Possessed of
what was essential to happiness in the virtues of the heart, they had a
discernment of its value, unembarrassed by the numberless objects on which
mankind in general are so much at a loss to adjust their esteem: fixed in
their own apprehension, they turned a sharp edge on the follies of mankind.
"When will you begin to practise it?" was the question of a Spartan to a
person who, in an advanced age of life, was still occupied with questions
on the nature of virtue.
While this people confined their studies to one question, how to improve
and to preserve the courage and disinterested affections of the human
heart; their rivals, the Athenians, gave a scope to refinement on every
object of reflection or passion. By the rewards, either of profit or of
reputation, which they bestowed on every effort of ingenuity employed in
ministering to the pleasure, the decoration, or the conveniency of life; by
the variety of conditions in which their citizens were placed; by their
inequalities of fortune, and their several pursuits in war, politics,
commerce, and lucrative arts, they awakened whatever was either good or bad
in the natural dispositions of men.
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