In consequence of this perverse ambition, every habit which reason
condemns may be indulged and avowed. When a man is upbraided with his
faults, he may indeed be pardoned if he endeavours to run for shelter to
some celebrated name; but it is not to be suffered that, from the
retreats to which he fled from infamy, he should issue again with the
confidence of conquests, and call upon mankind for praise. Yet we see
men that waste their patrimony in luxury, destroy their health with
debauchery, and enervate their minds with idleness, because there have
been some whom luxury never could sink into contempt, nor idleness
hinder from the praise of genius.
This general inclination of mankind to copy characters in the gross, and
the force which the recommendation of illustrious examples adds to the
allurements of vice, ought to be considered by all whose character
excludes them from the shades of secrecy, as incitements to scrupulous
caution and universal purity of manners. No man, however enslaved to his
appetites, or hurried by his passions, can, while he preserves his
intellects unimpaired, please himself with promoting the corruption of
others. He whose merit has enlarged his influence, would surely wish to
exert it for the benefit of mankind.
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