Cato: A Tragedy, and Selected Essays

Spectator 215 (November 6, 1711)

1. “Note too that a faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel.” Ovid Ex Ponto 2.9. 47–48. 2. Aristotle Metaphysics 9.6: “we say that potentially, for instance, a statue of Hermes is in the block of wood . . .” Spectator, No. 215 Tuesday, November 6, 1711 . . . Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros. Ov.1 I consider an Human Soul without Education like Marble in the Quarry, which shews none of its inherent Beauties, till the Skill of the Polisher fetches out the Colours, makes the Surface shine, and discovers every ornamental Cloud, Spot and Vein that runs through the Body of it. Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a noble Mind, draws out to View every latent Vertue and Perfection, which without such Helps are never able to make their Appearance. If my Reader will give me leave to change the Allusion so soon upon him, I shall make use of the same Instance to illustrate the Force of Education, which Aristotle has brought to explain his Doctrine of Substantial Forms, when he tells us, that a Statue lies hid in a Block of Marble; and that the Art of the Statuary only clears away the superfluous Matter, and removes the Rubbish. The Figure is in the Stone, the Sculptor only finds it.2 What Sculpture is to a Block of Marble, Education is to an Human Soul. The Philosopher, the Saint, or the Hero, the Wise, the Good, or the Great Man, very of- 132 selected essays 3. St. Christopher’s is also known as St. Kitts, a Caribbean island settled by the British in 1623. ten lie hid and concealed in a Plebean, which a proper Education might have disenterred, and have brought to Light. I am therefore much delighted with Reading the Accounts of Savage Nations, and with contemplating those Vertues which are wild and uncultivated; to see Courage exerting it self in Fierceness, Resolution in Obstinacy , Wisdom in Cunning, Patience in Sullenness and Despair. Mens Passions operate variously, and appear in different kinds of Actions, according as they are more or less rectified and swayed by Reason. When one hears of Negroes, who upon the Death of their Masters, or upon changing their Service, hang themselves upon the next Tree, as it frequently happens in our American Plantations, who can forbear admiring their Fidelity, though it expresses it self in so dreadful a manner? What might not that Savage Greatness of Soul, which appears in these poor Wretches on many Occasions, be raised to, were it rightly cultivated? And what Colour of Excuse can there be for the Contempt with which we treat this Part of our Species; That we should not put them upon the common foot of Humanity, that we should only set an insignificant Fine upon the Man who murders them; nay, that we should, as much as in us lies, cut them off from the Prospects of Happiness in another World as well as in this, and deny them that which we look upon as the proper Means for attaining it? Since I am engaged on this Subject, I cannot forbear mentioning a Story which I have lately heard, and which is so well attested, that I have no manner of reason to suspect the Truth of it. I may call it a kind of wild Tragedy that passed about twelve Years ago at St. Christophers,3 one of our British Leeward Islands. The Negroes who were concern’d in it, were all of them the Slaves of a Gentleman who is now in England. This Gentleman among his Negroes had a young Woman, who was looked upon as a most extraordinary Beauty by those of her own Complexion. He had at the same time two young Fellows who were likewise Negroes and Slaves, remarkable for the Comeliness of their spectator 215 133 Persons, and for the Friendship which they bore to one another. It unfortunately happened that both of them fell in Love with the Female Negro abovementioned, who would have been very glad to have taken either of them for her Husband, provided they could agree between themselves which should be the Man. But they were both so passionately in Love with her, that neither of them could think of giving her up to his Rival; and at the...