By JOSEPH ADDISON.
I consider an human soul without education, like marble in the quarry,
which shows none of its inherent beauties, till the skill of the
polisher fetches out the colors, makes the surface shine, and discovers
every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein, that runs through the body of
it. Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a noble mind,
draws out to view every latent virtue and perfection, which without
such helps are never able to make their appearance.
If my reader will give me leave to change the allusion so soon upon
him, I shall make use of the same instance to illustrate the force
of education, which Aristotle has brought to explain his doctrine
of substantial forms, when he tells us that a statue lies hid in a
block of marble; and that the art of the statuary only clears away
the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the
stone, the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of
marble, education is to an human soul. The philosopher, the saint,
or the hero, the wise, the good, or the great man, very often lie
hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have
disinterred, and have brought to light. I am, therefore, much delighted
with reading the accounts of savage nations, and with contemplating
those virtues which are wild and uncultivated; to see courage exerting
itself in fierceness, resolution in obstinacy, wisdom in cunning,
patience in sullenness and despair.
I can not forbear mentioning a story which I have lately heard, and
which is so well attested, that I have no manner of reason to suspect
the truth of it: I may call it a kind of wild tragedy that passed about
twelve years ago at St. Christopher’s, one of our British Leeward
Islands. The negroes who were concerned in it were all of them slaves
of a gentleman who is now in England.
This gentleman, among his negroes, had a young woman, who was looked
upon as a most extraordinary beauty by those of her own complexion. He
had at the same time two young fellows, who were likewise negroes and
slaves, remarkable for the comeliness of their persons, and for the
friendship which they bore to one another. It unfortunately happened
that both of them fell in love with the female negro above-mentioned,
who would have been very glad to have taken either of them for her
husband, provided they could agree between themselves which should be
the man. But they were both so passionately in love with her, that
neither of them could think of giving her up to his rival; and at the
same time were so true to one another, that neither of them would think
of gaining her without his friend’s consent. The torments of these
two lovers were the discourse of the family to which they belonged,
who could not forbear observing the strange complication of passions
which perplexed the hearts of the poor negroes, that often dropped
expressions of the uneasiness they underwent, and how impossible it was
for either of them ever to be happy.
After a long struggle between love and friendship, truth and jealousy,
they one day took a walk together into a wood, carrying their mistress
along with them; where, after abundance of lamentation, they stabbed
her to the heart, of which she immediately died. A slave, who was at
his work not far from the place where this astonishing piece of cruelty
was committed, hearing the shrieks of the dying person, ran to see what
was the occasion of them. He there discovered the woman lying dead
upon the ground, with the two negroes on each side of her kissing the
dead corpse, weeping over it, and beating their breasts in the utmost
agonies of grief and despair. He immediately ran to the English family
with the news of what he had seen; who, upon coming to the place, saw
the woman dead, and the two negroes expiring by her with wounds they
had given themselves.
We see in this amazing instance of barbarity, what strange disorders
are bred in the minds of those men whose passions are not regulated
by virtue, and disciplined by reason. Though the action which I have
recited is in itself full of guilt and horror, it proceeded from a
temper of mind which might have produced very noble fruits, had it been
formed and guided by a suitable education.
It is, therefore, an unspeakable blessing to be born in those parts
of the world where wisdom and knowledge flourish; though it must be
confessed, there are, even in these parts, several poor uninstructed
persons, who are but little above the inhabitants of those nations of
which I have been here speaking; as those who have had the advantage of
a more liberal education, rise above one another by several different
degrees of perfection. For to return to our statue in the block of
marble, we see it sometimes only begun to be chipped, sometimes
rough-hewn, and but just sketched in an human figure; sometimes we see
the man appearing distinctly in all his limbs and features, sometimes
we find the figure wrought up to a great elegancy, but seldom meet
with any to which the hand of a Phidias or a Praxiteles could not give
several nice touches and finishings.