This falls hard upon the desperate Obstinacy of some Women; and the Freak
of the Conceit does no yet derogate from the Usefulness of the Fable. The
Analogy is Pleasant and Pertinent enough, betwixt a Living Crossness of
Humour, and Opposition to the ordinary Course and Reason of Things, and
the Fancy of a Dead Body swimming against the Stream. And the License
of Couching the Matter under this Figure, and of Wording it after that
Manner, carries no Offence with it, either to Congruity, or Good Manners.
Beside, that the very Turn and Point of the Illustration sets a Mark
upon’t to be Remember’d by: So that the Moral sticks by us, and takes a
Deeper Root, when we can call it to Mind afterwards by such or such a
Token.
There are some People that Value themselves upon being a kind of
_Antipodes_ to all Mankind, and in making other Mens Rules their
Exceptions: Opposition and Contradiction is their Study and Delight. Now
there’s as much Pride and Vanity in setting up for the Ring-leader of a
Perverse Practice, as in the Affectation of being the First Broacher of
an Heretical Opinion. Hence it comes that Half the Wit of the World is
Exercised upon _Paradox_; and that which we call _Good Humour_, is in
Truth but a sort of _Slight of Hand_ in Discourse, or a Faculty of making
Truths look like Appearances, or Appearances like Truths. Now this Gift
of _Hocus-Pocussing_, and of Disguising Matters, is so Surprising and
Agreeable on the one hand, that it must of Necessity be a very strong
Temptation to the Quitting of the Beaten Road on the other. Mankind
was all cast in the same Mould, made liable to the same Affections,
Enlightened with the same Principles, and we have all of us the same Rule
to Walk by; the same Duties incumbent upon us in this World, and the same
Pretensions to our Part in the next; insomuch that whoever affects a
Fantastical Singularity of Crossness to all his Fellows, he puts himself
in some degree out of the Pale of a common Providence and Protection:
Beside, that the Evil is as incurable in the Man to whom it is become
Habitual, as it was with the _Woman_ here in the Fable.