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to a right ufe; nor the timorous, how he may contemn danger. Yous must make the one understand that money is neither good nor bad in: itself; and that rich men are fometimes miferable, and perfuade the other, that fuch things as men are moft apt to dread, are by no means fo terrible as common fame reports them; no, not even pain and death:. that oftentimes in death, which by the law of Nature we must one day. undergo, is to be found great comfort, that it comes but once. And as for pain, refolution of mind, which makes every burthen the lighter, the more stubbornly and contemptuously it is endured, will prove a certain remedy: that, one excellent quality of pain is, it must not be very great, if yet it may be encreased;-and if it be great indeed, it cannot last much longer *:-that all things therefore, which the neces-fity of the world brings upon us, are to be endured with courage and: patience.

When by these and the like axioms a man is brought to a thorough fenfe of his condition, and is perfectly affured that the happiness of life confists not in being pleasurable, but in its correfpondency with nature; when he fhall be enamoured with virtue, as the chief good of man; and fly from turpitude, as the only evil; looking upon all other things, as riches, honour, health, strength, power and dominion, with. indifference, as being neither good nor bad in themselves: he will no longer want a monitor to inftruct him in particulars,. faying, thus you must walk; thus you must fup; fuch a behaviour becomes a man; and fuch · is proper for the fair fex; thus fhould a married man act, and thus a batchelor: for they who moft induftriously offer their prefcriptions, follow them not always themselves: they are nothing more than what the pedagogue teacheth his scholar, and the grandmother her darling: and: fhall often hear the moft choleric man in the world proving that it is not a right thing to be paflionate; nay, were you to go into any of our schools, you would find that the lofty precepts of the philofophers, pronounced with a fupercilious air, are nothing more than the ufual leffons given to children.

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And, after all, are the precepts given manifeft or doubtful? if manifeft, they need no teacher; if doubtful, they can gain the philofopher.

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but little credit from his audience. The giving therefore fuch particular precepts is fuperfluous. Or, take it thus; if what you propose to teach or advise be ambiguous or obfcure, you must explain, and prove it, by dint of argument; and if you prevail, fuch proofs and arguments are what do the business, and are fuflicient of themselves, without the particular precept: thus ufe your friend; thus a fellowcitizen; thus a companion: but why? because it is juft. Commonplace then, relating to juftice, will teach me all these things. Hence I find that equity is to be pursued upon its own account; that we are not to be compelled thereto by fear; nor bribed by reward: that he is not a just man who approves of any particular in this virtue, but the virtue itself. When I am perfuaded, and have imbibed this principle, what fignify those particular precepts towards the edification of one thoroughly inftructed before? To give precepts to the knowing, is fuperfluous, and too much; to give them to those who know nothing, is by no means enough; for they are not only to be told what they are to do, but why they are to do so.

Again; are these precepts neceffary for one who hath true notions of good and evil; or for one who hath them not? He that hath them not, will never be moved by any thing you can say to him; having his ears prejudiced with fuch common notions, as militate against your admonitions; and he that forms a right judgment of what he ought to avoid, and what to pursue, knows already how to act under every circumftance, without further inftructions from you. All this part of philofophy therefore may well be fpared.

There are two errors, to which is owing the commiffion of evil; either the mind hath contracted a malignity from falfe opinions; or, if not already infected, it hath a propenfity thereto; and by this wrong bias, under fome fpecious refemblance of truth, is foon corrupted: it behoveth us therefore to cure the fick mind, and purge it from every vicious principle; or, if it be free, and as yet only prone to evil, to pre-engage it as foon as poffible before it comes to an ill habit. Now

in both thefe cafes the folemn decrees of philofophy will fufficiently enable us; when the manner of giving precept upon precept would. avail nothing.

Befides, were we to give precepts to every individual, the labour would be infinite: for we must give one fort to the ufurer; another to the husbandman; another to the merchant; another to fuch as dangle after the favour of princes, or of great men; another to those who make their court to their equals; and another to those who are obfequious to their fuperiors: in matrimony you must teach a man how to behave to his wife, whom he married a virgin; and how to a widow; how to one who brought him a large fortune; and to one whom he thought fufficiently portioned with virtue and good fenfe. And think you not fome difference is to be made between a barren and a fruitful woman; between one advanced in years and a mere girl; between a mother and a ftep-dame? the different forts are inconceivable; yet every individual requires a particular charge. But the laws or decrees of philosophy are brief, and contain every obligation..

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Add now, that the precepts of a wife man ought to be limited and. certain; if infinite, they pertain not to wisdom; for wisdom knoweth.. the bounds of all things: therefore is this preceptive part of philofophy. to be rejected; because what it promiseth to few it cannot make good to all; but wifdom extends to all.

All the difference between the common madness of the world (b) and of fuch as are delivered into the hands of the phyfician, is, the one fort labours under a disease, the other under falfe opinions. The one hath drawn the causes of his frenzy from an indisposition of the body, the other is the fickness of the mind. Should any one pretend to prescribe to the madman, how he ought to speak, how to walk, how to behave himself in public, and how in private, fuch a doctor would be thought not lefs mad than his patient. No; the black bilious humour must first be purged off, and the very cause of the disease removed; and in like manner must we proceed with any other frenzy of the mind;

this must first be difcuffed and driven away; or otherwife all manner of precepts and admonitions will at present have no effect. So far Arifto, whom we propose to answer in every particular.

And first, in regard to the eye, it is faid, if any thing obftructs the fight, it must be removed. I own that in this cafe there is no need of precepts to make a man fee; but of medicines proper to clear the fight, by removing the film or fuffufion, or whatever elfe obftructs it: for by. nature we fee; and whoever removes any obftacle, reftores the eye to its proper ufe. But nature points not out the obligation of every duty." Besides, he that is cured of a fuffufion in the eye, though he immediately recovers fight himself, cannot give it to others; whereas he that is cured of any malignity of mind, may poffibly cure others. There is no need of any exhortation or advice to understand the qualities of colours: the eye will cuftomarily diftinguish white from black without a teacher; but the mind wants many precepts before it can fee the fitness of every action in life. Howbeit, the phyfician not only cures the diseased eye, but also gives his advice, faying to his patient, you' must not expose the eye as yet to too glaring a light, but muft proceed from darkness to a gloomy shade; and then venture further, 'till by degrees you accuftom it to endure broad day-light: you must not study immediately after dinner, nor impofe a duty upon the eye when fwoln or watery (c). Keep alfo the wind or wintery cold from beating on your face; with the like admonitions, that are as requifite and useful as medicine itself. Thus I fay physicians think it neceffary to add good advice to their prefcrip-

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But error is faid to be the cause of fin; and that precepts are of little avail, either in removing this, or in conquering falfe opinions concerning good and evil. I grant that precepts are not effectual of themselves to drive a perverse opinion from the understanding; yet it does not follow but that in fome measure they may prove useful: for first, they undoubtedly refresh the memory; and, fecondly, as they bring us to a diftinct view of the parts, which we saw but confusedly in the whole.

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dations of the most famous cities in Greece are quite destroyed, and that nothing is left whereby to conjecture there ever were fuch cities? Time not only overthrows the works of mens hands, and the wonders of human art and induftry; even the tops of mountains have mouldered away, and whole regions became a defert. Places that were far diftant from the fea have been overwhelmed with a fudden inundation; and fire hath quite confumed the hills, from whence it before gave only a fplendid flame; and in times paft hath eaten away the loftiest promontories, once a joyful fight to the fatigued mariners; and reduced the highest landmarks to a bank of fand.

Seeing then that the works of Nature herself are often thus destroyed, we ought to bear with æquanimity the ruin of a city. All things are frail and perishable, and must one day come to decay: whether it be that the winds, pent up beneath the earth, have by a fudden blast, or their own internal strength, thrown off the weight that before pressed them down; or the force of the waters in fecret places hath made its way through all oppofition; or the violence of flames have rent the closures of the earth; or age, against which nothing is safe, hath gradually wore it away; or whether the unwholesomeness of the air hath driven away the people, and infection even poisoned a desert, it would be endless to recount the many ways whereby Fate haftens on deftruction. But this one thing I know, that all the works of mortals are fubject to, and condemned by, mortality; and that we live in a state wherein all things around us must one day inevitably perish.

These then and the like reflections I often advance, in order to comfort our friend Liberalis, whofe breast, I say, is inflamed with inexpreffible love of his country, and of this city in particular; which perhaps is now destroyed, that it may be rebuilt in a nobler taste. Injuries have often made way for better fortune; and many things have fallen only to rife higher and greater. Timagenes (g) no well-wisher to the profperity of the city, was wont to fay, that he should be forry if Rome was destroyed by fire, for be well knew that it would rise again in greater fplendour than before. And with regard to the city now loft,

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