Ubiquitous proverbs! There is nothing beyond their reach, nothing hid from their eyes. The advantages of this abundant variety are clear. Almost any topic of human interest will find sufficient illustration in proverbs. Frequently a saying will be found useful from more than one standpoint: vary the topic and the same material may appear in new and unexpected guise. On the other hand, whatever subject be chosen, a serious difficulty will be encountered. As soon as the proverbs bearing upon it have been gathered together, an extreme confusion of opinion will be apparent. The trumpet gives a most uncertain sound! Thus, let ethics be our starting-point. Many, no doubt, will be the maxims that breathe an easy, practical morality, and these, being careful not to be righteous overmuch, may seem tolerably compatible one with another; but then in violent contrast will be some that soar to the very heavens, and some also that surely emanate from hell. These will suffice from the devil’s forge: _Dead men tell no tales_--_Every man has his price_--or this Italian proverb, _Wait time and place for thy revenge, for swift revenge is poor revenge_. For the heavenly, here are two from ancient Greece, _The best is always arduous_[6]--_Friends have their all in common_[7]; or this tender English one, _The way to heaven is by Weeping-Cross_, or this strong Scottish phrase, _The grace of God is gear enough_[8]. Verily, proverbs do battle one against another. Trench quotes the following: _The noblest vengeance is to forgive_ compared with the infamous _He who cannot avenge himself is weak, he who will not is vile_. _Penny wise pound foolish_ is cried in our one ear; _Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves_ in the other. Could anything be more disconcerting to our hope of investigating the ethical system of proverbs? But in like manner their social teaching at first sight seems a wilderness of contradiction, their theology a babel of conflicting tongues. The natural perplexity thus occasioned can, however, be resolved very simply. Two points must be kept in mind. First, that when with rough and ready justice men are classified as pious or wicked, clever or stupid, generous or miserly, hopeful or despondent, rich or poor, young or old, wise or ignorant, and so forth, these terms do represent real distinctions between persons, although perhaps no one category suffices fully to describe any given individual; and second, that a proverb necessarily expresses a sentiment shared by a number of people. It follows that what we ought to seek in proverbs is not one point of view but many. We shall find the attitude of various classes and types of men. We shall see life as it appears now in the eyes of the just and the merciful, now of the evil and the cunning. Here in one group of sayings will be the way the world looks to a lazy man, here again are the convictions of the unscrupulously shrewd. Here is some