condescend to accept of them; but none but a fool would imagine them of any real importance. We ought to depend upon intrinsic merit, and not the slender helps of the title.-Goldsmith.

DCCCLVIII.

Talking.—It has been said in praise of some men, that they could talk whole hours together upon any thing; but it must be owned to the honour of the other sex, that there are many among them who can talk whole hours together upon nothing. I have known a woman branch out into a long extempore dissertation on the edging of a petticoat, and chide her servant for breaking a china cup, in all the figures of rhetoric.-Addison.

DCCCLIX.

Life a Cheat.

When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat:
Yet, fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit;
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay;
To-morrow's falser than the former day;

Lies more, and while it says we shall be bless'd
With some new joys, cuts off what we possess'd:
Strange cozenage! none would live past years again;
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain:
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give,
I'm tired with waiting for this chymic gold,
Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.

Dryden.

DCCCLX.

Knowledge.—I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less.-Sir T. Brown.

DCCCLXI.

On Opinions.—Every one must, of course, think his own opinions right; for if he thought them wrong, they would no longer be his opinions: but there is a wide difference between regarding ourselves as infallible, and being firmly convinced of the truth of our creed. When a man reflects on any particular doctrine, he may be impressed with a thorough conviction of the improbability or even impossibility of its being false; and so he may feel with regard to all his other opinions, when he makes them objects of separate contemplation. And yet, when he views them in the aggregate, when he reflects, that not a single being on the earth holds collectively the same, when he looks at the past history and present state of mankind, and observes the various creeds of different ages and nations, the peculiar mode of thinking of sects, and bodies, and individuals, the notions once firmly held, which have been exploded, the prejudices once universally prevalent, which have been removed, and the endless controversies, which have distracted those who have made it the business of their lives to arrive at the truth; and when he farther dwells on the consideration, that many of these his fellow-creatures have had a conviction of the justness of their respective sentiments equal to his own, he cannot help the obvious inference, that in his own opinions it is next to impossible that there is not an admixture of error; that there is an infinitely greater probabili. ty of his being wrong in some than right in all.—Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions.

DCCCLXII.

Criminal Jurisprudence.-Every society, considered in itself as a moral and physical entity, has the undoubted faculty of self-preservation. It is an independent being; and, towards other beings in like circumstances of independence, it has a right to use this faculty of defending itself, without previous notice to the party; or without the observance of any duty, but that of abstaining from offensive operations. But when it acts towards the members of its own family, towards those dependent and defence. less beings that make part of itself, the right of coercion is preceded by the duty of instruction. It may be safely pronounced, that a state has no right to punish a man, to whom it has given no previous instruction: and, consequently, any person has a right to do any action, unless he has been informed that it has an evil tendency. It is true, that as relative to particular cases, the having given this information is a thing that the society must sometimes presume, and is not always obliged to prove. But these cases are rare, and ought never to form a general rule. This presumption has, however, passed into a gcneral rule, and is adopted as universal practice. With what justice or propriety it is so adopted, a very little reflection will enable us to decide.-Barlow's Advice to the Privileged Orders.

DCCCLXIII.

Pleasure. A man who knows how to mix pleasures with business, is never entirely possessed by them; he either quits or resumes them at his will; and in the use he makes of them, he rather finds a relaxation of mind,

than a dangerous charm that might corrupt him.-St. Evremond.

DCCCLXIV.

Leisure is time for doing something useful: this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never; so that, as poor Richard says, A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things.-Franklin.

DCCCLXY.

Mendicants.-Mendicants have great comforts; they require a good address, though they can dispense with a good dress; this dispensation is exclusively theirs: they have little to care for, and their expectations are great: of them nothing is required; and what forms their calamity, forms likewise a fund for its own emergencies.-Zim

merman.

DCCCLXVI.

Education.-The time which we usually bestow on the instruction of our children in principles, the reasons of which they do not understand, is worse than lost it is teaching them to resign their faculties to authority; it is improving their memories instead of their understandings; it is giving them credulity instead of knowledge; and it is preparing them for any kind of slavery which can be imposed on them. Whereas, if we assisted them in making experiments on themselves; induced them to attend to the consequence of every action, to adjust their little deviations, and fairly and freely to exercise their powers; they would collect facts which nothing could controvert. These facts they would deposite in their memories as in secure and eternal treasures; they would be materials for

reflection, and in time be formed into principles of conduct, which no circumstances or temptations could remove. This would be a method of forming a man who would answer the end of his being, and make himself and others happy.-Williams.

DCCCLXVII.

Excessive Inequality of Fortune.-The most pressing evils were those arising from excessive inequality of fortune. Lycurgus struck at the root of the mischief, by first equalizing property, and then removing alike the motives and means to accumulate. He made a law for the equal division of the lands; forbade the coining of metals more precious than iron: allowed men to borrow any utensils they wanted, even without consulting the owner; and adopted the Cretan institution of public messes, at which every citizen was obliged to live. His object was, that all the Spartans should enjoy equality and competence, and, being free from the necessity of gainful labour, and the vices generated by the love of gain, should devote their time to improving their capacities for the public service.-History of Greece, published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

DCCCLXVIII.

Death. We are born, it is said, with the seeds or principles of dissolution in our frame, which continue to operate from our birth to our death: so that in this sense we may be said to die daily. Death, therefore, is not so much a laying aside our old bodies (for this we have been doing all our lives,) as ceasing to assume new ones. Upon the whole then, did not Locke determine rightly, when he