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frail mortality for ever prefent with you, to throw a damp on your gayeft hours, and poifon even thofe joys which love infpires? Confider rather, that if life be frail, if youth be tranfitory, we should well employ the present moment, and lose no part of so perishable an existence. Yet a little moment and these fhall be no more. We shall be, as if we had never been. Not a memory of us be left upon earth; and even the fabulous fhades below will not afford us a habitation. Our fruitlefs anxieties, our vain projects, our uncertain fpeculations fhall all be swallowed up and loft. Our prefent doubts, concerning the original cause of all things, muft never, alas! be resolved. This alone we may be certain of, that if any governing mind prefide over the univerfe, he must be pleased to see us fulfil the ends of our being, and enjoy that pleasure, for which alone we were created. Let this reflection give eafe to your anxious thoughts; but render not your joys too serious, by dwelling for ever upon it. 'Tis fufficient, once, to be acquainted with this philosophy, in order to give an unbounded loose to love and jollity, and remove all the fcruples of a vain superstition: But while youth and paffion, my fair-one, prompt our eager defires, we must find gayer fubjects of discourse, to intermix with these amorous careffes.

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ESSAY XVI.

THE STOIC*,

HERE is this obvious and material difference in the con

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duct of nature, with regard to man and other animals, that having endowed the former with a fublime celeftial spirit, and having given him an affinity with fuperior beings, the allows not fuch noble faculties to lie lethargic or idle; but urges him, by neceffity, to employ, on every emergence, his utmost art and induftry. Brute creatures have many of their neceffities supplied by nature, being cloathed and armed by this beneficent parent of all things: And where their own industry is requifite on any occafion, nature, by implanting instincts, ftill fupplies them with the art, and guides them to their good, by her unerring precepts. But man, expofed naked and indigent to the rude elements, rises flowly from that helpless state, by the care and vigilance of his parents; and having attained his utmost growth and perfection, reaches only a capacity of subsisting, by his own care and vigilance. Every thing is fold to skill and labour; and where nature furnishes the materials, they are still rude and unfinished, till industry, ever active and intelligent, refines them from their brute ftate, and fits them for human use and convenience.

* Or the man of action and virtue.

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Acknowlege, therefore, O man, the beneficence of nature: For fhe has given thee that intelligence which fupplies all thy neceffities. But let not indolence, under the falfe appearance of gratitude, perfuade thee to reft contented with her prefents. Wouldest thou return to the raw herbage for thy food, the open sky for thy covering, and to stones and clubs for they defence against the ravenous animals of the defert? Then return alfo to thy favage manners, to thy timorous fuperftition, to thy brutal ignorance; and fink thyfelf below those animals, whofe condition thou admireft, and wouldeft fo fondly imitate.

Thy kind parent, nature, having given thee art and intelligence, has filled the whole globe with materials for these talents to work upon: Hearken to her voice, which fo plainly tells thee, that thou thyself shouldest also be the object of thy industry, and that by art and attention thou canft alone acquire that ability, which will raise thee to thy proper ftation in the univerfe. Behold this artizan, who converts a rude and shapeless stone into a noble metal; and molding that metal by his cunning hands, creates, as it were by magic, every weapon for his defence, and every utenfil for his convenience. He has not this skill from nature: Ufe and practice hath taught it him: And if thou wouldeft emulate his fuccefs, thou must follow his laborious footsteps.

But while thou ambitiously aspireft to the perfecting thy bodily powers and faculties, wouldeft thou meanly neglect thy mind, and from a prepofterous floth, leave it ftill rude and uncul--tivated, as it came from the hands of nature? Far be fuch folly and negligence from every rational being. If nature has been frugal in her gifts and endowments, there is the more need

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need of art to fupply her defects. If he has been generous and liberal, know that the ftill expects induftry and application on our part, and revenges herself in proportion to our negligent ingratitude. The richest genius, like the most fertile foil, when uncultivated, fhoots up into the rankeft weeds; and instead. of vines and olives for the pleafure and ufe of man, produces, to its flothful owner, the most abundant crop of poifons..

The great end of all human industry, is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, fciences cultivated, laws ordained, and focieties modelled, by the profoundest wifdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies expofed to the inclemency of the elements, and the fury of the wild beafts, forgets not, for a moment, this grand object of his being. Ignorant as he is of every art of life, he keeps still in view the end of all those arts, and eagerly seeks for felicity amidst that darkness with which he is environed. But as much as the wildeft favage is inferior to the polished citizen, who, under the protection of laws, enjoys every convenience which industry has invented; fo much is this citizen himself inferior to the man of virtue, and the true philofopher, who governs his appetites, fubdues his paffions, and has learned, from reafon, to fet a juft value on every purfuit and enjoyment. For is there an art and apprenticeship neceffary for every other attainment? And is there no art of life, no rule, no precepts to direct us in this principal concern? Can no particular pleafure be attained without skill; and can the whole be regulated without reflection or intelligence, by the blind guidance of appetite and instinct? Surely then no mistakes are ever committed in this affair; but every man, however diffolute and negligent, proceeds in the pursuit of happiness, with as un

erring a motion, as that which the celeftial bodics obferve, when, conducted by the hand of the Almighty, they roll along the ethereal plains. But if mistakes be often, be inevitably committed, let us register these mistakes; let us confider their causes; let us weigh their importance; let us inquire for their remedies. When from this we have fixed all the rules of conduct, we are philofophers: When we have reduced these rules to practice, we are fages.

Like many fubordinate artists, employed to form the several wheels and springs of a machine: Such are those who excel in all the particular arts of life. He is the mafter workman who puts those several parts together, moves them according to just harmony and proportion, and produces true felicity as the result of their confpiring order..

While thou haft fuch an alluring object in view, shall that labour and attention, which is requifite to the attaining thy end, ever seem burdensome and intolerable? Know, that this labour itself is the chief ingredient of the felicity to which thou aspirest, and that every enjoyment foon becomes infipid and distasteful, when not acquired by fatigue and industry. See the hardy hunters rise from their downy couches, shake off the flumbers which ftill weigh down their heavy eye-lids, and, ere Aurora has yet covered the heavens with her flaming mantle, haften to the foreft.. They leave behind, in their own houses, and in the neighbouring plains, animals of every kind, whose flesh furnishes, the most delicious fare, and which offer themfelves to the fatal ftroke. Laborious man difdains fo eafy a purchase. He seeks for a prey, which hides itself from his search, or flies from his purfuit, or defends itself from his violence.

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