’I laid it down, and took up the Hearts of other Females, in all of which the Fomes ran in several Veins, which were twisted together, and made a very perplexed Figure.  I asked the Meaning of it, and was told it represented Deceit.

’I should have been glad to have examined the Hearts of several of my Acquaintance, whom I knew to be particularly addicted to Drinking, Gaming, Intreaguing, &c., but my Interpreter told me I must let that alone till another Opportunity, and flung down the Cover of the Chest with so much violence, as immediately awoke me.

* * * * *

No. 588.  Wednesday, September 1, 1714.  H. Grove. [1]

  ‘Dicitis, omnis in Imbecillitate est et Gratia, et Caritas.’

  Cicero de Nat.  Deor.  L.

Man may be considered in two Views, as a Reasonable, and as a Sociable Being; capable of becoming himself either happy or miserable, and of contributing to the Happiness or Misery of his Fellow Creatures.  Suitably to this double Capacity, the Contriver of Human Nature hath wisely furnished it with two Principles of Action, Self-love and Benevolence; designed one of them to render Man wakeful to his own personal Interest, the other to dispose him for giving his utmost Assistance to all engaged in the same Pursuit.  This is such an Account of our Frame, so agreeable to Reason, so much for the Honour of our Maker, and the Credit of our Species, that it may appear somewhat unaccountable what should induce Men to represent human Nature as they do under Characters of Disadvantage, or, having drawn it with a little and sordid Aspect, what Pleasure they can possibly take in such a Picture.  Do they reflect that ’tis their Own, and, if we will believe themselves, is not more odious than the Original?

One of the first that talked in this lofty Strain of our Nature was Epicurus.  Beneficence, would his Followers say, is all founded in Weakness; and, whatever be pretended, the Kindness that passeth between Men and Men is by every Man directed to himself.  This, it must be confessed, is of a Piece with the rest of that hopeful Philosophy, which having patch’d Man up out of the four Elements, attributes his Being to Chance, and derives all his Actions from an unintelligible Declination of Atoms.  And for these glorious Discoveries the Poet is beyond Measure transported in the Praises of his Hero, as if he must needs be something more than Man, only for an Endeavour to prove that Man is in nothing superior to Beasts.

In this School was Mr. Hobs instructed to speak after the same Manner, if he did not rather draw his Knowledge from an Observation of his own Temper; for he somewhere unluckily lays down this as a Rule,