As evil can never be preferred, and though evil is often the effect of our own choice, yet we never desire it, but under the appearance of an imaginary good. on it: health of body, though so far necessary that we cannot be perfectly happy without it, is not sufficient to make us happy of itself.Happiness springs immediately from the mind: health is but to be considered as a condition or circumstance, without which this happi Many things we indulge ourselves in, may be considered by us as evils; and yet be desirable: but then, they are only consideredness cannot be tasted pure and unabated. as evils in their effects and consequences, not as evils at present, and attended with immediate misery. Reason represents things to us, not only as they are at present, but as they are in their whole nature and tendency: passion only regards them in the former light; when this governs us, we are regardless of the future, and are only affected by the present. It is impossible for us ever to enjoy ourselves rightly, if our conduct be not such as to preserve the harmony and order of our faculties, and the original frame and constitution of our minds: all true happiness, as all that is truly beautiful, can only result from order. Whilst there is a conflict betwixt the two principles of passion and reason, we must be miserable, in proportion to the ardour of the struggle, and when the victory is gained, and reason is so far subdued, as seldom to trouble us with its remonstrances, the happiness we have then attained, is not the happiness of our rational nature, but the happiness only of the inferior and sensual part of us; and consequently a very low and imperfect happiness, compared with that which the other would have afforded us. Virtue is the best preservative of health, as it prescribes temperance, and such a regulation of our passions as is most conducive to the well being of the animal economy. So that it is at the same time the only true happiness of the mind, and the best means of preserving the health of the body. If our desires are for the things of this world, they are never to be satisfied. If our great view is upon those of the next, the expectation of them is an infinitely higher satisfaction than the enjoyment of those of the present. There is no true happiness then but in a virtuous and self-approving conduct; unless our actions will bear the test of our sober judgments and reflections upon them, they are not the actions, and consequently not the happiness of a rational being. On Self-Denial.-From the Pennsylvania It is commonly asserted, that without selfdenial there is no virtue, and that the greater the self-denial is, the greater is the virtue. If it were said, that he who cannot deny himself any thing he inclines to, though he knows it will be to his hurt, has not the virtue of resolution or fortitude, it would be intelligible enough; but as it stands, the propo If we reflect upon any one passion and disposition of mind abstracted from virtue, we shall soon see the disconnexion between that and true solid happiness; it is of the very es-sition seems obscure or erroneous. sence, for instance, of envy to be uneasy and disquieted: pride meets with provocations and disturbances upon almost every occasion: covetousness is ever attended with solicitude and anxiety ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us; its appetite grows the keener by indulgence, and all we can gratify it with at present, serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires. The passions, by being too much conversant with earthly objects, can never fix in us a proper composure, and acquiescence of mind. Nothing but an indifference to the things of this world, an entire submission to the will of Providence here, and a well-grounded expectation of happiness hereafter, can give us a true satisfactory enjoyment of ourselves. Vir tue is the best guard against the many unavoidable evils incident to us; nothing better alleviates the weight of the afflictions, or gives a truer relish of the blessings of human life. What is without us has not the least connexion with happiness, only so far as the preservation of our lives and health depends up Let us consider some of the virtues singly. If a man has no inclination to wrong people in his dealings; if he feels no temptation to it, and therefore never does it, can it be said, that he is not a just man? if he is a just man, has he not the virtue of justice? If to a certain man, idle diversions have nothing in them that is tempting, and therefore he never relaxes his application to business for their sake, is he not an industrious man; or has he not the virtue of industry? I might in like manner instance in all the rest of the virtues; but to make the thing short, as it is certain, that the more we strive against the temptation to any vice, and practise the contrary virtue, the weaker will that temptation be, and the stronger will be that habit; till at length the temptation hath no force, or entirely vanishes: does it follow from thence, that in our endeavours to overcome vice, we grow continually less and less virtuous, till at length we have no virtue at all? If self-denial be the essence of virtue, then it follows, that the man who is naturally tem Derate, just, &c., is not virtuous, but that in order to be virtuous, he must, in spite of his natural inclinations, wrong his neighbours, and eat and drink, &c., to excess. But, perhaps it may be said, that by the word virtue, in the above assertion, is meant merit, and so it should stand; thus without self-denial there is no merit; and the greater the self-denial the greater the merit. The self-denial here meant must be, when our inclinations are towards vice, or else it I would still be nonsense. By merit is understood desert; and when we say a man merits, we mean that he deserves praise or reward. We do not pretend to merit any thing of God, for he is above our services, and the benefits he confers on us are the effects of his goodness and bounty. All our merit then is with regard to one another, and from one to another. Taking then the proposition as it stands If a man does me a service, from a natural benevolent inclination, does he deserve less of me than another, who does me the like kindness against his inclination? If I have two journeymen, one naturally industrious, the other idle, but both perform a day's work equally good, ought I to give the latter the most wages? Indeed lazy workmen are commonly observed to be more extravagant in their demands than the industrious; for if they have not more for their work, they cannot live as well as the industrious. But though it be true to a proverb, that lazy folks take the most pains, does it follow that they deserve the most money? If you were to employ servants in affairs of trust, would you pay more wages to one you knew was naturally honest, than for one naturally roguish, but who had lately acted honestly: for currents whose natural channels are dammed up, till a new course is by time worn sufficiently deep, and become natural, are apt to break their banks. If one servant is more valuable than another, has he not more merit than the other, and yet this is not on account of superior self-denial. Is a patriot not praiseworthy, if public spirit is natural to him? Is a pacing horse less valuable for being a natural pacer? Nor in my opinion has any man less merit for having in general naturally virtuous inclinations. The truth is, that temperance, justice, charity, &c., are virtues whether practised with or against our inclinations; and the man who practises them, merits our love and esteem and self-denial is neither good nor bad, but as it is applied. He that denies a vicious inclination, is virtuous in proportion to his reso lution; but the most perfect virtue is above all temptation; such as the virtue of the saints in heaven: and he who does any foolish, indecent, or wicked thing, merely because it is contrary to his inclination, like some mad enthusiasts I have read of, who ran about in public naked, under the notion of taking up the cross, is not practising the reasonable science of virtue, but is lunatic. Newcastle, Feb. 5. Rivalship in Almanac making.—From Poor Richard's Almanac, 1742. COURTEOUS READER,-This is the ninth year of my endeavours to serve thee in the capacity of a calendar-writer. The encouragement I have met with must be ascribed, in a great measure, to your charity, excited by the open, honest declaration I made of my poverty at my first appearance. This my brother Philomaths could, without being conjurers discover; and Poor Richard's success, has produced ye a Poor Will, and a Poor Robin; and no doubt, Poor John, &c., will follow, and we shall all be, in nume, what some folks say we are already in fact, a parcel of poor almanac makers. During the course of these nine years, what buffetings have I not sustained! The fraternity have been all in arms. Honest Titan, deceased, was raised, and made to abuse his old friend. Both authors and printers were angry. Hard names, and many, were bestowed on me. They denied me to be the author of my own works; declared there never was any such person; asserted that I was dead sixty years ago; prognosti cated my death to happen within a twelvemonth: with many other malicious inconsistencies, the effects of blind passion, envy at m success; and a vain hope of depriving me, dea reader, of thy wonted countenance and favour. -Who knows him? they cry: Where does he live ?-But what is that to them? If I delight in a private life, have they any right to drag me out of my retirement? I have good reasons for concealing the place of my abode. It is time for an old man, as I am, to think of preparing for his great remove. The perpetual teasing of both neighbours and strangers, to calculate nativities, give judgments on schemes, and erect figures, discover thieves, detect horse-stealers, describe the route of runaways and strayed cattle; the crowd of visiters with a thousand trifling questions; Will my ship return safe? Will my mare win the race? Will her next colt be a pacer? When will my wife die? Who shall be my husband? and HOW LONG first? When is the best time to cut hair, trim cocks, or sow salad? These and the like impertinences I have now neither taste nor leisure for. I have had enough of them. All that these angry folks can say, will never provoke me to tell them where I live-I would eat my nails first. My last adversary is J. J -n, philomat. who declares and protests (in his preface, 1741) that the false prophecy put in my almanac, concerning him, the year before, is altogether false and untrue: and that I am one of Baal's false prophets. This false, false prophecy he speaks of, related to his reconciliation with the church of Rome; which, notwithstanding his declaring and protesting, is, I fear, too true. Two things in his elegiac verses confirm me in this suspicion. He calls the first of November All-Hallows day. Reader, does not this smell of popery? Does it in the least savour of the pure language of Friends? But the plainest thing is, his adoration of saints, which he confesses to be his practice, in these words, page 4. When any trouble did me befall, To my dear Mary then I would call: Did he think the whole world were so stupid as not to take notice of this? So ignorant as not to know, that all catholics pay the highest regard to the Virgin Mary? Ah! friend John, we must allow you to be a poet, but you are certainly no protestant. I could heartily wish your religion were as good as RICHARD SAUNDERS. your verses. The Waste of Life. ings had been made a sacrifice to support his carcase, and how much corn and wine had been mingled with those offerings. He had not quite lost all the arithmetic that he learned when he was a boy, and he set himself to compute what he had devoured since he came to the age of man. "About a dozen feathered creatures, small and great, have one week with another (said he) given up their lives to prolong mine, which in ten years amounts to at least six thousand. 66 Fifty sheep have been sacrificed in a year, with half a hecatomb of black cattle, that I might have the choicest part offered weekly upon my table. Thus a thousand beasts out of the flock and the herd have been slain in ten years time to feed me, besides what the forest has supplied me with. Many hundreds of fishes have in all their varieties, been robbed of life for my repast, and of the smaller fry as many thousands. "A measure of corn would hardly afford fine flour enough for a month's provision, and this arises to above six score bushels; and many hogsheads of ale and wine, and other liquors, have passed through this body of mine, this wretched strainer of meat and drink. "And what have I done all this time for God or man? What a vast profusion of good things upon an useless life, and a worthless liver? There is not the meanest creature among all these which I have devoured, but hath answered the end of its creation better than I. It was made to support human nature, and it hath done so. Every crab and oyster I have eat, and every grain of corn I have devoured, hath filled up its place in the rank of beings with more propriety and honour than I have done: O shameful waste of life and time!" ANERGUS was a gentleman of a good estate, he was bred to no business, and could not contrive how to waste his hours agreeably; he had no relish for any of the proper works of life, nor any taste at all for the improvements of the mind; he spent generally ten hours of the four-and-twenty in his bed; he dozed away two or three more on his couch, and as many were dissolved in good liquor every evening, if he met with company of his own In short, he carried on his moral reflections humour. Five or six of the rest he saunter- with so just and severe a force of reason, as ed away with much indolence: the chief busi- constrained him to change his whole course ness of them was to contrive his meals, and of life, to break off his follies at once, and to to feed his fancy before-hand, with the pro-apply himself to gain some useful knowledge, mise of a dinner and supper; not that he was so very a glutton, or so entirely devoted to appetite; but chiefly because he knew not how to employ his thoughts better, he let them rove about the sustenance of his body. Thus he had made a shift to wear off ten years since the paternal estate fell into his hands and yet according to the abuse of words in our day, he was called a man of virtue, because he was scarce ever known to be quite drunk, nor was his nature much inclined to lewdness. One evening as he was musing along, his thoughts happened to take a most unusual turn, for they cast a glance backward, and began to reflect on his manner of life. He bethought himself what a number of living be when he was more than thirty years of age; he lived many following years, with the character of a worthy man, and an excellent Christian; he performed the kind offices of a good neighbour at home, and made a shining figure as a patriot in the senate-house, he died with a peaceful conscience, and the tears of his country were dropped upon his tomb. The world, that knew the whole series of his life, stood amazed at the mighty change. They beheld him as a wonder of reformation, while he himself confessed and adored the divine power and mercy, which had transformed him from a brute to a man. But this was a single instance; and we may almost venture to write MIRACLE upon it. Are there not numbers of both sexes among our young gentry, in this degenerate age, whose lives thus run to utter waste, without the least tendency to usefulness. When I meet with persons of such a worthless character as this, it brings to my mind some scraps of Horace, Nos numerus sumus, et fruges consumere nati. There are a number of us creep And know no reason why they're born -Exacto contentus tempore vitæ Lusisti satus, edisti satis atque bibisti; Which may be thus put into English. DIALOGUE I. Between Philocles and Horatio meeting accidentally in the fields, concerning Virtue and Pleasure. From the Pennsylvania Gazette, No. 84, June 23, 1730. Philocles. My friend Horatio! I am very glad to see you; prithee how came such a man as you alone? and musing too? What misfortune in your pleasures has sent you to philosophy for relief. Horatio. You guess very right, my dear Philocles we pleasure-hunters are never without them; and yet, so enchanting is the game, we cannot quit the chace. How calm and undisturbed is your life, how free from present embarrassments and future cares; I know you love me, and look with compassion upon my conduct: show me then the path which leads up to that constant and invariable good, which I have heard you so beautifully describe, and which you seem so fully to I have oft observed in you an honest heart, and a mind strongly bent towards virtue. I wish, from my soul, I could assist you in acting steadily the part of a reasonable creature: for, if you would not think it a paradox, I should tell you I love you better than you do yourself. Hor. A paradox indeed! better than I do myself! when I love my dear self so well, that I love every thing else for my own sake. Phil. He only loves himself well, who rightly and judiciously loves himself. Hor. What do you mean by that, Philocles? You men of reason and virtue are always dealing in mysteries, though you laugh at them when the church makes them. I think he loves himself very well and very judiciously too; as you call it, who allows himself to do whatever he pleases. Phil. What, though it be to the ruin and destruction of that very self which he loves so well! That man alone loves himself rightly, who procures the greatest possible good to himself through the whole of his existence; and so pursues pleasure as not to give for it more than it is worth. Hor. That depends all upon opinion. Who shall judge what the pleasure is worth? Suppose a pleasing form of the fair kind strikes me so much, that I can enjoy nothing without the enjoyment of that one object. Or, that pleasure in general is so favourite a mistress, that I will take her as men do their wives, for better, for worse; minding no consequences, nor regarding what is to come. Why should I not do it? Phil. Suppose, Horatio! that a friend of yours entered into the world, about two and twenty, with a healthful vigorous body, and a fair plentiful estate of about five hundred pounds a year; and yet, before he had reached thirty, should, by following his pleasures, and not, as you say, duly regarding consequences, have run out of his estate, and disabled his body to that degree, that he had neither the means nor capacity of enjoyment left; nor any thing else to do but wisely shoot himself through the head to be at rest: what would you say to this unfortunate man's conduct? Is it wrong by opinion or fancy only? Or is there really a right and wrong in the case? Is not one opinion of life and action juster than another? Or one sort of conduct preferable to another? Or, does that miserable son of pleasure appear as reasonable and lovely a being in your eyes, as a man, who by prudently and rightly gratifying his natural passions, had preserved his body in full health and his estate entire, and enjoyed both to a good old age, and then died with a thankfu! heart for the good things he had received, and with an entire submission to the will of Him who first called him into being. Say, Horatio! are these men equally wise and happy? And is every thing to be measured by mere in truth, the kindest and most beautiful mistress fancy and opinion, without considering whe- in the world. ther that fancy or opinion be right? Hor. Hardly so neither, I think; yet sure the wise and good Author of nature could never make us to plague us. He could never give us passions, on purpose to subdue and conquer them; nor produce this self of mine, or any other self, only that it may be denied; for, that is denying the works of the great Creator himself. Self-denial then, which is what I suppose you mean by prudence, seems to me not only absurd, but very dishonourable to that supreme wisdom and goodness which is supposed to make so ridiculous and contradictory a creature, that must be always fighting with himself in order to be at rest, and undergo voluntary hardships in order to be happy are we created sick, only to be commanded to be sound? Are we born under one law, our passions, and yet bound to another, that of reason? Answer me, Philocles, for I am warmly concerned for the honour of nature, the mother of us all. Hor. Prithee, Philocles, do not wrap your self in allegory and metaphor: why do you teaze me thus! I long to be satisfied, what is this philosophical self-denial; the necessity and reason of it; I am impatient, and all on fire; explain, therefore, in your beautiful na. tural easy way of reasoning, what I am to understand by this grave lady of yours, with so forbidding downcast looks, and yet, so absolutely necessary to my pleasures, I stand ready to embrace her; for you know, pleasure I court under all shapes and forms. Phil. Attend then, and you will see the reason of this philosophical self-denial. There can be no absolute perfection in any creature; because every creature is derived from something of a superior existence, and dependant on that source for its own existence: no created being can be all-wise, all-good, and allpowerful, because his powers and capacities are finite and limited: consequently whatever is created must, in its own nature, be subject to error, irregularity, excess, and imperfectness. All intelligent rational agents find in themselves a power of judging what kind of beings they are: what actions are proper to preserve them; and what consequences will generally attend them; what pleasures they are formed for, and to what degree their natures are capable of receiving them. All we have to do then, Horatio, is to consider, when we are surprised with a new object, and passionately desire to enjoy it, whether the gratifying that passion be consistent with the gratifying other passion and appetites equal, if not more necessary to us. And whether it consists with our happiness to-morrow, Hor. That is very true, at least it appears next week, or next year; for, as we all wish so to me; pray what have you to say, Philo- to live, we are obliged, by reason, to take as cles, in honour of nature or Providence; me- much care for our future, as our present hapthinks, I am in pain for her; How do you res-piness, and not build one upon the ruins of cue her poor lady! Phil. I find, Horatio, my two characters have frighted you; so that you decline the trial of what is good, by reason: and had rather make a bold attack upon Providence; the usual way of you gentlemen of fashion, who, when, by living in defiance of the eternal rules of reason, you have plunged yourselves into a thousand difficulties, endeavour to make yourselves easy, by throwing the burden upon nature; you are, Horatio, in a very miserable condition indeed; for you say, you cannot be happy if you control your passions; and you feel yourself miserable by an unrestrained gratification of them; so that here is evil, irremediable evil either way. Phil. This, my dear Horatio, I have to say that what you find fault with and clamour against, as the most terrible evil in the world, self-denial, is really the greatest good, and the highest self-gratification. If indeed you use the word in the sense of some weak sour moralists, and much weaker divines; you will have just reason to laugh at it; but, if you take it, as understood by philosophers, and men of sense, you will presently see her charms, and fly to her embraces, notwithstanding her demure looks, as absolutely necessary to produce even your own darling sole good, pleasure; for, self denial is never a duty, or a reasonable action, but as it is a natural means of procuring more pleasure than you can taste without it, so that this grave saint-like guide to happiness, as rough and dreadful as she has been made to appear, is the other but, if through the strength and power of a present passion, and through want of attending to consequences, we have erred and exceeded the bounds which nature or reason have set us; we are then, for our own sakes, to refrain, or deny ourselves a present momentary pleasure, for a future, constant, and durable one; so that this philosophical self-denial is only refusing to do an action, which you strongly desire; because it is inconsistent with your health, convenience, or circumstances in the world; or, in other words, because it would cost you more than it was worth. You would lose by it, as a man of pleasure. Thus you see, Horatio, that self-denial is not only the most reasonable, but the most pleasant thing in the world. Hor. We are just coming into town, so that we cannot pursue this argument any farther at present; you have said a great deal for na |