PART IL waters of bitterness, which flow fo plentifully in human life. The wretch, whose principal aim is to surpass other men, joins to fufpence, hinderance, disappointment, mortification, and all the the evils of a precarious fortune, the impoffibility of extricating himself, without a total reverfe of all his imaginations and thoughts. To become candid and humane, he must change objects of his hatred and diftruft into objects of good will and benevolence; and confider his fellow creatures in fociety, as the procurers of much convenience and benefit to himself, not merely as rivals and competitors, under whose profperity or elevation of rank he is doomed to fink, or incur degradation. Purify the mind of this taint, and most of the evils in human fociety are done away. Defire would be placed chiefly on thofe things which are of abfolute value; which any one may possess in the highest degree, without detriment to another; or rather, which, being in the poffeffion of one, prove an aid to others in the attainment of like bleffings. The reputation of virtue, like celebrity in any other way, may engage men in competition and rivalship; but virtue itself is promoted by the prevalence of virtue in the world. The lamp of wifdom is lighted by communication with the wife; and benevolence is infpired in the fociety of the benevolent. Fortitude and temperance gain ftrength by example. Whoever can rest upon thefe qualities of fupreme value, as the constituents of happiness, finds no occafion on which to feel the unhappy paffions which terminate in malice. He is gratified in the welfare of other men; and wishes for their elevation in goodness and virtue, as he wishes for the rifing of the fun upon the world, as a common benefit to all who partake in his influence. Antoninus SECT. VII. Antoninus was happy, not in wearing the purple, nor in pof- PART II. CHAP. I. feffing the throne of Cæfar; but in the attainments of a steady and beneficent mind. In thefe he was no man's rival, and was ready to share every bleffing, even with those who attempted to fupplant him in the empire *. We err, in deriving the corruptions, which are imputed to great cities and courts, from the love of pleasure, and from the profufion of wealth, with which the love of pleasure is gratified. The mere voluptuary is innocent, compared to those who are deeply infected with malice, envy, and pride; a generation of evils begot upon emulation, competition, or the apprehenfion of comparative advantages, whether precedence, titles, or wealth. Wherever the roots of fuch evil are planted, the concourfe and affemblage of men, from which we fhould otherwise expect the practice and improvement of every focial disposition, but renders the growth of malevolence more copious and rank. Competitors for the luftre of equipage and dress, might have flept in quiet, or enjoyed tranquillity, at their return from a brilliant affembly, if the luftre of fome other person had not proved an eclipse to theirs; or, if his equipage and liveries had not appeared to surpass their own, and to carry away from them the attention of the world. We may therefore admit, that fuch errors of the imagination are constituent of moral weakness, and scarcely separable from actual depravity of the heart. If no external confequence fhould follow, we may thank the administration of regular goverment, See his Recommendations to the Senate in behalf of Caffius. which CHAP. I. PART. II. which checks the tendency of unhappy paffions; and applaud the established decency of manners, which require certain measures or appearances of candour to be preserved, even between parties at variance with one another; and which not only conceal the torment of unhappy passions, but tend, in fome degree also, to conciliate good will, by inspiring forbearance, where the tendency of competition is to awaken jealoufy, or hatred, and give occafion to offenfive behaviour. The great weight of corruption, proceeding from the jealousy of competitors for riches, power, and court favour, without the counterpoife of external reftraints, from decency and good manners, funk the capital of the Roman empire, and the palace of Cæfar, into fcenes of the most atrocious brutality, perfidy and cruelty: And, it must be confeffed, that the confideration of fuch confequences would be fufficient to warn us against like notions of good and evil: or, if men were to form their opinions, not on the evidence of fact, but on the grounds of expedience; nothing can be more evident, than that a conception of hap- ̧ pinefs, in things out of our own power, or in things of which others are in hafte to prevent our enjoyment, by stepping before us, must be attended with fruitlefs longings, heart burnings, jealoufy and malice. But, if fuch be the nature of good, relating to us, philofophers, it will be faid, may difpofe of names as they may think proper, and call any gift of fortune indifferent; but they themselves will not be the lefs defirous to poffefs it. Nor can men be required to have any other conception of good and evil, than what the real aspect of things in nature ferves to fuggeft. So much is admitted; and the question relating to what is good, whatever whatever notion of things it be most expedient for us to entertain, PART II. must recur for solution to the tribunal of fact and experience. Let the fact therefore decide! Are men happy or miferable, in the precife degree of their good or ill fortune; or of their precedence to others? If fo, fortune and precedence are the fole good. But, if men are found equally happy, or equally miserable, under great varieties of rank and fortune, it is evident that the meafure of happiness or mifery is not to be taken from thence; and that a wife man will not adopt an opinion, nor countenance a form of expreffion, at once inexpedient and contrary to fact. In fixing the notions of good, it is not wife to rely for happinefs, on things which are not in our own power; on things which are not of any abfolute value; but, which pleafe only by comparison with what other men poffefs, and which therefore engage us in a competition and strife, adverse to the best and happiest. qualities of our nature. Neither is it wife to rely for happiness on the mere poffeffionof things, which may be well or ill used, and which, in being abused, are no less the occafion of misery, than in being properly ufed they are the occafion of happiness. As happiness is a condition of the affections and temper, mere external fituation is not to be confidered as any part of it, farther than the external circumftance is able to produce that internal condition, or happy ftate of the mind. The Stoics, proceeding upon one or other of these maxims, limited the appellation of good to virtue, that of evil to vice alone. 3 Under CHAP. I. SECT.VII. PART II. Under this limitation, their famous paradox, that pain is no SECT. VII. evil, and the gifts of fortune indifferent, meant no more, than that there was not any moral turpitude in pain; and that the gifts of fortune neither exclude, nor fecure, the poffeffion of virtue. This, indeed, they confidered as fufficient confolation to those who labour under any external inconvenience, whether of adversity or pain. As a material on which virtue may operate; as an instrument of beneficence; as a stake, for which men are to play, and become gainers or lofers for themselves or others in the game of human life, they allowed that external poffeffions have their use, and that they merit the attention of the wife: but to rely on them in any determinate measure for happiness they mantained to be extreme folly. In pursuance of this doctrine, they would not prostitute the denomination of good to any thing that was not virtue; nor permit any thing to be called evil that was not vice; and would not have a man fet his heart, or rely for happiness, upon any thing beyond his own province of responsibility or conduct. In this manner they strove to cultivate an elevation of mind which would not owe its good to any contingent circumstance, nor to any will but its own. They would set at defiance the events of fortune or the caprice of other men. They would not be in fear of any adverfity which could not hinder their acting a virtuous part; nor be flattered with a prosperity which could add nothing to the merit of a virtuous life. The Peripatetics were content to remain on a step below these high pretenfions. They too held virtue to be the fupreme good, and had just maxims of integrity and honour, but comparatively enfeebled |