ACTION AND CONTEMPLATION. "THAT will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and strongly conjoined and united together, than they have been; a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter the planet of civil society and action; for no man can be so straitened and oppressed with business and an active course of life, but may have many vacant times of leisure whilst he expects the returns and tides of business. It remaineth, therefore, to be inquired, how these spaces and times of leisure should be filled up and spent, whether in pleasures or study; sensuality or contemplation; as was well answered by Demosthenes to Eschines, a man given to pleasure, who, when he was told by way of reproach that his oratory did smell of the lamp, 'Indeed,' said Demosthenes, there is a great difference between the things that you and I do by lamp-light.'"* which thou art a man, that is by what thou choosest and refusest.-BISHOP TAYLOR. Men are most busy about that which is most remote, and neglect that which is nearest and most essential to them; for the goods of the body neglecting those of the mind; and for the goods of fortune neglecting those of the body. They will forfeit their conscience to please and serve their body, and hazard their body to get and preserve the goods of fortune, whereas they should follow a clean contrary order, hazarding and neglecting their body, if need be, for the good of the mind, and the goods of fortune for both.-DU MOULIN. Un philosophe regarde ce qu'on appelle un état dans le monde, comme les Tartares regardent les villes, c'est à dire, comme un prison. C'est un cercle où les idées se resserrent, se concentrent en ôtant à l'ame et à l'esprit leur étendue et leur dévélopement. L'homme sans état est le seul homme libre. Alas! said an Indian, lamenting over his companion, he was fed with train oil, and the bone of a bird ten inches long hung through the gristle of his nose what could he want more? This house is turned upside down, since Robin the ostler died. Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose-it was the death of him.Henry the IVth, Act 2, Scene 4. "There are," says Dr. Chalmers, "perhaps no two sets of human beings, who comprehend less the movements, and enter less into the cares and concerns of each other, than the wide and busy public on the one GOODNESS OF NATURE. NEITHER is there only a habit of goodness directed by right reason but there is in some men, even in nature, a disposition towards it; as on the other side there is a natural malignity. For there be that in their nature do not affect the good of others. That lighter sort of malignity turneth but to crossness, or frowardness, or aptness to oppose, or difficileness, or the like; but the deeper sort to envy and mere mischief. Such men, in other men's calamities, are as it were in season, and are ever on the loading part; not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus' sores, but like flies that are still buzzing upon anything that is raw; Misanthropi, that make it their practice to bring men to the bough, and yet have never a tree for the purpose in their garden, as Timon had. Such dispositions are the very errors of human nature, and yet they are the fittest timber to make great politics of: like to knee timber, that is good for ships that are ordained to be tossed, but not for building houses that shall stand firm. The parts and signs of goodness are many. If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them. If he be compassionate towards the afflictions of others, it shows that his heart is like the noble tree that is wounded itself when it gives the balm. If he easily pardons and remits offences, it shows that his mind is planted above, so that he cannot be shot. If he be thankful for small benefits, it shows that he weighs men's minds and not their trash. But above all, if he have St. Paul's perfection, that he would wish to be an anathema, from Christ for the salvation of his brethren, it shows much of a divine nature, and a kind of conformity with Christ himself. hand; and, on the other, those men of close and studious retirement, whom the world never hears of save when, from their thoughtful solitude, there issues forth some splendid discovery to set the world on the gaze of admiration." Pragmatical men should know, that learning is not like some small bird, as the lark, that can mount and sing and please herself, and nothing else: but that she holds as well of the hawk, that can soar aloft, and after that, when she sees her time, can stoop and seize upon her prey.-BACON. METHOD AND ARRANGEMENT. As young men, when they knit and shape perfectly, do seldom grow to a farther stature; so knowledge, while it is in aphorisms and observations it is in growth; but when it once is comprehended in exact methods, it may perchance be farther polished and illustrated, and accommodated for use and practice; but it increaseth no more in bulk and substance. CONNECTION BETWEEN BODY AND MIND. If any man of weak judgment do conceive that from the union of the body and the mind, the sovereignty of the mind or its immortality should be doubted, let him be admonished, that an infant in the mother's womb partakes of the accidents and symptoms of the mother, but, in due season, is separated from her. This FOR a tablet or picture of smaller volume, in my judgment the most excellent is that of Queen Elizabeth; a prince, that, if Plutarch were now alive to write lives by parallels, would trouble him, I think, for to find for her a parallel among women. lady was endued with learning in her sex singular, and rare even amongst masculine princes; whether we speak of learning, of language, or of science modern or ancient, divinity or humanity; and unto the very last year of her life she accustomed to appoint set hours for reading: scarcely any young student in a university more daily or more duly. As for her government, I assure my. self I shall not exceed, if I do affirm that this part of the island never had forty-five years of better times; and yet not through the calmness of the season, but through the wisdom of her regimen. For if there be considered on the one side the truth of religion established; the constant peace and security; the good adminis * See the Preface to Ascham's Schoolmaster. tration of justice; the temperate use of the prerogative, not slackened, nor much strained; the flourishing state of learning, sortable to so excellent a patroness; the convenient estate of wealth and means, both of crown and subject; the habit of obedience, and the moderation of discontents; and there be considered on the other side the difference of religion, the troubles of neighbor countries, the ambition of Spain, and opposition of Rome? and then, that she was solitary, and of herself; these things, I say, considered, as I could not have chosen an instance so recent and so proper, so I suppose I could not have chosen one more remarkable and eminent to the purpose now in hand, which is concerning the conjunction of learning in the prince with felicity in the people. : UTILITY. ARISTOTLE thought young men not fit auditors of moral philosophy is it not true also that young men are much less fit auditors of politics than morality, till they have been thoroughly seasoned with religion, and the knowledge and manners of duties? lest their judgments be corrupted, and made apt to think that there are no true and solid moral differences; but that all is to be valued according to utility and fortune.* Admitting that utility is the ultimate motive of moral conduct, is it the proximate motive? why do we eat and drink? why do we marry? why is the constable elated with his employment? why is a lad anxious to be a soldier or a sailor? would the same anxiety exist if all the military were dressed like quakers? Do we approve of noble actions, from the supposition that they were performed from a calculation of utility, of Socrates, for instance, or of Latimer? are our sentiments upon the plains of Marathon and in the pass of Thermopyle, of the same nature as when passing through a pin-manufactory? Is there not an aspiring to perfection with which all minds, and particularly ardent minds, sympathize, undisturbed by any calculations of utility? Do we not dislike great minds attempting to regulate their actions by calculations of utility! Do we admire the intelligent soldier who runs away, "Relicta non bene parmula." The philosopher, who had a petition to Dionysius and no ear given to him, fell down on his knees at the tyrant's feet; whereupon Dionysius staid, heard him, and granted his request; but PLEASURE OF POWER. THE honest and the just bounds of observation by one person upon another extend no further but to understand him sufficiently a little after some person, tender of the power and credit of philosophy, reproved Aristippus that he would offer the profession of philosophy such an indignity as, for a private suit, to fall at a tyrant's feet? To which he replied, "Is it my fault that he has ears in his feet?" Do we approve of this? Do preceptors of the mind attempt to instruct by calculations of utility, like Jolter, in Smollett's novel, who endeavored to persuade his pupil to make love by the rules of geometry? If we attempt to act by a calculation of utility, as a proximate motive of conduct, will not the attempt thus to calculate end in self-gratification? When we reason under temptation, are we not almost sure to err? Did not Mr. Blifil and Joseph Surface thus reason? Agnus was the only word which the wolf could make of all the letters of the alphabet. Are not all general rules and laws barriers fixed by society to prevent this self-gratification? Is it not the distinguishing mark of a noble and generous mind to act without any such calculations? Where you feel your honor grip, Let that aye be your border: And resolutely keep its laws, Uncaring consequences. If this note should be read by any young man who imagines himself to be so benevolent as to prefer the interests of others to his own, and so intelligent as to be capable, regardless of general rules, to act upon the system of utility, he may be assured that there is nothing new in his opinions. There have, at all times, been Utilitarians. To the objections made by divines to the advancement of learning that "the aspiring to overmuch knowledge, was the original temptation and sin, whereupon ensued the fall of man," Lord Bacon says, "It was not the pure knowledge of nature and universality, a knowledge by the light whereof man did give names unto other creatures in Paradise, as they were brought before him, according unto their proprieties, which gave occasion to the fall; but it was the proud knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in man to give law unto himself, and to depend no more upon God's commandments, which was the form of the temptation." See ante, 117, where South speaks of the Utilitarians of his time, as philosophy speaks to them at all times. See Joseph Andrews, book iii., c. 3, where Fielding speaks of the Utilitarians of his time, the passage begins, "This sort of life." See Robison's account of |