And therefore we repeat here what we advised at
our entrance into this discourse, that we cashier every vain
Opinion of ourselves and all self-love. For their inbred
flattery only disposes and prepares us to a more favorable
reception of that from without. For, if we did but square our
actions according to the famous oracular precept of knowing ourselves, rate things according to their true intrinsic
value, and withal, reflecting upon our own nature and education, consider what gross imperfections and failures mix
with our words, actions, and affections, we should not lie so
[p. 138]
open to the attempts of every flatterer who designs upon us.
For even Alexander himself, being reminded of his mortality by two things especially, the necessity of sleep and the
use of women, began to stagger in the opinion they had
made him conceive of his godhead. And did we in like
manner but take an impartial survey of those troubles,
lapses, and infirmities incident to our nature, we should
find we stood in no need of a friend to praise and extol
our virtues, but of one rather that would chide and reprimand us for our vices. For first, there are but few who
will venture to deal thus roundly and impartially with their
friends, and fewer yet who know the art of it, men generally mistaking railing and ill language for a decent and
friendly reproof. And then a chiding, like any other physic, if ill-timed, racks and torments you to no purpose, and
works in a manner the same effect with pain that flattery
does with pleasure. For an unseasonable reprehension
may be equally mischievous with an unseasonable commendation, and force your friend to throw himself upon
the flatterer; like water which, leaving the too precipitous and rugged hills, rolls down upon the humble valleys below. And therefore we ought to qualify and allay
the sharpness of our reproofs with a due temper of candor
and moderation,—as we would soften light which is too
powerful for a distempered eye,—lest our friends, being
plagued and ranted upon every trivial occasion, should
at last fly to the flatterer's shade for their ease and quiet.
For all vice, Philopappus, is to be corrected by an intermediate virtue, and not by its contrary extreme, as some
do who, to shake off that sheepish bashfulness which hangs
upon their natures, learn to be impudent; to lay aside their
country breeding, endeavor to be comical; to avoid the
imputation of softness and cowardice, turn bullies; out of
an abhorrence of superstition, commence atheists; and
rather than be reputed fools, play the knave; forcing their
[p. 139]
inclinations, like a crooked stick, to the opposite extreme,
for want of skill to set them straight.
But it is highly rude to endeavor to avoid the suspicion
of flattery by only being insignificantly troublesome, and it
argues an ungenteel, unconversable temper in a man to
show his just abhorrency of mean and servile ends in his
friendship only by a sour and disagreeable behavior; like
the freedman in the comedy, who would needs persuade
himself that his railing accusation fell within the limits of
that freedom in discourse which every one had right to
with his equals. Since therefore it is absurd to incur the
suspicion of a flatterer by an over-obliging and obsequious
humor, and as absurd, on the other hand, in endeavoring to
decline it by an immoderate latitude in our apprehensions,
to lose the enjoyments and salutary admonitions of a friendly
conversation, and since the measures of what is just and
proper in this, as in other things, are to be taken from
decency and moderation; the nature of the argument seems
to require me to conclude it with a discourse upon this
subject.
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