But no man escapes the punishment of their
censure and dislike, who offends against the fashion and opinion of
the company he keeps, and would recommend himself to. Nor is there one
of ten thousand, who is stiff and insensible enough, to bear up
under the constant dislike and condemnation of his own club. He must
be of a strange and unusual constitution, who can content himself to
live in constant disgrace and disrepute with his own particular
society. Solitude many men have sought, and been reconciled to: but
nobody that has the least thought or sense of a man about him, can
live in society under the constant dislike and ill opinion of his
familiars, and those he converses with. This is a burden too heavy for
human sufferance: and he must be made up of irreconcilable
contradictions, who can take pleasure in company, and yet be
insensible of contempt and disgrace from his companions.
13. These three laws the rules of moral good and evil. These three
then, first, the law of God; secondly, the law of politic societies;
thirdly, the law of fashion, or private censure, are those to which
men variously compare their actions: and it is by their conformity
to one of these laws that they take their measures, when they would
judge of their moral rectitude, and denominate their actions good or
bad.
14.
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