Bla Beck to Dunm

The UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE for FEBRUARY, 1770. 57

THE

HE annexed Whole-fheet Plate, being the XXVIth in our Magazine of the Roads of England, contains a Survey of the Roads from Chelmsford in Effex, through Braintree, Sudbury, and Lavenham, to St. Edmundsbury in Suffolk, and Saffron Walden in Effex :-Alfo the Roads from Chelmsford to Malden and Raleigh in Effex, and Gravefend in Kent; with a Branch from Canterbury to Sandwich, Deal, and Dover, fhewing the Distance between Town and Town by Mile Stones, with every other Particular worthy of Observation. DISCOURSE on the Question, Whether KNOWLEDGE contributes to HAPPINESS?

Hi

OWEVER knowledge may refine human nature, and elevate it above that of brutes, it betrays a want of experience and obfervation on the various charac ters of men, and the different conditions of life, not to know that the ftrongest pleafures of fenfe are heightened by the abfence of knowledge and fpeculation, which tend to give a difrelish, at leaft in fome degree, to every fenfual enjoyment. The paffions are the fprings of numberless pleasures, and they are chilled by the intervention of mental acquifitions. True it is, a purfuit after know! ledge is a feaft to the mind, and worthy the attention of a rational being, as it, in the eye of reafon, compenfates for the lois of corporal delights: But it actually abridges us of other fources of pleasure, and cafts a fickly veil over them.

the one must be content to take his fhare of the other, which is often its troublesome companion. Pleaftre and pain, like two Monarchs, divide the empire of the world be tween them, and conjointly hit on the fame throne. Every one, whether learned Greek, or untaught barbarian, that is pleafed to be a fubject of the former, muft at feasons indure the uncontroulable influence of the latter. It is however allowed that age alone impairs the faculties of enjoyment; for which fome deduction must be made.

The Belles Lettres, to those whose tafte inclines that way, afford a pleasure that leaves no difguft behind. But there are branches of fcience which, however agreeable under certain attitudes of the mind, are helet with perplexity and gloom. The ingenious reas der will readily conceive that I have an eye That knowledge is not effential to happiness to deeply moral and metaphyfcal difquifiis a truth exemplified in an eminent manner tions, which are apt to alienate the affections in children and in the beafts of the field; from common purfuits. I have fingled out from whom a ftrong inference may be drawn that particular branch of knowledge which in fupport of this opinion. It will, without treats of the Deity, of the ultimate end of difpute, be readily acknowledged, that the man's creation, and of other fuch important famb which skips and plays knows not for points, as an acquaintance with thefe mattow; and yet he is certainly but little inters, fo far as reafon lends a beam, may be debted to knowledge for his felicity: deemed noble, and as this part of fcience is Thoughtlefs and unconcerned, he feizes particularly productive of diffatisfaction in fuch pleasures as undeviating nature reaches affairs of life. forth to him, and is not excruciated with anxious doubts of the inmortality of the foul, or the eternal exiftence of matter, the neceffity of moral evil, or the freedom of the will.

That we increase in knowledge as we adrance in years we all know; but we do not find that we increase in happiness. On the contrary, experience tells us, that childhood, which is the most ignorant, is likewife the happieft ftate of human life; a circumftance principally chargeable to ignorance and fimplicity. Evils multiply falter than bleffings. Knowledge brings care as well as pleature along with it ; and he that eagerly embraces NUMB. CCCXVIII, VOL, XLVI.

Fact and experience are doughty argu ments in the scale of a difpute. It will re fleet light on the question if we take a view of the characters of many ftudious men amongst us, and examine how far their appearance will countenance the above afler

tions.

What gloom furrounds thefe confè4 crated votaries of the mufcs! The gay, the fportive joys feem to have bid them eternal adieu: Forbidding looks, filence, melancholy, retreats, ufurp their place.

Great apa cation fo captivates the eager ftudent, as to render that common converïàtion, which the lefs cultivated mind would be pleaded with, fickly and palling. The

H

mean?

58

meannefs of many an obfervation, the tedioufhefs and unimportant circumftances of many a tale, are confidered by him as fo many intrufions on his time and patience; and with pain he liftens to a difcourfe which exhibits neither inftruction nor delight to him. Reafoning from caufes, he rifes to cffects. Penetrating into the temper of his companion, he has all his motives and weaknesses open to his view, and confiders his reflexions as the mechanical effects of his feveral prejudices. He dies in the converfation of the living, and revives not till he reenters the fociety of the dead, intombed in his library.

Advancement in knowledge and advancement in years have, in fact, a refemblance of each other: They both ingender diffatisfaction and peevishness, when they border on extremes; so that study without bounds is a premature age of the mind, like that of the body, not the center of pleasure. Truth may be fometimes difagreeable, but it is always facred: We humble our hearts before the idol, even when we diflike its form.

Though knowledge may stand in the
ftead of fenfual delights, there are times
when that will pall on the mind like corpo-
ral fweets on the body. Neither in fenfual
nor in mental gratifications must we expect
a completion of happiness. Poffibly a tenor
of exquifite felicity may involve a contradic-
tion, as every fenfation exifts by comparifon,
or at least is heightened by it. How far this
circumftance is a neceffary condition of na-
ture is a question beyond the reach of man.
We fee fo much caufe to thank the Creator
for the bleflings we inherit in things we un-
derstand, that we will conclude the evils of
life, numerous as we find them, are the efflux
of fome general good, or the offspring of
uncontroulable neceffity. We cannot with
reafon arraign the goodness of a Being, who
has, upon a balance, given us a greater fhare
of good than evil.

The fun does not always fhine and chear
the face of nature, but fometimes veils his
face to burst forth again with a more daz-
zling blaze. Day and night fucceed each
other alternately, and give pleasure repeated
birth. Variety fparkles on the fenfes, and
beguiles the tedious hours, which would
otherwife hang like a load upon us.

The most probable way of enjoying pleafures in the highest perfection is to vary them as much as poffible, and not to indulge in any to a furfeit. The pleafures of fenfe fhould be wifely blended with the recreations of the mind, and an agreeable variety, (as, in mufic, the most delightful harmony) would then fuccced. We thould fly from fence

to finging, from melancholy to mufic.
fuch a combination as this, fweetened with
innocence and a ferene consciousness of up-
rightnefs, except under peculiar circumftan-
ces of mifery, or extraordinary gloom of
mind, may arife fuch a fhare of felicity as
will not make the poffeffor think exiftence a
burden; and beyond threfe bounds of hap-
pinefs neither the diving refearches of the
philofopher, the giddy flights of the libertine,
nor the unruffled ferenity of a peafant's life,
will carry the moft diligent inquirer.

There is a certain portion of happiness meafured out to us all; and the only quef tion is, in what purfuit it fhall confift; a queftion which is determined by our choice or peculiar bias. That choice is too generally imagined to be of great importance in the fcale of happiness; but time and famili. arity level the difference that is at firft fuppofed to exift between different choices. Happiness is fituate in idea. If we fancy we have it, it is fufficient; but two few there are who fancy fo. It is feen by many at a diftance, like the ignis fatuus, and vanishes at their approach when they are ready to feize it.

Chance, or fome trifling circumftance to univerfal taste as trifling as chance, at firit determines a man to a particular courfe in life, which by a private prejudice he judges moft promifing to happiness: And if under fuch a choice, (whether it refpects mental or fenfual enjoyment) he can perfuade himself that he is happy, no one elfe muft dare difit. The wild lunatic himself, who is pute at fo great a remove from rational knowledge, as, inftead of poffeffing the common fhare allotted to others, to treasure up whims and nonfenfe diametrically oppofite to reafon, may yet be happy; perhaps more fo than the proud philofopher in Horace, who thinks himself fupremely wife, and King of Kings.'

It affords a fmile at many ancient and fome more modern philofophers, to reflect on the great emphafis they laid on mental acquire ment, as if that were exclufively the only bufinefs of life, as well as the only path that leads to blifs. They did not confider, that to appropriate fo large a portion of time on fpeculation, as to leave none for action, is to defeat the intention of many faculties we de rive from nature befides thofe of the mind. It would ill become an author to decry the dignity of knowledge; nor would I be interpreted fo to do: But happiness is not always connected with dignity; and it is his office to warn against the dangerous effects of excefs on human frailty, as tending to dif tort from the paths of propriety, without

that