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5 Duelling, as a punishment, is absurd, because it is an equal chance, whether the punishment fall upon the offender or the person offended. Nor is it much better as a reparation; it being difficult to explain in what the satisfaction consists, or how it tends to undo the injury, or to afford a compensation for the damage already sustained.

6 For the army, where the point of honor is cultivated with exquisite attention and refinement, I would establish a court of honor, with a power of awarding those submissions and acknowledgments, which it is generally the purpose of a challenge to obtain; and it might grow into fashion, with persons of rank of all professions, to refer their quarrels to the same tribunal.

7 Malicious slander, is the relating of either truth or falsehood for the purpose of creating misery. I acknowledge that the truth or falsehood of what is related varies the degree of guilt considerably: and that slander, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, signifies the circulation of mischievous falsehood; but truth may be made instrumental to the success of malicious designs as well as falsehood; and if the end he had, the means cannot be innocent. Information communicated for the real purpose of warning or cautioning, is not slander.

SECTION VII.

Of the duty of parents. Education.

1 Education, in the most extensive sense of the word, may comprehend every preparation that is made in our youth for the sequel of our lives; and in this sense I use it.

2 Some such preparation is necessary for children of all conditions, because, without it, they must be miserable, and probably will be vicious, when they grow up, either from want of means of subsistence, or from want of rational and inoffensive occupation. In civilizea life, every thing is effected by art and skill.

3 Whence a person who is provided with neither (and neither can be acquired without exercise and instructions) will be useless; and he that is useless, will generally be at the same time mischievous to the community. So that to send an uneducated child into the world is injurious to the rest of mankind.

4 In the inferior classes of community, this principle condemns the neglect of parents, who do not inure their children by times to labor and restraint, by providing them with apprenticeships, services, or other regular employment, but who suffer them to waste their youth in idleness and vagrancy, or to betake themselves to some lazy, trifling, and precarious calling; for the consequence of having thus tasted the sweets of natural liberty, at an age when their passion and relish for it are at the highest, is, that they become incapable for the remainder of their lives of continued industry, or of persevering attention to any thing; spend their time in a miserable struggle between the importunity of want, and the irksomeness of regular application; and are prepared to embrace every expedient, which presents a hope of supplying their necessities without confining them to the plow, the loom, the shop, or the counting house.

5 A man of fortune who permits his son to consume the season of education, in hunting, shooting, or in frequenting horse races, assemblies, or other unedifying, if not vicious diversions, defrauds the community of a benefactor, and bequeaths them a nuisance.

6 The health and virtue of a child's future life are considerations so superior to all others, that whatever is likely to have the smallest influence upon these, deserves the parent's first attention. In respect of health, agriculture, and all active, rural, and out-of-door employments, are to be preferred to manufactures and sedentary occupations.

7 In respect of virtue, a course of dealings in which the advantage is mutual, in which the profit on one side is connected with the benefit of the other (which is the case in trade, and all serviceable art or labor,) is more favorable to the moral character, than callings in which one man's gain is another's loss, in which, what you acquire, is acquired without equivalent, and parted with in distress. For security, manual arts exceed merchandise, and such as supply the wants of mankind are better than those which minister to their plea

sure.

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CHAPTER 3.

ABRIDGMENT OF BARON KNIGGE'S PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY
OF SOCIAL LIFE, OR THE ART OF CONVERSING WITH MEN:
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, BY THE REV. P. WILL.

The advantages which I have derived from the study and application of
the excellent observations and rules which this work contains, and the
salutary effects which I have seen it produce in the life of those of my
pupils to whom I have recommended it, and who followed the sage instruc-
tions with which it abounds, made me wish most ardently, to see it dress-
ed in an English garb, and circulated in a country which is so dear to me.
It went through five editions in the course of a few years, and, if I may
presume to judge of its usefulness, from my own experience, stands fore-
most amongst all the books which ever have been written to promote so-
cial happiness.
- Translator.

SECTION I.

General rules and observations to guide us in conversa

tion with men.

1 Strive to render yourself perfect; but avoid the appearance of perfection and infallibility. Be however not too much the slave of the opinion which others form of you. Be self-consistent! What need have you to care for the eensure of the world if you act as you ought to do? Your whole wardrobe of external virtues is not worth a pin, if you conceal a weak and mean heart under that tinsel dress, and put it on only to make a show with it in companies.

2 Above all things take care not to lose your confidence in yourself, your trust in God, in good men and fortune. Disclose never in an ungenerous manner the defects of your neighbor, in order to sound your own praise at his expense; nor expose the failings of others to shine with additional lustre.

3 No rule is more generally useful, none ought to be oberved more sacredly, and tends more to procure us respect and friends than that which teaches us to keep our word rigidly, even in the most trifling instances, to be faithful to all our promises, and never to wander from the strait road of truth and veracity. You are entitled in no instance, and by no motive whatever, to say the contrary of what you think, although it would frequently be highly wrong and imprudent to disclose every thought of your heart.

4 No necessity, how imperious soever it be, can excuse an untruth; no breach of veracity has ever been committed without having produced, sooner or later, painful consequences; whereas the man who is known to be a slave to his

1

word, and never to indulge himself with the commission of an untruth, gains confidence, a good name, and general regard.

5 Be strict, punctual, regular, assiduous and diligent in your calling. Interest yourself for others, if you wish them to interest themselves for you. A person that is destitute of fellow-feeling, of a sense of friendship, benevolence and love, and lives merely for himself, will also be left to shift for himself when he wants the assistance of others.

6 Above all things be always consistent. Form a certain plan of life, and do not swerve from it the breadth of a hair, although that plan should be rather singular. People will, perhaps, talk a short time of your singularity, but finally be silent, refrain from disturbing you any further, and, esteem you for your firmness, We in general, are always gainers by a regular perseverance and a wise firmness.

7 Above all things strive to have always a good conscience. Avoid most studiously to give your heart the least occasion to reproach you on account of the object of your actions, and of the means which you employ to attain it. Pursue never crooked ways, and you may firmly rely upon good consequences, the assistance of God and of good men in time of need.

8 Although you should be thwarted for some time by misfortune, yet the blissful consciousness of the goodness of your heart, and of the rectitude of your designs, will afford you uncommon strength and comfort. Attempt never to render a person ridiculous in company, how many defects soever he may have.

9 If you are desirous to gain lasting respect; if you wish to offend no one; to tire no person by your conversation, I advise you not to season your discourse constantly with aspersions, ridicule, and backbiting, nor to use yourself to the contemptible custom of jeering.

10 This may please now and then, particularly in the circle of a certain class of people; but a man that constantly labors to amuse the company at the expense of other people, or of truth, will certainly be shunned and despised at last, and he deserves it; for a man of feeling and understanding will bear with the failings of others, as he must be sensible how much mischief sometimes a single expression of ridicule may produce, though no harm be meant. He also cannot but wish for more substantial and useful conversation, and loathe gibing nonsense. Yet we use ourselves but too easily to that miserable custom, in what are called the fashionable circles.

11 I do however not mean to condemn all ridicule in general, and at all times, nor to deny that many follies and absurdities can be counteracted best, in less familiar circles by the lashes of fine, not too plain, nor too personal ridicule. Neither do I desire you to applaud every thing you see and hear, nor to excuse all faults; I rather must confess, that I always suspect people that affect to cover all defects of others with the cloak of charity.

12 They are generally hypocrites, who wish to bribe others by the honorable terms in which they speak of them, to forget the injuries which they commit against those very persons: or they intend to prevail on us by such a conduct, to be equally indulgent to their own failings and defects.

13 Be careful not to carry stories from one house to another, nor to relate familiar table talks, family discourses, and observations which you have made on the domestic concerns and life of people with whom you frequently converse. Although you should not be a malicious tale-bearer, yet such an officious garrulity would create mistrust, and might occasion a great deal of animosity and discord.

14 Whenever you speak of bodily, mental, moral, or other defects, or relate anecdotes that place certain principles in a ridiculous light, or reflect some blame upon certain ranks in life; then be cautious to ascertain first, that no one is present who could be offended by it, or take that censure or ridicule as a reflection upon himself, or his relations and friends. Ridicule the person, shape and features of no one; for it is not in the power of any mortal to alter them.

SECTION II.

On the conversation with ourselves.

1 Take care of the health of your mind as well as that of your body; but spoil neither the one nor the other by too much tenderness. The man that endangers his constitution by too much labor or excess, squanders away a treasure which frequently is alone sufficient to raise him above men and fate, and for the loss of which the wealth of all the world cannot compensate.

2 But he that dreads every breeze of air, and is fearful to exert and exercise his limbs, lives a nerveless life of constant anxiety, and attempts in vain to put the rusty springs in motion when he has occasion to exert his natural powers.

3 A man that constantly exposes his mind to the tempests of passion, or incessantly crowds the sails of his spirit, either runs aground or must return with his leaky vessel into port,

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