Page images
PDF
EPUB

- their pursuits by a joylefs defire of accu mulating what they cannot confume themfelves, and what they must leave to those who they know, have but little regard for them, and for whom they have but little regard.

A series of family cafes (in which a confiderable degree of anxiety and painful fympathy have a good effect) greatly improves, and as it were mellows, the mind of man. It is a kind of exercise and difcipline, which eminently fits him for great and generous conduct; and, in fact, makes him a fuperior kind of being, with respect to the generality of thofe who have had no family connections.

On the other hand, a course of lewd indulgence, without family cafes, finks a man below his natural level. Promifcuous commerce gives an indelible vicious taint to the imagination, fo that, to the lateft term of life, thofe ideas will be predominant, which are proper only to youthful

youthful vigour. And what in nature is more wretched, abfurd, and despicable; than to have the mind continually haunted with the idea of pleafures which cannot be enjoyed; and which ought to have been long abandoned, for entertainments more fuited to years; and from which, if perfons had been properly trained, they would, in the course of nature, have been prepared to receive much greater and fuperior fatisfaction.

Befides, all the pleasures of the fexes in the human species, who cannot fink themfelves fo low as the brutes, depend much upon opinion, or particular mental attachment; and confequently, they are greatly heightened by fentiments of love and affection, which have no place with common. proftitutes, or concubines, where the connection is only occafional or temporary, and confequently flight. Those persons, therefore, who give themselves up to the lawless indulgence of their paffions, befides being exposed to the most loathfome

[ocr errors]

and

[ocr errors]

and painful disorders, befides exhaufting the powers of nature prematurely, and fubjecting themselves to fevere remorse of mind, have not (whatever they may fancy or pretend) any thing like the real pleafure and fatisfaction that perfons generally have in the married state.

$ 2. Of the pleasures of imagination,

As we ought not to make the gratification of our external fenfes the main end of life, fo neither ought we to indulge our tafte for the more refined pleasures, those called the pleasures of imagination, without fome bounds. The cultivation of a tafte for propriety, beauty, and fublimity, in objects natural or artificial, particularly for the pleasures of mufic, painting, and poetry, is very proper in younger life; as it ferves to draw off the attention from grofs animal gratifications, and to bring us a ftep farther into intellectual life; fo as to lay a foundation for higher attainments. But if we stop here, and devote

Our

our whole time, and all our faculties to these objects, we shall certainly fall short of the proper end of life.

1. These objects, in general, only give pleasure to a certain degree, and are a fource of more pain than pleasure when a perfon's tafte is arrived to a certain pitch of correctnefs and delicacy: for then hardly any thing will pleafe, but every thing will give difguft that comes not up to fuch an ideal standard of perfection as few things in this world ever reach: fo so that, upon the whole, in this life, at least in this country, a perfon whose taste is no higher than a mediocrity ftands the beft chance for enjoying the pleasures of imagination; and confequently all the time and application that is more than neceffary to acquire this mediocrity of tafte, or excellence in the arts refpecting it, are wholly loft.

Since, however, the perfons and objects with which a man is habitually converfant,

E

4

fant, are much in his own power, a confiderable refinement of tafte may not, perhaps, in all cafes, impair the happinefs of life, but, under the direction of prudence may multiply the pleasures of it, and give a perfon a more exquisite enjoyment of it.

2. Very great refinement of tafte, and great excellence in those arts which are the object of it, are the parents of fuch exceffive vanity, as expofes a man to a variety of mortifications, and disappointments in life. They are also very apt to produce envy, jealoufy, peevishness, malice, and other difpofitions of mind, which are both uneafy to a man's self, and disqualify him for contributing to the pleafure and happiness of others. This is more especially the cafe where a man's excellence lies chiefly in a single thing, which, from confining his attention to it, will be imagined to be of extraordinary confequence, while every other kind of excellence will be undervalued,

3. With

« PreviousContinue »