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whereby not to give him offence; or whereby to be able to give faithful counsel; or whereby to stand upon reasonable guard and caution with respect to a man's self; but to be speculative into another man, to the end to know how to work him or wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous.

Power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring; for good thoughts (though God accept them), yet towards men are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act; and that cannot be without power and place, as the vantage and commanding ground. Merit and good works is the end of man's motion and conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man's rest for if a man can be partaker of God's theatre, he shall likewise be partaker of God's rest. "Et conversus Deus, ut aspiceret opera, quæ fecerunt manus suæ, vidit quod omnia essent bona nimis ;" and then the sabbath.

PLEASURE OF KNOWLEDGE.

THE pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning far surpasseth all other in nature; for shall the pleasures of the affections so exceed the pleasures of the senses, as much as the obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner? and must not, of consequence, the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections? We see in all other pleasures there is a satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth ;* which showeth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasure, and that it was the novelty which pleased and not the quality; and therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melancholy; but of knowledget there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchange

the Illuminati, a set of imagined philosophers, who did, or were supposed to exist, during the French Revolution, let him there read the letters of Spartacus to Cato; but particularly see a tract published by Mr. Green, of Ipswich, and Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon.

* Heaven and earth may pass away, but my words will not pass away. † A perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,

Where no crude surfeit reigns.

COMUS.

able; and therefore appeareth to be good, in itself simply, without fallacy or accident. Neither is that pleasure of small efficacy and contentment to the mind of man, which the poet Lucretius describeth elegantly;

Suave mari magno, turbantibus æquora ventis, &c.

"It is a view of delight," saith he, "to stand or walk upon the shore side, and see a ship tossed with tempest upon the sea, or to be in a fortified tower, and to see two battles join upon a plain. But it is a pleasure incomparable for the mind of man to be settled, landed, and fortified in the certainty of truth, and from thence to descry and behold the errors, perturbations, labors, and wanderings up and down of other men.' So always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride.

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LOVER OF TRUTH.

OUR trumpet doth not summon, and encourage men to tear and rend one another with contradictions; and, in a civil rage, to bear arms and wage war against themselves; but rather that, a peace concluded between them, they may, with joint forces, direct their strength against nature herself:* and take her high towers, and

Diderot, in his Tract, "De l'Interprétation de la Nature," says, "L'intérêt de la vérité demanderoit que ceux qui réfléchissent daignâssent enfin s'associer à ceux qui se remuent, afin que le spéculative fût dispensé de se donner du mouvement; que le manœuvre eût en but dans les mouvemens infinis qu'il se donne; que tous nos efforts se trouvâssent réunis et dirigés en même temps contre la résistance de la nature; et que, dans cette espèce de ligne philosophique, chacun fît le rôle qui lui convient."

Lloyd, in his Life of Wilson, says, "An argument of a great capacity in a man of his great place, and greater employment; whose candor was yet equal with his parts, ingenuously passing by the particular infirmities of those who contributed anything to the advancement of a general learning; judging it fitter that men of abilities should jointly engage against ignorance and barbarism, than severally clash with one another.

From a community of goods there must needs arise contention, whose enjoyment should be greater, and from that contention all kind of calamities must unavoidably ensue, which, by the instinct of nature, every man is taught to shun. Having, therefore, thus arrived at two maxims of human

dismantle her fortified holds, and thus enlarge the borders of man's dominion, so far as Almighty God of his goodness shall permit.

ON GOVERNMENT.

IN Orpheus's theatre, all beasts and birds assembled; and forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociably together, listening unto the airs and accords of the harp; the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature; wherein is aptly described the nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires of profit, of lust, of revenge: which, as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion.*

nature, the one arising from the concupiscible part, which desires to appropriate to itself the use of those things in which all others have a joint interest; the other proceeding from the rational, which teaches every man to fly a contra-natural dissolution as the greatest mischief that can arrive to nature; which principles being laid down, I seem from them to have demonstrated by a most evident connexion in this little work of mine, first the absolute necessity of leagues and contracts, and thence the rudiments of both moral and civil prudence.-HOBBS.

* See ante, page 15.

NOTES.

NOTE I.-TEXT 37.

PLEASURES OF THE UNDERSTANDING.

SEE text page 104, 105, and 147-48-49-50.

Mr. Bentham's work upon the Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap v., contains a catalogue of the different pleasures which we are capable of enjoying, and the different pains to which we are exposed. Of all pleasures none are more exquisite, none so permanent as the pleasures of the understanding. See Bacon's observations in note, ante 104.

How charming is divine philosophy!

Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose;

But musical as is Apollo's lute,

And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.

COMUS.

Hume, in his Life, says, "My family, however, was not rich, and being myself a younger brother, my patrimony, according to the mode of my country, was of course very slender; my father, who passed for a man of parts, died when I was an infant, leaving me with an elder brother and a sister, under the care of our mother, a woman of singular merit, who, though young and handsome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and educating of her children. I passed through the ordinary course of education with success, and was seized very early with a passion for literature, which has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of my enjoyments. My studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry, gave my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me; but I found an insurmountable aversion to everything but the pursuits of philosophy and general learning, and while they fancied I was poring upon Voet and Vinius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I was secretly devouring."

Ascham, speaking of Lady Jane Grey, says, "Before I went into Germany I came to Broadgate in Leicestershire, to take my leave of the noble Lady Jane Grey, to whom I was exceeding much beholding. Her parents, the Duke and Duchess, with all the household, gentlemen and gentlewomen

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