The very style of such
persons will serve to discriminate them from those numberless
impostors who have deluded the ignorant with professions
incompatible with human practice, and have afterwards incensed them
by practices below the level of vulgar rectitude.
It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their
maxims have a plausible air, and, on a cursory view, appear equal to
first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current
as copper coin, and about as valuable. They serve equally the first
capacities and the lowest, and they are, at least, as useful to the
worst men as the best. Of this stamp is the cant of NOT MEN, BUT
MEASURES; a sort of charm, by which many people got loose from every
honourable engagement. When I see a man acting this desultory and
disconnected part, with as much detriment to his own fortune as
prejudice to the cause of any party, I am not persuaded that he is
right, but I am ready to believe he is in earnest. I respect virtue
in all its situations, even when it is found in the unsuitable
company of weakness. I lament to see qualities, rare and valuable,
squandered away without any public utility.
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