feebleness, in a sluggish manner, his experience is slow, frequently
unprofitable. The tortoise and the butterfly are alike incapable of
preventing their destruction. The stupid man, equally with him who is
intoxicated, are in that state which renders it impossible for them to
arrive at or attain the end they have in view.

But what is the end? What is the aim of man in the sphere he occupies?
It is to preserve himself; to render his existence happy. It becomes
then of the utmost importance, that he should understand the true means
which reason points out, which prudence teaches him to use, in order
that he may with certainty, that he may constantly arrive at the end
which he proposes to himself. These he will find are his natural
faculties--his mind--his talents--his industry--his actions, determined
by those passions of which his nature renders him susceptible, which
give more or less activity to his will. Experience and reason again shew
him, that the men with whom he is associated are necessary to him, are
capable of contributing to his happiness, are in a capacity to
administer to his pleasures, are competent to assist him by those
faculties which are peculiar to them; experience teaches him the mode he
must adopt to induce them to concur in his designs, to determine them to
will and incline them to act in his favour. This points out to him the
actions they approve--those which displease them--the conduct which
attracts them--that which repels them--the judgment by which they are
swayed--the advantages that occur--the prejudicial effects that result
to him from their various modes of existence and from their diverse
manner of acting. This experience furnishes him with the ideas of virtue
and of vice, of justice and of injustice, of goodness and of wickedness,
of decency and of indecency, of probity and of knavery: In short, he
learns to form a judgment of men--to estimate their actions--to
distinguish the various sentiments excited in them, according to the