Of the Stltdy of History.
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the only advantage of instruction by example; forexample appeals not to our understanding alone,but to our paílions likewise. Example affilagesthese, or animâtes them ; sets passion on the sideof judgment, and makes the whole man ofa-piece;which is more than the strongesl reafoning andthe clearest démonstration can do : and thus forminghabits by répétition , example fecures the obser-vance of those precepts which example insinuated.Is it not Pliny , my lord , who says, that thegentlest, heíhould hâve added the moft estectual,way of commanding, is by example? “ Mitius“ jubetur exemplo.” The harstiest orders are foft-ened by example, and tyranny itfelf becomespersuasive. What pity is it that fo few princesbave learned this way of commanding ? But a gain :the force of examples is not consined to thosealone, that pafs immediately under oursight: theexamples, that memory fuggests , hâve the faméeffect in their degree, and a habit of recallingthem will foon produce the habit of imitatingthem. In the famé epistle, from whence I cited apassage just now, Seneca fays that Cleanthes had never become fo perfect a copy of Zeno, ifhe had not passed his lise with him ; that Pi.ato ,Aristotle , and the other philoíophers of thatschool, prosited more by the example , than bythe discourse of Socrates . (But here, by theway, Seneca mistook ; for Socrates died twoyears, according to lomé , and four years, accordingtoothers, before the birth of Aristotle : andhis mistake might corne from the inaccuracy of