This shews us, how Unnatural a Vanity it is, for a Creature that was
Made for One Condition, to Aspire to Another. The _Tortoises_ Place was
upon the Sands, not among the Stars; and if he had kept to his Station,
he would have been in No Danger of Falling. Many a Fool has Good Councel
Offer’d him, that has not either the Wit, or the Grace to Take it; and
his Willfulness commonly Ends in his Ruine.
Every thing in Nature has it’s Appointed Place, and Condition, and
there’s No putting a Force upon any thing, contrary to the Biass and
Intent of it’s Institution. What Bus’ness has a _Tortoise_ among the
Clouds? Or why may not the Earth it self as well Covet a Higher Place,
as any Creature that’s Confin’d to’t? It is, in short, a Silly, an
Extravagant, and in Truth, so Impious a Fancy, that there can hardly
be a Greater Folly, then to Wish, or but so much as Suppose it: But
there’s an Ambition in mean Creatures, as well as in Mean Souls. So many
Ridiculous Upstarts as we find Promoted in the World, we may Imagin to
be so many _Tortoises_ in the Air; and when they have Flutter’d there a
While, like _Paper Kites_, for the Boys to stare at, He that took them
up, grows either Asham’d, or Weary of them, and so lets them Drop again;
and, with the Devil Himself, e’en leaves them where he found them. This
may serve to put a Check to the Vanity and Folly of an Unruly Ambition;
that’s Deaf, not only to the Advice of Friends, but to the Councels
and Monitions of the very Spirit of Reason it self: For flying without
Wings is All one with Working without Means. We see a Thousand Instances
in the World, Every jot as Ridiculous as This in the Fable. That is to
say, of Men that are Made for One Condition, and yet Affect Another.
What signifies the Fiction of _Phaeton_ in the Chariot of the _Sun_?
The _Frog_ vying Bulk with an _Oxe_; or the _Tortoise_ Riding upon the
Wings of the Wind; but to Prescribe Bounds and Measures to our Exorbitant
Passions; and at the same time, to shew us upon the Issue, that All
Unnatural Pretensions are Attended with a Certain Ruine?