jadged an exercife of reafon moft worthy of applaufe. And are we in thefe fo enlightened regions, in this fchool of fcience, as we are apt to fancy it, at all more just to rational improvements? We have, indeed, no encomiums for him who is not at a lofs for the meaning of any word that his native tongue furnishes; but he who is well skilled in two or three antient ones, will have the highest applaufe for that skill, and be confidered as among them, who have diftinguished themfelves, by a right application of their capacities. In this number we, likewife, generally agree to place fuch as have paffed years in only qualifying themfelve either to cavil and difpute, or to difguife their ignorance on any fubject, or to colour ftrongly, and command the paffions of their hearers. We are equally favourable to them, who bufy their minds on difcoveries that have no foundation but in fancy and credulity--or whofe whole endeavour it has been to learn what this or that man has determined on a point, wherein he was as ill qualified as themfelves to ike a right determination,--or who afe themfelves with theories, with tring and vain fpeculations. Let a juft allowance be made for thefe, and fuch like perfons, whofe reputation for earning is only built on the generality calling it, on the prevailing mistakes about it, and who have really hurt their derlandings by what is thus falfely efteemed improving them; we shall have proceeded a great way in removing the cb. tion to the purfuit of knowledge, from e little fervice it is of, to fuch whofe at timents in it we conçur in acknowledging and admiring. When our intellectual purfuits are useful, they are often limited to what is of leaft ufe. Hoy few of us are prompted to our refearche from the confideration of the degree or tent of the good derivable from them? Iis humour, fancy, or fordid gain alone, that ordinarily gives rife to the very inquiwhich are of advantage to the world; toy feldom are made from a regard to proper worth, from the influence they can have upon our own or others' happixels. their That the better our understanding is infmed, the better it can direct us, must be as evident to all, as that we want to be directed by it. The mind of man is as much affifted by knowledge, as his eye by light. Whatever his intellectual powers may be in themfelves, they are to him according to his application of them: as the advantage he receives from his fight is according to the ufe he makes of it. That ignorance of his good which he might, but will not, remove, deprives him of it as certainly as an utter inability to acquaint himfelf with it. In what is the improvement of our underftandings, we may, indeed, be mistaken, as we may in what conftitutes our true happinefs; but in each cafe we must be wilfully fo, we must be fo by refufing to attend, to confider. Could we by inftinct difcover our own good, as the brute diftinguishes its good, all concern on our part to increase our difcernment might be needlefs; but the endeavour after this must be in the highest degree neceffary, when the more clearly we difcern things, the more we are benefited, and the lefs hurt by them. Where is the man who is not made happier by inquiries that are rightly directed, and when he can fay with the poet, The fearch of truth Of knowledge as diflinct from true wifdom, it may be not unjustly obferved, that the increafe of it is only the increase of forrow; but of that knowledge, the purfuit of which expreffes our wifdom, we may confidely affert, that our fatisfaction must advance with it. All will admit it a proof of wifdom, to judge rightly of what is moft for our intereft, and take fuch meafures as fuit it: and as we are qualified for this by our knowledge, by the knowledge of our own nature, and of the properties of the things without us, fo far as they can contribute to our better or worfe ftate; in the degree we are thus knowing we can only be wife, determine rightly of what is beft, and use the fittest means to procure it. Attainments that ferve not to this purpose may be flighted; but for fuch as are requifite to it, if they principally deferve not our concern, I fee not what can have any title to it *. We Since our faculties plainly difcover to us the being of a God, and the knowledge of ourselves, gh to lead us into a full and clear difcovery of our duty, and great concernment; it will become tas rational creatures, to employ thofe faculties we have, about what they are most adapted to, and flow the direction of nature, where it feems to point us out the way. For 'tis rational to conclude L4 that We are, indeed, ftartled at the very terms, of deliberating, weighing, confidering, comparing; we have affixed fuch ideas to them, to make them appear rather hindering the true enjoyment of ourfelves than promoting it: but if we would not share the unealinefs that fo many of our fellow creatures lament, we muft not adopt their prejudices. In every point of confequence we ufe more or lefs confideration; and in all the pleasures that allure, in all the trifles that amufe us, we are ftill making comparifons, preferring one to the other, pronouncing this lefs, and that more worthy of our choice. Tho' none, if the philofopher may be believed, deliberate on the whole of life, all do on the parts of it: and if we fail not to compare and reafon upon our lower enjoyments, I fee not what there can be forbidding in the advice to attend feriously, to examine fairly, and to delay our choice till we have gained the inftruction requifite to determine it, when the object thereof is what can be most for our cafe and fatisfaction. But it is not, perhaps, all exercife of our reafon, in a way fo well deferving it, that difgufts us; it is the degree of application required from us, that we relish not. 1. We know not how to be reconciled to fo much trouble about enlarging our dif. cernment, and refining our judgment. eafy under their ignorance and mistakes, that they will not advance a ftep to remove them: and what greater recommendation can there be of any fituation, than that they who are in it are entirely fatisfied with it? 1. The pains that we are to take in order to an advantage that muft infinitely overbalance them, we can have no excufe for omitting: and we are called to no pains for the improvement of our reafon, but fuch as cannot be declined without leffening our happiness-without incurring fome evil we should otherwife have elcaped, or wanting fome good we fhould otherwife have obtained: whatever has its neglect attended with thefe confequences, mult be expected from us *. 2. That they are to feek knowledge who are to get their bread, might feem a harsh leffon, if the endeavour to inform, hindered that to maintain themfelves; if the knowledge they were to feek was any other but of what is beft for them, of what can give them all the happiness that creatures fo conflituted can receive. For this every one must have leifure t; it should be judged our chief bufinefs; it directs us to that very employment from which we have our fupport is carried on with it-afiifts us in itgives it every confideration that can make it eafy and fatisfactory to us. The peafan: or mechanic is not advised to spend fewer hours at labour, that he may have more for ftudy, for reading and contemplating 3. We find no fmall part of mankind foto leave his fpade or his tools for a pea 2. We do not fee how fuch a task can fuit them whofe whole provifion for the day is from the labour of it. that our proper employment lies in thofe enquiries, and in that fort of knowledge which is moft fuit. ed to our natural capacities, and carries in it our greatest intereft, the condition of our eternal fate, Hence, I think, I may conclude, that morality is the proper fcience and bufinefs of mankind in gene ral. Locke's Efay on the Human Underflanding. How men, whofe plentiful fortunes allow them leifure to improve their understandings, can fa tisfy themselves with a lazy, ignorance, I cannot tell: but methinks they have a low opinion of that fouls, who lay out all their incomes in provifion for the body, and employ none of it to procure the means and helps of knowledge; who take great ca e to appear always in a neat and fplendid outfite, and woul: think themfelves miferable in coarse clothes, or a patched coat, and yet contentedly their inds to appear abroad in a pie-bald livery of coarfe patches, and borrowed fhreds, fuch as it has pleafed chance or their country taylor (I mean the common opinion of thofe they have converfed with) to clothe them in. I will not here mention how unreafonable this is for men that ever think of a f ture ftate, and their concernment in it, which no rational man can avoid to do fometimes. L'i Elay on Human Underfanding, B iv. Ch. 20. Are the greatest part of mankind, by the neceflity of their condition, fubjected to unavoidab ignorance in thofe things which are of greatest importance to them? Have the bulk of mankind other guide but accident and biind chance, to conduct them to their happinefs or mifery ?-God ha furnished men with faculties fufficient to direct them in the way they should take, if they will but fe riously employ them that way, when their ordinary vocations allow them the leisure. No man is wholly taken up with the attendance on the means of living, as to have no fpare time to think at a of his foul, and inform himfelf in matters of Religion. Were men as intent on this, as they are of things of lower 'concernment, there are none fo entlaved to the neceflities of life, who might not many vacancies that might be hufbanded to this advantage of their knowledge. Locke's Effay on Ha man Understanding. C or a book. No, the advice to him is, obferve what paffes, and what good or hurt accompanies or follows it. Remark what it is that pleafes you only for a few moments, and then either brings immediate unealinefs, or lays a foundation for fome future. You find feveral things of fervice to you, obrve which is of moit, which has no fort of inconvenience attending it, or very Little in comparison of its advantage; and, if there are none of them without fome inconveniencies,which has the feweft--which doe: you good in a higher degree, or for a longer term. You are continually with thofe of the fame nature with yourself; take notice what is ferviceable or prejudicial to them; you may learn from their experience what your own teaches you not. Every day will farish fome or other occurrence that may be a profitable lefion to you, make it fuch; overlock nothing that affects your wellteing; attend chiefly to what concerns it. Go over frequently in your thoughts the cervations you have made on what will more or lefs benefit you; let them be to deeply imprinted upon your mind, make them to familiar to yourfelf, that the offer cf a kis good may never furprife and bety you into the neglect, and, by that mens, the lofs of a greater. You are at all times at liberty to confider your own nature, be acquainted with it, fee what you can do for yourfelf, what fhare of your happineis has no dependance on the ing, without you; what blethings may be atured to you by your own difpofitions. You neceflarily thun evil: don't miflake it, be fure of what is fo; be apprifed of the degrees of it; be thoroughly inftructed in thele, that a defire to efc.pe what you could easily bear, may never occafion you a difties which you would pronounce infupportable. Endeavour to inform yourfelf what evil you cannot too industriously avoid ―hat you should readily fubmit to what you may change into good. He, to whole fituation terms like thefe would be unfuitable, must have reafon to feek, as well as a livelihood. Our natural underlanding fits all of us for a talk like this; ror can it be inconfiftent with any the harde labour to which our fupport will oblige us. The whole of this fo fevere a leffon is this brief one; Do your best for yourself; be as happy as the right ufe of the abilities God given you can make you. ha. 3. As for the unconcernedness of fo great a part of our fpecies at their ignorance and errors-the entire fatisfaction they exprefs under them: with regard to this, let it be confidered, that we are no more to judge of good from the practice of numbers, than of truth from their opinions. They thoroughly enjoy themfelves, you fay, with their little knowledge, and many mistakes. And are any of us in our younger years better pleafed than when we are fuffered to fport away our time-to pafs it without the leaft controul and inftruction? But becaufe we are thus pleafed, are we rightly fo? Could worfe befal us, than to be permitted to continue thus agreeably unreftrained and uninstructed? The man in a lethargy defires you would let him dofe on: he apprehends no danger, when you fee the greateft: you grieve and vex him, when you attempt to cure him. Does any one who has more sense than the bulk of his fellow creatures, with for their dulnefs, that he might thare their diverfions-with for their thoughtlessness, that he might join in their mirth? Could the neglect of our rational faculties be accompanied, throughout our continuance in being, with the fatisfaction at prefent expreffed by fo many under it, this indeed might be fomething in its favour; but this is by no means the cafe. He who gave us thefe faculties, and the ability to improve them, muft intend that we should improve them: by fruitrating his intention, we incur his difpleafure; if we incur it, we may july expect, fooner or later, to feel the effects thereof. Nor is it to be thought that the neglect of our reafon is, from the good we hereby forego, its own fufficient punishment, and therefore not likely to expofe us to any other. We cannot rightly think thus, becaufe of the extenfive mifchief occafioned by this neglect. It is very far from terminating in ourfelves, from making us the only fufferers Were it fo confined, fome pretence there might be for confidering our mere crime as our ample punishment. But fuch it cannot appear, when it does infinite hurt to others to our neighbourhood-to our friends to our family-to the whole community of which we are members. What is enough for myfelf, what I can do without, thould be the leaft of my concern. My duty is to reflect what I can do for others; how I may make myself of greatest ufe. We ftand all largely indebted to our fellow-creatures; and, owing them fo much, if we neglect to qualify ourfelves for ferving them, we greatly injure them. But as this is not the place for purfaing thefe reflections, I will now only remark, of what deplorable confequence it is to our children (whofe title to our endeavours for their benefit, all acknowledge) that the culture of our minds is fo little our carethat we flight the rational improvements, with a capacity for which our Creator has fo graciously favoured us. Unapprehenfive of the mifchief our offfpring must neceffarily receive from our floth, our intemperance, and other criminal gratifications, we impair their frame before it is yet completed; we entail on them mifery, before we give them life. Their reafon feems to be watched in its appearance, only that it may be applied to for its fpeedier corruption. Every thing they are at first taught to value, is what they cannot enough defpife; and all the pains that should be taken to keep their minds from vain fears, are employed to introduce them. The chief of what our memory receives in our childhood, is what our maturer age moft wishes to forget. While we are ignorant how hurtful it is to be governed by our paffions, cur wife directors permit them to govern us, and thereby give them a ftrength which we afterwards fruitlessly lament and oppofe. To fave our tears, we are to have our will; and, for a few moments of prefent quiet, be condemned to years of diftrefs. Imaginary evils we are bid to regard as the principal real ones; and what we fhould molt avoid, we are, by examples of greateft weight with us, encouraged to practife. How much indeed both the bodies and minds of children fuffer from the ill-in formed underflanding of their parents, is fcarcely to be conceived-what advantages they lofe by it-what mifery they feel: and therefore, as they are the immediate objects of our care-as nature has made them fuch, and all the prejudice they receive from any failure of curs, from any neglect on cur part in qualifying ourselves to affift them in the way we ought to do it, is really an injury done them by us; we can not think, that if we won't endeavour to have jul totions of things, we are foliciently punished by being without them we can, with no probability, 'uppofe, that, if we are content to be lofers ouijelves, it will be fatisfaction enough for any diftrefs that our careleffness or fupineness brings on others, even on them whose welfare we ought moft to confult. Of what advantage it is to both fexes that the parent, under whofe guidance they are in their tender years, should not have confined her thoughts to the recommendations of apparel, furniture, equipage-to the amufements in fafhion-to the forms of good breeding-to the low topics of female converfation; we have the moft remarkable inftances in the family of Emilia. She has for many years been the wife of one, whofe rank is the leaft part of his merit: made by him the mother of a numerous offspring, and having from his important and uninterrupted avocations, their education left entirely to her, 'till they were qualified for a more extenfive inftruction; it was her ftudy how the might be of the greateft ufe to them: they were ever under her eye: her at tention to forming their manners could be diverted by none of the pleasures, by none of the engagements that claim fo many of the hours of a woman of quality. She did not awe, but reafon her children into their duty; they fhewed themselves to practife it not from constraint, but conviction. When they were abfent from her-when they were in company, where they might have been as free as they pleased, I have, with astonishment, ob ferved them as much influenced by what their wife mother had advifed, as they could have been by any thing the would have faid had he been then prefent. In her converfation with them fhe was perpetually inculcating ufeful truths; the talked them into more knowledge, by the time that they were fix or seven years old, than is ufually attained at, perhaps, twice that age. Let me indulge my imaginatior, and, by its aid, give a fample of her inftructions; firft to one of the females of her family, and then, to one of the males. Leonora, her eldest daughter, has, among her many accomplishments, great fkill in painting. When her mother and the flood viewing the pictures, that crouded each fide of the room in which they were, Emilie defired to hear what the pupil of fo eminent a matter had to obferve on the works before them. Lecnera began; praised the bold and animated manner in this piece, the foftnefs and delicacy of that. Nothing could be more graceful than the attitude of this figure; the exprention in that was fo happy happy, the colouring fo beautiful, that one aight truly fay of it, to make it alive, fpeech alone is wanted; nor would you think even that wanting, were you to truit wholly to your eyes. Here the admired the failful distribution of light and fhade: there the peripective was to wonderfully exact, that in the great number of objects preferted to the eye, it could fix on none but what had its proper place, and just dimenfons. How free is that drapery? what a variety is there in it, yet how well adjusted is the whole to the feveral figures in the piece? Does not that group extremely plate your ladyhip? the difpolition is q te fine, the affociation of the figures admirable; I know not which you could pitch rpon to have abfent or altered. Leonora paring this ftrain, Emilia interrupted her: Have we nothing, child, but exactnefs here? Ievery thing before us quite finifhed and faultlefs? You will be pleafed, Madam, to rekt on what you have fo often inculcted, That one would always chufe to be Pring in cenfure, and liberal of praifeThat commendation, freely bestowed on what deferves it, credits alike our temper and our understanding. This I would have you never forget. But I'm here a learner; in that light you are now to confider me; and as your French after taught you pronunciation, not only uing a right, but by imitating your wrong one; making you by that means rre fenfible where the difference lay; fo to quality me for a judge in painting, it w not futlice to tell me where the artift fucceeded, if you obferve not, likewife, where he has mifcarried. Listera then proceeded to fhew where the drawing was incorrect-the attitude graceful the cufame ill prefumed--the crdonnance irregular-the contours harth -the light too ftrong-the fhade too deep; extending her remarks in this way to a great number of picces in the collection. You have been thus far, interpofed Emilia, my intructor, let me now be yours. Suppole your own portrait here. In the fame Faner that you would examine it, judge of the original. This you ought to do, ince it will be done by others; and the cre blemishes you difcover, the fewer you probably leave for them to reproach you with. The faults in the picture may be known to him who drew it, and yet be And to appear, from his inability to Correct them; but when you difcern what i. faulty in yourfelf, if you cannot amend, you can, often, conceal it. Here you have the advantage of the painter; in another refpect he has it greatly of you. Not one in a thousand is a judge of the failures in his performance; and therefore even when many may be objected to him, he shall pats, in common efleem, for an excellent artist. But let the woman, unconscious of her imperfections, be at no pains to remedy or hide them, all who converfe with her are judges of them; when the permits them to be feen, they are certain to be cenfured. You have fufficiently convinced me, to how many things the painter mult attend against what various miftakes he has to guard: each of your criticisms on him may be a leffon to yourself; every blemish or beauty in any part of his works has fomething correfpondent to it in human life. The defign is faulty, not only when the end we propofe to ourselves is confeffedly criminal, but when it is low and mean; when, likewife, we let our time pafs at random without any concern for what reafon and duty require, but as caprice, or humour, or paffion fuggefts. We offend against proportion, when we arrogate to ourselves the defert we want, or over-rate what may be allowed us→ when we hate not what is really evil; or when our affections are placed on what is not our proper good. You remember the diffection of a female heart in the Spectator; I refer you to it, that I may fpare my own reflections, on what would furnish copious matter for no very pleafing ones. Your ladyship will pardon me for interrupting you; but I can't help thinking, that the head and heart of a beau or country 'fquire would furnish as much folly and corruption, as the head and heart of any woman in the kingdom. We fhall never, child, become better, by thinking who are worfe than ourselves. If the charge upon us be jult, we should confider how to get clear of it, and not who are liable to one equally reproachful. Were I to bid you wash your face, would you think yourfelf juftified in not doing it, because you could fhew me a woman of rank with a dirtier? But to the purpose. That expreffion, any failure in which you would, as a judge of painting, treat without mercy, is, in morals, violated by whatever is out of character. All inconfitency in practice-in profeflion and practice; every thing unbecoming your fex your |