786. Friendship:—In the distress of our best friends, says Rochefoucault, we always find something that does not displease us. This maxim gave occasion to Dr Swift's celebrated verses on his own death. The introductory lines give the Dean's opinion of that author, and a poetical version of the maxim ;— As Rochefoucault his maxims drew This maxim, more than all the rest, We first consult our private ends ; While Nature, kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please us." 787. Rich and Poor. He is rich whose income is more than his expenses; and he is poor whose expenses exceed his income.—Bruyere. 788. Reflection-As Xerxes wept when he viewed his immense army, and considered that not one of that great multitude would be living one hundred years after; so it went to my heart to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle at Kanelagh (once a place of public amusement) that was not afraid to go home and think; but the thoughts of each individual there would be distressing when alone. This reflection is experimentally just; the feeling of languor is itself a very severe pain; and when the mind is then vacant, a thousand disappointments rush in and excruciate.-Dr S. Johnson. 789. Neglect. A little neglect may breed great mischief :-for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for `want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy; all for want of care about a horse-shoe-nail.-Franklin. 790. A Shepherd's Philosophy.-I know the more one sickens, the worse at ease he is; and he that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends. That the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn. That good pasture makes fat sheep: and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun. That he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding, or comes of a very dull kindred.-Shakspeare. 791. Resentments.-I love the man that is modestly valiant; that stirs not till he must needs, and then to purpose. A continued patience I commend not.--Feltham. 792. Reputation.-Sometimes there is not a greater cheat than fame and reputation. The hypocrite, till he be discovered, appears garnished with all the plumes that brave report does usually fly withal; but once detected, is as black and spotted as the panther's skin. Indeed, it is hard for any to escape the lash of censure; but the emanations of a true and perfect report, for the most part, rise from a man's private conversation. Since a man's good or bad fame does first take rise from such as be about him, and servants being neither always ours nor ever discreet, it behoves him that loves his own reputation to give them no cause of reporting what shall cross it. He that is careless of his fame, I doubt is not fond of his integrity. I like not those that disdain what the world says of them.. I shall suspect that woman's modesty that values not to be accounted modest. While I am innocent, injurious rumours shall the less torment me; but he that is careful of his health, will not only avoid infected places, but fortify himself by preventing antidotes; and will not be abstemious only at a feast, but in his private diet. Even a good man among ill neighbours, shall be ill reported of; and a bad man by some may be beloved. Some vices are falsely looked upon as ornament and education; and a modest innocence is as much mistaken for silliness and ignorance. To be good is thought too near a way to contempt. That which the ancients admired, we both slight and laugh at. A good honest man is but a better word for a fool: so that no man can expect to be free from the whip of licentious tongues. Slanders and calumnies, like contagious airs, are epidemical in their infection only the soundest constitutions are less thereby tainted than the other; but all shall be sure to find a touch.-Feltham. :: 793. Exile no Evil-Exile is no evil; mathematicians tell us that the whole earth is but a point compared to the heavens. To change anes country then is little more than to remove from one street to another. Man is not a plant rooted to a certain spot of earth; all soils and all climates are suited to him alike.-Plutarch. 794.. Moral Character of the Africans.--The inferiority of the dark to the white races is much more general and strongly marked in the powers of knowledge and reflection, the intellectual faculties (using that expression in its most comprehensive sense) than in moral feelings and dispositions. Many of the former, although little civilized, display an openness of heart, a friendly and generous disposition, the greatest hospitality, and an observance of the point of honour, according to their awn notions, from which,. nations more advanced in knowledge might often take a lesson with advantage. The travels of Barrow, Le Vaillant, and Mungo Park, abound with anecdotes honourable to the moral character of the Africans; and proving that they betray no deficiency in the amiable qualities of the heart. One of these gives us an interesting portrait of the chief of a tribe." His countenance was strongly marked with the habit of reflection; vigorous in his mental, and amiable in his personal qualities, Gaika was at once the friend and ruler of a happy people, who universally pronounced his name with transport, and blessed his abode as the seat of felicity." Some European kings might take a lesson from this savage.-Lawrence's Lectures on Man. 795. Necessity of Labour.-Of the laws of nature, on which the condition of man depends, that which is attended with the greatest number of consequences, is the necessity of labour for obtaining the means of subsistence, as well as the means of the greatest part of our pleasures. This is, no doubt, the primary cause of government: for, if nature had produced spontaneously all the objects which we desire, and in sufficient abundance for the desires of all, there would have been no source of dispute or of injury among men; nor would any man have possessed the means of ever acquiring authority over another. James Mill. 796. Pleasure is man's chief good ;-to enjoy reasonably is his wisdom and his duty; it is the great lesson of human life, but a lesson which few have learned, and none less than those who proclaim themselves masters of art in it.-Young. 797. Governments liable to the same Temptation to abuse their Power as Individuals. Whatever would be the temptations under which individuals would lie, if there was no government, to take the objects of desire from others weaker than themselves, under the same temptations the members of government lie, to take the objects of desire from the members of the community, if they are not prevented from doing so. Whatever, then, are the reasons for establishing Government, the very same exactly are the reasons for establishing securities, that those entrusted with the powers necessary for protecting others make use of them for that purpose solely, and not for the purpose of taking from the members of the community the objects of desire.—Mill. 798. Diseases of the Mind incurable. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased; Shakspeare. 799. Self Love is the spring of all animal action. Nature has implanted it in animals with a twofold view; the good of the individual, and that of the species: and operates on them by a twofold impulse; an insupportable uneasiness attendant on its suppression, and a pleasurable sensation annexed to its gratification. In brutes, this motive to action, being under the sole direction of instinct, is in general uniform and evident. In man, instinct has been superadded to reason, and self-love becomes complex and mysterious, It is plain, from fact, that all animals are in some degree social; some of them (if we may so speak) living under monarchal, some oligarchal, others democratical, and the. rest patriarchal government. The stifling or exerting, the principle that thus unites them, has always its concomitant pain or pleasure. And instinct, where she is sole governess, impels them invariably and unerringly to Nature's end and their own good; which are always united, though not always absolutely the same. For example, animals eat to appease their hunger, or please their palate, they have no more view to sustenance, than the sexes in their intercourse have to propagation. Men, too, so far as they act under instinct, act unerringly; when that leaves them, they have recourse to reason, which not being at all times nor in all persons, equally right and strong, does not always prompt to what is equally true and just. Society is undoubtedly the interest of all mankind; and though an universal government has never yet been, nor most probably ever will be formed, yet the wants of every man make him confederate with, and join himself to, some particular public. Now, as in order to the establishment of a state it is indispensably necessary to supersede some private rights, which are indeed compensated reflectively, though in a less obvious manner, this seems to produce cases wherein the good of the government and that of the subject clash. And certainly there are occasionally instances where the necessities of the commonwealth bear so hard on particular members as would give them a distaste to society, did not the uniting principle, the love of the species, the affection for the community of which they are a part, lighten the oppression, sooth the grievance, and, by benevolent reflection, even render it pleasurable. To actions deduced from this source, the self-love of the rest of the Community (which reaps the benefit of these seeming self-sacrifices) ascribes extraordinary merit, annexes attendant glory, and calls them virtuous: which virtue, relatively to the kind, though it be highly meritorious, is yet not disinterested, because repaid by the reflex pleasure of the actor: and may also be carried so far as to become irrational and vicious; for "to be virtuous," says Lord Shaftesbury, "is to have one's affections right in respect of one's self as well as of society." So that virtue is found to be, not a disinterested benevolence towards the species, but of that sort which is its own reward; not a boundless enthusiasm for the public, but the social affection conducted by reason, It is rational humanity; or, well regulated self-love. And thus, as says Pope, "True self love and social are the same." Rochefoucault. 800. Hereditary Sin is not more extraordinary than hereditary jur risdiction.—Zimmerman. 801. Remarks on Reading.-For general improvement, a man should read whatever his immediate inclination prompts him to; though to be sure, if a man has a science to learn, he must regularly and resolutely advance. What we read with inclination makes a stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention, so there is but half to be employed on what we read. I read Fielding's Amelia through without stopping. If a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.-Johnson. 802. The duty of every one to aid in the preservation of a Free Government.-If we are bound to protect a neighbour, or even an enemy, from violence, to give him raiment when he is naked, or food when he is hungry, much more ought we to do our part toward the preservation of a free government; the only basis on which the enjoyment of these blessings can securely rest. He who breaks the fetters of slavery, and delivers a nation from thraldom, forms, in my opinion, the noblest comment on the great law of love, whilst he distributes the greatest bles-sing which man can receive from man; but next to that is the merit of him, who, in times like the present, watches over the edifice of public › liberty, repairs its foundations, and strengthens its cement, when he be-holds it hastening to decay.—Robert Hall. 803. Liberty. ; Oh, Liberty, thou goddess, heavenly bright, Addison. 804. Arrogance is a weed that ever grows on a dunghill. It is from the rankness of that soil that she hath her height and spreadings; witness clowns, fools and fellows that from nothing are lifted some few. steps upon Fortune's ladder, where, seeing the glorious representment above, they are so greedy of embracing, that they strive to leap thither. at once; so by overreaching themselves, they fail of the end, and fall. Feltham.. |