“Very true,” said I, “there are sea monsters, who live upon their fellow-creatures as well as land monsters, who devour each other.”
“It is impossible to understand those affairs, or the reason of them,” observed the captain; “I have got a microscope on board, and I’ll prove to you that innumerable animals perish at every suction of your breath. The great difference between voracious fish, voracious quadrupeds, voracious birds, and voracious man, is this: the first three classes eat to satisfy hunger only, and devour without preparation; but the cruelty which man inflicts upon those creatures Providence has empowered him to use for his sustenance, may be considered as a species of ingratitude, which of all crimes merits the severest punishment.”
Wisdom and Virtue.
Wisdom or virtue is nothing more than the disposition to attain and enjoy the greatest happiness, with the knowledge how to attain and to bestow it.
Wisdom has ever some benevolent end in her purposes and actions; on the contrary, folly either mistakes evil for good, or, when she assumes the nature of vice, entertains a malevolent intention.
The advantages and defects of nature mould be considered as common to society: the weak have a claim to the assistance of the strong; the strong derive a pleasure from assisting the weak; and the wise are so far happy as the well disposed partake of their wisdom.
There is no one virtue that includes not, in a general sense, all other virtues. Wisdom cannot subsist without justice, temperance, and fortitude, for wisdom is the sum of all these. It is impossible to be just without temperance, or temperate without fortitude, and so alternately of the rest.
