open to truth."

"I did not expect," answered the princess, "to hear that imputed to
falsehood, which is the consequence only of frailty. To the mind, as to
the eye, it is difficult to compare, with exactness, objects, vast in
their extent, and various in their parts. Where we see, or conceive, the
whole at once, we readily note the discriminations, and decide the
preference: but of two systems, of which neither can be surveyed, by any
human being, in its full compass of magnitude, and multiplicity of
complication, where is the wonder, that, judging of the whole by parts,
I am alternately affected by one and the other, as either presses on my
memory or fancy? We differ from ourselves, just as we differ from each
other, when we see only part of the question, as in the multifarious
relations of politicks and morality; but when we perceive the whole at
once, as in numerical computations, all agree in one judgment, and none
ever varies his opinion."

"Let us not add," said the prince, "to the other evils of life, the
bitterness of controversy, nor endeavour to vie with each other in
subtilties of argument. We are employed in a search, of which both are
equally to enjoy the success, or suffer by the miscarriage. It is,
therefore, fit that we assist each other. You, surely, conclude too
hastily from the infelicity of marriage against its institution: will
not the misery of life prove equally, that life cannot be the gift of
heaven? The world must be peopled by marriage, or peopled without it."

"How the world is to be peopled," returned Nekayah, "is not my care, and
needs not be yours. I see no danger that the present generation should
omit to leave successours behind them: we are not now inquiring for the
world, but for ourselves."

CHAP. XXIX.

THE DEBATE ON MARRIAGE CONTINUED.

"The good of the whole," says Rasselas, "is the same with the good of
all its parts. If marriage be best for mankind, it must be evidently
best for individuals, or a permanent and necessary duty must be the
cause of evil, and some must be inevitably sacrificed to the convenience
of others. In the estimate, which you have made of the two states, it
appears, that the incommodities of a single life are, in a great
measure, necessary and certain, but those of the conjugal state,
accidental and avoidable.

"I cannot forbear to flatter myself, that prudence and benevolence will
make marriage happy. The general folly of mankind is the cause of
ge