but _lie by_ the rest of
their lives, among the lumber and refuse of the species.

It sometimes happens, indeed, that for want of applying themselves in
due time to the pursuits of knowledge, they take up a book in their
declining years, and grow very hopeful scholars by that time they are
threescore. I must therefore earnestly press my readers who are in the
flower of their youth, to labour at these accomplishments which may set
off their persons when their bloom is gone, and to _lay in_ timely
provisions for manhood and old age. In short, I would advise the youth
of fifteen to be dressing up every day the man of fifty; or to consider
how to make himself venerable at threescore.

3. Young men, who are naturally ambitious, would do well to observe how
the greatest men of antiquity wade it their ambition to excel all their
cotemporaries in knowledge. _Julius Caesar_ and _Alexander_, the most
celebrated instances of human greatness, took a particular care to
distinguish themselves by their skill in the arts and sciences. We have
still extant, several remains of the former, which justify the character
given of him by the learned men of his own age.

4. As for the latter, it is a known saying of his, that he was more
obliged to _Aristotle_, who had instructed him, than to _Philip_, who
had given him life and empire. There is a letter of his recorded by
_Plutarch_ and _Aulus Gellius_, which he wrote to _Aristotle_, upon
hearing that he had published those lectures he had given him in
private. This letter was written in the following words, at a time when
he was in the height of his _Persian_ conquests.

5. "ALEXANDER _to_ ARISTOTLE, _Greeting_.

"You have not done well to publish your books of select knowledge; for
what is there now in which I can surpass others, if those things which I
have been instructed in are communicated to every body? For my own part
I declare to you, I would rather excel others in knowledge than power.
_Farewell_."

6. We see by this letter, that the love of conquest was but the second
ambition in _Alexander_'s soul. Knowledge is indeed that, which, next to
virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another. It finishes
one half of the human soul. It makes being pleasant to us, fills the
mind with entertaining views, and administers to it a perpetual series
of gratifications.

It gives ease to solitude, and gracefulness to retirement. It fills a
public station with suitable abilities