GEORGE BERKELEY
THE VIRTUE OF FRIENDSHIP
[Sidenote: The universe]
If we consider the whole scope of the creation that lies within our
view, the moral and intellectual, as well as the natural and corporeal,
we shall perceive throughout, a certain correspondence of the parts, a
similitude of operation, and unity of design, which plainly demonstrate
the universe to be the work of one infinitely good and wise being; and
that the system of thinking beings is actuated by laws derived from the
same divine power which ordained those by which the corporeal system is
upheld.
From the contemplation of the order, motion, and cohesion of natural
bodies, philosophers are now agreed, that there is a mutual attraction
between the most
[Sidenote: Mutual attraction]
distant parts at least of this solar system. All those bodies that
revolve round the sun are drawn towards each other, and towards the sun,
by some secret, uniform, and never-ceasing principle. Hence it is that
the earth (as well as the other planets), without flying off in a
tangent line, constantly rolls about the sun, and the moon about the
earth, without deserting her companion in so many thousand years. And as
the larger systems of the universe are held together by this cause, so
likewise the particular globes derive their cohesion and consistence
from it.
Now if we carry our thoughts from the corporeal to the moral world, we
may observe in the spirits or minds of men, a like principle of
attraction, whereby they are drawn together in communities, clubs,
families, friendships, and all the
[Sidenote: Mutual attraction]
various species of society. As in bodies, where the quantity is the
same, the attraction is strongest between those which are placed nearest
to each other; so it is likewise in the minds of men, _cæteris paribus_,
between those which are most nearly related. Bodies that are placed at
the distance of many millions of miles, may nevertheless attract and
constantly operate on each other, although this action do not show
itself by a union or approach of those distant bodies so long as they
are withheld by the contrary forces of other bodies, which, at the same
time, attract them different ways; but would, on the supposed removal of
all other bodies, mutually approach and unite with each other. The like
holds with regard to the human soul, whose affection towards the
individuals of the same species,
[Sidenote: The soul’s affection]
who are distantly related to it, is rendered inconspicuous by its more
powerful attraction towards those who have a nearer relation to it. But
as those are removed, the tendency which before lay concealed, doth
gradually disclose itself.
A man who has no family is more strongly attracted towards his friends
and neighbours; and if absent from these, he naturally falls into an
acquaintance with those of his own city or country who chance to be in
the same place. Two Englishmen meeting at Rome or Constantinople, soon
run into familiarity. And in China or Japan, Europeans would think their
being so a good reason for their uniting in particular converse.
Farther, in case we suppose ourselves translated into Jupiter or Saturn,
and there to meet a Chinese or other more distant
[Sidenote: Natural reflections]
native of our own planet, we should look on him as a near relation, and
readily commence a friendship with him. These are natural reflections,
and such as may convince us that we are linked by an imperceptible chain
to every individual of the human race.
The several great bodies which compose the solar system are kept from
joining together at the common centre of gravity by the rectilinear
motions the author of nature has impressed on each of them; which,
concurring with the attractive principle, form their respective orbits
round the sun; upon the ceasing of which motions, the general law of
gravitation that is now thwarted, would show itself by drawing them all
into one mass. After the same manner, in the parallel case of society,
private passions
[Sidenote: Mutual gravitation]
and motions of the soul do often obstruct the operation of that
benevolent uniting instinct implanted in human nature; which,
notwithstanding, doth still exert, and will not fail to show itself when
those obstructions are taken away.
The mutual gravitation of bodies cannot be explained any other way than
by resolving it into the immediate operation of God, who never ceases to
dispose and actuate his creatures in a manner suitable to their
respective beings. So neither can that reciprocal attraction in the
minds of men be accounted for by any other cause. It is not the result
of education, law, or fashion; but is a principle originally ingrafted
in the very first formation of the soul by the author of our nature.
And as the attractive power in bodies
[Sidenote: Sympathy in our nature]
is the most universal principle which produceth innumerable effects, and
is a key to explain the various phenomena of nature; so the
corresponding social appetite in human souls is the great spring and
source of moral actions. This it is that inclines each individual to an
intercourse with his species, and models every one to that behaviour
which best suits with the common well-being. Hence that sympathy in our
nature, whereby we feel the pains and joys of our fellow creatures.
Hence that prevalent love in parents towards their children, which is
neither founded on the merit of the object, nor yet on self-interest. It
is this that makes us inquisitive concerning the affairs of distant
nations, which can have no influence on our own. It is this that extends
our care to future generations,
[Sidenote: The duty of mankind]
and excites us to acts of beneficence towards those who are not yet in
being, and consequently from whom we can expect no recompence. In a
word, hence arises that diffusive sense of humanity so unaccountable to
the selfish man who is untouched with it, and is indeed a sort of
monster, or anomalous production.
These thoughts do naturally suggest the following particulars. First,
that as social inclinations are absolutely necessary to the well-being
of the world, it is the duty and interest of each individual to cherish
and improve them to the benefit of mankind; the duty, because it is
agreeable to the intention of the author of our being, who aims at the
common good of his creatures, and as an indication of his will, hath
implanted the seeds of mutual benevolence in our souls; the
[Sidenote: The proof of religion]
interest, because the good of the whole is inseparable from that of the
parts; in promoting, therefore, the common good, every one doth at the
same time promote his own private interest. Another observation I shall
draw from the premises is, that it makes a signal proof of the divinity
of the Christian religion, that the main duty which it inculcates above
all others is charity. Different maxims and precepts have distinguished
the different sects of philosophy and religion; our Lord’s peculiar
precept is, ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself. By this shall all men know
that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’
I will not say, that what is a most shining proof of our religion, is
not often a reproach to its professors: but this I think very plain,
that whether we regard
[Sidenote: The nobility of religion]
the analogy of nature, as it appears in the mutual attraction or
gravitations of the mundane system, in the general frame and
constitution of the human soul; or lastly, in the ends and aptnesses
which are discoverable in all parts of the visible and intellectual
world; we shall not doubt but the precept, which is the characteristic
of our religion, came from the author of nature. Some of our modern
free-thinkers would indeed insinuate the Christian morals to be
defective, because, say they, there is no mention made in the gospel of
the virtue of friendship. These sagacious men (if I may be allowed the
use of that vulgar saying) ‘cannot see the wood for trees.’ That a
religion, whereof the main drift is to inspire its professors with the
most noble and disinterested spirit of love, charity, and
[Sidenote: Religion vindicated]
beneficence, to all mankind; or, in other words, with a friendship to
every individual man; should be taxed with the want of that very virtue
is surely a glaring evidence of the blindness and prejudice of its
adversaries.
[Illustration]
IX
ON THE CHOICE OF FRIENDS
SIR RICHARD STEELE
ON THE CHOICE OF FRIENDS
[Sidenote: Our reason and our temper]
When a man is in a serious mood, and ponders upon his own make, with a
retrospect to the actions of his life, and the many fatal miscarriages
in it, which he owes to ungoverned passions, he is then apt to say to
himself, that experience has guarded him against such errors for the
future: but nature often recurs in spite of his best resolutions; and it
is to the very end of our days a struggle between our reason and our
temper, which shall have the empire over us. However, this is very much
to be helped by circumspection, and a constant alarm against the first
onsets of passion. As this is, in general, a necesary
[Sidenote: Joys and griefs in proportion]
care to make a man’s life easy and agreeable to himself; so it is more
particularly the duty of such as are engaged in friendship, and nearer
commerce with others. Those who have their joys have also their griefs
in proportion; and none can extremely exalt or depress friends, but
friends. The harsh things which come from the rest of the world are
received and repulsed with that spirit, which every honest man bears for
his own vindication; but unkindness, in words or actions, among friends,
affects us at the first instant in the inmost recesses of our souls.
Indifferent people, if I may so say, can wound us only in heterogeneous
parts, maim us in our legs or arms; but the friend can make no _pass_
but at the heart itself. On the other side, the most impotent
assistance, the mere _well wishes_ of
[Sidenote: Friendship and marriage]
a friend, gives a man constancy and courage against the most prevailing
force of his enemies. It is here only a man enjoys and suffers to the
quick. For this reason the most gentle behaviour is absolutely necessary
to maintain friendship in any degree above the common level of
acquaintance. But there is a relation of life much more near than the
most strict and savoured friendship, that is to say, marriage. This
union is of too close and delicate a nature to be easily conceived by
those who do not know that condition by experience. Here a man should,
if possible, soften his passions; if not for his own ease, in compliance
to a creature formed with a mind of a quite different make from his own.
I am sure, I do not mean it an injury to women, when I say there is a
sort of sex in souls.
[Sidenote: Sex in souls]
I am tender of offending them, and know it is hard not to do it on this
subject; but I must go on to say, that the soul of a man, and that of a
woman, are made very unlike, according to the employments for which they
are designed. The ladies will please to observe, I say, our minds have
different, not superior qualities to theirs. The virtues have
respectively a masculine and a feminine cast. What we call in men
_wisdom_, is in women _prudence_. It is a partiality, to call one
greater than the other. A _prudent_ woman is in the same class of honour
as a _wise_ man, and the scandals in the way of both are equally
dangerous. But to make this state anything but a burden, and not hang a
weight upon our very beings, it is proper each of the couple should
frequently remember, that there are many things which grow
[Sidenote: Characteristics of men and women]
out of their very natures that are pardonable, nay, becoming, when
considered as such, but, without that reflection, must give the quickest
pain and vexation. To manage well a great family is as worthy an
instance of capacity as to execute a great employment: and for the
generality, as women perform the considerable part of their duties, as
well as men do theirs; so in their common behaviour, females of ordinary
genius are not more trivial than the common rate of men; and, in my
opinion, the playing of a fan is every whit as good an entertainment as
the beating of a snuff-box.
But, however, I have rambled in this libertine manner of writing by way
of _Essay_, I now sat down with an intention to represent to my readers
how pernicious, how sudden, and how fatal
[Sidenote: Passion’s terrible effects]
surprises of passion are to the mind of man; and that in the more
intimate commerces of life they are more liable to arise, even in our
most sedate and indolent hours. Occurrences of this kind have had very
terrible effects; and when one reflects upon them, we cannot but tremble
to consider what we are capable of being wrought up to, against all the
ties of nature, love, honour, reason, and religion, though the man who
breaks through them all, had, an hour before he did so, a lively and
virtuous sense of their dictates. When unhappy catastrophes make up part
of the history of princes and persons who act in high spheres, or are
represented in the moving language and well-wrought scenes of
tragedians, they do not fail of striking us with terror; but then they
affect us only in a transient manner, and
[Sidenote: Mistaking fortune for nature]
pass through our imaginations as incidents in which our fortunes are too
humble to be concerned, or which writers form for the ostentation of
their own force; or, at most, as things fit rather to exercise the
powers of our minds, than to create new habits in them. Instead of such
high passages, I was thinking it would be of great use, if anybody could
hit it, to lay before the world such adventures as befall persons not
exalted above the common level. This, methought, would better prevail
upon the ordinary race of men; who are so prepossessed with outward
appearances, that they mistake fortune for nature, and believe nothing
can relate to them, that does not happen to such as live and look like
themselves.
X
THE QUALIFICATIONS OF FRIENDSHIP
JOSEPH ADDISON
THE QUALIFICATIONS OF FRIENDSHIP
‘_Nos duo turba sumus._’--OVID.
We two are a multitude.
[Sidenote: Of conversation]
One would think that the larger the company is in which we are engaged,
the greater variety of thoughts and subjects would be started in
discourse; but, instead of this, we find that conversation is never so
much straitened and confined as in numerous assemblies. When a multitude
meet together on any subject of discourse, their debates are taken up
chiefly with forms and general positions; nay, if we come into a more
contracted assembly of men and women, the talk generally runs upon the
weather, fashions, news, and the like public topics. In proportion as
[Sidenote: Discourse between intimate friends]
conversation gets into clubs and knots of friends, it descends into
particulars, and friends grows more free and communicative: but the most
open, instructive, and unreserved discourse, is that which passes
between two persons who are familiar and intimate friends. On these
occasions, a man gives a loose to every passion and every thought that
is uppermost, discovers his most retired opinions of persons and things,
tries the beauty and strength of his sentiments, and exposes his whole
soul to the examination of his friend.
Tully was the first who observed that friendship improves happiness and
abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and dividing of our grief; a
thought in which he hath been followed by all the essayers upon
friendship that have written since his time. Sir Francis Bacon has
finely described
[Sidenote: The art of making friends]
other advantages, or, as he calls them, fruits of friendship; and,
indeed, there is no subject of morality which has been better handled
and more exhausted than this. Among the several fine things which have
been spoken of it, I shall beg leave to quote some out of a very ancient
author,[1] whose book would be regarded by our modern wits as one of the
most shining tracts of morality that is extant, if it appeared under the
name of a Confucius, or of any celebrated Grecian philosopher: I mean
the little apocryphal treatise, entitled _The Wisdom of the Son of
Sirach_. How finely has he described the art of making friends by an
obliging and affable behaviour! And laid down that precept, which a late
excellent author has delivered as his own, that we should have many
[1: The quotations made are from Ecclesiasticus.--ED.]
[Sidenote: The choice of our friends]
well-wishers, but few friends. ‘Sweet language will multiply friends;
and a fair-speaking tongue will increase kind greetings. Be in peace
with many, nevertheless have but one councellor of a thousand.’ With
what prudence does he caution us in the choice of our friends! And with
what strokes of nature (I could almost say of humour) has he described
the behaviour of a treacherous and self-interested friend! ‘If thou
wouldest get a friend, prove him first, and be not hasty to credit him:
for some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will not abide in the
day of thy trouble. And there is a friend who being turned to enmity and
strife, will discover thy reproach.’ Again, ‘Some friend is a companion
at the table, and will not continue in the day of thy affliction; but,
in thy prosperity he will be as thyself,
[Sidenote: An eulogium of friendship]
and will be bold over thy servants. If thou be brought low he will be
against thee, and hide himself from thy face.’ What can be more strong
and pointed than the following verse? ‘Separate thyself from thine
enemies, and take heed of thy friends.’ In the next words he
particularises one of those fruits of friendship which is described at
length by the two famous authors above mentioned, and falls into a
general eulogium of friendship which is very just as well as very
sublime. ‘A faithful friend is a strong defence; and he that hath found
such a one hath found a treasure. Nothing doth countervail a faithful
friend, and his excellency is valuable. A faithful friend is the
medicine of life; and they that fear the Lord shall find him. Whoso
feareth the Lord shall direct his friendship
[Sidenote: Friends new and old]
aright; for as he is, so shall his neighbour (that is his friend) be
also.’
I do not remember to have met with any saying that has pleased me more
than that of a friend’s being the medicine of life, to express the
efficacy of friendship in healing the pains and anguish which naturally
cleave to our existence in this world; and am wonderfully pleased with
the turn in the last sentence, that a virtuous man shall as a blessing
meet with a friend who is as virtuous as himself. There is another
saying in the same author, which would have been very much admired in an
heathen writer: ‘Forsake not an old friend, for the new is not
comparable to him; a new friend is as new wine; when it is old thou
shalt drink it with pleasure.’ With what strength of allusion and force
of thought has he described the breaches and violations of
friendship?--‘Whoso casteth a stone
[Sidenote: Familiar sentences]
at the birds frayeth them away; and he that upbraideth his friend,
breaketh friendship. Though thou drawest a sword at a friend, yet
despair not, for there may be a returning to favour. If thou hast opened
thy mouth against thy friend, fear not, for there may be a
reconciliation; except for upbraiding, or pride, or disclosing of
secrets, or a treacherous wound; for, for these things every friend will
depart.’ We may observe in this and several other precepts in this
author, those little, familiar sentences and illustrations which are so
much admired in the moral writings of Horace and Epictetus. There are
very beautiful instances of this nature in the following passages, which
are likewise written upon the same subject. ‘Whoso discovereth secrets,
loseth his credit, and shall never find a friend to his mind. Love thy
friend, and be faithful unto him; but
[Sidenote: Qualifications of a good friend]
if thou bewrayeth his secret follow no more after him: for as a man hath
destroyed his enemy, so hast thou lost the love of thy friend; as one
that letteth a bird go out of his hand, so hast thou let thy friend go,
and shall not get him again; follow after him no more, for he is too far
off; he is as a roe escaped out of the snare. As for a wound it may be
bound up, and after reviling there may be a reconciliation: but he that
bewrayeth secrets is without hope.’
Among the several qualifications of a good friend, this wise man has
very justly singled out constancy and faithfulness as the principal: to
these, others have added virtue, knowledge, discretion, equality in age
and fortune, and Cicero calls it _Morum comitas_, ‘a pleasantness of
temper.’ If I were to give my opinion upon such an exhausted subject, I
should join to these
[Sidenote: Martial’s epigram]
other qualifications, a certain equability or evenness of behaviour. A
man often contracts a friendship with one whom perhaps he does not find
out till after a year’s conversation; when on a sudden some latent ill
humour breaks out upon him, which he never discovered or suspected at
his first entering into an intimacy with him. There are several who in
certain periods of their lives are inexpressibly agreeable, and in
others as odious and detestable. Martial has given us a very pretty
picture of one of this species, in the following epigram:
‘_Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem,_
_Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te._’
In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,
Thou’rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow;
Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.
[Sidenote: Our greatest task]
It is very unlucky for a man to be entangled in a friendship with one,
who, by these changes and vicissitudes of humour, is sometimes amiable,
and sometimes odious: and as most men are at some time in admirable
frame and disposition of mind, it should be one of the greatest tasks of
wisdom to keep ourselves well when we are so, and never to go out of
that which is the agreeable part of our character.
[Illustration]
XI
OF FRIENDSHIP
FRANCIS BACON
OF FRIENDSHIP
[Sidenote: Solitude and friendship]
It had been hard for him that spake it, to have put more truth and
untruth together, in few words, than in that speech; ‘Whosoever is
delighted in solitude is either a wild beast, or a god.’ For it is most
true, that a natural and secret hatred, and aversation towards society,
in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue,
that it should have any character, at all, of the divine nature; except
it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and
desire to sequester a man’s self for a higher conversation: such as is
found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as
Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman,
[Sidenote: Friendship in cities]
Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really,
in divers of the ancient hermits, and holy fathers of the Church. But
little do men perceive what solitude is and how far it extendeth. For a
crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk
but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth
with it a little; ‘_Magna civitas, magna solitudo_’; because in a great
town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for
the most part, which is in less neighbourhoods. But we may go further,
and affirm most truly; that it is a mere, and miserable solitude, to
want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness: and even
in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and
affections is
[Sidenote: The fruit of friendship]
unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.