Thoughts on Man, His Nature, etc
by William Godwin
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

Oh, the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion, than to start a hare!

SHAKESPEARE

LONDON:
EFFINGHAM WILSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE.
1831.

PREFACE

In the ensuing volume I have attempted to give a defined and
permanent form to a variety of thoughts, which have occurred to
my mind in the course of thirty-four years, it being so long
since I published a volume, entitled, the Enquirer,--thoughts,
which, if they have presented themselves to other men, have, at
least so far as I am aware, never been given to the public
through the medium of the press. During a part of this period I
had remained to a considerable degree unoccupied in my character
of an author, and had delivered little to the press that bore my
name.--And I beg the reader to believe, that, since I entered in
1791 upon that which may be considered as my vocation in life, I
have scarcely in any instance contributed a page to any
periodical miscellany.

My mind has been constitutionally meditative, and I should not
have felt satisfied, if I had not set in order for publication
these special fruits of my meditations. I had entered upon a
certain career; and I held it for my duty not to abandon it.

One thing further I feel prompted to say. I have always regarded
it as my office to address myself to plain men, and in clear and
unambiguous terms. It has been my lot to have occasional
intercourse with some of those who consider themselves as
profound, who deliver their oracles in obscure phraseology, and
who make it their boast that few men can understand them, and
those few only through a process of abstract reflection, and by
means of unwearied application.

To this class of the oracular I certainly did not belong. I felt
that I had nothing to say, that it should be very difficult to
understand. I resolved, if I could help it, not to "darken
counsel by words without knowledge."  This was my principle in
the Enquiry concerning Political Justice. And I had my reward.
I had a numerous audience of all classes, of every age, and of
either sex. The young and the fair did not feel deterred from
consulting my pages.

It may be that that book was published in a propitious season. I
am told that nothing coming from the press will now be welcomed,
unless it presents itself in the express form of amusement. He
who shall propose to himself for his principal end, to draw aside
in one particular or another the veil from the majesty of
intellectual or moral truth, must lay his account in being
received with little attention.

I have not been willing to believe this: and I publish my
speculations accordingly. I have aimed at a popular, and (if I
could reach it) an interesting style; and, if I am thrust aside
and disregarded, I shall console myself with believing that I
have not neglected what it was in my power to achieve.

One characteristic of the present publication will not fail to
offer itself to the most superficial reader. I know many men who
are misanthropes, and profess to look down with disdain on their
species. My creed is of an opposite character. All that we
observe that is best and most excellent in the intellectual
world, is man: and it is easy to perceive in many cases, that
the believer in mysteries does little more, than dress up his
deity in the choicest of human attributes and qualifications. I
have lived among, and I feel an ardent interest in and love for,
my brethren of mankind. This sentiment, which I regard with
complacency in my own breast, I would gladly cherish in others.
In such a cause I am well pleased to enrol myself a missionary.

     February 15, 1831.

The particulars respecting the author, referred to in the
title-page, will be found principally in Essays VII, IX, XIV, and
XVIII.

CONTENTS

Essay.
I. Of Body and Mind. The Prologue
II. Of the Distribution of Talents  
III. Of Intellectual Abortion
IV. Of the Durability of Human Achievements and Productions
V. Of the Rebelliousness of Man
VI. Of Human Innocence  
VII. Of the Duration of Human Life
VIII. Of Human Vegetation
IX. Of Leisure  
X. Of Imitation and Invention
XI. Of Self-Love and Benevolence  
XII. Of the Liberty of Human Actions
XIII. Of Belief
XIV. Of Youth and Age
XV. Of Love and Friendship  
XVI. Of Frankness and Reserve
XVII. Of Ballot
XVIII. Of Diffidence  
XIX. Of Self Complacence  
XX. Of Phrenology
XXI. Of Astronomy
XXII. Of the Material Universe
XXIII. Of Human Virtue. The Epilogue

THOUGHTS, &c.

ESSAY I.
OF BODY AND MIND.

THE PROLOGUE.

There is no subject that more frequently occupies the attention
of the contemplative than man: yet there are many circumstances
concerning him that we shall hardly admit to have been
sufficiently considered.

Familiarity breeds contempt. That which we see every day and
every hour, it is difficult for us to regard with admiration. To
almost every one of our stronger emotions novelty is a necessary
ingredient. The simple appetites of our nature may perhaps form
an exception. The appetite for food is perpetually renewed in a
healthy subject with scarcely any diminution and love, even the
most refined, being combined with one of our original impulses,
will sometimes for that reason withstand a thousand trials, and
perpetuate itself for years. In all other cases it is required,
that a fresh impulse should be given, that attention should anew
be excited, or we cannot admire. Things often seen pass feebly
before our senses, and scarcely awake the languid soul.

"Man is the most excellent and noble creature of the world, the
principal and mighty work of God, the wonder of nature, the
marvel of marvels[1]."

[1] Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 1.

Let us have regard to his corporeal structure. There is a
simplicity in it, that at first perhaps we slightly consider.
But how exactly is it fashioned for strength and agility! It is
in no way incumbered. It is like the marble when it comes out of
the hand of the consummate sculptor; every thing unnecessary is
carefully chiseled away; and the joints, the muscles, the
articulations, and the veins come out, clean and finished. It
has long ago been observed, that beauty, as well as virtue, is
the middle between all extremes: that nose which is neither
specially long, nor short, nor thick, nor thin, is the perfect
nose; and so of the rest. In like manner, when I speak of man
generally, I do not regard any aberrations of form, obesity, a
thick calf, a thin calf; I take the middle between all extremes;
and this is emphatically man.

Man cannot keep pace with a starting horse: but he can
persevere, and beats him in the end.

What an infinite variety of works is man by his corporeal form
enabled to accomplish! In this respect he casts the whole
creation behind him.

What a machine is the human hand! When we analyse its parts and
its uses, it appears to be the most consummate of our members.
And yet there are other parts, that may maintain no mean
rivalship against it.

What a sublimity is to be attributed to his upright form! He is
not fashioned, veluti pecora, quae natura prona atque ventri
obedientia finxit. He is made coeli convexa tueri. The looks
that are given him in his original structure, are "looks
commercing with the skies."

How surpassingly beautiful are the features of his countenance;
the eyes, the nose, the mouth! How noble do they appear in a
state of repose! With what never-ending variety and emphasis do
they express the emotions of his mind! In the visage of man,
uncorrupted and undebased, we read the frankness and
ingenuousness of his soul, the clearness of his reflections, the
penetration of his spirit. What a volume of understanding is
unrolled in his broad, expanded, lofty brow! In his countenance
we see expressed at one time sedate confidence and awful
intrepidity, and at another godlike condescension and the most
melting tenderness. Who can behold the human eye, suddenly
suffused with moisture, or gushing with tears unbid, and the
quivering lip, without unspeakable emotion? Shakespear talks of
an eye, "whose bend could awe the world."

What a miraculous thing is the human complexion! We are sent
into the world naked, that  all the variations of the blood might
be made visible. However trite, I cannot avoid quoting here the
lines of the most deep-thinking and philosophical of our poets:

                         We understood
      Her by her sight: her pure and eloquent blood
      Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
      That one might almost say her body thought.

What a curious phenomenon is that of blushing! It is impossible
to witness this phenomenon without interest and sympathy. It
comes at once, unanticipated by the person in whom we behold it.
It comes from the soul, and expresses with equal certainty shame,
modesty, and vivid, uncontrollable affection. It spreads, as it
were in so many stages, over the cheeks, the brow, and the neck,
of him or her in whom the sentiment that gives birth to it is
working.

Thus far I have not mentioned speech, not perhaps the most
inestimable of human gifts, but, if it is not that, it is at
least the endowment, which makes man social, by which principally
we impart our sentiments to each other, and which changes us from
solitary individuals, and bestows on us a duplicate and
multipliable existence. Beside which it incalculably increases
the perfection of one. The man who does not speak, is an
unfledged thinker; and the man that does not write, is but half
an investigator.

Not to enter into all the mysteries of articulate speech and the
irresistible power of eloquence, whether addressed to a single
hearer, or instilled into the ears of many,--a topic that belongs
perhaps less to the chapter of body than mind,--let us for a
moment fix our thoughts steadily upon that little implement, the
human voice. Of what unnumbered modulations is it susceptible!
What terror may it inspire! How may it electrify the soul, and
suspend all its functions! How infinite is its melody! How
instantly it subdues the hearer to pity or to love! How does the
listener hang upon every note praying that it may last for ever,

               ----that even silence
      Was took ere she was ware, and wished she might
      Deny her nature, and be never more,      
      Still to be so displaced.

It is here especially that we are presented with the triumphs of
civilisation. How immeasurable is the distance between the voice
of the clown, who never thought of the power that dwells in this
faculty, who delivers himself in a rude, discordant and
unmodulated accent, and is accustomed to confer with his fellow
at the distance of two fields, and the man who understands his
instrument as Handel understood the organ, and who, whether he
thinks of it or no, sways those that hear him as implicitly as
Orpheus is said to have subdued the brute creation!

From the countenance of man let us proceed to his figure. Every
limb is capable of speaking, and telling its own tale. What can
equal the magnificence of the neck, the column upon which the
head reposes! The ample chest may denote an almost infinite
strength and power. Let us call to mind the Apollo Belvidere,
and the Venus de Medicis, whose very "bends are adornings."  What
loftiness and awe have I seen expressed in the step of an
actress, not yet deceased, when first she advanced, and came down
towards the audience! I was ravished, and with difficulty kept
my seat! Pass we to the mazes of the dance, the inimitable
charms and picturesque beauty that may be given to the figure
while still unmoved, and the ravishing grace that dwells in it
during its endless changes and evolutions.

The upright figure of man produces, incidentally as it were, and
by the bye, another memorable effect. Hence we derive the power
of meeting in halls, and congregations, and crowded assemblies.
We are found "at large, though without number," at solemn
commemorations and on festive occasions. We touch each other, as
the members of a gay party are accustomed to do, when they wait
the stroke of an electrical machine, and the spark spreads along
from man to man. It is thus that we have our feelings in common
at a theatrical representation and at a public dinner, that
indignation is communicated, and patriotism become irrepressible.

One man can convey his sentiments in articulate speech to a
thousand; and this is the nursing mother of oratory, of public
morality, of public religion, and the drama. The privilege we
thus possess, we are indeed too apt to abuse; but man is scarcely
ever so magnificent and so awful, as when hundreds of human heads
are assembled together, hundreds of faces lifted up to
contemplate one object, and hundreds of voices uttered in the
expression of one common sentiment.

But, notwithstanding the infinite beauty, the magazine of
excellencies and perfections, that appertains to the human body,
the mind claims, and justly claims, an undoubted superiority. I
am not going into an enumeration of the various faculties and
endowments of the mind of man, as I have done of his body. The
latter was necessary for my purpose. Before I proceeded to
consider the ascendancy of mind, the dominion and loftiness it is
accustomed to assert, it appeared but just to recollect what was
the nature and value of its subject and its slave.

By the mind we understand that within us which feels and thinks,
the seat of sensation and reason. Where it resides we cannot
tell, nor can authoritatively pronounce, as the apostle says,
relatively to a particular phenomenon, "whether it is in the
body, or out of the body."  Be it however where or what it may,
it is this which constitutes the great essence of, and gives
value to, our existence; and all the wonders of our microcosm
would without it be a form only, destined immediately to perish,
and of no greater account than as a clod of the valley.

It was an important remark, suggested to me many years ago by an
eminent physiologer and anatomist, that, when I find my attention
called to any particular part or member of my body, I may be
morally sure that there is something amiss in the processes of
that part or member. As long as the whole economy of the frame
goes on well and without interruption, our attention is not
called to it. The intellectual man is like a disembodied spirit.

He is almost in the state of the dervise in the Arabian Nights,
who had the power of darting his soul into the unanimated body of
another, human or brute, while he left his own body in the
condition of an insensible carcase, till it should be revivified
by the same or some other spirit. When I am, as it is vulgarly
understood, in a state of motion, I use my limbs as the
implements of my will. When, in a quiescent state of the body, I
continue to think, to reflect and to reason, I use, it may be,
the substance of the brain as the implement of my thinking,
reflecting and reasoning; though of this in fact we know nothing.

We have every reason to believe that the mind cannot subsist
without the body; at least we must be very different creatures
from what we are at present, when that shall take place. For a
man to think, agreeably and with serenity, he must be in some
degree of health. The corpus sanum is no less indispensible than
the mens sana. We must eat, and drink, and sleep. We must have
a reasonably good appetite and digestion, and a fitting
temperature, neither too hot nor cold. It is desirable that we
should have air and exercise. But this is instrumental merely.
All these things are negatives, conditions without which we
cannot think to the best purpose, but which lend no active
assistance to our thinking.

Man is a godlike being. We launch ourselves in conceit into
illimitable space, and take up our rest beyond the fixed stars.
We proceed without impediment from country to country, and from
century to century, through all the ages of the past, and through
the vast creation of the imaginable future. We spurn at the
bounds of time and space; nor would the thought be less futile
that imagines to imprison the mind within the limits of the body,
than the attempt of the booby clown who is said within a thick
hedge to have plotted to shut in the flight of an eagle.

We never find our attention called to any particular part or
member of the body, except when there is somewhat amiss in that
part or member. And, in like manner as we do not think of any
one part or member in particular, so neither do we consider our
entire microcosm and frame. The body is apprehended as no more
important and of intimate connection to a man engaged in a train
of reflections, than the house or apartment in which he dwells.
The mind may aptly be described under the denomination of the
"stranger at home."  On set occasions and at appropriate times we
examine our stores, and ascertain the various commodities we
have, laid up in our presses and our coffers. Like the governor
of a fort in time of peace, which was erected to keep out a
foreign assailant, we occasionally visit our armoury, and take
account of the muskets, the swords, and other implements of war
it contains, but for the most part are engaged in the occupations
of peace, and do not call the means of warfare in any sort to our
recollection.

The mind may aptly be described under the denomination of the
"stranger at home."  With their bodies most men are little
acquainted. We are "like unto a man beholding his natural face
in a glass, who beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and
straightway forgetteth what manner of man he is."  In the
ruminations of the inner man, and the dissecting our thoughts and
desires, we employ our intellectual arithmetic, we add, and
subtract, and multiply, and divide, without asking the aid,
without adverting to the existence, of our joints and members.
Even as to the more corporeal part of our avocations, we behold
the external world, and proceed straight to the object of our
desires, without almost ever thinking of this medium, our own
material frame, unaided by which none of these things could be
accomplished. In this sense we may properly be said to be
spiritual existences, however imperfect may be the idea we are
enabled to affix to the term spirit.

Hence arises the notion, which has been entertained ever since
the birth of reflection and logical discourse in the world, and
which in some faint and confused degree exists probably even
among savages, that the body is the prison of the mind. It is in
this sense that Waller, after completing fourscore years of age,
expresses himself in these affecting and interesting couplets.

      When we for age could neither read nor write,
      The subject made us able to indite.
      The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
      Lets in new light by chinks that time hath made:
      Stronger by weakness, wiser, men become,
      As they draw near to their eternal home.

Thus it is common with persons of elevated soul to talk of
neglecting, overlooking, and taking small account of the body.
It is in this spirit that the story is recorded of Anaxarchus,
who, we are told, was ordered by Nicocreon, tyrant of Salamis, to
be pounded in a mortar, and who, in contempt of his mortal
sufferings, exclaimed, "Beat on, tyrant! thou dost but strike
upon the case of Anaxarchus; thou canst not touch the man
himself."  And it is in something of the same light that we must
regard what is related of the North American savages. Beings,
who scoff at their tortures, must have an idea of something that
lies beyond the reach of their assailants.

It is just however to observe, that some of the particulars here
related, belong not less to the brute creation than to man. If
men are imperfectly acquainted with their external figure and
appearance, this may well be conceived to be still more
predicable of the inferior animals. It is true that all of them
seem to be aware of the part in their structure, where lie their
main strength and means of hostility. Thus the bull attacks with
his horns, and the horse with his heels, the beast of prey with
his claws, the bird with his beak, and insects and other venomous
creatures with their sting. We know not by what impulse they are
prompted to the use of the various means which are so intimately
connected with their preservation and welfare; and we call it
instinct. We may be certain it does not arise from a careful
survey of their parts and members, and a methodised selection of
the means which shall be found most effectual for the
accomplishment of their ends. There is no premeditation; and,
without anatomical knowledge, or any distinct acquaintance with
their image and likeness, they proceed straight to their purpose.

Hence, even as men, they are more familiar with the figures and
appearance of their fellows, their allies, or their enemies, than
with their own.

Man is a creature of mingled substance. I am many times a day
compelled to acknowledge what a low, mean and contemptible being
I am. Philip of Macedon had no need to give it in charge to a
page, to repair to him every morning, and repeat, "Remember, sir,
you are a man."  A variety of circumstances occur to us, while we
eat, and drink, and submit to the humiliating necessities of
nature, that may well inculcate into us this salutary lesson.
The wonder rather is, that man, who has so many things to put him
in mind to be humble and despise himself, should ever have been
susceptible of pride and disdain. Nebuchadnezzar must indeed
have been the most besotted of mortals, if it were necessary that
he should be driven from among men, and made to eat grass like an
ox, to convince him that he was not the equal of the power that
made him.

But fortunately, as I have said, man is a "stranger at home."
Were it not for this, how incomprehensible would be

      The ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
      The monarch's crown, and the deputed sword,
      The marshal's truncheon, and the judge's robe!

How ludicrous would be the long procession and the caparisoned
horse, the gilded chariot and the flowing train, the colours
flying, the drums beating, and the sound of trumpets rending the
air, which after all only introduce to us an ordinary man, no
otherwise perhaps distinguished from the vilest of the ragged
spectators, than by the accident of his birth!

But what is of more importance in the temporary oblivion we are
enabled to throw over the refuse of the body, it is thus we
arrive at the majesty of man. That sublimity of conception which
renders the poet, and the man of great literary and original
endowments "in apprehension like a God," we could not have, if we
were not privileged occasionally to cast away the slough and
exuviae of the body from incumbering and dishonouring us, even as
Ulysses passed over his threshold, stripped of the rags that had
obscured him, while Minerva enlarged his frame, and gave
loftiness to his stature, added a youthful beauty and grace to
his motions, and caused his eyes to flash with more than mortal
fire. With what disdain, when I have been rapt in the loftiest
moods of mind, do I look down upon my limbs, the house of clay
that contains me, the gross flesh and blood of which my frame is
composed, and wonder at a lodging, poorly fitted to entertain so
divine a guest!

A still more important chapter in the history of the human mind
has its origin in these considerations. Hence it is that
unenlightened man, in almost all ages and countries, has been
induced, independently of divine revelation, to regard death, the
most awful event to which we are subject, as not being the
termination of his existence. We see the body of our friend
become insensible, and remain without motion, or any external
indication of what we call life. We can shut it up in an
apartment, and visit it from day to day. If we had perseverance
enough, and could so far conquer the repugnance and humiliating
feeling with which the experiment would be attended, we might
follow step by step the process of decomposition and
putrefaction, and observe by what degrees the "dust returned unto
earth as it was."  But, in spite of this demonstration of the
senses, man still believes that there is something in him that
lives after death. The mind is so infinitely superior in
character to this case of flesh that incloses it, that he cannot
persuade himself that it and the body perish together.

There are two considerations, the force of which made man a
religious animal. The first is, his proneness to ascribe
hostility or benevolent intention to every thing of a memorable
sort that occurs to him in the order of nature. The second is
that of which I have just treated, the superior dignity of mind
over body. This, we persuade ourselves, shall subsist uninjured
by the mutations of our corporeal frame, and undestroyed by the
wreck of the material universe.

ESSAY II.
OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS.

{Greek - omitted} Thucydides, Lib.I, cap. 84.

SECTION I.

PRESUMED DEARTH OF INTELLECTUAL POWER.--SCHOOLS FOR THE EDUCATION
OF YOUTH CONSIDERED.--THE BOY AND THE MAN COMPARED.

One of the earliest judgments that is usually made by those whose
attention is turned to the characters of men in the social state,
is of the great inequality with which the gifts of the
understanding are distributed among us.

Go into a miscellaneous society; sit down at table with ten or
twelve men; repair to a club where as many are assembled in an
evening to relax from the toils of the day--it is almost
proverbial, that one or two of these persons will perhaps be
brilliant, and the rest "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable."

Go into a numerous school--the case will be still more striking.
I have been present where two men of superior endowments
endeavoured to enter into a calculation on the subject; and they
agreed that there was not above one boy in a hundred, who would
be found to possess a penetrating understanding, and to be able
to strike into a path of intellect that was truly his own. How
common is it to hear the master of such a school say, "Aye, I am
proud of that lad; I have been a schoolmaster these thirty years,
and have never had such another!"

The society above referred to, the dinner-party, or the club, was
to a considerable degree select, brought together by a certain
supposed congeniality between the individuals thus assembled.
Were they taken indiscriminately, as boys are when consigned to
the care of a schoolmaster, the proportion of the brilliant would
not be a whit greater than in the latter case.

A main criterion of the superiority of the schoolboy will be
found in his mode of answering a casual question proposed by the
master. The majority will be wholly at fault, will shew that
they do not understand the question, and will return an answer
altogether from the purpose. One in a hundred perhaps, perhaps
in a still less proportion, will reply in a laudable manner, and
convey his ideas in perspicuous and spirited language.

It does not certainly go altogether so ill, with men grown up to
years of maturity. They do not for the most part answer a plain
question in a manner to make you wonder at their fatuity.

A main cause of the disadvantageous appearance exhibited by the
ordinary schoolboy, lies in what we denominate sheepishness. He
is at a loss, and in the first place stares at you, instead of
giving an answer. He does not make by many degrees so poor a
figure among his equals, as when he is addressed by his seniors.

One of the reasons of the latter phenomenon consists in the
torpedo effect of what we may call, under the circumstances, the
difference of ranks. The schoolmaster is a despot to his
scholar; for every man is a despot, who delivers his judgment
from the single impulse of his own will. The boy answers his
questioner, as Dolon answers Ulysses in the Iliad, at the point
of the sword. It is to a certain degree the same thing, when the
boy is questioned merely by his senior. He fears he knows not
what,--a reprimand, a look of lofty contempt, a gesture of
summary disdain. He does not think it worth his while under
these circumstances, to "gird up the loins of his mind."  He
cannot return a free and intrepid answer but to the person whom
he regards as his equal. There is nothing that has so
disqualifying an effect upon him who is to answer, as the
consideration that he who questions is universally acknowledged
to be a being of a higher sphere, or, as between the boy and the
man, that he is the superior in conventional and corporal
strength.

Nor is it simple terror that restrains the boy from answering his
senior with the same freedom and spirit, as he would answer his
equal. He does not think it worth his while to enter the lists.
He despairs of doing the thing in the way that shall gain
approbation, and therefore will not try. He is like a boxer,
who, though skilful, will not fight with one hand tied behind
him. He would return you the answer, if it occurred without his
giving himself trouble; but he will not rouse his soul, and task
his strength to give it. He is careless; and prefers trusting to
whatever construction you may put upon him, and whatever
treatment you may think proper to bestow upon him. It is the
most difficult thing in the world, for the schoolmaster to
inspire into his pupil the desire to do his best.

Among full-grown men the case is different. The schoolboy,
whether under his domestic roof, or in the gymnasium, is in a
situation similar to that of the Christian slaves in Algiers, as
described by Cervantes in his History of the Captive. "They were
shut up together in a species of bagnio, from whence they were
brought out from time to time to perform certain tasks in common:

they might also engage in pranks, and get into scrapes, as they
pleased; but the master would hang up one, impale another, and
cut off the ears of a third, for little occasion, or even wholly
without it."  Such indeed is the condition of the child almost
from the hour of birth. The severities practised upon him are
not so great as those resorted to by the proprietor of slaves in
Algiers; but they are equally arbitrary and without appeal. He
is free to a certain extent, even as the captives described by
Cervantes; but his freedom is upon sufferance, and is brought to
an end at any time at the pleasure of his seniors. The child
therefore feels his way, and ascertains by repeated experiments
how far he may proceed with impunity. He is like the slaves of
the Romans on the days of the Saturnalia. He may do what he
pleases, and command tasks to his masters, but with this
difference--the Roman slave knew when the days of his licence
would be over, and comported himself accordingly; but the child
cannot foresee at any moment when the bell will be struck, and
the scene reversed. It is commonly enough incident to this
situation, that the being who is at the mercy of another, will
practise, what Tacitus calls, a "vernacular urbanity," make his
bold jests, and give utterance to his saucy innuendoes, with as
much freedom as the best; but he will do it with a wary eye, not
knowing how soon he may feel his chain plucked! and himself
compulsorily reduced into the established order. His more usual
refuge therefore is, to do nothing, and to wrap himself up in
that neutrality towards his seniors, that may best protect him
from their reprimand and their despotism.

The condition of the full-grown man is different from that of the
child, and he conducts himself accordingly. He is always to a
certain degree under the control of the political society of
which he is a member. He is also exposed to the chance of
personal insult and injury from those who are stronger than he,
or who may render their strength more considerable by combination
and numbers. The political institutions which control him in
certain respects, protect him also to a given degree from the
robber and assassin, or from the man who, were it not for
penalties and statutes, would perpetrate against him all the
mischiefs which malignity might suggest. Civil policy however
subjects him to a variety of evils, which wealth or corruption
are accustomed to inflict under the forms of justice; at the same
time that it can never wholly defend him from those violences to
which he would be every moment exposed in what is called the
state of nature.

The full-grown man in the mean time is well pleased when he
escapes from the ergastulum where he had previously dwelt, and in
which he had experienced corporal infliction and corporal
restraint. At first, in the newness of his freedom, he breaks
out into idle sallies and escapes, and is like the full-fed steed
that manifests his wantonness in a thousand antics and ruades.
But this is a temporary extravagance. He presently becomes as
wise and calculating, as the schoolboy was before him.

The human being then, that has attained a certain stature,
watches and poises his situation, and considers what he may do
with impunity. He ventures at first with no small diffidence,
and pretends to be twice as assured as he really is. He
accumulates experiment after experiment, till they amount to a
considerable volume. It is not till he has passed successive
lustres, that he attains that firm step, and temperate and
settled accent, which characterise the man complete. He then no
longer doubts, but is ranged on the full level of the ripened
members of the community.

There is therefore little room for wonder, if we find the same
individual, whom we once knew a sheepish and irresolute
schoolboy, that hung his head, that replied with inarticulated
monotony, and stammered out his meaning, metamorphosed into a
thoroughly manly character, who may take his place on the bench
with senators, and deliver a grave and matured opinion as well as
the best. It appears then that the trial and review of
full-grown men is not altogether so disadvantageous to the
reckoning of our common nature, as that of boys at school.

It is not however, that the full-grown man is not liable to be
checked, reprimanded and rebuked, even as the schoolboy is. He
has his wife to read him lectures, and rap his knuckles; he has
his master, his landlord, or the mayor of his village, to tell
him of his duty in an imperious style, and in measured sentences;
if he is a member of a legislature, even there he receives his
lessons, and is told, either in phrases of well-conceived irony,
or by the exhibition of facts and reasonings which take him by
surprise, that he is not altogether the person he deemed himself
to be. But he does not mind it. Like Iago in the play, he
"knows his price, and, by the faith of man, that he is worth no
worse a place" than that which he occupies. He finds out the
value of the check he receives, and lets it "pass by him like the
idle wind"--a mastery, which the schoolboy, however he may affect
it, never thoroughly attains to.

But it unfortunately happens, that, before he has arrived at that
degree of independence, the fate of the individual is too often
decided for ever. How are the majority of men trampled in the
mire, made "hewers of wood, and drawers of water," long, very
long, before there was an opportunity of ascertaining what it was
of which they were capable! Thus almost every one is put in the
place which by nature he was least fit for: and, while perhaps a
sufficient quantity of talent is extant in each successive
generation, yet, for want of each man's being duly estimated, and
assigned his appropriate duty, the very reverse may appear to be
the case. By the time that they have attained to that sober
self-confidence that might enable them to assert themselves, they
are already chained to a fate, or thrust down to a condition,
from which no internal energies they possess can ever empower
them to escape.

SECTION II.

EQUALITY OF MAN WITH MAN.--TALENTS EXTENSIVELY DISTRIBUTED.--WAY
IN WHICH THIS DISTRIBUTION IS COUNTERACTED.--THE APTITUDE OF
CHILDREN FOR DIFFERENT PURSUITS SHOULD BE EARLY SOUGHT OUT.--
HINTS FOR A BETTER SYSTEM OF EDUCATION.--AMBITION AN UNIVERSAL
PRINCIPLE.

The reflections thus put down, may assist us in answering the
question as to the way in which talents are distributed among men
by the hand of nature.

All things upon the earth and under the earth, and especially all
organised bodies of the animal or vegetable kingdom, fall into
classes. It is by this means, that the child no sooner learns
the terms, man, horse, tree, flower, than, if an object of any of
these kinds which he has never seen before, is exhibited to him,
he pronounces without hesitation, This is a man, a horse, a tree,
a flower.

All organised bodies of the animal or vegetable kingdom are cast
in a mould of given dimension and feature belonging to a certain
number of individuals, though distinguished by inexhaustible
varieties. It is by means of those features that the class of
each individual is determined.

To confine ourselves to man.

All men, the monster and the lusus naturae excepted, have a
certain form, a certain complement of limbs, a certain internal
structure, and organs of sense--may we not add further, certain
powers of intellect?

Hence it seems to follow, that man is more like and more equal to
man, deformities of body and abortions of intellect excepted,
than the disdainful and fastidious censors of our common nature
are willing to admit.

I am inclined to believe, that, putting idiots and extraordinary
cases out of the question, every human creature is endowed with
talents, which, if rightly directed, would shew him to be apt,
adroit, intelligent and acute, in the walk for which his
organisation especially fitted him.

But the practices and modes of civilised life prompt us to take
the inexhaustible varieties of man, as he is given into our
guardianship by the bountiful hand of nature, and train him in
one uniform exercise, as the raw recruit is treated when he is
brought under the direction of his drill-serjeant.

The son of the nobleman, of the country-gentleman, and of those
parents who from vanity or whatever other motive are desirous
that their offspring should be devoted to some liberal
profession, is in nearly all instances sent to the
grammar-school. It is in this scene principally, that the
judgment is formed that not above one boy in a hundred possesses
an acute understanding, or will be able to strike into a path of
intellect that shall be truly his own.

I do not object to this destination, if temperately pursued. It
is fit that as many children as possible should have their chance
of figuring in future life in what are called the higher
departments of intellect. A certain familiar acquaintance with
language and the shades of language as a lesson, will be
beneficial to all. The youth who has expended only six months in
acquiring the rudiments of the Latin tongue, will probably be
more or less the better for it in all his future life.

But seven years are usually spent at the grammar-school by those
who are sent to it. I do not in many cases object to this. The
learned languages are assuredly of slow acquisition. In the
education of those who are destined to what are called the higher
departments of intellect, a long period may advantageously be
spent in the study of words, while the progress they make in
theory and dogmatical knowledge is too generally a store of
learning laid up, to be unlearned again when they reach the
period of real investigation and independent judgment. There is
small danger of this in the acquisition of words.

But this method, indiscriminately pursued as it is now, is
productive of the worst consequences. Very soon a judgment may
be formed by the impartial observer, whether the pupil is at home
in the study of the learned languages, and is likely to make an
adequate progress. But parents are not impartial. There are
also two reasons why the schoolmaster is not the proper person to
pronounce: first, because, if he pronounces in the negative, he
will have reason to fear that the parent will be offended; and
secondly, because he does not like to lose his scholar. But the
very moment that it can be ascertained, that the pupil is not at
home in the study of the learned languages, and is unlikely to
make an adequate progress, at that moment he should be taken from
it.

The most palpable deficiency that is to be found in relation to
the education of children, is a sound judgment to be formed as to
the vocation or employment in which each is most fitted to excel.

As, according to the institutions of Lycurgus, as soon as a boy
was born, he was visited by the elders of the ward, who were to
decide whether he was to be reared, and would be made an
efficient member of the commonwealth, so it were to be desired
that, as early as a clear discrimination on the subject might be
practicable, a competent decision should be given as to the
future occupation and destiny of a child.

But this is a question attended with no common degree of
difficulty. To the resolving such a question with sufficient
evidence, a very considerable series of observations would become
necessary. The child should be introduced into a variety of
scenes, and a magazine, so to speak, of those things about which
human industry and skill may be employed, should be successively
set before him. The censor who is to decide on the result of the
whole, should be a person of great sagacity, and capable of
pronouncing upon a given amount of the most imperfect and
incidental indications. He should be clear-sighted, and vigilant
to observe the involuntary turns of an eye, expressions of a lip,
and demonstrations of a limb.

The declarations of the child himself are often of very small use
in the case. He may be directed by an impulse, which occurs in
the morning, and vanishes in the evening. His preferences change
as rapidly as the shapes we sometimes observe in the evening
clouds, and are governed by whim or fantasy, and not by any of
those indications which are parcel of his individual
constitution. He desires in many instances to be devoted to a
particular occupation, because his playfellow has been assigned
to it before him.

The parent is not qualified to judge in this fundamental
question, because he is under the dominion of partiality, and
wishes that his child may become a lord chancellor, an
archbishop, or any thing else, the possessor of which condition
shall be enabled to make a splendid figure in the world. He is
not qualified, because he is an interested party, and, either
from an exaggerated estimate of his child's merits, or from a
selfish shrinking from the cost it might require to mature them,
is anxious to arrive at a conclusion not founded upon the
intrinsic claims of the case to be considered.

Even supposing it to be sufficiently ascertained in what calling
it is that the child will be most beneficially engaged, a
thousand extrinsical circumstances will often prevent that from
being the calling chosen. Nature distributes her gifts without
any reference to the distinctions of artificial society. The
genius that demanded the most careful and assiduous cultivation,
that it might hereafter form the boast and ornament of the world,
will be reared amidst the chill blasts of poverty; while he who
was best adapted to make an exemplary carpenter or artisan, by
being the son of a nobleman is thrown a thousand fathoms wide of
his true destination.

Human creatures are born into the world with various
dispositions. According to the memorable saying of Themistocles,
One man can play upon a psaltery or harp, and another can by
political skill and ingenuity convert a town of small account,
weak and insignificant, into a city noble, magnificent and great.

It is comparatively a very little way that we can penetrate into
the mysteries of nature.

Music seems to be one of the faculties most clearly defined in
early youth. The child who has received that destination from
the hands of nature, will even in infancy manifest a singular
delight in musical sounds, and will in no long time imitate
snatches of a tune. The present professor of music in the
university of Oxford contrived for himself, I believe at three
years old, a way for playing on an instrument, the piano forte,
unprompted by any of the persons about him. This is called
having an ear.

Instances nearly as precocious are related of persons, who
afterwards distinguished themselves in the art of painting.

These two kinds of original destination appear to be placed
beyond the reach of controversy.

Horace says, The poet is born a poet, and cannot be made so by
the ingenuity of art: and this seems to be true. He sees the
objects about him with an eye peculiarly his own; the sounds that
reach his ear, produce an effect upon him, and leave a memory
behind, different from that which is experienced by his fellows.
His perceptions have a singular vividness.

      The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
      Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;   

      And his imagination bodies forth      
      The forms of things unknown,

It is not probable that any trainings of art can give these
endowments to him who has not received them from the gift of
nature.

The subtle network of the brain, or whatever else it is, that
makes a man more fit for, and more qualified to succeed in, one
occupation than another, can scarcely be followed up and detected
either in the living subject or the dead one. But, as in the
infinite variety of human beings no two faces are so alike that
they cannot be distinguished, nor even two leaves plucked from
the same tree[2], so it may reasonably be presumed, that there
are varieties in the senses, the organs, and the internal
structure of the human species, however delicate, and to the
touch of the bystander evanescent, which may give to each
individual a predisposition to rise to a supreme degree of
excellence in some certain art or attainment, over a million of
competitors.

[2] Papers between Clarke and Leibnitz, p. 95.

It has been said that all these distinctions and anticipations
are idle, because man is born without innate ideas. Whatever is
the incomprehensible and inexplicable power, which we call
nature, to which he is indebted for his formation, it is
groundless to suppose, that that power is cognisant of, and
guides itself in its operations by, the infinite divisibleness of
human pursuits in civilised society. A child is not designed by
his original formation to be a manufacturer of shoes, for he may
be born among a people by whom shoes are not worn, and still less
is he destined by his structure to be a metaphysician, an
astronomer, or a lawyer, a rope-dancer, a fortune-teller, or a
juggler.

It is true that we cannot suppose nature to be guided in her
operations by the infinite divisibleness of human pursuits in
civilised society. But it is not the less true that one man is
by his structure best fitted to excel in some one in particular
of these multifarious pursuits, however fortuitously his
individual structure and that pursuit may be brought into
contact. Thus a certain calmness and steadiness of purpose, much
flexibility, and a very accurate proportion of the various limbs
of the body, are of great advantage in rope-dancing; while
lightness of the fingers, and a readiness to direct our thoughts
to the rapid execution of a purpose, joined with a steadiness of
countenance adapted to what is figuratively called throwing dust
in the eyes of the bystander, are of the utmost importance to the
juggler: and so of the rest.

It is as much the temper of the individual, as any particular
subtlety of organ or capacity, that prepares him to excel in one
pursuit rather than a thousand others. And he must have been a
very inattentive observer of the indications of temper in an
infant in the first months of his existence, who does not confess
that there are various peculiarities in that respect which the
child brings into the world with him.

There is excellent sense in the fable of Achilles in the island
of Scyros. He was placed there by his mother in female attire
among the daughters of Lycomedes, that he might not be seduced to
engage in the Trojan war. Ulysses was commissioned to discover
him, and, while he exhibited jewels and various woman's ornaments
to the princesses, contrived to mix with his stores a suit of
armour, the sight of which immediately awakened the spirit of the
hero.

Every one has probably within him a string more susceptible than
the rest, that demands only a kindred impression to be made, to
call forth its latent character. Like the war-horse described in
the Book of Job: "He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his
strength; he goeth on to meet the armed men; he smelleth the
battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting."

Nothing can be more unlike than the same man to himself, when he
is touched, and not touched, upon

           the master-string
                That makes most harmony or discord to him.

It is like the case of Manlius Torquatus in Livy, who by his
father was banished among his hinds for his clownish demeanour
and untractableness to every species of instruction that was
offered him, but who, understanding that his parent was
criminally arraigned for barbarous treatment of him, first
resolutely resorted to the accuser, compelling him upon pain of
death to withdraw his accusation, and subsequently, having
surmounted this first step towards an energetic carriage and
demeanour, proved one of the most illustrious characters that the
Roman republic had to boast.

Those children whose parents have no intention of training them
to the highest departments of intellect, and have therefore no
thought of bestowing on them a classical education, nevertheless
for the most part send them to a school where they are to be
taught arithmetic, and the principles of English grammar. I
should say in this case, as I said before on the subject of
classical education, that a certain initiation in these
departments of knowledge, even if they are pursued a very little
way, will probably be beneficial to all.

But it will often be found, in these schools for more ordinary
education, as in the school for classical instruction, that the
majority of the pupils will be seen to be unpromising, and, what
is usually called, dull. The mistake is, that the persons by
whom this is perceived, are disposed to set aside these pupils as
blockheads, and unsusceptible of any species of ingenuity.

It is unreasonable that we should draw such a conclusion.

In the first place, as has been already observed, it is the most
difficult thing in the world for the schoolmaster to inspire into
his pupil the desire to do his best. An overwhelming majority of
lads at school are in their secret hearts rebels to the
discipline under which they are placed. The instructor draws,
one way, and the pupil another. The object of the latter is to
find out how he may escape censure and punishment with the
smallest expence of scholastic application. He looks at the task
that is set him, without the most distant desire of improvement,
but with alienated and averted eye. And, where this is the case,
the wonder is not that he does not make a brilliant figure. It
is rather an evidence of the slavish and subservient spirit
incident to the majority of human beings, that he learns any
thing. Certainly the schoolmaster, who judges of the powers of
his pupil's mind by the progress he makes in what he would most
gladly be excused from learning, must be expected perpetually to
fall into the most egregious mistakes.

The true test of the capacity of the individual, is where the
desire to succeed, and accomplish something effective, is already
awakened in the youthful mind. Whoever has found out what it is
in which he is qualified to excel, from that moment becomes a new
creature. The general torpor and sleep of the soul, which is
incident to the vast multitude of the human species, is departed
from him. We begin, from the hour in which our limbs are enabled
to exert themselves freely, with a puerile love of sport.
Amusement is the order of the day. But no one was ever so fond
of play, that he had not also his serious moments. Every human
creature perhaps is sensible to the stimulus of ambition. He is
delighted with the thought that he also shall be somebody, and
not a mere undistinguished pawn, destined to fill up a square in
the chess-board of human society. He wishes to be thought
something of, and to be gazed upon. Nor is it merely the wish to
be admired that excites him: he acts, that he may be satisfied
with himself. Self-respect is a sentiment dear to every heart.
The emotion can with difficulty be done justice to, that a man
feels, who is conscious that he is breathing his true element,
that every stroke that he strikes will have the effect he
designs, that he has an object before him, and every moment
approaches nearer to that object. Before, he was wrapped in an
opake cloud, saw nothing distinctly, and struck this way and that
at hazard like a blind man. But now the sun of understanding has
risen upon him; and every step that he takes, he advances with an
assured and undoubting confidence.

It is an admirable remark, that the book which we read at the
very time that we feel a desire to read it, affords us ten times
the improvement, that we should have derived from it when it was
taken up by us as a task. It is just so with the man who chooses
his occupation, and feels assured that that about which he is
occupied is his true and native field. Compare this person with
the boy that studies the classics, or arithmetic, or any thing
else, with a secret disinclination, and, as Shakespear expresses
it, "creeps like snail, unwillingly, to school." They do not seem
as if they belonged to the same species.

The result of these observations certainly strongly tends to
support the proposition laid down early in the present Essay,
that, putting idiots and extraordinary cases out of the question,
every human creature is endowed with talents, which, if rightly
directed, would shew him to be apt, adroit, intelligent and
acute, in the walk for which his organisation especially fitted
him.

SECTION III.

ENCOURAGING VIEW OF OUR COMMON NATURE.--POWER OF SOUND EXPOSITION
AFFORDED TO ALL.--DOCTRINE OF THIS ESSAY AND THE HYPOTHESIS OF
HELVETIUS COMPARED.--THE WILLING AND UNWILLING PUPIL
CONTRASTED.--MISCHIEVOUS TENDENCY OF THE USUAL MODES OF
EDUCATION.

What a beautiful and encouraging view is thus afforded us of our
common nature! It is not true, as certain disdainful and
fastidious censurers of their fellow-men would persuade us to
believe, that a thousand seeds are sown in the wide field of
humanity, for no other purpose than that half-a-dozen may grow up
into something magnificent and splendid, and that the rest,
though not absolutely extinguished in the outset, are merely
suffered to live that they may furnish manure and nourishment to
their betters. On the contrary, each man, according to this
hypothesis, has a sphere in which he may shine, and may
contemplate the exercise of his own powers with a well-grounded
satisfaction. He produces something as perfect in its kind, as
that which is effected under another form by the more brilliant
and illustrious of his species. He stands forward with a serene
confidence in the ranks of his fellow-creatures, and says, "I
also have my place in society, that I fill in a manner with which
I have a right to be satisfied."  He vests a certain portion of
ingenuity in the work he turns out. He incorporates his mind
with the labour of his hands; and a competent observer will find
character and individuality in it.

He has therefore nothing of the sheepishness of the ordinary
schoolboy, the tasks imposed upon whom by his instructor are
foreign to the true bent of his mind, and who stands cowed before
his seniors, shrinking under the judgment they may pass upon him,
and the oppression they may exercise towards him. He is probably
competent to talk in a manner that may afford instruction to men
in other respects wise and accomplished, and is no less clear and
well-digested in his discourse respecting the subjects to which
his study and labour have been applied, than they are on the
questions that have exercised the powers of analysis with which
they are endowed. Like Elihu in the Book of Job, he says, "I am
young, and you are old; I said therefore, Days shall speak, and
multitude of years shall teach wisdom. But there is a spirit in
man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him
understanding. Great men are not always wise; neither do the
aged understand judgment. Hearken therefore to me; and I also
will shew my opinion."

What however in the last instance is affirmed, is not always
realised in the experiment. The humblest mechanic, who works con
amore, and feels that he discharges his office creditably, has a
sober satisfaction in the retrospect, and is able to express
himself perspicuously and well on the subject that has occupied
his industry. He has a just confidence in himself. If the
occasion arises, on which he should speak on the subject of what
he does, and the methods he adopts for effecting it, he will
undoubtedly acquit himself to the satisfaction of those who hear
him. He knows that the explanations he can afford will be sound
and masculine, and will stand the test of a rigid examination.

But, in proportion as he feels the ground on which he stands, and
his own power to make it good, he will not fail to retire from an
audience that is not willing to be informed by him. He will
often appear in the presence of those, whom the established
arrangements of society call his superiors, who are more
copiously endowed with the treasures of language, and who,
confident perhaps in the advantage of opulence, and what is
called, however they may have received it, a liberal education,
regard with disdain his artless and unornamented explanations.
He did not, it may be, expect this. And, having experienced
several times such unmerited treatment, he is not willing again
to encounter it. He knew the worth of what he had to offer.
And, finding others indisposed to listen to his suggestions, he
contentedly confines them within the circle of his own thoughts.

To this it must be added that, though he is able to explain
himself perspicuously, yet he is not master of the graces of
speech, nor even perhaps of the niceties of grammar. His voice
is not tuned to those winning inflections by which men,
accustomed to the higher ranks of society, are enabled so to
express themselves,

      That aged ears play truant at their tales,
      And younger hearings are quite ravished,
      So sweet and voluble is their discourse.

On the contrary there is a ruggedness in his manner that jars
upon the sense. It is easy for the light and supercilious to
turn him into ridicule. And those who will not be satisfied with
the soundness of his matter, expounded, as he is able to expound
it, in clear and appropriate terms, will yield him small credit,
and listen to him with little delight.

These considerations therefore bring us back again to the reasons
of the prevalent opinion, that the majority of mankind are dull,
and of apprehension narrow and confused. The mass of boys in the
process of their education appear so, because little of what is
addressed to them by their instructors, awakens their curiosity,
and inspires them with the desire to excel. The concealed spark
of ambition is not yet cleared from the crust that enveloped it
as it first came from the hand of nature. And in like manner the
elder persons, who have not experienced the advantages of a
liberal education, or by whom small profit was made by those
advantages, being defective in exterior graces, are generally
listened to with impatience, and therefore want the confidence
and the inclination to tell what they know.

But these latter, if they are not attended to upon the subjects
to which their attention and ingenuity have been applied, do not
the less possess a knowledge and skill which are intrinsically
worthy of applause. They therefore contentedly shut up the sum
of their acquisitions in their own bosoms, and are satisfied with
the consciousness that they have not been deficient in performing
an adequate part in the generation of men among whom they live.

Those persons who favour the opinion of the incessant
improveableness of the human species, have felt strongly prompted
to embrace the creed of Helvetius, who affirms that the minds of
men, as they are born into the world, are in a state of equality,
alike prepared for any kind of discipline and instruction that
may be afforded them, and that it depends upon education only, in
the largest sense of that word, including every impression that
may be made upon the mind, intentional or accidental, from the
hour of our birth, whether we shall be poets or philosophers,
dancers or singers, chemists or mathematicians, astronomers or
dissectors of the faculties of our common nature.

But this is not true. It has already appeared in the course of
this Essay, that the talent, or, more accurately speaking, the
original suitableness of the individual for the cultivation, of
music or painting, depends upon certain peculiarities that we
bring into the world with us. The same thing may be affirmed of
the poet. As, in the infinite variety of human beings, there are
no two faces so alike that they cannot be distinguished, nor even
two leaves plucked from the same tree, so there are varieties in
the senses, the organs, and the internal structure of the human
species, however delicate, and to the touch of the bystander
evanescent, which give to each individual a predisposition to
rise to excellence in one particular art or attainment, rather
than in any other.

And this view of things, if well considered, is as favourable,
nay, more so, to the hypothesis of the successive improveableness
of the human species, as the creed of Helvetius. According to
that philosopher, every human creature that is born into the
world, is capable of becoming, or being made, the equal of Homer,
Bacon or Newton, and as easily and surely of the one as the
other. This creed, if sincerely embraced, no doubt affords a
strong stimulus to both preceptor and pupil, since, if true, it
teaches us that any thing can be made of any thing, and that,
wherever there is mind, it is within the compass of possibility,
not only that that mind can be raised to a high pitch of
excellence, but even to a high pitch of that excellence, whatever
it is, that we shall prefer to all others, and most earnestly
desire.

Still this creed will, after all, leave both preceptor and pupil
in a state of feeling considerably unsatisfactory. What it sets
before us, is too vast and indefinite. We shall be left long
perhaps in a state of balance as to what species of excellence we
shall choose; and, in the immense field of accessible improvement
it offers to us, without land-mark or compass for the direction
of our course, it is scarcely possible that we should feel that
assured confidence and anticipation of success, which are perhaps
indispensibly required to the completion of a truly arduous
undertaking.

But, upon the principles laid down in this Essay, the case is
widely different. We are here presented in every individual
human creature with a subject better fitted for one sort of
cultivation than another. We are excited to an earnest study of
the individual, that we may the more unerringly discover what
pursuit it is for which his nature and qualifications especially
prepare him. We may be long in choosing. We may be even on the
brink of committing a considerable mistake. Our subsequent
observations may enable us to correct the inference we were
disposed to make from those which went before. Our sagacity is
flattered by the result of the laborious scrutiny which this view
of our common nature imposes upon us.

In addition to this we reap two important advantages.

In the first place, we feel assured that every child that is born
has his suitable sphere, to which if he is devoted, he will not
fail to make an honourable figure, or, in other words, will be
seen to be endowed with faculties, apt, adroit, intelligent and
acute. This consideration may reasonably stimulate us to call up
all our penetration for the purpose of ascertaining the proper
destination of the child for whom we are interested.

And, secondly, having arrived at this point, we shall find
ourselves placed in a very different predicament from the
guardian or instructor, who, having selected at random the
pursuit which his fancy dictates, and in the choice of which he
is encouraged by the presumptuous assertions of a wild
metaphysical philosophy, must often, in spite of himself, feel a
secret misgiving as to the final event. He may succeed, and
present to a wondering world a consummate musician, painter,
poet, or philosopher; for even blind chance may sometimes hit the
mark, as truly as the most perfect skill. But he will probably
fail. Sudet multum, frustraque laboret. And, if he is
disappointed, he will not only feel that disappointment in the
ultimate result, but also in every step of his progress. When he
has done his best, exerted his utmost industry, and consecrated
every power of his soul to the energies he puts forth, he may
close every day, sometimes with a faint shadow of success, and
sometimes with entire and blank miscarriage. And the latter will
happen ten thousand times, for once that the undertaking shall be
blessed with a prosperous event.

But, when the destination that is given to a child has been
founded upon a careful investigation of the faculties, tokens,
and accidental aspirations which characterise his early years, it
is then that every step that is made with him, becomes a new and
surer source of satisfaction. The moment the pursuit for which
his powers are adapted is seriously proposed to him, his eyes
sparkle, and a second existence, in addition to that which he
received at his birth, descends upon him. He feels that he has
now obtained something worth living for. He feels that he is at
home, and in a sphere that is appropriately his own. Every
effort that he makes is successful. At every resting-place in
his race of improvement he pauses, and looks back on what he has
done with complacency. The master cannot teach him so fast, as
he is prompted to acquire.

What a contrast does this species of instruction exhibit, to the
ordinary course of scholastic education! There, every lesson that
is prescribed, is a source of indirect warfare between the
instructor and the pupil, the one professing to aim at the
advancement of him that is taught, in the career of knowledge,
and the other contemplating the effect that is intended to be
produced upon him with aversion, and longing to be engaged in any
thing else, rather than in that which is pressed upon his
foremost attention. In this sense a numerous school is, to a
degree that can scarcely be adequately described, the
slaughter-house of mind. It is like the undertaking, related by
Livy, of Accius Navius, the augur, to cut a whetstone with a
razor--with this difference, that our modern schoolmasters are
not endowed with the gift of working miracles, and, when the
experiment falls into their hands, the result of their efforts is
a pitiful miscarriage. Knowledge is scarcely in any degree
imparted. But, as they are inured to a dogged assiduity, and
persist in their unavailing attempts, though the shell of
science, so to speak, is scarcely in the smallest measure
penetrated, yet that inestimable gift of the author of our being,
the sharpness of human faculties, is so blunted and destroyed,
that it can scarcely ever be usefully employed even for those
purposes which it was originally best qualified to effect.

A numerous school is that mint from which the worst and most
flagrant libels on our nature are incessantly issued. Hence it
is that we are taught, by a judgment everlastingly repeated, that
the majority of our kind are predestinated blockheads.

Not that it is by any means to be recommended, that a little
writing and arithmetic, and even the first rudiments of classical
knowledge, so far as they can be practicably imparted, should be
withheld from any. The mischief is, that we persist, month after
month, and year after year, in sowing our seed, when it has
already been fully ascertained, that no suitable and wholsome
crop will ever be produced.

But what is perhaps worse is, that we are accustomed to
pronounce, that that soil, which will not produce the crop of
which we have attempted to make it fertile, is fit for nothing.
The majority of boys, at the very period when the buds of
intellect begin to unfold themselves, are so accustomed to be
told that they are dull and fit for nothing, that the most
pernicious effects are necessarily produced. They become half
convinced by the ill-boding song of the raven, perpetually
croaking in their ears; and, for the other half, though by no
means assured that the sentence of impotence awarded against them
is just, yet, folding up their powers in inactivity, they are
contented partly to waste their energies in pure idleness and
sport, and partly to wait, with minds scarcely half awake, for
the moment when their true destination shall be opened before
them.

Not that it is by any means to be desired. that the child in his
earlier years should meet with no ruggednesses in his way, and
that he should perpetually tread "the primrose path of
dalliance." Clouds and tempests occasionally clear the atmosphere
of intellect, not less than that of the visible world. The road
to the hill of science, and to the promontory of heroic virtue,
is harsh and steep, and from time to time puts to the proof the
energies of him who would ascend their topmost round.

There are many things which every human creature should learn, so
far as, agreeably to the constitution of civilised society, they
can be brought within his reach. He should be induced to learn
them, willingly if possible, but, if that cannot be thoroughly
effected, yet with half a will. Such are reading, writing,
arithmetic, and the first principles of grammar; to which shall
be added, as far as may be, the rudiments of all the sciences
that are in ordinary use. The latter however should not be
brought forward too soon; and, if wisely delayed, the tyro
himself will to a certain degree enter into the views of his
instructor, and be disposed to essay Quid valeant humeri, quid
ferre recusent. But, above all, the beginnings of those studies
should be encouraged, which unfold the imagination, familiarise
us with the feelings, the joys and sufferings of our
fellow-beings, and teach us to put ourselves in their place and
eagerly fly to their assistance.

SECTION IV.

HOW FAR OUR GENUINE PROPENSITIES AND VOCATION SHOULD BE
FAVOURED.--SELF-REVERENCE RECOMMENDED.--CONCLUSION.

I knew a man of eminent intellectual faculties[3], one of whose
favourite topics of moral prudence was, that it is the greatest
mistake in the world to suppose, that, when we have discovered
the special aspiration of the youthful mind, we are bound to do
every thing in our power to assist its progress. He maintained
on the contrary, that it is our true wisdom to place obstacles in
its way, and to thwart it: as we may be well assured that,
unless it is a mere caprice, it will shew its strength in
conquering difficulties, and that all the obstacles that we can
conjure up will but inspire it with the greater earnestness to
attain final success.

[3] Henry Fuseli.

The maxim here stated, taken to an unlimited extent, is doubtless
a very dangerous one. There are obstacles that scarcely any
strength of man would be sufficient to conquer. "Chill penury"
will sometimes "repress the noblest rage," that almost ever
animated a human spirit: and our wisest course will probably be,
secretly to favour, even when we seem most to oppose, the genuine
bent of the youthful aspirer.

But the thing of greatest importance is, that we should not teach
him to estimate his powers at too low a rate. One of the wisest
of all the precepts comprised in what are called the Golden
Verses of Pythagoras, is that, in which he enjoins his pupil to
"reverence himself."  Ambition is the noblest root that can be
planted in the garden of the human soul: not the ambition to be
applauded and admired, to be famous and looked up to, to be the
darling theme of "stupid starers and of loud huzzas;" but the
ambition to fill a respectable place in the theatre of society,
to be useful and to be esteemed, to feel that we have not lived
in vain, and that we are entitled to the most honourable of all
dismissions, an enlightened self-approbation. And nothing can
more powerfully tend to place this beyond our acquisition, even
our contemplation, than the perpetual and hourly rebuffs which
ingenuous youth is so often doomed to sustain from the
supercilious pedant, and the rigid decision of his unfeeling
elders.

Self-respect to be nourished in the mind of the pupil, is one of
the most valuable results of a well conducted education. To
accomplish this, it is most necessary that it should never be
inculcated into him, that he is dull. Upon the principles of
this Essay, any unfavourable appearances that may present
themselves, do not arise from the dulness of the pupil, but from
the error of those upon whose superintendence he is cast, who
require of him the things for which he is not adapted, and
neglect those in which he is qualified to excel.

It is further necessary, if self-respect is one of the most
desirable results of a well-conducted education, that, as we
should not humble the pupil in his own eyes by disgraceful and
humiliating language, so we should abstain, as much as possible,
from personal ill-treatment, and the employing towards him the
measures of an owner towards his purchased or indentured slave.
Indignity is of all things the most hostile to the best purposes
of a liberal education. It may be necessary occasionally to
employ, towards a human creature in his years of nonage, the
stimulants of exhortation and remonstrance even in the pursuits
to which he is best adapted, for the purpose of overcoming the
instability and fits of idleness to which all men, and most of
all in their early years, are subject: though in such pursuits a
necessity of this sort can scarcely be supposed. The bow must
not always be bent; and it is good for us that we should
occasionally relax and play the fool. It may more readily be
imagined, that some incitement may be called for in those things
which, as has been mentioned above, it may be fit he should learn
though with but half a will. All freaks must not be indulged;
admonition is salutary, and that the pupil should be awakened by
his instructor to sober reflection and to masculine exertion.
Every Telemachus should have his Mentor.--But through the whole
it is necessary that the spirit of the pupil should not be
broken, and that he should not be treated with contumely.
Stripes should in all instances be regarded as the last resort,
and as a sort of problem set up for the wisdom of the wise to
solve, whether the urgent case can arise in which it shall be
requisite to have recourse to them.

The principles here laid down have the strongest tendency to
prove to us how little progress has yet been made in the art of
turning human creatures to the best account. Every man has his
place, in which if he can be fixed, the most fastidious judge
cannot look upon him with disdain. But, to effect this
arrangement, an exact attention is required to ascertain the
pursuit in which he will best succeed. In India the whole mass
of the members of the community is divided into castes; and,
instead of a scrupulous attention being paid to the early
intimations of individual character, it is already decided upon
each, before he comes into the world, which child shall be a
priest, and which a soldier, a physician, a lawyer, a merchant,
and an artisan. In Europe we do not carry this so far, and are
not so elaborately wrong. But the rudiments of the same folly
flourish among us; and the accident of birth for the most part
decides the method of life to which each individual with whatever
violence shall be dedicated. A very few only, by means of
energies that no tyranny can subdue, escape from the operation of
this murderous decree.

Nature never made a dunce. Imbecility of mind is as rare, as
deformity of the animal frame. If this position be true, we have
only to bear it in mind, feelingly to convince ourselves, how
wholesale the error is into which society has hitherto fallen in
the destination of its members, and how much yet remains to be
done, before our common nature can be vindicated from the basest
of all libels, the most murderous of all proscriptions.

There is a passage in Voltaire, in which he expresses himself to
this effect: "It is after all but a slight line of separation
that divides the man of genius from the man of ordinary mould."
I remember the place where, and the time when, I read this
passage. But I have been unable to find the expression. It is
however but reasonable that I should refer to it on this
occasion, that I may hereby shew so eminent a modern concurring
with the venerable ancient in an early era of letters, whose
dictum I have prefixed to this Essay, to vouch to a certain
extent for the truth of the doctrine I have delivered.

ESSAY III.
OF INTELLECTUAL ABORTION.

In the preceding Essay I have endeavoured to establish the
proposition, that every human creature, idiots and extraordinary
cases excepted, is endowed with talents, which, if rightly
directed, would shew him to be apt, adroit, intelligent and
acute, in the walk for which his organisation especially fitted
him.

There is however a sort of phenomenon, by no means of rare
occurrence, which tends to place the human species under a less
favourable point of view. Many men, as has already appeared, are
forced into situations and pursuits ill assorted to their
talents, and by that means are exhibited to their contemporaries
in a light both despicable and ludicrous.

But this is not all. Men are not only placed, by the absurd
choice of their parents, or an imperious concurrence of
circumstances, in destinations and employments in which they can
never appear to advantage: they frequently, without any external
compulsion, select for themselves objects of their industry,
glaringly unadapted to their powers, and in which all their
efforts must necessarily terminate in miscarriage.

I remember a young man, who had been bred a hair-dresser, but who
experienced, as he believed, the secret visitations of the Muse,
and became inspired. "With sad civility, and aching head," I
perused no fewer than six comedies from the pen of this aspiring
genius, in no page of which I could discern any glimmering of
poetry or wit, or in reality could form a guess what it was that
the writer intended in his elaborate effusions. Such are the
persons enumerated by Pope in the Prologue to his Satires,

          a parson, much bemused in beer,
      A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
      A clerk, foredoomed his father's sou to cross,
      Who pens a stanza, when he should engross.

Every manager of a theatre, and every publishing bookseller of
eminence, can produce you in each revolving season whole reams,
almost cartloads, of blurred paper, testifying the frequent
recurrence of this phenomenon.

The cause however of this painful mistake does not lie in the
circumstance, that each man has not from the hand of nature an
appropriate destination, a sphere assigned him, in which, if life
should be prolonged to him, he might be secure of the respect of
his neighbours, and might write upon his tomb, "I have filled an
honourable career; I have finished my course."

One of the most glaring infirmities of our nature is discontent.
One of the most unquestionable characteristics of the human mind
is the love of novelty. Omne ignotum pro magnifico est. We are
satiated with those objects which make a part of our business in
every day, and are desirous of trying something that is a
stranger to us. Whatever we see through a mist, or in the
twilight, is apt to be apprehended by us as something admirable,
for the single reason that it is seen imperfectly. What we are
sure that we can easily and adequately effect, we despise. He
that goes into battle with an adversary of more powerful muscle
or of greater practice than himself, feels a tingling sensation,
not unallied to delight, very different from that which would
occur to him, when his victory was easy and secure.

Each man is conscious what it is that he can certainly effect.
This does not therefore present itself to him as an object of
ambition. We have many of us internally something of the spirit
expressed by the apostle: "Forgetting the things that are
behind, we press forward to those that remain."  And, so long as
this precept is soberly applied, no conduct can be more worthy of
praise. Improvement is the appropriate race of man. We cannot
stand still. If we do not go forward, we shall inevitably
recede. Shakespear, when he wrote his Hamlet, did not know that
he could produce Macbeth and Othello.

But the progress of a man of reflection will be, to a
considerable degree, in the path he has already entered. If he
strikes into a new career, it will not be without deep
premeditation. He will attempt nothing wantonly. He will
carefully examine his powers, and see for what they are adapted.
Sudet multum. He will be like the man, who first in a frail bark
committed himself to the treachery of the waves. He will keep
near to the shore; he will tremble for the audaciousness of his
enterprise; he will feel that it calls for all his alertness and
vigilance. The man of reflection will not begin, till he feels
his mind swelling with his purposed theme, till his blood flows
fitfully and with full pulses through his veins, till his eyes
sparkle with the intenseness of his conceptions, and his "bosom
labours with the God."

But the fool dashes in at once. He does not calculate the
dangers of his enterprise. He does not study the map of the
country he has to traverse. He does not measure the bias of the
ground, the rising knolls and the descending slopes that are
before him. He obeys a blind and unreflecting impulse.

His case bears a striking resemblance to what is related of
Oliver Goldsmith. Goldsmith was a man of the most felicitous
endowments. His prose flows with such ease, copiousness and
grace, that it resembles the song of the sirens. His verses are
among the most spirited, natural and unaffected in the English
language. Yet he was not contented. If he saw a consummate
dancer, he knew no reason why he should not do as well, and
immediately felt disposed to essay his powers. If he heard an
accomplished musician, he undertook to enter the lists with him.
His conduct was of a piece with that of the countryman, who,
cheapening spectacles, and making experiment of them for ever in
vain upon the book before him, was at length asked, "Could you
ever read without spectacles?" to which he was obliged to answer,
"I do not know; I never tried."  The vanity of Goldsmith was
infinite; and his failure in such attempts must necessarily have
been ludicrous.

The splendour of the thing presented to our observation, awakens
the spirit within us. The applause and admiration excited by
certain achievements and accomplishments infects us with desire.
We are like the youthful Themistocles, who complained that the
trophies of Miltiades would not let him sleep. We are like the
novice Guido, who, while looking on the paintings of Michael
Angelo, exclaimed, "I also am a painter."  Themistocles and Guido
were right, for they were of kindred spirit to the great men they
admired. But the applause bestowed on others will often generate
uneasiness and a sigh, in men least of all qualified by nature to
acquire similar applause. We are not contented to proceed in t