That man is the work of a wife agent, is in the cleareft manner difcovered by the marks of wifdom, that shew themfelves in his frame by the contrivance and fkill, that each part of it expreffes--by the exact proportion and fuitable difpofition, that the feveral parts of it have to each other, and by their refpective fitnefs to promote the well-being of the whole. When we muft thus acknowledge the great wifdom exerted in our ftructure; when we are fo capable of difcerning its beauties and advantages, and fo fully know their prefervation and improvement to depend upon ourfelves, upon our own endeavours, care and pains; we cannot poffibly be at a lofs to difcover what our wife Maker muft, in this particular, expect from us. The duty of man is as certainly known from his nature-what he ought to do for himself is as fully underflood from what he can do, as the ufes of any machine are understood by a thorough acquaintance with its powers. I can no more doubt for what I am intended--what must be required of me, when I fee plainly what I am able to effect; than I can queftion for what purposes a watch or clock is defigned, when I am duly apprifed how the different parts of it act upon each other, to what they all concur, and to what only. We want no reasoning to convince us, that a frame fo curious as the human, muft be made in order to its continuance, as long as the materials compofing it will admit; and that we ourselves must give it fuch continuance: how this is fhortened, how it is prolonged, we are likewife all of us fully fenfible. There is no man but perceives what will hafen his diffolution, and what will, probably, retard it; by what management of himself he is fure to pafs but few years in the world, and by what he is likely to be upheld in it for many. Here then our rule is obvious; thefe notices afforded us make it fo: when we are taught, that the fupport of our life muft be agreeable to him from whom we received it, and that we are appointed to give it this fupport, that it must come from ourselves, from what we do in order to it; we are at the fame time inftructed to regard all things contributing to it as enjoined us, and all things detrimental to, and inconfiftent with it, as forbidden us;, we have it fuggefted to us, that we are properly employed, when we confult the due prefervation of life, and that the engagements are improper, are blameable, that hinder it. 3 Thus, to spend our time well, we must give our bodies fuch exercife, fuch reft, and other refreshments, as their subsistence demands; and we mif-fpend it, when we are lazy and flothful, when we are lefs sober, chafte and temperate; when we proceed to exceffes of any kind, when we let our paffions and appetites direct us: every thing in this way tends to haften our diffolution; and therefore must be criminal, as oppofing that continuance here, which our very compofition fhews our Maker to have defigned us. But that our frame fhould be barely upheld, cannot be all we are to do for it; we must preferve it in its most perfect ftate, in a state in which its feveral powers can be best exerted. To take this care about it, is evidently required of us. Any unfitness for the functions of life is a partial death. I don't fee of what we can well be more certain, than that all the health and firength, of which our conftitution admits were intended us in it; and they muft, therefore, be as becoming our concern, as it is to hinder the ruin of our conflitution: we know not how fufficiently to lament the lofs of them, even from the advantage of which they are to us in themselves, not only from their preventing the uneafinefs, the pains, and the numerous inconveniences with which the fickly and infirm have to ftruggle, but likewife from the fatisfaction they give us in our being, from what we feel, when our blood flows regularly, our nerves have their due tone, and our vigour is entire. Yet thefe are but the least of the bentfits we have from them. We confift of two parts, of two very different parts; the one inert, paffive, ut terly incapable of directing itfelf, barely minifterial to the other, moved, animated by it. When our body has its full health and ftrength, the mind is fo far affifted thereby, that it can bear a clofer and longer applica tion, our apprehenfion is readier, our imagination is livelier, we can better enlarge our compafs of thought, we can examine our perceptions more ftrictly, and compare them more exactly; by which means we are enabled to form a truer judgment of things-to remove more effectually the mistakes into which we have been led by a wrong education, by paffion, inattention, cuftom, example-to have a clear r view of what is beft for us, of what is molt for our intereft, and thence determine ourselves more readily to its pur fuit, The mind, when not reftrained by any thing deficient in its companion, and having from it all the affistance it is adapted to afford, can with much greater facility prevent that difcompofure and trouble, by which our bodily health is ever injured, and preferve in us that quiet and peace, by which it is always promoted. Hence we are to conclude, that we should forbear, not only what neceffarily brings on difeafe and decay, but whatever contributes to enfeeble and enervate us; not only what has a direct tendency to hasten our end, but likewise what lessens our activity, what abates of our vigour and fpirit. That we should also avoid whatever is in any wife prejudicial to a due confideration of things, and a right judgment of them; whatever can hinder the understanding from properly informing itfelf, and the will from a ready compliance with its directions. We must be intent on fuch a difcipline of ourselves as will procare us the fullest use of our frame, as will capacitate us to receive from it the whole of the advantage it is capable of yielding us; fo exercising the members of our body, confulting its conveniences, fupplying its wants, that it may be the leaft burdenfome to us, may give us the least uneafinefs that none of its motions may, through any fault of ours, be obftructed, none of its parts injured that it may be kept in as unimpaired, as athletic a state as our endeavours can procure, and all its functions performed with the utmolt exactnefs and readiness; fo guarding, likewife, a gainst the impreffions of fenfe, and deluLiveness of fancy, so compofing our minds, parifying them, divefting them of all corrupt prejudices, that they may be in a Cipofition equally favourable to them, and to our bodies-that they may not be betrayed into mistakes dangerous to the welfare of either--that they may be in a condition to difcern what is becoming us, what is fitteft for us; defirous of difcovering it, and preparing to be influenced We are thus to feek our moft perfect ftate, fuch as allows us the freeft ufe of our feveral powers a full liberty for the due application of them. And the ability thus to apply them, must be in order to our doing it, to our receiving from them whatever fervice they can effect. As what is corporeal in us is of leaft excellence and value, our care in general about it, should bear a proportion to the lit tle worth it has in itself-should chiefly regard the reference it has to our underftanding, the affiftance that it may afford our intellectual faculties. Merely to preferve our being-to poffefs our members entire--to have our fenfes perfect--to be free from pain to enjoy health, ftrength, beauty, are but very low aims for human creatures. The most perfect state of animal life can never becomingly engrofs the concern of a rational nature: fitted for much nobler and worthier attainments, we are by that fitnefs for them called to purfae them. Afk thofe of either fex, who rate highest the recommendation of features, complexion, and shape--who are most intent on adorning their perfons--who study moit the accomplifhents of an outward appearance; afk them, I fay, which they think their chief endowment, and what it is that does them the highest honour? You will find them with one confent pronouncing it their reason. With all their folly they will not defend it as fuch: with their little fenfe, they will prefer that little to their every other fancied perfection. The finett woman in the world would rather make deformity her choice than idiocy, would rather have ugliness than incapacity her reproach. Thus, likewife, whom do we perceive fo fond of life, fo defirous of reaching its longeft term, that he would be willing to furvive his understanding; that he would chufe to live after he ceafed to reason? The health and ease, the vigour and chearfulness that are often the lunatic's portion, would not induce the most infirm, fickly, and complaining among us, to wish himfelf in his ftead; to with an exchange of his own distempered body, for the other's difordered mind. Nor does the mind only claim our chief regard, as it is thus univerfally acknowledged, and as it really is the principal, the molt excellent, the prefiding part of us, but as our well-being is neceffarily connected with giving it this preference, with L 3 bettowing bestowing the most of our care and pains upon it. What is beft for the body, what is beft for the whole man, can only be difcovered and provided for, by our rational faculties, by them affiduously cultivated, diligently exerted, and thence ftrengthened and enlarged. Our well-being wholly depends upon the fuficient information of our underflanding, upon the light in which we fee things, upon the knowledge we have how far they can profit or hurt us, how the benefit they can be of to us may be derived from them, and how the hurt they can do us may be efcaped. If I think that to be good, or that to be evil, which is not fuch-or if I know not that to be good, or that to be evil, which is really fuch--or if I think there is more or leis good, or more or lets evil in any thing than there really is--or if what, by a proper application, might be made of very great advantage to me, I am ignorant how to make of any, or of as much as it would yield me--or if I am ignorant how to render that very little, or not at all, hurtful to me, which might have its evil either greatly leffoned or wholly avoided in all thefe inftances, my wellbeing must of neceffity be a fufferer; my ignorance must greatly abate of the fatisfaction of my life, and heighten its un eafinels. No one is prejudiced by his not defiring what he conceives to be good, by his difinclination towards it, by his unwillingness to embrace it. So far is this from being our cafe, that we are always purfuing it. The fource of all our motions, the defign of all our endeavours is to better ourselves, to remove from us that which is really, or comparatively evil. What alone hurts us is our misapprehenfion of good, our mistakes about, our ignorance of, it. Let us fully underftand ithave just conceptions of it, we then fhall never deferve the blame of its being lefs earnestly fought after, and therefore unattained by us. The excefs of our earnest nefs after it, is, indeed, ufually the occafion of mifling it. Our folicitude, our eagernefs and impatience are here fo great, that they won't allow us time to examine appearances- ——to distinguish between them and realities—to weigh what is future against what is prefent--to deliberate whether we do not forego a much greater advantage hereafter, by clofing with that which immediately offers; or shall not have it abundantly overbalanced, by its mifchievous confequences. We want not to be put on the pursuit of happiness, but we want very much to have that purfuit rightly directed; and as this must be done by the improvement of our rational powers, we can be interested in nothing more than in improving them, than in fuch an application of them, as will contribute moft to perfect them. We are fo placed, that there are very few of the objects furrounding us, which may not be ferviceable or hurtful to us; nor is that fervice to be obtained, or detriment avoided, otherwife than by our acquaintance with them and with ourselves: the more exact our knowledge of this kind is, the more we leffen the calamities, and add to the comforts of life: and it certainly must be as much the intention of our Creator, that we fhould attain the utmost good which we are capable of procuring ourselves, as that we fhould attain any for which he has qualified us. Nor is the benefit arifing to us from an enlarged understanding rendered lefs certain, by the uneafinefs that we find to be the fhare of the ftudious, the contemplative, and learned-of them whose intellectual attainments we chiefly admire. The philofopher's obfervation to his friend on books, that it fignifies nothing bow many, but what he had, is applicable to the knowledge they communicate: what it is, and not how various, is the thing that concerns us. It may extend to a prodigious number of particulars of no moment, or of very little; and that extent of it gain us all the extravagance of applaufe, though we have the ignorance of the vulgar, where it must be of the worft confequence. Crowding our memory is no more improving our understanding, than filling our coffers with pebbles is enriching ourfelves*: and what is commonly the name of learning, what ufually denominates us very, learned is, really, no more than our memory heavily and ufelefsly burthened. How high is the defert, in the more eastern parts, of him who can but read and write the language of his country? A life spent in the ftudy of it alone fhall be there There is nothing almost has done more harm to men dedicated to letters, than giving the name of Audy to reading, and making a man of great reading to be the fame with a man of great knowledge Locke of the Condu& of the Underflanding. judged judged an exercife of reafon mot worthy of applaufe. And are we in thefe fo enlightened regions, in this school of fcience, as we are apt to fancy it, at all more juft to rational improvements? We have, indeed, no encomiums for him who is not at a lofs for the meaning of any word that his native tongue furnishes; but he who is well killed in two or three antient ones, will have the highest applause for that skill, and be confidered as among them, who have dittinguished themselves, by a right application of their capacities. In this number we, likewife, generally agree to place fuch as have paffed years in only qualifying themfelves either to cavil and difpute, or to difguife their ignorance on any subject, or to colour ftrongly, and command the paffions of their hearers. We are equally favourable to them, who bufy their minds on difcoveries that have no foundation but in fancy and credulity—or whose whole endeavour it has been to learn what this or that man has determined on a point, wherein he was as ill qualified as themselves to make a right determination, or who amufe themselves with theories, with trifling and vain fpeculations. Let a juft allowance be made for thefe, and fuch like perfons, whofe reputation for learning is only built on the generality mifcalling it, on the prevailing mistakes about it, and who have really hurt their understandings by what is thus falfely efteemed improving them; we fhall have proceeded a great way in removing the objection to the purfuit of knowledge, from the little fervice it is of, to fuch whofe attainments in it we concur in acknowledging and admiring. When our intellectual pursuits are useful, they are often limited to what is of leaft ufe. How few of us are prompted to our refearches from the confideration of the degree or extent of the good derivable from them? It is humour, fancy, or fordid gain alone, that ordinarily gives rife to the very inquiries which are of advantage to the world; they feldom are made from a regard to their proper worth, from the influence they can have upon our own or others' happinefs. That the better our understanding is informed, the better it can direct us, must be as evident to all, as that we want to be directed by it. The mind of man is as much aflifted by knowledge, as his eye by light. Whatever his intellectual powers may be in themfelves, they are to him according to his application of them: as the advantage he receives from his fight is according to the ufe he makes of it. That ignorance of his good which he might, but will not, remove, deprives him of it as certainly as an utter inability to acquaint himfelf with it. In what is the improvement of our underftandings, we may, indeed, be miltaken, as we may in what conftitutes our true happinefs; but in each cafe we must be wilfully fo, we must be fo by refusing to attend, to confider. Could we by inftin&t difcover our own good, as the brute diftinguishes its good, all concern on our part to increase our discernment might be needlefs; but the endeavour after this must be in the highest degree neceffary, when the more clearly we difcern things, the more we are benefited, and the lefs hurt by them. Where is the man who is not made happier by inquiries that are rightly directed, and when he can say with the poet, -The fearch of truth Of knowledge as diftinct from true wifdom, it may be not unjustly obferved, that the increase of it is only the increase of forrow; but of that knowledge, the pursuit of which expreffes our wifdom, we may confidently affert, that our fatisfaction muft advance with it. All will admit it a proof of wisdom, to judge rightly of what is moft for our intereft, and take fuch meafures as fuit it: and as we are qualified for this by our knowledge, by the knowledge of our own nature, and of the properties of the things without us, fo far as they can contribute to our better or worse state; in the degree we are thus knowing we can only be wife, determine rightly of what is beft, and ufe the fitteft means to procure it. Attainments that ferve not to this purpose may be flighted; but for fuch as are requifite to it, if they principally deferve not our concern, I fee not what can have any title to it *. We Since our faculties plainly difcover to us the being of a God, and the knowledge of ourselves, enough to lead us into a full and clear discovery of our duty, and great concernment; it will become us, as rational creatures, to employ thofe faculties we have, about what they are moit adapted to, and follow the direction of nature, where it feems to point us out the way. For 'tis rational to conclude L4 that We are, indeed, ftartled at the very terms of deliberating, weighing, confidering, comparing; we have affixed fuch ideas to them, to make them appear rather hindering the true enjoyment of ourselves than promoting it: but if we would not fhare the uneafinefs that fo many of our fellowcreatures lament, we must not adopt their prejudices. In every point of confequence we ufe more or lefs confideration; and in all the pleasures that allure, in all the trifles that amufe us, we are ftill making comparifons, preferring one to the other, pronouncing this lefs, and that more worthy of our choice. Tho' none, if the philofopher may be believed, deliberate on the whole of life, all do on the parts of it: and if we fail not to compare and reafon upon our lower enjoyments, I fee not what there can be forbidding in the advice to attend feriously, to examine fairly, and to delay our choice till we have gained the inftruction requifite to determine it, when the object thereof is what can be most for our cafe and fatisfaction. eafy under their ignorance and mistakes, that they will not advance a step to remove them: and what greater recommendation can there be of any fituation, than that they who are in it are entirely satisfied with it? 1. The pains that we are to take in order to an advantage that muft infinitely overbalance them, we can have no excufe for omitting and we are called to no pains for the improvement of our reason, but fuch as cannot be declined without leffening our happinefs-without incurring some evil we should otherwife have escaped, or wanting fome good we fhould otherwife have obtained: whatever has its neglect attended with thefe confequences, must be expected from us*. 2. That they are to feek knowledge who are to get their bread, might feem a harsh leffon, if the endeavour to inform, hindered that to maintain themselves; if the knoruleage they were to feek was any other but of what is best for them, of what can give them all the happiness that creatures fo conftituted can receive. For this every one must have leifuret; it should be judged our chief bufinefs; it directs us to that very em ployment from which we have our fupport is carried on with it-affifts us'in it— gives it every confideration that can make it eafy and fatisfactory to us. The peafant or mechanic is not advised to spend fewer hours at labour, that he may have more for ftudy, for reading and contemplating 3. We find no fmall part of mankind foto leave his fpade or his tools for a pen But it is not, perhaps, all exercife of our reason, in a way fo well deferving it, that difgufts us; it is the degree of application required from us, that we relifh not. 1. We know not how to be reconciled to fo much trouble about enlarging our difcernment, and refining our judgment. 2. We do not fee how fuch a task can fuit them whofe whole provifion for the day is from the labour of it. that our proper employment lies in those enquiries, and in that fort of knowledge which is most fuited to our natural capacities, and carries in it our greateft intereft, the condition of our eternal ftate, Hence, I think I may conclude, that morality is the proper fcience, and business of mankind in generál. Locke's Efay on Humor Underflondag. Hew men whofe plentiful fortunes allow them leifare to improve their understandings, can fatisfy themselves with a lazy ignorance, I cannot tell: but methinks they have a low opinion of their fouls, who lay out all their incomes in provifion for the body, and employ none of it to procure the means and helps of knowledge; who take great care to appear always in a neat and fplendid outfide, and wou'd think then felves mifere in coarfe clothes, or a patched coat, and yet contentedly fuffer their minds to appear abroad in a pic-bald livery of coarfe patches, and borrowed shreds, fuch as it has pleafed chance or their country taylor (1 mean the common opinion of thofe they have converfed with) to cleath them in. I will not here mention how unreafonable this is for men that ever think of a future Rate, and their concernment in it, which no rational man can avoid to do fometimes. Locke's Effig on Human Undefending, B. iv. Ch. 20 Are the greateil part of mankind, by the neceffity of their condition, subjected to unavoidable ignorance in those things which are of greateft importance to them? Hove the bulk of mankind no other guide but accident and blind chance, to conduct them to their happiness or mifery-God has furied men with faculties fufficient to direct them in the way they fhould take, if they will but fe rioufly employ them that way, when their ordinary vocations allow them the leifure.No man is fo willy taken up with the attendance on the means of living, as to have no spare time to think at all of his foul, and inform hin.felf in matters of Religion. Were men as intent on this, is they are on things of lower concernment, there are none to chiflaved to the neceffities of life, who might not find many vacancies that might be husbanded to this advantage of their knowledge. Locke's Fijay on Human, Undifranding or |