and women, by what title soever distinguished, whose oocupation it is either to ogle with the eye, flirt with the fan, dress, cringe, adjust the muscles of the face, or other parts of the body, are degraded from the rank of gentry; which is from this time forward appropriated to those who em ploy the talents of the mind in the pursuit of knowledge and practice of virtue, and are content to take their places as they are distinguished by moral and intellectual accom plishments. མ . The rest of the human species come under the appel lation of mechanics, with this difference, that the professed mechanics, who, not pretending to be gentlemen, contain themselves within their proper sphere, are necessary to the well-being of mankind, and consequently should be more respected in a well-regulated commonwealth, than those mechanics who make a merit of being useless. Having hitherto considered the human species as distinguished into gentlemen and mechanics, I come now to treat of the machines; a sort of beings that have the outside or appearance of men, without being really such. The free-thinkers have often declared to the world, that they are not actuated by any incorporeal being or spirit; but that all the operations they exert, proceed from, the collision of certain corpuscles, endued with proper figures and motions. It is now a considerable time that I have been their proselyte in this point. I am even so far cenvinced that they are in the right, that I shall attempt proving it to others. The mind being itself invisible, there is no other way to discern its existence, than by the effects which it produceth. Where design, order, and symmetry, are visible in the effects, we conclude the cause to be an intelligent being; but where nothing of these can be found, we ascribe the effect to hazard, necessity, or the like. Now I appeal to any one who is conversant in the modern productions of our free-thinkers, if they do not look rather like effects of chance, or at best of mechanism, than of a thinking principle, and consequently, whether the authors of those rhap sodies are not mere machines. The same point is likewise evident from their own assertion; it being plain that no one could mistake thought for motion, who knew what thought was. For these reasons I do hereby give it in charge to all Christians, that hereafter they speak of free-thinkers in the neuter gender, using the term it for him. They are to be considered as automata, made up of bones and muscles, nerves, arteries, and animal spirits; not so innocent, indeed, but as destitute of thought and reason, as those little machines which the excellent author from whom I take the motto of this paper, has so elegantly described. No. 131.] Tuesday, August 11, 1713.›› kaq rană, Iter pigrorum quasi sepes spinarum. Ex. Latin. Prov. The way of the slothful man is a hedge of thorns.» jak zâą no THERE are two sorts of persons within the consideration of my frontispiece; the first are the mighty body of lingerers, persons who do not indeed employ their time cri. minally, but are such pretty innocents, who, as the poet says, -waste away In gentle inactivity the day. The others being something more vivacious, are such as do not only omit to spend their time well, but are in the constant pursuit of criminal satisfactions. Whatever the divine may think, the case of the first seems to be the most deplorable, as the habit of sloth is more invincible than that of vice. The first is preferred even when the man is fully possessed of himself, and submitted to with constant deliberation, and cool thought. The other we are driven into generally through the heat of wine, or youth, which Mr. Hobbes calls a natural drunkenness; and therefore consequently are more excusable for any errors committed during the deprivation or suspension of our reason, than in the possession of it. The irregular starts of vicious appetites are in time destroyed by the gratification of them; but a well-ordered life of sloth receives daily strength from its continuance. I went (says Solomon) by the field of the slothful, and the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo! it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.' To raise the image of this person, the same author adds, "The slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom, and it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth. If there were no future account expected of spending our time, the immediate inconvenience that attends a life of idleness should of itself be persuasion enough to the men of sense to avoid it. I say to the men of sense, because there are of these that give in to it, and for these chiefly is this paper designed. Arguments drawn from future rewards and punishments, are things too remote for the consideration of stubborn sanguine youth. They are affected by such only as propose immediate pleasure or pain; as the strongest persuasive to the children of Israel was a land flowing with milk and honey. I believe I may say there is more toil, fatigue, and uneasiness in sloth, than can be found in any employment a man will put himself upon. When a thoughtful man is once fixed this way, spleen is the necessary consequence. This directs him instantly to the contemplation of his health or circumstances, which must ever be found extremely bad upon these melancholy inquiries. If he has any common business upon his hands, numberless objections arise, that make the despatch of it impossible; and he cries out with Solomon, 'There is a lion in the way, a lion in the streets; that is, there is some difficulty or other, which to his imagination is as invincible as a lion really would be. The man, on the contrary, that applies himself to books, or business, contracts a cheerful confidence in all his undertakings, from the daily improvements of his knowledge or fortune, and instead of giving himself up to Shakspeare. · Thick-ey'd musing cursed melancholy,' has that constant life in his visage and conversation, which the idle splenetic man borrows sometimes from the sun, shine, exercise, or an agreeable friend. A recluse idle sobriety must be attended with more bitter remorse, than the most active debauchery can at any intervals be molested with. The rake, if he is a cautious manager, will allow himself very little time to examine bis own conduct, and will bestow as few reflections upon himself, as the lingerer does upon any thing else, unless he has the misfortune to repent. I repeat the misfortune to repent, because I have put the great day of account out of the present case, and am now inquiring, not whose life is most irreligious, but most inconvenient. A gentleman that has formerly been a very eminent lingerer, and something splenetic, informs me, that in one winter he drank six hampers of Spa-water, several gallons of chalybeate tincture, two hogsheads of bitters, at the rate of sixty pounds a hogshead, laid one hundred and fifty infallible schemes, in every one of which he was disappointed, received a thousand affronts during the north-easterly winds, and in short, run through more misery and expense, than the most meritorious bravo could boast of. Another tells me, that he fell into this way at the university, where the youth are too apt to be lulled into a state of such tranquillity as prejudices them against the bustle of that worldly business, for which this part of their education should prepare them. As he could with the utmost secrecy be idle in his own chamber, he says he was for some years irrecoverably sunk, and immersed in the luxury of an easy chair, though at the same time, in the general opinion, he passed for a hard student. During this lethargy he had some intervals of application to books, which rather aggravated than suspended the painful thoughts of a misspent life. Thus his supposed relief bego came his punishment, and, like the damned in Milton, upon their conveyance at certain revolutions from fire to ice, He felt by turns the bitter change of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce.' When he had a mind to go out, he was so scrupulous as to form some excuse or other which the idle are ever pro B vided with, and could not satisfy himself with wt this ridiculous appearance of justice. Sometimes by his own contrivance and insinuation, the woman that looked after his chamber would convince him of the necessity of washing his room, or any other matter of the like joyous import, to which he always submitted, after having decently opposed it, and made his exit with much seeming reluctance, and inward delight. Thus did he pass the noon of his life in the solitude of a monk, and the guilt of a libertine. He is since awakened, by application, out of slumber; has no more spleen than a Dutchman, who, as sir W. Temple observes, is not delicate or idle enough to suffer from this enemy, but is always well when he is not ill, always pleased when he is not angry.' There is a gentleman I have seen at a coffee-house, near the place of my abode, who having a pretty good estate, and a disinclination to hooks or business, to secure himself from some of the above-mentioned misfor.. tunes, employs himself with much alacrity in the following method. Being vehemently disposed to loquacity, he has a person constantly with him, to whom he gives an annual pension for no other merit but being very attentive, and never interrupting him by question and answer, whatever he may utter that may seemingly require it. To secure to himself discourse, his fundamental maxim seems to be, by no means to consider what he is going to say. He delivers therefore every thought as it first intrudes itself upon him, and then, with all the freedom you could wish, will examine it, and rally the impertinence, or evince the truth of it. In short, he took the same pleasure in confuting himself, as he could have done in discomfiting an opponent: and his discourse was as that of two persons attacking each other with exceeding warmth, incoherence, and good-nature. There is another, whom I have seen in the park, employing himself with the same industry, though not with the same innocence. He is very dexterous in taking flies, and fixing one at each end of a horsehair, which his perriwig supplies him with. He bangs them over a little stick, which suspension inclines them |