, by the universal consent of mankind, been
considered as entitled to some degree of respect, or have at least been
exempted from contemptuous infamy, and condemned by the severest
moralists with pity rather than detestation.

2. A constant and invariable example of this general partiality will be
found in the different regard which has always been shewn to rashness
and cowardice; two vices, of which, though they maybe conceived equally
distant from the middle point, where true fortitude is placed, and may
equally injure any public or private interest, yet the one is never
mentioned without some kind of veneration, and the other always
considered as a topic of unlimited and licentious censure, on which all
the virulence of reproach may he lawfully exerted.

3. The same distinction is made, by the common suffrage, between
profusion and avarice, and perhaps between many other opposite vices;
and, as I have found reason to pay great regard to the voice of the
people, in cases where knowledge has been forced upon them by
experience, without long deductions or deep researches, I am inclined to
believe that this distribution of respect is not without some agreement
with the nature of things; and that in the faults, which are thus
invested with extraordinary privileges, there are generally some latent
principles of merit, some possibilities of future virtue, which may, by
decrees, break from obstruction, and by time and opportunity be brought
into act.

4. It may be laid down as an axiom, that it is more easy to take away
superfluities than to supply defects; and therefore, he that is
culpable, because he has passed the middle point of virtue, is always
accounted a fairer object of hope, than he who fails by falling short.
The one has all that perfection requires, and more, but the excess may
be easily retrenched; the other wants the qualities requisite to
excellence, and who can tell how he shall obtain them?

5. We are certain that the horse may be taught to keep pace with his
fellows, whose fault it is that he leaves them behind. We know that a
few strokes of the axe will lop a cedar; but what arts of cultivation
can elevate a shrub?

6. To walk with circumspection and steadiness in the right path, at an
equal distance between the extremes of error, ought to be the constant
endeavour of every reasonable being; nor can I think those teachers of
moral wisdom much to be honoured as benefactors to mankind, who are
always