The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [328]
6. In either case, knowledge is the principle and basis, but it is by no means all.
7. That knowledge must be adorned, it must have lustre as well as weight, or it will be oftener taken for lead than for gold.
8. Knowledge you have, and will have: I am easy upon that point. But my business, as your friend, is not to compliment you upon what you have, but to tell you what you lack;
9. And I must tell you plainly that I fear you lack everything other than knowledge.
10. And by this, my dear son, I mean that what you must next acquire is manners.
11. It has been well said that one would be virtuous for one’s own sake, though nobody were to know it; as one would be clean for one’s own sake, though nobody else were by.
12. I have therefore, since you have had the use of your reason, never written to you upon the subject of vice:
13. It speaks best for itself; and I should now just as soon think of warning you gravely not to fall into the dirt or the fire, as into dishonour.
14. But the requisite next to good morals is good manners, and they are as necessary as they are desirable.
15. Good manners are, to particular societies, what good morals are to society in general: their cement and their security.
16. And, as laws are enacted to enforce good morals, or at least to prevent the ill effects of bad ones,
17. So there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good manners and punish bad ones.
18. And, indeed, there seems to me less difference between morals and manners, and both the crimes and the punishments involving either, than at first one would imagine.
19. The immoral man, who invades another man’s property, is justly punished for it; and the ill-bred man, who, by his ill manners, invades and disturbs the quiet and comforts of private life, is by common consent as justly punished by banishment from society.
20. Mutual complaisances, attentions and sacrifices of little conveniences are as natural an implied compact between civilised people, as protection and obedience are between a state and its citizens;
21. Whoever, in either case, violates that compact, justly forfeits the advantages arising from it.
22. For my own part, I really think that next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing;
23. And the description which I should covet the most, next to that of being honest and true, is that of being well-bred.
24. Accordingly one might note these axioms: that the deepest learning, without good breeding, is unwelcome and tiresome pedantry,
25. And as that is of use nowhere but in a man’s own study, it is consequently of little or no use at all;
26. That a man who is not well-bred is unfit for good company and unwelcome in it;
27. He will consequently dislike it soon, and afterwards renounce it, or be renounced by it,
28. And be thus reduced to solitude, or, what is worse, to low and bad company.
29. And finally, that a man who is not well-bred is as unfit for business as for company.
30. Make good breeding, then, an object of study. You will negotiate with very little success, if you do not previously, by your manners, conciliate and engage the affections of those with whom you negotiate.
31. Can you ever get into good relations with others, if you have not those pleasing manners, which alone can establish them?
32. I do not say too much, when I say that good manners and gentle address are essential for the good life.
33. For your knowledge will have very little influence upon others’ minds, if your manners prejudice their hearts against you;
34. But, on the other hand, how easily will you engage the understanding, where you have first engaged the heart?
Epistle 12
1. My dear son, those who suppose that men in general act rationally, because they are called rational creatures, know very little of the world,
2. And if they act themselves upon that supposition, will nine times in ten find themselves grossly mistaken.
3. Thus the speculative, cloistered pedant,