then we submit freely to the needful discipline. The
disease itself is the cause of this. We feel then no
longer the eager thirst for amusements and visiting,
which originates in health, and which is quite in-
compatible with a state of sickness. Nature, then,
gives inclinations and desires conformed to our
present state.
It is only the fears that originate
with ourselves, and not with nature, that trouble us;
for they associate with the state in which we then
are, the feelings of a state in which we are not.

27. When all things move similarly, nothing moves apparently-as on board a ship. When all things glide similarly to disorder, nothing seems to be going wrong. He who stops, considers the rapid recession of others, an immoveable point.

20. Injunctions to humility, are sources of humiliation to the humble; but of pride, to the proud. So also the language of Pyrrhonism and doubt is matter of confirmation to those who believe. Few men speak humbly of humility, or chastely of chas-velop the general precept which contains all the tity-few of skepticism with real doubtfulness of mind. We are nothing but falsehood, duplicity, and contradiction. We hide and disguise ourselves from ourselves.

28. Philosophers boast of having arranged all moral duties in a certain classification. But why divide them into four, rather than into six divisions. Why make four sorts of virtues rather than ten. Why range them under the general heads of abstine and sustine, than any others. But then, say you, here they are all reduced to a single word. Well, but that is quite useless without explanation; and as soon as you begin to explain, and you deothers, they issue in the same confusion that at first you wished to avoid, and thus, in reducing them to one, you hide and nullify them; and to be made known, they must still come forth in their native confusion. Nature has given each an independent subsistence; and though you may thus arrange the one within the other, they must subsist independSo that these divisions and technical terms have little use, but to assist the memory, and to serve as guides to the several duties which they include.

21. Concealed good actions are the most estimable of all. When I discover such in history, they delight me much. Yet even these cannot have been altogether hidden, because they have been so re-ently of each other. corded; and even the degree in which they have come to light, detracts from their merit, for their finest trait is the wish to conceal them.

22. Your sayer of smart things, has a bad heart. 29. To administer reproof with profit, and to 23. This is hateful; and those who do not re-show another that he deceives himself, we should nounce it, who seek no further than to cover it, are notice on what side he really has considered the always hateful also. Not at all, say you, for if we thing-for on that side he generally has a right imact obligingly to all men, they have no reason to pression-and admit there the accuracy of his views. hate us. That is true, if there were nothing hate- This will please him, for he then perceives that as ful in that I, but the inconvenience which it admi- far as he did see, he was not in error, but that he nisters. But if I hate it, because it is essentially failed only in not observing the matter on all sides. unjust, because it makes itself the centre of every Now, a man is not ashamed of not perceiving every thing, I shall hate it always. In fact, this I has two thing; but he does not like to blunder. And perbad qualities. It is essentially unjust, because it haps this arises from the fact, that naturally the will be the centre of all things; it is an annoyance mind cannot be deceived on the side on which it to others, because it will serve itself by them; for looks at things, any more than the senses can give each individual I is the enemy, and would be the a false report. tyrant of all the others. Now you may remove the annoyance, but not the radical injustice, and hence you cannot make it acceptable to those who abhorings. its injustice; you may make it pleasing to the unjust, who no longer discover their enemy, but you remain unjust yourself, and cannot be pleasing therefore but to similar persons.

24. I cannot admire the man who possesses one virtue in high perfection, if he does not, at the same time possess the opposite virtue in an equal degrce; as in the case of Epaminondas, who united the extremes of valor and of meekness; without this, it is not an elevated, but a fallen character. Greatness does not consist in being at one extreme, but in reaching both extremes at once, and occupying all the intermediate space. Perhaps this is in no case more than a sudden movement of the soul, from one extreme to the other, and, like a burning brand, whirled quickly round in a circle, it is never but in one point of its course at a time. Still this indicates the energy of the soul, if not its expan

sion.

25. If our condition were really happy, there were no need to divert us from thinking of it.

26. I have spent much time in the study of the abstract sciences; but the paucity of persons with whom you can communicate on such subjects, disgusted me with them. When I began to study man, I saw that these abstract sciences are not suited to him, and that in diving into them, I wandered further from my real object, than those who knew them not, and I forgave them for not having attended to these things. I expected then, however, that I should find some companions in the study of man, since it was so specifically a duty. I was in error. There are fewer students of man, than of geometry.

30. A man's virtue should not be measured by his occasional exertions, but by his ordinary do

31. The great and the little are subject to the same accidents, vexations, and passions; but the one class are at the end of the spoke of the wheel, and the other near the centre; and consequently, they are differently agitated by the same impulses.

32. Though men have no interest in what they are saying, it will not do to infer from that absolutely, that they are not guilty of falsehood; for there are some who lie, simply for lying sake.

A

33. The example of chastity in Alexander, has not availed to the same degree to make men chaste, as his drunkenness has to make them intemperate. Men are not ashamed not to be so virtuous as he; and it seems excusable not to be more vicious. man thinks that he is not altogether sunk in the vices of the crowd, when he follows the vicious example of great men; but he forgets that in this respect they are associated with the multitude.— He is linked with such men at the same point, at which they are linked with the people. However great they may be, they are associated at some point with the mass of mankind. They are not altogether suspended in mid air, and insulated from society. If they are greater than we, it is only that their heads are higher; but their feet are as low as ours. They are all on the same level-they tread the same earth; and, at this end, they are brought equally low with ourselves, with infants, and with the brutes that perish.

34. It is the contest that delights us, not the victory. We are pleased with the combat of animals, but not with the victor tearing the vanquished.What is sought for but the crisis of victory? and the instant it comes, it brings satiety. It is the same

in play, and the same in the search for truth. We love to watch in arguments the conflict of opinions; but as for the discovered truth, we do not care to look at that. To see it with pleasure, we must see it gradually emerging from the disputation. It is the same with the passions; the struggle of two contending passions has great interest; but the dominion of one is mere brutality. We do not seek for things themselves, but for the search after them. So on the stage, scenes without anxiety, miseries without hope, and merely brutal indulgences, are accounted vapid and uninteresting.

35. Men are not taught to be honest, but they are taught every thing else; and yct they pique themselves on this, above all things. They boast then only of knowing the only thing which they do not

learn.

sion, or rather so few men are there of resolute and independent mind.

43. Montaigne is right. Custom should be fcllowed because it is custom, and because it is found established, without inquiring whether it is reasonable or not; understanding of course those matters which are not contrary to natural or divine right. It is true that the people follow custom for this only reason, that they believe it to be just; without which, they would follow it no longer, for no one would be subjected to any thing but reason and justice. Custom without this would be accounted tyranny; but the dominion of reason and justice is no more tyrannous than that of pleasure.

44. The knowledge of external things will not console us in the days of affliction, for the ignorance of moral science: but attainments in moral science, will console us under the ignorance of external

36. How weak was Montaigne's plan for exhibiting himself! and that not incidently and contra-things. ry to his avowed maxims, as most men contrive to betray themselves; but in accordance with his rule, and as his first and principal design. For to speak fooleries accidentally, and as a matter of weakness, is every one's lot; but to do so designedly, and to speak such as he did, is beyond all bounds.

45. Time deadens our afflictions and our strifes, because we change and become almost as it were other persons. Neither the offending nor the offended party remain the same. Like a people that have been irritated, and then revisited two generations after. They are yet the French nation, but not what they were.

37. Pity for the unfortunate is no proof of virtue; on the contrary, it is found desirable to make this 46. What is the condition of man? Instability, demonstration of humanity, and to acquire, at no dissatisfaction, distress. He who would thoroughexpense, the reputation of tenderness. Pity there-ly know the vanity of man, has only to consider the fore is little worth.

38. Would he who could boast the friendship of the Kings of England, and of Poland, and the Queen of Sweden, have believed that he might look through the world in vain for a home and a shelter?*

39. Things have various qualities, and the mind various inclinations; for nothing presents itself simply to the mind, neither does the mind apply itself simply to any subject. Hence, the same thing will at different times produce tears or laughter.

40. There are men of different classes, the powerful, the elegant, the kind, the pious, of which each one may reign in his own sphere, but not elsewhere. They come sometimes into collision, and contend who shall have the dominion; and most unwisely, for their mastery is in different matters. They do not understand one another. They err in seeking an universal dominion. But nothing can accomplish this, not even force. Force can do nothing in the realms of science; it has no power but over external

actions.

41. Ferox gens nullam esse vitam sine armis putat. They prefer death to peace: others prefer death to war. Every variety of opinion may be preferred to that life-the love of which appears so strong and

so natural.

causes and the effects of love. The cause is a je ne sais quoi, an indefinable trifle; the effects are monstrous. Yet this indiscribable something sets the whole earth-princes, armies, multitudes, in motion. If the nose of Cleopatra had been a little shorter, it would have changed the history of the world.

47. Cæsar appears to me too old to have amused himself with the conquest of the world. Such sport might do for Alexander, an ardent youth, whom it was difficult to curb; but Cæsar's day had gone by.

48. Fickleness has its rise in the experience of the fallaciousness of present pleasures, and in the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures.

49. Princes and kings must play themselves sometimes. They cannot be always upon their thrones. They become weary. Greatness to be realized, must be occasionally abandoned.

50. My humor depends but little on the weather. I have my cloud and my sunshine within me. Even prosperity or failure in my affairs affects me little. I sometimes rise spontaneously superior to misfortune; and from the mere joy of superiority, I get the better of it nobly. Whilst at other times, in the very tide of good fortune, I am heartless and fretful.

42. How difficult is it to propose a matter to an- thought, it escapes me. 51. Sometimes in the very writing down my But this teaches me my other man's judgment, without corrupting his judg-weakness, which I am ever forgetting. And this ment by the manner in which it is proposed. If we instructs me therefore as much as my forgotten say, "I like this," or, "I think this obscure," we ei- thoughts would have done; for what I ought alther entice the imagination that way, or produce ir- ways to be learning, is my own nothingness. ritation and opposition. It is more correct to say 52. It is a curious fact, that there are men in the nothing, and then he will judge as the matter real-world who, having renounced all the laws of God ly is; that is, as it is then, and according as the and man, have made laws for themselves, which other circumstances over which we have no con- they strictly obey, as robbers, &c. trol, may bias him; if even our very silence has not its effect, according to the aspect of the whole, and the interpretation which the man's present humor may put upon it, or according to the conjecture he may form from the expression of my countenance, and the tone of my voice; so easy is it to bias the judgment from its natural and unfettered conclu

The reference is to the cotemporary sovereigns, Charles I. of England, John Casimir of Poland, and Christina, Queen of Sweden.

53. "This is my dog," say the children; "that sunny seat is mine." There is the beginning and the exemplification of the usurpation of the whole earth.

54. You have a bad manner: excuse me if you please. Without the apology I should not have known that there was any harm done. Begging your pardon, the "excuse me," is all the mischief.

55. We scarcely ever think of Plato and Aristotle, but as grave and serious looking men, dressed in long robes. They were good honest fellows, who

aughed with their friends as others do; and when | certain greatness of soul to attain to this, as it does they made their laws and their treatises on politics, to attain to that which is good. it was to play and divert themselves. It was probably the least philosophical and serious part of their lives. The most philosophical was the living simply and tranquilly.

56. Man delights in malice; but it is not against the unfortunate, it is against the prosperous proud; and we deceive ourselves if we think otherwise. Martial's epigram on the blind, is utterly worthless, for it does not comfort them; it only adds another spark to the glory of the author: all that makes only for the author, is worthless. Ambitiosa recidet ornamenta. He should write to please men of a tender and humane spirit, and not your barbarous inbuman souls.

57. These compliments do not please me: "I have given you much trouble." "I fear to weary you." "I fear that this is too long." Things either hurry me away, or irritate me.

58. A true friend is such a blessing, even to great men, in order that he may speak well of them, and defend them in their absence, that they should leave no stone unturned to get one. But they should choose warily; for if they lavish all their efforts on a fool, whatever good he says of them will go for nothing; and in fact he will not speak well of them, if he feels his comparative weakness; for he has not any authority, and consequently he will slander for company's sake.

65. The ties which link the mutual respects of one to another, in general, are the bonds of necessity. And there must be different degrees of them, since all men seek to have dominion; and all cannot, though some can attain to it. But the bonds which secure our respect to this or that individual in particular, are the bonds of the imagination. 66. We are so unhappy, that we cannot take pleasure in any pursuit, but under the condition of experiencing distress, if it does not succeed, which may happen with a thousand things, and does happen every hour. He who shall find the secret of enjoying the good, without verging to the opposite evil, has hit the mark for happiness.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THOUGHTS ON PHILOSOPHICAL AND LITERARY SUBJECTS,

THE more enlarged is our own mind, the greater number we discover of men of originality. Your common-place people see no difference between one man and another.

2. A man may be possessed of sound sense, yet not be able to apply it equally to all subjects; for there are evidently men who are highly judicious in certain lines of thought, but who fail in others. The one class of men are adapted to draw conclusions from a few principles; the other to draw conclu

59. Do you wish men to speak well of you?sions in cases which involve a great variety of prinThen never speak well of yourself.

60. Do not laugh at the men who seek respect through their duties and official stations; for we regard no man but for his acquired qualities. All men hate one another naturally. I hold it a fact, that if men knew exactly what one says of the other, there would not be four friends in the world. This appears from the quarrels to which occasional indiscreet reports give rise.

ciples. For instance, the one understands well the phenomena of water; with reference to which, the principles are few, but the results of which are so extremely delicate, that none but a peculiarly acute intellect can trace them; and most probably, these men never would have been great geometricians, because geometry involves a great many principles; and that the nature of a mind may be such, that it can trace a few principles up to their ex61. Death is more easy to endure without think-treme results; yet not adequately comprehend those ing about it, than the thoughts of death without the things in which a multitude of principles are comrisk of it. bined.

62. It is wonderful indeed, that a thing so visible as the utter vanity of this world, should be so little known, and that it should be so uncommon and surprising to hear any one condemn as folly, the search after its honors.

There are then two sorts of minds, the one fathoms rapidly and deeply the principles of things, and this is the spirit of accurate discrimination; the other comprehends a great many principles without confusing them, and this is the spirit of mathemaHe who does not see the vanity of this world, is tics. The one is energy and clearness of mind; vain indeed. For, in fact, who does not see it, but the other is expansion of mind. Now, the one may those young persons who are hurried along in the exist without the other. The mind may be powerbustle and din of its amusements, without a thoughtful, but narrow; or, it may be expanded and feeble. of the future? But take away those diversions, and you will see them wither with ennui. They are then feeling their emptiness without really knowing it: for surely it is a very wretched state, to sink into unbearable sadness, as soon as we cease to be diverted, and are left free to think.

There is much difference between the geometrical mind, and the acute mind. The principles of the one are clear and palpable, but removed from common usages; so that, for want of the habit, it is difficult to bring the attention down to such things; but as far as the attention is given to them, the prin63. Almost every thing is partly true and partly ciples of those things are plainly seen, and would false: not so with essential truth. It is perfectly need a mind altogether in error, to reason falsely pure and true. This admixture in the world, dis-on such common-place matters; so that, it is almost honors and annihilates truth. There is nothing impossible that the principles of such things should true, if we mean pure essential truth. We may not be ascertained. say that homicide is bad, because that which is evil and false is well understood by us. But what can we say is good? Celibacy? I say no! for the world would terminate. Marriage? No; for continency is better. Not to kill? No; for disorders would increase, and the wicked would murder the good.To kill? No; for that destroys nature. We have nothing true or good, but what is only partially so, and mixed with evil and untruth.

64. Evil is easily discovered; there is an infinite variety. Good is almost unique. But some kinds of evil are almost as difficult to discover, as that which we call good; and often particular evil of this class passes for good. Nay, it needs even a

Number 19.

But in the case of the acute mind, the principles in which it is conversant are found in common usage, and before the eyes of all men. You have but to turn your head without effort, and they are before you. The only essential point is a right perception; for the principles are so interwoven and so numerous, that it is almost impossible but that some should be lost sight of. Now, the omission of one principle leads to error; hence it needs a very accurate perception to ascertain all the principles, and then a sound judgment not to reason falsely on known principles.

All the geometricians would be acute men, ir they possessed this keenness of perception. for they

cannot reason falsely on the principles which they perceive; and the men of acute mind would be geometricians, if they could but turn their attention to the less prominent principles of geometry.

that it is difficult to distinguish between these contrarieties. One man says that my feeling is a mere fancy, and that his fancy is a real feeling; and I say the same of him. We need then a criterion: reason offers itself; but it may be biassed to either side, and hence there is no fixed rule.

5. They who judge of a work by rule, are, with respect to those who do not, as those who possess a watch, with respect to those who do not. One says, We have been here now two hours. Another says, It is but three quarters of an hour. I look at my watch, and say to one, You grow weary; and to the other, Time flies fast with you, for it is just an hour and a half; and I smile at those who tell me, that time lingers with me, and that I judge by imagination. They know not that I judge by my watch.

The reason then why some men of acute intellect are not geometers is, that they cannot turn their attention to the principles of geometry; but the reason why geometers have not this acuteness is, that they do not perceive what is before their eyes, and that being accustomed to the plain and palpable principles of geometry, and never reasoning till they have well ascertained and handled their principles, they are lost in these matters of more acute perception, where the principles cannot be so easily ascertained. They are seen with difficulty-they are felt rather than seen. It is scarcely possible to make them evident to those who do not feel them of themselves. They are so delicate and so multitu- 6. There are men who speak well, but who do dinous, that it requires a very keen and ready intel- not write well. The place, the circumstances, &c. lect to feel them; and that generally, without being excite them, and elicit from their mind, more than at all able to demonstrate them in order, as in geo- they would find in it without that extraordinary metry; because these principles cannot be so gather-stimulus. ed, and it were an endless labor to undertake it. 7. That which is good in Montaigne, can only The thing must be seen at once, at a glance, and be acquired with difficulty: that which is evil, (I not by a process of reasoning; at least, to a certain except his morals,) might be corrected in a mòdegree. And hence it is rarely the case, that geo-ment, if we consider that he tells too many stories, meters are acute men, or acute men geometers; be- and speaks too much of himself. cause geometers will treat these nicer matters geometrically, and thus make themselves ridiculous; they will begin with definitions, and then go to principles-a mode that will not answer in this sort of reasoning. It is not that the mind does not take this method, but it does so silently, naturally, without the forms of art-for all men are capable of the expression of it; but this feeling of it is the talent

of few.

And the acute mind, on the contrary, accustomed to judge at a glance, is so astonished when they present to it a series of propositions, where it understands but little, and when to enter into them, it is necessary to go previously through a host of definitions and dry principles, that not having been accustomed thus to examine in detail, it turns away in disgust. There are, however, many weaker minds, which are neither acute nor geometrical.

Geometers, thea, who are exclusively geometers, possess a sound judgment, provided only that the matter be properly explained to them by definitions and principles; otherwise they go wrong altogether, for they only judge rightly upon principles which are clearly laid down for them; and your acute men, who are exclusively so, have no patience to go down into first principles, in matters of speculation and imagination, which they have never seen in use in the world.

3. It often happens, that to prove certain things, men adduce such examples, that they might actually take the things themselves to prove the examples; which does not fail of producing an effect; for as they believe always that the difficulty lies in the thing to be proved, the example, of course, appears more intelligible. Thus, when they wish to illustrate a general principle, they exhibit the rule of a particular case. But if they wish to illustrate a particular case, they begin with the general rule. They always find the thing to be proved obscure, but the medium of proc. clear and intelligible; for when it is purposed to prove a point, the mind pre-occupies itself with the thought, that it is obscure and difficult. Whilst, on the contrary, it assumes that the mode by which it is to be proved will be clear, and consequently, under that impression, comprehends it easily.

4. All our reasonings are compelled to yic'd to feeling A mere imagination, however, is both similar and contrary to feeling. Similar, because it does not reason-contrary, because it is false; so

8. It is a serious fault, to follow the exception instead of the rule. We ought to be rigidly opposed to the exception. Yet since it is certain that there are exceptions to the rule, we should judge rigidly, but justly.

9. There are men who would have an author never speak of the things of which others have spoken; and if he does, they accuse him of saying nothing new. But if the subjects are not new, the disposition of them may be. When we play at tennis, both play with the same ball, but one may play it better than the other. They might just as well accuse us of using old words, as if the same thoughts differently arranged, would not form a different discourse; just as the same words differently arranged would express different thoughts.

10. We are more forcibly persuaded in general, by the reasons which we ourselves search out, than by those which are the suggestion of the minds of others.

11. The mind makes progress naturally, and the will naturally clings to objects; so that in default of right objects, it will attach itself to wrong ones.

12. Those great efforts of mind to which the soul occasionally reaches, are such as it cannot habitually maintain. It reaches them by a sudden bound, but only to fall again.

13. Man is neither an angel nor a brute; and the mischief is, they who would play the angel, often play the brute.

14. Only discover a man's ruling passion, and you are sure of pleasing him; and yet each one has in the very notion that he has formed of good, some phantasies which are opposed to his real interest; and this is a strange incongruity, which often disconcerts those who would gain his affection.

15. A horse does not seek to be admired by its companion. There is to be sure, a sort of emulation in the course, but this leads to nothing; for in the stable, the clumsiest and worst made, will not on that account give up his corn to the others. It is not so among men. Their virtue is not satisfied with itself; and they are not satisfied, unless they obtain it by some advantage over others.

16. We injure the mind and the moral sentiments in the same way. The mind and the moral sentiments are formed by conversation. The good or the evil improve or injure them respectively. It is of importance then, to know how to choose well, so as to benefit, and not injure them. But we are