Nor is this the worst. An education, that deserves the name, has inculcated maxims of honour and probity; has inspired the noblest sentiments of moral duty; has impressed on the mind a veneration for all the virtues, and an equal horror for all the vices, of humanity.
Full of these sublime ideas, which his parents, his tutors, his books, and even his own ingenuous heart has rendered familiar to him, the fatal time is at hand, when our well-instructed youth is now to make his entrance into the world: but, good God, what a world! not that which he has so long read, or dreamt of; but a world, new, strange, and inconsistent with all his former notions and expectations.
He enters this scene with awe; and contemplates it with astonishment. Vice, he sees assured, prosperous, and triumphant; virtue discountenanced, unsuccessful, and degraded. He joins the first croud, that presents itself to him: a loud laugh arises; and the edge of their ridicule is turned on sobriety, industry, honesty, generosity, or some other of those qualities, he has hitherto been most fond of.
He quits this clamorous set with disdain; and is glad to unite himself with another, better dressed, better mannered, in all respects more specious and attractive. His simplicity makes him for some time the dupe of this plausible society: but their occasional hints, their negligent sarcasms, their sallies of wit, and polite raillery on all that he has been accustomed to hold sacred, shew him at last that he has only changed his company, not mended it.
This discovery leads him to another. He attends to the lives of these well-bred people, and finds them of a piece with their manners and conversation; shewy indeed, and, on first view, decorous; but, in effect, deformed by every impotent and selfish passion; wasted in sloth and luxury; in ruinous play; criminal intrigues; or, at best, unprofitable amusements.
LORD SHAFTESBURY.
This painting, methinks, is a little strong. Besides, you might surely have provided better company for your young inspector of the world, than that shameless crew, or this corrupt one.
MR. LOCKE.
I take up, as he must do, with such company as the world is most apt to throw in our way; and the colouring, your Lordship knows, is modest enough for the occasion.
But I attend our boy-adventurer no further in his progress into the world, and return now to ask you, what effect your Lordship thinks these strange unexpected scenes must naturally have upon him? Certainly one or the other of these two; either that the scorn of virtue, he every where observes, will by degrees abate his his reverence of it, and at length obliterate all the better impressions of his education; or, if these should still keep their hold of his young ingenuous breast, that he will entertain the most indignant sentiments of mankind, and suffer himself to be carried by them into a sour and sullen misanthropy, at least; perhaps into a sceptical and prophane impiety.