| [No. 564] | Wednesday, July 7, 1714 |
—Adsit
Regula, peccatis quæ pœnas irroget æquas:
Ne Scutica dignum horribili sectere flagello.
Hor.
It is the Work of a Philosopher to be every Day subduing his Passions, and laying aside his Prejudices. I endeavour at least to look upon Men and their Actions only as an impartial Spectator, without any regard to them as they happen to advance or cross my own private Interest. But while I am thus employed my self, I cannot help observing, how those about me suffer themselves to be blinded by Prejudice and Inclination, how readily they pronounce on every Man's Character, which they can give in two Words, and make him either good for nothing, or qualified for every thing. On the contrary, those who search thoroughly into humane Nature, will find it much more difficult to determine the Value of their Fellow-Creatures, and that Mens Characters are not thus to be given in general Words. There is indeed no such thing as a Person entirely good or bad; Virtue and Vice are blended and mixed together, in a greater or less Proportion, in every one; and if you would search for some particular good Quality in its most eminent Degree of Perfection, you will often find it in a Mind, where it is darkned and eclipsed by an hundred other irregular Passions.
Men have either no Character at all, says a celebrated Author, or it is that of being inconsistent with themselves. They find it easier to join Extremities, than to be uniform and of a Piece. This is finely illustrated in
Xenophon's
Life of
Cyrus
the Great. That Author tells us, that
Cyrus
having taken a most beautiful Lady named