There is,
throughout
his manner
?
?
Madame de Stael - Germany
Nations of ardent character do not talk of
sensibility without terror: a peaceable and
dreaming people believe they can encourage
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? OF A ROMANTIC BIAS. 235
it without alarm. For the rest, it is pos-
sible, that this subject has never been written
upon with perfect sincerity; for every one
wishes to do himself honour by what he
feels, or by what he inspires. Women en-
deavour to set themselves out like a romance;
men like a history; but the human heart is
still far from being penetrated in its most in-
timate relations. At one time or another,
perhaps, somebody will tell us sincerely all
he has felt; and we shall be quite astonished
at discovering, that the greater part of
maxims and observations are erroneous, and
that there is an unknown soul at the bottom
of that which we have been describing.
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? 236 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
CHAPTER XIX.
Of Love in Marriage.
It is in marriage that sensibility is a duty:
in every other relation virtue may suffice;
but in that in which destinies are inter-
twined, where the same impulse, so to speak,
serves for the beatings of two hearts, it seems
that a profound affection is almost a ne-
cessary tie. The levity of manners has in-
troduced so much misery into married life,
that the moralists of the last age were ac-
customed to refer all the enjoyments of the
heart to paternal and maternal love; and
ended by almost considering marriage only
in the light of a requisite condition for en-
joying the happiness of having children.
This is false in morals, and still more false
with regard to happiness. ?
It is so easy to be good for the sake of
our children, that we ought not to make a
great merit of it. In their first years they
can have no will but that of their parents;
and when they have arrived at youth, they
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? OF LOVE IN MARRIAGE. 2Sf
exist by themselves. Justice and goodness
compose the principal duties of a relation
which nature makes easy. It is not thus in
our connexions with that half of ourselves,
who may find happiness or unhappiness in
the least of our actions, of our looks, and of
our thoughts. It is there alone that mo-
rality can exert itself in its complete energy;
it is there also that is placed the true source
of felicity.
A friend of the same age, in whose pre-
sence you are to live and die; a friend whose
every interest is your own; all whose pro-
spects are partaken by yourself, including
that of the grave: here is a feeling which
constitutes all our fate. Sometimes, it is
true, our children, and more often our
parents, become our companions through
life; but this rare and sublime enjoyment is
combated by the laws of nature; while the
marriage-union is in accord with the whole
of human existence.
Whence comes it, then, that this so holy
union is so often profaned? I will venture to
say it--the cause is, that remarkable inequality
which the opinion of society establishes be-
tween the duties of the two parties. Chris-
tianity has drawn women out of a state that
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? 538 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
resembled slavery. Equality, in the sight
of God, being the basis of this wondeful re-
ligion, it has a tendency towards maintain-
ing the equality of rights upon earth :--di-
vine justice, the only perfect justice, admits
no kind of privilege, and, above all, refuses
that of force. Nevertheless, there have been
left, by the slavery of women, some preju-
dices, which, combining with the great li-
berty that society allows them, have occa-
sioned many evils.
It is right to exclude women from politi-
cal and civil affairs; nothing is more opposite
to their natural destination than all that
would bring them into rivalry with men;
and glory itself would be for woman only a
splendid mourning-suit for happiness. But,
if the destiny of women ought to consist in
a continual act of devotion to conjugal love,
the recompense of this devotion is the strict
faithfulness of him who is its object.
Religion makes no distinction between the
duties of the two parties; but the world
establishes a wide difference; and out of this
difference grows intrigue in women, and re-
sentment in men.
"What heart can give itself entirely up,
"Nor wish another heart alike entire? "
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? OF LOVE IN MARRIAGE. 239
Who then, in good faith, accepts friendship
as the price of love? Who, sincerely, pro-
raises constancy to voluntary infidelity? Re-
ligion, without doubt, can demand it; for
she alone knows the secret of that mysterious
land where sacrifices are enjoyments:--but
how unjust is the exchange to which man
endeavours to make his companion submit!
"I will love you," he says, "passion-
"ately, for two or three years; and then,
"at the end of that time, I will talk reason
"to you. " And this, which they call reason,
is the disenchantment of life. "I will show,
"in my own house, coldness and weari-
"someness of spirit; I will try to please else-
"where: but you, who are ordinarily pos-
"sessed of more imagination and sensibility
"than lam; you, who have nothing to em-
"ploy, nor to distract you, while the world
"offers me every sort of avocation; you,
"who only exist for me, while I have a
"thousand other thoughts; you will be sa-
"tisfied with that subordinate, icy, divided
"affection, which it is convenient to me to
"grant you; and you will reject with dis-
41 dain all the homage which expresses more
"exalted and more tender sentiments. "
How unjust a treaty! all human feeling
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? 240 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
revolts from it. There is a singular con-
trast between the forms of respect towards
women, which the spirit of chivalry intro-
duced in Europe, and the tyrannical sort of
liberty which men have allotted to them-
selves. This contrast produces all the mis-
fortunes of sentiment, unlawful attachments,
perfidy, abandonment, and despair. The
German nations have been less afflicted than
others with these fatal events; but they
ought, upon this point, to fear the influence
which is sure to be exerted at length by mo-
dern civilization. It would be better to shut
up women like slaves, neither to rouse their
understanding nor their imagination, than to
launch them into the middle of the world,
and to develope all their faculties, in order
to refuse them at last the happiness which
those faculties render necessary to them.
There is an excess of wretchedness in an
unhappy marriage which transcends every
other misery in the world. The whole soul
of a wife reposes upon the attachment of
her husband :--to struggle alone against for-
tune; to advance towards the grave without
the friend who should regret us; this is an
isolated state, of which the Arabian desert
gives but a faint idea:--and, when all the
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? OF LOVE IN MARRIAGE. 241
treasure of your youthful years has been re-
signed in vain; when you hope no longer,
at the end of life, the reflection of those
early rays; when the twilight has nothing
more that can recall the dawn, but is pale
and discoloured as the phantom that fore-
runs the night:--then your heart revolts;
and if you still love the being who treats you
as a slave, since he does not belong to you,
and yet disposes of you, despair seizes all
your faculties, and Conscience herself grows
troubled at the intensity of your distress.
Women might address those husbands
who treat their fate with levity in these lines
of the fable :--
"Yes! for you it is but play--
"But it steals our lives away. "
And uatil some revolution of ideas shall take
place, which changes the opinion of men as
to the constancy which the marriage-tie im-
poses upon them, there will be always war
between the two sexes; secret, eternal, cun-
ning, perfidious war; and the morals of both
will equally suffer by it.
In Germany there is hardly any inequality
in marriage between the two sexes; but it is
because the women, as often as the men,
break the most holy bonds. The facility of
VOL. III. R
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? 242 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
divorce introduces in family connexions a sort
of anarchy which suffers nothing to remain
in its proper truth or strength. It would be
much better, in order to maintain something
sacred upon earth, that there were one slave
in marriage, rather than two free-thinkers.
Purity of mind and conduct is the first
glory of a woman. What a degraded being
would she be, deprived of both these qua-
lities! But general happiness, and the dig-
nity of the human species, would perhaps
not gain less by the fidelity of man in mar-
riage. In a word, what is there more beau-
tiful in moral order than a young man who
respects this sacred tie? Opinion does not
require it of him; society leaves him free:
a sort of savage pleasantry would endeavour
to ridicule even the complaints of the heart
which he had broken; for censure is easily,
turned upon the sufferer. He then is the
master, but he imposes duties on himself;
no disagreeable result can arise to himself
from his faults; but he dreads the evil he
may do to her who has intrusted herself to
his heart; and generosity attaches him so
much the more, because society dissolves his
attachment.
Fidelity is enjoined to women by a thou-
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? Ofc LOVE IN MARRIAGE. 243
sand different considerations. They may
dread the dangers and the disgraces which
are the inevitable consequences of one error.
The voice of Conscience alone is audible by
man; he knows he causes suffering to an-
other; he knows that he is destroying, by his
inconstancy, a sentiment which ought to last
till death, and to be renewed in heaven:--
alone with himself, alone in the midst of se-
ductions of every kind, he remains pure as
an angel; for if angels have not been repre-
sented under the characters of women, it is
because the union of strength and purity is
more beautiful, and also more celestial, than
even the most perfect modesty itself in a
feeble being.
Imagination, when it has not memory for
a bridle, detracts from what we possess, em-
bellishes what we fear we shall not obtain,
and turns sentiment into a conquered diffi-
culty. But; in the same manner as in the
arts, difficulties vanquished do not require
real genius; so in sentiment security is ne-
cessary, in order to experience those affec-
tions which are the pledges of eternity, be-
cause they alone give us an idea of that
which cannot come to an end.
To the young man who remains faithful,
r3
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? 244 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
every day seems to increase the preference he
feels towards her he loves; nature has be-
stowed on him unbounded freedom, and for
a long time, at least, he never looks forward
to evil days: his horse can carry him to the
end of the world; war, when to that he
devotes himself, frees him (at least at the
moment) from domestic relations, and seems
to reduce all the interest of existence to vic-
tory or death. The earth is his own, all its
pleasures are offered to him; no fatigue in-
timidates him, no intimate association is ne-
cessary to him ; he clasps the hand of a com-
panion in arms, and the only tie he thinks
necessary to him is formed. A time will,
no doubt, arrive when Destiny will reveal to
him her dreadful secrets; but, as yet, he sus-
pects them not. Every time that a new ge-
neration comes into possession of its domain,
does it not think that all the misfortunes of
its predecessors arose from their weakness?
Is it not persuaded that they were born weak
and trembling, as they now are seen? Well!
From the midst of so many illusions, how
virtuous and sensible is he who devotes him-
self to a lasting attachment; the tie which
binds this life to the other! Ah, how noble
is a manly and dignified expression, when,
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? OP LOVE IN MARRIAGE. 245
at the same time, it is modest and pure!
There we behold a ray of that heavenly
shame which beams from the crown of holy
virgins, to light up even the warrior's brow.
If a young man chooses to share with one
object the bright days of youth, he will,
doubtless, amongst his contemporaries, meet
with some who will pronounce the sentence
of dupery upon him, the terror of the children
of our times. But is he, who alone will be
truly loved, a dupe? for the distresses, or
the enjoyments of self-love, form the whole
tissue of the frivolous and deceitful affections.
Is he a dupe who does not amuse himself in
deceiving others? to be, in his turn, still
more deceived, more deeply ruined perhaps
than his victim? In short, is he a dupe
who has not sought for happiness in the
wretched combinations of vanity, but in the
eternal beauties of nature, which all proceed
from constancy, from duration, and from
depth?
No; God, in creating man the first, has
made him the noblest of his creatures; and
the most noble creature is that one which
has the greater number of duties to perform.
It is a singular abuse of the prerogative of a
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? 246 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
superior nature to make it serve as an in-
strument to free itself from the most sacred
ties, whereas true superiority consists in the
power of the soul; and the power of the
soul is virtue.
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? MODERN WRITERS, &C 247
CHAPTER XX.
Modern Writers of the ancient School in
Germany.
Before the new school had given birth in
Germany to two inclinations, which seem to
exclude each other, metaphysics and poetry,
scientific method and enthusiasm, there were
some writers who deserved an honourable
place by the side of the English moralists.
Mendelsohn, Garve, Suleer, Engel, &c. have
Avritten upon sentiments and duties with
sensibility, religion, and candour. We do
not, in their works, meet with that ingenious
knowledge of the world, which characterizes
the French authors, La Rochefoucault, La
Bruyere, &c. German moralists paint so-
ciety with a certain degree of ignorance
which is interesting at first, but at last be-
comes monotonous.
Garve is the writer, of all others, who
has attached the highest importance to speak-
ing well of good company, fashion, polite-
ness, &c.
There is, throughout his manner
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? 248 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
of expressing himself on this head, a great
desire to appear a man of the world, to know
the reason of every thing, to be knowing
like a Frenchman, and to judge favourably
of the court and of the town; but the
common-place ideas which he displays in
his writings on these different subjects prove,
that he knows nothing but by hearsay,
and has never taken those refined and
delicate views which the relations of society
afford.
When Garve speaks of virtue, he shows
a pure understanding and a tranquil mind:
he is particularly engaging, and original, in
his treatise on Patience. Borne down by a
cruel malady, he supported it with admirable
fortitude; and whatever we have felt our-
selves inspires new ideas.
Mendelsohn, a Jew by birth, devoted
himself, from commerce, to the study of the
fine arts, and of philosophy, without re-
nouncing, in the smallest degree, either the
belief or the rites of his religion; and being
a sincere admirer of the Phedon, of which
he was the translator, he retained the ideas
and the sentiments which were the pre-
cursors of Jesus Christ; and, educated in
the Psalms and in the Bible, his writings
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? MODERN WRITERS, &C. 249
preserve the character of Hebrew simplicity.
He delighted in making morality perceptible,
by parables in the eastern style; and that
style is certainly the more pleasing, as it
deprives precepts of the tone of reproach.
Among these fables, I shall translate one,
which appears to me remarkable:--" Under
"the tyrannical government of the Greeks,
"the Israelites were once forbidden, under
"pain of death, to read amongst themselves
"the divine laws. Rabbi Akiba, notwith-
"standing this prohibition, held assemblies,
"where he gave lectures on this law. Pappus
"heard of it, and said to him, 4 Akiba, dost
"thou not fear the threats of these cruel
"men Y--4 I will relate thee a fable/ re-
"plied the Rabbi. --* A Fox was walking on
"the bank of a river, and saw the Fishes col-
"lecting together, in terror, at the bottom of
"the river. "What causes your alarm Y'
"said the Fox. --" The children of men," re-
"plied the Fishes, "are throwing their lines
"into the river, to catch us, and we are
"trying to escape from them. "--" Do you
"know what you ought to do? " said the
"Fox. "Go there, upon the rock, where men
u cannot reach you. "--" Is it possible," cried
"the Fishes, "that thou canst be the Fox,
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? 250 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
"esteemed the most cunning amongst ani-
"mals? If thou seriously givest us this
"advice, thou showest thyself the most
"ignorant of them all. The water is to us
"the element of life; and is it possible for
"us to give it up because we are threatened
"by dangers ? "--Pappus, the application of
"this fable is easy: religious doctrine is to
"us the source of all good; by that, and for
"that alone, we exist; if we are pursued
"into that refuge, we will not withdraw
"ourselves from danger, by seeking shelter
"in death. '"
The greater part of the world give no
better advice than the fox: when they see
persons of sensibility agitated by heart-aches,
they always propose to them to quit the air
where the storm is, to enter into the vacuum
which destroys life.
Engel, like Mendelsohn, teaches morality
in a dramatic manner: his fictions are tri-
fling; but they bear an intimate relation to
the mind. In one of them he represents an
old man become mad by the ingratitude of
his son; and the old man's smile, while his
misfortune is being related, is painted with
heart-rending truth. The man who is no
longer conscious of his own existence, is ail
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? MODERN WRITERS, &C. 251
frightful an object as a corpse walking with-
out life. "It is a tree," says Engel, " the
"branches of which are withered; its roots
"are still fixed in the earth, but its top is
"already seized upon by death. " A young
man, at the sight of this unfortunate crea-
ture, asks his father, if there is on earth a
destiny more dreadful than that of this poor
maniac? --All the sufferings which destroy,
all those of which our reason is witness,
seem to him nothing when compared with
this deplorable self-ignorance. The father
leaves his son to unfold all the horrors of
the situation before him ; and then suddenly
asks him, if that of the wretch who has
been the cause of it, is not a thousand times
more dreadful? The gradation of the ideas
is very well kept up in this recital, and the
picture of the agonies of the mind is repre-
sented with eloquence that redoubles the
terror caused by the most dreadful of all
remorse.
I have in another place quoted a passage
from the Messiah, in which the poet sup-
poses, that, in a distant planet, where the
inhabitants are immortal, an angel arrived
with intelligence, that there existed a world
where human beings were subject to death.
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? 252 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
Klopstock draws an admirable picture of the
astonishment of those beings who knew not
the grief of losing those they loved. Engel
ingeniously displays an idea not less striking.
A man has seen all he held most dear, his
wife and his daughter, perish. A sentiment
of bitterness and of revolt against Providence
takes possession of him: an old friend en-
deavours to re-open his heart to that deep
but resigned grief, which pours itself out on
the bosom of God; he shows him that death
is the source of all the moral enjoyments of
man.
Would there be affection between parent
and child if man's existence was not at once
lasting and transitory; fixed by sentiment,
hurried away by time? If there was no
longer any decline in the world, there would
be no longer any progress: how then should
we experience fear and hope? In short, in
every action, in every sentiment, in every
thought, death has its share. And not only
in reality, but in imagination also, the joys
and sorrows, which arise from the instability
of life, are inseparable. Existence consists
entirely in those sentiments of confidence,
and of anxiety, with which the soul is filled,
wandering between heaven and earth, and
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? MODERN WRITERS, &C. 253
death is the principal cause of our actions in
life. ?
A woman, alarmed at the storms of the
South, wished to remove to the frigid zone,
where thunder is not heard, nor lightning
seen:--our complaints against our lots are
much of the same sort, says Engel. In fact,
nature must be disenchanted, if all its dan-
gers are to be removed. The charm of the
world seems to belong to pain. as much as to
pleasure, to fear as much as to hope; and it
may be said, that human destiny is ordered
like a drama, in which terror and pity are
necessary. ;. '
Undoubtedly, these thoughts are not suf-
ficient to heal up the wounds of the heart:
whatever we feel we consider as the over-
turning of nature, and no one ever suffered
without thinking that a great disorder existed
in the universe. But, when a long space of
time has given room for reflection, repose is
found in general considerations, and we unite
ourselves to the laws of the universe by de-
taching ourselves from ourselves.
The German moralists of the ancient school
are, for the most part, religious and feeling;
their theory of virtue is disinterested; they
do not admit that doctrine of utility, which
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? 254 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
would lead us, as it does in China, to throw
children into the river, if the population
became too numerous. Their works are
filled with philosophical ideas, and with me-
lancholy and tender affections; but this was
not enough to struggle against the selfish
morality, armed with its sarcastic irony.
This was not enough to refute sophisms,
which were used against the truest and the
best principles. The soft, and sometimes
even timid, sensibility of the ancient German
moralists was not sufficient to combat, with
success, an adroit system of logic, and an
elegant style of raillery, which, lik<< all bad
sentiments, bowed to nothing but force.
More pointed weapons are necessary to op-
pose those arms which the world has forged:
it is therefore with reason that the philoso-
phers of the new school have thought that a
more severe doctrine was requisite, a doctrine
of more energy, and closer in its arguments,
in order to triumph over the depravity of the
age.
Assuredly, all that is simple is sufficient
for all that is good; but when we live at a
time in which it has been attempted to range
wit on the side of immorality, it is necessary
to attempt to gain over genius as the defender
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? MODERN WRITERS, &C. 255
of virtue. Doubtless it is a matter of much
indifference whether we are accused of silli-
ness, when we express what we feel; but
this word silliness causes so much alarm
among understandings of mediocrity, that
we ought, if possible, to preserve them from
its infection.
The Germans, fearing that we may turn
their integrity to ridicule, sometimes attempt^
although much against their natural dispo*
sition, to take a flight towards immorality,
that they may acquire a brilliant and easy
air. The new philosophers, by elevating
their style and their ideas to a great height,
have skilfully flattered the self-love of their
adepts; and we ought to praise them for
this innocent species of art; for the Germans
have need of a sentiment of superiority over
others to strengthen their minds. There is
too much milk of human kindness in their
character, as well as in their understanding.
They are perhaps the only men to whom we
could recommend pride, as the means of
moral improvement. We cannot deny the
fact, that the disciples of the new school
have followed this advice to rather too great
a length; but they are, nevertheless, the
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? 256 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
most enlightened and the most courageous
authors of their country.
What discovery have they made? it will
be asked. No doubt, what was true in morals
two thousand years ago, is true at the pre-
sent moment; but, during this period, the
arguments of meanness and corruption have
been multiplied to such an excess, that a
philosopher of good feeling ought to pro-
portion his efforts to this fatal progress.
Common ideas cannot struggle against a
systematic immorality; we must dig deeper
inwards, when the exterior veins of the pre-
cious metals are exhausted. We have so
often seen, in our days, weakness united to
a large proportion of virtue, that we have
been accustomed to believe in the energy of
immorality. The German philosophers (and
let them receive the glory of the deed) have
been the first in the eighteenth century, who
have ranged free-thinking on the side of
faith, genius on the side of morality, and
character on the side of duty.
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? ignorance and frivolityof spirit. 257
CHAPTER XXL
Of Ignorance and Frivolity of Spirit in their
Relations to Morals.
Ignorance, such as it appeared some ages
past, respected knowledge, and was desirous
of attaining it. The ignorance of our days
is contemptuous, and endeavours to turn
into ridicule the labours and the meditations
of enlightened men. The philosophical spirit
has spread over almost all classes a facility
of reasoning, which is used to depreciate
every thing that is great and serious in
human nature, and we are at that epoch of
civilization, in which all the beauties of the
soul are mouldering into dust.
When the barbarians of the North seized
upon the possession of the most fertile
countries in Europe, they brought with
them some fierce and manly virtues; and in
their endeavours at self-improvement, they
asked from the South, her sun, and her arts
and sciences. But our civilized barbarians
esteem nothing except address in the manage-
ment of worldly affairs; and only instruct
vol. in. a
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? 258 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS*.
themselves just enough to ridicule, by a few
set phrases, the meditations of a whole life.
Those who deny the perfectibility of the
human understanding, pretend that progres-
sion and decline follow each other by turns,
and that the wheel of thought rolls round
like that of fortune. What a sad spectacle
is this! the generations of men employing
themselves upon earth, like Sisyphus in hell,
in constant and useless labour! and what
would then be the destiny of the human
race, when it resembled the most cruel pu-
nishment which the imagination of poetry
has conceived? But it is not thus; and we
can perceive a destiny always the same,
always consequential, always progressive, in
the history of man.
The contest between the interests of this
world and more elevated sentiments has
existed, at every period, in nations as well
as in individuals. Superstition sometimes
drives the enlightened into the opposite
party of incredulity; and sometimes, on the
contrary, knowledge itself awakens every
belief of the heart. At the present sera,
philosophers take refuge in religion, in order
to discover the source of high conceptions,
and of disinterested sentiments; at this sera,
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? IGNORANCE AND FRIVOLITY OF SPIRIT. 259
prepared by ages, the alliance between phi-
losophy and religion may be intimate and
sincere. The ignorant are not, as formerly,
the enemies of doubt, and determined to
reject all the false lights which might disturb
their religious hopes, and their chivalrous
self-devotion; the ignorant of our days are
incredulous, frivolous, superficial; they know
all that selfishness has need to know; and
their ignorance is only extended to those
sublime studies, which excite in the soul a
feeling of admiration for nature and for the
Deity.
Warlike occupations formerly filled up
the life of the nobility, and formed their
minds for action; but since, in our days, men
of the first rank have ceased to study any
science profoundly, all the activity of their
genius, which ought to have been employed
in the circle of affairs, or in intellectual
labours, is directed to the observation of
manners, and to the knowledge of anecdotes.
Young persons, just come from school,
hasten to put on idleness as soon as the
manly robe: men and women act as spies
upon each other in the minutest events,
not exactly from maliciousness, but in order
that they may have something to say, when
s2
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? 260 PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS.
they have nothing to employ their thoughts.
This sort of daily censoriousness destroys
good-nature and integrity. We are not
satisfied with ourselves when we abuse the
hospitality which we exercise or receive, by
criticising those with whom we live; and we
thus prevent the growth and the continuance
of all sincere affection; for in listening to
the ridicule of those who are dear to us, we
tarnish all that is pure and exalted in that
affection: sentiments, in which we do not
maintain perfect sincerity, do more mischief
than indifference.
