No. 178. SATURDAY, NOV. 30, 1751.

Pars sanitatis velle sanari fuit.

To yield to remedies is half the cure.

SENECA.

PYTHAGORAS is reported to have required from those whom he instructed in philosophy a probationary silence of five years. Whether this prohibition of speech extended to all the parts of this time, as seems generally to be supposed, or was to be observed only in the school or in the presence of their master, as is more probable, it was sufficient to discover the pupil's disposition; to try whether he was willing to pay the price of learning, or whether he was one of those whose ardour was rather violent than lasting, and who expected to grow wise on other terms than those of patience and obedience.

Many of the blessings universally desired are very frequently wanted, because most men, when they should labour, content themselves to complain, and rather linger in a state in which they cannot be at rest than improve their condition by vigour and resolution.

Providence has fixed the limits of human enjoyment by immovable boundaries, and has set different gratifications at such a distance from each other that no art or power can bring them together. This great law it is the business of every rational being to understand, that life may not pass away in an attempt to make contradictions consistent, to combine opposite qualities, and to unite things which the nature of their being must always keep asunder.

Of two objects tempting at a distance on contrary sides it is impossible to approach one but by receding from the other; by long deliberation and

merriment, ignorant of the modes and follies, the ices and virtues of mankind, and unfurnished with any ideas but such as Pappus and Archimedes had iven him, he began to silence all inquiries with a est instead of a solution, extended his face with a rin, which he mistook for a smile, and in the place of a scientific discourse, retailed in a new language, ormed between the college and the tavern, the inelligence of the newspaper.

Laughter, he knew, was a token of alacrity; and, herefore, whatever he said or heard, he was careful not to fail in that great duty of a wit. If he asked or told the hour of the day, if he complained of heat or cold, stirred the fire, or filled the glass, removed his chair, or snuffed the candle, he always found some occasion to laugh. The jest was, indeed, a secret to all but himself; but habitual confidence in his own discernment hindered him from suspecting any weakness or mistake. He wondered that his wit was so little understood, but expected that his audience would comprehend it by degrees, and persisted all his life with gross buffoonery, how little the strongest faculties can perform beyond the limits of their own province.

No. 180. SATURDAY, DEC. 7, 1751.

Ταωτ' ειδως σοφος ισθαι ματην δ' Επικουρον εασον
Που το κενον ζητειν, και τινες αι μονάδες.

AUTOMEDON.

On life, on morals, be thy thoughts employ'd;
Leave to the schools their atoms and their void.

newhere related by Le Clerc that a wealthy Good understanding, having the common feed his son a scholar, carried him to

dilatory projects they may be both lost, but can never be both gained. It is, therefore, necessary to compare them, and when we have determined the preference, to withdraw our eyes and our thoughts at once from that which reason directs us to reject. This is more necessary, if that which we are forsaking has the power of delighting the senses, or firing the fancy. He that once turns aside to the allurements of unlawful pleasure can have no security that he shall ever regain the paths of virtue.

The philosophic goddess of Boethius, having related the story of Orpheus, who, when he had recovered his wife from the dominions of death, lost her again by looking back upon her in the confines of light, concludes with a very elegant and forcible application. Whoever gou are that endeavour to elevate your minds to the illuminations of Heaven, consider yourselves as represented in this fable; for he that is once so far overcome as to turn back his eyes towards the infernal caverns loses at first sight all that influence which attracted him on high.

Vos hæc fabula respicit,
Quicunque in superum diem
Mentem ducere quæritis.
Nam qui Tartareum in specus
Victus lumina flexerit,

Quidquid præcipuum trahit,
Perdit, dum videt inferos.

It may be observed in general that the future is purchased by the present. It is not possible to secure distant or permanent happiness but by the forbearance of some immediate gratification. This is so evidently true with regard to the whole of our existence that all the precepts of theology have no other tendency than to enforce the life of faith; a life regulated not by our senses but our belief; & life in which pleasures are to be refused for fear of

invisible punishments, and calamities sometimes to be sought, and always endured, in hope of rewards that shall be obtained in another state.

Even if we take into our view only that particle of our duration which is terminated by the grave, it will be found that we cannot enjoy one part of life beyond the common limitations of pleasure, but by anticipating some of the satisfaction which should exhilarate the following years. The heart of youth nay spread happiness into wild luxuriance, but the adical vigour requisite to make it perennial is exausted, and all that can be hoped afterward is lanuor and sterility.

The reigning error of mankind is that we are not ontent with the conditions on which the goods of fe are granted. No man is insensible of the value f knowledge, the advantages of health, or the conenience of plenty, but every day shows us those on hom the conviction is without effect.

Knowledge is praised and desired by multitudes hom her charms could never rouse from the couch f sloth; whom the faintest invitation of pleasure raws away from their studies; to whom any other ethod of wearing out the day is more eligible than te use of books, and who are more easily engaged y any conversation than such as may rectify their otions or enlarge their comprehension.

Every man that has felt pain knows how little all her comforts can gladden him to whom health is nied. Yet who is there does not sometimes hard it for the enjoyment of an hour? All assemies of jollity, all places of public entertainment hibit examples of strength wasting in riot, and auty withering in irregularity; nor is it easy to ter a house in which part of the family is not oaning in repentance of past intemperance, and rt admitting disease by negligence, or soliciting by luxury.