voice and
determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance, injustice, and
inconstancy. Is it reasonable that the life of a wise man should
depend upon the judgment of fools?

"An quidquam stultius, quam, quos singulos contemnas,
eos aliquid putare esse universes?"

["Can anything be more foolish than to think that those you despise
singly, can be anything else in general."
--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v. 36.]

He that makes it his business to please them, will have enough to do and
never have done; 'tis a mark that can never be aimed at or hit:

"Nil tam inaestimabile est, quam animi multitudinis."

["Nothing is to be so little understood as the minds of the
multitude."--Livy, xxxi. 34.]

Demetrius pleasantly said of the voice of the people, that he made no
more account of that which came from above than of that which came from
below. He [Cicero] says more:

"Ego hoc judico, si quando turpe non sit, tamen non
esse non turpe, quum id a multitudine laudatur."

["I am of opinion, that though a thing be not foul in itself,
yet it cannot but become so when commended by the multitude."
--Cicero, De Finib., ii. 15.]

No art, no activity of wit, could conduct our steps so as to follow so
wandering and so irregular a guide; in this windy confusion of the noise
of vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on, no way worth anything
can be chosen. Let us not propose to ourselves so floating and wavering
an end; let us follow constantly after reason; let the public approbation
follow us there, if it will; and as it wholly depends upon fortune, we
have no reason sooner to expect it by any other way than that. Even
though I would not follow the right way because it is right, I should,
however, follow it as having experimentally found that, at the end of
the reckoning, 'tis commonly the most happy and of greatest utility.

"Dedit hoc providentia hominibus munus,
ut honesta magis juvarent."

["This gift Providence has given to men, that honest things should
be the most agreeable."--Quintilian, Inst. Orat., i. 12.]

The mariner of old said thus to Neptune, in a great tempest: "O God, thou
wilt save me if thou wilt, and if thou choosest, thou wilt destroy me;
but, however, I will hold my rudder straight."--[Seneca, Ep., 85.]--
I have seen in my time a thousand men supple, halfbred, ambiguous,