: Lucius Annaeus Seneca
: Seneca's Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency
: Books on Demand
: 9783748132554
: 1
: CHF 2.40
:
: Philosophie: Allgemeines, Nachschlagewerke
: English
: 445
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
It is, perhaps, one of the most pernicious errors of a rash and inconsiderate life, the common ignorance of the world in the matter of exchanging benefits . And this arises from a mistake, partly in the person that we would oblige, and partly in the thing itself. To begin with the latter:"A benefit is a good office, done with intention and judgment;" that is to say, with a due regard to all the circumstances of what , how , why , when , where , to whom , how much , and the like; or otherwise:"It is a voluntary and benevolent action that delights the giver in the comfort it brings to the receiver." It will be hard to draw this subject, either into method or compass: the one, because of the infinite variety and complication of cases; the other, by reason of the large extent of it: for the whole business (almost) of mankind in society falls under this head; the duties of kings and subjects, husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, natives and strangers, high and low, rich and poor, strong and weak, friends and enemies.

TO THE READER.


It has been a long time my thought to turn Seneca into English; but whether as atranslationor anabstract, was the question. Atranslation, I perceive, it must not be, at last, for several reasons. First, it is a thing already done to my hand, and of above sixty years’ standing; though with as littlecredit, perhaps, to the Author, assatisfactionto the Reader. Secondly, There is a great deal in him, that is wholly foreign to my business: as his philosophical treatises ofMeteors,Earthquakes, the Original ofRivers, several frivolous disputes betwixt the Epicureans and the Stoics, etc., to say nothing of his frequent repetitions of the same thing again in other words, (wherein he very handsomely excuses himself, by saying, “That he does but inculcate over and over the same counsels to those that over and over commit the same faults.”)Thirdly, His excellency consists rather in a rhapsody of divine and extraordinaryhintsandnotions, than in any regulated method of discourse; so that to take him as he lies, and so to go through with him, were utterly inconsistent with the order and brevity which I propound; my principal design, being only to digest, and commonplace hisMorals, in such sort, that any man, upon occasion, may know where to find them. And I have kept myself so close to this proposition, that I have reduced all his scattered Ethics to theirproper heads, without any additions of my own, more than of absolute necessity for the tacking of them together. Some other man in my place would perhaps make you twenty apologies for his want of skill and address, in governing this affair; but these are formal and pedantic fooleries, as if any man that first takes himself for a coxcomb in his own heart, would afterwards make himself one in print too. ThisAbstract, such as it is, you are extremely welcome to; and I am sorry it is no better, both for your sakes and my own, for if it were written up to the spirit of the original, it would be one of the most valuable presents that ever any private man bestowed upon the public; and this, too, even in the judgment of both parties, as well Christian as Heathen, of which in its due place.
Next to my choice of theAuthorand of thesubject, together with the manner of handling it, I have likewise had some regard, in this publication, to thetimingof it, and to the preference of this topic ofBenefitsabove all others, for the groundwork of myfirst essay. We are fallen into an age ofvain philosophy(as the holy apostle calls it) and so desperately overrun with Drolls and Sceptics, that there is hardly any thing so certain or so sacred, that is not exposed to question and contempt, insomuch, that betwixt the hypocrite and the Atheist, the very foundations of religion and good manners are shaken, and the two tables of theDecaloguedashed to pieces the one against the other; the laws of government are subjected to the fancies of the vulgar; public authority to the private passions and opinions of the people; and the supernatural motions of grace confounded with the common dictates of nature. In this state of corruption, who so fit as a good honest Christian Pagan for a moderator among Pagan Christians?
To pass now from the general scope of the whole work to the particular argument of the first part of it, I pitched upon the theme ofBenefits,Gratitude, andIngratitude, to begin withal, as an earnest of the rest, and a lecture expressly calculated for the unthankfulness of these times; the foulest undoubtedly, and the most execrable of all others, since the very apostasy of the angels: nay, if I durst but suppose a possibility of mercy for those damned spirits, and that they might ever be taken into favor again, my charity would hope even better for them than we have found from some of our revolters, and that they would so behave themselves as not to incur a second forfeiture. And to carry the resemblance yet one point farther, they do both of them agree in an implacable malice against those of their fellows that keep their stations. But, alas! what couldIngratitudedo withoutHypocrisy, the inseparable companion of it, and, in effect, the bolder and blacker devil of the two? for Lucifer himself never had the face to lift up his eyes to heaven, and talk to the Almighty at the familiar rate of our pretended patriots and zealots, and at the same time to make him party to a cheat. It is not for nothing that the Holy Ghost has denounced so many woes, and redoubled so many cautions againsthypocrites; plainly intimating at once how dangerous a snare they are to mankind, and no less odious to God himself; which is sufficiently denoted in the force of that dreadful expression,And your portion shall be with hypocrites. You will find in the holy scriptures (as I have formerly observed) that God has given the grace of repentance topersecutors,idolaters,murderers,adulterers, etc., but I am mistaken if the whole Bible affords you any one instance of aconverted hypocrite.
To descend now from truth itself to our own experience have we not seen, even in our days, a most pious (and almost faultless) Prince brought to the scaffold by his own subjects? The most glorious constitution upon the face of the earth, both ecclesiastical and civil, torn to pieces and dissolved? The happiest people under the sun enslaved? Our temples sacrilegiously profaned, and a license given to all sorts of heresy and outrage? And by whom but by a race ofhypocrites?who had nothing in their mouths all this while butthe purity of the gospel,the honor of the king, andthe liberty of the people, assisted underhand withdefamatory papers, which were levelled at thekinghimself through the sides of his most faithfulministers. This PROJECT succeeded so well against one government, that it is now again set afoot against another; and by some of the very actors too in that TRAGEDY, and after a most gracious pardon also, when Providence had laid their necks and their fortunes at his majesty’s feet. It is a wonderful thing thatlibelsandlibellers, the mostinfamousofpracticesand ofmen; the mostunmanly sneaking methodsandinstrumentsofmischief; the very bane ofhuman society, and theplagueof allgovernments; it is a wonderful thing (I say) that these engines and engineers should ever find credit enough in the world to engage a party; but it would be still more wonderful if thesame trickshould pass twice upon thesame people, in thesame age, and from thesameIMPOSTORS. This contemplation has carried me a little out of my way, but it has at length brought me to my text again, for there is in the bottom of it the highest opposition imaginable of ...