he mason, the
joiner, the cabinet-maker, all those numerous classes of persons, who
are employed in forming garments for us to wear, houses to live in,
and moveables and instruments for the accommodation of the species. All
these persons are, of necessity, of a peaceable demeanour. So are those
who are not employed in producing the conveniencies of life, but in
conducting the affairs of barter and exchange. Add to these, such as
are engaged in literature, either in the study of what has already been
produced, or in adding to the stock, in science or the liberal arts,
in the instructing mankind in religion and their duties, or in the
education of youth. "Civility," "civil," are indeed terms which express
a state of peaceable occupation, in opposition to what is military, and
imply a tranquil frame of mind, and the absence of contention, uproar
and violence. It is therefore clear, that the majority of mankind are
civil, devoted to the arts of peace, and so far as relates to acts of
violence innocent, and that the sons of rapine constitute the exception
to the general character.

We come into the world under a hard and unpalatable law, "In the
sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread." It is a bitter decree that is
promulgated against us, "He that will not work, neither shall he eat."
We all of us love to do our own will, and to be free from the manacles
of restraint. What our hearts "find us to do," that we are disposed
to execute "with all our might." Some men are lovers of strenuous
occupation. They build and they plant; they raise splendid edifices, and
lay out pleasure-grounds of mighty extent. Or they devote their minds to
the acquisition of knowledge; they

----outwatch the bear,
With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds, or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind.

Others again would waste perhaps their whole lives in reverie and
idleness. They are constituted of materials so kindly and serene,
that their spirits never flag from want of occupation and external
excitement. They could lie for ever on a sunny bank, in a condition
divided between thinking and no thinking, refreshed by the fanning
breeze, viewing the undulations of the soil, and the rippling of the
brook, admiring the azure heavens, and the vast, the bold, and the
sublime figure of the clouds, yielding themselves occasionally to
"thick-coming fancies," and day-dreams, and the