1. CHAPTER I.
Too short to need a preface
There are a set of religious, or rather moral writers, who teach
that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery, in
this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we
have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.
Indeed, if by virtue these writers mean the exercise of those
cardinal virtues, which like good housewives stay at home, and mind
only the business of their own family, I shall very readily concede
the point; for so surely do all these contribute and lead to
happiness, that I could almost wish, in violation of all the antient
and modern sages, to call them rather by the name of wisdom, than by
that of virtue; for, with regard to this life, no system, I
conceive, was ever wiser than that of the antient Epicureans, who held
this wisdom to constitute the chief good; nor foolisher than that of
their opposites, those modern epicures, who place all felicity in
the abundant gratification of every sensual appetite.
But if by virtue is meant (as I almost think it ought) a certain
relative quality, which is always busying itself without-doors, and
seems as much interested in pursuing the good of others as its own;
I cannot so easily agree that this is the surest way to human
happiness; because I am afraid we must then include poverty and
contempt, with all the mischiefs which backbiting, envy, and
ingratitude, can bring on mankind, in our idea of happiness; nay,
sometimes perhaps we shall be obliged to wait upon the said
happiness to a jail; since many by the above virtue have brought
themselves thither.
I have not now leisure to enter upon so large a field of
speculation, as here seems opening upon me; my design was to wipe
off a doctrine that lay in my way; since, while Mr. Jones was acting
the most virtuous part imaginable, in labouring to preserve his
fellow-creatures from destruction, the devil, or some other evil
spirit, one perhaps cloathed in human flesh, was hard at work to
make him completely miserable in the ruin of his Sophia.
This, therefore, would seem an exception to the above rule, if
indeed it was a rule; but as we have in our voyage through life seen
so many other exceptions to it, we chuse to dispute the doctrine on
which it is founded, which we don't apprehend to be Christian, which
we are convinced is not true, and which is indeed destructive of one
of the noblest arguments that reason alone can furnish for the
belief of immortality.
But as the reader's curiosity (if he hath any) must be now awake,
and hungry, we shall provide to feed it as fast as we can.