all our Indulgence and Partiality to excuse and justifie the quarrel he formerly had against us This is a Truth attested by every Passion but none gives such clear Evidence of it as Love For we find the Lover when full of Rage and Revenge at the Neglect or the Unfaithfulness of his Mistress yet lay by all the violence of his Resentments and one view of her calms his Passions again His Transport and Joy pronounces this Beauty innocent accuses himself alone and condemns nothing but his own condemning her before By this strange Magical Power of Self-love the blackest and basest Actions of his Mistress are made White and Innocent and he takes the fault off from Her to lay it upon Himself CXXII The most pernicious Effect of Pride is That it blinds Mens Eyes for this cherishes and increases the Vice and will not let us see any of those Remedies that might either soften our Misfortunes or correct our Extravagances CXXIII When once Men are past all Hopes of finding Reason from others they grow past all reason themselves CXXIV The Philosophers and especially Seneca did not remove Mens Faults by their Instructions but only directed them to contribute the more to the setting up their Pride CXXV The wisest Men commonly shew themselves so in less matters and generally fail in those of the greatest Consequence CXXVI The nicest Folly proceeds from the nicest Wisdom CXXVII Sobriety is very often only a Fondness of Health and the Effect of a weak Constitution which will not bear Intemperance CXXVIII A Man never forgets things so effectually as when he hath talked himself weary of them CXXIX That modesty that would seem to decline Praise is at the bottom only a desire of having it better express'd CXXX There is this good at least in Commendation that it helps to confirm Men in the practice of Vertue CXXXI We are to blame not to distinguish between the several sorts of Anger for there is one kind of it Light and Harmless and the result of a warm Complexion and another kind exceeding Vicious which if we would call it by its right Name is the very Rage and Madness of Pride CXXXII Great Souls are not distinguished by having less Passion and more Vertue but by having Nobler and Greater Designs than the Vulgar CXXXIII Self-love makes more Men Cruel than natural Sternness and a rough Temper CXXXIV Every Man that hath some Vices is not Despised but every Man that hath no Vertue is and ought to be despised CXXXV Those that find no Disposition in themselves to be guilty of great Faults are not apt upon slight grounds to suspect others of them CXXXVI Pompous Funerals are made more out of a design to gratifie the vanity of the Living than to do any Honour to the Dead CXXXVII In the midst of all the uncertain and various accidents in the World we may discern a secret Connexion a certain Method and regular Order constantly observed by Providence which brings every thing in in its due place and makes all contribute to the fullfilling the Ends appointed for it CXXXVIII Fearlessness is requisite to Buâ—y up the mind in Wickedness and Conspiracies but Valour is sufficient to give a Man constancy of mind in Honourable Actions and the Hazards of War CXXXIX No Man can engage for his own Courage who was never in any Danger that might put it upon the Tryal CXL Imitation always succeeds ill and even those things which when Natural are most graceful and charming when put on and affected we Nauseate and Despise CXLI Goodness when Universal and shewed to all the World without distinction is very hardly known from great Cunning and Address CXLII The way to be always safe is to possess other People with an Opinion that they can never do an ill thing to us without suffering for it CXLIII A Man 's own Confidence in himself makes up a great part of that Trust which he hath in others CXLIV There is a kind of General Revolution not more visible in the turn it gives to the fortunes of the World than it is in the Change of Mens Understandings and the Different relish of Wit CXLV Magnanimity is a bold stroke of Pride by which a Man gets above himself in order to get above every thing else CXLVI Luxury and too great Delicacy in a State is a sure sign that their Affairs are in a declining Condition for when Men are so Nice and Curious in their own concerns they mind nothing but private Interest and take off all their care from the Publick CXLVII Of all the Passions we are exposed to none is more concealed from our Knowledge than Idleness It is the most Violent and the most Mischievous of any and yet at the same time its Violence we are never sensible of and the damage we sustain by it is very seldom seen If we consider its Power carefully it will be found upon all Occasions to Reign absolute over all our Sentiments our Interests and our Pleasures This is a Remora that can stop the largest Ships and a Calm of worse consequence to our Affairs than any Rocks and Storms The Ease and Quiet of Sloth is a secret charm upon the Soul to suspend its most eager pursuits and shakes its most peremptory Resolutions In a Word to give a true Image of this Passion we must say that it is a supposed Felicity of the Soul that makes her easie under all her Losses and supplies the Place of all her Enjoyments and Advantages CXLVIII There are several Vertues made up of many different Actions cast into such a convenient Order by Fortune as she thought fit CXLIX Most Women yield more through Weakness than Passion and this is the Reason that bold daring Men commonly succeed better than others who have as much or more Merit to recommend them CL. The Sincerity which Lovers and their Ladies Bargain for in agreeing to tell one another when they can Love no longer is not asked so much out of a desire to be Satisfied when their Love is at an End as to be the better assured that Love does really continue so long as they are told nothing to the contrary CLI Love cannot be compared to any thing more properly than to a Fever for in both Cases both the Degree and the continuance of the Disease is out of a Man 's own Power CLII. Most young People impute that Behaviour to a Natural and easie Fashion which in Truth proceeds from no other Cause than the Want of good Breeding and good Sense Maxims and Mixed Thoughts PART III. Maxims I. AS nothing betrays greater weakness and want of Reason than to submit ones Judgment to another Man 's without any Examination or Consideration of our own so nothing Argues a great Spirit and true Wisdom more than the submitting to Almighty God with an absolute and implicit Faith and believing whatever he saies upon the single Authority of his own Word II. True worth does not depend upon Times
be that I should give my self a little more trouble by the same token that you wou'd not receive more pleasure by it For this consideration I think the best way both for you and me will be to give you an Abridgment of all this Controversie done by an excellent Poet of our time in the compass of six Verses Si le jour de la Foy. Reason wou'd blindly wander in the Night If active Faith withdrew the cheerfull Light Aspiring Pride deludes the darken'd mind And turns to poison what was good design'd Self-love invades each corner of the Soul Turns Vice to Vertue and corrupts the Whole After all if we must right or wrong believe that your Friends have the gift of this lively Faith that suppresses all the ill inclinations of Self-love if God has bestowed such extraordinary favours upon them and sanctifies them from the common impurities of the World I will with all my heart give my Vote for their Canonization and here freely declare to them that the Moral Reflections don't in the least concern them There is no reason to imagine that the Person who Writ them ever designed to meddle with the Saints for as I told you before his business is only with Man as he is corrupted He maintains that he generally commits evil when his Self-love flatters him that he 's doing good and that he often deceives himself when he wou'd judge of himself because nature does not sincerely explain to him the real Motives that make him Act. In this wretched state where Pride is the original of all his Actions the Saints are the first that declare War against him and treat him infinitely worse than the Author of the Reflections does If you should have a desire at any time to consult those passages which I have observed in their Writings upon this Article you will soon be perswaded that I have told you nothing but the truth but I request you to satisfie your self for the present with these Verses which will in part explain to you what others thought about this matter Le desir des honneurs The lust of Honour Riches and Delight Produces Vice and leads us to the Right Blind Interest the wavering heart o'er sways And to fresh errours the vain slave betrays Nay remedies produce a sharper pain One ill suppress'd another strait does raign While here this Tyrant does Triumphant ride One sin is by a second sin destroy'd Montagne whom I cannot without some remorse of Conscience quote to you after the Fathers of the Church says happily enough upon the same subject that his Soul has two different Faces that in vain she endeavoured to look back upon her self for she only perceives that which Self-love has disguised while the other is perceived by those who are not concerned in the Masquerade If I durst build upon so bold a Metaphor I wou'd say that the Soul of a Man corrupted is made like those Medals which represent the Figure of a Saint and that of a Devil in one Face and by the same stroaks 't is nothing but the different situation of those that look upon it that changes the object one Man sees a Saint and the other sees a Devil These Comparisons may serve to instruct us that when Self-love has once got possession of the heart Pride does so effectually blind the Reason and spreads so vast an obscurity over all its faculties that it cannot form a true judgment of the least of our motions nor of it self give us any certain rules for our conduct Men saies Horace Here upon the Stage of this World are like a company of Travellers whom Night has surprized as they are passing through a Foreit they march on relying upon the honesty of the Guide who immediately puts them out of their way either through malice or ignorance All of them use what care they can to find the beaten Path again every one takes a different way and is in good hopes his is the best the more they fill themselves with these vain imaginations the farther they wander but tho they all wander a different way yet it proceeds from one and the same cause 't is the Guide that deceived them and the obscurity of the Night hinders them from recoveing the right Road. Is it possible for any one to paint out in Livelier Colours the blindness and perpetual inquietudes of Man abandon'd to his own foolish Conduct who listens to nothing but the Whisperings of his Pride who thinks he goes naturally right to what is good and who allways believes that the last he finds is the best Is it not certain that at the very moment when he flatters himself that he 's doing some good Action 't is then that the wandering of his heart is most dangerous and fatal to him There is such a prodigious number of Wheels that compose the movement of this Clock and the first spring of it so hard to be discovered that tho we plainly see what hour the day it is by the Dial yet we cannot tell which is the prime motion that conducts the hand upon all the spaces in the Plate The Third Objection which lies upon me to answer is that abundance of people complain of the great obscurity in the Sense as also in the expression of the Reflections You need not be informed Sir that obscurity is not allways the Author's fault Reflections or if you please Maxims and Sentences as the World has been pleased to call these ought to be Writ in a succinet close Stile that hinders a Man from giving that perspicuity in his Writings which is to be desired They are like the first schetches of a Picture where an ingenious Eye will easily remark all the perfection of Art and the beauty of the Painter's design But then this Beauty is not understood by all the World and altho' the lineaments are not set out in their proper colours yet for all that they discover a masterly hand For this reason the Reader ought to penetrate into the sense and force of the words the mind ought to run over the whole extent of their signification before it sits down and proceeds to judgment The Fourth Objection unless I am mistaken was this That the Maxims for the most part are too General You have been told that 't is a piece of Injustice to fix the defects of particular Men upon the whole Race Besides the account I have received from you of the different opinions you have heard upon this Subject I know what uses to be Generally Objected to those Persons who discover and condemn Vices Their censure is called the Portraiture of a Painter 't is urged against them that they resemble People that are troubled with the Yellow Jaundice who see every thing Yellow because they are so themselves Now if it were true that a Man cannot censure the corruption of the Heart in General without finding more of it in himself than another does we ought then to
their Livelihood CCXVI Compleat Courage and absolute Cowardice are extremes that very few Men fall into The vast middle space contains all the intermediate Kinds and degrees of Courage and these differ as much from one another as Mens Faces or their Humours do Some Men venture at all upon the first Charge or two but if the Actio continue they cool and are easily dejected Some satisfie themselves with having done what in strict Honour was necessary and will not be prevailed upon to advance one step farther 〈◊〉 is observable that some have not the command of their Fears and not master them at all times alike Others are some times carried away with a general Consternation some throw themselves into the Action because they dare not stay at their own Post Now and then the being used to smaller Dangers hardens the Courage and fits it for venturing upon greater Some Fellows value not a Sword at all but fear a Musket-shot and others are as unconcerned at the Discharge of a Musket and ready to run at the sight of a Naked Sword All these Couragious Men of so many Sorts and Sizes agree in this that Night as it adds to their fear so it conceals what they do well or ill and gives them opportunity of sparing themselves And there is besides this another more general tenderness of a Man's self for you meet with no body even those that do most but they would be capable of doing a great deal more still if they could but be sure of coming off safe Which makes it very plain that let a Man be never so Stout yet the fear of Death does certainly give some damp to his Courage CCXVII True Valour would do all that when alone that it could do if all the World were by CCXVIII Fearlessness is a more than ordinary strength of Mind that raises it above the Troubles Disorders and Emotions which the prospect of great Dangers are used to produce And by this inward strength it is that Heroes preserve themselves in a Calm and quiet State enjoy a presence of Mind and the free use of their Reason in the midst of those terrible Accidents that amaze and confound other People CCXIX. Hypocrisie is a sort of Homage which Vice pays to Vertue CCXX Most Men are willing to expose their Persons in an Engagement for the love of Honour but very few are content to expose themselves so far as the design they go upon requires to render it Successful CCXXI The Courage of a great many Men and the Vertue of a great many Women are the effect of Vanity Shame and especially a suitable Constitution CCXXII Men are loth to lose their Lives and yet they are desirous of getting Honour too which is the reason why Men of Gallantry use more Dexterity and Wit to decline Death than all your Religious Knaves do to secure their Estates CCXXIII. There are very few Persons but discover as soon as they come to decline in Years where the chief failings lie both of their Body and their Mind CCXXIV. Gratitude among Friends is like Credit among Tradesmen it keeps Business up and maintains the Correspondence And we frequently pay not so much out of a Principle that we ought to discharge our Debts as to secure our selves a place to be trusted in another time CCXXV. Some there are who have done all that can be expected by way of Gratitude can be required from them by way of return are not able for all that to please themselves upon their being grateful and which are not satisfied with what they have 〈◊〉 CCXXVI That 〈◊〉 occasions so many mistakes in the Computations of Men when they expect returns for favours is that both the Giver and the Receiver are Proud and so these two can never agree upon the value of the kindnesses that have been done The Giver over-reckons and the Receiver undervalues them CCXXVII To be uneasie and make too much hast to return an Obligation is one sort of Ingratitude CCXXVIII Men find it more easie to set bounds to their Acknowledgments than to their Hopes and their Desires CCXXIX Pride never can endure to be in Debt and Self-love never cares to Pay CCXXX The good that we have received should qualifie for the ill that hath been done us CCXXXI Nothing is of so pestilent spreading a Nature as Example and no Man does any exceeding good or very wicked thing but it produces others of the same kind The good we are carried to the imitation of by our Emulation and the bad by the Corruption and Malignity of our Nature which shame indeed confines and keeps up close but Example unlocks its Chains and lets it loose CCXXXII To think to be Wise alone is a very great Folly CCXXXIII Whatever other pretended cause we may father our Afflictions upon it is very often nothing but Interest and Vanity that are the true causes of them CCXXXIV There are Hypocrisies of several kinds in our Afflictions in one sort we pretend to lament the loss of some Friend exceeding dear to us and all the while this Lamentation is only for our selves We are troubled to think our selves less Happy less Easie less Considerable and less Valued than we were before Thus the Dead carry the Name and the Honour of those Tears that are shed only upon the account of the Living And this I call Hypocrisie of one kind because in these Afflictions People impose upon themselves There is another kind not so Harmless as this because that imposes upon all the World And this is the Affliction of a sort of Persons that pretend to a 〈◊〉 and a never dying concern in their Grief When Time the Waster of all things hath worn off the concern they really had then they will needs be obstinate in their Sorrows and still carry on their Complaints and their Sighs They put on all the Characters of Mourning and Sadness and take a great deal of pains by all their Actions to make the World believe their Melancholy can never have any Rest any Cessation but in the Grave This Dismal Tiresome and Solemn Vanity is most usual among Ambitious Women Their Sex hath shut them out from all the common ways that lead to Honour and that makes them attempt to signalize themselves by all this Pageantry of an Affliction too deep to admit of any Comfort There are yet another sort of Tears that have but shallow Springs quickly and easily flow and are as easily dryed up again these are such as weep to gain the Reputation of Tenderness and good Nature such as cry because they would be pitied such as cry because they would make other People cry and in a word such as cry only because they are ashamed not to cry CCXXXV Our concern for the loss of our Friends is not always from a Sense of their Worth but rather of our own occasions for them and that we have lost some who had a good Opinion of us CCXXXVI We are Easily Comforted
inspire them and especially that of Love when it is described as a modest and a vertuous Passion For the more Innocent it appears to Innocent Persons the more still they find themselves disposed to receive and submit to it They fansie to themselves a Sense of Honour and at the same time that this is no way injured by so discreet an Affection Thus people rise from a Play with their Hearts so full of the softnesses of Love and their Judgments so satisfied of its Innocence that they are in a perfect Disposition to take in its first impressions readily or rather indeed to seek and court occasions of infecting some body else with it that so they may receive the same Pleasures and the same Devotions which they have seen so movingly represented upon the Stage Mixed Thoughts PART IV. I. SElf Love according as it is rightly or otherwise understood and applyed is the cause of all the Moral Vertues and Vices in the World II. That Prudence which is made Use of in the good management of Men's Affairs when taken in its true Sense is only a Wise and more Judicious Love of our selves and the opposite to this is perfect Blindness and Inconsideration III. Though it may be said with great Truth upon this Principle that Men never act without a regard to their own Interest yet will it be no Consequence from thence that all they do is corrupt and no such thing as Justice nor Honesty left in the World Men may Govern themselves by noble Ends and propose Interests full of Commendation and Honour And indeed the very thing that Denominates any Person a Man of Justice and Honour is this just distinction of Self Love regulated as it ought to be When though all things are done with respect to his own Advantage at last yet still this is with a due Allowance and reservation to the Laws of Civil Society IV. The Love of our Neighbour is the Wisest and most Useful good Quality in the World It is every Whit as necessary in Civil Societies for our happiness in the present Life as Christianity hath made it in Order to that of the next Life V. Honour and Disgrace are but Empty and Imaginary things if we take them apart from those real Advantages and Misfortunes that attend them VI. Those that give themselves a World of Trouble and that tempt a World of Dangers merely for the sake of trasmiting a great Name to after ages are in my Opinion very Whimsical People All this Honour and Reputation which they look upon as boundless is yet confined within a little Room in their own Imagination For this crowds all Posterity into one Age by setting those Men before their Eyes as if they were all present together which they shall never live to see nor enjoy VII This Maxim That the most secret things are discovered at one time or other is to say the least of it very uncertain for we can only judge of what we do not know by what we know already and consequently what we do not yet know can give us no farther light into it VIII Nothing conduces more to the making our Life happy than to know things as they really are And this Wisdom must be acquired by frequent Reflections upon Men and the Affairs of the World for otherwise Books will contribute but little to it IX Almost all the miseries of Life are owing to the false Notions Men have of the World and all that is done in it X. True Eloquence is good Sense delivered in a Natural and unaffected way That which must be set off with Tropes and Ornaments is acceptable only because the Generality of Men are easily imposed upon and see things but by halves XI Maxims are to the Minds just what a Staff is to the Body when a Man cannot support himself by his own Strength Men of sound Sense that see things in their full and just Proportions have no need of General Observations to help them out XII The great Characters of being Men of Honour and Justice are very often grounded more upon Forms and a knack of appearing to be such than any true and solid Worth XIII Those that have the accomplishments Essential to the making a good Man supposing they need no Art neglect Formalities Act more according to Nature and consequently more in the Dark For those that judge of them have something else to do than to examine them and so they pronounce Sentence only according to outward appearances XIV No Man can be perfectly Just and Good without a great Measure of Sense and Right Reason which will always carry him to Choose the juster side in every Action of his Life And it is a Foolish thing to extol wicked Men and Knaves as the World commonly do for Persons of Wit and Understanding Such People have only one part of that Sound Sense which is the reason why they are successful upon some Occasions but imperfect and at a loss upon a Thousand others XV. Courage in Men and Chastity in Women are esteemed the principal Vertues of each Sex because they are the hardest to practise When these Vertues want either that Constitution or that Grace that should sustain and keep them up they soon grow weak and are presently sacrificed to the Love of Life and Pleasure XVI You shall scarce meet with a Master but cries out upon all Servants that they are Rogues and the Plagues of a Family and if Servants ever come to be Masters they will say just the same thing The Reason is because generally it is not the Qualities but the Fortunes of Men that makes the difference between them XVII People do not make it their Business to be in the right so much as to be thought so This makes them stickle so stifly for their own Opinions even then when they know and are satisfied they are false XVIII Errours sometimes have as long a run as the greatest Truths Because when these Errours are once received for Truths Men admit whatever makes for them with an implicit Consent and reject or overlook all that is capable of undeceiving them XIX Tricking and Lying are as sure Marks of a Low and Poor Spirit as false Money is of a Poor and Low Purse XX. When once Men that are under a Vow of Devotion engage themselves in the Business of the World without absolute necessity for so doing they give us great cause to suspect the reality of their Devotion XXI All Devotion which is not grounded upon Christian Humility and the Love of our Neighbour is no better than Form and Pretence 't is only the Pride and Peevishness of Philosophy which thinks by despising the World to revenge it self upon all the Contempt and Dissatisfactions Men have met with from it XXII The Devotion of Ladies growing into Years is frequently no better than a little kind of Decency taken up to shelter themselves from the shame and the jest of a Fading Beauty and to secure in