in a dark place; and the morning after, while he
was absent upon business in the market-place, I took
my little pestle, dressed it up, and using the proper
conjuration, commanded it to bring me some water.
When it had filled the cask Now leave off, my
friend, said I, and be a pestle again. It refused,
however, to obey me, and persevered in fetching
water till the whole house was nearly deluged. I
had forgotten the counter charm, and not knowing
what to do in this difficulty, and being very much
afraid of the displeasure of Pancrates, I took an axe,
and split the pestle in two ; but both the parts thus
severed, carried off the pitcher, and continued to
draw water ; so that I saw my servants multiplying
upon me, and my distress increasing in spite of all I
could do ; till at length Pancrates, coming in, re-
duced, in a moment, my retinue to wood, as before,
and saved me from being overwhelmed by their assi-
duities. Pancrates, however, withdrew himself private-
ly from me, and I never set eyes on him afterwards.'
" Now, Mr. Olive-Branch, I need not inform
you that Eucrates was a very ancient man, and
a very great philosopher : and yet among other phi-
losophers of the first reputation, he did not scruple
to tell this enormous lie. I may hope therefore that
you will follow so respectable an example, and en-
tertain your readers with some agreeable and engaging
lies. In the mean time, I beg you to believe, if you
can, that I am your mest obliged, humble, obedient,
and devoted servant,
". PSEUDOPHILUS."
The club, in general, was much entertained with
this whimsical letter; and Mr. Barnaby shook his
r2
oi LOOKER-ON. N 67-
sides till he raised the echo. Though no man re-
lishes humour more sensibly than Mr. Allworth, I
could observe that he was rather grave upon this oc-
casion ; and as he showed an inclination to speak, a
general silence took place. " I think, Mr. Olive-
Branch," said my worthy friend, " the letter you
have received, if it were written with an humourous
intention, has not ill succeeded : but I own I regard
truth, and all that concerns it, as too serious a sub-
ject to be jested upon ; and indeed the practice of
the present age looks so much as if it were founded
upon the principles set forth in the letter, that I con-
fess your correspondent has excited in my bosom
less mirth than melancholy. A direct falsehood,
thank heaven, still lies under its just odium ; but it is
not from direct falsehoods that we have most to ap-
prehend in the present times : I am principally
alarmed at the progress of those slant deviations from
truth, and those lurking obliquities of conduct, which
are all in the same spirit, and are the more dan-
gerous from the softer appellations they assume. I
choose, therefore, with your leave, to think rather
with Cicero than your pleasant correspondent, whose
opinion is as follows : Ex omni vita simulatio, dissi-
mulatio, tollenda est : ita nee ut emat, nee ut vendat,
quidquidsimulabit,atitdissimulabit VIR BONUS.'
' Let our lives be entirely purged of every thing
like feigning or dissembling ; insomuch that no one
may have the title of HONEST MAN, who shall
persuade himself to swerve one tittle from the truth
to over-reach his neighbours.'
" The language of politeness is perfectly consist-
ent with truth, notwithstanding all that your corre-
spondent has advanced. A lie is not locked up in a
phrase, but exists in the mind of the speaker. In
the common compliments of the day we have no in-
N67> LOOKER-ON. 185
tention to deceive ; and there is a secret compact
between the parties to understand them as words of
course. Any thing beyond this, except where some-
thing more is felt, is not expected by good sense
from genuine politeness.
" Truth, too, I believe, is generally the most po-
litical where our fortune and advancement is con-
cerned : and where truth dare not be spoken, there
is nevertheless both safety and wisdom in avoiding a
falsehood. A lion having a little complaint in his
stomach, called a sheep to him that happened to be
passing that way, and desired to be told if his breath
were tainted. The poor animal, incapable of dis-
guise, answered frankly, " Aye;" upon which the ty-
rant bit off its head. A wolf next presented him-
self, and having the same question addressed to him,
answered, courtier-like, " No, Sire." " I will kill
thee," says the lion, " for a flatterer." The fox
next appeared : and the same application was made
to this dexterous politician. " Indeed, Sire," says he,
" I must beg your majesty to excuse me, for I am
troubled with a terrible cold."
" A liar may not ill be compared to a shipwrecked
sailor, swimming for his life : lie follows lie, as wave
succeeds to wave, till the devoted wretch, after a
thousand vain efforts, is dashed against the rock, and
sinks irrevocably to the unfathomable bottom. There
is little doubt but that the credit which the false yet
dexterous excuses and artifices of a youth receives
among his school-fellows, tends very much to recon-
cile the mind, at an early period, to this disgraceful
habit, which gathers strength as years increase and
occasions become more pressing and important.
Oftentimes, indeed, the vulgar ferocity and partial
severity of the master compels a mind naturally
noble, to take refuge in a lie, until habit by degrees
k3
186 LOOKER-ON. N 67.
saps all its principles ; and thus it is deluded and
debased, without perceiving the steps of its own de-
generacy.
" If an early love of truth were more assiduously
cultivated in our common seminaries, there is little
doubt but that it would prove a happy forerunner
of reason, and plant in the mind an instinctive anti-
pathy to vice, which in all its colours and descrip-
tions is tinctured with falsehood and deceit.
" I am delighted," continued this gentleman, "with
a little anecdote I heard a few days ago, in which
the advantage of candour and sincerity is very neatly
exemplified.
" A certain viceroy of Naples had the privilege,
on a particular great holiday, to release from servi-
tude a galley slave in the dominions of the king of
Spain. This day was come, and the prince proceed-
ed to the place where this pleasing right was to be
exercised. Upon interrogating the different criminals
touching their mal-practices, they all began to be
very clamorous in their own exculpation ; in short,
from their own verdict, it appeared that there never
was collected together a purer race of mortals. One
only among the number hung his head, and preserv-
ed a melancholy silence. Upon the question's being
put to him, he replied, " Alas! sir, I am not punished
as much as I deserve ; for I am indeed a most notori-
ous sinner, and entirely unworthy of pardon or fa-
vour." " Is that the case," cried the prince, af-
fecting a good deal of choler, " then send away this
wicked fellow, that he may not corrupt those innocent
persons." "
As soon as Mr. Allworth had finished, Mr. Blunt
took up the discourse, and added, as I thought, some
very pertinent remarks, enlivened by a pleasant
little story taken from the German of M. de Gellert,
N67- LOOKER-ON. 187
professor of philosophy at Leipzig. " The son of
an old farmer, by some chance or other, had travelled
through several remote countries, and, as is not
uncommon in such cases, returned home much richer
in lies than in knowledge. A few days after his arri-
val, he accompanied his father (a sensible shrewd old
fellow) to a market at some distance from the village.
It happened that a mastiff-dog passed that way,
which as soon as the stripling beheld, " Bless me !
father," cried he, " this dog puts me in mind of one
I saw in my travels, at least as large as the largest
of our cart-horses." " What you tell me," replies
the father gravely, " astonishes me : but don't ima-
gine that in this country we are wholly without pro-
digies ; by and by we shall come to a bridge, which
we shall be obliged to pass, and which is much more
extraordinary than the dog of which you have been
talking. They say it is the work of some witch.
All I know of it is this, that there lies a stone in the
middle of it, against which one is sure to stumble as
one passes on, and break at least a leg, if it so happen
that one has lied in the course of the day." The
youth was a little startled at this strange account.
" At what a rate you are walking, father ! but to re-
turn to this dog : how large did I say ? as your largest
horse ? Nay, for that matter, I believe it might be
saying a little too much ; for I recollect it was but
six months old : but I would be upon oath that it
was as big as a heifer." Here the story rested, till
they were a mile or too advanced on their way.
The young man was very far from being comfortable.
The fatal bridge appears at a distance. " Hear me,
my dear father : indeed the dog, of which I have
been speaking, was very large, but perhaps not quite
so large as a heifer; I am sure, however, it was
188 LOOKER-ON. N<> 67.
larger than a calf." At length they arrived at the foot
of the bridge. The father passes on, without a word.
The son stops short " Ah ! father," says he, " you
cannot be such a simpleton as to believe that I have
seen a dog of such a size ; for since I needs must
speak the truth, the dog I met in my travels was
about as big as the dog we saw an hour or two
ago." "
JJ68. LOOKER-ON. 189
N68. SATURDAY, AUGUST 31.
Htci xuxeaiv xai aVTE,7rXox>i, xa tr*t$atrfx.c;' n ivtmrti; xai rai? xa*
Trfovoia. El jt*v av ra wpoTlpa, ti xai Effi &vii.u> tiKatu
a-vyxfty.aTty.at qvp/utu ronma i t ha.rfiieiv ; ti Js /ao: xai /ueXe;
cXXcf tivo^ i t;o oTTiKf 7TOTe aia yiv5-8ai ; ti Je xoj TapC"<rGjU.ai J
*fi >-af ett' Ejue o irx.i*a.<rfxoc t o ti ov 7roi&* El & &aTpa Ej-|,
c-too> xai H;{-a9o;, xai Sappw T<w Jiiixuvti.
Mapk. Ant. Bi. c.
The universe is either a mere medley, jumble, or confused mix-
ture, such as chance might be supposed to have produced ;
or it is a connected system of things, such as might have
been expected at the hands of a wise Providence. If the
former be true, why should we be anxious to prolong our
stay in such a squalid and disorderly scene ? Why should
we give ourselves trouble about any thing farther than the
easiest mode of mixing with our mother earth ? Why should
we suffer our minds to be so disquieted, since, do what we
will, we must at last all sink into the general confusion ?
But if the other side of the proposition be true, then do I
reverence the great Ruler of all things, put my trust in him,
and am full of courage.
After all which has been urged in the foregoing
papers on the proof afforded us from analogy, in de-
fence of God's moral government of the world, it
must be confessed, that it contains some facts which
startle human reason, and to which analogy furnishes
no specific answer ; yet if the analogy of nature sup-
port the probability that the moral constitution of
things is a scheme or system of government, as dis-
190 LOOKER-ON. H68.
tinguished from a number of single unconnected acts
of distributive justice and goodness, and that it is a
scheme imperfectly comprehended, it affords a gene-
ral answer to such doubts as arise as to the equity of
this moral constitution. We shall see enough to
convince us that this is the case, if we look into the
course and order of things in the natural world.
Here we shall find that analogy (a moral government
being supposed) justifies a conclusion, in the first
place, that this government is a scheme or system ;
in the next, a scheme imperfectly comprehended.
In the great natural order of the world, we are all
related together in a common bond of necessity and
dependence. Under various circumstances and con-
ditions are we all related together, nor know we
where these relations end. No action, no event
stands so single and unconnected, as not to be re-
lated to other actions, other events : nor are we safe
in saying that there are not other relations beyond
the limit of this present world. Every thing has fu-
ture unknown consequences. Were we to trace any
event, as far as we could proceed, we should find that
if such event were not connected with something still
beyond it in nature, unknown to us, such event could
not have been at all : nor can we give the whole ac-
count of any thing whatever, of all its causes, ends,
and necessary adjuncts. The natural world, then,
and the natural government of the world, being a
scheme, and such an incomprehensible scheme, we
are led in consequence to believe that the moral go-
vernment is also a scheme, and a scheme that also
baffles human inquiry and comprehension.
On a deeper consideration, it becomes probable
that these schemes arc but one in truth, and that the
first is subservient to the second, as the vegetable
world to the animal, as bodies to minds. We are
N68. LOOKER-ON. 191
taught, therefore, by analogy, that every act of divine
justice and goodness may be supposed to look much
beyond itself and its immediate object, to have refer-
ence to some other parts of God's moral administra-
tion, and to a general moral plan. Thus our very
scanty views of the frame and order of the natural
world, furnish (a moral government being supposed)
an easy and obvious answer of a negative force to all
such objections as are directed against the equity,
unity, consistency, and excellence of this moral go-
vernment of the world.
Our gradual progress in the developement of this
great scheme of administration has been well illus-
trated by the manner in which modern astronomers
made the discovery of the circular form of that phe-
nomenon which we call the Ring of Saturn. Some-
times contemplating it as a narrow, sometimes as a
broader oval ; sometimes in the form of a straight line,
in its different relative situations during its twenty-
nine years' revolution through all the parts of the
ecliptic ; they came at length, by a sort of optical
synthesis, to ascertain the circularity of its real shape.
Thus, though the great providential scheme of the
world, viewed through the medium of our gross un-
derstandings, puts on distorted and broken appear-
ances ; observation and research reconcile a part ;
and as, in the progression of time, the moral order of
the world moves on, new relations and consentanei-
ties unfold themselves, and we gain more and more
accurate views of the roundness and perfection of
this mighty system, till it may please the great Dis-
penser of all Things to purify and enlarge our
mental optics to the contemplation of his whole de-
sign.
In another view, we are forced to acknowledge
that no apparent irregularities form any grounds of
192 LOOKER-ON. K<> 68.
objection to the adequacy and perfection of the mo-
ral plan ; for, in the natural world, experience proves
that very desirable ends are brought about by means
in no sort desirable, and frequently by means which
we should have conceived without experience would
have produced very opposite effects. Besides which,
the natural government of the world is conducted by
general laws ; and for this there may exist very wise
and admirable reasons. Yet it is impossible for ge-
neral laws to prevent all irregularities, or remedy
them as they arise, as we find in civil government :
and were all irregularities prevented or remedied by
immediate interpositions (as things are constituted),
the bad consequences are plain. They would un-
questionably foster indolence and apathy, render
doubtful the natural rule of life, and vain those ta-
lents, qualities, and principles, given us to exercise,
to mature, and to confirm.
It may with truth be said, that some of the most
important parts of human knowledge are taught us
by our ignorance. The proofs of our mental imbe-
cility, which the daily trials of our understanding on
the commonest objects of nature present to us, are
so many lessons of humiliation, by which human phi-
losophy is bowed down to the earth before the un-
searchable truths which lie buried in the counsels of
the Almighty. I have been always very much
pleased with a little book, called " Glanville's Va-
nity of Dogmatising," in which there is a very com-
plete map of human ignorance : we there perceive
what a vast region of truth lies still unexplored by
us, disqualified as we are to breathe in the tenuity of
its atmosphere. The insolvable nature of light, co-
lours, gravity, motion, and matter is touched upon
with admirable vivacity in this little treatise, and
forces into the mind a conviction of it* own unrea*
Vo 68. LOOKER-ON. 193
sonableness, in disputing points which regard a life
to come, on the ground of their incomprehensibility,
while at every step in this present life our under-
standings encounter objects to the full as inexpli-
cable.
I shall transcribe a part of his chapter on the mo-
tion of the wheel, in which the cause of ignorance is
maintained with much ingenuity. " Besides the al-
ready mentioned difficulties, even the most ordinary
trivial occurrents, if we contemplate them in the
theory, will as much puzzle us as any of the former.
And first, if we abstractedly consider it, it seems im-
possible that a wheel should move; I mean not the
progressive, but the motion which is merely on its
own centre ; and were it not for the information of
experience, it is most likely that philosophy had
long ago concluded it impossible: for let us suppose
the wheel to be divided according to the alphabet.
Now in motion there is a change of place, and in the
motion of a wheel, there is a succession of one part
to another in the same place ; so that it seems in-
conceivable that A should move until B hath left its
place: for A cannot move but it must acquire some
place or other: it can acquire none but what was
B's, which we suppose to be most immediate to it.
The same space cannot contain them both ; there-
fore B must lose its place, before A can have it; yea,
and the nature of succession requires it. But now
B cannot move but into the place of C; and D must
be out, before C can come in : so that the motion of
D will be pre-required likewise to the motion of it;
and so onward, till it comes to Z. Upon the same
account Z will not be able to move till A moves,
being the part next to it; neither will A be able to
move (as has been shown) till Z hath: so that the
vol. xliii. s
194 LOOKER-ON. N^8.
motion of every part will be pre-required to its ete.
Neither can one evade, by saying that all the parts
move at once: for, firstly, we cannot conceive in a
succession but that something should be first, and
that motion should begin somewhere ; and secondly,
if the parts may all change places with one another
at the same time, without any respect of priority anl
posteriority to each other's motion, why then nnay
not a company of bullets closely crowded together
in a box, as well move together by a like mutual
and simultaneous exchange ? Doubtless the rea soa
of this inaptitude to motion in this position is, ichal
they cannot give way one to another, and motion can
no where begin because of the plenitude. The < :ase
is just the same in the instance before us ; and there-
fore we need go no farther for an evidence of its; in-
conceivableness. But yet, to give it one touch m ore,
according to the Peripatetic niceness, which aays
that one part enters in at the same instant that the
other goes out. Now in the instant that B leave s its
place, it is in it, or not: if it be in it, then cannot A
be in it in the same instant without quantitative : pe-
netration; if not, then it cannot be said to leave it in
that instant, but to have left it the instant be fore.
These difficulties, which pinch so in this obvioujs ex-
periment, stand in their full force against all motion
in the hypothesis of absolute plenitude."
As a comment upon this passage, I shall pro duce
another from the philosopher Malebranche, whose
works, admirable as they are in many places, a.re so
buried in obscurity, that a fragment of them is almost
a curiosity. " The profit that one may draw from
these speculations is not bare !y to acquire the Icnow-
ledge they present, which of itself is barren enough,
but it is to learn the limits of our understanding, and
JN6iS. LOOKER ON. 195
to fofce it to confess that there are truths which it
cannot comprehend; and therefore it is wholesome to
fatigue the mind with these subtleties, the better to
tami? its presumption and abate its confidence and
audaicity, in opposing its feeble lights to the myste-
ries of religion, under pretence that it cannot com-
prehend them : for since all the force of human un-
derstanding is constrained to yield to the least atom
of matter, and to own that it sees clearly that it is
infinitely divisible, without being able to compre-
hend how this may be; is it not plainly a sin
against reason, to refuse to believe the wonderful ef-
fects of the divine Omnipotence, merely because our
understanding cannot comprehend them?"
The only argument in which I recognise the sha-
dow of an answer to this plain kind of reasoning, is
built on the superior importance of those truths which
involve the concerns of a future life, and consequently
the deeper interest we have in their comprehensibi-
lity. This argument, however, a little examination
will prove to be more specious than solid, since we
can have no further practical concern with the truths
of religion, than as they are connected with the mo-
ral duties of life, and are framed with a reference to
our present existence. All beyond this is the object
of mere speculative curiosity; and we have no rea-
sonable right to complain that the indulgence of"
this curiosity is postponed till that life shall come to
which the objects of this curiosity shall bear an ac-
tual relation. No man can say that sufficient is not
explained to him, to furnish out a plain rule of life ;
that enough is not level to his comprehension, to bar
the pretence of ignorance, to direct his course, and
to stimulate his activity, through the trials and temp-
tations of this mortal scene. The whole course of
s2
196 LOOKER-ON. W68.
this world is one grand answer to such objections as
are built on apparent impossibility. From infancy
to manhood the individual is daily expanding his
comprehension to new possibilities of things; and
from barbarity to refinement, philosophy is daily en-
riching society with new treasures of knowledge,
with new powers and capacities of nature, with new
results of new combinations. " Who can define the
outgoings of the divine fecundity, or number the
rounds of the intellectual scale?"
It is worth while also to remark, that there is no-
thing proposed to us by our religion, of which we
have not clear ideas of the parts separately, although
we cannot take in their various attributes and rela-
tions. We may understand the terms of the propo-
sition, although we are unable to comprehend its
truth. We know very accurately what is meant by
a circle and a square, but we are unable to deter-
mine their proportions, for want of some related idea
on which this discovery depends : so no man is with-
out a clear general idea of what is meant by spirit ;
but, for want of being possessed of some other ideas
which bear relation to spirit, he is perfectly un-
qualified to comprehend its properties and attri-
butes.
In strictness of speech, we can be said to know
nothing thoroughly, unless we could trace it back
through all its causes, in one uninterrupted series, up
to its original mover; nor is it at all possible to ac-
quaint ourselves with the various relations between
any existent things, unless we could ascend from
proximate; cause to proximate cause, up to the be-
ginning of all things. Impressed with this sense of
my own insufficiency, I would not presume to assert
that the potatoe that grows in my garden, and the
N68. LOOKER-ON. 197
oyster that lies upon the rock, are not necessary to
each other's existence ; or that, if Alexander had
not conquered Asia, Milton could have composed his
Paradise Lost. Exhibit to a native of New Holland
an English clock, will he readily surmise that the
minute and the hour hand, as well as the striker, all
owe their several motions to one original mover?
Show him the internal works, will he readily com-
prehend that complicated operation of wheel within
wheel, which produces that proportion and depen-
dence between parts so different in their construc-
tions, so opposite in their motions, and so apparently
unconnected in their functions ? Will he not make