The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [324]
6. You will, I hope, go deeper, and make your way into the substance of things.
7. You are now come to an age capable of reflection, and I hope you will do what few people at your age do: exert it for your own sake in the search of truth and sound knowledge.
8. I will confess, for I am not unwilling to discover my secrets to you, that it is not many years since I have presumed to reflect for myself.
9. Till sixteen or seventeen I had no reflection; and for many years after that, I made no use of what I had.
10. I adopted the notions of the books I read, or the company I kept, without examining whether they were just or not;
11. And I rather chose to run the risk of easy error, than to take the time and trouble of investigating truth.
12. Thus, partly from laziness, partly from dissipation, and partly from thinking I was rejecting fashionable notions,
13. I was hurried away by prejudices, instead of being guided by reason; and quietly cherished error, instead of seeking for truth.
14. But since I have taken the trouble of reasoning for myself, you cannot imagine how much my notions of things are altered, and in how different a light I now see them.
15. Yet no doubt I still retain many errors, which, from long habit, have grown into real opinions; alas.
16. Without any extraordinary effort of genius, I have discovered that nature was the same three thousand years ago as it is at present;
17. That men were but men then as well as now; that modes and customs vary often, but that human nature is always the same.
18. And I can no more suppose that men were better, braver or wiser, fifteen hundred or three thousand years ago,
19. Than I can suppose that the animals or vegetables were better then than they are now.
20. Use and assert your own reason; reflect, examine and analyse everything, in order to form a sound and mature judgement;
21. Let no authority impose upon your understanding, mislead your actions or dictate your conversation.
22. Be early what, if you are not, you will when too late wish you had been.
23. Consult your reason betimes: I do not say that it will always prove an unerring guide; for human reason is not infallible; but it will prove the least erring guide that you can follow.
24. Books and conversation may assist it; but adopt neither blindly and implicitly; try both by that best guide, reason.
25. Of all the troubles, do not avoid, as many people do, the trouble of thinking: it is the best and most useful trouble in the world.
26. The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think; their notions are almost all adoptive; and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so,
27. As such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are.
Epistle 5
1. The day, if well employed, is long enough for everything.
2. One half of it, bestowed upon your studies and your exercises, will finish your mind and your body;
3. The remaining part of it, spent in good company, will form your manners and complete your character.
4. What would I not give to have you read Demosthenes critically in the morning, and understand him better than anybody;
5. At noon, behave yourself better than any person at court;
6. And in the evening, trifle more agreeably than anybody in mixed companies?
7. All this you may do if you please; you have the means, you have the opportunities.
8. Employ them while you may, and make yourself that all-accomplished man that I wish to have you.
Epistle 6
1. In order to judge of the inside of others, study your own; for men in general are very much alike;
2. And though one has one prevailing passion, and another has another, yet their operations are much the same;
3. And whatever engages or disgusts, pleases or offends you, in others will engage, disgust, please or offend others, in you.
4. Observe with the utmost attention all the operations of your own mind, the nature of your passions, and the various motives