The Essays, vol 10 | Page 7

giving is more chargeable than receiving.
Since it has pleased God to endue us with some capacity of reason, to
the end we may not, like brutes, be servilely subject and enslaved to the
laws common to both, but that we should by judgment and a voluntary
liberty apply ourselves to them, we ought, indeed, something to yield to
the simple authority of nature, but not suffer ourselves to be
tyrannically hurried away and transported by her; reason alone should
have the conduct of our inclinations. I, for my part, have a strange
disgust for those propensions that are started in us without the
mediation and direction of the judgment, as, upon the subject I am
speaking of, I cannot entertain that passion of dandling and caressing
infants scarcely born, having as yet neither motion of soul nor shape of
body distinguishable, by which they can render themselves amiable,
and have not willingly suffered them to be nursed near me. A true and
regular affection ought to spring and increase with the knowledge they
give us of themselves, and then, if they are worthy of it, the natural
propension walking hand in hand with reason, to cherish them with a
truly paternal love; and so to judge, also, if they be otherwise, still
rendering ourselves to reason, notwithstanding the inclination of nature.
'Tis oft-times quite otherwise; and, most commonly, we find ourselves
more taken with the running up and down, the games, and puerile
simplicities of our children, than we do, afterwards, with their most
complete actions; as if we had loved them for our sport, like monkeys,
and not as men; and some there are, who are very liberal in buying
them balls to play withal, who are very close-handed for the least
necessary expense when they come to age. Nay, it looks as if the
jealousy of seeing them appear in and enjoy the world when we are
about to leave it, rendered us more niggardly and stingy towards them;
it vexes us that they tread upon our heels, as if to solicit us to go out; if
this were to be feared, since the order of things will have it so that they
cannot, to speak the truth, be nor live, but at the expense of our being
and life, we should never meddle with being fathers at all.

For my part, I think it cruelty and injustice not to receive them into the
share and society of our goods, and not to make them partakers in the
intelligence of our domestic affairs when they are capable, and not to
lessen and contract our own expenses to make the more room for theirs,
seeing we beget them to that effect. 'Tis unjust that an old fellow,
broken and half dead, should alone, in a corner of the chimney, enjoy
the money that would suffice for the maintenance and advancement of
many children, and suffer them, in the meantime, to lose their' best
years for want of means to advance themselves in the public service
and the knowledge of men. A man by this course drives them to despair,
and to seek out by any means, how unjust or dishonourable soever, to
provide for their own support: as I have, in my time, seen several
young men of good extraction so addicted to stealing, that no correction
could cure them of it. I know one of a very good family, to whom, at
the request of a brother of his, a very honest and brave gentleman, I
once spoke on this account, who made answer, and confessed to me
roundly, that he had been put upon this paltry practice by the severity
and avarice of his father; but that he was now so accustomed to it he
could not leave it off. And, at that very time, he was trapped stealing a
lady's rings, having come into her chamber, as she was dressing with
several others. He put me in mind of a story I had heard of another
gentleman, so perfect and accomplished in this fine trade in his youth,
that, after he came to his estate and resolved to give it over, he could
not hold his hands, nevertheless, if he passed by a shop where he saw
anything he liked, from catching it up, though it put him to the shame
of sending afterwards to pay for it. And I have myself seen several so
habituated to this quality that even amongst their comrades they could
not forbear filching, though with intent to restore what they had taken. I
am a Gascon, and yet there is no vice I so little understand as that; I
hate it something more by disposition than I condemn it by reason; I do
not so much as desire anything of