Egypt, a country famous in the time of Moses for its literature, called by the Pagans the mother of arts, and who boasted that they first of all men knew how to take dimensions of the stars, and to calculate their motions, as Macrobius, Diodorus of Sicily, and many other authors affirm. The scripture saith that Solomon was wiser than Ethan, Heman, Chalcol, and Darda; names which the Jews understand in a mys-, tical sense, meaning by Ethan Abraham, by Heman Moses, and by Chalcol Joseph. The scripture saith further, that he composed three thousand proverbs, and a thousand and five songs; that he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop, that springeth out of the wall, also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes, ver. 32, 33. Some of these works are a part of the canon of scripture, but the rest are lost. Now what saith this great man concerning science? He acknowledgeth indeed that it was preferable to ignorance, the wise man's eyes, saith he, are in his head, that is a man of education is in possession of some prudential maxims to regulate his life, whereas an illiterate man walketh in darkness; but yet saith he, it happeneth even to me, as it happeneth to the fool, and why was I then wise? ver. 15. And again, the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing; for in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow, chap. i. 8, 18. So again, in another place, after he had proposed some rules for the government of life, he adds, My son be admonished by these, for of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh, chap. xii. 12. I wish I could weigh every expression. Observe however two imperfections of science. 1. Observe first the little progress made in science by those who pursue it to the highest pitch. As they advance in this immense field they discover, shall I say new extents, or new abysses, which they can never fathom. The more they nourish themselves with this rich pasture, the more keen do their appetites become. The eye is never satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing, and of making many books there is no end. 2. Remark next the little justice, done in the world to such as excel most in science. He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow, and it happeneth even to me as it happeneth to a fool. Yes! after you have spent all your youth, after you have impaired your health, after you have spent your fortune to improve your own mind, and to enable you to improve those of other men, it will happen even to you as it happeneth to a fool. You will be told, that sciences have nothing in them that deserve the attention of a man of quality. A man of mean extraction, who carries himself like a lord, will tell you that a man of birth ought to aspire at something more noble than meditating on questions of law, studying cases of conscience, and explaining holy scripture. You will be told, that there is not half the knowledge required to sparkle in political bodies, and to decide on a bench the lives, and fortunes, and honours of mankind. Presumptuous youths will judge, and without appeal condemn your discourses and your pub : lications, and will pronounce with decisive tone this is not solid, that is superficial! The superiority of your understanding will raise up against you a world of ignorant people, who will say, that you corrupt the youth, because you would guard them against prejudice; that you stab orthodoxy, because you endeavour to heal the wounds which pedantry and intolerance have given it; that you trouble society, because you endeavour to purify morality, and to engage the great as well as the small, magistrates as well as people to submit to its holy laws. They will prefer before you both in the state and in the church novices who are hardly fit to be your disciples. Blessed idiots! You, who surrounded with a circle of idiots like yourselves, having first stupified yourselves with your own vanity, are now intoxicated with the incense offered by your admirers: you, who, having collected a few bombastic phrases, are spreading the sails of your eloquence, and are bound for the ocean of glory: you, whose sublime nonsense, stale common-places, and pedantic systems have acquired you such a reputation for learning and erudition as is due only to real merit: your condition seems to me often preferable to that of first rate geniusses, and most accomplished scholars! Ah! "Wisdom is vanity and vexation of spirit-of making many books there is no end-it happeneth even to me as it happeneth to the fool-there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool, for all shall be forgotten-therefore I hated life, be cause the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me." 2. The second disposition, which seems as if it would contribute much to the pleasure of life but which often imbitters it, is tenderness of heart. Let the sacred names of friendship and tenderness never come out of some mouths; let them never be used by profane people to express certain connections, which far from having the reality have not even the appearance of rational sensibility! Would you give these names to such vague unions as are formed only because you are a burden to yourselves; to connections in which the sentiments of the heart have no share, in which nothing is intended except the mutual performance of some capricious customs or the assuaging of some criminal passions, to the impetuosity of which you like brute beasts are given up? Would you give these names to those unpleasant interviews, in which while you visit you inwardly groan under the necessity of visiting, in which the mouth protests what the heart denies, in which, while you outwardly profess to be affected with the misfortunes of another, you consider them inwardly with indifference and insensibility, and while you congratulate them on the prosperity which providence bestows on them, you envy their condition, and sometimes regard it with a malice and a madness which you cannot help discovering? By friendship and tenderness, I mean those affectionate attachments produced by a secret sympathy, which virtue cements, which piety sanctifies, which a mutual vigilance over each other's interests confirms with indissoluble, I had almost said eternal bonds. I call a friend an inestimable treasure which might for a while render our abode on earth as happy as that in heaven, did not that wise providence, that formed us for heaven and not for earth, refuse us the possession of it. It is clear by the writings of Solomon, and more so by the history of his life, that his heart was very accessible to this kind of pleasure. How often doth he write encomiums on faithful friends! A friend, saith he, loveth at all times, he is a brother born for adversity. A friend sticketh closer than a brother, Prov. xvii. 17. and xviii. 24. But where is this friend, who sticketh closer than a brother? Where is this friend, who loveth at all times? One would think the wise man drew the portrait only to save us the useless labour of inquiring after the original. Perhaps you are incapable of tasting the bitterness of friendship only because you are incapable of relishing the sweetness of it. What friends do we make upon earth? At first lively, eager, full of ardour: presently dull, and disgusted through the ease with which they had been gratified. At first soft, gentle, all condescension and compliance: presently masters, imperious tyrants, rigorously exacting as a debt an assiduity which can arise only from inclination, pretending to domineer over our reason, after they have vitiated our taste. At first attentive and teachable, while prejudices conceal their imperfections from us, ready to acquiesce in any thing while our sentiments are conformable to their inclinations: but presently intractable |