This fable is designed to show us how unreasonable many people are for
living in such continual fears and disquiets about the miserableness of
their condition. There is hardly any state of life great enough to
satisfy the wishes of an ambitious man; and scarce any so mean but may
supply all the necessities of him that is moderate. But if people will
be so unwise as to work themselves up to imaginary misfortunes, why do
they grumble at nature and their stars, when their own perverse minds
are only to blame? If we are to conclude ourselves unhappy by as many
degrees as there are others greater than we, why then the greatest part
of mankind must be miserable, in some degree at least. But, if they who
repine at their own afflicted condition, would but reckon up how many
more there are with whom they would not change cases, than whose
pleasures they envy, they would certainly rise up better satisfied from
such a calculation. But what shall we say to those who have a way of
creating themselves panics from the rustling of the wind, the scratching
of a Rat or Mouse behind the hangings, the fluttering of a Moth, or the
motion of their own shadow by moonlight? Their whole life is as full of
alarms as that of a Hare, and they never think themselves so happy as
when, like the timorous folks in the fable, they meet with a set of
creatures as fearful as themselves.