth of woe make us cry out, the mouth is
drawn round, or at least into an oval; the lips are thrusted forward
without touching each other, and the tongue is pulled in, which is
the reason that all nations, when they exclaim, cry, Oh!
Hor. Why pray!
Cleo. Because whilst the mouth, lips, and tongue, remain in those
postures, they can sound no other vowel, and no consonant at all. In
laughing, the lips are pulled back, and strained to draw the mouth
in its fullest length.
Hor. I would not have you lay a great stress upon that, for it is
the same in weeping, which is an undoubted sign of sorrow.
Cleo. In great afflictions, where the heart is oppressed, and anxieties
which we endeavour to resist, few people can weep; but when they
do, it removes the oppression, and sensibly relieves them: for then
their resistance is gone; and weeping in distress is not so much a
sign of sorrow as it is an indication that we can bear our sorrow no
longer; and therefore it is counted unmanly to weep, because it seems
to give up our strength, and is a kind of yielding to our grief. But
the action of weeping itself is not more peculiar to grief than it is
to joy in adult people; and there are men who show great fortitude in
afflictions, and bear the greatest misfortunes with dry eyes, that will
cry heartily at a moving scene in a play. Some are easily wrought upon
by one thing, others are sooner affected with another; but whatever
touches us so forcibly, as to overwhelm the mind, prompts us to weep,
and is the mechanical cause of tears; and therefore, besides grief,
joy, and pity, there are other things no way relating to ourselves,
that may have this effect upon us; such as the relations of surprising
events and sudden turns of Providence in behalf of merit; instances
of heroism, of generosity; in love, in friendship in an enemy; or
the hearing or reading of noble thoughts and sentiments of humanity;
more especially if these things are conveyed to us suddenly, in an
agreeable manner, and unlooked for, as well as lively expressions. We
shall observe, likewise, that none are more subject to this frailty
of shedding tears on such foreign accounts, than persons of ingenuity
and quick apprehension; and those among them that are most benevolent,
generous, and open-hearted; whereas, the dull and stupid, the cruel,
selfish, and designing, are very seldom troubled with it. Weeping,
therefore, in earnest, is always a sure and involuntary demonstration
that something strikes and overcomes the mind, whatever that be
which affects it. We find likewise, that outward violence, as sharp
winds and smoke, the effluvia of onions, and other volatile salts,
&c. have the same effect upon the external fibres of the lachrymal
ducts and glands that are exposed, which the sudden swelling and
pressure of the spirits has upon those within. The Divine Wisdom
is in nothing more conspicuous than in the infinite variety of
living creatures of different construction; every part of them being
contrived with stupendous skill, and fitted with the utmost accuracy
for the different purposes they were designed for. The human body,
above all, is a most astonishing master piece of art: the anatomist
may have a perfect knowledge of all the bones and their ligaments,
the muscles and their tendons, and be able to dissect every nerve and
every membrane with great exactness; the naturalist, likewise, may
dive a great way into the inward economy, and different symptoms of
health and sickness: they may all approve of, and admire the curious
machine; but no man can have a tolerable idea of the contrivance, the
art, and the beauty of the workmanship itself, even in those things
he can see, without being likewise versed in geometry and mechanics.
Hor. How long is it ago that mathematics were brought into physic? that
art, I have heard, is brought to great certainty by them.
Cleo. What you speak of is quite another thing. Mathematics never had,
nor ever can have, any thing to do with physic, if you mean by it
the art of curing the sick. The structure and motions of the body,
may perhaps be mechanically accounted for, and all fluids are under
the laws of hydrostatics; but we can have no help from any part of the
mechanics in the discovery of things, infinitely remote from sight,
and entirely unknown as to their shapes and bulks. Physicians, with
the rest of mankind, are wholly ignorant of the first principles and
constituent parts of things, in which all the virtues and properties
of them consist; and this, as well of the blood and other juices of
the body, as the simples, and consequently all the medicines they
make use of. There is no art that has less certainty than theirs,
and the most valuable knowledge in it arises from observation, and
is such, as a man of parts and application, who has fitted himself
for that study, can only be possessed of after a long and judicious
experience. But the pretence to mathematics, or the usefulness of it
in the cure of diseases, is a cheat, and as arrant a piece of quackery
as a stage and a Merry-Andrew.
Hor. But since there is so much skill displayed in the bones, muscles,
and grosser parts, is it not reasonable to think, that there is no
less art bestowed on those that are beyond the reach of our senses?
Cleo. I nowise doubt it: Microscopes have opened a new world to us,
and I am far from thinking, that nature should leave off her work
where we can trace her no further. I am persuaded that our thoughts,
and the affections of the mind, have a more certain and more mechanical
influence upon several parts of the body than has been hitherto or,
in all human probability, ever will be discovered. The visible effect
they have on the eyes and muscles of the face, must show the least
attentive the reason I have for this assertion. When in mens company
we are upon our guard, and would preserve our dignity, the lips are
shut and the jaws meet; the muscles of the mouth are gently braced,
and the rest all over the face are kept firmly in their places: turn
away from these into another room, where you meet with a fine young
lady that is affable and easy; immediately, before you think on it,
your countenance will be strangely altered; and without being conscious
of having done any thing to your face, you will have quite another
look; and every body that has observed you, will discover in it more
sweetness and less severity than you had the moment before. When we
suffer the lower jaw to sink down, the mouth opens a little: if in
this posture we look straight before us, without fixing our eyes on
any thing, we may imitate the countenance of a natural; by dropping,
as it were, our features, and laying no stress on any muscle of the
face. Infants, before they have learned to swallow their spittle,
generally keep their mouths open, and are always drivelling: in
them, before they show any understanding, and whilst it is yet
very confused, the muscles of the face are, as it were, relaxed,
the lower jaw falls down, and the fibres of the lips are unbraced;
at least, these phenomena we observe in them, during that time, more
often than we do afterwards. In extreme old age, when people begin
to doat, those symptoms return; and in most idiots they continue to
be observed, as long as they live: Hence it is that we say, that a
man wants a slabbering-bib, when he behaves very sillily or talks
like a natural fool. When we reflect on all this, on the one hand,
and consider on the other, that none are less prone to anger than
idiots, and no creatures are less affected with pride, I would ask,
whether there is not some degree of self-liking, that mechanically
influences, and seems to assist us in the decent wearing of our faces.
Hor. I cannot resolve you; what I know very well is, that by these
conjectures on the mechanism of man, I find my understanding very
little informed: I wonder how we came upon the subject.
Cleo. You inquired into the origin of risibility, which nobody can
give an account of, with any certainty; and in such cases every body
is at liberty to make guesses, so they draw no conclusions from them
to the prejudice of any thing better established. But the chief design
I had in giving you these indigested thoughts, was to hint to you,
how really mysterious the works of nature are; I mean, how replete
they are every where, with a power glaringly conspicuous, and yet
incomprehensible beyond all human reach; in order to demonstrate,
that more useful knowledge may be acquired from unwearied observation,
judicious experience, and arguing from facts à posteriori, than from
the haughty attempts of entering into first causes, and reasoning à
priori. I do not believe there is a man in the world of that sagacity,
if he was wholly unacquainted with the nature of a spring-watch, that
he would ever find out by dint of penetration the cause of its motion,
if he was never to see the inside: but every middling capacity may be
certain, by seeing only the outside, that its pointing at the hour, and
keeping to time, proceed from the exactness of some curious workmanship
that is hid; and that the motion of the hands, what number of resorts
soever it is communicated by, is originally owing to something else
that first moves within. In the same manner we are sure, that as
the effects of thought upon the body are palpable, several motions
are produced by it, by contact, and consequently mechanically: but
the parts, the instruments which that operation is performed with,
are so immensely far remote from our senses; and the swiftness of the
action is so prodigious, that it infinitely surpasses our capacity
to trace them.
Hor. But is not thinking the business of the soul? What has mechanism
to do with that?
Cleo. The soul, whilst in the body, cannot be said to think, otherwise
than an architect is said to build a house, where the carpenters,
bricklayers, &c. do the work, which he chalks out and superintends.
Hor. Which part of the brain do you think the soul to be more
immediately lodged in; or do you take it to be diffused through
the whole?
Cleo. I know nothing of it more than what I have told you already.
Hor. I plainly feel that this operation of thinking is a labour,
or at least something that is transacting in my head, and not in my
leg nor my arm: what insight or real knowledge have we from anatomy
concerning it?
Cleo. None at all à priori: the most consummate anatomist knows no
more of it than a butcher's apprentice. We may admire the curious
duplicate of coats, and close embroidery of veins and arteries
that environ the brain: but when dissecting it we have viewed the
several pairs of nerves, with their origin, and taken notice of some
glands of various shapes and sizes, which differing from the brain
in substance, could not but rush in view; when these, I say, have
been taken notice of, and distinguished by different names, some of
them not very pertinent, and less polite, the best naturalist must
acknowledge, that even of these large visible parts there are but
few, the nerves and blood-vessels excepted, at the use of which he
can give any tolerable guesses: but as to the mysterious structure
of the brain itself, and the more abstruse economy of it, that he
knows nothing; but that the whole seems to be a medullary substance,
compactly treasured up in infinite millions of imperceptible cells,
that, disposed in an unconceivable order, are cluttered together in a
perplexing variety of folds and windings. He will add, perhaps, that
it is reasonable to think this to be the capacious exchequer of human
knowledge, in which the faithful senses deposit the vast treasure of
images, constantly, as through their organs they receive them; that it
is the office in which the spirits are separated from the blood, and
afterwards sublimed and volatilized into particles hardly corporeal;
and that the most minute of these are always, either searching for,
or variously disposing the images retained, and shooting through the
infinite meanders of that wonderful substance, employ themselves,
without ceasing, in that inexplicable performance, the contemplation
of which fills the most exalted genius with amazement.
Hor. These are very airy conjectures; but nothing of all this can be
proved: The smallness of the parts, you will say, is the reason; but
if greater improvements were made in optic glasses, and microscopes
could be invented that magnified objects three or four millions of
times more than they do now, then certainly those minute particles,
so immensely remote from the senses you speak of, might be observed,
if that which does the work is corporeal at all.
Cleo. That such improvements are impossible, is demonstrable; but if
it was not, even then we could have little help from anatomy. The
brain of an animal cannot be looked and searched into whilst it is
alive. Should you take the main spring out of a watch, and leave
the barrel that contained it standing empty, it would be impossible
to find out what it had been that made it exert itself, whilst it
showed the time. We might examine all the wheels, and every other
part belonging either to the movement or the motion, and, perhaps,
find out the use of them, in relation to the turning of the hands;
but the first cause of this labour would remain a mystery for ever.
Hor. The main spring in us is the soul, which is immaterial and
immortal: but what is that to other creatures that have a brain like
ours, and no such immortal substance distinct from body? Do not you
believe that dogs and horses think?
Cleo. I believe they do, though in a degree of perfection far inferior
to us.
Hor. What is it that superintends thought in them? where must we look
for it? which is the main spring?
Cleo. I can answer you no otherwise, than life.
Hor. What is life?
Cleo. Every body understands the meaning of the word, though, perhaps,
nobody knows the principle of life, that part which gives motion to
all the rest.
Hor. Where men are certain that the truth of a thing is not to be
known, they will always differ, and endeavour to impose upon one
another.
Cleo. Whilst there are fools and knaves, they will; but I have not
imposed upon you: what I said of the labour of the brain, I told you,
was a conjecture, which I recommend no farther to you than you shall
think it probable. You ought to expect no demonstration of a thing,
that from its nature can admit of none. When the breath is gone, and
the circulation ceased, the inside of an animal is vastly different
from what it was whilst the lungs played, and the blood and juices were
in full motion through every part of it. You have seen those engines
that raise water by the help of fire; the steam you know, is that
which forces it up; it is as impossible to see the volatile particles
that perform the labour of the brain, when the creature is dead, as
in the engine it would be to see the steam (which yet does all the
work), when the fire is out and the water cold. Yet if this engine was
shown to a man when it was not at work, and it was explained to him,
which way it raised the water, it would be a strange incredulity,
or great dullness of apprehension, not to believe it; if he knew
perfectly well, that by heat, liquids may be rarified into vapour.
Hor. But do not you think there is a difference in souls; and are
they all equally good or equally bad?
Cleo. We have some tolerable ideas of matter and motion; or, at least,
of what we mean by them, and therefore we may form ideas of things
corporeal, though they are beyond the reach of our senses; and we
can conceive any portion of matter a thousand times less than our
eyes, even by the help of the best microscopes, are able to see it:
but the soul is altogether incomprehensible, and we can determine
but little about it, that is not revealed to us. I believe that the
difference of capacities in men, depends upon, and is entirely owing
to the difference there is between them, either in the fabric itself,
that is, the greater or lesser exactness in the composure of their
frame, or else in the use that is made of it. The brain of a child,
newly born, is carte blanche; and, as you have hinted very justly, we
have no ideas, which we are not obliged for to our senses. I make no
question, but that in this rummaging of the spirits through the brain,
in hunting after, joining, separating, changing, and compounding of
ideas with inconceivable swiftness, under the superintendency of the
soul, the action of thinking consists. The best thing, therefore,
we can do to infants after the first month, besides feeding and
keeping them from harm, is to make them take in ideas, beginning by
the two most useful senses, the sight and hearing; and dispose them
to set about this labour of the brain, and by our example encourage
them to imitate us in thinking; which, on their side, is very poorly
performed at first. Therefore the more an infant in health is talked to
and jumbled about, the better it is for it, at least, for the first
two years; and for its attendance in this early education, to the
wisest matron in the world, I would prefer an active young wench,
whose tongue never stands still, that should run about, and never
cease diverting and playing with it whilst it was awake; and where
people can afford it, two or three of them, to relieve one another
when they are tired, are better than one.
Hor. Then you think children reap great benefit from the nonsensical
chat of nurses?
Cleo. It is of inestimable use to them, and teaches them to think,
as well as speak, much sooner and better, than with equal aptitude
of parts they would do without. The business is to make them exert
those faculties, and keep infants continually employed about them;
for the time which is lost then, is never to be retrieved.
Hor. Yet we seldom remember any thing of what we saw or heard, before
we were two years old: then what would be lost, if children should
not hear all that impertinence?
Cleo. As iron is to be hammered whilst it is hot and ductile, so
children are to be taught when they are young: as the flesh and every
tube and membrane about them, are then tenderer, and will yield sooner
to slight impressions, than afterwards; so many of their bones are
but cartilages, and the brain itself is much softer, and in a manner
fluid. This is the reason, that it cannot so well retain the images
it receives, as it does afterwards, when the substance of it comes to
be of a better consistence. But as the first images are lost, so they
are continually succeeded by new ones; and the brain at first serves
as a slate to cypher, or a sampler to work upon. What infants should
chiefly learn, is the performance itself, the exercise of thinking,
and to contract a habit of disposing, and with ease and agility
managing the images retained, to the purpose intended; which is never
attained better than whilst the matter is yielding, and the organs are
most flexible and supple. So they but exercise themselves in thinking
and speaking, it is no matter what they think on, or what they say,
that is inoffensive. In sprightly infants, we soon see by their eyes
the efforts they are making to imitate us, before they are able;
and that they try at this exercise of the brain, and make essays to
think, as well as they do to hammer out words, we may know from the
incoherence of their actions, and the strange absurdities they utter:
but as there are more degrees of thinking well, than there are of
speaking plain, the first is of the greatest consequence.
Hor. I wonder you should talk of teaching, and lay so great a stress
on a thing that comes so naturally to us, as thinking: no action is
performed with greater velocity by every body: as quick as thought,
is a proverb, and in less than a moment a stupid peasant may remove
his ideas from London to Japan, as easily as the greatest wit.
Cleo. Yet there is nothing, in which men differ so immensely from one
another, as they do in the exercise of this faculty: the differences
between them in height, bulk, strength, and beauty, are trifling
in comparison to that which I speak of; and there is nothing in the
world more valuable, or more plainly perceptible in persons, than a
happy dexterity of thinking. Two men may have equal knowledge, and
yet the one shall speak as well off-hand, as the other can after two
hours study.
Hor. I take it for granted, that no man would study two hours for
a speech, if he knew how to make it in less; and therefore I cannot
see what reason you have to suppose two such persons to be of equal
knowledge.
Cleo. There is a double meaning in the word knowing, which you seem
not to attend to. There is a great difference between knowing a violin
when you see it, and knowing how to play upon it. The knowledge I
speak of is of the first sort; and if you consider it in that sense,
you must be of my opinion; for no study can fetch any thing out of
the brain that is not there. Suppose you conceive a short epistle
in three minutes, which another, who can make letters and join them
together as fast as yourself, is yet an hour about, though both of
you write the same thing, it is plain to me, that the slow person
knows as much as you do; at least it does not appear that he knows
less. He has received the same images, but he cannot come at them,
or at least not dispose them in that order, so soon as yourself. When
we see two exercises of equal goodness, either in prose or verse, if
the one is made ex tempore, and we are sure of it, and the other has
cost two days labour, the author of the first is a person of finer
natural parts than the other, though their knowledge, for ought we
know, is the same. You see, then, the difference between knowledge,
as it signifies the treasure of images received, and knowledge, or
rather skill, to find out those images when we want them, and work
them readily to our purpose.
Hor. When we know a thing, and cannot readily think of it, or bring
it to mind, I thought that was the fault of the memory.
Cleo. So it may be in part: but there are men of prodigious reading,
that have likewise great memories, who judge ill, and seldom say any
thing a propos, or say it when it is too late. Among the belluones
librorum, the cormorants of books, there are wretched reasoners,
that have canine appetites, and no digestion. What numbers of learned
fools do we not meet with in large libraries; from whose works it is
evident, that knowledge must have lain in their heads, as furniture
at an upholder's; and the treasure of the brain was a burden to them
instead of an ornament! All this proceeds from a defect in the faculty
of thinking; an unskilfulness, and want of aptitude in managing,
to the best advantage, the ideas we have received. We see others,
on the contrary, that have very fine sense, and no literature at
all. The generality of women are quicker of invention, and more ready
at repartee, than the men, with equal helps of education; and it is
surprising to see, what a considerable figure some of them make in
conversation, when we consider the small opportunities they have had
of acquiring knowledge.
Hor. But sound judgment is a great rarity among them.
Cleo. Only for want of practice, application, and assiduity. Thinking
on abstruse matters, is not their province in life; and as the stations
they are commonly placed in find them other employment; but there is
no labour of the brain which women are not as capable of performing,
at least as well as the men, with the same assistance, if they set
about, and persevere in it: sound judgment is no more than the result
of that labour: he that uses himself to take things to pieces, to
compare them together, to consider them abstractly and impartially;
that is, he who of two propositions he is to examine seems not to care
which is true; he that lays the whole stress of his mind on every part
alike, and puts the same thing in all the views it can be seen in:
he, I say, that employs himself most often in this exercise, is most
likely cæteris paribus to acquire what we call a sound judgment. The
workmanship in the make of women seems to be more elegant, and better
finished: the features are more delicate, the voice is sweeter, the
whole outside of them is more curiously wove, than they are in men;
and the difference in the skin between theirs and ours is the same,
as there is between fine cloth and coarse. There is no reason to
imagine, that nature should have been more neglectful of them out of
sight, than she has where we can trace her; and not have taken the
same care of them in the formation, of the brain, as to the nicety
of the structure, and superior accuracy in the fabric, which is so
visible in the rest of their frame.
Hor. Beauty is their attribute, as strength is ours.
Cleo. How minute soever those particles of the brain are, that contain
the several images, and are assisting in the operation of thinking,
there must be a difference in the justness, the symmetry, and exactness
of them between one person and another, as well as there is in the
grosser parts: what the women excel us in, then, is the goodness of
the instrument, either in the harmony or pliableness of the organs,
which must be very material in the art of thinking, and is the only
thing that deserves the name of natural parts, since the aptitude I
have spoke of, depending upon exercise, is notoriously acquired.
Hor. As the workmanship in the brain is rather more curious in women
than it is in men, so, in sheep and oxen, dogs and horses, I suppose
it is infinitely coarser.
Cleo. We have no reason to think otherwise,
Hor. But after all, that self, that part of us that wills and wishes,
that chooses one thing rather than another, must be incorporeal:
For if it is matter, it must either be one single particle, which I
can almost feel it is not, or a combination of many, which is more
than inconceivable.
Cleo. I do not deny what you say; and that the principle of thought
and action is inexplicable in all creatures I have hinted already: But
its being incorporeal does not mend the matter, as to the difficulty
of explaining or conceiving it. That there must be a mutual contact
between this principle, whatever it is, and the body itself, is what we
are certain of à posteriori; and a reciprocal action upon each other,
between an immaterial substance and matter, is as incomprehensible
to human capacity, as that thought should be the result of matter
and motion.
Hor. Though many other animals seem to be endued with thought, there
is no creature we are acquainted with, besides man, that shows or
seems to feel a consciousness of his thinking.
Cleo. It is not easy to determine what instincts, properties, or
capacities other creatures are either possessed or destitute of,
when those qualifications fall not under our senses: But it is highly
probable, that the principal and most necessary parts of the machine
are less elaborate in animals, that attain to all the perfection
they are capable of in three, four, five, or six years at furthest,
than they are in a creature that hardly comes to maturity, its full
growth and strength in five and twenty. The consciousness of a man
of fifty, that he is the same man that did such a thing at twenty,
and was once the boy that had such and such masters, depends wholly
upon the memory, and can never be traced to the bottom: I mean,
that no man remembers any thing of himself, or what was transacted
before he was two years old, when he was but a novice in the art of
thinking, and the brain was not yet of a due consistence to retain
long the images it received: But this remembrance, how far soever it
may reach, gives us no greater surety of ourselves, than we should
have of another that had been brought up with us, and never above a
week or a month out of sight. A mother, when her son is thirty years
old, has more reason to know that he is the same whom she brought
into the world than himself; and such a one, who daily minds her son,
and remembers the alterations of his features from time to time, is
more certain of him that he was not changed in the cradle, than she
can be of herself. So that all we can know of this consciousness, is,
that it consists in, or is the result of the running and rummaging
of the spirits through all the mazes of the brain, and their looking
there for facts concerning ourselves: He that has lost his memory,
though otherwise in perfect health, cannot think better than a fool,
and is no more conscious that he is the same he was a-year ago, than
he is of a man whom he has known but a fortnight. There are several
degrees of losing our memory; but he who has entirely lost it becomes,
ipso facto, an idiot.
Hor. I am conscious of having been the occasion of our rambling a great
way from the subject we were upon, but I do not repent of it: What you
have said of the economy of the brain, and the mechanical influence
of thought upon the grosser parts, is a noble theme for contemplation
on the infinite unutterable wisdom with which the various instincts
are so visibly planted in all animals, to fit them for the respective
purposes they were designed for; and every appetite is so wonderfully
interwove with the very substance of their frame. Nothing could be
more seasonable, after you had showed me the origin of politeness,
and in the management of self-liking, set forth the excellency of our
species beyond all other animals so conspicuously in the superlative
docility and indefatigable industry, by which all multitudes are
capable of drawing innumerable benefits, as well for the ease and
comfort, as the welfare and safety of congregate bodies, from a
most stubborn and an unconquerable passion, which, in its nature,
seems to be destructive to sociableness and society, and never fails,
in untaught men, to render them insufferable to one another.
Cleo. By the same method of reasoning from facts à posteriori,
that has laid open to us the nature and usefulness of self-liking,
all the rest of the passions may easily be accounted for, and become
intelligible. It is evident, that the necessaries of life stand not
every where ready dished up before all creatures; therefore they
have instincts that prompt them to look out for those necessaries,
and teach them how to come at them. The zeal and alacrity to gratify
their appetites, is always proportioned to the strength, and the degree
of force with which those instincts work upon every creature: But,
considering the disposition of things upon earth, and the multiplicity
of animals that have all their own wants to supply, it must be obvious,
that these attempts of creatures, to obey the different calls of
nature, will be often opposed and frustrated, and that, in many
animals, they would seldom meet with success, if every individual
was not endued with a passion, that, summoning all his strength,
inspired him with a transporting eagerness to overcome the obstacles
that hinder him in his great work of self-preservation. The passion
I describe is called anger. How a creature possessed of this passion
and self-liking, when he sees others enjoy what he wants, should be
affected with envy, can likewise be no mystery. After labour, the most
savage, and the most industrious creature seeks rest: Hence we learn,
that all of them are furnished, more or less, with a love of ease:
Exerting their strength tires them; and the loss of spirits, experience
teaches us, is best repaired by food and sleep. We see that creatures,
who, in their way of living, must meet with the greatest opposition,
have the greatest share of anger, and are born with offensive arms. If
this anger was to employ a creature always, without consideration
of the danger he exposed himself to, he would soon be destroyed:
For this reason, they are all endued with fear; and the lion himself
turns tail, if the hunters are armed, and too numerous. From what
we observe in the behaviour of brutes, we have reason to think,
that among the more perfect animals, those of the same species have a
capacity, on many occasions, to make their wants known to one another;
and we are sure of several, not only that they understand one another,
but likewise that they may be made to understand us. In comparing our
species with that of other animals, when we consider the make of man,
and the qualifications that are obvious in him, his superior capacity
in the faculties of thinking and reflecting beyond other creatures,
his being capable of learning to speak, and the usefulness of his
hands and fingers, there is no room to doubt, that he is more fit
for society than any other animal we know.
Hor. Since you wholly reject my Lord Shaftsbury's system, I wish
you would give me your opinion at large concerning society, and the
sociableness of man; and I will hearken to you with great attention.
Cleo. The cause of sociableness in man, that is, his fitness for
society, is no such abstruse matter: A person of middling capacity,
that has some experience, and a tolerable knowledge of human nature,
may soon find it out, if his desire of knowing the truth be sincere,
and he will look for it without prepossession; but most people that
have treated on this subject, had a turn to serve, and a cause in
view, which they were resolved to maintain. It is very unworthy of a
philosopher to say, as Hobbes did, that man is born unfit for society,
and allege no better reason for it, than the incapacity that infants
come into the world with; but some of his adversaries have as far
overshot the mark, when they asserted, that every thing which man can
attain to, ought to be esteemed as a cause of his fitness for society.
Hor. But is there in the mind of man a natural affection, that prompts
him to love his species beyond what other animals have for theirs;
or, are we born with hatred and aversion, that makes us wolves and
bears to one another?
Cleo. I believe neither. From what appears to us in human affairs,
and the works of nature, we have more reason to imagine, that the
desire, as well as aptness of man to associate, do not proceed from
his love to others, than we have to believe that a mutual affection of
the planets to one another, superior to what they feel to stars more
remote, is not the true cause why they keep always moving together
in the same solar system.
Hor. You do not believe that the stars have any love for one another,
I am sure: Then why more reason?
Cleo. Because there are no phenomena plainly to contradict this love
of the planets; and we meet with thousands every day to convince us,
that man centres every thing in himself, and neither loves nor hates,
but for his own sake. Every individual is a little world by itself,
and all creatures, as far as their understanding and abilities will
let them, endeavour to make that self happy: This, in all of them, is
the continual labour, and seems to be the whole design of life. Hence
it follows, that in the choice of things, men must be determined
by the perception they have of happiness; and no person can commit,
or set about an action, which, at that then present time, seems not
to be the best to him.
Hor. What will you then say to, video meliora proboque, deteriora
sequor?
Cleo. That only shows the turpitude of our inclinations. But men
may say what they please: Every motion in a free agent, which
he does not approve of, is either convulsive, or it is not his;
I speak of those that are subject to the will. When two things are
left to a person's choice, it is a demonstration that he thinks that
most eligible which he chooses, how contradictory, impertinent, or
pernicious soever his reason for choosing it may be: Without this,
there could be no voluntary suicide; and it would be injustice to
punish men for their crimes.
Hor. I believe every body endeavours to be pleased; but it is
inconceivable that creatures of the same species should differ so much
from one another, as men do in their notions of pleasure; and that some
of them should take delight in what is the greatest aversion to others:
All aim at happiness; but the question is, Where is it to be found?
Cleo. It is with complete felicity in this world, as it is with the
philosopher's stone: Both have been sought after many different ways,
by wise men as well as fools, though neither of them has been obtained
hitherto: But in searching after either, diligent inquirers have
often stumbled by chance on useful discoveries of things they did not
look for, and which human sagacity, labouring with design à priori,
never would have detected. Multitudes of our species may, in any
habitable part of the globe, assist one another in a common defence,
and be raised into a politic body, in which men shall live comfortably
together for many centuries, without being acquainted with a thousand
things, that if known, would every one of them be instrumental to
render the happiness of the public more complete, according to the
common notions men have of happiness. In one part of the world, we have
found great and flourishing nations that knew nothing of ships; and
in others, traffic by sea had been in use above two thousand years,
and navigation had received innumerable improvements, before they
knew how to sail by the help of the loadstone: It would be ridiculous
to allege this piece of knowledge, either as a reason why man first
chose to go to sea, or as an argument to prove his natural capacity
for maritime affairs. To raise a garden, it is necessary that we
should have a soil and a climate fit for that purpose. When we have
these, we want nothing besides patience, but the seeds of vegetables
and proper culture. Fine walks and canals, statues, summer-houses,
fountains, and cascades, are great improvements on the delights of
nature; but they are not essential to the existence of a garden. All
nations must have had mean beginnings; and it is in those, the infancy
of them, that the sociableness of man is as conspicuous as it can be
ever after. Man is called a sociable creature chiefly for two reasons:
First, because it is commonly imagined that he is naturally more fond
and desirous of society, than any other creature. Secondly, because
it is manifest, that associating in men turns to better account than
it possibly could do in other animals, if they were to attempt it.
Hor. But why do you say of the first, that it is commonly imagined;
is it not true then?
Cleo. I have a very good reason for this caution. All men born in
society, are certainly more desirous of it than any other animal;
but whether man be naturally so, that is a question: But, if he was,
it is no excellency, nothing to brag of: The love man has for his ease
and security, and his perpetual desire of meliorating his condition,
must be sufficient motives to make him fond of society, concerning
the necessitous and helpless condition of his nature.
Hor. Do not you fall into the same error, which, you say, Hobbes
has been guilty of, when you talk of man's necessitous and helpless
condition?
Cleo. Not at all; I speak of men and women full grown; and the more
extensive their knowledge is, the higher their quality, and the greater
their possessions are, the more necessitous and helpless they are in
their nature. A nobleman of twenty-five or thirty thousand pounds
a-year, that has three or four coaches and six, and above fifty
people to serve him, is in his person considered singly, abstract
from what he possesses, more necessitous than an obscure man that
has but fifty pounds a-year, and is used to walk a-foot; so a lady,
who never stuck a pin in herself, and is dressed and undressed from
head to foot like a jointed baby by her woman, and the assistance
of another maid or two, is a more helpless creature than doll the
diary-maid, who, all the winter long, dresses herself in the dark in
less time than the other bestows in placing of her patches.
Hor. But is the desire of meliorating our condition which you named,
so general, that no man is without it?
Cleo. Not one that can be called a sociable creature; and I believe
this to be as much a characteristic of our species as any can be
named: For there is not a man in the world, educated in society, who,
if he could compass it by wishing, would not have something added to,
taken from, or altered in his person, possessions, circumstances,
or any part of the society he belongs to. This is what is not to be
perceived in any creature but man; whose great industry in supplying
what he calls his wants, could never have been known so well as it is,
if it had not been for the unreasonableness, as well as multiplicity of
his desires. From all which, it is manifest, that the most civilized
people stand most in need of society, and consequently, none less
than savages. The second reason for which I said man was called
sociable, is, that associating together turned to better account
in our species than it would do in any other, if they were to try
it. To find out the reason of this, we must search into human nature
for such qualifications as we excel all other animals in, and which
the generality of men are endued with, taught or untaught: But in
doing this, we should neglect nothing that is observable in them,
from their most early youth to their extreme old age.
Hor. I cannot see why you use this precaution, of taking in the whole
age of man; would it not be sufficient to mind those qualifications
which he is possessed of, when he is come to the height of maturity,
or his greatest perfection?
Cleo. A considerable part of what is called docility in creatures,
depends upon the pliableness of the parts, and their fitness to
be moved with facility, which are either entirely lost, or very
much impaired, when they are full grown. There is nothing in which
our species so far surpasses all others, than in the capacity of
acquiring the faculty of thinking and speaking well: that this is a
peculiar property belonging to our nature is very certain, yet it is
as manifest, that this capacity vanishes, when we come to maturity,
if till then it has been neglected. The term of life likewise, that
is commonly enjoyed by our species, being longer than it is in most
other animals, we have a prerogative above them in point of time;
and man has a greater opportunity of advancing in wisdom, though
not to be acquired but by his own experience, than a creature that
lives but half his age, though it had the same capacity. A man of
threescore, cæteris paribus, knows better what is to be embraced or
avoided in life, than a man of thirty. What Mitio, in excusing the
follies of youth, said to his brother Demea, in the Adelphi, ad omnia
alia Ætate sapimus rectius, holds among savages, as well as among
philosophers. It is the concurrence of these, with other properties,
that together compose the sociableness of man.
Hor. But why may not the love of our species be named, as one of
these properties?
Cleo. First, because, as I have said already, it does not appear,
that we have it beyond other animals: secondly, because it is out of
the question: for if we examine into the nature of all bodies politic,
we shall find, that no dependance is ever had, or stress laid on any
such affection, either for the raising or maintaining of them.
Hor. But the epithet itself, the signification of the word, imports
this love to one another; as is manifest from the contrary. One who
loves solitude, is averse to company, or of a singular, reserved,
and sullen temper, is the very reverse of a sociable man.
Cleo. When we compare some men to others, the word, I own, is often
used in that sense: but when we speak of a quality peculiar to our
species, and say, that man is a sociable creature, the word implies
no more, than that in our nature we have a certain fitness, by which
great multitudes of us cooperating, may be united and formed into one
body; that endued with, and, able to make use of, the strength, skill
and prudence of every individual, shall govern itself, and act on all
emergencies, as if it was animated by one soul, and actuated by one
will. I am willing to allow, that among the motives that prompt man
to enter into society, there is a desire which he has naturally after
company; but he has it for his own sake, in hopes of being the better
for it; and he would never wish for either company or any thing else,
but for some advantage or other he proposes to himself from it. What
I deny is, that man naturally has such a desire, out of a fondness
of his species, superior to what other animals have for theirs. It
is a compliment which we commonly pay to ourselves, but there is no
more reality in it, than in our being one another's humble servants;
and I insist upon it, that this pretended love of our species, and
natural affection we are said to have for one another, beyond other
animals, is neither instrumental to the erecting of societies, nor ever
trusted to in our prudent commerce with one another when associated,
any more than if it had no existence. The undoubted basis of all
societies is government: this truth, well examined into, will furnish
us with all the reasons of man's excellency as to sociableness. It
is evident from it, that creatures, to be raised into a community,
must, in the first place, be governable: This is a qualification
that requires fear, and some degree of understanding; for a creature
not susceptible of fear, is never to be governed; and the more sense
and courage it has, the more refractory and untractable it will be,
without the influence of that useful passion: and again, fear without
understanding puts creatures only upon avoiding the danger dreaded,
without considering what will become of themselves afterwards: so
wild birds will beat out their brains against the cage, before they
will save their lives by eating. There is a great difference between
being submissive, and being governable; for he who barely submits
to another, only embraces what he dislikes, to shun what he dislikes
more; and we may be very submissive, and be of no use to the person we
submit to: but to be governable, implies an endeavour to please, and a
willingness to exert ourselves in behalf of the person that governs:
but love beginning every where at home, no creature can labour for
others, and be easy long, whilst self is wholly out of the question:
therefore a creature is then truly governable, when reconciled to
submission, it has learned to construe his servitude to his own
advantage; and rests satisfied with the account it finds for itself,
in the labour it performs for others. Several kind of animals are, or
may, with little trouble, be made thus governable; but there is not
one creature so tame, that it can be made to serve its own species,
but man; yet without this he could never have been made sociable.
Hor. But was not man by nature designed for society?
Cleo. We know from revelation that man was made for society.
Hor. But if it had not been revealed, or you had been a Chinese,
or a Mexican, what would you answer me as a philosopher?
Cleo. That nature had designed man for society, as she has made grapes
for wine.
Hor. To make wine is an invention of man, as it is to press oil from
olives and other vegetables, and to make ropes of hemp.
Cleo. And so it is to form a society of independent multitudes;
and there is nothing that requires greater skill.
Hor. But is not the sociableness of man the work of nature, or rather
of the author of nature, Divine Providence?
Cleo. Without doubt: But so is the innate virtue and peculiar
aptitude of every thing; that grapes are fit to make wine, and
barley and water to make other liquors, is the work of Providence;
but it is human sagacity that finds out the uses we make of them: all
the other capacities of man likewise, as well as his sociableness,
are evidently derived from God, who made him: every thing therefore
that our industry can produce or compass, is originally owing to
the Author of our being. But when we speak of the works of nature,
to distinguish them from those of art, we mean such as were brought
forth without our concurrence. So nature, in due season produces peas;
but in England you cannot have them green in January, without art
and uncommon industry. What nature designs, she executes herself:
there are creatures, of whom it is visible, that nature has designed
them for society, as is most obvious in bees, to whom she has given
instincts for that purpose, as appears from the effects. We owe our
being and every thing else to the great Author of the universe; but
as societies cannot subsist without his preserving power, so they
cannot exist without the concurrence of human wisdom: all of them
must have a dependance either on mutual compact, or the force of the
strong exerting itself upon the patience of the weak. The difference
between the works of art, and those of nature, is so immense, that it
is impossible not to know them asunder. Knowing, à priori, belongs to
God only, and Divine Wisdom acts with an original certainty, of which,
what we call demonstration, is but an imperfect borrowed copy. Amongst
the works of nature, therefore, we see no trials nor essays; they are
all complete, and such as she would have them, at the first production;
and, where she has not been interrupted, highly finished, beyond
the reach of our understanding, as well as senses. Wretched man,
on the contrary is sure of nothing, his own existence not excepted,
but from reasoning, à posteriori. The consequence of this is, that
the works of art and human invention are all very lame and defective,
and most of them pitifully mean at first: our knowledge is advanced
by slow degrees, and some arts and sciences require the experience of
many ages, before they can be brought to any tolerable perfection. Have
we any reason to imagine that the society of bees, that sent forth the
first swarm, made worse wax or honey than any of their posterity have
produced since? And again the laws of nature are fixed and unalterable:
in all her orders and regulations there is a stability, no where to
be met with in things of human contrivance and approbation;
Quid placet aut odio est, quod non mutabile credas?
Is it probable, that amongst the bees, there has ever been any other
form of government than what every swarm submits to now? What an
infinite variety of speculations, what ridiculous schemes have not been
proposed amongst men, on the subject of government; what dissentions
in opinion, and what fatal quarrels has it not been the occasion
of! and which is the best form of it, is a question to this day
undecided. The projects, good and bad, that have been stated for the
benefit, and more happy establishment of society, are innumerable; but
how short sighted is our sagacity, how fallible human judgment! What
has seemed highly advantageous to mankind in one age, has often been
found to be evidently detrimental by the succeeding; and even among
contemporaries, what is revered in one country, is the abomination
of another. What changes have ever bees made in their furniture or
architecture? have they ever made cells that were not sexangular,
or added any tools to those which nature furnished them with at the
beginning? What mighty structures have been raised, what prodigious
works have been performed by the great nations of the world! Toward
all these nature has only found materials: the quarry yields marble,
but it is the sculptor that makes a statue of it. To have the infinite
variety of iron tools that have been invented, nature has given us
nothing but the oar, which she has hid in the bowels of the earth.
Hor. But the capacity of the workmen, the inventors of arts, and
those that improved them, has had a great share in bringing those
labours to perfection; and their genius they had from nature.
Cleo. So far as it depended upon the make of their frame, the
accuracy of the machine they had, and no further; but this I have
allowed already; and if you remember what I have said on this head,
you will find, that the part which nature contributed toward the skill
and patience of every single person, that had a hand in those works,
was very inconsiderable.
Hor. If I have not misunderstood you, you would insinuate two things:
First, that the fitness of man for society, beyond other animals,
is something real; but that it is hardly perceptible in individuals,
before great numbers of them are joined together, and artfully
managed. Secondly, that this real something, this sociableness, is
a compound that consists in a concurrence of several things, and not
in any one palpable quality, that man is endued with, and brutes are
destitute of.
Cleo. You are perfectly right: every grape contains a small quantity
of juice, and when great heaps of them are squeezed together, they
yield a liquor, which by skilful management may be made into wine:
but if we consider how necessary fermentation is to the vinosity of
the liquor, I mean, how essential is it to its being wine, it will
be evident to us, that without great impropriety of speech, it cannot
be said, that in every grape there is wine.
Hor. Vinosity, so far as it is the effect of fermentation, is
adventitious; and what none of the grapes could ever have received
whilst they remained single; and, therefore, if you would compare the
sociableness of man to the vinosity of wine, you must show me, that in
society there is an equivalent for fermentation; I mean something that
individual persons are not actually possessed of, whilst they remain
single, and which likewise is palpably adventitious to multitudes when
joined together; in the same manner as fermentation is to the juice
of grapes, and as necessary and essential to the completing of society
as that is, that same fermentation, to procure the vinosity of wine.
Cleo. Such an equivalent is demonstrable in mutual commerce: for if we
examine every faculty and qualification, from and for which we judge
and pronounce man to be a sociable creature beyond other animals, we
shall find, that a very considerable, if not the greatest part of the
attribute is acquired, and comes upon multitudes, from their conversing
with one another. Fabricando fabri simus. Men become sociable, by
living together in society. Natural affection prompts all mothers to
take care of the offspring they dare own; so far as to feed and keep
them from harm, whilst they are helpless: but where people are poor,
and the women have no leisure to indulge themselves in the various
expressions of their fondness for their infants, which fondling of them
ever increases, they are often very remiss in tending and playing with
them; and the more healthy and quiet such children are, the more they
are neglected. This want of prattling to, and stirring up the spirits
in babes, is often the principal cause of an invincible stupidity,
as well as ignorance, when they are grown up; and we often ascribe to
natural incapacity, what is altogether owing to the neglect of this
early instruction. We have so few examples of human creatures, that
never conversed with their own species, that it is hard to guess, what
man would be, entirely untaught; but we have good reason to believe,
that the faculty of thinking would be very imperfect in such a one,
if we consider, that the greatest docility can be of no use to a
creature, whilst it has nothing to imitate, nor any body to teach it.
Hor. Philosophers therefore are very wisely employed, when they
discourse about the laws of nature; and pretend to determine what a
man in the state of nature would think, and which way he would reason
concerning himself and the creation, uninstructed.
Cleo. Thinking, and reasoning justly, as Mr. Locke has rightly
observed, require time and practice. Those that have not used
themselves to thinking, but just on their present necessities, make
poor work of it, when they try beyond that. In remote parts, and such
as are least inhabited, we shall find our species come nearer the
state of nature, than it does in and near great cities and considerable
towns, even in the most civilized nations. Among the most ignorant of
such people, you may learn the truth of my assertion; talk to them
about any thing, that requires abstract thinking, and there is not
one in fifty that will understand you, any more than a horse would;
and yet many of them are useful labourers, and cunning enough to tell
lies and deceive. Man is a rational creature, but he is not endued
with reason when he comes into the world; nor can he afterwards put
it on when he pleases, at once, as he may a garment. Speech likewise
is a characteristic of our species, but no man is born with it; and a
dozen generations proceeding from two savages would not produce any
tolerable language; nor have we reason to believe, that a man could
be taught to speak after five-and-twenty, if he had never heard others
before that time.
Hor. The necessity of teaching, whilst the organs are supple, and
easily yield to impression, which you have spoke of before, I believe
is of great weight, both in speaking and thinking; but could a dog,
or a monkey, ever be taught to speak?
Cleo. I believe not; but I do not think, that creatures of another
species had ever the pains bestowed upon them, that some children have,
before they can pronounce one word. Another thing to be considered is,
that though some animals perhaps live longer than we do, there is no
species that remains young so long as ours; and besides what we owe to
the superior aptitude to learn, which we have from the great accuracy
of our frame and inward structure, we are not a little indebted for
our docility, to the slowness and long gradation of our increase,
before we are full grown: the organs in other creatures grow stiff,
before ours are come to half their perfection.
Hor. So that in the compliment we make to our species, of its being
endued with speech and sociableness, there is no other reality,
than that by care and industry men may be taught to speak, and be
made sociable, if the discipline begins when they are very young.
Cleo. Not otherwise. A thousand of our species all grown up, that is
above five-and-twenty, could never be made sociable, if they had been
brought up wild, and were all strangers to one another.
Hor. I believe they could not be civilized, if their education began
so late.
Cleo. But I mean barely sociable, as it is the epithet peculiar to man;
that is, it would be impossible by art to govern them, any more than
so many wild horses, unless you had two or three times that number
to watch and keep them in awe. Therefore it is highly probable,
that most societies, and beginnings of nations, were formed in the
manner Sir William Temple supposes it; but nothing near so fast:
and I wonder how a man of his unquestionable good sense, could form
an idea of justice, prudence, and wisdom, in an untaught creature;
or think of a civilized man, before there was any civil society,
and even before men had commenced to associate.
Hor. I have read it, I am sure, but I do not remember what it is
you mean.
Cleo. He is just behind you; the third shelf from the bottom; the
first volume: pray reach it me, it is worth your hearing.----It
is in his Essay on Government. Here it is. "For if we consider man
multiplying his kind by the birth of many children, and his cares by
providing even necessary food for them, until they are able to do it
for themselves (which happens much later to the generations of men,
and makes a much longer dependence of children upon parents, than we
can observe among any other creatures); if we consider not only the
cares, but the industry he is forced to, for the necessary sustenance
of his helpless brood, either in gathering the natural fruits, or
raising those which are purchased with labour and toil: if he be
forced for supply of this stock, to catch the tamer creatures, and
hunt the wilder, sometimes to exercise his courage in defending his
little family, and fighting with the strong and savage beasts (that
would prey upon him, as he does upon the weak and mild): if we suppose
him disposing with discretion and order, whatever he gets among his
children, according to each of their hunger or need; sometimes laying
up for to-morrow, what was more than enough for to-day; at other times
pinching himself, rather than suffering any of them should want.----"
Hor. This man is no savage, or untaught creature; he is fit to be a
justice of peace.
Cleo. Pray let me go on, I shall only read this paragraph: "And
as each of them grows up, and able to share in the common support,
teaching them, both by lesson and example, what he is now to do, as
the son of his family, and what hereafter, as the father of another;
instructing them all, what qualities are good, and what are ill,
for their health and life, or common society (which will certainly
comprehend whatever is generally esteemed virtue or vice among men),
cherishing and encouraging dispositions to the good, disfavouring and
punishing those to the ill: And lastly, among the various accidents
of life, lifting up his eyes to Heaven, when the earth affords him no
relief; and having recourse to a higher and a greater nature, whenever
he finds the frailty of his own: we must needs conclude, that the
children of this man cannot fail of being bred up with a great opinion
of his wisdom, his goodness, his valour, and his piety. And if they see
constant plenty in the family, they believe well of his fortune too."
Hor. Did this man spring out of the earth, I wonder, or did he drop
from the sky?
Cleo. There is no manner of absurdity in supposing----.
Hor. The discussion of this would too far engage us: I am sure,
I have tired you already with my impertinence.
Cleo. You have pleased me extremely: the questions you have asked have
all been very pertinent, and such as every man of sense would make,
that had not made it his business to think on these things. I read that
passage on purpose to you, to make some use of it; but if you are weary
of the subject, I will not trespass upon your patience any longer.
Hor. You mistake me; I begin to be fond of the subject: but before we
talk of it any further, I have a mind to run over that Essay again;
it is a great while since I read it: and after that I shall be glad to
resume the discourse; the sooner the better. I know you are a lover
of fine fruit, if you will dine with me to-morrow, I will give you
an ananas.
Cleo. I love your company so well, that I can refuse no opportunity
of enjoying it.
Hor. A revoir then.
Cleo. Your servant.
THE FIFTH
DIALOGUE
BETWEEN
HORATIO AND CLEOMENES.
CLEOMENES.
It excels every thing; it is extremely rich without being luscious,
and I know nothing to which I can compare the taste of it: to me it
seems to be a collection of different fine flavours, that puts me in
mind of several delicious fruits, which yet are all outdone by it.
Hor. I am glad it pleased you.
Cleo. The scent of it likewise is wonderfully reviving. As you
was paring it, a fragrancy, I thought, perfumed the room that was
perfectly cordial.
Hor. The inside of the rhind has an oiliness of no disagreeable smell,
that upon handling of it sticks to ones fingers for a considerable
time; for though now I have washed and wiped my hands, the flavour
of it will not be entirely gone from them by to-morrow morning.
Cleo. This was the third I ever tasted of our own growth; the
production of them in these northern climates, is no small instance
of human industry, and our improvements in gardening. It is very
elegant to enjoy the wholesome air of temperate regions, and at
the same time be able to raise fruit to its highest maturity, that
naturally requires the sun of the Torrid Zone.
Hor. It is easy enough to procure heat, but the great art consists
in finding out, and regulating the degrees of it at pleasure; without
which it would be impossible to ripen an ananas here, and to compass
this with that exactness, as it is done by the help of thermometers,
was certainly a fine invention.
Cleo. I do not care to drink any more.
Hor. Just as you please; otherwise I was going to name a health,
which would not have come mal à propos.
Cleo. Whose is that, pray?
Hor. I was thinking on the man to whom we are in a great measure
obliged for the production and culture of the exotic, we were
speaking of, in this kingdom; Sir Matthew Decker, the first ananas
or pine-apple, that was brought to perfection in England, grew in
his garden at Richmond.
Cleo. With all my heart; let us finish with that; he is a beneficent,
and, I believe, a very honest man.
Hor. It would not be easy to name another, who, with the same knowledge
of the world, and capacity of getting money, is equally disinterested
and inoffensive.
Cleo. Have you considered the things we discoursed of yesterday?
Hor. I have thought on nothing else since I saw you: This morning
I went through the whole Essay, and with more attention than I did
formerly: I like it very well; only that passage which you read
yesterday, and some others to the same purpose, I cannot reconcile
with the account we have of man's origin from the Bible: Since all
are descendants from Adam, and consequently of Noah and his posterity,
how came savages into the world?
Cleo. The history of the world, as to very ancient times, is very
imperfect: What devastations have been made by war, by pestilence,
and by famine; what distress some men have been drove to, and how
strangely our race has been dispersed and scattered over the earth
since the flood, we do not know.
Hor. But persons that are well instructed themselves, never fail of
teaching their children; and we have no reason to think, that knowing,
civilized men, as the sons of Noah were, should have neglected their
offspring; but it is altogether incredible, as all are descendants
from them, that succeeding generations, instead of increasing in
experience and wisdom, should learn backward, and still more and more
abandon their broods in such a manner, as to degenerate at last to
what you call the state of nature.
Cleo. Whether you intend this as a sarcasm or not, I do not know; but
you have raised no difficulty that can render the truth of the sacred
history suspected. Holy writ has acquainted us with the miraculous
origin of our species, and the small remainder of it after the deluge:
But it is far from informing us of all the revolutions that have
happened among mankind since: The Old Testament hardly touches upon
any particulars that had no relation to the Jews; neither does Moses
pretend to give a full account of every thing that happened to, or was
transacted by our first parents: He names none of Adam's daughters,
and takes no notice of several things that must have happened in the
beginning of the world, as is evident from Cain's building a city,
and several other circumstances; from which it is plain, that Moses
meddled with nothing but what was material, and to his purpose;
which, in that part of his history, was to trace the descent of the
Patriarchs, from the first man. But that there are savages is certain:
Most nations of Europe have met with wild men and women in several
parts of the world, that were ignorant of the use of letters, and
among whom they could observe no rule or government.
Hor. That there are savages, I do not question; and from the great
number of slaves that are yearly fetched from Africa, it is manifest,
that in some parts there must be vast swarms of people, that have
not yet made a great hand of their sociableness: But how to derive
them from all the sons of Noah, I own, is past my skill.
Cleo. You find it as difficult to account for the loss of the many
fine arts, and useful inventions of the ancients, which the world has
certainly sustained. But the fault I find with Sir William Temple, is
in the character of his savage. Just reasoning, and such an orderly
way of proceeding, as he makes him act in, are unnatural to a wild
man: In such a one, the passions must be boisterous, and continually
jostling, and succeeding one another; no untaught man could have a
regular way of thinking, or pursue any one design with steadiness.
Hor. You have strange notions of our species: But has not a man, by
the time that he comes to maturity, some notions of right and wrong,
that are natural?
Cleo. Before I answer your question, I would have you consider,
that, among savages, there must be always a great difference as
to the wildness or tameness of them. All creatures naturally love
their offspring whilst they are helpless, and so does man: But in
the savage state, men are more liable to accidents and misfortunes
than they are in society, as to the rearing of their young ones; and,
therefore, the children of savages must very often be put to their
shifts, so as hardly to remember, by the time that they are grown up,
that they had any parents. If this happens too early, and they are
dropt or lost before they are four or five years of age, they must
perish; either die for want, or be devoured by beasts of prey, unless
some other creature takes care of them. Those orphans that survive,
and become their own masters very young, must, when they are come
to maturity, be much wilder than others, that have lived many years
under the tuition of parents.
Hor. But would not the wildest man you can imagine, have from nature
some thoughts of justice and injustice?
Cleo. Such a one, I believe, would naturally, without much thinking
in the case, take every thing to be his own that he could lay his
hands on.
Hor. Then they would soon be undeceived, if two or three of them
met together.
Cleo. That they would soon disagree and quarrel, is highly probable;
but I do not believe they ever would be undeceived.
Hor. At this rate, men could never be formed into an aggregate body:
How came society into the world?
Cleo. As I told you, from private families; but not without great
difficulty, and the concurrence of many favourable accidents; and
many generations may pass before there is any likelihood of their
being formed into a society.
Hor. That men are formed into societies, we see: But if they are
all born with that false notion, and they can never be undeceived,
which way do you account for it?
Cleo. My opinion concerning this matter, is this: Self-preservation
bids all creatures gratify their appetites, and that of propagating
his kind never fails to affect a man in health, many years before he
comes to his full growth. If a wild man and a wild woman would meet
very young, and live together for fifty years undisturbed, in a mild
wholesome climate, where there is plenty of provisions, they might see
a prodigious number of descendants: For, in the wild state of nature,
man multiplies his kind much faster, than can be allowed of in any
regular society: No male at fourteen would be long without a female,
if he could get one; and no female of twelve would be refractory,
if applied to, or remain long uncourted, if there were men.
Hor. Considering that consanguinity would be no bar among these
people, the progeny of two savages might soon amount to hundreds:
All this I can grant you; but as parents, no better qualified,
could teach their children but little, it would be impossible for
them to govern these sons and daughters when they grew up, if none
of them had any notions of right or wrong; and society is as far off
as ever; the false principle, which you say all men are born with,
is an obstacle never to be surmounted.
Cleo. From that false principle, as you call it, the right men
naturally claim to every thing they can get, it must follow, that
man will look upon his children as his property, and make such use
of them as is most consistent with his interest.
Hor. What is the interest of a wild man that pursues nothing with
steadiness.
Cleo. The demand of the predominant passion for the time it lasts.
Hor. That may change every moment, and such children would be
miserably managed.
Cleo. That is true; but still managed they would be; I mean they would
be kept under, and forced to do as they they were bid, at least till
they were strong enough to resist. Natural affection would prompt
a wild man to love and cherish his child; it would make him provide
food, and other necessaries for his son, till he was ten or twelve
years old, or perhaps longer: But this affection is not the only
passion he has to gratify; if his son provokes him by stubbornness,
or doing otherwise than he would have him, this love is suspended;
and if his displeasure be strong enough to raise his anger, which is
as natural to him as any other passion, it is ten to one but he will
knock him down: If he hurts him very much, and the condition he has
put his son in, moves his pity, his anger will cease; and, natural
affection returning, he will fondle him again, and be sorry for what
he has done. Now, if we consider that all creatures hate and endeavour
to avoid pain, and that benefits beget love in all that receive them,
we shall find, that the consequence of this management would be,
that the savage child would learn to love and fear his father: These
two passions, together with the esteem which we naturally have for
every thing that far excels us, will seldom fail of producing that
compound which we call reverence.
Hor. I have it now; you have opened my eyes, and I see the origin of
society, as plain as I do that table.
Cleo. I am afraid the prospect is not so clear yet as you imagine.
Hor. Why so? The grand obstacles are removed: Untaught men, it is true,
when they are grown up, are never to be governed; and our subjection
is never sincere where the superiority of the governor is not very
apparent: But both these are obviated; the reverence we have for
a person when we are young, is easily continued as long as we live;
and where authority is once acknowledged, and that acknowledgment well
established, it cannot be a difficult matter to govern. If thus a man
may keep up his authority over his children, he will do it still with
greater ease over his grand-children: For a child that has the least
reverence for his parents, will seldom refuse homage to the person
to whom he sees his father pay it. Besides, a man's pride would be
a sufficient motive for him to maintain the authority once gained;
and, if some of his progeny proved refractory, he would leave no stone
unturned, by the help of the rest to reduce the disobedient. The old
man being dead, the authority from him would devolve upon the eldest
of his children, and so on.
Cleo. I thought you would go on too fast. If the wild man had
understood the nature of things, and been endued with general
knowledge, and a language ready made, as Adam was by miracle, what
you say might have been easy; but an ignorant creature that knows
nothing but what his own experience has taught him, is no more fit
to govern than he is fit to teach the mathematics.
Hor. He would not have above one or two children to govern at
first; and his experience would increase by degrees, as well as his
family. This would require no such consummate knowledge.
Cleo. I do not say it would: An ordinary capacity of a man tolerably
well educated, would be sufficient to begin with; but a man who never
had been taught to curb any of his passions, would be very unfit for
such a task. He would make his children, as soon as they were able,
assist him in getting food, and teach them how and where to procure
it. Savage children, as they got strength, would endeavour to imitate
every action they saw their parents do, and every sound they heard
them make; but all the instructions they received, would be confined
to things immediately necessary. Savage parents would often take
offence at their children, as they grew up, without a cause; and as
these increased in years, so natural affection would decrease in the
other. The consequence would be, that the children would often suffer
for failings that were not their own. Savages would often discover
faults in the conduct of what was past; but they would not be able
to establish rules for future behaviour, which they would approve
of themselves for any continuance; and want of foresight would be an
inexhaustible fund for changes in their resolutions. The savage's wife,
as well as himself, would be highly pleased to see their daughters
impregnated and bring forth; and they would both take great delight
in their grand-children.
Hor. I thought, that in all creatures the natural affection of parents
had been confined to their own young ones.
Cleo. It is so in all but man; there is no species but ours, that
are so conceited of themselves, as to imagine every thing to be
theirs. The desire of dominion is a never-failing consequence of the
pride that is common to all men; and which the brat of a savage is as
much born with as the son of an emperor. This good opinion we have
of ourselves, makes men not only claim a right to their children,
but likewise imagine, that they have a great share of jurisdiction
over their grandchildren. The young ones of other animals, as soon as
they can help themselves, are free; but the authority which parents
pretend to have over their children, never ceases: How general and
unreasonable this eternal claim is naturally in the heart of man, we
may learn from the laws; which, to prevent the usurpation of parents,
and rescue children from their dominion, every civil society is forced
to make; limiting paternal authority to a certain term of years. Our
savage pair would have a double title to their grandchildren, from
their undoubted property in each parent of them; and all the progeny
being sprung from their own sons and daughters, without intermixture of
foreign blood, they would look upon the whole race to be their natural
vassals; and I am persuaded, that the more knowledge and capacity of
reasoning this first couple acquired, the more just and unquestionable
their sovereignty over all their descendants would appear to them,
though they should live to see the fifth or sixth generation.
Hor. Is it not strange that nature should send us all into the world
with a visible desire after government, and no capacity for it at all?
Cleo. What seems strange to you, is an undeniable instance of Divine
Wisdom. For, if all had not been born with this desire, all must have
been destitute of it; and multitudes could never have been formed into
societies, if some of them had not been possessed of this thirst of
dominion. Creatures may commit force upon themselves, they may learn
to warp their natural appetites, and divert them from their proper
objects: but peculiar instincts, that belong to a whole species,
are never to be acquired by art or discipline; and those that are
born without them, must remain destitute of them for ever. Ducks run
to the water as soon as they are hatched; but you can never make a
chicken swim any more than you can teach it to suck.
Hor. I understand you very well. If pride had not been innate to
all men, none of them could ever have been ambitious: And as to the
capacity of governing, experience shows us, that it is to be acquired;
but how to bring society into the world, I know no more than the wild
man himself. What you have suggested to me of his unskilfulness, and
want of power to govern himself, has quite destroyed all the hopes
I had conceived of society from this family. But would religion have
no influence upon them? Pray, how came that into the world?
Cleo. From God, by miracle.
Hor. Obscurum per obscurius. I do not understand miracles, that break
in upon, and subvert the order of nature; and I have no notion of
things that come to pass, en dépit de bon sens, and are such; that
judging from sound reason and known experience, all wise men would
think themselves mathematically sure that they could never happen.
Cleo. It is certain, that by the word miracle, is meant an
interposition of the Divine Power, when it deviates from the common
course of nature.
Hor. As when matters, easily combustible, remain whole and untouched in
the midst of a fire fiercely burning, or lions in vigour, industriously
kept hungry, forbear eating what they are most greedy after. These
miracles are strange things.
Cleo. They are not pretended to be otherwise; the etymology of the
word imports it; but it is almost as unaccountable, that men should
disbelieve them, and pretend to be of a religion that is altogether
built upon miracles.
Hor. But when I asked you that general question, why did you confine
yourself to revealed religion?
Cleo. Because nothing, in my opinion, deserves the name of religion,
that has not been revealed: The Jewish was the first that was national,
and the Christian the next.
Hor. But Abraham, Noah, and Adam himself, were no Jews, and yet they
had religion.
Cleo. No other than what was revealed to them. God appeared to our
first parents, and gave them commands immediately after he had created
them: The same intercourse was continued between the Supreme Being
and the Patriarchs; but the father of Abraham was an idolater.
Hor. But the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans had religion,
as well as the Jews.
Cleo. Their gross idolatry, and abominable worship, I call
superstition.
Hor. You may be as partial as you please, but they all called their
worship religion, as well as we do ours. You say, man brings nothing
with him, but his passions; and when I asked you, how religion came
into the world, I meant what is there in man's nature that is not
acquired, from which he has a tendency to religion; what is it that
disposes him to it?
Cleo. Fear.
Hor. How! Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor; Are you of that opinion?
Cleo. No man upon earth less: But that noted Epicurean axiom, which
irreligious men are so fond of, is a very poor one; and it is silly,
as well as impious to say, that fear made a God; you may as justly
say, that fear made grass, or the sun and the moon: but when I am
speaking of savages, it is not clashing either with good sense, nor
the Christian religion, to assert, that, whilst such men are ignorant
of the true Deity, and yet very defective in the art of thinking and
reasoning, fear is the passion that first gives them an opportunity
of entertaining some glimmering notions of an invisible Power;
which afterwards, as by practice and experience they grow greater
proficients, and become more perfect in the labour of the brain, and
the exercise of their highest faculty, will infallibly lead them to
the certain knowledge of an Infinite and Eternal Being; whose power
and wisdom will always appear the greater, and more stupendous to
them, the more they themselves advance in knowledge and penetration,
though both should be carried on to a much higher pitch, than it is
possible for our limited nature ever to arrive at.
Hor. I beg your pardon for suspecting you; though I am glad it gave
you an opportunity of explaining yourself. The word fear, without any
addition, sounded very harsh; and even now I cannot conceive how an
invisible cause should become the object of a man's fear, that should
be so entirely untaught, as you have made the first savage: which
way can any thing invisible, and that affects none of the senses,
make an impression upon a wild creature?
Cleo. Every mischief and every disaster that happens to him, of which
the cause is not very plain and obvious; excessive heat and cold;
wet and drought, that are offensive; thunder and lightning, even
when they do no visible hurt; noises in the dark, obscurity itself,
and every thing that is frightful and unknown, are all administering
and contributing to the establishment of this fear. The wildest
man that can be conceived, by the time that he came to maturity,
would be wise enough to know, that fruits and other eatables are
not to be had, either always, or every where: this would naturally
put him upon hoarding, when he had good store: his provision might
be spoiled by the rain: he would see that trees were blasted, and
yielded not always the same plenty: he might not always be in health,
or his young ones might grow sick, and die, without any wounds or
external force to be seen. Some of these accidents might at first
escape his attention, or only alarm his weak understanding, without
occasioning much reflection for some time; but as they come often,
he would certainly begin to suspect some invisible cause; and, as his
experience increased, be confirmed in his suspicion. It is likewise
highly probable, that a variety of different sufferings, would make
him apprehend several such causes; and at last induce him to believe,
that there was a great number of them, which he had to fear. What
would very much contribute to this credulous disposition, and naturally
lead him into such a belief, is a false notion we imbibe very early,
and which we may observe in infants, as soon as by their looks, their
gestures, and the signs they make, they begin to be intelligible to us.
Hor. What is that, pray?
Cleo. All young children seem to imagine, that every thing thinks
and feels in the same manner as they do themselves; and, that they
generally have this wrong opinion of things inanimate, is evident,
from a common practice among them; whenever they labour under any
misfortune, which their own wildness, and want of care have drawn
upon them. In all such cases, you see them angry at and strike,
a table, a chair, the floor, or any thing else, that can seem to
have been accessary to their hurting themselves, or the production of
any other blunder, they have committed. Nurses we see, in compliance
to their frailty, seem to entertain the same ridiculous sentiments;
and actually appease wrathful brats, by pretending to take their part:
Thus you will often see them very serious, in scolding at and beating,
either the real object of the baby's indignation, or something else,
on which the blame of what has happened, may be thrown, with any
show of probability. It is not to be imagined, that this natural
folly should be so easily cured in a child, that is destitute of all
instruction and commerce with his own species, as it is in those
that are brought up in society, and hourly improved by conversing
with others that are wiser than themselves; and I am persuaded,
that a wild man would never get entirely rid of it whilst he lived.
Hor. I cannot think so meanly of human understanding.
Cleo. Whence came the Dryades and Hama-Dryades? How came it ever to
be thought impious to cut down, or even to wound large venerable oaks
or other stately trees; and what root did the Divinity spring from,
which the vulgar, among the ancient heathens, apprehended to be in
rivers and fountains?
Hor. From the roguery of designing priests, and other impostors,
that invented those lies, and made fables for their own advantage.
Cleo. But still it must have been want of understanding; and a
tincture, some remainder of that folly which is discovered in young
children, that could induce, or would suffer men to believe those
fables. Unless fools actually had frailties, knaves could not make
use of them.
Hor. There may be something in it; but, be that as it will, you have
owned, that man naturally loves those he receives benefits from;
therefore, how comes it, that man, finding all the good things he
enjoys to proceed from an invisible cause, his gratitude should not
sooner prompt him to be religious, than his fear?
Cleo. There are several substantial reasons, why it does not. Man
takes every thing to be his own, which he has from nature: sowing
and reaping, he thinks, deserve a crop, and whatever he has the least
hand in, is always reckoned to be his. Every art, and every invention,
as soon as we know them, are our right and property; and whatever we
perform by the assistance of them, is, by the courtesy of the species
to itself, deemed to be our own. We make use of fermentation, and
all the chemistry of nature, without thinking ourselves beholden
to any thing but our own knowledge. She that churns the cream,
makes the butter; without inquiring into the power by which the
thin lymphatic particles are forced to separate themselves, and
slide away from the more unctuous. In brewing, baking, cooking,
and almost every thing we have a hand in, nature is the drudge that
makes all the alterations, and does the principal work; yet all,
forsooth, is our own. From all which, it is manifest, that man,
who is naturally for making every thing centre in himself, must,
in his wild state, have a great tendency, and be very prone to look
upon every thing he enjoys as his due; and every thing he meddles
with, as his own performance. It requires knowledge and reflection;
and a man must be pretty far advanced in the art of thinking justly,
and reasoning consequentially, before he can, from his own light,
and without being taught, be sensible of his obligations to God. The
less a man knows, and the more shallow his understanding is, the
less he is capable either of enlarging his prospect of things,
or drawing consequences from the little which he does know. Raw,
ignorant, and untaught men, fix their eyes on what is immediately
before, and seldom look further than, as it is vulgarly expressed,
the length of their noses. The wild man, if gratitude moved him, would
much sooner pay his respects to the tree he gathers his nuts from,
than he would think of an acknowledgment to him who had planted it;
and there is no property so well established, but a civilized man
would suspect his title to it sooner, than a wild one would question
the sovereignty he has over his own breath. Another reason, why fear
is an elder motive to religion than gratitude, is, that an untaught
man would never suspect that the same cause, which he received good
from, would ever do him hurt; and evil, without doubt, would always
gain his attention first.
Hor. Men, indeed, seem to remember one ill turn, that is served
them, better than ten good ones; one month's sickness better than
ten years health.
Cleo. In all the labours of self-preservation, man is intent on
avoiding what is hurtful to him; but in the enjoyment of what is
pleasant, his thoughts are relaxed, and he is void of care: he
can swallow a thousand delights, one after another, without asking
questions; but the least evil makes him inquisitive whence it came,
in order to shun it. It is very material, therefore, to know the
cause of evil; but to know that of good, which is always welcome,
is of little use; that is, such a knowledge seems not to promise
any addition to his happiness. When a man once apprehends such an
invisible enemy, it is reasonable to think, that he would be glad to
appease, and make him his friend, if he could find him out; it is
highly probable, likewise, that in order to this, he would search,
investigate, and look every where about him; and that finding all
his inquiries upon earth in vain, he would lift up his eyes to the sky.
Hor. And so a wild man might; and look down and up again long enough
before he would be the wiser. I can easily conceive, that a creature
must labour under great perplexities, when it actually fears something,
of which it knows neither what it is, nor where it is; and that,
though a man had all the reason in the world to think it invisible, he
would still be more afraid of it in the dark, than when he could see.
Cleo. Whilst a man is but an imperfect thinker, and wholly employed in
furthering self preservation in the most simple manner, and removing
the immediate obstacles he meets with in that pursuit, this affair,
perhaps, affects him but little; but when he comes to be a tolerable
reasoner, and has leisure to reflect, it must produce strange chimeras
and surmises; and a wild couple would not converse together long,
before they would endeavour to express their minds to one another
concerning this matter; and, as in time they would invent and agree
upon, certain sounds of distinction for several things, of which the
ideas would often occur, so I believe, that this invisible cause would
be one of the first, which they would coin a name for. A wild man and
a wild woman would not take less care of their helpless brood than
other animals; and it is not to imagined, but the children that were
brought up by them, though without instruction or discipline, would,
before they were ten years old, observe in their parents this fear of
an invisible cause. It is incredible likewise, considering, how much
men differ from one another in features, complexion, and temper,
that all should form the same idea of this cause; from whence it
would follow, that as soon as any considerable number of men could
intelligibly converse together, it would appear, that there were
different opinions among them concerning the invisible cause: the fear
and acknowledgment of it being universal, and man always attributing
his own passions to every thing, which he conceives to think, every
body would be solicitous to avoid the hatred and ill-will, and, if it
was possible, to gain the friendship of such a power. If we consider
these things, and what we know of the nature of man, it is hardly
to be conceived, that any considerable number of our species could
have any intercourse together long, in peace or otherwise, but wilful
lies would be raised concerning this power, and some would pretend to
have seen or heard it. How different opinions about invisible power,
may, by the malice and deceit of impostors, be made the occasion of
mortal enmity among multitudes, is easily accounted for. If we want
rain very much, and I can be persuaded, that it is your fault we have
none, there needs greater cause to quarrel; and nothing has happened
in the world, of priestcraft or inhumanity, folly or abomination,
on religious accounts, that cannot be solved or explained, with the
least trouble, from these data, and the principle of fear.
Hor. I think I must yield to you, that the first motive of religion,
among savages, was fear; but you must allow me in your turn, that
from the general thankfulness that nations have always paid to
their gods, for signal benefits and success; the many hecatombs that
have been offered after victories; and the various institutions of
games and festivals; it is evident, that when men came to be wiser,
and more civilized, the greatest part of their religion was built
upon gratitude.
Cleo. You labour hard, I see, to vindicate the honour of our species;
but we have no such cause to boast of it: and I shall demonstrate to
you, that a well-weighed consideration, and a thorough understanding of
our nature, will give us much less reason to exult in our pride, than
it will furnish us with, for the exercise of our humility. In the first
place, there is no difference between the original nature of a savage,
and that of a civilized man: they are both born with fear, and neither
of them, if they have their senses about them, can live many years,
but an invisible Power, will, at one time or other, become the object
of that fear; and this will happen to every man, whether he be wild
and alone, or in society, and under the best discipline. We know by
experience, that empires, states, and kingdoms, may excel in arts and
sciences, politeness, and all worldly wisdom, and at the same time be
slaves to the grossest idolatry, and submit to all the inconsistencies
of a false religion. The most civilized people have been as foolish
and absurd in sacred worship as it is possible for any savages to be;
and the first have often been guilty of studied cruelties, which the
latter would never have thought of. The Carthaginians were a subtle
flourishing people, an opulent and formidable nation, and Hannibal had
half conquered the Romans, when still to their idols they sacrificed
the children of their chief nobility. And, as to private persons,
there are innumerable instances in the most polite ages of men of
sense and virtue, that have entertained the most miserable, unworthy,
and extravagant notions of the Supreme Being. What confused and
unaccountable apprehensions must not some men have had of Providence,
to act as they did! Alexander Severus, who succeeded Heliogabalus,
was a great reformer of abuses, and thought to be as good a prince
as his predecessor was a bad one: In his palace he had an oratory,
a cabinet set aside for his private devotion, where he had the images
of Appollonius Tyanæus, Orpheus, Abraham, Jesus Christ, and such like
gods, says his historian. What makes you smile?
Hor. To think how industrious priests are in concealing a man's
failings, when they would have you think well of him. What you say
of Severus, I had read before; when looking one day for something in
Moreri, I happened to cast my eye on the article of that emperor,
where no mention is made either of Orpheus or Appollonius! which,
remembering the passage in Lampridius, I wondered at; and thinking
that I might have been mistaken, I again consulted that author, where
I found it, as you have related it. I do not question but Moreri
left this out on purpose to repay the civilities of the emperor to
the Christians, whom, he tells us, Severus had been very favourable to.
Cleo. That is not impossible in a Roman Catholic. But what I would
speak to, in the second place, is the festivals you mentioned, the
hecatombs after victories, and the general thankfulness of nations
to their gods. I desire you would consider, that in sacred matters,
as well as all human affairs, there are rites and ceremonies, and many
demonstrations of respect to be seen, that to outward appearance seem
to proceed from gratitude, which, upon due examination, will be found
to have been originally the result of fear. At what time the floral
games were first instituted, is not well known: but they never were
celebrated every year constantly, before a very unseasonable spring put
the senate upon the decree that made them annual. To make up the true
compound of reverence or veneration, love and esteem are as necessary
ingredients as fear; but the latter alone is capable of making men
counterfeit both the former; as is evident from the duties that are
outwardly paid to tyrants, at the same time that inwardly they are
execrated and hated. Idolators have always behaved themselves to
every invisible cause they adored, as men do to a lawless arbitrary
power; when they reckon it as captious, haughty, and unreasonable,
as they allow it to be sovereign, unlimited, and irresistible. What
motive could the frequent repetitions of the same solemnities spring
from, whenever it was suspected that the least holy trifle had been
omitted? You know, how often the same farce was once acted over again,
because after every performance there was still room to apprehend
that something had been neglected. Do but consult, I beg of you,
and call to mind your own reading; cast your eyes on the infinite
variety of ideas men have formed to themselves, and the vast multitude
of divisions they have made of the invisible cause, which every one
imagines to influence human affairs: run over the history of all ages;
look into every considerable nation, their straits and calamities,
as well as victories and successes; the lives of great generals,
and other famous men, their adverse fortune and prosperity: mind
at which times their devotion was most fervent; when oracles were
most consulted, and on what accounts the gods were most frequently
addressed. Do but calmly consider every thing you can remember
relating to superstition, whether grave, ridiculous, or execrable,
and you will find, in the first place, that the heathens, and all that
have been ignorant of the true Deity, though many of them were persons
otherwise of great knowledge, fine understanding, and tried probity,
have represented their gods, not as wise, benign, equitable, and
merciful; but, on the contrary, as passionate, revengeful, capricious,
and unrelenting beings; not to mention the abominable vices and gross
immoralities, the vulgar were taught to ascribe to them: In the second,
that for every one instance that men have addressed themselves to an
invisible cause, from a principle of gratitude, there are a thousand in
every false religion to convince you, that divine worship, and men's
submission to Heaven, have always proceeded from their fear. The word
religion itself, and the fear of God, are synonymous; and had man's
acknowledgment been originally founded in love, as it is in fear,
the craft of impostors could have made no advantage of the passion;
and all their boasted acquaintance with gods and goddesses, would
have been useless to them, if men had worshipped the immortal powers,
as they called their idols, out of gratitude.
Hor. All lawgivers and leaders of people gained their point, and
acquired what they expected from those pretences, which is reverence;
and which to produce, you have owned yourself, love and esteem to be
as requisite as fear.
Cleo. But from the laws they imposed on men, and the punishments they
annexed to the breach and neglect of them, it is easily seen which
of the ingredients they most relied upon.
Hor. It would be difficult to name a king, or other great man, in
very ancient times, who attempted to govern an infant nation that
laid no claim to some commerce or other with an invisible power,
either held by himself or his ancestors. Between them and Moses,
there is no other difference, than that he alone was a true prophet,
and really inspired, and all the rest were impostors.
Cleo. What would you infer from this?
Hor. That we can say no more for ourselves, than what men of all
parties and persuasions have done in all ages, every one for their
cause, viz. That they alone were in the right, and all that differed
from them in the wrong.
Cleo. Is it not sufficient that we can say this of ourselves with
truth and justice, after the strictest examination; when no other
cause can stand any test, or bear the least inquiry? A man may relate
miracles that never were wrought, and give an account of things that
never happened; but a thousand years hence, all knowing men will
agree, that nobody could have wrote Sir Isaac Newton's Principia,
unless he had been a great mathematician. When Moses acquainted the
Israelites with what had been revealed to him, he told them a truth,
which nobody then upon earth knew but himself.
Hor. You mean the unity of God, and his being the Author of the
universe.
Cleo. I do so.
Hor. But is not every man of sense capable of knowing this from
his reason?
Cleo. Yes, when the art of reasoning consequentially is come to that
perfection, which it has been arrived at these several hundred years,
and himself has been led into the method of thinking justly. Every
common sailor could steer a course through the midst of the ocean,
as soon as the use of the loadstone, and the mariners compass
were invented. But before that, the most expert navigator would
have trembled at the thoughts of such an enterprise. When Moses
acquainted, and imbued the posterity of Jacob with this sublime
and important truth, they were degenerated into slaves, attached to
the superstition of the country they dwelled in; and the Egyptians,
their masters, though they were great proficients in many arts and
sciences, and more deeply skilled in the mysteries of nature than
any other nation then was, had the most abject and abominable notions
of the Deity, which it is possible to conceive; and no savages could
have exceeded their ignorance and stupidity, as to the Supreme Being,
the invisible cause that governs the world. He taught the Israelites
à priori; and their children, before they were nine or ten years old,
knew what the greatest philosophers did not attain to, by the light
of nature, till many ages after.
Hor. The advocates for the ancients will never allow, that any modern
philosophers have either thought or reasoned better, than men did in
former ages.
Cleo. Let them believe their eyes: What you say every man of sense
may know, by his own reason, was in the beginning of Christianity
contested, and denied with zeal and vehemence by the greatest men
in Rome. Celsus, Symmachus, Porphyry, Hierocles, and other famous
rhetoricians, and men of unquestionable good sense, wrote in defence of
idolatry, and strenuously maintained the plurality and multiplicity of
their gods. Moses lived about fifteen hundred years before the reign
of Augustus. If in a place where I was very well assured that nobody
understood any thing of colouring or drawing, a man should tell me,
that he had acquired the art of painting by inspiration, I should be
more ready to laugh at him than to believe him; but if I saw him draw
several fine portraits before my face, my unbelief would cease, and
I should think it ridiculous any longer to suspect his veracity. All
the accounts that other lawgivers and founders of nations have given
of the deities, which they or their predecessors conversed with,
contained ideas that were unworthy of the Divine Being; and by the
light of nature only, it is easily proved, that they must have been
false: But the image which Moses gave the Jews of the Supreme Being,
that He was One, and had made heaven and earth, will stand all
tests, and is a truth that will outlast the world. Thus, I think,
I have fully proved, on the one hand, that all true religion must
be revealed, and could not have come into the world without miracle;
and, on the other, that what all men are born with towards religion,
before they receive any instruction, is fear.
Hor. You have convinced me many ways, that we are poor creatures by
nature; but I cannot help struggling against those mortifying truths,
when I hear them started first. I long to hear the origin of society,
and I continually retard your account of it myself with new questions.
Cleo. Do you remember where we left off?
Hor. I do not think we have made any progress yet; for we have nothing
towards it but a wild man, and a wild woman, with some children and
grandchildren, which they are not able either to teach or govern.
Cleo. I thought that the introduction of the reverence, which the
wildest son must feel, more or less, for the most savage father,
if he stays with him, had been a considerable step.
Hor. I thought so too, till you destroyed the hopes I had conceived of
it yourself, by showing me the incapacity of savage parents to make
use of it: And since we are still as far from the origin of society
as ever we were, or ever can be, in my opinion, I desire, that before
you proceed to that main point, you would answer what you have put
off once already, which is my question concerning the notions of right
and wrong: I cannot be easy before I have your sentiments on this head.
Cleo. Your demand is very reasonable, and I will satisfy you as well
as I can. A man of sense, learning, and experience, that has been
well educated, will always find out the difference between right and
wrong in things diametrically opposite; and there are certain facts,
which he will always condemn, and others which he will always approve
of: To kill a member of the same society that has not offended us,
or to rob him, will always be bad; and to cure the sick, and be
beneficent to the public, he will always pronounce to be good actions:
and for a man to do as he will be done by, he will always say is a
good rule in life; and not only men of great accomplishments, and
such as have learned to think abstractly, but all men of middling
capacities, that have been brought up in society, will agree in this,
in all countries and in all ages. Nothing likewise seems more true to
all, that have made any tolerable use of their faculty of thinking,
than that out of the society, before any division was made, either
by contract or otherwise, all men would have an equal right to the
earth: But do you believe that our wild man, if he had never seen
any other human creature but his savage consort and his progeny,
would ever have entertained the same notions of right and wrong?
Hor. Hardly; his small capacity in the art of reasoning, would hinder
him from doing it so justly; and the power he found he had over his
children, would render him very arbitrary.
Cleo. But without that incapacity, suppose that at threescore he
was, by a miracle, to receive a fine judgment, and the faculty of
thinking and reasoning consequentially, in as great a perfection as
the wisest man ever did, do you think he would ever alter his notion
of the right he had to every thing he could manage, or have other
sentiments in relation to himself and his progeny, than from his
behaviour it appeared he entertained, when he seemed to act almost
altogether by instinct?
Hor. Without doubt: For, if judgment and reason were given him,
what could hinder him from making use of those faculties, as well as
others do?
Cleo. You seem not to consider, that no man can reason but à
posteriori, from something that he knows, or supposes to be true:
What I said of the difference between right and wrong, I spoke of
persons who remembered their education, and lived in society; or,
at least, such as plainly saw others of their own species, that were
independent of them, and either their equals or superiors.
Hor. I begin to believe you are in the right: But at second thoughts,
why might not a man, with great justice, think himself the sovereign
of a place, where he knew no human creature but his own wife, and
the descendents of both?
Cleo. With all my heart: But may there not be an hundred such savages
in the world with large families, that might never meet, nor ever
hear of one another?
Hor. A thousand, if you will, and then there would be so many natural
sovereigns.
Cleo. Very well: what I would have you observe, is, that there are
things which are commonly esteemed to be eternal truths, that an
hundred or a thousand people of fine sense and judgment, could have
no notion of. What if it should be true, that every man is born
with this domineering spirit, and that we cannot be cured of it,
but by our commerce with others, and the experience of facts, by
which we are convinced that we have no such right? Let us examine a
man's whole life, from his infancy to his grave, and see which of
the two seems to be most natural to him; a desire of superiority,
and grasping every thing to himself, or a tendency to act according
to the reasonable notions of right and wrong; and we shall find,
that, in his early youth, the first is very conspicuous; that nothing
appears of the second before he has received some instructions, and
that this latter will always have less influence upon his actions,
the more uncivilized he remains: From whence I infer, that the notions
of right and wrong are acquired; for if they were as natural, or if
they affected us as early as the opinion, or rather the instinct we
are born with, of taking every thing to be our own, no child would
ever cry for his eldest brother's play-things.
Hor. I think there is no right more natural, nor more reasonable,
than that which men have over their children; and what we owe our
parents can never be repaid.
Cleo. The obligations we have to good parents for their care and
education, is certainly very great.
Hor. That is the least. We are indebted to them for our being; we
might be educated by an hundred others, but without them we could
never have existed.
Cleo. So we could have no malt liquor, without the ground that bears
the barley: I know no obligations for benefits that never were
intended. Should a man see a fine parcel of cherries, be tempted
to eat, and devour them accordingly with great satisfaction, it
is possible he might swallow some of the stones, which we know
by experience do not digest: If twelve or fourteen months after,
he should find a little sprig of a cherry-tree growing in a field,
where nobody would expect it, if he recollected the time, he had
been there before, it is not improbable that he might guess at the
true reason how it came there. It is possible, likewise, that for
curiosity's sake, this man might take up this plant, and take care
of it; I am well assured, that whatever became of it afterwards,
the right he would have to it from the merit of his action, would be
the same which a savage would have to his child.
Hor. I think there would be a vast difference between the one and
the other: the cherry-stone was never part of himself, nor mixed with
his blood.
Cleo. Pardon me; all the difference, as vast as you take it to be,
can only consist in this, That the cherry-stone was not part of the man
who swallowed it, so long, nor received so great an alteration in its
figure, whilst it was, as some other things which the savage swallowed,
were, and received in their figure, whilst they stayed with him.
Hor. But he that swallowed the cherry-stone, did nothing to it; it
produced a plant as a vegetable, which it might have done as well
without his swallowing it.
Cleo. That is true; and I own, that as to the cause to which the plant
owes its existence, you are in the right: but I plainly spoke as to
the merit of the action; which in either case could only proceed from
their intentions as free agents; and the savage might, and would
in all probability act with as little design, to get a child, as
the other had eat cherries in order to plant a tree. It is commonly
said, that our children are our own flesh and blood: but this way
of speaking is strangely figurative. However, allow it to be just,
though rhetoricians have no name for it, what does it prove, what
benevolence in us, what kindness to others in the intention?
Hor. You shall say what you please, but I think, that nothing can
endear children to their parents more, than the reflection that they
are their own flesh and blood.
Cleo. I am of your opinion; and it is a plain demonstration of the
superlative value we have for our own selves, and every thing that
comes from us, if it be good, and counted laudable; whereas, other
things that are offensive, though equally our own, are in compliment
to ourselves, industriously concealed; and, as soon as it is agreed
upon that any thing is unseemly, and rather a disgrace to us than
otherwise, presently it becomes ill manners to name, or so much as
to hint at it. The contents of the stomach are variously disposed
of, but we have no hand in that; and whether they go to the blood,
or elsewhere, the last thing we did to them voluntarily, and with our
knowledge, was swallowing them; and whatever is afterwards performed
by the animal economy, a man contributes no more to, than he does to
the going of his watch. This is another instance of the unjust claim
we lay to every performance we are but in the least concerned in, if
good comes of it, though nature does all the work; but whoever places
a merit in his prolific faculty, ought likewise to expect the blame,
when he has the stone, or a fever. Without this violent principle of
innate folly, no rational creature would value himself on his free
agency, and at the same time accept of applause for actions that are
visibly independent of his will. Life in all creatures is a compound
action, but the share they have in it themselves, is only passive. We
are forced to breathe before we know it; and our continuance palpably
depends upon the guardianship and perpetual tutelage of nature; whilst
every part of her works, ourselves not excepted, is an impenetrable
secret to us, that eludes all inquiries. Nature furnishes us with
all the substance of our food herself, nor does she trust to our
wisdom for an appetite to crave it; to chew it, she teaches us by
instinct, and bribes us to it by pleasure. This seeming to be an
action of choice, and ourselves being conscious of the performance,
we perhaps may be said to have a part in it; but the moment after,
nature resumes her care, and again withdrawn from our knowledge,
preserves us in a mysterious manner, without any help or concurrence
of ours, that we are sensible of. Since, then, the management of what
we have eat and drank remains entirely under the direction of nature,
what honour or shame ought we to receive from any part of the product,
whether it is to serve as a doubtful means toward generation, or yields
to vegetation a less fallible assistance? It is nature that prompts us
to propagate as well as to eat; and a savage man multiplies his kind
by instinct as other animals do, without more thought or design of
preserving his species, than a new-born infant has of keeping itself
alive, in the action of sucking.
Hor. Yet nature gave the different instincts to both, for those
reasons.
Cleo. Without doubt; but what I mean, is, that the reason of the
thing is as much the motive of action in the one, as it is in the
other; and I verily believe, that a wild woman who had never seen,
or not minded the production of any young animals, would have several
children before she would guess at the real cause of them; any more
than if she had the cholic, she would suspect that it proceeded from
some delicious fruit she had eaten; especially if she had feasted
upon it for several months, without perceiving any inconveniency
from it. Children, all the world over, are brought forth with pain,
more or less, which seems to have no affinity with pleasure; and an
untaught creature, however docile and attentive, would want several
clear experiments, before it would believe that the one could produce
or be the cause of the other.
Hor. Most people marry in hopes, and with a design of having children.
Cleo. I doubt, not; and believe that there are as many that would
rather not have children, or at least not so fast as often they come,
as there are that wish for them, even in the state of matrimony;
but out of it, in the amours of thousands, that revel in enjoyments,
children are reckoned to be the greatest calamity that can befal them;
and often what criminal love gave birth to, without thought more
criminal pride destroys, with purposed and considerate cruelty. But
all this belongs to people in society, that are knowing, and well
acquainted with the natural consequences of things; what I urged,
I spoke of a savage.
Hor. Still the end of love, between the different sexes, in all
animals, is the preservation of their species.
Cleo. I have allowed that already. But once more the savage is not
prompted to love from that consideration: he propagates before he
knows the consequence of it; and I much question, whether the most
civilized pair, in the most chaste of their embraces, ever acted from
the care of their species, as a real principle. A rich man may, with
great impatience, wish for a son to inherit his name and his estate;
perhaps he may marry from no other motive, and for no other purpose;
but all the satisfaction he seems to receive, from the flattering
prospect of an happy posterity, can only arise from a pleasing
reflection on himself, as the cause of those descendants. How much
soever this man's posterity might be thought to owe him for their
being, it is certain, that the motive he acted from, was to oblige
himself: still here is a wishing for posterity, a thought and design
of getting children, which no wild couple could have to boast of; yet
they would be vain enough to look upon themselves, as the principal
cause of all their offspring and descendants, though they should live
to see the fifth or sixth generation.
Hor. I can find no vanity in that, and I should think them so myself.
Cleo. Yet, as free agents, it would be plain, that they had contributed
nothing to the existence of their prosperity.
Hor. Now surely, you have overshot the mark; nothing?
Cleo. No, nothing, even to that of their own children, knowingly;
if you will allow that men have their appetites from nature. There
is but one real cause in the universe, to produce that infinite
variety of stupendous effects, and all the mighty labours that are
performed in nature, either within, or far beyond the reach of our
senses. Parents are the efficients of their offspring, with no more
truth or propriety of speech, than the tools of an artificer, that
were made and contrived by himself, are the cause of the most elaborate
of his works. The senseless engine that raises water into the copper,
and the passive mash-tub, have between them, as great a share in the
art and action of brewing, as the liveliest male and female ever had
in the production of an animal.
Hor. You make stocks and stones of us; is it not in our choice to act,
or not to act?
Cleo. Yes, it is my choice now, either to run my head against the
wall; or to let it alone; but, I hope, it does not puzzle you much
to guess which of the two I shall choose.
Hor. But do not we move our bodies as we list; and is not every action
determined by the will?
Cleo. What signifies that, where there is a passion that manifestly
sways, and with a strict hand governs that will?
Hor. Still we act with consciousness, and are intelligent creatures.
Cleo. Not in the affair I speak of; where, willing or not willing, we
are violently urged from within, and in a manner compelled not only
to assist in, but likewise to long for, and, in spite of our teeth,
be highly pleased with a performance that infinitely surpasses our
understanding. The comparison I made is just, in every part of it;
for the most loving, and, if you will, the most sagacious couple you
can conceive, are as ignorant in the mystery of generation, nay, must
remain, after having had twenty children together, as much uninformed,
and as little conscious of nature's transactions, and what has been
wrought within them, as inanimate utensils are of the most mystic
and most ingenious operations they have been employed in.
Hor. I do not know any man more expert in tracing human pride, or more
severe in humbling it than yourself; but when the subject comes in
your way, you do not know how to leave it. I wish you would, at once,
go over to the origin of society; which, how to derive, or bring about
at all, from the savage family, as we left it, is past my skill. It
is impossible but those children, when they grew up, would quarrel
on innumerable occasions: if men had but three appetites to gratify,
that are the most obvious, they could never live together in peace,
without government: for though they all paid a deference to the father,
yet if he was a man void of all prudence, that could give them no good
rules to walk by, I am persuaded that they would live in a perpetual
state of war; and the more numerous his offspring grew, the more
the old savage would be puzzled between his desire and incapacity
of government. As they increased in numbers, they would be forced
to extend their limits, and the spot they were born upon would not
hold them long: nobody would be willing to leave his native vale,
especially if it was a fruitful one. The more I think upon it, and
the more I look into such multitudes, the less I can conceive which
way they could ever be formed into a society.
Cleo. The first thing that could make man associate, would be common
danger, which unites the greatest enemies: this danger they would
certainly be in, from wild beasts, considering that no uninhabited
country is without them, and the defenceless condition in which
men come into the world. This often must have been a cruel article,
to prevent the increase of our species.
Hor. The supposition then, that this wild man, with his progeny,
should for fifty years live undisturbed, is not very probable; and
I need not trouble myself about our savages being embarrassed with
too numerous an offspring.
Cleo. You say right; there is no probability, that a man and his
progeny, all unarmed, should so long escape the ravenous hunger of
beasts of prey, that are to live upon what animals they can get; that
leave no place unsearched, nor pains untried, to come at food, though
with the hazard of their lives. The reason why I made that supposition,
was to show you, first, the improbability that a wild and altogether
untaught man should have the knowledge and discretion which Sir William
Temple gives him; secondly, that children who conversed with their own
species, though they were brought up by savages, would be governable;
and consequently, that all such, when come to maturity, would be fit
for society, how ignorant and unskilful soever their parents might
have been.
Hor. I thank you for it; for it has shown me, that the very first
generation of the most brutish savages, was sufficient to produce
sociable creatures; but that to produce a man fit to govern others,
much more was required.
Cleo. I return to my conjecture concerning the first motive that
would make savages associate: it is not possible to know any thing
with certainty of beginnings, where men were destitute of letters;
but I think, that the nature of the thing makes it highly probable,
that it must have been their common danger from beasts of prey;
as well such sly ones as lay in wait for their children, and the
defenceless animals, men made use of for themselves, as the more bold,
that would openly attack grown men and women. What much confirms me
in this opinion is, the general agreement of all the relations we
have, from the most ancient times, in different countries: for, in the
infancy of all nations, profane history is stuffed with the accounts of
the conflicts men had with wild beasts. It took up the chief labours
of the heroes of remotest antiquity, and their greatest prowess was
shown in killing of dragons, and subduing of other monsters.
Hor. Do you lay any stress upon sphinxes, basilisks, flying dragons,
and bulls that spit fire?
Cleo. As much as I do on modern witches. But I believe that all those
fictions had their rise from noxious beasts, the mischiefs they did,
and other realities that struck terror into man; and I believe, that
if no man had ever been seen on a horse's back, we should never have
heard of Centaurs. The prodigious force and rage that are apparent
in some savage animals, and the astonishing power, which, from the
various poisons of venomous creatures, we are sure must be hid in
others; the sudden and unexpected assaults of serpents, the variety
of them; the vast bulk of crocodiles; the irregular and uncommon
shapes of some fishes, and the wings of others, are all things that
are capable of alarming man's fear; and it is incredible what chimeras
that passion alone may produce in a terrified mind: the dangers of the
day often haunt men at night with addition of terror; and from what
they remember in their dreams, it is easy to forge realities. If you
will consider, likewise, that the natural ignorance of man, and his
hankering after knowledge, will augment the credulity which hope and
fear first give birth to; the desire the generality have of applause,
and the great esteem that is commonly had for the merveilleux, and the
witnesses and relaters of it: If, I say, you will consider all these,
you will easily discover, how many creatures came to be talked of,
described, and formally painted, that never had any existence.
Hor. I do not wonder at the origin of monstrous figures, or the
invention of any fables whatever; but in the reason you gave for the
first motive, that would make men combine in one interest, I find
something very perplexing, which I own I never thought of before. When
I reflect on the condition of man, as you have set it before me, naked
and defenceless, and the multitude of ravenous animals that thirst
after his blood, and are superior to him in strength, and completely
armed by nature, it is inconceivable to me, how our species should
have subsisted.
Cleo. What you observe is well worthy our attention.
Hor. It is astonishing. What filthy, abominable beasts are lions
and tigers!
Cleo. I think them to be very fine creatures; there is nothing I
admire more than a lion.
Hor. We have strange accounts of his generosity and gratitude; but
do you believe them?
Cleo. I do not trouble my head about them: What I admire is his
fabric, his structure, and his rage, so justly proportioned to one
another. There are order, symmetry, and superlative wisdom to be
observed in all the works of nature; but she has not a machine, of
which every part more visibly answers the end for which the whole
was formed.
Hor. The destruction of other animals.
Cleo. That is true; but how conspicuous is that end, without mystery
or uncertainty! that grapes were made for wine, and man for society,
are truths not accomplished in every individual: but there is a
real majesty stamped on every single lion, at the sight of which the
stoutest animals submit and tremble. When we look upon and examine his
massy talons, the size of them, and the laboured firmness with which
they are fixed in, and fastened to that prodigious paw; his dreadful
teeth, the strength of his jaws, and the width of his mouth equally
terrible, the use of them is obvious; but when we consider, moreover,
the make of his limbs, the toughness of his flesh and tendons,
the solidity of his bones, beyond that of other animals, and the
whole frame of him, together with his never-ceasing anger, speed,
and agility; whilst in the desart he ranges king of beasts! When,
I say, we consider all these things, it is stupidity not to see the
design of nature, and with what amazing skill the beautiful creature
is contrived for offensive war and conquest.
Hor. You are a good painter. But after all, why would you judge of
a creature's nature from what it was perverted to, rather than from
its original, the state it was first produced in? The lion in Paradise
was a gentle, loving creature. Hear what Milton says of his behaviour
before Adam and Eve, "as they sate recline on the soft downy bank,
damask'd with flowers:"
--------About them frisking play'd
All beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase
In wood or wilderness, forest or den;
Sporting the lion ramp'd, and in his paw
Dandel'd the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards,
Gambol'd before them.--------
What was it the lion fed upon; what sustenance had all these beasts
of prey in Paradise?
Cleo. I do not know. Nobody who believes the Bible, doubts, but that
the whole state of Paradise, and the intercourse between God and the
first man, were as much preternatural, as the creation out of nothing;
and, therefore, it cannot be supposed, that they should be accounted
for by human reason; and if they were, Moses would not be answerable
for more than he advanced himself. The history which he has given us
of those times is extremely succinct, and ought not to be charged
with any thing contained in the glosses and paraphrases that have
been made upon it by others.
Hor. Milton has said nothing of Paradise, but what he could justify
from Moses.
Cleo. It is no where to be proved, from Moses, that the state of
innocence lasted so long, that goats, or any viviparous animals could,
have bred and brought forth young ones.
Hor. You mean that there could have been no kid. I should never have
made that cavil in so fine a poem. It was not in my thoughts: what
I aimed at in repeating those lines, was to show you how superfluous
and impertinent a lion must have been in Paradise; and that those who
pretend to find fault with the works of nature, might have censured
her with justice, for lavishing and throwing away so many excellencies
upon a great beast, to no purpose. What a fine variety of destructive
weapons, would they say, what prodigious strength of limbs and sinews
are here given to a creature! What to do with? to be quiet and dandle
a kid. I own, that to me, this province, the employment assigned to
the lion, seems to be as proper and well chosen, as if you would make
a nurse of Alexander the Great.
Cleo. You might make as many flights upon a lion now, if you saw him
asleep. Nobody would think that a bull had occasion for horns, who had
never seen him otherwise than quietly grazing among a parcel of cows;
but, if one should see him attacked by dogs, by a wolf, or a rival of
his own species, he would soon find out that his horns were of great
use and service to him. The lion was not made to be always in Paradise.
Hor. There I would have you. If the lion was contrived for purposes to
be served and executed out of Paradise, then it is manifest, from the
very creation, that the fall of man was determined and predestinated.
Cleo. Foreknown it was: nothing could be hid from Omniscience; that
is certain: But that it was predestinated so as to have prejudiced,
or anywise influenced the free will of Adam, I utterly deny. But
that word, predestinated, has made so much noise in the world,
and the thing itself has been the cause of so many fatal quarrels,
and is so inexplicable, that I am resolved never to engage in any
dispute concerning it.
Hor. I cannot make you; but what you have extolled so much, must have
cost the lives of thousands of our species; and it is a wonder to me
how men, when they were but few, could possibly defend themselves,
before they had fire arms, or at least bows and arrows; for what number
of naked men and women, would be a match for one couple of lions?
Cleo. Yet, here we are; and none of those animals are suffered to
be wild, in any civilized nation; our superior understanding has got
the start of them.
Hor. My reason tells me it must be that; but I cannot help observing,
that when human understanding serves your purpose to solve any thing,
it is always ready and full grown; but at other times, knowledge and
reasoning are the work of time, and men are not capable of thinking
justly, until after many generations. Pray, before men had arms,
what could their understanding do against lions, and what hindered
wild beasts from devouring mankind, as soon as they were born?
Cleo. Providence.
Hor. Daniel, indeed, was saved by miracle; but what is that to the
rest of mankind? great numbers, we know, have, at different times,
been torn to pieces by savage beasts: what I want to know, is,
the reason that any of them escaped, and the whole species was not
destroyed by them; when men had yet no weapons to defend, nor strong
holds to shelter themselves from the fury of those merciless creatures.
Cleo. I have named it to you already, Providence.
Hor. But which way can you prove this miraculous assistance?
Cleo. You still talk of miracles, and I speak of Providence, or the
all-governing Wisdom of God.
Hor. If you can, demonstrate to me, how that Wisdom interposed between
our species and that of lions, in the beginning of the world, without
miracle, any more than it does at present, eris mihi magnus Apollo:
for now, I am sure, a wild lion would prey upon a naked man, as soon,
at least, as he would upon an ox or an horse.
Cleo. Will not you allow me, that all properties, instincts, and what
we call the nature of things, animate or inanimate, are the produce,
the effects of that Wisdom?
Hor. I never thought otherwise.
Cleo. Then it will not be difficult to prove this to you. Lions are
never brought forth wild, but in very hot countries, as bears are the
product of the cold. But the generality of our species, which loves
moderate warmth, are most delighted with the middle regions. Men
may, against their wills, be inured to intense cold, or by use and
patience, accustom themselves to excessive heat; but a mild air, and
weather between both extremes, being more agreeable to human bodies,
the greatest part of mankind would naturally settle in temperate
climates, and with the same conveniency, as to every thing else,
never choose any other. This would very much lessen the danger men
would be in from the fiercest and most irresistible wild beasts.
Hor. But would lions and tigers in hot countries keep so close within
their bounds, and bears in cold ones, as never to straggle or stray
beyond them?
Cleo. I do not suppose they would; and men, as well as cattle, have
often been picked up by lions, far from the places where these were
whelped. No wild beasts are more fatal to our species, than often we
are to one another; and men pursued by their enemies have fled into
climates and countries, which they would never have chose. Avarice
likewise and curiosity, have, without force or necessity, often
exposed men to dangers, which they might have avoided, if they had been
satisfied with what nature required; and laboured for self-preservation
in that simple manner, which creatures less vain and fantastical
content themselves with. In all these cases, I do not question,
but multitudes of our species have suffered from savage beasts, and
other noxious animals; and on their account only, I verily believe,
it would have been impossible for any number of men, to have settled
or subsisted in either very hot or very cold countries, before the
invention of bows and arrows, or better arms. But all this does
nothing to overthrow my assertion: what I wanted to prove, is, that
all creatures choosing by instinct that degree of heat or cold which
is most natural to them, there would be room enough in the world for
man to multiply his species, for many ages, without running almost any
risk of being devoured either by lions or by bears; and that the most
savage man would find this out, without the help of his reason. This
I call the work of Providence; by which I mean the unalterable wisdom
of the Supreme Being, in the harmonious disposition of the universe;
the fountain of that incomprehensible chain of causes, on which all
events have their undoubted dependance.
Hor. You have made this out better than I had expected; but I am
afraid, that what you alleged as the first motive towards society,
is come to nothing by it.
Cleo. Do not fear that; there are other savage beasts, against which
men could not guard themselves unarmed, without joining, and mutual
assistance: in temperate climates, most uncultivated countries abound
with wolves.
Hor. I have seen them in Germany; they are of the size of a large
mastiff; but I thought their chief prey had been sheep.
Cleo. Any thing they can conquer is their prey: they are desperate
creatures, and will fall upon men, cows, and horses, as well as upon
sheep, when they are very hungry: they have teeth like mastiffs;
but besides them they have sharp claws to tear with, which dogs have
not. The stoutest man is hardly equal to them in strength; but what
is worse, they often come in troops, and whole villages have been
attacked by them; they have five, six, and more whelps at a litter,
and would soon over-run a country where they breed, if men did not
combine against, and make it their business to destroy them. Wild
boars likewise, are terrible creatures, that few large forests,
and uninhabited places, in temperate climates, are free from.
Hor. Those tusks of theirs are dreadful weapons.
Cleo. And they are much superior to wolves in bulk and
strength. History is full of the mischief they have done in ancient
times, and of the renown that valiant men have gained by conquering
them.
Hor. That is true; but those heroes that fought monsters in former
days, were well armed; at least, the generality of them; but what
could a number of naked men, before they had any arms at all, have to
oppose to the teeth and claws of ravenous wolves that came in troops;
and what impression could the greatest blow a man can strike, make
upon the thick bristly hide of a wild boar?
Cleo. As on the one hand, I have named every thing that man has to
fear from wild beasts; so, on the other, we ought not to forget the
things that are in his favour. In the first place, a wild man inured
to hardship, would far exceed a tame one, in all feats of strength,
nimbleness and activity; in the second, his anger would sooner and
more usefully transport and assist him in his savage state, than it
can do in society; where, from his infancy he is so many ways taught,
and forced in his own defence, to cramp and stifle with his fears
the noble gift of nature. In wild creatures we see, that most of
them, when their own life or that of their young ones is at stake,
fight with great obstinacy, and continue fighting to the last, and do
what mischief they can, whilst they have breath, without regard to
their being overmatched, or the disadvantages they labour under. It
is observed likewise, that the more untaught and inconsiderate
creatures are, the more entirely they are swayed by the passion that
is uppermost: natural affection would make wild men and women too,
sacrifice their lives, and die for their children; but they would die
fighting; and one wolf would not find it an easy matter to carry of
a child from his watchful parents, if they were both resolute, though
they were naked. As to man's being born defenceless, it is not to be
conceived, that he should long know the strength of his arms, without
being acquainted with the articulation of his fingers, or at least,
what is owing to it, his faculty of grasping and holding fast; and the
most untaught savage would make use of clubs and staves before he came
to maturity. As the danger men are in from wild beasts would be of the
highest consequence, so it would employ their utmost care and industry:
they would dig holes, and invent other stratagems, to distress their
enemies, and destroy their young ones: as soon as they found out fire,
they would make use of that element to guard themselves and annoy
their foes: by the help of it they would soon learn to sharpen wood,
which presently would put them upon making spears and other weapons
that would cut. When men are angry enough with creatures to strike
them, and these are running away, or flying from them, they are apt
to throw at what they cannot reach: this, as soon as they had spears,
would naturally lead them to the invention of darts and javelins. Here,
perhaps, they may stop a while; but the same chain of thinking would,
in time, produce bows and arrows: the elasticity of sticks and boughs
of trees is very obvious; and to make strings of the guts of animals,
I dare say, is more ancient than the use of hemp. Experience teaches
us, that men may have all these, and many more weapons, and be very
expert in the use of them, before any manner of government, except
that of parents over their children, is to be seen among them: it
is likewise very well known, that savages furnished with no better
arms, when they are strong enough in number, will venture to attack,
and even hunt after the fiercest wild beasts, lions and tigers not
excepted. Another thing is to be considered, that likewise favours
our species, and relates to the nature of the creatures, of which
intemperate climates man has reason to stand in bodily fear of.
Hor. Wolves and wild boars?
Cleo. Yes. That great numbers of our species have been devoured by the
first, is uncontested; but they most naturally go in quest of sheep
and poultry; and, as long as they can get carrion, or any thing to fill
their bellies with, they seldom hunt after men, or other large animals;
which is the reason, that in the summer our species, as to personal
insults, have not much to fear from them. It is certain likewise,
that savage swine will hunt after men, and many of their maws have been
crammed with human flesh: but they naturally feed on acorns, chestnuts,
beach-mast, and other vegetables; and they are only carnivorous upon
occasion, and through necessity, when they can get nothing else; in
great frosts, when the country is bare, and every thing covered with
snow. It is evident, then, that human creatures are not in any great
and immediate danger from either of these species of beasts, but in
hard winters, which happen but seldom in temperate climates. But as
they are our perpetual enemies, by spoiling and devouring every thing
that may serve for the sustenance of man, it is highly necessary, that
we should not only be always upon our guard against them, but likewise
never cease to assist one another in routing and destroying them.
Hor. I plainly see, that mankind might subsist and survive to
multiply, and get the mastery over all other creatures that should
oppose them; and as this could never have been brought about, unless
men had assisted one another against savage beasts, it is possible
that the necessity men were in of joining and uniting together, was
the first step toward society. Thus far I am willing to allow you to
have proved your main point: but to ascribe all this to Providence,
otherwise than that nothing is done without the Divine permission,
seems inconsistent with the ideas we have of a perfectly good and
merciful Being. It is possible, that all poisonous animals may have
something in them that is beneficial to men; and I will not dispute
with you, whether the most venomous of all the serpents which Lucan
has made mention of, did not contain some antidote, or other fine
medicine, still undiscovered: but when I look upon the vast variety
of ravenous and blood-thirsty creatures, that are not only superior
to us in strength, but likewise visibly armed by nature, as it were
on purpose for our destruction; when, I say, I look upon these, I
can find out no use for them, nor what they could be designed for,
unless it be to punish us: but I can much less conceive, that the
Divine Wisdom should have made them the means without which men could
not have been civilized. How many thousands of our species must have
been devoured in the conflicts with them!
Cleo. Ten troops of wolves, with fifty in each, would make a terrible
havoc, in a long winter, among a million of our species with their
hands tied behind them; but among half that number, one pestilence
has been known to slaughter more, than so many wolves could have eaten
in the same time; notwithstanding the great resistance that was made
against it, by approved of medicines and able physicians. It is owing
to the principle of pride we are born with, and the high value we all,
for the sake of one, have for our species, that men imagine the whole
universe to be principally made for their use; and this error makes
them commit a thousand extravagancies, and have pitiful and most
unworthy notions of God and his works. It is not greater cruelty, or
more unnatural, in a wolf to eat a piece of a man, than it is in a man
to eat part of a lamb or a chicken. What, or how many purposes wild
beasts were made for, is not for us to determine; but that they were
made, we know; and that some of them must have been very calamitous
to every infant nation, and settlement of men, is almost as certain:
this you was fully persuaded of; and thought, moreover, that they must
have been such an obstacle to the very subsistence of our species, as
was insurmountable: In answer to this difficulty, which you started,
I showed you, from the different instincts and peculiar tendencies of
animals, that in nature a manifest provision was made for our species:
by which, notwithstanding the rage and power of the fiercest beasts,
we should make a shift, naked and defenceless, to escape their fury,
so as to be able to maintain ourselves and multiply our kind, till
by our numbers, and arms acquired by our own industry, we could put
to flight, or destroy all savage beasts without exception, whatever
spot of the globe we might have a mind to cultivate and settle on. The
necessary blessings we receive from the sun, are obvious to a child;
and it is demonstrable, that without it, none of the living creatures
that are now upon the earth, could subsist. But if it were of no
other use, being eight hundred thousand times bigger than the earth
at least, one thousandth part of it would do our business as well, if
it was but nearer to us in proportion. From this consideration alone,
I am persuaded, that the sun was made to enlighten and cherish other
bodies, besides this planet of ours. Fire and water were designed for
innumerable purposes; and among the uses that are made of them, some
are immensely different from others. But whilst we receive the benefit
of these, and are only intent on ourselves, it is highly probable,
that there are thousands of things, and perhaps our own machines among
them, that, in the vast system of the universe, are now serving some
very wise ends, which we shall never know. According to that plan
of this globe, I mean the scheme of government, in relation to the
living creatures that inhabit the earth, the destruction of animals
is as necessary as the generation of them.
Hor. I have learned that from the Fable of the Bees; and I believe what
I have read there to be very true; that, if any one species was to
be exempt from death, it would in time crush all the rest to pieces,
though the first were sheep, and the latter all lions: but that the
Supreme Being should have introduced society at the expence of so
many lives of our species, I cannot believe, when it might have been
done much better in a milder way.
Cleo. We are speaking of what probably was done, and not of what might
have been done. There is no question, but the same Power that made
whales, might have made us seventy feet high, and given us strength
in proportion. But since the plan of this globe requires, and you
think it necessary yourself, that in every species some should die
almost as fast as others are born, why should you take away any of
the means of dying?
Hor. Are there not diseases enough, physicians and apothecaries,
as well as wars by sea and land, that may take off more than the
redundancy of our species?
Cleo. They may, it is true; but in fact they are not always sufficient
to do this: and in populous nations we see, that war, wild beasts,
hanging, drowning, and an hundred casualties together, with sickness
and all its attendants, are hardly a match for one invisible faculty of
ours, which is the instinct men have to preserve their species. Every
thing is easy to the Deity; but to speak after an human manner, it is
evident, that in forming this earth, and every thing that is in it,
no less wisdom or solicitude was required, in contriving the various
ways and means, to get rid and destroy animals, than seems to have
been employed in producing them; and it is as demonstrable, that our
bodies were made on purpose not to last beyond such a period, as it
is, that some houses are built with a design not to stand longer than
such a term of years. But it is death itself to which our aversion by
nature is universal; as to the manner of dying, men differ in their
opinions; and I never heard of one yet that was generally liked of.
Hor. But nobody chooses a cruel one. What an unspeakable and infinitely
excruciating torment must it be, to be torn to pieces, and eat alive
by a savage beast!
Cleo. Not greater, I can assure you; than are daily occasioned by
the gout in the stomach, and the stone in the bladder.
Hor. Which way can you give me this assurance; how can you prove it?
Cleo. From our fabric itself, the frame of human bodies, that cannot
admit of any torment, infinitely excruciating. The degrees of pain, as
well as of pleasure, in this life are limited, and exactly proportioned
to every one's strength; whatever exceeds that, takes away the senses;
and whoever has once fainted away with the extremity of any torture,
knows the fall extent of what here he can suffer, if he remembers what
he felt. The real mischief which wild beasts have done to our species,
and the calamities they have brought upon it, are not to be compared
to the cruel usage, and the multiplicity of mortal injuries which men
have received from one another. Set before your eyes a robust warrior,
that having lost a limb in battle, is afterwards trampled upon by
twenty horses; and tell me, pray, whether you think, that lying thus
helpless with most of his ribs broke, and a fractured skull, in the
agony of death, for several hours, he suffers less than if a lion
had dispatched him?
Hor. They are both very bad.
Cleo. In the choice of things we are more often directed by the caprice
of fashions, and the custom of the age, than we are by solid reason,
or our own understanding. There is no greater comfort in dying
of a dropsy, and in being eaten by worms, than there is in being
drowned at sea, and becoming the prey of fishes. But in our narrow
way of thinking, there is something that subverts and corrupt our
judgment; how else could persons of known elegancy in their taste,
prefer rotting and stinking in a loathsome sepulchre, to their being
burnt in the open air to inoffensive ashes?
Hor. I freely own, that I have an aversion to every thing that is
shocking and unnatural.
Cleo. What you call shocking, I do not know; but nothing is more
common to nature, or more agreeable to her ordinary course, than that
creatures should live upon one another. The whole system of animated
beings on the earth seems to be built upon this; and there is not
one species that we know of, that has not another that feeds upon
it, either alive or dead; and most kind of fish are forced to live
upon fish. That this in the last-mentioned, was not an omission or
neglect, is evident from the large provision nature has made for it,
far exceeding any thing she has done for other animals.
Hor. You mean the prodigious quantity of roe they spawn.
Cleo. Yes; and that the eggs contained in them, receive not their
fecundity until after they are excluded; by which means the female
may be filled with as many of them as her belly can hold, and the
eggs themselves may be more closely crowded together, than would be
consistent with the admission of any substance from the male: without
this, one fish could not bring forth yearly such a prodigious shoal.
Hor. But might not the aura seminalis of the male be subtle enough to
penetrate the whole cluster of eggs, and influence every one of them,
without taking up any room, as it does in fowls and other oviparous
animals?
Cleo. The ostrich excepted in the first place: in the second, there
are no other oviparous animals in which the eggs are so closely
compacted together, as they are in fish. But suppose the prolific
power should pervade the whole mass of them; if all the eggs which
some of the females are crammed with, were to be impregnated whilst
they are within the fish, it is impossible but the aura seminalis, the
prolific spirit of the male, though it took up no room itself, would,
as it does in all other creatures, dilate, and more or less distend
every egg; and the least expansion of so many individuals would swell
the whole roe to a bulk that would require a much greater space, than
the cavity that now contains them. Is not here a contrivance beyond
imagination fine, to provide for the continuance of a species, though
every individual of it should be born with an instinct to destroy it!
Hor. What you speak of, is only true at sea, in a considerable part
of Europe at least: for in fresh water, most kinds of fish do not
feed on their own species, and yet they spawn in the same manner,
and are as full of roe as all the rest: among them, the only great
destroyer with us, is the pike.
Cleo. And he is a very ravenous one: We see in ponds, that where pikes
are suffered to be, no other fish shall ever increase in number. But in
rivers, and all waters near any land, there are amphibious fowls, and
many sorts of them, that live mostly upon fish: Of these water-fowls in
many places are prodigious quantities. Besides these, there are otters,
beavers, and many other creatures that live upon fish. In brooks and
shallow waters, the hearn and bittern will have their share: What is
taken off by them, perhaps is but little; but the young fry, and the
spawn that one pair of swans are able to consume in one year, would
very well serve to stock a considerable river. So they are but eat,
it is no matter what eats them, either their own species or another:
What I would prove, is, that nature produces no extraordinary numbers
of any species, but she has contrived means answerable to destroy
them. The variety of insects in the several parts of the world, would
be incredible to any one that has not examined into this matter;
and the different beauties to be observed in them is infinite: But
neither the beauty, nor the variety, of them, are more surprising,
than the industry of nature in the multiplicity of her contrivances
to kill them; and if the care and vigilance of all other animals in
destroying them were to cease at once, in two years time the greatest
part of the earth, which is ours now, would be theirs, and in many
countries insects would be the only inhabitants.
Hor. I have heard that whales live upon nothing else; that must make
a fine consumption.
Cleo. That is the general opinion, I suppose, because they never
find any fish in them; and because there are vast multitudes of
insects in those seas, hovering on the surface of the water. This
creature likewise helps to corroborate my assertion, that in the
numbers produced of every species, the greatest regard is had to
the consumption of them: This prodigious animal being too big to
be swallowed, nature in it has quite altered the economy observed
in all other fish; for they are viviparous, engender like other
viviparous animals, and have never above two or three young ones at
a time. For the continuance of every species among such an infinite
variety of creatures as this globe yields, it was highly necessary,
that the provision for their destruction should not be less ample,
than that which was made for the generation of them; and therefore
the solicitude of nature in procuring death, and the consumption
of animals, is visibly superior to the care she takes to seed and
preserve them.
Hor. Prove that pray.
Cleo. Millions of her creatures are starved every year, and doomed
to perish for want of sustenance; but whenever any die, there is
always plenty of mouths to devour them. But then, again, she gives
all she has: nothing is so fine or elaborate, as that she grudges
it for food; nor is any thing more extensive or impartial than her
bounty: she thinks nothing too good for the meanest of her broods,
and all creatures are equally welcome to every thing they can find to
eat. How curious is the workmanship in the structure of a common fly;
how inimitable are the celerity of his wings, and the quickness of all
his motions in hot weather! Should a Pythagorean, that was likewise
a good master in mechanics, by the help of a microscope, pry into
every minute part of this changeable creature, and duly consider
the elegancy of its machinery, would he not think it great pity,
that thousands of millions of animated beings, so nicely wrought and
admirably finished, should every day be devoured by little birds and
spiders, of which we stand in so little need? Nay, do not you think
yourself, that things would have been managed full as well, is the
quantity of flies had been less, and there had been no spiders at all?
Hor. I remember the fable of the Acorn and the Pumkin too well to
answer you; I do not trouble my head about it.
Cleo. Yet you found fault with the means, which I supposed Providence
had made use of to make men associate; I mean the common danger they
were in from wild beasts: though you owned the probability of its
having been the first motive of their uniting.
Hor. I cannot believe that Providence should have no greater regard
to our species, than it has to flies, and the spawn of fish: or that
nature has ever sported with the fate of human creatures, as she does
with the lives of insects, and been as wantonly lavish of the first,
as she seems to be of the latter. I wonder how you can reconcile this
to religion; you that are such a stickler for Christianity.
Cleo. Religion has nothing to do with it. But we are so full of our own
species, and the excellency of it, that we have no leisure seriously
to consider the system of this earth; I mean the plan on which the
economy of it is built, in relation to the living creatures that are
in and upon it.
Hor. I do not speak as to our species, but in respect to the Deity:
has religion nothing to do with it, that you make God the author of
so much cruelty and malice?
Cleo. It is impossible, you should speak otherwise, than in
relation to our species, when you make use of those expressions,
which can only signify to us the intentions things were done with,
or the sentiments human creatures have of them; and nothing can be
called cruel or malicious in regard to him who did it, unless his
thoughts and designs were such in doing it. All actions in nature,
abstractly considered, are equally indifferent; and whatever it may be
to individual creatures, to die is not a greater evil to this earth,
or the whole universe, than it is to be born.
Hor. This is making the First Cause of things not an intelligent being.
Cleo. Why so? Can you not conceive an intelligent, and even a most
wise being, that is not only exempt from, but likewise incapable of
entertaining any malice or cruelty?
Hor. Such a being could not commit, or order things that are malicious
and cruel.
Cleo. Neither does God. But this will carry us into a dispute
about the origin of evil; and from thence we must inevitably fall
on free-will and predestination, which, as I have told you before,
is an inexplicable mystery I will never meddle with. But I never
said nor thought any thing irreverent to the Deity: on the contrary,
the idea I have of the Supreme Being, is as transcendently great,
as my capacity is able to form one, of what is incomprehensible;
and I could as soon believe, that he could cease to exist, as that
he should be the author of any real evil. But I should be glad to
hear the method, after which you think society might have been much
better introduced: Pray, acquaint me with that milder way you spoke of.
Hor. You have thoroughly convinced me, that the natural love which
it is pretended we have for our species, is not greater than what
many other animals have for theirs: but if nature had actually given
us an affection for one another, as sincere and conspicuous as that
which parents are seen to have for their children, whilst they are
helpless, men would have joined together by choice; and nothing could
have hindered them from associating, whether their numbers had been
great or small, and themselves either ignorant or knowing.
Cleo. O mentes hominum cæcas! O Pectora cæca!
Hor. You may exclaim as much as you please; I am persuaded that this
would have united men in firmer bonds of friendship, than any common
danger from wild beasts could have tied them with: but what fault
can you find with it, and what mischief could have befallen us from
mutual affection?
Cleo. It would have been inconsistent with the scheme, the plan after
which, it is evident, Providence has been pleased to order and dispose
of things in the universe. If such an affection had been planted
in man by instinct, there never could have been any fatal quarrels
among them, nor mortal hatreds; men could never have been cruel to
one another: in short, there could have been no wars of any duration;
and no considerable numbers of our species could ever have been killed
by one another's malice.
Hor. You would make a rare state-physician, in prescribing war,
cruelty and malice, for the welfare and maintenance of civil society.
Cleo. Pray, do not misrepresent me: I have done no such thing: but
if you believe the world is governed by Providence at all, you must
believe likewise, that the Deity makes use of means to bring about,
perform, and execute his will and pleasure: As for example, to have
war kindled, there must be first misunderstandings and quarrels
between the subjects of different nations, and dissentions among
the respective princes, rulers, or governors of them: it is evident,
that the mind of man is the general mint where the means of this sort
must be coined; from whence I conclude, that if Providence had ordered
matters after that mild way, which you think would have been the best,
very little of human blood could have been spilt, if any at all.
Hor. Where would have been the inconveniency of that?
Cleo. You could not have had that variety of living creatures, there
is now; nay, there would not have been room for man himself, and his
sustenance: our species alone would have overstocked the earth, if
there had been no wars, and the common course of Providence had not
been more interrupted than it has been. Might I not justly say then,
that this is quite contrary and destructive to the scheme on which it
is plain this earth was built? This is a consideration which you will
never give its due weight. I have once already put you in mind of it,
that you yourself have allowed the destruction of animals to be as
necessary as the generation of them. There is as much wisdom to be
seen in the contrivances how numbers of living creatures might always
be taken off and destroyed, to make room for those that continually
succeed them, as there is in making all the different sorts of them,
every one preserve their own species. What do you think is the reason,
that there is but one way for us to come into the world?
Hor. Because that one is sufficient.
Cleo. Then from a parity of reason, we ought to think, that there
are several ways to go out of the world, because one would not
have been sufficient. Now, if for the support and maintenance of
that variety of creatures which are here that they should die,
is a postulatum as necessary as it is, that they should be born;
and you cut off or obstruct the means of dying, and actually stop up
one of the great gates, through which we see multitudes go to death;
do you not oppose the scheme, nay, do you mar it less, than if you
hindered generation! Is there never had been war, and no other means
of dying, besides the ordinary ones, this globe could not have born,
or at least not maintained, the tenth part of the people that would
have been in it. By war, I do not mean only such as one nation has
had against another, but civil as well as foreign quarrels, general
massacres, private murders, poison, sword, and all hostile force, by
which men, notwithstanding their pretence of love to their species,
have endeavoured to take away one another's lives throughout the world,
from the time that Cain slew Abel to this day.
Hor. I do not believe, that a quarter of all these mischiefs are upon
record: but what may be known from history, would make a prodigious
number of men: much greater, I dare say, than ever was on earth at
one time: But what would you infer from this? They would not have
been immortal; and if they had not died in war, they must soon after
have been slain by diseases. When a man of threescore is killed by
a bullet in the field, it is odds, that he would not have lived four
years longer, though he had stayed at home.
Cleo. There are soldiers of threescore perhaps in all armies, but
men generally go to the war when they are young; and when four or
five thousand are lost in battle, you will find the greatest number
to have been under five-and-thirty: consider now, that many men do
not marry till after that age, who get ten or a dozen children.
Hor. If all that die by the hands of another, were to get a dozen
children before they die----
Cleo. There is no occasion for that; I suppose nothing, that is either
extravagant or improbable; but that all such, as have been wilfully
destroyed by means of their species, should have lived, and taken
their chance with the rest; that every thing should have befallen
them, that has befallen those that have not been killed that way;
and the same likewise to their posterity; and that all of them should
have been subject to all the casualties as well as diseases, doctors,
apothecaries, and other accidents, that take away man's life, and
shorten his days; war, and violence from one another, only excepted.
Hor. But if the earth had been too full of inhabitants, might not
Providence have sent pestilences and diseases oftener? More children
might have died when they were young, or more women might have
proved barren.
Cleo. I do not know whether your mild way would have been more
generally pleasing; but you entertain notions of the Deity that are
unworthy of him. Men might certainly have been born with the instinct
you speak of; but if this had been the Creator's pleasure, there must
have been another economy; and things on earth, from the beginning,
would have been ordered in a manner quite different from what they
are now. But to make a scheme first, and afterwards to mend it, when
it proves defective, is the business of finite wisdom; it belongs to
human prudence alone to mend faults, to correct and redress what was
done amiss before, and to alter the measures which experience teaches
men, were ill concerted: but the knowledge of God was consummate
from eternity. Infinite Wisdom is not liable to errors or mistakes;
therefore all his works are universally good, and every thing is made
exactly as he would have it: the firmness and liability of his laws
and councils are everlasting, and therefore his resolutions are as
unalterable, as his decrees are eternal. It is not a quarter of an hour
ago, that you named wars among the necessary means to carry off the
redundancy of our species; how come you now to think them useless? I
can demonstrate to you, that nature, in the production of our species,
has amply provided against the losses of our sex, occasioned by wars,
by repairing them visibly, where they are sustained, in as palpable
a manner, as she has provided for the great destruction that is made
of fish, by their devouring one another.
Hor. How is that, pray?
Cleo. By sending more males into the world than females. You will
easily allow me that our sex bears the brunt of all the toils and
hazards that are undergone by sea and land; and that by this means a
far greater number of men must be destroyed than there is of women:
now if we see, as certainly we do, that of the infants yearly born,
the number of males is always considerably superior to that of the
females, is it not manifest, that nature has made a provision for
great multitudes, which, if they were not destroyed, would be not
only superfluous, but of pernicious consequence in great nations?
Hor. That superiority in the number of males born is wonderful indeed;
I remember the account that has been published concerning it, as it
was taken from the bills of births and burials in the city and suburbs.
Cleo. For fourscore years; in which the number of females born was
constantly much inferior to that of the males, sometimes by many
hundreds: and that this provision of nature, to supply the havoc
that is made of men by wars and navigation, is still greater than
could be imagined from that difference only, will soon appear, if we
consider that women, in the first place, are liable to all diseases,
within a trifle, that are incident to men; and that, in the second,
they are subject to many disorders and calamities on account of their
sex, which great numbers die of, and which men are wholly exempt from.
Hor. This could not well be the effect of chance; but it spoils the
consequence which you drew from my affectionate scheme, in case there
had been no wars: for your fear that our species would have increased
beyond all bounds, was entirely built upon the supposition, that those
who have died in war should not have wanted women if they had lived;
which, from this superiority in the number of males, it is evident,
they should and must have wanted.
Cleo. What you observe is true; but my chief aim was to show you how
disagreeable the alteration you required would have been every way to
the rest of the scheme, by which it is manifest things are governed
at present. For, if the provision had been made on the other side;
and nature, in the production of our species, had continually taken
care to repair the loss of women that die of calamities not incident to
men, then certainly there would have been women for all the men that
have been destroyed by their own species, if they had lived; and the
earth without war, as I have said, would have been over-stocked; or,
if nature had ever been the same as she is now, that is, if more males
had been born than females, and more females had died of diseases than
males, the world would constantly have had a great superfluity of men,
if there never had been any wars; and this disproportion between their
number and that of the women would have caused innumerable mischiefs,
that are now prevented by no other natural causes, than the small value
men set upon their species, and their dissentions with one another.
Hor. I can see no other mischief this would produce, than that the
number of males which die without having ever tried matrimony, would
be greater than it is now; and whether that would be a real evil or
not, is a very disputable point.
Cleo. Do not you think, that this perpetual scarcity of women, and
superfluity of men, would make great uneasiness in all societies,
how well soever people might love one another; and that the value,
the price of women, would be so enhanced by it, that none but men in
tolerable good circumstances would be able to purchase them? This alone
would make us another world; and mankind could never have known that
most necessary and now inexhaustible spring, from which all nations,
where slaves are not allowed of, are constantly supplied with willing
hands for all the drudgery of hard and dirty labour; I mean the
children of the poor, the greatest and most extensive of all temporal
blessings that accrue from society, on which all the comforts of life,
in the civilized state, have their unavoidable dependance. There
are many other things, from which it is plain, that such a real love
of man for his species would have been altogether inconsistent with
the present scheme; the world must have been destitute of all that
industry, that is owing to envy and emulation; no society could have
been easy with being a flourishing people at the expence of their
neighbours, or enduring to be counted a formidable nation. All men
would have been levellers; government would have been unnecessary;
and there could have been no great bustle in the world. Look into
the men of greatest renown, and the most celebrated achievements of
antiquity, and every thing that has been cried up and admired in past
ages by the fashionable part of mankind; if the same labours were to
be performed over again, which qualification, which help of nature
do you think would be the most proper means to have them executed;
that instinct of real affection you required, without ambition or
the love of glory; or a staunch principle of pride and selfishness,
acting under pretence to, and assuming the resemblance of that
affection? Consider, I beseech you, that no men governed by this
instinct would require services of any of their species, which they
would not be ready to perform for others; and you will easily see, that
its being universal would quite alter the scene of society from what
it is now. Such an instinct might be very suitable to another scheme
different from this, in another world; where, instead of fickleness,
and a restless desire after changes and novelty, there was observed
an universal steadiness, continually preferred by a serene spirit of
contentment among other creatures of different appetites from ours,
that had frugality without avarice, and generosity without pride;
and whose solicitude after happiness in a future state, was as
active and apparent in life as our pursuits are after the enjoyments
of this present. But, as to the world we live in, examine into the
various ways of earthly greatness, and all the engines that are made
use of to attain to the felicity of carnal men, and you will find,
that the instinct you speak of must have destroyed the principles,
and prevented the very existence of that pomp and glory to which
human societies have been, and are still raised by worldly wisdom.
Hor. I give up my affectionate scheme; you have convinced me that
there could not have been that stir and variety, nor, upon the whole,
that beauty in the world, which there have been, if all men had
been naturally humble, good, and virtuous. I believe that wars of
all sorts, as well as diseases, are natural means to hinder mankind
from increasing too fast; but that wild beasts should likewise have
been designed to thin our species, I cannot conceive; for they can
only serve this end, when men are but few, and their numbers should
be increased, instead of lessened; and afterwards, if they were made
for that purpose, when men are strong enough, they would not answer it.
Cleo. I never said that wild beasts was designed to thin our species. I
have showed that many things were made to serve a variety of different
purposes; that in the scheme of this earth, many things must have been
considered that man has nothing to do with; and that it is ridiculous
to think that the universe was made for our sake. I have said likewise,
that as all our knowledge comes, à posteriori, it is imprudent to
reason otherwise than from facts. That there are wild beasts, and that
there are savage men, is certain; and that where there are but few
of the latter, the first must always be very troublesome, and often
fatal to them, is as certain; and when I reflect on the passions all
men are born with, and their incapacity whilst they are untaught, I
can find no cause or motive which is so likely to unite them together,
and make them espouse the same interest, as that common danger they
must always be in from wild beasts, in uncultivated countries, whilst
they live in small families that all shift for themselves, without
government or dependance upon one another: This first step to society,
I believe to be an effect, which that same cause, the common danger
so often mentioned, will never fail to produce upon our species in
such circumstances: what other, and how many purposes wild beasts
might have been designed for besides, I do not pretend to determine,
as I have told you before.
Hor. But whatever other purposes wild beasts were designed for,
it still follows from your opinion, that the uniting of savages in
common defence, must have been one; which to me seems clashing with
our idea of the Divine Goodness.
Cleo. So will every thing seem to do, which we call natural evil; if
you ascribe human passions to the Deity, and measure Infinite Wisdom
by the standard of our most shallow capacity; you have been at this
twice already; I thought I had answered it. I would not make God the
author of evil, any more than yourself; but I am likewise persuaded,
that nothing could come by chance, in respect to the Supreme Being;
and, therefore, unless you imagine the world not to be governed by
Providence, you must believe that wars, and all the calamities we can
suffer from man or beast, as well as plagues and all other diseases,
are under a wise direction that is unfathomable. As there can be no
effect without a cause, so nothing can be said to happen by chance,
but in respect to him who is ignorant of the cause of it. I can make
this evident to you, in an obvious and familiar example. To a man
who knows nothing of the tennis-court, the skips and rebounds of the
ball seems to be all fortuitous; as he is not able to guess at the
several different directions it will receive before it comes to the
ground; so, as soon as it has hit the place to which it was plainly
directed at first, it is chance to him where it will fall: whereas,
the experienced player, knowing perfectly well the journey the ball
will make, goes directly to the place, if he is not there already,
where it will certainly come within his reach. Nothing seems to be
more the effect of chance than a cast of the dice: yet they obey the
laws of gravity and motion in general, as much as any thing else;
and from the impressions that are given them, it is impossible they
should fall otherwise than they do: but the various directions which
they shall receive in the whole course of the throw being entirely
unknown, and the rapidity with which they change their situation
being such, that our slow apprehension cannot trace them, what the
cast will be is a mystery to human understanding, at fair play. But
if the same variety of directions was given to two cubes of ten feet
each, which a pair of dice receive, as well from one another as the
box, the caster's fingers that cover it, and the table they are flung
upon, from the time they are taken up until they lie still, the same
effect would follow; and if the quantity of motion, the force that is
imparted to the box and dice was exactly known, and the motion itself
was so much retarded in the performance, that what is done in three
or four seconds, should take up an hour's time, it would be easy to
find out the reason of every throw, and men might learn with certainty
to foretell which side of the cube would be uppermost. It is evident,
then, that the words fortuitous and casual, have no other meaning than
what depends upon our want of knowledge, foresight, and penetration;
the reflection on which will show us, by what an infinity of degrees
all human capacity falls short of that universal intuitus, with which
the Supreme Being beholds at once every thing without exception,
whether to us it be visible or invisible, past, present, or to come.
Hor. I yield: you have solved every difficulty I have been able to
raise; and I must confess, that your supposition concerning the first
motive that would make savages associate, is neither clashing with good
sense, nor any idea we ought to have of the Divine attributes; but,
on the contrary, in answering my objections, you have demonstrated the
probability of your conjecture, and rendered the wisdom and power of
providence, in the scheme of this earth, both as to the contrivance
and the execution of it, more conspicuous and palpable to me, than
any thing I ever heard or read, had done before.
Cleo. I am glad you are satisfied; though far from arrogating to
myself so much merit as your civility would compliment me with.
Hor. It is very clear to me now; that as it is appointed for all
men to die, so it is necessary there should be means to compass this
end; that from the number of those means, or causes of death; it is
impossible to exclude either the malice of men, or the rage of wild
beasts, and all noxious animals; and that if they had been actually
designed by nature, and contrived for that purpose, we should have no
more reason justly to complain of them, than we have to find fault
with death itself, or that frightful train of diseases which are
daily and hourly the manifest occasion of it.
Cleo. They are all equally included in the curse, which after the
fall was deservedly pronounced against the whole earth; and if they
be real evils, they are to be looked upon as the consequence of
sin, and a condign punishment, which the transgression of our first
parents has drawn and entailed upon all their posterity. I am fully
persuaded, that all the nations in the world, and every individual
of our species, civilized or savage, had their origin from Seth,
Sham, or Japhet: and as experience has taught us, that the greatest
empires have their periods, and the best governed states and kingdoms
may come to ruin; so it is certain, that the politest people being
scattered and distressed, may soon degenerate, and some of them by
accidents and misfortunes, from knowing and well taught ancestors,
be reduced at last to savages of the first and lowest class.
Hor. If what you are fully persuaded of, be true, the other is
self-evident, from the savages that are still subsisting.
Cleo. You once seemed to insinuate, that all the danger men were in
from wild beasts, would entirely cease as soon as they were civilized,
and lived in large and well-ordered societies; but by this you may
see, that our species will never be wholly exempt from that danger;
because mankind will always be liable to be reduced to savages; for,
as this calamity has actually befallen vast multitudes that were the
undoubted descendants of Noah; so the greatest prince upon earth,
that has children, cannot be sure, that the same disaster will never
happen to any of his posterity. Wild beasts may be entirely extirpated
in some countries that are duly cultivated; but they will multiply
in others that are wholly neglected; and great numbers of them range
now, and are masters in many places, where they had been rooted and
kept out before. I shall always believe that every species of living
creatures in and upon this globe, without exception, continues to be,
as it was at first, under the care of that same Providence that thought
fit to produce it. You have had a great deal of patience, but I would
not tire it: This first step towards society, now we have mastered it,
is a good resting place, and so we will leave off for to-day.
Hor. With all my heart: I have made you talk a great deal; but I long
to hear the rest, as soon as you are at leisure.
Cleo. I am obliged to dine at Windsor to-morrow; if you are not
otherwise engaged, I can carry you where the honour of your company
will be highly esteemed: my coach shall be ready at nine; you know
you are in my way.
Hor. A fine opportunity, indeed, of three or four hours chat.
Cleo. I shall be all alone without you.
Hor. I am your man, and shall expect you.
Cleo. Adieu.
THE SIXTH
DIALOGUE
BETWEEN
HORATIO AND CLEOMENES
HORATIO.
Now we are off the stones, pray let us lose no time; I expect a great
deal of pleasure from what I am to hear further.
Cleo. The second step to society is the danger men are in from one
another: for which we are beholden to that staunch principle of pride
and ambition, that all men are born with. Different families may
endeavour to live together, and be ready to join in common danger;
but they are all of little use to one another, when there is no common
enemy to oppose. If we consider that strength, agility, and courage
would, in such a state, be the most valuable qualifications, and
that many families could not live long together, but some, actuated
by the principle I named, would strive for superiority: this must
breed quarrels, in which the most weak and fearful will, for their
own safety, always join with him of whom they have the best opinion.
Hor. This would naturally divide multitudes into bands and companies,
that would all have their different leaders, and of which the strongest
and most valiant would always swallow up the weakest and most fearful.
Cleo. What you say agrees exactly with the accounts we have of the
uncivilized nations that are still subsisting in the world; and thus
men may live miserably many ages.
Hor. The very first generation that was brought up under the tuition
of parents, would be governable: and would not every succeeding
generation grow wiser than the foregoing?
Cleo. Without doubt they would increase in knowledge and cunning:
time and experience would have the same effect upon them as it has upon
others; and in the particular things to which they applied themselves,
they would become as expert and ingenious as the most civilized
nations: but their unruly passions, and the discords occasioned by
them, would never suffer them to be happy; their mutual contentions
would be continually spoiling their improvements, destroying their
inventions, and frustrating their designs.
Hor. But would not their sufferings in time bring them acquainted
with the causes of their disagreement; and would not that knowledge
put them upon making of contracts, not to injure one another?
Cleo. Very probably they would; but among such ill-bred and
uncultivated people, no man would keep a contract longer than that
interest lasted which made him submit to it.
Hor. But might not religion, the fear of an invisible cause, be made
serviceable to them, as to the keeping of their contracts?
Cleo. It might, without dispute; and would, before many generations
passed away. But religion could do no more among them, than it does
among civilized nations; where the Divine vengeance is seldom trusted
to only, and oaths themselves are thought to be of little service,
where there is no human power to enforce the obligation, and punish
perjury.
Hor. But do not think, that the same ambition that made a man aspire
to be a leader, would make him likewise desirous of being obeyed in
civil matters, by the numbers he led?
Cleo. I do; and moreover that, notwithstanding this unsettled
and precarious way communities would live in, after three or four
generations, human nature would be looked into, and begin to be
understood: leaders would find out, that the more strife and discord
there was amongst the people they headed, the less use they could make
of them: this would put them upon various ways of curbing mankind;
they would forbid killing and striking one another; the taking away
by force the wives or children of others in the same community; they
would invent penalties, and very early find out that nobody ought to
be a judge in his own cause; and that old men, generally speaking,
knew more than young.
Hor. When once they have prohibitions and penalties, I should think
all the difficulty surmounted; and I wonder why you said, that thus
they might live miserably for many ages.
Cleo. There is one thing of great moment, which has not been named yet;
and until that comes to pass, no considerable numbers can ever be made
happy; what signify the strongest contracts when we have nothing to
show for them; and what dependence can we have upon oral tradition,
in matters that require exactness; especially whilst the language
that is spoken is yet very imperfect? Verbal reports are liable to
a thousand cavils and disputes that are prevented by records, which
every body knows to be unerring witnesses; and from the many attempts
that are made to wrest and distort the sense of even written laws,
we may judge how impracticable the administration of justice must be
among all societies that are destitute of them. Therefore the third and
last step to society, is the invention of letters. No multitudes can
live peaceably without government; no government can subsist without
laws; and no laws can be effectual long, unless they are wrote down:
the consideration of this is alone sufficient to give us a great
insight into the nature of man.
Hor. I do not think so: the reason why no government can subsist
without laws, is, because there are bad men in all multitudes; but to
take patterns from them, when we would judge of human nature, rather
than from the good ones that follow the dictates of their reason,
is an injustice one would not be guilty of to brute beasts; and it
would be very wrong in us, for a few vicious horses, to condemn the
whole species as such, without taking notice of the many fine spirited
creatures that are naturally tame and gentle.
Cleo. At this rate I must repeat every thing that I have said
yesterday and the day before: I thought you was convinced, that it
was with thought as it is with speech; and that though man was born
with a capacity beyond other animals, to attain to both, yet, whilst
he remained untaught, and never conversed with any of his species,
these characteristics were of little use to him. All men uninstructed,
whilst they are let alone, will follow the impulse of their nature,
without regard to others; and therefore all of them are bad, that
are not taught to be good; so all horses are ungovernable that are
not well broken: for what we call vicious in them, is, when they
bite or kick, endeavour to break their halter, throw their rider,
and exert themselves with all their strength to shake off the yoke,
and recover that liberty which nature prompts them to assert and
desire. What you call natural, is evidently artificial, and belongs
to education: no fine-spirited horse was ever tame or gentle, without
management. Some, perhaps, are not backed until they are four years
old; but then long before that time, they are handled, spoke to,
and dressed; they are fed by their keepers, put under restraint,
sometimes caressed, and sometimes made to smart; and nothing is omitted
whilst they are young, to inspire them with awe and veneration to
our species; and make them not only submit to it, but likewise take
a pride in obeying the superior genius of man. But would you judge
of the nature of horses in general, as to its fitness to be governed,
take the foals of the best bred mares and finest stallions, and turn an
hundred of them loose, fillies and colts together, in a large forest,
till they are seven years old, and then see how tractable they will be.
Hor. But this is never done.
Cleo. Whose fault is that? It is not at the request of the horses,
that they are kept from the mares; and that any of them are ever
gentle or tame, is entirely owing to the management of man. Vice
proceeds from the same origin in men, as it does in horses; the desire
of uncontrouled liberty, and impatience of restraint, are not more
visible in the one than they are in the other; and a man is then called
vicious, when, breaking the curbs of precepts and prohibitions, he
wildly follows the unbridled appetites of his untaught or ill-managed
nature. The complaints against this nature of ours, are every where the
same: man would have every thing he likes, without considering whether
he has any right to it or not; and he would do every thing he has a
mind to do, without regard to the consequence it would be of to others;
at the same time that he dislikes every body, that acting from the same
principle, have in all their behaviour not a special regard to him.
Hor. That is, in short, man naturally will not do as he would be
done by.
Cleo. That is true; and for this, there is another reason in his
nature: all men are partial in their judgments, when they compare
themselves to others; no two equals think so well of each other,
as both do of themselves; and where all men have an equal right
to judge, there needs no greater cause of quarrel, than a present
amongst them, with an inscription of detur digniori. Man in his anger
behaves himself in the same manner as other animals; disturbing, in
the pursuit self-preservation, those they are angry with; and all of
them endeavour, according as the degree of their passion is, either
to destroy, or cause pain and displeasure to their adversaries. That
these obstacles to society are the faults, or rather properties of our
nature, we may know by this, that all regulations and prohibitions that
have been contrived for the temporal happiness of mankind, are made
exactly to tally with them, and to obviate those complaints, which I
said were every where made against mankind. The principal laws of all
countries have the same tendency; and there is not one that does not
point at some frailty, defect, or unfitness for society, that men are
naturally subject to; but all of them are plainly designed as so many
remedies, to cure and disappoint that natural instinct of sovereignty,
which teaches man to look upon every thing as centring in himself,
and prompts him to put in a claim to every thing he can lay his hands
on. This tendency and design to mend our nature, for the temporal
good of society, is no where more visible, than in that compendious
as well as complete body of laws, that was given by God himself. The
Israelites, whilst they were slaves in Egypt, were governed by the
laws of their masters; and as they were many degrees removed from the
lowest savages, so they were yet far from being a civilized nation. It
is reasonable to think, that, before they received the law of God,
they had regulations and agreements already established, which the
ten commandments did not abolish; and that they must have had notions
of right and wrong, and contracts among them against open violence,
and the invasion of property, is demonstrable.
Hor. How is that demonstrable?
Cleo. From the decalogue itself: all wise laws are adapted to the
people that are to obey them. From the ninth commandment, for example,
it is evident, that a man's own testimony was not sufficient to be
believed in his own affair, and that nobody was allowed to be a judge
in his own case.
Hor. It only forbids us to bear false witness against our neighbour.
Cleo. That is true; and therefore the whole tenor and design of
this commandment presupposes, and must imply what I say. But the
prohibitions of stealing, adultery, and coveting any thing that
belonged to their neighbours, are still more plainly intimating
the same; and seem to be additions and amendments, to supply the
defects of some known regulations and contracts that had been agreed
upon before. If, in this view, we behold the three commandments last
hinted at, we shall find them to be strong evidences, not only of that
instinct of sovereignty within us, which at other times I have called
a domineering spirit, and a principle of selfishness; but likewise
of the difficulty there is to destroy, eradicate, and pull it out of
the heart of man: for, from the eighth commandment it appears, that,
though we debar ourselves from taking the things of our neighbour
by force, yet there is danger that this instinct will prompt us to
get them unknown to him in a clandestine manner, and deceive us with
the insinuations of an oportet habere. From the foregoing precept,
it is likewise manifest, that though we agree not to take away,
and rob a man of the woman that is his own, it is yet to be feared,
that if we like her, this innate principle that bids us gratify every
appetite, will advise us to make use of her as if she was our own;
though our neighbour is at the charge of maintaining her and all the
children she brings forth. The last more especially is very ample in
confirming my assertion. It strikes directly at the root of the evil,
and lays open the real source of the mischiefs that are apprehended
in the seventh and the eighth commandment: for without first actually
trespassing against this, no man is in danger of breaking either of
the former. This tenth commandment, moreover, insinuates very plainly,
in the first place, that this instinct of ours is of great power, and a
frailty hardly to be cured; in the second, that there is nothing which
our neighbour can be possessed of, but, neglecting the consideration
of justice and property, we may have a desire after it; for which
reason it absolutely forbids us to covet any thing that is his: The
Divine Wisdom, well knowing the strength of this selfish principle,
which obliges us continually to assume every thing to ourselves;
and that, when once a man heartily covets a thing, this instinct,
this principle will over-rule and persuade him to leave no stone
unturned to compass his desires.
Hor. According to your way of expounding the commandments, and making
them tally so exactly with the frailties of our nature, it should
follow from the ninth, that all men are born with a strong appetite
to forswear themselves, which I never heard before.
Cleo. Nor I neither; and I confess that the rebuke there is in this
smart turn of yours is very plausible; but the censure, how specious
soever it may appear, is unjust, and you shall not find the consequence
you hint at, if you will be pleased to distinguish between the natural
appetites themselves, and the various crimes which they make us commit,
rather than not be obeyed: For, though we are born with no immediate
appetite to forswear ourselves, yet we are born with more than one,
that, if never checked, may in time oblige us to forswear ourselves,
or do worse, if it be possible, and they cannot be gratified without
it; and the commandment you mention plainly implies, that by nature we
are so unreasonably attached to our interest on all emergencies, that
it is possible for a man to be swayed by it, not only to the visible
detriment of others, as is manifest from the seventh and the eighth,
but even though it should be against his own conscience: For nobody
did ever knowingly bear false witness against his neighbour, but he
did it for some end or other; this end, whatever it is, I call his
interest. The law which forbids murder, had already demonstrated to us,
how immensely we undervalue every thing, when it comes in competition
with ourselves; for, though our greatest dread be destruction, and
we know no other calamity equal to the dissolution of our being,
yet such unequitable judges this instinct of sovereignty is able to
make of us, that rather than not have our will, which we count our
happiness, we choose to inflict this calamity on others, and bring
total ruin on such as we think to be obstacles to the gratification
of our appetites; and this men do, not only for hindrances that are
present, or apprehended as to come, but likewise for former offences,
and things that are past redress.
Hor. By what you said last, you mean revenge, I suppose.
Cleo. I do so; and the instinct of sovereignty which I assert to be
in human nature, is in nothing so glaringly conspicuous as it is in
this passion, which no mere man was ever born without, and which
even the most civilized, as well as the most learned, are seldom
able to conquer: For whoever pretends to revenge himself, must claim
a right to a judicature within, and an authority to punish: Which,
being destructive to the mutual peace of all multitudes, are for
that reason the first things that in every civil society are snatched
away out of every man's hands, as dangerous tools, and vested in the
governing part, the supreme power only.
Hor. This remark on revenge has convinced me more than any thing
you have said yet, that there is some such thing as a principle of
sovereignty in our nature; but I cannot conceive yet, why the vices
of private, I mean particular persons, should be thought to belong
to the whole species.
Cleo. Because every body is liable to fall into the vices that are
peculiar to his species; and it is with them, as it is with distempers
among creatures of different kinds: There are many ailments that horses
are subject to, which are not incident to cows. There is no vice,
but whoever commits it had within him before he was guilty of it, a
tendency towards it, a latent cause that disposed him to it: Therefore,
all lawgivers have two main points to consider at setting out: First,
what things will procure happiness to the society under their care:
Secondly, what passions and properties there are in man's nature,
that may either promote or obstruct this happiness. It is prudence
to watch your fish ponds against the insults of hearns and bitterns;
but the same precaution would be ridiculous against turkeys and
peacocks, or any other creatures, that neither love fish, nor are
able to catch them.
Hor. What frailty or defect is it in our nature, that the two first
commandments have a regard to, or, as you call it, tally with?
Cleo. Our natural blindness and ignorance of the true Deity: For,
though we all come into the world with an instinct toward religion
that manifests itself before we come to maturity, yet the fear of an
invisible cause, or invisible causes, which all men are born with,
is not more universal, than the uncertainty which all untaught men
fluctuate in, as to the nature and properties of that cause, or those
causes: There can be no greater proof of this----
Hor. I want none; the history of all ages is a sufficient witness.
Cleo. Give me leave: There can, I say, be no greater proof of
this, than the second commandment, which palpably points at all the
absurdities and abominations which the ill-guided fear of an invisible
cause had already made, and would still continue to make men commit;
and in doing this, I can hardly think, that any thing but Divine
Wisdom could, in so few words, have comprehended the vast extent and
sum total of human extravagancies, as it is done in that commandment:
For there is nothing so high or remote in the firmament, nor so low
or abject upon earth, but some men have worshipped it, or made it
one way or other the object of their superstition.
Hor.----Crocodilon adorat
Pars hæc: illa pavet saturam serpentibus Ibin.
Effigias sacri nitet aurea Cercopitheci.
A holy monkey! I own it is a reproach to our species, that ever any
part of it should have adored such a creature as a god. But that is
the tip-top of folly, that can be charged on superstition.
Cleo. I do not think so; a monkey is still a living creature, and
consequently somewhat superior to things inanimate.
Hor. I should have thought mens adoration of the sun or moon infinitely
less absurd than to have seen them fall down before so vile, so
ridiculous an animal.
Cleo. Those who have adored the sun and moon never questioned, but they
were intelligent as well as glorious beings. But when I mentioned the
word inanimate, I was thinking on what the same poet you quoted said
of the veneration men paid to leeks and onions, deities they raised
in their own gardens.
Porrum & cepe nefas violare, & frangere morsu:
O sanctas genteis, quibus hæc nascuntur in hortis
Numina!----
But this is nothing to what has been done in America fourteen hundred
years after the time of Juvenal. If the portentous worship of the
Mexicans had been known in his days, he would not have thought it
worth his while to take notice of the Egyptians. I have often admired
at the uncommon pains those poor people must have taken to express the
frightful and shocking, as well as bizarre and unutterable notions they
entertained of the superlative malice and hellish implacable nature of
their vitzliputzli, to whom they sacrificed the hearts of men, cut out
whilst they were alive. The monstrous figure and laboured deformity of
that abominable idol, are a lively representation of the direful ideas
those wretches framed to themselves of an invisible over-ruling power;
and plainly show us, how horrid and execrable they thought it to be,
at the same time that they paid it the highest adoration; and at the
expence of human blood endeavoured, with fear and trembling, if not to
appease the wrath and rage of it, at least to avert, in some measure,
the manifold mischiefs they apprehended from it.
Hor. Nothing, I must own, can render declaiming against idolatry more
seasonable than a reflection upon the second commandment: But as what
you have been saying required no great attention, I have been thinking
of something else. Thinking on the purport of the third commandment,
furnishes me with an objection, and I think a strong one, to what
you have affirmed about all laws in general, and the decalogue in
particular. You know I urged that it was wrong to ascribe the faults
of bad men to human nature in general.
Cleo. I do; and thought I had answered you.
Hor. Let me try only once more. Which of the two, pray, do you think
profane swearing to proceed from, a frailty in our nature, or an ill
custom generally contracted by keeping of bad company?
Cleo. Certainly the latter.
Hor. Then it is evident to me, that this law is levelled at the
bad men only, that are guilty of the vice forbid in it; and not any
frailty belonging to human nature in general.
Cleo. I believe you mistake the design of this law; and am of opinion,
that it has a much higher aim than you seem to imagine. You remember
my saying, that reverence to authority was necessary, to make human
creatures governable.
Hor. Very well; and that reverence was a compound of fear, love,
and esteem.
Cleo. Now let us take a view of what is done in the decalogue: In
the short preamble to it, expressly made that the Israelites should
know who it was that spoke to them, God manifests himself to those
whom he had chosen for his people, by a most remarkable instance of
his own great power, and their strong obligation to him, in a fact,
that none of them could be ignorant of. There is a plainness and
grandeur withal in this sentence, than which nothing can be more
truly sublime or majestic; and I defy the learned world to show me
another as comprehensive, and of equal weight and dignity, that so
fully executes its purpose, and answers its design with the same
simplicity of words. In that part of the second commandment, which
contains the motives and inducements why men should obey the Divine
laws, are set forth in the most emphatical manner: First, God's wrath
on those that hate him, and the continuance of it on their posterity:
Secondly, the wide extent of his mercy to those who love him and keep
his commandments. If we duly consider these passages, we shall find,
that fear, as well as love, and the highest esteem, are plainly and
distinctly inculcated in them; and that the best method is made use of
there, to inspire men with a deep sense of the three ingredients that
make up the compound of reverence. The reason is plain: If people were
to be governed by that body of laws, nothing was more necessary to
enforce their obedience to them, than their awful regard and utmost
veneration to him, at whose command they were to keep them, and to
whom they were accountable for the breaking of them.
Hor. What answer is all this to my objection?
Cleo. Have a moment's patience; I am coming to it. Mankind are
naturally fickle, and delight in change and variety; they seldom
retain long the same impression of things they received at first,
when they were new to them; and they are apt to undervalue, if not
despise the best, when they grow common. I am of opinion, that the
third commandment points at this frailty, this want of steadiness
in our nature; the ill consequences of which, in our duty to the
Creator, could not be better prevented than by a strict observance
of this law, in never making use of his name, but in the most solemn
manner, on necessary occasions, and in matters of high importance. As
in the foregoing part of the decalogue, care had been already taken,
by the strongest motives, to create and attract reverence, so nothing
could be more wisely adapted to strengthen, and make it everlasting,
than the contents of this law: For as too much familiarity breeds
contempt, so our highest regard due to what is most sacred, cannot
be kept up better than by a quite contrary practice.
Hor. I am answered.
Cleo. What weight reverence is thought to be of to procure
obedience, we may learn from the same body of laws in another
commandment. Children have no opportunity of learning their duty but
from their parents and those who act by their authority or in their
stead: Therefore, it was requisite, that men should not only stand
in great dread of the law of God, but likewise have great reverence
for those who first inculcated it, and communicated to them that this
was the law of God.
Hor. But you said, that the reverence of children to parents was a
natural consequence of what they first experienced from the latter.
Cleo. You think there was no occasion for this law, if man would do
what is commanded in it of his own accord: But I desire you would
consider, that though the reverence of children to parents is a
natural consequence, partly of the benefits and chastisements they
receive from them, and partly of the great opinion they form of the
superior capacity they observe in them; experience teaches us, that
this reverence may be over-ruled by stronger passions; and therefore
it being of the highest moment to all government and sociableness
itself, God thought fit to fortify and strengthen it in us, by a
particular command of his own; and, moreover, to encourage it, by
the promise of a reward for the keeping of it. It is our parents that
first cure us of our natural wildness, and break in us the spirit of
independency we are all born with: It is to them we owe the first
rudiments of our submission; and to the honour and deference which
children pay to parents, all societies are obliged for the principle
of human obedience. The instinct of sovereignty in our nature, and
the waywardness of infants, which is the consequence of it, discover
themselves with the least glimmering of our understanding, and before
children that have been most neglected, and the least taught, are
always the most stubborn and obstinate; and none are more unruly,
and fonder of following their own will, than those that are least
capable of governing themselves.
Hor. Then this commandment you think not obligatory, when we come to
years of maturity.
Cleo. Far from it: for though the benefit politically intended by this
law be chiefly received by us, whilst we are under age and the tuition
of parents; yet, for that very reason, ought the duty commanded in
it, never to cease. We are fond of imitating our superiors from our
cradle, and whilst this honour and reverence to parents continue to
be paid by their children, when they are grown men and women, and
act for themselves, the example is of singular use to all minors,
in teaching them their duty, and not to refuse what they see others,
that are older and wiser, comply with by choice: For, by this means,
as their understanding increases, this duty, by degrees, becomes a
fashion, which at last their pride will not suffer them to neglect.
Hor. What you said last is certainly the reason, that among fashionable
people, even the most vicious and wicked do outward homage, and pay
respect to parents, at least before the world; though they act against,
and in their hearts hate them.
Cleo. Here is another instance to convince us, that good manners are
not inconsistent with wickedness; and that men may be strict observers
of decorums, and take pains to seem well-bred, and at the same time
have no regard to the laws of God, and live in contempt of religion:
and therefore to procure an outward compliance with this fifth
commandment, no lecture can be of such force, nor any instruction
so edifying to youth, among the modest sort of people, as the sight
of a strong and vigorous, as well as polite and well dressed man,
in a dispute giving way and submitting to a decrepit parent.
Hor. But do you imagine that all the divine laws, even those that seem
only to relate to God himself, his power and glory, and our obedience
to his will, abstract from any consideration of our neighbour, had
likewise a regard to the good of society, and the temporal happiness
of his people?
Cleo. There is no doubt of that; witness the keeping of the Sabbath.
Hor. We have seen that very handsomely proved in one of the Spectators.
Cleo. But the usefulness of it in human affairs, is of far greater
moment, than that which the author of that paper chiefly takes notice
of. Of all the difficulties that mankind have laboured under in
completing society, nothing has been more puzzling or perplexing than
the division of time. Our annual course round the sun, not answering
exactly any number of complete days or hours, has been the occasion
of immense study and labour: and nothing has more racked the brain of
man, than the adjusting the year to prevent the confusion of seasons:
but even when the year was divided into lunar months, the computation
of time must have been impracticable among the common people: To
remember twenty-nine, or thirty days, where feasts are irregular,
and all other days show alike, must have been a great burden to the
memory, and caused a continual confusion among the ignorant; whereas,
a short period soon returning is easily remembered, and one fixed day
in seven, so remarkably distinguished from the rest, must rub up the
memory of the most unthinking.
Hor. I believe that the Sabbath is a considerable help in the
computation of time, and of greater use in human affairs, than can
be easily imagined by those, who never knew the want of it.
Cleo. But what is most remarkable in this fourth commandment, is God's
revealing himself to his people, and acquainting an infant nation with
a truth, which the rest of the world remained ignorant of for many
ages. Men were soon made sensible of the sun's power, observed every
meteor in the sky, and suspected the influence of the moon and other
stars: but it was a long time, and man was far advanced in sublime
notions, before the light of nature could raise mortal thought to
the contemplation of an Infinite Being that is the author of the whole.
Hor. You have descanted on this sufficiently when you spoke of Moses:
pray let us proceed to the further establishment of society. I am
satisfied that the third step towards it is the invention of letters;
that without them no laws can be long effectual, and that the principal
laws of all countries are remedies against human frailties; I mean,
that they are designed as antidotes, to prevent the ill consequences of
some properties, inseparable from our nature; which yet in themselves,
without management or restraint, are obstructive and pernicious to
society: I am persuaded likewise, that these frailties are palpably
pointed at in the decalogue; that it was wrote with great wisdom,
and that there is not one commandment in it, that has not a regard
to the temporal good of society, as well as matters of higher moment.
Cleo. These are the things, indeed, that I have endeavoured to prove;
and now all the great difficulties and chief obstructions, that can
hinder a multitude from being formed into a body politic, are removed:
when once men come to be governed by written laws, all the rest comes
on a-pace. Now property, and safety of life and limb may be secured:
this naturally will forward the love of peace, and make it spread. No
number of men, when once they enjoy quiet, and no man needs to fear
his neighbour, will be long without learning to divide and subdivide
their labour.
Hor. I do not understand you.
Cleo. Man, as I have hinted before, naturally loves to imitate what
he sees others do, which is the reason that savage people all do
the same thing: this hinders them from meliorating their condition,
though they are always wishing for it: but if one will wholly apply
himself to the making of bows and arrows, whilst another provides food,
a third builds huts, a fourth makes garments, and a fifth utensils:
they not only become useful to one another, but the callings and
employments themselves will in the same number of years receive much
greater improvements, than if all had been promiscuously followed by
every one of the five.
Hor. I believe you are perfectly right there; and the truth of what
you say is in nothing so conspicuous, as it is in watch-making,
which is come to a higher degree of perfection, than it would have
been arrived at yet, if the whole had always remained the employment
of one person; and I am persuaded, that even the plenty we have of
clocks and watches, as well as the exactness and beauty they may be
made of, are chiefly owing to the division that has been made of that
art into many branches.
Cleo. The use of letters must likewise very much improve speech itself,
which before that time cannot but be very barren and precarious.
Hor. I am glad to hear you mention speech again: I would not interrupt
you when you named it once before: Pray what language did your wild
couple speak, when first they met?
Cleo. From what I have said already, it is evident, that they could
have had none at all; at least, that it is my opinion.
Hor. Then wild people must have an instinct to understand one another,
which they lose when they are civilized.
Cleo. I am persuaded that nature has made all animals of the same
kind, in their mutual commerce, intelligible to one another, as far
as is requisite for the preservation of themselves and their species:
and as to my wild couple, as you call them, I believe there would be
a very good understanding before many sounds passed between them. It
is not without some difficulty, that a man born in society can form
an idea of such savages, and their condition; and unless he has used
himself to abstract thinking, he can hardly represent to himself such
a state of simplicity, in which man can have so few desires, and no
appetites roving beyond the immediate call of untaught nature: to me
it seems very plain, that such a couple would not only be destitute of
language, but likewise never find out, or imagine that they stood in
need of any; or that the want of it was any real inconvenience to them.
Hor. Why do you think so?
Cleo. Because it is impossible that any creatures should know the want
of what it can have no idea of: I believe, moreover, that if savages,
after they are grown men and women, should hear others speak, be made
acquainted with the usefulness of speech, and consequently become
sensible of the want of it in themselves, their inclination to learn
it would be as inconsiderable as their capacity; and if they should
attempt it, they would find it an immense labour, a thing not to be
surmounted; because the suppleness and flexibility in the organs of
speech, that children are endued with, and which I have often hinted
at, would be lost in them; and they might learn to play masterly
upon the violin, or any other the most difficult musical instrument,
before they could make any tolerable proficiency in speaking.
Hor. Brutes make several distinct sounds to express different
passions by: as for example, anguish, and great danger, dogs of
all sorts express with another noise than they do rage and anger;
and the whole species express grief by howling.
Cleo. This is no argument to make us believe, that nature has endued
man with speech; there are innumerable other privileges and instincts
which some brutes enjoy, and men are destitute of: chickens run about
as soon as they are hatched; and most quadrupeds can walk without help,
as soon as they are brought forth. If ever language came by instinct,
the people that spoke it must have known every individual word in
it; and a man in the wild state of nature would have no occasion
for a thousandth part of the most barren language that ever had a
name. When a man's knowledge is confined within a narrow compass, and
he has nothing to obey, but the simple dictates of nature, the want
of speech is easily supplied by dumb signs; and it is more natural
to untaught men to express themselves by gestures, than by sounds;
but we are all born with a capacity of making ourselves understood,
beyond other animals, without speech: to express grief, joy, love,
wonder and fear, there are certain tokens that are common to the
whole species. Who doubts that the crying of children was given them
by nature, to call assistance and raise pity, which latter it does
so unaccountably beyond any other sound?
Hor. In mothers and nurses, you mean.
Cleo. I mean in the generality of human creatures. Will you allow
me, that warlike music generally rouses and supports the spirits,
and keeps them from sinking.
Hor. I believe I must.
Cleo. Then I will engage, that the crying (I mean the vagitus)
of helpless infants will stir up compassion in the generality of
our species, that are within the hearing of it, with much greater
certainty than drums and trumpets will dissipate and chase away
fear, in those they are applied to. Weeping, laughing, smiling,
frowning, sighing, exclaiming, we spoke of before. How universal,
as well as copious, is the language of the eyes, by the help of
which the remotest nations understand one another at first sight,
taught or untaught, in the weightiest temporal concern that belongs
to the species? and in that language our wild couple would at their
first meeting intelligibly say more to one another without guile,
than any civilized pair would dare to name without blushing.
Hor. A man, without doubt, may be as impudent with his eyes, as he
can be with his tongue.
Cleo. All such looks, therefore, and several motions, that are natural,
are carefully avoided among polite people, upon no other account,
than that they are too significant: it is for the same reason that
stretching ourselves before others, whilst we are yawning, is an
absolute breach of good manners, especially in mixed company of
both sexes. As it is indecent to display any of these tokens, so
it is unfashionable to take notice of, or seem to understand them:
this disuse and neglect of them is the cause, that whenever they
happen to be made, either through ignorance or wilful rudeness,
many of them are lost and really not understood, by the beau monde,
that would be very plain to savages without language, who could have
no other means of conversing than by signs and motions.
Hor. But if the old stock would never either be able or willing to
acquire speech, it is possible they could teach it their children: then
which way could any language ever come into the world from two savages?
Cleo. By slow degrees, as all other arts and sciences have done,
and length of time; agriculture, physic, astronomy, architecture,
painting, &c. From what we see in children that are backward with
their tongues, we have reason to think, that a wild pair would make
themselves intelligible to each other by signs and gestures, before
they would attempt it by sounds: but when they lived together for
many years, it is very probable, that for the things they were most
conversant with they would find out sounds, to stir up in each other
the ideas of such things, when they were out of sight; these sounds
they would communicate to their young ones; and the longer they lived
together the greater variety of sounds they would invent, as well for
actions as the things themselves: they would find that the volubility
of tongue, and flexibility of voice, were much greater in their young
ones, than they could remember it ever to have been in themselves: it
is impossible, but some of these young ones would either by accident
or design, make use of this superior aptitude of the organs at one
time or other; which every generation would still improve upon; and
this must have been the origin of all languages, and speech itself,
that were not taught by inspiration. I believe moreover, that after
language (I mean such as is of human invention) was come to a great
degree of perfection, and even when people had distinct words for
every action in life, as well as every thing they meddled or conversed
with, signs and gestures still continued to be made for a great while,
to accompany speech; because both are intended for the same purpose.
Hor. The design of speech is to make our thoughts known to others.
Cleo. I do not think so.
Hor. What! do not men speak to be understood?
Cleo. In one sense they do; but there is a double meaning in those
words, which I believe you did not intend: if by man's speaking to
be understood you mean, that when men speak, they desire that the
purport of the sounds they utter should be known and apprehended by
others, I answer in the affirmative: but if you mean by it, that men
speak, in order that their thoughts may be known, and their sentiments
laid open and seen through by others, which likewise may be meant by
speaking to be understood, I answer in the negative. The first sign
or sound that ever man made, born of a woman, was made in behalf,
and intended for the use of him who made it; and I am of opinion,
that the first design of speech was to persuade others, either to give
credit to what the speaking person would have them believe; or else to
act or suffer such things, as he would compel them to act or suffer,
if they were entirely in his power.
Hor. Speech is likewise made use of to teach, advise, and inform others
for their benefit, as well as to persuade them in our own behalf.
Cleo. And so by the help of it men may accuse themselves and own their
crimes; but nobody would have invented speech for those purposes; I
speak of the design, the first motive and intention that put man upon
speaking. We see in children that the first things they endeavour to
express with words are their wants and their will; and their speech
is but a confirmation of what they asked, denied, or affirmed, by
signs before.
Hor. But why do you imagine that people would continue to make use of
signs and gestures, after they could sufficiently express themselves
in words?
Cleo. Because signs confirm words, as much as words do signs; and
we see, even in polite people, that when they are very eager they
can hardly forbear making use of both. When an infant, in broken
imperfect gibberish, calls for a cake or a play-thing, and at the
same time points at and reaches after it, this double endeavour
makes a stronger impression upon us, than if the child had spoke its
wants in plain words, without making any signs, or else looked at and
reached after the thing wanted, without attempting to speak. Speech
and action assist and corroborate one another, and experience teaches
us that they move us much more, and are more persuasive jointly than
separately; vis unita fortior; and when an infant makes use of both,
he acts from the same principle that an orator does when he joins
proper gestures to an elaborate declamation.
Hor. From what you have said it should seem that action is not only
more natural, but likewise more ancient than speech itself, which
before I should have thought a paradox.
Cleo. Yet it is true; and you shall always find that the most forward,
volatile, and fiery tempers make more use of gestures when they speak,
than others that are more patient and sedate.
Hor. It is a very diverting scene to see how this is overdone among
the French, and still more among the Portuguese: I have often been
amazed to see what distortions of face and body, as well as other
strange gesticulations with hands and feet, some of them will make in
their ordinary discourses: But nothing was more offensive to me, when
I was abroad, than the loudness and violence which most foreigners
speak with, even among persons of quality, when a dispute arises,
or any thing is to be debated: before I was used to it, it put me
always upon my guard; for I did not question but they were angry;
and I often recollected what had been said in order to consider
whether it was not something I ought to have resented.
Cleo. The natural ambition and strong desire men have to triumph over,
as well as persuade others, are the occasion of all this. Heightening
and lowering the voice at proper seasons, is a bewitching engine
to captivate mean understandings; and loudness is an assistant to
speech, as well as action is: uncorrectness, false grammar, and even
want of sense, are often happily drowned in noise and great bustle;
and many an argument has been convincing, that had all its force from
the vehemence it was made with: the weakness of the language itself
may be palliatively cured by strength of elocution.
Hor. I am glad that speaking low is the fashion among well-bred people
in England; for bawling and impetuosity I cannot endure.
Cleo. Yet this latter is more natural; and no man ever gave in to
the contrary practice, the fashion you like, that was not taught it
either by precept or example: and if men do not accustom themselves
to it whilst they are young, it is very difficult to comply with it
afterwards: but it is the most lovely, as well as most rational piece
of good manners that human invention has to boast of in the art of
flattery; for when a man addresses himself to me in a calm manner,
without making gestures or other motions with head or body, and
continues his discourse in the same submissive strain and composure
of voice, without exalting or depressing it, he, in the first place,
displays his own modesty and humility in an agreeable manner; and,
in the second, makes me a great compliment in the opinion which
he seems to have of me; for by such a behaviour he gives me the
pleasure to imagine that he thinks me not influenced by my passions,
but altogether swayed by my reason: he seems to lay his stress on my
judgment, and therefore to desire, that I should weigh and consider
what he says without being ruffled or disturbed: no man would do
this unless he trusted entirely to my good sense, and the rectitude
of my understanding.
Hor. I have always admired this unaffected manner of speaking, though
I never examined so deeply into the meaning of it.
Cleo. I cannot help thinking, but that, next to the laconic and manly
spirit that runs through the nation, we are very much beholden for the
strength and beauty of our language to this tranquillity in discourse,
which for many years has been in England, more than any where else,
a custom peculiar to the beau monde, who, in all countries, are the
undoubted refiners of language.
Hor. I thought that it was the preachers, play-wrights, orators,
and fine writers that refined upon language.
Cleo. They make the best of what is ready coined to their hands;
but the true and only mint of words and phrases is the court; and
the polite part of every nation are in possession of the jus et norma
loquendi. All technic words indeed, and terms of art, belong to the
respective artists and dealers, that primarily and literally make
use of them in their business; but whatever is borrowed from them
for metaphorical use, or from other languages, living or dead, must
first have the stamp of the court, and the approbation of beau monde
before it can pass for current; and whatever is not used among them,
or comes abroad without their sanction, is either vulgar, pedantic,
or obsolete. Orators therefore, historians, and all wholesale dealers
in words, are confined to those that have been already well received,
and from that treasure they may pick and choose what is most for
their purpose; but they are not allowed to make new ones of their own,
any more than bankers are suffered to coin.
Hor. All this while I cannot comprehend what advantage or disadvantage
speaking loud or low can be of to the language itself; and if what
I am saying now was set down, it must be a real conjurer that, half
a year hence, should be able to tell by the writing, whether it had
been bawled out or whispered.
Cleo. I am of opinion that when people of skill and address accustom
themselves to speak in the manner aforesaid, it must in time have an
influence upon the language, and render it strong and expressive.
Hor. But your reason?
Cleo. When a man has only his words to trust to, and the hearer is not
to be affected by the delivery of them, otherwise than if he was to
read them himself, it will infallibly put men upon studying not only
for nervous thoughts and perspicuity, but likewise for words of great
energy, for purity of diction, compactness of style, and fullness,
as well as elegancy of expressions.
Hor. This seems to be far fetched, and yet I do not know but there
may be something in it.
Cleo. I am sure you will think so, when you consider that men that do
speak are equally desirous and endeavouring to persuade and gain the
point they labour for, whether they speak loud or low, with gestures
or without.
Hor. Speech, you say, was invented to persuade; I am afraid you lay
too much stress upon that: it certainly is made use of likewise for
many other purposes.
Cleo. I do not deny that.
Hor. When people scold, call names, and pelt one another with
scurrilities, what design is that done with? If it be to persuade
others, to have a worse opinion of themselves than they are supposed
to entertain, I believe it is seldom done with success.
Cleo. Calling names is showing others, and showing them with pleasure
and ostentation, the vile and wretched opinion we have of them; and
persons that make use of opprobrious language, are often endeavouring
to make those whom they give it to, believe that they think worse of
them than they really do.
Hor. Worse than they do! Whence does that ever appear?
Cleo. From the behaviour and the common practice of those that scold
and call names. They rip up and exaggerate not only the faults and
imperfections of their adversary himself, but likewise every thing
that is ridiculous or contemptible in his friends or relations:
They will fly to, and reflect upon every thing which he is but in
the least concerned in, if any thing can possibly be said of it that
is reproachful; the occupation he follows, the party he sides with,
or the country he is of. They repeat with joy the calamities and
misfortunes that have befallen him or his family: They see the justice
of Providence in them, and they are sure they are punishments he has
deserved. Whatever crime he has been suspected of, they charge him
with, as if it had been proved upon him. They call in every thing to
their assistance; bare surmises, loose reports, and known calumnies;
and often upbraid him with what they themselves, at other times,
have owned not to believe.
Hor. But how comes the practice of scolding and calling names to
be so common among the vulgar all the world over? there must be a
pleasure in it, though I cannot conceive it: I ask to be informed;
what satisfaction or other benefit is it, that men receive or expect
from it? what view is it done with?
Cleo. The real cause and inward motive men act from, when they use
ill language, or call names in earnest, is, in the first place,
to give vent to their anger, which it is troublesome to stifle and
conceal. Secondly, to vex and afflict their enemies with greater hopes
of impunity than they could reasonably entertain, if they did them any
more substantial mischief, which the law would revenge: but this never
comes to be a custom, nor is thought of, before language is arrived to
great perfection, and society is carried to some degree of politeness.
Hor. That is merry enough, to assert that scurrility is the effect
of politeness.
Cleo. You shall call it what you please, but in its original it is
a plain shift to avoid fighting, and the ill consequences of it;
for nobody ever called another rogue and rascal, but he would have
struck him if it had been in his own power, and himself had not
been withheld by the fear of something or other: therefore, where
people call names without doing further injury, it is a sign not
only that they have wholesome laws amongst them against open force
and violence, but likewise that they obey and stand in awe of them;
and a man begins to be a tolerable subject, and is nigh half civilized,
that in his passion will take up and content himself with this paultry
equivalent; which never was done without great self-denial at first:
for otherwise the obvious, ready, and unstudied manner of venting
and expressing anger, which nature teaches, is the same in human
creatures that it is in other animals, and is done by fighting; as we
may observe in infants of two or three months old, that never yet saw
any body out of humour; for even at that age they will scratch, fling,
and strike with their heads as well as arms and legs, when any thing
raises their anger, which is easily, and at most times unaccountably
provoked; often by hunger, pain, and other inward ailments. That they
do this by instinct, something implanted in the frame, the mechanism
of the body before any marks of wit or reason are to be seen in them,
I am fully persuaded; as I am likewise, that nature teaches them the
manner of fighting peculiar to their species; and children strike
with their arms as naturally as horses kick, dogs bite, and bulls
push with their horns. I beg your pardon for this digression.
Hor. It was natural enough, but if it had been less so, you would
not have slipt the opportunity of having a fling at human nature,
which you never spare.
Cleo. We have not a more dangerous enemy than our own inborn pride:
I shall ever attack, and endeavour to mortify it when it is in my
power: For the more we are persuaded that the greatest excellencies
the best men have to boast of, are acquired, the greater stress it
will teach us to lay upon education; and the more truly solicitous
it will render us about it: And the absolute necessity of good and
early instructions, can be no way more clearly demonstrated, than by
exposing the deformity as well as the weakness of our untaught nature.
Hor. Let us return to speech: if the chief design of it is to persuade,
the French have got the start of us a great way; theirs is really a
charming language.
Cleo. So it is without doubt to a Frenchman.
Hor. And every body else, I should think, that understands it, and
has any taste: do not you think it to be very engaging?
Cleo. Yes, to one that loves his belly; for it is very copious in the
art of cookery, and every thing that belongs to eating and drinking.
Hor. But without banter, do not you think that the French tongue is
more proper, more fit to persuade in, than ours?
Cleo. To coax and wheedle in, I believe it may.
Hor. I cannot conceive what nicety it is you aim at, in that
distinction.
Cleo. The word you named includes no idea of reproach or disparagement;
the greatest capacities may, without discredit to them, yield to
persuasion, as well as the least; but those who can be gained by
coaxing and wheedling, are commonly supposed to be persons of mean
parts and weak understandings.
Hor. But pray come to the point: which of the two do you take to be
the finest language?
Cleo. That is hard to determine: Nothing is more difficult than to
compare the beauties of two languages together, because what is very
much esteemed in the one, is often not relished at all in the other:
In this point, the Pulchrum & Honestum varies, and is different every
where, as the genius of the people differs. I do not set up for a
judge, but what I have commonly observed in the two languages, is
this: All favourite expressions in French, are such as either sooth
or tickle; and nothing is more admired in English than what pierces
or strikes.
Hor. Do you take yourself to be entirely impartial now?
Cleo. I think so; but if I am not, I do not know how to be sorry for
it: There are some things in which it is the interest of the society
that men should be biassed; and I do not think it amiss, that men
should be inclined to love their own language, from the same principle
that they love their country. The French call us barbarous, and we
say they are fawning: I will not believe the first, let them believe
what they please. Do you remember the six lines in the Cid, which
Corneille is said to have had a present of six thousand livres for?
Hor. Very well.
Mon Pere est mort, Elvire, & la premiere Espee
Dont s'est arme Rodrigue a sa trame coupee.
Pleures, pleures mes yeux, & fondes vous en eau,
La moitie de ma vie a mis l'autre au tombeau;
Et m'oblige a venger, apres ce coup funeste,
Cell qui je n'ay plus sur celle qui me reste.
Cleo. The same thought expressed in our language, to all the advantage
it has in the French, would be hissed by an English audience.
Hor. That is no compliment to the taste of your country.
Cleo. I do not know that: Men may have no bad taste, and yet not be
so ready at conceiving, which way one half of one's life can put the
other into the grave: To me, I own it is puzzling, and it has too
much the air of a riddle to be seen in heroic poetry.
Hor. Can you find no delicacy at all in the thought?
Cleo. Yes; but it is too fine spun; it is the delicacy of a cobweb;
there is no strength in it.
Hor. I have always admired these lines; but now you have made me out of
conceit with them: Methinks I spy another fault that is much greater.
Cleo. What is that?
Hor. The author makes his heroine say a thing which was false in fact:
One half, says Chimene, of my life has put the other into the grave,
and obliges me to revenge, &c. Which is the nominative of the verb
obliges?
Cleo. One half of my life.
Hor. Here lies the fault; it is this, which I think is not true;
for the one half of her life, here mentioned, is plainly that half
which was left; it is Rodrigues her lover: Which way did he oblige
her to seek for revenge?
Cleo. By what he had done, killing her father.
Hor. No, Cleomenes, this excuse is insufficient. Chimene's calamity
sprung from the dilemma she was in between her love and her duty;
when the latter was inexorable, and violently pressing her to solicit
the punishment, and employ with zeal all her interest and eloquence to
obtain the death of him, whom the first had made dearer to her than
her own life; and therefore it was the half that was gone, that was
put in the grave, her dead father, and not Rodrigues which obliged
her to sue for justice: Had the obligation she lay under come from
this quarter, it might soon have been cancelled, and herself released
without crying out her eyes.
Cleo. I beg pardon for differing from you, but I believe the poet is
in the right.
Hor. Pray, consider which it was that made Chimene prosecute Rodrigues,
love, or honour.
Cleo. I do; but still I cannot help thinking, but that her lover,
by having killed her father, obliged Chimene to prosecute him, in the
same manner as a man, who will give no satisfaction to his creditors,
obliges them to arrest him; or as we would say to a coxcomb, who is
offending us with his discourse, If you go on thus, Sir, you will
oblige me to treat you ill: Though all this while the debtor might
be as little desirous of being arrested, and the coxcomb of being
ill treated, as Rodrigues was of being prosecuted.
Hor. I believe you are in the right, and I beg Corneille's pardon. But
now I desire you would tell me what you have further to say of society:
What other advantages do multitudes receive from the invention of
letters, besides the improvements it makes in their laws and language?
Cleo. It is an encouragement to all other inventions in general,
by preserving the knowledge of every useful improvement that is
made. When laws begin to be well known, and the execution of them is
facilitated by general approbation, multitudes may be kept in tolerable
concord among themselves: It is then that it appears, and not before,
how much the superiority of man's understanding beyond other animals,
contributes to his sociableness, which is only retarded by it in his
savage state.
Hor. How so, pray; I do not understand you.
Cleo. The superiority of understanding, in the first place, makes man
sooner sensible of grief and joy, and capable of entertaining either
with greater difference as to the degrees, than they are felt in
other creatures: Secondly, it renders him more industrious to please
himself; that is, it furnishes self-love with a greater variety of
shifts to exert itself on all emergencies, than is made use of by
animals of less capacity. Superiority of understanding likewise gives
us a foresight, and inspires us with hopes, of which other creatures
have little, and that only of things immediately before them. All
these things are so many tools, arguments, by which self-love reasons
us into content, and renders us patient under many afflictions, for
the sake of supplying those wants that are most pressing: this is
of infinite use to a man, who finds himself born in a body politic,
and it must make him fond of society; whereas, the same endowment
before that time, the same superiority of understanding in the state
of nature, can only serve to render man incurably averse to society,
and more obstinately tenacious of his savage liberty, than any other
creature would be, that is equally necessitous.
Hor. I do not know how to refute you: there is a justness of thought
in what you say, which I am forced to assent to; and yet it seems
strange: How come you by this insight into the heart of man, and
which way is that skill of unravelling human nature to be obtained?
Cleo. By diligently observing what excellencies and qualifications
are really acquired in a well-accomplished man; and having done this
impartially, we may be sure that the remainder of him is nature. It
is for want of duly separating and keeping asunder these two things,
that men have uttered such absurdities on this subject; alleging as
the causes of man's fitness for society, such qualifications as no
man ever was endued with, that was not educated in a society, a civil
establishment, of several hundred years standing. But the flatterers
of our species keep this carefully from our view: instead of separating
what is acquired from what is natural, and distinguishing between them,
they take pains to unite and confound them together.
Hor. Why do they? I do not see the compliment; since the acquired,
as well as natural parts, belong to the same person; and the one is
not more inseparable from him than the other.
Cleo. Nothing is so near to a man, nor so really and entirely his own,
as what he has from nature; and when that dear self, for the sake of
which he values or despises, loves or hates every thing else, comes to
be stript and abstracted from all foreign acquisitions, human nature
makes a poor figure: it shows a nakedness, or at least an undress,
which no man cares to be seen in. There is nothing we can be possessed
of that is worth having, which we do not endeavour, closely to annex,
and make an ornament of to ourselves; even wealth and power, and all
the gifts of fortune, that are plainly adventitious, and altogether
remote from our persons; whilst they are our right and property, we
do not love to be considered without them. We see likewise that men,
who are come to be great in the world from despicable beginnings,
do not love to hear of their origin.
Hor. That is no general rule.
Cleo. I believe it is, though there may be exceptions from it; and
these are not without reasons. When a man is proud of his parts,
and wants to be esteemed for his diligence, penetration, quickness
and assiduity, he will make perhaps an ingenuous confession, even to
the exposing of his parents; and in order to set off the merit that
raised him, bespeaking himself of his original meanness. But this is
commonly done before inferiors, whose envy will be lessened by it,
and who will applaud his candour and humility in owning this blemish:
but not a word of this before his betters, who value themselves upon
their families; and such men could heartily wish that their parentage
was unknown, whenever they are with those that are their equals in
quality, though superior to them in birth; by whom they know that they
are hated for their advancement, and despised for the lowness of their
extraction. But I have a shorter way of proving my assertion. Pray,
is it good manners to tell a man that he is meanly born, or to hint
at his descent, when it is known to be vulgar?
Hor. No: I do not say it is.
Cleo. That decides it, by showing the general opinion about it. Noble
ancestors, and every thing else that is honourable and esteemed,
and can be drawn within our sphere, are an advantage to our persons,
and we all desire they should be looked upon as our own.
Hor. Ovid did not think so, when he said, Nam genus & proavos &
quæ non fecimus ipsi, vix ea nostra voco.
Cleo. A pretty piece of modesty in a speech, where a man takes pains to
prove that Jupiter was his great grandfather. What signifies a theory,
which a man destroys by his practice? Did you ever know a person of
quality pleased with being called a bastard, though he owed his being,
as well as his greatness, chiefly to his mother's impudicity?
Hor. By things acquired, I thought you meant learning and virtue;
how come you to talk of birth and descent?
Cleo. By showing you, that men are unwilling to have any thing that is
honourable separated from themselves, though it is remote from, and has
nothing to do with their persons: I would convince you of the little
probability there is, that we should be pleased with being considered,
abstract from what really belongs to us; and qualifications, that in
the opinion of the best and wisest are the only things for which we
ought to be valued. When men are well-accomplished, they are ashamed
of the lowest steps from which they rose to that perfection; and the
more civilized they are, the more they think it injurious to have
their nature seen, without the improvements that have been made upon
it. The most correct authors would blush to see every thing published,
which in the composing of their works they blotted out and stifled;
and which yet it is certain they once conceived: for this reason
they are justly compared to architects, that remove the scaffolding
before they show their buildings. All ornaments bespeak the value we
have for the things adorned. Do not you think, that the first red or
white that ever was laid upon a face, and the first false hair that
was wore, were put on with great secrecy, and with a design to deceive?
Hor. In France, painting is now looked upon as part of a woman's dress;
they make no mystery of it.
Cleo. So it is with all the impositions of this nature, when they come
to be so gross that they can be hid no longer; as men's perukes all
over Europe: but if these things could be concealed, and were not
known, the tawny coquette would heartily wish that the ridiculous
dawbing she plasters herself with might pass for complexion; and the
bald-pated beau would be as glad to have his full-bottomed wig looked
upon as a natural head of hair. Nobody puts in artificial teeth,
but to hide the loss of his own.
Hor. But is not a man's knowledge a real part of himself?
Cleo. Yes, and so is his politeness; but neither of them belong
to his nature, any more than his gold watch or his diamond ring;
and even from these he endeavours to draw a value and respect to
his person. The most admired among the fashionable people that
delight in outward vanity, and know how to dress well, would be
highly displeased if their clothes, and skill in putting them on,
should be looked upon otherwise than as part of themselves; nay,
it is this part of them only, which, whilst they are unknown, can
procure them access to the highest companies, the courts of princes;
where it is manifest, that both sexes are either admitted or refused,
by no other judgment than what is formed of them from their dress,
without the least regard to their goodness, or their understanding.
Hor. I believe I apprehend you. It is our fondness of that self, which
we hardly know what it consists in, that could first make us think of
embellishing our persons; and when we have taken pains in correcting,
polishing, and beautifying nature, the same self-love makes us
unwilling to have the ornaments seen separately from the thing adorned.
Cleo. The reason is obvious. It is that self we are in love with,
before it is adorned, as well as after, and every thing which is
confessed to be acquired, seems to point at our original nakedness,
and to upbraid us with our natural wants; I would say, the meanness
and deficiency of our nature. That no bravery is so useful in war, as
that which is artificial, is undeniable; yet the soldier, that by art
and discipline has manifestly been tricked and wheedled into courage,
after he has behaved himself in two or three battles with intrepidity,
will never endure to hear that he has not natural valour; though all
his acquaintance, as well as himself, remember the time that he was
an arrant coward.
Hor. But since the love, affection, and benevolence we naturally have
for our species, is not greater than other creatures have for theirs,
how comes it, that man gives more ample demonstrations of this love
on thousand occasions, than any other animal?
Cleo. Because no other animal has the same capacity or opportunity to
do it. But you may ask the same of his hatred: the greater knowledge
and the more wealth and power a man has, the more capable he is
of rendering others sensible of the passion he is affected with,
as well when he hates as when he loves them. The more a man remains
uncivilized, and the less he is removed from the state of nature,
the less his love is to be depended upon.
Hor. There is more honesty and less deceit among plain, untaught
people, than there is among those that are more artful; and therefore I
should have looked for true love and unfeigned affection among those
that live in a natural simplicity, rather than any where else.
Cleo. You speak of sincerity; but the love which I said was less to
be depended upon in untaught than in civilized people, I supposed to
be real and sincere in both. Artful people may dissemble love, and
pretend to friendship, where they have none; but they are influenced by
their passions and natural appetites as well as savages, though they
gratify them in another manner: well-bred people behave themselves in
the choice of diet and the taking of their repasts, very differently
from savages; so they do in their amours; but hunger and lust are the
same in both. An artful man, nay, the greatest hypocrite, whatever
his behaviour is abroad, may love his wife and children at his heart,
and the sincerest man can do no more. My business is to demonstrate
to you, that the good qualities men compliment our nature and the
whole species with, are the result of art and education. The reason
why love is little to be depended upon in those that are uncivilized,
is because the passions in them are more fleeting and inconstant;
they oftener jostle out and succeed one another, than they are and
do in well-bred people, persons that are well educated, have learned
to study their ease and the comforts of life; to tie themselves
up to rules and decorums for their own advantage, and often to
submit to small inconveniencies to avoid greater. Among the lowest
vulgar, and those of the meanest education of all, you seldom see a
lasting harmony: you shall have a man and his wife that have a real
affection for one another, be full of love one hour, and disagree
the next for a trifle; and the lives of many are made miserable
from no other faults in themselves, than their want of manners and
discretion. Without design they will often talk imprudently, until
they raise one another's anger; which neither of them being able to
stifle, she scolds at him; he beats her; she bursts out into tears;
this moves him, he is sorry; both repent, and are friends again:
and with all the sincerity imaginable resolve never to quarrel for
the future, as long as they live: all this will pass between them
in less than half a day, and will perhaps be repeated once a month,
or oftener, as provocations offer, or either of them is more or less
prone to anger. Affection never remained long uninterrupted between
two persons without art; and the best friends, if they are always
together, will fall out, unless great discretion be used on both sides.
Hor. I have always been of your opinion, that the more men were
civilized the happier they were; but since nations can never be
made polite but by length of time, and mankind must have been always
miserable before they had written laws, how come poets and others to
launch out so much in praise of the golden age, in which they pretend
there was so much peace, love, and sincerity?
Cleo. For the same reason that heralds compliment obscure men of
unknown extraction with illustrious pedigrees: as there is no mortal
of high descent, but who values himself upon his family, so extolling
the virtue and happiness of their ancestors, can never fail pleasing
every member of a society: but what stress would you lay upon the
fictions of poets?
Hor. You reason very clearly, and with great freedom, against all
heathen superstition, and never suffer yourself to be imposed upon
by any fraud from that quarter; but when you meet with any thing
belonging to the Jewish or Christian religion, you are as credulous
as any of the vulgar.
Cleo. I am sorry you should think so.
Hor. What I say is fact. A man that contentedly swallows every thing
that is said of Noah and his ark, ought not to laugh at the story of
Deucalion and Pyrrha.
Cleo. Is it as credible, that human creatures should spring from
stones, because an old man and his wife threw them over their heads,
as that a man and his family, with a great number of birds and beasts,
should be preserved in a large ship, made convenient for that purpose?
Hor. But you are partial: what odds is there between a stone and
a lump of earth, for either of them to become a human creature? I
can as easily conceive how a stone should be turned into a man or
a woman, as how a man or a woman should be turned into a stone; and
I think it not more strange, that a woman should be changed into a
tree, as was Daphne, or into marble as Niobe, than that she should
be transformed into a pillar of salt, as the wife of Lot was. Pray
suffer me to catechise you a little.
Cleo. You will hear me afterwards, I hope.
Hor. Yes, yes. Do you believe Hesiod?
Cleo. No.
Hor. Ovid's Metamorphosis?
Cleo. No.
Hor. But you believe the story of Adam and Eve, and Paradise.
Cleo. Yes.
Hor. That they were produced at once, I mean at their full growth;
he from a lump of earth, and she from one of his ribs?
Cleo. Yes.
Hor. And that as soon as they were made, they could speak, reason,
and were endued with knowledge?
Cleo. Yes.
Hor. In short, you believe the innocence, the delight, and all the
wonders of Paradise, that are related by one man; at the same time that
you will not believe what has been told us by many, of the uprightness,
the concord, and the happiness of a golden age.
Cleo. That is very true.
Hor. Now give me leave to show you, how unaccountable, as well as
partial, you are in this. In the first place, the things naturally
impossible, which you believe, are contrary to your own doctrine,
the opinion you have laid down, and which I believe to be true:
for you have proved, that no man would ever be able to speak, unless
he was taught it; that reasoning and thinking come upon us by slow
degrees; and that we can know nothing that has not from without been
conveyed to the brain, and communicated to us through the organs of
the senses. Secondly, in what you reject as fabulous, there is no
manner of improbability. We know from history, and daily experience
teaches us, that almost all the wars and private quarrels that have at
any time disturbed mankind, have had their rise from the differences
about superiority, and the meum & tuum: therefore before cunning,
covetousness and deceit, crept into the world; before titles of honour,
and the distinction between servant and master were known; why might
not moderate numbers of people have lived together in peace and amity,
when they enjoyed every thing in common; and have been content with
the product of the earth in a fertile soil and a happy climate? Why
cannot you believe this?
Cleo. Because it is inconsistent with the nature of human creatures,
that any number of them should ever live together in tolerable concord,
without laws or government, let the soil, the climate, and their plenty
be whatever the most luxuriant imagination shall be pleased to fancy
them. But Adam was altogether the workmanship of God; a preternatural
production: his speech and knowledge, his goodness and innocence were
as miraculous, as every other part of his frame.
Hor. Indeed, Cleomenes, this is insufferable; when we are talking
philosophy you foist in miracles: why may not I do the same, and lay
that the people of the golden age were made happy by miracle?
Cleo. It is more probable that one miracle should, at a stated time,
have produced a male and female, from whom all the rest of mankind are
descended in a natural way; than that by a continued series of miracles
several generations of people should have all been made to live and
act contrary to their nature; for this must follow from the account we
have of the golden and silver ages. In Moses, the first natural man,
the first that was born of a woman, by envying and slaying his brother,
gives an ample evidence of the domineering spirit, and the principle
of sovereignty, which I have asserted to belong to our nature.
Hor. You will not be counted credulous, and yet you believe all those
stories, which even some of our divines have called ridiculous,
if literally understood. But I do not insist upon the golden age,
if you will give up Paradise: a man of sense, and a philosopher,
should believe neither.
Cleo. Yet you have told me that you believed the Old and New Testament.
Hor. I never said that I believed every thing that is in them, in a
literal sense. But why should you believe miracles at all?
Cleo. Because I cannot help it: and I promise never to mention the name
to you again, if you can show me the bare possibility that man could
ever have been produced, brought into the world without miracle. Do
you believe there ever was a man who had made himself?
Hor. No: that is a plain contradiction.
Cleo. Then it is manifest the first man must have been made by
something; and what I say of man, I may say of all matter and motion
in general. The doctrine of Epicurus, that every thing is derived
from the concourse and fortuitous jumble of atoms, is monstrous and
extravagant beyond all other follies.
Hor. Yet there is no mathematical demonstration against it.
Cleo. Nor is there one to prove, that the sun is not in love with
the moon, if one had a mind to advance it; and yet I think it a
greater reproach to human understanding to believe either, than it
is to believe the most childish stories that are told of fairies
and hobgoblins.
Hor. But there is an axiom very little inferior to a mathematical
demonstration, ex nihilo nihil fit, that is directly clashing with,
and contradicts the creation out of nothing. Do you understand how
something can come from nothing?
Cleo. I do not, I confess, any more than I can comprehend eternity, or
the Deity itself: but when I cannot comprehend what my reason assures
me must necessarily exist, there is no axiom or demonstration clearer
to me, than that the fault lies in my want of capacity, the shallowness
of my understanding. From the little we know of the sun and stars,
their magnitudes, distances, and motion; and what we are more nearly
acquainted with, the gross visible parts in the structure of animals
and their economy, it is demonstrable, that they are the effects of an
intelligent cause, and the contrivance of a Being infinite in wisdom
as well as power.
Hor. But let wisdom be as superlative, and power as extensive as it
is possible for them to be, still it is impossible to conceive how
they should exert themselves, unless they had something to act upon.
Cleo. This is not the only thing which, though it be true, we are not
able to conceive: How came the first man to exist? and yet here we
are. Heat and moisture are the plain effects from manifest causes,
and though they bear a great sway, even in the mineral as well as
the animal and vegetable world, yet they cannot produce a sprig of
grass without a previous seed.
Hor. As we ourselves, and every thing we see, are the undoubted parts
of some one whole, some are of opinion, that this all, the to pan,
the universe, was from all eternity.
Cleo. This is not more satisfactory or comprehensible than the
system of Epicurus, who derives every thing from wild chance, and an
undesigned struggle of senseless atoms. When we behold things which
our reason tells us could not have been produced without wisdom and
power, in a degree far beyond our comprehension, can any thing be more
contrary to, or clashing with that same reason, than that the things
in which that high wisdom and great power are visibly displayed,
should be coeval with the wisdom and power themselves that contrived
and wrought them? Yet this doctrine which is spinosism in epitome,
after having been neglected many years, begins to prevail again,
and the atoms lose ground: for of atheism, as well as superstition,
there are different kinds that have their periods and returns, after
they have been long exploded.
Hor. What makes you couple together two things so diametrically
opposite?
Cleo. There is greater affinity between them than you imagine: they
are of the same origin.
Hor. What, atheism and superstition!
Cleo. Yes, indeed; they both have their rise from the same cause,
the same defect in the mind of man, our want of capacity in discerning
truth, and natural ignorance of the Divine essence. Men that from their
most early youth have not been imbued with the principles of the true
religion, and have not afterwards continued to be strictly educated
in the same, are all in great danger of falling either into the one
or the other, according to the difference there is in the temperament
and complexion they are of, the circumstances they are in, and the
company they converse with. Weak minds, and those that are brought
up in ignorance, and a low condition, such as are much exposed to
fortune, men of slavish principles, the covetous and mean-spirited,
are all naturally inclined to, and easily susceptible of superstition;
and there is no absurdity so gross, nor contradiction so plain, which
the dregs of the people, most gamesters, and nineteen women in twenty,
may not be taught to believe, concerning invisible causes. Therefore
multitudes are never tainted with irreligion; and the less civilized
nations are, the more boundless is their credulity. On the contrary,
men of parts and spirit, of thought and reflection, the assertors
of liberty, such as meddle with mathematics and natural philosophy,
most inquisitive men, the disinterested that live in ease and plenty;
if their youth has been neglected, and they are not well-grounded
in the principles of the true religion, are prone to infidelity;
especially such amongst them, whose pride and sufficiency are
greater than ordinary; and if persons of this sort fall into hands
of unbelievers, they run great hazard of becoming atheists or sceptics.
Hor. The method of education you recommend, in pinning men down to
an opinion, may be very good to make bigots, and raise a strong party
to the priests; but to have good subjects, and moral men, nothing is
better than to inspire youth with the love of virtue, and strongly to
imbue them with sentiments of justice and probity, and the true notions
of honour and politeness. These are the true specifics to cure man's
nature, and destroy in him the savage principles of sovereignty and
selfishness, that infest and are so mischievous to it. As to religious
matters, prepossessing the mind, and forcing youth into a belief,
is more partial and unfair, than it is to leave them unbiassed, and
unprejudiced till they come to maturity, and are fit to judge as well
as choose for themselves.
Cleo. It is this fair and impartial management you speak in praise
of, that will ever promote and increase unbelief; and nothing has
contributed more to the growth of deism in this kingdom, than the
remissness of education in sacred matters, which for some time has
been in fashion among the better sort.
Hor. The public welfare ought to be our principal care; and I am well
assured, that it is not bigotry to a sect or persuasion; but common
honesty, uprightness in all dealings, and benevolence to one another,
which the society stands most in need of.
Cleo. I do not speak up for bigotry; and where the Christian religion
is thoroughly taught as it should be, it is impossible, that honesty,
uprightness or benevolence should ever be forgot; and no appearances
of those virtues are to be trusted to, unless they proceed from that
motive; for without the belief of another world, a man is under no
obligation for his sincerity in this: his very oath is no tie upon him.
Hor. What is it upon an hypocrite that dares to be perjured?
Cleo. No man's oath is ever taken, if it is known that once he has
been forsworn; nor can I ever be deceived by an hypocrite, when he
tells me that he is one; and I shall never believe a man to be an
atheist, unless he owns it himself.
Hor. I do not believe there are real atheists in the world.
Cleo. I will not quarrel about words; but our modern deism is no
greater security than atheism: for a man's acknowledging the being
of a God, even an intelligent first Cause, is of no use, either to
himself or others, if he denies, a Providence and a future state.
Hor. After all, I do not think that virtue has any more relation to
credulity, than it has to want of faith.
Cleo. Yet it would and ought to have, if we were consistent with
ourselves; and if men were swayed in their actions by the principles
they side with, and the opinion they profess themselves to be of,
all atheists would be devils, and superstitious men saints: but this
is not true; there are atheists of good morals, and great villains
superstitious: nay, I do not believe there is any wickedness that the
worst atheist can commit, but superstitious men may be guilty of it;
impiety not excepted; for nothing is more common amongst rakes and
gamesters, than to hear men blaspheme, that believe in spirits, and
are afraid of the devil. I have no greater opinion of superstition
than I have of atheism; what I aimed at, was to prevent and guard
against both; and I am persuaded that there is no other antidote
to be obtained by human means, so powerful and infallible against
the poison of either, as what I have mentioned. As to the truth of
our descent from Adam, I would not be a believer, and cease to be a
rational creature: what I have to say for it, is this. We are convinced
that human understanding is limited; and by the help of every little
reflection, we may be as certain that the narrowness of its bounds,
its being so limited, is the very thing, the sole cause, which palpably
hinders us from diving into our origin by dint of penetration: the
consequence is, that to come at the truth of this origin, which is
of very great concern to us, something is to be believed: but what
or whom to believe is the question. If I cannot demonstrate to you
that Moses was divinely inspired, you will be forced to confess,
that there never was any thing more extraordinary in the world,
than that, in a most superstitious age, one man brought up among the
grossest idolaters, that had the vilest and most abominable notions
of the Godhead, should, without help, as we know of, find out the
most hidden and most important truths by his natural capacity only;
for, besides the deep insight he had in human nature, as appears
from the decalogue, it is manifest that he was acquainted with the
creation out of nothing, the unity and immense greatness of that
Invisible Power that has made the universe; and that he taught this
to the Israelites, fifteen centuries before any other nation upon
earth was so far enlightened: it is undeniable, moreover, that the
history of Moses, concerning the beginning of the world and mankind,
is the most ancient and least improbable of any that are extant; that
others, who have wrote after him on the same subject, appear most of
them to be imperfect copiers of him; and that the relations which
seem not to have been borrowed from Moses, as the accounts we have
of Sommona-codam, Confucius, and others, are less rational, and fifty
times more extravagant and incredible, than any thing contained in the
Pentateuch. As to the things revealed, the plan itself, abstract from
faith and religion; when we have weighed every system that has been
advanced, we shall find; that, since we must have had a beginning,
nothing is more rational or more agreeable to good sense, than to
derive our origin from an incomprehensible creative Power, that was
the first Mover and Author of all things.
Hor. I never heard any body entertain higher notions, or more noble
sentiments of the Deity, than at different times I have heard from
you; pray, when you read Moses, do not you meet with several things in
the economy of Paradise, and the conversation between God and Adam,
that seem to be low, unworthy, and altogether inconsistent with the
sublime ideas you are used to form of the Supreme Being.
Cleo. I freely own, not only that I have thought so, but likewise
that I have long stumbled at it: but when I consider, on the one
hand, that the more human knowledge increases, the more consummate
and unerring the Divine Wisdom appears to be, in every thing we can
have any insight into; and on the other, that the things hitherto
detected, either by chance or industry, are very inconsiderable both
in number and value, if compared to the vast multitude of weightier
matters that are left behind and remain still undiscovered: When,
I say, I consider these things, I cannot help thinking, that there
may be very wise reasons for what we find fault with, that are,
and perhaps ever will be, unknown to men as long the world endures.
Hor. But why should he remain labouring under difficulties we can
easily solve, and not say with Dr. Burnet, and several others, that
those things are allegories, and to be understood in a figurative
sense?
Cleo. I have nothing against it; and shall always applaud the ingenuity
and good offices of men, who endeavour to reconcile religious mysteries
to human reason and probability; but I insist upon it, that nobody
can disprove any thing that is said in the Pentateuch, in the most
literal sense; and I defy the wit of man to frame or contrive a story,
the best concerted fable they can invent, how man came into the world,
which I shall not find as much fault with, and be able to make as
strong objections to, as the enemies of religion have found with, and
raised against the account of Moses: If I may be allowed to take the
same liberty with their known forgery, which they take with the Bible,
before they have brought one argument against the veracity of it.
Hor. It may be so. But as first I was the occasion of this long
digression, by mentioning the golden age; so now, I desire we may
return to our subject. What time, how many ages do you think it
would require to have a well-civilized nation from such a savage pair
as yours?
Cleo. That is very uncertain; and I believe it impossible, to determine
any thing about it. From what has been said, it is manifest, that the
family descending from such a stock, would be crumbled to pieces,
reunited, and dispersed again several times, before the whole of
any part of it could be advanced to any degree of politeness. The
best forms of government are subject to revolutions, and a great many
things must concur to keep a society of men together, till they become
a civilized nation.
Hor. Is not a vast deal owing, in the raising of a nation, to the
difference there is in the spirit and genius of people?
Cleo. Nothing, but what depends upon climates, which is soon
over-balanced by skilful government. Courage and cowardice, in all
bodies of men, depend entirely upon exercise and discipline. Arts
and sciences seldom come before riches, and both flow in faster or
slower, according to the capacity of the governors, the situation of
the people, and the opportunities they have of improvements; but the
first is the chief: to preserve peace and tranquillity among multitudes
of different views, and make them all labour for one interest, is a
great task; and nothing in human affairs requires greater knowledge,
than the art of governing.
Hor. According to your system, it should be little more, than guarding
against human nature.
Cleo. But it is a great while before that nature can be rightly
understood; and it is the work of ages to find out the true use of
the passions, and to raise a politician that can make every frailty of
the members add strength to the whole body, and by dextrous management
turn private Vices into public Benefits.
Hor. It must be a great advantage to an age, when many extraordinary
persons are born in it.
Cleo. It is not genius, so much as experience, that helps men to
good laws: Solon, Lycurgus, Socrates and Plato, all travelled for
their knowledge, which they communicated to others. The wisest laws
of human invention are generally owing to the evasions of bad men,
whose cunning had eluded the force of former ordinances that had been
made with less caution.
Hor. I fancy that the invention of iron, and working the oar into
a metal, must contribute very much to the completing of society;
because men can have no tools nor agriculture without it.
Cleo. Iron is certainly very useful; but shells and flints, and
hardening of wood by fire, are substitutes that men make a shift with;
if they can but have peace, live in quiet, and enjoy the fruits of
their labour. Could you ever have believed, that a man without hands
could have shaved himself, wrote good characters, and made use of a
needle and thread with his feet? Yet this we have seen. It is said
by some men of reputation, that the Americans in Mexico and Peru
have all the signs of an infant world; because, when the Europeans
first came among them, they wanted a great many things, that seem to
be of easy invention. But considering that they had nobody to borrow
from, and no iron at all, it is amazing which way they could arrive
at the perfection we found them in. First, it is impossible to know,
how long multitudes may have been troublesome to one another, before
the invention of letters came among them, and they had any written
laws. Secondly, from the many chasms in history, we know by experience,
that the accounts of transactions and times in which letters are
known, may be entirely lost. Wars and human discord may destroy
the most civilized nations, only by dispersing them; and general
devastations spare arts and sciences no more than they do cities and
palaces. That all men are born with a strong desire, and no capacity at
all to govern, has occasioned an infinity of good and evil. Invasions
and persecutions, by mixing and scattering our species, have made
strange alterations in the world. Sometimes large empires are divided
into several parts, and produce new kingdoms and principalities;
at others, great conquerors in few years bring different nations
under one dominion. From the decay of the Roman empire alone we may
learn, that arts and sciences are more perishable, much sooner lost,
than buildings or inscriptions; and that a deluge of ignorance may
overspread countries, without their ceasing to be inhabited.
Hor. But what is it at last, that raises opulent cities and powerful
nations from the smallest beginnings?
Cleo. Providence.
Hor. But Providence makes use of means that are visible; I want to
know the engines it is performed with.
Cleo. All the ground work that is required to aggrandize nations,
you have seen in the Fable of the Bees. All sound politics, and the
whole art of governing, are entirely built upon the knowledge of human
nature. The great business in general of a politician is to promote,
and, if he can, reward all good and useful actions on the one hand;
and on the other, to punish, or at least discourage every thing that
is destructive or hurtful to society. To name particulars would be an
endless task. Anger, lust, and pride, may be the causes of innumerable
mischiefs, that are all carefully to be guarded against: but setting
them aside, the regulations only that are required to defeat and
prevent all the machinations and contrivances that avarice and envy
may put man upon, to the detriment of his neighbour, are almost
infinite. Would you be convinced of these truths, do but employ
yourself for a month or two, in surveying and minutely examining
into every art and science, every trade, handicraft and occupation,
that are professed and followed in such a city as London; and all
the laws, prohibitions, ordinances and restrictions that have been
found absolutely necessary, to hinder both private men and bodies
corporate, in so many different stations, first from interfering
with the public peace and welfare; secondly, from openly wronging
and secretly over-reaching, or any other way injuring one another:
if you will give yourself this trouble, you will find the number of
clauses and provisos, to govern a large flourishing city well, to be
prodigious beyond imagination; and yet every one of them tending to
the same purpose, the curbing, restraining, and disappointing the
inordinate passions, and hurtful frailties of man. You will find,
moreover, which is still more to be admired, the greater part of the
articles in this vast multitude of regulations, when well understood,
to be the result of consummate wisdom.
Hor. How could these things exist, if there had not been men of very
bright parts and uncommon talents?
Cleo. Among the things I hint at, there are very few that are
the work of one man, or of one generation; the greatest part of
them are the product, the joint labour of several ages. Remember
what in our third conversation I told you, concerning the arts of
ship-building and politeness. The wisdom I speak of, is not the
offspring of a fine understanding, or intense thinking, but of sound
and deliberate judgment, acquired from a long experience in business,
and a multiplicity of observations. By this sort of wisdom, and length
of time, it may be brought about, that there shall be no greater
difficulty in governing a large city, than (pardon the lowness of
the simile) there is in weaving of stockings.
Hor. Very low indeed.
Cleo. Yet I know nothing to which the laws and established
economy of a well ordered city may be more justly compared, than
the knitting-frame. The machine, at first view, is intricate and
unintelligible; yet the effects of it are exact and beautiful; and
in what is produced by it, there is a surprising regularity: but
the beauty and exactness in the manufacture are principally, if not
altogether, owing to the happiness of the invention, the contrivance
of the engine. For the greatest artist at it can furnish us with no
better work, than may be made by almost any scoundrel after half a
year's practice.
Hor. Though your comparison be low, I must own that it very well
illustrates your meaning.
Cleo. Whilst you spoke, I have thought of another, which is better. It
is common now, to have clocks that are made to play several tunes
with great exactness: the study and labour, as well as trouble of
disappointments, which, in doing and undoing, such a contrivance
must necessarily have cost from the beginning to the end, are not
to be thought of without astonishment; there is something analogous
to this in the government of a flourishing city, that has lasted
uninterrupted for several ages: there is no part of the wholesome
regulations belonging to it, even the most trifling and minute,
about which great pains and consideration have not been employed,
as well as length of time; and if you will look into the history
and antiquity of any such city, you will find that the changes,
repeals, additions and amendments, that have been made in and to the
laws and ordinances by which it is ruled, are in number prodigious:
but that when once they are brought to as much perfection as art and
human wisdom can carry them, the whole machine may be made to play
of itself, with as little skill as it required to wind up a clock;
and the government of a large city once put into good order, the
magistrates only following their noses, will continue to go right for
a while, though there was not a wise man in it; provided that the care
of Providence was to watch over it in the same manner as it did before.
Hor. But supposing the government of a large city, when it is once
established, to be very easy, it is not so with whole states and
kingdoms: is it not a great blessing to a nation, to have all places
of honour and great trust filled with men of parts and application,
of probity and virtue?
Cleo. Yes; and of learning, moderation, frugality, candour and
affability: look out for such as fast as you can; but in the mean time
the places cannot stand open, the offices must be served by such as
you can get.
Hor. You seem to insinuate, that there is a great scarcity of good
men in the nation.
Cleo. I do not speak of our nation in particular, but of all states
and kingdoms in general. What I would say, is, that it is the interest
of every nation to have their home government, and every branch of the
civil administration so wisely contrived, that every man of middling
capacity and reputation may be fit for any of the highest posts.
Hor. That is absolutely impossible, at least in such a nation as ours:
for what would you do for judges and chancellors?
Cleo. The study of the law is very crabbed and very tedious; but the
profession of it is as gainful, and has great honours annexed to it:
the consequence of this is, that few come to be eminent in it, but
men of tolerable parts and great application. And whoever is a good
lawyer, and not noted for dishonesty, is always fit to be a judge, as
soon as he is old and grave enough. To be a lord chancellor, indeed,
requires higher talents; and he ought not only to be a good lawyer
and an honest man, but likewise a person of general knowledge and
great penetration. But this is but one man: and considering what I
have said of the law, and the power which ambition and the love of
gain have upon mankind, it is morally impossible, that, in the common
course of things among the practitioners in chancery, there should
not at all times be one or other fit for the seals.
Hor. Must not every nation have men that are fit for public
negotiations, and persons of great capacity to serve for envoys,
ambassadors and plenipotentiaries? must they not have others at home,
that are likewise able to treat with foreign ministers?
Cleo. That every nation must have such people, is certain; but
I wonder that the company you have kept both at home and abroad,
have not convinced you that the things you speak of require no such
extraordinary qualifications. Among the people of quality that are
bred up in courts of princes, all middling capacities must be persons
of address, and a becoming boldness, which are the most useful talents
in all conferences and negotiations.
Hor. In a nation so involved in debts of different kinds, and loaded
with such a variety of taxes as ours is, to be thoroughly acquainted
with all the funds, and the appropriations of them, must be a science
not to be attained to without good natural parts and great application;
and therefore the chief management of the treasury must be a post of
the highest trust, as well as endless difficulty.
Cleo. I do not think so: most branches of the public administration are
in reality less difficult to those that are in them, than they seem to
be to those that are out of them, and are strangers to them. If a jack
and the weights of it were out of sight, a sensible man unacquainted
with that matter, would be very much puzzled, if he was to account
for the regular turning of two or three spits well loaded, for hours
together; and it is ten to one, but he would have a greater opinion
of the cook or the scullion, than either of them deserved. In all
business that belong to the exchequer, the constitution does nine
parts in ten; and has taken effectual care, that the happy person
whom the king shall be pleased to favour with the superintendency
of it, should never be greatly tired or perplexed with his office;
and likewise that the trust, the confidence that must be reposed in
him, should be very near as moderate as his trouble. By dividing
the employments in a great office, and subdividing them into many
parts, every man's business may be made so plain and certain, that,
when he is a little used to it, it is hardly possible for him to make
mistakes: and again, by careful limitations of every man's power, and
judicious checks upon every body's trust, every officer's fidelity
may be placed in so clear a light, that the moment he forfeits it,
he must be detected. It is by these arts that the weightiest affairs,
and a vast multiplicity of them, may be managed with safety as well as
dispatch, by ordinary men, whose highest good is wealth and pleasure;
and that the utmost regularity may be observed in a great office,
and every part of it; at the same time, that the whole economy of
it seems to be intricate and perplexed to the last degree, not only
to strangers, but the greatest part of the very officers that are
employed in it.
Hor. The economy of our exchequer, I own, is an admirable contrivance
to prevent frauds and encroachments of all kinds; but in the office,
which is at the head of it, and gives motion to it, there is greater
latitude.
Cleo. Why so? A lord treasurer, or if his office be executed by
commissioners, the chancellor of the exchequer, are no more lawless,
and have no greater power with impunity to embezzle money, than the
meanest clerk that is employed under them.
Hor. Is not the king's warrant their discharge?
Cleo. Yes; for sums which the king has a right to dispose of, or
the payment of money for uses directed by parliament; not otherwise;
and if the king, who can do no wrong, should be imposed upon, and his
warrant be obtained for money at random, whether it is appropriated
or not, contrary to, or without a direct order of the legislature,
the treasurer obeys at his peril.
Hor. But there are other posts, or at least there is one still of
higher moment, and that requires a much greater, and more general
capacity than any yet named.
Cleo. Pardon me: as the lord chancellor's is the highest office in
dignity, so the execution of it actually demands greater, and more
uncommon abilities than any other whatever.
Hor. What say you to the prime minister who governs all, and acts
immediately under the king?
Cleo. There is no such officer belonging to our constitution; for
by this, the whole administration is, for very wise reasons, divided
into several branches.
Hor. But who must give orders and instructions to admirals, generals,
governors, and all our ministers in foreign courts? Who is to take
care of the king's interest throughout the kingdom, and of his safety?
Cleo. The king and his council, without which, royal authority is not
supposed to act, superintend, and govern all; and whatever the monarch
has not a mind immediately to take care of himself, falls in course
to that part of the administration it belongs to, in which every body
has plain laws to walk by. As to the king's interest, it is the same
with that of the nation; his guards are to take care of his person;
and there is no business of what nature soever, that can happen in
or to the nation, which is not within the province, and under the
inspection of some one or other of the great officers of the crown,
that are all known, dignified, and distinguished by their respective
titles; and amongst them, I can assure you, there is no such name as
prime minister.
Hor. But why will you prevaricate with me after this manner? You
know yourself, and all the world knows and sees, that there is such
a minister; and it is easily proved, that there always have been
such ministers: and in the situation we are, I do not believe a king
could do without. When there are a great many disaffected people in
the kingdom, and parliament-men are to be chosen, elections must be
looked after with great care, and a thousand things are to be done,
that are necessary to disappoint the sinister ends of malecontents,
and keep out the Pretender; things of which the management often
requires great penetration, and uncommon talents, as well as secrecy
and dispatch.
Cleo. How sincerely soever you may seem to speak in defence of these
things, Horatio, I am sure, from your principles, that you are not
in earnest. I am not to judge of the exigency of our affairs: But
as I would not pry into the conduct, or scan the actions of princes,
and their ministers, so I pretend to justify or defend no wisdom but
that of the constitution itself.
Hor. I do not desire you should: Only tell me, whether you do not
think, that a man, who has and can carry this vast burden upon his
shoulders, and all Europe's business in his breast, must be a person
of a prodigious genius, as well as general knowledge, and other
great abilities.
Cleo. That a man, invested with so much real power, and an authority so
extensive, as such ministers generally have, must make a great figure,
and be considerable above all other subjects, is most certain: But
it is my opinion, that there are always fifty men in the kingdom,
that, if employed, would be fit for this post, and, after a little
practice, shine in it, to one who is equally qualified to be a
Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. A prime minster has a vast,
an unspeakable advantage barely by being so, and by every body's
knowing him to be, and treating him as such: A man who in every office,
and every branch of it throughout the administration, has the power,
as well as the liberty, to ask and see whom and what he pleases, has
more knowledge within his reach, and can speak of every thing with
greater exactness than any other man, that is much better versed in
affairs, and has ten times greater capacity. It is hardly possible,
than an active man, of tolerable education, that is not destitute
of a spirit nor of vanity, should fail of appearing to be wise,
vigilant, and expert, who has the opportunity whenever he thinks fit,
to make use of all the cunning and experience, as well as diligence and
labour of every officer in the civil administration; and if he has but
money enough, and will employ men to keep up a strict correspondence
in every part of the kingdom, he can remain ignorant of nothing;
and there is hardly any affair or transaction, civil or military,
foreign or domestic, which he will not be able greatly to influence,
when he has a mind either to promote or obstruct it.
Hor. There seems to be a great deal in what you say, I must confess;
but I begin to suspect, that what often inclines me to be of your
opinion, is your dexterity in placing things in the light you would
have seen them in, and the great skill you have in depreciating what
is valuable, and detracting from merit.
Cleo. I protest that I speak from my heart.
Hor. When I reflect on what I have beheld with my own eyes, and
what I still see every day of the transactions between statesmen
and politicians, I am very well assured you are in the wrong: When I
consider all the stratagems, and the force as well as finesse that are
made use of to supplant and undo prime ministers, the wit and cunning,
industry and address, that are employed to misrepresent all their
actions, the calumnies and false reports that are spread of them,
the ballads and lampoons that are published, the set speeches and
studied invectives that are made against them; when I consider, I say,
and reflect on these things, and every thing else that is said and
done, either to ridicule or to render them odious, I am convinced,
that to defeat so much art and strength, and disappoint so much
malice and envy as prime ministers are generally attacked with,
require extraordinary talents: No man of only common prudence and
fortitude could maintain himself in that post for a twelvemonth,
much less for many years together, though he understood the world
very well, and had all the virtue, faithfulness, and integrity in it;
therefore, there must be some fallacy in your assertion.
Cleo. Either I have been deficient in explaining myself or else
I have had the misfortune to be misunderstood. When I insinuated
that men might be prime ministers without extraordinary endowments,
I spoke only in regard to the business itself, that province, which,
if there was no such minister, the king and council would have the
trouble of managing.
Hor. To direct and manage the whole machine of government, he must
be a consummate statesman in the first place.
Cleo. You have too sublime a notion of that post. To be a consummate
statesman, is the highest qualification human nature is capable of
possessing. To deserve that name, a man must be well versed in ancient
and modern history, and thoroughly acquainted with all the courts of
Europe, that he may know not only the public interest in every nation,
but likewise the private views, as well as inclinations, virtues,
and vices of princes and ministers: Of every country in Christendom,
and the borders of it, he ought to know the product and geography,
the principal cities and fortresses; and of these their trade and
manufactures, their situation, natural advantages, strength, and
number of inhabitants; he must have read men as well as books, and
perfectly well understand human nature, and the use of the passions:
He must, moreover, be a great master in concealing the sentiments
of his heart, have an entire command over his features, and be well
skilled in all the wiles and stratagems to draw out secrets from
others. A man, of whom all this, or the greatest part of it, may not
be said with truth, and that he has had great experience in public
affairs, cannot be called a consummate statesman; but he may be fit
to be a prime minister, though he had not a hundredth part of those
qualifications. As the king's favour creates prime ministers, and
makes their station the post of the greatest power as well as profit,
so the same favour is the only bottom which those that are in it have
to stand upon: The consequence is, that the most ambitious men in all
monarchies are ever contending for this post as the highest prize,
of which the enjoyment is easy, and all the difficulty in obtaining
and preserving it. We see accordingly, that the accomplishments I
spoke of to make a statesman are neglected, and others aimed at
and studied, that are more useful and more easily acquired. The
capacities you observe in prime ministers are of another nature, and
consist in being finished courtiers, and thoroughly understanding the
art of pleasing and cajoling with address. To procure a prince what
he wants, when it is known, and to be diligent in entertaining him
with the pleasures he calls for, are ordinary services: Asking is no
better than complaining; therefore, being forced to ask, is to have
cause of complaint, and to see a prince submit to the slavery of it,
argues great rusticity in his courtiers; a polite minister penetrates
into his master's wishes, and furnishes him with what he delights in,
without giving him the trouble to name it. Every common flatterer
can praise and extol promiscuously every thing that is said or done,
and find wisdom and prudence in the most indifferent actions; but
it belongs to the skilful courtier to set fine glosses upon manifest
imperfections, and make every failing, every frailty of his prince,
have the real appearance of the virtues that are the nearest, or, to
speak more justly, the least opposite to them. By the observance of
these necessary duties, it is that the favour of princes may be long
preserved, as well as obtained. Whoever can make himself agreeable
at a court, will seldom fail of being thought necessary; and when
a favourite has once established himself in the good opinion of his
master, it is easy for him to make his own family engross the king's
ear, and keep every body from him but his own creatures: Nor is it
more difficult, in length of time, to turn out of the administration
every body that was not of his own bringing in, and constantly be
tripping up the heels of those who attempt to raise themselves by any
other interest or assistance. A prime minister has by his place great
advantages over all that oppose him; one of them is, that nobody,
without exception, ever filled that post but who had many enemies,
whether he was a plunderer or a patriot: Which being well known, many
things that are laid to a prime minister's charge are not credited
among the impartial and more discreet part of mankind, even when
they are true. As to the defeating and disappointing all the envy and
malice they are generally attacked with, if the favourite was to do all
that himself, it would certainly, as you say, require extraordinary
talents and a great capacity, as well as continual vigilance and
application; but this is the province of their creatures, a task
divided into a great number of parts; and every body that has the
least dependence upon, or has any thing to hope from the minister,
makes it his business and his study, as it is his interest, on the one
hand, to cry up their patron, magnify his virtues and abilities, and
justify his conduct; on the other, to exclaim against his adversaries,
blacken their reputation, and play at them every engine, and the same
stratagems that are made use of to supplant the minister.
Hor. Then every well-polished courtier is fit to be a prime minister,
without learning or languages, skill in politics, or any other
qualification besides.
Cleo. No other than what are often and easily met with: It is necessary
that he should be a man, at least, of plain common sense, and not
remarkable for any gross frailties or imperfections; and of such,
there is no scarcity almost in any nation: He ought to be a man of
tolerable health and constitution, and one who delights in vanity,
that he may relish, as well as be able to bear the gaudy crowds
that honour his levees, the constant addresses, bows, and cringes
of solicitors, and the rest of the homage that is perpetually paid
him. The accomplishment he stands most in need of, is to be bold and
resolute, so as not to be easily shocked or ruffled; if he be thus
qualified, has a good memory, and is, moreover, able to attend a
multiplicity of business, if not with a continual presence of mind,
at least seemingly without hurry or perplexity, his capacity can
never fail of being extolled to the skies.
Hor. You say nothing of his virtue nor his honesty; there is a vast
trust put in a prime minister: If he should be covetous, and have no
probity, nor love for his country, he might make strange havoc with
the public treasure.
Cleo. There is no man that has any pride, but he has some value for
his reputation; and common prudence is sufficient to hinder a man
of very indifferent principles from stealing, where he would be in
great danger of being detected, and has no manner of security that
he shall not be punished for it.
Hor. But great confidence is reposed in him where he cannot be traced;
as in the money for secret services, of which, for reasons of state,
it may be often improper even to mention, much more to scrutinize
into the particulars; and in negotiations with other courts, should
he be only swayed by selfishness and private views, without regard to
virtue of the public, is it not in his power to betray his country,
sell the nation, and do all manner of mischief?
Cleo. Not amongst us, where parliaments are every year sitting. In
foreign affairs nothing of moment can be transacted but what all the
world must know; and should any thing be done or attempted that would
be palpably ruinous to the kingdom, and in the opinion of natives
and foreigners grossly and manifestly clashing with our interest, it
would raise a general clamour, and throw the minister into dangers,
which no man of the least prudence, who intends to stay in his
country, would ever run into. As to the money for secret services,
and perhaps other sums, which ministers have the disposal of, and
where they have great latitudes, I do not question but they have
opportunities of embezzling the nation's treasure: but to do this
without being discovered, it must be done sparingly, and with great
discretion: The malicious overlookers that envy them their places, and
watch all their motions, are a great awe upon them: the animosities
between those antagonists, and the quarrels between parties, are a
considerable part of the nation's security.
Hor. But would it not be a greater security to have men of honour,
of sense and knowledge, of application and frugality, preferred to
public employments?
Cleo. Yes, without doubt.
Hor. What confidence can we have in the justice or integrity of men;
that, on the one hand, show themselves on all occasions mercenary and
greedy after riches; and on the other, make it evident, by their manner
of living, that no wealth or estate could ever suffice to support
their expences, or satisfy their desires! besides, would it not be a
great encouragement to virtue and merit, if from the posts of honour
and profit all were to be debarred and excluded, that either wanted
capacity or were enemies to business; all the selfish, ambitious,
vain, and voluptuous?
Cleo. Nobody disputes it with you; and if virtue, religion, and future
happiness were sought after by the generality of mankind, with the
same solicitude, as sensual pleasure, politeness, and worldly glory
are, it would certainly be best that none but men of good lives,
and known ability, should have any place in the government whatever:
but to expert that this ever should happen, or to live in hopes of
it in a large, opulent, and flourishing kingdom, is to betray great
ignorance in human affairs? and whoever reckons a general temperance,
frugality, and disinterestedness among the national blessings, and at
the same time solicits Heaven for ease and plenty, and the increase
of trade, seems to me, little to understand what he is about. The
best of all, then, not being to be had, let us look out for the next
best, and we shall find, that of all possible means to secure and
perpetuate to nations their establishment, and whatever they value,
there is no better method than with wise laws to guard and entrench
their constitution, and contrive such forms of administration that the
commonweal can receive no great detriment from the want of knowledge or
probity of ministers, if any of them should prove less able or honest,
than they could wish them. The public administration must always go
forward; it is a ship that can never lie at anchor: the most knowing,
the most virtuous, and the least self-interested ministers are the
best; but, in the mean time there must be ministers. Swearing and
drunkenness are crying sins among seafaring men, and I should think
it a very desirable blessing to the nation, if it was possible to
reform them: but all this while we must have sailors; and if none
were to be admitted on board of any of his majesty's ships, that had
sworn above a thousand oaths, or had been drunk above ten times in
their lives, I am persuaded that the service would suffer very much
by the well-meaning regulation.
Hor. Why do not you speak more openly, and say that there is no
virtue or probity in the world? for all the drift of your discourse
is tending to prove that.
Cleo. I have amply declared myself upon this subject already in a
former conversation; and I wonder you will lay again to my charge
what I once absolutely denied: I never thought that there were no
virtuous or religious men; what I differ in with the flatterers of
our species, is about the numbers which they contend for; and I am
persuaded that you yourself, in reality, do not believe that there
are so many virtuous men as you imagine you do.
Hor. How come you to know my thoughts better than I do myself?
Cleo. You know I have tried you upon this head already, when I
ludicrously extolled and set a fine gloss on the merit of several
callings and professions in the society, from the lowest stations of
life to the highest: it then plainly appeared, that, though you have a
very high opinion of mankind in general, when we come to particulars,
you was as severe, and every whit as censorious as myself. I must
observe one thing to you, which is worth consideration. Most, if
not all people, are desirous of being thought impartial; yet nothing
is more difficult than to preserve our judgment unbiassed, when we
are influenced either by our love or our hatred; and how just and
equitable soever people are, we see that their friends are seldom so
good, or their enemies so bad as they represent them, when they are
angry with the one, or highly pleased with the other. For my part,
I do not think that, generally speaking, prime ministers are much
worse than their adversaries, who for their own interest defame them,
and at the same time, move Heaven and earth to be in their places. Let
us look out for two persons of eminence in any court of Europe, that
are equal in merit and capacity, and as well matched in virtues and
vices, but of contrary parties; and whenever we meet with two such,
one in favour and the other neglected, we shall always find that
whoever is uppermost, and in great employ, has the applause of his
party; and if things go tolerably well, his friends will attribute
every good success to his conduct, and derive all his actions from
laudable motives: the opposite side can discover no virtues in him;
they will not allow him to act from any principles but his passions;
and if any thing be done amiss, are very sure that it would not have
happened if their patron had been in the same post. This is the way of
the world. How immensely do often people of the same kingdom differ in
the opinion they have of their chiefs and commanders, even when they
are successful to admiration! we have been witnesses ourselves that one
part of the nation has ascribed the victories of a general entirely
to his consummate knowledge in martial affairs, and superlative
capacity in action; and maintained that it was impossible for a man
to bear all the toils and fatigues he underwent with alacrity, or to
court the dangers he voluntarily exposed himself to, if he had not
been supported, as well as animated, by the true spirit of heroism,
and a most generous love for his country: these, you know, were the
sentiments of one part of the nation, whilst the other attributed
all his successes to the bravery of his troops, and the extraordinary
care that was taken at home to supply his army; and insisted upon it,
that from the whole course of his life, it was demonstrable, that
he had never been buoyed up or actuated by any other principles than
excess of ambition, and an unsatiable greediness after riches.
Hor. I do not know but I may have said so myself. But after all,
the Duke of Marlborough was a very great man, an extraordinary genius.
Cleo. Indeed was he, and I am glad to hear you own it at last.
Virtutem incolumem odimus,
Sublatum ex oculis quærimus invidi.
Hor. A propos. I wish you would bid them stop for two or three minutes:
some of the horses perhaps may stale the while.
Cleo. No excuses, pray. You command here. Besides, we have time
enough.----Do you want to go out?
Hor. No; but I want to set down something, now I think of it, which
I have heard you repeat several times. I have often had a mind to
ask you for it, and it always went out of my head again. It is the
epitaph which your friend made upon the Duke.
Cleo. Of Marlborough? with all my heart. Have you paper?
Hor. I will write it upon the back of this letter; and as it happens,
I mended my pencil this morning. How does it begin?
Cleo. Qui belli, aut paucis virtutibus astra petebant.
Hor. Well.
Cleo. Finxerunt homines sæcula prisca Deos.
Hor. I have it. But tell me a whole distich at a time; the sense
is clearer.
Cleo. Quae martem sine patre tulit, sine matre Minervam,
Illustres mendax Græcia jactet avos.
Hor. That is really a happy thought. Courage and conduct: just the
two qualifications he excelled in. What is the next?
Cleo. Anglia quem genuit jacet hac, Homo, conditus Urna,
Antiqui, qualem non habuere Deum.
Hor.----I thank you. They may go on now. I have seen several things
since first I heard this epitaph of you, that are manifestly borrowed
from it. Was it never published?
Cleo. I believe not. The first time I saw it was the day the Duke
was buried, and ever since it has been handed about in manuscript;
but I never met with it in print yet.
Hor. It is worth all his Fable of the Bees, in my opinion.
Cleo. If you like it so well, I can show you a translation of it,
lately done by a gentleman of Oxford, if I have not lost it. It only
takes in the first and last distich, which indeed contain the main
thought: The second does not carry it on, and is rather a digression.
Hor. But it demonstrates the truth of the first in a very convincing
manner; and that Mars had no father, and Minerva no mother, is the
most fortunate thing a man could wish for, who wanted to prove that
the account we have of them is fabulous.
Cleo. Oh, here it is. I do not know whether you can read it; I copied
it in haste.
Hor. Very well.
The grateful ages past a God declar'd,
Who wisely council'd, or who bravely war'd:
Hence Greece her Mars and Pallas deify'd;
Made him the heroe's, her the patriot's guide.
Ancients, within this urn a mortal lies
Shew me his peer among your deities.
It is very good.
Cleo. Very lively; and what is aimed at in the Latin, is rather more
clearly expressed in the English.
Hor. You know I am fond of no English verse but Milton's. But do not
let this hinder our conversation.
Cleo. I was speaking of the partiality of mankind in general, and
putting you in mind how differently men judged of actions, according
as they liked or disliked the persons that performed them.
Hor. But before that you was arguing against the necessity, which I
think there is, for men of great accomplishments and extraordinary
qualifications in the administration of public affairs. Had you any
thing to add?
Cleo. No; at least I do not remember that I had.
Hor. I do not believe you have an ill design in advancing these
notions; but supposing them to be true, I cannot comprehend that
divulging them can have any other effect than the increase of sloth and
ignorance; for if men may fill the highest places in the government
without learning or capacity, genius or knowledge, there is an end
of all the labour of the brain, and the fatigue of hard study.
Cleo. I have made no such general assertion; but that an artful man may
make a considerable figure in the highest post of the administration,
and other great employments, without extraordinary talents, is certain:
as to consummate statesmen, I do not believe there ever were three
persons upon earth at the same time, that deserved that name. There
is not a quarter of the wisdom, solid knowledge, or intrinsic worth
in the world that men talk of and compliment one another with; and
of virtue or religion there is not an hundredth part in reality of
what there is in appearance.
Hor. I allow that those who set out from no better motives, than
avarice and ambition, aim at no other ends but wealth and honour;
which, if they can but get anywise they are satisfied; but men who
act from principles of virtue and a public spirit, take pains with
alacrity to attain the accomplishments that will make them capable
of serving their country: and if virtue be so scarce, how come there
to be men of skill in their professions? for that there are men of
learning and men of capacity, is most certain.
Cleo. The foundation of all accomplishments must be laid in our
youth, before we are able or allowed to choose for ourselves, or to
judge, which is the most profitable way of employing our time. It
is to good discipline, and the prudent care of parents and masters,
that men are beholden for the greatest part of their improvements;
and few parents are so bad as not to wish their offspring might be
well accomplished: the same natural affection that makes men take
pains to leave their children rich, renders them solicitous about
their education. Besides, it is unfashionable, and consequently a
disgrace to neglect them. The chief design of parents in bringing
up their children to a calling or profession, is to procure them a
livelihood. What promotes and encourages arts and sciences, is the
reward, money and honour; and thousands of perfections are attained
to, that would have had no existence, if men had been less proud
or less covetous. Ambition, avarice, and often necessity, are great
spurs to industry and application; and often rouse men from sloth and
indolence, when they are grown up, whom no persuasions or chastisement
of fathers or tutors, made any impression upon in their youth. Whilst
professions are lucrative, and have great dignities belonging to them,
there will always be men that excel in them. In a large polite nation,
therefore, all sorts of learning will ever abound, whilst the people
flourish. Rich parents, and such as can afford it, seldom fail bringing
up their children to literature: from this inexhaustible spring it
is, that we always draw much larger supplies than we stand in need
of, for all the callings and professions where the knowledge of the
learned languages is required. Of those that are brought up to letters,
some neglect them, and throw by their books as soon as they are their
own masters; others grow fonder of study, as they increase in years;
but the greatest part will always retain a value for what has cost
them pains to acquire. Among the wealthy, there will be always lovers
of knowledge, as well as idle people: every science will have its
admirers, as men differ in their tastes and pleasures; and there
is no part of learning but somebody or other will look into it,
and labour at it, from no better principles than some men are fox
hunters, and others take delight in angling. Look upon the mighty
labours of antiquaries, botanists, and the vertuosos in butterflies,
cockle-shells, and other odd productions of nature; and mind the
magnificent terms they all make use of in their respective provinces,
and the pompous names they often give to what others, who have no
taste that way, would not think worth any mortal's notice. Curiosity
is often as bewitching to the rich, as lucre is to the poor; and what
interest does in some, vanity does in others; and great wonders are
often produced from a happy mixture of both. Is it not amazing, that a
temperate man should be at the expence of four or five thousand a-year,
or, which is much the same thing, be contented to lose the interest
of above a hundred thousand pounds, to have the reputation of being
the possessor and owner of rarities and knicknacks in a very great
abundance, at the same time that he loves money, and continues slaving
for it in his old age! It is the hopes either of gain or reputation,
of large revenues and great dignities that promote learning; and
when we say that any calling, art or science, is not encouraged,
we mean no more by it, than that the masters or professors of it
are not sufficiently rewarded for their pains, either with honour or
profit. The most holy functions are no exception to what I say; and
few ministers of the gospel are so disinterested as to have a less
regard to the honours and emoluments that are or ought to be annexed
to their employment, than they have to the service and benefit they
should be of to others; and among those of them that study hard and
take uncommon pains, it is not easily proved that many are excited
to their extraordinary labour by a public spirit or solicitude for
the spiritual welfare of the laity: on the contrary, it is visible,
in the greatest part of them, that they are animated by the love of
glory and the hopes of preferment; neither is it common to see the
most useful parts of learning neglected for the most trifling, when,
from the latter, men have reason to hope that they shall have greater
opportunities of showing their parts, than offer themselves from the
former. Ostentation and envy have made more authors than virtue and
benevolence. Men of known capacity and erudition are often labouring
hard to eclipse and ruin one another's glory. What principle must we
say two adversaries act from, both men of unquestionable good sense
and extensive knowledge, when all the skill and prudence they are
masters of are not able to stifle, in their studied performances,
and hide from the world, the rancour of their minds, the spleen and
animosity they both write with against one another.
Hor. I do not say that such act from principles of virtue.
Cleo. Yet you know an instance of this in two grave divines, men
of fame and great merit, of whom each would think himself very much
injured, should his virtue be called in question.
Hor. When men have an opportunity, under pretence of zeal for
religion, or the public good, to vent their passion, they take great
liberties. What was the quarrel?
Cleo. De lana caprina.
Hor. A trifle. I cannot guess yet.
Cleo. About the metre of the comic poets among the ancients.
Hor. I know what you mean now; the manner of scanding and chanting
those verses.
Cleo. Can you think of any thing belonging to literature, of less
importance, or more useless?
Hor. Not readily.
Cleo. Yet the great contest between them, you see, is which of them
understands it best, and has known it the longest. This instance,
I think, hints to us how highly improbable it is, though men should
act from no better principles than envy, avarice, and ambition,
that when learning is once established, any part of it, even the
most unprofitable, should ever be neglected in such a large opulent
nation as ours is; where there are so many places of honour, and
great revenues to be disposed of among scholars.
Hor. But since men are fit to serve in most places with so little
capacity, as you insinuate, why should they give themselves that
unnecessary trouble of studying hard, and acquiring more learning
than there is occasion for?
Cleo. I thought I had answered that already; a great many, because
they take delight in study and knowledge.
Hor. But there are men that labour at it with so much application,
as to impair their healths, and actually to kill themselves with the
fatigue of it.
Cleo. Not so many as there are that injure their healths, and actually
kill themselves with hard drinking, which is the most unreasonable
pleasure of the two, and a much greater fatigue. But I do not deny that
there are men who take pains to qualify themselves in order to serve
their country; what I insist upon is, that the number of those who do
the same thing to serve themselves with little regard to their country,
is infinitely greater. Mr. Hutcheson, who wrote the Inquiry into the
Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, seems to be very expert
at weighing and measuring the quantities of affection, benevolence,
&c. I wish that curious metaphysician would give himself the trouble,
at his leisure, to weigh two things separately: First, the real love
men have for their country, abstracted from selfishness. Secondly,
the ambition they have of being thought to act from that love, though
they feel none. I wish, I say, that this ingenious gentleman would once
weigh these two asunder; and afterwards, having taken in impartially
all he could find of either, in this or any other nation, show us in
his demonstrative way, what proportion the quantities bore to each
other.--Quisque sibi commissus est, says Seneca; and certainly, it
is not the care of others, but the care of itself, which nature has
trusted and charged every individual creature with. When men exert
themselves in an extraordinary manner, they generally do it to be
the better for it themselves; to excel, to be talked of, and to be
preferred to others, that follow the same business, or court the
same favours.
Hor. Do you think it more probable, that men of parts and learning
should be preferred, than others of less capacity?
Cleo. Cæteris paribus, I do.
Hor. Then you must allow that there is virtue at least in those who
have the disposal of places.
Cleo. I do not say there is not; but there is likewise glory and
real honour accruing to patrons for advancing men of merit; and if
a person who has a good living in his gift, bestows it upon a very
able man, every body applauds him, and every parishioner is counted
to be particularly obliged to him. A vain man does not love to have
his choice disapproved of, and exclaimed against by all the world, any
more than a virtuous man; and the love of applause, which is innate to
our species, would alone be sufficient to make the generality of men,
and even the greatest part of the most vicious, always choose the most
worthy, out of any number of candidates; if they knew the truth, and
no stronger motive arising from consanguinity, friendship, interest,
or something else, was to interfere with the principle I named.
Hor. But, methinks, according to your system, those should be soonest
preferred that can best coax and flatter.
Cleo. Among the learned there are persons of art and address, that can
mind their studies without neglecting the the world: these are the
men that know how to ingratiate themselves with persons of quality;
employing to the best advantage all their parts and industry for
that purpose. Do but look into the lives and the deportment of such
eminent men, as we have been speaking of, and you will soon discover
the end and advantages they seem to propose to themselves from their
hard study and severe lucubrations. When you see men in holy orders,
without call or necessity, hovering about the courts of princes; when
you see them continually addressing and scraping acquaintance with the
favourites; when you hear them exclaim against the luxury of the age,
and complain of the necessity they are under of complying with it;
and at the same time you see, that they are forward, nay eager and
take pains with satisfaction, in the way of living, to imitate the
beau monde, as far as it is in their power: that no sooner they are
in possession of one preferment, but they are ready, and actually
soliciting for another, more gainful and more reputable; and that on
all emergencies, wealth, power, honour and superiority are the things
they grasp at, and take delight in; when, I say, you see these things,
this concurrence of evidences, is it any longer difficult to guess
at, or rather is there room to doubt of the principles they act from,
or the tendency of their labours?
Hor. I have little to say to priests, and do not look for virtue from
that quarter.
Cleo. Yet you will find as much of it among divines, as you will among
any other class of men; but every where less in reality, than there is
in appearance. Nobody would be thought insincere, or to prevaricate;
but there are few men, though they are so honest as to own what they
would have, that will acquaint us with the true reason why they would
have it: therefore the disagreement between the words and actions
of men is at no time more conspicuous, than when we would learn from
them their sentiments, concerning the real worth of things. Virtue, is
without doubt, the most valuable treasure which man can be possessed
of; it has every body's good word; but where is the country in which
it is heartily embraced, præmia si tollas? Money, on the other hand,
is deservedly called the root of all evil: there has not been a
moralist nor a satirist of note, that has not had a fling at it;
yet what pains are taken, and what hazards are run to acquire it,
under various pretences of designing to do good with it! As for my
part, I verily believe, that as an accessary cause, it has done more
mischief in the world than any one thing besides: yet it is impossible
to name another, that is so absolutely necessary to the order, economy,
and the very existence of the civil society; for as this is entirely
built upon the variety of our wants, so the whole superstructure is
made up of the reciprocal services which men do to each other. How
to get these services performed by others, when we have occasion for
them, is the grand and almost constant solicitude in life of every
individual person. To expect that others should serve us for nothing,
is unreasonable; therefore all commerce that men can have together,
must be a continual bartering of one thing for another. The feller
who transfers the property of a thing, has his own interest as much
at heart as the buyer who purchases that property: and, if you want
or like a thing, the owner of it, whatever stock or provision he may
have of the same, or how greatly soever you may stand in need of it,
will never part with it, but for a consideration which he likes better
than he does the thing you want. Which way shall I persuade a man to
serve me, when the service I can repay him in, is such as he does not
want or care for? Nobody who is at peace, and has no contention with
any of the society, will do any thing for a lawyer; and a physician
can purchase nothing of a man, whose whole family is in perfect
health. Money obviates and takes away all those difficulties, by being
an acceptable reward for all the services men can do to one another.
Hor. But all men valuing themselves above their worth, every body
will over-rate his labour. Would not this follow from your system?
Cleo. It certainly would, and does. But what is to be admired is,
that the larger the numbers are in a society, the more extensive they
have rendered the variety of their desires, and the more operose
the gratification of them is become among them by custom; the less
mischievous is the consequence of that evil, where they have the use of
money: whereas, without it, the smaller the number was of a society,
and the more strictly the members of it, in supplying their wants,
would confine themselves to those only that were necessary for their
subsistence, the more easy it would be for them to agree about the
reciprocal services I spoke of. But to procure all the comforts of
life, and what is called temporal happiness, in a large polite nation,
would be every whit as practicable without speech, as it would be
without money, or an equivalent to be used instead of it. Where this
is not wanting, and due care is taken of it by the legislature, it
will always be the standard, which the worth of every thing will be
weighed by. There are great blessings that arise from necessity; and
that every body is obliged to eat and drink, is the cement of civil
society. Let men set what high value they please upon themselves,
that labour which most people are capable of doing, will ever be
the cheapest. Nothing can be dear of which there is great plenty,
how beneficial soever it may be to man; and scarcity enhances the
price of things much oftener than the usefulness of them. Hence it is
evident why those arts and sciences will always be the most lucrative,
that cannot be attained to, but in great length of time, by tedious
study and close application; or else require a particular genius,
not often to be met with. It is likewise evident, to whose lot, in
all societies, the hard and dirty labour, which nobody would meddle
with, if he could help it, will ever fall: but you have seen enough
of this in the Fable of the Bees.
Hor. I have so, and one remarkable saying I have read there on this
subject, which I shall never forget. "The poor," says the author,
"have nothing to stir them up to labour, but their wants, which it
is wisdom to relieve, but folly to cure."
Cleo. I believe the maxim to be just, and that it is not less
calculated for the real advantage of the poor, than it appears to
be for the benefit of the rich. For, among the labouring people,
those will ever be the least wretched as to themselves, as well as
most useful to the public, that being meanly born and bred, submit to
the station they are in with cheerfulness; and contented, that their
children should succeed them in the same low condition, inure them
from their infancy to labour and submission, as well as the cheapest
diet and apparel; when, on the contrary, that sort of them will always
be the least serviceable to others, and themselves the most unhappy,
who, dissatisfied with their labour, are always grumbling and repining
at the meanness of their condition; and, under pretence of having a
great regard for the welfare of their children, recommend the education
of them to the charity of others; and you shall always find, that of
this latter class of poor, the greatest part are idle sottish people,
that, leading dissolute lives themselves, are neglectful to their
families, and only want, as far as it is in their power, to shake
off that burden of providing for their brats from their own shoulders.
Hor. I am no advocate for charity schools; yet I think it is barbarous,
that the children of the labouring poor, should be for ever pinned
down, they, and all their posterity, to that slavish condition; and
that those who are meanly born, what parts or genius soever they might
be of, should be hindered and debarred from raising themselves higher.
Cleo. So should I think it barbarous, if what you speak of was done
any where, or proposed to be done. But there is no degree of men
in Christendom that are pinned down, they and their posterity, to
slavery for ever. Among the very lowest sort, there are fortunate men
in every country; and we daily see persons, that without education,
or friends, by their own industry and application, raise themselves
from nothing to mediocrity, and sometimes above it, if once they
come rightly to love money and take delight in saving it: and this
happens more often to people of common and mean capacities, than it
does to those of brighter parts. But there is a prodigious difference
between debarring the children of the poor from ever rising higher
in the world, and refusing to force education upon thousands of them
promiscuously, when they should be more usefully employed. As some
of the rich must come to be poor, so some of the poor will come to be
rich in the common course of things. But that universal benevolence,
that should every where industriously lift up the indigent labourer
from his meanness, would not be less injurious to the whole kingdom
than a tyrannical power, that should, without a cause, cast down the
wealthy from their ease and affluence. Let us suppose, that the hard
and dirty labour throughout the nation requires three millions of
hands, and that every branch of it is performed by the children of the
poor. Illiterate, and such as had little or no education themselves;
it is evident, that if a tenth part of these children, by force and
design, were to be exempt from the lowest drudgery, either there must
be so much work left undone, as would demand three hundred thousand
people; or the defect, occasioned by the numbers taken off, must be
supplied by the children of others, that had been better bred.
Hor. So that what is done at first out of charity to some, may,
at long run, prove to be cruelty to others.
Cleo. And will depend upon it. In the compound of all nations,
the different degrees of men ought to bear a certain proportion
to each other, as to numbers, in order to render the whole a well
proportioned mixture. And as this due proportion is the result and
natural consequence of the difference there is in the qualifications of
men, and the vicissitudes that happen among them, so it is never better
attained to, or preserved, than when nobody meddles with it. Hence we
may learn, how the short-sighted wisdom of perhaps well-meaning people,
may rob us of a felicity that would flow spontaneously from the nature
of every large society, if none were to divert or interrupt the stream.
Hor. I do not care to enter into these abstruse matters; what have
you further to say in praise of money?
Cleo. I have no design to speak either for or against it; but be it
good or bad, the power and dominion of it are both of vast extent,
and the influence of it upon mankind has never been stronger or more
general in any empire, state, or kingdom, than in the most knowing
and politest ages, when they were in their greatest grandeur and
prosperity; and when arts and sciences were the most flourishing in
them: Therefore, the invention of money seems to me to be a thing more
skilfully adapted to the whole bent of our nature, than any other
or human contrivance. There is no greater remedy against sloth or
stubbornness; and with astonishment I have beheld the readiness and
alacrity with which it often makes the proudest men pay homage to
their inferiors: It purchases all services, and cancels all debts;
nay, it does more, for when a person is employed in his occupation,
and he who sets him to work, a good paymaster, how laborious, how
difficult or irksome soever the service be, the obligation is always
reckoned to lie upon him who performs it.
Hor. Do not you think, that many eminent men in the learned professions
would dissent from you in this?
Cleo. I know very well, that none ought to do it, if ever they courted
business, or hunted after employment.
Hor. All you have said is true among mercenary people; but upon noble
minds that despise lucre, honour has far greater efficacy than money.
Cleo. The highest titles, and the most illustrious births, are no
security against covetousness; and persons of the first quality, that
are actually generous and munificent are often as greedy after gain,
when it is worth their while, as the most sordid mechanics are for
trifles: The year twenty has taught us, how difficult it is to find
out those noble minds that despise lucre, when there is a prospect of
getting vastly. Besides, nothing is more universally charming than
money; it suits with every station, the high, the low, the wealthy,
and the poor: whereas, honour has little influence on the mean, slaving
people, and rarely affects any of the vulgar; but if it does, money
will almost every where purchase honour; nay, riches of themselves are
an honour to all those who know how to use them fashionably. Honour,
on the contrary, wants riches for its support; without them it is a
dead weight that oppresses its owner; and titles of honour, joined
to a necessitous condition, are a greater burden together than the
same degree of poverty is alone: for the higher a man's quality is,
the more considerable are his wants in life; but the more money
he has, the better he is able to supply the greatest extravagancy
of them. Lucre is the best restorative in the world, in a literal
sense, and works upon the spirits mechanically; for it is not only
a spur that excites men to labour, and makes them in love with it,
but it likewise gives relief in weariness, and actually supports men
in all fatigues and difficulties. A labourer of any sort, who is paid
in proportion to his diligence, can do more work than another who is
paid by the day or the week, and has standing wages.
Hor. Do not you think, then, that there are men in laborious offices,
who, for a fixed salary, discharge their duties with diligence and
assiduity?
Cleo. Yes, many; but there is no place or employment in which there
are required or expected, that continual attendance and uncommon
severity of application, that some men harass and punish themselves
with by choice, when every fresh trouble meets with a new recompence;
and you never saw men so entirely devote themselves to their calling,
and pursue business with that eagerness, dispatch, and perseverance in
any office of preferment, in which the yearly income is certain and
unalterable, as they often do in those professions where the reward
continually accompanies the labour, and the fee immediately either
precedes the service they do to others, as it is with the lawyers,
or follows it, as it is with the physicians. I am sure you have hinted
at this in our first conversation yourself.
Hor. Here is the castle before us.
Cleo. Which I suppose you are not sorry for.
Hor. Indeed I am, and would have been glad to have heard you speak
of kings and other sovereigns with the same candour, as well as
freedom, with which you have treated prime ministers, and their envious
adversaries. When I see a man entirely impartial, I shall always do him
that justice, as to think, that if he is not in the right in what he
says, at least he aims at truth. The more I examine your sentiments, by
what I see in the world, the more I am obliged to come into them; and
all this morning I have said nothing in opposition to you, but to be
better informed, and to give you an opportunity to explain yourself
more amply. I am your convert, and shall henceforth look upon the
Fable of the Bees very differently from what I did; for though,
in the Characteristics, the language and the diction are better,
the system of man's sociableness is more lovely and more plausible,
and things are set off with more art and learning; yet in the other
there is certainly more truth, and nature is more faithfully copied
in it almost every where.
Cleo. I wish you would read them both once more, and, after that, I
believe you will say that you never saw two authors who seem to have
wrote with more different views. My friend, the author of the Fable,
to engage and keep his readers in good humour, seems to be very merry,
and to do something else, whilst he detects the corruption of our
nature; and having shown man to himself in various lights, he points
indirectly at the necessity, not only of revelation and believing,
but likewise of the practice of Christianity manifestly to be seen
in mens lives.
Hor. I have not observed that: Which way has he done it indirectly?
Cleo. By exposing, on the one hand, the vanity of the world, and the
most polite enjoyments of it; and, on the other, the insufficiency of
human reason and heathen virtue to procure real felicity: for I cannot
see what other meaning a man could have by doing this in a Christian
country, and among people that all pretend to seek after happiness.
Hor. And what say you of Lord Shaftsbury?
Cleo. First, I agree with you that he was a man of erudition, and
a very polite writer; he has displayed a copious imagination, and a
fine turn of thinking, in courtly language and nervous expressions:
But, as on the one hand, it must be confessed, that his sentiments on
liberty and humanity are noble and sublime, and that there is nothing
trite or vulgar in the Characteristics; so, on the other, it cannot be
denied, that the ideas he had formed of the goodness and excellency of
our nature, were as romantic and chimerical as they are beautiful and
amiable; that he laboured hard to unite two contraries that can never
be reconciled together, innocence of manners, and worldly greatness;
that to compass this end, he favoured deism, and, under pretence of
lashing priestcraft and superstition, attacked the Bible itself; and,
lastly, that by ridiculing many passages of Holy Writ, he seems to
have endeavoured to sap the foundation of all revealed religion, with
design of establishing Heathen virtue on the ruins of Christianity.
FINIS.
NOTES
[1] This was wrote in 1714.
[2] This was wrote in 1714.
[3] P. 212, 213. First Edit. 175, 176.
[4] P. 215. First Edit. 178.
[5] P. 106. First Edit. 77.
[6] P. 116. First Edit. 87.
[7] P. 115, 116. First Edit. 86, 87.
[8] Quis est tam vecors qui non intelligat, numine hoc tantum imperium
esse natum, actum, et retentum? Cic. Orat. de Harush. Resp.
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