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1074. Cruelty to Animals. But animals, in our degenerate age, are every day perishing under the hands of barbarity, without notice, without mercy; famished, as if hunger were no evil; mauled, as if they had no sense of pain; and hurried about incessantly from day to day, as if excessive toil were no plague, or extreme weariness were no degree of suffering. Surely the sensibility of brutes entitles them to a milder treatment, than they usually meet with from hard and unthinking wretches. Man ought to look on them as creatures under his protection, and not as put into his power to be tormented. Few of them know how to defend themselves against him as well as he knows how to attack them. For a man therefore to torture a brute shews a meanness of spirit (particularly if he is slaughtering it for the table).-Dean, on the future life of Brutes.

1075. Slavery.-Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still slavery! still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. It is thou, Liberty, thrice sweet and gracious goddess, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till nature herself shall change -no tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron-with thee to smile upon him as he cats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Gracious heaven! grant me but health, thou great Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion; and shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy wise providence, upon those heads that are aching for them.-Sterne.

1076. The Duty of Investigation.-No one ought to be satisfied with his opinions on any subject of importance, much less ought he to inculcate them on others, unless he can trace their connection with self-evident principles.

It is not easy to imagine how this plain statement can be controverted or denied; yet there are frequent cases in actual life, where the duty of inquiry, if not positively rejected, is really evaded. There are several pretexts employed on these occasions: inquiry might lead to doubt or perplexity; to become acquainted with opposite arguments might shake the settled convictions of the understanding; to read the writings of adversaries might contaminate the mind with false views.

Every one who alleges such pretexts as these for declining inquiry, must obviously begin by assuming that his own opinions are unerringly in the right. Nothing could justify any man for declining the investigation of a subject which it is his duty to teach, or on which his opinions necessarily determine his social conduct, but the possession of an understanding free from liability to error. Not gifted with infallibility, in what way except by diligent inquiry can he obtain any assurance that he is not in the one case disseminating erroneous opinions, or in the other pursuing a course of injurious action? If he holds any opinion, he must have acquired it, either by examination, or by installation, rote, or some process which he cannot

recollect. On the supposition that he has acquired it by proper examination, the duty on which we are now insisting has been discharged, and the matter is at an end. If he has acquired it in the other manner, if it is fast fixed in his understanding without any consciousness on his own part how it came there, the mere plea that his mind might become unsettled, can be no argument against the duty of investigation. For any thing he can allege to the contrary his present opinions are wrong; and in that case the disturbance of his blind conviction instead of being an evil is an essential step towards arriving at the truth.—Essays on the Pursuit of Truth.

1077. Prejudice.--Of prejudice it has been truly said, that it has the singular ability of accommodating itself to all the possible varieties of the human mind. Some passions and vices are but thinly scattered among mankind, and find only here and there a fitness of reception; but prejudice, like the spider, makes every where its home. It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all that it requires is room. The is scarcely a situation, except fire and water, in which a spider will not live. So let the mind be as naked as the walls of an empty and forsaken tenement, gloomy as a dungeon, or ornamented with the richest abilities of thinking; let it be hot, cold, dark, or light, lonely, or inhabited, still prejudice, if undisturbed, will fill it with cobwebs, and live like the spider, where there seems nothing to live on. If the one prepares her food by poisoning it to her palate and her use, the other does the same; and, as several of our passions are strongly characterised by the animal world, prejudice may be denominated the spider of the mind. Montague's Thoughts.

1078. Justice, a dear Commodity." Whatever you do," said Lord Chief-Justice Willes to a friend, who wished to consult him on some law-matter." Whatever you do, never go to law,-submit rather to almost any imposition; bear any oppression, rather than exhaust your spirits and your pockets, in what is called a court of justice.”—It is almost proverbial, that of all English commodities, justice is by far the dearest; and it is well known that lawyers seldom go to law themselves.

Wisely has it been said, that he who would go to law, must have a good eause, a good purse, a good attorney, a good advocate, good evidence, and a good judge and jury-and having all these goods; unless he has also good luck, he will stand but a bad chance of success.-

Trusler's Memoirs.

1079. Inquisitive People-Inquisitive people are the funnels of conversation; they do not take in any thing for their own use, but merely to pass it to another.-Steele.

1080. How to manage a Shrew.—He that contemns a Shrew to the degree of not descending to word it with her, does worse than beat her. Sir R. L'Estrange.

1081. Time. Time is the only gift or commodity of which every man who lives has just the same share. The passing day is exactly of the same dimensions to each of us and by no contrivance can any one of us extend its duration by so much as a minute or a second. It is not like a sum of money which we can employ in trade and put out to interest, and thereby add to or multiply its amount. Its amount is unalterable. We cannot "make it breed." We cannot even keep it by us. Whether we will or no we must spend it, and all our power over it therefore consists in the manner in which it is spent. Part with it we must, but we may give it either for something or nothing. Its mode of escaping from us however being very subtle and silent, we are exceedingly apt, because we do not feel it passing out of our hands like so much told coin, to forget that we are parting with it at all; and thus from mere heedlessness, the precious possession is allowed to pass away, as if it were a thing of no value. The first and principal rule therefore in regard to the economist and right improvement of time is to habituate ourselves to watch it.

Pursuit of Knowledge. Alfred.

1082. Woman the Victim of Prejudice.
Such is the fate unhappy women find,
And such the curse entailed upon our kind,
That man, the lawless libertine, may rove,
Free and unquestion'd through the wilds of love;
While woman, sense and nature's easy fool,

If

poor weak woman swerve from virtue's rule,
If strongly charmed, she leave the thorny way,
And in the softer paths of pleasure stray,
Ruin ensues; reproach and endless shame;
And one false step entirely damns her fame.
In vain with tears the loss she may deplore;
In vain look back, to what she was before;

She sets, like stars that fall, to rise no more.-Rowe.

1083. Of Criminal Cases.-In criminal cases, counsel, for the prosecution, of the present day, too often labour to excite the compassion of the jury, in behalf of the plaintiff or injured person; whereas if they were actuated by humanity, they would plead rather for the defendant, (in extenuation of his offence, and in mitigation of the punishment) who ought to be arraigned by his accuser; not out of anger and revenge, but in justice only to his country: and with all the tender circumstances of pity; for the minds of the wicked are, as it were, distempered by vice, and should, if possible, be reformed.-Hence it is that wise men brood no hatred in their bosoms, either to good or bad. They can not hate the good, and will not hate the wicked, considering them as unfortunate men; whose wickedness is perhaps more the effect of a diseased mind, than a corrupt heart, or as instruments in the hands of providence, to bring about certain wise purposes. Trusler's Memoirs.

1084. Domestic Tyranny.-No man, says Dr. Johnson, can invade the property or disturb the quiet of his neighbour without subjecting himself to penalties, and suffering in proportion to the injuries he has offered. But cruelty and pride, oppression and partiality may tyrannize in private families without control; meekness may be trampled upon and piety insulted without any appeal, but to conscience and to heaven. A thousand methods of tortures may be invented, a thousand acts of unkindness or disregard may be committed, a thousand innocent gratifications may be denied, and a thousand hardships be imposed without any violation of national laws. Life may be embittered with hourly vexation, and weeks, months, and years, be lingered out in misery without any legal cause of separation, or possibility of judical redress. Perhaps no sharper anguish is felt than that which cannot be complained of, nor any greater cruelties inflicted than some which no human authority can relieve.

Montague's Thoughts, &c.

1085. Domestic Management.-The late countess Dowager of Stanhope, mother of the present Earl, daughter of the Earl of Haddington, was a woman of method, which few women have but little idea of. Having brought her husband no fortune, she was determined to save him one, ard absolutely did. Her Lord's estate was very much encumbered, but, in a very few years, by her management, she relieved it from its debts. He was a man wrapt up in mathematical science, and had such an impediment in his speech, that he neither found himself disposed or able to arrange his own business, or give any directions to his servants; but left every thing to her; and she had the control, not only of the house and gardens, but of the stables and his estates; and to her, the present Earl owes his unencumbered establishment.-Dr Trusler's Memoirs.

1086. Faults of Authors and Teachers. Of all the faults which authors and teachers commit in their controversies, perhaps none deserves exposure more than the practice of pronouncing on a man's fairness, good feeling, and integrity, not from the usual indications of those qualities, but from the nature of the conclusions at which he has arrived. Neglecting all the various causes which inevitably generate differences of opinion, and which fully and satisfactorily account for the widest discrepancies that exist, they can find nothing to which they can ascribe a deviation from their own tenets, but perversity of heart or malignity of purpose, and the sole evidence they look for of these criminal dispositions is that difference of opinion itself. Essays on the Pursuit of Truth, &c.

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1087. Impartiality of Examination necessary in the pursuit of Truth.-Impartiality of examination is if possible of still higher value than care and diligence. It is of little importance what industry we exert on any subject, if we make all our exertions in one direction, if we sedulously close our minds against all considerations which we dislike, and seek with eagerness for any evidence or argument which will confirm our established or favourite views. What duty and common sense require of us is, that our attention be equally given to both sides of every question, that we make ourselves thoroughly acquainted with all the conflicting arguments, that we be severely impartial in weighing the evidence for each, and suffer no bias to seduce us into supine omission on the one hand, or inordinate rapacity for proof on the other.-Essays on the pursuit of Truth, &c.

1088. Moral Effect of Aliment. The moral effect of aliment is clearly evinced in the different tempers of the carnivorous and the frugivorous animals: the former, whose destructive passions, like those of ignorant men, lay waste all within their reach, are constantly tormented with hunger, which returns and rages in proportion to their own devastation; this creates that state of warfare or disquietude, which seeks, as in murderers, the night and veil of the forest; for should they appear on the plain, their prey escapes, or, seen by each other their warfare begins. The frugivorous animals wander tranquilly on the plains, and testify their joyful existence by frisking and basking in the congenial rays of the sun, or browsing with convulsive pleasure on the green herb, evinced by the motion of the tail, or the joyful sparkling of the eyes, and the gambols of the herd. The same effect of aliment is discernible amongst the different species of man, and the peaceful temper of the frugivorous Asiatic, is strongly contrasted with the ferocious temper of the caruivorous European.-Rousseau.

1089. Virtue. The whole of human virtue may be reduced to speaking the truth always, and doing good to others.-Elian.

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