XXIII. There is not, as I have already said, any instruction whatever,
that is capable of supplying or correcting these defects. Tuition, cannot
communicate valour to him, who has it not naturally; and the knowledge
of what people you can put confidence in, upon such and such particular
occasions, is precisely the effect of perspicuity and native sagacity,
accompanied with sollicitous and vigilant observation; neither of which,
can ever be taught. He, who by his temperament and disposition is
slothful, can never be made active; because the temperament is not to be
mended or altered. When you have done your best to correct it, you will
find, that it is like a dull jadish horse, who, when he is spurred, will
be enlivened for a minute, but immediately afterwards reverts to his
ordinary sloth.
XXIV. And indeed, intellectual heaviness, is more difficult to be
remedied than the other. I defy you to spur a slow understanding into
reasoning with any agility; nor can you make it advance a step faster
without causing it to stumble; and he who, left to his own natural
heaviness, might possibly hit upon something right, if he is hurried,
would be for ever making mistakes and blunders. Load such a man with
political lessons, and you will find, that it would have the effect of a
burden laid upon a dull beast; which would make him to move more heavily
than he did before. While he is revolving in his mind precepts and
examples, and examining them one by one, to determine which is adaptable
to the circumstances and matter he is to determine upon, he lets slip
the opportunity of giving his vote in the cabinet, or of acting in the
business.
XXV. But supposing the matter in question admits of delay, he will
scarce find in all his expedients acquired by study, one, which in all
its circumstances, will exactly quadrate with the case in debate, for
the expecting to find repeated in their full extent, the same identical
complex of accidents, is entertaining a metaphysical idea, and wandering
out of the ordinary course of nature. It may be objected to this
reasoning, that a person of ability, might modify and suit the doctrines
he has been taught, by making a few alterations in them, to fit the case
in question: I answer, that the same talents that it would require to
do this, would enable him, without resorting to this auxiliary aid, to
find out a proper expedient in the business himself. And it is worthy
of observation, that an expedient, which a man who is to negotiate a
business hits upon himself, although in general it may be inferior to
one that might be acquired by study, still it may do better for that
particular occasion, than the one of superior quality, which was the
offspring of another understanding. There is no man whatever, who does
not with more dexterity, carry into execution his own ideas, than those
of other people; for these are plants which thrive but ill, when they are
transplanted from their own native soil. Every one comprehends the force,
the use, and the opportuneness of a maxim, which springs from the source
of his own mind; and on account of the correspondence and agreement there
is, between the reasoning and the operative faculties in one and the same
person, a man’s head, accommodates itself well to the execution of the
means, which his own understanding invented.
XXVI. But, abstracted from this consideration, it is certain, that all
men have their distinct mode of acting; and the mode of operation, is of
the utmost importance for the attaining of ends. Of what use would my
having read the device, with which another man extricated himself from a
difficulty, if when I had occasion to put the same scheme in practice,
I found myself not possessed of the dexterity, the agility, the air and
manner, with which the other gave life and efficacy to his contrivance?
a deficiency in point of valour only, would spoil the whole; it being an
established truth, that a tremulous hand cannot draw a steady line.