mony, even from the discordant croaking of the schools. I have elsewhere observed, that sleep, that type of death, is restricted to earth, that it avoids hell, and is excluded heaven. This idea might also be applied to Hope, whose habitation is manifestly terrestrial, and whose very existence must, I conceive, be lost, in the overwhelming realities of futurity. Neither can futurity have any room for fear, the opposite of hope; for fear anticipates suffering, and hope enjoyment; but where both are final, fixed, and full, what place remains, either for hope, or for fear? Fear, therefore, and hope, are of the earth, earthy, the pale and trembling daughters of mortality; for in heaven we can fear no change; and in hell, no change is to be feared.

CXV.

NO porter ever injured himself by an attempt to carry six hundred weight, who could not previously carry five, without injury; and what obtains with strength of body, obtains also with strength of mind; when we attempt to be wise, beyond what is given to man, our very strength becomes our weakness. No man of pigmy stature, or of puny mould, will ever meet the fate of Milo,* who was wedged to death, in an attempt to split an oak; and no man ever finished by being an accomplished fool, so well as Des Cartes, because he began, by being a philosopher; for a racer, if he runs out of the course, will carry us much farther from it, than a cart horse. Ignorance is a much more quiet, manageable, and contented thing, than half knowledge. A ploughman was asked on his cross-examination, whether he could read Greek; this appeared to be a problem he had never taken the trouble to solve, therefore, with as much naivete as truth, he replied, that he did not know-because he had never tried.

"viribus ille"

"Confisus periit, admirandisque lacertis."

CXVI.

HE that sets out on the journey of life, with a profound knowledge of books, but a shallow knowledge of men, with much sense of others, but little of his own, will find himself as completely at a loss on occasions of common and of constant recurrence, as a Dutchman without his pipe, a Frenchman without his mistress, an Italian without his fiddle, or an Englishman without his umbrella.

CXVII.

IF Diogenes used a lanthorn in broad day solely and simply for the purpose of discovering an honest man, this proceeding was not consistent with his usual sagacity. A lanthorn would have been a more appropriate appendage, if he had been in search of a rogue; for such characters skulk about in holes and corners, and hate the light, because their deeds are evil. But I suspect this philosopher's real motive for using a lanthorn in mid-day, was to provoke enquiry, that he might have the cynical satisfaction of telling all that asked him what he was searching for, that none of them at least were the men to his mind, and that his search had hitherto been fruitless. It is with honesty in one particular, as with wealth, those that have the thing, care less about the credit of it, than those who have it not. No poor man can well afford to be thought so, and the less of honesty a finished rogue possesses, the less he can afford to be supposed to want it. Duke Chartres used to boast that no man could have less real value for character than himself, yet he would gladly give twenty thousand pounds for a good one, because he could immediately make double that sum, by means of it. I once heard a gentleman make a very witty reply, to one who asserted that he did not believe there was a truly honest man in the whole world: Sir, said he, it is quite impossible that any one man should know all the world; but it is very possible that some one man-may know himself.

G

CXVIII.

NO disorders have employed so many quacks, as those that have no cure; and no sciences* have exercised so many quills, as those that have no certainty. Truth lies in a small compass, and if a well has been assigned her, for a habitation, it is as appropriate from its narrowness, as its depth. Hence it happens that those sciences that are capable of being demonstrated, or that are reducible to the severity of calculation, are never voluminous, for clearness is intimately connected with conciseness, as the lightning which is the brightest thing, is also the most brief; but precisely in proportion as certainty vanishes, verbosity abounds. To foretel an eclipse, a man must understand astronomy; or to find out an unknown quantity, by a known one, he must have a knowledge of calculation; and yet the rudiments that enable us to effect these important things, are to be found in a very narrow compass. But when I survey the ponderous and voluminous folios of the schoolmen and the metaphysicians, I am inclined to ask a very simple question; what have either of these plodders done, that has not been better done, by those that were neither?

CXIX.

WERE a man to deny himself the pleasure of walking, because he is restricted from the privilege of flying, and refuse his dinner, because it was not ushered in on a service of plate, should we not be more inclined to ridicule, than to pity him? and yet we are all of us more or less guilty of similar absurdities, the moment we deny ourselves pleasures that are present, and within our reach, either from a vain repining after those that must never return, or from as vain an aspiring after those that may never arrive.

• 1 suspect that some of the sciences are derived from the Greek word oxa, rather than from the Latin word scio.

CXX.

NOBILITY of birth does not always insure a corresponding nobility of mind; if it did, it would always act as a stimulus to noble actions; but it sometimes acts as a clog, rather than a spur. For the favour and consideration of our fellow-men, is perhaps the strongest incentive to intellectual exertion; but rank and title, unfortunately for the possessors of them, insure that favour and consideration, even without exertion, that others hardly can obtain, by means of it. Therefore men high in rank, are sometimes low in acquirement, not so much from want of ability, as from want of application; for it is the nature of man, not to expend labour on those things that he can have without it, nor to sink a well, if he happen to be born upon the banks of a river. But we might as well expect the elastic muscularity of a Gladiator, without training, as the vigorous intellect of a Newton, without toil.

CXXI.

UNITY of opinion, abstractedly considered, is neither desirable, nor a good; although considered not in itself, but with reference to something else, it may be both. For men may be all agreed in error, and in that case unanimity is an evil. Truth lies within the Holy of Holies, in the temple of knowledge, but doubt is the vestibule, that leads unto it. Luther began by having his doubts, as to the assumed infallibility of the Pope, and he finished, by making himself the corner stone of the reformation. Copernicus, and Newton, doubted the truth of the false systems of others, before they established a true one of their own; Columbus differed in opinion with all the old world, before he discovered a new one; and Galilæo's terrestrial body was confined in a dungeon, for having asserted the motion of those bodies that were celestial. In fact, we owe almost all our knowledge, not to those who have agreed, but to those

who have differed; and those who have finished by making all others think with them, have usually been those who began by daring to think with themselves; as he that leads a crowd, must begin by separating himself some little distance from it. If the great Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood, had not differed from all the physicians of his own day, all the physicians of the present day would not have agreed with him. These reflections ought to teach us that every kind of persecution for opinions, is incompatible with sound philosophy. It is lamentable indeed to think how much misery has been incurred from the intemperate zeal, and bigotted officiousness of those who would rather that mankind should not think at all, than not think as they do. Charles the Fifth, when he abdicated a throne, and retired to the monastery of St Juste, amused himself with the mechanical arts, and particularly with that of a watch-maker; he one day exclaimed, "what an egregious fool must I have been to have squandered so much blood and treasure, in an absurd attempt to make all men think alike, when I cannot even make a few watches keep time together." We should remember also, that assent, or dissent, is not an act of the will, but of the understanding; no man can will to believe that two and two make five, nor can I force upon myself the conviction, that this ink is white, or this paper black. If we arrive at certain conclusions, and act conscientiously upon them, a Judge that is both just and merciful, will require no more, provided we can answer satisfactorily to the following interrogations: Have we made use of all the means in our power to arrive at true conclusions? Did no interest warp us? no prejudice blind us? no party mislead us? no sloth retard us? and no fear intimidate us? No hierarchy, constituted authority, nor political establishment, either of ancient, or modern times, has made so horrible a use of the mistaken notion that unanimity is a good in itself, as the church of Rome. They have appropriated the term Catholic, to their own pale, and branded with the name of heretic, all that are without it; and