<gr> Ta<u?>t' eidwoes isqi, mathn d' 'Epicouron eason
<gr> Ho<u?> tooe cen<ooen zhte<i?>n, caioe tines ai monades.
AUTOMEDON.
On life, on morals, be thy thoughts employ'd;
Leave to the schools their atoms and their void.
IT is somewhere related by Le Clerc, that a wealthy
trader of good understanding, having the common
ambition to breed his son a scholar, carried him to
an university, resolving to use his own judgment
in the choice of a tutor. He had been taught, by
whatever intelligence, the nearest way to the heart
of an academick, and at his arrival entertained all
who came about him with such profusion, that the
professors were lured by the smell of his table from
their books, and flocked round him with all the
cringes of awkward complaisance. This eagerness
answered the merchant's purpose: he glutted them
with delicacies, and softened them with caresses,
till he prevailed upon one after another to open his
bosom, and make a discovery of his competitions,
jealousies, and resentments. Having thus learned
each man's character, partly from himself, and partly
from his acquaintances, he resolved to find some
other education for his son, and went away convinced,
that a scholastick life has no other tendency
than to vitiate the morals and contract the
understanding: nor would he afterwards hear with patience
the praises of the ancient authors, being persuaded
that scholars of all ages must have been the same,
and that Xenophon and Cicero were professors of
some former university, and therefore mean and
selfish, ignorant and servile, like those whom he had
lately visited and forsaken.
Envy, curiosity, and a sense of the imperfection
of our present state, incline us to estimate the
advantages which are in the possession of others above
their real value. Every one must have remarked,
what powers and prerogatives the vulgar imagine
to be conferred by learning. A man of science is
expected to excel the unlettered and unenlightened
even on occasions where literature is of no use,
and among weak minds, loses part of his reverence,
by discovering no superiority in those parts
of life, in which all are unavoidably equal; as
when a monarch makes a progress to the remoter
provinces, the rustics are said sometimes to
wonder that they find him of the same size with
themselves.
These demands of prejudice and folly can never be
satisfied; and therefore many of the imputations
which learning suffers from disappointed ignorance,
are without reproach. But there are some failures,
to which men of study are peculiarly exposed. Every
condition has its disadvantages. The circle of
knowledge is too wide for the most active and diligent
intellect, and while science is pursued, other
accomplishments are neglected; as a small garrison must
leave one part of an extensive fortress naked, when
an alarm calls them to another.
The learned, however, might generally support
their dignity with more success, if they suffered not
themselves to be misled by the desire of superfluous
attainments. Raphael, in return to Adam's inquiries
into the courses of the stars, and the revolutions of
heaven, counsels him to withdraw his mind from
idle speculations, and employ his faculties upon
nearer and more interesting objects, the survey
of his own life, the subjection of his passions, the
knowledge of duties which must daily be performed,
and the detection of dangers which must daily be
incurred.
This angelick counsel every man of letters should
always have before him. He that devotes himself
to retired study naturally sinks from omission to
forgetfulness of social duties; he must be therefore
sometimes awakened and recalled to the general
condition of mankind.
I am far from any intention to limit curiosity, or
confine the labours of learning to arts of immediate
and necessary use. It is only from the various
essays of experimental industry, and the vague
excursions of minds sent out upon discovery, that
any advancement of knowledge can be expected;
and, though many must be disappointed in their
labours, yet they are not to be charged with having
spent their time in vain; their example contributed
to inspire emulation, and their miscarriages taught
others the way to success.
But the distant hope of being one day useful or
eminent, ought not to mislead us too far from that
study which is equally requisite to the great and
mean, to the celebrated and obscure; the art of
moderating the desires, of repressing the appetites,
and of conciliating or retaining the favour of
mankind.
No man can imagine the course of his own life,
or the conduct of the world around him, unworthy
his attention; yet, among the sons of learning,
many seem to have thought of every thing rather
than of themselves, and to have observed every
thing but what passes before their eyes: many who
toil through the intricacy of complicated systems,
are insuperably embarrassed with the least perplexity
in common affairs; many who compare the
actions, and ascertain the characters of ancient
heroes, let their own days glide away without
examination, and suffer vicious habits to encroach upon
their minds without resistance or detection,
The most frequent reproach of the scholastick race
is the want of fortitude, not martial but philosophick.
Men bred in shades and silence, taught to immure
themselves at sunset, and accustomed to no
other weapon than syllogism, may be allowed to
feel terrour at personal danger, and to be
disconcerted by tumult and alarm. But why should he
whose life is spent in contemplation, and whose
business is only to discover truth, be unable to
rectify the fallacies of imagination, or contend
successfully against prejudice and passion? To what
end has he read and meditated, if he gives up his
understanding to false appearances, and suffers
himself to be enslaved by fear of evils to which
only folly or vanity can expose him, or elated
by advantages to which, as they are equally
conferred upon the good and the bad, no real dignity
is annexed.
Such, however, is the state of the world, that the
most obsequious of the slaves of pride, the most
rapturous of the gazers upon wealth, the most
officious of the whisperers of greatness, are collected
from seminaries appropriated to the study of wisdom
and of virtue, where it was intended that
appetite should learn to be content with little, and
that hope should aspire only to honours which no
human power can give or take away[a].
[a] "Such are a sort of sacrilegious ministers in the temple of
intellect. They profane its shew-bread to pamper the palate, its
everlasting lamp they use to light unholy fires within their
breast, and show them the way to the sensual chambers of sense
and worldliness." IRVING.
The student, when he comes forth into the world,
instead of congratulating himself upon his exemption
from the errours of those whose opinions have
been formed by accident or custom, and who live
without any certain principles of conduct, is
commonly in haste to mingle with the multitude, and
shew his sprightliness and ductility by an
expeditious compliance with fashions or vices. The first
smile of a man, whose fortune gives him power to
reward his dependants, commonly enchants him
beyond resistance; the glare of equipage, the sweets
of luxury, the liberality of general promises, the
softness of habitual affability, fill his imagination;
and he soon ceases to have any other wish than to
be well received, or any measure of right and wrong
but the opinion of his patron.
A man flattered and obeyed, learns to exact
grosser adulation, and enjoin lower submission.
Neither our virtues nor vices are all our own. If
there were no cowardice, there would be little
insolence; pride cannot rise to any great degree, but
by the concurrence of blandishment or the sufferance
of tameness. The wretch who would shrink
and crouch before one that should dart his eyes
upon him with the spirit of natural equality, becomes
capricious and tyrannical when he sees himself
approached with a downcast look, and hears the soft
address of awe and servility. To those who are willing
to purchase favour by cringes and compliance,
is to be imputed the haughtiness that leaves nothing
to be hoped by firmness and integrity.
If, instead of wandering after the meteors of
philosophy, which fill the world with splendour for
a while, and then sink and are forgotten, the
candidates of learning fixed their eyes upon the
permanent lustre of moral and religious truth, they would
find a more certain direction to happiness. A little
plausibility of discourse, and acquaintance with
unnecessary speculations, is dearly purchased, when
it excludes those instructions which fortify the heart
with resolution, and exalt the spirit to independence.