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Inconfiftencies, confidering that Irrefolution feems to me to be the most common and manifeft Vice of our Nature; witness the famous Verfe of Publius the Mimic,

Malum confilium eft quod mutari non poteft *.

The Difficulty of
determining the
Characters of
Men in general.

i. e.

Bad is the Counsel which cannot be chang'd. There is fome Probability of forming a Judgment of a Man from his most common Course of Life, but confidering the natural Inftability of our Manners and Opinions, I have often thought even our best Authors wrong in endeavouring, with fo much Obftinacy, to make us all of a Piece or Confiftency. They pitch upon the general Air of a Man, and, according to that Appearance, endeavour to range and interpret all his Actions, and, if they cannot twist them to a tolerable Uniformity, they impute them to Diffimulation. Auguftus has efcaped their Memory; for in this Man there was fo manifeft, fudden, and continual a Variety of Actions throughout his Life, that he is flipped away intire and uncenfured by the boldeft Critics. There is nothing I am fo hardly induced to believe as a Man's Conftancy, and believe nothing more readily than his Inconftancy. He that would judge of a Man particularly, diftinctly, and take him to Pieces, would oftener be fure of speaking Truth. 'Tis a hard Matter, out of all Antiquity, to pick a dozen Men who have paffed their Lives in one certain conftant Course, which is the principal Aim of Wisdom. For, to comprize all in one Word, fays an ancient Author, and to collect all the Rules of human Life into one, is to Will the fame Thing always, and always not to Will it. I need not add this small Exception, provided that what thou willest be right; for, if it be not right, the fame Thing cannot always please any one. I have, indeed, formerly learned, that Vice is nothing but the Want of Rule and Measure, and by Confequence 'tis impoffible to fix Conftancy to it. 'Tis reported to be a Saying of Demofthenes, that the Beginning of all Virtue is Confultation and Deliberation, and the End and Perfection of it, Conftancy. If we would fet out upon a certain Course,

* Ex Publii Mimis, apud A. Gell. lib. xvii. c. 14. + Senec. Ep. 20.

Course, after mature Deliberation, we should take the best
Way, but no-body has thought on it:

Quod petiit, fpernit; repetit quod nuper omifit,
Eftuat, et vita difconvenit ordine toto*.
i. e.

He now defpifes what he late did crave,
And what he laft neglected, now would have:
He fluctuates, and flies from that to this,
And his whole Life a Contradiction is.

Our ordinary Practice is to follow the Inclinations of our Appetites, be it to the right or to the left, up- The Inconftanwards or downwards, according as we are im-y of our Conpelled by Occafions. We never confider of what duct, on what we would have till the Inftant we would have founded. it, and are as changeable as that Animal which receives its Colour from what Place foever it is laid upon. What we juft now proposed to ourselves, we immediately alter, and presently recur to it; which is nothing but Wavering and Inconftancy :

Ducimur ut nervis alienis mobile lignum .

i. e.

Like Tops, with Leather-thongs we're whipp'd about. We do not go of ourselves, but are driven just like Things that float on the Water, fometimes flowly, at other times fwiftly, according to the Rapidity or Gentleness of the

Stream:

nonne videmus

Quid fibi quifque velit nefcire, et quærere femper,
Commutare locum, quafi onus depofcere poffit ?

i. e.

See we not up and down Men daily trot,

For fonfething they would have, but know not what?
Shifting from Place to Place, if here or there

They might fet down the Burden of their Care.

·B 2

Horat. Ep. I. lib. i. v. 96, 97. Lucr. lib. iii. v. 1070, &c.

Every

+ Horat. lib. ii. Sat. 7. v. 82..

Every Day a new Whimfy ftarts, and our Humours move as the Times do :

Tales funt hominum mentes, quali Pater ipfe
Jupiter artifero luftravit lumine terras*.

i. e..

Such are the Motions of th' inconftant Soul,
As are the Days and Weather, fair or foul.

We fluctuate between various Opinions, † we will nothing freely, nothing abfolutely, nothing conftantly. In any one that had prescribed and established determinate Rules, and certain Laws in his Head, for his own Conduct, we should fee an Equality of Behaviour, a fettled Order, and a neverfailing Connexion of Things, one with another, shine in every Part of his Life. (Empedocles obferved this Inconfiftency in the Agrigentines, that they abandoned themfelves to Voluptuoufnefs, as if every Day was to be their laft, and built as if they were never to die.) The Discusfion of this Point would be very eafy, as it is vifible in the younger Cato; he that has touched one Key, touches all: 'Tis a Harmony of very according Sounds, wherein there is not one jarring String; but with us 'tis quite the Reverfe; every particular Action must have a particular Judg. ment, wherein the fureft Way to fteer, in my Opinion, would be to take our Measures from the nearest allied Circumftances, without engaging in a longer Difquifition, and without drawing any other Confequence from it.

During the Civil Disorders of our poor Kingdom, I was A young Wo- told, that a Maid, hard by the Place where I man, of a du- then was, threw herself out of a Window, to bious Charac- avoid being ravished by a common Soldier that ter, throws berfelf out of a was quartered in the Houfe. She was not kilWindow, for led by the Fall, and therefore, in order to purfear of being fue her Defign, fhe attempted to cut her Throat, ravished. but was hindered in it; nevertheless she was fo dangerously wounded, that fhe confeffed the Soldier had not as yet importuned her, otherwife than by Courtship, Solli

Cicer. Fragm. Poemat. lib. x. + Senec. Epift. 52. Diog. Laert. on the Life of Empedocles, lib. viii. Sect. 63. Elian afcribes this Paffage to Plato, Var. Hift. lib. xii. c. 29.

Sollicitations, and Presents, but she was afraid, that at last he would have proceeded to Violence; and this she delivered with fuch an Accent and Afpect, as, together with her Effufion of Blood, gave fuch a Teftimony of her Virtue, that she appeared perfectly like another Lucretia: And yet I have been very well affured, that, both before and fince, The proved not fo hard-hearted. Therefore, as the Story fays, though you are ever fo handfome, and ever fo much of the Gentleman, because you have mifcarried in your Point, don't immediately conclude your Mistress to be inviolably chafte, fince you are not sure but she may have a fecret Kindness for the Man that looks after your Mules. Antigonus, having taken a Fancy to one of his Soldiers for his gallant Bravery, ordered his Phyficians A Soldier who to attend him for an inward Ailment that had loft all bis Valong tormented him; and perceiving, after he lour on his being was cured, that he went much more coldly to cured of a Dif work than before, he afked him, Who or what had fo altered and daftardifed him? Yourself, Sir, faid he, in having eafed me of the Pains, which made me fo weary of my Life, that I did not value it *.

temper.

A Soldier of Lucullus, having been robbed by the Enemy, revenged himself on them by a gallant A Soldier of Exploit, and, when he had made himself A- Lucullus inmends, Lucullus, having conceived a good O- Spired with pinion of him, would fain have employed him Courage by bein fome defperate Enterprize, and, for that ing robbed. Purpose, made Ufe of all the most plaufible Arguments he could think of,

Verbis quæ timido quoque poffent addere mentem†.

i. e.

Words which would animate the rankeft Coward.

Pray, faid he, employ fome miferable plundered Soldier, in that Undertaking:

quantumvis rufticus, ibit,

Ibit eò quò vis, qui zonam perdidit, inquit‡.

B 3

i. e..

* Plutarch, in the Life of Pelopidas, ch. 1.

Hor. lib. ii. Epift. 2.

v, 36. Id. ibid, v, 40,

i. e.

Take a Wretch, faid he, that has nothing to lofe,
He's the Man that will
Not I.-

go wherever

chufe: you

And abfolutely refused to go. When we read, that Mahomet having feverely reprimanded Chafan, the Commander of his Fanizaries, for Cowardife, when he saw the Hungarians break into his Troops; and that Chafan, without any other Anfwer, rushed furiously, by himfelf, with his drawn Scymeter, into the first Body of the Enemy that advanced, where he was immediately cut to Pieces: This, perhaps, was not fo much to vindicate himself from the Reproach, as the Effect of a second Thought; nor fo much natural Courage as a fudden Sally of Anger. He that you faw fo adventurous Yesterday, don't think it strange, if you find him, next Day, as great a Poltroon: Anger, Neceffity, or Company, or Wine, or the Sound of a Trumpet had roufed his Spirits. This was not Courage formed by Reason, but established by fome or other of those Circumstances; and therefore no Wonder, if, by other contrary Circumftances, it become quite another Thing. Thefe fupple Variations and Contradictions, fo manifeft in us, have induced fome Perfons to think, that we have two Souls; others two diftinct Powers, that always accompany and animate us, each after its own Manner, the one to do Good, the other to do Evil; it being hardly poffible, that two Qualities, fo contrary to each other, could affociate in one Subject. The Wind of every Accident not only puffs me along with it, which Way foever it blows; but, moreover, I disturb and trouble myself by the Unfettledness of my Pofture; and whoever nicely changeable. confiders it, will hardly find himself twice in the very fame State. I give my Mind fometimes one Hue, fometimes another, according to the Side I lie on. If I fpeak variously of myself, 'tis because I confider myself in different Lights, as having all Contrarieties within me, in their Turn and Measure; Bafhful, Infolent, Chafte, Licentious, Talkative, Taciturn, Laborious, Delicate, Ingenious, Stupid, Morofe, Complaifant, a Lyar, a true Speaker,

The Mind of Man is incon· ftant and

Learned,

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