Section 35 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The second dialogue between Horatio and Cleomenes Horatio, to this course we had yesterday has made a great impression upon me. You said several things that were very entertaining and some which I shall not easily forget. I do not remember I ever looked into myself so much as I have done since last night after I left you. Cleomenes, to do that faithfully it is a more difficult and a severeer talk than is commonly imagined. When yesterday I asked you where and among what sort of people we were to look for those whom you would allow to act from principles of virtue, you named a class among whom I have found very agreeable characters of men that yet all have their failings. If these could be left out and the best were picked and culled from the different good qualities that are to be seen in several, the compound would make a very handsome picture. Horatio, to finish it well every way would be a great masterpiece. Cleomenes, that I shall not attempt but I do not think it would be very difficult to make a little sketch of it that yet should exceed nature and be a better pattern for imitation than any can be shown alive. I have a mind to try. The very thought enlivens me. How charming is the portrait of a complete gentleman and how ravishing is the figure which a person of great birth and fortune to whom nature has been no niggered makes when he understands the world and is thoroughly well bred. Horatio, I think them so I can assure you whether you are in jest or in earnest. Cleomenes, how entirely well hid are his greatest imperfections. Though money is his idol and he is covetous in his heart yet his inward avarice is forced to give away to his outward liberality and an open generosity shines through all his actions. Horatio, there lies your fault. It is this I cannot endure in you. Cleomenes, what is the matter? Horatio, I know what you are about. You are going to give me the caricature of a gentleman under pretense of drawing his portrait. Cleomenes, you wrong me. I have no such thought. Horatio, but why is it impossible for human nature ever to be good? Instead of leaving out, you put in failings without the least grounds or color. When things have a handsome appearance every way, what reason have you to suspect them still to be bad? How came you to know and which way have you discovered imperfections that are entirely well hid and why should you suppose a person to be covetous in his heart and that money is his idol when you own yourself that he never shows it and that an open generosity shines through all his actions? This is monstrous. Cleomenes, I have made no such supposition of any man and I protest to you that in what I said I had no other meaning than to observe that whatever frailties and natural infirmities persons might be conscious of within. Good sense and good manners were capable and without any other assistance sufficient to keep them out of sight. But your questions are very reasonable and since you have started this I will be very open to you and acquaint you beforehand with my design of the description I am going to make and the use I intend it for, which in short is to demonstrate to you that a most beautiful superstructure may be raised upon a rotten and despicable foundation. You will understand me better presently. Horatio, but how do you know a foundation to be rotten that supports the building and is wholly concealed from you? Cleomenes, have patience and I promise you that I shall take nothing for granted which you shall allow of yourself. Horatio, stick close to that and I desire no more. Now say what you will. Cleomenes, the true object of pride or vain glory is the opinion of others and the most superlative wish which a man possessed and entirely filled with it can make is that he may be well thought of, applauded and admired by the whole world not only in the present but all future ages. This passion is generally exploded but it is incredible how many strange and widely different miracles are and may be performed by the force of it as persons differ in circumstances and inclinations. In the first place there is no danger so great but by the help of his pride a man may slight and confront it nor any manner of death so terrible but with the same assistance he may court and if he has a firm constitution undergo it with alacrity. In the second there are no good offices or duties either to others or ourselves that Cicero has spoke of nor any instance of benevolence, humanity or other social virtue that Lord Shaftesbury has hinted at but a man of good sense and knowledge may learn to practice them from no better principle than vain glory. If it be strong enough to subdue and keep under all other passions that may thwart and interfere with his design Horatio, shall I allow this? Cleomenes, yes. Horatio, when? Cleomenes, before we part. Horatio, very well. Cleomenes, men of tolerable parts and plentiful circumstances that were artfully educated and are not singular in their temper can hardly fail of a genteel behavior. The more pride they have and the greater value they set on the esteem of others, the more they will make it their study to render themselves acceptable to all they converse with and they will take uncommon pains to conceal and stifle in their bosoms everything which their good sense tells them not to be seen or understood.  What is all this but the old story over again that everything is pride and all we see hypocrisy without proof or argument? Nothing in the world is more false than what you have advanced now. For according to that, the most noble, the most gallant and the best bread man would be the proudest which is so clashing with daily experience that the very reverse is true. Pride and insolence are nowhere more common than among upstarts men of no family that raise estates out of nothing and the most ordinary people that having had no education are puffed up with their fortune whenever they are lifted up above mediocrity and from mean stations advance to post of honor whereas no men upon earth generally speaking are more courteous, humane or polite than persons of high birth that enjoy the large possessions and known seats of their ancestors men illustrious by dissent that have been used to grandeur and titles of honor from their infancy and received an education suitable to their quality. I do not believe there ever was a nation that were not savages in which the youth of both sexes were not expressly taught never to be proud or haughty. Did you ever know a school, a tutor, or a parent that did not continually inculcate to those under their care to be civil and obliging? Nay, does not the word manorly itself import as much? Cleomenes, I beg of you, let us be calm and speak with exactness. The doctrine of good manners furnishes us with a thousand lessons against the various appearances and outward symptoms of pride but it has not one precept against the passion itself. Horatio, how is that? Cleomenes, no, not one against the passion itself. The conquest of it is never attempted nor talked of in a gentleman's education where men are to be continually inspired and kept warm with the sense of their honor and the inward value they must put upon themselves on all emergencies. Horatio, this is worth consideration and requires time to be examined into. But where is your fine gentleman, the picture you promised? Cleomenes, I am ready and shall begin with his dwelling. Though he has several noble seats in different countries yet I shall only take notice of his chief mansion house that bears his name and does the honors of the family. This is amply magnificent and yet commodious to admiration. His gardens are very extensive and contain an infinite variety of pleasing objects. They are divided into many branches for diverse purposes and everywhere filled with improvements of art upon nature. Yet a beautiful order and happy contrivance are conspicuous through every part and though nothing is omitted to render them stately and delightful the whole is laid out to the best advantage. Within doors everything bespeaks the grandeur and judgment of the master and as no cost is spared anywhere to procure beauty or convenience so you see none impertinent till he lavished. All his plate and furniture are completely fine and you see nothing but what is fashionable. He has no pictures but of the most eminent hands. His rarities he shows are really such. He hoards up no trifles nor offers anything to your sight that is shocking. But the several collections he has of this sort are agreeable as well as extraordinary and rather valuable than large. But curiosities and wealth are not confined to his cabinet. The marble and sculpture that are displayed up and down are treasure themselves and there is abundance of admirable gilding and excellent carving to be seen in many places. What has been laid out on the Great Hall and one gallery would be a considerable estate and there is a saloon and staircase not inferior to either. These are all very spacious and lofty. The architecture of them is of the best taste and the decoration surprising. Throughout the whole there appears a delicate mixture and astonishing variety of lively embellishments the splendor of which joined to a perfect cleanliness nowhere neglected are highly entertaining to the most careless and least observing eye. Whilst the exactness of the workmanship bestowed on every part of the meanest utensil gives a more solid satisfaction and is ravishing to the curious. But the greatest excellency in this model of perfection is this. That as in the most extraordinary rooms there is nothing wanting for their purpose and the least passage is handsomely finished. So in those of the greatest eclah there is nothing overcharged nor any part of them encumbered with ornaments. Horatio, this is a studied piece but I do not like it the worst for it. Pray go on. Cleomenes, I have thought of it before I own. His equipage is rich and well chosen and there is nothing to be seen about him that art or expense within the compass of reason could make better at his own table his looks are ever jovial and his heart seems to be as open as his countenance his chief business there is to take care of others without being troublesome and all his happiness seems to consist in being able to please his friends. In his greatest mirth he is wanting in respect to no man and never makes use of abbreviations and names or unhandsome familiarities with the meanest of his guests. To everyone that speaks to him he gives an obliging attention never to disregard anything but what is said in commendation of his fare. He never interrupts any discourse but what is made in his praise and seldom a sense to any encomiums though the most equitable that are made on anything that is his. When he is abroad he never spies faults and whatever is amiss he either says nothing or an answer to the complaints and uneasiness of others gives everything the best nature turn it can bear but he seldom leaves a house or anything to extol in it without wronging his judgment his conversation is always facetious and good-humored but as solid as it is diverting. He never utters a syllable that has the least tincture of obscenity or profaneness nor ever made a jest that was offensive. Horatio very fine Cleomenes he seems to be entirely free from bigotry and superstition avoids all disputes about religion but goes constantly to church absent from his family devotions. Horatio a very godly gentleman Cleomenes I expected we should differ there Horatio I do not find fault proceed pray Cleomenes as he is a man of air eudition himself so he is a promoter of all arts and sciences he is a friend to merit a rewarder of industry and a professed enemy to nothing but immorality and oppression though no man's table is better furnished nor sellers he is temperate in his eating and never commits excess in drinking though he has an exquisite palate he always prefers wholesome meats to those that are delicious only and never indulges his appetite in anything that might probably be prejudicial to his health. Horatio admirably good Cleomenes as he is in all other things so he is elegant in his clothes and has often new ones neatness he prefers to finery in his own dress but his retinue is rich he seldom wears gold and silver himself but on very seldom occasions and compliment others and to demonstrate that these pompous habits are made for no other purpose he has never seen twice in the same but having appeared in them one day he gives them away the next though of everything he has the best of the sort and might be called curious in apparel yet he leaves the care of it to others and no man has his clothes put on better that seems to regard them Horatio perfectly right to be well dressed is a necessary article and yet to be solicitous about it is below a person of quality Cleomenes therefore he has a domestic of good taste a judicious man who saves him that trouble and the management likewise of his lace and linen is the province of a skillful woman his language is courtly but natural and intelligible it is neither low nor bombastic and ever free from pedantic and vulgar expressions all his motions are genteel without affectation his mean is rather sedate than airy and his man are noble for though he is ever civil and condescending and no man less arrogant yet in all his carriage there is something gracefully majestic and there is nothing mean in his humility so his loftiness has nothing disobliging Horatio prodigiously good Cleomenes he is charitable to the poor his house is never shut to strangers and all his neighbors he counts to be his friends he is a father to his tenants and looks upon their welfare as inseparable from his interest no man is less uneasy at little offenses or more ready to forgive all trespasses without design the injuries that are suffered from other landlords he turns into benefits and whatever damages great or small are sustained on his account either from his diversions or otherwise he doubly makes good he takes care to be early informed of such losses and commonly repairs them before they are complained of Horatio, oh rare humanity, harken ye fox hunters. Cleomenes he never chides any of his people yet no man is better served and though nothing is wanting in his housekeeping and his family is very numerous yet the regularity of it is no less remarkable than the plenty they live in. His orders he will have strictly obeyed but his commands are always reasonable he never speaks to the meanest footmen without regard to humanity extraordinary diligence and servants and all laudable actions he takes notice of himself and often commends them to their faces but leaves it to a steward to reprove or dismiss those he dislikes Horatio, well judged Cleomenes whoever lives with him is taken care of in sickness as well as in health the wages he gives are above double those of other masters he makes presents to those that are more than ordinary observing and industrious to please but he suffers nobody to take a penny of his friends or others that come to his house on any account whatever many faults are connived at or pardoned for the first time but a breach of this order is ever attended with the loss of their places as soon as it is found out and there is a premium for the discovery Horatio, this is the only exceptional thing in my opinion that I have heard yet Cleomenes, I wonder at that why so, pray Horatio, in the first place it is very difficult to enforce obedience to such a command secondly, if it could be executed it would be of little use unless it could be made general which is impossible and therefore I look upon the attempt of introducing this maxim to be singular and fantastical it would please misers and others that would never follow the example at home take away from generous men a handsome opportunity of showing their liberal and beneficent disposition besides, it would manifestly make one's house too open to all sorts of people Cleomenes ways might be found to prevent that but then it would be a blessing and do a great kindness to men of parts in education that have little to spare to many of whom this money to servants is a very grievous burden Horatio, what you mention is the only thing that can be said for it and I own of great weight but I beg your pardon for interrupting you Cleomenes in all his dealings he is punctual and just he has an immense estate so he has good managers to take care of it but though all his accounts are very neatly kept yet he makes it part of his business to look them over himself he suffers no tradesmen's bill to lie by unexamined and though he meddles not with his ready cash himself yet he is a quick and cheerful as well as an exact pay master and the only singularity he is guilty of is that he never will owe anything on a new year's day Horatio, I like that very well Cleomenes he is affable with discretion of easy access and never ruffled with passion to sum up all no man seems to be less elevated with his condition than himself and in the full enjoyment of so many personal accomplishments as well as other possessions his modesty is equal to the rest of his happiness and in the midst of the pomp and distinction he lives in he never appears to be entertained with his greatness but rather unacquainted with the things he excels in Horatio, it is an admirable character and pleases me exceedingly but I will freely own to you that I should have been more highly delighted with the description if I had not known your design and they use you intend to make of it which I think is barbarous to raise so fine so elegant and so complete and edifice in order to throw it down is taking great pains to show one's skill in doing mischief I have observed the several places where you left room for evasions and lapping the foundations you have built upon his heart seems to be as open and he never appears to be entertained with his greatness I am persuaded that whatever you have put in this seeming and appearing you have done it designedly and with an intent to make use of them as so many backdoors creep out at I could never have taken notice of these things if you had not acquainted me with your intention beforehand Cleomenes I have made use of the caution you speak of but with no other view than to avoid just censure and prevent your accusing me of incorrectness or judging with too much precipitation if it should be proved afterwards that this gentleman had acted from an ill principle which is the thing I own I purposed to convince you of but seeing that it would be unpleasant to you I would be satisfied with having given you some small entertainment of the description and for the rest I give you leave to think me in the wrong Horatio why so I thought the character was made and contrived on purpose for my instruction Cleomenes I do not pretend to instruct you I would have offered something an appeal to your judgment but I have been mistaken and plainly see my error both last night and now when we began our discourse I took you to be in another disposition of thinking than I perceive you are you spoke of an impression that had been made upon you and of looking into yourself and gave some other hints which too rashly I misconstrued in my favor but I have found since that you are as warm as ever against the sentiments I profess myself to be of and therefore I will desist I expect no pleasure from any triumph and I know nothing that would vex me more than the thoughts of disobliging you pray let us do in this as we do in another matter of importance never touch upon it friends and prudence should avoid all subject in which they are known essentially to differ believe me Horatio if it was in my power to divert or give you any pleasure I would grudge no pains to compass that end but to make you uneasy is a thing that I shall never be knowingly guilty of a day beg a thousand pardons for having said so much both yesterday and today have you heard anything from Gibraltar Horatio I am ashamed of my weakness in your civility you have not been mistaken in the hints you speak of what you have said has certainly made a great impression upon me and I have endeavored to examine myself but as you say it is a severe task to do it faithfully I desired you to dine with me on purpose that we might talk of these things it is I that have offended and it is I that ought to ask pardon for the ill manners I have been guilty of but you know the principles I have always adhered to it is impossible to recede from them at once I see great difficulties and now and then a glimpse of truth that makes me start I sometimes feel great struggles within but I have been so used to derive all actions that are really good from logible motives that as soon as I return to my accustomed way of thinking it carries all before it pray bear with my infirmities I am in love with your fine gentlemen and I confess I cannot see how a person so universally good so far remote from all selfishness can act in such an extraordinary manner every way but from principles of virtue and religion where is there such a landlord in the world if I am in an error I shall be glad to be undeceived pray inform me and say what you will I promise you to keep my temper and I beg of you to speak your mind with freedom Cleomenes you have bid me before say what I would and when I did you seem displeased but since you command me I will try once more stroke whether there is or ever was such a man as I have described in the world is not very material but I will easily allow that most people would think it less difficult to conceive one than to imagine that such a clear and beautiful stream could flow from so mean and muddiest spring as an excessive thirst after praise and an immoderate desire of general applause from the most knowing judges yet it is certain that great parts and extraordinary riches may compass all this in a man who is not deformed and has had a refined education and that there are many persons naturally know better than a thousand others who by the helps mentioned might attain to those good qualities and accomplishments if they had but resolution and perseverance enough to render every sight and every faculty subservient to that one predominant passion which if continually gratified will always enable them to govern and if required to subdue all the rest without exception even in the most difficult cases Horatio to enter into an argument concerning the possibility of what you say might occasion a long dispute but the probability I think is very clear against you and if there ever was such a man he would be much more credible that he acted from the excellency of his nature in which so many virtues and rare endowments were assembled then that all his good qualities sprung from vicious motives if pride could be the cause of all this the effect of it would sometimes appear in others according to your system there is no scarcity of it and there are men of great parts and prodigious estates all over Europe why are there not several such patterns to be seen up and down drawn as one and why is it so very seldom that many virtues and good qualities are seen to meet in one individual Cleomenes why so few persons though there are so many men of immense fortune ever arrive at anything like this high pitch of accomplishments there are several reasons that are very obvious in the first place men differ in temperament some are naturally of an active stirring others of an indolent quiet disposition some of a bold others of a meek spirit in the second it is to be considered that his temperament in men come to maturity is more or less conspicuous according as it has been either checked or encouraged by education thirdly that on these two depend the different perception men have of happiness according to which the love of glory determines them different ways some think of the greatest felicity to govern and rule over others some take the praise of bravery and undauntedness and dangers to be admirable others are eudition and to be a celebrated author so that though they all love glory they set out differently to acquire it but a man who hates a bustle and is naturally of a quiet easy temper and which has been encouraged in him by education it is very likely might think nothing more desirable than the character of a fine gentleman and if he did I dare say that he would endeavor to behave himself pretty near the pattern I have given you I say pretty near because I may have been mistaken in some things and as I have not touched upon everything some will say that I have left out several necessary ones but in the main I believe that in the country and age we live in the qualifications I have named would get a man the reputation I have supposed him to desire, Horatio without doubt I make no matter of scruple about what you said last and I told you before that it was an admirable character and pleased me exceedingly that I took notice of your making your gentleman so very godly as you did was because it is not common but I intended it not as a reflection one thing indeed there was in which I differed from you but that was merely speculative and since I have reflected on what you have answered me I do not know but I may be in the wrong as I should certainly believe myself to be if there really was such a man and he was of the contrary opinion to such a fine genius I would pay an uncommon deference and with great readiness submit my understanding to his superior capacity but the reasons you give why those effects which you ascribe to pride are not more common the cause being so universal I think are insufficient that men are prompted to follow different ends as their inclinations differ I can easily allow but there are great numbers of rich men that are likewise of a quiet and indolent disposition and moreover very desirous of being thought fine gentlemen how comes it that among so many persons of high birth princely estates and the most refined education as there are in Christendom that study, travel and take great pains to be well accomplished there is not one to whom all the good qualities and everything you named could be applied without flattery Cleomenes it is very possible that thousands may aim at this and not one of them succeed to that degree in some perhaps the predominant passion is not strong enough entirely to subdue the rest love or covetousness may divert others drinking, gaming may draw away many and break in upon the resolution they may not have strength to persevere in a design and steadily to pursue the same ends or they may want a true taste or knowledge of what is esteemed by men of judgment or lastly they may not be so thoroughly well bred as is required to conceal themselves for the practical part of the simulation is infinitely more difficult than the theory and any one of these obstacles is sufficient to spoil all and hinder the finishing of such a piece Horatio I shall not dispute that with you but all this while you have proved nothing nor given the least reason why you should imagine that a man of character to all outward appearance so bright and beautiful acted from vicious motives you would not condemn him without so much blaming the cause why you suspect him Cleomenes, by no means nor have I advanced anything that is ill-natured or uncharitable for I have not said that if I found a gentleman in possession of all the things I mentioned I would give his rare endowments this turn and think all his perfections derive from no better stock than an ordinary love of glory what I argue for and insist upon is the possibility that all these things might be performed by a man from no other views and with no other helps than those I have named nay, I believe moreover that a gentleman so accomplished all his knowledge and great parts notwithstanding may himself be ignorant or at least not well assured of the motive he acts from Horatio this is more unintelligible than anything you have said yet why will you keep difficulties upon one another without solving any I desire you would clear up this last paradox before you do anything else Cleomenes, in order to obey you I must put you in mind of what happens in early education by the first rudiments of which infants are taught in the choice of actions to prefer the precepts of others to the dictates of their own inclinations which in short is no more than doing as they are bid to gain this point punishments and rewards are not neglected and many different methods are made use of but it is certain that nothing proves more often effectual for this purpose greater influence upon children than the handle that is made of shame which, though a natural passion they would not be sensible of so soon if we did not artfully rouse and stir it up in them before they can speak or go by which means their judgment being weak we may teach them to be ashamed of what we please and as soon as we can perceive them to be anyways affected with the passion itself but as the fear of shame is very insignificant where there is but little pride so it is impossible to augment the first without increasing the latter in the same proportion Horatio, I should have thought that this increase of pride would render children more stubborn and less docile. Cleomenes you judge right it would be so and must have been a great hindrance to good manners till experience taught men that though pride was not to be destroyed by force it might be governed by stratagem and that the best way to manage it is by playing the passion against itself hence it is that in an artful education we are allowed to place as much pride as we please in our dexterity of concealing it I do not suppose that this covering ourselves not withstanding the pride we take in it is performed without a difficulty that is plainly felt and perhaps very unpleasant at first but this wears off as we grow up and when a man has behaved himself with so much prudence as I have described lived up to the strictest rules of good breeding for many years and has gained the esteem of all that know him when this noble and polite manner has become habitual to him it is possible he may in time forget the principle he set out with and become ignorant or at least insensible of the hidden spring that gives life and motion to all his actions Horatio I am convinced of the great use that may be made of pride if you will call it so but I am not satisfied yet how a man of so much sense knowledge and penetration one that understands himself so entirely well should be ignorant of his own heart and the motives he acts from what is it that induces you to believe this besides the possibility of his forgetfulness Cleomenes I have two reasons for it which I desire may be seriously considered the first is that in what relates to ourselves especially to our own worth and excellency pride blinds the understanding in men of sense and great parts as well as in others and the greater value may reasonably set upon ourselves the fitter we are to swallow the grossest flatteries in spite of all our knowledge and abilities in other matters witness Alexander the great whose vast genius could not hinder him from doubting seriously whether he was a God or not my second reason will prove to us that if the person in question was capable of examining himself it is yet highly improbable that he would ever set about it for it must be granted that in order to search into ourselves it is required we should be willing as well as able and we have all the reason in the world to think that there is nothing which a very proud man of such high qualifications would avoid more carefully than such an inquiry because for all other acts of self-denial he is repaid in his darling passion but this alone is really mortifying and the only sacrifice of his quiet for which he can have no equivalent if the hearts of the best and sincerest men are often deceitful what condition must theirs be in whose whole life is one continued scene of hypocrisy therefore inquiring within and boldly searching into one's own bosom must be the most shocking employment that a man can give his mind to whose greatest pleasure consists and secretly admiring himself it would be ill manners after this to appeal to yourself but the severity of the task stroke Horatio say no more I yield this point though I own I cannot conceive what advantage you can expect from it for instead of removing it will rather help to increase the grand difficulty which is to prove that this complete person you have described acts from a vicious motive and if that be not your design I cannot see what you drive at Cleomenes I told you it was Horatio you must have a prodigious sagacity in detecting abstruse matters before other men Cleomenes you wonder I know which way I irrigate to myself such a superlative degree of penetration as to know an artful cunning man better than he does himself and how I dare pretend to enter and look into a heart which I have owned to be completely well concealed from all the world which in strictness is an impossibility and consequently not to be bragged of but by a coxcomb Horatio you may treat yourself as you please I have said no such thing but I own that I long to see it proved that you have this capacity I remember the character very well not withstanding the precautions you have taken it is very full I told you before that where things have a handsome appearance every way there can be no just cause to suspect them I will stick close to that your gentleman is all of a piece you shall alter nothing either by retracting any of the good qualities you have given him or making additions that are either clashing with or unsuitable to what you have allowed already Cleomenes I shall attempt neither and without that decisive trials may be made by which it will plainly appear whether a person acts from inward goodness and a principle of religion or only from a motive of vain glory and in the latter case there is an infallible way of dragging the lurking fiend from his darkest recesses into a glaring light where all the world shall know him end of section 35 section 36 of the fable of the bees by Bernard Mandeville this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Horatio I do not think myself a match for you in argument but I have a great mind to be your gentleman's advocate against all your infallibility I have never liked to cause better in my life come I undertake to defend him in all the suppositions you can make that are reasonable and consistent with what you have said before Cleomenes very well let us suppose what may happen to the most inoffensive, the most prudent and best bred man that our fine gentleman differs in opinion before company with another who is his equal in birth and quality but not so much master over his outward behavior and less guarded in his conduct let this adversary malapropos grow warm and seem to be wanting in the respect of the other and reflect on his honor in ambiguous terms what is your client to do Horatio immediately to ask for an explanation Cleomenes which if the hot man disregards with scorn or flatly refuses to give satisfaction must be demanded and tilt they must Horatio you are too hasty it happened before company in such cases friends or any gentleman present should interpose and take care that if threatening words ensue they are by the civil authority both put under arrest and before they came to uncourteous language they ought to have been parted by friendly force if it were possible after that overtures may be made of reconciliation with the nicest regard to the point of honor Cleomenes I do not ask for directions to prevent a quarrel what you say may be done or it may not be done the good offices of friends may succeed and they may not succeed I am to make what suppositions I think fit within the verge of possibility so they are reasonable and consistent with the character I have drawn can we not suppose these two persons in such a situation that you yourself would advise your friend to send his adversary a challenge Horatio without a doubt such a thing may happen Cleomenes that is enough after that a duel must ensue in which without determining anything the fine gentleman we will say behaves himself with the utmost gallantry Horatio to have suspected or supposed otherwise would have been unreasonable Cleomenes you see therefore how fair I am but what is it pray that so suddenly disposes a courteous sweet tempered man for so small an evil to seek a remedy of that extreme violence but above all what is it that buoys up and supports him against the fear of death for there lies the greatest difficulty Horatio his natural courage and intrepidity built on the innocence of his life and the rectitude of his manners Cleomenes but what makes so just and prudent to man that has the good of society so much at heart act knowingly against the laws of his country Horatio the strict obedience he pays to the laws of honor which are superior to all others Cleomenes if men of honor act confidently they are all to be Roman Catholics Horatio why pray Cleomenes because they prefer oral tradition to all written laws for nobody can tell when in what kings or emperors reign in what country or by what authority these laws of honor were first enacted it is very strange they should be of such force Horatio they are wrote and engraved in everyone's breast that is a man of honor who denying of it you are conscious of it yourself everybody feels it within Cleomenes let them be wrote or engraved wherever you please they are directly opposite to and clashing with the laws of God and if the gentleman I described was as sincere in his religion as he appeared to be he must have been of an opinion contrary to yours for Christians of all persuasions are unanimous in allowing the divine laws to be far above all other and that all other considerations ought to give way to them how and under what pretense can a Christian who is a man of sense submit or agree to laws that prescribe revenge and countenance murder both of which are so expressly forbid in the precepts of his religion Horatio I am no casualist but you know that what I say is true and that among persons of honor a man would be laughed at that should make such a scruple not but that I think man to be a great sin where it can be helped and that all prudent men ought to avoid the occasion as much as it is in their power he is highly blameable who is the first aggressor and gives the affront and whoever enters upon it out of levity or seeks a quarrel out of wantonness ought to be hanged nobody would choose it who is not a fool and yet when it is forced upon one all the wisdom in the world cannot teach him how to avoid it it has been my case I know I shall never forget the reluctancy I had against it but necessity has no law Cleomenes I saw you that very morning and you seem to be sedate and void of passion you could have no concern Horatio it is silly to show any at such times but I know best what I felt the struggle I had within was unspeakable it was a terrible thing I would then have given a considerable part of my estate that the thing which forced me into it had not happened and yet upon less provocation I would act the same part again tomorrow Cleomenes do you remember what your concern was chiefly about? Horatio how can you ask it is an affair of the highest importance that can occur in life I was no boy it was after we came from Italy I was in my nine and twentieth year had very good acquaintance and was not ill received a man of that age in health and vigor who has seven thousand a year and the prospect of being a peer of England has no reason to quarrel with the world or wish himself out of it it is a very great hazard a man runs in a duel besides the remorse and uneasiness one must feel as long as he lives if he has the misfortune of killing his adversary it is impossible to reflect on all these things and at the same time resolve to run those hazards though there are other conditions of still greater moment without being under a prodigious concern Cleomenes you say nothing about the sin Horatio the thoughts of that without doubt are a great addition but the other things are so weighty of themselves that a man's condition at such a time is very perplexed without further reflection Cleomenes you have now a very fine opportunity Horatio of looking into your heart and with a little of my assistance examining yourself if you can to this I promise you that you shall make great discoveries and be convinced of truths you are now unwilling to believe a lover of justice and probity as you are ought not to be fond of a road of thinking where he is always forced to skulk and never dares to meet with light or reason will you suffer me to ask you some questions and will you answer them directly and in good humor Horatio I will without reserve do you remember the storm upon the coast of Genoa Horatio going to Naples very well it makes me cold to think of it Cleomenes was you afraid Horatio never more in my life I hate that fickle element I cannot endure the sea Cleomenes what was you afraid of Horatio that is a pretty question do you think a young fellow of six and twenty as I was then and in my circumstances had a great mind to be drowned the captain himself said we were in danger Cleomenes but neither he nor anybody else discovered half so much fear and anxiety as you did Horatio there was nobody there yourself accepted that had half a quarter so much to lose as I had besides they are used to the sea storms are familiar to them I had never been at sea before but that fine afternoon we crossed from Dover to Calais Cleomenes want of knowledge or experience may make men apprehend danger where there is none but real dangers when they are known to be such try the natural courage of all men whether they have been used to them or not sailors are as unwilling to lose their lives as other people Horatio I am not ashamed to own that I am a great coward at sea give me terra firma and then stroke Cleomenes six or seven months after you fought that duel I remember you had the smallpox you was then very much afraid of dying Horatio not without a cause Cleomenes I heard your physicians say that the violent apprehension you was under hindered your sleep increased your fever and was as mischievous to you as the distemper itself Horatio that was a terrible time I am glad it is over I had a sister died of it before I had it I was in perpetual dread of it and many times to hear it named only has made me uneasy Cleomenes natural courage is a general armor against the fear of death whatever shape that appears in se fractus ilabatur erbis it supports a man in tempestuous seeds and in a burning fever wheels tea is in his senses as well as in a siege before a town or in a duel with seconds Horatio what you are going to show me that I have no courage Cleomenes far from it it would be ridiculous to doubt a man's bravery that has shown it in such an extraordinary manner as you have done more than once what I question is the epithet you joined to it at first the word natural for there is a great difference between that and artificial courage Horatio that is a chicane I will not enter into but I am not of your opinion as to what you said before a gentleman is not required to show his bravery but where his honor is concerned and if he dares to fight for his king his friend his mistress and everything where his reputation is engaged you shall think of him what you please for the rest besides that in sickness and other dangers as well as afflictions with a hand of God is plainly to be seen courage and intrepidity are impious as well as impertinent undauntedness and chastisements as a kind of rebellion it is waging war with heaven which none but atheists and free thinkers would be guilty of it is only they that can glory in impenitence and talk of dying hard all others that have any sense of religion desire to repent before they go out of the world the best of us do not always live as we could wish to die Cleomenes I am very glad to hear you are so religious you do not perceive yet how inconsistent you are with yourself how can a man sincerely wish to repent that willfully plunges himself into a mortal sin and in action where he runs a greater and more immediate hazard of his life then he could have done in almost any other without force or necessity Horatio I have over and over own to you that dueling is a sin and unless a man is forced to it by necessity I believe a mortal one is not my case and therefore I hope God will forgive me let them look into it then make a sport of it but when a man comes to an action with the utmost reluctancy and what he does is not possibly to be avoided I think he then may be justly said to be forced to it and to act from necessity you may blame the rigorous laws of honor and the tyranny of custom but a man that will live in the world must and is bound to obey them would you not do it yourself Cleomenes do not ask me what I would do the question is what everybody ought to do can a man believe the Bible and at the same time apprehend a tyrant more crafty or malicious more unrelenting or inhuman than the devil or a mischief worse than hell and pains either more exquisite or more durable than torments unspeakable and yet everlasting you do not answer what evil is it think of it and tell me what dismal thing it is to apprehend should you neglect these laws and despise that tyrant what calamity would befall you let me know the worst that can be feared Horatio would you be posted for a coward Cleomenes for what for not daring to violate all human and divine laws Horatio strictly speaking you are in the right it is unanswerable but who will consider things in that light Cleomenes all good Christians Horatio where are they then for all mankind in general would despise and laugh at a man who should move those scruples I have heard and seen clergymen themselves and companies show their contempt of polteroons whatever they might talk or recommend in the pulpit entirely to quit the world and at once to renounce the conversation of all persons that are valuable in it is a terrible thing to resolve upon would you become a town and table talk could you submit to be the gest and scorn of public houses stage coaches and marketplaces is not this the certain fate of a man who should refuse to fight or bear on a front without resentment be just Cleomenes is it to be avoided must he not be made a common laughing stock be pointed at in the streets and serve for diversion to the very children to link boys and hackney coachmen is it a thought to be born with patients Cleomenes how come you now to have such an anxious regard for what may be the opinion of the vulgar whom at other times you so heartily despise Horatio all this is reasoning and you know the thing will not bear it how can you be so cruel Cleomenes how can you be so backward in discovering and owning the passion that is so conspicuously the occasion of all this palpable and only cause of the uneasiness we feel at the thoughts of being despised Horatio I am not sensible of any and I declare to you that I feel nothing that moves me to speak as I do but the sense and principle of honor within me Cleomenes do you think that the lowest of the mob and the scam of the people are possessed of any part of this principle Horatio no indeed Cleomenes or that among the highest quality infants can be affected with it before they are two years old Horatio ridiculous Cleomenes if neither of these are affected with it then honor should be either adventitious and acquired by culture or if contained in the blood of those that are nobly born imperceptible until the years of discretion and neither of them can be said of the principle the palpable cause I speak of for we plainly see on the one hand that scorn and ridicule are intolerable to the poorest wretches and that there is no beggar so mean or miserable that contempt will never offend him on the other that human creatures are so early influenced by the sense of shame that children by being laughed at and made a jest of may be set a crying before they can well speak or go whatever therefore this mighty principle is it is born with us and belongs to our nature are you unacquainted with the proper genuine homely name of it Horatio I know you call it pride I will not dispute with you about principles and origins of things but that high value which men of honor set upon themselves as such and which is no more than what is due to the dignity of our nature when well cultivated is the foundation of their character and a support to them in all difficulties that is of great use to the society the desire likewise of being thought well of and the love of praise and even glory are commendable qualities that are beneficial to the public the truth of this is manifest in the reverse all shameless people that are below infamy and matter not what is said or thought of them these we see nobody can trust they stick at nothing and if they can but avoid death pain and penal laws are always ready to execute all manner of mischief which I will prompt them to without regard to the opinion of others such are justly called men of no principles because they have nothing of any strength within that can either spur them on to brave and virtuous actions or restrain them from villainy and baseness Cleomenes the first part of your assertion is very true when that high value that desire and that love are kept within the bounds of reason but in the second there is a mistake those whom call shameless are not more destitute of pride than their betters remember what I have said of education and the power of it you may add inclinations, knowledge and circumstances for as men differ in all these so they are differently influenced and wrought upon by all the passions there is nothing that some men may not be taught to be ashamed of the same passion that makes the well-bred man and prudent officer value and secretly admire themselves the honor and fidelity they display may make the rake and scoundrel brag of their vices and boast of their impudence Horatio I cannot comprehend how a man of honor and one that has none should both act from the same principle Cleomenes this is not more strange than that self love may make a man destroy himself yet nothing is more true and it is as certain that some men indulge their pride in being shameless to understand human nature requires study and application as well as penetration and sagacity all passions and instincts in general were given to all animals for some wise end tending to the preservation and happiness of themselves or their species it is our duty to hinder them from being detrimental or offensive to any part of the society but why should we be ashamed of having them the instinct of high value which every individual has for himself is a very useful passion but a passion it is and though I could demonstrate that we should be miserable creatures without it yet when it is excessive it often is the cause of endless mischiefs Horatio but in well-bred people it is never excessive Cleomenes you mean the excess of it never appears outwardly but we ought never to judge of its height or strength from what we can discover of the passion itself but in fact it produces it often is most superlative where it is most concealed and nothing increases and influences it more than what is called a refined education and a continual commerce with the Beaumont the only thing that can subdue or anyways curbit is a strict adherence to the Christian religion Horatio why do you so much insist upon it that this principle this value men set upon themselves is a passion why will you choose to call it pride rather than honor? Cleomenes for very good reasons fixing this principle in human nature in the first place takes away all ambiguity who is a man of honor and who is not is often a disputable point among those that are allowed to be such the several degrees of strictness in complying with the rules of it make great difference in the principle itself but a passion that is born with us is unalterable and part of our frame whether it exerts itself or not the essence of it is the same which way so ever it is taught to turn honor is the undoubted offspring of pride but the same cause produces not always the same effect all the vulgar children savages and many others that are not affected with any sense of honor have all of them pride as is evident from the symptoms secondly it helps us to explain the phenomena that occur in quarrels at the fronts and the behavior of men of honor on these occasions which cannot be accounted for any other way but what moves me to it most of all is the prodigious force and exorbitant power of this principle of self esteem where it has been long gratified and encouraged you remember the concern you was under when you had that dual upon your hands and the great reluctancy you felt in doing what you did you knew it to be a crime had a strong aversion to it what secret power was it that subdued your will and gained the victory over that reluctancy you felt against it you call it honor and the two strict though unavoidable adherence to the rules of it but men never commit violence upon themselves but in struggling with the passions that are innate and natural to them honor is acquired and the rules of it are taught nothing adventitious that some are possessed and others in their destitute of could raise such intestine wars and dire commotions within us and therefore what is the cause that can thus divide us against ourselves and as it were rend human nature and twain must be part of us and to speak without disguise the struggle in your breast was between the fear of shame and the fear of death had this ladder not been so considerable your struggle would have been less the first conquered because it was strongest but if your fear of shame had been inferior to that of death you would have reasoned otherwise and found out some means or other to have avoided fighting Horatio this is a strange anatomy of human nature Cleomenes yet for want of making use of it the subject we are upon is not rightly understood by many and men have discourse very inconsistently on dueling a divine who wrote a blog to explode that practice said that those who were guilty of it had mistaken notions of and went by false rules of honor for which my friend justly ridiculed him saying you may as well deny that it is the fashion what you see everybody where as to say that demanding and giving satisfaction is against the laws of true honor had that man not understood human nature he could not have committed such a blunder but when once he took it for granted honor is a just and good principle without inquiring into the cause of it among the passions it is impossible he should have accounted for dueling in a Christian pretending to act from such a principle and therefore in another place with the same justice he said that a man who had accepted the challenge was not qualified to make his will because he was not compost mentis he might with greater show of reason have said that he was bewitched Horatio why so? Cleomenies because people out of their wits as they think at random so commonly they act and talk incoherently but when a man of known sobriety and who shows no manner of discomposure discourses and behaves himself in everything as he is used to do and moreover reasons on points of great nicety with the utmost accuracy it is impossible we should take him to be either a fool or a madman and when such a person in an affair of the highest importance acts so diametrically against his interest that a child can see it and with deliberation pursues his own destruction those who believe that there are malignant spirits of that power would rather imagine that he was led away by some enchantment and overruled by the enemy of mankind then they would fancy a palpable absurdity but even the supposition of that is not sufficient to solve the difficulty without the help of that strange anatomy for what spell of witchcraft is there by the delusion of which a man of understanding shall, keeping his senses mistake an imaginary duty for an unavoidable necessity to break all real obligations but let us wave all ties of religion as well as human laws and the person we speak of to be a professed epicure that has no thoughts of futurity what violent power of darkness is it that can force and compel a peaceable quiet man neither inured to hardship nor valiant by nature to quit his beloved ease and security and seemingly by choice go fight in cold blood for his life with this comfortable reflection that nothing forfeits it so certainly as the entire defeat of his enemy Horatio, as to the law and the punishment, persons of quality have little to fear of that Cleomenes, you cannot say that in France, nor the seven provinces but men of honor that are of much lower ranks decline dueling no more than those of the highest quality how many examples have we even here of gallant men that have suffered for it either by exile or the hangman, a man of honor must fear nothing do but consider every obstacle which this principle of self-esteem has conquered at one time or other and tell me whether it must not be something more than magic by the fascination of which a man of taste and judgment in health and vigor as well as the flower of his age can be tempted and actually drawn from the embraces of a wife he loves and the endearments of hopeful children from polite conversation and the charms of friendship, from the fairest possessions and the happy enjoyment of all worldly pleasures to an unwarrantable combat of which the victor must be exposed either to an ignominious death or perpetual banishment or ratio when things are set in this light I confess it is very unaccountable but will your system explain this can you make it clear yourself Cleomenes immediately as the sun if you will but observe two things that must necessarily follow and are manifest from what I have demonstrated already the first is that the fear of shame in general is a matter of caprice that varies with modes and customs and may be fixed on different objects according to the different lessons we have received and the precepts we are imbued with and that this is the reason why this fear of shame as it is either well or ill placed sometimes produces very good effects and at others is the cause of the most enormous crimes secondly that though shame and real passion the evil to be feared from it is altogether imaginary and has no existence but in our own reflection on the opinions of others Horatio but there are real and substantial mischiefs which a man may draw upon himself by misbehaving in point of honor it may ruin his fortune and all hopes of preferment an officer may be broken for putting up in a front nobody will serve with a coward and who will employ him who urges altogether out of the question at least it was in your own case you had nothing to dread or apprehend but the bare opinion of men besides when the fear of shame is superior to that of death is likewise superior to and outweighs all other considerations as has been sufficiently proved but when the fear of shame is not violent enough to curb the fear of death nothing else can and whenever the fear of death is stronger than that of shame no consideration what will make a man fight in cold blood or comply with any of the laws of honor where life is at stake therefore whoever acts from the fear of shame as a motive in sending and accepting of challenges must be sensible on the one hand that the mischiefs he apprehends should he disobey the tyrant can only be the offspring of his own thoughts and on the other that if he could be persuaded any wise to lessen the great esteem at high value he sets upon himself this dread of shame would likewise palpably diminish from all which it is most evident that the grand cause of this distraction the powerful enchanter we are seeking after is pride excess of pride that highest pitch of self-esteem to which some men may be wound up by an artful education and the perpetual flatteries bestowed upon our species and the excellencies of our nature this is the sorcerer that is able to divert all other passions from their natural objects and make a rational creature ashamed of what is most agreeable to his inclination as well as his duty both which the dualist owns that he has knowingly acted against Horatio what a wonderful machine what an heterogeneous compound is man you have almost conquered me Cleomenes I aim at no victory all I wish for is to do you service in undeceiving you Horatio what is the reason that in the same person the fear of death should be so glaringly conspicuous in sickness or a storm and so entirely well hid in a dual and all military engagements pray solve that too Cleomenes I will as well as I can on all emergencies where reputation is thought to be concerned the fear of shame is effectually roused in men of honor and immediately their pride rushes into their assistance and summons all their strength to fortify and support them in concealing the fear of death by which extraordinary efforts the latter that is the fear of death is altogether stifled or at least kept out of sight and remains undiscovered but in all other perils in which they do not think their honor engaged their pride lies dormant and thus the fear of death being checked by nothing to skies that this is the true reason is manifest from the different behavior that is observed in men of honor according as they are either pretenders to Christianity or tainted with irreligion for there are of both sorts and you shall see most commonly at least that your esprit for and those who would be thought to disbelieve a future state I speak of men of honor show the greatest calmness and intrepidity pretended believers among them appear to be the most ruffled and pusillanimous Horatio, but why pretended believers at that rate there are no Christians among the men of honor Cleomenes, I do not see how they can be real believers Horatio, why so? Cleomenes, for the same reason that a Roman Catholic cannot be a good subject always to be depended upon in a protestant or indeed any other country no sovereign can confide with safety in a man's allegiance who owns and pays homage to another superior power upon earth I am sure you understand me Horatio, too well Cleomenes, you may yoke a night with a pre-bendery and put them together into the same stall but honor and the Christian religion make no couple Neck in una sede morantur any more than majesty and love look back on your own conduct and you shall find that what you said of the hand of God was only a shift in evasion you made to serve your then present purpose on another occasion you had said yesterday yourself that providence super intends and governs everything without exception you must therefore have known that the hand of God is as much to be seen in one common accident in life and in one misfortune as it is in another that is not more extraordinary a severe fit of sickness may be less fatal than a slight skirmish between two hostile parties and among men of honor there is often as much danger in a quarrel about nothing as there can be in the most violent storm it is impossible therefore that a man of sense who has a solid principle to go by should in one sort of danger think at impiety not to show fear and in another be ashamed to be thought to have any do but consider your own inconsistency with yourself at one time to justify your fear of death when pride is absent you became religious on a sudden and your conscience then is so tenderly scrupulous that to be undaunted under chastisements from the almighty seems no less to you than waging war with heaven and at another when honor calls you dare not knowingly and willingly break the most positive command of God but likewise to own that the greatest calamity which in your opinion can be follow you is that the world should believe or but suspect of you that you had any scruple about it I defy the would of man to carry the affront to the divine majesty higher barely to deny his being is not half so daring as it is to do this after you have owned him to exist no atheism stroke Horatio hold Cleomenes I can no longer resist the force of truth and I am resolved to be better acquainted with myself for the future let me become your pupil Cleomenes do not banter me Horatio I do not pretend to instruct a man of your knowledge but if you will take my advice search into yourself with care and boldness at your leisure peruse the book I recommended Horatio I promise you I will and shall be glad to accept of the handsome present I refused pray send a servant with it tomorrow morning Cleomenes it is a trifle you had better let one of yours go with me now I shall drive home directly Horatio I understand your scruple it shall be as you please end of section 36 section 37 of the fable of the bees by Bernard Mandeville this Libervox recording is in the public domain the third dialogue between Horatio and Cleomenes Horatio I thank you for your book Cleomenes your acceptance of it I acknowledge as a great favor Horatio I confess that once I thought nobody could have persuaded me to read it but you managed me very skillfully and nothing could have convinced me so well as the instance of dueling the argument a majority ad minus struck me without your mentioning it a passion that can subdue the fear of death may blind a man's understanding and do almost everything else Cleomenes it is incredible what strange various unaccountable and contradictory forms we may be shaped into by a passion that is not to be gratified without being concealed and he never enjoyed with greater ecstasy than when we are most fully persuaded that it is well hid and therefore there is no benevolence or good nature no amiable quality or social virtue that may not be counterfeited by it and in short no achievement good or bad that the human body or mind are capable of which it may not seem to perform as to its blinding and infatuating the persons possessed with it to a high degree there is no doubt of it for what strength of reason I pray what judgment or penetration has the greatest genius if he pretends to any religion to boast of after he has owned himself to have been more terrified by groundless apprehensions and an imaginary evil from vain impotent men whom he has never injured then he was alarmed with the just fears of a real punishment from an all wise and omnipotent God whom he has highly offended Horatio but your friend makes no such religious reflections he actually speaks in favor of dueling Cleomenes what because he would have the laws against it as severe as possible and nobody pardoned without exception that offends that way Horatio that indeed seems to discourage it but he shows the necessity of keeping up that custom to polish and brighten society in general Cleomenes do you not see the irony there Horatio no indeed he plainly demonstrates the usefulness of it gives as good reasons as it is possible to invent and shows how much conversation would suffer if that practice was abolished Cleomenes can you think a man serious on a subject when he leaves it in the manner he does Horatio I do not remember that Cleomenes here is the book I will look for the passage stroke pray read this Horatio it is strange that a nation should grudge to see perhaps half a dozen men sacrificed in a twelve month to obtain so valuable a blessing as the politeness of manners the pleasure of conversation and the happiness of company in general that is so often willing to expose and sometimes loses as many thousands in a few hours without knowing whether it will do any good or not this indeed seems to be said with a sneer but in what goes before he is very serious Cleomenes he is so when he says that the practice of dueling keeping up of the fashion of it contributes to the politeness of manners and pleasure of conversation and this is very true but that politeness itself and that pleasure are the things he laughs at and exposes throughout the book Horatio but who knows what to make of a man who recommends a thing very seriously in one page and ridicules it in the next Cleomenes it is his opinion that there is no solid principle to go by but the Christian religion and that few embrace it with sincerity always look upon him in this view and you will never find him inconsistent with himself whenever at first sight he seems to be so look again and upon nearer inquiry you will find that he is only pointing at or laboring to detect the inconsistency of others with the principles they pretend to Horatio he seems to have nothing less at heart than the Christian Cleomenes that is true and if he had appeared otherwise he would never have been read by the people whom he designed his book for the modern deists and all the Beaumond it is those he wants to come at to the first he sets forth the origin and insufficiency of virtue and their own insincerity in the practice of it to the rest he shows the folly of vice and to pleasure the vanity of worldly greatness of all those divines who pretending to preach the gospel give and take allowances that are inconsistent with and quite contrary to the precepts of it Horatio but this is not the opinion the world has of the book it is commonly imagined that it is wrote for the encouragement of vice and to debauch the nation Cleomenes have you found any such thing in it Horatio to speak my conscience I must confess not vice is exposed in it and laughed at but it ridicules war and marshal courage as well as honor and everything else Cleomenes pardon me religion is ridiculed in no part of it Horatio but if it is a good book why there are so many of the clergy so much against it as they are Cleomenes for the reason I have given you my friend has exposed their lives but he has done it in such a manner that nobody can say he has wronged them or treated them harshly people are never more vexed than when the thing that offends them is what they must not complain of they give the book an ill name because they are angry but it is not their interest to tell you the true reason why they are so I could draw you a parallel case that would clear up this matter if you would have patience to hear me which as you are a great admirer of operas I can hardly expect anything to be informed Cleomenes I always had such an aversion to eunuchs as no fine singing or acting of any of them has yet been able to conquer when I hear a feminine voice I look for a petticoat and I perfectly loathe this side of those sexless animals suppose that a man with the same dislike to them had wit at will and a mind to lash that abominable piece of luxury by which men are taught in cold blood to spoil males for diversion and out of wantonness to make waste of their own species in order to this we will say he takes a handle from the operation itself he describes and treats it in the most inoffensive manner then shows the narrow bounds of human knowledge and the small assistance we can have either from dissection or philosophy or any part of the mathematics to trace and penetrate into the cause a priori this destroying of manhood should have that surprising effect upon the voice and afterwards demonstrates how sure we are a posteriori that it has a considerable influence not only on the pharynx the glands and the muscles of the throat but likewise the windpipe and the lungs themselves and in short on the whole mass of blood consequently all the juices of the body and every fiber in it he might say likewise that no honey no preparations of sugar raisins or sperm acety no emulsions, lozenges or other medicines, cooling or basalmic no bleeding, no temperance or choice in eatables no abstinence from women from wine and everything that is hot sharp or spiritus were of that efficacy to preserve sweeten and strengthen the voice he might insist upon it that nothing could do this so effectually as castration for a blind to his main scope and to amuse his readers he might speak of this practice as made use of for other purposes that it had been inflicted as a solemn punishment for analogous crimes that others had voluntarily submitted to it to preserve health and prolong life whilst the Romans by Caesar's testimony thought it more cruel and death, more te gravius how it had been used sometimes by way of revenge and then say something in pity of poor Abelard at other times for precaution and then relate the story of Kumbabus and Stratonisci with scraps from Marshall, Juvenal and other poets he might interlard it and from a thousand pleasant things that have been said on the subject he might pick out the most diverting to embellish the whole his design being satire he would blame our fondness for these castrati and ridicule the age the English nobleman and a general officer serves his country at the hazard of his life a whole 12 month for less pay than an Italian no man of scoundrel extraction receives for now and then singing a song in great safety during only the winter season he would laugh at the caresses and the court that are made to them by persons of the first quality who prostitute their familiarity with those most abject wretches and place the honor and civility is only due to their equals on things that are no part of the creation and owe their being to the surgeon animals so contemptible that they can curse their maker without ingratitude if he should call this book the eunuch is the man as soon as I heard the title before I saw the book I should understand by it that eunuchs were now esteemed that they were in fashion thinking that a eunuch is in reality not a man I should think it was a banter upon eunuchs or a satire against those who had a greater value for them than they deserved but if the gentlemen of the academy of music displeased at the freedom they were treated with should take it ill that a paltry scribbler should interfere and pretend to censure their diversion as well as they might if they should be very angry without having much to say in behalf of eunuchs not touch upon anything the author had said against their pleasure but represent him to the world as an advocate for castration and endeavor to draw the public odium upon him by quotations taken from him proper for that purpose it would not be difficult to raise a clamor against the author or find a grand jury to present his book Horatio, the simile holds very well as to the injustice of the accusation and the insincerity of the complaint but is it as true that luxury will render a nation flourishing and that private vices are public benefits as that castration preserves and strengthens the voice? Cleomenes, with the restrictions my friend requires I believe it is and the cases are exactly alike nothing is more effectual to preserve mend and strengthen a fine voice in youth than castration the question is not whether this is true but whether it is eligible whether a fine voice is an equivalent for the loss and whether a man would prefer the satisfaction of singing and the advantages that may accrue from it to the comfort of marriage and the pleasure of posterity of which enjoyments it destroys the possibility in like manner my friend demonstrates in the first place that the national happiness which the generality wish and pray for is wealth and power glory and worldly greatness to live in ease in affluence and splendor at home and to be feared, courted and esteemed abroad in the second that such a felicity is not to be attained to without avarice profuseness, pride, envy ambition and other vices the latter being made evident beyond contradiction the question is not whether it is true but whether this happiness is worth having at the rate it is only to be had at and whether anything ought to be wished for which a nation cannot enjoy unless the generality of them are vicious this he offers to the consideration of Christians and men who pretend to ever announce the world with all the pomp and vanity of it Horatio, how does it appear that the author addresses himself to such Cleomenes, from his writing it in English and publishing it in London, but have you read it through yet? Horatio, twice there are many things I like very well but I am not pleased with the whole Cleomenes, what objection have you against it? Horatio, it has diminished the pleasure I had in reading a much better book, Lord Shaffsbury is my favorite author I can take delight in enthusiasm but the charms of it cease as soon as I am told what it is I enjoy since we are such odd creatures why should we not make the most of it? Cleomenes, I thought you was resolved to be better acquainted with yourself and to search into your heart with care and boldness Horatio, that is a cruel thing I tried it three times since I saw you last till it put me into a sweat and then I was forced to leave off Cleomenes, you should try again and use yourself by degrees to think abstractly and then the book will be a great help to you Horatio, to confound me at will it makes a jest of all politeness and good manners Cleomenes, excuse me sir it only tells us what they are Horatio, it tells us that all good manners consist in flattering the pride of others and concealing our own is that not a horrid thing? Cleomenes, but is it not true? Horatio, as soon as I had read that passage it struck me down I laid the book in about fifty instances sometimes of civility and sometimes of ill manners, whether it would answer or not and I professed that it held good in every one Cleomenes, and so it would if you tried till doomsday Horatio, but is that not provoking? I would give a hundred guineas with all my heart that I did not know it I cannot endure to see so much of my own nakedness Cleomenes, I never met with such enmity to truth in a man of honor before Horatio, you shall be as severe upon me as you please what I say is fact but since I am got in so far I must go through with it now there are fifty things that I want to be informed about Cleomenes, name them, pray if I can be of any service to you I shall reckon it as a great honor I am perfectly well acquainted with the author's sentiments Horatio, I have twenty questions I tried, and I do not know where to begin there is another thing I do not understand which is that there can be no virtue without self-denial Cleomenes, this was the opinion of all the ancients Lord Shaftesbury was the first that maintained the contrary Horatio, but are there no persons in the world that are good by choice? Cleomenes, yes but then they are directed in that choice by reason and experience and not by nature I mean not by untaught nature but there is an ambiguity in the word good which I would avoid let us stick to that of virtuous and then I affirm that no action is such which does not suppose and point at some conquest or other, some victory greater small over untaught nature otherwise the epithet is improper Horatio, but if by the help of a careful education this victory is obtained when we are young may we not be virtuous afterwards voluntarily and with pleasure? Cleomenes, yes if it really was obtained, but how shall we be sure of this and what reason have we to believe that it ever was when it is evident that from our infancy instead of endeavoring to conquer our appetites we have always been taught and have taken pains ourselves to conceal them and we are conscious within that whatever alterations have been made in our manners and our circumstances the passions of ourselves always remained the system that virtue requires to self-denial is as my friend has justly observed a vast inlet to hypocrisy it will on all accounts furnish men with a more obvious handle and a greater opportunity of counterfeiting the love of society and regard to the public than ever they could have received from the contrary doctrine this that there is no merit but in the conquest of the passions nor any virtue without apparent self-denial let us ask those that have had long experience and are well skilled in human affairs whether they have found the generality of men such impartial judges of themselves as never to think better of their own worth than is deserved or so candid in the acknowledgement of their hidden faults and slips they could never be convinced of that there is no fear they should ever stifle or deny them where is the man that has at no time covered his failings and screened himself with false appearances or never pretended to act from principles of social virtue and his regard to others when he knew in his heart that his greatest care had been to oblige himself the best of us sometimes receive applause without undeceiving those who give it though at the same time we are conscious that the actions for which we suffer ourselves to be thought well of are the result of a powerful frailty of nature that has often been prejudicial to us and which we have wished a thousand times in vain that we could have conquered the same motives may produce very different actions as men differ in temper and circumstances persons of an easy fortune may appear virtuous from the same turn of mind that would show their frailty if they were poor if we would know the world we must look into it you take no delight in the occurrences but if we always remain among persons of quality and extend our inquiries no farther the transactions there will not furnish us with the sufficient knowledge of everything that belongs to our nature there are among the middling people men of low circumstances tolerably well educated that set out with the same stock of virtues and devices and though equally qualified meet with very different success visibly owing to the difference in their temper we take a view of two persons bred to the same business that have nothing but their parts and the world before them launching out with the same helps and disadvantages let there be no difference between them but in their temper the one active and the other indolent the latter will never get in the state by his own industry though his profession be gainful and himself master of it chance or some uncommon accident may be the occasion of great alterations in him but without that he will hardly ever raise himself to mediocrity unless his pride affects him in an extraordinary manner he must always be poor and nothing but some share of vanity can hinder him from being despicably so if he be a man of sense he will be strictly honest and a middling stock of covetousness will never divert him from it in the active stirring man that is easily reconciled to the bustle of the world we shall discover different symptoms under the same circumstances and a very little avarice will egg him on to pursue his aim with eagerness and assiduity small scruples are no opposition to him where sincerity will not serve he uses artifice and encompassing his ends the greatest use he will make of his good sense will be to preserve as much as possible the appearance of honesty when his interest obliges him to deviate from it to get wealth or even a livelihood by arts and sciences it is not sufficient to understand them it is a duty encumbered on all men who have their maintenance to seek to make known and forward themselves in the world as far as decency allows of without bragging of themselves or doing prejudice to others here the indolent man is very deficient and wanting to himself but seldom will own his fault and often blames the public for not making use of him for not encouraging that merit which they never were acquainted with and himself perhaps took pleasure to conceal and though you convince him of his error and that he has neglected even the most warrantable methods of soliciting employment he will endeavor to color over his frailty with the appearance of virtue and what is altogether owing to his too easy temper and in excessive fondness for the calmness of his mind he will ascribe to his modesty and the great aversion of impudence and boasting the man of a contrary temper trusts not to his merit only or the setting it off to the best advantage he takes pain to heighten it in the opinion of others and makes his ability seem greater than he knows them to be as it is counted folly for a man to proclaim his own excellencies and speak magnificently of himself so his chief business is to seek acquaintance and make friends on purpose to do it for him all other passions he sacrifices to his ambition he laughs at disappointments is inured to refusals and no repulse dismayes him this renders the whole man always flexible to his interest he can defraud his body of necessaries and allow no tranquility to his mind and counterfeit if it will serve his turn temperance, chastity, compassion and piety itself without one grain of virtue or religion his endeavours to advance his fortune perfas et nephas are always restless and have no bounds but where he is obliged to act openly and has reason to fear the censure of the world it is very diverting to see how in the different persons I speak of natural temper will warp and model the very passions to its own bias pride for example has not the same but almost a quite contrary effect on the one to what it has on the other the stirring active man it makes in love with finery clothes, furniture, equipages building and everything his superiors enjoy the other it renders sullen and perhaps morose and if he has wit prone to satire though he be otherwise a good natured man self love and every individual ever besters itself in soothing and flattering the darling inclination always turning from us the dismal side of the prospect and the indolent man in such circumstances binding nothing pleasing without turns his view inward upon himself and there looking on everything with great indulgence admires and takes delight in his own parts whether natural or acquired hence he is easily induced to despise all others who have not the same good qualifications especially the powerful and wealthy whom yet he never hates or envies with any violence because that would ruffle his temper all things that are difficult he looks upon as impossible which makes him despair of merely erading his condition and as he has no possessions and his gettings will but just maintain him in a low station of life so his good sense if he would enjoy so much as the appearance of happiness must necessarily put him upon two things and pretend to have no value for riches for by neglecting either he must be blown up and his frailty unavoidably discovered Horatio I am pleased with your observations and the knowledge you display of mankind but prey is not the frugality you now speak of a virtue Cleomenes I think not Horatio where there is but a small income frugality is built upon reason self-denial without which an indolent man that has no value for money cannot be frugal and we see indolent men that have no regard for wealth reduced to beggary as it often happens it is most commonly for want of this virtue Cleomenes I told you before that the indolent man setting out as he did would be poor and that nothing but some share of vanity could hinder him from being despicably so a strong fear of shame may gain so much upon the indolence of a man of sense that he will bestow himself sufficiently to escape contempt but it will hardly make him do any more therefore he embraces frugality as being instrumental and assisting to him in procuring his sumum bonum the darling quiet of his easy mind whereas the active man with the same share of vanity would do anything rather than submit to the same frugality unless his avarice forced him to do it frugality is no virtue when it is imposed upon us by any of the passions and the contempt of riches is seldom sincere I have known men of plentiful estates that, on account of posterity or other warrantable views of employing their money were saving and more penurious than they would have been if their wealth had been greater but I never yet found a frugal man without avarice or necessity and again there are innumerable spendthrifts, lavish and extravagant to a high degree who seem not to have the least regard to money whilst they have any to fling away but these wretches are the least capable of bearing poverty of any and the money once gone hourly discover how uneasy, impatient, and miserable they are without it but what several in all ages have made pretence to the contempt of riches is more scarce than is commonly imagined to be a man of a very good estate in health and strength of body and mind one that has no reason to complain of the world or fortune actually despise both and embrace of voluntary poverty for a laudable purpose is a great rarity I know but one in all antiquity to whom all this may be applied with strictness of truth Peratio, who is that? Pray Cleomenes, an axagoras in Ionia he was very rich of noble extraction and admired for his great capacity he divided and gave away his estate among his relations and refused to meddle with the administration of public affairs that was offered him for no other reason than that he might have leisure for contemplation of the works of nature and the study of philosophy Peratio, to me it seems more difficult to be virtuous without money than with being virtuous for a man to be poor when he can help it and if I saw anybody choose it when he might as lawfully be rich I would think him to be distracted Cleomenes, but you would not think so if you saw him sell his estate and give the money to the poor you know where that was required Peratio, it is not required of us Cleomenes, perhaps not but what say you to renouncing the world and the solemn promise we have made of it in a literal sense that is impossible unless we go out of it and therefore I do not think that to renounce the world signifies any more than not to comply with the vicious wicked part of it Cleomenes, I did not expect a more rigid construction from you though it is certain that wealth and power are great snares and strong impediments to all Christian virtue but the generality of mankind that have anything to lose against saints and madmen we shall find everywhere that those who pretend to undervalue and are always haranguing against wealth are generally poor and indolent but who can blame them they act in their own defense nobody that could help it would ever be laughed at for it must be owned that of all the hardships of poverty it is that which is the most intolerable Neil Habet in Felix Papertas Durius in Se Quam quadridiculos homines faciat stroke in the very satisfaction that is enjoyed by those who excel in or are possessed of things valuable there is interwoven a spice of contempt for others that are destitute of them which nothing keeps from public view but a mixture of pity and good manners whoever denies this let them consult within and examine whether it is not the same with happiness as what Seneca says of the reverse the contempt and ridicule I speak of is, without doubt what all men of sense and education endeavor to avoid or disappoint now look upon the behavior of the two contrary tempers before us and mind how differently they said about this talk everyone suitably to his own inclination the man of action you see leaves no stone unturned to acquire quad oporte tabere but this is impossible for the indolent he cannot stir his idol ties him down hand and foot and therefore the easiest and indeed the only thing he has left is to quarrel with the world and find out arguments to depreciate what others value themselves upon Horatio I now plainly see how pride and good sense must put an indolent man that is poor upon frugality and likewise the reason to affect to be content and seem pleased with his low condition for if he was not frugal wanton misery are at the door and if he shows any fondness for riches or a more ample way of living he loses the only plea he has for his darling frailty and immediately he will be asked why he does not exert himself in a better manner and he will be continually told of the opportunities he neglects Cleomenes it is evident then that the true reasons why men speak against things are not always writ upon their foreheads Horatio but after all this quiet easy temper this indolence you talk of is it not what in plain English we call laziness Cleomenes, not at all it implies no sloth or aversion to labour an indolent man may be very diligent though he cannot be industrious he will take up with things below him he will work in a garret or anywhere else remote from public view with patience and assiguity but he knows not how to solicit and tease others to employ him or demand his due of a shuffling designing master that is either difficult of access or tenacious of his money if he be a man of letters he will study hard for a livelihood but generally parts with his labours at a disadvantage and will knowingly sell them to an obscure man who offers to purchase rather than bear the insults of haughty booksellers and be plagued with a sordid language of the trade an indolent man may by chance meet with a person of quality that takes a fancy to him but he will never get a patron by his own address neither will he ever be the better for it when he has one further than the unasked for bounty and downright generosity of his benefactor make him as he speaks for himself with reluctancy and is always afraid of asking favours so for benefits received he shows no other gratitude than what the natural emotions of his heart suggest to him the striving active man studies all the winning ways to ingraciate himself and hunts after patrons with design and sagacity whilst they are beneficial to him he affects a perpetual sense of thankfulness but all his acknowledgement of his past obligations he turns into solicitations for fresh favours his complacence may be engaging and his flattery ingenious but the heart is untouched he has neither leisure nor the power to love his benefactors the eldest he has he will always sacrifice to a new one and he has no other esteem for the fortune, the greatness or the credit of a patron than as he can make them subservient either to raise or maintain his own from all this and a little attention on human affairs we may easily perceive in the first place that the man of action and an enterprising temper in following the dictates of his nature must meet with more rubs and obstacles infinitely than the indolent and a multitude of strong temptations to deviate from the rules of strict virtue which hardly ever come in the other's way that in many circumstances he will be forced to commit such actions for which all his skill and prudence notwithstanding he will, by somebody or other deservedly be thought to be an ill man and that to end with a tolerable reputation after a long course of life he must have had a great deal of good fortune as well as cunning secondly, that the indolent man may indulge his inclinations and be as sensual as his circumstances may let him with little offence or disturbance to his neighbor with the excessive value he sets upon the tranquility of his mind and the grand aversion he has to part with it must prove a strong curb to every passion that comes uppermost none of which, by this means can ever affect him in any high degree and consequently, that the corruption of his heart remaining he may, with little art and no great trouble acquire many valuable qualities that you'll have all the appearances of him, as to his contempt of the world the indolent man perhaps will scorn to make his court and cringe to a haughty favorite that will browbeat him at first but he will run away with joy to a rich nobleman that he assure will receive him with kindness and humanity with him he will partake without reluctancy of all the elegant comforts of life that are offered the most expensive not accepted would you try him further confer upon him honor and wealth and abundance if this change in his fortune stirs up no vice that lay dormant before as it may by rendering him either covetous or extravagant he will soon conform himself to the fashionable world perhaps he will be a kind master an indulgent father a benevolent neighbor munificent to merit that pleases him a patron to virtue and a well-wisher to his country but for the rest he will take all the pleasure of enjoying stifle no passion he can calmly gratify and in the midst of a luxuriant plenty laugh heartily at frugality and the contempt of riches and greatness he professed in his poverty and cheerfully own the futility of those pretenses Horatio I am convinced that in the opinion of virtues requiring self-denial there is greater certainty and hypocrites have less latitude than in the contrary system Cleomenes whoever follows his own inclinations be they never so kind, beneficent or human never quarrel with any vice but what is clashing with his temperament and nature whereas those who act from a principle of virtue take always reason for their guide and combat without exception every passion that hinders them from their duty the indolent man will never deny a just debt but if it be large he will not give himself the trouble poor as he is he might and ought to take to discharge it or at least satisfy his creditors unless he is often stunned or threatened to be sued for it he will not be a litigious neighbor nor make mischief among his acquaintance but he will never serve his friend or his country at the expense of his quiet he will not be rapacious, oppress the poor or commit vile actions for lucre but then he will never exert himself and be at the pains another would take on all opportunities to maintain a large family make provision for children and promote his kindred and relations and his darling frailty will incapacitate him from doing a thousand things for the benefit of the society which with the same parts and opportunities he might and would have done had he been of another temper Horatio, your observations are very curious and as far as I can judge from what I have seen myself very just and natural Cleomenes everybody knows that there is no virtue so often counterfeited as charity and yet so little regard have the generality of men to truth that how gross and bare-faced so ever the deceit is in pretenses of this nature the world never fails of being angry with and hating those who detect or take notice of the fraud it is possible that with blind fortune on his side a mean shopkeeper by driving a trade prejudicial to his country on the one hand and grinding on all occasions the face of the poor on the other may accumulate great wealth which in process of time by continual scraping and sordid saving may be raised into an exorbitant and unheard of a state for a tradesman should such a one when old and decrepit lay out the greatest part of his immense riches in the building or largely endowing and hospital and I was thoroughly acquainted with his temper and manners I could have no opinion of his virtue though he had parted with the money whilst he was yet alive more especially if I was assured that in his last will he had been highly unjust and had not only left unrewarded several whom he had great obligations to but likewise defrauded others to whom in his conscience he knew that he was I desire you to tell me what name knowing all I have said to be true you would give to this extraordinary gift this mighty donation Horatio, I am of opinion that when an action of our neighbour may admit of different constructions it is our duty to side with and embrace the most favourable Cleomenes, the most favourable constructions with all my heart but what is that to the purpose when all the straining in the world cannot make it a good one I do not mean the thing itself but the principle it came from the inward motive of that mind that puts him upon performing it for it is that which in a free agent I call the action and therefore call it what you please and judge as charitably of it as you can what can you say of it? Horatio, he might have had several motives which I do not pretend to determine but it is an admirable contrivance of being extremely beneficial to all posterity in this land a noble provision that will perpetually relieve and be an unspeakable comfort to a multitude of miserable people and it is not only a prodigious but likewise a well concerted bounty that was wanting and for which in after ages thousands of poor wretches will have reason to bless his memory when everybody else shall have neglected them Cleomenes, all that I have nothing against and if you would add more I shall not dispute it with you as long as you can find your praises to the endowment itself and the benefit the public is like to receive from it but to ascribe it to or suggest that it was derived from a public spirit in the man a generous sense of humanity and benevolence to his kind a liberal heart or any other virtue or good quality which it is manifest the donor was an utter stranger to is the utmost absurdity in an intelligent creature and can proceed from no other cause either a willful wronging of his own understanding or else ignorance and folly Horatio, I am persuaded that many actions are put off for virtuous that are not so and that according as men differ in natural temper and turn of mind so they are differently influenced by the same passions I believe likewise that these last are born with us and belong to our nature that some of them are in us or at least the seeds of them but since they are in every individual how comes it that pride is more predominant and some than it is in others for from what you have demonstrated already it must follow that one person is more affected with the passion within than another I mean that one man has actually a greater share of pride than another as well among the artful that are dexterous in concealing it as among the ill-bred that openly show it Cleomenes what belongs to our nature all men may justly be said to have actually or virtually in them at their birth and whatever is not born with us either the thing itself or that which afterwards produces it cannot be said to belong to our nature but as we differ in our faces and stature so we do in other things that are more remote from sight but all these depend only upon the different frame the inward formation of either the solids or the fluids and there are vices of complexion that are peculiar some to the pale and phlegmatic others to the sanguine and caloric some are more lustful others more fearful in their nature than the generality are but I believe of man generally speaking that my friend has observed of other creatures that the best of the kind I mean the best formed within such as have the finest natural parts are born with the greatest aptitude to be proud but I am convinced that the difference there is in men as to the degrees of their pride is more owing to circumstances and education than anything in their formation where passions are most gratified and least controlled the indulgence makes them stronger whereas those persons that have been kept under and whose thoughts have never been at liberty to rove beyond the first necessities of life such as have not been suffered or had no opportunity to gratify this passion have commonly the least share of it but whatever portion of pride a man may feel in his heart the quicker his parts are the better his understanding is and the more experience he has the more plainly he will perceive the aversion which all men have to those that discover their pride and the sooner persons are imbued with good manners the sooner they grow perfect in concealing that passion men of mean birth and education that have been kept in great subjection and consequently had no great opportunities to exert their pride if ever they come to command others have a sort of revenge mixed with that passion which makes it often very mischievous especially in places where they have no superiors or equals before whom they are obliged to conceal the odious passion Horatio do you think women have more pride from nature than men Cleomenes I believe not but they have a great deal more from education Horatio I do not see the reason for among the better sort the sons especially the eldest have as many ornaments and fine things given them from their infancy to stir up their pride as the daughters Cleomenes but among people equally well educated the ladies have more flattery bestowed upon them than the gentleman and it begins sooner Horatio but why should pride be more encouraged in women than in men Cleomenes for the same reason encouraged in soldiers more than it is in other people to increase their fear of shame which makes them always mindful of their honor Horatio but to keep both to their respective duties why must a lady have more pride than a gentleman Cleomenes because the lady is in the greatest danger of straying from it she has a passion within that may begin to affect her at twelve or thirteen and perhaps sooner and she has all the temptations of the men to withstand besides she has all the artillery of our sex to fear a seducer of uncommon address and resist less charms may court her to what nature prompts and solicits her to do he may add great promises actual bribes this may be done in the dark and when nobody is by to dissuade her gentlemen very seldom have occasion to show their courage before they are sixteen or seventeen years of age and rarely so soon they are not put to the trial till by conversing with men of honor they are confirmed in their pride in the affair of a quarrel they have their friends to consult and these are so many witnesses of their behavior that all them to their duty and in a manner obliged them to obey the laws of honor all these things conspire to increase their fear of shame and if they can but render that superior to the fear of death their business is done they have no pleasure to expect making the rules of honor nor any crafty temper that solicits them to be cowards that pride which is the cause of honor in men only regards their courage and if they can but appear to be brave and will but follow the fashionable rules of manly honor they may indulge all other appetites and brag of incontinence without reproach the pride likewise that produces honor in women has no other object to them their chastity and whilst they keep that jewel entire they can apprehend no shame tenderness and delicacy are a complement to them and there is no fear of danger so ridiculous but they may own it with ostentation but not withstanding the weakness of their frame and the softness in which women are generally educated if overcome by chance they have sinned in private what real hazards will they not run what torments will they not stifle and what crimes will they not commit to hide from the world that frailty which they were taught to be most ashamed of End of section 37