His manner of life was this: to bear with everybody's humours; to
comply with the inclinations and pursuits of those he conversed
with; to contradict nobody; never to assume a superiority over
others. This is the ready way to gain applause without exciting
envy.
Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very
condition of humanity, and yet, as if Nature had not sown evils
enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief, and
aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one
another. Every man's natural weight of affliction is still made
more heavy by the envy, malice, treachery, or injustice of his
neighbour. At the same time that the storm beats on the whole
species, we are falling foul upon one another.
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Half the misery of human life might be extinguished, would men
alleviate the general curse they lie under, by mutual offices of
compassion, benevolence, and humanity. There is nothing, therefore,
which we ought more to encourage in ourselves and others, than that
disposition of mind which in our language goes under the title of
good nature, and which I shall choose for the subject of this day's
speculation.
Good-nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a
certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty.
It shows virtue in the fairest light, takes off in some measure from
the deformity of vice, and makes even folly and impertinence
supportable.
There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world
without good nature, or something which must bear its appearance,
and supply its place. For this reason, mankind have been forced to
invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by
the word good-breeding. For if we examine thoroughly the idea of
what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but an
imitation and mimicry of good nature, or, in other terms,
affability, complaisance, and easiness of temper, reduced into an
art. These exterior shows and appearances of humanity render a man
wonderfully popular and beloved, when they are founded upon a real
good nature; but, without it, are like hypocrisy in religion, or a
bare form of holiness, which, when it is discovered, makes a man
more detestable than professed impiety.
Good-nature is generally born with us: health, prosperity, and kind
treatment from the world, are great cherishers of it where they find
it; but nothing is capable of forcing it up, where it does not grow
of itself. It is one of the blessings of a happy constitution,
which education may improve, but not produce.
Xenophon, in the life of his imaginary prince whom he describes as a
pattern for real ones, is always celebrating the philanthropy and
good nature of his hero, which he tells us he brought into the world
with him; and gives many remarkable instances of it in his
childhood, as well as in all the several parts of his life. Nay, on
his death-bed, he describes him as being pleased, that while his
soul returned to Him who made it, his body should incorporate with
the great mother of all things, and by that means become beneficial
to mankind. For which reason, he gives his sons a positive order
not to enshrine it in gold or silver, but to lay it in the earth as
soon as the life was gone out of it.
An instance of such an overflowing of humanity, such an exuberant
love to mankind, could not have entered into the imagination of a
writer who had not a soul filled with great ideas, and a general
benevolence to mankind.
In that celebrated passage of Sallust, where Caesar and Cato are
placed in such beautiful but opposite lights, Caesar's character is
chiefly made up of good nature, as it showed itself in all its forms
towards his friends or his enemies, his servants or dependents, the
guilty or the distressed. As for Cato's character, it is rather
awful than amiable. Justice seems most agreeable to the nature of
God, and mercy to that of man. A Being who has nothing to pardon in
Himself, may reward every man according to his works; but he whose
very best actions must be seen with grains of allowance, cannot be
too mild, moderate, and forgiving. For this reason, among all the
monstrous characters in human nature, there is none so odious, nor
indeed so exquisitely ridiculous, as that of a rigid, severe temper
in a worthless man.
This part of good nature however, which consists in the pardoning
and overlooking of faults, is to be exercised only in doing
ourselves justice, and that too in the ordinary commerce and
occurrences of life; for, in the public administrations of justice,
mercy to one may be cruelty to others.
It is grown almost into a maxim, that good-natured men are not
always men of the most wit. This observation, in my opinion, has no
foundation in nature. The greatest wits I have conversed with are
men eminent for their humanity. I take, therefore, this remark to
have been occasioned by two reasons. First, because ill-nature
among ordinary observers passes for wit. A spiteful saying
gratifies so many little passions in those who hear it, that it
generally meets with a good reception. The laugh rises upon it, and
the man who utters it is looked upon as a shrewd satirist. This may
be one reason why a great many pleasant companions appear so
surprisingly dull when they have endeavoured to be merry in print;
the public being more just than private clubs or assemblies, in
distinguishing between what is wit and what is ill-nature.
Another reason why the good-natured man may sometimes bring his wit
in question is perhaps because he is apt to be moved with compassion
for those misfortunes or infirmities which another would turn into
ridicule, and by that means gain the reputation of a wit. The ill-
natured man, though but of equal parts, gives himself a larger field
to expatiate in; he exposes those failings in human nature which the
other would cast a veil over, laughs at vices which the other either
excuses or conceals, gives utterance to reflections which the other
stifles, falls indifferently upon friends or enemies, exposes the
person who has obliged him, and, in short, sticks at nothing that
may establish his character as a wit. It is no wonder, therefore,
he succeeds in it better than the man of humanity, as a person who
makes use of indirect methods is more likely to grow rich than the
fair trader.
NEXT ESSAY
- Quis enim bonus, aut face dignus
Arcana, qualem Cereris vult esse sacerdos,
Ulla aliena sibi credat mala? -
JUV., Sat. xv. 140.
Who can all sense of others' ills escape,
Is but a brute, at best, in human shape.
TATE.
In one of my last week's papers, I treated of good-nature as it is
the effect of constitution; I shall now speak of it as it is a moral
virtue. The first may make a man easy in himself and agreeable to
others, but implies no merit in him that is possessed of it. A man
is no more to be praised upon this account, than because he has a
regular pulse or a good digestion. This good nature, however, in
the constitution, which Mr. Dryden somewhere calls "a milkiness of
blood," is an admirable groundwork for the other. In order,
therefore, to try our good-nature, whether it arises from the body
or the mind, whether it be founded in the animal or rational part of
our nature; in a word, whether it be such as is entitled to any
other reward besides that secret satisfaction and contentment of
mind which is essential to it, and the kind reception it procures us
in the world, we must examine it by the following rules:
First, whether it acts with steadiness and uniformity in sickness
and in health, in prosperity and in adversity; if otherwise, it is
to be looked upon as nothing else but an irradiation of the mind
from some new supply of spirits, or a more kindly circulation of the
blood. Sir Francis Bacon mentions a cunning solicitor, who would
never ask a favour of a great man before dinner; but took care to
prefer his petition at a time when the party petitioned had his mind
free from care, and his appetites in good humour. Such a transient
temporary good-nature as this, is not that philanthropy, that love
of mankind, which deserves the title of a moral virtue.
The next way of a man's bringing his good-nature to the test is to
consider whether it operates according to the rules of reason and
duty: for if, notwithstanding its general benevolence to mankind,
it makes no distinction between its objects; if it exerts itself
promiscuously towards the deserving and the undeserving; if it
relieves alike the idle and the indigent; if it gives itself up to
the first petitioner, and lights upon any one rather by accident
than choice--it may pass for an amiable instinct, but must not
assume the name of a moral virtue.
The third trial of good-nature will be the examining ourselves
whether or no we are able to exert it to our own disadvantage, and
employ it on proper objects, notwithstanding any little pain, want,
or inconvenience, which may arise to ourselves from it: in a word,
whether we are willing to risk any part of our fortune, our
reputation, our health or ease, for the benefit of mankind. Among
all these expressions of good nature, I shall single out that which
goes under the general name of charity, as it consists in relieving
the indigent: that being a trial of this kind which offers itself
to us almost at all times and in every place.
