39 CHAP. I. SECT. VIII " without any noise; and proceeds to the next that occurs to be PART. II. done, as the vine, in its proper feafon, renews its foliage and its fruit. We ought to be of the number of thofe, who do not seem to know the good they have done : Nay but ought 66 we not to be conscious of beneficent intentions? Is it not the property of a focial being, to wish well to his fellow creatures. "Yea, fo help me God, to defire, too, that his fellow creatures "fhould be fenfible of his beneficence? What you fay is true, yet, if you misapprehend what I said above, you will belong 66 to one of the former claffes, and be among those who are led "afide from perfection by fpecious reafons. But, if you are "willing to obferve the distinction, that is made between those "firft claffes and the others, do not be afraid that it will caufe you to fail in any focial action *”. If virtue, whatever be its external mode of exertion, be itself the excellence or good of human nature, (and we do wrong if we admit of any thing else as virtue) or, if it be, in the intellectual world, what health, and strength, and beauty, are in the animal kingdom; there is no reason to apprehend, that a fellow creature is obliged to us for being virtuous, any more than he would be obliged to us for being in health. The offices of a found mind are as natural to the virtuous, as thofe of a found body are to the healthy. The humane and the candid can never cease to perform the offices of humanity, and candour, although they do not confider, in what degree others. may be obliged to them for so doing. СНАР. І. PART II. It were unhappy to confider virtue as a tafk, confifting of exSECT.VIII. ternal performances, enjoined under the fanction of rewards and punishments. We can no more become benevolent, from the hope of reward, or the fear of punishment, than we can poffefs ourselves of fortitude from the love of eafe or averfion to trouble. The ingenuous and high minded believes the reality of future rewards and punishments; but, if they are any thing different from the poffeffion or privation of that goodness, to which he aspires, they are mere accessaries to the confiderations from which he acts; they may be useful, in restraining a criminal difpofition, but are not néceffary, in directing or forming the virtuous to his duty; much lefs, is a regard to them an effential conftituent of his cha racter. ་ If the future lot of the righteous be happy, his prefent condition in the practice of virtue is fo alfo ; and it were abfurd, furely, to conceive that a perfon must not prefer the good which he may now enjoy, but for fake of a good which he is to enjoy hereafter. It is unhappy to admit of any confideration in competition with our real good. "There is hardly a man to be found," fays an ingenious obferver*, "who would not rather be in pain, to appear "happy, than be really happy, to appear miferable." So familiar are the examples of paradox, even in the conceptions of the vulgar. As they examine their own afpect by reflection from a mirror, they judge of their own condition by reflection from other men's thoughts; confult the opinion of others, rather than their own feelings; prefer confideration, or the reputation of worth, to worthinefs itself; and do not fo much confider how far they deferve praise, as how far they poffefs it. The Tatler. CHAP. I. This is beginning the work of felicity at the wrong end; la- PART II. bouring for a fuperftructure before they have laid a foundation; SECT. VIII. and striving to produce a fhadow without any fubftance. All men would be happy. The most erroneous paffions miflead from this object only by mistake; and, it is to mistake their own aim, when they would produce abroad the appearance of happiness, before they have possessed it in the qualities of their own minds. The reality will not fail to carry its external its external appearances; or, if it should be unobserved or mistaken, the disadvantage is comparatively of finall account. It is fufficient refpect to the opinions of other men, that we are pleased with their teftimony, without facrificing the conscioufnefs of an ingenuous mind to what the world may think, or without preferring the appearances of merit to the real though filent poffeffion of it. In this, the mistake is doubly to be regretted, as it implies the substitution of a false object for the true one, and the substitution alfo of what is precarious, and depending on the caprice of others, what is matter of anxiety and disappointment, for an attainable and fecure poffeffion. Such is the choice which the vain-glorious has 'made, in preferring the opinions of other men to the poffeffion of real good qualities in himself, which he might cultivate fecurely, and on which he might rely without any hazard of a difappointment. It is unhappy to depend for enjoyment on what we cannot command, or to fix our defires on what is beyond our reach. Thus, PART II. Thus, it were unhappy for the labouring man, to long for exCHAP. I. SECT. VIII. emption from labour. It were unhappy, in the poor, to aim at appearing like the rich; to long for an equipage, a retinue, a palace, a table; and think himself excluded from happiness, in being deprived of these things. Ambition, or the unwearied defire of something higher than we poffefs at prefent, is a principle well fuited to the nature of man; and it is, in fome one or other of its applications univerfal to mankind. If it apply to invigorate the practice of virtue, and the exercises of a mind, ingenuous, candid, and humane, this every one has in his power. If it apply to the conduct of ordinary business, whether private or public, ftill the person so engaged may be well employed for the prefent; and, if he complain of misery in the absence of his object, we may venture to question the wisdom or the temper of his mind. The ingenuous, the ftrenuous, and ardent, though we should suppose them not to reflect on the merit of the part which they are acting, are happy in the very exercise of their difpofitions and powers; and this is fo far from being inconsistent with the purfuit of an object, that it requires, or pre-fuppofes fome object to engage the mind, and give occafion to the exercife of its faculties. "That the mind of man," fays the Rambler, "is never fa"tisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always "breaking away from the prefent moment, and lofing itself in "schemes of future felicity, and that we forget the proper use of the time now in our power, to provide for the enjoyment of "that CHAP. I. SECT. VIII. "that which perhaps may never be granted us, has frequent- PART II. "ly been remarked; and, as this practice is a commodious fub"ject of raillery to the gay, and of declamation to the serious, it "has been ridiculed with all the pleafantry of wit, and exagge"rated with all the amplifications of rhetoric. Every inftance, by which its abfurdity might appear most flagrant, has been ftudiously collected; it has been marked with every epithet of contempt, and all the tropes and figures have been called forth against it. "Cenfure is willingly indulged, becaufe it always implies "fome fuperiority: Men please themselves with imagining that they have made a deeper search, or wider furvey, than others, "and detected faults and follies, which escape vulgar obferva❝tion," &c. "This quality of looking forward into futurity," continues the fame author,“ seems the unavoidable condition of a being, "whose motions are gradual, and whofe life is progreffive: As "his powers are limited, he must use means for the attainment of "his end, and intend first what he performs laft; as, by conti"nual advances from his first stage of existence, he is perpetually "varying the horizon of his profpects, he must always discover new motives of action, new excitements of fear, and allurements of defire. "The end, therefore, which at prefent calls forth our efforts "will be found, when it is once gained, to be only one of the means to fome remoter end. The natural flights of the human "mind are not from pleafure to pleasure, but from hope to "hope. "He |