procured him to be arrested at the door; but Lentulus, instead of
endeavouring secretly to pacify him by payment, gave notice to the rest,
and offered to divide amongst them the remnant of his fortune: they
feasted six hours at his expense, to deliberate on his proposal; and at
last determined, that as he could not offer more than five shillings in
the pound, it would be more prudent to keep him in prison, till he could
procure from his relations the payment of his debts.
Lentulus is not the only man confined within these walls, on the same
account: the like procedure, upon the like motives, is common among men
whom yet the law allows to partake the use of fire and water with the
compassionate and the just; who frequent the assemblies of commerce in
open day, and talk with detestation and contempt of highwaymen or
housebreakers: but, surely, that man must be confessedly robbed, who is
compelled, by whatever means, to pay the debts which he does not owe:
nor can I look with equal hatred upon him, who, at the hazard of his
life, holds out his pistol and demands my purse, as on him who plunders
under shelter of the law, and by detaining my son or my friend in
prison, extorts from me the price of their liberty. No man can be more
an enemy to society than he, by whose machinations our virtues are
turned to our disadvantage; he is less destructive to mankind that
plunders cowardice, than he that preys upon compassion.
I believe, Mr. Adventurer, you will readily confess, that though not one
of these, if tried before a commercial judicature, can be wholly
acquitted from imprudence or temerity; yet that, in the eye of all who
can consider virtue as distinct from wealth, the fault of two of them,
at least, is outweighed by the merit; and that of the third is so much
extenuated by the circumstances of his life, as not to deserve a
perpetual prison: yet must these, with multitudes equally blameless,
languish in confinement, till malevolence shall relent, or the law be
changed.
I am, Sir,
Your humble servant, MISARGYRUS.
No. 67. TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1753.
_Inventas--vitam excolucre per artes_. VIRG. Aen. vi. 663.
They polish life by useful arts.
That familiarity produces neglect, has been long observed. The effect of
all external objects, however great or splendid, ceases with their
novelty; the courtier stands without emotion in the royal presence; the
rustick tramples under his foot the beauties of the spring with little
attention to their colours or their fragrance; and the inhabitant of the
coast darts his eye upon the immense diffusion of waters, without awe,
wonder, or terrour.
Those who have past much of their lives in this great city, look upon
its opulence and its multitudes, its extent and variety, with cold
indifference; but an inhabitant of the remoter parts of the kingdom is
immediately distinguished by a kind of dissipated curiosity, a busy
endeavour to divide his attention amongst a thousand objects, and a wild
confusion of astonishment and alarm.
The attention of a new comer is generally first struck by the
multiplicity of cries that stun him in the streets, and the variety of
merchandize and manufactures which the shopkeepers expose on every hand;
and he is apt, by unwary bursts of admiration, to excite the merriment
and contempt of those who mistake the use of their eyes for effects of
their understanding, and confound accidental knowledge with just
reasoning.
But, surely, these are subjects on which any man may without reproach
employ his meditations: the innumerable occupations, among which the
thousands that swarm in the streets of London, are distributed, may
furnish employment to minds of every cast, and capacities of every
degree. He that contemplates the extent of this wonderful city, finds it
difficult to conceive, by what method plenty is maintained in our
markets, and how the inhabitants are regularly supplied with the
necessaries of life; but when he examines the shops and warehouses, sees
the immense stores of every kind of merchandize piled up for sale, and
runs over all the manufactures of art and products of nature, which are
every where attracting his eye and soliciting his purse, he will be
inclined to conclude, that such quantities cannot easily be exhausted,
and that part of mankind must soon stand still for want of employment,
till the wares already provided shall be worn out and destroyed.
As Socrates was passing through the fair at Athens, and casting his eyes
over the shops and customers, "how many things are here," says he, "that
I do not want!" The same sentiment is every moment rising in the mind of
him that walks the streets of London, however inferior in philosophy to
Socrates: he beholds a thousand shops crowded with goods, of which he
can scarcely tell the use, and which, therefore, he is apt to consider
as of no value: and indeed, many of the arts by which families are
supported, and wealth is heaped together, are of that minute and
superfluous kind, which nothing but experience could evince possible to
be prosecuted with advantage, and which, as the world might easily want,
it could scarcely be expected to encourage.
But so it is, that custom, curiosity, or wantonness, supplies every art
with patrons, and finds purchasers for every manufacture; the world is
so adjusted, that not only bread, but riches may be obtained without
great abilities or arduous performances: the most unskilful hand and
unenlightened mind have sufficient incitements to industry; for he that
is resolutely busy, can scarcely be in want. There is, indeed, no
employment, however despicable, from which a man may not promise himself
more than competence, when he sees thousands and myriads raised to
dignity, by no other merit than that of contributing to supply their
neighbours with the means of sucking smoke through a tube of clay; and
others raising contributions upon those, whose elegance disdains the
grossness of smoky luxury, by grinding the same materials into a. powder
that may at once gratify and impair the smell.
Not only by these popular and modish trifles, but by a thousand unheeded
and evanescent kinds of business, are the multitudes of this city
preserved from idleness, and consequently from want. In the endless
variety of tastes and circumstances that diversify mankind, nothing is
so superfluous, but that some one desires it: or so common, but that
some one is compelled to buy it. As nothing is useless but because it is
in improper hands, what is thrown away by one is gathered up by another;
and the refuse of part of mankind furnishes a subordinate class with the
materials necessary to their support.
When I look round upon those who are thus variously exerting their
qualifications, I cannot but admire the secret concatenation of society
that links together the great and the mean, the illustrious and the
obscure; and consider with benevolent satisfaction, that no man, unless
his body or mind be totally disabled, has need to suffer the
mortification of seeing himself useless or burthensome to the community:
he that will diligently labour, in whatever occupation, will deserve the
sustenance which he obtains, and the protection which he enjoys; and may
lie down every night with the pleasing consciousness of having
contributed something to the happiness of life.
Contempt and admiration are equally incident to narrow minds: he whose
comprehension can take in the whole subordination of mankind, and whose
perspicacity can pierce to the real state of things through the thin
veils of fortune or of fashion, will discover meanness in the highest
stations, and dignity in the meanest; and find that no man can become
venerable but by virtue, or contemptible but by wickedness.
In the midst of this universal hurry, no man ought to be so little
influenced by example, or so void of honest emulation, as to stand a
lazy spectator of incessant labour; or please himself with the mean
happiness of a drone, while the active swarms are buzzing about him: no
man is without some quality, by the due application of which he might
deserve well of the world; and whoever he be that has but little in his
power, should be in haste to do that little, lest he be confounded with
him that can do nothing.
By this general concurrence of endeavours, arts of every kind have been
so long cultivated, that all the wants of man may be immediately
supplied; idleness can scarcely form a wish which she may not gratify by
the toil of others, or curiosity dream of a toy, which the shops are not
ready to afford her.
Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known; and such is the
state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience of its
contrary: we who have long lived amidst the conveniencies of a town
immensely populous, have scarce an idea of a place where desire cannot
be gratified by money. In order to have a just sense of this artificial
plenty, it is necessary to have passed some time in a distant colony, or
those parts of our island which are thinly inhabited: he that has once
known how many trades every man in such situations is compelled to
exercise, with how much labour the products of nature must be
accommodated to human use, how long the loss or defect of any common
utensil must be endured, or by what awkward expedients it must be
supplied, how far men may wander with money in their hands before any
can sell them what they wish to buy, will know how to rate at its proper
value the plenty and ease of a great city.
But that the happiness of man may still remain imperfect, as wants in
this place are easily supplied, new wants likewise are easily created;
every man, in surveying the shops of London, sees numberless instruments
and conveniencies, of which, while he did not know them, he never felt
the need; and yet, when use has made them familiar, wonders how life
could be supported without them. Thus it comes to pass, that our desires
always increase with our possessions; the knowledge that something
remains yet unenjoyed, impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
They who have been accustomed to the refinements of science, and
multiplications of contrivance, soon lose their confidence in the
unassisted powers of nature, forget the paucity of our real necessities,
and overlook the easy methods by which they may be supplied. It were a
speculation worthy of a philosophical mind, to examine how much is taken
away from our native abilities, as well as added to them, by artificial
expedients. We are so accustomed to give and receive assistance, that
each of us singly can do little for himself; and there is scarce any one
among us, however contracted may be his form of life, who does not enjoy
the labour of a thousand artists.
But a survey of the various nations that inhabit the earth will inform
us, that life may be supported with less assistance; and that the
dexterity, which practice enforced by necessity produces, is able to
effect much by very scanty means. The nations of Mexico and Peru erected
cities and temples without the use of iron; and at this day the rude
Indian supplies himself with all the necessaries of life: sent like the
rest of mankind naked into the world, as soon as his parents have nursed
him up to strength, he is to provide by his own labour for his own
support. His first care is to find a sharp flint among the rocks; with
this he undertakes to fell the trees of the forest; he shapes his bow,
heads his arrows, builds his cottage, and hollows his canoe, and from
that time lives in a state of plenty and prosperity; he is sheltered
from the storms, he is fortified against beasts of prey, he is enabled
to pursue the fish of the sea, and the deer of the mountains; and as he
does not know, does not envy the happiness of polished nations, where
gold can supply the want of fortitude and skill, and he whose laborious
ancestors have made him rich, may lie stretched upon a couch, and see
all the treasures of all the elements poured down before him.
This picture of a savage life if it shows how much individuals may
perform, shows likewise how much society is to be desired. Though the
perseverance and address of the Indian excite our admiration, they
nevertheless cannot procure him the conveniencies which are enjoyed by
the vagrant beggar of a civilized country: he hunts like a wild beast to
satisfy his hunger; and when he lies down to rest after a successful
chase, cannot pronounce himself secure against the danger of perishing
in a few days: he is, perhaps, content with his condition, because he
knows not that a better is attainable by man; as he that is born blind
does not long for the perception of light, because he cannot conceive
the advantages which light would afford him; but hunger, wounds, and
weariness, are real evils, though he believes them equally incident to
all his fellow-creatures; and when a tempest compels him to lie starving
in his hut, he cannot justly be concluded equally happy with those whom
art has exempted from the power of chance, and who make the foregoing
year provide for the following.
To receive and to communicate assistance, constitutes the happiness of
human life: man may, indeed, preserve his existence in solitude, but can
enjoy it only in society; the greatest understanding of an individual,
doomed to procure food and clothing for himself, will barely supply him
with expedients to keep off death from day to day; but as one of a large
community performing only his share of the common business, he gains
leisure for intellectual pleasures, and enjoys the happiness of reason
and reflection.
No. 69. TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1753.
_Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt._ Cæsar.
Men willingly believe what they wish to be true.
Tully has long ago observed, that no man, however weakened by long life,
is so conscious of his own decrepitude, as not to imagine that he may
yet hold his station in the world for another year.
Of the truth of this remark every day furnishes new confirmation: there
is no time of life, in which men for the most part seem less to expect
the stroke of death, than when every other eye sees it impending; or are
more busy in providing for another year, than when it is plain to all
but themselves, that at another year they cannot arrive. Though every
funeral that passes before their eyes evinces the deceitfulness of such
expectations, since every man who is born to the grave thought himself
equally certain of living at least to the next year; the survivor still
continues to flatter himself, and is never at a loss for some reason why
his life should be protracted, and the voracity of death continue to be
pacified with some other prey.
But this is only one of the innumerable artifices practised in the
universal conspiracy of mankind against themselves: every age and every
condition indulges some darling fallacy; every man amuses himself with
projects which he knows to be improbable, and which, therefore, he
resolves to pursue without daring to examine them. Whatever any man
ardently desires, he very readily believes that he shall some time
attain: he whose intemperance has overwhelmed him with diseases, while
he languishes in the spring, expects vigour and recovery from the summer
sun; and while he melts away in the summer, transfers his hopes to the
frosts of winter: he that gazes upon elegance or pleasure, which want of
money hinders him from imitating or partaking, comforts himself that the
time of distress will soon be at an end, and that every day brings him
nearer to a state of happiness; though he knows it has passed not only
without acquisition of advantage, but perhaps without endeavours after
it, in the formation of schemes that cannot be executed, and in the
contemplation of prospects which cannot be approached.
Such is the general dream in which we all slumber out our time: every
man thinks the day coming, in which he shall be gratified with all his
wishes, in which he shall leave all those competitors behind, who are
now rejoicing like himself in the expectation of victory; the day is
always coming to the servile in which they shall be powerful, to the
obscure in which they shall be eminent, and to the deformed in which
they shall be beautiful.
If any of my readers has looked with so little attention on the world
about him, as to imagine this representation exaggerated beyond
probability, let him reflect a little upon his own life; let him
consider what were his hopes and prospects ten years ago, and what
additions he then expected to be made by ten years to his happiness;
those years are now elapsed; have they made good the promise that was
extorted from them? have they advanced his fortune, enlarged his
knowledge, or reformed his conduct, to the degree that was once
expected? I am afraid, every man that recollects his hopes must confess
his disappointment; and own that day has glided unprofitably after day,
and that he is still at the same distance from the point of happiness.
With what consolations can those, who have thus miscarried in their
chief design, elude the memory of their ill success? with what
amusements can they pacify their discontent, after the loss of so large
a portion of life? they can give themselves up again to the same
delusions, they can form new schemes of airy gratifications, and fix
another period of felicity; they can again resolve to trust the promise
which they know will be broken, they can walk in a circle with their
eyes shut, and persuade themselves to think that they go forward.
Of every great and complicated event, part depends upon causes out of
our power, and part must be effected by vigour and perseverance. With
regard to that which is styled in common language the work of chance,
men will always find reasons for confidence or distrust, according to
their different tempers or inclinations; and he that has been long
accustomed to please himself with possibilities of fortuitous happiness,
will not easily or willingly be reclaimed from his mistake. But the
effects of human industry and skill are more easily subjected to
calculation: whatever can be completed in a year, is divisible into
parts, of which each may be performed in the compass of a day; he,
therefore, that has passed the day without attention to the task
assigned him, may be certain, that the lapse of life has brought him no
nearer to his object; for whatever idleness may expect from time, its
produce will be only in proportion to the diligence with which it has
been used. He that floats lazily down the stream, in pursuit of
something borne along by the same current, will find himself indeed move
forward; but unless he lays his hand to the oar, and increases his speed
by his own labour, must be always at the same distance from that which
he is following.
There have happened in every age some contingencies of unexpected and
undeserved success, by which those who are determined to believe
whatever favours their inclinations, have been encouraged to delight
themselves with future advantages; they support confidence by
considerations, of which the only proper use is to chase away despair:
it is equally absurd to sit down in idleness because some have been
enriched without labour, as to leap a precipice because some have fallen
and escaped with life, or to put to sea in a storm because some have
been driven from a wreck upon the coast to which they are bound.
We are all ready to confess, that belief ought to be proportioned to
evidence or probability: let any man, therefore, compare the number of
those who have been thus favoured by fortune, and of those who have
failed of their expectations, and he will easily determine, with what
justness he has registered himself in the lucky catalogue.
But there is no need on these occasions for deep inquiries or laborious
calculations; there is a far easier method of distinguishing the hopes
of folly from those of reason, of finding the difference between
prospects that exist before the eyes, and those that are only painted on
a fond imagination. Tom Drowsy had accustomed himself to compute the
profit of a darling project till he had no longer any doubt of its
success; it was at last matured by close consideration, all the measures
were accurately adjusted, and he wanted only five hundred pounds to
become master of a fortune that might be envied by a director of a
trading company. Tom was generous and grateful, and was resolved to
recompense this small assistance with an ample fortune; he, therefore,
deliberated for a time, to whom amongst his friends he should declare
his necessities; not that he suspected a refusal, but because he could
not suddenly determine which of them would make the best use of riches,
and was, therefore, most worthy of his favour. At last his choice was
settled; and knowing that in order to borrow he must shew the
probability of repayment, he prepared for a minute and copious
explanation of his project. But here the golden dream was at an end: he
soon discovered the impossibility of imposing upon others the notions by
which he had so long imposed upon himself; which way soever he turned
his thoughts, impossibility and absurdity arose in opposition on every
side; even credulity and prejudice were at last forced to give way, and
he grew ashamed of crediting himself what shame would not suffer him to
communicate to another.
To this test let every man bring his imaginations, before they have been
too long predominant in his mind. Whatever is true will bear to be
related, whatever is rational will endure to be explained; but when we
delight to brood in secret over future happiness, and silently to employ
our meditations upon schemes of which we are conscious that the bare
mention would expose us to derision and contempt; we should then
remember, that we are cheating ourselves by voluntary delusions; and
giving up to the unreal mockeries of fancy, those hours in which solid
advantages might be attained by sober thought and rational assiduity.
There is, indeed, so little certainty in human affairs, that the most
cautious and severe examiner may be allowed to indulge some hopes which
he cannot prove to be much favoured by probability; since, after his
utmost endeavours to ascertain events, he must often leave the issue in
the hands of chance. And so scanty is our present allowance of
happiness, that in many situations life could scarcely be supported, if
hope were not allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed
from futurity; and reanimate the languor of dejection to new efforts, by
pointing to distant regions of felicity, which yet no resolution or
perseverance shall ever reach.
But these, like all other cordials, though they may invigorate in a
small quantity, intoxicate in a greater; these pleasures, like the rest,
are lawful only in certain circumstances, and to certain degrees; they
may be useful in a due subserviency to nobler purposes, but become
dangerous and destructive when once they gain the ascendant in the
heart: to soothe the mind to tranquillity by hope, even when that hope
is likely to deceive us, may be sometimes useful; but to lull our
faculties in a lethargy is poor and despicable.
Vices and errours are differently modified, according to the state of
the minds to which they are incident; to indulge hope beyond the warrant
of reason, is the failure alike of mean and elevated understandings; but
its foundation and its effects are totally different: the man of high
courage and great abilities is apt to place too much confidence in
himself, and to expect, from a vigorous exertion of his powers, more
than spirit or diligence can attain: between him and his wish he sees
obstacles indeed, but he expects to overleap or break them; his mistaken
ardour hurries him forward; and though, perhaps, he misses his end, he
nevertheless obtains some collateral good, and performs something useful
to mankind, and honourable to himself.