To confess the truth, there is little danger of the possessor's ever undervaluing this titular excellence. Not that I would withdraw from it that deference which the policy of government hath assigned it. On the contrary, I have laid down the most exact compliance with this respect, as a fundamental in good-breeding; nay, I insist only that we may be admitted to pay it, and not treated with a disdain even beyond what the eastern monarchs shew to their slaves. Surely it is too high an elevation when, instead of treating the lowest human creature, in a Christian sense, as our brethren, we look down on such as are but one rank in the civil order removed from us as unworthy to breathe even the same air, and regard the most distant communication with them as an indignity and disgrace offered to ourselves. This is considering the difference not in the individual, but in the very species; a height of insolence impious in a Christian society, and most absurd and ridiculous in a trading nation. I have now done with my first head, in which I have treated of good-breeding, as it regards our actions. I shall, in the next place, consider it with respect to our words, and shall endeavour to lay down some rules, by observing which our well-bred man may, in his discourse as well as actions, contribute to the happiness and well-being of society. Certain it is, that the highest pleasure which we are capable of enjoying in conversation is to be met with only in the society of persons whose understanding is pretty near on an equality with our own; nor is this equality only necessary to enable men of exalted genius and extensive knowledge to taste the sublimer pleasures of communicating their refined ideas to each other; but it is likewise necessary to the inferior happiness of every subordinate degree of society, down to the very lowest. For instance; we will suppose a conversation between Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and three dancing-masters. It will be acknowledged, I believe, that the heel sophists would be as little pleased with the company of the philosophers as the philosophers with theirs. It would be greatly, therefore, for the improvement and happiness of conversation, if society could be formed on this equality; but, as men are not ranked in this world by the different degrees of their understanding, but by other methods, and consequently all degrees of understanding often meet in the same class, and must _ex necessitate_ frequently converse together, the impossibility of accomplishing any such Utopian scheme very plainly appears. Here therefore is a visible but unavoidable imperfection in society itself. But, as we have laid it down as a fundamental that the essence of good-breeding is to contribute as much as possible to the ease and happiness of mankind, so will it be the business of our well-bred man to endeavour to lessen this imperfection to his utmost, and to bring society as near to a level at least as he is able.