Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
An Essay On The Different States And Conditions Of Life.
tion : like unto those little rivulets , which , becoming very impetuous torrents , laywaste the fields which they shjuld rather have fertilized , and sometimes overthrow oaks , under the shade of which they frequently before dried up . Others also , brought up from their infancy in barren'idleness , were never seen to intrude themselves into employ , ments above their abilities , and to maintain themselves therein by the vain puffing wherewith they mask their ignorance and inapplicatiori
-None of those idle folks were seen to run about from town to town , preaching up independence , declaring themselves enemies of aliengagemeuts , havingnettherviewsnoreniulation , regardless of all other duties but those imposed on them by the customs ofthe world ; citizens standing alone by themselves , and holding to nothing ; to whom life is an immense void , which they know not how to fill up ; and by
their tediousness and inaction weighing them down to the eartli which receives only from them the advantage of seeing them die without having existed . lam of opinion , that , in order to the good choice of a state of life , a trial should be made of it in somewhat riper years , particularly in the austerer sort of professions . A young man should not take to arms till he has been for a considerable time proof against fatigues and dangers . " Before embracing ; the state of a clergyman , the party should
be convinced by long experience , that he is chiefly to seek after labour and trouble , the salvation of others and his own , and not the indulgence of repose , and a pampered body . But , unhappily , people engage themselves in a state of life , without any just idea of , or acquaintance with it ; and hence all the disgust , the uneasiness , the aversion for duty , which is done only through necessity , that is , through the motive which makes it harderand which often is
aban-, doned without the least scruple , or even without the least sense of shame . Thus , whilst nature is constantly busied in separating the elements she contains , and whilst , to maintain the duration of theni , on which her own depends , she places them each in the order that is pointed out by their different degrees of gravity , we alter it by the
combinations and mixtures she abhors ; we confound employments and talents ; -we place a Thersites wdiere there should be an Achilles , a Sileims where there should be a Plato , a Diagoras where there should be a Socrates . Need we now be astonished that so many empires have fallen , and that some are now tottering on this account ? Nature , once forced to go astray , cannot return into the road she had made for preserving herself in a perpetual incorruptibility ; neither can she any more form a just proportion between men and conditions , nor i just equilibrium in morality and physics .
i wo inevitable misfortunes are the consequence of this : the first is , that the best talents commonly remain in obscurity ; a man , who might illustrate his country , often grovelling in a tradesman ' s shop , yet feeling with regret the efforts of a genius that guesses at , without well knowing itself and obliged to place importance on matters of
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
An Essay On The Different States And Conditions Of Life.
tion : like unto those little rivulets , which , becoming very impetuous torrents , laywaste the fields which they shjuld rather have fertilized , and sometimes overthrow oaks , under the shade of which they frequently before dried up . Others also , brought up from their infancy in barren'idleness , were never seen to intrude themselves into employ , ments above their abilities , and to maintain themselves therein by the vain puffing wherewith they mask their ignorance and inapplicatiori
-None of those idle folks were seen to run about from town to town , preaching up independence , declaring themselves enemies of aliengagemeuts , havingnettherviewsnoreniulation , regardless of all other duties but those imposed on them by the customs ofthe world ; citizens standing alone by themselves , and holding to nothing ; to whom life is an immense void , which they know not how to fill up ; and by
their tediousness and inaction weighing them down to the eartli which receives only from them the advantage of seeing them die without having existed . lam of opinion , that , in order to the good choice of a state of life , a trial should be made of it in somewhat riper years , particularly in the austerer sort of professions . A young man should not take to arms till he has been for a considerable time proof against fatigues and dangers . " Before embracing ; the state of a clergyman , the party should
be convinced by long experience , that he is chiefly to seek after labour and trouble , the salvation of others and his own , and not the indulgence of repose , and a pampered body . But , unhappily , people engage themselves in a state of life , without any just idea of , or acquaintance with it ; and hence all the disgust , the uneasiness , the aversion for duty , which is done only through necessity , that is , through the motive which makes it harderand which often is
aban-, doned without the least scruple , or even without the least sense of shame . Thus , whilst nature is constantly busied in separating the elements she contains , and whilst , to maintain the duration of theni , on which her own depends , she places them each in the order that is pointed out by their different degrees of gravity , we alter it by the
combinations and mixtures she abhors ; we confound employments and talents ; -we place a Thersites wdiere there should be an Achilles , a Sileims where there should be a Plato , a Diagoras where there should be a Socrates . Need we now be astonished that so many empires have fallen , and that some are now tottering on this account ? Nature , once forced to go astray , cannot return into the road she had made for preserving herself in a perpetual incorruptibility ; neither can she any more form a just proportion between men and conditions , nor i just equilibrium in morality and physics .
i wo inevitable misfortunes are the consequence of this : the first is , that the best talents commonly remain in obscurity ; a man , who might illustrate his country , often grovelling in a tradesman ' s shop , yet feeling with regret the efforts of a genius that guesses at , without well knowing itself and obliged to place importance on matters of