[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.In thediscourse which the eloquent and philosophical Massillon pronounced, on givinghis benediction to the standards of the regiment of Catinat, there is the followingaddress to the officers: What is most deplorable in your situation, Gentlemen, is,that in a life hard and painful, in which the services and the duties sometimes gobeyond the rigour and severity of the most austere cloisters; you suffer always invain for the life to come, and frequently even for this life.Alas! the solitary monkin his cell, obliged to mortify the flesh and to subject it to the spirit, is supportedby the hope of an assured recompence, and by the secret unction of that gracewhich softens the yoke of the Lord.But you, on the bed of death, can you dareto represent to Him your fatigues and the daily hardships of your employment?can you dare to solicit Him for any recompence? and in all the exertions that youhave made, in all the violences that you have done to yourselves, what is therethat He ought to place to His own account? The best days of your life, however,have been sacrificed to your profession, and ten years service has more worn outyour body, than would, perhaps, have done a whole life of repentance and morti-fication.Alas! my brother, one single day of those sufferings, consecrated to theIII.2 117 The Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam SmithLord, would, perhaps, have obtained you an eternal happiness.One single action,painful to nature, and offered up to Him, would, perhaps, have secured to you theinheritance of the Saints.And you have done all this, and in vain, for this world.To compare, in this manner, the futile mortifications of a monastery, to the35ennobling hardships and hazards of war; to suppose that one day, or one hour,employed in the former should, in the eye of the great Judge of the world, havemore merit than a whole life spent honourably in the latter, is surely contrary toall our moral sentiments; to all the principles by which nature has taught us toregulate our contempt or admiration.It is this spirit, however, which, while it hasreserved the celestial regions for monks and friars, or for those whose conduct andconversation resembled those of monks and friars, has condemned to the infernalall the heroes, all the statesmen and lawgivers, all the poets and philosophers offormer ages; all those who have invented, improved, or excelled in the arts whichcontribute to the subsistence, to the conveniency, or to the ornament of humanlife; all the great protectors, instructors, and benefactors of mankind; all thoseto whom our natural sense of praise-worthiness forces us to ascribe the highestmerit and most exalted virtue.Can we wonder that so strange an application ofthis most respectable doctrine should sometimes have exposed it to contempt andderision; with those at least who had themselves, perhaps, no great taste or turnfor the devout and contemplative virtues?"Chap.IIIOf the Influence and Authority of ConscienceBut though the approbation of his own conscience can scarce, upon some ex-1traordinary occasions, content the weakness of man; though the testimony of thesupposed impartial spectator, of the great inmate of the breast, cannot alwaysalone support him; yet the influence and authority of this principle is, upon all oc-casions, very great; and it is only by consulting this judge within, that we can eversee what relates to ourselves in its proper shape and dimensions; or that we canever make any proper comparison between our own interests and those of otherpeople.As to the eye of the body, objects appear great or small, not so much according2to their real dimensions, as according to the nearness or distance of their situation;"See Voltaire.Vous y grillez sage et docte Platon,Divin Homere, eloquent Ciceron, etc.III.3 118 The Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam Smithso do they likewise to what may be called the natural eye of the mind: and weremedy the defects of both these organs pretty much in the same manner.In mypresent situation an immense landscape of lawns, and woods, and distant moun-tains, seems to do no more than cover the little window which I write by, and tobe out of all proportion less than the chamber in which I am sitting
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
