Flattery, when it has some plausible pretext, may not be so pernicious as it has been thought; it sometimes encourages to great acts; but its excess is vicious, like the excess of satire. La Fontaine says, and pretends to say it after Æsop: _On ne peut trop louer trois sortes de personnes;_ _Les dieux, sa maitresse, et son roi._ _Æsope le disait; j'y souscris quant à moi;_ _Ces sont maximes toujours bonnes._ Your flattery to three sorts of folks apply:-- You cannot say too civil things To gods, to mistresses, and kings; So honest Æsop said--and so say I. Honest Æsop said no such thing; nor do we find that he flattered any king, or any concubine. It must not be thought that kings are in reality flattered by all the flatteries that are heaped upon them; for the greater number never reach them. One common folly of orators is that of exhausting themselves in praising some prince who will never hear of their praises. But what is most lamentable of all is that Ovid should have praised Augustus even while he was dating "_de Ponto_." The perfection of the ridiculous might be found in the compliments which preachers address to kings, when they have the happiness of exhibiting before their majesties.--"To the reverend Father Gaillard, preacher to the king." Ah! most reverend father, do you preach only for the king? Are you like the monkey at the fair, which leaps "only for the king?" FORCE (PHYSICAL). What is "force?" Where does it reside? Whence does it come? Does it perish? Or is it ever the same? It has pleased us to denominate "force" that weight which one body exercises upon another. Here is a ball of two hundred pounds' weight on this floor; it presses the floor, you say, with a force of two hundred pounds. And this you call a "dead force." But are not these words "dead" and "force" a little contradictory? Might we not as well say "dead alive"--yes and no at once? This ball "weighs." Whence comes this "weight?" and is this weight a "force?" If the ball were not impeded, would it go directly to the centre of the earth? Whence has it this incomprehensible property? It is supported by my floor; and you freely give to my floor the "_vis inertiæ_"--"inertiæ" signifying "inactivity," "impotence." Now is it not singular that "impotence" should be denominated "force?" What is the living force which acts in your arm and your leg? What is the source of it? How can it be supposed that this force exists when you are dead? Does it go and take up its abode elsewhere, as a man goes to another house when his own is in ruins? How can it have been said that there is always the same force in nature? There must, then, have been always the same number of men, or of active beings equivalent to men. Why does a body in motion communicate its force to another body with which it comes in contact?