to it, that I may redeem my friend. Do not refuse me this consolation in my last hour. Dio. I cannot endure men who despise death, and set my power at defiance". Da. Thou canst not, then, endure virtue. Dio. No: 1 cannot endure that proud, disdainful vir tue, which contemns life; which dreads no punishment; and which is insensible to the charms of riches and plea sure. Da. Thou seest, however, that it is a virtue, which is not insensible to the dictates of honour, justice, and friendship. Dio. Guards, take Pythias to execution. We shall see whether Damon will continue to despise my authority. Da. Pythias, by returning to submit himself to thy pleasure, has merited his life, and deserved thy favour but I have excited thy indignation, by resigning myself to thy power, in order to save him; be satisfied, then, with this sacrifice, and put me to death. Py. Hold, Dionysius ! remember, it was Pythias alone who offended thee: Damon could not Dio. Alas! what do I see and hear! where am I! How miserable; and how worthy to be so! I have hitherto known nothing of true virtue. I have spent my life in darkness and error. All my power and honours are insufficient to produce love. I cannot boast of having acquired a single friend, in the course of a reign of thirty years. And yet these two persons, in a private condition, love one another tenderly, unreservedly confide in each other, are mutually happy, and ready to die for each other's preservation. Py. How couldst thou, who hast never loved any person, expect to have friends? If thou hadst loved and respected men, thou wouldst have secured their love and respect. Thou hast feared mankind; and they fear thee; they detest thee. Dio. Damon, Pythias, condescends to admit me as a third friend, in a connexion so perfect. 1 give you your lives; and I will load you with riches. Da. We have no desire to be enriched by thee; and in regard to thy friendship, we cannot accept or enjoy it till thou become good and just. Without these qualifica tions, thou canst be connected with none but trembling slaves, and base flatterers. To be loved and esteemed by men of free and generous minds, thou must be virtu ous, affectionate, disinterested, beneficent; and know how to live in a sort of equality with those who share and deserve thy friendship. Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray. SECTION III. sickness Skep-ti-cism, skêp'-tè-sizm, universalp In-fir-mi-ty, in-fêr'-mè-tè, weaknes, doubt Dog-ma-tize, dog'-má-tize, to assert Con-se-crute, kôn-se-kråte, to make positively e Un-dis-cov-er-a-ble, in-dis-kåv'-år-år bl, not to be seen d Nos-trum, nos'-trům, a medicine nos made publick • Log-ick, lod-jik, the art of reasoningt well f En-vel-ope, en-vèl'-op, to inwrap, hide u i Phe-nom-e-non, fè-nôm'-è-nôn, a newly appearance j Ge-om-e-try, je-ôm'-mè-trẻ, the sci-z ence of quantity Fa-nat-ick, få-nát'-ik, an enthusias-a tick person ན་ sacred, dedicate Sect, sekt, a body of men united in some particular tenets Sanc-tion, sångk'-shån, ratification, a law, to ratify Rig-id, rid'-jld, stiff, severe, inflexi ble Pas-sion, påsh'-ån, commotion of the mind, anger, lové Cred-u-lous krêd'-ju-lås, too apt to believe Pest, pêst, plague, péstilence, bane Mas-sa-cre, más'-så-kår, butchery, Con-vul-sion, kôn-vål'-shån, an involuntary contractiou I En-thu-si-asm, en-thủ'-zhè-âzm, heat b Par-a-lyt-ic-al, pâr-a-lit-tik-ál, palsi of imagination m Des-cartes, de kart', a philosopher c Ob-scene, ob-sèèn', immodest, disgusting • Pen-i-tence, pên'-né-tênse, repent ance ed, inclined to palsey E-van-gel-i cal,è-ván-jel'-è-kål, agreeable to gospel d Med-i-cine, mêd'-dè-sin, a remedy, physick LOCKE AND BAYLE. Christianity defended against the cavils of skepticism. Bayle. Yes, we were both philosophers; but my philosophy was the deepest. You dogmatized; I doubted. Locke. Do you make doubting a proof of depth in philosophy? It may be a good beginning of it; but it is a bad end. Bayle. No-the more profound our searches are in to the nature of things, the more uncertainty we shall find; and the most subtle minds see objections and difficulties in every system, which are overlooked or undiscoverables by ordinary understandings. Locke. It would be better then to be no philosopher, and to continue in the vulgar heid of mankind, that one may have the convenience of thinking that one knows something. I find that the eyes which nature has given me, see many things very clearly, though some are out of their reach, or discerned very dimly. What opinion ought I to have of a physician, who should offer me an eye-water, the use of which would at first so sharpen my sight, as to carry it farther than ordinary vision; but would in the end put them out? Your philosophy is to the eyes of the mind, what I have supposed the doctor's nostrum to be to those of the body. It actually brought your own excellent understanding, which was by nature quick-sighted, and rendered more so by art and subtilty of logice peculiar to yourself-it brought, I say, your very acute understanding to see nothing clearly; and enveloped all the great truths of reason and religion in mists of doubt. Bayle. I own it did; but your comparison is not just. I did not see well, before I used my philosophic eye-water: 1 only supposed I saw well; but I was in an error, with all the rest of mankind. The blindness was real, the perceptions were imaginary. I cured myself first of those false imaginations, and then I laudably endeavoured to cure other men. Locke. A great cure indeed! and do not you think, that in return for the service you did them, they ought to erect you a statue? Bayle. Yes; it is good for human nature to know its own weakness. When we arrogantly presumes on a strength we have not, we are always in great danger of hurting ourselves, or at least of deserving ridicule and contempt, by vain and idle efforts. Locke. I agree with you, that human nature should know its own weakness; but it should also feel its strength, and try to improve it. This was my employment as a philosopher. I endeavoured to discover the real powers of the mind, to see what it could do, and what it could not; to restrain it from efforts beyond its ability; but to teach it how to advance as far as the faculties given to it by nature, with the utmost exertion and most proper culture of them, would allow it to go. In the vast ocean of philosophy, I had the line and the plummet always in my hands. Many of its depths I found myself unable to fathom; but, by caution in sounding, and the careful observations I made in the course of my voyage, I found out some truths of so much use to mankind, that they acknowledge me to have been their benefactor. Bayle. Their ignorance makes them think so. Some other philosopher will come hereafter, and show those truths to be falsehoods. He will pretend to discover other truths of equal importance. A later sage will arise, perhaps among men now barbarous and unlearned, whose sagacious discoveries will discredit the opinions of his admired predecessors. In philosophy, as in nature, all changes its form, and one thing exists by the destruction of another. Locke. Opinions taken up without a patient investigation, depending on terms not accurately defined, and principles begged without proof, like theories to explain the phænomena of nature, built on suppositions instead of experiments, must perpetually change and destroy one another. But some opinions there are, even in matters not obvious to the common sense of mankind, which the mind has received on such rational grounds of assent, that they are as immovable as the pillars of heaven; or (to speak philosophically) as the great laws of Nature, by which, under God, the universe is sustained. Can you seriously think, that, because the hypothesis of your countryman, Descartes, which was nothing but an ingenious, well-imagined romance, has been lately exploded, the system of Newton, which is built on experiments and geometry, the two most certain methods of discovering truth, will ever fail; or, that, because the whims of fanatics and the divinity of the schoolmen, cannot now be supported, the doctrines of that religion, which I the declared enemy of all enthusiasm and false reasoning, firmly believed and maintained, will ever be shaken? Bayle. If you had asked Descartes," while he was in the height of his vogue, whether his system would ever be confuted by any other philosophers, as that of Aristotle had been by his, what answer do you suppose he would have returned? Locke. Come, come, you yourself know the difference between the foundations on which the credit of those systems, and that of Newton is placed. Your skepticism is more affected than real. You found it a shorter way to a great reputation, (the only wish of your heart,) to object, than to defend; to pull down, than to set up.And your talents were admirable for that kind of work. Then your huddling together in a Critical Dictionary, a pleasant tale, or obscene jest, and a grave argument against the Christian religion, a witty confutation of some absurd author, and an artful sophism to impeach some respectable truth, was particularly commodious to all our young smarts and smatterers in free-thinking. But what mischief have you not done to human society ?You have endeavoured, and with some degree of success, to shake those foundations, on which the whole moral world, and the great fabric of social happiness, entirely rest. How could you, as a philosopher, in the sober hours of reflection, answer for this to your conscience, even supposing you had doubts of the truth of a system which gives to virtue its sweetest hopes, to impenitent vice its greatest fears, and to true penitence its best consolations; which restrains even the least approaches to guilt, and yet make those allowances for the infirmities of our nature, which the Stoic pride denied to it, but which its real imperfection, and the goodness of its infinitely benevolent Creator, so evidently require? Bayle. The mind is free; and it loves to exert its freedom. Any restraint upon it is a violence done to its nature, and a tyranny, against which it has a right to rebel. Locke. The mind, though free, has a governor within itself, which may and ought to limit the exercise of its freedom. That governor is reason. Bayle. Yesbut reason, like other governors, has a policy more dependent upon our uncertain caprice, than upon any fixed laws. And if that reason, which rules my mind or yours, has happened to set up a favourite notion, it not only submits implicitly to it, but desires that the same respect should be paid to it by all the rest of mankind. Now I hold that any man may lawfully oppose this desire in another; and that if he is wise, he will use his utmost endeavours to check it in himself. Locke. Is there not also a weakness of a contrary nature to this you are now ridiculing? Do we not often take a pleasure in showing our own power, and gratifying our own pride, by degrading the notions set up by other men, and generally respected? Bayle. I believe we do; and by this means it often happens, that, if one man builds and consecrates a temple to folly, another pulls it down. Locke. Do you think it beneficial to human society, to have all temples pulled down? Bayle. I cannot say that I do. Locke. Yet 1 find not in your writings any mark of distinction, to show us which you mean to save. |