God with pious love and veneration; that we ought to render filial honour and obedience to our parents; pay great deference to our superiors in age and wisdom; chearfully obey the laws of our country; love our friends; be faithful to our wives; embrace our children with cordial and sincere affection; and treat our servants not only justly but tenderly, with great lenity and mildness: And which is principal, not to be elated by prosperity, nor depressed by adversity: Not to dissolve in pleasure, nor to be transported into cruelty by anger and a desire of revenge. For such a temper of mind is the greatest of goods, the only unchangeable immortal inheritance. To moderate our affections amidst affluence, and make a generous use of power and wealth in flourishing circumstances, teeming with temptations, is truly manly. To live without envy, is self-command: To derive happiness to ourselves from the happiness of the deserving, is true generosity: To overcome pleasure by reason, and to keep our rebellious appetites in due order, is wisdom: And to be proof against the transports of passion is real greatness of mind; a very rare excellence indeed. These, I think, are perfect men, who know how to mix philosophy with action, and to govern their conduct in public and private affairs by it. Such, in my opinion, have attained to the two greatest goods in human life, which are, to be useful in society, and to enjoy, at the same time, a philosophical tranquillity and sedateness of mind. For there are three ways of life. One consists in action, another in contemplation, and the third in voluptuous indulgence.18 He who gives himself up to pleasure is a dissolute slave, and lives like the abject, groveling brutes, whose apprehensions and appetites rise not above their senses. One who devotes himself wholly to speculation, and never acts, must make great discoveries not to be very useless in society. And he who without acquaintance with true philosophy, will meddle with public business, undertaking what he does not understand, may easily err, or be deceived, to the irreparable detriment of millions. The chief business of education therefore, is to prepare one for useful activity in such a way that he can, and will pleasantly give himself to philosophy, as often as times and circumstances permit him to retire to her. Thus did Pericles, Archytas, Dion of Syracuse, and the Theban Epaminondas (with the two last of whom Plato was so familiar)—Thus did those great men live and serve the public.” Nor need I, I think, say any more about true learning, or right education. This is the substance of what I teach: Nor is there any thing wanting to render this lesson compleat, either with respect to private or public usefulness and happiness. It is one whole, no part of which can be severed from the rest, without tearing and maiming that part itself, as well as the whole body: No more than a member can be taken from a poem, a tune, the human body, or any thing else in nature or art that hath unity, can this lesson be disjointed and broke into pieces. And conformity of life to this philosophy renders conduct uniform and consistent; one perfect, beautiful whole, in the same sense that any thing natural or artificial is such. For as whatever is beautiful is such, by a strict coherence and dependance of various parts19 uniting in one end, so that the smallest alteration or diminution would render it deform’d; in the same manner is a life directed by a principle of virtue, always consonant and harmonious: All its different parts and several offices flow from the same motive, conspire to the same end, and mutually illustrate and set off one another: Being fitly measured and approportioned; having a close and intimate connexion with one another, and with one common scope; and bearing a proper relation to times and circumstances, the whole piece is beautiful to behold. But whatever is contrary to virtue is disorder and dissonance. And a vitious course of life is a continued train of irregularities, contrarieties and discords. Pythagoras20 therefore said well, “That order and beauty or harmony is the chief good. God is perfect harmony; nature, his workmanship, is a perfect whole, compleat harmony as God its author. And every intelligent being, in proportion as he loves and imitates God and nature, is harmony: The inward motions of his mind are well-tuned, and his outward actions are in concert with them. But harmony, said he, is and must be happiness. Perfect melody is compleat pleasure. And every dissonance in heart or life is proportionable pain.”—And therefore, in general, as much harmony as there is in life, just so much true happiness is there in it. As well may we expect to receive satisfaction from a poem, or a picture, as from an action without it. Were not nature all concord and proportion, the contemplation of it could give no more pleasure to the understanding than discord to the ear.—And as if the temper and life be not justly modulated and regulated, according to the rules of harmony, it must needs be a very displeasing, offensive object to our reflection and contemplation; so neither can the actions or motions which are irregular, be otherwise than harsh and of uneasy feeling. For this, believe me, is universally true in nature, “That whatever motion is not justly commensurate, is awkward and grating. Then only does a machine, a musical instrument, or any frame, natural or artificial, work easily, smoothly and pleasantly, when all its parts are in exact symmetry and proportion, and when every thing is in its proper place and tone, and readily performs its functions without too much sluggishness or tardiness on the one hand, or precipitance and impetuosity on the other.”—Have you not seen, my friend, some antique gems on which the signs of the zodiac and the planets are represented as keeping time to one playing upon a musical instrument?
So soon as Cebes made a pause, for he talked with great warmth, he was asked, But how can this be the only lesson you teach? Do not you instruct your pupils in all the arts and sciences?
To this Cebes replied. And what science does not this lesson comprehend? Call it again to mind, and see what you think wanting in it?
Why, it was answered, I can neither find geometry, nor natural philosophy therein, much less can I find dialectic, rhetoric, or poetry, not to mention the arts of war.
Perhaps then, replied Cebes, you imagine I have no more to do but to con this lecture over and over again I have now given you.—Must I not, in order to explain and enforce it, not only define, but bring examples.—Now try how you can conceive this to be done in a variety of ways necessary to engage attention, and set forth what I would recommend to my pupils with due energy, or in a manner that will sink my instructions deep into their hearts, and firmly rivet them there.—Let me know how this can be done without uniting all the arts and sciences in the cause of virtue, or making them all contribute towards impressing the precepts of integrity and piety upon tender minds.
I confess, said the interrogator, I am at a loss to understand you.
You are then, answered Cebes, a stranger to the truth and force of that maxim which was always in the divine Plato’s mouth. “That all the sciences which belong to man have one common scope, which is to harmonize the mind or affections; and all conspiring to this noble end in various manners, have a strict union and connexion, and make one most harmonious system.21 For this reason do poets and painters represent the muses and graces in harmonious dance to the music of Apollo, and mutually aiding and adorning one another. The representation is as old as Homer.”22
But so willing do you appear to be instructed, that I should indeed act a most incongruous part to your intention, and to my own profession, if I could grudge to explain myself more fully to you upon this important subject, the best method of instructing youth by one and the same labour, in virtue and the sciences, or good taste of life and composition. And in truth, all I have to say may be comprised in one sentence, viz. There is but one beauty in nature, in life and art, and that is virtue.
Being told it would be intirely obliging if he would be so gracious and condescending as to be more particular, he is said to have discoursed much to this effect.
The design of philosophy, I said, is to distinguish right from wrong, just from unjust, the becoming from the base and unfitting in life and manners. Without this knowledge, ’tis plain, we cannot direct our affections or actions aright, no more than we can sail without skill in navigation. What else then is the first thing to be learned or rather acquired in life, but knowledge and resolution how to live as becomes men, i.e. courage to govern our pursuits by reason? But how can this first and essential lesson be taught and sufficiently inculcated, without describing, or rather painting out to the view of my pupils the character of the rational man, and fully delineating the methods of fore-thinking and after reflection or examination, by which the empire of reason is established and kept up in the mind? Can this be done without bringing
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