Nor is this all. One of the most essential ingredients of virtue is fortitude. It was the plan of many of the Grecian philosophers, and most of all of Diogenes, to show to mankind how very limited is the supply that our necessities require, and how little dependent our real welfare and prosperity are upon the caprice of others. Among innumerable incidents upon record that illustrate this principle, a single one may suffice to suggest to our minds its general spirit. Diogenes had a slave whose name was Menas, and Menas thought proper upon some occasion to elope. 'Ha!'Chapter aid the philosopher, 'can Menas live without Diogenes, and cannot Diogenes live without Menas?' There can be no lesson more important than that which is here conveyed. The man that does not know himself not to be at the mercy of other men, that does not feel that he is invulnerable to all the vicissitudes of fortune, is incapable of a constant and inflexible virtue. He to whom the rest of his species can reasonably look up with confidence must be firm, because his mind is filled with the excellence of the object he pursues;Chapter nd cheerful, because he knows that it is out of the power of events to injure him. If anyone should choose to imagine that this idea of virtue is strained too high, yet all must allow that no man can be entitled to our confidence who trembles at every wind, who can endure no adversity, and whose very existence is linked to the artificial character he sustains.
Nothing can more reasonably excite our contempt than a man who, if he were once reduced to the genuine and simple condition of man, would be driven to despair, and find himself incapable of consulting and providing for his own subsistence. Fortitude is a habit of mind that grows out of a sense of our independence. If there be a man who dares not even trust his own imagination with the fancied change of his circumstances, he must necessarily be effeminate; irresolute and temporizing. He that loves sensuality or ostentation better than virtue may be entitled to our pity, but a madman only would entrust to his disposal anything that was dear to him.
Again, the only means by which truth can be communicated to the human mind is through the inlet of the senses. It is perhaps impossible that a man shut up in a cabinet can ever be wise. If we would acquire knowledge, we must open our eyes, and contemplate the universe. Till we are acquainted with the meaning of terms, and the nature of the objects around us, we cannot understand the propositions that may be formed concerning them.
Till we are acquainted with the nature of the objects around us, we cannot compare them with the principles we have formed, and understand the modes of employing them. There are other ways of attaining wisdom and ability beside the school of adversity, but there is no way of attaining them but through the medium of experience. That is, experience brings in the materials with which intellect works; for it must be granted that a man of limited experience will often be more capable than he who has gone through the greatest variety of scenes; or rather perhaps, that one man may collect more experience in a sphere of a few miles square than another who has sailed round the world.
To conceive truly the value of experience, we must recollect the numerous improvements the human mind has received, and how far an enlightened European differs from a solitary savage. However multifarious are these improvements, there are but two ways in which they can be appropriated by any individual;Chapter ither at second hand by books and conversation, or at first hand by our own observations of men and things. The improvement we receive in the first of these modes is unlimited; but it will not do alone. We cannot understand books till we have seen the subjects of which they treat.
He that knows the mind of man must have observed it for himself; he that knows it most intimately must have observed it in its greatest variety of situations. He must have seen it without disguise, when no exterior situation puts a curb upon its passions, and induces the individual to exhibit a studied, not a spontaneous character. He must have seen men in their unguarded moments, when the eagerness of temporary resentment tips their tongue with fire, when they are animated and dilated by hope, when they are tortured and wrung with despair, when the soul pours out its inmost self into the bosom of an equal and a friend. Lastly, he must himself have been an actor in the scene, have had his own passions brought into play, have known the anxiety of expectation and the transport of success, or he will feel and understand about as much of what he sees as mankind in general would of the transactions of the vitrified inhabitants of the planet Mercury, or the salamanders that live in the sun. - Such is the education of the true philosopher, the genuine politician, the friend and benefactor of human kind.
What is the education of a prince? Its first quality is extreme tenderness.
The winds of heaven are not permitted to blow upon him. He is dressed and undressed by his lacqueys and valets. His wants are carefully anticipated;Chapter is desires, without any effort of his, profusely supplied. His health is of too much importance to the community to permit him to exert any considerable effort either of body or mind. He must not hear the voice of reprimand or blame. In all things it is first of all to be remembered that he is a prince, that is, some rare and precious creature, but not of human kind.
