I have seldom known a young man of sense and parts, educated in this way, escape from one or other of these mischiefs.
LORD SHAFTESBURY.
But why then bring him up with those high notions of mankind, of which the world must presently disabuse him, at the expence either of his innocence, or good nature?
MR. LOCKE.
That question had been natural enough from most men. But your Lordship knows very well, that, in this moral discipline, as in every other, ideas of excellence are to be imprinted on the young mind, and the most consummate models proposed for imitation: on this certain principle, That, whoever would be moderately accomplished in any art, and most of all in this supreme art of life, must take his aim high, and aspire to absolute perfection. A painter or statuary of the lowest form, your Lordship knows, is taught to work after a Madonna of Raphael, or a Venus of Medicis; yet is not likely to meet with either, among his acquaintance.
LORD SHAFTESBURY.
The observation is surely just; and I could only mean that those high fancies should be checked and moderated in due time, before our entrance into that world, which, it is foreseen, will so little correspond to them.
MR. LOCKE.
And what is that due time, your Lordship sets apart for this delicate operation?
Is it, before the young boy commences his travels? But that, according to your Lordship’s scheme, is so early, that the regimen, you would now abate, has not taken its full effect, and his weak unconfirmed virtue would die under the experiment.