No. 79. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1750.
_Tam sæpe nostrum decipi Fabulinum_
_Miraris, Aule? Semper bonus homo tiro est._
MART. Lib. xii. Ep. 51.
You wonder I've so little wit,
Friend John, so often to be bit--
None better guard against a cheat
Than he who is a knave complete.
F. LEWIS.
Suspicion, however necessary it may be to our safe passage through ways
beset on all sides by fraud and malice, has been always considered, when
it exceeds the common measures, as a token of depravity and corruption;
and a Greek writer of sentences has laid down as a standing maxim, that
_he who believes not another on his oath, knows himself to be perjured_.
We can form our opinions of that which we know not, only by placing it in
comparison with something that we know; whoever, therefore, is over-run
with suspicion, and detects artifice and stratagem in every proposal,
must either have learned by experience or observation the wickedness of
mankind, and been taught to avoid fraud by having often suffered or seen
treachery, or he must derive his judgment from the consciousness of his
own disposition, and impute to others the same inclinations, which he
feels predominant in himself.
To learn caution by turning our eyes upon life, and observing the arts
by which negligence is surprized, timidity overborne, and credulity
amused, requires either great latitude of converse and long acquaintance
with business, or uncommon activity of vigilance, and acuteness of
penetration. When, therefore, a young man, not distinguished by vigour
of intellect, comes into the world full of scruples and diffidence; makes
a bargain with many provisional limitations; hesitates in his answer to
a common question, lest more should be intended than he can immediately
discover; has a long reach in detecting the projects of his acquaintance;
considers every caress as an act of hypocrisy, and feels neither
gratitude nor affection from the tenderness of his friends, because he
believes no one to have any real tenderness but for himself; whatever
expectations this early sagacity may raise of his future eminence or
riches, I can seldom forbear to consider him as a wretch incapable of
generosity or benevolence; as a villain early completed beyond the need
of common opportunities and gradual temptations.
Upon men of this class instruction and admonition are generally
thrown away, because they consider artifice and deceit as proofs of
understanding; they are misled at the same time by the two great seducers
of the world, vanity and interest, and not only look upon those who act
with openness and confidence, as condemned by their principles to
obscurity and want, but as contemptible for narrowness of comprehension,
shortness of views, and slowness of contrivance.
The world has been long amused with the mention of policy in publick
transactions, and of art in private affairs; they have been considered as
the effects of great qualities, and as unattainable by men of the common
level: yet I have not found many performances either of art or policy,
that required such stupendous efforts of intellect, or might not have
been effected by falsehood and impudence, without the assistance of any
other powers. To profess what he does not mean, to promise what he cannot
perform, to flatter ambition with prospects of promotion, and misery
with hopes of relief, to sooth pride with appearances of submission, and
appease enmity by blandishments and bribes, can surely imply nothing more
or greater than a mind devoted wholly to its own purposes, a face that
cannot blush, and a heart that cannot feel.
These practices are so mean and base, that he who finds in himself no
tendency to use them, cannot easily believe that they are considered by
others with less detestation; he therefore suffers himself to slumber
in false security, and becomes a prey to those who applaud their own
subtilty, because they know how to steal upon his sleep, and exult in
the success which they could never have obtained, had they not attempted
a man better than themselves, who was hindered from obviating their
stratagems, not by folly, but by innocence.
Suspicion is, indeed, a temper so uneasy and restless, that it is very
justly appointed the concomitant of guilt. It is said, that no torture
is equal to the inhibition of sleep long continued; a pain, to which the
state of that man bears a very exact analogy, who dares never give rest
to his vigilance and circumspection, but considers himself as surrounded
by secret foes, and fears to entrust his children, or his friend, with
the secret that throbs in his breast, and the anxieties that break into
his face. To avoid, at this expense, those evils to which easiness and
friendship might have exposed him, is surely to buy safety at too dear
a rate, and, in the language of the Roman satirist, to save life by
losing all for which a wise man would live[51].
When in the diet of the German empire, as Camararius relates, the princes
were once displaying their felicity, and each boasting the advantages
of his own dominions, one who possessed a country not remarkable for the
grandeur of its cities, or the fertility of its soil, rose to speak, and
the rest listened between pity and contempt, till he declared, in honour
of his territories, that he could travel through them without a guard,
and if he was weary, sleep in safety upon the lap of the first man whom
he should meet; a commendation which would have been ill exchanged for
the boast of palaces, pastures, or streams.
Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is
already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious
will quickly be corrupt. It is too common for us to learn the frauds by
which ourselves have suffered; men who are once persuaded that deceit will
be employed against them, sometimes think the same arts justified by the
necessity of defence. Even they whose virtue is too well established to
give way to example, or be shaken by sophistry, must yet feel their love
of mankind diminished with their esteem, and grow less zealous for the
happiness of those by whom they imagine their own happiness endangered.
Thus we find old age, upon which suspicion has been strongly impressed,
by long intercourse with the world, inflexible and severe, not easily
softened by submission, melted by complaint, or subdued by supplication.
Frequent experience of counterfeited miseries, and dissembled virtue, in
time overcomes that disposition to tenderness and sympathy, which is so
powerful in our younger years; and they that happen to petition the old
for compassion or assistance, are doomed to languish without regard, and
suffer for the crimes of men who have formerly been found undeserving
or ungrateful.
Historians are certainly chargeable with the depravation of mankind,
when they relate without censure those stratagems of war by which the
virtues of an enemy are engaged to his destruction. A ship comes before
a port, weather beaten and shattered, and the crew implore the liberty
of repairing their breaches, supplying themselves with necessaries,
or burying their dead. The humanity of the inhabitants inclines them
to consent; the strangers enter the town with weapons concealed, fall
suddenly upon their benefactors, destroy those that make resistance,
and become masters of the place; they return home rich with plunder,
and their success is recorded to encourage imitation.
But surely war has its laws, and ought to be conducted with some regard to
the universal interest of man. Those may justly be pursued as enemies to
the community of nature, who suffer hostility to vacate the unalterable
laws of right, and pursue their private advantage by means, which, if
once established, must destroy kindness, cut off from every man all hopes
of assistance from another, and fill the world with perpetual suspicion
and implacable malevolence. Whatever is thus gained ought to be restored,
and those who have conquered by such treachery may be justly denied the
protection of their native country.
Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to
him whom he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which
constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society. He that
suffers by imposture has too often his virtue more impaired than his
fortune. But as it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so
it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to
suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not
to trust.
[Footnote 51: Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.]
No. 80. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1750.
_Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum_
_Soracte, nec jam sustineant onus_
_Silvæ laborantes._
HOR. Lib. i. Ode ix. 1.
Behold yon mountain's hoary height
Made higher with new mounts of snow;
Again behold the winter's weight
Oppress the lab'ring woods below.
DRYDEN.
As Providence has made the human soul an active being, always impatient
for novelty, and struggling for something yet unenjoyed with unwearied
progression, the world seems to have been eminently adapted to this
disposition of the mind; it is formed to raise expectations by constant
vicissitudes, and to obviate satiety by perpetual change.
Wherever we turn our eyes, we find something to revive our curiosity, and
engage our attention. In the dusk of the morning we watch the rising of
the sun, and see the day diversify the clouds, and open new prospects in
its gradual advance. After a few hours, we see the shades lengthen, and
the light decline, till the sky is resigned to a multitude of shining
orbs different from each other in magnitude and splendour. The earth
varies its appearance as we move upon it; the woods offer their shades,
and the fields their harvests; the hill flatters with an extensive view,
and the valley invites with shelter, fragrance, and flowers.
The poets have numbered among the felicities of the golden age, an
exemption from the change of seasons, and a perpetuity of spring; but I
am not certain that in this state of imaginary happiness they have made
sufficient provision for that insatiable demand of new gratifications,
which seems particularly to characterize the nature of man. Our sense of
delight is in a great measure comparative, and arises at once from the
sensations, which we feel, and those which we remember. Thus ease after
torment is pleasure for a time, and we are very agreeably recreated,
when the body, chilled with the weather, is gradually recovering its
natural tepidity; but the joy ceases when we have forgot the cold: we
must fall below ease again, if we desire to rise above it, and purchase
new felicity by voluntary pain. It is therefore not unlikely, that
however the fancy may be amused with the description of regions in which
no wind is heard but the gentle zephyr, and no scenes are displayed but
valleys enamelled with unfading flowers, and woods waving their perennial
verdure, we should soon grow weary of uniformity, find our thoughts
languish for want of other subjects, call on heaven for our wonted
round of seasons, and think ourselves liberally recompensed for the
inconveniences of summer and winter, by new perceptions of the calmness
and mildness of the intermediate variations.
Every season has its particular power of striking the mind. The nakedness
and asperity of the wintry world always fill the beholder with pensive
and profound astonishment; as the variety of the scene is lessened, its
grandeur is increased; and the mind is swelled at once by the mingled
ideas of the present and the past, of the beauties which have vanished
from the eyes, and the waste and desolation that are now before them.
It is observed by Milton, that he who neglects to visit the country in
spring, and rejects the pleasures that are then in their first bloom
and fragrance, is guilty of _sullenness against nature_. If we allot
different duties to different seasons, he may be charged with equal
disobedience to the voice of nature, who looks on the bleak hills and
leafless woods, without seriousness and awe. Spring is the season of
gaiety, and winter of terrour; in spring the heart of tranquillity dances
to the melody of the groves, and the eye of benevolence sparkles at
the sight of happiness and plenty. In the winter, compassion melts at
universal calamity, and the tear of softness starts at the wailings of
hunger, and the cries of the creation in distress.
Few minds have much inclination to indulge heaviness and sorrow, nor do
I recommend them beyond the degree necessary to maintain in its full
vigour that habitual sympathy and tenderness, which, in a world of so
much misery, is necessary to the ready discharge of our most important
duties. The winter, therefore, is generally celebrated as the proper
season for domestick merriment and gaiety. We are seldom invited by the
votaries of pleasure to look abroad for any other purpose, than that
we may shrink back with more satisfaction to our coverts, and when we
have heard the howl of the tempest, and felt the gripe of the frost,
congratulate each other with more gladness upon a close room, an easy
chair, a large fire, and a smoaking dinner.
Winter brings natural inducements to jollity and conversation. Differences,
we know, are never so effectually laid asleep, as by some common
calamity. An enemy unites all to whom he threatens danger. The rigour
of winter brings generally to the same fire-side, those, who, by the
opposition of inclinations, or difference of employment, move in various
directions through the other parts of the year; and when they have met,
and find it their mutual interest to remain together, they endear each
other by mutual compliances, and often wish for the continuance of the
social season, with all its bleakness, and all its severities.
To the men of study and imagination the winter is generally the chief time
of labour. Gloom and silence produce composure of mind, and concentration
of ideas; and the privation of external pleasure naturally causes an
effort to find entertainment within. This is the time in which those
whom literature enables to find amusements for themselves, have more than
common convictions of their own happiness. When they are condemned by the
elements to retirement, and debarred from most of the diversions which
are called in to assist the flight of time, they can find new subjects of
inquiry, and preserve themselves from that weariness which hangs always
flagging upon the vacant mind.
It cannot indeed be expected of all to be poets and philosophers; it is
necessary that the greater part of mankind should be employed in the
minute business of common life; minute, indeed, not if we consider its
influence upon our happiness, but if we respect the abilities requisite
to conduct it. These must necessarily be more dependant on accident
for the means of spending agreeably those hours which their occupations
leave unengaged, or nature obliges them to allow to relaxation. Yet even
on these I would willingly impress such a sense of the value of time,
as may incline them to find out for their careless hours amusements
of more use and dignity than the common games, which not only weary
the mind without improving it, but strengthen the passions of envy and
avarice, and often lead to fraud and to profusion, to corruption and to
ruin. It is unworthy of a reasonable being to spend any of the little
time allotted us, without some tendency, either direct or oblique, to
the end of our existence. And though every moment cannot be laid out on
the formal and regular improvement of our knowledge, or in the stated
practice of a moral or religious duty, yet none should be so spent as
to exclude wisdom or virtue, or pass without possibility of qualifying
us more or less for the better employment of those which are to come.
It is scarcely possible to pass an hour in honest conversation, without
being able, when we rise from it, to please ourselves with having given
or received some advantages; but a man may shuffle cards, or rattle dice,
from noon to midnight, without tracing any new idea in his mind, or being
able to recollect the day by any other token than his gain or loss, and a
confused remembrance of agitated passions, and clamorous altercations.
However, as experience is of more weight than precept, any of my readers,
who are contriving how to spend the dreary months before them, may
consider which of their past amusements fills them now with the greatest
satisfaction, and resolve to repeat those gratifications of which the
pleasure is most durable.
No. 81. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1750.
_Discite Justitiam moniti._
VIRG. Æn. vi. 620.
Hear, and be just.
Among questions which have been discussed, without any approach to
decision, may be numbered the precedency or superior excellence of one
virtue to another, which has long furnished a subject of dispute to
men whose leisure sent them out into the intellectual world in search
of employment, and who have, perhaps, been sometimes withheld from
the practice of their favourite duty, by zeal for its advancement, and
diligence in its celebration.
The intricacy of this dispute may be alleged as a proof of that tenderness
for mankind which Providence has, I think, universally displayed, by
making attainments easy in proportion as they are necessary. That all
the duties of morality ought to be practised, is without difficulty
discoverable, because ignorance or uncertainty would immediately involve
the world in confusion and distress; but which duty ought to be most
esteemed, we may continue to debate without inconvenience, so all be
diligently performed as there is opportunity or need; for upon practice,
not upon opinion, depends the happiness of mankind; and controversies,
merely speculative, are of small importance in themselves, however they
may have sometimes heated a disputant, or provoked a faction.
Of the Divine Author of our religion it is impossible to peruse the
evangelical histories, without observing how little he favoured the
vanity of inquisitiveness; how much more rarely he condescended to
satisfy curiosity, than to relieve distress; and how much he desired
that his followers should rather excel in goodness than in knowledge. His
precepts tend immediately to the rectification of the moral principles,
and the direction of daily conduct, without ostentation, without art, at
once irrefragable and plain, such as well-meaning simplicity may readily
conceive, and of which we cannot mistake the meaning, but when we are
afraid to find it.
The measure of justice prescribed to us, in our transactions with others,
is remarkably clear and comprehensive: _Whatsoever ye would that men
should do unto you, even so do unto them_. A law by which every claim
of right may be immediately adjusted as far as the private conscience
requires to be informed; a law, of which every man may find the
exposition in his own breast, and which may always be observed without
any other qualifications than honesty of intention, and purity of will.
Over this law, indeed, some sons of sophistry have been subtle enough
to throw mists, which have darkened their own eyes. To perplex this
universal principle, they have inquired whether a man, conscious to
himself of unreasonable wishes, be bound to gratify them in another. But
surely there needed no long deliberation to conclude, that the desires,
which are to be considered by us as the measure of right, must be such as
we approve, and that we ought to pay no regard to those expectations in
others which we condemn in ourselves, and which, however they may intrude
upon our imagination, we know it our duty to resist and suppress.
One of the most celebrated cases which have been produced as requiring
some skill in the direction of conscience to adapt them to this great
rule, is that of a criminal asking mercy of his judge, who cannot but
know, that if he was in the state of the supplicant, he should desire
that pardon which he now denies. The difficulty of this sophism will
vanish, if we remember that the parties are, in reality, on one side the
criminal, and on the other the community, of which the magistrate is only
the minister, and by which he is intrusted with the publick safety. The
magistrate, therefore, in pardoning a man unworthy of pardon, betrays
the trust with which he is invested, gives away what is not his own, and,
apparently, does to others what he would not that others should do to
him. Even the community, whose right is still greater to arbitrary grants
of mercy, is bound by those laws which regard the great republick of
mankind, and cannot justify such forbearance as may promote wickedness,
and lessen the general confidence and security in which all have an equal
interest, and which all are therefore bound to maintain. For this reason
the state has not a right to erect a general sanctuary for fugitives, or
give protection to such as have forfeited their lives by crimes against
the laws of common morality equally acknowledged by all nations, because
no people can, without infraction of the universal league of social
beings, incite, by prospects of impunity and safety, those practices in
another dominion, which they would themselves punish in their own.
One occasion of uncertainty and hesitation, in those by whom this great
rule has been commented and dilated, is the confusion of what the exacter
casuists are careful to distinguish, _debts of justice_, and _debts
of charity_. The immediate and primary intention of this precept, is
to establish a rule of justice; and I know not whether invention, or
sophistry, can start a single difficulty to retard its application, when
it is thus expressed and explained, _let every man allow the claim of
right in another, which he should think himself entitled to make in the
like circumstances._
The discharge of the _debts of charity_, or duties which we owe to others,
not merely as required by justice, but as dictated by benevolence, admits
in its own nature greater complication of circumstances, and greater
latitude of choice. Justice is indispensably and universally necessary,
and what is necessary must always be limited, uniform, and distinct.
But beneficence, though in general equally enjoined by our religion, and
equally needful to the conciliation of the Divine favour, is yet, for the
most part, with regard to its single acts, elective and voluntary. We may
certainly, without injury to our fellow-beings, allow in the distribution
of kindness something to our affections, and change the measure of our
liberality, according to our opinions and prospects, our hopes and fears.
This rule therefore is not equally determinate and absolute, with respect
to offices of kindness, and acts of liberality, because liberality
and kindness, absolutely determined, would lose their nature; for how
could we be called tender, or charitable, for giving that which we are
positively forbidden to withhold?
Yet, even in adjusting the extent of our beneficence, no other measure
can be taken than this precept affords us, for we can only know what
others suffer for want, by considering how we should be affected in
the same state; nor can we proportion our assistance by any other rule
than that of doing what we should then expect from others. It indeed
generally happens that the giver and receiver differ in their opinions
of generosity; the same partiality to his own interest inclines one to
large expectations, and the other to sparing distributions. Perhaps the
infirmity of human nature will scarcely suffer a man groaning under the
pressure of distress, to judge rightly of the kindness of his friends,
or think they have done enough till his deliverance is completed; not
therefore what we might wish, but what we could demand from others, we
are obliged to grant, since, though we can easily know how much we might
claim, it is impossible to determine what we should hope.
But in all inquiries concerning the practice of voluntary and occasional
virtues, it is safest for minds not oppressed with superstitious fears
to determine against their own inclinations, and secure themselves from
deficiency, by doing more than they believe strictly necessary. For of
this every man may be certain, that, if he were to exchange conditions
with his dependent, he should expect more than, with the utmost exertion
of his ardour, he now will prevail upon himself to perform; and when
reason has no settled rule, and our passions are striving to mislead us,
it is surely the part of a wise man to err on the side of safety.
No. 82. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1750.
_Omnia Castor emit, sic fiet ut omnia vendat._
MART. Ep. xcviii.
Who buys without discretion, buys to sell.