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305. Abuse of Words.---One of the most powerful instruments of vice, the most fatal of all its poisoned weapons, is the abuse of words, by which good and bad feeling are blended together, and its deformity concealed, from an apparent alliance to some proximate virtue. Prodigality and dissipation, are liberality and high spirit. Covetousness, frugality. Flattery, good breeding. As society advances in civilization, the power of this engine does not diminish. To give harsh deeds soft names is one of the evils of refinement. In preventing this confusion: in preventing this abuse of words: in sustaining a high tone of moral feeling, by giving harsh names to harsh deeds, the preservation of the boundaries between virtue and vice mainly depends.---Basil Montagu.

306. Scholars are frequently to be met with, who are ignorant of nothing---saving their own ignorance.---Zimmerman.

307. Physiological ignorance is, undoubtedly, the most abundant source of our sufferings; every person accustomed to the sick must have heard them deplore their ignorance of the necessary consequences of those practices, by which their health has been destroyed: and when men shall be deeply convinced, that the eternal laws of nature have connected pain and decrepitude with one mode of life, and health and vigour with another, they will avoid the former and adhere to the latter. It is strange, however, to observe that the generality of mankind do not seem to bestow a single thought on the preservation of their health, till it is too late to reap any benefit from their conviction.---If knowledge of this kind were generally diffused, people would cease to imagine that the human constitution was so badly contrived, that a state of general health could be overset by every trifle; for instance, by a little cold; or that the recovery of it lay concealed in a few drops, or a pill. Did they better understand the nature of chronic diseases, and the causes which produce them, they could not be so unreasonable as to think, that they might live as they chose with impunity: or did they know any thing of medicine, they would soon be convinced, that though fits of pain have been relieved, and sickness cured, for a time, the re-establishment of health depends on very different powers and principles.

Dr. Garnett's Lectures.

308. Learning makes good subjects.---To say that a blind custom of obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught and understood; it is to affirm that a blind man may tread surer by a guide, than a seeing man can by a light. And it is without all controversy, that learning doth make the mind of men gentle, generous, amiable and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwarting and mutinous: and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject to tumults, seditions, and changes.---Bacon.

309. Responsibility of Drunkards.---It is a maxim in legal practice, that those who presume to commit crimes when drunk must submit to punishment when sober. This state of the law is not peculiar to modern times. In ancient Greece it was decreed by Pittacus, that he who committed a crime when intoxicated should receive a double punishment, viz., one for the crime itself, and the other for the ebriety which prompted him to commit it. The Athenians not only punished offences done in drunkenness with increased severity, but, by an enactment of Solon, inebriation in a magistrate was made capital. In our own country at the present time, acts of violence committed under its influence are held to be aggravated, rather than otherwise; nor can the person bring it forward as an extenuation of any folly or misdemeanour which he may chance to commit. A bond signed in intoxication holds in law, and is perfectly binding, unless it can be shown that the person who signed it was inebriated by the collusion or contrivance of those to whom the bond was given.---Anatomy of Drunkenness.

310. Perseverance arrives at the same end as intrepidity; but it travels not so short a road, tho' it has the advantage of being safer. Zimmerman.

311. Luxury is the real bane of public virtue, and consequently of liberty; which gradually sinks in proportion as the manners of a people are softened and corrupted. Whenever, therefore, this essential spirit, as I may term it, of a free nation is totally dissipated, the people become a mere caput mortuum, a dead inert mass, incapable of resuscitation, and ready to receive the deepest impressions of slavery. Thus the public virtue of Thrasybulus, Pelopidas, and Epaminondas, Philopamen, Aratus, Dion, &c. restored their respective states to freedom and power because, though liberty was suppressed, yet the spirit of it still remained, and acquired new vigor from oppression: Phocion and Demosthenes failed, because corruption had extinguished public virtue, and luxury had changed the spirit of liberty into licentiousness and servility. E. W. Montague.

312. Reading, writing, and speaking.---Habits of literary conversation, and still more, habits of extempore discussion in a popular assembly are peculiarly useful in giving us a ready and practical command of our knowledge. There is much good sense in the following aphorism of Bacon: "Reading makes a full man, writing a correct man, and speaking a ready man.' ."---Dugald Stewart.

LONDON: Printed and Published by J. H. STARIE, 59, Museum Street, and to be had of all Booksellers.

Materials for Thinking.

EXTRACTED FROM THE WORKS OF

ANCIENT AND MODERN AUTHORS.

'WHATEVER CHARITY WE OWE TO MEN'S PERSONS, WE OWE NONE TO

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313. General Education.---A strange idea is entertained by many that education unfits persons for labour, and renders them dissatisfied with their condition in life. But what would be said were any of the powers of the body to be in a certain case disused? Suppose a man were to place a bandage over his right eye---to tie up one of his hands ---or to attach a ponderous weight to his legs---and when asked the cause, were to reply, that the glance of that eye might make him covetous---that his hand might pick his neighbour's pocket---or that his feet might carry him into evil company,---might it not be fairly replied, that his members were given to use and not to abuse, that their abuse is no argument against their use, and that this suspension of their action was just as contrary to the wise and benevolent purpose of their Creator as their wrong and guilty application? And does this reasoning fail when applied to the mind? Is not the unemployed mental faculty as opposed to the advantage of the individual as the unused physical power? Can the difference between mind and matter overturn the ordinary principles of reasoning and of morals? Besides how is man to be prepared for the duties he has to discharge?---By mere attention to his body? Impossible? The mind must be enlightened and disciplined; and if this be neglected, the man rises but little in character above the beasts that perish, and is wholly unprepared for that state to which he ought to have aspired. Wilderspin's Early Discipline.

314. Lesson to Rulers.---The Chinese Emperor Tchou set out on a journey to visit the vast provinces of his empire, accompanied by his eldest son. One day he stopped his car in the midst of some fields where the people were hard at work. "I took you with me," said he to his son, "that you might be an eye-witness of the painful toils of the poor husband-men, and that the feeling their laborious station should excite in your heart, might prevent your burdening them with taxes!"

Anon,

315. Opinion.It is opinion, that tormentor of the wise, and the ignorant, that has exalted the appearance of virtue above virtue itself. Hence the esteem of men becomes not only useful, but necessary, to every one, to prevent his sinking below the common level. The ambitious man grasps at it, as being necessary to his designs; the vain man sues for it, as a testimony of his merit; the honest man demands it, as his due; and most men consider it as necessary to their existence. Beccaria.

316. Punishments.---It is impossible to prevent entirely the disorders which the passions of mankind cause in society. These disorders increase in proportion to the number of people, and the opposition of private interests. If we consult history, we shall find them increasing, in every state, with the extent of dominion. In political arithmetic, it is necessary to substitute a calculation of probabilities, to mathematical exactness. That force which continually impels us to our own private interest, like gravity, acts incessantly, unless it meets with an obstacle to oppose it. The effects of this force are the confused series of human actions. Punishments, which I would call political obstacles, prevent the fatal effects of private interest, without destroying the impelling cause, which is that sensibility inseparable from man. The legislator acts, in this case like a skilful architect, who endeavours to counteract the force of gravity by combining the circumstances which may contribute to the strength of his edifice.---Ibid.

317. Crimes are to be estimated by the Injury done to Society.---This is one of those palpable truths, which, though evident to the meanest capacity, yet by a combination of circumstances, are only known to a few thinking men in every nation and in every age. But opinions, worthy only of the despotism of Asia, and passions, armed with power and authority, have, generally by insensible and sometimes by violent impressions on the timid credulity of men, effaced those simple ideas, which perhaps constituted the first philosophy of infant society. Happily the philosophy of the present enlightened age seems again to conduct us to the same principles, and with that degree of certainty, which is obtained by a rational examination, and repeated experience.

Ibid.

318. Men of Business.---Some decide sagaciously enough on what ought ultimately to be done, but blunder most egregiously as to the means and method of accomplishing the object they have in view; others have not sufficient powers of mind to foresee the result of any measure, yet will immediately hit upon the means of carrying it into effect, good or bad. The last generally ruin themselves by a superfluous activity; the first dream and stagnate. The possession of both qualities constitutes the complete man of business.---Notes on various Sciences.

319. Influence of Domestic Habits.---The man who lives in the midst of domestic relations will have many opportunities of conferring pleasure, minute in detail, yet not trivial in the amount, without interfering with the purposes of general benevolence. Nay, by kindling his sensibility, and harmonising his soul, they may be expected, if he is endowed with a liberal and manly spirit, to render him more prompt in the service of strangers and the public.---Godwin.

320. A Man of Sound Judgment is not diverted from the truth by the strength of immediate impression. He decides with unbiassed impartiality, never suffering, any passion to interfere with the love of truth. He does not form a hasty opinion. He is not tenacious in retaining an opinion when formed: "he is never ashamed of being wiser to day than he was yesterday:" he never wanders from the substance of the matter in judgment into useless subtlety and refinement. Basil Montagu.

321. Self Education.---Much less of success in life is in reality dependent upon accident, or what is called luck, than is commonly supposed. Far more depends upon the objects which a man proposes to himself; what attainments he aspires to; what is the circle which bounds his visions and thoughts: what he chooses, not to be educated for, but to educate himself for; whether he looks to the end and aim of the whole of life, or only to the present day or hour; whether he listens to the voice of indolence or vulgar pleasure, or to the stirring voice in his own soul, urging his ambition on to laudable objects.---P. M.

322. National Prejudices.---In estimating the worth of nations, justice requires that, while their vices are put into one scale, their virtues should as conscientiously be poised in the other. Individuals and nations are equally stung with a sense of wrong, when their crimes are acrimoniously recapitulated, and then great and good actions are all forgotten. This fatal forgetfulness is the origin of that rancour which has so long desolated the earth. It distracts private families, confounds public principles, and turns even patriotism itself into poison. Let those who have but the smallest love for the happiness of mankind, beware how they indulge this pernicious propensity. He, who in every man wishes to meet a brother, will very rarely encounter an enemy.

323.

Holcroft.

Truth.---Truth will ever be unpalatable to those who are determined not to relinquish error, but can never give offence to the honest and well-meaning: for the plain-dealing remonstrances of a friend differ as widely from the rancour of an enemy, as the friendly probe of a surgeon from the dagger of an assassin.---E. W. Montagu.

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