Letter No. 210. Wednesday, Oct. 31, 1711. John Hughes.
Nescio quomodo inhaeret in mentibus quasi seculorum quoddam augurium
futurorum; idque in maximis ingeniis altissimisque animis et existit
maxime et apparet facillime.
Cic. Tusc. Quaest.
To the SPECTATOR.
SIR,
I am fully persuaded that one of the best Springs of generous and
worthy Actions, is the having generous and worthy Thoughts of our
selves. Whoever has a mean Opinion of the Dignity of his Nature, will
act in no higher a Rank than he has allotted himself in his own
Estimation. If he considers his Being as circumscribed by the
uncertain Term of a few Years, his Designs will be contracted into the
same narrow Span he imagines is to bound his Existence. How can he
exalt his Thoughts to any thing great and noble, who only believes
that, after a short Turn on the Stage of this World, he is to sink
into Oblivion, and to lose his Consciousness for ever?
For this Reason I am of Opinion, that so useful and elevated a
Contemplation as that of the Souls Immortality cannot be resumed
too often. There is not a more improving Exercise to the human Mind,
than to be frequently reviewing its own great Privileges and
Endowments; nor a more effectual Means to awaken in us an Ambition
raised above low Objects and little Pursuits, than to value our selves
as Heirs of Eternity.
It is a very great Satisfaction to consider the best and wisest of
Mankind in all Nations and Ages, asserting, as with one Voice, this
their Birthright, and to find it ratify'd by an express Revelation. At
the same time if we turn our Thoughts inward upon our selves, we may
meet with a kind of secret Sense concurring with the Proofs of our own
Immortality.
You have, in my Opinion, raised a good presumptive Argument from the
increasing Appetite the Mind has to Knowledge, and to the extending
its own Faculties, which cannot be accomplished, as the more
restrained Perfection of lower Creatures may, in the Limits of a short
Life. I think another probable Conjecture may be raised from our
Appetite to Duration it self, and from a Reflection on our Progress
through the several Stages of it: We are complaining, as you observe
in a former Speculation, of the Shortness of Life, and yet are
perpetually hurrying over the Parts of it, to arrive at certain little
Settlements, or imaginary Points of Rest, which are dispersed up and
down in it.
Now let us consider what happens to us when we arrive at these
imaginary Points of Rest: Do we stop our Motion, and sit down
satisfied in the Settlement we have gain'd? or are we not removing the
Boundary, and marking out new Points of Rest, to which we press
forward with the like Eagerness, and which cease to be such as fast as
we attain them? Our Case is like that of a Traveller upon the Alps,
who should fancy that the Top of the next Hill must end his Journey,
because it terminates his Prospect; but he no sooner arrives as it,
than he sees new Ground and other Hills beyond it, and continues to
travel on as before. [1]
This is so plainly every Man's Condition in Life, that there is no
one who has observed any thing, but may observe, that as fast as his
Time wears away, his Appetite to something future remains. The Use
therefore I would make of it is this, That since Nature (as some love