n common life; and though casuistical knowledge be useful in
proper hands, yet it ought by no means to be carelessly exposed, since
most will use it rather to lull than awaken their own consciences; and
the threads of reasoning, on which truth is suspended, are frequently
drawn to such subtility, that common eyes cannot perceive, and common
sensibility cannot feel them.

18. The whole doctrine as well as practice of secrecy is so perplexing
and dangerous, that, next to him who is compelled to trust, I think him
unhappy who is chosen to be trusted; for he is often involved in
scruples without the liberty of calling in the help of any other
understanding; he is frequently drawn into guilt, under the appearance
of friendship and honesty; and sometimes subjected to suspicion by the
treachery of others, who are engaged without his knowledge in the same
schemes; for he that has one confidant has generally more, and when he
is at last betrayed, is in doubt on whom he shall fix the crime.

19. The rules therefore that I shall propose concerning secrecy, and
from which I think it not safe to deviate, without long and exact
deliberation, are--never to solicit the knowledge of a secret. Not
willingly nor without any limitations, to accept such confidence when it
is offered. When a secret is once admitted, to consider the trust as of
a very high nature, important to society, and sacred as truth, and
therefore not to be violated for any incidental convenience, or slight
appearance of contrary fitness.

_Of Cheerfulness._

1. I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider
as an act, the former as a habit of the mind. Mirth is short and
transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into
the greatest transports of mirth, who are subject to the greatest
depressions of melancholy; on the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does
not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling
into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning that
breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment;
cheerfulness keeps up a kind of day-light in the mind, and fills it with
a steady and perpetual serenity.

2. Men of austere principles look upon mirth as too wanton and dissolute
for a state of probation, and as filled with a certain triumph and
insolence of heart that is inconsistent with a life Which is every
moment obnoxious to the greatest dangers. Writers of