Thoughts on Man: His Nature, Productions, and Discoveries
Page 35
Let then no man, in the supercilious spirit of a fancied disdain, allow himself to detract from our common nature. We are ourselves the models of all the excellence that the human mind can conceive. There have been men, whose virtues may well redeem all the contempt with which satire and detraction have sought to overwhelm our species. There have been memorable periods in the history of man, when the best, the most generous and exalted sentiments have swallowed up and obliterated all that was of an opposite character. And it is but just, that those by whom these things are fairly considered, should anticipate the progress of our nature, and believe that human understanding and human virtue will hereafter accomplish such things as the heart of man has never yet been daring enough to conceive.
[1] See above, p. 25, 36. [2] Suetonius, Nero, cap. 10. [3] De Clementia, Lib. I, cap. 11. [4] De Clementia, cap. 1. [5] Ibid., Lib. II, cap. 1. [6] The phrase here used by Johnson is marked with the licentiousness we sometimes indulge in familiar conversation. Translate it into a general maxim; and it contains much melancholy truth. It is true also, that there are few individuals, who, in the urgent realities of life, have not occasionally descended from the heights of theoretical excellence. It is but just however to observe in the case of Windham, that, though he was a man of many errors, he was not the less characterised by high honour and eminent virtue. THE END.