_By Sir Richard Phillips_.
All members of the human family should remember, that the human race
is, as to time and nature, but as one totality; for, since every man
and woman had two parents, each parent two parents, and so on in
geometrical progression, hence every individual, high or low, must
necessarily be descended from every individual of the whole population
as it existed but a few hundred years before, whether they were high
or low, virtuous or abandoned; while every procreative individual of
the existing race must be the actual progenitor of the entire race
which may exist at the same distance of future time. What motives for
charity, for forbearing from injuries, for benevolence, for universal
love.
* * * * *
The bed of sickness, with its increased sensibility of nerves, is
a delicate test of man's conscience, and of self-approbation or
reprobation. Requiring sympathy himself, he now sympathizes with
others; and, unable to direct his thoughts to external things, they
are forced upon himself. Great is then his solace, and efficacious his
medicines, if he has no other reflections than such as are supplied by
his justice, liberality, and benevolence; but accumulated will be his
sufferings, and dangerous the result, if crimes and misdeeds force
themselves at such a time on his mind; while in any delirium of fever
he will rave on those subjects, and, without vision, will often
perceive, by the mere excitement of his brain, the spectres of the
injured making grimaces before him.
* * * * *
If you are rich, and want to enjoy the exalted luxury of relieving
distress, go to the Bankrupt Court, to the Court for Insolvent
Debtors, to the gaols, the work-houses, and the hospitals. If you are
rich and childless, and want heirs, look to the same assemblages of
misfortune; for all are not culpable who appear in the Bankrupt and
Insolvent Lists; nor all criminal who are found in gaols; nor all
improvident who are inmates of work-houses and hospitals. On the
contrary, in these situations, an alloy of vice is mixed with virtue
enough to afford materials for as deep tragedies as ever poet fancied
or stage exhibited; and visiters of relief would act the part of
angels descending from Heaven among men, whose chief affliction is the
neglect of unthinking affluence.
* * * * *
Marriage is a circumstance of life, which, in its actual course,
involves the feelings and fortunes of human beings more than any
other event of their lives. It is a connexion generally formed by
inexperience, under the blindness and caprice of passion; and, though
these conditions cannot be avoided, as forming the bases of the
connexion, yet it is so important, that a man is never ruined who
has an interesting, faithful, and virtuous wife; while he is lost
to comfort, fortune, and even to hope, who has united himself to
a vicious and unprincipled one. The fate of woman is still more
intimately blended with that of her husband; for, being in the eyes
of the law and the world but second to him, she is the victim of his
follies and vices at home, and of his ill success and degradation
abroad. Rules are useless, where passions, founded on trifling
associations and accidents, govern; but much mischief often results
from fathers expecting young men to be in the social position of
old ones, and from present fortune being preferred to virtues; for
industry and talent, stimulated by affection, and fostered by family
interests, soon create competency and fortune; while a connexion
founded on mere wealth, which is often speedily wasted by dissipation,
habits of extravagance, and the chances of life, necessarily ends in
disappointment, disgust, and misery.
* * * * *
Wretched is the man who has no employment but to watch his own
digestions; and who, on waking in the morning, has no useful
occupation of the day presented to his mind. To such a one respiration
is a toil, and existence a continued disease. Self-oblivion is his
only resource, indulgence in alcohol in various disguises his remedy,
and death or superstition his only comfort and hope. For what was he
born, and why does he live? are questions which he constantly asks
himself; and his greatest enigmas are the smiling faces of habitual
industry, stimulated by the wants of the day, or fears for the future.
If he is excited to exertion, it is commonly to indulge some vicious
propensity, or display his scorn of those pursuits which render others
happier than himself. If he seek to relieve his inanity in books, his
literature ascends no higher than the romances, the newspapers, or the
scandal, of the day; and all the nobler pursuits of mind, as well as
body, are utterly lost in regard to him. His passage through life
is like that of a bird through the air, and his final cause appears
merely to be that of sustaining the worms in his costly tomb.
* * * * *
The decline of life, and the retrospections of old age, furnish
unequivocal tests of worthiness and unworthiness. Happy is the man,
who, after a well-spent life, can contemplate the rapid approach of
his last year with the consciousness that, if he were born again, he
could not, under all the circumstances of his worldly position, have
done better, and who has inflicted no injuries for which it is too
late to atone. Wretched, on the contrary, is he, who is obliged to
look back on a youth of idleness and profligacy, on a manhood
of selfishness and sensuality, and on a career of hypocrisy, of
insensibility, of concealed crime, and of injustice above the reach
of law. Visit both during the decay of their systems, observe their
feelings and tempers, view the followers at their funerals, count the
tears on their graves; and, after such a comparison, in good time make
your own choice.
* * * * *
Constant change is the feature of society. The world is like a magic
lantern, or the shifting scenes in a pantomime. TEN YEARS convert the
population of schools into men and women, the young into fathers and
matrons, make and mar fortunes, and bury the last generation but one.
TWENTY YEARS convert infants into lovers, and fathers and mothers,
render youth the operative generation, decide men's fortunes and
distinctions, convert active men into crawling drivellers, and bury
all the preceding generation. THIRTY YEARS raise an active generation
from nonentity, change fascinating beauties into merely bearable old
women, convert lovers into grandfathers and grandmothers, and bury the
active generation, or reduce them to decrepitude and imbecility. FORTY
YEARS, alas! change the face of all society; infants are growing old,
the bloom of youth and beauty has passed away, two active generations
have been swept from the stage of life, names so cherished are
forgotten, and unsuspected candidates for fame have started from the
exhaustless womb of nature. FIFTY YEARS! why should any desire to
retain their affections from maturity for fifty years? It is to behold
a world which they do not know, and to which they are unknown; it
is to live to weep for the generations passed away, for lovers, for
parents, for children, for friends, in the grave; it is to see every
thing turned upside down by the fickle hand of fortune, and the
absolute despotism of time; it is, in a word, to behold the vanity of
human life in all its varieties of display!
_Social Philosophy_.
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