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It is this compound nature of body and spirit which had led almost all the philosophers to confuse their ideas of things; and to attribute to matter that which belongs only to spirit, and to spirit, that which cannot consist but with matter; for, they say boldly, That bodies tend downwards; that they seek the centre; that they shrink from destruction; that they dread a vacuum; that they have inclinations, sympathies, antipathies, &c. which are all qualities that can only exist in mind. And in speaking of spirits, they consider them as occupying a place and attribute to them motion from one place to another, &c. which are the qualities of body.

Instead, therefore, of receiving the ideas of things, simply as they are, we tinge, with the qualities of our compound being, all the simple things that we contemplate.

Who would not suppose, when they see us attach to every thing the compound notions of body and spirit, that this mixture was familiarly comprehensible to us? Yet it is the thing of which we know the least. Man is, to himself, the most astonishing object in nature, for he cannot conceive what body is, still less what spirit is, and less than all, how a body and a spirit can be united. That is the climax of his difficulties, and yet it is his proper being. Modus quo corporibus adhæret spiritus comprehendi ab hominibus non potest, et hoc tamen homo est.*

27. Man, then, is the subject of a host of errors, that divine grace only can remove. Nothing shews him the truth; every thing misleads him. Reason and the senses, the two means of ascertaining truth, are not only often unfaithful, but mutually deceive each other. Our senses mislead our reason by false impressions; and reason also has its revenge, by retorting the same trick upon our senses. The passions of

*The union of mind with matter, is a subject utterly incomprehensible to man, and yet this is man's essential nature.

the soul disturb the senses, and excite evil impressions; and thus our two sources of knowledge mutually lie, and deceive each other.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MISERY OF MAN.

NOTHING more directly introduces us to the knowledge of human misery, than an inquiry into the cause of that perpetual restlessness in which men pass their whole lives.

The soul is placed in the body to sojourn there for a short time. She knows that this is only the prelude to an eternal progress, to prepare for which, she has but the short period of this present life. Of this the mere necessities of nature engross a large portion, and the remainder which she might use, is small indeed. Yet this little is such a trouble to her, and the source of such strange perplexity, that she only studies how to throw it away. To live with herself, and to think of herself, is a burden quite insupportable.Hence all her care is to forget herself, and to let this period, short and precious as it is, flow on without reflection, whilst she is busied with things that prevent her from thinking of it.

This is the cause of all the bustling occupations of men, and of all that is called diversion or pastime, in which they have really but one object—to let the time glide by without perceiving it, or rather without perceiving self, and to avoid, by the sacrifice of this portion of life, the bitterness and disgust of soul which would result from self-inspection during that time. The soul finds in herself nothing gratifying. She finds nothing but what grieves her when she thinks of it. This compels her to look abroad, and to seek, by a devotion to external things, to drown the consciousness of her

real condition. Her joy is in this oblivion; and to compel her to look within, and to be her own companion, is to make her thoroughly wretched.

They

Men are burdened from their infant years with the care of their honor and their property, and even of the property and the honor of their relations and friends. They are oppressed with the study of languages, sciences, accomplishments, and arts. are overwhelmed with business, and are taught to believe that they cannot be happy unless they manage by their industry and attention, that their fortune and reputation, and the fortune and reputation of their friends, be flourishing: and that a failure in any one of these things would make them miserable. And hence they are engaged in duties and businesses which harass them from morning till night. 66 "A strange method this," you would say, "to make men happy ; what could we do more effectually to make them miserable?" Do you ask what we could do? Alas! we have but to release them from these cares, for then they would see and consider themselves; and this is unbearable. And in proof of this we see, that with all this mass of cares, if they have yet any interval of relaxation, they hasten to squander it on some amusement that shall completely fill the void, and hide them from themselves.

On this account, when I have set myself to consider the varied turmoil of life; the toil and danger to which men expose themselves at courts, in war, and in the pursuit of their ambitious projects, which give rise to so much quarrelling and passion, and to so many desperate and fatal adventures: Í have often said that all the misfortunes of men spring from their not knowing how to live quietly at home, in their own rooms. If a man, who has enongh to live on, did but know how to live with himself, he would never go to sea, or to besiege a city, merely for the sake of occupation; and he whose only object is to live. would have no need to seek such dangerous emple

ments.

But when I have looked into the matter more closely, I have found that this aversion to repose, and to the society of self, originates in a very powerful cause, namely, in the natural evils of our weak and mortal state,— -a state so completely wretched, that whenever nothing hinders us from thinking of it, and we thoroughly survey ourselves, we are utterly inconsolable. Of course, I speak only of those who meditate on themselves without the aid of religion. For most assuredly it is one of the wonders of the Christian religion, that it reconciles man to himself in reconciling him to his God; that it makes self-examination bearable, and solitude and silence more interesting than the tumults and the busy intercourse of men. But religion does not produce this mighty change by confining man to the survey of himself. It does this only by leading him up to God, and sustaining him, even in the consciousness of his present misery, with the hope of another existence, in which he shall be freed from it for ever.

But as for those who act only according to the impulse of those natural motives, that they find within them, it is impossible that they can live in that tranquility which favors self-examination, without being instantly the prey of chagrin and melancholy.

The man who loves nothing but self, dislikes nothing so much as being with himself only. He seeks nothing but for himself; yet he flies from nothing so eagerly as self; for when he sees himself, he is not what he wishes; and he finds in himself an accumulation of miseries that he cannot shun, and a vacuity of all real and substantial good which he cannot fill.

Let a man choose what condition he will, and let him accumulate around him all the goods and all the gratifications seemingly calculated to make him happy in it; if that man is left at any time without occupation or amusement, and reflects on what he is, the meagre languid felicity of his present lot will not bear him up. He will turn necessarily to gloomy anticipations of the future; and except, therefore, his occupation calls him out of himself, he is inevitably wretched,

But is not royal dignity sufficient of itself to make its possessor happy, by the mere contemplation of what he is as a king? Must he too be withdrawn

from this thought the same as other men? I see plainly that it makes a man happy to turn him away from the thought of his domestic sorrows, and to engage all the energy of his mind in the attaining of some light accomplishments, even such as dancing: but is it so with a king? Would he be happier in a devotion to these vain amusements, than in the thought of his own greatness; What object more satisfying can be given to him? Would it not be thwarting his joy, to degrade his mind to the thought how to regulate his steps by the cadence of a fiddle, or how to strike a billiard ball; instead of leaving him to enjoy ni tranquillity, the contemplation of the glory and the majesty with which he is invested? Try it: leave a king to himself without any delight accruing to him through the senses; leave him without any care upon his mind, and without society, to think at his leisure of himself, and you will see that a king who looks within, is a man equally full of miseries, and equally alive to them, with other men. Hence they carefully avoid this; and there is always about the person kings, a number of menials, whose concern it is to pro vide diversion when business is done, and who watch for their hours of leisure to supply them with pleasures and sports, that they may never feel vacuity; that is, in fact, they are surrounded by persons who take the most scrupulous care, that the king shall not be left alone to be his own companion, and in a situation to think of himself; because they know that if he does, with all his royalty, he must be wretched.

of

The principal thing which bears men up under those weighty concerns, which are, in other respects, so oppressive, is that they are thus perpetually kept from thinking of themselves.

For instance: What is the being a governor, a chancellor, a prime minister, but the having a number of attendants flocking on every side to prevent them from

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