Great Throughts Treasury

"I will add one remark upon the danger incurred by the advocate?even if he be one who would scruple either willfully to use sophistry to mislead a judge, or to perplex and browbeat an honest witness?of having his mind alienated from the investigation of truth?. A judge, or any one whose business it is to ascertain truth, is to decide according to the preponderance of the reasons; but the pleader?s business is merely to set forth as forcibly as possible those on his own side. And if he thinks that the habitual practice of this has no tendency to generate in him, morally any indifference, or intellectually any incompetency, in respect of the ascertainment of truth,?if he considers himself quite safe from any such danger,?I should then say that he is in very great danger."

"If it were possible that we could have a full report of the common business and common conversation, in the markets, the shops, and the wharfs of Athens and Pir‘us, for a single day, it would probably throw more light on the state of Greece at that time, in all that political economy is most concerned with, than all the histories that are extant put together."

"If, indeed, men were very different from what they are, there might be superior advantages in an elective royalty; but in the actual state of things, the disadvantages will in general greatly outweigh the benefits."

"In all the serious and important affairs of life men are attached to what they have been used to; in matters of ornament they covet novelty; in all systems and institutions?in all the ordinary business of life?in all fundamentals?they cling to what is the established course; in matters of detail?in what lies as it were on the surface?they seek variety. Man may, in reference to this point, be compared to a tree, whose stem and main branches stand year after year, but whose leaves and flowers are fresh every season."

"In books designed for children there are two extremes that should be avoided. The one, that reference to religious principles in connection with matters too trifling and undignified, arising from a well-intentioned zeal, causing a forgetfulness of the maxim whose notorious truth has made it proverbial, ?Too much familiarity breeds contempt.? And the other is the contrary, and still more prevailing, extreme, arising from a desire to preserve a due reverence for religion, at the expense of its useful application in conduct. But a line may be drawn which will keep clear of both extremes. We should not exclude the association of things sacred with whatever are to ourselves trifling matters (for these little things are great to children), but with whatever is viewed by them as trifling. Everything is great or small in reference to the parties concerned. The private concerns of any obscure individual are very insignificant to the world at large, but they are of great importance to himself; and all worldly affairs must be small in the sight of the Most High; but irreverent familiarity is engendered in the mind of any one, then, and then only, when things sacred are associated with such as are, to him, insignificant things."

"In fact, the real students of Scripture, properly so called, are, I fear, fewer than is commonly supposed. The theological student is often a student chiefly of some human system of divinity, fortified by references to Scripture, introduced from time to time as there is occasion. He proceeds?often unconsciously?by setting himself to ascertain, not what is the information or instruction to be derived from a certain narrative or discourse of one of the sacred writers, but what aid can be derived from them towards establishing or refuting this or that point of dogmatic theology. Such a mode of study surely ought at least not to be exclusively pursued. At any rate, it cannot properly be called a study of Scripture."

"In reference to nobility in individuals, nothing was ever better said than by Bishop Warburton?as is reported?in the House of Lords, on the occasion of some angry dispute which had arisen between a peer of noble family and one of a new creation. He said that ?high birth was a thing which he never knew any one disparage, except those who had it not; and he never knew any one make a boast of it who had anything else to be proud of.?? And it is curious that a person of so exceptionable a character that no one would like to have him for a father, may confer a kind of dignity on his great-great-great-grandchildren?. If he were to discover that he could trace up his descent distinctly to a man who had deserved hanging for robbery?not a traveller of his purse, but a king of his empire, or a neighbouring state of a province?he would be likely to make no secret of it, and even to be better pleased, inwardly, than if he had made out a long line of ancestors who had been very honest farmers."

"In reference to the study of history, I have elsewhere remarked upon the importance, among the intellectual qualifications for such a study, of a vivid imagination,?a faculty which, consequently, a skilful narrator must himself possess, and to which he must be able to furnish excitement in others. Some may, perhaps, be startled at this remark, who have been accustomed to consider imagination as having no other office than to feign and to falsify. Every faculty is liable to abuse and misdirection, and imagination among the rest; but it is a mistake to suppose that it necessarily tends to pervert the truth of history and to mislead the judgment. On the contrary, our view of any transaction, especially one that is remote in time or place, will necessarily be imperfect, generally incorrect, unless it embrace something more than the bare outline of the occurrences,?unless we have before the mind a lively idea of the scenes in which the events took place, the habits of thought and of feeling of the actors, and all the circumstances connected with the transaction; unless, in short, we can in a considerable degree transport ourselves out of our own age, and country, and persons, and imagine ourselves the agents or spectators. It is from consideration of all these circumstances that we are enabled to form a right judgment as to the facts which history records, and to derive instruction from it."

"In the present day, however, the province of Rhetoric, in the widest acceptation that would reckoned admissible, comprehends all "Composition in Prose;" in the narrowest sense, it would be limited to "Persuasive Speaking.""

"It is a good plan, with a young person of a character to be much affected by ludicrous and absurd representations, to show him plainly, by examples that there is nothing which may not be so represented; he will hardly need to be told that everything is not a mere joke: and he may thus be secured from falling into a contempt of those particular things which he may at any time happen to find so treated."

"It is a mere idle declamation about consistency to represent it as a disgrace to a man to confess himself wiser to-day than yesterday."

"It is a remarkable circumstance in reference to cunning persons, that they are often deficient, not only in comprehensive far-sighted wisdom, but even in prudent, cautious circumspection."

"It is a well-known and common art of the orator to extol the ingenuity and eloquence of an opponent, that the effect of what he says may be attributed rather to his ability than to the strength of his cause, and that the hearers may even be led to feel a distrust and dread of him. We commonly find a barrister?especially when he has a weak cause?complimenting his ?learned brother? on the skill with which he has pleaded."

"It is commonly and truly said, when any new and untried measure is proposed, that we cannot fully estimate the inconveniences it may lead to in practice; but we are convinced this is even still more the case with any system which has long been in operation."

"It is curious to observe how people who are always thinking of their own pleasure or interest will often, if possessing considerable ability, make others give way to them, and obtain everything they seek, except happiness. For, like a spoiled child, who at length cries for the moon, they are always dissatisfied. And the benevolent, who are always thinking of others, and sacrificing their own personal gratifications, are usually the happiest of mankind."

"It is hardly necessary to remark?much less to prove?that, even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary from day to day, and not to be enforced by a life-long vow or rule. For in this case, even though a person should not repent of such a vow, no one can be sure that there is not such repentance. Supposing that even a large majority, and monks, and nuns, have no desire to marry, every one of them may not unreasonably be suspected of such a desire, and no one of them, consequently, can be secure against the most odious suspicions. No doubt there are many Roman Catholic clergy (as there are Protestant) who sincerely prefer celibacy. But in the one case we have a ground of assurance of this, which is wanting in the other. No one can be sure, because no proof can be given, that a vow of perpetual celibacy may not some time or other be a matter of regret. But he who continues to live single while continuing to have a free choice, gives a fair evidence of a continued preference for that life."

"It is important to keep in mind that?as is evident from what has been said just above?habits are formed, not at one stroke, but gradually and insensibly; so that, unless vigilant care be employed, a great change may come over the character without our being conscious of any. For, as Dr. Johnson has well expressed it, ?The diminutive chains of habit are seldom heavy enough to be felt, till they are too strong to be broken.?"

"It is in the determination to obey the truth, and to follow wherever she may lead, that the genuine love of truth consists."

"It is observable that a parent who is unselfish, and who is never thinking of personal inconvenience, but always of the children?s advantage, will be likely to make them selfish; for she will let that too plainly appear, so as to fill the child with an idea that everything is to give way to him, and that his concerns are an ultimate end. Nay, the very pains taken with him in strictly controlling him, heightens his idea of his own importance; whereas a parent who is selfish will be sure to accustom the child to sacrifice his own convenience, and to understand that he is of much less importance than the parent. This, by the way, is only one of many cases in which selfishness is caught from those who have least of it."

"It is possible to be selfish in the highest degree without being at all too much actuated by self-love, but unduly neglectful of others when your own gratification, of whatever kind, is concerned."

"It is quite possible either to improve or fail to improve either kind of affliction."

"It is remarkable that there is nothing less promising than, in early youth, a certain full-formed, settled, and, as it may be called, adult character. A lad who has, to a degree that excites wonder and admiration, the character and demeanour of an intelligent man of mature age, will probably be that, and nothing more, all his life, and will cease accordingly to be anything remarkable, because it was the precocity alone that ever made him so. It is remarked by greyhound fanciers that a well-formed, compact-shaped puppy never makes a fleet dog. They see more promise in the loose-jointed, awkward, clumsy ones. And even so, there is a kind of crudity and unsettledness in the minds of those young persons who turn out ultimately the most eminent."

"It is the peculiar nature of the inestimable treasure of Christian truth and religious knowledge, that the more it is withheld from people, the less they wish for it; and the more is bestowed upon them, the more they hunger and thirst after it. If people are kept upon a short allowance of food, they are eager to obtain it; if you keep a man thirsty, he will become the more and more thirsty; if he is poor, he is exceedingly anxious to become rich; but if he is left in a state of spiritual destitution, he will, and still more his children, cease to feel it, and cease to care about it. It is the last want men can be trusted (in the first instance) to supply for themselves."

"It is to be feared, indeed, that Society would fare but ill if none did service to the Public except in proportion as they possessed the rare moral and intellectual endowment of enlightened public spirit. For such a spirit, whether in the form of patriotism or that of philanthropy, implies not merely benevolent feelings stronger than, in fact, we commonly meet with, but also powers of abstraction beyond what the mass of mankind can possess."

"It is to be observed that at the present day it is common to use the words ?custom? and ?habit? as synonymous, and often to employ the latter where Bacon would have used the former. But, strictly speaking, they denote respectively the cause and the effect. Repeated acts constitute the ?custom;? and the ?habit? is the condition of mind or body thence resulting. For instance, a man who has been accustomed to rise at a certain hour will have acquired the habit of waking and being ready to rise as soon as that hour arrives. And one who has made it his custom to drink drams will have fallen into the habit of craving for that stimulus, and of yielding to that craving; and so of the rest."

"It is well known what a reproach to our climate is the prevalence of fogs, and how much more of risk and of inconvenience results from that mixture of light and obscurity than from the darkness of night. But let anyone imagine to himself, if he can, a mist so resplendent with gay prismatic colours that men should forget its inconveniences in their admiration of its beauty, and that a kind of nebular taste should prevail, for preferring that gorgeous dimness to vulgar daylight: nothing short of this could afford a parallel to the mischief done to the public mind by some late writers both in England and America,?a sort of ?Children of the Mist,? who bring forward their speculations?often very silly, and not seldom very mischievous?under cover of the twilight. They have accustomed their disciples to admire as a style sublimely philosophical what may best be described as a certain haze of words imperfectly understood, through which some seemingly original ideas, scarcely distinguishable in their outlines, loom, as it were, on the view, in a kind of dusky magnificence, that greatly exaggerates their real dimensions."

"It is when considered as the passage to another world that the contemplation of death becomes holy and religious; that is, calculated to promote a state of preparedness for our setting out on this great voyage,?our departure from this world to enter the other. It is manifest that those who are engrossed with the things that pertain to this life alone, who are devoted to worldly pleasure, to worldly gain, honour, or power, are certainly not preparing themselves for the passage into another; while it is equally manifest that the change of heart, of desires, wishes, tastes, thoughts, dispositions, which constitutes a meetness for entrance into a happy, holy, heavenly state,?the hope of which can indeed ?mate and master the fear of death,??must take place here on earth; for, if not, it will not take place after death."

"It is worth mentioning, that your judgment of any one?s character who has done anything wrong ought to be exactly the same whether the wrong was done to you or to any one else. A man who has cheated or slandered you is neither more nor less a cheat and a slanderer than if it had been some other person, a stranger to you. This is evident; yet there is great need to remind people of it; for, as the very lowest minds of all regard with far the most disapprobation any wrong from which they themselves suffer, so, those a few steps, and only a few, above them, in their dread of such manifest injustice, think they cannot bend the twig too far the contrary way, and are for regarding (in theory, at least, if not in practice) wrongs to oneself as no wrongs at all. Such a person will reckon it a point of heroic generosity to let loose on society a rogue who has cheated him, and to leave uncensured and unexposed a liar by whom he has been belied; and the like in other cases. And if you refuse favour and countenance to those unworthy of it, whose misconduct has at all affected you, he will at once attribute this to personal vindictive feelings; as if there could be no such thing as esteem and disesteem."

"It is worth noticing, that those who assume an imposing demeanour, and seek to puff themselves off for something beyond what they are (and often succeed), are not unfrequently as much under-rated by some as they are over-rated by others. For, as a man (according to what Bacon says in the essay ?On Discourse?) by keeping back some knowledge which he is believed to possess may gain credit for knowing something of which he is really ignorant, so if he is once or twice detected in pretending to know what he does not, he is likely to be set down as a mere pretender, and as ignorant of what he does know."

"It is worth remarking that praise is one of the things which almost every one must wish for, and be glad of, yet which it is not allowable to seek for as an end. To obtain the approbation of the wise and good by doing what is right, simply because it is right, is most gratifying to the natural and allowable wish to escape the censure and claim the approval of our fellow-creatures; but to make this gratification either wholly or partly our object?to hold up a finger on purpose (and for that sole purpose) to gain the applause of the whole world, is unjustifiable."

"It is worth remarking, as a curious circumstance, and the reverse of what many would expect, that the expenses called for by a real or imagined necessity, of those who have large incomes, are greater in proportion than those of persons with slenderer means; and that consequently a larger proportion of what are called the rich are in embarrassed circumstances, than of the poorer. This is often overlooked, because the absolute number of those with large incomes is so much less that, of course, the absolute number of persons under pecuniary difficulties in the poorer classes must form a very great majority. But if you look to the proportions it is quite the reverse. Take the number of persons of each amount of income, divided into classes, from œ100 per annum up to œ100,000 per annum, and you will find the percentage of those who are under pecuniary difficulties continually augmenting as you go upwards. And when you come to sovereign States, whose revenue is reckoned by millions, you will hardly find one that is not deeply involved in debt! So that it would appear that the larger the income the harder it is to live within it."

"It may be said, almost without qualification, that true wisdom consists in the ready and accurate perception of analogies. Without the former quality, knowledge of the past is uninstructive; without the latter, it is deceptive."

"It often happens that a man seeks, and obtains, much intercourse with the people of the country in which he travels, but falls in with only one particular set, whom he takes for representatives of the whole nation. Accordingly, to Bacon?s admonition about procuring letters of introduction we should add a caution as to the point of ?from whom?? or else the traveller may be consigned, as it were, to persons of some particular party, who will forward him to others of their own party in the next city, and so on through the chief part of Europe. And two persons who may have been thus treated by those of opposite parties may perhaps return from corresponding tours with as opposite impressions of the people of the countries they have visited as the knights in the fable, of whom one had seen only the silver side of the shield, and the other only the golden."

"It will be found that all frauds, like the ?wall daubed with untempered mortar,? with which men think to buttress up an edifice, tend to the decay of that which they are devised to support. This truth, however, will never be steadily acted on by those who have no moral detestation of falsehood. It is not given to those who do not prize straightforwardness for its own sake to perceive that it is the wisest course. The maxim that ?honesty is the best policy? is one which, perhaps, no one is ever habitually guided by in practice. An honest man is always before it, and a knave is generally behind it. He does not find out, till too late,?"

"It would have been well if Bacon had added some hints as to the mode of study: how books are to be chewed, and swallowed, and digested. For, besides inattentive readers, who measure their proficiency by the pages they have gone over, it is quite possible, and not uncommon, to read most laboriously, even so as to get by heart the words of a book, without really studying it at all; that is, without employing the thoughts on the subject."

"It will often happen, therefore, that when a man of very great real excellence does acquire great and general esteem, four-fifths of this will have been bestowed on the minor virtues of his character; and four-fifths of his admirers will have either quite overlooked the most truly admirable of his qualities, or else regarded them as pardonable weaknesses."

"Many a generous sentiment, and many a virtuous resolution, have been called forth and matured by admiration of one who may herself, perhaps, have been incapable of either. It matters not what the object is that a man aspires to be worthy of, and proposes as a model of imitation, if he does but believe it to be excellent. Moreover, all doubts of success (and they are seldom, if ever, entirely wanting) must either produce or exercise humility; and the endeavour to study another?s interests and inclinations and prefer them to one?s own may promote a habit of general benevolence which may outlast the present occasion. Everything, in short, which tends to abstract a man in any degree or in any way from self?from self-admiration and self-interest?has, so far at least, a beneficial influence on character."

"Many are saved by the deficiency of their memory from being spoiled by their education; for those who have no extraordinary memory are driven to supply its defects by thinking. If they do not remember a mathematical demonstration, they are driven to devise one. If they do not exactly retain what Aristotle or Smith have said, they are driven to consider what they were likely to have said, or ought to have said. And thus their faculties are invigorated by exercise."

"Many persons have never reflected on the circumstance that one of the earliest translations of the Scriptures into a vernacular tongue was made by the Church of Rome. The Latin Vulgate was so called from its being in the vulgar?i.e., the popular?language then spoken in Italy and the neighbouring countries: and that version was evidently made on purpose that the Scriptures might be intelligibly read by, or read to, the mass of the people. But gradually and imperceptibly Latin was superseded by the languages derived from it,?Italian, Spanish, and French,?while the Scriptures were still left in Latin; and when it was proposed to translate them into modern tongues, this was regarded as a perilous innovation, though it is plain that the real innovation was that which had taken place imperceptibly, since the very object proposed by the Vulgate version was that the Scriptures might not be left in an unknown tongue."

"Mere innocent amusement is in itself a good, when it interferes with no greater, especially as it may occupy the place of some other that may not be innocent. The Eastern monarch who proclaimed a reward to him who should discover a new pleasure would have deserved well of mankind had he stipulated that it should be blameless. Those, again, who delight in the study of human nature may improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable application of that knowledge, by the perusal of such fictions [by Miss Jane Austen] as those before us."

"Neglect not, then, any of the advantages of intellectual cultivation which God?s providence has placed within your reach; nor think scorn of that pleasant land, and prefer wandering by choice in the barren wilderness of ignorance; but let the intellect which God has endowed you with be cultivated as a servant to Him, and then it will be, not a master, but a useful servant, to you."

"Neither is superstition (as it has been defined by a popular though superficial writer) ?an excess of religion? (at least in the ordinary sense of the word excess), as if anyone could have too much of true religion, but any misdirection of religious feeling; manifested either in showing religious veneration or regard to objects which deserve none; that is, properly speaking, the worship of false gods; or in the assignment of such a degree or such a kind of religious veneration to any object as that object, though worthy of some reverence, does not deserve; or in the worship of the true God through the medium of improper rites and ceremonies."

"No one complains of the rules of Grammar as fettering Language; because it is understood that correct use is not founded on Grammar, but Grammar on correct use. A just system of Logic or of Rhetoric is analogous, in this respect, to Grammar.."

"No one, in fact, is capable of fully appreciating the ultimate expediency of a devoted adherence to Truth, save the divine Being, who is ?the Truth;? because he alone comprehends the whole of the vast and imperfectly-revealed scheme of Providence, and alone can see the inmost recesses of the human heart, and alone can foresee and judge of the remotest consequences of human actions."

"Now, Bacon is a striking instance of a genius who could think so profoundly, and at the same time so clearly, that an ordinary man understands readily most of his wisest sayings, and perhaps thinks them so self-evident as hardly to need mention. But, on reconsideration and repeated meditation, you perceive more and more what extensive and important applications one of his maxims will have, and how often it has been overlooked; and on returning to it again and again, fresh views of its importance will continually open on you. One of his sayings will be like some of the heavenly bodies that are visible to the naked eye, but in which you see continually more and more, the better the telescope you apply to them."

"Of persons who have led a temperate life, those will have the best chance of longevity who have done hardly anything else but live;?what may be called the neuter verbs?not active or passive, but only being: who have had little to do, little to suffer, but have led a life of quiet retirement, without exertion of body or mind?avoiding all troublesome enterprise, and seeking only a comfortable obscurity. Such men, if of a pretty strong constitution, and if they escape any remarkable calamities, are likely to live long. But much affliction, or much exertion, and, still more, both combined, will be sure to tell upon the constitution?if not at once, yet at least as years advance. One who is of the character of an active or passive verb, or, still more, both combined, though he may be said to have lived long in everything but years, will rarely reach the age of the neuters."

"Of Rhetoric various definitions have been given by different writers; who, however, seem not so much to have disagreed in their conceptions of the nature of the same thing, as to have had different things in view while they employed the same term."

"On the whole, there is nothing that more tends to deprave the moral sense than Party, because it supplies that sympathy for which Man has a natural craving. To any one unconnected with Party, the temptations of personal interest or gratification are in some degree checked by the disapprobation of those around him. But a partisan finds himself surrounded by persons most of whom, though perhaps not unscrupulous in their private capacity, are prepared to keep him in countenance in much that is unjustifiable,?to overlook or excuse almost anything in a zealous and efficient partisan,?and even to applaud what in another they would condemn, so it does but promote some party-object. For Party corrupts the conscience, by making almost all virtues flow, as it were, in its own channel. Zeal for truth becomes, gradually, zeal for the watchword?the shibboleth?of the party; justice, mercy, benevolence, are all limited to the members of that party, or (which is usually even more detested) those of no party. Candour is made to consist in putting the best construction on all that comes from one side, and the worst on all that does not. Whatever is wrong in any member of the party is either boldly denied, in the face of all evidence, or vindicated, or passed over in silence; and whatever is, or can be brought to appear, wrong on the opposite side, is readily credited, and brought forward, and exaggerated. The principles of conduct originally the noblest, disinterested self-devotion, courage, and active zeal, Party perverts to its own purposes; veracity, submissive humility, charity,?in short, every Christian virtue,?it enlists in its cause, and confines within its own limits; and the conscience becomes gradually so corrupted that it becomes a guide to evil instead of good. The ?light that is in us becomes darkness.?"

"One very useful precept for students is, never to remain long puzzling out any difficulty; but lay the book and the subject aside, and return to it some hours after, or next day; after having turned the attention to something else. Sometimes a person will weary his mind for several hours in some efforts (which might have been spared) to make out some difficulty, and next day, when he returns to the subject, will find it quite easy."

"One way in which fools succeed where wise men fail is, that through ignorance of the danger they sometimes go coolly about some hazardous business. Hence the proverb that ?The fairies take care of children, drunken men, and idiots.?"