reft which the defire of wealth and greatnefs forms and maintains, but by a thousand fecret and flight competitions, fcarcely known to the mind upon which they operate. There is fcarcely any man

without fome favourite trifle which he values above greater attainments, fome defire of petty praise which he cannot patiently fuffer to be fruftrated. This minute ambition is fometimes croffed before it is known, and fometimes defeated by wanton petulance; but fuch attacks are feldom made without the lofs of friendship; for whoever has once found the vulnerable part will always be feared, and the refentment will burn on in fecret of which fhame hinders the difcovery.

This, however, is a flow malignity, which a wife man will obviate as inconfiftent with quiet, and a good man will reprefs as contrary to virtue; but human happiness is fometimes violated by fome more fudden ftrokes.

A difpute begun in jeft, upon a fubject which a moment before was on both parts regarded with careless indifference, is continued by the defire of conqueft, till vanity kindles into rage, and oppofition rankles into enmity. Against this hafty mifchief, I know not what fecurity can be obtained: men will be fometimes furprized into quarrels; and though they might both haften to reconciliation, as foon as their tumult had fubfided, yet two minds will feldom be found together, which can at once fubdue their difcontent, or immediately enjoy the fweets of peace, without remembering the wounds of the conflict.

6

Friendship

Friendship has other enemies. Sufpicion is always hardening the cautious, and difguft repelling the delicate. Very flender differences will fometimes part those whom long reciprocation of civility or beneficence has united. Lonelove and Ranger retired into the country to enjoy the company of each other, and returned in fix weeks cold and petulant; Ranger's pleasure was to walk in the fields, and Lonelove's to fit in a bower; each had complied with the other in his turn, and each was angry that compliance had been exacted.

The most fatal difeafe of friendship is gradual decay, or diflike hourly encreafed by caufes too flender for complaint, and too numerous for removal. Those who are angry may be reconciled; those who have been injured may receive a recom-. pence; but when the defire of pleafing and willingnefs to be pleafed is filently diminished, the renovation of friendship is hopeless; as, when the vital powers fink into languor, there is no longer any use of the phyfician.

NUMB. 24. SATURDAY, September 30, 1758.

W

HEN man fees one of the inferior crea

tures perched upon a tree, or basking in the funfhine, without any apparent endeavour or pursuit, he often afks himself, or his companion, On what that animal can be fuppofed to be thinking?

Of this question, fince neither bird nor beast can anfwer it, we must be content to live without the refolution. We know not how much the brutes recollect of the paft, or anticipate of the future; what power they have of comparing and preferring; or whether their faculties may not reft in motionless indifference, till they are moved by the prefence of their proper object, or ftimulated to act by corporal fenfations.

I am the lefs inclined to thefe fuperfluous inquiries, because I have always been able to find fufficient matter for curiofity in my own fpecies. It is ufelefs to go far in queft of that which may be found at home; a very narrow circle of obfervation will supply a sufficient number of men and women, who might be afked with equal propriety, On what they can be thinking?

It is reasonable to believe, that thought, like every thing elfe, has its caufes and effects; that it muft proceed from fomething known, done, or suffered; and muft produce fome action or event. Yet how great is the number of thofe in whofe minds no fource of thought has ever been opened,

in whose life no confequence of thought is ever discovered; who have learned nothing upon which they can reflect; who have neither feen nor felt any thing which could leave its traces on the memory; who neither foresee nor defire any change of their condition, and have therefore neither fear, hope, nor design, and yet are fuppofed to be thinking beings.

To every act a fubject is required. He that thinks, muft think upon fomething. But tell me, ye that pierce deepest into nature, ye that take the wideft furveys of life, inform me, kind fhades of Malbranche and of Locke, what that fomething can be, which excites and continues thought in maiden aunts with small fortunes; in younger brothers that live upon annuities, in traders retired from business; in foldiers abfent from their regiments; or in widows that have no children?

Life is commonly confidered as either active or contemplative; but furely this divifion, how long foever it has been received, is inadequate and fallacious. There are mortals whofe life is certainly not active, for they do neither good nor evil; and whofe life cannot be properly called contemplative, for they never attend either to the conduct of men, or the works of nature, but rife in the morning, look round them till night in carelefs ftupidity, go to bed and fleep, and rife again in the morning.

It has been lately a celebrated question in the fchools of philofophy, Whether the foul always thinks? Some have defined the foul to be the power of thinking; concluded that its effence confifts in act; that if it fhould ceafe to act, it would ceafe

to

to be; and that ceffation of thought is but another name for extinction of mind. This argument is fubtle, but not conclufive; because it fuppofes what cannot be proved, that the nature of mind is properly defined. Others affect to difdain fubtilty, when fubtilty will not ferve their purpofe, and appeal to daily experience. We spend many hours, they fay, in fleep, without the leaft remembrance of any thoughts which then paffed in our minds; and fince we can only by our own confcioufnefs be fure that we think, why fhould we imagine that we have had thought of which no confcioufnefs remains?

This argument, which appeals to experience, may from experience be confuted. We every day do fomething which we forget when it is done, and know to have been done only by confequence. The waking hours are not denied to have been paffed in thought; yet he that fhall endeavour to recollect on one day the ideas of the former, will only turn the eye of reflection upon vacancy; he will find, that the greater part is irrevocably vanished, and wonder how the moments could come and go, and leave fo little behind them.

To difcover only that the arguments on both fides are defective, and to throw back the tenet into its former uncertainty, is the fport of wanton or malevolent fcepticifin, delighting to fee the fons of philofophy at work upon a tafk which never can be finifhed; at variance on a queftion that can never be decided. I fhall fuggeft an argument hitherto overlooked, which may perhaps determine the controverly.