2. _That Life is not preferable to Insensibility; for Pleasure and Pain destroy one another: That Being which has ten Degrees of Pain subtracted from ten of Pleasure, has nothing remaining, and is upon an equality with that Being which is insensible of both._ 3. _As the first Part proves that all Things must be equally us'd by the Creator because equally esteem'd; so this second Part demonstrates that they are equally esteem'd because equally us'd._ 4. _Since every Action is the Effect of Self-Uneasiness, the Distinction of Virtue and Vice is excluded; and_ Prop. VIII. _in_ Sect. I. _again demonstrated._ 5. _No State of Life can be happier than the present, because Pleasure and Pain are inseparable._ Thus both Parts of this Argument agree with and confirm one another, and the Demonstration is reciprocal. I am sensible that the Doctrine here advanc'd, if it were to be publish'd, would meet with but an indifferent Reception. Mankind naturally and generally love to be flatter'd: Whatever sooths our Pride, and tends to exalt our Species above the rest of the Creation, we are pleas'd with and easily believe, when ungrateful Truths shall be with the utmost Indignation rejected. "What! bring ourselves down to an Equality with the Beasts of the Field! with the _meanest_ part of the Creation! 'Tis insufferable!" But, (to use a Piece of _common_ Sense) our _Geese_ are but _Geese_ tho' we may think 'em _Swans_, and Truth will be Truth tho' it sometimes prove mortifying and distasteful. RULES FOR A CLUB ESTABLISHED FOR MUTUAL IMPROVEMENT[20] [1728] Previous Question, To Be Answered At Every Meeting Have you read over these queries this morning, in order to consider what you might have to offer the Junto touching any one of them? viz. 1. Have you met with any thing in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto? particularly in history, morality, poetry, physic, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge. 2. What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation? 3. Hath any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have you heard of the cause? 4. Have you lately heard of any citizen's thriving well, and by what means? 5. Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere, got his estate? 6. Do you know of a fellow citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation; or who has lately committed an error, proper for us to be warned against and avoid? 7. What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or heard; of imprudence, of passion, or of any other vice or folly? 8. What happy effects of temperance, of prudence, of moderation, or of any other virtue? 9. Have you or any of your acquaintance been lately sick or wounded? If so, what remedies were used, and what were their effects? 10. Whom do you know that are shortly going voyages or journeys, if one should have occasion to send by them?