A man should weigh and consider the nature of any proposal well before
he gives into it; for a rash and hasty compliance has been the ruin of
many a one. And it is the quintessence of prudence not to be too easy of
belief. Indeed the multitude think altogether in the same track, and are
much upon a footing. Their meditations are confined in one channel, and
they follow one another, very orderly, in a regular stupidity. Can a man
of thought and spirit be harnessed thus, and trudge along like a
pack-horse, in a deep, stinking, muddy road, when he may frisk it over
the beauteous lawns, or lose himself agreeably in the shady verdant
mazes of unrestrained contemplation? It is impossible. Vulgar notions
are so generally attended with error, that wherever one traces the
footsteps of the many, tending all one way, it is enough to make one
suspect, with the Fox in the fable, that there is some trick in it. The
eye of reason is dulled and stupified when it is confined, and made to
gaze continually upon the same thing: it rather chooses to look about
it, and amuse itself with variety of objects, as they lie scattered up
and down in the unbounded prospect. He that goes implicitly into a
thing, may be mistaken, notwithstanding the number of those who keep him
company; but he that keeps out till he sees reason to enter, acts upon
true maxims of policy and prudence. In short, it becomes us, as we are
reasonable creatures, to behave ourselves as such, and to do as few
things as possible, of which we may have occasion to repent.