Chapter XX: Preface (6)

Hor. You will pardon me, I know: this study of yours is a very pretty place.

Cleo. I like it, because the sun never enters it.

Hor. A very pretty room!

Cleo. Shall we sit down in it? It is the coolest room in the house.

Hor. With all my heart.

Cleo. I was in hopes to have seen you before now: you have taken a long time to consider.

Hor. Just eight days?

Cleo. Have you thought on the novelty I started?

Hor. I have, and think it not void of probability; for that there are no innate ideas, and men come into the world without any knowledge at all, I am convinced of, and therefore it is evident to me, that all arts and sciences must once have had a beginning in somebody's brain, whatever oblivion that may now be lost in. I have thought twenty times since I saw you last, on the origin of good manners, and what a pleasant scene it would be to a man who is tolerably well versed in the world, to see among a rude nation those first essays they made of concealing their pride from one another.

Cleo. You see by this, that it is chiefly the novelty of things that strikes, as well in begetting our aversion, as in gaining our approbation; and that we may look upon many indifferently, when they come to be familiar to us, though they were shocking when they were new. You are now diverting yourself with a truth, which eight days ago you would have given an hundred guineas not to have known.

Hor. I begin to believe there is nothing so absurd, that it would appear to us to be such, is we had been accustomed to it very young.

Cleo. In a tolerable education, we are so industriously and so assiduously instructed, from our most early infancy, in the ceremonies of bowing, and pulling off hats, and other rules of behaviour, that even before we are men we hardly look upon a mannerly deportment as a thing acquired, or think conversation to be a science. Thousand things are called easy and natural in postures and motions, as well as speaking and writing, that have caused infinite pains to others as well as ourselves, and which we know to be the product of art. What awkward lumps have I known, which the dancing-master has put limbs to!

Hor. Yesterday morning as I sat musing by myself, an expression of yours which I did not so much reflect upon at first, when I heard it, came into my head, and made me smile. Speaking of the rudiments of good manners in an infant nation, when they once entered upon concealing their pride, you said, that improvements would be made every day, "till some of them grew impudent enough, not only to deny the high value they had for themselves, but likewise to pretend that they had greater value for others than they had for themselves."

Cleo. It is certain, that this every where must have been the forerunner of flattery.

Hor. When you talk of flattery and impudence, what do you think of the first man that had the face to tell his equal, that he was his humble servant?

Cleo. If that had been a new compliment, I should have wondered much more at the simplicity of the proud man that swallowed, than I would have done at the impudence of the knave that made it.

Hor. It certainly once was new: which pray do you believe more ancient, pulling off the hat, or saying, your humble servant?

Cleo. They are both of them Gothic and modern.

Hor. I believe pulling off the hat was first, it being the emblem of liberty.

Cleo. I do not think so: for he who pulled of his hat the first time, could not have been understood, if saying your servant had not been practised: and to show respect, a man as well might have pulled off one of his shoes, as his hat; if saying, your servant, had not been an established and well-known compliment.

Hor. So he might, as you say, and had a better authority for the first, than he could have for the latter.

Cleo. And to this day, taking of the hat is a dumb show of a known civility in words: Mind now the power of custom, and imbibed notions. We both laugh at this Gothic absurdity, and are well assured, that it must have had its origin from the basest flattery; yet neither of us, walking with our hats on, could meet an acquaintance with whom we are not very familiar, without showing this piece of civility; nay, it it would be a pain to us not to do it. But we have no reason to think, that the compliment of saying, your servant, began among equals; but rather that, flatterers having given it to princes, it grew afterwards more common: for all those postures and flexions of body and limbs, had in all probability their rise from the adulation that was paid to conquerors and tyrants; who, having every body to fear, were always alarmed at the least shadow of opposition, and never better pleased than with submissive and defenceless postures: and you see, that they have all a tendency that way; they promise security, and are silent endeavours to ease and rid them, not only of their fears, but likewise every suspicion of harm approaching them: such as lying prostrate on our faces, touching the ground with our heads, kneeling, bowing low, laying our hands upon our breasts, or holding them behind us, folding our arms together, and all the cringes that can be made to demonstrate that we neither indulge our ease, nor stand upon our guard. These are evident signs and convincing proofs to a superior, that we have a mean opinion of ourselves in respect to him, that we are at his mercy, and have no thought to resist, much less to attack him; and therefore it is highly probable, that saying, your servant, and pulling off the hat, were at first demonstrations of obedience to those that claimed it.

Hor. Which in tract of time became more familiar, and were made use of reciprocally in the way of civility.

Cleo. I believe so; for as good manners increase, we see, that the highest compliments are made common, and new ones to superiors invented instead of them.

Hor. So the word grace, which not long ago was a title, that none but our kings and queens were honoured with, is devolved upon archbishops and dukes.

Cleo. It was the same with highness, which is now given to the children, and even the grandchildren of kings.

Hor. The dignity that is annexed to the signification of the word lord, has been better preserved with us, than in most countries: in Spanish, Italian, high and low Dutch, it is prostituted to almost every body.

Cleo. It has had better fate in France; where likewise the word sire has lost nothing of its majesty, and is only used to the monarch: whereas, with us, it is a compliment of address, that may be made to a cobbler, as well as to a king.

Hor. Whatever alterations may be made in the sense of words, by time; yet, as the world grows more polished, flattery becomes less barefaced, and the design of it upon man's pride is better disguised than it was formerly. To praise a man to his face, was very common among the ancients: considering humility to be a virtue particularly required of Christians, I have often wondered how the fathers of the church could suffer those acclamations and applauses, that were made to them whilst they were preaching; and which, though some of them spoke against them, many of them appear to have been extremely fond of.

Cleo. Human nature is always the same; where men exert themselves to the utmost, and take uncommon pains, that spend and waste the spirits, those applauses are very reviving the fathers who spoke against them, spoke chiefly against the abuse of them.

Hor. It must have been very odd to hear people bawling out, as often the greatest part of an audience did, Sophos, divinitus, non potest melius, mirabiliter, acriter, ingeniose: they told the preachers likewise that they were orthodox, and sometimes called them, apostolus decimus tertius.

Cleo. These words at the end of a period might have passed, but the repetitions of them were often so loud and so general, and the noise they made with their hands and feet, so disturbing in and out of season, that they could not hear a quarter of the the sermon; yet several fathers owned that it was highly delightful, and soothing human frailty.

Hor. The behaviour at churches is more decent, as it is now.

Cleo. Since paganism has been quite extinct in the old western world, the zeal of Christians is much diminished from what it was, when they had many opposers: the want of fervency had a great hand in abolishing that fashion.

Hor. But whether it was the fashion or not, it must always have been shocking.

Cleo. Do you think, that the repeated acclamations, the clapping, stamping, and the most extravagant tokens of applause, that are now used at our several theatres, were ever shocking to a favourite actor; or that the huzzas of the mob, or the hideous shouts of soldiers, were ever shocking to persons of the highest distinction, to whose honour they were made?

Hor. I have known princes that were very much tired with them.

Cleo. When they had too much of them; but never at first. In working a machine, we ought to have regard to the strength of its frame: limited creatures are not susceptible of infinite delight; therefore we see, that a pleasure protracted beyond its due bounds becomes a pain: but where the custom of the country is not broken in upon, no noise, that is palpably made in our praise, and which we may hear with decency, can ever be ungrateful, if it do not outlast a reasonable time; but there is no cordial so sovereign, that it may not become offensive, by being taken to excess.

Hor. And the sweeter and more delicious liquors are, the sooner they become fulsome, and the less fit they are to sit by.

Cleo. Your simile is not amiss; and the same acclamations that are ravishing to a man at first, and perhaps continue to give him an unspeakable delight for eight or nine minutes, may become more moderately pleasing, indifferent, cloying, troublesome, and even so offensive as to create pain, all in less than three hours, if they were to continue so long without intermission.

Hor. There must be great witchcraft in sounds, that they should have such different effects upon us, as we often see they have.

Cleo. The pleasure we receive from acclamations, is not in the hearing; but proceeds from the opinion we form of the cause that produces those sounds, the approbation of others. At the theatres all over Italy you have heard, that, when the whole audience demands silence and attention, which there is an established mark of benevolence and applause, the noise they make comes very near, and is hardly to be distinguished from our hissing, which with us is the plainest token of dislike and contempt: and without doubt the cat-calls to affront Faustina were far more agreeable to Cozzoni, than the most artful sounds she ever heard from her triumphant rival.

Hor. That was abominable!

Cleo. The Turks show their respects to their sovereigns by a profound silence, which is strictly kept throughout the seraglio, and still more religiously observed the nearer you come to the Sultan's apartment.

Hor. This latter is certainly the politer way of gratifying one's pride.

Cleo. All that depends upon mode and custom.

Hor. But the offerings that are made to a man's pride in silence, may be enjoyed without the loss of his hearing, which the other cannot.

Cleo. That is a trifle, in the gratification of that passion: we never enjoy higher pleasure, from the appetite we would indulge, than when we feel nothing from any other.

Hor. But silence expresses greater homage, and deeper veneration, than noise.

Cleo. It is good to sooth the pride of a drone; but an active man loves to have that passion roused, and as it were kept awake, whilst it is gratified; and approbation from noise is more unquestionable than the other: however, I will not determine between them; much may be said on both sides. The Greeks and Romans used sounds, to stir up men to noble actions, with great success; and the silence observed among the Ottomans has kept them very well in the slavish submission which their sovereigns require of them: perhaps the one does better where absolute power is lodged in one person, and the other where there is some show of liberty. Both are proper tools to flatter the pride of man, when they are understood and made use of as such. I have known a very brave man used to the shouts of war, and highly delighted with loud applause, be very angry with his butler, for making a little rattling with his plates.

Hor. An old aunt of mine the other day turned away a very clever fellow, for not walking upon his toes; and I must own myself, that the stamping of footmen, and all unmannerly loudness of servants, are very offensive to me; though I never entered into the reason of it before now. In our last conversation, when you described the symptoms of self-liking, and what the behaviour would be of an uncivilized man, you named laughing: I know it is one of the characteristics of our species; pray do you take that to be likewise the result of pride?

Cleo. Hobbes is of that opinion, and in most instances it might be derived from thence; but there are some phenomena not to be explained by that hypothesis; therefore I would choose to say, that laughter is a mechanical motion, which we are naturally thrown into when we are unaccountably pleased. When our pride is feelingly gratified; when we hear or see any thing which we admire or approve of; or when we are indulging any other passion or appetite, and the reason why we are pleased seems to be just and worthy, we are then far from laughing: but when things or actions are odd and out of the way, and happen to please us when we can give no just reason why they should do so, it is then, generally speaking, that they make us laugh.

Hor. I would rather side with what you said was Hobbes's opinion: for the things we commonly laugh at are such as are some way or other mortifying, unbecoming, or prejudicial to others.

Cleo. But what will you say to tickling, which will make an infant laugh that is deaf and blind?

Hor. Can you account for that by your system?

Cleo. Not to my satisfaction; but I will tell you what might be said for it. We know by experience, that the smoother, the softer, and the more sensible the skin is, the more ticklish persons are, generally speaking: we know likewise, that things rough, sharp, and hard, when they touch the skin, are displeasing to us, even before they give pain and that, on the contrary, every thing applied to the skin that is soft and smooth, and not otherwise offensive, is delightful. It is possible that gentle touches being impressed on several nervous filaments at once, every one of them producing a pleasing sensation, may create that confused pleasure which is the occasion of laughter.

Hor. But how came you to think of mechanic motion, in the pleasure of a free agent?

Cleo. Whatever free agency we may pretend to in the forming of ideas, the effect of them upon the body is independent of the will. Nothing is more directly opposite to laughing than frowning: the one draws wrinkles on the fore-head, knits the brows, and keeps the mouth shut: the other does quite the reverse; exporrigere frontem, you know, is a Latin phrase for being merry. In sighing, the muscles of the belly and breast are pulled inward, and the diaphragm is pulled upward more than ordinary; and we seem to endeavour, though in vain, to squeeze and compress the heart, whilst we draw in our breath in a forcible manner; and when, in that squeezing posture, we have taken in as much air as we can contain, we throw it out with the same violence we sucked it in with, and at the same time give a sudden relaxation to all the muscles we employed before. Nature certainly designed this for something in the labour for self-preservation which she forces upon us. How mechanically do all creatures that can make any sound, cry out, and complain in great afflictions, as well as pain and imminent danger! In great torments, the efforts of nature are so violent that way, that, to disappoint her, and prevent the discovery of what we feel by sounds, and which she bids us make, we are forced to draw our mouth into a purse, or else suck in our breath, bite our lips, or squeeze them close together, and use the most effectual means to hinder the air from coming out. In grief we sigh, in mirth we laugh: in the latter little stress is laid upon the respiration, and this is performed with less regularity than it is at any other time; all the muscles without, and every thing within feel loose, and seem to have no other motion than what is communicated to them by the convulsive shakes of laughter.

Hor. I have seen people laugh till they lost all their strength.

Cleo. How much is all this the reverse of what we observe in sighing! When pain or depth of woe make us cry out, the mouth is drawn round, or at least into an oval; the lips are thrusted forward without touching each other, and the tongue is pulled in, which is the reason that all nations, when they exclaim, cry, Oh!

Hor. Why pray!

Cleo. Because whilst the mouth, lips, and tongue, remain in those postures, they can sound no other vowel, and no consonant at all. In laughing, the lips are pulled back, and strained to draw the mouth in its fullest length.

Hor. I would not have you lay a great stress upon that, for it is the same in weeping, which is an undoubted sign of sorrow.

Cleo. In great afflictions, where the heart is oppressed, and anxieties which we endeavour to resist, few people can weep; but when they do, it removes the oppression, and sensibly relieves them: for then their resistance is gone; and weeping in distress is not so much a sign of sorrow as it is an indication that we can bear our sorrow no longer; and therefore it is counted unmanly to weep, because it seems to give up our strength, and is a kind of yielding to our grief. But the action of weeping itself is not more peculiar to grief than it is to joy in adult people; and there are men who show great fortitude in afflictions, and bear the greatest misfortunes with dry eyes, that will cry heartily at a moving scene in a play. Some are easily wrought upon by one thing, others are sooner affected with another; but whatever touches us so forcibly, as to overwhelm the mind, prompts us to weep, and is the mechanical cause of tears; and therefore, besides grief, joy, and pity, there are other things no way relating to ourselves, that may have this effect upon us; such as the relations of surprising events and sudden turns of Providence in behalf of merit; instances of heroism, of generosity; in love, in friendship in an enemy; or the hearing or reading of noble thoughts and sentiments of humanity; more especially if these things are conveyed to us suddenly, in an agreeable manner, and unlooked for, as well as lively expressions. We shall observe, likewise, that none are more subject to this frailty of shedding tears on such foreign accounts, than persons of ingenuity and quick apprehension; and those among them that are most benevolent, generous, and open-hearted; whereas, the dull and stupid, the cruel, selfish, and designing, are very seldom troubled with it. Weeping, therefore, in earnest, is always a sure and involuntary demonstration that something strikes and overcomes the mind, whatever that be which affects it. We find likewise, that outward violence, as sharp winds and smoke, the effluvia of onions, and other volatile salts, &c. have the same effect upon the external fibres of the lachrymal ducts and glands that are exposed, which the sudden swelling and pressure of the spirits has upon those within. The Divine Wisdom is in nothing more conspicuous than in the infinite variety of living creatures of different construction; every part of them being contrived with stupendous skill, and fitted with the utmost accuracy for the different purposes they were designed for. The human body, above all, is a most astonishing master piece of art: the anatomist may have a perfect knowledge of all the bones and their ligaments, the muscles and their tendons, and be able to dissect every nerve and every membrane with great exactness; the naturalist, likewise, may dive a great way into the inward economy, and different symptoms of health and sickness: they may all approve of, and admire the curious machine; but no man can have a tolerable idea of the contrivance, the art, and the beauty of the workmanship itself, even in those things he can see, without being likewise versed in geometry and mechanics.

Hor. How long is it ago that mathematics were brought into physic? that art, I have heard, is brought to great certainty by them.

Cleo. What you speak of is quite another thing. Mathematics never had, nor ever can have, any thing to do with physic, if you mean by it the art of curing the sick. The structure and motions of the body, may perhaps be mechanically accounted for, and all fluids are under the laws of hydrostatics; but we can have no help from any part of the mechanics in the discovery of things, infinitely remote from sight, and entirely unknown as to their shapes and bulks. Physicians, with the rest of mankind, are wholly ignorant of the first principles and constituent parts of things, in which all the virtues and properties of them consist; and this, as well of the blood and other juices of the body, as the simples, and consequently all the medicines they make use of. There is no art that has less certainty than theirs, and the most valuable knowledge in it arises from observation, and is such, as a man of parts and application, who has fitted himself for that study, can only be possessed of after a long and judicious experience. But the pretence to mathematics, or the usefulness of it in the cure of diseases, is a cheat, and as arrant a piece of quackery as a stage and a Merry-Andrew.

Hor. But since there is so much skill displayed in the bones, muscles, and grosser parts, is it not reasonable to think, that there is no less art bestowed on those that are beyond the reach of our senses?

Cleo. I nowise doubt it: Microscopes have opened a new world to us, and I am far from thinking, that nature should leave off her work where we can trace her no further. I am persuaded that our thoughts, and the affections of the mind, have a more certain and more mechanical influence upon several parts of the body than has been hitherto or, in all human probability, ever will be discovered. The visible effect they have on the eyes and muscles of the face, must show the least attentive the reason I have for this assertion. When in mens company we are upon our guard, and would preserve our dignity, the lips are shut and the jaws meet; the muscles of the mouth are gently braced, and the rest all over the face are kept firmly in their places: turn away from these into another room, where you meet with a fine young lady that is affable and easy; immediately, before you think on it, your countenance will be strangely altered; and without being conscious of having done any thing to your face, you will have quite another look; and every body that has observed you, will discover in it more sweetness and less severity than you had the moment before. When we suffer the lower jaw to sink down, the mouth opens a little: if in this posture we look straight before us, without fixing our eyes on any thing, we may imitate the countenance of a natural; by dropping, as it were, our features, and laying no stress on any muscle of the face. Infants, before they have learned to swallow their spittle, generally keep their mouths open, and are always drivelling: in them, before they show any understanding, and whilst it is yet very confused, the muscles of the face are, as it were, relaxed, the lower jaw falls down, and the fibres of the lips are unbraced; at least, these phenomena we observe in them, during that time, more often than we do afterwards. In extreme old age, when people begin to doat, those symptoms return; and in most idiots they continue to be observed, as long as they live: Hence it is that we say, that a man wants a slabbering-bib, when he behaves very sillily or talks like a natural fool. When we reflect on all this, on the one hand, and consider on the other, that none are less prone to anger than idiots, and no creatures are less affected with pride, I would ask, whether there is not some degree of self-liking, that mechanically influences, and seems to assist us in the decent wearing of our faces.

Hor. I cannot resolve you; what I know very well is, that by these conjectures on the mechanism of man, I find my understanding very little informed: I wonder how we came upon the subject.

Cleo. You inquired into the origin of risibility, which nobody can give an account of, with any certainty; and in such cases every body is at liberty to make guesses, so they draw no conclusions from them to the prejudice of any thing better established. But the chief design I had in giving you these indigested thoughts, was to hint to you, how really mysterious the works of nature are; I mean, how replete they are every where, with a power glaringly conspicuous, and yet incomprehensible beyond all human reach; in order to demonstrate, that more useful knowledge may be acquired from unwearied observation, judicious experience, and arguing from facts a posteriori, than from the haughty attempts of entering into first causes, and reasoning a priori. I do not believe there is a man in the world of that sagacity, if he was wholly unacquainted with the nature of a spring-watch, that he would ever find out by dint of penetration the cause of its motion, if he was never to see the inside: but every middling capacity may be certain, by seeing only the outside, that its pointing at the hour, and keeping to time, proceed from the exactness of some curious workmanship that is hid; and that the motion of the hands, what number of resorts soever it is communicated by, is originally owing to something else that first moves within. In the same manner we are sure, that as the effects of thought upon the body are palpable, several motions are produced by it, by contact, and consequently mechanically: but the parts, the instruments which that operation is performed with, are so immensely far remote from our senses; and the swiftness of the action is so prodigious, that it infinitely surpasses our capacity to trace them.

Hor. But is not thinking the business of the soul? What has mechanism to do with that?

Cleo. The soul, whilst in the body, cannot be said to think, otherwise than an architect is said to build a house, where the carpenters, bricklayers, &c. do the work, which he chalks out and superintends.

Hor. Which part of the brain do you think the soul to be more immediately lodged in; or do you take it to be diffused through the whole?

Cleo. I know nothing of it more than what I have told you already.

Hor. I plainly feel that this operation of thinking is a labour, or at least something that is transacting in my head, and not in my leg nor my arm: what insight or real knowledge have we from anatomy concerning it?

Cleo. None at all a priori: the most consummate anatomist knows no more of it than a butcher's apprentice. We may admire the curious duplicate of coats, and close embroidery of veins and arteries that environ the brain: but when dissecting it we have viewed the several pairs of nerves, with their origin, and taken notice of some glands of various shapes and sizes, which differing from the brain in substance, could not but rush in view; when these, I say, have been taken notice of, and distinguished by different names, some of them not very pertinent, and less polite, the best naturalist must acknowledge, that even of these large visible parts there are but few, the nerves and blood-vessels excepted, at the use of which he can give any tolerable guesses: but as to the mysterious structure of the brain itself, and the more abstruse economy of it, that he knows nothing; but that the whole seems to be a medullary substance, compactly treasured up in infinite millions of imperceptible cells, that, disposed in an unconceivable order, are cluttered together in a perplexing variety of folds and windings. He will add, perhaps, that it is reasonable to think this to be the capacious exchequer of human knowledge, in which the faithful senses deposit the vast treasure of images, constantly, as through their organs they receive them; that it is the office in which the spirits are separated from the blood, and afterwards sublimed and volatilized into particles hardly corporeal; and that the most minute of these are always, either searching for, or variously disposing the images retained, and shooting through the infinite meanders of that wonderful substance, employ themselves, without ceasing, in that inexplicable performance, the contemplation of which fills the most exalted genius with amazement.

Hor. These are very airy conjectures; but nothing of all this can be proved: The smallness of the parts, you will say, is the reason; but if greater improvements were made in optic glasses, and microscopes could be invented that magnified objects three or four millions of times more than they do now, then certainly those minute particles, so immensely remote from the senses you speak of, might be observed, if that which does the work is corporeal at all.

Cleo. That such improvements are impossible, is demonstrable; but if it was not, even then we could have little help from anatomy. The brain of an animal cannot be looked and searched into whilst it is alive. Should you take the main spring out of a watch, and leave the barrel that contained it standing empty, it would be impossible to find out what it had been that made it exert itself, whilst it showed the time. We might examine all the wheels, and every other part belonging either to the movement or the motion, and, perhaps, find out the use of them, in relation to the turning of the hands; but the first cause of this labour would remain a mystery for ever.

Hor. The main spring in us is the soul, which is immaterial and immortal: but what is that to other creatures that have a brain like ours, and no such immortal substance distinct from body? Do not you believe that dogs and horses think?

Cleo. I believe they do, though in a degree of perfection far inferior to us.

Hor. What is it that superintends thought in them? where must we look for it? which is the main spring?

Cleo. I can answer you no otherwise, than life.

Hor. What is life?

Cleo. Every body understands the meaning of the word, though, perhaps, nobody knows the principle of life, that part which gives motion to all the rest.

Hor. Where men are certain that the truth of a thing is not to be known, they will always differ, and endeavour to impose upon one another.

Cleo. Whilst there are fools and knaves, they will; but I have not imposed upon you: what I said of the labour of the brain, I told you, was a conjecture, which I recommend no farther to you than you shall think it probable. You ought to expect no demonstration of a thing, that from its nature can admit of none. When the breath is gone, and the circulation ceased, the inside of an animal is vastly different from what it was whilst the lungs played, and the blood and juices were in full motion through every part of it. You have seen those engines that raise water by the help of fire; the steam you know, is that which forces it up; it is as impossible to see the volatile particles that perform the labour of the brain, when the creature is dead, as in the engine it would be to see the steam (which yet does all the work), when the fire is out and the water cold. Yet if this engine was shown to a man when it was not at work, and it was explained to him, which way it raised the water, it would be a strange incredulity, or great dullness of apprehension, not to believe it; if he knew perfectly well, that by heat, liquids may be rarified into vapour.

Hor. But do not you think there is a difference in souls; and are they all equally good or equally bad?

Cleo. We have some tolerable ideas of matter and motion; or, at least, of what we mean by them, and therefore we may form ideas of things corporeal, though they are beyond the reach of our senses; and we can conceive any portion of matter a thousand times less than our eyes, even by the help of the best microscopes, are able to see it: but the soul is altogether incomprehensible, and we can determine but little about it, that is not revealed to us. I believe that the difference of capacities in men, depends upon, and is entirely owing to the difference there is between them, either in the fabric itself, that is, the greater or lesser exactness in the composure of their frame, or else in the use that is made of it. The brain of a child, newly born, is carte blanche; and, as you have hinted very justly, we have no ideas, which we are not obliged for to our senses. I make no question, but that in this rummaging of the spirits through the brain, in hunting after, joining, separating, changing, and compounding of ideas with inconceivable swiftness, under the superintendency of the soul, the action of thinking consists. The best thing, therefore, we can do to infants after the first month, besides feeding and keeping them from harm, is to make them take in ideas, beginning by the two most useful senses, the sight and hearing; and dispose them to set about this labour of the brain, and by our example encourage them to imitate us in thinking; which, on their side, is very poorly performed at first. Therefore the more an infant in health is talked to and jumbled about, the better it is for it, at least, for the first two years; and for its attendance in this early education, to the wisest matron in the world, I would prefer an active young wench, whose tongue never stands still, that should run about, and never cease diverting and playing with it whilst it was awake; and where people can afford it, two or three of them, to relieve one another when they are tired, are better than one.

Hor. Then you think children reap great benefit from the nonsensical chat of nurses?

Cleo. It is of inestimable use to them, and teaches them to think, as well as speak, much sooner and better, than with equal aptitude of parts they would do without. The business is to make them exert those faculties, and keep infants continually employed about them; for the time which is lost then, is never to be retrieved.

Hor. Yet we seldom remember any thing of what we saw or heard, before we were two years old: then what would be lost, if children should not hear all that impertinence?

Cleo. As iron is to be hammered whilst it is hot and ductile, so children are to be taught when they are young: as the flesh and every tube and membrane about them, are then tenderer, and will yield sooner to slight impressions, than afterwards; so many of their bones are but cartilages, and the brain itself is much softer, and in a manner fluid. This is the reason, that it cannot so well retain the images it receives, as it does afterwards, when the substance of it comes to be of a better consistence. But as the first images are lost, so they are continually succeeded by new ones; and the brain at first serves as a slate to cypher, or a sampler to work upon. What infants should chiefly learn, is the performance itself, the exercise of thinking, and to contract a habit of disposing, and with ease and agility managing the images retained, to the purpose intended; which is never attained better than whilst the matter is yielding, and the organs are most flexible and supple. So they but exercise themselves in thinking and speaking, it is no matter what they think on, or what they say, that is inoffensive. In sprightly infants, we soon see by their eyes the efforts they are making to imitate us, before they are able; and that they try at this exercise of the brain, and make essays to think, as well as they do to hammer out words, we may know from the incoherence of their actions, and the strange absurdities they utter: but as there are more degrees of thinking well, than there are of speaking plain, the first is of the greatest consequence.

Hor. I wonder you should talk of teaching, and lay so great a stress on a thing that comes so naturally to us, as thinking: no action is performed with greater velocity by every body: as quick as thought, is a proverb, and in less than a moment a stupid peasant may remove his ideas from London to Japan, as easily as the greatest wit.

Cleo. Yet there is nothing, in which men differ so immensely from one another, as they do in the exercise of this faculty: the differences between them in height, bulk, strength, and beauty, are trifling in comparison to that which I speak of; and there is nothing in the world more valuable, or more plainly perceptible in persons, than a happy dexterity of thinking. Two men may have equal knowledge, and yet the one shall speak as well off-hand, as the other can after two hours study.

Hor. I take it for granted, that no man would study two hours for a speech, if he knew how to make it in less; and therefore I cannot see what reason you have to suppose two such persons to be of equal knowledge.

Cleo. There is a double meaning in the word knowing, which you seem not to attend to. There is a great difference between knowing a violin when you see it, and knowing how to play upon it. The knowledge I speak of is of the first sort; and if you consider it in that sense, you must be of my opinion; for no study can fetch any thing out of the brain that is not there. Suppose you conceive a short epistle in three minutes, which another, who can make letters and join them together as fast as yourself, is yet an hour about, though both of you write the same thing, it is plain to me, that the slow person knows as much as you do; at least it does not appear that he knows less. He has received the same images, but he cannot come at them, or at least not dispose them in that order, so soon as yourself. When we see two exercises of equal goodness, either in prose or verse, if the one is made ex tempore, and we are sure of it, and the other has cost two days labour, the author of the first is a person of finer natural parts than the other, though their knowledge, for ought we know, is the same. You see, then, the difference between knowledge, as it signifies the treasure of images received, and knowledge, or rather skill, to find out those images when we want them, and work them readily to our purpose.

Hor. When we know a thing, and cannot readily think of it, or bring it to mind, I thought that was the fault of the memory.

Cleo. So it may be in part: but there are men of prodigious reading, that have likewise great memories, who judge ill, and seldom say any thing a propos, or say it when it is too late. Among the belluones librorum, the cormorants of books, there are wretched reasoners, that have canine appetites, and no digestion. What numbers of learned fools do we not meet with in large libraries; from whose works it is evident, that knowledge must have lain in their heads, as furniture at an upholder's; and the treasure of the brain was a burden to them instead of an ornament! All this proceeds from a defect in the faculty of thinking; an unskilfulness, and want of aptitude in managing, to the best advantage, the ideas we have received. We see others, on the contrary, that have very fine sense, and no literature at all. The generality of women are quicker of invention, and more ready at repartee, than the men, with equal helps of education; and it is surprising to see, what a considerable figure some of them make in conversation, when we consider the small opportunities they have had of acquiring knowledge.

Hor. But sound judgment is a great rarity among them.

Cleo. Only for want of practice, application, and assiduity. Thinking on abstruse matters, is not their province in life; and as the stations they are commonly placed in find them other employment; but there is no labour of the brain which women are not as capable of performing, at least as well as the men, with the same assistance, if they set about, and persevere in it: sound judgment is no more than the result of that labour: he that uses himself to take things to pieces, to compare them together, to consider them abstractly and impartially; that is, he who of two propositions he is to examine seems not to care which is true; he that lays the whole stress of his mind on every part alike, and puts the same thing in all the views it can be seen in: he, I say, that employs himself most often in this exercise, is most likely caeteris paribus to acquire what we call a sound judgment. The workmanship in the make of women seems to be more elegant, and better finished: the features are more delicate, the voice is sweeter, the whole outside of them is more curiously wove, than they are in men; and the difference in the skin between theirs and ours is the same, as there is between fine cloth and coarse. There is no reason to imagine, that nature should have been more neglectful of them out of sight, than she has where we can trace her; and not have taken the same care of them in the formation, of the brain, as to the nicety of the structure, and superior accuracy in the fabric, which is so visible in the rest of their frame.

Hor. Beauty is their attribute, as strength is ours.

Cleo. How minute soever those particles of the brain are, that contain the several images, and are assisting in the operation of thinking, there must be a difference in the justness, the symmetry, and exactness of them between one person and another, as well as there is in the grosser parts: what the women excel us in, then, is the goodness of the instrument, either in the harmony or pliableness of the organs, which must be very material in the art of thinking, and is the only thing that deserves the name of natural parts, since the aptitude I have spoke of, depending upon exercise, is notoriously acquired.

Hor. As the workmanship in the brain is rather more curious in women than it is in men, so, in sheep and oxen, dogs and horses, I suppose it is infinitely coarser.

Cleo. We have no reason to think otherwise,

Hor. But after all, that self, that part of us that wills and wishes, that chooses one thing rather than another, must be incorporeal: For if it is matter, it must either be one single particle, which I can almost feel it is not, or a combination of many, which is more than inconceivable.

Cleo. I do not deny what you say; and that the principle of thought and action is inexplicable in all creatures I have hinted already: But its being incorporeal does not mend the matter, as to the difficulty of explaining or conceiving it. That there must be a mutual contact between this principle, whatever it is, and the body itself, is what we are certain of a posteriori; and a reciprocal action upon each other, between an immaterial substance and matter, is as incomprehensible to human capacity, as that thought should be the result of matter and motion.

Hor. Though many other animals seem to be endued with thought, there is no creature we are acquainted with, besides man, that shows or seems to feel a consciousness of his thinking.

Cleo. It is not easy to determine what instincts, properties, or capacities other creatures are either possessed or destitute of, when those qualifications fall not under our senses: But it is highly probable, that the principal and most necessary parts of the machine are less elaborate in animals, that attain to all the perfection they are capable of in three, four, five, or six years at furthest, than they are in a creature that hardly comes to maturity, its full growth and strength in five and twenty. The consciousness of a man of fifty, that he is the same man that did such a thing at twenty, and was once the boy that had such and such masters, depends wholly upon the memory, and can never be traced to the bottom: I mean, that no man remembers any thing of himself, or what was transacted before he was two years old, when he was but a novice in the art of thinking, and the brain was not yet of a due consistence to retain long the images it received: But this remembrance, how far soever it may reach, gives us no greater surety of ourselves, than we should have of another that had been brought up with us, and never above a week or a month out of sight. A mother, when her son is thirty years old, has more reason to know that he is the same whom she brought into the world than himself; and such a one, who daily minds her son, and remembers the alterations of his features from time to time, is more certain of him that he was not changed in the cradle, than she can be of herself. So that all we can know of this consciousness, is, that it consists in, or is the result of the running and rummaging of the spirits through all the mazes of the brain, and their looking there for facts concerning ourselves: He that has lost his memory, though otherwise in perfect health, cannot think better than a fool, and is no more conscious that he is the same he was a-year ago, than he is of a man whom he has known but a fortnight. There are several degrees of losing our memory; but he who has entirely lost it becomes, ipso facto, an idiot.

Hor. I am conscious of having been the occasion of our rambling a great way from the subject we were upon, but I do not repent of it: What you have said of the economy of the brain, and the mechanical influence of thought upon the grosser parts, is a noble theme for contemplation on the infinite unutterable wisdom with which the various instincts are so visibly planted in all animals, to fit them for the respective purposes they were designed for; and every appetite is so wonderfully interwove with the very substance of their frame. Nothing could be more seasonable, after you had showed me the origin of politeness, and in the management of self-liking, set forth the excellency of our species beyond all other animals so conspicuously in the superlative docility and indefatigable industry, by which all multitudes are capable of drawing innumerable benefits, as well for the ease and comfort, as the welfare and safety of congregate bodies, from a most stubborn and an unconquerable passion, which, in its nature, seems to be destructive to sociableness and society, and never fails, in untaught men, to render them insufferable to one another.

Cleo. By the same method of reasoning from facts a posteriori, that has laid open to us the nature and usefulness of self-liking, all the rest of the passions may easily be accounted for, and become intelligible. It is evident, that the necessaries of life stand not every where ready dished up before all creatures; therefore they have instincts that prompt them to look out for those necessaries, and teach them how to come at them. The zeal and alacrity to gratify their appetites, is always proportioned to the strength, and the degree of force with which those instincts work upon every creature: But, considering the disposition of things upon earth, and the multiplicity of animals that have all their own wants to supply, it must be obvious, that these attempts of creatures, to obey the different calls of nature, will be often opposed and frustrated, and that, in many animals, they would seldom meet with success, if every individual was not endued with a passion, that, summoning all his strength, inspired him with a transporting eagerness to overcome the obstacles that hinder him in his great work of self-preservation. The passion I describe is called anger. How a creature possessed of this passion and self-liking, when he sees others enjoy what he wants, should be affected with envy, can likewise be no mystery. After labour, the most savage, and the most industrious creature seeks rest: Hence we learn, that all of them are furnished, more or less, with a love of ease: Exerting their strength tires them; and the loss of spirits, experience teaches us, is best repaired by food and sleep. We see that creatures, who, in their way of living, must meet with the greatest opposition, have the greatest share of anger, and are born with offensive arms. If this anger was to employ a creature always, without consideration of the danger he exposed himself to, he would soon be destroyed: For this reason, they are all endued with fear; and the lion himself turns tail, if the hunters are armed, and too numerous. From what we observe in the behaviour of brutes, we have reason to think, that among the more perfect animals, those of the same species have a capacity, on many occasions, to make their wants known to one another; and we are sure of several, not only that they understand one another, but likewise that they may be made to understand us. In comparing our species with that of other animals, when we consider the make of man, and the qualifications that are obvious in him, his superior capacity in the faculties of thinking and reflecting beyond other creatures, his being capable of learning to speak, and the usefulness of his hands and fingers, there is no room to doubt, that he is more fit for society than any other animal we know.

Hor. Since you wholly reject my Lord Shaftsbury's system, I wish you would give me your opinion at large concerning society, and the sociableness of man; and I will hearken to you with great attention.