Perhaps then, replied Cebes, you imagine I have no more to do but to con this lecture over and over again I have now given you.—Must I not, in order to explain and enforce it, not only define, but bring examples.—Now try how you can conceive this to be done in a variety of ways necessary to engage attention, and set forth what I would recommend to my pupils with due energy, or in a manner that will sink my instructions deep into their hearts, and firmly rivet them there.—Let me know how this can be done without uniting all the arts and sciences in the cause of virtue, or making them all contribute towards impressing the precepts of integrity and piety upon tender minds.
I confess, said the interrogator, I am at a loss to understand you.
You are then, answered Cebes, a stranger to the truth and force of that maxim which was always in the divine Plato’s mouth. “That all the sciences which belong to man have one common scope, which is to harmonize the mind or affections; and all conspiring to this noble end in various manners, have a strict union and connexion, and make one most harmonious system.21 For this reason do poets and painters represent the muses and graces in harmonious dance to the music of Apollo, and mutually aiding and adorning one another. The representation is as old as Homer.”22
But so willing do you appear to be instructed, that I should indeed act a most incongruous part to your intention, and to my own profession, if I could grudge to explain myself more fully to you upon this important subject, the best method of instructing youth by one and the same labour, in virtue and the sciences, or good taste of life and composition. And in truth, all I have to say may be comprised in one sentence, viz. There is but one beauty in nature, in life and art, and that is virtue.
Being told it would be intirely obliging if he would be so gracious and condescending as to be more particular, he is said to have discoursed much to this effect.
The design of philosophy, I said, is to distinguish right from wrong, just from unjust, the becoming from the base and unfitting in life and manners. Without this knowledge, ’tis plain, we cannot direct our affections or actions aright, no more than we can sail without skill in navigation. What else then is the first thing to be learned or rather acquired in life, but knowledge and resolution how to live as becomes men, i.e. courage to govern our pursuits by reason? But how can this first and essential lesson be taught and sufficiently inculcated, without describing, or rather painting out to the view of my pupils the character of the rational man, and fully delineating the methods of fore-thinking and after reflection or examination, by which the empire of reason is established and kept up in the mind? Can this be done without bringing examples, and thus setting the rational man, as it were, before the eyes of my scholars, in his closet soliloquies before and after action, and in public councils, now debating with himself, and now consulting with others, and that in very various circumstances? Now here, may I not, nay ought I not, sometimes to fetch instances from imitation or fiction, as well as from real life or history?
He was answered, that the thing was self-evident.
Well then, continued he, when I come to particular virtues, ’tis but a continuation of the same lesson; for it is but shewing what reason, if it is consulted, will prefer in this or t’other situation. And therefore, whatever virtue be the subject of the lesson, suppose justice, benevolence, gratitude, temperance, or any other, I am still obliged to define and to exemplify. And as contrast gives relief in picture; so for the same reason, to heighten each virtue, and set it forth with all its charms, not only must it be represented in various trials; but its opposite vices must be placed over against it, i.e. they also must be described and characterized.
You know, how Theophrastus makes every virtue and vice speak and act. You know painting true characters is the great business of poets. And you will as readily own, that developing the motions of moral causes, and the springs and processes of events, drawing just and lively pourtraits of minds, and tracing actions to the ruling passions which did, or would naturally have produced them in certain conjunctions, is the great excellence of historians. But if you keep this reflection in your view, you can’t sure be at a loss to find out how, by teaching virtue from descriptions and examples in history and fiction, one is naturally, at the same time, formed into a good taste of life, and of writing, as far as true design and just drawing are concerned.—And what, pray, remains, to compleat a thorough intelligence of good composition in the best kinds, besides skill to distinguish, whether the circumstances in which characters are placed, and the consequences of their determinations and actions be natural? And here, no doubt, you prevent me, and see this knowledge must necessarily be acquired by that due attendance to the operations of the human passions and their effects, the exhibition of which, in well chosen examples, must make a principal part in lessons upon virtue and vice, or the conduct of life. For imitation to please must be like: And what is like or agreeable to nature, is nature itself. There cannot be one nature for life, and another for fiction, which is the imitation of real life. The only difficulty in all this matter, is to make a proper choice of examples at first, and a just progress from simpler to more complex ones, in proportion as the minds of pupils open and enlarge, which, believe me, they do much faster than is generally imagined.
Now, my friend, if you understand what has been said, as I perceive by your countenance you do, I think I may venture to add, that a good picture of any great action, may not unfitly be joined with description, and historical or feigned examples. This is not multiplying lessons, but duly diversifying the same lesson, if the subject of the picture be the same in kind with that of the example and description.—Nor is it really any thing new to say, That a picture is quite natural, and properly shaded and contrasted, when one hath conceived what is meant by nature and consistency, or truth of description and character in writing; or vice versa, if beginning with the picture, and having observed the conformity in it to nature, and the mutual references in it of all the parts to one main good end, we have pronounced it an excellent imitation—If, I say, after this, we should then talk of truth, beauty, and unity in writing, it would be nothing new.—And whether we are considering imitation by words, or by the pencil, or in a real character in history, which ought to be like, as a portrait in painting is like, i.e. be a strong likeness in a judiciously chosen attitude—of whichsoever of these we are talking, ’tis nature, human nature we have still before us, as our standard to judge by, that is to say, what we feel within to be natural. The lesson therefore is a part of the science of man. It is about the natural operation of some human passion: It is about the natural conduct and effects of some virtue or vice.—It is therefore some rule relative to the conduct of life, as well as to the arts that imitate men and manners, and relative to them only, because it is true in fact, or real life.
I must give you, my friend, a whole course of lectures, if I would shew you fully, that without deserting my one subject, I must naturally be led to discourse of every part of nature, i.e. to unfold the chief principles and truths in every science. For every science has it not some part of nature for its object; and are not all the parts of nature closely linked together? Is not nature one?
But if you are not fully satisfied already, one or two instances, I fancy, will do it.
He was intreated to go on, and having told them they must resolve upon patience, and to hear a lecture, he thus proceeded. “To act steadily under the direction of reason, is the perfection of man, because it is the perfection of reason. It is therefore to imitate the supreme Author of all intelligence and reason, who must be perfect reason.—But how do we, or can we know how he acts?—Just as we know how men act, viz. by attending to their actions.23 What then do you call the actions of the supreme Being? All that we call, in other words, the operations of nature, the growth of flowers, plants, trees, animal bodies, the implantation into us, and all intelligent beings, of our perceptive, retentive, thinking, comparing, judging faculties, and all our affections, capable of being improved, according to laws of his appointment, to so great perfection, as we may see in the history of a Socrates, a Plato, a Xenophon, an Epaminondas, a Leonidas, an Aristides, and many other glorious examples of eminent wisdom and virtue.—But what can we learn from these actions of the supreme Cause? That he always, in every frame, pursues some good end by the best, that is, the simplest reasons: And this is wisdom, love of order, and benevolence. This, in one word, is acting