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we be thought in little danger, and not likely to yield to the bad examples sur rounding us.

140. On Intemperance in Drinking.

SECT. VI.

But let me consider what the intemperate say in their excuse.

That any should frequently put themselves into a condition, in which they are incapable of taking the least care of themselves in which they are quite stupid and helpless-in which, whatever danger threatens them, they can contribute nothing towards its removal-in which they may be drawn into the most shocking crimes-in which all they hold dear is at the mercy of their companions; the excess, I say, which causes us to be in such a situation, none seem disposed to defend : but what leads to it, you find numbers thus vindicating, or excusing.

They must converse--They must have their hours of cheerfulness and mirth When they are disordered, it happens before they are aware of it-A small quantity of liquor has this unhappy effect upon them-If they will keep up their interest, it must be by complying with the intemperate humour of their neighbours-Their way of life, their business, obliges them to drink with such numbers, that it is scarcely possible they should not be some times guilty of excess.

To all which it may be said, that, bad as the world is, we may every where, if we seek after them, find those, whose company will rather confirm us in our sobriety, than endanger it. Whatever our rank, station, profession, or employment may be, suitable companions for us there are: with whom we may be perfectly safe, and free from every temptation to excess. If these are not in all respects to our minds, we must bear with them, as we do with our condition in this world; which every prudent person makes the best of; since, let what will be the change in it, still it will be liable to some objection, and never entirely as he would wish it. In both cases we are to consider, not how we shall rid ourselves of all inconveniences, but where are likely to be the fewest: and we should judge that set of acquaintance, as well as that state of life, the most eligible, in which we have the least to fear, from which our ease and innocence are likely to meet with the fewest interruptions.

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But mirth, you say, must sometimet be con sulted. Let it be so. I would no more dis. suade from it than I would from seriousness. Each should have its season, and its measure: and as it would be thought by all very proper advice, with respect to serious. ness, "Let it not proceed to melancholy, "to moroseness, or to censoriousness;" it is equally fit advice, with regard to mirth, "Let wisdom accompany it: Let it not transport you to riot or intemperance: "Do not think you can be called merry, when you are ceasing to be reasonable."

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Good-humour, cheerfulness, facetiousness, which are the proper ingredients of mirth, do not want to be called out by the repeated draught: it will rather damp them, from the apprehension of the disorder it may soon produce. Whenever we depart from, or endanger, our innocence, we are laying a foundation for uneasiness and grief; nor can we, in such circumstances, be merry, if we are not void of all thought and reflection; and this is, undoubtedly, the most melancholy situation, in which we can be conceived, except when we are undergoing the punishment of our folly. The joy, the elevation of spirits proper to be sought after by us, is that alone, which can never be a subject of remorse, or which never will embitter more of our hours than it relieves. And when this may be obtain ed in such a variety of ways, we must be lost to all common prudence, if we will apply to none of them; if we can only find mirth in a departure from sobriety.

You are, it seems, overtaken, before you are aware of it. This may be an allowable excuse for three or four times in a man's life; oftener, I think, it cannot be. What you are sensible may easily happen, and must be extremely prejudicial to you, when it does happen, you should be always aware of.

No one's virtue is any farther his praise, than from the care he takes to preserve it. If he is at no trouble and pains on that account, his innocence has nothing in it, that can entitle him to a reward. If you are truly concerned for a fault, you will necessarily keep out of the of repeating it; and the more frequent your re petitions of it have been, so much the greater caution you will use for the future.

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Many we hear excusing their drunkenness, by the small quantity which occasions it. A more trifling excuse for it could not be made. For if you know how small a quantity of liquor will have that unhappy effect, you should forbear that quantity. It is as

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much your duty to do so, as it is his duty to forbear a greater quantity, who suffers the same from it, which you do from a lesser. When you know that it is a crime to be drunk, and know likewise what will make you so; the more or less, which will do this, is nothing to the purpose-alters not your guilt. If you will not refrain from two or three draughts, when you are sure that drunkenness will be the consequence of them; it cannot be thought, that any more regard to sobriety keeps you from drinking the largest quantity whatsoever. Had such a regard an influence upon you, it would have an equal one; it would keep you from every step, by which your sobriety could suffer.

As to supporting an interest, promoting e trade, advantageously bargaining for ourselves, by drinking more than is convetient for us; they are, for the most part, only the poor evasions of the insincere, of those who are willing to lay the blame of their misconduct on any thing, rather than on what alone deserves it-rather than on their bad inclinations.

Civility and courtesy, kind offices, acts of charity and liberality, will both raise us more friends, and keep those we have firmer to us, than any quantities of liquor, which we can either distribute or drink : and as for men's trade or their bargains, let them always act fairly-let them, whether they buy or sell, shew that they abhor all tricking and imposition-all little and mean artifices; and I'll stake my life, they shall never have reason to object, that, if they will always preserve their tebriety, they must lessen their gains.

But were it true, that, if we will resolve never to hazard intoxicating our selves, we must lose our friends, and forego our present advantage; they are inconveniences, which, in such a case, we should cheerfully submit to. Some pains must be taken, some difficulties must be here encountered; if we will have any reasonable ground to expect happiness in a future state. Of this even common sense must satisfy us.

Credulous as we are, I think it impossible, that any man in his wits would believe me, if I were to tell him, that he might miss no opportunity of bettering his fortune that he might remove any evil he had to fear, by whatsoever method he thought proper that he might throughout follow his inclinations, and gratify his appetites; and yet rest assured, that his death would be but the passage to great and end

less joys. I know not, to whom such an assertion would not appear extremely absurd; notwithstanding which, we certainly do not act as if there were any absur dity in it, when we make what is evidently our duty give way to our convenience; and rather consider, how profitable this or that practice is than how right. That, therefore, sobriety, added to other parts of a virtuous conduct, may entitle us to the so much hoped for reward, we must be sober, under all sorts of discouragements. It rarely, indeed, happens, that we meet with any: but to resist the greatest must be our resolution, if we will recommend ourselves to the Governor of the universe-if we will hope for his favour. Dean Bolton.

141. On Intemperance in Drinking.

SECT. VII.

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Thus much with regard to drunkenness, so far as it is committed by intoxicating ourselves-by drinking, till our reason is gone: but as there is yet another way, which we may offend in it, viz. by drinking more than is proper for our refreshment; I must on this likewise bestow a few observations.

When we drink more than suffices to recruit our spirits, our passions are heightened, and we cease to be under the in fluence of that calm temper, which is our only safe counsellor. The next advance beyond refreshment is to that mirth, which both draws many unguarded speeches from us, and carries us to many indiscreet actions-which wastes Our time, not barely while we are in the act of drinking, but as it unsettles our heads, and indisposes us to attention to business-to a close application in any way. Soon as our spirits are raised beyond their just pitch, we are for schemes of diversion and pleasure; we are unfit for serious affairs, and therefore cannot entertain a thought of being employed in them.

Besides, as according to the rise of our spirits, their fall will, afterward, be; it is most probable, that when we find them thus sunk, we shall again resort to what we have experienced the remedy of such a complaint; and thereby be betrayed, if not into the excesses, which deprive us of our reason, yet into such a habit of drinking, as occasions the loss of many precious hours

impairs our health-is a great misappli cation of our fortune, and a most ruinous

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example to our observers. But, indeed, whence is it to be feared, that we shall become downright sots---that we shall contract a habit of drinking to the most disguising excess; whence, I say, is this to be feared, if not from accustoming ourselves to the frequent draughts, which neither our thirst-nor fatigue-nor constitution requires? By frequently using them, our inclination to them is strengthened; till at length we cannot prevail upon ourselves to leave our cup, while we are in a condition to lift it. These are objections, in which all are concerned, whose refreshment, from what they drink, is not their rule in it; but to men of moderate fortunes, or who are to make their fortunes, other arguments are to be used: these persons are to consider, that even the lesser degree of intemperance, now censured, is generally their utter undoing, through that neglect of their affairs, which is its necessary consequence. When we mind not our own business, who can we think likely to mind it for us? Very few, certainly, will be met with, disposed and able to do it; and not to be both, is much the same, as to be neither. While we are passing our time with our cheerful companions, we are not only losing the advantages, which care and industry, either in inspecting our affairs, or pursuing our employment, would have afforded us ; but we are actually consuming our fortunewe are habituating ourselves to a most expensive idleness-we are contracting a disinclination to fatigue and confinement, even when we most become sensible of their necessity, when our affairs must run into the utmost confusion without them. And we, in fact, perceive that, as soon as the scholar, or trader, or artificer, or whoever it is, that has the whole of his maintenance to gain, or has not much to spend, addicts himself only to this lower degree of intemperance-accustoms himself to sit long at his wine, and to exceed that quantity of it which his relief demands, he becomes worthless in a double sense, as deserving nothing, and, if a care greater than his own save him not, as having nothing.

Add to all this, that the very same diseases, which may be apprehended from often intoxicating ourselves, are the usual attendants not only of frequently drinking to the full of what we can conveniently bear, but even of doing it in a large quantity. The only difference is, that such diseases come more speedily on us from the former, than the latter cause; and, perhaps, destroy But how desirable it is to be

us sooner.

long struggling with any of the distem. pers, which our excesses occasion, they can best determine who labour under them.

The inconveniences which attend our more freely using the least hurtful of any spirituous liquors, have so evidently ap peared-have shewn themselves so many and so great, as even to call for a remedy from the law itself; which, therefore, pu nishes both those, who loiter away their time at their cups, and those, who suffer it to be done in their houses.

A great part of the world, a much greater than all the parts added together, in which the Christian religion is professed, are for. bidden all manner of liquors, which can cause drunkenness; they are not allowed the smallest quantity of them; and it would be an offence which would receive the most rigorous chastisement, if they were known to use any; their lawgiver has, in this particular, been thought to have acted according to the rules of good policy; and the governors of those countries, in which this law is in force, have, from its first reception amongst them, found it of such benefit, as to allow no relaxation of it. I do not mention such a practice as any rule for us: difference of climates makes quite different ways of living necessary; I only mention it as a lesson to us, that, if so great a part of mankind submit to a total absti nence from wine and strong drink, we should use them sparingly, with caution and moderation; which is certainly neces sary to our welfare, whatever may be the effect of entirely forbearing them on theirs.

In the most admired of all the western governments, a strict sobriety was required of their women, under the very severest penalties: the punishment of a departure from it was nothing less than capital: and the custom of saluting women, we are told, was introduced in order to discover whether any spirituous liquor had been drank by them.

In this commonwealth the men were prohibited to drink wine till they had attained thirty years.

The whole body of soldiery, among this people, had no other draught to enable them to bear the greatest fatigue-to raise their courage, and animate them to encounter the most terrifying difficulties and dangers, but water sharpened with vinegar. And what was the consequence of such strict sobriety observed by both sexes? What was the consequence of being born of parents so exactly temperate, and of being trained up in a habit of the utmost abstemiousness?—

What,

What, I say, followed upon this, but the attainment of such a firmness of body and mind-of such an indifference to all the emasculating pleasures-of such vigour and fearlessness, that the people, thus born and educated, soon made all opposition fall before them, experienced no enemy a match for them-were conquerors, wherever they carried their arms.

By these remarks on the temperance of the ancient Romans, I am not for recalling customs so quite the reverse of those, in which we were brought up; but some change in our manners I could heartily wish they might effect: and if not induce as to the same sobriety, which was practised by these heathens, yet to a much greater than is practised by the generality of Christians. Dean Bolton.

$142. On Pleasure.

SECT. I.

To the Honourable

While you are constantly engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, or in making what you have acquired of use to your fellowcreatures - while information is your amusement, and to become wiser is as much your aim, in all the company you keep, as in all the books you read; may I not justly think it matter of astonishment to you, that such numbers of your species should be quite unmindful of all rational improvement-solely intent on schemes of mirth and diversion-passing their lives in a round of sporting and trifling.

If every age has its madness, and one is distinguished by its warlike humour, a second by its enthusiasm, a third by its party and political rage; the distraction of the present may truly be pronounced, its turn to pleasure, so sadly possessing those of each sex and of all ages-those of every profession and employment-the several ranks and orders of men; that they, who are strangers to the sudden changes in human dispositions, are apt to think, that all seriousness and application-all the valuable attainments, which are the reward only of our pains, must, nevitably, be soon lost among us.

I am not out of hopes, that what thus threatens, in the opinion of some, our speedy ruin, and has its very great mischief denied by none, who give it the least attention, will one day receive as remarkable an opposition from your pen, as it now does a discouragement from your example.

Let, in the mean time, a sincere well wisher to his countrymen interpose his mean endeavours to serve them-offer to their consideration some, perhaps not wholly contemptible, arguments against the pur suit, to which they are so blameably attached-shew them pleasure in that true light in which they are unwilling to see it-teach them, not that it should be always declined, but that they should never be enslaved to it-represent the dangers, to which it exposes them, yet point out how far it may be enjoyed with innocence and safety.

Every man seems to be so far free, as he can dispose of himself as he can maintain a due subordination in the parts of his frame, use the deliberation proper to ac quaint him with what is most for his advantage, and, according to the result thereof, proceed to action. I consider each hindrance to the knowledge of our true happiness, or to its pursuit, as, according to its degree, an abridgment of our liberty; and, I think that he may be truly styled a slave to pleasure, who follows it, wheresoever directed to it by appetite, passion, or fancy. When we listen to their suggestions in the choice of good, we allow them an authority, that our Creator never intended they should have; and when their directions in that choice are actually complied with, a lawless sway ensues the use of our nobler faculties becomes obstructed our ability to deliberate, as we ought, on our conduct, gradually fails, and to alter it, at length wholly ceases.

Ŏur sensual and rational parts are al most in continual opposition: we add to the power of the former, by a thoughtless, idle, voluptuous life; and to that of the latter, by reflection, industry, continence.

As you cannot give way to appetite, but you increase its restlessness, you multiply its demands, and become less able to resist them; so the very same holds true of every principle that opposes reason; if capable to influence you in one instance, it will more easily do it in a second, gaining ground, till its dominion over you becomes absolute.

When the question concerns our angry passions, all are ready to acknowledge the danger of not restraining them, the terrible subjection to which such remissness exposes us. These falling more under the general notice, from the apparency of the disorder, and extent of the mischief which they occasion, a better judgment is ordi narily made of them, than of affection less tumultuous, less dangerous to our associ

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ates: but there can be no reason imaginable why anger, if less carefully watched and resisted, should exercise, at length, the most unhappy tyranny over us, which will not hold as to any passion or lust whatsoever. And as with respect to violent resentment, we are ready to gratify it, what ever it costs us: so let what will be the passion or lust that governs us, no prudential considerations are a counterpoise for it. With regard to pleasure, the fallacy of our reasoning upon it lies here; we always look upon the enjoyment of it as a single act, as a compliance with our liking in this or that instance: the repetition of that indulgence is not seen under a dependence on any former, or under the least connexion, with any future. That such a pursuit should engage us, seems to be wholly from our choice; and this choice is thought to be as free, at the second time of our making it as at the first, and at the twentieth, as at the second. Inclination is never beheld as possible to become constraint-is, I mean, never regarded as capable of being indulged, till it cannot be resisted. No man ever took the road of pleasure, but he apprehended that he could easily leave it: had he considered his whole life likely to be passed in its windings, the preference of the ways of virtue would have been indisputable.

But as sensual disputes could not engage so many, if something very delightful were not expected in them; it will be proper to shew, how unlikely they are to answer such an expectation-what there is to discourage us from attaching ourselves to them. Consider sensual pleasure under the highest possible advantages, it will yet be found liable to these objections.

First, That its enjoyment is fleeting, expires soon, extends not beyond a few moments: Our spirits sink instantly under it, if in a higher degree: nor are they long without being depressed, when it less powerfully affects them. A review here affords me no comfort: I have here nothing delightful to expect from reflection. The gratifications, in which I have allow. ed msyelf, have made me neither wiser nor better. The fruit was relished while upon my tongue, but when passed thence I scarcely retain the idea of its flavour.

How transitory our pleasures are, we cannot but acknowledge, when we consider, how many we, in different parts of our lives, eagerly pursue, and then wholly

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That which is the high entertainment of our infancy, doth not afford us the least, when this state is passed; what then delights us much in our youth, is quite tasteless to us, as we approach manhood; and our engagements at this period give way to some others, as we advance in age.

Nor do our pleasures thus pass only with our years, but, really, those which best suit our time of life, and on the pursuit of which we are most intent, must be interrupted in order to be enjoyed.

We can no more long bear pleasure than we can long endure fatigue; or, rather, what we call pleasure, after some continuance, becomes fatigue.

We want relief in our diversions, as well as in our most serious employments.

When Socrates had observed, " of how "unaccountable a nature that thing is, "which men call Pleasure, since, though "it may appear to be contrary to Pain, as "never being with it in the same person,

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yet they so closely follow each other, "that they may seem linked, as it were, "together." He then adds-" If Esop " had attended to this, he would, I think, "have given us a fable, in which the Divi. "nity, willing to reconcile these two ene "mies, but yet unable to do it, had, ne"vertheless, so connected them in their "extremities, that where the one comes, "the other shall be sure to succeed it."

From the excess of joy, how usual is the transition to that of dejection! Laughter, as well as grief, calls for tears to ease us under it; and it may be even more dan gerous to my life to be immoderately de lighted, than to be severely afflicted.

Our pleasures then soon pass; and, se condly, their repetition certainly cloys.

As the easiness of posture and agreeableness of place wear off by a very short continuance in either; it is the same with any sensual gratifications which we can pursue, and with every enjoyment of that kind, to which we can apply. What so delights our palate, that we should relish it, if it were our constant food? What juice has nature furnished, that, after being a fre quent, continues to be a pleasing, draught? Sounds, how artfully soever blended or successive, tire at length the ear; and odours, at first the most grateful, soon either cease to recreate us, or become offensive to us. The finest prospect gives no entertainment to the eye that has been long accustomed to it. The pile, that strikes with admiration each casual beholder, affords its royal inhabitant

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