syllogism, passed all my days in the schools of disputation, and slept every night with Smiglecius on my pillow. year "You will not doubt but such a genius was soon raised to eminence by such application: I was celebrated in my third for the most artful opponent that the university could boast, and became the terror and envy of all the candidates for philosophical reputation. 66 My renown, indeed, was not purchased but at the price of all my time and all my studies. I never spoke but to contradict, nor declaimed but in defence of a position universally acknowledged to be false, and therefore worthy, in my opinion, to be adorned with all the colours of false representation, and strengthened with all the arts of fallacious subtlety. 66 My father, who had no other wish than to see his son richer than himself, easily concluded that I should distinguish myself among the professors of the law; and therefore, when I had taken my first degree, dispatched me to the Temple, with a paternal admonition that I should never suffer myself to feel shame, for nothing but modesty could retard my fortune. 66 Vitiated, ignorant, and heady as I was, I had not yet lost my reverence for virtue, and therefore could not receive such dictates without horror; but, however, was pleased with his determination of my course of life, because he placed me in the way that leads soonest from the prescribed walks of discipline and education to the open fields of liberty and choice. "I was now in the place where every one catches the contagion of vanity, and soon began to distinguish myself by sophisms and paradoxes. I de clared war against all received opinions and established rules, and leveled my batteries particularly against those universal principles which had stood unshaken in all the vicissitudes of literature, and are considered as the inviolable temples of truth or the impregnable bulwarks of science. "I applied myself chiefly to those parts of learning which have filled the world with doubt and perplexity, and could readily produce all the arguments relating to matter and motion, time and space, identity and infinity. "I was equally able and equally willing to maintain the system of Newton or Descartes, and favoured occasionally the hypothesis of Ptolemy, or that of Copernicus. I sometimes exalted vegetables to sense, and sometimes degraded animals to mechanism. "Nor was I less inclined to weaken the credit of history or perplex the doctrines of polity. I was always of the party which I heard the company condemn. 66 Among the zealots of liberty I could harangue with great copiousness upon the advantages of absolute monarchy, the secrecy of its counsels, and the expedition of its measures; and often celebrated the blessings produced by the extinction of parties and preclusion of debates. "Among the assertors of regal authority I never failed to declaim with republican warmth upon the original charter of universal liberty, the corruption of courts, and the folly of voluntary submission to those whom nature has leveled with ourselves. "I knew the defects of every scheme of government, and the inconveniences of every law. I sometimes showed how much the condition of mankind would be improved by breaking the world into petty sovereignties, and sometimes displayed the felicity and peace which universal monarchy would diffuse over the earth. "To every acknowledged fact I found innumerable objections; for it was my rule to judge of history only by abstracted probability, and therefore I made no scruple of bidding defiance to testimony. I have more than once questioned the existence of Alexander the Great; and, having demonstrated the folly of erecting edifices like the pyramids of Egypt, I frequently hinted my suspicion that the world had been long deceived, and that they were to be found only in the narrative of travellers. "It had been happy for me could I have confined my scepticism to historical controversies and philosophical disquisitions; but, having now violated my reason and accustomed myself to inquire not after proofs but objections, I had perplexed truth with falsehood, till my ideas were confused, my judgment embarrassed, and my intellects distorted. The habit of considering every proposition as alike uncertain left me no test by which any tenet could be tried; every opinion presented both sides with equal evidence, and my fallacies began to operate upon my own mind in more important inquiries. It was at last the sport of my vanity to weaken the obligations of moral duty and efface the distinctions of good and evil, till I had deadened the sense of conviction and abandoned my heart to the fluctuations of uncertainty, without anchor and without compass, without satisfaction of curiosity or peace of conscience, without principles of reason or motives of action. "Such is the hazard of repressing the first perceptions of truth, of spreading for diversion the snares of sophistry, and engaging reason against its own determination. "The disproportions of absurdity grow less and less visible, as we are reconciled by degrees to the deformity of a mistress; and falsehood, by long use, is assimilated to the mind, as poison to the body. "I had soon the mortification of seeing my conversation courted only by the ignorant or wicked, by either boys, who were enchanted by novelty, or wretches who, having long disobeyed virtue and reason, were now desirous of my assistence to dethrone them. "Thus alarmed, I shuddered at my own corruption, and that pride by which I had been seduced contributed to reclaim me. I was weary of continual irresolution and a perpetual equipoise of the mind, and ashamed of being the favourite of those who were scorned and shunned by the rest of mankind. 66 "I therefore retired from all temptation to dispute, prescribed a new regimen to my understanding, and resolved, instead of rejecting all established opinions which I could not prove, to tolerate though not adopt all which I could not confute. I forbore to heat my imagination with needless controversies, to discuss questions confessedly uncertain, and refrained steadily from gratifying my vanity by the support of falsehood. 66 By this method I am at length recovered from my argumental delirium, and find myself in the state of one awakened from the confusion and tumult of a feverish dream. I rejoice in the new possession of evidence and reality, and step on from truth to truth with confidence and quiet. "I am, Sir, &c. 66 PERTINAX." No. 96. SATURDAY, FEB. 16, 1751. Quod si Platonis musa personat verum, BOETHIUS. It is reported of the Persians, by an ancient writer, that the sum of their education consisted in teaching youth to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to speak truth. The bow and the horse were easily mastered; but it would have been happy if we had been informed by what arts veracity was cultivated, and by what preservatives a Persian mind was secured against the temptations to falsehood. There are indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forsake truth: the need of palliating our own faults and the convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others so frequently occur; so many immediate evils are to be avoided, and so many present gratifications obtained, by craft and delusion, that very few of those who are much entangled in life have spirit and constancy sufficient to support them in the steady practice of open veracity. In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it; for no species of falsehood is more frequent than flattery, to which the coward is betrayed by fear, the dependent by interest, and the friend by tenderness: those who are neither servile nor timorous are yet desirous to bestow pleasure; and, while unjust demands of praise continue to be made, there will always be some whom hope, fear, or kindness will dispose to pay them. |