AN ESSAY ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE CHARACTERS OF MEN. I HAVE often thought it a melancholy instance of the great depravity of human nature, that, whilst so many men have employed their utmost abilities to invent systems, by which the artful and cunning part of mankind may be enabled to impose on the rest of the world, few or none should have stood up the champions of the innocent and undesigning, and have endeavoured to arm them against imposition. Those who predicate of man in general, that he is an animal of this or that disposition, seem to me not sufficiently to have studied human nature; for that immense variety of characters, so apparent in men even of the same climate, religion, and education, which gives the poet a sufficient licence, as I apprehend, for saying that, Man differs more from man, than man from beast, could hardly exist, unless the distinction had some original foundation in nature itself. Nor is it perhaps a less proper predicament of the genius of a tree, that it will flourish so many years, loves such a soil, bears such a fruit, &c. than of man in general, that he is good, bad, fierce, tame, honest, or cunning. This original difference will, I think, alone account for that very early and strong inclination to good or evil, which distinguishes different dispositions in children, in their first infancy; in the most uninformed savages, who can be thought to have altered their nature by no rules, nor artfully acquired habits; and lastly, in persons, who, from the same education, &c. might be thought to have directed nature the same way; yet, among all these, there subsists, as I have before hinted, so manifest and extreme a difference of inclination or character, that almost obliges us, I think, to acknowledge some unacquired, original distinction, in the nature or soul of one man, from that of another. Thus without asserting, in general, that man is a deceitful animal; we may, I believe, appeal for instances of deceit to the behaviour of some children and savages. When this quality therefore is nourished and improved by education, in which we are taught rather to conceal vices, than to cultivate virtues; when it hath sucked in the instruction of politicians, and is instituted in the Art of thriving, it will be no wonder that it should grow to that monstrous height to which we sometimes see it arrive. This Art of thriving being the very reverse of that doctrine of the Stoics, by which men were taught to consider themselves as fellow citizens of the world, and to labour jointly for the common good, without any private distinction of their own: whereas this, on the contrary, points out to every individual his own particular and separate advantage, to which he is to sacrifice the interest of all others; which he is to consider as his Summum Bonum, to pursue with his utmost diligence and industry, and to acquire by all means whatever. Now when this noble end is once established, deceit must immediately suggest itself as the necessary means; for, as it impossible that any man endowed with rational faculties, and being in a state of freedom, should willingly agree, without some motive of love or friendship, absolutely to sacrifice his own interest to that of another, it becomes necessary to impose upon him, to persuade him, that his own good is designed, and that he will be a gainer by coming into those schemes, which are, in reality, calculated for his destruction. And this, if I mistake not, is the very essence of that excellent art, called the Art of Politics. Thus while the crafty and designing part of mankind, consulting only their own separate advantage, endeavour to maintain one constant imposition on others, the whole world becomes a vast masquerade, where the greatest part appear disguised under false vizors and habits; a very few only showing their own faces, who become, by so doing, the astonishment and ridicule of all the rest. But however cunning the disguise be which a masquerader wears; however foreign to his age, degree, or circumstance, yet if closely attended to, he very rarely escapes the discovery of an accurate observer; for Nature, which unwillingly submits to the imposture, is ever endeavouring to peep forth and show herself; nor can the cardinal, the friar, or the judge, long conceal the sot, the gamester, or the rake. In the same manner will those disguises, which are worn on the greater stage, generally vanish, or prove ineffectual to impose the assumed for the real character upon us, if we employ sufficient diligence and attention in the scrutiny. But as this discovery is of infinitely greater consequence to us; and as, perhaps, all are not equally qualified to make it, I shall venture to set down |