T H E
R A M B L E R .
NUMB. 6, SATURDAY, April 7, 1750
Strenua nos exercet inertia, navibus atque
Quadrigis petimus bene vivere : quod petis, hic est;
Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit aequus.
HOR.
Active in indolence, abroad we roam;
In quest of happiness, which dwells at home:
With vain pursuits fatig'd, at length you'll find,
No place excludes it from an equal mind.
ELPHINSTON.
THAT man should never suffer his happiness to depend upon external circumstances, is one of the chief precepts of the Stoical philosophy; a precept, indeed, which that lofty sect has extended beyond the condition of human life, and in which some of them seem to have comprised an utter exclusion of all corporal pain and pleasure, from the regard or attention of a wise man.
SUCH sapienta insaniens, as Horace calls the doctrine of another sect, such extravagance of philosophy, can want neither authority nor argument for its confutaion: it is overthrown by the experience of every hour, and the powers of nature rise up against it. But we may very properly enquire, how far we can exempt ourselves from outward influences, and secure to our minds a state of tranquillity: for, though the boast of absolute independence is ridiculous and vain, yet a mean flexibility to every impulse, and a patient submission to the tyranny of casual troubles, is below the dignity of that mind, which, however depraved or weakened, boasts its derivation from a celestial original, and hopes for an union with infinite goodness, and unvariable felicity.
Ni vitiis pejora fovens
Proprium deserat ortum.
Unless the soul, to vice a thrall,
Desert her own original.
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