Hor. I plainly see, that mankind might subsist and survive to

multiply, and get the mastery over all other creatures that should

oppose them; and as this could never have been brought about, unless

men had assisted one another against savage beasts, it is possible

that the necessity men were in of joining and uniting together, was

the first step toward society. Thus far I am willing to allow you to

have proved your main point: but to ascribe all this to Providence,

otherwise than that nothing is done without the Divine permission,

seems inconsistent with the ideas we have of a perfectly good and

merciful Being. It is possible, that all poisonous animals may have

something in them that is beneficial to men; and I will not dispute

with you, whether the most venomous of all the serpents which Lucan

has made mention of, did not contain some antidote, or other fine

medicine, still undiscovered: but when I look upon the vast variety

of ravenous and blood-thirsty creatures, that are not only superior

to us in strength, but likewise visibly armed by nature, as it were

on purpose for our destruction; when, I say, I look upon these, I

can find out no use for them, nor what they could be designed for,

unless it be to punish us: but I can much less conceive, that the

Divine Wisdom should have made them the means without which men could

not have been civilized. How many thousands of our species must have

been devoured in the conflicts with them!

Cleo. Ten troops of wolves, with fifty in each, would make a terrible

havoc, in a long winter, among a million of our species with their

hands tied behind them; but among half that number, one pestilence

has been known to slaughter more, than so many wolves could have eaten

in the same time; notwithstanding the great resistance that was made

against it, by approved of medicines and able physicians. It is owing

to the principle of pride we are born with, and the high value we all,

for the sake of one, have for our species, that men imagine the whole

universe to be principally made for their use; and this error makes

them commit a thousand extravagancies, and have pitiful and most

unworthy notions of God and his works. It is not greater cruelty, or

more unnatural, in a wolf to eat a piece of a man, than it is in a man

to eat part of a lamb or a chicken. What, or how many purposes wild

beasts were made for, is not for us to determine; but that they were

made, we know; and that some of them must have been very calamitous

to every infant nation, and settlement of men, is almost as certain:

this you was fully persuaded of; and thought, moreover, that they must

have been such an obstacle to the very subsistence of our species, as

was insurmountable: In answer to this difficulty, which you started,

I showed you, from the different instincts and peculiar tendencies of

animals, that in nature a manifest provision was made for our species:

by which, notwithstanding the rage and power of the fiercest beasts,

we should make a shift, naked and defenceless, to escape their fury,

so as to be able to maintain ourselves and multiply our kind, till

by our numbers, and arms acquired by our own industry, we could put

to flight, or destroy all savage beasts without exception, whatever

spot of the globe we might have a mind to cultivate and settle on. The

necessary blessings we receive from the sun, are obvious to a child;

and it is demonstrable, that without it, none of the living creatures

that are now upon the earth, could subsist. But if it were of no

other use, being eight hundred thousand times bigger than the earth

at least, one thousandth part of it would do our business as well, if

it was but nearer to us in proportion. From this consideration alone,

I am persuaded, that the sun was made to enlighten and cherish other

bodies, besides this planet of ours. Fire and water were designed for

innumerable purposes; and among the uses that are made of them, some

are immensely different from others. But whilst we receive the benefit

of these, and are only intent on ourselves, it is highly probable,

that there are thousands of things, and perhaps our own machines among

them, that, in the vast system of the universe, are now serving some

very wise ends, which we shall never know. According to that plan

of this globe, I mean the scheme of government, in relation to the

living creatures that inhabit the earth, the destruction of animals

is as necessary as the generation of them.

Hor. I have learned that from the Fable of the Bees; and I believe what

I have read there to be very true; that, if any one species was to

be exempt from death, it would in time crush all the rest to pieces,

though the first were sheep, and the latter all lions: but that the

Supreme Being should have introduced society at the expence of so

many lives of our species, I cannot believe, when it might have been

done much better in a milder way.

Cleo. We are speaking of what probably was done, and not of what might

have been done. There is no question, but the same Power that made

whales, might have made us seventy feet high, and given us strength

in proportion. But since the plan of this globe requires, and you

think it necessary yourself, that in every species some should die

almost as fast as others are born, why should you take away any of

the means of dying?

Hor. Are there not diseases enough, physicians and apothecaries,

as well as wars by sea and land, that may take off more than the

redundancy of our species?

Cleo. They may, it is true; but in fact they are not always sufficient

to do this: and in populous nations we see, that war, wild beasts,

hanging, drowning, and an hundred casualties together, with sickness

and all its attendants, are hardly a match for one invisible faculty of

ours, which is the instinct men have to preserve their species. Every

thing is easy to the Deity; but to speak after an human manner, it is

evident, that in forming this earth, and every thing that is in it,

no less wisdom or solicitude was required, in contriving the various

ways and means, to get rid and destroy animals, than seems to have

been employed in producing them; and it is as demonstrable, that our

bodies were made on purpose not to last beyond such a period, as it

is, that some houses are built with a design not to stand longer than

such a term of years. But it is death itself to which our aversion by

nature is universal; as to the manner of dying, men differ in their

opinions; and I never heard of one yet that was generally liked of.

Hor. But nobody chooses a cruel one. What an unspeakable and infinitely

excruciating torment must it be, to be torn to pieces, and eat alive

by a savage beast!

Cleo. Not greater, I can assure you; than are daily occasioned by

the gout in the stomach, and the stone in the bladder.

Hor. Which way can you give me this assurance; how can you prove it?

Cleo. From our fabric itself, the frame of human bodies, that cannot

admit of any torment, infinitely excruciating. The degrees of pain, as

well as of pleasure, in this life are limited, and exactly proportioned

to every one's strength; whatever exceeds that, takes away the senses;

and whoever has once fainted away with the extremity of any torture,

knows the fall extent of what here he can suffer, if he remembers what

he felt. The real mischief which wild beasts have done to our species,

and the calamities they have brought upon it, are not to be compared

to the cruel usage, and the multiplicity of mortal injuries which men

have received from one another. Set before your eyes a robust warrior,

that having lost a limb in battle, is afterwards trampled upon by

twenty horses; and tell me, pray, whether you think, that lying thus

helpless with most of his ribs broke, and a fractured skull, in the

agony of death, for several hours, he suffers less than if a lion

had dispatched him?

Hor. They are both very bad.

Cleo. In the choice of things we are more often directed by the caprice

of fashions, and the custom of the age, than we are by solid reason,

or our own understanding. There is no greater comfort in dying

of a dropsy, and in being eaten by worms, than there is in being

drowned at sea, and becoming the prey of fishes. But in our narrow

way of thinking, there is something that subverts and corrupt our

judgment; how else could persons of known elegancy in their taste,

prefer rotting and stinking in a loathsome sepulchre, to their being

burnt in the open air to inoffensive ashes?

Hor. I freely own, that I have an aversion to every thing that is

shocking and unnatural.

Cleo. What you call shocking, I do not know; but nothing is more

common to nature, or more agreeable to her ordinary course, than that

creatures should live upon one another. The whole system of animated

beings on the earth seems to be built upon this; and there is not

one species that we know of, that has not another that feeds upon

it, either alive or dead; and most kind of fish are forced to live

upon fish. That this in the last-mentioned, was not an omission or

neglect, is evident from the large provision nature has made for it,

far exceeding any thing she has done for other animals.

Hor. You mean the prodigious quantity of roe they spawn.

Cleo. Yes; and that the eggs contained in them, receive not their

fecundity until after they are excluded; by which means the female

may be filled with as many of them as her belly can hold, and the

eggs themselves may be more closely crowded together, than would be

consistent with the admission of any substance from the male: without

this, one fish could not bring forth yearly such a prodigious shoal.

Hor. But might not the aura seminalis of the male be subtle enough to

penetrate the whole cluster of eggs, and influence every one of them,

without taking up any room, as it does in fowls and other oviparous

animals?

Cleo. The ostrich excepted in the first place: in the second, there

are no other oviparous animals in which the eggs are so closely

compacted together, as they are in fish. But suppose the prolific

power should pervade the whole mass of them; if all the eggs which

some of the females are crammed with, were to be impregnated whilst

they are within the fish, it is impossible but the aura seminalis, the

prolific spirit of the male, though it took up no room itself, would,

as it does in all other creatures, dilate, and more or less distend

every egg; and the least expansion of so many individuals would swell

the whole roe to a bulk that would require a much greater space, than

the cavity that now contains them. Is not here a contrivance beyond

imagination fine, to provide for the continuance of a species, though

every individual of it should be born with an instinct to destroy it!

Hor. What you speak of, is only true at sea, in a considerable part

of Europe at least: for in fresh water, most kinds of fish do not

feed on their own species, and yet they spawn in the same manner,

and are as full of roe as all the rest: among them, the only great

destroyer with us, is the pike.

Cleo. And he is a very ravenous one: We see in ponds, that where pikes

are suffered to be, no other fish shall ever increase in number. But in

rivers, and all waters near any land, there are amphibious fowls, and

many sorts of them, that live mostly upon fish: Of these water-fowls in

many places are prodigious quantities. Besides these, there are otters,

beavers, and many other creatures that live upon fish. In brooks and

shallow waters, the hearn and bittern will have their share: What is

taken off by them, perhaps is but little; but the young fry, and the

spawn that one pair of swans are able to consume in one year, would

very well serve to stock a considerable river. So they are but eat,

it is no matter what eats them, either their own species or another:

What I would prove, is, that nature produces no extraordinary numbers

of any species, but she has contrived means answerable to destroy

them. The variety of insects in the several parts of the world, would

be incredible to any one that has not examined into this matter;

and the different beauties to be observed in them is infinite: But

neither the beauty, nor the variety, of them, are more surprising,

than the industry of nature in the multiplicity of her contrivances

to kill them; and if the care and vigilance of all other animals in

destroying them were to cease at once, in two years time the greatest

part of the earth, which is ours now, would be theirs, and in many

countries insects would be the only inhabitants.

Hor. I have heard that whales live upon nothing else; that must make

a fine consumption.

Cleo. That is the general opinion, I suppose, because they never

find any fish in them; and because there are vast multitudes of

insects in those seas, hovering on the surface of the water. This

creature likewise helps to corroborate my assertion, that in the

numbers produced of every species, the greatest regard is had to

the consumption of them: This prodigious animal being too big to

be swallowed, nature in it has quite altered the economy observed

in all other fish; for they are viviparous, engender like other

viviparous animals, and have never above two or three young ones at

a time. For the continuance of every species among such an infinite

variety of creatures as this globe yields, it was highly necessary,

that the provision for their destruction should not be less ample,

than that which was made for the generation of them; and therefore

the solicitude of nature in procuring death, and the consumption

of animals, is visibly superior to the care she takes to seed and

preserve them.

Hor. Prove that pray.

Cleo. Millions of her creatures are starved every year, and doomed

to perish for want of sustenance; but whenever any die, there is

always plenty of mouths to devour them. But then, again, she gives

all she has: nothing is so fine or elaborate, as that she grudges

it for food; nor is any thing more extensive or impartial than her

bounty: she thinks nothing too good for the meanest of her broods,

and all creatures are equally welcome to every thing they can find to

eat. How curious is the workmanship in the structure of a common fly;

how inimitable are the celerity of his wings, and the quickness of all

his motions in hot weather! Should a Pythagorean, that was likewise

a good master in mechanics, by the help of a microscope, pry into

every minute part of this changeable creature, and duly consider

the elegancy of its machinery, would he not think it great pity,

that thousands of millions of animated beings, so nicely wrought and

admirably finished, should every day be devoured by little birds and

spiders, of which we stand in so little need? Nay, do not you think

yourself, that things would have been managed full as well, is the

quantity of flies had been less, and there had been no spiders at all?

Hor. I remember the fable of the Acorn and the Pumkin too well to

answer you; I do not trouble my head about it.

Cleo. Yet you found fault with the means, which I supposed Providence

had made use of to make men associate; I mean the common danger they

were in from wild beasts: though you owned the probability of its

having been the first motive of their uniting.

Hor. I cannot believe that Providence should have no greater regard

to our species, than it has to flies, and the spawn of fish: or that

nature has ever sported with the fate of human creatures, as she does

with the lives of insects, and been as wantonly lavish of the first,

as she seems to be of the latter. I wonder how you can reconcile this

to religion; you that are such a stickler for Christianity.

Cleo. Religion has nothing to do with it. But we are so full of our own

species, and the excellency of it, that we have no leisure seriously

to consider the system of this earth; I mean the plan on which the

economy of it is built, in relation to the living creatures that are

in and upon it.

Hor. I do not speak as to our species, but in respect to the Deity:

has religion nothing to do with it, that you make God the author of

so much cruelty and malice?

Cleo. It is impossible, you should speak otherwise, than in

relation to our species, when you make use of those expressions,

which can only signify to us the intentions things were done with,

or the sentiments human creatures have of them; and nothing can be

called cruel or malicious in regard to him who did it, unless his

thoughts and designs were such in doing it. All actions in nature,

abstractly considered, are equally indifferent; and whatever it may be

to individual creatures, to die is not a greater evil to this earth,

or the whole universe, than it is to be born.

Hor. This is making the First Cause of things not an intelligent being.

Cleo. Why so? Can you not conceive an intelligent, and even a most

wise being, that is not only exempt from, but likewise incapable of

entertaining any malice or cruelty?

Hor. Such a being could not commit, or order things that are malicious

and cruel.

Cleo. Neither does God. But this will carry us into a dispute

about the origin of evil; and from thence we must inevitably fall

on free-will and predestination, which, as I have told you before,

is an inexplicable mystery I will never meddle with. But I never

said nor thought any thing irreverent to the Deity: on the contrary,

the idea I have of the Supreme Being, is as transcendently great,

as my capacity is able to form one, of what is incomprehensible;

and I could as soon believe, that he could cease to exist, as that

he should be the author of any real evil. But I should be glad to

hear the method, after which you think society might have been much

better introduced: Pray, acquaint me with that milder way you spoke of.

Hor. You have thoroughly convinced me, that the natural love which

it is pretended we have for our species, is not greater than what

many other animals have for theirs: but if nature had actually given

us an affection for one another, as sincere and conspicuous as that

which parents are seen to have for their children, whilst they are

helpless, men would have joined together by choice; and nothing could

have hindered them from associating, whether their numbers had been

great or small, and themselves either ignorant or knowing.

Cleo. O mentes hominum cæcas! O Pectora cæca!

Hor. You may exclaim as much as you please; I am persuaded that this

would have united men in firmer bonds of friendship, than any common

danger from wild beasts could have tied them with: but what fault

can you find with it, and what mischief could have befallen us from

mutual affection?

Cleo. It would have been inconsistent with the scheme, the plan after

which, it is evident, Providence has been pleased to order and dispose

of things in the universe. If such an affection had been planted

in man by instinct, there never could have been any fatal quarrels

among them, nor mortal hatreds; men could never have been cruel to

one another: in short, there could have been no wars of any duration;

and no considerable numbers of our species could ever have been killed

by one another's malice.

Hor. You would make a rare state-physician, in prescribing war,

cruelty and malice, for the welfare and maintenance of civil society.

Cleo. Pray, do not misrepresent me: I have done no such thing: but

if you believe the world is governed by Providence at all, you must

believe likewise, that the Deity makes use of means to bring about,

perform, and execute his will and pleasure: As for example, to have

war kindled, there must be first misunderstandings and quarrels

between the subjects of different nations, and dissentions among

the respective princes, rulers, or governors of them: it is evident,

that the mind of man is the general mint where the means of this sort

must be coined; from whence I conclude, that if Providence had ordered

matters after that mild way, which you think would have been the best,

very little of human blood could have been spilt, if any at all.

Hor. Where would have been the inconveniency of that?

Cleo. You could not have had that variety of living creatures, there

is now; nay, there would not have been room for man himself, and his

sustenance: our species alone would have overstocked the earth, if

there had been no wars, and the common course of Providence had not

been more interrupted than it has been. Might I not justly say then,

that this is quite contrary and destructive to the scheme on which it

is plain this earth was built? This is a consideration which you will

never give its due weight. I have once already put you in mind of it,

that you yourself have allowed the destruction of animals to be as

necessary as the generation of them. There is as much wisdom to be

seen in the contrivances how numbers of living creatures might always

be taken off and destroyed, to make room for those that continually

succeed them, as there is in making all the different sorts of them,

every one preserve their own species. What do you think is the reason,

that there is but one way for us to come into the world?

Hor. Because that one is sufficient.

Cleo. Then from a parity of reason, we ought to think, that there

are several ways to go out of the world, because one would not

have been sufficient. Now, if for the support and maintenance of

that variety of creatures which are here that they should die,

is a postulatum as necessary as it is, that they should be born;

and you cut off or obstruct the means of dying, and actually stop up

one of the great gates, through which we see multitudes go to death;

do you not oppose the scheme, nay, do you mar it less, than if you

hindered generation! Is there never had been war, and no other means

of dying, besides the ordinary ones, this globe could not have born,

or at least not maintained, the tenth part of the people that would

have been in it. By war, I do not mean only such as one nation has

had against another, but civil as well as foreign quarrels, general

massacres, private murders, poison, sword, and all hostile force, by

which men, notwithstanding their pretence of love to their species,

have endeavoured to take away one another's lives throughout the world,

from the time that Cain slew Abel to this day.

Hor. I do not believe, that a quarter of all these mischiefs are upon

record: but what may be known from history, would make a prodigious

number of men: much greater, I dare say, than ever was on earth at

one time: But what would you infer from this? They would not have

been immortal; and if they had not died in war, they must soon after

have been slain by diseases. When a man of threescore is killed by

a bullet in the field, it is odds, that he would not have lived four

years longer, though he had stayed at home.

Cleo. There are soldiers of threescore perhaps in all armies, but

men generally go to the war when they are young; and when four or

five thousand are lost in battle, you will find the greatest number

to have been under five-and-thirty: consider now, that many men do

not marry till after that age, who get ten or a dozen children.

Hor. If all that die by the hands of another, were to get a dozen

children before they die----

Cleo. There is no occasion for that; I suppose nothing, that is either

extravagant or improbable; but that all such, as have been wilfully

destroyed by means of their species, should have lived, and taken

their chance with the rest; that every thing should have befallen

them, that has befallen those that have not been killed that way;

and the same likewise to their posterity; and that all of them should

have been subject to all the casualties as well as diseases, doctors,

apothecaries, and other accidents, that take away man's life, and

shorten his days; war, and violence from one another, only excepted.

Hor. But if the earth had been too full of inhabitants, might not

Providence have sent pestilences and diseases oftener? More children

might have died when they were young, or more women might have

proved barren.

Cleo. I do not know whether your mild way would have been more

generally pleasing; but you entertain notions of the Deity that are

unworthy of him. Men might certainly have been born with the instinct

you speak of; but if this had been the Creator's pleasure, there must

have been another economy; and things on earth, from the beginning,

would have been ordered in a manner quite different from what they

are now. But to make a scheme first, and afterwards to mend it, when

it proves defective, is the business of finite wisdom; it belongs to

human prudence alone to mend faults, to correct and redress what was

done amiss before, and to alter the measures which experience teaches

men, were ill concerted: but the knowledge of God was consummate

from eternity. Infinite Wisdom is not liable to errors or mistakes;

therefore all his works are universally good, and every thing is made

exactly as he would have it: the firmness and liability of his laws

and councils are everlasting, and therefore his resolutions are as

unalterable, as his decrees are eternal. It is not a quarter of an hour

ago, that you named wars among the necessary means to carry off the

redundancy of our species; how come you now to think them useless? I

can demonstrate to you, that nature, in the production of our species,

has amply provided against the losses of our sex, occasioned by wars,

by repairing them visibly, where they are sustained, in as palpable

a manner, as she has provided for the great destruction that is made

of fish, by their devouring one another.

Hor. How is that, pray?

Cleo. By sending more males into the world than females. You will

easily allow me that our sex bears the brunt of all the toils and

hazards that are undergone by sea and land; and that by this means a

far greater number of men must be destroyed than there is of women:

now if we see, as certainly we do, that of the infants yearly born,

the number of males is always considerably superior to that of the

females, is it not manifest, that nature has made a provision for

great multitudes, which, if they were not destroyed, would be not

only superfluous, but of pernicious consequence in great nations?

Hor. That superiority in the number of males born is wonderful indeed;

I remember the account that has been published concerning it, as it

was taken from the bills of births and burials in the city and suburbs.

Cleo. For fourscore years; in which the number of females born was

constantly much inferior to that of the males, sometimes by many

hundreds: and that this provision of nature, to supply the havoc

that is made of men by wars and navigation, is still greater than

could be imagined from that difference only, will soon appear, if we

consider that women, in the first place, are liable to all diseases,

within a trifle, that are incident to men; and that, in the second,

they are subject to many disorders and calamities on account of their

sex, which great numbers die of, and which men are wholly exempt from.

Hor. This could not well be the effect of chance; but it spoils the

consequence which you drew from my affectionate scheme, in case there

had been no wars: for your fear that our species would have increased

beyond all bounds, was entirely built upon the supposition, that those

who have died in war should not have wanted women if they had lived;

which, from this superiority in the number of males, it is evident,

they should and must have wanted.

Cleo. What you observe is true; but my chief aim was to show you how

disagreeable the alteration you required would have been every way to

the rest of the scheme, by which it is manifest things are governed

at present. For, if the provision had been made on the other side;

and nature, in the production of our species, had continually taken

care to repair the loss of women that die of calamities not incident to

men, then certainly there would have been women for all the men that

have been destroyed by their own species, if they had lived; and the

earth without war, as I have said, would have been over-stocked; or,

if nature had ever been the same as she is now, that is, if more males

had been born than females, and more females had died of diseases than

males, the world would constantly have had a great superfluity of men,

if there never had been any wars; and this disproportion between their

number and that of the women would have caused innumerable mischiefs,

that are now prevented by no other natural causes, than the small value

men set upon their species, and their dissentions with one another.

Hor. I can see no other mischief this would produce, than that the

number of males which die without having ever tried matrimony, would

be greater than it is now; and whether that would be a real evil or

not, is a very disputable point.

Cleo. Do not you think, that this perpetual scarcity of women, and

superfluity of men, would make great uneasiness in all societies,

how well soever people might love one another; and that the value,

the price of women, would be so enhanced by it, that none but men in

tolerable good circumstances would be able to purchase them? This alone

would make us another world; and mankind could never have known that

most necessary and now inexhaustible spring, from which all nations,

where slaves are not allowed of, are constantly supplied with willing

hands for all the drudgery of hard and dirty labour; I mean the

children of the poor, the greatest and most extensive of all temporal

blessings that accrue from society, on which all the comforts of life,

in the civilized state, have their unavoidable dependance. There

are many other things, from which it is plain, that such a real love

of man for his species would have been altogether inconsistent with

the present scheme; the world must have been destitute of all that

industry, that is owing to envy and emulation; no society could have

been easy with being a flourishing people at the expence of their

neighbours, or enduring to be counted a formidable nation. All men

would have been levellers; government would have been unnecessary;

and there could have been no great bustle in the world. Look into

the men of greatest renown, and the most celebrated achievements of

antiquity, and every thing that has been cried up and admired in past

ages by the fashionable part of mankind; if the same labours were to

be performed over again, which qualification, which help of nature

do you think would be the most proper means to have them executed;

that instinct of real affection you required, without ambition or

the love of glory; or a staunch principle of pride and selfishness,

acting under pretence to, and assuming the resemblance of that

affection? Consider, I beseech you, that no men governed by this

instinct would require services of any of their species, which they

would not be ready to perform for others; and you will easily see, that

its being universal would quite alter the scene of society from what

it is now. Such an instinct might be very suitable to another scheme

different from this, in another world; where, instead of fickleness,

and a restless desire after changes and novelty, there was observed

an universal steadiness, continually preferred by a serene spirit of

contentment among other creatures of different appetites from ours,

that had frugality without avarice, and generosity without pride;

and whose solicitude after happiness in a future state, was as

active and apparent in life as our pursuits are after the enjoyments

of this present. But, as to the world we live in, examine into the

various ways of earthly greatness, and all the engines that are made

use of to attain to the felicity of carnal men, and you will find,

that the instinct you speak of must have destroyed the principles,

and prevented the very existence of that pomp and glory to which

human societies have been, and are still raised by worldly wisdom.

Hor. I give up my affectionate scheme; you have convinced me that

there could not have been that stir and variety, nor, upon the whole,

that beauty in the world, which there have been, if all men had

been naturally humble, good, and virtuous. I believe that wars of

all sorts, as well as diseases, are natural means to hinder mankind

from increasing too fast; but that wild beasts should likewise have

been designed to thin our species, I cannot conceive; for they can

only serve this end, when men are but few, and their numbers should

be increased, instead of lessened; and afterwards, if they were made

for that purpose, when men are strong enough, they would not answer it.

Cleo. I never said that wild beasts was designed to thin our species. I

have showed that many things were made to serve a variety of different

purposes; that in the scheme of this earth, many things must have been

considered that man has nothing to do with; and that it is ridiculous

to think that the universe was made for our sake. I have said likewise,

that as all our knowledge comes, à posteriori, it is imprudent to

reason otherwise than from facts. That there are wild beasts, and that

there are savage men, is certain; and that where there are but few

of the latter, the first must always be very troublesome, and often

fatal to them, is as certain; and when I reflect on the passions all

men are born with, and their incapacity whilst they are untaught, I

can find no cause or motive which is so likely to unite them together,

and make them espouse the same interest, as that common danger they

must always be in from wild beasts, in uncultivated countries, whilst

they live in small families that all shift for themselves, without

government or dependance upon one another: This first step to society,

I believe to be an effect, which that same cause, the common danger

so often mentioned, will never fail to produce upon our species in

such circumstances: what other, and how many purposes wild beasts

might have been designed for besides, I do not pretend to determine,

as I have told you before.

Hor. But whatever other purposes wild beasts were designed for,

it still follows from your opinion, that the uniting of savages in

common defence, must have been one; which to me seems clashing with

our idea of the Divine Goodness.

Cleo. So will every thing seem to do, which we call natural evil; if

you ascribe human passions to the Deity, and measure Infinite Wisdom

by the standard of our most shallow capacity; you have been at this

twice already; I thought I had answered it. I would not make God the

author of evil, any more than yourself; but I am likewise persuaded,

that nothing could come by chance, in respect to the Supreme Being;

and, therefore, unless you imagine the world not to be governed by

Providence, you must believe that wars, and all the calamities we can

suffer from man or beast, as well as plagues and all other diseases,

are under a wise direction that is unfathomable. As there can be no

effect without a cause, so nothing can be said to happen by chance,

but in respect to him who is ignorant of the cause of it. I can make

this evident to you, in an obvious and familiar example. To a man

who knows nothing of the tennis-court, the skips and rebounds of the

ball seems to be all fortuitous; as he is not able to guess at the

several different directions it will receive before it comes to the

ground; so, as soon as it has hit the place to which it was plainly

directed at first, it is chance to him where it will fall: whereas,

the experienced player, knowing perfectly well the journey the ball

will make, goes directly to the place, if he is not there already,

where it will certainly come within his reach. Nothing seems to be

more the effect of chance than a cast of the dice: yet they obey the

laws of gravity and motion in general, as much as any thing else;

and from the impressions that are given them, it is impossible they

should fall otherwise than they do: but the various directions which

they shall receive in the whole course of the throw being entirely

unknown, and the rapidity with which they change their situation

being such, that our slow apprehension cannot trace them, what the

cast will be is a mystery to human understanding, at fair play. But

if the same variety of directions was given to two cubes of ten feet

each, which a pair of dice receive, as well from one another as the

box, the caster's fingers that cover it, and the table they are flung

upon, from the time they are taken up until they lie still, the same

effect would follow; and if the quantity of motion, the force that is

imparted to the box and dice was exactly known, and the motion itself

was so much retarded in the performance, that what is done in three

or four seconds, should take up an hour's time, it would be easy to

find out the reason of every throw, and men might learn with certainty

to foretell which side of the cube would be uppermost. It is evident,

then, that the words fortuitous and casual, have no other meaning than

what depends upon our want of knowledge, foresight, and penetration;

the reflection on which will show us, by what an infinity of degrees

all human capacity falls short of that universal intuitus, with which

the Supreme Being beholds at once every thing without exception,

whether to us it be visible or invisible, past, present, or to come.

Hor. I yield: you have solved every difficulty I have been able to

raise; and I must confess, that your supposition concerning the first

motive that would make savages associate, is neither clashing with good

sense, nor any idea we ought to have of the Divine attributes; but,

on the contrary, in answering my objections, you have demonstrated the

probability of your conjecture, and rendered the wisdom and power of

providence, in the scheme of this earth, both as to the contrivance

and the execution of it, more conspicuous and palpable to me, than

any thing I ever heard or read, had done before.

Cleo. I am glad you are satisfied; though far from arrogating to

myself so much merit as your civility would compliment me with.

Hor. It is very clear to me now; that as it is appointed for all

men to die, so it is necessary there should be means to compass this

end; that from the number of those means, or causes of death; it is

impossible to exclude either the malice of men, or the rage of wild

beasts, and all noxious animals; and that if they had been actually

designed by nature, and contrived for that purpose, we should have no

more reason justly to complain of them, than we have to find fault

with death itself, or that frightful train of diseases which are

daily and hourly the manifest occasion of it.

Cleo. They are all equally included in the curse, which after the

fall was deservedly pronounced against the whole earth; and if they

be real evils, they are to be looked upon as the consequence of

sin, and a condign punishment, which the transgression of our first

parents has drawn and entailed upon all their posterity. I am fully

persuaded, that all the nations in the world, and every individual

of our species, civilized or savage, had their origin from Seth,

Sham, or Japhet: and as experience has taught us, that the greatest

empires have their periods, and the best governed states and kingdoms

may come to ruin; so it is certain, that the politest people being

scattered and distressed, may soon degenerate, and some of them by

accidents and misfortunes, from knowing and well taught ancestors,

be reduced at last to savages of the first and lowest class.

Hor. If what you are fully persuaded of, be true, the other is

self-evident, from the savages that are still subsisting.

Cleo. You once seemed to insinuate, that all the danger men were in

from wild beasts, would entirely cease as soon as they were civilized,

and lived in large and well-ordered societies; but by this you may

see, that our species will never be wholly exempt from that danger;

because mankind will always be liable to be reduced to savages; for,

as this calamity has actually befallen vast multitudes that were the

undoubted descendants of Noah; so the greatest prince upon earth,

that has children, cannot be sure, that the same disaster will never

happen to any of his posterity. Wild beasts may be entirely extirpated

in some countries that are duly cultivated; but they will multiply

in others that are wholly neglected; and great numbers of them range

now, and are masters in many places, where they had been rooted and

kept out before. I shall always believe that every species of living

creatures in and upon this globe, without exception, continues to be,

as it was at first, under the care of that same Providence that thought

fit to produce it. You have had a great deal of patience, but I would

not tire it: This first step towards society, now we have mastered it,

is a good resting place, and so we will leave off for to-day.

Hor. With all my heart: I have made you talk a great deal; but I long

to hear the rest, as soon as you are at leisure.

Cleo. I am obliged to dine at Windsor to-morrow; if you are not

otherwise engaged, I can carry you where the honour of your company

will be highly esteemed: my coach shall be ready at nine; you know

you are in my way.

Hor. A fine opportunity, indeed, of three or four hours chat.

Cleo. I shall be all alone without you.

Hor. I am your man, and shall expect you.

Cleo. Adieu.

THE SIXTH

DIALOGUE

BETWEEN

HORATIO AND CLEOMENES

HORATIO.

Now we are off the stones, pray let us lose no time; I expect a great

deal of pleasure from what I am to hear further.

Cleo. The second step to society is the danger men are in from one

another: for which we are beholden to that staunch principle of pride

and ambition, that all men are born with. Different families may

endeavour to live together, and be ready to join in common danger;

but they are all of little use to one another, when there is no common

enemy to oppose. If we consider that strength, agility, and courage

would, in such a state, be the most valuable qualifications, and

that many families could not live long together, but some, actuated

by the principle I named, would strive for superiority: this must

breed quarrels, in which the most weak and fearful will, for their

own safety, always join with him of whom they have the best opinion.

Hor. This would naturally divide multitudes into bands and companies,

that would all have their different leaders, and of which the strongest

and most valiant would always swallow up the weakest and most fearful.

Cleo. What you say agrees exactly with the accounts we have of the

uncivilized nations that are still subsisting in the world; and thus

men may live miserably many ages.

Hor. The very first generation that was brought up under the tuition

of parents, would be governable: and would not every succeeding

generation grow wiser than the foregoing?

Cleo. Without doubt they would increase in knowledge and cunning:

time and experience would have the same effect upon them as it has upon

others; and in the particular things to which they applied themselves,

they would become as expert and ingenious as the most civilized

nations: but their unruly passions, and the discords occasioned by

them, would never suffer them to be happy; their mutual contentions

would be continually spoiling their improvements, destroying their

inventions, and frustrating their designs.

Hor. But would not their sufferings in time bring them acquainted

with the causes of their disagreement; and would not that knowledge

put them upon making of contracts, not to injure one another?

Cleo. Very probably they would; but among such ill-bred and

uncultivated people, no man would keep a contract longer than that

interest lasted which made him submit to it.

Hor. But might not religion, the fear of an invisible cause, be made

serviceable to them, as to the keeping of their contracts?

Cleo. It might, without dispute; and would, before many generations

passed away. But religion could do no more among them, than it does

among civilized nations; where the Divine vengeance is seldom trusted

to only, and oaths themselves are thought to be of little service,

where there is no human power to enforce the obligation, and punish

perjury.

Hor. But do not think, that the same ambition that made a man aspire

to be a leader, would make him likewise desirous of being obeyed in

civil matters, by the numbers he led?

Cleo. I do; and moreover that, notwithstanding this unsettled

and precarious way communities would live in, after three or four

generations, human nature would be looked into, and begin to be

understood: leaders would find out, that the more strife and discord

there was amongst the people they headed, the less use they could make

of them: this would put them upon various ways of curbing mankind;

they would forbid killing and striking one another; the taking away

by force the wives or children of others in the same community; they

would invent penalties, and very early find out that nobody ought to

be a judge in his own cause; and that old men, generally speaking,

knew more than young.

Hor. When once they have prohibitions and penalties, I should think

all the difficulty surmounted; and I wonder why you said, that thus

they might live miserably for many ages.

Cleo. There is one thing of great moment, which has not been named yet;

and until that comes to pass, no considerable numbers can ever be made

happy; what signify the strongest contracts when we have nothing to

show for them; and what dependence can we have upon oral tradition,

in matters that require exactness; especially whilst the language

that is spoken is yet very imperfect? Verbal reports are liable to

a thousand cavils and disputes that are prevented by records, which

every body knows to be unerring witnesses; and from the many attempts

that are made to wrest and distort the sense of even written laws,

we may judge how impracticable the administration of justice must be

among all societies that are destitute of them. Therefore the third and

last step to society, is the invention of letters. No multitudes can

live peaceably without government; no government can subsist without

laws; and no laws can be effectual long, unless they are wrote down:

the consideration of this is alone sufficient to give us a great

insight into the nature of man.

Hor. I do not think so: the reason why no government can subsist

without laws, is, because there are bad men in all multitudes; but to

take patterns from them, when we would judge of human nature, rather

than from the good ones that follow the dictates of their reason,

is an injustice one would not be guilty of to brute beasts; and it

would be very wrong in us, for a few vicious horses, to condemn the

whole species as such, without taking notice of the many fine spirited

creatures that are naturally tame and gentle.

Cleo. At this rate I must repeat every thing that I have said

yesterday and the day before: I thought you was convinced, that it

was with thought as it is with speech; and that though man was born

with a capacity beyond other animals, to attain to both, yet, whilst

he remained untaught, and never conversed with any of his species,

these characteristics were of little use to him. All men uninstructed,

whilst they are let alone, will follow the impulse of their nature,

without regard to others; and therefore all of them are bad, that

are not taught to be good; so all horses are ungovernable that are

not well broken: for what we call vicious in them, is, when they

bite or kick, endeavour to break their halter, throw their rider,

and exert themselves with all their strength to shake off the yoke,

and recover that liberty which nature prompts them to assert and

desire. What you call natural, is evidently artificial, and belongs

to education: no fine-spirited horse was ever tame or gentle, without

management. Some, perhaps, are not backed until they are four years

old; but then long before that time, they are handled, spoke to,

and dressed; they are fed by their keepers, put under restraint,

sometimes caressed, and sometimes made to smart; and nothing is omitted

whilst they are young, to inspire them with awe and veneration to

our species; and make them not only submit to it, but likewise take

a pride in obeying the superior genius of man. But would you judge

of the nature of horses in general, as to its fitness to be governed,

take the foals of the best bred mares and finest stallions, and turn an

hundred of them loose, fillies and colts together, in a large forest,

till they are seven years old, and then see how tractable they will be.

Hor. But this is never done.

Cleo. Whose fault is that? It is not at the request of the horses,

that they are kept from the mares; and that any of them are ever

gentle or tame, is entirely owing to the management of man. Vice

proceeds from the same origin in men, as it does in horses; the desire

of uncontrouled liberty, and impatience of restraint, are not more

visible in the one than they are in the other; and a man is then called

vicious, when, breaking the curbs of precepts and prohibitions, he

wildly follows the unbridled appetites of his untaught or ill-managed

nature. The complaints against this nature of ours, are every where the

same: man would have every thing he likes, without considering whether

he has any right to it or not; and he would do every thing he has a

mind to do, without regard to the consequence it would be of to others;

at the same time that he dislikes every body, that acting from the same

principle, have in all their behaviour not a special regard to him.

Hor. That is, in short, man naturally will not do as he would be

done by.

Cleo. That is true; and for this, there is another reason in his

nature: all men are partial in their judgments, when they compare

themselves to others; no two equals think so well of each other,

as both do of themselves; and where all men have an equal right

to judge, there needs no greater cause of quarrel, than a present

amongst them, with an inscription of detur digniori. Man in his anger

behaves himself in the same manner as other animals; disturbing, in

the pursuit self-preservation, those they are angry with; and all of

them endeavour, according as the degree of their passion is, either

to destroy, or cause pain and displeasure to their adversaries. That

these obstacles to society are the faults, or rather properties of our

nature, we may know by this, that all regulations and prohibitions that

have been contrived for the temporal happiness of mankind, are made

exactly to tally with them, and to obviate those complaints, which I

said were every where made against mankind. The principal laws of all

countries have the same tendency; and there is not one that does not

point at some frailty, defect, or unfitness for society, that men are

naturally subject to; but all of them are plainly designed as so many

remedies, to cure and disappoint that natural instinct of sovereignty,

which teaches man to look upon every thing as centring in himself,

and prompts him to put in a claim to every thing he can lay his hands

on. This tendency and design to mend our nature, for the temporal

good of society, is no where more visible, than in that compendious

as well as complete body of laws, that was given by God himself. The

Israelites, whilst they were slaves in Egypt, were governed by the

laws of their masters; and as they were many degrees removed from the

lowest savages, so they were yet far from being a civilized nation. It

is reasonable to think, that, before they received the law of God,

they had regulations and agreements already established, which the

ten commandments did not abolish; and that they must have had notions

of right and wrong, and contracts among them against open violence,

and the invasion of property, is demonstrable.

Hor. How is that demonstrable?

Cleo. From the decalogue itself: all wise laws are adapted to the

people that are to obey them. From the ninth commandment, for example,

it is evident, that a man's own testimony was not sufficient to be

believed in his own affair, and that nobody was allowed to be a judge

in his own case.

Hor. It only forbids us to bear false witness against our neighbour.

Cleo. That is true; and therefore the whole tenor and design of

this commandment presupposes, and must imply what I say. But the

prohibitions of stealing, adultery, and coveting any thing that

belonged to their neighbours, are still more plainly intimating

the same; and seem to be additions and amendments, to supply the

defects of some known regulations and contracts that had been agreed

upon before. If, in this view, we behold the three commandments last

hinted at, we shall find them to be strong evidences, not only of that

instinct of sovereignty within us, which at other times I have called

a domineering spirit, and a principle of selfishness; but likewise

of the difficulty there is to destroy, eradicate, and pull it out of

the heart of man: for, from the eighth commandment it appears, that,

though we debar ourselves from taking the things of our neighbour

by force, yet there is danger that this instinct will prompt us to

get them unknown to him in a clandestine manner, and deceive us with

the insinuations of an oportet habere. From the foregoing precept,

it is likewise manifest, that though we agree not to take away,

and rob a man of the woman that is his own, it is yet to be feared,

that if we like her, this innate principle that bids us gratify every

appetite, will advise us to make use of her as if she was our own;

though our neighbour is at the charge of maintaining her and all the

children she brings forth. The last more especially is very ample in

confirming my assertion. It strikes directly at the root of the evil,

and lays open the real source of the mischiefs that are apprehended

in the seventh and the eighth commandment: for without first actually

trespassing against this, no man is in danger of breaking either of

the former. This tenth commandment, moreover, insinuates very plainly,

in the first place, that this instinct of ours is of great power, and a

frailty hardly to be cured; in the second, that there is nothing which

our neighbour can be possessed of, but, neglecting the consideration

of justice and property, we may have a desire after it; for which

reason it absolutely forbids us to covet any thing that is his: The

Divine Wisdom, well knowing the strength of this selfish principle,

which obliges us continually to assume every thing to ourselves;

and that, when once a man heartily covets a thing, this instinct,

this principle will over-rule and persuade him to leave no stone

unturned to compass his desires.

Hor. According to your way of expounding the commandments, and making

them tally so exactly with the frailties of our nature, it should

follow from the ninth, that all men are born with a strong appetite

to forswear themselves, which I never heard before.

Cleo. Nor I neither; and I confess that the rebuke there is in this

smart turn of yours is very plausible; but the censure, how specious

soever it may appear, is unjust, and you shall not find the consequence

you hint at, if you will be pleased to distinguish between the natural

appetites themselves, and the various crimes which they make us commit,

rather than not be obeyed: For, though we are born with no immediate

appetite to forswear ourselves, yet we are born with more than one,

that, if never checked, may in time oblige us to forswear ourselves,

or do worse, if it be possible, and they cannot be gratified without

it; and the commandment you mention plainly implies, that by nature we

are so unreasonably attached to our interest on all emergencies, that

it is possible for a man to be swayed by it, not only to the visible

detriment of others, as is manifest from the seventh and the eighth,

but even though it should be against his own conscience: For nobody

did ever knowingly bear false witness against his neighbour, but he

did it for some end or other; this end, whatever it is, I call his

interest. The law which forbids murder, had already demonstrated to us,

how immensely we undervalue every thing, when it comes in competition

with ourselves; for, though our greatest dread be destruction, and

we know no other calamity equal to the dissolution of our being,

yet such unequitable judges this instinct of sovereignty is able to

make of us, that rather than not have our will, which we count our

happiness, we choose to inflict this calamity on others, and bring

total ruin on such as we think to be obstacles to the gratification

of our appetites; and this men do, not only for hindrances that are

present, or apprehended as to come, but likewise for former offences,

and things that are past redress.

Hor. By what you said last, you mean revenge, I suppose.

Cleo. I do so; and the instinct of sovereignty which I assert to be

in human nature, is in nothing so glaringly conspicuous as it is in

this passion, which no mere man was ever born without, and which

even the most civilized, as well as the most learned, are seldom

able to conquer: For whoever pretends to revenge himself, must claim

a right to a judicature within, and an authority to punish: Which,

being destructive to the mutual peace of all multitudes, are for

that reason the first things that in every civil society are snatched

away out of every man's hands, as dangerous tools, and vested in the

governing part, the supreme power only.

Hor. This remark on revenge has convinced me more than any thing

you have said yet, that there is some such thing as a principle of

sovereignty in our nature; but I cannot conceive yet, why the vices

of private, I mean particular persons, should be thought to belong

to the whole species.

Cleo. Because every body is liable to fall into the vices that are

peculiar to his species; and it is with them, as it is with distempers

among creatures of different kinds: There are many ailments that horses

are subject to, which are not incident to cows. There is no vice,

but whoever commits it had within him before he was guilty of it, a

tendency towards it, a latent cause that disposed him to it: Therefore,

all lawgivers have two main points to consider at setting out: First,

what things will procure happiness to the society under their care:

Secondly, what passions and properties there are in man's nature,

that may either promote or obstruct this happiness. It is prudence

to watch your fish ponds against the insults of hearns and bitterns;

but the same precaution would be ridiculous against turkeys and

peacocks, or any other creatures, that neither love fish, nor are

able to catch them.

Hor. What frailty or defect is it in our nature, that the two first

commandments have a regard to, or, as you call it, tally with?

Cleo. Our natural blindness and ignorance of the true Deity: For,

though we all come into the world with an instinct toward religion

that manifests itself before we come to maturity, yet the fear of an

invisible cause, or invisible causes, which all men are born with,

is not more universal, than the uncertainty which all untaught men

fluctuate in, as to the nature and properties of that cause, or those

causes: There can be no greater proof of this----

Hor. I want none; the history of all ages is a sufficient witness.

Cleo. Give me leave: There can, I say, be no greater proof of

this, than the second commandment, which palpably points at all the

absurdities and abominations which the ill-guided fear of an invisible

cause had already made, and would still continue to make men commit;

and in doing this, I can hardly think, that any thing but Divine

Wisdom could, in so few words, have comprehended the vast extent and

sum total of human extravagancies, as it is done in that commandment:

For there is nothing so high or remote in the firmament, nor so low

or abject upon earth, but some men have worshipped it, or made it

one way or other the object of their superstition.

Hor.----Crocodilon adorat

Pars hæc: illa pavet saturam serpentibus Ibin.

Effigias sacri nitet aurea Cercopitheci.

A holy monkey! I own it is a reproach to our species, that ever any

part of it should have adored such a creature as a god. But that is

the tip-top of folly, that can be charged on superstition.

Cleo. I do not think so; a monkey is still a living creature, and

consequently somewhat superior to things inanimate.

Hor. I should have thought mens adoration of the sun or moon infinitely

less absurd than to have seen them fall down before so vile, so

ridiculous an animal.

Cleo. Those who have adored the sun and moon never questioned, but they

were intelligent as well as glorious beings. But when I mentioned the

word inanimate, I was thinking on what the same poet you quoted said

of the veneration men paid to leeks and onions, deities they raised

in their own gardens.

Porrum & cepe nefas violare, & frangere morsu:

O sanctas genteis, quibus hæc nascuntur in hortis

Numina!----

But this is nothing to what has been done in America fourteen hundred

years after the time of Juvenal. If the portentous worship of the

Mexicans had been known in his days, he would not have thought it

worth his while to take notice of the Egyptians. I have often admired

at the uncommon pains those poor people must have taken to express the

frightful and shocking, as well as bizarre and unutterable notions they

entertained of the superlative malice and hellish implacable nature of

their vitzliputzli, to whom they sacrificed the hearts of men, cut out

whilst they were alive. The monstrous figure and laboured deformity of

that abominable idol, are a lively representation of the direful ideas

those wretches framed to themselves of an invisible over-ruling power;

and plainly show us, how horrid and execrable they thought it to be,

at the same time that they paid it the highest adoration; and at the

expence of human blood endeavoured, with fear and trembling, if not to

appease the wrath and rage of it, at least to avert, in some measure,

the manifold mischiefs they apprehended from it.

Hor. Nothing, I must own, can render declaiming against idolatry more

seasonable than a reflection upon the second commandment: But as what

you have been saying required no great attention, I have been thinking

of something else. Thinking on the purport of the third commandment,

furnishes me with an objection, and I think a strong one, to what

you have affirmed about all laws in general, and the decalogue in

particular. You know I urged that it was wrong to ascribe the faults

of bad men to human nature in general.

Cleo. I do; and thought I had answered you.

Hor. Let me try only once more. Which of the two, pray, do you think

profane swearing to proceed from, a frailty in our nature, or an ill

custom generally contracted by keeping of bad company?

Cleo. Certainly the latter.

Hor. Then it is evident to me, that this law is levelled at the

bad men only, that are guilty of the vice forbid in it; and not any

frailty belonging to human nature in general.

Cleo. I believe you mistake the design of this law; and am of opinion,

that it has a much higher aim than you seem to imagine. You remember

my saying, that reverence to authority was necessary, to make human

creatures governable.

Hor. Very well; and that reverence was a compound of fear, love,

and esteem.

Cleo. Now let us take a view of what is done in the decalogue: In

the short preamble to it, expressly made that the Israelites should

know who it was that spoke to them, God manifests himself to those

whom he had chosen for his people, by a most remarkable instance of

his own great power, and their strong obligation to him, in a fact,

that none of them could be ignorant of. There is a plainness and

grandeur withal in this sentence, than which nothing can be more

truly sublime or majestic; and I defy the learned world to show me

another as comprehensive, and of equal weight and dignity, that so

fully executes its purpose, and answers its design with the same

simplicity of words. In that part of the second commandment, which

contains the motives and inducements why men should obey the Divine

laws, are set forth in the most emphatical manner: First, God's wrath

on those that hate him, and the continuance of it on their posterity:

Secondly, the wide extent of his mercy to those who love him and keep

his commandments. If we duly consider these passages, we shall find,

that fear, as well as love, and the highest esteem, are plainly and

distinctly inculcated in them; and that the best method is made use of

there, to inspire men with a deep sense of the three ingredients that

make up the compound of reverence. The reason is plain: If people were

to be governed by that body of laws, nothing was more necessary to

enforce their obedience to them, than their awful regard and utmost

veneration to him, at whose command they were to keep them, and to

whom they were accountable for the breaking of them.

Hor. What answer is all this to my objection?

Cleo. Have a moment's patience; I am coming to it. Mankind are

naturally fickle, and delight in change and variety; they seldom

retain long the same impression of things they received at first,

when they were new to them; and they are apt to undervalue, if not

despise the best, when they grow common. I am of opinion, that the

third commandment points at this frailty, this want of steadiness

in our nature; the ill consequences of which, in our duty to the

Creator, could not be better prevented than by a strict observance

of this law, in never making use of his name, but in the most solemn

manner, on necessary occasions, and in matters of high importance. As

in the foregoing part of the decalogue, care had been already taken,

by the strongest motives, to create and attract reverence, so nothing

could be more wisely adapted to strengthen, and make it everlasting,

than the contents of this law: For as too much familiarity breeds

contempt, so our highest regard due to what is most sacred, cannot

be kept up better than by a quite contrary practice.

Hor. I am answered.

Cleo. What weight reverence is thought to be of to procure

obedience, we may learn from the same body of laws in another

commandment. Children have no opportunity of learning their duty but

from their parents and those who act by their authority or in their

stead: Therefore, it was requisite, that men should not only stand

in great dread of the law of God, but likewise have great reverence

for those who first inculcated it, and communicated to them that this

was the law of God.

Hor. But you said, that the reverence of children to parents was a

natural consequence of what they first experienced from the latter.

Cleo. You think there was no occasion for this law, if man would do

what is commanded in it of his own accord: But I desire you would

consider, that though the reverence of children to parents is a

natural consequence, partly of the benefits and chastisements they

receive from them, and partly of the great opinion they form of the

superior capacity they observe in them; experience teaches us, that

this reverence may be over-ruled by stronger passions; and therefore

it being of the highest moment to all government and sociableness

itself, God thought fit to fortify and strengthen it in us, by a

particular command of his own; and, moreover, to encourage it, by

the promise of a reward for the keeping of it. It is our parents that

first cure us of our natural wildness, and break in us the spirit of

independency we are all born with: It is to them we owe the first

rudiments of our submission; and to the honour and deference which

children pay to parents, all societies are obliged for the principle

of human obedience. The instinct of sovereignty in our nature, and

the waywardness of infants, which is the consequence of it, discover

themselves with the least glimmering of our understanding, and before

children that have been most neglected, and the least taught, are

always the most stubborn and obstinate; and none are more unruly,

and fonder of following their own will, than those that are least

capable of governing themselves.

Hor. Then this commandment you think not obligatory, when we come to

years of maturity.

Cleo. Far from it: for though the benefit politically intended by this

law be chiefly received by us, whilst we are under age and the tuition

of parents; yet, for that very reason, ought the duty commanded in

it, never to cease. We are fond of imitating our superiors from our

cradle, and whilst this honour and reverence to parents continue to

be paid by their children, when they are grown men and women, and

act for themselves, the example is of singular use to all minors,

in teaching them their duty, and not to refuse what they see others,

that are older and wiser, comply with by choice: For, by this means,

as their understanding increases, this duty, by degrees, becomes a

fashion, which at last their pride will not suffer them to neglect.

Hor. What you said last is certainly the reason, that among fashionable

people, even the most vicious and wicked do outward homage, and pay

respect to parents, at least before the world; though they act against,

and in their hearts hate them.

Cleo. Here is another instance to convince us, that good manners are

not inconsistent with wickedness; and that men may be strict observers

of decorums, and take pains to seem well-bred, and at the same time

have no regard to the laws of God, and live in contempt of religion:

and therefore to procure an outward compliance with this fifth

commandment, no lecture can be of such force, nor any instruction

so edifying to youth, among the modest sort of people, as the sight

of a strong and vigorous, as well as polite and well dressed man,

in a dispute giving way and submitting to a decrepit parent.

Hor. But do you imagine that all the divine laws, even those that seem

only to relate to God himself, his power and glory, and our obedience

to his will, abstract from any consideration of our neighbour, had

likewise a regard to the good of society, and the temporal happiness

of his people?

Cleo. There is no doubt of that; witness the keeping of the Sabbath.

Hor. We have seen that very handsomely proved in one of the Spectators.

Cleo. But the usefulness of it in human affairs, is of far greater

moment, than that which the author of that paper chiefly takes notice

of. Of all the difficulties that mankind have laboured under in

completing society, nothing has been more puzzling or perplexing than

the division of time. Our annual course round the sun, not answering

exactly any number of complete days or hours, has been the occasion

of immense study and labour: and nothing has more racked the brain of

man, than the adjusting the year to prevent the confusion of seasons:

but even when the year was divided into lunar months, the computation

of time must have been impracticable among the common people: To

remember twenty-nine, or thirty days, where feasts are irregular,

and all other days show alike, must have been a great burden to the

memory, and caused a continual confusion among the ignorant; whereas,

a short period soon returning is easily remembered, and one fixed day

in seven, so remarkably distinguished from the rest, must rub up the

memory of the most unthinking.

Hor. I believe that the Sabbath is a considerable help in the

computation of time, and of greater use in human affairs, than can

be easily imagined by those, who never knew the want of it.

Cleo. But what is most remarkable in this fourth commandment, is God's

revealing himself to his people, and acquainting an infant nation with

a truth, which the rest of the world remained ignorant of for many

ages. Men were soon made sensible of the sun's power, observed every

meteor in the sky, and suspected the influence of the moon and other

stars: but it was a long time, and man was far advanced in sublime

notions, before the light of nature could raise mortal thought to

the contemplation of an Infinite Being that is the author of the whole.

Hor. You have descanted on this sufficiently when you spoke of Moses:

pray let us proceed to the further establishment of society. I am

satisfied that the third step towards it is the invention of letters;

that without them no laws can be long effectual, and that the principal

laws of all countries are remedies against human frailties; I mean,

that they are designed as antidotes, to prevent the ill consequences of

some properties, inseparable from our nature; which yet in themselves,

without management or restraint, are obstructive and pernicious to

society: I am persuaded likewise, that these frailties are palpably

pointed at in the decalogue; that it was wrote with great wisdom,

and that there is not one commandment in it, that has not a regard

to the temporal good of society, as well as matters of higher moment.

Cleo. These are the things, indeed, that I have endeavoured to prove;

and now all the great difficulties and chief obstructions, that can

hinder a multitude from being formed into a body politic, are removed:

when once men come to be governed by written laws, all the rest comes

on a-pace. Now property, and safety of life and limb may be secured:

this naturally will forward the love of peace, and make it spread. No

number of men, when once they enjoy quiet, and no man needs to fear

his neighbour, will be long without learning to divide and subdivide

their labour.

Hor. I do not understand you.

Cleo. Man, as I have hinted before, naturally loves to imitate what

he sees others do, which is the reason that savage people all do

the same thing: this hinders them from meliorating their condition,

though they are always wishing for it: but if one will wholly apply

himself to the making of bows and arrows, whilst another provides food,

a third builds huts, a fourth makes garments, and a fifth utensils:

they not only become useful to one another, but the callings and

employments themselves will in the same number of years receive much

greater improvements, than if all had been promiscuously followed by

every one of the five.

Hor. I believe you are perfectly right there; and the truth of what

you say is in nothing so conspicuous, as it is in watch-making,

which is come to a higher degree of perfection, than it would have

been arrived at yet, if the whole had always remained the employment

of one person; and I am persuaded, that even the plenty we have of

clocks and watches, as well as the exactness and beauty they may be

made of, are chiefly owing to the division that has been made of that

art into many branches.

Cleo. The use of letters must likewise very much improve speech itself,

which before that time cannot but be very barren and precarious.

Hor. I am glad to hear you mention speech again: I would not interrupt

you when you named it once before: Pray what language did your wild

couple speak, when first they met?

Cleo. From what I have said already, it is evident, that they could

have had none at all; at least, that it is my opinion.

Hor. Then wild people must have an instinct to understand one another,

which they lose when they are civilized.

Cleo. I am persuaded that nature has made all animals of the same

kind, in their mutual commerce, intelligible to one another, as far

as is requisite for the preservation of themselves and their species:

and as to my wild couple, as you call them, I believe there would be

a very good understanding before many sounds passed between them. It

is not without some difficulty, that a man born in society can form

an idea of such savages, and their condition; and unless he has used

himself to abstract thinking, he can hardly represent to himself such

a state of simplicity, in which man can have so few desires, and no

appetites roving beyond the immediate call of untaught nature: to me

it seems very plain, that such a couple would not only be destitute of

language, but likewise never find out, or imagine that they stood in

need of any; or that the want of it was any real inconvenience to them.

Hor. Why do you think so?

Cleo. Because it is impossible that any creatures should know the want

of what it can have no idea of: I believe, moreover, that if savages,

after they are grown men and women, should hear others speak, be made

acquainted with the usefulness of speech, and consequently become

sensible of the want of it in themselves, their inclination to learn

it would be as inconsiderable as their capacity; and if they should

attempt it, they would find it an immense labour, a thing not to be

surmounted; because the suppleness and flexibility in the organs of

speech, that children are endued with, and which I have often hinted

at, would be lost in them; and they might learn to play masterly

upon the violin, or any other the most difficult musical instrument,

before they could make any tolerable proficiency in speaking.

Hor. Brutes make several distinct sounds to express different

passions by: as for example, anguish, and great danger, dogs of

all sorts express with another noise than they do rage and anger;

and the whole species express grief by howling.

Cleo. This is no argument to make us believe, that nature has endued

man with speech; there are innumerable other privileges and instincts

which some brutes enjoy, and men are destitute of: chickens run about

as soon as they are hatched; and most quadrupeds can walk without help,

as soon as they are brought forth. If ever language came by instinct,

the people that spoke it must have known every individual word in

it; and a man in the wild state of nature would have no occasion

for a thousandth part of the most barren language that ever had a

name. When a man's knowledge is confined within a narrow compass, and

he has nothing to obey, but the simple dictates of nature, the want

of speech is easily supplied by dumb signs; and it is more natural

to untaught men to express themselves by gestures, than by sounds;

but we are all born with a capacity of making ourselves understood,

beyond other animals, without speech: to express grief, joy, love,

wonder and fear, there are certain tokens that are common to the

whole species. Who doubts that the crying of children was given them

by nature, to call assistance and raise pity, which latter it does

so unaccountably beyond any other sound?

Hor. In mothers and nurses, you mean.

Cleo. I mean in the generality of human creatures. Will you allow

me, that warlike music generally rouses and supports the spirits,

and keeps them from sinking.

Hor. I believe I must.

Cleo. Then I will engage, that the crying (I mean the vagitus)

of helpless infants will stir up compassion in the generality of

our species, that are within the hearing of it, with much greater

certainty than drums and trumpets will dissipate and chase away

fear, in those they are applied to. Weeping, laughing, smiling,

frowning, sighing, exclaiming, we spoke of before. How universal,

as well as copious, is the language of the eyes, by the help of

which the remotest nations understand one another at first sight,

taught or untaught, in the weightiest temporal concern that belongs

to the species? and in that language our wild couple would at their

first meeting intelligibly say more to one another without guile,

than any civilized pair would dare to name without blushing.

Hor. A man, without doubt, may be as impudent with his eyes, as he

can be with his tongue.

Cleo. All such looks, therefore, and several motions, that are natural,

are carefully avoided among polite people, upon no other account,

than that they are too significant: it is for the same reason that

stretching ourselves before others, whilst we are yawning, is an

absolute breach of good manners, especially in mixed company of

both sexes. As it is indecent to display any of these tokens, so

it is unfashionable to take notice of, or seem to understand them:

this disuse and neglect of them is the cause, that whenever they

happen to be made, either through ignorance or wilful rudeness,

many of them are lost and really not understood, by the beau monde,

that would be very plain to savages without language, who could have

no other means of conversing than by signs and motions.

Hor. But if the old stock would never either be able or willing to

acquire speech, it is possible they could teach it their children: then

which way could any language ever come into the world from two savages?

Cleo. By slow degrees, as all other arts and sciences have done,

and length of time; agriculture, physic, astronomy, architecture,

painting, &c. From what we see in children that are backward with

their tongues, we have reason to think, that a wild pair would make

themselves intelligible to each other by signs and gestures, before

they would attempt it by sounds: but when they lived together for

many years, it is very probable, that for the things they were most

conversant with they would find out sounds, to stir up in each other

the ideas of such things, when they were out of sight; these sounds

they would communicate to their young ones; and the longer they lived

together the greater variety of sounds they would invent, as well for

actions as the things themselves: they would find that the volubility

of tongue, and flexibility of voice, were much greater in their young

ones, than they could remember it ever to have been in themselves: it

is impossible, but some of these young ones would either by accident

or design, make use of this superior aptitude of the organs at one

time or other; which every generation would still improve upon; and

this must have been the origin of all languages, and speech itself,

that were not taught by inspiration. I believe moreover, that after

language (I mean such as is of human invention) was come to a great

degree of perfection, and even when people had distinct words for

every action in life, as well as every thing they meddled or conversed

with, signs and gestures still continued to be made for a great while,

to accompany speech; because both are intended for the same purpose.

Hor. The design of speech is to make our thoughts known to others.

Cleo. I do not think so.

Hor. What! do not men speak to be understood?

Cleo. In one sense they do; but there is a double meaning in those

words, which I believe you did not intend: if by man's speaking to

be understood you mean, that when men speak, they desire that the

purport of the sounds they utter should be known and apprehended by

others, I answer in the affirmative: but if you mean by it, that men

speak, in order that their thoughts may be known, and their sentiments

laid open and seen through by others, which likewise may be meant by

speaking to be understood, I answer in the negative. The first sign

or sound that ever man made, born of a woman, was made in behalf,

and intended for the use of him who made it; and I am of opinion,

that the first design of speech was to persuade others, either to give

credit to what the speaking person would have them believe; or else to

act or suffer such things, as he would compel them to act or suffer,

if they were entirely in his power.

Hor. Speech is likewise made use of to teach, advise, and inform others

for their benefit, as well as to persuade them in our own behalf.

Cleo. And so by the help of it men may accuse themselves and own their

crimes; but nobody would have invented speech for those purposes; I

speak of the design, the first motive and intention that put man upon

speaking. We see in children that the first things they endeavour to

express with words are their wants and their will; and their speech

is but a confirmation of what they asked, denied, or affirmed, by

signs before.

Hor. But why do you imagine that people would continue to make use of

signs and gestures, after they could sufficiently express themselves

in words?

Cleo. Because signs confirm words, as much as words do signs; and

we see, even in polite people, that when they are very eager they

can hardly forbear making use of both. When an infant, in broken

imperfect gibberish, calls for a cake or a play-thing, and at the

same time points at and reaches after it, this double endeavour

makes a stronger impression upon us, than if the child had spoke its

wants in plain words, without making any signs, or else looked at and

reached after the thing wanted, without attempting to speak. Speech

and action assist and corroborate one another, and experience teaches

us that they move us much more, and are more persuasive jointly than

separately; vis unita fortior; and when an infant makes use of both,

he acts from the same principle that an orator does when he joins

proper gestures to an elaborate declamation.

Hor. From what you have said it should seem that action is not only

more natural, but likewise more ancient than speech itself, which

before I should have thought a paradox.

Cleo. Yet it is true; and you shall always find that the most forward,

volatile, and fiery tempers make more use of gestures when they speak,

than others that are more patient and sedate.

Hor. It is a very diverting scene to see how this is overdone among

the French, and still more among the Portuguese: I have often been

amazed to see what distortions of face and body, as well as other

strange gesticulations with hands and feet, some of them will make in

their ordinary discourses: But nothing was more offensive to me, when

I was abroad, than the loudness and violence which most foreigners

speak with, even among persons of quality, when a dispute arises,

or any thing is to be debated: before I was used to it, it put me

always upon my guard; for I did not question but they were angry;

and I often recollected what had been said in order to consider

whether it was not something I ought to have resented.

Cleo. The natural ambition and strong desire men have to triumph over,

as well as persuade others, are the occasion of all this. Heightening

and lowering the voice at proper seasons, is a bewitching engine

to captivate mean understandings; and loudness is an assistant to

speech, as well as action is: uncorrectness, false grammar, and even

want of sense, are often happily drowned in noise and great bustle;

and many an argument has been convincing, that had all its force from

the vehemence it was made with: the weakness of the language itself

may be palliatively cured by strength of elocution.

Hor. I am glad that speaking low is the fashion among well-bred people

in England; for bawling and impetuosity I cannot endure.

Cleo. Yet this latter is more natural; and no man ever gave in to

the contrary practice, the fashion you like, that was not taught it

either by precept or example: and if men do not accustom themselves

to it whilst they are young, it is very difficult to comply with it

afterwards: but it is the most lovely, as well as most rational piece

of good manners that human invention has to boast of in the art of

flattery; for when a man addresses himself to me in a calm manner,

without making gestures or other motions with head or body, and

continues his discourse in the same submissive strain and composure

of voice, without exalting or depressing it, he, in the first place,

displays his own modesty and humility in an agreeable manner; and,

in the second, makes me a great compliment in the opinion which

he seems to have of me; for by such a behaviour he gives me the

pleasure to imagine that he thinks me not influenced by my passions,

but altogether swayed by my reason: he seems to lay his stress on my

judgment, and therefore to desire, that I should weigh and consider

what he says without being ruffled or disturbed: no man would do

this unless he trusted entirely to my good sense, and the rectitude

of my understanding.

Hor. I have always admired this unaffected manner of speaking, though

I never examined so deeply into the meaning of it.

Cleo. I cannot help thinking, but that, next to the laconic and manly

spirit that runs through the nation, we are very much beholden for the

strength and beauty of our language to this tranquillity in discourse,

which for many years has been in England, more than any where else,

a custom peculiar to the beau monde, who, in all countries, are the

undoubted refiners of language.

Hor. I thought that it was the preachers, play-wrights, orators,

and fine writers that refined upon language.

Cleo. They make the best of what is ready coined to their hands;

but the true and only mint of words and phrases is the court; and

the polite part of every nation are in possession of the jus et norma

loquendi. All technic words indeed, and terms of art, belong to the

respective artists and dealers, that primarily and literally make

use of them in their business; but whatever is borrowed from them

for metaphorical use, or from other languages, living or dead, must

first have the stamp of the court, and the approbation of beau monde

before it can pass for current; and whatever is not used among them,

or comes abroad without their sanction, is either vulgar, pedantic,

or obsolete. Orators therefore, historians, and all wholesale dealers

in words, are confined to those that have been already well received,

and from that treasure they may pick and choose what is most for

their purpose; but they are not allowed to make new ones of their own,

any more than bankers are suffered to coin.

Hor. All this while I cannot comprehend what advantage or disadvantage

speaking loud or low can be of to the language itself; and if what

I am saying now was set down, it must be a real conjurer that, half

a year hence, should be able to tell by the writing, whether it had

been bawled out or whispered.

Cleo. I am of opinion that when people of skill and address accustom

themselves to speak in the manner aforesaid, it must in time have an

influence upon the language, and render it strong and expressive.

Hor. But your reason?

Cleo. When a man has only his words to trust to, and the hearer is not

to be affected by the delivery of them, otherwise than if he was to

read them himself, it will infallibly put men upon studying not only

for nervous thoughts and perspicuity, but likewise for words of great

energy, for purity of diction, compactness of style, and fullness,

as well as elegancy of expressions.

Hor. This seems to be far fetched, and yet I do not know but there

may be something in it.

Cleo. I am sure you will think so, when you consider that men that do

speak are equally desirous and endeavouring to persuade and gain the

point they labour for, whether they speak loud or low, with gestures

or without.

Hor. Speech, you say, was invented to persuade; I am afraid you lay

too much stress upon that: it certainly is made use of likewise for

many other purposes.

Cleo. I do not deny that.

Hor. When people scold, call names, and pelt one another with

scurrilities, what design is that done with? If it be to persuade

others, to have a worse opinion of themselves than they are supposed

to entertain, I believe it is seldom done with success.

Cleo. Calling names is showing others, and showing them with pleasure

and ostentation, the vile and wretched opinion we have of them; and

persons that make use of opprobrious language, are often endeavouring

to make those whom they give it to, believe that they think worse of

them than they really do.

Hor. Worse than they do! Whence does that ever appear?

Cleo. From the behaviour and the common practice of those that scold

and call names. They rip up and exaggerate not only the faults and

imperfections of their adversary himself, but likewise every thing

that is ridiculous or contemptible in his friends or relations:

They will fly to, and reflect upon every thing which he is but in

the least concerned in, if any thing can possibly be said of it that

is reproachful; the occupation he follows, the party he sides with,

or the country he is of. They repeat with joy the calamities and

misfortunes that have befallen him or his family: They see the justice

of Providence in them, and they are sure they are punishments he has

deserved. Whatever crime he has been suspected of, they charge him

with, as if it had been proved upon him. They call in every thing to

their assistance; bare surmises, loose reports, and known calumnies;

and often upbraid him with what they themselves, at other times,

have owned not to believe.

Hor. But how comes the practice of scolding and calling names to

be so common among the vulgar all the world over? there must be a

pleasure in it, though I cannot conceive it: I ask to be informed;

what satisfaction or other benefit is it, that men receive or expect

from it? what view is it done with?

Cleo. The real cause and inward motive men act from, when they use

ill language, or call names in earnest, is, in the first place,

to give vent to their anger, which it is troublesome to stifle and

conceal. Secondly, to vex and afflict their enemies with greater hopes

of impunity than they could reasonably entertain, if they did them any

more substantial mischief, which the law would revenge: but this never

comes to be a custom, nor is thought of, before language is arrived to

great perfection, and society is carried to some degree of politeness.

Hor. That is merry enough, to assert that scurrility is the effect

of politeness.

Cleo. You shall call it what you please, but in its original it is

a plain shift to avoid fighting, and the ill consequences of it;

for nobody ever called another rogue and rascal, but he would have

struck him if it had been in his own power, and himself had not

been withheld by the fear of something or other: therefore, where

people call names without doing further injury, it is a sign not

only that they have wholesome laws amongst them against open force

and violence, but likewise that they obey and stand in awe of them;

and a man begins to be a tolerable subject, and is nigh half civilized,

that in his passion will take up and content himself with this paultry

equivalent; which never was done without great self-denial at first:

for otherwise the obvious, ready, and unstudied manner of venting

and expressing anger, which nature teaches, is the same in human

creatures that it is in other animals, and is done by fighting; as we

may observe in infants of two or three months old, that never yet saw

any body out of humour; for even at that age they will scratch, fling,

and strike with their heads as well as arms and legs, when any thing

raises their anger, which is easily, and at most times unaccountably

provoked; often by hunger, pain, and other inward ailments. That they

do this by instinct, something implanted in the frame, the mechanism

of the body before any marks of wit or reason are to be seen in them,

I am fully persuaded; as I am likewise, that nature teaches them the

manner of fighting peculiar to their species; and children strike

with their arms as naturally as horses kick, dogs bite, and bulls

push with their horns. I beg your pardon for this digression.

Hor. It was natural enough, but if it had been less so, you would

not have slipt the opportunity of having a fling at human nature,

which you never spare.

Cleo. We have not a more dangerous enemy than our own inborn pride:

I shall ever attack, and endeavour to mortify it when it is in my

power: For the more we are persuaded that the greatest excellencies

the best men have to boast of, are acquired, the greater stress it

will teach us to lay upon education; and the more truly solicitous

it will render us about it: And the absolute necessity of good and

early instructions, can be no way more clearly demonstrated, than by

exposing the deformity as well as the weakness of our untaught nature.

Hor. Let us return to speech: if the chief design of it is to persuade,

the French have got the start of us a great way; theirs is really a

charming language.

Cleo. So it is without doubt to a Frenchman.

Hor. And every body else, I should think, that understands it, and

has any taste: do not you think it to be very engaging?

Cleo. Yes, to one that loves his belly; for it is very copious in the

art of cookery, and every thing that belongs to eating and drinking.

Hor. But without banter, do not you think that the French tongue is

more proper, more fit to persuade in, than ours?

Cleo. To coax and wheedle in, I believe it may.

Hor. I cannot conceive what nicety it is you aim at, in that

distinction.

Cleo. The word you named includes no idea of reproach or disparagement;

the greatest capacities may, without discredit to them, yield to

persuasion, as well as the least; but those who can be gained by

coaxing and wheedling, are commonly supposed to be persons of mean

parts and weak understandings.

Hor. But pray come to the point: which of the two do you take to be

the finest language?

Cleo. That is hard to determine: Nothing is more difficult than to

compare the beauties of two languages together, because what is very

much esteemed in the one, is often not relished at all in the other:

In this point, the Pulchrum & Honestum varies, and is different every

where, as the genius of the people differs. I do not set up for a

judge, but what I have commonly observed in the two languages, is

this: All favourite expressions in French, are such as either sooth

or tickle; and nothing is more admired in English than what pierces

or strikes.

Hor. Do you take yourself to be entirely impartial now?

Cleo. I think so; but if I am not, I do not know how to be sorry for

it: There are some things in which it is the interest of the society

that men should be biassed; and I do not think it amiss, that men

should be inclined to love their own language, from the same principle

that they love their country. The French call us barbarous, and we

say they are fawning: I will not believe the first, let them believe

what they please. Do you remember the six lines in the Cid, which

Corneille is said to have had a present of six thousand livres for?

Hor. Very well.

Mon Pere est mort, Elvire, & la premiere Espee

Dont s'est arme Rodrigue a sa trame coupee.

Pleures, pleures mes yeux, & fondes vous en eau,

La moitie de ma vie a mis l'autre au tombeau;

Et m'oblige a venger, apres ce coup funeste,

Cell qui je n'ay plus sur celle qui me reste.

Cleo. The same thought expressed in our language, to all the advantage

it has in the French, would be hissed by an English audience.

Hor. That is no compliment to the taste of your country.

Cleo. I do not know that: Men may have no bad taste, and yet not be

so ready at conceiving, which way one half of one's life can put the

other into the grave: To me, I own it is puzzling, and it has too

much the air of a riddle to be seen in heroic poetry.

Hor. Can you find no delicacy at all in the thought?

Cleo. Yes; but it is too fine spun; it is the delicacy of a cobweb;

there is no strength in it.

Hor. I have always admired these lines; but now you have made me out of

conceit with them: Methinks I spy another fault that is much greater.

Cleo. What is that?

Hor. The author makes his heroine say a thing which was false in fact:

One half, says Chimene, of my life has put the other into the grave,

and obliges me to revenge, &c. Which is the nominative of the verb

obliges?

Cleo. One half of my life.

Hor. Here lies the fault; it is this, which I think is not true;

for the one half of her life, here mentioned, is plainly that half

which was left; it is Rodrigues her lover: Which way did he oblige

her to seek for revenge?

Cleo. By what he had done, killing her father.

Hor. No, Cleomenes, this excuse is insufficient. Chimene's calamity

sprung from the dilemma she was in between her love and her duty;

when the latter was inexorable, and violently pressing her to solicit

the punishment, and employ with zeal all her interest and eloquence to

obtain the death of him, whom the first had made dearer to her than

her own life; and therefore it was the half that was gone, that was

put in the grave, her dead father, and not Rodrigues which obliged

her to sue for justice: Had the obligation she lay under come from

this quarter, it might soon have been cancelled, and herself released

without crying out her eyes.

Cleo. I beg pardon for differing from you, but I believe the poet is

in the right.

Hor. Pray, consider which it was that made Chimene prosecute Rodrigues,

love, or honour.

Cleo. I do; but still I cannot help thinking, but that her lover,

by having killed her father, obliged Chimene to prosecute him, in the

same manner as a man, who will give no satisfaction to his creditors,

obliges them to arrest him; or as we would say to a coxcomb, who is

offending us with his discourse, If you go on thus, Sir, you will

oblige me to treat you ill: Though all this while the debtor might

be as little desirous of being arrested, and the coxcomb of being

ill treated, as Rodrigues was of being prosecuted.

Hor. I believe you are in the right, and I beg Corneille's pardon. But

now I desire you would tell me what you have further to say of society:

What other advantages do multitudes receive from the invention of

letters, besides the improvements it makes in their laws and language?

Cleo. It is an encouragement to all other inventions in general,

by preserving the knowledge of every useful improvement that is

made. When laws begin to be well known, and the execution of them is

facilitated by general approbation, multitudes may be kept in tolerable

concord among themselves: It is then that it appears, and not before,

how much the superiority of man's understanding beyond other animals,

contributes to his sociableness, which is only retarded by it in his

savage state.

Hor. How so, pray; I do not understand you.