must form the general plan of his
conduct by his own reflections; he must resolve whether he will
endeavour at riches or at content; whether he will exercise private or
publick virtues; whether he will labour for the general benefit of
mankind, or contract his beneficence to his family and dependants.

This question has long exercised the schools of philosophy, but remains
yet undecided; and what hope is there that a young man, unacquainted
with the arguments on either side, should determine his own destiny
otherwise than by chance?

When chance has given him a partner of his bed, whom he prefers to all
other women, without any proof of superior desert, chance must again
direct him in the education of his children; for, who was ever able to
convince himself by arguments, that he had chosen for his son that mode
of instruction to which his understanding was best adapted, or by which
he would most easily be made wise or virtuous?

Whoever shall inquire by what motives he was determined on these
important occasions, will find them such as his pride will scarcely
suffer him to confess; some sudden ardour of desire, some uncertain
glimpse of advantage, some petty competition, some inaccurate
conclusion, or some example implicitly reverenced. Such are often the
first causes of our resolves; for it is necessary to act, but impossible
to know the consequences of action, or to discuss all the reasons which
offer themselves on every part to inquisitiveness and solicitude.

Since life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis can
boast much stability. Yet this is but a small part of our perplexity. We
set out on a tempestuous sea in quest of some port, where we expect to
find rest, but where we are not sure of admission, we are not only in
danger of sinking in the way, but of being misled by meteors mistaken
for stars, of being driven from our course by the changes of the wind,
and of losing it by unskilful steerage; yet it sometimes happens, that
cross winds blow us to a safer coast, that meteors draw us aside from
whirlpools, and that negligence or errour contributes to our escape from
mischiefs to which a direct course would have exposed us. Of those that,
by precipitate conclusions, involve themselves in calamities without
guilt, very few, however they may reproach themselves, can be certain
that other measures would have been more successful.

In this state of universal uncertainty, where a thousand dange