Hor. But is not that 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.
Cleo. I never met with such an open enmity to truth in a man of honour before.
Hor. 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.
Cleo. Name them, pray; if I can be of any service to you, I shall reckon it as a great honour; I am perfectly well acquainted with the author’s sentiments.
Hor. I have twenty questions to ask about pride, 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.
Cleo. This was the opinion of all the ancients. Lord Shaftsbury was the first that maintained the contrary.
Hor. But are there no persons in the world that are good by choice?
Cleo. 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 great or small over untaught nature; otherwise the epithet is improper.
Hor. 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?
Cleo. 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 endeavouring 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 themselves 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, viz. 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 it deserved, or so candid in the acknowledgment 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 in our 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. I£ we would know the world, we must look into it. You take no delight in the occurrences of low life; but if we always remain among persons of quality, and extend our inquiries no farther, the transactions there will not furnish us with a sufficient knowledge of every thing 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 vices, and though equally qualified, meet with very different success; visibly owing to the difference in their temper. Let us 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 an estate 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 quite 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 in compassing his ends, the greatest use he will make of his good sense will be, to preserve as much as is 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 incumbent 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, and 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 endeavour to colour over his frailty with the appearance of virtue; and what is altogether owing to his too easy temper, and an excessive fondness for the calmness of his mind, he will ascribe to his modesty and the great aversion he has to 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 pains to heighten it in the opinion of others, and make his abilities 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 dismays him: this renders the whole man always flexible to his interest; he can defraud his body of necessaries, and allow no tranquillity 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 per fas et nefas 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 every thing 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, in every individual, ever bestirs 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, finding nothing pleasing without, turns his view inward upon himself; and there, looking on every thing 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 meliorating 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; to be frugal, and pretend to have no value for riches; for, by neglecting either, he must be blown up, and his frailty unavoidably discovered.