For is it necessary to prove what every one feels within himself?
It is only necessary to make us feel it, if possible, more
intimately and sensibly.
The people, indeed, replied D/EMEA\, are sufficiently
convinced of this great and melancholy truth. The miseries of
life; the unhappiness of man; the general corruptions of our
nature; the unsatisfactory enjoyment of pleasures, riches,
honours; these phrases have become almost proverbial in all
languages. And who can doubt of what all men declare from their
own immediate feeling and experience?
In this point, said P/HILO\, the learned are perfectly
agreed with the vulgar; and in all letters, sacred and profane,
the topic of human misery has been insisted on with the most
pathetic eloquence that sorrow and melancholy could inspire. The
poets, who speak from sentiment, without a system, and whose
testimony has therefore the more authority, abound in images of
this nature. From Homer down to Dr. Young, the whole inspired
tribe have ever been sensible, that no other representation of
things would suit the feeling and observation of each individual.
As to authorities, replied D/EMEA\, you need not seek them.
Look round this library of C/LEANTHES\. I shall venture to
affirm, that, except authors of particular sciences, such as
chemistry or botany, who have no occasion to treat of human life,
there is scarce one of those innumerable writers, from whom the
sense of human misery has not, in some passage or other, extorted
a complaint and confession of it.
Pages:
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123