s an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it; so
that a man rich in such lore, like Sancho Panza, can always find a
venerable maxim to fortify the view he happens to be taking. In respect
to foresight, for instance, we are told, Make hay while the sun shines,
A stitch in time saves nine, Honesty is the best policy, Murder will
out, Woe unto you, ye hypocrites, Watch and pray, Seek salvation with
fear and trembling, and _Respice finem_. But on the same authorities
exactly we have opposite maxims, inspired by a feeling that mortal
prudence is fallible, that life is shorter than policy, and that only
the present is real; for we hear, A bird in the hand is worth two in the
bush, _Carpe diem, Ars longa, vita brevis_. Be not righteous overmuch,
Enough for the day is the evil thereof, Behold the lilies of the field,
Judge not, that ye be not judged, Mind your own business, and It takes
all sorts of men to make a world. So when some particularly shocking
thing happens one man says, _Cherchez la femme_, and another says, Great
is Allah.

That these maxims should be so various and partial is quite intelligible
when we consider how they spring up. Every man, in moral reflection, is
animated by his own intent; he has something in view which he prizes, he
knows not why, and which wears to him the essential and unquestionable
character of a good. With this standard before his eyes, he observes
easily--for love and hope are extraordinarily keen-sighted--what in
action or in circumstances forwards his purpose and what thwarts it;
and at once the maxim comes, very likely in the language of the
particular instance before him. Now the interests that speak in a man
are different at different times; and the outer facts or measures which
in one case promote that interest may, where other less obvious
conditions have changed, altogether defeat it. Hence all sorts of
precepts looking to all sorts of results.

[Sidenote: Their various representative value.]

Prescriptions of this nature differ enormously in value; for they differ
enormously in scope. By chance, or through the insensible operation of
experience leading up to some outburst of genius, intuitive maxims may
be so central, so expressive of ultimate aims, so representative, I
mean, of all aims in fusion, that they merely anticipate what moral
science would have come to if it had existed. This happens much as in
physics ultimate truths may be divined by poets long before they are