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النشر الإلكتروني

PART. II.

СНАР. І.
SECT. V.

greatest benefactors to mankind have been poor; and the great-
eft benefits have been done by with-holding, not by lavishing
the communications of wealth. Socrates and Epaminondas,
even in times when poverty was frequent, were distinguished a-
mong
their fellow citizens, by this disadvantage: But the one, by
his fuperior abilities, not only saved his country from a foreign
yoke, but raised it to a pitch of glory, which filled the mind of
its citizens with fentiments of elevation and of honour. From
the other originate the pursuits of moral wisdom, in which all
the nations who spoke the language of his country became fo e-
minent; and to him, perhaps, we owe that we are now employed,
not in gratifying a mere curiofity, in matters over which we have
not any controul; but in studying the powers of our own nature,
the province in which they ought to be exerted.

It was by with-holding, not by an easy payment of a trifling tax, that Hampden laid the foundations of that political freedom which his country now enjoys: And we may conclude, from the whole of these observations on the gifts of fortune, that they are valuable only in the use which is made of them; and that the proper use is equally valuable in whatever measure those gifts are bestowed or with-held. Providence, in our apprehenfion has indefinitely varied the fituations of men: But to an observer, who can penetrate through the first appearance of things, there is a condition common to all mankind; that is, a fit scene in which they are to act, and a felicity to be obtained by proper action.

SECTION

SECT VI.

Of Happiness and Mifery.

SECT. VI.

IN the variety of denominations which we have been confidering, PART. II. whether pleasure, virtue, or profperity, the object of thofe who CHAP. I. employ these terms, is to mark, in particular inftances, the object of choice; or, in the greatest poffible measure of all these particulars united together, to express what they conceive to be happinefs.

If we have understood the terms aright, and fairly eftimated what is beft, in the different denominations of good, and what is worst, or most to be dreaded. under the different denominations of evil, the conclufion of reafon, as formed in the confideration of any article apart, will be the fame throughout: That the preferable pleasure, as well as the highest merit, is found in the course of a virtuous life; and the pain most to be dreaded, or the specific defect or debasement of human nature, confifts in folly, malice, or cowardice. The gifts of fortune have their use in being

VOL. II.

H

CHAP. I.

SECT. VI.

PART II. being the means of life and the instruments of virtue, or in furnifhing a scene for the exercise of good fenfe and beneficence; but they are fo far from being an occafion of good to those who abuse them, that this abuse contaminates every other source of enjoyment, difappoints the mind of its better and higher qualifications, impairs its faculties, and multiplies its fufferings and its defects.

The only queftion that remains therefore is, under what title we are to select this fupreme or principal good, which is the genuine standard of estimation to mankind, whether under the title of pleasure, the proper ufes of fortune, or virtue.

The general term, Pleasure, includes many particulars of unequal value, and in common language is employed frequently to fignify fenfuality and diffipation. in contradistinction to business or any serious application of the mind. It behoves us, therefore, to specify our pleasure, before we refer to it as the object of choice. And when we have done fo, the particular we have felected, not pleasure at large, is the proper ftandard of estimation.

Happiness has its feat in the temper, or is an agreeable state of the mind; and cannot always be confidered as a proper use of external advantages; for it does not always proceed to the production of any external effect. As virtue is the preferable pleafure, fo is it alfo the proper ufe of the fortune or fituation in which we are placed. It is beft, then, that we fix our attention immediately on the real good qualities of our own nature, and the virtuous life they fupport, as the conftituents of happinefs; and that we confider the debafements of folly, malice, cowardice, intemperance, and a vicious life, as the conftituents of mifery.

Whether

CHAP. I.

Whether these be the fole constituents of happiness or mifery, PART II. we need not be anxious to enquire; for the choice on every oc- SECT. VI. cafion will be the fame, whether we confider them as the fole or the principal species of good and of evil.

It is of little moment to be told of a good, which we cannot command, or of an evil which we cannot avoid. Our object in every cafe, is to make such a choice of the things which are in our power, that is, of our own conduct and actions, as to do the best which the cafe can admit for ourfelves or our fellow crea

tures.

Every circumstance, in the lot of man, evinces the cafe of a being destined to bear an active part in the living system, to which he belongs. His very fubfiftence requires fuch a part. To obtain it, he must study the laws of nature, invent and practise a variety of arts. He is born in the fociety of his parents ; and, for a confiderable period of his life, owes, not only his wellbeing, but his prefervation alfo, to their unwearied and anxious care. So foon as he is fit to act for himself, he is urged, by the moft ardent and irresistible paffions, to become the parent of a family in his turn; a condition in which' affections are experienced, more powerful than intereft or felf-prefervation. pany of his fellow creatures is ever required to his fatisfaction or pastime. He may be unfociable, but is not folitary; even to behave ill, he must be in fociety; and if he do not act from benevolence, he will act from intereft to over-reach, or from ambition to command his fellow creatures, or from vanity to be admired, even by those whom he neither esteems nor loves. To fuch a being, it were vain to prefcribe retirement from the cares

The com

СНАР. І.
SECT. VI.

PART II. of human life. If he is not engaged as a friend, he will be baited as an enemy; and, if his mind have not the confiderations of justice, humanity, and public good, to occupy him, it will fink into a degree of brutality or languor, the reverse of that tranquillity of mind, and of those agrecable thoughts, and emotions which Epicurus propofed to cultivate, in a state of feclufion from the concerns of fociety, whether private or public.

Nature has made the fubfiftence, the fafety, and accommodation, of human life to depend upon certain external circumftances and poffeffions, to which men, accordingly, with good reafon, direct their attention. They are the objects of art and industry, and furnish the occafion of invention, and other trials of genius to the mind of man, which is ever bufy, and which is at once gratified and improved, by its active exertions.

Many of its efforts are employed in guarding or in accumulating external poffeffions. The event, or the measure of fuccefs, we have obferved, is precarious; and, on the whole, independent of this circumstance, mankind exhibit very unequal degrees of happiness or mifery. They are happy in applying to their object with proper measures of wisdom, diligence, benignity and fortitude. They are miferable in folly, flothfulness, malice, intemperance, or cowardice; but in the different measures in which they attain to the gifts of fortune have equal opportunities for either. It is by the part which he acts, or has acted, that a perfon is happy or miferable, not by the event of his pursuit, or by the measure of external advantage he has gained: for we must forever repeat, that, under very great inequalities in refpect to thefe advantages, there are equal examples of enjoyment or of fuffering.

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