Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the AuthorGodwin, William
Philosophy
Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the Author
Godwin, William
Human beings; Psychology -- Early works to 1850
But in all cases our best judgment should always be at the service of
our brethren of mankind. "Give to him that asketh thee; and from him
that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."
This may not always be practicable or just, when applied to the goods of
fortune: but the case of advice, information, and laws of conduct, comes
within that of Ennius, to suffer our neighbour to light his candle at
our lamp. To do so will enrich him, without making us a jot the poorer.
We should indeed respect the right of private judgment, and scarcely
in any case allow our will to supersede his will in his own proper
province. But we should on no account suffer any cowardly fears for
ourselves, to induce us to withhold from him any assistance that our
wider information or our sounder judgment might supply to him.
The next consideration by which we should be directed in the exercise
of the faculty of speech, is that we should employ it so as should best
conduce to the pleasure of our neighbour. Man is a different creature in
the savage and the civilised state. It has been affirmed, and it may be
true, that the savage man is a stranger to that disagreeable frame of
mind, known by the name of ennui. He can pore upon the babbling stream,
or stretch himself upon a sunny bank, from the rising to the setting of
the sun, and be satisfied. He is scarcely roused from this torpid state
but by the cravings of nature. If they can be supplied without effort,
he immediately relapses into his former supineness; and, if it requires
search, industry and exertion to procure their gratification, he still
more eagerly embraces the repose, which previous fatigue renders doubly
welcome.
But, when the mind has once been wakened up from its original lethargy,
when we have overstepped the boundary which divides the man from the
beast, and are made desirous of improvement, while at the same
moment the tumultuous passions that draw us in infinitely diversified
directions are called into act, the case becomes exceedingly different.
It might be difficult at first to rouse man from his original lethargy:
it is next to impossible that he should ever again be restored to it.
The appetite of the mind being once thoroughly awakened in society, the
human species are found to be perpetually craving after new intellectual
food. We read, we write, we discourse, we ford rivers, and scale
mountains, and engage in various pursuits, for the pure pleasure that
the activity and earnestness of the pursuit afford us. The day of the
savage and the civilised man are still called by the same name. They may
be measured by a pendulum, and will be found to be of the same duration.
But in all other points of view they are inexpressibly different.
Hence therefore arises another duty that is incumbent upon us as to the
exercise of the faculty of speech. This duty will be more or less urgent
according to the situation in which we are placed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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