uth; for it would have been better for us to have been
born dumb, and to have been left destitute of reasoning powers, than
to have received endowments from providence only to turn them to the
destruction of one another.

My judgment carries me still further; for I not only say that he who
would answer my idea of an orator must be a good man, but that no man,
unless he be good, can ever be an orator. To an orator discernment and
prudence are necessary; but we can certainly not allow discernment to
those, who when the ways of virtue and vice are set before them,
prefer to follow that of vice; nor can we allow them prudence, since
they subject themselves, by the unforeseen consequences of their
actions, often to the heaviest penalty of the law, and always to that
of an evil conscience. But if it be not only truly said by the wise,
but always justly believed by the vulgar, that no man is vicious who
is not also foolish, a fool, assuredly, will never become an orator.

It is to be further considered that the mind can not be in a condition
for pursuing the most noble of studies, unless it be entirely free
from vice; not only because there can be no communion of good and evil
in the same breast, and to meditate at once on the best things and the
worst is no more in the power of the same mind than it is possible
for the same man to be at once virtuous and vicious; but also because
a mind intent on so arduous a study should be exempt from all other
cares, even such as are unconnected with vice; for then, and then
only, when it is free and master of itself, and when no other object
harasses and distracts its attention, will it be able to keep in view
the end to which it is devoted. But if an inordinate attention to an
estate, a too anxious pursuit of wealth, indulgence in the pleasures
of the chase, and the devotion of our days to public spectacles, rob
our studies of much of our time (for whatever time is given to one
thing is lost to another), what effect must we suppose that ambition,
avarice, and envy will produce, whose excitements are so violent as
even to disturb our sleep and our dreams? Nothing indeed is so
preoccupied, so unsettled, so torn and lacerated with such numerous
and various passions, as a bad mind; for when it intends evil, it is
agitated with hope, care, and anxiety, and when it has attained the
object of its wickedness, it is tormented with uneasiness, and the
dread of every kind of punishment.

No man,