The Works of Samuel Johnson, in Sixteen Volumes. Volume 04Johnson, Samuel
Philosophy
The Works of Samuel Johnson, in Sixteen Volumes. Volume 04
Johnson, Samuel
Essays
This picture of a savage life if it shows how much
individuals may perform, shows likewise how much
society is to be desired. Though the perseverance
and address of the Indian excite our admiration,
they nevertheless cannot procure him the conveniences
which are enjoyed by the vagrant beggar of a
civilized country: he hunts like a wild beast to
satisfy his hunger; and when he lies down to rest after
a successful chase, cannot pronounce himself secure
against the danger of perishing in a few days: he is,
perhaps, content with his condition, because he
knows not that a better is attainable by man; as he
that is born blind does not long for the perception
of light, because he cannot conceive the advantages
which light would afford him; but hunger, wounds,
and weariness, are real evils, though he believes
them equally incident to all his fellow-creatures;
and when a tempest compels him to lie starving in
his hut, he cannot justly be concluded equally happy
with those whom art has exempted from the power
of chance, and who make the foregoing year provide
for the following.
To receive and to communicate assistance,
constitutes the happiness of human life: man may, indeed,
preserve his existence in solitude, but can enjoy it
only in society; the greatest understanding of an
individual, doomed to procure food and clothing
for himself, will barely supply him with expedients
to keep off death from day to day; but as one of a
large community performing only his share of the
common business, he gains leisure for intellectual
pleasures, and enjoys the happiness of reason and
reflection.
No. 69. TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1753
Fereoe libenter homines id quod volunt credunt. CAESAR.
Men willingly believe what they wish to be true.
TULLY has long ago observed, that no man,
however weakened by long life, is so conscious
of his own decrepitude, as not to imagine that he
may yet hold his station in the world for another year.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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